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God's Reactions to Man's Defections - Part 1

by T. Austin-Sparks

Part 1 of this book was originally published in A Witness and A Testimony Magazine in 1929 through 1931. It was subsequently re-published by Witness and Testimony Publishers in 1956 from updated material given at a conference in August 1955 and included Part 2 entitled "God's Methods and Means of Recovery".

Part One

THE NEW THING WHICH IS OLD

Contents

Foreword

Chapter 1 - The New Thing Which is Old

General Survey

Chapter 2 - The New Cruse

The Lord Jesus Himself - The Lord's Present Need

Chapter 3 - The New Cruse (continued)

Relative and Representative Ministry - A Satanic Master-stroke - Causes and Precautions

Chapter 4 - The Overcomer

Harbingers in Every Sphere - The House of God and the City of God - Two Worships - The Depth of Calvary - The Supreme Effort of Satan

Chapter 5 - The Altar, The House, The Name

The Altar and the Blood - The Meaning of the Blood - The Holiness of the Blood - The Shedding and Sprinkling of the Blood - The Incorruptibility of the Blood

Chapter 6 - The Testimony of the Blood (continued)

The Divine Seed in Prosperity and Sovereignty - An Elect in Bondage

Chapter 7 - "A Candlestick all of Gold"

An Angel Talking - What is God Saying Today? - "Behold, A Candlestick all of Gold" - The Instrument of the Testimony in the House of God - Absolutely According to God - The Two Olive Trees and the Two Anointed Ones - The Great Mountain - The Day of Small Things

Chapter 8 - Gather My Saints Together

The Participants in the Gathering - The Nature of the Gathering

Foreword

The substance of Part I consists of a slightly revised version of a book which has for some time been out of print. There has been an increasing urge to renew this message, and not a small factor in this urge has been the very definite movement, observable all over the world, toward a reconsideration of the whole testimony of the Church. There is a deep and growing dissatisfaction and disappointment with the spiritual state and impact of the Church. The rumblings of this are heard everywhere, and many conferences are being held and books written in relation to this matter.   There is a strong feeling in many quarters that God must act again and do “a new thing”. The tremendous emphasis upon 'Revival' is only one aspect of this.

But it is a big and open question whether God CAN send the kind of revival that is sought, without involving the whole possibility of supporting a false position. So long as suspicion, rivalry, contention, adverse propaganda, and all such things continue between Christians, and THINGS are put in the place of the Lord Himself, how can He bless? There have always been steps that the people of God were called upon to take before God would bless them, and there never was a time when the Church needed more to look to its own house than it does at present. It might be that the Lord would do His new thing quite apart from the established Christian system. This book shows that this is what He has done on many occasions.

Part II is the substance of a more recent conference on ministry and concerns the inner spiritual life which is the nature and object of all God’s reactions.

The book is intended to be, neither critical nor censorious, but, if at all possible, a contribution to the “building up of the body of Christ, till we all attain unto... the measure of... the fullness of Christ”.

I am only too conscious of the many imperfections in the manner of presentation, but I trust that the Lord may be able to use these messages to provoke to a greater utterness for Himself on the part of some, at least, who read.

T. AUSTIN-SPARKS.

JUNE, 1956.

Chapter 1 - The New Thing Which is Old

NOTE. - The term ‘reaction’, as employed in these chapters, means that acting-again on the part of God when that which ostensibly represents Him no longer truly represents Him, either vitally or adequately. He reacts AGAINST what is merely ostensible and FOR what is living and wholly according to His mind.

There are two things which we need to keep very clearly before us. These two things, as we put them, may seem to contradict one another or be paradoxical.

1. All the way through the ages, God has constantly done a new thing.

2. That which, from man’s standpoint, has always been God’s new thing, from His own standpoint has not been new at all.

“Known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world”. (Acts 15:18)

“The works were finished from the foundation of the world”. (Hebrews 4:3).

In all His fresh activities and revelations, God is working backward to an original position and design. God never leaves His original premise.

This is a far more important truth and law than may at first be recognised. It carries with it these three things:-

1. God has before Him all the time the finished and completed thing, and He knows exactly, to a detail, what He wants.

2. He must and will have that. He cannot be denied it, and He will never give it up or take less.

3. Whenever there is a deviation from or a falling short of it there will be a Divine reaction, and God will begin again, somewhere, somehow. A hurried survey of these reactions through history will both establish the fact and bring out the nature and features of that upon which He has set His heart and which He is determined to have. The earlier instances and forms are very simple, but the greater truths and principles are there, either patent or latent.

When the first deviation - that of Adam and Eve - has taken place, the reaction of God is through Abel and his altar. That altar stands for the securing for God of His rights in creation – in man and the earth. While Cain offers the fruit of the earth and of his own effort, he ignores the curse resting upon all such, and he with his offering is rejected. God’s seal is upon Abel’s way. The elements are these:-

1. God has a right to all.

2. God can and will only have that without the trace of the curse in it.

3. In order to remove the curse, the cursed thing must be destroyed in death, in either an actual or a representative living form; and a new life must emerge over which death has no power.

4. Fellowship with God is thus, and only thus, possible.

From Abel to Noah the deviation becomes more intense and deliberate. The earth - which is the Lord’s - is taken possession of by man for his own ends. God reacts to this in the deluge. Emerging from the judgment, Noah builds an altar and offers sacrifice, and in so doing declares, in intent and effect: “The earth” (the renewed earth) “is the Lord’s, and the fullness thereof” (Ps. 24:1). Again God gets His rights - PROPHETICALLY - through death and resurrection. But all too soon deviation sets in again. Even Noah is a part of it and fails.

Babel is built and cursed, and under that curse men are scattered to the four corners of the earth. Enoch breaks a long line of death and darkness, as God’s reaction. Then, when, it would appear that the testimony has disappeared from the earth, there is another Divine reaction and Abraham is apprehended. With Abraham, while the old elements reappear, new ones appear. The features of his life are:-

1. Revelation. - Vision.

2. A walk of faith. - Relationship.

3. A country. - The Instrument.

4. An altar. - The Basis.

5. Conflict. -The Challenge.

6. A covenant. - The Assurance.

7. A city. - The ultimate Object.

8. Death and Resurrection. - The Method.

These factors are elemental and eternal, and behind all historical, typical, symbolic, or earthly presentations, spiritual realities persist unto a universal realisation. Isaac comes in, not as a separate breaking in of God, but to give special prominence to the method by which everything has its fulfilment. In his very being he is death and resurrection, and, as such, the way by which human limitation is changed for universal expansion and realisation (Genesis 22:16-17). There are other elements in his life which foreshadow the intentions of God - such as his marriage with Rebekah.

The next reaction of God comes with the growing up of Jacob and Esau. These were twin brothers, and represent two halves of a whole; two developments from a spiritual origin; two histories from a holy beginning. Esau takes the earth course, the course of the world and the flesh. Heavenly callings and inheritances are obscured by temporal interests, pursuits, and fancies. The gratifying of the soul life in its earthward relationship is the limit of his horizon. Jacob becomes the type of that which receives the heavenly calling and vision, and passes through the experience of the withering of the flesh to be a spiritual instrument in relation to a heavenly purpose. With Jacob there is a still further introduction of Divine elements. Up to this point the altar has fixed the bounds of advance. That factor remains basic, but Jacob goes a further step. At Luz he has an open Heaven; a revelation of God; a connecting link between Heaven and earth; a voice from God heard; and certain truths from God deposited with him. On the strength of all this he erects a pillar, anoints it with oil, and calls that place “Bethel”, “the house of God”.

Thus, the House of God, an abiding heavenly object comes into view, and is defined by all those elements which we have mentioned. A “pillar” in Scripture always stands for a witness or a testimony (Genesis 31:51; Isaiah 19:19-20; 1 Timothy 3:15; and many others). All this has to be seen more fully; we are only seeking in this chapter to indicate the truth and establish our fact, or rather to point out an established fact.

We make a long leap and come to Israel in Egypt. Here in this mighty reaction or intervention of God all the elements so far mentioned are gathered up. God is working back to His original purpose. The elements are clearly seen:-

The Altar; the heavenly people for a House of God; a revelation; a testimony; a conflict; a country and city in view, and so on. This God secures, even if it means hurling a mighty empire to judgment.

Thus commences the long and chequered history of that which was intended to be in itself a revelation of the mind of God. But again and again they departed and deviated and the Lord had to take up things from the inside. Thus we have those movements back to God’s original thought under Hezekiah (2 Chron. 29:1-9), under Josiah (2 Chron. 35:17-19), and others. But in none of these was the heart of the entire people restored. It was a partial thing. No sooner had the leader gone than the apostasy and declension set in and deepened. It was not the common inclination of the whole people to return, but the strong lead of a few which influenced them for a time - and then they declined or reverted to their worldliness and idolatry. These were beautiful breaks of sunshine in days of deepening spiritual darkness and departure. At length, even these ceased; there was hardly a residue of faithfulness found amongst the people, and they were all sent into captivity. Babylon is the synonym for confusion, lost distinctiveness, lost testimony, spiritual paralysis, and a false life. Yet, even here God does not abandon His intention and in Babylon He reacts to things in and by a small group of men: Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, Abed-nego. They are faithful to all the elements of the Divine purpose and have their prayer-gaze fixed upon Jerusalem.

At length the Lord breaks in and reacts again. It is by but a remnant, but this weak and chastened remnant is His instrument for reviving and perpetuating His testimony in the earth. There follow the heart-warming events as recorded in Ezra, Nehemiah, Haggai and Zechariah. It is a great epoch, but, alas -

‘The radiant morn hath passed away,

And spent TOO SOON her golden store.’

More apostasy, declension, until we get the terrible conditions recorded in Malachi, leading up to the awful announcement: “Ye are cursed with a curse.” How black and dark things are! Were they ever worse? And yet - and yet - God is not defeated; for, in the midst of and over against the blackness, there is that which - because of the darkness - represents the most blessed triumph.

“Then THEY that feared the Lord spake often one with another: and the Lord hearkened (bent down), and heard, and a book of remembrance was written before him, for them that feared the Lord, and that thought upon his name. And they shall be mine, saith the Lord of hosts, in the day wherein I do make A PECULIAR TREASURE”. (Mal. 3:16,17).

Malachi closes, and for three or four hundred years there is chaos. Surely now the testimony has ceased and faithfulness has disappeared? Surely now the Lord has lost everything?

Take up the New Testament record, as Luke essays to give a certain history to his friend Theophilus. He does not travel far before he lights upon certain people of whom he says very significant things from our present point of view. He speaks of one Zacharias and his wife Elisabeth, “both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless”. (Luke 1:5-6).

Then he speaks of Mary, to whom the angel Gabriel said: “Thou that are endued with grace, the Lord is with thee”. (1:28).

A little later he refers to another thus: “And behold, there was a man in Jerusalem, whose name was Simeon; and this man was righteous and devout, looking for the consolation of Israel: and the Holy Spirit was upon him. And it had been revealed unto him by the Holy Spirit...” (2:25-26).

And yet a little further on this: “And there was one Anna, a prophetess... she... spake of him to ALL THEM THAT WERE LOOKING for the redemption of Jerusalem.” (2:36,38).

Thus we see that there is still left a remnant of the faithful after hundreds of years of seeming death. God maintains a representative company.

Then comes the revival of Pentecost - surely a new beginning of God. They are wonderful days; but again, all too soon, we come upon signs of declension. In not a few places in the New Testament Scriptures do we find expressions indicating that the general condition is marked by sad contradiction of and inconsistency with the testimony. Jude, for instance, has a sorry business in his letter; but even there we find the thing which is true, indicated by the discriminating words: “BUT YE, beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith...” (Jude 20). This is the offset to the declension to which he refers.

At length we come to the Revelation, where parts of the Church are well-nigh completely decadent. Grievous things have to be laid to its charge. What will the Lord do? He may have to set the main thing aside, but He will not abandon His purpose. There are those in every place who are true, hungry, dissatisfied with things as they are, wanting to go on with the Lord. These are the Lord’s reactionary instrument. These are the ‘overcomers’ who hear what the Spirit is saying. These are God’s new beginning by which He comes back to His first purpose.

We have thus hurriedly ranged the whole Scriptures to reveal the method of God. We should like to pursue it through the ages since New Testament times, but that must wait. We close this introductory consideration by saying that what God has always done He will do again, and when that which is ostensibly His representative instrument on the earth ceases to be actually and vitally such, although He may have raised it up Himself and used and blessed it, He may have to look within the general condition for those who will pay the price and give to Him the fuller measure for which He ever seeks.

Chapter 2 - The New Cruse

Reading: 2 Kings 2:19-22; Acts 1, 2; Mark 9:50.

When the above passages are read together it will be seen that they are bound by a common tie; namely, salt, and what it signifies. Throughout the Scriptures salt stands for recovery, preservation, and permanence.

In the first passage mentioned, we have the waters of Jericho lacking in some constituent, which resulted in the miscarriage of the trees; the fruit falling ere it ripened. Nothing reached its intended end; nothing fulfilled its promise. All fell short of its design. Thus the labour proved in vain, and all the toil ended in heart-breaking disappointment. There was the field, there were the trees, there was water, there were labourers, there was much energy, there were good motives. Withal nothing got fully and finally through; it all stopped short somewhere. There was no maturity, satisfaction, and full justification of all the expenditure and effort. Some essential property was absent, and this absence made all else futile as to the ultimate issue. How different from the tree planted by the streams of water, that bringeth forth its fruit in its season, mentioned in Psalm 1:3!

Now, while it is the “salt” that is the vital and most important thing, it is rather of the cruse that we shall speak for the moment. Acts 2 undoubtedly brings the salt into view, but Acts 1 precedes that. Our attention is first drawn to Elisha’s request for a new cruse. (In this passage, the “cruse” probably meant a small pan or dish; the word is related to the “pans” of 2 Chron. 35:13. In other O.T. passages, a flask is probably intended.) Why use a vessel at all? Why not take a handful? And then, why a NEW cruse? Why will not any cruse do? Well, that is just the point. For work like this a vessel must be specially prepared and set apart. What is the nature of the work to be done? What is the condition needing to be dealt with? At rock bottom it is the loss and absence of a distinctive SOMETHING. It is deficiency in respect of a certain distinctiveness. Everything is there but THAT.

