Men Whose Eyes Have Seen the King # 60

He Must Reign (continued)

The second thing He is doing is that He is constituting the life of that people on heavenly principles. We wish He had freer, fuller scope to do it. But He is doing it. That is, He is inculcating the life and laws of Heaven into that people. And again the illustration is Israel at Sinai, and in the Wilderness. There the heavenly laws were given, and they were constituted according to heavenly principles. They were tested, tried, proved according to the laws of Heaven. Their very daily bread had to come out of Heaven: they had to live out of Heaven, live on Heaven; their life had to be, indeed, a heavenly life. There was nothing here to constitute them God's people. They had to be constituted on a heavenly basis. And that is what the Risen Lord is seeking to do with His people. If only we understood, again, our experiences, we should see that that is the explanation and interpretation. He is seeking to reconstitute us on a heavenly basis of life. He is energetically trying to do it. Because we do not understand what He is doing, we are so slow in the changeover. Let us recognize the fact and take it to heart.

The third thing that He is doing is putting all His enemies under His feet. And that takes us, with Israel, over the Jordan, into the Land. See there how those nations were put under the feet of Joshua through the people. The counterpart of that now is that it is through His Church that the Lord Jesus is bringing His enemies under His feet. Oh that we were more efficient in this! That is a challenge; it is a truth. But He is doing it, putting His enemies under His feet, and doing it through His church - so imperfectly and with such limitations, but that is His way. Old William Gurnall, the writer of "The Christian in Complete Armour", speaking of the serpent's head being put under the Lord's heel, pictures the Lord saying to His Church: "I have put him under My heel, come you and put your heel upon him!" We should be cooperating with the Lord Jesus in this matter.

See how He has done it through the centuries. It is a tremendous story! The very long-term nature of it, the extension of it over time, may rob it of some of its in our consciousness. But if you could just put it all together, the story of how He has done it through the centuries, what a story it would be!

~T. Austin-Sparks~

(continued with # 61)