In our occupation with the crisis of Pentecost,
the significance of the Holy Spirit, we have
been following the movements of progress
in the new creation, seeing that those movements
follow in a spiritual way the movements in
the material creation.
We are not going to even make the
briefest survey of the ground cover.
We are going to focus upon one feature
this evening, the central feature in it all.
I want to read two or three fragments
of scripture, leaving the Old Testament passage about
the creation of man.
We just turn to the New Testament and
have these fragments.
And as we are so much in the
book of the Acts, we look at two
passages there.
In chapter two, verses thirty-two and thirty
-three, this Jesus, this
Jesus, did God raise up, whereof,
or of whom we are witnesses, being therefore
at the right hand of God exalted, and
having received of the Father the promise of
the Holy Spirit, he hath put forth this,
which ye see and hear, being at the
right hand of God exalted, he hath put
forth this.
In chapter seven and verse fifty-five, that
he, Stephen that is, being full of the
Holy Spirit, looked up steadfastly into heaven, and
saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing
on the right hand of God, and said,
Behold, I see the heavens open, and the
Son of Man standing on the right hand
of God.
In the letter to the Hebrews, chapter two,
and verse five, for not unto angels did
he subject the world to come, whereof we
speak.
But one hath somewhere testified, saying, What is
man, that thou art mindful of him?
Or the Son of Man, that thou visitest
him?
Thou madest him a little lower than the
angels.
Thou crownest him with glory and honor, and
didst set him over the works of thy
hands.
Thou didst put all things in subjection under
his feet.
We see not yet all things subjected to
him, but we behold him who hath been
made a little lower than the angels, Jesus,
because of the suffering of death, crowned with
glory and honor, that by the grace of
God he should taste death for every man.
For it became him for whom are all
things, and through whom are all things, in
bringing many sons unto glory, to make the
offer of their salvation perfect through suffering.
For both he that sanctifies and they that
are sanctified are all of one, for which
cause he is not ashamed to call them
brethren.
Finally, in the first letter to the Corinthians,
chapter 15, 1 Corinthians 15, verse
45, the first man, Adam, became a living
soul.
The last Adam, a life-giving spirit.
In the earthly creation, the crown, the center
of all, was the creation and the instating
of man.
We might say that he was the occasion
of everything.
That is, everything that had gone before led
up to him, and everything that followed afterwards
came from him.
He is the king.
The same is true, transcendentally true, in the
new creation.
Man presented, and the man instated.
Everything before leading to him, and everything after
moving from him, coming from him.
Man is the key to both creations.
Man is a special thought of God.
But there is this that we have to
be very clear about, that in the first
creation, man, we have never had God's full
thought about man.
Only God's intention as to man, not its
realization.
God's beginning with man, in the new creation.
It's otherwise.
We have, in the last Adam, the full
thought of God about man.
Perfected.
Completed.
Nothing more to be added, as to himself,
as the personal expression and embodiment of God's
full thought concerning man.
And having perfected him, he was made perfect
through suffering.
Having completed him, having finalized him, he could
glorify him, and instate him to be the
first of a whole race like him.
The great movement of God in China, large
company of dear believers, who, whether in the
full apprehension of this or not, I don't
know.
But they took for their name, the Jesus
family.
Well, that may only relate to a part
of the family, so far as they're concerned.
But, that's what it is.
That's what it is.
This whole new creation is the Jesus family.
Wherefore, it is not a shame to call
them brothers.
Saying, I am the children whom God hath
given me.
Only in a spiritual family, that your child
is your brother.
We know what that means.
Timothy was Paul's child in the faith.
Timothy was Paul's brother in the work.
That by the way.
But there are two things with which we
must be content this evening, and they are
quite enough.
We must be very clear about this.
On the one side, Jesus.
We're using the name now just by itself
as it's used here in these passages.
Jesus is God's perfected representation of what he
intends where man is concerned.
And he is instated at God's right hand
as the model, the pattern for
man.
And to which man is foreordained to be
conformed.
To which image man is foreordained, says Paul,
to be conformed.
That is, come to his image.
