Author's Rights

Published as an E-book

by

Austin-Sparks.Net

Email: info@austin-sparks.net

ISBN: 978-1-927228-51-7

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.

Position and Power - The Power of His Resurrection

by T. Austin-Sparks

First published in "A Witness and A Testimony" magazines, 1932.

Contents

Chapter 1 - Position and Power

Chapter 2 - The Power of His Resurrection

Chapter 3 - The Power of His Resurrection (continued)

Chapter 1 - Position and Power

That which we have before us at this time is the matter of spiritual power in the Lord's people. One of the great things in this connection which needs very much to be known and fully realised is that spiritual power is very largely a matter of spiritual position. It is not that we ask for power from God, but that we come into the position where the power of God operates.

Now I want to lay down two passages of Scripture to begin with as that toward which we are working. We turn to the Ephesian letter in chapter 1:19-20: "And what the exceeding greatness of His power to us-ward who believe according to that working of the strength of His might which He wrought in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and made Him sit at His own right hand in the heavenlies, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in that which is to come; and He put all things in subjection under His feet, and gave Him to be the head over all things to the Church which is His body, the fulness of Him that filleth all in all."

I would like to read that from Conybeare:- "And how surpassing is the power which He has shown toward us who believe; (for He has dealt with us) in the strength of that might wherewith He wrought in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead; and set Him on His own right hand in the heavens, far above every Principality and Power, and Might, and Domination, and every name which is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come. And 'He put all things under His feet,' and gave Him to be Sovereign Head of the Church, which is His body; the Fulness of Him who fills all things everywhere with Himself."

And then chapter 2:6: "And raised us up with Him and made us to sit with Him in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus." From Conybeare: "And in Christ Jesus He raised us up with Him from the dead, and seated us with Him in the heavens."

You see the two things are related in both these passages, the matter of position and power, or power and position. They are inseparable, but they are recognised as being two distinct factors, that power is a matter of position, and position is a matter of power. That is the end, as we have said, to which we work. What we have in view is the throne, coming to the throne, and, while the ultimate issue is a rapture, a distinct act, a definite movement to the throne, it is but the conclusion of something that has been going on spiritually for some time before. It is the culmination of a process. We come to the throne by the final act because we have been coming to the throne all the time; that is, we have been gaining spiritual ascendancy over the enemy progressively, we have been learning what it is to reign. We have been in the school of the reigning ones to be learning how to reign. The question is sometimes asked by the critic, "If God is omnipotent why doesn't He wipe out the devil, why doesn't He have done with him once and for all?" in which, of course, the critic displays his lack of wisdom and understanding. The answer is very clear. The Lord has not done with the devil yet, He has got a good use to make of him before He has done with him, and that very good use is to teach the Church how to reign, how to overcome how to come to the throne: so that the enemy is the unwonted and probably unconscious instrument of Divine sovereignty to bring the Lord's overcomers to the throne. So that spiritual ascendancy is the thing which is before us, coming to the throne: the ultimate goal is the throne.

Now having that in view we have to go over the steps which lead us to our heavenly position now, our place in the heavenlies now. And I want to take that course very simply this morning by way of leading on to the fuller and deeper things of spiritual ascendancy. You notice that here in this letter, in most of Paul's letters, of course, but in this letter with special apparentness, everything is in Christ. You may not have those exact words, it may be "in Him" but such phrases "In Christ," "In Christ Jesus," "in Him," and so on, and to get the rich meaning and benefit of that is our first objective here. Now everything in relation to salvation in its completeness, in all its aspects and phases, unto this fulness is bound up in the Person of the Lord Jesus. It is in Christ: all of the salvation which God has provided for mankind is in Christ. That is the first fact which we have to recognise. Of course, we know that quite well, but then all of the salvation which we realise in experience centres in our faith apprehension of Christ, and that is an extra thing. I do not want to take it for granted that you have grasped what I have said, so you will suffer repetition.

Provision and Appropriation

All of God's provided salvation for mankind centres in Christ, but all of the salvation which God has provided which we realise in experience is in our faith apprehension of Christ, and we have no more of it than we appropriate by faith. It is all there in Him, but in experience we have no more of it than we appropriate by faith. Now that is the second thing. The third thing is this, that salvation, that full salvation which centres in Christ, is historically revealed in epochs in the life and work of the Lord Jesus personally. Those epochs represent progressive aspects of the full salvation in Christ, and we have to appropriate by faith each one of those epochs in its spiritual meaning in order to come into the good of it. That is a broad statement and you may not have quite grasped all of it. There are seven epochs or stages which complete the circle of salvation. Seven is the number of spiritual perfection or completeness, and this salvation which God has provided for mankind is represented in the seven epochs or stages or movements in the life of Christ, in the history of Christ. They represent seven spiritual stages for the believer and each one has to be appropriated by faith in its spiritual meaning for the believer, and these seven are:-

1. The Incarnation.

2. The earthly life.

3. The death.

4. The burial.

5. The resurrection.

6. The ascension exaltation.

7. The coming again.

Now these seven stages are seven spiritual epochs. They contain and represent spiritual values for the Lord's people. That spiritual value has to be appropriated by faith step by step and stage by stage to bring us to God's fulness, to His ultimate position. Briefly, then, without going into all the truth contained in each one of these seven stages we might note just perhaps one thing about each, which seems perhaps to be the supreme feature in them.

The Spiritual Value of the Incarnation

Perhaps we have not recognised sufficiently, the spiritual value and good for us of the Incarnation. "Inasmuch as the children were partakers of flesh and blood, He also partook of the same in order that, through death He might destroy him that had the power of death" and so on (Heb. 2:14). Why did the Lord Jesus take flesh and blood? Now I realise the risks that I am running of being somewhat misunderstood, but try and understand me in the way in which I am saying it - in order that He might be you and me. In order that He might be humanity, be man, and from that point onward this Man, yes, it is God I know that side, with every bit of intense emphasis that it is possible to put upon it He is God, He is the Son of God, but also as truly Man, and it is as Man that He is doing this thing. He is doing it as man, and a Man that can do it; because we could not do it He is doing it, but He is as Man, He can do it. Why He can do it is another matter of doctrine. The point of the Incarnation is this, that here is a Man (God-man, if you like) who is taking up this work and doing this thing. God has come in man-form to compass this salvation and its fulness. I do wish we could get into the heart of that spiritually. We have a good time singing our Christmas carols about the birth of the Lord Jesus, but oh, the spiritual meaning of that to us to be appropriated by faith!

