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Christ and Cosmic Redemption

by T. Austin-Sparks

From unpublished manuscripts supplied by the Golden Candlestick Trust.

Contents

Chapter 1 - The Purpose and Nature of the Cosmos

Chapter 2 - The Purpose and Nature of the Cosmos (Continued)

Chapter 3 - The Cross of Christ and its Cosmic Significance

Chapter 4 - The Redemption of the Cosmos

Chapter 5 - Man and Cosmic Redemption

Chapter 6 - Paul's teaching on the Matter of Cosmic Redemption

Chapter 1 - The Purpose and Nature of the Cosmos

Reading: Col. 1:13-14, 16-17, 19-21.

The Meaning of "Cosmic"

We are going to use that word very freely as governing our meditations. You will understand why we use it when we explain. "Cosmos" is the universe, or the world as a part of the universe, and the order or system thereof.

When we speak of cosmic redemption we go far beyond the matter of human sin. It extends to all realms and all things which have been affected by sin and are in need of redemption. The passage in Colossians 1 is a magnificent definition or explanation of this word: "all things... in the heavens and upon the earth, things visible and things invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers...", "And you" (verses 16, 21). It touches the farthest range, the most comprehensive range of things, where Christ has a relationship as the Divine Son with the Divine purpose, the realisation of which purpose necessitated, in the course of things, redemption. We are told that the very heavens need purging, and the things in the heavens, because of what has happened. That takes redemption far away from the narrow limits of the human race and human sin, and carries the matter right out to the utmost bounds of the universe. It touches the whole creation. It touches not only the things; it touches the system, the order. For the word means not only a realm of things, but an ordered realm of things, a system. And the system of things in the universe has been upset and not only is it necessary to redeem things, it is necessary to redeem the system.

Some of us are familiar with the truth that a heavenly, a Divine order, has to be re-established as well as a state changed. Man has to be changed, things have to be changed as to their state. But it does not end there. Another order has to be brought in. All that is included in that which we are calling "cosmic redemption". So that the work of the Lord Jesus, as well as His Person, touches a very vast range of matters.

Christ Personally Embodies Three Things

First of all, He embodies the purpose of the cosmos. That is a realm to which there is an order. The purpose of that realm and the purpose of that order are embodied in the Lord Jesus. That purpose, in a word, is a kingdom in which God is revealed in His spiritual and moral nature by a creation.

Secondly, He embodies the nature of the cosmos. I think we can say three things about this, as to its nature: (1) separation, (2) life, (3) anointing to vocation. We will go back over that in a moment.

Thirdly, He embodies the redemption of the cosmos.

Now we will go back, and deal with each of these.

1. The Purpose of the Cosmos

It is important, when we open our Bibles, to recognise what it is we are coming to. We are not just beginning to read the history of the world, the history of man. We are beginning to read a purpose. Everything, from the very first clause in the Bible represents a purpose, governs a purpose, and is governed by a purpose.

We should have this introduction to the Bible in our minds when we open it, not just begin to read straight away: "In the beginning God created...", but rather have something before that in our minds as that which will be the explanation, the meaning of all that will come in with those words, and it should be something like this: God has purposed a Kingdom, the Kingdom of the Son of His love, in which He Himself (the Father) through the Son will be revealed in all His spiritual and moral glory! Now we are ready to begin.

The world is laid hold of, apprehended in relation to that purpose, to be a part; like the stage to the great theatre of the universe, but very closely and intimately related to that purpose, so much so that the Kingdom is represented as being here.

Then, all the activities which follow are the preparation of that which is to be the Kingdom of the Son of His love.

The purpose of the Kingdom is the revelation of God in a spiritual and moral nature; therefore everything seen must have a spiritual and moral background and meaning; is intended to have a spiritual and moral value. It is not something in itself. Behind it and the activity which brought it into being, there is a thought, a reason. "In the beginning was the Logos". Divine thought, reason. That is before everything. Out of that thought, that Divine reason, came everything, and in everything, therefore, there is Divine reason. And that thought, that reason, that essence of the Divine mind has a spiritual and a moral element, so that everything has something more than is seen on the surface. And, of course, that is the value of the Word of God, that in every place you find something eternal, something which is of God, something which is universal, timeless. The value of our association with the Word of God is not that we take up a book containing so many letters, so many statements; it is something for our spirits. When our spirits are renewed in God, then we find something that fits our spirits, we find God coming to us from behind His Word; there is spiritual and moral meaning and value. So everything was intended to embody that.

Now the Kingdom, which is the purpose of the universe (the cosmos) and the nature thereof, in the first place, the revelation of God in spiritual and moral glory is embodied in Christ. Christ eventually comes in Person into this world. He came to His own; He came to His own things; and His own people received Him not. He came as the embodiment of that Kingdom. He came as the embodiment of that Divine nature. Where Christ is, the Kingdom is. Where Christ is not, the Kingdom is not. Here, in Col. 1, it is said that we have been translated into the Kingdom of the Son of His love. Before you are through the chapter you will find; "Christ in you the hope of glory". That is how we are in the Kingdom, because the Kingdom is in us. The Kingdom is embodied in Christ.

We can only intimate a few things, not follow them out, but I trust that the intimation alone will be helpful, and lead you on.

You will find that all that follows, from the beginning of Genesis onwards, is a setting forth of God's mind about that Kingdom, so everything is governed, firstly by a nature, and then by an order. You can understand why it is, in the first place, that the nature of things has such an important place and is so strongly kept under the Divine eye and hand before the people of God. Everything within the compass of the relationship of God is governed by the idea of its character, its nature. When you come to the tabernacle, for instance, which is a very comprehensive representation of the meaning of the Kingdom, as in Christ, in the first place it is the nature of things which is kept to the fore. The final word about the whole in every detail is holiness unto the Lord. Why? Because the spiritual and moral nature of God is intended to be the very purpose and object of the existence of these things. They only have their existence in relation to that as expressing Himself in some form. But not only do you have the nature, but the order. In the tabernacle, or in Israel, or wherever God is related, you will find order, and order to precision. And you will see that when God sets up a thing, in the first place He lets it be known that He is jealous both for the nature and for the order; to such a degree that He stops at nothing for its establishment and its maintenance.

I would like you to go through some of the things which God brought in in the first instance, and see His attitude towards them. We have no time to consider them all, but there are some most remarkable instances of the expression of the jealousy of God at the inception of a thing, that God never compromises there. If God sets up a thing, sin at that point, against that, is met with uncompromising judgment.

Take the establishing of the priesthood. When God had established the priesthood and something sought to interfere with God's order, He did not forgive that but came in with an act of full and final destruction, absolute judgment, without an element of reserve.

Take the case of Achan at Ai. A new order has come in. This is something new, and there is no holding back.

Take the man who violates the Sabbath when the Sabbath has just been established as a great covenant sign in Israel. See God's attitude. There is no salvation there. It is judgment to the last.

Carry it to the New Testament, and see Ananias and Sapphira. The church has just been brought in, and is represented in its fulness according to God's mind. God has established it, Ananias and Sapphira violate the thing at its inception, and there is no compromise on God's part. While God does not act like that right through the dispensation, He has, right at the outset, shown His attitude. We may not, like Ananias and Sapphira or any of these others, fall down dead, be consumed of fire, the earth open up and swallow us, yet God's attitude is the same. God has not changed. He is jealous; and there will most certainly be loss of Life, power and blessing if we do not recognise that God is jealous according to that standard, which He has taken pains to set forth in such intense form.

There are two things there. There is the nature of the thing, because it is intended to show the spiritual and moral nature of God; then there is the order of the thing, because the Kingdom of God's Son is a cosmic thing, a system, an order. It is important for us to realise that while the Lord Jesus is a Person, He is also a Heavenly System, and to be true to the Lord Jesus in Person means to be true to the order which He has established, or which He represents. The Body of Christ, as set forth in the New Testament for instance, is a wonderfully ordered thing, an exquisitely ordered thing. That is Christ. Let no one think we have said that Christ is a system, and just leave it there. Christ is a Person, but He is also a system in expression.

That is the meaning of Cosmos. It is a nature, and it is an order, according to God's mind. The Lord Jesus is the embodiment of the purpose of the universe as an ordered thing; that is, a Kingdom in which God is revealed in His spiritual and moral nature by a creation, "For in Him were all things created, in the heavens and upon the earth, things visible and things invisible..." (Col. 1:16). That is cosmic creation in Christ.

2. The Nature of the Cosmos

We have said that there are three things about this.

(a) Separation

When you go back to Genesis, and see the movement towards bringing the cosmos into that form for the expression of God, that Kingdom, you find that a separating work is done. Separation is one of the marks of the creation, but I think that the separation goes back even further than the dividing between land and sea, heaven and earth, day and night, it seems to me that the separation is also between what is to be and what has been, between the past and the new which introduces a future. "And the earth was waste and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep..." (Gen. 1:2). I suppose it still remains to a certain extent speculative as to how it came to be like that, but it is thought - and perhaps with a good deal of truth - that an earlier judgment is represented by that state, and the Word is not without certain statements which could relate to that.

To begin with Genesis, we find Satan as a fallen creature, and as such he is on this earth, is related to it. Certain other passages of Scripture will tell us that he fell, and his fall was in this direction, connected with this world in some way. We will not follow that out. As we have said, it may still remain somewhat speculative. But supposing we are on true, sound ground when we suggest that there had been a creation, and Satan had been in some way related to it under God as an anointed cherub, his government, his princedom, had related to this world; he was prince of this world, and then by reason of that of which the prophet speaks, when he said; "I will exalt my throne above the stars of God... I will be like the Most High" (Isa. 14:13-14), that is, taking his dominion away from God as a related thing, as a trust, to have it in his own right, and in his own hand. Surely the whole history of human nature as governed by the devil is all in that direction: to have things in its own right, not to have things in dependence upon God, but to have the right personally within himself. Supposing that is what happened and as a result, terrible, devastating judgment came upon this world; as we open the book of Genesis we find a state resultant from that judgment.

Now a new creation is in view. If that creation or cosmos is to be according to God and to express God's thought in a Kingdom like Himself morally and spiritually, and according to a Divine order, somehow or other there must be a cutting in between that old history and this new history; a separating between the past and the future. There must be no carry over. It must be complete separation. I am not sure but that the Holy Spirit's relationship to things at the beginning had not something to do with this, "...and the spirit of God brooded...". And when the new activities took place for the new creation, the Spirit of God was there to divide, to keep in between a past and a future. I believe that is the whole explanation of the Person of Christ. It is a most amazing thing.

Go back and see the kind of person that got into the bloodstream of the earthly mother of the Lord Jesus. Read that terrible story about Judah, that came right in the middle of the history of Joseph. It is extraordinary that that should come in there, as a kind of parenthesis, and has really no direct link. It is not the continuity of the story of Joseph. You read about Joseph and his brethren's dealings with him, and then there comes this break, and an awful chapter on the history of the tribe of Judah. And there in that story you have one of the darkest and most terrible moral elements in the Bible in a person, and that person is one in the chain of the genealogy of the Lord Jesus. Rahab the harlot was one, and a number of others. From that, Christ comes, so far as the earth is concerned. No wonder men of a purely rationalistic turn of mind have found it difficult to accept the utter truth about the Person of the Lord Jesus! How do you explain the fact that there was no sinful hereditary in Him, not a trace, not a taint of all that background? The Holy Spirit cut clean in, and separated between an old creation and a new. The Holy Spirit always does that.

