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The Rule of the Heavens

by T. Austin-Sparks

"The Heavens do Rule." Daniel 4:26.

From "A Witness and A Testimony" magazines, 1931. Vols. 9-4 through 10-1.

Contents

Chapter 1 - The Heavens Do Rule

Chapter 2 - A Ministry from the Heavens

Chapter 3 - Universality of the Heavens

Chapter 4 - Sovereignty

Chapter 5 - Spirituality

Chapter 1 - The Heavens Do Rule

"The heavens do rule." (Dan. 4:26).

The Gospels were written many years after the things recorded in them had taken place; there had been a considerable lapse of time. It is important to note why they were written. The Apostles had been witnessing a long time to the things here recorded, and had brought those things also among men, and had sought to establish the spiritual truth behind those things. Thus having borne witness to those things and brought them amongst men, and having sought to establish the spiritual truth in the hearts of men, they now write by way of confirming that to which they have borne testimony; that is the meaning of having these records.

The great thing is this, GOD had broken into this world in the Person of His Son, the Lord Jesus. He had intervened in the course of the history of this world with one main intention - to assert the fact of His rights, to bring in His prerogatives in this world; these had been disputed, challenged and refused.

Israel had been raised up to be an embodiment of these rights, and Israel as a whole had failed; failed as an instrument through whom God's rights were testified to and maintained on the earth; Israel did not represent in any concrete public way the Divine rights and prerogatives; although there were still those faithful ones here and there, secret for the most part.

That intervention of God to bring in His rights was fourfold:- 1, His rights in the matter of Sovereignty, as seen in the Gospel of Matthew; 2, His rights in the matter of Service, as seen in the Gospel of Mark; 3, His rights in the matter of Grace, as seen in the Gospel of Luke; 4, His rights in the matter of Love, as seen in the Gospel of John. These four Gospels represent one breaking-in of God in Christ Jesus. They represent ONE PERSON with one object: to manifest the rights of God and secure those rights for Him; and the Gospels were written to confirm by permanent record in permanent form that to which the Apostles had been bearing witness: 1, Sovereignty - God's rights in sovereignty and the nature of that sovereignty made known; 2, Service - God's rights in service, and what is the nature of the servant and the service; 3-4, Grace and Love - God's rights and prerogatives in these.

These were the things by which they called men to recognise the claim's and rights of God and to respond to them; and wherever they went proclaiming this Gospel of His Son, there were added to them those who came to accept the rights of God and so become living witnesses to those rights and prerogatives.

The Gospels bring in four aspects of the rule of the Heavens; Matthew introduces the King and the Kingdom of the Sovereignty; "The genealogy of Jesus Christ, the Son of David" (Matt. 1:1 marg. A.R.V.) And it is most striking and worthy of note how Matthew finishes his Gospel "And Jesus came to them... saying all authority hath been given unto Me in heaven and on earth, go ye therefore and make disciples of (out of) all nations" (Matt. 28:18-20). Matthew's Gospel finishes with "All nations".

Mark's Gospel ends with the whole creation: "He was manifested as they sat at meat... and He said unto them, go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to the whole creation" (Mark 16:14,15). Hence servant and service.

Luke had the race of men in view, the context clearly shows this. The key word of his gospel is "Son of Man." He is writing to the race of men. "All things must be fulfilled which are written in the law of Moses and the prophets and the psalms concerning Me... Ye are witnesses of these things." (Luke 24:44-48). Hence the grace of God to all men.

And in John's Gospel, it is not all nations, neither is it the whole creation, nor the race of men, but it is the testimony to the world. "God so loved the world that He gave His Son" (John 3:10). "For God sent the Son... that the world might be saved through Him." (17). "This is indeed the Saviour of the world" (4:42). Hence the message of love.

Each of these four Gospels have their own great importance, a vital rich and significant importance to the ONE GOSPEL in its fourfold aspect.

For real adequate effectiveness in the preaching of the Gospel the first supreme need is the absolute assurance of the sovereignty of the Lord in government; that is basic, lf you have not got that you have not got your foundation; you must know that the sovereignty is in the hands of the Lord Jesus now. It is the Gospel of His Son - "For God is my witness whom I serve in my spirit in the gospel of His Son" (Rom. 1:9). And to serve in the Gospel of His Son you have got to have full assurance of the sovereignty of that Son in the matter of government. He HIMSELF has declared "All authority... has been given unto ME" - it is now in the hands of the Lord Jesus.

In Matthew's Gospel the Church is introduced in the New Testament, and introduced in relation to the sovereignty of the heavens; - Jesus asked - "Who do men say that I the Son of Man am? (A.R.V. marg.). Who say ye that I am? ...Thou art the Christ the Son of the Living God! ...Blessed art thou Simon... for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee but My Father who is in heaven.... and upon this rock I will build my church and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it... whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven." (Matt. 16).

Here are several important and significant features in this first introduction of the Church in the New Testament. The Lord is the Builder of His Church; "I will build my Church" (Cp. Zech. 6). Hell is against this building of the Church but the Sovereign Lord says: "The gates of Hades shall not prevail against it." This implies that there is conflict. The binding and loosing in His name on earth and in heaven speaks of sovereign authority, and makes the Church to be the administrative instrument on earth of that sovereignty as it [the Church] is in touch with the throne in heaven: and this in relation to government.

The vital and all embracing fact is that the Church is built on the revelation of who the Lord Jesus is: He asks "Who say ye that I am?" "Thou art the Christ the Son of the Living God"; "On this rock I will build." The Church is the administrative instrument of that sovereignty.

It is striking that the Church is introduced as the Lord Jesus turns from Caesarea with set purpose towards the Cross, by which He will secure the Church and the consummation of the purpose of God. Link Matt. 16 with Rev. 1, and there we see the Lord Jesus with the sovereignty in His hands, and there it is connected with the Church; why? Because the Church is intended to be the Administrative Instrument of that sovereignty. "I saw in the midst of the candlesticks ONE like unto the Son of Man... when I saw Him, I fell at His feet as one dead... He laid His right hand upon me, saying fear not... I am alive for evermore and I have the keys of Death and Hades, write therefore... and send to the seven churches." (Rev. 1:13,17,18,19,11).

All the political divisions of this earth come under the hand of Christ, for nations represent the political divisions of this world, and His authoritative commission is "therefore go ye to all the nations." He does not say they will not kill the messenger, or that evil does not exist; but the issue is secured and revealed as already possessed. The book of the Revelation sees it already in being, for Revelations is the issue of Matt. 16, "I will build My Church and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it." "All authority hath been given unto Me in heaven and on the earth" (Matt. 28:18) "Therefore go to the nations, I have all authority, and I send you unto them; Hell shall not prevail against you."

Pass to the Epistle to the Ephesians, and we see that God the Father hath made the Lord Jesus to "sit at His right hand in the heavenlies, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and every name that is named... and He hath put all things in subjection under His feet, and gave Him to be head over all things to the Church, which is His body." (Eph. 1:20). "God being rich in mercy, for His great love wherewith He loved us... made us alive together with Christ... and raised us up with Him, and made us sit with Him in heavenly places in Christ Jesus" (Eph. 2:4,6). He is seen far above all authority and every name that is named: now we have to see the link between Him and ourselves in this; it is necessary and vital. We have always got to see the instrument of government - the Church in relation to its spiritual elevation, as seen in the Ephesian letter, "far above all". It is very significant that the rule of the Heavens is so emphasised in Matthew and brought out in various ways; and Matthew is the Gospel that introduces the Church in the New Testament.

Symbols of Spiritual Ascendancy

1. Mountains

Mountains have an important place in Matthew's Gospel, and this is significant in the Gospel which introduces the Church: for the Church has got to be seen in spiritual altitude, out of the world in spirit, and out of the world as to voluntary connection with it: for a true seeing of the Church it must be seen from the standpoint of its altitude, which is - "with Christ far above all," that is how God sees it, and only so is it the instrument of the administration of that sovereignty invested in the Sovereign Head of the Church, the Lord Jesus.

