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Work in the Groaning Creation

by T. Austin-Sparks

First published in "A Witness and A Testimony" magazines, 1967-68 Volumes 45-6 - 46-4

Contents

Chapter 1 - Conformed to the Image of His Son

Chapter 2 - The First Adam and Last Adam

Chapter 3 - Christ in You

Chapter 4 - From Bondage to Freedom

Chapter 5 - The House Not Made With Hands

Chapter 1 - Conformed to the Image of His Son

"Therefore, as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin; and so death passed unto all men, for that all sinned: - for until the law sin was in the world: but sin is not imputed when there is no law. Nevertheless death reigned from Adam until Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the likeness of Adam's transgression, who is a figure of him that was to come. But not as the trespass, so also is the free gift. For if by the trespass of the one the many died, much more did the grace of God, and the gift by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, abound unto the many. And not as through one that sinned, so is the gift: for the judgment came of one unto condemnation, but the free gift came of many trespasses unto justification. For if, by the trespass of the one, death reigned through the one; much more shall they that receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one, even Jesus Christ. So then as through one trespass the judgment came unto all men to condemnation, even so through one act of righteousness the free gift came unto all men to justification of life. For as through the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the one shall the many be made righteous" (Romans 5:12-19).

"But emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men; and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself becoming obedient even unto death, yea, the death of the cross. Wherefore also God highly exalted him, and gave unto him the name which is above every name" (Philippians 2:7-9).

"Who being the effulgence of his glory, and the very image of his substance, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had made purification of sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high" (Hebrews 1:3).

"Thou didst put all things in subjection under his feet. For in that he subjected all things unto him, he left nothing that is not subject to him. But now we see not yet all things subjected to him. But we behold him who hath been made a little lower than the angels, even Jesus, because of the suffering of death crowned with glory and honour, that by the grace of God he should taste death for every man" (Hebrews 2:8-9).

"Seeing therefore it remaineth that some should enter thereinto, and they to whom the good tidings were before preached failed to enter in because of disobedience" (Hebrews 4:6).

"Wherefore when he cometh into the world, he saith, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body didst thou prepare for me; in whole burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin thou hadst no pleasure: then said I, Lo, I am come (in the roll of the book it is written of me) to do thy will, O God" (Hebrews 10:5-7).

"It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. So also it is written, The first man Adam became a living soul. The last Adam became a life-giving spirit. Howbeit that is not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; then that which is spiritual. The first man is of the earth, earthy: the second man is of heaven. As is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy: and as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly. And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly" (1 Corinthians 15:44-49).

These passages will lead us to one other - Romans 8:29: "For whom he foreknew, he also foreordained to be conformed to the image of his Son...".

There are two great lines, or departments, of revelation given us in the Word of God throughout. One is that of the purpose of God eternally; the other is that which has to do with the whole scheme of redemption. These are two things, although now related. Originally there were not two things, but only one thing, for in God's eternal thoughts and intentions the scheme of redemption had no immediate place. While being eternal, and always living as much at the end as at the beginning, He would, because of His own omniscience, have that whole plan of redemption present. But it was simply to meet an emergency, and was not in the original purpose. To allow it a place in the original purpose means that you must allow the fall as being a part of God's purpose, and you must make sin a part of God's purpose. That we could never do. So that what we have through the Scriptures is the straight line of God's eternal thought, and then the hiatus, or shall we say the detour, the bend in the road, in which the whole redemptive plan is found. That bend strikes off from the eternal straight way, and comes back to it at the end, and is, therefore, only contributory to the purpose. It is something which has to be, because of something not intended having taken place.

It would seem that the greater part of the Scriptures are occupied with the bend, and it would also appear that primarily the straight line of God's first and supreme thought is revealed to us through the Apostle Paul. The magnificence, the glory of the revelation which came through that Apostle particularly is that of God's eternal thought. Paul is particularly used to bring us back into the counsels of God before times, before man, before, therefore, the fall, and to show us the straight line of God's thought unto its ultimate manifestation in realisation. Most else - not all, but most - has to do with the redemptive programme. But when Paul does bring in his specific revelation, what he calls "My gospel" - and by that term he does not mean something that belonged to him, but something which came through him particularly - he knew that a specific and peculiar revelation was entrusted to him. When that does come in through the Apostle we are able with his key to unlock many doors in the Scriptures and so get the solution to much that is otherwise covered.

GOD'S ETERNAL THOUGHT

The point for our present occupation is that of the eternal thought of God as here summed up in this remarkable clause, so far as man is concerned: "Whom he foreknew, he also foreordained to be conformed to the image of his Son..." Christ, the image to which God eternally intended to conform man. That is our object, and that is what is before our eyes - Christ. Christ, as the image to which God is working. Of course, now we can clearly see the need for the redemptive programme, but before ever there was a fall, before ever sin entered, that was God's thought. It is not something which has come in later, a subsequent intention of God. This is the eternal thought which rides above all the course of fall, and sin, and ruin, and redemption - the master-thought of God.

Having that before us as the object, then, we are able to come to these Scriptures which we have before us, and find that they interpret a very great deal more for us. We have read in one fragment that Adam was a figure of Him that was to come. Now that does not mean that Adam was the image to which God intended to conform all Adam's race, not even unfallen Adam. A type is marked by contrasts, as well as similarities. All types bear those two marks. There are similarities between types and anti-types, but there are also differences, contrasts, and it is important to note the contrasts as well as the similarities. There are distinct contrasts between the first Adam and the last Adam as well as similarities. The first, "a living soul"; the last, "a life-giving spirit". There is an enormous gap between those two. That is a contrast; that is not a comparison. The first, "of the earth, earthy"; the last, "of heaven", heavenly. There again, you see, even in the presence of the type and the Anti-type, you have the most emphatic differences; while, on the other hand, there are quite obvious likenesses. We will come to that in a moment.

Let us stay with what we have just said about Adam not being the image to which God was working for the race. Adam was not the full image to which God intended to conform the race, not even the unfallen Adam. He was only God's thought potentially and probationally. Potentially: that means he was capable of being brought to God's full thought. He was made with the possibilities of being brought to the fullness of God's thought, that ultimate image of God's Son; but, it being merely and only potentially, it was governed by what was probational. And there was one word which governed the probation, and - like a peg upon which there has rested a greater weight of responsibility than any other peg in the history of this universe - that word is "obedience". It is well-nigh impossible for us to range and gauge the measure of responsibility bound up with that word "obedience". All the potentialities in Adam concerning God's full thought, the image of His Son, hung upon that one word. "By one man's disobedience"!

There is your type. But how the type fell short of the Anti-type: "Obedient unto death"! 'By one man's obedience'! What a difference! You are not surprised, when you have that simply stated, that God is so particular about obedience. You are not surprised that the whole of the Scriptures state that God will have utter and implicit obedience, and that He never waives obedience one hair's breadth, and that every act of disobedience is lifted into a realm where it is made something glaring. Disobedience is never covered up. Disobedience is brought out by God every time and put into a place where it is made to speak of the most terrible thing in God's sight. Think of some of the instances in the Scriptures!

Think of Moses, the man who had been through the forty years of discipline in the wilderness; the man who had for another forty years taken the weight, the burden, the strain of that great host; the man with whom it is said: 'God spake face to face as a man speaketh with his friend'. Think of all the close and intimate touch with God that Moses had, entering into the very cloud where God was, and hearing His voice. And then at last, over one act, having the one life-long ambition and desire of his heart forbidden him. He pleaded with God to let him go in, until God said: "Speak no more unto me of this matter... thou shalt not go over...". It seems so hard and cruel. This man has poured out his life so utterly for God, has stood in the breach again and again, and has upheld God's honour so continuously; and yet the one thing upon which his heart was always set was refused him because of one act. It was an act of disobedience. God must show what is His attitude toward that. For all time and in all subsequent generations the story must be told with bated breath that all may know the tragedy of disobedience. Moses is in a better 'Land of Promise' now, but he has ministered a terrible lesson in time.

Think of Achan. Only one wedge of gold, one Babylonish garment - there are plenty of others! A small thing in itself. Yes! But Achan, his wife, his children, his cattle, his tent, and all that pertained unto Achan has to be utterly destroyed IN THE SIGHT OF ALL ISRAEL! Why? One act of disobedience!

You see God's thought about it, God's estimate of it. And if that represents God's mind about disobedience, surely God's heart is, commensurately, at least, toward obedience. Later we shall see something more of the range and the power of obedience. We mention that here because it relates to that probation of Adam, and all the lost potentialities in him for the realization of God's ultimate thought. They were all frustrated, not only in Adam, but in Adam's race, by one act of disobedience.

We leave that for a moment while we just look at some of these comparisons and contrasts between the type and the Anti-type; between Adam and Christ; the first Adam, and the SECOND Man, the LAST Adam. We have noted, as to nature, the first, "a living soul", the last, "a life-giving spirit"; the first, "of the earth, earthy", the last, the second, "the Lord from heaven". Now let us check our thought there, and, if we are not so, make ourselves quite clear that it was not sin that made Adam what Paul calls, in 1 Corinthians 15, the 'soul man'. In that chapter, you remember, in speaking about the body, and the resurrection of the body, he says: "If there is a NATURAL body, there is also a SPIRITUAL body." We know that the word 'natural' there is the soul body, the soulical body. There is a soulical body, and there is a spiritual body. "That is not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural." The first, then, was the natural, but that is not the fallen Adam. That is Adam unfallen, which shows quite clearly that the type was less than the Anti-type and very different. It is unfallen Adam who has the soulical body. We have not soulical bodies because we are fallen man. We need to be very clear about that. We have soulical bodies simply because we are joined to Adam. When we become joined to Christ we have the germ of the spiritual body: "He that is joined to the Lord is one SPIRIT."

