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The Spiritual Meaning of Service

by T. Austin-Sparks

First published in "A Witness and A Testimony" magazines, 1955-56.

Contents

Chapter 1 - The Belovedness of Christ

Chapter 2 - Levitical Priesthood

Chapter 3 - Some Lessons from Zacharias

Chapter 4 - The Blue of Heaven

Chapter 5 - A Special Vocation

Chapter 6 - Features of Spirituality

Chapter 7 - Princely Service

Chapter 1 - The Belovedness of Christ

Reading: Exodus 32:1-6,15-29; Malachi 2:4-6; 3:1-3; Numbers 4:1-3; Luke 3:23.

The matter of the priestly service or ministry of the people of God, the service of God in terms of priestliness, is one which has been on my heart for a considerable time now. We will introduce the subject with a very simple consideration of what I am going to call the 'belovedness' of Christ, in this particular connection - His priestly ministry.

In the passages which we have just read, to which a great many more could be added, two things are quite clear. One, that the Lord's people are called to be a priestly people - that is their vocation; two, that in that function they are peculiarly precious to the Lord. You cannot read the many passages in the Scriptures about the Levites without being impressed by that one thing, that they are very precious to the Lord. The last reference to them in the Old Testament, which we have read, indicates that. There is a tone of very real endearment in the words of the Lord about Levi at that point. At the end of the story of the Old Testament, after all that has taken place through the years, the Lord looks right back to that day of which we read in Exodus 32, and speaks of how precious and valuable the Levites became to Him, so much so that He entered into a covenant with them, a covenant of life and peace. "My covenant was with him of life and peace".

The Priestly Ministry of Christ and the Father's Love

And you will notice the connection between the statement in Numbers 4:3, that the active Levites started their ministry at the age of thirty, and the statement that Jesus was likewise thirty years of age when He began His public ministry; indicating not only in itself, but by other features which we shall notice, that His ministry was essentially a Levitical, that is, a priestly, ministry. We all believe that, and we know how much is made of that, especially in the letter to the Hebrews. But notice that that statement in Luke 3 - "Jesus... when he began... was about thirty years of age" - follows immediately upon His baptism and the opening of the Heavens, and the Father's voice and attestation: "Thou art my beloved Son; in thee I am well pleased." There is something about the Lord Jesus, just at this point when He takes up His priestly ministry, which draws out the love of the Father for Him in these affectionate expressions. It is true that He was the Son, and therefore He was beloved of God as His Son, but I believe there was a particular connection between His beginning of a priestly ministry, and this expression of the Father's love and appreciation for the preciousness of this upon which He was entering. That is the point of our concentration just now - the 'belovedness' of the Lord Jesus, and so of the Levites, as entering into the meaning of Christ's ministry in terms of priesthood, precious to the Lord.

I suggest to you, dear friends, that the thing that you and I need, and perhaps more than anything else desire, to be assured about, is: What is there, peculiarly precious to the Lord, into which we may be brought, in which we may be found, which may be entrusted to us? What we really are seeking for all the time is: What is it that the Lord wants more than anything else? What is it that is more precious to the Lord than anything else? Can there be something in the life of God's people corresponding to this 'belovedness' of Christ? It is very important to know that. There are many things that may be of value, but they may be of comparative value. What we want to know, what we must know, is: What is that which the Lord really looks upon as most precious to Himself, which will serve Him to the greatest value? The Lord Jesus received the assurance that the Father's love, appreciation and valuation were focused upon Him, just at the point when He stepped out into His public ministry. It is a great thing to start any work or move out into any service on a basis like that, is it not? Just think of what strength there would be if we had absolute assurance that that to which we were committed was something of tremendous value to God!

As we go on in our Christian lives and in our manifold work for the Lord, we find that time is a great sifter. Trial, testing, adversity and suffering, and all the things which come to bear upon us, very often make us raise seriously the question of values. 'Is it worth it? Is it justified? Does this really matter? Is this of such importance?' From time to time we are forced to ask, 'Now, what does it all amount to, after all?', and it is then a great delivering and confirming thing to have the answer: 'This is precious - of very real value - even of supreme importance to the Lord'. It was the starting-point of the Lord Jesus in His life-work - His belovedness to the Father, not only in His Person and Sonship, but in the thing to which He was committing Himself.

It is very important to know, and it is not wrong to say, that we can be brought into that belovedness. The Levites, representing God's thought for all His people, came into that in a very real way. The Lord let it be known right through the centuries that they represented something very valuable, very precious to Himself. "My covenant was with him of life and peace".

An Open Heaven

Then you notice that when the Lord Jesus began at the Levitical age of thirty, the one thing that marked that beginning was the opened Heaven. The Heavens were opened. Now look back again at Exodus 32, and you see that that is exactly what is there. Moses, receiving the law and the testimony on Sinai in communion with the Lord, came down from the mount. The Lord had already told him what was happening down below, but Joshua did not know. Joshua was always a man of war, and any noise to him sounded like war, and when he heard the sound from the camp he interpreted it as war. His spirit rose to the occasion for fighting, but Moses said, 'No, that is not war - I know what that is', and he came down and saw, and took it all in.

Moses stood in the gate, and Israel became divided into two parties. On the one side, Heaven was closed. No doubt about it, Heaven was closed to them that day. It was doom, judgment, darkness, exclusion; they were set aside, cast out. Heaven was no longer open. On the other side of Moses were the Levites, and the open Heaven was with them. On the basis of their action, their decision, the open Heaven was their inheritance that day, and from that time onward theirs was the ministry of the open Heaven. Levitical ministry is the ministry of an open Heaven, and the opened Heaven is the sign and seal of the preciousness of that to the Lord. To be living, walking, working, in the good of a Heaven opened, is the mark of preciousness to the Lord. No judgment, no exclusion, no doom, no darkness, no wrath, but an open Heaven - the inheritance of the Levite, and the inheritance of the Lord Jesus, the greatest of the Levites.

Do you grasp the significance and importance of that? We are talking about service. Forget for the moment the terms in which we couch the message - 'Levitical' and 'priestly' sound very ecclesiastical, very formal - and just think about the service which is precious to the Lord. That kind of service means the service which corresponds to the Lord Jesus, that pre-eminently marks the Lord Jesus. It has the seal of God upon it, that this is something supremely precious to the Lord; and the seal is that you have an open Heaven. That is, the way between you and God is wide open: there is no shadow, no cloud, no interruption: the course is clear between God and yourself, and yourself and God. If it is not like that, the service will be hard going, always under a sense of Divine reservation, that the Lord is not really with you as you feel He ought to be.

The Marks of the Ministry

An open Heaven, and "My covenant... with him of life and peace". What is the mark of this kind of ministry? What is the mark of a people standing in such a position, such a relationship with the Lord under an open Heaven?

(1) Life

Well, it is always with this twofold characteristic. First of all, life is being ministered all the time. Look at the whole history of the work of the Levites. We shall perhaps say more about that later. Their whole ministry was one of maintaining life, keeping open the way of life, ministering life. But for them, death would have set in: they were the bulwarks against death. They were the channel of life from Heaven to the people of God, and I suggest again that the real test of the service that is precious to the Lord is not 'size', not many things that men think to be the marks of success, but whether there is a ministration of life: is life being ministered, is life being poured out? Is the one thing of which you are conscious in that ministry the presence of life? It is not just a matter of our understanding the terms and the phrases and the language and the teaching, but our recognition of life.

And what do we want apart from that, and what do we want more than that? Is it not that that the people of God need, after all? Oh, for life! It is life we want, we must have life - give us life! We cannot live without life! And the Levites were the ministers of life. Christ, the great Levite, was the Minister of life; and real service to the Lord is that we minister life - not that people come necessarily into a great range of truth, a vast amount of knowledge and information that is purely intellectual or mental, but that they have life ministered to them. That is the seal of the real service of God.

But when you come to think about it, that, after all, is the whole matter. It is summed up in that, and - because of the preciousness of this kind of service into which you and I are called - in the 'belovedness' of Christ. Oh, what a wonderful thing! That is something that we cannot talk about; we can only feel and sense. If it might be that the Lord should be able to look toward us with deep appreciation and say 'beloved', in recognition that there is something in our lives, in our service, in our ministry, of very, very great account to Himself, that there might be transferred to us something of the belovedness of His own Son.

(2) Peace

"And peace." Was it peace for those people who broke loose on that day? No, in the very deepest sense it was war. It was war between them and God, and between God and them. No peace with that. But the covenant of life over against their death, and of peace over against their controversy - or God's controversy with them - the covenant of life and peace was with Levi. Peace: it is a wonderful thing to be in the place where God is satisfied, and your heart is at rest. That place is in Christ.

God's Jealousy Over the Levites

Now, because of the value of that to God, see how jealous He was over the Levites. It is a long story of Divine jealousy concerning their place and ministry. God was so jealous about the Levites, as to their rightful place, and the ministry which was entrusted to them, that some of the most terrible things in the history of Israel happened when the Levites were not given their place and their portion. This book of Malachi is just full of that. Glance through this short book, and note how many times reference is made to priesthood and Levi. You will find that the whole thing really focused upon that. And what is the trouble? Oh, everything is wrong in Israel at the end. It is a wretched, miserable story: everything is breaking down, everything is wrong, there is nothing happy at all. And why? The Levites are not in their place, the Levites are not functioning, and the Lord's people are not giving the Levites their portion; and the Lord is so jealous about that, that everything else is allowed to go wrong.

But the conditions that obtained at the end had occurred repeatedly in the past. You recall the tragedy in the case of Uzzah and the ark. The Lord smote Uzzah, so that he died. Why? Because the Ark had been put upon a cart, when the Lord had prescribed that it should be carried by the Levites. The Lord is very jealous. Dear friends, it does matter, does it not, whether the Lord is jealous for us - whether the Lord is ready to stand by us, to uphold us, to be with us, to let it be known that "he that toucheth you toucheth the apple of his eye" (Zech. 2:8)? There is something in that - to have the Lord on your side, to know that God is jealous over that to which you are committed, and fiercely jealous over it, that the Lord is not going to let it be set aside, the Lord is not going to let it be overlooked. Even if, in all innocence and in all good motive and good will, as with David and his cart, the principle of the Levites is forgotten, is overlooked, the Lord does not overlook it. This is something which is pre-eminent with the Lord, God is jealous for something; and what matters is that we are in that something for which God is jealous. Oh, to have the jealousy of God on our side in the work to which we are committed!

Now, the history of the Levites is a long and varied and mixed history. They were not always in good condition; they were not always in their right place, position and function. Sometimes they were incapable of ministering simply because they were involved in the bad state of the people of God. Sometimes they themselves were out of adjustment. It is a long and painful history. But what I want you to notice is this, that even in the last recorded phase of that history - a long history in which there are many dark chapters - even in the last phase, as we see it in Malachi, God has not given them up. The last word about them is that He will "purify the sons of Levi", after all. He has not abandoned them; He has not given them over. The Lord has made a covenant, and He is standing to it.

But it is not always a matter of the people. Here it is a matter of the ministry. There is some ministry which is of this kind, which has this importance and value in the sight of God. There is a particular kind of service to the Lord to which He is peculiarly committed, and, while those who are connected with it may change, may sometimes go wrong, the Lord is jealous for this thing, and He is not giving it up, He is not casting it aside. If that had been His way, where would the ministry of the Lord be today? Think of the Dark Ages, even of Christendom. Think of all those periods in this dispensation when things have been in a deplorable state, and the Lord has seemed to have little or nothing of this kind. But the Lord has never given it up, and He never will. The last chapter of the Old Testament sees the Lord coming back to it again. He is committed to it. It is a great thing to know that there is that which is of such importance to the Lord that if we come into it, we shall find God persisting in spite of failures, of weaknesses, of imperfections, of days of darkness, of seeming eclipses. God is going on with that thing.

There are things to which God has not committed Himself. There are those things which God has left, from which He has withdrawn; but there is that concerning His Son to which He has committed Himself, which He will never give up, no matter what happens. If we ask what that is - in a phrase, it is priestly ministry. We have to learn what priestly ministry is.

The Chastening of the Sons of Levi

There is chastening connected with it. "He will purify the sons of Levi". Yes, chastening. But let us always keep a broad line between judgment and chastening. The Devil always tries to wipe out that difference, and interpret all chastening as judgment. Judgment is for rejecters of the Lord; chastening is for the accepters of the Lord. The form of the judgment may seem to be exactly alike for unsaved and saved: you cannot see any outward difference. The unsaved may suffer physical judgment for sin. The saved too may suffer physically - yet this is not judgment, but chastening. One is destructive, the other is constructive, and God's dealings with Levites are always on the constructive principle. Remember that. There may be suffering, there may be the fire purging and purifying, but it is always constructive. God is just using these ways to secure that upon which His heart is set.

Satan's Hatred of Levitical Ministry

This has been but an introductory word, but note one thing before we close: the hatred, the Satanic hatred, of this Levitical ministry. When Jesus began He was, as we have seen, about thirty years old, that is, of Levitical age, indicating that the ministry He was beginning was priestly ministry - the open Heaven attesting that this Person and this ministry were peculiarly precious to the Lord, beloved of God. What came next? The wilderness and Satan. And what was the point of assault? The very point upon which God had focused everything - the 'belovedness'. 'My Son, My Beloved'. "If thou be the Son..." He might just as well have said, 'If Thou be the Beloved' for that was the point of the thing. 'If you are beloved, if you are so precious to the Father...' "If thou be the Son..." Satan hates not only this Person, but this thing, Satan is not only against the Person, but he is against the ministry; and the one thing that he will always try to do, in order to cripple, destroy or nullify that ministry which is so precious to God, is, if we may put it this way, to becloud the belovedness.

Do you not realize how Satan is all the time trying to make you believe otherwise than that God loves you, that you are beloved of God? It is often the last thing that we can believe, is it not, that we are beloved of God? Satan is always busy from every angle to try to becloud our belovedness. If he cannot do it by direct assault, he does it by suggestion, by insinuation. Or he will do it by trying to cause us to slip up, make mistakes, go wrong, and then bringing upon us accusation, saying, 'You are no longer beloved of God'. His devices and his efforts are countless and unsearchable, with the one object, as with the Lord Jesus, so with those who are with the Lord Jesus as the sons of Aaron, as Levites, of somehow bringing a cloud, raising a question, over this preciousness to the Lord.

