Author's Rights

Published as an E-book

by

Austin-Sparks.Net

Email: info@austin-sparks.net

ISBN: 978-1-927218-61-7

In keeping with T. Austin-Sparks' wishes that what was freely received should be freely given and not sold for profit, and that his messages be reproduced word for word, we ask if you choose to share these messages with others, to please respect his wishes and offer them freely - free of any changes, free of any charge (except necessary distribution costs) and with this statement included.

God's Supreme Interest in Man

by T. Austin-Sparks

Transcribed from messages given in 1965.

Contents

Chapter 1 - God's Supreme Interest in Man

Chapter 2 - The Pattern and the Purpose

Chapter 3 - The Crisis of Being Renewed

Chapter 4 - The Exclusiveness and Inclusiveness of Christ

Chapter 1 - God's Supreme Interest in Man

"But now put ye away all these: anger, wrath, malice, railing, shameful speaking out of your mouth: lie not one to another; seeing that ye have put off the old man with his doings, and have put on the new man, which is being renewed unto knowledge after the image of Him That created him: where there cannot be Greek and Jew, circumcision and uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, bondman, freeman: but Christ is All, and in all" (Colossians 3:811; NASB).

May I say, dear friends, as we approach the message that is in these words, my real and very strong concern is that we shall touch reality at this time, that we shall go beyond theory, beyond teaching as such, and meet the Lord at the point of deep reality, where His need in us is really met and our need in Him is met.  We are in times when the buildup of Christian truth, teaching, and knowledge is immense; and the corresponding reality in life is by no means commensurate.  There is a margin, a gap, between what is known and what is lived.  And we want to get into that gap as the Lord may enable us, and close it up, or let Him close it up, so far as we are concerned at this time, that truth and life shall come close together, and indeed become one.  And that is the object which is in my heart at this time - not to say so much more, however true it might be, but really to touch very vital issues.  Now there may be a lot said, but I have one thought and object that is governing everything that will be said.  All will be gathered around just one issue, which I trust will become increasingly clear as we go on.

Having said that, let us look at this fragment of the Word which we have just read in verses nine through eleven in the third chapter of the Letter to the Colossians.  We will analyze it, break it up, and note the five very distinct points that are touched upon by the Apostle in these words.

First of all, there is a retrospect to the Creator and the created, "being renewed... after the Image of Him that created him."  That is a throwback to creation and the Creator.  Just note it, for we are going to take up each of these points separately.  But number one is this retrospective touch upon the beginning of everything in the Creator and the created, "The image of Him that created..."

Secondly, the pattern and purpose of the Creator in the creation, "being renewed... after the image of Him that created him."  The pattern, the image, the purpose, the renewal of that image.

Thirdly, the real nature and effect of the crisis in the life of Christians.  Something has happened in the life of Christians, which marks the beginning of a process, a process indicated by these words, "being renewed," made anew, made over again.  The crisis in the life of the believer when something happened: "ye put off... and ye put on."  That's the nature and meaning and the effect of the great crisis in the life of the Christian.

Fourthly, the occupation and energy of the Holy Spirit Who is doing this renewing work, "being renewed."  Well, we are not doing it, either for ourselves or for other people, and other people are not doing it for us.  This is the occupation and the energy of the Creator's Spirit.  He, Who brooded over the chaos and brought out of the chaos the Divine Order, is the same Spirit now occupied with His own energy in making anew, according to the image, renewing; the activity of the Holy Spirit.

And in the fifth place, the exclusiveness and the inclusiveness of Christ.  That is the last statement, "where there cannot be."  That's the right kind of exclusiveness, or exclusivism.  A whole realm and system and order and nature is excluded: "There cannot be...."  But, the inclusiveness is just Christ, "Christ is All, and in All."  That's the analysis of these verses, very simple and to the point, but how very comprehensive and how very important and meaningful.  Well, let us begin to take them up, one at a time.

The Creator And The Created

Firstly, then, man and His Creator.  The Creator and the created.  Perhaps it would be as well if we arranged several other passages alongside of this one, going back to the beginning of this same letter in chapter one and verse sixteen: "For in Him were all things, all things created, in the heavens and upon the earth, things visible and things invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers; all things have been created through Him, and unto Him; and He is before all things, and in Him all things consist... that in all things He might have the preeminence... through Him to reconcile all things unto Himself."  The center and circumference of all things is Christ, the Creator of all things.

Then, familiar words in John's Gospel, in chapter one and verse three: "All things were made by Him; and without Him was not anything made that hath been made."

John and Paul are one in perfect agreement on this matter of Who was the Originator of all things.

Then to the Letter to the Romans, chapter eleven. It is always good to have, it is right to have, an adequate scriptural basis for what we are saying.  Chapter eleven and verse thirty-six: "For of Him, and through Him, and unto Him, are all things."

And one more in the First Letter to the Corinthians, chapter eight and verse six: "...There is One God, the Father, of Whom are all things, and we unto Him; and One Lord Jesus Christ, through Whom are all things, and we through Him."  Well, that establishes this: what we have called the throwback to the Creator and the created.

Then, we have of course, in order to come to these words about renewing, or making anew, or starting again, a process of recovery, we have to contemplate that terrible disintegration of the man to whom these scriptures are referring.  Yes, the disruption of human life, the disruption of every member of the human race.  We need not argue, I think, from Scripture on this, because the argument is finished immediately when we consider ourselves, and mankind as we know mankind.

We are perhaps more aware today than ever of this disruption, this disintegration in human life, that there is a fundamental schism in man, and in mankind.  And schism, wherever it is found, always means frustration.  Frustration is the evidence of a schism, a divisiveness in human life and in human nature.  And we see this of course right from the beginning of history as recorded in the Bible.  All the way through, and coming out in our time in a consummate way, there is frustration in human life. Continuous frustration.

Every new step which is thought to be a step of progress, of advancement, of development, brings with it its own frustrations.  No matter how far advanced, how fully developed, how phenomenal the enlargement of knowledge and of ability to do and to achieve; no matter how great, how large, how amazing, the frustration goes with it in the same measure until we reach the point in the world's development which we have reached in our own time when discovery, when invention, when the mastery of forces in this universe and bringing them into the service of man, are terrible and completely amazing. We would never never have believed it only a few years ago.  There, right alongside of it is its own undoing and those who know most, are most terrified of what they have put their hands upon. The fearful possibilities and potentialities which they wish they'd never discovered, never known. Frustration runs hand in hand through history with every fresh development and movement.  It is there in human life, it is in the creation, and it is in the universe as it now is.  And God Himself has taken pains to bring this out for man's realisation.

For instance, the Law as we have it in the Old Testament, as we have it vested in the nation, chosen for this very purpose to be God's object lesson to all the nations, to all the world.  The Law! The Apostle Paul puts his finger upon that whole system with its long history, its meticulous application, and he says, "The Law was given in order to show how impotent man is."  If ever there was a thing employed by Almighty God to demonstrate and expose the weakness of man, it was the Law. That's  the Law of Moses, as it is called, the Law of God.

The Apostlem this same apostle who has made such a terrible declaration as to the effect of the Law,that it has only brought to light man's weakness, impotence, helplessness.  It hasn't done anything to save man, but rather to condemn him.  That man writes a chapter, a whole chapter in these terms: "The good that I would do, and I would do it with all my heart, I do not.  And the evil that I would not, with all my heart would not, I struggle and I strive and I labor and I groan not to do these things, the evil that I would not, that I do.  Oh, wretched man that I am!  Who shall deliver me?  How did ever I know that the thing that was right that it should be done?  How ever did I discover that the thing was wrong that I should not do it?  The Law made me know right and wrong and left me paralyzed, utterly incapable of rising to it, either to say: No! or to say Yes!  Oh, wretched man!"  Isn't that frustration?  And isn't that history up to date?  Well, that is the Law of Moses.

You and I, dear friends, are living in a time in the world when there is not a law of all the multiplications in laws which can cope with human nature.  Oh, what a time of lawlessness, which is only another way of saying, man's utter inability to answer to the law.  Or, shall we put it this way: the law's utter inability to cope with man.  There is this schism in human nature, this dividedness in personality, in constitution that works out in utter frustration.  That is a word today isn't it - frustration.  My word, what a lot is covered by that word today.

Schism And Frustration In Every Realm

And how real it is in every realm; and yet, personal.  As I have just cited in Romans seven, the "I" - "O wretched man that I am!" - "what I would do, I do not; what I would not do, that I do."  It is all so personal, this division, this schism in me, in the personal realm.  In society... I need not dwell upon each of these.  Society:- what a disruptive thing human society is! What an unstable thing it is! What a restless thing it is!  The competitiveness - there it is, it makes you heartily sick does it not, to see how in society no one can show something new or fresh without the other person eyeing it and going one better or trying to outdo the other.  Oh, the many-sidedness of this conflict in the social order amongst people.

