The Cross and the Church (continued)
3. Life is Reproductive
This is the meaning of life. It may mean joy, energy, beauty, and activity, but its essential value and supreme function is reproductiveness. Life demands a way to reproduce after its own kind, and any organism which refuses right-of-way to life by denying its facilities for transmission commits a breach of trust. Nowhere is life a possession just to be enjoyed. It is a stewardship to be sacredly fulfilled. The barren fig-tree of Matthew 21 is a parable of an unfulfilled trust; receiving without passing on. Possess life, and give it a free course and reproduction is spontaneous. This is not only the statement of a fact, it is a test. The New Testament Church was spontaneously a reproductive Church, without machinery, organisation, publicity, propaganda. It propagated itself purely by reason of the life in it. There are many substitutes for Divine life in organized Christianity which explain the slow and hard going, expensive output, and poor quality of results. There is no real substitute for the Church, and the Church expressing Christ as "seeing his seed" in terms of spontaneous reproduction of life. There is something irresistible about life and the most serious consequences are attached to attempts to thwart it. Christ - the Life - is just simply bound to come out with a great multitude at the end.
But this life-productiveness is by way of the Cross. The classic scripture on this is John 12:24. The grain of wheat dies to reproduce itself. Christ Himself brought His Church into being thus. So that corporate expression of Christ is not only by His death, but potentially the death of all, and the truly living ones are those who have been "raised together with him." This is the Church, and the continuation of reproduction is the continuation of the faith acceptance of death and resurrection union with Him, with all that God means by that.
"The Life was the Light"
In the order of the new creation, that is, of what is spiritual, light follows life; life precedes light. Nicodemus was a man in the dark, groping. Christ said to him "Except a man be born anew he cannot see." Light is the great seeing factor; therefore it means knowing, perceiving, being sure. Inasmuch as it comes through life it must be subjective, inward. The man born blind (John 9) who received his sight is a full scale example or type of this. The touch of Jesus communicated life, vital power. He saw. Then, over against every effort to undermine his faith, to prejudice his mind, he simply answered that he had the goods and that was what really mattered. There was no merely doctrinal argument. It was not a matter of a certain line of teaching or angle of truth. It was Christ in terms of living light. He not only had light on things, he had "sight." It was not information "about", but it was apprehension of !
What a challenge to the Church this is! Christ is not theories, interpretations, doctrines, speculations, information, themes, etc. Christ is the impact of light upon darkness, so that "the darkness overcometh him not." This is exactly what a corporate expression of Christ is; is, "not should be." The Church, when in her true place and relationship to Him, is this. It can be as truly so with her as it was in His own case.
Much could be written regarding the effect of light, but here we are only stating spiritual facts, and leaving it with those concerned to do the measuring up. When the sun shines in its power it is not necessary to discuss theories about light, and if you do, it is only in the nature of explaining something which already exists. Nine-tenths of Christian teaching today has to do with what would follow, obtain, result, if certain things happened; or in explaining what would happen if certain things were observed. There is very little call for explaining what is happening, answering the inquiry, "What meaneth this?" with"This is that...". And yet it ought to be this way. New Testament doctrine was mainly an explanation of what had happened. It is important as light upon life, but the fact of the Church's being in the place where this life is bringing forth inquiry as to her secret is really where she begins her ministry. So it was on the Day of Pentecost. See what a tantalizing enigma Christ was when here. "Whence hath this man this wisdom?" Not of the schools, the seats of learning, nor the books, but in fellowship with the Father, under the anointing of the Spirit, He saw what the Father was doing (John 5:19). The Church unbelieving, defeating the curious, leaving the prejudiced with "facts, and being light to the true seekers.
But she will have to undergo a deep crucifixion to her own wisdom as to how the work of God is done. Thee is no light on the death side of the Cross where man by nature is shut out from God. She will have to cry in her blindness, "Jesus, thou Son of David, have mercy on me." This brokenness, helplessness, hopelessness, and yet faith, will betoken her death to every resource but Him Who is the life and the light of man. The Cross governs this whole matter of the Church's testimony to the light.
~T. Austin-Sparks~
(continued with # 26 - "The Love of Christ")
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