Reading: 2
Samuel 16:13-18.
Just to take one step backward in our
meditation in this matter of anointing, may I remind you of that
all-inclusive truth that in the purposes of God it is the
anointing which gives the value to the life. It is not natural
gifts or qualifications, or anything inherited or cultivated. It
is not what we have by birth or what we gain by training that
becomes the basis of the value of our lives in relation to the
purpose of God. However much afterward the Lord may make use of
any such things, the Lord never makes them the essential ground
of the value of our lives to Him. This, of course, is quite
patent from the fact that very often it has been men and women
without any of these things, either by birth or acquirement,
whom the Lord has used very mightily for very great purposes.
It is true, on the other hand, that men and
women of natural gifts and acquired abilities have been used,
and the fact that it is true in both cases means that there is
necessarily something other; and that something other is the
anointing. I just want to re-emphasise this, that it is the
anointing which gives the value to life. It is very important
that that should be settled in us once and for all. I know how
elementary that is, and yet I am quite disinclined to say it and
just pass on. It is a thing that can be said, of course, in a
mental way; that is, a thing which we recognise as a bit of
truth, and say it. On the other hand, it can be a thing that is
said out of some very deep work of God in our lives, the result
of a good deal of painful history. And inasmuch as there is a
great deal of that painful history back of that truth, when it
is a spiritually apprehended truth, therein is the value of the
fact. It is the anointing which gives the value to life.
Immediately any man or woman begins to regard anything they may
have as natural gifts or acquired quality or ability as being in
itself the ground, or basis of their being used, they are on the
highway to disaster and sooner or later the bottom will fall out
of everything for them, and they will find themselves in such a
position as to make them say that they wished they had never
touched the work of God at all.
On the other hand, it is a blessed fact that
the anointing does give a value to life which may never be
possible of acquiring or attaining in any other way. If we have
the anointing we have an equipment and a value given to life
which is something more and something different from all that we
may attain or obtain by nature. Forgive the repetition, but it
is basic to all that we are saying, to see that the anointing
gives value to life. The Lord kept David to that. Even toward
the end of his life when he had a great deal of prosperity and
success and came into a great place, and the Lord had done
wonderful things both for him and through him, and he had a long
and illustrious history behind him, the Lord sent His prophet to
David and said: "I took thee from the sheepcote, from following
the sheep, that thou shouldest be prince over my people, over
Israel"; reminding him of his humble origin and that it was from
a very ordinary - we might say outside position - place where
others gave him no recognition, it was from that that the Lord
took him and brought him into all this; and He kept that fact
before him, that the basis of all that was done in the life of
David to make him the greatest king that had ever sat, or ever
would sit upon the throne of Israel (with the exception of the
Lord Jesus) was in virtue of the anointing, and not because of
anything in David himself. It was the anointing which gave value
to his life.
The Apostle Paul readily admits that that was
the secret of everything in his life. Whereas naturally there
might have been some claim made to greatness, ability, and we
know how natural men have made a great deal of the natural
abilities of Paul, he himself is brought by the Lord to the
place where he is the first to admit that the secret of anything
and everything of value in his life for God, in the purpose of
God, was the anointing, it was not in himself.
One mentions this that we should come back to
God's zero unto God's full purpose.
The Anointing
Relates to the Testimony
Then we have said that the anointing is
connected with the testimony. We said that David's life purpose
was the bringing of the testimony to fullness and finality, and
it was for that he was anointed. Now because of familiarity with
these things, I am afraid we take a good deal for granted, and I
am in danger perhaps more than any other of assuming that you
know what I am talking about, and I have to be pulled up now and
then and reminded that I am assuming too much. This phrase, the
term "testimony" with which some of us are so familiar; we may
perhaps be taking for granted that people know what we mean by
this phrase, therefore it becomes necessary to say a word or two
about the meaning of "the testimony."
When we say that David was raised up specially
to bring the testimony to fullness and finality and rest in the
House of God, what do we mean by "the testimony"? Of course, we
know David was a type of the Lord Jesus and that looking on to
the Lord Jesus, the Greater David, we see that He came and was
anointed for the bringing of the testimony of the Lord to
fullness and finality and rest in the House of God. The
testimony is one testimony whether it be in David or in Christ,
whether it be in the Old Testament or in the New: it is one
testimony. In the Old it will be in types and shadows and
symbols; in the New it will be in spiritual principles and
spiritual values; but the testimony is one and it is called
ultimately "The Testimony of Jesus." That phrase, as you know,
occurs five or six times in the book of Revelation. Then it is
used in the Epistles also, "Even as the testimony of Christ was
confirmed in you." Now what is the testimony of Jesus? To answer
that fully would take very much time. I want to summarise it
into three or four phrases, or sentences.