The modern spiritual counterpart of this is that things have degenerated into indefiniteness, vagueness, uncertainty, ambiguity, as to real meaning, life, and purpose spiritually. The original meaning of things is no longer there. Things said and done do not mean what they did at first. Terms have come to be applied to, and be used of, that which is not permissible in the realm of their original Divine employment. There is a difference of meaning, and the tragedy is that so many have gone on with the form and fail to see that the power is not there.

If we take the book of Acts as the model, and the epistles as revealing the truth intended by the Lord to be the abiding basis of that which sprang into being in Acts, we cannot fail to be impressed with the presence of a certain something which made everything at that time very much alive and superlative. Whether in respect of what was individual and personal, in salvation, service, and suffering, or of what was corporate, in fellowship and practice, there is only one phrase that expresses the effect of that great something: it is Resurrection Life. There is hardly a chapter in this book but - when you have read it - provokes the spontaneous ejaculation: ‘That is life!’

Now, without further delay, what was it that produced this atmosphere and spirit of life? What was it that made everything so wonderful to those concerned? There is only one answer. It was –

THE LORD JESUS HIMSELF.

The Lord Jesus had been glorified, and the Holy Spirit had come as the Spirit of the glorified Lord to glorify Him on the earth (John 16).

Was it the matter of salvation? Well, it was not salvation as such. It was not just BEING SAVED, either from something or unto something, but it was the SAVIOUR. The message of salvation was all focused in who the Lord Jesus was. Look at the preaching. “They ceased not... to preach Jesus as the Christ” (Acts 5:42). Find a discourse anywhere in the Acts which ‘got through’ and you will see that it is - not a treatise on Evangelical Theology - but a presentation of the glorified Lord Jesus. If it was Christ crucified, it was Christ not dead but risen and glorified. Look at the address at Pentecost (Acts 2:32,33,36). See the words to the lame man and the subsequent address in the Temple (ch. 3). Listen to the words addressed to the Council in chapter 4. Whether it be to individuals or to companies, it is always the Lord Jesus who is in full view.

It is the same in the matter of service. In the Acts service is never something appended to salvation as a further consideration. One of the striking omissions in this record is that of exhortations and urgings to propagate the Gospel. Service here is never the result of organization or special pleading and appeals. It is free, spontaneous, eager, ‘natural’. It is not of constraint from without. It is not by an appeal to a sense of duty or obligation. It was not something which was special in its connection and time. It was at all times, in every place, under all circumstances: irrepressible testimony, proclamation, in direct, public manner and in ordinary conversation. “There arose... a great persecution... and they were all scattered abroad... They therefore that were scattered abroad went about preaching...” (Acts 8:1); “travelled... speaking the word... preaching the Lord Jesus” (11:19,20). What was it that created and produced this? It was the Holy Spirit’s glorifying of the Lord Jesus in their hearts! He - the glorified One - was so real to them, and the wonder of who He – “Jesus of Nazareth”, the Crucified One - really was, as now revealed and manifested to them and in them, was so great, that even these “new bottles” were finding that unless they let it out this new wine would burst them.

And what was true in the matters of salvation and service, was also the secret of their ability to suffer. There is no doubt that it cost dearly in those days to take sides with ‘The Nazarene’ – this as amongst men; but to take sides with “The Son of God” was something which provoked Hell. Put together, there is not a little in the record which indicates this suffering; but it was accepted in a spirit of “rejoicing” (Acts 5:41). It all seemed in the spirit of Hebrews 10:34: “Took joyfully the spoiling of your possessions”, or: “Received the word in much affliction, with joy” (1 Thess. 1:6). This cannot be attributed to optimism, sanguineness, or merely human good temper. It was not a ‘make-the-best-of-it’ resolve. It was the reality of the Lord Jesus as Sovereign and reigning.

As it was in these matters which came so directly home to the individual, and which were always individual tests, so it was in the matters which were more of a corporate nature. A ‘BAPTISMAL SERVICE’ in the Acts was a wonderful time, always accompanied by great rejoicing and a living witness of the Holy Spirit. There was nothing formal about it. It was not just a bit of ‘Church’ order or teaching. It was not just a command obeyed, or something just for personal blessing. It certainly was not a matter of compulsion, persuasion, or argument. It took place as in full view of the Lord Jesus, as the One who died in the stead of all; whose death was the death of all; and in whose resurrection “they which live should no longer live unto themselves, but UNTO HIM who for their sakes died and rose again” (2 Cor 2:15).

It was UNTO HIM. It was a testimony to a living reality, and a mighty spiritual fact, namely, that the one supreme object of life and all living was the Lord Jesus. All other objects, interests, concerns and visions had gone in their union with Him in His death, and all and only that which was of Him had come for them in union with His resurrection. This matter was lifted out of the realm of ordinances (such as the Jewish) and into the realm of testimonies. Jewish ordinances were looking on to something to come, and they never made anything complete (Heb. 7:19; 9:9; 10:1). These TESTIMONIES looked back to something consummated, into which there was experimental entry.

Just the same atmosphere of glory surrounded the ‘LORD’S TABLE’ - the “breaking of bread” (Acts 2:42,46). There was nothing of ‘Church’ duty or rule or regulation in this. This was not something apart and separate from the other life of the Church. This was not a ‘service’, as something by itself. At the beginning it suffered nothing by frequency - though, alas, it all too soon dropped from this plane. It was the centre and spring of all else. Worship, praise, prayer, the ministry of the Word spontaneously sprang out of this. It was living, and fraught with “great joy” (Acts 8:8; 15:3). It was to those who thus gathered and worshipped that “the Lord added... day by day those that were being saved” (Acts 2:47).

What, again, was the secret? It was the appreciation of the Lord Jesus. That table gathered all other testimonies into itself and became an all-inclusive testimony. There was the Offering wholly given to God without a reservation, and the will of God utterly done. There was union with that offered One in His death, burial, and resurrection. There was the one life shared by all, as represented in the Blood. There was the one loaf, which is the one Body, the corporate oneness of all believers. There was the “one hope” (Eph. 4:4), “that blessed hope” (Tit. 2:13), His coming again – ‘till He come’. So, then, ought not there to be a wonderful attestation of the Holy Spirit in the hearts of all? Yes, it was a time of great glorying in the Lord - the Lord was there!

THE LORD’S PRESENT NEED

Each of the matters mentioned really needs a book to itself, but we merely touch them to lead on to our further point and object. Referring back to what we said in connection with the waters of Jericho, is it not true that in all these matters at the present day, in a very widespread way, the constituent of wonder and glory and life – that spontaneity and overflow in all matters which relate to the Lord Jesus - is lacking? What is needed? Our conviction is that, whatever may or may not be recognised as needed by that which ostensibly stands to represent God in the world today, His own need in the earth is that which will lift all the phases and aspects of the Church’s life and work into the realm where this glorying in and glorifying of the Lord Jesus is the dominant characteristic; where formalism yields to life; where all is aglow with His wonderfulness; where His train FILLS the temple; where 'ordinances' are living testimonies; and where all is vital, dynamic and effectual.

No one will disagree with this, but they may with the next. What is necessary to the Lord to bring this about? It is a new cruse, a new vessel. There is so much mixture in the constitution of the vessels today. The world has got in, on the one hand, and the natural man has so much taken hold, on the other. Tradition, formalism, ecclesiasticism and ‘mechanicalism’ are like chains and fetters upon the Lord. Moreover, as we have already said, things are given different meanings today from what they had at first under the sanction of the Holy Spirit.

A new cruse is needed, and it must be that which has been made like unto the Lord’s vessel at the first. It must be:

(1)  That which stands upon an absolutely New Testament basis.

(2)  That which marks the point where God has a clear way because the Cross has brought to zero all the personal interests and resources and confidence of such as form that vessel.

(3)  That which recognises, yields fully to, and glories in, the absolute government of the Holy Spirit in every detail of life and service.

(4)  That which recognises the utter Lordship of the Lord Jesus.

(5)  That which sees in Him all the fullness of wisdom, power, knowledge, grace and everything needed, and draws only upon Him.

(6)  That which is completely selfless and has only one object in view, and that passionately the glory of the Lord Jesus.

We leave till later the matter of securing the vessel, but here emphasize the necessity for it. When the Lord gets it - and He is getting it - He will make it the instrument for the restoration and preservation of His testimony in the earth. This newness may be costly, but then, special usefulness to the Lord is always costly.

No, this is not an appeal for a new sect! It is an appeal for a people embodying the principle and power of “newness of life”.

Chapter 3 - The New Cruse (continued)

We expressed the feeling that, while many would agree with the statement that a general renewal of spiritual life is very much needed at this time, there might not be such agreement that what is needed specifically is “a new cruse”, an instrument conformed to the mind of God, solely upon the basis of sympathy with the Holy Spirit’s order and requirements. If there were pictured some new exclusive body; some select company; some iconoclastic movement; some spiritually superior class - such reservations would be justified, and might lead to suspicion, fear, apprehension. Such an attitude, though quite unjustified, and betokening the “flesh” and the activity of the Spoiler - the Adversary - might lead to much unnecessary loss, and make things more difficult for the Lord than they need have been.

Now, we need to recognise the fact that in the history of the Divine reactions the instrument has always been a definitely related or relative one, not exclusive and isolated. Although it may have been comparatively small in itself, it was representative and linked with the whole company of the elect.

RELATIVE AND REPRESENTATIVE MINISTRY

Did Esther represent an instrument brought to the throne “for such a time as this” - the occasion of a Satanic plot for the death of God’s people and the wiping out of His testimony from the earth? Then her life and the life of the whole company - although they were in captivity and ‘out of the way’ - were one, however privileged and exalted may have been her calling. She was involved in the testimony, and this brought her into a travail concerning the whole chosen race. We shall have more to say about Esther.

This same relative and representative function characterized Daniel and his brethren. They took the condition of the whole captive nation upon their hearts, and entered into what we might call a vicarious repentance for the sins of all their brethren. They themselves were the ‘overcomers’ of that time, but all their experience, revelation, and victory was in a deep relationship to the people of God, though apostate.

When Hezekiah was instrumental in turning back the awful idolatry and wickedness made so complete by Ahaz, he first of all instituted a sin-offering “for ALL Israel” (2 Chron. 29:24), and then sent letters throughout all Israel to call them to the Passover at Jerusalem (30:1-10). This is striking when we remember that Hezekiah was king over Judah, not Israel; the kingdom being rent, and entirely schismatic, with Israel much more idolatrous even than Judah, Hezekiah’s heart went out to all, and did not allow the grossest idolatry to create a spiritual abandonment of his so greatly erring and sinning brethren.

This principle of relationship and representation can be traced throughout the Word, and it is a most important one. There is no such thing as a ‘section’ of the Body of Christ. “The body is one”, but there are “bands” and “joints of supply”, fulfilling special related and representative functions or ministries. All the “members” may not be in equally good health, development, life, fellowship, but they are not thereby cut off. Christ will never have a mutilated Body.

We are not unaware of the greatness of the difficulty and problem with which we are here confronted. At the same time we make bold to tackle it for the Lord’s glory. If only certain principles are recognised and established, there is hope of improvement, at least to some extent. We must, therefore, in the first place keep clearly before us that it is only the really born-anew children of God, in whom there is something of the Spirit, who are in view - not the vast accretions to ‘Christendom’, or ‘organized’ and traditional Christianity, of ‘mixed multitudes’. However bad may be the spiritual condition of the former, they are not to be excluded from the SPIRIT of fellowship. That does not mean fellowship in work or that which is wrong, but it does mean earnest and loving solicitude for recovery therefrom. How patiently and diligently and ingeniously has many a surgeon or doctor worked to find some point of contact with life in a patient whose hold and interest was practically imperceptible! Should it be less so with us in this so much greater battle with spiritual death?

But the main point is this. The Lord must have an instrument which He has formed in the fire and to which He has given peculiar knowledge of Himself. This instrument will have to stand upon a peculiarly pure basis of life in God. Whatever the rest may do, it dare not take its lead from them. Its methods, means, and standards must be those which have shed the less mature elements. Of some it would stand as God’s plummet to reveal that which is out of the straight; that which is short of God’s best - or God’s better; for who would claim to have reached God’s best? A much greater cost will have to be met by such an instrument; and there will be little place left, if it is spiritually constituted as against mentally apprehended, for spiritual pride.

Now the chief difficulty, as history has shown, is how to realise such a ministry, constituted by knowledge of the Lord through suffering, and how to hold it in relation to ALL the Lord’s people, avoiding separation in spirit, schism in the Body, exclusiveness and ‘watertightness’. It is the easiest thing to withdraw to some given point and look down on all others, as though to say: ‘We are THE people - you must come to us.’ The Lord will lose much this way. No; while in PRACTICAL matters, for consistency’s sake, there may HAVE to be withdrawal, as also where error predominates, yet the preservation of what there is of God must be diligently sought in spirit. While there can be no official link with what is wrong, there can and must be a reaching out in spirit to keep the door open for the “more excellent way”.

The next thing is to apprehend the Divine meaning behind the creating of this instrument. Surely it is twofold.

Firstly, to have for Himself in the earth that which is as close an approximation to His own mind as possible; that it should not be true that there is nothing which is in any real way an expression of the Lord’s mind. Thus, further, He would have that which cleaves a way through for others. So it ever was in battles of old. The specially trained and disciplined troops broke through for others.

