"And while they were looking stedfastly into
heaven as he went, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel; who also
said, Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye looking into heaven? this Jesus, who was
received up from you into heaven shall so come in like manner as ye beheld him
going into heaven."
(Acts 1:10-11).
"...Till we all attain unto the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge
of the Son of God, unto a fullgrown man, unto the measure of the stature of the
fulness of Christ... having abolished in the
flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances; that he
might create in himself of the two one new man, so making peace; and might
reconcile them both in one body unto God through the cross, having slain the
enmity thereby."
(Eph. 4:13; 2:15-16).
"...And have put on the new man, that is being renewed unto knowledge
after the image of him that created him: where there cannot be Greek and Jew,
circumcision and uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, bondman, freeman; but
Christ is all, and in all."
(Col.
3:10-11).
"...And put on the new man, that after God
hath been created in righteousness and holiness of truth."
(Eph. 4:24).
"For as many of you as were baptized into
Christ did put on Christ." (Gal. 3:27).
The Perfecting of the Son of Man
The Lord Jesus in His sufferings was perfected as
Son of Man. He was perfect, without sin, and yet we
are told that He was perfected through sufferings. In His
case the question of sin does not arise, and is not the
side of truth that comes into view in the perfecting of the Son of Man. This has
to do with the fact that, being without sin, He voluntarily gave Himself up to
live a life of dependence upon God; not upon Himself in any way, not to do His
own human will, not to live according to His own human judgments, not
to follow His own
human desires, or
feelings; not in any matter whatever
to
live or move or
speak or have His being apart from the Father. On that
basis He was subjected in a brief space of time to every kind of testing and
trial to which any being can be subjected. We know nothing, comparatively
speaking, of what He did endure as to temptation, as to
trial. Even from the record of His life, where certain trials
and temptations and sufferings come into view, you and I
can never judge of the depth and poignancy of His
travail. If the offerings in the first six chapters of the book
of Leviticus are really typical of Christ, then you have
practically every kind of offering subjected to fire in one
way or another. Thus, not only in His Cross as the whole
burnt offering, but equally in the sense of the meal
offering His pure, holy, sinless human life was tested by
the fire. It was in these fires, in life and in death, that He
was tried, on the basis of His dependence upon the
Father, His obedience to the Father, His refusal to move
in any respect apart from the Father, to accept anything
out of the Father's time or will.
The last and terrible test in the garden and on the
Cross was the full measure of pressure to break Him
down if He could be broken down, and in this way He
was perfected - perfect, but perfected.
That humanity, that life which has been lived, utterly
satisfying God, and utterly defeating every power and
attempt of hell, is taken to glory, to God's right hand.
There at God's right hand He is set forth as that perfected
humanity, not only sinless, but developed to its full extent,
its full capacity, through trial. Concerning that, the Spirit
says to us through the Scriptures that we, through new
birth and possessing the Spirit through faith, are now
partakers of that very life. Let us not think of the humanity
merely in terms of the physical, but of a perfect manhood,
a perfect nature, which has satisfied God wholly, and is
given to us by the Holy Spirit to be the truest, most
inward reality of our life. It is Christ ministered to us, and
when we take of the loaf we are testifying to the fact that
now it is not on the basis of what we are by nature, but
on the basis of what Jesus is in glory that we are living
our lives, that we choose to live our lives. Then we in
turn are tried, tested as to whether we will live on the basis of Christ, God's
perfect Man, or whether we will forsake that ground and return to our own ground
and live in any way on the ground of self. It is that which is the innermost
truth of Paul's great statement: "I have been crucified with Christ..." That
means that all that "I" stands for has been put away, and it is no longer I but
Christ.
The Issue of Pentecost
That brings us really to the meaning of Pentecost, or
the meaning of the Holy Spirit. We ask again, what is the
meaning of the Holy Spirit? It is just this, that His it is to
present Christ to us in terms of Lordship and
Saviourhood. The Lord calls upon men to recognise that
He has put Jesus Christ in the place of absolute
Lordship, and so men have to bow to Christ before they
can know salvation. The danger is that we should put it
the other way round, and get inadequate results; for so
often Christ is presented as Saviour first, and men come
to Him as Saviour because they want to get out of all the
misery and inconvenience which sin has brought upon
them. That is really to desire salvation for their own
sakes, and so an inadequate result is known. If it is kept
in the Divine order, Jesus Christ is to be recognised as
Lord first, and that means absolute surrender to Him;
not what you are to get for yourself in the first place, but
what He is to have; His rights in the life. On that basis of
bowing utterly to His Lordship there is an open way into
all the blessings of His Saviourhood. That is the New
Testament order. The first thing the Holy Spirit does is to
present Christ to us in terms of Lordship and
Saviourhood.