You may say, "Well, we are a new creation, but that does not hold good!" It does. There is a point in those who are born-again children of God where the old creation and the new do not meet. There is that in you and me which is altogether apart from what we are by nature. It is sinless, incorruptible, undefilable. It is not you, it is not me - it is Christ; and Christ cannot be corrupted. The incorruptible Life of Christ is in the born-again child of God; that is the new creation, and the Holy Spirit has cut clean in between the old and the new. That has no old creation, old hereditary; the old creation is in us, but not in that.

History repeats itself. That is why, I think, the Holy Spirit there at the beginning had something to do with a gap, a separation; and the creation of this world is a foreshadowing of Christ. It is expressing God's mind about Him for whom it all is. It had to be made like unto God's Son. All that which would be ultimately true of Him was to be true of the cosmos which was to be His kingdom, and so there must be a separation between a history that may have been evil, and that history which is according to God. And then, of course, on the other side, a marvellous history is brought into view.

You see the application. This is not just objective study, it is subjective value: "...hath translated us out of the kingdom of darkness, into the kingdom of the Son of His love; in whom we have our redemption, the forgiveness of our sins..." (Col. 1:13-14). The redemption is cosmic, and we know it, for in verse 21 we read: "And you...". So that the deepest truth, and perhaps the deepest mystery of the child of God is that there is a point where there is no overlapping of the old creation and the new, and the Holy Spirit is there from the beginning to keep those two things apart.

What we mean is this: that if you and I (and this is taking the next point in our meditation) really do live in the Spirit, we shall know where the old creation ends and the new begins; every time. We shall know when we are doing something which is like putting a bridge over to the old creation; that is, as Paul puts it in one place, "evil communications corrupt good manners". If you and I as children of God begin to have any communion with ourselves, the old self, we shall be conscious of being tainted. We know it. No one need tell us. And we want to go and have a time of prayer to get that cleared up. The Holy Spirit is there to keep that separation, that gap, and He tells us every time that we are getting too close to ourselves. If we get too close to the old creation He tells us. The child of God is far more sensitive to the old creation than any other person; and that is the way of a growing sensitiveness to what is not of God, not of Christ.

(b) Life by the Spirit

That comes in with Genesis. Christ is the embodiment of that Life, that cosmic Life, which is the Life of God's unfallen, sinless creation. It is Life which will eventually fill the universe. The pictures given to us in the Bible are of a coming universal order, which will be Divine Life from centre to circumference. Christ embodies that. "In him was life". The Father had Life in Himself, and He gave to the Son to have Life in Himself. That Life is by the Spirit.

Now, in close touch with that which we have already said, we see that Life by the Spirit which, in the first place, is the nature of God's Kingdom and the order, because it produces its own order. We speak of an organism. An organism is the product of life. It is marvellous what life produces as to order. We know quite well that when Life is injured, the order is upset.

(c) Anointing to Vocation

It says nothing in Genesis about the creation being anointed for its vocation, nor of Adam being anointed for his vocation, but I think what is there is that which corresponds to the anointing for vocation. I think when it says: "And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply", you have all that is really the meaning of the anointing. The Lord committed Himself in relation to a vocation: "God blessed them". That is the anointing.

The anointing is just that: God blessing. Take it to the case of the Lord Jesus - who is central to this - at Jordan, "This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased". That is accompanied by the anointing. It is surely the benediction of the Father, the expression of the good pleasure of the Father. "And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful and multiply." That, in effect, is anointing unto vocation. Of course, it is not the full meaning as we have it in the New Testament, but that is the principle at work: the blessing of God unto the fulfilling of the purpose of the existence of things. In the case of the Lord Jesus, as we have seen (being the embodiment of the Kingdom, the new creation), the whole purpose is fulfilled through anointing. In our case, as joined to the Lord one spirit, our vocation is fulfilled through the anointing.

It is helpful to see that in Christ the history of the creation from the very brooding of the Spirit to the final satisfaction of God is gathered up. All that which we see in the creation points on to the Lord Jesus, in whom all things were created, and then it points on through redemption to the end. As in the creation, so in Him, and now so in us: the brooding of the Spirit to cut clean in between the old history and the new, to give a new hereditary and then through Life and anointing to eventually come under the full satisfaction of God where, looking upon us perfected in Christ, He will be able, to say, "It is very good!" "There remains therefore a Sabbath rest for the people of God", and what could be a better Sabbath rest to any of our hearts than for the Father God to look at us and say, "It is very good!" That is to be the end in Christ.

Chapter 2 - The Purpose and Nature of the Cosmos (Continued)

Reading: Rom. 8:9-25.

In our previous meditation we dealt with the purpose of the cosmos and the nature of the cosmos. Now we shall consider the third thing which Christ embodies:

3. The Redemption of the Cosmos

This passage in the letter to the Romans is one of several in the New Testament which deal immediately and directly with the matter of cosmic redemption: "the whole creation". That is a very comprehensive phrase. "The whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain...". The creation itself was subjected to vanity, and is to be delivered from bondage. That is cosmic redemption.

Perhaps you are wondering what is the object of our being called to this meditation. The point is this: that the Lord Jesus personally is the embodiment of everything in the thought, the mind, and will of God for this universe, that the whole universe in its purpose, and its nature, is gathered up into Him personally and the knowledge of God, the knowledge of God's mind, the knowledge of all that that mind contains for the universe, and for ourselves as a part thereof, both as to nature and purpose and everything else, is simply and definitely a matter of the knowledge of the Lord Jesus. The whole Bible is but a many-sided presentation of Christ. It is full of Christ in many parts, in divers manners, we might even say thousands of sidelights (and yet perhaps the phrase is not good enough, because these are direct reflections, indications, suggestions of Christ). It is Christ that is the revelation of the whole Scripture.

The Bible is not full of many subjects that we can take up. The Bible is not full of many themes, so that we can take up this theme, and that theme, and some other theme. The Bible has only one subject, and only one theme. It may be made up of many parts, you may approach it from many standpoints, but there is only one subject in the Bible - everything concerns the Lord Jesus. As you come to the Bible and read (whether it be in Genesis or Exodus or Leviticus or in any other part) you have to take that and say, "Now, what is it in this part of the Scripture which is a part of Christ? What is the part of Christ revealed here? How does this explain Christ? What does this show Christ to be? What does this indicate as to what Christ is?" So it must all be brought in relation to Him, and He must be its interpreter. He must explain it. Then we leave subjects and themes as such, and we are all the time occupied with the Lord Jesus, and, when we are focussed on Him, the Holy Spirit has His ground for illumination. When we deal with subjects and themes we deal with them, and the Holy Spirit leaves us to deal with them, and we find that they become dry and more or less dead and technical; full of information for the mind, but not very much real illumination and spiritual Life. But when we bring everything into relation to the Lord Jesus Himself, the Holy Spirit has His ground, because the eyes of the Father and the Spirit are upon the Son all the time, to reveal Him. That is an important thing to remember. So we take up the Word, right from the very first statement, and see that from the first statement to the last, in some way Christ is in view from the Divine standpoint, and it is for us to see in what way that relates to the Lord Jesus and is a revelation of Him. He embodies and embraces everything in this universe from the standpoint of the Divine intention, both as to its nature, its order, and its purpose.

So you find that Christ is a Personal Order, as we have already said. The whole order, or Divine system of things, is embodied in Christ. You begin to look at the Lord Jesus, and wonder why He acted as He did, or refused to act as He did refuse, and you will begin to see that He is governed by something outside of the present order of this world. There was an order among men. Men wanted Him to conform to that recognised and accepted order. He absolutely refused to do so. He stood outside of that order, and refused to be brought into it. He was the embodiment of another order outside of the present order in this world; that is, as to what He should do, and when He should do it. He refused to come under the mind of man as to His life and conduct.

We have to see the spiritual nature of that. It simply amounts to this: a spiritual mind and a spiritual government; and as a part of that Man at the centre of this (in this passage in Romans), the sons of God led by the Spirit of God. The Son of God, and the sons of God, led by the Spirit of God, not conformed to this age. Christ is the embodiment of that.

Why is there an order in the church? What is the nature of the order in the church? How is that order to be brought into operation in a living way? The order of the church, as we have it in the New Testament, is not some organisation of the church. It is simply Christ as representing a perfect system, a perfect harmony, a perfect balance, a symmetry, a fitness, expressed. Here is an order in heaven, which accounts for heaven's restfulness, heaven's peacefulness, heaven's power, strength, fulness. No one in heaven ever thinks for one instant of doing anything for themselves, in their own interests, from a personal motive; therefore you can have fulness. Everyone in heaven has the whole interest of God at heart, and has lost their own personal interest in the whole. Corporate life in heaven is perfect. It is the perfection of corporate life in expression. The Lord said to His disciples (not to anybody, willy-nilly), "After this manner pray ye... Thy will be done, as in heaven, so on earth". That prayer was a prayer for the church, it is not a stereotyped prayer to be taken held of and continually repeated. It represents a principle. It is, in effect, the order which obtains in heaven, let that obtain here! That can only be on the ground of redemption, because the order which is in heaven has been entirely destroyed and upset here, and there has to be the fruit of redemption here before a heavenly order can be recovered here on the earth.

This very passage in Romans relates to that. You see it in two ways.

Firstly, it relates to ourselves, "who have the first fruits of the Spirit". We are those who are led by the spirit, who have the mind of the Spirit. Among us there can be, and should be, an expression of the heavenly order.

Secondly, as to the whole cosmos; that is, a coming day when the creation itself is delivered from the bondage of corruption. Then the whole earth will express the heavenly order. But that is future.

A heavenly and a spiritual order! We have called it the corporate in perfection: no personal interest, no thought for self, but everyone for the whole (not just for the other, but for the whole), because in the whole God is able to express Himself and does express Himself; there God is manifest. So everyone lives and works for the whole unto God, for the glory of God. The whole motive of heaven is the glory of God.

Christ personally is the embodiment of that whole heavenly order and system. How is it to come to the church? Not by taking the Bible - Old Testament or New Testament, or both - and trying to copy some system that you see written there. That is not the way. The way in which it is to come in is that Christ should have the absolute Lordship in every heart, that Christ should have full and growing place. When Christ comes into His place you begin to find that the heavenly order spiritually operates, and things become spontaneous - the outworking of the fact that Christ is Lord. Everything begins with the Headship of Christ, the Lordship of Christ, and when that is apprehended and established, then spontaneously a heavenly order of things begins to operate. He is the embodiment of it. Have Christ and you have everything.

What is true in the matter of an order is true in the matter of a nature, the nature that God intended. What does it mean to be according to God's mind in nature? Is it to see that this and that, and some other, or a hundred and one moral virtues and elements of God have to be striven after piecemeal? Do we see that a certain standard of honour is according to God, and we must strive to attain unto that standard of honour? Do we see that Divine nature is like this, and then we have it as a model and we are going to work for it? That is not the living way. The living way, the sure way, is Christ: Christ within, with a right place, and a full place, and a whole response on our part to what Christ within indicates, is the way. It is spontaneous.

God has put His universe into Christ according to His own mind - an order, a nature, and a purpose - and then He has put that universe inside of us, "Christ in you, the hope of glory", or, as Paul puts it, we "who have the earnest of the Spirit". The earnest is the security of the whole, the assurance that the whole will follow. It is the beginning of things, but in the very beginning there is embodied the whole potentially. The universe is to be within us when Christ comes in, when the Spirit comes in. Everything is made possible by Christ being introduced into our being as God's universe of order and nature and purpose.

