"And
Jesus, when He was baptized, went up straightway from the
water: and lo, the heavens were opened unto Him, and He
saw the Spirit of God descending as a dove, and coming
upon Him" (Matt. 3:16).
"Christ
redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a
curse for us; for it is written, Cursed is everyone that
hangeth on a tree: that upon the Gentiles might come the
blessing of Abraham in Christ Jesus; that we might
receive the promise of the Spirit through faith" (Gal.
3:13-14).
The
matter to which we are directed now is the Cross and the
Holy Spirit. Let me say at the outset that this is not a
treatise on the Person and work of the Holy Spirit, but
primarily an emphasis upon the relationship between the
Holy Spirit and the Cross of Christ.
God Working By His Spirit
Before
we can come immediately to that matter, there are
some preliminary things that it will be helpful to
remember. They are of a more general character. Firstly
there is this fact, that the Scriptures make it quite
clear that whenever God has moved to realize any phase of
His comprehensive purpose, He has done so by the agency
of His Spirit. The Spirit of God has been the wisdom, the
power, the energy, the initiator, the continuer and the
consummator of that which God has at any time taken in
hand to bring about. That is quite patent to all, I
think, on the most superficial glance at the Scriptures.
Then we
see it in creation, that is, the creation of this world.
The Spirit of God is there as the Agent initiating,
pervading, conducting and always in evidence in relation
to the bringing of this cosmic order into being.
The same
is seen to be true in the history and life of Israel. The
whole of their life and the ordering of their life was a
matter of the Spirit of God. He worked with their
fathers, He led them out of Egypt as the pillar of fire
and cloud, He sustained them in the wilderness; He
endowed men amongst them for the framing, the making, the
constituting of that great symbolism of Christ - the
tabernacle. Bezalel and Aholiab were men peculiarly
endowed by the Spirit of God unto all manner of work in
connection with the tabernacle, and in many other ways
and connections it is seen that the Spirit of the Lord
was in charge of this whole matter of Israel's life and
history. God was fulfilling His purpose, or that phase of
His great purpose, by the agency of His Spirit.
What was
true in those connections is seen to be true in the case
of the life and work of the Lord Jesus; begotten of the
Holy Spirit, anointed of the Spirit, fulfilling His
ministry, uttering His teaching, performing His works,
all by that anointing of the Spirit, and eventually
offering Himself to God without spot "through the
eternal Spirit." In all things, again, God carries
out His work by means of His Spirit.
And then
we pass on to the Church. It becomes abundantly clear
that this great aspect of the purpose of God through the
ages is again in the hands of the Holy Spirit. The Church
is brought into being by the Holy Spirit on the day of
Pentecost, and from that time everything is committed to
the Spirit to carry out.
What is
true as to the Church, its calling, its vocation, its
purpose, is true, according to the Scriptures, of every
member thereof, every individual. The life of every child
of God is begun by the Holy Spirit, born of the Spirit;
and then to be, under the Spirit's conducting, led into
all the will and thoughts and ways of the Lord; perfected
by the Spirit; saved, sanctified and glorified, all by
the Spirit of God.
That is
a very elementary consideration, I know, but it is basic
because the assumption is this, that man has in himself
none of the requirements, moral, intellectual or
spiritual, for realizing any part of God's purpose. If it
were possible for man to do so, then the Spirit of God
need not have come; but the very coming of the Spirit is
the great Divine declaration that God must do His own
work or it will never be done - that man is totally
incapable of realizing any part or fragment of the great
purpose of God, and, without the Spirit, no part thereof
will ever be realized. That is what it means that the
Spirit of God is always in charge of the things of God,
because man is not capable in that realm.
So the
advent of the Holy Spirit is nothing less than the very
advent of God Himself to project, to constitute and to
accomplish a new spiritual creation, a spiritual cosmos
(I very much dislike that word, but it is a fuller word
than "world" and it means something more than
even a creation, it is an ordered system) - the advent of
God the Holy Spirit is to project and constitute and
consummate a new ordered spiritual system, a spiritual
cosmos, an entirely spiritual nature of things of which
the natural and the physical is but a shadow, a type.
