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Fundamental Questions of the Christian Life

by T. Austin-Sparks

Contents

Chapter 1 - The Fundamental Importance of an Adequate Apprehension of Christ

Chapter 2 - The Essential Seal and Constitution of the Christian Life

Chapter 3 - The Vital Value of Understanding the Word of God

Chapter 4 - The Imperative Dynamic of Christian Service

Chapter 1 - The Fundamental Importance of an Adequate Apprehension of Christ

Reading: Matthew 16:13-15.

'Who do you say that I am?'

The answer that each one of us is able to give to that question will reveal the measure of our own spiritual life. Let me say, however, at the outset that, although our Lord was undoubtedly seeking the answer that Peter gave Him - a testimony to, an affirmation of, His Deity, as the Son of God - we are not here concerned with any argument for, or discussion of, the Deity of Christ, although that will, we trust, be the natural and logical conclusion of all that we say. Our aim is to help toward a fuller realisation of the place and the significance of Christ in the whole Divine scheme.

The Knowledge of Christ Basic to Human Destiny

We begin by making one basic statement of fact. It is that everything related to human destiny is bound up with the knowledge of Christ. And for the Christian, in a peculiar way, the knowledge of Christ governs everything. The Scriptures make two things very clear in that connection.

(a) Christ the Foundation of the Christian Life

First of all, the knowledge of Christ is the foundation and the beginning of the Christian life. "This is life eternal, that they should know thee the only true God, and him whom thou didst send, Jesus Christ" (John 17:3). Although that is recognised and accepted, as a simple and elementary truth, let it be said at once that the Divine record in the New Testament makes it evident that the Christian life may have either a good or a poor beginning. And much may depend, perhaps for some time to come, upon which of these has been the case. We know that to be true in natural human life. If a baby has a poor beginning, it may cause anxiety and require much care for some time to come. If it has a good beginning, it usually goes ahead without much trouble to itself or anyone else.

So it is with the Christian life: the beginning can be a good one, or it can be a poor one, and the effect of the beginning may be evident for a long time in the life itself. The strength or the weakness, the progress retarded or accelerated, the fruitfulness or the poverty of the life will greatly depend upon the initial apprehension of Christ. This is something that we need to bear in mind. The apostles were well aware of it, and were very much alive to it, and they always sought to lay the foundations of a good beginning in an adequate knowledge of the Lord Jesus.

(b) Growth in the Knowledge of Christ

A second thing that the Scriptures make clear is that Christians, after their beginning, are meant to be increasing all the time in the knowledge and apprehension of Christ. This is indicated in several ways.

Firstly, the very fact of the existence of the whole body of teaching found in the New Testament, addressed to believers, surely in itself carries this implication.

Then again, a progressive change can be noticed in the course of the teaching. For the beginning of the Christian life, the simple word 'know', or 'knowledge', is used, as in the passage we have already quoted: "This is life eternal, that they should know..." But that growth and progress toward maturity is expressed by a fuller word. It is not apparent in our English translations, but it is there all the same. The fuller word, in its substantive form (epignosis), is used at least thirteen times in relation to the believer's progress in the Christian life. It may be translated 'full knowledge', 'recognition', 'realisation', and you would be advised and helped to take account of the occurrences of that word, with the aid of a good concordance. It is very impressive that, after the mention of the knowledge of the Lord in the beginning of salvation, the apostles then speak so much about going on to full knowledge of Him.

Further, this is indicated by the specific teaching of the Word. We cite just one instance of this in the familiar words of Ephesians 1:17: "The God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, grant unto you a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the full knowledge of him". Now these words were addressed to the people who had already received what the apostle called "the whole counsel of God" (Acts 20:27). It was to the Ephesian elders, you remember, that the apostle said that, during the long period in which he had been with them, he had not shunned to declare to them the whole counsel of God. And yet we find him, some time afterward, praying for them, that they may have a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the full knowledge of Christ. That is significant and impressive.

We have, therefore, very much behind our statement that Christians are supposed and meant to be progressive all the time in their knowledge and apprehension of Christ. The Word of God makes this abundantly clear; and although perhaps it hardly needs to be emphasized, it must be established, as part of any foundational consideration of a matter of this kind, that the knowledge of Christ is basic to the attainment of the fulness of Christ by believers.

Behind the Scenes with the Bible

Now, let us take up our Bibles and allow them to lead us to this whole matter of the knowledge of Christ.

The Christian, with his Bible in his hand, is led behind the whole scene of history. On the stage of the world, a wonderful drama is being worked out, set in all the branches of science: the earth - geology; the heavens - astronomy; life - biology; the human body - physiology; and the human mind - psychology. All these things - the world and man and history - are in the foreground. But with Bible in hand the Christian is led behind them all - behind the stage, so to speak, behind the scenes - into the background of these things. He is led into the very presence of God - to God behind it all. Moreover, with Bible in hand the Christian is brought to see that God is a God of purpose, a God of design, a God of plan; a God who has conceived and projected this wonderful design which is being worked out. And, as a third step, the Christian is led, through the Bible, to see that that great design, that great purpose, that great plan, with all the Divine resources for its accomplishment, is all centred and summed up in one Person, God's Son. The whole design, the whole scene, the whole intention, and all the Divine resources, are focused upon one Person; the Son of God. It all concerns Him.

Seven Sections of the Bible

Next, the Christian discovers that, in relation to that God of purpose, and to His great purpose concerning His Son, the Bible falls into seven distinct sections. The first - the Creation - is comprehended in quite a small compass of the record. The Bible has much to say about the creation in relation to the Son of God. In Him, through Him, and unto Him were all things created (Col. 1:16). That is comprehensive!

The second, which we will call the patriarchal section, runs from the fourth chapter of Genesis almost to the close of the book in chapter fifty. We shall look at this more closely in a moment.

A third section, beginning with the book of Exodus, is what we call the Israelitish section. This runs from the beginning of the book of Exodus right to the end of the Old Testament. But it has some sub-sections. There is the priestly sub-section, running from the twelfth chapter of the book of Exodus to the first book of Samuel; the kingly or monarchical sub-section, from the first book of Samuel to the end of the books of Kings and Chronicles, where the kingship is set aside and the people go into captivity; and the prophetical sub-section, which occupies the last quarter of the Old Testament.

The fourth of the main sections of the Bible comprises the Incarnation, the Life, Death and Resurrection, of God's Son.

The fifth, a short but very important section, embraces the forty days after His Resurrection.

The sixth section is the heavenly session of the ascended Lord, with its two aspects - the advent of the Holy Spirit, and the birth, vocation and completion of the Church.

The seventh and final section - the Son coming in His Kingdom - has various aspects and implications and effects, in three particular connections: firstly, in relation to the Church; secondly, in relation to the nations; and thirdly, in relation to Satan and his kingdom.

That comprehends the whole Bible in seven sections. For the present I am going to confine myself to the second and the third, the patriarchal and the Israelitish sections, keeping in mind our object, which is to discover the place and significance of the Lord Jesus in the Divine scheme of things, so that we may come to that adequate knowledge of Him which is essential to spiritual fulness in the Church and in the believer.

The Patriachal Section

In the patriarchal section of the Old Testament, we find seven outstanding personages, who dominate the scene. Seven, as we know, is the biblical number for spiritual fulness or completeness; and, if we rightly understood the significance of these seven men, who were Divinely and sovereignly chosen for this very purpose, we should see that in them God has outlined seven features of His Son, which give a complete spiritual portrait of Him. It is not my intention to follow that out in detail, but I take it up in a general way in relation to our present specific purpose. Here are the seven dominating characters of that period: Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph. Every one of these represents a distinct feature in the drawing of the portrait of Christ.

Abel: the door of Heaven had been closed to Adam, but reopens to a man who was prepared to let go everything in this life in order to serve the thought of God. Cain tried in his own way to get through the door of the garden, but found it closed and barred to man - there was no access. To Abel the closed door of Heaven re-opened: Abel got through because he was prepared to let go everything in this life, and even life itself, in order to correspond to the thought of God. Here we can see an outstanding feature of the Lord Jesus.

Enoch: the man who alone walked with God on this earth when everyone else walked away from or far from God. The Lord Jesus did that, and He was probably the only man who did that in His day. He walked with the Father, as no one else did. And so, when everyone else was walking apart from God, or away from God, Enoch walked with God.

Noah: the man who lived in the light of a coming day of judgment and renewal, and worked in relation to that day. That is a brief and very comprehensive statement. The whole life of Noah was a long-drawn-out business. Tested by time; tested by all appearances which seemed to contradict and deny the line that he had taken; tested perhaps supremely by his utter loneliness, yet he lived and worked through a long life in the light of a day to come - a day of judgment, and a day beyond judgment in renewal. Is not that a picture of the Lord Jesus?

Abraham: the man whose portion alone was the Lord. "Fear not, Abram: I am thy... reward" (Gen. 15:1). That is all. A man deprived of his country and deprived of all foothold in the land of his sojourn, he went up and down that land as "a stranger and a sojourner" (Gen. 23:4), but his portion was the Lord. We are told that he was looking for "a better country... a heavenly"; for "the city... whose builder and maker is God" (Heb. 11:16,10). Abraham's alone portion was the Lord. There is very much more in it than that, but that sums it up. And such was the Lord Jesus. What a lonely life was His, and, so far as things here were concerned, what a life of forgoing, of deprivation! But the Father was His portion, and that was enough for Him.

Isaac: the living embodiment of the fact that there is a life which cheats death of its prey, renders death null and void and leaves it behind, and goes on. Again, that is the Lord Jesus: a life which all the time declares that death is vanquished; and death is cheated; life that goes on and ever on, triumphant over death.

Jacob: a difficult character, Jacob. Yet, when you come to sum up his story, here was a man who came to know the thing which the Lord Jesus knew, and which characterized Him perhaps more than anything else: that it is only the life in the Spirit that is ascendent life. Jacob made a very thorough and exhaustive trial of gaining ascendency in the flesh. The day came when his flesh was smitten, and he was weakened and broken. He discovered in that moment that ascendency is not by the wit and cunning and strength of the flesh, but wholly by the Spirit. The Lord Jesus lived on that principle. God brought Jacob through to the ground of His own Son - the ground of ascendency in the Spirit.

