Lord, we have to appeal to Thee again for Thy compassion.
What a pathetic thing it would be if we tried to do heavenly work—divine work—in our own human strength. That is just where we are now. We need Thy sympathy, Thy compassion, or our speaking and our hearing will really profit us nothing, will have no eternal value.
Oh Lord, help us with Thy divine help at this time, that we may speak under the anointing and with the unction of the Holy Spirit, and also, in the same way, anoint our ears and give us a hearing that is not just our natural hearing.
May we this morning, by the power of the Holy Spirit, hear the voice of the Son of God and live. Grant us this mercy for Thine own name and glory. Amen.
We have, as you know, been occupied in these morning hours with the great transition from an old and discredited humanity, as in Adam, to a new and accredited humanity in Christ.
Our first attention was with the exposure and the devastation of that discredited humanity, as we saw it representatively gathered round the cross of the Lord Jesus in Caiaphas, Pilate, Judas Iscariot, Peter, and the two on the Emmaus road.
What a devastation the cross was, or an exposure, of the old humanity at its highest, at its best. There could have been nothing worse when we were finished.
Then we went on to the battleground of the two humanities, as we have it in the two letters to the Corinthians: on the one side, the natural man, which is the old humanity; on the other side, the spiritual man, the new.
We stood and did little more than look into those letters in a general way, pinpointing a few things in the letters where the carryover of the old to the new is shown: the conflict between the natural man and the spiritual man, or that which is natural and that which is spiritual.
This touches so many things, even the most sacred things: the things of the Spirit touched by the hand of the natural man and taken up for the natural man’s gratification. That is what is in the first letter to the Corinthians.
Very much more detail is there, with which we are not going to deal at all. We have only just touched it in order to indicate something.
I trust that you have seen the indication of how dangerous it is, and therefore what tragic consequences the touch of the natural hand on spiritual things can bring.
This brings out that most terrible warning to Christians, as in Corinth: Christians, born-again people, called saints, or separated unto God. That terrible warning takes Israel’s tragedy in the wilderness as its ground. They perished in the wilderness.
The apostle uses that to warn the Corinthians that the foretaste can be lost in the wilderness if there is any compromise between the natural and the spiritual. If you still, while being geographically, so to speak, out of Egypt, are not spiritually out of Egypt, well, that is just where they were.
Well now, leaving the negative side, we came yesterday morning to point out that the apostle gave to that whole compass of things in the first letter—the ten questions raised by the Corinthians in a letter to him, covering so much ground—an answer not in a code of rules and laws like the Mosaic, but in principle.
All principles are gathered into one principle, which mounts up to this question: How much of Christ is in this?
How much of Christ is in your divisions? “Is Christ divided?” Pinpointing the whole question of division, you see. Is Christ divided? Were you baptized into Paul?
Christ is the principle in solving that problem of division. And all the other matters, which I am not going even to refer to now—the answer to these problems, the survey of these difficulties—is focusing on Christ.
Now then, how much does this minister Christ? How much does this represent Christ? Everything is tested on that standpoint, and judged and settled.
Your behaviour—or you may have what you think to be your liberties in Christ. You are no longer under the law; you claim to be at liberty in Christ, and you are enjoying your liberty. And so your liberty leads you to do certain things. You say, “I am not under law; I am under grace. I can have my kind of beer.”
All right, if your conscience allows you. But what about that dear brother whose curse and damnation was drink, who has been saved, and you invite him to your home and offer him a drink? What about that? You may undo everything.
I have known that to be done in the case of a dear man whose home had no furniture. The children had no clothes. The whole family slept in one room on a bed of straw, and he brought home no money for their food because of his drink. Everything was like that because of it.
He was gloriously saved in an open-air meeting we held. In a little while, the children had clothes, and he had on a nice suit, and he came to the meetings rejoicing. Then a brother invited him to his home.
In his liberty in Christ, he offered this man beer. The whole thing awoke, and the man was back again as he was before. What about that?