In the economical realm, we are not here to talk about economics, but let us put another word in the place of that - it means money doesn't it?  The realm of money - surely the love of it is a root of all evil.  It is the cause of conflict, of strife, of rivalries, of everything that speaks of, on the one side schism, divisiveness, and on the other: frustration.  And never before have the people in the world had so much money, in this country alone. Never before in the history of this country have people had so much money!  And never before has there been so much dissatisfaction and grasping for more!  Day by day, our papers are just full of this grasping, this scheming to have money, and more money.  What does it lead to?  It does not lead to rest and peace and satisfaction.  Not at all; more and still more!  How divided human nature is.  You would think if they had so much they would be content, and human nature would settle down and say, "I have got all this, let me be satisfied," but it just works the other way doesn't it?  In the economical realm, in the political realm there's this schism at work and frustration. There's a lot we could say about frustration in politics but oh, we are not going to comment.

And as I have said before in the matter of science, no matter how far man goes, whether to the moon or to the planets, he has got some drive that will send him beyond, he will never, never come to rest.  This is something in him that defeats him; he tries and when it has got so far, and so very far, still he is a restless being, driven on and on and never satisfied.  So we could go on, frustration in the industrial world, and frustration in the national life and frustration in international relations, it is all so true isn't it? Why? Come back to where we started, why? Sometime, at some point for some reason, human nature became disrupted and disintegrated and schismatic.  Divided in conflict, even in the individual.  We all know the conflict in ourselves.  It happened.

The Bible opens with a picture very different from that: everything is beautiful.  God Almighty, Who is meticulous and perfect in His requirements and utter in His standards of satisfaction, the Infinite God being able to look at all this and say, "It is good, it is very good."  My, it is something that the Lord can look upon one little bit and say, "It is very good."  You and I would feel very happy if there was one little thing about us that the Lord could say, "That is very good."  But looking on all things and saying, "It is good, it is very good," that is the opening picture of the Bible.  Then something happened, disrupted the universe, shot through the universe: this schism and this resultant frustration.

And what is the ultimate frustration?  The ultimate frustration is death.  There is nothing that speaks more of frustration than death.  It says defeat, it says imperfection, nothing finalized in this life.  The final frustration is death.  They are talking now about science arriving perhaps before long at the point where they will be able to destroy death where death will be defeated. Ah, to imagine such a thing, to say nothing of saying such a thing is to find everything in this universe saying "that's a lie  for death has a date with every mortal being, and you will never defeat that one."  It is defeating you all the way along.  You may, by your science prolong life, add to your tenure, but that is not always a blessing, you know. A lot of people today, the Lord would take them and if by reason of a few more years well... that may not be true of all you very old people, but the prolonging of life is very often a doubtful blessing. I remember many years ago reading something on a sundial in Sterling castle that went like this:

"Our life is like a winter's day,

Some only breakfast,

Others to dinner stay and are full fed,

The oldest man but sups and goes to bed

Large is his debt who lingers out the day,

And he that goes soonest has the least effect."

Well that's not the Bible, not Scripture, I don't know who wrote it, it may be a morbid view of life but there's some truth in it. While it is possible to have a long life with the blessing of the Lord, length of days is no guarantee of happiness.  But if they're going to destroy death, they think they can, it doesn't mean that they're going to be benefactors of humanity, it may be very much the other way, when men long to die all the more because of conditions.  Well, be that as it may, the point is that the final consummate outworking of frustration is death.

And when we have said all this about this schism and frustration in every realm, to where do we trace it?  To man himself.  It is just man isn't it?  It is this that has happened in man, this devastation in human nature and human life.  Indeed, the image has gone.  It has been lost.  The purpose of the Creator in the creation itself has suffered frustration as we've seen in the light today, the divine Purpose in the beginning is under frustration. Well, there is the dark, the miserable side, but it is so true.  And we have to note it before we can get on to the other side, our scriptures here while they touch on that, and my, don't they touch on it, they turn us to the other side: "Being renewed after the image of Him that created him," the re-integration, the re-unification in the Creator, in Christ.  "Christ All, and in all."

You notice every schismatic element is touched upon here.  Every schismatic element is touched upon in man's nature in verse eight.  Then, at the end of the paragraph, all the racial divisions, Jew, Gentile, and so on.  Every disintegrated element is excluded in Christ, the Unifier and the Unification of all, beginning in the individual and ultimately manifested in a whole race, beside which there will be no other race, because you cannot have something extra to all.  If you come to all, then there is nothing more.  There is nothing more than all.  And how we underline that phrase in all these passages which we read, "all things."  That is final, consummate; everything reunited.

This Son Of Man Is A Unity In Himself: There Is No Schism In This Person

Now, it is at that point that we begin the great positive revelation of the meaning of Christ.  And we light upon the real significance of the Incarnation, the Son of God becoming man.   "Made in the likeness of man."  says Paul, Himself man.  And the Lord's own favourite, chosen, cherished title for Himself: the "Son of Man."  He loved that name.  He constantly used it in preference to every other title.  "Son of Man"! His Person, His Incarnation, the very object of His coming out of eternity into time, out of eternity into history, the very meaning, purpose, object, and explanation of Himself as having come from glory, is found in this word: man.

And that is not just a proper name, Son of Man, that is a purpose, a purposeful title.  That is a meaning, that is an explanation, that is a definition: man, the Man Christ Jesus; and this Son of Man is a Unity in Himself.  There is no schism in this Person, in this Humanity, He is One, not dual, but One.  There is a Unity, an integration in Him.

Do you know, the Lord Jesus in all His life here never suffered from conscience?  I don't mean He did not have a conscience.  Conscience is a constituent of the full personality, but Jesus never for a split second suffered from conscience.  If He had done that, He would not have been a Unity in His personality, in His nature, because conscience is always a divisive element isn't it?  It suggests strife doesn't it? Conflict... two things.  Paul says it either accuses or it excuses.  Whichever it does, it speaks of something to be combated in the person concerned. Conscience... why prove conscience, argue about conscience; don't we not know all about conscience?  It is this conscience that is accountable for ninety percent of our misery.  Isn't that true?  "Oh, my conscience, what a time it gives me."  Jesus never suffered from conscience, not for a moment.  There was no duality in His nature; it was single.  One, a Unity; there was no fighting in His nature.  No, you see, if there is perfect obedience, there is no place for conscience. Isn't that true? There is no place for conscience to trouble a perfectly obedient life.  And He was able to say, as no other part of the human race could ever say, "I do always those things which are well pleasing unto Him."  "I do always" - what a claim! What a statement! In a world like this, a Man in the human creation standing up before heaven and earth and hell and saying, "I do always those things which are well pleasing to Him."  There is no schism in Him, because of perfect obedience.

And now do you begin to see perhaps a little more to your own heart's satisfaction, why the Apostle was always using one little phrase, and what he meant by it?  And what it meant to him? How heart ravishing it was to him in its meaning, "in Christ."  "There is therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ."  Here the conflict is gone.  The conscience is redeemed.  In this matter of condemnation - which carries with it more than anything else frustration - in Christ that is gone.  There is no condemnation in Christ.  And when Paul uses that phrase, it is always, "We are in Christ": "we," in Christ.

Are you a man, he says, in Christ? A man in Christ?  A position in the realm of all that terrible contradiction and conflict, there is a respite, that we are put into - a position.  In the righteousness of God through faith in Christ, we are in that position.  Would that I could grasp it; would that we could all grasp that!  It is reality because there was never a time when the saints of God were more assailed and harassed by accusation and condemnation than at this time.  Frustration in the Christian life is very largely due to a failure to apprehend, to grasp, the real meaning of being in Christ, this One in Whom there is no conscience worrying.  In this One, in Whom there is no schism, and that is the position that we are brought into "in Christ."

We will have more to say about that when we come to the crisis.  But, oh! the infinite blessedness if only we could grasp it, of what it means to be placed "in Christ."  We are all defeated here, and we have all failed here, everyone of us failing to grasp this initial, fundamental blessedness of being in Christ, of what it means to be placed in Christ, where so far as God and we are concerned, there is no controversy, and there is no conflict.  God is not against us, and yet we believe so often that He is.  And the devil tells us a thousand times every day that the Lord is not for us, that He is against us.  Anything that he can use as a ground of argument to bring us under condemnation.  The shadow again of that terrible havoc the enemy has brought about in human life.  Oh, the infinite preciousness of our position in Christ before ever the work was taken up or perfected.  Our position in Christ, a new Humanity, a different kind of Humanity, in Christ a Humanity that has been regenerated, in Christ a new Humanity has been introduced into this creation, the destiny of which is final conformity to His image, being renewed, made anew after the Image.

