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The Supreme Necessity for the Holy Spirit

by T. Austin-Sparks

A series of conference messages given in May, 1932. From unpublished manuscripts supplied by the Golden Candlestick Trust.

Contents

Chapter 1 - The Need to be Filled with the Holy Spirit

Chapter 2 - The Anointing of the Spirit

Chapter 3 - The Enduement of Power

Chapter 4 - Sanctification of the Spirit

Chapter 5 - The Spirit of Life, Holiness and Truth

Chapter 1 - The Need to be Filled with the Holy Spirit

"And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, See, I have called by name Bezaleel the son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah: and I have filled him with the spirit of God, in wisdom, and in understanding, and in knowledge, and in all manner of workmanship, to devise cunning works, to work in gold, and in silver, and in brass, and in cutting of stones, to set them, and in carving of timber, to work in all manner of workmanship" (Exodus 31:1-5).

"But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light..." (1 Peter 2:9).

"That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus. For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God" (Eph. 2:7-8).

We are occupied, as we have felt led of the Lord, with the matter of the Supreme Necessity for the Holy Spirit and for a fresh knowledge of the Holy Spirit and His work in this day in which we live. It will be necessary to come closer to the more distinctive features of the Holy Spirit's work, but for a little while we will be taken up again with that inclusive, all-embracing object of the Holy Spirit's presence here in the church in this dispensation. It is a test, of course, for us as the Lord's people, but it is also a setting forth of the great encouragement that we have, to expect the very highest, greatest and best from the Lord.

Now, I have read this portion in Exodus 31:3, in order that we might get into touch with the tabernacle for a moment. You will see that the chapters which precede are occupied with all the details of the tabernacle. From chapter 25 where the Lord commanded Moses to speak unto the children of Israel to bring an offering of "every man whose heart maketh him willing", and then the things which are to be taken as forming not offerings but one offering, "take an offering", the many phases of this offering, the many parts of this one offering. These are mentioned and set forth in that chapter, and then the instructions for the making of this tabernacle are given in the subsequent chapters until you reach chapter 31. And you have a coming back in that chapter; a retrospective word and movement of God. Before any of this can be done there has to be an instrument chosen of God and especially filled with the Spirit of God unto this work, and Bezaleel is appointed. And the Lord says, "See, I have called by name... and I have filled him with the Spirit of God". Now, why that necessity? For the simple reason that the tabernacle was intended to set forth the glories of Christ. It was to be, in every detail, to the most minute point, an unveiling of the Lord Jesus and His glories. Everything was to speak of Him, to show Him, to declare Him, and only the Holy Spirit can do that and we therefore need not wonder at the special endowment and the special supervision of the Holy Spirit in order that every part of this tabernacle might perfectly express the thoughts of God, because here are embodied the thoughts of God concerning His Son and "no one knoweth the mind of God save the Spirit of God" and he to whom the Spirit may reveal those thoughts.

The Spirit alone has a right and an adequate apprehension of the Lord Jesus according to the Divine mind, and so Bezaleel must be filled with the Spirit of God in order that in all the work of the tabernacle there should be a right representation of God's thought concerning the Lord Jesus. Nothing is left to human judgment, nothing is left to man's thought, ability, ideas, surmises, arrangements, apprehensions, scales of values; nothing is left with man in this matter, and would to God it were more so in the church at this time. There is no room whatever for man's thoughts in the things of God. God has never left a place in the church for man naturally. God has filled His own space with the Holy Spirit for a full and perfect revelation of His own thoughts. And so the necessity was that there should be in the executing of this Divine pattern, this Divine plan, an instrument who was not only just externally actuated or helped by the Holy Spirit, but literally filled with the Spirit of God unto everything, and you note how explicit and detailed the Lord is about it, "all manner of workmanship". His devising was by the Holy Spirit, his cutting, his carving, his everything was by the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God. It was, as we have said, because the tabernacle was to set forth the glories of Christ.

Now, we linked that with 1 Peter 2:9: "To show forth the excellencies of Him who called you (us) out of darkness into His most marvellous light". Peter deals with present things - his aspect of truth is the present pilgrimage of the church - but Paul goes beyond the earth and the present pilgrimage and sees the church in the heavenlies, and embraces the eternities, and carries this word on into the ages to come. "That in the ages to come He might show forth the exceeding riches of His grace in us", so that the thought is one throughout; the thought that is in Exodus is in Peter and in Paul; one thought: the presentation, the unveiling, the showing forth of the glory and the excellencies of the Lord Jesus. And the one truth underlies that in every case: the absolute necessity for the Holy Spirit to do it, and in order that He may do it, for those concerned to be filled with the Spirit. That comes in in Ephesians. And the showing forth of the exceeding riches, and the excellencies of Him is by the Holy Spirit. That is why the Holy Spirit has come.

Now we look at ourselves and we surely deplore the very little manifestation of His excellencies and we contemplate this requirement perhaps with misgiving, perhaps with despair. But let us reassure our hearts that despite all that we are that we would not be, and all that we are not that we would be, the Holy Spirit has come for this object: His mission is to glorify Christ, and not to glorify Christ apart from the saints, but in the saints and through the saints. His coming into the saints is in order that they might show forth the excellencies of Him who called them out of darkness into His marvellous light. So therein is our hope, assurance, confidence, strength; therein is the certainty that this thing can be.

What is God's thought for you, for me? It is a wonderful thought, it is indeed a marvellous fact, that He would take us from all our selfishness, sinfulness, and loathsomeness, and display in and through us the excellencies of His Son. Can we grasp that? Can we believe that? We will see in a moment what that means, but it is God's thought concerning us and God has made all the provision necessary to realise His own thought in you and in me, and that provision is the Holy Spirit. And, as long as we do not frustrate the work of the Holy Spirit, the day will come when all the excellencies of the Lord Jesus will be radiating from you and from me - they will be seen; they will be displayed. That will be the consummation of the Holy Spirit's work, Christ openly set forth to the universe in all His spiritual and moral excellencies in us. The work is going on behind an ugly network of scaffolding just now and we can see very little of what is happening, but it is going on.

Every Divinely permitted temptation, trial, adversity, pain, sorrow, which brings in the activity of the Holy Spirit unto the refining, purifying, mellowing, strengthening, illuminating, and enriching of our souls, is a movement towards a display of the excellencies of the Lord Jesus. You and I are not able, and rightly and properly so, to grasp our own spiritual improvement. The Lord does not allow that and He will very often bring along another spiritual trouble to stop us getting spiritually proud, but He is working in us. The devil says, "You are getting worse". In a sense we are seeing more and more how bad we are, but we are not getting one whit worse than we ever were. We are not getting worse; we are seeing it. But the Lord is doing something, and very often it is an essential to our spiritual growth and development that we see a little more of how bad we are. Sometimes the consciousness of sin is the very pathway to glory.

When you come to this tabernacle and recognise that it was intended to set forth the glories of Christ in every part, of course you want to take up every part and look at it and see what glory of Christ is displayed in it. Let us go back to Exodus 25 to this inclusive offering called a heave offering. It is remarkable that that term is applied to the tabernacle. You can understand that term when it is applied to one of the sacrifices, but when you find that the tabernacle, in all its material, is to comprise one heave offering unto the Lord, it is striking; it is impressive. It means that it is something that is lifted up before the Lord, held before the Lord. Of course, this is Christ in His fulness as presented before the Lord, that with which the Lord alone can be well pleased, and in that we have to find our delight and our pleasure. We have to find our pleasure in that with which the Lord is well pleased and that is the Lord Jesus. And then you break up, so to speak, that whole heave offering of the tabernacle, which is Christ in full exhaustive presentation. You see what it is that you have to delight in, and you see what it is the Father delights in, and then you see what it is that, being the Father's delight and our delight, is to be revealed in us of Christ and you pass from chapter 25 and the earlier phases and you see these various phases and parts of that one heave offering.

We will just remind ourselves of the first three materials. You have brass, silver and gold. Looking at the connections of each we see their significance. We have a brazen altar, for instance, and that is the place where the fires of God are maintained. And the brass speaks to us of judgment and it is the very first thing that you encounter as you enter into the court of this tabernacle. You cannot get anywhere until you have been faced with the question of judgment: the judgment of sin and the judgment of the sinner; where the fires of God have been let loose and have done their work. And in that brazen altar the types of the Lord Jesus are offered in the very fire, the very judgment fires of God. And the judgment fires of God exhaust themselves upon that offering and there is no more judgment of the sinner or of sin under the wrath of God.

Now, that is a brief word upon a large doctrine, but it is something of the excellency of Christ that ought to be displayed in you and in me. Oh, how many of the Lord's people today are going about as though the judgments of God were hanging over their heads! They are still afraid, if not of the great judgment, of some kind of judgment. To put it the other way round, we are not all exulting and rejoicing in our absolute deliverance from condemnation in Christ. We are not; we are bound under legalism that makes us afraid; we allow the accuser to take up things which the blood of the Lord Jesus has dealt with forever, and use them to bring again under condemnation and rob us of our testimony and of the glory of Christ in its display, and take from us His excellencies. I am impressed with how constantly the enemy is trying to get hold of Divine things and turn them to his own use, to his own account.

You notice in these chapters when Moses went up into the mount and God gave him this pattern and spoke about the gold, silver, brass, linen and all these things, because he was away (as the people felt, too long) they revolted. In reality, the devil got in and provoked them to a line of action independently of God and His servant, and you notice what happened. The first thing they did was to bring gold, the earrings and such like of all, to Aaron to make them an image of gold. And it seems to me as though the devil said, in effect, "God shall not have the gold - I will have it". God had said to Moses, "Go and bring a heave offering to Me of gold," and the devil said, "I will have the gold" and he tried to get in first to frustrate God, to anticipate this Divine thing in making impossible an adequate offering of gold, by capturing it himself.

The enemy is always out to try and take the thing which ought to be for the glory of God, and turn it to his own account. And in this matter of our deliverance from condemnation of the wrath of God, the enemy is always trying to capture that brass, that testimony, and bring us back under condemnation and get worship to himself instead of it coming to God. Remember, every bit of yielding to the accusations of the devil is surrender, worship to him and taking it from the Lord.

There is a right kind of dealing with wrong before the Lord. I am not saying we are to ignore or condone sin, and make light of evil-doing. I do not mean when we are touched by the Holy Spirit as to something that is not according to the will of God, we are to say that it does not matter, but there is an instant place of putting that right and getting free from condemnation. We ought to follow that course immediately the Spirit convicts us of wrong; we ought to get that right, avail ourselves of the value of the precious blood and put that away - if we do not, the enemy will have the right to bring us under a spirit of condemnation. And having done that, let us repudiate his right and not follow up each act of confession, repentance, and adjustment by bringing ourselves under condemnation and so taking from God the worship that is His. We go about, carrying the weight of forgiven sins too often, carrying a condemnation which is altogether unnecessary. Oh, that the Lord would bring us into that excellency of Christ which is that He has borne our sins and He has suffered all the righteous indignation of God against us as sinners, and He has borne the wrath of God for us, and we need not have any fear of God in that sense.

This is an elementary word, but there are so many of the Lord's people today who are not showing forth the excellency of absolute deliverance from condemnation and some of the greatest scandals in Christianity today are children of God who are under a cloud through condemnation. They are simply wrapped up with themselves in this matter and they cannot get free from this accusation which they have taken on from the enemy. Well, there is deliverance from judgment to begin with, and we ought to rejoice in that.

The silver means our redemption unto God. Do not forget that last part of the statement, for that is to me a very valuable part of the whole thing: "And hath redeemed us unto God". It is not simply that we are redeemed, but we are redeemed unto God. "Ye are bought with a price"; "Ye are not your own, you are bought with the precious blood of Christ as of a Lamb without blemish and without spot". "Ye were not redeemed with corruptible things such as silver and gold, but with the precious blood of Christ" - "Redeemed unto God"; "Purchased with His own blood". We belong to the Lord and the Lord can look after His own. That is the strength of this thing that, being the Lord's property, paid for with a great price by Him, He will watch over and look after His own property: that which is His. It is a blessed thing, and not such a terrible thing as some people think, to belong to the Lord. So many who have that presented to them think that they are going to lose everything if they belong to the Lord. It is a case of "giving up" to the Lord; but we surely know the other side of that. It is a very blessed thing to have the Lord as our Owner, and redemption as represented in the silver is unto God.

