The Lord has led us, in these days, to be occupied with the revelation of Jesus Christ.
So far, John the apostle has been our interpreter. We are now going to let Paul say something to us about this matter.
Turn, therefore, to Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians, Chapter 4, verse 6.
Seeing it is God, that said, Light shall shine out of darkness,
Who shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
The light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. Place alongside that words from his letter to the Galatians, Chapter 1, verse 15.
But when it was the good pleasure of God
To reveal His Son in me.
It was the good pleasure of God to reveal His Son in me. “Shined into our hearts,” “in the face of Jesus Christ.”
This is his way of describing his great life revolution. This is his personal testimony as to what happened when he saw the face of Jesus Christ.
And, as you see, he likened that to the divine fiat in creation. God, Who said, “Let light be,” has repeated that in a spiritual way in my heart.
The implication clearly is that what happened in creation, when God commanded light to shine, had happened in Paul when he saw the face of Jesus.
And when you apply that to such a man as Saul of Tarsus, later Paul, the implications are indeed tremendous.
It is a tremendous concession on his part. Because, when God said at the beginning in creation, “Let light be,” there was no light. All was dark. Darkness was over the face of the deep.
And here is this man—such a man as we know him to have been, with all his claimed enlightenment—saying, “Until I saw the face of Jesus, that is how it was with me.”
He would never have admitted before that he was in the dark and all was darkness. He would have claimed to be one of the most enlightened of men.
Here, when he saw the face of Jesus, he said, “Until then, I realize now that the primal darkness of creation was my spiritual condition.”
More than that: when God first said, “Let light be,” everything was in chaos—a state of disruption, disorder, yes, chaos.
That was Saul of Tarsus. And Paul dares here to say, “After all, with all that I had and learned, and claimed to be, until I saw the face of Jesus, that is how it was. I mean, chaos.”
And still again, until God said, “Let light be,” there was utter desolation and barrenness—really nothing there at all.
All this means what he is saying is, he realized—oh, yes, you will find plenty in his writings afterward, and Romans is to bear it out—that for him the face of Jesus meant light as over against darkness.
Not just some more light, but the mighty contrast between light and darkness. Seeing the face of Jesus meant for him order out of chaos, meaning out of meaninglessness, and still, fruitfulness out of barrenness and desolation.
I say the implications are tremendous, but altogether with all that, indeed, he does.
And, dear friends, although the method and manner of the beginning of our Christian life and experience may differ—there may be many different ways in which we come into new life in Christ—however many may be the ways, those should be the features and characteristics of everyone coming into that relationship with the Lord Jesus.
It should be as passing truly from darkness to light; not just getting some light, but the difference between day and night, the darkest night and the brightest day.
It should be the difference between chaos, confusion, and disruption, and order—beautiful order and meaning; between emptiness, hollowness, and void, and fullness and fruitfulness and plenty.
It should be like that in every case.
But note the main and great point in all this: it was all in the face of Jesus Christ. In the face of Jesus Christ.
When it happened, the question was, “Who art Thou?” The answer came clear: “I am Jesus. I am Jesus.”
We can never, never grasp the tremendous—and we do not use exaggerated language when we say these terrific—implications for that man of that word, “Jesus,” at that time. All this, all this, in the face of Jesus.
It is there that I want to spend a few moments, because that is really the focal point. Very much can be said, but we want really to feel the force of this message.
Of course, we know that the use of the word face is metaphorical. In the original language, the word means more than just countenance; it carries with it also the idea of person or personality.
We understand that, but metaphorically the face is the expression of the person. So everything within the Person of Jesus Christ that Paul saw and came into is involved.
Now, this is the thing that I want to stress right at the outset. If you and I, dear friends, are going to make anything like the progress Paul made as a young convert and as a growing Christian, and if we are going to have anything of the weight that he had in spiritual impress and impact, and if we are going to count in any degree as he counted in the work of the Lord, one thing is absolutely essential.
Do get hold of this—the youngest Christian, get hold of this, and everybody else. If we take our salvation, our conversion, or anything that has to do with it, as something in itself, there is going to be limitation.
We have got to see everything in the light of the Person, Jesus Christ. That is, we have not to take salvation as a gift in itself, or anything else in the Christian life as a gift in itself.
We have got to look at it and say, “What does that signify as to the Giver? What does that signify as to Christ? What does that mean as to the source of my salvation?”
You may not grasp the point, but it is of infinite importance, because all progress in the Christian life and all power in Christian service comes from not the grasping, the apprehending, and the enjoyment of salvation as such, but seeing Jesus.
