"Thine is the
kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever"
(Matt. 6:13).
We have kept closely in
relation to that statement the earlier words from chapter
3 concerning our Lord Jesus when coming up out of the
water at His baptism, when the heavens were opened and
the Spirit descended and lighted upon Him, and the voice
from heaven attested Him the beloved of the Father: and
then immediately, the Spirit having lighted upon Him, He
was led of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted
of the Devil, and the closing words of His conflict with
the Devil were -
"Thou shalt
worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou
serve" (Matt. 4:10).
We have noticed the
significant thing that the next reference to the Devil is
that where the Lord teaches His disciples to pray -
"Deliver us
from the evil one: For thine is the kingdom,
and the power, and the glory, for ever."
Now we have brought
alongside words from Acts 2:34-36.
"The Lord said
unto my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand, till I make
thine enemies the footstool of thy feet. Let all the
house of Israel therefore know assuredly, that God
hath made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom
ye crucified."
And, finally, with that
we link this passage from the letter to the Ephesians.
"...when he
raised him from the dead, and made him to sit at his
right hand in the heavenly places, far above all
rule, and authority, and power, and dominion, and
every name that is named, not only in this world, but
also in that which is to come: and he put all things
in subjection under his feet, and gave him to be head
over all things to the church, which is his body, the
fulness of him that filleth all in all" (Eph.
1:20-23).
The
Practical Expression of the Lordship of Christ in
Relation to Spiritual Fulness
In our previous
meditation, we were occupied with the exaltation of the
Lord Jesus as the pre-eminent work of the Holy Spirit. I
am going on with the next phase of that, in connection
with the throne, namely, the Holy Spirit and spiritual
power and fulness; for this exaltation of the Lord Jesus,
this throne position of His far above all rule and
authority and every name, is bound up inseparably with
spiritual power and fulness in the life of the people of
God. We can only speak of power and fulness, so far as
the individual believer is concerned, in a comparative
way; that is, power and fulness in the complete sense
relates to the Church, and we can only know power and
fulness in a measure individually. But the principle
applies to both the individual and the Church, the
principle, that is, of the absolute Lordship and Headship
of the Lord Jesus.
So then, we have to see
in the first place that the Lordship, the exaltation, of
the Lord Jesus governs the whole matter of spiritual
power and spiritual fulness. Fulness is always in
relation to the throne and fulness is only known as what
is meant by the throne is pre-eminent. The Holy Spirit
has written this truth deeply in the history of the Old
Testament, and now, with the light that we have in the
New, we are able to discern it very clearly throughout
the Old Testament story. It may be helpful to us once
more to note it in one or two Old Testament
illustrations.
The
Truth Exemplified in Israel's History
In our previous
meditation we referred to the truth as illustrated in the
case of Israel, when in the land after crossing Jordan,
and now the further phase of the truth can also be seen
in that connection, in that Israel, while being in the
land where all the fulness was, and while it was a land
flowing with milk and honey, only experienced fulness as
their own in proportion to the establishment of the
testimony of the Lord's sovereignty. They did not come
immediately and automatically into the enjoyment of the
fulness. They were in the realm where it was, in the
realm of every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies in
type, but although it was all there they were not
enjoying it, except just in so far as they, by definite
exercise and spiritual activity, made the great fact of
the Lord's sovereignty an actuality on the spot. That is
a very important thing to remember. They had to go on,
and their going on was a matter of conquest, and their
conquest was a matter of bringing the absolute Lordship
to bear upon each step, each phase, each new situation.
Thus, as they brought in that perfect sovereignty of the
Lord, that He was Lord, and applied it progressively, so
they became possessed of the wealth and fulness, that was
there. You can see how true that was by several instances
of their doing the opposite.
You know the tragedy of
Ai, for instance. There were two things in the tragedy of
Ai. There was an Achan. But he is only one of the causes
of the tragedy. The other - and this is so elementary and
so well-known - was the fact that they said, 'Well, only
a few of us need go up against Ai. Ai is nothing like the
proposition that Jericho was, and does not need a whole
force to go up against it. Just a few of us can go up,
and we shall easily take Ai'. In thus acting they were
taking the sovereignty of God unto themselves and not
recognizing that whatever the proposition was, great or
small, it still required the Lord and that, apart from
the Lord, nothing was possible. It requires the
sovereignty of the Lord to deal with the whole thing.
