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The Cross, the Church, and the Conflict

by T. Austin-Sparks

First published in "A Witness and A Testimony" magazines, 1943-45

Contents

Chapter 1 - The Cross: The Basis of the Church

Chapter 2 - The Cross: The Basis of the Church (continued)

Chapter 3 - The Church According to God's Thought

Chapter 4 - The Church According to God's Thought (continued)

Chapter 5 - The Church According to God's Thought (continued)

Chapter 6 - The Conflict

Chapter 7 - The Conflict (continued)

Chapter 1 - The Cross: The Basis of the Church

"And when the seventh month was come, and the children of Israel were in the cities, the people gathered themselves together as one man to Jerusalem. Then stood up Jeshua the son of Jozadak, and his brethren the priests, and Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, and his brethren, and builded the altar of the God of Israel, to offer burnt-offerings thereon, as it is written in the law of Moses the man of God. And they set the altar upon its base; for fear was upon them because of the peoples of the countries: and they offered burnt-offerings thereon unto Jehovah, even burnt-offerings morning and evening. And they kept the feast of tabernacles, as it is written, and offered the daily burnt-offerings by number, according to the ordinance, as the duty of every day required... From the first day of the seventh month began they to offer burnt-offerings unto Jehovah: but the foundation of the temple of Jehovah was not yet laid... Now in the second year of their coming unto the house of God at Jerusalem, in the second month, began Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, and Jeshua the son of Jozadak, and the rest of their brethren the priests and the Levites, and all they that were come out of the captivity unto Jerusalem, and appointed the Levites, from twenty years old and upward, to have the oversight of the work of the house of Jehovah... And when the builders laid the foundation of the temple of Jehovah, they set the priests in their apparel with trumpets, and the Levites the sons of Asaph with cymbals, to praise Jehovah, after the order of David king of Israel. And they sang one to another in praising and giving thanks unto Jehovah, saying, For he is good, for his lovingkindness endureth for ever toward Israel. And all the people shouted with a great shout, when they praised Jehovah, because the foundation of the house of Jehovah was laid. But many of the priests and Levites and heads of fathers' houses, the old men that had seen the first house, when the foundation of this house was laid before their eyes, wept with a loud voice; and many shouted aloud for joy: so that the people could not discern the noise of the shout of joy from the noise of the weeping of the people; for the people shouted with a loud shout, and the noise was heard afar off... Now when the adversaries of Judah and Benjamin heard that the children of the captivity were building a temple unto Jehovah, the God of Israel; then they drew near to Zerubbabel, and to the heads of fathers' houses, and said unto them, Let us build with you; for we seek your God, as ye do; and we sacrifice unto him since the days of Esar-haddon king of Assyria, who brought us up hither." (Ezra 3:1-4,6,8,10-13; 4:1-2).

"And I also say unto thee, that thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it... From that time began Jesus to show unto his disciples, that he must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and the third day be raised up. (Matt. 16:18,21).

We have read those two portions of the Word of God, not because we are going to dwell upon them in particular, but because they bring very clearly and definitely into view the matter upon which the Scriptures as a whole come with very great weight and forcefulness. Both in the Old Testament in type, and in the New Testament in reality, this thing is made very clear, namely, that the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ is meant by God to lead immediately and directly to the Church, and that, when the Cross and the Church are really brought spiritually into view, then an intense state of conflict is set up. That is stating very briefly what, as I have said, the Scriptures throughout make very clear.

You will at once recognise that those three things are clearly seen in the passage in the book of Ezra. They set the altar in its place. That is the Cross. They came to build the house of the Lord. That is the Church. And when the adversaries saw it, they drew near. That is the conflict.

In the passage in the Gospel by Matthew, chapter 16, you have it again. "Upon this rock I will build my church." "From that time Jesus began to show unto his disciples, how that he must go unto Jerusalem and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and the third day raised up." That is the Cross; and the Cross and the Church being in view, the conflict is begun. And so you will find it everywhere.

Go further back in the Old Testament to the twelfth chapter of the book of Exodus, and you have the same thing, remembering that the book of Exodus opens with a presentation of the sons of Israel, and you know that the sons of a prince with God are found in bondage and are about to be emancipated. Typically the Church is in view. Chapter 12 brings the Cross in as the ground of that emancipation, but it is all surrounded by intense conflict. The battle is joined when the bringing out of those elect people is begun, and the ground upon which the battle is really fought out is the ground of the Cross. You come to the book of the Acts, and it is just the same: the Cross, the Church and the Conflict. It is the three C's all the way through the Scriptures. Well, then, we need to see God's mind about this matter.

In the thought of God, the Cross of the Lord Jesus is meant to lead immediately and directly to the Church. Any apprehension or teaching of the Cross which does not lead directly to the Church is either a misapprehension or only a partial apprehension, and it will inevitably result in a limited spiritual life and a limited spiritual service! The Cross, in God's intention, is never an end in itself. It is a way, it is a means, it is a basis, it is intended to lead to something else.

You go to another part of the Old Testament type of this. You remember when David, provoked by Satan to number Israel, to take account of natural resources, brought that awful judgment upon the people, the angel with the drawn sword smote up and down the land and was about to strike at Jerusalem itself, when the Lord intervened and said: It is enough, stay now thy sword. David was then by the threshing floor of Ornan, the Jebusite, and Ornan was threshing wheat, and David drew near and bought the threshing floor and built an altar unto the Lord, an altar by which this sin was dealt with, this iniquity was removed, by which the Lord was given His place, and that threshing floor of Ornan where David built the altar became the site of the temple in Jerusalem. It was the very foundation of the temple. If you dwell upon that a little more you will see how many elements of tremendous significance there are in that.

Yes, the Cross is a foundation, a basis, and it is the basis of the Church. They set the altar in its place and then they built the house of the Lord. I repeat, the Cross of the Lord Jesus in the mind of God is intended to lead directly to the Church, and unless it does that there will be progress only within certain very limited dimensions. There will be a straitened spiritual life and a service to the Lord which is lacking in those greater fulnesses of Divine meaning and intention.

I am most anxious that you should see more than I am saying, that you should really grasp the significance of this, and not just take it as something said. It can be put in many different ways.

We can put it like this, that the Lord Himself sees through the Cross a great heavenly object, and that object is His Church. "Christ loved the church and gave himself for it" (Eph. 5:25). There is your precise statement that, in the giving of Himself, which is the Cross of the Lord Jesus, there was an object in view, and that object was the Church. "Christ loved the church and gave himself for it", and if you and I are going to come into God's meaning of the Cross, it will be something more than the forgiveness of sins, something more than justification by faith, something more than the possessing of eternal life, something more than deliverance from Satan and hell, and entitlement to heaven. If we come into God's thought concerning the Cross, we shall very soon come into a heavenly revelation of the Church. The one must follow the other if we are right in oneness with the Lord's thought.

The Result of an Imperfect Apprehension of the Cross

In saying that, beloved, one is touching a good deal of tragic history. There has been a great deal of teaching of the Cross, preaching of the Cross. It has been faithful, it has been sincere, but for want of seeing this very thing, namely, what the Cross is meant to lead to, the results have been very unsatisfactory. That is to say, vast numbers of those who have come into those elementary benefits (if I may so call them,) of the Cross of the Lord Jesus have just remained there, elementary Christians all their lives, and there has been no touching, or very little touching, of the great situation on the earth which is such a terrible denial of God's thought about His people.

You look at the Christian world today, the people of God upon the earth, and what do you feel about the situation? The more you look, the more you know, the more your heart aches and the more you are driven to despair. The conflict between true children of God is the most terrible thing. They are all at variance with one another, they are suspecting one another; suspicion runs rife amongst the people of God. They even go as far as to pray hard against one another. This is not against the enemies of the Lord as pronouncedly so. One could say much, and not exaggerate, about the situation, for the more you know, I say, the more you feel what a situation of impossibility it is amongst Christians on the earth. Ought these things to be so, brethren? No, we cannot accept that situation as representing God's thought.

