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Spiritual Ministry

by T. Austin-Sparks

From "A Witness and A Testimony" magazines, 1937-1938.

Contents

Chapter 1 - The Nature of Spiritual Ministry

Chapter 2 - Christ the Light of the New Creation

Chapter 3 - Christ the Glory of the New Covenant

Chapter 4 - The Ministration of Condemnation and the Ministration of Righteousness

Chapter 5 - Christ the Power for the New Warfare

Chapter 1 - The Nature of Spiritual Ministry

Reading: 2 Cor. 1.

The Second Letter to the Corinthians is very largely gathered up into the words at the beginning of chapter 4:

"Therefore seeing we have this ministry..."

As you know, this letter is occupied with the personal manifestation of Christ as being the nature of true ministry. It shows that ministry is really that which is born of personal experience, and not just the impartation of static truth. In a new way this was realised by the Apostle because of a combination of elements which had brought him afresh to an end of himself. As you read these chapters you see that there are, so to speak, parallel columns. On the one side there are the sufferings, and on the other side the fruits of the sufferings.

It is worth our while to take note of these for a moment. Beginning with chapter 1 and taking the suffering side alone we have:

Verse 4: "all our affliction".

Verse 5: "the sufferings of Christ abound unto us".

Verse 6: "we be afflicted".

Verse 8: "our affliction which befell us in Asia", "weighed down exceedingly beyond our power". "We despaired even of life" (the word "despaired" means literally "there seemed to be no way out").

Verse 9: "we had the answer of death within ourselves".

Verse 10: "so great a death".

Chapter 2 verse 4: "much affliction and anguish of heart".

Verse 13: "I had no relief for my spirit" (lit. no easing of).

Chapter 4 verse 7: "vessels of fragile clay".

Then there are all these other statements and words that are so full of meaning: "pressed on every side... perplexed... pursued... smitten down... always bearing about in the body the dying of Jesus"; "We which live are alway delivered unto death for Jesus' sake"; "Our outward man is perishing"; "We that are in this tabernacle do groan being burdened". That is all a list of the sufferings.

Now we turn to the other side, to the fruit of the sufferings:

Chapter 1 verse 4: "Who comforteth us... that we may be able to comfort them which are in any affliction".

Verse 5: "So our comfort also abounded through Christ".

Verse 6: "we be comforted for your comfort".

Verse 9: "that we should trust in God Who raiseth the dead". "Who delivered us out of so great a death".

Chapter 4 verse 7: "the exceeding greatness of the power of God and not of ourselves" (over against "the vessel of fragile clay").

Verse 10: "the life of Jesus manifested in our body".

Verse 16: "our inward man is renewed day by day".

Verse 17: "a more exceeding and eternal weight of glory".

So you have the parallel, the balance, the compensations for the sufferings. That all lies behind "this ministry", and shows what the nature of ministry is. It reinforces the statement made above that ministry is not an impartation of static truth. Ministry is that which is born out of experience.

We are occupied with the matter of ministry, both personal and corporate ministry; for what is true of the individual who is called to this ministry is true of any company of the Lord's people as a collective vessel. Their ministry is the result of personal experience, and the nature of the ministry is the personal manifestation of Christ as born out of personal experience, and that mainly known in suffering.

The Path of True Ministry as Seen in Paul

How close Paul's experience was kept to his teaching! Take the first letter to the Corinthians as a letter of teaching, and then mark how the Apostle was made to base experience on the teaching contained in that letter. For instance, in chapter 13 Paul has spoken of the transcendence, power and victory of Divine love. That chapter is a matchless unfolding of Divine love, and Paul sums it all up in one ultimate statement, "Love never faileth", meaning that love always goes through, comes out triumphant, never falls out on the way. Now read through the second letter and mark how great a demand for this very thing arises in Paul's own life. There are many references to the opposition, the antagonism, the hostility, the hatred of professing Christians in Corinth toward the Apostle. Indeed the letter opens with a reference to what had taken place there. One man at Corinth had taken up an attitude of open and bitter hostility to the Apostle, and the Church there had not taken sides with the Apostle in behalf of the truth. Paul wrote a letter which shamed them, and eventually they held a meeting and by a majority vote decided to discipline this man. That is what caused Paul to write as he did at the opening of this letter. To them he says: If you have forgiven him, so have I in the presence of Christ. Be kind to him, lest he be broken by overmuch sorrow. They had disciplined him, but the whole assembly seems to have been affected by this man at the outset, and many references are made to the things which are said at Corinth against the Apostle. It was said of him that he was a Yea and Nay man. Some of us could enter into Paul's side of that, and perhaps some could enter into the experience of the Corinthians, if we stand on the same ground. Paul had said he was coming to them, and the Lord had not allowed him to go. He had said again that he was coming, and again he had been prevented. Thus it began to be said, Oh, this man says a thing and never does it; he makes a promise and never keeps it! You never can be sure that he will carry out his word. That is what is said when you stand on natural ground. But take your position at the side of Paul. He purposed in the Lord to do something, and found at the last moment that the Lord did not allow him to carry it out, so he became exposed to much criticism. If people have a prejudice against you, or are open to be disaffected, they will pounce upon something like that and use it against you.

A great many other things were there; the letter is a great unveiling of hostility, dislike, prejudice, but, oh, what a letter of love's triumph this second letter is! Love has gone through that, been tested by that; his love for them has been put into the fires of their antagonism and criticism and prejudice, but it is triumphant. It is all very well to write the thirteenth chapter of the first letter, and say, "Love never faileth"; it is quite another thing to go through that test of love in a measure like this and to come out triumphant. Paul's ministry had to be kept abreast of his teaching. "This ministry" is not a statement of glorious truths as words; "this ministry" is a manifestation of Christ that is born out of suffering.

Or again, take chapter 15 of the first letter, that great chapter on death and resurrection. The whole of that long chapter is summed up in one glorious phrase and declaration: "O death, where is thy sting; O grave where is thy victory?" "Death is swallowed up victoriously". That is the declaration. Now with all the zeal and enthusiasm that springs from the consciousness of the truth being the truth, you can proclaim statements like that. The contemplation of a great fact can draw out a very emphatic statement. But wait a moment: come away to Ephesus, and see what Paul has to meet there; mark all this that comes upon him from Corinth, this great anguish of heart, and let us hear what Paul will say after that. "We had the sentence of death in ourselves..." Death is swallowed up victoriously, Paul! "We despaired of life". But, Paul, you said death is swallowed up victoriously! We despaired of life, it seemed there was no way out, we were pressed beyond measure. This is the same man talking, the man who has proclaimed death and the grave to be vanquished. We were pressed beyond our measure, we had the answer of death in ourselves. Ah, but it did not end there; for the Apostle goes on to add, "that we should not trust in ourselves, but upon God who raiseth the dead". Paul, in other words, is but saying here: We proclaimed death as swallowed up victoriously, and then we were plunged into it, and death almost swallowed us up, but what we said has proved true. "God, who raiseth the dead"! He delivered, He doth deliver, we have set our hope on Him that He will yet deliver from so great a death.

Do you see how Paul's experience was kept in touch with his teaching? It is one thing to make statements; it is another thing to go through the experience, to have those statements proved to be true. That is what Paul means by "this ministry".

This ought to be a tremendous comfort to us, and also an explanation and illumination. We should not feel depressed about it. If the ministry of which Paul speaks here is the ministry to which you and I, and the rest of the Lord's people are called, individually and collectively, this is the way of such ministry. There is no royal road to the ministry. The ministry is not a professional thing, not a matter of a set, a class. Ministry is born out of that anguish and suffering in which Christ is known as He can be known in no other way.

At the beginning of his first letter to the Corinthians Paul said that God chose the weak things of this world. It is as though the Lord says: Well, Paul said that you must prove it by experience; and out from so great a death, with new meaning, the Apostle says, "We have this treasure in a vessel of fragile clay". But that consciousness of weakness, that conception of the vessel, is a new conception, a new consciousness, since the time that Paul made the statement in his first letter.

We have said enough to show that true ministry springs from the discovery of Christ in deep places. This ministry, which is the manifestation of Christ, the manysidedness of Christ, the deep secrets of Christ, the wonders and the glories of Christ, the manifestation of Christ, is born of a necessary experience in which Christ, and Christ only, is sufficient. So you see that in all this, and much more, the outcome is an enlarged apprehension of God in Christ, to be manifested by Him in all believers.

Christ the Power and Wisdom of God in the Believer

We have then in this second letter some wonderful intimations and clues as to Christ the expression of God in the believer, so far as Divine intention is concerned. I say, intimations and clues. There we have to start upon a new phase of things, but if we go on into the letter we shall see that we have a whole series of intimations, and with some of these we may be occupied later.

