Reading:
John 13:21-33;
Ephes.
3:17-19; Col.
1:25-27.
We are to view the Lord Jesus in relation to the first
Adam, and all that came in through that which happened
with the first Adam in his fall, not only as this has
reference to man and his condition, but to all that which
Adam's act of disobedience let into this universe, and
into this world. That act of disobedience opened the
door at which the forces of evil were standing, waiting
for access. Adam was that door. They could never have
got in but for Adam, but he opened the door by his
disobedience, and the forces of evil rushed into God's
creation, and took up a position of great strength, to
bring about in it a state of things contrary to God, and
that in the most powerful and terrible way. To all of that,
to the powers themselves, and the state brought about
through their being let in, and all the consequences
thereof, the Lord Jesus was, and is, God's answer. But
there was a secret about Him, a secret which spiritual
intelligences alone could really discern, and this was that
God was in Him. He was a Man, but He was far more
than that; He was God. In these meditations our
concern has been with what the Lord Jesus is as Son of
Man, God's Man, the Heavenly Man,
in whom God was, and is. That secret, that mystery
hidden from the ages, hidden from men, is the greatest
factor to be reckoned with.
So far as the enemy was concerned, his main
objective with the Lord Jesus was to seek to get in
between Him as the Man and that Divine relationship; to
drive a wedge in and in some way to get Him to move
on a ground apart from that inner, deepest reality of the
Father. The meaning of the temptations in the wilderness
is that they were an attempt to drive that wedge in
between, to get Him to act apart from the Father, to
move on His own human ground. The enemy knew quite
well that, if only he could succeed in getting Him to do
that, he would accomplish with the last Adam what he
had accomplished with the first, and would have reestablished his dominion and again gained the mastery.
The secret of Christ's victory was that He was so one
with the Father, that in everything He was governed by
the Father within, dwelling in Him. The life of the
Heavenly Man, the Son of Man, again and again bids us
heed the question that once came from His own lips: "Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father
in me?" (John 14:10,11). It was on that basis that He
lived His life and met the enemy, and because He remained on that basis the
enemy was incapable of destroying Him.
Many times attempts were made by the Devil to
destroy Him, both directly and through men, but it was
impossible while He remained on that basis, and this He
did right to the end, and triumphed because of that
inward relationship, that upon which He was living
deliberately, consciously, persistently: the Father was in
Him, and He and the Father were one; He dwelt in the
Father, and the Father dwelt in Him.
But - and this is one of the main points that we want the
Lord to show us at this time - that was the great secret,
the wonderful secret which men could not read; for He
Himself said, "...no one knoweth who the Son is, save
the Father..." (Luke 10:22). John, writing his epistle
long years after, said, "...the world knoweth us not,
because it knew him not" (1 John 3:1). The world knew
Him not. In His own prayer recorded by John, we have
these words: "O righteous Father, the world knew thee
not, but I knew thee..." (John 17:25). It was on the
basis of that secret relationship that there was to be a
glorifying of Him. The glorifying of the Lord Jesus was
bound up with that secret.
Now we want to know what the glorifying of the Son
is, the glorifying of the Heavenly Man. We will again first
take up the question in relation to the Heavenly Man in
person, and then see how the same thing applies to the
corporate Heavenly Man.
"When therefore he was gone out, Jesus saith, Now is the Son of man glorified, and God is glorified in him; and God shall glorify him in himself, and straightway shall he glorify
him." John 13:31-32.
We need not be concerned for the moment with the
form of the statement. It sounds a little involved and
difficult, but let us take the central comprehensive
statement: "Now is the Son of man glorified, and God is
glorified in him..." It is upon the word "now" that
everything hangs, and the Lord Jesus put into that little
word a tremendous meaning. To what does that word
relate? "When therefore he (Judas) was gone out, Jesus saith, Now is the Son of Man glorified."
The Rejected Natural Man
I confess that Judas was a problem to me for many years, but I think I am
getting near the truth about him, and this passage seems to give us the clue.