Then the question of responsibility arises, and responsibility becomes purely a matter of walking in the Spirit, being led by the Spirit.

The issue of that is ultimately cosmic redemption. But we have cosmic redemption in the earnest of the Spirit. Do you recognise what this passage says? It says that the creation itself, to be delivered from the bondage of corruption, is bound up with our having the earnest of the Spirit because it is bound up with the sons of God. The sons of God, who have the spirit of God, crying, "Abba, Father!" are led by the Spirit, and one day will be manifested and when they are manifested, simultaneously the creation will be delivered from the bondage of corruption. So that cosmic redemption is all implicit in Christ in us, by the Spirit, just as the fulness of our redemption is implicit in that.

Only one part of our redemption becomes immediately literal when Christ comes in and that is the redemption of our spirit; the redemption of our soul and our body is still future. Potentially, of course, it is all accomplished, but you and I have not the full redemption of our soul now experimentally, it is being wrought in and will be consummated. And we certainly have not the redemption of the body, but having the earnest of the Spirit the body may know what is going to be. Every time you and I, by a touch of that Spirit of Life rise up physically, experience physical quickening, we are knowing the earnest of our inheritance, the resurrection body. Do not carry that too far and say we are getting a resurrection body now, either in whole or progressively. We are not. Unless the Lord comes, death will claim these bodies. If He comes before that time, we shall be changed. But there is such a thing as another Kingdom operating now.

That is really where our whole outlook begins, but we shall not get further with that now in this meditation, as to the meaning of cosmic redemption out of the power of Satan. We shall follow that up again, but we are just now going round the central thing in this way, to indicate that Christ has everything for this universe in its redemption, embodied in Himself, and when Christ is in us, there is the earnest of cosmic or universal redemption. It has to begin in man. It has begun in us. The issue of that is complete redemption. Oh, it is a great day to look forward to, when our souls shall be redeemed. Peter says: "receiving the end of our faith, the salvation of our souls". It will be a great day when every feeling will be completely redeemed, separated from evil, and what is personal - every reasoning, every thought will be like that, every motive, emotion, action, determination and resolution will be completely separated from the touch of evil, of ruin, of a fallen nature or a personal interest.

Do not think it is the Lord's intention that we shall not have souls. Not at all. The great day will be the redemption of the soul, the salvation of the soul, in that realm in which the devil has his footing, his grip, in this creation. It is by the desires, and the reasonings, and the willings of the creation that the devil sets his ends now, and it is there that we have our battles. Our trouble is our soul. You may think that your main trouble is your body. It is your soul and the real burden is not so much the burden of the body as it is the soul.

Take it simply in the matter of our ups and downs. How uncertain are our souls! One day, for some reason or other, we feel well up, and that we shall never go down again. We feel we are on the highway. The next day we are as miserable as sin, down in the depths. And we can never know from one day to another exactly how we are going to be. What a trouble these souls of ours are! We come to a point where we think that now we believe we shall never doubt again, and before the week is out, our minds are simply full of dark questions on the things which we believed we could never question again. That is our soul.

The Lord is working in us the salvation of our souls, bringing us steadily to know that that is our souls, and we have to take hold of them and not be taken hold of by them, and say, "Now, you come with me, I am not going with you!" That is being strong in spirit, so that we do not allow our souls to carry us away. In that way we are being delivered, and our souls are being brought over, being won. The course of spiritual life should be that we are less variable as we go on with the Lord; that we are stable, that we are less swayed by our feelings, thoughts and reasonings. That is the working out of redemption, but I suppose if we stayed here a thousand years there would still be something to be done in that realm. But, blessed be God, the day is coming when these souls of ours shall know the fulness of redemption, and there will never be another suggestion or sign of unevenness - no losing balance, no swinging from side to side, but there will be a steady, sure, unwavering course for eternity, a soul completely redeemed.

Then the same thing will work out in the body. The body is going to be redeemed, that will be a great day. It will be a real body, as surely as the Lord had a body after His resurrection, but with a difference. All that is in Christ, God's Universe, and He is the explanation and the interpretation of everything.

Our business here is just to learn Christ, to know Christ. You know everything that is in the Bible when you know Christ. Always keep Christ before the Lord, and your attitude will be, "Now, I do not want to know this thing, I do not want to know what this means, and what that means in itself, but I want to know what there is of Christ in this. Where does Christ come in? What has this to do with Christ? Lord, show me Christ in this!" You will find it a wonderful thing to always keep on that line, because everything is in Him, and He is everything. So, from start to finish, it is just a matter of Christ.

Go through the Word with that, and remember God's great, inclusive, comprehensive and conclusive book of revelation is Jesus Christ Himself. Everything that ever God intended you and me to know, to be, to do, is in Christ. There is so much more than we see lying behind that little phrase which Paul uses, "in Christ Jesus".

Chapter 3 - The Cross of Christ and its Cosmic Significance

Reading: Rom. 3:21-25; 1 Cor. 1:18,20; Col. 2:15.

Perhaps the most important thing in this consideration is to remember that the meaning and the value of the Cross is entirely bound up with the Person on the cross; that is, the cross is not some thing in itself, and it is not an incident, or a method, or a means which could be effective and of value in the same way, no matter who it was involved in it. We have to recognise that the value of the cross is that it is the Cross of the Lord Jesus Christ, and never in our thought or in our language fail to maintain that fact as a positive thing, and speak of the cross as though it were some thing in itself, or as though it were an incident (though a very important incident, with perhaps few incidents in the history of the universe as important) in the plan or course of things. We have to keep clearly in view always the fact that the Cross takes its value entirely from the Person Who was crucified.

In order to realise how important that is, you have to look more closely into the Word of God, and perhaps into one fragment of that Word which has had a very unfortunate translation, and has never been sufficiently corrected in our Version. The passage in question is 1 Corinthians 1:18: "For the word of the cross is to them that are perishing foolishness; but unto us which are being saved it is the power of God". It should be, "The Logos of the Cross"! We have only to be reminded that the word used there by the apostle, and undoubtedly used deliberately, is the word with which John opens his gospel. His gospel is summed up at the end in this way: "Many other signs therefore did Jesus in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book: but these 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." The whole of the gospel by John is gathered up into that, in order that it might become clear to all that Jesus is the Son of God. Take that right back to the opening statement of the gospel concerning Him; "In the beginning was the Logos, and the Logos was with God, and the Logos WAS GOD"; "...and the Logos became flesh, and tabernacled among us (and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father), full of grace and truth". Paul takes that up. It is one thought, one truth: The Logos of the Cross! The Logos was God, and became flesh!

It matters supremely whose cross it was, and if you are going to admit that range of things as represented by or included in the Person on that cross, then the universe is at once bounded. It is God! Can you get outside of that? In thought, in intent, in design, in purpose, in will, in power, in wisdom, in any way you cannot get outside of God. When you have gone through all realms, at the uttermost limit you find God. Now see that brought to the Cross. The Cross is cosmic. The Cross is universal. The Cross is tremendous in its range. All things, in all realms, are gathered into that Cross, and affected by it.

The word "logos" is a word almost impossible of full interpretation, or translation. There is only one word in our language which can make it in any way understood, the word "reason", but that word is a limited word. It represents what we may call the rationale of God, the reason back of the universe, which is God's mind, God's reason for everything. God is represented in that word as the explanation of everything, the reason for everything. What is the reason for this? God! What is the meaning of this? God! Why this? God! How do you understand that? God! What is history? God! What is creation? God! That is the answer every time. Everything is traced back to a Divine mind. If things have gone wrong, are not as they should be, and you feel everything is topsy-turvy, upside down, confused, a tragedy, and you ask, "Why?" you have to answer, "God!" - not that God made it like that, but this is the result of setting God aside, disobedience to God; in that way the explanation is: God!

That is the meaning of "logos". God is the infinite meaning of all things, the reason behind everything; and that is personal, not abstract. Paul brings that in in the first chapter of the first letter to the Corinthians. Read through that chapter again, or through the two chapters on wisdom, and power, and you will see that Paul goes behind of all other powers, behind all other wisdom, and brings the Divine wisdom in the person of Christ, and says that He is made unto us from God wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, redemption. How? Christ crucified is the wisdom of God and the power of God.

The Logos of the Cross - the infinite reason, the infinite wisdom, the infinite meaning of the Cross - is foolishness to them that are perishing. In that Person on that cross there are the infinitudes of wisdom, of power, of meaning, of reason. They are all there in that. That is the way in which infinite wisdom and infinite power are operating at this moment in this universe. Perishing men see nothing but foolishness in the infinite wisdom, nothing but weakness in the infinite power, but to us who are being saved the Logos of the Cross, Christ crucified, is the wisdom of God and the power of God.

We commenced by saying that just a contemplation, as far as it is possible, of the passages we mentioned will at once reveal how universal, how cosmic the Cross is because of the Person. No cross other than His could have the same meaning, the same value. It is the Person, Christ crucified; not a death as a sacrifice to God, but God in Christ satisfying Himself. It is not, then, a thing, an incident, an event, but a Person.

So we see that the Logos of the Cross is central, and abidingly central, to the whole universe; not only in the hour when Christ was crucified, but abidingly central. This universe has still at its centre the meaning of Christ crucified. Even in the coming dispensation, even when this dispensation closes, and the redeemed are in heaven, then Christ crucified in meaning and in value will be central to the universe; a Lamb in the midst of the throne. The universe as it will be will not just have a Creator at its centre, it will not just have its Creator as its Lord at the centre, it will have its Redeemer as its Lord. The eternal theme is going to be redemption; not creation, but redemption, and the Redeemer central to all things. It is "the redemption that is in Christ Jesus", as Paul says in the third chapter of the Roman letter.

Now we pass on to break this up as to its application in the various realms of the effectiveness of the Cross. It is important for us to recognise that there are words used, all of which have their own meaning and represent a different aspect of the redemptive work of the Lord Jesus, or of the Cross of Christ. Such words as atonement, reconciliation and redemption are not synonymous terms; they are parts of a whole, but they are distinctive parts; they represent different things in the whole. While we may be very simple folk, and not theologians at all to deal with technicalities of this kind, it is important for us, even as simple believers, to be able to appreciate in order to rejoice in the many-sidedness of what the Lord Jesus has done, so do not dismiss it as merely technical or theological.

We are seeking in these meditations to do two things as the Lord enables. On the one hand we are seeking to be instructive, and on the other hand we are seeking all the time spiritual uplift, occasion for rejoicing. We do not want a righteousness that is not intelligent, that is merely emotional. To note the distinction between these words is helpful. Atonement is one aspect, reconciliation is another and redemption is another.

Atonement

We know immediately what the Word means by atonement; it is "to make good". We say that we have to atone for a certain thing that we have done. We have done some mischief, we have done some hurt, and to atone for it we do something to put it even, to put it right, so that the things, having been balanced properly, can be set aside; nothing more need be said. The demand of that wrong, that evil, has been fully met and satisfied, and the thing can be put out of remembrance.

The Lord Jesus in His Cross has made atonement. The mischief was taking things out of God's hands which were His right, taking things away from God by independent action, disobedience, rebellion. So that God, having as His deepest desire in creation that there will be perfect oneness in fellowship between His creation and Himself, has lost that which His heart desired; it has been removed from Him, broken off from Him and He and that which He had made for Himself by this rebellion, this independence, by this disobedience, have been set apart, and the cause is sin against God. The Lord Jesus has come in, accepted the judgement for the sin, in Himself taken the punishment (because sin cannot be unpunished), has made good in His own Person the mischief in presenting Himself to God as Man inclusively, cosmically.

