The seed-plot of our consideration and meditation at this time is a little fragment at the end of the letter to the Galatians.
The letter to the Galatians, Chapter 6, verse 16. It is the last clause that I read—the whole verse:
And as many as shall walk by this rule, peace be upon them, and mercy, and upon the Israel of God.
That last clause: “the Israel of God.”
I want to bring alongside of that some other fragments, going back to the prophecies of Isaiah, Chapter 53, verses 10 and 11:
Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise Him;
He hath put Him to grief:
when Thou shalt make His soul an offering for sin,
He shall see His seed,
He shall prolong His days,
and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in His hand.
He shall see of the travail of His soul,
and shall be satisfied.
In Isaiah 66, the same prophecy:
Who hath heard such a thing?
Who hath seen such things?
Shall a land be born in one day?
Shall a nation be brought forth at once?
For as soon as Zion travailed,
she brought forth her children.
The prophecy of Micah, Chapter 5, verse 3:
Therefore will He give them up, until the time that she who travaileth hath brought forth:
then the residue of His brethren shall return unto the children of Israel.
The letter to the Romans, Chapter 8, verse 22:
For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.
Waiting for the adoption, the redemption of our body.
The Gospel by John, Chapter 16, verse 20:
Verily, verily, I say unto you, that ye shall weep and lament, but the world shall rejoice:
ye shall be sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy.
A woman when she is in travail hath sorrow, because her hour is come:
but when she is delivered of the child, she remembereth no more the anguish, for the joy that a man is born into the world.
And then again, the letter to the Galatians, Chapter 4, verse 19:
My little children, of whom I am again in travail until Christ be formed in you.
Now let us bring together particularly the segment from Galatians 6:16, “the Israel of God,” and the fragments in Isaiah 53:10 and 11: “He shall see His seed”; “He shall see of the travail of His soul.”
To abbreviate that: His seed—the travail of His soul.
It is a very full, far-reaching matter that the Lord is bringing before us at this time: this whole matter of producing, securing, training, and using a spiritual, a new spiritual Israel.
This afternoon, we begin this whole matter with a brief consideration of this particular principle which is found in the Word, and which has been in every passage that we have read, excepting one: this principle of travail.
We go back and remind ourselves: this is a law which God established in the creation.
There is an established law of travail. You will recall what the Lord said first to the woman and then to the man, as we have it in Genesis 3:16-19.
To the woman He said, and then to the man He said. And He there linked this law in two realms: with production and reproduction.
One connection was with children, and the other connection was with the field. In these two connections is the law of travail.
We find three things. First of all, the justification of life.
The very justification of life is in reproduction, in increase, in multiplication. Life was never intended to be an end in itself.
The only justification for life, according to God’s law and principle, is that it reproduces. And so the law of travail is linked with reproduction.
That runs through the whole realm of nature and of grace, the natural and the spiritual. There is no reproduction in any affair without travail. That is God’s law.
There is no reproduction without travail, and travail becomes the basis of the justification of existence.
That is something much deeper than perhaps appears. One might say it like this, quite bluntly: if we are without travail, there is no justification for our existence.
You can put that round the other way: travail is God’s way and ground of justifying our existence. We will come back to that and state it as we go on.
That is true, partly, as said to the woman; then it is found for the man. He spoke about the travail of his labour—the thorns, the thistles, and the sweat of his brow—that the ground might produce. This was the preservation and sustentation of life.
The justification of life, the preservation and sustentation of life, are on the principle of travail.
And then, of course, in both cases the issue is a triumph. That is made perfectly clear in both connections.
Paul puts his finger upon that, you remember, in his letter to Timothy. It is probably a triumph. God will see you through in spite of it.
It is the triumph of life in both connections: children and the earth. That issue is a testimony to something having been overcome. It is a testimony to a victory over forces at work which would make it infinitely difficult.
Definitely a triumph. And travail, you see, is the very law by which life is not defeated.
That is where the test comes always for us. Life is not defeated; but out of the adversity, out of the difficulty, out of the suffering, something stands as a great testimony to triumph, to victory.
I am only just touching on some things that run all the way through the Word of God and are so true to the spiritual life. We shall speak more about those very things.
