The Spiritual Background of the Word of God
by
T. Austin-Sparks
Chapter 5 - Christ our Exodus
Hebrews 5:10: "Named of God a high priest after the order of
Melchizedek."
Verse 10 ends with the mention of Melchizedek. The apostle goes on
to say that there is a very great deal that he would like to say
about Melchizedek. It is impressive to note that the story of
Melchizedek only occupies seven verses in the Old Testament, and
then there is one subsequent brief reference to him a thousand years
afterward, and that is all you have about him in the Old Testament.
Later he occupies a large place here, and the apostle says that he
could occupy a very much larger one, if only he himself had an open
way to say all that he would like to say. "Of whom we have many
things to say, and hard of interpretation, seeing ye are become dull
of hearing." The difficulty is not always in the messenger himself,
but is sometimes found in the want of that clearness, that openness
and livingness on the part of those ministered to; and that means
that a good many things have to be held back. I trust that none of
us will be in that state, that many difficult things should be held
back because we are dull of hearing. "For when by reason of the time
ye ought to be teachers, ye have need again that some one teach you
the rudiments of the first principles of the oracles of God; and are
become such as have need of milk, and not of solid food... Wherefore
let us cease to speak of the first principles of Christ, and press
on unto perfection; not laying again a foundation of repentance from
dead works, and of faith toward God, of the teaching of baptisms,
and of laying on of hands, and of resurrection of the dead, and of
eternal judgment." I think for our purpose that is all that we need
read at the moment.
Now first of all let us go back to the main theme of the Conference,
and remind ourselves of that with which we have been occupied so
far. Briefly it is this: We have been seeing, as revealed in the
Word of God throughout, and as proved true in history, that there is
a deep rooted antagonism between this world and God, and between God
and this world, as also between what is of God and this world. That,
moreover, in the very nature of man now since the fall, there is
that which is antagonistic to God and His things, and in God that
which is antagonistic to that in man, and these two things to be
incapable of reconciliation. This world therefore outside of Christ
lies under God's judgment, and is spiritually a realm of death. For
the present it is not God's method or intention to destroy this
world, as He destroyed the former creation, and left it without form
and void, and darkness covering the deep. For the present God's
purpose and method is to take out of this world spiritually a
people, in whose heart that basic antagonism has been destroyed, and
in whose heart He has put something which is in fellowship with
Himself, and is not antagonistic.
Through this present day of grace, this dispensation of the Gospel,
God is in all the nations taking out that people, spiritually taking
them out; separating them spiritually from this judged and doomed
world. And so God has in every nation through His grace, in response
to His Gospel, a people who are inwardly no longer at variance with
Him, alienated from Him, in antagonism to Him, but in living
fellowship with Him. That number is increasing, but a definite time
limit is fixed for the accomplishment of that purpose, and the Day
of Grace has its end clearly marked in the purpose of God. When that
last hour of the dispensation is reached - and if we are not in the
twelfth hour now, we are at the end of the eleventh, we are quite
sure; and some of us think that we are very near the end of the
twelfth - then that Day will close, and out from the nations God
will take by resurrection all those who are asleep in Jesus, and by
translation of those who remain alive at the time, He will take
those who are in spiritual fellowship with Him. Then the world will
be closed down to its fiery judgment, and the Lord will cause this
order of things to be destroyed. Peter uses very strong language
about that. He says the very elements will be on fire with fervent
heat; all these things will be dissolved. Then God will make a new
heaven and a new earth, as He has done before, and those who in this
dispensation have come into that living fellowship, and have
suffered with Him, will come back with Christ to reign.
The Way out of a Doomed World
Our point for now is the way out of this judged and condemned world,
the world which is held unto judgment. We are in it by nature. No
one here can dispute at least one thing that we have said, and that
is the inward variance or antagonism of the human heart with God.