Here is some immense thing needing to be done, and we are hopeless, unable to give a quota to its accomplishment, but a Man comes who can do it and links Himself with us, and it is done as us. It is He as us, as man, even as though we were doing it in a sense, He is going to take man through this way. It means beloved, that as we appropriate the spiritual meaning of the Incarnation we are taken through with Him in this achievement; we are linked on with Him by faith, in the meaning of the Incarnation, going to go right through to the full accomplishment of God. In the final issue it will be man there at the right hand of God. Of course, we know, not the old man, but this Man to whose image we have been conformed according to the fore-ordained intention of God, Rom. 8:29. We ought to get away from the doctrine and at once get down on our knees and say, "Have I by faith appropriated that as a working spiritual reality. How much have I got down before the Lord and linked myself on by faith with the spiritual meaning of the Incarnation and taken up all the good of that in the intention and the thought of God in His being manifest in the flesh?"

It is a practical, working, thing. It is the first step, and until that first step is taken we will never be able to take the other steps which issue in the throne. Man, for man. "The second Man who is the Lord from heaven." I am conscious of difficulty in getting that over as I see it and as I feel it; a position perhaps where we need the Lord to quicken us and open our understanding, but it is an epoch where we become, by faith, joined to this Man to be taken through. That is the Incarnation. "He also partook of the same that..." you see that, this One took our flesh and blood, not in its sinful nature, there was no sin in Him, but He took our humanity in order that "He might destroy, nullify, bring to naught him that had the power of death and deliver all those who through fear of death, were all their lifetime subject to bondage." To bring many sons to glory He partook of flesh and blood. "He took not the seed of angels, but took the seed of Abraham" to accomplish this, and so He joins us with Himself and Himself with us to carry humanity through, but He does not do it automatically. We can only go through to that Divine end as we appropriate the meaning of the Incarnation, by faith. See Rom. 5:17,19; 1 Cor. 15:21.

The Spiritual Value of the Earthly Life of Christ

Now the earthly life is the second epoch. Why was He not immediately incarnated in mature manhood at the age of thirty-three years and a few months and go straight to the cross to accomplish the work of redemption by Calvary? Because He had to be subjected to every kind of temptation that man can be subjected to. He has to go through the fire of trial, trial along every line; and it would be a profitable thing for you to sit down and catalogue the temptations of the Lord Jesus as they appear. The list of the unapparent would be far bigger than the apparent ones. The "oven trials" as well as the "pan trials." The oven which tests the fine flour, where you do not look in and see what is going on (the meal offering), but when put into the pan you see the kind of trials; and there are plenty of those open trials in the life of the Lord Jesus. From hell, from man, along every line of open antagonism to the most subtle subterfuge: by offering of popularity, by treachery, and by the far more insidious danger of affection. And when the enemy cannot defeat by open assault he will come through someone who is linked by affectional ties; and so we have Him subjected to every kind of temptation with one object in view, to see if He will stand true to the will of His Father, or by any means whatever be turned aside from that will. Beloved, the fact that He went through unscathed, undefeated, triumphant through temptations and trials packed into thirty-three and a half years, which probably are not packed into the life time of any long-lived man otherwise, and came out with the triumphant cry, "Not My will nevertheless, not a bit the less, Thy will not one whit the less, even if My humanity flinches, even if I am conscious of how there is a shrinking in My humanity, not one whit less, Thy will just as much as ever, Thy will - whatever I might say as man under these sufferings, not one whit the less, as much now as ever Thy will." He came out triumphant. That is something to be appropriated by faith. He is doing it as man, it is all in Christ.

We said to begin with, it is all summed up in Christ. The testing and triumph of the earthly life is a victory in Christ, it is in Christ, it is there for us, beloved. Oh, get it. All that the Incarnation means is there in Christ as an active virtuous thing. It is in Him, and all His triumph through testing means a mighty victory in every kind of temptation. He was tempted in all points like as we are - and that He triumphed is something now in Christ as a part of salvation, something to be appropriated by faith. We can get through every kind of trial and temptation because the victory along that very line is in Christ now. How shall we get through trial and temptation? It will not be because we are able to, but because the virtue is already in His triumph. It is in Christ something to be actively and deliberately appropriated by faith. When we are in severe trials our attitude is not "Oh Lord, give me grace to endure, help me to go through," it is "Lord, I appropriate Your victory in this trial." The victory is accomplished, not something in the first instance for me to accomplish, but something that has been accomplished for me to appropriate by faith. This is an epoch in His life which has a spiritual virtue with which we become linked by a definite act of appropriating faith. A stage further on to carry us to the throne.

The Value of the Death of Christ

You come to the death, the death of the Lord Jesus representing so many things, but I think primarily the closing of a whole scene and condition of judgment. The last thing in the life of the Lord Jesus, the very last thing before He gave back His spirit to God was judgment completed upon sinful man; the ground of judgment in man. He had at the end of His life, there on the cross, put upon Him sin, in our place, all the judgment of our sin. "He was made a curse for us," when He was put on the tree, because it is written, "Cursed is everyone that hangeth on a tree." That is where the curse lighted upon Him, and that is where He was made sin, then the judgment of God came upon Him as man, in the place of sinful humanity. Not inherent in Him, but representative, laid on Him. That is all familiar doctrine, but His death closed forever the question of the ground of judgment, and judgment itself. That whole thing has passed beyond the reach of judgment in the death of the Lord Jesus, because the state which merits and demands judgment has been put out of existence, it has been borne right away into a land unknown where even God takes no account of it: it passes out of consciousness and the remembrance of God, it is dead to God. It is a blessed thing, beloved, if it is dead to God it can be dead to us. The trouble is so many people keep alive for themselves what is dead to God. The Lord is dead to that and we keep the whole thing up before us so often. The death means much more than that, but I am taking the primary thing.

Our faith acceptance of that is declared when we testify in baptism to our union with Him in His death, to put us beyond the reach of judgment, and beyond the remembrance of God as sinners. That is blessed, that God no longer looks at us as sinners. If only we could emerge into that today. If faith could really get hold of that today: that, now, in Christ Jesus God does not look at us as sinners. It is in Christ. If we begin to circle round ourselves and take ourselves out of Christ in mind, thought, spirit, and attitude, we will very soon bring ourselves under unnecessary condemnation and the enemy will get us back on to his territory in spirit, and accuse us; but while we abide in Him, God does not look at us as sinners. One little word is the key to it all, "Accepted."

God has never accepted anything sinful yet, and you may take it for granted that He never will. God has never accepted any sinful thing, nothing sinful has got through to God's acceptance. The slightest touch and taint of sin puts beyond the acceptance of God, is rejected, but the word clearly is "Accepted." "Hath made us accepted in the beloved." This is in Christ because that which was not acceptable is now dead in Him, "Likewise reckon ye yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin and alive unto God." There is no being "alive unto God" unless there is that death. Something to be appropriated. How elementary this is. I am going over all the well-known ground, but this is to be made practical. Our doctrine has got to become practical, potent, and what I am after is not so much to point out the principle as to come to the active point. I have to have a transaction on that. It is wonderful as an unveiling of truth, but I have to get down on my knees before God and appropriate that by a deliberate act of faith; my death with Christ to put me beyond the place where God takes any account of me as a sinner. Have we died with Him? "As many of you as were baptised into Christ were baptised into His death," and we know the untranslated word, baptizo, means "buried"; if you immerse a thing it goes down out of this world, it may be only an instant that you are immersed, but during that instant you are in the place of death. If you were not brought back within 40 seconds you would be finished, but for those few seconds you are in the place of death, it is only a matter of time. One wants to emphasise this, this thing is a position, a very real position.

