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Spiritual Fruitfulness

by T. Austin-Sparks

Edited and supplied by the Golden Candlestick Trust.

Contents

Chapter 1 - Spiritual Fruitfulness

Chapter 2 - The Fact of Inwardness

Chapter 3 - The Veil Taken Away

Chapter 4 - So Great Salvation

Chapter 5 - How Everything Becomes Inward

Chapter 6 - Sonship

Chapter 1 - Spiritual Fruitfulness

Reading: Matthew 13:2-9,17-23.

Where this parable ends we begin, that is, by being reminded that the thing which matters more than all else is fruitfulness - the thing which we must continuously keep before our own hearts. That fact will at once be a sifting truth, for we shall have to judge everything which we have and which we know according to the measure of real spiritual fruitfulness. The glory of the Father is definitely bound up with the amount of fruit borne by His children. The glory of the Father is bound up with the fruitfulness of our life.

Fruitfulness a Matter of Spirit and Life

Fruitfulness is related to the Word of God. What are the properties of that Word? "The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life." These are not abstract elements. What is said about the Word is said about the Lord Jesus - He is "a life-giving spirit". The Word is Christ mediated to the life. Fruitfulness is a matter of Christ as Spirit and Life finding increase in us through the Word, so that He becomes Spirit and Life to us, and through us to others. It is Christ living in us, expressing Himself through us. It is the increase of the living Christ.

Various things are said in relation to this. Even this may be in different measures and degrees; the hundred-fold, sixty, thirty. The hundred-fold is where Christ is all and in all. But there may be sixty-fold, very good; thirty-fold, good. But the Lord would have it a hundred-fold. How can that be? What leads to the hundred-fold? What leads to fruitfulness, or the increase of the Lord as Spirit and Life? That brings us again to the seed sown.

Before we go further with that, let us remind ourselves of a further principle that obtains; it is that these Gospels only give truth in an illustrative way and in a germinal form. You have to look to the Epistles for the explanation of things here, and for the full development. We should never take hold of something in the Gospels and strain to try, from itself and its context, to get its full meaning. If you do, you will find yourself landed into considerable difficulties. But if you will recognise the fact that here you have truth in seed form, intimated, suggested, but not developed, not analysed, not opened up, just given to you, you will look later into the day of the Holy Spirit activities in relation to the truth for the development of these germ things.

It is so in the end of these parables, you will find that you dare not press the thing too closely. In a parable certain very definite things are being just referred to, and they are being wrapped up.

Necessary Conditions

We have here four kinds of ground mentioned, and on the Lord's own authority we know that these represent four conditions of heart and life, conditions for the increase of Christ as Spirit and Life through the Word.

Unbelief is Ruled Out

There is one thing which has to be remembered before you approach the four kinds of ground, and that is that there is a kind of ground which does not obtain here; a fifth ground, which is ruled out altogether. You notice what the Lord says about the reason for speaking in parables. Referring to a word in the prophets, He says quite distinctly that He speaks in parables because certain people had closed their eyes and refused the light, and therefore they were not going to be given straightforward truth any more. It would be only those people who had not so deliberately closed their eyes who would be brought into the secrets of the Kingdom. God has secrets, but He is not disclosing His secrets to certain people. Those secrets are reserved for others. The context makes that perfectly clear, that the ground which is not allowed into this realm is the ground of positive unbelief. So we need not deal with that at all. There is no hope for that; the door is closed. The Word will not be given there, and there is no hope, therefore, of even the thirty-fold in that direction. The Lord is not even sowing His seed in that realm of positive unbelief.

So we come on to the ground where such a thing as definite unbelief is set aside, and we find ourselves in a realm where it is not a question at all of will not have the Word. But even when you have got past that, you find yourself presented with many difficulties, and the people who are represented by the three grounds here are not the people who positively refuse to have the Word, who miss a thing of God because they will not believe. They miss it because of other things. It is not the: Will not! It is very largely in the realm of: Cannot - what it is that can and does, and what it is that cannot and does not.

1) The Darkened Heart

"And as he sowed, some fell by the way side, and the birds came and devoured them." What is that? In explaining this the Lord says that "the evil one snatcheth away that which hath been sown." Why? What is the occasion for this? Here is an illuminating word: "When any one hears the word... and understands it not, then comes the evil one and snatcheth away...". It is a matter of a lack of understanding providing the enemy with the ground for his work against the Word. But, of course, the rejoinder might be: Is that the responsibility of the individual? Yes! Now you want to follow through to the Epistles and see that a truth is merely hinted at here, and for its fuller unfolding you have to look at: "The god of this age hath blinded". Again: "Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God". The enemy has provided his own ground in the natural life for his own work and here you have a darkened heart, a heart unenlightened. How can an unenlightened heart, a darkened heart, one with the understanding darkened, respond to the Word of the Lord? It cannot be! Then what is required? What is it that opens the understanding, and, having once opened the understanding, destroys the power and the work of the enemy, the blinder, the darkener?

If positive unbelief does not come in here, that does not mean that anybody without positive unbelief is capable of grasping the revelation of Christ, it means that specific faith is necessary. You may not be in a carnal state which says: I will not. You may be in a natural state, which simply says: I cannot. But while the carnal is a hopeless state, the natural is barren and unfruitful. Here something specific is necessary. It is the hearing of faith. "The word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard." It is one thing to hear the Word of the Lord; it is quite another thing to exercise faith in relation to that. Of the Thessalonians Paul said that they received the Word as the Word of God, and not the word of man. There was a definite exercise of faith with regard to the Word. And when faith is definitely exercised, something happens if it is the Word of God. Test it by faith. Open your heart to it, and do not question it in your mind; test it in your heart by faith, and it will prove itself.

It is not enough just to be free from positive unbelief. It is necessary not to be just as we are without unbelief of a positive character, in a passive state, expecting that something may happen to us through the Word. It will not! It does not! There has to be an exercise of faith in relation to the Word, in relation to the Lord Jesus as the End of the Word, the Object of the Word. That faith produces the enlightenment, and destroys the darkening, blinding work of the enemy. The situation is quite clear. Here is a darkness, but it is not just a darkness which has occurred. Here is a blindness, but that is not just because it has come about. That is positively the work of a darkener, a blinder. It originated through unbelief and what is natural unbelief in the heart. But it may not be deliberate, positive, definite unbelief, such as characterised the Jews in Christ's time. It may be just the natural state of: "I cannot!", not: "I will not!" Then Christ is presented through the Word, and we do not have to remain in a passive attitude towards that. We have to say: "Now, here in this way Christ is presented as being such-and-such; I definitely exercise faith in Him as such, as through His Word; I take up a positive attitude towards this; I become inwardly active in relation to it." And in that way the enemy's blinding activity is destroyed through faith. It is our natural inability to take in the Word which gives the enemy his ground of snatching it away.

A natural inability to take it in does not end our responsibility. Our responsibility does not end when we say: "Well, naturally I cannot". Our responsibility begins there. Are we going definitely to exercise ourselves over this matter, to reach out to the Lord? Are we in an inwardly active or passive condition concerning what is being presented? Upon that so much depends.

We may have presented to us the most glorious things about the Lord Jesus, and yet there be no fruit. We have heard them; we go away, and there is no fruit. There is no spirit and life in an increased measure. Why? We have been content with hearing, and presently when we look round for what we have heard, it has gone; it is no longer with us. If we recall the phrases, the ideas, the thing itself is not there as it was. Now, what lies between the thing being presented to us with all its possibilities, and the fruit of it becoming a reality in our lives? It is an action of faith in relation to it. Passivity here in a natural state gives the enemy all the ground that he wants to frustrate the ends of God. If all the Lord's people, whenever there had been presented to them something more of this, would act in faith in relation to that presentation, there would be wonderful results.

So the darkened heart, unenlightened, remaining passive in the presence of the presentation of Christ, is seen here in utter barrenness, even when all the possibilities of fruitfulness have been brought near.

2) The Shallow Heart

"And others fell upon the rocky places... and because they had no root they withered away." "And he that was sown upon the rocky places, this is he that heareth the word, and straightway with joy receiveth it; yet has he not root in himself, but endureth for a while; and when tribulation or persecution ariseth because of the word, straightway he stumbleth." What have we here? It is not that aspect of the natural state represented by the darkened heart. It is another aspect of the natural state. It is called "rocky".

Although it may seem that this is an improvement upon the previous one, the end is just the same. The real and abiding increase of Christ does not come upon it. Here is a condition which is, in the long run, just as unfruitful. To put it the other way, here is a condition which makes fruitfulness impossible.

What is required here? Surely brokenness of heart. If it is hard, if it is rocky, if there is no depth - and this reality of Christ has to be planted right down into the very depths of our being, then the necessity is for brokenness. Ah! but that is cost, that is paying the price, that represents an estimate of the value of Christ above our own interests, our own comfort. It means what Paul meant - and here you see the germ of a great truth - "that I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being made conformable to His death...". Even Paul, at the end of his life, recognised and accepted the principle that an increase of the knowledge of Christ could only be by an increase in the knowledge of fellowship in His sufferings and a deepening of conformity to His death.

Do we understand the Lord in His breaking up, shattering providences? The Lord can only get His ends through breakings. At best there is in these natural lives of ours a place beyond which the Lord cannot go until He has done some breaking. The depths of natural capability may even vary in this matter, but in the ultimate issue, the fulness of the Lord's desire can only be reached by a breaking deeper than nature, a getting down deeper than our own capacity. It is the creating of capacity by breaking through to the depths. The Lord has got to create capacity for Himself. How true it was: "I have many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now." The Lord had to reserve a great deal to the day when they were broken men. One reason for their inability to receive from the Lord what He wanted to give them was that they were so sure of themselves. Peter said: "I will never forsake thee", "I will die with thee." "Alright Peter, that is the limit of your ability to receive what I want you to have, and because of that very thing you cannot follow Me!" But afterwards Peter was so broken and shattered that he could follow, and he saw.

So there has to be a breaking, and that means willingness to be broken. It is enlargement of capacity. "No root in himself", no depth of soil. They are words resultant from the work of the 'I'. The Lord judges the whole, knowing what is in man, and says: "You are not broken enough yet; you have not come to the place where you have learned inwardly the limits of your capacity. You may assent to it mentally, but you have to come to the place where you cannot, and you know it, brokenly so and in a deep, humble dependence..." it is all of the Lord. The shallow and unbroken heart is here.

3) The Divided Heart

"And others fell upon the thorns; and the thorns grew up, and choked them." "And he that was sown among the thorns, this is he that heareth the word; and the care of the world, and the deceitfulness of riches, choke the word, and he becometh unfruitful."

What is this? It is a divided heart. It is a heart which would reach out to the Lord; a heart which has desires; a heart which has very good intentions. So has every seed! You notice how the seed and the man are made to blend in this parable. "He that is sown...". Suddenly you find yourself carried into a place where it is not the seed that is sown, but he that is sown. You find yourself in a complex. The Lord has changed His word. The fact that He makes that change means this: that the seed and the man become one in responsibility. The seed can do nothing apart from the man, even as the man can do nothing apart from the seed. They have now been joined in mutual responsibility. What is true of the seed as to its result, represents what is true of the man. The result, so far as the seed is concerned is the result of what the seed has found in the man.

