The Altar and the Name

by T. Austin-Sparks

Chapter 7 - The Name Above All

Seeing that this is the continuation of what we were occupied with this morning, I will just give you the passages of Scripture which are basic to this consideration in the letter to the Philippians chapter 2, and the abbreviation of verses 8 and 9 in this way: "The cross... wherefore... the name". And the other is in the letter to the Ephesians 1:20: "He raised Him from the dead... and made Him to sit far above... every name that is named". "He raised Him far above every name".

Very hurriedly I take you over the ground of this morning, reminding you how these two things are seen linked together throughout the whole Bible, both Old and New Testaments. In the Old it is the altar and the Name. In the New, it is that which the altar symbolizes: the Cross, and the Name, the Name being the sum total of the meaning of the Cross. We pointed out that the book of the Acts, with all that it contains, stands upon the ground of the Cross, and that being so, the characteristic of that book is the Name thirty-three times mentioned. We further pointed out that in the New Testament everything is in the Name. There was a commanding and exhorting to believe into the Name of the Lord Jesus, to be baptized into the Name. The meeting together was in the Name. "Where two or three are gathered together in My name, there am I in the midst of them" (Matt. 18:20). The praying was in the Name, preaching and teaching was in the Name, the mighty works were in the Name, and always and ever with tremendous effect, never without something happening, which clearly indicates that it is not just the using of a phrase 'in the Name', the employing of some kind of formula. There was something behind it, there was something in the Name, and that something was the mighty, comprehensive meaning of the Cross.

We went on then to point out how necessary it is for us, if there is to be any recovery of the power of that Name in the life of the Christian and in the church of God, it is necessary to have an understanding of the meaning of the Cross, because, we repeat, the Name is the embodiment of the meaning of the Cross. At that point we proceeded to point out that, after those aspects of the Cross which have to do with the sinner's salvation, forgiveness, justification and new birth, the great thing which was taken up in the church in the Name because of the Cross was this - the overthrow of an entire kingdom and its prince, the prince of this world, and therefore the kingdom of this world and what that means: that whole spiritual realm and system and order governed by Satan. In the Cross our Lord Jesus overthrew that kingdom and overthrew that prince, the prince of this world.

I am not going to proceed with all the details which we have looked at in that connection, but that is the thing upon which the book of the Acts rests. When you take up that book again and read the history of the power, the mighty power in operation in those first days, remember that that power, that effectiveness, was because those concerned, the believers, the Church, had taken into themselves in a very real way the meaning and value of the Cross of the Lord Jesus in that sense.

Why could they meet the world as they did? Men who had been cowed and full of fear before the world up to the time of the Cross, men who were paralysed before the world, the foremost of them by lies and deceit seeking to escape the consequences of being recognized as associated with this One, Jesus of Nazareth, why could those men and many more with them, all of whom had been scattered and had fled for their very lives in fear before, now face the world and face it with such boldness that those rulers of whom they were so afraid before, have to give way before them? They are bold, they stand up to it and go right on. Why? Because by His Cross He had overcome the world and the prince thereof, and they had entered into the good of that in a very real way. They use the Name now, not in shame, not in fear, not afraid of what might result, they gloried in the Name and everywhere let it be known that that was their glorying, everything was being done in the Name, everything in the Name. Oh, what a change, what a transformation! The value of His victory over that world and its prince had entered into them. That was the meaning of the Name for them. That Name embodied a tremendous victory, and that victory was not just objective to them. It had its counterpart in them, something had happened in them that had happened in the Cross. Well, that is the great first thing where Christians are concerned who have come into all the atoning, justifying values of that Cross.

The Absolute Sovereignty of the Holy Spirit

I am going on now to the next thing, for our time is precious. The Name signified the establishment of heavenly authority vested in Christ, mediated to and through the church by the Holy Spirit. May I repeat that? The Name signified the establishment of heavenly authority vested in Christ, mediated by the Holy Spirit.

