The Octave of Redemption (Transcript)

by T. Austin-Sparks

Chapter 2 - The Earthly Life of the Lord Jesus

We come to the second: the earthly life of the Lord Jesus and again we ask the question: why the earthly life? That has within it other questions I think you will immediately recognise, just the question: why was it necessary for Him to be here for something over thirty-three years? Again: why was it necessary for the greater part of that time to be spent in private, and, so far as we are concerned, in secret? Those questions are within the general question and they will be answered, to some extent at least, as we go on.

Now, the earthly life of Christ has been made much of - usually to show that there was such a person as Jesus of Nazareth, and to show what a good person He was, or again, how much greater He was as a teacher than other teachers and at most, usually, to show that He was more than just a man. There may be other purposes for writing books on the life of Jesus, but these usually comprehend the object.

Well, of course, it is very interesting to know where Jesus was born, seeing what He has become: a great world historical figure. To know where He was brought up and to have a little information as to how He was brought up, to know where He went about the country, what He taught, and the miracles that He performed, and so on, I say that's all very interesting, and informative. It has become the [structure] of a good deal of discussion and argument and some controversy.

The miracles have provided much food for the psychologists, and His teaching for the theologians and the doctrinaires. But when you have said all that you can say, and written all that you could write on those matters, you may not have advanced much beyond the human story. As a human story, it appeals very much to the emotion and to the imagination, but it does not change character. And if you just leave it there, however fascinating, impressive and moving, you have stopped short of the real meaning of the earthly life of the Lord Jesus.

The earthly life of the Lord Jesus was not intended for those purposes; was not intended to just provide us with a lot of data and information and interesting matter about a certain man - however great and wonderful - who lived so long ago, in such-and-such a part of the world, and said and did such-and-such things. He did not come for that. He was not here for thirty years and a little more, for those purposes at all. But it was intended to show that He was, not only in many respects different from other men, but that He was of a different order of mankind from all the rest. Until you have recognised that, and got your hand firmly upon that, you have not got the key to the earthly life of the Lord Jesus. I repeat that He was not only different in many respects from the ordinary run of men, He was of a different order of man from all the rest, the best included. He met some of the best types of men of His day, and there was a great gulf fixed between them and there was no passing from the one to the other.

Jesus was a mystery. He was not just mysterious - He was a mystery. He was not just misunderstood. So many have said that about Him, "He was an altogether misunderstood Man". No, He was not just misunderstood - He was un-understood, and that's very different.

Jesus did not conform to any of the principles and methods upon which this world is run. He did not do what He was expected to do, by the world or by His friends. He always put that expectation back and did not instantly fulfil it because He was asked to, or because it was expected of Him. He put a gap between the expectation and whatever He did. And into that gap you have got to place this that is altogether different about Him as an order of man from other men. If you try to fit Him in, try to make Him a part of the order, and try to show how He just did this and did that, in a kindly way, because He was so kind, you'll miss the point; you'll miss the point.

Why, for instance, when that very embarrassing situation arose at the marriage in Cana of Galilee, and it was presented to Him as His opportunity, did He put it back, with something that sounded very much like a rebuff? And but for, but for something which did not belong to that order of things at all, nothing might have happened. Nothing might have happened so far as the expectation of people was concerned, nothing might ever have happened, but for something else that belonged to another realm altogether. And we have that sort of thing repeated in different connections. He did not do what people expected Him to do and He very often did what they never expected Him to do! He did the unexpected very often, and took them completely, not only by surprise, but right out of their depth. They couldn't follow Him in some of the things that He did. He did not go where people expected Him to go, and when they expected that He would do it, and so conform to their order and programme. And He certainly did not say what He was expected to say - on the contrary, He said many things that He was not expected to say - far from it.

Now, Jesus was not just being different, being awkward, being singular. There's a lot of people, you know, who behave like this, but on entirely different ground, to try to be singular, exceptional, unusual, and do the unexpected, and be awkward.

I remember some years ago, a young man who had gained a great name in this world (and I think there are very few here this afternoon who would not know that name were I to mention it; but I'm not going to) but I think by reason of the tremendous amount that had been made of him, he developed an ultra-self-consciousness. And he came here to one of our early conferences, when we had them in the marquee down at the bottom of the grounds. I knew him, and after the morning meeting I met him outside the marquee and I was having a talk with him for some time, and then I felt that it was time that we came up to the house.

