Reading: Col. 2:16-23; 3:1-11; Ephes. 4:13-15.
There is one particular
application of this whole vast, comprehensive truth which we feel
we should stress at this time. It has to do with our taking the
ground of the Heavenly Man. Whether you consider Him personally
or corporately in the Word, you will see that the one thing which
is being pointed out as absolutely necessary, is that the ground
of the Heavenly Man shall be taken; that is, that man shall come
on to the ground of the Heavenly Man. God has nothing to say to
men, nothing to do with them, on any other ground than that of
the Heavenly Man. His attitude is that, if you want Him to speak
to you, to have anything to do with you, you must come on to His
ground, which is that of the Heavenly Man. You have to leave your
own ground of nature, whatever be your thought of it, and you
have to come on to His ground. You must leave the ground of the
earthly man, the fallen Adam, leave natural ground, and come on
to the ground of the last Adam, on to heavenly ground, which is
spiritual ground.
If you were to take that
thought, and begin to read again the Gospel by John, and then go
on into the Epistles, especially those of Paul, although it is
not confined to them, you would see that this is the one thing
all the way through, and it would give you a wonderful opening up
of the Word.
The Sole
Ground of God's Dealings with Man
We begin, then, by seeing that
the Father has set forth the Son as His ground of dealing with
men, and He will deal with no man on any other ground:
"...him the Father, even God, hath sealed" (John 6:27).
Jesus of Nazareth was anointed by God. Now that is God's ground:
"This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased"
(Matt. 3:17); "This is my beloved Son... hear ye him"
(Matt. 17:5). He has set forth the Son, and if you want to have
anything to do with God at all, if you want Him to have anything
at all to do with you, you have to come on to the ground of the
Son, the ground of the Heavenly Man. God meets us in Him. God
takes up His work with us there on that ground. God carries on
His work with us on that ground alone. For all God's interest and
activity with us, Christ is the first and the last. He is set
forth, sealed, anointed, and there only shall we find an opened
heaven.
Referring again to Jacob and
his dream, we read: "And he lighted upon a certain place,
and tarried there all night... And he dreamed, and behold a
ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven;
and behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it. And,
behold, the Lord stood above it, and said..." (Gen.
28:11-13). The Lord took that up, as you remember, with
Nathanael, and said: "...ye shall see the heaven opened, and
the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of
man" (John 1:51). The Lord communes with man by way of that
ladder, which is the Son of Man, and by way of His Son alone; He
speaks to us at the end of these times "in His Son, whom He
appointed heir of all things." I think it hardly needs
stressing that this is where we begin, and this is what the
Father has done. He has made the Heavenly Man, His Son, the sole
ground upon which to meet man.
The Meaning
of the Divine Appointment of the Son
In using the term
"Heavenly Man", we are doing something more than just
referring to a Divine Person, the Son of God. We are implying a
great order of Man, a kind of Man, constituted by all heavenly
features, resources, faculties. Everything about this Man is
heavenly, and of practical value. Nothing in Him is without
meaning, without value. It is something of an applied kind; that
is, everything that is in Christ is of use, of heavenly use for
us, of heavenly value, of practical meaning. That is why we speak
of Him as the Heavenly Man, the kind God has in view. God can
only deal with that kind, and that is why we have to leave our
own ground and get on to Christ's ground, because God can only
deal with that kind. That is what is meant by the so familiar
phrase, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ..."
(literally, believe on to the Lord Jesus Christ). This is not the
mere taking of an attitude toward Him and saying: Of course I
believe Him, I believe He is a perfectly trustworthy one. No! It
is the committing of oneself, a stepping on to His ground, taking
the ground of the Heavenly Man. Until that is done there is no
hope at all. In order to do that, we have to leave our own
ground, and that is not so simple as it sounds. It is a life-long
education. There may be one act in the beginning, where in that
first initial sense we believe on to the Lord Jesus Christ; where
we step over on to Him in faith and commit ourselves to Him and
trust Him, but for the rest of our lives we shall be learning
what it is to leave our own ground and take His. As we do that we
come to His fulness, the fulness of the stature of Christ. It is
as we learn to leave our own ground and take the ground of the
Heavenly Man that this can be. We have plenty of opportunities
every day we live in which to do that. It is a life-long course,
though there is that initial act in the beginning of which we
have spoken.