Now look at the implication of this principle of travail. I do not mean only the two connections that I have mentioned. You go through the Bible and see the great number of connections where this principle—this law of struggle and conflict and pain and anguish—is the law of some tremendous new thing of God, the emergence of something of God.
We will leave that for the moment, but note the implication of such a law. What did God mean by this?
Well, I think simply this—perhaps much more lies behind it—that nothing was going to be easy and cheap.
To put that another way, God was really establishing the tremendous value of everything: saving man from regarding things as being of little concern or value, and forcing him and forcing her to recognise that this thing is costly because it is valuable.
You see, it is the offset to the whole tendency of man’s nature to get things easily, to get them cheaply, not to pay a price for them, to escape suffering, to escape labour, to get it all without any cost or price.
God has written in the whole universe this law: that anything that is of Him, in creation or in grace, has a price attached to it. It is a costly thing. It is infinitely precious and valuable, and worth suffering for.
So it is intended to bring the soul in. “The travail of His soul.” “My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death.” It is to bring the soul into relation with things.
When we say that, we mean love. What we get cheaply and easily, we do not really love. But that which costs finds our hearts to it; it becomes a matter of the heart, of love.
And so, by travail, you see, the soul is saved from lightness, carelessness, frivolity, and cheapness, and brought to recognise something here that is infinitely precious.
How far-reaching is that truth, that law! What a lot of ground it covers, does it not?
God is not going to let the creation off in this matter. This is the explanation of so much.
A nation and people that give themselves up to frivolity, to cheapness, to escapism—all that sort of thing—that nation or people is on the high road to a bad time in its history. It will not be too long before it passes through some fiery ordeal to bring back the preciousness and the seriousness.
This is true in the realm of nature and the world; but it explains the realm of God’s spiritual things.
Oh, the tragedy—the infinite tragedy—of trying to make things of God cheap and easy, even salvation and the Christian life: easy, appealing always to the pleasures, trying to eliminate the cost.
The Lord Jesus never did that. He never did.
Salvation is something of infinite cost, and everything to do with salvation is infinitely precious. There is not one fragment of all that is of God which is not of surpassing and transcendent value. It is not just going to be had willy-nilly.
Through much tribulation—and that is only another English word for travail—we must enter the kingdom of God.
Suffering is attached to anything of any value, and that is particularly true of spiritual things.
At that very point, you and I, dear friends, need to have our minds converted. That is where we need some real change of mind.
You cannot understand some things in the Bible unless you recognise that, and unless that has become true. They sound flippant; they sound as though they are just words, words, words.
Listen: “Our light affliction, which is for the moment.” You are talking about Paul.
Well, listen to his catalogue of sufferings. Listen to him as he tells us all that he had to go through for the Gospel’s sake. Then read the much more that Luke tells us, which Paul never mentioned personally.
That beloved servant of God went through so much for the Gospel’s sake, and yet he talks like this: “Our light affliction, which is for a passing moment.”
To talk like that in the presence of suffering means that you have seen the infinite preciousness of that toward which God is working and bringing you.
“So now for a season, if need be, ye have been put to grief in manifold trials.” Yet, “though ye see Him not, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory.”
Now look at the context of it: fire—fire! Fire is right there.
Just go through. Understand. Endure the travail, unless and until you have some sense of the value of things.
Now, this law is carried through from nature to the purpose of God, to the divine purpose, and is seen in the Scriptures to be the principle or law of all divine realisation.
If you look again, you will see that in all new beginnings, the initiations of God, this law is ever present. Everything of God emerges from some agony, from some convulsion, from some deep struggle.
With your Bible, it is like that all the way through, without or within, in every new beginning of God.
Can you put your finger in the Bible upon any instance where God began again and there was no association with this principle and pattern? You will have difficulty.
The Lord, you see, relates this to the spiritual world, to the purpose of God, just as much as to any other realm.
What is true of God’s beginnings and initiations is true of every enlargement. Whenever God sets Himself for increase or enlargement, to get something more in that which He has already got, it seems that He plunges that thing anew into travail.