It is Christ, you see. How does this minister Christ—your liberty? We are governed by what Paul calls “the law of the Spirit of life in Christ.”
Well, that is negative again. I did not intend to say that, but these things are answered by principle, and the principle is Christ. Christ. Do they build up?
Now, having come past that, with all that is left in the letters, we come on to the positive side. Perhaps you will be happier now on to the positive side. I want you just to look at one or two fragments from the first letter to the Corinthians, its earlier fragments, in Chapter 9 and verse 1:
“Am I not free?
Am I not an apostle?
Have I not seen Jesus our Lord?”
It is that clause that I want you to take hold of and hold for a minute or two: “Have I not seen Jesus our Lord?”
Can we go over to the second letter? Second Corinthians, Chapter 4, at verse 4:
“In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of the unbelieving,
that the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God,
should not dawn upon them.”
Then 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.”
“Have I not seen Jesus our Lord?” God has shined into our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
I would like to add a fragment from another letter, the Galatian letter, Chapter 1. In a rather large section, just lift out a bit from verse 15, Galatians 1:15:
“But when it was the good pleasure of God
to reveal His Son in me,
that I might preach Him among the Gentiles.”
It was the good pleasure of God to reveal His Son in me. “Have I not seen Jesus our Lord?”
Of course, the immediate context of those words is the apostle authenticating his apostleship and answering those who said he was not an authentic apostle because he was not one of the twelve. That is connected with that charge.
But it has a much larger and more comprehensive context than that, as you see from these other verses and many more like them. The answer, “Have I not seen Jesus our Lord?” is this: It pleased God to reveal His Son in me. The same God who said, in the beginning, “Let light be,” has shined into our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ—which, of course, means in the person of Jesus Christ.
Now then, what we are going to be occupied with is this whole governing, all-dominating vision of Jesus Christ.
I hesitate to say it on this almost last day of this convocation, but this brings in four of the greatest matters with which we can have to do. Seeing Jesus—how comprehensive and revolutionary it is.
These four things—and I am not imagining that I am going to deal with all these this morning—are major things.
Firstly, the place and destiny of man in the economy of God. That is no small thing in itself. That comes in with a seeing of Jesus our Lord.
The apostle adds that last word, “our Lord.” I am tempted to stay there and point out that, in the New Testament, the name Jesus by itself is only used when it relates to His pre-resurrection life.
If the name Jesus is used alone, you will find that the context is of His pre-resurrection life. After that, the apostles never called Him merely Jesus. They always used “our Lord,” “our Lord Jesus,” or “Jesus Christ our Lord.”
If you are in the habit of saying, “Jesus, Jesus,” you are on wrong ground. You are on pre-resurrection ground. No, it is a habit with some people.
Well, that by the way, by note: Jesus, yes, and our Lord. His lordship came into view after His resurrection and ascension. Right there on the Damascus road: “Who art Thou?” “I am Jesus.” He knew Him as Jesus. “Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?” The very beginning of a revolution, of a transition from knowing after the flesh to knowing after the Spirit.
All that again is parenthetical. Let us get on.
The first of these four great matters, which come in with a true spiritual seeing of Jesus, is the place and destiny of man in the economy of God.
The second is the nature and dynamic of ministry in this dispensation. Is that a little thing? That is immense, is it not?
Thirdly, the nature and purpose of the church, now and in the ages to come. Is that a little thing? That is immense.
And fourthly, the immense significance, in that threefold context, of Christ crucified, risen, and exalted.
These are four very big things, are they not? And they are all comprehended by, “Have I not seen Jesus our Lord?” It pleased God to reveal His Son in me.
When He did, this is what I began to see. That is what the apostle says: what I began to see. He does not tabulate them like that. I have just taken them as the content and substance, you see, of the New Testament. But this is what it amounts to.
Firstly then, seeing Jesus our Lord, or God revealing His Son, illuminates and unveils the place and destiny of man in the divine economy.
