The Gospel of God Concerning His Son Jesus Christ Our Lord

by T. Austin-Sparks

Chapter 4 - The Making of a Man

Reading: Luke 9:26-36; Rom. 8:29; 1 John 3:2; Heb. 2:5-9; Eph. 4:13.

In this meditation, we are linking together several of the things which have already been referred to in previous meditations. We have been occupied with the matter of sonship in relation to the gospel of God concerning His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, and with the calling - called into the fellowship of His Son and called according to purpose. One of our passages was Phil. 3:14: "I press towards the prize of the on-high calling of God." Now very largely it will be a linking of those two things together.

While it is quite clear that the Lord is seeking to draw our thoughts away from earth, from time, from the things which are seen and which are temporal, to the great revelation and unveiling of the eternal purpose concerning His Son with which and into which we are called - carrying great vistas of vision altogether beyond human speech and expression - we can only get impressions and impacts upon our hearts; a sense of things to elevate, to uplift, to stimulate, to woo us and wean us from things here.

I do want to seek, by the Lord's help, to put things as simply as possible for the sake especially of younger children of God. I am well aware that what we have to say now is difficult to understand, but I do want to say this to you at the outset, that it is not just true teaching, doctrine, ideas, things studied and thought about, which are being brought to you. You will suffer this very brief personal reference, that this ministry would have been totally impossible but for some very definite and special coming in of the Lord. I do not remember such a difficult spiritual time as I personally have been passing through in these recent months, and as things have headed up, the issue for me was this (and it was quite clear-cut): either no message at all, or some fresh breaking in of the Lord in revelation of His Son. And I can assure you that I would not be speaking now if it had not been the latter.

Well now, let us come to what is before us and the thoughts which lie within the Scriptures which we have read.

You might introduce the matter in this way, asking the question: what is the Lord doing with us? Supposing you had a son, a boy at school, and that boy came to you one day very troubled, very distressed, and obviously under some burden of compulsion, and poured out his heart to you. "I am having a difficult time at school; everything seems to be hard. I am made to do a lot of things that I don't like, things that I find it very difficult to do and there seems to be very little consideration for me and of how I feel, and what I would like and what I don't like. All the time I am having to do things that go against the grain, things that are not pleasant", and so on. What would you say to your son?

Now, you might say, "Well, I am awfully sorry for you, my boy. I will write and have it all put straight. I will tell them that they must not do that sort of thing, that they must give you a great deal more consideration and let you have your own way and make things quite easy." If you were very unwise, that is what you would do.

If you were wise, in all sympathy you would say something like this. "Look here, my boy, you are in the making. You will not always be a boy, you have got to grow up, and what they are trying to do there is to make a man of you, and all that is going to make a man of you." That is how you would tackle the thing, and that is the answer.

What is God doing with us? He is trying to make a Man of us. He is making a Man of us, "foreordained to be conformed to the image of His Son". "When He shall be manifested, we shall be like Him" (1 John 3:2). "What is man, that thou makest mention (art mindful) of him?" (Heb. 2:6). Now 'man' is the keyword, and man is the key to the kingdom of God.

You see Luke 9. May I emphasise to my younger friends the value of having a knowledge of the Word of God just for the sake of the knowledge of the Word of God! I will never cease to thank God for those years in which I studied the Word of God as a book and got a thorough foundation in the knowledge simply of the content of the books of the Bible without any revelation at all. God is building on that foundation now with revelation, and when you strike that note - Man - your knowledge of the Word of God will at once tell you that Luke is the gospel concerning the Son of Man and man is the symbol of that gospel. And you will find other books, to which we will turn presently, in that connection. Luke brings in man, Hebrews brings in man, Ezekiel brings in man. The key to Ezekiel is: "son of man", it is all about man. That is the note which runs through Ezekiel. I mention that as an aside to show the value of knowing the Bible.

Here you come to Luke 9. What comes up in Luke 9? The kingdom of God. "There are some of them that stand here, who shall in no wise taste of death, till they see the kingdom of God" (Luke 9:27). Now, in connection with that, there is this. "The Son of Man... comes in His own glory, and the glory of the Father, and of the holy angels" (v.26). The kingdom of God, the Son of Man, His glory, the glory of God, the glory of the holy angels. That is all one thing in essence - the kingdom.

In connection with that kingdom of God, that manifestation of Christ in glory, they are taken up into the mount. He is transfigured before them. The Son of Man is transfigured before them and you see the Son of Man in His glory. Then two men appear. Now, we know Bible numbers well enough to know that two is the number of testimony. Two men accompanying the Son of Man. They are witnesses speaking of His exodus which He is about to accomplish at Jerusalem.

