The
God-ward Aspect of the Cross
The Cross first of all
has its God-ward aspect or direction; that is, the Cross
secures God's rights in righteousness. There is no hope
of any Divine purpose being realised, there is no hope
for the Church to become an actuality according to God's
mind until that has been dealt with; until God's rights
in righteousness have been secured. The Lord Jesus, then,
came, and coming to John at Jordan to be baptized of him,
John would have refused: but Jesus said, "Suffer it
to be so now; for thus it becometh us to fulfil all
righteousness" (Matt. 3:15). In the same record
later on He will say, "I will build my church; and
the gates of hell shall not prevail against it"
(Matt. 16:18). But there is no hope for that until this
has been settled; all righteousness, and that in His
baptism, type and figure of His Cross, His burial, His
resurrection, all righteousness settled. That is to say,
God in the first instance has His place, has His rights
secured.
How does God have His
rights in righteousness secured? Well, by dealing with
the unrighteousness in man, the unrighteousness of man,
the unrighteousness in this world, the unrighteousness
which from the beginning has been standing in God's way.
Now, in this representative One, all that unrighteousness
is taken up and brought under judgment and death, the
final judgment of unrighteousness in the death of Christ.
Jordan, of course, is a very passive figure of it. The
active positive view of the meaning of that can only be
seen and understood if in any way the Holy Spirit shows
us the meaning of that great and terrible cry, "My
God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" (Matt.
27:46). If ever a soul were to be fully alive to the
eternal meaning of being God-forsaken, then such a one
would understand the meaning of unrighteousness, the
awfulness of eternal abandonment by God because of
unrighteousness. To deal with that the Son of God came
and went to the Cross.
God has something which
He demands as His rights and that something is
righteousness, perfect righteousness, righteousness
filled full, fulfilled, and that must obtain before
anything else can be realised. God must have His rights
secured in utter righteousness.
But that means, of
course, an utterness of abandonment to the will of God.
Abandonment to the will of God - that is righteousness.
God having His rights means that He has undivided
allegiance, devotion, abandonment. That is the note from
Genesis to Revelation. Whenever God gets anything which
resembles that, you will notice there is something very,
very wonderful that comes out from God. You think of it.
We only dare take one instance, that of Abraham in the
offering of Isaac. Here, you see, is an abandonment to
God, an utterness, unquestioning devotion to the will of
God. That is the only thing that governs; no arguments:
and he might have argued. God said, "Take now thy
son", and Abraham neither argued, reasoned, nor held
back, but made his way to the appointed spot and
virtually enacted the Divine requirement and offered
Isaac. What was God's reaction? "Because thou hast
not withheld thy son, thine only son, in blessing I will
bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy
seed..." (Gen. 22:16-17). But, more than that,
Abraham became the friend of God. The friend of God! I do
not think there is any other title in the Bible which
approximates to that in its meaning. "Abraham my
friend" (Isa. 41:8). Think of Almighty God saying
that of a man. Here is an utterness of devotion to the
will of God. But that is the Cross, that is always
connected with the Cross. With Abraham, it was, in type,
bound up with the Cross, the offering of his only son
whom he loved. It was the Cross.
But it is a figure,
after all, of something greater in the Lord Jesus and His
Cross. His was an abandonment even unto death,
unquestioning devotion to the will of God. "I come
to do thy will" (Heb. 10:7). "I delight to do
thy will" (Psa. 40:8). "Not my will, but
thine" (Luke 22:42). The will of God, that is the
Cross, God getting His rights. Oh, beloved, you see what
the Church is founded upon. Had the Church truly seen and
taken its character from that, there would have been none
of this situation which we find on the earth today
amongst Christians.
Yes, the Cross God-ward
means that God comes into His place. If you and I are
going to say anything about the Cross, if we are going to
preach and teach the Cross, let us understand that, from
God's standpoint, this is what the Cross means, not
merely a question of the benefits we derive, but what God
Himself gets in us and through us by His Cross. That is
the other aspect. God has His eye on that all the time,
and that to which God has a right is this abandonment to
His will without question. Upon that rock the Church is
built.
The
Man-ward Aspect of the Cross
Then there is the
man-ward aspect of the Cross, that is, that not only does
the Cross clear the ground for the Eternal Purpose of God
in Christ by its answering to God's requirement of
absolute righteousness, but it clears the ground of man,
man's nature, man's being; for the Church can never be
composed of man as he is by nature. That is just where
things have gone all wrong, and that is why we have such
a situation. The old man has come into the Church, and he
has no right and no place there. Yes, Jacob is there;
whereas he ought to have been smitten, to have become a
prince with God. You and I by nature have
no place whatever in the Church, and the Cross deals with
that and clears the ground, and will forever keep a clear
line of demarcation registered between what we are by
nature and what Christ is in us by grace. Do not forget
that. The Holy Spirit by the Cross draws that line, and
if you and I are really going on into God's fullest thought and
purpose, that line will be constantly kept in view by the
Holy Spirit, and we shall be made aware of it all the
time - Yes, that is you, that is not Christ, that has no
place here at all and you must leave it out! In this
place, the House of God, the Church, it is Christ and
only Christ, and you can only abide in this House as you
abide in Christ; which in turn means that you must keep
out of what you are by nature, and keep what you are by
nature out. The Cross has for ever put those two asunder,
cleared the ground for God's purpose.
You know that, you know
it all, I have not told you anything fresh. Ah, but it is
very necessary for every one of us to be continually
reminded of this lest we are found to be in God's way,
lest we are found, after all, to be fighting against God;
lest we are found to be bringing stuff into God's house
which has no right there. Oh, that is a terrible thing.