That is very simple, but it is a very great and important and blessed aspect of the Cross. You see how far-reaching even atonement is. It embraces all that which was severed from God by sin, which was God's right, God's desire, God's purpose. It is all included in the Person of the Lord Jesus. The sin which led to that has been judged upon Him, and He has brought it back and made good. In Christ God has got back everything.

Reconciliation

That is another aspect. It lays stress upon one particular thought or element in the need for universal redemption. Reconciliation immediately indicates that there was a breach, and that in that breach there was offence, not simply that things were divided but a state had arisen between the divided things which was in conflict, which was hostile. Reconciliation means first of all that the cause must be dealt with and removed, and the two parties brought together. Paul has much to say about the gospel of the reconciliation, "It is given unto us" he says.

We will speak more about that in a moment. We are reconciled to God.

Redemption

While redemption is all-embracing, including everything, it has its own particular significance. If you redeem something it goes without saying that that something had gone into bondage. Redemption always brings into view the picture of the slave market, and that is what is behind the word as used here. In the slave market certain ones have been sold into bondage to another mastery. That mastery now has a certain legal right, legal ground to stand upon. Because of certain things, the taskmaster, the slave-owner, has legal rights. Those legal grounds have to be removed, and those slaves have to be redeemed. The Lord Jesus has removed the legal grounds, man having gone into bondage to the law.

I want you to follow this very closely. The man is sold into bondage to the law, and has to be redeemed from under the law (that is a phrase used by Paul). But it is not left there. Paul says God's Divine law, being taken hold of by the powers of evil, that man is thrashed and beaten with the law, so that while man is in bondage to the law, ultimately there is back of the law the forces of evil.

Do you know what it is to be beaten, bruised and harassed by the enemy through the law? "Thou shalt!" "Thou shalt not!" That is not the Lord harassing you, driving you, worrying you by the law. What happened when the law was given? "Sin awoke, and I died." That is not being delivered by the law. It had to be made known, but it had no power to save. It had to be made known in order that men should know God's irreducible minimum, and then when man sees it, he is placed under an eternal obligation to labour and labour, trying to live up to it unless there is some other way. What was the other way? God provided the other way. Christ was made, under the law, to redeem them that were under the law. It is not just the intimidation of the law. Here is something that the enemy can come in on. Death worked through the law. There is another who has the hold of death, the hold of the power of death, that is, the devil. The law was given and sin awoke! "I had not known sin but for the law, but when sin awoke I died." There is no life there. Then I must be redeemed from the law in order to be redeemed from death. It is written: "Cursed is every one that continues not in all things that are written in the book of the law, to do them" (Gal. 3:10). "Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us" (Gal. 3:13).

The devil can take hold of God's things and use them for your destruction, for your undoing, and to slay you. He has done that with the law. The law was holy, but there are these cosmic forces working even by this means to bring man into bondage. Redemption from the law, freedom from the law, is redemption from death and from the devil. If you stand on legal ground since Christ has died, you stand in bondage not only to the law, but to the devil. The legalists are the people who kill everything, blight everything. With the rigid legalist all the beauty and life goes out at once. The legalist is the person who is living in terror lest he should break the law as an outward observance. In Christ we do not violate the holy thoughts and desires of God. That is not redemption from the law; it is redemption from that bondage of the law which is dead. How are we redeemed? We are saved by His life. The Lord Jesus as the risen One, and the power of His risen life within us, lifts us so that the law is no longer something that is driving and harassing, "Thou shalt love the Lord...". In the power of the risen life of Christ do you need to be driven to love the Lord with all your mind, soul, and strength? In the power of Christ do you want taskmasters to make you love your neighbour as yourself? Is it necessary to be stood over with the lash of, "Thou shalt not steal", to one who is living in the power of Christ? You have a living "something" in you which means the fulfilment of the law is not irksome to you. You are delivered, but not so until Christ the living, risen One, is within.

Redemption means that we are bought out, the legal ground of the enemy has been dealt with and removed. Remember that the enemy has legal ground in those who are not in Christ, and in whom Christ is not. We have spent all this time trying to show that the enemy is endeavouring to drive us, through the law of God, to despair, to bring us under his control. He knows quite well that we by nature can never fulfil the law of God, and he does not hesitate to bring the law in front of us. Supposing you take the law out of his hand, that he can no longer bring it in front of you. That is removing his ground.

So then the Cross of the Lord Jesus goes through all realms. It goes through the realm of human weakness, inability, right through all realms of Divine requirement, right out to the cosmic forces of evil; and redemption is deliverance from everything that these things represent as an obligation, or an imposition, or a demand. It has to do with God in the first place. You see the dual attitude of God revealed in the Word.

First of all, God is offended. God is offended with man, offended because of sin. God has made that an awful offence, and that offending thing makes it impossible for God to have fellowship. Man is regarded from that standpoint as under wrath, and the attitude represented is from that standpoint, that God can have nothing to do with man and will have nothing to do with man. He is offended, and rightly so.

Yet over against that there is another line: "God so loved the world...". Firstly, God is angry, offended, having nothing to do with man. Secondly, God so loved the world. How are you going to reconcile these? Because men have seen those two things they have chosen between them, and have divided between the Gospels and Epistles, and very largely between John and Paul, and said: "These are two different Gospels". They say, "We are ready to have the teaching of Jesus as represented in the Gospels, but this later doctrine is something else!" That is what you find immediately you pick up any books of the modernist inclination on the doctrine of the Cross.

While the few are there they are not two as opposed to one another, they are only two sides of one whole. It is true, you cannot fail to see it, the Bible clearly and fully states that God is offended and angry. Man is under wrath, separated from God, alienated and needing to be reconciled. On the other hand, God is loving, yearning, apparently beneficent, kindly disposed, showing no signs of being offended. How will you understand this dual attitude? Is it not found in the complete statement: "God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but have eternal life." Two things! Then man will perish in spite of God's love if he does not believe, and God's love has declared that there can only be fruit and its effect, by giving His only begotten Son. Loving! Ah, yes! But not loving willy-nilly. Loving, yet needing, as a sheer necessity, to give His Son. Why that? God loves; why put in that about giving His only begotten Son? Cannot God love without that? Is not God all love? Why put that bit in? We know what that means. It means that Christ came, and went to the cross, and died. Why that? That is the heart of the whole thing. The very love of God sees that there can be no desired result of that love in oneness, fellowship, reconciliation, only by what is bound up with the giving of His only begotten Son. God loves! Yes, but man will perish all the same unless something is done which makes for the fruit of that love, makes possible that for which God is seeking in His love.

God is other than we are. We sometimes might take this simple attitude (and this is how the theologians have argued): If your child sinned against you, and you were very angry, and very offended, and that child said it was sorry and asked to be forgiven, would you not just receive that child right back again without any stipulations, simply because you were its parent, because you loved the child? Surely God is better than the best parent! Yes, that may be all right from a certain standpoint, but it is very superficial. You see, this is a moral universe after all. Great moral questions are involved, and sin from God's standpoint is a very terrible thing, and cannot just be overlooked like that. Sin is not just making a mistake. Sin is a horrible thing which has its rise, not in the sinner, but in the devil himself, and by sin man is in complicity, in a moral union with the devil. Sin is the link between fallen man and Satan. Sin is a terrible thing, because it involves cosmic forces of evil, and God has got to get back of the sin and destroy the thing lying behind sin, working through sin in man against God; and therefore man must know that sin is no mere defect, mere fault, but that sin is an awful thing, an ultimate thing with God, and relates to His eternal foe. Someone must enter into the realm where not only sin is dealt with, but him who is responsible for it. And you never get, in the New Testament doctrine of the Cross, sin dealt with as something in itself. It always relates to the devil. It always goes further back.

So the apostle says in the passage to which we have referred, that when by His Cross He triumphed, He stripped off principalities and powers, and made a show of them openly triumphing over them in it (His Cross). These forces of evil are bound up with the sin question. It is cosmic. It is not something incidental, but cosmic, universal. It is bound up with intelligent beings, and Christ's Cross goes deeper than just sin and man himself, in that it is not just something to apologise for and say, "I am sorry!" It is far deeper than that. God may love, but He can never have the object of His love until that has been destroyed which will ever be at enmity with God, and so He gave His only begotten Son. In His Cross He was made sin for us. He who knew no sin; and being made sin for us, He destroyed sin, He atoned for sin, but He went further than that in stripping off principalities and powers. The Son of God was manifested to destroy the works of the devil.

All this, whether you are able to grasp it or not, directs our attention to this one thing: that in the Lord Jesus, in His Person, in the Cross, we touch the whole universe of God, and we are brought into something not merely fragmentary, but a universal redemption. The redemption that is in Christ Jesus is a universal redemption, touching all ranges, and there are practical outworkings in that for this present life.

We have touched the sin matter. We are going on to touch other matters. And when we come to finally touch the matter of the principalities and powers, and see our redemption from them, and the present practical meaning of that, you will see how great a thing this redemption is. Let us in the meantime rejoice in the fact that He hath redeemed us from our sin in His own body, and in His own Blood, and that He has, in so doing, got behind our sin and dealt with the forces working through sin to hold us in bondage.

Remember that it is not just the stage of spiritual growth that is represented by being delivered from the law; it is a fundamental thing that we should recognise that we are delivered from it. If you and I are in any measure in bondage to the law, we are in bondage to the devil and to death. It is essential that we recognise deliverance from the bondage to the law. Let us put on the positive side: it is essential that we live in the power of the risen Christ, which is the deliverance from the law.

Chapter 4 - The Redemption of the Cosmos

Reading: Col. 1.

Redemption in its full scope has been fulfilled, and is gathered up, into the Person of the Lord Jesus. We are definitely told that in Him, by Him, and unto Him all things were created. All things were created by and for Jesus Christ; things in heaven and things in earth. That is the cosmos. Now, inasmuch as the whole creation (the "all things" created) has been affected by evil, so that even heavenly things require purging, it was necessary that all things should be redeemed, and so the Creator, the One for Whom and by Whom all things were created, became the Redeemer of all things. And just as all things were gathered up into Him in creation, so all things were gathered up into Him in redemption.

Take the first part of that statement: "all things were created... for Him", and Satan set himself so that the Lord Jesus should not have all that was created for Him. Satan set himself. I think it is very clearly and quite definitely intimated that while all things were created by Him, the "for Him" represents something more than what He possessed at the beginning in creation. It throws things forward. "All things were created by Him". There is the created universe in existence, but when it says that all things were created for Him there is something beyond that, something yet to be; and it was in relation to the possessing of that in all its fulness ultimately, that Satan set himself, that Christ should not have that inheritance - not only should not have the created universe as it was created, but have it in its full and ultimate intention unto which it was created, for a purpose which it never realised. It was that full purpose of creation lying ahead as something to be realised and something to be inherited, of which He was the heir. If you are an heir of all things, that means you have not got it all yet. If you really have your inheritance you are not the heir in the strict sense. If you are an heir it means that you are coming into an inheritance at some time; you are an heir to something, but you have not got it. The beginning of the letter to the Hebrews distinctly indicates that while all things were created by Him, yet He was the Heir of all things, so there was a fulness of the creation not yet realised, into which He was to come as the rightful Heir.

Satan set himself against the inheritance. The whole question was one of inheritance and heirship, and the history of the cosmos is the history of the gigantic struggle for the mastery of this universe, not alone between Satan and God, nor alone between Satan and Christ, but man involved, having a part and a place. The struggle is related to man.