The problem, of course, has its occasion in the statement of the Lord Jesus that
He knew whom He had chosen: "Did not I choose you the twelve, and one of you is
a devil?" (John 6:70). He chose Judas and brought him into association with
Himself, in such a way that he had all the advantages of the others and all the
facilities that were theirs; all the benefits of the others were open to him.
There is no trace of partiality. He has placed Judas apparently upon exactly the
same footing, excluding him from nothing which was open to the rest, all
deliberately, consciously, knowing what He was doing, and knowing all the time
what Judas was. Then all finally heads up to this statement, "Now is the Son of
man glorified..."
I do not know how best to put it, and wish I had
language and wisdom to express this, that would
capture your hearts as it has captured mine; for I am
inwardly glorying in what is brought to us here. To begin
with, this represents the full development of man under
the kindness of God: "...for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sendeth rain
on the just and the unjust" (Matt. 5:45).
God has shown no partiality amongst men. He
has made it possible for all men to enjoy His
benefits. He has shown unbelieving, Godless,
rebellious men great kindness. He has not discriminated. All men may know His kindness
and His goodness. Man is thus represented in
Judas, who in this figurative way is here set in
relation to the Lord, so that what is available to
those who are really the Lord's is available to
him; he can come into it, it is open to him. The Lord has not shown any partiality. Yet
man, living under the beneficent, merciful and
gracious will, purpose, thought, and desire of
God, can develop to this.
Let us seek to explain that. Man has been
tried under every condition from the beginning.
First of all he was tried under innocence. How
did he behave? He failed. Then in his fallen
state he was tried again, without law. How did
he get on? He failed again. Then he was tried
under law, but failed as before. Man has failed
under every condition. He has been tried by
God in every state and appointment, and has
utterly failed. The end has always been a tragedy. No matter what attitude God
takes toward man, in himself he is a failure and will work out to the most
dreadful tragedy.
Look at Israel. What is the attitude of the Lord
toward Israel? How marvellous is the way the Lord
dealt with Israel. Look at the patience of God with
Israel, the kindness of God with Israel, the ground upon
which Israel was set before Him. In effect, God said:
You have only to show something of faithfulness to Me
and you will immediately receive blessing. Some of us
have wished we could get blessing as instantly as Israel
did when they were true to the Lord. They were
subjects of such special care, but they failed. Their
condition and treatment is figuratively set forth in the
unprofitable fig tree, that bore no fruit in spite of years of
care. Justice demanded that it be cut down without
delay, but still further opportunity is given: "Let us dig
about it and dung it this year also." Let us show kindness
for another year! But it is just as big a failure. So man,
tried under every condition, brought into touch with the
beneficent will of God, is yet a failure.
Judas gathers up man, man to whom is open all that
God has, man who is brought into touch with all the
good and perfect will of God, and yet in himself the
most awful failure; for this man, when he comes to his fulness, will betray his Lord, he is so hopeless. Man in
himself, even though the mercies of God may go out to
him, will arrive at this. This is a fearful end. "Yea, mine
own familiar friend... which did eat of my bread," says
the Psalmist, "hath lifted up his heel against me" (Ps.
41:9). Thus will this man do amidst the very wealth of
the grace of God.
Here is Judas representing one who has been brought
into touch with the Lord, and to whom all the blessings
are open that are open to the rest of the Lord's own, and
this is how he turns out. It is a picture of man in himself.
Is it not true? The full development of old Adam, of the
first Adam, in whom God does not dwell, is here shown
to us. Just at the point where this man is surrounded with
all the advantages, all the facilities, all the blessings, all
the opportunity, all that could have been his, just at that
point he goes out to betray his Lord: "...and it was night" (John 13:30). There is a world of meaning in that.
The Heavenly Man of God's Election
Instantly that man has gone out the Lord Jesus says,
"Now is the Son of man glorified..." What does this
mean? This is God's answer to all that. God has another
Man, whose path is to
be wholly different from that tragedy, that dark calamity,
a Son of Man who can be glorified. God has prepared
His own Man to take the place of this other man, as
soon as he has reached his end: and what an evil end it
is! Do you see what is signified in the end of Judas?
