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The Essential Newness of the New Creation

by T. Austin-Sparks

First published in A Witness and A Testimony magazines, 1935.

Contents

Chapter 1 - The New Creation

Chapter 2 - The Centre and Sphere of the New Creation

Chapter 3 - The Centre and Sphere of the New Creation in Practice

Chapter 4 - The Essential Heavenliness of the New Creation

Chapter 5 - The Cross and Total Abandonment to the Lord

Chapter 1 - The New Creation

READINGS: Isaiah 48:6-7; 2 Corinthians 5:17; Matthew 9:16-17.

Familiarity with words and ideas very often takes something from their value. Few passages in the New Testament are more familiar to us than 2 Corinthians 5:17: "Wherefore if any man is in Christ, there is a new creation..." (R.V.M.), but the full force of the one governing word there has, I am quite sure, not fallen upon our hearts, and we have still very much to learn as to that essential newness of the new creation in Christ. Indeed, we may say that many of our troubles, our difficulties, our weaknesses, our failures, our problems, our perplexities are the result of our having failed to sufficiently grasp the import of that one word "new." We have, very largely, proceeded with a good deal that is old into the new creation, or we have tried to do so, and we have discovered sooner or later that that cannot be done, that we are attempting an impossibility. So that it may be quite profitable for us to dwell for a little while upon this essential newness.

We begin by reminding ourselves, or acquainting ourselves with the fact that there are two sides to the new creation. There is the vessel, and there is that which is put into the vessel. It takes both of these to constitute what is called the "new creation," the human side, and the Divine side: but while newness applies to both sides, the newness is not the same newness. There are two main words which are translated into our English word "new." We are perhaps familiar with the difference. One implies something which is fresh, not necessarily just originated, but bearing the mark of freshness. The other word implies more strictly something which is quite recent, which was not necessarily there before; it is new in the sense that it has just come in, not something revived but something new. It is interesting to notice that the Holy Spirit uses the two words in connection with the two sides of the new creation.

In this vessel in Matthew 9 you have both words used. As to the wine-skins (translated in the Authorised Version, "bottles") the word used is that which implies freshness. When the Lord Jesus speaks of new wine He uses the other word, that is, something which is quite new, quite recent. When you pass to the passage in 2 Corinthians 5 and it is stated that: "...if any man is in Christ there is a new creation; the old things are passed away; behold, they are become new," there twice the word is used which means freshness. That is strictly consistent with the truth as to the real nature of the new creation.

You are dealing, first of all, with the vessel. Now as vessels in the new creation we are not something which never was before, something quite recent. The vessel of the new creation is our old spirit brought back into life. Our human spirit fell out of fellowship with God, and that meant spiritual death. The new creation activity is to bring back the human spirit from spiritual death into life, and it is the same spirit, raised in union with Christ, becoming the vessel of the new creation.

That is, however, only half of the process. Something which was never in that spirit before is deposited in it, a life which is not fresh but new, recent, absolutely new, which was never in the human spirit before is now put into that vessel, and that which is so completely new, says the Word, is never put into an old wineskin. That vessel has to be made fresh, brought into a state of life, in order to be the receptacle of this utterly new life of the Spirit of God.

These are the two sides of the new creation. The point is that, first of all, something has to be done in the vessel, as well as something having to be put into the vessel.

That is a principle, to which God has bound Himself, and which governs Him in all His activities. It applies in every direction where Divine work is in view. God never builds His new thing upon an old foundation. God never uses the old thing as the material for His new work. That has to be completely renewed. That He does not put His life, His new wine, into old skins is a truth which relates not only to regeneration, to our salvation, to the new creation man, but it also applies to every work of God. Whenever God does a thing the characteristic is newness. Although there may be an old vessel, that vessel has got to be made fresh in order to effect God's end.

That applies to truth as much as to anything else. It may be Divine Doctrine, God given revelation, that which at one time by the Holy Spirit was living truth; but that can never be taken up at any subsequent date or period of time and used again without it becoming fresh in the experience and life of those who come into it. It is just there that a very great many of the mistakes have been made; that what in the way of revelation was a living revelation so long ago has been adopted by subsequent generations as truth, without that subsequent generation, or those subsequent generations, coming into the living reality thereof. That is vital.

It applies to the new creation man. You cannot bring the old creation man over into the new creation without his becoming fresh in a living way. That applies to truth, revelation, doctrine. You cannot carry it on only as it is perennially fresh. Ezekiel's vision of the river, and the trees on either side, very many trees whose leaves never fade and whose fruit is continuous, is simply a revelation or a vision of the Testimony being maintained by the principle of life in freshness right down the whole course of the ages. Truth has to be like those leaves, which never fade. Truth has to be like that fruit, which is always there, luscious fruit. All doctrine is not like that. Unless it is like that its essential element has gone. It is the essential newness of what is of God.

Every fresh step of God is marked by this freshness, this newness. God may have done that same thing again and again, in the course of history, but the next time He does it it is as though it had never been done before in the case of the people in whom He does it. That is the glory of things.

We have seen this work in simple ways. Some of us have been so familiar with certain things, and we have said those things again and again. To us they were living realities, and we have known of certain people who have heard them, who have listened to them, who have been under the ministry by which those things have been declared again and again, over a course of, perhaps, years, and then suddenly, as by a touch of the Spirit, they have seen it, they have caught the inner sound, it has broken upon them, and has become living to them. The result was that they commenced to talk about those things as though no one in all the world had ever heard them before, and as though the very person who had been talking about them for years did not know anything about it! It is just like that. That is the living Testimony. It is the freshness of things. Things must be like that to be of God, for what is really of God is like that. It is not that we hold the truth. It is that we have the life of the truth.

What is true in the case of the new creation man, and in connection with truth or doctrine, revelation or light, is also true in the direction of the work of God, what we call Christian work. For every one who enters into the Divine vocation, the calling to service, it ought to be, for that one, as though there had never been any Christian work before. It ought to be as though they were the first ever commissioned. In their spirit, in their outlook, in their passion, it should be as though they were right at the beginning of things, as though the Christian activity, the Christian Gospel, was only just starting on its way. That should be the consciousness which they should have. It is just the opposite of entering into a longstanding, accepted, crystallised system of Christian work, becoming a part of a great existing machine. The freshness about things should be of this character, that in our service we are conscious that the hand of God has come upon us as though it had never come upon any other person, as though no one else had been called but ourselves. I do not mean that to be taken in a wrong way, that we are the only ones, but that here this thing is such a living, tremendous reality to us that we feel as though nothing had ever been done for the Lord before.

Do you understand what we mean by that? Christian work has become an order, as we have called it, a crystallised system of Christian enterprise, activity, organised work, and people are called upon today to enter into it, to take it up, and they do so and become a part of a great Christian machine for accomplishing a certain purpose, and they go into some kind of a factory to be turned out a Christian worker. You are not surprised that these factory-turned-out workers have not got that thing by which men and women today are fed and brought into the full glory, beauty, grandeur, magnificence of Christ. No! The work of the Lord is something which, to the one who is apprehended of Christ Jesus, is as though there had never been any Christian work before. There is the freshness of life about it.

This applies to the thing which God does, not only to those who are used to do it. When God does a thing there is that about that thing which is fresh. There is the sense that here is something which, as an element, makes this work of God a new work.

God must have newness in His vessels of every kind. If the vessel, or the vehicle, is a man; if the vessel or the vehicle is a revelation; if it is a collective instrumentality, or some piece of work which God is doing in the world, when it is of Him it bears that hallmark of freshness. There is no staleness about it. There is no death about it. It throbs with vitality.

I believe the Lord has a very definite object in our being led to this thought at this time. Undoubtedly, the need today everywhere is just this sense of God in a new way. There is plenty of work, plenty of doctrine, and there are many Christians; but, oh, for this sense of God, this sense of keenness, freshness, vitality, and knowledge of God in all! That is the need. Without that things will go on as they are, and they are very dead, and tragically weak and ineffective.

The measure, then, of the newness of the vessel will be the measure of the newness of what God puts into it. God demands the newness of the vessel in order to commit Himself to it.

Look at that passage from Isaiah 48: "I have shewed thee new things from this time, even hidden things, which thou hast not known. Thou art created now, and not from of old; and before this day thou heardest them not lest thou shouldest say, Behold, I knew them." Is not that the attitude today toward a great deal? "Oh, yes, I know it all! I know, there is nothing new about that! The doctrine and everything else, I know it! We have heard that before! We know it! There is nothing new about that!" Beloved, if you have caught the inner significance of this you are not mentally talking like that, you are seeing, and as you see you are feeling intensely that there is this need today everywhere. You have the intelligence of a living insight, and you know quite well that there is no hope whatever in simply propagating doctrine and truth, and trying to do the old work in the old way. The need is not more work, more doctrine, truth and light, so much as more of this living element in all.