The testimony of Jesus is firstly, Who Jesus
was and is; laying the emphasis upon the Who. Secondly, the
testimony of Jesus is what Jesus was and is, with the emphasis
upon the what this time. Thirdly, the testimony of Jesus is what
Jesus did in His cross. And fourthly, the testimony of Jesus is
what God eternally purposed concerning Him. As far as I can see
those four things cover the whole ground of the testimony of
Jesus. You will recognise what a tremendous amount there is
gathered up into that. The first, Who Jesus was and is, relates
to Himself and covers all the ground of the Person of Christ;
and that has engaged and employed theologians ever since Christ
came into the world, and is still the battleground of truth.
The Person of
Christ
I should like to just say here, especially to
my younger brethren, that there is a very important place for
spiritual theology. Do not think of theology merely as a
technical line of study. Sooner or later you will find yourself
involved in the tremendous conflict which rages over the Person
of Christ; you will not escape it. You will find that the
Devil's deepest and most acute subtleties which he seeks to
introduce into the highest realms of spiritual interpretation
are related to the Person of Christ, and if he can trip up the
most highly spiritual men upon the question of the Person of
Christ, he has wrecked and ruined that man's ministry for all
time. Remember the Devil's trap most deeply and carefully laid
for the most highly and deeply spiritual of God's servants is
concerning the Person of Christ, and the more you go on with the
Lord the more the enemy will seek to catch you on that question,
because he knows that caught on that matter he has struck at the
heart of everything, and you are a finished man if you wobble on
the Person of Christ, or if there is the slightest suggestion of
untruth, error, in your apprehension of or presentation
concerning the Person of Christ. It is the most consecrated and
spiritual men and women at whom the Enemy strikes that
particular attack to get them somewhere out of the straight
concerning the Person of Christ; and spiritual theology (I put
those two words together because I do not mean theology merely
as a technical study but theology spiritually pursued) is an
important thing for our consideration.
Well now, "WHO Jesus is" as being the
foundation of the testimony has to do with Himself, the Person
of Christ. Let me say it again, that every error, every false
teaching, every false system, every opposing religion in this
world will be found to have right at its heart the question of
the Person of Christ. Many will go a long way in the recognition
and acknowledgment of Christ, but the ultimate thing that Christ
is God is denied, is not admitted, and that is where there is a
parting of company. Well, now I am not going further on that.
Number one in the testimony of Jesus is as to Himself.
Number two, as to WHAT Jesus was and is, is as
to what He is in relation to man, and there is one word which
explains that, it is the word representative.
In what He was in Himself He did something altogether apart from
man, as God. But what He did as representative He did as in
organic union with man, and the deep meaning of the incarnation
is that; that He organically came into - as a part of - the
race, and therefore became the representative. And there is the
representative work of Christ in His birth, in His life on
earth, in His work, in His death, burial, resurrection, and
heavenly position and work now, as representative. The testimony
of Jesus embraces what Jesus was and is, and that relates Him to
man.
Thirdly, what Jesus DID in His cross. That
embraces the universality of His death, His burial, His
resurrection and His reign. That is the testimony of Jesus. The
universality of His death, burial, resurrection and reign.
And finally what God has eternally purposed concerning Him
relates to His sovereign Headship over all nations as King of
kings and Lord of lords. That is the testimony of Jesus.
Now in those four sentences you have summed up
all that is in the Bible, and that is the testimony of Jesus.
You can trace those things throughout the Old Testament and
throughout the New, from Genesis to Revelation. But there is a
further word to add. That testimony is deposited in a vessel.
That vessel is called "the Church which is His Body," and the
testimony is deposited within that vessel in two ways. One, as
the sum of revealed truth; and two, as the power of that truth
inwrought. The deposit of the testimony of Jesus within the
vessel is the truth, as the truth is in Jesus, inwrought by the
Holy Spirit. So that it is not truth that is only objective,
apprehended by the mind; but truth that has become Life, our
very being, made a part of us in experience; that by the Holy
Spirit.