Then something is wrong. There is some explanation. It ought not to be so. Why is it? The answer is here. There has been a misapprehension or an imperfect apprehension of the Cross of the Lord Jesus, for the Cross of the Lord Jesus was intended to meet such a contingency and make it impossible; and yet all those concerned have accepted the Cross, that is, they have embraced those elementary values of the Cross, that Christ died for their sins, that by His precious Blood, by faith in His atoning work there is justification from all sin, acceptance with God, deliverance from judgment. Yes, they have accepted the Cross; but all that is but the beginning, the foundation. It is intended to lead to something very much more than that. The Cross is a means in God's thought to a great end, and none of us as the Lord's people must be satisfied with just the means. We must be supremely concerned with God's object through the means.

The Cross Effects a Clearing of the Way for God's End

As a foundation, as a basis, there are various directions in which the Cross has its meaning. We must recognise these because they represent the clearing of the way for this that God is going to bring in.

It is interesting that there in the case of Ezra and those with him, those who came back from the captivity, that they spontaneously, instinctively turned to the building of the house of the Lord, as though it was the accepted thing, the thing taken for granted. It was the thing that had to be done; they simply gave themselves to it. But in order to prepare the way they put the altar in its place, and you notice what is said about that - "for fear was upon them because of the peoples of the countries". This is setting up that which gives assurance, an assurance that they can go on, that they can be established, that they can accomplish the work, that they can build the house, and although the enemies prevailed for a time, it was never the Lord's thought that the work should cease. That altar had secured a way, had secured the accomplishment of the work. If only they had recognised and stood by all the significance of that altar, they would never have stopped building the house for those years, for you know that eventually when the work was resumed, it was because the Lord stirred up the spirit of Zerubbabel and Joshua, and further exhorted the people through the prophet in the words, "Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts" (Zech. 4:6); meaning this - You may be weak, a mere remnant back from captivity, there may be the enemies, the peoples of the countries round about all against you, but that altar has secured a way for the Holy Spirit, and in all your weakness you can go on. It is "not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts".

That is exactly how it worked out in the New Testament. Here were these few poor people in Jerusalem who had proved themselves so weak and impotent, having failed at every point and broken down in all directions. Now the Cross is an accomplished fact, giving a way for the Holy Spirit, and that handful of weaklings, not by might, nor by power, but by the Spirit of the Lord of hosts, go right on in the building of the house against terrific odds; but the work goes on.

They put the altar in its place and instinctively turned to the building of the house. The altar cleared the way, and the Cross is just that by which a way is made, getting rid of things that hinder the realisation of God's purpose.

Chapter 2 - The Cross: The Basis of the Church (continued)

The God-ward Aspect of the Cross

The Cross first of all has its God-ward aspect or direction; that is, the Cross secures God's rights in righteousness. There is no hope of any Divine purpose being realised, there is no hope for the Church to become an actuality according to God's mind until that has been dealt with; until God's rights in righteousness have been secured. The Lord Jesus, then, came, and coming to John at Jordan to be baptized of him, John would have refused: but Jesus said, "Suffer it to be so now; for thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness" (Matt. 3:15). In the same record later on He will say, "I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it" (Matt. 16:18). But there is no hope for that until this has been settled; all righteousness, and that in His baptism, type and figure of His Cross, His burial, His resurrection, all righteousness settled. That is to say, God in the first instance has His place, has His rights secured.

How does God have His rights in righteousness secured? Well, by dealing with the unrighteousness in man, the unrighteousness of man, the unrighteousness in this world, the unrighteousness which from the beginning has been standing in God's way. Now, in this representative One, all that unrighteousness is taken up and brought under judgment and death, the final judgment of unrighteousness in the death of Christ. Jordan, of course, is a very passive figure of it. The active positive view of the meaning of that can only be seen and understood if in any way the Holy Spirit shows us the meaning of that great and terrible cry, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" (Matt. 27:46). If ever a soul were to be fully alive to the eternal meaning of being God-forsaken, then such a one would understand the meaning of unrighteousness, the awfulness of eternal abandonment by God because of unrighteousness. To deal with that the Son of God came and went to the Cross.

God has something which He demands as His rights and that something is righteousness, perfect righteousness, righteousness filled full, fulfilled, and that must obtain before anything else can be realised. God must have His rights secured in utter righteousness.

But that means, of course, an utterness of abandonment to the will of God. Abandonment to the will of God - that is righteousness. God having His rights means that He has undivided allegiance, devotion, abandonment. That is the note from Genesis to Revelation. Whenever God gets anything which resembles that, you will notice there is something very, very wonderful that comes out from God. You think of it. We only dare take one instance, that of Abraham in the offering of Isaac. Here, you see, is an abandonment to God, an utterness, unquestioning devotion to the will of God. That is the only thing that governs; no arguments: and he might have argued. God said, "Take now thy son", and Abraham neither argued, reasoned, nor held back, but made his way to the appointed spot and virtually enacted the Divine requirement and offered Isaac. What was God's reaction? "Because thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son, in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed..." (Gen. 22:16-17). But, more than that, Abraham became the friend of God. The friend of God! I do not think there is any other title in the Bible which approximates to that in its meaning. "Abraham my friend" (Isa. 41:8). Think of Almighty God saying that of a man. Here is an utterness of devotion to the will of God. But that is the Cross, that is always connected with the Cross. With Abraham, it was, in type, bound up with the Cross, the offering of his only son whom he loved. It was the Cross.

But it is a figure, after all, of something greater in the Lord Jesus and His Cross. His was an abandonment even unto death, unquestioning devotion to the will of God. "I come to do thy will" (Heb. 10:7). "I delight to do thy will" (Psa. 40:8). "Not my will, but thine" (Luke 22:42). The will of God, that is the Cross, God getting His rights. Oh, beloved, you see what the Church is founded upon. Had the Church truly seen and taken its character from that, there would have been none of this situation which we find on the earth today amongst Christians.

Yes, the Cross God-ward means that God comes into His place. If you and I are going to say anything about the Cross, if we are going to preach and teach the Cross, let us understand that, from God's standpoint, this is what the Cross means, not merely a question of the benefits we derive, but what God Himself gets in us and through us by His Cross. That is the other aspect. God has His eye on that all the time, and that to which God has a right is this abandonment to His will without question. Upon that rock the Church is built.

The Man-ward Aspect of the Cross

Then there is the man-ward aspect of the Cross, that is, that not only does the Cross clear the ground for the Eternal Purpose of God in Christ by its answering to God's requirement of absolute righteousness, but it clears the ground of man, man's nature, man's being; for the Church can never be composed of man as he is by nature. That is just where things have gone all wrong, and that is why we have such a situation. The old man has come into the Church, and he has no right and no place there. Yes, Jacob is there; whereas he ought to have been smitten, to have become a prince with God. You and I by nature have no place whatever in the Church, and the Cross deals with that and clears the ground, and will forever keep a clear line of demarcation registered between what we are by nature and what Christ is in us by grace. Do not forget that. The Holy Spirit by the Cross draws that line, and if you and I are really going on into God's fullest thought and purpose, that line will be constantly kept in view by the Holy Spirit, and we shall be made aware of it all the time - Yes, that is you, that is not Christ, that has no place here at all and you must leave it out! In this place, the House of God, the Church, it is Christ and only Christ, and you can only abide in this House as you abide in Christ; which in turn means that you must keep out of what you are by nature, and keep what you are by nature out. The Cross has for ever put those two asunder, cleared the ground for God's purpose.

You know that, you know it all, I have not told you anything fresh. Ah, but it is very necessary for every one of us to be continually reminded of this lest we are found to be in God's way, lest we are found, after all, to be fighting against God; lest we are found to be bringing stuff into God's house which has no right there. Oh, that is a terrible thing. You know what happened in the days of Nehemiah over that, how Nehemiah had to turn the furniture of an enemy from the very House of God; how place had been given to that which was inimical to God's thought by the very people of God themselves. Oh no, God will not have anything of that!

Well, to come right on into all that fulness which is God's thought, the Cross has to come very powerfully and very drastically down, cleaving and cutting between what man is in himself and what he is in Christ, and keeping that difference always very distinct and very clear.

You will notice the Holy Spirit is very uncompromising, and we must never think that patience and forbearance of the Spirit with us means compromise on His part. The Lord may treat us gently and kindly for a time, but the time comes when the Lord would say, I have borne with you a long time on this matter and you have been presuming; you have been presuming upon My patience, on My longsuffering, on My mercifulness and kindness, and you have interpreted My patience with you as My condoning of your flesh, that I am not so particular, after all! That has been your attitude. If you have not said it, that is exactly what it amounts to, and then the time comes when the Lord says, "Judgment must begin at the house of God" (1 Pet. 4:17), and it begins with those who have been indulging the flesh because of the patience of God. The Holy Spirit does not indefinitely permit that. No, the Cross, in God's mind, is intended to clear the ground of all that, in order that there may be a place where Christ, and Christ only, is seen and known.