Christ A Comprehensive Spiritual System
Now, the
pattern of this spiritual order or system or economy is
God's own Son, Jesus Christ. Christ is a vast and
comprehensive spiritual system and order. That does not
mean that He is not a Person, an Individual, but He is
something more than that. In His Person there is the
embodiment of this vast, this comprehensive, system of
Divine thoughts, of Divine elements, of Divine laws,
Divine principles and Divine nature. This physical
universe we know, and are learning more and more, to be a
vast system of laws and principles. It is a great whole,
inter-related, inter-dependent, moving together by
influences and forces and tides, bound up as a marvelous
order and harmony, nothing just taking its own
independent course, nothing unrelated, nothing unaffected
by the rest; one marvelous whole. And the knowledge of
this physical universe is more than a matter of a life's
application, a lifetime's study. It has taken all the
generations from the beginning to reach even the present
point which those who know most admit to be far short of
all that we have yet to know about this universe. When
you read some of the works of men who know what there is
to be known now, your very brain reels when you read of
distances and speeds in this universe, the rate at which
light travels, and all these things; I say it is a vast
order, and it is more than a lifetime's study for
understanding.
But, my
dear friends, we have said that the physical universe is
only a symbol, a type, of the spiritual, and Christ is a
universe, a universe of spiritual laws, of spiritual
principles, of spiritual forces. Christ is a vast unity,
a marvelous harmony, and when you begin to glimpse that,
you just begin to understand what the Apostles have seen
or begun to see when they themselves are found in the
grip of a passionate quest to know Him. "That I
may know Him" (Philippians 3:10). "I
count all things to be loss for the excellency of
the knowledge of Christ Jesus my
Lord" (Phil. 3:8). This even at the end of a
lifetime of learning Christ, this even after marvelous
revelations in heaven itself of things unspeakable which
it is not lawful for a man to utter; still in the grip of
this tremendous quest - "that I may know Him."
Then you
understand also why there is coming from that this urge,
this constant and ever increasing urge upon believers to
follow on to know the Lord, to go on to know. You
understand the meaning of a little prefix which is, I
think, tremendously impressive. They not only speak about
knowledge, the knowledge of Christ, the knowledge of God,
the knowledge of the Lord; not only do they so often use
that word "gnosis," but you find later,
as they have moved on, they introduce this combination "epignosis."
"Till we all attain unto... the full
knowledge..." (Eph. 4:13); not merely "the
knowledge" now. This is to Ephesians, those well on
in knowledge. (If you care to look up the usage of that
particular form of the word you will find it tremendously
impressive, as it is seeking to take believers beyond
even a fairly matured stage of spiritual life.) Here,
then, is their own quest; here is their urge upon the
saints, because they have glimpsed by revelation of the
Holy Spirit something of this vast comprehensiveness of
Christ. He is a universe, a new and entirely different
system of things spiritually. Who knows anything about
it? What do we know about Christ? We may have been the
Lord's people for a good many years. The fact is that the
longer we live and the more we are associated and in
touch with things of Christ the more we are overwhelmed
with our ignorance, because we are realizing that Christ
is a land of far distances. He is so far beyond us, we
cannot comprehend Him. "Brethren, I count not myself
to have apprehended" (Phil. 3:13). That is Paul near
the end of his course. "I press on," "that
I may know Him." Yes, Christ is a universe of Divine
thoughts, Divine laws, Divine principles, all of the most
practical character, and I do want to underline that
statement, because what I am saying may be regarded as
something very abstract.
But come
back to the analogy, to the type. Are these things in the
physical universe abstract? Are they without practical
meaning and value? We know that these forces and these
laws at work are the very things which make life possible
upon this earth. What would happen but for the effect of
the heavenly bodies upon this earth? The very tides of
the sea are governed by heavenly bodies. Every time the
tide rises on our shores, it is in response to a great
governing body in the heavens. Every time the tide
recedes and goes out, it is simply obeying a heavenly
power; and the tides are of value, they do mean
something. And in many other connections it is like that.
Our life here on this earth is only possible because of
this ordered universe and the influences at work as from
without; and in this universe of Christ our very life,
our very coming to the great goal for which we are
destined by God, depends upon our response to the laws of
Christ, our reaction to the influences of Christ, and
upon our knowledge of these things - because in this
realm it is God's will that we should understand these
things, we should have understanding in Christ, we should
be intelligent. So far as this physical universe is
concerned, in order to derive the benefits we do not all
have to be scientists. We are getting benefits every day
without understanding any of these things; but in the
spiritual realm it is God's thought that we should know.
Seeing The Greatness Of Christ By The
Holy Spirit
All this
brings us to the whole matter of the Holy Spirit. What do
we know of Christ after all? If we know Him as our
Saviour, our Redeemer, our Lord, our High Priest, our
Advocate on high, in all these ways, what do we know of
Him after all? That is nothing. Paul knew all that, but
here he is speaking and acting as one who knew nothing,
because the knowledge yet to be possessed was so far
beyond anything already attained unto. We know nothing.