The Value of the Burial of Christ

The burial. The death is an active thing. The death of the Lord Jesus is not just a physical thing, it is an active thing. It is something that He does in the energy of the eternal Spirit. Man did not kill the Lord Jesus, they crucified Him but they could never have killed Him. "No man taketh it from Me, I lay it down of Myself. This authority have I received of My Father." It is an authoritative action, something that He is doing by His jurisdiction.

His burial is simply the concluding phase of that old work on the sin, death side, the old humanity side as in the realm of the powers of darkness and the authority of Satan. It is the concluding part of one era, one regime. With His burial that passes out from sight. The burial the concluding phase of an old state of things relative to humanity and the world as under the power of Satan and the authority of darkness; it passes out with the burial of the Lord Jesus, it is covered from God. So far as salvation is concerned that side of things is finished with the burial of the Lord Jesus, and when we were buried in baptism, that is the covering of an old sin-mastered humanity, and from that point you start on another level; and the resurrection of the Lord Jesus puts Him beyond the power of death, where death has no more jurisdiction; beyond the power of Satan, the jurisdiction of Satan ends at the burial. The burial is the conclusion.

The Value of the Resurrection

That whole state of things is passed out of in the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, He is no longer on that plane of life, nothing of Satan has any power over Him at all; He lives by a deathless life in resurrection, He lives now by an authority which is given Him over all the authority of the evil one. "All the authority has just been given to Me in heaven and in earth." He is out in a new realm now. Resurrection means a new life in a new realm where all the old conditions have ceased. Now beloved, that is something to be entered into by faith. Come to Ephesians, "raised together with Him." Resurrection union with the Lord Jesus is to walk in a newness of life. To be possessed of a life over which death has no power, over which Satan has no authority. It is the life of One who has taken the authority and who is triumphant over death. This life is a mighty life which will prove in the end that Satan had no power over it at all. "I am He that liveth unto the ages of the ages." "I have the keys (the authority) of death." "Because I live ye shall live also." That is very familiar again and simple, but it is an epoch in His history and it represents an epoch in our spiritual life when we appropriate it by faith. We must definitely get before God and appropriate by faith our resurrection union with the Lord Jesus because it brings us into a new place, on to a new level.

The Value of the Ascension - Exaltation

The next is ascension exaltation by which He is not only living in the power of a new triumphant life, but He is now set in the place of all authority in heaven and in earth over every Principality and Power and Rule and Dominion and every name that is named in this age and that which is to come. He is in a new place; it is the Man in a new place that helps you to get to the heart of things. Man is in a new place now, in Christ. It is man now representatively in Christ in a new place. He has broken free from tho whole world system as lying in the wicked one, as encircled by the prince of the power of the air; He has broken free through His cross from that whole system. Man, in the place of authority, in the place of dominion, at the right hand of God. The right hand is always the place of honour and of power. We have only got to come to our Ephesian passage to see that this runs in spiritual sequence to be again appropriated by faith, "And hath made us to sit in the heavenlies with Christ." The position is one thing, but we have got to get there by a faith act, by a deliberate act of faith, to appropriate that position, it is ours in Christ. Let us go back to our original premise; all the salvation that God has provided for mankind centres in Christ, but all the salvation which we realise in experience depends upon our faith appropriation of what is in Christ, or of Christ as the sum of it all.

The Meaning of the Rapture

The rapture is not going to be any more automatic than these others. We do not automatically come into the place of "no condemnation" apart from an exercise of faith; if so, all the world would be in that position now without any believing at all. We do not come into our heavenly position in Christ mechanically, there has to be a definite exercise and taking of our position in faith. We have got to have faith for translation. "By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death," and there has to be an exercise of faith in relation to the rapture, the same law operates, and the final test of the saints who are to be raptured lies in the realm of faith. We are not going to be raptured because we are full of good works - it is just possible we shall have our good works cut off and find it very difficult to do much work at the end. In "Philadelphia" at the end it is a very difficult thing to find open doors for true spiritual ministry; there is almost universal antagonism to what is truly spiritual. I do not think God will enter into competition with antichrist and try to outdo him with signs and wonders. We have to believe God, with not a sign or wonder to be seen, even if antichrist is calling down fire from heaven and giving life to the image. That is the test, that is the faith for translation.

Our particular point at this time is our union in the heavenlies with Christ, a thing to be appropriated by faith. You see what I mean by progressing upward to the throne by stages, each of which is marked by an appropriation, a definite act of faith to bring us into the heavenlies in Christ.

Everything Changes in the Heavenlies

Recognise just this, that when we get by faith to that position of Ephesians, when we really do get to the Ephesian position, seated in the heavenlies in Christ, everything changes, and that is the explanation of the tremendous difference between believers who are still on the earth plane of Christianity in life and service, and believers who have come into the Ephesian position. We have another spiritual consciousness; our spiritual consciousness changes. We begin to realise that now our wrestling is not with mere flesh and blood, and we are not dealing with just men and movements and earthly conditions and circumstances, the disadvantages and difficulties of doing Christian work such as are known to Christian workers here. We become conscious that we are up against ultimate forces, things back of difficulties, that our wrestling is not with flesh and blood but Principalities, Powers. It is no use trying to drop down to other believers who do not know experimentally anything about it and who have a much easier time and who do not understand, who think you have got into what they call a dangerous realm. It is no use trying to explain to them. It is not something you have worked up; a doctrine, teaching you have accepted and taken on, it is a real consciousness, it is as though you had passed out into another realm and it does not matter how much you wrestle with the thing as a doctrine, you are up against it. We have been through this thing and there have been times when we have perhaps stood back and asked questions about the whole matter just to test it. Now are these things what they are simply because we have accepted these ideas, these teachings? Is it the teaching that creates the thing or is the thing there and the teaching is the explanation of it? You have to come back to the second of these propositions.