The book of the Acts is the book of the absolute sovereignty of the Holy Spirit, so absolute that nothing whatever was left to man to originate or enunciate, nothing was left to man. The Holy Spirit took the authority that had been vested in Christ in heaven and on earth according to Christ's own words, the Holy Spirit took that authority into His hands to mediate it to and through the Church, and He was very jealous over that authority, over His prerogative and custodianship, exceedingly jealous about it. Violate that sovereignty in those days, and you had to meet the authority of Jesus Christ, the supreme authority in heaven and in earth, you had to reckon with that. Stand with the Holy Spirit in that authority, and see what happens. You have got all heaven behind you and on your side. The supreme throne is at your back.

I repeat, nothing was left to man then. The Holy Spirit jealously kept things in His hands, and let it be known that it was a very, very bad thing for anybody not to acknowledge that sovereignty of the Holy Spirit. To be filled with the Spirit was the absolute essential in that new order. It is the essential in that order, in that realm, it is not optional, it is not something of an extra to the Christian life later on. It is something right there at the beginning of the Church's life. For all ministry and functioning and choice for service, the basic, indispensable essential was that they were men full of the Holy Ghost; no less the deacons than the apostles.

In the Old Testament, when the Lord spoke about where He would meet men, and where men would find Him, He very particularly said that it would not be man's prerogative to decide that. He would not allow anybody, not even His own people and His own servants, to decide where He would meet with men, or where they would meet with Him. In the book of Deuteronomy we have this prescription for meeting with God very fully established. In that book in this very connection - 'Where I put My Name and where I meet with people' - is gathered into one word which is reiterated seventeen times in the course of two or three chapters, and that word is "choose" - "The place that I shall choose, the place that I shall choose to put My Name there, to meet with you, the place that I shall choose" (Deut. 12), seventeen times in that immediate connection of where God would meet men, and where they would meet Him. 'Where I choose', says the Lord.

And then, on the other hand, He said, "Not in every place, but the place which I shall choose". That contains this New Testament principle, that the sovereignty is kept in the hands of the Lord, and it is only where and when we are under the government of the Spirit of God that we shall find the Lord there. The Spirit of the Lord brings the Name of the Lord, and if you are not where the Spirit of the Lord is, you are not in the Name and therefore you do not meet the Lord. You just cannot go anywhere you like and say you are going to meet the Lord. The thing is, is the Lord there? Has He chosen to meet you there? Are you in the Spirit in being there?

Now you can see in the book of the Acts that the Holy Spirit was jealous on that matter. There were times when even the great apostles thought of moving in certain directions, and the Spirit of Jesus suffered them not (Acts 16:7). If they had forced their way through there, they would have left the Lord behind, and well, we do not know what would have happened, anything could have happened; the Lord not going with them and they not finding the Lord there. And there are few more terrible things than that, to venture out and find that the Lord is not with you in your venture. It is a matter not only of place, but of time. The point is whether it is place or time, whatever it is, the Holy Spirit is in charge of this matter, and He is the One who is to choose. It is the all-governing principle of the sovereign government of the Holy Spirit. It is God's choice, not ours, it is the Holy Spirit deciding, not we.

God's ground is Christ and Christ crucified. In other words, God's ground is the Cross. So in the Old Testament here and there, and there where God chose, they built an altar, they marked it with an altar. It was the principle of the Cross, as the basis upon which God met with men. Well, the ground is Christ crucified in all the meaning of the Cross.

That is the church where that is, and there is no church according to the New Testament anywhere else, on any other ground. That calls for a good deal of reconsideration and reconstruction. However, let us get on.

Christ in Heaven

The point is, Christ is in heaven. Right through this age, this dispensation, Christ is in heaven. We cannot make an earthly Christ. He has taken His place in heaven, and with its own significance He has sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high. I know in other connections He is seen standing there, but He is also sitting down at the right hand. In that sense, it means that He is not going to move from that. That is where He is, and for the whole dispensation until He comes again, He is there. Christ is in heaven.

