In our previous
meditation, we were occupied with the ultimate meaning
and nature of that testimony which in God's thought is
primary, and fundamental, but, so far as the Church is
concerned, is that toward which the Lord is working -
namely, the fulness of Christ.
Now we take the next
thing in relation to that matter which, of course, has
been in view all the time and has been referred to; but
we desired first of all to have Christ Himself in
contemplation as overshadowing all. Now, having that
established and recognised, we are brought to the vessel
which God has chosen, in which the testimony of the Lord
Jesus is to be deposited and embodied - the Church as the
Lord's vessel of testimony here in this dispensation. Of
course, this follows the same lines as the fulness of
Christ. You remember that in speaking of the fulness of
Christ we saw how He was and is all of God. The Divine
fulness and spiritual fulness is gathered into Him as all
of God. Then as to His place (like the place of the
candlestick in the holy place, between heaven and earth)
there was that about Him which did meet on the one hand
every kind of need of every race, of every station and
level of life, from the poorest to the most distinguished
amongst men; all nations, all degrees, every aspect of
this world's life as represented by mankind, found in Him
the full answer to its need. On the other hand, heaven
found its satisfaction in Him; God found His full-hearted
satisfaction in the Lord Jesus. The universality of His
fulness for heaven and for earth was the matter in view.
Now the Church follows
the same line as the Lord Jesus. The vessel of the
testimony proceeds along the same course as He did. He
said to His disciples, the nucleus of His Church,
"Follow me." But they came to realise that that
meant something more than walking about where He went on
the earth. It was something very deep. "Follow
me." Oh, what a content! And the Church's spiritual
history as the vessel of His testimony is, in that deeper
and fuller sense, a following of Christ. It follows Him
in the spiritual significance of every step and stage of
His life when He was here.
Born
of the Holy Ghost
First of all, He was
born, and He was born of the Holy Ghost, and any vessel
for the testimony of Jesus in the sense in which we are
speaking of it, in the sense in which God has embodied it
in this symbolism - a candlestick of gold - any such
vessel or instrument has got to be born, and born of God
the Holy Ghost. It is not something you can make and put
together, it is not something that can be organised and
arranged, it is not something people can decide to have -
'We will form something, we will set up something, for
the Lord's service' - it is not like that at all. It has
to be born, and born as He was born - of the Holy Ghost.
It has to come right out from God. If you make the birth
of the Lord Jesus common with all other births and take
out of it the absolutely supernatural and miraculous
element, then you destroy the whole concept of God as to
a heavenly testimony. If you make something yourself
after the likeness of this, there is no guarantee that
there will be the heavenly flame in it. This has got to
be born. You cannot repeat it. That, of course, carries a
lot with it. Let us take that as containing much more
than we are able to say and explain at this time. For all
work of God let it be remembered that you cannot
duplicate and multiply the original. The original is of
God, not of man, and everything that is of God has to be
born like that; not of man, not of the will of the flesh,
but of God. It is only the first step, but it is a very
radical one. Do not go away and say, 'We are going to
have something like this where we are.' Do not get the
idea that you can repeat anywhere anything that you
think is good. If God does not do it, it will break your
heart if you try to do it.
Testing
Unto Perfecting
Then, having been born,
it must be placed upon a plane of testing, just as He was
- a testing unto perfecting. That does not allow any
place for sin in the case of the Lord Jesus. The fact
that the Scripture distinctly says that He was made
perfect through sufferings (Heb. 2:10) and that
"though he was a Son, yet learned (he) obedience by
the things which he suffered" (Heb. 5:8) - that does
not admit of any sin in His nature. It only signifies
that He was placed upon the level of humanity, and in a
representative way went through what we have to go
through. He was without sin, we with sin within. The
principle is the thing that governs. It is the testing as
to the direction of the will. "Thy will, not
mine." By every means conceivable - and conceivable
by the most diabolical ingenuity of hell, all the art and
cunning of the serpent deeper than man's wisdom - He was
assailed in the realm of the will, as to whether He would
or could be diverted one hairsbreadth from the will of
His Father. By attraction, by allurement, by bribery, by
prizes offered, by sore trouble, by terrible assaults, by
treachery - oh, everything was used to tempt Him! But His
will remained steadfast to the Father. On that ground He
was tested, and we are tested in exactly the same way.