When you have gone on with the Lord by faith, step by step, stage by stage, having reached your resurrection union with the Lord Jesus by faith and taken that and asked the Lord to bring you into the good of that and make it real, and you have gone the next step and seen your heavenly position in Christ according to Ephesians, and said, "Lord, make that real," beloved, you have not taken on a system of doctrine, you find at once you have come into a realm, a sphere, which is marked by these things, and the doctrine helps you by way of explanation, for you are up against facts for which you need no proof by doctrine, only explanation. You have a new consciousness of being now over against those other forces that are operative in this universe and you come into a realm of real spiritual conflict. That is true, but mark you, you have come into the position of power because you have come into Christ who is above every Principality and Power. We must realise that and take that by faith. So often we allow our consciousness to be almost overwhelmed with the fact of the forces of darkness and forget we are in Christ in the heavenlies far above all, and because our faith does not carry us high enough, it does not carry us higher than the lower heavens, very often the conflict goes against us - but we want to go all the way in this faith appropriation to bring us into this position of authority in Christ, ruling in Christ, dominion in Christ, ascendancy in Christ. Not just a position, but as an active ministry.

I am just feeling that we want to get there. You and I want to get now by faith right into Christ as above, to rule down these things, to fulfil a ministry of executive administration in Christ from the heavens, for unto Him all authority is given in heaven and in earth. What is called the "missionary commission" has suffered a tremendous loss because one half of it has been taken and the other half left. The "great commission" as it is called, is simply "Go ye into the whole world and preach the gospel to every creature." That is only half, and because that is all we have what we have today of only going half-way in the work in very many cases, and a very great deal of defeat and arrest. The other half is this, "All authority has been given to Me in heaven and in earth, Go ye therefore...." Because of that - and you cannot, you dare not go into all the world where Satan has such power unless you go in your heavenly position in Him who has the authority as a spiritual thing. If you do, one of two things I should think would happen. Either that you will be smashed by the forces of darkness sooner or later, or you will only half do the work that you were intended to do, an earthly work not the establishing of the Lordship of Jesus Christ there. You cannot do that, set up a testimony to His absolute Lordship, unless you go in your heavenly position far above all.

Chapter 2 - The Power of His Resurrection

READING: Ephesians 2:1-6, Colossians 2:8-15 and 20; 3:3-4.

"That I may know Him and the power of His resurrection." "HIM, and the power of His resurrection." It is the power of His resurrection with which the Lord is engaging us at this time, and we should link with that especially this clause at the beginning of chapter 3 in Colossians: "If then ye were raised together with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated on the right hand of God." "IF then ye were raised together with Christ...." "If" - in other words - "you were united with Him in the likeness of His resurrection": if the power by which God raised Him from the dead has also operated in you, in raising you from the dead spiritually, then there must be a certain outworking of that, that must show itself in a continuous life in relation to the Lord Jesus, where He is at the right hand of God, and in relation to heavenly things. The proof of union with the Lord Jesus in resurrection life is that: that now everything for us is related to Him where He is, and to the things above, things heavenly.

That from which we have been raised.

We come back just a little before we arrive at that to notice some of these very strong things which the apostle is saying in connection with that. In this letter to the Ephesians we notice: "when ye were dead through your trespasses and sins wherein aforetime ye walked according to the course of this age, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that now worketh in the sons of disobedience: among whom we also once lived in the lusts of our flesh, doing the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath even as the rest." Now all those clauses are features of our past state out of which the power of His resurrection has brought us, and that represents a very serious and a very sorry condition. We were dead; that is one thing. We walked according to the course of this age; that is another thing. We were governed by the order of this world. We were also under the prince of the power of the air, in bondage to him, the spirit that now worketh in the sons of disobedience. Of course we did not know of this, we only knew of this when our eyes were opened, but this is the statement. Many of us are quite prepared to admit now that it was true. The fact that we are alive now, in contrast with what we were, makes us quite ready to say that we were dead: in comparison with what we are now, we are able to recognise what our former state was. I trust that the contrast is so great in your case that in comparison with what you are now, you are able to say "Well, I was dead, there is no doubt about it, I was dead"! You never know what it is to be dead until you know what it is to be made alive.

Paul is speaking in the afterward of a great experience of the resurrection union of the Lord Jesus. When you have that then you know what the other is, and you do not want any more of it. We were dead, and we were also in the bondage, the grip of the course of this age; and even believers, saved ones, and raised ones, are able to recognise how true and how real this is. You have a lively sense of the "old man," the flesh when you have come on to the living ground of union with Christ and then you know how influenced you are by worldly standards, worldly judgments, what the world thinks, the world's attitude towards you. It is the collision of the believer with the world-spirit that makes him know that he was once according to it, according to the course of this age: now that you are no longer according to it you know how different the thing is. You do not know how different it is until you really come out with Christ from it, then you begin to feel the clash of the world-spirit, the world's judgment, the world-state, and the very fact that you were once insensible to it, and there was no clash, shows how completely you were in it. The course of the believer's experience is the accentuating and intensifying of the clash between their spirit and the spirit of the world, and yet at one time there was not that sense of clash: many of you know that. Now we go out in the world and, well, we are strangers in it, utterly strangers in it. As we move about we discover that something has happened to us, we are not in that, we are not of that, but we are now able to look back to a time when that may have appealed to us, we did not feel the clash of that as we feel it now, which means that we were in it, part of it, walking according to the course of this age.

Is there a mighty clash of the spirit of the world with your spirit? That is a very good sign, beloved, and if you can feel at all comfortable and at home in the world it is a bad sign. If your whole inner being does not revolt with a terrific revulsion from the course of this age, you have reason to ask serious questions about the state of your soul. We were in that, says the apostle, "walked according to the course of this age and according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the sons of disobedience." Well, here again we only discover how true that is when we recognise how completely the spirit which governs this age is not the Spirit which governs our lives. The Spirit which governs us, the Spirit of Christ in "the kingdom of the Son of His love" has made a very, very great difference in this matter of government. The world is governed by one spirit and we are governed by another, and there is no intercommunion. The bondage of Satan - we know how great that bondage is when we are out of it by realising how terrific the clash and difference is. Well, that was our state, "according to the spirit that now worketh in the sons of disobedience, among whom we also all once lived in the lusts of our flesh...."

"The lusts of our flesh, doing the desires of the flesh and of the mind"; that was another state in which we were. And then, "...and were by nature children of wrath." Now you see all the things, one upon another, representing the grave, the living grave in which we were dead, a very living grave, a very powerful grave in which we were dead. Now our deliverance therefrom represents the power of His resurrection, but oh, what power that is, what tremendous power that is!

The Hopelessness of Death

The power of His resurrection. It has destroyed the power of death, spiritual death, and beloved, taking death only, that is a desperately hopeless thing. How hopeless death is! Think about it. We say, "While there is life there is hope" and how desperately the fight is put up against death, everything resorted to to prevent, to circumvent death; great activity, tremendous resourcefulness, everything conceivable brought into play while there is any sign of life, but once that life has gone and death is there, everything falls back into utter impotence, it is no use. Death! The most hopeless thing, and when death is once accepted as inevitable, what a hopeless situation we are in, when once it is said by the final authority, "It is no use, nothing can be done, death is inevitable." We are paralysed, helpless; what can you do? Death is a mighty, mighty tyrant which renders utterly paralysed every resource conceivable.

