In our occupation
with the crisis of Pentecost and the significance of the Holy
Spirit, we have been following the movements of progress in
the new creation and seeing that those movements follow, in a
spiritual way, the movements in the material creation. We are
not going to even make the briefest survey of the ground
covered, we are going to focus upon one feature this evening,
the central feature in it all.
I want to read two or three
fragments of Scripture. Leaving the Old Testament passage
about the creation of man, we just turn to the New Testament
and have these fragments, and as we are much in the book of
the Acts, we look at two passages there.
In chapter 2 and verses 32 and 33: "This Jesus, this Jesus
did God raise up, whereof (or, of whom) we are witnesses.
Being therefore at the right hand of God exalted, and having
received of the father the promise of the Holy Spirit, He
hath poured forth this which ye see and hear." Being at
the right hand of God exalted... He hath poured forth this....
In chapter 7 at verse 55: "But he
(Stephen, that is) being full of the Holy Spirit, looked up
steadfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus
standing on the right hand of God, and said: Behold, I see
the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing on the right
hand of God".
In the letter to the Hebrews, chapter 2 at verse 5: "For not
unto angels did He subject the world to come, whereof we
speak. But one has somewhere testified saying, What is man,
that Thou art mindful of him? Or the Son of Man, that Thou
visitest Him? Thou madest Him a little lower than the
angels; Thou crownedst Him with glory and honour, and didst
set Him over the works of Thy hands: Thou didst put all
things in subjection under His feet. We see not yet all
things subjected to Him, but we behold Him who hath been
made a little lower than the angels, Jesus, because of the
suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour, that by
the grace of God He should taste death for every man. For it
became Him for whom are all things, and through whom are all
things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the author
of their salvation perfect through sufferings. For both He
that sanctifieth and they that are sanctified are all of one;
for which cause He is not ashamed to call them brethren".
Finally in the first letter to the Corinthians and chapter
15. 1 Corinthians 15 and verse 45: "The first
man Adam became a living soul; the last Adam a life-giving
spirit".
In the earthly
creation the crown, the centre of all was the creation and
the instating of man. We might say that he was the occasion of
everything. That is, everything that had gone before led up
to him, and everything that followed afterward, came from him.
He is the key. The same is true, transcendently true, in the
new creation. Man presented, and the Man instated; everything
before leading to Him and everything after and since, moving
from Him, coming from Him. Man is the key to
both creations.
Man is a special thought of God, but there is
this that we have to be very clear about, that in the first
creation man we have never had God's full thought about man,
only God's intention as to man, not its realisation. God's
beginning with man in the new creation is otherwise. We
have in the Last Adam the full thought of God about
man:
perfected, completed, nothing more to be added as to Himself
as the personal expression and embodiment of God's full
thought concerning man. And having perfected Him, "He was
made perfect through suffering", having completed Him, having
finalised Him, He could glorify Him, and instate Him to be the
first of a whole race like Him.
There's a great movement
of God in China, a large company of dear believers who,
whether in the full apprehension of this or not I don't know,
but they took for their name "The Jesus Family". Well, that
may only relate to a part of the family so far as they're
concerned, but that is what it is. That's what it is, this
whole new creation is
the Jesus Family, "Wherefore He is not ashamed to call them
brethren, saying, I and the children which God hath given Me".
It's only in a spiritual family that your child is your
brother! We know what that means. Timothy was Paul's child
in the faith, but Timothy was Paul's brother in the work (that
by the way).
But there are two
things with which we must be content this evening, and they
are quite enough. We must be very clear about this. On the one
side, Jesus (we are using the name now just by itself,
as it's used here in these passages) Jesus is God's perfected
representation of what He intends where man is concerned. And
He is instated at God's right hand as the Model, the Pattern
for man and to which man is foreordained to be conformed, to
which image man is foreordained (says Paul) to be conformed.
That is, to come to His image, not as God, but as the Son, as
Man. That is the one thing that you and I must be very clear
about.