The kingdom of God - what is it? When it comes in in manifestation, it will see the Man at the centre in glory, His own glory as the glory of the Son of Man, the glory of God which is the other side of His glory, the glory of the Son of God. And then it will see man also in glory. What will be happening? Man will be there in an administrative capacity in fellowship with the Man in relation to the outworking of the purposes of God. There are great things to be accomplished. In this instance there was the exodus to be accomplished, a part of the great redemptive programme of God to be accomplished, and they are there with Him in glory in relation to the accomplishment of God's purpose in that respect. But the purpose of God goes on and on beyond time, but the same principles go on with it - Christ in glory at the centre and man with Him in glory for the accomplishment of divine purposes. This is what Paul saw and meant by "the on-high calling".

Note that the apostle writing the letter to the Hebrews first of all deals with that question of man. "What is man that thou makest mention of him?" "Jesus... crowned with glory and honour", and then a little way afterwards he says: "Wherefore, holy brethren, partakers of a heavenly calling", carrying you back to Romans, "that He might be the firstborn among many brethren". "Wherefore, holy brethren, partners in a heavenly calling", the on-high calling. What is the on-high calling, the calling on-high? Well, it is this: Jesus glorified, all things summed up in Him, man according to God's heart, conformed to His image in administrative fellowship with Him. That is the on-high calling. What is the eternal purpose? It is that.

Man is an idea, a divine idea. I do want you to grasp this. I do not know a word that is most suitable. If I say 'man is a principle', you will not understand, and I am quite sure that when I say 'man is an idea', you do not grasp what I mean. Man is a conception of God, something which has been formed in the divine mind as a method of accomplishing something. When we speak of man, we are not simply thinking of men, but man. You see, the incarnation of the Lord Jesus is the heart of the divine meaning of man, and when God conceived of man - may I put it this way? - when God had the idea of man, that idea, man, was for God a method and a means for the expressing of Himself and the realization of His purposes. But the man that was in God's thought, the man conceived by God, was a man not as we know him, but as we see him on the Mount of Transfiguration, as we see him crowned with glory and honour, as intimated in this, "What is man, that thou makest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things under his feet" - man according to God's thought.

We are not that man, but God is working with us and in us, if we are the born-again children of God, to make a Man of us, not men of us, but a Man, "Till we all come to the unity of faith, to the measure of the stature of a full-grown man". And that full-grown corporate Man, the Christ in relation to which He is Head, that Man joined thus organically with Christ, is to be there in the place of the administration of this universe in relation to the purpose of God throughout the ages of the ages.

At present, our thought is concerning man. You turn back to that great book of prophecies to which we have referred, Ezekiel, where man is so much in evidence, and you get some foreshadowing in a particular and peculiar connection. In the first chapter, you remember, you have a man. "And above the firmament that was over their heads was the likeness of a throne, as the appearance of a sapphire stone; and upon the likeness of the throne was a likeness as the appearance of a man upon it above" (Ezek. 1:26). That is the throne, and you note that this is the opening of the prophecy, the opening of the book of visions. And this book is going to deal with administration, government, and so the government is seen right at the beginning to be in relation to, or in the hands of, a man above the throne. Any other language, we would think, would have been more suitable than this, but the Holy Spirit is writing this book, and here the word 'man' is not even written with a capital letter. I do not mean by that that it is not the Man, but the book is written on a principle, and the principle is man, so that all the government that is going to take place and the administration, is linked with a man above the throne upon it. That is an eternal idea, an eternal conception. Man, yes Man, but more than the Man - the many brethren joined with the Firstborn.

When you pass from there to Ezekiel 9, you have something else. "And the glory of the God of Israel was gone up from the cherub, whereupon it was, to the threshold of the house: and he called to the man clothed in linen, who had the writer's inkhorn by his side. And Jehovah said unto him, Go through the midst of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem, and set a mark upon the foreheads of the men that sigh and that cry over all the abominations that are done in the midst thereof... slay utterly the old man, the young man and the virgin, and little children and women; but come not near any man upon whom is the mark: and begin at my sanctuary" (Ezek. 9:3-4,6).

At once there leaps into your mind 1 Pet. 4:17: "Judgment must begin at the house of God." Here is something that is being done in administration, and that administration is in the hands of a man. It is the man principle. We will see in a moment what that is.

We pass on to Ezekiel 40, and here we have another reference. "And he brought me thither; and, behold, there was a man, whose appearance was like the appearance of brass, with a line of flax in his hand, and a measuring reed; and he stood in the gate. And the man said unto me, Son of man, behold with thine eyes, and hear with thine ears, and set thy heart upon all that I shall show thee" (Ezek. 40:3-4).

"And the Spirit took me up, and brought me into the inner court; and, behold, the glory of Jehovah filled the house. And I heard one speaking unto me out of the house; and a man stood by me. And he said unto me, Son of man, this is the place of my throne, and the place of the soles of my feet, where I will dwell in the midst of the children of Israel for ever" (Ezek. 43:5-7).

