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Christianity - A Process of Transformation

by T. Austin-Sparks

First chapter published in "A Witness and A Testimony" magazine, 1969, second chapter was never published, but was left as a manuscript.

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 1

Reading: 1 Corinthians 2.

"We... are transformed into the same image" (that is: 'We pass from one form to another') 2 Corinthians 3:18.

As I have moved about amongst Christians in many parts of this world, and in many situations, one thing has been growing upon me more and more strongly. In the presence of a great deal of confusion amongst Christians and many complications in Christianity, the feeling has become stronger and stronger that the need is for Christians really to know what Christianity is, and to know what it is that they are in as Christians. That sounds, perhaps, rather drastic, but I am quite sure that a very great deal of the trouble - and I think all agree that there is a good deal of trouble in Christianity generally - is due to a failure really to understand what Christianity is. It may seem strange that I should speak to you, mostly experienced and mature Christians, about the true nature of Christianity. Well, if you feel that it is presumptuous and hardly called for, be patient, and I think that before we get very far you will feel as I do: that although we know a good deal about Christianity as it is taught in the New Testament, we are very often in difficulty ourselves for the very simple (or profound) reason that we have not really grasped the meaning of what we are in. So often, when distressed as to some situation, and perplexed that it should have come about, I have found that that is just what the Word has said would happen.

May I say to you (and I am sure you will agree after a moment's thought) that the major part of the New Testament, by which I mean all these Letters which make up the larger section of the New Testament, is all bearing upon this one thing: to make Christians understand what Christianity is. If that is true, and all these Letters were to Christians, surely we have to conclude that even New Testament Christians needed Christianity explained to them, and even then there was this necessity of just defining the real nature of that into which they had come.

Begin with the Letter to the Romans. Was that necessary for Christians? It was written to Christians, but what was it written for? To put them right in the matter of Christianity! Apparently those people were not quite clear in their position, in their lives and in their hearts as to the implications of that into which they had come by faith in Jesus Christ.

Proceed, as we are going to do, into the Letters to the Corinthians, and what are they? Set over against a background of real confusion and contradiction in Corinth, those Letters were written really to try to make the Christians understand what Christianity really is. And so on and on through the New Testament that is the object; that we and all who believe in the Lord Jesus should really have a clear understanding of what this is, of the meaning of the name we bear, and the meaning of that which we believe and into which we have come by the grace of God. We can gather it all up in this simple statement: that the whole Christian life is an education as to what Christianity is. Is that true? Do you not sometimes stand in the presence of some situation, some difficulty, some trial, some complication, some perplexity, some experience, and say: 'What does it all mean? I am a Christian. I have put my faith and trust in the Lord Jesus. I am His, but I don't understand what it all means. Why this experience? Why am I going this way? Why has this come my way? Why is my life such as it is? These many things are so full of mystery and perplexity. What is it that I have got into? Is this Christianity? Is this really what I have to expect and accept? If so, I need understanding, and enlightenment, and I need help as a Christian, for this thing is often beyond me altogether.'

Well, that is the setting - but is that true? If there is anyone who has never been that way, who has never had a moment like that, and whose path has been so nice and smooth, with everything so right and well adjusted and without any kind of trouble, I will excuse you if you like to read no further, for I have nothing to say to you.

Well now, what is the point on which these words in 2 Corinthians 3:18 are focused? "We are transformed...", and it is the present active tense: 'We are being transformed'; 'We are in a process of transformation, passing from one form to another.' There is a sense in which that fragment, that condensed verse put into those few words, touches the heart of the whole New Testament and explains everything.