Of course, you have only got to sit down now
and go back over that ground. The testimony deposited within the
vessel - the Church which is His Body - of which I am a member,
revealed and inwrought by the Holy Spirit concerning the Person
of Christ, what He is in Himself. Has the Holy Spirit revealed
the Lord Jesus to you? Not just that you believe in and assent
to the proposition that Jesus is the Son of God, but has that
come to me by the Holy Spirit? Has that become a part of you by
the Holy Spirit? As to His representative work; have you seen,
or are you seeing, by the Holy Spirit, what Christ was and is
representatively, and is that becoming Life to you? That all
wants breaking up.
Take any one aspect; the Lord Jesus there at
the right hand of God as our representative; there as the sum
total of all the spiritual and moral perfections that God will
ever require of us, and He is there as us in the presence of
God, perfect. God already has perfected humanity in His presence
in the Person of the Lord Jesus; and that stands to our account
and God is not now trying to get perfect humanity. He has got it
and He is trying to impart it to us. It is the work of the Holy
Spirit to impart Christ to us through obedience and faith. Has
that become a part of our very being? That is to be revealed and
inwrought. It is not a suggestion, not part of the Creed; when
you see that, it makes all the difference to you. That is what I
mean by revealed and inwrought. That is also in every other phase
and aspect of what Jesus was and is. As to what He did in His
cross; something revealed to us by the Holy Spirit and made a
part of us. We see that He died not only for us but as us. Has that been
revealed by the Spirit, and has that entered into us so that we
know that when He died we died, when He was buried we in Him
disappeared from God as a thing upon which the judgment of God
rested; when He was raised we appeared in Him on a basis where
there is no more condemnation, judgment passed for ever, and now
no condemnation on resurrection ground? All that may be "Romans
six," still in the Bible, but it may be revealed to our hearts
and become a part of our very life. That is what I mean by the
testimony of Jesus deposited within the vessel, the Church which
is His Body of which we are members. We are called to have a
deposit of that truth revealed and inwrought into the vessel of
the testimony.
Now when we said that David was raised up in
type for that, we see that realised with the temple built
according to a revealed plan; David received the pattern of the
House by revelation, and then under his orders, instructions and
energies the House was constituted according to that plan, and
you see it carried out to a detail, and then the ark of the
testimony brought there, at last at rest in the House of God.
The staves drawn out, never to take another journey, at the end
of all its movement, in rest, in finality in a perfectly
constituted House. David is a type of Christ in Whom the
testimony is fully realised, perfected, brought to finality in
the rest of God, in the great comprehensive: "It is finished."
The testimony of Jesus: unto that David was anointed; unto that
Jesus was anointed; unto that we are anointed. The testimony of
Jesus in fullness and finality. Well, that is a large
parenthesis by way of seeing the objective, the purpose of the
anointing. The Holy Spirit is in us as the anointing in relation
to that.
Now two things immediately follow anointing,
when anointing is intelligently or spiritually apprehended.
The first is this; hell is provoked. In the
light of what we have said about the testimony of Jesus that is
perfectly understandable, you do not expect anything else. If
there is a rival to the Lord Jesus in this universe, and if
there has been from before this world was, an unholy ambition
and determination on the part of that rival to have the place
which God has eternally appointed for His Son as King of kings
and Lord of lords, and then the anointing means that it is unto
God's intention concerning His Son, it brings us immediately
into conflict with the rival, and the rival immediately comes
into active opposition to us. So that hell is provoked
immediately the anointing is apprehended spiritually. And that
works out in experience. Find anybody who has any measure of
apprehension of the anointing and enters into it, and that one
enters into spiritual conflict. Here is David. "And the Spirit
of Jehovah came mightily upon David from that day forward." What
is the next thing? There commenced that long drawn out conflict
in which the evil spirit in Saul was after the life of David. (I
hope the statement: "now an evil spirit from Jehovah troubled
him (Saul)" does not occasion you difficulty. Everything in this
universe is under the sovereignty of God, the Devil, demons, and
all things. It does not mean these evil spirits are in
favourable co-operation with God intelligently and
intentionally, but it does mean that God sovereignly uses them.)
Here is an evil thing, an evil intelligence which obviously is
dead-set against the object of the anointing, and that comes
into positive and direct activity and operation from the day of
David's anointing. He is a marked man, and now that thing is
after his life because of the anointing. The anointing has
provoked that. The anointing has drawn that out. The Adversary
has come out into the open because of the anointing.
