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Horizoned by Life

by T. Austin-Sparks

First published in "A Witness and A Testimony" magazines, 1964-65

Contents

Chapter 1 - Life, The Criterion

Chapter 2 - The Criterion of Livingness

Chapter 3 - The Criteria of Livingness - Growth

Chapter 4 - The Criteria of Livingness - Reproduction

Chapter 5 - The Criteria of Livingness - Function and Energy

Chapter 6 - Conclusion

Chapter 1 - Life, The Criterion

"The tree of life also in the midst of the garden" (Gen. 2:9).

"The tree of life, which is in the garden of God" (Rev. 2:7, margin).

"The tree of life" (Rev. 22:2,14).

Thus the Bible, first and last, makes life its horizon. It would not be wrong to say that all that is within the covers of the Bible is related - in some way - to this particular issue. It certainly was the governing matter in the creation record, and all human history is shown there to turn upon it: we shall see that life is the predominant issue in redemption. This being the case, it must be the paramount question in creation and human history.

But we have to begin our consideration of this vast matter by noting the Bible comparison and contrast between

Two Kinds of Life

In the main the Bible uses the word 'life' in two different ways and kinds. It uses the word to define the common life of all animate creatures. The Greek word for this kind of life is that from which we derive the word 'biology', which is simply 'the science of life'.

Genesis (the Book of Beginnings) tells us that God made living things:

Trees; flowers; vegetables.

Creatures; beasts, birds, fishes.

Man; a living soul having "the breath of life".

Life, of this natural kind, was the basis of animation, growth, propagation, etc.

But, into the midst of this life in all its forms, intimation, representation, and presentation, another kind of life is represented. It was possible to have animal and human life without having this other - and altogether different and superior - life. Indeed, to fail to possess this 'altogether other' life was (and is) to fail of the true Divine intention and destiny. To possess it would lift mankind on to a higher level altogether, and mean immortality to the creation. We leave that point there for the moment while we emphasise the fact that life is the criterion of everything.

Life, The Criterion

Up to a little over one hundred years ago it was generally believed by scientists that the universe - living creatures included - was explained on mechanical lines. It was all a great machine, wound up, moving by certain laws, and after millions of years, would run down and collapse or disintegrate. Mechanization was the inclusive law of all motion, processes, progress and relativity. That interpretation has now been completely and positively discarded and abandoned. Its place has been taken by biology, which, in its enthronement, is called 'The Queen of Sciences'. This is thought to be progress, but it is really just a return to Genesis and the Bible. Biology means that life is the basis and explanation of the whole animate creation or universe. Moreover, there is a wide acceptance that, far from chance, hap, accident, there is a Mind behind the universe, and that things are organic rather than mechanic.

This is all good, and a wonderful step 'back-forward', but there is another very big step required; for, good and significant as this biological fact may be, it does not solve the problem of man's destiny. So far, we are established on a basic fact, that life is the criterion, the law and principle of all being, development and reproduction.

But when we have said that, with all its vast ramifications, we need the other half of the Bible to carry us further. So, another quite different and distinct word is introduced with the New Testament. Sometimes it stands alone, but often something definitive is given to it: it is termed 'Eternal Life'. Seeing that the word 'eternal' is applied to God and to what is characteristic of Him, it must mean more than an age, a measure of time even beyond the human span; it must go outside of time altogether. But the word as used and associated is not only an extension, it is a kind, a quality, a nature, altogether different from and superior to life as we know it naturally. This life, the Bible teaches, is something that no man possesses naturally. If this is the only true life, then, by nature all men are dead while they live (biologically), as the Bible teaches.

Well, this just states the simple basic truth and position.

One more thing before we open out to the wider field. If, as we believe, there is a Mind behind creation, and particularly the animate creation, then we are ready to see a further great truth taught by the Bible.

This truth is that the natural, the material and organic creation is intended to embody and represent a vast counterpart of intangible thought and principles. In a word, the created universe is a vast symbolism. Just as a potter expresses his thoughts in the vessels he makes, so that those vessels are ideas in representation, so God has wrapped up His thoughts in His creation. If we could read what is within the product of God's hands and interpret with the mind of God, we should know what God is like and what He means.