It is with those elements constituting our background that we take up the matter. If we take as our interpreter the apostle Paul, with certain other fragments from other apostles, and work backwards, we have material which works out something like this (and here you can fill in the Scripture):

1. Redemption of the Human Spirit

Firstly, redemption has its first practical outworking in the individual human spirit when the whole redemption that is in Christ Jesus is brought down to practical application; that is when it is applied and begins to operate, to take effect, to start on its course, the first point of its application is the individual human spirit. That is where applied redemption begins. That is quite definitely in view in chapter 8 of Romans: "The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God".

There are two things about that also to be noted:

(a) A Completed Act

It is a thing which is done in an act once and for all. Our spirits do not come into the value of redemption progressively. There is no progressive regeneration. Regeneration is as definite as a birth, and we are not born progressively. Our birth is not spread over a period; it is an act. Therefore redemption in its first point of practical application and outworking, being in the individual human spirit, is an act, and in our spirits we are able to say, "I am redeemed!"

But that is not the whole of redemption. There is a good deal more redemption to come, and yet it is so definite and complete within that essential realm that we can quite confidently and assuredly say that we are redeemed.

(b) A Resurrection or Renewing

The second thing is that it is a resurrection, a renewing. We point this out because you will see a difference in a moment as to redemption in other directions. Here in the human spirit it is an act, and it is as a resurrection sometimes called a renewing, newness of spirit (that is, our spirit under the Holy Spirit), something new by way of resurrection from the dead, the first outworking of the resurrection that is in Christ Jesus in the human spirit. The resurrection of the Lord Jesus has a present definite value, meaning and expression, and that is in the human spirit.

Now, that resurrection, that newness of the spirit which is an act, is taught by Paul to be the receiving of the Spirit of Sonship. Resurrection union with the Lord Jesus is unto sonship: "Because we are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, whereby we cry, Abba, Father." So that in the renewed or resurrected spirit by an act the Holy Spirit in that spirit constitutes sonship. All that that sonship means has yet to be known, for redemption goes beyond this, but immediately we cry, Abba! There is a new consciousness of the nature of our relatedness to God. It is the Spirit of Sonship brought in by a resurrection.

2. Redemption of the Human Soul

The redemption which has its first practical outworking in the individual human spirit in that way, then passes to the human soul. But the two things about this mark the difference.

This is not a resurrection; it is a conquest. Whenever you come into the realm of the human soul you come into the realm of a conflict, a warfare, an active state which is opposed to God.

The human spirit unregenerated is dead. It may be in a sense alive; it does not mean that the unregenerated have no human spirit, but it is dead in that sense that it is not working in a relationship to God, and it is submerged, imprisoned in a living tomb. When resurrection passes into this second realm, the realm of the soul, it passes into a realm where everything is now, and always has been, in a state of active, positive antagonism to God.

The mind as a part of the soul is working altogether contrary to God, not always consciously, but always certainly.

The heart is working contrary to God. Sometimes we believe that it is in line with God, and quite sympathetic Godward; nevertheless when really disclosed as to its real nature, it is found to be altogether contrary to God. The heart, the desires, the affections, the feelings, when really challenged by Gods will are discovered to be other than in fellowship.

The will is against God. The more we go on with God the more we discover how our souls are in opposition to God. It is the most advanced believer who knows most thoroughly how the human will is against God. The more utterly God gets down to business with us the more we discover what we would never have believed, how our souls are not by any means the will of God.

The soul represents a realm of antagonism, of active opposition. So that when redemption passes out from the human spirit to the soul, it is a matter of conquest. It is in the realm of conflict, and there has to be a conquest.

But here it is not an act; it is a continuous and progressive thing. These souls are not redeemed in an act; that is, as a practical thing, through the spirit this redemption has to overcome the soul as a daily act. The redeemed spirit has to overcome the natural mind, the natural desires, the natural will. That is what Paul means by daily dying. "Always bearing about in the body the putting to death..." but that is in the realm of the soul. It is a continuous conflict unto conquest, and it requires patience, for in our patience we shall win our souls. "Receiving the end of your faith, the salvation of your souls". That is the end of our faith.

It is here that the answer is found to a good deal of confused teaching, and to recognise this difference now is, I think, to solve the problem, to give the answer. Some people believe and teach that full redemption in the soul is an accomplished thing, an act. Certain phrases have been used. It is not always fair to apply these phrases, such as "eradication", and "sinless perfection", and "a clean heart". Such phrases have become the representative phrases of a certain kind of teaching, and it is all based upon Scripture. Now, what is the Scripture, and what does that Scripture mean which is used to support this? So you are flung into the confusion of one set of Scriptures seeming to indicate that truth, and another set of Scriptures indicating that it is something progressive, not all accomplished in an act. And from the Scriptures you can argue quite well for that conclusive thing, and you can argue just as soundly for this progressive. Is one right and the other wrong? It is the understanding of the nature of redemption. Very largely that one set of Scriptures applies to something which is done at the centre of our being as a completed thing, an act, and we are there a new creation, and in that new creation there is no evil. But that is not our entire being. In another part of our creation, that which is complete in Christ in the Holy Spirit within our renewed spirit, is being daily applied, progressively wrought out. Unless we recognise that, we shall get into confusion. If we take this one line, and then come up against this other thing we shall say, "What is the matter? Our doctrine is either wrong, or there is something wrong with us!"

You see where it begins, and you see what it is in its beginning, but then you see the next phase of it, what it passes into, the human soul, and there as a conquest it is a continuous, progressive thing. Something is going to be worked out through conflict, and the conflict is in ourselves, and with ourselves, and, as we have so often pointed out, the nature of spiritual progress is that in our renewed spirits we are constantly saying to ourselves either, "No!" or, "Yes!" From within we are working against our souls in the natural desire, will, and thought, and bringing these imaginations, these thoughts, and these desires into subjection and into captivity, and into the obedience of Christ; and that is an inward thing. That is governing the soul.

3. Redemption of the Cosmos

The third phase of redemption, which is at a later point; that is, at a far subsequent point (at a dispensational point, shall we call it) applies to the cosmos. It begins in the individual spirit, or in individual spirits. When it has had its practical beginnings in us, many individual spirits making up the number of the elect, and when that has been wrought to a certain point of development or progress in human souls, constituting a moral state in believers, then at Gods time redemption expands still further and moves out to the cosmos.

There are three factors of this final state of cosmos redemption.

(a) Mans Body Redeemed

The body of the believer is redeemed. Redemption will then actually come out into the physical realm of the believer, and these bodies will be delivered from the bondage of corruption. That is not sonship instituted, but sonship consummated.

A resurrected body is essential to the fulness of sonship. In the case of the Lord Jesus, He was marked out as the Son of God by the resurrection from the dead. Now, if we are to be conformed to the image of Gods Son, a part of that conformity is a physical conformity, because that is sonship in its full sense. Sonship is introduced by the Spirit of sonship with the first positive application of redemption to the human spirit. Then sonship is developed by the conquest, conflict, discipline and suffering in the moral realm between the spirit and the soul.

Let us put that in a more simple form. How is sonship being developed in you and in me? It is by the conflict which we have in the spirit that draws us out to dominion, out to ascendancy, out to power. In the first instance the overcoming of ourselves. You and I by our redeemed spirits have got to be in a position where we command our own souls, and that is sonship getting up. You know that when people are growing, becoming mature, they are not so easily a prey to their own feelings, their own soulish emotions. They do not go down so easily under these reasonings and ideas, thoughts and feelings, and passions of the soul. They are not swayed by these things as they once were, by all that which belongs to the soul, which constitutes the variableness of spiritual life in the immature, in the babes. You know how babes are swayed by passions, likes and dislikes, feelings, wants, and their own childish ideas. You make allowances for babes. But when you are supposed to be more than a babe and still those things obtain, there is something very wrong. Growth, maturity, is marked by the bringing of that soul-life into captivity to the spirit, so that your spirit rises up when your soul says, "Yes!" and says, "No!" or when your soul would say, "Yes!" in a certain thing and that thing is not of God, and you know it in your spirit, your spirit says, "No!" to that. You govern by your spirit within the kingdom of your own being. Paul says, "I buffet my body, and bring it into subjection". That is being strong in spirit in the Lord, by the Lords energising; that is spiritual growth.

The end of that is the manifesting of the sons. The manifestation of the sons is, in its first point, the deliverance of the body from corruption. It is the redemption of the body. "When this corruptible shall have put on incorruption". "The redemption that is in Christ Jesus". First of all He was quickened in the spirit. The final state of His personal embodying of redemption was His resurrection body. That is our inheritance in Christ.

(b) Creation Delivered

The second thing in this third phase of redemption is the deliverance of the creation itself. "The whole creation groans and travails in pain together until now. And not only so, but ourselves also...". The whole creation travails in pain, waiting! And then with the manifestation of the sons as the centre of the creation, "the creation itself shall also be delivered from the bondage of corruption". That is cosmic redemption. The creation is in bondage to corruption. There is a redemption that is in Christ Jesus for the creation.

I believe this is very largely the meaning of His life here on the earth. You notice how closely related the earthly life of the Lord Jesus is with the creation. Nature in the creation took a certain course, and always does take a certain course, and it is always in the direction of death. Death always means limitation, disappointment, dissatisfaction. Now, when the Lord Jesus came into touch with the creation, He reversed that. The creation taking its natural course in death was made by His touch to take the course of life. He turned the course of nature. If it were failure, limitation, by His touch it was made fruitful and abundant. The creation came under the impact of Gods Son, and His relationship to the creation was one always which saw Him as Master in the realm of the creation Redeemer. When He died the cosmos was darkened, there was darkness over the whole earth, and then the earth quaked. There was a convulsion in the whole creation because creations Creator and creations Redeemer had died. When He rose the grave opened, here is creation responding to the touch, as it were, of the Creator and the Redeemer in life. It is cosmic. Christ is a cosmic Person. In that Person the universe is gathered up, and wherever you touch Christ, you touch every phase of the universe, and when you see the Lord Jesus after His cross, through resurrection in glory, you see the personal embodiment of the universe. Our whole hope and assurance of complete redemption is Christ there. Body, soul, spirit, creation, and all redeemed in Christ, but now as we have seen, being progressively and in parts applied in a practical way.

(c) The Evil Powers Cast Out

In this crisis expression of the redemption that is in Christ Jesus the evil powers in the cosmos are cast out. The teaching of Paul is that the cosmos through this age is governed by evil powers. This world is governed by evil powers, the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now works in the children of disobedience, the god of this age, hosts of wicked spirits under principalities and powers and rulers of darkness. But there is a redemption for the cosmos from those evil powers, and the last stage of redemptions outworking is the ridding of the universe of the evil powers; they will be cast out of the heavens and then they will be cast out of the earth.

Now, all that is true of the whole is represented by Paul to be true in the Person of the Lord Jesus. All this that we have said is shown as having already been accomplished in Him personally. By reason of His Spirit being alive unto God - His Spirit never was dead, it therefore never needed to be quickened, regenerated, re-born, or raised from the dead, but it was alive unto God and in living union with God - He could say, not without a meaning (and it would be meaningless if it were simply words and phrases without a practical aspect) "Not My will, but Thine". A statement like that has no value if no two such wills existed, that is, if the element of choice never came in. If there were no choice, what is the meaning of saying: Not my will? The element of choice was there.