Now you notice one thing: a man in each case, and it is administration by man. What is the meaning of this? If man is the principle there, it is clearly this, that everything in the administration of God in relation to His kingdom is according to the measure of a man. Man is God's measure, God's standard, God's rule, but it is a heavenly Man every time. It is as though God had brought out a heavenly Man and said as to everything in relation to His purposes, 'This is My standard, this is My measure!' If there is a measuring up to this Man, if there is conformity to this Man, if this Man can take account of that which is according to Himself, according to God, then that is secured, preserved, watched over. But where there is that which is not according to God's thought, God's heavenly Man, then mark that down for destruction, that must go. It is the Man in the throne in the place of government.

Then the man with the inkhorn. Where is that in Jerusalem which has heart concern for the Lord's interests, that is according to Christ? Mark it out, preserve it. Where you cannot find that, destroy utterly. It is the standard, the measure, of a Man.

Then the man with the measuring-line of flax and the reed, and his "appearance is like unto brass". Here is the man whose figure is the measure of divine righteousness. Go through, go through the house, the city, and find all that is according to the Man who is made to us righteousness from God. Measure up and see how much there is that corresponds to that, and it is administration in relation to the Man who is altogether the righteousness of God. We are keeping very close to Romans, if you can read behind what I am saying. You know all about the righteousness which is by faith, the righteousness of God in Christ, the standard of judgment.

And then you go on and you have the place of God's glory. "This is the place of My glory, the place of My feet where I will dwell", and it is a Man standing by who is declaring it, proclaiming it, speaking about the glory, and still governing, administrating, in relation to the place of the glory. We have come up to the Mount of Transfiguration in principle. The glory is according to the Man being after God's own heart, "This is My Son, My chosen" - therefore the glory can be there, where God can say that as to a Man, the Son of Man. It is the measure of Christ. So, Ephesians has to do with the measure of the stature of a full-grown man. God is seeking to make a Man of us.

Now, this Ezekiel revelation has to do with one aspect of the kingdom. You know it has to do with Israel, and Ezekiel has the Israel kingdom in view, what we call the millennial kingdom. It is only one aspect of the kingdom, but it is a glorious aspect, though only a shadow of what the church is called to. So here in Ezekiel you have the millennial kingdom in view, but in the millennial kingdom, what is the centre, the seat and the principle of government? It is that God has a Man, not only the Man, but the corporate Man. The church will go before the millennium, at least I believe that. The church will be in glory before the millennium, and the church will be in Christ in administration throughout the millennium. That will be an aspect of His kingdom and glory, but the government will be with the Man, the corporate Man, Christ and His members, the one new Man in glory. The millennium will take its character from that.

Judgment will begin at the House of God. What is not righteous will be dealt with by a rod of iron. The glory manifested will be because God has got a Man glorified, through whom - shall I say, through which - the glory will be radiated. That is the "on-high calling" for us.

Of course, there is the greater aspect of the kingdom, that of which we have spoken as the Ephesian aspect, that is the kingdom of the fulness of the times, when He sums up all things in Christ, not only things on earth as in the millennial kingdom, but things in heaven and things on earth, the universal kingdom of the Son of His love. But it is still the same principle for administration and glory; it is Man. In the greater universal kingdom, the centre of administration will be this full-grown Man, this fulness of the measure of the stature of the Man, Christ Jesus. Unto that we are called.

It is always important to be able to discriminate in Scripture between these two lines. Let us remember that the letter to the Hebrews has primarily the former of these two in view: the millennial kingdom, that coming age, that "inhabited earth to come whereof we are speaking". That is the millennial kingdom, and it is written to Hebrew believers, so Hebrews brings in the millennial kingdom, but right at the heart it has man. "What is man...". Ephesians has the other side in view, the universal kingdom with all things in every realm put under the feet of the Lord Jesus and finally so, not for a thousand years, but for ever unto the ages of the ages. The ages of the ages - yes, still stages, still methods of administration, but the one principle in the millennial kingdom and in the kingdom of the fulness of the times. It is the church. Israel, the church; Hebrews, Ephesians. But the on-high calling means that you and I are for both the millennial kingdom and the kingdom of the fulness of the times. For both, God's principle is one: "Called unto His eternal glory".

There is one thing I want to say before I sum up. This Man is a resurrection man. It is very important that we should see the significance of that - a resurrection man. That is not just that he has been resurrected. That is not the point. It is not just that he has been raised from the dead. A great many will be raised from the dead who will not be that Man. But this Man is a resurrection Man in the peculiar sense that he knows in his experience the power of His resurrection. Now that brings you to Philippians 3 and to Ephesians 1.

