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A Living Testimony

by T. Austin-Sparks

Edited and supplied by the Golden Candlestick Trust.

Contents

Chapter 1 - The Living God

Chapter 2 - The Living Priesthood

Chapter 3 - A Living Family

Chapter 1 - The Living God

Reading: Joshua 3:7,10-11; Ex. 3:12; Rom. 6:5; Col. 1:29; 2:1-3, 8-12.

"As I was with Moses, so I will be with Thee".

"Hereby ye shall know that the living God is among you".

The difference between the ministry of Moses and Joshua was this, that mainly Moses was related to the bringing out and the formation of the people of God; Joshua was related to their bringing in and establishment. The Lord assured Joshua of His presence with them, that as He had been with Moses for the bringing out of the people, and their constituting, so He would be with him for their bringing in and for their establishing. The assurance was given directly by the Lord to Joshua. We are not told of any more that the Lord said to him, but we find almost immediately Joshua declaring to the people, not only the fact that the Lord was with them, but how they would know it, the way in which His presence would be known by them. "Hereby ye shall know that the living God is among you... behold, the ark of the covenant of the Lord of all the earth passes over before you into Jordan" (Joshua 3:10-11).

If I understand that aright, in spiritual terms it means this. The testimony (it is the ark of the testimony) being brought into the very presence of the active stream of death would arrest and set back that power. Jordan speaks to us of death. In the New Testament we understand union with Christ in death, being planted or united with Him in the likeness of His death, to have had its typical setting forth in Jordan - having been buried with Him in baptism - so that Jordan sets before us the active, energetic stream of death. The ark of the Lord, which is the ark of the testimony, advances straight into that spiritual energy, that active stream of death, and immediately the two come together, as the priests' feet touch the brink of the stream, the waters of Jordan come under arrest, are forced back, made to stand upright, and that activity is checked and held up by the presence of the ark of the testimony.

Let us repeat that in the form in which we first said it. The testimony being brought into the very presence of the active stream of death would arrest and set back that power, and "hereby ye shall know that the living God is among you".

"As I was with Moses, so I will be with thee". That, "as I was with Moses", must, therefore, connect with the power of life over death. If we are to take these statements in Joshua 3 as the connection with the Lord's presence; if the "as" is the link which represents not only the fact of the Lord's presence but the nature in which the Lord was present, then it clearly means that the Lord's presence was a presence in the energy and power of a Life bringing death under arrest, and setting it back and overcoming it.

With Moses it is perfectly clearly seen in the matter of the deliverance of the people. The deliverance and the forming of the people was, from start to finish, a matter of life triumphant over death. The final issue of the exodus from Egypt was life over death; death universal, except in the realm where the testimony is, and unable to function there. At the waters of Marah, again, it was a question of life and death for want of water and Life triumphed over death by the tree. Between these two incidents there was the Red Sea, another great testimony. Death engulfed those who were not in the testimony. Those who were in the testimony sang the song of victory over death. With Amalek, again, the same principle is at work: Life conquering death. Then the same thing is seen in relation to the serpents in the wilderness. And so on to the end.

The one thing which is in evidence all the way through is this matter of the presence of God, meaning the deliverance of the people by the operation of resurrection Life, until that generation itself refused any longer to stand on that principle, and then it had to be given over to the work of death, and that generation died. But even out of that death was born another generation in the power of resurrection, over which death had no authority.

In this sense of the continuous victory of Life among them, the Lord was with Moses, and as He was with Moses, so He said He would be with Joshua. With Joshua the work of this very same thing was unto the inheritance. The inheritance was the result of the energy of Divine Life set against the energy of death.

Here in Joshua 3 there are one or two other little fragments which are illuminating and inspiring. It says that the waters stood up in a heap as far up as Adam. Christ's victory in His Cross, Christ's victory in that great spiritual Jordan, goes right back to the place where death came in with Adam; it goes to the very source of this evil river of death. It goes right back to the beginning of things: "In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die". There is a last Adam, Who has gone right back over all the history of Adam the first, to the point where he laid in death, and has dealt with the open door of death high up there, and has triumphed. "As far up as Adam". That means the victory of Christ goes right back to the place where death entered, the gateway of death.

It comes right on. It says here: "How Jordan overflowed all its banks at the time of harvest", not only the place where it entered, but at its very flood-tide, the full development, the very inundation of death. Christ has entered in in the power of His Cross and met death initially and finally, fully, comprehensively, even to the overflowing of all its banks. His is no partial victory. When God does a thing, He does it thoroughly. If God deals with the gods of the Egyptians, He does it thoroughly and there is nothing left; for when death had spread itself throughout the land it was no mere permission that was granted, but it was an entreaty to depart and a giving of the goods of Egypt as a temptation to accelerate their departure. God does things thoroughly. When He drowned the Egyptians there was no question as to the thoroughness of His work.

There is another side. When God brings in the testimony of Life He means His people to stand as fully in it as the others stand in the opposite, to know the power of His resurrection to a flood-tide, just as the power of death and judgement must come upon the enemy to an utter overwhelming.

There was a basic thing with Moses, and that was the bush which did not burn. It would be interesting to know just how long that fire went on. As we have often heard, Moses saw the bush aflame, but it would not be an uncommon thing. In those desert scorchings I expect it was a daily occurrence for any bush to go up in flame. If the eye of Moses caught sight of such a thing probably he treated it as nothing extraordinary, but after a time he glanced in that direction again, and saw the burning still going on, probably concluded that it was a little thicker than others might be, and was not in any way moved. Perhaps it was a matter of hours. At last it came to him as far from being an ordinary sort of thing, and he called it, "this great wonder". Then it must have been burning a long time to have become in the realm of the commonplace a great wonder, "I will turn aside and see this great wonder, why the bush is not consumed."