The element of determination was there. The element of conflict was there. Not that His own human will was in conflict with the Divine will, but there were other forces at work which sought by a conflict to get in between His will and the Fathers will. There was no sin or rebellion in His own will, but there were rebellious forces trying to come upon Him so as to make for a conflict. But His attitude was, "No! Not My will, but Thine." It is deliberate. "I refuse the workings, the suggestions of this other will in the universe, and bring My will into line with Thy will!" Thus His soul was delivered, His soul represented the meaning of the redemption of the soul. It is not that His soul was redeemed. Do not think His soul was redeemed, it needed not to be redeemed, but herein is the representation of what the redemption of a soul is as working in humanity, with the spirit and will towards God.

The third stage must be a body which represents that which redemption means, a body which can never see death. He was given that. Our being in Christ means that that is our inheritance, but then, beyond man, there is the cosmos. The corruption of nature is sometimes robbed of its prey. Think of Lazarus: "By this time he stinks." All right, we will see! And out comes Lazarus, anything but that. What has happened? Nature has been robbed; corruption has been robbed. Corruption was unable to hold that, to grip that, to master, to overcome that. He reversed that, and brought out a perfectly healthy and whole man. Corruption has been spoiled. It shows what resurrection is in Christ, that the bondage of corruption, in which the whole creation is, has been overcome in the Person of the Lord Jesus, and is going to be overcome for us in Christ. That is, you and I eventually will have an incorruptible body, simply because He has gained that body for us. That will be a great day.

Then, in the final realm the powers of evil are dealt with. He stripped off principalities and powers. He said, "Now is the prince of this world cast out." He overcame the evil forces of the cosmos, of the universe. That is the final expression of redemption for us, that we shall be delivered from all those evil forces in this universe with the rest of the creation. The redemption that is in Christ Jesus secures that. Christ in heaven is the embodiment of that. That is a great ground of confidence to stand upon, that the issue is not in doubt at all, is not open to question. It is settled in the very presence of Christ, beyond the reach of anything that would raise a question about it.

Our being born anew and having the Holy Spirit is the earnest of all that, and as we go on in the Spirit we shall come to the full inheritance as sons in the Son.

Chapter 5 - Man and Cosmic Redemption

Reading: Rom. 8; 1 Cor. 15; Col. 1.

1. The Creation Centred in Man

First of all, we remember that the world, or the creation, was, and is, centred in man. Man is not only at the heart of the creation, but the creation is centred in man. You can draw a circle, and that circle is man, and within that circle is the whole creation, for the creation is centred in man. It is important to see it that way as well as the other way of the universe as a circle and man as within it.

2. Man Centred in God

Then, in the second place, at the outset man was centred in God. The creation was centred in man, and man was centred in God.

3. Man Separated from God and Allied with Satan

The third stage is that man was assailed, deceived, seduced, separated from God, captured by and allied to, Satan. And seeing that the cosmos was centred in man, with the capture of man the cosmos is captured. Hence we have such words as: "the prince of this world": "the prince of the power of the air": "the whole world lies in the wicked one".

The Government of the Prince of this World

Now the next thing to see is how Satan governs the world of which he is prince, and the people of which he is god. Satan governs the cosmos through mans soul. Mans soul has become allied to the evil powers. Understanding what mans soul is, if you think about that for a little while, you will have little difficulty in recognising how true it is that the cosmos, the world, is governed by Satan through mans soul which is allied to him and his evil powers, since man in his soul was deceived, and seduced, and captured. That needs very little emphasising at this time in the worlds history when, perhaps as never before, the government of the world through mans soul is so pronounced. The soul has been developed so much along all these lines.

Take the line of reason and intellect. How the soul of man has been developed!

Take the line of emotion, desire, feeling. How tremendously it has been developed! You have only to look at the growth of the cinema and the development of that realm of things to see what a tremendous grip and development there is in the realm of mans emotional soul.

As for the volitional side of the soul, you have only to look at dictators, approaching the stage of Antichrist; the tremendous domination of the human will; of the rise of nationalism; and all these things are the projecting of a will upon man, so that in certain nations the will of man has become so pronounced, so strong, that people are simply held in the grip of a master will.

Mans soul has been developed in every way, and these are only some indications of it. We could spend much time noticing how the world now has its soul extended.

Then, when you look at it again, you see how the devil is running the world through that extended, developed soul-life of man. All this tremendous development of the intellectual soul is being turned to mans own destruction, turned in diabolical directions. It is astonishing to see the devilish way in which the developed capacity of mans intellect is being utilised towards evil, destruction and wreckage. It is a terrible thing. And so, also in the other matters, the devil is using mans soul for the government of this world, and for the destruction of man, and that soul is in alliance with the evil powers.

Does that need demonstrating? While there are reactions from these things as men stand back after a season in which these things have run riot (in the aftermath of a terrible world war, man stands back and there is a reaction, a horror, and he says, "Never again! This is the end of this sort of thing! Now for a cosmic Utopia! Now for the millennium! This is the war which has ended war!" and in the course of a few years the reaction is all over, and another kind of reaction sets in towards something infinitely worse than the last. God only knows what the next will be, it is either that the Lord has to hold that thing on a chain for a while to finish His work, or else He is coming, and then that which we are working up to will come about.

This all shows how the soul of man, in spite of himself, in spite of his reactions in aftermaths, is in bondage to this terrific domination of satanic power, and he goes mad. The whole cosmos is in bondage through mans soul. The whole cosmos is centred in man, and man, in alliance with the evil powers in the realm of his soul, is the medium of the government of this cosmos by the devil.

Paul, in the second chapter of the letter to the Ephesians, speaks about the course of this "cosmos"; not the course of this "age", or the course of this "world" in the ultimate sense, but the course of this "cosmos"; and now he says, "You are not to walk according to the course of this 'cosmos', because you are not of this 'cosmos'; you are out of it". That is the whole force of the emphasis in the letter to the Ephesians upon being in the heavenlies in Christ, not in this cosmos, not according to this cosmos, but out of it by translation union with Christ in a spiritual sense.

Man Powerless to Alter the Course of the Cosmos

The course of this cosmos can never be altered by man who is in it. It cannot be altered by man in it. Every effort that man makes to alter the course of this cosmos while he is still in it breaks down. You have seen that during these past few years, as perhaps the world has never seen it. There are national and international movements to try and change the course of this cosmos, and every one of them has broken down. No, the course of this cosmos can never be altered by man who is in it, and that is where all the social Gospel will break down, where all humanism as a saving thing will break down.

Man, Regenerated and Delivered Out of the Cosmos, the Key to its Deliverance

The only way in which the course of this cosmos can be altered is by these who are out of it by regeneration; that in order to make any difference in the course of this cosmos, to check it here and there and change that course, there has to be that which is not of it, but outside of it and in a superior spiritual position to that thing which is the course of this cosmos, which is the alliance between Satan and the soul of man. That is the Lord Jesus as dwelling within regenerated men and women in the power and fulness of the Holy Spirit. Those who have thus been taken spiritually out of the world, out of the course of the cosmos, through death, burial, resurrection, now in alliance with the greater One than he that is in the world and indwelt by His mighty Spirit, can, as Himself here, alter the course of this cosmos. I do not mean universally, but where they are they may change things. So that the Gospel has had that effect. Where there was war to destruction, and the Gospel has come in in power, it has changed the course of men there, and they have turned from war to peace, warring tribes to peaceful tribes, born from above.

The point for the moment is this, that the only hope for the change of the course of things is found in those who are outside of this cosmos. Therein lies the tremendous urge upon us to be in separation unto Christ from the world and all that belongs to it.

We said in our last meditation that cosmic redemption begins with the individual, and in the spirit of the individual man. That is where cosmic redemption begins, and that by the renewing of the human spirit by regeneration. Then from that central point of redemption in mans spirit redemption moves out to mans soul, and when he is born again, not only is his spirit renewed in God and becomes alive to God in Christ, but his soul is delivered from the bondage of the devil. Its redemption is not complete in an act, but it is begun in the sense that it is free from that alliance with Satan.

You and I are not to accept that even although redemption has not been consummate in the realm of our souls any more than it has in the realm of our bodies, that our souls, as the Lords redeemed ones, are still in alliance with the evil powers. The deliverance has been wrought for our souls from that bondage, but now that redemption has to be made progressive, so that mind, heart, and soul, under the government of a renewed spirit, are being conformed to the image of Gods Son. There is all the difference between the soul being in bondage to, by alliance with, the evil powers, and the soul being imperfect in the likeness of the Lord in redemption. The end of our faith is the salvation of our souls. The beginning of our faith is the rebirth of our spirit. The redemption of the soul is progressive, and the first part of the deliverance of the soul is its deliverance from the alliance with the evil powers, but that, as ever it has been from the beginning, is the point of all satanic assault. Inasmuch as satanic assault is spiritual, and what is spiritual knows no physical barriers, very often it seems that the satanic assault upon our soul is verily ourselves, but God forbid that we should mistake an assault upon the soul as an alliance of the soul with Satan in the old sense. If you surrender there, you are done. Let it not be at any time. That is admitting the enemy to the soul. The fact is that if the spirit, energised by the Holy Spirit, stands up to resist the enemy from the soul, the soul is delivered. That proves that the alliance has at some time been broken, because the man unregenerated by the Holy Spirit will fight the devil to his own undoing. He is in the cosmos in spite of himself, and all his fight and all his resistance cannot break through. But that is not so with the child of God.

It is very important to understand the nature of the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. The whole of redemption is after this kind. None of us would say (unless we were utterly out of our senses) that our bodies are enjoying redemption. We know quite well that the body is yet to be delivered from the bondage of corruption, that death works in these bodies, and that they are not the bodies that shall be. Nevertheless the satanic government of this cosmos has been broken in relation to our bodies and the point is this, that the power of redemption which is in our renewed spirits can manifest itself even in our dying bodies, so that it is proved that we are not wholly, even physically, in bondage to Satan and death now, but that by a quickening energy of the Holy Spirit, even in a state of death or dying, we may be lifted up again and again, and be a repeated testimony to the fact that redemption has been wrought for us, and we have the earnest of the redemption of our body in the Holy Spirit.

There is all the difference between the redeemed and the unredeemed, even in the realm of the body. We do not say that because these bodies may go into the grave, die and perish, that they are in the same realm of the unredeemed. I do not accept that my body is in exactly the same realm as the body of a man who has never had Christ dwelling in his spirit. If you accept that, you yield to death, you have no ground to stand upon. For spirit, soul and body there is a ground of redemption. In the spirit, that redemption is settled. In the soul and in the body the Spirit gives the earnest of redemption, and that earnest is an operative, active thing for soul and body while the Lord wants us here. You and I must stand upon the ground of the great difference in every part of our being which redemption in Christ Jesus has secured for us, and the ground upon which the unsaved stand. There is no hope for the unsaved while unsaved, in the same way. But we are saved, and from every natural standpoint, from every scientific standpoint, from the standpoint of the whole course of nature we may at this moment be dying, and our moments may be numbered, and yet it is possible, and has been proved to be so again and again, that there may come a quickening of the Lord in our spirit and we come clean out of that and take a new lease of life, to everybodys amazement. There is nothing like that for the unsaved, unless God does it to keep them alive for their salvation. They have no ground to stand upon for that, but we have. It is our redemption that is in Christ Jesus: the spirit renewed; the soul set free; the body to be changed in the Lords own time.