We have got to get off the ground of this earth. Not only has the world in its spiritual nature and system to be taken out of us, but we have got to be taken out of it. We have got to realize that the Cross means that some tremendous thing has been done in us which has entirely cut us free from this world, its spirit, its system, and everything that belongs to it, religiously as well as otherwise. Something has happened. It has happened if you are going on with the Lord in the Spirit, because it is the Spirit who holds this reality, this truth, and if you and I are going on in the Spirit, we are going to wake up to this, and we are going to realize this more and more and evermore, that something has happened, that we are not in that which is related to this earth, even in a religious way, even in a 'Christian' way. Something has happened. They took their stand, they came under the sovereign government of the Holy Spirit, but it would seem for a little while that they were not fully alive to what had happened, but the thing worked and worked and worked in them until they realized that, whether it was a deliberate step or whether it was a secret working and operation in their hearts, why, they are out of this whole thing! It is something that belongs to another world, they are not in it. That is what happened, and the Holy Spirit pressed that and pressed that.

I am not going to dwell on that for the moment and follow that through, but I do want to get this principle clear to you. What it amounts to is this, that the Cross is a super-earthly thing, and for the Cross to come into effect in the life of a child of God or in the life of the church of God, means that that life or that church is made a super-earthly thing. It is an elevation. The Cross is on an elevation above the earth. It was, literally, geographically, but that is significant spiritually. It is something that brings you out of this earth, this world, in a spiritual way. The Cross means that: an extrication from a whole realm, and it makes us, as I have said, a super-earthly people.

Discord on Earth, Concord in Heaven

Now I do want you to follow me very closely, because some of the things that are going to be said are of tremendous importance. If all of us here this afternoon have any concern for spiritual power and spiritual fulness, those spiritual fulnesses of which we have spoken earlier: spiritual wealth and riches, spiritual food in abundance, spiritual life and spiritual power and spiritual victory, if you have any concern for these things, summing them all up in the phrase 'the fulness of Christ', you will listen closely to what I am going to say from this point.

This earth is the place of strife and discord, and until the Lord Jesus takes in hand as a dispensational change and movement to bring to an end this present world order and establish universally His own heavenly kingdom, this earth will never know peace. That may be a platitude or sound like a platitude, but let it be recognized with every effort of man to get peace, that failure is certain. It always has been. Wars to end war are not known in the history of this world. This earth is the place of strife and discord because that is the fruit of a curse and it is therefore under a curse, and can never get out of it until that time of which Paul speaks in his letter to the Romans when the creation itself shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption (Romans 8:21).

The Cross severs from this earth. "In the world ye have tribulation... in Me ye have peace" (John 16:33). 'You are not of the world'. Touch this earth, and you touch discord. All discord and strife belongs to the earth. The book of the Acts is a wonderful story, such a ceasing of strife amongst those there, such a wonderful harmony where there had been discord. You need not that I take you back to the "Gospels", as they are called, to show you the discords between the very twelve themselves, and the strife that went on between them, the quarrelsomeness, the rivalries and the jealousies. Why, the Lord Jesus could hardly look in a certain direction without someone else being jealous in that little circle. Jealousy, rivalries, strife. But oh, look now, the very first movement after the descent of the Spirit was Peter standing up with the eleven (Acts 1:14). No jealousies now, no discord now. They are all speaking the same thing, they are all thinking the same thing, they are all poised in the same direction. There is a wonderful fellowship.

And what was true of them then was true of the Church, was it not? No one was thinking about himself or his own things, but all for the others. It is wonderful. Think of that in this world. Ah, but it was not in this world. It was out of this world while they were here. The Cross had done it, and that is the value of the Name. You cannot use that phrase 'in the Name of Jesus' in reality, and then be at cross-purposes with other children of God. It is a contradiction. That is a denial of the Name. Discord and strife - they are outside of the Name, they are outside of the Cross. And so what is the good, oh, what is the good, of Christians going here or there, as they suppose in the Name of Jesus, to do a piece of work, and then they are all at cross-purposes amongst themselves, nothing happens except that the devil laughs and takes away all the spoil. You see, an essential to effectiveness anywhere is this absolute victory of the Cross over this earth in this sense, that this earth is the place of strife and discord and never will be anything else until the Lord fills it with Himself.

Heaven will be a wonderful time, whatever place it is, it will be a wonderful time. This world, this earth, can never know peace. War will continue and strife go on, and these are the marks of this earth and, well, what are we to conclude when we see a church riven, torn, at strife with itself, all in discord, disharmony... what are we to conclude? The church has come down to earth, that is all. It has come out of the place where the Cross put it at the beginning. The enemy has scored a master-stroke in bringing what is called the church down into touch with this earth.