Not as God, but as the Son, as
man.
That's the one thing that you and I
must be very clear about.
On the other side, the Holy Spirit's business
in this dispensation.
His real business for which he has come,
to which he is committed, and which explains
all his dealings with us.
His business is to reproduce that man, in
the family if you like, in the race,
in the children of God.
That is the business of the Holy Spirit.
Unto that, he may do many things.
He may inspire unto evangelization.
So will he.
He may lead to various forms of activity.
But none of these must be taken as
things in themselves.
If they are, they will surely fall short
of the purpose of God in them.
Tragedy is that that is done.
Every Holy Spirit-inspired activity and concern, whether
it be in evangelization or the salvation of
the unsaved, or right through all other means
and ways, to building up and instructing, every
Holy Spirit activity has but one object in
view.
Bringing many sons to glory.
That is the reproducing of the Son in
sons.
Reproducing Christ in a mankind called, chosen,
elected by God.
Let's be very clear about this.
It will perhaps correct some of our preponderances,
and our mistakes, and our deficiencies.
See exactly what it is the Holy Spirit
is doing.
It will explain a great deal.
It is the only explanation of many things.
For some of the greatest evangelists have had
their evangelization ministries cut short.
They themselves have been shut up and confined
for years, unable to do any of it.
It looks on the surface as though there
is a breakdown somewhere.
Where is the Holy Spirit?
Where is the sovereignty of God?
So on.
The answer is, God is more concerned for
the increase of his Son in those concerned
than he is for all their activities.
We come to that as we go on.
But these are the things that we must
see.
Christ installed as the full embodiment of this
original thought of God about man.
Perfected.
The Holy Spirit come to make Christ in
what he is real, and increasingly full in
men and women, to bring them to be
one great corporate man in Christ.
Now you are so familiar with statements like
this.
We can't get anywhere until we get the
whole thing set.
You notice that it was with the setting
of that that everything commenced and proceeded in
the New Testament.
It was not until the man perfected, glorified,
and instated that the right hand of God
was in his place, his right place, that
anything could go on at all.
There is a deeper, deeper meaning in the
forbidding of the Lord Jesus to go and
preach and begin the work until the Holy
Spirit was come.
When he gave commandment, Luke said, after he
had given commandment by the Holy Ghost, and
his commandment was tarry in Jerusalem until he
be endued with power.
The deeper meaning of this commandment was not
only that they should receive the Holy Spirit,
and in so doing receive power, but he
linked with that, ye shall be witnesses unto
me, unto whom and what were they to
witness.
Well, listen to Peter.
He starts it.
He starts this witnessing in Jerusalem, and it
spreads.
And what is the great note of the
witness?
Being at the right hand of God exalted.
Everything links up with that.
Tarry ye, not only until the Spirit comes
and you receive power, but tarry ye, because
when the Spirit comes, it will be because
Jesus is glorified.
Well, the last Adam.
The last Adam.
Don't misquote scripture and call him the second
Adam.
He's not.
He's the second man, but he's the last
Adam.
No need for any more.
No place for any more.
Finality is reached in him.
The last Adam is installed, is stated, because
perfected and glorified.
And being at the right hand of God
exalted, he hath poured forthness.
The Spirit of Jesus glorified.
The Spirit of Jesus.
The Holy Spirit is called that.
That's one of his titles.
The Spirit of Jesus.
The Spirit of the perfected, glorified, and instated
Jesus as the breath of the new creation.
Coming into the new creation man-corporately.
That's what happened on the day of Pentecost.
It was the fulfillment of that word in
which the Lord Jesus reserved these men unto
that day.
And he breathed on them and said, receive
ye the Holy Spirit.
They did not receive the Holy Spirit then.
It was a symbolic act.
And it was an act by which he,
so to speak, put them in reserve for
it, said, I put you apart for that.
The actual receiving of the breath, corresponding to
God breathing into the first Adam, took place
on the day of Pentecost.
And the church's lungs were filled.
The whole mechanism of this new spiritual body
started up in action when the breath came
in.
It doesn't need much argument to see that
they were pretty helpless before that happened.
It all started then.