The Church has to follow that course of testing unto
perfecting. The perfecting in His case was simply that He
brought that steadfastness to completion, that
faithfulness to a final end without deviation or loss.
Now, by the grace of
God, by the strength of the Spirit of God within, God is
calling upon us to recognise that there is no
contradiction with Him, no contradiction in this realm.
He has deposited with mankind the most sacred trust,
freedom of will - freedom to make choice, to make
decision. That is a sacred gift of God upon which He
counts very much, and for the exercise of which He always
calls; and destiny depends upon the exercise of that
trust in decision, choice. God focuses upon that which is
His most sacred trust, making man a morally responsible
person. The contradiction would be if, now that we belong
to the Lord, we sat down and waited for the Lord to make
our decisions for us, to do something which would decide
the whole matter where we are concerned without our
having anything to say about it. That would be a
contradiction; God would be contradicting Himself -
counting upon our will, and yet acting independently of
it. I am not saying that there are not times and issues
where God just steps in and acts, but that is not the
normal. The normal is that God is seeking to have our
will cooperating with His. On that basis, by every test
imaginable, the Lord Jesus was perfected. On that line,
you and I are following the Lord Jesus; on that line the
Church has to go, willing one will with God. Sometimes
that means a great deal of repudiation of our own will,
sometimes a tremendous act of decision which usually is
focused in a crisis as to what we call the will of God.
That is not passive, it is active.
We are placed, then, on
a basis of testing. The vessel has to be perfected in
that way. Oh, there is no royal road to this true service
of God, no easy way of just handing it all up to the Lord
for Him to do it all, so that you need not worry or have
anything to say or do in the matter. That would be very
easy, but it is not the Lord's way. Beware of that snare.
The
Attesting of God
Through the testing,
there comes the attesting. I believe that the baptism of
the Lord Jesus represented the utterness of His
abandonment to God. It was a foreshadowing of the burial
and resurrection - immediately followed by the
allestation of God "This is my beloved Son, in whom
I am well pleased." It foreshadowed, it summed up,
the whole of His life from the moment of His consecration
to the moment of His death, and therefore the attesting
of God from heaven was on the ground that He had proved
Himself unto death abandoned to the will of God and
entirely dead as to His own will, that is, as to another
will, an independent will, apart from God. The point is
that God drew attention to what was wholly of Himself.
God never draws attention to man as such, nor to our
works as such, even though they be for Him. God draws
attention to what is wholly of Himself, and He could draw
attention to His Son all the way along, and say, 'Look,
behold, see!' And such an instrument as will have the
testimony of Jesus in it, whether it be individual or
corporate, will be like that - that God is seeking all
the time so to work in that vessel that He can say, 'That
is where I am, that is what I am after. Look here, look
there, and you will find Me.' it is not glorifying the
thing, the people, or anything on that level, but it is
drawing attention to what is of Himself. If the Lord is
going to add to the Church, you may be quite sure He is
not going to build up something that is not of Himself,
in which He is not very fully present. It was when the
Church was full of the Holy Ghost and Christ was regnant
in the midst that the Lord added to the Church. It is the
secret of growth, it is the secret of revival, that God
has something that has within it His Son in such measure
that He can say, 'I can go on with that, I can attest
that, I can add to that, I can build that up.' Attested
through testing; approved.
