Reading: 2 Cor. 3:17-18; 4:1-6.
We have
been led in this Conference to be concerned with the
matter of spiritual sight. Here in the scripture which we
have read we have another portion touching upon this very
matter of blindness and seeing.
First,
there is the fact of the blindness - "the god of
this age hath blinded": then there is the cause -
"the god of this age"; and then there is the
reason or object, namely; "that the light of the
gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God,
should not dawn upon them." We will look at it,
then, in that order.
The
Fact of Blindness
You will
notice that a parallel is drawn between Israel in the
days of Moses and the unbelieving in the days of Paul. In
both cases it is said that there is a veil over their
hearts, over their minds, a veil which shuts out, which
excludes, and which is in the nature of a darkening
blindness. Moreover there is an element of judgment and
condemnation in the way in which the apostle speaks of
it. Even with regard to Israel gathered to the door of
the tent of meeting, when Moses read the law, he says, in
effect, that while Moses had to put a veil over his face
because they could not bear to look upon the glory of his
face, that was not really because the glory could not be
beheld, but because of the state of their mind, of their
heart, because of an inward condition in themselves. Had
there been another inward state, the veil would have been
unnecessary; they could have beheld the glory and dwelt
in the light. But the veil was an outward representation
of an inward condition, hiding the glory of God. It was
never the Lord’s desire to hide His glory, but
rather to manifest it, and that man should dwell in it,
should enjoy it, that there should be no veil between God
and man at all. Veils have always been as something
between God and man because of a condition which God
would rather not have.
The
Blinding Power of Unbelief
Thus it
must stand as a thing under condemnation and judgment,
this darkness, this blindness, this hiding, this shutting
out of the glory of God, and that inward condition in the
case of Israel in the time of Moses, and of those in like
condition in the days of Paul, and in the case of all in
such a position, that inward condition which acts like a
veil is, as we know so well from all that is said about
Israel, incorrigible unbelief. It was Israel’s
incorrigible unbelief which blinded them. But to say that
is not to be altogether helpful. It is a statement of a
fact, a very oppressive fact. We know our own hearts
sufficiently well to know that there is an incorrigible
unbelief in us all, and we want to understand why that
unbelief is there, and what the nature of it is, so as to
discover how the veil can be removed; that is, how the
unbelief can be dealt with so that we behold the glory of
the Lord and dwell in the eternal light.
Light
on Resurrection Ground
Well then,
let us look again to see what the Lord was ever and
always seeking to do in the case of Israel. We can put it
this way: He was always trying to get them in heart, in
spirit, in life, to occupy resurrection ground. That is
first made evident in the Passover in Egypt, when the
firstborn in every home in Egypt was slain on that
terrible night when death was everywhere. But Israel was
not, as is too superficially supposed, exempt. The
casual, superficial idea is that the firstborn in Israel
were not slain, only the firstborn in Egypt. But the
firstborn in all Israel were slain. The difference was
that the firstborn in Egypt were slain actually, and the
firstborn in Israel substitutionarily. When that lamb was
slain in every Israelitish home, for every household,
that lamb representatively passed under the same judgment
as the firstborn in all Egypt, and in that lamb Israel
passed representatively from death into life. In that
lamb Israel was virtually brought through death on to
resurrection ground. For Egypt there was no resurrection
ground; for Israel there was. That is the difference. But
all died, the one actually, the other representatively.
Thus God, right at the very foundation of Israel’s
national life, sought to get them established upon the
ground of resurrection, which means that a death has
taken place, an end has been brought about. One whole
order of things has been wound up and another entirely
different order of things has been brought in, and to get
them to take their position upon that new ground, in that
new order, was God’s great effort and meaning in the
Passover. The keeping of the Passover year by year as an
established ordinance throughout all their generations
and their history was God’s way of showing that they
belonged to another order, the order of the resurrection.
While darkness was in every house of the Egyptians and
over all the land of Egypt, the children of Israel had
light in their dwellings; for light is always on
resurrection ground, but only on resurrection ground.
Then at the
Red Sea the same great principle was repeated, passing
through and out on to resurrection ground; Egypt again
swallowed up, but Israel saved. They all went into the
same sea, but for Israel on the other side there is a
pillar of fire to be their light on resurrection ground -
the Spirit of light and of life. They kept the Passover
as they went on year by year under God’s order, in
order to preserve the testimony as to the ground upon
which they stood nationally.
