"I know a man in Christ..." (2
Corinthians 12:2)
"...till we all attain unto... a
full-grown man... the stature of... Christ" (Ephesians
4:13)
"Not unto angels did He subject
the world to come, whereof we speak. But one hath
somewhere testified, saying, What is man, that Thou art
mindful of him? or the Son of Man, that Thou visitest
Him?" (Heb. 2:5,6)
We are now going to consider one
particular aspect of this matter of manhood, namely, the
full stature of manhood and how it is reached.
The Great Universe Of Man
We begin by a word about the
creation of man, in which, through the incarnation of
Christ, all the wonderful thoughts and realities of God,
Deity apart, are intended to be expressed in mankind. The
creation of man, and the subsequent incarnation of
Christ, represented the carrying into effect of that
great mind of God to express Himself 'manwise'. It is a
wonderful thing to think that God chose to make a
peculiar kind of creature called 'man', bring into being
something that is called 'humanity', in order that by
that means He might write for the revelation to the
universe, the education of the universe, His own
thoughts, His own mind. The knowledge of man is still in
a very imperfect stage, after all the time that man has
been on the earth. On the side of potential evil it is
sometimes beyond human comprehension what man is capable
of. Under grace and in union with God through Jesus
Christ the potentialities of redeemed humanity are
correspondingly high and beyond comprehension. It was
this incomprehensible destiny of man in Christ that
exhausted all the superlatives of language of which the
Apostle Paul was capable.
Take
some of the departments of the science of man. I am not
going to give them their scientific names; you can quote
the names to yourself, if you wish, but here are five
distinct sciences of man. There is, firstly, that which
has to do with the functions and phenomena of his
physical being, the thing with which physicians and
surgeons and all in that realm are trying to cope. After
all the centuries of man's existence on the earth, they
are still finding that there are new complexes and
complications and depths and difficulties which are
beyond them, just beyond them; always new situations
arising in the physical bodies of people, causing
considerable concern and perplexity, even to those who
know most about it and, as we say, know all that there is
to know about it; and so it goes on. The additional names
that are accumulating to the maladies and the disorders
of the human frame are very significant. In the realm of
man's human body there is still, after all this time,
with all this study, research and knowledge, a depth
unfathomed, that is beyond the experts. They are so often
at a standstill, at a loss what to do about it, and the
whole question of reconstructing this human body, this
physical life, and making it perfect, is as far from its
realisation as ever it was. It breaks down just when it
is thought that we are getting on.
Then
there is that science of the human mind, so very largely
developed in recent years, in our own lifetime. A new
name has sprung up in this connection, and it is a world
which is finding many giving themselves wholly to its
study, to its exploration; a wonderful world and kingdom
- the human mind being probed, analysed, investigated -
you know that whole realm of things; and still the human
mind is beyond the grasp of the experts. It still defeats
and defies the best efforts to solve its problems, to put
it right.
Further,
there is the third realm of humanity, the realm of human
relationships: human beings living together, whether it
be two or whether it be communities or nations. It is
what is called 'society', or human relationships. That
again is a department of study and investigation, and
much hard work, which is the whole-time, and whole
lifetime, occupation, of a vast number of people - and
what a complex world it is! You know it if it is only two
people, and when you have to deal with a larger number,
you understand what a burden it was that rested upon Paul
when it made him refer, almost with a groan, to
"that which presseth upon me daily, anxiety for all
the churches" (2 Cor. 11:28). It is the problem of
people living together, getting on together, and, as I
have said, when you expand that to nations the problem of
human relationships is a tremendous thing. It has killed
many of our greatest statesmen, trying to solve this
problem of getting people and nations to go on together
in amity, in good relationship.
Again
expanding, there is that great science which has to do
with human races, the races of people; not only the
nations, but the races. We cannot go into that now, but
you know how much time and money has been expended in the
attempt to get down to the peculiar constitution of
different races, with a view to solving human problems.
