The Revelation of Christ
READING: Gal. 1:15-16;
Eph. 2:15-16; 4:15-16,24; Col. 3:10.
The phrase which I feel
is to engage us at this time is that in Eph. 2:15 -
"one new man". But before we speak about that
specifically, there is a word which must lead to it.
The question that is
exercising many hearts today is that which relates to the
need, the great need, for a recovery of the original
freshness, vitality and power of Christianity. Many are
concerned with this matter. How can that original
freshness, vitality and power be recovered amongst the
Lord's people? It is in seeking to answer that question,
at least in part, that I think we should find some
profit. But we must, of course, ask why it is that that
freshness and vitality is lacking. What is the reason for
its absence? What is it that accounts for the present
state of things which is so different from what it was at
the beginning? Do you not think, dear friends, that,
while the answer may be a very much wider one, it can be
answered in this way, that the present vitiated state of
things spiritually in Christianity is so largely due to
the fact that Christianity has become almost entirely a
tradition, a fixed system, a system of doctrine and of
practice crystallized and formed and presented as
something from the outside to be accepted, adopted, and
conformed to. Christianity has taken a fixed shape. It is
an "it", and you are called upon to accept that
"it" which is Christianity. When we have
recognized that, I think we have got really to the heart
of the matter, because in the beginning and in principle
throughout the New Testament everything was a master of a
living inward revelation of a Person; for whenever
God has moved to take some fresh step in relation to His
purpose, His comprehensive purpose, He has always done so
by giving a new revelation in an inward way.
A
Revelation of the Lord the Way of Progress
It was a great step in
that purpose of God when He brought Abraham into
fellowship with Himself. "The God of glory appeared
unto our father Abraham" (Acts 7:2), and that is
only saying in other words, "it pleased God to
reveal..." In principle it was a revelation that
came to Abraham of the God of glory. It was that
revelation of the God of glory that emancipated Abraham
and resulted in all that came in and through Abraham as a
link in the chain of God's eternal purpose.
It was true of Moses;
and Moses represents another step on the part of God, a
fresh movement in His purpose. God appeared unto Moses in
the burning bush. He saw the Lord; he had a vision of the
Lord; that meant everything to him. I think we should not
be wrong in saying that many times in the life of Moses
when pressed hard, under stress, in temptation, trial,
suffering and adversity, in the difficulties of the way,
he called back that original vision. He called to mind
that day when he saw the Lord in the flame of the bush.
The Lord appeared unto him. It was something which
remained in his history as basic. He would say, On that
day I saw the Lord, I came into living touch with the
Lord, it pleased God to reveal Himself to me!
So we might go on with
one after another and find it true in every case. Isaiah
will say, "I saw the Lord high and lifted up, and
his train filled the temple" (Isa. 6:1).
It was true in the New
Testament. The disciples had to base everything upon the
forty days after the resurrection - "We have seen
the Lord". That is what the Lord meant by it. He
appeared after His resurrection by the space of forty
days and they saw, but in another way, in a spiritual
way, in a way in which they had never seen Him before. It
was in a living way.
Paul certainly based
his whole history upon this; "it pleased God to
reveal his Son in me". He could say, I saw the Lord.
And that was not only
true as one tremendous thing at the beginning of the life
of each of these. It was something which in principle was
repeated again and again in order to get fresh
developments, fresh advances. Peter had seen Him alive
after the Cross by the space of forty days. He had seen
Him in that way, but there was still need for Peter to
move on, and so he saw the Lord again in connection with
Cornelius and the inclusion of the Gentiles. He saw the
Lord again, and that fresh seeing of the Lord emancipated
him some more from the old traditional position, the old
legal bondage, from the earthly and the merely
historical, from knowing after the flesh. He saw; and we
know what happened. When he saw he could not help
himself. It was no use arguing. He went up to Jerusalem
and they contended with him, they disputed with him, they
called him to question over this matter of going in to
the Gentiles. He, in effect, says, I have seen, I cannot
help myself; I saw and what am I to do? When a man sees,
he cannot help himself. He is simply emancipated by what
he sees, if he sees in the right way.
