Published as an E-book

by

Austin-Sparks.Net

Email: info@austin-sparks.net

ISBN: 978-1-927228-69-2

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

The Cross and the Eternal Glory of God

by T. Austin-Sparks

First published in "A Witness and A Testimony" magazine, 1927, with the following note: "Given by T. Austin-Sparks at the December Conference [1926]. Honor Oak C. F. Centre. (An extract of notes taken at the December Conference.)"

Contents

Chapter 1 - Introduction to an Address

Chapter 2 - The House, The Name, and The Glory

Chapter 1 - Introduction to an Address

The Cross, and the Eternal Glory of God is our general theme, and the burden of the word for this evening is related, I think, to the whole syllabus; but at any rate starting with the emphasis on that third section in the syllabus - "the Glory Post-Incarnate" - the cross vindicated in the Resurrection and Ascension, I have also to go on into the other, for this is the burden in these days - the abiding manifestation of the Glory in the Church, the Body of Christ.

There are seven manifestations of the Glory in the Word of God, and we shall mention them because they are the basis of this meditation. Seven times both in type and in that typified we are told of the manifestation of the glory, or the glorification. These are as follows:-

1. In the case of the Tabernacle as mentioned in the 40th chapter of Exodus. When all things had been put in order and completed according to the pattern in the mount, the Glory of the Lord filled the House - filled the Tent.

2. The next is in the case of the Temple as recorded in 2 Chron. 7. Again when all things had been set in order and made according to the revelation of the pattern of the heavenlies, we read the Glory of the Lord filled the House.

3. The third is in the 6th chapter of Isaiah. I saw the Lord high and lifted up, His train filled the Temple. Here is a breaking forth, a manifestation of the Glory, and still filling the House of God, as over and upon and within that House of God, the glory was revealed.

4. And then we come into the days of our Lord on the transfiguration mount, as in Matthew 17, & there is a manifestation of the Glory of Christ, a breaking forth, a glorification.

5. Then in His Ascension we read, (and it is interesting to notice this word in the Book of the Acts in the first chapter. Three times this phrase is mentioned - "Received up.") The Authorised Version does not give the significance. It puts it in another way. But He was received up, and received up into the Glory, and in that connection you bring those words from the 24th Psalm: "Lift up your heads O ye gates, and be ye lift up ye everlasting doors: and the King of Glory shall come in." The King of Glory. Here is the glorification in the Ascension, when the King of Glory enters into His Glory.

6. And then at Pentecost, as in Acts 2, there is a manifestation of this Glory in the Church. It is the glorified Christ coming in the Person of the Holy Spirit and revealing and manifesting His Glory in the midst of that spiritual counterpart of the Old Testament Tabernacle and Temple, the Church, which is His Body. At Pentecost He comes into His Temple suddenly, and there is a breaking forth of His Glory. We shall see the nature of that breaking forth later as the manifestation of His sovereignty over sin and death and all flesh. "Thou hast given Him authority, or jurisdiction, over all flesh" was His Word earlier, and you remember Joel's prophecy concerning Pentecost. "I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh." This is that, the manifestation of His sovereignty, His Glory, within and upon and through this spiritual temple.

7. Then finally there is that ultimate, that consummation of the Glory in the spiritual house as mentioned by Paul in 2 Thessalonians chapter 1: "When He shall come to be glorified in His saints." Here is the final consummate manifestation of His Glory in the Church, in the Spiritual House, in His Body. His corporate Body.

Here then you have the sevenfold breaking forth of His Glory in specific and definite manifestations and acts. But that does not carry you very far until you begin to realise the connection of these manifestations of Glory, and I would have you just note the connections of these and the specific significance. They are mainly revealed to us typically and that in two trios, and then you get the one glorious isolated revelation of His Glory in that consummation - and yet not isolated, because it is the consummation of a process which is going on now until that time.