And the Lord Jesus is
said to have been "perfected the third day"
(Luke 13:32), perfected through suffering, and, being
perfected, He was received up into glory. Nothing, that
is not perfected has ever been received up into glory. Do
not think of glory as being only a place. It may be a
place, but it is a state also; a state of glory. It is
being glorified. Jesus, having been tested and attested,
was glorified; and the Church, the vessel of His
testimony, along the same line, following Him, can be
glorified because perfected, and perfection means simply
that everything that is not of the Lord has gone out and
everything that is present is of the Lord. It is the Lord
Who is glorified in His saints. It is His glory, not
ours.
A
Contradiction to the World
That is very simple,
but you see that is the nature of things. This vessel,
this instrument, this candlestick, has got to stand as a
full-orbed contradiction to all that exists which is not
of God, that is contrary to God; that means a full-orbed
contradiction to the world. What do we mean by the world?
I think we can sum up the world as it is referred to in
the Scriptures in two words - gain and self-glory: that
is, glory which is not the glory of God. Is it not true
that the spirit of this world is gain? How can you
explain or interpret things in this world otherwise than
that - gain? To have - whether it is territory, riches,
knowledge, or whatever it may be - in every connection
the goal is to have, to possess, to gain advantage, and
thus by gaining to come to glory of its own. It is very
subtle, it works in us all. We may think of the world,
but it is here in our hearts - to have some gratification
by coming to a position, to be self-satisfied by
attaining to some eminence, some influence, some place of
power, some possession. That is the spirit of this world,
and that now is utterly contrary to God. Christ was a
contradiction to all that spirit, and His Church, this
candlestick vessel of testimony, is to be the embodiment
of that contradiction - contrary to the world spirit and
principle; not to get but to give; not to be glorified in
itself but for Him to be glorified in all. The Lord Jesus
sought not His own glory but the glory of Him that sent
Him. He said "I seek not mine own glory" (John
8:50), and, by the context, it was a reflection upon
those around Him - even the religious leaders - who
sought glory by possession, position and so on. No, this
is an instrument which contradicts that whole thing in
spirit and in principle.
A
Contradiction to the Works of Satan
It contradicts all the
works of Satan. Can we sum up the works of Satan in one
word? I think we can. It is selfhood. You trace the
history of Satan in the Scriptures. You go right back and
you find that he became the adversary of God by seeking
selfhood. He made Adam the tragedy that he became by
imbuing him with the same spirit of selfhood. "Ye
shall be..." (Gen. 3:5). Selfhood, self-centredness;
it is born in us. You can see it in the youngest child -
how a child likes to be the centre of all attention. This
spirit is there and it is in us all. There can be no true
testimony of Jesus where things are centred in any man or
body of men, or in any thing as such. Oh, how Satan has
spoiled what would otherwise have been a thing very
precious to God, by putting some individual as the focal
centre of everything and causing everything to circle
round that individual; or by making much of the thing,
the instrument itself (whatever it might be), drawing
attention to it in order to divert attention subtly and
cleverly from the Lord. People so easily become taken up
with the thing, the work, an instrument.
Selfhood has many
subtle ways of expressing itself in the work of God; and
surely the tragedy of much work for God has been that the
people have sported themselves in the work, have gained
or sought for themselves reputation, name, place,
recognition and title. All that has come in
imperceptibly, the Lord Jesus being hidden behind men and
things. No, this vessel must be all of God, and this
testimony must be, in its very essence, a contradiction
to all that work of Satan.
Again in the matter of
divisions. Is it not one of the great works of Satan to
produce divisions, schism, conflicts, parties, factions?
Oh, what a long and terrible history of Satan's work
there has been dividing the people of God, stopping at
nothing until he has made them individual fragments; not
even allowing two to remain together in spiritual
fellowship if he can help it! The battle for spiritual
oneness is a real battle against Satan and all his
spiritual forces. But this candlestick is a whole. It is
not a composite thing. It was not made of pieces stuck
together, mortised in to the main stem. It was to be one
piece, all beaten out of one piece. There are no joins
here, no places of which you can say - 'that is where one
begins and another ends; if you are going to divide it,
that is where you must start the work.' You cannot find a
crevice, crack or join in this. It is all one piece
wrought by fire, wrought by the hammer. It is a
contradiction to all the work of Satan in division. Let
us recognise that - that division is the work of Satan.