This being true, we must carry the truth into the realm of life, and see that natural life - as it came from God - is the part of which spiritual or Divine life is the counterpart. What is true of human life is a representation of something much higher - Divine life. That is what we hope to see as we proceed with these meditations. Life in the natural is itself a marvellous and mysterious thing. It certainly is a mystery. No one has ever yet explained what life is. Only by its presence and expression do we know of its existence, but we can never explain or define it. That is, perhaps, the first parable of life. Even natural life is capable of endurance and manifold expression beyond all calculation. Let us consider

The Variety of Life.

It only needs to be suggested that any attempt to count the number and variety of life in its different realms to show how hopeless such an undertaking would be. In some realms this has been done. For instance, it is computed that there are at least 25,000 named backbone animals; ten times as many backboneless animals, and as many plants. There are 100,000 flowering plants. When we take vermin and insects - rats and rabbits, etc. - the rate of multiplication, and the way in which survival overtakes mortality, figures defeat calculation. Every single one of these has life after its kind.

When we turn to the power, energy, and endurance of life, we open the door to the necessity of volumes to be written. As a hint, just consider that we find animals among the snow at a height of 10,000 feet; and they are found on the floor of the sea six miles deep where Mount Everest would be much more than engulfed. It is hard to say what great difficulties are encountered and overcome by living creatures - insects in hot springs where you could not keep your hand; living things under fifteen feet of ice.

The story is positively fascinating and amazing. Life, filling every niche, finding homes in extraordinary places, mastering difficulties, adjusting to out-of-the-way exigencies; persistent and intrusive; spreading everywhere, insinuating itself, adapting itself, resisting, defying, surviving everything! A tiny seed, dropped or carried by the wind into a crevice of a great rock will, as it grows, split that rock open until a large tree declares the power of life. The Grand Canyon of Arizona has many an instance of this. That canyon itself is now one mighty testimony in its foliage and beauty to the way in which life can take hold of the devastation and desolation caused by volcanic eruption, and turn its carnage into an attraction to the whole world. This is but a faint, distant approach to the marvels of life. If what we said earlier is true, that the natural is a symbol of the spiritual, what immense and outstanding things must be true of the higher and greater, the life which is supernatural! What a story the past two thousand years tell of the miracles, wonders, triumphs, survivals, endurances, and expansions of the life of God, given in and by His Son, Jesus Christ, to His Church, and to individuals who have received Him as 'the Life, the Eternal Life'! What a challenge this is to the Church's testimony! What a call to clear the way of what is spiritually and morally inimical to that Life in the Church and the Christian!

This is but introductory. We have to break this great matter into its relevant parts; but, with this little, surely we can begin to see that God has horizoned everything by life; in the natural, but immensely more so in the spiritual. The criterion of all is livingness!

In the organic creation everything depends upon whether life is present or not. If a thing or a person is without life, the door is closed; hope ends; there is no prospect (unless a miracle intervenes). We just say: 'Well, that is that, and there is no more.' The only remaining thing is burial. The departure of life means the reign and triumph of corruption. If there is life, and it can be stimulated and ministered to effectively, as in the human body or the garden, then corruption is held at bay and set back.

Which of these two issues was to prevail - the entrance and reign of corruption, mortality, and hopelessness, or the defeat of that intrusion with the entrance of an incorruptible, deathless and age-abiding life - is said by the Bible to have been decided at an early point in human existence. It was decided in a probation, the probation of choice, and choice based upon warning, caution and counsel. Clear, precise, concise and strong was the situation presented. The alternatives were God's will and way, or man's will and way as contrary to God's. It was the alternative of man's selfhood as against God's supreme right to be trusted and obeyed. It was the question of God's exclusive and unique authority, and His beneficent disposition toward man, or the mind and will of another making man's independent and self-centred judgment the directive motive. On these two issues the question of two things hung; one, the obtaining of an incorruptible and deathless life, or, the missing of that and the blight of corruption falling upon the very natural life of man and creation. This alternative was set forth symbolically in two trees with their respective fruits - 'The Tree of Life' and 'The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil'.

If you do not want to regard these as two literal trees, it will not affect the issue, for, after all, it is principles which govern, and what arises is just the laws of life and death. The Bible records the choice which was made; the side upon which man came down; the use which he made of his great trust - choice, free will; but choice with an exhortation and warning; not in ignorance!

History is the record of that choice; it is also the history of man's endorsement of, and adherence to that choice as against a way which God made forthwith out of the entanglement. I have said that it was principles that governed. That is quite true, but I had better hurry up and introduce what is going to be the inclusive, ultimate and pre-eminent reality.