I use the word again because it is a good word and gets us a bit off our beaten track - the belovedness of Christ, transferred to His fellow-priests or His Levite sons, the beloved. Let Satan get in there and he has destroyed everything. If there should be one reading these lines who has lost the assurance that God loves him, you not only know the unspeakable misery of it, but, what is more, you know how you are put out of service - you know quite well that you would not attempt to serve the Lord. It is no use - you are paralysed until you know and are assured that the Lord loves you. If you have lost that assurance, you have lost your testimony, you have lost your ministry, you have lost everything, and that is the chief work of the Devil. Paul says: "he hath made us accepted in the beloved" (Eph. 1:6, A.V.). That is the belovedness of Christ transferred to those who are in Him. Do not believe the Devil. "Evil company doth corrupt good manners" (1 Cor. 15:33), and if you have a talk with the Devil, and listen to him, your whole conduct will be affected and coloured by that. The one object the Devil has in view is to raise a question, nay, to establish in you a question, as to God's love and your belovedness to God - that is, personally.

And then he is after something more - he is after your ministry. You see, on that day when the Lord Jesus stepped out to His ministry, the Devil stepped out too, and said, 'Not only will I raise a question, if I can, about His relationship with God and God's relationship with Him, but by raising that question I will destroy this ministry, if I can, right at its birth'. You and I are no use to God if we have a question about either His love for us or His love for that to which we are committed. If we have any doubt about that, we are finished. This sense of what I have called 'belovedness' is essential, not only to life, but as an assurance and rest in service. It gave encouragement to the Levites to go quietly, assuredly and restfully about their work, and so they did. Day after day, by day and by night, they went on quietly with their ministry. To go on quietly persistently, assuredly, in peace, all rests upon this - the recognition that that into which I have been called by God is of infinite value to Him, and because I am called according to His purpose, I am beloved of God.

That is a simple word with which to begin, but it is basic to everything. May I just sum it up like this? The Lord is calling us to something which is not a comparative thing, but an absolute thing: which is not just something that, well, the Lord likes and will bless, but is that upon which all His heart is set, which means more than anything else to the Lord. May our hearts reach out for that in these days, and may the Lord show us what it is.

Chapter 2 - Levitical Priesthood

"Now therefore, if ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then ye shall be mine own possession from among all peoples: for all the earth is mine: and ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, and a holy nation. These are the words which thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel" (Exodus 19:5,6, A.R.V.).

"And bring thou near unto thee Aaron thy brother, and his sons with him, from among the children of Israel, that he may minister unto me in the priest's office" (Exodus 28:1).

"Ye also, as living stones, are built up a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God through Jesus Christ... But ye are an elect race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God's own possession" (1 Peter 2:5,9).

"And he made us to be a kingdom, to be priests unto his God and Father" (Revelation 1:6).

"...and madest them to be unto our God a kingdom and priests" (Revelation 5:10).

"Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: over these the second death hath no power; but they shall be priests of God and of Christ" (Revelation 20:6).

When we come to look into the Word of God, from the beginning to the end, to discover what the service of God really is, we find that it is always set forth in terms of priesthood, or what priesthood means. We are not concerned specifically with the priests or Levites of the Old Testament as a class or system or order in themselves. They are there to set forth spiritual meanings, and we are using them - that is, we are using the Word of God - to discover the spiritual meaning of service. I say that because these words - 'priest', 'Levite', and so on - suggest a subject, and they can be very technical. There is a great deal of what is technical connected with the priests and the Levites, and I am not attempting to deal with it. There are many technicalities to which we make little or no reference - for instance, the question as to where the priests end and the Levites begin. Sometimes they are put together and are called "the priests, the Levites": at other times the priests are put in one category and the Levites in another. But such technicalities are not concerning us just now.

All God's People Called to be a Serving People

What we want to get at is this: What is the service of God, and what are the principles and laws of that service? And so we approach this matter by way of looking inside the framework to secure the spiritual meaning. So, taking up this matter of the Levites, we begin with the fact that they represent or set forth the service of God. They set it forth in this way, that the Lord's people as a whole are called to be a serving people. This is quite clear from the passages which we have read, right through the Old Testament and right through the New Testament to the end. There is a very trite and hackneyed phrase, which has lost its edge by familiarity and constant use - 'We are saved to serve' - but that does mean what it says! It may perhaps seem unnecessary, and yet perhaps it may have a reviving or refreshing value, if I emphasize this point at the outset - that it is made abundantly clear by the whole Word of God, in both Testaments, right on to the end of the Bible, that the Lord's Church is called pre-eminently to be a serving Church.

But of course, this can only be true of the whole as it is true of all its parts - which just means that there is no such thing, in the thought and purpose of God, as an inactive, unserving member of the Church. If ever the Levites were not functioning, everything was wrong, and that means that, if you and I claim to be in the Church of God, we are, according to the very thought of God about His Church, supposed to be serving Levites. You will not take that name on yourself, I am quite sure. You will not go out into the world and tell people you are a Levite. You might perhaps tell them you were a missionary, or something like that. But it means that you are supposed to be a Levite, and if you look at the Levites and their history, you will see what God means you should be.

In the full unveiling and revelation of this truth, it comes out at last that priests and Levites were not, in the thought of God, a separate, detached, isolated body of people, but the whole nation, in the thought of God, was meant to be what they were. We will return to that presently, but just begin with this: that the nation - which is the Church, which is God's own possession - is, in God's thought, meant to be in active, Levitical service, in all that that means. We begin very low when we begin there. But let us begin right at the beginning, and challenge our hearts, and say, 'Now then, what does my Levitical priesthood, my Levitical service, amount to?' You ask your heart that before the Lord. What does it amount to? That is a very, very important question. We will not stay with it, but we begin with it.

The Levites, and their priesthood, bring right into view the fact that God's primary thought for a redeemed people is service. The service may be many-sided and varied, as we shall see, but service is the characteristic of the people of God, if His own thought for them is realized.

Bringing God and Man Together in One

But what is this service? When you ask, 'Now, what did the priests and Levites set forth as to the matter of service?', you have to say: It was nothing less than the bringing of God and man together in one. There had come about a rift between God and man. We know about that, we know where it took place, we know just what happened; but there it is. God and man are apart, there is a big gap between. And it is not only a gap, not merely distance, but there is a condition of positive conflict - conflict of natures, conflict of interests, conflict of realms - in short, enmity. Enmity is that which makes a distance. It is called 'alienation' (Eph. 2:12). God and man are at variance in their natures. And the whole service of the people of God, as set forth in the Levites and the priests, was to stand in the gap and put the hand of man into the hand of God, and the hand of God into the hand of man; to come between and to bring about union - of course, in virtue of sacrifice, in virtue of shed blood, but that is another aspect.

The service was thus to represent, to set forth, the fact that God does not accept this state of division. God never intended it, He does not accept it, and He has provided against it; and here are those who know in themselves, in their own history, in their own experience, what it means to have peace with God, to be united with God in life (as we were saying in our last study); to be there themselves, and so to set forth God's mind in this matter of union in a practical way.

That is service - not to talk about the doctrine of atonement and redemption and reconciliation, but to be that. The Church can have all the fundamental doctrines of atonement, and so on, and still not be a unifying factor itself, still be divided, still maintain divisions. The important thing about service is to unify, not to talk about it; to set forth the ground of oneness, and to live on that ground. We shall probably have more to say about that at another point.

Preserving the Ground of God's Presence with Man

And then, as consequent upon that, the further object of service was to set forth and preserve the ground of God's presence with man. The whole issue of the Bible is just that - God's presence. The last thing in the Bible is the declaration: "The tabernacle of God is with men, and he shall dwell with them, and they shall be his peoples" (Rev. 21:3). That is the end finally reached. It was always God's desire from the beginning to dwell with man, to be present. So the real service of God is to set that forth actually. If the Church were fulfilling its priestly ministry, wherever men and women came into it they would meet God. They would say: 'God is here. These people are not only concerned with correct doctrine and teaching and with proper practice and form. You meet God when you meet them.' We are failing of our service to God unless, as the effect of our being here, God is found in the midst of us - unless God is found in us first of all individually, and then, when a few individuals are together, He is all the more found.

That is the importance of relatedness in Christian life and fellowship, and that is the thing that Satan hates and is against - the gathering and abiding together, in life, in fellowship, in the Spirit, of the Lord's people. It is something very great. "Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I..." (Matt. 18:20). The real ministry, so to speak, is to provide a ground for God, and to bring God in so that He is found there.

May the Lord save us as a people from ever being an empty shell! The Lord save us unto this - that men know where to find God: if they want to find God, they know where to find Him. That is so very largely not true. Many go round, searching for God, wanting God. They try this place and they try that place - and go away disappointed. 'No, He is not there. The form may be all right, and much may be quite good, but I have not met God.' Do let us always, wherever we are, hold strongly to that, that when we come together, people are to find God amongst us. We are bent upon that - the presencing of God. This is a principle so clearly set forth in the early books of the Old Testament - of course in the first place in relation to Israel - the presencing of God.

Service in Relation to the Testimony of God

In the third place, the service of the priests and the Levites was in relation to the Testimony of God. The central object of their service, their work, their ministry, was the Ark of the Testimony. That was at the heart of everything; they gathered round that ultimately. It was the final thing, the ultimate thing. They were gathered round that, and they ministered in relation to that. The Ark was entrusted to them on their journeyings. There is much of detail - and very, very important detail - connected therewith, but we state again the simple truth, the simple inclusive fact, that their service was related to the testimony of God: and the testimony of God is the testimony of Jesus, just as that Ark was in type and figure the Lord Jesus in His inclusive, essential, mediatorial Person. It is the Lord Jesus, it is the testimony of Jesus.

And what a testimony that Ark bore! Let that Ark come up against anything, and see what happens. Let it come up against the Philistines or the Philistines come up against it, and see what happens. Let Uzzah put forth his hand and touch that Ark, and see what happens. The testimony of Jesus is not something in word alone. It is not a theory, it is not a type, it is not a figure. It is an impact, and the service of the Lord is to register the impact of Jesus Christ. We fail altogether, if, with all that we may do and say, that impact is missing. Oh, let us pray for a recovery of the impact of Christ, that by our presence there may be a registration of Him.

The Lord Jesus, when He was here in Person on the earth, could be nowhere without registering His presence. Demons cried out at once before He had said anything. All the evil forces were stirred. Men governed by those evil forces could not keep silent: they found that they had to do something about Him - anything to get rid of Him, to quench Him. On the other hand, people in need sensed that their need would be met in Him. He just could not be present and be hid.

Service, then, means bringing Christ in as a registration upon situations. That is what the Church is here for, and what you and I are here for: we are here in relation to "the testimony of Jesus". When John used that phrase, as he did so often, especially in the book of the Revelation - he said he was in Patmos "for the Word of God and the testimony of Jesus" - he simply meant that he had been sent there because he stood for the testimony of Jesus. It would be far better to be sent to Patmos than to be ignored. If men can be indifferent, if they can just leave us alone, and not send us either to Patmos or to 'Coventry', there is something wrong with us. If we are really doing the work of God in a priestly way, something has got to happen, even if it is cruel opposition.

A Representation of God's Full Thought

A further thing about this service so far as the Levites were concerned was that they embodied and set forth in representation God's full thought concerning all His people. Let me remind you of the events in Exodus 32, which we were speaking of in our first study in this series. There we see a crisis, a crisis through and by which the Levites came into their place. What had happened was that God had said beforehand (Exod. 19:5,6) that Israel should be to Him a kingdom of priests. That was the Divine thought. And then He followed by saying: 'Bring near Aaron and his sons' (Exod. 28:1) - the Divine thought taking shape. And then Moses goes into the mount, and is with God forty days and forty nights. Toward the end of that time the people weary of his absence, and there then follow the events of which we read in chapter 32.

The people call Aaron and ask him to make them gods that should go before them - 'for what has happened to this Moses who brought us out of Egypt, we know not.' And Aaron gives way, weakly, very weakly, and has to cover it up with a lie. If you compromise, you will always have to add a lie presently. And he makes them a calf of gold. (You notice the lie. It says definitely that he worked it: he wrought it with a chisel (vs. 4). When he described what happened to Moses, he said he threw the gold into the fire and, as though by magic, a calf came out (vs. 24). You always have to resort to magic, if you get yourself into a tight corner by prevarication and lies and so on. That is by the way.)

Moses came down, heard as he came down, saw, was very wroth, and challenged Aaron, as to why - why - why he should have let the people in for this sin, with its inevitable judgment. And then Moses went and stood in the gate, and threw out an uncompromising challenge. (Notice the form of his challenge: 'Whoso is on Jehovah's side, to me!' (vs. 26). So there is another side that is not Jehovah's. That is very discriminating at this point. Whose side is this? Well, that touches very, very vitally upon the whole matter of service. However, let us go on.) At that point the sons of Levi went over to Moses in the gate. Moses said: 'Put every man his sword on his side, and go throughout the whole camp, and slay every man his brother, his friend, his neighbour'. And the Levites did so, and they did it thoroughly, and at that point the tribe of Levi was set apart for this ministry.

Now, God's thought was that all the people should be like that. He had said so (Exod. 19:5,6). But the people as a whole failed - failed God and failed of their calling, their vocation - and so God raised up, so to speak, this 'Israel within an Israel', and thus the tribe of Levi became the embodiment or representation of God's full thought for all His people.

Representation: that is what is true of them in more senses than one. You know that it was the firstborn in all the houses, the homes, the families of Israel, who were the priests. Now the tribe of Levi takes the place of the firstborn in all Israel. The half shekel of silver (Exod. 30:13) becomes the symbol that they have taken the place of the firstborn. So they become in representation 'the Church of the firstborn ones' (Heb. 12:23). The very number of the tribe is also significant in this matter. It means representation, if you look at it. We will not dwell upon that, or go further with it; it is one of those details, but it is significant. The point is that it was when the nation as a whole failed that the Levites were taken, to become those who set forth - by embodying in themselves - God's full thought for His people, that they should be serving priests.

Now, this is a very delicate point, but we have to face facts: and the fact is this - that the whole of the Lord's people, although redeemed, although His by redemption and by atoning Blood, are not fulfilling this priesthood. The people of God as a whole are not living up to their calling, are not fulfilling their heavenly vocation. That was true in Paul's time. The ministry of Paul was so largely - we might say mainly - to get Christians to live up to their calling. His prayers for believers were that they might apprehend their calling, 'the hope of His calling'. So the fact has been, from so soon after the beginning, that, as a whole, the Lord's people do not express His full thought.

But God reacts to that failure, and sets to work to get those who will. The peril has always been, and it is a peril into which many have fallen, to say, 'Well, things are as they are, everything has broken down, it is a state of failure: we had better make the best of a bad job, accept the situation, and do the best we can.' God has never so compromised, and He never will. He did not just patch up that situation at Sinai. He definitely and concretely reacted to it in the Levites. Now, do not interpret that necessarily as a separate body of people. That is our peril - to think that here are the general people of God, and here is another class of people who are on a pedestal, very much better than the general. Beware of that. But, while we say that with great emphasis, we also say, with equal emphasis, that God's heart is set upon finding amongst His people those who do answer to His full thought.