When he goes out God brings in His Man who can be
glorified.
Do you see why the Lord Jesus chose Judas?
Do you see why it is that, when he was gone out Jesus
said, "Now is the Son of man glorified"? There is the
one who represents the Adam man and what he comes
to in spite of all God's grace and mercy which is at his
command. Until there is something in him other than
himself, that is what he comes to. And just when that
nature, that man, that race is seen in its full awfulness, its
full outworking, lifting its heel in treachery against the
God of all grace; just when that man reaching fulness
goes out into the dark, the eternal night, God begins His
new day by bringing in His new Man to take his place.
What is the secret? What kind of man will be
glorified? We have seen the man who cannot be
glorified, who goes out into the darkness. What kind of
man is he who can be glorified? What is the principle
and secret of His glorifying? It is that God is in Him.
What is the glorifying of the Lord Jesus? It is the
breaking forth and manifesting of the Father in Him, of
that secret which makes Him other than the type
represented by Judas. The hope of glory in His case, the
certainty of glory, was the Father dwelling in Him. "Now is the Son of man glorified, and God is glorified in
him..." That is a full-orbed statement about the glorifying
of the Son of Man. It is remarkable that this statement
should be found in the Gospel by John, in which the
Lord Jesus is pre-eminently set forth as the Son of God.
The Glorifying of the Corporate Heavenly Man
Now, of course, we come to feel the benefit and the
power of this, when it is transferred from the personal
Heavenly Man to the corporate Heavenly Man. So the
Apostle says: "That Christ may dwell in your hearts
through faith..." (Ephes. 3:17); "...Christ in you, the
hope of glory..." (Col. 1:27). We read at the
beginning of the letter to the Ephesians that we are "...a habitation of God in the Spirit" (2:22). What does
that mean in its value and out-working? This Body, so
created and living upon that fact, is as indestructible as Christ Himself, is as certain
of victory as was Christ. On the principle that Christ dwells in the heart by
faith, this Body can enter into wrestling with principalities and powers, world
rulers of this darkness, spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenlies, and
come out victor on the field.
What is the secret of the glorifying of the Church, His Body, the corporate Man,
and what
is the nature of the glorifying? It is the same thing. It is the manifestation
of the secret, the coming out from secrecy into open display of that which is
true, of Christ within. During the course of this dispensation, the secret is in
the
Church, in the members of Christ, but "...the
world knoweth us not, because it knew him not"
(1 John 3:1). Looked at from the outside we are very little different from any
other people in the world. Yet the secret is there, and this secret means that
if you touch that one, or that
church, you touch God. "Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?" said the Lord,
when Saul
was touching His members. He is in His members. You have to reckon with Him.
They are indestructible, they cannot be destroyed. We are not talking about the
destroying of the body.
The true Church is an indestructible entity. When Satan has done his worst, that
Church will still stand triumphant, and will abide forever, when he and all his
shall have been banished from the universe.
At the end of this dispensation which has held this hidden secret, there will be
an unveiling of
the Christ in His Church, when it appears with
Him in glory, and it will be glorified on the same principle as that on which He
was glorified.
The Essential Basis of the Believer's Every-day Life
Now, there is something that we have to take to our
own hearts out of these inclusive factors. We have to live
all the time on this basis that we have set forth, and as
we do so the enemy's power is absolutely rendered nil.
Our trouble is that we do not live upon this basis. We
live so much upon ourselves. We live upon our own
feelings, our own conditions, our own state, anything
and everything that is ourselves, and because we do
that we are simply played with by the Devil. When we
get into our own mood, what a mess he makes of us.
When we get into our own feelings, or our own thoughts,
what havoc there is. Anything that is ourselves, if we get into that, and live on that, will give the
enemy an opportunity to do as he likes. Whenever believers get down into
themselves, on to the ground of what they are, if it is only for a moment, they
begin to lose their balance, their poise, their rest, their peace, their joy,
and they are tossed about of the Devil at his will. They may come to the place
where they even wonder whether they are saved. Let us remember that the part of
us which still belongs to the fallen creation, and will not survive, is the
playground of the enemy, and it is of no use our trying to make it survive.
