"He
must reign, till He hath put all His enemies under His
feet" (1 Corinthians 15:25).
In these
past messages our eyes have been turned to that Throne
that was seen by Ezekiel through the open heaven, with
the 'appearance as of a Man upon it above'. And we have
seen, I trust, how everything that follows is just the
expression and manifestation of that Throne - of the
absolute exaltation of the Lord Jesus above all things.
Now,
when Paul wrote these words that we have quoted above, he
was not thinking of some future time when Christ would
reign and put all His enemies under His feet. He was not
thinking of Jesus as waiting for a time to come, when
something would be done that would put Him in that
position and bring about that result. Whenever Paul - or,
for that matter, any of the apostles - referred to
Christ's exaltation and Lordship, he and they always
regarded it and spoke of it as a present thing. Whilst
they looked on into the future and saw something more of
its outworking, in its beginning and in its actuality it
was not to them a future thing; to them it was now. And
when Paul said, 'He must reign', he meant, 'He is
reigning, and must continue to reign, until He has put
all His enemies under His feet.'
That is
something that has to be recovered in our consciousness
and in our conviction. That is the thing that
needs to be restored to its place in the Church's life
and consciousness continually. For, to a very large
extent, while the Church adheres to the doctrine of the
exaltation of Christ, His Kingship and Lordship, the
reality, the power and the consciousness of it has been
to a very large extent lost. The Church, in the
beginning, lived in the consciousness and the power of
the fact - as it was to them - that Jesus was on the
Throne; undoubtedly, unquestionably He was on the Throne;
He was Lord of all. Peter affirmed it: "He is Lord
of all"! (Acts 10:36). Paul said: 'God did set
Him far above all rule and authority' (Eph. 1:20-21). It
was something accomplished. That was their view of the
matter; that was their conviction; that was their
consciousness; and it was so powerful with them as to
affect every aspect of their lives.
And
until that is as true in the life and realization of the
Church in our time as it was at the beginning, the same
results and effects will not be found in the Church or
through the church today. If the mighty impact and
registration of Christ at that time was something
incomparably greater than the deplorable state today in
the Church, it was due to this one thing. If you wish to
trace the secret of their power, their influence, their
progress, their onward march - for in spite of a world of
terrible hostility, persecution, martyrdom and every
other kind of adversity, they marched forward 'terrible
as an army with banners', and were described as the
people who had "turned the world upside down"
(Acts 17:6) - if you wish to discover the secret, you
will find it here: 'He must reign - He must reign,
till He hath put all His enemies under His feet.' He is
reigning.
We have
said that, for the apostles, the reign of Christ had
already begun; it did obtain in their time. How did they
come to that conviction, to that knowledge? We will keep,
for our purpose, to the man whose words we have
extracted, the man Paul. Paul's knowledge of Christ as
reigning sprang out of his personal experience of that
fact. He had had an encounter in his life with the
reigning, glorified Lord; and the Lord from Heaven had
had an encounter with him. It had become something in his
own personal experience, history and life. It was
something very personal; and it has to be that. Until it
is that, it can be very theoretical. It has to be
personal and experimental. And it was so with Paul. In
that encounter, on the way to Damascus, two very personal
words had been used, and I think it all centres in that
fact.
Two Personal Words
First of
all, Paul had been spoken to by his own personal name:
'Saul, Saul!' His own name was called and reiterated. He
is being nailed down to this personally; he is not
getting away with it; he is not being allowed to mistake
what he hears. It is being directed to the man in his own
personal name. He is not mixed up in a crowd; he is not
just met in a teaching: the thing has come quite straight
at him as a man, as an individual - 'Saul, Saul!' I am
not suggesting that we all have to have the same form of
encounter. But we all have to have the same crisis; that
is, we are all to have, and can have, a point in our life
when we come face to face with the absolute Lordship of
Jesus Christ; and there is the crisis upon which
all the future turns. It is a tremendous thing to come
face to face with the Lordship of Christ; it is a greater
thing than coming face to face with His Saviourhood.
There are many people who are saved by the Saviour, and
own Him as Saviour, but whose lives are seriously lacking
in the power of His Lordship. That is a statement - we
leave it.