The breath of the new creation entered in.
Remember that it's not just history.
We're not just looking back into the New
Testament.
The Holy Spirit, dear friends, is the very
breath of a new creation.
In us, by that in-breathing of Christ,
we become organic parts of Christ.
The body of Christ, members of Christ, the
one new man.
Now what we need to do as quickly
as possible is to look at this man
being reproduced.
And it's a far bigger study than we
can handle this evening.
But it is perfectly clear, and on these
things we must be perfectly clear indeed, perfectly
clear that when the Holy Spirit came into
them, a tremendous change took place as to
an order of mankind.
To say that they became different creatures is
hardly enough.
I would like you to study closely and
fully what happened to them and the change
that did take place.
I'll indicate quickly a few of the things.
You know from reading the Gospels, I think
this is one of the values of the
Gospels being bound before the Acts, although they
were not written before it.
You know in reading the Gospels how earthbound
these men were.
Their horizon was no further than the earth,
and that they could see with their natural
eyes.
Their idea, for instance, of the Kingdom of
God was an earthbound thing, horizoned by what
was temporal and earthly.
Their ambitions, their expectations and their hopes and
their interests and activities were all within that
so small compass.
They were little men because they had such
a little horizon.
You live all your days in a little
village, you'll be a little person.
Begin to move over the world and you
get wonderfully enlarged.
These people saw nothing beyond Israel, nothing beyond
Israel, little beyond their own native land, their
own city.
That was the compass.
They were earthbound men.
Look again.
Jesus, Jesus is in heaven.
He belongs to heaven.
I don't know where heaven is, but I
know that it's a mighty big place, capable
of tremendously enlarging your conceptions of space, distance,
range.
Jesus is in heaven.
The Holy Spirit comes down from heaven and
enters into these people, and immediately they are
changed, or they begin to be changed, radically
changed, from being earthly people to heavenly people.
For them, the center of everything is in
heaven, at the right hand of God.
They become, in their very constitution, nature, and
consciousness, heavenly people.
From that time onward, though right up to
the last minute, it would seem, before the
Holy Spirit came, they were saying, wilt thou
at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?
But up to the last minute, that was
their horizon.
It's gone when the Holy Spirit comes.
The horizon is being pressed back further and
further, yes, through crises, and sometimes embarrassing and
painful crises.
Nevertheless, it's extending, it's expanding.
Heaven has become their range, their
heavenly people.
I could, of course, spend hours on that
in the word itself.
You know how much these people of the
Book of Acts spoke later about this very
matter?
I dare not even touch it.
Look at this man Paul.
Of all men, his horizon was Israel, and
Jerusalem, and afterwards, and hath made us to
sit in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus.
He's talking about the heavenlies all the time.
And I do think that he had a
big place in the writing of that letter
to the Hebrews, whether he did it or
not.
He's there somehow all the time insinuated.
It's all about this, isn't it?
Heavenly side of things.
Wherefore, holy brethren, partners in a heavenly calling.
The fact is, that whether they were born
in Jerusalem, or in Galilee, or anywhere on
this earth, when the Holy Spirit came, they
were born in heaven or from heaven.
Born from above.
Have an argument with me if you like.
Don't mind.
I hold to it that these men were
not born again until the day of Pentecost.
They were disciples, they were followers, they were
given deputed powers and authorities, but they were
not born again until the day of Pentecost.
But then they were.
And by their birth they were born from
above, as Jesus had said, every man must
be.
Must be.
The heavenly kingdom demands heavenly people.
They were not only born from above, but
they were enfranchised above.
Citizens, ye are come unto the heavenly Jerusalem.
The Jerusalem that is above is the mother
of us all.
The apostles, after they came back from one
of those deputations, under authority, were full exuberance
and started to talk to the Lord Jesus
about what had happened.
And they said, even the demons are subject
unto us.
Jesus said, steady, steady, careful, if you begin
to gloat over the devil, you're on dangerous
ground.
You're on dangerous ground.
You'll meet something.
Rejoice not in this.
Rejoice that your names are enrolled in heaven.
That's a safe place for you.
