T. Austin-Sparks · 1 of 4

Christ the Power of God

Reading: Matthew 27:38-50,54; 1 Corinthians 1:24; 1 Corinthians 2:2.

“But unto them that are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.”

“For I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ and Him crucified.”

If I were asked, beloved, what, so far as I am concerned in the Lord speaking to me, is the theme of this conference, I should say that those two passages represent it. One, "Christ the power of God," the other immediately linked with it, and largely the explanation of it, "Jesus Christ and Him crucified."

This morning we shall be occupied, I think, for a little while mainly with opening the way to a consideration of Him thus, "Christ the power of God," "Jesus Christ and Him crucified."

Two Kinds of Christians

There are two kinds of Christian life which seem to me to very largely divide the Lord’s people into two kinds of Christians. One, perhaps the more common, is that of an almost continuous struggle to live up to something which has been objectively presented, objectively seen. It is Christianity as a system, as a kind of life, as composed of a great many rules, laws and regulations; things which ought to be, and ought not to be: something as apart from the individual, called The Christian Life, and the individual has seen that, had that presented and in a way apprehended it, and then from that time there has commenced and developed a great effort, endeavour, struggle to live up to it; to carry it out objectively. It is Christian endeavour - it is a striving, a putting forth of effort to attain unto a conceived level of life which would be the Christian life. Very largely it is a matter of conscience; very largely, therefore, it is a matter of fear, and therefore it is not always a matter of joy. It is a strenuous business, fraught with much disappointment and much failure. It is rather an existence than a life, characterised by up and down experiences. There may be from time to time a sense of having succeeded, and feeling very pleased and very happy, very joyful, very glad, but then by all the strange changes of our soul-life we do not always feel just like that, feelings change, conditions change, there are failures, there are collapses, there are mistakes, and we come down, and come down badly. Then a fresh effort has to be put forth to get up and to go on a bit more.

And so that kind of Christian life is a somewhat burdensome one; and we find so many of the Lord’s children in that realm, just longing to know something about real victory, something about real overcoming, something about the abiding joy of the Lord, deliverance from the strenuousness of being Christians. Do you understand what I mean? It is the experience of a very great many. The struggle life, the up and down life, and for the most part, the sense that this Christian life which is presented in the New Testament is something different from that which is experienced by these children of God, and either they have misapprehended the whole thing, or else the thing does not really work. And the enemy is never slow to pounce in upon such and harass them and tell them Christianity is not a success, the Christian life is not what it is presented to be. Well, that is one kind; we are all too familiar with it. It is the Christian life which is according to something objectively presented and accepted. But there is another kind and that is, the entering into something already completed in Christ. Not something to be attained unto, but something already accomplished; not something at all to be lived up to, but Someone to be lived with. The vast difference between those two things in the outworking can hardly be measured. It is “Christ, the power of God”. Now when we have said that, we have opened the way to see just what the Lord Jesus is, and we can never get outside of that and we never want to. But it is very important that we should see exactly what that means.

The Peril in “Advanced Teaching”

Now there is no such thing as teaching which is an advanced system as such. Teaching is not departmental or sectional. What I mean is this. You hear of people talking about truth which has to do with the “more advanced stages of Christian life,” as though it were something in a water-tight compartment by itself, sectionalised, and, well, you can accept it or you can leave it; “that line of things,” that particular teaching, regarded as something extra, something different, something that is more than the normal Christian life, something by itself, and you take it or you reject it, and it does not matter very much. If you are going to live the “higher life” then you must have the “higher teaching,” but if you are not going in for that sort of thing well you must remain, as you say, “simple Christians” and believers and abide by the simplicities of the Gospel of Christ, and it does not matter very much, it is just a matter of your interest in teaching and in truth. Now I want very emphatically, as the Lord enables, to undermine and undercut all such notions, because there is no such thing as “advanced teaching” as a separate system. There is no such thing! It does not matter with what you deal in the New Testament, you will never find it as a thing by itself, departmentalised, sectionalised, in a water-tight compartment, to be taken or left at your own will. Never! Never can you come to the New Testament in that way!

