We Beheld His Glory # 17

The Meaning of Eternal Life (continued)

Then, further, have we in view the hope of eternal resurrection? Well, resurrection unto life is based upon, and exclusively upon, the fact that we have got eternal life already resident within us. That does not mean that those who have not got eternal life will not be raised from the dead for the judgment purposes. They will! But John makes a discrimination, and that discrimination is also made by Paul. "They that have done good, unto the resurrection life": literally, "the life resurrection." "They that have done evil, unto the resurrection of judgment" - the resurrection of eternal judgment. There is a resurrection of life and there is a death resurrection. Resurrection unto eternal life is based upon our having this Divine life in us. That is the argument of 1 Corinthians 14. That resurrection body will be formed around a seed, a germ, and it must be there. Something must be there to be clothed upon. Paul speaks of himself and of us as being clothed upon. What is it that is going to be clothed upon? That living spirit indwelt by the life of God. There is no hope of eternal resurrection only on the ground of our already being in possession of resurrection life. Resurrection life will be given a resurrection body. The resurrection body will evidence the resurrection life, so that we must have spiritual resurrection now in order to have physical resurrection, glorified resurrection, later on.

Now the point of all that is, that the doctrine of eternal life is the need for having what is of God within us, as the basis of everything in relation to God. And in saying what we have said, we have covered the whole ground of the doctrine of eternal life, although if you like to go to your New Testament with a concordance, that will help you in this matter, or if you are able to read the original language, and trace through the one word which is used for eternal life, you will find a tremendous mass of detail and you will see how very illuminating the New Testament is upon this whole doctrine, and how many-sided is its application.

Having broadly stated the truth of eternal life, we come nearer to our chapter, to look for a moment at the local setting of this teaching, and at the teaching of the lord on this matter. The local setting of it is a very good illustration of the absence of eternal life. You may look at it from several standpoints if you wish. Look at it, for instance, from the spiritual standpoint. The condition of this woman, viewed from the spiritual standpoint, represents an abiding sense of lack; a sense of lack which continues, which persists, no matter what she does. There is an atmosphere of longing, of desire; it may not be that she intelligently understood her own heart, it may not be that she could interpret the deeper feelings of her heart, but undoubtedly there is an atmosphere around this incident of a sense of lack, a sense of longing, a sense of desire. It comes out quite clearly. The Master had only to touch upon the subject of satisfaction, and it was as though instantly she said: Ah! that is what I want to know. Yes, in relation to this sense of lack the activities of life were without satisfaction. "Sir, give me this water, that I thirst not, neither come hither to draw." In effect she meant: I am all the time coming here to draw, but my continuous activities, in the direction of meeting that lack, go disappointed, never reach an end; I never come to a point where I have any sense of feeling, or of being able to say, Now that is done and never need be done again. If we can read our own hearts we can get well into the atmosphere of this chapter. If we read the spiritual life of the world, it is just that. There is perhaps an uninterpreted, perhaps unrecognized, acknowledged, or not so, that there is an incompleteness about things, hat something ought to be which is not. That life has in it something of the will-o'-the-wisp, something which draws you on but which you never get. There is a phantom element about life. You know you ought to have something, but you have it not, and you cannot get it; and all that you are doing whether you would put it into words or not, is your own effort, your own activity to get that something which you feel you ought to have possession of and which would bring to an end that sense of lack, you would make good an abiding deficiency in life. There is a deficiency about life in nature. Everything, in view of that sense of reaching the ultimate, is a miscarriage, is a breakdown. That is from the spiritual standpoint. Now that is an evidence of the fact that eternal life is not there.