Having said that, we come back to this second chapter of the first Letter to the Corinthians. This Letter (as indeed are all the Letters, but this is a very good example) is built around two contrasted words, and they are in this second chapter. Those two contrasted words describe two different types of humanity, two different manhoods, and between the two, firmly and squarely the Cross of the Lord Jesus Christ is planted. Look at the chapter again in the light of that last statement! "When I came unto you... determined to know nothing among you save Jesus Christ, and Him crucified", and everything after that rests upon that distinction between these two types which the Cross divides and says: 'That belongs to one category of human beings and this belongs to another category of human beings.' There is a cleavage cut by the Cross of the Lord Jesus Christ between those two which separates them and makes them two different species of mankind. That truth follows right through this Letter. Read it through with this in your mind. The Apostle here speaks about a foundation and a building. He says: "Let each man take heed how he buildeth thereon. For other foundation can no man lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ", and then he drives the wedge of the Cross right into the superstructure and speaks of one kind of work or works, which are the product of one type of man, or Christian, and another kind of work, or works, which are the product of another kind. The first will go up in flames and will never be found in eternity. It has gone for ever. The second will abide. It will abide the fire of judgment and the test of time, and be found in the ultimate structure, or building of God.

You see, Paul is applying this principle of the divide between two kinds of Christian people, and to the two kinds of work, or fruits, from each respectively, and the building, he says, as to its eternal value, will be determined by who is producing it, by what kind of man, or manhood, is producing it. Which of the two is producing this building? Think about this! These are not non-Christians. What an immense amount is being built upon Christ that is going up in smoke! Every man's work will be tried by fire, and its real value and its endurance will be determined by and will depend upon where it comes from, that is, from which of these two types of manhood.

Now you are wondering what the two words are which define the two types of manhood. Read the chapter: "the natural man... he that is spiritual." There are the two words: the natural and the spiritual Christians. They are not unconverted people, not non-Christians. Is it necessary for me to put in all the detail to confirm and ratify what I am saying? May I remind you that the Apostle Paul had been in Corinth for two whole years with these people! I do not know what you think, but if you had the Apostle Paul going in and out for two whole years, you would have plenty of ground for consideration! He was there amongst them for two whole years, going in and out, teaching them probably every day, and then he went away for five years. Then he heard things which were reported to him by the household of Chloe. I wish everyone would do what the Apostle did! He did not take the report without investigating it. He got the report and then immediately despatched a reliable messenger to investigate, either to find that the thing was not true or to find that it was so. The messenger sent and came back, saying: 'It is all true, and worse than the report.' The deterioration in five years!

You are perhaps startled and shocked by that, and will say: 'Can it be?' Well, remember the messages to the seven churches in Asia in the Revelation, and how all those churches began. There were wonderful things in those churches at the beginning. Read the story of the beginning of the church in Ephesus, and what a story it is! Against such tremendous antagonism and hostility those people came out clearly, and they brought all their magic books, of which the price is given (and that represented a tremendous amount in human values!), and piled them up in the open street, or it may have been the market square, or some open place, and set them all aflame. That is a thoroughgoing division! But where is that church in the Revelation? "Thou didst leave thy First love. Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent" (Revelation 2:4-5). What can have happened? Well, I put that in by way of emphasising this possibility, at least, of declension. Why in Corinth, why in Ephesus, and why in the others that decline? Come back to the two men, the two men instead of one man, the two men instead of each individual. It is not a dividing of a company into this category and that category, but the two things in a person. You know, we are all, if we are the Lord's, in some measure natural and spiritual. Do you agree with that? The question is not whether we are altogether perfect and there is no more of the natural in us. That is not the point. The point is: Who is dominating and governing? Which of the two, the natural or the spiritual? Here in Corinth, as we see by the Letter, the natural man was in control in the men and in the women and had taken ascendancy over the spiritual man.

The two words, then, are 'natural' - and you do not need that I should tell you that the Greek word is 'soulical' - and 'spiritual'; the man of soul and the man of spirit always in conflict. Who is going to have the upper hand, the mastery, in every one of us? The two are in each person.

