T. Austin-Sparks · 1 of 6

The Testimony of Jesus as the Son of God in Glory

The Testimony, the Vessel, and the Preparation - I am not sure whether in the third instance the word 'equipment' would not be as good a word; 'preparation' or 'equipment'. I think first of all we might lay some foundation in the Word before we take this matter up.

I just want to outline this letter to the Ephesians, not in any detailed or microscopic way, but to indicate certain distinct and ruling features.

In Ephesians 1:5 we have the eternal background: "Having foreordained us unto adoption as sons through Jesus Christ unto Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will". Verse 11: "In whom also we were made a heritage, having been foreordained according to the purpose of Him who worketh all things after the counsel of His will". There are two things in that eleventh verse, the sovereignty of His will and the eternal counsels of God. "Who worketh all things after His will", and then: "After the counsel of His will", that is, according to the eternal counsels of God. Verse 9: "Making known unto us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He purposed in Him". That again is retrospective to the before times eternal. Verse 14: "Which is an earnest of our inheritance, unto the redemption of God's own possession, unto the praise of His glory".

Let us gather those verses up and notice firstly, the foreordination, that is, the eternal election; secondly, the sovereignty of His will; thirdly, the eternal counsels of God; fourthly, the mystery of His will, literally, the undisclosed secret of God's will; and then finally, verse 14, the earnest of it all, the Spirit. That is the great background of this letter and what the letter contains; everything else in this letter comes out of that and is because of that. Chapter 2:1: "And you did He make alive, when ye were dead through your trespasses and sins". That is the way into the foreordination, the eternal counsels, the sovereignty of His will and the mystery of His will, and the way into the earnest of all the eternal purpose. You were made alive when you were dead. In other words, that is the basis of the purpose in experience: you were made alive.

God could eternally counsel, determine, will, purpose, and foreordain, but before ever there could be the hope of realisation, realising a fragment of it, we have got to be made alive in it, brought to life in it. We are dead so far as all that is concerned by nature, and we have to come into life into it, be born into it, be resurrected into it, come by way of Life which we do not have naturally. Eph. 2:10 is the third step. The first is that it was in eternity past with God; the second is the way in on our part in time; now the third in verse 10: "For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God afore prepared that we should walk in them". Now you have got the two things brought together there: that which God did before, and now that which God is doing in us.

Let us take the steps again successively. Firstly, in the eternal counsels of God before time was; secondly, in time our coming in by being made alive; thirdly, the work of God in us in relation to all that which was before and into which we have now come by being made alive - we are His workmanship. I am coming to that thought, "in the Potter's hands", for, you see, it is the vessel, the testimony, and the preparation. Eph. 4:1: "I therefore, the prisoner in the Lord, beseech you to walk worthily of the calling wherewith ye were called". So that with chapter 4:11 we come to our responsibility in the matter of walk; that is a further step in advance.

Now we will take the steps once more. The eternal counsels and will of God concerning us; our coming into that by being made alive; God taking up a work in us in relation to that, we become His workmanship; fourthly, our responsibility to walk according to the calling from eternity. And from 4:1 onwards, until you get to chapter 6:10, everything has to do with the "walk worthily of the calling". It touches all manner of relationships, every phase and aspect of life; it brings in business, it brings in the domestic and the family, it brings in everything, the personal and the relative; it is all our responsibility. We may be personally known by God many millenniums before ever we had a being on this earth, and God may have determined in His eternal counsels, foreknowledge, and will, certain specific and definite things about us and our destiny, and then in His grace He may have called us and made us alive, and then brought us into that eternal foreordination. Yet nothing can be taken for granted, and now everything hangs upon our walk; our responsibility must go hand in hand with God's eternal counsels. We cannot presume upon election, foreordination, or take anything for granted. Even an elect vessel like the apostle Paul can be in fear of missing that object and purpose of the election. The two things go side by side.

Then, that section being covered, on to chapter 6 verse 10, and we see our calling as related to the spiritual world, and that all this is set in a great realm of spiritual intelligences and forces, the hosts of spiritual beings. The calling brings us into touch with that realm. The making alive brings us definitely into touch with that realm, the realization is always in touch with that realm. And so here in this final section we have three things. Strength in the Lord: "Be strong in the Lord, and in the strength of His might". Secondly, the equipment: "Put on the whole armour of God". And thirdly, "Stand".

Well now, that for the moment is our foundation in the Word for a somewhat larger, more comprehensive consideration of our general subject: the Testimony, the Vessel and the Preparation. We shall find ourselves constantly referring to this to help us as we go on.

We begin then with the Testimony, realising that it is for a testimony that the vessel exists, it is for a testimony that all this foreordination and these eternal counsels of God took place; that the choosing in Christ before the world was, was the choosing of a vessel for a testimony, God's testimony concerning His Son. It is the testimony of Jesus.

What Is the Testimony of Jesus?

Well, in a word it is that Jesus is the Son of God. That is the testimony of Jesus. Jesus is the Son of God, but not just as a doctrinal truth, not just as a personal fact as to Himself, not just as a belief stated, but something infinitely more than that. Jesus as the Son of God must always be in the light of its content as to His appointment by God, as to His position in the universe in the appointment of God, as to His destiny and the destiny of the universe in relation to Him, and as to the work which He has accomplished. The testimony of Jesus as the Son of God is something tremendous.

