The Octave of Redemption (Transcript)
by T. Austin-Sparks
When we are embarking upon the line of consideration to try to gather up all that is before us in some title, something that really does embrace within itself all that is contemplated, and while we shall do that again on this occasion, I do want to emphasise at the outset how necessary it is to guard against the impression or the idea that it is just a line of truth, a theme, a subject that is in view. I say it is most important that we should seek to keep that idea out of our minds.
There would be something wrong if, in the end, all we had to talk about was a theme that was taken. That is a common phrase: the theme of the conference. The fact is that there is no truth apart from the Lord Jesus Himself. And the Truth is in Him, and not about Him. Before the right apprehension therefore, of the Truth, a personal relationship with Himself in Life is essential. We cannot know the Truth, only by union with the Lord Jesus in a living way. That in turn demands the work of the Holy Spirit upon us and in us, and that means that we must be in a spiritual condition to understand and apprehend the Truth as it is in Jesus.
Our life, all of our life, our hope, our salvation, our way, our assurance, our everything is centred in the Lord Jesus Himself. It's not centred in some aspect or interpretation of truth. It is centred in Himself. Therefore, everything is resolved into a matter of knowing Him and attaining unto the full knowledge of the Son of God.
So we are not gathered around a theme, a subject, a line of teaching or truth, we are gathered around the Lord Jesus. Keep that in mind. A great deal of ground will be covered, very much will be said, but its value depends entirely upon our living relationship to Him who is the Truth, the sum of Truth, the power of the Truth.
Having said that, it may be safe to indicate the title which we are giving to our consideration at this time as the Lord will lead us. We are going to be occupied with what I am calling: "The Octave of Redemption".
You know that 'octave' means 'eight', and we relate the word octave to music, and it means the eight notes which complete the musical scale, the eight primary notes. We could change the title into "The Rainbow of Redemption", for we have exactly the same thought there, the eight coming into view again. Really, it is seven, plus one. In the octave, the scale, eight returns to one. One series, or phase, or movement has been completed, and a new is commenced; but the old is never regarded as finished in itself - it must have the next to make the scale complete. If you'd like to try that on an instrument, you wlll see how necessary it is and how incomplete seven is without eight. In the rainbow it's the same: you have the seven primary colours, and then eight returns to number one.
The Octave of Redemption
Christianity is marked peculiarly by this very feature: seven plus one. Christianity is based upon the day after the Sabbath day, upon the eighth day which became the first day of the week. I say, Christianity is based upon that.
Judaism remains the religion of the seventh day and everybody knows how incomplete it is, how it has stopped short and never gone on, it has never moved into the eighth day as the first. Christianity rests upon that eighth day which has become the first - the end of a phase of Divine work and the beginning of a new.
The seventh sees a completeness. The 'Sabbath', does not mean 'seventh'; it means 'rest'. Eight means that God begins upon something which has been completed. His new beginning is out from something finished - that is Christianity: it rests upon something finished, and that something finished is God's rest, God's satisfaction. He begins everything from that point. God proceeds from completion.
Some of you will no doubt know that the Hebrew alphabet is not only the alphabet of letters, but it also the symbols of numerals; that each letter has a numeral value. And that is not only true of the Hebrew language. The name 'Jesus', which is used in the New Testament in the Greek form, having six letters, each letter having a numeral value; which I will not trouble you to even mention them, just to make this statement. Each letter of the name of Jesus, having a numeral value, when all those letters are put together with their numeral value amount to 888. 'Jesus' - 888. I am not making a great deal of that, or trying to be fanciful, but I think it's impressive - I don't think that's an accident. He is the 'eighth day' Man, the One who has gone beyond, having perfected the work of redemption. But I just throw that in by the way, to bring us to this octave of redemption, because redemption has eight primary notes or aspects.