We have, for instance, a physical life. Within the compass of this natural,
physical life as a part of the old creation, anything is possible. Mental
darkness is possible. The upsetting of our nervous system can be of such a kind
as to make us feel that hell rages in our very being. Anything is possible of
moods, and feelings, and sensations or of utter deadness and numbness, and if we
live in that realm the Devil plays havoc. He encamps upon such things at once,
if we take our natural condition as the criterion. There is no hope of glory in
that natural realm.
How is the enemy to be defeated, to be nullified, to be robbed of his power? On the same
principle as in the life of the Lord Jesus, by our living on the Father. We must
live on the indwelling Christ. Our attitude will have to be continually toward
the Lord: Lord, in me Thou art other than I am; Thou art not what I am; Thou art
other than this mood, than this feeling, than this absence of feeling; Thou art
other than all these thoughts, other than I am! I am dead, so far as my feelings
are concerned, but
Thou art other than that, Thou art living! I am
feeling dark, Thou art the light, and Thou art
in me! This is me, this is not the Lord! If only
you and I will learn steadily (it will take time,
it will be progressive) to live on Christ, on what
He is, on the fact that He is other than we are -
not upon our experience of this, but the naked
fact that He is within us - if we will steadily learn
to live on that basis, by that great Divine reality, then the enemy has nothing in us. The Lord Jesus was able to say, "...the prince of the
world cometh; and he hath nothing in me..."
(John 14:30). What was the adversary looking
for? He was looking for the Lord Jesus to be
living somewhere in Himself, consulting His own
feelings, leaning to His own understanding, following His own judgments, His own will. If he
could have caught Him there, he would have had
something in Him and disturbed the balance of His life.
The Lord Jesus was able to say, "...I live because of the
Father..." (John 6:57); I live by the Father, not on
what I am. He could say that as a perfect, sinless being,
living none the less in dependence upon the Father all the
time. Of this we have His own testimony: "The Son can
do nothing of himself..." (John 5:19); "...the words that I say unto you I speak not from myself: but the Father
abiding in me doeth his works" (John 14:10). He lived all the time on the basis
of the Father dwelling within,
and because of that the enemy had
no ground whatever.
This is the lesson of life for us. For any glory within
now, or for any hope of glory in the great day of the
manifestation, the sole ground of expectation must be
Christ in us; because the glory is simply the
manifestation of the Christ within, as His glorifying was
the manifestation of the Father within.
The Church, a Mystery of a Divine Indwelling
Now
concerning the corporate expression of this Heavenly
Man, in the letter to the Ephesians the Apostle tells us
that something is going on in the unseen, the purpose
of which is stated thus: "...that now unto the
principalities and the powers in the heavenly places
might be made known through the Church the
manifold wisdom of God..." I wonder what that
means? I do not know altogether, but I think I can
see something of what it means. I believe the unseen
intelligences are watching to see how they can get an
advantage. They are watching with all their cunning,
their diabolical wit and wisdom and ingenuity, with all
their super-human intelligence, to see how they can
get an advantage, how they can make a stroke, if by
any means they can get the upper hand of this baffling
creation, the Church. Unto the principalities and
powers the manifold wisdom of God is being made
known by the Church. How is this being
accomplished? A clause from a verse in the first letter
to Timothy
will, I think, help us towards the answer. "And without controversy great is the mystery of
godliness; He who was manifested in the flesh,
justified in the spirit, seen of angels, preached among
the nations, believed on in the world, received up in
glory." A part of the mystery here spoken of is this
somewhat obscure statement that He was "seen of
angels". I cannot be satisfied with the thought that this
just means that the heavenly angels saw Him, either when
He was in the flesh, or after His resurrection. This seems
to say to my heart (of course I cannot prove it, but I am
comparing scripture with scripture, and taking into
account that it is the Holy Spirit who has disclosed this
fact and brought it to our knowledge) that these other
angels, these spiritual intelligences who had watched for
a chance against His life, seeking an advantage, using
their cunning, saw now who He was, saw the full
meaning of His being, and why they had never
succeeded in compassing their design, but had been
compelled to learn their impotence regarding Him. They
know now, because the secret is out. This Man is other
than the first Adam; He is different from the first Adam!
