"Ye must be born
anew (from above)" (John 3:3).
"
till we
all attain unto the unity of the faith, and of the
knowledge of the Son of God, unto a fullgrown man, unto
the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ"
(Eph. 4:13).
"Ye have put
off the old man with his doings, and have put on the new
man... where there cannot be Greek and Jew, circumcision
and uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, bondman,
freeman, - but Christ is all, and in all" (Col.
3:9-11).
"(He) emptied
Himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the
likeness of men; and being found in fashion as a Man, He
humbled Himself, becoming obedient even unto death, yea,
the death of the Cross" (Phil. 2:7,8).
It is at least
interesting, but more impressive, to recognize that the
passages above - cited from Paul's letters are the full
development of John's recorded word of Christ - "Ye
must be born anew" or "from above". John's
Gospel was one of the last of the New Testament writings
to be written. When all the Apostles had gone to the Lord
and the first apostolic century was nearing its end, John
wrote his Gospel. He wrote because Christianity was fast
changing its form. From being essentially characterized
by life, it was fast declining into tradition. From being
an inward thing of the spirit it was becoming an outward
thing of formality. From being heavenly it was becoming
earthly. From treating of the eternal Son of God it was
becoming a matter of the Jesus of History. The universal
Church of his Epistles, and the local churches of his
Revelation had lost their spirituality and set aside or
repudiated the great revelation given them through Paul.
"All that are in Asia turned away from me" (2
Tim. 1:15). John's Gospel was written as a corrective to
all the above, and much more. Take those points one by
one and see that corrective character.
Having introduced the
Son in His eternal Godhead, and then indicated or stated
the heavenly relationship of His manhood, he soon arrives
at his contrasting of that heavenly Man with the best
type of (religious) earthly man, and at that point, in
that connection, introduces Christ's words "Ye must
be born anew". We are thus brought at once into the
light of the eternal thought-intention for manhood -
albeit, Deity apart, so far as all but Christ are
concerned.
One inclusive effect of
a right apprehension of John's writings (as of Paul's and
Peter's) would be to deliver Christianity from the
smallness into which it has been brought, into the
greatness, the immensity, of God's intentions. At the
centre of these intentions stands - so far as creation is
concerned - a Divine conception of manhood.
Men
Representing Constituents Of Manhood According To God's
Thought
"Let us make
man" - that was a conception, that was a thought,
and it proved to be an intention. "Let us make man
in our image, after our likeness" (Gen. 1:26). God
made man. He made him, and then he was marred; that man
was spoiled by the works of the devil, permitted by man
in himself. From that point you find a course of history
in which there was a chain of men under God's hand in
each of whom there is seen some feature of manhood
according to God. That is why these men are mentioned,
why we have what we have about them - Abel, Enoch,
Abraham, and all the rest. They are men under God's hand
and every one of them represents some feature of manhood
according to God's thought-intention. There were many
other things about those men, but one thing in every case
was uppermost, and that is this Divine thought, this
man-factor in accordance with God's mind. Not one of
these men was complete as a man according to God. Perhaps
in most things they were very imperfect and in most of
them there were many contradictions; but there was one
thing about them all. It was not the same thing in every
one, but a different thing in nearly all of them. There
was one thing which stood out, upon which God looked, to
which God committed Himself, because of which God went on
with that man; because that man was, in his
heart-relationship with God, being made to reveal one of
these marks of manhood as God intended it to be. But, as
we have said, they were all imperfect. No one of them was
complete as a man after God's Own heart. They failed and
passed on, just leaving this outstanding characteristic
to be noted for all time. We do not stay now to indicate
what those characteristics were in each case - you know
them. We simply intimate the fact. Each link in the chain
of these men represented some feature, but the chain
ended in imperfection, incompleteness, no one having in
all respects satisfied God, but God having had a testimony
in everyone.
The
Incarnation
The next stage and step
is the incarnation, the coming in flesh of the Word Who
was God, the heavenly Man in the world, the Son of Man:
and immediately He became the central object of universal
contemplation. Heaven looked on and watched and was most
interested. At the birth, angels were present looking on;
they were tremendously interested in it. From time to
time during His life on earth angels attended, visited,
and ministered, succouring in the wilderness, in the
garden. In His resurrection they were there at the tomb.
It is the manhood that is the object of interest. Hell
was very much interested. At the birth, Herod; in the
wilderness, Satan; in the Cross, principalities and
powers. To use the simile of the Psalmist - "They
compassed me about like bees" (Psa. 118:12) - swarms
of evil spirits investing Him. Hell was tremendously
interested in this manhood. And earth was interested, men
were interested, watching, perplexed. He is the centre of
universal interest.