Then came
the Jordan; and it is but a reiteration in principle
of the same thing, now made necessary, not by their naked
condition, but by their recognition of it. It is doubtful
whether in Egypt and at the Red Sea Israel had the
subjective understanding of the meaning of what God was
doing in the Passover and in the Red Sea, but now they
have the subjective consciousness of its being a
necessity. They have been discovering things for forty
years and they agree at last; they agree with God that
another ground altogether is necessary if they are to
abide in the light. You see, God was persistently by
every means seeking to get Israel to occupy and remain
upon resurrection ground, from which there had been cut
off entirely all the ground of nature. Their incorrigible
unbelief had as its main constituent the clinging to
unresurrection ground or ground of nature.
The
Consequence of Living on the Ground of Nature
What is the
ground of nature? Well, look at Israel and you can see
quite clearly what the ground of nature is. The ground of
nature is always a drawing of things toward oneself and a
viewing of everything in the light of oneself, just how
it affects self. You see right at the beginning it was
that. Yes, of course, the deliverance at the beginning
affected us rather well, and so we were very happy. The
mighty deliverance at the Red Sea is a good thing for us,
so we are full of joy today. It will always be like that
while things are good for us. But let us find that we are
being tested at all, bring us tomorrow to this place and
that, where it is not so obvious that it is all to our
profit, and the song ceases, joy goes out, and murmuring
comes in "They murmured." Oh how often it is
said that they murmured! Why? Because they occupied
carnal ground, natural ground, which in a word, means
"how it affects me"! That is natural ground,
and on that ground there will always be the uprising of
unbelief.
The
strength of unbelief is just that very thing, personal
natural interests and considerations, looking at things
in the light of our own advantage or disadvantage. Allow
that kind of thing to come in for a moment, and it will
not be long before you are questioning and doubting, and
found in unbelief; for the essence of faith is the very
opposite of that. When things are going against you and
your interests, and you are losing your life and all that
you have, and you believe God, you trust God, that is
faith indeed, that is the essence of faith. But faith is
not real faith when we believe God merely while the sun
shines and all goes well. Israel occupied natural ground
so persistently that they were found more in unbelief
than in faith. It was that which blinded them. So that
blind unbelief, when we come to analyse it, is simply
occupying ground that is other than resurrection ground;
that is, we are occupying ground which God has put under
the curse, which God has forbidden, upon which God has
inscribed the warning to believers, Keep off! If only we
could see in our hearts those warning notices of God
strewn over the whole territory of self-interest, worldly
considerations, and so on, we should be saved from very
much of the misery which comes into our lives.
Well, you
see, the whole life of nature is a blind thing, and the
measure in which we are ruled by nature is the measure of
our blindness. "The natural man", says the
Spirit of God, "receiveth not the things of the
Spirit of God... he cannot know them, because they are
spiritually discerned" or "discerned by the
spiritual" (1 Cor. 2:14). The whole life of nature
is a blind thing. The measure in which we occupy that
ground is the measure of our blindness. God was seeking
to get Israel off that ground on to resurrection ground,
to be governed, not by nature, but by the Spirit: and
being governed by the Spirit means to walk in the light,
means to have light, means to see.
A Life
in the Spirit
"Now
the Lord is the Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord
is, there is liberty" (2 Cor. 3:17). Liberty from
what? Why, liberty from the veil. "When it shall
turn to the Lord, the veil is taken away"; bondage,
limitation, is taken away. And "the Lord is the
Spirit". To be on the ground of the Spirit, which is
resurrection ground, with the life of nature set aside,
is to be delivered from blindness and to be in the light.
A life in the Spirit! Israel forever stands to declare
with no uncertain note that religion is not necessarily
enlightenment, and that even to have the Scriptures is
not necessarily enlightenment. "When Moses is read,
a veil lieth upon their heart". "When Moses is
read..." Paul said a very strong thing about the
Scriptures and the prophets which they read every day;
that they know not what they mean, perceive not what they
signify, but are still in blindness, in darkness. No,
even to have the Scriptures does not necessarily imply
enlightenment.
The message
of 2 Corinthians is as much to Christians as it is to
unbelievers, if it is not more so, this message about the
veil, about blindness, about seeing; for where is the
Christian who is fully and finally delivered from the
life of nature? Enlightenment, after all, is only a
comparative thing, that is, it is a "more or
less" matter. Hence all those strong urges and
exhortations to believers to walk in the light, to live
in the Spirit, for only so can this matter of spiritual
seeing and understanding develop and make progress. A
life in the Spirit - that is only another way of saying,
a life on resurrection ground.