We have illustrated in the natural, the physical realm, but, oh, beloved, carrying that into the spiritual realm, what a terrific thing death is, spiritual death. Have you ever met a soul who has definitely and fully accepted the idea, the thought, that they have sinned beyond forgiveness and that there is no more hope of their forgiveness, that there is nothing even in God Himself which can be found for their forgiveness? Have you ever met such, a soul? (and there are such). You know the helplessness, the utter helplessness of the situation. There is nothing you can say, or touch, or do that can in any way help that case, and what is more, that is a living hell, a living torture day and night. That is spiritual death when you become conscious of it, and the Word of God says that the whole creation is there by nature, but it does not know what spiritual death is. If the creation could suddenly be awakened to this state of spiritual death, hell would almost be universal; and that creation which rejects Christ will one day wake up to the fact that hell exists, but hidden from their consciousness; it is only becoming alive to the fact that they are cut off from God, dead to God, dead to salvation, dead to hope. What I am getting at is this, that we were in that state, though we were unconscious of it. The state existed, it was a true state.

If we had been made suddenly alive to our awful condition, in the fulness of God's knowledge of it, ours would have been a desperate state of soul. It is a desperate day when a soul wakes up fully to the light that it is lost; a terrible thing is spiritual death. The power of His resurrection has conquered that, broken that, destroyed that, and if we have been united with Him in His resurrection, if the power of His resurrection has brought us to new birth, we need never know anything about that. We have been delivered from that for all eternity and never need taste it, but the others will taste it; the full consciousness of that evil state in which they are, but concerning which they are blinded. It is the blinding work of the Devil to hide from souls the real nature of their condition. When God opens eyes souls cry out in agony. The Devil keeps them blinded to their state, but for us there never need be an awakening to such a condition. The responsibility, of course, is with us once we have heard this word of Life. The power of His resurrection has come into the most hopeless realm, where there is no power whatever in the universe that can help but the power of His resurrection. But that is only the beginning. We have been delivered from the course of this age. What is the course of this age? Well, it is a state of things which lies definitely under a Divine curse. A curse, as we have often pointed out, in the Word of God, always bears certain signs and has certain features, and those features are there, that a thing that lies under a curse can never realise the object for which it was created. The realising of that end of its creation has been rendered impossible and it will go so far and then it will fall, never get further than that. As you know, in the case of the curse pronounced by Joshua upon Jericho, later the people came to the prophet Elisha and said "The situation of this city is pleasant, but the waters are bad and the trees cast their fruit before their time." That is the curse, that nothing comes to ripeness, everything falls before it reaches perfection. That is the course of this age. It can never attain unto God's end, God's purpose in its creation, it will break down, it will fail.

Men talk about the conquest of this and that, supremacy in this realm and that. There is no such thing. The conquest of the air! There never will be the conquest of the air. They may bring things to a certain point of efficiency, but the thing will break down. The conquest of the ocean! Yes, when the Titanic was launched the chief officials who saw her launched said, "God Almighty could not sink that ship"; there goes the conquest of the ocean; and on her maiden voyage they were banqueting in honour of the conquest of the ocean and the 'unsinkable' ship, and suddenly the crash and down she went within seven minutes, the most terrible marine disaster in history. You see what I mean? There is no consummation, no finality, no completeness, no perfection, no attainment unto supremacy, but a breakdown when it reaches a certain point. And we were in that realm of activity where it was utterly impossible for us to reach the destiny God had intended for us because we were under the curse of God upon a creation that had departed from Him. A hopeless situation; born into it, children of it. Here in this age, in this world, born under a curse, "children of wrath," impossible of realising the end for which the world was created, and we were created; a hopeless situation, by nature utterly hopeless. But the power of His resurrection has dealt with the curse, He was "made a curse for us" in order that we might be delivered and reach God's intended end, the manifestation of the sons of God in glory. The power of His resurrection has done that, broken in upon this cursed creation and delivered us out of it so that we can go right on to perfection. That is only the second feature.

"The prince of the power of the air." You see we have got first of all a state in ourselves, spiritual death. And then we are in a state immediately around us, "the course of this world," the death, the curse. And then you widen the circle, "The prince of the power of the air" around that. How hopeless the situation. The whole satanic force holding the creation and the age and every one in it in bondage and in death. The tremendous power of Satan! The tremendous range of his organised kingdom to see to it that so far as his ingenuity and cunning and wit and strength can possibly affect the end, not one soul shall escape, and if one soul does escape he will pursue, persecute that soul right on to the end to try and recover his lost property. "The prince of the power of the air." When Christ went to the Cross He "stripped off principalities and powers." The power of His resurrection has dealt with that also. The power of His resurrection has become effective for our deliverance. "So great salvation," Paul calls it. Are we rejoicing in the greatness of our salvation? Have we apprehended the meaning of this verse, "...the power of His resurrection"?

Unto What We are Raised

The apostle goes on and shows what the power of that resurrection did in Christ. It not only raised Him from the dead, not only took Him out from this age, but took Him through the ranks of principalities and powers as a conquest; for as He passed through He stripped off, He broke through and triumphed; but not only so, God put Him there at His own right hand far above all these, and put all things in subjection to Him. That was all the outworking of this power of His resurrection, what God "wrought in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead and set Him at His own right hand in the heavenlies, far above principality and power and might and dominion... and hath put all things under His feet...." The Holy Spirit says, through the Apostle, "that power is to usward who believe," and He is able "to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think according to the power that worketh in us...." that power! You see how far that life that you and I received in new birth is capable of taking us. We have received it, as it were, in its infant form in new birth, but oh, within that infant life there are all the potentialities of that vast range of triumph right up to the throne. All that which was accomplished in Christ is possible in us by exactly the same power that worketh in us; it is all there.

What the Believer Must Do

Now, then, the fact that we have possessed that, become possessed of that, puts us under an obligation and a responsibility, "If, then, ye be risen with Christ set your affection on things above," "Where Christ is." It is only another way of saying "Put yourselves in line with the direction of the life that is in you, for the direction of that life is thitherward to Christ, in conformity to His image." Put yourselves right in line with the direction of the life within you, that is the way it is going. Set your heart upon that, get into oneness with the upward movement, the spiritual and moral upward movement of that life. Because of the tremendous potentialities of that life you must be in fellowship with it in its direction, otherwise you will not come to the realisation of those possibilities and potentialities. Because it is the life of Christ, victorious, it is intended to lead you on in victory in every realm. The hope of victory over spiritual death is in that life; the hope of victory over the lusts of the flesh, the desires of the mind is in that life which is given to us, a life which is a victorious life in its very nature. The hope of our being delivered from all forms and phases of the operation of that curse which brings us under arrest, that we go so far and no further, is in that life. The hope of our rising triumphant over spiritual forces, intelligences, principalities and powers, is in that life. The hope of our reaching Christ and gaining Christ, and being conformed to the image of Christ is in the life that we have already received.