The
other very personal word to Saul was the one that came
when he asked, "Who art Thou, Lord?" The answer
came: "I am Jesus..."; and, lest Saul
should prevaricate, try to evade, get round it, by
saying, 'Yes, but our country is full of men by that
name; which Jesus do you mean?' - the Lord safeguarded it
by adding: "...Whom thou persecutest" - 'the
Jesus Whom you are persecuting - that is the One!' And
Saul knew Who that One was, right enough. He had but one
Jesus in all his thoughts and in all his plans, and that
Jesus he was determined to blot out and wipe out from the
world's memory; he was out to eradicate every trace of
that Jesus. 'I am Jesus - the One that you are
persecuting'. You see how personal the Lord made this
matter. He brought it right home, first to the man
himself, and then to the very purpose of his life - the
very object to which he had dedicated all his strength of
mind and body for its destruction: 'I am Jesus.'
Something
like that is really necessary if there is to be any kind
of repetition, in the Church and in us, of the after
results in the life of Paul. There has to come a point
where, instead of being just one of a multitude, we come,
personally and individually, under His absolute personal
domination and Lordship. Our whole life - all our
ambitions, all our enterprises, all our commitments, are
now brought under His Lordship. It is a tremendous thing,
but the glory of that Throne waits upon the acceptance of
its government, its lordship.
Paul's Transfigured Bible
From
that crisis, that encounter, that vision, that 'seeing' -
that transaction, shall we call it - everything else took
its rise in the life of Paul the apostle. Everything from
that moment was transfigured, transformed, seen in an
entirely new way, in the light of Jesus as on the Throne.
After that, Paul went for a little while to Damascus, and
then he went away into Arabia; and he went there with his
Bible, I am quite sure; there are all the evidences of
it. And he spent a long time there, with the Bible in one
hand, and Jesus on the Throne, so to speak, in the other.
If you want to know your Bible, that is the way; that is
the key; that is the door - Jesus on the Throne, and the
Bible. And Paul got a new Bible, a transfigured Bible! He
saw his Bible, his Old Testament, with which he was very
familiar, in a new and a living light, through that great
truth - Jesus on the Throne! And as he went back over the
Bible that he had, he saw this inherent everywhere. 'Yes,
yes, that is what is here!' He saw that the Bible was
really the Book of one thing - God's intention to have a
Man and His kind in dominion, reigning in glory. This
matter of the glory of a Man in Heaven interpreted
everything, explained everything.
After
all, when you come to think of it, it does open the
Bible. Why these awful conditions that we see? Because
that is contrary to what God intended; it declares it. We
look out on the world, and see the awful conditions in
the nations, and round about us in our own country - the
terrible conditions of suffering, of misery, of evil -
and we may feel inclined to ask the question of the
doubter, of the cynic: Why? Why? Why does God allow it?
The answer is here: God allows that which is contrary to
Him to shout at men that it is contrary - He
never meant it to be like that. When something goes
wrong, God does not just pass it over, smooth it over,
let it go as though it did not matter: He makes it shout
its own crime and its own tragedy. The world is screaming
with its own tragedy, and it is the tragedy of a missed
purpose of God. Interpret that to the world, and you have
an effective way of bringing in the Gospel.
But the
Bible sprang into life for Paul, and it is an amazing
thing how, from that moment, as he took his Bible with
him everywhere, the one thing he is preaching is: 'Jesus
is Lord; Jesus Christ is Lord!' The exalted Lord, the
exalted Christ, the glorified Christ, was his theme; and
Paul preached from the Bible. It had changed his Bible
for him. It was responsible for, and accounted for, his
whole mission and work. What was the great business to
which he was committed? What was it that constituted him
an apostle? Well, his mission and his work was
impassioned and motivated and controlled by just this one
thing - the absolute glory of the Lord Jesus; that Jesus
should come into His rightful place in this world and in
human hearts. That was the one motive, the one object,
the one dominating thing in all his work, in all his
mission. It was not this and that, and a number of other
things; it was one central, but all-inclusive passion -
Jesus as Lord, to be that in human lives. His work and
his mission were both transfigured and controlled by this
that had come into his experience.
His
sufferings and his endurance were made possible by this
vision. Sometimes he makes light of his sufferings. If
ever a man suffered, I think that man suffered. I do not
know that there were many ways in which he did not
suffer; he suffered greatly, many sufferings, and heavy
sufferings. But listen! 'Our light affliction, which is
but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and
eternal weight of glory; while we look not at the things
that are seen, but at the things that are not seen' (2
Cor. 4:17-18); and amongst those 'things not seen',
supremely and over them all, was that Exalted One in the
glory, 'Whom', says his fellow-apostle Peter, 'having not
seen ye love; on Whom, though now ye see Him not, yet
believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of
glory' (1 Pet. 1:8). But the point is - how was it that
he was able to endure and suffer triumphantly? It was
just because of this basic and central consciousness -
the deep, strong conviction that Jesus was on the Throne.