Take the Lord Jesus; anointed at Jordan, the
next phase is an Adversary in the wilderness, the mighty assault
of hell. Take the Church. Anointed at Pentecost; next, hell
stirring up, not against men and women as such, but against the
anointing. Take Paul, a vessel chosen and anointed; he is
pursued and persecuted by every possible device; hell is after
that man because of the anointing. Yes, one of the immediate
issues of the anointing is that hell is provoked, and mark you,
what I have said about the measure of apprehension very largely
governs the measure of hell's provocation. The larger your
apprehension of the eternal purpose concerning Christ, the
larger your spiritual grasp of the testimony of Jesus, and your
stand in that, the larger the measure of hell's antagonism. Or
to put it another way the greater will be your experience of
suffering at the hands of the Enemy. If you have but a small
apprehension, a fragmentary apprehension of the testimony of
Jesus, and are standing for that fragment you will have
opposition proportionately, but if you have a large revelation
you will have a large antagonism. The higher you go the more
directly you meet the naked forces of hell. The Church of the
Ephesian position comes to wrestle with principalities and
powers, the world rulers of this darkness, and the hosts of
spiritual wickedness in a naked way. That may explain a lot.
Now this very provoking of hell has to be
considered in two ways. It has to be considered firstly along
the line of Satan's antagonism, for undoubtedly he is with all
his being and resources antagonistic to the testimony of Jesus
unto which the anointing is given. There is his antagonism and
we have to recognise that. But there is this second fact, that
God's permission is granted to that antagonism; which means that
God is over all, even the antagonism. God's permission is given
because the very anointing itself has a specific relation to
Satan's overthrow. Satan has got to be overthrown in this
universe. How will he be overthrown? By the anointing. The
anointing is for that. How can he be overthrown unless he is
given permission to come out into the open and fight? Yes, the
Lord Jesus is anointed. Shall we say He goes out into the
wilderness and Satan comes out against Him? No! The Spirit led
Him into the wilderness. What for? The fact of Satan's
antagonism and animosity is patent. But the fact of the
anointing is also patent, that Jesus returned in the power of
the Spirit. The anointing has now been manifested experimentally
in power over the Enemy. We may say that we are anointed for
conflict, and the anointing for conflict is for the overthrow of
the Enemy, and God's permissions are not given to the Enemy to
overthrow us but that he might be over-thrown. I think that is
grand. Of Pharaoh it is written: "Even for this same purpose
have I raised thee up, that I might shew my power in thee, and
that my name might be declared throughout all the earth" - and
so Pharaoh is given a fairly free hand to go a long way so that
the Lord can show how much further He can go. These are things
which we do not always bear in mind when we are up against the
Enemy and he is up against us. But let us remember that God's
permission is given the Enemy to come out against the anointing
in us that in the power of the anointing he may be overthrown.
In this matter we cannot help but feel that the Enemy is very
blind. The Lord has blinded him. If he knew the very anointing
he is attacking is to overthrow him, where would be the wisdom
of keeping on his attack? But that is where the sovereignty of
God comes in.
So we find David after the anointing very soon
brought into the place where his life was assailed and
threatened, simply because of the anointing. David might well
have said: "Well if I had not been anointed I would not have had
all this: it is this anointing that has caused me all this
trouble." The question is raised, would I sooner not be anointed
and have an easy time and escape the Devil, or do I choose to
abide under the anointing because of the purpose of God in view?
David was put into the throes of those alternatives more than
once. When he went down to Achish, the King of Gath, on two
occasions it was because he was in the throes of that conflict,
he was up against the consequences of the anointing so acutely
that the flesh broke down and sought a way out; faith wavered
and looked for an easier path, a covering from the consequences
of the anointing. We shall often perhaps be in that position. If
only we were not in this thing God has called us into, we would
have an easier path. Yes, we should, but at the expense of the
testimony of Jesus and God's eternal purpose. Which shall we
choose? Our comfort or God's glory? Our ease or God's heart
desire? I want to remind you that the anointing which brought,
and brings into conflict, is the very secret of the ultimate
triumph. Not our might or power, but the anointing. Yes, we may
waver like David, we may break down sometimes; inwardly, we may
know we are not on our feet, we have collapsed. We may seek some
resort of quiet from the battle, inwardly faith may tremble, but
blessed be God.
