It is always a very dangerous thing for me to say that I will try to agree. Many of you have good reasons to be skeptical. But it is, at any rate, in my heart to try and gather into a few words the predominant note and message of this conference.
And, as a key to that, I turn you to the first letter to the Corinthians, Chapter 15, at Verse 25:
For He must reign, till He hath put all His enemies under His feet.
He must reign till He hath put all His enemies under His feet.
Our eyes have been turned in these hours to that throne seen by Ezekiel through the opened heavens, with the appearance of a Man upon it above. And we have seen, I trust, a little of the truth that everything, everything that follows, is just the expression and manifestation of the absolute exaltation of the Lord Jesus above all things.
Now, when Paul wrote these words which we have just read, he was not thinking of some future time when Christ would reign and put all His enemies under His feet. He was not thinking of Jesus as waiting for a time to come when something would be done that would put Him in that position and bring about that result.
Whenever Paul—or, for that matter, any of the apostles—referred to Christ’s exaltation and lordship, he and they always regarded it and spoke of it as a present thing. They looked down into the future, saw something more, but to them it was not a future thing in its beginning or in its actuality. To them, it was now.
And when he said, “He must reign,” he meant, “He is reigning,” and thus continues to reign until He has put all His enemies under His feet.
That is the thing which has to be recovered in our consciousness and in our conviction. That is the thing which has to be restored to its place in the church’s life and the church’s consciousness. To a very large extent, while the church adheres to the doctrine of the exaltation of Christ—His kingship and lordship—the reality, the power, and the consciousness of it have been lost.
The church in the beginning lived in the consciousness and in the power of the fact, as it was to them, that Jesus was on the throne. Undoubtedly, unquestionably, He was on the throne. He was Lord of all. Peter affirmed, “He is Lord of all.” Paul said that God “did set Him far above all rule and authority.” It was something accomplished.
That was their view of the matter. That was their conviction. That was their consciousness, and it was so powerful with them as to affect every aspect of their lives. It was so at the beginning.
And until that is as true in the life and realization of the church in our time, the same results and effects will not be found in the church or through the church.
Believe me, dear friends, that if the progress of the gospel and the impact of the testimony of Christ at that time were such as to allow of no comparison with the deplorable state in the church today, it was due to this one thing.
You wish to phrase the secret of their power, their influence, their progress, their onward march by God through a world of terrible hostility, persecution, martyrdom, and every other kind of adversity. They marched forward, terrible as an army with banners, described as the people who had turned the world upside down. If you wish to discover the secret, you will find it here: He must reign.
He must reign till He hath put all His enemies under His feet. He is reigning.
I could do nothing, I know quite well, to strengthen your conviction as to this truth. But that is where we are left so helpless. We can but emphasize the matter and cast so much upon the Holy Spirit to make the thing live.
Nevertheless, we can be called back. We can be warned. We can be counselled. We can be exhorted. And, as far as that can be, it shall be tonight.
Let us get into this thing a little more deeply. We have said that, for the apostles, the reign of Christ had already begun. It did obtain in their time.
How did they come to that conviction, to that knowledge? We will, for our purpose, keep to the man whose words we have extracted—the man Paul.
Paul’s knowledge of Christ’s reigning sprang out of his personal experience of that fact. He had had an encounter in his life with the reigning, glorified Lord, and the Lord from heaven had had an encounter with him. It had become something in his own personal experience, history, and life.
Yes, it was something very personal. It has to be that. Until it is that, it can be very theoretical. It has to be personally experimental, and it was with Paul.
In that encounter on the way to Damascus, two very personal words had been used, and I think it all centres in that fact. First of all, Paul had been spoken to by his own personal name: “Saul, Saul.”
His own name, called and reiterated. He was being nailed down for this personally—not getting away with it. He was not being allowed to restrict what he heard. It was being directed to the man in his own personal name.
He was not mixed up in a crowd. He was not just meeting a teaching. The thing had come right straight at him as a man, as an individual.
So, while I am not suggesting that we have all to have the same form of encounter, we have all to have the same crisis. That is, we are all to have, and can have, a point in our life when we come face to face with the absolute lordship of Jesus Christ. And there is the crisis upon which all the future turns.
It is a tremendous thing to come face to face with the lordship. It is a greater thing than coming face to face with the Saviourhood.