The Old Testament is mainly built upon a great and detailed system of types, symbols and parables. This method runs on into the New Testament so far as the four Gospels and the Apocalypse are concerned, but with one over-ruling difference. The New Testament expounds and explains the Old, and, in this supreme matter of life, it overwhelms us with the revelation that that Tree of Life is but a type and symbol of a Person, namely, God's Son, Jesus Christ. On this point - focal point - a precise and inclusive statement is made by the Apostle John in his first Letter: And the witness [or testimony] is this, that God gave unto us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He that hath the Son hath the life; he that hath not the Son of God hath not the life" (1 John 5:11,12). That is categorical. The whole letter must be read in the light of that statement. It makes everything Christo-centric. It puts human destiny upon His being the centre. It sums up the whole issue of life - or death - in Him!

Life in Christ, and Christ as the Life, is the horizon of all things.

Chapter 2 - The Criterion of Livingness

Having laid a foundation, and given good ground for the conclusion that life is the horizon of God's work in nature and grace, we take a phrase from that introduction as the key to much more - that is, the Criterion of Life. So we proceed to consider the main points of the criterion of livingness; that is, the indications and evidences of life. If life is the first and last issue, and the predominant element, apart from which there is no proof of God in anything, it is important that we should be able to discover its presence by its essential evidences. The real test is not in doctrine, theology, orthodoxy, or any of the other matters associated with Christianity, but in livingness; to change the language - vitality, potency, effectiveness.

Some of these major evidences of life are:

1. Freshness. (The simplest.)

2. Growth.

3. Reproduction.

4. Relatedness.

5. Persistence.

6. Purpose.

1. The Criterion of Freshness

It would be a drab world if there were no Springtime. It is not life, but only existence where there is no freshness in being and experience. Sameness is a deadly thing. Where trees never shed their leaves and produce fresh ones; where things seen and heard never convey fresh values and meanings; such like conditions in nature or in religion are no evidence of life. Indeed, they are a contradiction to life. Nature shouts against such a state, and every Springtime holds a festival of freshness.

The human body, in normal conditions, rebuts the idea of no freshness. The seven pounds of an infant all pass away. In seventy years, ten times does the fabric of the physical body change. Death is the failure to produce a fresh body. Life is ever shedding outward garments. Its onward march is strewn with discarded forms. Once the cells become rigid and set, life declines or withdraws. Life makes an imperative demand for adjustableness. When and where there is failure to fall into line with life, life will leave those concerned behind, however much theory they may have. When anything has served its purpose it may be left behind as waste matter unless it is vitalized by fresh purpose.

A study of the word 'New' in the New Testament will quickly convince that Christianity is essentially characterized by freshness. Although there are two Greek words translated 'New' - one meaning something that was not before, and the other something recent and fresh - the same idea of freshness is contained in both. Hence: A new commandment; a new creation; a new man; a new nature; a new corporate man (the Church); new things; a new name; a new song; a new Heaven and a new earth; new Jerusalem; all things new, etc. The vitalizing principle of all is life - Divine life; but never apart from the Person, Who is the Life.

This freshness is true freshness. It is from the life within, and is the expression thereof. This is true of natural life in the creation. The lobster, crayfish and crab shed their shells frequently. A lobster only two inches long has moulted ten times, and a ten-inch lobster has changed its shell twenty-five times. But he has not changed. The shell is reproduced from within, not imposed from without. Life produces it.

Herein lies a fundamental difference between the Christianity of the early days and that of so much of later and present times.

In an effort to depart from 'ruts' and traditional forms, and to get 'life', many resources are adopted. To be 'original', 'different', 'unusual', 'extraordinary', 'unique', much stunting is resorted to, 'attractions' are framed. All such subterfuges and dressing-up only betray the absence of true life. True life has a way of making itself known. When there is life there is never a need to put on anything. The life which is life indeed forces off dead things, whether they be in character, conduct, or forms. Like Abraham, Moses, David, Elisha, Paul, John, there is fruit in old age, and their fruit abides.

Chapter 3 - The Criteria of Livingness - Growth

2. Growth

Having briefly touched upon the first evidence of life, that is: freshness or newness, we proceed to note the second, namely, growth. We have seen that the essential difference between the animate and the inanimate, a living thing or a rock - for instance - is that life produces an organism. The characteristic of an organism - when it is as it should be - is the capacity for growth. This growth is spontaneous, not forced, artificial, or engineered. We have said: 'when it is as it should be', because an organism can be a contradiction to its true nature, and fall short of its true life. But, given that it is a normal organism, it will spontaneously grow. For it to fail here means that somewhere and for some reason, life is arrested, frustrated, or limited.