What we
have said thus far is that the blindness which is spread
over the whole of the life of nature operates and has its
strength in the choice and acceptance of that life of
nature on the part of those concerned. It is not
necessary, it is not God’s will. God’s desire
is that we should dwell in the light, that we should see
His glory, that there should be no veil at all. That is
His desire, that the veil should be taken away. But one
great thing is necessary, namely, that we should come to
that Passover, to that death which is the death to the
life of nature and which brings in a new life altogether,
a life of the Spirit, in which a new faculty, a new
power, a new capacity for seeing is created. That is a
very important thing. I could well spend all the rest of
the time available on that, it is so important to us as
the Lord’s people.
When will
the Lord’s people who have the Scriptures, and who
know the Scriptures so well in the letter, when will they
come to realise and to recognise that, if truly they have
been crucified with Christ, if they have died in His
death and have been raised together with Him, and have
received the Spirit, they have light in their dwelling?
"The anointing which ye received of Him abideth in
you, and ye need not that any one teach you, but...
His anointing teacheth you concerning all things" (1
John 2:27). When will believers, when will Christians,
come to realise that? Why must Christians who have the
knowledge of the Scriptures in the letter run about here
and there to seek advice from others on matters which
vitally affect their own spiritual knowledge? I do not
mean that it is wrong to get counsel, wrong to know what
other children of God of experience think or feel about
matters. But if we are going to build our position upon
their conclusions, we are in great danger. The final
authority and arbiter in all matters is the Spirit of
God, the Spirit of the anointing. We may get help from
one another, but I do hope that you are not going to
build your position upon what I say now because I say it.
Do not do that. I do not want you to do it, I do not ask
you to do it. What I say is, listen, take note, and then
go to your final authority Who is in you, if you are a
child of God, and ask Him to corroborate the truth or to
show otherwise. That is your right, your birthright, the
birthright of every child of God, to be in the light of
the indwelling Spirit of light, the Spirit of God.
I wonder
where Paul would have been had he taken the opposite
course to that which he did take? "When it pleased
God, who separated me from my birth... to reveal His
Son in me... straightway I conferred not with flesh
and blood: neither went I up to Jerusalem to them that
were apostles before me: but I went away into
Arabia" (Gal. 1:15-17). I wonder what would have
happened had he gone up to Jerusalem and laid every
matter before those who were apostles before him? We know
from subsequent events that one thing they would have
said to him would have been, Look here, be careful, Paul!
You tell us that on the Damascus road Jesus is supposed
to have said something to you about going to the
Gentiles; be careful! They would have put him back about
this Gentile business. You know what happened afterward.
You know how on that point even Peter was caught in
dissimulation years after. You know how those apostles
which were before him at Jerusalem were all the time very
chary about this matter of the Gentiles, and
had Paul capitulated to them, we should never have had
the great apostle to the Gentiles, the great apostle of
the Body of Christ, with his revelation of the mystery,
of the oneness of all in Christ, Jew and Greek. He did
not submit that thing even to those who were apostles
before him to ask them whether he was right or not,
whether this was sound or not. Oh no! He had the
anointing in Damascus; Ananias laid his hands upon him
and he received the Spirit, and from that day, although
Paul was quite ready and happy to have fellowship with
his brethren, though he never took a superior or
independent position, though he was always open to
conference, nevertheless he was a man governed by the
Spirit.
I know you
have to be careful how you take what I am saying. It will
only be safe for you as you are one who does not set
yourself up as some independent party with the Holy
Spirit, but who keeps perfect fellowship, humility,
submissiveness, openness of heart, with readiness to
listen to and obey what may come through others, as the
Spirit bears witness to the truth. But all that depends
upon your inward condition, whether you are on natural
ground or on spiritual ground, on old creation ground or
on resurrection ground. But being on resurrection ground,
where it is not the life of nature but the Spirit that
governs, beloved, you have the right and the privilege
and the blessing of knowing the Spirit bearing witness in
your heart and the anointing teaching you all things,
with regard to whether any given matter is right or
wrong. When will the Lord’s people know that,
recognise that?
You see, it
is this other thing all the time that is robbing so many
of the light that the Lord would give them. The Lord
would lead them into the greater fulnesses of the
knowledge of His Son, of the enlargement of their
spiritual understanding, but they are neglecting the gift
that is in them. They are neglecting the Holy Spirit as
their illuminator and teacher and instructor and guide
and arbiter, and they are going to this one and that one,
to this authority and that, and saying, What do you think
about it? If you think it is wrong, then I will not touch
it! It is fatal to spiritual knowledge to do that. That
is going on to natural ground.
