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The Faith of the Overcomer

by T. Austin-Sparks

First published in "A Witness and A Testimony" magazines, 1940.

Contents

Chapter 1 - Faith in Christ in Relation to Divine Purpose

Chapter 2 - Further Features of the Sevenfold Fruit of Faith

Chapter 3 - The Call to Stand Fast

Chapter 1 - Faith in Christ in Relation to Divine Purpose

"...that I might live unto God... that which I now live in the flesh, I live in faith, the faith which is in the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself up for me". Galatians 2:19-20.

Let us for a moment reflect upon that well-known statement: "...that I might live unto God... I live: yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and that which I now live... I live in faith, the faith which is in the Son of God..."

I think it is a matter of very great importance indeed that we should recognize the objective aspect of the Apostle's faith, and of the faith which is to be likewise in us. I mean that the Lord Jesus is the object of faith as presented here, and that makes faith objective, and if we grasped that as we should, clearly and strongly, it would make us very safe, and it would deliver many of the Lord's people from those perils which so often beset them.

Now note: the Apostle says, "I have been crucified with Christ..."; not, I am being crucified with Christ; not, I am going to be crucified with Christ; not, I once started being crucified with Christ and am going on being crucified with Christ to the end. That is not what is said, but, "I have been crucified with Christ". What he means is that the thing was done in totality when Christ was crucified; not that a part of me was crucified, and a good deal more left to be crucified, but the whole was crucified in Him. Now says he, in effect, I have definitely accepted that as a full and complete thing, an actuality: in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me, I have been crucified. That is where the life of faith begins. It was done.

Faith in the Indwelling Christ

It is not therefore, my business to be seeking every day to be crucified, to be taking myself into account and keeping myself in all that I am by nature in view, in order that it may be crucified: all that rests entirely with Him, as I repose faith in Him. That is not my business, it is His. I have been crucified, I am alive; and yet it is no longer I, but Christ who liveth in me. Now my position is one of faith in Him, who in Himself took me to the Cross, in whom I was crucified, who gave Himself up for me; faith in Him, that He will perfect all that which concerns me. I repose faith in Him objectively as one who, while in me, linked with me, is nevertheless apart from me in Himself. Faith in Him to make everything good was bound up with that Cross. It is not a case of my worry, my care, my fret, my anxiety, my strain, but of faith in the Son of God.

Now if you have any question as to whether that is the meaning of the word here, and the value of it, you have just to look at the context. In what connection did Paul say this? "I through the law died unto the law... I have been crucified with Christ." The connection is with the law. What was the purpose and object of the law? The law is good, and the law is perfect, and the law is intended to make us God-like, to reproduce godliness or God-likeness, or godly features in us. The law is an expression of God's mind, what God's thought and attitude is toward life, both against many things and for many things. Thus the law was intended to make men holy, to make men perfect, and the Apostle applied himself to the law in order to be holy, to be according to God's mind. He found that the law could not effect this, because of what he himself was. Paul makes this clear in the letter to the Romans, where he shows that the failure of the law was "because of the weakness of the flesh". Nevertheless, that was the object of the law.

The law, then, has failed because of weak man; but there is a strong Son of God. I have been crucified unto the law, in order to live unto the strong Son of God. The law is exchanged for the Son of God. The Son of God takes the place of the law. The law cannot make God-like, but the strong Son of God can, and that because He lives in me. The law found nothing in me of strength, of capacity, of ability to satisfy God. That is where the law failed, because there was nothing in me. But now Christ lives in me; and I live; "yet no longer I, but Christ liveth in me". Not then by straining to keep the law, which ever means failure, but by trusting in the Son of God, I reach God's end, and come to the place where the law was intended to bring me, but failed so to do because of there being no strength, no good in me. But now I get to that end because Christ is in me and able to bring me to it, and all that is required is that I repose implicit faith in Him, not continually worrying about my crucifixion. That is done in Christ, and I leave all the outworking of that with Him. Oh, the infinite peril, the multitudes of perils in that self-consciousness which is born of a wrong kind of subjectivity, a subjectivity which is occupied with what we are and what we are not, instead of the right kind of subjectivity. Christ is the subject within, and I am occupied with Him - "faith which is in the Son of God"; occupied, not with my imperfection, but with His perfection; not with my weakness, but with His strength; not with my inability, but with His power; not with myself at all in any way, but with Him. The occupation of the man of faith is with the Son of God, "who loved me, and gave himself up for me".

So we must never be found occupied with how we happen to be at the moment, or at any time. It is just possible to be occupied with ourselves when we are feeling fine, and saying, We are better today. That may be as fatal a ground for the enemy to catch us upon as our being occupied with the miserable side of our beings. No, not good, bad, or indifferent; none of the phases or features of our selves and our own condition must hold us at any time, but we must ever be "looking off unto Jesus, the author and finisher of faith".

Christ lives! That is where we begin. Then, Christ lives in me! And the other half of the statement is, I live by faith in Him. He lives in me; I live in Him, by faith. Paul, as you notice, draws all the strength away from the "I" here. "Nevertheless I live"; and then, so to speak, he half retraces his steps, and says, "yet no longer I". It is as though he were afraid of that "I". I live; yes, I live; yet - "yet no longer I, but Christ..." He at once draws all strength away from that "I" and puts it all on "Christ". That is the life of faith. Let us remember that it is not faith as an abstract thing, which is of any value. Indeed, we might go as far as to say it is not faith in itself at all. The thing which makes faith virtuous and effective is its object. It is not faith, but the object of faith, that is the main factor. Paul does not stop short and say, I live by faith. He makes that very clear, very emphatic: "faith which is in the Son of God". The Son of God! The full title; God in expression as Son, that is, God in emanation. It is quite impossible for God in Himself, and what He is in His essential being, to dwell in us, to be linked with us. It could never be. He must come in a way which makes His union with us possible, and that way is in this expression of Son.