When the Lord would
make that fresh tremendous movement with the Gospel into
Europe, He did it by showing something. Paul saw a man of
Macedonia, and that man said, "Come over into
Macedonia and help us", and although Paul had
essayed to go into Bithynia and sought to preach the Word
in Asia, the Lord said, No, and then showed him a man of
Macedonia (Acts. 16:6-10). Paul could have summed it all
up in this way - The mighty movement of God into Europe
with the Gospel was by a new divinely given vision; I saw
and I went. The way of advance was the way of the
heavenly vision; the way of development was the way of
new revelation; the way on in the purpose of God was by
having the inner eye opened to see. Not once nor twice,
but whenever God wants to move on, He opens the eye anew.
"It pleased God to reveal his Son in me" - that
is the principle all the way along. It has ever been so;
a living revelation, the eyes of the heart being
enlightened, but a revelation of Christ. "It pleased
God to reveal..." That is the opening of the inner
eye, the eye of the heart, the understanding.
Not
Things, but Christ
"It pleased God to
reveal His Son" - that is the comprehensive
object. In Him all the purposes and ways and intentions
of God are gathered up. God does not show things to
His people, He shows His Son. He does not show truths;
with God no one truth is an abstract thing. It is
personal. Christianity has become a system of abstract
truths, the truths of the Gospel. God ever presents His
Son, and the truths in relation to a living Person, never
out of such relation. If we see the Lord by the
revelation of the Holy Spirit, we have seen everything
related to our salvation, related to our sanctification,
related to our vocation, and related to our
glorification. It is all in seeing Christ. The recovery
of the original spiritual vitality and freshness and
power will only come along this line - a new revelation
in an inward way, in a living way, of the significance of
the Lord Jesus. That means much more than it sounds in a
statement, because there is nothing of significance
beside Him. The very significance of this universe is
centred in God's Son. "All things have been created
through him and unto him" (Col. 1:16); He is the
significance of all things. All time has its significance
in Him - "He is before all things" (Col. 1:17).
To see the meaning of the Lord Jesus is to be out of
everything earthbound, timebound, fleshbound. You cannot
see the Lord Jesus and be limited to any of the things of
this old creation.
We have mentioned some
of those who saw, and you observe what happened. When
they saw, they were soon out; out with God, free with
God. Nothing in this world would have extricated Saul of
Tarsus from his Jewish history, his Pharisaical bondage,
his legal strait-jacket, from his very blood as of a son
of Israel; nothing! But he saw Christ, God's Son, and
that did it. It is a mistake to talk to people about this
and that and the other thing from which they should
escape and "come out", and so on. You can get
things done like that and just get a Christianity of a
systematised order imposed. People embrace it
and become adherents to it and believe in it
in a way, but you do not get the freshness, the vitality
and the power that was there at the beginning. That comes
when people are in a position to say, I see; it pleased
God to reveal His Son in me, I have seen, I cannot help
myself; I am bound to take such and such a course because
I have seen!
You can see how
hidebound Peter was - "Not so, Lord: for nothing
common or unclean hath ever entered into my mouth"
(Acts 11:8). Not so, Lord! If you and I see Christ, the
things which are religiously impossible with us will
become actualities, and religious impossibilities are
much stronger than human impossibilities.
Today the need is not
primarily for the recovery of doctrine and truth. There
may be a need in a large area for the restoration of
fundamental truth and doctrine to its right place, but
when you have it, when you have exact doctrine, you have
no assurance of having life. It is possible to be exact
and correct in your doctrine and to be perfectly dead.
Whatever may be the need of the recovery of lost truth,
the need over all, greater than all, is the recovery of
spiritual revelation as to the Lord Jesus, to see Him
anew.
A
Revelation of Christ Corporate
That can lead on to
what is bound up with the fragment of the Word which is
before us - "one new man". You can see from
these Scriptures that there is a double, two-sided, major
revelation of Christ comprehended by the New Testament;
it came by revelation. Firstly, there is the revelation
of Him personally, Christ personally, the Son of God; and
then following that, by revelation again, Christ
corporately, not as two things but two sides of one, so
much so that the second is spoken of as "the Christ" (1 Cor. 12:12 Gr.). This word 'man' is a collective
term and is gathered up into the one Christ. Here is the
statement - "have put on the new man... where there
cannot be" this and that and the other thing
"but Christ is all, and in all" (Col. 3:10-11).
The new man where Christ is all and in all.