So that the Levites represented what God meant, and not what God found later on, or what came about in a general way; and that is service to God. And it is a very costly form of service. While God really seeks to have 'all men saved and come to a knowledge of the truth', His heart is really set upon a people who satisfy Him as to the fullest thought that He has ever expressed, and that is priestly service: representation, in the midst of failure, in the midst of departure, in the midst of weakness, in the midst of tragedy, of that which satisfies God. Take that to heart. That is service - service on the highest plane, service in the fullest realm. Service, in the most essential sense, is not to be doing a lot of things for God, but to be sure of what God wants most, and then bend everything to that.

The Levites Related to the Whole Matter of Life

Then, further, the Levites in their service were related to the whole matter of life. We touched on this a little in our previous study. The great characteristic of the Levitical service was that everything should be living. 'Livingness' was the great feature. They were really up against death. Death, the great nullifier - spiritual death - had entered by sin, and they were up against it; and their ministry was, on the one hand, to nullify the power of death, and, on the other, to make everything live, to see that everything lived. Everything was to be living. I do want you to grasp this. It is so important that 'livingness' characterize the Church in every part of its life and activity.

We have the Lord's table. It was there in symbol in the Tabernacle. Is this a form, is this a rite, is this the 'Lord's Supper', is this the 'Communion Service'? What is it? It is supposed to be, meant to be, a ministration of life, a testimony of life. If you and I come to the Lord's table and that does not mean to us 'livingness', if there is not something about this that is living, well, it has missed its meaning. We are a people of the table. The table is supposed to be a living thing: so much so that in Corinth, because of a touching of that table in an unworthy manner, the people met something. Many were sick and some died (1 Cor. 11:30). This thing is living. It is as though the Lord would say: 'You cannot just come to this, touch this, without it meaning something, and without your meeting something.' It should be like that.

Oh, may God hallow the table! God make the table to live! Lord, make the table a challenge! Lord, make people afraid of that table, if they are not going to adjust to its meaning! Yes, it would not be a bad thing if there were such an effect, such an impact about this, that, if there were carelessness or wrongness of approach and wrongness of state in coming to it, it led to actual suffering or affliction. But that is the dark and cloudy side, the shadowed side. On the other side, it should be living. Theirs it was to keep things living.

And everything else must be like that in the house, in the tabernacle. Is it the altar of incense - is it the prayer life? We need a word on this, friends. There should be something tremendously living about our prayer life, and our prayer life together as the Lord's people. We do not just come and say prayers and offer requests - no, no, no, it is a question of life, of effect, of 'livingness'. Is it the lampstand of truth, of revelation, of illumination? Is it the revelation of Jesus Christ? Oh, there is a great deal of difference in teaching. We may have good addresses, very good teaching, all very true, absolutely true; and yet - and yet - what have we got afterward? What do we take away? Do we go away more living than we came? Have we met life that has challenged us, exposed us, illuminated us, elevated us? This is the service of God. Oh, to have companies of people, the characteristic of whom is livingness: livingness in prayer, livingness in fellowship, livingness in teaching - all living!

That is power. The Levites did minister in the power of this life. It is something tremendous. Let anybody come in, interfere with this, take this on, and see what they meet. There was power present in their service.

The Continuity of Life

And then a further thing about the life was its continuity. God made a covenant, as we read in Malachi, with Levi, a covenant of life and peace; and although Levi deviated often, seemed as it were to go underground, and was often in a state most reprehensible, yet the Lord goes on, and in the end Levi survives. Although the old typical system passes with the old dispensation, there is more life in the New Testament than there was then. The Lord Jesus, as the great Levite, as we saw in our previous study, commenced His Levitical ministry at the age of thirty, just as the Levites did - and oh, the life of this Levite! Was Paul a Levite? Surely he was, and many another.

But note, this life of the covenant goes on. What is the principle of continuity? What is the principle of succession? It is not that someone has a position or an office, and when he dies someone else has to take his place, go into his office and position, and so on, in a kind of formal, ecclesiastical, 'apostolic succession' principle? Not that at all. The principle of succession in the Word of God is Divine life. As soon as Divine life departs, you had better shut down the whole thing. Any church or system that has not the life has lost the very reason for its existence. The principle of continuity is life. The Lord save us from losing the tremendous factor of life and becoming resolved into a mere 'thing' with a teaching and form.

And when we have said that, we need only say further that life - this livingness, this power, this continuity, which are the elements of this life - is incorruptible. That means that it is a life of absolute purity and holiness. As soon as corruption is allowed to come in, the life is suspended. The Lord will not let His life go on where there is corruption. Holiness is essential to life. Allow sin to persist and you find the life is suspended. The Lord will not go on with us.

So the inclusive characteristic of the Levites, as the Lord's servants, was life.

Spiritual Warfare

I mention just one other thing: the matter of spiritual warfare. I wonder if you have taken note of this? Going back to the passage in the book of Numbers, 4:3 "...from thirty years old and upward even until fifty years old, all that enter upon the service, to do the work in the tent of meeting" - you notice that the margin tells us that "the service" is literally "the warfare", "to do the work in the tent of meeting". "The warfare... in the tent!'

Now, that indicates a difference of kinds and realms of warfare. Others in Israel were called for the warfare of the nations. They could start at the age of twenty. They were more numerous: every young man, as soon as he reached the age of twenty, was eligible for the army. The Levites started ten years later at the age of thirty, but it says that they entered the warfare for work in the tent of meeting. This is a different kind, a different realm of warfare. It is not conflict with the world. They had to meet the world and the nations: Joshua became their commander-in-chief in that realm; but here is another kind. It is an inner kind of warfare. I am not going to make a lot of it, except to point out this: that, when any of us begin on this basis to serve God in relation to His full thought for His people, we meet a peculiar kind of opposition. It is an internal kind. Such ministry has to be fulfilled amidst strange opposition, an opposition that is directed against the Christ dwelling within.

Many of you know that that is true. We put it in many different ways from time to time. When you become a Christian, you know that you are precipitated into conflict with the world: you are up against it, and the world is up against you, and you become a soldier of Jesus Christ in that realm. But when you become one who is going to serve God in relation to all His intention concerning His Church, you meet something other - and, mark you, you will meet it amongst the Lord's people themselves.

There was a time when there was a movement to oust the Levites from their particular position by people in Israel who wanted to usurp that position. They were jealous of them, they criticized them, and took steps to nullify them. God met that movement in His own jealousy for this very thing. He must have His full thought represented. He was very jealous about it. But the point is this, that there is a strange, unexpected kind of warfare related to the full purpose of God. It is spiritual. It is not carnal warfare at all. It is not with the world. Give it terms from Scripture if you like, but the fact is that you find yourself having to fulfil your ministry in the midst of opposition which comes from very much nearer than the world.

Spiritual warfare: oh, yes, it is so wonderful to glimpse the great eternal purpose of God, the "unsearchable riches of Christ", the "exceeding greatness of his power" - these superlatives, all true. Yes, but do not forget that while half of the letter to the Ephesians is occupied with the superlatives of Divine purpose and calling and blessing, the other half contains superlatives in relation to conflict. You get conflict of a fuller, higher and more terrible nature in the 'Ephesian' realm, if I may put it like that, than you do anywhere else, because that brings into view God's ultimate purpose for His people.

The Spirituality of the Levites

Well, this is the meaning of service, the cost and nature of service. It is tremendously real to God. So we gather it all up into one word. Here is particular and peculiar responsibility. Look again at the Levites - not as a class; dismiss that from your thoughts - and see their spiritual meaning. I would like, in closing, to dwell briefly upon some things which seem essential to complete and round off this presentation, such as the spirituality of the Levites. Spiritual men is what they represent. Now it is not possible - I say this with hesitation and with regret, but it is true - it is not possible to say that all the Lord's servants are spiritual people, really spiritual people. Many may be very devout, very much in earnest, but as persons they are not all spiritual persons.

Look at it like this. When these Levites came into being, as in that thirty-second chapter of Exodus, on what ground did they come into being as functioning Levites? Well, the whole nation, because Moses remained in the mount so long, had lost patience. Why did they lose patience? Because they wanted things seen, and they could not endure things not seen. The principle of the life of Moses was that he "endured, as seeing him who is invisible" (Heb. 11:27). That was something they could not do. They must see; things must be tangible, must be present, must be within the realm of the senses. Religious things - yes; things of God - yes; Moses - yes; but it must be within the compass of our senses, that we can see and handle and have evidence before our very eyes.

Now spirituality is just the opposite of that. It is going on with God in faith. Jesus is in Heaven. "Though now ye see him not", says Peter, "yet..." (1 Pet. 1:8). We are going on. Peter's line of things is different from Paul's, as we know. Peter's line of things is 'pilgrims and strangers here'. Peter consistently says: 'though now we see him not'; 'we are pilgrims and strangers.' 'Our greater Moses is in Heaven, but we are going on our pilgrimage'. Paul's line of things is 'seated in the heavenlies in Christ'. Both sides are right. But the Israelites could not go on until they could see. They must have a god that they see. So - 'make us gods to go before us'.

But alas! they do not see what they are doing, what they are letting in. What was all the gold for that they had brought out of Egypt? It was for the Tabernacle and the service of God. It was the gold of the sanctuary. Satan found advantage by their carnality, and stole the gold of the sanctuary, and turned it to his own worship in the place of the worship of God. Spirituality sees through. These Levites were spiritual men. They saw through this. Spirituality sees something more, sees the ultimate significance of things. Oh, for men with spiritual discernment - men who can see through and get hold of the ultimate significance, who can see where this is leading, how this will work out, where this comes from, what this means, what is really the nature of this thing. Carnality and spirituality, you see, are two different things amongst the people of God, and the Levites were spiritual men, the embodiment of spiritual perception.

Again, work out this principle of spirituality. What was required of them? "Gird every man his sword upon his thigh" - 'and slay every man his enemy'? 'Get even with that man with whom you have had a grudge for so long'? No - 'slay every man his brother and his friend and his neighbour'. Brother, blood-kin; friend, neighbour; heart-relationship. This is a test of spirituality. You need not make it literal, unless you like. Sometimes it comes down to that, if we are putting father, mother, sister, brother, children in the place of the Lord; sometimes it works down to that very literally. But spirituality means that nothing that is of our natural life is allowed to influence us when Divine principle is at stake, however dear, however costly, whatever it involves. Friends and dear ones must not stand in the way of God's full purpose. If they have come across the purpose of God, or if they threaten it, I am sorry, but I must take the sword: and as I take the sword to them, I take it to my own heart. But: "Whosoever shall seek to gain his life shall lose it: but whosoever shall lose his life shall preserve it" (Luke 17:33). You know that that word 'life' also means 'soul'. The sword to our own souls - that is spirituality. It is very searching.

Well, all this, as I was saying, amounts to taking responsibility for the Lord's highest interests. It is costly, as the Levites knew. It was by sacrifice, it was by blood, it was by tears. Yes, it was costly; but therein lay the preciousness to the Lord. He is jealous for that which answers to His own heart most fully. The Lord give us grace to be true servants - true 'Levites'.

Chapter 3 - Some Lessons from Zacharias

Reading: Luke 1:5-25,57-67.

The Lord is ever desirous of making His people know His real purpose in fulness concerning them. We need to come to a very settled position on this matter. It is not a question of how the Lord's people may be at any given time. It may be that, as we have read here concerning Zacharias and his wife, and the people gathered there at that time, conditions are fairly good. We might think that this is quite a beautiful picture, that is just how things ought to be. There is the servant of the Lord correctly and faithfully fulfilling his ministry. There is the temple order being carried on correctly; there are people gathered in the court, apparently in a great company, giving themselves to prayer. There is a spirit of devotion, and other characteristics, which present a picture which might be thought to be perfectly satisfactory.

But it is not a matter of whether at any given time things are apparently quite good, answering to much that the Lord has shown to be His mind, or whether things are maybe not so good, or even bad, as has been the case at times with the people of God. The point is always: Is this, after all, what God really has as His end concerning His people? It may be very good, and yet it may after all be only comparative - for that is the upshot of this very incident. It was good, yes, but it was not all that God wanted. God had something more than that in view, however good it might be. The thing that governs all the way along is the full thought of God from the beginning, and until you and I have settled that, we have not settled many things. What we need to ask is: What more is there that is yet required by the Lord for completeness, for fulness?

And so our object must be, not to seek the comparatively good, not some more, some extra, some further light and truth, but to be with the Lord for His ultimate, His full, His final, His complete intention. The peril is to look upon what is very good and has the blessing of the Lord upon it, and settle down, and say, 'Well, why want any more than that, why not be content, why not just get on with that? Why not leave aside all the other questions, those disturbing questions, very disturbing questions, and just get on with what is so obviously quite good in the blessing of the Lord?' No, the Lord shows by His Word, Old Testament and New Testament, that there is still something ahead, still something more, and it has never been the Lord's way to let His people settle down with anything less. That is what is brought to us so clearly here.

God's New Thing

Let us look at this story again. The traditional order is being followed out meticulously. The priest is doing his work, the people are gathered to prayer, the temple routine is being pursued, the service of God is going on. And then, right in the midst of that, God breaks in from Heaven, and He makes it clear that He is purposing to take a further step forward in relation to the promised Messiah. God is here seen to be taking another step, and a very big step this time, in relation to His Son Jesus Christ. This story can be gathered very largely into those words of the seventeenth verse - "to make ready a people prepared for the Lord". But all this - the temple, the services, the priesthood, the people - was not this a state of preparedness for the Lord? The story says, 'No - only comparatively.' Something more and something else is required. John the Baptist must come in. Another very definite step by God is about to be taken.

Now God has always appointed to move toward His end along the line of priesthood, and all that that means, and so, in taking this further step, God moves in the direction of His appointed way, and, consistently with this, He makes His mind and His intention known. He lets the priesthood know, quite definitely, quite clearly, quite precisely, what His thoughts and His intentions are.

And He is immediately confronted with an obstruction. Right in that very place He finds His difficulty. Just where He ought to have a clear way, He finds the way is blocked. In the very midst of that which bears His Name, which stands in the long tradition of Divine things, He meets His main difficulty. A difficulty arises instantly with Zacharias - in the very priesthood, in the very house of God, and in the order of things which obtains - and it is almost an affront to Him.

No Natural Ground of Confidence

Now, what were the features of this obstacle, this rebuff to the Lord? For it was nothing less than a rebuff that the Lord met here. If we could really catch the tone of Zacharias, I am sure we should discern something that was a challenge to the Lord, a question. What were the features of it?