"He hath redeemed us unto God by His own blood." There is something to rejoice in, an excellency of Christ to be displayed, and it ought to work out in this way: that before others there ought to be a display of the excellency of belonging to the Lord. Oh, our hearts ought to be smitten with shame if we so hesitate to let others know that we belong to the Lord. Then we do not display that excellency among us, "To show forth the excellency of Him who hath called us out of darkness into His marvellous light". That is the simple gospel, but it is an excellency that is not displayed enough in any of us. You see it brings us here, where the Holy Spirit must fill us unto this. We must be filled with the Spirit, for it is He who is to display the excellency, He it is who is to do the energising unto this manifestation of the Lord Jesus. He is here for that very purpose; we cannot do it. "Be filled with the Spirit" to show forth the glory of deliverance from judgment, to display the excellency of belonging to Christ, redeemed, purchased, and not being our own. Men glory in their self-possession, self-direction, and their powers of control and execution; in what they can do. But for us it should be glorying not in being our own, but in belonging to the Lord, for what He can do.

The gold: that Divine nature. Here is humanity in the acacia wood, but overlaid with pure gold. "Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises that we might be partakers of the divine nature having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust." There is an excellency to be shown forth, and the Holy Spirit is here to make us partakers of the Divine nature and that the Divine nature should be shown forth. We were speaking of it last night a little. The Divine disposition, the Divine mind, heart, will, is brought into us by the Holy Spirit in new birth, and then developed, made to grow and increase. That is the gold - that which is like the Lord. The Holy Spirit is here for the display of that exellency and we need to be filled with the Spirit unto that display.

I want to keep the two sides before you all the way through. The one is the great and blessed truth that that is just the very thing for which the Holy Spirit has been given - to reveal the glories of Christ in the saints - and the other side is also our necessity for being filled with the Spirit. Later perhaps the Lord will show us what being filled with the Spirit is, but we are stressing the necessity for it. And if only we could be impressed with the necessity and go to the Lord and say, "Lord, if we have been called for one thing and that is the display of the Lord Jesus Christ and that can only possibly be as we are filled with the Spirit, then Lord, nothing will satisfy me short of being filled with the Spirit and constantly so". That is the attitude that I have in mind for this series of messages, that we will get there and say, "Because of all this that has been shown, I can never rest until I live in the Spirit, walk in the Spirit, am filled with the Spirit - that I know what the Spirit-filled, Spirit-led life is".

You go on to all the rest in chapter 25. The linen, the righteousness imparted; the blue, of the heavenlies; the purple, speaking of royalty; the scarlet, of suffering; the light, of testimony; the incense, the merits of the Lord Jesus; the precious stones, His preciousness to us who believe, for, "unto you who believe He is precious" - the stones of preciousness, and all the rest. The priestly ministry and the functions of the altars, of the table, of the candlestick, and of the mercy seat; all these are different aspects of the Divine excellencies in the Lord Jesus. You say that all that is to have an expression in us, you can come into the spiritual value of all these things that are in Christ, but when you have said it all, you will summarise it all in three words: the display of the excellencies of the Lord Jesus is the display of the: Grace of God. It is all a marvellous story of grace. Isn't that judgment dealt with a story of grace? Is not that redemption unto God by His own blood a story of grace? Is not that impartation of the Divine nature one great work of grace? It is all grace all the way through.

You have five pillars on which to hang everything in the tabernacle and you find grace supports everything. Grace! Why, God has written the very testimony towards man in both hands and both feet, and in your five senses. There is grace on the right hand and grace on the left, grace on the right foot and grace on the left; it is grace. God created man in grace, and redeemed man in grace, and sanctifies man in grace. And it does not matter how much we may be called into vocational responsibility, and called in a vocationary sense to suffering, to endure and labour, even that is by the grace of God. And the excellencies of His grace: "That in the ages to come He might shew the exceeding riches of His grace in kindness towards us through Christ Jesus". Oh, that we might display the grace of God more!

The Lord is speaking to my heart about this very much and I believe that is why the Lord often deals with us as He does, to make us see that it is all of grace after all. "You think that your work, your endurance, your suffering merits something? Not a bit of it, there is no merit in you at all. It is all of My grace". When you say, "Lord, after all, You have to deal with me in absolute grace both for life and ministry", then the Lord does things.

Then secondly, holiness: a display of the excellency of the Lord. Much needs to be said about that. The excellencies of His holiness are here presented in the tabernacle. Everything says, "holiness unto the Lord". The Lord wants, by the Holy Spirit, a display of the excellencies of the holiness of the Lord Jesus, "Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness."

And then the third thing is the glory. Everything in the tabernacle speaks of the glory of the Lord, and what is glory when it relates to redeemed humanity represented in the glorified Son of Man? It is not just the place of the intrinsic glory of the Godhead; we shall never have the glory of Godhead, Deity, and yet we are going to be glorified. Glory, simply is just this: the expression of the result of all the redeeming work of God in Christ. You see, when you are delivered from sin and all that the fall has brought about, that thing which hides glory is removed and there is manifested what it is to be saved; that it is to be holy, that it is to be pure, that it is to be according to God's mind - that is glory. It is not a thing that you can take hold of in any way, even define, but it is something that you know.

You see a brother or sister living in a rich, blessed, deep fellowship with the Lord, knowing the Lord, rejoicing in the Lord, and you say, "There is the glory of the Lord in that life", but oh, when every bit of the failing flesh is gone, when redemption is consummated, the glory will be full! In the tabernacle you have a display of the Lord's glory; the glory of the Lord filled it. That which was something altogether according to God's mind with sin put away and perfect fellowship with God established, that led on to the glory and you and I can have that glory in the measure of our walking in the Spirit.

Note all this - the grace, the holiness, the glory - the Holy Spirit has come for this. Bezaleel was filled with the Spirit of God to do everything unto this end: the display of Jesus Christ in His excellencies. The Holy Spirit has come now to fill us unto the display of the excellencies of the Lord Jesus. It is not just to receive the Spirit, but by a total abandonment to be filled with the Spirit. That is, to give the Holy Spirit all the place that He wants. That is what it means to be filled with the Spirit. He will fill all that He can fill and it is for us to see that there is nothing that holds Him up.

Chapter 2 - The Anointing of the Spirit

Reading: Ex. 29:7; 40:9; 1 Sam. 16:13; 1 Kings 19:16; 2 Cor. 1:21; 1 John 2:20,27.

Now, in pursuing the theme the Lord has laid upon our hearts, we shall be occupied with the matter of the anointing of the Spirit.

We have seen in these passages in the Old Testament that there was, by Divine ordering and commandment, an anointing in relation to official capacity on the part of those mentioned.

Firstly there was Aaron in his capacity as high priest, the oil being poured upon his head; then the tabernacle - though it was complete in every part, though its idea was realised so far as the actual plan was concerned, though complete according to the commandment of the Lord, before it could function it had to be anointed throughout. Then with David we come into the aspect of things which has to do with government and kingship, and David being anointed by Samuel. From that day he was actuated and governed by the Holy Spirit always when he surrendered himself to the Spirit and maintained his life in God. "The Spirit of the Lord came mightily upon David from that time" - and the word "mightily" there may have some relation to the symbolic instrument of anointing, the horn of oil. The horn throughout Scripture is a type of power, of strength, and this was the Spirit of might in relation to kingship and government, and there is no doubt that David was a mighty man under the anointing of God.

And then a somewhat extraordinary case comes up with Elisha, for prophets were not ordinarily anointed. Elisha was the only prophet of whom we read that he was anointed. And prophets never ran in a succession; they were raised up for the occasion. They were not like kings, successors of one another, or high priests, successors. God raised up a fresh instrument from time to time for a specific purpose. There was no continuity in the succession of prophets and ordinarily the prophets were never anointed. But Elisha seems to break in upon that ordinary line of things and here the two factors are seen with him: he is a successor of Elijah, and he is anointed. One only mentions it because it is somewhat singular and extraordinary.

Elijah is undoubtedly a type of the Lord Jesus, and Elisha a type of the church, and the church is taken through Jordan on to resurrection ground with its Head and receives a double portion of the Spirit. You remember that was the understanding between Elijah and Elisha. He said: "If thou art with me and see me when I am taken up..." etcetera, so Elisha clung to his head right through. They got to the other side of Jordan and Elijah was caught up and Elisha cried out, "My father, my father, the chariot of Israel and the horsemen thereof" and he received a double portion of the Spirit and went back and did mightier works than his head; the miracles and works of Elisha were double those of Elijah. Caught up to glory... the church waiting on resurrection ground... the Spirit coming in double measure and the church going out to fulfil the works of the Lord. And, "Greater works than these shall ye do because I go to the Father." The church is a prophetic instrument in a succession, under the anointing. This lifts the church onto some higher level than prophetic ministry. The church is joined to an ascended Head under the one anointing to do His works in the power of the Holy Spirit here.

Now, what does anointing mean; the anointing of the Spirit as the matter is set forth in the Word of God? And I think we ought to recognise before we go further, that anointing is specifically a matter in relation to office; it is an official matter. That does not mean that it belongs to a class, it does not mean it is for ministers and missionaries, and the laity do not come in. There is no such dividing up in the Word of God, but it does mean that the church, the House of God, the members of Christ's body, in anointing come into something more than just the living relationship to the Lord; they come into an active and spiritually official capacity under the anointing. Take the subject of anointing and you will see it is almost invariably related to what is official, and it is true in the New Testament as in the Old. You note the difference between Christ being born of the Spirit at Bethlehem - there is no doubt that His birth was by the Holy Spirit - and His being anointed by the Spirit at Jordan. The one was His birth by the Spirit which is a type of our being born of the Spirit, the other was His anointing for His ministry by the Spirit, which is a type of our entering upon that spiritual ministry to which we are all called. So that we note that anointing is something more than birth, it is something more to be anointed than it is to be born of the Spirit. I mention this because in the minds of a great many people these terms are not clear, they have failed to discriminate and they have, therefore, mixed things up.

When we are asking for the anointing we must remember it is in relation to the active side of our spiritual vocation, and we are going beyond just being believers. We are not made Christians by anointing, we are made Christians, children of God, by the new birth by the same Spirit. But we are brought out into that for which we are born from above, the official side, the active side of heavenly vocation, by anointing; and that anointing is for all the Lord's people. 2 Corinthians 1:21 makes that perfectly clear. The apostle is not speaking there of apostolic anointing, he is linking these Corinthian believers with himself, "He who anointed us in Christ"; the Corinthian believers are linked with the apostle in this statement and he says we are one in this anointing and the oneness in the anointing is just the same as our oneness in Christ Jesus. "If we are all one in Christ Jesus whether I" (referring to Paul) "am an apostle so far as gift is concerned it does not matter; so far as we are concerned as brethren, we are all one in Christ Jesus."

The second letter to the Corinthians is a letter of spiritual ministry; you will see why that passage comes right at the beginning of the letter - anointed corporately unto spiritual ministry. The anointing is not so much a matter of measure unto different ministries in that Paul gets a greater measure of anointing than the rest of the believers; it is difference in ministry, and He does not necessarily anoint in greater measure the different members of Christ. Of course there is a measure of the Spirit necessary for different ministries. The point is the difference between being a member, being born of the Spirit, and being anointed as a believer unto spiritual vocation. I feel it necessary, especially when we are dealing with the Holy Spirit, to know what we are talking about because of a good deal of confusion in the terms used in relation to the Holy Spirit.