Christ Revealed as Within
The second thing is to reveal Christ in us through
faith. When Christ is presented to us, then is the
challenge to faith. The whole question of obedience, of
faith expressing itself in obedience, is raised. It may be
instantaneous, and the same thing may seem to be
simultaneous. It seems that in the case of Paul it was
simultaneous, or almost so, because the appearing of
Christ to him was equally the presenting of Christ to him.
It was looked back upon by him and spoken of as also
the revealing of God's Son in him. They are two aspects
of one thing. They may be almost simultaneous, but they
may not be. They are movements of the Spirit, and first
is the presenting of that challenge to faith, and
obedience. On that basis there is again a movement of
the Holy Spirit and the revelation of Christ in us, through
faith. This means the great thing. So far as we are concerned everything depends
upon this state in the
movement of the Spirit, because this means the
coming into us of that which is "altogether
other" than we are, and the coming in to us of
that in terms of Lordship. This revealing of
God's Son in us by the Holy Spirit does not mean
just the lighting up of Christ in our hearts, not
merely that inside there is a light by which we
see Christ, it means the imparting of Christ. It
means that Christ is revealed as in us: not only
revealed in us, but revealed as in us. Christ has
now become subjective, whereas before He was
objective. It is something "altogether other"
than we are. It takes a lifetime to discover how
altogether other Christ is from what we are. He
has now by the Spirit been introduced into us,
and that in terms of Lordship, because the Holy
Spirit means by this that we have to bow right
down before Him.
That is where the conflict begins. That is
where all our Christian experience begins. That
is the basis of our discipline, our training, our
chastening. Spiritual history is wrought out
upon that ground, of Christ, so utterly other
than we are, getting ascendency over us in every
detail, in every sense. That is where spiritual
intelligence comes, and that is what spirituality
is. It is recognising, perceiving, discerning
Christ as so much other than we are, and then
following that intelligence and working it out,
or working according to it. The advent of the
Holy Spirit means the Lordship of Christ, but
that is pre-eminently practical. It is not just
saying, Yes, we recognise Christ as God's Son,
as Lord, as on the throne, and we bow to Him as
such, but the Holy Spirit comes along and begins
to apply that all the way through our lives at
every point, and almost every day. We can have
a series of challenges upon the question of the
Lordship of Jesus Christ over our minds, our
wills, our hearts, our ways; that reaction of the
Holy Spirit in us to our action, where we move
and the Holy Spirit counter-moves, and we know
that we have moved wrongly. Every such reaction of the Holy Spirit is bringing home the
fact that, with Him, Christ revealed within is in
terms of Lordship, and we learn so to bow to
Him in His utter difference from ourselves.
Entering into God's Rest
This has several phases. The first is the question of
our coming into God's rest; and ceasing from ourselves.
You can see how this
issue is raised immediately by the Holy Spirit. If all that is
intended by this introduction of Christ as so different from
ourselves is to be realised, we must cease from ourselves,
and we must cease from our own works. That means, on
the other hand, that we must enter into God's rest. It
means that the Cross has to be accepted and passed in
fact, just as Jordan had to be passed through by Israel in
fact, and then Jordan became a practical working
principle for the rest of their lives. Nevertheless, Jordan
had to be established as a fact in their consciousness, in
their recognition, as basic to all the future, and we have to
have the Cross settled as basic in like manner, which is
the way into God's rest.
We see Israel passing over into the land which was
represented as God's rest for them. Of the former
generation the Lord said: "I swear in my wrath, they
shall not enter into my rest"; and they perished in the
wilderness. The generation which did pass over are
represented as having entered into God's rest typically,
symbolically. What kind of rest was it? It was a rest of
continuous battles, fightings, subduings, mighty activities.
The principle of the rest is established at the outset in
Jericho. God let them know the nature of His rest by just
causing them to march round Jericho day after day, and
allowing them to do nothing else. There is nothing very
arduous about that. Then on the seventh day they had to
do it seven times. Thereupon the whole obstruction
collapsed. It was not their doing. In faith they entered
into God's rest, and God did what remained to be done.
That was the principle upon which the conquest of the
land was to take place.