Look at it then, if you will, from a further standpoint - the moral. This woman's life from the moral standpoint was entirely out of harmony with God's standard. We know the story. The Lord Jesus was above all others sensitive. He was not course, He was not vulgar, He was not unkind, and yet He would drag that story right out; He would bring that skeleton out of the cupboard and expose it; He would not allow this thing to be covered up. It is an essential thing on the way to life that we come to a place where we recognize how out of harmony with God's standard we are morally. "Go, call thy husband." "I have no husband." "Thou hast well said, I have no husband; for thou hast had five husbands; and he whom thou now hast is not thy husband." "Sir, I perceive that thou art a prophet." Do you notice the slight of hand? "Our fathers worshiped in this mountain; and ye say, that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship." She has come up against a challenge, and  now she is going to talk about the saints, and to set one over against the other. She will start upon a doctrine, and the logical, and ecclesiastical line as a hedge to this thing. People do that when they begin to get at close quarters with the Lord about sin, and they will begin to discuss the saints, talk religion, to hedge the issue; but the Lord knows how to deal with a situation like this. We will not anticipate, though, for a moment. The way to eternal life is to come not only to recognize the fact that there is an abiding lack and deficiency, it is to see that lack as altogether out of harmony with God, and that morally we do not represent God's standard by nature; and if in this woman you think you have a somewhat extreme case, oh! be reminded that it is only a matter of degree for the Lord has brought the serpent in the wilderness very close to a Nicodemus, and said that even for a Nicodemus the mind of God is that, and it is only a matter of degree. There may be no need for putting ourselves into the category of this woman in actualities of sin, but moral distance from God is just the same in nature whether it be in a Nicodemus representation, or in a woman of Sychar. What I mean is this, that God's standard and irreducible minimum is His Son, the perfection of Christ. Can you stand up to that? Can any man stand up to that? Neither Nicodemus nor this woman can stand up to that. It is only a matter of the degree in actual expression, but the separation from God morally is just the same. You say: How can anyone be saved if Christ's perfections are God's irreducible minimum? we shall find ourselves faced with the question before we are through with this; what Christ is in Himself.

~T. Austin-Sparks~

(continued with # 18)

Run With Patience

Let us run with patience (Hebrews 12:1).

To run with patience is a very difficult thing. Running is apt to suggest the absence of patience, the eagerness to reach the goal. We commonly associate patience with lying down. We think of it as the angel that guards the couch of the invalid. Yet, I do not think the invalid's patience the hardest to achieve.

There is a patience which I believe to be harder--the patience that can run. To lie down in the time of grief, to be quiet under the stroke of adverse fortune, implies a great strength; but I know of something that implies a strength greater still: It is the power to work under a stroke; to have a great weight at your heart and still to run; to have a deep anguish in your spirit and still perform the daily task. It is a Christlike thing!

Many of us would nurse our grief without crying if we were allowed to nurse it. The hard thing is that most of us are called to exercise our patience, not in bed, but in the street. We are called to bury our sorrows, not in lethargic quiescence, but in active service--in the exchange, in the workshop, in the hour of social intercourse, in the contribution to another's joy. There is no burial of sorrow so difficult as that; it is the "running with patience."

This was Thy patience, O Son of man! It was at once a waiting and a running--a waiting for the goal, and a doing of the lesser work meantime. I see Thee at Cana turning the water into wine lest the marriage feast should be clouded. I see Thee in the desert feeding a multitude with bread just to relieve a temporary want. All, all the time, Thou wert bearing a mighty grief, unshared, unspoken. Men ask for a rainbow in the cloud; but I would ask more from Thee. I would be, in my cloud, myself a rainbow -- a minister to others' joy. My patience will be perfect when it can work in the vineyard.
--George Matheson

When all our hopes are gone,
'Tis well our hands must keep toiling on
For others' sake:
For strength to bear is found in duty done;
And he is best indeed who learns to make
The joy of others cure his own heartache.

~L. B. Cowman~

We Beheld His Glory # 16

The Meaning of Eternal Life

What is the doctrine of eternal life? In a statement it is the need for having what is of God within, as the basis of all that is related to God in life, fellowship, service, and the eternal future. The question with Nicodemus was that of entering the Kingdom of God. We saw that the Kingdom of God is a state before it is a realm. Only that enters the Kingdom of God which is of God. The realm of God is that in which everything of God and nothing else obtains. Through the death of chapter three we move to the place where we see what is basic to the realm of God, that which has to do with every phase of our relationship to God; that is, the life of God, Divine life, known as eternal life, and that within us, as the ground upon which all the activities and operations of God proceed. Are we going to be united with the Lord? Well, that is the first step in the life of the believer. That is the very first phase of spiritual life, of the true Christian life. It is being united with the Lord. The nature of the union with the Lord is the sharing of His own life. Divine life; the life of God, uniting us with Himself. Not something broken off from Him and given to us, for life can never be cut up into fragments like that and distributed; life is one, one in essence, and it makes organically one every part into which it enters. It is the life of one body, not organized but organic. Union with God then is by reason of receiving the life of God.