You may try and put it in various ways. You may - some do - say it
is not God with whom we are at variance, but the kind of Christians
we have met who have turned us aside, and so on. But that to me is
only an excuse; for the same attitude is taken toward anybody who is
a Christian, without proof as to whether they are genuine or
otherwise. The human heart is that, and there is distance from God
inwardly, and I think it is very difficult to dispute it. We are
aware of it. We know quite well that it represents a real work of
God's grace to make it otherwise, so that we really do love God, and
love all that belongs to God, and that becomes our very life, and
our very interest.
Consider then the way out of our natural condition, and our way out
of this doomed world, and realm of death. There is but one way out.
The Lord Jesus came into this tomb of death. He entered into this
state of things. He associated Himself with the race. And, although
in Himself there was no sin, He voluntarily took upon Himself the
sin of man, entered into the penalty of man's sin, received the
judgment of God due to man upon Himself. We shall never know this
side of heaven - but we shall know then and fill eternity with
worship because we shall know - know and understand all the meaning
of that judgment which fell upon the Lord Jesus in that death upon
the Cross, which in character was so much more than that of a man
being crucified and put to death for his deeds; when God turned from
Him, and all hell was loosed upon Him; when in spirit and in soul,
not alone in body, He was tormented, because He was there
voluntarily accepting the full consequences of the world's sin under
the judgment of God. He went down into that judgment and received
the wages of sin which is death. His was not just a martyr's death;
it was the wages of sin in the realm of His spirit that He knew. He
who knew no sin was then made to be sin for us, made a curse for us.
He tasted death for every man. Thus when He died He died as a
sinner. He died as you and as me. He died as, and in the place of,
every other man and woman in this creation, under the judgment of
God. He died so in order that you and I might not die in that way.
What He experienced in His soul in that terrible death is what is
reserved for every other man and woman in this creation who does not
accept that death by faith as the means of their own salvation. When
He died, and accepted the full penalty, all the judgment of God, all
the result of human sin was exhausted upon Him; there was not
another drop in His cup. He drank that cup of the wrath of God dry,
and there is no more wrath of God for Him henceforth.
Then, that whole order of creation being brought to an end, God is
perfectly free and clear in raising Him from the dead; and God
raised Him from the dead with all that other past, and everything
now new, without sin, without sin's bondage, without sin's penalty,
judgment, without death. He lives for ever after the power of an
endless, deathless life. The way out for Him was through death, by
death, and then resurrection.
Christ our Exodus
Now Christ is offered in all the value of that to man. The Gospel is
that Christ, who has exhausted the wrath of God, and has swallowed
up sin in its full dimensions of guilt, responsibility, power,
penalty, is offered to you, with all the good of that; that you, by
accepting Him in what He has done as your Representative, may be
delivered from sin, its power, its guilt, its penalty. You are
called upon, and I am called upon, to say what we will do with
Christ in that Representative character. If we believe; and if we
accept, then God says, Give testimony to the fact that you do so.
This is something which must be proclaimed, and proclaimed in a
practical way. Here is a representation of a grave; here is that
which symbolises the grave of the Lord Jesus. Declare that you
accept His death as your death, His burial as your burial, His
resurrection as your resurrection. Declare it before men, before
angels, before demons; declare it. Your acceptance of that by faith
is your only way out.
Do you want to know escape from a doomed world, and a doomed
creation? Do you want to know how to get out of that realm where
that judgment still holds good apart from Christ? Do you want
deliverance, salvation, escape? The only way out is your faith
acceptance of union with Christ in that death, when He died as you.
Declare that when He died you died. He was buried, and put away from
the sight of God. Will you accept that by faith? Then, that having
been done, He was raised by God from the dead, no longer to be in or
a part of that creation, but outside of it. And He was raised as the
Firstfruits, and you, by faith, are to be part of the harvest to
follow. Do you accept it? This is the only way out. There is no
other way. You say, Yes, I accept it, I believe. Then the Word of
God says: "Then they that believed were baptised." Why? Because
baptism was their practical expression of faith. The Lord does not
believe in mere theories. If you make a declaration of anything in
relation to God, sooner or later you will find yourself in a
position where you are compelled to prove it. If you are really
walking with God, it does not matter what you say as to truth, you
will be tested on that before very long. And here is the first step.