You know what happened in the days of Nehemiah over that,
how Nehemiah had to turn the furniture of an enemy from
the very House of God; how place had been given to that
which was inimical to God's thought by the very people of
God themselves. Oh no, God will not have anything of
that!
Well, to come right on
into all that fulness which is God's thought, the Cross
has to come very powerfully and very drastically down,
cleaving and cutting between what man is in himself and
what he is in Christ, and keeping that difference always
very distinct and very clear.
You will notice the
Holy Spirit is very uncompromising, and we must never
think that patience and forbearance of the Spirit with us
means compromise on His part. The Lord may treat us
gently and kindly for a time, but the time comes when the
Lord would say, I have borne with you a long time on this
matter and you have been presuming; you have been
presuming upon My patience, on My longsuffering, on My
mercifulness and kindness, and you have interpreted My
patience with you as My condoning of your flesh, that I
am not so particular, after all! That has been your
attitude. If you have not said it, that is exactly what
it amounts to, and then the time comes when the Lord
says, "Judgment must begin at the house of God"
(1 Pet. 4:17), and it begins with those who have been
indulging the flesh because of the patience of God. The
Holy Spirit does not indefinitely permit that. No, the
Cross, in God's mind, is intended to clear the ground of
all that, in order that there may be a place where
Christ, and Christ only, is seen and known.
That is God's thought
about the Church, for upon this the Bible is clear
throughout, that you can never make Christ one thing and
the Church another. I mean this, that, wherever you find
the Church, you find that the Church is Christ. Take the
tabernacle, the tabernacle in the wilderness. You cannot
get away from the fact that this tabernacle represents
something corporate. Here are all those boards bound
together by ties, and that is a number of units bound
together into one. You cannot get away from the fact that
that is a type of the Church.
And yet look again, and
can you discriminate between that and Christ? It is all
Christ, every bit of it is Christ. Every substance, every
form, every measurement, it is all Christ. These two are
one. That does not mean that Christ has no separate,
personal existence in glory as an entity. But Christ and
His Church are one. But you and I and Christ are not the
same. I would not dare to say that I am Christ, would
you? Not at all. You see what I mean. There is that about
us which is other than Christ. Christ is one thing, and
we are another thing, and yet there is a union within
with Christ which makes us one in the sight of God. The
outworking of that at length is going to be that, in
seeing the Church perfected, you will see Christ
glorified. You will see what it means that Christ is
glorified, "when He shall come to be glorified in
His saints, and to be marveled at in all them that
believed" (2 Thess. 1:10). That is not only
identification in relationship, that is identification in
nature. That is the end. Well, the Cross has to prepare
the way for that by dealing with man in what he is and
putting him in his nature aside, in order to bring in
Christ in fullness.
The
Satan-ward Aspect of the Cross
One word more. The
Cross has another aspect, and that is Satan-ward.
God-ward, man-ward, and Satan-ward. Many scriptures will
at once leap into your minds in this connection.
"For this purpose was the Son of God manifested,
that he might destroy the works of the devil" (1
John 3:8). When did He do it? He put off from Him the
principalities and powers and made a show of them openly,
triumphing over them in His Cross (Col. 2:15). As He
moved to that Cross, He cried, "Now is the judgment
of this world: now shall the prince of this world be cast
out." (John 12:31-32). And again, "The prince
of this world hath been judged." (John 16:11).
The Cross undoes all
the work of Satan. It removes all the ground of Satan's
further work and closes the door to him. Oh, this is very
utter, but it just means this, that if you and I really
did live on the ground of the Cross utterly, Satan would
never have a chance of doing anything. To put that round
the other way, is to say that all that Satan is able to
do is because we do not live on the ground of the Cross.
The Cross undoes all his work and it deprives him of the
ground of doing any more, and then eventually it results
in the casting out of his kingdom altogether, in that day
when it shall be made universally actual. That is secured
in the Cross of the Lord Jesus.
The Church issues from
that, follows upon that, is built upon that - the work of
the Cross. The Church takes its character from that in
the thought of God.
Well, we must leave it
there for the time being. If all this is true, beloved,
you understand the conflict. It is not to be wondered at
that there is terrific conflict when the Cross is really
brought into view and the Church according to God's mind
issues therefrom. There is bound to be conflict; there
is, and we know it! They set the altar in its place, they
laid the foundation of the house of the Lord, and when
the enemies heard, they drew nigh. That is the synopsis
of a book, a story, a very big story.
That is a very brief
word about the Cross by way of re-emphasis, but I am
quite sure you will agree with me there is a tremendous
need for bringing the greater meaning of the Cross before
the people of God continually, before our own hearts. I
am quite sure of this, the day will never come when the
Holy Spirit will cease to speak to us, the Lord's people,
about the Cross of Christ, that is, while we are on this
earth. His emphasis may rather grow stronger and more
emphatic. He will constantly bring us back to that Cross.
Every degree of spiritual increase results from some
further spiritual apprehension of the Cross. It is basic
to everything. Of course, this is a superstition, but I
believe in some parts of South America, when putting up a
building, they start with a cross at the foundation and
as every layer of stones and bricks is set on, they lift
the cross as they go. It is a superstition, and is
supposed to keep off demons, but there is something by
way of illustration there. It is exactly what the Holy
Spirit does. We do not grow, there is no increase, only
by the Cross. At every stage, the Cross is applied anew.
I think some people's idea is that you come to the Cross
and then you leave it and you go on, and you go back to
the Cross merely in testimony, in thought, as to the time
when you were converted: that was the Cross, and that was
forty or fifty years ago. For many Christians the Cross
is always something that is away back in the past history
of their spiritual life. Oh no, not in God's thought. The
Cross ought to be more than ever it was yesterday, or any
of the yesterdays. It ought to be far more, and it will
be if the Holy Spirit has His way.