The
Purpose Of The Incarnation
(a) The Destruction
Of The Works Of The Devil In Man
Then you ask, What is
the meaning and the purpose of God coming in this form,
in man-form? Well, the answer is that the purpose is
twofold. One, to bring in a Man fully in accord with
Divine thought-intention, and set Him forth as heaven's
pattern: and the other to destroy the works of the devil
in man. "The Son of God was manifested (in man-form)
that He might destroy the works of the devil" (1
John 3:8). I just want to intimate here - we will come
back to it more fully - that the destroying of the works
of the devil by the Son of Man was not just some
objective thing, as I might take up a book and tear it to
pieces. It was done inwardly, and it was not first of
all done in man outside of Jesus Christ. It was done in
the Son of Man Himself. That wants explaining. It would
get me into trouble if I left it there. He was doing
something by being something. He was destroying something
by being the opposite of that something. "The prince
of the world cometh" - to destroy Me, that is the
meaning - "and he hath nothing in Me" (John
14:30), nothing to work upon; therefore he was utterly
defeated, and he was defeated in a man because he had not
got the ground. His works are destroyed because he has
not got the required ground for success. The Son of God
was manifested to destroy the works of the devil as Son
of Man, and so supplant the first man, Adam, in
whom the works of the devil had been wrought.
Oh, we do not know what
took place in the soul of Jesus, both during His earthly
life and on the Cross! What a terrific battle was being
fought! How greatly the enemy strove to force Him down to
the ground of the first Adam, and thus to destroy
Him and His seed. His life must have been one continuous
inward state of resistance, refusal. On the Cross, in
weakness, emaciation, exhaustion, the full force of the
whole power of Satan was brought to bear upon Him to try
to get Him to provide some ground for the works of the
devil, for the devil to repeat his works and destroy the
last Adam. This conflict of His soul was universal, was
on the ground of all that is found in man naturally. He
met every temptation common to man, He was tempted in all
points like as we are. We have to think and know as far
as we can from our own hearts what that meant - all
points as we are tempted. The enemy was on all points
destroyed in his works, so that in this Representative
One Who has now taken the place of a tempted man, of a
tried man, of a weak man, "crucified through
weakness" (2 Cor. 13:4), the enemy has found
nothing; the Son of God as Son of Man destroyed the works
of the devil and representatively supplanted that man in
whom the works of the devil had been wrought. The first
man is deposed, displaced.
(b) Perfect Manhood
Developed And Brought To Fullness
But let us return to
what we said earlier concerning the purpose of the
incarnation - the bringing of another Man to perfect
manhood according to God's mind. This was done in two
ways. In Himself personally. A work was going on in Him;
not making Him better, purer, more sinless. That is not
the perfecting of the Son of Man, and yet it is
definitely declared that a work of perfecting was going
on in Him. He was sinless, He could not be made purer and
better than He was at the beginning, but there can be
virtues, characteristics and attributes which are without
flaw in themselves, yet not developed to their full
measure, and that development to full measure will only
take place as they are put to the test, put through the
fire. It cannot make them purer in essence, but it will
make them greater in measure. He was made perfect through
sufferings (Heb. 2:10), made perfect, made complete - if
we take the real meaning of the original word - made
complete, brought to maturity, brought to full growth,
brought to all-roundness. In Himself, manhood brought to
fullness.
So He started as a babe
and grew up. Thirty years is the Levitical age of
manhood, and He attained to that age and beyond it. It
was manhood under God's eye being brought out in its
fullness. He could say, "It is finished" - not
only in the sense in which we use the word, that is, that
He had got to the end, to a triumphant conclusion of a
work; but really He was saying more than that. He was
saying what the priest said over the offering which had
been separated from the flock and put apart for so many
days to be under severe scrutiny and examination if,
peradventure, any flaw could be found in that sacrifice,
before it was offered to God; and at last, when the
scrutiny had gone as far as it could under the trained
eye of the priest and no blemish could be discovered
anywhere, the priest made a pronouncement over it,
"It is perfect". Those were the words the Lord
used on the Cross at the end as He presented Himself
without spot to God. It is perfect, it is complete! This
is manhood according to God's thought and mind.
But then the incarnation
has a more far reaching object than that. This perfecting
of manhood was to be fulfilled in His Body corporately.