That is God's thought about the Church, for upon this the Bible is clear throughout, that you can never make Christ one thing and the Church another. I mean this, that, wherever you find the Church, you find that the Church is Christ. Take the tabernacle, the tabernacle in the wilderness. You cannot get away from the fact that this tabernacle represents something corporate. Here are all those boards bound together by ties, and that is a number of units bound together into one. You cannot get away from the fact that that is a type of the Church.

And yet look again, and can you discriminate between that and Christ? It is all Christ, every bit of it is Christ. Every substance, every form, every measurement, it is all Christ. These two are one. That does not mean that Christ has no separate, personal existence in glory as an entity. But Christ and His Church are one. But you and I and Christ are not the same. I would not dare to say that I am Christ, would you? Not at all. You see what I mean. There is that about us which is other than Christ. Christ is one thing, and we are another thing, and yet there is a union within with Christ which makes us one in the sight of God. The outworking of that at length is going to be that, in seeing the Church perfected, you will see Christ glorified. You will see what it means that Christ is glorified, "when He shall come to be glorified in His saints, and to be marveled at in all them that believed" (2 Thess. 1:10). That is not only identification in relationship, that is identification in nature. That is the end. Well, the Cross has to prepare the way for that by dealing with man in what he is and putting him in his nature aside, in order to bring in Christ in fullness.

The Satan-ward Aspect of the Cross

One word more. The Cross has another aspect, and that is Satan-ward. God-ward, man-ward, and Satan-ward. Many scriptures will at once leap into your minds in this connection. "For this purpose was the Son of God manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil" (1 John 3:8). When did He do it? He put off from Him the principalities and powers and made a show of them openly, triumphing over them in His Cross (Col. 2:15). As He moved to that Cross, He cried, "Now is the judgment of this world: now shall the prince of this world be cast out." (John 12:31-32). And again, "The prince of this world hath been judged." (John 16:11).

The Cross undoes all the work of Satan. It removes all the ground of Satan's further work and closes the door to him. Oh, this is very utter, but it just means this, that if you and I really did live on the ground of the Cross utterly, Satan would never have a chance of doing anything. To put that round the other way, is to say that all that Satan is able to do is because we do not live on the ground of the Cross. The Cross undoes all his work and it deprives him of the ground of doing any more, and then eventually it results in the casting out of his kingdom altogether, in that day when it shall be made universally actual. That is secured in the Cross of the Lord Jesus.

The Church issues from that, follows upon that, is built upon that - the work of the Cross. The Church takes its character from that in the thought of God.

Well, we must leave it there for the time being. If all this is true, beloved, you understand the conflict. It is not to be wondered at that there is terrific conflict when the Cross is really brought into view and the Church according to God's mind issues therefrom. There is bound to be conflict; there is, and we know it! They set the altar in its place, they laid the foundation of the house of the Lord, and when the enemies heard, they drew nigh. That is the synopsis of a book, a story, a very big story.

That is a very brief word about the Cross by way of re-emphasis, but I am quite sure you will agree with me there is a tremendous need for bringing the greater meaning of the Cross before the people of God continually, before our own hearts. I am quite sure of this, the day will never come when the Holy Spirit will cease to speak to us, the Lord's people, about the Cross of Christ, that is, while we are on this earth. His emphasis may rather grow stronger and more emphatic. He will constantly bring us back to that Cross. Every degree of spiritual increase results from some further spiritual apprehension of the Cross. It is basic to everything. Of course, this is a superstition, but I believe in some parts of South America, when putting up a building, they start with a cross at the foundation and as every layer of stones and bricks is set on, they lift the cross as they go. It is a superstition, and is supposed to keep off demons, but there is something by way of illustration there. It is exactly what the Holy Spirit does. We do not grow, there is no increase, only by the Cross. At every stage, the Cross is applied anew. I think some people's idea is that you come to the Cross and then you leave it and you go on, and you go back to the Cross merely in testimony, in thought, as to the time when you were converted: that was the Cross, and that was forty or fifty years ago. For many Christians the Cross is always something that is away back in the past history of their spiritual life. Oh no, not in God's thought. The Cross ought to be more than ever it was yesterday, or any of the yesterdays. It ought to be far more, and it will be if the Holy Spirit has His way.

Chapter 3 - The Church According to God's Thought

Our hearts have been directed anew to the relationship between the Cross, the Church, and the spiritual conflict, and what we are seeing in the first place is that, in the purpose of God, the Cross is intended to lead directly and immediately to the Church. You will just suffer a word or two of re-emphasis in that particular matter before we go further.

The Expression in the Church of the Life of the Lord Jesus

It is possible to have an evangelism of the Cross which does not lead directly and definitely to the Church, and it is possible to have a teaching about the Cross in its fuller meanings; that is, the Cross beyond the elementary matters of new birth, justification and such matters; it is possible, I say, to have a message, a teaching, which is fuller concerning the Cross than that, which, nevertheless, does not really and actually lead to the Church; in both of which cases the Divine intention is missed, the purpose of God is not reached. Now, probably someone might say, But surely everyone who is born again is in the Church, and the Church comes into being in that way: what is the Church but the company of those who are born again? Yes, but that is not what I am talking about. That may be true, and yet, for all practical purposes, the Church may not exist; for all practical purposes, in the real, present, practical values of the Church, the Body of Christ, it might not be in existence. I am speaking now not so much about the Church as it is called mystical; that is, that somewhere outside of this realm, in the unseen and the unknown, all believers are one, spiritual oneness obtains, and that is the Church. That may be true, I do not dispute that, but there is something more than that. If that were all, then perhaps we should be excused for all the things which exist here on the earth, and we could accept them without any question or heartache, and we could just go blithely on our way, saying, Oh yes, it is quite true that all the Lord's people are divided up into thousands of warring sections and parties, nevertheless we do not take any notice of that; they are all one in heaven, they share one common life! I am quite sure that some of us do not feel that is what the Lord would have us accept. No, I am not speaking about the Church "mystical", to use a word of which I am always a little afraid. I am speaking about the Church actual. The Lord Jesus died that there might be an expression here on the earth of what He is in heaven, to have a working expression of His life.

Surely the very term "Body of Christ" means something more than just the fact that the life of the Body is one life. It signifies that the members of the Body are one Body. You see what I mean. Take the physical body. You or I may be alive physically more or less, but as for the members of our physical body there may be something that has altogether upset their unity; a germ, an injury, and there is no co-ordination of the members; they do not work together in co-operation and harmony, there is no proper control. There may be an acting of certain members out of relation to the others; yes, all sorts of things like that, where we would not say for a moment that that is because there are two or three different kinds of life in that body. We should say the life that is there is only one life; that is, that that man or woman has not the life of a man and of a dog, and of a bird, and of a fish, all different kinds of life, and that it is this that explains the contradictions in their make-up; that one moment you come on the cat life, and another the fish life, (whatever those things represent!). No, it is one kind of life, human life, and so far as the life is concerned, it is a unity. But the expression in the body is not the expression of one life; it is not showing itself in a co-ordinated activity.

And the Church, all who are born again, may be sharing the one life of the Lord Jesus, and yet in the Body that life may not be showing itself in a co-ordinated, properly ordered organism in expression: and do you think the Lord can be satisfied with just the life being there and the expression being full of contradictions? Surely not! So that there is something more than being born again and receiving the life of the Lord. That life is given for a purpose, and that purpose is to bring about this properly governed and ordered and regulated and co-ordinated organism, the Church, which is His Body. I am speaking about that, not the mere existence of the Church, not the one mystical life of the Church, but the Church as a functioning thing under the sovereign government of Christ as its Head. The Cross was intended to lead to that.

