--------------- 3. The Purpose Taken up in Man ----------- But then there is a third movement. The first movement - God..., the second movement - the Son. In the third movement, we see the purpose taken up in man. What is man, the question is asked, that thou art mindful of him? Or the son of man, that thou visitest him? (2:6). Another translation renders it: What is man that thou hast him in mind? What is man that thou shouldest make mention of him? The writer goes on to answer, firstly in the comprehensive and inclusive terms of man in the plural and then reducing it to man - the Man - in the singular, as representative. But the point is that here the whole purpose of God is taken up in relation to man. And in order to make sure that it is not going to fail again, to make certain that there is going to be no second tragedy such as that of the first movement, to see to it that this time it is going to be realized, God chooses out a body (as we know from the letters of Paul) here in the midst of mankind. It is an elect body among men, chosen, foreordained, predestinated, as Gods human security of His purpose. You say: Where do you find that in the Letter to the Hebrews? Well, that very truth and that thought is embodied in all that is here about the conclusiveness of the work that the Son has done for man. Here is something that is finished - one offering for ever - no more. There is an end to the journey, the veil has been entered, the rest has been reached and entered into; in Him it is secured and settled. But then, as you read on you find that with Him a family comes into view. The writer brings in a group of quotations of Scripture: He is not ashamed to call them brethren, saying, I will declare thy name unto my brethren, in the midst of the assembly will I sing thy praise. ...I and the children which God hath given me (2:11-13). A family comes in. This is a chosen family, an elect family; a family secured by God. It may be a nucleus of a universe. But God has revealed quite clearly, through His servant Paul (I am not saying that Paul wrote this letter), that he is taking no risks with the second creation. Oh that we grasped the ground of our security in Christ! Here it is. The purpose is made sure, made sure in its Representative in Heaven and made sure in this which is called the elect. We ought, of course, to turn to other Scriptures where that word occurs. Speaking, for instance, of the great illusions and deceptions that will come on to the earth in the last days the Lord Jesus said that, if it were possible, the very elect would be deceived (Matt. 24:24). If it were possible! Why put that in? Well, I do not know who the elect are, but evidently there is an elect who cannot be deceived. In the end, there will be a body of people who pass through all the deceptions and all the illusions unscathed, undeceived. In that multitude of people at the end, there will be that people who pass through Babylon, and Sodom and Gomorrah spiritually and their garments are not defiled. They have come through undeceived; they are the elect. This third movement is a marvellous movement as the great purpose of God to express Himself is transferred to man, and then within man, to this elect. This is one of Gods methods of making sure. This is a part of this Letter which is of tremendous value to you and to me. We have said that God in His character and God in His capacity of spiritual wisdom, spiritual knowledge, spiritual understanding, spiritual power and spiritual energy, determined to express Himself. Now, in this Letter you will find that the bulk of it is taken up with Gods activity towards doing that in believers. What is God trying to do with you and with me and with His people? What does it all mean? What is it all about? Let us be quite clear and settled on this matter. What are your ideas as to what God is doing or wants to do in this world? Do you think God is wanting to set up Christian Fellowship Centres? Do you think that God wants to make churches? Do you think God wants Missionary Societies? Do you think God wants any of these things that so largely constitute Christianity as we know it? What does God want? What is He after? Well, whether it be through fellowships or through churches, or through any agency which He may adopt if not create, God is after one thing: an expression of Himself in Jesus Christ in this universe. Your church counts for nothing if it is not that! Your fellowship counts for nothing if it is not that! Your institutions and organizations have no divine meaning at all unless that is their effect - an expression of Christ in this universe. Let us put first things first. God is not out to set up any thing such as an organization, or fraternity, or movement, God is interested in only one thing. It is not this religious thing; not what is seen at all in the material and in the temporal; that comes afterwards. We cannot make anything spiritual by having the most ornate, the most artistic, the most beautiful, the most aesthetic, the most wonderful that we can create. We can make nothing spiritual by that. If