The Necessity for Weakness # 2
This thing is so deep, so subtle, so secret, that you and I will never get to the bottom of it. You and I will never be, as we say, upsides with it. We shall never be able to lay our hand upon it, to grip it, to comprehend it. It is too deep for us, it is too subtle for us. The ways in which the desire for strength shows itself are so often so deeply subtle that it is a thought to be good and right, or it is entirely unseen, and it lies back of more of the mischief, the havoc, the ruin, the limitation even in the Lord's people than we are aware of. Oh, the tremendous antagonism to the interests of the Lord found in this nature of our along the line of a desire for strength; strength of various kinds, but strength.
Herein lies the need then for weakness; weakening, breaking, emptying, and only one with the full intelligence concerning the depth and range of that thing could deal with it, and you and I have not got that. The Lord knows the full range, and comprehends the utter dimensions of that thing in humanity, and it was Himself Who went to the Cross to take a fallen humanity to death. The Cross of the Lord Jesus is something far bigger than ever we have discovered, far more than we have any idea of. The depths of our nature have been seen as we have never seen them, and dealt with in that Cross. All the subtle forces which so deceive us as to make us think that they are good, God has seen their real nature and has taken all that of which we are so ignorant to the Cross and has dealt with it, root and branch, from center to circumference. But we know that that has a practical application, and therein is the necessity for weakness in that realm, that even a mighty apostle, with an opened heaven and a voice from the glorified Son of God, a chosen vessel before the world was, and all that he represented of sovereignty and grace, must of necessity have a stake planted clean through his flesh lest he become exalted above measure. That is an indication of the Divine mind as to the damage of a quest after power, which lies secretly within the old creation, and which would show itself in spite of consecration, in spite of being willing to die, and die, and die again in the interests of the Lord.
You have no man more utter for God than Paul, the apostle, a man who will demonstrate that he will die in the Lord's interests, and yet there is a danger in him of the old man, which God recognizes. It was an eye-opener to him when the Lord made clear to him why he must have that stakes put through his flesh. The thing is so subtle, and it works so secretly, and it works in spite of all that we mean to be for God. It works in the dark where we do not recognize it. Therefore there is this tremendous necessity for God to make the Cross a real thing continuously to the ending of that thing, to the breaking, emptying, and bringing of us to a state of weakness and conscious dependence because of the tremendous value of such a statement to the Lord as in 2 Cor. 12:9, standing over against the tremendous injury to the Lord's interests bound up with such a tendency, with such a trait in our characters.
The True Nature And Realm of Strength
There must be a word said on the other side. Just as truly and equally with the necessity for weakness is there the necessity for strength at the same time. Just as emphatically are the words declared: "Be strong..." But what is the nature of that strength? What is the realm of that strength? "Be strong in the Lord, and in the strength of His might" (Eph. 6:10). That strength will never be in us as ourselves. It will never be a part of us. It will always be retained and preserved in the Lord, so that our relationship will always be on the basis of faith's dependence. We shall never be able to walk away with the Lord's strength as though it were ours, and use it. "Be strong in the Lord...".
The point is this, that there is a Man in Whom all the might of God can dwell without any danger. There is a Man in Whom the power of God can dwell in fullness without any danger. That Man is in heaven. That Man is not here. The power of God cannot dwell in us without danger, "...he was marvelously helped, till he was strong." Oh, what a pity that word "till" had to come in. It indicates such terrible possibilities. The issue in the case of Uzziah was that the Lord smote him. A terrible change in the story. It shows that it is not safe for us to take hold of God's strength for ourselves, and God has put the Cross there, where it can never be done. He can never allow it. If we try it, we shall be broken. We shall come up against the great forbidding of the Cross. But God has found a Man. Yes, I know He is more than a Man; He is God, He is the Son of God. That is one side. We never confuse these two sides. But there is the other side. He is Son of Man, and He is a man in Whom the power of God can dwell in fullness without any danger. That Man will never use that power for His own ends as apart from the Father. You will never have any fleshly laying hold of power on the part of the Lord Jesus. In Him there is none of that subtle working of self which, even unconsciously, uses Divine power and Divine blessing for itself. It is not in him. He may be, all unconsciously, gratified that people regard him as good, or as having experience. Oh, yes, it works there in that realm. But here is One Who can have all Divine power,and there is not the slightest trace in Him of anything that would turn that power to personal account; therefore the power can dwell in Him fully.
Two things are clear if that is the position. You can read, if you will, that which will establish for you that it is what God has done. Turn to Acts 17:31 and then to 2 Tim. 4:8. Then turn to Romans 2:16.
The Man Whom He has ordained for the judgment of the world in righteousness, the Lord the righteous Judge at that day. Who is the Lord the righteous Judge? Jesus Christ, the Man Whom God has ordained! If you want further evidence, read the whole of John chapter 5. There is the Man in Whom all power rests without any danger.
The two things are these. We are to be strong in the strength which is in Christ Jesus. He is to be our strength. We shall never have that strength in ourselves. It will never be our strength intrinsically, not here at any rate. It is His strength, and therefore it must be, on the one hand, so far as we are concerned, continuous weakness, continuous dependence. So far as He is concerned, He is our strength. What does Paul mean when he says: "When I am weak, than am I strong?" That is a contradiction, surely. In other words, he would say, "When I am weak, the Lord has an opportunity of showing His strength in me!" That is the kind of strength we want, and the Lord's strength can only be made perfect when we are weak. If we are strong, the Lord stands back and lets us get on with it,and we use up our strength and soon come to a grievous end. "When I am weak, then am I strong." The whole thing is reconciled when you get down inside. Weak and strong at the same time? Yes, but never strong in ourselves, only strong in the Lord.
There is this other thing. There is conformity to the Son of God, opening up the whole process and progress through faith, through dependence, through weakness, by which we come - oh, so very slowly - to the place where the Lord can depend upon us, where the Lord knows we will not take His blessing, His strength, His using of us and trade upon it for ourselves, where He knows that we are becoming trustworthy, with the trustworthiness of His Son, conformed to His image, and as that is so, the power is more abundantly caused to rest upon us. it is those who, most conscious of their own weakness, exercise the greatest faith in the greatest measure of that strength manifest in them. The hindrance to the Lord's strength in us is our own strength. The way for His strength is our weakness. So the apostle said that he would glory in weakness that the power of Christ might rest upon him, might encamp upon him.
The Lord bring us into the reality of this glorious paradox.
~T. Austin-Sparks~
(The End)
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