Because, you see, Jesus is the sum total of all divine fullness.
In a long experience in Christian ministry and work, I have moved much amongst Christians, and I have had a lot to do with what we may call mission centres and mission halls.
Larger or smaller, in some cases there have been a very large number of Christians meeting there. Listening either to their prayers or to their singing, taking note of their Christian life, they have been Christians for years—decades.
And all they have got to talk about is the day when they were saved, or about friends who came to the Lord, when the Lord found them. They are back there.
When you come to these people who have had years of Christian life with anything beyond the most elementary, they do not know what you are talking about. They are just in another lane; they cannot follow. You have got nothing to work on.
They have not grown up. They cannot take solid meat. All they want, as they say, is the simple gospel: “Let’s have the simple gospel.”
Now, that is not meant to be a criticism or a judgment, but an illustration. What have they done? They have taken salvation in itself and not seen salvation as only a part of something far, far greater, more immense.
And that greater fullness is Christ. It is the thing and not the Person, and it makes all the difference.
You see, I come back here. What does explain Paul’s bounding onward in the Christian life, his rapid spiritual progress, his spiritual stature, and his tremendous impress upon the dispensation?
The answer is: he saw in the face of Jesus everything—everything.
And you see, Paul was a Jew. Both personally and nationally, the quest of the Jews was for light. They were always in quest of light, claiming to be the most enlightened; but light was what they were after all the time—light in relation to God, and man in relation to God.
And Paul says himself, though that was true of him as of all Jews, perhaps more so in his own case than in many of his countrymen, all that quest for light did not begin to be answered until he saw the face of Jesus Christ.
This was such a tremendous thing, such an overwhelming thing, for him.
The Christian life and everything to do with it is inclusively and fundamentally a revelation of Jesus Christ in the heart.
It may be there in the Word. Now note: Paul probably knew the Old Testament as well as anyone, and better than most. It was all there.
But not until this happened did he see his Old Testament when he saw it in the face of Jesus Christ.
You will never know your Bible as it needs to be known for spiritual effect until, by the Holy Spirit, you see Jesus Christ everywhere.
Not the Bible, not books of the Bible, not the analysis of the books of the Bible, not the themes and subjects of the Bible; but, in and through them all, the face of Jesus.
That is, how He is signified here, how He is implied here, what this means where He is Himself. That is the key.
Paul never had that key until he saw the face of Jesus. And then, wherever he looked after that—anywhere in this universe, Bible or outside the Bible—he saw the face of Jesus. That thing was clear to him wherever he looked.
And that is not exaggeration. You know, sometimes if you look right into the sun, then afterward, wherever you look, you do not see the things that are there; you only see the sun. You are blinded to everything else.
That is exactly what happened to Paul. He was even blinded, in a sense, to everything else. Have you seen the face of Jesus?
Everything in life, everything in character, everything in endurance through trial, opposition, and suffering, everything in victory over opposition and adversity, everything in service, will depend entirely upon how much we have seen in the face of Jesus Christ.
Make no mistake about it, dear friends. This, as we have said—as we said in prayer here again this morning—is a very critical time in the history of the people of God, as it is in the history of this world.
And if I am not mistaken, this conference is set in a very critical time. We are fast moving into, and more deeply into, the final testing of everything.
Oh, how true that is literally in some parts of this world. The ultimate testing is taking place in the lives of many of the Lord’s people. And do not think that we shall escape that; in some form or another, we are really going to be put to it.
The world is going to move into a situation where every Christian will have their foundations most certainly and severely tested.
You may be tasting that in a spiritual way now. How many people have said to me about this very time, “Why, what a battle it has been to get here.”
All the unusual things happening that would not happen otherwise—strange things. It all just happens when you have got something of the Lord in view. Oh, yes, and those happenings are very often very, very testing happenings. They could shake you.
Well, it is like that. Far be it from me to discourage you; it is going to increase in that way. But, you see, the point is this: even our salvation as such is going to be put to the test.
Even all that we have really got is going to be put to the test. And it will not be too difficult for us to question our salvation, to question the Lord Himself.
If our Christian life is a kind of objective thing, made up of things—made up of meetings, made up of teaching, made up of fellowship, made up of beliefs—it will not be difficult for us to question the reality of the whole thing.
The reality of the whole thing. Does that sound a terrible thing to say? The reality of Christianity. It will not be difficult to allow that question.
The issue is going to be only one thing: how much this is a matter of God having shined into our hearts.