That became the basic thing of the life of Moses. It was an illustration for him. It was an object lesson. It was set before his eyes as a means of demonstrating what the Lord said, "Certainly I will be with thee". What does that mean? Life triumphant over death, the power of a mighty Life in a frail humanity, and the frail humanity which ought to have been consumed outright, persisted so that the very fire, rather than being itself consuming, is itself Life. It maintains its existence. The bush is not consumed, it is not blackened, it does not turn to ashes, it remains a bush while the fire goes on. Of course, it is a grand picture of the incarnation, the Lord Jesus, God manifest in the flesh, and man persisting in the energy of a Divine Life.

That was for Moses a lifelong secret. Moses ought to have broken down perhaps a thousand times, bearing the awful strain and burden of that people, the bringing out of Egypt, and the years of wandering. Sometimes he cried out under the pressure: "This people is too great for me." That was when he began to look at himself. The fact is he went through and at the end his eye had not lost the keenness of its vision, he could look from Pisgah's Mount over all the land, at his great age, and take it all in. Neither had his natural force abated. Why? "Certainly I will be with thee". It was the working out of the truth of the bush.

The Lord says, "As I was for the deliverance, the forming, so I will be for the inheritance, the bringing in, the establishing". "Hereby ye shall know that the living God is among you", and just as Moses had that basic thing in his life, the bush, so Joshua had a basic thing in his life: the ark at Jordan; Life in the midst of death at its flood, not overwhelmed but triumphant. "As I was... so I will be".

If we had not got the letters of Paul we might read that as Old Testament history, a battle of Israel's history, but we have language which is so closely akin to that in the letters of Paul that we are bound to bring over the application.

Take the whole situation with Moses and Joshua, their testimonies, their foes, their purpose. Set it down in the letters of Paul to the Ephesians, the Philippians and Colossians, and you have the thing repeated in the spiritual realm.

In the above passages there are references to the inheritance: "In Him dwells all the fulness... and ye are made full in Him"; "All the riches of wisdom and knowledge in Him". We cannot fail to see the correspondence between these New Testament words and the Old Testament history. If that is so - and can we doubt that there is a spiritual counterpart of that history? - then, if we do not doubt that the history is repeated in a spiritual way in the case of the church, have we any right to take the terms? Surely we can say to ourselves in heart that that word is for us: "As I was... so I will be...".

Let us seek to gather this whole thing up into a few practical statements by way of application. The position, then, is this: firstly, the possessing of the fulness of Christ by the church, and the expression of Christ's fulness in the church, is His purpose and call. In Him dwells the fulness, and we are complete in Him. He is the head of all principality and power. The church is the fulness of Him that fills all in all. The possessing of His fulness, and the expression of His fulness by and in the church, is God's purpose, God's goal. Do you believe that? Is your heart set upon it, that we shall come to the fulness of Christ, and that God shall have His inheritance in us, the saints? That is God's goal. It must be ours.

Then the persistent enemy of this is death. All the way along death will seek to withstand this Divine purpose and goal, and withstand us also if we are moving in that way. This death is something more than an abstract thing. There is one little phrase in the New Testament which most expressively defines this spiritual death; it is this, "spiritual wickedness", for when this spiritual death is operating, is active, the sense which we have is of something evil, wicked, very dark, very sinister. There comes upon us the sense of malignity, and we can only say it is wicked, it is "spiritual wickedness in the heavenlies". Moses was confronted by that, Joshua was confronted by that, and this death, this spiritual wickedness in the power of death, in the atmosphere, in circumstances, in mind, in will, in body, in spirit, this is the persistent enemy of the fulness of Christ.

That means, in the third place, that every fresh gesture in relation to the increase of Christ is fraught with conflict, and that conflict is with spiritual death and spiritual wickedness. Every fresh gesture, movement, purpose, determination, inclination in relation to the increase of Christ, which is the inheritance, is fraught with conflict; with spiritual death and spiritual wickedness. Perhaps that is so well-known to you that it does not evoke any kind of response, but it is as well for us to recognise the meaning of things. Whenever there is going to be anything whatever which is in the direction of an increase of Christ, the forces of spiritual wickedness will begin to operate along the line of spiritual death - they will put forth their energies in a new way. If you do not know that, there is something wrong with your aspiration for the fulness of Christ, but if you are really in the way of God's end, that fulness of Christ, this is a thing which you will know. There is something in view, a gathering in which something more of Christ is to be ministered, or some ministry by which you are to minister something more of Christ to others, in one thing of a thousand ways in which Christ is to be brought to His own, and His own are to be brought more fully into Him, and because of that you will be beset by this activity, an energy of spiritual wickedness and death. If our ministry does not provoke those forces of evil, then there is something wrong with our ministry.

I suppose that means that we ought to take great comfort when there is a great deal of such activity. We could say equally, "As it was with Moses, so it will be with you", but over against that, "As I was with Moses, so I will be with you". How was it with Moses? It was a death conflict to the end; perhaps hardly a day in his life when he could not have gone under but for the Lord. The fact that he came out as he did at the end is a marvellous testimony to the God who was in the bush... the frail humanity. "Hereby ye shall know... behold, the ark". The ark goes into death, and death rages to a flood, and is even at its flood checked, arrested, set back. That is the power of His resurrection.

Remember that when Christ is coming in some fuller measure to us by some means, or we are moving to some greater measure of Christ, we shall know conflict, and everything will enter into a realm of conflict. The whole object of the adversary will be to quench, to submerge, to kill. In such times let us call to remembrance the words, "As I was... so I will be."