In this letter to the Galatians there are three outstanding persons. The one, of course, greater than, and eclipsing all others, is the Son of God, Jesus Christ. He stands there as the great central, dominating figure. But then, as before Him, on either side, there are two other great figures, Abraham and Paul, with the Lord Jesus, so to speak, standing over them, with a hand resting upon each. There is union between them. Paul stands also linking hands with Abraham. In this letter Paul does join hands with Abraham, as you will see, standing on the same ground of faith as Abraham, linking on that ground, and then faith becomes the great factor in the letter.

This twentieth verse of chapter 2 is an all-governing verse. It gathers up and summarizes the whole of this letter to the Galatians. All that is in the letter is gathered into that verse. We may see that in some measure as we go on.

The Sevenfold Ground of Faith

Now there are seven things into which faith brought Abraham, and Paul takes hold of Abraham's hand over the years, and on the same ground of faith makes it perfectly clear that faith has brought him into those same things; he is with Abraham there. The issue of that is that the Church is called on to that sevenfold ground of faith, because the Church in its peculiar fullness comes in through Paul; I mean, so far as revelation is concerned.

Let us then look at these seven things, saying a brief word about each.

(1) Oneness with Divine Purpose

Firstly, faith brought Abraham into oneness with Divine purpose. There was sovereign purpose in the heart and mind of God when He appeared unto Abram in Ur of the Chaldees, and all God's activities with Abraham were with that purpose in view. What was the purpose? The purpose was a heavenly seed in union with God's Son.

Now will you refer to one or two passages: Chapter 3:7,16,26-29. You see the purpose, a heavenly seed in union with God's Son. Abraham's obedience of faith brought him into active and working oneness with that great purpose of God. I say God came with purpose, and God made a statement, but we know quite well that it required faith, and genuine faith, inasmuch as it demanded a big movement on Abraham's part, for God's purpose to become an actuality through him. God may have a great purpose: He has a great purpose concerning the Church, and in a related sense He may have a purpose concerning each one of us: there may be a ministry given us of God in relation to His purpose, and that becomes the purpose of our own lives; but with all the purpose that is in the heart of God it is rendered inoperative while faith is lacking in us. It is held in suspense until faith is exercised on our part. The fulfilment of all Divine purpose demands faith, and can only be on the basis of faith. Faith brought Abraham into oneness with that great purpose of God, and faith is likewise required to bring us into active oneness, both with the whole purpose and with that part of it which particularly relates to us in the thought of God. "Without faith it is impossible to please God"; and God's pleasure is found in the realisation of His purpose.

(2) Oneness with Divine Method

Secondly, faith brought Abraham into oneness with the method which God intended to employ throughout in the fulfilment of His purpose. What was and is God's method? It is separation from the earth and nature, and union with heaven (Gal. 4:25-26; 6:14-15). There is the world, earth and nature, all cut off by the Cross: there is separation therefrom and union with heaven. We know enough of Abraham's life to know how truly God followed that method with him: "Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house..." But that was only the beginning of his exodus. The principle was applied right on to the end - out, out, more and more out; out from the earthly, out from what was of this world, out from himself, his own mind, his own judgment, his "I". And then, union with heaven; a growing, deepening union with heaven. That is God's method of realising His purpose. Now if there is one thing more than another which really characterizes the Church, as the Body of Christ, it is that, on the one hand, it is outside, of the world and the earthlies and the natural, and on the other hand, it is in union with heaven, it is heavenly. Faith brought Abraham into oneness with God's method, and it is perfectly patent that unless there is faith we shall not come on to that basis. It needs a lot of faith, faith to live with your feet off the earth spiritually; for where there is no faith, or where there is a lapse of faith, we shall go down to Egypt as Abram did, we shall turn to Hagar as Abram did, we shall seek for the tangible, sentient ways of realising Divine ends, we shall lean on some earthly resource. Such, then, is the way of faith, the way of the eternal purpose. Those two things go together. In Ephesians we have the eternal purpose and the heavenly position of the Church. Paul joins hands with Abraham on that ground, and both are linked with the heavenly Christ, outside of this world and in heaven.

That is enough upon that point for the time being, but you can see Galatians 2:20 in all this. "I have been crucified...": I have been put out of myself, and I have been put out of the world; "yet I live; and yet no longer I... Christ liveth in me". Whatever it is that I live here in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God. My life is in heaven; it is outside of all that is here.

(3) Oneness with Divine Means

Thirdly, faith brought Abraham into oneness with the Divine means. By what means does God reach His end in His people? What is God's means of achieving His purpose? It is by the Spirit of sonship through the Cross (Galatians 4:6-7,18; 3:14). There is much more in this letter about the Holy Spirit, but the central emphasis in respect of the Spirit in Galatians is that of the Spirit of sonship. The Spirit of God's Son is here pre-eminently as the Spirit of sonship in our hearts, and there is no hope of reaching God's end, or of even taking the first step in that direction, without the Spirit as the Spirit of sonship. First there must be the infant cry, "Father!" There must be that relationship brought about by the Spirit. Then the Spirit of sonship, once He is within us, must proceed fully to form Christ in us. Thus in this letter the Apostle says, "My little children, for whom I am again in travail till Christ be fully formed in you". Indeed, we might say that is the occasion of this letter, in that these Galatians were falling away from that life in the Spirit as sons which was to bring them to God's full end. The Apostle is in travail over this matter. It is not a case of my struggling toward God's end, but of the Spirit of God's Son in me energising toward God's end. Oh, that we had faith here. If you really have faith on this particular point, you will have the secret of a profound rest.