Intellectualism

Now what is this natural category, this natural species? Look at the Letter again. First of all, the dominance, ascendancy, control of intellectualism, the wisdom of this world. That is the thing that is being marked and underscored as a part of the trouble in Corinth; the control of intellectualism, the natural reason, the natural mind, the idea that you are going to solve the problems of life along intellectual lines. Will you tell me that that is not a peril of Christianity today? Why, it is everywhere! It shouts at you from the religious press. You may not read so much of it, but it is my business to be familiar with what is happening in the Christian theological world, and I tell you, friends, that as I read certain theological magazines I find death. They are wearisome to the spirit. All this terrific effort to solve the problems of Christianity by the human intellect; the research, argument, discussion and debate, theses, etc.; philosophical Christianity trying to solve spiritual problems; what a weariness it is! I have to put these papers down sometimes! I cannot finish them, for they are so dead, so utterly lifeless. And that sort of thing is everywhere. It is thought that if you go to our seats and seminaries of learning with a clever brain, able to put out a convincing argument, you are going to save souls. There never was a greater fallacy!

This Letter to the Corinthians says that. Read this second chapter again and you will find that Paul is saying that. Paul was an educated man, so much so that for two thousand years the best scholars have found him defeating them, and they have not mastered him yet! Come to the religious bookshops and look at the shelves on the exposition of the New Testament, and you will find that Paul predominates. I got a book by one of our leading professors of theology in the universities and it was called A Portrait of Peter. This man, with all his learning, set out to give us a portrait of Peter. I opened the book and found that the first few pages were wholly occupied with Paul! He could not get to Peter because Paul was in the way, and the issue of his attempt was: 'Well, Peter was a great man, but Paul was very much greater!' Yes, this man Paul was an educated man, an intellectual man, a learned man. You cannot discredit Paul along that line at all, for he will beat you every time in that realm - but listen! 'You Corinthians, when I came to you I came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, but in fear and in much trembling. I had determined that I would know nothing amongst you intellectual Corinthians save Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.' What was Paul's conclusion? 'It is no use, however much I may have of the schools, whatever I may know, however I might be able to argue with the Corinthians or the Athenians on Mars Hill, I will get nowhere along that line with a spiritual situation like this. I have made up my mind about that.' It is part of the natural man to think that you are going to be able to build up something by intellectual, scholastic, academic acumen. The fact is that what intellect can build up, intellect can pull down!

Powerism

Then look at this prominent word: power. It is there in the chapter: wisdom... power; and at Corinth there was a worshipping of natural power, ability to conquer by natural strength. You can call it 'powerism', for it was an 'ism' there. Crush by your superior strength, impose something forceful, mighty, upon people, and you will win. Only be strong enough and you can solve all the problems and change all the situations. 'Powerism' is the natural man's idea of how it is going to be done.

Emotionalism

Then emotionalism has a large place with these Corinthians. Going to capture, captivate and master, and gain your end by force of emotion stirring up people's feelings, playing upon them, working upon them until they make an almost hysterical response. If you do that well and thoroughly you will get some Christians! The Apostle says: 'Not at all!' It is evident that these Corinthians were very emotional people.

Foolishness

What does the Apostle put over against these three aspects of the natural man? Over against wisdom he puts 'foolishness'. In the first chapter he speaks of "the foolishness of the preaching". You find that 'foolishness' was a great thing with the Apostle Paul! "We are fools for Christ's sake" (1 Corinthians 4:10). What did he mean? Well, he did not mean: 'Be simpletons!', which is what we immediately take to be the meaning of being foolish. What Paul meant by foolishness was the denial that intellectualism could find out God. 'The princes of this world, and the wisdom of this world did not find out God', said Paul, 'and they could not find Him out. They could not find out anything to do with God.' "The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: and he cannot know them." Foolishness is the denial that all the wisdom and all the philosophy of the Greeks there in Corinth, where they boasted of this thing so much, could get through the barrier to find God; and that all this power of mind and will projected and asserted in any way whatever will come up against the barrier and not get through, will not find God, nor the things of God. It is all written off as foolishness when the quest for God is pursued along that line. How foolish it is! And Paul gives a wonderful, almost startling, example of this: "God's wisdom... which none of the rulers of this world knoweth: for had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory." There is not much sense in that wisdom, is there? Not much logic or philosophy in that!