You notice in the Tabernacle the supreme characteristic and feature is His mediatorial work. The Tabernacle has as its central reality the system of sacrifice and priesthood in mediation, and when this thing which is supremely a manifestation of mediatorial priestly work in the behalf of sin and sinners is set up and fulfilled according to the divine ordering, then the glory of the Lord fills the tent: and here you have Christ mediatorially glorified as the High Priest, and as the Altar and as the Sacrifice, the glory of God resting upon and within His work as Mediator, here so fully revealed in the Tabernacle: the glory of God, the glory of Christ, is found within His atoning work, His mediatorial work as Saviour, the One who deals with sin.

Do you notice that couplet which we have often mentioned in this fellowship. It runs right through the Word of God uniting Grace and Glory: "The Lord is a Sun and a Shield, He will give grace and glory." The sun is the glory, but grace is the shield which makes it possible for sinful man to dwell in the glory. If that full-orbed glory of God were to blaze suddenly upon one of us here we should die instantly. "No man hath seen God and lived." It is not possible to stand in the full blaze of the glory of God unless you have something to shield that glory, and the incarnation is the glory of God shielded by grace, so that we can enter into the glory of God without being consumed. You have often looked at the sunset and you have said "How glorious." Now what is a sunset? It is simply the rising of the mists of earth laying hold of the sun rays and breaking them up so that the full blaze of the sun is arrested by these mists of earth, and you look through the shield of mists and see the glory of the sunset, which is simply the full blaze arrested so that you can enjoy it, so that you can look at it in its varied hues and shades. So He took our flesh; He was made in our likeness in order that being one of us He might, yet being God, reveal to us in grace the glory of God, so that we could enjoy it without being consumed. He will give grace and glory.

The mediatorial work of grace, the atoning work, the work by reason of His sacrifice, as He was the Lamb slain, as He was the mediator for our sins, this is the grace of God in Christ by which the glory is revealed; and, beloved, you can never understand the glory, or know anything about the glory, until you have been led to the apprehension of grace, and when you know the meaning of grace, then you know the meaning of glory; and I think of all who ought to be able to appreciate grace, we here ought to be able to appreciate it the most. For has there not been disclosed to us the revelation of the awfulness of flesh, the impossibility of flesh entering into the presence of God. Have we not seen the flesh laid bare, exposed, and have we not come to stand in horror and dread of anything that is flesh? We loathe it! We know what havoc the devil can do if only he can get hold of a little bit of flesh! So we have come to hate and loathe and stand in fear of flesh; and with this revelation of the awfulness, the impossibility of flesh, oh, how much we need the grace of God to stand in His presence at all, all the while enduring this exposure and knowledge of flesh, this awfulness. But that we with this true knowledge (which is not a theory, but is to us a daily agony before God, lest flesh should come in at all) can stand and enjoy fellowship with the Lord, that is grace! And until you understand grace by reason of what He has done on our behalf in being made in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for flesh condemning sin in the flesh, bearing it away Himself, until you appreciate that, you cannot appreciate the glory. But when you understand that, that is the glory, that to you is the glory of God.

I cannot define the glory of God now in other terms than grace. Later on, we may be able to define it in other terms, but at present the glory of God is the grace of God, His forbearance, His longsuffering, His tenderness, His many mercies, the things that He does for us, always what He is doing. The wonder of it all! The upholding, the sustaining in the midst of the direst assaults and most terrible pressure, yet there is that holding of us up all the time, so that although we would give up all too readily, and shrink back, He holds us and brings us through, and then He allows us the honour, which we so often think of as being anything but an honour - to be led into trouble - in order that the manifestation of His grace might bring glory to Himself. This is the glory of God; and it is all because of the mediatorial, atoning, representative and substitutionary work of the Lord. When we understand grace, then the glory of the Lord fills the house. You ask any sinner who has been saved from the awful depths and reality of sin by the grace of God if he knows anything of the glory of God! Why, it is in his face all the time, and it ought to be in our faces all the time, we who know the awfulness of the flesh. The Lord will give grace and glory. These two things always go together, and so you find the first manifestation of the glory of God is in that structure, the Tabernacle, that presentation which speaks supremely of His grace, the mediatorial aspect of the Saviour's life and work.