On the other side,
the Holy Spirit's business in this dispensation, His real
business for which He has come, to which He is committed, and
which explains all His dealings with us; His business is
to
reproduce that Man in the Family, if you like, in the
race,
in the children of God. That is the business of the
Holy
Spirit. Unto that He may do many things: He may inspire unto
evangelisation; soul-winning; He may lead to various forms of
activity; but none of these must be taken as things in
themselves. If they are, they will surely fall short of the
purpose of God in them. The tragedy is that that is done.
Every Holy Spirit inspired activity and concern, whether it
be
in evangelisation for the salvation of the unsaved, or right
through all other means and ways, the building up, and
instructing... every Holy Spirit activity has but one object
in view:
bringing many sons to glory. That is, the reproducing of the
Son in sons. Reproducing Christ in a mankind called, chosen,
elected by God. We must be very clear about this. It will
perhaps correct some of our preponderances, and our mistakes,
and our deficiencies, to see exactly what it is the Holy
Spirit is doing. It will explain a great deal. It is the only
explanation of many things, for some of the greatest
evangelists have had their evangelisation ministries cut
short,
and they themselves have been shut up and confined; for years
unable to do any of it. It looks, on the surface, as though
there's a breakdown somewhere. Where is the Holy Spirit? Where
is the sovereignty of God? And so on. The answer is: God is
more concerned for the increase of His Son in those concerned
than He is for all their activities. We come to that as we go
on, but these are the things that we must see: Christ
installed, as the full embodiment of this original thought of
God about man; perfected.
The Holy Spirit had come to make Christ,
in what He is, real and increasingly full in men and women,
to bring them to be one great corporate Man in Christ. Now,
you are so
familiar with statements like that, but we can't get anywhere
until we get the whole thing set. And you will notice that it
was with the setting of that that everything commenced and
proceeded in the New Testament. It was not until the Man,
perfected, glorified and instated at the right hand of God,
was in His place, His right place, that anything could
go on
at all.
There is a deeper, deeper
meaning in the forbidding of the Lord Jesus to go and preach
and begin the work until the Holy Spirit was come. When He
gave commandment, and Luke said, "After He had given
commandment by the Holy Ghost", and His commandment
was "Tarry in Jerusalem until ye be endued with power from
on high". The deeper meaning was
this: the commandment was not only that they should
receive the Holy
Spirit, and in so doing, receive power, but He linked with
that, "Ye shall be witnesses unto Me". Unto whom and
what
were they to witness? Well, listen to Peter. He started it, he
starts this
witnessing in Jerusalem, and then it spreads. What is the
great
note of the witness? "Being at the right hand of God exalted".
Everything links up with that. "Tarry ye" not only
until the Spirit comes, and you receive power, but "tarry ye"
because when the Spirit comes, it will be because Jesus is
glorified! I trust that impresses you enough.
Well, the Last
Adam - the Last Adam (don't misquote Scripture and
call Him
the "Second Adam", He's not. He's the second Man, but He's the
Last Adam; no need for any more, no place for any more,
finality
is reached in Him) the Last Adam is installed, instated,
because perfected and glorified. "And being at the right hand
of God exalted He hath poured forth this." The Spirit of
Jesus glorified. "The Spirit of Jesus..." the Holy Spirit is
called that, that is one of His titles: the Spirit of Jesus.
The Spirit of the perfected, glorified and instated Jesus,
as the breath of the new creation, coming into the new
creation man corporately; that's what happened on the Day of
Pentecost. It was the fulfilment of that word in which the
Lord Jesus reserved these men unto that day, "And He breathed
on them and said, Receive ye the Holy Spirit". They did not
receive the Holy Spirit then, it was a symbolic act. It was an
act by which He, so to speak, put them in reserve for it and
said: "I have put you apart for that. The actual receiving of
the breath, corresponding to God breathing into the
first
Adam, took place on the Day of Pentecost and the church's
lungs were filled. The whole mechanism of this new spiritual
Body, started up in action when the breath came in. It doesn't
need much argument to see that they were pretty helpless
before that happened. It all started then; the breath of the
new creation entered in. Remember that, it's not just history;
we're not just looking back into the New
Testament. The Holy Spirit, dear friends, is the very breath
of the new creation in us; by that inbreathing of
Christ we
become organic parts of Christ, the Body of Christ, members of
Christ, the one New Man.