Now, we were asking what anointing means. The answer can be given in several different ways, touching upon various aspects, but the first meaning of the anointing of the Spirit is that the one anointed is brought into a completely subject position and state to the Anointer. Take the Lord Jesus in His anointing at Jordan. He became absolutely (that is, livingly and officially) subject to the Father. He, there at Jordan, took the position of being under the Father for every bit of direction, government and counsel, of being obedient to the Father's will and mind to the smallest detail. "God anointed Jesus of Nazareth" said the apostle, "God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit... who went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil". He, from the moment of His anointing, drew every bit of direction from the Father as His Head.

Paul brings out that Headship principle by explaining that God is the Head of Christ, and Christ is the Head of the church, and the man is the head of the woman. He follows headship right through from God to human relationships. And the Lord Jesus entered, in a voluntary way, upon a life of absolute subjection to the Father for His official ministry. Now, that principle extends right back through the Old Testament, and right on through the New: that anointing always means a subject position to a Head. Aaron, in his case, comes under a government, a headship. He is not a law unto himself, he cannot do as he thinks, as he likes, as he chooses. Aaron needs a Head and so true was that that when Aaron failed to recognise the head, and acted independently, the judgment of God came upon Aaron. Even an anointed one dare not step out of his subject position and become a law unto himself. So Aaron was put there, and David was put there, and Elisha was there. It all means that there is established over the anointed an authority, a government to which he must look, to which he must be obedient, and he has accepted that position of being subject to a higher authority.

Coming on into the New Testament it is very clear that the coming of the Holy Spirit makes the church subject to Christ. The anointing of the Holy Spirit brings the whole house of God under His Headship, and the Holy Spirit demands our recognition of our Head all the way along. Immediately we step out in any kind of personal judgment, choice, decision, direction, or independent activity apart from the anointing (the Holy Spirit's governing for the Head) we become exposed, we become uncovered, and very soon we become omitted. Things go wrong and we find it is necessary to come back and take another action and recognise the absolute sovereignty and government of the Lord in every detail.

Deception will always, sooner or later, follow a violation of the principle of the anointing. The anointing is to keep us in the truth and in a living relationship to our Head as our government, judgment, mind - as everything that is of God. Not until we repudiate our action, go back on the course that we have adopted and seek our covering shall we be delivered, and of course through a great deal of suffering and difficulty. You see, the anointing first of all represents the subjection of the anointed to the Anointer.

The anointing of the Holy Spirit means that we have altogether come under the Headship of the Lord Jesus over every detail of our practical Christian life in vocation, in service, in what we may call the "official". That means then, in the second place, that man, humanly and naturally is entirely excluded by the anointing as we were seeing earlier concerning Bezaleel - that when the Lord filled him with the Spirit of God unto all workmanship in relation to the tabernacle, nothing whatever was left with him of his judgments or his thoughts; everything came from God and the man was ruled out by the anointing. The anointing sets man, as such, aside. Now, there are two ways of looking at that. There is the way which is in the nature of a demand, and there is the way which is in the nature of a blessed encouragement and comfort.

Of course, we have to enforce what seems to be more hard along the line of the demand, because there is no doubt that man has no greater tendency than to take hold of the things of God. That has always been so and what we have in the world today is a religious system, that Christianity, which is being run by man. Man has got hold of it and history makes it clear that God has never done a thing, but sooner or later some man or men have taken hold of it and begun to run it, to organise it, keep it going, try and develop it, add to it, improve it, to do all sorts of things with that thing of God. It seems the last thing that human nature can do is leave things alone and let God do the work. We are always wanting just to get into this thing somehow naturally and bring our judgment to bear upon it and manipulate it somehow. That is man, always was man, but the anointing rules man out and in effect says, "Hands off! This is God's and you only have a place here as you recognise that you by nature are ruled out and that as an anointed one, God alone is in this thing and it is God alone that must be recognised".

All the heartbreak, disappointment and tragedy in the work of God has come about because of forceful man, man with a drive, men who have taken hold of things and presumed upon their own anointing and upon the fact that God has taken them up. They think of themselves as the centre, the pivot upon which the whole thing revolves, and it is a deception. We find in such realms it is not long before there is less of God (to say the least of it) than there should be, and man is too much in evidence. That is man's weakness and it means failure, in that it means the purpose of God is arrested and delayed. It is only by shattering blows and deep discipline that man recognises his absolute dependence upon God, and he dare not move other than he is moved by the Spirit of God, so that the work of God is made safe and the glory of God is manifested.

But there is the other comforting side of that fact. If it is true that man on his positive side is ruled out and must not in his flesh appear before God and put his hand upon God's things, it is true that man on his negative side is ruled out. I mean that we might very well be influenced by our weakness, incapacity, ignorance, natural worthlessness and feel that because we lack so many qualities and so many things that we would consider to be essentials to functioning and usefulness, that we have no place at all. But we should comfort our hearts in the recognition of this fact: that scholarship and all such things do not count in the first place with God. They are immaterial. There may be a place when the natural man is thoroughly subject and he does not for one moment gain any natural assents as being of essential value in the things of God, where the Lord may just be able to work through those things without any danger. But as a rule, a very great deal has to be done before the Lord can use them. The anointing makes good all human defects and deficiencies and brings us all to one level. The one who has had no natural advantages at all of training and learning, may have a knowledge by the anointing far surpassing the best that men could acquire, that is, regarding spiritual things of God. You and I would very much rather listen to a naturally ignorant man who knew the Lord, talking about the Lord and telling us the things of the Lord as shown to his heart, than we would listen to the most brilliant scholar on what he has got from books.

The anointing is the matter and it ought to be encouraging that the anointing can make good all that we lack by nature. Now, a lot of people seem to put a prominence upon ignorance. You have got to dig the ditches; the Lord will fill your ditches if you dig them, but He will require you to dig them. Do not let us be spiritually slovenly and presume upon the anointing and say, "The Lord can make good all my deficiencies and I need do nothing whatever". No. What I am saying is this: that whether the natural man be in the positive or whether he be in the negative, whether he be somebody or nobody, the anointing is a thing independent of man by nature and the anointing will bring down the high and bring up the low. The anointing will level everybody on this principle: that man by nature here in spiritual things does not count, he does not come in, he is ruled out. Now, if you have the anointing you may be an able minister of the new covenant no matter what your natural disadvantages may be. If you have the anointing you will have to recognise that any natural abilities are perfectly subject to the anointing and you must never use them or count upon them in themselves.

Now, the next thing that runs with this is the fact that the anointing represents God's breaking into this world. It is God breaking in on the ground of His own rights. God has rights in relation to this universe. His rights are supreme, but man has either repudiated or ignored His rights in this universe and set God aside and put Him out. That is seen perhaps pre-eminently in the rejection of the Lord Jesus. The world knew Him not. It was God manifest in the flesh, God in Christ, and they said, "This is the heir, come let us kill Him and the inheritance shall be ours... And they cast Him out", and Paul says that is what the wisdom of this world did, the wise ones, the mighty ones: they cast God out of His universe. He has His rights, they are His rights, by every right there is. It is not simply that He is standing to get something He wants or ought to have; all the rights are His by every law. Who has a greater right to be governing and ruling in this universe than God? And so He cannot be cast out so easily as that, and in the coming of the Holy Spirit God broke in upon this world in His rights.

He has embodied Himself by the Holy Spirit within the church, composed of the various members of Christ's Body, and that church, the Body of Christ, stands here in this world as the living witness to the rights of God to govern. He will challenge that truth in the believer and in the church; wherever the believer may be represented. He will yet rule, and through man they will seek to cast Him out again in the church and in the believer as they cast Him out in His own Person. But we are here in the embodiment of the Divine right to rule, and the rule of Christ, to whom is given all authority in heaven and in earth, can be established and maintained by the church in any part of this world provided they know the power of the anointing. The real power of the anointing means that in any place the rights of God in sovereignty can be established and maintained. It is a perilous thing to go out in this world without the anointing or to set forth the rights and claims of God anywhere unless in the power of the Holy Spirit. So we come back to the anointing as the power to establish the rights of God in sovereignty. God has, by the Holy Spirit, in the anointing, broken into the world in which He was driven out and He has come to stay. But we need that anointing to the establishment of that testimony to His sovereignty. God has come in. He is here in all His mighty power, and He is, in that power with the anointed ones, going to establish that sovereignty over every challenge, every dispute and every contradiction.

Now one more word which follows immediately upon that, is that inasmuch as God has broken in, shall we say - committed Himself to an object, an instrument for His testimony - He is exceedingly jealous for that which is anointed. The anointed thing is a very precious thing to the Lord, whether it be an individual or a company, or the whole church, it is a thing over which God is exceedingly jealous. The church, anointed with the Holy Spirit, went out with that testimony to the sovereignty of Jesus Christ. Saul of Tarsus challenged those rights, and set himself against that anointed instrument to do harm to God's anointed and God broke in and smote him to the ground. And one hardly likes to think what would have been the result if Saul had never repented. And Ananias and Sapphira stretched forth a hand to touch that anointed thing, sinned against the Holy Spirit when they lied to Peter and withheld from the church in a lie. Well, God was very jealous for His anointed instrument and we know what happened to Ananias and Sapphira.

Herod boastfully, arrogantly set his hand to injure the church and we know his doom, God smote him terribly and the statement is "he was eaten of worms" and died. God smote him. God is jealous, as the Psalm says, "He rebuked kings for their sakes, saying, Touch not Mine anointed ones and do My prophets no harm". God is jealous for what is anointed because He is bound up with that.

It sounds a harsh word, but it is a necessary thing and we all need a word like this because even within the company of the Lord's people we are far too easy-going in our interchanges of criticism: criticism of the individual believer, criticism and judgment of the corporate company of the Lord's people. We talk them out, we talk them down, we show up its faults and its flaws and its shortcomings, its misdeeds; we make comparisons... setting one over against another; both in ministries and in other departments. Or, to put it this way, we are not careful enough to cherish the Body of Christ and we cannot divorce true children of God from the Body of Christ - we cannot deal with them as if they were not members of Christ, as if they were something separate.

When we touch a believer, we touch Christ. "He that toucheth you toucheth the apple of My eye" - God's eye, and God is very jealous of that. There is a wonderfully illustrative significance about that statement: the apple of God's eye. Think of the jealous safeguard of our physical frame applied to our eye. Why do you have eyebrows? (Do not cut them off according to fashion, you are violating not only your physical frame, but something illustrative in the Word of God.) Why do you have that large boney part there with the capillary vegetation growing on it? Why do you have eyelashes and cheek bones? Every one of these are for the safeguarding of the apple of your eye. This protects so that nothing shall reach the apple of the eye. On a hot day, when the perspiration gathers the dust on your forehead, the eyebrows stop that dust getting into your eyes. If there is anything floating about in the air coming towards your eyes, your eyelashes will be a safeguard. God has made a wonderful collection of protective agencies for the apple of the eye. He that touches you touches something for which God is very jealous, the apple of His eye. Thus you are breaking through Divinely appointed, jealously provided safeguards when you touch the Lord's children and the church; whether they be individuals or companies, or the whole. With your lips or in any other way, you are touching the Lord. That is what Saul learned as he went to Damascus. "Why persecutest thou Me?" - it was the Lord.

Let us be a little more guarded in dealing with any children of God or servants of God as though they were individuals in themselves. Let us recognise that if they are anointed of the Lord it will go ill with us if we touch them, and it will go ill with us spiritually. We are sinning against them spiritually, and if we persist, it may go ill with us in other ways - the Lord may have to teach us very severe lessons. Maybe if we knew the inner history of things, we would discover that a great deal of the limitation of the Lord's inability to undertake in certain matters, can be laid to the account of a failure to recognise Christ in His Body, a failure to "discern the Body", as Paul puts it; perhaps a too glib and easy dealing with sacred things under the anointing of the Lord. Suffer that word, but it is necessary. It is as necessary to me as it is to you, and the Lord give us grace to take this word to heart.