The next is in the Book of Chronicles, when you come to the Temple. Has it struck you that it was not in the priestly so much as in the monarchical, the kingly, that the glory is vested. It was a king who built this temple; it was a king who dedicated this temple, it was a king who was God's representative in this. The plan was still the same plan, the pattern was still the same pattern as out from the heavenlies. David got the pattern by revelation. It was still the pattern of the things in the heavens, but this time the main feature was the monarchical, the kingly, and then when this thing had been finished according to the ordering of the Lord, and a king representatively stood over it and handed it to the Lord and represented the Lord before the people as the priest had done in the other case, then the glory of the Lord filled the house. Here you have the kingly aspect of the Christ, the sovereignty of the Lord Jesus. We have no need to stay further to talk about it, we are always talking about it. He is sovereign Lord, and we preach Jesus Christ as Lord, and that He is Lord to the glory of God the Father. "Lift up your heads O ye gates: be ye lifted up ye everlasting doors, and the King of Glory shall come in. Who is this King of Glory? The Lord strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle, He is King of Glory." On the ground of His tremendous conquest, on the ground of His great triumph - as He trod the winepress alone, as His garments were dyed red with the blood of His enemies, as He travelling in the greatness of His strength by way of His cross where He stripped off the principalities and powers, where He laid low the powers which were against Him and triumphed gloriously - He is the King of Glory. Upon the triumphant work of Christ as Lord and King the glory of God rests.

Now the third is in that little passage in Isaiah; Isaiah is being called to a prophetical work. He is the prophet of the Messiah, and the words suspended in the air in the presence of the revelation are: "Who will go for us?" and whom shall I send? Here is a "Sent One" required, an Apostleship demanded, one to go out to fulfil a prophetical ministry and work in an apostleship, being sent. "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me," said the great Sent One later, "because He hath anointed me to proclaim: He hath sent me." Now here you have right in the centre a prophetical word. Some have, I think quite justifiably, made Isaiah the highest of the prophets because of the revelation of the Christ which He was permitted to give, or which God gave through him; but the phase here is undoubtedly a type of the "prophesorial" work of the Lord Jesus. His ministry is a "Sent One," a prophet; and as this prophet of the Great Prophet, this one who is included in the prophetic or prophesorial ministry of the Greater Who was to come later, of Whom he prophesied, as he was before the Lord, the Glory of the Lord fills the house to create and to establish this prophetic ministry. Now the Lord Jesus is here foreshadowed in His prophesorial ministry or office, the "Sent One," the Apostle, God's Apostle, and in this coming forth out from the Father of which we read so much and so often speak, "I came forth out from God." "I came out from the Father." "God so loved that He gave" - here is the Gift, the Sent One of God. On the ground of His having come forth from God to declare the counsel of God, and to reveal the mind of God, and to draw men back to God, as well as to warn men of the judgments of God, upon this work of a prophet the glory of the Lord is seen filling the House. Now you see this three-fold phase when you get to the New Testament, which is the counterpart of this Old Testament type.

You notice that in the mount of transfiguration the Saviour is in the presence of His atoning and mediatorial work; for why was He there in the mount? Well He was being spoken to, and having communion concerning His exodus, His going out, which He was shortly to accomplish at Jerusalem. He was in the mount concerning this great work which He was going to accomplish by the exodus of the Cross, and the passion, taken into the Ascension, and through the Ascension into the glory. And when this work of the cross is nearest and most real and accepted anew by Him in the mount, confirmed and ratified by Him before God and the heavenly witnesses, the glory of the Lord breaks forth upon Him and is manifested in Him and through Him. There it is. We need not stay, for we have already said what is to be said about the mediatorial glory of the Saviour.

