Following
closely upon what we said at the end of our last chapter,
we come to the place and meaning of the Cross in the
realm of principalities and powers, world rulers of this
darkness, and hosts of evil spirits in the heavenlies
(Eph. 6:12).
Again,
we must bear in mind that it is in and by the Church that
the Cross has its registration in that realm. It is
always a dangerous thing for units of the Church, i.e.,
individuals, to assail that kingdom, or enter it with
intent to upset it. Christ alone can meet that, or to Him
only as its conqueror will it yield, and, we repeat,
Christ is implied by the corporate means. There is much
spiritual history, both glorious and tragic, bound up
with this principle, its observance or its neglect or
violation. The whole matter of Headship is involved in
this. Headship has never been relegated or delegated by
the Lord to any individual. Autocracy or individual
domination in the Church is a positive violation of the
Church's major principle - the Sovereign Headship of
Christ. Hence 'the oversight' in the New Testament was
always plural, never singular; elders, not an elder. In
so far as authority was concerned it was corporate, not
individual.
This
does not mean that New Testament technique rigidly
adhered to will result in a mighty impact of Christ's
Headship of all principalities and powers. History proves
otherwise. But this failure does not prove the principle
to be false, it only shows that it is more technique than
SPIRITUAL position.
But to
come to our main subject of which such points are but the
outworking, the inclusive thing about which we must be
quite clear is that the ultimate place of the Cross is in
that realm from which the Cross takes its original rise.
The Cross is set at the very heart of
A Cosmic Struggle For The Mastery Of
The Creation
We use
the word Cosmic in the sense of super-earthly. It
embraces the earth, the heavenlies around the earth, and
beyond. Here we find ourselves outside of time in
eternity, outside of the local in the universal. There is
an aspect of the Cross which is beyond atonement.
Atonement has to do firstly with time and this world. It
relates to man's sin and reprobation. But atonement is
not for Satan and "the angels that kept not their
own principality" (Jude 6). The last thing that the
Bible says about the former is that he is cast into the
lake of fire "unto the ages of the ages" (Rev.
20:10). (The same phrase is used of the glory of God in
the Church [Eph. 3:21]. The one is the counterpart of the
other, and must be of the same duration.) Of the fallen
angels it is said that they are "kept in everlasting
bonds under darkness unto the judgment of the great
day" (Jude 6) and "cast down to hell... to pits
(or chains) of darkness, to be reserved unto
judgment" (not salvation) (2 Pet. 2:4).
When we
speak of a cosmic struggle for the mastery of creation,
some might find it difficult to contemplate the infinite,
almighty, eternal God involved in a struggle, as though
He could not, with a word, a stroke of His hand, wipe out
of existence everything that gets in His way. To overcome
this mental difficulty, we must remember that the
creation rests upon a moral foundation. In creation God
has bound Himself to moral conditions, and has therefore
brought Himself to the place where His authority operates
only on moral grounds. He intervenes FOR SALVATION
only when He has the ground which is in accord with
His own moral nature. If the ground is positively and
incorrigibly antagonistic to His moral nature, His
interventions have been, and will be, unto judgment and
destruction. Justification by faith has its place here in
that God has provided or secured the ground of His own
moral perfection in His Son, Jesus Christ, and that
ground is provided for faith in Him. Persistent and final
rejection of Christ and God's righteousness in Him puts
those concerned into another realm, to which the Apostle
Paul referred when he said "Knowing therefore the
fear of the Lord, we persuade men" (2 Cor. 5:11).
(This word "fear" is strong; really - 'to
terrify.') Just as God must have suitable ground for the
beneficent exercise of His authority and power, so must
Satan have ground suitable to his nature to exercise his
authority. Take God's ground from Him and He cannot work
for you. Give Him His ground, and He moves. All the
meaning of POWER THROUGH SANCTIFICATION lies here.
"He did not many mighty works... because of their
unbelief." Likewise, give Satan HIS ground
and his authority is established. Take his ground away
and he is helpless. Hence his one object, in order to
establish his kingdom, is to corrupt, for then he knows
that God cannot save; it is a moral issue. So the battle
is waged, not between two potentates on official and
personal grounds, but between two moral orders
represented by two lords, of righteousness and
unrighteousness respectively.
It is in
this direction that the Cross goes beyond atonement and
puts the Church in the strong position of moral and
spiritual authority in the realm where the evil forces
have their seat. 'By the Cross He conquered.' That was
because the Cross took Satan's moral ground from him.
The
Church is a heavenly Body; which means that it is out of
Satan's domain spiritually and morally.
