The Immense Significance of Jesus Christ: Crucified, Risen, and Exalted (continued)
The Crucified Church: A Vessel, An Instrument: In Touch with the Throne (continued)
But oh, the Lord does need a recovery of that kind of vocation, and it is not going to stop here. I have said the vocation of the Church in the ages to come - oh, it may not be then against the devil, but I quoted a scripture the other day and told you, I do not understand what it means: "Know you not," said Paul to the Corinthians, "we shall judge angels?" We shall judge angels? That does not mean that angels are doing wrong and are going to be brought into judgment by us in eternity: it means government, telling them what to do, what is required of them. Oh, it means, I do not know what it means, but it says, "We shall judge angels." It is the Church that is going to be the administrative instrument of Christ through the ages to come: - and the Church has got to learn administration now.
We are in a school of learning, a wonderful school, learning to fulfill such a vast vocation in the ages to come. This school is for that. And if we are really through the Cross, under the Holy Spirit, under the Anointing Spirit, and if we are all "baptized in One Spirit into One Body," if that is true, (perhaps we have got to get clearer as to what that baptism is and what that Anointing is and what that Body is) if that is true, then we are now under the Holy Spirit's tuition. This is a practical tuition, and not a theoretical one, under His tuition in order that we shall graduate when the Lord comes - graduate into that vocation with which we have been called, unto which we have been appointed from eternity in the counsel of God: to be His governing vessel through the ages to come.
Too wonderful to grasp! Is it beyond you? It is beyond me. But this is what Paul teaches, and it is to begin with us now. "And now," says he, "unto the principalities in the heavenlies may be made known the manifold wisdom of God in the Church." It is a wonderful vocation. Yet how far we fall short.
Now this morning that is enough I am sure for you to lay hold of and wrestle with. Much more could be said, but that is quite enough for now. Be quiet about it, think about it, meditate upon it. All this, dear friends, that I have tried to say to you, that the Lord has tried to show you, does issue from an experimental knowledge of the Cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. It does . And you have seen now what that Cross means on both its sides. May it not be a subject, a doctrine, a teaching, a theory, but the mighty reality that it is in every realm. May we pray ...
We are very conscious, Lord, that when we touch realms like this, there is much that tries to battle and stifle and make it difficult both to speak and to hear. So that now at the end of this course, or time, we must appeal to Thee as on the Throne to exercise Thyself in Thy Authority, Thy Power, to make these things realities, living realities in us. Not the subject of the convocation, not the theme that certain people followed in their ministry; but, O God, save us and bring us into the good of what Thou dost say. Make it live, make it a power in us. May it register in earth and in Heaven. In the Name of the Lord Jesus, Amen
~T. Austin-Sparks~
(The End)
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