The seed here has found intentions which correspond to itself. The seed is full of good intentions. The seed is full of good motives. The seed is full of good desires. The man is full of good desires, but there you stop. And with all the good intentions, and all the good motives, and all the good desires, and perhaps all the good possibilities - if the Word can only have its way - there are other things which weigh. The word "tribulation" is used: "when tribulation or persecution ariseth". "Tribulation" there is the "tribulum", the heavy weight. Other things are weighing on the mind and on the heart. Whether it be weights of concern, preoccupation, trouble, or whether it be the deceitfulness of riches - that is, the subtle, imperceptible grip upon the heart of possessions, things of this world - whatever it be, these things are taking such a place as to divide the heart with this far more important matter. And they are challenging the end of God in the life. So the heart is divided. It has its desires. It has its longings. It has its intentions. But if you get the figure very accurately here, you will see that the seed was not sown among thorns. What the original does say, and what is clear if you notice, is that it was sown upon thorns. It does not mean that the thorns had grown before the seed was sown and that the seed happened to fall among grown thorns. It means that the thorns' seed was there as well as the good seed. It also sprang up, and also grew, but it grew ahead of the other thing and got the advantage, the upper hand. The thorns were there, perhaps yet unseen, not manifested, but they were there. In the life there were other concerns which were hidden, other interests which weighed.

This is a very testing word. It is just possible for us to have, secretly hidden almost, if not altogether unperceived by ourselves, things which are weighing against the challenge of the fulness of Christ. We would say, if it were put to us, that nothing whatever would weigh with us against the fulness of Christ, but things do! The fact is that secretly in the heart there are considerations which are not standing against the bold presenting of the fulness of Christ, but standing against the costly way of reaching it. There is the fulness of Christ, but there is a way to be gone. There is a way of letting this world go. Do we say: "This world has already gone for us"? Yes, in a way - forms of pleasure, amusement, and all that we call "the world"; and yet, is not what Christian people think of us also a worldly element? Is it not Christian public opinion? Is it not in its very essence and nature the same thing as worldly public opinion? If you and I are going to hold our hand from going on with the Lord in some way because of what will be said in certain directions, though those directions be in the direction of Christians, what is the difference in that in principle from any man caring what the world thinks about it? We are using this as an illustration. There may be a secret, subtle hold of things upon us, as to amount to hesitating before we will take a further step which would involve us in having to let them go, lose more popularity, lose more acceptance, lose more of the opportunities which men could give us. It is a divided heart.

It is not the initially divided heart, which, on the one hand, is in the world, and on the other hand wants to be Christian; but all the way through to the end we shall find the challenge along this very line as to the dividedness of heart. On specific issues again and again there will be two sides; one the call, the other the cost; one the end, the other what must go to reach the end. The divided heart represents somewhere, somehow, in some degree, an unconsecrated heart. When you come to the man of Philippians 3 you come to the man who says: "One thing I do, forgetting the things which are behind...". There is no divided heart there.

4) A Spirit Renewed Heart

This is the positive side. What is the good ground? What is the prepared heart? Obviously it is that which is without any of the things which have gone before, or, to put it on the positive side, it embraces all those things which were lacking in the other three. It is a heart enlightened through the exercise of faith. It is a heart broken and open to the Lord through deep work in the secret place. It is a heart wholly for the Lord, undivided, without reservation.

It is a Holy Spirit renewed heart: "Be ye transformed", said the apostle, "by the renewing of your mind"; the renewing of the Holy Spirit.

The Distinction Between the Three and the One

One, two, and three represent degrees of what we are going to call "upon-ness". Number four represents inwardness. We may settle it once and for all that if a thing only comes "upon" us we are not going to have fruit, neither hundred, sixty or thirty-fold. If we begin to take truth upon us, we are going to have a bad time. On that side you have calamity, tragedy, misery, and there is no fruitfulness. On the other hand, supposing you had an intellectual power of grasping truth without transmitting it to your nervous system, that you could cope with it intellectually, you are no more fruitful in that realm than in the other. Spirit and life are different things altogether from either the emotional or intellectual taking on of truth. Barrenness will be the result of both.

Some come to the barrenness because of that awful conscious inability to grasp, to understand, to come into the truth which has come on them. Others come to the cold, icy, stony barrenness of a merely intellectual grasp of the truth, and they think they have got it, and it is still a wilderness so far as spirit and life are concerned.

Let us go to the Lord and say: "Lord, that is something presented to me naturally - I may understand it in a measure, and be able to take it on mentally, or naturally - I cannot grasp it, do not understand. I ask You definitely, as I hold this thing before You Lord, to make that thing live in my heart." I open my heart to the truth. I say: "Lord, I want with all my heart to be in all that You want me to be in, to know all of Christ that I should know. But the only way in which that can be is that my spirit is renewed by the Holy Spirit, and I now in faith count on You to do that, and I wait and hold on like that, that that shall be done." Take that attitude towards truth; otherwise there will only be a barren time.

The way into Life is the way of the renewed spirit, the renewed understanding, the renewed, enlightened, quickened heart. Ask the Lord for that. That is why Paul in his prayer did not pray that they might have the eyes of their intellect enlightened. Paul was surrounded by crowds of people who had the eyes of their intellect enlightened, and he saw the tragedy of that. He prayed that the eyes of their heart might be enlightened. Ask the Lord for that. Seek that. That is the way of fruitfulness.

The measure in which we are prepared to pay the price, and to forsake the ground of the divided heart, the unbroken heart, the darkened heart, will be the measure in which the fruit is borne in us. A hundred-fold? Yes! But how utter that means in our going on with the Lord! Sixty-fold is quite good, but speaks of a reservation somewhere. Thirty-fold is good, but it is less than half of that which the Lord would have, less than half of that which we could have. The measure is the measure of Christ; but the measure of Christ is the measure of our capacity for Him; and the measure of our capacity is the measure in which these things which make fruitfulness impossible are forsaken; and the measure in which, going on with Him, things become inward.

The more you have of Christ, the more inward the life is. You may have a measure of Christ upon a certain level, or in a certain realm, towards the outside, a mere objective apprehension. You get another measure, and there is a mixture between the objective and the subjective apprehension. But when you get the fulness of Christ it will all be inward. It will all be Christ in your heart. That will mean that you have come to the place where nothing outside matters. All things which are supposed to represent Christ on the outside, all evidences, all proofs, all systems, have gone, and you have Christ in fulness. That is where Paul was at the end. Everything on the outside went. All they in Asia turned from him, and so on. But he had come to the place where it was all inside. Christ was the fulness within.

Chapter 2 - The Fact of Inwardness

"I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service. And be not fashioned according to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God." Romans 12:1-2.

These words, which form the beginning of chapter 12 in the letter to the Romans, bring us quite definitely to a very comprehensive, as well as a very definite and precise application of this principle of inwardness. This point in the letter is really a terminal point, and there is a sense in which it is the terminal point of the letter. That is, it looks right back over all the earlier part of the letter, gathers it up, brings it to a practical application, and carries it forward in a new realm. That is a statement which we will explain as we go along.

There are several changes mentioned in these two verses.

The Reversing of an Order

We will take the one which now is the pivot upon which everything else revolves: "Be not fashioned according to this age (the word in the Authorised is "be not conformed to this world"), but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind." There you have the reversing of an order. One line is being fashioned according to this age. The tense is that which means a progress, going on, being fashioned according to this age. The other line is being transformed by the renewing of the mind.

The difference there is twofold, one in the definite statement, and the other in the words used.

1) From the outward to the inward

In the first place it is clearly a change from the outward to the inward. "Fashioned according to this age" means definitely taking a pattern outside of yourself, to which you are conforming your life; an objective pattern by which you are being governed, regulated, influenced or controlled. The opposite, and the reverse, is "transformed by the renewing of the mind", an inward thing. From the outward to the inward; from the pattern or the fashion of the world, to the renewed mind.

2) From the passing to the permanent

The word "fashion" in the Greek is simply something which relates to this world, that is passing. The word "schema" means something which comes as a mode, a fashion for the time, and passes. But the word "transformed" ("morphe" in the Greek) is not the passing fashion but the permanent form of a thing. So you change from something passing as a fashion, to something permanent as a form.

That is the very heart of this letter to the Romans. We might say, in a sense, so far as we are concerned, that it is the heart of the New Testament. There is a tremendous difference between fashioning or conforming to something outward, and transformation or transfiguration by something happening within, or something which has happened within.

The Renewal of the Mind

That brings us to the main matter: "Be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind". Thus the renewal of the mind is the key to everything. That is only saying in other words that the inwardness of things in relation to Christ is the key to everything; that things now in relation to the Lord have become basically and inclusively inward. Inasmuch as that is true, and we are living on that principle, along the line of the inward relationship with the Lord, we are being transformed.

We are not only being transformed in the matter of life and character, this chapter has especially to do with service, and ministry. Everything now, both in life and in service, is from within, and no longer from without. That is a thing which is needing so much stress. When we light upon that, we light upon an enormous factor, really a revolutionising factor. Those to whom that is in any way real, feel the tremendous strength of it, that everything now, both in life and in service, is from within.

That brings us to the point of the contrast which this chapter touches and refers to. These changes that are noted here, these reversings, gather up this whole letter, and bring into the realm of life. You see what follows: "...that ye may prove what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God", or "what is the will of God, even the thing which is good and acceptable and perfect". That does not refer to knowing the will of God on all details in life; that is not the connection, although it will progressively work out in that way. But this will of God is a basic thing. It is something upon which everything else rests. You will see what we mean if you turn your attention to former parts in this letter with which these very clauses are dealing.

Take, for instance, the fragment in chapter 1 verse 9: "For God is my witness, whom I serve in my spirit in the gospel of His Son". That is a contrasting word: "whom I serve in my spirit in the gospel of His Son". Why does Paul put that there like that? It is not just a remark, not merely a statement. It is put there with the emphatic intention of showing the difference between worship (it is the same word - Conybeare says: "Whom I serve with the worship of my spirit"), and service on the old basis of outward things.

Note here in chapter 12 again: "...present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, well-pleasing to God, which is your spiritual worship", your service. "Whom I serve with my spirit". You have, he is saying, now passed altogether away from that old regime of outward sacrifices and outward forms of worship, as represented by the whole Jewish system. All that outward fashion of worship is passing in its nature, and is passed now with the coming of Christ. The inwardness is the abiding, the permanent, the form, and not the fashion. All the service is first of all inward. It comes from the inside, not from the outside.

This is a Levitical realm: "...present your bodies a living sacrifice". It takes you right back into the Levitical realm, where slain sacrifices were offered. Now: "present your bodies a living sacrifice". You have come away from that realm altogether; when you see the Levites busy serving God in these outward sacrifices and forms, it is but a fashion, a "schema". It is only for a time, and that has passed. It was a type of something, an outward representation of an inward reality. But the reality could not be a reality until Christ came in fulfilment of the types, and now it becomes inward. Ministry is now not an outward thing, it springs from within: "Whom I serve with my spirit", "...which is your spiritual worship".

This word "that ye may prove", means applying the test. Test the will of God. You may apply the infallible test as to the will of God, even what is good, and acceptable, and perfect. That will take you back to chapter 2 verses 17-24: "Behold, thou callest thyself a Jew, and restest in the Law, and boastest of God's favour, and knowest the will of God, and givest judgment upon good and evil, being instructed by the teaching of the Law. Thou deemest thyself a guide of the blind, a light to those who are in darkness, an instructor of the simple, a teacher of babes, possessing in the Law the perfect pattern of knowledge and of truth. Thou therefore that teachest thy neighbour, dost thou not teach thyself? ...Yea, as it is written, 'Through you is the name of God blasphemed among the Gentiles'."