Now what we have
to do, as quickly as possible, is to look at
This Man Being Reproduced.
And it's a far bigger study than we can handle
this evening, but it is perfectly clear, (and on these things
we must be perfectly clear indeed) it's perfectly clear that
when
the Holy Spirit came into them, a tremendous change
took place
as to an order of mankind. To say that they became
different
creatures is hardly enough. I would like you to study closely
and fully what happened to them, and the change that did take
place. I will indicate quickly a few of the things.
You know from
reading the Gospels (I think this is one of the values of the
Gospels being bound before the Acts, although they were not
written before it) you know in reading the Gospels how
earth-bound these men were. Their horizon was no
further than
the earth and than they could see with their natural eyes.
Their idea, for instance, of the kingdom of God was an
earth-bound thing horizoned by what was temporal and earthly.
Their ambitions, their expectations and their hopes, and
their interests and activities, were all within that so-small
compass. They were little men, because they had such a
little
horizon. If you live all your days in a little village, you
will be a little person. Begin to move over the world and you
get wonderfully enlarged.
These people saw
nothing beyond Israel, nothing beyond Israel, little beyond
their own native land and their own city; that was the
compass.
They were earth-bound men. Look again: Jesus, Jesus is in
heaven. He belongs to heaven. I don't know where heaven is,
but I know that it's a mighty big place, capable of
tremendously enlarging your conceptions of space, distance,
range. Jesus is in heaven. The Holy Spirit comes down from
heaven and enters into these people and immediately
they are
changed, or they begin to be changed; radically changed from
being earthly people to being heavenly people. For them the
centre
of everything is in heaven, at the right hand of God. They
become in their very constitution, nature, and consciousness,
heavenly people.
From that time onward, although right up to
the last minute it would seem, before the Holy Spirit came,
they were saying, "Wilt Thou at this time restore the kingdom
to Israel?" and up to the last minute that was their horizon.
It's gone when the Holy Spirit comes. The horizon is
being
pressed back further and further, yes, through crises, and
sometimes embarrassing and painful crises, nevertheless, it's
extending, expanding. Heaven has become their range! They're
heavenly people.
I could, of course, spend hours on that, in
the Word itself. You know how much these people of the book of
Acts spoke later about this very matter. I dare not even touch
it. Look at this, this man, Paul. Of all men, his
horizon was
Israel and Jerusalem. And afterward: "and hath made us to
sit in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus..." he's talking
about the heavenlies all the time. And I do think that
he had a
big place in the writing of that letter to the Hebrews.
Whether he did it or not, he's there somehow all the time
insinuated, and it's all about this, isn't it? The heavenly
side of things: "Wherefore, holy brethren, partners in a
heavenly calling..." so he goes on.
The fact is that
whether they were born in Jerusalem, or in Galilee, or
anywhere on this earth, when the Holy Spirit came they were
born in heaven, or from heaven; born from above. You can
have an argument with me, if you like, I don't mind, I hold to
it, that these men were not born again until the Day
of
Pentecost. They were disciples, they were followers, they
were given deputed powers and authorities, but they were not
born again until the Day of Pentecost, but then they were.
By their birth they were born from above, as Jesus
said every
man must be, must be.
The heavenly kingdom demands heavenly people. They were not
only born from above, but they were enfranchised
above:
citizens, "You are come unto the heavenly Jerusalem... the
Jerusalem which is above is the mother of us all". The
apostles, after they came back from one of those deputations
under authority, and were full of exuberance and started to
talk to the Lord Jesus about what had happened, and they said,
"Even the demons are subject unto us!" Jesus said, "Steady,
steady. Be careful." If you begin to gloat over the devil you
are on dangerous ground, you're on dangerous ground. You'll
meet something. "Rejoice not
in this, rejoice that your names are enrolled in heaven",
that is a safe place for you, to be citizens above, to be enrolled
in
heaven, to have the franchise of the heavenly city; that's
your safety. It's not safe to glory in anything that you're
able to do against the powers of darkness. Your only safety
and glory is that you have a heavenly citizenship and
your names are enrolled in heaven. You know that that is a New
Testament idea, isn't it? In the Book of the Revelation it is
just that, "Whose names are in the Lamb's book of Life..."