Thus the second in the New Testament is the Ascension, the King of Glory entering in; this is the sovereign, the monarchical. Then Pentecost is the prophetical, or apostolic - the sending of those in like manner as He was sent. "As the Father hath sent me, even so (in like manner) I send you." And as He is now thrusting out His church, His Body, Christ corporate, Christ representative, the going out into the apostolic, the prophetical ministry, to speak of Him and for Him, to exhort, and to warn, and to entreat - the Glory of God is there.

Now, beloved, this is all so clear and patent, we see the underlying truth or ground-work of the Glory of God. But what I want you to notice is that in each of these cases there is the relationship to the cross - the death, the resurrection and the ascension. When Moses went into the mount to receive the pattern, in order to carry it out, in order that the Glory of the Lord might be revealed, before he ascended that mount he built an altar at its foot, and offered a sacrifice before he went up. Here is Calvary in the Ascension, in the heavens, that the pattern of the Church might be revealed. The cross is basic to the manifestation of the heavenly pattern, and the breaking forth of the heavenly glory.

When Solomon dedicated the temple the altar was there. You remember, the sacrifice was offered, and he knelt by the altar and presented it to God and the glory broke through, but the revelation had come from the heavenlies. The three things are always there - the Cross, the Resurrection, the Ascension. In Isaiah it is all too patent. "Woe is me, for I am undone," then the cherubim took a live coal from the altar; here is this coal soaked in blood and permeated with fire. This is the cross that alone makes this ministry possible, and through this ministry makes possible the manifestation of the glory of God. In the New Testament we see that the cross is associated immediately with the mount of transfiguration. The cross is also at Pentecost. Listen to Peter's sermon and see if it is not there; and we shall recognise that it was upon this spiritual recognition and entry into the meaning of the cross that the glory broke forth at Pentecost. The crucified Christ had now been revealed to them in all the meaning of His Calvary work. There was a time when they could not understand and appreciate that. They said, "Far be it from thee Lord. This shall never come to thee. If this happens then that is an end of everything. There is no hope at all if you go up to Jerusalem and fall into the hands of wicked men." They could see nothing beyond that; but now they had got beyond that, and they saw the cross was everything in the risen Christ. And then in union with the ascended Christ Who was received up into glory, then, on the ground of the cross, and all its outcome, the glory broke through. You see that these three things are there all the way through.

Beloved, in that coming again to be glorified in His saints it will still be the cross, it will still be on the ground of the cross. But this is the point - we can only share the glory as we have shared the cross. The cross is there, and we can only share the glory as we know Him in the power of His resurrection. We can only know the glory as we have already been made to sit with Him in the heavenlies. These three things, union with the crucified Lord, union with the risen Lord, union with the ascended Lord, this is union with a glorified Lord. And if there is to be any breaking forth of the glory of God in us individually it must be as, firstly, the cross does its work; then as He is Sovereign, and not only Mediator; and then as we go out to fulfil His apostolic ministry, as "sent forth" men - only so can the Spirit of Glory rest upon us. The ascension glory is the indwelling of Christ by the Holy Spirit. He has come forth in the person, of His Holy Spirit to indwell, and He is the glory in the midst. Only on these simple, but fundamental realities of union with Christ can the glory be. If He is to be glorified in the midst of us corporately, it will be as we are separated by the cross from all that which the cross condemns and rules out; as we are joined in a personal testimony experimentally to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus; and as we know what it is with Him jointly to reign in life in the ascension power by the Holy Ghost coming and indwelling us. We have made it our supreme ambition and prayer that "I might know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being made comformable to His death." And thus we shall know Him now in His glory.

