Union With Christ in Resurrection

by T. Austin-Sparks

Chapter 3 - Groaning for the Fulness of Christ

Reading: Phil. 3:10; Eph. 1:19; Rom. 8:18-23.

Take this clause first, "Which He wrought in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead" (Eph. 1:20). Now you notice when you come to the end of chapter 3, verse 20, you have: "according to the power that worketh in us... which He wrought in Christ... the power that worketh in us". Thus, we are joined to the same Lord in the power of His resurrection.

And then you come back again to chapter 1 and you have the result of that inworking power as issuing in setting Him, "far above all rule, and authority, and power, and dominion" (v. 21). He wrought in Christ and by His inworking in Christ in resurrection power He set Him far above all rule and authority, and power, and dominion.

Now, at the end of chapter 3, "...exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us". You see it is the same power with superlative issues working in the Body as in the Head, for in Ephesians we are in the one New Man of the Body, and the Body has in it the operation of the same "exceeding great" power as operated in the Lord Jesus, unto the same end, to bring it livingly where its Head is. And "He is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us."

And then we come back to Romans 8:18 and we have words like this, "the glory which shall be revealed to us-ward", and then again, "the glory of the children of God" (v. 21). Now you carry that over to Philippians 3, "the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings" (v. 10). "For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed to us-ward"; "That I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings".

It puts suffering in its right place, suffering as related to a leading on to glory. Very often suffering gets out of its place with us, that is the trouble with us very often, and suffering becomes the thing which occupies us while it is on us. The only thing that we see, all that we are alive to and conscious of, is the suffering through which we are passing and it blots out everything else. The Lord would have us see suffering in its right place, that it is in relation to something which should make the suffering very much smaller in our estimation than it otherwise would be. "I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed to us-ward", the glory that shall be revealed, the glory of the children of God.

And then back again to Philippians 3, "that I may gain Christ" (v. 8). That is the prize of which we spoke in our previous chapter. "I press toward the mark for the prize of the upward calling" (Phil. 3:14), "that I may gain Christ". Now, what is it to gain Christ? Back to Romans 8, "For whom He foreknew He also foreordained to be conformed to the image of His Son" (v. 29), conformed to the image of God's Son is the prize. That is gaining Christ. That is attaining unto the fulness of Christ in moral perfection which is the glory, which is the glory shining out from the moral and spiritual perfection. And simply, to come to be spiritually and morally what Christ is in His place of exaltation is the prize, is the goal.

There is much bound up with that, but that is the end, and that is the glory of the children of God which is to be revealed to usward. That is the thing that is going to break forth one day, "the manifestation of the sons of God", that suddenly you and I will be manifested in glory, the glory of Christ in all His spiritual and moral perfection. Now we groan unto that. What are we groaning in our hearts about? Well, if we analyse our groanings I think we shall come to this conclusion - 'Oh, for moral and spiritual perfection! Oh, for deliverance from this old creation of bondage and slavery, corruption, death and sin'. One day the groanings are going to stop and then the manifestations of the sons of God in glory, which is having arrived at perfect likeness to what Christ is, that is the thing which God has foreordained that is secured for us in the person of the Son of Man in glory.

I hope these things that I am saying are not just falling upon you as things said, as bits of Bible teaching. I confess to you as I am occupied with them and as I say them to you, they are Life to me, and that is it; the power of His resurrection is that. The power of His resurrection issues in that: the manifestation of the sons in glory, which is the glory of the perfected image of Christ in the church which is His Body, which means in the members of that Body as in the whole. Now, doesn't that ravish your heart? Just dwell upon it.

And so we understand what Paul meant when he said, "that I may gain Christ... the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I suffered the loss of all things" (Phil. 3:8), that is the thing. But oh, that represents a tremendous change in us now. It represents that something has been done in us, and if the goal, the prize, is what is our heart's desire, if it is that that we are reaching out for, it represents that something has been done in us by the grace of God. And that is why Paul put things in this order, the Holy Spirit put things in this order: the power of His resurrection first, the fellowship of His sufferings, and then being made conformable to His death. We can only know Him and the power of His resurrection in that way. That is, the power of His resurrection leading on to and being consummated in perfect conformity to the image of Christ, spiritually and morally. We can never know the power of His resurrection like that, only as we know fellowship in His sufferings and being made conformable to His death. The sufferings and death here referred to have as their effect the setting aside of everything that is personal to make everything that is of Christ our object.