The Truth
Illustrated in the Case of
(a) Nicodemus
Take some examples. Nicodemus
presents himself to the Lord Jesus as interested in Divine
things, interested in what he calls the kingdom of God. He feels
that Jesus can tell him something, and give him some information.
"Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God..."
(John 3:2). Well, You can tell us something! The Lord does not
begin to give him information. He does not begin to satisfy his
inquiries, and to open up to him Divine secrets. He makes no
response to that inquiry, but He says, in effect: Nicodemus,
ruler of the Jews as you are, you have to leave that ground and
to come on to another ground altogether; you must be born anew.
As you follow out the meaning
of that conversation, and of what the Lord said, you see
perfectly clearly that He is only saying in other words, You have
to come on to My ground. You must be where I am, before you can
know what I know. You want to know what I know. Well, I cannot
tell you, but you will know if you are born again; you will have
My heavenly knowledge. when you occupy My heavenly ground. You
can only occupy My heavenly ground by being born from above as I
have been. It is a Heavenly Man's ground for a Heavenly Man's
knowledge. You must leave your own ground. What, leave my ground?
What is wrong with my ground? I am a good, upright Israelite, a
faithful teacher of the Law! Yes, but you have to leave that
ground, the Lord Jesus would say; I am not now dealing with a man
and his standing with the Law, I am dealing with you, Nicodemus,
a ruler in Israel; you have to leave your ground and come on to
Mine.
That is what is clearly to be
inferred from John 3 and the same principle can be followed
throughout the Gospel. That is the law which is being applied all
the way through.
(b) The
Inquiring Greeks
You come to chapter 12 and you
read "Now there were certain Greeks
among those that went up to worship at the feast: these
therefore came to Philip... and asked him, saying, Sir, we would
see Jesus" (John 12:21). Then the disciples came and told
the Lord Jesus that there were certain Greeks wanting to see Him.
What did the Lord Jesus reply? Did He say: Very well, I will
come and show them Myself! No! "Jesus answereth them,
saying, The hour is come, that the Son of man should be
glorified. Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a grain of
wheat fall into the earth and die, it abideth by itself alone;
but if it die, it beareth much fruit" (verses 23-24). Did
they want to see Him? They must come on to His ground. What is
that ground? Heavenly ground, resurrection ground. It is not the
ground of this creation, but you must needs die to get on to this
ground. It is not the ground of this earthly life, but you must
die to that. Those Greeks could never "see" Him if
their thought of Him were as of someone of interest here on this
earth; if they had come to see someone of whom they had heard
wonderful things, and were looking for a wonderful man who has
been performing miracles; if He were as one of the sights of
Jerusalem for which they had come to the feast, one of the people
to get into touch with. They must leave that ground altogether,
and leave it through death (we will come back to that again
presently); then they shall see Him by corporate relationship:
"...if it die, it beareth much fruit". One corn of
wheat turned into an ear - and a harvest. That is how the Lord
Jesus can be known, by our becoming a part of the corporate
Heavenly Man, through death and resurrection. You have to leave
the natural ground if you want to see Him. It is not by the
contemplation of Him as a historical figure that you see Him;
you only see Him by resurrection - union with Him, on the ground
of the Heavenly Man.
How true that was with the
disciples themselves. He was with them by the space of
three-and-a-half years, and yet they really did not know Him, and
did not "see" Him; but after He had gone from them,
they saw Him and knew Him. The knowledge was something far
transcending that of the days of His flesh.
