Union with Christ in Life a Dominant Theme (continued)
Now chapter six carries on the same theme from another standpoint, and with a fresh and added factor. Thus you go on through the gospel right to the end, and you find step by step, and stage by state, it is a touching upon, or dealing with, this very subject, life triumphant over death. You will come to Lazarus before long; you will come to the Good Shepherd Who giveth His life for the sheep; another form of the Testimony. That the sheep might live, the Shepherd dies; and the fact that the sheep do live, is a testimony to victory over death in the Shepherd Who gives them life. And so you will see that this whole gospel, from one standpoint, is one continuous unveiling, disclosing, and developing of this great truth of life triumphant over death. We could easily pass on into Acts, where we should not have much difficulty in establishing our affirmation. The first few chapters of the book of Acts are little else than a Testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and the testifiers are the witnesses; that is, the testimony is in the witnesses. Then the letter to the Romans. We are familiar enough with the Roman letter to know, that when you pass from the first chapters, you are passing from the realm of death from which you emerge into the realm of life triumphant over death; through chapter six into chapter eight. So we go on. It is good for us to know what a solid mass of Scripture there is back of anything which we have presented as the Lord's will. I mean this: it is a tremendous thing for you, or for me, to say that the Lord desires to have a present and continuous testimony to life triumphant over death. That will be a challenge continually. What ground in Scripture have we got for that, to support us? What is there as a solid mass of rock under our feet to bear us up when we take such a position? Are we hanging a great declaration like that, with all that it involves, upon some unrelated, detached bit of the Word of God; or have we a sufficient foundation for such a position? That is why I have stayed to open out beyond the one chapter in relation to this. There is a tremendous amount of the Word of God to support that position, that the Lord desires in His Own there should be a present and continuous testimony to life triumphant over death.
The Law of Feeding Upon Christ
Now then, we come to break it up into some of its fragments. And that, of course, will mostly have to do with the law which governs this truth. There is the great truth, but it has a governing law; and in order to enjoy the testimony, to have the experience of life triumphant over death now and continuously, we must recognize the law, and be adjusted, and obedient thereto. What is the law? Simply, it is feeding upon Christ. What feeding upon Christ means, we will not deal with for a moment, but recognize the fact as it relates to the truth. You notice two things that come up in this chapter, one early, and one later. Verse 4: "Now the Passover, the feast of the Jews, was at hand. Jesus therefore lifting up his eyes ..." Do you get the link of that "therefore"? You might say in reading the first word: "after these things Jesus went away to the other side ... a great multitude followed him, because they beheld the signs which he did ... and he went up into a mountain and sat with his disciples ... now the Passover, the feast of the Jews, was at hand." What has that to do with it? Why is that "Jesus therefore" put in there? There was something in the back of His mind, just as there was in Cana of Galilee when He said: "Mine hour is not yet come." "Jesus therefore lifting up his eyes, and seeing that a great multitude cometh unto him, saith unto Philip. Whence are we to buy bread, that these may eat?" Do you notice the Passover comes up in relation to this; the Passover in the mind of the Lord is related to this, or rather, this is related to the Passover. There is a background to this feeding of the multitude; it is related to some spiritual truth. Hold that for a moment, the fact that the Passover comes up at the beginning of this. Move on to verse 31: "Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness.... Jesus therefore said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, It was not Moses that gave you the bread out of heaven; but my Father giveth you the true bread out of heaven." You have the Passover introduced, and now you have Moses, the wilderness, and the manna brought in, all in the same connection. Then what is the link between those two things, and the main truth of life triumphant over death? Well, the Passover had a great deal to do with that. You are taken back into Egypt, back into the realm of death, back into the place where the destroyer is abroad, where death is rampant, and the eating of the Passover is life triumphant over death. It is found right at the commencement of their history; it fixed the date of their national constitution. They were constituted a nation by the Passover. "This is the beginning of months." So that their history, as the people of God, was based upon that which represented life triumphant over death, the feeding upon Christ, the appropriation of Christ as their life. Now later the wilderness comes into view, and what you have in the wilderness is death. There are no signs of life in a wilderness; no element of life in a wilderness; there is no resource for life there. The wilderness was - apart from God - the place of death. When they ceased to be obedient to the Lord, they died in the wilderness. Their cry was: Were there no graves in Egypt that thou hast brought us out to die in the wilderness? Oh, yes, it was a place of death! The manna was given, and it raised in them the testimony of life triumphant over death as a continuous thing. That feeding upon the manna constituted the continuous testimony in them to life triumphant over death.
~T. Austin-Sparks~
(continued with # 26 - "The Significance of a Changed Tense")
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