If the Lord has at all committed Himself to a company of people, He is jealous about that company, and sooner or later, if we touch that, we meet the Lord - it may be an individual, or the ministry, but it is still the Lord. "Touch not Mine anointed and do My prophets no harm."

That is so much for the anointing; there is very much more. We may close by illustrating almost all of it by the two Corinthian letters. You know quite well the first Corinthian letter sees the rights of God violated at Corinth, and that is clearly set forth from that first letter, and then what happened? The apostle makes it very clear that those at Corinth who were violating God's rights and doing despite to the anointing, came under a very severe discipline. The Lord took them in hand, and the second letter represents the results of that discipline. What a wonderful change in tone between the two letters! The result of the discipline concerning the violated rights of God leads on to the service of God according to His mind. In 1 Corinthians the service of God is not according to His mind. Everything is out of order. In the second letter the service is according to the mind of God; read chapters 3 and 4. It is now made possible and only by discipline, and you find the second letter begins with that passage quoted, "and hath anointed us".

Let us recognise what the anointing means and come into line with that and, with the power of the anointing expressed in a service which is wholly according to the mind and heart of God, may the Lord make us spiritually His anointed ones.

Chapter 3 - The Enduement of Power

Reading: Luke 4:16-22; 1 John 2:20,27; 4:4.

These words in Luke's gospel and in the letter of John bring us back again to some further aspects and emphasis of the necessity of the Holy Spirit and our being filled with the Spirit. We have been seeing some of the reasons why that is necessary. We have been seeing something of what it means to be filled with the Spirit and to be anointed with the Spirit. The Lord has yet much that He would say to us and these passages bring us immediately into touch with one of the primary things in that connection. You notice in the case of the passage in Luke 4 that it runs in very swift sequence to what has been happening. It is most impressive how much the Holy Spirit is in evidence in these early chapters of Luke, from the very first movement in relation to the bringing of the Lord Jesus into this world. When the angel made the announcement to Mary, he made it perfectly clear that the birth of the Lord Jesus would be the result of a definite and direct activity of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of the Highest overshadowing, and then when born, it seems that He is encompassed by a series of Holy Spirit activities.

There is in the temple Anna a prophetess, and Simeon the old man - they came by the Spirit, and act under the Spirit's government and control, and they speak by the Spirit. And then in the other relationships where Elizabeth and Zechariah are concerned, there is another activity of the Holy Spirit. You find the birth of the Lord Jesus remarkably surrounded by movements of the Spirit in relation to Him. And John the Baptist is born and goes before His face in the power of the Spirit, and then to Jordan; John proclaims Him, announces Him and says of Him, "I indeed baptize you with water but there cometh One mightier than I, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to unloose; He shall baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire." And then the Lord Jesus immediately comes to Jordan and, passing through Jordan's waters - a type of His death, burial and resurrection - the heavens are opened and the Spirit comes upon Him, followed immediately by the declaration that: "Then was Jesus led of the Spirit into the wilderness being tempted of the devil forty days". The next announcement is that "Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit" and He came to Nazareth.

The next utterance is His own concerning Himself, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me because He hath anointed Me". The Holy Spirit is in evidence in relation to the Person and the work of the Lord Jesus from the very first movement in relation to His coming into this world. It is the action of the Holy Spirit. He brings Him in, He brings Him on, He brings Him through, He brings Him out; it is His work in which the Lord Jesus fulfils His ministry. Now what does that say to us particularly? Well, to me it says this one, very important thing among many other things, that the Lord Jesus, having come into this world on the one hand to undo an entire world order and bring it to an end, and on the other hand to bring in an entirely new order and establish it, can only do that in the mighty power of God. It requires God Almighty to accomplish it, and it is God breaking in all the way along in the power of the Spirit to accomplish this thing, to bring it to pass, to establish it.

And the Lord Jesus, we know, is God; but here He is in Luke brought before us as the Son of Man. And as we have said so often, it is not God, not naked Deity accomplishing this work, it is Man for man who is doing it - God in man: the Man Christ Jesus. And that Man Christ Jesus, while in His own Being is God, verily God, in His representative capacity as Man depends entirely upon God, and requires that God shall associate Himself with Him in the fulfilling of this work as Man for man. And that is realised in the Holy Spirit allying Himself with every step and movement and development of the life, the Person and the work of the Lord Jesus, the Son of Man.

It takes God to meet what the Lord Jesus had to meet. God has broken in in the Holy Spirit to accomplish this thing, and it is instantly seen that when God breaks in with the anointing at Jordan, there also breaks out that thing which is opposed to God which is in this universe and in this world. He is anointed of the Spirit: "God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit". And the very next thing that is seen is the uprising and outgoing of that whole force of evil to oppose that anointing, and frustrate its end, if possible. And that thing can only be effectively met by God, and God in the Person of the Holy Spirit.

Now, when you come to Nazareth and the Lord Jesus refers to that anointing, He makes it perfectly clear that the object and purpose of His anointing was to meet and to undo all the works of the devil. The anointing was unto that. The Lord Jesus did it effectually in the power of the Spirit, but while the issue has been definitely secured in Him personally and the work has really been accomplished, that force of evil, that whole system of spiritual antagonism, has not been abolished from the universe and that it is left for the church, the Body of Christ, to enter into His work, into His accomplishment, and to have it consummated through itself. And so we come under the same anointing that was upon the Lord Jesus and are anointed, as Paul says in 2 Corinthians 1:21, "Anointed with Christ". And we discover very soon after the anointing that we are up against the same thing that He was up against. It is only when we come into the meaning and power of the anointing and we discover what it means in that realm. You will never come into any knowledge of the Holy Spirit as resting upon and dwelling within, without instantly becoming conscious that you are up against a spiritual system and order of the most violent antagonism.

Now the whole point is this: we have got to recognise very clearly that we are not here just to do work, to talk about things, to teach doctrine or to give out truth. We are here to be the instrument of the Lord Jesus in completing and consummating that work which He has Himself possessed by His Cross in the overthrow of that whole system of spiritual evil and antagonism. We are up against that beloved. We are up against that; we are up against the works of the devil. We are up against him who is in the world, to whom John referred. For that, nothing else than the very alliance of God with us is adequate. In other words, nothing else than the mighty anointing of the Holy Spirit is sufficient. But, blessed be God, that provision is made and the Holy Spirit's anointing of us in Christ is the guarantee that what Christ did can also be repeated or wrought out in fulness in and through the church. I believe that that is why the disciples had to tarry, had to wait; "Tarry ye" said the Lord, "until ye be endued with power from on high." "Ye shall receive power after that the Holy Spirit has come upon you." And we are thinking especially at this time of the Holy Spirit in relation to power and truth.

Now, the Lord knew quite well what was in the way of His church, what was confronting His apostles, and He knew quite well that they could not meet that in themselves. He knew quite well that they had got to meet what He had met, and of course it was not long before they discovered the truth of that, and so He was so explicit in this tarrying, in this enduement and empowerment from on high. And are we not becoming increasingly conscious that we are up against forces that are altogether too much, far and away beyond us to deal with? It is increasingly so and towards the end in the end time, those activities of the enemy are going to intensify, the dragon is going to become very ferocious. If he can he will engulf that instrument which is going to be brought to the throne, which is going to be the occasion of the loud cry in heaven, "Now is come the salvation and the kingdom and the authority of our God and of His Christ, and the accuser of the brethren is cast down, and there is no more place found for him in heaven". Now, I expect the enemy can read the Bible just as well as you and I can; he had evidently been studying the Scriptures up in order to meet the Lord in the wilderness, and he can read Revelation 12, so he knows, and against that he would set himself.

If we are moving into the end time, we are moving into the time when the enemy will stand at nothing, but exhaust all his resources of bitterness, malice, hatred, wrath and cunning and every other kind of resource to thwart the fulfilment of Revelation 12, because when that is fulfilled, his kingdom is at an end in the heavenlies and that is the beginning of the end of his kingdom altogether.

How are we going to meet this and go through? Only in the mighty power of the Holy Spirit, and therefore, the occasion of this fresh emphasis that at the end time it will be essential and indispensable for the Lord's people to have a new and fresh knowledge of what the indwelling and the filling and the anointing of the Holy Spirit means. We will not get through except in the power of the Holy Spirit. We shall not triumph, except by the power of God. We shall not stand against the fury of the adversary only as we are "strengthened with might by His Spirit in the inner man".

Now, most of us are conscious of the truth that we are in the end time and I feel that God's people worldwide are growingly conscious of the need of a mighty reinforcement of the Holy Spirit to meet the resistance, to overcome the forces that are obstructing and hindering and barring the way of progress. How hardly are souls brought into liberty now; how hardly are blind eyes opened now. "The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me because He hath anointed Me to set at liberty them that are bound, to release the captives, to open the eyes of the blind." The anointing is required in a new way for these self-same results in the spiritual realm, and if there is to be a testimony at the end time to the absolute supremacy and sovereignty of the Lord Jesus on the earth, it can only be, as ever it was in truth, in the power of the Holy Spirit. And so today with this growing, increasing, and deepening sense of the need of a new empowerment, surely the Lord would bring His people into a new experience of the Holy Spirit. I am not talking about a worldwide revival, that is not in my thought; I am not talking about a repeating of Pentecost, as that is commonly accepted or understood, but I am speaking about this re-energising in the power of the Holy Spirit for the last conflict, and that is a thing that you are perfectly safe in asking of the Lord and which you will be driven to ask of the Lord before very long.

Now, we are all conscious of the need of reinforcements from above for life and for the work to which the Lord has called us, and if the Lord has laid this burden upon our hearts, may we not take it that this is the Lord's desire for us? He would not burden us with a matter like this, bring us into a realm of conscious need, unless it was His will that His church, His people, should really know the power whereby at the end they can, and will, overcome as they overcame at the beginning.

So the question of the anointing and filling of the Spirit is the question of power by which to meet the whole of that background of antagonism to the purpose of God. And oh, that we might know such an anointing that with any proclaiming of the Word of God in the power of the Holy Spirit, prisoners shall be immediately set free. I do believe that when the Word of God is proclaimed in the power of the Holy Spirit, prisoners who are enslaved, who would take their release and trust the Lord, ought to find this release by that very word in the power of the Holy Spirit. Whatever might be the nature of their imprisonment, they might realise that by that word they are liberated, they are set free, and it is for them to walk out of their prison-house and out of their chains. In the same way, the Word of God spoken at all in the power of the Holy Spirit ought immediately to bring an opening of spiritual eyes to the spiritually blind that they should see, and say, "Well, now I see that; that is clear" - "The opening of the eyes of them that are blind". This is the work of the anointing, the power of the anointing, the proclamation under the anointing, and it is unto this that we must seek the Lord in a new way at this time.

See him who is in the world, see his power, his malignity, his hatred, all the results of his activity... know all that you can know about the work, the power of the enemy and then come back to what God's Word literally says, "Greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world". My, that is a statement! Have you grasped the real value of that? You know, if truly you have become indwelt by the Holy Spirit, you have power that is more than all the power of the enemy resident within. Now, that is not my statement; that is the Word of God. That gives us hope. Of course we have got to see how that power is to be released, the laws by which that power operates, but we are simply stating a fact. It is for us immediately to seek to discover: well, there is the fact, but if it is a fact the thing is not working, the enemy is far too much for us, how can that fact be made an experimental, practical thing and be brought into execution? What are the laws of that? That is to be our enquiry before the Lord, but here is the fact, "Greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world".

Now, in the power of that very anointing, the Lord Jesus was able to successfully and triumphantly meet, not demons, but the very devil himself, the lord of demons in whom was gathered up the whole system of the satanic hierarchy, able to meet him and come up victorious: "Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit", came up victorious. This is found in the anointing.