Secondly, that there may be that which gives the Lord His point toward which to work. As He creates a sense of need in His people, and leads them on thereby, He would have that which can be His means of meeting that need in spiritual knowledge. That the Lord directs hungry ones to those who know Him through special dealings is a principle not far to seek in the Divine record.   We remember how Cornelius was brought into touch with Peter (Acts 10), Apollos with Aquila and Priscilla (Acts 18), and so on. There is such a thing as election to special service, and there ought to be mutual recognition of this. When the Lord Jesus took Peter, James and John into the more inward activities and revelations of His life, especially up to the Mount of Transfiguration, He was not guilty, in principle, of an act of schism in the Body. What the others thought or felt we do not know, but in the long run we know that ministry was in view, not personal preference, He was not making of them a specially privileged and separate company. A great need was coming, and this was His method of providing for the need which would one day be created.

The appreciation of what He did and what they knew had to tarry until that need arose. There will never be an appreciation of special resource without conscious need, but such need will justify God’s methods, and prove His wisdom sound. God has from the beginning of the world always had His escape ready before the fire broke out - His lifeboat before the wreck - His store before the famine - His Cross before the curse. His peculiar ways with some are in view of a coming need which will give them a peculiar ministry. There are those who are out on a general basis of activity with the Lord, going all the time in a continuous stream of good works. There are also those who are cut off from anything great as to measure, and are reserved for what the others cannot do; less in bulk, but perhaps of indispensable worth and service in emergency, and beyond a certain general point of attainment. The latter have to bide their time in patience, but when their time does come it is THEIR time in the Lord, and no one else can do the work.

Let us return to our main principle, namely that REMNANTS ARE RELATIVE. The remnants of which we spoke in our first chapter were not something conclusive in themselves. Sometimes a remnant of only a couple of tribes is referred to as “all Israel”, showing their representative character. While in the first instance the movement was on the part of a few, comparatively, there was from time to time a trickling after them, as there was that to which such tricklings could come. The remnant was not conclusive.

We must keep clearly and strongly before us the fact that, while the Lord must have His testimony maintained in the earth, and while He desires all His people to enter into the fullness of light and truth, and while there are clearly seen to be different companies of His people in Heaven, both as to time and as to position, the main characteristic of any company which may be termed ‘a remnant’ or ‘overcomers’ is that of vocation: that is, they stand in a vocational relationship to all other really born-anew children of God. It is something which they are called to be and to do which is preparatory for the rest. They have, amongst other things, to ‘pass over armed before their brethren’ (Deut. 3:18), to cleave a way and take the first shock of spiritual antagonism.

Now, before defining the nature of this instrument, we will say just a little more on this matter of fellowship. We have recognised two things, namely, that fellowship is limited to the measure of life and of the Spirit, and that for fuller fellowship there must be progress in the life of the Spirit; and then that, inasmuch as every true child of God has SOMETHING of Himself in them, there should be care and diligence in discovering, unearthing, and fostering that. We have now to see that, no matter how we may seek to go on with the Lord, there can only be TRUE BUILDING UP of the Body on the ground of fellowship and love.

A SATANIC MASTER-STROKE

Perhaps one of the most SIGNIFICANT things to any who are “not ignorant of his (Satan’s) devices” is that there never has been a specially spiritual movement of God in the earth, calculated to serve Him in a particularly useful way, but what Satan’s animosity thereto has been manifested along the line of division, schism, discord, separation, and a breaking down of fellowship. And how often has the real sting and stigma been modified by a feigning love unbroken and preserved, when the divided parties should have no association with each other in the things of God. Love, let us again say emphatically, is incumbent upon the Lord’s people toward “all men”, whether of the “household” or otherwise (Gal. 6:10), but fellowship is something more. It is the most spiritual things which suffer the greatest shocks in this matter, and again we say this carries its own Satanic significance.

The methods of the enemy are numberless, the “wiles” unfathomable by human wit. A suggestion of suspicion, if it finds lodgment, is enough to completely paralyse the work of God and spiritual progress. Have a doubt and you are done. There never was a time when positive spiritual work was more jeopardised by suspicion than now. It would seem that hell is largely employed in issuing forth smoke, clouds, vapours, mists of suspicion, question, reservation, in order to infect with uncertainty, mystification, prejudice, fear, discrediting, distrust, aloofness. It is in the “heavenlies” that this is most registered; that is, the higher ranges of spiritual things. It is an ATMOSPHERE, and it is everywhere. You sense it wherever you go. In some places it is stifling - there is no clear breath of the Spirit, and a word of life is almost choked back.

Of course, this is no new thing, although now so intensified. The New Testament is full of it. The Lord Jesus met it - not in spiritual people, only in religious people. John met it. Paul met it in every direction. It was made to circle round his person, his methods, his character, and his message. Even some members of the mother assembly at Jerusalem showed suspicion and lack of cordiality toward him. Paul’s setting aside of the Law, for instance, seemed to them to go beyond even the Lord Himself, who had not openly abrogated it. Then Paul appealed to “visions and revelations” (2 Cor. 12:1), but they asserted that these were dubious, or at best they could only serve to ratify his own personal convictions. Again, both Paul and his opponents appealed to the Old Testament, but the letter of the Old Testament seemed undoubtedly to favour the literalists, and his ‘attempt to read new meanings’ into the old revelation seemed to them mere cleverness. They looked on it as barefaced denial of the Divine Word. To them it looked as though he did not believe the Bible. They regarded his innovations as morally dangerous.

Of course, this in SUBSTANCE ought to have no parallel today, but it has in spirit. There is nothing added by revelation to the Scriptures since the New Testament was closed, but there is much to be RECOGNISED in them by the enlightenment of the Spirit. There is no new meaning, but there is much new RECOGNITION of the meaning.

CAUSES AND PRECAUTIONS

The point is, not that there never was or never will be an absence of this Satanic enterprise of smoke to prevent or destroy fellowship, but - what is to be our attitude in such circumstances?

It would be vain to try to deal with all the secondary causes. Sometimes the ground of the adversary’s success, either in ourselves or in “them that oppose themselves”, is that we may be living in certain respects in some proximity to the “flesh” and the “natural man”. Some secret pride may make possible jealousy, criticism, envy, ‘hurt-ness’, fear of loss, self-pity, comparison, or a wish to be out of the place of difficulty. Sometimes it may be immaturity; sometimes imperfect knowledge or understanding – ‘seeing through a glass darkly’. There are worse things than these, too; but there are also such things as are either utterly imaginary, or real only because they seem real to those who register them. That is, the enemy can set up situations which are utterly false in themselves - they have no foundation in FACT. They are phantoms - but how terribly real phantoms can be!

How shall we meet all this? It seems so hopeless, and would almost drive us to ultra-individualism. Let us not abandon hope until we have been faithful to the exhortations, ‘Give diligence to keep the unity of the Spirit’ (Eph. 4:3), and "Prove all things" (1 Thess. 5:21). The final test will, of course, be - Is the Lord present in blessing? If so - and we ought to have spiritual discernment - then up to that point we ought neither to oppose nor to refuse all fellowship.

But before we are so general, perhaps we have a duty which costs a little more.

Seeing how great was the matter involved - no less than the Holy Spirit’s presence and ministry - Aquila and Priscilla might easily have labelled Apollos as in error, altogether wrong and wanting, and left him and the assembly of which he was ‘pastor’. But they saw the lack and lovingly took him and in a humble spirit helped him to see it (Acts 18:24-28). There is a fine record of the man after this. It could so easily have been a breach and a loss.

We must always be sure that those who seem to us to be wrong are not capable of being helped on those matters which are absolutely vital to fellowship. What have we done and what do we do in the matter? To come to a conclusion and forthwith to abandon those from whom we differ is a positive violation of scriptural method and instruction. This is often great loss to the Lord when there might have been gain. It would seem from the Word that the grounds of separation, WHEN ESTABLISHED, are brought within a small range as to number, though of course outweighing all others in importance. They are: the denial of the person of Christ, that He is truly God come in the flesh (2 John 7, 10); the denial of the necessity for and sufficiency of His death for reconciling men to God (Gal. 1:6-9); the practice of moral evil (1 Cor. 5:9); the defying of the united judgment of the whole assembly in a matter of wrong doing (Matt. 18:17); and, finally, the refusal to accept the authority in the house of God, of the Apostles and their writings (2 Thess. 3:14-15). All else is gathered up in these.

It would seem necessary to say again here what we have said earlier, that we are not dealing with the matter of co-operation in doubtful methods and on an unspiritual basis, or of a compromise on truth. There will ever have to be separation in these matters. Our point is the SPIRIT of fellowship - that we should not close ourselves up, as though we were apart from and superior to all others.   Many of us have to confess to a time when our lives were by no means conspicuous for their spirituality, and we owe much to the spirit of fellowship on the part of others. If so be we feel that, in the mercy of God, we have been given something more than some, we must be out to help, to win, to cherish. Above all, we must keep our hearts open and our spirit pure. It is terribly possible to get to a set place where no one can teach us, but we can teach others - they are the ones who are not going on with the Lord. This is entirely fatal to fellowship.

Now we must close this chapter, but with one important reminder. A great safeguard and security to that fellowship without which there is no building and progress in the House of God is to RECOGNISE, and bear continually in mind, that the master tactic of the enemy is somehow, by hook or by crook, to get in between the Lord’s people and cause strain and break. Our ‘diligence’ must be along the lines of ‘proving all things’; refusing the opinions and judgments of others - even the most spiritual; not listening to gossip or criticism; not going by appearances; and always keeping a very close walk with the Spirit and listening to Him on all matters.

When the Scripture says that we are to ‘prove all things’, we should apply that especially to the things which could serve the evil powers in their propaganda of suspicions, leading to divisions.

We should prove whether our judgment of persons and things is absolutely right. We should prove whether the things said by a person, by word or writing, are what we have taken them to mean, or whether they might not mean something that we have not recognised.

We should prove whether a person about whom we have a question is not open to being helped from the Word of God to see differently or better than he now sees.

We should prove whether love has no influence with such, and whether he is 'PROVED' to be bigoted, proud, and unapproachable.

Have we adopted such lines, or hurried to destroy by open attack or by the spread of suspicion?

Chapter 4 - The Overcomer

Before we proceed to consider more definitely the nature of that ‘new cruse’ of which we have been speaking, a few further words on the relative aspect of this vessel are needed. In the Scriptures, as we have pointed out, it is clearly seen that all the reactionary instruments of God are of a relative character; that is, that they are related to and on behalf of a body larger than themselves. This is an underlying principle in the progressive activities of God. The point which needs to have extra emphasis is that, in SECURING all the elect territory, habitation and inheritance, whether as His first choice or as of necessity by reason of so general an apathy and worldliness on the part of His people, the Lord uses what might be termed ‘advance parties’. It is not necessary in this connection to present or argue for any theory or teaching concerning ‘selectiveness’, or ‘partial’ or ‘first-fruits’ in the matter of ‘rapture’. The historical, literal and time aspect is of secondary importance. What is of primary account is the SPIRITUAL fact, and this, we believe, is incontrovertible. It is a principle in every realm of creation and Divine method. There are –

HARBINGERS IN EVERY SPHERE.

Originally a harbinger was one who went before to provide lodgings, but the term has now come to be applied to any forerunner. An adequate recognition of the SPIRITUAL element in this universal fact, and especially in relation to “the eternal purpose”, would correct and adjust much on both sides - acceptance and rejection - of a set teaching of ‘partial rapture’. That is, if the vocational factor were kept in view it would supply the motive and stimulus so commonly lacking amongst many who reject that teaching; which lack has very largely become the strength of the teaching and its propagation. And, on the other hand, it would both obviate the difficulty concerning ‘all being of Grace’ and not of works, and remove any ‘selectiveness’ of spirit and temper - as ‘the elect of the elect’.   Let us repeat with strength: There is undoubtedly an advance party in every movement of God. This is spiritual before anything else, and it is vocational rather than meritorious. That there will be special rewards for such seems quite clear and beyond doubt, but rewards do not contradict grace.

When we contemplate the churches in Asia as presented in the Revelation, and admit the respective age application, it is difficult, if not impossible, in respect of at least five, to conclude that we are dealing with the unsaved and ungodly - with assemblies of religious people without any true spiritual history. It is undoubtedly a case of declension, of failure to go on with the Lord. Are all these to be eternally lost? And yet they represent the majority in every age.

We know that one answer to this is that all will be adjusted at the Judgment Seat of Christ; but what concerns us is - what about the others, the ‘overcomers’? Surely more is involved than being different from the rest and getting a better reward. Yes: the point is that the Lord must and will have His testimony in the earth according to His mind, and those who provide Him with the instrument for this fulfil a special mission, not only in the earth, but in the heavenlies - both now, and then.

Really, the focal point of this whole matter is not the two or more raptures. The fact is that the Lord has shown unmistakably that He has made no provision for a ‘second-best’ in the life of a believer or of the Church, but has called all His people to the fullest degree of faithfulness and devotion. There IS a second-best, as see 1 Corinthians 3:15, etc. Let us not fasten upon unscriptural labels, such as ‘partial rapture’ or ‘selective rapture’, but upon the facts - that there ARE such people as ‘overcomers’ and also, evidently, those who are NOT, and that there is a difference of no mean importance between the two.

It is all just an appeal to take no chances - “make no provision for the flesh” - but to be utter for God, whatever it costs.

We are now able to come to the more definite consideration of the nature and function of this peculiar vessel for God.

There is a great difference between a people moved by mere disaffection, discontent, ‘disgruntledness’, difference of opinion, personal dislike or preference, and one moved by the constraint of a great Divine vision - by the inwrought reaction of God, registered with pain in the heart.

This inward heart-longing found expression long ago in classic words:

“By the rivers of Babylon

There we sat down, yea, we wept,

When we remembered Zion.

Upon the willows in the midst thereof

We hanged up our harps...

How can we sing Jehovah’s song,

In a strange land?

If I forget thee, O Jerusalem,

Let my right hand forget her skill.

Let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth,

If I remember not thee;

If I prefer not Jerusalem above my chiefest joy.”