There are two sides. There is the vessel, and there is that which is in the vessel. The vessel may be quite a good vessel doctrinally, and in other ways, but there needs to be also the deposit in the vessel, the new wine. So the Word says here quite clearly that there is a hopelessness about the old, and all the hope lies in the direction of renewal and freshness on the one hand, and God's living, new deposit on the other hand.

What is the ultimate conclusion about this? It is the conclusion to which 2 Corinthians 5:18 comes: "But all things are of God..." That follows the statement: "...we thus judge, that one died for all, therefore all died; and he died for all, that they which live should no longer live unto themselves, but unto him..." That is the one side; everything having died as to its own self-productiveness. It cannot produce this Divine end, this Divine result. It has died to its own productiveness, and now it is unto Him, and when it is all unto Him then all things are out from God. When all things are of God, all things carry this vital element, this essential freshness of a new creation.

You and I should have heart exercise about everything that the Lord has brought to us. Do we really do that? Do we go back over what has been said and say, Now the Lord said such, and such, and this and that comes out of it. What are we going to do about it? Do we know that in a living way? Does that really represent the Lord's mind for me, and His People? Is that something that the Lord desires for all His own? If so, on any one of these matters I must get before the Lord and definitely be exercised in heart about it. There piled up, mountains high, words, language, teaching, truth, light, and the percentage of living, effective value in it all is all too small. If there is one thing about which we should lay hold of the Lord it is this, Lord keep this Testimony a living thing! Do not let it become mere doctrine, mere truth, something to be passed on, which shall be taken up by others and talked about, and the phrases and terminology used! God forbid that that should be.

The essential newness of all that is out from God is the point. The essential newness of that which proceeds from the Lord, which is really related to the Lord. Freshness on the part of those who are concerned, and newness on the part of that which is coming out from God Himself. Let us pray very much about that, because that is the very essence of our ministry, not only of our life and what we call our Testimony. Bread must have vitamins in it; and in the spiritual food it is the same thing, there must be a living attribute. The essential newness, not old things dead, but (it may be old things) living. "Therefore every scribe who hath been made a disciple to the kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that is a householder, which bringeth forth out of his treasure things new and old" (Matthew 13:52). But if he brings old things out there is a newness about them that conveys the impression that they never were before, something at any rate which is altogether fresh. The Lord maintain us, and all with which we have to do, in that essential freshness and newness which is the hallmark of Himself.

Chapter 2 - The Centre and Sphere of the New Creation

READINGS: Isaiah 48:6-11; 2 Cor. 5:14-18.

In the latter passage (2 Corinthians 5) the statement is very complete. It says, in the first place, that by reason of our death with Christ, in that His dying was the death of all, "all died in Him," henceforth we know no man after the flesh; then that our knowledge of Christ is no longer after the flesh but after the Spirit. A further statement follows, "...if any man is in Christ there is a new creation..." all things have become new, and all things are of God. Our knowledge of Christ is after the Spirit, that is, the relationship is a spiritual one. "If any man be in Christ there is a new creation." That clearly means that the new creation is a spiritual creation. Christ is known spiritually. All our intercourse with Christ now is of a spiritual character. Christ is a spiritual reality, and all that Christ is is spiritually known and apprehended, so that the new creation is spiritual union with Christ. Christ sets forth the nature of the new creation. The statement is that it is not after the flesh. The new creation as represented by Christ here is essentially spiritual. Christ is the new creation. Spiritual relationship with Christ brings us into the new creation. There all things are of God. That means that everything is spiritual, as related to Christ.

That may sound a little difficult and technical, but we must get the significance of that, because it is all-important. Let us put it simply. The new creation is Christ. We come into it when we come into Him, but, in order to come into Him, and, therefore, into it, there has to be a spiritual thing done, we have to become spiritual people.

The word "flesh" as used here is comprehensive and general. Not knowing Him after the flesh, and not knowing one another after the flesh means really what we should think if we were to say we do not know one another naturally, in the natural realm. Whatever that might be, that is all-embracing. We know one another as we know Christ, spiritually. The context here sets forth that our relationship with Christ in the new creation is purely a spiritual thing, and therefore our relationships with one another as being in Christ are spiritual relationships. The whole new creation is a spiritual matter, because it is Christ.

That leads us to this specific point, which goes right to the heart of things. In this realm the thing which dominates is the measure of Christ. Everything here is determined and governed by the measure of Christ. Christ fills this whole realm; Christ dominates this whole realm in a spiritual way; from this realm of the new creation everything which is not Christ is excluded: all things are out from God. We might say that God's world is Christ, so far as we are concerned. The entire sphere of God for us is Christ. For us as believers there is nothing else whatever in relation to God but Christ. Nothing is accepted by Him but Christ. Nothing is blessed by Him but Christ. Nothing is used by Him but Christ. Nothing is seen or considered by Him but Christ. Here, filling God's entire realm so far as we are concerned, is Christ, only Christ.

That is the realm of the new creation. It is "in Christ." That is why the Cross stands right at the very threshold of the whole realm of the "all things" of God, "henceforth know we no man after the flesh..." All died in Him. Everything that is of the old creation has been, by that Cross, cut off, and not one fragment of it ever enters the realm of God.

The Fire of the Cross

The passage in Isaiah 48 is full of significance when read in the light of 2 Corinthians 5 "I have shewed thee new things from this time, even hidden things, which thou has not known. They are created now, and not from of old; and before this day thou heardest them not." Now you notice certain things follow. One is: "I have refined thee, but not as silver; I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction." Now note! "For mine own sake will I do it; for how should my name be profaned? and my glory will I not give to another." That is New Testament teaching in very essence. A new thing; a new creation: then a Divine activity in the fire; and the motive - the object - God's own honour, God's own glory, that all things may be of God!

Let us put it this way. The profaning of the Lord's Name, and the taking away of His glory, is the inveterate habit and course of the old creation nature. Should you see any of the old creation getting into the realm of the things of God, what is the result sooner or later? That man takes the glory, and dishonours God. Is not that the tragic, dark story of "the Church"; man in his old creation powers and life pressing into the things of God, and making a name for himself? The Church has been the happy hunting ground of men for reputation, position, influence and all such things. The flesh always does that. It takes God's glory away, it profanes God's Name. In order that that might not be so there must be a new creation, where all things are of God. That creation is based upon the Cross, and inasmuch as you and I have accepted by faith the meaning of the Cross, and are now in Christ, what is the next thing? It is the application of that Cross in the terms of the fire which refines, the furnace of affliction.

Now note - the furnace of affliction is not for the ungodly. The fire of eternal judgment is for the ungodly, not the furnace of affliction. The furnace of affliction is for those who by faith are in Christ. What happens in the furnace of affliction? What is it that is dealt with in the fire? Is it you, and is it I, that are refined in the fire? Are you refined in the fire? Am I refined in the furnace of affliction? I say, No! emphatically NO!! If we say, Yes! well, let us look at the furnace of affliction, the fire with the metal in the crucible. What are you doing with that metal? Well, you say, you heat the fire intensely and all the uncleanness, the corruption, comes to the surface; this is skimmed off, and when that process has been carried through to its end, there is left pure gold! Then if you say that is you or that is me you will have to abandon your doctrine of total depravity, and you will have to come back to the place where you say there is good in us, after all! You will have to say there is good and bad in us, and the furnace of affliction is to get the badness out of us and leave the goodness! Is that true doctrine? No! The furnace of affliction is not for the removal of the bad out of us so as to leave the good that is in us, and secure it! Then what is its purpose? Is it to refine Christ in us? We need not discuss that! Christ needs no refining! What is it for? It is to divide between what is us in fallen nature, and what is Christ, and to get rid of the one in order to give full place to the other! The furnace of affliction is the application of the Cross to the getting rid of you and me, in order to leave the whole place for Christ. It is the measure of Christ that God is after, not to cut in between the good and bad in us, but to cut in between what is Christ, and what is ourselves. That is what the Lord is doing. He is after increasing Christ, and in order to do that He has to displace self, the old creation. It is all the measure of Christ in this realm. The realm of God is not going to be refined self, reformed self, or any kind of patching up of self. It is going to be none of self, and all of Christ.