Mountains are mentioned fourteen times in Matthew, and mountains in the Scriptures represent spiritual ascendancy. The Lord is governing things from the mountains in Matthew; we read of Him spending nights of prayer in the mountains. He appoints a place in a mountain to meet them when risen from the dead, and He, risen, has put His Church in the mountains: "The disciples went... unto the mountain where Jesus had appointed them... and Jesus came to them... saying, all authority hath been given unto Me in heaven and on earth... go ye therefore... lo, I am with you all the day even unto the consummation of the age." (Matt. 28:16-20, A.R.V.)

"And it shall come to pass in the latter days, that the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established on the top of the mountains and shall be exalted above the hills and all nations shall flow into it," (Isa. 2:2). The Church in its administrative position is always related to the heavens, and the Lord meets the Church and commissions it in the mountains before He passes up in glory. Judgment is also from the mountains: "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem... how often would I have gathered thy children together... and ye would not! Behold, your house is left unto you desolate" (Matt. 23:37-38).

The end of Matthew's Gospel sees Jerusalem set aside, ignored - "The eleven disciples went into Galilee unto the mountain where Jesus had appointed them" (Matt. 28:16). Here the Lord is speaking to them of sovereignty: but sovereignty as related to the nations. Galilee is a question of sovereignty, not grace: it is grace that takes Jerusalem in - "He led them out until over against Bethany, and lifted up His hands and blessed them, and was carried up into Heaven, and they worshipped Him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy." (Luke 24:50-53). Only grace takes Jerusalem in, sovereignty sets authority aside as to having its base in Jerusalem, and brings all sovereignty into the Person of the Lord Jesus; and He in a mountain in Galilee away from Jerusalem. It is the authority of the Person of Christ, the authority is not in Jerusalem but in HIM and HE is universal, not merely local.

Luke begins at Jerusalem, and grace continued in Jerusalem until they slew Stephen, when they committed the sin against the Holy Ghost, and the Lord moved out from Jerusalem to the Gentiles, i.e. the nations: but first He gained a company out of Jerusalem at Pentecost in relation to all nations. Wonderful grace to those who crucified Him. He could have cast them off, but no! He got His representative nucleus out from Jerusalem; here is sovereign grace at work!

Again He did the same thing in a member of Christ, thereby showing who touches a member of the Body of Christ, directly touches Christ HIMSELF: "Saul, Saul, why persecuted thou Me?" Saul was persecuting Him in the person of Stephen and sinning against the Holy Ghost; and the Lord moved out from heaven. Grace strove with Saul until he became Paul.

The Lord does not recognise authority as having its seat in Jerusalem, but in dealing with authority to all nations He moves into Galilee. Matthew brings in authority as invested in the Person of our Lord Jesus, then brings in the Church as the administrative instrument of that authority, and lifts it out as of the earth, bringing it into the heavenlies and the universal. A Remnant, an Elect Company, an Overcomer Vessel, a Called out People, or whatever you like to name them, has to be brought into the position of spiritual altitude and ascendancy, and so have administrative government in the nations; but it is the sovereignty in Grace; in this age it is a Throne of Grace. And the sovereign grace of God in Christ Jesus is being proclaimed to the nations and calling out from them a people for His name.

2. Heavens

Seventy-five times the "Heavens" are mentioned in Matthew's Gospel, which is the Gospel of the Kingdom of Heaven - the rule or the sovereignty of the heavens.

The heavens are seen ruling at the birth of the Lord of Glory, the star seen in the East was the one star which ruled the heavens at that time, and was governing things on the earth; bringing Wisdom from the East to worship at the feet of the Lord Jesus, the Babe of Bethlehem. The heavens are sovereignly ruling in relation to the coming of the Son, for the "Greater than Solomon" is here; and a new day has dawned for the world with the coming of Jesus Christ. The "East" signifies the dawning of a new day. Herod tried to break in, but the heavens ruled. That one star was ruling in the heavens and governing things on earth, at that time it was THE STAR in the heavens.

3. Angels

Take another heavenly aspect of this Gospel: seventeen times "angels" come into this book. Angels are related to the administrative government of God in relation to "heirs of salvation." (Heb. 1:13-14). "An angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled away the stone and sat upon it" (Matt. 28:1). One angel in resurrection sovereignty. One angel was quite sufficient for world governments and all hell's force and counsels; Oh! the comfort and assurance this brings; yes, here is seen the rule of the heavens nullifying both hell's might and earth's greatest government, for Rome at that time was the chief world government, so representative of all the governments of the world. It is blessed to know that all sovereignty and authority are in the hands of the Lord Jesus, and angels are an administrative government of God in relation to the "Heirs of Salvation." And in Matthew we have one angel in relation to the government of the Lord Jesus in the nations; what strength and power this implies.

In Mark - "And entering into the tomb, they saw a young man sitting... arrayed in a white robe"; here we have purity, service in relation to the whole creation on the basis of holiness: an angel in administrative government in the matter of moral character; holiness as to a whole creation.

Luke - "Behold two men stood by them in dazzling apparel... why seek ye the Living among the dead?" Two angels, two men. Two in the scriptures is the number of witness: testimony in adequate measure to the whole race of men. A full witness and testimony to be borne to the race of mankind concerning the sovereignty and government of the Lord Jesus.

John - "Two angels sitting one at the head and one at the feet, where the body of Jesus had lain." John's gospel has peculiarly the emphasis on Love. "God so loved the world." In love He gave His Son to be the sin-bearer and to carry away the sin of the world. What is there above the LOVE of GOD? These angels are in an attitude of repose in that love of God, for the love of God has triumphed. When you have got a true appreciation of that love of God, then you can sit and are able to rest. It is a testimony of His love to the world, a reposing in the love of God - and that love as manifested in the sending of His Son and in the raising of Him from the dead. A heavenly intervention in relation to the sovereignty of His love in the nations. The angels are busy in administrative government in relation to the love of God.

All these heavenly elements are related to the Lord Jesus and His church in His sovereignty among the nations: sovereignty into which we have been brought by a living relationship and experience. God's order is never isolated units. He called and sent His disciples forth two by two; two being the testimony to the Church, as a representative number. We have got to recognise "Body" principles and spiritually understand and faithfully observe God's own order; for if you act in independence you take yourself out from under the covering of the Sovereign Head of the Church, the Lord Jesus - "God gave Him to be Head over all things to the Church which is His body" (Eph. 1:22). Throne prayer is a matter of the Church, and it is absolutely necessary as you go out into the nations with the Testimony of the Gospel of the Sovereignty to have the covering of that Throne - prayer in the Body of Christ, if there is to be realised the end of God, the impact of the Sovereignty upon the kingdom of Satan; it has got to be a going forth not as isolated, saved individuals, but in a right spiritual relationship to the Head and members - ONE BODY.

In Ezra 7, we have the bringing in of the "House of the Lord" and immediately the link with the heavens: "Whatsoever is commanded by the God of Heaven let it be done exactly for the House of the God of Heaven" (23). It is a marvellous decree of Artaxerxes - "And whosoever will not do the law of thy God and the law of the king, let judgment be executed upon him with all diligence, whether it be unto death or to banishment or to confiscation of his goods or to imprisonment." (26). This is to come upon the man who dares to oppose the building of the House of the Lord. Artaxerxes seems to go to the utmost to hasten and ensure the building of this house for God. Three times it is said, "The God of the Heavens"; sovereignty that cannot be overruled is in operation and related to the building of the House of the Lord, the rule of the heavens is seen here.

In Luke's Gospel you have the same fact of the rule of the Heavens being linked with the House of the Lord - His Church: thus emphasising the Church as the administrative instrument of that sovereignty of the heavens. "The seventy returned with joy, saying, Lord, even the demons are subject unto us in thy name." "And He said unto them... behold I have given you authority... over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall in any wise hurt you..." "In the same hour He rejoiced in the Holy Spirit, and said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of Heaven and earth, that thou didst hide these things from the wise and understanding and didst reveal them unto babes, for so it seemed good in Thy sight." (Luke 10:17). (Seventy is the number of representation).

And so it is seen to be the "gates of heaven" over against the "gates of hades" and the "counsels of heaven" over against the "counsels of hades": and the House of the Sovereignty over which all the counsels of hell cannot prevail: for the counsels of the Godhead were back in Eternity past unto the securing of that company desiring and determining His will.