That is why we read the words of Ephesians 4:13 -
"till we all attain unto the... measure of the
stature of the fullness of Christ," a full-grown
man. And Colossians - where there cannot be all that
belongs to this earthly man: national barriers,
differences, divisions; social barriers; characteristic
differences; religious differences - circumcision,
uncircumcision: but one new man, where Christ is all, and
in all, "and ye have put off the old man... and have
put on the new man" (Col. 3:9,10). So that brings us
to this point, that as believers, we are supposed to
stand on this new ground which has been secured by the
Cross of our Lord Jesus, the new ground of the new and
heavenly Man. We are supposed to be on that ground. That
is where our responsibility begins, and where the real
work begins, for then, being on that ground, the only
ground of a Christian according to God's mind, our sole
business is related to this heavenly Man; our sole
business is related to heavenly manhood, personally as to
ourselves, and corporately as to the Body of Christ. That
sole business may include many forms of operation. It
will include evangelism, because the members have got to
be gathered to the Head. It will include every other New
Testament activity. It will involve many Divine
endowments and heavenly gifts - apostles, prophets,
evangelists, pastors and teachers, for this perfecting of
the Body of Christ. "Diversities of gifts, but the
same Spirit... the same God... one body" (1 Cor.
12:4-13), one object. It is all this manhood, but the
sole business is not evangelism as evangelism, not
teaching ministry as teaching ministry, not this gift or
that gift, your gift and my gift, as a gift, but all is
focused upon one thing, and one thing only - the sole
business of all - this heavenly Man.
It must begin with
ourselves personally. So far as we personally are
concerned, the sole concern of our hearts is and must be
manhood according to God's thought. We must seek to be
conformed to the image of God's Son. And then so far as
others are concerned, it has to be just as it was with
Him, the heavenly Man - He Himself seeing to it that He
personally was the Man according to the Father's heart at
all points, and then His great concern that others should
come on to that same ground as He occupied, and be
ministered to and helped and encouraged and instructed
and in every way have provision made for their conforming
to God's thought as to man.
I do want you to get the
point. Do not think this is just so much being said. We
do a lot of Christian work and very often the worker has
become so taken up with the work as the work as
to forget the very character of the worker himself,
and Satan is always trying to destroy the work by getting
into the worker, by spoiling the worker. He wanted to
destroy the great work that Christ had come to do - to
bring in this heavenly Man - by destroying the very Man
Who had come to do it. He was always trying to find an
entrance somewhere into this Man Himself with an object
of destroying the work that He had come to do. That is
very clear, and we must be very careful that we are not
so concerned about the work of the Lord as to neglect our
own spiritual manhood; that is, neglect the necessity for
being Christlike. Do remember then, ever and always, that
it is the nature, the character, of that Manhood that
matters.
The thing that matters
is a kind of person. A kind of person is set before us in
Christ. He is God's beginning and you can have nothing
before a beginning. He is God's end, and you can have
nothing after that. So there is nothing outside of
Christ. He is God's Man. I emphasize again, we must ever
remember that it is the nature, the character, of the
manhood according to God that matters, and if that is
true, then this means very deep formation.
Conformity
To Christ
(a) Through Outward
Separation
Deep formation firstly
through outward separation. That is one thing that is
said about the Lord Jesus, that He was separate from
sinners (Heb. 7:26), and using that word 'separate', I am
only using a more common and ordinary word for the great
Bible word 'consecration' or 'sanctification', which are
the same word in the original. Consecration or
sanctification simply mean - set apart unto God. Outward
separation to begin with. Separate - not going the way of
others; not trying to stand well with them; no policy, no
diplomacy, being perfectly willing to let a fundamental
difference be recognized, and to take all the
consequences of being in this world as something other
than that which is here.
(b) By Inward
Separation
And then deep formation
by inward separation. Israel in the wilderness was
outwardly separated, but inwardly not so. That is why, in
recounting their history, the writer of the Letter to the
Hebrews connects with the wilderness life of Israel those
words - "For the Word of God is living, and active,
and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing, even
to the dividing of soul and spirit, of both joints and
marrow" (Heb. 4:12). You notice the context
is Israel in the wilderness, and the meaning therefore is
this, that while they were outwardly separated from Egypt
and from the nations, they were inwardly not separated:
there was something to be done inside to divide asunder
between soul and spirit, joints and marrow; a deep inward
separation. This cannot be accomplished mechanically.
This is some deep inward work of God, getting us
circumcised in heart.
(c) By Considering
Him
I only ask you to
contemplate the Lord Jesus. If we are really going on
with the Lord, sooner or later we shall be brought back
to the main emphasis upon the Lord Jesus Himself. Many
other aspects of Divine revelation may from time to time
be the things which are holding our interest and our
occupation and our concern, but sooner or later the
Spirit of God is going to bring us from the circumference
to the centre, and the final full object of the
Spirit's concern will become ours - the Lord Jesus
Himself. We shall come back, with all the values of every
other part of revelation, we shall come back to the
Gospels, and we shall be compelled to look again at Jesus
of Nazareth from heaven's standpoint, and see this
heavenly Man under fire, under test, what kind of
a Man He is, how He behaves, how He reacts, His
disposition, His temper, His everything. And I say here,
Look at Him, read again, quietly, prayerfully,
thoughtfully, read again the life of Jesus from the
standpoint of inward separation. See how Satan is ever
trying to close that gap of separation, bring things
together, mix up things which belong to two realms. How
fine the point was sometimes, and how absolutely
necessary it was for Him for His very destiny (natural
reason argued) to adopt certain lines, certain courses.
