The Opened Heaven
by T. Austin-Sparks
Chapter 5 - Delivered From This Present Evil World
Reading: 1 Cor. 1:18,21; 2:6,8; 2 Cor. 4:3,4; John 8:23; 17:14,15,16.
"But far be it from me to glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world hath been crucified unto me, and I unto the world" (Gal. 6:14).
We shall continue, as we are enabled, in our contemplation of the heavenly character of the people of God. We have been very much occupied with the fact that the Lord's desire and thought for His own people is that while they are here on this earth, they shall nevertheless be a heavenly people. They shall be in living union with His Son, the Lord Jesus Who is in heaven, deriving all their life from Him and living wholly unto Him. We have seen, in measure, how the Lord has made that possible, and by what way and means we may here and now be a heavenly people.
We have seen that this comes about in the first instance, by our being born anew from above by the Holy Spirit, and that having been born again by the Holy Spirit, we have received into our hearts the Life and presence of the Lord Jesus. But we are very much occupied with the wide ranges of our salvation, the greater fulnesses of what it means to be a child of God. And we have so far worked out from the centre of man's life, where we have seen him a prisoner to his own sinful nature and condition, and then delivered therefrom by the mighty power of the Cross of the Lord Jesus; so that "If any man is in Christ, there is a new creation; the old things are passed away; behold, they are become new. But all things are of God ..." (2 Cor. 5:17, marg. R.V. and A.S.V.).
We have seen deliverance of man from himself, his sinful and weak state, by the Cross of the Lord Jesus, but we have also pointed out that that is only one realm of his captivity. He is a captive to himself. He is in bondage to the flesh. He is imprisoned within the weaknesses, sinfulness, and helplessness of his own constitution, and that by nature it is entirely impossible for man to be wholly pleasing unto God. The Lord Jesus has come in and has taken all that side voluntarily upon Himself, carried it in His cross into death, and by His resurrection has burst a way through that captivity and that bondage and opened a way out for man, and has delivered us by His resurrection. But there are other realms of man's captivity and imprisonment, and the further realms we shall now consider.
These diagrams represent those realms.
The one pictures the state of man by nature; at the centre locked up and imprisoned within his own darkened state. But then also in his immediate environment and circumference spiritually, he is imprisoned within the kingdom of the world, and it is concerning that bondage and imprisonment that we are going to meditate for a little while this evening.
Bondage to the world: what it means to be a child of God as being delivered from this present evil world.
Now let us define our terms and make it clear once more that in speaking of the world we are not referring to the place. In our usage of the word the 'world' the term is not synonymous with the earth; we are not referring to the sphere, to the place; neither are we referring particularly to the people here on this earth, who are referred to very often in the Word of God as "the world"; but we are referring to a system, a world system.
The specific meaning of one of the Greek words translated as 'world' in our language in our New Testament, is a world system, a spiritual thing, a power, an order. This works through the people, this encompasses and registers itself upon the place, but it is something intangible, which we feel and do not see, which every child of God truly born from above knows to be a great reality lying back of people and things and the course of history. And it is a thing which has an intelligence back of it, and a sinister intelligence, for wrapping it round is the kingdom of darkness, the kingdom of satan, the whole mighty order of spiritual intelligence, that of which the apostle John speaks when he says: "We know that we are of God, and the whole world lieth in the evil one" (1 John 5:19); that of which the apostle Paul speaks when he says: "The god of this world hath blinded the minds of the unbelieving" (2 Cor. 4:4); the great intelligent system governing, controlling.
It is a world system, and within that, man is by nature a prisoner, only knowing how true his imprisonment is when he seeks in Christ to escape from it. For immediately we are truly born from above, if we really accept the meaning of our new birth, without giving the world any notice of the fact, we discover that we are in a strong and desperate antagonism with some intangible reality which is in this world. There is some mighty, strong, intangible antagonism to us even now before we have announced the fact that we have received the Lord Jesus into our hearts. That thing which operates through all unregenerate, unsaved men and women, that which has penetrated into all the affairs of this world order, is a thing from which we are delivered as children of God, and by the Cross of the Lord Jesus that whole thing has been crucified to us, and we have been crucified to it.
And I do ask you spiritually minded people, to co-operate so that the Lord will make clear something of the tremendous implications of being joined to Himself, as out from this world. We must know that what He said of Himself is true of us, and what He said of His disciples is true of us if we have been born again: "I am not of this world", said He. And then, concerning them in His prayer He said: "...they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil one" (John 17:14,15 Marg. R.V, ASV.). That is, that thing which is behind this world, and oh, that we might all see something more, something deeper, of what is bound up with our being children of God, what is implied by our birth from above, our new birth.
