The Lord has led us in these days
to be occupied with the revelation of Jesus
Christ.
So far, John the Apostle has been our
interpreter, we are going now to allow Paul
to say something to us about this matter.
I turn you, therefore, to his second letter
to the Corinthians, chapter 4, at
verse 6.
Seeing it is God that said, Light shall
shine out of darkness, who shined in our
hearts to give the light of the knowledge
of the glory of God in the face
of Jesus Christ.
The light of the knowledge of the glory
of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
Please, alongside that, words from his letter to
the Galatians, chapter 1, at
verse 15.
When it was the good pleasure of God
to reveal his Son in me.
It was the good pleasure of God to
reveal his Son in me.
Shined into our hearts in the face of
Jesus.
This is Paul's way of describing his great
life revolution.
This is his personal testament as to what
happened when he saw the face of Jesus
Christ.
And as you see, he likened that to
the divine fear in creation.
God, who said, Let light be, has
repeated that in a spiritual way in my
heart.
The implication, clearly, is that what happened in
creation, when God commanded light to shine, had
happened in Paul, when he saw the face
of Jesus.
And when you apply that to such a
man as Saul of Tarsus, later Paul, the
implications are indeed tremendous.
It's a tremendous confession on his part.
Because when God said at the beginning in
creation, Let light be, there was no light.
All was dark.
Darkness was over the face of the Lord.
And here is this man, such a man
as we know him to have been, with
all his claimed enlightenment.
Here is this man saying, Until I saw
the face of Jesus, that's how it was
with me.
He would never have admitted this before, that
he was in the dark.
And all was darkness for him.
He would have claimed to be one of
the most enlightened of men.
Here, when he saw the face of Jesus,
he said, Until then, I realize now, that
the primal darkness of creation was my condition,
spiritually.
More than that, when God first said, Let
light be, everything was in chaos, a state
of disruption, disorder, chaos.
The earth was without form.
And it, and Paul dares here to say,
After all, with all that I had and
had learned and knew and claimed to be,
until I saw the face of Jesus, that's
how it was with me, chaos and still
again.
Until God said, Let light be, there was
utter desolation and barrenness.
Really nothing there at all.
Paul means, what he sings, he realizes.
Oh yes, you will find plenty in his
writings afterward and utterances to bear it out.
That for him, the face of Jesus meant
light as over against darkness.
Not just some more light, but the mighty
contrast between light and darkness.
Seeing the face of Jesus meant for him
order out of chaos, meaning out of meaninglessness.
And still, seeing the face of Jesus meant
for him fruitfulness out of barrenness and desolation.
I say the implications are tremendous, but Paul
quite agrees with all that indeed he does.
And dear friends, although the method and the
manner of the beginning of our Christian life
and experience may differ, indeed there may be
many different ways in which we come into
new life in Christ.
However many may be the ways, those should
be the features, characteristics of everyone's coming into
that relationship with the Lord Jesus.
It should be as passing truly from darkness
to light.
Not just getting some light, but the difference
between day and night, and the darkest night
and the brightest day.
Between chaos, confusion, disruption, and
order, beautiful order, and meaning.
Between empty, hollowness, a void, and
fullness, and fruitfulness, and plenty.
It should be like that in every case.
But note the main and the great point
in all this is that it was all
in the face of Jesus Christ.
In the face of Jesus Christ.
When it happened, and Saul questioned, who art
thou?
The answer came clear, I'm Jesus.
I'm Jesus.
We can never, never grasp the tremendous, and
we do not use exaggerated language when we
say the terrific implication for that man of
that word, Jesus, at that time.
All this, all this, in the face of
Jesus, it's there that I want to spend
a few moments, because that is really the
focal point.
Very much, it can be said, but we
want really to feel the force of this
message.
Of course we know that the use of
the term or word, face, is metaphorical.
In the original language, the word means more
than just countenance.
It carries with it also the idea of
person, or personality.
We understand that, that metaphorically the face is
the expression of the person.
So, everything was in the person of Jesus
Christ that Paul saw and came into.
Now this is the thing that I want
to stress right at the outset.
That if you and I, dear friends, are
going to make anything like the progress that
Paul made as a young convert and as
a growing Christian, and if we are going
to have anything of the weight that he
has had in spiritual impress, impact, and if
we are going to count in any degree
as he counted in the work of the
Lord, one thing is absolutely essential, and do
get hold of this, the youngest Christian get
hold of this and everybody else, that if
we take our salvation, our conversion, or anything
that has to do with it as something
in itself, there is going to be limitations.
We have got to see everything in the
light of the person, Jesus Christ.
That is, we have not to take this
as a gift, salvation, as a gift, or
anything else of the Christian life as a
gift in itself.
We have got to look at that and
say, what does that signify as to the
giver?
What does that signify as to Christ?
What does that mean as to the source
of my salvation?