Joseph: he sums up all the others and embodies the great truths of Christ: suffering and glory.

Here, then, in outline, we have God's portrait of His Son. Now remember: it is said that it was by the Son that all things were created (John 1:3; Col. 1:16). The end of the first section, the creation, therefore, is arrived at by the Son. What is He doing after that? It is true that God has entered into His rest - but what is the Son doing? Has the Son sat down and said, 'That is the end of everything'? For the whole of that long period afterward, what is the Son doing? The Son is active in the inculcation of Himself in the lives of those seven men. He is building Himself into their spiritual experience. He is bringing out the lines of His own character in this sevenfold way. The only profitable and right way to study the Patriarchs is to study them in the light of Jesus Christ. They are interesting as human studies, but that will not get you anywhere. If you can see that what God is after, what He has committed Himself to, and what the Son is engaged upon, is to reproduce Himself in the spiritual life of men, then you have something to bring you into a knowledge of Christ that is helpful knowledge, building knowledge, constructive knowledge, knowledge that is power and life.

The Israelitish Section

The next section, the Israelitish period, from Exodus to Malachi, is divided subsectionally into, firstly, the priestly aspect, from Exodus 12 to the first book of Samuel; secondly, the monarchical aspect, from 1 Samuel to 2 Chronicles 36:21; thirdly, the prophetical aspect, from Isaiah to Malachi.

(a) The Priestly Aspect

In order to appreciate the significance of the priestly aspect of the Israelitish section, it is necessary to recognise the Divine meaning in choosing Israel; that is, to recognise Israel's place and nature and vocation. Very much has been said and written regarding the Jewish people, and what a wonderful people they are. They have been called the most wonderful people in history. Comment has been made on what is termed 'the Jewish genius for religion'. I do not so read the Bible! Anything at all wonderful about these people was not due to themselves at all, but wholly to the grace of God.

What the Bible reveals as to the children of Israel is not their 'genius for religion', but the fact that they were a people no better than, if as good as, many others. Their outstanding characteristic was rather a genius for covetousness and selfishness and hard-heartedness and stiffneckedness and murder, if their interests were threatened or their ambitions frustrated. Stephen rightly summed up their history when he said to their leaders in his own time: "Which of the prophets did not your fathers persecute? and they killed them which shewed before of the coming of the Righteous One" (Acts 7:52). "Which of the prophets did not your fathers persecute?" There is a challenge. In that marvellous discourse of Stephen, the whole history of Israel was taken up and presented in very dark lines. Not a genius for religion - very much to the contrary! God's own categorical statement about Israel was: 'I did not choose you because you were better or greater than other peoples' (Deut. 7:7).

Why, then, did God choose such a people? How could such a people come to full acceptance with God and have access to God, stand in His love, draw out all His favour, stir Him to fierce jealousy on their behalf - how could that be with such a people? Let it then at once be recognised that their whole life was based upon the mediatorial principle: a holy priesthood, a holy altar, holy sacrifices and offerings, blood sacrifices of creatures without spot or blemish, meal offerings of very fine-ground flour, meat offerings of that in which the closest inspection could detect no trace of corruption. Everything proclaimed with a loud voice that - not for a wonderful people at all, not for a people with a genius for religion and goodness - but for the chiefest of sinners, the most hopeless of men, the most disobedient, most provocative, most reprobate, most unfaithful people on earth - for such, God has provided a basis for the closest intimacy with Himself! Let anyone who despairs of themselves read Psalm 105, and then, having read it, turn to the Psalms immediately preceeding and following it. In Psalm 105 you have the long-drawn-out, monotonous story of the unfaithfulness and unreliableness of that nation. And yet all the way along He forgave, and He forgave, and He forgave. Why?

The history of Israel can only be read in the light of Jesus Christ. He is the only explanation. Why did God choose Israel? What is their place, their nature, their vocation? Israel is God's great object-lesson of grace: grace providing all that which is lacking in man, but which is essential to fellowship with God. God provides it Himself. Out of the womb of Israel Jesus Christ was born, but He was implicit in the whole priestly order of her history, declaring all the way along: 'It is not your merit or your goodness - it is My perfection.' Israel shows forth - not her own greatness, not her own goodness, not her own genius, but just the greatness of Christ, who, for such as they and such as we, is "made unto us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption" (1 Cor. 1:30). For what purpose? "That no flesh should glory before God" (vs. 29). All the glory comes to Christ. God thought it worth while to take that long section of human history and constitute it in such a way as to set forth, in a people and through a people, to the nations, to the world, to sinful and worthless men, His wonderful grace - His 'grace which is in Christ Jesus' (cf. 1 Tim. 1:14).

(b) The Monarchical Aspect

The monarchy runs from the first book of Samuel to the end of the second book of Chronicles. The supreme factor in the monarchy was that of glory: God's glory manifested, enjoyed and displayed in the people of His grace, - for, as we have seen, they are indeed that. Now, because they are such, they are to be the people of His glory. The throne is the symbol of ascendency, of power, authority, dominion. It was intended to be the expression of a 'glorious high throne' set in the heavens (Jer. 17:12).

Now, as we considered Israel in themselves, so in this connection we have to consider the father and the son in whom the monarchy came to its peak of glory and power - David and Solomon. What shall we say about them?

Consider David. Who is David? What does he think and say about himself, about his past, his present? We are told that David went in and sat before the Lord and said: "Who am I, O Lord God, and what is my house...?" (1 Chron. 17:16). The Lord said to David: "I took thee... from following the sheep" (vs. 7). David - a man of humble and despised beginning, of little account in the eyes of his own brothers, and of less account in his own eyes. David - a man whose faults and weaknesses are written in large letters and not hidden by God. Things which we fain would cover, and which we wish were not in the Bible - acts of murder, treachery, passion - the Spirit of God has had written and preserved for all time. This is not the story of a man who is outstanding for his perfection and moral excellencies. Indeed, there are good things about David, there are wonderful things about David; but God has given this other side. He is a man, and a man compassed by all the weaknesses and passions of humanity; falling into the deep, deep mire of sin - terrible sin; crying out of the mire for deliverance, and eventually praising God that he has been taken from the pit, the horrible pit. But he had been in it.

Then consider Solomon. Think of his beginning, the handicap of his birth, the sin in which he was born, the iniquity in which he was shapen. Have you never felt a shock reading the eleventh chapter of the first book of the Kings? Here is the man for whom God had done everything: the man whom God had endued and endowed with wisdom above all men, with riches and honour and power beyond all precedent; standing out, as he did in those days of his glory, head and shoulders above everyone else by Divine blessing: and yet, with all that God had done, his real nature was revealed, and in that terrible chapter - "Now king Solomon loved many strange women" there begins the story of decline and downfall, the awful tragedy of a man going down into the muck and the mire of human iniquity, leading directly to the division of the kingdom and the terrible line of tragedy in the monarchy, issuing eventually in the exile. That is Solomon. It seems almost unthinkable that such a man should have such a downfall.

And yet God knew all that about Solomon before ever He gave him a first blessing. God knew His man; God knew all that could happen and would happen. What are you dealing with in David and Solomon? Ah, you are dealing with men who were ordinary, common stuff, coming to the peak of power and glory - why? - because of the grace of God. And why did God do it? Why did He give Solomon, as the Scripture says, wisdom and riches and glory and power beyond any man that had ever been before him or should come after him (1 Kings 3:12)? Why did He make the glory of Solomon fabulous? He has become a proverb. If you want to speak of wisdom, riches and glory, you mention the name 'Solomon'. Even the Lord Himself did that: He spoke of "Solomon in all his glory" (Matt. 6:29). Why did God go out of His way to do all that with, and for, David and Solomon?

The answer is found in the New Testament, quite clearly and definitely. Read the passages in the New Testament where David and Solomon are linked with the Lord Jesus. God always had His Son in view. In David and in Solomon God was as it were throwing upon the screen a symbolic presentation of the kingdom of His Son, with all the glory and the blessing that would come to His people through grace, by Jesus Christ. That is the explanation of the period of the monarchy. It has no meaning otherwise. By means of these people God is drawing upon the canvas of history the great truths concerning His Son. He portrays first, in the priesthood, the great truth of redeeming grace: everything is provided to bring a people into His presence in unclouded fellowship. Then, in the monarchy, He draws the picture of what grace will lead to: it leads to glory through Christ Jesus.

(c) The Prophetical Aspect

The third sub-section, the prophetical, falls into two periods: that before the captivity and that after the captivity. Now the prophetic ministry was intended to re-present the full mind of God as to His Son and His people, and through them to the nations. The prophets were the bulwark against the incorrigible downgrade tendency of the people of God. It is always there, this downgrade tendency, even in the Lord's people, and the prophets were the bulwark against that tendency. They either encouraged or combated priests and kings in relation to this matter, and in so doing they stood for the Divine meaning both in the priesthood and in kingship: that is, holiness, incorruptibility, righteousness, and truth. But they were oppressed by the hopelessness of their own immediate times, and so spoke much of a coming day, and a coming Person. The day of that Person was the strength, the hope, and the inspiration of the prophets. For them salvation and glory were in the coming One.

When Jesus put this question to His disciples 'Who do you say that I am?' - they gave answers from public opinion which brought forward the prophetic hope; but to Him this was insufficient. He was the answer to that hope, and so He pressed them for their answer in order to see whether they had arrived at that point.

They had been with Him for some three very full years, in which time they had seen His works, heard His words, known Him in person, in the flesh. The time is finished, and there away up in the North, as He turns His face towards Jerusalem (to be the scene of the last moments of His life here on earth) He probes, He probes with this question: "Who do men say that I the Son of man am?" (Matt. 16:13). Getting a variety of answers as to what men were saying, He brings the question straight home: 'Who do you say that I am?' He is asking, 'What does it all amount to, for you? After all, what does it amount to? You have heard it all, you have seen it all, you have been in touch with it all: now, what does it amount to? What is your apprehension of Me? What is your conclusion? How much have you really seen, after all?'

