There is one thing among the pre-eminent things
- if it is not the pre-eminent thing - and a thing which includes so much, for
which we should be constantly seeking the Lord. This one thing should be the
object concerning which we are drawn out in prayer all the time. That thing is
spirituality; in the true divine sense. There is very little doubt but that
everything depends upon the measure of our spirituality. Everything is bound up
with a spiritual state. We cannot estimate how important this is. True, pure
spirituality of the divine kind, makes everything possible. There is a
spirituality which is not of the divine kind, and there are many counterfeits of
spirituality. So we stress the true, and the pure, and divine spirituality. It
is concerning this that we shall be occupied for a little while.
There are two things in the main in the letter
to the Ephesians which constitute and represent spirituality according to God.
The one is the Holy Spirit; the other is what is meant by the word "heavenlies".
If we took the references to the Holy Spirit alone in the letter to the
Ephesians we should get the key to the fulness of Christ. We shall pass
hurriedly over those references, and we shall see, in the summing up of them,
that we have the basis of everything else. Let us run quickly over the letter.
Four Facts Concerning the
Holy Spirit
In the first place we have the facts concerning
the Holy Spirit as to the life of the believer, and in two passages we are told
of the initial act of the Holy Spirit when faith in the Lord Jesus has been
exercised. That act is
1. The Sealing of the Spirit
Ephesians 1:13: "In whom you also, having
heard the word of the truth, the gospel of your salvation, in whom, having also
believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise".
There is a fact: you were sealed when you
believed, and the seal was the gift of the Holy Spirit Himself. That is not only
something done and finished; it secures everything else, as implied by the last
clause: "the Holy Spirit of promise". That points on to the inheritance.
Ephesians 4:30: "And grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, in whom you were
sealed unto the day of redemption".
The first fact, then, is the sealing of the
Spirit, by which we are made God's spiritual people.
2. Introduction into the
Presence of God
Ephesians 2:18: "For through Him we both
have our access in one Spirit unto the Father".
That clearly says that we are introduced into
the presence of the Father by the Spirit. "They that worship Him must worship
in spirit and truth"; "God is a Spirit". The Lord put those words
over against the formal, traditional worship in Mount Gerizim and in Jerusalem,
and implied that in neither of those places was there really a genuine coming
into the presence of God. It was historic worship, and as for coming into the
presence of God, that was quite another thing. Now the question is of coming
right into fellowship with God, and that is in spirit and in truth, representing
a spiritual state. The spiritual state is essential for the presence of God, and
that is represented by the Holy Spirit Himself being in possession, to bring us
into living fellowship with the Father.
3. The Indwelling of the Spirit
The third fact is in the same chapter,
Ephesians 2:22: "In whom you also are built together for a habitation of God
in the Spirit".
The church is the dwelling place of God in the
Spirit; God the Holy Spirit dwelling in the church, the Body of Christ; thus
making this a spiritual building, a spiritual habitation, a spiritual Body, a
spiritual church; defining quite clearly what the church is - a spiritual thing
by reason of the Holy Spirit indwelling.
4. Revelation by the Holy
Spirit
Ephesians 3:5: "Which in other
generations was not made known unto the sons of men, as it has now been revealed
unto His holy apostles and prophets in the Spirit".
Revelation by the Spirit is a constituent of
the Body of Christ, the Lord's people. They are made a spiritual people because
they have spiritual revelation. Something which has been reserved for revelation
unto and by the Body of Christ, hidden - there, but unrevealed. But now the
Body, the vessel, has been brought into being, unto which that secret was
reserved, and the Holy Spirit is the Revealer of the secret. It is because of
the nature and fact of that revelation that the church is a spiritual Body. The
passage in chapter 1 verse 17 corresponds with that:
"That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the
Father of glory, may give unto you a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the
knowledge of Him".
The Revised Version uses a small "s" for
"spirit" there, by which the revisers intend to imply that it is not the Holy
Spirit that is being spoken of, but it is quite open to question as to whether
such wisdom and revelation can be had apart from the Holy Spirit.
These are the four facts concerning the Holy
Spirit in this letter, which make for spirituality.