There are many phases of the practical application of this thing, but the broad range of revelation will be enough, and other applications may follow, if the Lord so leads. We have often said much about this - that He might be allowed to take us into the death of things, and of all that we are, in order that He might be glorified in a testimony to His resurrection in us, and in them. This is the ground of the glory. If we suffer with Him, we shall reign with Him. And that must begin now, because we have got to have an earnest of our inheritance - to know Him as Elisha knew His master Elijah, who went up into the glory in the power of His ascension. When the mantle fell (the type of the Spirit) upon Elisha from his master as he went up into glory, this is a picture of our relationship to our Lord, joined with Him ascended, by the falling of His Spirit upon us, and the entering of His Spirit, into us - to know Him in the fellowship of the Spirit, wearing His mantle. This is the ground of the glory. May we know it. May it not be to you as a beautiful objective mental vision, but a real practical experience. The mediatorial, the sovereign, the apostolic Christ in us fulfilling all those ministries of Saviour and Lord and Prophet in us, and through us, so shall the glory be revealed. The Church - His Body - is the instrument and sphere of this ministry. Christ continues to manifest Himself as Mediator, Sovereign and Apostle in and through His Body, and even so His glory rests upon and breaks forth in this Temple as He is allowed so to do fully by each member becoming incorporated in Himself as Saviour, Sovereign and Sent One.

Chapter 2 - The House, The Name, and The Glory

John 17:1 - "Glorify thy Son, that the Son may glorify thee."

John 17:24 - "That they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me: for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world."

John 17:10 - "All things that are mine are thine, and thine are mine: and I am glorified in them."

John 12:28 - "Father, glorify thy name. There came therefore a voice out of heaven, saying, I have both glorified it, and will

glorify it again."

John 2:17 - "The zeal of thine house hath eaten me up."

Matthew 1:1 - "Jesus Christ, the son of David."

1 Chronicles 17:11, 12, 13 - "I will set up thy seed after thee, which shall be of thy sons; and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build me an house, and I will establish his throne for ever. I will be his father, and he shall be my son: and I will not take my mercy away from him, as I took it from him that was before thee."

Hebrews 1:5 - "For unto which of the angels said he at any time, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee? and again, I will be to him a Father, and he shall be to me a Son?"

Solomon became a type of Christ, building the house and having a throne. Remember always that the house and the throne are combined in Christ. The spiritual temple or church, and the sovereignty of the Christ throned and eternal - these two things always go together. Now you have heard read already this evening that portion from the 2 Chronicles 6 where Solomon has built his Temple and dedicated it to the Lord and in his prayer he asks that (the Lord had said His name should be there) whenever prayer was directed toward that House and any man in any part of the earth looked thither with eyes of longing and spiritual hunger because the name of the Lord was there such a man should realise the Lord's loving-kindness and experience the Lord's power and deliverance. You will have, without my pointing it out, quite naturally as we have mentioned these passages picked up the link of association of three things -

The House - The Name - The Glory.

"The zeal of thine house hath eaten me up," said The One Who was to build a more glorious house than that of Solomon, a more wonderful temple than that which almost stunned the Queen of Sheba with its amazing beauty. Christ "as a Son over His own house, whose house are we, if we hold fast the confession of our faith," and over that house, which is more familiarly known to us as the Church which is His Body, is His Name: and the Name is the object of the glory - "Father glorify Thy Name." These things you may more fully connect, but we take up the inclusive suggestion of them in this word this evening that from eternity to eternity the object and basis of God's glory is His Name. And that glory, because of the Name, is to be revealed and manifested in the House upon which the Name rests. You notice our syllabus:-

The Glory Before Times Eternal; The Glory Incarnate;

now put these two things together - "The zeal of Thy House hath eaten me up." Isn't it remarkable that immediately associated with that prayer "Glorify," that declaration - "The zeal of Thy House hath eaten me up," the Pharisees say - Give us a sign; show us your credentials, what is your authority for doing this - using these knotted cords and driving out of the temple them that bought and sold? Give us a sign of authority for doing this. That was asked on the ground of this saying - "The zeal of Thine House hath eaten me up." His answer was, "Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up; this said He concerning His Body." The vindication of the sovereignty of Christ is in the Resurrection Body, in the triumph over death in the Body of the Resurrection, and when you get on to resurrection ground and talk about the Body you always remember that, so far as this world is concerned for present purposes, and beyond that of course, but immediately for present purposes, that Body is a corporate Body. Composed of all who have been united with Christ in resurrection life. You have no need that I remind you of 1 Corinthians 10:11.