Now, although Peter gave an answer which in itself satisfied the Lord Jesus, it was a transient, fleeting illumination, for so soon afterwards the man who said it denied his Lord. From the Gospels we are led to one sad conclusion: that, although they had companied with Him in close association, heard all that He had to say and seen all that He had to do, though they had listened to Him and watched Him, they had not really seen Him. Are you thinking, 'That is a terrible thing to say!'? Ah, but there is all the evidence and proof of it. This was not the only time that He exposed their failure to recognise. Just look what happens afterwards, after He has gone and He comes back and visits them here and there, and speaks to them. See their profound and utter ignorance. They had not seen. They knew their Bibles - they knew Moses, they knew the Psalms, they knew the prophets - but they had not seen Him. That is the thing that He makes perfectly clear. And - this is what I am coming to - because they had not really seen, disaster overtook their lives as disciples. That is why they all forsook Him and fled; that is why the leader amongst them denied Him thrice, passionately and vehemently; that is why they are found, after the Cross, scattered and disillusioned and hopeless. They had not really apprehended Him.

I come back then to our main question: the fundamental importance of an adequate apprehension and knowledge of Christ, as born in our hearts by the Holy Spirit. We could sum up by saying that the Bible has but one object from beginning to end, and that is to reveal the mind of God concerning man, with a view to bringing glory to God in man's eternal good. But the one means of that revelation is God's Son. He not only brings God's mind to us - He is God's mind for us. He is not only the Word as an utterance - He is the Word as a Person. Therefore the whole Bible is comprehended and governed by Christ. He answers the one purpose of it all - past, present, future and eternally. Christ is central, Christ is supreme, Christ is universal, Christ is dominant in all. The Christian life will be greater or smaller according to our spiritual apprehension and knowledge of Christ, through what Paul calls 'having the eyes of our hearts enlightened' (Eph. 1:18). Christ is the sum of all things; and the kind of Christians we are and the measure of His fulness to which we shall attain will be determined exclusively by our knowledge of Him.

Chapter 2 - The Essential Seal and Constitution of the Christian Life

Reading: Acts 18:24-19:6a.

"Did ye receive the Holy Spirit when ye believed?"

Let it be said at once that we are not here attempting to expound the person and work of the Holy Spirit, but are seeking to emphasize the importance of the Holy Spirit's personal presence within believers.

The Terms Explained

First let us examine the terms that we are employing in our sub-title, 'The Essential Seal and Constitution of the Christian Life'.

When we use the word 'essential', we are thinking of such a statement as that made by the apostle Paul in his letter to the Romans: "If any man hath not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his" (Rom. 8:9). This clearly indicates that the possession of the Holy Spirit is essential and indispensable to the Christian life.

Then, when we go on to speak of the 'seal', we think of other words such as those used by Paul in his letter to the Ephesians: "Having... believed, ye were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise" (Eph. 1:13). Note that it was the Ephesians to whom was originally put the question: "Did ye receive the Holy Spirit when ye believed?" Upon their testimony of faith, they did receive the Holy Spirit, and, years afterward, the Apostle wrote to them the words that we have just quoted. The word 'sealed' implies 'putting the seal upon a transaction': something quite certain, quite precise, belonging to a moment; a definite act - "ye were sealed with the Holy Spirit".

And then when we go further and speak of the 'constitution' of the Christian life as by the Holy Spirit, we think of such words as those used by the Lord Jesus Himself to Nicodemus: "That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit" (John 3:6): indicating a definite, distinct, different kind of person, one with a different constitution, a person who is constituted in a different way. "That which is born of the Spirit" is different from "that which is born of the flesh". One is flesh, the other is spirit.

Many other Scriptures could be added to these to explain and define our sub-title.

Initial Reception of the Holy Spirit

Now when we come to the passage which we have read, and from which I have taken the question that is placed at the head of this chapter, we find an incident with several features of very great importance. I think we shall see, as we proceed, that this is something of great significance. But first we must translate it correctly. It may be that you have in your hand the old Authorized (or King James) Version. That is very good, but it is not always correct in the sense of being up-to-date. That version reads: "Have ye received the Holy Ghost since ye believed?" Now, the word here in the original text does not mean 'subsequent to your believing'. It does not mean: 'Did you, at some subsequent time after you believed, receive the Holy Spirit?' The Revised Version corrects the translation and says: "Did ye receive the Holy Spirit when ye believed?" And that is correct, and true to the whole teaching and meaning of the New Testament. The point is that believers in the Lord Jesus Christ are supposed to receive the Holy Spirit at the time when they believe, when they definitely exercise saving faith in Him.

(a) What the Passage Records:

The Foundation of a Great Church and of Great Ministries

The importance of this incident is seen in two aspects. Firstly, you note that this is the beginning of a great church - the church at Ephesus. Little need be said, to those who are familiar with the New Testament, by way of emphasizing or proving the importance of the church at Ephesus. It was to that church, as to one of a circle, that the Apostle Paul wrote the greatest document in the history of the world. That is not exaggerating at all. The greatest document that has ever been written is Paul's letter 'to the Ephesians' so-called. It was probably a circular letter to a number of churches, of which Ephesus was one. But no greater letter or document exists. I invite you to investigate it and see if you can exhaust it. It will take you back into eternity past; it will take you through the outworking of the counsels of God through the ages; and it will take you right on into "the ages of the ages", showing you God at work in Heaven, in earth and in Hell, in the whole universe: a mighty, mighty document, written to the church that we see here in our passage coming into being.

Note, then, the place of the Holy Spirit in the foundations. How careful the Apostle was to make sure that the beginning was right, that the foundation was sound! It was going to have to carry an immense superstructure, and it must be trustworthy. Hence to the nucleus of that great church - perhaps only twelve disciples - he puts the question: "Did ye receive the Holy Spirit when ye believed?" Think of the ministry of the Apostle Paul subsequent to this question. For three years he tarried at Ephesus, and at his final interview with the elders or leaders of that church, during the course of his last journey before his imprisonment, he was able to say to them, in retrospect: "I shrank not from declaring unto you the whole counsel of God" (Acts 20:27). For three years, such a man as this was giving out all that he then could give of his knowledge of the Divine counsels.

Here was a church being founded and formed for tremendous purposes and with tremendous capacity. What spiritual capacity it requires to be a church like that - to be able to take all that an apostle such as Paul could give! That is a very testing thing. Those who minister in the Word of God, and in the Holy Spirit, know very well the capacity of their hearers by the liberty that they have to give the message. Sometimes they find themselves limited because their hearers cannot take more. They may not know the people, but they are conscious of the limitation. At other times they find themselves completely released, able without any difficulty to give all that they have. They are moving in the Spirit, and those to whom they minister have capacity.

Now these people at Ephesus had capacity. In those three years they could receive "the whole counsel of God", and later they could receive this matchless letter which the Apostle wrote from his prison. A church with such capacity - and, let me add, Christians with such capacity - must know in a very real way what it means to receive the Holy Spirit. The receiving of the Holy Spirit is the beginning, the foundation, of all the work of building and enlarging.

Paul's ministry was a great ministry here, amongst these believers. Let us recall that Timothy, also, was a minister of the church at Ephesus, and that his ministry was enriched, constituted, inspired, instructed, by Paul himself. Paul was able to say that Timothy had followed his teaching and conduct (2 Tim. 3:10). Yes, Timothy had been in close association with the Apostle, for a long time and over a wide area, and he ministered at Ephesus. And then we remember that the great Apostle John was an elder of the church at Ephesus. What wealth John has given us, in Gospel, Letters and Revelation! What a church this was! What a church it became from these twelve believers! And it all sprang out of the receiving of the Holy Spirit. I commend to you a study of the place of the Holy Spirit in the letter to the Ephesians. He has a very large place in the letter from beginning to end.

(b) What the Passage Teaches

The first aspect of the significance of our passage, then, is the church itself and the ministries that were fulfilled in it. Let us now come to the second aspect - namely, that which the passage teaches. You notice that it can be divided into three sections. The middle section is the Holy Spirit: that is central, that is the focal point of everything. Then on the one side of that you have a section circling around the word 'disciples' - "Paul... found certain disciples" - and on the other side a section circling around the word 'baptism'. You have the Holy Spirit in the centre: then, on the one side disciples, on the other side baptism.

(1) The Work of the Holy Spirit

We must recognise, first of all, that Paul's question concerning the Holy Spirit must have had a good reason. I do not think it was just a casual or formal question - that Paul arrived there and in a quite casual way, without any special point or object, put this question to these people: "Did ye receive the Holy Spirit when ye believed?" We are bound to believe that Paul had a reason, and a very good reason, for asking the question. We are left, of course, to surmise, to conjecture, but the issue of the question shows that Paul had discerned something. He had detected in these disciples some lack. And his discernment enabled him to put his finger right on the spot, as we say.

Now, when Paul puts a question like that, we have to bring to it all that Paul would have brought concerning the Holy Spirit. We should need to go to all his writings, and to his own personal experience, and gather up, if we could, all that Paul knew and all that Paul had experienced as to the place, the work and the importance of the Holy Spirit. And that was no small thing! Paul has set forth what he knew about the Holy Spirit from many different aspects.

(a) Union with Christ

To begin with, Paul has made it clear that without the Holy Spirit there is no union with Christ. Union with Christ is the very heart of Christianity: it is the great, great theme of Paul; and union with Christ is the work of the Holy Spirit. To quote one of his own fragments: "He that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit" (1 Cor. 6:17). All that Paul knew and had experienced about the Holy Spirit focused upon this great matter of union with Christ, and he brought all that into his question. The question could have been put in other ways. Paul could have raised directly the fundamental question of union with Christ. Or he could have spoken of the new creation: Paul has a good deal to say, both directly and by inference, as to a new creation in Christ Jesus. And from these and many other suggestions and indications, we see that Paul thought of the Christian life as a kind of spiritual counterpart to the material creation. He said: "God, that said, Light shall shine out of darkness... shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ" (2 Cor. 4:6). He saw this as the counterpart of the creational act, or Divine fiat, "Let there be light". The spiritual counterpart has taken place in us. In another place you will find that Paul brings in the Holy Spirit in that connection. He changes his metaphor, but keeps to his truth: God has written in our hearts, not with pen and ink, but by the Spirit of the living God (2 Cor. 3:3).