The instrument of God's purpose must know the secret of victory in the swellings of Jordan. What is the instrument of God's purpose? The word in Joshua 3 is "The priests the Levites shall carry the ark. There shall be a space between it and you". Here is a priestly ministry in the testimony, with the testimony in the behalf of the main body of the Lord's people. That priestly ministry has to advance to the flood, and prove the victory, take the victory, know the secret of victory on behalf of the people of God. The priestly company always take the place of leadership in a spiritual sense, even in battle. That instrument of God's purpose, that priestly instrument, has to know the secret of victory in the swellings of Jordan; that is, the instrument has to know the power of His resurrection in a measure beyond the ordinary.

That instrument may be an individual instrument, or it may be a collective instrument; that is, it may be a company of the Lord's people to be used by Him to know in a specially real and deep way the power of His Life over death. It must, therefore, be confronted with more of the power of death than others. There is a great heavenly vocation, there is a great calling, a great responsibility, and it is costly. It may explain a lot. There is no evading that truth. I do not think that there is any getting away from the fact that at all times the Lord has had, by reason of the existing situation, to find those who would go all the way with Him in the behalf of others, to whom He would say, "To you it has been given in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe... but also to suffer for His sake."

Paul would sign himself, "Yours in bonds for the Body's sake". So it is very often those who for the others have it given to them to suffer in a peculiar way, to know the bonds for the Body's sake, to be in the priestly ministry, and being able to bring triumphant life to the Lord's people. The Lord must have such, and He must have that to which or to whom He can bring those who are needing to know victory in life, that there they may know.

This thing is not done directly by God from heaven. The Lord will bind us to this principle, that if He has some who are paying the price, and have, therefore, the power of His risen Life, He will compel those who need help to come to them to find their life there. The Lord has focal points of Life where suffering unto Life has been gone through, and to that He brings and ministers Life there. But He must have that, these are His strategic Life-points for the sake of others. That is priestly ministry, but that priestly instrument in relation to God's purpose has to know in the more than ordinary way the power of His resurrection, because of the swellings of Jordan.

I think this is what the apostle meant when he said, "I would that ye knew what great conflict I have for you..."; "Whereunto I also labour, striving according to His working, which works in me mightily". It was so that he might present every man perfect in Christ. Those strivings, that great conflict, did not represent something which we set ourselves to! I do not for a moment think that Paul made up his mind to have great strivings and conflicts. These strivings and conflicts are not something to which we set ourselves, but they are that which is forced upon us by the very nature of the purpose. If you are in the purpose you will not have to set yourself to strive, you will find that you will have to strive or you will go under. You will not have to set yourself to a great conflict; you will be in it without any effort. You will be drawn into the battle. This is nothing romantic - the calling of the young men to go out to war - this is something satanic; a devilish thing, which only spiritual energy can overcome, where no energy of the flesh is of avail. In this connection the apostle prays that He would grant us that we might be strengthened with might by His Spirit in the inward man.

The power by which increase in Christ is reached is resurrection Life. You can see how true that is. There is not the slightest bit of increase in Christ except by the energy of Divine Life. From start to finish it is so. We never begin until we know union with Christ in resurrection. So it was with Israel and Joshua. They had to come out of Jordan on resurrection ground before there was any possessing of ground, and every fresh step was the application of the victory of the Jordan, the victory of that life over death. If ever they were set back in the way or arrested, it was because they compromised with something against which Jordan stood to testify. It was the same at Ai. Confidence in the flesh is death, and is the cause of our arrest. The Gibeonites with their wiliness are an illustration. So Paul writes to the Colossians: "Lest any man deceive you with his philosophy." The Gibeonites coming up was intended to arrest, it was all against the inheritance. The continuous progress and development in the inheritance was by the energy of that resurrection Life and it will always be so.

Thus we are in the battle for Life, because everything hangs upon it, with it everything is bound up. Blessed be God, the living God is among us, and hereby ye shall know it, the ark of the Lord of all the earth goes before you into Jordan. The testimony of His supremacy stands in the presence of death when it is most energetic, and overcomes.

Chapter 2 - The Living Priesthood

Reading: Leviticus 8; 1 Peter 2:3-5,9-10.

While it may have become a commonplace with us, nevertheless it is important to remember that the church has taken the place of Israel in this dispensation, and that all the purposes for which Israel was chosen have passed to the church in a spiritual way. That means that Israel's history is spiritually repeated and reproduced in the true church. That sums up the numerous things that are said as to the spiritual steps and experiences which are illustrated in the life of Israel.

Peter, in his letters, does not write for the Jews in an old dispensation sense while he is writing to the Jews of the dispersion, but he writes to them now as in the church, not as apart from it. You will notice that in so doing he takes up Jewish elements, and carries them into the church. His first letter especially is full of these Jewish elements.

You begin the first letter and see something of this: "Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to the elect who are sojourners of the dispersion... according to the foreknowledge of God the Father". Now that is a Jewish element carried over to the church. Paul uses almost identical language in the letter to the Ephesians concerning the church. "In sanctification of the Spirit" - "were all baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea". The cloud was the great type of the Spirit separating the people unto God before and behind "unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ" - you are taken back to Exodus 12 by that fragment, "grace to you and peace be multiplied". You can see very distinctive Jewish elements carried into the church. So, in the second chapter, in the verses referred to above, there are Jewish elements of a later date, perhaps of the temple time: "Ye also as living stones, are built up a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God through Jesus Christ" (1 Peter 2:5). Every sentence is a Jewish sentence, but now carried over into the spiritual realm of the church. Then in 1 Peter 2:9 even fuller is the language: "An elect race (the church is an elect race) a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God's own possession", all those fragments are Old Testament fragments in relation to Israel, now here applied to the church.