There are many people who are saved by the Saviour and own Him as Saviour, but whose lives are seriously lacking in the power of His lordship. That is a statement—believe it.
And then the other very personal word was when he said, “Who art Thou, Lord?” The answer came, “I am Jesus.”
And lest Saul should prepare a case and try to evade it, get around it by saying, “Yes, but our country is full of that name. Which Jesus do You mean?” the Lord safeguarded it by saying, “Whom thou persecutest—the Jesus whom thou persecutest.” That is the One I mean.
And Saul knew Who that One was. He knew Who that One was. He had but one Jesus in all his thoughts and in all his plans, and that one Jesus he was determined to blot out of the world’s memory. He was ready to erase every trace of that Jesus. He knew that One right enough. It was filling his consciousness at this very time: Jesus.
“I am Jesus, the One whom thou persecutest.”
See how personally the Lord made this man’s encounter. He brought it right home to the man himself, and then to the very purpose of his life—the very thing to which he had dedicated and consecrated all his history of mind and body for its destruction. He brought it right home there: “I am Jesus.”
Something like that is necessary, is really necessary, if the after-results in our lives are to have any kind of effect in the church and in us. He has got to make this a matter where we are not just one of a multitude, but where we personally and individually have come under His personal domination and lordship.
Our whole life—yes, all our ambitions, all our enterprises, all our commitments—everything is now brought under His lordship. “I am Jesus.”
The glory of that throne waits upon the acceptance of its governance, its lordship.
From that transaction, shall we call it—that crisis, that vision; I am always afraid of that word—that seeing, and you do not need to have it visually in a physical way, we all know what that means inwardly—from that vision and that encounter and that crisis, everything else took its rise in the life of Paul the apostle.
Everything from that moment was transfigured, transformed, and seen in an entirely new way in the light of Jesus as on the throne. I am not trying to exaggerate, only stressing what is so true and so evident.
See, after that, Paul went a little way to Damascus, and then he went away to Arabia and spent a long time there. He went there with his Bible, I am quite sure—all the evidence is for it—and the Bible in one hand and Jesus on the throne in the other.
You want to know your Bible? That is the way. That is the key. Jesus on the throne and the Bible. And he got a transfigured Bible. He got a new Bible. He saw his Bible, with which he was very familiar, in a new and living light through that great truth: Jesus on the throne.
Because he went back over the Bible that he had, right the way back, he saw, “Yes, yes, that is here, and here, and everywhere.” He saw that the Bible was really the book of one thing: God’s intention to have a Man and His kind in dominion, reigning in glory.
This matter of the glorified Man in heaven interpreted everything, explained everything. You come to think of it, it does open the book.
Why these awful conditions? Because that is contrary to what God intended. It declares it. It declares it.
You see, dear friends, if you could realize it, if you look out on the world—the awful conditions in the nations—you need not look far afield, although it is very terrible out there. We only have to look around about us: the terrible conditions, the suffering, the misery, the evil. Why? Why does God allow it?
That is the question of the day, of the sinner. The answer is here. God allows that which is contrary to Him to shout at men that it is contrary. He never meant it to be like that.
When things go wrong, God does not just pass it over, smooth it over, and let it go as though it did not matter. He makes it shout its own crime and its own tragedy. The world is screaming with its own tragedy, and it is the tragedy of this purpose of God.
Interpret that to the world, and you have got a way for bringing in the gospel. But we must not stay with all that.
The Bible sprang into life for Paul. And it is an amazing thing how, from that moment, he took his Bible with him everywhere. The one thing he was preaching was, “Jesus is Lord.” Jesus Christ is Lord—the exalted Lord, the exalted Christ, the glorified Christ, was his message.
And Paul preached from the Bible, from the Bible. It changed his Bible for him. It was responsible for and accounted for his whole mission and work.
What constituted him an apostle? What was it? What was that great business to which he was committed?
Well, his mission and his work were impassioned and motivated and controlled by just this one thing: the absolute glory of the lordship of Jesus Christ—that Jesus should come into His rightful place in this world and in human hearts.
That was the one motive, the one object, the one dominating thing in all his work and in all his missions. It was not this and that, and a number of things; it was one central but all-inclusive passion: Jesus as Lord.
His work and his mission were transfigured and controlled by this that had come into his experience.
His sufferings and his endurance—what made them possible? This vision.