Firstly, in 10:16 "The loaf which we break is it not the communion of the Body of Christ, seeing that we are one loaf, one Body." There is the loaf which represents inclusively the Christ and His members as one loaf.

11:24 - "This is my body, broken for you."

Now here you have this fact that He immediately refers to His Resurrection Body corporately as the vindication of His activities and the establishment of His sovereignty. Destroy this Sanctuary, this place of divine abode, in three days I will raise it up. That is my sign, and that is my vindication, the Resurrection Sanctuary, the Body of Christ. God vindicates Him, justifies Him, and upon that Body His Name rests. As the Lord's name symbolically rested upon the temple of Solomon, so the Name in reality rests upon this Resurrection Body, and the Name is the basis of the Divine Glory. "Glorify Thy Name."

Now if we had time and were so disposed we could go through the Word and trace the phrase - "The Name of the Lord" or "My Name," or "My Holy Name," and you will find a vast amount of light thrown upon this, that the one thing over which God is jealous is His Name, and the upholding of His Name is that upon which He displays His Glory.

Now all that is basic. I think it is perfectly clear, but it carries us back to the beginning of things which had their beginning, before times eternal. Let us remember, that the name does not necessarily represent a human title. It is that intrinsic value which is enshrined within the Name of the Lord. Lord. It is what the Name represents. Weymouth gives us such a splendid translation which helps us out here when he is translating about the Name that is above every Name, he translates it "Title of sovereignty above every title of sovereignty," and for purposes of definition I would make a further improvement and say - "The title to sovereignty above every title to sovereignty" because that is where you begin. You find that it was the title to supreme and all-inclusive and undivided sovereignty in the Universe which was assailed. It was assailed in heaven. The equality of the Son with the Father in the title to sovereignty was - as we have so often said - challenged and assailed by one who sought to have that selfsame equality - to be equal with God - and thus to get in and divide and occupy a place to which he was not entitled, and to take that name for himself unlawfully, ever to be worshipped as God. His last all-inclusive effort will be sought in the Temple of God being worshipped as God in the Anti-Christ. When I say the "all-inclusive," I mean that he will sum up every form throughout the ages of his attempt to get that possession. Every form in which he has come through the ages at different times, in different places, to take the place of God in the race and to capture the race for himself. In the gods of the Egyptians you have the thing back of a system with all its paraphernalia. In Canaanitish worship you have a system of demonology, the worship of demons and the initiate right of passing through the fire. This aspirant for the position of the Son of God has sought to capture the race, and in the Anti-Christ you will find that all these methods are summed up, in spiritism, and demon worship, veiled, covered and glorified as far as he can clothe it with all kinds of things which will capture the imagination and the soul of man, and he will be worshipped as God. Against the Name of the Lord has this thing been organised and projected and asserted. The title to sovereignty on the part of the Son is what the Name represents, and it is for the hallowing of that Name that the Son has come out from the bosom of the Father, and entered upon this tremendous work in and through His Cross, and gained by inheritance a more excellent name than angel and archangel, and that Name being the symbol of His rightful authority and sovereignty in the universe, in the heavens and in the earth, is the thing which God desires to glorify, and the devil desires to slander.

Now you understand, perhaps, if you look at it in this light, why it is that every diabolical trap and snare and resource is instituted and thrust forward against those who bear the Name of the Lord, for we, beloved, have to meet what no one else has to meet in these efforts of the Adversary simply because the Name is upon us, to slander and dis-hallow that Name in us and through us. In as much as the Lord has determined that His Name shall rest upon a spiritual house, a temple not made with hands, and that that Name shall be the thing which He will make glorious in and through and by that House, so, in the same degree and measure, the Adversary has determined if he can by any means to dishonour that Name as it is upon us as we hold it, and every time he gets an advantage where we are concerned, he is able to that degree to dishallow the Name, and therefore to rob God of His Glory. So then, the Glory of God is wrapped up with the hallowing of the Name. The object of the Lord is to get a people for His Name, and such as are consumed with the zeal of His House, and who at the same time will go forth as of that House "for the sake of the Name."