"It is God, that said, Light shall shine out of darkness (that is an intimation, a clue), who shined into our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ". Then Christ is the light of God for a new creation.

Here is another clue, and another intimation. When Moses read the law he put a veil upon his face because of the glory with which it shone, albeit it was a glory which was passing; the people could not bear to look upon him. There is a surpassing glory in the face of Jesus Christ, and when we turn to Him there is no veil, the veil is taken away. This is an intimation that Christ is the glory of a new covenant.

"We have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the exceeding greatness of the power should be of God and not of ourselves". This, again is an intimation and a clue. There is little doubt that, in writing of believers in these terms, Paul had in mind Gideon's mighty army, reduced to three hundred, lest Israel should vaunt themselves: that the power should be of God and not of them. What is the treasure? "The light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ... in our hearts". What were the vessels in the hands of Gideon's three hundred? Earthen pitchers and a torch within! They were means of a mighty conquest. Weakness over against all the power of the enemy! What a power it was. The Holy Spirit does not hesitate to give us the measure of the power of the Midianites, and the Amalekites, and all the children of the East. They were like the sand of the sea. Three hundred men triumphed by treasures in earthen vessels. It is the intimation that Christ is the energy of a new kind of conquest over all the power of the enemy. The second letter to the Corinthians is strewn with clues, suggestions, intimations as to what Christ is.

We go thus far in order to bear out what we have just said, that for this ministry in greater power, in greater fulness, Paul had discovered God in Christ in a new way through suffering. All this suffering issued in a new apprehension of God in Christ as the power, and glory, and fulness of ministry. That is ministry. If we aspire to ministry, that is Holy Ghost ministry. It is something more than standing up to preach, and to give addresses, to produce that which has occupied us in the study. This kind of ministry is the personal manifestation of Christ, resulting from an apprehension of Him in deep and dark places. If we aspire to true ministry the Holy Spirit will see to it that by experience we are kept abreast of everything we say. The truth will become a thing inwrought and wrought out.

Thus in this letter the Apostle says, "We believe, therefore we speak". It is but another way of saying, We know, therefore we testify. "Having obtained mercy we faint not..." It is a ministry which, but for the mercy of God, would kill us. Having this ministry, and having obtained mercy, we faint not. The two things go together. It is no small thing to be really in the ministry. It is a costly thing, but then there is the mercy of God, and because of the mercy of God we faint not. And that is another clue, for Gideon's army, the Word says, pursued... "Faint, yet pursuing". Having obtained mercy we faint not.

Is it necessary to say again that this has not to do with a class of people called ministers? We are all called to this ministry. It is not merely preaching, it is a personal manifestation of Christ. To that we are all called.

May the Lord strengthen us unto our ministry.

Chapter 2 - Christ the Light of the New Creation

For it is the God who commanded light to shine out of darkness, who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. 2 Cor. 4:6.

It is plainly intimated in this passage that Christ is the light of a new creation. The thought of the two creations, the old and the new, is not strange to this letter. We know in chapter 5 verse 17 the Apostle speaks of the new creation quite definitely. Accurately translated the words are these: "Wherefore if any man be in Christ, there is a new creation..."  Here in this passage in chapter 4 there is a connection with the old creation: "God... said, Light shall shine out of darkness". That is the form given here to the more familiar words of Genesis 1:3: "God said, Let there be light, and there was light". It is a reference to the old creation. Now we take up the clue and follow it out to its enlargement, until we are brought by it to the Lord Jesus.

The Ministry of Light

As we look back to the first creation we see quite clearly that the first feature of the old creation was light. When we come to the new creation the same thing is true; the first feature of the new creation is light. But there is an extra element inferred here by Paul; that is, the light is unto the knowledge of the glory of God. It is one thing to say that light is the first feature of the creation: that is but a statement of a fact. But the question arises, For what? Why? Unto what? Paul says that it was for the knowledge of the glory of God. The intention of the light, the purpose of the light, was unto the knowledge of the glory of God. That end, the knowledge of the glory of God, governed the Divine fiat at the beginning. When God said, Let light be! He said it with the intention that there should be a knowledge of the glory of God.

That is carried over by the Spirit to the new creation, as is stated here through the Apostle, that God Who said, Let light be! or, Light shall shine out of darkness, "hath shined into our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God..." God has shined to give illumination of the knowledge of the glory of God. The vehicle of that is the face of Jesus Christ, which is only a symbolic term for the humanity of Christ.

So that, first of all, the primary feature of the new creation is the revelation of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, and that in the heart of the believer. Everything begins there, and everything is bound up with that. Just as in the old creation the beginning was with light, and everything was bound up with the light, so is the beginning of the new creation, and all to the end that the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ should be revealed in the heart of the believer. Christ in the heart, revealed by the Holy Spirit, means the knowledge of the glory of God. That is the nature and purpose of the new creation.

Now we are going to look at that a little more closely. We have said that it is a clue. We do not affirm that Paul had in his mind all that we are saying, though we are not saying that he had not. I think Paul had a great many things in his mind when he was writing these words in the first chapters of the letter. He was as one unable to contain himself, and jumping from Old Testament scripture to Old Testament scripture. It was as though he were leaping from peak to peak, from the creation to the giving of the covenant through Moses, and then, with a spring, on to Gideon, and you find that he is touching pregnant, rich, throbbing things in the Old Testament, and with that touch the whole subject becomes illumined with suggestion, with implication, and makes you stop to question with yourself: What has he said? What has he intimated? What has he suggested? If it were not all actually in his own mind, it is the suggestion that the Holy Spirit brings forth by these things that we are seeking to note.

God's Seed-Plot

Coming back to the former creation, and the first movement in the inclusive movement of light, we pass to another phase. This is to be noted a little further on in the book of Genesis, in chapter 2 verses 8-10. All we want to speak of for the moment is the first clause in that paragraph: "And the Lord God planted a garden..." Why? For what purpose? A new world has been brought into being: there is no fault to be found with it, it is all good, there is no sin in it: everything is for God: the whole satisfied God's mind up to that point, that is, there was nothing about it that was contrary to the mind of God. Yet, having brought into being the whole world, all the earth in primal beauty and light, the Lord God chose a certain spot in the whole and planted a garden; placed a garden in the heart of His world, His creation.

He planted that garden, enriched it, and filled it with everything that was good. Why? That garden was an epitome, a microcosm, a representation of God's thought for the whole world. We might say it was a kind of seed-plot for the world. God's mind for the whole world was gathered up in fulness in that garden; trees, pleasant to the eye, the beauty of the Lord in the garden; herbs, for food, the sustenance of the Lord for man; fruit, to rejoice the heart. The Lord never stops at bare necessities for maintaining life. His thought is fulness; something more luxurious; full maintenance of life and health in herbs and shrubs. Nourishment, beauty, rejoicing, life on a high level is His provision for us. Then there was a river to water the garden, and going out from the garden and parting into four (four representing the whole creation), it was to benefit the whole creation. All that is in that garden is for the whole creation; it is God's thought for His whole creation. A tree of life was in the midst of the garden, and a tree of the knowledge of good and evil. All this, with the exception of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, was to be cultivated, exploited, if we may use such a word, to be turned to account, to be exercised in relation to the whole earth. God placed the man whom He had created to keep, to cultivate, to tend the garden, to exercise himself in the garden, so that what was there should be of practical value, turned to account. This was the starting place of the knowledge of God.

Look at that garden, contemplate it (and remember that the word "Eden" means "delight"), and you see that it is a revelation of the glory of God. All the thoughts symbolised there in the garden are thoughts of God's glory, God's nature, God's grace, God's goodness, God's beauty. They are expressed in the garden. If you want to know what God is like, go into the garden of Eden. God's thoughts are written there, God's nature is there.

A dim reflection of God is to be seen in any lovely garden in this creation. It is dim at best, but nevertheless, if you contemplate it for the fleeting moment of its existence you have cause to wonder. But go back into the garden where death as yet had never come, nor sin entered, where things are in their pristine glory and beauty, and you have something to think about as to what God is like. That garden, therefore, was a revelation, an illumination of the knowledge of the glory of God.

Who can fail to see that this garden is a type of Christ! Is He not the tree of life? Is He not the river of life? Is He not the tree of the knowledge of good and evil? Is not such knowledge in a secret way bound up with Him, to the end that through Him it should be known?

Are not the deepest secrets of God concerning good and evil bound up in the mystery of the person of Christ? He is the fruit. He is the health. He is the nourishment. In a word, He is the sum of the knowledge of the glory of God. Christ is set forth in type by that garden. All that the garden speaks of is in Him, and is for the whole creation. The creation is to take its character from Him. That is God's thought. Out from Him to the whole creation God intends the fulness of His own likeness to go forth. That is how the former creation should have been, and that is how all is to be at length. The earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea, and it is all going out through Christ. Christ is, so to speak, God's seed-plot for the whole creation, the microcosm of God's universal thought and intention. He shall fill all things. Out from Him all things shall be filled.