The definition which sets forth Israel's vocation in the most perfect way is this fragment, "a holy priesthood", or, "a royal priesthood". We need not stay with the reason for the change or the meaning of the change of term, other than perhaps to point out that it represents a movement from Aaron to Melchizedek, both of which priesthoods are brought out clearly and fully in the letter to the Hebrews. In the first place it is the Aaronic priesthood, the key to which is holiness, as we see in Leviticus 8. Later the priesthood of Melchizedek is brought in, and the predominating element is kingship. Melchizedek was priest of the Most High God, king of Salem, king of peace. So you have the whole of the royal priesthood gathered up spiritually into the Lord Jesus, and then into the church as taking its character from this High Priest.

The point for special emphasis is that the supreme conception of Israel's vocation is found in the word "priesthood", holy and royal priesthood. Priesthood was the central feature of Israel's national life, and because this was so, it made it possible for Israel to stand in the midst of the nations in the capacity of a corporate priesthood. Israel was God's priest to the world, and that is the vocation of the church. That supreme function of Israel has passed to the church in a spiritual way, to be God's corporate priest in the midst of the nations.

In order to appreciate that we need to note some of the characteristics of priesthood.

1) The first characteristic of priesthood was and is the fact that the whole sin and righteousness question has been fully and finally dealt with and settled. Priesthood stands, not to accomplish something, but upon an accomplished fact. The consecration of the priests as in Leviticus 8 came about by reason of what had taken place on the altar. Chapter 8 follows chapter 7. In chapter 7 we see all the sacrifices basic to the consecration of the priesthood, and then they are carried on, the altar is in view, and the sacrifice, and the blood of the altar are carried forward for the priesthood, so that the priesthood stands in something already accomplished. It is something not to be accomplished, but applied. The first feature of priesthood is that the sin and righteousness question - the supreme question with God, on the one hand the putting away of sin, on the other hand the providing of righteousness - have been dealt with in a full way and are settled. Sin has been atoned for and remitted, and then righteousness has been provided to God's satisfaction. Priesthood functions on the basis that that is all conclusive.

It is a proclamation to all men of all nations who are in any way exercised about sin and righteousness. Sin - that thing which separates from God by positive domination and righteousness - that which brings to God in positive acceptance and fellowship. Wherever men may be found concerned with such matters priesthood has a proclamation to make, that this is a settled matter with God, there is a ground upon which the whole of that double question is answered. That is priestly ministry, to dwell in that assurance, and to have that note of positive declaration to the world, to the nations.

Thus, in the first place, Israel is God's corporate priest, to proclaim the settlement of the sin and righteousness question on the ground of atonement by precious blood.

2) In the second place priesthood is characterised by the fact that a relationship of peace and communion with God is established. What is that basis of peace with God, of communion, of fellowship? There is only one basis, and that is God Himself having found perfect satisfaction.

Our peace is God's satisfaction; our fellowship with God is God's satisfaction. It is that God is satisfied, that God is in a position where He can and does ask for no more. That is a tremendous thing for such as He is, to be able to say that His standard of infinite holiness and exactness on all spiritual and moral matters is satisfied to the last point, and He wants no more. If you and I could only get within the compass of that, where God says, "I want no more, I am satisfied, you need not try, you need not strain, you need not worry for a moment, I am perfectly satisfied!" If we could come into the spiritual realisation of that, there is peace within, peace with God. The questions of communion with God are all answered. We need not stand any longer outside, wondering whether perhaps we dare approach. He says, "Come with boldness; I am satisfied - you do not need to provide anything, you do not need to do anything to get accepted - I am content". Then there is peace, communion. He has made peace by the blood of His Cross, and we are made nigh by the blood of Jesus.

We who were aforetime no people are now the people of God. We who had not obtained mercy have now obtained mercy. We who were afar off are made nigh. Our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son, and the church is supposed to be standing in the enjoyment of that, not for itself, but as a priestly ministry to all men, to proclaim those facts. How far short we have come of our ministry, because we are not always found on this ground ourselves! That is a feature of priesthood.

3) Thirdly, the knowledge of the Lord is made available to men. There is a knowledge of the Lord which men may have and men should have. The proclamation to men is, "Know the Lord". Men say, "How can we know Him?" Have not men through all the ages, by every means, been seeking to know God, and have failed? The priests' lips are to be able to proclaim the knowledge of the Lord, to bring men to know the Lord. There is a knowledge of the Lord which is available. Israel stood in that priestly capacity as a people who knew the Lord, and could say to all, "We know the Lord, and the Lord is knowable to all men". That is priestly ministry. You will see that this is not intellectual knowledge, not theoretical knowledge, not book knowledge. This is inward spiritual knowledge in the church.

These things are features of priesthood, and you are able to see at once the meaning of what we have just said that Israel was called to be a priest to the nations, and the church has taken over that vocation in a spiritual sense, because Israel failed and has been set aside. Of course, the church is entrusted with something infinitely greater than Israel ever had, the range of its ministry is far greater than was Israel's, the power and value of its ministry is much more. "Ye are a holy priesthood".

These things, of course, must and will challenge our own hearts. We are challenged in the light of our calling, our vocation, the very object for which God has chosen us. Are we really able to stand before men and with perfect confidence, with all the certainty, with the assurance that the fact demands, proclaim to men that sin and righteousness are answered questions, settled problems? God has finished it all in the work of His Son. The relationship with Himself in peace and communion can now be fully enjoyed without any uncertainty, any risk, and there is available to men a blessed personal, inward, and ever-growing knowledge of the Lord. If the church had lived up to that calling, rationalism would never have had a chance in the church, for rationalism is contradictory to that position: speculative as to the knowledge of God. Many other things which are there, which are positive contradictions to this, ritualism and all such things, would never have stood a chance if the church had stood true to its spiritual calling. Nevertheless, the Lord is seeking a priestly company in the midst of His people, so that all questions and doubts will be wiped out, a perfect assurance of faith will be brought about, and through whom the knowledge of Himself in a living way shall increase.

There was one more factor in priesthood which constituted its virtue and dynamic, which gave it its power and its energy, and that was the anointing.