In those early days the Lord always glorified the Name as it was used corporately against the attempts of the adversary to assume the sovereignty and challenge the Divine authority. Wherever those men went upon whom the Name rested the enemy opposed and God vindicated the Name. In their act of witness and testimony to their identification with Christ the Name of the Lord was called upon them. James says "They continually blaspheme that Holy Name which was called upon you." The Name is not merely a label, it is a title or entitlement, and ultimately universal confession shall be made of that right to reign.

Now then the Lord says, in order that it might not be slandered, that there might be no ground for it to be dishallowed, "let everyone that nameth the Name of the Lord depart from iniquity"; for immediately you take that Name and iniquity is found in you the Name is dishallowed and dishonoured and the glory is arrested, because there is ground there upon which the enemy can operate to destroy the works of the Lord. I can see in all this an explanation of the enemy's assaults upon the Body of Christ and members in particular. As one has often said to you, it is not simply because of your individual importance or my individual importance. We don't count for anything in ourselves, but it is because of that Holy Name which has been called upon us that we become as out from Eternity the object of the enemy's interest and malice. Before times Eternal, but started on a much higher plane than ourselves, than the human race, he started upon the Son of God Himself who bore the name, the title of sovereignty equal with God. And this, beloved, on the other hand, is the motive for our standing fast and refusing, no matter what the cost is, to yield to the pressure of the enemy and to go down. We cannot, because of the Name, fail Him. We cannot yield because that Name is upon us. We cannot dishallow that Name by giving way to the enemy under his pressure. The motive is the Name, for the sake of the Name we must stand fast. But then this further thing is that God's glory is going to be manifest where His Name is, and that glory of course is the more enhanced by the intensity of the adversary's assaults upon us if we stand in the power of that Name. Christ, as we know, was the centre of assault and attack. All hell raged upon Him because of Who He was and what He was, but in the presence of Hell's most vicious assault as He came immediately under the shade of Gethsemane and the Cross He said - "The hour is come. Father, glorify Thy Name," and the Father responded - "I have and I will."

Beloved, believe this, that the hour of the fiercest and most awful assault on the Name may be the hour when the Name is the most glorified. When you feel that all hell has opened up to swallow you, then the Lord is to be most glorified. We have found it like that in the hour of direst and deepest anguish by reason of the pressure, we have appealed for the honour of that Name, and the Lord has come in and has been glorified in that hour - in that hour! - when the Cross was being shared in its deeper meaning, He has come in and been glorified in what He has done.

The Lord is very jealous for His Name, the hallowing of His Name, and He has said - "When ye pray," do not say this prayer, "but pray after this manner," according to these Eternal laws - "Father, Thy Name be hallowed." That is the quest, that is the fight of prayer, that is the issue on the battlefield of prayer, the hallowing of the Name in a realm where the Adversary is seeking to dishallow it, and believe me, Beloved, we are called into the fight and into the fire, into the conflict, into the very blood of Christ, and the anguish of Christ in the behalf of the Name. We are in this thing for the sake of the Name, we are being baptised into the honour of the Name. The honouring of the Name in this age is a terrific business, you know it. You recognise that this is registered in your own life, you know that in a hundred ways every day the Name could be easily dishallowed. Oh! the traps - we could never mention them all. We could not catalogue the traps that the Devil sets for the people of God. If he can only get an unholy alliance, some little fleshly link, some moving out from ourselves in the resources of the flesh, something he can make us say or do in any way whatever, if only he can get at that Name which we bear, so that that Name is dishallowed and dishonoured.

Now this then is the cry for the hallowing of the Name by the hallowing of ourselves who bear the Name, the consecration of our lives in the interests of that Name that God may be glorified where His Name is honoured. Life has got to be adjusted by the grace of God through the Cross to the hallowing of that Name - the cutting off of the flesh - and you appear in His presence because of His Name that is amongst you. Be sanctified! Sanctify yourselves, and there is only one means of sanctification, and that is the Cross.