(Psalm 137:1, 2, 4-6)

The implications of these great heart-yearnings represent the crystallizing of the Divine purpose from before times eternal. The ultimate thing in the heart of God, and that into which all the interests of those in real oneness of spirit with Him will be gathered, is presented in what is known as –

THE HOUSE OF GOD AND THE CITY OF GOD

When we speak of the ‘ULTIMATE’ thing, we mean that which is to be the eternal consummation of all the Divine method and means. The thing which is primary and final is the place, worship and glory of God in the universe. This factor will be implicit in all that we have to say. Were we asked what are the major lines and subjects of Divine revelation throughout the whole Scriptures, we should say with considerable conviction that they are: -

1. The Person of the Lord Jesus Christ.

2. His Cross - death, burial and resurrection.

3. The Church or House of God.

4. The Coming again of Christ.

5. The City of God.

There are other phases, but these TAKEN RELATIVELY are the primary themes, or aspects of one theme.

While the Person of the Lord Jesus as God manifest in the flesh is the sum of all revelations, it requires the Cross to give the full MEANING and reveal the full VALUE of that manifestation; it demands the Church to display the full CONTENT of that manifestation ultimately; and it calls for the City to define the NATURE of that manifestation. In leading men on to the appreciation of the Person, God begins with the Cross. If the House is the House of the Divine Son, and if the City is the City of the great King, then the House and the City are based upon the Cross. Moreover, if the House and the City are for the glory of God in Christ and His universal worship, then the Cross represents the nature of worship and the way of glory.

To put this more precisely: If the Lord has in view a people for His glory, by whom the content of the Son of Man is ultimately displayed to the universe, then this people will be fundamentally A PEOPLE OF THE ALTAR. This we believe to be the all-inclusive theme of Scripture. The Cross is the central recognition of the eternal rights of God. At the Cross and in the Cross all the rights of God from eternity to eternity are recognised and acknowledged.   That is central to Calvary. God has rights. God’s rights are that the whole universe should render Him undivided, unrivalled, unreserved worship, acknowledging that all things are His by right, and that no one else in the universe has a right before Him. That great fact is here gathered up in the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ, and He brings to God in His own Person His rights, offering Himself in the greatness of who He is and what He is - the rights of God.

God, by His Son, created the world for His Glory. The Holy Spirit was agent in the creation of the world for the Glory of God, in order that the whole earth should be full of His Glory. The Holy Spirit is likewise agent in the redemption of the world for the Glory of God. It is of perhaps deeper significance than we have recognised that the great song of the redeemed at the end, when the work of Calvary is consummated, is gathered up into one sentence: “Hast redeemed... to God” (Rev. 5:9). Redemption is unto God: it is bringing back to God His rights, and the Holy Spirit is the agent in this redemptive work which has the Glory of God as its objective, just as the Holy Spirit was the agent in creation for the same end.

Worship, then, with all its depth and fullness, is the key word. In the great consummation when God is to be worshipped in the whole universe, and the different songs of worship break forth - the song of one company, “a hundred and forty and four thousand”, worshipping God and the Lamb (Rev. 7:4), and then the song of the ‘great multitude which no man can number’ worshipping God and the Lamb (7:9) - there is the unveiling of the worship of the beast, and that is another consummation. The consummations of worship are there unveiled.

The worship of the beast is one which has been going on ever since Lucifer secured a following, a reverence from angels in high estate in heaven. When he found it in his own heart to make a bid for the place of the Almighty – to exalt his throne above the clouds, to ascend into the heavens, to be equal with the Most High (Is. 14:13-14) – he managed to gather to himself a company, all with the intent of drawing heaven’s worship away from God to himself; and ever since that lifting up of his heart in that infamous ambition another worship has been going on. He drew that company with him, the company of angels “who kept not their own principality”, and are “kept in everlasting bonds under darkness” (Jude 6). Then he appeared on the earth, and sought again to usurp the place of God in the worship of His Creation here; and in this he succeeded, and became, by reason of a conquest and the consent of man, “the god of this age”, “the prince of this world”.

THE TWO WORSHIPS

From that moment he set up a spiritual system of worship which is perceivable behind the whole record of history. We have the breaking in of this evil element all along the line of worship, wherever and whenever the rights of God are recognised by sacrifice. Immediately Abel recognised the rights of God and erected his altar, slaying his sacrifice and shedding sacrificial blood, in the simplicity of the testimony of faith that here on the earth God has sole rights, there broke in this very thing against that testimony. The murderer came in to withstand and destroy the testimony, with Cain as his instrument, who also set up an altar and made a pretence in his darkened understanding to worship God. But he never got through to God, and that was the very ground upon which the Satanic element of jealousy and pride was churned up within him, and he became, because the Devil had got a purchase upon him, the instrument against the worship of God. The enemy’s scheme is deep laid; he knows what he is doing. Through the other worship he breaks in against the recognition of the Divine Rights, the worship of God; and from Abel onward it is always so.

Noah set up his altar upon the renewed earth, and in so doing declared that “the earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof”. But very quickly there broke in the other thing again. Even in that representative one the element of evil rises up to contradict the testimony, and before long the worship of God becomes associated with shame, and the glory is hidden again. We see the testimony on the one hand and the breaking in to contradict on the other.

Abram’s life-story heads up to the incident in Genesis 15, where that altar is finally set and the sacrifice is offered - and then the battle begins. While Abram holds on to God and waits and stands, the vultures descend, and a mighty conflict ensues for the preservation of that testimony to the rights of God, the worship of God; and then comes the horror of great darkness. When Israel, in the fulfilment of the vision which was then given to Abram in that very hour of conflict, came out into the wilderness and the worship of God was set up, there broke in this very same element, and you find the golden calf.

And so the story goes on. You come to Balaam seeking to curse Israel, but not permitted, and then setting up by insinuation the evil thing, fornication - a form of idolatry - and the Lord’s glory obscured once more. It was a beautiful picture that Balaam gave in his prophecy, perhaps one of the most beautiful things in the Old Testament. As Balaam stands, desiring for gain to curse, but constrained by the Spirit of God to bless, and as he speaks concerning this people dwelling alone, wonderful things are said and the glory of the Lord is presented concerning Israel; and then, as round by a back door, for that gain he teaches Israel to commit fornication. The glorious picture fades, and the glory of God is again obscured in Israel, because of this other worship. The rights of God are all the time disputed.

Then we have the wonderful story of Solomon. On the one hand, his building of the House, his setting up of the altar, and the glory of God descending. Here you have the Cross and the Church and the Spirit. On the other hand, the after-story of Solomon. What a tragedy - what a ghastly tragedy! The glory of God contradicted again by the very man who had so beautifully set up the testimony in Israel. The Devil is breaking in all the time to take God’s rights from Him, to rob Him of His glory.

It is the story of Elijah, fighting for the testimony in Israel in a day when the glory of God was hidden. On Carmel the great issue is the altar - the Cross, and the fire - the Spirit. The testimony is once more established in Israel; but the reaction of the powers of darkness is then through Jezebel to destroy the man who has restored the testimony. The issue in the word of Elijah is: “How long halt ye between two opinions? if the Lord be God, follow Him: but if Baal, then follow him” (1 Kings 18:21). You cannot divide the issue - it is one thing or the other. That is the testimony of God having His rights utterly and no one else getting a look in. And let the critics say what they like about Elijah destroying the prophets of Baal, four hundred on the spot - there is a very deep principle involved, a deep principle. The destroying of the prophets of Baal is the outward demonstration of the spiritual principle that there can be no quarter given to that which is set against the Throne of God. Whether it be Agag (1 Sam. 15) or the prophets of Baal, the point at issue is God’s rights. Is HE having the worship and the honour and the glory in this universe?

That is a very brief survey, through the Old Testament, of the constant breaking in of this evil element along the line of worship.

THE DEPTH OF CALVARY

Now, the Cross of the Lord Jesus gathered all this up, and “through the eternal Spirit” Christ secured the rights of God in His own Risen Person: so that “through the eternal Spirit” Christ met the whole of this thing in the universe at Calvary - He met it all.

Let us get behind Calvary, ever more and more behind, until we get to the ultimate. The Lord has led us by degrees deeper and deeper into the meaning of the Cross. There was a time when we thought that we had fathomed the Cross, when we saw the “old man” being dealt with, but we find that there are still ranges that we have not before seen. It was the Throne of God that Christ was standing for at Calvary; it was the ultimate and universal glory of God that He was fighting for in Calvary; and He met all this that was set against the Throne, and met it victoriously, and secured those eternal universal rights of God in His own risen Person: which means that Christ risen and ascended has secured in His own Person all the rights of God for the glory of God for evermore. In the Lord Jesus God has His rights secured.

I hope the Lord enables you to enter into that. Jesus Christ, “who through the eternal Spirit offered himself” (Heb. 9:4), now standing in the Presence of God, has secured in His own Person all God’s rights for ever, and the ultimate filling of the universe with the glory of God is secured in the Risen Person of Christ. There is no longer any doubt about the issue. God is going, without any question, to be universally worshipped, and the glory of God is going to fill the whole universe without any rival, because THE LORD JESUS is in the presence of God, victorious over every other thing that was against the Throne of God. This is something immense. He said: “Lo, I am come... to do thy will” (Heb. 10:7), and the will of God done utterly is the recognition of the utter rights of God, and God becoming possessed of them.

When we talk about doing the will of God and wanting to know the will of God, oh, let us get the immense range of such words. The will of God means nothing else than that God shall be universally glorified and that He shall be the central object of worship in the universe. Read the Revelation again with that thought, and the book will become new. You will find then that the book of the Revelation is the book of worship, and you will see that that worship, which is there in ever widening circles to the ultimate bounds of the universe - that worship is brought about by the Lamb, “through the eternal Spirit”: the Lamb in the midst of the Throne.

The Holy Spirit is thus the minister of the glorified Christ, as He was the agent and the dynamic for the accomplishment of this great end in the Cross, and the securing of it in the Person of Christ in the glory. He is now the minister of the glorified Christ to work this out in the earth, and in doing so He will bring us to certain very important issues.

He will bring us first of all to this: that those who enter most fully into the meaning of the Cross - which is the will of God wholly done - will encounter the supreme assault of Satan.

Do you wonder that Satan hates the Cross? Do you wonder that he by any means will get the Cross set on one side? Do you wonder that those who go into the meaning of the Cross spiritually find that they have immediately come up against the whole system of antagonism from the Devil? It is so inevitably. We have seen Abel in the very earliest and simplest form of the presentation of the meaning of the Cross. When he enters into relationship with that blood, that sacrifice, that altar, he immediately and automatically comes up against the adversary. The Holy Spirit, through John, says of Cain that he “was of the evil one” (1 John 3:12).

So with Abraham, so with Joseph, so with Moses; so even in what might be thought to be the simple case of Esther. Let us pause with Esther for a moment. The book of Esther has been thought to be a commentary upon, an exposition of, the providence and sovereignty of God. Well, it is that, but there is a bigger background to the book. Here is one who is “come to the kingdom for such a time...” (Esth. 4:14). What time? A time when the testimony of God in His people was so set against by the enemy that he wanted the last Jew exterminated. You know the story of Haman - “Haman the Agagite” - a remnant of that Amalakite seed which had always been against God. Haman the Agagite had become inspired with the further purpose, utterly and finally to exterminate the Jews. Esther came to the kingdom for such a time as that, and put her life in the balances – “if I perish, I perish” - and met that awful deep-laid scheme of Satan. It is ever an illustration of the ultimate controversy of the Cross. You meet with that when you stand for the testimony of God in the earth. We will come back to Esther presently.

The story of Daniel is the same thing. Two gods: the god set up by Nebuchadnezzar, and THE God. Who is going to be worshipped? Daniel does not need to deliberate over his decision that Jehovah alone, and no other god, is to be worshipped in the universe; His rights alone are to be recognised. He meets the power behind that world-system and is called upon to pay the price. It is the same issue with Daniel’s three friends, Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-nego.

THE SUPREME EFFORT OF SATAN

From the very birth of the Lord Jesus, it is known to Satan who He is and the scheme is put into operation to engulf Him in the massacre of a whole multitude of infants. The cruelty of the evil one to murder a mass to get ONE! He is after One, he is not after the crowd.

We have no record of any efforts of the enemy from that time until the Lord steps across the line which runs between His private life and His public life - and then He meets the enemy immediately. And what is the question? “If Thou wilt... worship me” (Matt. 4:9). That is what he is after. It is right out - he is betrayed at once; and it is that issue right up to the Cross. “If Thou wilt worship me.” It comes in a multitude of different ways. Satan only wants an acknowledgment, the ascribing to him of some rights in the universe.

But, ah, the Lord never recognised those rights - just as Mordecai refused to recognise the right of Haman. This is one of the most beautiful things in the book of Esther. Here is Haman claiming to be somebody: he has gained eminence, and everybody is bowing to him. But Mordecai refuses to recognise any of his glory, and ignores it all. And you remember Haman’s story to his family. ‘I am a great man; I have much goods, many children: but what is the good of it all if this one man will not recognise me?’ (Esther 5:9-13). It is a foreshadowing. There is One who counts more than all the rest, and until He can be captured or got out of the war the enemy’s fullness is divided. That One will not recognise Satan’s and that One is destined to bring about his doom.

The Lord Jesus met that all the way through, refusing to attribute to Satan one atom of right in this universe. He was out to challenge that, to secure all the rights for God in His own Person, and to come to the Throne Himself with those rights. And when He has done it we see the same thing going on with the Church. It is still the Church’s great issue: the worshippers and the worshipped, and the place or the no-place of the enemy. We shall deal with that when we come to speak of the Church.