That priesthood functioned by reason of the anointing. It was to this that the Lord Jesus referred when in one of His resurrection appearances to His disciples it says He breathed on them and said, "Receive ye the Holy Spirit; whosoever sins ye remit, they are remitted". Do you notice the significance of putting those two things together? "Receive ye the Holy Spirit." That anointing constitutes you an active Body, the church, to declare on certain grounds the remission of sins, and, on the other hand, to declare that, those grounds being refused, there is no remission of sins. It puts the church in a position of great authority. Of course, the church of Rome has taken that up in an entirely false sense, nevertheless they have the truth as to the principle.

The church has the right on certain grounds (and the ground is not just the personal confession, but the ground of the blood of Jesus Christ) to declare the forgiveness of sins if that ground is taken. It is the note of authority, in the energy of the anointing. On the other hand, it is to say to men, "Unless you come on to God's ground there is no forgiveness for you; you are shut out from forgiveness until you come onto God's ground, which is the blood of Jesus Christ". That authority is the result of the anointing. It is not just words and formalities, it is the power of the Spirit of God, and when that declaration is made in the power of the Spirit, the penitent sinner who has come to God's ground not only hears the declaration but feels the deliverance. If a man under the anointing of the Spirit, in the realisation that a penitent person has come onto God's ground, says, "My brother, your sins are forgiven in the Name of Jesus", that person not only hears the declaration but has the assurance! It is not the declaration that brings the assurance, but the Holy Spirit behind the declaration. Another may be made to tremble by the Holy Spirit in hearing, "You, refusing God's ground of forgiveness, have no forgiveness, your sins are bound upon you to judgement!" Oh, that there could be more of that anointed function among men!

The great question of the lack of the consciousness of sin, which is troubling the world today, has its roots very largely in this fact that the church has lost its note of authority. The anointing comes through an instrument. "When He is come He will convict the world in respect of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgement." How? Through a priestly instrument. It is not that the Holy Spirit is coming to spread Himself generally over the world, and bring the consciousness of sin home to men. The Lord demands a priestly vessel, standing in the anointing, to declare remission of sins to those who are upon God's ground of remission; to declare that sin rests unto judgement upon those who refuse God's ground. Such a ministry is necessary to God.

The effect of Israel's presence among the nations in the days when the anointing was functioning was to strike terror into the nations and make them either capitulate to Jehovah or come under judgement in refusing so to do. The issue was clear-cut. The presence of the Lord Jesus in the world had exactly the same effect, that either the sinners came spontaneously, by reason of His presence, and said, "Lord, if I have exacted more than my due I restore fourfold" when the Lord Jesus had said nothing about the exactings of Zacchaeus. On the other hand, where men were convicted of sin and refused God's ground, they went out under condemnation, beginning from the eldest to the youngest. They went out convicted, but they would not yield. They came under condemnation and judgement. His presence effected that. So it ought to be with the church.

This can at most but emphasise and illustrate the basic truth. Those who comprise the true church are, from God's standpoint, meant to be a holy priesthood, and a royal priesthood, a priesthood with this anointed ministry.

Now the one word with which we would close is this. How can anyone or any company of the Lord's people function in a ministry like that under the anointing, if they themselves are not in the assurance of the facts?

The enemy is seeking not just to destroy us as believers, as Christians. Do not let us get an inflated idea of our personal importance when the devil assails, as though we amounted to something; it is something far more than that which is the objective of the adversary. It is the ministry, the vocation, that He is after; not the people, but the ministry. It is not you or me, but it is the result of our standing on this ground, and what God can make of it.

Find me the man or the woman who stands on this threefold ground of finality in the settlement of the sin and righteousness question before God in Jesus Christ, the establishment, relationship, peace and communion in God's satisfaction, and that personal inward knowledge of the Lord and walk with Him, and you have found the man or the woman who is an object of Satan's venom, not because of their personal consequence, but because of the influence of such a life. He is against the wiping out of the thing which he has brought in: sin. He is against the establishment of righteousness, for he is unrighteous. He is against peace with God, for he is the rebel force in this universe. He is against communion with God. He is against God's satisfaction. He would rob God of all His ground of satisfaction. When Satan hears God say of His work, "It is very good", Satan says, "I will rob You of that testimony", and he puts forth his hand to ruin the thing which is a delight to God. He is against God's satisfaction, because God has hurled him out of his place.

He is against our knowing the Lord in an inward and living way, and so he would undermine and undercut all the values of the atoning work of Christ, the values of His precious blood, all the power and meaning of His Cross, and all His living, heavenly Priesthood for us now. The adversary is against all that.

Thus we shall find it always fraught with conflict to stand on that ground, but if we yield that ground for a moment; if we have a question, a doubt as to our sins being forgiven, as to our standing in the perfect righteousness of Christ before God, as to God's perfect satisfaction passed to us by reason of union with His Son, these things will destroy our ministry - our priesthood is ruined.

That comes out in Israel's later history, in the prophecies of Zechariah: "And he showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the Lord, and Satan standing at his right hand to be his adversary." Satan is in the place of honour and power when the priesthood is not clean.

We see our calling. It is only the first step in this matter. Apart from all the teaching the Lord wants us to recognise the real spiritual nature of our calling. It is spiritual effectiveness in these connections which constitutes us the people of God, and if this is not true in our case, then there is no justification for our being called the people of God. We are a chosen nation, an elect race, that we should show forth the excellencies of Him. That is why we were chosen, for that, and these are the excellencies. It is about these very things that the apostle cries, with an overflowing heart: "Oh, the depths of the riches". What are they? The marvel of sin once and for all dealt with and set aside, and no longer laid to our charge; the marvel of a righteousness which is not ours, but the very righteousness of God put upon us as a garment through faith; the marvel of perfect peace with God, and a walk in holy fellowship... the marvel of knowing the Lord in our own hearts. These are some of the excellencies of Him, and for that we are elect, chosen, a holy priesthood.

