"The first man
Adam became a living soul. The last Adam a life-giving
spirit" (1 Cor. 15:45).
"The first man is
of the earth, earthy: the second man is of heaven"
(1 Cor. 15:47).
A
Perfect Example of the New Creation Man
Now we want to go on to
the further phases of the meaning of Christ. The next is
the meaning of His incarnation and life on earth. Here
again, the study of the doctrine and of the history,
while being very inspiring, ennobling, yet needs the
Spirit of God to break in on our hearts to make us
realise the tremendous significance of this matter.
Simply to say that the incarnation and life on earth was
a representation of the new creation man from God's
standpoint is, after all, but to make a statement. There
is a lot in it. But we have to know that, as it was then,
so it is now, a tremendous challenge. The question might
be asked - Why did the Christ come by way of birth and
babyhood and childhood and youth? If He came to be the
Redeemer, the Saviour, and His redemptive work was
essentially and solely related to His Cross, or fulfilled
in His Cross, why were thirty-three years prior to that
necessary? If it is God incarnate, God has been known in
the Old Testament again and again to manifest Himself
along the line of what are called 'the Theophanies', that
is, visible manifestation to fulfil some immediate
purpose, and then, having fulfilled it, withdrawal. Why
should not God manifest in the flesh have been like that,
if it were only the work of the Cross that was to be
done? It is a legitimate question, because much hangs
upon the answer. We shall see that those thirty-three
years were necessary because God takes up things right
from the beginning to represent His thought in a life
that is lived through its stages, its vicissitudes, here
on this earth, showing what His mind is about the new
creation order of man; and before He can bring that in,
in any collective or corporate way, He must have worked
it out in One Who is a racial First-born, in a life lived
here, in this world; worked it out triumphantly and
secured it against every opposing force. So He started
right there in babyhood.
The Lord does not want
us to be too much occupied with the natural side of this
always, romancing about the manger and the stable and the
inn. He wants us to get behind that. What I mean is this:
anybody can talk about the earthly life of Jesus of
Nazareth and make of it a beautiful story and a great
example and that sort of thing, and never be affected so
far as an inward change and revolution is concerned; and
that is the peril of it. You can see that in its grosser
and exaggerated forms in some of the systems of
Christendom today. You can go in certain quarters and see
the thing set out in shop windows - the baby, the manger,
the cattle; and you know that the system that does that
sort of thing is one that has no relationship to the
inner life of people at all; the two are poles asunder.
But not only in that realm, but in our own realm, there
is always this peril of visualising, getting a mentality
and an objectivity in spiritual things, not knowing that
God has something to say right into our hearts by
bringing His Son here into this world from infancy
onward, and having that life here in a world like this
for thirty-three years. He is working out something,
showing something, is doing something, and He is doing
that in the spiritual realm; and He wants to repeat that
in the Church and in the members of the Church, the Body
of Christ.
The
Spiritual Value of Christ
One thing is
particularly and jealously guarded by God in the case of
the earthly life of the Lord Jesus. It is this, that,
whatever Christ was it was spiritual; there was nothing
from cradle to grave which made Him anything naturally or
temporally. It could have been otherwise, and men were
looking for it to be otherwise, and were offended
that it was not so, "...born King of the Jews"
(Matt. 2:2), a king born in a stable and cradled in a
manger, shut out, excluded, not given room! And from
cradle to grave, it was like that; nothing, nothing that
could be taken hold of naturally and temporally to credit
Him with particular value and importance, but everything
to the contrary; and God jealously guarded that, would
not allow it to be otherwise, kept Him at that level.
Why? For this reason and because of this principle which
abides, that whatever Christ is in value, it is
spiritual. It is the spiritual value of Christ that God
has safeguarded, not allowing men and the world to take
Him up and say, Here is some great one; look at this and
that and the other thing about him! No, you can say
nothing like that about Jesus of Nazareth, nothing at
all. He is to the Jews a stumbling-block, to the Greeks
foolishness, but to us who believe, Christ, the wisdom of
God and the power of God (1 Cor. 1:23) - but a hidden
wisdom, not of this world nor of the rulers of this
world. Do realise that, that it is the spiritual value of
Christ that God has so jealously safeguarded by the
conditions of the incarnation, and of His life while here
on this earth, and that is what we want to seek to work
out, to recognise.