So Paul puts what he calls 'foolishness' over against their wisdom, meaning a positive denial registered by the Cross of the Lord Jesus that mere intellectualism can find God and the things of God. It cannot, for the natural man cannot!

Weakness

Over against the powerism of this mentality of the natural man, the Apostle almost glories in using the word 'weakness'. He says even that Christ was crucified through weakness, and he is always speaking about, and glorying in, his own weakness. What does he mean? The denial that this kind of human force, assertiveness, can achieve anything in the spiritual world. What a building we are tearing down!

You know, that has been the test of man right from the beginning. Was it not the test of Abraham to let go even of what God had given him in Isaac? The test of this man's real spirituality was the ability to let go. Was it true of Jacob? Was he not a man of tenacity, of determination, a man who would get what he wanted at any price, at the cost of anyone else's convenience and wellbeing? Was that not the issue of Peniel, or Jabbok? "I will not let thee go!" That is Jacob! He had been like that all his life, holding on tenaciously to what he wanted, what he had or what he wanted to have. But the finger of God touched the hollow of his thigh, and after that you can see that he is a cringing man! See how he meets his brother Esau!

You are not, whether you are Abraham or Jacob or any of the others whom we might mention, going to get through with God fully and finally by your own natural determination and tenacity. One of the great lessons of the Christian life is to learn how to let go to God. Oh, all the exhortation to be strong in the Lord, to endure, to acquit you like men and be strong, does not mean with this natural strength. It is another kind of strength, and a very different kind, a strength which is only seen by our ability to let other people sometimes have their way, to get what they are after and set us at nought. They hold, grip, maintain things in their hands to our disadvantage, and our real strength is in our weakness. The Apostle Paul put this into words. Read the second chapter of the Letter to the Philippians: "Christ Jesus, who, being in the form or God, counted it not a prize to be on equality with God, but emptied himself, taking the form of a bondservant... becoming obedient, even unto death, yea, the death of the cross." Well, has it proved to be the right thing? 'We are being changed...' Do you see the point now?

Balance

So, over against intellectualism - foolishness; over against powerism - weakness; over against emotionalism - what? The denial that the quest, the craving, the pursuit of sensationalism will get you there. For I believe that was the heart of these Corinthians' lust, their excessive desire, their outreach of soul for spiritual gifts. It is impressive that it is to the Corinthians, far more than to any other church in the New Testament, that so much is said about spiritual gifts. These demonstrations, this display, these things that you can see and glory in because you can see them, are all out of sensationalism. I am quite sure, from what we read, that if you had gone into those gatherings in Corinth you would have seen some hysterical behaviour as they made these spiritual gifts, as they thought, the ground and nature of their spirituality - and they are the most unspiritual church of all. So over against unbalance, lopsidedness in the Christian Church, there is need of balance.

Do you notice one characteristic of these Christians, one defect which is written so clearly and so largely here in the Letter? There is a lack of the power of spiritual discernment, the spiritual perception, the spiritual intuition which warns us: 'Go steady! Don't be carried away! Don't be thrown off your balance! This thing may be all right in its right place and under proper control, but be careful! There is a snare in every spiritual gift, and if you make the gift the main thing and not the spiritual meaning of the gift, that thing, which in itself may be quite right, will lead you into trouble.' I am covering a lot of history when I say that. Perhaps some of the biggest problems with which some of us have had to deal in people have been the result of this unbalanced quest for the manifestation of the sensational aspects of Christianity.