Ministers of Christ

That has to be expanded. It is all summed up in Him. It is, after all, but a garden in the midst of God's universe. It has to be expanded, increased, and that by exercise. This brings us back again to 2 Corinthians and the nature of our ministry. What was Adam's ministry? It was to care for that garden in relation to the whole creation; to develop in the creation, so to speak, the good of that garden, to make that garden and its content of practical meaning and value to the whole creation. That was Adam's ministry.

All are in that ministry who are in the last Adam. "If any man be in Christ there is a new creation". What the man in Christ is led to discover in Christ has to be appropriated in the first place by himself, as was the case with the former Adam, and then ministered. That is our ministry. Such a fact destroys the entire conception of a special class called ministers. It means that all in the last Adam are in the ministry, just as the first Adam was an all-embracing man, and he was called to the ministry of the garden. We are in the ministry of the Garden, which is Christ. "Seeing we have this ministry..."

Now you see what the new creation is. The new creation is conformed to Christ, the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ revealed in our hearts by the Holy Spirit. This is the new creation in Christ Jesus. That former garden was lost, but all of its meaning and value has been preserved and presented in Christ.

We have said that there is much more in the story. You must read through the second chapter of the book of Genesis to get the fulness. All its symbolic meaning, all its symbolic values have been preserved in the Lord Jesus, and are brought back to us, and while it may be true that in the end we shall be in a garden, while it is true that the Bible closes, even as it opens, with a garden, we are not now giving literal meaning to that. We are not thinking that going to heaven, going to glory, is to issue literally in an everlasting walk about a beautiful garden. Paradise at the end, the garden at the end, is the same as at the beginning. In the thought of God it is Christ. Our eternity is going to be enlargement to the full of all that God has stored up in Christ, without the intrusion of sin, or death, or any evil thing. That is the kind of garden to dwell in for evermore. There will be the tree of life. There will be the river of water of life, clear as crystal. There the leaves of the tree will be for the health of the nations. The whole creation will be benefited therefrom; for on each of the four sides of the city - east and west, north and south - are three gates open to the whole creation. It is the universal glory of God in Christ that is to be our ministry through eternity; we are to minister of that fulness.

Suffering and Ministry

We are training for the ministry now. We are learning in a practical way how to minister Christ, and it is in the school of affliction that we are learning. We are discovering what is in Christ through suffering. Paul frequently points that out in this letter, as we have seen. The way of the knowledge which issues in ministry is the way of suffering, the discovery of the riches of Christ in afflictions. What afflictions they were in his case! You are amazed at two things as you read in that letter what Paul says about his afflictions. Hear him say he was pressed out of measure, so that he despaired even of life. Paul, if you were pressed out of measure, what about me? If you despaired even of life, is there any hope for me? If such a man as Paul came to that extremity, seeing no way out, pressed out of his measure, I feel there may be some excuse for us if we are sometimes depressed. Paul came there. "So great a death", he said; "In all our afflictions". You wonder at Paul speaking like that, you are amazed; but you are still more amazed when a little later he is heard to say: "Our light affliction, which is but for a moment (note the change; he has caught a glimpse of the glory), worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, while we look not at the things which are seen, but the things which are not seen..." Unto what is all the suffering? Unto "a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory". That changes our estimate of it. The path of suffering is the pathway to the glory.

But our particular emphasis is upon the ministry which is bound up with this. We have said that the former garden was lost, but that all its values and meaning have been preserved in Christ, and in Him presented to us. But now all this has to be entered into through travail. We come back, as it were, into the garden through travail, through suffering. Christ is known and ministered through suffering. I doubt whether there is any other way. Things being as they are, there is no other way. Let us not be narrow in our apprehension of the word "suffering". What is suffering to one would not be suffering to another. Suffering has its own meaning for every one. Some can suffer with very little distress what others would find intolerable agony. Suffering covers a wide ground. Paul seems to have had a taste of every kind of suffering. He was a representative man. The Lord knows what to us is suffering and the most suitable means of bringing us to the knowledge of Himself in Christ, and He chooses for us the path which is most likely to bring us there. Whatever form the suffering may take, there will be no doubt as to its reality, but suffering is the way to this ministry of Christ.

Let us therefore regard these sufferings no longer as penalties. as judgments, but as the Lord's chosen means by which to bring us to the knowledge of His glory, the fulness of God in Christ, in order that there may be the ministry of Christ. There is beauty to be seen in the garden, and we must have exercise in relation to that beauty for its display to others. There is fruitfulness in the garden, the lusciousness of which is to be ministered. We discover some of the sweetest things of Christ in the hour of suffering. Here we are back in 2 Corinthians: "Who comforteth us in all our afflictions, that the comforts wherewith we are comforted of God may abound unto you". How have you been most comforted? Who has been of the greatest comfort to you in your distress, in your trial? Has it ever been a person who has never known the need of comfort himself? No, it is the one who, having been in the depths, and having been at the point of extremity, has discovered the comforts of God, and is able to speak out of experience about the comforts of God to your experience: one who has been in the garden, and has been in exercise about what was in the garden, and has come out with something healing, comforting: one who has been into death, who knows what the Apostle meant when he said: Alway bearing about in the body the putting to death of the Lord Jesus"; "Alway delivered unto death for Jesus' sake, that the life also of Jesus might be manifested in our body"; "Death worketh in us, but life in you". You get the benefit. That is ministry. That is going into the garden. That is knowing Christ through suffering in order to have the fruit of the garden, the good of the garden, the riches, the benefits of Christ for others.

That explains why it is we have so much of trial. It is in order that we might have a very much richer ministry. It is in order that what is in Christ should come to the knowledge of others. He is the light of the new creation.

There are several things which are connected with this light. We should not cover the ground adequately if we did not look again at the context, and at least note these things.

Light Divides

This light, which Christ is as the light of the new creation, divides. In the former creation God divided between the light and the darkness, between the day and the night. When He broke in upon the darkness, the darkness was such as to represent an enemy of the light. The light, therefore, divided between the work of Satan and the work of God. That is exactly what Christ does as the light of the new creation. He divides between light and darkness, between day and night, between the work of God and the work of Satan.

(a) Between Persons

The first application of this truth is to people, and so the Apostle says here: "If our gospel be hid it is hid to them that are perishing, in whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of the unbelieving" (2 Cor. 4:3.) Here are people in darkness, blinded. Of others it is said: God has shined into our hearts. The light has made a difference between people; between the believing and the unbelieving; those in the light, and those in the darkness; those who are children of the day, and those who are children of the night; those who are children of God, and those who are children of Satan. Christ makes that division. He is a divider.

Thus Paul will confront the Corinthians with the question: "What concord hath light with darkness"? And he will make a practical  application: "Be not unequally yoked with unbelievers". Christ as the light of the new creation makes that demand upon us, that we shall have no fellowship with darkness; that we walk apart from darkness; that our relationships, and our choices, and our affections shall all be in the light, not bridging the gap which God has set between light and darkness, lest they wipe out an established ordinance of heaven, and bring us back into darkness. "The light of the knowledge of the glory of God" fades in your heart if there is a relationship  which you have chosen with someone who is not in the light, or with some thing of darkness. Light puts a difference between people. We know quite well that when once the light makes  its way into us there is a difference. It is not a matter of religious conceit, or pride; we know there is a difference. It is the difference of two creations, the difference of day and night. God wants us sacredly to preserve that difference  through life, and not to play with darkness.

(b) Between Works

The light not only divides between people, but it divides between works. Do you notice how often in the second letter to the Corinthians the Apostle speaks about conscience? "Commending ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God"; "Our glorying is this, the testimony of our conscience, that in holiness and sincerity of God... we behaved ourselves in the world..." Notice what he further says: "We have renounced the hidden things of shame, not walking in craftiness, nor handling the word of God deceitfully..." (2 Cor. 4:2). You can almost see the serpent in that passage as the Apostle refers to such things. "But we have renounced the hidden things..." The entrance of the light makes a difference in your conduct, in your moral life, in the way in which you walk before men.

Look at some of those great things in chapter 6 verses 3-10. Read them again. This is the ministry. "Commending ourselves as ministers of Christ". It is the coming of Christ into the heart which makes the difference. In consciousness, in conduct, in character, the dark things are gone.