Now I repeat, it is possible to have an evangelism that does not result in that at all, and such an evangelism is falling short of the intention of the Cross. It is possible to have a teaching of the full meaning of the Cross which does not work out in the Church according to God's thought, and such a teaching is falling short. We have known such teaching, full teaching on the meaning of the Cross, but what has remained has just been everything that is here amongst men; every kind of division going on, every kind of distinction in Christian sections continuing, all the differences and the conflicting differences just persisting in the presence of a fuller message of Calvary. Then there is something wrong somewhere, for the Cross, when really known and really operative, will deal with all that which contradicts the real Divine thought about the Church. The Cross is intended to lead to the Church as God has conceived the Church. Well now, we were saying this afternoon that the Cross has certain specific aspects or directions in which it deals with things that are in the way of God's thought concerning the Church. We shall go on now with some other things that the Cross effects. But let us recognise that the Cross provides the ground for the Church and the Church is intended to show what the Cross means. When the Church does approximate to the Divine thought in reality, you will see there exactly what the Cross has meant and has accomplished. The Church will be the embodiment of Calvary. The Church is to preach the Cross by what it is first; and that is where you begin in the book of the Acts. You can see all that obtained in the pre-Calvary days, even with Christ amongst men, and Christ with a company round Him. You can see all the old elements of divisions, strifes, ambitions, avarice, pride, self-assertiveness, all these things are there in the Gospels, even amongst disciples, and the inner circle of disciples. But when the Cross is an accomplished fact, and the Holy Ghost brings it right into the life of that company, then you find a wonderful revelation of what that Cross has done; for they had all things common, not one said of the things which he possessed that they were his own, and so on. You have something done. All self-interest has gone, all that rivalry has disappeared. Now it is all for the other; it is love, it is joy, it is peace. The end of Acts 2 is a wonderful revelation of what the Cross has done in people. And that is how the Lord wishes it to be. And when you come to Corinthians, to conditions which are such a violent contradiction of the Church according to God's mind, the only thing to do is to know nothing save Jesus Christ, and Him crucified. You have to get back to the Cross, in order to get the Church as it should be. So the Cross provides the ground and the means for the Church, and the Church becomes the embodiment of the meaning of the Cross. That is what obtains when God has things according to His mind.

Well then, if the Church is the Divine outcome of the Cross, it must define the nature and meaning of the Cross. What does the Cross do? What is the function of the Cross? We have viewed that in three directions in our previous meditation - God-ward, man-ward and Satan-ward. Now, let us see it in one or two other connections which touch all three of these at the same time.

Chapter 4 - The Church According to God's Thought (continued)

Well then, if the Church is the Divine outcome of the Cross, it must define the nature and meaning of the Cross. What does the Cross do? What is the function of the Cross? We have viewed that in three directions in our previous meditation - God-ward, man-ward and Satan-ward. Now, let us see it in one or two other connections which touch all three of these at the same time.

The Cross an End to All Idolatry

Firstly, the Cross puts an end to all idolatry. Take that away and think about it. It is a long story, and it is a very far-reaching story, is idolatry. I am going to say something which would take a very long time to verify, so far as the data and events are concerned, but which can be verified from the beginning to the end of the Scriptures. It is this: if we knew the truth, idolatry lies behind everything for which the Cross of Christ came into being, and when the Cross is really made active, what it is doing is to deal with idolatry in some form or another. Now that, perhaps, you cannot grasp for the moment. But we will go a little way further with it.

You see, the Cross, right at its very heart and centre, relates to worship. That is the final word, the ultimate matter in this universe, and now the universe has become Cross-centric; that is, the Cross of Christ now, since the Fall, has become the centre of this universe, and that Cross is to touch this universe from centre to circumference. There is a centrality and universality of the Cross, and at the very centre and circumference of this universe the one thing which is pre-eminent is worship. If you understand what worship is, then idolatry is simply, but comprehensively, anything and everything which in principle takes from, or even tends to take from, the utterness of God as the very life of man. God has made Himself the spring, the source, the centre of life, and for his life man is utterly dependent upon God, and can only find his life in God. God has bound man to Himself inseparably for his life, and will not allow man to have life, in the real sense, apart from Himself. He has made it a law in His universe that man cannot live apart from God, in the sense in which God means him to live and in God's meaning of life. God is man's life. Anything which becomes for man a substitute for God in life, for God Himself for life, is idolatry. Anything that draws man away from God, or tends to draw man away from God, is idolatry in principle: and, mark you, it is God Himself in Person Who is man's life, and man's centre. In a moment, I will say more about what that means.

What Idolatry Is

Idolatry is all that is not God as the basis or object of man's life. That is tremendously comprehensive. We think of idolatry, of course, in terms of heathen idols. We might perhaps bring it into a closer realm, where people clearly put things in the place of God but oh! it goes much deeper than that, and, in the Scriptures, idolatry is never regarded as merely negative or passive. There idolatry is always seen to be an active thing, inasmuch as it is the work of an intelligence which is opposed to God; and that Satanic intelligence is always making it its first object and aim, persistently, continuously, and by every means, to get something into the place of the Lord personally. You see, it is possible to have the things of the Lord in the place of the Lord Himself; and that is idolatry in principle. Yes, it may be the things of Jehovah not other gods. In place of the Lord, Who is the object of man's life, His things may be given precedence, and in principle that is idolatry, and the Cross is ever being used by the Holy Spirit to strike at everything, no matter what it is, that comes to occupy the place of the Lord Himself, the place that the Lord Himself should occupy. Idolatry is always religious, and it may be the Christian religion as well as any other religion that is marked by idolatry.

I am saying some strong things, but there is cause. You see, idolatry exists in principle whenever or wherever anything, even good in itself, becomes an object in itself rather than God, the Lord Himself. There are many things which are not only harmless but good in themselves, which have, nevertheless, been allowed to take the place of the Lord Himself, and good things can therefore embody the principle of idolatry in the one in whom the devotion is found. Touch some Christians, or Christian institutions, and let the touch be even in relation to something more of the Lord Himself, and you will find an uprising of jealous regard for the institution which utterly blinds to that possibility of an extra measure of the Lord Himself. You can be so devoted to a denomination, a missionary society, a piece of Christian work, that there is no room for any extra measure of the Lord. The thing itself has become the end, the object for which you live, and when the Lord wants to get you moved on into something more of Himself, the obstacle is that good Christian work, association, institution, tradition, connection. Yes, and that is idolatry in principle, and we see from history how the Lord again and again has had to smite with smashing blows things which in themselves were good, in order to save His people unto Himself personally. Even things which He gave at one time, have had to be taken away or shattered because the gift has become the end, the object. That is what is happening: and a very necessary thing it is too. The Lord is not protecting good things today. If those have become something to which men have become devoted, with which they have become bound up, He is allowing them to be broken and destroyed.

God Himself Man's Life and Entire Good

What is He after? It is Himself which He is seeking to establish as the object of man's life, and not the things that have relation to Himself: and I say again, you meet something intensely fierce if you touch a thing, even though you are touching it maybe with a view to getting people to move on with the Lord Himself. To put that in the other way, if your appeal for moving on with the Lord seems to people to involve their having to move away from this or that or some other thing, then there is warfare; which shows that Satan in his eternal campaign of idolatry, has got a footing amongst Christians in relation to things which take the place of the Lord Himself, good things though they be in themselves; and you find, if you are spiritually sensitive, that you are not just encountering the established institutions, but you are encountering a terrific spiritual force. Is that true? It is true. Had I never come up against it, never would I have believed the terrific force there is lying behind Christian institutions if your ministry touches them. You meet something which turns upon you, and it is not just the thing or the people. It is something that threatens your very life, to slay, and this in principle and essence, beloved, is idolatry; because its ultimate effect is that even the Lord cannot have what His heart is set upon and get His people spiritually where He wants them, because they are so bound up with His things. They are not able to discriminate between His things and Himself.

The Cross will deal with all that, and the wonderful thing is that this is just the spontaneous effect of a real work of the Cross, when it is by the Holy Ghost. Now, put it to the test, or bring in your test cases. What about Saul of Tarsus? You touch the institutions of Saul of Tarsus, Judaism and its whole system, you touch it and see what you meet. You not only meet the strength of a bigot, you meet the spiritual force of hell: and so it was. What is there in God's universe that can meet that, deal with that, break that down, put that out of the way, so that it no longer has any power over the man? There is no force in God's universe save the Cross of the Lord Jesus. That will do it; and it did it, and it did it right there on the spot. It was not a case of growing out of Judaism, absorbing new ideas which supplanted the old; the thing was done. The Cross, Jesus Christ crucified, did it. Yes, and there are many other cases like that. The Cross does come with shattering power, if it gets a chance, upon those things which take the Lord's place, and gives Him a real way to become Himself the life, as He has determined to be, the All which He has claimed to be. The Cross does that. It gets rid of idolatry, not only in its various forms, but in its very principle, and in this way destroys the works of the Devil, removes the ground of Satanic strength. The Cross of the Lord Jesus gives God His full place, His utter place.