The Kingdom of Heaven, or the rule or reign of Heaven, is a sphere in which the sovereignty of God operates but in which everything not suitable is going to be eliminated, and only that which is according to God will remain: see the parables of the "Dragnet" and the "Tares" (Matt. 13). The true will be separated from the false and the Lord secures His "called out ones" from the nations of the world; His redeemed ones, His church, the City of God as seen in the book of Revelation.

"After these things I saw and behold a great multitude, which no man can number, out of every nation and tribes and peoples and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb... saying, salvation unto our God who sitteth on the throne and unto the Lamb." (Rev. 7:9,10).

"And he carried me away in the Spirit, to a mountain great and high and showed me the holy city, new Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God, having the glory of God, her light was like unto a stone most precious... clear as crystal. The bride the wife of the Lamb." (Rev. 21:9-11).

Chapter 2 - A Ministry from the Heavens

Daniel 4:26; Romans 1:20; Heb. 9:11,23,26.

It was the rule of the Heavens which Nebuchadnezzar had to come to recognise, the thing to which the Lord brought him in a very severe and drastic way and He said, "Thy kingdom shall be sure unto thee, after that thou shalt have known that the heavens do rule." And it is into the content of the meaning of that great Divine statement that I feel the Lord would lead us at this time. I am more conscious than ever that in order that we may come to a spiritual understanding of this, we need the Holy Spirit to give us very especial enablement. We are speaking of things that will not be understood or grasped only by the Holy Spirit's very definite enablement. We are going right back to those spiritual principles upon which God has hung everything with reference to Himself - the Heavens ruling.

And the significance of that statement is just this, that, while you may have presented in the Bible a system of things pertaining unto God, with many phases and aspects, many details, many forms of expression, those are not the things. They are only representations of heavenly, Divine, spiritual laws and principles. The earthly things are made after the pattern of things in the heavens, and the earthly things and the natural world for the most part are not the realities. They are only reflections and representations of reality which is heavenly and spiritual. That is why we passed on to Hebrews where that is stated. There was a tabernacle, but it was not the tabernacle. And all that was related to the tabernacle was but a representation, a system of sensory expressions given to a great, heavenly system, and it was the embodiment of spiritual laws and spiritual principles. And the type was destined to pass to make room for the realities.

Here is this fact. There is a heavenly system which is entirely spiritual, which cannot for one moment be apprehended by the natural senses, but God has illustrated it by types and figures and various means, never intending that men should take hold of and perpetuate that which is only a type, but that they should come to recognise that, lying behind all that, there is a spiritual system which God wants them to enter into. We know this in a sense, but we do not recognise it adequately, and because we do not know this adequately, Christendom is astray. It has laid hold on representations and made them realities, and so made the earthly thing an end, and failed to see the spiritual principles lying behind everything.

If you are only occupied with the thing, you will find sooner or later that that leads you nowhere. It cannot carry you through, and it simply becomes an end in itself. But immediately you get the spiritual principle back of that and are delivered from the mere thing in itself, then you get right through into what is altogether beyond limit. And God is governing by those spiritual laws. It is the heavenly system that is ordering everything. It is what lies behind in the unseen with God that is final, ultimate.

That being the case, we are able to understand why everything that relates to what is utterly of God demands spiritual revelation. It must and can only be revealed by the Holy Spirit, and that means that there must be a spiritual state on the part of the individual. They must be spiritual beings in the truest sense of their nature. That is the statement of Paul with which we are so familiar. He says that the natural man (the soulical man) receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, neither can he know them; they are foolishness unto him. "But he that is spiritual judgeth [discerneth] all things."

Everything to the natural man which relates utterly to God is a mystery and can only be apprehended by spiritual revelation on the ground of the man himself having become a spiritual being. It is here you see that mere cleverness is already ruled out. It does not stand here. Intellectual development and power, as such, is set aside. Scholarship, as such, has nothing to do with the things of the Spirit. The natural man cannot come in here, good or bad. Human efficiency cannot come into this realm. The natural man will count on the things of nature, and so God must rule him out. The proud cannot enter into the things of the Spirit. And yet we do very often come before man as if we knew something. We have here on the earth certain advantages and abilities and we display them before men. That is just the terrible danger of the present system which makes something of man and puts man in a certain place and gives him a position of power over crowds of people.

God beholdest the proud afar off, and when you want the real essence of spiritual blessing you have to come to the one who has been broken and shaken and ground to powder and who in himself is absolutely nothing. And then God begins to pour of Himself through that one and He has got what He wants. What God wants is spiritual people in this deepest sense, wholly spiritual, that He might give revelation and show that the heavens do rule.

Again, this represents the great necessity for everyone who is coming into the things of God essentially. What is the essence of what is from God? That they should come into it from above. You can come to things on the horizontal - through a certain amount of college preparation or other preparation for it, and you can enter into something here on the earth which is called the "ministry," or you can enter into Bible teaching on the horizontal. You may know it and you may be able to cite it. You are into all the doctrines of the Scripture. You come into it this way because you have "taken it up." You can come into the church that way. You call it "joining the church," and when you come in that way, you are not in it at all. You are in a false position entirely. The only way to come into the things which are especially of God is that you have come in in the Spirit and by the Spirit, and by way of revelation.

Then the "ministry" is no longer a matter of churches and pulpits and congregations, etc. The ministry is not governed by anything outward. It is that God has given you a revelation and you have a fire burning in your bones. You have a message from God for the hour in which you live. The heavens are ruling. You may come into the Word of God by cleverly mentally apprehending it, but the Holy Spirit has something back of the Scripture. It is not a wonderful presentation of the Bible to people. When that is over they say, "That was a clever address"; but is there a mighty change? The dynamic impact of God upon their innermost being - what about that? What does it do with reference to their conformity to the image of God's Son?

You come into a ministry from above, not horizontally. No servant of God fulfils the full measure of the Divine purpose except as he comes into it from above. And that represents something in the nature of a terrific upheaval in one's life when you come in that way. This is why imitation is so fruitless. The imitation of Christ is cold, there is no dynamic in it. It is very beautiful and mystical but it does not change the very sub-strata of your being and conform you to the image of His Son. You cannot put things into Scriptural mould and have life. Everything that is of God has got to be wrought out by the Holy Spirit.

There is a great need today that there should be the rule of the Heavens. But the Holy Spirit has got to do it, and we have got to come to recognise the fact that what we see in organised Christianity is not it. The spiritual people of God are more and more feeling separated from the old system of Christianity and churches and ecclesiastical systems. People are recognising a deep dissatisfaction with what has held the ground so long, and there is a cry for spiritual reality. Many sermons are clever and full of mental ability, but they are starvation to the spirit. There is all the activity, but it is not spiritual life, and I believe the Lord is going to show us the nature of the thing that is in the heavens. The thing that man has brought down on to the earth and taken up and perpetuated is only at best a poor imitation of things in the heavens, but in a very large realm it is a caricature of heavenly things.

Man has taken hold of heavenly things and brought them down to earth and made them earthly things. That is where things all went wrong at the beginning. At the first, things were of the Spirit. The people gathered in their homes or anywhere. It was not the place. It was not the ministry. It was the Lord, and they were circled around Him. But then the day came when they said, "We must have public buildings," and then the architecture became a factor, and so things developed, and they became something on the earth for men to take note of. They wanted man to be attracted, and that was the first step in one of the greatest perils that has overtaken the church. For prestige, recognition, the world to be attracted, there is the result that you get the mixed multitudes in the Church. If you can attach some big names to it, you can attract the people, and one of the devil's greatest measures has been popularising the church. The pre-eminent thing is lost, that the church and Christ is a mystery to the natural man and that it is no use to expect the natural man to appreciate it. The church is essentially a spiritual thing according to the mind of God. What really governs everything is God's conception of things, not ours, and if we are going on with the Lord there is going to be a whole system of change and we are going more and more to view things from the heavenly standpoint. You have got to get into the heavenly system to get heavenly results.

The Meaning of "Heavens"

In speaking of the "rule of the heavens" the word "heavens" is uppermost in our thought and we want to understand something of the symbolic meaning of the heavens in the Scripture. The first thing represented by the heavens in Scripture is universality. If you will trace through you will always find they represent universality - the all-pervading, all-encompassing, all-including universality of the heavens. They bound everything. Everything that there is is inside the heavens - no matter what planet you visit the heavens will be outside. It is a universal principle in the very thought of the heavens. It is there that you begin to understand the spiritual order.