The Lord lift us to the level of His own thought for us.

Chapter 3 - A Living Family

Reading: Exodus 12; 1 Peter 2:3-5, 9-10.

We return to our second meditation, and continue from there at this time, noting as our special fact that the predominant feature of priesthood is Life. All these things which we have mentioned are related to Life. Life is the outcome; Life is the object. So the testimony, which is the testimony of the Lord's people as a holy priesthood, is the testimony of Life as now triumphant and pre-eminent, even in the realm where death is active. That is the predominant feature of priesthood.

If we take the Lord Jesus as the great High Priest, it is not difficult at all to see that the predominant feature in His priestly ministry at God's right hand, as He ever lives to make intercession for the saints, as He stands as the One Mediator between God and man, is Life. It is all unto Life; deliverance from death and a testimony that Life in Him is triumphant.

That is how He is presented to us at the opening of the book of the Revelation. He has a garment down to His feet, white, pure, speaking of the perfection of His humanity, and He declares Himself as the one who became dead but is alive unto the ages of the ages, and has the authority of death and the grave. It is in the power, and virtue, and meaning of that livingness that He functions through the book of the Revelation in the behalf of the saints and against the wilful and established antagonism. It has ever been so. Towards His own it is light, towards Egypt in a consolidated, persistent, unbending, unyielding antagonism to God, that Living One is judgement unto death.

That is really the summary of the book of the Revelation: the emancipation of a people from death and the bringing of the rest unto the judgement of death. The Living One does it on both sides. That which we want to stress is that the predominant feature of priesthood is Life, and it is that Life which determines everything. It determines everything for the Lord's people, and it determines everything for those who reject the Lord.

It is upon the operation of Life in Christ that every issue is secured and worked out; so that the testimony of the Lord's people as standing in the position of the sons of Aaron, in that position which the sons of Aaron stood towards Aaron, a priestly family, is the testimony of Life, and that in a world of death as over against the activity, the pressing in, the energy of spiritual death; where that priestly company may be found, even in twos or threes, or it may be in individuals, there is established the fact that death is not universal, that the universal dominion of death is broken into. The testimony is that at least death here is not lord, but Christ is Lord. The expression of it is in this Life, this mighty energy of the risen Lord.

It is a testimony in a realm, a world, where death is an active force in a spiritual way; that is, that the Lord has in His people Life-points, Life-centres, by which His ascendency is represented and set forth. That is the pre-eminent function of priesthood and if the Lord has that, you do not have to worry one little bit about what priesthood means, you have no need to go into all the technicalities of priestliness, for there it is.

It is well for us to recognise this, because when we use terms like this about priestly ministry, and priestliness, and the priestly company, there is a kind of waning interest... it sounds very technical. Perhaps people get mixed up in their minds and think that what is called priesthood today in the ecclesiastical sense is this, and they have little interest in it because it is not a very living thing. Now, of course, we are speaking about something that is spiritual, as a functioning thing, and if the Lord has a people or individuals who are standing in His risen Life and by whom that risen Life is being expressed, that is priesthood. It does not matter what name you take on, whether you take any ecclesiastical term to express some position, some vocation, if that is not the effect of it then it is not priesthood according to God's mind, for priesthood is essentially spiritual and not official, not ecclesiastical, not form; it is Life. So that every one of us, whoever we may be, or feel to be naturally as hardly worth considering, are called unto priesthood. If we put that another way, you will see what we mean: you and I are called to be a living representative of Christ's risen Life. That is priesthood; Life-points in a realm of death, challenging the activity of that death, and holding it back from universal sway.

When we come to look into the operation of this priestly Life, this ministry of Life, we see that throughout Life is preserved by the blood. That is how it was with Israel in Egypt. We will speak about that more in a moment. Do you notice they were chosen, elect, to be a holy priesthood and their very national history in God's eyes began with the testimony of the blood as life preserved in the midst of death: "This shall be unto you the beginning of months"; your history begins today. Their national history began in the day in which they were preserved by the blood from death, the day in which they entered into the experience of Life triumphant over death in virtue of the shed and sprinkled blood. Their national history as a holy priesthood commenced then, and it was so throughout. When priesthood was developed, crystallised, and brought out in a systematic way, it was always in virtue of the blood that priesthood could function.

You will call to mind the strict injunctions of the Lord concerning the High Priest going into the Most Holy Place not without blood, lest he die. The blood preserved the life. We shall see what that means presently.

This means, then, that the people stand upon the ground where death is vanquished, and they are triumphant over it. Israel's first testimony, as was to be their continuous testimony, was that of Life; not as a passive thing, but as having proved a force far greater than the power of death. That was their first testimony. Of course, all the battle from that time onwards was ranged against that testimony of a Life which is mightier than death.

Now, we say that this is the church's calling, and the church's vocation: a holy priesthood and that priesthood means primarily a testimony of Life as known and dwelt in by the Lord's people. But that is somewhat general. We can accept that, we can believe that, but it is perhaps something big and outside of ourselves. The thing has got to come very near home. We have to come out of those vast ranges of truth which we accept and rejoice in, down to the particular application of the truth.

So we come back to Exodus 12, and there find certain things which touch us immediately in this connection. It is so easy for us to talk about the church. Now, we have some idea of what the church is, but when we speak in terms of the church we very often lose the personal and individual responsibility. We regard ourselves as being a part of the church, it is true, but then perhaps we are apt to feel that it is the church's responsibility, and we only come into responsibility in a kind of general way; we are in the crowd. Now, if the history of Israel as an illustration of this great truth teaches us one thing, it is the lesson of individual responsibility for the testimony. It is something that you might quietly meditate upon and follow up, something which we cannot even attempt to pass on at this time; but keep in mind how the testimony was made by the Lord an individual matter in Israel. It was a matter of responsibility, and the Lord never let off the individual who contradicted the testimony, indeed the whole nation was more than once brought under Divine arrest because of one man.

