This is an inquiry, not
a prophecy. That a new thing needs to be done by the Lord
is a growing conviction of many of His servants and
people. But is there any reason why we should expect a
new movement or further step on the part of the Lord? The
answer could be given in various ways. From time to time
in the world's history there have been definite and
distinct movements in relation to spiritual interests.
These movements have usually, if not invariably, been
when conditions were very similar to those which exist at
such a time as this. The tide of real spiritual lifestyle
has run well out, and things spiritually had become very
shallow and superficial. What there was of activity was
work by its own motive-force. That is to say, it was
carried on by human energy and interests, it was
producing its own dynamic. By various and many forms of
organized enterprise, with their interest, appeal, and
propaganda, that which was called ''the work of God'' was
kept going.
Then, the things of God
had become very set. A tradition became established, and
everything was according to the tradition, the accepted
and recognized order, way, teaching, and means. There was
no way for God to do what He would, because anything not
according to the established custom was suspect. Thus He
was fettered by the fixed traditions which governed His
people's minds. The Lord was straitened in His people by
their own finality of position, while at the same time
they were aware that all was not well. The result was
that, in most instances, the new Divine reaction had to
be made outside of the recognized order and system of
things; and, for a long time, the living thing had to go
on in face of a strong and serious opposition, not from
the world, but from those who were supposed to stand for
God on the earth.
This involves a matter
of the most vital concern to our main inquiry - What will
God do next?
God has never yet moved
from any other standpoint and position than fullness and
finality. Man's first day on the earth was the Sabbath,
which was at the end of God's work. Man did not start
with God in the fragments and bits of His work. When the
new corporate Man came in on the Day of Pentecost it was
upon a basis of fullness and finality in Christ exalted.
The history of God's specific movements with the Church
is not the history of His adding something, but of His
bringing back to the primal fullness with which He filled
His Son. Look at the epochs in the Church's history and
you will see that they represented the recovery of
something which had been lost. God can therefore never be
satisfied with something which only represents an
elementary, or more or less, degree of the fullness of
Christ. Any movement of God which is taken hold of by man
and made something in itself as an end, whether it be
evangelism or a fuller message of life, and truth, or
whether it be an advance in order or method of Church
life and procedure, must sooner or later become a
tradition and a legal system, bereft of life and heavenly
fullness.
God ever seeks to carry
His people on to ''full growth'' which, with Him, is the
timeless fullness of Christ. If there is yet to be an
advance made to a position beyond what has been, those
(they may be comparatively few) who will make it will be
brought to a deeper realization than ever of the failure
and impotence of traditional Christianity as it exists.
They may strain and strive and hurl themselves into it to
try to improve it, but they will break themselves upon
it, and will eventually, in the mercy of God, come to see
that the old wineskin; cannot be given the new wine. God
must do a new thing, and He must have a clear way for
doing it.
So we ask, are we not
being hedged up to something untraditional and extra to
what has been? Is not God bringing much of that which has
been used in the past under the hammer? We have to admit
a question as to whether God is willing to revive that
which has taken the mold of men's various and conflicting
religious orders and systems, or whether He will not
transcend all such and move apart from it. It will be a
costly business for all who are a part of it, especially
the instruments used for it, and they will have to be
very broken and emptied vessels.
First published in "A Witness and A Testimony" magazine, Nov-Dec 1942, Vol 20-6