To be citizens above, to be enrolled in
heaven, to have the franchise of the heavenly
city, that's your safety.
It's not safe to glory in anything that
you're able to do against the powers of
darkness.
Your only safety and glory is that you
have a heavenly citizenship and your names are
enrolled in heaven.
You know that that is a New Testament
idea, isn't it?
In the book of the Revelation, it's just
that, whose names are in the Lamb's book
of life, enrolled in heaven.
Born there, citizens of heaven.
The apostle states it, our citizenship is in
heaven from whence we look for a savior.
Not only born, not only enfranchised, but supported
from heaven.
This book of Acts is a wonderful record
of heaven's support of its own citizens and
countrymen, isn't it?
Yes, heaven looked after them, provided for them,
sustained them, carried them through, came to their
help, put it how you will.
Heaven was true to its own people.
Heaven was their resource and had all their
resources.
And when those of our field, everything here,
ceased to provide them with any hope, with
any strength, they went to heaven in prayer
and got their resources renewed.
There is that, I find, dear friends, at
least.
I don't know whether you find it.
I don't find all my prayers answered.
I ask the Lord for a lot of
things that he doesn't give.
But I do find this invariably, if I
go and have a time of prayer, I
am refreshed.
I feel better for it.
It's not imagination.
You don't just change in a few minutes
from utter jadedness, weariness, strain, where it's impossible
to go any further.
You come back rested, refreshed, renewed, ten minutes
in the presence of the Lord, drawing on
heavenly resources.
I do find that at any rate, and
that's something in this world.
Try it.
Their resources were in heaven in every way
heavenly.
But then, note, the beginning and the development
of heavenly character.
That is an amazing thing.
Change in the character of these men.
It was not just psychological.
It was radical.
It was constitutional.
Change in the character of these men.
It was not just psychological.
It was radical.
It was constitutional.
We could, of course, take that up.
Look at it for a long time.
But there's one point in this which I
think we might just lift out, because I
feel that where I'm concerned, and no doubt
many of you are concerned, this is a
point that needs attention.
Here is the most prominent man of this
whole group, of the whole 120 gathered there
in that upper room on the day of
Pentecost.
The most prominent is Peter.
Now, just glance back.
He's been called the big fisherman.
I don't know what stature Peter had physically.
I know he was a great talker.
I know that he was always pushing in,
aggressive.
You don't have to be a very little
person physically to be a coward.
And there's no doubt about it that Peter
was a terrible coward.
And when it came to the real test,
he only wanted a serving maid in the
hall downstairs, point a finger at him, saying,
you're one of them, to draw out of
Peter with vehemence.
A denial of that.
Well, I'm not making light of what was
involved for Peter, if he confessed.
But there's no doubt about it that moral
courage was really not one of Peter's strong
points, was it?
And the Lord Jesus challenged him after his
resurrection, you know, very thoroughly about this.
I will follow thee even unto death, though
all men forsake thee, yet will I not
forsake thee.
Simon, do you love me more than all
men?
More than these?
Do you?
He's being taxed on this very thing, where
he has so ignominiously broken down in testimony
to the Lord Jesus.
Public testimony to the Lord Jesus.
It's a real test, you know, the presence
of people who have it in their power
to do something with you.
Not perhaps to crucify you, not to decry
you of advancement in your job, or other
things.
That's it.
Now look at Peter, when the Holy Spirit
has come.
Jesus bore a good confession before Pontius Pilate,
we are told.
He stood up to it.
It was not Jesus who cringed before his
judges, it was the judges who cringed before
him.
The moral courage of Jesus astounded Pilate and
vexed the others.
The Spirit of Jesus came into Peter on
their Pentecost, and look, he's changed in this
respect.
Many others, but in this.
When they beheld the boldness of Peter and
John.
When they beheld the boldness, and you can
hear him speaking, we ought to obey God
rather than man.
I submit it to you.
Are we right?
Ought we to obey man rather than God?
You judge.
He's arguing this thing out.
Having no nonsense.
It's tremendous, this stand up of Peter after
the Holy Spirit came on him.
Jesus knew what would happen.