(c) Between True and False Ministry

The light divides between true and false ministry. Thus the Apostle says: "We are not as many, corrupting the Word of God"; "We have renounced the hidden things of  shame, not walking in craftiness, nor handling the Word of God deceitfully". "Corrupting the word of God". When you look into that you see that it really means "making merchandise of the Word of God". The Word of God was the instrument of the first creation. He spake, and light was. We believe that the worlds were framed by the Word of God. The Word of God brings in all this beauty, glory, fruitfulness, and meaning for the glory of God, and then there is that in the universe which would take hold of all for its own ends, its own glory. "We preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus as Lord", says the Apostle. Was it then the case that some were using the Word of God, by which a new creation for the glory of God is brought about, for their own glory? "We preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus as Lord". The difference between true and false ministry is that the one always has the glory of God in Christ in view, and the other always has the minister in view. That is making merchandise of, corrupting the Word of God. Christ in the heart means that a difference is made between true and false ministry.

Finally, the light divides between flesh and spirit. We shall not say more about that now.

So we come back to see that ministry is the work of the last Adam, and of all who are in Him. In practical terms that means knowing the glory of God and ministering that glory, revealing that glory; the personal expression of the glory of God in Christ as in our own hearts. That is ministry. The learning of Christ, as we have said, is in the school of suffering, in exercise through trial. What will be the result? There may be some little lustre here. We may wonder sometimes if the Lord gives us much light when there seems to be so little result, but that is not the end of the story. There may be value in such a word as this in our own hearts now, with the revelation of Christ which comes to us in it by the Holy Spirit; some change to us, some help to others; but chiefly our schooling is unto a ministry which is to be a ministry of Christ to the whole universe throughout eternity. The whole universe is to derive the benefit from our sufferings, according as these are the sufferings of Christ which abound unto us, that the comfort also may abound. Yes, there are values beyond.

This is the only explanation of that deep, deep, painful problem of why the Lord's children so often suffer right on to the end, and very often the period of the end is the time of the most severe suffering. Can it be that these are ministering Christ at such a time? Sometimes it is so. But so many are called to suffer out of reach of anyone else. Their sufferings are not in any way immediately related to anybody. Yet they are making discoveries of Christ. For what purpose, then, are these sufferings? The suffering is going to produce the fruit afterward; the value of that discovery of Christ is going to be the nature of their ministry in that sphere where "His servants shall serve him, and they shall see his face".

Chapter 3 - Christ the Glory of the New Covenant

Reading: 2 Cor. 3.

We must keep in mind that the governing object of all that is spiritual is the light of the knowledge of the glory of God. We have seen  this to be the object of the creation, and that when the light was first brought in it was for the glory of God. In the creative activity of God, everything subsequent to the bringing in of the light was for the knowledge of the glory of God. So in the new creation, the light shining in our hearts is intended to be unto that knowledge. This same object governs the further method and means of revelation of the truth set forth in chapter 3 concerning the new covenant.

We must keep that governing thought in mind all the time. The light of the knowledge of the glory of God is here connected with ministry, which is seen to be the outcome of such knowledge.

The glory of God is something revealed, and what we have in this chapter is a parallelism between the old and the new covenants. We are shown, firstly, that the means of the revelation of the glory of God is the covenants. The first covenant was a means for the revelation of God's glory, and so likewise is the new covenant. The ministers of that revelation are, in the one case,  Moses, and, in the other, Christ.

The nature of that revelation is the perfection of Divine order, and the accompaniment of that revelation is glory. Four things have to be borne in mind.

(1) The means of the revelation is the covenants.

(2) The ministers of the revelation are Moses and Christ respectively.

(3) The nature of the revelation is the perfection of Divine order.

(4) The accompaniment of the revelation is glory.

Perhaps you wonder what is meant by the  perfection of Divine order. Well, we know that,  with all that the Lord said to Moses in the mount - and it was not a little - the governing thing, the pre-eminent thing was the tables of the law, the tables which afterward became known as the testimony. The ark was made for the keeping of those tables of law, and the ark became known as the ark of the testimony. The tables of law, the law of commandments, governed the whole of the revelation given to Moses in the mount; we may say, summed up that revelation. Everything was bound up with those laws, of which the number was ten. Ten, throughout the Word of God, is always the number of the perfection of Divine order.

Here the thought presented is that of the embodiment, the sum total, shall we say, of Divine revelation of the covenant. There is a great difference between the old and the new, but that difference is not in God. The new covenant makes no difference in God. The covenant that is brought to us through the mediation of the Lord Jesus does not bring a different God to us. The difference is not in Him; that is, His nature and His standard are always the same, unchangeable. Grace never brings God down to a lower level. Grace does not make any difference to the holiness of God, or to the righteousness of God. The difference in the two covenants is not that of a change in God. His position remains as it ever was, perfect in holiness, perfect in righteousness. The difference is, firstly, in the mediators, secondly, in the ground upon which those mediators stand.

The Glory of God and the Old Covenant

That brings us to this matter of the glory, and the effect of the glory. Glory was connected with the old covenant. When we read of the terror,  the fear, the dread, the petrifying effect in the  people we are apt to think of that as being the fruit of something far other than glory. Probably the people would have timidly acknowledged the revelation to be one of glory, but they would have called it terror, awfulness, if they had expressed their feelings truly. They would not have spoken of it as glory: and yet it was glory. It was a true revelation of God, and He is, above all things, the God of glory; but of course, to man it was terrible glory. The terror was nothing to do with God. The dread, and the awfulness, and the fear were resultant from man's condition of weakness. Here is a revelation of God, what God is like, God's moral perfection, God's high standard, a standard which, if it obtained amongst men universally, would transfigure the universe. Just think of the world being maintained through and through upon God's standard as revealed even in the law. Think of the whole world loving the Lord its God with all its heart, with all its soul, with all its mind, with all its strength, and loving its neighbour as itself. That alone would go a long way to transfigure this world. But there is a good deal more than that in the law. The law sets forth what God is like. There is nothing awful about it. If you contemplate it in itself there is something glorious about it. But when you bring yourself over against that revelation, and discover how other you are, and how positively contrary to it - not because you will to be other, but cannot help yourself - and discover further that God will not lower that standard, demands that, and says, "Unless I have that you perish!", then it is that, because of our state and our weakness, the revelation of God in glory becomes awful, terrible.

That means that the glory becomes condemnation. It is very probable that the mentality of Israel was something like this, that whenever the glory of the Lord appeared at the door of the tent they instinctively said, What is wrong? The appearing of the glory made them feel instinctively that something was wrong, that there must be trouble. Why was this? Because the appearing of that glory always had its occasion in the failure of man, and in his coming short of the glory of God, and God had to appear to make man aware of the fact that he was failing of His standard for His people. That is the old covenant, the old glory.

The Glory of God and Divine Order

This is related to the perfection of Divine order, and wherever the Divine order was violated, even in one point, there was a conflict with the glory of God, which meant judgment. But we are taken by the Apostle to the latter glory, the glory accompanying the new covenant. We are not coming down to a lower level: God maintains His position, God maintains His utterness; but we begin at another point. That which God is in Himself, the perfection of Divine order, is now set forth in the Mediator Himself, Who stands, therefore, in great contrast to Moses. The mediator of the old covenant did not himself approximate to the Divine standard; he had to offer sacrifices for his own sin. But here is the Mediator of the new covenant, Who is not acting merely as a type to declare what God is, but Who is Himself the Antitype. The Lord Jesus is in Himself the embodiment of the perfection of Divine order, and that now as Man. So that God has in a representative Man a Mediator between God and man, the Man Himself, the embodiment of the expression of the perfection of His Divine order. Christ is that personal revelation of God. That means that Christ is the full satisfaction of God's standard. God's full standard is answered to, and His utmost requirement met and supplied in the Person of the Mediator, Who is Christ.

The Mediatorship of Christ

There are, of course, two sides to the mediatorship of Christ. On the one side He represents us. He takes in a representative way our position, our place; shall we say, He takes the place typified in Israel, trembling and afraid, dreading, horrified, because of conscious weakness. That is just ourselves. He takes that place, enters into our weakness, into our faultiness, our imperfection, enters representatively into all that we are, which is so contrary to what God would have. He Who knew no sin, is made sin for us. That is the one side. He takes that up, and is crucified through weakness. The Lord Jesus, not in an inherent way, but in a representative way before God, has taken our infirmities and our weaknesses, our imperfections.

Then there is the other side, where He utterly satisfies God, all God's requirements, and in one Person He brings these two things together. In Him is taken out from the presence of God, all our weakness, our imperfection, our sinfulness, our inability to meet God's requirements. All that is taken out in Him by death, and put away from the sight of God. Then all that He is as the perfect Man comes in, and the ground which was occupied by that faulty, weak man before is now occupied by Him. So that God does not now see that other man, but one perfect Man wholly satisfying Him. Christ thus brings together in His own Person representatively two races, two creations, an old and a new, and then by death puts the one away and establishes the other. That is how He is the Mediator of a new covenant. Thus there is established before God a humanity which satisfies God utterly. That is the grace of God in Christ.

