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The Release of the Lord (Consolidated Edition)

by T. Austin-Sparks

The book entitled "The Release of the Lord" was first published in 1929. It contained 7 chapters which were subsequently edited by Mr Sparks and republished as 5 chapters in the AWAT magazine in 1945, then again as 3 editorials in 1957. In later years he rewrote the remaining chapters. Of the original 7 chapters, chapters 1-4 were republished as a series of 3 editorials in 1957 (these are chapters 1-3), chapter 5 was republished in 1969 (now chapter 4), chapter 6 in 1970 (now chapter 5), and chapter 7 (now chapter 6) in 1962. Since all the chapters of the book were eventually re-written and republished by Mr Sparks, Austin-Sparks.Net has presented them once again as a complete collection of re-edited messages. We have also included his concluding chapter from the 1945 version which was not in the original 1929 publication. We believe this best represents the most updated version of The Release of the Lord.

Contents

Chapter 1 - The Release of the Lord and the Testimony of Jesus

Chapter 2 - The Starting-place of the Testimony in Every Nation

Chapter 3 - The Power of the Name

Chapter 4 - The Testimony of the Blood

Chapter 5 - Equipment for the Ministry

Chapter 6 - The Cross and the Ministry of Money

Chapter 7 - Revival or Reformation

Chapter 1 - The Release of the Lord and the Testimony of Jesus

During a recent visit to the Far East I was told by a responsible servant of God of the influence and value of a little book which was our first publication, and has long been out of print. Strangely also the question has recently come up from other directions as to whether this booklet could be reproduced. On reading it through again, while there are some things which we would not publish in exactly the same words today, there seems to be much that is very up-to-date and may very well have a message for this time - more than thirty years after its first issue.

I therefore propose to give the substance of some of the chapters in a short series of Editorials or Leaders. The title of the book was -

The Release of the Lord

Here then is the first part.

Isaiah 61:1-3 (Lev. 25:10); Luke 12:49,50; 4:18,19; Acts 2:1.

“The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me; because the Lord hath anointed Me to preach good tidings unto the meek; He hath sent Me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound; to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all that mourn; to appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that He might be glorified.”

“And ye shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof: it shall be a jubilee unto you; and ye shall return every man unto his possession, and ye shall return every man unto his family.”

“I am come to send fire on the earth; and what will I, if it be already kindled?  But I have a baptism to be baptized with; and how am I straitened till it be accomplished!

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He hath anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor; He hath sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord.”

“And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place.”

The book which is known to us as “The Acts of the Apostles,” and sometimes “The Acts of the Holy Spirit,” might truly be named—

The Release of Jesus Christ.

Luke introduces it with the observation that he had earlier written the beginnings of the acts and teaching of Jesus; implying that continuation is now his object and purpose.  But what a change!  The former activities were bounded and limited by time and space, and, at best, covered but a few square miles of Syrian soil.  For the most part Omnipresence was in chains, except for a few breakings through of power at a distance.  The activities and teaching were almost entirely limited to a people of one nation and tongue.  Then, by outward urge, persuasion, and encouragement, He caused His wishes to be carried out; and to the dull minds of the spiritually unquickened He gave His spiritual treasures; explanations and reasons being necessary to confidence.  Then, the necessity was laid upon Him of a very slow disillusionment and unfolding as to what form the end of the phase would take, because of the controlling personal interests, even in the inner circle.  Pride, ambition, doubt, malice, self-assertiveness, self-confidence, self-realization, self-defense, like barbed wires, circled around and wounded Him whenever He sought to move forward.  Ever conscious from the beginning that world-dominion was His as “Heir of all things,” yet He had not a place to lay His head, and to be “crucified through weakness” was to be His portion.

What a change!  Now He has shaken off all His chains.  Time and space no longer have any power over Him.  Geography, the material things, Satan, demons, men, nations, thrones, all have been fully stripped off by Him.  Now, by an inward dynamic, in spite of every threat and peril, men and women are moving out in every direction with a passion for the glory of His Name.  Now, not as an historic figure, known “after the flesh,” but, by an inward revelation of transcendent magnitude, He is known after the Spirit. Now, the once dreaded, unacceptable, offending Cross is all their glory. Now, suffering reproach has supplanted pride; selfless, disinterested sacrifice takes the place of ambition; a mighty energizing faith—not their own—has destroyed doubt; they lay down their own lives gladly and suffer the loss of all things for that Name.

In one strategic stroke He begins with a multitude representing “every nation under heaven.”  See how this fire spreads without artificial and forced agencies.

In the year 33 A.D., a few Galilean fishermen were seeking liberty of speech in Jerusalem, and were severely handled as men poor and ignorant.

In the year that Paul died, how did the matter stand? There were churches in Jerusalem, in Caesarea, in Antioch and all Syria, in Galatia, in Ephesus, Sardis, Laodicea and throughout the west coast of lesser Asia, in Phillippi, Thessalonica, Athens, Corinth, Rome, Alexandria, in the chief cities of the islands and the mainland of Greece, and the western Roman colonies.

A Sad Comparison

There are some significant omissions from this record of conquests.  We never read of the organizing of a missionary campaign.

Such things as deputations, lecturers and lectures, exhibitions, appeals, advertisements, and so on, with all their cost and expenditure of time, money, energy, all to try to get Christians interested in the souls of the unsaved, are never hinted at.  Any reporting of what God had done in the regions beyond was never by way of propaganda or advocacy.  Statistics as mental stimulants; pathetic, tragic, sensational stories as emotional stimulants; urge and drive as volitional stimulants had no place here, so far as we can discern.  The thing was firstly of the Spirit, not of the soul.  The endeavour to reverse this order is undoubtedly the reason for a tremendous amount of the weakness and breakdown of today.

Speaking generally, this whole matter of the world-mission of the Church is on pre-resurrection ground today.  The Lord is not straitened in Himself, but He is straitened in His people.

On the one hand, there is a need of workers, for almost half the human race is without the knowledge of Christ; and on the other hand workers are often ready to go forth, yet there are no means to send them.  A third condition, almost more tragic, abounds, that of the spiritual breakdown of many who do go, so that ‘converts’ are not really and genuinely born from above with the Spirit of sonship becoming truly resident within.  Demon powers persist in dominion and challenge.  A policy of slow absorption of ‘Christianity,’ through education, familiarization, and so on, as a compromise between failure to work upon the basis of genuine regeneration and an honest acknowledgment of the same with its practical implications, has been adopted.  Finally there are the many who return home with lost assurance.

Surely all this stands in direct contrast to the spirit and experience of the New Testament.  It is not difficult to go on at great length making distinctions between the two standards, that of the New Testament and that which has largely been since, but the more important thing is to display the secrets of that former glory.

We are convinced that He Who is “the same yesterday, and today, and for ever,” desires to have, and can have, His work on the same plane to the end of the age, and that in some parts of the world it is happening in a way very similar to the early days.

Here then begins an enquiry into the nature of the work of the risen Lord in “the Church, which is His body.”

We ask, first of all, is there any phrase which embodies the conception, the motive, and the dynamic of this spontaneous world-conquest at its beginning?

We think that there is such a phrase, and it is this:

The Testimony of Jesus.

This accounts for everything when possessing as it possessed them.  Let us look it up.

“Who bare witness of the Word of God, and of the testimony of Jesus Christ”  (Rev.1:2).

“I was in the isle that is called Patmos, for the Word of God and the testimony of Jesus”  (Rev. 1:9).

“I saw underneath the altar the souls of them that had been slain for the Word of God, and for the testimony which they held”  (Rev. 6:9).

“And the dragon waxed wroth with the woman, and went away to make war with the rest of her seed, which keep the commandments of God, and hold the testimony of Jesus”  (Rev. 12:17).

“I am a fellow-servant with thee and with thy brethren that hold the testimony of Jesus”  (Rev. 19:10).

“And I saw the souls of them that had been beheaded for the testimony of Jesus”  (Rev. 20:4).

“Even as the testimony of Christ was confirmed in you”  (1 Cor. 1:6).

“They will not receive of thee testimony concerning Me”  (Acts 22:18).

“Our testimony unto you was believed”  (2 Thess. 1:10).

“Be not ashamed therefore of the testimony of our Lord”  (2 Tim. 1:8).

“Ye shall be My witnesses” (Acts 1:8; same root in Greek as ‘testimony’).

“Must one be ordained to be a witness with us” (Acts 1:22).

“This Jesus did God raise up, whereof we are all witnesses”  (Acts 2:32).

“Raised from the dead; whereof we are witnesses”  (Acts 3:15).

“Not to all the people, but unto witnesses”  (Acts 10:41).

“With great power gave the apostles their witness of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus”  (Acts 4:33).

“And they overcame him because of the blood of the Lamb, and because of the Word of their testimony”  (Rev. 12:11).

The New Testament, read in the light of these passages, shows very clearly that the remarkable story which it recounts is that of a testimony.  It remains for us to ask what this testimony was.  To clear the way for the positive answer we must say something as to what this “testimony” was not.

1.  “The Testimony of Jesus”

Was Not a Teaching

There is nothing in the whole story upon which to rest an argument or affirmation that the Apostles went out to the world with ‘The Teaching of Jesus.’  They were not propagating new doctrines or a system of truth.  The teaching resulted from the acceptance of the testimony, the expounding of its content followed that acceptance and was kept for believers only.  It was a result, not a cause.  The most they ever did was to substantiate their testimony from the Scriptures, and affirm certain facts concerning the Person of Christ.

2.  “The Testimony of Jesus”

Was Not a New Religion

‘Christianity’ was not set over against or alongside of other religions and made ‘comparative.’  It was some time before some of the Apostles themselves realized the implications of their testimony in the matter of their being emancipated from Judaism.  Great as the change was, they did not at first realize that they had been taken out of their ‘religion.’  Later they found that they were out and committed in spite of their own prejudices, and had to do their thinking and discussing after the thing had become a fact in embarrassing experience.  See Peter in the house of Cornelius, and the events of Acts 10, 11, 15, etc.