Christ has become so
much other in Christianity, and thereby He has lost His
impact, He has been stripped of His dynamic; embellished
with an embellishment that God never countenanced. The
only embellishment of Christ, if we dare use that word,
the only true glorifying, the only true exalting of
Christ is that of the spirit, of the heart, and therefore
it is only possible for the redeemed, who know that they
are redeemed, to glorify Christ truly. The Lord
repudiates all the garlands laid upon Him which are
temporal, in this dispensation; He will not have them.
What He wants is a spirit that appreciates and values, a
heart that goes out in grateful worship. You notice how,
through His life, that was always the thing upon which He
put His seal. Any recognition of His spiritual value, and
a humble brokenness at His feet - ah, there He found what
His heart wanted; and when they would cut down branches
and hail Him, He had a big reserve in His heart. He knew
men; that was not what really satisfied Him. A heart
appreciation of Christ is the only true one.
So we have to see the
spiritual value of Christ during those thirty-three
years, and there is a realm for wonderful unveilings to
our hearts by the Holy Spirit. I am not going through it
- it would take far too long, for one thing. I am simply
declaring facts, principles. But to come to two things
about Him which are of abiding meaning, not only in Him
personally, but, as John says, "which thing is true
in him and in you" (1 John 2:8). [In passing, let us
note that that is the right kind of interpretation of the
life of the Lord Jesus. It is a spiritual one. John got
it very clearly. He will, with the opening of his Gospel,
present the Son. "In the beginning was the
Word" and so on. But then, when he gets to his
Epistle, he starts, "That which was from the
beginning, that which we have heard, that which we have
seen with our eyes, which we beheld, and our hands
handled, concerning the Word of life (and the life was
manifested, and we have seen, and bear witness, and
declare unto you the life, the eternal, which was with
the Father....)" That is the life of Christ, the
only really valuable one - it is the spiritual revelation
of Christ to the heart.]
Constituted
by the Spirit for Life
Now, as to these two
things about Him which are true in Him and in us, if we
are true children of God. One, that He was constituted by
the Spirit for life. He was begotten of the Holy Ghost,
He was born of the Spirit; the Spirit of God, the Holy
Spirit, was there at birth. You will see what I am after
in a moment. We mention the fact that at thirty years of
age, the Spirit came upon Him. What is the difference? If
He was filled with the Spirit from His birth, if He was
born of the Spirit, why should the Spirit come upon Him
thirty years later? You have to explain that. To begin
with, the answer is this - He was constituted by the
Spirit for life, to live His life by the Spirit,
"which thing is true in him and in you". We
cannot live the life of children of God, much less as
sons of God, unless we are constituted to do so by the
Holy Spirit. It was for life; and here you are going to
have thirty-three years with a mighty climax of what it
means to live by the Spirit, and everything in that life
for those years is the working out of the Spirit dwelling
within. Constituted to live, just to live - that is the
point. For thirty years you know very little about Him,
and what you do know is that He was not doing
specifically and immediately the ultimate thing for which
He came. You know that for thirty years He was more or
less a private person living a private life, doing the
work which many other men did, an ordinary trade,
probably looking after a widowed mother, and helping to
look after and support a large family, and learning
privation and how to make ends meet, so that later He
knew the cost of two sparrows in the market, and if you
could buy two farthings' worth you would get an extra
bird thrown in. How did He know that? He had probably
lived it through. But through all that, He was living His
life by the Spirit, and God was causing a man to live on
the basis of the new creation by constituting him by the
indwelling Spirit. Perhaps my way of saying it may be
open to correction, but you see what I am after.
And, dear friends, in
this new creation in Christ Jesus, we are called to live
here, not romantic lives at all, not lives of great
public attraction and interest, but ordinary lives - to
do our job, learn our lessons, experience adversities,
carry responsibilities, do the thousand and one things
which belong to the ordinary person's life, but to live
on a higher level than the ordinary person; and that
cannot be done unless we are constituted to do it by the
Holy Spirit. But it can be if we are. And one aspect or
one side of the Holy Spirit's purpose in coming is to
enable men and women to live the life of men and women in
this world, on this earth, but on another level. Do
believe that. So many people think that immediately they
become Christians and are interested in the Lord's work,
they have to come out of the ordinary realm of daily life
and become something special - that the Holy Spirit being
within them, of course they must give up their job and go
and find some other kind of work for the Lord. Don't you
believe it! I do not believe that the Lord does that sort
of thing with anybody until He has made them live a life
on a higher level in spheres where everybody else has to
live. If you cannot do that, give up hope of being sent
by the Lord into some other kind of sphere or work. If
you try it by direct means or back doors, you will find
that the Lord is never got over in that way. We have to
be brought back here to live on the new creation level in
this old creation world by being so constituted of the
Holy Spirit. Is there any impact in that? I am sure there
is challenge in it. So face your situation and understand
why the Lord holds you in it and does not let you out.