Now remember that the basic sin is pride. But what is pride? Well, the basic sin, the root sin, the foundation of sin is doing things in your own interest. You can call that pride, but it is self, it is self-will, doing things in your own interests. That is where sin entered in in the beginning, it came through satan who said, "I will exalt my throne... I will be like the Most High." That was the sin that came in through Adam, "thou shalt be as gods knowing good and evil", and he acted in self-interest rather than in the interests of the Lord in obedience. From God being his object, he became the object himself and acted in self-interest.

Does not that get home at us and find us out? Acting in self-interest: the root foundation, basic sin, out of which every other kind of sin comes. You do not have to violate every fragment of the Decalogue; we do not have to commit every kind of sin; all we have to do is to act in self-interest and we have sinned over the whole range. You see it is the spirit, it is the principle that is there. Acting in self-interest is the foundation sin and we are all sinners.

If that is true, if you shut us up to that and say that to be found guilty of the whole law, and therefore, to be judged a sinner, is based upon acting in self-interest, then who can get out of it? Who can? Not one of us. Do you see what has happened with Paul? The prize, the mark, the goal, the object of Paul is not himself, it is Christ and conformity to Christ's image and entering into Christ's glory will be a part and will bring to Him great joy and satisfaction. Yet now it is Christ, Christ's own glory; you cannot conceive of Paul in these words, or at this time thinking of wanting to get that glory for himself as apart from Christ. He relates his own being glorified to the glory of the Lord, and sees that when he reaches that, Christ then will be satisfied. The terms of endearment to the Lord, "the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I suffered the loss of all things" (Phil. 3:8). You see it is all for Him and he is not taking glory from Christ to have it for himself. He is seeking to come to the place where Christ can be glorified in him, whether by life or by death, and his coming to glory is not that he is coming to personal gratification, but he is coming to God's end in Christ, Christ-fulness.

The meaning of the closing word in Ephesians, "the fulness of Him that filleth all in all" (Eph. 1:23) means that Christ is to have His fulness in the church which is His Body. And if Paul can reach unto the goal, that Christ will be having the measure of fulness that He should have, of course Paul will find his fulness in that. It is something that is done by the sufferings of Christ; these are not the sufferings of the atonement, and this is not the death of substitution, not the atoning sufferings of Christ which he wants to share; these are the sufferings of the Son of Man which are made perfect, those sufferings which are making perfect man, that He is coming to the place where moral perfection is established in humanity, and that is done by the conflict between the human will and the divine will. Although that human will may be sinless it is put on probation where it can, if it wills, choose against the will of God. If He was truly man that is a possibility, and although He had no sinful will, yet there was the demand for standing persistently for God's will against His own interests. Satan was trying to offer Him the prize of acting in self-interest, "I will give thee... if thou wilt worship me" (Luke 4:6,7), but there was no self-interest here; the basic sin. That is how he got the first Adam, and he tried to catch out the Last. But He was made perfect through suffering in the overcoming of things along all kinds of lines of testing. He was trying Him, but Christ was morally and spiritually perfect in those sufferings, even that of the cross.

It is those sufferings by which the natural, human desire, preference and interest are constantly set aside, and you go on without those, without popularity, without reputation, without favour, without understanding, and you are deprived of many things because you are going on in the will of God, and you have to suffer. But what is happening? That basic sin is being dealt with, self-interest is being destroyed, and Christ is coming in, Christ is becoming the prize, the Life. So we discover what Christ can be to us by the very sufferings that we endure in fellowship with Him. And the death (in conformity to His death) of the old Adam is destroying the power of the root sin in us, and Christ is becoming everything as that is done.

I do not know whether you just get all that I want this to convey to you. But when I have said all I can say, it amounts to this, that the progress of our life spiritually should just be this: that Christ should be becoming more and more to us for His own sake. You take the apostle and you find that - whether it may have been otherwise or not at another time in his life - as he goes on towards the end of his time here, the outward expressions and features of the Christian life in the matter of signs, miracles, gifts and mighty works are not the things upon which he places the emphasis. As he goes on he is being more and more occupied with Christ Himself. That is where he places the emphasis, on the Lord Jesus Himself. It may always have been so, but there is unmistakably this movement in the life of the apostle, that from the outward things, he is being occupied with the Lord Himself.

