Romans 1:1-6.
In this matter of the
world need, everything can be gathered up in one word,
"life." It does not matter where we look we
find that that is the need.
We have witness borne
to that fact in all directions, and we can gather those
up into some specific forms of expression.
We begin with the
widest range. There is the witness to the fact
in the realm of the ungodly. Upon that we
need not dwell very much, but it is quite patent that the
world outside of Christ is showing in a new way, with a
new strength, its desire for life, its need of life. It
has its own ideas of how that need is going to be met,
and its quest for life takes its own peculiar forms, the
forms peculiar to the world's own blindness, darkness and
ignorance. Nevertheless it is manifest that the world is
seeking life. We do not mean by that that it is seeking
its life in God. We do not mean by that that it is
seeking what we understand by life, Divine life,
spiritual life, eternal life, but it is seeking what it
would call "life." Life is the thing which it
desires.
Passing from that more
outward realm, the general mass of ungodly men and women,
to inward circles, we have the witness to this fact which
is clearly borne (perhaps, again, largely in ignorance)
by what we may call the nominal Church. As
to how far the nominal and secular
"Church" is alive to the real nature of its
need we may not be able to judge, but it is giving very
real evidence of its consciousness of a need, and by the
means it employs and the methods it adopts it is showing
that life is the thing that it is after. The very fact
that it is entering so strongly into competition with the
world along the line of pleasures, and amusements, and
entertainments, and many other forms of occupation, is,
on the one hand, a proof that it is conscious of the lack
of something to satisfy, and, on the other hand, it
reveals that only what it would call "life"
will justify its existence. Although perhaps unconscious
of the full implications of its ways, it is
displaying the fact that what is needed is life, and that
only life will satisfy. It would say that to be without
these things which it adopts is to be dead, and we in
that realm - a very superficial realm - hear people speak
very often of "a live religious community"
because it has many of these activities. They say: That
is a very live Church! and when you ask: What do you mean
by being alive? What are the characteristics of this
life? the reply is: Oh, it has this, and it has that, it
has a dramatic society and a good concert programme, and
many other things. That is what is meant by being alive.
So its quest is for life; mistakenly, blindly,
nevertheless it is all a disclosure of the fact that only
life can justify its existence, and only life will meet
the need.
Then, moving perhaps a
little more inward, we have the witness of those many
doubtful and mixed religious movements, with
their tremendous sweep, things about which we may well
have serious questions, to which we could never give our
full heart confidence. We see them as religious
movements, as Christian movements, with a Gospel in part,
in smaller or greater degree, sweeping the earth, and
carrying multitudes with them, drawing crowds after them.
We ask: What is the secret of the success of these
things? It does not require a very thoroughgoing
investigation to disclose that there are serious doubts
as to the soundness of their position, of their doctrine.
There are serious lacks in some, and there are serious
preponderances in others. What is the secret of their
sweeping success, and that so many are caught up and
carried on by them? The answer is that these things have
a semblance of life, they are the offset against a state
of religious spiritual death. They are in contrast with
what is merely traditional and historic in Christianity,
which has become moribund. It is that which is called
"life" about them which draws so many after
them, which gives to them their success. And in that
realm of these successful (?) Christian movements, when
you take the long spiritual, Divine view about success,
there is a witness to the fact that, after all, it is
life that is needed, that the world in every part needs
life.
There is a still more
inward sphere where we have the witness of the
spiritually hungry of the Lord's children. We would
not overestimate this; we would not be caught in
imagining that things are better in this direction than
they are, for you can really only prove that people are
spiritually hungry by what they are prepared to sacrifice
in order to get their hunger satisfied, and what they are
prepared to suffer and endure. But nevertheless, though
we might even have to sift this company, there is
undoubtedly a hunger amongst the Lord's own children all
over the world which is showing itself, which is not
difficult to discover. In almost every place there are
those who are altogether disappointed with what there is
available of spiritual life and food, and the question
which is being asked in all directions is: Where shall we
get food? The tremendous increase and development of the
Convention movement amongst the Lord's own people is one
sidelight upon this fact; the fact that, if any servant
or servants of God really have something of spiritual
food to give they will always find those who are ready
for it, and there is always an open door for such
ministry. This, with so many other symptoms, and
indications, is a witness to the fact that there is a
need, a deep, strong need for life, for what is living,
in every realm.