You have got to live there by the Holy Spirit before the
Lord will make a change. So for thirty years He lived an
ordinary life in an extraordinary way. He was constituted
from birth by the Holy Spirit to live in the realm of the
new creation while still moving in the realm of the old.
We are constituted from new birth for that very purpose.
That is one thing.
Anointed
of the Spirit for Specific Work
Then we come to this
matter of the anointing at thirty years of age. What is
this? Ah, this is a new phase. He was anointed of the
Holy Ghost for specific work, for that supreme thing for
which He had come and been chosen of God - anointed of
God for the remaining three and a half years and all that
that meant. I want to get inside of that. You see, the
Lord Jesus had a spirit in Him, His own human spirit, and
in His case, His human spirit was sinless, and yet it was
necessary that the Spirit of God should utterly dominate
that human spirit, and hold entire government over it.
When it came to working out the great purpose of God -
not only living a life, but now working out something
very much more serious and grim than that - the great
purpose of God - it was necessary that the Spirit of God
should utterly dominate Him for this reason - to hold
everything unto God, that everything should be out from
God, not even out from His own spirit. This whole work of
God had to be held very strongly into God so that it was
wholly and utterly of God.
You get
back into the Old Testament, you have it in type and
representation. You know how, again and again, the Spirit
of the Lord came upon this one and that one, men
represented as being already consecrated to the Lord. In
all the typical sense, they were sanctified people.
Bezaleel and Aholiab were consecrated men, separated unto
the Lord. In the type, they were sanctified men, but the
Spirit of God came upon them. You see, even consecrated
men are not to be left to themselves, not to have ability
in themselves and act out from themselves. Taking
Bezaleel and Aholiab as examples - the Spirit of God came
upon them. Why? Because there is a Divine pattern to be
meticulously followed and carried out, and it is not
going to be left even to people who are most devoted to
the Lord to do the Lord's work out from themselves. Only
the Spirit of God knows what and how and when, and that
is very important to God. Not what we, in most earnest
devotion, think should be done for the Lord - He does not
accept that; not how we, with all the best motive in the
world and the heart most real in its desire for the
Lord's glory, think it should be done; and not when or
where we, though given to the Lord, think or feel it
should be. Not a bit of it!
Paul was a
very consecrated man, out and out for God. There is no
doubt about him, about his true zeal for God. (I am
speaking of his post-conversion zeal.) He is a man who
knows the Lord, whose spirit has been quickened, and
whose spirit is indwelt by the Holy Spirit, and yet he
will essay to go into Bithynia, and to preach the word in
Asia, but the Spirit of Jesus will suffer him not (Acts
16:7). He will be forbidden of the Holy Ghost to go in
the way on which he set out. You see the point.
Now, I am
not saying that Jesus and Paul are identical, but I am
saying that the Lord Jesus is a representation here on
this earth of a man living in this world on the new
creation basis and principle. I am not leaving out His
Deity. I am talking in the realm of God bringing here an
example, a perfect example or representation of a new
creation man, and the principles of the life of such. To
live that new creation life he must be constituted by the
Holy Spirit. To fulfil the work of God, he must be
anointed, because everything has to be held to God, held
for God, come out from God, and only so can there be the
effect and the impact - and it is an impact when the Holy
Ghost gets hold of us and moves us in His direction. Was
it not so with Paul? He thought to preach the word in
Asia, essayed to go into Bithynia and the Spirit of Jesus
suffered him not. The Spirit of Jesus took the positive
as well as the negative line, and directed him to
Philippi. Was there impact at Philippi? All hell felt the
impact there, and we know the result of that visit to
Philippi, both in the church then and in the product of
that church spiritually through all these centuries. That
letter to Philippi is the product of the church at
Philippi. That little letter touches great ranges. The
Anointing is necessary to bring about that kind of thing.
It is not only necessary to be born of the Spirit and
consecrated to God, but governed by the Lord. The
Anointing means that everything in life and service must
be held unto God and come out from God. Paul says
"If any man is in Christ, there is a new creation;
the old things are passed away; behold, they are become
new. But all things are of God" (2 Cor. 5:17-18).
