Reading:
Zechariah 4
The golden lampstand which Zechariah saw was the symbol
of the divine testimony, the out-shining of the glory of
God. Lying behind all God's activities with men, the very
reason for man's creation, is His desire to display His
glory. The human race, as a whole, failed to realise this
grand design, but the testimony was taken up by
individual witnesses, like Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham and
others. In a very real sense the testimony of the glory
of God rested on their shoulders; they carried the
enormous responsibility of being here on the earth where
the enemy had almost entirely succeeded in marring or
veiling that glory. These lonely figures were the men who
stood for the preservation of that testimony to God's
glory. Then the testimony passed from individuals to a
nation, when Israel was brought into being to be a
corporate vessel of the divine testimony, a people in
whom the glory of God could be displayed. Ultimately
Israel failed, so the testimony was transferred and
passed on to the Church, consisting of Israelites to whom
Gentiles were later added. The glory of God certainly
blazed up anew in the Church at the beginning. In the
course of time, speaking generally, the Church has also
failed, and it is not without significance that one of
the seven churches of Asia was threatened with an entire
removal of its lampstand. The article, however beautiful
in itself, has no significance by its mere form or
profession, but only as the light of God blazes out from
it. This is what God is always seeking, the display of
His glory in and through His people.
The great concern and business of the Church is to be a
testimony to God's glory. The one plumb-line which
measured Jerusalem was that of the glory of God in the
midst (Zechariah 2:8), and this measurement is what
matters for us today. The final judgment will be based on
the degree of glory found in our lives. Nothing else will
be of lasting importance. Those who have lived most of
their lives already and perhaps been active for God,
still do well to face this challenge concerning God's
glory, and those who are only just beginning should know
the real standard for all Christian living. We may well
wonder how it can be. Zechariah had the same problem in
his day, and this vision gave him - and us - the answer:
"Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith
the Lord of hosts".
GLORY
IN THE FACE OF JESUS CHRIST
The only
true Witness is the Lord Jesus Christ. Through all those
early individual witnesses, through Israel, and through
the Church, all is gathered up into one glorious witness,
the Lord Jesus. All who went before Him, pointed on to
Him; all those who followed (if there was any true
testimony to God's glory in their experiences) took their
character from Him; the glory of God is to be found in
the face of Jesus Christ. It is there, of course, by the
Spirit. The testimony of God was taken up at Jordan,
where the Spirit of God came upon Jesus, who was
immediately challenged by Satan's offering Him the
kingdoms of this world and their glory in exchange for
the glory of God. It always happens in this way: man is
offered this world's glory in exchange for the glory of
God. But by that same Spirit of anointing which had come
upon Christ at Jordan He met the challenge, and He never
swerved from the straight path of seeking only the
Father's glory.
It was often a trial, a fiery trial for Him, but the
Spirit sustained Him and kept the testimony untarnished.
Later Peter interpreted the fiery trial of fellow
disciples as being connected with this same Spirit's work
of glorifying God, "The Spirit of glory... resteth
upon you" (1 Peter 4:14). How can it be that in
suffering and adversity the Spirit of glory, not of grace
only but of glory, rests upon us? It can only be because
the same Spirit who came upon the Lord Jesus to enable
Him at great personal cost to glorify God, has now come
to our lives for this express purpose of establishing and
maintaining the testimony. Wherever you find the Holy
Spirit coming, whether in symbol or in reality, you will
find that the immediate outcome is always the glory of
God. So it was that the tabernacle was filled with God's
glory. The temple, also, was filled with this glory. At
Pentecost the Spirit came in fullness to the Church, and
the result was glory. That day was a wonderful day of
glory for the men who had such a living experience of God
being glorified in Jesus Christ by the Holy Spirit, and
the days following were equally wonderful as every new
touch of God's Spirit upon them brought fresh evidence of
God's glory.
Although we accept the fact of Christ's eternal sonship,
we are told that as Son of man He was enabled to glorify
the Father by means of the anointing Spirit. From the
beginning of His public testimony to its completion when
He offered Himself through the eternal Spirit, He carried
through triumphantly His Spirit-given testimony to the
glory of God. As representative Man, He lived and
suffered for the one purpose of glorifying God, and so
perfectly fulfilled this task that in Him the testimony
to the glory of God has been secured forever. So, then,
our fears and sense of weakness must not cripple us, for
He has sent His Spirit into our lives so that in us, too,
the testimony might be maintained and the glory seen. We
can claim the promise, "Not by might, nor by power,
but by my Spirit".
This also gives us the answer to the interrogation,
"Who hath despised the day of small things?"
(Zechariah 4:10). Out of the large numbers who went into
exile, just forty-two thousand odd were ready to pay the
price of letting go the comforts and security of life in
Babylon to return to the land where God's testimony could
be established. They were small in number, weak in
themselves, despised by their neighbours, and they
returned to a land which was desolate, impoverished and
afflicted, so that it was indeed a 'day of small things'.