One fragment of that only we will consider: "knowest the will of God". So you see the outwardness of the whole thing in the Jewish system. Notice it again: "...restest in the law, boastest of God's favour, (that is merely traditional) and knowest the will of God (that is merely so far as written oracles are concerned), givest judgment upon good and evil (merely according to objective standards as written on tables of stone), being instructed by the teaching of the Law. Thou deemest thyself a guide to the blind". It was an outward system, without a corresponding inward life.

That is taken up in chapter 12. How are you going really in a living way (not a technical, objective, traditional or historical way, not in all these ways which are outward), so that the thing is spirit and life in you to know the will of God? Not as oracles written on tables, but as in your own heart by the renewing of the mind. Chapter 12 marks that tremendous movement from everything in relation to God as outward in a system, and everything in relation to God as inward in a life. What a tremendous thing is the renewing of the mind! What a tremendous thing is represented by the renewal of the mind! The inner man is the key to everything.

You come into an awful contradiction, bewilderment, unrest, if again you turn to the things of God as an outward thing, and try and comprehend them outwardly as presented truth. It cannot be done. God took pains through centuries to show through the whole history of this world that it cannot be done. He raised up a people, and presented to that people an outward form of His mind, comprehensive and detailed. He presented His thought to them and said: "Now, that is My mind in detail; work according to that!" And through the course of centuries He proved forever to man that that is not possible. Then He changed the dispensation, in bringing in His Son, to show that there was a Man Who could do it. But what a Man! A unique man! And then, having perfected it, that Man took it in His own Person to glory, and sent His Holy Spirit to reproduce it in saints, and not work it out again in an outward system to which saints had got to adhere and conform. The Holy Spirit's requirement for doing that is an inner man renewed. If the inner man is renewed, the Holy Spirit has got what He needs and can do the work, so that in that basic and comprehensive way we know what the will of God is.

Do you see what that phrase refers to? "That ye may know (or apply the infallible test as to) the will of God". What does that mean? Testing the will of God by the renewal of the inward man? It is really tremendously satisfying. It simply says this: Get into the realm where everything is inward, and cease to be in the realm where everything is outward, and you will know the truth. If you are simply governed by an outward religious system, and have to conform to it, and follow all its rules and regulations, and try and do God's work and live according to God's will, oh! the death of it, the burden of it, the paralysing of it, the confusion of it. You never get anywhere; you are moving round in a circle all the time; you come back continually to the point where you started. Get emancipated from that whole thing by an inward revelation, by coming into the things of God in your spirit, and you will know this is the mind of the Lord, this is the will of God, this is the realm where you know that which is good, and acceptable, and perfect. It represents a tremendous transition, and those who have passed by that way have just gone over that line and know the difference. They know what Paul is talking about when he says: "You Jews have this whole system, it represents the things of God in life and service, and yet you are in bondage and in death, tied hand and foot by the whole thing, without any liberty. Now," says Paul, "I have come out of that whole external system of things, into a realm where it is all Christ within, and I know the will of God as you Jews do not know." It is not merely now a matter of changed intellect, affections, but the difference between what was once but a mental thing and what is now a thing of the heart: "whom I serve with my spirit". You see the change.

As to the knowing of the will of God in all details, you will never do that until you get this basis: the renewal of the mind. It is basic to everything.

The Lord is now not desirous of governing His people's lives by external orders. The Lord is now desirous of governing His children by inward witness.

Let us put in a parenthetical word of safeguarding. That does not dispense with the Word of God. We are taking for granted that there is a life in prayer and a life in the Word of God which are essential means for the Holy Spirit. But, taking that as accepted and recognised, the Holy Spirit desires that it shall be in our spirit through the Word, through prayer, that we come to know that which is the will of God, even the thing which is good, well-pleasing, and perfect.

So that to live in this present evil age is only possible by the inner man being renewed. To serve the Lord in abiding fruitfulness demands that it shall proceed from the inside. That is why things get such a little way when they are according to a set and accepted system of work. We use the word 'organise'. Well, there is an organised system of Christian activity at home and abroad, which is accepted, and people are drafted into it, and they take it up, and get on with it as the accepted thing. Without being for a moment censorious or critical we ask the question: Do we really have a proportionate fruitfulness with the tremendous number who are doing the work? When you think of the effect of a few in apostolic days, so far as abiding fruitfulness was concerned and spiritual value, to say nothing of the range, and then the number of Christians in the organised Christian system of today in an active way, is there any comparison between the results in spiritual fruit? Surely not! Why is it? Reasons may be various, and perhaps numerous. One very real reason is this: that it is working in an order, a system, and it is not proceeding in everyone out from the Lord in the inner man, does not begin there, and is not carried on as a stream from there.

So everything - life, work, knowing the will of God is a matter of the renewal of the inward man, the renewal of the mind.

Ask the Lord, in relation to all the things concerning Himself, that there may be a continuous and progressive renewal of the mind according to His Word. The Lord's people in the end of this age, which is the closing age, are shown to be very clearly by the Word of God, a people of the inwardness of the things of the Lord. Take a statement like that, and think about it in relation to the Word of God. The new covenant is constituted upon those terms: "I will make a new covenant... I will put My laws into their mind, and on their heart also will I write them." "They shall not teach every man his fellow-citizen, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for all shall know Me." What is the nature of the knowledge? It is an inward knowledge of the Lord. If John's Gospel represents an end time, then John's letters represent this very thing: "The anointing which ye received of Him abides in you, and you need not that any one teach you." You will see from the Word that the Lord's intention, His desire, is that in the end all that which was outwardly indicated as His mind shall be inwardly and spiritually real in His people. It marks the great change in the dispensations.

Perhaps if there is one thing needed today more than another amongst the Lord's people it is that they should come to this very thing, where they know the things of the Lord, and the Lord Himself, in their own hearts. A very great deal of the trouble in the direction of schisms and divisions through the ages has been because of outward, mental acceptances, because of being taught (in some cases from infancy) to accept certain things, and not knowing of the existence of something quite other, and then one day becoming aware that there is something quite other, and people who represent the other sort, to whom that is the accepted thing and the thing that is right. Now it is a matter of conflict of mind, and you get divisions, and even in the realm where one thing may have been accepted mentally, sooner or later some deviation, some turn in things, brings about a division, because of a mental handling of truth. Most of the trouble is there. There is no doubt that the Holy Spirit never says two contradictory things. The Spirit of God never presents two things which are in principle opposed. If the Lord's people really did know the Lord inwardly the only difference that would be possible amongst them would be the difference resultant from the measure of their spiritual growth. Some would not see as others, because they had not reached their point, but if it is only a measure, and not a kind, it is alright.

We have to be very careful that we do not confuse those things. To be governed by the Holy Spirit and know the Lord inwardly is to agree with everything that the Holy Spirit says. If the Lord could get a people like that, what a power there would be. Nothing outward can disturb such people.

The All-inclusive Ground

"I beseech you therefore, brethren... to present your bodies a living sacrifice...". What is the point in presenting the body? This is the point where service arises in this letter. So far it has been a question of life, and now the question of spiritual service comes in, and the body is necessary to the Lord in relation to others here on the earth. The body's peculiar object is relationship with others as an instrument and a vessel through which there is communicated to men and women the knowledge of God's will. God has chosen (not normally and as His usual way) to visit men by apparitions, visions, or direct spiritual means, even by angels. That is the unusual, and represents quite an extraordinary activity of God. God's ordained method is to meet men through men, that He should have men and women in whom there is established this spiritual order, this spiritual reality, this spiritual knowledge of Him, so that, being the embodiment of that, men may not come into touch with an abstract, men may not come into touch with mere paid servants, but with living representatives of the mind of God, and the body is given as the vessel of the living representation of God's mind.

You see that point worked out so clearly in the New Testament, taking Paul only, that he regarded himself personally as being peculiarly held for the expression, the personal, physical representation of the Testimony of the Lord Jesus: "...as always, so now also Christ shall be magnified in my body...". Even though there was death working, yet there was something working against death all the time. It was the Testimony of Christ risen, that in his very body there was an expression of something of Christ Himself as risen, and what did he meet in his body? The accumulation of adversities coming against him physically in his body, in his human life, were all an accumulative opportunity for the expression of something superior. Get his catalogues of adversities. Why all these? Simply that all this is here, and yet over against it there is something other and more. So that his very body was a representation, a vessel, a channel, an instrument of the manifesting of the power of the risen, ascended, exalted Christ. We are not meaning merely and only in the matter of physical suffering, but the fact that he had a body here, and that that body was the vessel of the testimony against which men and demons were set; what it meant that there was a man here. That man met hell, and yet hell was conquered through that man. It is an expression of what has happened in the Man. "Your bodies a living sacrifice", that God may have you in the entirety of your human life as a vessel in which He is, and in which He is making Himself known, in order that spiritual service may be done, the registration of God through you and through me upon men and women in this world; that God should come out through human beings - not angels, not disembodied spirits - but vessels of fragile clay. Present your bodies living sacrifices, holy (that is, entirely consecrated), which is your spiritual service, as differing from the outward, external, material service of a Levite offering the body of a slain animal.

We are brought right back to the central thing. Everything is bound up with the renewal of the mind, the new man, quickened and brought into living fellowship with the Lord, "joined to the Lord one spirit". For that we must ask and seek more and more, to know and to do as out from a new relationship with the Lord.

Chapter 3 - The Veil Taken Away

Reading: 2 Cor. 3:2-18; 4:1,3-6.

These passages carry on the thoughts found in Romans 12, connected with the changes and transitions from the outward to the inward. There comes clearly into view here the fact that in Moses the revelation and ministration was outward, and in Christ the revelation and ministration is inward.

The difference is seen between the passing and the permanent. Twice over in these verses we find a reference to that which was passing. Then we come to that which remains. What is of Christ abides. What was of Moses passes.

Then the difference and the effect is noted. In the case of the revelation and ministration through and by Moses, there was no transformation in the lives of God's people. Even at the time of the revelation and the ministration in glory, their hearts were hardened. It had no heart effect upon them. That is clearly stated. Now here with that which comes in and through Christ it is a matter of heart effect: "God hath shined into our hearts", and the effect is that we are changed, transformed. The word in Romans 12 comes up here again. There it is by the renewing of our mind. Here it is by the inward revelation of the Lord Jesus, which is the same thing in effect. It is the transformation from within.

Life and Ministry

That has to do with the life, and then, following that, the ministry. The first effect of the revelation is the changing of the life itself. The second effect is, out of that, a ministry in power. The question of service arises once more: "...seeing we have this ministry".

The ministry, according to the New Testament, is the result of an inward revelation and transformation, and not the result of an objective or outward presentation.

The Letter and the Spirit

There is another contrast mentioned here in this part of the Word. It is the difference between the letter and the Spirit. You notice with these weighings of one thing over against the other, a list of things which come under one word: "not"; not this, not that, not that, not something else. But then you have another list. Here it is not the letter, but the Spirit, for the letter kills, but the Spirit makes alive. "The letter" corresponds to that which is written on tables of stone, as something objectively presented. It is a commandment imposed from without: "Thou shalt", or, "thou shalt not" - that which takes its place is Christ, the Word of God; Christ, the Revelation, but not now presented to us as a standard to which we must conform, but now as in our hearts in the power of the Holy Spirit. That is life; that is the Spirit as against the letter. One is death; the other is life. One is bondage; the other liberty.