Now, we have read that "the god of this world hath blinded the minds of the unbelieving" (2 Cor. 4:4) and that the wisdom of this world, the very wisdom of this world was such blindness that it crucified the Lord of glory. How real, how true that blindness is. And what I want to seek to point out to you is this: that just in so far as you have any voluntary fellowship with, or relationship to that which is here called "the world", you will be blinded by the devil to the glory of Christ and held in bondage from all the fulness of Christ.
To come into that heavenly life, to come under that opened heaven of which we have been saying so much, demands that we shall have an utter and complete separation from this thing that is called "the world". It is not just one of the obligations of becoming a Christian, not just one of those things that are hammered home to people - 'Now you must quit the world, you must give up the world and the things of the world.' It is infinitely bigger than that, for becoming a child of God, receiving Christ into the heart, is intended by God to lead us into all the infinite fulness that is for us in Christ, and to bring us into the greatness of the heavenly life, and to give to us that which is meant by an opened heaven; an opened heaven for our service, through which the Lord Himself communicates Himself to us in His glory. We are called unto that. That is implied in our new birth. That is bound up with our being joined to the Lord Jesus. But the thing, you see, which limits and frustrates that, is this thing that is called "the world".
And if the apostle could shout exultantly with great joy: "God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world" (Gal. 6:14, AV), it was because he had come to see something of the fulness and the greatness of the Lord Jesus as his own personal life, experience and enjoyment. And he could say: "Why, my being crucified to the world has meant this to me, and if I had still held on to the world, I would not have had this. Therefore I glory in that Cross because, having cut the world off from me, it has given me another world; it has opened heaven to me." You never glory in the Cross until you have an opened heaven. You never glory in the world of separation by the Cross from the world until you know the Lord Jesus.
And yet, on the other hand, it is necessary for us to see that the way into that fulness is this way of accepting the implications of the Cross of the Lord Jesus, which are that the world is inimical to Him and to His, and to heaven, and must therefore utterly go. In so far as it does not go, for us heaven is a limited experience, the opened heaven is not our realisation, the fulnesses of Christ are not ours. The Cross cleaves a way through for us, and through that open way the Spirit of the Lord comes down and indwells our hearts and links us with Christ in heaven and all that is there in Him for us. So says the apostle: "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies in Christ" (Eph. 1:3). But the blindness and bondage come by way of being in any direction or in any measure linked with the world.
And I want to ask you, as you take the situation into consideration, is it not true that blindness and bondage are supreme features of this world's life naturally? Think of it for a moment. The Lord of glory came to redeem man, came to give His life as a ransom for many, came to save man from his lost and wrecked condition. The Word says that it was not those who never considered themselves as having any understanding or wisdom at all, but it was those who taught the truth of this world's wisdom, who claimed to be the wise of this world who took that Lord of glory and nailed Him to a tree, "...the world through its wisdom knew not God" (1 Cor. 1:21). Had it by its wisdom known God, it would not have killed the Lord of glory. I ask you, is not that blindness and bondage to an awful darkness? Is that not the supreme demonstration of this statement: "...the god of this world hath blinded the minds of the unbelieving" (2 Cor. 4:4). Why has he done it? "Lest" - a precautionary measure - "the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ should dawn upon them" (2 Cor. 4:5). But it is ever like that. That is the supreme demonstration of the satanic blinding work for this age, but you see that blindness in almost every direction in which you turn.
Take a simple, very up-to-date illustration. Fourteen years ago the most all embracing devastating havoc of war that ever this world has known, came to an end, in which literally millions of lives of the best manhood were sacrificed, butchered, shattered, broken, and blown to pieces. Countries were devastated, homes and families were wrecked; a horrific experience. Now supposing that on the 12th, 13th or 14th day of November 1918, just after the armistice of the 11th, someone had got up and preached war again, advocated another four years like that, what would the world have said? I venture to think that there was not courage found in the earth to do such a thing. There would have been such an awful uprising of revolt, of anger, that any such propagandist would have probably been lynched.
