Chapter 4 - The Testimony of the Blood
"And
the Lord said to the serpent... I will put enmity between
thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed: He
shall bruise thy head..." (Genesis 3:15).
"... the old serpent... and they overcame him
because of the blood of the Lamb, and because of the word
of their testimony, and they loved not their life even
unto death" (Revelation 12:9,11).
The Testimony of Jesus is first mentioned in the
Scripture by the Lord Himself in the above words (Genesis
3:15). It is all gathered up in that one clause: "He
shall bruise thy head". The two things combine in
that clause: "He", the Person, and "shall
bruise thy head", the work; and that with a certain
special significance: "thy head", which is 'thy
dominion, thy government, thy sovereignty, thy crown'.
Then we have the Cross introduced immediately as the
scene and centre of the establishing fully and finally in
Him of this Testimony, the central element of the Cross
being the Blood of the Lord Jesus. The Blood; that is the
central factor in the Testimony of Jesus - the Blood of
the Lord Jesus. I want to remind you of the inclusiveness
of the Blood of the Lord Jesus, that in the first place
it has to do with sin. It is immediately related in that
passage in Genesis to what had taken place and to what
had entered into the world. Sin, and sin in all its
aspects; sin as transgression, overstepping the mark; sin
as lawlessness, revolt against God; sin as shortcoming,
coming short of the Glory of God; sin in every form in
every way. The Blood of the Lord Jesus has to do with sin
in the meeting of it, the destroying of it, and
ultimately in the wiping of it from the universe. The
Blood of Jesus Christ is directed against sin.
Then, in the second place, it is related to all that is
meant by that symbolic word: "the flesh". And
the flesh here does not mean merely the principle of sin,
but it means the kind of person man is when he has fallen
into sin. That is, the fallen race, the species which
came into existence when sin entered in - an entirely
different type of being from that intended by God.
"He is become flesh" (Genesis 6:3). The Blood
of Jesus Christ has to do, not only with the sin as the
principle and the law of the fallen race, but with the
race itself; not only to wipe sin from the universe, but
to wipe that race from the universe; to put away that
kind and type of man and make possible and secure a new
creation, a man, not after the flesh type, but the Man
after the Spirit type, such as Christ in resurrection.
The Blood, in the third place, is related to the
consequences immediately following upon sin and the race
becoming what it did when sin entered. That is death.
"The soul that sinneth, it shall die." "In
the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely
die." "And," says the Spirit through Paul
"as by one man's disobedience... death passed upon
all for that all have sinned", and death is the
universal and immediate consequence upon sin and the
sentence concerning the race. Death in all its range and
depth; death in every realm, spirit, soul and body. The
Blood testifies concerning death and has a work to do in
that realm.
Then, in the fourth place, the Blood of Jesus Christ not
only deals with the consequence and the fruit, but with
the cause and the root, and Satan himself is involved in
this mighty issue in the Blood of Jesus Christ. He is
taken up in the Testimony of Jesus, and taken up in two
capacities:
Firstly, he is taken up as "the prince of
this world" - "The prince of this world
cometh"; "Now shall the prince of this world be
cast out".
Secondly, to Satan as "him that had the power
of death, that is the devil". It is not only the
death, but him that had the power of death, and the word
"power" there is neither the familiar word:
"dunamis" - force, nor: "exousia" -
authority, but it is the other word: "kratos",
which means 'to hold'. It is the grip of death; the one
who holds in his hands death, the one who has the hold of
death; and in that connection the Blood speaks concerning
him, that through death - and the Lord Jesus getting for
a moment into the hold, the grip of death - He should
destroy him that had the hold of death, that is the
devil.
So the Blood deals with him in both those capacities.
That is the Testimony of Jesus as in the Blood of the
Lord Jesus.
The Issue is that of Life and Death
Now we see
that the main issue in the Testimony of Jesus, in and
through and by His Blood, is the issue of life and death,
or death and life. That is the main issue. Oh, do follow
me closely, for you will see in a moment some of the
great content of this thing. The main issue in the
Testimony of Jesus as by the Blood of Jesus is the issue
of LIFE AND DEATH. If the Lord's people recognized that
enough, they would have their ground set and fixed, they
would know exactly what their business is in the world,
and they would have a full explanation of all that which
they meet in the spiritual realm when they become related
to the Testimony of Jesus. IT IS THE ISSUE OF LIFE AND
DEATH. It is not only of sin and sanctification, and it
is not only the issue of an old man and a new man, but in
all that, and over all that, and around all that is the
far bigger issue, the issue of life and death. And until
this main issue is recognized the whole question of sin,
and of the new man, and the new race, and the bringing in
of the new creation, and of the escape of men and women
from the power of Satan unto God could never be. You will
be held up until you recognize the main issue. Where does
the whole question of sanctification begin? Where does
the whole question of a new creation begin? Where does
the whole question of the emancipation of souls from the
grip of Satan begin? It all begins at the place where the
power of death is met. It is not sins with which you and
I are contending, nor merely with the old creation. We
can be locked up and bound and tied by the absorption and
obsession with our old man and never get anywhere. We can
be locked up and tied hand and foot with all kinds of
truth and teaching about sanctification, the question of
sins or sin specifically, and get nowhere because we are
not recognizing the main issue. The main issue is death,
the power of death, and we have got to come to that
central issue of the Blood of the Lord Jesus - the
question of life and death. That is the Cross at its
heart. Unless the Lord had settled that issue once and
for all in His Blood in the Cross then all other matters
would have failed entirely and there would have been no
complete Gospel.