The twin forces by which Satan governs man, under the sovereignty of God, are sin and death. I say, under the sovereignty of God, because God said: "The soul that sins, it shall die": "The wages of sin is death". But Satan is the one who governs by sin and death, not God. God governs no man by sin. Death is the twin of sin. They are born of the same parent. They have not come from God. Satan governs man by this twin law under the sovereignty of God. These two forces go to the heart of redemption.

If man is governed in his bondage by Satan through sin and death, mans redemption means that sin and death have to be set aside, destroyed, as the two chains by which Satan holds men in bondage. So that they are the very heart of redemption. That is where the letter to the Romans has its force: "The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death." But listen! Law means bondage. If there is no law, you are free; if there is a law, you are in bondage thereto. It is the law of sin and death which makes the bondage to sin and death a dominion. The Lord Jesus entered into the realm where sin and death held sway. They had no power over Him personally, but voluntarily He entered into that domain and broke the power of sin and death. Destroying the power of sin He destroyed the power of death which works as the consequence of sin, and death is swallowed up victoriously. Then, says the apostle, "Thanks be unto God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ"; that is, over sin and death as a present thing. That is redemption from the dominion of sin and death.

How we start all over again when see that! We have the firstfruits of Christs victory over sin and death in our spirits. In our spirits the full victory over sin and death is set up as in Christ. "Whosoever is begotten of God doeth no sin...". There is a sinless and incorruptible thing in us, the full fruits of the redemption in Christ, but there is a parallel truth all the time that we are being saved, but that latter does not relate to our spirits. That relates to our souls. The failure to recognise the difference between our spirits and our souls has led to a great deal of confusion in doctrine about sinlessness. The firstfruits of redemption are in our spirits, our spirits are set free from sin and death, and now, alive to God in spirit, just as before alive to Satan, we cannot die. That is the strong teaching of the Word. We are delivered from death. This is the seed for the new body, "To every seed its body". There can be no resurrection body unto eternal life unless indestructible, eternal life, is already there to have a body put onto it, to be clothed upon. What is it to be clothed upon? This inner man of the heart, the renewed spirit, in a life that shall see no death, and in a life eternal, being deathless is sinless, for where there is sin there is death, where there is no death there is no sin. It is the incorruptible life of the Lord in our renewed spirit. That is the redemption in Christ, deliverance from the bondage of sin and death.

This spirit in us is a free spirit, and it always cries for freedom. It verily shouts for freedom. Do you know the awful feeling of being suffocated in your spirit, pressed down in your spirit? How your spirit cries against that suffocating! And it is not until you rise up in your spirit, and fling off this thing by definite exercise, that you get free. See a man or a woman pressed by temptation, suggestions, the devil, all in their very spirit! How are they going to be delivered, set free? Never by reason, argument, persuasion. Nothing that can be done from the outside can get them really free. But if you can get that man or that woman to stand up and in the name of the Lord exercise themselves against that thing, in attitude, as it were, strip it off by a definite act of spirit, they will get free. You know what it is sometimes to be pressed in, as into a dark cell, and not until you have got down in prayer and exercised yourself, and fought your way through in your spirit, do you get free. It is like stripping things off, and it is not until you really begin to exercise your spirit against this that you come out into a free place. The spirit is a free spirit, and it claims liberty, and you and I, when we stand in our spirit for liberty as our birthright, are delivered. If only you can get a pressed spirit to stand up and in the Lords Name assert itself, you are on the way to deliverance, but so long as there is a refusal to take that positive action there is no deliverance. The quickening of the spirit is always the way to the realisation of the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.

That is why I believe that very often a sheer singing out in faith is a deliverance from the pressure of Satan. The spirit claims liberty as its birthright, and will not tolerate bondage, and if you allow it to remain there, you will have no deliverance, for that is a contradiction of the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. We have been set free. The beginning is there; the redemption in our soul is in progress; we have the earnest of the redemption of the body by the indwelling Holy Spirit; and these are to be consummated.

The Translation of the Church

But there comes a great interlude in relation to cosmic redemption. That interlude is marked by the translation of the church from the cosmos when the church is lifted out of the cosmos. It is necessary, because cosmic redemption has its consummation not merely in a process, but in a climax. It is not just an evolutionary thing, that the whole cosmos will be redeemed by an evolutionary process and one day it will wake up and find itself free from this bondage; it is all heading up to a climax. Cosmic redemption demands that at a certain point redeemed man, who has come into his redemption shall be lifted out of the cosmos. Those whose alliance with the prince of this world has been broken shall be literally lifted out of this cosmos.

The Wrath to Come

Do you notice that the apostle Paul and others speak about "the wrath to come"? If you look closely at it you will see that "wrath to come" is not just the judgment of hell; it is not just the casting of sinners and Christ-rejecters into hell. That is not what the apostle is speaking of specifically. He regards and speaks of the wrath to come as cosmic cleansing; it is the wrath of God upon this cosmos. That begins when the church is lifted out. Then it will be seen exactly what is the nature of an unrestrained satanic government of this world through mans soul. At present there is a restraining; at present that thing cannot take its course because the church is here. The world does not know what it owes to the presence in it of saints. The fact that they are here is a restraining. But when the church is lifted out of the cosmos, then, except those days be shortened no flesh should be saved (Matt. 24:22). There is a wrath to come which represents an interlude, which will work out eventually to the ridding of this whole cosmos both of the whole satanic system and of that whole order that is in alliance with the satanic system through its soul.

A New Heaven and a New Earth

Then there will be a new heaven and a new earth, wherein dwells righteousness. Not "wherein dwells hosts of wicked spirits" or the prince of the power of the air. We are getting very near to the place where we can understand what that interlude will be. Of course we have not an insight into what is going on behind the scenes, even of this present time. If we had, we should probably be so horrified as to be driven almost mad. This is no exaggeration; we are not imagining things; it is fact. But when that thing which is even now going on underneath, comes to the surface, and has full sway, and the devil does govern through mans soul in an open and unrestrained way, this world will be a terrible place. Blessed be God, we shall be out of it, and in view of this our hearts cry for the coming of the Lord. That interlude is coming, between the redemption that is in Christ Jesus having become a practical experimental thing within the spirits of the elect and the new heavens and the new earth. That is what Paul means by "the wrath to come". It is not just eternal hell, but wrath against principalities and powers and men in alliance. It is the wrath to come. The apostle says that we have been saved from the wrath to come. The article is used there, "the wrath", something specific.

What is the point about this? In the first place it is that the redemption that is in Christ Jesus having already had its commencement in us, in our renewed spirits, is the assurance of a redeemed cosmos. The whole cosmos is centred in redeemed man for its redemption. Now go back to the letter to the Romans chapter 8: "The creation itself shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption". When? It groans waiting for the manifestation of the sons of God. The creation is centred in man, and its redemption is centred in redeemed man, so that our redemption, which we are now knowing in our own spirits, is the certainty of a redeemed creation.

The next thing, of course, is that you and I have to live in the power of that redemption in our spirits for our souls and for our bodies, and by that redemption, that new life in our spirits brings our souls into subjection, overcomes them, governs them, and also stands for quickening for our bodies as is needed for the purpose of God from time to time. This is our inheritance in Christ.

May the Lord make His word a help to us.

Chapter 6 - Paul's teaching on the Matter of Cosmic Redemption

Reading: Rom. 3:21-26.

At the outset we will try to summarise in a simple, comprehensive, and yet brief form. On this matter Paul, of course, is the chief teacher, and while he does not stand alone, he is far more comprehensive and perhaps more definite in his teaching on the matter of cosmic redemption than any other teacher in the Word of God.

We can summarise the teaching of Paul in this connection in the following way:

1. Two Opposing Forces in Relation to the Government of the Cosmos

Firstly, Paul teaches that there are, back of everything else, two opposing forces - God and Satan - arrayed against each other in relation to the government of the universe, especially of this cosmos. That is a simple statement. It includes a very great deal, but that is the first step.

2. Man Involved in the Conflict

Secondly, Paul teaches that man is involved in this conflict, and man is involved in at least three ways:

(a) As a Creature

The universe and this cosmos in it, as a created thing (that is, all that is meant by creation - the first chapter of the letter to the Colossians speaks of all things which have been created), was destined to be the inheritance of God's Son. By Him, unto Him, and for Him were all things created: "whom He appointed heir of all things": "through whom He created the ages".

(b) Intended to Share the Government with and Display the Glory of God

Man was intended to be in fellowship with God concerning that intention, and by sonship through adoption (remember Christ was never adopted Son; there is a difference in the sonship of the believer even in its fulness, and the Sonship of the Lord Jesus) to share the government of the cosmos, and to display the glory of God's Son. Man was, by fellowship with God, coming to sonship by adoption, intended to share the government with God's Son and display the glory of God's Son; being conformed to His image.

(c) Through Disobedience Passed under the Reign of Sin and Death

Through man's progenitor, Adam, this dual purpose was assailed; that is, the inheritance of God's Son and man's place in it. That dual purpose was assailed in Adam. Through disobedience, he, with all his progeny, passed under the reign of sin and death.

In this way a new aspect of the cosmic conflict arose. From that point God is not only found against Satan, but man is under wrath, man is alienated from God, man in his nature is at enmity with God. Man is found in alliance with Satan (as we pointed out in our last meditation) through his fallen soul; and man is in bondage to sin, to death, and to Satan. Therefore, man needs redeeming, and with the redemption of man there must be the redemption of the cosmos, because it is one thing. The assault upon man (Adam) included the assault upon the Son of God and His destiny and heritage of the dominion of this universe, and also man's place with Him as a fellow-heir.

So you see the far range of the fall, the far range of the need of redemption. And when you have seen that, you are near to the point where you can begin to see the meaning of Christ and His cross.

3. God in Grace has Provided a Way of Deliverance

The third thing which Paul brings before us is that God in grace has provided for man a way of deliverance from that hopeless condition.

That way is two-fold, it has two sides; one is the Person of the Lord Jesus, and the other is the Cross of the Lord Jesus. They are two sides to God's provision for man's deliverance; delivered by and in a Person; delivered by that Person through the Cross.

The Cosmic Significance of Christ in His Person and in His cross

We come to consider for a little while the cosmic significance of Christ in Person, and the Cross of the Lord Jesus. We are emphasising the cosmic nature of these things; that is, the range, the inclusiveness, the all-embracing-ness of the Person of the Lord Jesus and of the work of His Cross.

(a) In Creative Activity

When we consider the Person we have to go right back to the beginning of things as the Word of God shows them to us, and see the Person acting in a creative way, but not only creating, but creating all things in Himself. He is not (so to speak) just bringing things into being and starting them off on their course as an order, a system, a universe, to go its way, just to be watched as a matter of interest, but the created universe is bound up with His own Person and by His Person; that is, His Person gives the meaning and the significance, to the universe. The universe takes its very existence, its very purpose, from Him, and if we did but know it fully (we know very, very minutely), we should be able to read the marks of the Son of God through this universe when it was created.

That is how it will be in the end. All the marks of the Divine Sonship will be clearly discernible throughout this universe. It has its very reason by Him. Paul teaches us (and we are keeping closely to Paul in this matter) that in Him all things hold together, have their being as a cohesive whole, and you see how cosmic the Person of the Lord Jesus is by those illuminating flashes which have been given to us in His death. In His death the sun was veiled, and darkness was over the face of the earth unto the ninth hour; in His death the earth quaked. In His death the very graves were opened. There is a convulsion in nature, and a great silence in heaven. It is as though heaven itself and the whole of the universe were struck dumb. The very creation felt this thing going through it. It was as though there had been a blow struck at the very meaning of everything.