That universality is bound up with the Lord Jesus and the Lord Jesus is bound up with it. He is the heavenly One, the heavenly Man, the heavenly Lord. How constantly was He re-emphasising that fact on earth - "I came out from heaven" - "you are of the earth, I am from heaven," and the use of the word "heaven" or "heavens" by His lips is full of tremendous significance because He is the representative One of all that pertains unto God. This principle represents that which pertains unto God as absolutely universal.

The first chapter of Colossians reveals the wondrous universality of the Lord Jesus swooping back to the times of eternity, bringing Him on to the time of creation - "by Him were all things created" and "of Him and through Him and unto Him are all things" - sweeping the ages in His Person and leading you on to the timelessness of eternity. The Person of our Lord Jesus revealed in that one chapter is absolutely universal - all ages, all realms; and Ephesians sees Him as above all heavens. The universality of the Lord Jesus Christ is the thought and purpose and intent of God the Father. He, then, is the inclusive representation of all that is of God, and whenever you come into what is of God spiritually you immediately come into what is absolutely universal.

Of course, here is the explanation of the Cross of our Lord Jesus and the crucifixion of the old man and all that is related thereto. The explanation is just this, that that cross represents the bringing to an end, or winding up of what is less than God intended. For things were pulled down to a lower level than God intended. There came in divisions, alienation, circumscribing of man and of things, limiting God and His purpose for man in the world, and the Cross represents the undoing of all that. The resurrection speaks of emancipation into the limitless - into the universal. In the Person of our Lord Jesus it meant He was no longer being bound to those few miles of Syrian soil, time was no longer a factor nor was geography a factor, distance did not come in. The resurrection represents universality because it brings you into spiritual realities - delivered from the flesh and brought into the spirit, delivered from what is of man and brought into what is of God. We may not be caught up in the body like Philip, but there is a universality about our new-creation life and about our ministry. We have lost every form of limitation. Though we may be at this place tonight we are not bound thereby - we can touch every corner of the earth by prayer. We are now set free and brought into the kingdom of heaven's emancipation on resurrection ground. Under the anointing of the Spirit we are brought into the universality of the Lord Jesus Christ. That is the explanation of the Cross.

Here the whole question of sonship comes into view. Sonship is always related to the resurrection. In the case of the Lord Jesus He was especially designated the Son of God on the ground of resurrection. This does not mean He was not the Son of God before. Sonship comes in on that ground. This is typified in the Jordan - the Father's voice attested Him the Son on typical resurrection ground. "Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten Thee" - bound up with the work of the Cross.

What is sonship? It is absolutely universal. If you take up Colossians 1 you will see that sonship is timeless. It is related to resurrection, for resurrection is coming out into the timeless and the coming in of timeless life - life that is the life of the ages. That is resurrection life and with it comes sonship which is timeless. You will notice in Ephesians you are taken back before times eternal by way of the Cross and shown that before this world was, God had us in view. Romans says the same, and with the revelation of the eternal mind and thought and purpose of God it seems we were there in His thought before the world was. We were chosen of Him - "For whom He did foreknow, He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son." We have been raised together with Him, "and you hath He quickened who were dead in trespasses and sins." In connection with that the eternity of sonship comes into view - foreknowledge and predestination. Sonship is not merely eternal, it is universal - not merely a thing of this earth but in the heavens. We are now partakers of the spirit of sonship, "Abba Father."

Notice the universality of the birth of our Lord - every universal element enters into His birth. You have the heavens coming in there.

When you come into sonship you come back into the place where God intended man to be originally at the centre of His universe with everything gathered around Him. He was determined in the purpose of God to have dominion over the works of his hands. That will be the end when that one new man - "the church which is His body" is perfected - glorified. All things governed through the church, and everyone who comes into sonship comes into sonship universally. It is a wonderful thing to be made a son - much more than having sins forgiven and being saved from hell. There should be an adequate background to our preaching vocation. Saving from hell is only the first minor step in the great eternal sweep of God's purposes concerning man. Sonship embraces eternity - all ages. "Heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ." Sonship is timeless and universal because sonship is spiritual.

There is nothing merely local in the heavens and the things which belong to the heavenly spiritual system. Everything here according to God has a universal connection according to the thought of God and we must see the universality of everything that is of God.

Paul is a great example. He was peculiarly related to the heavens. When on the road to Damascus the heavens opened and he heard the voice of the Lord. Later he again had heavenly revelation; then again he was caught up into the third heaven, and how much he has to say about the heavenlies! He was a wonderful example of emancipation from the limitations of earth.

Take him nationally. If this were the only thing it would be a miracle of miracles. Here is that rabid Jew and Judaiser - and there is no more radical a fundamentalist on earth today. See what he will do for Jewish tradition and interest. He stands at nothing and flings to the wind every fine sensibility. He had received authority to cast into prison all who were of this Way, men or women, there is no fine feeling - he is an utter radical. Here is a young man whose face has been seen to look up into heavenly glory and from his lips were heard the words, "I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God," but Saul of Tarsus crushed down all that because of his Jewish blood. He was a man like that, but see him afterward an apostle to the Gentiles. See him withstanding Peter because he went in to eat and drink with the Gentiles, but when the Jews were come down he withdrew himself - "I withstood him to the face..." This is the man who will write about the church. It is a heavenly revelation, nothing less, that will change a man like this. It was he who later wrote "where there can be neither Jew nor Greek, male nor female..." where nothing that is of earth has any place. Yet today there are spiritual people still on that low level - there has been no loss of earthly distinctions, no vision of one Body. You and I are not British and other nationalities - we are citizens of heaven and you are not knowing me after the flesh but after the spirit. If there is that then there is one spirit-sonship. We find our common ground there. Unity of the Spirit is oneness of the Spirit - that is universality - the heavens are ruling. From God's standpoint they do rule.

This is what brought the Corinthians so much trouble, "every one of you saith, I am of Paul: and I of Apollo: and I of Cephas," limiting a choice of men whom they preferred. Because they were circling around men Paul wrote, "I cannot write unto you as unto spiritual but unto carnal." This is a working in of a mighty principle, and when those things come in the Lord goes out.

Paul in every other way represented the rule of the heavens ministerially. He had become the embodiment of the principle of the heavens so far as nations were concerned. Nations no longer existed for him as such - that out of all nations should be formed the one Body, so his ministry was a heavenly one - a ministry from the heavens. It is a tremendous mark of his transcendency, of what is heavenly, that his universal writings come out of such circumstances as the prison, chains, Roman Court, and yet the most common expression of those days was "in the heavenlies." He was ministering universally while naturally in limitation. He had said, "henceforth know we no man after the flesh." "Though the more I love the less I be loved." This man has transcended the things which are of man. The love he had poured out for the Corinthians, and yet in that letter Paul quotes things that were said about him - about his personal appearance - by them. Paul was above earthly feelings - the heavens ruled. Get outside of that which is petty and small and into the universal. We see a real example of sonship in the man who wrote so much about it. Read Romans 8 and the Epistle to the Galatians and see how sonship means absolute emancipation and freedom from all earthly limitations of man - his mind, his thought, his judgments, his attitudes, his appraisements. He has been set free by the Son, and whom the Son makes free is free indeed.

The new man is being renewed after the image of Him who created him. The image is universally embracing. Look at the Lord Jesus. See the universality of His birth, His baptism, His death. The celebration of the Lord's death has been made largely a matter of a ceremonial ordinance. But there is one Body eternally conceived of God gathered out of all nations and gathered into the universality of eternity. God meant that the gathering around His table be clothed with what is of heaven and should be a living testimony. There is all the difference in the world between a ceremony and having a celebration of a living thing. The heavens do rule. The Lord wants to recover the spiritual meaning of these things.

Chapter 3 - Universality of the Heavens

The end which God has in view is the universal sovereignty of the Lord Jesus, but not only as a Person but as representing a heavenly system. The Lord Jesus has been manifested not only as a Person. He has been revealed as a Person, but not only so but also as a heavenly system. If the tabernacle of old was in its entirety a representation of the Lord Jesus then it is a comprehensive system. If the temple of old was a typical representation of the Lord Jesus, and if you see Him in everything to do with the temple, then the temple was a system. And so these figures point to a system represented by the Lord Jesus, and it is going to be that system which universally prevails when God has reconstructed all things according to Christ, and we must recognise that that is what God is doing.