You know, we have our "off" times spiritually; "off" times in the prayer life when it seems impossible to pray, "off" times in many other ways spiritually. No matter how we struggle, we can make nothing of it. What are we going to do? Well, if my experience is of any value to you, as I believe I have discovered just a little of the secret of things, I have come to this position: Through the Spirit, Christ is in me, and everything is with Him, not with me. It is not what I can do, nor what I cannot do, nor how I am today; all is with Him. Today maybe I am not conscious of His indwelling, but on the contrary very unconscious of His indwelling, and very conscious of other things that are not Christ. Well, that is my state; but He is faithful, He is true; He has given me certain assurances about never leaving nor forsaking me, and about abiding through all the days unto the end, and He that hath commenced a good work will perfect it unto the day of Christ. He started this thing, I did not; He undertook this thing. Before ever I had a being - He had undertaken to carry through His perfect work in anyone who would trust Him. That was all undertaken for before ever I saw the light of day: so that I did not start this, it is not commenced with me. My one thing to do is to trust Him, trust Him, and if I cannot break through, say, Lord, I cannot pray just at the present, I must trust You to do all the praying.

No one who really has their heart set upon the Lord will take hold of a statement like that as a back-door way out of prayer. I am not trying to give you some excuse for giving up praying. I am saying there are "off" times, and I am not sure that the Lord does not allow us to have such times lest we should begin to build again upon works. He takes us right off that basis and throws us upon Himself, where there is no alternative but to trust Him. You are not surrendering your prayer life in taking that course at a time like that. If you could pray you would do so, but now in a time of real inability you are just trusting the Lord about it. I find I have these "off" times, but as I definitely trust the Lord, and say, "Lord, this is Your responsibility, and I know this will not last; that prayer life will come back, and I am trusting You in the meanwhile", it does come back, and in greater fullness and greater blessedness. Beloved, I have proved that again and again. It comes back. It is not merely that you get better and start again. You know quite well that you may be perfectly fit and yet be unable to pray. No one can make prayer. It is not a matter of health and strength to be able to pray. You may be a perfectly strong man or woman, but you cannot get through to heaven in prayer because you are that. Prayer has to do with an opened heaven, prayer is fellowship with the Lord; and that is His doing, not ours. He brings that. Trust Him. "I live; and yet no longer I, but Christ liveth in me"; He has the whole matter in hand. While my attitude is one of faith in Him, He will see that there is a prayer life, He will see there is a life in the Word. Positive faith in Him is the secret of everything in the will of God.

We will leave the rest for the time being. Faith brings into oneness with Divine purpose, with Divine method, with Divine means. The purpose is a heavenly seed in union with God's Son. The method is separation from the earth and nature, and union with heaven. The means is the Spirit of sonship through the Cross. All that is in Galatians 2:20. "I have been crucified with Christ; yet I live; and yet no longer I, but Christ liveth in me, and that life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith, the faith which is in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself up for me". And He will see me through!

Chapter 2 - Further Features of the Sevenfold Fruit of Faith

We have the Letter to the Galatians especially present in our minds, and the verse in that letter which summarizes the whole, namely, verse 20 of chapter 2, together with the last clause of verse 19. We have seen what a large place Abraham has in this letter, and therefore what a large place faith has. I think it would be right to say that, in writing this letter, the Apostle set out to deal with the matter of faith, and brought in Abraham as the great example. As we have already said, Paul joined hands across the ages with Abraham and stood with him on the same ground.

We proceeded to note seven things into which faith brought Abraham, and likewise Paul, and the same applies to us. We briefly referred to three of these. The first thing to which faith brought Abraham was oneness with Divine purpose, that purpose being a heavenly seed in union with God's Son. The second thing was oneness with Divine method, namely, separation from the earth and nature and union with heaven. The third thing was oneness with Divine means, which is the Spirit of Sonship through the Cross. Now we go on with the fourth.

(4) Oneness with the Divine Time

Galatians 4:4, touches upon this: "When the fullness of the time came, God sent forth his Son..." When the fullness of the time came! It is not difficult for us to see in the case of Abraham how his faith was brought into relation to God's time. The time factor with Abraham was a very real one, and was perhaps one of the keenest and most acute factors for his faith.

Now, that time factor in the case of Abraham affected many points in the significance of his life. Abraham received a very comprehensive representation of Divine truth and a very full revelation, and therefore by its significance his life affected many things, and again and again we come upon a test of Abraham's faith along the line of the timing of God. Indeed, from one standpoint, we may summarize the whole of his life and say that it headed up at last to the triumph of faith upon that particular factor. In the full Divine sense he never received the promises in his lifetime. At the end of his life he was still looking for the fulfilment of the promise, and if his faith had given way he would naturally have taken the attitude that, since the thing had not been fulfilled in so long a time and in his lifetime, it all represented perhaps a big mistake on his part, a false expectation, some misguidance, and so on. But right at the end, if the letter to the Hebrews is to be taken as revealing the actual position, he still believed. He believed, therefore, that God had His time for fulfilling His purpose, and that, although it might not come in his own lifetime, it nevertheless would come. But during his lifetime, within the compass of the whole range of Divine purpose, there were instances of testing on the time factor, and having been tested on that factor the promise was fulfilled.

It is the principle that we want to get hold of. We have it illustrated perhaps supremely in connection with the promise of Isaac. You remember how, in the fifteenth chapter of Genesis, the Lord came to Abram and gave the promise that in his seed there should be universal blessing, and how that the battle then commenced, and how Abram prepared a sacrifice, and himself, from his own side, entered into a covenant with God by faith. When he had made his side good, that is, the side of his faith, that he believed God, and ratified it with a covenant from his side by the sacrifice, then we are told, when all that was done, God made a covenant with Abram.