You may not grasp the point, but it
is of infinite importance, because all progress in
the Christian life and all power in Christian
service comes from not the grasping, the apprehending,
and the enjoyment of salvation as such, but
seeing Jesus, because, you see, Jesus is the
sum total of all divine fullness.
In a long experience in Christian
ministry and work, I have moved much amongst
Christians, and I have had a lot to
do with what we may call mission centers,
mission halls.
Larger or smaller, in some cases, a very
large number of Christians meeting there and listening
either to their prayers or to their singing,
taking note of their Christian life.
There they are.
They have been Christians for years, decades, and
all they have got to talk about is
the day when they were saved.
All about when they came to the Lord.
When the Lord found them.
They are back there.
And when you come to these people who
have had years of Christian life with anything
beyond the most elementary, they don't know what
you are talking about, some other language.
Just can't follow.
You've got nothing to work on.
They've not grown up.
They cannot take solid meat.
All they want, as they say, is the
simple gospel.
Let's have the simple gospel.
Now, that is not meant to be a
criticism or a judgment, but an illustration.
What have they done?
They've taken salvation in itself and not seen
salvation as only a part of something far,
far greater, more immense.
And that greater fullness is Christ.
It is the thing and not the person.
And it makes all the difference.
See, I come back here.
What does explain Paul's bounding onward in the
Christian life?
His rapid spiritual progress.
His stature, spiritually.
And his tremendous impress upon the dispensation.
The answer is, he saw in the face
of Jesus everything.
Everything.
You see, Paul was a Jew.
And both personally and nationally, the quest of
the Jews was for light.
Light.
They were always in quest of light.
They claimed to be the most enlightened, but
light was what they were after all the
time.
Light in relation to God.
And God and man and man and God.
And Paul says of himself, that although that
was true of him as of all Jews,
perhaps more so in his own case than
many of his own countrymen, all that quest
for light did not begin to be answered
until he saw the face of Jesus Christ.
This was such a tremendous thing, such an
overwhelming thing for him.
The Christian life and everything to do with
it is inclusively and fundamentally a revelation of
Jesus Christ in the heart.
It may be there in the Word.
Now note, Paul probably knew the Old Testament
as well as anyone and better than most.
It was all there, but not until this
happened did he see his Old Testament when
he saw it in the face of Jesus
Christ.
You will never know your Bible truly as
it needs to be known for spiritual effect
until by the Holy Spirit you see Jesus
Christ everywhere.
Not the Bible, not books of the Bible,
not the analysis of the books of the
Bible, not the themes and the subjects, but
in and through them all the face of
Jesus.
That is how he is signified here, how
he is implied here, what this means where
he is concerned.
That's the key.
Paul never had that key until he saw
the face of Jesus.
And then wherever he looked after that, anywhere
in this universe, Bible or outside the Bible,
he saw the face of Jesus.
That face was clear to him wherever he
looked.
Now that is not exaggeration, you know, sometimes
if you look right into the sun, right
into the sun, for some while afterward wherever
you look you don't see the things that
are there, you only see the sun.
You are blinded to everything else.
That is exactly what happened with Paul.
He was blinded in a sense to everything
else having seen the face of Jesus.
Everything in life, everything in character, everything in
endurance through trial and opposition and suffering, everything
in victory over opposition and adversity.
Everything in service will depend entirely upon how
much we have seen in the face of
Jesus Christ.
Make no mistake about it, dear friends, this,
as we have said, as has been said
in prayer here again this morning, is a
very critical time in the history of the
people of God as it is in the
history of this world.
And if I am not mistaken, this conference
is set in a very critical time.
We are fast moving into and more deeply
into the final testing of everything.
Oh, how true that is literally in some
parts of this world.
What an ultimate testing is taking place in
the life of many of the Lord's people
and the Lord's servants.
And think not that we shall escape that
in some form or another.
We are really going to be put to
it.
The world is going to move into a
situation where every Christian will have their foundations
most certainly and severely tested.
You may be tasting that in a spiritual
way now.
How many people have said to me about
this very time, why what a battle it's
been to get here.
All the unusual things happening wouldn't happen otherwise.
Strange things.
It's all, it just happens when you've got
something of the Lord in view, oh yes,
and those happenings are very often very, very
testing happening.
They could shake you.
Well, it's like that.
Toward the end, I don't want to discourage
you.
It's going to increase in that way.
But you see the point is this.
Even, even our salvation as such is going
to be put to the test.
Even all that we have really got is
going to be put to the test.
And it will not be too difficult for
us to question our salvation.
To question the Lord himself.
If our Christian life is a kind of
objective thing.
That it is made up of things.
Made up of meetings, made up of teaching,
made up of fellowship, made up of beliefs.
It's made up like that.
It will not be difficult for us to
question the reality of the whole thing.
The reality of the whole thing, does that
sound a terrible thing to say?
The reality of Christianity.
Not difficult to allow that question.
The issue, the issue is going to be
only one thing, how much this thing is
a matter of God having shined into our
hearts.