Mark you, I keep very close to the New Testament. If I am not reading it and quoting the Scriptures in their form, I am keeping very close to that. You who know will see that, I think.
I must say here, though it might get me onto controversial ground—and it does not matter very much, if it matters at all—I am a firm believer that the apostle Paul had a very real hand in the writing of the letter to the Hebrews.
Whether he actually wrote it or dictated it, well, you can quarrel about that as long as men have been quarrelling about it. But I am certain that Paul had a very definite and direct influence upon, to say the least, the writing of that letter to the Hebrews. You will recognize, in what I am going to say, that it comes out of that.
Now Paul, even in this first letter to the Corinthians, takes up man from his inception, from the beginning. Chapter 15: “The first man, Adam.” He starts with man. He goes right back to the beginning of humanity, mankind.
He follows right through mankind and the battle of the humanities until he reaches the point of man glorified. Chapter 15—how marvellous that chapter is.
You know, I have stood back from that chapter, having read it so many times, and have had to say, “How could mortal man know that?” It can only be because he had seen Jesus Christ. It is the only answer.
There are bodies terrestrial; there are bodies celestial. There are bodies earthly, and there are bodies heavenly. As we have borne the image of the earthly, so we shall bear the image of the heavenly.
He describes something of the nature of this heavenly body, this heavenly physical body, this glorified manhood—an amazing unveiling of the destiny of man in the economy of God.
So he takes up manhood: first Adam, and then, by the cross, smites that race in Adam and discredits it, puts it aside, and starts with a new man.
“If any man is in Christ, he is a new creature:
the old things are passed away;
behold, they are become new.”
The history of man in this letter runs from his conception in the heart of God, his inception in the creation of the first Adam, his rejection in Adam, and then to the new man, Christ. Oh, what a man this is in glory.
In this we groan. And as we groan, what is the groaning about? Oh, for that for which I was created! God meant me for this. We groan, waiting for our adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body, putting on our new man.
“When this corruptible shall have put on incorruption,
and this mortal shall have put on immortality.”
Why do you not groan for that? This corruptible shall put on incorruption; this mortal, which is dying, shall put on immortality—eternal life.
How did Paul get all that? “Have not I seen Jesus our Lord?” It pleased God to reveal His Son in me.
God repeated His divine fiat in me. He said over the world in chaos and darkness, “Let there be light,” and there was light. That fiat of God—He has done that, says Paul. He has repeated it and said, in this darkened humanity, “Let there be light.”
When He said that, I, in that light, saw His Son. I saw His Son, and I saw all that God intended and intends for mankind: his destiny in the economy of God.
Well, that is there in Chapter 15, if you know. He tells, out of this seeing, that the world to come—the inhabited earth to come, as you know; this is Hebrews—is going to be entirely subjected to this man and this humanity.
This is Hebrews 2:
“Thou madest Him a little lower than the angels;
Thou crownedst Him with glory and honour,
and didst set Him over the works of Thy hands:
Thou didst put all things in subjection under His feet.”
But we do not see that true of the old humanity. It is discredited; it is lost. It is not that kingdom. But we see Jesus. We see Jesus.
He is the representative man of this new humanity, the inclusive man, the last Adam. We see Him crowned with glory and honour. That is the destiny of man in the intention of God.
Paul shows us in these letters, and, by his influence at least, in the letter to the Hebrews, God’s intense interest in man and God’s infinite patience, perseverance, and pains with man through history.
God never finally wiped out mankind until it had gone beyond the point of no return and said, “We will not. We will not. Finally, we will not.”
That was Noah’s day: a preacher of righteousness, and men taking their stand in, “We will not.” So God says, “The end of all flesh is come before Me.” God never did anything like that until the cup of iniquity was proved to overflow and there was no hope because of man’s settled determination not to have the revealed will of God.
But apart from that, look at the infinite pains and patience and perseverance of God.
I hope I do not offend anybody when I say this. I do not mean to offend anybody, but I think God chose the Jewish race because it needed more patience than any other race on earth, because it was going to extend Him to the fullest limit of His patience. And they did.