The incident seems to indicate a very thorough belief in the promise of God concerning the seed; that Abram took a position over it, and a position which was utter and which involved him in going all lengths by faith. It involved everything, and that is only understood and recognized when you see what God committed Himself to on that day; for God never made a covenant, only in relation to His own Son. It is important to remember that God's covenants bear upon His Son. They are bound up with the Lord Jesus. When God that day made a covenant with Abram in blood by the altar, God on that day committed Himself to all that He had, all that He could give, all that He could do. He committed Himself to the extent of His only and well beloved Son, and that unto death; for that altar and that sacrifice foreshadowed God's fullest and uttermost gift in covenant. From his side Abram entered into that. Whether he knew what was coming or not we may not know, but he must have known that, from his side, the covenant involved him in being as utter as God was committing Himself to be that day. That which followed some years afterward was the demand being made by God upon Abram to fulfill his part of the covenant. "Take now thy son, thine only son whom thou lovest..." Abram was really tested on that subsequent day concerning what had taken place on that particular day, and it is the one faith which receives the son and gives the son.

The Purpose of Delay

Now in chapter 15 you have the promise, and although it does not look like it, since the story is so quickly got over, it seems that it was at least fifteen years before the promise was fulfilled. It was fourteen or fifteen years at least, but how much more we cannot say as the Hebrew is very uncertain in this matter. You remember when the men came to Abram's tent and ratified the promise, their words in our translation are something like this: "at the time" or "about the time", or "in the season" (Gen. 18:14). The words are very indefinite. Some have translated it, "This time next year it shall be", but we cannot render it so with certainty. All we can say is that it was a definite ratification of the promise, that in God's appointed time it should be fulfilled. That ratification in the tent was some fourteen or fifteen years after the events of chapter 15 when the promise was given. Now, taking every other circumstance into consideration; promise, age, and so on, you can see that this was a real matter of faith, this time factor. The time is getting on. We are getting farther and farther away from any possibility of fulfilment. Abram was ninety and nine years old when this ratification of the promise was made. You see the time factor was a real test. Moreover it was a deliberate and definite movement of God. Why did not the Lord, knowing what He would do, wait until He was about to do it and just come and say, Abram, this shall be! and bring it about? But no! He came, announced it, and went away, and year after year passed by. Then He came again, ratified His promise, and upon that there was still more waiting. The Lord has strange ways. He deals with us like that. He must bring His instruments into oneness with Himself. There is a little phrase in the New Testament which runs like this: "When once the long suffering of God waited in the days of Noah". If that word means anything it means that delay, in a case like that of Abram's, is not a pleasant thing for Abram, not a thing that he would choose for himself. It would at least imply that if the Lord could have His way He would perfect His purpose at once. Long-suffering, forbearance, patience, endurance; these things on God's part are not the things that He would choose in carrying out His purposes, seeing all the suffering, and the distress and the pain that there is. But He suffered, and suffered long, and His instruments must come into oneness with Him, oneness with His heart.

The point is that it lifts this thing on to a certain level. It is not that the Lord is just dealing with you and with me like a schoolmaster, trying to get something in us. It may be the Lord wants moral qualities developed in us; patience, longsuffering, and so on; there is no doubt that is true, but it is not just that. The Lord is saying, I am not going to do this until you show signs of certain qualities. The Lord is lifting us right up on to the same level as Himself, bringing us into actual oneness with Himself, so that we have the same feeling towards others and toward the situation, toward the need, that He has. I believe that when the Lord can get a corporate cry in His Church which is His own cry, then His time has come. The Lord is not just waiting for a time. There is something bound up with that time, and He is seeking to produce in the heart of His instrument that which is in His own heart, so that it cries one cry with Him. The Church has to cry, and it has to cry God's cry, and that one cry is not yet in the Church. There are many voices, conflicting voices; and by the agony of delay, and the agony of the growing impossibility of the situation, and by the agony of the need for that which is of God as over against all this other, the Church will be brought to cry that cry. At midnight there shall be a cry! Now that is oneness with God in His time.

Yet it is true that God has His time. There is a fullness of the time in respect of every Divine movement, and we cannot take things out of God's time. Perhaps we have learned that. We cannot precipitate things, we cannot hurry God, we cannot bring things about for which the time is not ripe. This knowledge is with the Lord, and He would bring us in spirit into oneness with Him on that point, to be one with Him in His time, that when His time does come He has us ready to His hand as those through whom He can move. Whatever be the purpose that is bound up with His time, the Lord must have an instrument through which He may move to its accomplishment. And when the Lord's time comes how we know it in our hearts! I think we all know something about this. Oh, how we have cried, and groaned, and agonized, and striven, and done all that we could do to get God to do certain things; but His time had not come. We have been tested in faith, and we have come at length to the place where we definitely and strongly stand with God for that thing and hold on, and then God's time comes, and we know in our hearts that the time has come, and in a wonderful way it just happens. All that it has cost of prayer and anguish would perhaps lead us to expect that, when it happens, the world will know all about it; but it just happens, and you hardly recognise from the outward indications that the thing has come about. God's time came, and it was so easy; it just transpired. But we can never say - we are forbidden to say - that our holding on to the Lord, our prayer, our standing with Him, our getting through on that matter was unnecessary; that it would have happened in the appointment of God at His time, whether we agonized or not. You dare not take that position over anything in the way of God. Isaac may have been pre-determined before ever there was a world, and yet Abram's faith was the essential factor to the bringing in of Isaac. The whole Word of God bears down upon that, that God Himself demands the co-operating faith of His own people, even to bring through the works which were foreordained.

Now, we might spend a good deal of our time on that, in tracing it through the Word, but we shall not do so now. But I would suggest to you that the time factor in the Word of God is a very helpful thing to know.