The testimony of Jesus contradicts division. It is the
oneness of the great Divine love. Is it not there that
all independence is such a pernicious and dangerous and
damaging thing - our independent decisions and courses
and life?
It may be that it is in
that very connection that we have light thrown upon the
Lord Jesus in His choice of friends. "I have called
you friends" (John 15:15). "I chose you"
(John 15:16). "He appointed twelve, that they might
be with him" (Mark 3:14). "...having loved his
own that were in the world, he loved them unto the
end" (John 13:1). It would have been, in many
respects, a very much easier thing if He had been without
them and gone on alone. Knowing all that was involved in
choosing those men, why did He deliberately do it? He
spent a night in prayer before doing it, evidently not
only for guidance, but I should say for grace. Why?
Because He had to undo the works of the devil in all that
disintegrating power in human life. He could have thrown
over one or the other of His disciples any day; He might
have washed His hands of them; but he loved them unto the
end. When at last, as a result of all His patience,
forbearance and love, you have those men intact - with
the exception of the one who was never really an integral
part of the whole from the beginning - and He is able to
say, "I kept them in thy name... and not one of them
perished, but the son of perdition" (John 17:12),
the devil's work has been undone. There is something
deeper in that than that the Lord has managed to maintain
a kind of fraternity to the end. Something very deep has
been done. That is the testimony of Jesus. It is a
contradiction to the divisive work of Satan, and God is
wanting an instrument, a vessel, like that - a
candlestick to maintain that testimony; and that is very
searching.
The
Testimony Before the Work
Is it not true - sad
though it be - that very often the work of the Lord is
hindered or spoiled by the workers themselves? It is a
terrible thing to say, but it is true. The problems often
relate not so much to the work but to the workers. They
cannot get on together, they cannot live with one
another, they must be moved from one part of the field to
the other because of incompatibility. Why is it? You say,
of course, that it is because the work of the Cross has
not been done in them. Quite true; but may it not be
equally true that it is because the work has been put
before testimony, or in the place of the testimony - that
they have gone out for the work, not for the testimony?
Suppose they were to stop - and confer and pray together,
and say, 'Look here, this is no testimony, this is a
contradiction of the testimony of Jesus. What are we
here for? Have we come all this way and made all this
sacrifice merely to do some work, and yet to have no
testimony to the Lord? By our being here doing all this
(or trying to do all this) we are a direct contradiction
to the Lord Himself.' I think they would either pack up
and come home, or they would resolve the whole thing and
say, 'The testimony comes before the work, for the work
must come out of the testimony: it must not be something
apart. We must find a ground for going on together in a
way that glorifies God.' What are we as Christians on the
earth for? Are we here to do a work, or for a testimony?
Yes, so many people are concerned about the Lord's work,
and (in their phraseology) concerned about the Lord's
testimony, but they are most difficult people to get on
with. You are constantly coming up against such cases,
and you have to say, 'Well, they are very concerned about
the work of God, but I don't know about the testimony
where they are concerned.'
Now let us face that
quite frankly. We are tremendously concerned about the
Lord's testimony. The testimony of Jesus is utter
selflessness, the contradiction of self-centredness, of
every form of selfishness, of selfhood. That is the
testimony of Jesus - not work done and doctrine taught,
but Christ here expressed in that way. But are we
quarrelsome at home? Is it difficult for others in the
home, in the family, to get on with us? Are we always
making difficulty and strain and conflict? That is the
devil's work, and that is no testimony. Christians are
here on this earth for a testimony, and that testimony
must be shown in our ability to get on with others. The
only people who could not get on with the Lord Jesus were
the people who were self-centred - religious or
otherwise. Everybody else found Him wonderfully easy to
get on with. Oh, do not let us make of this word
'testimony' anything other than this - the Lord Himself
found in us; not things of truth that we want other
people to have, but the Lord Himself primarily.