(b) Order and Fruitfulness

Paul has many other allusions to the creation, as he takes it over into the spiritual life. What a lot he made of the power of the Word of God in the life - creative power in the life of the believer! How much he has given us concerning order as a result of the work of the Holy Spirit! At the beginning of the Bible we see order developing or emerging out of the chaos and disruption, under the influence of the brooding Spirit. Now, in the spiritual life, under the influence and power of the Spirit of God in this new creation, the same thing is taking place: a new order is emerging in the life of the believer. And as, out of the barren desolation in which the earth is found at the beginning of the Bible, fruitfulness emerges and develops, so is it, Paul teaches, with the fruit of the Spirit in the life of the believer. "The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness, selfcontrol" (Gal. 5:22,23). Instead of the barrenness of the unbeliever's life, there comes this fruitfulness. It is a work of new creation by the Holy Spirit. And as at the beginning in the material creation we see a progressive development and growth, so Paul has much to say to us about growth and progressiveness under the government of the Spirit of God. A life governed and led by the Spirit is one that goes on developing, growing, increasing in Christ. In a life in which the Holy Spirit is having His way there is no stagnation. Such a life is not the same today as it was a year ago - that would be all wrong. The progressive factor in the new creation, as a part of the work of the Holy Spirit, is made very clear by the Apostle.

(c) Revelation of Man's Destiny

How profoundly and how fully does Paul teach concerning the purpose and the destiny of man! At the beginning of the Bible we have hints that God created man with a great purpose and a great destiny, but Paul divulges it all. He tells us exactly what was in God's thought before He created man or the world - what He intended in creating man - what the destiny of man was to be. All this comes out through Paul. How is this possible? Because the Holy Spirit Himself has revealed it to Paul, and then Paul, by the Holy Spirit, has been enabled to reveal it to us. And by the same Spirit this great Divine work of a new creation is to be carried on to its final fulness. The last thing in the material creation was: "And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good" (Gen. 1:31). God entered into His rest. That is the crowning work of the Holy Spirit: bringing everything ultimately to the pleasure and satisfaction of God - not only bringing God into His rest, but bringing God's rest into His creation.

(d) New Consciousness and Capacities

Paul goes on to say much about the new consciousness of the new-creation man and woman. An entirely new consciousness is given to the believer who receives the Holy Spirit. All that of which such a one was entirely unconscious, now breaks forth into consciousness and becomes the most living reality in the believer's life - such as the consciousness of God as Father, the consciousness of Christ as Saviour, and many other sides and aspects. Every believer who has received the Holy Spirit knows how true this is. There is a new awareness in every realm; there are new capacities for doing and for being what was entirely impossible before. All this relates to the spiritual counterpart of the creation - the new creation that is in Christ Jesus; and it is all accomplished by the indwelling Holy Spirit, just as the material creation was effected by the pervading and brooding Spirit of God.

(e) The Teaching of Jesus

Let us remember, furthermore, that Paul was an inheritor of what Jesus had said regarding the Holy Spirit. Now Jesus had said very much about this matter. At the end of His life here on this earth, the Lord Jesus had taken many hours, apart from the world, apart from the multitudes, to be alone with His disciples. And through those many hours there was one thing about which He was speaking, in one way or another, almost continuously. There was one phrase that was constantly on His lips. "In that day...", He said, "in that day..."; and when you look to see what "that day" was, you find that He was saying: "When he, the Spirit... is come" (John 16:13) - He shall do this and that. It was the coming day of the Spirit. All that Jesus had said about that day, and about what the Spirit would do when He came, Paul had come into, had inherited. Paul had come to know - what the apostles had dreaded, until they knew it - the truth of Jesus' words: "It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you" (John 16:7). Yes, the disciples dreaded His going, but they lived to prove that it was, as He had said, a far, far greater thing for the Spirit to come than for Jesus to remain in the body. Paul had come into the reality of that - into the superior greatness of the Spirit's presence even to the physical presence of the Lord Jesus.

Now Paul knew all that by experience, and he therefore brought all this knowledge, this spiritual knowledge, into the question that he put to them. And how the question grows! What a tremendous question it becomes if it implies all that! All that Jesus taught and meant about the day of the Holy Spirit; all that that same Spirit had done in fulfilling the very words of the Lord Jesus: "He shall guide you into all the truth... He shall take of mine, and shall declare it unto you" (John 16:13,14) - all that had come to Paul. What a wealth we have in Paul's letters about the Holy Spirit! And all that comes into this question: "Did ye receive the Holy Spirit when ye believed?" It is a very big question! Viewed in that light, I doubt whether there is a greater question. What a difference it should make to the Christian life if it is all true!

Let me sum it all up by saying this: The Christian, the believer, who has really received the Holy Spirit, is a supernatural being. The indwelling of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God, and His imparting of eternal life, constitute the believer a supernatural being, a being who has something within of a supernatural character, distinguishing him from all others. It is a deathless life. To receive eternal life means that there is that within which transcends the natural order, making the recipient an eternal being, in the Divine sense, linked with Heaven and linked with eternity. And the Church in which this is true, which has truly received and is indwelt by the Holy Spirit, is a supernatural Body; there is no power in this universe which can destroy it. History has proved that and will prove it to the end. Let men and devils combine against this Church: no matter - it will remain; it is supernatural.

(2) Disciples

In the second Place, we find 'disciples' mentioned here. "Paul... found certain disciples". They would no doubt have been people who were bearing the name 'Christian': they would have classed themselves as such and would probably have been referred to as Christians. And yet they were people who, while being called disciples, were yet without the fundamental essential of the Christian life. What were they? I think the answer is to be found in Apollos, the Jew from Alexandria, who had recently arrived in Ephesus and had previously come into touch with the ministry of John the Baptist concerning Jesus. We are told here that he had been 'instructed by word of mouth' [katecheo] (Acts 18:25). Now, what was John's vocation? John's vocation was to prepare the way of the Lord, to lead on and point on to Jesus. What was John's message? Repentance in view of the imminent coming of the Messiah. 'Repent!', said John. But John had definite limitations. Said he: "I... baptize you in water... he that cometh after me... shall baptize you in the Holy Spirit". (Matt. 3:2,11 A.S.V.) That represents a very great difference.

Now Apollos had got all that, and probably some extra teaching about Jesus, apparently at second hand ('by word of mouth'). In the main, Apollos ended where John ended: that is, he was without a personal experience of the work of the Holy Spirit through baptism into Jesus Christ. He had, nevertheless, some particular values on the positive side. We are told that he was "mighty in the scriptures" (Acts 18:24): which I take to mean that he had an unusually wide and deep knowledge of the Old Testament Scriptures about the coming Messiah - what we call the 'Messianic Scriptures' - all of which pointed toward the Christ; all of which rang out the note of preparation, and especially of repentance, for the Christ was coming. John baptized with a baptism of repentance in preparation for the Christ and His kingdom: but there he stopped and could do no more. And Apollos seems to have stopped there too. Perhaps he was a mightier man in the Old Testament Scriptures than even John the Baptist, but with all his knowledge of the Scriptures he fell short of the experience of the Holy Spirit. And therefore, according to the law of ministry, he could not lead these disciples further than he himself had gone.

But Aquila and Priscilla, that fine Christian couple who had accompanied Paul to Ephesus from Corinth, soon detected the flaw and the lack, and took him and expounded to him the way of God more carefully (vs. 26b). His ministry enlarged greatly after that. Soon afterwards he left Ephesus and crossed over to Corinth, and it is interesting to follow the wonderful ministry of Apollos from this point. But I just mention it for this reason: that when Apollos got beyond John the Baptist to the real meaning of the Holy Spirit and of baptism into Christ, it made an immense difference to his ministry. Paul was able to say: "I planted, Apollos watered" (1 Cor. 3:6), and much more. That is no small thing. It illustrates the vital importance of having the Holy Spirit. Now these disciples knew nothing about the Holy Spirit. Although they had dwelling in their midst a man mighty in the Old Testament Scriptures, and familiar with the teaching of John the Baptist and his baptism, they could not be led any further by him. They knew nothing vital concerning the way of the Lord, although such a man had been ministering to them.

These disciples, then, represented a kind of parenthesis, an interlude, a discontinuity; something held in suspense, as it were, between John the Baptist and Jesus. And I am not sure that there are not many such disciples today, suspended in that gap. Yes, they know something of the Bible; they know something about Jesus. They have been 'taught by word of mouth'. But I fear there are multitudes of those who have the name 'Christian', and who would be called, or would wish to be called, disciples, who have no real, personal experience of receiving the Holy Spirit. They belong to this kind of parenthetical Christianity. It has not gone through, not gone right on; it has stopped, it is a discontinuity. But these at Ephesus did go on, as the record shows us - they did bridge the gap.

(3) Baptism

We now turn briefly to the third matter - that of baptism. For it was up to that that the Apostle led them. From their reply, "We did not so much as hear whether the Holy Spirit was", we are not quite sure whether they meant that they had not heard that there was such a thing or person as the Holy Spirit, or that they had not heard whether the Holy Spirit had come. But it is not of great importance. It is perfectly evident that they knew nothing about the Holy Spirit. And so Paul says, 'Well, then, into what were you baptized?' That is the point upon which the big question turns. "Did ye receive the Holy Spirit when ye believed? ...Into what then were ye baptized?" These two things go together; the one question is within the other - the one resolves itself into the other. "Into what... were ye baptized?"