Well, perhaps some of you are not able to understand all this, but this is the situation here in Corinth, and I am only saying this to show that there are these two orders, these two categories of what I have called species of humanity which have their residence within one shell of the human body: soul and spirit. They are there, and the Apostle writes to these same people - for the second Letter is only a continuation of the first - 'We are being changed from one form to another.' What is going on? What is the process of the Spirit of God in the believer? What is the meaning of all this that the Lord allows to come our way, this discipline, these adversities, these trials, these sufferings, these difficulties, these 'strange things' (to use Peter's words, for they are strange to us as coming from God, or being allowed by God)? What is the meaning of it all? To bring about the change, the transformation from one species to another, from one kind of humanity to another. There is something in each trial, in each adversity in the suffering, which, under the sovereignty of God, is intended by Him to make a difference in us. 'We are being transformed.'

It is certainly not wrong to have a soul! It is that which has to be saved. In the course of that salvation, the great lesson is how to keep the soul under the control of the spirit. This is what is meant by being 'spiritual'. This is truly "He that is spiritual".

Chapter 2

Reading: Luke 1:26-35.

"Now the natural man receives not the things of the Spirit of God; for they are foolishness unto him; and he cannot know them, because they are spiritually discerned. But he that is spiritual discerns (or examines) all things" (1 Cor. 2:14).

"But we all, with unveiled face reflecting as a mirror the glory of the Lord, are transformed into the same image" (2 Cor. 3:18).

"For whom He foreknew, He also foreordained to be conformed to the image of His Son" (Romans 8:29).

Luke 1:26-35 falls right into line with our present consideration. We are seeing that Christ is Christianity. If we really do need - as we do - to understand, to know what Christianity really is amidst all the confusion which has arisen within the compass of that word 'Christianity', to know the real nature of this into which we have come, it requires that we shall have a true, a genuine spiritual understanding of Christ, and that is not as simple as it sounds when it is stated like that. For the oldest believer, the one who has gone longest and farthest with the Lord, still realises how much he, or she, needs to know and understand the Lord Jesus. If we want proof of a statement like that, let us remember that so great servant of Jesus Christ who had so great a revelation of Him, and who could say that he had, at a certain time, "been caught up into the third heaven and shown unspeakable things which it is not lawful for a man to utter", and remember that that man, with all his spiritual history and knowledge, was still crying in his prison in the closing days of his life: "That I may know Him" (Phil. 3:10). It was still the predominating ambition and quest of a man with all that. Everything, therefore, is a matter of knowing the Lord Jesus in a spiritual way, so that Christ is really Christianity. Christianity is not a system of truth, of doctrine, of teaching, of practice, of creed. It is a Person; and yet, a Person beyond all comprehending.

Now we come to the next phase of our present consideration. Paul said here to the Corinthians: "I determined to know nothing among you save Jesus Christ." (When amongst you, all I intended to know was Jesus Christ), and then he said: "And Him crucified" (1 Cor. 2:2). That was excluding one whole realm of things and focusing and concentrating everything upon this Person, Jesus Christ, and Him crucified. Why? Here again is the key to our New Testament as well as to these letters. Jesus Christ has come into this world as the first and the representative of a different type of humanity. A different type of man has broken into history in the Person of Jesus Christ, and it is this that gives the explanation of the incarnation, the miraculous birth, the virgin birth of the Lord Jesus.

You know that the two things about which there has been more controversy than anything else where Jesus Christ is concerned, where all the schools of theological interpretation have been in conflict, are the birth and the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. There are many other things in His life, too, but the two main points of controversy have been the virgin birth and the resurrection, and it is very significant that this should be so.

Leaving the resurrection for the present, let us start here with this birth of which we have just read, that which is called, and scripturally so, 'the virgin birth of the Lord Jesus'. I have said that this is the point of controversy and point of difficulty in real spiritual understanding; and the spiritual battle of these ages began at that point when there emerged into this world and into history this One after this particular kind of humanity. So soon after His birth all hell rose up to quench that flame, to blot out that life and its testimony. Herod, that devil-dominated and devil-driven man, went so far as to massacre all infant boys with the object of getting this One. But it was not only Herod. The Lord Jesus Himself later said of other men than Herod: "Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father it is your will to do. He was a murderer from the beginning" (John 8:44). The murderer behind Herod and his mind rose up immediately this type of humanity broke into the world.