a thing is spiritual, it will have a beauty of its own; it will not be shoddy, disreputable, slovenly or careless. Spirituality makes for order, it makes for beauty, it makes for punctuality, it makes for everything outside. But mark you, God begins on the inside. All these things are simply, shall I say, by-products. The explanation of all fellowships and churches, and everything else, is that they express God Himself in Christ. And God is so concerned about that, that if anything which has existed in relation to himself, at any time ceases to fulfil that vocation, He says: I will remove it out of its place. As with the tabernacle in the old dispensation, God just dispensed with it and left it, vacated it, and it became an empty, hollow tent. So now, in the new dispensation, He says: Repent, or I will remove thy lampstand out of its place (Rev. 2:5). I can do without the thing if it ceases to fulfil the function. That governs everything. We have got to ask ourselves: Is this expressing the Lord? Is there here some seeing or meeting with the character of God? Are we really expressing Gods character? - the grace of God; the love of God; and all those virtues of the divine nature? That is the fruit of the Spirit, we are told. It is very searching. Then what is He doing? He is seeking, first of all, to get the character. That explains everything. In Hebrews 12 we have again a quotation taken out of the Old Testament: My son, regard not lightly the chastening of the Lord... for whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom He receiveth (verses 5,6). You know that that word chastening is not what we mean by chastening at all today. The original word really means child training, or education. Go back to the beginning of the letter and bring the end into that: God... hath spoken, or revealed Himself, in a Son... - the expression of Himself, His character, His capacities. And now we have God making sons; not Deity but the sons like the Son whom, it is stated, in bringing many sons unto glory, as the pioneer of their salvation, He made perfect through sufferings (2:10). What is it all about? Son-making, for the expression of Himself in terms of sonship. Contrast Moses as a servant in all Gods house (3:5) a faithful servant, a devoted servant, but a servant. Here is a Son over His house, whose house are we (3:6); this is a house of sonship: a house of the Son, and a house of sons. But note that the whole idea of sons is an expression of the fathers character. What is it all about? Why this son-training, this discipline, this way that seems so hard, that sometimes makes us almost cry out to the Lord as to why He so deals with us as His own dear children, for whom He has declared His love? Why the end of all our wits and wisdom, our knowledge and our understanding? It is to bring us into spiritual knowledge, divine knowledge; another kind of knowledge, another kind of wisdom. If we were able to see the transition that was taking place in us through all our baffling and confounding experiences, we should find that we were moving into another kind of understanding, another kind of wisdom. Sometimes things seem to go wrong; altogether different from and contrary to what we had prayed for and even trusted for and expected. They go the other way, the thing is upset and we are baffled, perplexed, bewildered, defeated. But wait! There is an afterwards here. And is it not true, that again and again, afterwards we say: Was not the Lord wise in that? We thought He had abandoned the whole thing, that He had no interest in it at all, but it has turned out very much better than it would have been, to far greater gain. It does work like that. In little things, so often, that have gone wrong, as we thought; but afterwards it was the very best thing that could have happened! We had to worship because we would not have done that. Our wisdom was quite another kind of wisdom. But there was a wisdom into which we were being brought. Alas, we are so slow in this business; but we do come nearer to the point when, the next time it happens, we say: The Lord knows; it will be all right afterwards, we know it will be. And that is the highest wisdom. What about the power and the energy side? Why is all our power and energy sapped and drained, and brought to weakness? What a discipline it is, especially if you are of the energetic kind, the active temperament, one who is forceful and strong, and it is all undercut and broken down, and you are brought to the place where, with all your masculine disposition you can do nothing, you are helpless; your strength has gone - perhaps even spiritually. Paul has a lot to say about that, about His strength being perfected in weakness - when I am weak, then I am strong(2 Cor. 12:9,10). There is another kind; it is a spiritual kind, it is different. That is son-training; that is spirituality. It is the expression of God - so other, so different, so remote. (by T. Austin-Sparks, Gods Purpose in All, Chapter 3 - The Purpose)
Posted on: Sat, 17 Jan 2015 21:10:48 +0000
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