You are not thinking that I am talking about the earth as a material, a geographical thing. I am talking about this earth in a spiritual sense. We are here until the Lord takes us out physically, but we ought not to be here inside, in spirit. The earth can never know unity. From the day that the prince of this world gained an acknowledgment as such in the place of the Lord, from that day, from that hour, disunity entered into this whole creation. The creation, the earth, is shot through and through with disunity. Its cohesion, its oneness, its solidity, has been destroyed, and that has gone on more and more, more and more, and we find the whole race as it is today as the result of God's reaction to man's acceptance of the prince of this world.

The Church a Heavenly Body

What does this mean in practical ways? Well, I hope that what I have been saying is practical. I think it is supremely practical. It is a very practical test of how far the Cross has done its work in us. But let us press this. This letter to the Ephesians, for instance, as the great and outstanding instance, has the church in view, and its view of the church is that it is a heavenly body. The church begins its career in the heavenlies. It is seated together with Christ in the heavenlies. It begins there spiritually, in its greatest reality, its history starts in heaven, and goes on in heaven, and this letter views the church as a heavenly body, a super-earthly body. The wonderful thing that comes in right at the beginning with that, right at the beginning of this letter with that view of the Church, is this, "Has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies in Christ" (1:3). Are you concerned with spiritual fulness? Does that phrase make any appeal to you? "Every spiritual blessing". Does your heart respond to that? Well, you see, the letter makes it perfectly clear that every spiritual blessing is for the church in the heavenlies, and if the church is not enjoying that fulness of every spiritual blessing, wealth and riches and food and everything else, it must be that the church has lost its place, has come out of its place. It must be that it has come down to earth, for all spiritual blessings have been given to it in Christ in the heavenlies. Ephesians sees then, fulness for the church when the church is in its right place; that is, in the heavenlies.

The Cross the Answer to Wrong Relationships

When you pass over to the Philippian letter, the same principle is applied to personal relationships in the Church. Personal relationships in the church are in view here. Certain individuals have got across one another in the church, the local church. They are out of harmony. What is the remedy? How is the thing to be met? Jesus came from glory here and went back again and He is there in virtue of what He came to do; that is, His Cross - the death on the Cross, wherefore highly exalted, and the Name. The answer to personal difficulties is the Cross, the Cross mediated by the Holy Spirit from the exalted Lord. That deals with these things. In other words, whoever it may be, whether it be Euodia or Syntyche, as mentioned, or anybody else, the answer is - get off the earth. You have got down on to the earth. That is what is the explanation of this. Get off the earth, get up to where your Lord is, get up on higher ground. Allow the Cross to effect its work in you in this matter. That is the answer.

The Cross the Answer to the Racial Problem

Now let me press this still further. We here in this place, not a large crowd, but sufficient to be very representative, we here are, as a company, composed of quite a number of different nationalities. Some of you do not understand directly what I am saying. You are having to have it interpreted to you. Many different nations are here on the earth, but the Cross of the Lord Jesus positively forbids us to live our life on that earthly basis of nationalities.

There are no superior nations in heaven, and there are no inferior nations in heaven. All that is the result of a curse, and we are labouring and labouring hard under it. There it is. We are reminded of it, but we are not allowed by the Cross of the Lord Jesus to be British and American and Indian and German and French and all the rest. It is forbidden.

There is a notice up at the door of the heavenly church - "No British Admitted, No Americans Admitted, All Earthly Nationalities Excluded". And yet, and yet, how we allow our nationality, our race, our racial complex, to influence us towards others and towards one another. How we look at one another through our own national eyes and from our own national standpoints, and judge them accordingly. Oh, the havoc that has been wrought by that in this world! Oh, how the Name of the Lord Jesus has been dishonoured! How the power of His Cross has been nullified by that sort of thing! It is true.