Adam, on the side of comparison or parallel, and not contrast, was the first among many brethren. He is called the first in relation to the creation. There were to be many more like him; there was to be a whole race conformed to his type, the Adam type. Unfallen Adam would produce after his kind; fallen Adam would produce after HIS kind, as it has proved. He was the first, then, of a race. In the same way the Lord Jesus is the Firstborn among many brethren. It is important in this connection to note an essential and fundamental difference. The Greek word for "Firstborn" has two meanings: 'priority' and 'primary'. 'Priority' just means the first of a line. 'Primary' means supreme, chief, above. Adam was a first; but Christ was more than that - He was supreme. That is the whole argument connected with Colossians 1:15. (See that Letter.)

In the Letter to the Hebrews the words are used: "Bringing many sons to glory." And then Scriptures are quoted concerning Him: "I and the children which God hath given me"; "I will declare thy name unto my brethren". That is the outworking of Isaiah 53: "When thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days." But this is spiritual after type, and that stands over against a query in Isaiah 53: "Who shall declare his generation? for he was cut off out of the land of the living; for the transgression of my people was he stricken." "Cut off"! "Who shall declare his generation?" You see, he stepped into the place of Adam voluntarily, under judgment, condemnation, and His soul is made an offering for sin. And that ends the generation, and there will be no posterity in Christ to declare His generation. Who is to declare His generation? He will have no seed along that line. Let us say it reverently: Jesus was not married because He was - on the Adam-representation side - to have no posterity. It is only in resurrection that He has "children" and "sees his seed". When that happens He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His days. There is another seed in Christ. In Christ the Adam seed is brought to an end, but in the same place, the Cross of the Lord Jesus, in the power of resurrection, a Christ-seed is brought in, and He is the Firstborn among many brethren, the Firstborn from among the dead. Adam was the first of the race which was according to HIM. Christ is the First of the race which is to be according to Him.

In Divine intention Adam was not only the first, but was to be the head of the race. That is something more than first. As head he was to occupy the place of authority, government, supremacy; the race was to be subject to him. I wonder if you have ever seen the inside of that little fragment in this Letter to the Hebrews! It is an extraordinary fragment. In speaking about Melchizedek and Abraham, it says that Levi paid tithes to Abraham, though Levi was still in the loins of Abraham when Abraham met Melchizedek. Now that is an extraordinary statement, but it contains a principle. It is this principle - that all the unborn race in Adam paid its tithe to Adam. You and I by nature are paying our tithe to Adam today. By one man's disobedience, by one trespass, the many are made sinners. And well we know it! We are paying to Adam today, and it is a costly thing. You see, he was head, he held that position of authority, that he should demand from the race yet unborn a recognition of his headship. The whole race is gathered up into that head, and that head stands over the race, and what that head is the race is, and the race cannot get away from Adam. You can never detach yourself from Adam by nature. You are tied to Adam, and you have got to pay your tribute to Adam. What he is, you are, and you have to recognize it. In nature the headship is perverted and false, but it is powerful.

The Lord Jesus is also Head of His race. He is "Head of every man", and He is given to be "Head over all things to the Church, which is His Body." But what a contrast comes in with the comparison! The comparison is headship; the contrast in the kind of headship. None of us will mind paying tribute to the Lord Jesus. IN THE THOUGHT of God there was a race in the very loins of Christ from eternity; a spiritual seed. And that spiritual seed should, in Him, as its Head, pay tribute to Him; and those of us who are in Christ in His sovereign Headship should rejoice in it, and ought to pay Him what He requires. I trust we do! We owe Him everything! The natural man owes Adam a great deal, and he is paying Adam. But the spiritual man owes Christ everything as Head.

There you have your comparison and your contrast between the first Adam, and the last Adam.

THE SIGNIFICANT TITLE "SON OF MAN"

Now let us notice titles again for a moment. The Lord Jesus is called "Son of Man". That title carries with it one thought, which links the Adam race and the new creation in the eternal intention of God. It is a wonderful thing to see what Christ represents, and His great representative title is "Son of Man". In that title He gathers up God's eternal thought as it is in the Adam race, as well as in the new creation. That is, it represents the continuity of humanity in Him. God's thought was humanity. "What is man that thou art mindful of him, or the son of man that thou visitest him?" That relates to Adam in the first place. That first Scripture in Psalm 8 applies to Adam unfallen. When it is taken and quoted in the Hebrew Letter it is carried on to Christ, or carried into Christ. So that this thought, "Son of Man", embraced God's intention to have a humanity in charge. The literal translation, as we know, of those words is this: 'What is man that thou makest mention of him, or the son of man that thou puttest him in charge?' That is set over against this: "Not unto angels did he subject the inhabited earth to come, whereof we speak. But one hath somewhere testified, saying, What is man, that thou art mindful of him? Or the son of man that thou puttest him in charge?" Of what? "The inhabited earth to come, whereof we speak." That applied to, and was bound up with, Adam unfallen; he was put in charge. But God's thought has broken down in Adam, and there is to be another inhabited earth to come. And God's original thought is realized in Christ. But as it was collective in Adam, so it is collectively in Christ. It is not Adam as an isolated unit, but Adam's race in charge. It is not Christ as an isolated unit, it is Christ's race in charge. "Son of Man" is an inclusive term. While that is a general thought, there is that in this other title of the Lord Jesus which is specific and unique, "the second man". We must not be confused and talk about the second Adam. There is no second Adam; it is the last Adam, the second Man. That is uniqueness, something by itself. He is the Lord from heaven; God manifest in the flesh; the last Adam. That represents the deepest point of the contrast. There will be no more Adams after Him. Go through your Old Testament, and, if you can by any means mark the Hebrew words, you will see that the word "Adam" was a more or less general term for man. When it refers to man again and again it is simply the word "Adam", a general term. There is the other word, "ish", which means 'husband' or 'lord', or man in a specific sense, but very often it is the word "Adam" applied to any man. But when you speak about the last Adam, Christ comes into a unique place. There are no more Adams after that, Christ is the end; Christ marks a finish.

The "second man" represents a new order. The "last Adam" represents that that is the last order. The last order is the order of Christ. It is very blessed to realize that we need not fear any other order of man after Christ's order. He is the end of orders, because God realizes all His thought in Him, and there is no need to create any more. It is all realized in Christ as the "last Adam". That word "last" speaks of uniqueness, finality, conclusiveness in God's eternal thought.

Having made that more or less general and fragmentary survey, let us come back to the original thought of God bringing a humanity, a race, to the image of His Son. It was not in the eternal thought of God that Jesus Christ should be the Lamb of God slain. Although God in eternity knew what would be necessary, yet it was not part of the original plan, only provisionally. God's plan was straightforward; His Son the image, a race created and conformed to that image. And so God's Son in eternity represented God's thought for a race, and stood there in that position, in that capacity. Then man was disobedient, sin entered, there was the fall and all the consequences, and the Son of God voluntarily accepted a new capacity, and in a voluntary way, because of what had taken place, He emptied Himself, and was made "in the likeness of sinful flesh". Be sure of your terms! Not made in sinful flesh; He never was! But, "in the LIKENESS of sinful flesh". Found in fashion as a Man, He became OBEDIENT unto death, the death of the Cross. A new capacity to come down to that point where everything in God's thought had gone wrong on the question of OBEDIENCE, in order to bring it back into the straight line. And so the redemptive work of the Lord Jesus was a voluntary thing on His part, a thing which He accepted of Himself, and not as a part of God's eternal intention.

Now there enters this, which seems to be a necessary thing, that at some time or other, apart from any fall at all, a manifestation of the Son of God would have been necessary. If He were God's image for the race (leaving the fall out), and God was working in that race, with its potentialities, for that image, and that image developing, developing, developing, there had to come about a point at which a change took place, and the "living soul" was changed into the other kind, "a life-giving spirit", the natural changed to the spiritual. When does that take place? "When we see him we shall be like him." When He appears we shall be changed. In that hour of the trump this mortal shall put on immortality, and this corruptible put on incorruption. It is at the end of the redemptive programme, just where the bend comes back to the straight road, where you again strike the main road of God's thought, that is the manifestation of Christ, our manifestation with Him, and the final change takes place. Conformity to the image of His Son in fullness, in finality; no longer the natural, but now the spiritual. So far as the body is concerned, that is the final touch. "That is not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural." So that the manifestation of the Son of God was essential sooner or later in the history of this world, to bring about that. His manifestation in flesh was for redemptive purposes. His manifestation in glory will be for consummative purposes.

To whom, and for whom, will He be manifested? For those in whom already there has been introduced that life which is His life, which is essentially spiritual, and has in it the power of conforming to His image. Fallen Adam was forbidden to touch that tree which represented life. It was guarded, protected. It is born-again man who receives that life. "The gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." We who are born again have received the life of the Son, and that is operating in us. What is it doing? If it is having its way, and we are truly in fellowship with it; if we are OBEDIENT to it - which is only in another way saying, obedient to Him who is the life - conformity has already commenced. We have potentially become spiritual; we have received the Spirit. I use that word 'potentially' in the light of what is ultimate. What is ultimate is that the natural body will be changed for the spiritual body, the fullness of what is spiritual. That has commenced in the born-again ones. It is the power of His life, by which we are being conformed to His image.