What, then, we have to ask, did baptism into Christ mean? To put it in another form: Why did the Holy Spirit wait for that testimony? And in answering this question we touch the greatest things in the Christian life. Here we really do come to the 'seal' and the 'constitution' mentioned in our title. I do not mean that baptism is that, but look behind it and see what it really meant. You have to go a long way back to answer the question, What did baptism into Christ mean? You have to go right back to the beginning. What was it that happened in the garden, when man disbelieved God? When man, at the suggestion of Satan, disobeyed God, he opened as it were a door into his own being - a door into which Satan put his foot, and from which he has never withdrawn it. Through man opening himself to Satan, Satan got a purchase in man's soul, obtained a foothold in the very heart of man, upon which all the evil powers have fulfilled the work of Satan in man and through man ever since.

Make no mistake about this: the soul of the unregenerate man and woman is in alliance with the evil powers. It is not a matter of how conscious you are of it. Try to get away and turn to the Lord Jesus, and you will become aware that you are not as free as you thought you were, you have not the ability that you thought you had. You will wake up to the fact that you are a prisoner, and that, unless a mighty deliverer and rescuer comes to you, there is no escape. That foothold was given; that alliance and link with Satan was formed; and it remains. The soul of the unregenerate is linked with Satan, and the evil powers fulfil all the purposes of Satan in the life.

What is the way out? The only way out is through death. God pronounced that upon man. "In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die" (Gen. 2:17). "The soul that sinneth, it shall die" (Ezek. 18:4). But "one died for all" (2 Cor. 5:14). Jesus took the place of the sinner, and died that death; and in His death He broke that link, He severed that union: He stripped off the principalities (Col. 2:5); He 'nullified him that had the power of death, that is, the devil' (Heb. 2:14b). One died for all. Baptism is our testimony, the believer's testimony to the double fact that, in the death of Christ, the man in union with Satan has been removed and Satan with him, and that, in resurrection-union with Christ, the Holy Spirit constitutes inwardly a new relationship. Death is the great divide. Resurrection is the great new union. Through this new link or union, Christ and His Kingdom operate. All the purposes of God are realised - but only realised through and upon the ground of this union effected by receiving the Holy Spirit.

Chapter 3 - The Vital Value of Understanding the Word of God

Reading: Acts 8:1b,4,5,26-39.

"Understandest thou what thou readest?"

We have called these meditations 'Fundamental Questions of the Christian Life', which means that we are seeking to get to the real foundation and nature of the Christian life, to understand what the Christian life really is meant to be. Whatever may be the argument (and I am quite conscious that much argument might arise out of what will be said here, for very much argument has already circled around this question), it will always return to one matter, and it should be that one matter that governs and influences the argument. The one matter is: the question of absolute satisfaction with the Christian life.

If you are perfectly satisfied with your Christian life, if you are satisfied that Christianity as it is in this world today is an absolutely satisfactory thing, then there is no point in a book such as this. But if we are not wholly satisfied with our Christian life - that is, if we realise the need for something more, something fuller; if we feel that, speaking quite generally, Christianity as we know it in the world is not quite what it should be; if we deplore all these disruptive elements, all these divisions, all this atmosphere of suspicion and criticism, and so on - if we feel like that at all, then we are surely under the necessity of trying to find out the better way, the remedy. It is incumbent upon us to seek to discover the cause of the much disappointment which exists in the hearts of so many Christians, disappointment with Christianity as we know it.

Do we, in the first place, find some explanation in the matter of our first consideration: an adequate apprehension of Christ? May not an inadequate apprehension of Christ lie at the root of much disappointment and many conditions which we deplore?

Do we, moreover, find some explanation in our second consideration: Did ye receive the Holy Spirit when ye believed? May it not be that some misunderstanding, some confusion, some uncertainty about this matter of the indwelling Holy Spirit, with all that that ought to mean, lies at the root of many of our troubles?

And now, thirdly, may it not be that the state of spiritual weakness, defeat, ineffectiveness, unfruitfulness, and many more positive elements which are quite unsatisfactory, can be traced to this: not really understanding the Word of God? We must now investigate this question. Let me say that we are not setting out to prove the inspiration of the Scriptures. That is assumed.

What we are concerned with is to emphasize and explain the necessity for understanding the Scriptures. We underline the word understanding.

Stopping Short With the Bible

For a large majority of Christians, the Bible is a book of passages to comfort them in time of trouble, to encourage them in days of depression, to give them promises for the future when the present is difficult, or to help them to decide their course in a time of perplexity. In a word, the Bible is for many a matter of the personal day-by-day life in seeking to do God's will. We open our Bibles perhaps in the morning, to get something to help us for the day - a promise, a bit of comfort, a bit of light, just something to help us through; and we do that every day. Perhaps we do it a little more diligently when things are a little more stressful: when things are not like that, perhaps we are not so diligent about the Word! Forgive me if that is a misjudgment, but I think that for many Christians the Bible resolves itself into that and not much more.

Now do not misunderstand me: I am not saying that that is wrong - that the Bible is not for that. It is for that! That is right and good, as we all know. But in this matter, as in many other matters, we stop short.

In the matter of salvation, for instance - our own as well as other people's - we so often stop short, as though that were an end in itself. Get people converted, get them to make a decision for Christ, get them to come to the Lord - put it how you will - and that is that. It is all done. Get on with others. Salvation is an end in itself. And yet, that is only the first step on a mighty highway of ever greater fulnesses.

In the same way we stop short with our Bibles. In these quite valuable, profitable and necessary things which I have mentioned, we fail to recognise that the Bible is not ultimately for that. If the Bible gives us comfort, gives us light, gives us guidance, gives us hope, gives us some uplift, on occasions, in the thought of God that is all related to something infinitely more. It is related by God to a vast, eternal purpose. You are to get your guidance, your help, your comfort, your light, your promise, whatever it may be, not just for the day or the hour or the moment, in order to get you over the stile that is immediately before you. It is intended by God to get you on the way of a great purpose which has been formed by Him in Divine counsels before this world was. The Word of God is a vastly greater thing than a set of encouraging sayings, comforting words: there is a purpose behind the whole, and every part, in the intention of God, relates to something more than itself. That we must recognise before the Bible can really become alive.

Eternal Design and Central Person

All that is in this book is of one piece. It is linked up with one great eternal design, which relates, not to so many individual Christians as such, but to a whole, Body, chosen by God in Christ before the corporate foundation of the world. It is only as we come into line with this that the Bible will really fulfil its purpose in our lives. Otherwise - well, we may go through a day helped by something that we read, a promise or a word of comfort; it may help us very blessedly over today - but is that all? Surely there is more to it than that!

Individuals will only become enlarged unto all the fulness of God's purpose as they come into relationship with one another in that purpose: and the Bible is for that.

Yes: every promise, every bit of comfort, every bit of exhortation or light, is an integral part of a great design - and that design is centred in one Person - God's Son. If any part of the Scriptures fails to lead us into some greater knowledge of the Lord Jesus, it has failed of the very purpose for which it is there! You see, we are in keeping with our passage: "Understandest thou what thou readest?" Where does the answer lead you? It leads you to Christ. The understanding of the Scriptures is a matter of bringing us to understand Christ. The answer is found in a Person.

Now, we must recognise that, in this matter of knowing the Word of God, knowing the Scriptures and understanding what we read, there is a factor which is 'extra' and 'other'. That comes out very clearly in the instance before us. This incident in which we have our question is 'bigger than itself'. In itself it provides us with all the factors that we need for our consideration. But it is representative of a far bigger situation than itself - a situation which has a very large place in the Word of God and in Christian experience. "Understandest thou what thou readest?" This is a very pertinent and proper question. It really implies no lesser questions than these: 'Does the Bible live to you? Is the Word of God a mighty dynamic in your life? Is it the voice of God to you? Is God all the time speaking by this to you?'

Let us look at this incident, which will itself lead us out into the larger consideration. Firstly, we will look at the man who, I think we can say, is the occasion of what is here - the Ethiopian. Then we will look at that which met his need, and then at the implications of bringing these two together.

A Man in Need

Firstly, then, the man - the Ethiopian - and his need. Let us get his full-length portrait, as far as we can. Firstly, he is a man of high position and achievement in this world. He is a man who is successful, who has attained to a place of great honour. He is a man, evidently, of no mean learning. He has been up to Jerusalem to worship, probably at one of the feasts, which implies that he understood the language used there by the Jews - Hebrew or Aramaic; and then he was also versed in Greek, because the passage which is quoted here from Isaiah is quoted from the Septuagint - the Greek translation of the Old Testament. For an Ethiopian that indicates a wide range of intelligence and a considerable degree of learning and knowledge.

Then, he was evidently a devoutly religious man, doubtless a Jewish proselyte, for we are told that he had made the long journey to Jerusalem in order to worship. But because he was a eunuch, labouring under a veto in the Old Testament, he was strictly forbidden to enter within a certain area of the Temple. I mention that, because it might well have put him off. As a proselyte of the gate, beyond a certain point he would meet a closed door. That might have discouraged him and kept him away: but such is his devotion that he undertakes the long journey to Jerusalem, in spite of the handicap and the seeming rebuff he would meet at the Temple. He goes up to worship.

Then, having taken his long journey, in his honesty and devout sincerity, he returns, clearly a disappointed man. He has been to the very headquarters of the learning and teaching of the Scriptures, to the very centre of Bible interpretation. He is returning, still in quest of something to satisfy his heart, without the real joy of having discovered. That is made perfectly clear, is it not, by the issue of this incident? There is something still eluding him, beyond his grasp, beyond his understanding.

But that is not all about him. Clearly he was a truly humble man; he was not frustrated by his own self-sufficiency - for there is nothing more frustrating to spiritual understanding than self-sufficiency. The man or the woman who 'knows it all' is a frustrated person; they are not going to get through. But here is a truly humble man, conscious of his need, and ready to confess it, knowing his ignorance and having no compunction or hesitation in letting it be known that he is ignorant in this matter. "How can I, except some one shall guide me?"

Moreover, he is a man with a Bible which is a closed book. He has a Bible, though it be the Old Testament only - it might only be the Prophets - but it is still the Bible. He had his Bible open before him, and was reading it, but it was nevertheless a closed book.