Now, only the Holy Spirit, in the power of the victorious Christ and by virtue of His shed Blood, can meet that challenge. We do not talk glibly, lightly, frivolously, about this thing. We view the ultimate issue with joy and exultation, but we recognise that it is “not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord of Hosts” (Zechariah 4:6). And if the Lord Jesus Himself needed that it should be through the Eternal Spirit that this thing was wrought out, oh, how much more we! How much more we today! We should not rush into this battle; we recognise that nothing but the mighty energizing of the Holy Spirit could meet this great issue and challenge. But we recognise also with confidence that the Holy Spirit is the minister of the victorious Christ, and that His very advent is on the ground of that victory, to work that victory out in the universe; and we thank God for it. Why has the Holy Spirit come? Oh! not that we might have blessings and what we call power and influence and opportunity and service. No, He has come as Representative and Agent of the Christ, who has secured the rights of God in His own Person. To bring about the recognition and realisation of the rights in this earth - that is the work of the Holy Spirit.

The second thing that comes out of this is that the Holy Spirit always demands the ground of the Cross for His activity, if the glory of God is in view. But then, the Cross registers the removal of all that serves Satan. Now, it would take a long time to cover that ground again to see the things that served Satan. What was it that served Satan in Cain? Covetousness, personal ambition, jealousy, pride! That worked itself out in the murder of Abel - but the murder of Abel as an expression of hatred for God (although Cain may have been blind to the deeper nature of the thing). What was it that served Satan in Balaam? Greed, covetousness, world-gain. The Cross registers the removal by destruction of all that served Satan, and for us it is gathered up in one word: SELF.

What a wide word that is - what a comprehensive word! The stronger term is “the flesh”. Some people do not know what you mean when you talk about the “flesh”. They begin to think of positive vices and iniquities of deep dye. But the “flesh” is only another term for ”self”. Self is a very subtle thing, a many-sided thing. It includes self-interest, self-glory, self-preservation, self-realisation, self-advancement - all those considerations of influence and good-standing and prestige and following, and being understood and spoken well of. The phases of “self” are legion, and they, every one of them, serve Satan.

Moreover, they serve him in this other sense, that they divide the rights of God and usurp the place of God: and therefore, wherever there is the slightest suggestion or insinuation of self, the Glory of God is obscured and the Cross has got to be applied there. The Cross is not applied in the work of God just because God wants us out of it for the sake of having us out of it, to humble, to crush, to break us; no, it has this great end in view - HIS GLORY. And our glory depends upon His glory. We cannot come to glory until He receives His rights in the universe; and the Cross is the way there. The Holy Spirit demands the ground of the Cross in us, because the glory of God is in view. The Cross, dear friend, means utter devotion to God’s glory. The Holy Spirit only works on that ground - He has only ever worked on that ground. A pure work of the Holy Spirit, completely immune from Satan’s touch requires the Cross, which means complete separation from all of the old ground.

Perhaps you have read the wonderful record of what God did in China through His servant, Dr. Jonathan Goforth - a work of the Spirit in mighty revival. I think I have read few things which are more literal fulfilments of words which are often mentioned amongst us: “Call unto me, and I will answer thee, and will shew thee great things, and difficult, which thou knowest not” (Jeremiah 33:3). When this true man of God arrived at a certain place, he was told immediately that he must not expect anything there such as he had had elsewhere, for there were difficulties. But there the Holy Spirit came in, and under His constraint different people got up and confessed such things as were never suspected - confessed them in public - in a mighty movement of God. But the Spirit of the Lord kept very short accounts with His servant, and every suggestion and insinuation of the Devil through his “flesh” had to be met.

Chapter 5 - The Altar, The House, The Name

Let us now gather up in a positive presentation - even at the risk of some repetition - what we believe to be the essence and substance of that testimony for which the Lord has ever reacted, and would now react, in a day of declension. There are three words which represent this testimony, and these three words may be clearly seen to govern and interpret the whole of the Scriptures. There is no part of the Scriptures which does not relate in some way to one or more of the objects which these words denote. They are, in the Old Testament: THE ALTAR, THE HOUSE, THE NAME; or, in the New Testament: THE BLOOD, THE CHURCH, THE SOVEREIGNTY.

THE ALTAR AND THE BLOOD

Every reaction and new beginning that has come from God has been by an altar. The first of these was that of Abel, although there must have been an earlier shedding of blood, when the consciousness of being uncovered led to God’s clothing or covering the expelled two with skins of animals. Then, when that world was wiped out in judgment by the flood, a new beginning was made with Noah’s altar. When there was nothing of a distinctive character speaking for God in the days of Abram, the Lord laid His hand upon him, called him out as an elect instrument, and brought him to an elect land; and there, with the man and the place of His new beginning brought together, an altar was erected. There was a brief lapse when Abram went down to Egypt, but on his return the original ground was re-taken with a reconstructed altar.

Thus a distinctive seed was marked out; and some four hundred years later, that seed being constituted a corporate testimony against world-wide misrepresentation of God, an altar was the conspicuous factor, initially and continuously. It is significant that, although many thousands of lambs were slain on the night of the separation of that people from Egypt, the record always speaks in the singular, never in the plural. It was always “the lamb” or “a lamb”. In God’s sight there was only One Lamb, and although every threshold was an altar, there was only one Altar in Heaven’s view. (The word in Exodus 12:22, translated “bason”, is in the Hebrew “threshold”.)

This truth of new beginnings with the altar can be clearly seen afterward in the case of the receiving of the Law and the pattern of the heavenly things by Moses. The great altar of the Tabernacle and Temple governed the life of Israel for many years, until the times of declension set in, and then each movement back toward God was marked by the altar coming again into its place. It was so in Elijah’s stand, in 1 Kings 18; and it was so with the revival under Hezekiah, in 2 Chronicles 30. It was so again with Josiah - 2 Chronicles 35. But hardly had Josiah passed off the scene than his work fell in ruins. Judgment fell, Jerusalem was destroyed, the Temple burnt, and the people went into captivity. After seventy years a remnant returned, and we read in Ezra 3:3 that the first thing that the remnant did was to “set the altar in its place”.

This is God’s new work in reaction. We have not gathered in every instance, but only enough to indicate, and perhaps establish a recognition of the principle. We leave the matter of the altar there for the time being, while we consider the essential element in the altar, which is the BLOOD.

The testimony of the altar is the testimony of the Blood. As we approach this sacred thing, may we urge our readers to give it the most careful heed? Here we touch the heart of everything. There has been nothing so assailed as the testimony of the Blood: by ridicule, by a sneer, by intellectual superiority, from one direction; by an ignorant and false refinement which pretends to be shocked, from another; by a merely rationalistic and philosophical interpretation, which sees no more than a crude system of ritual and rite by which a universal religious instinct expresses itself - a form and idea which belongs to times of immaturity and unenlightenment - from yet a third; these and many other modes of assault from its opponents. Then from its would-be friends it suffers in numerous ways, ranging from the ritualistic and sacerdotal debasement, which has names and forms without life and power, to the other swing of the pendulum, marked by a superficial, cheap, frivolous, noisy, jazz-chorus singing about this most holy and sacred thing – “the precious Blood”.

There is nothing in the universe more bitterly hated and more terribly feared by the adversary than the Blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. But if it is to be a mighty operative factor in life and service, faith must have as intelligent a basis concerning it as possible; and we are especially concerned with the vocation of the people of God here! Let us then see what the Blood stands for.

THE MEANING OF THE BLOOD

There are two aspects of this whole matter of the Blood. One (concerning which we have already said something) is that a death has taken place, and in that death one whole kind of humanity has, in the mind of God, been set aside. This relates to “Him who knew no sin... made... sin on our behalf” (“in our stead”) (2 Cor. 5:21).

The other, about which we shall now speak more particularly, is that which sets forth the inherently incorruptible life of God’s Son made flesh. If all that is said about the Blood relates only to death, then its sacredness cannot be understood, but becomes a supreme problem. We have dealt with this aspect in the book entitled “The Centrality and Universality of the Cross”, but we will point out the essential elements here:

Firstly, let us note the sacredness of life as in the blood. We are now familiar with the scriptural teaching that “the life... is in the blood” (Lev. 17:1), and “the blood is the life” (Deut. 12:23). There is a tremendous emphasis in Scripture upon the sacredness of blood. Indeed the word ‘soul’ is often used interchangeably with both ‘blood’ and ‘life’ and all the characteristics and values of the soul are associated in the same way with the ‘blood’ and the ‘life’. But the blood as the life is related in a peculiar way to God, as representing His specific prerogatives. Thus the whole matter is gathered up in a reservation and a provision as laid down in Leviticus and in John’s Gospel.

In Leviticus the Lord repeatedly stresses that blood is not to be drunk. This role would be broken under a penalty of death (Lev. 7:26,27, 17:10-12). The law concerning blood and its sacredness was carried so far that if a man went hunting and killed a quarry, he was to pour out the blood on the ground and cover it over with dust (Lev. 17:13). He was not to leave the blood exposed, but honour it, show it the same reverence, as he would the body of a fallen man.

Now does it not strike you with a great force of significance that, when we have repeatedly read: “Ye shall eat no manner of blood... Whosoever eateth any blood... shall be cut off”, then we turn and read in John 6:5: ‘Except ye drink the blood of the Son of Man, ye have no life’? Surely the very first thing which this implies is that the whole question of life has been shut up by God to the Person and Cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is the life of the Person, and gives to the Person a uniqueness and distinctiveness which no other in history has ever had. Then it gives to the Cross of the Lord Jesus a unique and supreme meaning and value, in that it was there that He shed His Blood and poured forth His life; releasing that life to be received by all who believed on the Person and accepted the meaning of His Cross.

The spiritually blind Jewish religious leaders of John 6 would naturally be very scandalized at His words about drinking blood, and would revert to the tradition of the letter of Leviticus. This would be because on the one hand they did not realise the meaning of that reservation, and on the other hand they did not recognise who Jesus was. To recognise the Lord Jesus is to be lifted above law into life.

The thought of the sacredness of the Blood as the life is that of the Divine relationship of it: that is, that it is bound up with the Lord and no man can touch it. All of a piece with this is bound up with the Lord and no man can touch it. All of a piece with this is –

THE HOLINESS OF THE BLOOD

We are familiar with the injunctions concerning the spotlessness of the offerings of old – “without spot, or blemish”. There was a sense in which the priests were expert fault-finders! Their business was to find fault if they could. The discovery of a blemish in a proffered sacrifice meant its immediate rejection. Their eyes were as the eyes of God in this matter. A beast was passed only after the most scrupulous investigation, when the formula ‘It is perfect’ was pronounced over it.

Such, likewise, then, was the blood, and this is the testimony of the holiness of the life of the Lord Jesus, and consequently of the nature of that Divine deposit within the born-anew child of God. We are not perfect or spotless, but the life from Him in us is, and by its vital activity through faith and obedience we are to be conformed to His image, and are assured that one day we shall be like Him. Blessed be God, we have the earnest of perfection. This precious Blood does cleanse.

This leads us at this point to say a brief word on

THE SHEDDING AND SPRINKLING OF THE BLOOD.

If we are not mistaken, the shedding relates to the whole question of sin, guilt, death, judgment; and by the shedding there is remission, and the whole ground of salvation is secured.

The sprinkling is that by which we are brought into living vocational fellowship with God. The Tabernacle and Priesthood of old represented, not only Israel’s salvation, but Israel’s priestly ministry in the nations. They were meant to be “a kingdom of priests”, and God’s ministering instrument among and to all nations.

Hence there was a special significance given to the sprinkling of the blood. Although the Tabernacle was perfect as a structure; although the “pattern” was carried out to the last detail; although the priesthood was complete in number and adornment: nothing and no one could function until every part - altar, laver, table, curtains, candlestick, golden altar, mercy-seat, vessels, instruments, ear, thumb, toe, etc. - had been sprinkled with the blood. It was regarded as a higher function to catch the blood for sprinkling even than to slay the sacrifice and thus shed the blood.

Nothing lives in the service and ministry of God, save in virtue of sprinkled blood. Oh, that men would see this today! The most perfect structure, the most complete outfit, the most ornate edifice, the most extensive organization, the most fastidious order, and the most devout purpose will all fail to function in the eternal interests of God, apart from the virtue of the precious Blood of the Lord Jesus. The Holy Spirit - the Fire of God - is indispensable to spiritual life and energy, and He only comes where that Blood has been sprinkled. The Blood and the Spirit are one, and always go together - one as the preparation, the other as the attestation. Calvary precedes Pentecost. The Cross is the way to the glorifying. To be crucified with Christ is to have put away that “flesh” upon which the Holy Oil may not come. God is never going to quicken and vitalise what He has for ever put away; neither will He glorify and use in His service that which is of man.

Whatever the means and methods or necessities which come in their course, the one all-inclusive object of the Divine reactions is to have that in the earth which is wholly and undividedly of God. To this end it is essential that the Cross be wrought so deeply into the experience of the Lord’s servants that they shall come to utter despair as to themselves and all else, and send up a full heart-cry for the fullness of the Holy Spirit. To such a crisis the Lord will work by all manner of means, slowly breaking down all other ground of confidence, and writing ‘failure’ on all other resource.

The testimony of the Blood, the Cross, then, is the testimony of that which is uniquely, wholly, sacredly of God in absolute holiness.

THE INCORRUPTIBILITY OF THE BLOOD

The next related factor in the Blood as the Life is its incorruptibility and indestructibility. These elements go together and are one. What is incorruptible is indestructible.

This is a life over which death has no power. Death has been met in the power of this life. Hades has been entered and plundered in the power of this life. Satan and his entire kingdom have had their might exhausted by the power of this life. He who was and is this Life, now lives for evermore, as the Testimony to the universal triumph of His own Blood over every force that has stood in the way of God’s end.

By this imperishable life He has perfected salvation. Nothing of old was ever perfect, because the mediators constantly changed by death; death breaking in all the time meant no completeness. But this High Priest perfects for ever, because He lives after the power of an endless, “indissoluble” life. Therefore He is able to save to the uttermost, i.e., the ultimate and final end (Heb. 7:16, 23-25).

By this imperishable life He has bound His own to Himself. They share this life by new birth, and they will never die. Death is not cessation of being; it is something spiritual. Life triumphant over death is spiritual, and means ascendancy over sin, self, Satan, death. In other words, it is power and victory.