Sometimes he makes light of his sufferings. If a man suffered, I think that man suffered. I do not know that there were many ways in which he did not suffer. He suffered greatly—many sufferings, and heavy sufferings.
But listen:
For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us more and more exceedingly an eternal weight of glory;
while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen.
And then Peter says:
Whom having not seen, ye love;
in Whom, though now ye see Him not, yet believing, ye rejoice greatly with joy unspeakable and full of glory.
Well, that is mixing Peter up with Paul, but they are all in the same category and book. But the point is this: how was it that he was able to endure and suffer triumphantly? Just because of this basic and central thing—the deep, strong sense, consciousness, and conviction that Jesus was on the throne.
I believe that this also was the key to Paul’s understanding of the church. As no one else, perhaps, Paul had the greatest comprehension and understanding of the church.
From eternity to eternity, he goes right back into the counsels before the world was and sees a purpose in the heart and thought of God. He comes right through and sees it in the great consummation of the ages. He had a marvellous comprehension of the church.
But listen to the things he says—the highest things, the fullest things, the most complete expression of the meaning and vocation of the church. We have before said that he sums it up in this matchless phrase:
Now unto Him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us,
unto Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus unto all generations for ever and ever. Amen.
Glory in the church—God’s glory, the glory of the glorified Christ.
I could stay long, as you know, with the matter of the church and its eternal vocation and election to be the vessel of the glory of Christ. John puts it in his own symbolic way at the end, in terms of the city. It is simply the glory of Christ in expression and manifestation. That is what the church was chosen for.
That is what the church is called unto: to be the vessel, the instrument, of this authority, this government, and this glory.
Christ in glory gave the clue to Paul as to the church and gave the whole explanation of its meaning.
The same thing accounted for his concern for the churches. Now, no one will question that Paul had tremendous concern for the churches. He says that he travailed for them. He wept day and night for them, agonized and yearned over them, spent himself for them.
Why? What was the matter? What accounted for all that?
It was the glory of his Lord Jesus.
Churches existed for the glory of Christ. He said so. Oh, just for that one thing: the glory of Christ.
And if there was any deflection, if there was anything that was not right in a church or in the churches, if anything could be done whatsoever to help them, it was all motivated by this one thing: the Lord Jesus should in all things be glorified.
See, he was governed in everything by this. And if we pass to the end of it all and look at Paul’s writings about the coming again of the Lord, what is it? What is uppermost with him in the coming of the Lord?
Is it the end of his troubles? Is it just for his own gain? Is it getting to heaven? Is it anything like that at all? Oh, no. It is the reign of his Lord—that his Lord is coming into His own, coming into His right, coming into His rights, coming to the place that He ought to have, and being seated in that place universally.
That is the great thing. One thing giving birth and giving rise to everything else: He must reign.
He reigns. Christ is reigning. Christ is active.
On several occasions He is spoken of as having sat down in heaven, having sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high. He sat down.
If you notice, whenever it is said that He sat down, it is invariably related to the finishing of His redemptive work. That is done.
On the other hand, He stands. No contradiction; it is only the implication of a different meaning.
Stephen saw Him: “I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing on the right hand of God.” Standing. He spoke of standing.
When it is a matter of the work of redemption, it is finished. There is nothing more to do. He can sit down.
When it is a matter of the working out of that redemption here in this world, He is on His feet. When there is a challenge to what He has done, He rises up.
Stephen is in the presence of that challenge, and the exalted Lord is on His feet for His testimony. He is active—that is the point. He is active.
He is not just passively sitting down and waiting and waiting till His enemies are put under Him. He is putting them under. He is putting them under. He intends to work this thing out.
Now, the activity of the reigning Lord is seen in several ways, only to be mentioned. Firstly, He is taking out of the nations a people for His name.
A great illustration in the Old Testament, of course, is Israel in Egypt: taking a people out for His name. It is a tremendous business. You cannot do that sitting down.
A lot of business it was to get that people out of Egypt for His name. He encountered the prince of this world and exhausted all his power and all his resources and all his endurance, and got them out.
We are left in no doubt about it: that was the Old Testament demonstration of the supreme power of God. Only one demonstration exceeds that, and that is the New Testament: when He raised Him from the dead, the exceeding greatness of His power set Him at His own right hand. That is exceeding greatness of power.