It is not a mark of spiritual grown-upness to be occupied with the outward demonstrations etc., it may just be a mark of spiritual immaturity. Signs, miracles, gifts, and things that can be seen and handled - well, it may be just the kindergarten. A mark of spiritual maturity and growth is being occupied with the Lord Jesus Himself, for what He is Himself to us. I believe it is a great point of advance when we come to the place where the Lord gives no signs whatever, no miracles, no manifestations, gifts and so on and we are perfectly happy with the Lord Himself. We are not always like discontented children who are not satisfied unless we can have some of these outward proofs and manifestations, but the Lord Himself has become our satisfaction. That is the movement of Paul. The Philippian letter proves that, that at the end, when Paul is about to be offered up, he is satisfied with the Lord Jesus.

Yes, about to face death; he does not know "how it will go" with him in a few days, for Nero is upstairs plotting for the life of these Christians and Paul is in Nero's presence. He does not know now what will happen to him, but: "For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain" (Phil. 1:21), not to lose anything, but to gain. But what is gain, to Paul? "That I may gain Christ". Gain for Paul is Christ, and death has no power to rob him of Christ, but only to bring him into the fulness for which he is groaning.

If ever a man would have lost all his joy and peace and rest because he saw outwardly nothing to satisfy him, well, Paul ought to have been in that position there in that Roman jail. When he sees colleagues leaving him and is deserted on the right and on the left, he has to write of those who did run well, having gone back into the world; "Demas hath forsaken me having loved this present world, and is departed unto Thessalonica." Conditions were not very happy as Paul looked out upon them, but as Paul's outlook was his uplook, he was in those disappointing conditions just occupied with the Lord and found his satisfaction there, and you find there is a great deal of joy coming out of that prison.

Someone has called the letter to the Philippians "Paul's joy in Christ". Read the four chapters and mark every time "joy" and "rejoice" occur. "Finally, my brethren, rejoice in the Lord." "Rejoice in the Lord always." "My brethren... my joy and crown ...". Joy and rejoicing come in Philippians continuously, and yet the man is going to have his head off in a day or two! Things outwardly are anything but calculated to make him joyful, but what is the secret of Paul's joy? Well, it is Christ. And all that I have on my heart is that you and I might come more and more to the place where the Lord Jesus is like that to us.

I do not care about sermons or addresses, if we can get together to enjoy the Lord, that will be victory, that will be a mark of the power of His resurrection. The power of His resurrection is a wonderful thing if it can put a man in a cell, about to be executed, and cause him to write about joy all the time!

We have not touched the fringe. The same power is in us as was in Him when God not only brought Him back from among the dead ones, but in that same power took Him right through all realms, ranges and spheres of power and dominion, and at last landed Him at His own right hand in the heavenlies, and then put everything in subjection under Him; "And He put all things in subjection under His feet, and gave Him to be head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fulness of Him that filleth all in all" (Eph. 1:22,23). That is the power of resurrection in Christ, and then as though coming back from that, reaching out unto the ages to come, the apostle comes back along that path and starts down here, "And you hath He quickened" (Eph. 2:1, AV), and the same power has been put into you to work in you, and the end is there with Him. The same end: the power of His resurrection.

It is a practical thing that we must know for our daily lives. And there are more kinds of prisons than one. You do not need to go to Rome and get shut up there. Perhaps you have all got your own prisons; maybe a physical prison, a body prison, "in this we groan". Maybe a circumstantial prison - one kind or another - but the power of His resurrection can have the same effect and so we should seek now to know Him, and the power of His resurrection.

The Lord may show us more of what that power is in its outworking, but the thing is for us to see that Christ, in all that He is as Head over all things, is that to us, and is to be made good to us as that, in the same power of His resurrection working in us. And what was done in Christ can be done in us and has commenced in us if we have received the gift of His resurrection Life in new birth. It is there.

We will leave the matter for the moment and ask the Lord to make us rejoice in Christ, that He may be our fulness of satisfaction.