This race is characterized by certain things and that
race by another set of things, and this creates a great
world problem of racial life and relationships, and
demands constantly an immense amount of work and anxious
thought; yet the racial problem today is as great as ever
it was.
And
finally, there is that whole realm, which again is a
complete science in itself, which has to do with human
nature, and particularly with sin or evil in human
nature. That goes by a name of its own. Well, that has
occupied man from the beginning: this sin in human nature
- this evil, this wicked, human nature. What a world it
is - what an ocean, what a depth!
There
you have five great worlds, a constellation of worlds,
forming a very universe, all related to man himself, to
mankind. All this came in when man came in; all this is
bound up with humanity, with this being called
man. How vast and far from fully explored is this whole
question of man!
Christ The Embodiment Of God - Intended
Humanity
Now, why
all this? It is not just a point of interest, some matter
to throw in. This leads to something.
Christ
is the comprehensive embodiment of all this in a new kind
of humanity, in the God-intended kind of humanity. He
affects the whole of those five realms pertaining to
mankind.
He relates to the whole problem of this
physical life of man, and the whole problem of the
physical life of man is going to be solved in the
humanity of Jesus Christ, "when this corruptible
shall... put on incorruption, and this mortal... put on
immortality" (1 Cor. 15:54). When this body of our
corruption is made like unto His body of glory (Phil.
3:21), the whole problem of man's physical world will be
finally solved. And that is not just a statement of fact
concerning some future time. He has given us that life to
indwell us NOW, so that even now, in a body
of corruption, we may know the power of His resurrection,
we may know a life which triumphs over that corruption
until God has finished with us here. We have that very
life given to us NOW, so that our mortal,
our dying, bodies can be quickened by the Divine Spirit
to fulfil a work of God here on this earth contrary to
all human possibilities. When we ought to be dead -
ought, indeed, to have died a good many times! - it is
not so because there is a life in us which is triumphing
until our work is done. He has solved the whole problem
of that world of the physical, and in giving us eternal
life has already given us the earnest of that solution,
and on the basis of that this body will be conformed to
the body of His glory. "Then shall come to pass the
saying that is written, 'Death is swallowed up in
victory"' (1 Cor. 15:54).
And what is true in that whole realm of
the physical man, the human physical side, is true of all
the others. Take this matter of the mind of man which is
such a problem. The New Testament teaches us that there
is another mind, the mind of Christ, and "God gave
us not a spirit of fearfulness; but of power and love and
discipline" ("a sound mind", AN.) (2 Tim.
1:7). It is another mind, a heavenly mind, the mind of
Christ; a 'new-mindedness'. You have no need that I
gather up the Scriptures on that. The problem of
psychology (now I have given it its name!) is solved by
the Holy Spirit in the believer. It is part of our
inheritance in Christ to have a sound mind, not to be
unbalanced. We will go no further with that, because we
have so much ground to cover.
Again, in this whole matter of human
relationships - what we call society, the relationships
of people on this earth - has not Christ solved that?
There is a testimony whenever the Lord's children from
many lands come together. He has not changed our
temperaments, He has not changed our basic individuality.
He has not annihilated our varied personalities, He has
not put out of existence our different nationalities, but
He has made us one. We have one life, we have one
language. All those things which separate us humanly,
that is, in the old humanity, are touched in
Christ. Oh, that we recognised this more! When divisions
come, when there is strife and schism and the like, we
are in the realm of the old creation, we are not in the
realm of Christ. He, in His own humanity, makes a
different kind of corporate entity. It is a wonderful
thing, this corporate entity, the "one new man"
(Eph. 2:15), "where there cannot be Greek and Jew,
circumcision and uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian,
bondman, freeman" (Col. 3:11); all are one, there is
one new man. The problem of society is solved in Christ.