"According to Christ" is the standard. It is the measurement, it is the character of everything that is in the mind of God. God's new creation, then, is that which is constructed wholly according to Christ. So it is a system bound up in a Person and is to be entered into by all who are Christ's so that eventually the "Body" will reveal Christ as a spiritual system in the whole universe.

If the Lord Jesus has then become representative of God's heavenly system, we have to see everything in Christ as universal in its principle and law to be established by God, and we have got to come into the fulness of Christ. To do this is not just to enter into a kind of circle of fulness. It is that we have to come into the fulness of every detail as God sees it in the Lord Jesus. He wants to bring us into the fulness of the heavenly meaning of every detail of the Lord Jesus.

The Universality of the New Birth

We have spoken about the birth of the Lord Jesus and its universality. We saw that it was not just an event called the "Incarnation." It was that, but it was not just that. When we are born of the Spirit, when we in a spiritual sense come down from above because we have been born from above (although there is a great difference between our new birth and the birth of the Lord Jesus), it is the result of the Holy Spirit, and the new birth makes us heavenly in our origin and in our nativity. When we by the same Holy Spirit are born of the Spirit, we immediately partake of the universality of the Lord Jesus Himself.

Our sonship is a universal thing and when the sons of God are manifested it will be unto the whole creation. The creation cannot get there until God has got His purpose, and that is the manifestation of the sons of God. The whole creation is bound up with it. It is a tremendous thing - this new birth. It is being made far too common. If we only saw the range of this thing, heaven is in it, and hell is touched by it, for it will eventually be the Church, the Body of Christ, by which Satan will be deposed from the heavens.

When there is a genuine new birth, when really the Spirit of sonship comes in, that is the beginning of a history of terrific conflict between heaven and hell in that spirit. The unborn ones cannot know that conflict. Those in the flesh do not believe in a personal devil, but that is its own indictment and carries with it a very great significance. The object of hell is to destroy what is begotten of God, for, when spiritual maturity comes in hell has lost its power. So in the early days the enemy would seek to destroy that which is of God.

There is a Satanic consciousness back of this world system, and it recognises that if what is of God comes in and gets the upper hand, that system is going out. And the natural man in the religious world hates what is of the Spirit of God. You bring purely spiritual, heavenly things into the religious world as it is today, with all its assumed reverence, with all its outward forms, and you set up a conflict at once. The natural man who has come in there is sporting himself in the limelight, where he is in evidence, and the natural man will not have a purely spiritual thing, he will fight it. That is what happened in the life of the Lord Jesus. It was the religious world that withstood Him most. There is all the difference of two worlds between religion and true spirituality.

How important is the recognition of the range and content and fulness of all this. We have got to come into the fulness of every detail of the Lord Jesus and the meaning of the new birth. It is not enough to say, "I am born again." The Lord wants to bring us to see what the new birth is; its essence, its reality. I am quite sure that most of the trouble, the weakness, the defeat of Christianity is to be explained along the line of Christians not having recognised the meaning of Christianity.

It would be impossible for anyone to have an adequate conception of the new birth and continue one bit in the world. The "worldly Christian" is a contradiction in terms. It is a difference of being of the earth and being of the heavens. You could not possibly have any voluntary, happy oneness of spirit with any thing that is in this world system whatever and have any real conception of the new birth experimentally. And yet, see what you have today - Christians who do not see any contradiction in being saved and in having half their life in the world, taken up with the things of the world. It is a contradiction in the very essence of the new being, and until you get some conception of the new birth you will not get that which is wholly according to God. The enemy has through this world system still got a hold over what is supposed to represent God and makes it a denial, and he is holding this up and saying, "That is what is supposed to be of the Lord."

But it only wants the eyes to be opened to see the nature of the new birth. It has in it the power of heaven to shatter this whole world system. The new birth has the power to destroy it, and it will be destroyed in the manifestation of the sons of God because it will be Christ manifested in His church. So you see what we need is that the Lord shall open our eyes to these fundamental, foundational things such as the new birth.

I do not want to be critical, but I am consumed with this zeal that the Lord shall have that which is according to His mind. There has come about a thing which is an exceedingly perilous thing, and that is the mass movement of "decisions for Christ" by organised methods. When you preach the gospel in a popular style and bring in illustrations, stories and accounts, you bring in that which is calculated to stir the emotions, and then you ask for some kind of action, and you sweep a multitude in like that, and they, from that time, call themselves saved people, and half an hour after they know no more of the real nature of the new birth than they did before. They can go on and never know the nature of the new birth and yet they say that there was a time when they became a Christian. I do not say that some of them are not born again, but on the whole it is a dangerous line because you are getting people to take the name of Christ who do not know what the new birth is. They have been persuaded into doing it, and we must understand that the new birth is not the birth of the soul at all. It is the birth of the spirit. It is a matter of rebirth from above which is God's act. The most that man can do is to take an attitude.

The only step we can take is to face one way or the other. The expression of our willingness is to face that way, but the whole thing is in God's hands. It is not for anyone of us to say when we will take any step in relation to God. If God puts now at our disposal saving faith, or anything else by which to appropriate anything which is in Christ, we postpone that with eternal risks. We have got to face up with what God puts there at the time He puts it there, and we have no assurance that we will be able to take that step at any other time. It is the work of the Holy Spirit alone, and we must put to people very, very clearly the real meaning of the new birth, and it is vast in its nature. It is a great thing to be saved.

The Universality of Christ's Baptism

We pass from Bethlehem to Jordan, the next outstanding thing in the life of the Lord Jesus, and see the universal implicates and content of His baptism. You first of all have John the Baptist. He has had an archangel in relation to his birth. The Holy Spirit was involved, for he was to be filled with the Holy Spirit even from his birth. John the Baptist officially represented and gathered up in himself all the prophets of the Old Testament. "There hath not arisen a greater prophet than John." The Lord Jesus said "It becometh us to fulfil all righteousness," and then John the Baptist introduced the Lord Jesus, "Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of tho world." "The Lamb of God," "Behold the Lamb of God." Millions and millions of lambs had been sacrificed but not one of all those was ever accepted of itself by God - only in the light of One Lamb. He gathered all the lambs ever slain into His own Person. The backward sweep is tremendous.

It is at Jordan. "God's Lamb which beareth away the sin of the world." It is the universal sin brought upon Him. Then, with all that resting upon Him, with these final words with which he met the reticence of John, "It thus becometh us to fulfil all righteousness," "all the sin of the world," "all righteousness" bound up in His act. What a tremendous thing this baptism was. It fulfilled all the law and the prophets. It dealt with the sin of the whole world. It settled forever the question of all righteousness. What a baptism! Was there ever a baptism like that ? Yes, yours, if entering into the meaning of that one, if it was a true one. Not your bearing away the sin of the world, but entering into the good of His baptism. With those words He went down into Jordan and was raised. Death, universal, has been expressed, universal judgment received, resurrection life, the universal law of the new creation by resurrection. All that involved, not only the past, but all that is to be.

Then heaven opened. The heavens came in again, and then hell broke in, for the temptation was a part of the baptism. It was not a thing in itself. "Then was Jesus led of the Spirit into the wilderness." This baptism has touched all the past and all the future. How was all righteousness fulfilled typically in the baptism of the Lord Jesus? It is simply this - that God has as His irreducible minimum sinless perfection and God has never accepted anything that is not sinlessly perfect. Can you find it in this old creation? How then is it to be fulfilled? The old creation must perish under judgment and there must be a new creation which is created of God. And so in Jordan He passed out typically and rose again. There was no sin in Him, but universal sin was laid upon Him. The whole question of righteousness has been settled in the death and burial and resurrection of the Lord Jesus. Paul has been used by God to interpret baptism as this (Romans 6; Col. 2:12), the putting away of the whole body of the flesh. It is not a theory of sinless perfection for us now, but there is that for us which is sinlessly perfect, but that is not us in ourselves. We still carry about a very sinful nature to which we have to reckon ourselves dead. There has something come in from above which makes it possible for us to repudiate that and live as though we were dead to it.