(5) Oneness with the Divine Basis

We pass, then, for a minute to number five; faith bringing into oneness with the Divine basis of purpose, namely, resurrection. We are noticing how all this is implicit in the letter to the Galatians, and especially emphatic in the verse before us: "I have been crucified with Christ; yet I live, and yet no longer I, but Christ liveth in me: and that (life) which I now live in the flesh I live in faith, the faith which is in the Son of God..." You see, resurrection is implicit there, and so it is throughout this letter to the Galatians, and it is God's basis for realising His purpose; and if there must be the patience of faith; indeed, if there must be all these other things which we have mentioned as expressions of faith, it is just as essential and indispensable that there shall be resurrection as God's basis. Now broaden that out and you will see that God demands that basis, and all God's purpose and purposes are fulfilled upon the basis of resurrection. Now, there is a wide field, but it is summed up in the case of the Lord Jesus, because all the Scriptures are gathered into Him: He is the total of everything in the Word of God; it all meets in Him, and all the other types and symbols and foreshadowings are just gathered into Him. All the purpose of God for all the ages centres in Him, and not one wit of it can be fulfilled, only on the ground that He is raised from the dead. Leave Him there crucified, and the purpose of God is entirely lost. It is by the resurrection from the dead that everything is realised, and that is a law which governs. For the Lord's people this means that He must so work with them as to have resurrection as a definite and positive basis in them. Of course, there is no resurrection where there is no death, and therefore unto the resurrection the death must take place. But I prefer to regard the death as the negative side and the resurrection as the positive, and would prefer not to emphasise the Cross on the death side, only in view of that to which it leads and which it makes possible, the resurrection. God is always on the positive side. So the Lord would seek to find faith in us unto resurrection.

Now Abram, again, was tested with reference to faith on that matter. It was resurrection power, both in his case and in that of his wife, that in the very first place brought Isaac. You remember Sarah laughed. The Lord said to Abram, "Wherefore did Sarah laugh? ...Is anything too hard for the Lord?" Resurrection faith was required, because, as Paul tells us in his letter to the Romans, "he (Abram) considered his body now as good as dead..." In his faith he believed God for resurrection in the first instance. Again, when it came to the offering of Isaac, he believed God. We are told that he obeyed because he believed God could raise him from the dead. It was resurrection faith, providing God with what was necessary for the fulfilment of His purpose.

How we are tested on this very thing! The Lord allows things to go to very great lengths sometimes, both in our individual lives and corporately. He allows those phases when it all seems as though death has the victory. And we never seem really to get to the place where faith is never tried on that matter. However many may be our experiences, however often we may have come through and come up again in resurrection and in triumph, it does seem that we never get to the place where we cannot be tried. Every new assault of death, every new experience in which things seem to go right out, finds us very tried. That is all there is to it: we are very tried, and that means that we are in a position where it is quite possible, to say the least of it, for us to have questions about everything; questions about the Lord, questions about those things concerning which we have made the most tremendous declarations of assurance. No one who really knows will ever say, I will never doubt again! But I think there is some progress made. The Lord is securing a growing foothold in us. His work with us through the trial of faith is to bring us (though our response is all too slow) to the place where we trust Him as the God of resurrection, and where we shall be able to let go to what seems like death, with assurance and confidence that the end is not death but resurrection.

Again, this is the ground the Lord must have, faith in Him as the God of resurrection. When in any given matter it is a question of life and death, then you get to that uttermost word, Impossible! It is on that point that testing arises - Is nothing too hard? Is anything impossible? You notice that the word "impossible" is peculiarly linked with the question of resurrection. Faith finds its deepest testing over the question of resurrection, wherever death is. That means that where there is faith over the point of resurrection, there is the greatest victory, a greater victory in that realm than in any other realm. It is the final triumph - faith in the God of resurrection.

(6) Oneness with the Divine Passion

Faith brought Abraham into oneness with the Divine passion. We have said that already, but it may bear a word or two more. It is strange, and yet it is true, that the Lord calls for His people to be one with Him in the passion of His own heart. I think there is no instance in all the Word of God where language is more identical than in the case of Abram being called to offer Isaac and God giving His Son. "Take now thy son, thine only son, whom thou lovest..." (Gen. 22:2) - "God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son..." (John 3:16). The son of his love! That brings Abram very near to God, and God very near to Abram. It is at that point that we have the greatest oneness between Abraham and the Lord. We said that Paul joins hands with Abraham on the same ground, and that great servant of God had many things to say which indicated that he was entering in a measure into the Divine passion. "I... fill up that which is lacking of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for his body's sake, which is the church" (Col. 1:24). "That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings..." (Phil. 3:10). That is oneness with the Lord in His passion. "Are ye able to drink of the cup that I drink? ...And they said unto him, We are able. And Jesus said unto them, The cup that I drink ye shall drink..." (Mark. 10:38-39). The Lord calls to that in relation to His purpose. The great eternal purpose of God requires that those who are bound up with that purpose, as instrumental for its realisation, shall by it touch - but very lightly - His cup, shall sip the cup of His passion, come to oneness with Him in that passion, of suffering, of sorrow, of heartbreak. The enemy so often touches the most holy, the most sacred things with his defiling hand, that when some child of God is just tasting a little of the fellowship of His sufferings, the enemy gives a twist to those sufferings and puts upon them the complexion of the Lord's anger, the Lord's displeasure, when really it is a touch of the most sacred oneness with the Lord, the deepest honour.

I am always very hesitant to say the slightest thing in the manner in which Paul could speak; as, for example, this word: "Most gladly, therefore, will I glory in my infirmity..." I glory in infirmity? Perhaps this craven, coward heart will not let go enough on that, but I do feel that there is a place to which we can get where we do regard suffering as a great privilege, a great honour; that is, that suffering which is going to mean something for the Lord, and for the Lord's purpose. Evidently Paul saw that with clear eyes. It is true that the Lord has gained very much, and the Lord's Body has gained very much through the fellowship of His sufferings on the part of many of His own children. I think we have often said that those who have not suffered have very little to give. Well, we will not make much of our sufferings, but we note the law: God must have those who are in oneness with His passion.