Now, I have simply emphasised a need and the fact that there is a provision for that need in the matter of power. Of course that power reaches out in all directions, not only in the direct and immediate contact with spiritual forces, but in all those indirect activities of the enemy. For example, those indirect activities of the enemy which come along moral lines. The children of God are beset in the moral realm. I do not limit that term; it is a wide term and embraces a great deal. There is a moral life in which the enemy is so constantly assaulting the Lord's children because it is there that the moral qualities of the Lord Jesus are to be displayed.

I think we forget the moral side of the Lord's children; too often we think of the spiritual life as something and we are so occupied with the spiritual life as something above our ordinary life, something detached, something up here in the atmosphere, something spiritual, and we are occupied with that and too often the people who are most occupied with what is spiritual are guilty of the most terrible moral lapses. I do not endorse that, I do not say that it is so, but seemingly the most spiritual people are often the people who are morally at fault, and very seriously so. The question of giving righteousness and justice for instance, are very loosely cared for by many spiritual people. The question of the rights, the righteous rights, the just rights of other people are ignored. The questions of integrity and uprightness, doing the square thing, the fair thing, the right thing, the generous thing, all sorts of moral questions, are left in a very doubtful state by supposedly more spiritual people. The question of our relationships to other people, all sorts of things morally, as well as in the more acute forms of moral life; the enemy so often spoils the revelation of the moral communications of the Lord Jesus.

The Lord Jesus did not live here a spiritual life as something apart from the moral life. He recognised His obligations, the rights of others, and He sought to fulfil them. And you and I are very often in danger of spoiling the testimony by a kind of spirituality which neglects the moral side of our life. And that gives the enemy and the world plenty of ground for rejecting our Christianity and, sad to say, rejecting our Christ. How often has the world a perfect right to say, as it does say frequently, that Christians are morally on a lower plane than many a non-professing businessman? We have heard that and we know that it is true in many cases, but there is a standard of integrity in the world that would put many Christians to shame.

I am not maligning the Lord's children, but I am saying we have to see that the enemy is always out to get us occupied with a kind of spirituality which neglects a true moral expression of the excellencies of Jesus Christ. And he comes along that way as one of his indirect ways. And what one is pointing to is this: that the anointing of the Holy Spirit is an empowerment to live a moral life which is a reflection of the moral excellencies of the Lord Jesus to defeat the enemy in that realm. There are many other indirect ways in which the adversary works against the testimony and the Lord's people, but the anointing is enough for them all. He takes sometimes physical lines to make impossible the purpose of God through infirmities and crippling physically, but it is a wonderful, blessed truth that the anointing can come and counter that and so energise the otherwise crippled, get that work of God done, and something is established for eternity which would be impossible apart from the power of the anointing. All manner of withstanding of the enemy in every realm are met by the Holy Spirit of the anointing and there is power for everything to meet him and overcome.

Then just a word about this other passage in John: "Ye have an anointing from the Holy One and the anointing which you have received abideth in you and you have no need that any one teach you". Now, I want to make a correction in your mind if it is necessary. That does not for one moment mean Christian teaching. That does not mean that because you have got an anointing of the Spirit, and He teaches you all things, that you do not need to be taught by a Christian teacher. It was never meant to mean that at all. It is well to clear this thing once and for all, because we do know people are hiving off from Christian teachers who say, "We have the Spirit and do not need to be taught", and they do it on the strength of this word which shows ignorance of the Scriptures.

Now, what is this chapter saying? Read verse 18 and 26. You see what is the background of this chapter: antichrist, deceptions. The deceptions of the last hour and those who by the spirit of antichrist would lead the Lord's people astray. And the Lord's people are not going to be led astray by what is false doctrine or error. Antichrist does not mean the most obvious expression of the devil as devil; antichrist is one who takes the place of Christ, and claims to be Christ, and uses the phraseology of Christ. He uses the Scriptures and expresses himself in counterfeit miracles calling down fire from heaven, and giving life to the image; everything which looks like Christ - that is antichrist - calculated to lead the saints astray. John says, "These things have I written unto you concerning them that lead you astray." They come along to you and say, "We have found a wonderful teaching, new truth, new light in certain connections". How are you going to know whether it is Christ or Antichrist? Whether it is truth or error? For there are many such things about today.

We have already said that there is a counterfeit work of the Holy Spirit, imitating new birth, yes, producing wonderful changes in lives. Do not forget that psychology can account for wonderful changes in lives; it need not be the Holy Spirit. It is quite a recognised thing that psychology changes under certain atmospheres: suggestions, impacts and other forces, can produce and stimulate in people certain soulish forces which give them a sense of power of which they were not conscious before, to do things and change the course and order of their life for the time being. There is plenty of that, but how are we going to know when a thing comes in the language of Scripture and the phraseology of the gospel and with the outward signs which seem to be so much like the works of the Lord Jesus? "The anointing which you have received teacheth you all things." You say, "I do not know how I know, but I know. The Holy Spirit inside has made me know that however intellectually that thing might impress me in my mind, my heart, my spirit says 'Danger, beware, that is not God'". And you know... and that is the meaning of this passage in verse 27. That is nothing to do with Christian teaching, it does not mean for one moment that we can dispense with Christian teachers and go off and say we have the Holy Spirit and so we need no one to teach us. That would be a contradiction of Scripture, for God has given His gifts in Christ to the church - pastors and teachers. The teaching work of the Holy Spirit through instruments is in it, so the church cannot dispense with teachers. It applies to this other matter, to the day of antichrist when there are strong delusions so that even the elect would be deceived if it were possible. How are you going to know? "Greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world." The anointing dwells in us and makes us know, brings into view the need of the Holy Spirit having His place entirely in us, because this is a day of deception, a day of errors with spiritual people being carried away. We need to know the meaning of the anointing in this way. The Spirit of the Lord in us makes us know all about this.

There is something in the Spirit-possessed child of God, which cannot be defined which makes them aware of whether a thing is right or wrong. You cannot put it down on paper and say this is where the thing is contrary to Scripture, but you know by the anointing in you that there is something there which is not the Lord, it is something else. And we need that knowledge of the meaning of the anointing today.

We have got, of course, to be very careful that we do not mistake our prejudices for the Holy Spirit's warning. It is very necessary for us to remember that we can never have a clear leading and teaching of the Holy Spirit until this flesh has been put to the Cross; and prejudice is a bit of the flesh. Our natural bias, likes and dislikes have got to go. It is no use our coming into the realm of, "I do not like that..." and think it is the Holy Spirit saying it is dangerous. The old man with his choices has got to go. The Holy Spirit never functions except on the ground of the establishment of the work of Calvary, and we can never get a clear revelation of the Spirit while there are the factors of flesh hanging about - we must know the true identification with the Lord Jesus in His Cross. That is anticipating things and touching a realm that was not intended, but it is necessary to point out.

We must be willing for all that is in His will, without fear. I confess to you I have been afraid of certain things at certain times in my life, a certain line of things, certain teachings, and my fear of that has locked me up and brought me into a state of bondage. It has been necessary for me to go before the Lord and say, "If that thing is right and of You, however much I am afraid of it and do not like it, I open myself to You, and if it is of You, bear witness and let me know it." In some cases the thing has been proved to be of God, and in other cases the Lord made it clear He could not make me see that until I had got my prejudice out of the way and then He showed that it was not necessary to accept that thing, but rather on the contrary. You see, we have got to get out of this thing and make a clear way for the Spirit and the Spirit will bear witness to the truth, and we shall know whether the thing be of God or otherwise.

But again, coming back to our subject. The enemy is out in power and in delusion, by force and error, to spoil the Lord's people, to question the things of God, to counter the Divine purpose. Along both those lines we shall meet him: his force, his power, his might, his resistance, his pressure and his deceptions, errors and lies. How are we going to successfully meet him along both of these lines? "Greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world." Thus the absolute necessity in a day like this of increased activity of the enemy along both lines is that we should know the power of our holy anointing and seek the Lord most definitely for a life Spirit-filled, Spirit-governed, Spirit-directed. It is only one more way of bringing to our recognition this need of the hour, but as the need of the hour is, so is the Lord's provision available. And the Lord would bring His people, for His own glory and the triumphant maintenance of His testimony in fulness and clearness, into the knowledge of the power of the illumination of the Holy Spirit by which to meet all that contrary power of the enemy at the end time.

Now perhaps you can understand the resistance that is going on in a gathering like this, for if ever there was a battle to get the word out, there is a battle tonight, but that means there is something the Lord was after and the enemy is against it. If you will take hold of the Word of God, and take it to the Lord and stand on it, and seek the Lord to make it good, it is going to be something for Him I am quite sure, not only in us, that might be a comparatively small thing, but today the Body of Christ needs to know this; it is in dire need of this. The Lord would make us perhaps instruments for the meeting of that need by intercession, by ministry and in various ways to preserve the saints today in victory and safety. The Lord bring us into touch with Himself in very real prayer for this fresh expression (I will not call it a baptism) of the power of our holy anointing in the Lord Jesus. As He went through in the power of the Eternal Spirit so can we - so alone shall we.

The Lord lead us in a very much deeper quest for the power of this holy anointing and save us in the day of antichrist, and give us victory in the day of the erect dragon, for His Name's sake.

Chapter 4 - Sanctification of the Spirit

It is the Word of God that we are going to read, it is not the word of man, it is God's Word which He has caused by His Holy Spirit to be written. And we shall read firstly two fragments of a general character and then one or two of a more specific nature. The first is Romans 8:9. "If any man hath not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His". That is God's Word; not mine or anyone else's. "If any man hath not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His". Now, the word "Spirit" is spelt with a capital "S" and it is necessary perhaps to point out that that does not mean just the kind of disposition that the Lord Jesus had. It does not mean that. We speak of people being of a very nice spirit, a kind spirit, a good spirit about them; it does not mean that at all; it means the Person of the Holy Spirit. It means having dwelling within, the Holy Spirit; the third Person of the Godhead who is known as the Spirit of Christ just as He is known in the Word of God as the Spirit of God. "If any man hath not the Spirit of Christ he is none of His" that is, he does not belong to Christ.

Now the other passage, the second of these two, is in the letter to the Ephesians 5:18: "Be filled with the Spirit". The first brings us into a relationship with the Lord Jesus. Our relationship with the Lord Jesus as saved men and women, as children of God, depends entirely upon our having received the Holy Spirit of God to dwell in us. That is a basic necessity to the Christian life, to salvation. The second passage is just as imperative and just as important for the purpose of God, and is just as much in the nature of a command and a demand, "Be filled with the Spirit".

Now, those are general passages. We turn to some more, of a more specific character, one in the book of Exodus 29:42,43: "It shall be a continual burnt offering at the door... and the tent shall be sanctified by My glory". We will refer to that again later. Let us turn back to the New Testament, 2 Thessalonians 2:13,14: "God chose you from the beginning unto salvation in sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth: He called you through our gospel to the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ". I want especially to underline that little fragment, "In sanctification of the Spirit". 1 Peter 1:2: "...in sanctification of the Spirit". Back to 1 Cor. 6:11: "Ye were sanctified... in the Spirit of our God".

Now we continue with our subject of being filled with the Spirit. We have been seeing, as we have said, the absolute necessity for being filled with the Spirit - we have had tremendously stressed that that is God's will for us. We have seen that the new creation in Christ Jesus is that creation which is indwelt by the Holy Spirit, that God has brought into being a new creation, and "if any man be in Christ there is a new creation, old things are passed away, behold all has become new, and all things are of God" and it is all the work of the Holy Spirit. Now as to being filled with the Spirit, we want to know what is really basic to that. And in the first place we must say an all-inclusive thing about it, a thing which embraces everything else, and that is this: the all-inclusive prerequisite of being filled with the Spirit is:-

Sanctification.

Now, I know that very often sanctification is put afterwards and not before, and perhaps passages of Scripture would support that if they were taken by themselves, but it is quite an imperfect and inadequate apprehension of the meaning of sanctification to put it after the filling of the Spirit. Sanctification comes before the filling of the Spirit in one very important respect. But there are three phases of sanctification which are the following.