That is God's standard. That standard has been fixed in the Cross of the Lord Jesus before God commenced. God is working to a fixed standard. He has applied the rule from the beginning, and He is working to bring us to that measure. The measure is none of self and all of Christ. The new creation is that of all things of God, and the activity of the Lord in our lives is simply to get rid of us as to the old creation, and to bring us in full measure into the new creation, which is Christ.

I want that we should be taken hold of by clear, precise, definite truth in Christ, and that, if the Lord will, this shall be fixed upon us in a new way, so as to grip us. We speak much about the Testimony of Jesus, and we say the Testimony of Jesus is our concern. Now what we have just seen brings us back again, perhaps in another way, to the defining of the Testimony of Jesus. What is that Testimony? It is simply the testimony to the fact of the utterness, the absoluteness of the Lord Jesus as in God's sight, that He is the centre and the circumference, He is the absolute sphere of the Divine interest and concern, that has made Him all and in all, and that outside of Christ in the consideration of God nothing is acceptable, usable, or a ground of blessing. God's entire concern by the Holy Spirit is to put Christ in, and to enlarge Christ until there is nothing but Christ.

This cuts a clear line between all things being of God and our coming in in some way in the realm of the things of God, either in life or service. This explains why it is that in such an absolute realm of Divine thought and intention it is altogether impossible for man to come or be brought in any way whatever.

What a True Believer Is

It is this which first of all establishes the nature of the believer. What is the believer? In God's sight the believer is one in whom Christ is implanted, and God never looks at Christ in a limited way. He always looks at Him in an absolute way, and when Christ is implanted at the beginning of our life it is not as though God implanted Him in a fragmentary way. God's thought was that the end should be bound up with the beginning, and that Christ should be All and in all. That is why conversion is never an end in itself. It is only the first step toward the full end of God. It defines the nature of the believer in God's sight, that it is of Christ. You cannot make that. No decision cards can accomplish that. You can never make men and women Christians by inviting them to make certain decisions, to assent mentally to certain propositions of Christian doctrine, though perfectly true as to the Person and work of the Lord Jesus. There has to be something which constitutes in that individual, right at the very centre of the being, a living union with Christ, and a deposit of Christ. Anything other than that is a false conversion. It is the depositing of Christ at the very centre of the being, with a view to His spreading to the very circumference, that is the nature of a believer.

What the True Church Is

What is true as to the nature of the believer is true as to the nature of the Church. You are taken from Romans to Ephesians, and you find that the Church is the Body of Christ. It is Christ! It is the fulness of Him. The Church is Christ, and in God's thought the Church simply sets before the universe the fact that here is an expression of Christ in fulness. No one can join the Church. You can never invite people to the Church. That is so pathetically contrary to the Divine thought, this spiritual relationship to Christ to which we referred at the outset. The Church is Christ. Christ is planted right at the centre in order to fill all, and it is only in the measure in which Christ is there that the Church realises its Divine being and purpose. The Church is to be the registration and impact of the living, exalted, heavenly Christ in this universe.

What True Ministry Is

What is true as to the believer, and as to the Church, is true of every other aspect of life in relation to God livingly in Christ. What is ministry? Ministry in the New Testament is not giving addresses, preaching sermons, taking classes, giving lessons and all or any of the other aspects of an organised work of Christian activity. Ministry, according to the New Testament and God's thought, is simply Christ being imparted; a ministration of Christ. That requires a living, spiritual relationship with Him. You cannot fulfil that ministry by writing out addresses and reading them. I do not say that Christ has never been ministered in that way, but you cannot do it that way of purpose. No! Ministry is simply the measure of Christ that is being passed on. It is ministering Christ. That has to be vital, that has to be living. There is something more than words in that. It means that through ministry those ministered to receive an accession, an increase of Christ; not an increase of doctrinal intelligence, but an increase of Christ. And as for the minister behind the ministry, what makes you a minister? It is just the measure of Christ, just in so far as Christ fills you, dominates you, governs you, just in that measure you are a minister of Christ.

You see the pathetic hopelessness of trying to propagate anything by organised means and methods which really is all of God. It simply has to grow, it simply has to be. Ah, but when it is so it is mighty, it is indestructible, it is incorruptible. Nothing can stand in the way of Christ. It is that which rouses hell and the energies of the Devil. He does not mind all the other doctrine, work, profession. That may often serve his ends as a great deception, misrepresentation; but bring Christ in, bring Christ through, realise Christ, and then you meet every force in this universe which is antagonistic to Christ.

The Unveiling of Christ

The New Testament is occupied entirely with the unveiling of Jesus Christ to the believer, in the Church, and through the Church to the universe. The word "apocalypse" is a very interesting word in the New Testament. We bind it up with the Book of the Revelation and call that the Apocalypse, the unveiling of Jesus Christ. But you will find that the same word is used as to believers. The Lord Jesus was apocalised in Paul: "It pleased God to apocalyse his Son in me" (Gal. 1:15,16). Christ has His apocalypse in the Church. He is revealed in it. Christ has His apocalypse through the Church unto principalities and powers. Then Christ will have His apocalypse to the whole universe later on. The New Testament is occupied through and through with this unveiling of Jesus Christ.

Without venturing to proceed along that line we suggest to you that every letter in the New Testament embodies some aspect of the revelation of Christ, as set over against the old creation.

Romans. The revelation of the Lord Jesus in resurrection! The primary factor in the letter to the Romans is resurrection life in Christ. Through universal death, sin, judgment, and the curse, at last you come on to resurrection ground, and then everything which is of God begins. It is Christ in the power of His resurrection.

1 Corinthians! Christ in the Spirit, as over against believers in the flesh; or, more exactly, in the soul. The whole trouble throughout the first letter to the Corinthians, the trouble which you find indicated in the first chapters, is in connection with believers living in the realm of "nature," the word there being "soul." Recall all that follows in that letter. Believers - not unbelievers - coming into, or seeking to come into, the realm of Divine things with their own natural equipment, intellect, emotion, will, and a terrible mess consequently. Therefore the emphasis is: "Now the natural man (the soul man) receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him; and he cannot know them, because, they are spiritually judged, but he that is spiritual..." (1 Cor. 2:14). That strikes a note of the "all things" of God. Therefore, in order that the Lord's Name should not be dishonoured, and His glory taken away by another, which is the flesh - "I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified" (1 Cor. 2:2). "Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God" (1 Cor. 1:24). The same Spirit is at work to bring Christ spiritually into the full place, to set aside this merely soulish kind of Christianity. Not that the soul itself has to be set aside, but the merely soulish Christianity. Many people think that because soulishness is wrong the soul is wrong. When soulishness is spoken of, we do not mean that the soul is wrong, and has therefore to die; we mean that the domination of the soul in things spiritual is all wrong. Christ has to be known in the Spirit, and to be lived in the Spirit, as against that old nature in the realm of spiritual things.

2 Corinthians! Here it is ministry. "We have this ministry" is the governing note. What ministry? "God, that said, Light shall shine out of darkness, who shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ" (2 Cor. 4:6). We are pressed, pursued, perplexed, cast down, we had the sentence of death in ourselves! What is all that for? What else is this but the fire of affliction to apply the Cross, in order that everything should be of God; "that the exceeding greatness of the power may be of God, and not from ourselves" (2 Cor. 4:7). It is all things out from God. We have this treasure in vessels of fragile clay, pressed, we are pursued, we are perplexed, we are cast down! Yes, but it is all to this one end, "that the exceeding greatness of the power may be of God, and not of ourselves." It is the undoing of man by nature, in his strength, in order that the Divine glory in the face of Jesus Christ might be shown forth.

You will find that every letter is occupied with the presentation of Christ in some way, over against the old creation, and the object is to bring Christ into His full place, because it is that that matters, that is all important.

I feel that we should recognise the necessity for real exercise of heart in this matter, that everything for us in the future should be valued according to God's scale of values, that is, how much it represents Christ. You cannot accept me in the things of God on any other ground whatever save of how much of Christ comes to you through me. You cannot accept me for the volume of words and ideas, the number of messages given, and how much truth comes to you through me, or any other thing, save how much of Christ is ministered to your spiritual life. That thrusts back upon the Lord, and makes ministry not professional, but a matter of my knowing the Lord for your sakes, living on the Lord for your sakes. That applies to all who in any way minister. It is not the wonderful arrangement of messages, of truth, or anything like that, but just the measure in which Christ is being ministered. That is the standard. An assembly must be estimated according to that standard, not because of any other thing save the measure of Christ that is represented there. If we talk about a fellowship, it will not be simply because we come together and have good relationships, but it will be fellowship in Christ, which means that by that fellowship Christ is ministered to one another, so that we have an increase of Christ. Do you see the principle? It spreads itself over everything that has to do with God. It is the measure of Christ, and anything that is not Christ is not reckoned in at all by God. "...henceforth know we no man after the flesh..." That means that we can only know one another in Christ in so far as there is Christ in each other. I cannot go on with you, and you cannot go on with me, only in the measure in which Christ is met. Christ is the mutual ground of our relationship, our fellowship.