First of all, this thing that God is making known, this thing that God purposes to do, has no natural ground whatsoever upon which to rest confidence. That is very searching. The whole matter of confidence arises. The first question raised is: 'Can we be sure? What about the reliability of this thing?' People begin at once to look round for the ground of confidence, and if they do not find it according to their established ideas, then this thing is doubtful, it is open to question. This is not in the recognized and established way.

That is what arises with Zacharias and Elisabeth. The recognized, the established way, is the way of nature. But the way of nature has no place here at all. It is quite in another realm. Elisabeth's childlessness, and their advanced age - it all puts aside any kind of hope, any ground of confidence, so far as the natural is concerned. And therefore, it not being according to what has always been, and what is always regarded as the right way, the regular way, the natural order - therefore it is a doubtful proposition, and even God has that doubt presented to Him. 'This is not according to tradition, this is not according to what we have always been led and taught to believe to be God's way of doing things. This is so out of the usual!' Is that an argument with God? Let us pursue it.

'This is far too spiritual, this is far too otherworldly, this is far too much for the earth! This makes demands for factors altogether beyond our comprehension!' Is that an argument to present to God? When God is going to do a new thing, has He to confine it to human understanding, even to the understanding of religious tradition at its best? Has He ever done it? Must God reduce His infinite purposes concerning His Son to the comprehension of man's mind? Must He? Then it will become the measure of man and not the measure of God. But man finds this a point of great offence. It stumbled Zacharias and it stumbles the Lord's people. There is something in this that is altogether beyond us, something about this that we cannot grasp, we cannot understand. It is off the beaten track. It is not what we are used to, it is not what we have been accustomed to - so much argument. And because of that, because this thing is beyond us, beyond our comprehension and understanding, therefore it is doubtful, it is questionable.

Let us put this on the positive side. We have got to accommodate ourselves to the fact that the greatest things that God will ever do will always be beyond us, beyond our power of understanding, beyond our attainment in knowledge - even in the things of God. God is always going to take us out of our depth with His new thing. He is always going to prove that we in our own resources cannot follow Him, this is too much for us. God is making demands for which we can make no supply. He has got us completely out of our realm. That is God's way. That was the trouble with Zacharias, and so he presented God with this objection, this question. It was the fixed position of the traditional order of things that caused the difficulty with Zacharias.

The Obstacle of Pride

And that fixed position had a very unfortunate effect. Think of the superiority and pride of Zacharias. He is in the presence of an archangel from Heaven - "I am Gabriel, that stand in the presence of God" - who has come down right alongside of Zacharias, and made an announcement concerning the will of God, and Zacharias has the effrontery to call him into question, simply because his position is so fixed. 'It has always been like this - this is the understood way of things. This other is so much outside the realm of our understanding, and therefore....' What pride can be ours, when we think we have it all and know it all, and have our position so fixed that even God Almighty does not stand a chance, because we have boxed the compass of spiritual truth. We have got the whole thing so set, so fixed, that the archangel Gabriel cannot move us.

Is that not terrible? Here is the priesthood arguing with an archangel! But that is spiritual pride. It was for that that judgment fell upon Zacharias. It always does fall upon spiritual pride. God cannot tolerate spiritual superiority, this terrible lack of adjustableness and submission, such as was shown in Zacharias - in a member of the very priesthood. If only we were broken, if only we were pliable, if only we were open enough for the Lord to do what He wants to do, whether we understand it or not, whether it comes within the compass of what has been in the past or not, or what is new or not, and say, 'Lord, this is beyond me - but, Lord, if You want to do it, I am with You for it', what things God could do, and how much more swiftly He could do them.

Testimony Suspended Until Adjustment Made

In the incident before us, God went on, but the priest's ministry became merely formal, inarticulate and tentative, until the lesson was learnt. I said 'formal' - he finished his course and went home. It seems to say to me that Zacharias was only wanting to get this job done to go home. He had to stay it out, he had to go on with the routine of the thing; but it had become a mere performance, and he was longing for the day when he could just leave it and go home. "When the days of his ministration were fulfilled, he departed unto his house." The whole thing had become empty form, it had become inarticulate, dumb.

The point is this, that the real testimony was suspended until adjustment was made to the situation - until there was a recognition of the Divine, the heavenly, the spiritual, the supernatural, that which was outside of man's power of comprehension and execution. For, after all, the argument seems to have been, 'If we cannot do it, then it will never be done.' And that is very much the attitude of systematized religion. If it cannot do it itself in its own way, then the thing never can be done. And so the testimony is in suspense.

The Obstacle of Convention

Now, when God moves from Heaven in relation to His Son and all those fulnesses which yet lie ahead concerning Him, what do we find? We find that His movements are not according to convention. Let that be settled. God does not move forward according to convention. God's great movements are always very unconventional movements. God refuses to be put into a box. He demands liberty to take us beyond any limits that we may impose upon Him. So often convention is God's main obstruction. The spiritual, the heavenly nature of God's developing movements is altogether beyond the understanding of men; and because man cannot understand it, he does not believe in it. He doubts it, he questions it, he throws suspicions upon it, he raises issues as to its soundness, if he cannot understand it, and therefore it is not acceptable to man, it is put aside.

God's Act a Complete Break With the Natural

But note: the instrument to be used - in this case John the Baptist - is God's act, and wholly God's act, not man's. That is the issue of this thing. If God is going to do something peculiarly related to the final fulness of His Son, it will be His act, uniquely God's act. John the Baptist was God's act, not the act of Zacharias or Elisabeth, nor of them jointly, nor of any other means or instrumentality. "A man, sent from God, whose name was John" (John 1:6). 'He shall be filled with the Holy Spirit from his birth.'

And John, being God's act, represents a complete break with the natural. That is seen in his very name. The name (the Old Testament Johanan) means 'God's gift', or 'God's favour'. When he was born, all the people of tradition said, 'Of course, his name is Zacharias: that carries on the old tradition, that secures the future in relation to the past.' But Elisabeth, the principle of spiritual discernment, said, 'No, not at all. His name is to be John.' And when they asked Zacharias about it, he said, "His name is John!" 'We are not going to call him John - he is already called John.' It meant a complete break with tradition not to take his father's name. When God moves and raises up an instrument, so often it is a complete break with what men expect and demand.

Finally, if you do not accept it, if you do not believe it, if you do not come on to God's ground, that is an end of your testimony - you will be dumb. You may go on with your work, you may continue in the old system, but your days are numbered. You may uphold the old tradition, but in the true sense of testimony, you are dumb, you have not got a living message. The simple principle is of very wide application. If you do not believe God, then you have lost your testimony, and you will not have a testimony, and if you are dumb it is because somewhere or other you have doubted God, argued with God, answered back to God, tried to reason with God. A real living testimony comes of faith. As soon as we begin to allow questions as to God's ways and purposes, methods and means, we shall lose our testimony, we shall become silent, our ministry will go.

But that, as I say, is a very wide and far application. We must be in line with God in His full purpose, though we may not understand, it may be altogether beyond us and our resources. We may see in nature no hope or prospect at all: yet, knowing that God means this, we believe God, and our mouths are opened and the ministry is given. May the Lord teach us what this means.

Chapter 4 - The Blue of Heaven

I would ask you to turn to God's picture book, the Old Testament, in two places: "And thou shalt make the robe of the ephod all of blue" (Exodus 28:31).

"Speak unto the children of Israel, and bid them that they make them fringes in the borders of their garments throughout their generations, and that they put upon the fringe of each border a cord of blue" (Numbers 15:38).

Now let us turn over to that part of the Word of which those passages are the illustrations.

"Having then a great high priest, who hath passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we have not a high priest that cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but one that hath been in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin" (Hebrews 4:14,15).

"...else must he often have suffered since the foundation of the world: but now once at the end of the ages hath he been manifested to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself" (Hebrews 9:26).

I referred to the Old Testament as 'God's picture book', for indeed it is full of pictures, illustrations, representations of all kinds, of Divine, spiritual, heavenly realities. The illustrations pass, but that which they illustrate remains. God took hold of the picturesque Oriental mind, that kind of mentality which just must have pictures and illustrations and figures of speech, and turned it to very great account in setting forth the eternal realities which are the interpretation of them. So we have in the Old Testament a great number of things - names, people, places, colours, and so on - all used to illustrate some Divine, eternal truth; and, in the midst of that galaxy of symbolism, we find this one, in its two aspects. "And thou shalt make... the ephod all of blue" (the ephod was the high priest's main garment); and then: 'Speak to the children of Israel, that throughout their generations they make them fringes upon their garments, and a cord of blue.'

So that here you have a reflection, in every individual comprising the people of God, of what was true of the high priest's main garment. You look at his robe, the robe of the ephod, as it is called, and you see that it is of blue throughout, and you look at every man, woman and child of the people of God, and you find they all have as it were a bit of the priest's robe somewhere on their garment. It all corresponds.

Blue a Symbol of Heaven

Now, blue has quite a large place in the Old Testament. Blue is a symbol of that which belongs to Heaven. There are two or three places where that is made quite clear. For instance, in Exodus 24, we read that Moses and Aaron and seventy of the elders of Israel went up into the mountain where God was, "and they saw the God of Israel; and there was under his feet as it were a paved work of sapphire stone" (vs. 10). Sapphire, of course, is blue. And then we come to the prophecies of Ezekiel. In the very first chapter, the same thing is said again. The prophet had a vision of the throne in Heaven, "as the appearance of a sapphire stone" (vs. 26). We find the sapphire mentioned again right at the end of the New Testament, in the twenty-first chapter of the Revelation. Blue, then, sets forth what is of Heaven, what is heavenly. So that this high priest, with his robe all of blue, is meant, in the thought of God, to point to that One of whom we read later - Jesus Christ, who is our "great high priest, who has passed through the heavens" (Heb. 4:14) - our heavenly High Priest, who is in Heaven.

And He has entered there on the ground, and only on the ground, that He has made a complete and full atonement. The high priest in the Old Testament could never go into the Most Holy Place except on the Day of Atonement with the precious blood of atonement, and that is a figure. The Lord Jesus made a full atonement by His Cross for all sin and sins, and has passed into the very presence of God: not into a symbolic presence, as in the Old Testament, but into the real presence, the actual presence, of God; and there, as this letter to the Hebrews says, "he ever liveth to make intercession" (Heb. 7:25). He is fulfilling His high-priestly work there on our behalf. Aaron, then, the high priest of old, was a type or figure of Christ, our High Priest who is now in Heaven. The emphasis is upon the heavenly nature and heavenly work of the Lord Jesus now.

Let us consider this robe all of blue.

A People in Harmony With Heaven

First of all, this correspondence that we have noted between the robe of the high priest, and the cord on the people's garments, sets forth the glorious fact that they were in harmony with Heaven, that there was a harmoniousness between them and Heaven; and that is something. It is a wonderful thing to have no discord with Heaven, and for Heaven to have no discord with you. That is not our natural state; we know it right well. That is not the state of men who have not entered into the wonderful, redeeming, atoning work of the Lord Jesus Christ by His Cross. They know, as we all knew at one time, that they have no harmony with Heaven. Indeed, the one quest, the one longing and craving, the one thing disturbing their peace all the time, is this - How can we get into harmony with Heaven? How can we be so adjusted to God, to Heaven, and to all that belongs there, that the discord and strain in life ceases? Oh, to be freed from this state of strain and unrest and conflict, this disappointment and dissatisfaction and discontent! There is something wrong somewhere; things are out of joint. But here, you see, is set forth a wonderful harmony with Heaven. If the high priest represents Jesus Christ in Heaven, this touch of blue on the garments signifies that all the people are participating in that. That is the very first fruit and value of the great high-priestly work of the Lord Jesus in offering Himself for our sins.

Now we know that, when we come by simple, precise faith, to accept the atoning, redemptive work of the Lord Jesus by His Cross, the discord in our hearts ceases. The strain has gone out; something has happened that has adjusted us to Heaven. Beautiful harmony has come about between us and God. This is put in many different ways in the Bible. One of them is this: "We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ" (Rom. 5:1). Or again: "having made peace through the blood of his cross" (Col. 1:20). It is a wonderful inheritance, an inheritance to which multitudes can testify. There came a crisis in our lives - something happened - and it was just as though bones that had been out of joint were suddenly put right - they clicked together, and the ache has gone. Oh, how wonderful! Have you ever suffered the ache of a dislocated joint, that has bothered you night and day, disturbed your rest, robbed you of sleep, a constant nagging pain - and then you have got it put right? How you breathe again - life is worth living now!

That is exactly what happens to the sinner who by faith accepts Jesus as Saviour. Things click into joint; harmony takes the place of discord. Why? Simply because all the cause of, and reason for, the discord has been dealt with. What is the cause? What is the reason? In the words of a prophet: "your iniquities have separated between you and your God" (Isa. 59:2). Sin is at the bottom of it. I am not talking about sins; I am talking about sin. Sin is a thing which is native to every child of Adam. It is our nature - it is what we are. You know that. Try to stop doing certain things, and you find you have got to stop living in order to stop doing them. Somehow or other you have got to get rid of yourself in order to get rid of that. Sin is in our very nature. The Lord Jesus in His Cross took on Himself our sin and our sinfulness and dealt with it - dealt with the cause of all the discord and the trouble; and because the cause is dealt with, the effect follows quite naturally.

A little girl once heard read that passage from the book of the Revelation: "God... shall wipe away every tear from their eyes; and death shall be no more; neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, any more" (Rev. 21:3,4) and she said, 'God must have a very big handkerchief'! Well, that is a childish way of putting it. But you see, when God wipes away tears, He does not use a handkerchief. He gets behind the tears to why you cry, to the cause of the tears, and deals with the thing right at its source. All our trouble is dealt with at its source by the Lord Jesus. "Him who knew no sin he made to be sin on our behalf" (2 Cor. 5:21). "He bare our sins in his body upon the tree" (1 Pet. 2:24).

And so, having dealt with the source and root of the trouble, He brings us into union with Himself as the Redeemer, the great Atoner, the great Saviour, and we participate in His heavenly blue. Speaking now illustratively, if He is there wearing this robe all of blue, and we are here with a bit of that blue on us, it means not only that we are related to Him, but that our place in Heaven is secured. If you ask an unsaved person if they are going to Heaven, the answer, more often than not, is, 'Well, I hope so.' Now, it may happen that there is one reading these lines to whom that question might be addressed: 'Are you going to Heaven? are you expecting to go to Heaven?' You might in some uncertainty reply: 'Well, I want to', or 'I hope so.' I want to tell you that there is a way provided by God, whereby you need have no question about it: that there can come right into your life the witness of Heaven, you can now share what is true of the Lord Jesus in Heaven and you can have your place secured in Heaven here and now, all on the ground of the work which Christ has done for you. We will come back to that again in another way in a minute.