But then there is this question of race,
the races on the earth with all the problems of racial
differences and conflicts. Oh, I do not understand people
who call themselves Christians, with their New Testament
in their hands, putting up colour bars! I understand the
problems, but I believe there is another way through the
problem than the colour bar. I think that is a perfect
contradiction of the New Testament: it seems to me to
clearly say: 'This New Testament teaching about the
oneness of the Body of Christ, where there is neither
Greek nor Jew, neither coloured nor white, is an
impossible thing. It cannot be; it will not work.' Very
well, then; scrap the New Testament and cease calling
yourselves Christians. This thing is solved in Christ. It
has been proved possible, and it has been and is being
proved workable. It only wants the grace of God to get
into both sides, the government of the Holy Spirit on
both sides - not on one side only, but on both sides -
and the problem is solved. It may require patience,
instruction, building up, but the basis is there when we
are all baptized in one Spirit into one Body, whether
bond or free, whether this or that. Christ touches this
thing.
Finally,
this whole matter of human sin. Well, I need not stop to
say much about that - the great problem of sin in human
nature, of evil in mankind himself. We need not look
beyond ourselves; we know in ourselves that Christ has
solved that problem, which is still such an awful problem
for the people who are interested in ethics, the problem
which is defeating the moral philosophers all the time.
That is settled in Christ.
The Greatness Of Christ
Christ
affects this whole universe of man on all his sides and
aspects. Is not Christ great? He is the comprehensive
embodiment of a new type of humanity in which these other
things are solved and settled and put away. How great
Christ is! And therefore how great the new man is, the
man in Christ! Christ is so great that He can give
character altogether different from, and altogether
higher than, that which we know belonging to humanity. He
can give character to a vast multitude, for the Church
ultimately is no little thing. We are, I am afraid,
inclined, as we look out on the world and take note of
how 'few there are that be saved', of the small
percentage of real believers in the multitudes, the
millions, on this earth, we are inclined to think that
the Church must be a very little thing. But when we come
to the sum at the end we shall find that the Church is no
little thing, but a great multitude, a vast concourse,
and that vast concourse, that immense thing, is taking
its whole character from one Man. How great Christ is!
Spiritual Full Stature
Having
said that - and that is only my introduction - I want to
come to this matter of spiritual full stature. The first
thing, of course, standing over it all is seeing how
great Christ is. How great is this humanity of Christ!
And then how wonderful must be the purpose of our being
in Christ! To Paul it was an unceasing wonder to be able
to say of himself: "I know a man in Christ". It
is no little thing to be "a man in Christ". And
then of course the meaning of God's work in us comes in
here: for it is in the light of this that God is pursuing
all His work in us and all His dealings with us. If He is
breaking down one humanity in us, it is only to build up
another. If He is putting us through fiery testings and
trials, and experiences that constitute great
difficulties to our own natural humanity, it is only to
produce this other humanity. God's dealings with us, His
ways with us, are all explained by the great purpose, the
great destiny unto which we are called - conformity to
the image of His Son.
Now,
taking a little phrase which occurs in the Bible in a
number of connections, I want to say something about this
matter of full stature and how it is reached, and I am
going to take some Old Testament illustrations of this.
The Power Of Resurrection
"And
Isaac sowed in that land, and found in the same year a
hundredfold: and the Lord blessed him. And the man waxed
great, and grew more and more until he became very
great" (Genesis 26:12-13).
THE
MAN did. Here is a type of manhood come to full
stature - Isaac. Now we who are familiar with the
typology of the Old Testament know that Isaac is the
embodiment of the power of resurrection. I need not go
over the ground to prove that. Abraham through faith
received him back from the dead, and so Isaac stands out
as the great example or type of resurrection power. And
then, on resurrection ground, Isaac engages in
agriculture, the realm in which, more than in any other
realm, resurrection is known. In that realm, where the
predominant law is the law of resurrection, he becomes
very great. The law of resurrection operates so that he
increases more and more and becomes very great.