Let us look at 2 Corinthians 3:16: "But whensoever it shall turn to the Lord, the veil is taken away."

That veil, in its existence, sums up the whole of that life and service which is in bondage, or death. That veil, in its removal, represents the whole life and service in liberty, power, and life. The apostle says in a great many more words: "Now the existence of that veil speaks of limitation, bondage and death". That veil is the very symbol of limitation. The taking away of that veil is the taking away of all such limitation in life and in ministry. The veil represents a state in the first place, a natural state in man. It was not that God chose the veil, or imposed the veil. It was not God's will to limit the glory in that way. The glory was spontaneous; the glory was there. But for the people's condition there would have been no veil and the glory would have remained. But it was because of a state in the people that the veil had to be taken and used. They were not able to look upon the glory. They were not able to abide in the glory. Their own condition in nature rendered it impossible for them to remain in the unveiled glory. If the veil is taken away then that means that something has happened, a new capacity has been brought in, a new ability. Something has happened inside. Christ has been revealed in the heart.

When by the ministration of the Holy Spirit you and I see Christ and the meaning of Christ, when we see what He is in the content of His very being as a Man Who for men has met all the demands of the infinite glory, which glory is the expression of the infinite holiness, and faith has taken that Man as the answer to all those demands; the veil is removed, limitation has gone, bondage has gone, exclusion has gone. "Whensoever it shall turn to the Lord, the veil is taken away." That relates to Moses turning away from the people and the condition that was in man, the condition as he found it in the people. When he was facing that, the veil had to be put on. But when he turns away from the human condition to the Lord, and goes in where the Lord is, he takes the veil away. There is no need for a veil when you come into the presence of the Lord. What is the presence of the Lord in the most holy place? It is all in virtue of what Christ is. You have the mercy seat, and you have the ark. In there it is Christ, and because of what Christ is in the presence of God, the glory is full, without a veil. And when it shall turn there, to the Lord, in virtue of what Christ is, the veil is taken away. Even Moses could only go into the presence of God on the ground of the precious blood and everything else which spoke of Christ.

While we are in the realm of what man is by nature, we are under the limitation of a veil. Even though we may be towards ourselves, if we are looking in our own direction as Moses looked in the direction of the people, and taking ourselves into account as to what we are by nature, we come under a veil and the glory is at once arrested. Every kind of limitation falls upon us, and all that we are and do is in a realm of bondage. Face yourself in what you are by nature, and a veil is imposed at once. It is always so.

There are a lot of the Lord's people who are labouring under the veil, simply because they are looking at themselves and what they are by nature, but when they turn away from themselves unto the Lord, on the ground of what Christ is, the veil disappears. The limitation goes, the bondage goes, and the glory becomes full.

The Veil Speaks of a Natural State

The taking of the veil away is speaking of Christ having dealt with that natural state, having entered into it and put it away, and now it is not what I am, but what He is, and the veil has gone. That is where we begin. But that is the basis of living victoriously. That is also the basis of ministry and service.

If you want the secret of Paul's great ministry, here it is. It was His great apprehension of Christ. No man had a lower opinion of himself than Paul did, but his low opinion of himself, his abhorring of himself, was never allowed to bring that veil back. For him it only meant a larger appreciation of Christ. He did not dwell upon what he was, saying always: "Well, I am so-and-so, and I am therefore not fit for this service, and I dare not do it". No! Recognising himself, he also saw what Christ was, and the veil could not come in. He was a man without a veil, because of his turning to the Lord away from himself, both in life and in service.

Man cannot see God's glory if he is under the bondage of what he is in himself, in his natural state. Do you want to see the glory? Then turn your eyes away from yourself and keep them fastened upon Him and what He is for you.

We shall not even see the glory of God in a human face until our heart has been dealt with. We never shall see the glory of God anywhere until the heart matter has been touched, and God has shined into our hearts. No wonder the Jews could not see the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, that Jesus of Nazareth was to them no different from any other man, and that they could regard Him, speak about Him, deal with Him on the basis of any man. They saw nothing more than an ordinary Jew amongst them. They did not see the glory. There was a veil between, because of what they were, because of the state of their heart. There is need for this work of God in our hearts, this inwardness of the Divine operation to bring us into the place of the fulness of the glory and liberty of Christ. It is stressed in every part of the Word that the key to the whole situation is the inner man quickened, renewed, illumined. No matter how great, extensive, comprehensive may be our religious history, in so far as that is a thing which is different from an inward work and revelation in our hearts, there will be limitation, bondage and an absence of glory. It can be settled forever that the real measure of glory and liberty and power is just in proportion to the revelation of Christ in our hearts by the Holy Spirit, not one bit more. There can be a kind of glorying in something which is seen with the mind, which is less than this glory revealed in the heart, and when the test comes, it is found that, after all, our glorying has been in an ideal, a conception, but not in a heart revelation of Christ. For everything this heart revelation is indispensable if it is to stand the test and carry us right through, but once we get it we have got the root of the matter in us, and we shall go right through.

When this heart condition is dealt with, when things have become inward by the opening of the heart to the Lord, then these other things must follow. The first of which is:

The Glory of God in the Face of Jesus Christ

That appears to be a very prosaic, a very ordinary statement. Is there not some element of challenge about a statement like that? Although for a good many years I have known the Lord in quite a real way, and have been learning something of the Lord, yet at the present time, after all these years, I feel that I am only just beginning to see the Lord. The revelation of the Lord Jesus in the heart is something which makes you feel that all that has gone before, however much of revelation it may have been, is nothing in comparison with that which we are seeing now. And although today you may be glorying in something which seems to eclipse all else and make it as though it were not, perhaps in a week hence you will feel that what you knew a week ago is nothing. Today we are seeing something of the meaning of the Man in the glory which makes us feel that we have never known anything about Christ. We shall see something more in a week or two in our hearts which will make us feel that even today's revelation is as nothing. With it there is power; that is, the possession of strength, of power, of authority, becoming conscious that you have something back of you on which to work. It puts you in a very strong position.

That is the challenge of a very prosaic statement: "God hath shined in our hearts".

Is the shining going on? It is the test of everything for life and for ministry. That is all the difference between having the A and the Z of Christian revelation summed up in a system and presented objectively, to which you are working. That blessed reality, so wonderful that no one enjoys and understands it until they get it, and when they get it no one else in all the world knows anything about it! It may be that you have been preaching it to them for years, but when they have got it they will tell you that you have never known anything about it. That is the power of an inward revelation. It is something that liberates, that means life and glory. Life and service on that basis is fulness; the veil is taken away. Oh, to have the veil fully removed! Well, the very first thing is that we see the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, and then we come into liberty.

Liberty

The veil is taken away, the Lord is the Spirit, and "where the spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty." What is this liberty? It is not in the letter but in the Spirit. "Now the Lord is the Spirit." The letter causes bondage. The truth may be presented, and you see it, wholly or in part, and then the terms, the very letters, the very form of the truth becomes an awful bondage to you, and you worry yourself to death because this thing is presented to you, and it has become imposed upon you, but you are not living in it. It is the bondage to the letter. That is how the Jews lived for hundreds of years. "The letter killeth". But turning to the Lord the veil is taken away, there is liberty; liberation from the killing power of the letter into the quickening power of the Spirit. Liberty from the bondage of the law, the bondage of the letter, and liberty, therefore, from that barrier to real dwelling and abiding in the glory.

Access

Those people in their state could never enter into the most holy place with the Lord. Moses could not enter into the presence of the Lord with a veil over his face. It was not only that it was unnecessary for him to do it, it was not allowed that he should do so, because it represented a contradiction. It would speak of a denial, it would mean taking human limitation into the presence of God. That cannot be. When the Lord Jesus enters into the Divine glory and remains, all that which represents the limitation of man's natural state has been put away, all barriers have been destroyed, the veil has been rent asunder, all that speaks of man being excluded has now been dealt with completely and finally. And until that has been finally dealt with, there is no going in, but when it has been dealt with, there is a going in. So that Moses would have been excluded from the Divine presence with a veil over his face, because it was a symbol of a state which had not been dealt with inwardly. When he takes the veil away it is in virtue of the work of the cross, and he goes in.

So that when Christ is revealed in our hearts and we apprehend Christ by the Holy Spirit as what He is on our behalf to the Father in full satisfaction, and what He is from the Father to us in meeting every need, then all the limitation of exclusion is removed, and we have access without fear. We can abide in the presence of the eternal glory without fear. It is a great thing to come with boldness to the throne of grace, with perfect confidence, absolute assurance that you are not going to meet your death in the presence of God. Bondage and limitation are removed in the taking away of the veil.

The Absolute Lordship of Christ by the Spirit

All this is based upon the absolute Lordship of Christ. Where the Spirit is Lord, there is liberty. Here is Christ in the power of the Spirit reigning pre-eminent in the inward man. That is the secret of it all. It is the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of Christ establishing His Lordship in our hearts; that is life, liberty and fulness. Oh, the great difference resultant from an inward knowledge of the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of Christ! The difference is between glory, liberty, love, power; and bondage, law, letter, fear. Perfect love casts out fear.

The Inwardness of Everything Related to Christ

The need in life and ministry is the inwardness of everything related to the Lord Jesus. The Lord is trying to bring to our hearts the realisation of this great need. How the Lord does need men and women of this inwardness! In every way it is essential, and in every way it makes possible the fulfilment of all the Divine will in our lives. In the matter of helping others, in counsel, in comfort, in direction, there is all the difference between having to rush away to your library to find out what to say to them, or to run off to someone else and ask them for advice as to how to help so-and-so, and knowing the Lord in your own heart and being able to help out of your own knowledge of the Lord. And in every other way it is the Lord's desire to have men and women with whom the whole thing is an inward reality, so that they are not always full of questions, and they can never be helpful to others because they have so many questions of their own. They never really do move out into complete liberty of life and ministry, because they are limited and in bondage by their own uncertainty, their own doubt; they are not clear themselves.

Why should that be? I suppose there may never be a time when we are absolutely free from needing to know some more, that is, free from some questions. But it is one thing to be ourselves before the Lord continually in an enquiring state, and it is quite another thing to be before men full of uncertainties and doubts and questions. The Lord's desire is that we should have it in ourselves to be able to meet needs, to know Him in a growing way in ourselves. It is a great thing to be in that position so that the Lord can put you down in any place in this world, without any external helps of any kind, and count upon you there, because you know Him. That is responsibility. It is so different from being in the place where immediately something arises, off you go to someone else to see what they think about it, what you ought to do, or what their interpretation is. We are but touching a mere fragment of it, but by way of illuminating the whole.

It is quite possible - so possible that it has become actual in a far more general and almost universal reality - that Christianity today has taken the place which Judaism occupied. Judaism was a system entirely composed of external and objective things relative to God, and Christianity has become that in an almost universal way today. It is the unusual, almost the rare thing today, to find among Christians those who really do know the Lord independently of a religious system. It is unusual to find Christians, wherever they are in the world, who know the Lord sufficiently well, and have a walk with Him in the power of His Spirit sufficiently full, to constitute them the Lord's representatives anywhere.

The Lord must have that, and He is after that, and that is what He is saying to us, and would have us exercised along that line, to seek very much that we be in the place where it is not the outwardness of the truth, but the inwardness of the revelation of Christ the Lord, the Spirit.

Chapter 4 - So Great Salvation

Reading: Heb. 1:1-14; 2:1-4.