Therefore, for all these reasons, put yourself into line with it, co-operate with it, consent to it, adjust yourself to it. "...Seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth...." Seek, and set your affections upon the things that are above where Christ is if you be risen with Christ. There is a responsibility resting upon us to see to it that voluntarily we do not in any attitude, or in any contact, touch the thing from which we have been raised. If we do we counter the operation of that life, we bring ourselves again under arrest and under defeat. Let me illustrate. When Israel crossed the Jordan, they in history, typically, did what is put here before us spiritually in the letter to the Colossians, they passed typically by way of the cross, which represented the passing from an old life of bondage to the flesh and an earth life where nothing came to perfection, into the heavenlies, into a resurrection union with Christ. The Jordan for them was the cross and the grave by which they passed from one set of conditions to another, and they passed into this resurrection union with the Lord, in type, when they passed through Jordan and came out on the other side.

Now they enter upon an entirely new phase, a new order of things. They have come into a spiritual realm, they have come, in type, into Ephesians where the seven nations of the land represent "principalities and powers and world rulers of this darkness, and spiritual hosts of wickedness." How are they going to be dealt with? Jericho illustrates an entirely new order of things. Not a sword drawn in the flesh, not a sound made in the flesh, all fleshly activities are silenced, are ruled out. All the recourse to natural means put aside. It is a strange, mysterious kind of thing this, marching silently around a city, besieging a mighty city in silence, without a weapon being used, day after day, seven days, and then on the seventh day seven times, and then a shout. But that was not a shout in the flesh, that was the shout of a perfect faith in God. If you had been in the realm of nature according to men, after having been round that city fourteen times silently and seen nothing happen, you would have said "Well, what is the good of shouting; it is a ridiculous thing to shout, all this is futile." But that is the flesh talking. But the flesh is so thoroughly gone that after all this seeming futile kind of thing, which was according to the commandment of the Lord, they believed; and it was the obedience of faith, faith brought to maturity. Well, they shouted and Jericho went down. It represented the nature of spiritual warfare in the heavenlies. So different from carnal warfare in the earthlies.

Now notice, God intended that to establish forever the nature of their triumph; that their triumph, their victory was not according to the methods of men; that their ascendency, their conquest was not on any natural, ordinary, fleshly, human basis: that it was a spiritual thing in the heavenlies where man's reasoning, man's wisdom is ruled out. But this thing is a thing in heavenly union with the Lord, and they could have gone on and swept the seven nations out of the land on that principle, but you notice how that course of things was arrested, checked, and the whole course was upset and they did not go on in that way. One man, like a link in a chain, brought a union between them as up there and the cursed realm as down here: brought them back into touch with that which lay under the curse. Achan took the accursed thing and all Israel by that link of one man was brought again into a contact with the thing that was under the curse, and their next movement was disaster, defeat, and the whole thing had to be investigated and brought to the light. "Set your affection upon things above." If we have been raised with Christ, what is contained in that union with Christ is victory over all the power of the enemy. Victory in the spiritual realm back of things seen. The enemy's strategy to bring that victory to an end is to get us to mind something earthly, to just form the link again between us and that which is the realm of death and the whole of our conquest is paralysed, we have touched something that is under the Divine ban; we have just reversed the direction of our inner life; we have violated the law of "the Spirit of Life in Christ."

Beloved, if we will adjust ourselves to the course of that resurrection life we can go on in victory, and from victory to victory, and go right on to God's end: but there is a responsibility with us to see to it that voluntarily we do not form a link between us and that from which we have been delivered in the power of His resurrection. We set our affection on things above, not on things that are upon the earth, we mind heavenly things: all our life is above. It is a blessed thing, and it ought to be a constant source of strength and comfort to us that having received eternal life in being born again we have received, potentially, the perfect work of God in Christ, and that now, God, by that very life, is bringing us to His own finality of perfection in Christ.

A Change of Dispensations.

The Seventh Day and the First Day

We have often tried to explain this. Perhaps the best illustration of it is the change of the dispensations between the Jewish and the Christian. You know that the dispensation changed when Christ rose from the dead. In more senses than one it was a change of dispensation - His resurrection; but do you notice what it says in John 20. Something is introduced, almost imperceptibly it creeps in there, and unless you are very much awake you do not notice what has crept in; something has come in which is absolutely startling if only you are alive to it. "On the first day of the week cometh Mary Magdalene early" - you have changed the dispensations. The Lord's day is the first day of the week; in Judaism it was the seventh day - but do you notice what that carries with it? The Jews worked six days and rested on the seventh. The believers rested on the first and worked the six. Believers start their work with a day of rest, and work six days. Jews work six days and rest on the seventh. You have got a change of dispensations, but it carries with it this tremendous truth that God is now working, from rest, not to rest; the old dispensation was working toward rest; in the new it is working from rest. God has come to His rest in the work of Calvary in the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and having reached His finality, His fulness, His rest in Calvary in the resurrection, now He is working from that, and He is working with us from a position of perfection, out from a fulness, not toward a fulness; He has got the fulness and it is of His fulness that we are receiving. And unless you apprehend that rightly you will be in unrest, but when once you see that God, having given us resurrection life, has given us - with that - rest, His own finality, His perfect work, the completeness, the finality of His work in the resurrection of the Lord Jesus; given to us in the life that He gives us in resurrection union with Christ; and with the gift of that life He has given us everything; then you are in the place of power. But the danger is that we should fall short of what we have got, that we shall fail of the realisation, the possibilities of the life that is in us. So we must place ourselves in perfect sympathy, and direction, and co-operation, with the life that is in us and come into line with it, because in it is all the perfection that is in Christ, given to us.

We have seen something, I trust, and while we see great vistas, vast ranges, tremendous possibilities, let us recognise that this has got to come down, must come down to the practical matters of our daily lives. We are to know in a multitude of ways, here, every day of our sojourn on the earth, the operation of that life; and we can put that life to the test daily and it will prove itself equal to any test if we are not wilfully, persistently, in opposition to it. That is, doing the thing which is against it; permitting the contact, the interest, the association which violates it. But if we are in sympathy with it, in adjustment to it, it will take the strain of any test. It will take the strain of a physical test (Romans 8:11): "If the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, He that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by His Spirit that dwelleth in you." It will take the strain of a moral test, of a circumstantial test, when you are in a difficult situation circumstantially, carry you through triumphantly; it will take the strain of any test so long as you are in sympathy with it. And forgive me that I have said so much about "it" because after all, it is "Him." "That I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection." We must not regard this life as some thing apart from the Person. It is "Christ in us the hope of glory," but Christ in us in the mighty energy of His resurrection life.