Let us go further with this gospel, this good news, of the heavenly blue. What does this mean for Christians, when once they are the Lord's, this blue cord on the garment of the Lord's people?

A People Distinct from all Others

First of all, it marks them off as different and distinct from all other people. I expect that if the other nations round about Israel knew about this, and if ever an Israelite went out amongst them, they would say, 'Oh, we know where you come from! That bit of blue gives you away, that marks you off from everybody, that distinguishes you from everyone else.' A true Christian is something different and something distinct from all others, and the feature which makes him so is that there is in him another life, which is a heavenly life. Jesus said, 'I am come down from heaven for the life of the world' (John 6:33). "I am the living bread which came down out of heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever" (John 6:51). Here is another life, a heavenly life, in Jesus Christ, which those who receive Him receive in Him.

This is a test of our Christianity, but it is also a testimony to its reality. We know, when we have come on to this ground of Christ's atoning, redemptive work, that we have received into our very being another life, a different life. And this new life always gravitates back to its source in Heaven, that is, it is always pulling us up out of this world, it is always drawing us upward. It is a life of elevation, of uplift, a life which gravitates towards Heaven, like water in a pipe from a reservoir, always seeking its own level. Paul put it in this way. "If then ye were raised together with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is" (Col. 3:1). The great characteristic of a true Christian is that he is living in touch with Heaven, in the light of Heaven, in communion with Heaven, and always feeling the mighty magnetism of Christ in Heaven.

Our natural life always gravitates downwards. It does not matter what you do: leave it for a minute, and down it goes. Take restraints away, and down it goes. Remove the props, and down it goes. Its whole gravitation is downward. It does not matter how far you advance in developments - intellectual, social, and so on. Take people out of their wretched hovels, and put them into nice new dwellings: after a time you will see deterioration setting in, and soon it will be another slum district. You cannot stop it. That is the way of things. It is true of everything in this life and in this world.

But here is something that comes in and counteracts, takes another course. It is a wonderful thing. When a man or woman accepts Christ and becomes possessed of this heavenly life, they begin spontaneously, without any instruction, to change their behaviour. From uncouth, they become polite. From being careless in their manner and dress and so on, they become conscious of something. They change, and it goes on like that. I am afraid it must be said that some Christians have forgotten. Something has happened to check the life of Christ, the heavenly life, and they have become careless, slovenly, indifferent, unwatchful as to behaviour, as to courtesy, and so on. But when this life is not hindered by wilfulness, it is a transforming life, and that is the great distinguishing mark of a Christian.

People Belonging to Another World

Christians have got another world. It goes by the name of Heaven. I do not know where Heaven is, but I know what Heaven is. It does not matter so very much where it is, so long as we know what it is, and I am content to know that Heaven is a state. Christians are marked off as belonging to another world. This world knows quite well that, as soon as a man or a woman becomes a Christian, it has lost a citizen. They are lost to the world. Yes, we have got another world. It a very much better one, a much more wonderful one, an entirely new world.

People With Another Goal

And we have another goal. This is true to the illustration of the Old Testament. Israel in the wilderness was not limited to the resources of the wilderness. A wilderness is no place in which to try to live by the produce of the land, and yet they went forty years in the wilderness without starving. They had heavenly resources when there were none in their surroundings. They drew everything from another world. It is an illustration again. The survival of Christians under pressure, under trial, under suffering - the triumph of Christians through all sorts of adversities - is a testimony to the fact that they have another world from which they are drawing their resources. Thank God, this 'wilderness' is not the end for the Christian. We have another goal; we are people with an objective, people for whom there is something ahead. Death is not our goal; the grave is not our goal. All that this world may offer of prizes is not our goal. The goal of the Christian is something very much better and more glorious.

The Unity of the People of God

Let us note one other thing about these people. It is quite obvious that the blue cord on their garments, corresponding with the high priest's, indicates the unity of the people of God, not only with Christ as the High Priest in Heaven, but with one another. There was something about every one of them, as those who belonged to the Lord, which was the same, something about them that united them. They were not all the colours of the rainbow, as Christendom is now. No, there was one conspicuous mark about them which made them all alike, all one. There was a unity of the people of God amongst themselves.

The Fact of Unity

Now, first of all, that is factual. We have got to realize this and stand upon it deliberately and persistently, that everyone who is truly a child of God is our brother, our sister, belongs to our family; we have the one life shared amongst us. That is the fact of the unity of Christians, of children of God. Our unity rests in the first place upon nothing but the oneness of life which we share in Christ. The approximation to that in expression may vary, but that depends upon how far God's people live upon the fact of another life. Its expression will never come about by our trying to bring together all the sects, denominations, churches, departments, and so on, and setting up a unity. It will not happen. It will always prove in the long run to be like the tower of Babel. Something will happen, and it will all go wrong again.

But if only we would live upon the great fact that we have received, through faith in Jesus Christ, His own life, that is the basis upon which we are to proceed. I meet you, not upon any mechanical ground, but upon the ground that you belong to the same Lord, you share the same life. Let us forget the other things as far as we can. Let us not allow the other things that divide to affect us more than we can possibly help. Let us cling to this, that, if you and I are truly children of God, born from Heaven, we have one life. It is a fact upon which we need persistently to live, and for which we must fight.

A Unity of Interest

And then it means that we have a unity of interest. The real people of God have only one interest, and they are a unity because of this particular interest. What is the interest of Christians? Paul put it in this way: "To me to live is Christ" (Phil. 1:21). 'My sole interest in life is the furtherance of the interests of Jesus Christ, the glory of Jesus Christ.' That Apostle sought unceasingly to further the interests of Jesus Christ and to make Him glorious wherever he went. We have one interest, and we put it in that one word - Christ. That is the unifying factor. If we have other things - private things, personal things, things in this world - upon which our hearts are mainly set; if we have sectarian interests: very well, we shall not be one. We are one by this all-captivating passion - Jesus Christ.

And that springs up immediately this great thing happens in us. Is it not true, that as soon as we receive the Lord Jesus in virtue of His saving work for us, immediately we want to tell people about Him, we want to talk about Jesus Christ? You cannot keep us quiet on this matter. We must be talking about Christ. He has become the one all-absorbing interest for us, in our very being. It comes out in business, it comes out in our social circle, it comes out everywhere: we are miserable if we cannot talk about Jesus Christ, if there is no place for Him. That is our unity, a unity of interest.

Now I go back where we began. Do you belong to the people of God? Have you received this Divine life? Do you know harmony with Heaven, or do you go on hoping, maybe praying, maybe longing, but... you are not sure? Heaven is something that makes you long, but you do not know. I want to say to anyone who has not peace with God, who has not perfect assurance that it is well between themselves and Him, that God has nothing more to do to provide you with the ground for it. God has done everything - everything that God Almighty could do - to bring you into that blessed experience of peace with Himself, harmony with Heaven; to give you another life than the one that you have, as a power drawing you upward, drawing you onward, giving you a great motive, a great interest, altogether beyond this poor world. Here it is all available.

What then? It rests with you. You have not got to work for it, or work it out; you have not got to try and fit yourself for it, by trying to be better than you are. You are only prolonging the misery if you say, 'Oh, it is not for me, I am not good enough for that.' What about Israel - what kind of people were they, as to themselves? Well, the Bible story of Israel is not a very pleasant one, as to the people, but I believe it was written for the very purpose of showing up what kind of people they were. If ever there was a difficult people on this earth, it was Israel! Yet that did not prevent them from coming into what God had provided for them. It is not what we are - good, bad or indifferent. God will no more accept the good person than the bad person. God is not waiting for you to change anything in your manner of life. Everything has been done in Christ, and all He says now is: 'Look, I have made a full provision - I ask nothing from you but that you believe it and accept it. Recognize your need, bow before Me, and say: "I am one in need: You have the provision. By faith I receive all Your provision in Christ."'

Does that sound far too easy and too simple? If it does, remember that, while we get it so simply, like that, it cost God and His Son infinitely to provide it. The greatest suffering and sacrifice that this universe has ever witnessed was the cost of your salvation and mine. If we say, 'Only believe and receive by faith', that does not mean that it is cheap. It is very, very costly to God. But He waits for you. You think you are waiting for something - perhaps for Him, or for a change in yourself. You will wait. God has done it all. Christ is now in Heaven, the seal of the fact that the work on earth for men is done. In the words of the great Apostle: "We beseech you on behalf of Christ, be ye reconciled to God" (2 Cor. 5:20).

Chapter 5 - A Special Vocation

"Ye also, as living stones, are built up a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God through Jesus Christ... But ye are an elect race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God's own possession, that ye may show forth the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvellous light" (1 Peter 2:5,9).

The Lord's People Divided Into Three Realms

At the beginning of the nationally constituted life of Israel, after they had come out of Egypt and crossed the Red Sea and arrived at Sinai, and the Lord had given instructions concerning the tabernacle and all its materials and its order, and the people were now gathered around the completed tabernacle which had been set up, we find that they were divided into three main realms.

There was, on the circumference, shall we say, the main body of Israel; it was a very large body. We will call them the general company of the people of God.

Then, within them, as a kind of 'Israel within Israel', as it has been expressed, we have the tribe of Levi. For the purposes of the service and the journeys of the people and the tabernacle they are subsequently divided into three, the three families of the sons of Aaron. Their respective functions and ministry were, briefly: (1) the charge and care of the holy vessels - that went to one section of the priestly family; (2) the charge and care of the boards and the bars of the tabernacle, committed to another definite section of the priestly family; and (3) the curtains, the fabric, and all that had to do with the coverings, committed to the third section. Later a fourth function was entrusted to the Levites, namely, the teaching ministry. This was their scope. But there were also limitations imposed upon them. For instance, they were not allowed to slay the offerings, and they were not allowed to offer incense. These things belonged to the priests.

Then, within this second realm, we find at the heart and centre of things Moses and Aaron: Moses, who is the prophet, that is, the one who receives the mind of God for His people; Aaron, the priest, whose function it is to deal with all that has to do with the presence of God in the midst of His people, and with man's approach to God, as present.

That, very briefly, as Bible students know, is a very, very condensed outline, covering an immense amount of detail. But it is sufficient for our present purpose.

Let us now consider the meaning of these three realms of the people of God. We shall actually confine ourselves mainly to the two outer realms, not thinking specially of Moses and Aaron just now, for we need very little further instruction about them. We all know of what we might term the dual value of the ministry of the Lord Jesus, as God's Prophet and High Priest: as the One in whom is revealed all the mind of God for His people, and by whom all the ground is provided for the presence of God in the midst of His people, and all the means available for the approach of God's people to Him. We are not going to dwell upon that just at present. It is the other two that concern us - the general and the more inward.

Divisions in the Old Testament Official

Now, in the Old Testament, the differences and the divisions which we have mentioned were official, they were 'ecclesiastical', they were formal. We see that clearly set forth in the sharply defined companies or bodies of people in different positions, performing different functions. There is the general mass, and there is the more particular company called the Levites; and they are objectively distinguishable. You can see them. Anybody who has seen a picture or model of the tabernacle in the wilderness, with the tribes arranged, can see quite clearly that here are distinct and definite divisions. That is how it is in the Old Testament: it is something official.

Divisions in the New Testament Spiritual

In the New Testament it is not like that, and I ask you to follow me here very closely, for so much depends upon the real grasp of this fact. In the New Testament the same differences are seen, but they are not official, formal, or ecclesiastical. They are spiritual. You can see them, but you can only see them in a spiritual way, for they are only present spiritually. One great danger, with which many other perils are connected, is that of recognizing distinctions and differences on a basis other than a spiritual one. The whole system of Christianity has gone astray on this very point, with disastrous consequences, and there is no end to it. Even amongst quite spiritual and evangelical people there is a very great deal of this Old Testament mentality, and in so far as that is true, it is loss, it is confusion - it means limitation in almost every spiritual direction. I do want you to grasp this, that the distinctions which are made in the Old Testament are present also in the New Testament, but in an altogether different realm. Here they are spiritual, whereas there they are temporal. Let us then examine these distinctions, keeping in mind the governing law that they are essentially, fundamentally, predominantly, spiritual and not official.

The General Mass of the Lord's People: An Objective Realm

The general mass of the Lord's people - the whole body as represented by all those gathered around the tabernacle to the uttermost bound of the camp - all stood in the value of the high priest's work. By reason of the priestly work of the high priest, they were the Lord's own people. They were in covenant relationship with the Lord, in virtue of shed blood. They were in the good of the presence of the Lord in the midst. All that was true right at the heart of things, with Moses and Aaron, the great altar and the sanctuary, went out to them, reached out to them, embraced them; they were their common property and heritage as the people of God. In that they were no different from other Israelites. There was no difference between them and Levites and priests on that ground. In virtue of the sacrifice and the blood, the atonement and the intercession, this was common ground for all the people of God. They were in the values of the work of the Levites, because the Levites were, after all, as we said previously, only their representatives, and not apart from them.

Now if we apply this up-to-date, we recognize that all who are on the ground of the one great offering, Jesus Christ, on the ground of the precious shed and sprinkled Blood, on the ground of the great atonement made, on the ground of the Holy Spirit as given, on the ground of the High Priestly intercession of the greater than Aaron - all who are on that ground inherit, enjoy, come into, the common benefits of salvation, and all that that means. Well, we accept that, that we are all one in Christ Jesus, and that there is no difference between us.

But note - that their good, their position and their realm, were matters of what was provided for them outwardly, objectively, and of what they believed to be for them - what they appreciated as being for them, and what they accepted as theirs. It was all something presented to them, of which they had an appreciation, which they believed to be theirs by God's mercy, and which they accepted as God's gift. That is the general or comprehensive realm of the Lord's people.

The Levite Realm

But then you come to the second realm, the Levite realm, and you find a difference. There must, of course, be a difference between the Levites and the general company, otherwise they would not exist. And there are indeed many fundamental differences. Many things obtained in the case of the Levites which were specific and particular. They were there as a separate tribe, different from all the other tribes in respects which we may see later on. They were in another realm.

Now you will faithfully cling to what I said a little while ago, that I am not now, in this dispensation, in this New Testament day, distinguishing officially between these realms: that is, I am not putting some people into one specific category, as a people by themselves, and calling them the general mass, and other people into another category, and saying they belong to another order of Christians. Underline that as many times as you like, because there is a good deal of misapprehension and distortion about what we teach on this very thing. We are not talking about Christians in general, on the one hand, and then of an inclusive company of a different order altogether, on the other. We are talking about spiritual realms, not personal. But here, in both Testaments, whether it is in the Old as temporal, or in the New as spiritual, there is a distinction discernible, and the distinction is marked by certain basic things.