This may further explain why it is that the Lord has to take away things which He Himself gave, His own gifts, why the Lord seeks to have us hold everything in relation to Himself, and not as something in itself; that is, to keep us in that detached way inwardly, so that at any time we can without any difficulty let go our position, our ministry, our work for the Lord - anything, everything. We hold it for the Lord. Others can come and take our place, and there be no jealousy, no debate. That is why the Lord could speak so highly about Moses. Moses, My servant! Moses, the man of God! These are the titles, the designations, of Moses. Why? Well, you remember Moses' position was challenged by certain [ones] in Israel. "Hath the Lord indeed spoken only by Moses? hath he not spoken by us also?" And again later, when the company of Dathan and Abiram chided with both him and Aaron: "Ye take too much upon you, seeing all the congregation are holy, every one of them, and the Lord is among them: wherefore then lift ye up yourselves above the assembly of the Lord?" What did Moses do? Fight for his position, seek to vindicate himself? Did he go into dark despair because he saw that his place was being usurped or challenged? No, he just went to the Lord and, in effect, said, If You put me into this position, while You want me here You must look after me and see to it that I am able to fulfil my ministry: if You want me out of the way, I am quite ready to stand out; if You want them in, it is all right! Would God that all the Lord's people were prophets! He took that position, and the Lord said, I can come alongside of a situation like that, I can commit Myself there: and He did. You know what happened to the company of Dathan and Abiram. The meekness of Moses is the great feature of his life. "The man Moses was very meek, above all the men that were upon the face of the earth" (Numbers 12:3). What did that mean in Moses' case? He held everything for the Lord, in relation to the Lord Himself, not for himself; and there is no difficulty whatever at any time in letting any given thing go when that is the case.

But oh, that is not always so with Christians. You chance to touch their work, or get in the way of their ministry, and you meet something. It is idolatry. Well, the Cross deals with that, and when the Cross has done its work in us, we will be very meek; in this sense, that we hold things only in relation to the Lord and His glory, and we have no difficulty in letting them go. We can stand back quite easily and let others go on. It is for the Lord to decide, and we give the Lord a clear way. The Cross does that. Beloved, no one need ever worry about the fulfilment of their ministry if, by the work of the Cross in them, they are thus abandoned to the Lord's interests. The Lord will see that, in the long run, that which He intended will be realised through that life, whatever men and demons do. It may not be as they thought it would be, but it will be. The values of their lives will be conserved by God, and not lost. All that is to the contrary is in principle idolatry, and the Cross is against it. That is why, as we were saying, the Lord so often has to take away His own gifts, because in the course of time they have taken His place.

Chapter 5 - The Church According to God's Thought (continued)

The Cross Removes the Curse of Babel

May I just say a word or two more before we close? The Cross removes the curse of Babel. What is Babel, or Babylon, which is the full-grown Babel? Well, first of all, it is that principle of man's saving power as resident within himself. "Let us build us a tower... and make us a name" (Gen. 11:4): which was the re-action, as you well know, to the deluge; that if God decided to drown the world again, they would have found their own way of salvation by their tower unto heaven, and they would get above anything that God could do and be their own saviour. Now, blatantly of course, few people would talk like that, but in principle that is human: which comes right down to this, that there is something in man's nature of virtue, which, if it were only developed, nurtured, cultured, would result in his own emergence, his own salvation, his own deliverance by his own power, his own virtue. That is Babel or Babylon. See this great Babylon that I have made! (Daniel 4:30). Now, Babel and Babylon is the "I" element which can do something, resulting in man's glory. The end of all things for man, according to his Divinely appointed destiny, is glory, but how you reach that destiny is quite another matter. God says that destiny is only possible of attainment through the Cross of the Lord Jesus, in which man is utterly emptied of himself. It is the way even of the Son of man, Who emptied Himself, and eventually was crowned with glory. But man does not naturally take that way.

You see, Babylon, after all, is the principle which we see exemplified in the beast and the false prophet. It is something in man himself which can be rested upon, worked upon, and will result in his own salvation. None of us here would contemplate that objectively as a proposition: nevertheless, we are all caught in it. I doubt whether there is anyone here who has not fallen in that respect. Have you never for a moment in your life been found searching your own heart to make you happy, contented, at rest, satisfied, at peace with God, to bring you on to good terms with the Lord? You are doing it all the time. Every time you are miserable about yourself, that is it! You see, there are but two alterations, to be miserable about yourself or joyful in the Lord, and those who have the greatest reason to be miserable about themselves are the very people to be most joyful in the Lord, if only they knew God's basis of salvation; for God's basis of salvation is a very practical one. God's basis of salvation is this: "You are the most wretched and hopeless creature, and in yourself you will never be anything else; and I have looked upon you through your faith in My Son as though you had never sinned at all". That is God's basis of salvation. A real apprehension of that should deliver us [from] those fits of misery about our own condition into a great restful joy in the Lord, and anything that is not that, beloved, is the curse of Babel.

God has put a curse upon that whole principle and essence of self-salvation, self-glory. Get into that realm and you may well be miserable, for you are in the realm of an active curse.

So the Church takes that up, and when we sing, "'Tis the Church triumphant singing, Worthy the Lamb", do not let us project ourselves into some future date. Let us get right to that now. The Church according to God's mind is the embodiment of this thing; that in itself it is the most hopeless thing and yet in Christ a most glorious thing, full of hope, every prospect open to it through faith in the Lord Jesus and yet at the same time in itself worthless. The Church is to be that. It is the issue of the Cross.

But then, you see, not only does the Cross remove the curse of Babel as a principle, but it also deals with that other phase of the curse of Babel, the divisive elements in man's nature. When God came down and cursed those builders of the tower, He did so by confounding their language, and at that moment they became so many fragments, not able for a moment to understand one another, to walk together in agreement. They had no common basis of fellowship. They were scattered, confused, disintegrated. Calvary deals with that. It deals with all the divisive elements in man, overcomes them and transcends them. Of course, we know that in measure; but the Church is to be the embodiment of that. Oh well, that is another thing! The Church the embodiment of that, and yet the Church being what it is on the earth now! Oh yes! Let us say it again: not just the mystical, the abstract, the theoretical, but the practical reality right now here on the earth. It may be, as it was in the case of Israel after the captivity, that the real representation of God's thought will be bound up with a remnant. But it is to be there, God would have it.

Let us bring it home to our own hearts. The Cross really does mean for you and me that those things which naturally and in the flesh in us as His people would divide, would lead to misunderstanding, bringing about conflict between us, the Cross is to mean in our case the removal of those traces of the curse. They are marks of the curse, and the Cross has to deal with them, and has to lift you and me on to a plane where something greater than that operates, which transcends that and keeps us together in spite of all that old background. The marvel of the Cross is this, that there can be a going on in fellowship in spite, on the one hand, of much in the human makeup, constitution, temperament, disposition, which makes for great difficulty in going on together, and, on the other hand, despite all the direct assaults of Satan by all his means to break up that fellowship, there can be a going on triumphantly and a holding together and a coming out at the end, the thing not having been disintegrated. It can be; but it will only be if the Cross is a reality there. But if it is, you may know that the Cross is a reality, it has been working. If there is disruption and disintegration, you may take it that the people have failed in relation to the Cross.

I have often thought that the gift of tongues in the beginning was just one aspect of the triumphant work of the Cross over the work of Satan and the curse. I am not asking for it now particularly, but it has sometimes been in my mind that when they all came into a place where Parthians and Medes and Elamites and dwellers in Mesopotamia, and so on, all together heard and understood everything in the tongue wherein each had been born, as though there might have been but one language, God through the Cross of His Son, had set aside Babel. Something had triumphed. Well, we are content to leave it at that. In the end we shall all speak one language, although we shall be out of every nation and tribe and kindred and tongue - a heavenly language.