So I took him by the arm to walk up with him, and he instantly drew himself up stiff, and stuck his heels in and absolutely refused to budge! Well, I thought, "What's this?" And I had to wait a minute or two until he was evidently satisfied in himself and he relaxed, and we walked up - not arm-in-arm, I'd learned my lesson! We walked up.

Now, I came to know that he had adopted a manner on this; he was never going to allow himself to be influenced, or affected, or led, or in any way moved, by another human being. He had come to such an ultra place that he would not even walk arm-in-arm with a brother Christian unless the Lord told him to! And so he dug his heels in to cut off any influence of another man from his life. It became, of course, well, perhaps we'd better not name it, but the dear brother gradually developed a complex about himself that he became a kind of oracle and gathered around him a group of people who listened to every word that dropped from his mouth and went away, "So-and-so has said this and said that!" And these were in the nature of prophecies from heaven. Now you see what I mean. It is possible to be like that on an altogether false basis.

Jesus was not like that. He may have behaved or seemed to behave like that at times, but it was not on that basis. We've got to be very clear about this - this strange, this unknown way with Him, perplexed and mystified, sometimes annoyed and sometimes angered and again, sometimes disappointed. But these are facts; these are very clearly recognisable features of the earthly life of the Lord Jesus. And they were not of the order of which I have spoken - an ultra-self-consciousness, a trying to stand apart and be different from others, trying to be different from others, wearing a strait jacket, unbending, unyielding. No, there was none of that about Him; none of that about Him. We have got to explain it, for there is no mistaking it. There He is - an unknown Man.

Here then, was a Man - spell it with a capital 'M' - living a human life on a basis different from that of every other man. There was a negative and a positive aspect of that fact. The negative aspect was this: He was utterly, (may I use the word here) circumcised in heart. That is, He was utterly separated from the self-principle in every way, utterly separated from the self-principle in His mind - not to use His mind, not to think His thoughts, and arrive at His judgments on the basis of any self-principle whatsoever. As to His heart, His feelings - He was completely separated from the self-principle in His feelings, and so also in His will. Here is a Man who has a soul - a mind, a heart and a will - constituting Him a true human being, but in whose mind, heart and will, or in whose soul the self-principle has been put completely aside.

You cannot make Him do anything along the line of ordinary human reasoning, however right it may seem to be, good it may seem to be. "They have no wine - therefore..." you see, an argument comes in, a reasoning. Therefore this and that and some other thing, constituting a very good case for your intervening and doing something. It could be argued from almost every standpoint as a thing that He should do: from the standpoint of human kindness, from the standpoint of the vindication of His mission, the establishment of His Divine person. Yes, you can argue it from any standpoint and from them all, but He is not moving on a mind which is influenced by any kind of argument.

The only argument with Him is: "Does My Father will it? And does My Father will it now? And does My Father will it in this way?" Those are the things that influence His mind and His heart and His will - His soul. And until, until He is sure about that, nothing on this earth, in this world, of any argument or appeal or case, nothing whatever will get Him to move. He is doing something, He is doing something, and we are going to see what it is that He was doing.

I have said that He was utterly 'circumcised in heart'. That's a biblical phrase and we need to understand the meaning of that phrase. It means that an absolute severance has taken place between two things in the heart. If you'd like to use 'heart' there as a synonym for 'soul' you can; it is the inner man. The inner man. Something has been done in His [head]. And He kept steadfastly to that ground to the end. The fiercest battles in His life were raged upon that very ground, in one way or another. [Do you want to hear the innermost] friend and disciple: "This shall never come to Thee; far be it from Thee...". "Get behind Me, Satan: thou savorest the things of men, thou speakest the things that be of men. Of men? I don't belong to that realm of men in which you move. Men! Every other man yes, will listen to your argument, and be influenced and persuaded; but Me? No!" And so it is, right to the end: He steadfastly held to that ground - the ground of what we will content ourselves by calling the ground of inward heart circumcision.

Now remember that that was the focal point of satan's persistent endeavour; that very thing: reason, argument, that He should do certain things, and why He should do certain things, or that He should not do certain things and why He should not do them. It's an argument, bringing the argument at times of absolute necessity. And, said He in effect, "Necessity knows no law". Jesus repudiated that argument absolutely. "Your body must have bread or You'll die. Necessity requires that You turn these stones into bread." Necessity knows no law. So say men, but not the Divine Son of God, not the Son of Man. You have no need that I bring in more evidence, you see the point. You see the point.