3.  “The Testimony of Jesus”

Was Not a New 'Movement'

No plans were laid.  There was no policy. Organization was entirely absent, and any which subsequently had to be admitted was forced upon them by the embarrassment of the very vitality of things, and then it was of the simplest.

A thought-out campaign did not exist.  To set up, launch, form, bring into being, or found a new society, sect, ‘church,’ community, was not in mind.  They did not set out for such, and although their testimony gave distinctiveness to all who believed; although outsiders labelled them and misinterpreted their motive and purpose; the distinguishing feature was life.

What then was “The Testimony of Jesus”?

All-inclusively it was the proclamation and affirmation of a fact.  That fact was—and is—

The Universal Sovereignty and Lordship of Jesus Christ as the Son of God, established and vindicated by the resurrection from the dead.

This testimony has two sides.  The objective and historic fact, of which they had many infallible proofs, had become demonstrated in the power of that resurrection by the Holy Spirit in “the church, which is His body”—in all its members, in all its activities.  That life, which in Him had conquered sin, death, hell, Satan, and had carried Him from “the lowest part” to the “far above all heavens,” had been implanted in them by the Holy Spirit sent down from Heaven.

The “testimony of Jesus,” then, is that Jesus lives universally triumphant, and the Church is the “pillar” (or monument) of that truth.  It is His resurrection Body, possessed of His risen Life and administered by the Holy Spirit, as the repository of that Life.

The testimony of Jesus is in effect a life—His Life.  Not a mode of life, but a vital, infinite force; indestructible, irresistible, incorruptible; a vital force mediated to the spiritually dead wherever there is a readiness and willingness to believe on the Lord Jesus.

It burst the old molds, “wine-skins” of tradition, worn-out systems, man-made orders and forms.

It sets aside even those things which were once raised up and greatly used by God, but which have ceased to be living, and are only past history.  Even Judaism ceases to count here.  The testimony of Jesus liberates captives, and a word spoken by its power is as an irresistible challenge to “let My people go.”  Lazarus must come forth when He, “the resurrection, and the life,” commands through His Church.  This life, issuing forth from the risen Lord as within ‘the Body’ by the Eternal Spirit, is the compelling power of the world-mission and testimony of Jesus.

There is no precedent in the New Testament for appealing for workers or missionaries.  This is at best but a sorry alternative or necessity.  When the Holy Spirit is really in possession and the life is manifested, then He takes the initiative in all work and workers, saying, “Separate Me... for the work whereunto I have called them.”

Great emphasis is laid in the New Testament upon receiving the Holy Spirit.  The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of the universally Sovereign Lord—“the Heir of all things.”  His mission is world-wide, cosmic.  World-vision, world-passion, world-vocation, are the inevitable, immediate result of the establishment of His Lordship within.  It cannot be otherwise.  Then what is the matter that this thing is not spontaneous with so many?  Why do not the Lord’s people spread the Testimony by simply talking out of a full heart?  Is this also the indictment of Acts 19:2–5?

Is the cost a deterrent by which the Spirit is quenched?  It will cost.  To no place did the New Testament witnesses go with the “Testimony” but what the enemy—the dragon—made war.  It was up to him to do so, for he stood to be a very great loser.  It was the battle for dominion.  This was his unwilling compliment, his unintentional congratulation.  They represented something and possessed something which made hell angry and afraid.

The Lord’s purpose and method in this age is to bring into resurrection-union with Himself two or three in every place and to ‘add unto them such as are being saved.’

It is an accretion of life, not enticement, ‘attraction,’ advertisement.  Here again the Holy Spirit takes the initiative when a true testimony is borne.

The greatest need of the hour is a revitalizing of the Lord’s people with His risen life by the Holy Spirit.  May we soon see this, and come to the place where everything—tradition, system, common acceptances, forms and molds, prejudices, personal interests, reputation, prestige, compromise, the opinions of others, policy, and so on—will be sacrificed, if needs be, for LIFE, and the true and living TESTIMONY OF JESUS. So shall He find His release again and scatter the fire anew.

Chapter 2 - The Starting-place of the Testimony in Every Nation

In our last issue our particular emphasis was upon the nature of the “testimony of Jesus.”  We saw that the great, objective, historic fact, that Jesus was risen from among the dead and was in the place of supreme sovereignty and glory—which fact had been manifested by many infallible proofs—had also a subjective counterpart: namely, within the ones who were His “witnesses.”  That same Lord Jesus had become to them, by the Holy Spirit, an inward reality, and that inward fact was manifested as a life: “eternal life,” resurrection life, life triumphant over death; Divine life in all its holiness, energy, spontaneity, might, persistence, and fruitfulness; in fact, the life which the Lord Jesus is, in Person.  (See 1 John 1:2; 5:9–13,20; Acts 1:8,22; 2:32,36; 3:15; 4:33; 5:30,32; 10:40–42; 13:30,37; Rom 1:4.):

“And the life was manifested, and we have seen, and bear witness, and declare unto you the life, the eternal [life], which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us”. (1 John 1:2 R.V.)

“If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater: for the witness of God is this, that he hath borne witness concerning his Son. He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in him: he that believeth not God hath made him a liar; because he hath not believed in the witness that God hath borne concerning his Son. And the witness is this, that God gave unto us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He that hath the Son hath the life; he that hath not the Son of God hath not the life. These things have I written unto you, that ye may know that ye have eternal life, [even] unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God... And we know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we know him that is true, and we are in him that is true, [even] in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life.”  (1 John 5:9-13,20 R.V.).

“But ye shall receive power, when the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be my witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea and Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.... beginning from the baptism of John, unto the day that he was received up from us, of these must one become a witness with us of his resurrection.” (Acts 1:8,22).

“This Jesus did God raise up, whereof we are all witnesses... Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly, that God hath made that same Jesus, Whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ” (Acts 2:32,36).

“Whom God raised from the dead; whereof we are witnesses.”  (Acts 3:15).

“And with great power gave the apostles their witness of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus: and great grace was upon them all.”  (Acts 4:33).

“Him did God exalt with his right hand [to be] a Prince and a Saviour, for to give repentance to Israel, and remission of sins. And we are witnesses of these things; and [so is] the Holy Ghost, whom God hath given to them that obey him.”  (Acts 5:31,32).

“Him God raised up the third day, and gave him to be made manifest, not to all the people, but unto witnesses that were chosen before of God, [even] to us, who did eat and drink with him after he rose from the dead. And he charged us to preach unto the people, and to testify that this is he which is ordained of God [to be] the Judge of quick and dead.” (Acts 10:40-42).

“But God raised Him from the dead: and He was seen many days of them which came up with Him from Galilee to Jerusalem, who are His witnesses unto the people... But He, Whom God raised again, saw no corruption”  (Acts 13:30,31,37).

“Who was declared [to be] the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection of the dead; [even] Jesus Christ our Lord”  (Rom. 1:4 R.V.).

The testimony to the Person of Jesus is the power of His Life in and through His “members” by the Holy Spirit.

The Starting Place of the Testimony in Every Nation

Our present object will be to show something more of what this means in experience and service, especially in connection with the age-purpose of a testimony in the nations.  If comparisons and contrasts are made and disorders pointed out, it is not in a spirit of criticism, far less of censoriousness; neither is it want of appreciation of, or esteem for, the work being so honestly and sacrificially done.  God forbid that any word of ours should bring a shadow upon any activity which counts even a little for Him.  We have a burden—a sometimes overwhelming burden—occasioned both by the spiritual ineffectiveness (partial or complete) that we see around, and by the manifest misconception and confusion that prevails regarding Divine ends and methods.  It is the need for immediate, direct, absolute spiritual effectiveness that governs the pursuance of this subject.

Let us again state the all-inclusive basis and background of all true, victorious life and service.  It is the revelation of the Person of Christ crucified, in the Godhead, and in the throne of absolute sovereignty, and this objective fact becoming by the Holy Spirit a power in the life and a passion in the heart.

It is the effect of this that lies behind all the great record of conquests in many regions, through many instruments.  This goes behind, and makes unnecessary, all advocacy of ‘foreign’ or other missions.  Not that such advocacy has been fruitless, for God has come through it; but its strenuousness and its costliness are the marks of spiritual decline, and are the characteristics of a system which speaks of a bondage in which the Lord’s honour is involved.  We shall best explain what we mean if we illustrate from history.

Some Notable Examples of Modern Times

We have before us the records of movements and men that have been really effectual and fruitful in the world-testimony of the Lord Jesus.

Here is the amazing story of the great days of the Moravian mission.  In the first twenty years they actually sent out more missionaries than the whole Protestant Church had done in two hundred years.  Of the closed lands entered, the range covered, the sufferings gladly endured, the lives lived and laid down, the grace of God manifested, it stirs wonder and shame to read.  Someone has said that ‘if members of the Protestant churches went out as missionaries in corresponding numbers there would be a force of 400,000 foreign workers, which is vastly more than the number estimated as necessary to achieve the evangelization of the world.’

Only for want of space do we reluctantly refrain from giving pages from this tremendous story; but what lay behind it?

In the first place the Cross had been deeply wrought into the very being of this people. Their country was made a field of blood by massacre. They were driven from their homes.  From a population of three million they were reduced by persecution to one million.  Indeed it sometimes appeared as if they would be entirely extinguished.  Out of these fires of affliction there arose a company purified by the fire, and with another fire burning in their bones.  It was the fire of a passionate love for the Lord Jesus.  The meetings of these brethren, when they later became possible, breathed the atmosphere of “the upper room.”  Covenants were made that self in all its forms should be entirely banished—self-will, self-love, self-interest, self-seeking. To be poor in spirit would be their quest, and everyone would give himself to be taught by the Holy Spirit.  A prayer-watch was set up which should burn day and night, and by means of relays the entire twenty-four hours were occupied in seeking the Lord.  ‘To win for the Lamb that was slain the reward of His sufferings,’ was their adopted motto.