The thing that rests with us - and which must be postponed for a later meditation - is how to live on the life of the Lord Jesus, with a view to being conformed to His image. What we have said is preliminary and very largely general. It is going over a good deal of ground in a general way.

Let us get the Lord Jesus, as God's great object and goal, before our eyes, and see that God's eternal thought is conformity to His image, and that He has now in Christ put into us that life eternal, and that we have not to struggle toward the image of Christ, to battle and wrestle for Christ-likeness; we have to be obedient to His life within us. Obedience carries conformity to His image.

Chapter 2 - The First Adam and Last Adam

"So also it is written, The first man Adam became a living soul.

The last Adam became a life-giving spirit" (1 Corinthians 15:45).

We are brought to the consideration of the Lord Jesus in the redemptive plan of God, and we want to begin with Him in heaven, for everything in God's purpose now begins with Christ in heaven. It is important to recognize that. It may seem very simple, very elementary, and it may even be that you say: 'Surely it commenced with Christ coming into the world, with Christ on the Cross!' No! It does not! It commences with Christ in heaven, Christ in glory, Christ exalted to the right hand of the Majesty on high. Apart from that the earthly life of the Christ lacked the essential dynamic. Everything commences in God's new creation with Christ in heaven.

We notice this contrast: "The first man Adam... a living soul. The last Adam... a life-giving spirit." The first Adam produced after his kind, a race according to his own constitution, and in Adam by nature we are that, a living soul. Adam, if he had gone on the straight way in obedience, would have reached a point where he would have been changed in his constitution and nature from what the first Adam was as a living soul to what the last Adam is, but he did not go that straight way. Now God's thought is no longer with the first Adam, but with the last Adam, and in the last Adam God has already realized His original thought.

It is a tremendously important and valuable thing to recognize that the Lord Jesus in heaven now represents the fact that what was in God's thought originally, and that for which He created Adam probationally and potentially, is an accomplished and finished thing in the Person of the Lord Jesus, now. That He has got right through to the end of that and it is finished, it is completed; in the Lord Jesus God has a Man. And inasmuch as He is the "Firstborn among many brethren", and is the Head of the creation, all His race are in Him complete. We turn aside to the thought about the Body of Christ to get that made clear. Paul speaks of the Body as having many members, and all the members, being many, are one Body; so also is THE Christ. The article is there in the Greek. That is, THE Christ is a Body of many members, with Christ as sovereign Head, so that "the last Adam" is a collective and inclusive title.

In Christ in heaven God has His Man completed according to His original thought, and in that Man, who is the racial Firstborn, He has His race as represented in perfection, completeness. When we come into Christ by faith we enter, SO FAR AS POSITION IS CONCERNED, as full a perfection as ever we shall have, though we remain here for generations. In Christ we are as perfect as we ever shall be. What we are in ourselves will mean a process, but, so far as our POSITION in Him is concerned, we are perfect in Christ.

What is this last Adam? He is different from the first Adam in that He is a life-giving Spirit, not merely a living soul. Following on the definition in this fifteenth chapter of 1 Corinthians we have:

"So also it is written... that is not first which is spiritual, but that which is soulical; then that which is spiritual. The first man is of the earth, earthy: the second man is of heaven. As is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy: and as is the heavenly, such as they also that are heavenly."

The seed of Christ is essentially spiritual and heavenly; that is why everything begins in heaven. You can no longer know Christ after the flesh. You can only know Christ after the Spirit now. You can no longer take hold of Him in the flesh; you can only take hold of Him in the Spirit now. You can no longer have fellowship with Him on the earth as of this earth; you can only have fellowship with Him now in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus; the spiritual and the heavenly. And such are they of this new generation. In their very being they are spiritual and heavenly. No longer of this world, and no longer of this natural or soulical order. They are essentially spiritual.

Before we follow that further we want to note this other thing: that the second Man was also put on probation, as was the first. He was put on probation to be tried and tested on exactly the same question as was the first Adam, that of obedience; and to be brought to a certain point of maturity, as was Adam. The Lord Jesus was put under conditions of testing before heaven, and all heaven was interested in that testing. All heaven was interested in the testing of the first Adam, and all heaven was interested in the testing of the last Adam. After the first phase of the testing in the wilderness angels came and ministered. They had been watching! In the hour of the deepest of all the testings, in the garden of Gethsemane, an angel came and ministered. It was before heaven that this testing was going on!

The fact of the testing need not be tarried with longer. Two other things remain: the nature of the testing, and the object, or the issue, of the testing.

The nature of the testing was through three years of walk under temptation; temptation from without, and certainly not from within. Through those three years, what was taking place in His life was not atoning or vicarious, but He was being watched, observed, under the play of forces upon Him to see His reaction. He took the place of the sweet-savour offering during the three years, and His life was a sweet savour unto God. He was offering Himself to God through those three years, but not as an offering for sin, not an atoning offering. He was offering Himself to God as a sweet-savour offering for the good pleasure of God, for God's satisfaction, so that God could have a Man under continuous trial and testing before His eye, a Man who would not in any way develop a flaw, a blemish, a spot, a wrinkle, a stain or any such thing.

The other form of the testing, the probation, was in the passion when He was made sin, and, being made sin for us, He who knew no sin, God Himself had to withdraw, turn His face away, and deny Him. Then even under that strain He remained faithful and obedient. I have no doubt whatever that the cup which He was facing, and over which He had His supreme battle in the garden, was the cup of His Father's denial. For Him that had to be a part of the price, but in the presence of that cup He fought through to victory: "Not my will, but thine...". Heaven was so concerned about that aspect of the battle that heaven came in to succour Him when He had got through in spirit. He was on probation, under test. The question was one of 'obedience unto death, yea, the death of the Cross'; and the death of the Cross, in its deepest meaning, was being forsaken of God. He was obedient.

The object and the issue of the testing was perfecting. He was perfect, but He was made perfect. He was perfect, and yet He was perfected. The Word distinctly tells us that He was "made perfect through suffering", and "though he was a Son, yet learned obedience by the things which he suffered". While there was no sin in Him, He had to move toward a position as representing man which He could only reach through being tested out as man. He reached the position that, while He was perfect, yet He was perfected. He reached a point of finality as Man which no man had ever reached before; and when He was perfected through suffering, God had got His Son as in eternal Godhead, but a Man - through trial and probation - at the point where He intended the first Adam to come. When He had got a Man there He took Him away from this world and put Him in heaven. Why? Because conformity to the image of that Man was not going to be on the ground of flesh and blood, but it was going to be a spiritual thing. God was going to commence, not where He commenced with Christ, but where He ended with Christ. You and I begin where God has finished with Christ. That is one of the most blessed truths that it is possible for us to apprehend, if we could apprehend it. God does not start with us where He started with the first Adam. He commences with us where He finished with the last Adam. That is, God is working on the basis of having already a perfect humanity. He has put the last Adam in heaven, and there is the image, there is the model, there is the racial Man, in whom the race is already.

The second thing is that He sends forth the Holy Spirit from heaven. The New Testament phrase is: "The Holy Ghost sent down from heaven." Where is that? Where Christ is, where God's perfected Son is. Sent down from Him! What for? As the Spirit of all that Christ is in heaven. All that perfection that Christ is in heaven comes down in the Holy Spirit. We receive the Holy Spirit! What have we received? We have received into our inner being the Spirit of Christ in heaven.

The first phase of that is our new birth. What is our new birth? It is the life of God's last Adam. He is "a life-giving spirit". The Holy Ghost is the Spirit of the life-giving spiritual last Adam. The terms sound somewhat technical, but I am keeping closely to the Scripture. The Holy Spirit comes as Christ, as what Christ is, and gives life to those who believe on the Lord Jesus. We say that we pass from death unto life, that we receive the gift of eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord, that is, we are born anew, we are born of Him. "That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit." So we are born of Him, the last Adam, who is a life-giving spirit, and in the innermost reality of our being we are living spirit. That is what is born from above. It is from above, and therefore it is not earthly, but heavenly. The nature of the new birth is that we are life and spirit, and heavenly, inwardly a living spirit, made to live by the very life of the Lord Jesus, and because that is from above it is heavenly. So God has here in this earth something which does not belong to this earth at all, and which does not belong to the first Adam race, something which is utterly different from the first Adam, and altogether apart from the earth. God has here that which is of Christ, and that which is heavenly. The development of that, of course, is the whole history of spiritual growth, but that is where we begin, and that is the nature of the new birth.

We have got the perfected humanity of the Lord Jesus in infant form (if I may put it that way) at our new birth, and spiritual growth is simply the development of that in us. It is what the Apostle Paul speaks of as Christ being "fully formed" in us (Galatians 4:19 - Gk.): "Until Christ be fully formed in you." Christ in what He is is introduced, as it were, as a babe at our new birth, and the course of spiritual experience is the formation of Christ in us unto fullness. While this relates to the Church in completion, it has a personal meaning.

God did not, because of Adam's failure and sin, wipe out that race, destroy it, put it out of existence and make another creation. God is doing a much more magnificent thing than that. In the midst of all that He is introducing something and building up something which is taking ascendency over that, and your spiritual experience, and mine, is simply the progressive ascendency of the last Adam over the first; of the spiritual over the soulical, the natural; the heavenly over the earthly. That is the course of our life. It is progressive conformity to the image of His Son. The Word says: "Be not conformed to this age, but be ye transformed by the making anew of your mind" (Romans 12:2). It is only another way of putting the same thing.