We sometimes know in these little lives of ours how a blow struck at some thing in our lives involves our whole life. We speak of somebody's whole life being wrapped up in something or someone, and when that something or that someone is smitten, the meaning and value of life has gone with that; there is nothing more to live for, that was inclusive of everything. That is how it is with this universe. Strike the Son of God and you have struck the very meaning of the universe, the very purpose of the universe, the very life of the universe, and it is as though the universe says, "I have nothing more to live for!" That is how it was in the moment of His death. It is only a flash, it does not impress the world as it ought to impress the world, but God has allowed it to be on record, and it means a great deal.

That is why it was not possible for Him to be holden of death. If He had been swallowed up of death, the universe could not have gone on. It would have missed its purpose, its meaning. It would have crashed.

It may be that is what will happen when the Lord draws His church out of this world, and there comes a space between what is of Christ and what is of this fallen, God-rejecting cosmos. Just at that time it will lose its Divine meaning and will go through an awful convulsion, and need to be recovered in a new heaven and a new earth, the meaning of which will be Christ. We go back there, and see that all things are included in Him in creation. He is cosmic in His purpose in creation.

(b) In Incarnation

We pass from creation to incarnation, and in incarnation He brings with Him that same range of Personal significance. From birth to death cosmic forces are operative; not just human elements at work, but cosmic forces. No sooner is He born than hell rises up, showing that which we were seeing in our last meditation to be very true, that the devil governs this world towards his satanic ends, to rob the Lord Jesus of His inheritance by reason of that complicity and alliance between the soul of fallen man and himself.

Herod is a clear example of a man who in his soul has an alliance with the devil. Study the psychology of Herod, and see if the devil has not got that man in his grip through the soul, working to defeat the purpose of God concerning His Son, and, if it could be, at His very birth that He should be slain. The devil will stand at nothing to manifest his utter diabolical cruelty.

Not only do we recognise the cosmic evil elements as bound up with the incarnation, as affected by the incarnation, as interested in it, but the incarnation carries its own significance. Here is Man, God manifest in the flesh, God taking the form of man; and we know it was not to redeem Israel alone, but to redeem man; the whole race of humanity.

(c) In Baptism

We have to pass hurriedly from point to point. From the birth we leap to the baptism, over years, and recognise that His baptism was something very far-reaching. It was not just conformity to some religious ordinance. We have either to dismiss Paul and the others (particularly Paul, but the others with him) and simply blot out a great deal of the New Testament as being without meaning and value and necessity, or else we have to come to recognise that baptism in the New Testament is beyond mere ordinance, and is a thing of tremendous significance. It is not just a rite, part of a creed; it is not just a fragment of organised religion's programme, it reaches to a vast extent. The Lord Jesus in His baptism uses one phrase Himself which is a very far-reaching phrase; "thus it becomes us to fulfil all righteousness" (Matt. 3:15). No one could possibly interpret that as meaning that the Lord Jesus, going down into the waters of Jordan (or any other river, or any other water) fulfilled all righteousness by just doing that; He is setting forth something else.

Paul gives the full explanation of baptism in relation to the question of all righteousness. What is it? The cosmos has fallen under wrath - sin, death, judgment. God demands righteousness, and God will never depart from His position of absolute righteousness and universal righteousness. He will cede nothing to unrighteousness, to sin. He stands for complete righteousness. Can man provide God with what He needs? No! What is the significance? What then will happen? If God will not move, and unrighteousness must receive a just recompense of reward (which from God's standpoint is death) then man and the cosmos must die in its inability to satisfy God's requirement of righteousness. A righteous creation, a righteous man, a righteous cosmos must be produced to fulfil all righteousness.

The Lord Jesus, as He comes to Jordan to be baptised, enters into that realm, and in a typical act, foreshadowing His Cross (which He placed at the very threshold and as the very foundation of all that He was going to say and do). Every word that He utters from this time onward will be based upon the Cross. That is the folly of unregenerated man taking up the New Testament and thinking that he can constitute society upon the teaching of Jesus. Placing in type His cross at the beginning of His public life, He said in effect: "All My teaching will be upon the ground that the sin question, the righteousness question, the judgment question has been settled! In these waters I recognise the state of man and the cosmos, and, although for Myself I have no need to go into death, into judgment, because I have come in incarnation to associate Myself with man's renewed state, to redeem him, I stand into the consequences of his sin, I stand representatively into the position that man occupies as under sin, condemnation and judgment!" The waters of Jordan were a type of that death and burial necessary to clear the way for something better; getting rid of the old that is in the way of what God requires. How shall all righteousness be fulfilled? By getting rid of the unrighteousness and then providing the righteousness. How far-reaching is the whole question of sin.

This universe is shot through and through with iniquity and sin and evil. The whole three-fold question of sin, righteousness and judgment was gathered up in His baptism in a representative way. Oh, how far-reaching those things are! For God's satisfaction righteousness has to garnish the very heavens, to cover the earth as the waters cover the sea. There must be a new heaven, and a new earth, wherein dwells righteousness. That is to be the state which satisfies God. How can that be? By the passing through death and judgment of the unrighteous thing. His was a cosmic baptism, a racial baptism, an inclusive baptism, dealing with the great questions of sin, righteousness and judgment.

Coming up out of the water the heavens opened, and a voice said: "This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." That is the Divine attestation. The Spirit was sent, descending and lighting upon Him in dove form. Here is the new creation representatively, with which God is well pleased, with which God allies Himself. The Holy Spirit is God committing Himself. When we receive the Holy Spirit we come into nothing less than God committing Himself. That is why it is such a terrible thing to sin against the Holy Spirit.

The heavens opened when the Lord Jesus came up out of Jordan. The heavens had never been opened from the fall of Adam to any fallen man in this way. Never in the same full sense could God say of any son of Adam: "I am well pleased!" This is the new creation, and it is a new creation in Christ Jesus. It is all included in Him, and from the time that men began to believe into the Lord Jesus, these things became true of believers; they come under the pleasure of God, accepted in the Beloved One, and beloved for Christ's sake. It is not personal, individual, local; it is cosmic, it foreshadows what the creation will be. See the Lord Jesus at any point, and you see the creation. You see the universe wherever you see Him. Then, standing on the bank of Jordan, you see the foreshadowing of the new creation, God's heaven opened, God's good pleasure declared, and God Himself committed to it, bound up with it. That is the whole creation in Christ representatively.

(d) In Temptation

We are already committed to a further meditation upon this if the Lord wills, but simply to indicate as it arises in the course of things here, we see the significance of this temptation. What is the issue bound up with the temptation of the Lord Jesus? It can be put into three words:

Sonship (there is no question about that: "If thou be the Son! If thou be the Son!");

Inheritance, which goes with sonship;

Dominion, universal dominion, as showing the position as Heir of all things.

Those are the three words which govern this temptation of the Lord Jesus. That is no local matter: it is cosmic. There is a tremendous range of things that the enemy was assailing when he assailed the Lord Jesus in the wilderness. It was the old thing of the first Adam again, with the same issues; in this One it was sonship possessed, in Adam a sonship potential; but still it was the question of sonship. It was a question of inheritance, it was a question of dominion.

Those are three things which are tremendous because, as Paul points out to us in Romans 8, the creation itself is in bondage, groaning, waiting for the manifestation of the sons of God. And with the manifestation of the sons of God the creation shall be delivered. Here is sonship, and the whole creation bound up with it. The devil said: "All this will I give thee, if you will forsake the position that you have, and come down!" That is not how the devil put it, but that is what it meant. Imagine the Son of God worshipping the devil; God incarnate acknowledging the dominion of Satan! How far he will go! To speak of it like that makes us see how mad the devil must be, how ridiculous. That only says to me how real this temptation must have been, for quite clearly it would have been preposterous and foolish for Satan to make an assault upon Almighty God, but here is God in Man-form. It is the Man-form that is being assailed. To say that Christ never really did suffer from temptation is to miss the point altogether. I know the old difficulties and questions as to whether a Perfect Being can be tempted. Leave your intellectual problems and come down to the fact that Christ was not just acting a part, making believe. All this about being tempted is not mere words; there is something desperately real about this.

Let us take this one thing as we go on, and let us recognise it. If you and I have, by faith, with any spiritual discernment, perception, apprehension, come to take our place in Christ, buried with Christ, crucified with Christ with very great cosmic consequences; and if through that position we have come into the anointing with Christ, let us remember that by that very position we have become doubly involved in the conflict of the universe. The more you stand into the meaning of union with Christ in His death, and burial, and resurrection, the more you stand in the meaning and value of the anointing, and the more terrible will be the assault of the enemy. If we want any proof that Christ's temptation was a real temptation, and that He suffered being tempted, our own experience is a proof that never has a child of God yet, with real spiritual understanding, come into this position of union with Christ in death, burial and resurrection, under the anointing of the Holy Spirit really and truly, without experiencing very soon that the devil was more against them than for them. As we go on he never relinquishes his attempts for our overthrow. This is because of this relatedness of which we spoke at the beginning, that man is to be in fellowship with the Son of God in the inheritance, in the dominion, in the glory. We need no other proof that Christ's Person is cosmic. Whenever we come into a spiritual position that He took up, we come into exactly the same experience as He did from the enemy.

(e) In Transfiguration

We pass finally to the transfiguration, and, so far as He in Himself in a representative way is concerned, the course is finished. The incarnation, because it was cosmic, was assailed at its very beginning; His baptism, when He took up His public, official work in relation to the race, saw the cosmic forces at work: heaven, and earth, and hell. His anointing, His temptation, His life and teaching, all reached out beyond mere earth, beyond flesh and blood to the ultimate ranges of the cosmos. Then such a course can be consummated, and the Mount of Transfiguration is the completion of that which has been victorious to that point. Here is humanity glorified, that is, for Himself. If He comes down from the Mount of Transfiguration it is not for Himself, it is to actually do what He has been typically doing; and in His Cross He gathers up everything that has preceded. He gathers up His baptism; it was a foreshadowing, now it becomes a reality. We shall see that after His Cross, as He rises through an opened heaven and receives of the Father the promise for the church as in a new way God becomes allied with Him in glory, His members will become the object of the hatred and antagonism of the enemy, and He is suffering with them. "We have not a high priest that cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities". He is suffering with us in our temptation. He cannot Himself in the same way be tempted again, but He is suffering with us in our temptation. So that in His Cross, His coming down from the Mount of Transfiguration, He gathers up everything that has preceded.

While, on the one side, it was a sin offering, on the other side it was a meal offering; that is, He offered a perfect humanity to God as well as brought sinful humanity under judgment in a representative way. Everything is gathered up in His Cross. He in resurrection is in possession of the consummation of the curse, a resurrection Body; "Like unto His glorious body" Paul says. We are going the way the Master went. The consummation of all is secured in Him. As He is, so are we to be, because He is a cosmic Person, He is an inclusive Person in redemption.

May the Lord make redemption to us a far more glorious thing than it has been, and show us something more of the fulness of that word of the apostle: "the redemption that is in Christ Jesus".

Table of Contents

Author's Rights

Contents

Chapter 1 - The Purpose and Nature of the Cosmos

Chapter 2 - The Purpose and Nature of the Cosmos (Continued)

Chapter 3 - The Cross of Christ and its Cosmic Significance

Chapter 4 - The Redemption of the Cosmos

Chapter 5 - Man and Cosmic Redemption

Chapter 6 - Paul's teaching on the Matter of Cosmic Redemption