We lay
stress on this. The increase, this greatness of Isaac, is
through resurrection - that is the point. He knows in his
own person, his own history, his own experience, in his
very being, he knows the power of resurrection, and by
reason of that very experience, that experimental
knowledge, he becomes very great. Through all the demands
and processes of agriculture he came to know this: for,
although it says only that he sowed and in the same year
reaped a hundredfold, there is no sowing without a good
deal of ploughing; he had to do the ploughing, and then
the sowing and all the other labour, with all the
endurance, all the patience, all the courage, all the
persistence, all the faith, all the hope. All these
things are drawn into the work of agriculture. I think it
is a realm in which perhaps heroism lies more deeply than
in any other realm. To see all the hard work of ploughing
and harrowing and sowing blotted out in a night's storm
and then go and start again - that calls for something;
it calls for there being something in YOU before
there is something in the soil; you are not going to have
that from the soil unless that is in yourself; what comes
from the soil will be because of what is in you - the
power of resurrection. You have to believe in the power
of resurrection to be a good farmer, especially in the
days of the blight and the adversity and the ruin of
everything. The power of resurrection - Isaac knew that.
Concern For Reproduction And Increase
Now what did it amount to in his case?
What does it amount to in any man in that particular
realm and sphere of life? It amounts to this - a
tremendous concern for reproduction and increase. That is
the secret of spiritual full-growth - a real and mighty
and triumphant concern for increase and reproduction.
Whether it be the Church as a whole or a local company or
an individual believer, spiritual growth, enlargement,
'greatness', will depend upon a deep concern for
reproduction. It used to be said, and it is still said in
some circles, that a non-missionary church is a dead
church - it never grows; and there is much truth in that.
Where there is no concern for reproduction, for the
salvation of souls, for the expansion of the church,
there is no growth. The kind of spirit that does the
ploughing, the sowing, the hard work, the grind; that
endures, that exercises patience and courage against
adversity and disappointment, and persists because it
believes that this thing can be and should be, because
the Lord of resurrection dictates it: that kind of
spirit is going to lead to much enlargement,
spiritually, of the individual, the local church, and the
whole Church. So Isaac is not only the embodiment, but
the expression, of the power of resurrection, and that is
shown by this great concern for increase.
Are you concerned for spiritual increase,
or are you just sitting passively, indifferently, a
passenger, a parasite, drawing everything to yourself and
giving nothing? Are you one being carried all through the
years, or are you one who is a true farmer in this
spiritual sense, really concerned about increase? This
thing must be a hundredfold; nothing less than that can
really mark the full blessing of God - a hundredfold in
me and in others. Oh, how that would correct a great deal
of our attitude toward others. Our attitude is far too
often one that would limit other people's spiritual life.
We criticize, we talk about them, we point out their
faults, what is going on. How do we use our tongues about
the Lord's people and His servants? What is going on in
our homes in that matter? If it really did touch those
people of God directly, would it be to their enlargement
or be to their undoing or their limitation? What is our
attitude? Are we true Isaacs in this, that we are
concerned for their growth, for their increase, and are
not going to do anything, by lip or hand or any other
way, that would hinder the spiritual growth of other
people, whether individuals or the Church? It is a very
pertinent thing, this. You may take it as a settled thing
that if you are using your tongue detrimentally to the
people of God, you are cutting across your own spiritual
growth, you are dwarfing your own spiritual stature.
These people are little people, contemptible people; they
are of small spiritual stature. Oh, may we grow up! - and
we shall grow up as we have a heart enlarged for
spiritual increase.
Dignity, Discernment, Authority
"The man, the lord of the land,
spake roughly with us, and took us for spies of
the country... And the man, the lord of the land, said
unto us..." (Genesis 42:30,33).
"And Judah spake unto him, saying,
The man did solemnly protest unto us... but if thou wilt
not send him, we will not go down; for the man said unto
us, Ye shall not see my face, except your brother be with
you... And they said, The man asked straitly concerning
ourselves... take also your brother, and arise, go again
unto the man: and God Almighty give you mercy before the
man... And Joseph said unto them, What deed is this that
ye have done? Know ye not that such a man as I can indeed
divine?" (Gen. 43. Verses 3,5,7,13,14; 44:15).