Do we want fellowship with God, which is beyond union; a walk in communion? It will be only upon the basis that God's life is active within us. God will commune with that which is o Himself in us. God will bring us into fellowship with Himself by putting something into us with which He can have fellowship. God can have no fellowship with flesh, with man by nature. God's fellowship is with that which is essentially Himself, and that is given to us in the gift of God which is eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord.

Do we contemplate, or desire service for the Lord? The same principle governs that; that real fellowship with the Lord in service is upon the basis of that life of God, active and energetic within us. Paul speaks about that "energy which energiseth in me mightily:; and then he spoke of God Who is "able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us." There is the active vocational service side of things. The doing of God upon the basis of an energetic principle. Service demands Divine life in us, and Divine life is the basis of Divine service. Many of us have proved that by Divine lie we can do what is totally impossible to us by natural life; very often Divine life comes to our rescue when we are well-nigh dead, and enables us to do things which are an astonishment to ourselves, and anyone else who knows of our inner history.

Are we contemplating knowing the Lord more fully? It will be upon the same principle: "In him was life; and the life was the light of men." It is as the life of God is unarrested and uninterrupted in us in its growth, in its movement; as we do not put any obstacle in its way by disobedience to its claims and demands, that we enlarge in our spiritual knowledge of the Lord. Life issues in light. Find the believer, the child of God, who is going on freely, and clearly, and powerfully, transparently with the Lord in spirit, without prejudice, without questioning, without controversy, without disobedience, and you will find that that child of God is coming into an ever-increasing knowledge of the Lord. Find the child of God who has put such a difficulty in the way of the Lord by disobedience, a reservation, a hesitation, an arrest, a rebellion, and you will notice two things follow instantly. One is an arrest of life, and the other is a darkening of the understanding. It is always so, the two thing go together.

~T. Austin-Sparks~

(continued with # 17)

Trust and Be Silent

But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ . . . and hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus (Eph. 2:4-6).

This is our rightful place, to be "seated in heavenly places in Christ Jesus," and to "sit still" there. But how few there are who make it their actual experience! How few, indeed think even that it is possible for them to "sit still" in these "heavenly places" in the everyday life of a world so full of turmoil as this.

We may believe perhaps that to pay a little visit to these heavenly places on Sundays, or now and then in times of spiritual exaltation, may be within the range of possibility; but to be actually "seated" there every day and all day long is altogether another matter; and yet it is very plain that it is for Sundays and week-days as well.

A quiet spirit is of inestimable value in carrying on outward activities; and nothing so hinders the working of the hidden spiritual forces, upon which, after all, our success in everything really depends, as a spirit of unrest and anxiety.

There is immense power in stillness. A great saint once said, "All things come to him who knows how to trust and be silent." The words are pregnant with meaning. A knowledge of this fact would immensely change our ways of working. Instead of restless struggles, we would "sit down" inwardly before the Lord, and would let the Divine forces of His Spirit work out in silence the ends to which we aspire.

You may not see or feel the operations of this silent force, but be assured it is always working mightily, and will work for you, if you only get your spirit still enough to be carried along by the currents of its power.
--Hannah Whitall Smith

There is a point of rest
At the great center of the cyclone's force,
A silence at its secret source;
A little child might slumber undisturbed,
Without the ruffle of one fair curl,
In that strange, central calm, amid the mighty whirl.

It is your business to learn to be peaceful and safe in God in every situation.