There is a sense in which that clause "so great salvation" is the key to the whole of this letter, for undoubtedly this letter was written with the object of bringing very definitely and clearly before the minds of its readers how great the salvation is which is in Christ; to remind them of the greatness of the salvation. And all that is said in the letter is just an exposition of the greatness of this salvation. It seems that the greatness is opened up along two lines; one is the transcendent greatness of Christ; the other is the wonderful fulness of His own Divine Person.

The Transcendent Greatness of Christ

His transcendent greatness is revealed by placing Him alongside of the greatest others ever known, or at least some of them. Many of the great ones of history are mentioned in this letter, many who have occupied positions of tremendous importance in relation to God on behalf of men, but they are mentioned and brought into view in this letter for the special purpose of showing just how far transcendent the Lord Jesus Christ is.

Transcendent to Angels

The first of these great ones to be mentioned is not a human order at all; it is a celestial, heavenly order - the angels. As we read these passages we note the comparison, the contrast between Christ and the angels. Angels are superior to men. They will not be superior to men when God has man as He intends man to be, but angels are now superior, and we have a wonderful collection of incidents with which angels were connected in the history of this world. We are shown by the Word of God how great is the power committed to them when it is possible for one angel to go out from the presence of God and smite an army of tens of thousands, so that by the activity of one angel in a night the whole host of Sennacharib were slain, the whole battlefield covered with corpses, the men who laid down to sleep overnight and never rose again - for an angel of the Lord went out and smote the whole host, the host which had dared to put itself against the Lord and the Lord's people. We have wonderful stories of angelic activity and power in the book of the prophet Daniel.

It is not our intention to go over the Bible stories concerning angels, but it is made perfectly clear that angels are no insignificant force to be reckoned with, and that they are employed by God in an administrative capacity in relation to this world and men, though often unseen; mighty angels, executing the purposes of God. And yet, with all their glory, with all their power, with all their great heavenly vocation, they are shown here in this letter to be much inferior to the Lord Jesus. "Unto which of the angels said He at any time, Thou art My Son, this day have I begotten thee?"; ''Who makes His angels winds, and His ministers a flame of fire: but of the Son He says, Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever." You see how infinitely transcendent Christ is to the angels.

Then a number of men of great name and exploits are mentioned.

Greater than Moses

The next one mentioned in this letter is Moses. Now, Moses was a great man. There is no doubt about it that Moses ranks in the history of this world as one of its greatest, not only as in Israel among the Jews, but recognised everywhere in all nations as being a mighty man. See how much of the law of our own country is based upon the law of Moses. Where does capital punishment come from? It comes from the Bible, the law of Moses: "Whoso sheds man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed." That is the law. We know it is not grace, but that is the law; and the whole system of law is founded upon Moses, and much more than that. Moses has a tremendous influence, not only in his own day but throughout the ages. He brought a great mob of hundreds of thousands of people out of bondage in Egypt, and shaped them into a nation, a nation whose history has gone on and on, and goes on today. It does not matter where you move about the world, there is always the distinctiveness associated with that nation. It does not matter where you go, the Jew is known in every nation. Balaam prophesied about the Jew and about Israel, that they should not be reckoned among the nations. Well, they have absolute distinctiveness, they are not absorbed at all, they stand clear. Moses shaped that nation, so that it has left this impress upon the history of the world. We know of the exploits.

Moses was a great man, a great leader, a great organiser, a great lawgiver, perhaps above all, a great man of God, a great saint. But in this letter to the Hebrews the Lord Jesus is brought in alongside of Moses and, incidentally, you see how insignificant Moses is. It says about Moses that he was a servant in God's House, but the Lord Jesus is a Son over God's House. There is all the difference between the Son over the House and the servant in the House, and that is the difference between Christ and Moses.

Exceeding and Excelling Joshua

The next one in order mentioned is Joshua. Joshua took up the work of Moses and took the people over Jordan into the Land of Promise. Joshua conquered the seven kings and the seven nations in the Land of Promise, and substituted them and set Israel in the land by mighty exploits. And yet with all the great conquests of Joshua, the whole thing fell short at one point, the people never came to fulness of rest. The Word here is that if Joshua had given them rest, then no mention would have been made of a rest to come, but because Joshua did not give them rest there remains a rest, and that is where the Lord Jesus comes in. Immediately He is brought in - He is shown to be the One who goes far beyond what Joshua in his greatest and best could do. Joshua could not give fulness and finality of rest, but the Lord Jesus can. He who said: "Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest" has given fulness of rest to the heart of every man and woman who has accepted Him by faith as their Saviour. It is "rest unto your souls". That is where the Lord Jesus exceeds and excels Joshua, as giving rest.

Greater than Aaron

The next one mentioned is Aaron, the greatest of Israel's priests, the one man in the midst of all (not only of that nation, but all the nations) who was allowed to go into the immediate presence of God; Aaron, who stood as the mediator between God and man. The glorious garments which were made for him, with all their magnificence; and the jewel-bestudded breastplate which he wore were just symbols of the greatness of the office which he occupied. He was among men a man of tremendous importance, because he stood to represent man in the presence of God, and he stood to represent God in the presence of men. That is no small thing. He offered the sacrifices for the sins of men. And yet the Lord Jesus, when He is brought in and is compared with Aaron, is seen to go far beyond him. We are told how much Aaron could do, and then just how much Aaron could not do. We are told that, while Aaron did all this, and was all this, he never made anything perfect. Why? For one thing it is not possible for the blood of bulls and of goats to take away sins. That at best was only a type, a symbol, an illustration. And then, if you are going to remove sin, you are dealing with the whole question of death, because the wages of sin is death; and a man has not only to be able to deal with sin, but he has to be able to deal with death. And it says that Aaron died; therefore Aaron, with all that he was, fell a prey to the very thing that he stood against. Death overcame him; therefore he was not able to make anything perfect, because he was subject to death.

Then the Lord Jesus is brought in as God's great High Priest, not offering bulls and goats as sacrifices, not taking their blood, but His own Blood, offering Himself without spot to God; and then, in offering Himself and dying for our sins, conquering death in the very act, vanquishing death, so that He was not overcome of death, but lives forever to make intercession. The sentence in the letter to the Hebrews is: "He is able therefore to save to the uttermost...". "Uttermost" means that He is able to save right on to the end. Aaron could not do that because he died; but Christ, because He lives, can save right on forever. Aaron at best could only go so far and then had to give up his work as imperfect, unfinished, but Christ can go on in the power of an endless life saving, saving, every day.

Who is your saviour, yourself or your Christ? Christ, because He lives forever and has conquered death, can carry on your salvation for eternity; not for a week, a fortnight, three weeks, a month, and then break down. How much greater is Christ than Aaron! He lives for ever; He can save, therefore, right on to the end.

We dare not go on with the comparisons. We have mentioned these four: angels, Moses, Joshua, Aaron. They are great names, great powers, but nothing compared with Christ. And because Christ is so infinitely greater as a Deliverer than Moses; as a Rest-giver than Joshua; as a Saviour from sin than Aaron; as a Power from heaven than angels; so infinitely greater, then we are beginning to see what the meaning of this word is: "so great salvation" in Christ.

The Fulness of His Divine Person

There are many other things said here along the other line, the second line. You have only to look at the first chapter again and see what is said about the Lord Jesus and His Person.

God has spoken in Him as His Son.

Chapter 1 verse 2: "God... has at the end of these days spoken unto us in His Son". God spoke by the prophets once, but now He has spoken in Him as His Son. God has spoken in Christ on a higher level than ever God spoke before, as His Son.

God has spoken in Him in a supreme way.

The second thing in the same verse is that God has not only spoken in Him as His Son, but He has spoken in Him in a supreme way: "God, having of old time spoken unto the fathers in the prophets by divers portions...". God spread His speech over many generations, many manners, many portions, by many individuals; and each individual only had a bit of God's speech. The prophets just had a fragment of God's speech to men, and God was speaking over a long stretch of years through a whole host of men, and each man only had a bit. But now: "at the end of these days", God has spoken in completeness in His Son. He has gathered it all up in His Son. It is a fulness of God's speech in Christ. When you come to the Lord Jesus you do not come to a fragment, you come to the fulness; you do not come to one of the divers manners or divers portions, you come to the fulness of God's speech. How infinitely greater He is than the prophets, who only had a little bit. He has it all!

See what the prophets were able to do. Elijah was one of the divers portions, the divers manners, but what mighty things happened through Elijah. Kings went down before Elijah. The nation was shaken to its foundations by the word of Elijah. The heavens were closed by the space of three years and six months by the word of Elijah, and then the heavens were opened because Elijah prayed. Mighty things were done by that one man, who was just one of the many portions and manners of God. If one man can do all that, and all the others had a measure, and you gather it all up in Christ, you see how infinitely greater Christ is. How great salvation!

He is the Heir of all things.

Look again at this word: "Whom He (God) appointed heir of all things". Christ is the heir of all things. Then salvation comes to us in the heir of all things. All things are the heritage, the inheritance of Christ. That is a big "all things". That "all things" means heaven and earth and all that is in them, forever and forever, are the appointed inheritance of God's Son, Jesus Christ, and as such a One He brings salvation to us.

If the Crown Prince of the greatest nation on this earth were to come to us and offer us deliverance from our poor estate, we should say: "This man is able to do it: he has the resources, he has much influence and power, he is a great man, we can trust him!" But here is the Heir of all things, who is to be King of kings and Lord of lords, to inherit all things, heaven and earth and all things in the coming age, and He comes and offers salvation. He can do it; therefore how great He is, and how great a salvation this must be if it is in the Heir of all things.

God made the worlds through Him.

The next thing, in the same verse, is: "through whom He made the worlds". God made the worlds through His Son. Think of that! The Lord Jesus was the Instrument, the Agent in the creation of the worlds. The very existence of these worlds is the result of His activity. The One who created it is the One who comes to offer Himself as the Saviour. Surely He can do it! He has not sent one of His servants; He has come Himself, as the Creator of all things, to be the Saviour. He who created can surely save! How great salvation!

He is the express image of God's Person.

He is the full representation of God: "the express image", the effulgence of God. This is God coming in the Person of the Lord Jesus, God being represented in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself. It is God come near in Jesus Christ.

He sustains all things.

In verse 3 it says that He upholds all things by the Word of His power. He is not only the Creator; He is the sustainer. Christ sustains all things. Does it not amaze you that the One who was the Creator, and who was the Heir of all things, and the very One who upholds all things in this universe by His own power, let Himself be taken by men and spat upon, stripped, mocked, smitten, ridiculed, despised and then nailed on a cross? Amazing! How great a salvation, that He should have gone all that way for us! It is not that He was helpless in the hands of men. He was the Creator and Sustainer of all things. It was not that He was too weak to do anything for His own deliverance. He said He had only to ask His Father and He would send Him twelve legions of angels. We have thought of one angel smiting a mighty army. What will twelve legions of angels do? And yet He did not ask! He was working out your salvation and my salvation, and the angels must not interfere with that. How great salvation! God was doing that. The Creator and the Upholder of all things was doing that. How great salvation!

He accomplished purification of sins.

Has ever any other being done that? "When He had made purification of sins". Oh, yes! He has done it, and those who put faith in Him come to know it; those who enter into the good of it, that know what it is to be purged, cleansed and saved from sin, when they accept Christ as Saviour by faith. He did it in His cross. It is made good to those who trust Him, who accept Him, who believe on Him.

He is seated at the right hand of the Majesty on High.