All this is its own argument.  Here a deeply inwrought work of the Cross issued in a mighty, personal love for the Lord Jesus.  Personal considerations were lost, and no persuasion was necessary.  Shall we not say the truth when we say that souls languish by the millions in darkness and death for want of a deep baptism of the Church—the company of saved ones—into the passion and love of God in Christ?

If the China Inland Mission has been a monument to anything as to God’s methods, it is supremely so to the living reality of union with Christ.  With all his vision and passion for inland China, it is well known that Mr. Hudson Taylor, as he went from place to place addressing gatherings of Christians in this and other countries, said very little about China, often nothing at all. He just poured out his spiritual message to bring the Lord’s people into a fuller knowledge of the meaning of their union with Christ.  The central and supreme thing in this fellowship with the Lord was the universal efficacy of prayer.

Listen to him: ‘In the study of that Divine Word I learned that to obtain successful workers, not elaborate appeals for help, but earnest prayer to God... and the deepening of the spiritual life of the Church, so that men should be unable to stay at home, were what was needed.’

Were we to put the inner history of this work—the original spiritual background—into a few words, we should say that it was not a matter of organization, advocacy, propaganda, appeals, or advertisement.  It centered in a man with a deep knowledge of God, born of a deeply inwrought work of the Cross, bringing to the Lord’s people a living, spiritual message as to their fullest life in Him, and as to the practical outworking of such a life through prayer.

Mr. Hudson Taylor was no ‘teacher’ in the sense of presenting truth in a systematized form.  He was not one of the great ‘Bible teachers,’ in the generally accepted sense of that term. His was a message which immediately led to two issues: firstly, the relationship of the believer to the Lord; and then the practical outworking of that, in prayer and other forms of service, to bring the Gospel to those whose only chance of receiving it was by means of such special endeavours. Mr. Hudson Taylor’s life (and therefore, we must think, the history of the mission) turned at a given point upon a deeper realization of what oneness with the Lord really means.  This is revealed in a letter to his sister which is printed in the second volume of his Life.

Not only in Africa, through the South Africa General Mission, but in all parts of the world, the ministry of Dr. Andrew Murray has been wondrously rich in its fruits.  It was not, again, by advocacy of propaganda, but purely by spiritual teaching, through a ministry almost exclusively to the Lord’s people, a message concerning practical holiness, the ministry of intercession, and the power of the Holy Spirit, that this fruit was born.  Out of this ministry sprang the above ‘Mission,’ and the consecration of many lives to the Lord’s service.  The ministry, not the ‘Mission,’ was the dynamic.

We could add at great length the evidence, pointing to the influence of such lives, and to the power of the movement for the ‘deepening of spiritual life.’  The pages of the missionary issues of Christian periodicals; the messages of ‘Keswick’s’ great men in those early days; and the pages of that monumental History of the C.M.S. by Dr. Eugene Stock, all bear testimony to this.

The Basic Reality

The evidence is overwhelming that from Pentecost onward the basis of the fullest, richest, and most effectual world-testimony of Jesus has been a ‘holiness movement from heaven’: that is, a heart-changing, life-revolutionizing, whole-being-captivating realization of Who Jesus is—the first as to His Sovereignty in the Throne of Deity, and the second as to His Sovereignty in the life at all points.  To be ‘filled with the Holy Spirit’ is to be filled with Holiness, Love, Humility, Joy, and a passion for securing to the “Beloved” the fruit of His travail in every nation.  No ‘spiritual’ movement, convention, teaching, is valid without the hallmark of spontaneous concern for the eternal well-being of others. Far too often intensive movements result in morbid introspection.  There is nothing more paralyzing than this.  And the reaction from it is just as perilous.  Enthusiasm, interest, high spirits, ‘personality,’ education, or enterprise, harnessed to a more or less dated ‘decision for Christ,’ are frequently the points of emphasis in this reaction.

The cost to a convert in New Testament times was too great to permit of anything that was superficial or merely a matter of romance or enthusiasm.  The motive power must spring from a very real and deep knowledge of the Lord, balanced by an ardent passion for His satisfaction in the nations.

What Pentecost Was

We have failed far too terribly to realize what ‘Pentecost,’ and the ‘baptism of the Holy Spirit,’ really was.  The external accompaniments and effects have obscured the deeper elements.  We have interpreted it in terms of activity, signs, waves of emotion, excitability, and so forth.  But our supreme need is to know the true meaning of this ‘baptism.’

We therefore give the following all-inclusive definition.  The baptism of the Holy Spirit means the enthronement of the Lord Jesus as absolute Sovereign, without reservation or rival, in the entire life, in all its interests and activities.

Within this compass there are one or two specific things which we may point out.

Firstly, the baptism of the Holy Spirit is a baptism into the holiness of the Lord.  It is a baptism with fire, which must be interpreted, primarily, not as zest, but as sanctification.  Pentecost was a ‘holiness movement from heaven.’  This was the significance of the terrible incident with Ananias and Sapphira.  This holiness of the Lord, established by the Holy Spirit, has to be carried into every phase and department of life: spirit, mind, body; relationships, transactions, methods, means.  Anything doubtful, questionable, equivocal, and so on, is a contradiction and an antagonism to the Spirit of Holiness.  It is unfortunate that it should be necessary even to mention such things in the realm of the work of the Lord, but that necessity is laid upon us.

Secondly, the baptism of the Holy Spirit is a baptism into the love of Christ.  This is another element in the ‘fire.’  It need hardly be said that this love is something more and other than natural warm-heartedness, largeness of nature, generosity, sentiment and nice words.  It is love which ‘suffers long, envies not, knows no jealousy, makes no parade, gives itself no airs, is not puffed up, never rejoices in self-vindication when opponents are proved wrong, is always slow to expose, always eager to believe the best, never seeks its own ends or interests.’  This love knows how to be abased, to be set aside, to be outshone; how to have its interests crossed; how to persist when forsaken; and much more.  Only the Holy Spirit can impart and maintain this love.

Thirdly, the baptism of the Holy Spirit is the baptism into the war of the ages.  Not into a religious playground or sports field, but into the grim, terrific, bloody conflict with “principalities and powers,” with “the world rulers of this darkness,” with “the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.”  Immediately upon our Lord’s baptism, the Spirit came upon Him, and He was brought there and then, by the act of the Spirit, into awful contact with the leader of the opposing hierarchy.  So it was with the Church.  So it is with every one baptized into Christ.  Thank God, the victory has been secured and the issue settled at Calvary, but the fight continues.  It will take the mighty energizing of the Spirit of the Lord of hosts—“strengthened with power through His Spirit in (lit. “into”) the inward man” (Eph. 3:16)—in all the efficacy of the Precious Blood, to accomplish the deepest work of God in this age.  There will be times when we are unable to work, or to preach, or to do anything but ‘stand and withstand.’  Many are contented while they can be active and do something.  This can be a real snare. It is spiritual vitality that counts, not much busy-ness.

A Practical Instance

We will conclude with an incident from the story of Uganda which carries its own significance.

In the early days of the Church in Uganda, a boy who had been baptized came to Pilkington and told him of his failure to be true to Christ in the pathetic words, ‘I sin as much as ever I did.’  Pilkington was cut to the quick, and the desire for fresh spiritual power was deepened in his heart.  Shortly afterwards he went apart on to one of the islands in the Victoria Nyanza that he might wait upon God and receive fresh power from Him.  His prayers were answered, and later he could write to Bishop Tucker as follows:

“I want to tell you that we (mission and people) are in the midst of a time of great blessing.  God has enabled several of us to see that for a longtime past we have been working in our own strength, and that consequently there has been no power in our lives, and very little blessing. We have, however, been brought to see that the command, ‘be filled with the Spirit,’ is as much laid upon us as upon the Ephesians, and that power for effectual service is placed at our disposal if we will but appropriate it. I cannot tell you the difference it has made to us in our lives as well as in our work.  Now we are full of joy, whereas a little while ago (I am speaking of myself in this) the depression was almost unbearable.  As for our work, God is now using us, and a wonderful wave of blessing is passing over the land.”

Chapter 3 - The Power of the Name

In any consideration of the effectiveness of the Church’s witness in the world in its early days, it is essential that careful note be taken of the governing factors which then obtained.  That there were certain great governing concepts in New Testament evangelism is undeniable.  We therefore essay to bring some of these into clear relief.  That to which we would give primary place is—

The Power of the Name

In the book which gives us the record of those first decades of Christianity, we  might almost say that—apart from the Holy Spirit Himself—the paramount place is given to the Name of Jesus.  In almost His last words to His disciples before returning to Heaven, the Lord had said: “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer... and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached IN HIS NAME unto all the nations...”  (Luke 24:47). On the Day of Pentecost Peter cried: “Repent ye, and be baptized every one of you IN THE NAME of Jesus Christ...”  (Acts 2:38). In healing the lame man, he said: “IN THE NAME of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise up and walk” (Acts 3:6). To the crowd that ran to see the miracle, he said that it had been “by faith IN HIS NAME”  (Acts 3:16). To the High Priest, he declared that the man was healed “IN THE NAME of Jesus Christ... Whom ye crucified, Whom God raised from the dead...”  (Acts 4:10). The Council commanded that they should “speak henceforth to no man IN THIS NAME” (Acts 4:17). In the face of threats and commands the Church prayed that ‘signs and wonders might be done THROUGH THE NAME of Jesus’  (Acts 4:30). “We straitly charged you not to teach IN THIS NAME,” said the High Priest, but they rejoiced that “they were counted worthy to suffer dishonour FOR THE NAME”  (Acts 5:28,41). So it goes on and on.  The Name is the power and passion throughout.