I see the appalling state of things today amongst the Lord's people everywhere; death, weakness, limitation, defeat, failure, inability to stand up, to go on; and, without being critical, censorious or judging, you have to come to the conclusion as you speak with so many, that the measure of Christ is pathetically small. Sometimes when you speak about the Lord to people, who have borne the name of Christian for many years, they gape at you as though you were talking a strange language.

Let us ask the Lord that, so far as we are concerned, there may be an increase of Christ in every way. Let us seek grace for any fiery furnace in the light of the explanation, that it is neither what is of Christ that is being tested in us, nor any good within ourselves, but that what is not Christ should disappear, that it should be Christ, only Christ. At last this universe will know nothing but Christ. He will fill all things, and that will be a great day! May He be fully formed in us.

Chapter 3 - The Centre and Sphere of the New Creation in Practice

READING: 2 Cor. 5:14-18; Romans 6:4.

The sum of everything in the new creation is in Christ, or, to put that in another way, it is outside of man himself. It is apart from man, and it always will be. Although Christ, the sum of the new creation, may be in us, that new creation will remain in Christ, and we are only in it by reason of our union with Him. He becomes the fulness of everything in us, but the practical outworking of that fulness will ever, and always, be purely and solely on a basis of faith.

If the thing could be said at any time to have its origin in us, then faith would be dismissed. If we had it in ourselves, if it were our constitution, faith would be dispensed with. That would result in a repetition of us. Man at the beginning, under the deluding, blinding, misleading activity of the Devil, sought to have things in himself rather than as solely in God, to be enjoyed by faith and obedience. He sought to have it in himself. Since that time unregenerate man has the idea that he has it in himself, that it is in him to be and to do.

The very heart of the deception, as of the Deceiver, is pride. Sometimes we use another word, which is not a scriptural word itself, but which has a little keener edge on it than pride. It is the word "conceit," which simply means having it in yourself, with the seat of it in you. That is pride. Satan sought to have it in himself, and then prompted man to seek to have it in himself. The delusion of man is that he thinks he has it in himself, and it takes a great deal of Divine activity to get that idea out of man's mind. The trouble, not merely with the unregenerate but with the Lord's people, is the getting rid of that thing which is so deeply seated and rooted in the being of man, the idea that he can make a contribution out of himself toward the realisation of his Divine destiny.

You and I are troubled with that original sin, the idea that somehow we can provide something out from ourselves which will contribute toward Divine ends. All our struggles, all our difficulties, all our discouragements, all our wretched morbidness, is consequent upon that; that we have not come fully and finally as a settled thing, beyond any more question, discussion or hope, to know that we cannot provide one iota out from ourselves toward God's end. We are all the time - perhaps not consciously or deliberately - living on that old basis. What is our wretched introspection? It is eyes turned in in the endeavour to find something worth while in ourselves, something that can help God. That is all it is. How many people are cursed with that thing! And that is only one aspect of the great trouble.

What we are saying is this, that in the new creation all things are out from God. To put that the other way is to say that, nothing is out from ourselves. All things are stored up and centred in Christ, and they always will be. You and I will never be able to be independent of Christ in any way whatsoever. That means that the thing will never be in us as in ourselves. We have it in Christ, and its practical outworking is only along the line of faith in the Lord Jesus. Man in himself, even as a child of God, will always be totally at a discount in the things of God. That is a tremendous lesson to learn. Let us repeat that. Man in himself, even as a child of God, even as one who has known the Lord for a lifetime, and has come into a very real wealthy knowledge and experience of the Lord, still in himself will be totally at a discount in the things of God. That is, he will know the more he goes on that his dependence is entirely and utterly upon another, upon a spring, a source, a fountain which is not in himself, not in his own constitution. Though it may be centred in his spirit as to location, it is not in his own being as a part of him. He will always be passing through new experiences in which he realises how utterly impossible it is for him to face up to the situation of himself and meet the demand.

That is quite elementary. It lies right at the beginning of things, though, blessed be God, it brings us face to face with the other side. That may perhaps sound discouraging, disappointing, but we ought to be getting to the place to which Paul came, when he came to rejoice in that fact. "Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me" (2 Cor. 12:9). We have all things in Christ, and those "all things" in Christ become an inward spring for us to draw upon.

Before we pass from that, let us notice that this fact reveals to us what the continual difficulty will be. The difficulty which we shall be meeting all along the way will be ourselves. We shall find that the main obstacle, the main enemy to our fulness in Christ, to all that the new creation means, will be ourselves in some way. It will either be our self-occupation - which is but a form of trying to be something fine, something in ourselves which will bring satisfaction to God - or it will be our self-effort in service. It will be this natural life of ours cropping up in some direction or another, and as it crops up it will cut clean in between us and the "all things" which are of God, and we shall find that it is ourself which brings us up short, which creates the arrest. The Lord in effect, and in mighty effect, will be saying: "I cannot go on with you, you must get out of the way!"

Is not that the explanation of so many of our experiences in the Lord's dealings with us? They are with a view to getting our self-life out of the way. We loom so much upon our own horizon. We are so big in our own thoughts. Not necessarily in that wrong way in which we think a great deal of ourselves, though it may be that the thinking so badly of ourselves is another form of thinking of ourselves very largely. We may be so occupied with our terribly worthless self that Christ is blotted out altogether. Some people are never at an end of telling you how bad they are, how worthless they are, drawing out a tale of their woe about themselves, and that obscures Christ, and does not honour God. We should have settled that. We shall ever know it. We shall know it more and more, but there ought to be running parallel with that an appreciation of what He is which takes the sting out of that, which takes the power out of that which would break us, crush us, and make us so that God cannot be glorified in us.

The new creation is in Christ. It is not in you, and not in me, and never will be. All that it will mean in time, and in eternity will be through our spiritual union with Christ. All God's fulness is in Christ. We shall receive all that fulness, and enjoy it in a practical out-working. But this, while we are yet here in time, will ever be by faith's union. In eternity, where the reception of that fulness will be unhindered, the work of faith, though not its fruit, will have passed. But we shall never be absorbed in Christ in the sense that we become so many Christs. It will still be Himself as distinct Who is to be glorified. We shall never be glorifying ourselves, neither shall we be glorified by others as though we were Christ. Christ is not some great widespread essence, which is going to become the constitution of a great multitude, so that that multitude becomes a Christ in essence. It will ever be true that Christ remains apart in His Person, though manifested in His glory and in His excellence in the saints, and we shall still therefore be worshipping Him as objective and distinct in His own Person from ourselves.

Perhaps that hardly needs saying. But it is very important that we should recognise that forever God has bound up everything with His Son, and that nothing will ever be had or enjoyed apart from Christ, while for this present life that is only by faith in the Lord Jesus. The object of this present emphasis is to seek, as the Lord will enable, that there shall be an emancipation from ourselves; for that occupation, that consideration, is always taking from His glory. Let us ask the Lord to cut us really free from ourselves by an unveiling and presentation of His Son to us, as the sum total of all that ever God desires and wills.

The Active Feature of the New Creation - the Spirit of Life

You notice that is where Romans 8 opens up. In that chapter we are now represented as being in Christ, "they that are in Christ Jesus," and it is said that in Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life has made free from the law of sin and death. The active feature, then, of the new creation is the Spirit of life. Everything is bound up with that. The final issue of God's purpose in us is that we should be seated in that Spirit of life in Christ, imparted to us through faith. As to the nature which is going to be developed in us, the Christ nature: as to the Testimony which is going to be manifested through us. Everything is seated in that life, that Spirit of life. All the power and all the nature of Christ in glory as the fulness of God is there as the active, energetic principle of the new creation.

Let us illustrate that in a familiar way. The first two witnesses in the history of this present world were Abel and Enoch. There is a wonderful significance in those two names being brought together at the beginning of Hebrews 11.