Paul's Understanding of the Church, and Concern for the Churches
I
believe that this also was the key to Paul's
understanding of the Church. Paul, as no one else,
perhaps, had the greatest comprehension and understanding
of the Church 'from eternity to eternity'. He goes right
back into the Divine counsels 'before the world was', and
sees it there in the heart and thought of God; he comes
right through and sees it in the great consummation of
the age of the ages. He has a marvellous comprehension of
the Church. But of all the things he says - the highest
things, the fullest things - the most complete expression
of the meaning and vocation of the Church is contained
and summed up in this matchless phrase: 'Now unto Him Who
is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask
or think, according to the power that worketh in us (the
Church), unto Him be the glory in the Church and in
Christ Jesus unto all generations for ever and ever'
(Eph. 3:20-21). 'Glory in the Church' - what glory? The
glory of the glorified Christ! I could stay long with
that matter of the Church and its eternal vocation and
election, to be the vessel of the glory of Christ. John
saw it at the end, in characteristic symbolism, in terms
of the City - it is simply the glory of Christ in
expression at last. It is that for which the church was
chosen; it is that to which the church is called - to be
the vessel, the seat, of this authority, this government,
and this glory. Christ in glory gave to Paul the clue as
to the church, and an ever-growing explanation of its
meaning.
This
same thing accounted for his concern for the churches. No
one will question that Paul had tremendous concern for
the churches. He says that he travailed for them; he wept
day and night for them; he longed and yearned over them,
spent himself for them. But why? What was the motive?
What prompted all that? Ah, it was the glory of his Lord
Jesus! The churches existed for the glory of Christ. He
said so. It was all just for that one thing - the glory
of Christ. And if there was any deflection, if there was
anything that was not right in the Church, or in the
churches; if anything whatsoever could be done to help
them, it was all motivated by this one thing, that the
Lord Jesus should in all things be glorified.
And if
we pass to the end of it all, and look at Paul's writing
about the Lord's coming again, what is it that is
uppermost with him in relation to that coming? Is it the
end of his troubles? Is it just his own joy and pleasure
in getting to heaven? Oh no, it is the reign of His Lord
the fact that His Lord is coming into His own, coming
into His kingdom, coming into His rights, coming into the
place that He ought to have, to be ceded that place
universally - that is the great thing, the one thing
giving birth and giving rise to everything else. "He
must reign".
Christ is Actively Reigning Now
And He
reigns. Christ IS reigning. Christ is active. On
several occasions He is spoken of as having, on His
ascension, 'sat down' in heaven: He "sat down on
the right hand of the Majesty on high" (Heb. 1:3);
He 'sat down'. But if you notice, whenever it is said
that He 'sat down', it is invariably related to the
finishing of His redemptive work. That is done. On the
other hand, He stands. There is no contradiction; it is
only an implication of a different meaning. Stephen saw
Him - "I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing on the right hand of God" (Acts 7:56). He is
spoken of as 'standing'. When it is a matter of the work
of redemption, it is finished; there is nothing more to
do - He can sit down. When it is a matter of the working
out of that redemption here in this world, He is on His
feet. When there is a challenge to what He has done, He
rises up. Stephen is in the presence of that challenge,
and the Exalted Lord is on His feet, for the sake of His
testimony. He is active, that is the point. He is not
just passively sitting down, waiting till His enemies are
put under Him: He is putting them under! He stands to
work this thing out.
Now, the
activity of the reigning Lord is seen in several ways,
only to be mentioned. Firstly, He is 'taking out from the
nations a people for His Name' (Acts 15:14). The great
illustration in the Old Testament, of course, is that of
Israel in Egypt. The taking out of a people for His Name
is a tremendous business - you cannot do that sitting
down! He extended the prince of this world, exhausted all
his power and all his resources and all his endurance,
and got them out. We are left in no doubt about it that
that was the Old Testament demonstration of the supreme
power of God. There is only one demonstration that
exceeds that, and that is New Testament - 'the exceeding
greatness of His power when He raised Jesus from the
dead, and set Him at His own right hand.' That is exceeding
greatness of power! But it was a tremendous thing to
get Israel out of Egypt as a people for His Name.