But it is more than a title or designation.  It is the content of the Name.  What was it, and is it, that is contained in the Name?

Firstly, the Name embodies—

1.  The Victory of a Nature

In Philippians 2:9, we are told that Jesus, as a reward for His condescension, humiliation, and obedience unto death, was given “the name which is above every name.”  This represented among other things the triumph of an unsullied and unblemished nature.  Sinless, He carried His robes of character through every ‘temptation common to man’  (1 Cor. 10:13), and “offered Himself without spot unto God”  (Heb. 9:14).  The world, evil men and the powers of darkness combined to corrupt or entrap Him and blemish His character, but, even when ‘He Who knew no sin was made sin for us’  (2 Cor. 5:21) and “bare our sins in His body upon the tree”  (1 Peter 2:24), His own spirit remained unbending and undefiled.  This victory cut the ground from under the feet of the evil powers.  ‘The prince of this world came and had nothing’ in Him  (John 14:30).  The Name is the embodiment of tried and proved holiness: hence it is the ground and instrument of victory for the sinner over sin, and for the believer over Satan and the evil powers.

2.  The Victory of Meekness

This is a feature that is made much of in the Scriptures.  It is that which lies within the so-often-used symbol of The Lamb.  The essence of meekness is selflessness.  Unresisting, unassuming disinterestedness and teachableness; these are its marks.  In its spiritual power and moral values, meekness is the most far-reaching virtue of all.  The ruin of creation and man; the distance and discord between man and God; the rift in the universe, and the bitter and terrible entail of sin and death, with all the sorrow and suffering of a disrupted order: all this is due to that satanic pride which led its aspirant to set his throne “above the stars of God,” to be “like the Most High”  (Isa. 14:13,14); and, on being hurled from his high place, to conspire to wreck God’s work and to dishonour His Name.  The One Who would undertake the immense task of undoing and rectifying this damage and vindicating that name must Himself be without the slightest trace of the evil thing—pride; He must, indeed, be the very personification of its opposite.  No ground suitable to Satan’s victory must be found in Him, for Satan cannot cast out Satan (Mark 3:23).  That little phrase, “He humbled Himself”  (Phil. 2:8), speaks of one of the mightiest and most potent forces in God’s moral and spiritual universe.

The Name, then, represents all that Satan-undoing virtue; hence its potency when used in the power of the Holy Spirit.

3.  The Victory of Love

This universe is shot through and through with hate.  From that primal hatred of God mentioned above, the work of the evil powers is ever to turn man against God, and to make man—as God’s chief creation—destroy himself by mistrust, suspicion, fear, jealousy, rivalry, sin, and a thousand other ways.  Into such a world, there came One Who should declare and demonstrate the love of God, and inculcate His love in a new creation: it was the inbreathing of the Spirit of love; the planting of the Vine, the fruit of which is love.  You will find that the New Testament, when you trace this matter of love through it, is just the Testament of Love.  The Cross of Christ is where all the hate in the universe—human and satanic—converged and overflowed, and where all the love of God met and defeated it.  That victory is embodied in the Name.  No one can hate another and bear the Name of Christ.

How much more is gathered into the Name!  The power of truth; the victory of faith; and so much more.  It is indeed a mighty Name, in Heaven and earth, and hell.  The Holy Spirit knows all its meaning, nature, and content; and when He came to vindicate and glorify that Name, and the Church lived and worked under His anointing, ‘mighty things’ happened IN THE NAME.

The recovery of faith in the name, with a new appreciation of its significance and a return to its ground, would prove that it is no less potent now than it was then.  But there must be an all-dominating passion for its honour—a single-minded jealousy that will govern all things with the one consideration: Is this glorifying to the NAME OF JESUS?

So the Name is not merely a formula to be appended to our prayers or professions.  It is a power: but its potency demands that everything correspond to and be governed by the Spirit and character of its Divine Bearer.  We may take the Name upon our lips, but, as it happened with the seven sons of Sceva  (Acts 19:4), the evil powers may turn and rend us because they do not recognize the person: “Jesus I know, and Paul I know; but who are ye?”  the Name must be taken and used in the power of the Spirit, and that power is only found where Jesus is truly present in unoffended good pleasure.

Chapter 4 - The Testimony of the Blood

"And the Lord said to the serpent... I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed: He shall bruise thy head..." (Genesis 3:15).

"... the old serpent... and they overcame him because of the blood of the Lamb, and because of the word of their testimony, and they loved not their life even unto death" (Revelation 12:9,11).

The Testimony of Jesus is first mentioned in the Scripture by the Lord Himself in the above words (Genesis 3:15). It is all gathered up in that one clause: "He shall bruise thy head". The two things combine in that clause: "He", the Person, and "shall bruise thy head", the work; and that with a certain special significance: "thy head", which is 'thy dominion, thy government, thy sovereignty, thy crown'. Then we have the Cross introduced immediately as the scene and centre of the establishing fully and finally in Him of this Testimony, the central element of the Cross being the Blood of the Lord Jesus. The Blood; that is the central factor in the Testimony of Jesus - the Blood of the Lord Jesus. I want to remind you of the inclusiveness of the Blood of the Lord Jesus, that in the first place it has to do with sin. It is immediately related in that passage in Genesis to what had taken place and to what had entered into the world. Sin, and sin in all its aspects; sin as transgression, overstepping the mark; sin as lawlessness, revolt against God; sin as shortcoming, coming short of the Glory of God; sin in every form in every way. The Blood of the Lord Jesus has to do with sin in the meeting of it, the destroying of it, and ultimately in the wiping of it from the universe. The Blood of Jesus Christ is directed against sin.

Then, in the second place, it is related to all that is meant by that symbolic word: "the flesh". And the flesh here does not mean merely the principle of sin, but it means the kind of person man is when he has fallen into sin. That is, the fallen race, the species which came into existence when sin entered in - an entirely different type of being from that intended by God. "He is become flesh" (Genesis 6:3). The Blood of Jesus Christ has to do, not only with the sin as the principle and the law of the fallen race, but with the race itself; not only to wipe sin from the universe, but to wipe that race from the universe; to put away that kind and type of man and make possible and secure a new creation, a man, not after the flesh type, but the Man after the Spirit type, such as Christ in resurrection.

The Blood, in the third place, is related to the consequences immediately following upon sin and the race becoming what it did when sin entered. That is death. "The soul that sinneth, it shall die." "In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." "And," says the Spirit through Paul "as by one man's disobedience... death passed upon all for that all have sinned", and death is the universal and immediate consequence upon sin and the sentence concerning the race. Death in all its range and depth; death in every realm, spirit, soul and body. The Blood testifies concerning death and has a work to do in that realm.

Then, in the fourth place, the Blood of Jesus Christ not only deals with the consequence and the fruit, but with the cause and the root, and Satan himself is involved in this mighty issue in the Blood of Jesus Christ. He is taken up in the Testimony of Jesus, and taken up in two capacities:

Firstly, he is taken up as "the prince of this world" - "The prince of this world cometh"; "Now shall the prince of this world be cast out".

Secondly, to Satan as "him that had the power of death, that is the devil". It is not only the death, but him that had the power of death, and the word "power" there is neither the familiar word: "dunamis" - force, nor: "exousia" - authority, but it is the other word: "kratos", which means 'to hold'. It is the grip of death; the one who holds in his hands death, the one who has the hold of death; and in that connection the Blood speaks concerning him, that through death - and the Lord Jesus getting for a moment into the hold, the grip of death - He should destroy him that had the hold of death, that is the devil.

So the Blood deals with him in both those capacities. That is the Testimony of Jesus as in the Blood of the Lord Jesus.

The Issue is that of Life and Death

Now we see that the main issue in the Testimony of Jesus, in and through and by His Blood, is the issue of life and death, or death and life. That is the main issue. Oh, do follow me closely, for you will see in a moment some of the great content of this thing. The main issue in the Testimony of Jesus as by the Blood of Jesus is the issue of LIFE AND DEATH. If the Lord's people recognized that enough, they would have their ground set and fixed, they would know exactly what their business is in the world, and they would have a full explanation of all that which they meet in the spiritual realm when they become related to the Testimony of Jesus. IT IS THE ISSUE OF LIFE AND DEATH. It is not only of sin and sanctification, and it is not only the issue of an old man and a new man, but in all that, and over all that, and around all that is the far bigger issue, the issue of life and death. And until this main issue is recognized the whole question of sin, and of the new man, and the new race, and the bringing in of the new creation, and of the escape of men and women from the power of Satan unto God could never be. You will be held up until you recognize the main issue. Where does the whole question of sanctification begin? Where does the whole question of a new creation begin? Where does the whole question of the emancipation of souls from the grip of Satan begin? It all begins at the place where the power of death is met. It is not sins with which you and I are contending, nor merely with the old creation. We can be locked up and bound and tied by the absorption and obsession with our old man and never get anywhere. We can be locked up and tied hand and foot with all kinds of truth and teaching about sanctification, the question of sins or sin specifically, and get nowhere because we are not recognizing the main issue. The main issue is death, the power of death, and we have got to come to that central issue of the Blood of the Lord Jesus - the question of life and death. That is the Cross at its heart. Unless the Lord had settled that issue once and for all in His Blood in the Cross then all other matters would have failed entirely and there would have been no complete Gospel.

Then, that being the Cross and the content of the Cross, we see what the Testimony of Jesus is in essence. It is the Testimony to life, making possible a new creation. That Testimony, when it really is recognized at its centre, is a Testimony concerning life which is brought into being upon the basis of death being destroyed, death having its power broken, and him that had the power of death being nullified. When that Testimony comes into being, and it is recognized, and anyone enters into that Testimony and makes that their testimony, what happens? Immediately the murderer is brought out.