Finally, he is a man prepared to obey, ready without any hesitation to follow the light when it comes. That is, I think, the measure of the man, the life-size portrait.

Many of these things might be thought to be great advantages, providing a sure, positive ground of knowing and understanding - and yet he was still in the dark! Some of those things, of course, are essential to coming to the light, but not all of them. You can do without high position, great attainments, the achieving of ambitions; you can do without great education and natural intelligence, and still get the light. On the other hand, unless you have some of them, you will not get the light. A really humble spirit, that is teachable, open to learn, and a preparedness to obey when it comes, are essential. Nevertheless, all put together, they do not constitute a guarantee of understanding. There is an 'extra', and an 'other', factor, without which all those things still leave you, Bible in hand, in the dark.

The Meeting of the Need

I said that this incident was 'bigger than itself'. It is something which contains the essence, but it is something which represents a very much larger situation than itself. This is here in the Word of God because it touches a large and persistent situation in Christianity. Just as the Ethiopian embodies certain principles, so also Philip, when he arrives on the scene, is not just a passing figure who comes and goes. Philip embodies some very far-reaching spiritual principles, just as the Ethiopian did. Philip is more than a person, coming on to the scene and passing off again; he is the embodiment of great spiritual truths for all time.

The Man in the Glory

Now, we must step behind the incident. You notice the setting of it. Though so vital, so important, so significant, this incident is but a part of the onward movement of the exalted Christ in relation to the Church and to the world. Until we recognise this, we are without the key as to what it is and what it represents. The exalted Christ is continuing. At the beginning of this book, Luke refers to his earlier work as being the account of "all that Jesus began both to do and to teach, until the day in which he was received up" (Acts 1:1,2). This book of the Acts as we have often said, records what He continues to do and to teach after He is received up. That is quite true. The Lord does not stop. He goes on. The march of the Lord in the earth, in the world, in relation to the Church, is still forward with mighty, dynamic force.

And behind the book, behind the doings recorded here, is the One who is doing. He has not only been lifted up on the Cross: He has been lifted up to the glory, and He is drawing all men to Himself. That is the issue all the time. The issue of every doing, every incident in this book is: Himself, Himself. He is pressing on with that. It is Christ - now in His right place, in the glory, at the right hand of the Majesty in the heavens, as Lord of all - who is governing all these events. That is the setting here. It is the sovereign movement of the Spirit of Christ. Figures come and go on the scene - an Ethiopian, a Philip, and how many more - but there is one overruling Figure, the shadow of a Man in the background, governing, manoeuvring, moving by His Spirit every one and everything in this book.

A Man Under the Control of Heaven

Philip, then, comes under the Spirit's government, which means that he comes under the government of the exalted Christ. That is clear, is it not? There is an interchange of words which we will not stop to discuss. 'An angel said to Philip...' 'The Spirit said to Philip...' Whether that means two things or one does not matter very much. Angels and the Holy Spirit are in co-operation. The letter to the Hebrews tells us that angels are 'ministering spirits, sent forth to minister to the heirs of salvation' (Heb. 1:14). We see here the co-operation of heavenly intelligences in this matter. Philip is under the government and control of the Holy Spirit, of the exalted Christ.

Now note that Philip is a man with but one interest in life - a very important contributing factor to the issue, to the answer to the question, "Understandest thou what thou readest?" Here is a man under the government of Christ, under the mastery of the Holy Spirit: so much so that he has no other interest in life. We could almost resolve the whole matter into that, though it is only a part. But understanding of the Word of God in such a way that it lives, gloriously and growingly lives, becomes a dynamic force in the life, and leads on to the fulness of Christ, will only be on this principle - that you and I are not people of two interests in life. It is essential that we have only one interest.

Look at Philip's history. The Church has been born in the mighty vibrant activities of the Spirit, in the onward march of the ascended Lord. Difficulties arise in certain practical matters, and the Apostles cannot withdraw from a great movement of the Spirit to handle these matters of temporal consideration. They call upon the Church to look them out certain men for that purpose: it does so, and they choose seven - men "full of the Spirit and of wisdom" (Acts 6:3) - of whom Philip is one. Philip first comes into view as one of a group of men appointed to look after the gifts of the Christians in relation to poor saints. You call that menial, perhaps; you would hardly think that a man full of the Holy Ghost and wisdom was required for that! But such men were required, even for that. Philip's history marks him out as a man of spiritual capacity. He is not a little man - he is spiritually a big man; and yet he is prepared to accept a job that you might think anybody could do - to give the few pence or shillings to some poor widows who were in need. Being the man that he was, spiritually so large, he put it all into that, without bad feeling, without revolt, without reservation, without question.

Then came the persecution through Saul, and the scattering. What became of the widows, I do not know, but I know what became of Philip. Philip was one of those that were scattered abroad, and he went down to Samaria, and preached the Christ (Acts 8:4,5). And we know that great things happened. Now came another test of the quality of Philip. In the midst of this onward pressing of the mighty Lord, in the onward sweep of the Spirit in this irresistible tide, Philip is suddenly spoken to. Without any explanation, promise, assurance or anything else, he is told to leave it all and go far off into the country, in a direction which was desert. Such an injunction is a good test of whether a man has two interests in life: whether his heart is divided, or single. But here is a man of only one thought, one purpose, an undivided heart. We read of no controversy whatever, but instant obedience. Notice this principle of instant obedience: it implies such a total abandonment to the Lord that you are ready to do anything and everything He says, whether you understand it or not. The Lord has got you - the Lord has got your heart; you have no argument with Him about His ways with you.

That, then, is Philip: a man just governed by the Spirit, quite evidently; not only filled with the Spirit, but taught by the Spirit. He stands out in contrast to so many: not only to the Ethiopian, and all those to whom the Ethiopian had been for light and who were unable to give it, but more than that, in contrast to the very Apostles themselves as they were before Christ, by the Spirit, opened their understanding that they might understand the Scriptures (Luke 24:45). Something has happened to Philip. He is a man taught of the Spirit, his eyes have been opened; and so he can bring understanding and light in the Scriptures where it is needed. In a word, this man's need in the desert was met through an instrument that was absolutely abandoned to the Holy Spirit.

The Dispensation of the Spirit

What, now, are the implications of bringing these two together? Firstly, and pre-eminently, the fact of the nature of the new dispensation - the dispensation of the Spirit. A new dispensation has been ushered in and inaugurated. The Holy Spirit is the characteristic of this dispensation, and everything, so far as God is concerned, rests upon that fact. There is to be nothing other than by the Spirit; everything is to be only by the Spirit. This is a dispensation shut up to the Holy Spirit. We shall not get anywhere in relation to the things of God until we recognise and accept that. The real significance of this incident, and of all others, is that it is a part of the peculiar movement from Heaven in this dispensation - the movement of the Holy Spirit in relation to the exalted Christ.

That is the great principle of spiritual understanding: that is the 'extra', and that is the 'other'.

It is the 'extra' to all the best of education, of achievement, of position, of everything else that we have mentioned. A man may have it all, and still be in the dark! It is 'extra' to the letter of the Word - it is of the Spirit. The Word can still be a closed book, even when you have memorized it from beginning to end (if you can do that). When you can quote and cite, freely and largely, from its pages; when you know its content, its subjects, its themes; when you know immediately where to look for any given passage or subject, it may still be a closed book. That is a fact, and that fact explains a very great deal. The 'extra' to everything, whether it be large or small, great or little, is the Holy Spirit.

And it is the 'other' - something different. By these means of education and knowledge, human ability, you may arrive at certain conclusions. You may say that on this or that matter the Bible teaches so-and-so. Yes, but a hundred others say it teaches on those very same things something different - you may take any one Christian doctrine today and get many different interpretations. That is Christian theology! Which is right? Where is final authority? Now, you see, the Holy Spirit may altogether change our conclusions and make us see that on our strongest convictions we are at fault. Once He gets an opportunity, He may upset all our 'final positions' of biblical interpretation, doctrine and theology. He is 'other'. We come to that again in a moment.

But the Holy Spirit is particularly concerned with the Word of God; He is bound and committed to the Scriptures. There is no revelation extra to the Scriptures, but there is a vast amount of undisclosed light in the Scriptures, at the disposal of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit, with His concern and commitment to the Word of God, is in quest of such as the Ethiopian. That is a most important significance which arises out of this incident. The Holy Spirit took the initiative in this matter. Philip would never, never have thought of this. The Holy Spirit was in quest of people such as this man on his lonely desert journey. It was by the Spirit that the question was put to him and the interpretation given which brought the great crisis in his life "...Thou readest", "...what thou readest" - "Understandest thou what thou readest?" Yes, the Spirit was in quest of people like that, and He still is. It is because they are so few and far between - like this man in the desert, with probably miles between him and the next one - that there is such a poor state generally in the Church. If only the Spirit could find more people like this, what a different situation would obtain!

The Root Principle of the Cross

Now, I wonder if we can discern that in all this the Holy Spirit was acting and operating upon one principle. This is the fundamental significance of this incident - something that throughout is never specifically mentioned, but that emerges as we meditate upon it. When the Holy Spirit is in action, He never gets away from this one thing - namely, the Cross. He was acting all the time on the principle of the Cross. The Cross is the mighty, devastating counter to the chief root-evil in mankind - pride. The principle of the Cross is selfless concern for what is of God and what is of God alone. There was here a readiness, on the part both of the Ethiopian and of Philip, at any cost, without a second thought or consideration, to obey light. This man might well have said to himself, 'Well, when I get back, what will the Queen say - what will the men in the court say? If I tell them that I have become a baptized Christian, a follower of Jesus Christ, I am in for it!' But the principle of the Cross means no place for secondary considerations. You can see it in Philip: he was an utterly crucified man. You can see it in the Ethiopian: the principle of the Cross was already there, though he knew nothing about the Cross, and it gave the Holy Spirit something to work upon.