(7) Oneness with Divine Fullness

If you like to use the word enlargement instead of fullness you can. Faith tested, tried along many lines. "Look now toward heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be able to tell them: and he said unto him, So shall thy seed be" (Gen. 15:5). "In thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed" (Gen. 22:18). That is enlargement, that is fullness, and faith brought Abram there.

The faith of the overcomer breaks down the limiting things of time, of this world, and leads right out into the full expanse of the range of Divine purpose from all eternity. The Church is called into that purpose, which, as we have said, is universal.

What is true of the Church as a whole is true in our individual lives. The way of enlargement is through the test of faith as to God's time, the test of faith as to God's passion, the test of faith as to God's basis, God's means. When the Lord gets His people proved in faith on these matters, then comes enlargement. We only get to fullness that way. It is in pressure we are enlarged, through suffering we come to fullness, through faith being tried on every point, in every direction, that the increase comes; and there is no increase in any other way.

So the promise has been fulfilled unto Abram. You notice what Paul says in this letter to the Colossians: "That the promise made to Abraham might be fulfilled in us..." What was this promise? It was the gift of the Spirit.

Now we can gather that all up in one familiar statement of the Lord in Luke 12:49: "I came to cast fire upon the earth; and what will I, if it is already kindled? But I have a baptism to be baptized with; and how am I straitened till it be accomplished!" He was straitened, and was groaning in that straitness for the enlargement, for the release. How shall it come? "I have a baptism to be baptized with." What is the baptism? The Passion, the Cross. What will be the result? The scattering of fire in the earth; that is, the Spirit. Pentecost was the result of the Passion. That was the enlargement from straitening, and it was through the Cross. We have to come that way to oneness with God in His fullness. But let us remember that fullness is His end for us. It is as much a part of God's purpose to enlarge as it is a part of God's way to test faith. Oh yes, we sometimes feel that it is all testing, it is all trial, God has nothing else for us. No! He is as definitely set upon enlargement as He is upon any phase of our experience, and enlargement is through the Cross. He is seeking to bring us through the trial of faith into that which fully answers to His ultimate end, and that will be when His Son fills all things. We are called unto that fullness.

May the Lord use these words to encourage us in the way, strengthen us, and keep before us always the fact that faith is the victory.

Chapter 3 - The Call to Stand Fast

"But call to remembrance the former days, in which, after ye were enlightened, ye endured a great conflict of sufferings... For ye both had compassion on them that were in bonds, and took joyfully the spoiling of you possessions, knowing that ye have for yourselves a better possession and an abiding one. Cast not away therefore your boldness, which hath great recompense of reward. For ye have need of patience, that, having done the will of God, ye may receive the promise. For yet a very little while, He that cometh shall come, and shall not tarry. But my righteous one shall live by faith: And if he shrink back, my soul hath no pleasure in him. But we are not of them that shrink back unto perdition; but of them that have faith unto the saving of the soul. Now faith is assurance of things hoped for, a conviction of things not seen. For therein the elders had witness borne to them" (Heb. 10:32,34-39; 11:1-2).

"Therefore let us also, seeing we are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising shame, and hath sat down at the right hand of the throne of God" (Heb. 12:1-2).

You will have observed that these words are addressed to those of the Lord's people who were in danger of departing from the way of faith, and the recall here was to faith, the way of faith.

In these closing chapters there is a gathering up of the main features of the letter; that is, we get those things which are the main and primary implications of the letter, what the letter is intended to imply, what the force of it is; and if there is one word which summarizes this letter more perfectly than another it is that word faith. You can take it right back to the beginning of the letter and carry it right through to the end, and find that it is the governing word. It stands over everything that this letter contains; for now, as the letter shows, everything for the life of the believer is out of sight. There was a day in the life of the Hebrew when everything was in sight, and all those things of his belief as seen are mentioned, a whole system as manifested on the earth in the tabernacle service; the priesthood, the sacrifices, the tabernacle, the whole order. That has passed, and now all that is removed from sight, is gathered up into Him who is at God's right hand, out of the sight of the believer, and therefore everything becomes a matter of faith. But by reason of their trials and afflictions, and of the adversity which they encountered, and all the stress and the pressure, these Hebrew believers were in peril of departing from that life and way of faith. It would appear that they had already commenced that departure. Thus here is the strong call, or recall, to faith. They are reminded of the faith which possessed them and actuated them at the outset of their confession, and how they took joyfully the spoiling of their possessions, knowing that they had a better possession, an abiding one. Now that better and abiding possession has become somewhat obscured, at least in it's clear definition and outline, its vividness, and they were in danger of casting away their boldness.

These are very significant words: "...a better possession and an abiding one" - "...a great recompense of reward". You have to link that with these words a little further on, "Faith is the giving substance to things hoped for..." If faith becomes weakened, the better possession, the great recompense of reward recedes, becomes weaker in the heart.

The Possessing of a Hope through Faith

That is the backward glance in respect of this letter; but look forward. "Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the proving of things not seen, for therein the elders had witness borne to them". Then begins the great line of elders; Abel, Abraham, and so on. Do you catch the suggestion or indication? All these men had something for which they hoped, an object of hope. It was something better than that which was here on the earth. They had an object of hope, and they believed God concerning that object, and their faith led them to let everything else go with that object in view. They endured, they suffered, they persisted toward an object of hope which had been laid hold of by faith.

When you recognise that, then you look at these men and say, What was their object? What was the object of their hope?