In that way it is possible for us to appreciate, to enjoy the glory of God in the face, the humanity, the manhood of Jesus Christ. He is God's satisfaction. Shall we put it more utterly than that. Christ is God satisfying Himself for man; the Lord finding His own satisfaction in a Man, providing that Man for Himself.

The Glory of the New Covenant that of Christ Within

Now, to follow this through with the Apostle, the next thing he says is, that Christ, that triumphant Christ, that God-satisfying Christ, that Christ Who has put out of sight for ever the faulty, weak man, the helpless and hopeless man, that Christ, that glorious Christ, is within us as Lord when we believe, and that by the Spirit. He is within in all the value of Divine satisfaction.

You and I need this ground maintained more and more in life in our consciousness. We are not dealing now with our salvation but our ministry. This is basic to our testimony, to our ministry. So that now we find that through faith Christ, the full satisfaction of God, is within us as the Lord the Spirit, and all the values of His having satisfied God's uttermost demand are there within us as Christ is in us, the only hope, the sure hope of glory.

Beholding the Glory of the Lord

The point at which we arrive is this - and it is perhaps the pivot for our present purpose - we are called upon to look on Christ. The Apostle in the chapter we are considering urges a contemplation, a gazing, a beholding, a looking steadfastly on Christ. We are called upon to look on Him. Christ is to be the sole object of our occupation. Unless that is so, there is no ministry. It is in connection with this that the Apostle is heard to say, We have this ministry. It is the ministry resultant from the inward revelation of the Lord Jesus with Whom we are continually occupied; in other words, the ministry which springs out of our being engaged with Christ in our hearts, with the Christ Who utterly satisfies God. If for one moment you or I should fail to keep our eyes upon Him, in that sense, we shall be found looking for God's satisfaction somewhere else, in ourselves most probably and that is fatal. It is fatal to hope; fatal to assurance; fatal to rest, to joy; it immediately brings death: it is fatal to ministry. Anyone who has broken away from his occupation with Christ, in this sense of His satisfaction to God, is one who is without a testimony, and without a ministry. I believe it is the establishment upon this which lies behind the delay in ministry on the part of so many of the Lord's children. They are not established upon this basic, all-inclusive fact that there is no requirement in this universe made by God which has not been met in the Lord Jesus for them. Until you and I have been established there, God will not entrust us with ministry.

What is the nature of the power of ministry? It is the spontaneous result of an apprehension of Christ as God's satisfaction on our behalf; seeing Christ as having answered the utmost demand of God for us, and that not objectively, but as now having come within us to establish that satisfaction to God at the centre of our being. It is marvellous to think that here, within this faulty, weak, imperfect vessel, and all that it is by nature, God is seeing that which satisfies Him. Right at the centre there is that which satisfies God; such a God as He is, with eyes which see the remotest spot of iniquity. That is utter salvation, utter satisfaction, and that is in Christ in us. God's eyes of glory, looking through, can rest with delight upon us, because Christ is in us, and we are in Christ. That is the new covenant through or in His Blood; not the Blood of another, but His own Blood.

So, then, to be occupied with Christ is the secret of all blessing, which in turn becomes ministry. True ministry is the blessing of the Lord in our own hearts. If our ministry is not  that it will not get very far. It is from the knowledge of the Lord, the enlargement of the Lord, the revelation of the Lord within us as God's delight, God's good pleasure that ministry springs.

Marks of a True Minister of Jesus Christ

(a) Liberty

This being occupied with Christ results, firstly, in the Holy Spirit setting us free. The Apostle says, "When it shall turn to the Lord the veil is taken away. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is there is liberty". Turn to the Lord, and the veil is taken away. The Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of  the Lord is there is liberty. Liberty from what? Well, if we turn to the Lord, and are occupied with Him in the way we have indicated, the Holy Spirit sets us free. It may be you are struggling, striving, fighting, wrestling, praying, pleading, longing, yearning, asking the Lord to set you free from condemnation, free from fear, from those paralysing bonds in which Israel was when the glory appeared. Do you want to be free from fear, from dread, from terror, from condemnation? What are you doing to get free? There is one simple, direct way, namely, to be occupied with the Lord, to turn to the Lord. Get Christ as God's satisfaction in your view, and cease trying to satisfy God yourself. Faith in Christ is all God's requirement. How deeply true were His words, "Apart from me ye can do nothing". "Abide in me. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me". That is only figurative language, which means, Be occupied with Him, set your mind on Him, dwell in Him, rest in Him, abide in Him; or, as Paul would say, Gaze on Him, behold Him, let Him be the object of your occupation, and the Spirit will make you free.

(b) Conformity

More than that, this beholding of Christ means that the Holy Spirit changes you into God's likeness: "Beholding... we are changed". It is not said, Beholding, we begin to change ourselves, we embark upon self-transformation with all its struggle, and conflict, and battle. We are changed by the Lord the Spirit. Be occupied with Christ, and the Spirit takes up the matter of transforming into His image. Be occupied with yourself, and you will see that the law of conformity to type operates. If you are the type, then you will conform to that type. If Christ is the type, then the Holy Spirit will conform to His likeness.

(c) Sufficiency

Then this being occupied with Christ means that the Holy Spirit makes us sufficient as ministers of a new covenant. I do not think that ministry is such an onerous thing after all. We need to come back to the simplicity and the spontaneity of ministry. Be occupied with Christ, and the Holy Spirit will show you more and more in Christ with which to be occupied, and as He makes that livingly real you will have something to give to others. Your ministry may not be a platform ministry, but it will be ministry, something for others. Who wants more than that? Oh, the snare of the platform idea that so often constitutes the whole conception of ministry, as though other people are not ministers at all! It is just as much your privilege to behold Christ as any man's in this universe, and, that being so, it is just as much your calling to minister what you see in Christ to others. Beholding Him we are changed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. This is the latter glory, the glory of the new covenant. Christ is the glory of the new covenant. The difference is not in God, it is the difference between the mediators, and the difference in the position which we occupy because of the Mediator; we are now in Christ, Who satisfies God.

The Lord give us the ministry issuing from a continuous and ever-growing contemplation of His fulness in Christ.

Chapter 4 - The Ministration of Condemnation and the Ministration of Righteousness

Therefore having such a hope, we use great boldness in our speech, and are not like Moses, who used to put a veil over his face so that the sons of Israel would not look intently at the end of what was fading away. But their minds were hardened; for until this very day at the reading of the old covenant the same veil remains unlifted, because it is removed in Christ. But to this day whenever Moses is read, a veil lies over their heart; but whenever a person turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit. (2 Cor. 3:12-18).

When Moses had finished speaking with them, he put a veil over his face. But whenever Moses went in before the LORD to speak with Him, he would take off the veil until he came out; and whenever he came out and spoke to the sons of Israel what he had been commanded, the sons of Israel would see the face of Moses, that the skin of Moses' face shone. So Moses would replace the veil over his face until he went in to speak with Him. (Ex. 34:33-35).

In our last meditation we were seeing the two aspects of Christ's person and work. This is again illustrated in the case of Moses, who when dealing with the people in their condition found it necessary to put a veil on his face, but when turning to the Lord, going in to speak with the Lord, could speak with Him with unveiled face. The two sides clearly represent the death side and the life side. As this chapter in 2 Corinthians makes so clear, there is the "ministration of condemnation" and the "ministration of righteousness". That is the key to the whole matter.

You will notice that the letter has a whole list of counterparts. It might be helpful in your reading of the chapter in view to have those lists outlined for you. They run like this:

Tables of stone                       Tables of the heart                (verse 3)

The letter killeth                      The spirit giveth life               (verse 6)

Ministration of death (v. 7)         Ministration of the Spirit         (verse 8)

Be in glory                               Exceed in glory                     (verse 9)

Ministration of condemnation      Ministration of righteousness    (verse 9)

Glorious                                   The glory that excelleth        (verse 10)

As to the past:- "that which is done away was glorious" (verse 11), the veil (verse 13); as to the present:- "that which remaineth is glorious" (verse 11), without the veil (verse 18).

You see how these comparisons and contrasts are followed through in a large number of details.

It seems that it all hangs upon this particular word, the "ministration of condemnation" and the "ministration of righteousness". The one is death, the other is life. One brings under judgment, the other makes possible an open communion with the Lord. This is one thing which all the Lord's people need to have very clearly and certainly established in their hearts.