By this indestructible life the Lord Jesus has inaugurated a ministry and a work which will persist to its ultimate consummation, in spite of every force of earth and hell which may be hurled against it. Mighty empires and powerful hierarchies have been brought to ruins in setting themselves against that which He said He would build. “The gates [i.e., counsels] of Hades” have NOT prevailed, intensely as they have striven.

It is a blessed thing to be in and a part of that work which shall abide for ever. For a man’s work to go to pieces when he is withdrawn is no compliment to him. It only means that it was MAN'S work, not God’s. Like kingdoms, men rise and wane. Are we seeking to make a name for OURSELVES? This is very short-sighted, at best. The testimony to which God is reacting relates to a work which stands and persists when every destructive force has spent itself. This testimony, and such a work, is in virtue of the Blood of the Lord Jesus.

There are all kinds of alarms today because of rapid and drastic changes. Historic creeds are being treated as mere scraps of paper, and that by leading ecclesiastical representatives. Hoary institutions and traditions are rapidly losing their hold and influence. Organized Christianity is markedly on the wane. The maintenance of the religious system is demanding all the resource, acumen, wit, ingenuity and even cunning of men. There never were so many 'attractions', schemes, popularising methods, etc., to keep up the ‘church’ (?). Even in fairly evangelical quarters the appeals for help are so numerous that it is becoming - as someone has said - a matter of not being able to afford to go to church.

All this and much more speaks of failure and defeat, but the Lord will have that in the earth which is His triumph. To “contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered unto the saints” (Jude 3) is something more than to contend for orthodoxy of doctrine; to champion an evangelical creed; to be a ‘fundamentalist’. It is to recognise and fervently seek to secure for God that upon which His own heart is set: namely, a people of the Altar, the Cross, the Blood. A people who have been crucified with Christ in spiritual reality and apprehension, and whose life is an abiding testimony to Calvary’s victory over all Christ’s foes, within and without, and from whom there flows to the ends of the earth the stream of Divine, holy, mighty, energizing and indestructible life.

Chapter 6 - The Testimony of the Blood (continued)

There is nothing which Satan fears so terribly and contests so fiercely as a true and living testimony concerning the Blood of the Lord Jesus: not a teaching, doctrine, creed or phraseology, but that which is wrought out in the power of the Holy Spirit. It is therefore necessary for us to seek to recognise this fact, to understand, as far as we can, why it is so, and to know our position of victory because of the Blood. Unto this threefold apprehension we shall begin at the ultimate issue of the testimony, which is –

THE DIVINE SEED IN PROSPERITY AND SOVEREIGNTY

It is this that Satan cannot bear to contemplate, and against which he is bitterly set, because it represents a menace to his kingdom at every point.

There is a very great significance attached to the introduction of the book of Exodus with “the names of the sons of Israel, who came into Egypt”. The title “sons of Israel” represents their dignity as sons of “a prince of God”. They came into Egypt and were in great prosperity and strength, while yet a separate and unabsorbed people. This dignity, prosperity and power came to be regarded as a distinct peril to the king of Egypt, and he projected a plan for humbling them, bringing them into bondage, and making them rather to contribute to his own prosperity and power.

Thus Exodus presents, firstly, God’s mind concerning the princely dignity and spiritual prosperity and ascendency of the “sons”; then the activity and object of the adversary concerning them; and finally the Divine thought and intention established in the realm of “far above all rule and authority” in virtue of the shed blood of chapter twelve. So then, sonship and sovereignty are the two factors present throughout. Sonship is the basic principle. Sovereignty is the issue involved in the conflict. The Blood is the instrument by which both are established. “These are the names of the sons of ‘the Prince of God’...” is the introduction. “Let my son go, that he may serve me”, is the challenge to Pharaoh; and “Thou hast refused... behold, I will slay thy son”, is the sovereign factor at issue (Ex. 4:23).

Now these elements are carried forward throughout all the Scriptures. It does not matter where you look: that which lies behind all the conflicts in the history of the people of God concerns the existence of a Divine seed in prosperity and power – spiritually - and the factor which is mainly involved is that of the altar and the blood. Everything hangs on that. This all heads up and finds its supreme expression in the Person and work of the Lord Jesus. As with Moses typically, so with Him anti-typically, there was the recognition of the one through whom this Divine seed would be constituted in its “authority... over all the power of the enemy” (Luke 10:19). So from birth a ‘dead set’ was made for His destruction - not only by direct onslaught, but by subtle subterfuge to get Him to act upon a level of self by which the Divine protection would be forfeited.

The point at which we meet this whole matter of the testimony of the Blood is with –

AN ELECT IN BONDAGE

There is abundant Scripture to show what was the original thought and intention of God for His spiritual seed, and this is a very important matter for the apprehension of the Lord’s people. But what particularly concerns us now is its realisation. It is not a little impressive that of the twenty-seven ‘books’ of the New Testament at least twenty-one have to do with the bringing of the Lord’s children into their right spiritual place. And how many of them are directly concerned with the matter of the actual or threatening loss of spiritual prosperity and ascendency through some form of bondage. There is the bondage of iniquity, of sin and sins, of the Law, of tradition, of fear, of the flesh, of the carnal mind, of reason, of the righteousness of the flesh, the wisdom of the flesh, the ‘spirituality’ of the flesh, and many other forms of bondage. The bonds of Satan are very numerous, and he suits the kind to the case. A prince in chains, a member of the seed royal in servile oppression, is a pitiable sight, and this is what the Devil delights in. The “man-child”, whether individual as in Moses and Christ (Exodus 1 and Matthew 2), or corporate as in Revelation 12, is the object of the Dragon’s venom. This is the Divine seed.

Think of the sons of the ‘Prince of God’ engaged in building store-cities for Pharaoh, and thus adding wealth and glory to his world-system instead of serving the Lord in freedom and victory! Such is the state of the elect, more or less. From the position of servitude to sin, self, the world and the Devil before salvation, through all the stages and phases of spiritual weakness and defeat to paralysing introspection and spiritual self-analysis, the true dignity of princeliness, of sonship, is assailed.

Now, if we did but know it, there is always some ground for the bondage. Satan must have ground. His power cannot function without ground. He was utterly impotent in the case of the Lord Jesus because there was no ground. “The prince of the world cometh: and he hath nothing in me” (John 14:30). The ground which issues in defeat and bondage at the hands of the adversary is as varied as the bondage itself.

Is it the natural condition of the sinfulness of human nature, that what is in man is quite unfit and unsuitable for the presence of God? Is it that the Divine will represents a standard of perfection in moral excellence which sets back from God even the very best among men? Is it a secret thing, hidden in the inward parts, which in itself becomes a weapon in the enemy’s hand to knock us down? Is it sin done in ignorance, where the intention was good, but where fuller light reveals that it was wrong after all? Is it sin unconsciously committed, in the sense that we did not even know that we did the thing?

Yes, all these, and many more, are grounds that Satan uses - and rightly so, if we fail in one all-embracing respect. This failure is in the matter of recognising the virtue of the precious Blood, and the worth of Him who shed it.

In saying this we are but bringing into view the offerings of Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers. A close study of these offerings will reveal two things. One is that God has searched out sin and tracked it to its most hidden and secret lair, even to the place of unconsciousness. The accidental, unwitting, and unsuspected is all taken into His consideration. He regards sin now as a state, not merely as a matter of a deliberate act. It is here, universal, operating in innumerable ways and finding common ground of affection in the whole race. This all comes out so clearly in a careful reading of Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers.

But, having tracked sin to its remotest haunt, God has made provision for dealing with it to the very last suggestion.

1.  A whole Burnt offering, that the believer may stand accepted and perfect in relation to all the will of God (Col. 4:12). (Lev. 1; Heb. 10).

2.  A Meal offering, that he may be able to come into possession of moral perfection, not his own, but presented by faith. (Lev. 2; Rom. 12:1, 2; Heb. 10:10; 13:21, etc.).

3.  A Peace offering, that there may be not only access and standing, but fellowship and oneness with God. (Lev. 3; Col. 1:20; Rom. 5:10, etc.).

4.  A Sin offering, that sin in its more positive aspects, and sin in ignorance and without consciousness, may not interfere with living fellowship by bringing in spiritual death, either through our own failure or through the contamination of contact. (Lev. 4, 5, etc.).

And not only in the matter of our relationship with God does the Blood make an all-sufficient provision, but in co-operation with God by priestly ministry, in effective spiritual service in its many-sidedness.

So, then, the first and primary thing in a living testimony to the complete overthrow of the dominion of Satan and the destruction (bringing to nought) of his works is a due and adequate apprehension and appreciation of the Lord Jesus in the value of His Blood.

There is something almighty in the death of Jesus Christ. Many of God’s people have failed to recognise the important distinction between His crucifixion and His death. The crucifixion is man’s side. The death is His own.   All the crosses ever made, and all the men who ever conceived them, could never have brought about the death of the Lord Jesus, apart from His own voluntary act of laying down His life. “I lay down my life... No man taketh it from me... I lay it down of myself. I have power (jurisdiction) to lay it down, and I have power (jurisdiction) to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father” (John 10:17,18).

The preaching of Christ crucified is not the preaching merely of what men did to Him, but of what He ALLOWED men to do, and, in and through what they did, what He did. The DEATH of Christ, in its real meaning, is not man’s act, nor is it the Devil’s act. Satan and men had made many unsuccessful attempts to kill Him, but HIS hour had not come. HE fixes the time for what HE will do. The rulers said, “Not during the feast” (Mark 14:2), but the Lord Jesus took it out of their hands, and out of the hands of Judas, and precipitated it on that day in the Upper Room; so deftly heading up that Judas was as one under authority: “That thou doest, do quickly” (John 13:27).

When He ‘lays down’ His life that He may ‘take it again’ there is infinitude in the deliberate act, and it relates to universal sovereignty. Sin, as the principle; the old creation, as the sphere; Satan, as the ruler in that realm; death, as the consequence; and judgment, as the inevitable prospect and reality: all are involved in the death of Christ. That entire ground was dealt with, and that regime brought to an end, in that death. The whole thing centres in the Person of the Lord Jesus. The same person must be able both to act as representative of man rejected of God because of sin, and, as representative, receive all the judgment of God upon man and sin, and yet at the same time, because sin is not inherent in Him, but in Himself He is utterly sinless, render death and hell incapable of holding Him. There never was such a one, other than Jesus Christ: Son of man - Son of God.

The pouring out of His Blood was, on the one side, His voluntary yielding to wrath and destruction from the face of God, as Man for man; and, on the other side, a saying in effect to death, the Devil and the grave, ‘I concede you all your claims unto the last atom, and exhaust all your demands, in being made sin and a curse. But you have another in Me also, over whom you have no power or rights, because you have no ground in Him. You cannot hold Me - I defy you; and, what is more, I now take you as My prisoners. Henceforth I am your Lord, and I will plunder your domain and rob you of your spoil.’

“O death, where is thy victory? O death, where is thy sting?” (1 Cor, 15:55).

‘Up from the grave He arose,

With a mighty triumph o’er His foes”.

‘...He invaded death’s abode

And robbed him of his sting’.

‘...He hath crushed beneath His rod

The world’s proud rebel king.

He plunged in His imperial strength

To gulfs of darkness down,

He brought His trophy up at length,

The foiled usurper’s crown’.

So He, because of His sinless perfection, can stand in complete acceptance with God, suitable to God, and this representatively as man (though more than man), His Blood, therefore, representing His sinless and victorious life, is given to us, and in virtue of it there is constituted that princely seed in all the good of His triumph. This does not make us sinlessly perfect, but He who is in us is so.

What remains to bring us into that good is a spiritual appreciation and apprehension of the transcendent greatness of the Lord Jesus, the Holy Spirit revealing Him in us; and then the link of faith unto obedience between what we are not and what He is. The bridge is faith. Some act as though it were struggle or puzzle, or any one of a number of things which are in the nature of self-effort. It will be found, indeed, that faith is no mere passive acquiescence. But it is not the DEGREE of faith only, but the OBJECT of faith. It is, after all, the place which CHRIST has in the apprehension of HIS people which makes for the prosperity and ascendency which should characterize them. The supreme days of Israel’s history were those when Christ in type was largest and most dominating. The Feast of the Passover was the focal point and the pivot. There never was such rejoicing as then; and, in later times, when idolatry had gained a strong footing, it was after the restoration of this feast that the people instinctively returned to destroy the false system.

Thus the testimony of the Blood is basic to victory, ascendency, and spiritual prosperity, and is the most deadly force against all the works of the adversary.

Chapter 7 - "A Candlestick all of Gold"

We are going to look at the fourth chapter of Zechariah, which features in a remarkable way conditions and Divine aims in the ‘end times’. There are striking similarities in it, as we shall see, to certain things mentioned in the first chapters of the Revelation. Its great value lies in its concentrated presentation of essentials. When you have these you have everything vital.

What first comes into view is -

AN ANGEL TALKING

“The angel that talked with me” (verses 1, 4). The parallel to this in the Revelation is the phrase, seven times repeated (note: seven=spiritual perfection, completeness): “what the Spirit saith to the churches”.

The Lord has something to say at the end. The book of the Revelation is full of voices. It begins with: “I turned to see the voice” (1:12). A strange way of putting things! Did anyone ever see a voice? There is, however, no mistake made. A vital reality is in this seeming error, as we shall see. We have known much to be made of this “voice” factor in the Bible. True as it is that God can make Himself vocal and audible, taking up men and articulating His thoughts through them, as He has ever done, we would point out that in this case it is not the voice of man; indeed, it is not primarily the voice at all. It is that God has something to say, and a very important something.

The most pertinent question that can possibly be asked at this time is –

WHAT IS GOD SAYING TODAY?

A striking feature of our time is that so few of the voices have a distinctive message. There is a painful lack of a clear word of authority for the times. While there are many good preachers of the Gospel, and while we are not without champions of the vital verities of the Faith, we are sadly in need of the Prophet with his “Thus saith the Lord”, which he has received in a commission born of a peculiarly chastened fellowship with God.