Satan's focal point of every attack was just there - to try to get Him to do, to act, to move, to decide, to be influenced by the ordinary dictates of human life as we know it, as we know it; and He refused. That being the focal point of all satanic attacks and efforts, that was the realm of His absolute victory over satan and over the world. "The prince of this world cometh: and hath nothing in Me". What was he looking for? The self-principle. The self-principle - if only he could get that moving, if only he could stir that into action, through mind, heart or will, the same thing would happen with the Last Adam as happened with the first, and the Kingdom would go again into the hands of the devil. He has met a different kind of Man, who is not coming up to him on that ground at all. "The prince of this world..." for Jesus did not just say, 'The devil comes to Me , satan comes to Me...'. Here it's: "The prince of this world" - implying the whole principle of this world as satan's kingdom; the self-principle. The self-principle of the prince of this world. "He hath nothing in Me, hath nothing in Me." It's a tremendous thing this life of the Lord Jesus on the earth, its significance.

For that, we have said, is the negative, there was that severance, that cutting off, that putting away of that principle of this world in His soul. The positive aspect was that He was so utterly committed to the will of His Father. Not just refusing, resisting the negative repression, suppression, putting away. No, the motive of it all was His absolute committal to the will of the Father. The will of the Father was the most positive reality in His life, from beginning to end, that was the dominant thing. And the will of the Father came down to every detail in the most meticulous way. This was established in His life, yes, His whole life on the earth.

It was established in His private life, as we call it, for thirty years. That part of His life of thirty years was also divided into two. You notice that division in the gospel by Luke, chapter 2. Here, after the age of twelve, what is said over this first section of twelve years: "And the child grew, and waxed strong, becoming full of wisdom: and the grace of God was upon Him". The verdict of twelve years. From then onwards, verse 52: "And Jesus advanced in wisdom and stature, and in grace with God and men".

Now, I am not going to analyse that. It's subject to an analysis which is very profitable, if you'd like to make it. You see the realms in which this progress was made - physical, mental and spiritual - and over all the verdict is: the grace of God. The grace of God was over His life: Divine approval, Divine satisfaction, growing up before the Lord as one well-pleasing. Why? Right at the very heart: "Wist ye not that I must be about My Father's business?" Or, if you like the later translation, "I must be in My Father's house". Whatever that may have [personally] meant, a Father-consciousness above the ordinary, natural relationship, note that that is set right in something that gave a good deal of heart-burning and perplexity to His parents after the flesh.

Yes, an utter committal to the will of His Father through His life, and established for thirty years, in the ordinary, common way of life. I think that's a tremendous thing. You say, "Why thirty years in silence and in secret so far as we are concerned? There's such little light upon it. Why?" Just for that reason, just for that reason. If you want the explanation, you go back to the Old Testament and remember that the Levites commenced their service at the age of thirty years. And Mark tells us about Jesus beginning His ministry: "Now when Jesus began... to be about thirty years of age..." but a Levite was never officially put into his ministry at the age of thirty willy-nilly. There's a history lying behind this: the Levite spirit, the Levite life, the Levite behaviour lay behind it.

And I (although we've nothing that makes this quite clear to us, because perhaps there was never any occasion) I venture to say that if anybody at the age of thirty years of age in that old dispensation had been living a profligate life, he would never have become an officiating Levite. No, thirty years of age was the seal set upon thirty years the man had walked before God. Jesus had that aspect of things, that God tested Him, proved Him, in the ordinary ways of life.

And that ought to be taken by us very seriously, as a principle of God's approval. God's approval! You may be longing to get out into ministry: God may be longing for you to be fit to be brought out into ministry! You are going through it, in all of the ordinary ways of life you're being tested, the eye of God is upon you. Remember that when He came at thirty years of age to the Jordan, heaven was opened and a voice said: "In Him I am well pleased. In Him I am well pleased". I think that covered thirty years and made it possible for Him to take up His ministry - the grace of God in thirty years of ordinary life. And perhaps we are not so right in saying 'ordinary life', seeing how the devil tried to get Him right at the beginning.