They got their chance with the first Adam and they took
it, and into that race they brought the diabolical wisdom
of which the Apostle says, "This wisdom is... devilish
(demoniacal)." James 3:15.
These intelligences had been waiting for an
opportunity to bring in their wisdom in this other Adam,
this last Adam, and they could not get it. They were
beaten and defeated at every point, and now the secret is
out, and they see One over whom they could gain no
advantage. Why was this? Because of the Father
dwelling in Him. It is to this same truth that Paul refers
when He says that Christ crucified, so far from being the
wisdom of this world, is the wisdom of God. His wisdom
far transcends the wisdom of this world, which in its
nature is demoniacal. God is still further displaying His
manifold wisdom to principalities and powers through the
Church, the Body of Christ, the corporate Heavenly
Man. How is this being accomplished? By this mystery
of Christ within, defeating their every plan, their every
scheme, by the great reality of the indwelling Lord whose
wisdom is so much greater than theirs.
Oh that we could live upon the great reality, the great
essential, the great secret of the very being of the Church
according to God's mind, that basic secret of Christ
within; not upon what we are at any time, but what
Christ
is.
If you take that position you will be in a
position of wisdom that outwits all the cunning of the
Devil, and outmatches all his power.
Put it to the test; for it is open to practical proof at any
time. If when you are next feeling desperately bad and
hopeless and full of evil in
yourself, as though all that you had believed in no longer
held water and everything had gone to pieces, and all the
sensations are upon you that it is possible for one to
have, till you could well believe that you are lost; if,
when this is so, you will take the position that it is all to
do with your poor, broken down creation, and that
Christ in you is other than that, and by faith stand on
Him, the Devil's power is destroyed, his wisdom is
outwitted, and there is glory. That is the lesson we have
to learn. Christ in you, and in the Church as the
habitation of God through the Spirit, is the symbol of
glory, of victory, of power and wisdom. Blessed be
God, there are seasons when this reaches out to our
feelings and we enjoy the realisation that the Lord is in
us, but it is not always so. An attack of indigestion can
have the strangest effect upon our spiritual life, so far as
our consciousness is concerned. The slightest little thing
can come along and change the whole situation if we
allow ourselves to go out into things. What things the
enemy puts up, to draw us out into them! He is busy
setting traps everywhere, contriving situations all round
us, always ready with something to upset us. How
cleverly arranged it is, just at the time when we are least
wanting to be upset. Go home from a time with the Lord
amongst His people, feeling gloriously uplifted, and
probably when you get across the doorstep there is
something waiting for you!
How are you going to outwit the Devil, out-maneuver him, defeat him? By not going out
into things. It is not easy; but not to go out into things,
not to be drawn into the realm of the old creation so as
to become involved in it, but to stand upon the ground
that the adversary has to meet the perfection of Christ, is
the sure way of his defeat, though we may have to bear
with the difficult situation, and endure the pain and pang
of it for quite a considerable time. But our position is that
Christ is more than that, Christ in us is stronger than that,
and falling back upon faith within, reaching out to Christ
within as equal to this situation, we must repudiate it.
David comes to our rescue so much in this realm. You
will remember that on one occasion he was saying all
sorts of depressing, hopeless things because the situation
looked so utterly impossible; and then he recollected
himself and said, "This is my infirmity; but I will
remember the years of the right hand of the Most High"
(Ps. 76:10). Today I have blue spectacles on! This is
my way of viewing things! This is how things affect me!
This is me, it is not the Lord! Let us attribute things to
their right quarter, and give to Caesar the things that are
Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's.
I am certain that here is the key to everything; the
key to everything is Christ in you, Christ in me, Christ in
His Body, and that to be lived upon by faith. It is the
key to the superior wisdom, to outwit and outmatch the
enemy. He will be defeated if we live on Christ and
refuse to live on our own ground. The Lord make it
clear
to us.