Then, that being the Cross and the content of the Cross,
we see what the Testimony of Jesus is in essence. It is
the Testimony to life, making possible a new creation.
That Testimony, when it really is recognized at its
centre, is a Testimony concerning life which is brought
into being upon the basis of death being destroyed, death
having its power broken, and him that had the power of
death being nullified. When that Testimony comes into
being, and it is recognized, and anyone enters into that
Testimony and makes that their testimony, what happens?
Immediately the murderer is brought out.
The Enemy of Life Comes Out
He who, as
the Lord Himself said, was a "murderer from the
beginning", always has acted in that capacity
towards any who were called into the Testimony of Jesus,
whether in the Old Testament or in the New.
Abel was the first to take up the Testimony in history.
What was Abel's testimony? The Blood! Whether Abel
understood all the content of that symbolic thing or not
is not our concern for the moment, but God understood
what it meant. He had established it, and it was His way
through all history. That fragment in the Hebrew Letter
has governed all sacrifice in the mind of God:
"without shedding of blood there is no
remission". The Blood was the key from the first
movement of sin in this world in the mind of God, and
Abel himself stepped into that Testimony of the Blood
with all its significance concerning sin, death, the
race, and him that had the power of death - and
immediately the murderer came out and Abel was murdered,
not by Cain, but through Cain; and so it
has always been! When later Abram set up his altar and
divided his sacrifice, the conflict commenced. You read
about it in Genesis 15. The vultures descending, the
beating off until the sun went down, the horror of great
darkness - and then the coming through of the Lord. What
is it linked with? It is linked with the revelation of
the Lamb and the Blood of the Lamb by which his seed,
after four hundred years in Egyptian bondage, was going
to be emancipated. The Lord gave him the revelation of
His method in the earth. What was that for? To get a
people who should be in the nations apart from
the nations, for the Testimony of Jehovah. Israel was to
be God's corporate testimony in the earth, amongst the
nations, and be constituted and sustained upon a
principle of blood, the shed Blood. And when the Lord
would come forth to reveal the nature of the Testimony in
the earth as corporate in His people, Abram meets the
impact of the horror of great darkness, and there is set
up in the very atmosphere a state of conflict. You carry
it on in the case of Moses himself: the conflict in
Egypt, and the continual conflict through his life.
This is the explanation of the attack upon Elijah, when
he had erected his altar and stood for the maintenance of
the Testimony of the Lord in Israel. When he stood on
Carmel for that Testimony by his altar, and that
Testimony had been established and vindicated against the
false prophets, nay, against all that produced the false
prophets and their system - the power behind - THEN
JEZEBEL THREATENS HIS LIFE. Satan anticipated Moses by
the slaughter of all the innocents to get one, as
he anticipated Calvary in the Lord Jesus by the slaughter
of the innocents to get One. And here, in the case
of Elijah, because he is standing for the Testimony in
Israel, the best and most suited instrument to Satan,
Jezebel, is taken up, and Elijah's life is threatened.
This is the key to all those murderous attempts in the
Old Testament upon individuals and upon companies of the
Lord's people. It is the explanation of the Book of
Esther, when Haman would have all the Jews massacred.
Why? Because they were God's instruments in the earth.
The devil is against the Testimony in that people; they
are the target because they are the testimony. Stand in
this true Testimony of the Lord Jesus, in the power of
the Holy Ghost and not in the theory of the thing;
stand in it truly, and as sure as anything is certain the
enemy of life will come out, and that is the explanation
of all your experience in the work of God, and in your
own personal life, in body mind and spirit. I am saying
one of the most tremendous and solemn, and yet one of the
truest things when I say this.
The Testimony of Life Triumphant Over Death
Now we take up the whole thing when we take up a part, because there is no part. You are in it or you are out of it, and you cannot have a bit of it. Immediately, by faith and in the Holy Spirit, you become really, vitally related to the Testimony of Jesus, you are in that great issue, that supreme issue of the Blood - the conflict between life and death, death and life. You are in it, and in that realm there is only one thing, and that is
The Warring Faith of the Son of God
There can
be no passivity nor generalities in that realm. You
cannot afford to take recreation in that realm. The
praying has to be fighting prayer, and, oh, there is need
for a revival of fighting prayer! The ceasing to say
prayers, pray prayers, to take these jaunts in prayer all
over the place, and come right to the mighty issues and
battle through in the Name of the Lord. There needs to
come more real fighting prayer into the Lord's people.
You ask the Lord to give you the warring faith of the Son
of God in prayer! It means that there has to be a very
strong stand taken in that warring faith, and a refusal
to be diverted by circumstances and appearances. Is the
Testimony to you something which, if it were taken away
and you have nothing left, you go with it, or is
it something you have taken on and that you can change as
you change your clothes? Will you be stripped of
everything if that Testimony of the Lord Jesus is taken
from you? If it is like that, you will say: 'Well, there
is one thing which for me is a matter of life or death,
and that is the Testimony in which I stand, the Testimony
of the Lord Jesus.'
"And they overcame him because of the Blood of the
Lamb, and because of the word of their testimony, and
they loved not their lives unto the death." Does
that sound like a contradiction? "Unto the
death." Abel was killed. But "they" are
not dead, and Abel is not dead. Paul, like Jesus, was
slain. But they live in "the power of an endless
life" because Jesus has conquered death and
"him that had the hold on death". By His Cross
and by His Blood He conquered!