All things are 'out from' God.
The
Impact of Christ
Now this
one further thing. Because the Lord Jesus lived on that
basis and principle of a life lived in and by the Spirit,
and a work carried out under the government of the
Spirit, His earthly life here was a constant
registration, both amongst men and in the spiritual
realm. If there is one thing patent about His life here
on earth, it is this, that, wherever He went something
started up, nothing just lay dormant. People and demons
were stirred; His presence meant that. The presence of
the Lord Jesus in the house of Zacchaeus will cause
Zacchaeus to confess his miserable, contemptible sin and
wrong-doing. That results from the Lord's presence.
"Today I must abide at thy house". You do not
learn of anything else the Lord said to him. The story
stops with that, and surely, if the Holy Spirit had meant
us to know any more, He would have given more details.
But the Holy Spirit has been content to say this; the
Lord Jesus went into the house and the man began to feel
bad and to say so. That is all. You have numerous
instances of that sort of thing amongst people.
Religious, self-righteous people, begin to excuse or to
justify themselves. Have you not met such? They
immediately begin to tell you what good people they are -
they are not feeling comfortable, they have somehow to
put up their fortifications, to protect their position.
So it was with the religious people of Christ's day, and
with the rest. Yes, He did not move amongst them without
something happening. And the very demons cried out,
"What have we to do with thee, thou Jesus of
Nazareth? art thou come to destroy us? I know thee who
thou art, the Holy One of God" (Mark 1:24). What is
the matter with them? He is there under the Anointing, in
the power of the Spirit; something is going to happen, it
must happen. And, dear friends, that is just where our
need comes - that our lives really do result in
something. I am not saying that you and I should pass
down the street and everybody should begin to shout and
talk. But I do think that it must be true that our having
been on this earth has registered something which means
that things cannot just remain dormant as they were. Of
course, many of you know this in your own experience as a
believer amongst unbelievers. You know, without saying
anything to them, how they begin to wriggle, to talk,
very often. Praise God if that is so; it is a sign that
the Spirit is in you if people are up against you - if
you do not ask for it. If you are living there quietly
and beautifully by the Spirit of the Lord, and things
become ugly around you, be encouraged, that is how it
should be. If you are a child of God and no one feels it,
there is something wrong. The enemy knows where Christ
is. I need not say more along that line. Here is the
meaning of Christ's life on the earth - it was to show
what a life in the new creation is like, and what its
effect is, how it is first constituted and then governed
by the Spirit. And, by all the teaching of the New
Testament, this is intended to be true of us, true of the
Church and of believers. O God, make it more true! That
must be our prayer. This is where we must have our
response, our reaction. It is not enough merely to accept
the tale of the life of Jesus, the story of His birth and
of His going about doing good: but what is the effect of
this in the realm of things spiritual? What is the
abiding value, as far as you and I are concerned, and the
Lord's people? It must touch a realm beyond this earthly,
and stir to the depths the realm of evil spiritual
intelligences. His life was a mighty challenge in every
realm, because the Spirit of God was upon Him.
I have not
touched in detail that large realm of His life where the
Anointing governed His movements. That is quite patent -
that He did not move on the ground of His personal
devotion to the Father. He moved by intimation and
direction of the Spirit of God. You can see why the
Church has lost its impact. It is because it has
concluded that, once you have consecrated your life to
the Lord, you can do anything you like - arrange for the
Lord, plan, scheme, do all sorts of things for the
Lord. The Church has been doing that for a long time,
it is doing it now. Their argument is that it is for the
Lord. How far is it getting? What is the comparative
value of it? I leave you to answer that. It was not like
that at the beginning, in the case of the Lord Jesus, in
the first days of the Church when the Spirit, by the
Anointing, really did govern. In a very short time, far,
far more was achieved than was done in a very, very long
time afterwards. No, we are consecrated to the Lord, but
we have to have the Lord's direction for every movement,
and not conclude that, because we are out for the Lord,
we must just do all we can. Let us get it from the Lord,
and only so will it be effective. It is not easy,
perhaps, or it does not seem easy, but it is something to
which the Lord calls us, and it is the way back to
effectiveness. At any rate, let us put it like this -
there is going to be nothing unless it is under the
Anointing, and the Anointing means full charge of all
life and all activity. Here is the place for repentance -
repentance that there has been so much of ourselves and
so little of the Lord. Here is the place for submission,
that He shall be Lord in the power and reality of the
Anointing. The Lord grant it!