But the
advent of the Spirit, the coming of the Spirit, has had
that whole matter in view - to lead us into this vast
universe which Christ is, this wonderful spiritual system
and order of things of which Christ is the embodiment, to
make us know in continual progress and development more
of the meaning of Christ. I know I am failing to convey
to you the tremendous impression that this has made on my
own heart as I have thought about it, as it has come to
me. As I stand so far behind these Apostles but listen to
what they say, the impression to begin with is that these
men have evidently seen something in Christ that is
immense and it has taken out of their lives anything in
the nature of spiritual contentedness with their
apprehension, with their attainment. This that they have
glimpsed has made them men who are on full stretch to
know all that it is possible to know, not because they
are just men of an inquisitive turn of mind who want to
know for the sake of knowledge, but they see that that
knowledge is unto the fullness of God's purpose in their
own lives and in their lives as related to a Body, the
Body of Christ, His Church. The Church will never go on
to that realization, and the individual members of the
Church will never grow, save as the Church and the
members thereof glimpse something of the greatness of
Christ. The way of spiritual growth is the glimpsing of
the greatness of Christ by revelation of the Holy Spirit,
and that is why Paul prayed as he did "having the
eyes of your heart enlightened, that ye may know what is
the hope of His calling, what the riches of the glory of
His inheritance in the saints, and what the exceeding
greatness of His power to us-ward who believe" (Eph.
1:18-19); that you might know this by His giving to you "a
spirit of wisdom and revelation in the 'epignosis' (in
the full knowledge) of Him." That is how
the Church will grow, that is how the saints will make
increase - seeing in a new way how vast and great is
Christ.
Do you
not agree that among all the needs that exist today in
the people of God one of the most potent is the need to
be delivered from spiritual contentedness, satisfaction
with a small measure of the Christian life? There is a
sad, a tragic absence of a really adequate reach out to
know Him. Oh, I know that needs perhaps qualifying and
covering. There are many people who say they want to know
and want to go on, but their quest, their desire, is not
of that character, that nature, which obtained in the
case of the Apostle Paul - "I count all things but
loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus
my Lord." All THINGS.
With
many Christians and Christian workers, if you touch their
work, their organization, their system of things, their
religious thing of which they are part, then you meet
awful resistance. Prejudices and suspicions and all those
things rise out of this weddedness to things rather than
to the Lord. If only people were wedded to the Lord and
He was their only quest, you would get rid of 95 percent
of all the prejudice and suspicion that exists. It is
things that produce it. We need to drop our things and be
found only concerned with the Lord. Our one question,
governing every situation, should be, Does that
contribute in any way to a larger measure of Christ? If
it does, then in my heart I am with it; it does not
matter what it does to existing institutions. If that can
lead on to a knowledge of Christ beyond what we have,
then that is the thing that matters. It is Christ, not OUR
Church, not OUR fellowship, not OUR mission,
not OUR organization, not OUR tradition,
but Christ. He is a tremendously enlarging and
emancipating factor. It is these things that have cramped
us down and made us small, mean, petty and peevish.
Christ delivers, Christ enlarges; oh, to see Him! Oh,
that we could be brought by the Spirit as the Queen of
Sheba was brought and shown the kingdom of Solomon, his
glory, his table, his servants, until there was no more
spirit left in her and she said, "I heard...
of thine acts and thy wisdom. Howbeit I believed not...
until I came and mine eyes had seen it: and behold, the
half was not told me" (I Kings 10:7). And a
greater than Solomon is here! What you and I need is that
enlargement which comes by a Holy Spirit inward
revelation of Christ and we shall be emancipated. These
other things will fall into their own place as we see Him
more fully.
That,
then, is the very meaning of the Holy Spirit having come.
I say again, what do we know? How small is our knowledge!
Ah, but God knows that, and the Spirit of God has come.
What for? To be at our service, for us to use, that He
might be taken hold of to give us prominence and
importance and name and reputation? No, He has come for
no other purpose than to bring God's Son into
ever-increasing fullness in the saints, to make Christ in
the Church what He is in the sight of God, that He may
become in the Church the "fullness of Him That
filleth all in all." That is the Holy Spirit's
purpose in coming. Well, what a heritage we have when we
have the Holy Spirit! - "the Spirit which is an EARNEST
of our inheritance" (Eph. 1:14). With the Holy
Spirit, all the inheritance is bound up and guaranteed.
Having the Spirit, all that fullness is potentially ours.