Yes, in nature, every springtime, which is to see nature enlarged, growing beyond what it was before—every springtime and its increase—is a new travail, a new travail.
You can almost hear the trees travailing at certain times if you walk in the woods—if only our ears were more attuned to that realm. There are sounds to which our ears are not tuned, and there are real sounds: you hear the groaning in the creation.
Paul says this to us: “The whole creation groaneth and travaileth.”
It is pent up. It is held back. It is under a curse. It is groaning for its expansion, its enlargement, its liberation—liberation.
That is a law in spiritual things, dear friends. Every fresh measure of spiritual increase is brought with a fresh baptism into His passion.
We should recognise that. So often we do not understand why this is: when we ask for spiritual increase and enlargement, we are immediately plunged into a bad time. It comes that way, does it not?
Some of us have learned that so much that we say these things to the Lord with our tongue in our cheek. We are very, very careful what we say to the Lord.
The way of enlargement is at the cost of fresh travail. It is true; you cannot get away from it.
Yes, there are successive baptisms into the passion of Christ.
The law, in its universality, is the law of His cross. “I came to cast fire upon the earth; and what will I, if it is already kindled? But I have a baptism to be baptised with; and how am I straitened till it be accomplished!”
By the travail of His soul, by the passion of His cross, the straitening was removed, the fire was scattered, and the enlargement took place. But that is equally true of the church as of Himself.
The church has never expanded and been released without some convulsion. That is history, is it not? And it is spiritually true.
Again, what is true of God’s beginnings, continuations, and enlargements is true of the finality of things. In the finality, there will be one great, tremendous convulsion.
If you like to change the word, travail—travail. I am not sure that the church has not entered upon that already. It is ready, it is coming, it will be at the end.
It is the explanation. You look into the Word; it is quite true to the Word. Here it is: God is going to bring out that ultimate and final, intrinsic thing of glory and preciousness. It comes out of a fiery ordeal at the end.
Yes, the travail of the church at the end will issue in the final emergence of the church in glory, and in the consummation of the divine purpose.
The Bible sees a great travail in the church and in the creation, out of which the kingdom will finally come.
“And when these things begin to come to pass, look up, and lift up your heads; because your redemption draweth nigh.”
This principle, of course, is comprehensively and fully gathered up in Christ Himself and in His cross.
Christ’s pattern, Christ’s cross, is central to the whole universe, and central in this particular respect: it is travail through which the universe is redeemed.
Yes, the heavens and the earth—the cross of the Lord Jesus affects the whole range of things in the earth and beyond the earth. His travail is of universal significance.
It is such a far-reaching thing. And into every experience of true spiritual travail, there is something that is of far-reaching significance and account.
Here is this one little man, Paul—very little loved by the world in his day, despised, and through centuries regarded as an insignificant little Jew.
Well, that is the world’s estimate, not Heaven’s.
Here he is saying, “I fill up on my part in my flesh that which is lacking of the afflictions of Christ for His body’s sake, which is the church.”
In other words: “I sip His cup, and in so doing I touch the whole body of Christ.”
To men, a statement little regarded; but it was true. His history proved that it was true.
I would like to stop here with a parenthesis on that historical side of it.
Now, fifty years ago, the whole realm of biblical scholarship, as it was called, finished Paul. They wrote him off.
They decided that Paul was not Christian, that his was another realm of teaching altogether. It was not Christian. So they wrote him off: “That is Paul finished,” as they thought.
My brother, he had a mighty resurrection.
The remarkable thing is that the whole realm of scholarship—biblical scholarship—is now anew giving Paul his place, seeing the immense significance of this man.
It is one of the most fascinating things to follow the course of biblical interpretation and to be able to see today exactly what is happening: the tremendous comeback.
Of course, we know—and they are all going to be made to know—that this man, because he shared the sufferings of Christ, had a universal significance for the whole body of Christ. And it is true.
Now, in saying that, while it is interesting, I could add so much more to it. The point is this: here is the principle.
If you and I really do share the spiritual travail of Christ, we are lifted out of anything that is local and small and placed right in the universal.
It is a value secured for the body of Christ beyond anything merely local and parochial. That is the principle of His travail.