I put it in a way which has caused a good deal of trouble, but nevertheless perhaps it deserves its significance: what we have has come to us by revelation of Jesus Christ.
I emphasize that this does not mean something extra to the Bible. But what is there in the Bible has, by the Holy Spirit, been illuminated in our own hearts.
This has come out of the Bible into us by an act of God—a fiat of God. We have seen that in our hearts. That has become a heart matter with us.
When it is like that—well, I referred, I think yesterday, to the saintly Polycarp, the martyr for the faith there in those days of early persecution.
As an old man, with his white hair and his wrinkled face, he was being forced along by the cruel and wicked Jews to be burned. An official standing by looked and was tremendously moved to see such a man being carried for such a thing.
And he stepped up and he said, “Curse Jesus, and I will save you.”
Said Polycarp, “Forty and six years have I served my Master, and He has never done me a single injury. Do you think I would say something against Him to save my life?”
So he went to the martyrdom.
That is a heart relationship, is it not? That is something more than life, more than anything else.
I say, it was that which carried Paul through all his sufferings: seeing the face of Jesus. It was that which was the strength and substance of his great ministry: seeing the face of Jesus. It was that which made him the Christian that he was.
Please do not get mental pictures about objective visions of the face of Jesus. That is not what I am talking about at all—seeing a face.
I simply mean that there has come to you, by the Holy Spirit in your heart, a knowledge of the significance of Jesus Christ in this whole universe, in the counsels of God. A revelation of Jesus Christ.
That is the light—the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
That is Christ. That brings heart strength. I am quite sure that there are some here today who have gone on for many years with the Lord and who could say with me that if what we have and hold and teach had been a mere theory, we would have been out of it long ago.
There is no doubt about it. It is because we may, I put it, say that we have seen something. There is something when you see it; something is done.
What effect it had upon Paul! First of all, look what a man it made of him.
You notice the context of those words that we read in Galatians: “When it pleased God to reveal His Son in me,” what did I do? Go and consult those who were apostles before me as to whether I was right? Wonder whether I was mistaken, whether this was according to tradition?
No, not at all. I did not go up to Jerusalem to confer with flesh and blood and talk it over, to see if I was right. This thing put me on my feet in such a way that there was no question for me about it. No one could add anything to this for me by way of confirmation as to the reality and rightness of it.
So many dear Christians are all the time running around to others for advice about their Christian life, and on this and that.
Now, please do not misunderstand me. Get all the help that you can. But somehow it seems that some people can never stand on their own feet for any time together. They are not sure at all. They are not sure about anything.
Anything that arises, they are going to question. “You must get some opinion on this matter.” Now, you must have help and seek it.
There is, after all, a fundamental root thing that makes you know where you stand—in Christ, by a work of God. Something has been done. You can never question that.
That put Paul in that position. Well, he was not independent, and he did later on go up and have a nice time of conference with Peter in Jerusalem for several days. I suppose they talked over matters.
But that did not happen until Paul had faced this whole issue for himself and got it settled with him between himself and the Lord.
And all these other effects of a new creation started on their wonderful movement after he had seen the face of Jesus.
A certainty and assurance that was right—a full root of his Christian life and service—came because of this one thing: he had seen everything in Jesus, every liberty in Jesus.
What liberation that brought to him—what emancipation! We have often said, there was no power in this world that could have turned that rabid, fanatical Jew, Saul of Tarsus, into a Christian and a lover of Jesus.
No power in this world could have done that, but just seeing Jesus Himself in this way. And that did it. He was emancipated. He was free.
No wonder, of all his writings, his fiercest and most furious is his letter to the Galatians, the letter of liberty in Christ. And it begins with this: “God revealed His Son in me,” and that set me free from all other things.
No use telling people this and that and the other thing is a limitation, and that they should seek enlargement by getting out of it. That is an unfruitful and unprofitable—indeed, a dangerous—line to take with anybody.
But again, if only we can bring Christ, in all His divine significance and meaning and comprehensiveness, to them, and the Holy Spirit can reveal Him in the heart, oh, that will do it. That will do it.
They will never again be content with anything that limits them—the grave clothes of religion. It delivered Paul from Judaism, and nothing else would have done.
The way of escape, the way of enlargement, the way of endurance, is to see Jesus.
It is not by learning this, that, or the other. It is not by the school. Paul had all that the schools of religion could do. He did not get it through the school, and we will never get it through the school.
Not along that line of technical instruction, things Christian or religious. This is not a merely mental, academic, or intellectual thing at all. It is a work of the Holy Spirit.