"Delivered... out of the AUTHORITY of
darkness, and translated... into the kingdom of the Son
of His love" (Col. 1:13). For its spiritual
authority the Church MUST stand in all the good of
the Cross as a separating and sanctifying power. Satan's
one aim is to corrupt the Church. The wrestling against
principalities and powers (Eph. 6:12) is not physical, it
is not to OBTAIN a position of ascendancy, it is
against the "WILES of the devil." These
wiles are twofold; to obtain a lodgment for darts of
accusation - that is a denial of our justification and
righteousness by faith: and, or, to corrupt and seduce on
to earthly, carnal, and unholy ground. This explains the
spiritual and moral nature of the armour provided.
The
Church does not carry the Gospel of salvation and
atonement to the kingdom of Satan itself, but only to
those who are his prisoners, to give them the option of
deliverance or remaining with him. To the evil powers the
Church stands to express the moral Lordship of Jesus
Christ in virtue of His Cross, and to exercise that
authority in virtue of its own standing in Him.
The
position is this. Before the world was, God purposed to
gather under one Head all the creation. That Head was His
Son. It was irrevocably and unalterably settled in the
eternal counsels. Knowing that it could never be its best
by mere compulsion or as a mechanical order and that
faith, love, and positive holiness (not passive
innocence) were essential to that best, and foreseeing
the advent of evil, a working of a subversive system, He
provided against the ultimate triumph of the system in
"the Lamb slain from the foundation (literally the
laying down) of the world." All that was foreseen,
and the Lamb came out of eternity into time, was
literally - not potentially - slain, the ground of evil
power was taken in that slaying, and the link-up renewed
with the original purpose - "all things in
Christ." The Church - the elect Body - was brought
into being on the ground of the Cross. He was given to be
"Head over ALL THINGS TO (not merely OF)
the Church which is His Body, the fullness of Him That
filleth all in all" (Eph. 1:22-23). The Church moved
out and registered His rights behind the temporal and
sentient world, in the spiritual kingdom of Satan, and it
worked! - until the Church declined from its spiritual
and heavenly position. The Cross is still the moral
battle-axe of the Church, and the evil system can still
feel its overthrowing power. It rests with the Church to
adjust to
1. The
meaning of the Cross;
2. The
place into which the Cross puts the Church;
3.
Positive aggression in its whole armour.
Our
object has not been to deal at any length with the
connected matters. Each one of them could easily fill a
book to itself. We have aimed at indicating the place
which the Cross has in all things related to God's
eternal and universal purpose in Christ.
There
remains but one realm indicated on our diagram. But before we pass to consider
that, we would add something to this chapter with the
object of doubly emphasizing that power is a matter of
position.
Position And Power
Undoubtedly
the word which occurs most often in religious - and
especially evangelical - circles today is the word
"power." In addresses and prayers it is the
keynote from which and to which there is constant
movement. All the world over it is the same.
Listening
to speakers and prayers in languages with which one is
not conversant, a certain word occurs with almost
monotonous reiteration, and on inquiry one is not
surprised to learn that it is this word. The absence of
power and the necessity for it is betrayed or confessed
in many ways; not only directly and humbly by the more
spiritually minded among God's people, but by the loud
display of ingenious resourcefulness in advertisement,
"stunts," organization, drives, etc., which are
a more sad giving-away of the case than what is meant to
be implied by them, viz.: - that there is no life.
We do
not intend to embark upon a consideration of this subject
in general from all of its angles, but to deal with one
basic thing, more basic even than the reception of the
Holy Spirit. The matter is very rarely dealt with in
relation to the Holy Spirit, and certainly no treatise
can be anything like complete otherwise. The Master made
it very clear that before there could be a Pentecost
there were certain very deep and vital things to
transpire. Pentecost was to be very truly an effect, and
not only a cause; the end of much as well as a beginning;
a seal and not only a pledge. Before there could be the
counterpart of Christ's Jordan anointing upon the members
of His Body, the Church, there must of necessity have
been a baptism into His death, a union with Him in the
entombment of the "body of sin." His death had
meant the closing of the door upon the old creation; the
first Adam had been dealt with and effectually relegated
to the place where he would no longer have any
consideration or acceptance from God, being reckoned as
dead, and only the inclusive "last Adam" would
receive the fullness of God. In the day of the anointing
of the servants of God of old, very definite and explicit
instructions were given in relation to the anointing oil.
This holy oil was in no wise to come upon man's flesh and
there was to be no attempt to make anything like it.
The oil
is always a symbol of the Holy Spirit, and the
"flesh" a type of the old fallen nature of
"Adam." God strictly refuses that the Holy
Spirit should come upon uncrucified men and women.