Now it
is for us to be taught by the Spirit, and the Holy Spirit
does not teach us as out of a book, as by a manual. He
does not teach us just by addresses and talks and
lectures, not by words as such. The Holy Spirit teaches
by practical experience, and the instrument of the Holy
Spirit's teaching of Christ is the Cross of Christ. You
and I will learn nothing except as the Holy Spirit makes
the Cross of Christ a reality in us. We shall come to
that presently.
The Unity Of Christ
I am
first of all concerned with this emphasis upon the
greatness of Christ, the vastness of Christ, and the fact
that the Holy Spirit has come to bring that greatness
into the Church. There is so much detail bound up with
that. We have referred to the laws and relationships and
dependencies and inter-dependencies of this physical
universe. Christ is that; difficult as it is for us to
grasp, Christ is that. And then the Church has to be the
reproduction of what Christ is, so that in the Body of
Christ you find all these spiritual laws of
inter-relatedness, inter-dependence, and no member of the
Body can say to any other member, however remote the
other member may be in the matter of distance and
position, "I have no need of thee" (I Cor.
12:21). The head cannot say to the feet - there are your
extremities! 'Because you are so far removed from me, I
am not dependent upon you.' It cannot be. "The eye
cannot say to the hand, I have no need of thee."
Proximity makes no difference in this matter, distance
makes no difference. The relatedness constitutes the Body
a perfect whole, a perfect ONE, a perfect harmony,
all inter-dependent, inter-related. That is Christ.
"So also is the Christ" (I Cor. 12:12
Greek).
And in
the realm of the Spirit that sort of thing is going on.
We need, of course, spiritual perception to be able to
grasp it. It may be that a very great deal of our
spiritual experience which cannot be explained at all by
anything within the immediate circle of our lives is due
to something that is going on in some children of God or
child of God far removed from us geographically. There
may be some tremendous conflict in a life, or in a
company of the Lord's people, on the other side of the
world, and because the Spirit is one we are involved in
that conflict, and we are going through something, and we
are moved to pray, and the issue is one issue. Geography
does not touch it. Very often we do not understand what
is the meaning of that through which we are passing. We
know of certain things in our spiritual experience,
something is going on, there is conflict on, there is
pressure on, and there is nothing immediately around us
to explain it. There is no occasion for it so far as we
can see here and now. But there is some issue in the
balances, some issue over which there is spiritual
conflict somewhere, and because the Spirit is one and the
Body is one, we are bound up with that conflict. That is
the oneness, the harmony of Christ, that is the
interaction of these laws of one Body, a new spiritual
system. Some of us have known how true these things are
and how very practical they are. If the Church only had
intelligence about this and lived up to its intelligence,
what loss it would be to the enemy! How often the
children of God are caught misinterpreting their
experience, things that are happening, what is going on
in another life. The enemy puts a false construction upon
a thing, and, instead of bringing those concerned
together to cooperate for victory, he sets them apart by
misconstruction. If the Church saw this spiritual
oneness, this spiritual inter-relatedness,
inter-dependence, and threw itself right into that, what
a mighty thing the Church would be here in this universe!
And that is the spiritual system that Christ is, which is
to be constituted in His Body, reproduced in His Church.
You say
that it is a hopeless thing to expect so far as the whole
Church is concerned. It is a very beautiful ideal, but
what are the prospects of realization? Well, we cannot
dismiss it like that. We have to come back. It will
begin, perhaps, between two of us, and that will
constitute a sufficient ground for instruction and for
victory, for understanding. Even the perfect harmony of
two children of God is a terrific cause of battle, but
get it and see what an effective thing it is for God! And
that is why the battle rages - just to separate two
children of God who are vitally related. Satan has always
tried that, and what things come in to do it!
The Cross Basic To All The Spirit's
Work
That
brings us to that to which we have been working, the
Cross and the Holy Spirit; for the basis and the door of
all the Spirit's work is the Cross. You will, with the
slightest knowledge of the Old and New Testament
Scriptures, at once recall very much that brings these
two together. Back in the types we see them brought
together; in the fire upon the altar - the altar
typifying the Cross, and the fire upon the altar, the
Spirit consuming the sacrifice. Or again, as in Exodus
17, the rock smitten and the gushing water - the Cross
and the Spirit. Or, coming to the New Testament, the
Jordan of our Lord's baptism setting forth in type His
death and burial and resurrection, immediately issuing in
the open heavens and the Spirit in dove-like form resting
upon Him - the Cross and the Spirit. Or, going back with
that in mind to Israel's beginnings as a nation, the lamb
slain, the blood sprinkled, the pillar of cloud and fire
taking charge immediately afterwards - the Spirit by way
of the Cross, all pointing to the great inclusive
reality, Calvary and Pentecost. It is always like that.