While we do not want to seem too technical in dealing with spiritual matters, it must be kept in mind that God has constituted His created universe upon spiritual principles, and that, therefore, we can pass through nature to grace; the natural is meant to be a parable of the spiritual. So Jesus showed in His Parables; but it was only a small example of a vast truth. So, we let nature indicate and point to the greater and the Eternal. Perhaps the first law of the growth of a living organism is

A Margin of Capital Over Expenditure

When capital is overtaken by output in any realm, growth, expansion, development is at once threatened or arrested. That is particularly true in the physical realm. In business and commerce expansion may continue for a time on borrowed capital, 'overdrafts', but that is artificial, and its days are numbered. In the physical we may artificially boost and use stimulants, but true growth is not taking place.

In the spiritual a narrow margin of capital means that the seeming growth is a deception, a lie, the doom of which is in itself. No crisis will be survived without capital to draw upon. This is why God has ordained the ordinance of rest. This is the law of 'The Day of Rest', and this is why we have holidays. To violate this law is to overdraw on capital and shorten tenure and growth. So often in spiritual life and in the Lord's work a crisis cannot be met and overcome because there is lacking the spiritual reserves to carry through. A tragic story of breakdown in Christian work is bound up with this principle. It is essential to the growth of the Christian and spiritual organism, whether it be the individual Christian, the local company, or the Church universal, that it has life to spare and to give: that it has more than it needs for itself. When Jesus said: "I am come that they might have life, and have it more abundantly" surely He did not mean that they should just have exuberance, but abundance for others. In other words, that there should be capital for expansion.

But, having said what is so obvious, and yet so necessary (and ignore it at your peril), we have to ask how reserves and capital are maintained.

The Conserving of Capital

Here we do touch a matter of such vital significance as to determine whether there is such capital or whether it is only a false basis which will not stand up to the test. If it were asked what is necessary to build up strength, secure reserves of stamina, and assure growth, many people would answer that the essential is good food and plenty of it. To just say that may find you assenting and saying mentally: 'Quite right!' You may be a bit surprised if we say that your 'quite' needs qualifying, and that your answer could be wrong. Think again. Are you quite sure that the availability of good food in plenty will itself secure vitality and reserves of energy? Is there not required something in the organism to transform that food into energy? What about indigestion and its kind? Does this always mean that the food is not good? Or does it mean that the person cannot deal with it aright? No, food, however good and necessary, is not the full answer. The terrible and tragic fact is that with an abundant supply of good spiritual food, teaching, ministry, many Christians to whose very door it is brought do not grow thereby; they break down in crises; they never go beyond themselves; and are more a liability than responsible units in the body corporate. Again, nature can teach us.

In the human body there are certain functions which have solely to do with this question of how the body grows by laying up capital reserves.

The inclusive function is the capacity for taking hold of what is supplied and subjecting it to the purpose for which it is given. Medical people have a name for this, but we will omit technical terms. The point is that it is a recognized thing, and forms the basis of health. There just must be life in the organism sufficient to 'take hold' of food and make it yield its properties and values. Christians, the very best ministry that you can have is no guarantee that you will spiritually profit by it and grow unless you "have life in yourselves". There just has to be a correspondence between the life in the food and the life in yourself! There must be life laying hold on life and turning it to account. Otherwise you will be, as we have sadly found not a few Christians to be, where there is abundance of good food, over a long period of years, and you not "profit thereby", but be a passenger, an attendant, and not "growing up into Him in all things", whose "profiteering is known unto all". You may, after all, be in a state of spiritual debility, dyspepsia, and a non-accountable member.

Within this general law there are two functions known to the physician, again with their own names. They are not so difficult as it may sound when mentioned.

(a) There is the function of breaking down the intake; the subjecting it to analysis, investigation, and extraction. That is exactly what happens in a healthy body. It is as though all the little cells lying in the lymph stream take an enquiring look at what is passed down their way, and they interrogate it: 'What sort of a thing are you? What do you want here? What have you got in you that we need? Let's have a look, let's break you down and find out how much good there is in you. Then we will use the good and refuse the useless.'