And he said, when the Holy Spirit has
come, you'll be witnesses.
Not before.
It will require the Holy Spirit to make
such as you, Peter, a witness.
Now friends, it's a simple matter, but I
do feel that you and I need the
Holy Spirit over this matter.
We are not the witnesses to man that
we ought to be.
When it really comes to it, we shirk
it.
We don't do it.
We'll produce any kind of argument to get
out of it.
Now I'm not suggesting that you rush out
from this meeting, get hold of everybody, and
begin to talk to them.
But you know a lot of people say,
you'll only make a lot of trouble, unnecessary
trouble, if you begin to do that sort
of thing.
You quite sure that you're not making that
a cover?
What do those with whom you do business
know about Jesus by your consent?
Whom you have transacted your business affairs, what
do those who live around you know about
Jesus by your consent?
You see here, everybody knew, and they couldn't
help knowing, when the Holy Spirit came into
these men.
In ever-widening sum, people knew.
And I believe that the real value in
all this is not that we know that
people know.
It's that they know, even when we don't
know that they're knowing.
But there it is.
The Holy Spirit is like that.
Now I could, and I wish that I
could, take up in far greater fullness this
whole matter of the change in these people,
change in these people, after the Holy Spirit
came, in their character.
Yes, the Spirit of Jesus, and they are
already beginning to be conformed to His image,
His moral courage, His spiritual virtue, much more,
and it goes on.
There are crises in this.
That doesn't matter.
The thing is, they're on the way, on
the way.
And I like to read those letters of
Peter, written so many years afterward, and see
what grace has done in that man.
The measure of Christ to be met in
him.
That's the Holy Spirit's work.
May I put my finger upon one other
thing here?
You notice the change corporately, not only individually
and personally, but the change corporately.
Well, it's a simple statement.
I believe it signifies quite a lot, and
Peter standing up with the eleven.
There are 120 of them gathered in that
upper room.
It must have been a fairly large upper
room.
120 of them gathered into it, men and
women.
In the synagogue they would have been segregated.
Men would have had to sit on one
side and the women on the other.
I don't believe that was true in the
upper room.
They were all mixed up together.
Beautiful representation that in Christ Jesus there is
neither male nor female.
It's one new man.
Don't misunderstand that statement.
I know a lot of sisters who like
that.
I'm not going to stop to explain what
I mean.
But in Christ Jesus, it's one new man.
And here's the beginning.
They're together.
And from that moment of the Spirit's coming
you find a togetherness.
Moving and working and development.
And they had all things common and not
any of them said that the things that
he possessed were his own.
You wouldn't have got that in the old
days.
They said, look here, what's mine is my
own.
Hands off.
Every man for himself.
It's true.
Even of disciples it was true.
Horrible suggestion, but there it is.
They were all for their own position and
place in the kingdom and quarreling.
Quarreling as they went along with the Master
and the Master sensed it and discerned it.
But they were discussing who should be greatest
in the rivalries and jealousies and ambitions.
All personal, self-centered.
It's gone from the day of Pentecost.
It's gone.
They are welded into a corporate one.
It has begun at least in a very
wonderful way.
That is what the Holy Spirit does when
he really does get hold.
Don't we need that?
Do we not need the Holy Spirit in
greater fullness of power?
Oh, the immensity of this propaganda and machinery.
The whole thing would go out of the
window if the Holy Spirit came in.
All ceases.
Unnecessary vain nonsense.
But the Holy Spirit got his place.
You'd have all the unity that ever heaven
requires.
And that's the only unity worth having, isn't
it?
I must close reluctantly on two other touches.
One is you notice that these people were
always gravitating heavenward.
Always gravitating heavenward.
Heaven was not only the place of their
origin from which they had come.
Heaven was not only their support in a
foreign and alien country, but heaven was their
objective and their goal.
One thing that governed them was this ultimate,
this ultimate of being with him in glory.
Heaven.
Their spirits were gravitating.
They had lost the magnetism of this world.
It was broken and nullified.
No longer pulled.
They were moving further and further away from
this earth to see them.
See it happening.