The two are always together. And these are but
fragmentary selections of a vast amount in the Word of
God which shows this close and inseparable oneness
between the two.
When we
come to the Lord Jesus, we know that His very messages or
discourses on the Holy Spirit in a definite and specific
way were reserved until the eve of the passion. It was
with the shadow of the Cross thrown fully across His path
that He began to speak about the coming of the Comforter
and what that coming would mean to them; and He never did
say, "Receive ye the Holy Spirit" (John 20:22)
until He could show them His hands and His side, His
pierced hands, His riven side. Just as the Spirit came on
Him at the time of His typical death in baptism, so that
Spirit led Him to the actual Cross, where we are told He
"through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without
blemish unto God" (Heb. 9:14). Well, if it were
necessary, much more could be gathered to show how the
two are kept together - the Cross and the Spirit. The
Cross leads to the Spirit and the Spirit ever brings back
to the Cross.
Why is
the Cross basic to the Spirit's work? Our passage in
Galatians 3, gives the answer. Because a curse exists, is
resting now upon the old creation, "Christ redeemed
us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for
us," or, literally and correctly, "having
become a curse in our place." The human race by
nature lies under a curse and the Holy Spirit can never,
never, come upon an accursed thing. The promise of the
Spirit can never be fulfilled in those who still remain
under the curse. The curse must be removed, for the
anointing oil shall come upon no flesh; "upon the
flesh of man shall it not be poured" (Exodus 30:32).
The curse must be removed, and Christ redeemed us from
the curse of the law, having become a curse in our stead,
in order that we might receive the promise of the Spirit.
The removing of a whole condition and state under a curse
in order to clear the way for the Spirit - that is the
answer. Therein lies the necessity for the Cross and for
our faith identification with Him Who was made a curse
for us. And, however uncomfortable and unlovely it may
sound, the fact is that when the Holy Spirit really gets
to work in a life, on the one side the course and history
for that life is such as to make the one concerned very
well aware that the flesh is an accursed thing.
There
are no people in this world who are more ready to admit
and acknowledge the accursed nature of the flesh than
those who have the Spirit. It is the very pathway to
glory to discover how accursed the flesh is. That is on
one side. No doubt many of us know something of that
history. The Holy Spirit really does make the meaning of
the Cross known in that sense that the Cross speaks of a
place where a curse is, and we are there in Christ.
Something in the way has got to be removed.
Here, in
the case of these Galatians, the Apostle says that they
had begun in the Spirit; did they hope to be perfected in
the flesh? And bringing in this passage, it makes the
question very emphatic and very terrible. Having begun in
the Spirit - which pre-supposes that you are outside of
the curse to be able to make a beginning at all, to have
any prospect of going on - do you think you are going to
be perfected by getting back under the curse? No; the
argument is that that is only to close the door again, to
cut off all the prospect, to bar the way to any further
progress. "Having begun in the Spirit, are ye now
perfected in the flesh?" The deduction, while not
exactly stated, but quite clearly implied, is that,
having begun in the Spirit it is only possible to
continue in the Spirit on the ground on which you made a
beginning. That is, by the Cross you get away and
continually keep away from that ground of the curse; or,
in other words, your progress requires the continual
position to which the Cross brings you, just as your
beginning required that position. That is, to continue is
to continue in the Spirit.
But you
can continue in the Spirit only as you began in the
Spirit. That was only made possible by the Cross removing
the curse, the old man, the accursed old man. So that to
continue in the Spirit, to go right on to all that the
Spirit intends, means, and is after, demands a continual
cutting off of the flesh, a keeping cut off of the flesh
by the Cross. So the Spirit keeps the Cross in evidence,
and the Cross makes all the Spirit's purpose possible.
We
have not to be continually occupied with our crucifixion;
the Holy Spirit will attend to that. We have to walk in
the Spirit. To do this we have just to obey the Spirit.
It is positive, not negative.
In the
New Testament Letters we get a many-sided application of
the Cross as the Spirit's instrument. Let us look at some
of these. Firstly there is "Romans" which has
to do with:
The Cross And The Sinful Body Of The
Flesh
Up to
chapter seven everything circles round and centers in the
Cross. The Cross is the great issue toward which
everything is intended to lead. The Apostle steadily and
thoroughly works his way to that climax. All that is in
those seven chapters finds its end in the position set
forth in the words of chapter 6:3-11, and especially in
verses 3, 5, 6: "... all we who were baptized
into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death... we have
become united with Him in the likeness of His death...
our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin
might be done away." Until this has become a
position established and entered into, the revelation of
a life in the Spirit is not touched upon. But when this
has become basic, then we have all that follows about the
Spirit's Presence and Work.