Firstly, we are sanctified in Christ Jesus as an objective thing, something altogether outside of ourselves. If you read Hebrews 10 you will see how clearly that is set forth. The words with which we are so familiar in Hebrews 10:10 "By the which will we are sanctified". That is, "Lo, I come to do Thy will", said the Lord Jesus, "...sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all". Then verse 14, "For by one offering He hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified". "By the which will we have been sanctified by the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all". That is something that is done altogether apart from us, outside of us. That is a sanctification which is in Him; our sanctification is perfected in Christ by the work of His Cross. It is completed, it is absolute, it is secured in the Person of the Lord Jesus by reason of what He did in His Cross. And we who believe, who have faith in Him and His work, by that faith inherit that salvation which is in Him, and then we are said to be in Christ. And in Christ we are perfectly sanctified by His own work apart from anything that we do. It is an objective thing by reason of position.

We shall have a word further to say about that, but in the second phase, following that, is a thing to be an act on our part. It is an act by which we become voluntarily separated unto God.

Now let us consider the nature of sanctification. What is sanctification? It is a big word about which a very great deal has been written, and so often the third phase of sanctification (to which we will refer in a moment) is allowed to come in and confuse the real meaning of this word. The Old Testament is full of this word. The translation of the Hebrew word is "consecrated", or another word is "devoted". And in the act of sanctifying, or consecrating, or devoting a thing to God, what was done is simply this: it was taken, separated from all its connections of every kind, all its old relationships and associations and cleansed by the efficacy of precious blood and from that time recognised as wholly belonging to God. It was God's. It was for God. God had all the rights in it, all the claims over it, and no one had any claim to it but God. And it was, therefore, called a consecrated or a sanctified thing.

Now, that is very simple, and that is the second phase of sanctification. It is an act whereby we choose deliberately to be wholly for God, separated absolutely unto God. I do not mean that we go into monasteries or convents and break away from other people of this world and business and so on, but that henceforth every interest of ours is for God. Our interests in our homes are God's interests; our interests in our businesses are God's interests; our interests in people are God's interests. Every kind of interest that we have in life is for God, for His ends, for His purposes, for His glory. So we are sanctified unto God and we will have no connection voluntarily, no association, no interest, no kind of relationship that is not brought completely into line with God's will, and God's purpose, and God's interest. It is all now unto God, our life wholly for God. That is sanctification by an act. We take our place in separation unto God in Christ. The hour, the day, or the moment comes when we see the great privilege which is ours of being God's and God's will for us. And we consecrate (and we can rightly use the other word, we sanctify) ourselves unto God - that is, we give ourselves wholly to the Lord. That is sanctification in an act, the second phase.

The third phase of sanctification is the one which, for most people, runs over all the rest, and that is the progressive aspect that what is true in Christ as to our position, and what is true by our deliberate act and choice of consecration to God, is now, by the Holy Spirit acting, to be progressively reached in us. This means that we are day by day being sanctified in the sense of being made like Christ, being separated day by day from all that from which He, as our representative, has been separated - from the world, as an evil thing, and all those things which are contrary to the mind of God. He has been separated by His Cross from all that and wholly consumed unto God, but representatively, for us. Christ there, wholly consumed to God is the type and representation of every believer according to the will of God.

So, He is sanctified as we are, we secondly choose to be related with Him, joined with Him in that absolute consecration unto God, consuming unto God, and then the Holy Spirit works that thing in, in an experimental way, and makes it positional and conditional; objective and subjective.

Now, the Lord is evidently concerned about our foundations. There you have sanctification in its threefold aspect, and that sanctification, especially in the first and second aspects, is absolutely basic to the filling of the Holy Spirit. We can never be filled with the Spirit until we have seen firstly that the Lord Jesus is our Representative before God of a life absolutely given to God, and then that we have taken upon the ground of that, a deliberate and definite step and said, "As He is for God, so am I; I choose to be joined with Christ in a total consecration to God. In the same measure in which He has been consumed unto God, I choose to be consumed unto God, and to be cut off from everything that is contrary to God". And that ground alone is the only hope of our being filled with the Spirit initially.

You see, the work of the Lord Jesus is basic to the work of the Holy Spirit. That is why we read that magnificent passage in Exodus 29. You ought to be really tremendously impressed by those words. There it says, "It shall be a continual burnt offering... at the door". The door is where you go in, this was access, and that tabernacle was Christ in representation, in type, and you come into Christ by way of a continual burnt offering at the door, wholly consumed unto God. You pass through the door, the continual burnt offering, and you make a straight line through, past the manna, in through the holy place into the most holy place, and what do you find? The Shekinah glory filling it. On what ground does the Shekinah glory fill the tabernacle? What is it that brings the glory of God in? It is that continual burnt offering. That continual burnt offering represents the work of the Lord Jesus in His Cross. The glory comes in because of the work of the Cross, but what is the glory? The presence of the Spirit of God who is called distinctly "the Spirit of glory". The Holy Spirit is the Sanctifier. "It shall be sanctified by My glory" is this word, in other words, sanctified by the presence of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit sanctifies the tent by His presence. He is the Spirit of glory, but He only comes and sanctifies because of that continual burnt offering at the door.

Two things are brought together, the first and the last: the sacrifice, the burnt offering and the glory of sanctification, the two things brought together; they are one. That is an alternative way of saying just this, that sanctification by the Holy Spirit demands the basic work of Calvary where there is an absolute separation unto God. The Holy Spirit can only perform His work on the ground that we have accepted Christ's work in the Cross, and that work in the Cross, as we know, is that by which we are separated from the old Adam, from the flesh, and from everything that belongs to that creation which God has left and put aside, and it is in that Cross: separation unto an entirely new creation in Christ Jesus. The Holy Spirit works on the basis of Calvary, the work of the Cross, and only so. "A continual burnt offering" and "sanctified by My glory", sanctification of the Spirit. We read again and again in the New Testament, "sanctification of the Spirit", that is the Holy Spirit's sanctifying, but He sanctifies on the basis of the work of the Lord Jesus in His Cross. That is how we come to sanctification to begin with.

Now let us look at one or two other things in this connection of sanctification by the Spirit. There must be a definite act of faith in this matter. There must be faith's apprehension of and testimony to Christ and His work in the Cross. Let us divide that into these two halves.

There must be faith's apprehension of Christ and His work in the Cross. I do not mean by "apprehension of Christ" simply that you believe that Jesus Christ was a living character in history, that He came into this world in a very wonderful way, that He lived a very good life and went about doing good, that He said very wonderful things and died a cruel death and it is written that He rose again, but that you see clearly that the Lord Jesus came into this humanity and represented us, that He took upon Himself as a man, Himself sinless, the sin of the whole race, and took the race and its sin and sinful nature in His own Person to the cross where all the judgment of God was poured out upon Him as representing the race, and that He died under the judgment of God in our place, in our stead. We must see that, and having died under the judgment of God, and having been cut off as us, we see the all-inclusive Sinner by His own voluntary act and choice, dealt with on Him by God. So far as God is concerned there is no more need for any judgment of sin at all, and when God raised Him from the dead He raised Him without any of that sin which He had taken on Himself, which was never in Him by nature, but which He had taken on. He was an entirely new creation, sinless, beyond the need or the power of judgment, and God took Him to His own right hand as representing a new race which God was going to bring into being. And there He is, having been our Representative in sin, death and judgment. He is now our Representative in sinlessness and no-condemnation and eternal life and glory. That is the Person of Christ and we must see Him representatively or substitutionally, as ourselves in the mind of God, and we by faith take Him as that.

Now, that is the simple gospel, and it will not do any of us any harm to contemplate Him afresh in that way, that by faith we see Him as our Saviour, and if we do not, the judgment which God meted upon Him for us will have to come upon us because we have not accepted our deliverance in Christ. We shall be held responsible for the sin that Christ took upon Himself if we do not take Him as our Sin-bearer. Being "in Christ" means that we have escaped from the penalty and judgment of sin and the wrath of God, and being accepted in Christ, we accept God's way of deliverance and salvation.

Now we have to exercise faith in an act, a deliberate way, to apprehend Christ and His work in the Cross, to take Him and His work for ourselves, for it was for us individually. All that work on the cross is as much for the individual as for the whole world; for every one of us. Unto the great command of God to be filled with the Spirit, with all that that means, one of these primary things is a Divine act of faith in apprehending Christ in His Person and in His work by the Cross. But then there is a second part of that: bearing testimony thereto. In the Word, during the first days of the Christian believers, immediately they saw this great truth of Christ, what He was, and by faith accepted Him, apprehended Him and His work for them, the very next thing that they did was to give testimony to their faith and their acceptance of Christ. They gave public testimony thereto. They declared themselves as to where they stood, they let all who could see, see where they were in this matter, and it is an essential part. It is not enough that the Word of God says, "If thou shalt believe in thine heart and confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, thou shalt be saved" - there must be an open declaration as to where we stand in this matter.

Now we go on, and it looks very much like repetition in what we are further going to say, but it is not. The next thing towards being filled with the Spirit is what we may call:-

An Absolute Yielding to God.

In the previous chapter another word was used - surrender. Now, whether you like that or not, it is right; it is true, whichever word you prefer: 'surrender' or 'yielding'. The New Testament seems to use 'yielding' more than 'surrender'.

Romans 6:16,19: "Know ye not, that to whom ye present yourselves as servants unto obedience, his servants ye are whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness? I speak after the manner of men because of the infirmity of your flesh: for as ye presented your members as servants to uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity, even so now present your members as servants to righteousness unto sanctification." Note: sanctification; yielding unto sanctification.

Now, what does this yielding or surrendering carry with it? Romans 12:1: "Present, yield your bodies", there is a first connection. 1 Cor. 6:19,20: "Know ye not that your bodies are a temple of the Holy Spirit?" 2 Cor. 5:15: "He died for all that they which live should henceforth... live unto Him who for their sakes died and rose again." Now I am putting the emphasis on this because it is here that the emphasis is not always put and not sufficiently put.

We perhaps very often accept the surrender or yielding of what we call our "hearts" to the Lord, or our spirit to the Lord. And we think of consecration or sanctification (or surrender or yielding) as something that is inward; and rightly so. But it is the whole being God claims: spirit, soul and body - that is what is meant by entire consecration - by entire sanctification, that the whole man or woman, spirit, soul and body is given to the Lord. And to me it is a tremendous thing that God says, "Your bodies are a temple of the Holy Spirit" and not just in the sense that the Holy Spirit dwells in our hearts and our hearts are in our bodies and in that way logically our bodies become a temple of the Holy Spirit. No, in a more direct and immediate way God demands that these bodies should be wholly under the control, government, and sanctifying beauty of the Holy Spirit; that we cannot do one thing with our bodies and another thing with our souls and spirits, that we cannot be Christians somewhere inside and otherwise outside - that the whole being is God's.

"Know ye not that your bodies are a temple of the Holy Spirit", "Know ye not that ye were bought with a price", "Know ye not that ye are not your own"? What does that threefold interrogation mean? Why, that on every ground every bit of us is claimed by God and should be recognised as belonging to God, and we should yield utterly to God's ownership: spirit, soul and body.

"Not your own". Man loves to be free to direct his own course and choose his own way, and make his own arrangements and judge his own judgments. But God claims to have the government of man's life in every part and that is sanctification, that God's rights are recognised in every part of our being. That is the strong side, the side of demand, where rights come in: God's rights. Oh, the unspeakable privilege and honour of having a whole man belonging to God... that God should have His way and His pleasure in a man's entire being - spirit, soul and body. Do you think that you will lose anything if you give yourself to God? Do you think that life will be a meaner, smaller, narrower thing by being consecrated to God? Do you think that you will have to give up all sorts of things and life will be stripped of its enjoyment and pleasure if you become wholly God's? There never was a bigger lie in the universe than that! Ask anyone who has let this world go for God and they will say, "There is immeasurable gain". Some of us know something of that and we would scorn to contemplate an exchange with the unsaved; not because we have never known what they know, not because we have never tasted what they are tasting; it is because we have. At best there is a hollowness in their hearts and it takes them all their time to keep it up. When one bit of pleasure has been exhausted, they have to rush off and find something more or life is going to fritter out and be a wretched thing, but we have in our hearts an eternal satisfaction and we are absolutely independent of that. The world says, "You never do this and that, you never go here and there and it does not seem to bother you very much". Yes, that is true, that is the testimony; that is the fact.