So, in the presence of the first Adam (which, mark you, in God's judicial act has been set aside but not annihilated - set aside judicially and no longer recognized as standing before God, yet remaining), as we walk in obedience, the law upon which God counts for all the realization of His purpose is the last Adam triumphing over the first Adam, taking ascendency in us, having already taken full ascendency in heaven in the Person of the Lord Jesus.

All that means that we are learning Christ. The Apostle said: "Ye did not so learn Christ" (Ephesians 4:20). He used that phrase in a specific connection, but it can be used quite generally and applied in this way, that our business is to 'so learn Christ'. And it is an education which begins with A, B, C. It is an education which begins in infancy, and the wisest man after the first Adam does not know anything more about the last Adam than a little child just born into this world. The one who may be most confident and self-reliant in the first Adam has got to learn how to take a first step in the last Adam, and very often makes some tumbles in learning how to take even a first step. On that hangs all the doctrine of the Epistles: walking after the Spirit. That is something new - another kind of walk. We are not natural, but spiritual and therefore this is something altogether different, and nature (that is, our relationship and our inheritance from the first Adam) gives us no help here. You will look in vain to nature to help you walk after the Spirit. You may be the wisest after the first Adam, but that can give you nothing for the second Adam. You have come into a new realm where it is not natural knowledge but spiritual knowledge, and "the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God; for they are foolishness unto him; and he cannot know them..." (1 Corinthians 2:14). What is true in walk and knowledge is true of every other thing that makes up life. Is food a part of life? Well, you are careful about your food. The natural man knows more or less what suits him and what he wants. Yes! We have to learn something new about spiritual food. You know that you need food for your new creation; you know you need spiritual food; and as you go on you know what spiritual food is, and you know what is not spiritual food that assumes to be spiritual food. You are discovering by a new spiritual - shall I say? - instinct, understanding, discernment, perception what is food and what is not food, spiritually.

What does all this amount to? The food, and the knowledge, the understanding, the strength, the walk, are not abstractions, and they are not things in themselves. THEY ARE CHRIST! He is the food; He is made unto us wisdom. The whole business of the life of the child of God is to learn how to live on Christ, how to make Christ their life at every point, for God has made Him to be all, and summed up everything in Him.

Let us focus on one thing: as to where Adam failed and where Christ triumphed. It was on the question of obedience. Adam did not reach God's appointed end because he failed in obedience. Christ did reach God's appointed end representatively, because of obedience. Now what is righteousness? Righteousness is the all-inclusive virtue. If you go through the Word of God you will find that everything is gathered up into that word "righteousness". Whatever may be the forms of sin, all of them are gathered into that - righteousness or unrighteousness. Is it theft? It is unrighteousness! Is it idolatry? It is unrighteousness! Whatever it is, that is the word which expresses it. It is not so much the thing in itself, it is what it means of unrighteousness before God. Righteousness is "the foundation of his throne" (Psalm 97:2), which means that all His government is upon a basis of righteousness. All God's governmental activities are upon a basis of righteousness. All is summed up into one question of righteousness and unrighteousness. The ultimate issue for man's judgment or man's salvation is the issue of righteousness.

Come to the Roman letter, and you see quite well that "justification" is only another word for righteousness - being made righteous before God. The whole argument there is: "There is none righteous, no, not one" (Romans 3:10), and then, out of that, comes all that is said about justification. Justification is simply to find that righteousness, to produce that righteousness, to bring to a position of righteousness.

What is unrighteousness? Disobedience! What is righteousness? Obedience! How did Christ provide God with the righteousness that He demanded? By His obedience, His utter obedience. How did Adam bring this race under condemnation, that is, take it off the basis of righteousness, and, therefore, of acceptance with God? By disobedience! So that the obedience of Christ provides righteousness. "Christ Jesus, who was made unto us... righteousness" (1 Corinthians 1:30). How? Because of His perfect obedience.

That obedience of the Lord Jesus was as Man for man. It was representative obedience. His being in heaven means that there is the virtue of a perfected obedience in Him, satisfying God for you and for me, and we stand upon a basis of righteousness because of the perfect obedience of the Lord Jesus. Then we are brought by the obedience of one Man (that is Romans 5) into the presence of God in the Person of the Lord Jesus, to stand without judgment and without any fear of judgment. No condemnation in Him, the inclusive, representative, racial Man. We come into acceptance with God because of His obedience, but, having been put in acceptance with God, our business is to walk in the obedience into which we have been planted. How can we walk in obedience? How are you and I going to keep on in obedience? The natural man cannot do it! The Adam man has proved helpless in this. How are we going to do it? The Spirit of the obedient One is in us, to be the strength of His obedience to us. 'Lord, I cannot of myself be obedient, BUT You, as having already triumphed in this matter of obedience, are in me; I live on Your strength in this matter.' That is living by Christ, and that is walking in obedience by reason of the Holy Spirit energizing. "It is God which worketh" - energizeth is the word - "in you both to will and to work, for his good pleasure" (Philippians 2:13).

Chapter 3 - Christ in You

"Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah: not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they brake, although I was an husband unto them, saith the Lord. But this is the Covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my law in their inward parts, and in their heart will I write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people: and they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the Lord: for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin will I remember no more" (Jeremiah 31:31-34).

"Wherefore when he cometh into the world, he saith, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body didst thou prepare for me; in whole burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin thou hadst no pleasure: then said I, Lo, I am come (in the roll of the book it is written of me) to do thy will, O God. Saying above, Sacrifices and offerings and whole burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin thou wouldest not, neither hadst pleasure therein (the which are offered according to the law), then hath he said, Lo, I am come to do thy will. He taketh away the first, that he may establish the second. By which will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all" (Hebrews 10:5-10).

"To whom God was pleased to make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory: whom we proclaim, admonishing every man and teaching every man in all wisdom, that we may present every man perfect in Christ" (Colossians 1:27-28).

"I have been crucified with Christ; yet I live; and yet no longer I, but Christ liveth in me: and that life which I now live in the flesh I live in faith, the faith which is in the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself up for me" (Galatians 2:20).

That portion in Jeremiah has its fulfilment now in Christ. It concerns the new covenant which the Lord said was to be altogether different; not according to the covenant which He made with Israel when He brought them out of Egypt, but something within them, written in their hearts. We know that the Lord Jesus Himself is the embodiment of all the terms of the covenant, and that covenant is sealed with His own blood. "Christ in you" means that all that that covenant contains becomes an inward thing, an inward power, an inward revelation of God. "Christ liveth in you", said the Apostle, and the mystery which God has been pleased to reveal is: "Christ in you, the hope of glory."

There is one comprehensive and all-embodying truth which, if it really gained the complete mastery of our hearts and dominated our whole consciousness, capturing our will, our hearts, and our minds, would really revolutionize everything, just as the new covenant represents a revolution from the old covenant. The great truth which embodies everything is this: that God has determined that nothing which is not Christ shall remain, and He is working toward that end, on the one hand to rid this universe of everything that is not Christ; on the other hand to fill this universe with that which is Christ. That means that God does not accept or recognize anything whatever that is not Christ. Then again, it means that God puts His seal upon what is Christ, and it is all a matter of the measure of Christ. It is a tremendous thing when that really does come to our hearts with the force and the power which it really does represent. It explains everything of God's dealings with us. It gives us the key to our problems. It sets us at once upon the highway of God's own purpose.

If it should be felt that the world is really becoming more and more full of evil, and not of Christ, we will explain that seeming contradiction later.

But we begin here, and we notice the significant setting of this in the letter to the Colossians. The first thing in the Colossian letter is the matchless presentation of the Lord Jesus. There is nothing in all the Word of God to compare with the first chapter of this letter as an unveiling of the Lord Jesus, that is, in any one part. From eternity Christ is seen in and through creation, all things unto Him, by Him, through Him, Christ in sovereignty governing all things, controlling all things. Gather it all up into one fragment, a universal fragment: "That in all things he might have the pre-eminence." There is the universal and eternal Son of God! And then, all that, as in a Divine secret, is brought right down and it is said: "Christ IN YOU, the hope of glory". All that in you - the Church. It is THAT Christ that is in you. He who created all things is in you IN YOUR RELATEDNESS TO THE CHURCH. He for whom all things were created is in you THUS, He who upholds all things is in you THUS. He in whom all things consist, hold together, is in you corporately, as in His Body.

The second thing is this: that the letter goes on, "seeing that ye have put off the old man... and have put on the new man" (3:9-10). What does that mean? That all that is not Christ is put aside, is repudiated, and all that is Christ is put on, is brought in. So that God's intention concerning His Son as universally pre-eminent is going to be realized by His being put on on the part of believers, who, as the third chapter says, have been "raised together with Him". This, the Apostle says, is the meaning of baptism (Colossians 2:12).

Christ is not a second personality or power, to come along to reinforce US, to vivify US, to strengthen US, for us to use in life and in service, and that He should make US something. That is not the thought, and that is not the angle of Scripture at all. And yet, how almost universally, perhaps largely unconsciously, that is what is happening. Christians are wanting to be made something, even as Christians; and Christian workers and the Lord's servants are, though perhaps unwittingly, wanting to be made something as workers; and they want Christ to reinforce THEM, come behind THEM, and make THEM something as His servants and in His service. That whole system of things is diametrically opposed to the truth. The truth is that Christ shall be all, and that we decrease that He may increase; that He should be the primary Personality, and that the impact and registration of any life and any service should not be: 'What a good man he was!' or 'What a good woman she is!' or 'What a fine worker!' but: 'What a presence of Christ! What a testimony to Christ! What an expression of Christ! What a sense of Christ! What a reality of Christ!'