But, whatever the thirty years represented, there is no question about it that the three-and-a-half ratified, through intense fires, ratified the fact that He was committed without any reservation to the will of His Father. Those three-and-a-half years indeed, were a period of the intensest, intensest fires, to make Him deviate a little bit in personal, self-consideration, from doing His Father's will. By every bribe of 'the kingdoms of this world and the glory thereof', and by every threat of the ignominy of the cross, satan sought to bring about this deviation from the will of God. He fought it through to the end. Thirty-three years and more... why the earthly life? That's the answer. That's the answer.

Thirty-three and a bit, what was it for? To establish first of all, to establish the reality of His humanity. You see, there had been many Divine appearances in the old dispensation in human form. No one dare be dogmatic on this matter, but it may very well have been that the very Son of God Himself was in some of those so-called 'theophanies', God coming in human form, so that those visited first spoke of them as men, or a man, and then said, and woke up to the realisation: "I have seen God - God has been here!" But this was no theophany, this was real humanity. Not a transient guise, a passing form, just a visitation, this was a man, true humanity, on this earth for over thirty-three years. This was not an angelic visitor. It was a man.

And amongst other reasons and explanations, [why He exists] and why He came as a babe, why He was born as a babe and started from the beginning. No, not a visitant in full maturity; but coming right out from the beginning, coming in - with a difference - nevertheless by the same door as other men - I say, with a difference and yet born, a babe, living here through infancy, childhood, youth, into manhood. Why? Accepting a life on the basis of absolute dependence upon God as other men.

If you think, friends, if you think, you will see that there's so much that bears this out. Why must He in infancy be hurried away by Joseph and Mary, out of the country, because His life is sought after? Why doesn't Heaven come in and assert itself for His absolute protection in miraculous ways to preserve Him and to meet those forces that were against Him? But, you see, that is like any other child, He had to be taken and run away with, be got out of the way! I could build up quite a lot of that kind of thing: He is living our life, He is subject to our experiences. There may be miraculous elements working behind, but on the face of things He is hungry, He is thirsty, He is tired, He is pursued and sought after and going through it as you and I do. He is living a human life. He has voluntarily accepted the basis of absolute dependence upon His Father. And the Father is not performing a series of miracles - although the whole thing is a miracle.

But you see, for this reason, like other men, He has got to overcome by the principle of faith. He has no other life, in principle, than you and I have: it's the life of faith. We said much about it this morning, but there it is.

Faith

Faith for Him before He could exercise it for Himself, but even so, just think: I have no doubt that what Joseph and Mary had was considerable exercise about that matter. They looked it squarely in the face, and they said, "Well, we can trust God to look after Him: we won't do anything, we'll just trust God..." or they would say, "We will go and trust God". It was faith in any case, it was faith - faith for Him. And when it came to the time for Him to exercise faith, everything was on the basis of faith; don't make any mistake about it, as much as it is for you and for me. We've got to get very clear about this.

I know what you're thinking, I just hinted at this this morning: "What about His deity? What about His miraculous powers of knowledge and action? He knew in a supernatural way; He knew! He exercised powers, quite supernatural. That is not humanity!" Now you will get that very definitely cleared up in your mind. It does not contradict anything that I have said. Note: Jesus never used His miraculous powers of Deity for Himself.

There is only one instance which you might think could be set over against that statement: when He had no money to pay His taxes, and sent Peter down to the sea-shore, and there was a fish with a coin in its mouth. And you might say, "It would be very nice to have that power to pay our rates!" Ah, but be careful. Be careful - it's not quite as clear as that. And that does not really contradict what I have said. He never used supernatural, Godhead powers for Himself, they never took Him off the ground of dependence upon God and the basis of faith. Note even in that one incident there was no creative action. It was only superior intelligence. There was a fish, and that fish had a coin, and somehow He knew it. It was not created. He never used creative power in His own interests.

Let's pursue that, take the miracles. The miracles related, on the one side, to His Deity: but, even so, they did not have a character-changing effect upon the people who saw them or participated in them. They were but for a testimony to Who He was. I wonder if you get the significance of that? With all His miracles, with all His miracles, in the end the principle of unbelief has not been rooted out of a single individual! That's the tragedy of it all. That is a tremendous argument. Though they saw all that He did, the deep-rooted unbelief was untouched. The amazing thing, the amazing thing - even with the disciples themselves - they were still capable of deep-seated unbelief. "Oh foolish men, and slow of heart to believe...!" He upbraided them for their unbelief... with all that they saw, it did not touch character, it did not touch their nature.