Then again there was
the case of the Gibeonites. The secret of the Gibeonite
is this, that the Gibeonites eliminate the element of
conquest. They compromised, they came deceitfully, and
they succeeded in shelving the whole idea of battle and
got the elders of Israel acting in this matter as though
it did not require any battle at all. This thing could be
dealt with without any fight! The Gibeonites succeeded in
ruling out that element of conquest, and in doing that in
effect ruled out the Lordship of the Lord, because this
whole thing had to be taken by conquest. It was only
another subtle form of undercutting the absolute Lordship
of the Lord, and you see it in the fact that the elders
of Israel did not refer the matter to the Lord. They
simply dealt with it themselves "off their own
bat", as we say, and put the Lord's Lordship on one
side. That is just what the enemy is always out to do,
subtly or openly in some way to eliminate this mighty
thing that has to be registered. Well, that brought
Israel into limitation again. You have only to go on to
the book of Judges to discover what that meant for Israel
Later as you know, they
began to tire of conquest and to slacken their pace and
their energies, and the idea of conquest dropped into the
background. Some came to Joshua at one time and said they
were a great people and asked him for a certain part of
the land, hill country and forest country, and Joshua
said, 'Well, prove your greatness by conquest'. They
wanted it by gift and not by conquest. Joshua, typical of
the energy of the Holy Spirit, says that the only way of
knowing fulness is by bringing the sovereignty, the
authority of the throne to bear upon the situation to
subdue it. He has put all things in subjection under His
feet, and the Lord will not countenance anything that is
not being made subject. Universal subjection: no
compromise, no leagues and no accepting without
subjecting to the Lord. You see the principle at work. So
they failed to come into the absolute fulness of the land
because they failed in the matter of the Lordship of
Jehovah, and the principle is well illustrated there for
us in the spiritual life. Fulness is bound up with the
throne all the time.
David
and Saul
There are other
illustrations in the Old Testament. We referred in our
previous meditation to David as anointed, and what the
anointing means as to the throne; that the anointing is
essentially bound up with the throne, points on to the
throne. And now in this connection we have Saul. Saul was
anointed, but Saul never came to fulness. He was only
king in any real sense for three years out of the forty
for which he held the name of king, and after three
years, in which he certainly did not come to fulness,
because he violated the object of the anointing, he lost
everything and it passed over to David. Saul is a
terrible tragedy. Anointed unto fulness; but fulness is
bound up with the throne, absolute dominion. Now, the
Lord tested him. 'Go, smite Amalek. That is what you are
anointed for. There is some other thing here holding
sway. There is another power which is against the Divine
throne, another order of things in existence. Go and
smite Amalek: that is what you are anointed for, to
establish the throne of the Lord above every other
power'. But Saul compromised in the smiting of Amalek,
violated the very object of the anointing and lost the
fulness. It passed to David. The anointing coming to
David and the anointing being observed in all its
implications by David brought David right through to
fulness as it is displayed in Solomon. Why? Because the
anointing for David meant the subjecting of every hostile
thing. Oh, on the right hand and on the left, in all
directions, David subdues - true kingship - and comes to
fulness. Unto that he was anointed.
Elijah
and Elisha
Again, take the case of
Elijah and Elisha. I think Elijah and Elisha fit into the
last verse of the first chapter of Ephesians -
"...gave him to be head over all things to the
church, which is his body, the fulness of him that
filleth all in all". Elijah is the head and Elisha
is the body. Elijah, the anointed head (for, although
there was no recorded act of anointing of Elijah, he
undoubtedly had the Spirit) goes to heaven and Elisha,
who succeeds him on the earth, standing in relation to
him as the Church stands in relation to Christ in heaven,
is anointed. Elisha is the only prophet of whom it is
recorded that he was anointed. There is the anointed one
on the earth. You see the two sides. In Elijah you have
power: in Elisha you have fulness. Elisha was the fulness
of Elijah. A double portion of his spirit; "the
fulness of him that filleth all in all" in type.