The next thing I am going to say may be difficult to accept, just as it is difficult to say, and yet faithfulness demands that things like this should be said. There is going to be a tremendous surprise one day over this matter. There is a tremendous amount of energy, and activity, and machinery, and zeal and devotion in the work of the Lord, in the service of the Lord, which seems to be producing something quite big, and carrying on something quite extensive. It is not for us to judge, but it is for us to lay down laws and recognize those laws, or, rather, recognize laws that are laid down by God. When eventually all work, all service, all activity, is weighed in the balances, which will determine what abides for ever or passes away for ever, all that which was MERELY human energy for God will go; all that which was merely man's enterprise for the Lord will go; all that which was in any way out from man himself, even though in devotion to God, will go. Only that which was the energy of Christ, the wisdom of Christ, the power of Christ, will remain. God is not using your energies and my energies. He is calling upon us to use the energies of Christ. God cannot set His seal upon anything that is of man. God's seal only rests upon that which is of His Son, and we must not say that because a thing is big, extensive, and SEEMS to be a great work for God, that it necessarily is such. What we have got to be quite sure about is that that thing is not being carried on by the momentum of man, or the momentum of organization, the momentum of machinery, the momentum of human zeal and energy for God nor by the momentum of a programme, but that it is being energized by the Holy Ghost, that it is Christ Himself who is the life and the power of that thing. In so far as human personalities, energies and all that kind of thing are the mainspring, we may be sure that in the end there is going to be a good deal that goes. That can be seen as you look back over the history of things which claimed to represent God.

The object of saying this is not for one moment to cast a cloud of suspicion or doubt over anything, but it is to emphasize this truth, this basic truth. It is along the line of jealousy for Christ. Nothing will remain in this universe eventually but what is Christ, and we must recognize that everything for God's ultimate purpose is bound up with and in Christ, and it IS Christ. We shall only come to the end which God has fixed as we know how to draw upon Christ for everything. We shall be established as we live by Christ, the work will be established as it is out from Christ, as we do it out from Him.

We have often spoken of this same thing in the direction of the candlestick all of gold, as mentioned in the prophecies of Zechariah. We must remember that the wrought gold is the Lord Jesus. It is only a typical way of saying that He was made perfect through suffering. The gold is refined and perfected in its purity in the fire. That is what happened with Him. Perfect, yet perfected through suffering. The candlestick of pure gold is what Christ is, and inasmuch as it is a candlestick, it is the vessel and the instrument of the Testimony, the life, the revelation, the unveiling. The vessel of the Testimony, then, is what Christ is, and the Testimony can only be upheld and maintained in clearness by what Christ is. We in ourselves cannot maintain the Testimony. The Testimony of Jesus will be maintained in us just in so far as we conform to His image. To put that in another way: just in the measure in which Christ has supplanted ourselves - "no longer I, but Christ". God has a gold standard, and He never departs from it. God's gold standard is His Son, and He never deviates one little bit from His Son.

This change from Christ in heaven to Christ in you is just with that object in view. It is that, Christ being in you, everything else shall be brought down under Christ, and that Christ should take the ascendency in us just as He has taken universal ascendency in heaven, and it is that taking of ascendency which is the conforming to His image. "No longer I" is a very inclusive statement, for that "I" is many-sided. There is 'I like' and 'I will', 'I think' and 'I want'. And then the opposites, 'I don't like', 'I will not', 'I do not think', 'I do not want'. And 'I' is much more comprehensive than that. Conformity to His image simply means that that is ruled out, and oh! what a business that is! While we have all accepted the final and the full abolition of the 'I', by no means have we attained unto that. We are very often in some way or another up against that 'I', and the question again is whether it is going to be Christ or 'I'. But the very fact that the Holy Spirit makes a conflict of it shows that the thing is active, and that something is going on. We need to ask definitely that the Lord will keep that active, and that He will make these crises much more acute.

Sometimes we have to ask ourselves, as we see personal desires being followed out, likes being served, preferences being manipulated, and it becomes so patent that there is something which is quite natural ruling decisions and making the plans: Where is the Cross, and where is the Holy Spirit working by the Cross? Therefore, you and I need to ask the Lord more every day to make these crises acute, that we shall have no blind spots on this matter, thinking that it is for the Lord when it is really for ourselves. Any measure of that 'I' is countering God's end, and anything that is done, even though it be by a most devoted soul, for the Lord on that basis is bound to have in it that element which will limit its ETERNAL value.

The thing which is going to be wholly, utterly abiding, eternal, must be utterly Christ. It may, therefore, be necessary for a course of reduction to be followed by the Lord. The thing may seem small and it may seem to be very limited according to the world's standards. What is going on can hardly be seen on the surface, but God is working right down at the bottom to build from the foundation, slowly, steadily, surely, and every fresh fragment that God adds to that work is sifted, purged, tested. It is as though God puts in something and then, before He adds to it, He tests it, proves it, tries it, sifts it, until the thing is, in its absolute purity, all of Christ and is established.

That seems to be God's way with something that is going to be wholly of Christ. You can have, if you MUST, to gratify the old human desires to SEE, to POSSESS, to KNOW, to DO, to be active, something bigger. But when you look on toward the end, it will just be tested as to what is of Christ. All the other is waste. You have plenty of Scripture to bear that out. I am only putting my finger upon a central law. Is it not true that God has determined to have nothing in this universe eventually but what is Christ, and all else will be removed for ever?

There is another way of looking at it. It is a glorious prospect to know that the universe will be filled with Christ, and God is going to have His end. When the Lord gets hold of a life utterly, and when the Cross has really entered into that life, so that that life can say: "I have been crucified with Christ", nothing passes, nothing gets through that is not Christ. God keeps intensely short accounts with that life. God is alive to everything concerning the first Adam. That is the meaning of: "He that hath the seven spirits of God". That phrase means the perfection of spiritual vision. Go back to the prophecies of Zechariah and you remember it speaks of "seven eyes". That means that the Lord Jesus, who has the seven spirits of God, is alive to everything, takes in everything, comprehends everything. Nothing escapes Him. Especially is that perfection of perception related to the things that would be a menace to His ultimate purpose, and in all that we do He knows exactly where the point is which marks the end of what is of Himself and the beginning of us. We do not know, but He does, just where these things overlap, and He is letting nothing pass.

That represents a challenge to us! We have been seeing that God, for His own satisfaction in relation to His own ultimate purpose, must have a candlestick all of gold, a vessel which represents what Christ is in an utter sense, That means a deep cost, a great measure of suffering. That is the challenge which comes to us. Until the Lord reveals it with a heavenly light we do not see how big the difference is between self and Christ. When the Lord does a thing it is eternal.

Are our hearts set upon God having that which is wholly of Himself? That means 'I' crucified! No longer I, but Christ! And that means that Christ in us is the basis of our conformity to His image, until we partake with Him of His own nature - pure gold. It is something to face seriously before Him. It brings to us a challenge, but surely it also brings to us a glorious possibility! What Christ is can be made good in us!

This is what God is doing in the groaning creation. It does not appear to be so, for, to all appearances the 'fullness' seems to be evil. Do you remember a very illuminating phrase in Genesis 15:16: "The iniquity of the Amorite is not yet full"? The context shows that Israel's exodus and occupation of the Promised Land waited upon the Amorite's full cup of iniquity. "Amorite" is a representative name for all the nations then occupying the land. When that cup of iniquity was full God emancipated Israel. The exodus synchronized with a condition in the world. The filling of the land with what was of God required the enemy's extension of his evil nature to its limit; then God acted.

We need say no more. The end time will be marked by 'iniquity abounding'. The rapture of the Church will take place - as its exodus - when "the man of sin is revealed", when the cup of iniquity is full. We are living at a time when there is a positive landslide of moral iniquity. It is called 'the new morality', but it is not morality at all, it is 'non morality'. Look at your map of the world and note how minute is the area of the United Kingdom. It is almost lost in the great areas of the world countries. And yet, in this so small country, four hundred millions of pounds are spent annually on gambling. There is a corresponding expenditure on alcoholic drink, to say nothing of the iniquitous drug business. No wonder that the nation is fighting for economic survival, and has lost its place of honour in the world. Perhaps the worst feature is that governments legislate for these things, and thereby largely condone or recognize them.

If this is true of such a fragment of the world, what of the whole world situation? God is taking account of this. He is causing the simple facts of His salvation to be made known on a scale unprecedented in the world's history, and when the whole world has had its opportunity "then shall the end come". Two things are UNMISTAKABLY evident: the world-encircling by the simple gospel of salvation as never before, and the headlong rush of iniquity to 'fill up the cup'. There is a third feature: it is the ripening of saints by suffering unto the grape-harvest. These three things are the "work in the groaning creation".

Chapter 4 - From Bondage to Freedom

Reading: John 8:12-51.

"Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free" (verse 32).

"If therefore the Son shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed" (verse 36).