Chapter 3 - The Power of His Resurrection (continued)

I have been very much occupied of late, I believe by the Lord, with the words of the apostle in his great declaration as to his own spiritual quest in Philippians 3:10 and I am feeling that the Lord is continuing to emphasise that in my heart for the sake of His people in these days, especially the clause, "...the power of His resurrection." "That I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection." And in connection with that, very familiar words which to some considerable extent explain what Paul meant by that statement, in the letter to the Ephesians 1:19: "...the exceeding greatness of His power to usward who believe, according to that working of the strength of His might which He wrought in Christ when He raised Him from the dead, and made Him to sit at His right hand in the heavenlies, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in that which is to come: and He put all things in subjection under His feet, and gave Him to be head over all things to the church which is His body, the fulness of Him that filleth all in all."

The Range of the Power

Now all that which we have from verse 20, to the end, as well as the beginning of chapter 2 is a definition of "the power of His resurrection." You see the tremendous range of it; "raised Him from among the dead ones," and the end of that exercise of power was in placing Him in the throne, subjecting all things to Him, giving Him to be Head over all things to the Church. It is a vast range of power that. The power operates not only in bringing back Christ from among the dead, but in taking Him through all realms, through all hierarchies, through every range and order of authority and dominion, putting Him above them all at His own right hand and gathering under Him under His authority and in subjection to Him, all those powers, all those orders, making Him Head of them all and then giving Him to be Head in that sense to the Church. We have pointed out exactly what is said here, that it is not that He was given to be Head of the Church merely, not that He was just given to be Head over all things in the Church: that is not what is said, that is included, but He was given to be Head over all things, over every principality and power and rule and dominion and every name in this age, and in that which is to come, Head over all that, and as Head over all that, given to the Church so that the Church comes into all that in every realm, and that is the power of His resurrection.

Is Christ Head over every principality and power? The Church comes into that, He is Head over that unto the Church; over every name in this age and that to come. He is that to the Church. Are all things put in subjection under Him? He is given as that to the church. Head; it is the power of His resurrection. You see what we come into in the power of His resurrection and you begin to see perhaps a glimpse of what Paul was after. He had got by the Spirit, a vision of the vastness, the comprehensiveness, the fulness of the power of His resurrection; what is included in it, what is embodied in it, what it leads to, and he saw that he, as a member of Christ's Body was called into that in the power of that resurrection, and so his prayer is, "That I may know Him and the power of His resurrection."

And if I am to come into all that, if Christ is to be that to me as a member of His body, then I must know Him also in the fellowship of His sufferings, sufferings which make Christ all; being made conformable to His death; for we can only reach unto the fulness of the power of the resurrection as we know what it is in ourselves to be crucified with Christ. That is his prayer. I merely intimate this at the moment to show what really is in view, how His resurrection is an immense thing, it touches all realms, and what we have got to see, I feel, more and more as the Lord's children is that the testimony of Jesus is gathered up into the power of His resurrection. There is, beloved, an increasing need for that testimony. You cannot move about this world at all amongst the Lord's people without being impressed with the clamant need, and the conscious groaning, craving on the part of so many of the Lord's children for the knowledge of Christ in a living way.

The Need of Life, and the Peril of False Life

The need for life is the need of this hour. Life! Anything that comes along in the Name of the Lord Jesus which seems to have life, forms for the Lord's people in these days, the very greatest peril, and if at the end the Devil is going to give life to the Image, that is going to be his supreme strategy because at the end the one thing the Lord's people will need to know is spiritual life. Life is the need. There is much light; of course not everywhere, there is very little light over a great area, but there is light and in certain quarters, plenty of light. Truth, teaching, knowledge: but no amount of light and truth and knowledge can make up for the absence of life, and while we do not for one moment suggest that life can take the place of light, we do emphasise that these two must go together.

The peril is to have a kind of life, which is not true life, without knowledge. On the other hand, there is an equal peril of having a very great deal of truth without life; life in this sense, the power of His resurrection. I do not mean animation, emotion, activity; but life, in this New Testament sense, the power of His resurrection which registers itself in the spiritual realm not merely upon the soul consciousness of men. And we should settle this one thing, if we have not already settled it, that whatever may be the need in these end times, the need above all other things is to know Christ in the power of His resurrection. We have often said that Paul was a personal representation of the dispensation to which he was chosen and called to give its special revelation. Paul was an elect vessel chosen of God for the specific purpose of transmitting the revelation which is the revelation and feature of this whole dispensation, that is, the church which is the body of Christ. That is the feature of this dispensation, and Paul was in a special way called for the revelation of the mystery, the church the body of Christ. If he was so called, naturally God would conform him, as the personal vessel, to the truth which he was to contain and give forth, and make the vessel one with the truth so that he would be the embodiment of the truth; and, therefore, in the experience and life of the apostle, there would be the changing phases and emphases of the dispensation. At the beginning of his life there would be the one emphasis, as there was, and as he moved on the emphasis would perhaps change; change in its direction and change in its degree, not one bit contradicting what had gone before, but advancing upon it. And so you find changes taking place in the life of the apostle, no revelation set aside but increased, built upon, and the emphasis changing.

Maturity Marked by Inwardness of Life

In the early days of his ministry the Divine life and power of resurrection was manifested in a large measure outwardly, as it says, "God wrought special miracles by the hand of Paul," and those outward manifestations of the power of the resurrection were features of his earlier ministry. When you get to the latter days of his ministry you do not read of such things, you read of his own infirmity, of Timothy's "oft infirmities," of two or three other men in the closest association with the apostle who were left in sickness, or recovered by gracious ministration of Divine life to them from serious sickness but not being healed by a miracle. The order has changed, life is expressing itself, the same life, the same power of His resurrection but expressing itself in different forms. He is the dispensation in himself and in the end the power of Christ's resurrection in the life of the apostle, was something different in its expression from what it was at the beginning. It is now more inward whereas before it was more outward, and as we are coming towards the end of that dispensation which the apostle embodied and represented in himself, we are coming into those very features where the power of Christ's resurrection has got to be a mighty inward thing, and probably apart from outward miracles and demonstrations.