(c) Peter and
the Gentiles
Come further, over into the
early chapters of the book of the Acts, and you come to that
paragraph in the history of first things in the Church, where
Peter has been fasting and praying. He falls into a trance and
sees the heaven opened and a sheet let down from heaven. In it
are all manner of four-footed beasts and creeping things; and a
voice says to him, "Rise, Peter; kill and eat" (Acts
10:13). To this Peter replied, "Not so, Lord; for I have
never eaten anything that is common and unclean" (verse 14).
We know what it is related to. Away up country there is a devout
man with very little light, reaching out with all his heart to
know the Lord more perfectly, to go on with God; hungry for the
Lord, but not knowing the way. In his reaching out for the Lord,
he is visited by an angel, and told that if he sends to a certain
place, at such and such an address, there is a man there named
Peter, who, if he but calls for him to come, will tell him what
he needs to know. Meanwhile in connection with that man, who is
not a Jew, who is not of Israel, and who is outside the covenant,
the Lord is having these dealings with Peter. Now, to Peter, that
man would be as one of those reptiles, those creeping things, as
unclean meat, because he was outside Israel. Peter says,
"Not so, Lord..." Now Peter must leave that ground.
That is his old Jewish ground, and he must leave it and come on
to the ground of the Heavenly Man. What is the ground of the
Heavenly Man? It is that where there is neither Jew nor Greek,
where these distinctions are not to be made. You are not to make
these distinctions Peter! You are not to stand off like this,
saying, I am a Jew, and he is not a Jew; we have no relationship!
Fellowship is the mark of the Heavenly Man, and there these
distinctions are lost sight of. You must come off your earthly,
historic, traditional ground, Peter, on to the ground of the
Heavenly Man.
The Lord made it perfectly
clear that Peter had to do it, and that the issues were very
serious and critical if he did not. Peter had the grace of
obedience to leave his own ground, and he went up to Caesarea and
met with one of the greatest surprises of his life, in that he
found that the Lord was there! He had to report to the other
Jewish Apostles that, though he had gone with all fear and
misgiving, he found the Lord there. Yes, the Lord was on the
ground that He Himself had provided, the ground of the Heavenly
Man. We shall always meet the Lord on that ground. Leave your own
ground, and come on to My ground, and I will meet you there and
show you something which will surprise you. So it was in this
case: "Who was I, that I could withstand God?" The Lord
had given them the Spirit, and I had to get off my ground, and
get on to the Lord's ground, the ground of the Heavenly Man!
(d) Paul and
Israel
What was true of Peter had to
be true of Paul. I think Paul was a long time in getting
thoroughly off his own ground. He clung to Israel as long as he
could. Other things there were that had quickly become clear, and
his going out to the Gentiles had very largely moved him away
even from this ground, but he was still clinging to it in
measure. That vow, and that going up to Jerusalem which led him
into such trouble, was all the fruit of his clinging to Israel,
esteeming his brethren after the flesh above others. He did not
easily let go. But when at length Paul let go of that ground,
then he was able to write the letter to the Ephesians. The letter
to the Ephesians is the glorious expression of heavenly ground
having been reached in fulness. Is it not that? Ephesians deals
with being in the heavenlies in Christ. It speaks of the stature
of the fulness of Christ. The full-grown man is the Heavenly Man.
At long last he has finally quitted his own ground; that of
tradition, nature, birth, natural hope, and now, being on the
ground of the Heavenly Man, he has such a fulness to pass on. He
says - and it invests these words with such richness when you see
what they represent of the position to which he himself has come
- "And put on the new man, which after God hath been created
in righteousness and holiness of truth" (Ephes. 4:24). On
this heavenly ground there can be neither Jew nor Greek. You
must leave the ground of the Jew, leave the ground of the Greek.
On this ground there can be neither circumcision nor
uncircumcision. You have to leave both those grounds. On this
ground there can be neither barbarian nor Scythian, neither
bondman nor freeman, but Christ is all, and in all. That is the
ground of the Heavenly Man.