Subjective Experience

First of all, the Levites were those who personally saw and handled and tasted and knew of those things which were available to all the Lord's people - which the Lord's people in general had as their own inheritance, but were only enjoying objectively, and therefore in a very limited way. The Levites were those who had come into all that more inwardly, more experimentally, and it was just that, was it not, that was the point at which they were distinguished. In Exodus 32 they were distinguished by the fact that the object and purpose for which Israel as a whole was called and meant to exist had entered into them in a deep way. We can only speak, of course, in type, but the type contains the spiritual principle. The difference here between the great mass and this 'Israel within Israel' is that the one, the great bulk, were standing in the good of what was objective, and the others were standing in the experience of that made subjective; and that is a very great difference.

We can be the Lord's people; we can know the values of the High Priestly work of the Lord Jesus; we can know what He means as our Prophet, as having brought to us the revelation of God's mind for man: that, and all these other things, may be our inheritance as Christians. But they may yet, while of unspeakable value - and never for one moment let their importance be minimised - they may yet be but objective things that leave our inner life still wanting, still lacking in many respects. I have no hesitation in affirming, though I may expose myself to much misunderstanding, that that is a distinguishing mark amongst the Lord's people today: many standing in the objective good of all that Christ has done, knowing themselves to be the Lord's, and rejoicing in it, but amongst them comparatively few in whom all that has become a powerful, working reality, so that it is in their very being.

The second thing about the Levites is that, because of this realm in which they are found, of the inwardness of things as extra to the objective nature of things, they are in a position to minister to all the others. They are in a place of positive ministry, in the sense that they have a living, fuller and more inward understanding of Christ. That is the basis of ministry. It is the ministry of Israel that is bound up with these people. Now, in our systematized Christianity, we have made ministers into a class; we distinguish them from the 'laity' as the 'clergy' - the ministry and the laity; and these are classes, official, ecclesiastical classes - an utterly false apprehension of Divine truth. Ministry is not based upon anything of that kind at all - upon anything that is external. Ministry is based upon an inward knowledge of the Lord, and no one has a right to enter into any kind of ministry - much less take upon them the title of 'minister' - except in so far as they have a personal, inward, powerful knowledge of the Lord. The other is merely formal and ecclesiastical. Ministry is not official or hierarchical, but spiritual. It is a matter of spiritual measure, and spiritual measure is just the measure of Christ within. Christ is our measure. There is no other measure with God but Christ, and we can only minister according to our inward measure of Christ.

You see the difference, then, between these two great realms. I am not saying that one is the Lord's people and the others are not, I am saying that there are many dear, saved, believing children of God, who know that their eternal hope rests upon Christ's shed Blood, His atoning work, His redeeming activity, and who rest upon His continuous, High Priestly intercession, but with whom you cannot enjoy any deep spiritual fellowship in the things of the Lord. If you try to do so, they do not know what you are talking about; you are talking another language. With them everything is objective, as it was with the main mass of the Israelites. Everything was brought to them as a congregation, ready-made; they were told what they should do by others, and they did as they were told. They just conformed, because that was the thing that was done in Israel, it was the thing that was believed in Israel. 'God has made known this as His will for His people, so we do it.' In just the same way, many true children of God would say: 'This is how we are told to behave, this is what we are told to believe. We do as we are told by our ministers and our teachers. We simply conform to the established order of Christian doctrine, of Christian practice. The Church believes this, and so - well, we conform to that and accept it.'

But when you come to the Levites, it was not like that. The thing had entered right into themselves, and they were those who had a first-hand, personal, inward knowledge of the mind of the Lord. They did not get anything secondhand. A vast amount of Christianity today is just secondhand. You are not surprised that the mass of Israel could not stand up to the crucial test which came sooner or later. It is a very, very urgent thing that the Lord's people, the Lord's own dear people, should be able to stand up to the severe, fiery tests and trials which come and are coming; but it will only be as they move from the merely objective realm, important and precious though that is, to the realm where they have the root of the matter in themselves.

The Difference Made by (1) The Cross

We shall perhaps be helped in this matter of the Levites if we go on to ask what it was that made the difference between the objective and the subjective, as we have called them - between that which was accepted, believed, appreciated, obeyed and followed as from without, and that in the other realm which came first-hand from the Divine throne and headquarters. What made the difference, and what makes the difference?

The answer is a large one, with quite a number of aspects. The first answer is the Cross, and I take you back again to Exodus 32, for that chapter is basic to the life and the realm and the ministry of the Levites. You remember what is in the chapter. Moses had been in the mount, had tarried long. The people had lost patience, and had called on Aaron to make them 'gods that should go before them' - 'for as for this Moses which brought us out of Egypt, we know not what has become of him.' And so the calf was made, and they danced around it, and gave it the glory of God. Moses came down, having already been told by the Lord what was happening, came down and verified, saw and heard, challenged Aaron as to this great sin, and then took the calf, ground it to powder, strewed the powder upon the water, made them drink it - the bitterness of their own folly. We always have to do that when we depart from the Lord: we have to drink the consequences. That by the way. Then Moses went off to the gate, stood there and cried, 'Who is on Jehovah's side? Let him come to me!', and all the sons of Levi went over to him. And he said, 'Put every man his sword upon his thigh, and go in and out and slay every man his brother and every man his friend and every man his neighbour', and they did it; and from that time the Lord took the tribe of Levi, and set it aside for the essential service of the tabernacle. That is the story in brief.

Let us come over to the New Testament, to the letter to the Hebrews, chapter 4, to the familiar words in verses 12 and 13: "For the word of God is living, and active, and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing even to the dividing of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and quick to discern the thoughts and intents of the heart. And there is no creature that is not manifest in his sight". What do we find here as the context of those words?

We have seen, in the case of Israel, a people in spiritual weakness and in spiritual immaturity, behaving like irresponsible children. Look at them down there around the calf - just like a lot of irresponsible children. And here, in the letter to the Hebrews, it is like that. Everything had been done for them, and they had come into the good of that which was provided in the High Priestly work of Christ, which is much spoken of here in the immediate context. They were Christians, that is, they were the Lord's people, but they were in terrible spiritual limitation and weakness and childishness, just as those people were when Moses came down from the mount. 'Gird every man his sword upon his thigh'. "The word of God is... sharper than any two-edged sword".

Let us go on, for what we have at the beginning of chapter 6 of this letter to the Hebrews is all of a piece: "Wherefore let us... press on unto full growth". Now between that and chapter 4 you have chapter 5, verses 12 and 13: "For when by reason of the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need again that some one teach you the rudiments of the first principles of the oracles of God; and are become such as have need of milk, and not of solid food. For every one that partaketh of milk is without experience of the word" - "the word of God is... sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing even to the dividing of soul and spirit" - "without experience of the word of righteousness, for he is a babe. But solid food is for fullgrown men, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern good and evil."

'Let us go on to full growth'. On the one side immaturity, spiritual infancy, irresponsibility, and all the marks of childhood. On the other hand, full growth. What is the way out of spiritual childishness and immaturity and feebleness, and all that goes with it - out of that into full growth? We have it in chapter 4, verse 12: the sword of the word - the word of the Cross - dividing between soul and spirit. It is the word of the Cross that makes this cleavage. Spiritual infants live in their souls. And what is the soul? It is just the sum of our senses, our natural senses, our feelings, our natural seeing, our natural judgment; the way we approach, apprehend and react to things naturally, even as Christians.

Now, you see, the Israelites reacted. Moses is away there a long time. 'We wot not what has become of him.' 'We have lost him to our senses, we cannot see him, we cannot hear him, we cannot handle him'; and children must do that. They must see, they must handle, they must have all the evidences and the proofs. That is the mark of a child. He had gone out of their natural realm, and they were living in that. Now, the Levites took the sword and cut and cleft between soul and spirit. Their very action was such an action. "Every man his brother". Do not think for a moment that that meant the hated brother, the disliked brother, the brother to whom you would like to use the sword in any case. It is your brother, your own kith and kin, your blood relationship, your own family, the closest ties. Here is a test as to whether you are going to live in your soul or live in the spirit, whether you are going to move on the basis of your own feelings, sentiments, likes, reasonings, or whether you are going to move with God on principle. There are very, very big spiritual issues bound up with this.

As we said in an earlier message, it was a breaking in of Satan to draw worship away from God to himself, just at the time when the worship of God was being set up and constituted; as though he would say, 'I am taking all that - the very gold of the sanctuary, which is meant for the tabernacle.' Is not that a very, very big thing? Satan is always doing that, seeking to steal God's place and God's rights, even amongst the people of God. Now, the Levites reacted against that. I am not saying that they understood all that was involved, but it is here in principle, and it was a costly thing to their own souls to slay their own brother and their own friend and their own neighbour. The neighbourly man, to do it, was taking the sword to his own soul, was he not? There is no doubt about that.

Yes, the sword divided between soul and spirit then, right enough, and the Cross, you see, is represented by that. The Lord Jesus connected and linked those two things - taking up the Cross, or His Cross, and denying oneself. "He that findeth his life shall lose it; and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it" (Matt. 10:39). This is the work of the Cross. But it was just that that made all the difference between these people, the Levites, and the rest. The Cross brought the Levites into their special position. Today, a deep application of the Cross would slay the self-life, the whole self-life; and God only knows how comprehensive that is, how many-sided and many-pointed that is. But a deep application of the Cross to the very centre of the self-life, the selfhood, for its deposing, that Christ may have that place, is the only way out of immaturity into maturity, out of the objective into the subjective; out of that realm where everything, though precious, is just presented to us and given to us, to the place where it is planted in us and becomes a part of us - and there is a very great difference between the two.

The Cross severs, the Cross divides. The Cross nullifies a whole realm. And spiritual knowledge - "for the priest's lips should keep knowledge" (Mal. 2:7), says the Word - waits on this work of the Cross. Whoso has not known this work of the Cross may regard himself or herself, or may be regarded by others, as an authority in the things of God, but that authority is not resting upon a proper foundation. Authority rests upon this - has it been wrought in you by a mighty, deep, self-destroying work of the Cross? Out of that, and that only, is authority. Take the case of all cases - the Lord Jesus. He spoke with authority. Why? Because, all the while He was speaking, and in all His life, He was utterly self-crucified - crucified to self.

Ministry, too, is consequent upon a work like this. Let me ask any of my readers who are in ministry: How did you take up ministry? If you like to put the article there, How did you take up 'the ministry'? On what ground? Let me tell you something. It has not been an unknown thing for men who have been in what is called 'the ministry', to come to an end of that whole thing, and quit it, because they have discovered that they were in it on a wrong basis. Yes, called ministers, wearing the garb of the minister, on the ministerial list, and all the rest: and yet eventually, by some eye-opening work of God, they have realized that theirs was a false position. They were in it, not on this ground that God had done some terrific thing in their being, shattering the natural life. And out of those ashes there sprang a knowledge of the Lord for His people which is the only qualification for the ministry. If that is not the ground, it is better to quit. Do not be in a false position, under a false interpretation of: "No man, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God" (Luke 9:62). With your hand on that plough, you may yet be in a wholly false position. You may have no right or proper basis for having your hand on that plough at all.

Forgive the seriousness and solemnity of this word, and the emphasis, but these are very vital things. Much more could be said. The first answer to the question - What makes the difference? - is the Cross.

The Difference Made by (2) The Blood

The second part of the answer is the Blood. Many people confuse the Cross and the Blood. Do not confuse them. If you have done so in the past, let me now try to help you to discriminate between them. Of course, they go together - they are two parts of a whole; but there is a difference, and the Blood itself has two aspects.

First of all, there is the aspect of implication. You can never have the blood unless a slaying has taken place, unless the death of a body has taken place. The word 'body' in the Scriptures is often used representatively of the whole man. When Paul says, "I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice" (Rom. 12:1), he means yourselves, your entirety, the whole being. He speaks of the whole "body of the flesh" (Col. 2:11). There the body is just the 'embodiment', as it were, of the whole man. But note that nowhere in the Scripture is it said or implied that Christ's Blood in itself carried or bore our sin. Perhaps you ask, What about blood shed for the remission of sins (Heb. 9:22)? Let me repeat: it is nowhere said or implied that Christ 's Blood bore our sins. "He bare our sins in his" (not blood, but) "body upon the tree" (1 Pet. 2:24). It was His Body that bore our sins. The shedding of the Blood implied, carried with it, the fact that the Body had been broken, had been slain, had been offered. It was not that which was shed which bore our sins. It was His Body which was broken that bore our sins. The implication is that there is an entire body or embodiment of things that is slain, and in His Body He was made sin for us, and the judgment, the sword of God, fell upon His Body. He was smitten and stricken of God in His Body. It was then that our sins were met and judged and dealt with.

But by that slaying His Blood was released: and, look where you will in the Bible, you will never find other than this concerning the Blood, that the Blood is always the vivifying factor - not the death factor, but the vivifying factor. "The life... is in the blood" (Lev. 17:11). "He that... drinketh my blood hath eternal life" (John 6:54). The sprinkling of the blood upon the tabernacle and its vessels, and everything else, spoke of a vivifying, a making alive; and in the Blood of Christ an incorruptible life, which was never touched by our sin, was released for all future purposes, in principle to vivify everything. The Blood itself is the vivifying of everything subsequent to the slaying, to the dying, to the offering. The life has been taken from the body which has been made sin, or which has borne the sin, and released to become the life of another body. We are members of Christ, of His Body; and all that is represented by His life, His deathless life, the life that could not see death, could not touch death - if it could have been touched of sin, it could have been touched of death; that holy, perfect life that was in Him, signifying by His Blood that it was incorruptible, that it could not taste death - all that has been released by His slaying to be the life of His spiritual corporate Body.

The Levites came into the good of that. They came into the immediate value, on the one hand, of the slaying of a body, the setting aside, the cutting off, of the whole body of the flesh, the natural life, the self-life, as dominant; and, on the other, of all the vivifying power of the released and sprinkled blood, speaking of another life and another body. Again, I beseech you, do not draw artificial distinctions between the people of God, but see that these are spiritual principles. It is a tremendous thing to have entered into the meaning of the setting aside of the body of the flesh. All Christians have not done that. Many of us know in our own experience that at one time we laboured in the flesh with natural resources for God, and very earnestly so, and yet we knew we were not getting very far - it was a heart breaking business. Yes, until the day came when the Lord brought it home to us that that whole body has been set aside. It is out of another life and in another relationship with the Lord Jesus that this ministry is to be fulfilled.