No wonder that with all that He had to meet and counter and suffer, He went tranquilly on His way.  It was not until that day, that hour, that moment, when, being made sin for us and a curse for us, taking the place of this disruptive creation, then His soul was torn asunder; but not until then was He ever disturbed by any kind of controversy with His Father or His Father with Him.  He had tranquility;

Dear friends, I am saying tremendous things to you, but after all, what does this mean?  This is after all just the simple truth of a Christian's position by faith in Jesus Christ, where there is no more controversy between us and heaven, heaven and us, there is no condemnation in Christ.  You were created by Him for a position and a state like that, and He has come back to redeem from all that contradicts that state, to redeem man.

We'll stop there, but what I want (and I said I had one object, one thought at this time, around which all this is being governed) I want to emphasize this: that it is man that God is after.  It is man that God is after, not things, not systems, not orders, but man.  He is after human life, He has come to get it, to redeem it, to make it again.  It is our humanity upon which He has focused His attention.  It is there that we should find so much help in the explanation of His dealings with us.  What is it, what is He up to and after in His attention upon us?  His attention to us, but what is He up to, and what is He after?  Well, He is after a humanity, a man, a human life to be the expression of Himself, His own Image, "renewed after the image of Him."  That is the explanation.

We ask a thousand questions of what the Lord is doing and why He is doing this and that and so many things with us; why He is taking this way.  And, all the questions are answered in this one thing as I see it.  He is after our manhood, after our human nature, He is after our humanity, He is after this creation, this purely and unique creation: human beings, to make them after His own Image.  That is why He is dealing with us, sometimes it seems He is dealing with us as though we were the only individuals in the vast universe.  It is all so real, and  sometimes it is so terrible, so drastic.  Sometimes it is as though He has singled us out from everybody else to deal with us.  Here is the answer in Colossians three, nine to eleven: "being renewed, made anew, after the image of Him that created him."

Chapter 2 - The Pattern and the Purpose

"But now put ye also away all these: anger, wrath, malice, railing, shameful speaking out of your mouth: lie not one to another; seeing that ye have put off the old man with his doings, and have put on the new man, which is being renewed unto knowledge after the image of Him That created him: where there cannot be Greek and Jew, circumcision and uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, bondman, freeman: but Christ is All, and in all" Colossians 3:811 (NASB).

Putting On the New Man

Now we will go over the five points that compose that paragraph: first, the retrospect to the Creator and the created, "...created in Him after the image of Him that created him."  This is going back to the Creator and His creating.  Next, the pattern and the purpose of the creating.  Christ is the Pattern, the Purpose, "renewed after the image of Him."  Then, thirdly, the real nature and meaning of the crisis in the life of the believer, "ye have put off... and... put on."  Then the occupation and energy of the Holy Spirit, "being renewed after the image."  And finally, the exclusiveness and the inclusiveness of Christ, "there cannot be... but  Christ... All, in all."

We have dwelt for some time upon the first of those things mentioned: the man and his Creator, the Creator and the created.  We have spoken of the disintegration of the first man and the invasion of schism into human life resulting in the long history of human frustration.  That on the one side, and on the other, the intervention through incarnation of God in Christ to re-integrate and re-unify human life, to redeem man from that state of schism and frustration.  Leading us to the final emphasis, which is really the focal point of all our consideration and concern at this time: the dominant idea in all is God's supreme interest in man.  God is supremely (there is a sense in which we could say "exclusively") fully concerned with this that is called man;  human life, manhood according to His Son Jesus Christ.

God is not concerned or interested or active in relation to mere things.  We are concerned with things, and we are tremendously affected by things.  What I mean is a lot of our time and energy is taken up with systems, and with societies, and with institutions, and with organizations, and with forms, even in our Christian life and worship: things - the outside.  God is not so concerned as we are with all that.  If we could just cut in there between these interests, we would be saved from so much.  We are almost harassed by the things of Christianity, meetings, and ministers, and forms of worship, how things are done, a thousand and one things which have been built up around Christianity.  I say we are concerned with and affected by the things of Christianity.  God is not: God goes right through all of this and looks inside of all this.  He does not look on the "outside" as we do.  He goes right in, and what He is interested in, concerned with, and seeking for, is man himself - man, a human life that satisfies His creative thought.  He is dealing with you and with me as people.

As we have said, sometimes He seems to be so concentrated as to single us out as though we were the only individuals in His universe.  It seems as though the whole world is something that relates to us only.  Do you understand? He isolates us by our experiences and shuts us up and imprisons us into a spiritual history in order to deal with us.  Yes, God is supremely concerned with man, men if you like.  He is looking for men in order to make of men a man after the image of Him that created him, that is, Jesus Christ.  The only possible re-unification, re-integration of human life is Christ, is in Christ. And it will be - this is quite a simple statement and an obvious one, but one which we very much overlook - it will be just in the measure and degree in which Christ, the Man, the Heavenly Man, is in us that we shall be united with one another.  Only so. We can put it the other way: in the measure in which Christ is not there in our relationships will be the measure of our schism and the measure of our frustration.

Now let us go on to the second of these points in this paragraph: the Pattern and the Purpose. "Renewed after the image of Him that created him."  We have to focus our attention, our heart's attention, upon the Him Who is the Image unto which we are to be renewed.  So we find the Image introduced, inducted, presented, and He is officially from heaven and historically on earth, presented to us at His baptism, foreshadowing His Cross.  "This is My Beloved Son, in Whom I am well pleased."  That marks a point at which He assumes His official position as the Image unto which this renewing is to take place.  He is presented, inducted, and introduced into the world before heaven.  The heaven was opened, the Voice said before men and before hell, "Behold".

God made Him the focal point of this universe and all creation with this object: Here is the image introduced and presented, to which humanity is to be conformed, renewed or perish and pass out.  All-governing is the presentation of the Image.  After the presentation or the induction, there came immediately the testing.  It is spiritually important to recognize the sequence, the immediate sequence: presented, introduced, inducted, and then tested.

You know that there ought to be no break in those chapters three and four in the Gospel by Luke.  Jesus baptized, coming up out of the water,  heaven opened, the Spirit descending, the Voice from heaven attesting.  "Then was Jesus led" of that Spirit which had come upon Him, into the wilderness, to be tempted or tried by the devil, the other central figure in creation.  After the identifying - "This is My Beloved Son" - the testing.

The Testing

And I want you to note again the inclusiveness of this testing, this time of temptation.  It must have been in the mind of Christ something tremendously important to take account of.  The fact that it is recorded in all the synoptic Gospels, and referred to later in the New Testament, and the fact that Jesus, Who was reticent about speaking of His own inner history, He alone could have told about this experience, for no one else was with Him.  He was in the wilderness alone.  He alone knew about this, but at some subsequent time He must have told it, so that Matthew and Luke could record it to be placed on record. And divulging one of the deepest experiences of His earthly history in this way must surely mean that it held a very great significance in the whole meaning of the Incarnation.

And that is the point I want you to notice and to take careful account of.  This stands in a position of very great significance in the whole meaning of the Incarnation of the Son of God.  It is so inclusive of everything; every subsequent temptation that came to the Lord Jesus, and this temptation was not the only one.  You remember, it says at the end of this, "then the devil leaveth Him for a season."  For a season!  It is as though the devil said, "I will be back again, it is not the end of this" and how true it was.  Every subsequent attack of the enemy would take on the very things that were included in this one temptation.  In different ways it would come, by different means, along different lines, in different garb, but the same thing again and again in principle.

And just note them, how true that was.  We have here in Luke 4 a temptation in three forms; not three temptations, but a temptation in three different realms with three different aspects.  First of all, the body.  He "hungered."  The tempter came along the line of physical demand, physical need, and physical interests.  First through the body. And then, failing there, for this Body is already in principle made the whole sacrifice, in His body there was utter obedience, failing there, he came along the line of the soul. He took Him up to the pinnacle of the Temple and said, "Cast Yourself down, for it is written..." The devil can quote Scripture, "for it is written 'He shall give His angels charge concerning Thee....'" but the devil left out one very vital fragment of the statement in Psalm 91.  He did not complete it, he did not say, "...in all thy ways."  That would have been dangerous.  There are ways in which you cannot even rest upon Scripture, for there are ways in which even God will not protect you, if they are the ways of presumption.  If you are presuming upon God, you cannot claim the protection of His Word or His Hand.  It is not, "in all thy ways."  It is only as all thy ways are in God.  However, that by the way.