BUT fourteen years later, and they are preaching it, and they are prepared for it on a scale far more dastardly and wicked than anything ever conceived in that war. It is ready, it is all prepared for, all the material is in hand, they are ready now to plunge the world and the nations into something of which that would only be a poor shadow. And yet: "Never again" was the slogan; "War to end war - Lest we forget" - but here we are. You tell me that that is not the bondage of an awful blindness? You tell me that there is not a work of darkness over men's hearts, which is far deeper than mere human inconsistency or fickleness? Oh, something deeper than mere human nature is there; there is the grip of blindness.
You rush blindly into a new thing like that and when you get into it and see it, the thing comes back to you - Why did we not learn our lesson fourteen years ago? Why is it that after that awful thing, we should ever have allowed this? The answer is: "the god of this age hath blinded" and you could not help yourselves; in spite of everything you were plunged into it, there were no counsels strong enough to prevail. I am not saying that as Christian doctrine, but taking it by way of illustration to show that there is the grip of something upon the heart which is more than man's own state. It is a world system, an awful system, very often served up in the language of heroics, but a wicked thing coming from the very devil himself who is running it.
Take another illustration. Why is it (and it is strangely perplexing, a cause of wonderment to those who have their eyes open) that after all these many centuries of having the Bible, the Scriptures, that the world, even its learned ones, its wise ones, its leaders, is totally blind as to the course of this world's history? We refer to one fragment: the emancipation of Palestine and Jerusalem as perhaps the grand feature of that awful war, and all that has been transpiring there since in the return of the Jewish people to their own country. They are going back yearly by a quota of thousands; and yet, this is not quick enough for the Lord, for His Word must be fulfilled, and must be fulfilled swiftly because the age is drawing swiftly to its close. He must sovereignly permit that movement such as is taking place now to drive the Jewish people swiftly and in greater numbers back to their own historic country so that developments are speeded up on a grand scale. It is only one fragment, recorded in the Word of God hundreds of years ago, foretold by prophets of old, all the details of it in this Book. Yet men are so blind as to what that means for this world as in some cases to be the very instruments of it, and in almost every case, with a few exceptions as in the case of enlightened ones, almost universally blind as to the meaning of such a thing. Where does this blindness come from? There is a far wider range than that.
The reconstituting of the Roman Empire, the making of Rome again a headquarters of international activities shows the history of the nations of this world shaping now in such a strange way, such a fascinating way to those who are watching with eyes opened. And yet the world does not see it, the world is blind to the whole thing as to its meaning, and it blunders on in its blindness and darkness, not seeing the drift of things. Do you not know that the present history of Russia is in the Bible? That the present history of Palestine is in the Bible? It is all here. It has been there for centuries. The world is blind to the whole thing.
The present economic conditions are all foretold in the Bible. The condition at the end is gathered up into one statement by the Lord Jesus, which we have already quoted in these chapters, and I ask you, if you have intelligence to judge for yourself as to whether it is true, on the one side at any rate. The Lord Jesus said that at the end there would be wars, rumours of wars, earthquakes in various and manifold places, famines and so on, and distress of nations. Not distress of a nation but distress of nations; and that word 'distress' in the Greek means the nations pent up with no way out, shut up with no way out. The Greek word has a link in its root with commerce, the root is the same root as our word emporium, which is to do with business, and the full Greek word there with its root means 'business shut up for the nations and no way out'. Well, was it ever like that as it is today? But He said to His own, 'When you see it like that, lift up your heads for your way out is at hand.' That is, the heavenly way out. That has a lot to do with what we are saying about an opened heaven for the child of God, with the nations shut up with no way out. The world does not see the meaning of the present economic condition. The world does not understand the meaning of the present movement of the nations, but it is all here. "The god of this age hath blinded" - blinded, and "if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled in them that are perishing; in whom the god of this age hath blinded the minds" (2 Cor. 4:3,4).
Now, I can see a very great deal more to illustrate this truth and to bring it home as a fact, but I think that is enough. But why am I saying this to you? It is just to bring the whole force and weight of all that down upon one immediate issue, upon one point of application. It is this. That if you or I are in any way or in any measure linked voluntarily in spirit with the kingdom of this world as we have defined it, we come under the blinding and binding work of the god of this age to deprive us of our full life in Christ.