It is not that dark side of things, however, that we want to think of, it is that which comes out in Exodus 12: "Draw out and take every man a lamb"; "a lamb for a household"; "every man according to his eating", or, if you like, his appetite, his capacity. This matter of the testimony of Life has to be taken as the responsibility of every man and of every household among the Lord's people. That gets it away from the general idea of the church. What is the church? What is the priestly nation? It is the aggregate of individuals and of Christian homes. The church has no existence in the mere sense of a congregating together in some place. That is only the church in assembly; that is not the church essentially. The church is all its individual members and its households. The church of the firstborn ones goes right back to the separate family. Before ever you get the congregation of Israel you get the separate families and the firstborn, and the church is made up of those - the separate family as represented by the firstborn. The firstborn is representative of the whole family.

What we have on our heart to say is this, that every one of us, individually in the first instance, is responsible for this testimony of Life as triumphant over death. It is not a matter that we can pass off on to the general company of the Lord's people. There is the added advantage, the added strength of fellowship it is quite true, but that fellowship is nothing unless it is a fellowship of Life, the coming together of those living ones. Spiritual fellowship has no meaning apart from the coming together in spirit, and that the Spirit of Life; which throws it right back on the individuals. It is a personal matter.

That speaks to us both ways. It speaks as to our responsibility before God, how God regards us, what God requires of us, that we individually are required to be Life-points in this realm of spiritual death and spiritual wickedness, that that Life whereby Jesus conquered death should be expressed in us. It is required of us by God that not one of the Lord's people, if they are fulfilling the calling, the vocation of priests, can be a dead individual, and there must in that life be no voluntary relationship with anything that means death. It is Life energetic, manifest, expressive, this risen Life of Christ, which is to be the pre-eminent characteristic of every one of the Lord's people in virtue of the precious blood.

It speaks, on the other hand, not only of our responsibility, but of our privilege and all that is possible. The Lord calls us into this place and in so doing says to us, in effect, "You may be, you can be a vehicle and a vessel in that realm of death which is an offset to that evil power, a testimony against it, a living point which denies the universal authority of Satan, which declares that Jesus Christ, the Living One, is Lord". It is our responsibility, it is our privilege, it is what is incumbent upon us, but it is also what we are honoured to know: the Lord as our Life.

We say that because many of the Lord's people seem to think that it is an onerous and arduous thing to get this Life from the Lord; you have to strain and agonise to get His risen Life; when all the time it is the supreme intention, and will of the Lord for us. He has nothing in this dispensation at heart more than this very thing: to have people who are expressing His own risen Life. If we will accept His ground, He will make it good. It is an individual matter. A lamb for a household... May the Lord say that where it needs to be said.

It needs to be constantly remembered for our help and encouragement and admonition and warning, that the Lord's thought is that every Christian family or household should be one of these Life testimonies in the realm of death, and against the family life the whole force of the devil will be centred because of the value to the Lord of households or families standing in the power of that risen Life. So this means that there has got to be a household responsibility; that is, that all the members of a Christian household have got to recognise that the testimony not only rests with them as individuals, but that they together as a family or household represent that testimony. They must have an understanding about this together, and meet everything on this ground, in that all those peculiar difficulties which arise in a family life, in domestic life, which may arise in no other realm so acutely, will be worked upon; aggravated by all the powers of evil in order to destroy the very special testimony that a family can bear as to the risen Life of the Lord.

We ought to be desperately sorry, and always most concerned for Christians who have to live in ungodly homes, but we are speaking of those homes where the members are the Lord's, and you will know that the home life is a realm in which the enemy never ceases to destroy the testimony. If you recognise it, perhaps that is half the battle. It is so easy in the home to feel the impossibility of things and to give it up, and it is so easy to feel that the church is one thing and the home is something different. It is not and there has got to be this responsibility.

In the first place let the Christian head of any home first take responsibility for the testimony in your home, and seek to gather all the members of that household to that testimony, and hold them to it. But the members must not feel that it rests just with the head of the house. It has to be a thing in which every one is found with a positive determination that the home must and shall be a place where the risen Lord is known as alive and triumphant. There will be many tests. You will know experiences by reason of that testimony which perhaps few other households know. You will probably know sickness more than ordinary sickness. You will know circumstances working against your very life. You will know atmospheres, you will know strains, you will know everything that the devil knows can be used, but there is your opportunity. That declares that there is something vital bound up with that home, and that calls out the greater standing in the Lord for His testimony of Life in that home.

There is the fact, there is the need: a lamb for a household, and every member of that household to be in the testimony and sharing it, every one according to his eating, his measure in the testimony.

Now let us look at two or three facts or elements in this.

First of all, the lamb was to be slain and the blood shed. In our last meditation we saw that the shedding of the blood is the death side of things, and declares that a life has been parted with, surrendered, delivered up, taken away. "He poured out His soul unto death." That is a death to death. It is the letting go of the personal life, and all that is personal. If the testimony is going to be in that household, then there has got to be a death side. It is not a death unto death, it is a death unto Life; only a death unto death in the sense that you die so that you shall not die. That means it is a death unto Life, but it has got to be a letting go of the self-life. That is what ruins the testimony in homes as in any other sphere. The self-life has got to be parted with in all its forms.

Then there is the sprinkling, and that is the Life side, that is the Life taken up again on the Divine side, so that everything is now for the Lord. It is something for the Lord to see, something for the Lord to have, something for the Lord to take account of, "and when I see the blood I will pass over". It is saying, "This house is dead to all self-life, this family has died to death, died to itself, and it is alive to God and only to God". When you get on to that ground then Life is preserved, and Life is triumphant when death is active.