This examining, analysing, directing process is the normal function, where disease and injury do not obstruct or interfere. (Disease and injury in the spiritual life belong to another department from that with which we are occupied.)

In what way does this apply to the spiritual life?

It depends so much upon whether you are really spiritually alive; which means that, having been truly born again, you have received the Holy Spirit within. If this is so, and you are walking in the light with no controversy between the Lord and yourself, the Divine life in you will function as we have said above.

First, when spiritual food is presented to you, you will exercise yourself regarding it. You will look at it; investigate it; break it down into its components, and then appropriate by faith its values and seek to adjust to their demands. This is a bit different from hearing a message and either leaving it at that, or passing some remark as to whether it pleased you or not. It means that you will, at very least, say: 'Lord, what do you want me to learn by that; what do you mean for me by that word?'

(b) The second reaction is just the following through of the enquiry and analysis. It is appropriation, obedience, and acting according to the light. One is breaking down; the other is building up.

Thus, we return to the beginning. Life is the life of an organism. Life means that there is an energy, a quality of heart and mind which makes a definite response to what is presented; acts upon it; makes it yield its inherent properties. Apart from this life-action and reaction, the best provision will leave us anaemic, and incapable of surviving any serious crisis.

Thus and only thus shall we grow and have reserves of capital to meet not only our own demands but those of others. Our own growth is seen in others. Growth is horizoned by life. Growth is one of the criteria of livingness.

3. Organic Relatedness

The third mark of livingness which we shall consider is that of organic or corporate relatedness.

The inter-relatedness of the organisms is fundamental to the full expression of life; it is a fact which all living creation declares. The living creation is a vast system of inter-linked lives or functions. It is only through the fulfilment of corporate relations that life can continue and progress; only in this way can the laws of life come to their fullest expression. Life involves relations. Isolation means death, where things are an end in themselves.

The very word 'Body' means a community. It comes from a word 'bhadh', to bind, a banding or binding together of mutually related parts. The parts can only fulfil their special function in relatedness. They can only reach their best in fellowship with other parts. Every organ of the body was made for fellowship. It is a fellowship which life itself creates and sustains. If we but knew it, the various faculties and cells of the physical body reach out and seek for fellowship, and there is a revolt in them against aloneness. Indeed, the body so reaches out because it knows that its safety depends upon co-operation and mutual aid. The individual function exists for the whole body, and the whole body is affected by the individual function. It is impossible to have dislocation without discontent, and it is impossible to have discontent without weakness and loss.

In a museum in London there is one of the first efforts at making a flying machine, the forerunner of the modern aeroplane. From a close study of birds taking off, in flight and alighting, and of the mechanism of a bird itself, a machine was made with wings made of feathers, a body with the contour of a bird, and mechanical action imitating wings, tail, 'under-carriage' and head. Although not resembling a bird, it was intended to be - in its shape and actions - a mechanical bird of sufficient size and strength to carry a man through the air. The creator of this contrivance had gone to nature, God's animate creation, for the laws and principles of flight. Would it not be a good thing if, instead of human organization, the Church - the people of God - looked carefully into the principles of interrelatedness as so marvellously functioning in that masterpiece of God, the human body? He has written there all the laws and principles of that unity for which there is such a vast amount of organized effort. As in all the faculties and cells of the human body there is the outreach and cry for fellowship, so in the Church universal, the true Body of Christ.

But there is a difference. Christian people are trying to bring it about from the outside. The human body does it by the life within. If "the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus" had the full and clear way which an inward work of the Cross can secure, the problem of fellowship would be solved. Just as the erstwhile rivals, Peter and John (and other quarrelsome disciples), were - after the Cross - found in a wonderful spiritual partnership, not by pact but by the Spirit, so would it be if the same basis was inwardly established. The Church was, and is, intended to be universally - as an organism - what Christ's earthly human body expressed locally of the government of the Father. As in His case, so in the case of all who are controlled by Him, there is a will of God which outruns the limits of the individual personality, and is infinitely greater than the personal life. That will of God takes up the individual and treats him, not as an end in himself, but as a means to a large, Divine, immeasurable end.