But they were not to be despised, for God was backing
them up as they truly sought His glory. It is no small
thing to be involved in the testimony of God's glory. We
should not make a virtue of smallness, as though there
were something important about being despised by others,
but at the same time we shall find that whenever God has
called people to display His glory, He has chosen those
who have no glory in themselves.
God has always been obliged to strip His instruments of
their own glory. A Moses, full of Egypt's sufficiency,
must go for forty years to the backside of the desert to
be emptied out and made to confess his complete
inadequacy before he can become an instrument for the
display of the glory of God. There were times when some
of the Israelites did try to despise this now humble
Moses, and he made no attempt to stand up for himself,
but God soon made it manifest to all concerned how wrong
it was to despise him. The glory of God appeared at the
gate of the tabernacle and took up the challenge.
Sometimes it takes the Lord years to get us sufficiently
emptied, weak and small, so that we can bear His glory in
our lives, a fact which may well explain some of His
dealings with us. When He has got us small enough and
empty enough, then there is a chance for the working of
His Spirit in glory.
GLORY
IN THE HEART
The
testimony to the glory of God must of necessity be a
heart matter. Ezra tells us that when Cyrus made his
decree that the house of God should be re-built in
Jerusalem and every facility be granted to those who
would return to do the building, he did not make it a
command that all Jews should go back. Had he done so,
they would all have been compelled to return, and such
compulsion would have given little prospect of glory for
God. The decree was really an appeal for volunteers,
"Who is there among you of all his people? His God
be with him, and let him go..." (Ezra 1:3). Like the
original work of the tabernacle, it was entrusted to
those who were of a willing heart, for God's testimony
will always be a heart matter. Those who have personal
interests in view are entirely out of keeping with the
objective of God's kingdom and glory. So it was that only
a comparative few returned to the land when the
opportunity arose, the great majority having settled in
and largely become a part of the life in Babylon where
all the glory was for man. Their interests and future was
so tied up with that realm that it would have involved a
tremendous upheaval to extricate themselves and return to
a land of poor and unpopular people with only God as
their security and hope for the future. It was because so
many were not willing to pay the price that for those who
returned it was a day of small things. Nevertheless it
was not to be despised - far from it.
The Lord Jesus Himself always stressed this heart aspect
of discipleship, pointing out that without the denying of
self and the daily taking up of the cross, the kingdom
could never be fully possessed. The end which God has in
view is something much more than mere personal blessing.
He is looking for those who will share with His King the
responsibility for the glory of His kingdom. Such a
calling will find us out if we have personal interests,
for it demands hearts which are consumed with jealousy
for the glory of the Lord. The Holy Spirit will always
support such an attitude, for He Himself burns with the
same intense jealousy. This has nothing to do with a
craving for special teaching or mere negative
dissatisfaction with things as they are, but signifies a
real heart hunger for more of God's glory. I am not
referring to the people who are eternally disgruntled and
full of criticism, those who will never be contented
anywhere at all; but I wish to concentrate on the
believers whose hearts are really groaning in travail for
the full will of God. Such people sense that there are
divine purposes which are not being realised, and they
are on full stretch for a testimony of greater glory for
God. It was a similar concern which stirred men's hearts
to obey the decree of Cyrus. The Jews who remained in
Babylon were not without God's blessing, but the remnant
were full of concern not for themselves but for greater
glory for the name of the Lord, and this made them ready
to rise up and leave everything, if only that could be
realised. To them - and to us if we are their spiritual
counterpart - the promise is most reassuring, "Not
by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit". We cannot
pay the price, nor go through with all that is involved,
in our own strength. We do not have to. The Holy Spirit
is ready to take full responsibility for the glory of
God, both in our own lives and also in the testimony of
God through us.
GLORY
IN THE CHURCH
The message
of Zechariah's vision is that the testimony of God, which
is the glory of God, can only be established, confirmed
and perfected by the Holy Spirit. The testimony of God is
not a teaching, a system of truth, but an experience in
life. We must be very clear about this, for we may have a
great grasp of doctrine, knowing all the explanations of
divine things, and yet miss the essential, which is
spiritual glory. It may be true that divine glory will
require sound teaching and correct order, yet these in
themselves may constitute a dry technique, a mere
framework, an empty shell. It is true that the tabernacle
was constituted and constructed according to God's own
commandments, even down to the last pin, but it did not
and could not function until the glory of God came into
it. Again, the temple's plans and arrangements were given
by God in a detailed pattern, yet it stood empty and
valueless until the glory of God filled it. The testimony
is not technique; it is glory. What a sad thing it is
when would-be upholders of God's testimony are
legalistically and meticulously pre-occupied with
people's procedure, and even their dress and appearance,
carrying heavy burdens themselves and imposing those
burdens on others, when what God wanted was just a chance
to display His glory.