You notice the
significance of Eph. 4:20: it is worth looking at
closely. "Ye did not so learn Christ." It does
not say learn about Christ, but learn Christ. "If so
be that ye heard him, and were taught in him, even as
truth is in Jesus: that ye put away... the old man... and
that ye be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and put on
the new man." So learn Christ that ye put off the
old man and put on the new man, being renewed in the
spirit of your mind. That is worth thinking about - to
learn Christ, is to do something, is to result in
something, and that something is that if you have learned
Christ, you have put off the old man. If you have learned
Christ, you have put on the new man. To learn Christ is
to see and embrace an entirely new order of man. That is
the significance of Christ. It is this - a new and
different kind of man has been introduced by God into
this universe, and He is the object of all spiritual
education. "So learned Christ". It is a
practical thing, it is not an academic thing, it is not a
thing at all; it is a Person, and your way of learning
that Person is not observation and imitation. Your way of
learning is the exchange of something for Him, an old man
for a new.
Have we seen that new
man? Have we really seen Christ and the tremendous
difference that there is between Him and every other
creation? Is that being brought home to us in an inward
way, that we are altogether different naturally from
Christ, that He is utterly different from ourselves?
"Renewed in the spirit of your mind"; that we
"should walk in newness of life" (Rom. 6:4);
that we should "serve in newness of the spirit"
(Rom. 7:6). It is all newness and all different, all
other. To see that difference is the way of recovering
the vitality, freshness, and power of seeing with
ever-growing vision what Christ is. He is the first and
type of a new family. The Holy Spirit has come to
generate after the order of Christ a new type. The life
in the Spirit is the progressive conformity to the image
of God's Son, and the consummation of that life is the
revelation of the sons of God, a different order
altogether.
Dear friends, if we
could recognize it, the explanation of everything in this
world is bound up with that. What is the explanation of
the present world upheaval and travail? Well of course,
this is only a development of things that have been going
on all the way through the centuries, but what is the
explanation? There is no doubt that this world is
plagued; it is plagued by war, it is plagued by tumult,
it is plagued, plagued all the way through. And who has
plagued it? God has plagued it. And why has God plagued
it? Because it is the kingdom of Satan and as God
continually plagued Egypt until Egypt disgorged His son,
so God has plagued this great kingdom of Satan until the
sons of God are secured. Then "the creation itself
also shall be delivered from the bondage of
corruption" (Rom. 8:21). An explanation of this
world's trouble and travail is this, that there is a
corporate sonship within this kingdom, and until this
Pharaoh's overthrow is made good this world will be
plagued. "The whole creation groaneth and travaileth
in pain waiting for the manifestation, (the apocalypse,
the revelation) of the sons of God." (Rom. 8:22,19).
Yes, this is the explanation.
Well, how does that
affect us? It brings us right back here. Our primary
concern is not to get better conditions in this world, to
get peace and a new order here on this earth. God knows
we long for wars to cease and conditions to be changed,
but that is not our primary concern. Our primary concern
is this question of sonship, this question of getting out
of the nations the people for His Name, getting out of
this kingdom that new family, getting that Christ-order
completed. That relates to ourselves. We have to see to
it that we are bent upon this matter, that this
Christ-order, this Christ-kind, this Christ-nature, this
Christ-species into which we have been brought by
regeneration by the Holy Spirit is brought to perfection
in ourselves, that we are being conformed to the image of
that Son, that we are growing up into Him in all things
Who is the Head, even Christ, that we are making increase
spiritually after that order. But it is a corporate
thing. Our business is the completing of the Christ order
in a corporate way in the Church which is His Body, and
beyond that the bringing in from the nations of those who
are eventually to make full that Body and be the fulness
of Him that filleth all in all.