Abel had witness borne that he was righteous. Was that what he was after? Was that the longing of Abel's heart, to stand as justified before God? Well, everything would point to that as being Abel's object, and faith brought him to his great recompense of reward: "He had witness borne that he was righteous", through faith. I am not going through the chapter taking up every one of the persons mentioned, but you will see that they all had an object of hope, and that they reached their object through faith.

Why did Enoch walk with God? He had faith unto an end, and it was his faith to possess that great recompense of reward that caused him in his day to walk with God as he did. He walked with God: he had to walk with God in his own heart as every man does. Whether there be few or whether there be many others walking with God, a walk with God is always a lonely thing. One of the marks of a real walk with God is this, that it seems that no one else has ever gone that way before, or knows anything about it. A real walk with God is always a personal thing of one's own personal faith, and it is always a lonely thing. It is finding out God for yourself, and that is pioneer work whether there be millions doing the same thing or whether you are having a lonely walk. No one else can find out God or walk with God for you. No one else's faith can serve you in that full sense of bringing you to know what they know about the Lord. We have to walk with God alone. And Enoch walked with God. We must believe, when we are told that, that his walk with God meant something very real, something peculiar, something special. It was a very real walk with God, a very utter walk with God. But he did it with a hope, and his walk being in the faith that his hope would be reached, God took him. We must believe that Enoch's was faith which was set upon that which we would mean by translation, by rapture, by not going the ordinary way of life but having an extraordinary consummation of his course, a triumphant consummation of his walk with God here. He believed that was possible. His heart was set upon it, and he walked with God and received the great recompense of reward, and faith gave substance to the thing hoped for. I think we might go deeper than that and say it was faith that conceived of such a possibility. I doubt whether there was another one on the earth who had conceived of such an idea as being translated. He had an object in view; that is the point. It was his hope, and faith caused him to act in the light of the object of his hope, and he received the recompense of reward.

Thus it was with every other one: there was an object. That object was their recompense of reward, the object of hope, and in relation to it they accepted, adopted, pursued a course of faith, and by faith the elders had witness borne to them. They had God's witness.

Patience and the Perfecting of Faith

Now, having surveyed that whole ground, the Apostle comes back in thought and, as you notice, he uses the word patience: "For ye have need of patience, that, having done the will of God, ye may receive the promise" (verse 36). "Therefore (with the whole range of these witnesses before us) let us run with patience..." These three things are brought together, hope, faith and patience. Very often faith needs a buttress, and faith's buttress is patience. "Having done the will of God" - that is your act of faith; you have acted in faith in the light of that which has been born in you as God's object in your case. Yes, you might well say, I have stepped out in faith, I have adopted the faith way, I have done the will of God in the matter of believing God and acting in faith. Yes, but that does not always get us to the end; there is the patience of faith. Very often we have to support that patience which suffers long.

These believers stepped out at the beginning in faith, out from the whole system of things seen, out on to the basis of the unseen, the heavenly, and in so doing they had suffered very much: "Partly, being made a gazingstock... for ye both had compassion on them that were in bonds, and took joyfully the spoiling of your possessions..." (Heb. 10:33-34). Well, they had stepped out in faith and done the will of God, but a long period had stretched out before them after that. Thus the force of chapter 11 is this, that not only did these people accept a course of faith, not only did they obey God in the matter of faith, but they persevered with their hope throughout their whole life. Many of them never in their lifetime reached the hoped-for end nor obtained the great recompense of reward. All they had was witness borne to them, and patience, therefore, was a constant necessity to go hand in hand with faith. This is the faith of God's elect.

We are thinking at this time of the faith of the overcomer, and when you turn to the Book of the Revelation, which is the summary of it all, you know what a tremendous place the patience of Christ has for the overcomer: "...hast kept the word of my patience..." (3:10): "...the patience of Jesus Christ" (1:9). Now bring that back to the beginning: "Run with patience the race that is set before us, looking off unto Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith". Faith and patience are exemplified by the Lord Jesus as, shall we say, the twin virtues and factors in overcoming. "Who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down..." (Heb. 12:2); overcoming through faith and patience.

The Disciplining of the Soul

Now one more word in this meditation: "...have faith unto the saving (or the gaining) of the soul" (10:39). That is not the object of hope, that is not the great recompense of reward, but that is put in there to show where our difficulty is. It is our own souls that are the difficulty in that way of faith and patience. If you have a soul that believes and trusts and has faith quite easily, and you do not in your own human nature have any trouble in the matter of faith, then the Bible was never written for you. If the same should be true of patience and you are one of those people who never find it difficult to be patient, you have all the patience that is ever required of you, well then, you are a monstrosity. You see what I mean. Here mention is made of faith to the gaining of the soul. You have to bring that soul over on to your side. A better word would be the winning of the soul. That again is not a perfect translation; gaining is not perfect, and certainly saving is not the best word. It is that this soul of ours has to be brought into line, possessed and brought into line, so that our souls are made to serve us in this Divine end, that our whole being is there. That is a matter of progress. That is not done all at once, but it is a course in our lives where all the doubting, unbelieving, questioning, natural, human life is being brought over on to the way of faith.

Now this is a very important thing for us to recognise. What is the Lord doing with us? I do not believe that the Lord is going to cut us up into water-tight compartments and put our spirit in one compartment and take our spirits on without the rest of us; and He is certainly not going to isolate our souls and rule them out. Do not get that idea with all that you hear about the difficulty of the soul, and soulishness. Do not get the idea that the Lord has cut off the soul and relegated it to a place where it is altogether disregarded. He is dealing with our spirits in order that through our spirits there may be a gaining of the soul, a mastering of the soul, a bringing of the soul over. That is the very nature of spiritual education.