Why was it that Moses, when in touch with the people, was on the death side, the condemnation side, the judgment side, and everything was death? On the other hand, why was it that he could turn and go into the Lord's presence, taking away the veil, and live in the very presence of that glory which to the people was death? It is a very impressive thing. Here is the glory, this tremendous glory, and yet that glory on the one side ministered death. But this man could just turn about, and without a veil go right into that glory and live. The answer is found, of course, in an altar. You will notice that, when Moses went up into the mount, the glory of the Lord was displayed, terrible glory, and he built an altar at the foot of the mount. He went up by way of the altar, and there was always an altar between the gate of the court, where the people assembled, and the Most Holy Place, where the Lord was. That altar made it possible for death to be changed to life. The glory which had ministered judgment, and condemnation, had become the glory of a blessed communion.

So we ask, What does this altar mean? We look at the sacrifice and we look at the blood: we find the offering and the blood perfect, without spot, without blemish, something that can pass the Divine scrutiny, can abide, can stand before the eye of God. When that is provided there is righteousness. If you can turn and take that with you, that is, go before God in the value and the virtue of that, then you turn death into life, judgment into fellowship.

Relationship to the Altar

The Apostle, then, here speaks of "ministration of condemnation." There was a glory associated with it simply because it was the glory of God; it was God Who was in view. Whatever the effect of God is, God is always glorious. The effect depends upon where we are, upon which side of the altar we stand; whether we stand apart from the present values of that altar, or whether we stand right in the good of those values by faith. It is clear that these people were in a state of unbelief, although called the Lord's people. At this time their whole history through the wilderness was one of unbelief. They perished through unbelief, and the inference here is that even in the presence of all this provision, in type and symbol, their hearts were still unbelieving hearts, their hearts were hardened, so that they were not really in the good of all this by faith. The effect for them was not what it might have been, namely, one of deliverance, of salvation; it was one of judgment, of condemnation. They had the sacrifices, they had all the means of grace, but in heart were not really living in the good of those things. That is why the thing was transient. It had to go. God never builds upon a foundation like that of mere external rites, performances; God builds upon an inner state.

Read again from chapter 24: to chapter 34 of the book of Exodus, and mark the two movements there. You will notice that in the beginning Moses went up into the mount and received the pattern of everything. He was forty days in the mount. He received the law, the pattern of things complete, and then came down and found the people worshipping the golden calf, and there had to be this terrible judgment amongst them. Then Moses went up a second time, and the Lord gave him the law again on fresh tables,  and he came down with the glory. What we see is that, when Moses turned toward the people, there was a state there which was without faith, without heart relationship to the Lord, and the things which the Lord had provided. The glory was therefore an occasion of judgment and death to them, but Moses himself was on other ground. Moses was not on their ground; he was a mediator, he turned toward them; but he could also turn toward the Lord. He was a mediator, and had other ground, the ground of a heart relationship with the Lord, and heart appreciation of the meaning of the altar and the blood; so that he needed no veil for himself. The veil was because of the people. He himself could go in without a veil and live in the presence of the glory.

There are two sides, the "ministration of condemnation" and the "ministration of righteousness". The ministration of condemnation was because of the absence of faith in all that which God had provided; the offering, the blood, the altar.

The Issue of Life and Death

It is strange that the Word does not say definitely and precisely, the ministration of death and the ministration of life. It says, the "ministration of condemnation" and the "ministration of righteousness." Now you see exactly what life is. Life is referred to. Do you notice that whenever the Spirit is mentioned the Spirit is related to life? Life, then, is a matter of righteousness. The "ministration of righteousness" means the ministration of life, or the standing in life with an unveiled face, without fear of condemnation, or judgment. It is most important to recognise this truth. It is elementary. It is one of the first things of our faith. It may sound technical, but the Lord's people need instruction. It is good to have exhortation; it is good that we should have testimony; it is good that from time to time the Word of the Lord should come to us in the fulness of a proclamation, but as the Lord's people we also need sound instruction, foundation in the truth.

There are today a great number of the Lord's people who are finding it well nigh impossible to stand their ground because their foundation is not solid. After all, their relationship to the Lord has been very largely an emotional one, one of ecstasy, and when it comes to sounding the foundation of truth, they are not well grounded; when the enemy comes, and the storms beat upon them, they do not know where they are. When the ecstasies and the emotions and all the more superficial elements in our salvation are brought under the stress of terrific opposition; when in addition to that the enemy lays on his accusations, then the foundations are discovered, and many, many breakdown. It is not that they are lost, if they have trusted the Lord, but, so far as their enjoyment of their salvation is concerned, they lose it. So it is necessary for us to be thoroughly instructed in the Word, and this is one of the things about which we must be perfectly clear in heart and mind, and assured in spirit, that life, with all that it means - the life of an unveiled fellowship with the Lord, the life which in itself sets forth victory over death and the abolishing of condemnation - that life is rooted in righteousness, a ministration of righteousness. It must be possible for us to say with perfect assurance and confidence before God: "Lord, what I am as apart from Christ is one thing; what I am by faith's union with Christ is that I am righteous with Thine own righteousness; I cannot be destroyed, I cannot come under condemnation!" You can challenge God on that ground, if we may so speak. God invites us to test Him on that ground.

So often the Lord allows us to be put into situations which are intended to draw us out on that very line. You will remember that when the Lord announced to Abraham that He was about to destroy the cities of the Plain, Abraham brought this challenge to God: "Wilt thou consume the righteous with the wicked? ...That be far from thee to do after this manner to slay the righteous with the wicked, that so the righteous should be as the wicked; that be far from thee; shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?" In so many words, Abraham was saying to God: You will be destroying Yourself in effect if You do! God's answer to Abraham in effect is: 'If that is true I cannot do it; judgment cannot fall while there is any righteousness. My own nature, however small the expression of it, the smallest measure of Divine righteousness in any given place prevents Me from judging, holds judgment at bay!' And we read that "it came to pass, when God destroyed the cities of the Plain, that God remembered Abraham, and sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow ("delivered righteous Lot", 2 Peter 2:7, R.V.), when he overthrew the cities in which Lot dwelt." (Genesis 19:29.)

Christ is God's righteousness: "He is made unto us from God, righteousness..." Faith lays hold of the Lord Jesus as righteousness, and judgment and condemnation are destroyed, are paralysed. You see the tremendous weapon, the tremendous defence that the breastplate of righteousness is against the enemy. The Lord evidently wants this emphasised. It may be you are feeling the need of it. Many of us have had to take this ground with the Lord, for there seems to be an unceasing effort of the enemy to use anything, even the discipline of God, as a ground of condemnation, to destroy us and bring us into judgment. Faith in the Lord Jesus makes it possible for you and for me to say to a God of infinite holiness, Through faith, I am righteous as Thou art. That is tremendous. Christ is the righteousness of God in me. It is not some kind of righteousness that God provides for humans, which is a different kind of righteousness from His own; it is the righteousness of God.

What righteousness that is! Deal with that if you can. What devil can destroy that? What evil can affect the righteousness of God? The righteousness of God is going to be universally triumphant, is to cover the earth as the waters cover the sea. What power and what victory that speaks of!

The Sabbath of God

You see why it is possible to have blessed fellowship with the Lord with an unveiled face, because of righteousness. I am not surprised that there is such a strong emphasis laid down in connection with the Sabbath with Israel. Go back to the chapters in Exodus that deal with it, and note the references to the Sabbath that are to be found in them. I see this, that the Sabbath is the ground of the greatest strength that we could know in relation to God. Take as an illustration Israel's going round Jericho. They went round the city once a day for six days, and on the seventh day they went round it seven times. Save for the priests who blew with the trumpets, they went round in silence until the seventh time on the Sabbath day, and then as the priests blew the trumpets all the people shouted. You do not usually think of power to such a degree as bound up with a procedure like that. Suppose yourself to be there. You have a tremendously strong fortress before you, shut up and defended. There it stands, the very embodiment of strength. Now you mark a people silently walking round it, and then going home. The next day this is done again, and for six consecutive days, while on the seventh day it is done seven times. What is happening? You say, Nothing is happening. Well, apparently nothing is happening, but if you are able to read the spiritual history you can see what is back of this. There is, as it were, the going forth of a terrific power which is infinitely greater than the power of that stronghold, so that the consummation of that silence is but a shout and the stronghold is brought to the ground. That procedure has been invested with a power. What is it? It is all gathered up in the last day. The whole week is gathered up into the seventh day. The seventh day becomes the concentration, so to speak, of that power of the week, and the stronghold just collapses. What sort of power has been put forth, and why should it come to its issue on the seventh day? Because the seventh day represents God as having achieved all, as having fulfilled all His works, God coming into His rest. You have entered into the greatest power in this universe, when you have come into the rest of God by faith. Faith was there in operation day by day, and then on the seventh day it was still faith. There was no work done. They did not dig into the walls, nor were implements used against them. It was a case of resting faith, the rest of faith, quiet assurance.