These verses speak to us of freedom by knowledge of the truth. You will notice that the declaration made by the Lord Jesus in these words about the truth making free immediately raised in those to whom He was speaking the whole question of bondage. Their instant reaction to His words was to repudiate the suggestion that they were in bondage. They said: "We... have never yet been in bondage to any man", and in so saying they gave themselves away very thoroughly. They showed how utterly blind they were, and they completely justified the words with which this portion commences: "I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in the darkness." There is no need for a light if there is no darkness. The Lord Jesus made the statement that He was the Light. He knew right well how deep the darkness was, but they were not aware of that darkness and therefore they saw no need for Him. They were not aware of bondage and therefore they saw no need for liberation. It is just wonderful how this whole chapter justifies Him in declaring Himself as the Light and as the Liberator, because of the existing darkness and bondage, although those to whom He spoke were unconscious of it.

This chapter brings out the fact and the nature of the darkness and the bondage and then shows the way of deliverance, and that way is the Lord Jesus Himself. They said: "We... have never yet been in bondage". He will show them four ways at least in which they were in bondage and, inasmuch as they did not recognize any one of them, it is proved how utter the darkness is.

First of all, He will make it perfectly clear that they were in bondage to the law. That law stood over them as a master, as a judge, as something from which they could not get clear, from which there was no escape, to which they would have to capitulate by compulsion. They were in that way in bondage to the law. The first eleven verses of this chapter are a remarkable parenthesis. We will note how they form a part of this general matter. You notice that these rulers brought the woman taken in sin and said to Him: "This woman hath been taken in adultery, in the very act. Now in the law Moses commanded us to stone such: what then sayest thou...?" Of course, it was an utterly illegal act of theirs. They had a recognized court for such cases where the law was administered. They had no business to take it away from the proper quarter and bring it, as it were, to a private person, especially to one in whom they did not believe. But man will do anything to obtain an end upon which he is set and these rulers were out to entrap Him. They were trying to get Him to adjudicate and thus to bring Him into conflict with the Sanhedrin, the judicial court. We leave that, but notice the issue that arises: 'Moses said... what sayest thou?' Will He uphold Moses? If He does so, and pronounces judgment, He takes the place of the Sanhedrin and also immediately comes into conflict with the Roman authorities who, for the time being, have superseded Moses in the administration of the law. Will He set aside Moses? If He does, then He will be implicated in the sin. He will be condoning it, and will be a party to evil. It looks like a trap from which there is no escape.

He is sitting in the temple teaching and when they bring in the woman and make their charge and interrogate Him, He bends down from His seat and writes on the ground. They press Him with their question and all He says, lifting up His head, is: "He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone...", and then stoops down again. When He has been writing a little while He looks up, and they are all gone. The Word says: "They... went out one by one, beginning from the eldest, even unto the last". Do you say that they are not in bondage to the law? He has brought the law home to them which they were trying to bring home on this woman. He has turned the weapon on to the accusers, and they who thought that they stood well with Moses have come under the lash of Moses and they cannot stand up to the law. If they could have stood up to the law of Moses, that woman would have been stoned, but they could not. The law judged them and condemned them. How proven was their state of bondage when they went out!

We make our application as we go along. Not only they but all are in bondage to the law in that way. God has uttered His law and has never taken one fragment away from that law. That law stands! It is comprehensive, detailed, it touches everything in life and in character. On the one hand, there is a whole comprehensive catalogue of: "Thou shalt not"! On the other hand, there is an equally comprehensive catalogue of: "Thou shalt"! And then the two sides are gathered up into one thing and if you are guilty of breaking the law at one point, you are guilty of the whole law. If you break down at one point, you are responsible for all the rest. We cannot stand up to that. We are in bondage by nature. God has spoken and we cannot get away from it. We are responsible for all that God has made known of His mind and His requirements on the side of "Thou shalt" and on the side of "Thou shalt not". We shall never get away from that for we shall have to answer for it one day. Every one of us will have to stand before God and answer to Him for His law, there is no escape. God will bring it home to us sooner or later and it will mean condemnation and judgment for every one. There is only one way of escape for we are all in bondage to the law by nature and we have all to answer for the law. Is there one who can say he has kept the whole law and never violated any bit of God's commandment? It is not a matter of how many sins. If you only commit one violation of God's commandment, you are guilty of all the rest before God. The law is broken, you are proved a sinner and you might just as well go the whole way as far as your standing before God is concerned. The fact of sin is established and whether it be sin, more or less, there is judgment. The violation of the law at one point just means that we are sinners with a sinful nature. It is not SINS, but a NATURE.

Secondly, they were in bondage to sin. They said: "We... have never yet been in bondage to any man", but He said: "Verily, verily, I say unto you, Every one that committeth sin is the bondservant of sin." Only a little while before they had been unable to stand up to that: "He that is without SIN among you" (not 'He that has not committed THIS particular sin'), "let him first cast a stone...". These very people had walked out and in walking out had admitted that they were not without sin. Now He says: "Every one that committeth sin is the bond servant of sin". So they were self-confessed slaves of sin. Oh! they would not have said it in word, but it had come home to their consciences.

Now, leaving these Pharisees aside, that does not need a great deal of enforcing so far as we are concerned. I do not think we would be in the place of religious Pharisees who would in word repudiate any bondage to sin, that is, by nature. None of us would say that we were sinless. But I ask you: Have you ever tried to stop sinning? Have you tried never to sin? Have you started a day and, in starting it, said, 'I will not sin today'? How have you got on? You know quite well that you are in bondage to sin, and there is no option about it. It is not something over which you, if you are not saved and in Christ, have the mastery; it is your master. We know quite well that outside of Christ sin has dominion over us and we are in bondage to sin. That is what the Lord Jesus makes clear and brings home here.

The third thing which comes in here is that they were in bondage to the devil. "Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father it is your will to do." That is an awful thing to say, but He proved His case. And has it not proved that He was right? These religious Pharisees slew the Lord of Glory, and 2,000 years have proved that they did the devil's work, that the devil was behind it, that it was not the work of God and that what He said as recorded here was perfectly true, they were of their father the devil and they did the works of their father. They were, therefore, blindly in bondage to the devil.

This is a still deeper fact lying behind the state of every man and woman born into this world. They are under the tyranny of God's law, they are in the bondage of sin, but back of that there is the tyranny of the devil. What we have to recognize is that we are not merely dealing with sin, powerful as sin is in itself, but it is Satan himself back of the sin with whom we have to reckon. You cannot outwit the devil! You may try to take precautions against sinning, but you will find that you are up against - not some abstract thing but - a sinister, cunning intelligence who can trip you up just when you did not want to be, can get you at the time when you are off your guard, when you are tired and unable to stand up. It is all plotted, all thought out, all worked to a scheme. The devil is back of this sin business with his great intelligence as well as with his great power, and every man and woman outside of Christ is not only in bondage to sin, but in bondage to the devil. It is all very well for people to say that they are not going to sin again, that they are going to give up sinning. They cannot give up the devil like that. The devil is not going to be put off like that. They are not dealing merely with some habit, something into which they slip from time to time. They are in the toils and grip and dominion of the devil, and they have not only to be saved from sin, they must be saved from him. Even religious Pharisees were in bondage to Satan.

Then the fourth thing is brought to light here by the Lord Jesus and that is that they were in bondage to judgment. Because of this other threefold bondage, judgment rested upon them, the judgment of God. "Ye shall die in your sins", but that is not merely going out, ceasing to be. "It is appointed unto men once to die, and after this cometh judgement" (Heb. 9:27), and there is no escaping that. In bondage to judgment, that is, judgment stands as master of the situation for every sinner. So you see, what the Lord Jesus said about being in bondage is a very, very great thing, something which is true in all directions. When He said: "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free" and the whole question of being in bondage came up, instantly they repudiated the suggestion, the insinuation. He proved His case and showed that they were very much more in bondage than they had ever thought.

That is how we are, but He said: "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free... If therefore the Son shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed." We have seen the one side: the bondage. Now we look at the other side: freedom by the truth. What truth makes free?

There are several sections to this Gospel by John. The first section has to do with life and the second section has to do with light. Each one of these sections circles round the Person of the Lord Jesus. When He is dealing with life, the central declaration is: "I am the life", and when He is dealing with light and truth, the central declaration is: "I am the light". So all that is being said focuses upon Him. "Ye shall know the truth" - 'I am the truth'! It simply amounts to this: you shall know Me and you will be set free. What does it mean in this respect to know Him as the truth and to be made free? It is not just knowing the fact of the existence of the Lord Jesus. It is not just believing that there is such a Person. It is knowing what He stands for, what He means.

What is the truth in the Lord Jesus which stands over against the bondage of the law, by which we are made free from that bondage? It is this, that, while God never reduced His law by one fragment or one iota, the whole law was fulfilled by the Lord Jesus for us. Every one has been beaten by that law, but God has never said: 'You cannot fulfil that law, I will let you off'. No, He said: 'You must face it!' That is impossible, so what is the way of escape? God will have His law fulfilled! The Lord Jesus came and said: 'I will fulfil it and when once it has been fulfilled it can be set aside.' It could never be set aside until it was utterly fulfilled and so He fulfilled the law to God's perfect satisfaction on our behalf. "Lo, I am come; In the roll of the book it is written of me: I delight to do thy will, O my God" (Psalm 40:7-8). And He did it perfectly and, having fulfilled the law and made it honourable, He put it out of the way and introduced the dispensation of grace so that now we can sing:

"Free from the law, oh, happy condition!

Jesus hath bled and THERE is remission!