Enrolled in heaven, born there, citizens of heaven. The
apostle states it, "Our citizenship is in heaven from
whence we look for a Saviour". Not only born, not
only enfranchised, but supported from heaven.
This book of
Acts is a wonderful record of heaven's support of its own
citizens and countrymen, isn't it? Yes, heaven looked after
them, provided for them, sustained them, carried them through,
came to their help -
put it how you will. Heaven was true to its own people. Heaven
was their resource and had all their resources and when
those of earth failed, and everything here ceased to provide
them with any hope, with any strength, they went to heaven in
prayer and got their resources renewed. There is that, I
find, dear friends, at least. I don't know whether you find
it. I don't find all my prayers answered, I ask the Lord for a
lot of things that He doesn't give, but I do find this:
invariably, if I go and have a time of prayer I am refreshed,
I feel better for it. It's not imagination, you don't just
change in a few minutes from utter jadedness, weariness,
strain, where it's impossible to go any further... you come
back rested, refreshed, renewed. Ten minutes in the presence
of the Lord, drawing on heavenly resources. I do find that at
any rate, and that is something in this world, try it! Their
resources were in heaven, in every way, heavenly. But then
note:
The Beginning and the Development of Heavenly
Character.
That is
an amazing thing: the change in the character of these men.
It was not just psychological, it was radical. It was
constitutional. We could, of course, take that up and look at
it for a long time, but there's one point in this which I
think we might just lift out, because I feel that where I'm
concerned, and no doubt where many of you are concerned, this
is a point that needs attention. Here is the most prominent
man of this whole group, of the whole one hundred and twenty
gathered there in that upper room on the Day of Pentecost,
the most prominent is Peter. Now just glance back. He has
been called the "big fisherman". I don't know what stature
Peter had physically, I know he was a great talker, I know
that he was always pushing in; aggressive. And you don't have
to be a very little person physically to be a coward, and
there is no doubt about it that Peter was a terrible coward.
And when it came to the real test, it only wanted a serving
maid in the hall downstairs to point a finger at him, and say,
"You are one of them!" to draw out of Peter, with vehemence, a
denial of that.
Well, I am not making light of what was
involved for Peter if he confessed, but there is no doubt
about it that moral courage was really not one of Peter's
strong points. It wasn't! The Lord Jesus challenged him after
His resurrection you know, very thoroughly about this. "I
will follow Thee even unto death... though all men forsake
Thee, yet I will not forsake Thee..." "Simon, do you love Me
more than all men? More than all these? Do you?" He is being
taxed
on this very thing, where he has so ignominiously broken down
in testimony to the Lord Jesus: public testimony to the Lord
Jesus. It is a real test, you know, in the presence of people
who have it in their power to do something with you, not
perhaps to crucify you, but to deprive you of advancement in
your job, or other things. That's it.
Now look at Peter when
the Holy Spirit has come. Jesus bore a good confession before
Pontius Pilate, we are told. He stood up to it. It was not
Jesus who cringed before His judges; it was the judges who
cringed before Him. The moral courage of Jesus astounded
Pilate and vexed the others. The Spirit of Jesus came into
Peter on the Day of Pentecost, and look: he has changed in
this respect - many others, but in this - "When they
beheld the
boldness of Peter and John", "When they beheld the
boldness!" And you can hear him speaking, "We ought to
obey God rather than men. I submit it to you. Are we right?
Ought we to obey man rather than God? You judge!" He's
arguing this thing out; he's having no nonsense. It is
tremendous, this stand up of Peter after the Holy
Spirit came
on him. Jesus knew what would happen and He said, "When the
Holy Spirit is come, you will be witnesses, not before! It
will require the Holy Spirit to make, such as you,
Peter, a
witness!"