All Natural
Ground Must be Forsaken
In this dispensation God is not
meeting Jews as Jews, and Gentiles as Gentiles, and a great many
are making the mistake of thinking that He is. His Word to the
Jew is: you must leave your Jewish ground, and stand before God,
not as a Jew, but as a man, and until you take that ground God
has nothing to say to you; you will not have any light whilst you
persist in coming before God on your own ground. The same has to
be said to everyone else. We have to leave our own ground in
every way.
As that applies in these
directions nationally, it applies in every other thing. Are you
going to answer the Lord back: But I am this or that, or
something else; or, But I am not this or that. It is not what you
are, but what the Son is, that is of account. Come on to His
ground. The Lord will not meet you on the ground of what you are,
whether it be good or bad; He will meet you on the ground of the
Heavenly Man. Do you answer back, I am so weak! The Lord is not
going to meet you on that ground; He will meet you on the ground
of His Son. That is what the Holy Spirit means by such words as
He speaks through Paul: "...be strengthened in the grace
that is in Christ Jesus" (2 Tim. 2:1). God hears us exclaim,
But I am so weak, Lord! but He does not pay any heed to what we
mean to indicate by that confession, which is: Come down on to
the ground of my weakness and pick me up! He says, You forsake
that ground, and come on to the ground of My Son, and you will
find strength there. I am so foolish, Lord! The Lord says: You
will remain foolish until you get on to the ground of My Son, who
is made unto you wisdom.
That applies all the way along.
We take our own ground before the Lord and are surprised that the
Lord does not lift us right out of our own ground and put us into
a better position, but He never does. We shall stay there for
ever, if that is our attitude. The Lord's word to us is: Forsake
your own ground and come on to My ground. I have provided a
Heavenly Man who is full of all that you need; now come on to
that ground. It does not matter what you are, or what you are
not. There everything is adjusted and made good.
The Witness
of the Testimonies to the Truth
(a) Baptism
This is the meaning of the
testimonies of baptism and the laying on of hands, as mentioned
in Hebrews 6. Those testimonies go together. Baptism is, on the
one hand, leaving your own ground of nature, dying to your own
ground and being buried. So far as your own natural ground is
concerned, that is finished with: "Ye died..." You have
parted from your own ground of nature. In your baptism, on the
other hand, you were raised together with Christ, and you have
come on to the ground of Christ, the Heavenly Man. "Having
been buried with him in baptism, wherein ye were also raised with
him through faith in the working of God, who raised him from the
dead." It is thus that the truth of which we have been
speaking is set forth in Colossians. And the Apostle goes on to
urge the recognition of it. "If ye died with Christ from the
rudiments of the world, why, as though living in the world, do ye
subject yourselves to ordinances...?" Ye died! Ye died! You
are now on other ground, the ground of the Heavenly Man. In
resurrection you were raised together with Christ; seek,
therefore, those things which are above.
May we just say here, lest
someone fall into a peril which we observe in making such a
statement, that amongst the things mentioned it says that you
died to being under bondage to the Sabbath. That is quite true as
a legal thing, as a part of a legal system imposed upon you; you
have died to that, and you are no longer in bondage to that. But,
mark you, we do not believe that a risen man, a spiritual man,
will violate the principle of the Sabbath. We do not believe that
a really spiritual man will do that. There is that portion of our
time which is the Lord's portion, that which must be set aside
for the Lord apart from all other things in the matter of time,
that which must give the Lord His place and give a clear space
for the Lord's things in our week. It is a settled law of a
spiritual character that lies behind the ordinance of the
Sabbath. I cannot believe for a moment that a man who is under
the government of the Holy Spirit will treat every day alike and
turn the Sabbath day into a day of personal pleasure and gain.
The Holy Spirit would check a spiritual man on such a matter, at
the same time keeping him free from the legal Sabbath, so that he
holds it unto God and not as a part of a legal religious system.
Now we say that in parenthesis
to safeguard what has just been expressed against an unwarranted
conclusion. Oh, well, I can do as I like because I am not under
the Law, someone will say. Oh no! Not at all! We can have the
Holy Ghost now in resurrection, and on the ground of the Heavenly
Man we shall be kept right by the Lord in these matters.