I ask you, is that what baptism has meant to you? It is not good enough that you should take this matter on simply because it is a command in the Word, or that the Lord Jesus did it and you simply think you ought to do it. The only adequate basis is that we see the heavenly meaning. If the thing has been entered into just as a form, or because it is a command, it has not meant very much, but when it has been entered into with any spiritual understanding there has been a breaking out of the devil to oppose it. It is not a form or ordinance, but a mighty testimony that brings in the vast realm of spiritual powers.

In like manner we follow through to the Transfiguration, to the Cross, into the prayer life of the Lord Jesus, His resurrection, Pentecost, and His coming again, and we see that in all there is universality. It is not something that happens but something back of which there is a depth of heavenly meaning to be opened up by the Holy Spirit.

Maturity by Spiritual Apprehension a Secret of Power

When we get our eyes open to it, we have got the wealth of Christ, and that is what I believe the enemy hates - spiritual maturity. If he can stop your going on and prevent your taking the next step that God has presented to you, he has curtailed all the heavenly intention of God in you and through you. He has an idea of what is involved in every act of obedience of God's children. He would keep you back from making the decision for the Lord and accepting the operation of His Spirit. He will say, "Do not take that step now." He would cause you to confer with man and so confuse you and stop your going on with the Lord. Every act of obedience to the Lord leads on to universality.

So the urge is to go on. Look at such a man as Paul. He let all things go and counted all his earlier gains as mere rubbish, and still he is saying, "Brethren, I count not myself already to have attained... I press on that I may know Him." What does this imply? Paul says that there was something vast bound up with his revelation of the Lord and his going on with the Lord which might be missed - not his salvation, but something in his salvation. May the Lord bring upon our hearts something of the force and weight of all this which is bound up with the Person of the Lord Jesus as representing God's heavenly system, and urge us to go on to full growth.

Chapter 4 - Sovereignty

We now pass to the second main significance of the "Heavens," which is sovereignty or transcendence or ascendancy. It does not require a very profound study of the Scriptures to arrive very clearly at that conclusion that the heavens symbolically represent the universality of things spiritually, and then that they represent sovereignty - that which governs or rules.

Beginning at Genesis we know that God put great lights in the heavens to govern day and night - the heavens rule in that sense, and throughout Scripture that principle is carried on in the symbols and types - heavenly bodies and heavenly orders. We know quite well that the visible universe is governed by the orders of the heavens. We know that our ocean tides and our ocean courses and everything on this earth is governed by heavenly bodies. We should not be here today if there were no sun in the heavens. Man has found some of his greatest inventions along the line of appropriating that which the sun gives forth. The stars guide - the heavens do rule.

This is a representation of spiritual things which govern in relation to all that is of God, so that sovereignty comes in and with sovereignty seen as of the heavens, you have ascendancy. "As the heavens are higher than the earth..." "When I consider Thy heavens the work of Thy hands," there is ascendancy, elevation, transcendence - that which is above all. These are spiritual principles and it is in the realm of these spiritual realities that we are dwelling just now.

When you come to the realities themselves, away from types and representations, the position to which you are brought by this fact that the heavens do rule is that you have become possessed of spiritual secrets - spiritual revelation. When God has revealed to you the inner side of things spiritual, you have been placed in a position of spiritual ascendancy and authority. You have been lifted right above everything and you are in a position of authority, of government, of sovereignty.

Now, our way has been to gather up everything in the Person of the Lord Jesus. He represents this whole heavenly system and we have seen that everything related to Him bears out these spiritual principles. Taking this principle of sovereignty and ascendancy, you find the heavens so very much in evidence as ruling sovereignly in connection with His representative Person and vocation.

It is interesting and not without considerable significance that the Gospel is introduced with what is in the heavens governing man and governing things. I refer to the beginning of Matthew. Of course, you know I am referring to the star. The Gospel is introduced by what is seen in the heavens and that has taken charge of men to guide their course and the course governed by the heavens brings them to Christ. That is the principle in relation to everyone who is brought to the Lord Jesus by the Gospel or who is brought into the Gospel "concerning His Son." It is heaven's action, heaven's initiative, and we shall never come fully into the Gospel "concerning His Son" until we have come to some apprehension and appreciation of the rule of the heavens.

I mean that the man who used that very phrase "concerning His Son" came to the Son by that which was in heaven, and he was brought into experimental knowledge of the Lord Jesus. The most astonishing thing ever a man has seen - He who was considered to be a Nazarene impostor suddenly revealed as the Son of God bringing this one down on his face and the first word uttered by him, "Lord..." The heavens do rule. We never come into the fulness of the Gospel until we see the heavenly side of the Gospel. Until then we only see Him as Saviour and not a Prince, God's order is "Prince and Saviour." Many people see Him as Saviour and accept Him as such and perhaps many years afterward come to see Him as Lord, then surrendering fully to Him. That is out of order and in the meantime you have lost so much that God intended. We need to put it God's way - first the Prince, that is, the Lord Jesus exalted and enthroned above everything in our lives, and having Him as Saviour included in that. Those who accept Christ only for salvation's sake only get part of the Gospel.

Paul came into the Gospel by first of all seeing Jesus Christ as Lord. He saw what was in heaven and came to the Saviour by way of the sovereignty of Jesus Christ, and that is the way into full salvation. At the beginning the Gospel is symbolically represented in the star - that which was seen in the heavens as ruling and controlling the course of men bringing them to the Saviour. That is very simple but represents a very important principle and law to be carried right through. The close of Matthew strikes the very same note, but with all the development that has come in between. "All authority has been given unto Me in the heavens and the earth, you therefore go." That which is seen in the heavens governing in the beginning has now developed until you come to the blessed position of seeing that all political divisions of this earth are under the sovereign rulership of Jesus Christ. "All authority given unto me in the heavens and in the earth" and the government of this world, though unseen, is in the hands of the Lord Jesus. There is a sovereignty back of it which will issue in His being King of Kings and Lord of Lords one day.

The Gospel comes in with Matthew as the Gospel of sovereignty, and there are various symbols of the sovereignty of the Lord Jesus in this book. You find the very word "heavens" occurs no less than seventy-five times in Matthew, and angels abound in this Gospel, for we meet with them no fewer than seventeen times. Another factor which always speaks of transcendency, elevation, ascendancy, sovereignty, is the reference to mountains, which occurs fourteen times in Matthew, and a study of these mountains will show them as coming in in some governing capacity. In some way the Lord is bringing home the fact of His government - His control. You finish the book in a mountain.

Luke is the Gospel of grace and Luke finishes up in Jerusalem. That is grace - grace to those who have rejected the Lord Jesus. Matthew sets Jerusalem aside and goes to the mountain in Galilee. Sovereignty is no longer vested in Jerusalem, but is now vested in the Lord Jesus. "All authority is given unto Me in heaven and in earth" - that principle is running all the way through - transcendency, elevation, ascendancy, sovereignty all vested in the Person of the Lord Jesus.

Now, then, Matthew begins with the principle that it is what is seen in heaven that governs, and ends with all authority vested in the Person of the Lord Jesus, and in between, the instrument of administration is introduced. It is most significant that the Church comes into Matthew. In chapter 16 we read, "on this rock will I build My Church and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it." Sovereignty is related to the Church, so that the instrument of administration and this sovereignty of the heavens in the Person of the Lord Jesus are so bound up that the gates of Hades shall not prevail against them. Then the Lord begins to speak about the authority of the Church - "whatsoever you shall bind on earth shall be bound in the heavens and whatsoever shall be loosed on earth shall be loosed in the heavens." This is the authority of Christ in the Church.

When you come to grasp mentally some truth about the Lord Jesus it is one thing, but when you come by revelation of the Holy Spirit experimentally into the things of Christ you come into a strong position of ascendancy - of being above all government. There is all the difference between taking a truth, sound, orthodox and Scriptural as it is, and giving it out as truth, and having had revealed in your heart the inner meaning of that truth and giving it out. Take two men: one takes something of the Word of God and gives it as a message. No fault can be found in it, it is sound doctrine, but there is something missing. Another man takes exactly the same truth and gives forth the message and as he gives it forth you are conscious of life - something that reaches you. One message was just as true as the other, but one was speaking out of the Bible as a Book, and the other out of revelation of the Scripture given to his heart by the Holy Spirit. The latter had not sat down and prepared a sermon that was sound, but had gone with the Word of God on his knees and waited before the Lord until truth had been revealed to his heart from an open heaven.