Power and fulness by the anointing.
But look at the
direction in which the anointing is operating through
these men. You will see how the anointing is operating on
Mount Carmel. There is another hierarchy, another system,
which has risen against the sovereignty of Jehovah, and,
on Carmel, Elijah fights out that battle for the rights
of God. It is the throne of the Lord that is in view.
That is fought out and then Elisha follows on; and is he
not all the time having to deal with the matter of the
kingdom? Well, power and fulness are the work of the Holy
Spirit, but on the ground that the throne is established.
The
Case of Ananias and Sapphira
We pass away from the
Old Testament and come into the New, and the thing is so
patent there that it hardly needs pointing out. You take
a case like that of Ananias and Sapphira. Now, Ananias
and Sapphira strive to get fulness by violating the Holy
Ghost. That was the charge, that Satan had filled their
heart to lie to the Holy Ghost. They tried to stand
possessed of something, of fulness, by violating the Holy
Spirit, and in effect that was countering the great
testimony that has just been given under the Holy Ghost's
mighty energies and directions as to the absolute
Lordship of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is Lord! "God
hath made him Lord and Christ." That is the Holy
Ghost's testimony on the day of Pentecost. The others
come under that and accept that, move into that, and they
know spiritual fulness. Ananias and Sapphira violate the
Holy Ghost's movement in relation to the throne, to the
Lordship of Jesus Christ, thinking to have something in
that way. What happens? They lose everything. You can
only have fulness along the line of the absolute Lordship
of Jesus Christ. That is what it means.
Well now, that truth
need not be much more fully opened up or argued. You and
I have to recognize it as something which has been
established all the way through by God. It is written
through the whole of the Scriptures that spiritual power
and spiritual fulness are not bound up with receiving the
Holy Spirit as such. It is in that, but that is not it in
itself. You see, we concentrate upon either receiving the
Holy Spirit or being filled with the Spirit or having a
baptism of the Spirit, and we think that is power and
fulness. In a sense that is quite true; but we have to
see the meaning of the Holy Spirit. It is not just that
we receive the Spirit or are filled with the Spirit. It
is what the Holy Spirit means by filling us: and what
does He mean? He means the establishment of the absolute
Lordship of Jesus Christ in us. We cannot have the real
value without the real meaning. That is why it is so
necessary that, to know the power and fulness of the
Spirit, there should be an utter emptying and breaking
down of everything in us to make way for the Lordship of
Jesus Christ.
Now, before I pass on,
have we grasped this fact, that our spiritual
enlargement, our spiritual increase, our spiritual
wealth, our spiritual fulness and spiritual power is not
a matter of gifts as such? It is a matter of the Lord
Jesus being really and truly Lord within and throughout
in every part.
The
Anointed Ministries of Prophet, Priest and King
The Lord Jesus embodies
and embraces the great threefold function of Prophet,
Priest and King, and in what that means He has to be
established in us in the power of the Holy Ghost. You
see, the Prophet, the Priest and the King were anointed
ministries, and, as we know quite well, God has never
been interested in just having certain offices here on
the earth amongst men. God does not play like that,
having a set of prophets, a set of priests and a set of
kings, as though it were a game. God is not interested in
that sort of thing. No, God has great spiritual
principles in view all the time, and those who went by
those names in the Old Testament embodied something of a
heavenly thought, and that heavenly thought is gathered
up in the Lord Jesus, and it is all in the anointing, it
is all by the Holy Spirit. Then as Head, embodying those
things, He has to come upon the Church and the Church has
to come under the value of that.
Now, what are the
values? What is the value of an anointed prophet? Well,
just this. The anointed prophet is the man who has the
sanctified mind, who can say, "We have the mind of
Christ". The prophet stood for the mind of God in a
day when men had lost the way, when the mind of God was
not apprehended. He was the embodiment of the mind of God
for his day by the Spirit. The Spirit came upon the
prophets and they knew the mind of the Lord for the day;
they had, as differing from all the other minds around
them, a sanctified mind. That is to say, by the Spirit,
their mind came under the government of God.
