Pioneers of the Heavenly Way # 7

Hebrews 11:13-16

The Principle of Death and Resurrection

Yes, but not only was Isaac a heavenly product by the intervention of heaven, by a miracle, but you see God is going to press that right through to the ultimate in demanding the offering of Isaac as a sacrifice. Isaac was born by a miracle, by the intervention of heaven, but something still further had to be done: he had to die and be raised from the dead. This mighty thing of God must come in and ratify that. What Paul says in Romans 1:4, "declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection of the dead", could well be rendered 'ratified the Son of God ... by resurrection'; and that is Isaac, ratified heavenly.

That has very much of our own spiritual history in it. We have not only been born again by a miracle and heaven's intervention; this has been ratified all the way alone. God is demanding the maintenance of that by resurrection life, and resurrection life has no meaning unless we know something of death. God is keeping us on heavenly ground. That is the meaning of Isaac: not only putting us on heavenly ground, but keeping us on heavenly ground by constant expressions of resurrection, when only resurrection will save the situation.

After all, no matter what it was at the beginning of our Christian life - that we had a wonderful experience of conversion and can put down in a notebook when it happened and where - that may be good, but it has to be ratified continually by the expression of resurrection. We have got to be kept on that ground. And that is the pioneer way. The way of pioneering the heavenly way is knowing again and again the meaning of death and its direness, in order to know the meaning of resurrection and its greatness. It is the pioneer way. The Church has gone that way; many a revelation of God has gone that way; many a child of God has gone that way - in order to keep the heavenly way alive and stop this 'dry-rot' of earthliness which is always seeking to sap the Christian life. We know how true that is.

Abraham came to know that his real inheritance was in heaven. I always think it is a very wonderful thing, this aspect of Abraham's life and experience, under the hand of God: that no doubt when he first set out, at the command of God, he interpreted those promises in a very earthly and limited way. No doubt to begin with his expectation was that they would be fulfilled and realized in this way and in that; but the longer h lived the more he became aware that it was not this way or that, it was something more than he had thought when he started, something very much more and very much other. He went on, and he is one of those here included in this word - "These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them and greeted them from afar ... But now they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly". When God said, "I will bring you to a country" (Genesis 12:1), Abraham in the first place thought that that was earthly; in the end he saw it was not. He came to see, to have perception: for the Lord Jesus said, "Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day; and he saw it, and was glad" (John 8:56). "Having seen them and greeted the from afar". And so Paul brings us back here, in his letter to the Galatians - "to thy see, which is Christ". "He saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to thy seed, which is Christ" (Galatians 3:16). Christ was the answer to everything of inheritance for Abraham.

But Christ, the heavenly Christ, is the very embodiment of all that is heavenly. We know not Christ after the flesh. Christ is essentially heavenly. You see the heavenly nature of this seed. You can crowd all that into Joshua and Caleb. Who will be the people that will inherit, go over and posses? Not this earthbound, earth-minded crowd. They will be replaced by another generation with a different constitution - represented by Joshua and Caleb, the first of a new generation - who will possess. They are the pioneers of the heavenly way and the heavenly fullness. But how deeply they had to suffer for it. "All the congregation had stone them with stones" (Numbers 14:10). Pioneering is always a way of suffering and cost, even among - not the worldlings - but those who go by the name of the people of God.

Well, the pioneer of the heavenly way will always be like this: heavenly as a seed, and constantly ratified as heavenly by the necessity for repeated interventions of heaven to extricate, to deliver, to keep going. It is true to the spiritual life. We would not have gone on more than a little way, we would have stopped, it would have been again and again the end of us, if heaven had not intervened, if it had not been that God had ratified the fact that we belong to heaven. And He is doing it.

Well, all this is so clearly seen to be fulfilled in Christ, this Heavenly Seed. His birth was by heaven's intervention, a miracle. At His baptism heaven broke in again and ratified, "This is my beloved Son". His Cross? - that does not look very much like an intervention of heaven. But wait a minute: do not forget that the New Testament never talks about the Cross of Christ on the death side alone. In the New Testament the Cross has twin sides - death, resurrection. "Ye by the hand of lawless men did crucify and slay: whom God raised up" (Acts 2:23-24). The world has done all that it can do, has exhausted itself upon Him. The powers of evil have exhausted themselves. What more can be done: Ah, now heaven comes in and spoils it all and raises Him: ratifies that He belongs to heaven and not to this world. He is not the property, the plaything, either of this world or of the evil powers that govern this world. He  belongs to heaven: and heaven intervenes, and not only raises Him, but takes Him up and out and set Him over!

His spiritual history is the spiritual history of the pioneer of the heavenly way. He is the Pioneer. "Within the veil; whither as a forerunner Jesus entered for us" (Hebrews 6:19-20), says this letter to the Hebrews.

~T. Austin-Sparks~

(continued with # 8 - "A Link Between Failure and Realization")

[To those who do not know T. Austin-Sparks, I would like to introduce him to you. He was a pastor all his life and who died in 1968. He never allowed anyone to place a copyright on his Christian writings - never! (And he was a prolific Christian writer in his later years). Austin-Sparks always said: "Freely received - freely given" meaning that what God had blessed him to learn, he would bless others by the same teachings. He refused to accept payment for his Christian writing! Since his death, his family have all agreed that no one can copyright Austin-Sparks works! [you might find several books written by Austin-Sparks published today, and appear to be copyrighted but the truth is, only the front and back cover of the books, the publishers additions, etc. are copyrighted. Austin-Sparks writings are not copyrighted and are free to anyone who desires his God-given wisdom.]