Everything seemed to depend at times upon His doing a
certain thing, and He would not do it. Satan could not
close that gap of inward separation; He kept things in
the right place. 'This belongs to that realm, this to
that; this is of heaven, this is of men.' Deep formation
by inward separation. That is the work that God is
seeking to do in you and in me.
(d) Through
Suffering
And then, of course, it
is suffering. He was made perfect through sufferings;
there is no other way for us. We are not already perfect,
but we do stand on the same ground of Divine method. Made
perfect through suffering. This manhood, this heavenly
manhood, is only going to be produced through suffering.
You had better settle it. We do not like it. It does not
seem to be the kind of Christianity that we had offered
to us in the popular terms. We have been promised so much
if we become Christians, it has all been made so rosy.
No, He never did that. He said, 'You cannot be My
disciple unless you deny yourself, you have to say No to
yourself, and take up the Cross; you cannot be My
disciple unless you hate your own soul and are prepared
to lose it' (meaning, to lay it down unto death: Luke
14:26,27,33; Matt. 10:38,39; Matt. 16:24). It is
suffering, deep inward formation according to Christ,
God's heavenly Man, by outward separation, inward
separation and suffering. That is the way that Christ
went. He has offered no other way to His disciples and to
His servants.
Of course, to leave it
there seems rather gloomy, not very attractive; but we
have not finished by a very long way. Oh, what this Man
in Christ, this corporate Man, this Body of Christ, is
destined for! 'What is man, that Thou puttest him in
charge of all the inhabited earth to come, whereof we
speak?' (Heb. 2:5,6). And, more than that, "know ye
not that we shall judge angels?" (1 Cor. 6:3). I am
not going further with that. I simply indicate it, to set
that as an offset to what might look like rather a gloomy
situation over this suffering business. "If so be
that we suffer with Him, that we may be also glorified
with Him" (Rom. 8:17). "If we endure, we shall
also reign with Him" (2 Tim. 2:12). You see, it is
not just again putting somebody into an objective
position as a reigning monarch. It is spiritual
character. "Blessed are the meek: for they shall
inherit the earth" (Matt. 5:5).
What the Lord is saying
to us at this time is, 'Do you know what you are in this
world for? Do you know why I have reached out and laid My
hand on you, why you are a Christian, a child of God? Do
you know the meaning of it all? It is to make you a man
according to My original and abiding thought and
intention, to bring you into that Man'. I suppose sisters
think they are not in it, but remember, in the beginning
He called them Man. "Male and female created He
them... and called their name Adam (Man)" (Gen.
5:2). So you are in it. "There can be no male or
female: for ye all are one (man) in Christ Jesus"
(Gal. 3:28). Yes, it applies to all of us. It is a
man-hood, a kind of humanity, God has ever intended, and
if you think this is theory, have you no experience that
corroborates what I have said? Every one of us knows how
true it is. What is God after? Why are you set on this
scene as you are? Why is it that God does not give us
such pleasant situations and circumstances as we crave
for, and make it easy for us? Why does it seem rather
that He makes it hard, puts us into hard places, and does
not deliver us or prevent us from those very trying
conditions? Why is the furnace heated seven times for
saints, men who are walking with God? Well, what is it
doing with us? Is not this the necessary background to
formation according to Christ? Where will the
characteristics of the heavenly Man have an opportunity,
if not in adversity? Love has no meaning unless there is
a background of hate. It is supine, it is weak, it is not
real. When you read, "having loved His own that were
in the world, He loved them unto the end" (John
13:1), you say, 'that is a miracle'. When you read the
prophecies of Hosea, and see God uncovering His heart
about Israel, the unfaithful Israel, the unfaithful wife,
the harlot wife, and then crying as with a broken heart,
"How shall I give thee up?" (Hosea 11:8), you
have to say, 'that is love'. You only see it in the light
of the background. And this heavenly manhood can only be
developed over against a background which is so opposite.
That is why He puts you among men who are so earthly,
sensual, 'old-Adamic'. That is why he calls upon
Christians to live together up against one another's old
man. If only we could get with all those nice Christians,
it would be easy! But you would not develop any heavenly
character if the Lord took that line. God is practical.
We do know that in no other way could God get us changed.
He gives us a first-class opportunity just where we are
of developing characteristics which are not of the old
man at all, they are of the new man: that is the
explanation.
From
"A Witness and A Testimony" Jul-Aug 1950, Vol. 28-4.