You may come into any test in this matter at any time. On the one hand there is the call and necessity for faith in God, trust in the Lord, and probably the action of faith in taking some step. Now your soul rises up: you know in your spirit what is true, what is right, what the Lord's mind is, but here you have an enemy in your own soul that rises up and begins to question, to doubt, to pull back. What is the Lord going to do? He is not going to annihilate your soul, put your soul out of action: and don't you try to put your soul out of action. What is the position to which one comes who has had experience, who has walked with the Lord for any length of time, who knows a little of this walk of faith? The position is just this: Yes, I know all about those doubts and fears, those questionings, that swirl of confusion, that conflict of forces which rises up in the face of the known will of God, and I have many times suffered; suffered because I have been disobedient, suffered because I have not trusted the Lord: I have had a bad time inside because I allowed my own soul to have the upper hand and the stronger word and to cause a hesitation, a standing still. I have known that it does not do to allow that sort of thing. But what I have to do now is that when that thing rises up - that doubt or that natural tendency of mine to doubt, or to fear, or to question, or to quarrel, or to hesitate - I have to say to my soul, No, I am going on with God and you have to come with me!

I have put that perhaps rather crudely, but I am sure you will see what I mean. That is a position to which we come after a time of walking with God. We come to the place where we begin to get a bit knowing about our own souls. Yes, that got me into trouble before, that natural tendency of mine to argue the matter, to discuss it at length, to walk round it asking questions; that simply gets nowhere. God's mind about the matter is this and though there are all the arguments against it, seeing I know that to be God's mind, well, the arguments for the time being must go by the board, and I must go on with God. That is the only way through. Thus, little by little - oh, so slowly! - we gain our souls, we bring our souls over, and we progressively approximate to the position which contradicts the idea of the soul being ruled out: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength". That is putting the soul in its right place with God; not ruling it out but bringing it in. But we are slow in coming to the place where the soul goes on with God: "...faith unto the gaining of the soul".

You see how all of a piece this is when you come to chapter 12. "Consider him that hath endured such gainsaying of sinners against himself, that ye wax not weary, fainting in your souls" (verse 3). Here in the hands of the Father the spirit is being instructed, trained, and one of the objects of that spiritual training is this gaining of the soul. A truly spiritual person is not one whose soul has the upper hand, but who, having a soul, really having a soul, has that soul in hand. That is a spiritual person. That is what God is after. We must remember that the soul has the distinctive mark of our humanity, and God is not going to make us other than human at any time in this life or afterward. Humanity is not an evil thing: it is a Divine thing. It is a peculiar and unique conception of God. Angels are lower than man as God means man to be: "Not unto angels did he subject the world to come, whereof we speak. But one hath somewhere testified, saying, What is man, that thou art mindful of him... Thou didst put all things in subjection under his feet" (Heb. 2:6-8). Man is a peculiarly noble conception of God, not as he is but as he will be and as Christ is, "the Man Christ Jesus". It is a glorified humanity that God is after, and the distinctive mark of humanity is the soul in its right position and right relationship. Man is comprised of spirit, soul, and body, but the soul is the seat of the moral intelligence, so it has to be won. That can only be as the spirit is in a right position and right union with God.

The Abiding Character of Spiritual Laws

We will close with one more general remark which arises out of what is here in this part of the letter to the Hebrews. It is that spiritual laws never change. God's end is the same, and the laws by which God reaches His end never alter. Thus here all these men of the old dispensation, these witnesses, are brought up before us, and we are given to see that they moved on the basis of spiritual laws, their lives were governed by spiritual laws. We saw the sevenfold effect of faith in Abraham. That is what is in our mind, and we are going to see a great deal more about those seven laws of faith.

Those laws are not laws for Abraham alone, or for one dispensation. The way in which Abraham had to move, of course, in relation to those laws may be peculiar to Abraham's life and to Abraham's day. We do not all live in Ur of the Chaldees, and so on. That was simply the local colouring and setting, but the spiritual law was exactly the same, and all these points are brought right forward up to date and presented to us in their spiritual significance, and it is as though the Lord shows the same law for you as for Abraham, the same principle for you as for Abel; there is no change. The end is the same, and the way to the end is the same. That it may come to that end, the Church therefore is caused to stand upon the very same spiritual laws.

Seeing, then, the cloud of witnesses, "let us... lay aside every weight... and let us run with patience the race that is set before us"; for the basis of their life and ours is one, and that is all summed up in one word, faith. No one from Abel onward ever got through except by faith. We shall get through in no other way. We may as well settle that. If I could strengthen that in your heart by any additional word, I think it would be this, that the more spiritual we become (and that is only another way of saying, the more immediately we are in touch with God, and with God's ways and God's purposes) the more fierce and intensely real will be the battle of faith. That may seem strange: we perhaps would think it would work just the other way; but it is not so, and never has been so. The fact is that the more you get outside of that which is tangible, seen, that which can be grasped by the natural senses, the more you come into touch with those naked forces which have as their supreme object the destruction of the faith of God's people. "Howbeit when the Son of man cometh, shall he find the faith on the earth?" (Luke 18:8). Well, the enemy concentrates on faith. "Satan hath desired to have thee that he may sift thee as wheat, but I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not" (Luke 22:31). You see what the object of Satan is - "thy faith". Therein lay Peter's peril in the hour of his sifting. It is a comfort to recognise that point. It was in that moment when he was overwhelmed with the consciousness of his own failure. He had denied his Lord; it had come home to him, and he became crushed, broken. He says, I have denied my Lord! And when you get anywhere into that realm of the consciousness of your own failure and breakdown, and of the Lord being disappointed, oh, Satan comes in there. He rushes in and says, What is the good of you trying? What is the good of you expecting, hoping? You had better give it all up! Blessed be God, in the hour of that peril to faith, we have that word of encouragement "I have prayed for thee..." Our faith is not a matter of our own strength to maintain it; it is a matter of His prayer.