It is possible, of course, to argue that just as the Old
Testament insisted on correct form before the glory came,
so in New Testament days the coming of glory will be
dependent on careful insistence on right doctrine in the
strictest correctness as well as on a perfect form of
procedure, but surely Pentecost was the other way round,
so far as men here on earth were concerned. In heaven, it
is true, everything was perfectly according to God in
Christ, and that was how the glory came down to the
Church here on earth; but so far as the disciples were
concerned, the doctrine and the procedure followed. The
Church began with the glorious fullness of the Holy
Spirit. Because of Christ's exaltation the glory was
available, the anointing Spirit was released. The
Church's experience was that it was the dynamic which
came first, so that it was after they had the glory that
they began to know what they should teach and how they
should act. We must have it this way. It must be 'by My
Spirit'. We can do nothing about the testimony until God
acts. I cannot help to glorify God; you cannot help
either; nothing that we can prescribe or provide can do
it. The most perfect order will not bring glory. The most
correct teaching will not ensure it. It does not come by
our abilities, our understanding, our personality or
drive, for nothing from man can produce this glory - it
is only by God's Spirit.
The glory is itself a testimony. If we are bringing in
the glory, people will want to know how they can get it.
What is the use of answering them with the 'Thou shalts'
and the 'Thou shalt nots' of legalistic teaching when
they find no glow, no radiance, no power, but only an
empty shell? The plumb-line which will show up their
deficiencies is not that of Christian ideas or religious
practices but the testimony of the glory of God in
Christ. We begin with the glory; the whole emphasis is as
positive as can be - glory by the Holy Spirit. The only
negatives in this verse are connected with the futility
of human power and ability.
As we have said, the testimony of God here on earth is to
be found in the Church. This is variously described as
God's house, God's temple and Christ's body, but in each
case the essential factor is the indwelling Spirit. This
is really what is meant by the phrase, 'the glory of
God', namely the reality of His presence. The vessel of
Testimony has as its sole object the making immediate and
actual of the presence of God and fellowship with Him. Of
course God is everywhere, and can be met anywhere, even
in the most isolated and remote spot a man can encounter
God. The Scriptures indicate, however, that God has a
wish for something more immediate than His universal
presence. They speak of God dwelling with men; making His
habitation among them; and then they describe the final
triumph in the words, "The tabernacle of God is with
men, and he shall dwell with them" (Revelation
21:3). This is something more immediate and actual than
the all-pervading fact of the deity, and so the Church
has as its object the presencing of God in a more
personal and conscious way for the purposes of His
fellowship with man.
This is what the Holy Spirit has come for, to make the
presence of Christ a vital reality. The titles of 'house'
or 'temple' are mere finger-posts, all pointing towards
the person of the Lord Jesus. His very name, Christ,
means the Anointed One, and it is by the anointing of the
Spirit that God is present. The Lord's name is not only
'Jesus'; it is also 'Emmanuel', God with us. Christ is
the true house of God, but since we are 'in Christ', we
share in the reality of God's glorious presence.
So it is part of the Spirit's work to build us and hold
us together so that there may be a united testimony to
the glory of God. God needs something more than a heap of
stones - even if they are living stones - if He is to
have a properly constructed dwelling. Christ needs more
than many members, even though they are living members,
since a body can only function if its members are
coordinated and integrated in vital relationship. Now
although there are many members there is only one
anointing; we either share His anointing or we do not
know its power. The anointing upon Christ is the same
anointing as that which we receive, and in us as well as
in Him its one purpose is to express God's glory.
It is the anointing Spirit who makes the Church to be the
house of God, and the house is one because Christ is one.
We must never be caught in the mistake of imagining that
those who hold the truth of the one body are more in the
reality of it than those who do not. Those who know
nothing of the teaching are as much part of Christ's body
(if they are in Him) as those who feel that they have
received so much light on the subject. We must beware of
the schisms which come because of the things which we
know and others do not, for light alone can easily cause
divisions. "Is Christ divided?" (1 Corinthians
1:13). That was a challenge made to the church whose
members were so ready to boast of their knowledge and so
partisan in their attitude to various spiritual teachers.
These were the very people whom the apostle described as
being a temple of God (1 Corinthians 3:16), and also
warned very solemnly against destroying that temple. How
is the temple destroyed? It is by trying to divide
Christ, by making parties and groups among the Lord's
people, often by wrongly imagining that they are superior
to other Christians because of the teaching they have
received or the teacher whom they follow. This is an
offense to the Holy Spirit, and a sure way of thwarting
God's desire to show forth His glory. The Lord Jesus has
so identified Himself in the Spirit with all who are His
own people, that what is true of Him is also true of
them, and what is done to them is really done to Him. So
it is that practical love towards any of His members
opens the way for His Spirit's working and, conversely,
carelessness, indifference or antagonism towards other
members of Christ is a sure way of quenching the Holy
Spirit. It may be that this is the explanation of there
being so much less glory among God's people than there
ought to be. The moment we grieve the Spirit, we begin to
dim the glory. It is in their life together that God's
people form the golden lampstand into which He will pour
the golden oil through His own golden pipes. Let us not
accept any less objective than God's glory when we seek
His fullness, for the Holy Spirit's presence among us is
specifically promised for the express purpose of
providing a testimony to that glory. God's negatives
("not by might, nor by power") are but to make
way for His glorious positive - "but by my Spirit,
saith the Lord of hosts."
From "Toward
the Mark" Nov-Dec 1972, Vol. 1-6