And here we find the focus of the whole question. There will be no light of this kind, no understanding of this kind, no coming through out of shadows, darkness, half-light, into the full blaze of Divine illumination, until the Cross has effected in us death to our own intellects. If we are going to argue, to project our reasoning faculties into this thing, the Holy Spirit will stand back - He will not commit Himself. We shall go on in that circle, round and round and round, in everlasting weariness, never arriving. The Cross must come right home to our intellects. That is the full force of the first chapters of Paul's first letter to the Corinthians. There you have two things placed over against each other. On the one side, the wisdom of the world (and what wisdom it was - no mean thing) on the other side, the wisdom which is from above - "Things which eye saw not, and ear heard not, and which entered not into the heart of man" (1 Cor. 2:9); and in between, "Christ crucified" (chapter 1 verse 23).

In the same way, the Cross must deal with our hearts - our affections, our desires, our attachments - and with our interests here in this world, our consideration of how things are going to affect us, how we stand to gain or lose by any course taken. If we have any such considerations, the Holy Spirit will stand back. There will be no light for such people.

And the Cross must deal with our wills. It is so clear from this account that the man, instantly the way was pointed out to him, 'jumped at it', as we say. How Philip had arrived at baptism through Isaiah 53, I leave you to consider; but he had got there, and the Ethiopian, with his openness of heart, his readiness of spirit, his will poised to do the right thing when it became clear to him, said, 'Look - water! Why shouldn't I...?' Most people say, 'Why must I?' This man said, 'Why may I not?' There is all the difference of disposition, and the disposition has come under the power of the Cross, for all that will determine the issue.

This man came out and came through. There is something very precious about this, something to take note of, as another implication. When the Spirit caught away Philip, what did the eunuch say? 'How am I going to get on without him? I dare not go back without him!'? No, it was as though it did not matter in the least, for he now had Philip's Lord within. The same Spirit was in him as was in Philip, and, in a right way, a proper way, he was standing on his own feet, independent of all external props and nurses. This is the kind of Christian we want to find! "He went on his way rejoicing." The heart quest has been met, the light has come.

A much larger incident of the same kind is that presented to us in the twenty-fourth chapter of the Gospel by Luke. Those two on the Emmaus road were but representative of this whole class to which the Ethiopian belonged: those possessing a Bible - yes, and knowing its content - but to whom it remained a closed book until the risen Lord opened the understanding. But it is the will of the risen Lord to do that. As I said earlier, the question is quite a proper one: "Understandest thou what thou readest?" Is it an open book or a closed one? a living one or a dead one? a dynamic one or an ineffective one? a weariness or a joy? That is all gathered into this question. But remember, this is the dispensation of the Spirit. He has come committed to the Word in relation to the risen Christ; and through the Word - through Isaiah 53, and through all the rest - He will bring you to the Christ.

Chapter 4 - The Imperative Dynamic of Christian Service

Reading: John 21:15-17.

"Lovest thou me?"

In reading these verses, it is difficult not to believe that the Lord Jesus had in mind something that happened earlier, and was probably referring to it. I mean the incident recorded in Matthew 26:33: "Peter answered and said unto him, If all shall be offended in thee, I will never be offended." "Lovest thou me more than these?"

There are four main aspects of the Christian life - of course, with many subsidiary aspects. We have been considering three of them, and shall make reference to them again shortly. These three lead up to the fourth, and find their expression in it. This fourth aspect is service. Service is the great inclusive issue of everything. You notice that all four of the Gospels head up to commission and service. Service is the issue, therefore, of the three-and-a-half years of our Lord's ministry, and especially of the relationship subsisting between Himself and the disciples during that period. All that which He had said to them, all that which He had allowed and caused them to see, had this matter of service in view. He was working toward the day when He would have gone to Heaven and would continue His work through them. He was laying the foundation for that service. Everything had testimony in the world in view.

Now that word 'service' is greatly misunderstood and misinterpreted. It is usually confined to certain specific forms. People speak of 'going into Christian service', or 'the Lord's work', or some such expression, by which they mean some specific activity - either to be a 'missionary' abroad, or a 'minister' at home, or some other particular form of Christian work. But that is a misinterpretation of the word 'service'.

In the New Testament, service is contemplated in relation to the Church: individual service is always a related matter. It is the Church that is here to fulfil the ministry, and individuals are never looked upon in the New Testament as having detached, unrelated service. The great comprehensive conception is that of the Church as the Body of Christ. Immediately you contemplate that, your ideas of service must be completely revolutionised. For in a physical body the majority of the functions are not specific at all, but are vital, essential, indispensable. The whole service of the body depends upon them: the comparatively few specific functions can only possibly operate and fulfil their office by way of the countless unspecified functions of the body. And that is the New Testament conception of the Church and the Church's vocation.

We need, therefore, to reconsider this matter of service, because when we relegate the work to certain people only, we forget, or overlook, the fact that it is impossible to be in the Body of Christ and not have a function. Everyone is supposed to be a functional part of the Church. Nothing is independent, unrelated, or separate.

Peter: A Representative Servant

Let us now look at the basis, constitution, and dynamic of service. In this we are going to be much helped by Peter. You notice that the fourth Gospel, the last of all to be written, closes with an incident involving Peter in relation to the matter of service. Peter is a representative servant: he embodies all the essentials of a true servant of Jesus Christ. And in a very real sense Peter represented the Church. We shall therefore allow Peter to interpret this matter for us, as we consider him - the man himself, his training, and his dynamic of service.

It is possible, of course, to allow Peter to be completely overshadowed by the Apostle Paul. If that has happened, I would suggest a very profitable piece of work: that is, to collect together every passage in the New Testament where Simon Peter occurs, noting both what was said to him, and what he said. If you put all those fragments together, you will find that you have quite a rich biography, and you will have a very good manual of instruction in the matter of service. Peter was the first of the disciples to be called by the Lord; he always thereafter held the foremost place among the disciples; and here he is the last individual to be mentioned in the Gospels. Peter has a very large place in the New Testament, a very important place. Upon him hung some of the greatest crises in the history of the early Church.

The Man Himself

We look at the man himself, because we can only recognise the spiritual principles of service as we are able to recognise the man. You will understand what I mean by that as we go on. If you get a full-length portrait of Simon Peter, and watch him with the Gospels in your hand, you will begin to learn a very great deal about the principles of Christian service.

Simon Peter could never be present anywhere without it being known. If ever there was an opportunity to speak or to act, he took it. His tongue, his hands and his feet often ran away with his judgment. His soul on the emotional and volitional side predominated, and very often left his judgment waiting for an opportunity to assert itself, later on, to his discomfiture! Peter was capable of tremendous variations - from height to depth - from the highest exaltation to the lowest depression and despair. This man was never neutral. He never dealt in neutral colours; you could always distinguish him quite clearly. No man of all those associated with our Lord was so often corrected, and yet so irrepressible. His motives were right, his intentions were good; but he was always just saying the wrong thing and doing the wrong thing.

You notice that with Simon Peter the personal pronouns were much in evidence: and yet with all this there is no trace of vice. When you sum it all up, you have to say some things that may sound unkind; but it is just here that we are on the way to understanding what true service for Christ will mean. The things which stand out in the case of Simon Peter - self-confidence, self-sufficiency, self-assertiveness - are all because of self-ignorance. The Lord Jesus Himself, at the end of this chapter in which our question is found, puts it in three words: "When thou wast young, thou girdest thyself, and walkedst whither thou wouldest". Those last three words sum up Peter: "whither thou wouldest". That is the man in brief. Such a man, if he were going to be of any use to the Lord, would have to go through a very hard school. If he was to be constituted according to the greatest Servant that God ever had - the Lord Jesus - something very drastic must happen.

Need for Self-Discovery

What was his greatest need? To begin with, it was self-discovery, followed by loss of self-trust. And those were the very things that happened in the hard school of experience into which Simon Peter was put by his Lord. For the truth is this: that all who are going to be of real service to the Lord must be brought, sooner or later, to the place where they lose all trust in themselves. Before they can do the work for which they have been brought into this world, the work for God and the work of God, they will have to come to the place where they have lost all self-trust. Peter teaches us that lesson, perhaps, above all others, in relation to service.

See this man on the day of Pentecost. Is that service? Is he now a servant of Jesus Christ? See him in the house of Cornelius - another great turning-point in the history of Christianity. See him in the Council of Jerusalem: hear what he says and how he is deferred to. "Simon hath said..." This man emerged as a great servant of Jesus Christ - but only in virtue of having emerged from this deep and terrible experience in which he lost his self-trust.

If you have read this twenty-first chapter of John in a version that brings out the different words that were used by the Lord and by Peter for 'love', you may have wondered why it was that Peter baulked at the word that the Lord was using, and refused to use it. When the Lord Jesus said, "Lovest thou me?", He used the highest word that could be used for 'love', but Peter answered with another word of a lower order altogether. Why would he not rise to the word that the Lord was using? I think that he had lost his self-trust; that he was remembering: "If all shall be offended in thee, I will never be offended" (Matt. 26:33) - and then the denial. Had something in him been touched and weakened and broken, that made him feel, 'I dare not declare myself to be on that highest level of love'? I may be wrong, but I seem to discern that. But at length the Lord Himself came down to Peter's level, and took him up on his own ground with the lower word, as if to say: 'All right: if you can only go so far, well, go as far as you can. Commit yourself to that! I will take you up on that; I will go on with you on that.' Whether that interpretation is true or not, there is little doubt that Peter had been touched on his strong point of self-assurance and self-confidence, and was a broken man in that realm. And therefore, becoming the servant that he did become, he says to us: 'That is the way of service. That is the first law.'

That may sound hard, but it ought to sound comforting. Are you having a bad time? If as you aspire to be of some use to the Lord, if you find yourself being emptied and broken, and taken through a hard school where you feel that you cannot stand up to it all, remember, that is the way of service. If you have any degree of self-confidence, if you think that you can 'do it', if you can 'do all the talking', if you are the first to take things into your hands, let me say: You will not be of service to the Lord until that is dealt with! No; we have to come to the place where we cannot and we will not, unless compelled by Another and not driven by our own impulses.