Cursed by the law, and bruised by the Fall,

Grace hath redeemed us once for all."

The truth in Jesus by which we are made free is that He has satisfied God in the matter of the law.

The next point is sin: the truth in Jesus over against bondage to sin. "Him who knew no sin he made to be sin on our behalf"; "Thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin"; "Our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation"; "He was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed". The truth in Jesus by which we are set free from sin is that He has dealt with the whole sin question on our behalf, and that deliverance from the bondage of sin is a full deliverance in the Lord Jesus as the Sin-Bearer, but we must always keep the emphasis upon what HE IS FOR US and not upon what we are apart from Him!

The same thing is true in relation to the bondage of Satan, the grip and tyranny of the devil. In the words of the Lord Jesus prior to the Cross: "Now shall the prince of this world be cast out"; "the prince of this world hath been judged" (John 12:31; 16:11). Later, the Apostle Paul, reflecting with Divine illumination upon what took place in the unseen at Calvary, writes: "having put off from himself the principalities and the powers, he made a show of them openly, triumphing over them in it" (Colossians 2:15). And as the outcome of that the Apostle exclaims: "Thanks be unto God, which always leadeth us in triumph in Christ, and maketh manifest through us the savour of his knowledge in every place" (2 Corinthians 2:14). Calvary was Christ's victory over the devil on our behalf and because of what He did there we are set free from the bondage of Satan. Remember again that it is a matter of abiding in Him by faith!

Then the bondage to judgment: If He took our place in sin, under the law, under the power of Satan, and then destroyed all those, He has destroyed the consequences of all those, namely judgment. In His Cross He received our judgment and the judgment due to us was exhausted upon Him. Prophetically, the Psalmist put these words into His mouth: "All thy waves and thy billows are gone over me" (Psalm 42:7). That was the judgment of God going over His soul as He represented us. Blessed be God, you and I in Christ do not have to face this judgment. It is past for us, but all these things remain for those who are outside of Christ.

There is one other thing which must be noted. "If... the Son shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed." "If the SON...". It is very impressive how often that title is used in the Gospel by John, and, alongside of it, "the Father". The name "Father" occurs one hundred and eleven times in the Gospel by John. "The Father" and "the Son" are familiar terms. Then it is impressive that, recognizing those familiar terms, at the beginning of the Gospel you have so much about being born again. "As many as received him, to them gave he the right to become children of God, even to them that believe on his name: which were BORN, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh...". To Nicodemus He said: "Ye must be born anew". That is a family thought. There is the Father, there is the Son, but to be in that family you have to be born into it, and if the Son shall make you free that means that you are in the family. Jesus said: "The bondservant abideth not in the house... the son abideth" (John 8:35). If you are in bondage to the law, you have no place in this family. This is a family of the free ones, of the free-born. How are we to be set free from the bondage to sin, to Satan, to judgment? By being born again. The Son makes free. It is given to the Son to give eternal life to as many as He will, and we receive eternal life when we are born again. That is the gift which Christ, the Son, gives us. It is eternal life through Jesus Christ, our Lord. How are we set free? By being born again and brought into the family. We become members of a family of those who are free from all these things which speak of bondage.

If we are rejoicing in that great liberty which is ours in Christ, then our great desire is that others should come into it too. We do not know and we do not judge anyone - that is for each one to decide - but our desire is that we should ALL know the truth and that the truth should make us free. If you do not understand those terms, let me put it this way: you should know the Lord Jesus in a saving way and then you will be set free from the law, free from sin, free from Satan and free from judgment.

Chapter 5 - The House Not Made With Hands

"Whose voice then shook the earth: but now he hath promised, saying, Yet once more will I make to tremble not the earth only, but also the heaven. And this word, Yet once more, signifieth the removing of those things that are shaken, as of things that have been made, that those things which are not shaken may remain. Wherefore, receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us have grace, whereby we may offer service well-pleasing to God with reverence and awe" (Hebrews 12:26-28).

There is a sense in which those three verses summarize this letter, and indicate precisely the object of the letter. The statement about the 'things which can be shaken' covers the whole ground of the typology and earthly representation of heavenly things in the Mosaic system. The 'things which cannot be shaken' are the spiritual meaning of those things, that to which they point and embody as abiding spiritual and heavenly realities. The Apostle is saying that a shaking is about to take place, and the result of that shaking will be that all those things will be displaced, upset and overturned, and that system will be disintegrated.

That, to some extent, fixes the time of the writing of this letter as being prior to the destruction of Jerusalem. The Temple and all its service was going on at the time, but the writer knew that ere long that whole system would be shaken to its foundation and collapse, and would be broken to pieces. That took place shortly after with the destruction of Jerusalem. The probability is that this letter was written about the year A.D. 64, and the destruction of Jerusalem took place in the year A.D. 70. These very Jewish believers to whom this letter was written probably lived to that day and saw the fulfilment of this prophecy. As they were inclined to go back from Christ, in all the spiritual fullness which He embodied, to the outward, historical, traditional system, the Apostle wrote this letter to save them from the awful disaster to their faith which would inevitably take place if they were solely bound up with that system and had no more. He wrote to woo them from the transient and the passing to the abiding and the permanent, and to bring them into the things which CANNOT be shaken.

You go through the letter and mark each step, right from the first chapter, as to what can be shaken and what cannot be shaken. The eternal sonship of the Lord Jesus Christ cannot be shaken. Our sonship in Him cannot be shaken. Is it the blood of the covenant? It is the Blood of the EVERLASTING covenant, and it cannot be shaken! Is it the Priesthood of the Lord Jesus? It is after the order of Melchizedek; not merely after the order of Aaron, which passes, but after the power of an endless life, which cannot be shaken! Whatever there is in this letter has two sides. There is the outward form used to express something, and that will pass. And then there is the inward thing being expressed, and that will not pass. So the call is to be bound up with the unshakable things, the eternal things and the heavenly things which are always the spiritual things, as differing from the temporal things.

The types represented the earthly, physical body of the Lord Jesus before the Cross and the resurrection. Paul tells us in his letter to the Philippians that He was "found in fashion as a man", and we know that that word 'fashion' in the Greek means something which is passing. The Greek word 'schema' is something which is transient, which does not come to stay. It is the same word that Paul uses at the beginning of Romans 12: "Be not fashioned according to this world", this age. The fashion of this age passes so quickly. "He was found in fashion as a man", that is, He took a form which was not His permanent form. His permanent form is found after the resurrection, when He had a body of humanity, but different from the form, the fashion, of His pre-crucifixion body.

That body concealed an eternal, spiritual reality, and no one was able to discern or perceive that inward, eternal, spiritual reality of the Person of Christ apart from the operation of the Holy Spirit. "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God... Blessed art thou, Simon... flesh and blood hath not revealed this unto thee but my Father which is in heaven." We know how blind the religious people of His day were as to who He was. That body, that fashion, concealed, hid an eternal, spiritual reality. That is "the mystery", as Paul calls it. It is that which was associated with the ark of the covenant, the mystic secret of God, into which the Philistines wanted to peer, and which they were so anxious to possess, for when the ark came into a situation it represented some power. It was the secret of Israel's glory, and they were always seeking to get hold of the secret of Israel's glory. God was there. That ark was a type of Christ, but it is an ark of acacia wood - a humanity. It is overlaid with gold, it is true, which means that Deity is associated with it, but its purpose, its meaning, is not in the combination of those materials - wood and gold - but in the Spirit that is embodied in that. That was the mystery of Christ.

The disciples were wont to regard that earthly body as the essential and indispensable thing. Whenever the Lord Jesus referred to His Cross or to His going away, a cloud came over them, and they became overwhelmed with a sense of foreboding, almost of despair. They were greatly troubled. To them the physical presence of the Lord Jesus was essential, indispensable. If He went away, that represented the losing of Him. It was in that way that the Jews, the Hebrews, regarded the typical system. That Mosaic order and system were their very being; they were bound up with them.

In relation to the body of Christ which was prepared for Him to fulfil an eternal purpose, and also in the whole Jewish, or Mosaic, system of types, which was provided as a means to an end, the fashion had to be broken, shattered, in order to bring the reality out. It is the difference between the flesh and the spirit - not merely the flesh in its evil sense now, but simply the natural life, and the spiritual. One has to be broken to make way for the other. The way into the 'naos', the very presence of God, was through the sundered flesh of Christ, just as the way into the Most Holy Place, the very Sanctuary, was through the veil of the Temple or the Tabernacle. But that way was not open to all until it was rent from top to bottom, and the veil of the Temple, or the Tabernacle, was that upon which everything else hung. All was gathered up into it. There was God's side, and there was man's side, represented in that veil, and the whole system had its focal point in the veil. The priests, as representing all the people, could go as far as that veil, but they could go no further, and that means that the people could go no further. God was on the other side of that, and He came, as it were, to that veil, but there was no way through. Once every year the High Priest went in, but there was no such thing for abiding fellowship or continuous union. When God split that veil from top to bottom He opened the way for all right into His own presence.

In the flesh of the Lord Jesus there was the meeting place of God and man. On the one side - God; on the other side - man. But there was the veil, and we know quite well how that veil did hang between them. When the Lord Jesus went to the Cross and THAT BODY was broken, then the innermost secret of His Person was revealed - GOD was manifest. That is why you must have Christ crucified in order to know the wisdom and the power of God. You never get through to know the power of God except by Christ crucified.