You say, I believe that I was doomed as a sinner, locked up in a
judged creation. Christ came into that. As I was helpless and
hopeless and unable to get myself out, He came in and took all the
state, and all the result of the state, of my fallen position upon
Himself, and through His death found a way out. I believe that!
Practical Proof of Faith
Then the Lord says by His Word, prove it. Here is a means for you of
proving it. Here is the symbol of a grave. Declare it in practice,
in act. Strangely enough, if ever the Lord speaks to a heart about
that matter, and it is not just the suggestion of someone else; I
repeat, if the Lord touches the heart about that matter, and the
heart does not respond, that life becomes strangely locked up again.
Spiritual growth is at once arrested, the Lord has nothing more to
say to that life, it does not grow beyond that point. It may be
soon, or perhaps a long time afterward, but sooner or later, at any
rate, that life begins to be terribly exercised. The question is,
Why is it I am not growing? Why is it I am not enjoying the fulness
of the Lord? And there is trouble in the heart, and then in the deep
exercise before God, the Lord just puts His finger upon that. 'Do
you remember that I spoke to you about so-and-so? Well, we have
never been able to walk together since then. "How can two walk
together except they be agreed?" From that day there has been no
progress; be obedient in that and we will go on again.' Many lives
are simply locked up like that for years, because of a reservation.
Now you see, coming to the passage we read what the apostle says
here about what are called "the principles of the doctrine of
Christ." The principles of Christ. Literally it is "the first
principles about Christ." He is speaking to believers, as
you notice, and he says, You ought to have gone on growing
spiritually, but you are still back at the beginning, and needing
someone to teach you the rudiments of the first principles of the
oracles of God. Then he uses that phrase, "the first principles"
again, and he says that those first principles are the foundation:
"Not laying again the foundation...." Oh, do get this. This is not advanced truth. This is not something for advanced
saints. This is said to be the first principles, the foundation. And
it is said that they are babes, even when they have got these
things. They ought to have advanced long past this. This is truth
for the immature. It is a sad thing that we have to put such force
into our emphasis, to say that today, even to believers. This is for
infants.
The Threshold with Six Pillars
"The first principles of Christ." What are they? "Repentance from
dead works"; that is one. "Faith toward God"; that is two. "The
teaching of baptism"; that is three. "The laying-on of hands"; that
is four. "The resurrection of the dead"; that is five. "Eternal
judgment"; that is six. Six first foundation principles, concerning
Christ. These are not Jewish ordinances, they are foundation
principles about Christ. That can be proved without any difficulty.
If the apostle had been speaking about Jewish ordinances first
principles and foundations, he would have commenced: Not laying
again a foundation of circumcision, the Feast of Unleavened Bread,
the Passover. Those were the foundations of Jewish life.
Then these doctrines here are essentially Christian doctrines. The
resurrection of the dead is not an Old Testament doctrine. Hints and
references may be found, but there is not the doctrine, for you
cannot have the teaching of the resurrection until Christ is
resurrected. Resurrection is not merely the re-animation of a body,
a corpse. Resurrection is unto life or unto condemnation. And you
cannot have resurrection unto eternal life or unto eternal
condemnation until Christ has come, because all the issue of
resurrection hangs upon Christ's resurrection. We can never be
judged in resurrection unto life eternal or unto judgment eternal,
only on the ground of Christ's resurrection; because Christ's
resurrection has provided the ground of our judgment, has determined
for ever our position of faith or unbelief. If you read the rest of
this sixth chapter of the Letter to the Hebrews, the thing is borne
out by what is written as touching those "who were once enlightened,
and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the
Holy Ghost," that it is impossible, if they should fall away "to
renew them again unto repentance, seeing that they crucify to
themselves the Son of God afresh." Does not that put you on this
side of Calvary? It is not Jewish ordinances. Christ was not
crucified in this sense before Calvary. You see, you are brought
right on to New Testament ground, post-Calvary ground, and you are
told therefore that you are related to the first principles
concerning Christ. It is not a case of Jewish ordinances at all.