They were the other side of Jordan, and were no longer the unbelieving people of the wilderness. They were the believing, obedient people of God, and God said do, and they entered in by faith and did what God told them, and came into God's rest. It is a most important thing to recognise that the meaning of the Sabbath was the very gate-way to the conquest of the land. The land was conquered on the ground of the Sabbath. Jericho was the coming to the altar, both as to principle and as to method. Do you recognise that?

What is God's Sabbath? In the new creation Christ is God's Sabbath, because in Christ God has finished all His works and entered into His rest. That wants explaining. What is it that gives God rest? God has created this universe, and is thus closely associated with it morally, but He can never know any rest while there is an absence of righteousness in this universe. He made it for Himself by an expression of Himself, and righteousness is the nature of God's being. God could not have rest, God is an unresting God, until He has found righteousness. He has found it in His Son. Christ has provided the righteousness which God requires for His new creation. God having found it enters into His rest. Christ is God's Sabbath. Christ is our Sabbath. When we enter by faith into Christ's righteousness, we enter into God's rest. It is a tremendous power. Does it come home to you in its practical value? If only you and I really enter into God's rest in Christ, we are in an impregnable position. That is why the enemy is always seeking to rob us of our rest in some way, to upset rest of heart, by raising questions about our standing, our state, our position in relation to the Lord. His object is to disturb rest of faith. We say that faith is the victory, but faith is not some abstract element; it is not simply a projecting of yourself to believe something is that is not. Faith has an object, a basis, and the faith which is the victory is the faith which appropriates and rests upon the righteousness of God in Christ. That is the victory that overcometh. Everything is overcome by the rest of faith.

The Lord says, in quite simple language, If only you will trust Me, and trust My provision, and stop worrying, stop fretting, stop being anxious; if you will but believe Me, I have the ground upon which I could meet all your need; I am no longer without ground. There was a time when I had not the ground upon which to do anything with you, and for you, but now you are on the ground of Christ, the ground which I have provided; if only you will trust Me, if only you will rest in Me to bring you through, you will be saved from so much of this weakness, and fret, and anxiety! Worry is a destroying thing. At the back of a lot that we suffer in body, and in mind, there is so often a secret, hidden restlessness, something deep down in our subconscious being of a fret, an anxiety, something that is not rest. It takes many forms. Sometimes over a concern of the Lord's we feel that, unless we do it, it will never be done. We feel that if we are not up and at it, then the whole thing will go to pieces, so much depends upon us. No one will think that this is the call for passivity, for abandon of concern for the things of the Lord; but it is possible for us to have the things of the Lord on our hearts and yet not to have faith in God about them. There are hidden secrets to a great deal of our weakness and defeat, and unnecessary suffering. They are the hidden things of something which is other than just restful faith in God. There are some people who need to take things to heart a little more than they do, but for many the trouble is perhaps of the other kind. They are thinking that they have to run God's universe for Him; they must look after things or else they will never be looked after!

The Sabbath governs so much in the life and history of Israel, because it represents so much on the ground of righteousness. Go out and gather sticks on the Sabbath, and you will die. Do works on the Sabbath, and you will die. You are violating the ground of God's rest through righteousness. But to observe the Sabbath (no one will take that literally as meaning the observance of a particular day of the week), to recognise Christ as God's rest through righteousness, to observe that, to keep that Sabbath, is life which conquers death, because it is righteousness which cannot be destroyed.

There is a "ministration of condemnation" if we stand apart in heart from the values of that altar (this is a heart matter in 2 Corinthians: "God hath shined in our hearts... " "...the fleshly tables of the heart"), but standing on the ground of God's righteousness in Christ by a heart faith means life, and an unveiled face, and a dwelling in the glory. "But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are transformed into the same image from glory to glory..." (2 Cor. 3:18. A.R.V.) A great deal of the glory is lost through anxiety which raises a question about God's satisfaction. It may seem a strange thing, but it is by beholding that we grow, beholding Him. I do not see any other way for our sanctification as a practical thing, than to take the ground that we are already sanctified. If you are striving after sanctification you will never attain to it. If you take the ground that you are sanctified you will grow in sanctification. This is no matter of psychology, no question of making yourself believe something that is not actual. It is the work of the Holy Spirit; "we... are transformed into the same image from glory to glory, even as from the Lord the Spirit."

Chapter 5 - Christ the Power for the New Warfare

Reading: Judges 6:11-14, 33-34; 7:1-25; 8:4,22-23.

But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us. We are hard-pressed on every side, yet not crushed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed-always carrying about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body. For we who live are always delivered to death for Jesus' sake, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. So then death is working in us, but life in you. And since we have the same spirit of faith, according to what is written, "I believed and therefore I spoke," we also believe and therefore speak, knowing that He who raised up the Lord Jesus will also raise us up with Jesus, and will present us with you. For all things are for your sakes, that grace, having spread through the many, may cause thanksgiving to abound to the glory of God. Therefore we do not lose heart. Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day. For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, while we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal. (2 Cor. 4:7-18).

There is little doubt that the thought of Gideon flashed into the mind of the Apostle at the time of writing his second letter to the Corinthians, and his brief allusion to him is left as a deposit which is in the nature of a clue to a spiritual principle. As we take up these passages, we shall find that they all constitute another aspect of the revelation of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. In this connection we shall see Christ as the power for the new warfare.

While we shall be dwelling in mind in the times of Gideon, a very great deal has to be left untouched, and we must be content just to get the main lines of instruction. For instance, we  cannot give the time to any particular and detailed explanation of the meaning of "the Midianites and the Amalekites and all the  children of the East". They have their meaning, and their meaning is very illuminating, but we simply have to leave all that detail and content ourselves with the observation that they represent the forces which are set against the pure testimony of the Lord. They are the enemies which have the ascendancy when the Lord's people sink on to a lower level of spiritual life. So it was in the days of the Judges. Because of the low spiritual level, various antagonistic forces gained the upper hand, and brought the Lord's people into subjection. Amongst those forces there were "the Midianites and the Amalekites, and all the children of the East".

The Corruption of the Testimony

There is this one thing we may observe about them, that they speak of a mixture of what is positively evil and wrong, and having no association with the Lord whatever, and elements which have had some kind of relationship with the things of God. The Amalekites, for instance, had no natural connection whatever with Israel, but the Midianites had their rise from the relationship of Abraham and Keturah, so that there you have some kind of historic connection with the things of God. These two things, that which has a background of connection with Divine things in association with something that is positively and altogether outside of God, constituted a combined force to destroy the pure testimony, to hold it in captivity.

It is generally like that. It is not often that the enemy openly gains that dominion over the people of God. It is usually by alliance with some historic or traditional thing, by means of something which somewhere has a background relationship with the things of God, that he gains his advantage. It is the historic and traditional association, not a pure hundred-percent fellowship with God.

You will notice that one of the characteristics or features of these combined forces is that they were all the time depriving the people of God of their food. Gideon was threshing wheat behind the wall to hide it from them. These forces were against the very sustenance and nourishment of the people of God, and that itself has a significance which we cannot stay to pursue at the moment; but let the wise learn.

Thus the conflict here is for a true and pure testimony in the Lord's people. That is what arises as the issue. The whole question and issue here is that of the Lord's testimony in purity and fulness being found in the lives of His people, and expressed through them, or ministered by them, and it is against this that these forces are set. The Lord moves in the matter, and what we have to note is how the power of God is put forth in relation to a full and pure testimony to His glory, or, in other words, how the light of the knowledge of the glory of God is recovered in a day of spiritual declension; by what means, and in what way, the power of God is displayed unto the showing of the knowledge of His glory.

The Choice and Preparation of an Instrument of Recovery

Seeing what the issue is, what is in view, we are able to analyse that to which allusion is made, namely, Gideon as God's instrument. First of all we note what Gideon's conception of himself was, what he himself as in nature is set forth as being: "I am the least in my father's house". That is enough - the least, but faithful. If you are faithful, though you may be the least, God has His eye on you, and that in relation to a very precious purpose for Himself. Faithfulness is that which makes a man great in the sight of God, not what man is in himself. The Lord on His part is heard saying to such a one, "The Lord is with thee, thou mighty man of valour". It is not because of what the man is in himself, it is the estimate given to him by reason of his faithfulness to God's thoughts, God's testimony; his faithful, though hidden and secret, exercise in relation to what God wants for His people.

Next we look at Gideon's army. First of all, from thirty two thousand it is reduced at one sweep to ten thousand, and then with one more stroke of the hand reduced from ten thousand to three hundred.