Four Features of the Holy
Spirit
There are also four features of the Holy Spirit
in this Ephesian letter.
1. Strengthened Inwardly by the
Spirit
Ephesians 3:16: "That He would grant you,
according to the riches of his glory, that you may be strengthened with power
through his Spirit in the inward man".
The strength of the Lord's people is none other
than the strength of the Holy Spirit in the inward man. Right at the very centre
of the being, deeper than thought or reason, deeper than emotion or feeling,
deeper than all that which comprises the more outward man which, under given
circumstances, may prove weak and incapable of standing up to the situation. In
the variations of our soul life, the changes of our moods, our ideas, our
attitudes, our feelings, our minds; deeper down there is that strength which
does not let us go. That is the true nature of spirituality. It is not the
tremendously forceful conviction of our intellects or the mighty power of our
wills. When these cannot stand up to conditions of intense spiritual antagonism,
opposition or perplexity, there is that more inward thing, right in the inward
man, which is of God - the Holy Spirit: "Strengthened with might by His
Spirit into the inward man".
Test that out and the result is that when the
mind is bewildered by the perplexity of a situation, and the arguments are all
in the direction that a mistake has been made, a wrong course has been taken,
everything is false - when all the feelings are churned up, disturbed, anxious,
fearful, or when there are no feelings at all, they are simply petrified by the
position - when circumstances are all arguing in the opposite direction of that
which we, in the purest moments of our fellowship with God determined upon. The
world around us - and very closely around us, even within the sphere of our own
natural life, our own soul life - is an inexplicable mystery. Then spirituality
is proved by that inward strength which abides. That standing when you cannot go
forward; that holding when you can do nothing; that remaining when all the
forces are seeking to sweep you off your feet. That represents a measure of
spirituality. That is the true nature of the child of God. The opposite is to be
carried away by argument, reasoning, appearance, circumstance, and all such
things. That proves a lack of true spirituality.
In a sentence, true spirituality is not to live
on the outside; it is to live with God right down deep in the inner part of your
own being, where He, the Spirit, is.
2. The Unity of the Spirit
The second feature is in Ephesians 4:3: "Giving
diligence to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace".
It is something which exists; something which
is a part of the very fact that the Holy Spirit has been received by more than
one person. If it is true that we have been baptized by one Spirit into one
Body, and the very fact that more than one member has received the Holy Spirit -
or the very fact that there is such a thing as the Body of Christ - carries with
it implicitly the fact of a unity. It is not something to be brought about; it
is something which exists and which has to be recognised as existing.
How true that was in the case of Israel, as
revealed in the book of Joshua. They were brought up against the existence of
this fact in a very sharp way. When Achan sinned, an individual member of the
whole mighty host, every other single member of that host was affected and
arrested, and the Lord's word was: "Israel has sinned"; not: Achan has
sinned. In that way they came to see at least one method of keeping the unity,
that is, not doing what Achan did. Our business, as this word clearly shows, and
as we have heard many times, is not to try and make the unity of the
Spirit - that is already there - but to give diligence to keep it. And to
obey that injunction is very often a matter of very deep and mighty exercise
before God. It represents some battles sometimes to keep the unity of the
Spirit. A feature of spirituality, therefore, is diligence to keep the unity of
the Spirit. Putting that round the other way, it is no mark of real spiritual
life and growth to easily be divided in spirit from other believers. If it is
easy to allow a strain upon fellowship to work out to rupture, to schism, to
division, to separation, then the spiritual life is very low indeed.
3. Sensitiveness
The third feature of the Spirit, and therefore
of spirituality, is found in Ephesians 4:30: "And grieve not the Holy Spirit
of God, in whom you were sealed unto the day of redemption."
We all know more or less in our hearts what
this means. We know, to some extent, what it means when the Holy Spirit in us is
grieved. The measure in which we know that is the measure of our spirituality.
We are compelled from time to time to wonder within ourselves as to the real
measure of spirituality in some who seem to be able to do so much, say so much,
that is altogether contrary to the Lord, and never seem to have a real pulling
up from within. Spirituality means that whenever you or I speak detrimentally or
disparagingly about another member of Christ, we have a bad time and have to go
and ask the Lord to put that right. Spirituality means that, altogether apart
from our firsthand knowledge of a situation, if we allow ourselves to go
contrary to God in that, we shall know it. There is no need for us to acquaint
ourselves with all the facts of every situation mentally in order to know the
right and the wrong about that.