The Cross is the means of sanctification, and therefore the means of the hallowing of the Name and therefore the means of the glorifying of God in Christ. This then is the emphasis upon the necessity of the Cross being accepted and planted deep in our lives to the cutting off of all that upon which the enemy can to the slightest degree achieve the ends which he had in view from eternity to take the glory from the Son of God. The Cross must cut off all flesh. So the Lord is glorified in us, but there is the other side, more positive and practical in the outworking that the Lord might be glorified through us, by our moving out as in Himself by the Spirit for the sake of the Name. This is one's confidence and one's hope. What is our assurance that, as we go forth, something will happen, something will be done, something will be accomplished? What assurance have we that when we move out there must be an issue? Well, we have no assurance in ourselves. It is not the value either of our praying in itself, nor of our preaching in itself, nor of all our labours in themselves. It is nothing that we can do in any way whatever that can give us an assurance of any effectiveness, but it is in THE NAME: That is a sound enough basis: That is a thing which is recognised in heaven, earth and hell, in the things above and under the earth. We have often quoted that passage very usefully, always coming in and helping us, concerning the Apostle meeting that situation in the Name, and effectively meeting it, but someone else came along and took it in a secondhand way - "In the Name of Jesus whom Paul preaches," and the issue was very different indeed! Instead of success, utter failure, and more than failure - an awful wreck! But to move out in the Name, not just using it in a secondhand way, adopting it as phraseology, but moving out experimentally in the Name because we stand cut off by the Cross from the thing which dishonours the Name - move out in that Name - this is the ground of our assurance that something must happen. God is jealous of His Name, very jealous, and God will always glorify His Name where it is truly and soundly proclaimed in the Spirit and acted upon under the leading of the Spirit. That is our assurance.

Beloved, you take the Name of Jesus, every one of you, and you see that it is a tremendous thing to bear the Name, to take the Name, it links you up with a thing of infinite significance and importance which began before the world was. It links you up with the battle of the ages, and it links you up with the glory of eternity when He shall come to be glorified in His saints, that is His church, where His Name is. We are linked with this eternal thing, to the glory of God associated with the Name which is to be established through the "Lamb slain from the foundation of the world," and we, in time, joined to Him in His cross. Even so shall the glory of God be revealed, and in a thousand ways the glory of the Lord may be revealed every day. I am not sure that the Lord is anxious to give a demonstrational display of His glory to mortals - "to cast His pearls before swine," but there is a realm in which the glory of the Lord has a signification which transcends that of this world by dimensions infinite. Oh! amongst principalities and powers the glory of the Lord means something, it is not an empty show. It is the establishment of His infinite title to sovereignty and the manifestation of the power of that sovereignty. We are in an enormous thing, and so your daily triumphs, by grace, go a long way beyond the local situation, a long way beyond our own gratification that we have not failed, they have registered something to the glory of God in a universe, the height and breadth and depth of which you have never imagined.

The glory of God is manifested by every victory won, by every standing steadfast, by every refusing to give up; the Name is saved from dishonour, and the Lord Himself, the Christ of God who bears that Name is vindicated before angels and before demons. There are elements of mystery about it, why it should be necessary, but there it is. It is the revelation of the Word that it is so, so our union with Him is a union with His Name in order that He might be glorified, and because He has called us under His Name to meet with Him this challenge with all its fury, its vehemence, its relentlessness, and we feel also the impact of that challenge and the hatred to that Name. He has assured us that if we suffer with Him we shall be glorified together with Him, and if we were chosen before the foundation of the world in Him, it is true, as the Word says, that we were chosen into His eternal glory - we shall arrive in the glory, experience the glory, know the glory, just as now we for the sake of the Name endure hardship. Stand steadfast, that that Name may be delivered out of the hands of His enemies and vindicated as the title to all sovereignty above every title of sovereignty in this age and in that which is to come.

Table of Contents

Contents

Chapter 1 - Introduction to an Address

Chapter 2 - The House, The Name, and The Glory