The Gospel According To Paul # 26

The Gospel According To Paul # 26

The Glory of God In A Man, continued -

God is here represented as being in a state of perfect tranquility, restfulness, calm, abiding assurance and satisfaction and joy, and everything that can be summed up in the word "blessedness". God is represented as being, God is stated to be, in that condition. What is the basis of that state of God? It is just that God has found a perfect, a complete expression of Himself in a Man. Yes, we know who that Man was. I am not overlooking or setting aside His Deity, His own Godhead, but I am not thinking about that just now. You see, God created man with a very, very high purposes. Indeed, man was created in order to answer to and satisfy the heart of God: and when we say that, we are saying tremendous things. To satisfy the heart of God! There are some people who take a lot of satisfying. Indeed, they never do seem satisfied. Things are always falling short of their standard and their ideal. But you can go a long way, you can go as far as it is possible to go with any human conception of satisfaction, and you still fall far, far short, infinitely short, of God's idea. God is so much greater, so much more wonderful.

We have in the fallen creation but a faint reflection of how wonderful and great God is. Yet even when we view this very creation as it is, with all its faults and weaknesses and variations and so on, we have to stand in awe and worship. We can see just a faint indication of what a wonderful God He is, and of how much it must take to satisfy Him. Yet here He is in a state of absolute satisfaction, calm, tranquil, restful, happy, because all those thoughts of His, all those desires of His, all those intentions of His, and all those first undertakings of His, have now been consummated and perfected - not in the creation generally, but in a Man. That Man answers to God to the very last requirement of that infinite Mind. How great Christ is! God finds, therefore, His happiness. His blessedness, His satisfaction. His tranquility in that.

A Representative Man

Perhaps you may think, 'That is a beautiful thing to say, those are very wonderful thoughts to express, but where is the practical value of it?' Ah, that is just the gospel, you see. Do you thing that the Lord Jesus, God's Son, came through and took the position of man, and was made perfect to God's utter and final satisfaction, just in order that God should have that in one Man? No, the gospel is this, that the Lord Jesus is representative of all the men that God is going to have. He is representative and He is inclusive. The old and beautiful beginning of the gospel, which you and I, after long familiarity with it, still often need, for our own tranquility, to grasp more perfectly, is just this: that Jesus Christ, God's Son, is a sphere into which we are called, bidden, invited to enter by faith, so that we are hidden in Him as to what we are ourselves; God sees only Him and not us. A wonderful thing! You have got to put aside all your arguments and all your questions, and accept God's fact. That this phrase, "in Christ", occurs two hundred times and more in the New Testament must surely mean something.

God Sees Us In Christ

The first, and perhaps the all-inclusive, thing that it means, is that, if you are in Christ, God sees Christ instead of seeing you. I have a little piece of paper here. Let that represent you or me in ourselves, what we are. I put it into a book, and that book represents Christ. You do not see the paper anymore, you only see the book. That is our position "in Christ". That is what Christ means. All His satisfaction to God is put to our account. That is the gospel: when you and I are in Christ, God is satisfied with us - tranquil, happy, blessed. Oh, what wonderful gospel! You cannot grasp it, or explain it, but there is the fact stated. This is the gospel of the glory of the satisfied God.

Putting again the test that we are applying in other connections in an earlier chapter, it is just this: that, when you and I really come into Christ and find our place in Christ, one of the first things of which we are conscious is that all the strain has gone out; we have come to rest. A marvelous tranquility, that is not natural, has come into us. We feel the battle is all over between us and God. It is wonderful; a blessed, happy condition. Now, that is our experience, but what is the significance of it? It is the Spirit of the happy God bearing witness to God's happiness in our hearts. "The gospel of the glory of the blessed God". The first stage of that is a position. We are in Christ.

Christ In Us

The second stage or the second aspect of that is that Christ is in us. But we must not pursue that to the same conclusion as in the last point. That does not mean that we are seen and Christ is hidden. No, Christ is in us and we are in Christ: an impossible thing to explain, unless perhaps we can put it like this. Dr. Campbell Morgan was asked on one occasion whether baptism was sprinkling or immersion. He said: 'My dear friend, come with me to the Niagara Falls, and stand underneath. Are you sprinkled or are you immersed?' Well, I leave you to answer. But it is like that. Christ is in us. Why is He in us? He is in us as that very satisfaction to the heart of God, in order that the Spirit of God may work in us to conform us to Christ.

And that introduces another aspect of the Christian life: that, if you and I go on continually on the basis of Christ within, our joy increases. That can be put to the test. Stop going on with the Lord, and see what happens to our joy. Get away from the Lord, and see what happens to our blessedness. We shall begin to lament then -

'Where is the blessedness I knew
When first I saw the Lord?
Where is the soul-refreshing view
Of Jesus and His Word?'

Ah, but God forbid that it should be necessary for any of us to sing that hymn. It is not necessary. Go on with the Lord Jesus on the basis of God's satisfaction with Him, and the blessedness increases. God's happiness enlarges in our heart. Christ is installed within as the pattern, standard, and basis upon which God works.

~T. Austin-Sparks~

(continued with # 27)