There are many subsidiary features, of course, but there are eight primary. And the eight are:
1. The Incarnation
2. The Earthly Life of our Lord
3. The Cross
4. The Forty Days between the Resurrection and the Ascension
5. The Ascension and the Glorifying
6. The Advent of the Holy Spirit
7. The Birth, Vocation and Completion of the Church, and
8. The Coming Again.
Those are the primary notes, or colours, or aspects of redemption. Into those everything else is gathered, and there is nothing outside of them. They complete the scale.
And you will notice that one and eight are the two comings. Eight returns to the one in principle: the coming of the Lord, representing two completions. The first coming, the incarnation, was the completion of a phase: "The law was given by Moses; grace and truth came by Jesus Christ". One phase is finished; the completion of a phase. And it need not be said or emphasised, that the coming again will be the completion of a phase. But each was also the beginning of a new phase: "The hour cometh, and now is...", said the Lord Jesus, introducing an entirely new phase, and thank God that will be true when He comes again.
One other technical point by the way. The Hebrew word for 'seven' just means 'satisfaction' or 'completion'. Well, we need not comment upon that. God saw all things, they were "very good" and God rested in His satisfaction, in the completion of His work. But the Hebrew word for 'eight' is again a very interesting word and takes its rise from the root 'shammah', one of the names of the Lord, "Jehovah-Shammah" which is "the Lord super-abundant". So eight follows seven. Seven - completeness - and yet the Lord never stops there, the Lord super-abundant, Jehovah Shammah, the all-sufficient One.
Now we must hurry on to these eight notes, taking a look this morning at number one. And we are going to approach these difference aspects of redemption with a question. I think the best, most helpful way of dealing with these matters is by question and answer. And so we come with the question or word: "Why?" every time and apply it in the first instance to the Incarnation.
Why the Incarnation?
While we have to leave a whole mass of relevant matter, we shall seek to range the whole of these great things in the compass of one inclusive and precise object. Why the incarnation? Why was it necessary that the Son of God should take human form and human nature?
Of course, to answer that fully we should be under the obligation to consider the whole of the Divine thought and conception in the creation of man at all - man's conception, man's vocation, and man's destiny - that in the Divine mind is a very great thing. We have to allow that to come in at this point to lead us further.
We might say - and rightly so - that the Bible is all about God. That's true. We might go on to say the Bible is all about God's interest in His Son, and that is quite true. But when you have said that, and taken full account of that, you cannot divorce either or both of those matters from man. It's all about God - it is true, but it is about God and His relationship to man, and man's relationship to Him. It is all about God's Son - it is true, and yet it is all about God's Son's concern for man: man's relationship to Him and His relationship to man. When you have said everything, you arrive at man.
We have no interest in God and therefore we should have no interest in the Bible apart from ourselves, that is, apart from mankind. We're not interested in a remote God outside of the realm of human life. No, the truth is that everything has to focus down upon man, and we find that the Bible is the book of God's interest in man. God's interest in man - somehow God's interests are inexplicably bound up with man - his vocation and his destiny. All this, and what it implies, will be gathered into what we are going to say about the incarnation.
Why the Incarnation? And the answer is threefold. Firstly, the redemption, or reclamation, of man. Secondly, for the reconstruction or reconstitution of man. And thirdly, the perfecting and glorifying of man. Those are the three aspects of the answer to the question, why the incarnation, why did the Son of God become man and take human nature.
Firstly:
For the Redemption or Reclamation of Man
The common idea about redemption is associated with the slave market - going into the slave market and redeeming or buying out or buying back that which has been sold into that market. Well, that may be true and there are certain fragments of Scripture which lend themselves to that idea. "Sold under sin" is a scriptural phrase, but we need some clarification of this idea.
You say redemption means the 'buying out' of the slave market of man. He has been sold into some kind of slavery and bondage; true, but who sold him? Who sold him? Until you look at that question, and answer it, you haven't really got the meaning of redemption. Who sold him? He sold himself! It puts a new complexion upon things. He sold himself! We say, we speak of a man as 'selling himself to the devil'. We've got to explain that in a minute. But he sold himself, how did he do it? How did he do it? Well, he did not sell himself objectively, like some thing, some chattel, just as an object, selling it into another's possession. He sold himself subjectively - he sold himself in his soul. Yes it is true: he sold his soul to the devil. That's what happened, exactly what's happened.