Paul cries in Philippians 3: "that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection". This is a man speaking at the end of his life here on earth, and not speaking in relation to the general resurrection, even of believers. "If by any means I may attain unto the out-resurrection from among the dead". And then Ephesians, "the eyes of your heart being enlightened that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what the riches of His inheritance in the saints, and what the exceeding greatness of His power to us-ward who believe, according to that working of the strength of His might which He wrought in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead, and set Him at His own right hand..." (mark you) "far above all rule, authority, principalities" - universal pre-eminence through resurrection. Now the apostle is praying for Christians that they might know that power in experience, not only to get them as reanimated from the dead, not just as resurrected, but right through to the place of the eternal purpose.

And here in Ephesians 1 it is resurrection as power for the realization of God's eternal purpose, because in that letter the eternal purpose is the end. "Working all things after the counsel of His own will". "The purpose of Him who works all things after the counsel of His own will". How is that purpose to be realized? How shall the church come to that place of glory and administration? How shall that Man come to fulness, the fulness of Christ? How? The power of His resurrection. It is the working power of resurrection that does it. It is something to go on in us, continually increasing the measure of Christ. Every new assault of death to bring us down, to break us, weaken us, empty us, apparently lay us low and helpless, is in order to make room for some increase of Christ by resurrection influx and energy. That is how God is making a Man. The power of His resurrection!

In Philippians 3 the power of His resurrection is in relation to the on-high calling. The calling from on-high, "that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection" and in order that that may be, I must know the "fellowship of His sufferings being made conformable to His death". This Man that is going to occupy that place, this corporate Man in glory and in administration, is the Man who is knowing the power of His resurrection now, for that power alone, the exceeding greatness of God's power as put forth in the resurrection of Jesus Christ from among the dead to the far-above-all position, that exceeding great power alone can accomplish this end and reach this purpose.

This is not just teaching the Bible, if I may put it that way. It is not just doctrine. This is the calling from on-high to us. Today God is seeking to call us to recognize what we are saved for, what it is that He is seeking to do in us, why He calls men into the fellowship of His Son. It is a tremendous thing, and we are getting very near to the day when He shall be manifested, near to the end, the great change-over. So I take it that this word is a word from the Lord to remind us that in the midst of everything that is taking place here, we may very soon find big changes and find that all that we have here on this earth even in relation to the Lord - gatherings, fellowship and ministry - is no longer possible. We may find ourselves very soon flung right out onto God, right out from this earth and things here, and then the question will arise, 'What is the use of anything?' Everything gone! We shall be with Paul in his Roman prison receiving news that all those churches in Asia, for which he had spent his life, have left him and have no more place for him. He is receiving news of things going wrong here and there, everything breaking down, everything on the earth going to pieces. Now, we may not get that sort of news but it may be that, before very long, what we shall see is that the outward form of God's work here on the earth is breaking to pieces.

You have only got to go to China at this hour and ask many of the Lord's servants who have spent their lives there, given themselves to their last drop for the Lord in China, and they see their work broken to pieces. That is, the outward form of it. Converts and believers scattered, their stations destroyed, they themselves having to hide and to flee, no longer able to do anything. Now is the test. What have you got? What is it all for? What is the value of it? Ask Paul in his prison, "Well, Paul, you have given yourself for long years unsparingly and now it has all gone to pieces, nothing to show for it!" What will be his answer? He will write the letter to the Philippians, "In the heavens, the eternal purpose; this is the thing that governs. It is the measure of Christ that matters, that is the eternal thing; that is the purpose of God. It is not what I have to show here, but it is the measure of Christ. It is the measure of conformity to the image of God's Son. It is what I know of the Lord".

It is possible that the time will come, even in our lives, when gatherings of the Lord's people will be impossible and all we have here of helpfulness will be no longer available, and then we shall be entirely at the mercy of what we inwardly know of the Lord. And if we have not much of that, we are going to be carried away. All hope is going, we are going to view everything as a disaster, everything has failed. It is all failure, all disappointment, what is the use? Ah, no beloved, it is beyond this, and if that is true in what we would call a state of emergency, a state of national emergency, is not the principle the same now? I mean that, even while we have got all this, is not the real principle that which represents the measure of Christ? As God looks upon it, it is not what is here in the things on the earth, it is the measure of Christ.

His heavenly Man is always before Him as the standard rule. He is always judging in His sanctuary as to what is according to Christ. That is the only thing because it is that which is registered in heaven; it is that which is going to be reproduced in the ages to come in an administrative way. We are called thus with this great calling to be glorified together with Him for a great heavenly vocation, the calling from on-high.

To realize that vocation, it is necessary for us to have spiritual experience by which that which is of this man, this man that can never be glorified, is put away; more and more put away, and the Man who is glorified and can be glorified, comes in and takes the place of the old man. So it is increase in the measure of Christ that counts. God is working through discipline and chastening, through all our spiritual history, if we will let Him, to make a Man of us, but what a Man and for what a purpose! May He strengthen our hearts to go right through with Him.