Now, there are many things which in themselves are not evil; in themselves they may be beautiful things, but they are in the hands of the god of this age, and while in themselves they are not evil, they are used to evil purpose. I refer to music. Music itself is not an evil thing; I mean good music. I am not talking about the hellish ragtimes of our days which undoubtedly were born in the pit and have the very rat-tat of the devil in them. There is nothing too strong to say about that sort of thing. It breathes the atmosphere of the adversary in the sense that it creates an atmosphere that is not clean and leads to things that are unholy. I am speaking about good music in which there is nothing evil as to itself; but more children of God have been kept from the fulness of Christ and the entirety of the heavenly life by good music than perhaps you or I would like to know of. It is in the hands of the god of this age and by it, he like a Siren, entices them from going all the way with the Lord. Their argument is, 'It is beautiful, it is elevating, there is nothing wrong with it.' Yes, but in whose hands is it?
I ask any of you who may be dabbling, dilly-dallying, is that thing a check upon your being wholly and utterly out for God in His heavenly business? And if you are honest you will say: 'Yes'. If you are to be found on full stretch for the kingdom of heaven, gathering with the Lord's people as often as it is possible for you to gather according to His Word: "...so much the more as ye see the day approaching" (Heb. 10:25, AV), if your whole heart is to be poured out for the salvation of souls and for all the spiritual interests of your Lord, you know quite well that that will have to go, which means in the inference that that is a dividing thing. This is the thing which is hindering your allegiance to the Lord Jesus. There is nothing wrong in the thing, but it is in the hands of one who has captured beautiful things in order to capture the heart from Christ, and by that very thing (you cannot see it, but blind people never can see) you are blinded and held in bondage to the world.
What is true of music is true of literature. There may be nothing wrong with literature, nothing wrong with a Shakespearian play reading sometimes (although there might be questionable bits that might be morally harmful and not altogether very elevating) but the thing has been taken hold of by the god of this age, and now in order to rightly appreciate the thing in the book, you go and see it performed! And having gone to see it performed the fascination of the thing has fallen upon you, and you will see something else performed. And the world has drawn its power over you by a beautiful thing in itself, but there is one who is holding that beautiful thing to draw you away from Christ.
The same may be said of art. No evil in it itself, but who owns it, who uses it, who has control of it? I thank God the day is coming when in the kingdom of God, when this world shall have passed away, this sort of thing, this system shall have been for ever destroyed and the god of it for ever perished, when music will be without a danger, and all the beautiful things will be released to be enjoyed without any fear of a snare or a trap; but while we are here we must not be of this world. If so, we are in captivity to the devil and we are blinded as to the greatness and fulness of Christ.
It is thus that this world is in the evil one. It is quite true what the apostle said, and it was not the apostle, it was the Spirit of God through the apostle. One of the phases of the education of the child of God is learning to discern between a thing which looks alright, but has behind it a snare of the enemy, and to avoid it. Spiritual discernment works in that realm, but that is a faculty of a child of God which has got to be developed, and as you go on with the Lord in the Spirit, you come to the place where what you could do as a spiritual novice, you can do no longer. You find one time you could say certain things and there was no hit back at you, but now you find a check in your spirit; the Holy Spirit is making you know how to differentiate.
But I will not pursue that line any longer. My emphasis and appeal to you is, the Lord has called us to a life in relation to Himself, as a heavenly life here in this world, with a heavenly Christ filling our hearts, and everything of heaven for us, but we frustrate and limit that when we have any kind of spiritual link with this world. Remember that. And it is in this sense that the Word of God says: "Whosoever therefore would be a friend of the world maketh himself an enemy of God" (James 4:4). How? An enemy of God? Yes, that was written to Christians not to the unsaved. He between whom and the world there is any sympathy in fellowship, in friendship, between him and God there is enmity. Why? Oh, for this reason beloved, that cross cost God everything. That cross cost God His Son, the Son of His love. That cross represented the breaking of God's heart, and that cross transpired to save you and me from this world. And when we cling to this world we are opposed to the very meaning of the Cross of the Lord Jesus and opposed to the very purpose and suffering of God's heart in that cross. And if that is not an adequate motive for quitting, for breaking, there is no other greater motive than that.
Can you, can I, bear to think of ourselves being at enmity with God? Can we think of ourselves denying the Lord that bought us? Can we for one moment entertain the idea that we are opposed to Calvary? Or that we are out of sympathy with all the tragedy and heartbreak and sorrow of God's only begotten and well-beloved Son? We are that if we are in fellowship with the world. To be in fellowship with God means by the Cross of the Lord Jesus being crucified to the world, and the world to us. And oh, that leads on to the fulness of Christ. That is the issue.
May the Lord deliver us from our blindness. May the Lord deliver us from our bondage and bring us out into the place of emancipation: an opened heaven, full fellowship with Himself, the world for ever behind our backs, going on in the light with Him for His Name's sake.