The priest: what is he
in spiritual principle? He is the man of the sanctified
heart. He has to do with, and only with, the question of
inward holiness, righteousness. That is the priest's
function; the man who represents the sanctified heart by
the Holy Spirit. In a day when all around was corrupt,
the priesthood, when it was according to God's mind, was
a thing which stood for holiness, for righteousness, in
the midst of corruption.
The king: he is the one
who, by the anointing, represents the sanctified will, to
execute, to do, to govern, to rule, to have things done.
The sanctified will is what the king represents when
really under the anointing, and it was in respect of this
very thing that Saul violated his anointing. He had a
will of his own. David on the other hand was a man
who willed one will with his God, a man after God's own
heart who would do all His pleasure. That is a
king in principle. He does according to God's
mind.
All that is gathered up
in the Lord Jesus. He has the mind of the Father. He has
the heart that is free from all the corruption and taint
of self-interest and worldly interest; a heart that is
pure in the sense that it is only set upon the delight of
the Father. He has the will of God which He has come to
do, the sanctified will. He is Prophet, Priest and King
in the embodiment of all the spiritual principles thereof
by the anointing. This constitutes spiritual ministry you
see; and the Church, the members of Christ's Body, coming
under His absolute Lordship can only function as, by the
Holy Ghost, they have the sanctified mind, the sanctified
heart, the sanctified will. That means just this, that
your will and your mind and your heart have been broken.
That is to say, your reasoning as sovereign has been
dethroned; your desiring as governing has been dethroned;
your choosing, your doing, as the governing thing in your
life has been absolutely shattered and laid in the dust,
and His mind, His heart, His will, is established by the
Holy Ghost in you. Fulness comes that way. You can never
know the fulness of the Lord's thoughts only as your own
thoughts have been set aside, and that means the
sovereignty of the Lord. You can never know the fulness
of the Lord's desires and purposes only as your own have
been set aside. You can never know the will of God in
fulness, all that glorious will, good, acceptable and
perfect, until you have presented yourself a living
sacrifice, wholly acceptable, not being conformed to this
world, but transformed by the renewing of your mind. That
simply means that His will has taken the ascendency over
your will. That is the way of fulness. So all the time it
is the matter of the Lordship of Jesus Christ which
governs our power in life, spiritual power, and our
fulness.
The
True Nature of Spiritual Service
Now before
we close, a little word further in one other connection;
for, as this matter of the throne governs power and
fulness, so it governs the matter of service. What is
service to the Lord in the highest sense? Oh, if only the
Lord's people could see this, if it could get into them,
it would make such a lot of difference; for I think the
majority of the Lord's people have the idea that
Christian service is represented by the number of things
you are doing for the Lord, the amount of work as work
that you are doing: how many souls you speak to about
salvation, or how many you lead to the Lord, how many
meetings you address and messages you give, and all that
sort of thing. I am not saying that is not the Lord's
work, but I am saying that that may be much less than the
service the Lord is really after: and it is proving to be
so in every instance. If we state positively what service
is in its highest expression, we can see everything else
in the light of it. We serve the Lord most and
supremely in bringing the Lordship of Christ to men. Until
the Lordship of Christ has really been effected in lives
there is going to be limitation in those lives, even
though they may be saved. Beloved, there is far, far more
bound up with the Lordship of Christ in a life than there
is in that one just being saved from hell and from sin,
and not until that Lordship of Christ is established in
the whole life of the child of God does the Divine
purpose really become served. So that service, in the
fullest sense, is bound up with the throne. It is the
throne that has to be served, not men. This means one or
two things.