Here the point of the temptation was, "If you do this, cast yourself down, the world will acclaim you at once! 'This man has come down out of heaven, we saw Him, He actually lived a life in our midst, and has come down and from the great height, here He is.'  They will acclaim You.  The world will. The world will accept You.  The world will applaud You.  The world will be won!  One act and You win the world; the world, the world. You will gain what is called the world.  You will have the acceptance, the popularity of the world."

That is our soul.  My, isn't it testing?  Reverse that and see if you don't get the world's disapproval, its rejection, its persecution; you do not get a place and a standing in the favour of the world, in the favour of men.

Sometimes that can be exceedingly testing.  Many a man has to put everything in the balances of loyalty to God on the one side, and whether he is going to get the favour of men and position and advancement and all that on the other side by some way that is a bit crooked, that is not straight, not right before God.  This matter of standing well with the world  sometimes becomes a very acute thing.  The god of this world makes it so: it is a real temptation in the realm of our souls, the soul that wants to stand well with men. The whole of our temptation to compromise is on this - to get an easier way in the world, to get the favours of the world.

Failed again there, the enemy swung round to another angle, took Him up into the great high mountain and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and the glory thereof and said, "All this will I give You if You will worship me."  He had moved from the outer circle of the body into that inner place of the soul, and now he has gone right for the heart, the citadel, the spirit - worship.  The place of God only.  God only! Who is to be God?  Who is to occupy that inner sanctuary of man's being?  Well, I am not dwelling upon these three things in particular that I am showing you, but I am trying to show you the inclusiveness of this temptation where the whole man was involved: body, soul, and spirit.  He was tried there.

You know we are tried, and the Lord allows us to be tried in all these realms.  Sometimes the physical is the realm, the basis, of very definite testing and trying.  It is the laying down of our physical life for God; as He, the Lord said on another occasion, "He that saveth his life shall lose it.  He that loseth it for My sake shall find it."   And that often becomes a physical issue, a real physical issue.  It has been that for many in recent days, and it becomes that for us; whether we will serve the interests of our bodies when spiritual interests are at stake or involved, or whether we will bring under the body and say, "Look here, you are not the master: you are the servant."  Well, it is a realm of real testing.  And, our souls are in the battle, I think it is much greater in the realm of our souls.  The whole matter of reputation and standing and favor and advancement in this world; "gaining the world," as the Lord put it, gaining the world, which means gaining its advantages and gaining its favor, its smile, its pleasure.  This is a temptation to young people especially, and to all Christians, but to young people particularly; whether they are going to compromise in order to really stand well with the world.  And then spirit, the most acute form of temptation, in our spirit.

Now I have pointed it out.  We cannot deal at any length with these things, but what I am saying is that here in this temptation of the Lord Jesus, you had an inclusiveness of all temptation in the whole man - the spirit, soul, and body, or body, soul, and spirit; and in that comprehensive trial, the Image triumphed and is really confirmed as the Image.

Then we have the devil back again, and, oh, he is back through the closest of His disciples, the beloved Peter, when He was speaking of His coming death, Peter said: "This shall never come to Thee, Lord.  Save Thyself."  Here we are back on the body level again.  "Spare Yourself, do not put Yourself in the way of that."  It came to Him in His soul, "My soul, My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death."  He poured out His soul.  And, finally, from the Cross, His spirit: "My God."  Tried to the last degree as to God, His Father, the Love of His Father, the Faithfulness of His Father.  The testing was pressed into the deepest and closest areas of His human life.  It was like that all the way through, but the point is that He triumphed!

But note, what is the heart, the core of it all?  Whether it is in the body, the trial; or in the soul, the testing; or in the spirit, the deepest ordeal... there is one thing in the heart of all, each and all - it is filial relationship with God.  The attesting, the presenting was: "My Son in Whom I am well pleased."  My Son.  "All right," says the devil, "that is the point, the focus point, the focal point upon which I will concentrate."  And what is the essence of true sonship?  It is the filial relationship to the Father, a relationship of love to the Father.  Are you ever tested through your body to doubt the love of God, through your situations and circumstances arising in the world and amongst people, or in your own spirit?  Oh yes, we know a little of this; something of this.  The concentrate force of all satanic power is its issue in whatever form.  You see, the Lord Jesus just went this way, but in His triumph it says, "He was made perfect.  Though He was a Son, He learned obedience by the things which He suffered.  He was made perfect through suffering." - through suffering.

And don't think of that word "suffering" in connection with Him as just being His physical sufferings on the Cross, His bodily sufferings.  That is where Rome focuses everything, on the Crucifix, the wounds, that side of things.  No, no, His sufferings were here, in the realm of not serving His own interests in not even one way at all - in body, soul, or spirit.  And what it cost Him!  What it cost Him so to do.  There were His sufferings, and He was made perfect through suffering.  And then, having been made perfect through suffering, He is installed in heaven, instated in heaven, as:

The Man that Satisfies God.

Stephen, in his last moments, and with his last breath almost said, "I see the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God."  Here is the Son of Man installed as the Heavenly Pattern, the Heavenly Pattern to which the Holy Spirit will take up His work now, so soon after this.  The Pattern. There is a Greek word which is only used once in the New Testament, and it is used by the Lord Jesus Himself, "I have left you an example." This is the only time in the New Testament when that word "example" occurs.  And it is like all other Greek words, a pictorial word.  It has a picture behind it, and it is taken from the classroom, and the scholars.  And we know something about it, where the master sets a pattern to be copied, a writing, the "top line" we used to call it.  I don't know so much about things in the school now, but I remember well how I plodded on to imitate that top line in writing, and how much hung upon my success in imitating.  The Lord Jesus took this word, example or pattern, out of the classroom. The scholar, where the boy has been given a top line, has been given a pattern, an example to follow, copying the master's writing.

You do know the Word says much about "Looking off unto Jesus," - "Beholding Him," but then that does not exhaust it, because I think there is always some weakness - I have found it so at any rate - about this example idea.  Thomas a Kempis and his "The Imitation of Christ" I never found wholly helpful. Ah, every day to imitate Jesus, but what an awful mess we make of this Top Line don't we?  But there was more in the Greek word than that.  The Master not only gave the Top Line Pattern, but He drew some grooves in the clay upon which the writing was being done, because at that time, the only means of writing in school cheap enough to provide sufficient was clay tablets; and so the master would draw grooves, lines.  Now that is very helpful isn't it, having some lines to work on so that you do not go crooked.  But if there are grooves, so that if you tend to go out of the straight, the groove holds you; that is an extra.  That is all in the word, and in the word here: "example."  It means that not only has He become the pattern to which we are to be conformed, but the Holy Spirit has given us, in our own heart, the grooves, that when we do go out of the straight, the groove pulls us back again, something that holds us to the straight. Do you understand?

This is a very simple illustration, but that is the word, the meaning of the word, "example."  That He has been installed and instated as the Pattern, and the Holy Spirit has come to keep us on the lines of the Pattern, to keep us from deviating.  "Kept by the Power of God."  If we go askew, we have something to pull us back again, to get us back onto the straight.

Now I must stop there, because that does introduce this activity and energy of the Holy Spirit in the matter of re-newing after the image of Him that created him.  We will hold that over, but let us again return to the point of all this, that is, the Lord has focused His attention upon us as human beings to recover the image of the one Perfect Man.  And it is in us as people that He is concerned.  He is concerned with us.  As we so often say, "It matters to Him about us, or about you," focusing His attention not upon getting a perfect system, a New Testament order, but people, just people. And we will never have any kind of heavenly or New Testament order until He gets the kind of people that He wants, and when He's got them, or is getting them, then everything else will follow and will have the right order.

Chapter 3 - The Crisis of Being Renewed

"Ye have put off the old man with his doings, and have put on the new man, which is being renewed unto knowledge, after the image of Him that created him" (Col. 3:9).

A word now regarding that phrase or clause which is, "being renewed... after the image of Him that created him..." something that has been taken up and is being carried on and that, of course, relates to the occupation and the energy of the Holy Spirit.  I am just going to be content with one thing in this whole matter of the Holy Spirit's activity, and that is the ultimate and the object of the Holy Spirit's work.  You notice what it clearly says here, that the goal that the Holy Spirit has, although He is not mentioned by name here, we know quite well that this renewing work is the work of the Holy Spirit and the goal of the Holy Spirit's work is brought forward and made to stand over everything. All-governing; it is the end that is brought into view with the life of the believer and made the thing which rules throughout.