Abel! Abel introduced the whole Testimony in its principle. Blood was brought into view through Abel, and the shedding of that blood, as we have come since to understand by the teaching of God's Word, speaks of a life which is an incorruptible life, which cannot be corrupted, which has no seed of corruption in it, and is therefore a life which is indestructible.

Abel offered a sacrifice through shedding of blood, and instantly God bore witness to his offering that he was righteous. How did Abel become aware of righteousness not his own? By reason of his spiritual faith union with a Blood in which there was no corruption. It was that Blood which we know to be the symbol of Divine life as it is in the Lord Jesus. It was that Blood, that life, which, being incorruptible, became the basis of his faith, and therefore through faith in that incorruptible Blood, he had witness borne that he was righteous.

The second aspect is manifested in Abel, in that he was therefore deathless through faith in that Blood. It was that very thing which the Devil discerned, namely, that here was the raising up in this first man of a testimony to something which cannot be corrupted, and cannot therefore be destroyed. Satan came out against Abel to try to contradict that testimony of the incorruptible and indestructible, and slew Abel; but the Word says that through his faith "he being dead yet speaketh." We know that he is gathered up in that large company of Hebrews 11: "These all died in faith, not having received the promises... God having provided some better thing for us, that they without us should not be made perfect (complete)" (Hebrews 11:13,40). This means, quite clearly - if logic means anything - that they are coming into our fulness through their faith.

What is the fulness which God has provided for us in this dispensation? It is the fulness of Christ in the power of His resurrection as seated at God's right hand, and their faith brought them into that. Abel came in on the ground of the Blood, incorruptible, indestructible, and that is the basis of all Christ's fulness. It is the ground of the new creation in Christ Jesus.

Enoch! Immediately after that the writer of the letter to the Hebrews brings in Enoch. "Enoch was translated that he should not see death" (verse 5). There is that leap, that one bound from the beginning to the end of the Testimony. The Apostle Jude says: "...Enoch... the seventh from Adam." If you count up you will find that literally he was not the seventh from Adam. There may be one explanation of that way of putting things, inasmuch as the Hebrews counted inclusively, and not as we do. But there is a typical significance about that. "Seven" is the number of spiritual perfection, and undoubtedly Enoch is a type in the Old Testament, perhaps the type of perfect humanity. What happens to perfect humanity? It never goes to destruction and corruption! It goes to glory! It breaks the ordinary course of corrupted humanity by way of death and the grave, and so Enoch was translated that he should not see death. From the beginning of the Testimony, which is in the power of an incorruptible and indestructible life, you immediately leap to the end of that thing in Enoch, and see what the ultimate result of that incorruptible and indestructible life will be. It will be a complete and final triumph over death in all its forms in a rapture.

Alive Only Unto God

Everything is centred in that Spirit of life, that new creation life. If we look within ourselves to find more good, we are going to look in vain. We shall never find anything in ourselves but corruption. Is that really settled with us? On both sides, the people who have some opinion of themselves had better settle it once and for all that there is nothing in them but corruption, and also those who have settled it, and yet are so occupied with their old man as though it were something really worth being occupied with. Put it where the Lord Jesus has put it, in the grave, and do not walk round it, turning it over, if peradventure you might find something worth while. Fix and fasten your faith in God's Son, and leave yourself alone for ever. Only so will you find your emancipation. If Christ is in us, whatever we may be in ourselves, there is that which is incorruptible. Christ is incorruptible, and Christ is in us.

Now see God looking clean through us as in ourselves as though He never saw us, and seeing that deposit, His Son, and keeping His eye upon that. When we come to talk to Him about ourselves He says, I am not interested in that; I am interested in this! I am not concerned with that; this is what I am after! Come with Me, and let your eye be on this, and let us be occupied with this and its increase, and when you are brought into the fires remember always, it is not that I am against you, but in order that I may bring this out more fully, and that I may make more of My Son in you! When you get into difficulties, and are conscious of the fact of your own helplessness, it is only to make you know how much He can be to you! When again you are feeling utterly empty, and there is a big demand which you are quite unable to meet, then remember that faith takes hold of Him in His fulness, and you will be able to meet the demand! It is all Christ in every way. That is glorifying Him. God is set upon glorifying His Son in us. We must become centred in Christ, wholly and utterly.

Do not try to crucify the old man piecemeal. It cannot be done. Taking him a bit at a time, and trying thus to get rid of the flesh is not the way. The Lord has taken the old man in his entirety, and dealt with him as a whole. We focus upon some special weakness, some special fault in ourselves, and are wanting that dealt with, and are going round that, to be saved from that. We are going the wrong way to work. The Lord says, The whole of that old creation at once, and Christ will be to us according to the measure in which we have accepted that injunction. The fulness of Christ will depend upon our acceptance of the fulness of His death to the old creation.

The incorruptible life, the Spirit of life in Christ, is the secret, the law, the foundation of all sanctification, of all holiness, of all conformity to the image of Christ. That is why it says that we should walk in newness of life; that is an active going on in this new life, this Spirit of life. And as we go on, not in ourselves, not on ourselves, but on this life, we become conformed to the image of Christ, which is there in that Spirit of life.

Then there is a wonderful expression, a growing expression of how incorruptible that life is, because that life gains ascendency over corruption. Now we are touching something very precious. If only the Lord would just lay this in our hearts, that we might see it anew! We have said that what is incorruptible is indestructible. In other words, that in which there is no corruption can never know death, but must conquer death, must bring death into subjection.

Life for Spirit, Mind and Body

In every part of our being, spirit, mind and body, that incorruptible life can be energetic.

In our spirit it can be the mighty energy of God which lifts our spirits completely above all death conditions around. Would to God that His people believed that more, and took up their position upon that more definitely! Death is all around, and is a mighty working force in this universe. We may meet it at any moment. It may come to us, assail us, through numerous channels, by numerous means, and we know what it is to feel our spiritual life, our inner life with God, come under the hand of death, under the pall, the cloud, the damping suffocation of spiritual death.

Now this Spirit of life in Christ, Who is in us is there in order to lift us into a place above that working of death in our spirit, so that, while the death is not immediately destroyed in the sense that it is blotted out, it is destroyed in the New Testament meaning of the word, rendered ineffective, made void, so far as its domination is concerned. There is an ascendency over it, and it is made subject.

What is true in the matter of our spirit can be true also in the matter of our minds. The quickening power of His Spirit of life can renew our minds. The New Testament says so: "...the renewing of the mind..." The mind is something deeper than the brain, so that often when the brain may be at a discount, there can be such a quickening of intelligent apprehension of the Lord, that we are lifted above that death in the realm of the mind, and it is as though again the heavens were opened above us, and our minds have become energised anew in relation to the things of God. This operates wonderfully in times of weariness when the mind is heavy, and there is the consciousness of there being no mind at all. (I do not mean that we are out of our minds in the common acceptance of that word, but we have no mind for things.) The Spirit of life, laid hold of by faith, will lift us in a wonderful way above that which would require in the natural realm, and along natural lines perhaps, a prolonged rest; and then there will not be the same result even after that. Perhaps you need a renewed mind to go on, to keep on. Well, Christ as the new creation life in you can quicken your mind, renew your mind, so that there may be a newness of the mind, a testimony to this triumph of the incorruptible life over all that which is working of corruption and death in the mind.

Blessed be God, this also applies to the body. Paul has quite a lot to say on this matter, as you know. It is true that the Spirit of life in Christ can, and does, subject the corruption, even of our mortal bodies, to Himself. We do not mean that He gets rid of the mortality, that here and now the change takes place from the mortal to immortality, or from the corruptible to the incorruptible order. We mean with all our heart that the life, which is Christ's life in us, can lift us above the death working in our bodies. Would to God that we laid hold of that more! The Lord would be more glorified along that line. "That the life whereby Jesus conquered death should be manifested in this dying body." There is no question that the body is dying. It is corruptible, and therefore it is destructible. But there is something here deposited within this mortal temple which is Christ, incorruptible and indestructible, to take ascendency even over the death working in the mortal body. It is the new creation at work triumphantly over the old. This is our heritage in Christ.

Living by Faith

You see that everything is governed by faith appropriating the values of the new creation. It is not a doctrine, not a theory. It is a Divine energy, a life, a power, which is Christ by the Holy Spirit ministered to us, and the proper course of the new creation in your case and in mine is, that rather than that there should be an increase of death, a breaking down, and a failing, as we get older, there ought to be an increase of life and ascendency. We are all conscious that we are getting older. We are all conscious that in the natural realm the human forces and abilities are abating, but we are not going to accept that as the governing law of our life. There should be an increase of this incorruptible nature of Christ as we get older, and therefore there ought to be a beautifying and sweetening of our lives the older we get. Though it be true that our natural powers of endurance are weakening, and the nervous system is being called upon to carry a weight too much for it, and we are ageing; yet if Christ is having His way in us, there ought to be in the midst of these very conditions a testimony to the new creation, which does not break down, and does not wane, but is ever fresh right on to the end.