The Enemy of Life Comes Out

He who, as the Lord Himself said, was a "murderer from the beginning", always has acted in that capacity towards any who were called into the Testimony of Jesus, whether in the Old Testament or in the New.

Abel was the first to take up the Testimony in history. What was Abel's testimony? The Blood! Whether Abel understood all the content of that symbolic thing or not is not our concern for the moment, but God understood what it meant. He had established it, and it was His way through all history. That fragment in the Hebrew Letter has governed all sacrifice in the mind of God: "without shedding of blood there is no remission". The Blood was the key from the first movement of sin in this world in the mind of God, and Abel himself stepped into that Testimony of the Blood with all its significance concerning sin, death, the race, and him that had the power of death - and immediately the murderer came out and Abel was murdered, not by Cain, but through Cain; and so it has always been! When later Abram set up his altar and divided his sacrifice, the conflict commenced. You read about it in Genesis 15. The vultures descending, the beating off until the sun went down, the horror of great darkness - and then the coming through of the Lord. What is it linked with? It is linked with the revelation of the Lamb and the Blood of the Lamb by which his seed, after four hundred years in Egyptian bondage, was going to be emancipated. The Lord gave him the revelation of His method in the earth. What was that for? To get a people who should be in the nations apart from the nations, for the Testimony of Jehovah. Israel was to be God's corporate testimony in the earth, amongst the nations, and be constituted and sustained upon a principle of blood, the shed Blood. And when the Lord would come forth to reveal the nature of the Testimony in the earth as corporate in His people, Abram meets the impact of the horror of great darkness, and there is set up in the very atmosphere a state of conflict. You carry it on in the case of Moses himself: the conflict in Egypt, and the continual conflict through his life.

This is the explanation of the attack upon Elijah, when he had erected his altar and stood for the maintenance of the Testimony of the Lord in Israel. When he stood on Carmel for that Testimony by his altar, and that Testimony had been established and vindicated against the false prophets, nay, against all that produced the false prophets and their system - the power behind - THEN JEZEBEL THREATENS HIS LIFE. Satan anticipated Moses by the slaughter of all the innocents to get one, as he anticipated Calvary in the Lord Jesus by the slaughter of the innocents to get One. And here, in the case of Elijah, because he is standing for the Testimony in Israel, the best and most suited instrument to Satan, Jezebel, is taken up, and Elijah's life is threatened. This is the key to all those murderous attempts in the Old Testament upon individuals and upon companies of the Lord's people. It is the explanation of the Book of Esther, when Haman would have all the Jews massacred. Why? Because they were God's instruments in the earth. The devil is against the Testimony in that people; they are the target because they are the testimony. Stand in this true Testimony of the Lord Jesus, in the power of the Holy Ghost and not in the theory of the thing; stand in it truly, and as sure as anything is certain the enemy of life will come out, and that is the explanation of all your experience in the work of God, and in your own personal life, in body mind and spirit. I am saying one of the most tremendous and solemn, and yet one of the truest things when I say this.

The Testimony of Life Triumphant Over Death

Now we take up the whole thing when we take up a part, because there is no part. You are in it or you are out of it, and you cannot have a bit of it. Immediately, by faith and in the Holy Spirit, you become really, vitally related to the Testimony of Jesus, you are in that great issue, that supreme issue of the Blood - the conflict between life and death, death and life. You are in it, and in that realm there is only one thing, and that is

The Warring Faith of the Son of God

There can be no passivity nor generalities in that realm. You cannot afford to take recreation in that realm. The praying has to be fighting prayer, and, oh, there is need for a revival of fighting prayer! The ceasing to say prayers, pray prayers, to take these jaunts in prayer all over the place, and come right to the mighty issues and battle through in the Name of the Lord. There needs to come more real fighting prayer into the Lord's people. You ask the Lord to give you the warring faith of the Son of God in prayer! It means that there has to be a very strong stand taken in that warring faith, and a refusal to be diverted by circumstances and appearances. Is the Testimony to you something which, if it were taken away and you have nothing left, you go with it, or is it something you have taken on and that you can change as you change your clothes? Will you be stripped of everything if that Testimony of the Lord Jesus is taken from you? If it is like that, you will say: 'Well, there is one thing which for me is a matter of life or death, and that is the Testimony in which I stand, the Testimony of the Lord Jesus.'

"And they overcame him because of the Blood of the Lamb, and because of the word of their testimony, and they loved not their lives unto the death." Does that sound like a contradiction? "Unto the death." Abel was killed. But "they" are not dead, and Abel is not dead. Paul, like Jesus, was slain. But they live in "the power of an endless life" because Jesus has conquered death and "him that had the hold on death". By His Cross and by His Blood He conquered!

Chapter 5 - Equipment for the Ministry

"And Moses said unto the Lord, O my Lord, I am not eloquent... but I am slow of speech, and of a slow tongue" (Exodus 4:10).

"And the Lord... said go, and thou shalt save Israel... And he (Gideon) said, Oh, my Lord... behold... I am the least in my father's house" (Judges 6:14-15).

"Then said I, woe is me! for I am undone... And he (the Lord) said, Go..." (Isaiah 6:5,9).

"Then said I, Ah! Lord God! Behold, I cannot speak, for I am a child... The Lord said... Thou shalt go..." (Jeremiah 1:6-7).

"I was no prophet, neither was I a prophet's son... And the Lord took me... and said unto me, Go..." (Amos 7:14-15).

"And he appointed twelve that they might be with him, and that he might send them forth" (Mark 3:14).

"Ye shall receive power after that the Holy Spirit is come upon you, and ye shall be witnesses unto me" (Acts 1:8).

The last words quoted above are the answer to all the others. Although Pentecost marked a new epoch and method of the Holy Spirit's activity, yet throughout all time God's Work has been done through the Spirit's agency. Were we asked what is the essential and indispensable equipment for the work of God we would say unhesitatingly; The anointing and filling with the Holy Spirit!

In the instances cited above we have men of vastly different types, but they are all brought to a common basis. Moses was a man of tremendous natural and acquired ability. There was initiative, drive, passion, devotion and courage on the emotional and volitional side, linked with "all the wisdom of the Egyptians" on the intellectual side, and evidently considerable strength on the physical. Isaiah and Jeremiah were not without a wealthy endowment of inherited social, religious, and ecclesiastical advantages and good training. Then what need we say about Paul on this side? On the other hand, Gideon, Amos and most of the Apostles were of humble and simple birth, meagre education, and few worldly advantages. Of the latter it is recorded that "they were ignorant and unlearned men". All these, we have said, had to be brought to a common basis. Through painful and sometimes long drawn-out discipline and trial the former had to come to the place where they recognized that only God could do His own work, and that He never uses any man or his natural equipment except on the ground of an utter dependence upon Him: that gifts, training, ability as such do not count with God and are only of service when the man has been translated from a natural ground to a spiritual through the deep inworking of the Cross in its principles and laws. Nothing but spiritual endowments can meet spiritual forces, and this is the background of all the work of God.

God may use the gifts with which He has entrusted men by nature or acquisition, but not until they have been brought through death on the natural plane to life on the spiritual. Moses went that way; Paul went that way; and so have all who have really been used of God for Spiritual and Eternal ends; that is, if the worker as well as the work was to be accepted.

No one will think that we are against all-round training and equipment. Far be it from us to suggest that this is of no vital consequence. What we are emphasizing is that though given every possible natural or acquired endowment, education, natural ability, zeal, evangelical faith and doctrine, a knowledge of Christian work, etc., there may yet remain an essential without which all this is going to fail. This superlative factor is: "filled with the Holy Spirit".

On the other hand, a Spirit-filled man is never one who holds a brief for ignorance or despises and neglects such acquisitions of knowledge as will be ground upon which the Lord may work. It is one of the romances of the Spirit's activity that under His stimulation and quickening many of the most illiterate have become able and eager to master things for which they had neither desire nor ability before.

Now these simple basic things lead us on further. The Lord Jesus as

The Model Servant

declared: 'I do nothing of myself; as I hear I speak.' 'The words that I speak, I speak not from myself.' 'The works that I do, I do not from myself.' Here is even a sinless "myself" refusing to speak His own words or do His own works. He was deliberately hanging and drawing upon the Father for everything. It is clear that He realized that even in His own sinless case this was necessary, and to do otherwise was to lay His mission open to infinite peril from without. Thus it was an utterness of God. For such an utterness - which, let us urge, must characterize all who are to most closely approximate to God's ideal servant - there must somewhere at some time be a zero point on man's side. This zero point is clearly seen in the life and ministry of so many of the Lord's servants - the time when despair of everything well-nigh engulfed them, and 'God was their only asset'.

But is it necessary that this point should only be reached at a more or less late stage in Christian life and service, after perhaps, years of activity? Should there be a considerable degree of ineffectiveness, failure and abortion because such a large percentage of the effort and activity is "in the flesh", or of man? It is necessary that at last, perhaps at long last, the big framework, the loud hammering, the feverish busyness, etc., should begin to fall away and the genuine spiritual and eternal result be comparatively small. We may settle it once and for all that only what the Holy Spirit does will attain unto God's end and remain eternally.

Surely God would have zero on man's side reached at the beginning! Surely this is according to the experience of men in Scripture! At least it was a definite registering of that point to which they were continually brought back if they tended to move beyond it in self-sufficiency.

This, we believe most earnestly to be the true nature of training for the Lord's work alongside of and in company with, a growing knowledge of Himself in His word and in experience. The only knowledge of the Word of God which is of any profit in service is experimental knowledge. That knowledge is the knowledge of God Himself which makes the Word live.