Now we are right, of course, in being occupied with the many things related to the end as we are concerned so largely with what is more elementary.  That is, we are greatly concerned with the work of evangelization that is bringing the gospel to the unsaved and bringing them to Christ.  We are greatly concerned with the spread of the gospel, or what is so often referred to as the extension of the kingdom.  This and many other matters like that are right and must be as a way to the end, as a means to the end, but perhaps there is a weakness often associated with that occupation, which is making these things the end in themselves.

And what is made very clear here, you must remember, is that the Apostle is writing now at the end of his life, and this letter is set in the consummation of his ministry.  His whole life and ministry and work is now being brought together in a consummate way.  And here at the end is, amongst many other things of such great importance to be brought to the Lord's people in this consummate way, he brings this activity and energy of the Holy Spirit, not here in relation to the entering into the Christian life and all that is associated with it, but in relation to the end of the Christian life, and he says in effect: it is the end that governs all.

It is not being saved in itself, and it is not the work of getting people saved in itself, important and of course essential as that is, for nothing can be without it.  Nevertheless, the thing that must be kept in mind is that this work of being saved and getting people saved and all that has to do with it is related to this great end: to secure conformity to the image of Him that created him.

Why are we saved?  We rejoice in being saved, and praise the Lord that we are saved, and never cease to be grateful that He has saved us!  We can never exaggerate the wonder of grace in our salvation and in the Lord as our Saviour.  But why?  Not just to be saved, not just to leave it there, but it is the first step toward this full end.  Why are we seeking that others should be saved and using our lives and our time and our strength that they should come to salvation?  Is it just that they should be saved?  Just that they should be saved and escape condemnation, or judgment, and hell and find heaven?  No, the Apostle brings forward the end.  He says, "No," our object in leading others to Christ must always have the full end governing, and every one is to be brought right into line with that end: the renewing after the Image.

Now you may think that this is hardly a thing to say, it is obvious, that it goes without saying, but it does not go without saying, because there are so many born-again people who are saved people and who are falling lamentably and unrightfully short of Christ's likeness.  We know it in ourselves and we are not speaking only objectively of other people, we know it in ourselves. But it is true that we meet so many Christians who are very glad that they are saved, and boast of being saved, and make no hesitation in saying that they are saved, but their transformation is lagging behind, and in many you meet so little of Christ. Really so little of Christ... many things you do meet, but you meet very little of the Lord Jesus.

Now what we are being told quite clearly is that this will not do. In the end it will be the End that judges our Christian life. And so it is the Holy Spirit's work, His interest, concern, energy and activity; not only to bring people to the door and to get them inside the door, but to make them know that that door is but the opening of a Way, on the other side of the door everything lies.  It is not the door alone, but it is what lies beyond the door, and that is this renewal, this making anew after the image of Him that created.  The End governs: it is Christ in all that He signifies and means and stands for.  It is that vast All that He is.  "Christ is All, and in all" is the last clause.  It is Christ in that fullness, which is more than our salvation, more than our initial salvation. The door is essential, but it is what it leads to that justifies going in it at all.

Christ Himself, when He was here, never failed to let people know that when they entered that door, or that straight and narrow way, they were in for trouble - they were in for trouble.  Now that may sound like a very terrible thing to say, especially to you young Christians who are not far inside the door, but be perfectly clear about it; the Lord Jesus never deceived anybody about this, never at all.  He let people know that to "follow Him," as He put it at that time, involved them in difficulty and suffering and persecution and trial and a lifelong thing.  There is a cost here, a great cost.  And we shall discover that while there are the compensations, for there are undoubtedly the compensations in this life, and the mighty compensations for eternity, this is a way which is not easy for the natural man by any means.  This work of the Holy Spirit is drastic, exacting, and very trying to the flesh.  Make no mistake about it; it will take all the energy that the Holy Spirit Himself has to accomplish this work.  It really will.  So the Lord Jesus has not left us in any doubt about this.

But note, and I am glad the Apostle Paul puts it like this, because it is so true to experience. The new man who is being renewed.  Notice, first there was a precise and definite transaction, "Ye put off" and "ye put on," but now the work that is going on is not a single act of a single moment and a single day, but it is something that is going on in us.  The new man is being renewed, and that process will go right on to the end.  It will never stop until we will not allow it to go on any further, until we put a period to it.  It will go right on to the end, a process, something that is being done all the time, this changing over. Not our position, that was the act, but of condition... and that is the process.

Well, that is the activity and the energy of the Holy Spirit, and that is all I am going to say at the moment about that, that the Holy Spirit keeps the end in view. If you look at your Bible, both in the Old and in the New Testament, you will find that right early in the experience of God's people, He brings the far horizon of the end forward and governs the first movements with what it is "unto."  For instance, when Israel crossed the Red Sea and was on the other side, with Pharaoh's armies engulfed... the people were mightily delivered by that very, very precise and definite cutting off and setting apart unto God.  And the song on the other side of the sea, with all the miles yet ahead before the land, and all the conflicts that were going to be in possessing the inheritance, nevertheless before any of that in actuality, that song contains something which is in the tense of a present accomplished thing: "And hath brought us unto Thy holy hill, to Thy sanctuary."  They were forty years away from that and there was a lot of history between, and a few years after that in the conquest of the land. Nevertheless, it is done.

And in the word to Joshua to begin to possess, the terms are quite distinct, "...have I given thee, every place that the sole of your foot shall tread upon, have I already given you." It is yours.  You see, the end is always in view with God.  It governs everything by what the end is going to be.

Well, let that sink into us, because it is very important for us to know what it is the Lord is doing, really what He is up to.  Why all this intervening history between our being brought to Him and the consummation of the end. Why is it?  What is the Holy Spirit doing with us?   Well, it is just this: we are being renewed.  That word "renewed" which is used on several occasions is perhaps itself a little misleading.  We can think of it as renewing, refreshing, re-strengthening and so on, but really it just means: "making over again."  The little prefix, of course, in the Bible is a very, very significant thing.  Whenever you get "re-," you always know that it is a throwback to something that was.  It is not now, but it is going to be.  Whether it is re-demption or re-conciliation or any of the large number of "re's" it means "again."  It was, but it is not now, but it is going to be again.  And so here renewal means "bringing back to the original intention, purpose, and satisfaction to God."

Well, having said that, let us spend a few minutes upon this matter of the crisis, the crisic event in the life of the believer.  "Ye put off the old man with his doings.  Ye put on the new man."  This is something you did: "You put off."  I must remind you that again there is a picture behind the Greek words, and here it is quite simply the picture or figure of a man taking off his clothes.  A man taking off one suit and putting it aside and taking another suit and donning it. A matter of putting off, unclothing, and then putting on, clothing.  A simple figure, a very simple, but a very effective figure, of what happens in the crisis of new birth.  This is just what it is that happens when we step out of the old man into the new man.  We repudiate one set of clothes, one adornment of life, and we say, "That suit, that suit no longer is befitting me; that suit no longer has a place with me.  I have taken off that suit, those clothes, and put them away, never to put them on again. It is a fashion that I have done with. It is what fitted me at one time, but no longer fits."  This is simple language, simple thoughts, but how real this is and taking an altogether different and other outfit, a fashion of life, and adornment.  "Adorn the gospel," said the Apostle.  "Put ye on the Lord Jesus."  It is the same figure again, "Put ye on the Lord Jesus, and make no provision for the flesh."

Here is this crisis, this definite crisis, and that is exactly what was meant when you and I were baptised.  There, in effect and in meaning, we stripped off the old garments and put them into the grave.  We put them into the grave, and are done with them; the old garments of the old man, we put him off.  And when we rose on the other side, we took altogether new garments: we put on the new man.

That is, at any rate, the meaning of our baptism, the meaning of our ceasing to acknowledge and recognise our identification with the old man.  We say, "I am done with him.  Just as I could discard a suit of clothes never again to wear it, I repudiated the old man, the natural man."  And just as definitely as we might take another entire outfit, so different in its nature, in its style, in its manner, in fashion, we rose and put that on "the new man."  "Ye did this," says the Apostle.  Now if you want to know why I relate that to baptism, you only have to go back in this Colossian letter to chapter two, and here it is: "In Him ye were also circumcised in a circumcision not made with hands, in the putting off of the body of the flesh."  "The putting off" is the same idea again, related to clothes and garments: "putting off of the body of the flesh, in the circumcision of Christ; having been buried with Him in baptism" (verses 11, 12; ASV).  So you left your clothes in the grave, you just left them in the grave. Not literally, you never see your clothes literally in the baptistry afterward, but this is the idea, you see, the spiritual thought. In "buried with Him" you put off - "buried with Him in baptism." The other side of burying: "You were also raised with Him through faith in the working, in the energy of God, Who raised Him from the dead."  And that is followed by, "If you were raised together with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is seated on the right hand of God.  Set your mind on the things that are above," (Col. 3:1, 2; ASV).  You put on something altogether new, you repudiated one form, or nature of life, and put on another.