The Lord should
therefore know when He has what He wants and is able to
put His hand upon it and place it where He wants it to
be. Christianity has become another system of things. You
get an idea that you are called to the Lord's work, and
then you say, 'Now I must be prepared for the Lord's
work,' and you go for a course of training to an
institute. Then when you have finished, you say, 'Now, I
am prepared.' What do you mean by being prepared? Do you
mean intellectually, theologically? Well, I do not know
how far that is going to carry you. The Lord only knows
when you are prepared. It might be a very good thing if
after that you went back to business and waited for the
Lord to confirm your call by saying to you, 'Yes, I have
got what I want where you are concerned, and now I will
show you where I want you.' You can trust the Lord. If He
has called you to His service, you can be quite sure that
sooner or later He will confirm that call, even if you
have to go back to business for a time. These disciples
were called, and then they went back to their fishing,
and the Lord came and confirmed their call. Saul of
Tarsus was called on the Damascus road, and he went and
waited in Antioch until the Lord came and confirmed his
call and said, 'Now you are ready, now I have what I
want, now the time has come.' Are you afraid of that? Do
you trust the Lord about that? After all, it is the
testimony the Lord wants, and it may be that that
testimony is going to be produced in those realms and
spheres which you would not choose. You think that it
will be very much more straightforward and easy for you
to bear the testimony if you are out in full-time
spiritual work. You are deceived if you think that.
Listen to one who is not a novice and not a juvenile now.
I can tell you that with all the demands of spiritual
work, with all the opportunities and demands for
spiritual ministry with which one cannot cope, the most
difficult thing in all the world is to keep the testimony
abreast of the demand; and we have to confess that there
so often we fail. What we are calling the testimony is
not our ministry, our teaching, our work, the articles we
write, the addresses we give; that is not the testimony.
That goes for nothing if there is not something behind it
that is approved of God. God would take infinite pains to
keep us abreast of our ministry in testimony. He would
cut right across the path of Moses, even after He had
called him, and seek to slay him. The Lord had
commissioned him, and yet it says "it came to pass
on the way... that the Lord met him, and sought to kill
him" (Ex. 4:24). Something was lacking in the
background. You know what it was; it had to be attended
to. It is what is behind that is the testimony, and the
Lord knows when He has got that, and He can be trusted to
use us when and where we are ready to be used. We have
got to be the thing that the Lord needs to have
reproduced in other places, and it is the work of the
Holy Spirit to know where the need is and where the
provision is, and to bring the two together. There was
evidently a need to be met at Antioch when Barnabas went
there (Acts 11:20-26) and he, being full of the Holy
Ghost, said, 'I know the man through whom this need can
be met,' and he went off to Tarsus to fetch Saul to
Antioch.
The Lord knows if you
are there in that home with all its monotony and drudgery
and lack of incentive and interest; in that business with
its round of duties which are not inspiring; in that
setting of deep trial. You are there to be approved under
testing, and when the Lord sees you are approved, He will
say, 'Come, you are the one I want; there is something
else for you; come up higher.' Let it be like that with
your service.
That all focuses upon
this, that the Lord is more for a testimony than for a
work. If we put the work in place of the testimony, we
shall have confusion. We are on this earth for a
testimony, and that is why, even with the greatest and
most useful of His servants, the Lord never allows the
work to set aside fresh discipline, fresh suffering. It
looks like a contradiction. The work appears to need the
man; the man is not able to do it because he is going
through such trial and suffering. What a contradiction!
But the Lord is more concerned to have spiritual measure
in the vessel than He is to have a lot of work done.
The Lord help us by
this, and give us grace to accept it. I know it is not
easy; but do see that the Lord is after a candlestick all
of gold, to bear a testimony; not to be an ornament, a
show piece, something which attracts attention to itself,
but a testimony to the Lord Himself.