The Ministry of the Church
Ministry comes by enlightenment, and doctrine only comes vitally through experience. Before Jonah could preach effectively to Nineveh, he must be made the thing which he would preach.
The disciples had every fact concerning Christ which they were intended to preach from the moment of His ascension. But they did not have the inner spiritual meaning of those facts. Hence, they had to spend the interval in prayer rather than preaching. Vital ministry is not just as to the great doctrinal facts of Christ, but the inner revelation of their meaning; and this comes by being "baptized into His death," and"raised together with Him." While there is an initial and crisic aspect of this, it is a thing which in principle operates continuously. The more this is entered into in experience the more effective does ministry become. The Church does not exist to be just a notification or expostulation of the great facts of the Person and work of Jesus Christ; but it is intended to be a representation and embodiment of the power and spiritual nature of those facts. It is not what is said but the influence emanating, and the irresistible force, not only over the minds and wills of men, but over the power of the devil.
It is the power of the Church, and the power of the church is "the power of His resurrection."
The Nature of the Strength of the Church
Ephesians 1:17-22; 3:16-19; Hebrews 2:14.
"Since then the children are partakers of flesh and blood, He also Himself in like manner partook of the same, that through death he might bring to nought (nullify, destroy) him that had the power (might) of death, that is the devil."
Here we have clearly stated the very object and reason of the Incarnation, that His partaking - sharing - of the flesh and blood was to destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil. It means that, God was not going to destroy the devil apart from flesh and blood; God would not as God destroy the devil, but He would as man destroy him.
This is the key and way into the Ephesians letter, and sums up the whole truth of the letter, and lets you into the deep truth: the building up of the Church which is His Body. This letter filled with the building of the Church.
There are two main characteristics of the Church in its building up.
1. "that God .... the Father may give unto you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him ... that ye may know."
The Holy Spirit's strength is needed for knowing Him - the Lord Jesus; the Holy Spirit's strength is needed for knowing the Hope of His Calling and the glory of His inheritance in His saints.
2. "That He would grant you according to the riches of His glory that ye may be strengthened with power through His Spirit into the inner man ... to the end that ye ... may be filled unto all the fullness of God."
The Holy Spirit is needed for energizing on the ground of spiritual revelation, unto all the fullness of God. The Holy Spirit and the strength of His Might needed for illumination and for energizing into that fullness.
Do we see that the building of the Church is going on by the super-surpassing power of God by His Spirit? The full force of the words here is tremendous, literally it is: "the all else excelling power of God's almightiness"; this is the energy, the force by which this building is going on; the Church, His Body as a whole is in view all through this letter, yet this which is spoken of the whole has got to be true of every member of that Body: and it will really only be fully true in the whole completed Church, for the fullness is to be and can only be realized by the Church - the Body of Christ.
When it is builded, then the all-excelling power of God's almightiness is brought into fullness of manifestation.
Note here, deeper than the letter of the word, but deep in the language of the Apostle is made manifest, that it is the same power of God which increated faith in you. Faith is not only a grace it is a miracle; a miracle of God. Faith in us is the miracle of the resurrection, and our possessing faith, that faith which was wrought in Christ in the power of His resurrection; this is more than just "saving faith" as we say. But even simple faith unto salvation is not our own, of ourselves, it is the gift of God, and saving faith is a mighty thing, it has in it all the potentialities of that faith by which He raised the Lord Jesus from the dead.
~T. Austin-Sparks~
(continued with # 9)
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