This letter to the Hebrews says that the shattering of this whole typical system is to make way for the spiritual reality to become predominant, just as the breaking of that body of Christ led to the yielding up of the eternal heavenly secret of His Person. It will always be so. Not only is it true in relation to the destruction of Jerusalem in the year A.D. 70, but it will be true again at the end, when all that is merely external in representation will be shaken, broken, and proved to be temporary, transient, imperfect, and never leading through to the reality. When that happens, those whose lives are bound up with it will go with it. So there is some point in our stressing the necessity for an apprehension of what is heavenly and what is spiritual, and our coming into it.

These words are introductory and lead to something quite concrete. We have said that this shaking relates to an earthly system of representation and types. That, then, leads on to the bringing into view of the heavenly system. (System is not a wrong word. God is systematic. He is a God of order and has arranged this universe as a marvellous system. The evil is in making what is earthly take the place of what it is only intended to represent.) There is a counterpart of all that is in this letter. The thing that is brought in with this letter - not discussed as such, but mentioned and taken very largely for granted - is what comes in with chapter 3, verses 3 to 6.

It is assumed in this letter that the House of God is represented by everything here. It seems to come, in so far as the phrase itself is concerned, in quite a casual way, which implies that it is taken for granted. It is not something detached or unrelated. It is the thing which gathers up everything else. All that is taking place here is taking place in the House of God. It begins with the "Son"; it goes on with the "sons", the "brethren", the "children"; then the priestly ministry in the House; and before it closes it will speak about the Father's discipline in the House, the child-training of the sons; and the very subject of the inheritance and heirship is something which has to do with the House, the family, the household. The bare mention of the House of God does not suggest another subject, but it suggests the inclusiveness of everything here in the House. That House of God is the heavenly system of which the house of Israel was but a type, a foreshadowing.

THE NECESSITY FOR THE HOUSE OF GOD

It is necessary to all the Lord's purposes which are gathered up into that which we have been considering - the bringing of children unto the full meaning of sonship - to have the House, for all that development takes place in, and because of, the House of the Lord. Wherever you fail to get that which truly represents the House of the Lord, and which is in accordance with the spiritual House of God, you will get immaturity.

This House of God, fully constituted, is essential to spiritual maturity, and if you have not got it you find that Christians are immature. In what way is it essential? To begin with, there is nothing like a properly, spiritually ordered House for spiritual training. All the lessons that you need to learn can be learned in a properly ordered assembly, and the ordered assembly provides the background for the learning of those lessons. There are spiritual laws which govern the House of God, laws of relationships, laws of position, laws which the Lord enforces and demands shall be observed, which take away from us all our independence, and which definitely hold us into mutual responsibility. There is all the difference between a spiritual assembly as an organism, and the congregation. A congregation is a company of units. They come and go, and may do so for years, for decades, yet responsibility for one another spiritually never arises. But in a spiritually ordered and governed assembly the whole question and law of mutual responsibility for the spiritual lives of one another is demanded, is incumbent, is essential. Everything is relative. In that organism, if one member suffers all the members suffer, so very closely related spiritually are the members. In that organism there is no such thing as independence of action for life. The whole goes with the part, and the part demands the whole. In so far as that law breaks down, then the Testimony breaks down, the life breaks down, and God does not get what He is after, that is, spiritual maturity.

Read the letter to the Ephesians, the Colossian letter and the Corinthian letter, and you will see that that is running strongly through the whole, and wherever that law is not observed there is immaturity. In Corinth it was: "I am of Paul", "I am of Apollos", "I am of Peter". That is sectionalism, departmentalism, independence, detachment, fragmentary-ness, and the fruit is immaturity. The true spiritual fellowship is essential to spiritual growth, to maturity, and that is what is meant spiritually by the House of God.

It is there that we get our training. If you come under the government of the Holy Spirit you immediately are related by that one Spirit - by whom we are all baptized into one Body - and are made responsible for other believers. If something comes up between you and other believers with whom the Holy Spirit has linked you spiritually, you cannot snap your fingers and say: 'Let them get on with it! I go my way and they can go their way.' The Holy Ghost sees to it that you cannot get on! It is like the dislocation of a joint in your physical body. You will be suffering in your soul and in your spirit. There will be an ache, and you will know that you have not got freedom of action and restfulness of heart. There will be something all the time which is working against the free, spontaneous expression of your spiritual life. This thing will be there all the time. What has happened? The Holy Ghost is witnessing against that and life is arrested. Why? Because of the fact that the law of the House of God has been violated. When you come into that realm and know that you are getting some training, you are learning that it is not only necessary to have fellowship and maintain fellowship, but that increase of spiritual life is that way, and increase of spiritual power is that way, that the Body builds itself up in love that way, that prayer becomes mighty that way, testimony becomes effectual that way, and everything for the Lord's ultimate purpose depends upon that. Unless you recognize that, all these things are weakened and destroyed. And so the Lord brings saints together and relates them in groups, smaller or larger, for the spiritual purpose of representing His House, and in order that the spiritual laws of the House should operate there. It is so different from organizing a 'church', and having a 'church' roll and 'church' services. It is something which is a spiritual order, and a representation of a whole heavenly system, or, rather, the heavenly system itself in operation. Can you see the difference between the Body of Christ and what is called 'the church' today? One is an organized system; the other is a spiritual, living organism. The one will pass; the other is eternal, indestructible, heavenly, spiritual. The House of God is essential.

The House of God represents an order. Just as truly and fully as Israel's life was ordered, so is the House of God. If you read the book of Numbers you get but the type and representation of the House of God as ordered. Then you look into the New Testament and you will find the spiritual principles which are embodied in the book of Numbers. You do not organize the Church according to the book of Numbers, but you find that the Holy Ghost orders the Church according to the book of Numbers.

You will have representative members. In the book of Numbers they are princes and heads of fathers' houses. Carry that into the New Testament and what does that mean? It means men who have been brought to a place of spiritual wealth and spiritual dignity in the House of God, and can take responsibility. Moses (as God, mark you: "Thou shalt be to him - Aaron - as God" - Exodus 4:16) there at the door, and then all the fathers' houses gathered representatively at that door in these princes and these heads of fathers' houses, and God spoke from that door to all the households through these representative members.

Princeliness and headship are spiritual principles. Princeliness speaks of wealth and dignity. Headship speaks of authority and government. In the New Testament the ministry is the ministry of those who already have spiritual wealth and spiritual dignity, and have therefore, by spiritual maturity, come to a place of SPIRITUAL (not ecclesiastical) authority. They are not appointed officially, for you can never appoint people to be full of dignity, nor appoint anyone to spiritual wealth by a formal act.

That is a part of the heavenly order, and God takes great pains, when He gets things into His own hands, to see that that is how things are. The Lord is very jealous for princeliness. His people must be able to look up to those who represent the Lord's higher interests amongst them as their overseers, their leaders. That is a household thing, a Temple thing, a thing which is to have its expression amongst the Lord's people corporately, and a thing which means strength, growth and development. It is a great thing for young Christians to have had the advantage of having seen princeliness in their leaders, when those leaders were under provocation, were in suffering, affliction and trial, and to have seen the wonderful grace, graciousness, steadiness and dignity of the Holy Spirit, of THE PRINCE HIMSELF, reproduced in them. There is no small significance associated with that title of the Lord Jesus: "A PRINCE and a Saviour." Watch Him and see the princeliness! That, by the Holy Spirit, is reproduced in the House of God for the good of the House. It is not enough that there should be only one prince in a household. The Lord wants to develop that as a spiritual thing in all the members of the household - to develop spiritual responsibility. Responsibility only comes to those of spiritual means and spiritual dignity; otherwise it is merely official and will lack something.

The order of God's House is many sided. There are the princes of fathers' houses; there are priests, and Levites, and much more; all signifying the Divine, the heavenly system.

If only the Lord's people would recognize more that they are responsible for one another, there would be development and maturity. That is too long delayed so often. You remember the word which seems to touch this aspect of things most directly, from Ephesians 4: "When he ascended up on high, he led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto (or amongst) men... and he gave some apostles; and some prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; for the perfecting of the saints unto the work of ministering, unto the building up of the body of Christ." That passage has been grievously mutilated by words being put in which are not there: "He gave some TO BE apostles." The word is: "He gave some apostles", that is, amongst men He gave them apostles, pastors and teachers. What did He give them for? For the perfecting of the saints unto the work of the ministry. If you put a break between those two sentences you upset the sense. It does not say or mean that He gave them for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the building up of the Body of Christ. It says that He gave them for the perfecting of the saints unto the work of the ministry. Leave the responsibility with those gifts, and the building up will not take place. It is only when the saints come into the work of the ministry that the building up takes place. When the saints are growing, being perfected, and taking up the work of ministry, the Body grows. If you use a definite article there and say: 'For the perfecting of the saints for the work of THE ministry', you are in danger of making THE MINISTRY something apart from everything else. It is "...the work of ministering". The ministry is a general thing amongst the saints. All the saints have to be in the ministry, and it is only as they are in it that the Body is built up. Are you in the ministry? Are you leaving the ministry with the people whom you call 'the ministers'? If so, the Body is being deprived of something. If you are growing, in the sense of that word "being perfected", that is simply 'for the making complete of the saints'. If you are being made complete progressively, then that ought to be expressing itself in ministry, and that will result in the building up of the Body of Christ.

You see how the order of God's House is necessary to God's end; how the House is necessary because it embodies an order which is fruitful in the purpose of God.