That is the general
situation as to the world need. It is all gathered up
into that word - LIFE.
What
do we mean by Life?
But we must analyse and
define the word. If we were to ask any of these people
what they mean by "life," I think we should
discover, whether they used the actual words or not, that
what they think of, what their hearts are after, can be
expressed mainly in three words :
(1) REALITY. If you
asked again: What do you mean by reality? you would be
led to understand that what is meant, and what is
desired, is a living experience as over against a theory,
a doctrine, a creed, a form; that which comes into the
inner being as a living reality. Probably the word
"experience" itself would be used by more than
would use any other word, and they mean
"reality." Life for them means that which is
real, as over against that which is only theoretical,
mystical, abstract, a matter of words.
(2) POWER. The second
thing which would arise in an enquiry as to what is meant
by "life" would be "power". We use
the word "dynamic" a good deal. It is life, not
merely as something active as over against the inactive,
but life which is in the direction of power; being able
for this or for that, whatever it may be; being put into
a position of ability by having the resource of energy,
vitality, effectiveness. It is all gathered up into the
word "power."
(3) FULNESS. Thirdly,
in the definition of "life" we should
undoubtedly be led to understand that what is meant is
"fulness." Another word which might be used is
"satisfaction," but seeing that man is not
easily satisfied, it would require a very great fulness
to arrive at real satisfaction. So that
"fulness" is a feature of "life."
This sums up the world
need - life, which means reality, something which comes
within the compass of living experience; which means
power, dynamic, force, ability, resource to accomplish,
to achieve, to arrive, to be effective, as over against
being weak, defeated, failing, never reaching a goal - a
sense that you have come into a realm where your deepest
need is met, and that you need not seek in any other
realm for the answer to that need. That is the world
need.
We are concerned with
the world need, and the Lord's Testimony, so that we may
proceed to see in the Lord's Testimony the answer to the
world need. We have touched the world at every point, and
the Lord's Testimony, therefore, touches the world at
every point. We are not going to dwell with the first
realm mentioned, the world of the ungodly; and we are not
going to be occupied very much with the second realm,
that of the nominal and secular Church; we may be more
immediately concerned with the other two, certainly with
the fourth, the spiritual hunger of the Lord's people,
but we may incidentally touch that realm of doubtful and
mixed Christian activity.
The
Lord's Testimony - the Answer:
"Resurrection."
The Lord's Testimony is
the answer to the need at every point, and just as all
the need is summed up in the one word "life,"
so all the answer, as represented by the Lord's
Testimony, is summed up in the one word
"resurrection." A very superficial reading of
the New Testament will make it perfectly clear that
"resurrection" is the key word to New Testament
Christianity. If you have not gone through the book of
the Acts, for instance, marking the occurrences of the
word "resurrection," and noting their
connection, you have missed one of the most profitable,
helpful and important studies of that book. It is the key
word to the Christianity of the New Testament.
"Resurrection"
has also to be defined, just as we have defined
"life," and we look to the New Testament to
define its own terms. "Resurrection," as
defined by the New Testament, means also four things:
Firstly, it means an
entirely new position for man. Let us give
full weight and force to every word; an entirely new
position for man. "Resurrection," then,
means that there is nothing of the old left, that all
is new. It means that man is in a position which he has
never occupied before, and that in that position, there
is none of that obtaining which has obtained before. One
of the most important things for all the Lord's people to
know is that resurrection in union with Christ does mean
that everything as to position must be entirely, utterly
new.
Secondly, resurrection
means that the basic message of Christianity is the
Cross, because there can be nothing new in this way
until all that is old is put away. In order to secure
that all is new the Lord very definitely cuts in between
the new and the old; and the Cross, therefore, is basic
to resurrection, because resurrection has no meaning only
in the realm where death has taken place. It is futile,
it is foolish, to talk about resurrection with Christ
without recognising that it presupposes death with
Christ, and that the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, for
any spiritual value in us, demands that the
death of the Lord Jesus shall also have had a spiritual
effect in us.
The Testimony of the
Lord is in resurrection, which means an entirely new
position for man, and unto that an utter winding
up of the old position, with all that is related to it.
Thirdly, resurrection
means, on the positive side, an entirely new power in
man. This power is not of man, not in any form, of
any kind. Life and work in resurrection union with Christ
is on the basis of the power which comes from God alone,
and not one bit of it from man. It is here that there has
been such sad failure in apprehension, that here man can
do nothing, man is a minus quantity, man can provide no
ground of power for the accomplishment of what lies in
the realm of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus.