No single life, however rich and many-sided, could provide an adequate field for the manifestation of the Divine purpose. That purpose requires myriads of personalities, with Divine qualities, in order that the length and breadth of its infinite scope may come to expression. The Apostle prayed that the saints might be strengthened with might by the Holy Spirit to comprehend with all saints the breadth, length, depth, and height. The comprehension demands "all saints". In the human body, if an organism gets out of the controlling relationship with the other organisms, one of two things happens. It either becomes subnormal, less than its real nature and purpose, and in that way becomes unbalanced; or it becomes abnormal, and in so doing loses its distinguishing character. Cancer is like that. Because of the loss of the control of associated tissues it makes the organism abnormal, and that organism in time cannot be recognized as to what it normally is.

What a lot of history as to Christian lives and Christian activity is illustrated by these so well-known physical facts. What a warning they are! Fellowship, relatedness, co-ordination, are determined by the measure of spiritual life. When that spiritual life is at low ebb fellowship is strained and divisions abound. People throw off restraint and authority and act independently. When spiritual life is full and high, there is a flowing, holding, and moving together. Just after Pentecost, when life was at high tide, it says of the believers: "They continued in fellowship". All this is not only a statement of truth, it is a test of the spiritual livingness.

Of the criteria of livingness, therefore, organic relatedness in expression is a vital factor. The true expression of the Body of Christ is horizoned by life.

Chapter 4 - The Criteria of Livingness - Reproduction

4. Reproduction

Having noted that essential evidence of life which is organic relatedness, we naturally move to the law of reproduction. When God united man and woman in "the grace of life", He immediately said "Be fruitful, and multiply".

Reproduction is the law, the object, and the evidence of organic, living, relatedness. Someone has said that 'Any organism that refuses right-of-way to life by denying it facilities for transmission commits a breach of trust. Nowhere is life a possession simply to be enjoyed. It is a stewardship to be sacredly worked so as to be a centre of transmitted energy.' A barren fig tree was taken by Christ as a symbol of Israel's failure in trust, and was cursed. Israel received, but did not pass on, and thereby lost its right to continue. Over against the barren fig tree is set the Vine, the chief concern of the Husbandman for which is "that it bear much fruit". The trust was given to Israel as "children of Abraham" to whom God said "In thy seed shall all nations of the earth be blessed". All nature cries with a loud voice that the God of creation is no believer in a 'No thoroughfare', 'Cul-de-sac', 'Dead end' way of existence. Whether it be the individual, the group, or the nation, 'No exit' is a contradiction of a fundamental natural and spiritual law. An open highway for life is the law of organic livingness.

Exclusivism is, sooner or later, death and disintegration. The history of exclusivism is the history of unending divisions, and those divisions have always meant limitation and self-centredness. Strangle a limb and it will die. Stop circulation and mortification will ensue. Be an end in yourself, and you weave your own shroud.

The New Testament with its supreme characteristic of newness is so clearly marked by world-vision. If there is a tendency to become exclusive and self-sufficient, then He who had said "Unto the uttermost part of the world" will sovereignly order that "They (were) scattered abroad everywhere". A veritable rising from His throne (as seen by Stephen) will be to apprehend a "chosen vessel... unto the nations", Heaven's battleaxe against Judaistic prejudice, bigotry, and exclusivism. The swinging of that axe meant hard hitting for carnal selfishness at Corinth, and wrathful anathemas for Galatia. While, on the other hand, the glorying and rejoicing over Thessalonica, Philippi, Ephesus, etc., was because that through them the word and testimony went into "All Asia" and Europe. It is not enough to have interest in the nations, whether by praying, and reporting, and reading. It is a matter of what we have to give. What can we transmit? What will the nations get if they come to us? Is there reproduction in the nations?

There can be no reproduction without travail. This is the spirit of sacrifice. Self-centredness, whether individual or collective, means selfishness. There can be plenty of missionary interest born of many various incentives, but rather pleasurable and romantic, and not travail, anguish, and unto blood. There is a great conflict for the universal, and this battle is often against that pernicious, inveterate, incorrigible tendency to lower levels, smaller measure, mediocrity, collective introspection.

The livingness of the individual Christian, the local church; or any institution bearing the name of Christian will be determined by what is found through it of vital value beyond itself. A very successful manoeuvre of the devil is to get a local company (or an individual, for that) wasting long months or years, and great spiritual vitality in occupation - if not obsession - with its own affairs, and in so doing limiting its reproductiveness, its 'being fruitful and multiplying'. It really means loss of the dominating and emancipating vision of the immensity of Christ.