God is marvellous in His sovereignty. Sometimes I think He chose me for no other purpose than to show what mercy He has.
Well, that would take us into another part of 1 Corinthians, would it not?
“God chose the foolish things of the world,
and God chose the weak things of the world,
and the base things of the world, and the things that are despised,
yea, and the things that are not.”
All right. I see what patience, what longsuffering, what pains, what a process of building is shown by the apostle on the part of God with mankind.
God has set such store by this kind of creation that, if God should never have a humanity like that at the end, then God is utterly defeated. Yet He is God, the God of the Bible. He must, He must, and He will.
Moreover, the apostle shows by the Spirit that all God’s dealings with His own children—family terms, His own children, His own family—have this end in view: the transition unto glory, bringing many sons to glory.
But link with that:
“My son, regard not lightly the chastening of the Lord,
nor faint when thou art reproved of Him;
for whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth,
and scourgeth every son whom He receiveth.”
What a wonderful chapter in Hebrews about God’s dealings with His children, His family, showing that no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous. You and I know some of that. But afterward—afterward.
There is an afterward, and it is that afterward that God is working toward in His dealings with us, difficult as they may be. We may come to that again; I do not know whether this morning. But here is the principle.
God is not against us when we are having a hard time. The devil says He is. Have a bad time, and there is a little demon at your ear at once, accusing God, maligning God, trying to get a twist in your mind that questions God.
He is trying to get you right back into the garden again, get you onto the old Adam ground again.
Now, I can say this more easily than I can go through it. So can you hear it more easily than you can go through it. But it says, “Afterward, afterward.”
Oh, the end of 1 Corinthians 15:
“But thanks be to God,
who giveth us the victory
through our Lord Jesus Christ.”
These dealings with us are governed by this great destiny for which He has made us and called us.
All this, the apostle shows, is represented by the perfected man in glory. And all this is not only represented by Him there as the ultimate of God for mankind, but it is secured in that man in the glory.
Its security is in Him. In this connection, the apostle uses a figure from the Greek about the Holy Spirit having been given to us as an earnest of our final redemption.
You know what the figure is? You see some goods, some produce, at a depot—at a railway station. It is destined for something or somewhere, and there is stamped on it: “Sample.”
Sample. It is an earnest. It is a firstfruits. It is a prophecy. But there is more to follow—a great deal to follow. This is only the beginning. This is only a piece of what is coming.
The apostle uses that figure of speech. Greeks understood quite well what he was talking about. He says He has given us the Spirit as the sample, the earnest, the prophecy of what is to be.
It is secure. It is all there, secure in Him, to come to us.
Is it irreverent to speak of the Holy Spirit like this? He sent the sample. Beloved, you and I really have the Spirit. What have we got? Oh, the earnest of our inheritance.
We have this witness, this assurance, and the working of this power holding us unto something, unto our destiny. Oh, thank God for that holding.
To quote Peter:
“Who by the power of God are guarded through faith
unto a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.”
Where would any of us be today had there not been that holy holding? When we really did let go, when we really did say, “We can go no further; this is it,” and when we would have gone had we been left to ourselves—well, the miracle is, we are here.
By the earnest of the Spirit, until that day, because it is secured unto us in Christ.
The apostle says:
“Cast not away therefore your boldness,
which hath great recompense of reward.
For ye have need of patience,
that, having done the will of God,
ye may receive the promise.”
So much is there in all this. He shows that it is all represented in the man perfected in heaven, but more: it is secured in Him up there.
I am glad to stop there—out of this world, beyond any power to undo the security.
Now the apostle shows, then, that the advent of Jesus Christ into this world was this: first of all, it was the summation of all God’s former forms and ways of His self-revelation.
“God, having of old time spoken unto the fathers in the prophets
by divers portions and in divers manners,
hath at the end of these days spoken unto us in His Son.”