~L. B. Cowman~

We Beheld His Glory # 15

Why New Birth Is Necessary

And then the Lord presses that further. He does not only show that there is an impasse, and that He cannot get anywhere with Nicodemus, and Nicodemus cannot get anywhere with Him, except on the ground of this birth from above, He proceeds to show why, and He heaps upon poor Nicodemus the ignorminy  of this situation by following with the serpent in the wilderness. We know that serpent in the wilderness represents God's thought about man. It is elevated, erected upon a pole, lifted up: "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness ..." Remember the serpent is the cursed thing because it is symbolically the embodiment of sin, it is sin personified. Cursed and lifted up. And oh, the terrible nature of the interpretation of that: "...so must the Son of man be lifted up." And you need Paul to explain: "Christ made a curse for us":  "For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin"; and He therefore was made a curse, for it is written: "Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree." If you want to know more about the awful comprehensiveness of the curse, read Deuteronomy, chapters 27 and 28. It s all gathered up in one thing, not doing the will of God, not obeying the commandments of the Lord. And He Who came in delight to do the will of God, came to do His Father's will, and Who did it perfectly, at a point in His life took the place voluntarily of man who had wholly failed to do the will of God, and received the curse of God in exclusion from the presence of God in judgment, and thus represented man, in man's state, and under that curse and judgment represented God's thought about man by nature. Put that over on to a Nicodemus, and you will find there is an awful shock for a man such as he. And the Lord brings that home to Nicodemus. That is bringing things down to a great and terrible depth. A death has taken place; a low place of death has been reached under condemnation and judgment. We may say zero has been reached.

The Truth of Eternal Life

Now then, the way is prepared for the matter of eternal life to be considered, and that is your transition from Nicodemus to the woman of Sychar. Listen: John 3:36, which is the last verse in the chapter, the link between the two chapters: "He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life; and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him." That is the serpent in the wilderness. Now that is the link between the two chapters, but of course there ought to be no chapters. Pass on to what is our chapter 4:14: "But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life." When the death place has been reached, and the zero point has been touched, then eternal life can come into view, but not before, and Sychar represents that. Sychar brings in that teaching of eternal life. It is the second great truth, eternal life. There is no need for me to take you back to Cana of Galilee. We can see it so patiently, life out of death; but life springing from zero point. The Lord Jesus marked a very definite pause in things there. His mother said: "They have no wine." He did not just carry the thing on and not allow a sense of an end to be felt, He paused. Yes, that is the end, that is one realm, one history. We are not going to perpetuate that. That pause is related to "Mine hour," and "Mine hour" is always related to the Cross, and the Cross is always a great pause in the history of the universe - Silence in heaven. One history has closed. There is a gap, not a continuity; and then a new history begins. The Lord Jesus said to His mother: "Woman, what have I to do with thee? mine hour is not yet come." There is a pause, and then the taking up after a pause, the bringing in of something new. Not making the old to be eked out to the end of the feast, but the doing of something new altogether: His own principle of: "And no man putteth new wine into old bottles ... but new wine must be put into new bottles." Something altogether new coming in. New wine, something different from what was.

So we find that with chapter four we are brought into the doctrine of eternal life, a doctrine which, if we were exhaustively to consider it, would occupy us for many pages, but, for our present, purpose has to be brought within the very small compass of a few lines, so that we must put it into one or two comprehensive statements.

~T. Austin-Sparks~

(continued with # 16 - "The Meaning of Eternal Life")

The Need of Solitude

He went up into a mountain apart to pray: and when evening was come, he was there alone (Matthew 14:23).

The man Christ Jesus felt the need of perfect solitude--Himself alone, entirely by Himself, alone with Himself. We know how much intercourse with men draws us away from ourselves and exhausts our powers. The man Christ Jesus knew this, too, and felt the need of being by Himself again, of gathering all His powers, of realizing fully His high destiny, His human weakness, His entire dependence on the Father.

How much more does the child of God need this--himself alone with spiritual realities, himself alone with God the Father. If ever there were one who could dispense with special seasons for solitude and fellowship, it was our Lord. But He could not do His work or maintain His fellowship in full power, without His quiet time. Would God that every servant of His understood and practiced this blessed art, and that the Church knew how to train its children into some sense of this high and holy privilege, that every believer may and must have his time when he is indeed himself alone with God.

Oh, the thought to have God all alone to myself, and to know that God has me all alone to Himself!
--Andrew Murray

Lamertine speaks in one of his books of a secluded walk in his garden where his mother always spent a certain hour of the day, upon which nobody ever dreamed for a moment of intruding. It was the holy garden of the Lord to her.

Poor souls that have no such Beulah land! Seek thy private chamber, Jesus says. It is in the solitude that we catch the mystic notes that issue from the soul of things.