Temple was an earthly thing and you can
see quietly and steadily how they're gravitating away
from the temple of Jerusalem.
Ceases to hold them.
You can never put your finger upon the
actual day and point at which they broke
with that system and that center, but it
happened.
Find them.
Eventually they're out of it.
The whole thing.
Moving away from every earthly tie.
It's a wonderful thing.
It's a law of the Holy Spirit that
happens.
You and I are Holy Spirit governed men
and women.
We are spoiled for this world.
This world is losing.
It hasn't already completely lost any kind of
interest.
This is not our life.
This is not our place.
We've got to be here.
We've just got to be here until the
Lord says otherwise.
We don't like it.
Our spirits don't like it.
No.
So far as any kind of liking this
world is concerned, it's the other way.
We are becoming more and more to feel
how out of it all we are.
Not a part of it.
It hurts them to us.
It is true.
Go to your business.
But oh how much more you would like
to remain in the fellowship of the heavenly
people.
You've got to go.
The Lord called you there.
They were like that.
Like that.
Always gravitating toward heaven and moving inwardly.
Inwardly moving away.
One other thing, and I close for the
present.
You notice the wonderful enlargement that began
to take place on the day of Pentecost.
In this further sense, what we have so
often called the universality of Christ.
The universality of Christ.
You cannot, you cannot fasten Christ, Jesus down
to anything that relates to this earth and
to this world.
You cannot fix him into any nationality.
He fits into all of them.
And he's a part of none of them.
You cannot fix him into one language.
He can be understood in every language.
And he understands every language.
So we can go on.
This marvelous universality.
Look here.
Here's the day of Pentecost.
And what have we?
This.
And they were all amazed and marveled, saying,
Behold, are not all these which speak Galileans?
And how here we, every man in his
own language wherein we were born.
Parthians and Medes and Elamites and dwellers in
Mesopotamia, in Judea and Cappadocia, in Pontus and
Asia, in Phrygia and Pamphylia, in Egypt and
in the parts of Libya and Cyrene, sojourners
from Rome, Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabians.
Perfect Noah's Ark.
Something of every kind.
The universality of Christ.
The strategy of the Holy Spirit to make
Christ meet the need of every kind of
creature in every nation and language, fitting in.
I don't know how many of the three
thousand were represented in all those departments of
humanity after Pentecost.
But I think that alone is a marvelous
exhibition.
The universality of Christ.
The Holy Spirit making it known how great
Christ is.
Oh, dear friends, the Holy Spirit does that
sort of thing.
He breaks down the barriers of what is
merely national and temperamental.
He constitutes this new man on the heavenly
universal principle.
The old wine skins of a mere restricted
nationalism are burst when the new wine comes
in.
And it flows out, spills over into all
the nations.
Paul pleaded with the Corinthians, be ye enlarged.
Our hearts are enlarged.
Be ye also enlarged.
How?
The only effective way of extricating us from
our littlenesses, our pettinesses, our exclusivenesses, enlarging us
to the dimensions of the heavenly man, is
a mighty filling with the Holy Spirit.
That is what he does.
That will be an effect.
If you have any experience, any real experience
of the Holy Spirit, you have had a
crisis in your life at a point where,
before it, you were in those strictnesses and
limitations and bondages of the old natural life.
And afterward, afterward, this crisis where the Spirit
of God came into your life, you know
this quite well, that the church ceased to
be something sectarian, comprised of so many sects
and departments, I'll not use the other word.
It ceased to be like that.
And your horizon ceased to be something local.
It came enlarged to the great dimensions of
Christ and this church which is his body,
in which there is neither Jew nor Greek.
Neither.
Not both.
Neither.
But there is only one new man, people
taken out of every nation for his name,
to be called by his name.
The Jesus family.
We're not going to adopt that name, but
that's what it means.
Now you see how we are launched into
tremendous wrath.
The Lord take hold of some of this
and really challenge us with it.
It's not a statement of truth only.
It is a challenge.
Am I like that?
Really?
Has the Spirit of God done something of
that in me?
Is he doing it?
Is he going on with it?
That's the challenge.
The Lord make it true.