Perhaps to you it is hardly necessary to emphasise that, but there
are a great many people who say this is purely a Jewish thing, and
these are Jewish ordinances that are being referred to. That is why
I have stressed this. Amongst the six there is baptism - a
foundation; the laying-on of hands - a foundation; a first principle
concerning Christ. Is it not conclusive? The apostle says to these
people: Now you have laid those foundations - he is taking it for
granted that those foundations have been laid - but, he says, the
trouble with you is that you have not gone on from your foundations;
and here you are away back there, still where the foundations have
been laid, have been settled; you are not moving on at all; you have
somehow remained in a state of arrest. Now, he says, let them be
once and for all settled and go on unto full growth.
The very gateway into the fulness of Christ is through these six
pillars. These six pillars form the entrance into the fulness of
Christ; they stand right there at the beginning. Repentance from
dead works, faith toward God, baptism, laying-on of hands,
resurrection of the dead, eternal judgment. That has all to be dealt
with, settled, recognised right at the beginning, and then with that
done, move on unto the fulness of Christ. There can be no fulness of Christ until that is settled, but having that settled,
the way is open. If the Lord has shown any one of these things as a
basic thing, and put His finger upon it, and there has been a
holding back, a reservation, you may go on in time for years, but
spiritually you have not advanced at all. And it may be after ten,
twenty, thirty, forty years you come to the realisation that you
have not got through the portal yet, and you say, I am not more than
a babe as yet. It is a terrible thing to awake to the fact after all
that loss of time. The Lord says, That is My door; and fulness lies
that way. There is not one pillar more important than another. Some
people seem to think that they can select out of the six what they
agree with, and leave the rest.
Here you are face to face with what the Word of God calls "First
principles concerning Christ." The only way in which Jewish
ordinances come in here - and they do come in, there is no doubt
about it; they are in the Letter to the Hebrews all the way through
- the only thing is that here you have the Antitype. There had to be
in the Old Testament period, that which typically represented faith
toward God. The apostle says to the Corinthians that they were all
baptised into Moses in the sea, and in the cloud, so that when they
passed through the Red Sea that was a type of baptism; and he speaks
of the flood as being also a like figure, "whereunto even baptism
doth also now save us." In the antediluvian period as well as in the
patriarchal you have the same thing. But it was typical there. You
come by the Spirit into the meaning of it now, because all that was
pointing to Christ, and now you have reached Christ, Who is the
fulfilment of it all.
You can go back to the rest of your New Testament, and see
everything else in the light of your foundations. You say, Is
baptism for all in the will of God? Well, I say, it says here that
it is one of the first principles concerning Christ. You say, Is the
laying on of hands for all in the thought of God? I say, It is
mentioned here as a first principle. I ask you, Is repentance to
apply to all? And you say to me, Oh, no, of course some can get in
without it! No, you would never say anything like that. And I will
say, Is judgment for all outside of Christ, and you will not say,
No! only for some. I ask you, Is the resurrection of the dead for
all in the desire and will of God? Has He provided that for all?
Will you exclude yourself or some from that? Surely not. You see the
implication. Who are you, or who am I, to discriminate between what
God calls "first principles" and say, That is for some, and not for
others. It says nothing like that here. We must be honest with the
Word of God in our dealings with truth, and while I grant you that
there may be interpretations of these truths, and constructions put
upon them which might justify certain reservations, nevertheless the
thing itself in its purity is there as a thing for all the people of
God. And we must be honest enough to discriminate between the false
association with the doctrine, and the pure doctrine itself. I know
the enemy has prejudiced the doctrine by what he has tacked on to
it, and if we are able to discern the pure meaning of the doctrine,
we must not set it aside as of secondary importance, when it says
that it is a first principle. The Lord help us to be faithful.
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