Placed at the centre of the universe, and to share that does mean such enlargement—enlargement, release, extension, fullness, reproduction. Use what words you will. All this is the Lord’s having.
The Lord allows travail. Indeed, He not only allows it, but appoints it, to find out—to find out whether really there is a heart relationship to His things.
You walk across the road outside of this hall this afternoon, and you will find a tree lying at the side of the road.
We could tell you that tree was growing, and it looked like all the other trees. It had all the leaves of profession, all the proximity of association with the other trees.
Outwardly, it could pass as being the real thing. The storm came. The storm came.
It is lying there. You look at it, and you will find it has no heart. It is a completely hollow thing. It is only a framework. Do not look in.
That is what happened. That is what is going to happen, or what God will cause to happen, everywhere.
The travail will come—the travail, persecution, trial, whatever it may be and whatever its form, whether within or without. It is going to come to discover whether the heart is there for God, or whether, after all, it is hollow profession, simply association on the outside, but not real on the inside.
It must be. God must expose what is not real, and God must test everything to prove it.
And look at the others. What has happened to them? Well, they survived the storms. Understand this: the next storm will probably find it has a little more hard work than the last time to move this one.
Ah, yes, you know, those roots have felt the strain, and they have reached down and taken a tighter hold.
They have got a grip on things. They realise the terms of reality, and that it is a matter of life and death whether they stand.
So easy, dear friends, when things get difficult, to walk out, is it not? So easy.
Oh, how we pray that the Lord will protect—protect from difficulty and trouble! But the Lord never answers a prayer like that.
It comes to us personally. It comes to us in our little companies. Shaking—things calculated to devastate and scatter, destroy and finish what is there.
The Lord does not protect you. But what is He doing?
On one side, He is finding out whether there is a heart, and whether that thing is real in every member; whether it is on the outward, hollow side.
On the other side, He is seeking to bring out the expression of preciousness: “This thing is too precious to let go easily. This thing means far too much for us to abandon at the first onset of adversity or trial.”
That is the meaning of it. Very true. Explains a lot, does it not?
Now, I am closing at this moment, for the time being. But this comprehends God’s whole conception of a spiritual Israel.
I have taken that fragment, or been led to it: “the Israel of God.” You know, Paul was almost invidious when he used it.
You look at the letter to the Galatians and you will see that he is dealing with two Israels. In that phrase he is saying there is a true Israel and there is a false Israel.
I think Phillips, in his letters to young churches, had put in the word which, while it is not in the text, is what is generally believed to be the meaning of Paul. He has said, “to the true Israel of God.”
The true Israel of God. That is exactly what Paul meant.
You know, the letter to the Galatians tells you that the one is one people, saying, “That is not it.” Those who walk by this rule, this measure, this standard—what standard?
Well, look at the letter and you will see: “My little children, of whom I am again in travail until Christ be fully formed in you.”
As many as walk by this measure, they are the true Israel of God: some measure of Christ made complete through travail; true Israel—that is a thing which is of the travail of His soul.
Well, we may perhaps come back to that. But there is enough here, as we have said, to instruct, perhaps to correct, and to add some courage.
There is no getting away from it, my friends, whether we like it or not. It is an established law.
There are all sorts of things which men would like artificially to get rid of. But the fact is that God’s law means that there is something—something that comes out in preciousness when it is suffered for, when you suffer.
Oh, may we never get to the place where we try to make the Christian life cheap and a perpetual holiday. Well, there is joy, and it should be there.
But there should be the deep worship, thanksgiving, and praise to God. I feel that the reality even of the joy is that it comes from deep experience through something. Is that not true?
The truest joy is born out of suffering, not from a superficial, frivolous kind of Christianity that never really knows the Lord most.
So, “we rejoice,” said Paul, “in all our tribulations,” for something precious. The Lord binds up the issue. You and I have to face that fact.
I might add this as I close. I have just received, from China, a message which was given by our brother Watchman Nee just before he was put into prison, about four years ago.
You know what that message is on? The necessity for the breaking of the vessel in order to reveal the preciousness of the treasure within.
He said it. He is knowing it is true.
But: “He shall see His seed. He shall see of the travail of His soul, and shall be satisfied.”