Total consecration does not narrow life; it enriches life, it brings you to the secret of life, making you know that you have got a being. It brings you into the thought of God before this world was created, "We were chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world" and God purposed a purpose in His Son before the world was. But you never discover this until you have accepted Christ and then the very first thing a young convert knows is that they have something to live for. They do not understand it, but they feel, "Now I know why I have come into this world." A purpose comes in, and to be wholly God's is not to lose; it is to gain, to come into the expansion of everything.

Suffer these familiar repetitions. The Lord does want us to know that to be wholly His is by no means to suffer loss, but to come fully into His thought and purpose for us. "Yield your bodies". Does that challenge us? Have we separated these things and thought of sanctification as something which belongs to the inner man, something spiritual, but we have not brought our bodies into that realm? What are we doing with our bodies? They are God's; they are temples of the Holy Spirit. And this was said to Corinthians, and it was said to these Corinthians at a time when they were failing to recognise this great fact, in order to correct them in their conduct. They were the Lord's children, they had been born again, but things were not just as they should be and they were making a profession of Christ and in the religious realm they were carrying out the Christian ordinances and regulations, but in the realm of their bodies there were still some serious delinquencies and they were not dividing between the two. "Don't you know that these bodies are the temples of the Holy Spirit? Don't you know that you are not your own? Don't you know that you were bought with a price? Therefore, glorify God in your body." That is sanctification by the Holy Spirit, that is the work of the Cross, you see, paving the way for the sanctification of the spirit unto the glory following.

I mention three things, without dwelling upon them, as necessary to the filling, or being filled with the Spirit and of remaining filled with the Spirit. The next thing is: obedience. That is, believing God and acting on your belief in God, obeying God in everything upon which He puts His finger. That means not arguing about it, questioning, doubting it, but if He has pointed out anything, that you give God the benefit of the doubt, if there is a doubt. You are obedient. Any reservation in that trust in God which leads to implicit obedience, will at once grieve the Holy Spirit and limit Him. And do not forget that "grieved" is a love term. You cannot grieve anybody who does not love you. You may injure them, you may in a way hurt them, but you cannot grieve them. You only grieve people who love you, and when it says, "Grieve not the Holy Spirit" it means: do not do despite to the love of the Spirit, do not violate the Spirit's love for you. And that means, in effect, that you will not for one moment tolerate anything that the Spirit is against; if you do, you grieve the Spirit and immediately He is limited. Obedience to the Spirit is obedience to the love of God and that is basic to both being filled with and remaining filled with the Spirit.

We must mention two other things, the first being prayer. Do not neglect your prayer life; if you do, you will soon discover that the Holy Spirit again is checked and the life of fulness of the Spirit ceases to be your joyful experience. Watch your prayer life. The enemy is always out to counter the mighty results of a life filled with the Spirit and one of his main objects of attack is the curtailment of personal prayer life, cutting it short, interfering with it, putting his hand upon it to somehow encamp upon the secret ground of your prayer life. And that is a work against the Holy Spirit and the result of the Holy Spirit in your prayer life.

The second thing is: the Word. A rich life in the Word of God is indispensable to a life of the fulness of the Spirit. You must dwell much in the Word. Do not think that the Holy Spirit is going to be a sort of substitute for the Word of God. A lot of people think the Holy Spirit will act and give them a message to speak and they do not do anything with regard to the Word of God. It is a pernicious peril. The word says, "Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly" and the Holy Spirit demands the indwelling Word as the instrument and means of His work in us. The mental grasp of the Scriptures is not enough; we do not want to have a theoretical knowledge of the Lord. We want to live in the Word of God in order that the Holy Spirit may illuminate it, bring it up, and direct us by it.

You remember, everything in the days of Josiah's great revival was "according to the word of God", how frequently that was repeated, "according to the word of David", "according to the word of Solomon", everything was "according to the Word". That is, they had gone to the Word and their actions were being governed by the Scriptures. And the Holy Spirit must govern our lives by the Word of God. Look after your life in the Word. And do not forget that the enemy equally is out to monopolise our time, but we have got somehow to have this life in the Word of God. You will find that any life truly filled with the Spirit, is a life richly endued with the Word of God, a life that always walks with God in His Word. These are simple, elementary, basic things, but very necessary.

Now we have come to see the ground on which we can be filled with the Spirit. We have to ask ourselves, "What about my life in the Word of God? Have I been neglecting that? Is that a poor shrunken thing?" Shall we put that right now? What about our prayer life, has that been less than we know that it ought to have been, much less than the Lord would have it? What about our obedience? Is there something where the Lord has spoken to us, something in ourselves He has shown, perhaps rebuked us, something He wants us to do or not to do? We know perhaps best ourselves just where the point of obedience is raised for us with the Lord. What about the Holy Spirit's life in us - is it checked by withholding obedience? What about yielding the whole man to the Lord? What about these bodies being presented as well as these souls? Where have we violated the Spirit in the realm of our bodies? Have we asked, concerning that bodily matter, "Is that according to the mind of God? The way I use my body, treat my body, the way I deal with my body, where I let my body go, is that glorifying? My indulgences, is it all glorifying to God, is it for God that I do that?" Is there anything in our bodies that we can say that cannot be for the glory of God? "Present your bodies... Know ye not that your bodies are the temples of the Holy Spirit?" Then getting right back to the first thing, of some whom it could not be said, "Your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit" because the Holy Spirit has never yet come in. Have you accepted the Lord Jesus in all the work of His Cross for your salvation? Have you accepted Him by faith? May that be a transaction between you and the Lord.

Chapter 5 - The Spirit of Life, Holiness and Truth

Reading: Revelation 4-5; 1:4-6; 4:5; 5:6.

I want you to notice just one or two features of these passages. There are several things which form a necessary background to what we have in our hearts for this chapter.

I want you first of all to notice that there are two statements here: "I was in the Spirit..." you notice that first in Rev. 1:10 and then in Rev. 4:2. In both cases "Spirit" is spelt, or should be spelt, with a capital 'S' - "I was in the Spirit". It does not mean 'I was spiritualised', but 'I was in the Spirit', and that is an important thing to remember. We will refer to it again presently.

Then we have here two presentations of the Lord Jesus. In chapter one you notice that the Lord Jesus is presented in those wonderful features, "I am the Alpha and Omega" and then later into the chapter "One like unto the Son of Man clothed with a garment down to the foot, girt about the breasts with a golden girdle. His head and His hair were white like wool..." etc., and then in chapter four a coming forth of a revelation or presentation of the Lord Jesus. Two presentations of Him come to the apostle when in the Spirit, and then there are two references to the seven Spirits of God, really there are three, you might notice this again, Rev. 1:4: "And from the seven Spirits that are before His throne"; Rev. 4:5: "Seven lamps of fire burning before the throne, which are the seven Spirits of God"; then in Rev. 5:6 again, "A Lamb standing as though it had been slain having seven horns and seven eyes which are the seven Spirits of God". Three times that phrase occurs.

And then finally, for this preliminary word, we take note that there are two different periods referred to. In chapter one, and from chapter one to the end of chapter three, you have that dispensation when the Lord Jesus is dealing with the assemblies. Chapter three sees the close of that period and chapter four brings in His administration with regard to those who dwell upon the earth. Two different periods dealing with two different sets of people. Now, those things are important to have by us as we take the great principles which come out in connection with the seven Spirits of God.

You will notice first of all a reference to the Holy Spirit, "I was in the Spirit" and then through those three chapters again and again you have reference to the Holy Spirit, "What the Spirit saith to the churches", and then in the second period, the new conditions, "I was in the Spirit", but you have there nothing further said about the direct activity of the Holy Spirit. But there is a double reference to the seven Spirits of God. You will see that this is of very great importance, for what it amounts to is this: that the Holy Spirit has been operating in relation to the mind of God. He has been at work seeking to bring about a state of things which represent God's thought, God's mind, God's will. And then the Spirit brings the apostle up into the presence of the throne where the Lord Jesus is enthroned and beginning His administrative activity. And as the Spirit brings the apostle up there to that position to see this administrative work commencing, it is as though the seven Spirits of God are revealed as representing that mind of God in Christ. And the Spirit shows how the administration is related to that fully established mind of God in Christ as represented by the seven Spirits of God. And what the apostle now sees is what it is the Holy Spirit has been working towards and how that is the standard of the Divine administration from that point onwards.

It is as though God had set a standard, the Holy Spirit had been working towards that, that was His function; that was His object. And now that standard is there and the administration begins in relation to that standard and everything is decided according to how it approximates to that standard. That standard is an active administrative standard of testing, judging and interrogating according to God's mind in Christ as suggested by the seven Spirits of God. The seven Spirits of God imply administrative activities of God in relation to the Lord Jesus.

In the two passages, the two periods, you have a presentation of the Lord Jesus. The one presentation is concerning the churches and in relation to that there are the seven Spirits. The second presentation is in relation to those that dwell on the earth, to the inhabitants of the earth. It is the Lord Jesus in view in both cases and you have the seven Spirits operating in relation to Him in both cases. And the operation is just this, those seven Spirits which are linked with the Lord Jesus in His position of exaltation and glory and administration, represent the complete and full-orbed spiritual perfections of the Lord Jesus.

You notice that you have here different symbolisms of the seven Spirits. You see that in the first passage you have "And from the seven Spirits that are before His throne"; in the second passage, chapter 4, you have "Seven lamps of fire burning before the throne", in the third passage you have "A Lamb having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits". This is the Lord Jesus. Now, we know that seven is the number or spiritual completeness or perfection. This Lamb has seven horns: the perfect strength of the Lord Jesus, for the horns always symbolise strength or power - the perfection of spiritual strength in Him. Seven eyes: the perfection of spiritual vision, or apprehension, or discernment, or knowledge. Seven lamps: the perfection of spiritual holiness; the fire that burns to refine, to purify, to produce what is holy.

These seven Spirits in all their typology are related to the Person who is there in administrative position and capacity, and the Holy Spirit has been working towards that standard as represented by the Lord Jesus. Now everything is going to be determined according to that standard; that is the administration. The standard is the Lord Jesus in the sum total of His spiritual perfections, not the spiritual perfections of God as God, but the spiritual perfections which have been brought to that state of perfection through suffering, through testing, through trial. It is again as representative Man who was made perfect through suffering, and God has brought One to that administrative position in virtue of what He is spiritually.

You notice the cry went out, "Who is able to take the book and unlock the seals?" and there was not found one in heaven who could do it but, "I looked and behold, the Lamb in the midst of the throne as though it had been slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, and He came and took the book and opened..." and then everything started singing, "Thou art worthy". What was the worthiness of the Lord Jesus to take the book of administration in the throne? It was the worthiness of what He was, or His own spiritual virtue, in virtue of what He is spiritually through suffering. That is God's standard. Administration is according to God's standard as realised and represented in the Person of the Lord Jesus there in the throne, brought to a certain state of spiritual perfection through sufferings.