You remember when Saul the king was rejected by God and God said, "I have rejected him."  A very drastic thing, a very terrible thing for Saul - his repudiation, he took hold of the garment of Samuel, and it rent, and Samuel said: "The Lord has rent the kingdom out of your hands."  Saul was rejected, was repudiated.  Samuel mourned for Saul and the Lord stepped in and said, "Why mourn ye for Saul, seeing I have rejected him?  Arise, take your horn of oil..." And with the rejection and repudiation of one man, an old man that could not any longer stand in God's favour and acceptance, God brought in a new man. A new man, "Go, anoint David. I have found Me a man.  He shall do all My pleasure" (1 Sam. 1316; Acts 13:22).

Now the whole change turns upon that little word, "Do."  "He shall do all My pleasure." That was the trouble with Saul as you remember, in First Samuel 15, God told Saul what he was to do, precisely and definitely: "Go, destroy Amalek, and leave nothing of Amalek remaining."  And Saul went and half did the job; he compromised, argued, excused, saved something.  He did not do all God's pleasure.  He did not do it.  Now he is repudiated because he did not do the will of God.

David is brought in on that one little word, "He shall do all My pleasure."  This is the new man, this is the difference, you see.  One who is not wholly, utterly committed to God, to do God's will wholly, is repudiated.  And then there is the man who will do.  So it is just a question isn't it, of obedience!  And that crisis, historic crisis in Saul and David is just one of the numerous illustrations in the Old Testament of this great truth.  Here is a man who does not do the will of God, does not satisfy God's will: he is called the old man; and here is the new man who does do God's will: Christ, you have put on Christ Who does all God's will, and I have no need to take time at this point to dwell upon how He did the will of God.  That was the battleground to the last degree, "Thy will, O God, not Mine."  So the New Man is the accepted man, committed to complete obedience.  And that is the Man we are supposed to put on.

I think you will agree with me that in too many cases the meaning of that transition, that changeover, the meaning of it does not sink deep enough into the hearts of those who take the step.  The tragedy that we have so often met, that those who come for baptism, who have been told what it means - death, burial, resurrection - told what it involves and in a subsequent year turn away from that meaning. Many, many are not living according to that transaction, many have turned away from the meaning, and many more are not pursuing the course of that which it meant; to repudiate wholly, once and for all, a kind of man with his doings, with his trappings. Not only the bare garment, but all its adornments, embroidery, decorations and everything else... done with - the old man and his doings.  Well, the Apostle here just tells us a little of the doings you see, verse eight, "Put ye also away all these: anger..." I think we are going to be found out in a minute, if we dare to read any more! He put off the old man and his doings. What are they? "Anger, wrath, malice, railing, shameful speaking, lying."  Any more? Is that all?  No.

Now by contrast with the new: "Put on therefore, as God's elect, holy and beloved, a heart of compassion."  Well, you put off a heart that is not a heart of compassion.  "Put on kindness, humility, meekness, longsuffering; forbearing one another, forgiving each other" (verse 12; ASV).  All that is contrary to those things belong to the doings of the old man. "You put them off."  The old man is very clearly portrayed here, and the new man also.  Well, that is what is supposed to have happened with you and with me.  That is something done.  That is not a process, I mean the putting off of the old man, and the putting on of the new.  That is not a process, that is a position.  The process is what belongs to him, any relics at all, anything associated with him, is to be progressively put off the old man and what is belonging to the new man being put on.

Well, this putting on of the new man is, as we have said, the real engagement of the Holy Spirit in our lives, He is trying to bring about a new adornment altogether.  Peter has a way of speaking of this, of course he's talking to sisters, talking to the saintly sisters, but they're not the only people interested in fashion. And Peter says about these saintly sisters whose adornment (I'm going to come back to that word in a minute) whose adornment is not in the plaiting of the hair, and the wearing of jewels, but is the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit.  That word "adornment", I'm sorry that it is so translated, but perhaps it would sound a little awkward to rightly translate it. The word there in the original is: "whose cosmos."  Whose cosmos is not the plaiting of the hair and the wearing of jewels, and its "whose world" whose world is not that. That's not your world. The correct translation in one sense is that the meaning of "world" is the form, the adornment, all that makes it up.  But says Peter, "That is not the world of a true believer.  You do not live in that world."  I don't know how far that's true, seeing the difficulty in these days of dealing with our own personal appearances, we've come into a time in our national history when it seems that both men and women don't know what to do with their hair! It seems to be one of the big problems of our day; what to do with it! How to appear, or appearances. Peter says don't live in that world, that's not your world. Don't be careless about such things, but don't live in it, do not let it be your life, your world; whose adornment is not that, whose world is not that, but whose adornment, whose world is a meek and a quiet spirit.  This is of great price in the sight of God.  This is the real value from God's standpoint.

Well, we just conclude at this point with a re-emphasis.  We have said early on that we had one object in view, just one, it may be wrapped around with all these other things that we have said, and are saying, but right at the heart there is only one thing, and that one thing is: Christ-likeness, being renewed unto the image of Him.  And you notice the word that we have not underlined: unto knowledge, "Renewed unto knowledge, to the image of Him that created him."  It just means this, dear friends, that you and I are throughout our Christian life to be learning what Christ is, and what Christ is like, discovering Christ for life; learning in knowledge, knowledge unto conformity, knowledge unto the renewal of the lost image.

And again, we have to be very practical.  One thing that you and I have come to or will come to, is this: A dread of knowledge that does not lead to something. A dread of knowledge that does not lead to something.  I never in my life have shrunk from speaking as I do today, lest it might resolve itself into words only; words, words, teaching, teaching, a subject, a vast amount of it, and so little that corresponds to it. It's very true, I don't say that it is all lost, it's all in vain, I don't believe that it is, but it is a wholesome fear to accumulate a kind of knowledge that does not lead to something.  And the one and only thing to which spiritual knowledge should lead, is Christ-likeness.

Now then, what a knowledge we have of things concerning the Christian life and the purpose of God, and how greatly we fall short in the expression, the personal expression, of Christ.  Is it not true? There is a gap between our knowledge and our life so often.  And I have not come to you at this time just to give you a lot more knowledge as such, or to add to the teaching, but say to you: the occupation of your life and mine, and the knowledge which you and I receive, must be turned to this one account and have this one effect: "I must be more a man and a woman like Christ."  If that is not true, then the knowledge is false knowledge, for it does not really fulfill its intention.

One must underline that again.  I think probably this is why the prophets were so reticent, so reticent to speak.  This is something to take note of.  I was speaking to people who were ambitious to preach and to teach; whether there are any such here, I would be very strong about this, after many years, for this is one thing that the Lord has said to me very, very strongly and drastically to me in experience.  After years of being very much in the way of demand, preaching in many quite important, highly standing churches in the country and having a large sphere of acceptance at conferences and so on, the Lord brought me to the place where He made it perfectly clear to me by very drastic handling that it is the result that matters and not what you are doing.  And I can tell you, dear friends, that I have come to the place where I would seek to be an ordinary man in an ordinary job and a menial job at that, rather than be in the false position of public ministry that is only an end in itself; only an end in itself.

No, you look again, and we need to be reminded that the prophets were very reticent men about public ministry. Isn't that true? Moses... God met him, and told him of his vocation, his calling, and he said, "I cannot speak, I cannot speak."  God had to really argue with him, but Moses stuck to his point. "Oh, if You can send by anyone, send not by me."  Well, it therefore became a matter of divine compulsion that made Moses fulfill his public ministry.

Jeremiah.  The Word of the Lord came unto Jeremiah, "Before I formed thee I knew thee... I have appointed thee a prophet to the nations."  Jeremiah says immediately, "I am a child, I cannot speak."  You would think he would have leaped at a thing like that.  If he had been like a great number of young men that we know, he would have jumped at it: the opportunity of being a prophet of the nations.  Jeremiah says, no, "I am a child, I cannot speak."  And once more the Lord had almost to compel him. The responsibility you see bound up with this. And these are not the only ones in the Bible.  There is a wholesome reticence, a wholesome reticence not to have ambition in this way, but to be brought to the place where it has got to be of God or may I be mercifully saved from it.  Why? because it is not what we do and what we say, but it is after all, what is effected, what comes of it all, and that is very searching.  Well now, if you are not prophets and preachers, or ambitious to be such, we are all those who receive a lot; and there is a great responsibility bound up with everything that we receive, "unto knowledge... unto renewing... unto the image of Him."