Freshness, newness of life! That life never gets tired. That life never runs low. No marks or signs of exhaustion are in that life. There are no fading lives where that life is. There is no falling fruit there. That life is in you and in me in Christ. Then what should the testimony be? It should be a testimony to freshness, continual freshness, a testimony to newness, that the things which are the most well known, most familiar, are still livingly precious with us, and never lose their freshness, beauty and glory. God forbid that we should spiritually grow old, and contradict the real nature of the new creation. God forbid that natural conditions in body, and in mind, and in the world, should ever become the dominant things in us, but that to us the uppermost thing should ever be that there is a Spirit of life regnant, triumphant, ever fresh.

The Lord bury this word in our hearts very deeply, and keep us living on this ground.

Chapter 4 - The Essential Heavenliness of the New Creation

The Word teaches us very clearly that Christ has been taken right out of this old creation and set at God's right hand in the heavenlies. On the other hand, it shows us that His being there, and our being in spiritual union with Him, means that for all spiritual purposes and resources, we also are in the heavenlies in Christ. Of this truth there are, again, two sides.

There is the side of what Christ means to us in heaven as our own fulness; that is, as fulness for our own spiritual lives. There is also the side of what Christ being in heaven means as to our vocation, our ministry, our service.

It may be that we shall not deal with all that ground at this time, but we might consider very briefly, and in as simple a way as possible, the former of these two.

Baptism is union with Christ in death, burial and resurrection. It is the dividing line where the old things have passed away, and where all have become new; where the things which have been, in the main, out from ourselves and out from the world, have been concluded, and the all things out from God have had their commencement. That is the Testimony which we bear in our baptism, and it brings Christ into view in a very full, rich, and blessed way; in the four ways in which we need to know Him.

This may be illustrated for us by Israel's own history, the history which was divided at the Jordan. We have first those forty years of failing to enter by a living faith into the full provision of God, and of struggling, striving to live in self-satisfaction, self-pleasing, self-gratification, self-glory, the many-sided self life. The uppermost factor of the forty years is undoubtedly the self-life of Israel. In spite of all the Divine presence, and the Divine provision, self is in evidence, and self has certainly not been put out of sight. Hence there is a history of disappointment, of failure, of spiritual tragedy. Then there was the Jordan, and a new history; all things new. The features of that new life are the features of Christ in heaven for us, when we come by way of the Cross into heavenly union with Him. We look, then, to see what those features were and are, as illustrated in Israel's case.

1. Christ our Fulness

Deuteronomy 8 gives us the first. There we have the great presentation of the wealth of the land. The Word says it was "a good land," a land "flowing with milk and honey," a land of oil, a land of springs of water, a land out of whose hills they were to dig brass. It speaks of fulness of every kind, of resource.

But even it, as a type, pales before the antitype, and comes far short of that which it is intended to represent and illustrate. When we come to the antitype and spiritual counterpart, we can hear one saying "O the depth of the riches... how unsearchable... past finding out" (Rom. 11:33): "...in him dwelleth all the fulness... and in him ye are made full" (Col. 2:9-10). The Lord Jesus is a rich land, a wealthy land, a land of every kind of resource.

That is the other side of Jordan, not on this earth but, spiritually, above. The statement which sets that forth is Ephes. 1:3 "...who hath blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies in Christ."

Familiar as these words and these thoughts are to us, there are tremendous possibilities of freshness, and newness, about the enjoyment of these things. I submit to you quite simply and definitely, that this is the Christ of the new creation in Whom we are by faith. All this is gathered up into Him - the new creation in its boundless resources of spiritual wealth at our disposal, at our command, to our account, for us - "in him ye are made full," "...every spiritual blessing... in Christ." If there is no fresh glimmer of light and glory associated with the reiteration of this truth, there is all the more reason why we should ask the Lord what has happened to us, that we could contemplate such a thing without a stirring of heart. Now, is that our Christ, the Christ of our experience, the Christ of our knowledge? Are we living in the realisation of that, not to its fulness - because that fulness will never be exhausted - but in the wonder of the fulness which lies before? - a land flowing with milk and honey, a good land indeed. Any fresh contemplation of our Lord in this way should ravish our hearts: Christ, the fulness of spiritual blessing now, the Sphere of our experience, our exploring, our enjoyment, our satisfaction. That is heavenly union with the Lord Jesus. Anybody who is in that is in heaven. You have not to define and explain to such people what it means to be in the heavenlies in Christ. They know of what you are speaking. Spiritual geography is understood by those who walk up and down in Him and enjoy His fulness.

If you are not there, all that we can do is to be like the spies, and report upon it, and it is left with you to say whether you are going in or not. It is left to the crisis of faith or unbelief, just as it was of old. Do you believe that that is the Christ Whom God has presented as the Sphere of your life? If so, go up and possess; appropriate by faith the fulness that is in Christ for every need which arises, for every demand which confronts you. Break free from any kind of stereotyped demands in the realm of special ministry. That may be the true requirement of some; but every one of us knows from day to day within our own life, without going outside into a circle beyond our own personal spiritual life, that we must be in the place of enjoying the Lord, having our own personal spiritual need met by Him. Then we must go in and possess. Let us face the whole issue in this definite way: Lord, it is clearly represented in the Word that You are the fulness of God for me! Here is a need, a spiritual need. In order that You should be glorified in me, I by faith take You to meet this need! That is very simple. That is almost the infant class of things, but it is a very effective way of proving the Lord. Do not sink back afterward and decline into discouragement and say, Nothing has happened! Stand your ground just as Israel had to stand their ground and prove thereby that the Lord had indeed given. They never knew experimental enjoyment, until they in faith had stood upon the gift and said it was theirs, and held on to it as theirs. Sometimes you have to dispute your rights in Christ with the enemy. He tries to take it, to drag it away, and rob you of it; but you have to hold on, and say, This is mine! So that the first presentation is Christ as our wealth, our exceeding great reward, our riches, our fulness.

2. Christ our Victory

The next is that which is represented by Jericho. Jericho is a matchless example and illustration of what Christ is to faith in the realm of victory. Jericho undoubtedly links with Jordan. Jordan represents God's miracle by which all things are secured on resurrection and ascension ground: and the Lord is saying, in effect, Now that you are on that ground, you have not to fight the battle of Calvary all over again; the battle has been fought. The holding up of the mighty waters of Jordan; the cleaving through the powers which could overwhelm, and drown, and destroy; the resistance, the overpowering might of God, as represented in the Jordan; the exceeding greatness of His power in making the place of death the place of life; all that is the scene of the full victory which for ever after is to be enjoyed, not by way of fighting for it, but by way of standing in it. Jericho was never a fighting for victory; Jericho ever witnesses to standing in a victory. You see how utterly the old creation is eliminated from a Jericho campaign.

Nowadays, in the natural realm, if you are going to seek to capture a city, you do not walk round it once a day and go home, and do that for seven days in the week. That is not the way of nature. You bring up all the resources at your command, every force at your disposal. You employ all the natural means you have, and focus everything upon the situation. Jericho was a scene where natural methods, natural means, natural processes were ruled out entirely. The people of that country, who were used to other kinds of warfare, no doubt looked over the wall and thought these people exceedingly foolish. Among themselves they must have reasoned, What do they expect to gain by that? They saw the children of Israel come out in the morning, and perhaps they expected there would be a stiff fight, but they watched them walk round without saying a word. Israel walked round quietly and silently, and went home again: and that seemingly was all that took place. The next morning Israel came out in the same way, and the people probably exclaimed, Here they come again! What are they going to do today? And in their perplexity Israel's foes must have thought, This is a strange way of making war! The next day Israel went round again as before.

You see how utterly foolish to this world is the wisdom of God, and how utterly weak to this world is the power of God. Christ crucified is the wisdom of God and the power of God. The old creation is set aside, and a new position, a heavenly position, is brought in. We know the sequel proved the power of God. They were not, then, fighting for a victory at Jericho; they were standing by faith in a victory already won.