Now, that is the basis of all God's dealings with man. The first is with the church, or churches, and the other is with the residue of men. Put it simply, on what basis will God judge? On what basis will the throne administrate? On the basis of what the Lord Jesus is as a representation of God's thought spiritually. Everything will be tested by God having reached and realised a spiritual standard in a glorified Man. He has got that standard realised there in that Person in the throne, and He is going to test all men by that Man, and that is the realisation of the word declared by the apostle in Acts 17, "God hath appointed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness by that Man, Himself Man, Jesus Christ". But I am not thinking of Jesus as God in this position, it is Jesus as Son of Man in the Revelation. It is the Son of Man, "I, Jesus..." it is Jesus as the Son of Man. And for men Christ Jesus has reached that position along the line of trial, testing, and fires of suffering. He has been made perfect through suffering and now God is going to test every man according to the standard of His own Son, according to the standard of that Man, Himself Man, Jesus Christ. What is going to be the basis of our judgment? It is what the Lord Jesus is towards which the Holy Spirit came to work. He came to work in you and me to bring us to that standard, to bring us up to that level, to develop in us (yes, through suffering, through trial) the spiritual perfections of the Lord Jesus and we are going to stand and be judged according to that standard of what is in Christ.

You see, we all come short - oh, but we have not got there yet. The question for us at the moment is, "Is the Holy Spirit able now by our permission and consent, obedience, cooperation and faith, able now to do all that He can do at this moment?" Not tomorrow, or the future, or the past, the thing is the Holy Spirit having free way in us now. And we have only got to consider today; when tomorrow comes we will have to consider tomorrow. We will take it one day at a time, that the Holy Spirit has His way fully in us hour by hour, moment by moment, day by day and when we have spent all our moments and hours and days, we will not yet have arrived, but if the Holy Spirit has been having His way, in the twinkling of an eye He can complete the work of conformity to the image of His Son.

This is the matter for our consideration and that, you see, is the standard of the administration. The churches are, as it were, brought before that standard, the Lord Jesus is presented in that, in those spiritual perfections symbolised as you noticed. The Spirit is speaking to the churches in relation to that standard, to the revelation of God's mind in Christ, and the constant appeal is, "He that hath an ear to hear, let him hear what the Spirit saith", for what the Spirit is saying is in relation to God's standard. If we fall short of God's standard by our own interruption of the work of the Spirit, then our candlestick is set aside, our testimony becomes obscured, our place of standing before God in acceptance becomes eclipsed and the Lord has to judge. "Repent", "Consider from whence thou art fallen", "Do the first works." This is the administration of Him who is in the midst of the lampstands working by His Spirit in relation to what He is in Himself spiritually. And then in the next dispensation, for in that new dispensation it is to John "the things that are"; chapter 4:1, "the things which shall be afterwards", but the standard is still the same because God made it possible for every man and woman in this world to be conformed to the image of His Son.

God has sent His Spirit not for a few, but for all. "I will pour out My Spirit upon all flesh", there is universality of the activity of the Holy Spirit. There is not the remotest corner of this world to which you can go, but the Holy Spirit operates there. He has come that all men might be conformed to the image of His Son, Jesus Christ, and eventually all men will be judged, not by whether they were more or less good or bad, not as to whether they committed more sins than other people, as to whether they were better than other people, but according to God's standard in Jesus Christ. That standard is being worked towards by the Holy Spirit. Now, that standard, we have said, is represented in active spiritual forces, or elements, by the seven Spirits; the seven Spirits related to the Lord Jesus for time in His throne, in His position. The seven Spirits represent certain spiritual elements and features of the Lord Jesus.

Firstly,

The Spirit of Life.

You take lamps, fire, or the horns (the power), or the eyes (the vision), and trace through the Word of God and you will find that Life takes those features. Life is represented by fire, power is the power of resurrection life (the horns); vision, apprehension is a mark of Life. The same applies to every other feature, but we will confine ourselves to the very simple statement of truth that firstly, of the seven Spirits you have the Spirit of Life.

How is the Lord Jesus presented first of all in His active capacity in the book of Revelation? "I am He that liveth, I became dead, but behold, I am alive for evermore." "I am the Living One." The Book of the Revelation closes with the throne and the river of the water of Life issued from it. Life is the first feature of Christ in His exalted and glorified position, Life. "I am come that they might have life and that they might have it abundantly." "I am the Life" and how much we might gather up of Life in relation to the Lord Jesus! We are seen to be dead in trespasses and sins, dead so far as our relationship to God is concerned, so far as our relationship to God's things is concerned, so far as our relationship to heaven is concerned. We are dead... doubly dead because of sin which carries death with it, and dead by the Cross of the Lord Jesus by which God has legally committed the whole race to death in the death of Christ. Dead. And until we have been born of the Spirit we do not have Life, the Spirit of Life in Christ, and we are going to be first of all dealt with in the administrative activities of the throne on the basis of whether we possess Life, that Life, and then as to how far that Life is in us. For we must recognise that different believers possess very different measures of Divine Life.

There are some people who are saved, you must not dispute it, they have had a transaction with the Lord, but where is the Life? I do not mean the kind of conduct, but that glorious Divine Life in them expressing itself as Life will express itself. When you get Life, you know you have got it, and other people know you have got it. When the saints at the beginning received the Spirit of Life in Christ, everybody knew it and you never for one moment would have had to say to any one of those believers, "That habit of yours, you have to give it up". The things would have dropped off, fallen away, left them. The old things passed away and all things were new. It was the Life that shed the old things. Today there are so many believers, but oh, the clinging of the old habits, indulgences, interests. Life is not shedding the old thing at all; there is not enough Life there to do it. Firstly it is as to whether we have Life.

Here is the challenge right at the beginning: first of all, have you got Life? And you close the book of the Revelation with that issue, "And whosoever was not found written in the Lamb's book of Life...". Are you quite sure that you are in the book of Life, or the book of the living ones? And then what about the measure of Life? Is Life more abundant in you? Is there Life triumphant, is it the Life of resurrection which is a horn of power, which is an eye of vision and perception? You know, the more Divine Life we receive by the Holy Spirit from the Lord Jesus, the more discernment we have. The spiritual eye grows dim when the spiritual Life wanes; spiritual discernment and apprehension grows keen as the Life increases. It is the eye of the seven Spirits, and oh, for the fire of zeal and passion and burning like the burning lamp of the seven Spirits - Life! It is not going to be some merely legal code by which we are judged, but according to our living spiritual state. The seven Spirits are active laws in relation to what Christ is and the active laws of the seven Spirits first demand the law of the Spirit of Life in Christ.

Now that, of course, ought to occupy the whole evening and whole conference, but one mentions it. Let us test ourselves before the throne, even now, may it not be that the churches are standing before the bar of the Lord now and He has to say, "Thou hast a name to live and thou art dead" and the judgment is we have not got Life, and we have not got the measure of Life we ought to have. Let us test it personally.

First of all, have we received in new birth, by regeneration, by an act of the Holy Spirit a transaction with God, have we received the gift of God which is eternal Life in Jesus Christ our Lord? If you have got it you know it. Shall I say, if you have got HIM who is Life, you will know it, and if you do not know it, you ought to go to the Lord in a very serious state of uncertainty and ask the Lord about this thing, "With all my religious profession and church-going I am not sure I have got Him resident within who is Life". Get that settled. And if you are sure you are the Lord's, what about the measure of Life? For there are increasing measures of Divine Life and the Lord would have us filled with the Spirit of Life.

Then as to the seven Spirits in relation to the Lord Jesus,

The Spirit of Holiness.

This is an active principle, an active virtue and feature in the Person of Jesus Christ, the glorified Son of Man. The Holy Spirit has been here as the Spirit of Holiness to work towards that standard. Now we are going to be judged according to how we measure up to the Spirit of Holiness. God has reached His standard of holiness in the Lord Jesus for man, the Holy Spirit has come to reach that standard in the Lord Jesus in every other believer. The administrative activity of that throne will be in relation to what God has in Christ, and what the Holy Spirit has come to do in us in the matter of practical holiness.

We were speaking in the previous chapter much about our sanctification by the Spirit - spirit, soul and body - wholly the Lord's. Let us remember that we have to stand before God's standard in the Lord Jesus and not be judged by any other law than what God made possible in the coming of the Holy Spirit. You see, what God requires, He makes possible. He is righteous, He is just, and God has never laid a demand upon any man without providing for the accomplishing or attainment of that demand. And when God says, "Be ye holy for I am holy" He gives the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him, in order to be holy and to fulfil His own requirements.

The question is: are we walking in holiness? Is the Holy Spirit being freely able to work holiness in us or are we checking it? It is not a matter of the position we have reached, more or less, it is the matter of whether the Holy Spirit is having His way in this holiness matter now. He can complete the holiness in a moment, but that is not our concern. Our concern is, have we today been abandoned to the Spirit of holiness? Have we, with every touch of the Spirit of holiness upon our conscience making us know that something was, or is wrong, displeasing the Lord, something is out of harmony with this life, have we gone to the Lord and cleared that up? I am not talking about being sinlessly perfect. "If any man say that he hath no sin he deceiveth himself but if we sin we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, and if we confess our sin He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us." God has provided a place and a way for instantaneous dealing with sins that believers commit and that is yielding to the Holy Spirit. No one will think they can presume upon that and think lightly of sin.

The matter of holiness is God's standard and God requires that we shall yield to the conviction about sin and the Holy Spirit will always lead us to the Cross and to the blood to clear up sin, but immediately we begin to treat sin lightly because we have an Advocate with God, He will give us a bad time and let us have a period of terrible suffering. We will not get through easily. But if in travail of soul we come in grief and penitence before Him, humbling ourselves, the Holy Spirit will apply the blood and give us peace, and we are not likely to do that again easily. We have yielded to the Spirit of holiness, and God is working towards His Standard, the Lord Jesus, and we all have to be tested by that Standard.

One other thing of the seven, and that is,

The Spirit of Truth.

You notice the Lord Jesus comes in in all these features in the twofold presentation. He is there as Life, the Living One; He is there as Holiness, His hair is white as white wool He is crowned with holiness and purity, He is a purged One as representing man; and then you notice He is presented in the third place as the Faithful and True Witness, and of the seven Spirits the third is the Spirit of Truth. And you notice the Holy Spirit working personally in relation to the seven Spirits is the Spirit of Truth.

The seven Spirits are the administrative agents, the Holy Spirit is the One working towards the Standard by which they will administrate. The Spirit of Truth is the Holy Spirit working towards the Standard in the Lord Jesus who is the Truth: "I am the truth". And this book of Revelation has much to say about the truth. As it closes on the question of Life in the Lamb's book of Life, it also closes on the question of holiness, "Let him that is holy be holy still, him that is unclean be unclean still". The question of holiness comes in as the ultimate issue of the book of Revelation. Then the question of truth and the issue at the end of the book is the same standard, or issue as at the beginning of the book: the Christ, the true Witness. The end of the book: "everything that maketh a lie". The Standard at the end is Christ as the Truth.

I am not speaking just about true things, things said being true things, although that may be included. And I am not just thinking about veracity, the thing can be relied upon as being a fact, as being true in that sense. I am thinking of the spiritual thing, not just doctrine stated, or things which are established because they are true, but I am thinking of spiritual nature. The river of water of Life with which the book of Revelation closes is clear as crystal, and everything in this book is jasper: clear, transparent. The Lord Jesus is that. There is not a shadow of duplicity, suspicion or hypocrisy, doubtfulness or deceitfulness about Him. There is not the slightest film of unreality or insincerity about the Lord Jesus. He is true, He is clear, He is transparent, He is jasper. He can stand before God, the searching eyes of God can go through Him and find nothing in Him that is not absolutely transparently clear and true and pure.

You remember the priests of old, when they took the sacrifice to slay it and go through all its inwards examining them to find, if they could, any flaw, anything that was not absolutely without blemish, and the finding of one spot or blemish meant that the whole of that sacrifice had to be put aside and rejected because that sacrifice was intended to be a representation of the Lord Jesus offered to God. And no sacrifices were offered on Jewish altars, when that priesthood was clean, that could not pass the most careful scrutiny to find a flaw; if they could find anything that was not absolutely clean, the whole thing had to be rejected. It was Christ in view and He was offered to God and acceptable to God. That is the Standard towards which the Holy Spirit has come to work in the believer, and that is the Standard according to which we are measured.