Peter's need was of a Master. But, in order to have a Master, a man like that has to be utterly broken. And that happened to Peter. Not only is it recorded that he went out and wept bitterly, after his terrible failure and breakdown and in his self-discovery, but it is recorded that the risen Lord, after sending a message to His disciples, then specified that it should be conveyed to Peter. The heavenly messenger said: "Go, tell his disciples and Peter..." (Mark 16:7). One thing that impresses you in those resurrection appearances of the Lord Jesus is how He knew all that was going on. He knew, for instance, exactly how Thomas had been behaving and talking, even though He Himself had not been visibly present. He could tell them just what had been going on inside of them, and all they had been doing. And so He knew about Peter, too, and what had been happening with him. Somewhere, in his brokenness, his humiliation, his despair, was Peter, necessitating that the Lord should say: 'Go, tell My disciples, and Peter...' Was he not a disciple? Why specify? Surely the reason is obvious. The man needs some special help: he is broken, he is shattered; a special message must go to him - he must be mentioned by name. 'Say to Peter... The Lord has not only sent a general message, but He has sent it to you - He has mentioned you by name.'

Just think how you would feel if you were in his position and condition. 'The Lord - the Lord! The last time I saw the Lord was when He looked at me. It was that look that broke me, that shattered me, as I was denying Him. That look I shall never forget. He looked at me.' The word that is used there about the Lord 'looking upon' Peter (Luke 22:61) is a rather strong word. There are different words for 'look', but this word means 'to look upon attentively or fixedly'. His eyes rested upon him, held him, went right through him. That was the last time Peter had seen the Lord, and that look had done its work. Those eyes knew him, and now Peter had come to know himself as the Lord knew him. It is a terrible thing when that happens. And to think that the Lord should say, "...and Peter"! 'Could He ever think of me again? Could He ever have anything to do with me again? Do I still stand with Him in the company of His disciples?'

The Mastery of Christ

Now the point is this: that this is the making of a servant - this is the training of a servant of Jesus Christ. This came; and, having come, it led to two things. Firstly, it led to the mastery of Christ. The real mastery of Christ, though we may call Him Master and Lord, is not established until our own mastery of ourselves has been shattered and broken. How often did Peter, who called Jesus 'Master' and 'Lord', seek to dictate to Him, to tell Him - the Lord - what He ought to do and what He ought not to do - what He might do and what He was not allowed to do! Yes, we can call Him 'Lord', and we can call Him 'Master'. But the way of real service is that He become Master in reality, and that necessitates our brokenness.

Look at Peter on the day of Pentecost, and afterward, and look right on to his letters. Listen to him speaking; read what he writes. Jesus is Master of this man, now. That is the first thing that came out of this shattering. It is a law of usefulness and service to the Lord - make no mistake about it. If you aspire to service, if you are thinking in terms of Christian work, if you are desirous of being of real value to the Lord - put it how you will - you can take it that the way is here 'writ large for all to see'. This man Peter stands out as a servant of Jesus Christ of no mean order, and the way by which he became that was the way of Jesus Christ becoming his absolute Master. He stands for the great principle of submission to Christ, without which there can be no usefulness to Him. Our value to the Lord really begins - not when He becomes our Saviour, but when He becomes our Lord. Those two things can happen at the same time, but with many they stand far apart.

An Overwhelming Appreciation of Grace

The second thing that came out of this shattering was an overwhelming appreciation of grace. The Lord Jesus, on one occasion which you will recall, enunciated a great spiritual truth and law, when referring to one who was pouring out devotion at His feet. He said: 'Where much has been forgiven, there is much love. She loved much because she was forgiven much' (Luke 7:47).

Now Peter came into the meaning of that spiritual principle - or it came into Peter. What an appreciation of grace! Look at the first letter that goes by his name. In that quite brief document, which you can read through from beginning to end in ten or fifteen minutes, Peter speaks of grace no fewer than ten times, and in every case the context of that word is tremendous.

Here, for instance, he speaks of "the manifold grace of God" (1 Pet. 4:10). Grace is really the theme of his letter. It governs everything - every department of the Christian life. Yes, Peter knew what he was talking about: he was speaking out of experience. It was this tremendous appreciation of grace that made him the servant that he became. But he had to be baptized into that: that is, he had to be baptized into the agony of suffering, of self-discovery - of the discovery of his own unworthiness, weakness, failure. The waves of despair had to go over his head, in order to bring him to this place where grace was his theme, grace accounted for everything, grace became the great motive of his ministry.

A man cannot go through an experience of that kind, he cannot go through a spiritual history like that, he cannot go through such depths, without being caused to reflect deeply. It is not just our imagination, or reading something into the story, to say that, when Peter was recovered, restored, brought back into all the blessings of fellowship with his Lord, and given his commission, he must have thought something like this: 'Just imagine it - that such a one as I am, and have proved to be; such a one as I, who have done what I have done - could any man sink to deeper depths of shame, disgrace, dishonour? - that such a one as I should be called by the Lord at all, when He knew all about me beforehand! That day when He came along by the seashore, when I was engaged in my business, and He called me - that day He knew everything that there was to know about me! He did not have to spend three-and-a-half years discovering it. He did not have to wait until that judgment hall; He knew it all at the beginning, and yet He called me!' Peter could indeed say with Paul: 'He called me by His grace' (Gal. 1:15). That is consolation, that is comfort, that is help; that makes service possible for anybody.

The Training of Grace

Anyone other than Jesus would probably have washed their hands of Peter and said, 'I shall never make anything of this man - I can do nothing with him: He is incorrigible.' The Holy Spirit has caused to be written in fiery letters, for all to see, all this blundering and blurting of Simon, all his rebuking of the Lord, correcting the Lord, telling the Lord, 'Thou shalt never...' All this - and then the Lord's infinite patience with that man. When John writes: "Having loved his own which were in the world, he loved them unto the end" (John 13:1), there is an immense amount behind that statement in relation to this man alone, to say nothing of the rest of them. That is no small thing; it is wonderful. Think of all the training, all the infinite patience and care and kindness, and the going on - just going on. This was the training of grace: do you not think Peter remembered that? I am sure he thought back over those three-and-a-half years, and how they culminated in his denial. 'Oh, what patience He showed with me! To think that I am here today at all, and having a place of honour in His service! What does it not say for His patience, His forbearance, His longsuffering, His love!'

The Endowments of Grace

But then, as though that were not enough, grace brought endowments. First of all, the mighty, inclusive gift of the anointing Holy Spirit, and all that that implies! We have so often said that the anointing of the Holy Spirit implies that God commits Himself. It is as though He would say: 'I am going to join myself with that man or that woman, and I am going on with them, for my Son's sake.' That is the basic meaning of the gift of the Holy Spirit.

But grace brought all those other things, all those new capacities, which come by the Spirit in the new creation. Are they not marvellous in Peter? Remember, he was a fisherman. Although that does not necessarily mean that he was an uneducated man, they did say about Peter and John that they were "unlearned and ignorant men" (Acts 4:13). At any rate, certain people, who considered themselves to be otherwise, said that of him in Jerusalem. Have you ever studied that discourse of Peter's on the day of Pentecost? Many years ago I made a list of all the subjects mentioned in it, and I was amazed what a catalogue I had. Almost every sentence or part sentence touches on something which, being gathered into the whole, adds up to a most comprehensive statement. There is great understanding of the Old Testament Scriptures, wonderful insight into the Word of God and the things of God. We have already referred to that critical day in Jerusalem, when Peter's counsel, supported by James with citation of the Old Testament prophets, marked a turning-point in the history of the Church.

And if that is not enough, read Peter's letters. I do not know how, apart from Divine revelation, Peter knew about the atomic age! Long, long centuries before the splitting of the atom, he talked, in language which we all understand now, about 'the heavens being on fire', 'the elements melting with fervent heat', 'all these things being dissolved' (2 Pet. 3:10-12). That is very up to date, is it not? Where did he get it? There are endowments by the Holy Spirit of understanding, intelligence and knowledge. And there are endowments of endurance. Here is a man who breaks down at the taunt of a serving maid, and vehemently denies his Lord. But look at him here - "when they saw the boldness..."! And there are many other endowments which we cannot now stay to tabulate. All this is the work of grace. Yes, Peter came into a large appreciation of grace.

The Dynamic of Service

This leads us to our sub-title: 'The Dynamic of Service'. What is that? Surely it is the response of the heart to a love like that! That is what made Peter the servant of Jesus Christ. It may be that he was fearful about trusting his love, and so dared not rise to the great word that the Master was using; but he meant it. He was trying to go as far as he could, and in the event he went further - he went beyond his own language. His response turned out better than he perhaps feared it would be. It was a mighty response to love - and that is the dynamic of service.

Now the grace that lies behind our being called by Jesus Christ into fellowship with Himself, the grace that lies behind His training of us, His dealing with us in longsuffering and forbearance, the grace that lies behind His gracious gift of the Holy Spirit, and all that goes with that gift, represents endowment for us all! This is not exclusive to Peter or his class; he is but representative. All these things are for the Church; and we, as organic parts of the Church, inherit the endowments, as we inherit the calling, of grace. These things are true for us all. Because of the grace of God, every one of us can be a servant of God.

To be called at all, did we but know it, is the most marvellous thing that could ever have happened to us. And He calls us, knowing us through and through. I do not know how much you know about yourself, but if you knew yourself as He knows you, you would go out and weep bitterly, you would fall into the depths of despair. And if He should then come to you, in that day of self-discovery, in your despair and brokenness, and should mention your name, showing that you were still in His thought and love, would that not be a great step of grace? - and would it not qualify you to be a witness? Should He, moreover, with all His knowledge of you, and all your despair of yourself, give to you the great gift of His Holy Spirit, with all the wonderful capacities that come with that, would it not be a glorious thing? That is how witnesses are made, how servants are made. How poor our service must be, if there is not an answering love begotten in us by this overwhelming consciousness of the grace of God!

That is the dynamic of service. The Lord may take us through a hard school; but "wisdom is justified of all her children" (Luke 7:35), and in the end you will say, 'He was right; He knew what He was doing - He did the right thing!'