Such
Service Alone Possible through the Holy Spirit
This
necessitates the Holy Spirit. If it is the Holy Spirit's
pre-eminent object and work to establish the absolute
exaltation of the Lord Jesus in this universe everywhere,
then the Holy Spirit is required for this work, and you
know it. If you have a battle over the question of sin
and salvation, as very often you do, you will have an
infinitely greater battle over the Lordship of Jesus
Christ in the life - the absolute Lordship. But you know
this is true. You can get any number of Christian people
to listen to you if you are talking about the ordinary
and accepted and general ideas of Christian service; but
begin to talk to them about the absolute Lordship of
Jesus Christ and see what you get. It is not such easy
going. They have no interest in that. It is a fact, and
for this work nothing less than the power of the Holy
Ghost is necessary. I believe that is the point where
people have missed the way. Everybody is prepared to
quote Acts 1:8 "Ye shall receive power, when the
Holy Spirit is come upon you". They will go on -
"and ye shall be my witnesses both in Jerusalem, and
in all Judea and Samaria and unto the uttermost part of
the earth." But what does that mean with regard to
the majority of people? Well, in the first place, of
course power is the great word! It is something
to have, to feel, to experience. Of course we all admit
and acknowledge that it is a matter of the Holy Spirit,
power by the Holy Spirit. What then of the result? Well,
we shall be witnesses. What does that mean? We shall go
out and preach the Gospel. Does it mean that? It may mean
that, mark you, but that is not the full meaning of it.
"Ye shall be witnesses unto me." What was the
witness they bore in every place? Jesus Christ is Lord!
'This Jesus has been regarded by men as a mere man and
something less or worse even than that by a great many,
but He is none other than God's exalted and reigning Son.
He is at God's right hand exalted. He is King. He is
Lord. He has all power in this universe.' That was the
witness. It was that that enraged hell. But that was in
the power of the Spirit, and it requires nothing less
than the mighty power of the Holy Spirit to carry that
testimony forward and establish it. It is the Lordship of
Jesus Christ, and it is no small thing to bring in the
throne. Oh no, you have every kind of resistance that is
available to the enemy when it is a matter of the
Lordship of Jesus Christ. So it is a work of the Spirit;
it is only by the Spirit that it can be done.
Such
Service Involves in Bitterest Conflict
Then of
course, as I have said already, this matter more than
anything else involves in conflict. If you or I are
really out in the testimony, not to Jesus as Saviour
only, but to Jesus as Lord, as sovereign Head, the
absolute Lordship of Jesus Christ, if we are out in that
testimony, we are out in the fiercest conflict. It is
true. It explains a good deal. You may meet some
conflict when you are out in the matter of soul-winning
and you do, because the enemy sees quite clearly what
that may lead to: for, in God's purpose, it is never
intended to stay there. If men and women are saved from
hell and sin, it represents, in the first place, a
translation from his kingdom into another, and he knows
what that portends. Satan always takes full account of
the significance of any step, but when you go on right to
the full end and bring the full end in view immediately
into the situation - the Lordship of Jesus Christ - ah
then you are in the fight, then it is warfare indeed. You
are anointed to that battle, and you know it. We said in
our previous meditation that, immediately the anointing
came on the Lord Jesus, the Devil came out of hiding.
There is this fact that we had better take full account
of at once and reckon with, that, when the Lordship of
Jesus Christ comes right clearly into view, what will
follow inevitably is the drawing out of all the power of
Satan, and that under God's own act.
Let us
illustrate. Go back to Egypt with Israel. Here, in type,
is the kingdom, the power and the glory in view, bound up
with Israel, and Moses stands in Egypt with the challenge
in the authority of the one who is I Am, who is Lord
Jehovah. It is the question of who the Lord is, who
Jehovah is. Is Jehovah Lord? Moses stands there to say,
'Yes, Jehovah is supreme Lord'. Very well, the challenge
is presented, the challenge of the Lordship of Jehovah.
The testimony is brought in by Moses. What is the result?
Steadily, steadily, with ever increasing strength, the
powers of evil come out until the last drop of Satanic
power, of evil resource, is exhausted. God exhausts the
store of antagonism. For what purpose? To show who is
invincible; and you can never prove who is invincible
until you have exhausted all the resource on the side of
your opponent. We are hearing in these days claims to be
invincible. All right, that is to be put to the test. It
will never be proved if any resource remains unused at
the end. When God has finished, He will say 'Now, you
have used your last ounce of power and you are broken.