Chapter 5 - The Criteria of Livingness - Function and Energy

5. Function and Energy

In a living organism like the human body these two things are so evidently characteristic of life: namely, specific function and vital energy. Of course, we refer to a normal and healthy body. As we have before pointed out, that unique definition or designation of the Church as the Body of Christ is used to show that God's material creations are intended to set forth or symbolize His spiritual thoughts. Probably in no other creation or production of God is there a more perfect concentration of the Divine mind than in the human body or organism. There could hardly be a better example of inspiration than that which led the Apostle Paul to employ this metaphor for the Church. His alone it was to so designate the Church. It is itself a feature of the Anointing to see Divine, spiritual and heavenly meanings in commonplace things. So it was with the Lord in His parables. Perhaps the fact that a physician had been Paul's close companion for so long had meant that, on their long journeys, physical matters had occupied their conversation. It was not Luke, the Physician, who gave this enlightenment, although he had all the academic knowledge. It needed Paul's "open Heaven" concerning the Church to discern this revelation of eternal thoughts as wrapped up in the physical organism.

And so we are brought to this so obvious (when eyes are opened) truth of the Church as the Body of Christ - that is, function and energy.

In the medical and surgical world there are many specialists. There are specialists for eyes, heart, ear, nose, throat, lungs, bones, nerves, brain, etc., thus indicating that the human body comprises many functions. Those just mentioned are but a very small number of the immense total of the functions in a single human unit. Our point is not merely that there are so many functions in the body, but that every one of the almost countless number is - in its way and place - a specialist itself. That is, it has a special purpose and special place in the body. No other faculty can fulfil just its function. Every one differs in a particular respect from the others, although so greatly dependent upon the others. There is no need for us to enlarge upon this; everybody knows that this is a fact, and no one ever tries to make one organ do the work of another; we do not usually walk on our hands.

There is a sound and true biological basis to Paul's words concerning the organs, functions and relations of the human body as representing the Body of Christ - the corporate life of true believers.

For instance: "We have many members in one body, and all the members have not the same office... having gifts differing", etc. (Romans 12:4-8).

"Now there are diversities of gifts... there are diversities of ministrations... diversities of workings... the foot... the ear... the eye... the head..." (1 Corinthians 12).

The point being made is that in the body there is a multiplicity of functions and all these are energized by one life. So in the Body of Christ there are a great variety of faculties and functions, every one of which is energized by the Holy Spirit of life.

Faculty Demands Relatedness

The first thing that the Apostle would have believers know is that every member of Christ should express the life in some particular way. The Holy Spirit forms the Body, and just as God's vast and profound wisdom is concentrated in the physical body with its marvellous system of related faculties, so it is in a spiritual way with the Body of Christ, the true Church. No part, however small, is without meaning. It is to the Church's loss that this truth has been so much lost to sight. Every Christian who has had an experience of 'new birth', or really coming into 'newness of life', knows that such an experience is accompanied by a new sense of purpose; a consciousness of being alive with a meaning, a feeling of vocation; something has got to be done about it. The infinite wisdom of the Creator has included the smallest part of the body in purpose. Not one infinitesimal part is without meaning. Abnormalities or subnormalities, excesses or deficiencies, there may be, but this does not argue against the main truth. Included in the gifts mentioned in 1 Corinthians 12:28 is the word "helps". The Apostle spoke of those that helped him, and he appealed to believers that they might be helpers together (with him) by their prayers. What a lot of things can be included in that title "helps"! And what an explanation of the millions of little corpuscles in the human body, all busy, all contributing, all 'helping' with a sense of purpose. If the Spirit of Life is really Lord in the Body, and every member is rightly adjusted, there will be a wonderful working according to purpose. It will be spontaneous, not artificial. We shall find that a certain 'bent', disposition, mindedness, constraint, or urge will work out in our knowing what our work or 'gift' is. We shall find that the Lord is with us along a certain line and that we are at rest in that.

There is a Holy Spirit sovereignty in this. The Scripture is "dividing to each one severally as he wills". There is nothing more profitable and blessed than this order of life in the body of Christ, just as there is nothing more unhappy and confusing when any member gets into a false place and tries to do what it was never meant to do. That is the difference between organization and organism. In organization people are chosen and appointed to position and work by the judgment and will of men. In an organism the function is manifest and obvious before appointment; indeed appointment has taken place before men act upon it. We - with all our doctrine of the Church - have still to learn the fundamental principles of the Divine organism. Neither by popular vote nor by human selection can it be formed and made to function. Choice of functioning members is never left to the discretion of men. We only come into the fellowship and functioning of this Body of Christ through the gift of spiritual life, and not into the gift of spiritual life through fellowship in the Body. A member and a faculty of the human body comes into being only through the life of the body. It is not given to any function or organ to have life in itself; it is the life of the whole body which gives it its meaning. Its life is not inherent but derived.