David's wonderful history shows how that man
under the anointing though in himself often weak, sometimes
failing, breaking down, yes, sometimes sinning, nevertheless
triumphant, not because of what he was but because of the
anointing, while the heart is right. And no one can read the
Psalms, which are the life of David, without seeing that
although David was a man of weaknesses, faults, not without sin,
he was a man whose heart was right toward the Lord. If he sinned
there is no man who is more deeply grieved, anguished, over sin
than David. His heart is right and the anointing goes on and
brings through. The anointing brings into the trouble, but the
anointing brings out into victory in the end, and the Lord does
not by the anointing bring us into trouble to let us get out of
the trouble in our own strength, or to get through on our own
resources. It is the anointing which brings us through. In the
end we shall all have to say: "Lord, I am finally in triumph but
not because I did it; there was that Other, that Someone in me
responsible for this; that was the anointing."
There is the second thing immediately following
the anointing or running parallel with it, or is interwoven with
it. It is our training. Call it discipline if you like. I want
you to notice that the anointing comes first and then the
training. This is a reverse of things from the world order. When
the world is going to choose a man or woman to occupy a high
place, all their training has to be done first and they have to
have reached a place of efficiency and qualification to occupy
that position. The Lord's order is just the opposite. He
anoints, and then on the ground of the anointing starts the
training. It may not be that we have entered into the full
consciousness that we have been anointed, but having been
anointed, without any feelings or sensations whatever, without
any consciousness of it, in relation to the purpose of that
anointing God begins spiritual history and we pass through a
great deal of spiritual history which is connected with the
purpose for which we have been anointed. That is not so complex
and difficult as it may sound.
You and I here today, in the day that we
consecrated ourselves to the Lord, in the day that we received
the Holy Spirit, in the day in which we were made actual members
of Christ's Body and came under the anointing, God in His mind
had a specific phase, aspect, or fragment of the one great
purpose, the testimony of Jesus, for us. That is, we were
individually in the mind of God marked out to fill some
particular ministry in relation to that whole testimony, to make
some peculiar contribution to the whole, we were marked out in
God's mind for that and we were anointed for that. We may not
have known what that was, and we may not have been conscious of
the anointing, but God from that day began history, and if the
Lord has His way and we do not get in His way, do not put our
minds, wills, desires, in His way, but if He has a clear way
with us, a response, a yielding, a willingness to have Him and
all that He wants, the history through which He passes us and
which He passes through us is all in the direction of bringing
about the purpose of the anointing, that the power of the
anointing might be made manifest in that connection. It might be
years after we are able to look back and say that we know the
Lord has been with us, we know we have had the Spirit, but now
we can see in the light of the thing into which the Lord has
brought us, that particular work, that particular aspect of the
testimony to be fulfilled, that particular thing by which our
lives are marked and characterised. We see that everything in
the meantime has been calculated to fit us, prepare us, make us
ready for this, and now in this the Spirit of the anointing is
operating, in power, in freedom. Yes, but that was all there in
the mind of God in the beginning. The anointing was there for
that, but the anointing required training.
Beloved, if God took us through that training
without having the anointing, there would be nothing of us left.
If you and I had not got the Holy Spirit in us as the Spirit of
anointing, and God put us through that history, we would go out;
moreover we should lack that essential intelligence which is a
part of the anointing. I do want you to recognise that the
anointing carries with it spiritual intelligence. "And ye have
an anointing from the Holy One, and ye know all things." "And as
for you, the anointing which ye received of him abideth in you,
and ye need not that anyone teach you; but as his anointing
teacheth you concerning all things, and is true, and is no lie,
and even as it taught you ye abide in him" (1 John 2:20,27).
Three times over this thing is emphasised, that intelligence is
a part of the anointing. "And ye know..." What do we know? Well,
it may be the barest knowledge, which amounts to this: "I know
that which God is putting me through is related to something, I
know that, but I do not know what it is, I do not know why it
must be this way, but I know that this is not outside of the
realm of God, that there is something in view; that thing holds
me." It may be just that, but that is the value of the
anointing. You have that much intelligence.