Well now, if that is but a sign - and it is a sign - what does it signify? It signifies this, that the Cross is the secret, the basis, of the Church's witness, and the Church is to be the embodiment of that tremendous triumph of the Cross over these disruptive and divisive elements in the race, in you and in me. It has to come down to our relationships every day. The more we know the Cross, the better we get on together, and the quicker we will get over things which offend and divide. The Church, therefore, becomes the outcome of the Cross in this respect.

That is surely enough at the moment. It constitutes a challenge, a very solemn challenge, to our hearts. The Lord enable us to face this challenge of the Cross in all its meaning, and to face the implications. The Church is something real. Oh yes, it is very real. Do ask the Lord to make the meaning of the Church something more than this mystical thing, this objective, abstract thing. It has to come down here in our every-day life. You have said that you have seen the Church, the Body. You have testified to it and so on. What are you doing about it? Are you still living an independent life, still taking your own way, making your own plans, unrelated and out of fellowship, still violating those laws of fellowship and Body life, still a law to yourself? Well, if that is true, and inasmuch as that is true, you do not know the Cross, let alone the Church. You cannot know the Church until you know the Cross. You do not know the Cross; the Cross has not dealt with yourself in some way. Oh, if the Cross really does its work in us, we shall spontaneously come on to Church-ground, the ground of fellowship, relatedness, cooperation. So may the Lord produce practical issues.

Chapter 6 - The Conflict

We shall, by the Lord's enabling, go on with our consideration of the Church, the Cross, and the Spiritual Conflict.

So far we have been occupied with the Cross and the Church; in the first place seeing that the Cross, in the mind and purpose of God, is intended to lead immediately and directly to the Church. Just as the altar at the door of the court of the tabernacle in the wilderness stood right in direct line with the sanctuary, and led to it - the priestly ministry commenced at that altar, and then passed on right into the sanctuary and found its consummation in the Most Holy Place - so the Cross of the Lord Jesus stands there as the very gateway into the House of God, and is intended to lead the people of God straight through into the corporate life in union with Christ. And so also in the temple, the altar is that which leads into the house; and in the rebuilding of the temple by the remnant back from the captivity, the first thing was the setting of the altar into its place, and then the laying of the foundation of the Lord's house, and the building of it. So it is in the mind of God always, that the Cross carries with it the House, and leads to it, and any kind of Gospel which ends with the Cross as a thing in itself and does not carry through to a living expression of the House of God, the Church, is a Gospel which has failed of its main purpose in God's mind. Well, we have been emphasizing that considerably, but the reiteration of it may be useful, for the Lord to revive and perhaps make clear in a new way what it is He is seeking.

Then we have gone on to see that when the Church really does come in, it becomes the great practical Gospel or demonstration of the meaning of the Cross, because it embodies and shows forth all that Calvary was intended to mean. God's preaching is not just a preaching in words, the proclaiming of the Gospel is not only the enunciation of truths; it is the practical living expression of that in a people. Otherwise angels could have preached the Gospel; anybody could preach it. The Lord has bound up a revelation of Himself with a people who are the living embodiment of that revelation, and that is the function and nature of the Church.

Well now, we move on a little in regard to the third thing, namely, the conflict. The Cross and the Church being bound together in great Divine meaning explain the conflict. From that very fact conflict results; it just springs up. The Church embodying the meaning of Calvary is the occasion of the conflict, and where there is a real apprehension of the full meaning of the Cross and a practical expression of it in a people, there you have conflict in its most intense and persistent form. To say that in other words, the measure of the living corporate embodiment and expression of the meaning of Calvary is the measure of spiritual warfare. The more there is of the living apprehension of the Cross and the more there is of a living expression of God's thought about the Church, the more there will be of spiritual conflict, the more the antagonism and hatred of the powers of evil will be manifested, expressed, demonstrated.

The Supreme Object of the Cross and the Church

Now in this matter of the conflict, we should begin by reminding ourselves that the Cross and the Church have one supreme object in view. It is always helpful to be able to reduce great things to concrete and direct implications. The Cross is a great thing, a comprehensive thing. The Church too is a great and a comprehensive thing. We could talk about the Cross all our lives, and be moving round to different angles and aspects all the time. Who will ever be able to exhaust the meaning of the Cross of the Lord Jesus? We can talk about the Church in the same way and go on indefinitely covering new ground in relation to the Church. It is always beyond us, there is always more; and yet, when all has been said that ever will be said about the Church and the Cross, the whole thing can be gathered into one quite simple and direct meaning. It focuses upon one thing and one thing only. The Cross in all its fulness of meaning, the Church in all its mighty, Divine significance, have one object in view ultimately, and that object is the absolute Lordship of Jesus Christ. Say what you like about the Cross, say what you can about the Cross, it all comes back to that. Its focal point is the Lordship of Jesus Christ in fulness and finality. The Cross in every phase of its meaning and application comes to that eventually.

The question raised all the time by the Cross is, Yes, but how does it work out in the dethronement of every other authority within and without the life of the child of God, and the enthronement of the Lord Jesus in utterness as Lord? That is the question all the time. We are not dealing with things in relation to the Cross. There may be many things incidental, but they are not ends in themselves. There are things in us, all sorts of things in us, and those things have to be met by the Cross, and the Cross has to be applied to them; but never let us think that the business of the Holy Spirit with the Cross is just to deal with these things as though they were the end that the Lord was seeking. No, in dealing with the things, the Lord has an object in view all the time, and it is toward that object that He is dealing with every detail, and that object is the absolute Lordship of Jesus Christ.

And so it is with the Church. Oh, how many things there are about the Church which are wonderful and glorious to contemplate; its nature, its function, its vocation, and so on. But none of these things in the mind of God is an end in itself. The Church ultimately exists for one thing only, and that is this sovereign, Headship of the Lord Jesus. Everything that we have to say about one another, about related life, about fellowship, about corporate expression, about functioning, and all the other things to do with the Church, they are only on the way to this other thing, that the Lordship of Christ, His sovereign Headship over all things to the Church, might be in expression. There is one thing central to this universe in God's thought into which everything else is gathered, and that is the Lordship of His Son Whom He made heir of all things, through Whom also He made the ages.

The Focal Point of All Satanic Opposition

Well, if that is true, we are well on the way to understanding the conflict; because the Lordship of Christ is the one focal point of all Satanic challenge and opposition. Never let us think that the antagonism of Satan relates to mere details, mere incidents, relates to us or to things. No, Satan has a comprehensive view of the situation. He is able to take in the whole range of things, and to see the significance of details, and if he focuses upon any detail, as he does, it is only with his far view, his whole view, that he does it. The end that he is after through everything is this matter of the Lordship of Jesus Christ. Yes, he may focus a good deal of attention upon a relationship, upon two believers who are brought together, who have to live together, and he may bring a great amount of power and stress and cunning to bear upon those related lives in order to divide them. Do you think he is interested in dividing people as such, and that, when he has done that, he will be satisfied because that is done? Never! That is not his object at all. In making that division, he has something very much bigger in view, and that is the Lordship of Jesus Christ. And so our relationships as just two people carry with them the great significance of the lordship of Satan or the Lordship of Christ, and anything between just two simple children of God resolves itself into no less a matter than the ultimate thing in God's universe. The ultimate thing may be bound up with just two simple children of God in their related lives.

And what is true in that, is true in a countless number of things which in themselves may seem to be very insignificant and hardly worth taking account of. How petty many things seem, how paltry! You almost blush to talk about them as things, they are so silly, and yet somehow or other Satan is most interested in them. But do you think that Satan is petty or paltry in that sense, just wanting to make a lot of silly mischief here and there? Oh no, we give him credit for something more than that. His kingdom is at stake, and in all these silly little matters, so absurd and ridiculous, there is bound up this mighty issue of the Lordship of Jesus Christ.

Thus in all these matters, the Cross has to have a very deep place; in our relationships, in the twos and the threes, and the little circles, so that Satan does not get in and secure a foothold to destroy this expression of the Lordship of Jesus Christ. The Cross has to be there. The Cross carries with it, not just the dealing with failure, little things in the lives of God's people: the Cross carries with it the immense issue of the Lordship of God's Son.