Nevertheless, the members themselves are meant to be each a life-centre. The Church - or a local church - is not a congregation, an assembly of individuals. It is the drawing together into vital union of those who have already received the grace and gifts of the new life, and the spontaneous expression of that grace in fellowship. Life must manifest itself! Vital function is the expression of vital force, the force of "the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus".

Chapter 6 - Conclusion

We are now drawing this series of considerations on Life to a close, although the subject is so much greater than we could ever compass. For, as we have said, it compasses the whole Bible, from first to last; and the Bible is the history of God's relationship with man, and man's relationship to God. Our final emphasis here is upon one fact of fundamental and immense significance; a fact into which all that we have said about Life has to be gathered. When we have said all about the reality, the nature, the forms, the laws, and the criteria of Life, this one basic fact projects itself, demanding and challenging recognition. It is that

Life Only Comes From Life

In the natural world this conclusion was only established after a long and fierce battle. As I write I have beside me the ponderous biography of Lord Lister. Nearly seven hundred pages (written by Sir Rickman Godlee) comprise this volume, and the reading of it leaves one in amazement and shock that what is now universally accepted without the slightest question - and to question which would now lead to the very fiercest upheaval - did involve the whole scientific world of the time in the most vehement controversy. The establishment of the present comprehensive and meticulous system of antiseptics, hygiene, sterilization, etc., in medicine and surgery and public health, was only reached by way of years of the most exhausting and exacting research and experimentation, debate and controversy. The issue involved in all this was just one question: does life spontaneously generate, or does it proceed from already living organisms? In the biography referred to the writer says of Lister that 'he finally settled the point that putrefaction does not occur independently of the agency of micro-organisms'. Referring to the great Louis Pasteur (founder of the world-renowned Pasteur Institute) he quotes Pasteur as saying to the most important audience that had ever come together (in Paris) to hear him:

'And, gentlemen, I could point to that liquid and say to you, I have taken my drop of water from the immensity of creation, and I have taken it full of the elements appropriate to the development of inferior things. And I wait, I watch, I question it, begging it to recommence for me the beautiful spectacle of the first creation. But it is dumb, dumb, since these experiments were begun years ago; it is dumb because I have kept it from the only thing that man cannot produce, from the germs which float in the air, from Life, for Life is a germ, and a germ is life. Never will the doctrine of spontaneous generation recover from the mortal blow of this simple experiment.'

Another scientist of the same era has placed the following on record:

'For two hundred years the scientific world has been rent with discussions on the Origin of Life.

'Two great schools have defended exactly opposite views. One that matter can spontaneously generate life; the other that life can only come from pre-existing life...

'A decided and authoritative conclusion has now taken place in science. So far as science can settle anything, this question is settled. The attempt to get the living out of the dead has failed. Spontaneous generation has had to be given up. And it is now recognized on every hand that Life can only come from the touch of Life.'

It will now be seen where we have arrived in our chapters on Life. If our great premise is right, that God has constituted the natural creation upon spiritual principles, then in this matter science has really corroborated Scripture. The scientist above mentioned said that this corroboration means the removal of the most serious enemy Christianity has had to deal with. 'Of the multitudes who confess Christianity at this hour, how many have clear in their minds the cardinal distinction established by its Founder between "born of the flesh" and "born of the Spirit"?'

This is one of the truly 'cardinal' facts that Jesus came to demonstrate. That is why He chose to do so many of His works (called by John 'signs') just at the point where every natural resource and hope were at an end. They were 'miracles' just for that reason. He never touched a situation unless it was hopeless. Indeed, He deliberately kept to the hopeless. If He turned water into wine it was when there was no wine available. If He raised Lazarus, He deliberately allowed him to reach the point of decay before He intervened - that is, the natural point. Jesus was not corroborating science. He was demonstrating what science has arrived at through vast research and numerous experiments; that Life cannot come from death, but only from Life, and in the spiritual realm the only possible hope of Life is that it comes from the Living One.

"In him was life, and the life was the light of men" (John 1:4).

"This is the testimony, that God has given unto us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He that hath the Son hath the life" (1 John 5:11-12).