Everything in that realm is of that nature, that no human
power can achieve it either in life or in service. Is it
not strange that, although that is made so clear, and
although that might be generally accepted as a fact, the
whole history of the Church and the history of the
majority of Christians contradicts that, that the Church
and multitudes of believers have sought both to live as
Christians and to do the Lord's work by energies of their
own. Look at the enormous amount of human energy which is
poured into Christian activity and counted upon for the
accomplishment of Christian ends. Almost entirely what is
called "organised Christianity" is upon the
basis of man projecting and developing plans, programmes,
schemes, enterprises, purposes; and drawing in all the
human resources of mind and brain, of will, of material,
of interest, of enthusiasm, to accomplish those ends, and
at the end of these many centuries we find something
which, with the enormous development, falls far short of
a few short years at the commencement of the Christian
era in its power of accomplishment.
See the power of
accomplishment in those first years. See how things went
down before the Lord's Testimony at the beginning. See
how every force which opposed it had to yield. See how
even mighty empires, in putting forth all their resource
to quench that Testimony, were themselves quenched, while
the Testimony went on. And see today the ability of world
forces to resist the Testimony, to stand against it, to
hold it up! (Perhaps we are wrong in saying the
Testimony; we should say organised Christianity.) What is
the meaning? The answer is to be found here, that in
resurrection union with Christ the power is altogether
other than that of man. It is an entirely new power, to
which man has got to yield, and not that which man has
got to take hold of and use or try to use. It is an
entirely new power, all of God.
Fourthly, an
entirely new knowledge is bound up with
resurrection. Here is what is called
"revelation." On resurrection ground there is,
for those who are truly there in a living, spiritual way,
a new knowledge which is of the character of Divine
revelation by the Holy Spirit. To put that in other
words, it is a direct teaching of the Holy Spirit to the
heart of the believer of that which relates to the Lord
Jesus. That, as differing entirely from accepting a
Christian history, a Christian tradition, a Christian
story, a Christian doctrine, a Christian creed, something
which has become commonly accepted as being the
interpretation of Christianity through the centuries, but
that which comes directly to the believer as the work of
the Holy Spirit in revealing Christ to the heart;
revelation, not apart from the Word, the Scriptures, but
through the Scriptures; not just grasping the letter of
the Scriptures and knowing what is in the Bible as you
might know what is in any other book (although you might
regard the Bible as different and superior to all other
books); but as a shining through the Scriptures, so that
the spiritual content is disclosed, not all at once, but
progressively, very largely through experience. It makes
necessary the trials and adversities and difficulties,
situations of perplexity; paving the way for a disclosure
of Christ to meet that particular need. A living, active,
practical unveiling of Christ to the heart by the Holy
Spirit, an opening up of the great realm of eternal,
spiritual reality, as gathered up in the Person of
Christ. Resurrection means an inward knowledge after that
kind.
We may add one other
thing. Resurrection means an entirely new fulness. That
is, resurrection means the limitless; moving in the realm
which has no bounds. A living, spiritual experience
brings that consciousness upon you, so that it matters
not how long you may have gone on with the Lord, and how
much the Lord may have taught you, how full may be your
apprehension of the Lord, you are very conscious that you
are only yet at the beginning of things, and it matters
not how long you go on, you will always remain there,
that you are only at the beginning of things. You have
come out into the limitless, and there is infinitely more
to be known than all that you have known and do know. But
the heart is at rest, satisfied in Christ.
Resurrection brings
that consciousness, that you have come into fulness, but
that fulness is so much beyond you that you know quite
well that you can go on for ever. It is a very
blessed thing to have ministry in that realm. The
question of too many in ministry is: Shall I be able to
last out? I shall soon exhaust all the texts in the
Bible, and what is going to happen then? It seems that
multitudes of preachers have exhausted all the texts in
the Bible, and have gone outside for their texts!
Resurrection is what is needed. It brings into this realm
of a new position, a new power, a new energy, a
new fulness, through the Cross. That is the Testimony of
the Lord for the world need.
Gathering all that up,
and putting it into other words, it means this: The need
which is supplied in the Lord's Testimony is, firstly,
An
Experimental Knowledge of the Meaning of the Cross.