The Difference Made by (3) The Spirit

The Cross, the Blood; and thirdly, the Spirit, the anointing of the priests. The Cross is on the death side, but the Blood and the Spirit are on the vital side, the potency side, the resurrection side, so do not always dwell on the Cross aspect. The Blood and the Spirit are united, and this is an important point. It is the Spirit of life - "the law of the Spirit of life", as Paul calls it (Rom. 8:2) - which means that this life that is released through the Cross is not just some abstract element, some force at work. This life which is given us in Christ in and by the Holy Spirit is conscious life and intelligent life. Let me say to young Christians, to any who are new on the way of the Lord: this is one of the most important things that you should know. The conscious, intelligent life of the Holy Spirit in you is going to make all the difference between a child and a grown Christian. It differentiates between those who just do what is expected of them, because they are told it is the thing that they ought to do, and those who know in their hearts what they should do, and need not to be told. How good it is not to need telling everything, when your life with the Lord is such that if anybody does bring some point to your notice, you are able to say, 'Yes, the Lord has spoken to me about that already: the Lord has been dealing with me on that matter.' Do you not think it would make a lot of difference if Christians on the whole were like that? - if they could say, 'The Lord has been speaking to me, the Lord has been showing me, the Lord has been putting me right; the Lord has been touching things in my life; He has been talking to me about my dress - or my no dress'?

Perhaps this sounds amusing; but there are many practical matters. One is distressed at the way in which some Christians can behave, even in this matter of dressing - or not dressing - when they come into the house of prayer. They have the Word of God before them. What is the matter? Either they are not reading the Word of God, or the Spirit finds some difficulty. I beseech you to give heed to this. Many, many matters which concern our spiritual growth, our full growth, depend upon this - that the Holy Spirit within is truly governing. The thing that has distressed and appalled me perhaps more than anything else for a large number of years is that dear children of God, men of God, servants of God, can accept and pass on things that are positive lies, and yet never seem to hear the Holy Spirit inside say anything about it. What is the matter? I tell you - if the Holy Spirit within us is really in government, and having His way, we shall never hear a lie without knowing that He does not agree with it. We shall have a check-up about it. We shall never be able to speak or pass on a falsehood without something inside 'going wrong', so that sooner or later we have to go back to the Lord and say, 'Well, Lord, I do not know how it is, but I feel that was wrong. I must get right over that.' Do you not think it would make a great difference to Christians and Christianity if it were all like that? What is the matter? I am afraid the Cross needs still to do something, and the Blood. I pass no judgment, but I have to draw conclusions from facts. The fact is that it is possible.

Yes, there is a great difference between childhood and maturity. The Levites were spiritual men who had to walk before God, and were checked up all along by the anointing, by the Spirit. It was not an objective fact, as it was with the whole mass of Israel, that the cloud and the pillar represented the presence of the Holy Spirit overshadowing, and, in a general kind of way, leading. With these men that thing became an inward positive reality. They had discernment as to the movement of the Spirit, and their discernment was for the rest of the people who had not got it.

Do take this to heart. These are the principles. It is very important that we should be clear on these things, because it is going to make a great difference to life, to service, to ministry, and to going through. I am glad to see that the Levites, although they were in the van when the people passed through Jordan overflowing all its banks, were not a separate, exclusive company of people, but were in the midst of God's people, as a spiritual company.

Chapter 6 - Features of Spirituality

We have seen that, in the Old Testament dispensation, the tribe of Levi occupied a distinctive spiritual place. They were different; they were marked off by certain very important spiritual features and factors. In our last study we were seeking to show what those factors were. The first thing was in relation to the Cross - that, of course, is using the New Testament counterpart of the altar and the sacrifice of Levitical times - a deep work of the Cross within themselves. And then they became people in the power of another life, represented by the blood shed and sprinkled. Another distinguishing feature of those people was the oil of anointing - type of the Holy Spirit - constituting them spiritual people.

What is a Spiritual Person?

It is always an exceedingly difficult thing to explain what a spiritual person is. The mental reactions to that very phrase are often strange and peculiar. The idea of a spiritual person is that your feet are off the earth, you are living somewhere up in the clouds, and you are very unpractical as to the affairs of this world. You are too 'spiritual' really to be here at all - you ought to be in Heaven! Of course that is an entirely false apprehension of the meaning of being spiritual. Let us try a little further to explain what it really means that by the Holy Spirit we are constituted spiritual men and women.

But let me first draw a distinction, because not all Christians are very spiritual people. The New Testament has a very great deal to say about Christians who are carnal people, and that is a word which just means fleshly people, and if you want to know what that means - selfish people. You can be a Christian and be very self-centred, self-occupied, self-interested. Self - who can run to earth all the many aspects of what self means? When you think you have compassed the whole thing, it breaks out somewhere else in new forms. You just cannot finally lay your hand upon the multiplicity of the expressions of this deep root, with all its fibres, this self life.

Now a spiritual person is one who is not dominated and governed and influenced by the self nature, but whose thoughts, interests, actions are directed by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is in charge of the life. It is not what I think - and how often Christians are talking like that: 'I think', 'I think', 'I think' - that does not come into it with a spiritual person at all. There is no asserting of what I think, it is, 'What does the Lord think about this? What is the mind of the Lord about this?' Not, 'I want', and 'I will', but, 'What does the Lord want? Let us seek to know the Lord's mind, the Lord's will about this. Let us put our own mind and will and feelings out of the thing altogether, and let the Holy Spirit tell us. We will not move until we have a sense of what the mind of the Spirit is. At least we must know that our own minds are not governing.' The government of the Holy Spirit, the anointing, means that spiritual people are like that. And of course it means a great deal more. This complete, inward enthronement and government of the Holy Spirit touches things in all directions.

That again is discriminating. You see, we can be governed, as I said in an earlier meditation, by objective truth. It can be 'the truth' - orthodox, sound, Bible truth. We can be governed by that simply because it is taught; we do it objectively. But there is something more than that. There is such a thing as the Holy Spirit taking hold of the truth of God and making it something that lives in us. As I said previously, many Christians are just Christians: that is, after they are saved, after they are born again, their Christian life consists in doing as they are told by the minister or the Christian leader or the Bible class teacher, because it is presented to them as the thing they should do. It is what is in the Bible, and they do it so. But there is a very much higher level of life than that. The thing is right, but it is altogether transformed when the Holy Spirit brings it home to us in an inward way, and adjusts us to it. We no longer do it because it has got to be done: we do it because the Lord has done something in us, and shown us that that is the thing He wants done.

Do you grasp that? We can illustrate it, of course. A little child may obey what mother says because mother says it - love, perhaps; perhaps a spirit of obedience; or perhaps there is just no choice in the matter - mother says it! But there is a lot of difference between that and anticipating what mother would like, doing it without mother having to lay down the law at all. It is a difference of realm: one is law and the other is grace. And grace is only another word for love. Different kinds of Christians, you see; anticipating the will of God, being very sensitive. The same in practice: the Church teaches that certain things are rites of the Church, the ordinances of the Church, and therefore those who belong to the Church ought to do certain things, and so they go to Holy Communion, because the Church says that is what they ought to do, it is an ordinance of the Church, and other things which we might mention. They do it because that is the thing that is done. But oh, if the Lord has spoken in the heart and revealed the meaning of these things spiritually, how different the life is! It is no longer mechanical - it is vital.

The Government of the Word of God

Let us return to the Levites, and consider some other features of spirituality - things that were true in the life of the Levites in a typical way, that is, they pointed on to the spiritual truth of our own time. A marked thing in the case of the priests, the Levites, the sons of Aaron, was that, as anointed men under the government of the Holy Spirit, they came in a very utter and immediate way under the government of the Word of God.

There was a symbol of that, as you know, in the court of the tabernacle. It is called the 'laver'. The laver, as we know, was made from the mirrors of the women. They had metal mirrors, shining, bronze mirrors, into which they looked, as women are wont to do, and saw what they were like; and when they saw that there was anything not right about them, they put it right in the face of the mirror, they adjusted to what they conceived to be the right kind of thing. They brought those mirrors, and there was made of them this great basin called the laver, and it was filled with water; and the priests, the Levites, could not perform or fulfil their ministry, could not enter upon the ministry of holy things, except as they came to the laver and washed hands and feet. They could never take a further step in the fulfilment of their service to God without coming to the laver to wash.

Now you can see quite clearly that that is a very simple and easily understood picture. This laver undoubtedly represents the Word of God: that is the thing into which we look now and see where we are wrong. If we look into the Word of God, we see where things are out of the straight: if we look into the Word of God, we see what God requires, what God's picture is for us, and what we are in contrast. We look in, and then, as we adjust to the Word of God, the Word of God has this mighty power of putting us right, cleansing us, and keeping on cleansing us, "by the washing (or laver) of water with the word" (Eph. 5:26).

That is brief, but it is very important. A spiritual person is first of all one who seeks to know the revealed will of God in His Word. You cannot be a spiritual person, after the kind of which we are speaking, and neglect or be careless about the Word of God. You will be one who is really diligent in reading and searching the Word of God, with one object - to know what God wants where you are concerned. If there were more of that, there would be a different kind of Christian, stronger, purer, and far more satisfying to the Lord.

No Violation of the Word of God

Moreover, a truly spiritual person will never violate the Word of God. Should they do so, they will know all about it inside of themselves. The Holy Spirit will make it clear to a spiritual person that they have gone contrary to the Word of God. Under the government of the Spirit we shall never be a contradiction to the Scriptures. It does not mean that all at once we shall be a perfect expression of all that is in the Word of God, but it does mean that the Holy Spirit will be dealing with us in the light of what is in the Scriptures. Have you not sometimes experienced an inward, unaccountable sense of grief? You may not have put it that way, but you had a strange sense of grief, of distress. The Holy Spirit has been grieved about something you have said or done, the way you have behaved. You cannot explain it or put it into words, but you just say to the Lord, 'Now, Lord, I am conscious that something is not right. I put it into Your hands, and trust You to show me, and make it clear.' Either sooner or later, you come on something in the Word of God, which exactly explains just where you failed, just where you defaulted. There it is, and you did not know that it was in the Word of God. You know, it is possible to get a surprise over what is in the Word of God. I have been reading and studying the Bible for quite a good many years, but some eighteen months ago I came on a fragment in the Bible that I never knew was there - I had never seen it before! I expect there are plenty more. If you told me that that was in the Bible, I should not have known where to find it. But it just suited and fitted into a position in which I was at that moment. I needed something at that time for my deliverance - for my salvation, in a sense - and I came on that something. I opened my Bible, and there it was, right there. It amazed me; it was so fitting to the whole situation. It described my situation in one single sentence.

The Holy Spirit knows the Bible, He knows what He has written; and if the Spirit is in us, and we are seeking to live in the Spirit, we shall live in the Word. The Word is a living thing when that is so. Spiritual people are people of the Word, and consciously or unconsciously they are checked up by it. And I do say to you, especially to young Christians (it may be necessary to many others as well): Be very careful about your life in the Word of God. Do not choose only the things that you feel you can understand. Do not just pick out the things that you like. How we like to take up our Bible, and find out something so nice and helpful - perhaps a lovely promise and just to live on that sort of thing, the delicacies of the Word of God. It is just lovely! And all the time there are whole sections that we pass over. 'Those are parts that we do not understand - we do not read them.' Now, do not make any mistake like that. You will find that there are treasures which come to light in times of special need in the very parts that you would never read. You do not like all those long lists of names - that is all they are - difficult names at that. You cannot pronounce them, so you quickly turn the page. You will find some treasures there - hidden treasures!

But how much more necessary it is for us to read this Word first of all that it shall be there for the Holy Spirit to work upon. It is just there, that is all. We read: for the moment we do not realize what it means, or that it is a message to us; but we have read it, and it is there. Presently, the Holy Spirit begins to speak to us about that very thing, and it becomes most valuable, and by it we may be guided. I suggest to you that you read this Word always with a view, first of all - What has God to say to me here? It is going to touch everything.

And do not accept any human reasonings about the Word. Paul has a number of things to say, in his first letter to the Corinthians, for instance - things that people do not like, especially moderns - about dress and head coverings and all sorts of things. The modern mind says, 'Oh, well, Paul was old-fashioned, he was a woman hater', and so on. If you listen to that, you will get out of harmony with the Word of God. That Word is there to put you right and keep you right with God. Violate those things, and you will limit your own spiritual life. Conduct and behaviour are governed by the Word of God, and there is nothing in the whole range and realm of our human life that is not touched by it. I say that thoughtfully: it is true. The Word of God touches all our temperament; it touches our dress, our behaviour, our talk; it touches everything that you can think of. Somewhere in the Word of God there is something about it. A spiritual person gives a large place to the Word, and allows the Word to adjust them. They do not argue at all. If the Word of God says that, then that is all there is to it.

So the laver is a very important thing in the matter of our relationship with and service to God. A life in the Spirit will never violate the Word. A life in the Spirit will always mean adjustment to the Word, and that we shall not allow other influences to affect us if they are contrary to the Word of God. We can only be ministers - that is, spiritual men and women who have to minister to the Lord and to His people - in so far as we are governed by the Word of God.

An Anointed Ear

And that brings us to this matter of sensitiveness to the Holy Spirit. For the priests, the Levites, the blood and the oil were given a threefold application: to the ear, to the thumb, and to the great toe. The blood and the oil were applied first of all to the ear. As regards the blood, that meant that the ear was opened and made alive to God, vivified Godward, while the oil, as symbolic of the Holy Spirit, meant that the ear was wholly and completely under the government of the Holy Spirit. Now hearing is a very, very important thing, it typifies spiritual perception. When the Lord, in dealing with the seven churches in Asia, in the Revelation, is trying to check them up as to the faults, errors and failures that are among them, the appeal at the end of every message is: "He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith to the churches". The ear symbolizes spiritual perception, discernment, detecting, sensing. A spiritual person is one who is sensitive to the voice of the Lord.

That is the great contrast that is seen with Samuel. When Samuel began his Levitical, priestly ministry in the temple as a lad, it was just that. It was a day when even the high priest himself had no ear for God: he had lost his sensitiveness to God's voice, his ear was dull, and the people therefore were not hearing the voice of God - they were all dull of hearing. It was a bad state. And, in the sanctuary that night, young Samuel heard the call of the Lord, had an ear for the Lord; and it was through his sensitiveness to the voice of the Lord that things were so marvellously changed in Israel, and an entirely new regime came into being. The situation was saved by a sensitive ear, and that is something of great value to the Lord's people.

