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Saturday, January 4, 2014

We Beheld His Glory #39

What the Knowledge of God Is (continued)

That is the new covenant, which is no longer for the believer a matter of : Thou shalt, and, Thou shalt not. The Christian is not put under law in the sense that he is bound to do this and that, or may not do this, and may not do that. No, the believer is, if truly a child of God, governed, not by an outward system of permissions or prohibitions, but by an inward law of Divine understanding of the Lord's will on the basis of a living fellowship with Him. It is a blessed thing to see believers giving a manifestation of the fact of their having in their own hearts a knowledge of the Lord, of knowing what the Lord would have them do. That they do not do things because it is expected of them by others, and do not refrain from doing certain things because of what others would say, they are knowing the Lord in their own hearts. That is the proof that they have come into living fellowship with the Lord Jesus, that they are no longer under the Mosaic economy but under the regime of the Holy Spirit indwelling. Israel blindly - that is, so far as their spiritual sight was concerned - followed the commandments and laws. The child of God intelligently follows the known will of God. This light is connected with Christ as the Life. That means it is a living thing. It is the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus which brings life and peace, and that is the way in which we know the mind of the Lord about any proposed thing. Life and peace, if our fellowship with Him is right; life and peace in our hearts. That is our light. If in any proposed course, before the Lord, we have neither life nor peace, we may suspend that course for the  time being, and we shall find that our so doing will be justified. The Lord no longer says to us directly on matters: Yes, you should do so and so; and: No, you should not do so and so. He now speaks by spiritual laws, not always by verbal phrases, and His speech, the speech of the Spirit, is to spirit first, interpreted afterward by the mind. He speaks in our hearts, and the language of the Spirit is life, peace, rest, or to the contrary.

Now what is needed at this point, is a recognition of what it is that comes to us by a vital touch of Christ upon our spiritual eyes; that is, the content of the light that comes to us. Well, so comprehensive is the answer to that that without exaggeration, it would keep us here for a very long time because it embodies everything that will ever come to us in our relationship to the Lord.

Christ - The Answer to Every Problem

One matter that will come is God's eternal thought concerning man; our place in the original intention of God. That is not a small subject in itself. The answer to the question: "Why am I?" "What have I a being for?" "Why the human race?" That is revealed in the person of Christ. If you apprehend Christ, you have apprehended that. The Incarnation is the answer to the enquiry as to the reason of man's existence. See Christ the Son of Man, and you see what God's thought was for man, and what God's intention is to have concerning man. That is an apprehension of Christ that answers the deepest question of the human heart: "Why am I?"  "Why the race?"  Christ the answer! But that original thought of God was interfered with as first projected, and we see anything but Christ in the race. We see an awful distortion, an awful misrepresentation; but God has not abandoned His thought.

And the second revelation comes in, how? Not now out of nothing but out of a ruin will God get His intention; and we are introduced to the great theme of redemption. How? The answer to that second question How? is, Christ. He is made unto us redemption. The apprehension of Christ is the answer to the question - How? in all this wreck, this ruin of the race. A living apprehension and understanding of Christ answers that. How will God do this thing? Look at Him, apprehend Him by faith, and it is done in you, God has done it. "Wherefore if any man is in Christ, there is a new creation". The seed of the creation wholly conformed to Christ is planted in new birth.

~T. Austin-Sparks~

(continued with # 40)

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