We have spoken much of the “Overcomer” for instance. The Overcomer of the book of the Revelation and the Overcomer company coming at length to the throne. Now it is quite easy to begin to take that as advanced teaching, as something which is for certain people and not for others. That is for some who care to go in for it; that need not be for all, and it is quite optional after all whether you do go in for it. Now what is the Overcomer individually, and collectively? The Overcomer of the Book of the Revelation is only the ripe and full product of the work of Christ in His cross; it is only Christ in His fuller manifestation and expression. The Overcomer is still a matter of Christ the power of God. Just exactly as in salvation at its commencement, so in full triumph at its consummation. The most advanced point is vitally connected with the most elementary point. We are constantly brought back from the ultimate to the initial in the Word of God. You get to Revelation and you get to the throne, and you get to the triumphant Overcomer company, but even there you are immediately linked with the blood of the Lamb, and the Lamb slain, and that is initial and fundamental, basic. The two things, the end and the beginning are brought together, they are not separated, and you cannot take “Overcomer” teaching and departmentalise it and make a system of it and say that it is an advanced teaching for certain believers. No, beloved, it is the normal outcome of your initial faith in Christ. It is to be what God intended Calvary to be for every believer. It is simply the realisation of God’s thought in forgiving us our sins right at the beginning. It is only the development, the normal development according to God’s mind, of the elementary things of our salvation, and there is a very great peril in becoming taken up with, and fascinated by, advanced teaching, as though it were something in itself. A very great peril, for this reason, that very often that fascination causes an overlooking of the steps of advance. It is something out there, objectively, and people get into it with their heads mentally and take it up and are fascinated by it, and are always talking about it, but they have not advanced progressively into it in experience and spiritual development, and there is a failure to recognise that you cannot get to anything only by definite steps of spiritual advance, and those steps are always in relation to the Cross of Christ, for there is not one step forward in the spiritual life which is not first a step backward.

What I mean is this, that there has to be some undoing before there can be some updoing; there has got to be some application of the Cross in some fuller way before we can go one step further; and all advance into the fuller things is by reason of the Cross being progressively applied and wrought to release us from that which holds us back; that in the flesh which holds us back from that which is in the Spirit. So then we cannot come to anything by a mental process, and there is that peril of fascination with advanced things which overlooks the steps of advance to the higher, or deeper things of the Lord. That is the peril; and we can never reach the higher, or the ultimate, unless the beginnings are properly wrought in us, and in this sense we never do depart from the beginnings. It is a point which has often been noted, but which we do well never to forget, that when Israel went over the Jordan, (a type of the Lord’s people coming through identification union with Christ in death and burial and resurrection, and coming on to Ephesian and Colossian ground, that is the heavenlies) the base of all their operations from that moment was Gilgal, and they never went out to battle, to an undertaking, to possess any fresh territory, but what they came back to their base immediately after, and moved back from their base again for the next bit of conquest. Gilgal is the place of the Cross, the cutting away, the circumcision of the flesh, and beloved, every bit of advance into new spiritual territory, apprehension, inheritance, is on the ground of coming back to a recognition of that fact; that is, we never move from our base finally, that the beginnings of our faith, the first ground, which is the Cross of our Lord Jesus, governs every bit of progress. So, as we have just said, that when you get to the end, the consummation, and the Overcomer company in the throne, and the great cry from heaven, “Rejoice O heavens,” the end of God realised in that company, it is still in relation to the blood of the Lamb, still in relation to the Lamb slain, never have you got away from that, not for an instant.

Not “Teaching,” But a Person

Now then, that being true we must recognise that everything is bound up with the Person and must never be regarded as just truth. That is the thing. We must never look at things as truth, doctrine, teaching as such. Everything is bound up with the Person. It is Christ the power of God. It is Jesus Christ and Him crucified. The Person, though in the glory, though exalted to the right hand of the Majesty on high, though having ascended far above all principality and power, though now in the power of His mighty resurrection, the Person is still Christ as crucified. And beloved, you and I will advance spiritually just in the measure in which that is a practical reality in our hearts, in our lives, every day that we live. It is still a Person and the Person is still Christ crucified, in all the virtue of that. That has yet to be more fully explained, of course. The Person is Christ crucified, that is, Christ in relation to His Cross. Now what is the Gospel then? Well, Paul tells us what the Gospel was, and is, so far as he was concerned. You look over the Galatian letter, chapter one, verse eleven. “For I make known to you brethren as touching the Gospel which was preached by me” - now you notice what he is saying - “As touching the Gospel which was preached by me, I make known to you brethren, that it is not after man, for neither did I receive it from man, nor was I taught it, but it came to me through revelation of Jesus Christ.” Go back over that again. “Brethren, the Gospel which was preached by me was by revelation of Jesus Christ," verse 15, “When it was the good pleasure of God to reveal His Son in me that I might preach Him among the Gentiles.” You see the two things, the one note. “The Gospel which was preached by me was by revelation of Jesus Christ.” “It was the good pleasure of God to reveal His Son in me that I might preach Him.”