Saturday, July 29, 2017

The Great Transition From One Humanity To Another # 20

The Great Transition From One Humanity To Another # 20

The Nature and Dynamic of Ministry, continued -

As Paul begins, he goes right back to the Damascus Road, to the beginning of his Christian life and ministry, for you will remember that it was there, right at the commencement, when the Lord gave him his commission: "to whom I send thee" (Acts 26:17). Paul goes right back to his conversion, to the beginning of his life in union with Christ, and he says this: "as to life, as to vocation, as to ministry, that I might proclaim Him among the nations, God revealed His Son in me." Here you have the Source of everything! It is this vision of the Lord Jesus that is the Nature of the ministry, that is the Source of the ministry, that is the dynamic of all true ministry, for all true ministry in this dispensation issues and proceeds from an inshining of Divine Light revealing Jesus Christ. "It pleased God to reveal His Son in me." That gives us a secret.

Saul of Tarsus is on the way to Damascus, and on the way he saw a Light from heaven. That is objective, something that blinded him from without. That Light turned out to be the Glorified Lord Jesus, and Paul is saying here in this fragment to the Galatians that he not only objectively saw that Light and that Glorified Man, but also something happened inside of him. Inside of him, he said: "Jesus of Nazareth Whom I am on the way to persecute and Whose persecution has become the one passion of my life - Jesus of Nazareth, that impostor (as I believe) that evil man, that deceiver - this is He?! He has been here among us walking the streets of Jerusalem, of Galilee, up and down the country, that same One had now appeared to me, that same One, not a different One - only in appearance and in knowledge, but the same One. What does this mean?!"

That inshining carried with it an overwhelming meaning significance in the life of Paul, and so away to the desert he went to lie and to dwell upon this, and that Light which has shone on him was shining in him, and he was seeing the significance of Who? - God's Son! True, but he was seeing Jesus of Nazareth, the Man Glorified - the Man having reached the ultimate of God's intention for man. Paul thought within: "Because I knew Him as a man, whether I saw Him in the flesh or not, I knew Him - all about Him as a man among men, and human eyes could not discriminate between Him and other men, only there was something about Him that was different, but He is a Man among men, and this is that same Man - transfigured": this he had to think in the light of that inward revelation.

People who know the Greek here know that this Word: "It pleased God to reveal His Son in me," is a subjective-objective. Paul could say: "I saw objectively, but I also saw subjectively," and until that happens, dear friends, we are not in the way of effectual ministry. You may be seeing by what is said to you throughout this week, you may be seeing in a sort of objective way, everything objectively, and that is very wonderful; but has it broken through from the objective to the subjective where you can say: 'My word, I have never seen it like that, I have never seen Him in that way." This "objective-subjective" seeing is what happened to the apostle, and it was the beginning both of his Christian life and of his ministry; and they both went together.

Brethren, do you know that you as a believer, as a Christian, are constituted for ministry from the day of your new birth? Do you know that you are ordained a minister the moment you are regenerated into this New Humanity? Do not wait for the day when someone will ordain you to the ministry. Oh, no, your calling of God is from the beginning unto ministry. About this, Paul said that it was, it corresponded to, what happened at the creation. Paul said in Second Corinthians, that great letter of the ministry: God Who said, "Let there be light, let light be," has repeated that Divine fiat in a spiritual way in our hearts, "has shined into our hearts"; - God has said in these darkened human hearts, "let light be"... shined into our hearts with what object? - "to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ." For those of you who have heard this before and have heard me say it before, bear with me if I may just stay for a moment with that word "glory." Yes, it was objective glory with Saul of Tarsus which he saw, but what is that glory? What is the glory of God?

We have been hearing in the second session about the God of glory appearing to Abraham. What is the glory of God? The glory of God is His absolute satisfaction with anyone or any situation. When God is satisfied,something emanates from Him. We know that in simple ways in Christian experience. If there is something over which you may have had a battle, a real battle, and you have got through to what the Lord has been trying to get you to and the battle is over and you are responsive wholly to the will of God, what happens? There is such a sense of blessedness inside. The fight is finished, the battle is over, there is rest and peace and joy within. Now that is glory because it is on the way to that ultimate accomplishment of the whole will of God in a Humanity when the glory will be universal. Yes, the "glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ" just means this: because the Lord Jesus was so satisfying to the very nature of God that there was about Him something of peace and rest and joy. He carried with Him the satisfaction of God. "I always do the things that are pleasing to Him": that is the glory.

Do not think of glory just as this objective, shining, blazing something, but think of it as shining into your hearts. Oh, how can I explain it? It is just this - that inside we have come to the place where we are satisfied with the Lord Jesus and meet the satisfaction of God. "Not what I am, O Lord, but what Thou art - that, that alone, can be my soul's true rest. Thy Love, not mine, is glory." Paul said "God carried out this New fiat in my heart, and in our heart, Corinthians. He shone in. He said, "Let light be, and there was light." It was a Light that was never on land or sea, "the Light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ."

Now that is the spring of ministry, and what is the ministry? What do we mean by ministry? Well, ministry is the outshining of Jesus Christ from our lives, and you do not need to have gone to convocations; you do not need to have any artificial or mechanical means. You may study your Bible, and you may give the most wonderfully organized and arranged Bible readings; but the question is, is that ministry?

Are you emanating Christ?
Are you transmitting Christ?
Is Christ coming through your teaching?

Are people sensing Christ and not your study, not your library, not your commentaries, not your versions, not your translations. But the point is, where does this come from, where did we get it, how did we get it???

~T. Austin-Sparks~

(continued with # 21)

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