Shall we put it this way. There came a day when someone came to his door, and he opened the door. And the someone began to speak, and to speak treachery, under cover of beautiful language, clothed in very appealing terms. And instead of slamming the door in the face of that visitor, he opened it a little wider and listened, and listened!
Remember, dear friends, that is always the first step to bondage, that is always the first movement towards a need of redemption - listening to the devil. Listening to the devil and not immediately reacting with a question: is this true of God, or is this false as to God? Is God a Person like that, is God a Person like that or is He other than that? If every Christian would react to satanic suggestions and insinuations like that, oh what a different situation would obtain in many Christian lives!
There are many in awful bondage because they have listened. They've opened the door; they have never confronted the enemy with this question: is God like that? Do you really believe that God is a God like that? You put that question to your present problems, situations and conditions, accusations and condemnations that the enemy is always trying to bring upon you in order to bring you back into bondage - say: is God really like that, really?
He opened the door of his soul. He listened to the enemy. He opened himself to unbelief. And remember that unbelief is the root sin. The root sin is unbelief. It is the one thing that God will not have, the one thing that sets God apart, puts Him back, and makes Him non-committal. While there is any unbelief, God stands back. And while it persists, the gap grows. No, God will never commit Himself where there is unbelief.
That may sound very elementary, but it's a thing that pursues us right to the end. This is the basis of all our education, is this matter of faith in God. Let me say it immediately, that the measure in which God has ever committed Himself or ever will commit Himself is the measure of our faith in Him. Through opening the door to unbelief, satan put his foot in, right into man's soul, and has never taken it out. He has held that foothold in man's soul ever since. We put that in another, not unfamiliar way: that the whole of man by nature is linked with the evil powers, and the strength of that link is unbelief. Until that can be shattered, that unbelief completely broken, the union between man by nature and satan continues.
Yes, everyone not redeemed unto God is, know it or not, joined in their very soul in union with satan, with the evil power. Redemption or reclamation begins with faith. It begins with faith; well, you know that, that's what you'd call the simple gospel. Faith is the very beginning of redemption. But faith is the basis of continual redemption, or recovery, or reclamation. You know, this matter of redemption, while in Christ is completed and perfected, is a matter which is going on and we are to "receive the end of our faith, the salvation of our souls".
You see, this matter is going on; it's progressive. While final in the work of Christ, in us it begins with the first exercise of faith - believing God - and proceeds upon that basis right to the end. Well, that hardly needs time spent upon it. How true it is that we immediately come into some kind of bondage and Satan gets some hold or has some gain, when we fail to believe God, cease to believe God, have questions about God. Immediately any doubt of the Lord comes in, we find ourselves again immediately locked up, and the only way out is faith in God. You know that so well; it's very true to life.
Now, because of his unbelief, Adam brought about, instituted and established that soul-link with the evil powers for the whole race, and that is the nature of man's bondage. He is sold - needing redemption. That lays a foundation for the very meaning of redemption. The incarnation; why the incarnation? "A second Adam to the fight and to the rescue came": a Man to redeem man. But oh, we shall see as we go on that that again was not just an objective activity of things that He did - He was in His very being the Redeemer.
Let me put that in another way: He was redemption! He not only did something, but He was that. That will become clearer later. But here it is the necessity of a Man of whom none of this is true coming to the rescue: a Man who, because of His own ground of non-involvement in what Adam did, has no implication, [none of it] in Adam's sin; [He] has the advantage. The incarnation was to provide redemption in a Man, for man, and not only by a Man for man. I wonder if you see the significance of that. It's a tremendous thing to see not only what Jesus did, but what He was to meet the situation!