Therefore, it was but for a testimony - a testimony given to Who He was on that side. You see, there are two sides to this matter. There is the side of His Deity, as John sums up everything: "These things are written, that ye may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye may have life in His name". It was for a testimony to Who He was essentially. But withal, it did not have that effect upon their natures, that because of these things they got rid of unbelief. Yes - for a moment they may have believed on Him - but that's something less than having unbelief deeply and radically dealt with. The miracles didn't do that, and Jesus did not expect that they would. And He was not building upon His miracles any hope in that direction. He makes that perfectly clear. He was still dependent upon the Father for the real effect.

And I want to say here, dear friends, and you must think about it (if it's too much for you, don't worry, but think about it) I want to say here this, that it is that Life of the Son of Man, in all its mighty potency, its power, its principle, that makes the difference in us; not the things that He does for us. He might heal your body of a chronic disease, of something that is most certainly going to prove fatal in the ordinary way, but that does not necessarily mean that the deep-seated unbelief will be dealt with. After a few years you might argue and explain that psychologically, or in some other way, and lose, and lose the real impact of it. No, those things done for us, even though they might deem them miracles in any realm, do not touch our real nature.

Don't you make any mistake: signs and wonders are not the ultimate argument - they are not. The ultimate argument is the change of your very being, deep-seated and deep-rooted, and anything that does not do that has failed of the ultimate purpose of His coming. No, it is not what He would do for us miraculously by outward things, but it is what He Himself is in us, as another kind of Person. It's that that matters. It is "Christ in you, the hope of glory"; not Christ working miracles for you. There's all the difference.

But then, we haven't finished it all. He did have superior powers, for doing and for knowing. While I am not for a moment suggesting or hinting that that had nothing to do with His Deity, His Divine nature, I do want to say on the other hand that that superior - what we might call supernatural power and intelligence might very well be... I'll put it this way: might very well be the normal of a kind of being that Jesus is, as man. If you can bring a man or men into such relationship with God without turning them into God, into such relationship with God as He had, you might have that superior intelligence and know a great deal more than the ordinary person knows of what's happening here and there, what is going on. Not just psychic and such, by the very intuition of a spirit linked with God. I venture to suggest that putting all that is psychical aside - that is not absolutely unknown to Christian men and women.

Well, there's Peter who raised the dead; the apostles healed the sick, performed miracles. Were they God? No, but by the Spirit of Jesus Christ they were brought into such a relationship with Him as to have His powers delegated to them. "And greater works than these shall ye do; because I go to the Father".

There's a deep, perhaps far too deep, significance in a word that He uttered, for our understanding. And I do not venture into those depths, but I would suggest that you have a look into John 5:27. "The Father hath given it unto the Son to have authority to raise the dead, because He is the Son of Man." Not because He is the Son of God, but: "because He is the Son of Man". It opens a very big field of enquiry, and we won't enter it; but my point is this: that, Deity apart (I am not arguing for a moment against the Deity of Christ in knowledge or power, supernatural ability) but the Deity of Christ, may it not be that the humanity according to God's original mind were all related to Himself and so indwelt by Himself, should have these powers which we now call 'super-natural'? That they're the means of another order of intelligence, of knowledge, of ability to do. Are these not the gifts of the Holy Ghost given to the church? What does it mean? Lifted on to another level, lifted onto another level of understanding, of knowledge, of intelligence, of ability to do above the ordinary level of man as we know him. That's what it means.

Why the earthly life? To set forth the kind of humanity that God wants. To demonstrate through a life what man would be if God had him after His own heart. I believe that's the answer. And if it was three-and-a-half years, what does that say? Coming over the centuries I hear the prophet's voice saying: "His life was cut off from the the earth", cut off in mid-manhood. Men didn't let Him finish it. Men took action that this should not go on. Men brought it to - may we say, from one standpoint - an untimely end. Ah, satan won't have this kind of man here longer than he can help.

But this kind of man, this kind of man can only be completed on the other side. He has done all that was needed. He has demonstrated what man would be if God had him according to His mind; He's demonstrated that. We anticipate our 'octave' when we just hint that He hasn't left His manhood, He hasn't left His humanity; He abides there, but He has taken action that the rest of the prophecy shall be fulfilled: "He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His days". He was cut off, but He shall prolong His days: and His days are prolonged in His Church.