Now Paul, at the end of his life, in the writing of this Philippian letter is seeing more of the spiritual meaning of the power of His resurrection. Once perhaps in his own mind, the power of Christ's resurrection was related mostly with this outward manifestation - I say "perhaps," and not without some ground for saying it - limited to the realm where it could be recognised by the senses, registered by an ordinary intelligence, the outward forms of expressing the power of that resurrection. But he has been expanded, so to speak, he has gained a higher apprehension of the meaning of the power of that resurrection, and as he goes on and comes to the time when he writes the fuller knowledge of his heart in these later letters, you find that his presentation of the power of Christ's resurrection reaches a range which is far beyond the sentient, far beyond the visible, far beyond the tangible, and far beyond the recognition of the ordinary spiritual intelligence where a new emphasis of "a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him" is necessary to apprehend "the exceeding greatness" of that power. You see when you come to an Ephesian time, so to speak, an Ephesian position, because there is a far greater meaning than ever you have recognised in that which you already possess in earnest, you need "a spirit of wisdom and revelation" to bring you into the position where you are "strong to apprehend with all saints," where you can now recognise the exceeding greatness of that thing, that "working of the strength of His might which He wrought in Christ when He raised Him from the dead" and carried Him through all realms, and at last "gave Him to be head over all things to the church which is His body, the fulness of Him that filleth all in all."

This is our position, I feel, our need, and the need of the Lord's people everywhere; because of the time in which we live, because we are not at the beginning of the age, because we are at the end of the dispensation, the need of the Lord's people today is an enlarged capacity for knowing Him and the power of His resurrection experimentally, and living it; to have intelligence in the realm of life. Oh, there is a lot bound up with that simple statement. Intelligence in the realm of life. We have said that one of the gravest spiritual perils today is a life without spiritual intelligence. I am not speaking of the Life, I am speaking of an ostensible life. Yes, errors, deceptions, have their vogue and their advantage today because of the deadness of the Lord's people, and they come along with what appears to be like life, and there is need for life, and they carry everything before them, and the only counter to sweeping errors and deceptions of the last days is that the Lord's people should know Him in the power of His resurrection, that is, that they should have Christ as their Life, in large measure. If you have Christ as your life you are satisfied, and no deception can carry you away. If you have not, anything that offers life will be a peril to you. Everything here amongst the Lord's people must be in relation to Him there, but on a basis of intelligent life.

Ezekiel's Vision of the Goings of God

Now of course I am thinking in Ezekiel 1. You pick up the first chapter of Ezekiel, the ordinary reader will, of course, soon put it down again, but if you will take pains quietly and prayerfully to hold that chapter in the light of the rest of the Word of God, you will have a good deal of help. I simply suggest to you the features of that chapter. You remember first of all we are introduced to the Cherubim, the four living ones, the four living creatures with their fourfold appearance, the man, the lion, the ox, the eagle. You know quite well that that is the fourfold presentation of Christ in incarnation; the man, the Son of man, representation for God. The designation to the prophet "Son of man"; and the prophet was the one who represented God, spoke for God, acted for God. So that the man-aspect is representation. The lion is the royalty, the sovereignty; and the ox is the service and suffering; and the eagle is always the heavenly mystery. You know that this is presented in the four gospels; that Matthew was the lion, the Sovereign; and Mark, the ox, the Servant, suffering; and Luke is the Man, the Son of man; and John is the eagle, the heavenly mystery of the Person of Christ. That is all familiar ground, but when you get to the book of Revelation, the Cherubim are transferred from Christ as separate in Person to a corporate company, so that what you have at the end is Christ and His church represented in the Cherubim; that Christ and the church, His body, is representation and sovereignty and service and heavenly mystery, the mystery of the church the Body of Christ: there is always a mystery about the true Church.

Well, that is what you have introduced with the first chapter here in Ezekiel. When you bring all the rest of Scripture together you have something that is down here on the earth in union with Someone Who is up there. When you get to the end of the chapter you have, "And above the firmament in the throne one like unto a Man," and this down here 'the Cherubim-instrument' is linked with Him there. Then you come in with the wheels, wheels within wheels linked with the Cherubim, and these represent the goings of God in the earth. They are the mobile symbols of God's goings in the earth in relation to the One up there, through a vessel, an instrument, the Church; and then you see the spirit in the living creatures and the wheels, one spirit; and then action, as the spirit moves the living ones move and the wheels move and they go straight forward, they turn not to the right hand nor to the left. The goings of God through the ages are straight, direct, deliberate. There are no deviations in the goings of God; God goes straight on; but there is activity, life; it is all life, living; one spirit in the wheels, going, going, going. I think there is no more active chapter in Scriptures than the first chapter of Ezekiel; action, movement. Going - yes, but there is this feature, as you look you are told that the wheels are full of eyes. That is, if I may reverently say it, the ingeniousness of God to give that touch. Yes, there is a distinct instrument for the testimony here, there is the mystery about it which is here in representation. It is here in relation to the throne, the sovereignty, it is here to suffer and to serve, but it is in the thought and mind of God, a distinct entity, not an organisation. A distinct entity, and the life of Him Who is there is in it. Life! It has got to be throbbing with life, in the goings of God, but it has got to be full of eyes. That life has to be intelligent life, life with clearness of vision. You come into that in Ephesians where you have the one body, "the church which is His body," the one Spirit, and the Spirit is much in Ephesians; and you have the eternal goings of God; "foreordained," "predestined according to the foreknowledge of God"; the eternal goings, the straight goings of God.

In Ephesians you have, "the eyes of your heart being enlightened"; "the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him." Intelligent life; and beloved, that is one of our great needs today. We need Life, the power of His resurrection for the testimony, but it must be in intelligence. Now if the Lord could make all the truth that we know, live, we would be that; that would be Ezekiel 1 fulfilled spiritually in our day! But that is to be our object, that is to be the end that governs our being here; not just to have more truth, more teaching, but, "Lord, begin to make what we know, live, in a fuller and more commensurate way." So that we shall not be just a vessel that has a lot of knowledge, but with the knowledge shall have the life, the power of His resurrection. I believe that the power of His resurrection is the combination of truth and life. When the Lord Jesus rose from the dead He "opened their understanding" and when their understanding was opened they knew Him in an entirely new way, in a heavenly way, a spiritual way in which they had never known Him before, and that led on to a new power. As Saul of Tarsus, two things that came to Paul on the Damascus Road, the opening of his eyes, that is, the light came as to the Lord Jesus, His Person, and with that the power of Christ's resurrection. It blinded him, it stunned him, it overwhelmed him, the power of that resurrection; where it had put Christ, the position that Jesus of Nazareth held. Those two things, and that formed Paul's testimony for evermore, and what he says at the end of his life to the Philippians is only the outworking of what he saw at the beginning of his life. He had, through the years, come to know what that meant in relation to him, for him, and he had gone on and still at the end is saying, "That I may know Him and the power of His resurrection." "That I may now know even more of what there is to be known of what I saw that day on the way to Damascus." It was eyes opened, and life followed. That was the power of the resurrection - opened eyes, and life given.

Now I do not want to seem to be abstract, and to get you out of the realm of what is essentially and immediately practical, but we ought to bend all our hearts and seek that the Lord might have an adequate testimony, through an adequate vessel, at this end time, to meet the false lie and false light that is simply swamping this earth and carrying multitudes of the Lord's children away into error. The Lord do it for His Name's sake.