The Reconstruction or Reconstituting of Man
By his act, as we have seen, man became disordered; disordered in his very constitution. Deranged, if you like, broken, another kind of being from what God had made him and intended him to be - robbed and therefore deficient. Defrauded and therefore deceived. He lost what he had - his innocence. He lost what God meant him to have, and had already provided for him on the basis of faith, like belief in God. He lost it all. He lost his innocency and became a culpable being, responsible. Now, reading back, with our Bible in our hand and the full revelation of Scripture, we are able to see now what man was intended to have. It all becomes clear now. He was intended for two things in the light of the whole revelation of Scripture.
Firstly, he was intended to have the Spirit of God indwelling. That can be put in different ways: he was intended to be a temple of God. He was intended for the purpose of God indwelling. The whole Scripture now makes it perfectly clear that that was God's original intention, that He should dwell in man, the Spirit of God should be resident within him. And the other thing: that he should have within him what now the New Testament in our translation calls: "eternal life". Eternal Life: the Life of the ages, Divine Life, uncreated Life - call it what you will, you know what it means. He missed it. He lost that intention of God in both respects.
The incarnation was for the very purpose of begetting a new creation man in which those two things could become actualities: man now a temple of the Holy Ghost, man indwelt by the Spirit of God; man possessing eternal Life. That is the answer to the question: why the Incarnation? And I say again that the Lord Jesus not only effected that as some accomplishment, or transaction, or work done, He was the first of that order, to beget another race after that kind.
And finally:
The Perfecting and the Glorifying of Man
All following in right sequence: redemption, reconstruction, perfecting and glorifying. Of course, these two things are clearly seen in Jesus, the Son of Man. Some of the mysterious things of the Word of God, the New Testament, are said in this connection. "Though He were a Son, yet learned He obedience by the things which He suffered". "He was made "perfect through sufferings". I am not going to stop with the theology or the doctrine of that, but I can focus it down to the one word which we have used and underlined already: how was He perfected?
I think, in faith. He had, as man, accepted voluntarily a basis of faith - to live His life on the principle of faith in God, His Father. And it was concerning that, that every trial and testing and ordeal had its meaning - if by any means the same enemy could entrap the last Adam, as he had the first. It was all on one point. He had succeeded in the first case and the whole of the first race, on one point only and that point was unbelief.
So successful a manoeuvre and campaign could lead him to believe that there was no better: "That's the thing that does it - that is the point upon which to focus". And so it opens up the life of the Lord Jesus very much more fully and clearly when you recognise this, that the focal point of all His trials, His testings, satanic assaults, and every kind of thing that was working contrary to Him (and we haven't got the whole story, by any means) had as its one object just to insinuate some question about His Father. The devastation of a new creation could be brought about on that one thing. And he knows it, and he knows it with you and he knows it with me.
So, the Son of Man was made perfect through sufferings. In what way? What were His sufferings? Oh, not His physical sufferings. His physical sufferings were but the ways and means by which the enemy was trying to get at His soul. He does that, and he does that and many other kinds of sufferings too, but the real suffering that the Son of God, the Son of Man knew, was this constant worry, pressure and assault from every angle, to get in between Himself and His Father. And that was the essence of His supreme agony when He cried: "Thou hast forsaken Me!" You see, it was all that.
I do not believe, and I'm sure you do not believe, that His cry in the garden of which we're thinking so much, "If it be possible, let this cup pass from Me" - was the cry of a Man Who was not prepared to die even the kind of death that He was facing. It's been that kind of thing, of course, that has given rise to an utterly false doctrine and theology. Was it not when this new theology (so-called) was first brought out in the city temple, that it was couched in this very sentence: "Many a British soldier has died a more heroic death than Jesus of Nazareth did." You say, "Blasphemy!" yes indeed, but there you are. That was not the point.
He knew what He had got to face in being made sin, and He knew that the ultimate, dire issue was that moment when the Father's face would be turned away, and He would be left, like the scape-goat out in the wilderness, alone, alone, alone. God-forsaken, in that one awful moment. I say that was the point of His suffering, and that was the sum of His suffering.