Moses was trained for His life work in the hard school of inaction. Forty years in a wilderness tending sheep for a man of a tremendously active disposition! He had set out with great visions. His motive was good and the end in view was right. His filling up of the outline, however, was mistaken. How to be patient with wrong without condoning it or losing a passion for right is one of the big lessons to be learned by those who would deliver men. Not to put a halo of romance about service for men and to think that there will be a due appreciation of one's self-sacrifice without becoming cynical by reason of disillusionment is another. Not in any way, manner, tone or conduct to suggest superiority is a third. These were some of the minor lessons which Moses had to learn, but they were themselves big ones. Dependence, faith, obedience, humility were the primary things, and these cannot be got from books or lectures.

Isaiah had to have a vision by which he was overwhelmed with his own unfitness.

Paul had to come off his intellectual, ecclesiastical, traditional, official high horse with a tremendous thud and grovel in the dust in subjection to the hated and despised "Jesus".

The disciples had to learn many lessons as to their own miserable inability to satisfy the heart of their Divine Master, and, at length, they all suffered the shame of having been proved incapable of believing through the cross.

This is all necessary training and preparation. How few there are who would voluntarily accept a course of training like this! But this surely ought to be the nature of the work done in a place for the preparation of God's servants. There should be a handing over to the Holy Spirit to take into and through all such experiences of spiritual discipline as are necessary to a deep knowledge of God. There should be the knocking of the bottom out of our ideas of work and service. There should be the making of everything inward and not outward; spiritual and not natural; from God and not from ourselves. If needs be, there should be the discipline of inaction. It is so easy to be content if only we are busy and active, but often this only gets in God's way, and He has to take our work away in order to teach us that it is Himself, and not service as such. With many the Lord has to adopt a wearing-out policy, for they will not yield otherwise.

The Ideal School of the Prophets

The ideal 'School of the Prophets' is that in which the spiritual life has first consideration; where the Holy Spirit is dealing with the individual and where the Word of God is being made necessary for light, strength, comfort and direction. If we are going to live by the Word, the Word must live for us, and experience is the meeting-place of life and knowledge.

No training centre is adequate which is only intellectual and practical in the sense of doing work. There must be primarily the attention to the spiritual life, its nurturing and directing, and especially the presence of the Holy Spirit must be sought and guarded for that work which can never be done from without.

Now, having said all this, we come back to recognize that, in principle, this was the basis of the mighty activities of God from the time of the fulfilment of Acts 1:8. The Cross, in all its fullness, was brought by the Holy Spirit into the lives of those first believers and witnesses, and the change in the character of the apostles is most noticeable. They became selfless, humble, fearless, full of love, patience, and long-suffering. 'Position' or 'place', reputation, prestige, 'success', popularity, etc., no longer motivated their service. Note how on everything they are directed and controlled by the Spirit! The Lord is released when the bands of the self-life in all its forms in His servants are burnt up by the Fire. As through His Cross He came to His own personal liberation to the boundless so, as His Cross is planted deeply in the natural life of His servants, He is free to do His mightier works. Oh, that we could see early enough in our lives that when Christ went to the Cross He not only took our sins, but He took us! and that not just as sinners, but as men; as preachers, teachers, workers, and everything, so that "henceforth it is no longer I, but Christ". All too late some of us have had to be crucified in one or more of these capacities; and through death preaching has had to be put off the human level and born again from above. And the same with other things. Oh, for a new company of such who right at the beginning are put there! Then God will do His new thing and we shall see a fresh release of the Lord. He is not straitened in Himself, but He is straitened in the natural activities of His servants, which activities are brought over into spiritual things by the horizontal method instead of by the vertical - that is, along the human line, instead of by the Cross, the resurrection, ascension and descent from above.

As it was in the time of the types the strictest laws governed the anointing with the holy oil, and it was repeatedly stressed that "upon man's flesh shall not the oil come", so the Lord, who is no less particular today, will not give His Spirit to come upon man's "flesh" - man's self-life. All that must first come under the power of the Blood and be taken to the Cross to give the Spirit a clear way. The first witnesses had nothing to gain, but everything to lose in this life by even naming the Name of Jesus. There was nothing that could be in the slightest degree a sop for the senses. Those at Jerusalem lost everything very early and were scattered abroad. From without the Lord kept everything pure and free. But He never departs from His principle, His original premise, and where He is allowed He will work this state into the very spirit and life of His servant in order that all things may be of Himself, and "whatsoever God doeth it shall be for ever". The law of the corn of wheat most surely operates: enlargement through limitation, gain out of loss, life out of death.

Chapter 6 - The Cross and the Ministry of Money

Individual and Church Finance

That God has so signally honoured and blessed the ministry of systematic and proportionate giving, is its own argument for the high place that this subject must take in our spiritual deliberations. We are not descending to a lower plane when we give this matter a place for consideration. As a matter of fact, the wider purposes of Christ are seriously linked with this subject.

Let us briefly touch upon the significance of some of the utterances of Christ in connection with the ministry of money.

1. Firstly, recall the Principle of Stewardship, as enunciated by Him (Luke 12:42; 16:1-8).

The elements here are (1) a rich householder, (2) a needy household, and world beyond, (3) a steward between. The steward is brought into a relationship of privilege, trust and responsibility. He is entrusted with resources which are essentially his Master's, and he is expected to regard all that he has in the light of the purposes of his Master for the household and for the world. He will consider every demand supremely and primarily from its value to the things which are closest and dearest to the heart of the Master, and his own pleasure will be found in seeing those things fulfilled rather than by any personal, fleshly, or worldly desires or ambitions of his own. He will never dispense his Master's trusts in a way that brings himself into any flesh-gratifying prominence, or divert the honour from the Master to himself. It will always be in his Master's name and not over his own signature.

Such is the "good and wise steward", and the Master has made it very clear that thus to regard and use all that we have is the sure highway of Divine approval, blessing and reward.

2. Next consider the Principle of Investment (Matt. 15:27).

Let us note especially that in the passage cited it is "my money". The whole thought in the parable is that of using the resources with which we are entrusted of God, to the greatest Divinely approved results. There are almost innumerable calls upon these resources, and not a little confusion exists in the minds of Christians as to what is Kingdom Enterprise and what is not. Social, philanthropic, humanitarian, charitable, altruistic, religious, and spiritual, all get jumbled and overlapping. Many are of the generous and magnanimous disposition, and only need a semblance of need or a plausible story to send their hand to their pocket or purse; while others, in the limitation of their immediate means, are often worried as to their duty in the presence of so many clamant calls.

For the fully consecrated life there is this sound principle from the Master: Decide what are the deepest and truest purposes - not of the Christian ethic - but of the Cross of Christ, the really spiritual and eternal objectives of Calvary, and thus invest to the utmost limit in that which is most calculated to secure these ends. This will mean that all our giving will be fraught with prayerfulness and careful consideration.

3. The Subordination of Money (Matt. 19:16-26).

Closely in line with what we have said comes the test of our interests. The point is, are spiritual interests above all others with us? Are money and means an end or an instrument to an end? One has often wondered whether He who knew all men fitted the test to the type, in the passage before us. A real test will be applied sooner or later as to our comparative valuations, and a real crisis will be precipitated if we venture upon a quest for spiritual life and power, and we shall come to the waters of testing as to whether all things will be counted as loss or refuse that we may gain Christ and be found in Him. It may never be that we shall lose all things, but we shall be put to the test.

4. The Superior Blessedness (Acts 20:35).

When the Master said these words, we do not know, we can only surmise, but they are clearly from Him. We need only intimate two elements of this superior blessedness.

(1) It is a blessedness which comes and grows in our spirit as we make possible the realisation of the great purposes of the Cross, and are partakers with Christ in His glorious achievements.

(2) It is the blessedness of enlarged capacity for giving. The more we give for God, the more we can give, the more He makes it possible for us to give.

5. The Principle of Computation by Comparison (Mark 12:41-44; Luke 21:1-4).

Here it was not so much what was given, but rather what remained after the gift had been made. Not what the cheque-book showed, but what the pass-book indicated. Is it not such a proportion that we shall find it not difficult? Is it to sacrifice and in faith? Is it for love which counts not the cost? How did Christ come by His great approval of the widow, and affirm the Divine good pleasure? Because at Nazareth, with a widowed mother and a large family, they had made their sacrifices to be true to the Scriptures. He had good reason to know the cheapest food in the market - two sparrows for a farthing, and if you could stretch it to two farthings, you got the bargain of an extra sparrow thrown in, five for two farthings. But this sacrifice, in order to be true to the Law which He had come to fulfil, led to the day when the bread-winner, and at least one of His brothers, could leave the home and give themselves unreservedly to the work of the Kingdom. It is a parable.

Finally, let us not forget the importance and value of being systematic. The casual, haphazard giving impresses the giver with a false sense of generosity. We shall find that we really give more, and it goes farther, if we carefully and systematically divide and apportion our resources, and keep clear and strict accounts. Then our gifts are only acceptable to God if our lives are consecrated. It must be sanctified giving. The gift must, and will, remain on the altar until we have put right the 'aught' that any may have against us. It is not things, but ourselves, that God wants. Moreover, all we do will be motivated by our estimate of His Cross. The motive and dynamic of all true service is a love born of an adequate appreciation of His love for us. Is it true that 'the whole realm of nature', if it were ours, would be an 'offering far too small', and that the only sufficient gift is 'our life, our soul, our all'?

So far we have dealt with the subject in a somewhat general way, and one which applies for the most part to the individual. We will now consider its application to

Church Finance

It is not the amount of money which is at the disposal of a church which counts, or is to be the standard of judgment, but how far the essential purposes of Christ's Cross are being realised.

There are many churches which have ample financial resources, but are so spiritually bankrupt that they cannot carry on their own ministry effectively without depending upon outside workers. On the other hand, there are many more churches which are unable to carry out the Divinely-appointed work of the Cross because of severely straitened financial means. It will be clear, then, that both of these conditions are a denial and limitation of Calvary, therefore something is wrong.

Now, we must recognize the absolutely firm principles of the Cross before the problem can be solved, and they are these: The Cross sets itself directly and positively against the world and all worldly methods.