Well, that is patent. The explanation is that you have two alternative humanities, or mankind. You have the one that Satan made. When he got hold of Adam he changed the humanity, the kind of being that man was. He changed that man, and by an evil, spiritual fornication he produced a race after his own mind. Comprehensively the Word declares: "The whole world lies in the evil one" (1 John 5:19). This is a race after Satan's mind, a race of which he is the prince and the god. That is one kind of humanity.

On the other side there is this mind, this type brought into history and into this world. There is another, an alternative humanity to that evil one, and in this humanity all that other was going to be judged, and if unrepentant and not transformed (passed over from one to the other) it was doomed to be blotted out of God's universe. Therefore all the painstaking work and labour and effort of the evil one and the evil powers in the whole Adam race were going to be upset by this new kind of humanity. All Satan's work was going to be undone in this, and all that he ever set himself to do in spoiling God's kind of man was just going to be undercut and blotted out in this One who had now broken into this world. You can understand why Satan said: 'As soon as possible, in His earliest days, we must blot Him out, dismiss Him, get rid of Him!'

That lies behind this kind of humanity that is God-produced, and not man-produced nor Satan-produced; this kind of Man who is, in His very conception, God's act, a miracle. Now you can understand why the rationalists, who know nothing about new birth, take offence and object to the virgin birth! What is, after all, the best testimony to, and confirmation of, the miraculous, supernatural birth of the Lord Jesus? Our new birth! We do not have to argue it as theology, or mere Christian doctrine and creed, for we know that Jesus Christ is a miracle because He is a miracle in us. But the rationalists do not know about new birth, and therefore they can be caught in this controversy over the birth of the Lord Jesus.

Well, the explanation of this antagonism, this animosity and all this confusion (and the enemy is the author of confusion) about the Lord Jesus in His very conception and inception and nature and being is because of this one thing which runs right through the New Testament; another kind of manhood, of mankind, has been introduced into history, not as an afterthought, but "foreordained to be conformed to the image of His Son". Out from the eternal thought and intention of God is introduced the image to which believers, the Church, have to be conformed, into whose likeness we are being transformed.

This is all being worked out in the New Testament, and if you want to understand your New Testament anywhere read it in this light: What is this all about? What does it mean? What is it after? What is the portent of this? Every bit of it is to bring Christ into view and to show this transforming work in believers. First you have the magnificent presentation of Christ in person in four portraits in the four Gospels. In the great wisdom and sovereignty of God the New Testament begins with a fourfold portrait of the Man, and from then onwards the work by the Holy Spirit begins and proceeds to transform and conform a people to that Man, so different that a mystery and a miracle lie right at the very heart and at the roots of this thing. The Christian life begins in truth with a miracle, a supernatural act. We know that if we are born again! And it proceeds on the basis of that miracle and that mystery of something other, something different, that God is doing. He is not just allowing us to go on our natural course. There is a lot compassed in a statement like that! Under the Holy Spirit's government we are not allowed to go on our natural course. We are continually brought up against the demand for something supernatural, something above, something more than the natural; and we are continually brought up against the fact that naturally we cannot rise to this standard, we cannot meet this demand, and we cannot go through this experience and challenge. We need something more than we have in ourselves, something supernatural. That is the whole history of the Christian life. It begins on that supernatural basis, for no man can beget this type. "That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit" (John 3:6), and "...born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man" (John 1:13). It cannot be done. Man cannot produce this order by any natural means whatsoever. It is only produced by God. I am saying things that you all know and agree with, I am sure!

In 1 Corinthians 15 Paul says: "In Adam all die... In Christ shall all be made alive... the first man Adam... the last Adam" (verses 22 and 45). The contrasts are simply the contrasts of two orders of creation, the first and the last. The second Man and the last Adam. Always be careful how you quote Scripture! The second Man, yes, but the last Adam. There are no more races after Christ! Finality in humanity is in Him. "If any man is in Christ", says the apostle, "there is a new creation" (2 Cor. 5:17 - R.V. margin). "In Christ... a new creation".