Many-sided, fragmentary: a bit here through this one, a bit there through that one, all speaking in bits, pieces, fragments. You sum them all up now, gather them all together, make one sum of them, and it is the summation of all when the Son comes into this world.
That is what is here. See Jesus, and you see the summation of all God’s previous methods and ways and times of self-revelation. It is the full and final revelation of God in Jesus Christ.
That is what this young man Saul of Tarsus, with his background of the Old Testament in his mind—who could quote the whole thing without the book—found when he came before Jesus Christ, the risen, glorified Lord. His Bible became a new book.
He saw that in that One everything was gathered; everything was summed up. “Have not I seen Jesus our Lord?”
When I saw Him, I saw no more fragments. Things were complete now. No more bits and pieces; it was one great glorious whole. No more then, now, and afterward; it is all eternally present in Him now.
The summation of all God’s previous ways of self-revelation.
Then he saw—and this meant so much, you know, to a Jew, and an educated Jew, so thoroughly educated as was Saul of Tarsus—he saw that Jesus our Lord was not only the summation of all God’s previous ways of revealing Himself; He was the consummation of a whole economy.
The whole of the Mosaic economy. That is why I say I am sure Paul had a hand in this letter to the Hebrews, because the whole of the Mosaic economy is gone over in that letter, is it not?
What is the purpose of the letter? The transition from that to Christ. He is the High Priest. He is the sacrifice. He is the altar. He is the temple. He is everything that economy represented in type and figure.
He is the consummation of that, the end of that, and the introduction of an entirely new economy. It is a heavenly one, in the heavens not made with hands.
All the terms are so definite: “not of this creation.” He says, “Not of this creation.” The consummation of a whole economy.
Christendom has not grasped this yet. It is still clinging on to the old economy—its vestments, its robes, its ritual, its external things.
They have to see that this is all finished with. Now, are we priests? Yes, we are priests, but of a different order. Our robing is the robing of His righteousness, and no other can appear before God.
All our adornments are spiritual. Spiritual.
Oh, how I am battling all the way along to keep things out because of the details. You know, Peter has seen this.
Peter speaks to the dear women. Again, the unfortunate translation is understandable because it is difficult to grasp if you put it literally. If it were translated literally, Peter says to the dear sisters:
“Whose adorning,
let it not be the outward adorning of plaiting the hair,
and of wearing jewels of gold,
or of putting on apparel.”
What is the word “adorning”? “Adorning.” The original is, “Whose world?” Whose cosmos? Whose world, whose realm, whose system of things is not this getting yourself up, making an impression?
Now, I am not holding any brief for carelessness and slovenliness and that sort of thing. But what world do you live in? How you appear to others, what impression you make by these outward things—Peter says of the saintly women, “Whose world is not that. That is not their sphere; that is not their cosmos, their system.”
But the ornament, the ornament, of a meek and quiet spirit.
There is a parenthesis again. You see, one system is externals. The externals are gone, and it is all now a system of the Spirit in the heart—a heavenly thing for a heavenly people.
Now, some people have seen the principle, and they have tried to put it into effect by putting on a certain kind of raiment and becoming a sect who wear that kind of raiment. They have seen the principle all right, but you cannot fulfil principle in that way. It is the Spirit that comes out and expresses itself.
The end of an economy: its consummation.
And then, keeping close to Paul, the transition to an entirely new regime: the regime of the man perfected and installed in glory as God’s model for this new humanity.
“According to Christ” is the phrase so often used. “According to Christ,” or “not according to Christ”—that is the test, the challenge. According to the perfected man and humanity installed in heaven: God’s pattern, to which He is working.
He is working. And here we come back again to the place of the Holy Spirit in the letters to the Corinthians, especially the first letter.
Look through, and what is the ultimate, supreme function of the Holy Spirit?
“Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels,
but have not love,
I am become sounding brass, or a clanging cymbal.
And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor,
and though I give my body to be burned,
but have not love,
it profiteth me nothing.”