It is not necessary here to summarize the teaching of Christ and the Apostles on the world, but suffice it to say that the world is banned and ruled out as antagonistic to the Cross, and the Kingdom of God.

To have the absolute victory of Calvary in service as in life, we must be in complete sympathy with the Cross, and this demands that we shall be 'crucified' to the world, and the world to us. Bazaars, Concerts, etc., to raise funds for Calvary's work, or draw people to Calvary, are of the world-spirit, -method, and -principle, and therefore block the way of Calvary's victory.

It is usually the most unspiritual and worldly-minded people who urge these things, and the people who count least in the real spiritual work of the church.

Yes! Calvary's fruit demands Calvary's principles, and the 'flesh' and 'world' are inimical thereto.

The Cross demands absolute identification of the believer, church, and all methods, means, and resources with its purpose, and what we have said earlier, in the Master's method for His Kingdom.

If the Cross means to the believer and to the church, union with Christ in His jurisdiction (Exousia Matt. 28:18,etc.), through union with His death (to self, and the world - their interests, ambitions, and nature), then the work of Calvary should not be thwarted by temporal circumstances and conditions. Let us, however, beware that we do not draft the programme, but always know what God's plans are. Presumption often makes demands upon God which He cannot recognize. It is surprising what can be done for very little expenditure when lifted off the human level into the spiritual.

[The following portion was not included in the re-edited chapter in the magazine. These were the concluding words of the chapter in the original book.]

The Still More Excellent Way

In all that we have said about proportionate giving we want to stress that we have not by inference dealt with or implied proportionate keeping or not giving. What we have sought to do is to give, firstly the minimum basis of the Lord's expectation, and then to help in the matter of being systematic. In the Word of God a portion was never intended to be the Lord's, and the residue man's. Rather was it intended to be representative of the whole, and, a first fruits which meant that all was held as the Lord's and so regarded. When the Holy Spirit gets His full way He brings out this principle and the effect is that nothing is held as personal or private, but all is placed in the light of the Testimony and reckoned as the Lord's (Acts 2:44,45; 4:34-37). This largely touches the sin of Ananias and Sapphira. They not only lied to the Holy Ghost, but they kept back part of the price. Peter by the Spirit said in effect: "If you are going to touch this matter you must go all the way or not at all. You are at liberty to keep all, but you are not free to divide things between God and yourselves, all must be regarded as His, or none. God is jealous of the whole." The obligations of our lives on earth are to be met as part of our Christian life and worship to God and there must be no water-tight compartments of spiritual and secular. Everything that comes to us righteously must be regarded as resource for the interests of the Testimony. Those who come to this latter position, off legal ground, on to grace ground, will soon discover that the Spirit makes for liberty and liberality. In the long run God is debtor to no man.

Thus, on this supremely practical note we close this message on the Release of the Lord, and there is no doubt whatever that by this means as by all others the evidence of the Holy Spirit's government in the life and the Church is seen, and the Lord is released to go on with His world purpose unhindered. These things are both a testimony and a test.

"Now unto Him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think according to the power that worketh in us, unto Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus unto all generations for ever and ever." Eph. 3:20.

Chapter 7 - Revival or Reformation

In the light of all that has been said and implied in these chapters, the question arises as to whether the greater need of our time is revival or reformation. There is very much prayer being made, and appeal being pressed for revival. It is said and believed that if there should take place a mighty outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon the people of God, all our difficulties would be overcome, our defects and deficiencies made good, our mistakes transcended, and so on. Reference is made to such events in past times and the inferences or conclusions drawn. We would be far from denying the truth of this as to the actual period of its duration, but we do feel that a too superficial deduction or conclusion results in a delaying or staying of what God is really seeking. What have been called revivals have really - in the Divine intention, and in their very essence - been reformations. The high tides of spiritual life have invariably had the effect of making ridiculous many of the things of which the Church was proud; making puerile many things formerly considered essential; ruling out many things prevailing, and generally upsetting the accepted and established system of things. Barriers have gone down; secondary things have been removed from primary place. Indeed the whole standard of estimates has been changed and turned about. This is not only true with regard to great "revival" times, but also true when the Lord's people of all connections and complexions have met on purely spiritual ground, as at great conventions.

Now, the point is this. If the Spirit of God so either ignores or transcends so much that marks the Christian system, and makes it as though it counts so little, (and the Holy Spirit never compromises on what is vital and really of God), does it not mean that He calls for a reconsideration of very much that obtains?

There are several ways of putting this. For instance: The nearer the earth and its temporal life Christendom has got, the more and greater have such things as ritual had a place. Ritual, Rites, Vestments, Ceremony, Formality, and such like externals have always been the marks of low and poor spiritual conditions, and the measure of importance given to them is always an index to spiritual measure. On the other hand, a deep, strong, pure spiritual state has always been marked by simplicity and an absence of the above. History proves this beyond a doubt, and tides of the Spirit are outstanding evidence of it. The days of the Church's greatest spiritual power and impact were days when ecclesiastical forms, architecture and ritual were nil, and the Lord Himself was everything.

Then again, although many such things lie in the background, it is fully recognised and accepted that, in conventions for fuller spiritual life, they must be left behind and for the time being regarded as though they were not. Someone has said what a pity it is that such times and conditions should only last for a week or thereabouts and then there should be a coming down to return to all the earthly distinctions! Yes, and that may very well be the point of all that we are trying to say. One thing is patent; it is that in such times the Holy Spirit does not revive and stimulate these religious things, He very largely negatives them. Does it not, then, become necessary for us to see and take note of the effect of a Holy Spirit movement, and by His works does not the Lord call for some adjustment in this matter?

To put that another way: What will the Lord revive? What will the Lord take note of? We have instances of revival in Israel in the days of Josiah and Hezekiah. The occasion of the revival was a bringing fully into view of Christ crucified (the Passover). The effect of revival was the smashing of the empty and false religious ritual and its objects. But it was superficial; it did not go deep enough, and when they returned to the old level these things were found to be still in their hearts. The correspondence may not be perfect, but there are true parallels. We have referred to ritual and such things, but this is not all. What is true in that matter is just as true in respect of sects and "church" divisions with very much of what characterises them and each one. Here we want to be quite fair and just, and presently we shall say more in this connection.

Our present point is that we have very much evidence borne by the Spirit of God in true spiritual movements that He has weighed this whole matter as it now exists and has written it off as, not only unimportant, but definitely obstructive and limiting. If, when the Lord's people are in a tide of the Spirit, some leader or speaker is unfortunate enough as to bring in something that belongs essentially to his particular church order or system or procedure, something akin to a pang, a shudder, or a shadow is registered in spiritual people, and everyone refers to it as a pity, a mistake, or a serious bit of bad taste. Often the level of the meeting is lowered by such, and it is not easy to recover. The fact is that the Spirit is grieved. We can reason both ways. To get away from the lesser things we need a mighty visitation of the Spirit of God; this, and this only, will do it. Most people agree to this, and we have heard very much said along this line. What has always perplexed us is that, while things of this kind have been so repeatedly and strongly stated, the implication seems never to have registered itself with sufficient strength as to result in practical adjustments. So, on the other hand, if we seriously faced the things which the Spirit of God has again and again ruled out when He has had His way, would not the way be opened for a more permanent high level of spiritual life, fulness, and effectiveness?

That brings us back to our original question. Is not reformation an essential part of revival? Does not the Lord call for certain drastic adjustments before He can "open the windows of heaven"? (Mal. 3:10). Are we able to agree that what is needed is not so much a "visitation" of God in a passing wave of revival, but a reformation which will make possible a new level of life for - at least - a long time to come?

Is there need for a new reformation now?

If so, what is the nature of that reformation? Perhaps the best way to answer the first question would be to deal with the second. To do this we must look at the situation as it is in Christianity. By "Christianity" we do not mean just Christendom in general, but evangelical Christianity. Three things have come to characterise it, in the main.

1. A system of Doctrines.

2. Denominational, Sectarian, and Missions Divisions.

3. Forms of Work.

1. A System of Doctrines

Evangelical Christianity has very largely become resolved into a crystallised and set system of doctrines. Those doctrines are the Deity of Christ; His Atoning Death; His Bodily Resurrection; His Ascension and Exaltation; and - with some variations as to time and manner - His Personal Return; The Person of the Holy Spirit; The Inspiration and Absolute Authority of the Bible; etc.

Let us hasten to say, lest anyone should jump to conclusions, read no further, and go away to misrepresent us, that we are not implying or calling for a necessary reform in the essential doctrines of the Church as above. These things are rightly and truly basic and governing, and must be maintained in purity and fulness. But when we have said all that could and should be said for them, we are far from having solved the problem of the Church's spiritual life and power. Orthodoxy and "soundness" never was the sign of spiritual life. Indeed "Fundamentalism" as such can be as cold, hard, cruel, bitter, dead, and ugly as the Inquisition, and it often is so. Its weapons are often completely carnal, and it does not hesitate to resort to physical force. This may be its extreme form, but even where these truths are held without these particular features, there is more often than otherwise a rigid legalism resulting in hardness, suspicion, prejudice, and exclusiveness of spirit. Many divisions have followed - not the faithful stand for the truth - but some enforcing of some aspect of a particular truth - hair-splitting. When we say this, we are far from forgetting the costly battles for truth in the Church's history, and how often the situation has been saved by faithful men in this respect. Our point here is another one. The Doctrines of Christianity have become something in themselves, and because this is so a host of unhappy, unholy, and unnecessary elements have gained a strong place in Christianity. It is so easy to gain your point and lose the real spiritual value. We are fully alive to the Devil's age-long work to destroy the Truth and to sow false doctrine, and we are wholly with faithful witness to the essentials of the Faith. Reform in doctrine is not our point at present, but reform in the place or relationship of doctrine. Be patient and follow through. We have a great and vital object in view. Christianity is not necessarily or inevitably established when the sum of its doctrines or tenets is enunciated and assented to. Here 'the letter may kill' rather than make alive. There is that which is not apart from the truths, but much more than they. Without that other and more, the very truths themselves may lack their right meaning. To that other we shall come presently.