The Church, therefore, takes up that meaning of the Cross and is to be a company of the Lord's people on this earth which represents the overthrow of Satan's power, in his destruction of oneness, fellowship, relatedness, co-operation, and this bringing into view of the absolute Lordship and sovereign Headship of Jesus Christ. The Church is for that. This is the question bound up with the Cross and with the Church, namely, Christ's Lordship, and Satan is interested in the Lord's people only in so far as this ultimate thing is being really affected.

You see, you can have what is called "the Church", and what are called "the churches", with no knowledge whatever of this spiritual warfare. This real spiritual conflict in the heavenlies against the forces of evil is a thing which is altogether foreign to that which is called "the Church" here in this world. They do not have any fights, any battles, any warfare. It is something outside their ken. Why? They have got no impact of a living knowledge of the Cross. The Cross with them is a story, a history, a doctrine, a creed, not a mighty inwrought reality and power. Immediately it becomes that, they will know the fight. Satan does not trouble where there is no living working of the Cross. That is not the Church. You cannot have a church without the Cross, and you cannot have the Cross without a living expression which provokes the powers of evil. That is the Cross according to God's mind.

Chapter 7 - The Conflict (continued)

The True Nature of the Church

That makes it necessary to say just a few words here in parenthesis about the true nature of the Church. What is the Church? Well, to begin with, it is the spiritual relatedness of the children of God. That is the first, shall I say the lowest, level of the meaning of the Church, the most elementary, the starting point - the spiritual relatedness of all children of God; and it is not necessary for me to take up time to say that all truly born-again children of God have a basic and fundamental oneness, that they share one common life. That we know. But that is where the Church begins. That is what the Church is in its beginnings - a spiritual relatedness, by the possession of all of this one life which is the life of the Lord Jesus Christ.

But we must not leave it there. The Church is that, but the Church is something more than that. The Church is the active functional relatedness of the children of God. We have said in a previous meditation that it is one thing to possess life in a human body, but it may be quite another thing for that human body to be functioning as a body. It may be, poor thing, lying there alive, and yet for all practical purposes be as good as dead, useless. It is not a functioning thing. The whole of its organism may be upset, its co-ordination of function may be destroyed. And can you think that the Lord looks upon His people with anything of real contentment when He sees that they have life, but as a functioning related Body there is little or nothing? Surely we cannot think that the Lord is satisfied with that? What the Lord would call His Church is not just something that has His life. When He would say, "I will build my church", and speak of "My Church", He would think of His Church as a related and functioning thing, and not just a thing which possesses the gift of His life. In the thought of God, to answer to His thought and purpose, the Church is this active, related, functional oneness of His people.

It is there that all our difficulties and problems arise. Things become, of course, very practical, and it is just there that a lot of people get into a great deal of confusion and mess, because they fail to recognise that to have spiritual fellowship, and to cooperate with what is of the Lord in His people, is one thing, but to be actively associated with what is unscriptural in men's systems is another thing. I mean this, that some people think that, in order to have fellowship with certain Christians, you have to go into the thing where they are, and become part of it; their systems, their denominations, their religious orders. In order to show that you are in fellowship, you must go in. That is quite another thing from active spiritual fellowship with them as the Lord's children on a spiritual basis.

The point of departure arises here. When anybody says, either in words, inference, or by their attitude, "If you are going to prove your fellowship with me, you have to come in and belong to what I am in, and work with me in that", then that is another question altogether from this one of spiritual relatedness. That is where all the difficulties arise, and that is where the Lord so often has to make His drastic breaks.

The two difficulties are these. In order to get a real living expression of the Church as a functioning related thing, so often the Lord has to break in upon that impingement of systems upon people and cut them clear. He has to. It is unfortunate, it is a pity, but if you put it to the test, you find it is usually that way. The system impinges and becomes something which is distinct from that heavenly, spiritual and universal nature of the Church. It is something which is sectarian, and, being that, is schismatic and divides the Lord's people here on the earth, and the Lord so often has to cut right into that, and to draw His people away from it, and put them on neutral ground where they can live and function, not as something apart from the children of God, but as something which is not a part of something that is unscriptural.

Then the next difficulty is for such people to maintain a purely spiritual position without becoming another sect. That is a very practical difficulty, but it can be done. But it calls for much watchfulness and a constant guardedness against anything, not only in your doctrine, but in your spirit, in your mentality, in your attitude to others, constant vigilance against the coming in of the spirit of that which you are supposed to have left behind. Oh, the difficulties are very real and very practical, but not insuperable.

Life the Answer to Every Problem

It resolves itself mainly into a question of life. Life is the answer to every problem. Oh, I do feel, beloved, that God's universe is entirely constituted on the biological principle. It is the answer to everything, the explanation of everything, the principle of realisation; the infinite wisdom of God in just resolving everything into one simple proposition and method, and saying, "I will put life into a seed, and I can leave it! I do not begin by forming this flower, making so many petals, shaping them, colouring them, and then building them into one another, and joining them up and fastening them on to a stem, and working like that. That is artificial. I will put life into a seed and leave it, and presently you will have the flower, the perfect flower". That life itself has all that organism, all that organization, all that shaping, all that colour, all that form. The life has it, and if the life is only given a chance, it will produce that, it will be manifested, whether it be by the flower or the tree, or the bird, or the fish or the animal, or the man. Everything is the result of the life which has the peculiar nature of that organism in it, and if once that life can be introduced and given a chance, you will have the organism. That is the biological secret of God in realising His creation.

But the natural creation is only a type of the spiritual. It was only intended to be that. The spiritual is on that principle, and the secret and solution of everything in the spiritual realm is the biological principle. Put the life of God's Son into anyone and give it a chance, let that life be sovereign, let that life have free course, let that life be in lordship, and you can leave it. You need not fret over trying to put members together, and make them look pretty, nice, happy and cheerful. Oh no, the life will do it. God has one key, namely, the sovereign life of His own beloved Son given a chance unhindered. The result will be as sure as day follows night, and this whole matter of the expression of the Church, and the safeguarding of a true expression of the Church, is just a matter of the Lord's life; that life preserved by the working of the Cross all the time against death, its great enemy, and the ground upon which death works, which is the flesh. Let the Cross be kept there over the flesh, the ground of spiritual death, preserving the life, and we need not worry about the technique; that will look after itself. Church technique will look after itself if the Cross is doing its work and the life is having its way; which only means the sovereignty of the Lord Jesus expressed in the power of His Spirit in terms of life.

We shall be a sect, we shall again be resolved into some thing, as apart from other things on this earth amongst the Lord's people, if we get down on to any other level and ground than that of the sovereign headship and life of the Lord Jesus. Get down on to the ground of teaching, on to the ground of spiritual leaders, men, or on to any other ground, and we shall become some thing. But maintain that position in relation to the living, exalted Lord Jesus, holding fast the Head, and whatever people may say, the truth remains that there we shall have a living expression of God's thought of the Church, a company of the Lord's people on the basis of heavenliness, spirituality, universality, in life.

I would like to stay much longer with that, but I trust that sufficient has been said to indicate this tremendous difference. So the Church is that spiritual relatedness in a functioning way, on the basis of the Lordship of Christ in life; the risen Lord in the midst, where nothing of man has a place. It is on that basis that we are to seek fellowship, and if it really comes to the point, we must be prepared to say: "Look here, I will meet you on spiritual ground, the ground of Christ, the ground of our one life, I will co-operate with you in all that is truly spiritual, but if you want me to come into your organization, to become part of your system and join in your institutions, then you put up a barrier, you interfere with fellowship". Now, that is not a denial of the Church, that is not a contradiction of oneness. To take that course is simply to refuse the imposition by anyone of something that is not of the Lord, not scriptural, something that is extra to our spiritual life and fellowship; and where men will do that, there is the interruption. We must remain on the free ground of the sovereignty of the Holy Spirit.

Now, that is very practical; but, beloved, do not forget that bound up with that is the whole question of spiritual fulness. The whole matter of the fulness of Christ is bound up with our being on the ground of His Lordship and of His life, and not on any other artificial ground as made by men. And that raises other practical points. Oh, all the practical points are raised by that.