That was the basis of their conquest of the land. There were seven days, a day for a nation. Principalities and powers were falling, while they silently walked round. Oh, the mighty power of a living faith in a victorious Lord because of His Cross! A nation fallen in a day, and that while a people silently moved in faith in what Calvary had already done. Seven days and the whole land is boxed! Seven times round and the gate is open, and they go up into the land! If ever an old creation element comes back, as it does sometimes, there is arrest. But whenever the old creation elements are kept out, there is progress.

That is Christ in heaven, our full and inclusive victory. I glory in this fact, that now Christ in heaven is far above all rule, and authority, and principality and power. Jordan meant that all those nations were already defeated under the power of God, and faith entered into what had already taken place. God hath set Christ at His Own right hand, far above all, and faith brings about the manifest downfall of the nations, whose downfall has been brought about by Him in His Cross; that is, as to the spiritual hierarchies that govern them. Christ is our complete victory in the whole spiritual realm. Do we believe that? We do not believe it sufficiently. Our difficulty is to arrive at that, but that is the position. If the Word of God means anything, that is the truth.

3. Christ our Sustenance

Then the Word says that, when they went into the land on a certain day, the manna ceased, and they did eat of the old corn of the land. We will only stay for one word on that. It is a word which comes to us in the New Testament, with which we are very familiar: "When Christ, who is our life, shall be manifested, then shall ye also with him be manifested in glory" (Col. 3:4). Christ will be manifested from heaven, but as Christ in heaven He is our life. We understand "the old corn of the land" to be Christ in His ascended, heavenly place as the life of a heavenly people. The manna was for the wilderness, but the old corn for the land. The latter speaks of Christ in resurrection. It is not Christ coming down from heaven to us as an earthly people now, but Christ as sustaining us in a heavenly position. The truth is that Christ can keep us in a heavenly place, can maintain us there in the "above all" position.

4. Christ our Rest

We know what the third and fourth chapters of the letter to the Hebrews have to say about their going in. Those who failed to go in failed, it says, to enter into His rest. Those to whom the Gospel was afore preached failed to enter in. That is remarkable! The Gospel was preached to them. These are they to whom the Gospel was afore preached. What is the Gospel? To answer the inquiry in that connection, it is Christ as our rest. That is the Gospel: and the Gospel of Christ as our rest was preached to them in type, and they to whom the Gospel was afore preached failed to enter in. Then, says the Apostle, "Let us therefore give diligence to enter into that rest, that no man fall after the same example of disobedience." They failed! God set forth another day, saying, "Today if ye shall hear his voice, harden not your hearts..." The Gospel is preached to believers to enter into His rest. The Lord Jesus put this in the germ form of truth when He said: "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart; and ye shall find rest unto your souls." Christ in heaven is our spiritual rest, heart rest.

What is the essence of rest? It is satisfaction and assurance. If you are satisfied, you are at rest, no matter how much work you have to do. And if you are quite sure that your work is going to be successful, you have assurance, and you are in rest. Everything for us is based upon Christ having entered as the Forerunner, and having become our Rest. We shall labour: we shall pour ourselves out; we shall spend; we shall be spent; but in it all there can be real heart rest. We shall be assailed: we shall be pressed on every side; we shall be cast down; we shall be tried; but Christ can still remain our rest: for in the first place, we know that these things are not going to be to our destruction, since He has destroyed the power of destruction; and, in the second place, that our labours are not in vain, because He has swallowed up death victoriously. He is our Rest.

Faith is the Basis

Here you have the four sides of Christ in heaven, and of what He is for us as there. Faith is the ground upon which Christ as all that becomes real to us. Let us ask the Lord to give us a real, spiritual, quick, living apprehension of this great truth concerning our Lord Jesus, the great realm of the new creation into which we are brought, and let us apply it, practise it, put it into operation from day to day.

You may have to go into a place where there is not much spiritual wealth on the outside, not much upon which to feed. Remember you have Christ, the whole land, lying before you. You may have to go into scenes where there is anything but rest, spiritual rest; where all is fret, care, drive, strain. Remember that you are in the land; you are in Christ; you have Him as your Rest. You may have to go into the conflict, into the battle, into the tremendous activities of the enemy to overthrow you. Remember you are in Christ, Who is victory, complete, final victory. That remains true, whatever the enemy may say about it.

Christ is all that we need for a life which is glorifying to Him. It is what Christ is, what we have in the new creation.

Chapter 5 - The Cross and Total Abandonment to the Lord

READING: 2 Corinthians 5:1-21.

"For the love of Christ constraineth us..." (verse 14).

"...that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him..." (verse 15).

Those are the two fragments which will govern our meditation: "...the love of Christ constraineth us...", "...henceforth... unto him". Although these words were penned long after the day when the Apostle was apprehended by Christ Jesus, they clearly reach back to that beginning of things in his own experience, and they form, moreover, a very fitting introduction to his own life; for as we know his life now in a considerable fullness, we are able to see how true it all was to these words. There is a sense in which we can say that these words are a summary of the life of the Apostle Paul. "The love of Christ constraineth us," "not henceforth... unto themselves, but unto him..." Those sentiments very truly govern the life of this man from the day when he met the Lord to the day when he laid down the earthly task.

What was true in his own case he sought to press home upon all others, that it might be equally true of them. He binds others with himself. He says: "...the love of Christ constraineth us...", "because we thus judge...", "that they which live..." Whether he had certain people definitely in mind when he thus wrote, we do not know. Possibly this was not the case, and that his use of the plural here is just the expression of his own great longing that it might be true of all the Lord's people. He knew himself to be so truly governed by that constraining love, and he would not that his own case should be exceptional, but that the passion of every heart might be summed up in the declaration: "the love of Christ constraineth us", "henceforth... unto him."

I feel we are perfectly justified in taking these words as representing the Lord's will for us, as setting before us the standard which the Lord would have to be true in our own case, that we also should say with the same depth of reality: "...the love of Christ constraineth us...", "henceforth... unto him", not unto ourselves.

If you look at the whole paragraph again, you will see that this is related to the Cross on the one hand, and to ambassadorship on the other. Mark the statements: "...one died for all, then were all dead": resultant from that: "...unto him..." - "that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again" (verse 15, A.V.); "We are ambassadors therefore on behalf of Christ..." (verse 20, R.V.). You notice the significance of that word "therefore" - "We are ambassadors therefore on behalf of Christ..." That is what it means to be "henceforth unto Him", and the place of the Cross here is, quite clearly, the settling once for all of all matters of interest which are apart from the interests of the Lord Jesus. That death with the Lord Jesus was a death in which all our own personal interests, of any and every kind, were forever buried, and the interests of the Lord Jesus became pre-eminent, pre-dominant, the one passion of our living being "henceforth... unto him..." How? "We are ambassadors... on behalf of Christ." The Cross means that the Lord Jesus becomes the real passion, concern, dominating interest of a life which has been crucified, which has died to all its own interests, because of His love. "The love of Christ constraineth us..."

The Cross and Total Abandonment to the Lord

This says to us in very clear terms that the Cross represents a total abandonment to Christ. We may have heard that many times. It does not concern me very much how many times I have said it or have heard it. What does concern me is that we should be there. I am tremendously burdened, and there is a strong and deep longing in my heart that what is here should, in spirit and in truth, become true of us all, that we should be able to say with the same depth and reality as did the Apostle: "The love of Christ constraineth us", "henceforth... unto him", "we are ambassadors... on behalf of Christ."

That, then, calls for the same utter abandonment to Him as obtained in the life of this ambassador. That calls for the same meaning of the Cross in our case as in his, complete death to all interests save the Lord's; life only, altogether, for Christ. That is how ambassadors are made. Ambassadors are not officials, appointed on official grounds. The ambassadors of Christ are such because Christ's interests are paramount, are predominant in their hearts; for when we say: "the love of Christ constraineth us," this is a heart matter between the Lord Jesus and ourselves. So that, on the one hand, it is the Cross and total abandonment to the Lord, and, on the other hand, it is

The Cross and a Passion for the Interests of the Lord

Paul was an exemplary ambassador. One thing which he was often found saying was: "I am ready..." Far away from needy saints at Corinth he would write and say: "I am ready to come to you" (2 Corinthians 12:14). He was ready to make long, tiring, difficult and perilous journeys in the interests of Christ in His people. Journeys were more difficult in Paul's day than in ours, and involved a good deal more than do journeys nowadays. But he said, with a real concern for their spiritual wellbeing: "I am ready to come to you."