If you and I are coming into all that is bound up with
God's heavenly Man having been introduced into us by
the Holy Spirit, we shall find that God's rest is basic to
that. What is God's rest? It is our accepting as a fact the
finished work of the Cross, the end of God's works in
Christ. If we have never got that settled the result will be
that there will be no progress, no growth. Ceasing from
ourselves and being wholly occupied with Christ is God's
rest. If we are going to be taken up continually with the
question of our own salvation, our own sanctification, our
own spiritual life, our own work for the Lord, the value
of our lives to the Lord here on this earth; in any way, in
any sense occupied with ourselves, even though it may
be in a
spiritual way; in spiritual interests and spiritual concerns
taken up with ourselves, so that we are always watching
our own spiritual progress, and development, just how
much we are counting, how much work we are doing,
we shall not grow. It takes many of the Lord's people a
long time to come to the end of this which is, after all, the
first stage of things with the Lord. We must get it settled
as basic to everything, that Christ is made unto us
righteousness, sanctification, redemption, wisdom from
God. The question of our salvation is settled when we
believe. It is not something given to us in ourselves, as
though we had to keep it and look after it and watch
over it, lest we lose our salvation. Salvation is in Christ
Jesus, and He is now, through the Cross and the
resurrection, beyond the reach of any destructive power,
and holds our treasure, our salvation in Himself. Faith in
Him settles once for all the question of our salvation. All
we are asked to do is to direct our faith to the Lord
Jesus as our salvation.
The matter of sanctification is the same. He is made
unto us sanctification. We are to be occupied with the
Lord Jesus, and forsake our own ground, and then the
sanctifying work will be done. The Lord has undertaken
it. Our responsibility begins and ends with reposing faith
in Christ, even for sanctification. The Lord will do the
rest.
Am I to take upon my own shoulders the whole
matter of my usefulness to the Lord, my vocation, my
service, my ministry? No, never! How many of the
children of God have been beaten, and broken, and
buffetted about by the question of ministry and usefulness
to the Lord. That is not our affair in the first instance.
What is to be done with our lives depends entirely upon
our walking with the Lord. We have altogether false ideas
of ministry. We have set ministry before our eyes as some
kind of order of things, something into which we get,
something that we take up, and ministry is nothing of the
kind. Ministry is the spontaneous outgoing of Christ in us, and
the more there is of Christ to go out through us, the
greater will be our ministry. Let us get away from
mechanical ideas of service for the Lord. The Holy Spirit,
Who has introduced Christ into us, is going to construct
everything upon the basis of Christ in us.
This is entering into His rest. The works were finished
from the foundation of the world, the works "afore
prepared that we should walk in
them". How can we walk in works foreordained, of
which we have no knowledge? Walk in the Spirit, and
you will find yourself in the works foreordained. Rest in
the finished work of Christ. It touches our salvation, it
touches our sanctification, and it touches our vocation.
Be wholly set upon Christ. To follow Him as the Holy
Spirit makes Him known to us, that is to enter into rest.
Continuing in the Spirit
Joshua is a type of the energies of the Holy Spirit and
not of Christ, as has so often been said. The land is the
type of Christ, the fulness of Christ, the treasures that are
in Christ. Christ is the land, flowing with milk and honey.
It is by the energies of the Holy Spirit that we are to
come into that; and it was as the people obeyed fully,
and were subject to Joshua, that they came into
possession of the fulnesses, and became a triumphant
people. Our business is just to be sure that we have the
Spirit, and that we are moving by the Spirit, and ceasing
from ourselves. The rest is His responsibility.
We tarry with this matter, to press it in the simplest
ways. Have you any reason at all to believe that the Lord
Jesus has come into your life? Have there ever been any
evidences of that? What are those evidences? Are not
those evidences things altogether apart from yourself;
that is, they are not things which you have produced,
which have come from you, but rather, as you would say
in your more mature spiritual phraseology, things which
the Lord has shown, and the Lord has done? Have you
any evidence like that? If so, why should you not just go
on to the fulness of that? Did you start that? Did that
originate with you? Not at all.
Then, if the Lord has taken the initiative in any
one thing in your life, why should He not take the
initiative in the remainder. How was it He was able to do
it in that one thing? Because you trusted Him for it. Did
you bring about your salvation? No, He did it. Did you
trust the Lord in any other detail, and did He not
undertake? Why should not the Lord keep your whole
life on that basis? That is but going on in the way of the
Lord.
You may be struggling and straining and agonising and
getting into despair, and wondering if you will ever get
into things, reach this high realm of things. Perhaps you
have almost decided that you never will. Perhaps you
are
thinking of the wings of the dove, that would fly away
and be at - what? Rest? No! You will never get rest by
flying away. The trouble is that you have not recognised
the basic fact that the Holy Spirit has brought Christ to
dwell within you, and if you will cease from your own
works and refuse definitely to take up the battle again
for yourself, but believe that the Lord is going to do the
rest as you commit yourself to the hands of the Holy
Spirit, the Lord will do the rest. I can tell you of no
other way. I know of no other way. It is a matter of
stepping from our own ground through the Cross, and
taking the ground of Christ as risen, as ascended, and
for that to be made good in us on the ground of the
Cross by the Holy Spirit. It is then that things change.