The supreme work of the Holy Spirit is the character of Jesus Christ. Not love as a thing put on. You can put that on, you know. It can be a pretension, a way of behaviour, a way of speaking.
People can put a hand on your shoulder and say, “Beloved,” and be treacherous behind your back, finding fault with you to someone else. Unfeigned love, the apostle says—unfeigned love of the brethren.
It is the Spirit of Jesus Christ.
So you are not surprised when, having finished his letters, he says this benediction that has become so commonplace and lost so much of its contextual significance as applying and relating to the whole Corinthian situation:
“The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ,
and the love of God,
and the communion of the Holy Spirit,
be with you all.”
The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ—that is the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. Look at it there: the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, who, though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, that ye through His poverty might become rich.
The grace of the Lord Jesus: self-emptying. You see that to the Philippians, do you not? The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ is Jesus Christ, is it not, all the time?
The love of God—how do you know it? In Jesus Christ only, never in any other way. The love of God.
The fellowship of the Holy Spirit: communion, unity, the removal of those divisions and that divisive spirit—“I am of Paul,” “I am of Apollos,” “I am of Peter.” The communion, fellowship, of the Holy Spirit.
Shall I go on there? I do not think I can. I have got to start on the next thing, and it will take me over. I have, I think, about seventeen minutes. No, not that. I brought my clock here this morning. Keep a hand on me.
I have to start on that next great thing: how seeing Jesus is the source and character of all ministry in this dispensation.
I do not want to spoil it. I think it would be better—do not you spoil it, will you? Do not start to chatter immediately on everything under the sun and dissipate it. Forgive me for saying that, but let us hold this quietly before the Lord, because it challenges us.
How far are we able to say, with the effect of it, the revolution, the transformation, the transition: “Have not I seen Jesus our Lord?” It pleased God to reveal His Son in me.
When that happened, my word, what a lot went! It just went. And what a lot came! How different, how different.
I have called this section “The All-Governing and Dominating Vision”: seeing Jesus our Lord.
Go, ask Him to do that with you. Let me just say, this is not something that is going to be all done at once. Oh, no.
Some of us, after many years, are seeing more today of the significance and meaning of Jesus our Lord than we have ever seen all through our lives. It has got to be like that. Thank God it has got to be like that.
We shall always have a margin, a plus, an extra, almost right to the end.
I wish I could start now as a young man with what I have got. I could live my life right through again, many years, with what I have got now. That is my trouble.
Dr. Tozer once said, you know, all ministry should have such an overflow that no man ever finishes his sermon.
You know what he meant. You have come to the end of your time, and you have got far more than your time could contain. It ought to be like that over the Lord Jesus.
Oh, how much more I see than I have ever been able to say, or could say today! I see He is so vast, so full, immense.
We are here, dear friends, not to talk about the greatness of Christ as a subject, but to be the expression of it—the expression of it.
It may defeat us. I mean, we may go to the grave, if He does not come, very old. We have not begun yet. But it should be like that. He is so great, so wonderful.
May the fiat take place if it has not. But if it has, the eyes of our hearts have been enlightened, and we begin to see something of Him.
Remember, there should be no stalemate over this, no arrested progress as at Corinth, no undue babyhood. It is all right to be a baby when you are a baby; it is a horrible thing to be a baby when you have the years of maturity.
That is how it was at Corinth. Their growth was stunted because of carnality, because of the heart.
Had they really failed to see the logic? That is what Paul is teaching. They knew what the apostle was talking about. He has to come back for this.
“The eyes of your heart being enlightened.”
He has to come back with his second letter to them: the veil taken away, and we all with unveiled face see the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ and are changed into the same image from glory to glory.
We pray.
So, Lord, we can only say that with the presentation of the truth Thou wouldst go beyond, take us beyond, and grant that every life here may stand in the good of the unveiled face of Jesus Christ, the glory therein; may stand in the good of having seen Jesus our Lord.
Oh, make that true of every one of us—very true, wonderfully true, and growingly true—until we finally see His face. We ask it in His name. Amen.