You see, dear friends,
that the New Testament has one object in view, only one
object, and that is the completion of this Body and its
ultimate emancipation. It begins with evangelism, but
evangelism is not a thing in itself. When the gifts are
given by the ascended Lord - apostles and prophets,
evangelists, pastors and teachers, they are all related
to one thing, they are all centred in one thing. They are
not things in themselves. "Unto the building up of
the body of Christ". That is the issue of all and of
each, but evangelism has been made something in itself,
detached and unrelated. Those who are taken up with it
very often have no interest beyond that. It is something
in itself. Evangelize, evangelize, get souls saved, that
is all that matters! But it is related to a centre. There
are those who are teachers and their whole interest is in
teaching, and it becomes a thing in itself, teaching,
teaching, teaching. The poor people are fed and taught,
taught and fed, but it is something going round in a
circle. Teaching is to the building up of the Body. The
teacher, the evangelist, the prophet are all centred in
one thing - the building up of the Body. That Body is
God's end. The evangelist to bring in, the teacher to
build up, instruct; everything is to one end, and that is
the Christ corporately expressed and ultimately
universally manifested in that Body. Let me say again how
needful it is for us to get this in the way of a living
revelation, otherwise these things become technical and
ecclesiastical; you make them something in themselves
and very earthly. But to see the full vision by
revelation of what God is after does mean deliverance
from little ends in themselves, little circles constantly going round earthly things,
ecclesiastical orders, religious systems, mere doctrines
and teachings; all these things in themselves. Oh, see God's one great end and it is enlargement, it is life!
Of course, here is the
difficulty. If you have not had some real experience of
what I am talking about, then I am saying to the blind,
See! That is always the difficulty. If you know in a
little way what I mean, if you have seen, though it be a
little, something has come to you at some time with all
the force and power of the opening of the inward eye and
you have been able to see, and you say, I see now! You
know what a power that seeing has become in your life,
what a release has taken place with that, what a new
prospect loomed up before you. There is tremendous
strength in really seeing like that. Well, if you see,
you know what I am talking about.
But what I am saying is
this, that there is a full, mighty end that God has in
view, a tremendous thing, an immense thing, and the way
by which He is going to reach it is the continual opening
of eyes. We shall come to a standstill, we shall just be
stuck, if we have reached the end of revelation. There
are many who have reached the end of all revelation. You
understand that I am not talking about something extra to
what is in the Scriptures, I am not going outside of the
Word of God. I am saying this, that here is the Book and
the Book can be comprehended and mastered and you may be,
like Apollos, mighty in the Scriptures and know nothing
whatever about the mighty vitality of the Holy Ghost.
Paul came on the heels of Apollos of whom it was said
that he was mighty in the Scriptures, and those to whom
he had been ministering at Ephesus knew not that the Holy
Spirit was. Aquila and Priscilla took him and expounded
unto him the way more perfectly. You may be mighty in the
Scriptures. There is the Book, the letter, and we may be
letter perfect, Book perfect, masters of what is written
and yet there be no life about it, no energy about it, no
power, no freshness. The one cannot dispense with the
other. We must have the Scriptures, but oh, to have the
Holy Spirit opening, revealing in a living way so that
with the inner eye we are seeing more and more through
those Scriptures the significance of Christ, the fulness
of Christ ever breaking upon us. That makes Christianity
a living, fresh, powerful thing. That is the way of
revival. I think that is the revival we need - to see the
Lord again and things will happen; to see the Lord in
ever-growing fulness so far as our seeing is concerned,
and things will happen when it is like that.
Now I have just
presented to you the object and stated the realm of
revelation. What it requires is for the Lord to reveal
Christ to us, breaking in upon us, but there is no doubt
about it that it is going to be a costly thing. There
never has yet been true revelation without tremendous
responsibility and cost. Those who have seen have been
involved in a costly way. It cost Abraham a lot to see
the God of glory; it cost Moses a lot to see the Lord; it
cost Isaiah a lot to see the Lord; it cost Paul
everything when he saw the Lord. But, having seen the
Lord, who would exchange that revelation for a tradition,
for something earthly, of time, in religious things? No,
you cannot go back upon that. It is the most precious
thing to have seen, and to see. It is life, and I take it
that you and I desire more than anything else that our
Christianity should be living. We do not want just to be
brought up in something, having been told something,
instructed in something in an outward way, so that that
has become our religion. No, we want it every day to be
something that works, something that is real; no matter what it means of finding us out, of making demands, we
want it to be real, to be living. That is what the people
of God need - living, real Christianity that is a
constant challenge to them and through them to others,
and the secret of such a Christianity is seeing the Lord
and seeing more and yet more of the significance of
Christ. It is along the line of living revelation that
power comes. May the Lord explain to our hearts what this
means and interpret His Word.
First published in "A Witness and A
Testimony" magazine, March-April 1946, Vol 24-2