Here is "the man". What are the
features of this man? This is a man of stature. He is a
big man, he is a great man. This man is marked by great
dignity. That is patent; it lies on the surface of the
story. These brothers of his are all aware of the dignity
of this man. This man is marked by discernment -
"Know ye not that such a man as I can indeed
divine?". You remember that that was how he got to
his position - Pharaoh had his dream, and Joseph was the
only one who could interpret, and the verdict was that
the Spirit of God was in him. He could discern, he had
power of discernment and interpretation. And he had
authority. Everything is in this man's hands. He has them
completely in his hands. Those three things are the
characteristics of Joseph - dignity, discernment,
authority.
That is stature. Those are the things that
mark spiritual full-growth. We could spend a lot of time
on that. In one who has spiritual dignity there is
nothing mean, nothing contemptible, nothing small,
nothing petty; he is one who has to be recognised as a
man of stature, as one who counts for something. The man
who has discernment is one who can see through beyond his
own nose, who is far-seeing, 'inseeing', who has what we
call vision; he is a man who has a secret knowledge of
the meaning of things. And the possession of spiritual
authority means that there is something about that man or
woman which is more than themselves. They themselves,
perhaps, would not command much respect and certainly not
command obedience, but there is something about them
that you have to take account of. They have got what we
were speaking about in the last chapter - history with
God. That gives them something that makes itself
known and felt in the presence of other people. They have
to say, 'They know what they are talking about, you
cannot just twist them round your finger; they know where
they stand; there is something about them that you are
compelled to recognise, acknowledge and bow to'. That is
spiritual authority. Let us not interpret these things
physically - I was going to say literally. These are
spiritual factors, spiritual features, these are the
marks of spiritual growth; and here is a big man, a great
man, who has reached full stature.
Are not these the features of Christ? Look
at Him again. Is there not dignity about Him? There is
nothing small, nothing petty, nothing mean or
contemptible about Christ. There is dignity right the way
through. There is insight, discernment, perception,
vision, knowledge beyond the ordinary. As for authority,
He was someone to be reckoned with, even in the
day of His humiliation. Sometimes when we are in a bad
way physically and having a bad time, we lose out. But
there He is, in the deepest humiliation, mocked, spat
upon, crowned with thorns, suffering - and the great
Roman representative is in His hands. It is Pilate in the
hands and before the bar of Jesus, not the other
way round. He is there in His dignity and His authority,
which is a spiritual thing from heaven. These are
the features of Christ. Now, those are to be reproduced
in us, and these are the things which will appear as we
grow. They will be marks of growth.
But how did Joseph come to it? By emptying
and suffering, in exactly the same way as Christ. That is
how he came to growth; out of this deep and dire
distress, out of this anguish, out of all this suffering
through which he went, came these very virtues, these
very features. You can see Joseph being developed in the
fire. In Potiphar's house, in the fiery trial, the
dignity develops: 'Should such a one as I do this
thing?'. It was in the fire, in the dungeon, that
these features were developed. It was through suffering.
It will be the same with us; but that is what God is
after, to develop these things. It is a wonderful thing
that the grace of God just reverses the order of things.
Ordinarily in suffering the unregenerate man loses
calibre and often loses character; but in the case of the
believer, with the grace of God suffering only adds to
character and calibre. Something comes up and grows which
is fine, which is grand. That is the story of so many a
suffering child of God. It is grand to see them, to be
with them. Oh, that is not natural, that is not something
that they inherit. That is something that has come by the
grace of God, something that has come out of the fires.
Meekness
"Now the man Moses was very meek,
above all the men that were upon the face of the
earth" (Numbers 12:3).