You may be able to see by the anointing how
things are working together, how two things are just harmonising
in relation to the purpose of God. You may be able to see why it
is necessary that certain things do happen. God has called us to
something which is to be utterly of Himself. Then His training
of us for that is that there shall be utterly nothing of
ourselves. Now when the Lord is doing that emptying out and
grinding to powder so that there is nothing left at all, but for
the intelligence of the anointing we might go right out, but the
anointing says to us: "Yes, this is all in line with the thing
and the end is that all is to be utterly of God and therefore
there must be nothing of you; it is all logical and you will
have to expect this." God trains upon the anointing because the
anointing brings that support, and that growing intelligence
concerning the Lord's discipline, chastening, training.
Now take David. All his real experimental
history in relation to the ultimate purpose came out of his
anointing. I mean that from the time of his anointing he entered
into the real training, the real discipline; all that he went
through was training. Why I am so drawn to the life of David is
because - shall I say - it is so human. I mean that there are
few, if any, in the whole Bible apart from perhaps Saul who are
more autobiographical than David. He is always talking about his
own spiritual experience - in a right way. Always telling you
his heart. You have a wonderful unveiling of what went on in the
man, what he went through, and when you read it (I think that is
why the Psalms have gained such a great place, because they are
heart-talks of personal secret history with the Lord) you see
that it was all so in keeping with the anointing.
Is David to be the prominent representative
type of the Lord Jesus as King? Oh, then the Lord will have to
deal with him in a peculiar way, take him through strange
experiences, bring him to the place of such absolute dependence
upon Himself where the man is so humble, so lowly, so self-less,
and the Lord is everything. How I would just love to be able to
wander through David's life here for an hour or two touching
some of those magnificent points which carry so much value when
you look at them in the light of the purpose of God. An anointed
man must not vindicate himself; see how the Lord vindicates an
anointed man when he does not try to vindicate himself. On many
occasions David was very near to trying to vindicate himself and
the Lord saved him, and the Lord saved him simply because of the
anointing.
You remember that occasion when David,
rejected, pursued, hunted, one day sought help, sent for help
from a man who had plenty, and was refused; not only refused but
insulted. And David in himself was so provoked that he
determined to have his revenge and he went with his men, and the
wife of that other man heard of it and came out to plead with
David, and reason with him and dissuaded him from his revengeful
act. Only a little while afterward that man died by reason of
his own excesses and David thanked God that he had never laid
his hand upon that man, that he had left it to the Lord, that he
had been delivered from revenge. An anointed man must not do
that sort of thing. The Lord saved David from doing a thing
which would have been forever a blot upon the anointing. The
Lord intervened and took the matter in hand, and beloved, if we
are really anointed the Lord will look after our interests, we
need not seek to revenge ourselves. "Dearly beloved, avenge not
yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written,
Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord." That sublime
instance of David refraining from touching Saul when Saul was in
his hand! The man who was making his life well nigh a misery to
him, right in his hand, and he could have delivered himself of
that nuisance. But no, "The Lord forbid that I should do this
thing unto my master, the Lord's anointed." An anointed man must
not do that sort of thing.
Now all that is full of meaning, full of
illumination concerning the anointing; the experiences through
which we are led to train us here. How can you and I spiritually
and morally reign if we have been guilty of revengefulness
because some personal desire of ours has been thwarted? We can
never come to God's Holy Hill if we have been guilty of that as
the Lord's anointed. It is training you see, on the ground of
the anointing, in keeping with the anointing. And so we might
touch this life at almost any point and see how the Lord is
training in relation to the anointing, and see that all that
dark period was permitted of the Lord as an essential part of
training for the throne. It was connected with the anointed
purpose, and in our difficult, dark times (I wish the
consciousness of it was always with us, I wish it was as easy to
abide in it as to say it) the dark time of suffering, rejection,
desertion, ostracism, through which even the anointed are
allowed to pass as part of the training in connection with the
anointing. It is all related to the testimony of .Jesus. David
is, as we see, so rightly a type of the Lord Jesus in this. He
is anointed, but the anointing did not deliver him from
rejection and suffering. It led him into it that he might reign
- the sufferings, and glory. Anointed ones do not escape
suffering. The anointing means suffering, but the suffering is
not the end, it is the way of triumph for in the end: "if we
suffer, we shall reign." The anointing involves those two
things. So the two first things which immediately follow and
result from the anointing, are (1) the provocation of hell, and
(2) the commencement of training unto the purpose of the
anointing.
The Lord make this all very helpful to us and
bring us by it to a fuller apprehension of our calling in
Christ, the fullness of the testimony.