This Christ, who accomplished the purging of sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on High. He is at the right hand now. The right hand is the place of honour and of power, and He is in that place; and the salvation is related to such a One. Salvation is in such a One; not now a Man walking about this earth, despised and rejected of men; but salvation now is in the One who is at the right hand of the Majesty on High.

He has inherited a title more excellent than the angels.

"He has inherited a more excellent name than they." That means the title of Christ. It is not just bearing a name, it is a title - which represents position - more excellent than the title of the angels. It is the Name which represents power and glory far above the power and the glory of the angels. He has inherited it! That is, it has been conferred upon Him. Paul says elsewhere: "God has given unto Him the name which is above every name, that in the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, things in earth, things under the earth, and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord". He has inherited that Name by the work of His cross.

All this wonderful revelation of the Person of the Lord Jesus gives us just a little idea of the greatness of the salvation which has come, if He is the Saviour. Need anyone despair? Need anyone fear? Need anyone for a moment feel that theirs is a hopeless case? No! Not if He is the Saviour! If it were a man, even a great man, we might have some doubts, but it is this One, such a One as this, who is the Saviour. No case is hopeless when you put it into the hands of One like this. No case is too difficult for Him. No life too great a problem. No power of sin and evil too great and mighty in its mastery of a life for Him. He is Master, and more than Master of the greatest situation that you can present to Him.

The Finality of Things in Christ

The last word is concerning the finality of things in Christ. This Word says that it is at the end that God has spoken in Him. Now the end has come. God's final speech is in Christ. There is no more after that, and that is why it is such a hopeless outlook if we neglect so great salvation. There is no more salvation to come; the end of it is in Christ. This is the last phase of God's dealings with men; it is in His Son, the Lord Jesus. How shall we escape? How can we? If God is not going, after this, to do anything for man's salvation. He has finished it in Christ, and Christ is the last speech to man, it is all full and complete in Christ and there is no more to be done; if that is so, if we neglect, where is our chance? There is no chance after this life if once we have been brought face to face with the Lord Jesus here. The mercy to us is that He lets us stay here long enough to have Christ presented to us, even perhaps twice, thrice, a dozen times. But the time comes when Christ is no longer offered to us as Saviour. The end comes; God closes the door. There is no more salvation and we may be lost through a long eternity, having neglected the so great salvation.

We do not like turning to the dark side. We always like to dwell upon the bright side. Why should men be coerced, almost driven? Is not the presenting of the greatness of the Saviour enough? If it is not, it is a desperate thing that men and women should have to be argued with, pleaded with, constrained in the presence of so great a salvation. But there is the dark side: "Now is the day of salvation", says God's Word; and it is the day of the so great salvation. But it is a day, and every day closes. It is just possible to go beyond the time where it is possible to be saved. No one can decide when they can be saved. God has appointed a limit. God says, "Now". Salvation's day may close suddenly, but "now" the great salvation is presented.

Let us keep the greatness of the salvation always in view; the greatness of the Saviour; and let us not neglect, because of the greatness.

Chapter 5 - How Everything Becomes Inward

"God, having of old time spoken unto the fathers in the prophets... has at the end of these days spoken unto us in His Son" Heb. 1:1-2.

"And because ye are sons, God sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts" Gal. 4:6.

These two passages put together give us the light which we need in this connection. One says that God has at length fully and finally spoken in His Son. The other says that, being sons, the Spirit of His Son has been sent into our hearts. It is a well-known thing that in that clause in the second verse of Hebrews chapter 1 there is no article: "...has spoken unto us in Son". First of all let us get the tense. The more exact translation would be: God did speak. It is stronger, more definite than: "God has spoken." It is the final and full revelation which has come. The absence of the article gives the absolute sense to the Person. It is not merely what Jesus said, but what He is. It is not that God sent His Son and said certain things - however full those things may have been - through His Son as an extra One to all the prophets who had been sent. That is not the meaning here. It is what is meant by ''Son". The absence of the article has quite a definite significance. It is important to get that. It is a tone, a note, that the ear must catch, something for which you have to listen carefully. What is that? It sounds strange! We feel that we have immediately something more definite and can go away with it when we read: "Has spoken in His Son". But when you say, "has spoken 'in Son'", you have to stop, you cannot walk away with that immediately. That draws your attention not to a messenger, not to someone entrusted with a message to deliver; that immediately holds you to the Someone, and you find that it is the Someone who is the message, rather than has the message.

Christ is not entrusted with a message from God. Christ is God's Message, and God's Message in fulness and finality. The revelation is not the revelation of a doctrine, a system, a truth; it is "Son" revelation. Difficult as that may seem to the mind, and technical as it may sound, until we have really grasped that, we shall always be missing the mark, going astray, wandering round. Once we really do grasp what that means, we are anchored or at least we have our feet upon the way to the answer to every problem, the meeting of every need. "God... has... in Son"; what He is, and not just what He says.

Christ Himself is the sum total of all God's thoughts, God's desires and God's intentions. He does not come just to express God's thoughts in word, to make known God's desires, to tell of God's intention. He comes to personify and embody in His own very Being those thoughts, desires and intentions. He is those. When you see Him by the Holy Spirit you see God.

Those thoughts, desires and intentions are now embodied in a human form. Christ's mind was one with the Father's in the thoughts; Christ's heart was one with the Father's in the desires; Christ's will was one with the Father's in the intentions. But that now is represented in human form and that is subjected to testing on this earth, in this world. The action of all other contrary, antagonistic thoughts, desires, intentions is brought to bear upon that in human form: "Tempted in all points like as we", therefore tempted along the line of other thoughts than God's thoughts, along the line of other desires and feelings than God's, tempted along the line of other intentions. Tested, tried in human form, with a view to those thoughts, desires and intentions of God being established in humanity.

It is a fact, and one of the realities of life peculiarly real to the child of God, that no Divine thought, or desire, or purpose which comes to us becomes a part of us until we have been subjected to trial and testing along that line. The thing is not established in us because we have apprehended it, seen it, felt it, or committed ourselves to it. We know quite well that every bit of Divine revelation, in order to be established in a permanent form of life and power indestructibly, has to be subjected to the fires of trial. We have a way of saying that certain people have got the truth, the idea, but they have not yet gone through the fires with it; and therefore it still remains in a realm of unfruitfulness though it is there. We say that they have not gone down into death with it.

Now in the Lord Jesus, while there was a difference between Him and ourselves, the principle is clearly seen to hold good, that He in His humanity was bringing about an establishment in humanity, in human life, of all that which related to God, and He was doing it through testing. As to His moral nature there was, and is, no room for any question as to perfection. The perfection of His moral nature is settled absolutely. In Him was no sin. And yet the Word quite expressly declares that He was made perfect through suffering, and that He, though a Son, learned obedience by the things which He suffered. This shows that He was subjected to ordeals, to trials, which did not relate to His own perfect and sinless nature, but which related to the establishment of something of God in human life. Thus the Divine thoughts, desires and intentions were subjected to testing, to trial, in human life.

There had to be a battle fought over this whole ground, and on every point victory had to be won in human life for God, and only through victory was all this made perfect and established, and in the victory, full and final, this was taken to glory. What was taken to glory was the establishment in absolute victory of God's thoughts, desires and intentions in a human form of expression; that God should have one representative Man in whom the entire battle of God's mind, heart and will had been fought and won. In the Man, Christ Jesus, at the right hand of God, God has that Humanity perfected according to His own thought, desire and intention; therefore glorified.

The Holy Spirit Sent

The next step in the Divine course is the Holy Spirit being sent as the power and the virtue of all that, to introduce that sonship into believers. 'Sonship' as we know, is a word which carries with it fulness, finality - God's end reached - and that is why there is a special declaration connected with the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. It is in His resurrection that there is a specific proclamation made: "Thou art My Son, this day have I begotten thee." That statement is definitely connected in the Word with the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. We know it does not mean that only in His resurrection was He the Son of God. He was declared Son of God from the beginning in His birth, in His baptism, but here you have something which is a declaration of Sonship connected with resurrection. That represents and signifies that here in His representative capacity as Man, there has been brought to perfection in Him the Divine thoughts, desires and intentions; and the resurrection of the Lord Jesus is just the Divine seal upon the perfection of His Humanity. The Holy Spirit, therefore, comes - not before the resurrection but after, not before the ascension but after - as the power of that perfected Sonship in its fulness, its completeness; that Sonship which exists upon the ground of God's thoughts, desires and intentions having been brought to completeness and finality in Him. And the Holy Spirit comes as the power of that to introduce that - and not less than that sonship - into the believer: "God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts".

The Spirit of Sonship the Basis and Key to Everything

How different that is from the imitation of Christ (we do not mean for one moment to cast a shadow over Thomas à Kempis) at the same time it is a false idea to think or talk about imitating Christ until you have recognised and come to know that there is no hope or possibility whatever of ever becoming Christ-like until the Spirit of God's Son is established in the heart.

This represents an entirely different system of Christianity from what has become most generally accepted in the Christian era. It is here that Satan has undercut the whole of God's purpose. It is impossible to be a Christian - if the New Testament is to be the revelation of what a Christian is - apart from that definite act of birth from above in which the Lord Jesus in the Person of the Holy Spirit takes up residence within the life. To talk about being a Christian without regeneration is nonsense; it is talking about a thing which does not exist. To fail to recognise the supreme importance of a Divine act by which the Holy Spirit from heaven comes and enters into the life is to fail to recognise the meaning of what a Christian is. There are all kinds of substitutes for this, which go by its name, but they are all substitutes.

There is a fairly general pagan conception of God related to the human spirit, and the human spirit related to God in the whole race. Upon that a whole structure of religion has been built, but it is false. It is not according to the Word of God.

Then there is the mystical system, which makes everything of the Divine spark, with something of God in everyone which has only to be cultured, cared for, cherished, brought into a right atmosphere and environment, and have gathered around it religious and artistic influences and all that, and there will be development so that finally it will emerge into God-likeness. Again, it is false! It is a substitute, and it is a lie!

There is also what we may call the ritualistic substitute, which sees in sacraments and the partaking of sacraments that which represents God, and you imbibe God through the sacraments, and in the sacraments there is a fellowship with God, a partaking of God. Again, it is a lie! It does not work out.

None of these things work out to the realisation of God's thought, God's intention. When you look over the world you find that the three things mentioned (and there are others) represent the position of perhaps nine-tenths, and more than that, of the people of this world. So Satan has blinded, misled, deceived, robbed and undercut the truth.

It is in this definite, precise act, only upon the ground of what Christ is in glory, and what He is in glory through His suffering and death, the Holy Spirit definitely taking up residence in the life, that there is any possibility whatever of being what the New Testament calls a Christian, and coming to God's end.

We said, then, that the basis and key to everything is the Spirit of Sonship in us. That makes everything inward, as differing from the objective. There is all the difference between an imitation and a conception. One is outwardly presented, the other is inwardly born.

The Spirit of Sonship Must Teach Christ Within

There is no revelation that is extra to, or apart from Christ. We have in mind things which are thought to be specific revelations, and which perhaps sometimes we have spoken of as specific revelations, but which in reality are not separate revelations. We mean the revelation of the church, for instance. We have spoken about Paul having a special revelation of the church. There is a sense in which that is not true, that what Paul had as a special revelation was a special revelation of Christ. If we think of such matters as what is called "the church" or any other thing, as a revelation in itself, we are in grave danger of becoming occupied with a thing. We must recognise that what Paul saw by special revelation was the church as the Body of Christ, and he spoke always of the church as Christ; that is, Christ expressed, manifested, revealed in a corporate form; not losing His own identity, but expressing Himself in a corporate vessel. So that that vessel, in the full revelation, is seen to be the embodiment of that which Christ is. There is no difference between what Christ is, and what that is when God reaches His end; though different in Person, not different in nature and content: conformed to His image. Christ is said to be the express image of the Father's Person. The church is to be the express image of Christ's Person. Do you want to know what the church is? Do not ask the Lord to reveal to you church truth; ask Him to reveal Christ to you.