There is a realm in which it is our business to
prove all things and to acquaint ourselves with facts, but if we were to give
ourselves over as a matter of business to doing that in every connection, we
should never do anything else. If God is in a thing and I begin to speak
detrimentally of that and take an antagonistic attitude, I am pulled up from
inside, apart from any intellectual knowledge of that thing. The Holy Spirit is
jealous for the children of God, individually and collectively, and spirituality
means you dare not put your hand upon things that are precious to the Lord. If
you do, you know it. At the time you may not know why, but later on perhaps you
do know. If only we were governed by the Holy Spirit we should know where we can
be uncompromising with the jealousy of God, and not do wrong, and where, on the
other hand, we must bear with certain things which are not positively evil, but
perhaps features of immaturity and unenlightenment. But where there is a pure,
true, attitude towards the Lord, there is a sensitiveness that is a feature of
true spirituality; a sensitiveness to the Holy Spirit who has all the
intelligence that can be had about everyone and everything. To be making
progress spiritually is to become increasingly sensitive to the Holy Spirit and
to know when the Spirit is grieved.
4. Being Filled with the Spirit
Ephesians 5:18: "And be not drunken with
wine, wherein is riot, but be filled with the Spirit."
The following things represent an aspect of
what it means to be filled with the Spirit:
Verse 19: "Speaking one to another in psalms
and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody with your heart to the
Lord".
Verse 20: "Giving thanks always for all
things, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God, even the Father".
Verse 21: "Subjecting yourselves one to
another in the fear of Christ".
A good many people seem to think that to be
filled with the Spirit is to get on top of everybody else. Here it says that to
be filled with the Spirit is to subject yourselves one to another in the fear of
Christ.
These are the four features of the Spirit,
which constitute spirituality. There are two other references to the Spirit in
this letter, which comprise:
The Conditions of the Spirit
and of Spirituality
1. The Word of God
Ephesians 6:17: "And take the helmet of
salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God."
It is important for us to remember that the
Holy Spirit does not move apart from the Word of God. In the corresponding Old
Testament portion, the book of Joshua, we see that Joshua, as representing the
energies of the Holy Spirit, took up what came by Moses, that is, the Word of
the Lord. And everything that Joshua did was: "As the Lord spoke unto
Moses". So that the Holy Spirit takes up the Word to make it live, and to
bring us into the value of it. Unto that it is necessary that the Word of God
dwell in us richly.
It is not enough, of course, to have the
letter, but the letter being there provides the Holy Spirit with what is
essential to Him for effectiveness. The Word of God should be in us in the hands
of the Holy Spirit. We have to deplore the pathetic ignorance of the Word of God
among so many Christians today. It is not always the immediate benefit from
reading the Word that matters. Very often a word read, with no immediate and
instant profit or conscious good in the course of the day or hours, or perhaps
days afterwards, suddenly comes back in some connection, and is alive. The Holy
Spirit has taken hold of something that was there. Having the Word has got to be
regarded as a bit of duty or business, and the Lord will make use of that as He
wills as we go on. It is important that the Word of God should be there;
otherwise the Holy Spirit Himself is unable to lead us on unto the fulness of
Christ.
2. Prayer
Ephesians 6:18: "With all prayer and
supplication praying at all seasons in the spirit, and watching thereunto in all
perseverance and supplication for all the saints".
Spirituality demands a background of prayer.
The context of this passage is a very true one, that is, that it is set in a
realm of conflict. Ephesians 4 is the conflict of the believer, and prayer is
set in the realm of conflict. We know that the prayer life is the thing against
which the battle rages, and for which we have to put up a real fight. If the
enemy can in any way destroy or weaken our prayer life, he is sapping and mining
for a future day. We may not immediately feel the detriment, but let a week or a
fortnight pass in which prayer has been weakened, and a situation will arise
which we are unable to meet, and which finds us weakened. Prayer is a condition
of spirituality.