That is a far more
challenging statement than may dawn upon us at the
moment. We look into every realm where we see spiritual
death, or, as we have put it, the need for life, which
means that there is death more or less, and we ask, in
every one of those directions where there is death, What
is the cause of the death? What will be the way of life?
We find that the cause of death is the fact that either
there has been ignorance of or rejection of that meaning
of the Cross which has an inward application. In many
realms that meaning of the Cross is not known. It is an
altogether new revelation. All that is known about the
Cross is that objective work, grand and glorious, but
only a part of what Christ has done for us by
His Cross; and there is little or no knowledge of that
vast realm of that other important, essential aspect of
the Cross, that what Christ has done for us has
got to be made good in us. That is, if He died
for us, the effect of His death has to be registered in
us, and we have got to die with Him. And Christ in death
as us is not only the death of sin, but the death of the
natural man. He may be a very good man according to the
standards of this world, but in the death of Christ, with
all his goodness he has died, as well as with all his
badness.
That is accepted in,
shall we say, an intermediate realm of believers as a
doctrine, as a truth, but it goes no further. In another
realm that is rejected, and what is called the subjective
side of the Cross is refused. You will find in all those
realms a lack of spiritual life. There may be much truth,
much doctrine, what is called "light." There
may be a good tradition, and a history in the past which
was mighty, but you will find there death now, a severe
limitation of spiritual life, and you can trace it
basically to this fact that the full meaning of the Cross
in an experimental way does not obtain there. Therefore
the need is for the Cross in its fulness to be brought
again into this world, represented, expressed in the
lives of the Lord's people.
That means, secondly,
that
The
Power of His Resurrection has to be made Manifest again
in this World.
The thing which muffles
the power of God, which neutralises its expression, works
against its exercise, obscures its manifestation, is
uncrucified man. If you want to know the power of God
nakedly active, all that numbing, deadening, muffling,
uncrucified natural man must be got out of the way.
If Paul was an example
of the power of God working through a man, then Paul is a
clear example of how that which is natural as a ground of
strength and wisdom has been set on one side, for this
man has been brought down to a very low place of utter
dependence upon God for his very life, not only
spiritually but physically. "We despaired even of
life," he said. "We had the sentence of death
in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but
in God which raiseth the dead."
Then, thirdly,
A
Holy Ghost living Revelation of Christ.
Not preaching and
teaching about Christ, but a Holy Ghost revelation of
Christ. These are the things which gather up what we have
said.
Unto the meeting of
this need there must be vessels. There must be individual
vessels, and there must be collective vessels, though
they be small. There must be ministries, in all of which
these things are true, that the Cross has become a very
real thing in the setting aside of what is of nature, of
man, in which the power of His resurrection is the power
which is being exercised, the power which is of God and
not of man, in which there is a living apprehension of
Christ by the revelation and illumination of the Holy
Spirit.
The world need in every
sphere is life. The answer of the New Testament is, Yes,
but resurrection is the life that is needed. Resurrection
means, first of all, a place of death, so that there can
be resurrection. That is the Cross in its fulness. There
must be the working of that Divine power which is all of
God and not of ourselves. That must obtain and reign in
vessels. There must be not doctrine, not teaching as
such, not what is called "light," but there
must be revelation by the Holy Spirit through the Word,
so that there is a growing apprehension in a living way
of the fulness of Christ. This is resurrection, and this
must be expressed, exhibited, maintained in vessels,
individual and collective, and in ministries.
Now that is a general
survey of the position. There is a great deal more
gathered up into that than we have time to mention, but,
that being the need, we see the direction in which prayer
is needed. We are brought back to seek the Lord with real
purpose of heart that, as to ourselves and as to His
Testimony in this earth in the nations, He will move to
bring these things into a place of reality again, the
real meaning of the Cross, where man does let go, and
entirely resigns from the work of the Lord in a right
way; that is, where what is of man ceases and gives place
to what is of God. But where that is done through a
definite experience of the Cross initially and
continually the Lord will do a new thing. In a word, the
Lord would have crucified men and women, crucified
companies of His children, thoroughly crucified
instruments, living in the power of God, which is the
power of resurrection, living under an open heaven, with
the Holy Ghost revealing Christ to the heart. This is the
direction for prayer, that He will raise up a ministry
after this sort.