Oh, for men and women who have this anointed ear, who have this sense of the Lord, who are not dull of hearing; whose senses are not preoccupied and jaded by a multitude of conflicting, clamant, distracting voices and interests, but who have the quiet ear, and reap the harvest of a quiet ear for God. Be careful about your ear. In the physical realm, the purity of our hearing - our sensing through this faculty - depends so much upon what we listen to. If you listen constantly to jazz, you will probably lose your appetite for the classics, if I may illustrate it in that way. You will always be in a jangle, and you will lose your fine sense of what is good, what is pure, what is high and what is elevating in music. If you and I listen to gossip, if we listen to what is not good, not profitable, the Holy Spirit will cease to have a place of speaking. If you want to be of real value to the Lord, watch your hearing, have an anointed ear alive unto God.

An Anointed Thumb

Then the blood and the oil were placed upon the thumb of the right hand of the priest, the Levite. Of course, the thumb of the right hand is symbolic again. The hand is very, very much at a discount if the thumb is not there. We require that for everything, for all the rest. Some people manage very wonderfully without thumbs, but the thumb is really a very important factor. It stands for the hand itself in fulness, and it applies to what we handle.

Be careful what you handle. Some people can handle all sorts of things and still be Christians. Be careful what you handle in your reading, young Christians. Be quite sure that what you read can be turned in some way to value for the Lord. Is that too hard? Well, I think you will come to the time, if you go on with the Lord in the life of the Spirit, when you pick up something, and you will say, 'Oh, there is nothing in that, that is no good, that does not lead anywhere'. You begin to discriminate like that. On the other hand, with this - 'Ah, now we are finding something, there is a lesson in this'. Perhaps you are wondering about what I said in an earlier message about a certain book - the story of Lindbergh's crossing of the Atlantic. That was quite a secular kind of book. But I got tremendous lessons out of it, wonderful lessons, just as out of the Everest story. I could turn it to real account. And you have to test everything you handle by whether it can be turned to real account for God.

Much depends, too, in the Christian life, upon what you hold on to and what you let go. You do that with your hands. There may be a lot of manipulating of things, 'pulling of strings' to our own advantage. Be careful: it is all just a matter of our interests. We put our hands to our own interests, our own occupation, and behind it all there is a purely selfish motive and concern.

An Anointed Great Toe

Finally, the same blood and oil were placed upon the great toe of the right foot - full of significance. The tread of a person very often betrays the character of the person. There is the heavy tread of the heavy-handed - to confuse the metaphors again. They come down, as we say, with a heavy hand. They are not sensitive, they are not careful, they are not sympathetic, they are not gentle; they are brusque. We know the heavy tread of the heavy, hard kind of nature, and the light tread of the sensitive, sympathetic and careful. We do not stop to think about this: it is just what we are - it happens. Our tread, our walk, betrays our character, without our thinking about it at all. And there is the uneven and unsteady step of the indefinite life. If you are indefinite in your life, it will come out in some way in your physical manner: an unsteady, uneven walk so often betrays a similar character. And there is the tread of the double soul - furtive, stealthy, lacking in transparency, ulterior in motive, betraying the character. And so we could go on.

But how necessary that all this should be brought under the government of the Holy Spirit, that our heaviness may be turned into sympathy and sensitiveness, our indefiniteness into steadiness, our self-interest and furtiveness into singleness and transparency. I think you see the point. A life in the Spirit means a certain kind of walk, it produces a certain kind of character and behaviour. How differently we walk when we become Spirit-governed men and women from the way we walked before! Where once we were so hard, so cruel, so insensitive, so heavy-handed, now we have learned to be sympathetic and understanding and sensitive, and so on. It is the oil of the Spirit upon the great toe, bringing our goings, our course, our movement, our response to the Lord in obedience, all under the Spirit.

The Inheritance of the Levites

In closing, just a word about the privileges of the Levites. They were very real. You know that the Levites were eventually granted forty-eight cities of their own. They had no inheritance themselves on the earth: God was their portion and their inheritance. They were not allowed to have what other people could have. In the same way, some Christians can have many things that other Christians cannot have. Whether you can do what some Christians can do, and get away with it, depends very much upon how utter you are for God, upon how much value you are going to be to the Lord. Vocation is always governed by that.

But the Levites were given these forty-eight cities, and that came about when the wilderness journeys were over, and they had no longer to carry the different parts of the tabernacle through the wilderness. They came into the land, and were given these forty-eight cities, distributed amongst the Lord's people throughout the whole of their territory. That is a very, very rich realm of thought and truth, for cities are always figures or types of governmental centres. The Lord's ultimate thought is that He shall have those who govern spiritually all the rest and all the others, who are distributed amongst His people in a position of spiritual government. There is much in the New Testament about that. The Lord wants a heavenly people for a heavenly government, in the day when the wilderness journeys are finished and the kingdom is established, to be seated in the midst of the nations in order to govern and rule with Him. The word which, after all, so aptly applies to the Levites is: "If we suffer with Him, we shall be glorified with Him" (Rom. 8:17); "if we endure, we shall also reign with Him" (2 Tim. 2:12).

Chapter 7 - Princely Service

Reading: Numbers 7:1-84.

The first thing that becomes apparent from the record in this chapter is that the Lord's people, as represented by their princes - the princes of all the fathers' houses, you notice - are looked upon as a princely people. God's conception of His people is that, and He desires His people so to conceive of themselves. They are a princely people, a royal priesthood.

Princeliness: The Character of the Lord Jesus

What is princeliness in its real nature, when it is a true princeliness? Ultimately, fundamentally, it is that which takes its character from the Lord Jesus. We are very ready to extol the Lord Jesus, to acclaim Him and proclaim Him as King of kings and Lord of lords, to put Him in the highest place. We glory in the fact that "God highly exalted him, and gave unto him the name which is above every name" (Phil. 2:9). I trust that it can truly be said of every one of us, that that is our estimate of the Lord Jesus. If that is true, and He is to us Prince as well as Saviour, then surely we who bear His Name, and are of His family, over which He is Prince, should take our character from Him. It is God's thought, and God's will, that there should be about us something of the princeliness of the Lord Jesus.

(a) Spiritual Dignity

Princeliness is a very different thing in the spiritual realm from what it is in the temporal and the natural. We have already seen through this series of studies the great difference that there is in priestliness, in Levitical service, between what is temporal and what is spiritual: it is a different realm, a different kind of thing altogether. When it comes to the Lord Jesus and His princeliness, again we say that it is not just official, it is not just by appointment, it is not ecclesiastical or formal. It is spiritual and it is moral - for princeliness is pre-eminently a moral and a spiritual thing. If we take our character from the Lord Jesus, we shall not be mean, contemptible, petty, or 'little' people, or anything at all like that. That is not princeliness.

No, to take character from Christ means something noble, something fine, something big, great, honourable, dignified. You expect that of a prince, do you not? Even in the natural realm, you expect dignity in conduct, behaviour, presence. You lose all respect for a prince who is mean or contemptible.

(b) Spiritual Stature

Princeliness seems to speak, too, of stature. I expect these princes in Israel were men of physical stature, dignity of presence - men whose presence impressed. That is, everybody could look up to them - perhaps literally, as well as in other ways. Princeliness is stature, and stature in the Bible is always spiritually and morally a matter of the measure of Christ - just how much there is of Christ.

(c) Spiritual Wealth

It seems an anomaly for a prince to be poor. Here you find the princes were men of substance, men of wealth. They were people who had a competence, who had plenty, who had whereof to dispose. Not only were their own needs met and satisfied, but they had plenty to give away.

Now, this is not a mere artistic presentation of things, or exaggeration in words. This is exactly what the Lord wants His people, His spiritual Israel, to be. He wants big people, in the spiritual sense, people of stature, people of dignity. And I think, as I have already said in earlier messages, that that may well come down to very practical matters of our personal presence and appearance. We can so easily let the Lord down by our appearance, by our carelessness, by our behaviour, by the way we talk, and so on. 'Letting the Lord down' is only another way of saying - taking from the grandeur of Christ, instead of showing forth the excellencies of Him.

That covers much ground and includes many things. But what I am trying first of all to impress upon you is the Divine conception and idea of His people: that that is to be true of them, not only when they are together in meetings, but at home, at business, wherever they are. There should be something about them that is fine, something about them that is grand - not petty, not small; something about Christians which will lead people to look up to and speak highly of them; something about them that is honouring the Lord. We should be people, too, of stature and people of substance - not going round, as we say, cap in hand, having to try to get something for our subsistence. No, we have plenty. I verily believe that, if we really come into what God wills for us, we shall be people of plenty. There will always be a margin; we shall never be at the end of things. Plenty! Plenty! Twelve basketfuls over all the time! It is the Lord's thought for His people that they should be spiritually wealthy. That should be true individually as well as collectively. This is what is represented here by the princes of the fathers' houses of Israel.

A Great Appreciation of the Cross

But what was it that particularly brought into view their princeliness? How is it that we are made to take note of them? What was it that gave them a place in the Bible? What was it that caused them to occupy all this long chapter of eighty-nine verses? In a word, what was it that showed their princeliness?

The answer is very simple, but very, very striking and searching. It was their appreciation of the altar, their estimate of the value of the altar: in New Testament terms, their appreciation of the Cross. If you think about it, you will see how true that was. Was the Apostle Paul a prince in Israel? Was he a man of stature? Was he a man of substance? Was he a man of dignity? Why? "Far be it from me to glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ" (Gal. 6:14). It was his glorying in the Cross, his estimate of the value, the importance, the meaning, of the Cross. It is our apprehension of the Cross which reveals our spiritual measure. Measure always comes along the line of a very deep regard for the Cross of our Lord Jesus. It is the way of our enlargement; it is the way that makes a lot of room; it is the way of spiritual wealth. Despise the Cross, hold the Cross lightly, think little of the Cross, and you will become a very small person spiritually. These princes had a tremendous conception of the significance and value and importance of this altar which was being dedicated. I leave that with you to think about. The more you enter into the meaning of the Cross, as you really do in heart give an adequate estimate to the sufferings of God's Son, the greater will your spiritual life be, the more will you emerge a person of account, the more wealth will God lavish upon you.

Oh, the sweet wonders of that Cross

Where Christ my Saviour loved and died!

It is a tremendously enlarging thing to grasp, rightly and sufficiently, the meaning of the Cross.

A Spontaneous, Voluntary, Heart Expression

Now these princes had such a large appreciation of the altar that it required wagons to convey their appreciation. A wagon is a very large vehicle. It is not an ordinary little thing that you can carry in your hand. They did not want just a little bit of truck! Here are wagons, and here are these many wagon-loads expressing the large appreciation of the altar.

But note two other things about the wagon. All this was something for which, so far as we know, no prescription had been made, and, from the account, it almost looks as though Moses did not know what to do with it. He had nothing in the 'Blue Book' about this! God had said nothing about this sort of thing; there were no laws and regulations about what was to be done should a thing like this happen. Evidently Moses looked to the Lord about it, and the Lord said, 'Take it, receive it, turn it over to the ministry of the sanctuary'.

Here is something that is not by legal demand. This is a voluntary, spontaneous expression from the heart, something altogether outside of the book. This is princeliness, this is greatness: not just to do what we are expected to do and what is required of us and what is commanded to be done; not, 'Lord must I do this?' - but, 'Can I do it? Is there anything that I can do - in the book or out of the book?' That is the spirit of it. It was the spirit that prompted this offering that made it so princely, so grand, so noble.

A princely life is one that is not just doing because it must, or giving because it is expected to conform to the regulations, but a spontaneous life that 'goes the second mile'. It does not stop just at the set time, but looks for how much more can be done. There are some Christians - watch this, young Christians! - who talk like this: 'Must I give this up if I am going to be a Christian? Is this not allowed? May we not... this, that or something else - do this, go there? What is wrong with it?' That is so negative. Princeliness, if it is taken from the character of the Lord Jesus, never talks or argues like that, it says: 'What more can I do? Is there anything more that I can do for my Lord, who did everything for me?' You are not surprised that the Lord takes note of that sort of thing, and those people become the expression of His thought.

That is princeliness - the voluntary giving without any consideration whatever of whether it must be done. Can we give like that? How grand it will be when we are all people whose worship is so lavish, so free, so spontaneous, that we so to speak do not know what to do with it all! Our worship is so little, so poor, instead of being a lavish pouring out of the heart. And in many other ways it is like that. May the Lord make us His princely people like this - large of heart, magnanimous of spirit: not for its own sake, but because we have come to see something of the greatness of what our Lord has done for us in His Cross. The Cross, rightly apprehended, is a wonderful delivering power from all littleness - from our poor, miserable, contemptible little selves.

A Covered Wagon

They were covered wagons. I do not know altogether what they may have implied from their standpoint, but I think I can see something at any rate in the spirit of it. Princeliness, real princeliness, makes not display. It does the large thing and never calls attention to it, never lets it be known or seen. Real princeliness is that kind of meekness and humility accompanying an uttermost outpouring for the Lord, without looking for admiration, or any return. An uncovered wagon with all this might have drawn attention, so that people might have said, 'Look what So-and-so is giving!' It is like a Harvest Festival: that used to be a great occasion for people to bring along the biggest cabbage, or the biggest bunch of grapes, to draw attention. 'Who brought that?' 'Oh, So-and-so!' The lesson of the covered wagon is: "Let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth" (Matt. 6:3) - a real spirit of meekness; going, perhaps, further than many others, but covering it.

In this series of meditations, which we now conclude, we have heard much about the service of the Lord, what is service to the Lord, and the spiritual character of the servants of the Lord, but it all gathers up into this. The Lord is seeking a great people, in every spiritual and moral sense; not perhaps in the eyes of the world, but in the eyes of God. Sometimes the smallest and most insignificant person, naturally, can be somebody very princely, very precious, full of values to the Lord. We do not judge and estimate naturally, but always and only according to the measure of Christ. You may be a very small person naturally, either physically in stature, which sometimes produces a serious inferiority complex, or you may be small of gifts, small of resources; but you know the Lord Jesus attributed far greater stature to the widow who cast in her two mites than to those wonderful fellows who were displaying before everybody what they were giving. Stature is different in the sight of God from what it is in the sight of man.

No, you may not be of much account in any way naturally, but you can be something in the eyes of the Lord if the Cross has become a great thing in your life and in your heart, and its deep, full, rich meanings have come to be practical realizations in your life. I have no hesitation in saying these things, dear friends; they are true. Enlargement of life comes by the application of the Cross, the apprehension of the Cross. The more there is of the Cross, the larger your life. It sometimes seems like reduction, but - make no mistake - it is increase.

The Lord make us a princely people - in this sense, that we have so greatly seen, grasped, sensed, the wonder of His Cross that our hearts go out, leaping over all the regulations, to be able to bring to the Lord all that is possible through life and through service, the fulness of our hearts turning to the service of the sanctuary.