Now look again at Gideon, a man of no estimation in his own sight, surrounded by thirty two thousand men as his means and instrument. He might have looked upon the thirty two thousand and felt some sense of rising confidence, assurance, strength. As he looked upon that great army there may have been in his heart some feeling that there was something that could be of use, something not too small, not too despised, a worthwhile instrument. Then God with a sweep of His hand took away twenty two thousand. Gideon looked again at the ten thousand. This is a terrible blow, a devastating blow, to take away twenty two thousand in one stroke! Well, ten thousand with the blessing of God may go a long way! Then the Lord moved His hand again, and Gideon was shorn of all but three hundred. But it was the Lord who did it, and Gideon knew it was the Lord. It was not an accident, not a misfortune, not a calamity, it was the Lord; and because Gideon knew that it was the Lord he went on, and did not give up.

The instrument, then, was stripped. In the first place it was stripped of all dividedness of heart, and then of all personal interest. When a man gets down on his knees and takes his fill, he is not in an attitude of eagerness to get on with the business for the glory of God; he is taking his fill, betraying that he has personal interests to satisfy, personal concerns to serve. But here three hundred remained on their feet. They simply took up the water in their hands and lapped, eager to get on. The instrument is stripped of all personal interest. No member of that company would take glory to himself. It is stripped down to the place where there is no ground whatever for glorying in the flesh, no ground upon which any great success could be said to stand, humanly nothing in all the world which could account for triumph. Three hundred against the Midianites and the Amalekites and all the children of the East, like locusts upon the ground for multitude, and their camels like the sand of the sea shore innumerable! Then there is no ground here for anything but the light of the knowledge of the glory of God. Something of God is coming to light here. Here is an opportunity indeed, an excellent occasion. The occasion for the flesh to take any of the glory is set aside: "Lest Israel vaunt themselves against me", that is to say, take My glory from Me. God is securing His glory by this stripping.

The lesson that is clearly brought to us is that the Lord alone was the power. The power was to be of God. The exceeding greatness of the power is "of God and not of ourselves".

The Weapons of our Warfare

This is further seen by the equipment: earthen vessels with lamps inside, a sword, and a trumpet. A vessel, but a vessel of fragile clay: a light within, sustained by the oil of the Spirit, an inward illumination; the Word of God, the sword of the Spirit; the word of their testimony, the trumpet. And one more thing, a barley loaf! What a big place that barley loaf played in this whole drama. It was but a barley loaf, but it upset everything.

Let us come back to the second letter to the Corinthians, and see what Paul says about all this that we have mentioned in connection with Gideon. "But we have this treasure in vessels of fragile clay, that the excellency of the power might be of God and not of ourselves" (2 Cor. 4:7) - treasures in earthen vessels. What are those vessels? "For which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day" (2 Cor. 4:16) - the outward man is decaying. "We know that if the earthly house of our tabernacle be dissolved..." (2 Cor. 5:1). Then clearly the vessels of Gideon, spiritually understood, are frail human bodies.

Then the lamp or the light. This is the shining into our hearts by God, who said: "Light shall shine out of darkness, who shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ". The lamp or the light is the shining of God into our hearts by His Spirit.

The sword. Paul makes perfectly clear what that is. "For we are not as many, which corrupt the Word of God: but as of sincerity, but as of God, in the sight of God speak we in Christ" (2 Cor. 2:17) - "But we have renounced the hidden things of dishonesty, not walking in craftiness, nor handling the word of God deceitfully..." (2 Cor. 4:2). The sword is the Word of God.

The trumpet. We have said that the trumpet represents the word of their testimony. What is that? "For we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord; and ourselves your servants for Jesus' sake". (2 Cor. 4:5) "Blow the trumpet loud and long. Jesus Christ is Lord".

The barley loaf. "But we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God, which raiseth the dead" (2 Cor 1:9). - "Knowing that he which raised up the Lord Jesus shall raise up us also by Jesus, and shall present us with you" (2 Cor. 4:14). The barley loaf is always a type of resurrection, and Christ in the power of resurrection upsets everything. Christ in risen power is enough to solve the whole problem of the Midianites and the Amalekites and all the children of the East. What a place that barley loaf had! It is "God who raiseth the dead", or, in other words, Christ in resurrection life in us that is represented. "If the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you" - the barley loaf, the power of resurrection.

The pursuit. It says that Gideon and his men pursued even though they were faint. What does Paul say of that? "For which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day" (2 Cor. 4:16) - inward renewal by Christ in risen life. "Now he that hath wrought us for the selfsame thing is God, who also hath given unto us the earnest of the Spirit" (2 Cor. 5:5).

Paul covers all that ground connected with Gideon, takes up all these elements, carries them over to the Lord Jesus, and says, the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ is for our hearts by revelation.

What was the result of it all with Gideon? Gideon and his three hundred swept the ground, broke the tyranny of the foe, delivered the Lord's people, brought them back into a place of ascendancy, to the place where the glory of God was once more revealed in them.

The one thing which issued was the leadership of the Lord. Israel came to Gideon and said, "Rule thou over us, both thou, and thy son, and thy son's son also". But Gideon replies, "I will not rule over you... the Lord shall rule over you." "We preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus as Lord", says the Apostle.

Christ the Power of God in the Earthen Vessel

Now all this, as taken up in Christ to be revealed in us, constitutes the power of God for this new warfare of recovering and establishing a full and pure testimony to the Lord Himself in His people. Oh, what a warfare it is! If you are standing for but a part of the testimony you will not meet the same conflict. If you are out on merely a single line of testimony you will not have the same tremendous pressure, though you may have it in measure. But if, in the purpose of God, you are a vessel, individually or collectively, related to His whole testimony, His testimony in fulness and in purity, without mixture, then you are launched into a terrific warfare. The battle will rage. All the mighty host of darkness will concentrate to make that recovery impossible. There is no doubt about it.  It always has been so.

Paul is a man who is out for the full testimony. There could be no partial testimony with him. Others may go just so far, may remain on Jewish ground, and not be of those who go right on, but Paul will not remain on any ground lower and less than the full, the utter testimony of the Lord Jesus. The result is that of which you read here in the first chapter: "Our afflictions, which befell us in Asia"; "Pressed out of measure";  "We despaired even of life"; "We had the sentence of death in ourselves"; "The sufferings of Christ abound unto us". The breaking, the stripping, in the spiritual sense, was as utter as that of Gideon, and all because of that for which he was standing; a fulness, a holiness, a purity, an utterness of testimony to the absolute Lordship of Jesus Christ in the Church which is His Body, and in the universe. So the result is conflict.

How will God triumph? For God's triumph in such a situation it is necessary that He should have all the ground to Himself, and so He allowed the sufferings, the stripping. He took away every ground of fleshly glorying, and brought the vessel to a very fragile state. The Apostle saw the meaning of it. Like Gideon he knew it to be the Lord who was doing it, the Lord who was breaking, emptying, weakening, stripping, and he sums it all up in these words: "We have this treasure in vessels of fragile clay". This is the deliberate object on the part of God, this is not an accident, not just something that has happened to us by chance; there is a definite object in God's mind. "We have this treasure in vessels of fragile clay, that the exceeding greatness of the power should be of God and not of ourselves". That is the way in which the light of the knowledge of the glory of God comes. It is a way of suffering, of conflict, but a way in which Christ as the exceeding great power of God comes to be known in His leadership.

We ought to be comforted, encouraged, strengthened, though it is not indeed a prospect in which the flesh can take any pleasure. On that ground we might well be in fear and much trembling, might well shrink from all that is involved. But let us, like Paul, look away from the things which are seen and mark that all this affliction, when viewed in the light of the unseen, the eternal, is light affliction for a passing moment; it is working a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.

As we have said, this is the way in which the ultimate and full glory of God is going to be displayed through us. How are the forces of evil encountering the impact of Christ now? Through people who count for something? Through people who are mighty? Through people on whom you may look and say, This is a great people? No! Never! If they ever were anything in themselves, God has taken pains to see that they have had to abandon that ground and that now in themselves they are as nothing. Take Paul at the time of the writing of this letter, and ask him what natural value can now be set upon his life. He will tell you it is at a discount, ruled out. At the same time he will be heard to say that "our inner man is renewed day by day". I glory in the fact that, although Paul went through such sufferings - and we by no means know of all that overtook him, and how often he was, as we would say, on the brink of death - he was never cut off, he never died; he laid down his life, it was never taken away from him. When the time came for Paul to leave this scene of his service, he said, "I have finished my course..."; "I am now being offered up, and the time of my departure is at hand". He is a man in possession of the offering. Like his Master he could say, "No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself". When you see the background, then you know this to be a revelation of the glory of God, the power of the risen life of the Lord. That is how the enemy is put to flight and destroyed. It is a glorious revelation of what Christ is. It is the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ in our hearts, and in these vessels of fragile clay, when the treasure is in them.

May the Lord make all this true; not a beautiful meditation or contemplation, but something which is laid hold of by our faith, even Christ our life.