Well, that is a foundation. And may the Lord, even now, begin to shine into our hearts.
I will only go on just for a little while in answering the question: What did Paul see in the face of Jesus Christ?
Yes, he saw the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ—comprehensive sight, what this whole scene is in Christ.
If you like to drop out the word face, you can. What did he see when he saw Jesus Christ? Divine illumination.
And I suggest to you that the first thing that he saw was Christ as the purpose of God.
Christ as the purpose of God. If there was one thing that was true about Saul of Tarsus, it was that he was a man of purpose. He was a purposeful man, no doubt about that.
He was bent upon something. He was ardent. He was in quest of, he was on full stretch for, something. That is, he was characterized by this spirit or sense.
Now, as a Jew, a member of the Jewish nation, his whole horizon was Israel.
For him, all divine purpose was centred in Israel. It was the nation that stood at the heart of the purpose of God for him—as a nation, as in ascendancy over all the nations, superior to all the nations, ruling all the nations.
Having that central place in the midst of the nations, to make all the nations serve it—and, well, yes, to serve all the nations.
This was what divine purpose meant to Saul of Tarsus, as it meant to every Jew, every member of the Jewish nation. That was the whole horizon. That was all temporal. That was all earthly, albeit it was religious. But that was the whole horizon.
That was purpose for every Jew. And, inasmuch as Saul of Tarsus was a Jew plus, we can see how that idea of divine purpose for his own nation was intensely strong for him.
Let anybody call that into question! That really was the cause and reason for his demon antagonism to Jesus.
You know quite well that that is why the Jews crucified Him. They said, “If we let this Man go on, the Romans will come and take away our nation, our kingdom.”
And Saul was one of them. He saw that Jesus, setting up another kingdom, was a menace to Israel and all Israel’s heritage.
That, for him, was the meaning of divine purpose.
When he saw the face of Jesus Christ, all that was changed. All that was changed. His whole horizon expanded to the universe.
And what a universe it is that is presented to us in his letter to the Ephesians—an immense expanse and range of divine purpose.
He comes out with, “Called according to His purpose,” “Who worketh all things after the counsel of His own will.” From eternity to eternity: divine purpose.
Poor little Israel, shrinking and shrinking until, by his time, while he would that they would be saved and would give anything to have them saved, they no longer occupy that place. His horizon has become universal.
And again, the temporal has given place to the spiritual and the eternal: every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies, unto the ages of the ages.
These, you see, are all terms which explain what happened in this tremendous revolution, in which Paul’s horizon was pressed out to the uttermost bounds.
Oh, all this in the face of Jesus. Jesus signifies this. Jesus is the embodiment and the sum of purpose, from eternity to eternity.
“It is the eternal purpose in Christ Jesus.” That is his language. He is the purpose of God.
And it is not of this earth—temporal or temporary, material and transient. It is of heaven, of eternity, and it is all in Him, summed up in Christ, the fullness of all things.
If only we could draw in the tremendous amount of quotations from Paul about this—God’s purpose concerning His Son, that He should fill all things, that He should be the fullness of all things, that all things should in Him dwell, that all things should be gathered together into Him.
Indeed, his world was enlarged, and all the barriers were broken down.
What does this mean to us? This is not just a beautiful story or description of what happened to a man. I am speaking of spiritual principles.
If you and I really did get a sight of the significance of Jesus Christ, if we really did see the glory of God in His face, we could never be little. We could never be just tied up in our own little local things.
You could never be sectarian, or anything like that at all. It should be all-embracing.
We get into a lot of trouble because we could not and would not accept the confines of human systems and Christian departmentalism and all that.
You are emancipated right out once you have seen the Lord Jesus. All that silly nonsense—churches and chapels and things—Christ is far, far greater and vaster than all this.
For enlargement, you just need to see Him. For deliverance, you need to see what happened to Paul.
Paul’s universality of vision and ministry, Paul’s spiritual and heavenly impact upon this earth in the centuries, is due to this: in the face of Jesus Christ, he saw the greatness of God’s purpose for this universe.
The universe was Christ-centred, not Israel-centred. Christ.
He saw that divine purpose is centred in Christ.
That revelation, that seeing, that apprehending, brought with it certain other things. It brought with it the understanding, or recognition, of God’s energy in relation to Christ.
God’s energy in relation to Christ. He came to see that the creation was through and unto Christ.
And all the energies of the Godhead called forth in creation—the tremendous energies called forth in the creation of this universe—those energies in creation were working toward Christ’s inheritance.
Again, “unto Christ; for unto Him were all things created, things in the heavens and things in the earth, unto Him.”