What a verdict! "ABOVE all
men"; head and shoulders above all other men! And
how was he head and shoulders above all other men? It
says it was in meekness, a tremendous summing up of a
man's life! You could say about Moses that he was great
in many respects, very great, but the Bible does not make
a lot of his greatness in other respects. The Bible
passes its verdict upon him that he was the meekest man
upon the earth. See God's estimate of greatness, what God
calls greatness - meekness. We need not stay with it.
What is it? Well, meekness is what he thought of himself;
it is what a man is in himself and toward himself. When
Moses was alone and when Moses had any thought about
himself at all, those thoughts about himself were very
poor. He never, when thinking about himself, recognised
that there was any reason why he should assert himself,
that there was any ground on which he could stand up for
his rights or could be something, any reason why they
ought to take account of what he was in his own inner
life. There was none of that - it was the other way. His
thoughts about himself were very small thoughts, and he
was only in his position because he had great thoughts of
God and little thoughts about himself. That is all we
need say. That is Meekness. It works, of course, in many
ways, it comes out in many ways; but that is the heart of
the matter - what we are in our own eyes about ourselves,
and therefore how we behave.
Moses was not always meek, as we know from
his early life in Egypt; but, under the hand of God, his
weakest point became his strongest.
Now look at the Lord Jesus. There did come
a Man on the earth greater than Moses, and His greatness
was superior greatness even to that of Moses. He was on
the same ground. "I am meek and lowly in
heart", He said; "learn of Me" (Matt.
11:29). That is the way to grow. Pride is one of the most
ruinous things in the realm of spiritual growth.
Devotion To The Lord's Testimony In His
People
"Mordecai was great in the king's
house, and his fame went forth throughout all the
provinces; for the man Mordecai waxed greater and
greater" (Esther 9:4).
"The man... waxed greater and
greater." You see how this little phrase "the
man" in every connection is related to stature, to
growth, to greatness. "The man Mordecai waxed and
greater." Why? What was the secret of his greatness?
Why did God sovereignly act to bring that man right up,
in that startling way, from sitting at the door as a
kind of eavesdropper and beggar - bring him up and up and
up, until at last this could be said of him: "the
man Mordecai waxed greater and greater"? Why? There
is only one reason. Here was a man who at any cost was
devoted to the interests of the Lord's people and to the
Lord's testimony as vested in the Lord's people. That is
the answer. You know the story of Mordecai and of Esther.
Here is a man whose whole story is summed up in this
deep, overwhelming concern for the Lord's people, because
they embodied the Lord's testimony. We need, of course,
to go over that whole ground of how Israel, chosen of
God, was chosen as a people in the earth to be the vessel
of His testimony, and here these people are at the point
of being wiped out to the last child by this cunning,
evil work, the devil-inspired device of Haman, "this
wicked Haman", the Agagite. This man Mordecai set
himself right in the full tide and flood of that
iniquity, which was nothing less than the destruction of
the life of the people of God in order to carry away the
Lord's testimony from the earth. He set himself, and the
tide broke on him, and God honoured him and raised him up
and saw to it that he became great. His greatness was not
the mere turn of fortune in his favour. It was because of
what God was in him; and it is ever like that. Whatever
other people try to do, however much they try to keep us
down and under and out, spiritual greatness will be
brought about by the Lord in us, if only we have this
overwhelming concern for His interests in His people.
These are the features of greatness,
because they are the features of Christ, and it is by
these things that we come to the full stature of "a
man in Christ". How important it is for us to
recognise that all this is to be true in us as men and
women - not as glorified saints hereafter, and certainly
not as angels, but as men and women on this earth now, as
human beings down here. How wonderful to know that it can
commence and develop right away, even here and now,
through the grace of God.
Thus, I trust we have been helped to see
what God is really after; what intrinsic value is; and
what will be the nature of incorruption. Man thinks much
of Christian WORK. God thinks most of Christian MEN!
There is no grander title than "O, man of
God" (or woman). This is the Gold of the Sanctuary,
and The Final Criterion.