Why is it so? May it not be that so many who might have this ministry have become so much a part of a system: a system which puts preachers so largely upon a professional basis, the effect of which is to make preaching a matter of demand and supply; of providing for the established religious order and programme? And not only in the matter of preaching, but in the whole organization and activity of Christianity as we have it in the systematized form today. There is not the freedom and detachment for speaking ONLY when “the burden of the word of the Lord” is upon the prophet, or when he could say: “The hand of the Lord was upon me”. The present order requires a man to speak every so often: hence he MUST get something, and this necessity means either that God must be offered our programme and asked to meet it (which He will not do), or that the preacher must MAKE something for the constantly recurring occasion.

This is a pernicious system, and it opens the door to many dangerous and baneful intrusions of what is of man and not of God. The most serious aspect of this way of things is that it results in voices, voices, voices - a CONFUSION of voices - but not the specific voice with the specific utterance of God for the time. Too often it has the effect of causing men to hear and read just with a view to getting preaching matter, subjects for sermons; the value of things is judged by their suggestiveness of themes. The man may be a godly man and the message may be the truth, but there is something more than this - is it THE message which relates to the immediate time-appointed purpose of God? There are many good men who are giving out what they know and believe of the truth, but at the same time there are many of the Lord’s children who are hungry and not being fed.

The food question amongst the Lord’s people today is a very acute one, and a more or less good ministry is not going to meet the need. There is a growing concern to know, as distinct from the generalisations of truth and service, what is the Lord’s word for now, where we are, and what in the Divine purpose belongs to this present hour.

This brings us back to the first thing in our chapter: God has something to say; but it also leads us to the next thing: “The Angel that talked with me came again, and waked me, as a man that is wakened out of his sleep”. Here we have the necessity for –

AN AWAKENING TO WHAT GOD HAS TO SAY

In the Revelation this is: “He that hath an ear, let him hear”, and in the case of Laodicea - which represents the end - it is: “I counsel thee to buy of me... eyesalve... that thou mayest see” (Rev. 3:18). “I turned to see the voice which spake with me”, said John. God is speaking; He has something to say; but there must be a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him; “having the eyes of your heart enlightened” (Eph. 1:17,18).

Spiritual discernment, perception, understanding and intelligence are all too rare. The causes are many. The engrossment with the work and its multifarious concerns; the rush and hurry of life; the restless spirit of the age: these, with an exhaustive provision of external religious facilities, all tend to render the inner place of Divine speaking inoperative or impossible of functioning. Perhaps we have forgotten that the Bible not only IS a revelation, but also CONTAINS a revelation, and that that deeper spiritual content is only possible of recognition and realisation by such as have had their eyes and ears opened; in other words, by those who have been awakened. Some of the Lord’s most faithful servants are still only occupied with the letter of the Word, the contents of books, topics, themes, subjects, outlines, analyses, etc., and are not, IN THE DEEPEST SENSE, in spiritual understanding. (This is not meant as a criticism.) The difference too often is that between a ministry to the mind or head, and one to the heart or spirit. The former will sooner or later tire and weary both the minister and those ministered to. The latter is a ministry of life to both, and is inexhaustible in freshness.

Whether it comes at the beginning or later, it is the greatest day in our history of which we can say: “It pleased God... to reveal his Son IN me”. ‘I received it, not from man... but by revelation of Jesus Christ’ (Gal. 1:15,16; 12). That is the beginning of an inwardness of things which may have many critical issues. One of these is that of which we are particularly thinking now, namely, the awakening to see what is the thought and desire of God at given and specific times. Such a revelation - through the Scriptures - is nothing less than revolutionary, and usually costly.

Would to God that there was an adequate number at this time who, like the men of Issachar, “had understanding of the times” (1 Chron. 12:32).

We now proceed to see what comes into view when God’s instrument is awakened, and is able to answer the heavenly interrogation: “What seest thou?”

“BEHOLD, A CANDLESTICK ALL OF GOLD”

Every ministry in the Scriptures appointed by God was constituted upon something having been SEEN. The test of a Divine commission may be found in this question, “What seest thou?”, and the answer, upon the basis of God having shown something very concrete, may well provide the credentials. It is not the matter of winning the sermon or winning the audience, but declaring the truth for the time as it has been made a fire in the bones. It would be pertinent, rather than impertinent, to challenge the servants of God with this question, relative to the time in which they live, and relative to the immediate concern of God – “What seest thou?”

There is no doubt that what God has seen at all times as His objective is “a candlestick all of gold”, but from time to time there has been a special necessity for Him to bring it into the view of the people, and especially of His prophets. It is for this that He reacts, and the end-time must see a renewal of His reaction.

Now, ignoring the fact that there is a difference between the seven-branched candlestick or lampstand of the Old Testament, and the seven lampstands of the Apocalypse, there is a relationship of the two in a common principle. That common principle is that they both represent -

THE INSTRUMENT OF THE TESTIMONY IN THE HOUSE OF GOD

While that innermost light of the Most Holy Place - the light of Christ in the presence of God - remains un-dimmed and inviolate, there is that which is midway between Heaven and earth - the Holy Place - where the testimony has to be kept clear both Godward and man-ward. Concerning this - as differing from the other - God has given very careful and explicit instructions and injunctions for its perpetual maintenance. He is peculiarly jealous over this testimony. Thus, we find that it is here in the sphere of this, that the prayer-life (Altar of incense) and the feeding-fellowship (Table of shewbread) of the Lord’s people have their true value and vitality.

The instructions for the making of the Candlestick in Exodus 25 and 37 are full of the richest significance. First in these is the material – “pure gold”. If it is to have a SEVENFOLD fullness, intensity and expression, which refers to spiritual completeness, then it must be pre-eminently suitable to the Divine purpose. The meaning of the “all of gold”, then, is that it is –

ABSOLUTELY ACCORDING TO GOD

Be sure to get the force of this: an instrument of the testimony wholly according to God! There is only One who is thus wholly according to God’s mind and heart - the Lord Jesus, and if the whole Tabernacle in every part came firstly from God and then was Christ in type throughout, then this lampstand speaks of a vessel of the testimony of God in which the Lord Jesus is absolute and complete. God would have everything according to Christ. This fact governs the whole revelation in the Scriptures, from Genesis to Revelation. It is typified and prophesied in the Old Testament. It is presented in the Gospels; demonstrated in the Acts; defined in the Epistles; and consummated in the Revelation. But, alas, what a tragic and heart-breaking history is associated with this fact, and how difficult has it ever been to get anything wholly according to Christ.

In an earlier chapter we saw God’s reactions to this in Bible times, and suggested that since then He has again and again so reacted.

The Reformation was such a reaction, and by it He recovered the great foundational truth of Justification by Faith; which puts Christ into His absolute place as the Chief Cornerstone of the House of God. It was a grand thing, though very costly. But all too soon men pulled it down to the earth, and the ‘Protestant Church’ as such issued; a tree in the branches of which almost every kind of credal bird can lodge. Protestantism, as such, is by no means a synonym for what is wholly according to Christ.

Since then the reactions of the Lord have been seen in many other instances.

The Moravian Brethren, through a great fight and affliction, were used to recover the great truth of the Church’s responsibility for the testimony of Jesus in all the nations. Not the responsibility of a missionary society or adjunct to the Church, but of the Church itself directly. This was, and is, wholly according to Christ. But again, human hands mould this movement into a ‘church’ with all the outward elements of a religious order. There is no question but that there has been considerable spiritual loss.

A further reaction of God was seen in the Wesleys and Whitfield. Here, in addition to a mighty recovering of soul-saving evangelism, there was the recovery of the doctrine of practical holiness. This was grand while the instrument remained; but alas there came those human hands again, and an earthly organizing into a system - the ‘Wesleyan Church’. We are perfectly sure that Wesley would not have wished this.

Then about a hundred years ago, there was what all ought to recognise as a movement of God in the shape of the ‘Plymouth Brethren’. There were several most precious recoveries made in this instance. The Lord Jesus was given an exclusive place which was not common in those days, nor is it common now. The great truth concerning the Body of Christ - the One Church - was brought again into view, after perhaps centuries of obscurity. God was in this, and is still in it, but the most ardent devotee to this community is both grieved and ashamed to contemplate its divisions today. Is it that men have again been insinuated or have insinuated themselves? Has this, like so much more, been taken into the governing hands of men? Has that subjective work of the Cross, by which in a very deep way man is cut off and the Holy Spirit governs, failed of adequate application or acceptance here? These are questions, not charges; we are seeking to speak, not destructively, but constructively.

Many more are the reactions of God through the past nineteen centuries; we only use these by way of illustration. It will be seen that each fresh movement was an advance upon those that preceded it in the matter of truth recovered: from the Divine standpoint it was a movement nearer to the original position. The big question which at once arises is: Will the Lord do a new thing yet? Are we to know of a fresh reaction to His first position? The only answer we can give to this question is that, whether or not there should be anything in the nature of a movement as open to general recognition, we are certain that there is a more or less hidden movement on the part of the Spirit of God, working through deepening dissatisfaction with things as they are toward that which is nearer the original thought than has been since the beginning. It will be such a thing as cannot be ‘joined’ by men, but in which only those will share who are moved by deep inward exercise, so that it becomes a matter of a common spiritual travail.

What next comes before us in Zechariah’s vision, which is more than Jewish, but has that invariable double application of Old Testament revelation, is –

THE TWO OLIVE TREES AND THE TWO ANOINTED ONES

The symbolism here is familiar. Two is the number of testimony or witness. Trees are very often symbolic of man as witness, or men as witnesses. The olive, as is apparent in this chapter, especially relates to the oil. The position of these two trees is on either side of the candlestick. From verse 14 we learn that “These are the two anointed ones (sons of oil), that stand by the Lord of the whole earth”.

There is no doubt that the two olive trees bring into view, firstly and historically, Joshua the High Priest and Zerubbabel the Governor. Chapter 3 deals with the one and chapter 4 with the other. The first discourse concerned the High Priesthood and its ministry; the second (4:1) concerns the Government or sovereignty. This, interpreted prophetically, relates to the Lord Jesus. His High Priestly work and position come first into view, and are established in glory; then He is established by God as Lord and Sovereign Head. On these two sides of His one Person He ever gives the meaning of the candlestick: that is, He defines the nature of its vocation, and supplies the unfailing resource for that testimony. It is, as we have said, constituted according to Christ, and maintained by Him in all the fulness of His anointing.

The Divine explanation of this is: “This is the word of Jehovah unto Zerubbabel, saying, Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord of Hosts” (verse 6). Here we reach the central meaning of the vision as to the execution of the purpose of God. It speaks for itself. Its clear affirmation is that this instrument and this testimony must be utterly in the hands of the Holy Spirit. Not might, nor power, of brain, will, emotion, organization, machinery, committee, influence, reputation, numbers, name, personality, outfit, enthusiasm, etc., but solely the Holy Spirit! The accounting for this will never be, IN TRUTH - whatever superficial observers may say - attributable to any human force or resource, but all who have any spiritual intelligence will have to recognise that its energy and power is Divine. This will also be proved by its endurance and persistence through the intense fires of opposition and antagonism.

Here the Holy Spirit is allowed to govern and dictate, to direct and choose or reject, just as in the “Acts” at the beginning. To have such an instrument and such a testimony there will need to be a very revolutionary re-shaping of ideas. It will be necessary to realise that all those things, upon which men have come to count as most important factors in the Lord’s work, are really not necessary factors at all. It will have to be recognised that education, personal ability, business ability, worldly wisdom, money, etc. AS SUCH have nothing to do with the work of the Holy Spirit or with Christianity. The Lord may use these, call them in, and if they are kept in their right place they may serve Him greatly; but they are secondary, and He can easily dispense with them. It is of infinitely greater importance and value that men should be filled with the Holy Spirit, and if a choice is to be made, this should ever be the very first consideration. There is a wisdom, judgment, discernment, knowledge, understanding by the Holy Spirit which alone is equal to the demands of that which alone is to be wholly according to God.

Thus the Lord Jesus, as the Great Mediator and Sovereign Head, would maintain His testimony wholly in accordance with His own nature and mind in the fullness of the Spirit of His own anointing. When things are thus there is no need to be unduly oppressed by –

THE GREAT MOUNTAIN

“Who art thou, O great mountain? Before Zerubhabel thou shalt become a plain” (verse 7). The mountain is a figure of the accumulation of difficulties. The completing of the House of God will be no less fraught with difficulty and obstruction than the commencement; but, as then, so at the end, where the Holy Spirit is absolute Lord, these difficulties will be proved rather complementary than otherwise. The “many adversaries” will only be sovereignly used to further, rather than arrest, the consummation of “the eternal purpose”.

“The hands of Zerubbabel have laid the foundation of this house, his hands shall also finish it” (verse 9). The Greater Zerubbabel laid those foundations at Pentecost. The finishing will be by His hands alone. The same glorious Lord Jesus will "bring forth the top-stone with shoutings of Grace, grace, unto it”.

Then there is presented for our contemplation, by way of an interrogation, a matter which is indeed very challenging –

THE DAY OF SMALL THINGS.

“Who hath despised the day of small things?” (verse 10). There is amongst the Lord’s people in these days an unhealthy lust for big things. Something to attract attention; a demonstration to capture, an appearance to impress. Big names, big places, big titles, big sounds, big movements, big sweeps! If the dimensions are big according to men’s standards, the success is judged accordingly.

In order to obtain and maintain that which will preserve the recognition of wholly Divine factors, God has ever found it necessary to reduce. End-times are always days of small things: see the testimony in the Revelation - it is only represented by the few who ‘overcome’. Bigness is material or temporal. Greatness is spiritual and eternal. Too often men - even Christians - despise that in which God delights. The significance of things according to God is so often seen in an “upper room”, as over against the whole city, but the city succumbs to the upper room. When dealing with the “world rulers of this darkness” the Lord has frequently made an upper room His Throne-room.