Mighty energy of God in creation, in changing chaos to order, darkness to light, and emptiness to fullness—all that mighty, mighty power of God. But it was unto His Son.
The end is that He should be the heir of all things, or He was appointed heir of all things, and He was coming to His inheritance.
Now, we have been dwelling in the Book of Revelation. These are the final movements: the kingdom becoming the kingdom of our God and of His Christ—the inheritance of His Son.
But that is only a mere fragment of the whole story of divine energies. After that creation, we see the fall of man and the fall of this earth, and it is a tremendous fall.
It is not just a moral collapse. We dare not stay to contemplate the immensity of that thing that happened when Adam disobeyed God, and what he dragged with him, and all the tremendous forces that were focused upon him from the outside spiritual world to make him do it.
The immensity of it all indeed involved tremendous and far-reaching things, as we very well know.
But does God abandon? Does He give up? He at once reacts to that, and with new application and new energy proceeds along His lines—same line, toward His Son.
And immediately He gives intimation that all this which has just happened, which has come from the great enemy, the serpent, the devil, will one day have its head crushed forever.
Immediately He reacts. You and I, dear friends, know what power is called for to bring that about—the energy of God concerning His Son.
God said that the seed of the woman shall bruise the head of the serpent. That is not a mere principal statement; that is a terrific conflict—the battle of the ages.
But at last we see it: the hosts in the heavens hurled down, no more place found for them, cast into the abyss. It is done.
But this is the energy concerning His Son.
And that again is but a fragment. A people in whom all this wants to have its illustration and display, Israel, find themselves, because of their failure—spiritual failure—all around in the way of the covenant, in the bondage of Egypt.
And what bondage! You see, God has taken pains to let us know that this thing was a thing of tremendous political power.
We are impressed, are we not, with how Pharaoh could stand up to it. Why, surely he would let them go after the first, and the second, and the third plague. No, not a bit of it.
You are amazed. I venture to say that you would not hold on to anything if you had a little bit of that.
Here He is: God is drawing out this theme, tending to show what terrific force there is behind this whole matter. And then finally, with one blow, He smashes the whole thing and delivers those people.
And forever their deliverance from Egypt becomes the Old Testament illustration of the exceeding greatness of His power.
Always refer back to that as the example of God’s exceeding power—deliverance from Egypt. But it is all in line with His Son.
Something—the energy of God, you see, moving on.
I have missed the flood—another thing, a large reaction to a departure of the world. So we must go on pursuing this through the Old Testament.
Israel coming through the wilderness to the border of the land, and then again the whole thing breaking down by unbelief.
God gives them up? No. That land forever stands as the type of His Son, and it is His fullness into which He is going to bring a people.
He cannot give it up in the light of its spiritual meaning. He cannot give it up and say, “Well, I must abandon My purpose. Let that next generation fail.” No; He will have another, and He will bring them in.
And see the mighty energies of God in that new people as they take possession and overcome in the land.
Say that again, and you have exile in Babylon. Surely God’s purposes are defeated now. The land lies desolate, the city is waste, and the people are gone.
No. “For My own sake, have I sent to Babylon and have brought down all their mighty ones.” A remnant shall return.
But this is not history in itself, still with the object—the ultimate object—in view: the kingdom of His Son moving on.
So we go on like that. We come, as we have been in this Book of Revelation, to His church’s catastrophic and agonizing persecution and martyrdom.
But how does it end? Well, it just ends in God’s victory, God’s power, God’s energy. Does it not?
His Son is at last on the throne. That is the point—the purpose of God calling out the energies of God, all in relation to His Son.
And what I have said to you is only a part of what is contained in Paul’s writings. I have not invented or imagined it. I have given it to you imperfectly, but it is all there. This is what Paul saw.
The purpose of God drawing out the energies of God. He puts it in one familiar phrase: “The exceeding greatness of His power to us-ward who believe, according to that working of the strength of His might which He wrought in Christ, in raising Him from the dead, and setting Him at His own right hand, far above all rule and authority, and every name that is named.”
The exceeding greatness—the energy of God in relation to His purpose concerning His Son.
Oh, so that in the face of Jesus Christ, I repeat it, we see something of that.
It is going to be a tremendous strength to us. It is going to mean tremendous enlargement, enrichment, and strengthening to see us through at last.
Now, because of my warning not to put too much on you at one time, I will stop there. There is so much more of Paul’s thought as to that very matter—God’s thought concerning His Son, the purpose. We will have another session yet, perhaps.