And it
is no less a thing to get this people out of the nations
for His Name. The prince of this world withstands and
challenges at every point, in every way. No soul is going
to be released from that bondage and that kingdom without
a fight. It is often made out to be far too easy; people
are put into a false position by it being made too easy.
If we did but know, we have got to stand into the Throne
for souls, to get them out. Perhaps you have some
experience of those parts of the earth where the prince
of this world has a terrible hold, a very terrible hold,
and so much at his command; and you know something of
what it means to get just one soul out of that. The
suffering, the travail, the anguish, the cost bound up
with getting one soul out of a nation for His Name! It
needs the Throne, the mighty Throne. But, in spite of so
much, He is doing it. The point is that there is so much
like Pharaoh and Egypt - but even greater than that - set
against this; and yet He is doing it.
The
second thing He is doing is that He is constituting the
life of that people on heavenly principles. We wish He
had freer, fuller scope to do it. But He is doing it.
That is, He is inculcating the life and laws of Heaven
into that people. And again the illustration is Israel at
Sinai, and in the Wilderness. There the heavenly laws
were given, and they were constituted according to
heavenly principles. They were tested, tried, proved
according to the laws of Heaven. Their very daily bread
had to come out of Heaven: they had to live out of
Heaven, live on Heaven; their life had to be, indeed, a
heavenly life. There was nothing here to constitute them
God's people. They had to be constituted on a heavenly
basis. And that is what the Risen Lord is seeking to do
with His people. If only we understood, again, our
experiences, we should see that that is the explanation
and interpretation. He is seeking to re-constitute us on
a heavenly basis of life. He is energetically trying to
do it. Because we do not understand what He is doing, we
are so slow in the change-over. Let us recognize the fact
and take it to heart.
The
third thing that He is doing is putting all His enemies
under His feet. And that takes us, with Israel, over the
Jordan, into the Land. See there how those nations were
put under the feet of Joshua through the people. The
counterpart of that now is that it is through His Church
that the Lord Jesus is bringing His enemies under His
feet. Oh that we were more efficient in this! Oh that it
were more true of us that we, like the people, were
putting our Joshua's enemies under His feet! That is a
challenge; it is a truth. But He is doing it, putting His
enemies under His feet, and doing it through His church -
so imperfectly and with such limitations, but that is His
way. Old William Gurnall, the writer of The Christian
in Complete Armour (1655), speaking of the serpent's
head being put under the Lord's heel, pictures the Lord
saying to His Church: 'I have put him under My heel, come
you and put your heel upon him!' We should be
co-operating with the Lord Jesus in this matter.
See how
He has done it through the centuries. It is a tremendous
story! The very long-term nature of it, the extension of
it over time, may rob it of some of its force in our
consciousness. But if you could just put it all together,
the story of how He has done it through the centuries,
what a story it would be!
Israel
vaunted itself against Him and His Lordship - where is
Israel? Can Israel lift up its head? Through all these
centuries it has been bruised, unable to lift itself up;
impotent; paralyzed; it vaunted itself against the Throne
of the Exalted Christ. Rome entered into the battle to
try this thing, and there was Caesar, with all his mighty
power and resources, determined to destroy that Name and
that power. Where is Caesar? Where is Rome and all its
mighty power? It has gone down into shame and into the
dust, and has not been able to lift itself up again. So
we could go on. In our own life-time, many of us have
seen men who have made a bid for world-dominion, and
Heaven says: That is reserved for One only! And what has
happened? Man after man has ended his career in ignominy,
and worse than that, who made that bid for the place of
God's Son, for the Throne, right up to date. And it will
be the same thing with the rest of them. It is reserved
to Him. 'He must reign, till He has put all His
enemies under His feet.' And He will do it.
How does
Ezekiel put it? Right in the midst of his prophecies,
right at the very centre of the book, with Israel in
captivity; the captivity itself; the mighty power of
Babylon and all these world powers enthralling, holding,
seeking this place of absolute supremacy - Ezekiel cries,
as from God: 'I will overturn, overturn, overturn...
until He come Whose right it is to wear the crown!'
(Ezek. 21:27; Amplified Bible).
'He must
reign, till He has put all His enemies under His feet.'
May
that transfigure the way for us.