Who is invincible?' So, in Egypt, God had to draw out
Pharaoh's power to the last degree to prove that He was
Lord: otherwise it would still have been an open
question. Oh, it is a terrible thought, but that is how
it is going to be.
It must be
like that. Satan is going to be drawn out, extended to
his last ounce. It is a terrible thing, but that is what
the Word reveals, that when Satan is at last cast down it
will be because he has not another card to play, another
shot to fire, another resource to draw upon: he is
exhausted. Ah, who will be invincible then? The Lord will
stand possessed of many resources then. But the point,
you see, is that, when you come into the conflict of the
sovereignty of the throne, you may expect to be launched
into a fight in which Satan is going to be fully
extended, and you will meet the full force of Satanic
power. That is why you must have the anointing, for only
the Holy Ghost has the power equal to that or superior to
that. But it is true that, once you get on the line of
the throne, you are on the line of intensive conflict. I
do not want to dishearten you, but you are not going to
have an easier time. There is going to be no let up in
this battle. But let us lift up our eyes to the end.
Though today may seem intolerable, almost unbearable, let
us lift up our eyes. We are with the invincible Lord,
whose invincibility is going to be established over all
the powers of the enemy to the last drop. But it is
conflict, and when it comes to seeking to bring the
Lord's own children into the fulness of Christ, which is
really by way of the absolute Lordship of Christ, then it
is battle all the way along, with increasing fierceness
and intensity.
The
Lordship of Christ the Key to Recovery and Enlargement
So we see
that it is the throne always that governs the matter of
service, service in the full sense, and that can be
proved in many ways. You have only to take up the letters
of the New Testament, and in so many of them you find
situations and things which, in their arising, have
brought limitation amongst the Lord's children, which
have stood athwart the path of their spiritual progress,
which have weakened them in the way, which have
challenged the Divine end in them, and wherever and
whenever you find something like that, you find that the
letter is written to meet that situation with a note of
the Lordship of Jesus Christ.
Is it
Romans? Has the law come in there, the law as the way of
righteousness, standing across the path of progress into
that full righteousness of God? Well, what is the
difficulty? It is just stated in these words -
"They... going about to establish their own
righteousness, have not subjected themselves unto the
righteousness of God" (10:3). What is this? This is
something that has got up, that is not of God. You will
go on with Romans and you find you will never come into
fulness until you have presented yourself a living
sacrifice, which, in a word, is subjection.
Pass from
Romans to Corinthians, and the limitation, the hindrance,
the circumscribing there, is so patent. To meet it,
"Jesus Christ, and him crucified" (2 Cor. 2:2).
"We preach... Christ Jesus as Lord" (2 Cor.
4:5) - the Lordship of Jesus Christ. For them, that meant
their going down into death, the letting go of all the
"I". This one says, and that one, and another!
Jesus Christ and Him crucified means the end of all that;
and now Jesus Christ is Lord.
You find
it so all the way. Is it Galatians? Well, there again,
something has come in to interrupt the course. "Ye
were running well; who did hinder you..." (Gal.
5:7); an interruption again, bringing into limitation.
What is the appeal, the basis of deliverance? "I
have been crucified with Christ." His Lordship is my
deliverance from every limitation.
Philippians:
here too something has come in to interrupt, and we find
strained relationships, broken fellowship. What is the
ground of appeal here? "He emptied himself...
becoming obedient even unto death, yea, the death of the
cross. Wherefore also God highly exalted him, and gave
him the name which is above every name." The
exaltation of the Lord Jesus through humility is
presented to them.
In the
Hebrews, it is the old story again. They have been
brought back, brought down from the heavenlies to the
earthlies, to traditional religion again. How is the
situation met? "Of the Son he saith, Thy throne, O
God, is for ever and ever" (Heb 1:8). He is
introduced as the King supreme: and so the principle is
found everywhere.
The way of
fulness, the way of power, the way right to God's end is
only on the ground of Christ being Lord in every part and
in everything.