You come to the tabernacle in the wilderness, and the temple, and you see here you have a representation of the church. Ah! But more truly you have a representation of Christ. In what way? Christ as a wonderful, comprehensive order; if you like, a heavenly system; everything so precisely appointed, so Divinely governed. That is Christ, but Christ in a collective way. What is it that your heart desires? What is it that you seek? You will find the answer in a fresh unveiling of the Lord Jesus, no matter what it is, on any detail, you will find it in Him. Now the Holy Spirit's work is not to reveal to us things, truths, but to reveal Christ, and Christ in relation to all the matters that have any place whatever in our relationship to God. It is the Spirit of His Son. What is the church? It is His body. What is His body? It is a whole set of members, functions, faculties energised and governed by His life. It is Christ.

The difficulty arises there in explaining, defining, making clear; and all that we are able to say beyond that point is that we have to recognise the fact, and seek to have the expression of the fact that in every direction and connection, both in life and in service, there has got to be some expression of Christ, some coming out of Christ. Even in business affairs there has to be some coming out of Christ to meet that position. It is not: "Lord, give me the judgement, the counsel!" It is: "Just show me where Christ touches that, and how Christ meets that, what it is that is Christ that fits in there." That is the effect of it. You will find, if you have not already done so, that as you go on with the Lord, and your life becomes more and more under the immediate (when we say 'immediate' we mean the instantly and growingly conscious, and not the altogether unconscious and indirect) government of the Holy Spirit, that the Holy Spirit is always seeking to lead you to Christ, to a fresh discovery of Him. He will check your ideas, your thoughts about things, such as Christian truths, doctrines, systems, orders and methods, and so on; and He will be emphasising Christ all the time. He will be seeking to show that there is a way in which Christ just fits into that situation, meets that need; that Christ is a comprehensive business system, if you like. In matters of business there is that in Christ which most wonderfully fits into that situation, to solve that problem. It is as though God had gone over the ground to the last detail, and left nothing out of consideration. Most comprehensively He had summed up every situation, every requirement of a life to be lived according to His mind, and had met everything, to the smallest detail in His Son. He then had sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts to show us how Christ fits in all the way along, and meets the need. So that we are learning Christ. Paul said: "Ye did not so learn Christ", meaning that there was a learning of Christ.

We can afford to drop all our terrible, strenuous mental activities in relation to truth. We can let go of our efforts of mind to get through to light, and we can and must recognise that Christ is the all and in all for everything, and that, if the Holy Spirit gives us a fresh illumination of Christ, we shall find that He just fits in there and answers that need, whatever it may be. There is something of Christ to meet that.

We have often thought that if we had such a comprehensive, and such a detailed, microscopic grasp of the Bible, and that it were always present in every fragment to our conscious minds, there is not a situation into which we are capable of entering but what we should find in the Bible that just touched that, some fragment that fitted in there. I knew a man once who was able to quote Scripture for everything that he did. I am not saying that he was always right, but whenever he wanted to do a thing he could quote Scripture for what he did. He had formed the habit of quoting the Scripture first before he went to do a thing. The point is this, that if we knew where it was, and where to find it, there is something in the Word of God, though it be but a fragment, which would relate to and govern any kind of experience into which we could possibly come in our human life.

Of course, we have found again and again the Lord has given us an extraordinarily fitting word for a certain situation. And I believe it is possible for that to be true in anything and everything in our lives.

That is an illustration, that God in Christ has... (may I use something that is hardly in keeping in this realm?) boxed the compass of human need in relation to Himself, and that there is not a point in our lives but that Christ is able, in something that is in Him, to meet just that. Perhaps that hardly needs labouring, but the point is this, that the Spirit of Sonship is in us to teach us Christ in relation to everything in life and in service. It is the basis and key to everything. It is making everything inward.

We are required to let the Word of God dwell in us richly; that is required by the Holy Spirit as His material. The Word is that by which the Holy Spirit reveals and makes Christ known to us. We are required to have a life in continual prayer fellowship with the Lord. Christ will not be made known to us otherwise. When given those things, and a life of obedience to the light which has been given us, the Holy Spirit can illumine Christ to our hearts so that we have all things in Him.

The point of special value is that it is something which is going on inside, and because it is going on inside it means that Christ is related to us at the very centre of our being, and that we are, therefore, in the innermost, deepest reality of our being, one with Christ, joined to the Lord one spirit. That means that we are that in fact, and becoming that, rather than just seeing that and doing it as something presented. It is something which represents the development of our inner being according to Christ. What has happened is this, that, although we do not yet recognise it and enjoy it, it is not the Spirit of the Child Jesus in us, it is the Spirit of God's Son. We mean by that, that it is not the undeveloped, immature Christ in us, but Christ perfected. We are not enjoying it, we are not recognising it, but the fact is that Christ in us is final. We have everything when we have Christ by the Holy Spirit. There is nothing to be added to Christ. Christ is full and complete, and our course is to learn that.

Receiving the Holy Spirit we Receive Christ in Finality, Utterness, Fulness

That is a wonderful thing to contemplate. It is not that we have received a partial Christ, an imperfect Christ; it is now that we have to learn how great and full is the Christ we have received. The glory of a true spiritual life, led by the Holy Spirit, is the glory of discovering daily what a wonderful Christ you have, far more wonderful than you knew. But that should not be something extraordinary; that is how it should be. You have received that, but you never knew the value of what you received until the Holy Spirit, who alone knows the value, reveals that to you.

You might have a jewel given to you, and you might be told that it is a very precious jewel, but you have no knowledge of jewels and you do not know the value of jewels, and so you take other people's word for it. While you can see certain things about it that make it witness to your consciousness that it is precious, you do not understand its full value. But then a man who has the most comprehensive knowledge of jewels comes along and looks at it and says: "Let me tell you something about this". And then he begins to tell you something about that, and you see there is something you never knew before. Then he comes back tomorrow and tells you something more, and the next day. That man is never tired of telling you of the new wonders that are in this jewel, and all the time your wonder is growing. You say: "I have had that all the time; all this that this man has been telling me day after day for months, perhaps for years. I had it all at the beginning; he has not added anything to the intrinsic value of that jewel by what he has told me; he has only made me know what is there." That is what the Holy Spirit is doing with Christ. We have all that from God when we have Christ, and the Holy Spirit has come to show us the things of Christ. He is giving us Christ from every angle, in ever-deepening depths. It should be like that. That is inward. The people who live on that basis at least are living upon a very different level from those who simply live upon a religious external system. Oh, that we might live there more!

Let us drop our quest to know about truths as truths, and let us concentrate entirely upon this: knowing Him. All that Paul ever knew about the church, the body, or anything else came to him by the unveiling of Jesus Christ; not the thing, but Christ.

This gets to the root of things, and today there is so much lacking lustre and glory because of occupation with doctrines, truths, interpretations, traditions - things that have been handed down in some crystallised form and so on, instead of the abiding occupation with Christ. One is death; the other is life. It is not what such-and-such a great man did fifty, a hundred, two hundred years ago, and because of what he did there were certain eventualities which took a certain form, and we believe that he was right, and we adhere to that. Because of what he taught we believe it to be right, and we follow his teachings. Why? It may have been quite right, but I cannot inherit anything from that man; that thing must become as a living revelation in my heart as ever it was to that man, before I can enter into it. I cannot follow that simply because it is something heard. I cannot even take the New Testament and conform my life to the New Testament, because there is such a thing as the New Testament. Believing as I do that it is God's Word, it still remains a Book until the Holy Spirit comes and reproduces that in me. Much as I believe that is right, and God's will, what can I do? I can do nothing until there is an inward something, and that is that the Christ that is in that Book comes into me, and the two become one. That is the key to everything. Once that happens the Book lives. Why does the Book live? I do not mean the fascination, that it becomes a realm of fascinating study. I mean this thing lives in the sense that it becomes power, strength, peace, rest, satisfaction in the heart. How is that? Only because the same Spirit who wrote that Book is in me interpreting, revealing.

These are very simple things, and we have used a great many words just to emphasise one central thing: "God... has at the end of these days spoken unto us in Son", and Son is the essence of everything. Now, because we are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son, the essence of everything, into our hearts. (If that word 'essence' offends you, please recognise in what sense it is used.) Christ in our hearts is the sum total of everything in the mind, heart and will of God, in us by the Holy Spirit, and now we have to learn Christ. We shall not go wrong in our lives if that is the basis upon which we are living.

Chapter 6 - Sonship

The way in which everything becomes inward is that God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts. Now: "As many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God." That is the Spirit of Sonship dwelling within our hearts. It is how it works out, and there is a good deal more involved in sonship after that kind than appears on the surface. It says quite clearly that relationship to the Lord (for sonship is a relationship) is firstly inward, right at the centre of our being, and then it is a matter of having our entire lives governed by what is inward. To be led by the Spirit does not merely relate, and is not merely confined, to crises in our lives and special occasions when we need leading. It is to have our entire lives under the government of the Holy Spirit from the inside.

The Lord, in speaking about the day of the Holy Spirit's coming, said: "He shall guide you (or lead you) into all the truth." That is not just spasmodic, something which is occasional; that is continuous, that is the unbroken course of the life of the child of God. The Lord has not arranged our lives so that according to a Divine timetable or programme the Holy Spirit will lead us into this truth at one period and into that truth at another period, and into a further truth at another period still. Our coming into the fulness of truth, the full revelation of Christ, is not a matter of Divine arrangement as to time, it is a matter of our obedience to what has already been revealed; that we progress in the revelation according to our spirit response to what we have. Some people enter into a fulness of truth much more quickly than others. They get a large measure of revelation while others are going on with but a fragment for years, and their entering in is much belated. That is not because God appointed in the one case the earlier entering in, and in the other case a later entering in. That is not the Lord's way. That has to do with the spirit of the individual concerned, as to how much that one is walking in the Spirit. So that everything in coming into the fulness of Divine thought and desire is bound up with the continuous, and not just the periodic or spasmodic, leading of the Spirit. This being led of the Spirit, then, is not something which relates to particular points, times, crises, emergencies in our lives, but it is having our life continuously under the government of the Holy Spirit from the inside.

That is where the emphasis must be placed. The Holy Spirit would govern us, if we would let Him, from the inside and slowness in progress in the way of the Lord is simply because we will so long be governed from the outside. People who are governed from the outside in their spiritual lives do not develop very quickly. Their maturity is much delayed. They very rarely reach a depth and a height of spiritual life which is more than a very elementary thing. It is the people who walk inwardly in the Spirit who come swiftly to maturity, and enter into the greater fulnesses of the Lord. So then, let us repeat, the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of Sonship is in our hearts, and therefore from the centre of our being, and not from the circumference, He would govern our lives.

Sooner or later, if progress is to be made, we are brought back there. If we are not to remain to the end in an elementary state, an infant condition, the Lord, true and faithful to His own laws, will bring us back there.