That covers the letter from that standpoint, as
to what spirituality is. Now we can go through the letter again with the other
word which represents spirituality.
The Heavenlies
We keep strictly to the original word.
"Heavenly places" is what is in our context and in the Revised Version those two
words are in italics, which helps us to see what was originally there. So we use
the word "heavenlies".
Ephesians 1:3: "Blessed be the God and
Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual
blessing in the heavenlies in Christ..."
"Has blessed us" is the text. That is
the position in which we are found right at the beginning of the book of Joshua,
that is, God "has given". All the land is given. The position here is we
are in the land when we are in Christ, and being in Christ, all that is in
Christ is ours.
We may not yet have appropriated, appreciated,
understood or enjoyed the value of it, but it is secured to us in Him. The
inheritance is secured in Christ. Every spiritual blessing has been secured unto
us in Him. "Has blessed us". We must remember that from God's standpoint
the land of Canaan did not belong to the seven nations who occupied it. When
Israel went in, their attitude virtually, from God's standpoint, was: "Get out
of my land!" The enemy was saying: "This is my country, and you are an invader."
No! It was just the opposite: they were the usurpers. That land had been secured
by God; it was His. It was covenanted. Long before Israel was a nation it was
God's. Those people occupied it only under sufferance for the time being, and
Israel's attitude was: You are in my country.
That is exactly the position in the letter to
the Ephesians. The forces now occupying the heavenlies, the principalities and
powers, the world-rulers of this darkness, the spiritual hosts of wickedness are
not in their native land; they have usurped the place that the Lord's people
ought to have. It is ours already. The spiritual value of that is secured unto
us in Christ. Ephesians 1:20-21: "Which He wrought in Christ, when He raised
Him from the dead, and made Him to sit at His right hand in the heavenlies, far
above all rule, and authority, and power, and dominion, and every name that is
named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come".
All that needs to be pointed out in connection
with this is that the Lord Jesus, as Head of the church, is there. The Head
being there, the whole Body is implied. As Head He occupies the pre-eminent
place in the heavenlies. That of course means that the whole Body is to take its
character from the Head, and to have all its relationships with the Head. There
cannot be a separation between the Head and the rest of the Body. The
relationship remains intact, and the Head is in heaven.
That leads to the second and corresponding
passage. Ephesians 2:6: "And raised us up with Him, and made us to sit
with Him in the heavenlies, in Christ Jesus". Because the Head is there, the
whole Body is represented as being there also. They are a heavenly people.
Spirituality is this: that we recognise that we are in Christ a heavenly people
and that we have no other connection with this earth and with this world, than
of testifying in it. Ephesians 3:10: "To the intent that now unto the
principalities and the powers in the heavenlies might be made known through the
church the manifold wisdom of God".
If you notice what precedes that, and what
follows that, you will see that the eternal secrets of God are now being
disclosed to heavenly orders by the instrumentality of the church. You go
backwards, and you find God possessed of eternal thoughts, eternal intentions,
eternal ways, and yet not disclosing them so that even celestial beings and
spiritual bodies of both orders are in ignorance: "Which things angels desire
to look into". He has covered them even from the angels, angels of various
ranks, corresponding to the principalities and powers, the world rulers of this
darkness, spiritual hosts. From both of these orders these divine secrets are
hidden through ages. And then God brings the church, the Body of Christ, into
being, and in the way in which He deals with that church in its formation, in
its training, in its experience, in its government, His order, His appointments,
His methods, His unveilings, He is educating these other realms. "That now
(this is not in the ages to come) unto the principalities and powers...
through the church the manifold wisdom of God." Spirituality means to have
grasped something of that.
We are very materialistic in our Christianity;
materialistic in this sense, that we are so dominated by what the world thinks
and sees and knows, and we are so obsessed with the apparent and the manifest
results of work or life. We are materialistic in the counting of heads, in
statistics, in results seen, in something that can be appraised by the senses
that can be shown to the world. The whole Christian system of work is a matter
of what can be reported and what can be announced, what can be put on the
advertisement pages of the religious press and what can be offered as a basis of
appeal. It originates from man's obsession that what counts is, after all, what
is seen as the result.