"Ye
are... in the Spirit, if... the Spirit of God dwelleth in
you. But if any man hath not the Spirit of Christ, he is
none of His" (Romans 8:9).
"The
law of the Spirit of life
in Christ Jesus made me free from the law of
sin and death" (Romans 8:2).
"The
mind of the spirit is life and peace" (Romans
8:6). And so on.
Here,
then, the specific emphasis is upon the fact that, for
the Presence and Work of the Holy Spirit in the believer
and the "Body" (chapter seven) to be really
known, the whole body of sin (the man out of Christ being
a sinful creature and lying under judgment and
condemnation) must be - not reformed, remedied, improved,
educated to better things - but crucified and buried; not
just sins being taken away or pardoned, but HIMSELF put
away. As a man he must depart from God's sight, his good
(?) and his bad. He belongs by nature to a race which no
longer stands in the light of God's intention. God has
departed from that race, and has made a "new
creation." Christ in resurrection is the
"Firstborn among many brethren." He is
"the last Adam," meaning that as the First of a
new race, a new humanity, finality is with Him; there
will be no need of another. This "last Adam"
stepped back - so to speak - and before becoming in
resurrection the "Firstborn from the dead," He
gathered up all the race of the first Adam and
representatively took it into the full judgment of
God-forsakenness, crying "My God, My God, why hast
Thou forsaken Me?" That is God's ultimate mind
toward the whole race in the first Adam. We are called
upon to recognize that, to take a position and make a
declaration that we accept Christ's death as our death
and His burial as our burial. The New Testament says that
that is the declaration which baptism makes, or that that
declaration is made in baptism.
While
very much more ought to be said on this whole matter, we
will gather it up in this inclusive observation, that the
position in "Romans" is God's foundation, and
it is all-comprehensive. A Holy Spirit governed life will
be brought back to the implications of the Cross as the
end of the old man. There will be one basic crisis, but
through the years there may be many crises in which we
have to refer back to the original inclusive position
fresh issues which have been raised as we could bear to
know them. The final position which the Cross establishes
and to which the Holy Spirit works is that all shall be -
in every direction and connection - Christ only, and not
ourselves in any respect. Thus we are led to the next
specific application of the Cross as in the First Letter
to the Corinthians.
The Cross And The Natural Man
Here
those concerned are in Christ. So far as the
"Romans" situation is concerned as to
"Justified in Christ," the position is all
right. Their standing is complete; they have accepted
Christ as their substitute. It is not that they are in
the flesh, but that the flesh is in them, and they are
being largely influenced and actuated by natural
considerations. In their case it is the natural or
soulical man who is riding over the spiritual man.
"Natural" in 1 Corinthians is, in the Greek,
"soulical." The Apostle explains what
"soulical" means when he points out that their
own minds and hearts and wills are governing instead of
the mind of Christ by the Holy Spirit. Their reasonings,
judgments, ideas, standards of values - "the wisdom
of the world" - result in their unspiritual and
un-Christlike behavior. The soul-life finds its way even
into the most spiritual realms; e.g. spiritual gifts, to
use them for self-glory; the Lord's Table, to turn it to
self-gratification; etc. Thus their progress toward the
full purpose of being "In Christ" is retarded;
they are not spiritual but "carnal"; not grown
up ones but "babes."
In this
connection the Apostle says: "I determined not to
know anything among you, save Jesus Christ and Him
crucified" (1 Cor. 2:2). What is needed is that
application of the Cross, not to make us saved men and
women in a general sense, but to deliver us from our own
souls as they overflow the life of the Spirit in us. The
Cross must clear the way for the Spirit, and what must be
dealt with is the dominance of our own soul-life.
We pass
to another phase of the Cross and the Holy Spirit when we
come to the Letter to the Galatians. Here it is:
The Cross And Legalism
You will
remember how much there is in this letter concerning the
Spirit and the Cross. Look at the following two series of
passages - (a) Chapter 3:2-3,5,14; 4:6; 5:5, 16-18,22,25;
6:8. (b) 2:20; 3:1; 5:24; 6:14.
What
then is the point in this combination of the two - the
Cross and the Spirit? The Galatians were being urged and
tempted to return to the old legal order of "Thou
shalt" and "Thou shalt not"; to the
outward imposition of the whole system of religious
regulations and rules; to the strait-jacket of legalism.