You see that baptism sets
forth, on the one hand, our having forsaken our own ground of
nature, through death, and, on the other hand, our having come on
to the ground of the Heavenly Man in resurrection.
(b) The
Laying on of Hands
But then we come to the laying
on of hands. That immediately follows baptism in the scripture of
Heb. 6. What is the significance of the laying on of hands? It
witnesses to our coming on to the ground of the corporate
Heavenly Man, the one Body, so that in the laying on of hands
there is the testimony borne between two or three, or more, by an
act of identification, that we are not isolated units, but that
we are a collective or corporate body, the corporate Heavenly
Man. The ground of the Lord Himself was that of the one Body,
that of the corporate Heavenly Man. There is no doubt that it is
in that life of oneness in the Spirit, as the life of the
Heavenly Man, that we find the greater fulnesses of Christ. There
is always something more in two than in one. There is always
something more of the Lord in relatedness than in isolation. The
Lord indicates this very clearly when by the writer to the
Hebrews He says: "Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves
together, as the custom of some is, but exhorting one another;
and so much the more, as ye see the day drawing nigh" (Heb.
10:25). Why should it be said "as ye see the day drawing
nigh"? Because it is the day of the fulness, the day of the
consummation. Our coming together "so much the more" in
view of that day makes possible the Lord's giving so much the
more unto that final fulness. We need it so much the more as we
get near the end, and near the beginning of "the day".
The ground of the Heavenly Man, personal and corporate, is the
ground that we have quite definitely to take.
In Christ, the Heavenly Man,
everything lives. The ruling principle of the Heavenly Man is
eternal life. Everything lives in Him. We have been saying that
in Him the Word of God lives. On the ground of the Heavenly Man,
the Word becomes alive. Get on to that ground and you will prove
that things are really alive. Forsake your own ground and take
His, and you will find life. Put it to the test if you like. If
you keep your ground you will die, or you will remain in death.
You say: But Lord, I am so weak! Well, stay on that ground and
see whether you do not die. Lord, I am so foolish! Well, stay
there, and see how much life you enjoy. The realm of "what I
am" is the realm of death. And even though it be the other
kind of "I" that thinks itself to be something, that
is, a certain self-satisfaction, self-fulness, it is death. The
ground of "what I am", whatever it may be, is the
ground of death. It is not the ground of the Heavenly Man. Get on
to the ground of the Heavenly Man and you find life. Forsake your
own ground and take His, and it will be life.
If you get upset, offended, and
go off and sulk, and nurse your grievance, you will die. Are you
expecting the Lord to come out to you there and entreat you: Oh,
do not be so upset, do not make so much of it! The Lord will do
nothing of the kind. He does not follow us out like that. He says
to us: You will have to forsake that ground and come back to My
ground! You will die out there! And you know it is not until you
get over your huff and come back on to the Lord's ground that you
begin to live again. Heavenly things are practical, not mythical.
On any other ground than the Lord's ground there is death. If we
separate ourselves, forsake that fellowship, that association
which is our spiritual relationship in the will of God, we shall
begin to lose, and become like Thomas. We are outside, losing
ground, and our lives will become small, shrivelled, miserable.
The Lord will not go out after a Thomas. The Lord never followed
Thomas out. When the other disciples came together and Thomas was
not with them, because he was offended, the Lord did not seek him
out and say, Come along Thomas! The Lord met them when they were
together, and it was not until Thomas came in where they were
that he met the Lord, and came into life, and came to see how
silly he had been. Then Thomas fell down and said, "My Lord
and my God." That is his confession to having been a fool.
If we separate ourselves and go
off for any cause whatever, we shall die. The Lord will not come
out to us in life. He will be saying to us all the time: You must
forsake that ground and come back again to where I can meet you,
to where your life is. That is the ground of the corporate
Heavenly Man. The Lord teach us the meaning of that.