There are plenty of fine preachers but they are not feeding, not building up, not nourishing and satisfying: not channels of life, there is no sense of the heavens coming in. It is the heavens that do rule and you have got to see what is in the heavens. You will remember Ezekiel being taken by an angel around the temple in Jerusalem with a measuring reed, and it has just got to be like that if we are to have a ministry like that. How can we show what is according to God until we have had it shown to us? There must be that counterpart where the Holy Spirit shows us things according to God by revelation. Not something extra to Scripture by way of revelation, but what is in the Scripture that we cannot see until the Holy Spirit opens it up - taking us around and showing us just as the angel showed Ezekiel. That is what the Holy Spirit has come for, because the temple is only a type of Christ, and it is the Spirit revealing Christ, "shall take of mine and show it unto you" - "He shall lead you into all truth." It is the revelation of things according to God's mind that brings you into the place of spiritual authority and ascendancy.

We need to ask the Lord to reveal to us what it means to be in the heavenlies. Not a place we are to come to, but a position we have come to and have not realised it - not to make us officious, but to give spiritual and moral ascendancy. The Lord makes others to take account of that. It is a strong position to be in, to be in the place of revelation of things according to God.

In this present hour the sovereignty and authority of Jesus Christ is not political on this earth - not manifest among men - "My kingdom is not of this world," but His sovereignty is a spiritual sovereignty. He is secretly governing and there is a mighty impact.

To come into the heavenlies means you are to have a spiritual and moral ascendancy. What is the way out with God? Out of difficulty, out of suffering? It is the way through. Here you are in the midst of some suffering, difficulty, adversity. You cry to the Lord to deliver you and the Lord does not do it. Then you get into all kinds of mental fogs. Why doesn't the Lord deliver you out? Because He is trying to train you to rule and your way of deliverance is by your spirit taking ascendancy over it. You say, "Lord, I take government over this thing to make it serve Your end and I refuse to be under it in spirit." When you have taken that position you have come out of it - God comes in. We want to be delivered from our troubles and the Lord wants us to take ascendancy over them in Him.

That is what Paul did. His thorn in the flesh was just as painful to him in some senses but he was on top of it - it was serving him and he was not a prey to it. That is the rule of the heavens. It works - I have proved it again and again. The trouble is that sometimes we are so silly and foolish and blindly go on. We yield to it or the enemy blinds us concerning it and then it suddenly breaks upon us that we should not be under it and say, "In His Name I take ascendancy over this thing" - we come out by the heavens.

The Lord would show us first of all that the heavens do rule and then bring us into that elevated place with Himself spiritually and governmentally, where the gates of Hell shall not prevail against us, and lead on to the great position where all authority on earth and in heaven is in His hands.

The purpose of God now is the securing of an administrative instrument and the training of that instrument to govern. People wonder why the Lord does not wipe the devil out of the universe, why He does not stop suffering and affliction, for the Word tells us that our Lord Jesus was "manifested to destroy the works of the devil." All this has been permitted in order to bring the Church individually and corporately to the place of spiritual ascendancy over trial. God intended to put us into some higher position and that is our rightful position in Christ where the heavens do rule. You are only down and out and under when your spirit is under. God would have us take ascendancy over conditions that are. Revelation is bound up with this very thing. It is wonderful how you go dragging on, hardly holding your ground and then suddenly the Lord gives you a flash - why don't you take your position in Christ?

The great fact is that sovereignty is in the heavenly position and heavenly position is secured for us now in the Lord Jesus for "we have been made to sit in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus." Sovereignty, government, ascendancy, elevation - all in our Lord Jesus and in that position we should be governors over things - spiritual governors. Not the volume of voice or the phraseology, not the clenching of the fist. It is your spirit being in a position where you can perhaps very quietly and deeply but strongly in your spirit say, "No, I refuse that in the Name of the Sovereign Lord." We weaken the forces of darkness by a quiet definite position in Christ. Not a mental thing but spiritual, because the heavens represent that which is spiritual.

I was impressed by reading the seventh chapter of Ezra which is the chapter of the mandate. The king had given Ezra a mandate and the enemies sought to frustrate the work, but he came in on the ground of his mandate and the words which the king used three times about the carrying out of the work at Jerusalem were "the God of heaven." Because of the God of heaven Ezra had his mandate and anybody who tried to prevent the accomplishment of that work was met accordingly. When you have a mandate from the God of heaven God will see that your commission is fulfilled - your enemies will not prevail against you. If you are put out of one place God will open other doors. It is a great thing to be a minister of the God of heaven. A committee, or board or synod may turn you out of every church on earth but they cannot turn you out of the Church of heaven, for the heavens do rule.

Chapter 5 - Spirituality

Reading: Rom. 8:3-6,9; 1 Cor. 2:6-15, 12:1; Eph. 6:12,13.

Continuing our meditation on the rule of the Heavens, we have in part seen two of the great symbolic meanings of the heavens - that is, universality and sovereignty or ascendancy. Now we come to a third significance of the term "the heavens," and that is spirituality. It is an exceedingly important matter. It is really basic to all else. If it is true, as we have been seeking to show, that the last word from God's standpoint in every matter is the heavenly word and the heavenly meaning and the heavenly interpretation of a thing - the Divine thought about it, not men's thought or judgment or conception or presentation, but what God means by it - if that is final, it is then clear at once that spirituality in that sense is the great governing factor - the ruling thing.

We at best, even the Lord's children, are very materialistic in our conceptions, in our judgments, in our appraisals, in the way in which we receive things and measure things. We are so tremendously governed and dominated by these soul-senses of ours, by how things effect and impress others naturally, what their reaction is to them, just how far they carry weight amongst men. So the bulk, the size, is a very great factor in the eyes of men. It is just how it impresses the world, and what others think about it. It is a part of the real work of the Cross in us to bring us to the place where it does not matter what the world thinks. It sounds easy and it sounds as though we ought to be there, and yet there are times when we are all found out in that matter. Just how it appears to men, how it affects them, how it stands before them, just whether it would carry weight with men, what we have been trained to call "success," all judged and decided and determined by this soul-life of ours. This is all materialism and all relates to the senses, and we have to come to the place where these things cease to influence us at all and where we get the heavenly viewpoint about everything - where we come to see that two or three gathered in the Name of the Lord Jesus in the Holy Spirit represent a mightier factor in this universe than a thousand or five thousand gathered together in some earthly cause.

Spirituality is a tremendously potent factor, and it is true that we are tremendously materialistic even in our spiritual lives. It sounds like a contradiction, but there is no doubt about this; and what the Lord is seeking to do with every child of His who is going on with Him is to make Him spiritual, to develop spirituality. The Lord seeks most definitely to add to the spirituality of His children. The new birth is a spiritual birth, and "that which is born of the Spirit is Spirit." You have in a truly born-again child of God two entities, not what the natural man calls the good and the bad but you have got this outer man, this old man, this man who is still the man of natural reasoning, natural feeling, natural choosing. He is still with you, but inside of him there has been brought to birth by the quickening of the Holy Spirit another man, the inner man of the heart, a new entity, and he is spiritual. That which is from God is there.

God's Focal-point of Interest

It is with that "new man" that God is concerned. All His interest is in that. What He is after is to develop, that and to bring that into a state of maturity. He knows that He can deal with the rest of the man through that. The soul and the body, while having their place in redemption which is in the Lord Jesus, God begins with the spirit, the new creation man, and works out through that to the rest of the man to bring his natural man into captivity. It is with this new man, with a new set of faculties, that God is concerned. The natural man has his faculties of reasoning and understanding and feeling, of expressing himself, of acting, of choosing, all these things are connected with this outer man. He has none of the spiritual faculties until he is born again, born from above, and the new man comes in. This new man is endowed with a whole new set of faculties which the natural man has not got. He has a faculty of understanding which is spiritual understanding. He has a new sense of value of things Divine. The Lord's attention, by the Holy Spirit, is given to the development of those faculties. The writer to the Hebrews speaks about our "child training" which the Father of our spirits brings us into and brings upon us. It is in order that we may have our senses exercised thereby to discern good and evil, but those senses are the senses of our spirits - to bring our spirits to full-grown manhood.