The Church and the Opposing Forces of Evil

The Church, we are saying, is a thing which functions in relatedness. Well, conflict is mainly connected with this Lordship of Jesus Christ, and the Lordship of Jesus Christ is bound up mainly with the Church: so that the conflict is to be dealt with by the Church. You see, the opposing forces of evil are to be met by the Church. "I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it", said our Lord (Matt. 16:18), as though the Church were the main objective of the powers of evil. It is the Church and the gates of Hades. Well now, those powers of evil have to be met by the Church in representation. And here let me warn you to be very careful of single-handed assault upon the powers of evil. If you do, you will find yourself unable to meet them; and that is saying a thing very imperfectly. You will find that you will be mightily knocked about. Be very careful of making personal, singlehanded, individual assaults upon the powers of evil. This is a Church matter. The Church may be represented by just two or three. The corporate principle is essential. That does not mean that you are not personally to resist the Devil, that you are not personally to stand, and withstand, but if you are going to make assault upon strongholds of the Evil One, you will need to stand on Church ground for that: for the Lord has made this a Church matter, a corporate matter, that is to say; and doubtless you have proved it. Some situations can never be touched single-handed; you have to call in co-operation. Well, the Lord holds us to that. If you have professed to have seen the Church, the Body of Christ, if you have given any testimony to it, the Lord will hold you to it; you will not get through a situation singlehanded. He will make you come to the Church about it, and your whole life will simply be tied up until you make a Church matter of it. The Lord is very jealous over His Church. Satan can make an awful mess of a life, if that life moves out to meet spiritual antagonism without the Church.

Do lay to heart what is being said, for it may touch you at many points. It is very true. Do you really know Church life? You understand, when I speak about Church life, I am not talking about what men call "the Church". I am talking about the spiritual relatedness of the Lord's children, the interdependence of the members of Christ. They do depend upon one another, and the Lord has ordered it that it shall be so, and in the main issues the Lord will hold us to that. We can go out to our work and be withstood effectually by the enemy, if we do not recognise this law of God, that the Church has to move with us and we with the Church. There has to be a corporate life in this matter. If you did but realise and recognise it, dear friends, you would see that this is the explanation of so much frustration. Go back to Ezra and recall how they put the altar in its place, and laid the foundation of the house of the Lord. They got no further than that, before the adversaries came on the scene. And what did they do? Well, they did all sorts of things; but it is all summed up in one word, they set themselves to frustrate the work. Frustrate! Oh, this terrible sense of frustration! Are you conscious of that? Frustration! No word suits the situation better than that. You make a move, you are brought to a standstill. You move again, and again you are brought to a standstill. There is no getting through. It is frustration, frustration in all directions. I am glad that word is there.

Well, the people fell for a time under that frustration, and were held up for a number of years. But the Lord did not accept that, and God re-acted to that. "The Lord stirred up the spirit of Zerubbabel... and Joshua" (Hag. 1:14), through the prophesying of Haggai and Zechariah, and the Lord said, "Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit" (Zech. 4:6). The frustration of the Evil One is countered by the Holy Spirit through the Church. The Church is the instrument of the Holy Spirit's work against the enemy. Oh, may the Lord give us a new sense of the tremendous importance of the functioning reality of the Church!

We are speaking of what the Church is. It is something more than an entity just possessing life. It is a functioning relatedness of the children of God, and its function on the one hand is to counter this tremendous challenge to the Lordship of Jesus Christ, and if there is a new rising up of this corporate activity, co-operation, amongst the people of God, this frustration of the enemy can be dealt with. We are not going to sit down under this frustration of the enemy, but we must be stirred up in our spirits. My name is not Zerubbabel and not Joshua, but humbly may the Lord be pleased to have the same effect upon you through this word as their word had upon the people of their day, to stir up corporate action against frustration, and to say, We will not accept this frustration of the enemy!

The Wiles of the Devil

Now let us go on. The conflict is always intended to counter the true meaning of the Cross and the true nature of the Church, because they both involve the Lordship of Christ. How is it done? Well, there is a lot of light for us in the Scriptures on this, Paul sums it all up in one word - "the wiles of the Devil" (Eph. 6:11). Both Nehemiah and Ezra will give us a good insight into the wiles of the Devil. The first movement, as you notice in Ezra 4, was along the line of attempted paralyzing through mixture. The adversaries of Judah and Benjamin heard that the children of the captivity were building, and they drew near, and said, "Let us build with you: for we seek your God, as ye do; and we do sacrifice unto him..." Let us build! One of the most subtle forms of Satanic activity against the absolute Lordship of Jesus Christ is mixture, bringing in elements that profess and pretend to be in true alliance with the purpose, but which in nature are not, but are a contradiction. The enemy is always trying to bring about that state of mixture through alliances with things which are different in their nature. Oh, let this word search us! Has the Cross really done its work in us, has it been so planted in us that we can say we are not just outwardly associated with a thing, but that deep down in our very being we have a burden about this House of God? What is your relationship to this matter? Really, beloved, is there in you an ache over the state of the House of God? These adversaries - and, with all that they said and professed, they are still adversaries - came and said, We seek your God, we do sacrifice to your God, let us build with you! Are you quite sure that your association is not merely outward, objective, something with which you have a certain amount of agreement? Are you quite sure that you have gone into this thing and this thing into you, and that deep down in your being there is a real concern and travail about this house? These adversaries had no such concern: they were not really burdened and troubled about the state of the house, as is soon seen. Frustrated along this line, they will seek to frustrate the building of this house. The Lord must have the pure essence of a real burden concerning the spiritual life of His people. It must be in us, a real concern. It must be true, genuine, our very life, not something from which we can resign and go away, because we meet with some unpleasantnesses, some difficulties, some things that go against our personal interest. Oh, John rightly names those people - "They went out from us, but they were not of us" (1 John 2:19). You cannot go out from something that is your very being. We may have had thoughts about retiring and giving up, but when it comes to the issue, that which we have perhaps called an 'it', from which we were going to withdraw, that and ourselves were so much one we could not divide between them. The thing is wrought into us in the very fires of God. Are you sure it is like that? The enemy cannot do much with that, but he is always trying to get a conglomeration of people, some really burdened, and others who, however much they think it so, and protest that they serve the same God and offer sacrifices to Him, have but taken something on, and have no real concern deep down in their being. They have but joined themselves to something into which the Holy Spirit has not planted them.

Alliance! And when they failed in that, their subterfuge was exposed. Then they turned, with threats and terrorizing, and moved out to spread a false report and misrepresent these people, saying they were building this temple with the intention of revolting. As to Nehemiah and the building of the wall, the false report was, He intends to make a name for himself, to get a following, to be something himself! False reports, misrepresentation, the Devil's work of opposition; and they brought tremendous pressure against this thing. A little thing comes out in Haggai about it, which I think is significant. You remember as Haggai opens his prophecies, out of which there came the reviving of the building of the temple, he says, "This people say, It is not the time for us to come, the time for the Lord's house to be built." But they had made a start: they had put the altar in its place and they had laid the foundation. They have changed their mind. They have come to another conclusion. "The time is not come, the time that the Lord's house should be built." Why? They had met opposition severe and terrible, opposition from the adversaries, and the adversary had not only opposed from without, but he had got inside and made a suggestion, and his inward suggestion was this: You see all these difficulties, these adversaries, these troubles, these persecutions, these misrepresentations; they mean that the Lord does not want you to do it, this means the Lord's time has not come; if the Lord's time had come, the thing would go through without any difficulty! Has it ever been so? Tell me the time when the Lord did a great thing and it went through without opposition. You have difficulty in finding a time in history when hell has not risen up when God has set Himself to do a new thing. Satan says, The opposition means the Lord's time is not yet come, the Lord is not with you in it; if He were, He would carry you through swimmingly. It never has been like that. But you see how Satan gets inside and gives a false implication to difficulties, and says, If the Lord were with you, you would have no difficulties; the Lord would simply carry you through without any trouble at all! No, not at all; that is the work of the enemy, to hinder by any and every means he can, because of the tremendous issue that is involved.

Now, ask the Lord to show you what it means, to make this word to have real issues in your own lives, to get what He really has set His heart upon. And do not forget the enemy will seek to frustrate. I think he has been at it in this Conference, by the spirit of death, of blinding, of paralyzing. Oh, ask the Lord to stir up your spirit to resist this. Say, If the Lord is seeking to do something, then I resist all paralysis of mind and spirit, all deadness, and I stand for the Lord's purpose to come clear!