The Spirit Spontaneously Reproduces the Nature of Christ

The Spirit Spontaneously Reproduces the Nature of Christ

Now, I am not going back behind what I said earlier. I am not saying that we must take the Bible in its letter and phrases and make a mould, a scriptural mould, which we think is the New Testament order. That is not the point at all. Development did not come about in the beginning in that way. Every fresh reproduction of the Church, in any part of the Roman Empire or beyond, in the days of the Apostles, came about, not by taking thither a fixed mould and trying to pour people into that mould and to reproduce the shape of things that existed somewhere else. It began with life - life from heaven - "The Holy Spirit sent forth from heaven" (1 Peter 1:12). And wherever the believers went, two things were imperative: firstly, baptism, as a testimony to the fact that an old order was finished, and that everything now had to have as new a beginning as anybody must have who has died and been buried; and secondly, the gift of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Life, coming to take up residence within those concerned.

When the Holy Spirit comes in and has His way, He relieves you of all the responsibility of New Testament order; you have no more burden and responsibility about that than a tree has in producing leaves and fruit. No tree ever spends hours and hours worrying and fretting, 'How can I bring forth some leaves? how can I develop my fruit?' It just lives - it yields to the life process; and the rest happens. That was the glorious spontaneity of New Testament churches - they just came about. And the Lord must have them like that - constituted from heaven by the Holy Spirit; not man bringing his form of church and church government, his mould, his conception of things, and saying, 'This is our conception of a Bible church.' NO, it is the product of life. As that Spirit of life was allowed to work, things took a certain course and a certain form, and that was the form of Christ. The Holy Spirit took responsibility. "I will build My church." the Lord Jesus had said (Matt. 16:18), and He meant it; and He is found doing it always in a true New Testament church!

[This is a short paragraph taken from the book "Prophetic Ministry" by T. Austin-Sparks. There are some highly valuable remarks in the above paragraph that I had to bring forth. Listen well!

~T. Austin-Sparks~
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