“These seven eyes of Jehovah shall rejoice when they see the plummet in the hand of Zerubbabel” (verse 10). What is this? The seven eyes symbolize the perfection of spiritual vision, which takes in everything as it is. The plummet is that by which crookedness is brought to light and made manifest. When Jehovah sees the Lord Jesus with that instrument in His hand, which so represents His own standard that by it He can correct all that deviates, and expose all the unsuspected leanings, bulgings, angles, and dangers of that which is related to His House; when He has that instrument by which He can make manifest how His House should be built according to Christ - then His perfect spiritual vision will rejoice and be satisfied. This is what He needs. O, that we might be to Him such an instrument! It will not be a popular ministry; it will cost; but it will be precious to the Lord.

As we close, let us just note the names of the Lord in this chapter. The purpose as in view is related to Jehovah - the Almighty, Eternally Self-Sufficient One (verses 6, 10). The executing and sufficiency of the purpose is related to Jehovah-Sabaoth - the Lord of Hosts (verse 6). The place of the testimony is related to Adon - Master, or Lord (verse 14); that is, He who owns and has the rights of proprietorship.

Chapter 8 - Gather My Saints Together

“Gather my saints together unto me, those that have made a covenant with me by sacrifice” Psalm 50:5.

“Now we beseech you, brethren, touching the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and our gathering together unto him...” 2 Thess. 2:1.

"Not forsaking our own assembling together, as the custom of some is, but exhorting one another, and so much the more, as ye see the day drawing nigh” Hebrews 10:25.

In all the above passages there is one common factor: namely, that an end-time movement and feature is dominant. It must be remembered that the Psalms themselves represent what remains when a history of outward things, as to the general instrumentality, has ended in failure. The history of Israel in its first great phase closed with the book of Kings in a calamitous and shameful way. Weakness, paralysis, declension, reproach, characterized the instrument in general. But out of that history now so concluded the Psalms are carried forward, as that which represents permanent spiritual gain.

This is pre-eminently a personal, inward spiritual knowledge of the Lord, gained through experience. That is why they always reach the heart and never fail to touch experience at every point. To them the saints have turned in times of deep experience. They are the ministry of experience to experience - the only ministry which is permanent. The end-time instrument will always be that which knows the Lord in a deep, inward, living way, through a history fraught with much experience of the heights and depths.

What David gave to the Chief Musician for the wind instruments and the stringed instruments touches the highest and deepest notes of a mortal’s knowledge of God. Worship, Salvation, Sorrow, Appeal, Victory, Battle, Faith, Hope, Glory, Instruction, are great themes interwoven with the mass of matters touched; but the point is that all came in REAL LIFE - he passed through it all. It is this, and this alone, which can serve the Lord when what He first raised up has failed Him as a public instrument. So the Lord would take pains to secure this, and this may explain much of the suffering and sorrow through which He takes His chosen vessels.

The Psalms form only one of the four books born of the history of Israel, each of which has its own feature to contribute to that which represents the permanent work of God, but especially as relating to an instrument of Divine reaction. But the Psalms show clearly where God begins and what in principle is basic to the first and most abiding work of God.

It does not need pointing out that, in the other two passages with which we commenced, the end-time is in view; they definitely state it. There is a further common feature of the three, however, which is more particularly the subject before us. They all definitely refer to GATHERING TOGETHER as something related to the end-time.

A history of a religious system, born out of something which the Lord raised up in the first place, has ended in weakness, chaos and shame. Therefore, there is to be a re-gathering to the Lord of His saints.

The Lord is coming, and there is a gathering to Him.

The Day is drawing nigh: therefore there is to be a “so much the more” assembling together.

THE PARTICIPANTS IN THE GATHERING

Before we deal with the nature of this end-time gathering, we must have clearly in view those that are concerned in it. The passage in the Psalm would embrace and include those referred to in the other two passages.

“My saints... those that have made a covenant with me by sacrifice.”

It need hardly be remarked that, when all has been said and done through type, symbol and figure, the covenant means an entering into what the Lord Jesus has done by His shed Blood. It is an appreciation and apprehension of Him in His great work by the Cross. But we need to be reminded of what that involves as a covenant of God into which we enter. It is a theme which demands a book to itself. In order to reduce it to a few lines, let us consider a concrete instance. We find a conspicuous illustration of this matter in the life of Abram, as recorded in Genesis, chapters 15 and 22.

In chapter 15 we have the basis of a covenant concerning Abram’s seed. Firstly, there is the comprehensive inclusion of the offerings which came in later in Leviticus: a heifer, a goat, a ram, a turtle-dove and a pigeon. These - with the exception of the birds - were divided in the midst, and laid one half on this side and the other half on that side. These were the two sides of the covenant, God’s and Abram’s. Later we see a flaming torch passing between the two halves (verse 17).

Now, it is clear that Abram knew what this all meant. He realised that it involved him in something. God was saying quite clearly that He was wholly for Abram, that all that He was and had was being committed to this covenant. He would keep nothing back from him, but would, so to speak, place His very life, honour, name, glory, to the good of His word to Abram. This was adequately proved in the long run when He became incarnate in the seed of Abraham for universal blessing. But there were two sides to the covenant, and Abram understood this. He also was handing himself over to God with all that he was and had, to the very dearest possession, and if need be, to death. That burning torch - that Fire of the Spirit - sealed the oneness of the consecration or devotion of each to the other.

Now this explains chapter 22. By that time Isaac was born and had grown out of childhood. He had taken his place, and was to Abraham what a first-born son is to his father in the East. But he was more, because of the miracle of his birth and the long-deferred hope. He was everything to Abraham - more than life itself. All his father’s hopes, expectations, vindications, promises and Divine assurances were bound up with him. Accordingly –

“It came to pass after these things, that God did prove Abraham, and said unto him, Abraham; and he said, Here am I. And he said, Take now thy son, thine only son, whom thou lovest, even Isaac... and offer him... for a burnt offering...”

This ‘proving’ was concerning the covenant. Did Abram mean his part of it? Would he stand to it? Did he so utterly believe that God would be faithful to His part that, no matter what happened to Isaac, God could be trusted and His promise would be fulfilled? What a test! But “Abraham believed God” (Rom. 4:3). His faith in God enabled him to stand by his part of the covenant, and “he wavered not” (4:20).

The issue was that, when Isaac had virtually been offered, the Lord said to him: “Now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son thine only son, from me” (Gen. 22:12).

And then the Lord came in with His oath: “By myself have I sworn... because thou hast done this thing, and hast not withheld thy son, thine only son: that in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven...” (verses 16-18).

Do we now see the meaning of ‘a covenant by sacrifice’? Then we shall see who it is that will be in this ‘gathering together’. It will certainly be only those to whom the Lord is everything, to whom He is all and in all; those who are all for the Lord without reservation, without personal interest, without anything less or other than Himself. Spiritual oneness is only possible on this basis.

The Lord’s word at the end to Abraham was: “Now I know that thou fearest God”. Malachi’s end-time word was: “Then they that feared the Lord...” (3:16). The fear of the Lord is an utter abandonment to Him, at any cost. It is His will being supreme, claiming and obtaining the measure of a whole burnt-offering.

THE NATURE OF THE GATHERING

Being, then, clear as to WHO are concerned - and that constitutes a test, even as they constitute a testimony - we are able to look at the nature of the ‘gathering together’.

We are well aware that there is a widespread doubt as to whether we are to expect anything in the way of a corporate movement or testimony at the end. Indeed, it is strongly held by some that everything at the end is individual - a conviction that rests, for the most part, upon the use of the phrase, “If any man...”, in the message to Laodicea (Rev. 3:20).

Let us hasten to say, then, that we have nothing in mind in the nature of an organized movement, a sect, a society, or a fraternity.

Having said this, however, there are some things which need saying quite definitely on the other side.

The Church of the New Testament never was an organized movement. Neither was there any organized affiliation of the companies of believers in various places with one another. It was a purely spiritual thing, spontaneous in life, united only by the Holy Spirit in mutual love and spiritual solicitude. There were other factors that acted as spiritual links, which we will mention presently. Further, and still more important, there was the abiding fact that a ‘Body’ had been brought into being. This is called ‘The Body of Christ’. You can divide a society and still it remains, but you cannot divide a body without destroying the entity.

Are we to understand from the exponents of the individualistic interpretation that all the teaching of the Lord, in nearly all the Scriptures concerning the House of God, and concerning the Body of Christ in nearly all the letters of Paul, is now set aside or is only an idea without any expression on the earth? Are we to blot out the mass of the New Testament and live our own individual Christian lives with no emphasis upon working fellowship with other believers? Surely not. This would be contrary to all the ways of God in history, and would certainly spell defeat, for if there is one thing against which the adversary has set himself it is the fellowship of God’s people. Ultra-individualism is impossible if the truth of the ‘One Body’ still stands. What is more, the Lord’s people are becoming more and more conscious of their absolute need of fellowship, especially in prayer. The difficulty of getting through alone in prayer is becoming greater as we approach the end.

What, then, is the nature of this ‘gathering together’?

(1)  UNTO HIM

It is a gathering to the Lord Himself.

“Gather my saints together UNTO ME...”

“Our gathering UNTO HIM...”

In times past there have been gatherings to men, great preachers, great teachers, great leaders; or to great institutions and movements, centres and teachings. This is not now the Lord’s way. Not that men sought to draw to themselves, or that the Lord was not reached through them, but people have a way of making a greatly used servant of God the object of attraction.

God’s End is Christ, and as we get nearer the end He must take the place even of instrumentalities and become almost immediately the only object of appreciation. Our oneness and fellowship is not in a teaching, a ‘testimony’, a community or a place, but in a Person, and in Him not merely doctrinally, but livingly and experimentally. Any movement truly of God must, as its supreme and all-inclusive feature, confess that it is the Lord Jesus alone who is the object of heart adoration and worship: not things, themes, experiences, but the Lord Jesus Himself.

(2)  PRAYER-FELLOWSHIP

This gathering is a gathering together in prayer-fellowship. One of the last things said in the Epistle which presents for all time and eternity the true nature of the Church as the Body of Christ - the Epistle to the Ephesians - is:

“Praying at all seasons in the Spirit... FOR ALL THE SAINTS” (Eph. 5:18).

If the first thing in spiritual gathering together is “holding fast the Head” (Col. 2:19), or having the Lord Jesus as the centre, the second thing is prayer-fellowship with and for all the saints. “Gather my SAINTS together.” This is geographically impossible of full realisation, but it is spiritually possible by prayer. There is no space or time in the realm of prayer. A deep and travailing concern in prayer for the spiritual well-being of all the saints has ever marked an end-time movement of God; not alone for those who were true and faithful, and had gone all the way with God; but for ALL the people of God - although such as were more immediately the objects of Satanic malice, by reason of their faithfulness, might provoke a special cry to the Throne.

What we see is the Lord having a prayer-instrument in every end-time, when total destruction threatens that which represents Him. And the very burden of prayer which He lays upon His own in every part of the world is His way of uniting. If we prayed more for all saints we should find many of the things which divide - and wrongly divide - falling away and ceasing to do so. Prayer is a wonderfully ‘gathering’ factor.

(3)  SPIRITUAL FOOD

Another great factor in gathering spiritually is food.

The Old Testament brings before us many an instance of fellowship by feasting. Indeed, feasts were the nature of the fellowship, although not the occasion of it.

The New Testament takes up the spiritual principle, and the Lord Jesus makes the ‘breaking of bread’ not only the remembering and proclaiming of His death and Himself, but the testimony of the ‘one Loaf - one Body’. The Lord’s Supper is represented as food and fellowship.

In the first years of the Church, Christ was ministered to the saints by the Holy Spirit through ministering servants who moved from place to place. It was thus that the saints were brought into fellowship with one another. Not - let us say again - by an organized affiliation, but by a ministration of Christ through His Word in the Spirit. The ministers were “joints of supply” (Eph. 4:16).

It is all too obvious a thing to say that today there is a very real hunger amongst the Lord’s people. They are not being fed. What so many of them are getting is not ‘bread’. In every part of the world there are such hungry ones; one here, another there; a little company in one place, another in another, and often unknown to each other. The persistent and perplexing question asked almost everywhere is: ‘What are we to do? There is no spiritual food where we are.’

(4)  MINISTRY

Will not the Lord raise up a ministry to these? We are persuaded that He will, and that He is now seeking to do so. A method of gathering together according to Christ will be that a ministration of Christ is sent forth and the hungry will be found gathered in spite of everything. For as there is a dissatisfaction with the religious systems of the day on the part of so many who want to go on with the Lord, so there is springing up in the hearts of many of God’s servants a longing to be free to minister to the saints irrespective of traditional ties and distinctions.

There is no mistaking the fact that this matter of food as a uniting factor was ministered to the churches through anointed ministries. In the book of the Acts we see how the scattered churches were held together largely through the ministries of servants of God who were qualified to build the body corporate. They were everywhere recognised, accepted and honoured, and they were in a very large way a substitute for organized affiliation, government and centralisation. As the individual members of Christ form one corporate Body, so the individual churches were like corporate members of the whole corporate Body, and there was great gain to all by corporate ministries passing between them.

This all has its own perils, but we cannot fail to see the movement of God at the present day, and it is a gathering movement - to Himself.

The passage in Hebrews (10:25) specifically has the local assembling in view. No one can deny that this is the Divine order. The Lord desires to have in every place a representation of and a testimony to His House. His will is to have all such constituted according to Christ. But only the Holy Spirit can do this constituting. We cannot take a New Testament mould and pour people and places into it. We must come into it by the Spirit. This necessitates that the Holy Spirit have absolute sovereignty, clearness and right-of-way; and this, in turn, requires that the flesh be crucified and man be absolutely subject to Christ.

We see nothing in Scripture to lead us to conclude that this can never again be. It may be a “day of small things”, but in the hands of God such days are mightier than all the great movements of men.