Then the lamb was to be eaten: "Every man according to his eating". What is this? If I understand the eating of the lamb, or feeding upon Christ, it means this: that henceforth Christ is the basis upon which we live and have oneness. It is Christ who is presented to God without blemish, without spot. This Lamb without blemish and without spot is presented to God, and upon what that means we have our life and our fellowship. You notice the fact of fellowship comes in here very much. The family is to feed upon one lamb, and if the family is too small to have a whole lamb, then they must get the neighbours to come and share the lamb. There has got to be oneness in this thing, and a complete Christ has to be the basis for all His people. This lamb was not to be divided and because the family was small it did not mean that the family was only to have so much of the lamb, but in order to have the whole lamb it was necessary to have the neighbours in. This is the whole Christ, without spot, without blemish, all that He is in the sight of God which is to be the basis of your life and your fellowship.

The fact of fellowship comes in here very much, in connection with the household. That can be set forth by other means, in another way. We referred during our previous meditation to the vision of Zechariah. He says: "He showed me Joshua the high priest clothed with filthy garments, and Satan at his right hand to be his adversary." The Lord said: "Take away the filthy garments, and put upon him new garments." Then the word was heard, "The Lord rebuke thee, Satan, is not this a brand, plucked from the burning?" Now the garments of the priesthood are always representative or typical of what they are in the sight of God. Garments always speak of what we are before God, not what we are before men, not what we are before ourselves. Sometimes we might think that we are righteous, and then before God we hear the disconcerting and discomfiting word: "All our righteousnesses are as filthy rags". Garments are what we are in the sight of God, and Joshua, representing the priestly nation before God, was seen clothed in filthy garments; therefore Satan was in the place of power at the right hand, to contradict the testimony and there was no power to rebuke Satan until there was a change of garment.

Now you see the priest here, in another form; it is the same thing as you have in Exodus 12. What is the power over Satan and over death? It depends entirely upon what we are before God. If you turn to the letters to the Ephesians, Colossians and Romans you have phrases like this: "Seeing ye have put off the old man and have put on the new man". The Greek words there mean the putting off or the putting on of a garment. It is the language which is used in the realm of undressing, putting off a garment, "Ye have put on the Lord Jesus..." "Ye have put on the new man." That is how we stand before God: in the flesh or in Christ. It depends entirely upon how we stand before God, how we are dressed, whether it is a question of Satan in power or Satan in defeat, whether it is a matter of Life or of death.

That is what we mean by Christ as the Lamb being the basis upon which we rest for ourselves and for fellowship. Let us make that very clear in simple language. If you and I are going in our family life to look at one another as to what we are naturally, the devil is going to have it all his own way, and there is going to be broken testimony. There is no place perhaps where more we know what we are by nature than in our families, or where we are known better for what we are. That is just where the testimony has its greatest opportunity. We may think certain members of the family are impossible. Are they? Are you going to surrender to that? Well, then, it is all finished.

We are, of course, speaking about the Lord's children. We have got to take account of Christ, and of Christ in one another - the measure of Christ in one another - and we have got to cherish that as far as possible, keep our eyes on that, and refuse to be influenced by the other, and stand against that other on the ground of Christ, knowing one another after Christ. It is going to mean some serious business. It is going to mean some real grim work. It is going to call for our determination, "Yes, that is so-and-so, I know them; that is just them; that is just how they are made, but I am not going out onto that ground; I refuse to be influenced by, to accept that as the ultimate thing; I am going to stand on the Christ ground in them". That puts the devil out of the place of power and authority. If we get onto that natural ground, the enemy will lead us up and down at his will; he will never let us get away from it. These things come into Christian families, and they are not known in the same way with those sinister forces when you are not standing for the testimony. We must stand on the ground of Christ.

Let us cover our steps as we go. Some of you are in these families, and we can almost imagine some member in that family saying, "Yes, but they are the cause of the trouble. It is so-and-so who is really the cause of the trouble; here am I trying to stand for something and they are not". How are you standing for the testimony? Are you trying to impose it upon the other members of your family, to drive them, to provoke them... not in love, always bringing before them their weaknesses and their faults, and where they fail in the testimony? You will not get far that way. This is a matter of love, consideration, taking everything into account, and of mutual helpfulness; allowing for a lot, but positive love at work all the time. The Body builds itself up not by driving, not by imposing, not by Christian legalism "Thou shalt" and "Thou shalt not", but by love.

This is homely talk, but it is a thing that we want to take account of. We must recognise that this testimony of Jesus which sounds so wonderful, so romantic, so glorious, so heavenly, comes right down here into our homes. If it breaks down there, it is no use talking about standing for the testimony of Jesus. The assembly of God's people will rise no higher than the homes which comprise it, and the individuals in those homes; there is responsibility behind the public life in our domestic circles and in our personal lives.

You will not be offended by this word. I am quite sure it is no use having phraseology and talking about these wonderful things unless we are going to get right down to business; and one speaks from personal experience. I know the devil's assaults upon the personal life, so that when the message is given there might be something of the devil in the place of power, saying, "It is all very well to talk like that." I know the assault of the powers of evil upon the home life because of the testimony. These things are realities. The Lord is seeking to draw us together in this matter, so that we work together, face the thing together, make it a matter of daily life, there where we have none of the romantic elements of public ministry and moral enterprise, but the common everyday living on the ordinary level, that there the testimony is looked after. We cannot be one thing among the Lord's people in the assembly and something else behind, alone, in our ordinary daily life.

So you see that Israel's history commenced in the home. It was a family matter, and it was a history of priestliness. The testimony of Life is the pre-eminent feature of priestliness, and that testimony is in the background there in the individual and in the family before it comes out to be constituted a public testimony.