The testimony of Jesus is not our simply giving out, with however much belief and strength of assertion, that Jesus is the Son of God. It is not one of the principles of a fundamentalist creed. I think the enemy can very often smile at that and get on with his work just as easily as ever. It is not a fragment of orthodoxy, Jesus as the Son of God with all its spiritual content as to God's mind, appointment, position concerning His Son. This meaning of course, must be attached to such a passage as 1 John 5:5: "And who is he that overcomes the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God?". You do not overcome the world by simply believing that fact about His person, that He is the divine Son, the Son of God; you do not overcome the world by your most devoted attachment to that doctrine. You have got to stand in the spiritual significance of Jesus as the Son of God in all its universal meaning, and those words about "trying the spirits", "Beloved, believe not every spirit, but prove the spirits, whether they are of God", and then apply the test: "Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God; and every spirit that confesses not Jesus is not of God" - that has been applied very often in the realm of demon possession with the most confusing and confounding consequences and the most unsatisfactory result. In a case of demon possession the question has been put: "Do you believe that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh?" and the answer has been: "Yes", a testimony that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh, that is, Jesus Christ is the Son of God with all the deep meaning of the incarnation. That is the truth, that as God's Anointed from heaven He has become incarnate, God manifest in the flesh. And many servants of the Lord have gone away, quite sure that that thing they have been dealing with is not of God, it is the devil, and yet the test given in the Word has produced that. It seems on the face of it to declare that it is of God, it says Jesus Christ is come in the flesh, but a very great deal more than that is in the confession.

Get down to the Blood, to all the meaning of Calvary's work, to God's appointment of His Son as the centre and goal of the universe, get down to the absolute rule and sovereignty of Jesus Christ in the eternal appointment of God and you will be getting to the root of the matter, and you will find that you enter into a realm of spiritual antagonism. You see, the demons in the days of the Lord's flesh not only testified as to who He was, but linked with their testimony an awful fear of Him because of who He was. "What have we to do with thee, thou Son of God? Art thou come hither to torment us before the time?" They recognised the issue. It was not simply that He was the Son of God, but the appointment of God in the issue of things for the kingdom of Satan. There is something much more in the testimony of Jesus than doctrinally saying: "Yes, we believe in the deity of Christ"; it carries with it all that thought, intention, and appointment concerning the Son. That is the testimony of Jesus, and that is a thing which, more than doctrine or orthodoxy, registers itself in that spiritual realm and it is for the registration of that, that the vessel is eternally elected. The vessel is chosen for that: the testimony of Jesus. In a word, this testimony is to be borne in a spiritual realm first of all, and then through that realm to men.

Now we are coming down to things. The work of the vessel of God's eternal election is fulfilled in the unseen before ever it is fulfilled in the seen. If it is not, what is done in the seen will either be man's work, or altogether inadequate, and will not go through in full strength and fulness of life and stand in the evil day. This explains a very great deal in the matter of Christian work, work that does not stand in the evil day, work that goes to pieces when the hosts of hell assail; work that just peters out, work that soon deflates.

What may be the explanation of a very great deal of that? First of all it was work done on the natural side before it was done on the spiritual side. It was done with man before it was done with the forces back of men. It was something which first of all had its direct approach to man before it had dealt with the spiritual forces back of it. So I repeat, that the work of the eternally elected vessel, of which we have been speaking, is first fulfilled in the unseen before it is fulfilled in the seen. That is, that the testimony of Jesus, as we have now defined it, has to be registered in the spiritual realm back of lives and situations before you get a thing established in the realm of the things seen. It was that background of things which was so much in evidence in the New Testament, the breaking into this world by God. We read all the way through the New Testament, in the Acts, the movements of the Lord through His servants at the beginning. We read and you see so clearly that there was something behind men and positions and places which was always being encountered, rising up, and coming out, and which had to be dealt with and broken, before in that place the testimony was established, and a vessel was constituted for that testimony. And it was not until the spiritual background was dealt with that you have the establishment of the testimony.

The testimony is to be borne in the spiritual realm first. That is, the principalities and powers and the world-rulers of this darkness and the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenlies have to have registered amongst them, in every given place where the Lord leads, the fact of Jesus the Son of God, in the full sense which we have just outlined. It is the question of, in whose hands is dominion vested? And that is given to a vessel to establish here in the nations. It is not only a fact in heaven, but it is a fact which has to come out of heaven, through a heavenly vessel, to be registered in the earth.

This will be increasingly the case as we move into the end of the age. It always was so. It was so at the beginning, it will be more intensely so at the end. Light given at the beginning of an age is brought back in fulness at the end of that age with an added emphasis from God for conformity to that light. It is as though God gave, and gives, a great deposit of truth at the beginning, and then at the end demands that that truth should have a full realization; that there should be a conformity to that deposit with the close of that particular dispensation. It may be only in a small remnant or overcomer company, but in that company the concentrated essence of the truth is represented.

I was talking to a missionary from Africa who is a doctor and we were speaking about certain diseases encountered, and of one in particular. And he said: "We have now got the remedy for that disease which wrought such havoc and which seemed to be beyond any power of dealing with. We have got the remedy and we can cure it, but it is such an expensive thing, because to procure one dose of that remedy, a whole lot of animals have to be killed". I forget how many he said, but a considerable number of valuable beasts had to be slain, their whole life had to be sacrificed just to get one minute drop of something out of them, all of them surrendering their life to get one dose adequate for this terrible disease. I thought to myself, well, that is a picture of the Overcomer Company. It seems to me that things become so intensive at the end, that to meet the situation as it becomes so acute, you have to get a concentrated essence represented in a small company. And it is very costly, their whole life has to be given to secure this vital something that is going to destroy death at the end, through which the Lord is going to manifest that supreme power of His resurrection to raise through His vessel ultimately, the testimony that death is swallowed up in victory; that when that company is translated that company will represent the concentrated essence of the power of His resurrection because it represents the final destruction of the power of death and the grave which have been robbed of their prey. It is a costly thing. The Lord seeks a vessel to pay that price.

And beloved, there are two realms in which we can work, and that is why I am saying this. Christian service is in two different realms and I think that things are changing, and have been changing for some time, in the matter of the realm of service.