Ephesians carries us right away from this
world, and says: There is something else going on which cannot be seen. Daniel
prayed for twenty-one days, and saw nothing happening the whole time. Daniel
might have been tempted to say: What is the good of prayer? Certainly Daniel
could not have gone out after a fortnight, or even after twenty days, and
published a book on the results of prayer as seen in this world. But on the
twenty-first day he discovered that the whole twenty-one days had been marked by
a terrific upheaval in the universe. Principalities and powers had got to work,
heavenly orders and Satanic orders were in conflict because he prayed. He may
have had an echo of that conflict in his own spirit and found that he was in a
battle registering something in heaven, and he had to fight through; but as to
seeing anything or being intelligent with any kind of natural intelligence, that
realm was perfectly barren; and yet the mightiest things were happening. We know
from his book that the whole range of the ages was being touched, right on to
the end, to the coming of the Lord, in the day when the Kingdom is given to the
saints of the Most High. That was being fought out.
Spirituality is to get to the back of things
seen, and to be in the great heavenly things that God is working out, and
recognise that when we can see nothing, something is happening. The real sphere
of the church's work is not here on this earth. It is in the realm which governs
this earth, at the back of what is taking place here. Our impact must be
registered upon the forces which govern this world. Spirituality is tested not
by how many you can count as the result of your labours here, but by the
registration of the Throne of the Lord upon spiritual forces, and by the
educative value of God's dealings with His own people.
That may be strange, it may even be mystical to
some. Do not worry if you cannot enter into that, but here it is; and it is an
important thing, and a real feature of spirituality. Ask the Lord to explain
that to you, when you are asking Him to teach you what spirituality is.
Ephesians 4:10: "He that descended is the
same also that ascended far above all the heavens, that He might fill all
things". Our only comment upon that for the moment is that fulness comes
from the heavens. The heavens are always a type of universality. You may even
get away from the sea, but you cannot get away from the heavens. The heavens
will bound you wherever you go, and the heavens being a type of universality and
of fulness, say to us through this passage that, inasmuch as He ascended on high
that He might fill all things, the heavenly people are destined to be the
expression of the fulness of Christ.
"Filled unto all the fulness of God"; "The
church which is His body, the fulness of Him that fills all in all". That is
a very familiar thought, but it comes here in the course of our consideration of
what is spirituality. It is recognising that fulness depends upon our being
related to heaven, and inasmuch as we are bound by this world, we are limited
spiritually.
Ephesians 6:10-12: "Finally, be strong in
the Lord, and in the strength of his might. Put on the whole armour of God, that
you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For our wrestling is
not against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers,
against the world-rulers of this darkness, against the spiritual hosts of
wickedness in the heavenlies".
Spirituality is a matter of possessing our
possessions in Christ, and, in order to do that, we have to dispossess the enemy
of that territory. We must not get an objective mentality about that. We must
remember that this territory which, in other words, is Christ in His excellency,
His spiritual and moral glories and in all that He is for us from God, should be
occupied by Him in those things as now occupied by the enemy. Look into our own
hearts. That ground which should be occupied by the life of Christ is occupied
by the enemy in hatred, and malice, and evil thinking, and evil speaking, and so
on. The enemy has got to be dispossessed, and his goods cast out, and that
ground occupied by the Lord Jesus. That is gaining Christ. That represents a
conflict and a conquest, and that means that the enemy is going to challenge us
on that ground and it is not going to be easy. It is not ground to be a
walk-over to get rid of the Satanic provocation to evil thinking and evil
speaking and such like things. It is not simply that those things are there by
nature: they are stimulated by the enemy, so that even when we would show
love there is something working which is in addition to ourselves - a strength
which is not the strength merely of our evil nature, but the strength of the
enemy working upon some ground in us. That means we have to get away and have a
real battle, and say: I will fight through, until I can show love and
forbearance in that particular direction. That gets you away from the cloudy
idea of the heavenlies, and shows that heavenliness is something within, and it
is a matter of conquest by a challenge to every step of the territory, until we
are conformed to the image of Christ, and Christ is fully formed in us.