Now, friends, it
is a simple matter, but I do feel that you and I need the Holy
Spirit over this matter. We are not the witnesses to men that
we ought to be. When it really comes to it, we shirk. We don't
do it. We will produce any kind of argument to get out of it.
Now, I am not suggesting that you rush out from this meeting
and
get hold of everybody and begin to talk to them. But you know,
a lot of people say, "You'll only make a lot of trouble,
unnecessary trouble, if you begin to do that sort of thing!"
Are you quite sure, are you quite sure that you are not making
that a cover? What
do those with whom you do business know about Jesus where you
are concerned, with whom you have transacted your business
affairs? What do those who live around you know about Jesus
where you are concerned? You see here, everybody knew, and
they couldn't help knowing when the Holy Spirit came into
these men. In ever widening circles, people knew! And
I believe
that the real value in all this, is not that we know that
people know; it's that they know, even when we don't know
that they are knowing. But there it is: the Holy Spirit is
like that.
Now I could, or I wish that I
could, take up in far greater fullness this whole matter of
the
change in these people - the change in these people after
the
Holy Spirit came, in their character. Yes, the Spirit of
Jesus has come, and they are already beginning to be conformed
to His image. His moral courage, His spiritual virtues, much
more, and it goes on. There are crises in this, that doesn't
matter, the thing is they are on the way; on the
way. And
I like to read those letters of Peter, written so many years
afterward, and see what grace has done in that man, the
measure of Christ to be met in him. That's the Holy Spirit's
work.
May I put my
finger upon one other thing here. You notice the change
corporately, not only individually, personally, but:
The Change
Corporately.
Well, it's a simple statement; I believe it
signifies quite a lot, "And Peter, standing up with the
eleven..." There were a hundred and twenty of them gathered in
that
upper room (it must have been a fairly large upper room) a
hundred and twenty of them gathered into it, men and women. In
the synagogue they would have been segregated, the men would
have had to sit on one side, and the women on the other. I
don't believe that was true in the upper room; they were all
mixed up together... a beautiful representation that in Christ
Jesus there is neither male nor female - it is one New Man.
Don't misunderstand that statement. I know a lot of sisters
who are like that! I'm not going to stop to explain what I
mean, but in Christ Jesus it's one New Man.
And here is the
beginning, they're together, they are together. And from
that moment of the Spirit's coming, you find a togetherness
moving and working and developing, "And they had all things
common, and not any of them said that the things that he
possessed were his own..." see? You wouldn't have got
that in the old days. They would have said: "Look here, what
is
mine is my own; hands off!" Every man for himself. It was
true; even of the disciples it was true. It's a horrible
suggestion, but there it is. They were all for their own
position and place in the kingdom and quarrelling,
quarrelling as they went along with the Master, and the Master
sensed it, and discerned it that they were discussing who
should
be greatest in the kingdom - rivalries and jealousies and
ambitions - all personal, self-centred. It has gone, from the
Day of Pentecost, it has gone! They are welded into a
corporate One. It has begun, at least, in a very wonderful
way. That is what
the Holy Spirit does when He really does get hold.
Don't we
need that? Do we not need the Holy Spirit in greater
fullness
and power? You know, all this tremendous activity and
organisation, and all the talk about reunion of the churches,
and what not - oh, the immensity of this propaganda
and
machinery - the whole thing would go out of the window if the
Holy Spirit came in! It would all cease; unnecessary,
vain,
nonsense, if the Holy Spirit got His place. You would have all
the unity that ever heaven requires. And that's the only
unity worth having, isn't it?
I must close
reluctantly, on two other touches. One is, you notice that
these people were always gravitating heavenward. Aways
gravitating heavenward. Heaven was
not only the place of their origin from which they had come;
heaven was not only their support in a foreign and alien
country, but heaven was their objective and their goal. One
thing that governed them was this ultimate, this ultimate, of
being with Him in glory. Heaven... their spirits were
gravitating
heavenward. They had lost the magnetism of this world, it was
broken and nullified, it no longer pulled them. They
were moving further and further away from this earth. See
them! See it happening!