But He was made perfect through it all, through all the sufferings, perfect in faith. In faith! Oh, what meaning that gives to such words as those, so familiar to us, and used so lightly: "The life that I now live in the flesh, I live in the faith of the Son of God, Who loved me, and gave Himself for me". What a faith to live by! If only that faith could be transmitted to us - if only that faith could be in us in the power of the Holy Spirit! Then we'll get through all right. "I live by the faith of the Son of God" - tested, tried, assailed to the last degree, and triumphant. Triumphant!
I am glad that the end of the story was not on the note of God-forsakenness, but on the note of: "Father, into Thy hands I commend My spirit." It's all over - victory! That's faith perfected through suffering, complete by obedience - obedience is always faith's proof. There is no such thing as faith without obedience. Perfected. A man perfected. Glorified, glorified! We might put in an extra question here.
Why the Transfiguration?
Well, the transfiguration was the end of His own course, the end of His own road. He had travelled the road of testing and trying, the road of utterness, of consecration to His Father. So far as He was concerned, there was no more to go for Himself. He was obedient - and that was the end of the road for Him. Hence glory could come in then. For Him glory in the transfiguration: a Man who had gone all the way with God in faith's obedience - glorified. The rest, that's our part in it. He came out of that, "Instead of that joy set before Him, He endured the Cross". The rest is for us to take our place to bring us to His - to glory - "many sons to glory", to be made "perfect through sufferings". A Man glorified, for man - nothing apart from us - through faith.
His glorification (as we shall have to see when we come to that point) His glorification is a part of the redemption. A part of the redemption, it is a part of the reconstitution, it is the issue of all; and the redemption and the reconstitution is for us in Christ, therefore the glorifying is for us in Him. "Glorified together with Him".
He was able to say at the last: "Father, I have glorified Thee upon the earth"; and therefore He could say: "Glorify Thou Me... with the glory which I had with Thee before the world was". The point is that here in this life of faith, in this life of faith (and you must for the moment suspend your mental difficulties about the Lord Jesus and His life of dependence, you are probably allowing to come in some arguments about His apparently supernatural knowledge and power; just suspend that for the time being, you'll get another angle on that before we are through) and accept this: that He was as utterly dependent upon God as you are, as I am, for everything. His was as utterly a life of faith as ever you and I are called to live. And on that basis, as man, as man He went through in such complete satisfaction to God that He could be glorified. But remember, the incarnation was not for Himself: it was for us, and all that was bound up with the incarnation is for us. It is our redemption, our reconstitution and our glorification through perfecting in Him.
You see, all this lays the foundation for believing - oh, what a pity we haven't got the exact translation of, though awkward it may sound: believing on to the Lord Jesus. It's weak; it's left a lot to be desired just by, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ". It's positional: believing on to the Lord Jesus Christ! You see, this is what it means: there is something in true faith which makes Him, so to speak, into ourselves, and ourselves into Him. Don't misunderstand me: I am not talking about Deity - I am talking about the Son of Man.
There is something of spiritual significance in that Lord's Table: "My body, which is for you". Leaving out the extreme and wrong interpretations of transubstantiation and all that, behind that, behind that is something left for the dispensation to recognise, until He comes again. Behind it there is this principle: that faith's appropriating the Lord Jesus makes good in us what He is. Makes good in us what He is! We are redeemed through faith in Him. We are reconstituted through faith in Him. We are perfected through faith in Him. We are glorified through faith in Him. But it is not just objective - it is taking our position upon what is true of Him: that being all for us.
How impossible it is to explain! But you and I have got to learn even with all that we know, a great deal more of what it means, really means, to stand on the ground of what Jesus Christ is, in faith - because something happens, something happens. Our troubles arise out of taking our stand upon the ground of what we are, or upon appearances, arguments - something objective - instead of taking our position upon the ground the Son of God became incarnate, to not only work out, but be my redemption. And on Him by faith is redemption to be my re-constitution. And, by faith on Him, something happens through the action of the Holy Spirit to be my perfection: and on Him the Holy Spirit takes up the work of my perfecting and on Him my glorification. And faith gives the Holy Spirit His requisite, essential, indispensable ground for bringing us also to the glory of Christ, to be glorified together with Him.