A MEDITATION

My soul, practice being alone with Christ! It is written that when they were alone He expounded all things to His disciples. Do not wonder at the saying; it is true to thine experience. If thou wouldst understand thyself send the multitude away. Let them go out one by one till thou art left alone with Jesus... Has thou ever pictured thyself the one remaining creature in the earth, the one remaining creature in all the starry worlds?

In such a universe thine every thought would be "God and I! God and I!" And yet He is as near to thee as that - as near as if in the boundless spaces there throbbed no heart but His and thine.

Practice that solitude, O my soul! Practice the expulsion of the crowd! Practice the stillness of thine own heart! Practice the solemn refrain "God and I! God and I!" Let none interpose between thee and thy wrestling angel! Thou shalt be both condemned and pardoned when thou shalt meet Jesus alone!
--George Matheson

~L. B. Cowman~

We Beheld His Glory # 14

The Necessity for New Birth

John 2:1-11; 3:1-21; 41-26; 1:4

As we continue our consideration of "Great Truths and their Laws, as in John's gospel," and come into chapter four, we pass from Nicodemus to the woman of Sychar, from Judea to Samaria, with a spiritual link between. It is interesting to notice what a little place time and space have in this spiritual realm of John's gospel. Chapter four follows chapter three very swiftly. There is just the fragmentary statement at the end of chapter three that the Lord, because of certain uprisings of hostility in Judea from the Pharisees, left Judea, and made His way toward Galilee. That is barely stated and then certain observations are made by John the Baptist, and a comment is made by John, the writer of the letter, upon the words of John the Baptist, and at one point it is exceedingly difficult to know whether it is John or Christ speaking, the two blend so thoroughly (I mean the last part of chapter three), but with that bare reference to the movement you find yourself over a considerable space, both of time and geography, because the Lord has spent nine months in Judea to which no reference has been made. But from the time of His meeting Nicodemus in Jerusalem nine months seem to drop altogether out of existence, and Jesus is here on His way to Galilee in Samaria, at Jacob's well by Sychar. The time is lost sight of, the geography takes a very remote place. It is in keeping with what we said, that when you come into "John" you come into a different realm from the other gospels, which are so much related to the earth, and things here, related to time and the earth. You come into the realm of spiritual things in "John", and there geography does not count for a great deal, and time ceases to be a dominating factor; what you come into is the sequence of spiritual history. And so you find yourself moving from Nicodemus to the woman of Samaria, as it were, in rapid transition, but with a spiritual link, a very clear, definite spiritual link between the two, indicating that it is spiritual history that John is writing. It is not the history of time and things here, but it is the history of what is eternal. It is very interesting to recognize that, and it is important, valuable and helpful in our reading of this gospel. It  is the spiritual order of history that is before us here, and that spiritual order is Cana in Galilee, Nicodemus in Jerusalem, the woman of Sychar.

From Nicodemus to the woman of Samaria is our immediate object. We said when we were in chapter two on the sign in Cana of Galilee, the turning of the water into wine at the marriage, that tat was an inclusive thing of all that follows in the gospel. That that sign, that event, that incident in Cana of Galilee, comprehended the gospel, and all that follows can be found in germ there in Cana. Now we shall see how true that is in these two cases.

Referring to chapter three and Nicodemus, Nicodemus corresponds to the wine having failed. You think about that for a moment and you will see how true that is. Nicodemus comes in all the fullness of natural life religiously, morally, ecclesiastically, intellectually. He presents himself to the Lord Jesus as a model man on the old creation level, even religiously. And what Nicodemus comes for is teaching. He wants to be taught, he wants to learn something more, and the Lord Jesus breaks in instantly, and says in effect: Nicodemus, it is impossible for you, we hall never get anywhere on your level, you must be born from above. In effect He says: You can never learn anything from Me until you are born from above and have that heavenly union which I have, because I am from above. And here at its best, the old wine fails, and Nicodemus is evidently very disconcerted; and that is how they were at the marriage, for the old wine failed. There was an impasse, an arrest in the proceedings, and the atmosphere is just that of: Well, we cannot get any further on this level, with this resource, by this means; we can go no further. Nicodemus corresponds to the wine having failed and the miracle of birth from above; that is Christ's intervention in connection with "Mine Hour." The hour of the Son of Man is the hour when He accomplishes that which makes new birth possible.

~T. Austin-Sparks~

(continued with # 15 - "Why New Birth Is Necessary")