The Works of the Spiritual Man # 3

Life On The Highest Plane

Having formed this purpose and having fashioned this plan God now has no other way of working. In giving His Son to die God has done all that He can do for this world.

1 Corinthians 3:11, "For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ."

Acts 4:12, "Neither is there salvation in any other; for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved."

God's plan of working throughout the entire course of this age is perfectly outlined in the Acts. Here we see the invisible Head of the Church in the havenlies determining and directing the work of His visible body on earth through His Executor and Administrator, the Holy Spirit. Every type of work in which He would have us engage as Christians today is revealed to us there. Let us now consider the nature of the spiritual man's work.

God's Work in This Age is Executed through a Divine-Human Partnership

Life in Christ necessarily involves identification with Him in His mission to this world. Real membership in Christ's body means sharing with Him His compassionate love for the world and going out into it to seek and to save the lost. As Christ was sent into the world by the Father for a definitely specified task even so are we sent by Him.

John 17:18, "As thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world."

John 20:21, "Then said Jesus to them again, Peace be unto you: as my Father hath sent me, even so send I you."

What Christ Jesus began as the incarnate Son, He continues as the exalted Lord, through the divine-human partnership which exists between Him and His body, the Church.

1 Corinthians 3:9, "For we are labors together with God: ye are God's husbandry, ye are God's building."

2 Corinthians 6:1, "We then as workers together with him, beseech you also that ye receive not the grace of God in vain."

Mark 16:20, "And they went forth, and preached everywhere, the Lord working with them."

The Christian, then, is not at liberty to choose what his work will be. He is under the direction of the Head of the body of which he is but one member. As the Father determined the work of the Son and as Christ executed everything according to His Father's will so the Lord Jesus now chooses and calls the workers and then determines and directs the work. From this viewpoint let us study together the work of the first century Church, that we may discern our part in this divine-human partnership.

The workers were chosen of God. Paul and Peter each had the conviction that they had been chosen by the Lord Himself for their particular task even before receiving His call. Hence the courage of that conviction which was evinced in all their work.

Acts 9:15, "But the Lord said unto him, Go thy way: for he is a chosen vessel unto me, to bear my name before the Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel."

Acts 15:7, "Peter rose up, and said unto them, Men and brethren, know ye how that a good while ago God made choice among us, that the Gentiles by my mouth should hear the word of the gospel, and believe."

The workers were called of God. It is considered somewhat out-of-date today to speak of a divine call. The term is well-nigh obsolete. Not a divine call, but a sociological appeal takes many a man into the ministry or to the mission field. But the lack of it quite as often takes him out of the ministry into business or out of the mission field when the romance of an ocean trip and of meeting a new people has given place to the daily routine of hard work in an uncongenial environment. But the ministers and missionaries of that early Church were so sure of their all that they would lay down their lives willingly, if need be, in the pursuit of it (Acts 20:24).

The workers were appointed by the Lord. The men of the early Church had a direct appointment to a specific task by the Lord Jesus. To them it was a life task - to be laid down only when called into a higher ministry in the immediate presence of their Lord. Is not the reason why so many young men abandon their theological studies before completing their course due to the fact that they were not "put into the ministry" by the Lord Himself? The Church suffers today from man-made ministers.

~Ruth Paxson~

(continued with # 4)