Now the
Lord wants us off of that ground. This matter of
occupying resurrection ground, of living a life in the
Spirit, is all-important in coming to the full knowledge
of God’s Son. How much more we could say about that!
Let us be careful as to who our authorities are. So many
dear children of God, individually and collectively, have
come into dire and grievous bondage, limitation and
confusion, by all the time going back to human
authorities, to this great leader and that, to this man
who was greatly used of God, this man who had a great
deal of spiritual light. "The Lord has yet more
light and truth to break forth from His Word" than
even this or that servant of His possessed. Do you see
what I mean? We get all the benefit of the light given to
godly people and seek to profit by true light, but we
will never come into bondage and say, That is the end of
that matter! That must never be. We must maintain our
resurrection ground. And who can exhaust that? In other
words, who can exhaust the meaning of Christ risen? He is
a boundless store, the land of far distances. No man yet
has ever done more than begun to know the meaning of
Christ risen. If there has been one man who has that
meaning more than another, I suppose it was Paul. But to
the last from his prison he still cries, "That I may
know Him!": "I count all things to be loss for
the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord:
for Whom I suffered the loss of all things, and do count
them but refuse" (Phil. 3:8). Right at the end of a
life like his, the life of a man who could say, Fourteen
years ago I knew a man in Christ, caught up to the third
heaven and shown unspeakable things, which, it is not
lawful for a man to utter (2 Cor. 12:2-3), he is still
saying, That I may know Him! I say no man, be he Paul,
has ever done more than begin to know Christ risen.
"Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have
entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath
prepared for them that love Him. But God hath revealed
them unto us by His Spirit" (1 Cor. 2:9-10). You
see, the Spirit has the unsearchable riches to reveal to
us. So much, then, for the blindness which comes by
occupying natural ground in whatever form that may take.
The
Cause of Blindness
A word or
two about the cause. "The god of this age hath
blinded." There are two things in that phrase.
Firstly, this blindness is not, after all, only natural,
it is supernatural. It is not to say everything to say
that nature is a blind realm. No, there is something very
much more sinister than that about this blindness. It is
supernatural blindness, but it is evilly supernatural
blindness. It is the work of the Devil. That is why, on
the one hand, spiritual sight-giving is always fraught
with such terrible conflict. No one ever really does come
to see by the Spirit and understand without a fight,
without a price having to be paid, without a terrible
amount of suffering. Every bit of real spiritual
illumination and enlightenment is a costly thing. For it
Paul had to be much on his knees where the saints were
concerned. "I bow my knees"; I pray "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" (Eph. 1:17). It is something
which has to be prayed through, and it is not without
significance that prayer in the letter to the Ephesians
comes so much in association with what is revealed in
chapter 6: "our wrestling... is against the
principalities, against the powers, against the
world-rulers of this darkness, against the spiritual
hosts of wickedness in the heavenlies. Wherefore take up
the whole armour of God" - this and that and that -
"...with all prayer and supplication praying at
all seasons in the Spirit" (Eph. 6:12-18).
"This darkness" - "praying always":
"I pray that He... may give unto you a spirit of
wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him". You
see, it is all of a piece. The explanation lies here, in
"the god of this age". We are up against
something supernatural in this spiritual blindness. We
are right up against the whole cosmic forces of evil, all
those intelligences operating to keep people in
blindness.
It is no
small thing to have true spiritual sight. It represents a
mighty victory. It is not going to come to you by just
sitting passively and opening your mouths for it to
arrive. There has to be exercise about this matter. You
are right up against the full force of the god of this
age when you are really out for spiritual understanding.
It is a supernatural battle. So every bit of ministry
that is going to be a ministry of true revelation will be
surrounded by conflict. Conflict will go before, conflict
will go on at the time, and conflict may follow after. It
is like that.
Herein,
then, is the need for you to be exercised about light,
that, while you hear the thing, you shall not take it for
granted that, having heard it, you have got it; that you
should afterward have very definite dealings with the
Lord, that what He is seeking to break through to you
shall indeed be entered into, and that you are not going
to delude yourself by assuming that you know now merely
because you have heard it in its terms. You may not know
it. It may not yet be delivering light; there may be a
battle necessary in this matter.
If we did
but know it, a very great deal of the conflict which
arises in our lives is because God is seeking to bring us
further on the road, to open our eyes to Himself, to
bring us into the light of His Son. God is seeking to
broaden our spiritual horizon, and the enemy is out
against that, and he is not going to have it if he can
help it. Conflict arises. We may not understand it, but
very, very often, more often than not, it is just that,
namely, that the Lord is after something, and Satan says,
They shall not see that if I can help it! So there arises
a mighty warfare. This blindness is supernatural, just as
enlightenment is supernatural.