"Becoming conformed unto His death" is the only
path to power. All our motives in seeking power will be
tested by fire. Are we seeking personal influence,
popularity, reputation, prestige, acceptableness,
success, demonstrations, something of a kingdom of this
world? We may think our motive to be perfectly pure; but
not until we pass into death, death to any or all of the
above, and find ourselves "despised and rejected of
men," our names cast out as evil, and a real hold-up
(seemingly) of our work, do we really come to face the
real purpose and motive of our having any place in the
work of God. The death or eclipse of everything within
and without is a good test. Many of the men of God who
have been TRULY used by Him have gone this way.
Not upon our flesh - whether it be the gross flesh or the
refined, soulish, educated flesh - will God allow His
Spirit to come. Before there can be a Pentecost there
must have been a Calvary. Before there can be the fire of
God there must be an altar and a sacrifice; and it must
be the BURNT offering, in which everything
is consumed. Undoubtedly the disciples of our Lord went
through the death of everything of ambition, expectation,
vision, self-confidence, etc., when their Master was
crucified, and then they tasted deeply of that death
which was to govern them all the days which were to be.
Their views, ideas, "convictions," methods,
scales of values, standards of judgment, dispositions,
temperaments, personal influence and every part of their
life, came under this government, and in every deeper
baptism into death they were raised more fully into His
life - not their own. Each experience was more critical
and crucial and devastating than the last, and doubtless
they sometimes wondered if there would be anything at all
left; but so the life was becoming more abundant. See for
example Acts 10, and 2 Cor. 1:8-10, etc.
This was
and is the initial position which alone means power, and
any seeming power which is not resultant from the deep
death of the natural life of the individual or community
is a making of oil like unto the true but which is not
the true, and therefore in the deepest sense is not the
anointing of God. But there is a further element in this
matter of position. In the world and the flesh Satan had
judicial rights. These judicial rights and the ground of
Satan's claim Christ came to deal with; to destroy the
ground and to possess Himself of the rights. In the light
and the power of His Cross - which He had accepted at His
baptism - and on the ground of His predestined position
as the God-chosen "Prince of this world,"
Christ possessed a mystic authority which was recognized
in every sphere and always set over against another
authority. The Greek word exousia, translated in the A.V.
"power" and in the R.V. "authority,"
would be more accurately translated
"jurisdiction." See the recognition of this
superior jurisdiction, for instance, in Matthew 7:29,
where it is set over against that of the scribes; in
Matthew 8:9, where it is above that of the Roman Empire
behind the Centurion; in Matthew 21:23, where the
Pharisees betray their recognition of this mystic thing.
The ninety-four occurrences of this word in the New
Testament are very illuminating. Satan claimed the
jurisdiction of the world, (Luke 4:6). Christ did not
deny his claim then, but went to the Cross crying,
"Now shall the prince of this world be cast
out"; and having dealt with Satan and all the ground
of his claim, Christ rose triumphant saying, "All
jurisdiction has just been given to Me in the heavens and
on earth; for this reason go YE into the whole
world and proclaim the good news" (Matt. 28:18-19,
Literal Translation).
In the
light of this triumph and because He held this position
in Himself He had said to His disciples, "Behold I
have given you jurisdiction... over all the power
(dunamis - driving force) of the enemy" (Luke
10:19). After His having possessed Himself of this
jurisdiction on behalf of the race as He possessed it in
Himself as the Son of God - He promises them that they
shall receive power (dunamis - driving force) when the
Holy Spirit is come upon them (Acts. 1:8). There can
never be "dunamis" until there is
"exousia," that is, there can never be driving
force until there is POSITION.
God will
only put His power behind those who are in the
authoritative position, and none are there who have not
been incorporated into Christ in death, burial,
resurrection, ascension, and reign, and this as a present
SPIRITUAL experience. The jurisdiction of Christ
through His Cross has to function through the members of
His Body in concert. Christ has the jurisdiction, we are
incorporated into Him if we have on all points accepted
and claimed our identification with Him, and thus we have
become the instruments of that authority over the
driving-power of the enemy in every sphere where His
victory is not recognized. By a life in the Spirit we are
able to receive by discernment those indications from
above - the "Head" - and then command the
situation and put the enemy's work out of action. The
word "destroy" in the New Testament means
"put out of action," and this is related to
"the works of the devil," and progressively
wrought out on the ground of Calvary by "the Church,
which is His Body." This is not vulgar exorcism, for
it can only be effectual as the Holy Spirit takes the
initiative in us and through us, and we must know His
"energizing." Undoubtedly it was their absolute
union with their victorious Lord, and the recognition of
their judicial authority - not over men but over Satan
and his kingdom - which was the ground of the Holy
Spirit's seal and anointing of the Apostles and first
believers. Galatians 2:20 is forever the key to the
situation.