2. Christian Divisions

We have said that Evangelical Christianity has become a system of Denominations, Sects, and Sectional Organisations. In fairness and righteousness, we must remember that many of these had an honourable beginning. As to Denominations, in not a few cases it was a conscientious start and for some particular doctrine, doctrines, or form of expression, costing very heavily, that brought these into being. And so with many other institutions, movements, missions, and organisations; some divergence from the truth, or some failure in the responsibility, obligation, and purpose to which Christianity is committed resulted in the rising up of these specific and varied activities. It is no small history of devotion, heroism, sacrifice and service. The story can fill a library. We take nothing from it. That is not our object. What we are saying is that many of these things have now become so largely something in themselves, and are often ends in themselves. It is the thing with which so many are bound up; and here again all the unhappy elements, rivalries, jealousies, competitions, suspicions, etc. have their occasion. The effect of much of this is to make organised Christianity the enemy of Christianity, and a menace to the real work of the Spirit of God.

3. Forms of Work

A peril is discernible very early in the Church's life. It was in the nature of - on the one side - a giving pre-eminence to one side or direction of Christian interest; and, of course, on the other side, suspicion or reservation where this pre-eminence was not recognised. For instance, there was a strong Jewish strain in the Church and the tendency - at least - was to give pre-eminence to preaching the Gospel to the Jews. When the Gentiles came increasingly into the picture, these reservations and suspicions became almost acute, even between Apostles. The Holy Spirit, Who fortunately had a large enough place and way then, was able to negotiate this dangerous passage and resolve it into a unity. But the tendency has persisted, and with the lowering and lessening of spiritual life, the peril has passed into an actuality, and an established one at that. Evangelisation of the unsaved has become something in itself, and often ends with itself. There is often no vision beyond this. If there are Christians who are not exclusively or primarily engaged in evangelistic work they are often regarded with suspicion and reservation, or even worse. Frequently the Evangelist has no room for or interest in what is beyond the work of saving souls. On the other hand, it is so easy for concern with the spiritual life of believers and the building up of saints to overshadow the Evangel and destroy the "passion for souls". There is no end to the specific and particular activities of bodies of Christians. So the "teachers" and the "Deeper spiritual life" ministries may have reservations as to the evangelistic, with the result that much loss is sustained both ways, and the Church is rendered unbalanced and much weaker than it ought to be, and could be. We have not gone into these matters beyond an indicating of them, but fuller thought must lead to an honest admission that these things are so, and being so they represent a divergence somewhere.

So we are able to get to our second question, and free ourselves from the muddy stream of the things which are wrong, and move out into the clear waters of God's true and full thought.

What is the Nature of the Needed Reformation?

In a sentence, it is all that which is bound up with a new and dominating conception of God's purposes, object, and method. When we ask what that is, the answer is

A MAN!

There is a chapter in the history of Israel which almost perfectly fits this consideration, and that chapter might well have a double title.

"Make us a king like unto all the nations",

or

"God hath found him a man"

1 Sam. 8:5. 1 Sam. 13:14.

The fuller statement of the latter in Acts 13:22 is "I have found David... a man after my heart, who shall do all my will". The innermost nature of these contrasting choices may be stated thus. Saul was man's choice; i.e. the choice of God's people in a day of spiritual declension. The idea of a king was not in itself wrong, for it had been provided for by God Himself (Deut. 17:14-15). The wrong was in the principle of "like the nations" resultant from a lost immediacy of walk with God. "Like the nations" may mean a host of things in its system and outworkings, but it just means doing God's things in the same way as the world does its things. Imitating the world in the realm of God's Church. The King must answer to all the requirements of man. All that this means could be opened out and shown to be just exactly what has so largely come to be the order which obtains in Christianity today. Saul had many things to commend him, and God sovereignly went as far as He could to bless and co-operate with what was right. But, by His full knowledge of things, the Lord always had a big reservation, and foresaw spiritual disaster. "Man looketh on the outward appearance, God looketh on the heart", was a statement which related to the crisis of this history, and it fairly sums up the governing standard of so very much in Christianity. "Man looketh on the outward". How things appear and appeal: how things impress and carry weight: how things attract and secure support: how things imply success and obtain influence. In this direction there is room for all the publicity, commercialism, competition, vainglory, display, and much more with which we have become familiar in Christian work. It is sad to see how many things the Church must have when its spiritual life is low. And it is very joyous to note how little is necessary and how many things are absent when spiritual life is high.

But, from the negative, to the positive. "God has sought him a man". This goes far beyond David the son of Jesse. We cannot give space to considering all that the eye of God saw in David which made him the man after His heart. All that we will say is that God had been watching the hidden life of this young man and had taken full account of motive and standard of values.

We pass on to the full significance of the word - "A man after his heart". We are taken by the full revelation in the Scriptures right back into the Divine counsels before times eternal. There we are allowed to see the resolve that this universe should ultimately be centred in and governed by a Man. But not just officially, as by selection, choice, appointment arbitrarily. The determination was governed by character, type, nature. It would be a certain kind of man. He would embody all the Divine features, manifest them, and determine all values by that standard alone. That Man would eventually have "all things" gathered into and summed up in Himself on the basis of His nature. He would also "fill all things" in the same way. Thus, not by an institution, organisation, movement, scheme, would God reach His end, but by an organic being. The next step in the Divine counsels was "Let us make man in our own image and after our likeness". This, in principle, corresponds to what we have said above. So Adam was created, "a figure of him that was to come" (Rom. 5:14). Then, soon commenced the history which showed departure from the way to that "One Man"; yet still a long line of men who, by their walk with God, each embodied and represented some feature which would eventually be found collectively and in perfection in the One.

At length the One was brought forth of Whom it was possible for God to say "In whom I am well pleased". Uniquely, as of no other, in nature and in measure, this was One after God's heart. Subjected to every trial and test to which heaven and hell could subject a being; and tested as to faith in God as no other has ever been tested; while being "made sin for us", and being "made a curse for us". He had to be forsaken of God for "a small moment" - which must have seemed like eternity - He triumphed, and came out with "Father"! "Father, into thy hand I commit my spirit". Oh, marvellous triumph of faith! Have you ever had a little sense of God being afar off, and having no interest in you? Has your consciousness of His presence ever passed under a cloud? Do you not know what a test of faith in His love and faithfulness that is? Does not the Evil One at such times hasten to accuse God to you; to malign God; to give all manner of interpretations to the experience, all with a view to destroying your faith? Intensify ten thousand fold as though nothing must be left to destroy faith, for more hangs upon this Case than ever hung upon one, and then you can see what Christ went through, and how great was His triumph.

"Wherefore God highly exalted him". That "Man" has been exalted at the right hand of God and constituted the Representative "Man". God has His "Man", the end of His works, and human destiny is - for good or ill - bound up with Him - the "Beginning and the End", the "Beginning of the creation of God". One of the supreme necessities of the Church is to either recover or have given a new and mighty realisation of the significance of Christ in God's universe. Everything hangs upon our apprehension of Him.

Note. From what we have said earlier no one will think that we are setting aside the Deity of Christ. And in what we are about to say, let no one think that we mean that the Church will share His Deity.

But when we have said this we have not said all. The fuller and further revelation of Scripture shows that in those same Eternal Divine Counsels the fulness and completeness of that Man was to be realised in a corporate way, so that eventually God's universe would be centred in a "One New Man"; universal and countless, yet one and individual in the sense that He would indwell all, and He is one and indivisible. This corporate entity called "His Body" was "foreordained to be conformed to the image of his (God's) son, so that he might be the firstborn among many brethren" (Rom. 8:29). This sets forth God's object, and shows His method. The Divine object is not an institution, a religion, a dogma, a fraternity, an organisation, a system of doctrines, a set of works and activities. It is a spiritual man, an organic spiritual body.

Now, to resolve into one issue all that has been stated and indicated, what does it amount to? Just this; that if Christ in His personal significance and in His corporate expression were really dominantly and overwhelmingly present to the eye and heart of the Church, on the one hand numerous things which now limit, hinder, retard, weaken, and defeat the Church would fall away and just cease to have any place of government; and on the other hand there would be the effects - if not the event - of "Pentecost", i.e. life, power, victory, fulness, and great joy with real fruitfulness. What we need - we repeat - is not the transient event of "Pentecost", but the abiding effects; not only revival but reformation.

Yes, the enemy would get busy again, and all the slander, misrepresentation, maligning, distortion, "evil report", etc. would be his means of trying to destroy the testimony. But "the gates of hades" would not prevail. Whenever and wherever, by a new revealing of Himself, His purpose and method, the Lord has secured those who have moved out on to the ground of Christ only and in fulness, they have always had to meet a great and painful cost. Usually it has been their own brethren in Christ who have exacted it. Fake charges of "forming a new sect"; "seeking a name for themselves"; "dividing the people of God"; becoming "extreme"; "thinking they only are right", etc. have been levelled at them, and they have been "cast out". The truth is that - in many cases - they have only taken the ground which everybody knows is the ground of spiritual fulness; where questions of "church connection" and orders, etc. are never raised; where such things as joining something, or conforming to a special teaching or practice are never mentioned, but "Christ is all and in all"; and the one concern has been that He should have what is His ground and way of continuous increase.

How difficult it is for organised Christianity to believe that anything very much of real value can go on without machinery, publicity, and all the framework of organised work! May it not be well to pause and consider whether God's mightiest and most fruitful works in nature and in grace are not done hiddenly, quietly, unobtrusively, and - in many cases - done before anyone knows about it? What of the resurrection of nature every Spring-time? The law of God's highest work is the biological, the law of life; it is organic.