Legalism is not only Jewish, it is a persistent tendency.
It is the easiest thing into which to fall. It is so easy
for a person who has the Spirit to begin to lay down the
law to others; to say, "You ought (or, ought not) to
do this or that"; "You must give up (or, adopt)
this or that." Thus the straitjacket of legal
bondage is imposed, and it is forgotten that the main
need is not law but that the Spirit should be Lord
within, and that when this is so, many things will fall
off, and those concerned will know what the Lord requires
of them. This, as the Apostle says in this letter, is the
way of sonship and liberty. The Lord within can be
trusted, and hands need not be put upon lives to govern
them. Let it be said quite definitely here that, as it
was circumcision particularly which occasioned this
letter to the Galatians, so it may be (and often is) some
one or more of the Christian ordinances or forms or
orders or observances which are made focal points of
legal pressure and crisis issues. Important as such
things may be, we cannot be too strong in pointing out
that they may safely be subjected to what is supremely
important, that is to say, if the Cross has really been
so truly wrought in a life as to deliver from bondage to
tradition, popular acceptances, and indeed all that is
but the letter apart from the Spirit, thus giving a full
and clear way for the absolute sovereignty of the Holy
Spirit within the life, all such things will take care of
themselves, and they will be brought in (that is, those
which are required by the Lord) in a LIVING, rather
than a legal and dead way. But what a mighty work it is
for the Cross to have delivered from the inheritance of
generations! Setness and finality are features of a legal
system, and make spiritual growth and enlargement
impossible. Truth without life is fatal, as is
righteousness without love. Prejudice and suspicion are
fruits of bondage to some religious THING and not
of the Spirit.
It is
possible to have the most perfect New Testament order and
framework, and a most devoted adherence to the letter of
the Word, but to be almost totally devoid of life and
unction. This is usually due to a failure in a deep
experimental working of the Cross and consequent
hindering of the Spirit.
Every
one of these aspects of the Cross and the Holy Spirit
ought to have a volume to itself, and we are only able to
give here the vital points. We shall now pass on to those
companion letters known to us as "Ephesians"
and "Colossians," but more truly, circular
letters to churches in an area. Here the particular
application relates to:
Deliverance From The Earthlies
And the
matter in view is THE FULLNESS OF CHRIST. In
"Colossians" it is fullness in Christ as Head
of the Church, the Body. "He is the Head of the
Body, the Church:... that in Him should all the
fullness dwell" (1:18-19). "... in
Whom are all the treasures of wisdom and
knowledge..." (2:3). "In Him dwelleth
all the fullness... and in Him ye are made full" (2:9-10),
etc.
In
"Ephesians," the fullness is in Christ IN
THE CHURCH. "... gave Him to be Head over all things
to the Church, which is His Body, the fullness of Him
That filleth all in all" (1:22-23). "...
that ye may be filled unto all the fullness of God" (3:19).
"... till we all attain unto the fullness of
Christ." (4:13).
This is
all revealed to be the object of "the eternal
purpose," "the counsel of His will." It
dates back to before times eternal and on to "the
age of the ages." It is a vast and unspeakable
Divine intention, and one unto which not all will attain.
It costs the Apostle much travail, agony, and striving on
behalf of the Church (Col. 1:28; 2:1).
This
"attaining" demands a special application of
the Cross and consequent operation of the Holy Spirit. A
phrase particularly characteristic of these letters is
"the heavenlies." "Ephesians" has it
five times, and the point is carried on in
"Colossians" (see Ephesians 1:3,20; 2:6; 3:10;
6:12; Colossians 3:1-2). This is shown to mean a
spiritual position, life, and vocation, and when we look
at the context we find that it is of very practical
implications. Of course, it is especially related to the
Church, the Body, and is corporate; but what is true of
the Body must be true of every member, hence many
personal exhortations. The practical implications
referred to combine to emphasize that
"fullness" is heavenly and spiritual, and
therefore the Lord's people - if they are to attain, not
to salvation, but to "purpose" - must live on
the heavenly line. Thus, all merely earthly features as
governing factors have to be left behind. There is
nationality. "There cannot be Greek and Jew."
We have got to leave that ground, both as to ourselves
and others. If we stand on national ground, which not
only means nationalism, but temperament and disposition,
we are going to cut short spiritual growth. The same
applies to the social "bondman, freeman"; to
race or civilization "Barbarian, Scythian"; to
religious rites - "circumcision,
uncircumcision" (Col. 3:10-11).