To far-off Romans he wrote: "I am ready to preach the gospel to you..." (Romans 1:15). From his prison in Rome, where he had fulfilled his readiness to preach to them also, he wrote at the last to his son Timothy: "...I am now ready to be offered..." (2 Timothy 4:6). To those who sought to dissuade him from going into the very lion's mouth at Jerusalem, he said: "I am ready... to die at Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus" (Acts 21:13).

That readiness had a considerable background. If it were put to us we should, in a sense, say that we were ready, but I wonder if we are ready! Readiness means more than being willing. Most of us would respond and say: 'Well, if the Lord wants it, I am ready!' But are we ready? What constituted readiness in the case of the Apostle? With all our readiness it is just possible that before we got very far we should be stumbled, we should stop short, and the reasons might be various.

Let us face this quite definitely. It is not necessary to press the question of an ambassadorship to a foreign country on some bit of public service. Ambassadorship relates quite as much to the place where we are in our life now. It relates to the business place. It is wherever we are that our ambassadorship is to hold good. Now then, are we ready? Are we thus ready, with this passion for the interests of the Lord Jesus, so that there we are found utterly abandoned to Him to secure those interests? It is strange that while so many are prepared to join with others in an open-air meeting, to preach the Gospel to the unsaved, and are prepared even to stand out on a cold night with a group to do so, the very same work is to be done around them every day in their business place, and they are not touching it. It is exactly the same work. There is something about an open-air ring and a platform and preaching out to the unsaved which is more romantic, and in which you can feel far more bold, than when you stand alone in your business place, or place of daily calling. The test comes as to whether it is that aspect of Christian work which is more or less public and official, and puts you in a place of advantage over the others, that draws out your zeal, or whether your passion for Christ is continuous wherever you are. The ambassadorship is not for platforms, for meetings, for public occasions; the ambassadorship relates to all places, all times, because it is constituted not by an appointment, or an invitation to preach, or an official position, but by the love of Christ. "Henceforth... unto Him"; not on special occasions, but on all occasions. Are we ready?

Paul took charge of the ship's company, and made himself responsible for the spiritual interests of the men on the ship. Wherever he was, in his prison, in his travels, in his journeys, and his sojourns, he was all the time bent upon the interests of the Lord Jesus with concern and eagerness. That was one aspect of his readiness, and is perhaps the one of most general application and challenge.

There are other aspects of readiness. The readiness of Paul was constituted by his having settled, once for all, his own personal, spiritual problems. You never find Paul tied up in the knots of personal spiritual problems, going round, and round, and round, and never getting anywhere because his own spiritual problems are all the while bothering him. Paul had that matter settled at the beginning. He got over that fence, and went away into Arabia, and when Paul said he was ready, it meant that he was at leisure from himself spiritually. No man is ready, in this sense, who is not free from himself spiritually. We do not mean that every question that can ever come to us has been answered, and every problem has been solved, but that we are so utterly abandoned to Christ that we know quite well that, if we go on with the Lord, sooner or later all those things will solve themselves. Our business is to GO ON, and get free from ourselves spiritually. Those who are self-occupied in a spiritual way are the unready, the unprepared. Why not relegate your 'locking-up' problem to a place where you trust the Lord to deal with it when He pleases, and get on with the business of the Lord and with His interests? Recognize the desperate need that there is spiritually in this world, and give yourself to it? I venture to say you will come back to your pigeon holes and find your problems all solved. You will come back and find that that thing which was laid on the table for the time being has looked after itself and is no longer a problem to you. While you sit there with it all, the Lord's interests are being suspended, and you, in the meantime, are getting nowhere at all. Abandonment to the Lord in this way in faith is the first essential, the Lord's interests becoming the predominant thing, the passion of your heart. There is nothing like that abandonment to the Lord for solving personal problems. Christ becomes the Emancipator when we abandon ourselves to Him. That is readiness.

Another aspect of Paul's readiness was that he had counted the cost. This, like the former question was settled once for all. Paul had sat down and faced it out. He had weighed it all up. He had said to himself: 'Now, I have a name for being such-and-such a man. I have a reputation, I have a position, and I have influence. I am known to have taken the line which I have taken without any reservation at all. Having taken that line in the manner that I have, I have gained a position. That position represents a great deal. I know quite well what all my friends, and all the people who, from my present standpoint, are most worth considering, think about the other line of things, of that course which lies before me now. I know what they think. I know their attitude. I know how they treat people who go that way. I know quite well that it will cost everything. It means reputation, position, influence, all gone, and, more than that, that those who are now for me, who have been on my side so strongly, will become my bitterest foes. I know that it may involve my being cast out of public life and out of domestic life. I know quite well that what they did to Jesus of Nazareth they will not hesitate to do to me, but my life goes with this.' He had weighed it all up from every standpoint, put it all in the balances, and settled it once for all. 'If I take this course, I have nothing to expect from this world but complete antagonism. From all my friends I have nothing to expect but the loss of all things.' That is how Paul put it. He had settled the cost, so that later on, when things began to work out as he had anticipated, he was not stumbled in his course. He did not come to a standstill in order to go over the whole matter again. He went on. All those matters had been dealt with, and were behind him. So often we are arrested because we come up against the cost of things, the price to be paid, and we find that we are not ready for that. "I am ready to die..."; "I am ready to preach..."; "I am ready to go..."; "I am already being offered, and the last drops of my sacrifice are falling." (That is the literal translation of the words to Timothy.) Paul pictures himself as a drink-offering being poured out for his Christ. That is abandonment to Christ. That is passion for Christ's interests. That is the meaning of the Cross - "henceforth... unto him..." Dead to self, and all else.

This is a challenge to us. Are we ready? Are we so detached from self, the world, and attached to Him by His love, that His interests really are the dominating interests of our life all the time? The Lord needs more men and women like this. Have you settled down to a more or less ordinary kind of Christian life? Is there a going on from day to day, and week to week, and month to month, and perhaps from year to year, with none of this real passion in our relationship to the Lord Jesus for the seeking of His interests here in this world? Are you watching closely the interests of your Lord every day? Are you making sacrifice for those interests? Yes, it may break in even upon your home life. Sacred as home life may be, if the Lord's interests should challenge even that, are you prepared - nay, not only prepared, but ready in this positive sense? I do not mean that you will never feel the matter press upon you. I have no doubt that Paul very often felt the drain, the weariness, the cost, but there was never any question, never any hesitation, as to what course was to be taken. "I am ready...!" Oh, do hear the Lord, the Spirit's call to your heart for this abandonment of the true ambassador of Jesus Christ! Do not regard ambassadorship as being for those special people who go out on special commissions.

We started by pointing out that Paul sought to bring the whole company of believers into this state of concern with himself. To these Corinthian believers he said: "...we beseech..."; 'we entreat'. We are all called into this position as ambassadors. Paul had a longing to see the interests of the Lord Jesus served at all times.

Are you ready to let your home go somewhat if His interests call? Are you ready to let your worldly prospects go if His interests call? Are you willing, in following out His interests, to lose the good opinion of your friends, the esteem of others, your reputation, the loss of everything, so long as the Lord's interests are served? Are you holding everything here in this world, everything - position and everything else - in the interests of the Lord? Are you sure that you are using all that you have for the Lord? Are you using your home? Are you using your business opportunity? Are you using your means? Is everything for Him?

I am aware that this is nothing more than an appeal to your hearts. There is not a great deal of profound teaching here, but I feel this is what is needed: a people of this sort who really do and can say, with a true, conforming background: "The love of Christ constraineth"! No longer unto ourselves, but unto Him! "We are ambassadors... of Christ...!" Those who stay at home, and continue in business and in the home life should not be any the less ambassadors than those who go abroad. There ought to be in us the spirit of: "I am ready to preach...", "I am ready to go...", "I am ready to die..." 'I am ready in this full sense of readiness, with the result that everything is held so loosely that it will not be able to keep me back from serving the Lord's interests.' Everything is regarded solely in the light of how it can serve the Lord, and if it cannot serve the Lord, then we have no personal interest in it. If we are obliged to be in any given thing as in this world, well and good, but our hearts are not in that for any personal interests at all. Our hearts will only have to be in it in so far as it is our duty. We will do what is our duty with all our might, but the connection must serve the interests of the Lord Jesus up to the hilt, as far as that is possible. That is the attitude toward life which is called for. It is possible that this spirit, this element, this real concern and passion for the Lord, may have dropped out of the lives of many.

Ambassadors are not ambassadors because they have been appointed, but because "the love of Christ constraineth". We are not ambassadors of churches, congregations or assemblies; we are ambassadors of Christ. The Lord write this in our hearts.