Rest Essential to Growth
It is essential that we enter into God's rest on
all matters. The matter of our usefulness to the
Lord troubles us, and troubles many of the
Lord's people. We have to abandon that concern as it becomes a personal concern. We will
have a prayerful concern that we shall not fail
the Lord, but if it is a matter of getting into
service which at the moment is not before us,
and we are going to worry ourselves about our
life work, then that is not our responsibility at
all. We have to settle down to the fact that if
the Lord wants to do anything with us, if we are
rightly adjusted, if we are at His disposal, if He
has a clear way in us, He will Himself take
responsibility for our usefulness to Him, whether
it be little or great. It would be better for us to
be tucked away in some quiet corner of the
world where we were serving the Lord a hundred
percent, though within a seemingly limited
sphere, than for us to be out in some great thing,
where we were full of activities but only about
ten percent of it was really the Lord's work.
To enter into God's rest is basic to growth.
That which follows is the operation of the Spirit of
sonship. The operation of the Spirit of sonship never
begins, is never taken up, until we have entered into
God's rest. Hebrews 4 speaks of God's rest. Then in
chapters 5 (from verse 12) and 6 we have such words
as these: 'Of whom (Melchezidek) we have many things
to say, but ye cannot receive them... When by reason of
the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that
someone teach you the first principles of Christ - you have
to be dealt
with as babes. Let us cease to speak of the first
principles, and let us go on to full growth; not laying
again a foundation...' Then the foundation things are
mentioned by name. The writer is saying, in effect: 'You
are occupied with these first things all the time, but, after
all, they are foundations. They are all principles, but,
after all, they are first principles. While you stay there,
turning over these questions again and again, occupied
with first principles, you remain babes, and you cannot
go on to full growth. Settle the first principles once for
all, get the foundation laid, and go on to full growth'.
What does that mean? Oh, enter into God's rest over
these matters, and then go on to development, to
growth. Let these things which are basic to your spiritual
establishment and development be settled. You cannot
grow until you are in rest. The Spirit of sonship, the
Spirit of full growth, cannot proceed until we have come
on to the ground of God's rest, and that is the ground
where Christ is all, and in all.
Take the illustration which the Apostle gives in the
letter to the Galatians. You remember the whole course
of his argument in that letter. He gives a contrast between
the infant and slave, and the son. The child is under
tutors, that is, in infancy. A bondslave is one who is in the
position of ignorance; he does not know, he is not told,
not taken into confidence. He and the infant are in a
similar position to the spiritually immature; they are in
ignorance, they are in a state of infancy, they cannot be
entrusted with knowledge, with secrets, because they are
in that position. On the other hand there is the son, and
Paul puts the son over against the slave and the infant.
The son comes into everything, he knows. So there is the
contrast between these. The infancy and the slavery are
related to the law. That is the argument. What is the
result? Sooner or later the absence of that inward
knowledge will bring about a break-down. You can see
it at work, whether it be Jewish law or Christian law.
There is a great deal of Christian legalism. Impose that
upon anybody, and mark the issue. Take the matter of
bringing up children in a family, by Christian parents. If
we bring up our children under law; be it Christian law,
(that is, imposing Christianity upon them as a system, as
laws, as so many things which they must observe and
do), what happens? When they come of age they depart
from the law, and they go away from Christianity. Some of us know that in our own cases, and we
know it in the case of many Christian parents heartbroken over their children. They have brought them up
rigidly in Christianity, in their own Christianity, they
imposed it on them, and when the child grew up he or
she departed. What is the matter? There is all the
difference between being under law, whether it be
Jewish or Christian, and being in the position where
Christ is known in the heart. One is infancy, the other is
growth, or maturity, or sonship. There is no safety, no
certainty, no security, unless Christ has really been
implanted within by the Holy Spirit. The law never does
that. We are not saying that there is no such thing as
backsliding, even in those in whom the Lord is resident.
That is probably the main point of the letter to the
Galatians, that they received the Spirit, not by the works
of the law, but by the obedience of faith. Paul is saying to
them: 'Now, remember, if you go back to law you
are
departing from Christ'. That is a very much more serious
thing than just departing from a system, and from an
outward profession.
So you see that sonship is, in principle, Christ within
by the Spirit, that which is "altogether other" than
ourselves. By Christ within we grow. On no other
ground can we do so.
You see what has happened. The Holy Spirit within
has brought Man according to God's mind to dwell
within us, different from what we are; and then there
has to be the yielding, surrendering, handing up of
everything to Him, so that we know that what we are is
something altogether different from what He is. Then we
gradually cease to be that, and what Christ is, is spread
over our minds, our hearts, our wills, our ways, our
everything, and we are in that way being conformed to
the image of God's Son. That is the end of the operation
of the Spirit of sonship.