Having seen this, we are able to understand a good deal of the Scriptures. "We walk not after the flesh, but after the spirit." "The mind of the flesh is death, the mind of the spirit is life and peace." That is one of the great governing principles in guidance, how to know whether a thing is of God or not. If you are walking in the Spirit, you decide whether a thing is of God or not by whether you have life and peace, or whether you are without it. If the thing is not alive, and if you have a good deal of unrest about it, you leave it alone. But, if walking with God, you have peace and life about that, then you have the mind of the Spirit. It is not the reasoning of the natural man as to whether it is right or wrong. It is because the Holy Spirit is resident within your spirit giving life. It is more than an enlightened conscience it is the Holy Spirit bearing witness to the things of God.

What Spirituality Is

Spirituality is that which is signified by the heavens, and it is that which governs. The measure of spirituality is the measure of finality, certainty, definiteness and power from God's standpoint.

What do we mean by spirituality? We have met so many people who have thought that when you speak of being spiritual you mean that you are other-worldly, unreal and only imaginary: that you have become an abstraction and have lost all that is practical. It is not that. It is a very practical thing indeed. There are others who think you are only using another term for mysticism. But there is a vast difference between mysticism and spirituality. It is a dangerous thing to use the word "mysticism" and we ought to make it clear what the word "mystery" when used in the New Testament means. "Mystery" in the New Testament only means a thing which up to a certain point was covered and a secret, but which has now been brought out to light. "Mysticism" is another thing entirely. It is always trying to find some hidden, psychical reason for things, getting back behind things that appear just to give them some kind of suggestion that is not apparent. Many a saint has been called a mystic, and it has spoiled his ministry entirely. It is a different thing entirely from spirituality. It is often on the imaginary side of things. Spirituality is real. One is purely a soul thing. You can have "mystics" who can produce the most beautiful presentations of things, and they may be evil to the core of their moral characters.

Coming then to the matter of the increase of spirituality as the governing thing. You will remember that Paul said, "I could not write unto you as unto spiritual but as unto carnal, as unto babes. I fed you with milk, not with meat." And yet Paul's letter is full of the spiritual. "Now concerning spiritual gifts, brethren" (ch. 12). The significance of this is that these people were exceedingly interested in spiritual things. They were perfectly fascinated with spiritual things. The "spirituals" were the things which occupied them tremendously. Speaking with tongues, and many other things called the spirituals. Yet Paul says, "I could not write unto you as unto spiritual but as unto carnal." It is possible to have a carnal interest in spiritual things. A good many people today are interested in speaking with tongues, but carnally interested. It is something you can demonstrate. If you want spiritual things for display purposes, that is carnality. If it is because they are evidences to your senses, that is carnality. If you want just to be able to prove things in that realm, that is carnality. And so you can be interested in spiritual things, and yet be carnal. And you know what follows, how he speaks of their saying "I am of Paul, I am of Apollos... are ye not carnal, and do ye not speak as men?" The spiritual man cannot speak as man, but as God. You are commanded not to speak as men. Interest in those things is no mark of spirituality. It may be just the opposite.

The proof of spirituality is that you are able to walk with God without any demonstration at all. When He hides Himself, when you have to walk in sheer faith and you do. Like Abraham, when everything was seeming to deny God, not when all the time you are wanting something to demonstrate God. He is seeking to bring His children to the place where He can count on them to walk with Him by faith without His giving a multitude of evidences to their senses that He is there. It is infancy when we have to depend on God to give us proof. Very often in the history of God's work among the unenlightened He has done wonderful things to demonstrate His power. But, as soon as they begin to really stand on their spiritual feet, gradually those things were withdrawn and God called on them to trust Him for Himself. That is growing up and increase in spirituality.

And are we not being brought to that place in these days? Where He can wean us from signs and wonders and the satisfying of our senses? Where we will walk with Him by faith? Where He will not always be saying to our senses, "It is all right, I am here?" And you notice where the Apostle lands them at last. He says, "Now, concerning the spirituals, brethren," and went through the whole catalogue of them, and then he said that when all that was said, and when you have dealt with all that which you are so interested in, after all there is a spirituality which transcends that (ch. 13). Though I have all these spiritual gifts and be lacking in love, I am not complete. So the spirituality presented is the presentation and manifestation of the love of God according to 1 Cor. 13. When you have read that through carefully, you will see that represents spiritual growth. If only we could come up to that standard, we would be growing spiritually. Of course, love is not a substitute for spiritual gifts, but an indispensable foundation and governing principle of them.

So these Corinthians represented retarded spiritual growth, even while they were so interested in spiritual things. Thus you have to go on to see more of the meaning of spirituality, which is getting God's side of things. It is, to begin with, matter of state. "He that is spiritual." It is the condition of our life, and we never apprehend spiritual things only as we are in the spiritual state. And after a spiritual state, it is a matter of spiritual things.

The Nature and Power of Spiritual Knowledge

Take the matter of knowledge. Men say that "knowledge is power," but they mean natural knowledge. They mean intellectual knowledge. Amongst men it may be power, but there is a spiritual knowledge which is far more mighty than natural knowledge, and Paul says again that the wisdom of this world is so foolish that it crucified the Lord of Life. That is wisdom at its highest development in this world; the rulers did it, the wise people did it. "We speak a wisdom... of God." Spiritual knowledge is a tremendous thing. It is the rule of the heavens. The knowledge of the Lord Himself is the most mighty thing that has ever been given to men - true, personal, inward knowledge of the Lord.

Ultimately it is going to be spiritual understanding that counts. Men are going to to be at their wits ends, and they are fast approaching it. They do not know how to solve the problems of this world, they do not know how to cope with this world's situation. And when that day comes, when men have been utterly defeated in the matter of the wise government of this world, then it will be those who know the Lord who will be strong, who will be at rest. They will be the ones that count. And when men's hearts, fail them for fear, it will be those who know the Lord to whom they will turn.

But do you see that the whole universe is going to be governed by spiritual understanding and knowledge. If the heavens rule now, how do they rule? How do angels and archangels know the will of God and run to do His bidding? We see them co-operating with God in the government of this world. They do not know because they are told, and they do not know because they sit down and reason it out. They know intuitively. Intuition is a faculty of the spirit, not of the soul. They know the same as you would know if you had lived with a person and come to perfect understanding of that person. You would be one with them by long living with them, and you would not need to be told what to do, and it would not be necessary for you to sit down and puzzle it out. You would intuitively know what their mind about a thing was. If God is going to govern the universe through the church, it will be through the intuitive knowledge of His will. We will know what He wants done next. This is the outcome of a close spiritual walk and fellowship with the Lord.

Are we not coming under the hand of God, in His dealing with us? Are we not coming in a minor way to sense what the Lord would have done at a certain time? You know in your hearts what the Lord wants and what He does not want, and you know when the Lord wants it. It has come to you by the Spirit. It is spiritual discernment, spirituality which is spiritual knowledge. But we will get these heads of ours into things and try to bring Divine knowledge down to human understanding, and the Lord has to bewilder us and stun us and bring us to the place where we are in a fog because we try to deal with spiritual things by natural equipment. He wants us to come where He is able to bear witness in us of His will.

"The Word of God must dwell in us richly in all wisdom and spiritual understanding."

This reaches out to a large number of other things. The world thinks of force as power, the Lord thinks of love and meekness as power. It is love that has conquered; faith that overcomes. It is meekness that has brought God's great victory again and again. And God would develop those. One of the mightiest forces in this universe is holiness. The Lord will go on to add spirituality if we will go on, but His trouble with us is that we do not go on. We still walk in and cling to the flesh and try to bring over all this natural equipment of ours to do spiritual things. We have thought that our zeal and our passion and our energy and our thinking out of all this thing was counting for God. Whatever has been accomplished by that has got to stand the test of the fire yet. What abides for eternity is that which is done by the Holy Spirit, and only that. Only the Holy Spirit can do God's work, and unless the Holy Spirit is doing God's work through us, all that we are doing for God is going to be in vain.

Table of Contents

Author's Rights

Contents

Chapter 1 - The Heavens Do Rule

Chapter 2 - A Ministry from the Heavens

Chapter 3 - Universality of the Heavens

Chapter 4 - Sovereignty

Chapter 5 - Spirituality