Understand that the Cross is meant to lift us all right clear of all that, everything that is earthly in what is national and racial. It is an amazing thing to me, I just cannot understand it, except from this standpoint, that the devil has so utterly blinded to what he was doing in bringing them right down to the earth, that what is called the church in South Africa can put up a colour bar and not allow certain of a certain race to enter its doors; the most violent and terrible contradiction of the Cross of the Lord Jesus and of the whole New Testament.

There is another solution to the racial problem, there is a divine solution. Thank God that solution was found in the book of the Acts. You will find different languages and different colours. They are meeting together under the Holy Spirit's government, and there were no superior people amongst them. No, no, all that was destroyed. I cannot speak too strongly about this, but I am leading to something else. I know I carry you with me on that, I do trust I do, I trust it enters in, I do trust it enters in, and it is going to result in something, dear friends. The Cross has dealt with that, and in Christ there is neither Jew, nor Greek, circumcision and uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, bondman, or freeman (Col. 3:11). There is not. It is not that they are all in Christ, not at all, and in Christ you find them like that, as that. They are not, they are in Christ. Do you agree? Is that right? What is going to happen to you next time you meet someone of a race which you despise or of a race that puts your back up because it looks down on you? What are you going to do? Are you going to take it on, meet it on its own ground, and answer it back and get equal and even with it, and show that you are as good as they are? Well, we will have something to say about that before the day is out. None of it, the Cross forbids all that, that is the very spirit of the world, the spirit of Satan's kingdom.

The Cross the Answer to the Denominational Problem

Now, you said that you agree with me. Is not the same principle that which operates between Christians and Christians? If it is true in nations, is it not true in denominations? Now then, be honest. I want to be very careful, and I am going to be very careful in what I say in this connection.

The church is a heavenly body. These other things in some way touch the earth. Just as the national, so the denominational. Now, I am not here to denounce denominations and - listen with every ear that you possess - I am not saying, and I never do say, that you have got to leave your denomination, your mission, or whatever it is you are in. That must be the result of the Holy Spirit's sovereignty in your heart operating in relation to the honour of the Lord's Name. But I do say without any hesitation at all that you have got to be above your denomination, you have got to be super-denominational. If that is your world, your kingdom, your realm, then you have touched the earth, and you have touched the divisive power of Satan in this earth. It is true, and all that, in so far as we are a part of it spiritually, means loss of power, loss of authority, loss of spiritual fulness, loss of the significance of the Name of Jesus.

The power of the Name, the fulness that is in the Name, the authority of the Name, requires that we are off this earth in spirit. It seems a very terrible thing that people are giving their lives to propagate and extend an earthly church. I have had men say to me that they were going to a certain country in order to develop and expand the so-and-so church, giving a denominational name. Oh dear, what has Calvary done? Where is the Holy Spirit? Well, all that we can say is - no wonder things are so different from what they were at the beginning. No, dear friends, the Name is above every name, in every realm, and that 'aboveness' is our place.

Let no one go away and say, 'He said we have got to leave our missions and our denominations'. I never did. But I am saying that if that is your world and you are finding that to be the realm of your ultimate interest, all I can say is that you will find it to be a very limited world spiritually. Until the Lord shows you otherwise, stay where you are, but ask the Lord to make real in you this thing that Calvary has done in lifting the church out of this earth contact in every respect.

So we could press this matter, but it is tremendously important: I say again, we are concerned with the recovery of the testimony of the Name of Jesus. We are concerned with the Church's recovery to power and spiritual fulness, and this is what is demanded. It is demanded, and there is no other way to it.

I must stop, but here you see that this is the meaning of the Cross, this is what the Cross did, what Christ did by His Cross. It is demonstrated, made perfectly clear for all to see immediately after the Cross when the Holy Spirit came to make the meaning of the Cross real. It is seen that all this is true. It was only when the church later lost its life in the Spirit and began to become an earth-attached thing in different ways that all these wonderful workings of heavenly power and authority left it, the glory departed, and that is the reason. And that just leaves it to be said that if only the church will get on to its own right and proper ground in Christ in the Spirit in the heavenlies, it will know these things. It will not know less of persecution, perhaps more, but it will know power, it will know bread and food, it will know wealth and riches, it will know how to stand rather than flee before its enemies. The Lord write His word in your hearts.