The temple was an earthly thing, and you
can see, quietly and steadily how they are gravitating away
from the temple at Jerusalem; it ceases to hold them. You can
never put your finger upon the actual day and point in which
they broke
with that system and that centre; but it happened. You find
them eventually they are out of it, the whole thing. They are
moving away from every earthly tie. It's a wonderful thing.
It's a law of the Holy Spirit - that happens if you and I are
Holy Spirit governed men and women, we are spoiled for
this world; this world is losing, if it hasn't already
completely lost, any kind of interest for us. This is not our
life. This is not our place. We have got to be here;
we have
just got to be here until the Lord says otherwise, but
we don't like it; our spirits don't like it. No, so far as any
kind of liking this world is concerned, it's the other way:
we are becoming more and more to feel how out of it all we
are - not a part of it, it's irksome to us. It's true, isn't
it? You go to your business, but oh, how much more you would
like to remain in the fellowship of the heavenly people... but
you have got to go; the Lord has called you there.
They were
like that, like that; always gravitating toward heaven and moving
inwardly; inwardly moving away from the world.
One other thing,
and I close for the present. You notice the wonderful
enlargement that began to take place on the Day of Pentecost
in this further sense, what we have so often called "the
universality of Christ". The universality of Christ! You
cannot, you cannot fasten Christ Jesus down to anything
that relates to
this earth and to this world. You cannot fix Him into any
nationality; He fits into all of them, and is a part of none
of
them. You cannot fix Him into one language; He can be
understood in every language, and He understands every
language. And so we could go on. This marvellous universality!
Look here, here's the Day of Pentecost, and what happened?
This: "And they were all amazed and marvelled saying,
Behold, are not all these which speak Galileans, and how
hear we every man in his own language, wherein we were born:
Parthians, and Medes, and Elamites, and dwellers in
Mesopotamia, in Judaea and Cappadocia; in Pontus and Asia;
in Phrygia and Pamphylia; in Egypt and in the parts of Libya
and Cyrene, sojourners from Rome, Jews and proselytes,
Cretans, and Arabians." A perfect Noah's ark!
Something of every kind! The universality of Christ.
The
strategy of the Holy Spirit: to make Christ meet the need of
every kind of creature in every nation and
language, fitting
in. I don't know how many of the three thousand were
represented in all those departments of humanity after
Pentecost, but I think that alone is a marvellous exhibition
of the universality of Christ, the Holy Spirit making it known
how great Christ is.
Oh, dear friends, the Holy Spirit does
that sort of thing, He breaks down the barriers of
what is merely
national and temperamental. He constitutes this New Man on the
heavenly, universal principle. The old wine skins of a mere
restricted nationalism have burst when the new wine comes
in and it flows out, spills over, into all the nations.
Paul pleaded with
the Corinthians: "Be ye enlarged... Our hearts are enlarged: be
ye also enlarged". How? Well, the only effective way of
extricating us from our littlenesses, our pettinesses, our
exclusivenesses, and enlarging us to the dimensions of the
heavenly Man, is a mighty filling with the Holy Spirit. That
is what He does! That will be an effect. If you
have any
experience, any real experience of the Holy Spirit,
you'll
have had a crisis in your life at a point where before it you
were in those straitnesses and limitations, and bondages of
the old natural life, and afterward, afterward, this crisis
where the Spirit of God came into your life. You know this
quite well, that the church ceased to be something sectarian,
comprised of so many sects, and departments (I will not use
the other word) it ceased to be like that and your horizon
ceased to be something local. It became enlarged to the great
dimensions of Christ, and this church which is His body, in
which there is neither Jew nor Greek - neither,
not both; neither! But there is only one New Man, a people
taken out of every nation for His Name, to be
called by His Name, the Jesus Family. We are not going
to
adopt that name, but that's what it means. Now, you see how
we are launched into a tremendous realm.
The Lord take hold of
some of this, and really challenge us with it. It's not a
statement of truth only, it is a challenge. Am I like that?
Really, has the Spirit of God done something of that in me?
Is He doing it? Is He going on with it? That's the challenge.
The Lord make it true.