So as we search our hearts before the Lord as we close, and simply ask, "How much of all that I have received, and all that I know in a way is being changed into the likeness of Christ?  How much of it is working out in that way?  How much is the Holy Spirit able to take hold of our knowledge and bring it into conformity to Christ?"

This is an explanatory word, dear friends, of why the Holy Spirit puts us into the experiences through which we are going.  Oh, how drastic are His dealings with us! How painful are our experiences, how deep are our histories in God!  You wonder when there will ever be an end of all this that we go through under His hand.  Why?  Oh, we may not see it all, it may not be safe for us to see it, we might begin to congratulate ourselves, but here is the object perfectly and clearly stated: the Holy Spirit's activities and energies in our experiences - deep and terrible, painful experiences of trial - one object in all this is to make us like the New Man.  To inculcate in us these virtues of the New Man Who we have put on.  Not just some thing that we have put on, but something that is a new character: that of the Lord Jesus.

Now that is not an exciting word is it?  It doesn't in any way cause us to leap for joy at the moment, because "no temptation for the present seemeth joyous, but grievous, but afterward..." afterward: likeness.  And I think, however heavy this may sound, it could be perhaps a bit of it depressing,  I think every heart here says, "after all, whatever it means, by whatever way, my one desire is to be like Christ, that Christ should be fully formed in me."

May we have grace to let Him do it in His own way, and that through our sufferings, something more of that meekness and patience and humility and forbearance of the Lord Jesus shall really be a part of our being.  It shall be like that!

Chapter 4 - The Exclusiveness and Inclusiveness of Christ

"The new man, which is being renewed after the image of Him that created him.  Where there cannot be Greek and Jew, circumcision and uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, bondman, freeman, but Christ is All, and in all" (Col. 3:10,11 NASB).

This is the all-comprehending, all-embracing Christ.  And here, once more at the end of the Apostle's earthly life and ministry, he brings before the Lord's people that great purpose, vision and intention of a corporate man: "after the Image of Him that created him."  The man here, while of course being individual, is presented as corporate.  He mentions the many aspects of the great schism that has been wrought in the whole universe by which the human race has been split up, broken up, and put into a state of conflict with itself.  Then he says that vast work of disintegration, confusion, conflict, schism and frustration is destined to be entirely overcome and all that state removed in a corporate man, a corporate Christ.  All the marks of this terrible thing, which started in heaven and split heaven in two and set up the rivalry in heaven, which registered even in heaven something of frustration, and that is the arresting of God's purpose.  It came from heaven unto this earth, and destroyed the unity of the human race, and developed this terrible history in all directions and connections - this history of a fundamental schism in the very constitution of things and this terrible frustration.

Now the Apostle here says that vast thing is destined to be destroyed, and put aside and supplanted by a humanity in absolute harmony, agreement, unity, oneness and fellowship. And therefore, believers are called upon in the process of this renewing, this bringing back the process of renewing  by the Holy Spirit, they are called upon themselves, on the one side to exclude all that Christ excludes, and to embrace all that Christ embraces.  It is commonplace to say that for this reason, any semblance of genuine true spiritual unity, and any expression of real fellowship and oneness, is the enemy to all that satan has done.  Therefore, fellowship becomes the battleground between heaven and hell.  It is centered, as Paul teaches, in the Church.  This is a marvelous statement, the depth and fulness of which we shall never compass, where but but! Over against all this other, Christ is All, and in all.  The principle and law of power, of unification, of integration is just meeting on the ground of Christ, and refusing all other ground.  And if people will not come onto the ground of Christ, then that limits our meeting, our fellowship.  Not on any other ground at all, not what meets our eyes.

The Lord has done some very deep and drastic work in you and in me in relation to certain things.  Those things become anathema to you as you find it very difficult to be tolerant in their presence.  But let me say again, we have got to close our eyes to a whole vast realm of things as things, and not allow them to stand in the way of fellowship, if only there is the right ground.  It may be a very small measure of ground in comparison with all the other.  But if there is just that Christ, that is where our eyes are to be set and not upon the other things.

You will have to read a lot into what I am saying, but you will find, as I find, that if I am going to get anywhere with anybody at all in spiritual things, I have got to focus and determine to keep focused upon what measure of Christ there is there. Let these things excluded be a guide to a lot of other things.  I don't suppose that you will ever be very much troubled or bothered by circumcision and uncircumcision.  You may not even be very much bothered as a practical problem with Jew and Greek, as such.  It is possible you will go through life and never even meet a Greek.  And you might, the probability is less, but you might go many days without meeting a Jew.  I mean in practical and literal matters, you may not be bothered about this and this scripture taken literally, "Where there is neither Jew nor Greek, circumcision nor uncircumcision," you may not find that that constitutes any problem for you, whether the others do or not, it need not come to us literally for any consideration, but what they represent.

If Paul were writing today, he would add a lot of other things to this sum.  He would perhaps speak about Jew and Gentile, he might speak therefore about circumcision and uncircumcision, he might speak about Barbarians, and Scythians and the rest, but he would add a lot more.  I am quite sure he would say, "Where there cannot be Baptist and Methodist and Brethren and all the rest of them."  He might mention the whole lot. No, no, they just cannot be as such.  It would rule out a lot of things, which man makes the basis of a relationship and a fellowship.  He would tell you, "No, not one of those is the basis at all."  The basis on which and on which alone we can meet, but must meet and determine to meet is, whether it be Baptist or Congregationalist or Methodist or Lutheran or any of the others, even whether it be Roman Catholic, the basis on which we can have fellowship, and must seek to have fellowship, is the measure of Christ.  And you may find some in a Roman Catholic.  Really, you may find something of Christ, oh indeed you will, in many cases; it may not be in the system, but in the person.  And so you just have to say, "Where there cannot be this and that and that, for that is not the basis, but Christ."  If I can find Christ, if Christ is there, I must search Him out, and I must make everything that can be made of any measure of Christ that is there and dismiss the other things, God said, shut your eyes to it.

I could give you some very practical examples of this.  I am tempted to, but I think perhaps I had better not.  But I think you see the point, Paul lists a lot of things, a whole lot of things, which divide men, which are the causes of the schism and of the frustration, because men will hold to this ground and that ground and another ground which is either other than or extra to Christ.  We are saying, here in this man, created by Christ, this new man which is corporate, only Christ obtains, Christ only: that is the ground.  Now friends, this is not just teaching, this is not just things being said again, it is a positive challenge to us, a positive challenge and a real battleground. And it is not always easy to close your eyes, definitely and deliberately close your eyes to the things, and only focus upon any modicum of Christ that there may be and make everything of that.  It is not always easy, there is something to be done and only as we do that shall we find integration, shall we have fellowship, and will there be an expression of Christ.

It is this kind of manhood, which is so different.  It is not a composite manhood, which is made up of this and that and a hundred other things, by certain titles, designations, denominationally or anything else.  It is not a composite man, Paul is not saying, "Where Jew and Greek, circumcision and uncircumcision, and all these things are included."  He is saying, "they are all excluded, they are not to be taken into account; but the inclusiveness, the comprehensiveness is Christ Himself, the kind of Man to Whom the Holy Spirit is seeking to conform us."  And it will search us very deeply and very thoroughly, it really will.

Let us ask the Lord to very, very thoroughly deliver us from those elements which only bring frustration and death.  If we have a critical disposition, an attitude toward everything and everyone; it is deadly, it is just deadly!  It is so easy to get into the habit of finding at once the flaws, the weaknesses, but it is deadly, and it is frustrating.  Let us ask the Lord to save us from such a disposition, to see where everything comes short and everything is different instead of taking a more positive line of making the most of what there is of the Lord.  I say, this is a searching thing, and a very testing thing.  And, after all, the measure of our true Christly manhood, Christly and heavenly humanity, will be the measure in which we do this: make all that is possible of Christ.