But it was a tremendous thing to get Israel out of Egypt as a people for His name, and it is no less a thing to get this people out of the nations for His name.
The prince of this world withstands and challenges at every point and in every way. No soul is going to be released from that bondage and that kingdom without a fight.
We have made it far too easy. People are put into a false position by being made to think that it is easy. We have got to stand into the throne for souls. But He is doing it.
In spite of so much, some of you here come from those parts of the world where the prince of this world has a terrible hold—a very terrible hold, so much at his command. And you know, you know something of what it means to get just one soul out of that: the suffering and the travail and the anguish and the cost bound up with getting one soul out of the nations for His name.
It is a tremendous business. It wants the throne, the mighty throne. But He is doing it.
There is so much like Pharaoh and Egypt, but there is greater than that against this, and yet He is doing it. We are here, a little company from a number of nations, and we are here as a testimony of the fact that His power is greater than every other power.
He is taking out of the nations a people. For our present liking, too slowly; but He is doing it.
The second thing He is doing is constituting the life of that people on heavenly principles. We wish He had freer scope, fuller scope, to do it, but He is doing that.
That is, He is inculcating the life and laws of heaven into that people. And again, the illustration is Israel at Sinai and in the wilderness.
There the heavenly laws were given, and they were constituted according to heavenly principles, tested and tried through according to the laws of heaven. They were there that long time; their very daily bread had to come from heaven. They had to live out of heaven, live on heaven.
Their life had to be in heaven. There was nothing here to constitute them God’s people; they had to be constituted on a heavenly basis.
And that is what the Lord, the risen Lord, is seeking to do and is doing with His people. If only we understood our experiences again, we should see that is the explanation and interpretation.
He is seeking to reconstitute us on a heavenly basis of life. I can only state it: He is energetically trying to do it, because we do not understand what He is doing. We are so slow in yielding over.
And the third thing that He is doing is putting all His enemies under His feet. And that takes us with Israel over Jordan into the land.
See there how those nations were put under the feet of Joshua through the people. And they become part of that now: it is through His church that the Lord Jesus is bringing His enemies under His feet.
Oh, that we were more efficient in this. Oh, that it were more true of us that we, like the people, are putting the enemies under our Joshua’s feet. That is a challenge.
It is true: He is doing it, putting His enemies under His feet and doing it through His church—so imperfectly, with such limitations. That is His way.
Old Gurnall, the writer of The Christian in Complete Armour, speaking of the serpent’s head being put under the Lord’s heel, in imagination sees the Lord saying to His church, “I have put him under My heel. Come, you, and put your heel upon him.”
Co-operation with the Lord Jesus in this matter. And I speak softly, carefully. There is something He is doing, and you can see the temptation that once arises to see how He has done it through the centuries.
It is a tremendous story. The very long-term nature of it, the extension of it over time, may rob it of some of its force in our consciousness. If you could bring it all together, just put it all together—the story of how He has done it through the centuries—what a story it would be.
Israel vaunted itself against Him and His lordship. Where is this one? Where is this one that has dared to lift up its head? All through these centuries it has been bruised, unable to lift itself up, paralyzed. It vaunted itself against the throne of the exalted Christ.
Rome entered into the battle. “Try this thing.” There is Caesar, with all his mighty power and resources, determined—determined—to destroy that name and that power. Where is Caesar? Where is Rome and all its mighty power?
It has gone down into shame and into the dust; it has not been able to lift itself up again. I could go on like that.
In our own lifetime, most of us have seen men who have made a bid for world dominion, and heaven says, “That is reserved for One only.” And what does happen? Man after man has ended his career in ignominy.
What for? Because he made that bid for the place of God’s Son, for the throne. Right up to date, and it will be the same thing with the rest of them. It is reserved for Him.
He must reign till He hath put all His enemies under His feet. He will do it. He will do it.
Come back to Ezekiel. Well, we have found so much on this very matter in Ezekiel. How does he put it?
Right in the midst of his prophecies, right at the very centre of the book, with this state of things in Israel—in captivity; the captivity itself, the mighty power of Babylon, all these world powers enthroning, holding, seeking this place of absolute supremacy—Ezekiel cries, as from God:
I will overturn, overturn, overturn, it: and it shall be no more, until He come Whose right it is; and I will give it Him.
Whose right it is.
He must reign till He hath put all His enemies under His feet. May that transfigure the way for us.