The
point is this: Christ is in heaven. He is there as
"Head of the Body." Christ is essentially a
heavenly Man, representative of a new humanity, not of
this divided, conflicting, chaotic, disrupted race. He is
other and different. Divine fullness will be only known
in Him AS SUCH. We have got to leave the ground of
this humanity at every point and LIVE ON THE GROUND OF
CHRIST - where "Christ is all, and in all."
To do
otherwise is to lower Christ, to divide Christ, and to
limit Christ.
Unto
this heavenly position and fullness the Holy Spirit has
come to lead the Church - which, as the "One
Body," cannot recognize or tolerate schism or
divisions except to its own destruction. So we have in
these companion letters much about the Holy Spirit. See
Ephesians 1:3 (instead of "spiritual blessing"
it should be "blessing of the Spirit") 1:13-14,17;
2:18,22; 3:5,16; 4:3-4,30; 5:9,18; 6:17-18; Col. 1:8.
But this
work of the Spirit demands that the Cross has really come
in between earth and heaven, and that - because of it -
in a true spiritual apprehension we have taken our place
with Christ in heaven. "Made us to sit
with Him in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus."
Because
of the advanced position set forth, the Cross is largely
taken for granted in "Ephesians."
"We
have our redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of
our trespasses." "The exceeding
greatness of His power to us-ward who
believe... which He wrought in Christ, when He raised Him
from the dead..." "And you did He quicken when
you were dead... and raised us up with Him."
"That ye put away... the old man and put on
the new man." (Ephesians 1:7,19; 2:1,6;
4:22,24).
In
Colossians it is more definite still. (See Colossians
2:11-13,20; 3:3,9).
It is a
vast revelation which is given in these letters, a
"land of far distances" and of inexhaustible
riches. We shall only keep ourselves out of it if we live
on, and become actuated by, earthly considerations. Here
we are forbidden to talk in a discriminating way, either
favourably or unfavourably, about British, American,
Chinese, German, etc.; social distinctions; or any other
feature of the old humanity. If that were our realm of
business and sole consideration then we should have to be
so affected; but in Christ's interests and in the Church
we are crucified to all this, and now we seek to meet
believers solely on the ground of Christ. Only so can
there be the building up of the Body. There are many
other dividing factors among the Lord's people, both as
to their natural constitution and their religious
acceptance. The Cross is the remedy for all, and the
Spirit of God demands the Cross if spiritual fullness is
to be reached.
Our
final word for the present will arise from the Letter to
the Philippians. It is the climax of the risen life.
The Cross And The Throne
In the
first place the case of Christ is cited as an example. "Existing
in God-form... emptied Himself, taking the form of a
bond-servant... humbled Himself, becoming obedient unto
death, yea, the death of the Cross. Wherefore also God
highly exalted Him, and gave unto Him the Name which is
above every name..." (2:5-9).
Then the
Apostle is seen to be aspiring with a tremendous
aspiration unto something that he calls "the prize
of the " (3:14). It looks very much
as though this is all of a piece with the call and
promise to the overcomers of the Laodicean Church.
"He that overcometh, I will give to him to sit down
with Me in My throne..." (Rev. 3:21).
Thus it
is clear from these Scriptures that (1) not all will
"attain," and (2) a special work of the Cross
is basic to attaining. The Cross has to deal with our
"mindedness." "Have this mind in
you." "Emptied Himself." This
"mindedness" is seen in Paul. "I count all
things to be loss... and do count them but refuse."
Into the balances with the THRONE both Christ and
Paul placed all PERSONAL "gain."
Position, rights, reputation, advantages, etc.; this was
the way and outworking of the Cross. "Obedient unto
death." "Becoming conformed unto His
death."
It is
all so much a matter of "mindedness." There was
a situation at Philippi which represented a real
hindrance to that "pressing on" and
"attaining," a real menace and threat to the
"prize"; a real challenge to "the on-high
calling." Two people were not of one mind; there was
a clash and a breach. The implications seem to be that
personal interests and earthly considerations were the
strength of this strain. Only as the Cross dealt with THAT
"mindedness," and made way for
Christ-mindedness could the way be cleared for
apprehending that for which they had been apprehended by
Christ Jesus. Satan is terribly against saints coming to
the THRONE. That THRONE and that Transcendent
Name mean his final undoing. He knows that a
"mindedness" which is not the fruit of death to
self and Resurrection to Christ alone can frustrate that
Divine "calling." Everything, then, lies behind
this Throne-union - "Romans,"
"Corinthians," "Galatians,"
"Ephesians," "Colossians," and
"Philippians," in their specific and cumulative
application of the truth that the Spirit always works by
the Cross, and the Cross always leads on to the Spirit.