"The
god of this age"! That designation may mean more
than just a period in time. It may mean all of time,
because Satan gained kingship over man right at the
beginning. That is what he was after, to take the place
of God and to get the worth-ship of man’s life; to
be god, to be worshipped; which simply means to take what
man has of worth to himself. God made man with a view to
his being a vehicle of bringing something to God for
God’s pleasure and glory, something worthy of God,
that God should have a worth-ship out of man, and Satan
said: I am going to have that worth-ship; God has
something vested in that creation, something He is going
to get for Himself; I am going to have it! So the whole
of what took place in the Garden was Satan’s way of
supplanting God in man’s heart, in man’s mind,
and getting from man that which was God’s right -
the worship. Thus, by man’s consent and fall, Satan
gained godship in this world, and has held it ever since.
"This age" just means the course of this world.
"The god of this age"!
Now, the
greatest peril to Satan’s godship is spiritual
illumination. He will not hold that ground long once your
eyes are opened. Oh, once a heart is enlightened,
Satan’s power is at once broken. So the Lord,
consistently with that fact, said to Paul on the Damascus
road - "...to whom I send thee, to open their
eyes, that they may turn from darkness to light and from
the power of Satan unto God" (Acts 26:17-18). The
two things go together: From darkness to light; from the
power of Satan unto God. I repeat that the greatest
menace and peril to Satan and his position is spiritual
illumination. Hence he must find ground on which to
perpetuate and maintain his position, his godship, in
this age. And what ground will satisfy him in that
matter? The answer is, the ground of nature. You get on
to the ground of nature and you have given Satan right of
possession. Every time we do that, Satan’s hold is
strengthened.
The
Object of the Blinding Work of Satan
Now just to
mention and hint at the third thing. What is the reason
or object of this blinding work of Satan? It is that
"the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who
is the image of God, should not dawn upon them" (2
Cor. 4:4). The glory of Christ; the gospel of the glory
of Christ; the light of the gospel of the glory of
Christ; who is the image of God; lest that should dawn
upon them, and that it should not dawn upon them, the god
of this age hath blinded them.
Then what
is the object? We are taken back to some dateless time
when in the counsels of the Godhead the Son was appointed
heir of all things. He Who was co-equal with God was put
in the way of inheriting all things. When that was known
in heaven, there was one in the angelic hosts in whose
heart iniquity was found. That iniquity was the pride of
desiring that equality and aspiring to that inheritance.
His heart was lifted up, and he said, "I will exalt
my throne above the stars of God... I will be like the
Most High" (Isa. 14:12-14; Eze. 28:11-19), in the
saying of which he uncovered his jealousy of God’s
Son; and out from that iniquity of his heart, that pride,
that jealousy of his heart, he lost his place there, and
he has come down and pursued his course of animosity all
through the ages, that men shall never see the Son if he
can help it. That the light of the glory of Christ should
not dawn upon them, he has darkened and blinded them. It
is to exclude the Son.
That surely
signifies something immense where Christ is concerned, if
Satan, with all his great intelligence and understanding,
recognises that, if men see that Son, it is the greatest
thing that ever could happen. Everything of God’s
intention is bound up with that. All God’s great
purpose in the creation of this world, and this universe,
hangs upon that. It is all vested in the Son, and if men
see the Son, then God reaches His end and realises His
purpose. Satan says, That must not be, they must not see
the Son! The god of this age hath blinded their minds,
lest the light of the glory of Christ, Who is the image
of God, should dawn upon them.
What a
thing it is to see the Son then! I cannot stay now with
that immense matter. But let us finish on this note: What
a tremendous shout will go up throughout the universe
when at last we see Him face to face, when there is no
more darkening veil at all in any degree. God has His end
then; the Son appears, the Son is seen. When we see Him,
"we shall be like Him; for we shall see Him even as
He is" (1 John 3:2). That is what God made us for:
"fore-ordained to be conformed to the image of His
Son" (Rom. 8:29). But oh, seeing now and seeing
evermore unto the perfect day is necessary, for it is as
we behold that we are changed into that image.
What is the
prayer upon our lips and in our hearts as we go away? Let
it not be mere sentiment, let it be a persistent cry and
a persistent quest - We would see Jesus! In the seeing of
Him all the purpose of God in this universe is bound up.