And so we come back to our starting place. We are in the process of being transformed into the same Image, and it all depends upon which of these two orders is predominating in each one of us. The Corinthians were Christians. They were born-again believers and were addressed as such, but during the five years between the apostle Paul's first visit to them and sojourn amongst them and his letter, there had been such a degeneration and decline in their spiritual life, and they had opened the door so widely to this world that, as Christians, the natural man predominated and was in charge. So you have this terrible letter about all these things belonging to the natural man, and Paul has to say: "I could only speak unto you as babes." They were babes! Well, it is all right to be a babe while it is time to be a babe, but this letter was written after seven years. Paul was there with them for two years, and then he wrote this letter five years after that, so after seven years they ought to have begun, at least, to emerge from babyhood!

We would think it strange if a child of seven were still a babe, for the age of seven years is the most original time of life. A child of seven is the most original person in creation. You parents know that quite well by the questions you get asked! My eldest daughter, about that age, after coming to the service and hearing the chapter read about the end of the world (as it is in the Authorised Version), said when we got home: 'Daddy, if a man went up in a balloon and while he was up the end of the world came, what would he come down on?' Yes, a child of seven can put some posers to you - but that is just by the way.

By the time you get to seven years in the spiritual life you ought to begin to emerge from that infant state of irresponsibility. Here Paul says to the Corinthians at that time in their spiritual life: 'Babes still! I have to feed you with milk, not with meat, for you are not able to take it'. Yes, that is a terrible situation. However, it is a matter of which of the two sides of our make-up is really in the ascendant, the natural or the spiritual, or, in other words, whether we really are in the process of being transformed and conformed.

Well, the answer will depend entirely upon our reaction to God's dealings with us as children. in the Hebrew letter it says: "Regard not lightly the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art reproved of Him; for whom the Lord loves He chastens... God deals with you as with sons" (Heb. 12:5-7). Is our reaction like that of Israel in the wilderness, murmuring and complaining, shirking, and all the time rebelling and wanting to get out of it, saying: 'Let us go back!', forgetting the tyranny of Egypt? They were wanting to go back from under the hand of the One who was seeking to make them, in difficulties and adversities, discover things about Himself and what He could do.

Now, to bring that right up to date, you and I are really in a school, and in a very practical school under the hand of God, where it is necessary for us to know Christ. "That I may know Him" - and here is the focal point of the knowledge: "and the power of His resurrection". Can anyone tell me that they do not need to know that? We are here under God's hand to know the power of His resurrection, and it is a wonderful thing to know the power of His resurrection maintaining us, enabling us, causing us to supersede those things which limit and make impossible our life and our service. We are up against this all the time. We are in this battle with forces of death to quench and put us out, and the Lord does not put us into situations and circumstances where it is all easy and straight sailing. He does just the opposite for Christians. He puts us into places where we cannot go through, cannot live, unless the Lord Almighty sees us through. But that is what we are there for - to discover the Lord Almighty. "The power of His resurrection". And if you say: 'Well, I am going to resign; I am going to quit; I am going to find an easier, simpler way than this!' you take yourself right out of the hands of God and out of the realm of making spiritual discoveries of Jesus Christ.

This is very true and very practical, but spirituality is very practical. We are being transformed, passed from one order to another, from the Adam order to the Christ order, from the natural to the spiritual, and this is the practical way. But keep this always in mind: there is an Image. The Hebrew letter puts it this way: "Looking off unto Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith" (Heb. 12:2). Remember that God has His Pattern, His order, in His Son, and we "beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord are changed, are transformed into the same Image from glory to glory". And we should not look at the things which are seen, and near, and pressing upon our conscience and trying to obsess us with themselves, but look through to Him who, through these things which are so very real, is seeking to produce in us something more of Christ.

The Lord help us so to view and interpret His ways with us!

Table of Contents

Author's Rights

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2