Let us illustrate. You may have two kinds of call in relation to the Lord. We take for our purpose now the call to service. The call to service in relation to the Lord (we are not saying that it is the true call, but it is a call) may come to us from the outside. We may get it by the impact of an appeal, by the strong force of a presentation of need, by the powerful urge of a situation which demands our service, by an outward application to our hearts of the whole question of service, either in general or in particular. Multitudes have had a call come to them in that way, and have responded, and they have gone out in the strength of that. Now, one of two things has happened with all such people where that only has been the nature of the call. Either they have gone on to the end of their lives in a system of Christian work, which is very largely external, and have spent their lives in that realm of work and activities and an arranged programme. Or else in the course of time they have come up against a situation which raises the big question for them as to whether they really had been called of God, and then they are turned into the vortex of a great enquiry. Things have so operated, so come about, as to precipitate for them the most serious of all questions. Was that the call of God? Was I really called? Or was it the presentation of a need, a situation, an appeal made, and under the stress of the atmosphere I, in my emotions and my enthusiasms, responded? Multitudes have come that way, and they have reconsidered the whole position and opened the door to an enquiry before the Lord as to whether He had really called, or whether they were in something that was not His call. It is a very serious position.

One of those two things happens. In the case of someone who is really a child of God, and is seeking from their heart to be wholly the Lord's, and wholly under the Lord's government, sooner or later that question will arise, if their lives have been governed in their movements by something outside. That is the infinite peril of an external appeal.

Now, we are not saying that God never can, and never does, call through those means, but we are saying that there has got to be something more, and there has got to be a call or the call heard in the realm where the natural ear ceases to function and all natural emotions and sensations cease to control. Away back, where nature ends, the call of God has got to begin. The call has to be heard in the spirit if we are children of God. Sooner or later that will have to be. How much better that it should be so at the beginning. The call is heard in the spirit by the child of God. Until it is so there will be weakness. There will be weakness after this kind, that there is all the room for the setting up of the biggest questionings and doubtings possible in our lives. It only requires circumstances and certain experiences to throw up the whole of the ultimate question as to whether we are where we are because God has put us there, or because of a response to something which was presented. That is a tremendous question.

You see the importance of government from the interior. Our thought all the way through has been that of fruitfulness. The measure of fruitfulness will be proportionate to the inwardness of the government, or what Paul calls being "led by the spirit". Being led by the Spirit determines the fruitfulness of the life, more or less. Action may be the result of inner hearing, and if through the voice of man as God's messenger God's voice is heard, another Voice more than man's voice, which does not register itself merely upon our reason and convince it by an argument upon our emotions and stir them by a pathos upon our wills and capture them by a drive, but registers itself upon our spirits, so that we know - deeper than emotion, deeper than argument, deeper than the impact of human personality - God has spoken. Action which is going to be a hundredfold fruitful must be upon that basis.

This determines the measure of Christ, and therefore it determines the method of fruitfulness, for nothing will be fruitful but what is Christ. Christ is the source and the stream of fruitfulness. It is only what is Christ that will be fruitful, nothing else can be fruitful. The measure of Christ is the measure of that which is the result of the Spirit's operation and activity in our spirit.

This makes some very serious distinctions. These are revolutionary things, and we may as well face them. We are really getting behind a lot of history and explaining it, a lot of tragic history on the one hand, and it makes some of these distinctions which are not pleasant to make, and certainly very difficult to face.

It makes a big distinction between a whole range and realm, and an immense amount of work for the Lord which is not essentially the work of the Lord, and therefore only gets just so far, and attains to just that measure of fruitfulness, if any. This spiritual truth is illustrated for us in the Word of God quite a good deal.

Take up the spiritual principle of sonship, and trace it, and see what a distinction it always draws and what a contrast it always makes. Take Abraham, who represents and expresses the true spirit of sonship; that is, an inner relationship to the Lord. Abraham's relationship to the Lord was inward, so much so that not only was he unique, differing from all the others, but no one else understood him.

Here is Abraham, then, who, because of the inwardness of his relationship to the Lord, expresses the true spirit and principle of sonship. Alongside of Abraham there is another: Lot. While these two are walking side by side, they are two, they are not one; and there is an immense difference. The difference is this, that Lot is simply going with Abraham because Abraham goes that way; he is not going that way because God is leading him that way. It is not that God is not able to lead Lot from the inside, but Abraham is going that way, and Lot accompanies him; he is adhering to something else which has the Lord in it, but he is not that something else.

You can have association with something which is of God, and work from the outside, but how far do you get? Just about as far as Lot did! He was full of contradictions in the long run, not really possessing the heavenly vision at all, but simply going that way because he recognised that here was something which was of God, and he joined himself to it. But he had not got the inwardness of that himself.

Take another illustration, that of Joseph and his brethren. Joseph is not the eldest son, Joseph is one among his brethren, but he is distinguished from them, and that which distinguishes him is a purely spiritual thing. It is that spiritual thing which makes him different. It is the inwardness of relationship to the Lord, it is the directness of his relationship to the Lord. All his brethren worshipped the same God, were of the same stock religiously, but this man had not an historic, traditional, inherited relationship, but a vital relationship with God. That is what he represents, and he, therefore, had the inward revelations of God. When the writer of the letter to the Hebrews says: "God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spoke unto the fathers in the prophets" the divers manners will embrace dreams and visions and a good many other ways of God speaking. God spoke to Joseph in dreams. There was the inwardness of his relationship to God represented which was direct, not merely inherited, handed down to him. What is the thing that makes that difference? It is this, that the natural order is altogether set aside. Joseph comes to the place in relation to God above all his brethren, the place in union with the heavens, governed under the hand of God. And Joseph is a man to reckon with in the Bible. His name represents something in the Scriptures. Joseph is one of the sublime types of the Lord Jesus throughout his life. How is he a type? On what principle is he a type? Not merely because of the outward incidents of his life, which are typical incidents, but because of the central principle: sonship. Sonship is that which directly relates us with God inwardly, and has nothing whatever to do with the natural order, but rather sets it aside, ignores it. If the natural order had been followed, then the eldest son of the family would have occupied the place that Joseph occupied.

The same truth holds good in the case of David. All the sons of Jesse are made to pass before Samuel the prophet, and they are all rejected of the Lord. Then David is found, not considered along the line of nature, not taken into account, but God said of David: "I have found David, a man after My own heart, who will do all My pleasure." David is always a representation of the spirit of sonship, "The son of Jesse". Sonship, you see, is a term linked with David. What was it that made the distinction between David and his brethren? It was that inner relationship to God, and there again the same thing holds good as in the case of Joseph. The natural order is set aside; it has nothing to do with that. Nature has to retire; it must not govern here. We see what the natural order was. When David went to carry greetings from his father and bread for his brethren, we see the spirit of the natural man, what nature is, what nature's judgements and capacities are. God has simply ruled nature out in this matter, and says nature never enters here or puts a hand upon this matter, nature must stand back; this is something other.

The same thing follows on with Solomon, and it is most obvious that Solomon is always a type or a representation of sonship: "He shall be My son and I will be his Father", God said about Solomon. The two things obtain again. Firstly it is a matter of specific relationship to the Lord that is represented by Solomon, not because of what Solomon was, but in the sovereignty of God. And then again the setting aside of the natural order. David had many sons, and Solomon was not in the natural order the heir, but he ascended the throne.

Are we seeing that all this says that something external as governing life may just, after all, only represent what is natural and not what is spiritual? And therefore, before we can truly hear the Voice, before we can trulyhave our lives governed inwardly by the Lord, all natural arguments, all natural orders, have got to stand back; everything that is external as represented by what is natural has got to be set aside. Because it is done, because it is the accepted thing, because it is the recognised thing, because it is the established thing, because it has been for so long the way, does not mean that we are to capitulate to it and be governed by it. Not at all! It is, after all, what God says in our hearts by His Spirit. "These are the sons of God, even they that are led by the Spirit of God." The fact that a thing has been used of God and blessed of God, perhaps for many years and even for centuries, does not constitute that thing automatically the governing thing of our lives.

That is where Saul of Tarsus made his greatest mistake. Israel, Judaism, raised up by God, used and honoured of God, blessed of God, that with which God had associated Himself, therefore it must be right and we must abandon ourselves to it! No! That is no argument. There comes a time when even that which God raised up, used and associated Himself with, ceases to be the thing in which God is.

This great distinction involves some of the big questions in our lives. It raises the whole question of:

Spiritual Leadership.

Not leadership in an enterprise, not leadership in a great organised movement, but spiritual leadership; that leadership by which others are brought into the living fulnesses of Christ, and into the living activities of God. What is leadership according to God? It is just that which issues from our walking with God Himself, and not being governed in the first instance by anything merely external. Are you prepared to go on with God, and all that that involves? If you are, you will become, in the very course and order of things, a spiritual leader. Leadership is a matter of spiritual responsibility, and who can take spiritual responsibility who has no deep life in God, knowing the Lord within?

A Price to be Paid

Spiritual leadership, constituted by walking with God and not with men, and not with orders or systems, inevitably involves loneliness. It did with Abraham; it did with Joseph; it did with David; above all, it did with Christ. The natural mind can never go that way, can never grasp things, can never see things. The measure in which the natural mind is there, is the measure in which it is impossible to have fellowship with that which is walking wholly in the Spirit. Therefore, this leadership means intense loneliness. The very loneliness often becomes the ground of the enemy's activities, "You are alone; no one else sees as you do! See how few there are who can go with you, who agree with you!" Thus the enemy argues.

There are dangers surrounding what we are saying. You can be cranky and be alone; you can be fanatical and be alone. It is not crankiness or fanaticism that we are talking about. It is a true walk with God, knowing the Lord. It is not that inclination to separateness, the freelance line of things, and a lack of the fellowship spirit. That is not what we are talking about. All those things can bring about a loneliness, and people can make martyrs of themselves by bringing that kind of isolation upon themselves for those reasons, but we are not referring to that. But even when your whole heart may be moving out for fellowship - it may be your greatest desire, and you may be working for it and laying yourself open for it - even while you may be shunning everything that is extreme as an emphasis and seeking to keep the balance of things (not by compromise but by maintaining all sides in even emphasis) you may find yourself desperately alone.

No man had a greater genius for friendship and fellowship than did the apostle Paul. No man had a greater universality of ministry and message than he. No man laboured to maintain relationships as he did, and no man was more lonely in this New Testament age than Paul: "At my first defence no man stood with me"; "All they in Asia turned away from me." Why? They could not agree with him. They could not see what he saw. Peter could not see all he saw, though Peter saw some of it. John could not see it all. But Paul saw, and he had to go on alone. What about the value of Paul? What about the fruitfulness? Has anyone approached him in the measure of fruitfulness? Has anyone left a deeper impress upon the history of the things of God than Paul? I am sure we agree that Paul stands alone in more ways than one. If Paul stands alone, so that others are unable to go on with him, he also stands alone in the measure of abiding fruitfulness in this age.

We cannot all be Pauls. We are not suggesting that we are all called to be Pauls, but the laws hold good, the truths abide, that the measure of fruitfulness is the measure in which we go on with the Lord, and are prepared to pay the price of not going on with nature in the sense of what is external, even religiously so.

That is sonship. It is the Spirit of God's Son. It is the way He went. The Spirit of God's Son in us will lead us the same way. It is just a question of utter capitulation to the Spirit within in a full and complete willingness to pay the price. Upon that rests the measure of fruitfulness. The Lord interpret these things to us.