This desire and concern of the Lord to have a man after this kind is everywhere in the Scripture.  And if you would notice how in a number of cases the phrase, "the man," is used in relation to something of God, illustrating very often, Christ.  I will give you one or two examples of what I mean.  Moses.  Now it says, "Now the man Moses was meeker than all men on the earth... the meekest of men, the man Moses."  And in that statement and that definition and explanation of Moses, you have such a clear and wonderful example of Christ on that particular line.  "I am meek and lowly of heart"   said the Lord Jesus, "meek and lowly of heart."  Now the man Moses was meeker than all men on the earth.  This is the manhood, you see, the manhood that God underlined.  You can say what you like about Moses, and there are many things that you can say about him as a leader and a lawgiver and much more, but when God looks upon him, upon his manhood, He puts the circle around this: "Now the man Moses was meeker than all men on the earth."  That is where God's eye is: on the characteristic of Christ - meekness - by which that terrible thing that disrupted this universe, the pride of Lucifer, is undercut in the meekness of a New Man.  We don't often think that the mighty, terrible devil is undone by meekness, but there it is.

Take Isaac again as another example.  There is that very simple statement that you read, and you overlook and don't mark, "Now the man Isaac was very great."  The man Isaac was very great. What was Isaac doing when that was said?  Isaac was reopening the wells that had been filled up by the Philistines.  It says that Isaac was sowing and reaping.  Isaac, as we know, is the type of resurrection.  And the resurrection man is concerned with and occupied with the opening up of the wells of Life.  He is not occupied with things that are becoming stuffed up and shut up and shut down; dead ends.  The Philistines did that, he is countering this work which is robbing the people of the water of Life.  He is sowing and reaping, he is on the line of fruitfulness, that is what the resurrection man does.  Oh, how he foreshadows Christ in this in resurrection, opening up the wells of Life for the people of God, and producing fruitfulness.  That is the way of life; that is the manhood.

Here is another case out of many we could mention: Mordecai.  Mordecai in the Book of Esther.  Before you are through with that wonderful story, you have it stated, "The man Mordecai waxed greater and greater."  You recall the story don't you, I need not remind you of the Book of Esther, "the man Mordecai waxed greater and greater?"  The man did, greatness in a man.

But what did Mordecai do?  How did he come to that place and that measure of stature, "greater and greater?"  How? First of all, he sat in the gate and watched, and found out the evil that was at work.  You remember the two who plotted against the life of the king in order to assassinate him?  An Mordecai watched, got the information about that and saved the king's life (6:2).  Mordecai, it was, who kept his eye on Haman, the wicked Haman.  He was watching him very closely in the gate, and his mischief, his evil, as Haman plotted for the destruction of all the Jews, the people of God.  It was Mordecai who acquainted himself with all this and watched and worked against the evil which was plotting death; evil working out in death.  Mordecai countered that by watchfulness and carefulness, in self-abasement, in a place of humiliation as he sat at the gate.

Now these are the things that characterise true manhood - set against all evil that works in the direction of death; to counter it, to destroy the enemy's plots and purposes to bring death amongst the people of God.  It is a hazardous business; so much so that Haman got his eye on Mordecai to destroy him.  But here is an interesting thing, and this is so close to what we are saying. Here's this interesting thing, it says that "Haman was afraid to destroy Mordecai."  So, he plotted to destroy all the Jews in order to engulf Mordecai!  If he can destroy the corporate man, he will destroy the Man Who is at the heart of things.  By destroying the Lord's people, you see what a blow is struck at the Lord Himself.  The corporate man involves The Man.  But here is the point: "the man Mordecai waxed greater and greater," the man, that is the phrase, "the man," manhood is doing this.  And so we could go on.  It is all very interesting, but it is all so instructive.  You come to The Man and look at Him, Hmeek, above all men, meeker than Moses.  Yet in His meekness, He is active in two directions: for Life against death.

For Life

Now, you see, these are statements that can be taken objectively as belonging to something else, but let us bring them right home to ourselves.  What is the effect of my Christian life?  Is it, on the one hand, a studied, considered and determined registration against all those things that would produce spiritual death?  And is it, like Isaac, something committed to bringing out the life which the enemy has tried to smother in the wells?  This tests our real Christianity, and the effect of our spiritual manhood.  Meekness, yes, but all working against the work of the Philistines, the enemy out to rob the Lord's people of the means of life, and working quietly, prayerfully, diligently against the works of the devil to engulf the Lord Jesus in a bad testimony amongst His own people.

The Book of Esther, you see, leaps into that one inclusive issue.  The last chapter is a wonderful chapter: the Jews are delivered, the Feast of Purim set up forever, the enemy's work overthrown, and it says, "They had a good day."  And they had a good day... the Lord's people over against the evil day that the enemy had plotted.  But it was a kind of manhood that brought that about.  You see through. Yes, the Lord needs His man, not only as in His Son: the Greater Mordecai, but in the people who are according to or after the manhood of the Greater Mordecai.

May I underline something that I have said: that the whole of the people of God embody the testimony of the One Man; and He stands, He stands as representing the Body.  And what happens in His Body affects Him tremendously.  Well, anything that speaks of death and disruption is set against the Lord Jesus, and we must take that to heart. And let us ask the Lord to put us on the line of Isaac.  He is not made a great deal of in the Bible characters.  Abraham, yes, Jacob, yes, and we will put Isaac in between, we will sandwich him somewhere, but we will not say very much about him; but Isaac, the man brought back from death, the man who is the embodiment of resurrection, and who proves it by undoing the works of the enemy and opening up the fountains of Life for the people of God, and providing bread for them.  The Lord make us like that, really on positive lines.  And, also like Mordecai, who are alive to the activities of the enemy, and who work against them for the sake of the Lord's people.

Now I want to close by bringing this where it ought to be brought: this great, this wonderful conclusion of the Apostle to the whole: "where Christ is All, and in all."

I wonder, dear friends, what you covet and pray for more than anything else.  For my own part, my coveting, my praying is more than for anything else, a fresh and mighty captivation of the Lord Jesus, a captivation of Christ.  Oh, it is quite true, and we know it, that He is our life, He is our Saviour, He is so much to us and we are right when we say that we could not live without Him. And yet, is there not some margin between that and what I am calling an absolute captivation with Christ?  That He is a passion in our lives, that He is a dominating power in our lives. Language fails... that He has just so captured us, so utterly captured us, that not only is He our Life in the sense that we couldn't get on without Him, but that He is a passion for living.  This man who wrote these words, just look at him in this way: somehow he had seen Christ at the beginning and through his long years he had seen more and more of Christ, until in prison - with all those terrible sufferings and afflictions and adversities and sorrows and disappointments that had come upon him through those years, his catalogue of adversities right at the end; Christ is more than everything.  Christ is in the ascendant, it is "Christ will be All, and in all."  Now I say, language fails , I cannot put into words what I mean, but oh, for the positiveness of this passion of Christ.

I do not know how many of you may have read F. W. H. Meyer's great poem, "St. Paul."  It is very largely an imaginative thing as all poetry is, of course, but there is a fragment, a line or two, in that great poem, depicting the life of the Apostle.  And he, in an imaginary way, finds Paul meeting a pagan woman in all her misery, possibly one of those temple women, like the woman in Philippi, the demon-possessed woman of the temple.  And Meyers pictures such a woman in her misery, in her frustration, in her hopelessness, and all her sin and degradation, she is before him. When Meyer is telling of all this about her, he puts into Paul's mouth these words: "then I preached Christ. And brothers, if you saw it,"  he said, "never had my Master been so wonderful to me until I saw what He could do for a woman like that."  How she leapt out of her misery, her wretchedness, her frustration, all the horrors of her life, into new hope.  He said, "I saw my Master in a greater way than ever I had seen before."

Now I say, that may be poetic, imaginary, but there is an essence of truth in it.  What Meyer is trying to say through that wonderful poem is: "Oh, the captivating power of Jesus Christ in the life of that man Paul, the mastery of Christ."  You can feel what I cannot say, the desire that it should be like that with us... Christ! Christ! Seeking out Christ, making the most of Christ, increasing Christ, all Christ!  "For me to live is Christ!"

You may think that that is true of you, but oh how we fail, how we fail.  How little, after all, has Christ gripped us?  And if this is true where "Christ is All, and in all" that is the End, that is how it is going to be; how vastly great Christ must be! If He is going to give character to the whole humanity composed of a vast multitude, which no man can number, ten thousand times ten thousand and thousands of thousands. Language is beggared to try and describe and if Christ has given character to that, to that in a universe of redeemed humanity, how great He must be: in character, in work, in power.  How great He must be!

I leave it with you, but this is the kind of knowledge unto which we must be renewed!  Such a seeing, a grasping, an apprehending and being mastered by the Greatness of the One to Whom, by the grace of God, we have been united, called into the fellowship of His Son Jesus Christ.  May it be more than a mental grasping of Christ; that we know He is Great, we believe He is great, we have experienced something of His Greatness.  May our hearts, more than even our minds, be mastered by this Man Jesus Christ and we be His abject slaves in worship and adoration.  He is so great!