I put it in a way which has
caused a good deal of trouble, but nevertheless,
perhaps that itself is significant, that God has
revealed it in us.
What we have has come to us by
revelation of Jesus Christ.
I emphasize that does not mean something extra
to the Bible.
But what is there in the Bible has
by the Holy Spirit been illuminated in our
own hearts.
This has come out of the Bible into
us by an act of God.
A fear of God.
We have seen that in our hearts.
That has become a heart matter with us.
When it's like that, well, I referred, I
think yesterday, to the saintly polycarp who was
burned for the faith there in those days
of the early persecution.
And as an old man with his white
hair and his saintly face was being forced
along by those cruel and wicked Jews to
be bound, on that day an official standing
by looked and was tremendously moved.
To see such a man being carried to
such a fate.
And he stepped up and he said, just,
just curse Jesus and I'll save you.
I'll save you.
He said, Polycarp, forty and six years have
I served my master and he has never
done me a single injury.
Do you think I would say something against
him to save my life?
No.
And so he went to the martyr's death.
That's a heart relationship, isn't it?
That is something more than life.
More than anything else.
I say, it was that that carried Paul
through all his sufferings.
He had seen the face of Jesus.
It was that that was the strength and
the substance of his great ministry.
He had seen the face of Jesus.
It was that that made him the Christian
that he was.
And please do not get mentalities about objective
visions of the face of Jesus.
That's not what I'm talking about at all.
Seeing a face.
I'm simply meaning that there has come to
you by the Holy Spirit in your heart
a knowledge of the significance of Jesus Christ
in this whole universe, in the councils of
God.
The revelation of Jesus Christ.
That's the light, the knowledge, the glory of
God in the face of Jesus Christ.
What strength that brings.
I'm quite sure that there are some here
today who have gone on for many years
with the Lord, and who could say with
me that if what we have and hold
and teach had only been theory, we'd have
been out of a fight long ago.
Out of a fight long ago.
No doubt about it.
It is because we, may I put it
this way, we've seen something.
Where something is in for someone, when you've
seen, when you've seen, something is done.
Oh, what effect it had with Paul.
First of all, look what a man it
made of him.
Do you notice the context of those words
that we read in Galatians?
When it pleased God to reveal his Son
in me, what did I do?
Go and consult those who were apostles before
me as to whether I was right?
Wonder whether I was mistaken?
Whether this is according to tradition?
No, not at all.
I didn't go up to Jerusalem to confer
with flesh and blood and talk it over
and see whether I was right.
This thing put me on my feet in
such a way, there was no question for
me about it.
No one could add anything to this for
me by way of confirmation as to the
reality and the rightness of it.
So many dear Christians are all the time
running round to others for advice on their
Christian life and on this and that.
Now, please don't misunderstand me.
Get all the help that you can.
But somehow it seems that some people can
never stand on their own feet for any
time together.
They're not sure at all.
They're not sure about anything.
Anything that arises they've got to question.
You must get some opinion on this matter.
Now, while you must have help and seek
it, there is after all a fundamental root
thing that makes you know where you stand.
You stand in Christ by a work of
God.
Something's been done.
You can never question that.
They put Paul in that position where, while
he was not independent, and he did later
on go up and have a nice time
of conference with Peter in Jerusalem for several
days.
I suppose they talked over much, but that
didn't happen until Paul had faced this whole
issue for himself and got it settled with
him between himself and the Lord.
Right there.
And all these other effects of a new
creation started on their wonderful movement after he
had seen the face
of
Jesus.
Right there.
The certainty and the assurance that was right
at the root of his Christian life and
service came because of this one thing.
He'd seen everything in Jesus.
Everything in Jesus.
What liberation that brought to him.
What emancipation.
We have often said here that there was
no power in this world that could have
turned that rabid, fanatical Jew, Saul of Tarsus,
into a Christian and a lover of Jesus
of Nazareth.
No power in this world that could have
done that but just seeing Jesus himself in
this way.
And that did it.
That did it.
He was emancipated.
He was free.
No wonder of all his writings, the fiercest,
the furriest, this is the letter of our
liberty in Christ.
It begins with this.
God revealed his Son and that set me
free from all other things.
No use telling people that this and that
and the other thing is a limitation and
that they should seek enlargement by getting out
of it.
That is an unfruitful, unprofitable, indeed that's a
dangerous line to take with anybody.
But again, if only we can bring Christ
and all his divine significance and meaning and
comprehensiveness to them and the Holy Spirit can
reveal him in the heart.
Oh, that will do it.
That will do it.
They'll never again be content with anything that
limits them to the grave clothes of religion.
It delivered Paul from Judaism as nothing else
would have done.
The way of escape, the way of enlargement,
the way of endurance is to see Jesus.
It is not by learning.
That is, it is not by the schools.
Paul had all that the schools could give
of religion.
He didn't get it through the schools and
we'll never get it through the schools.
Along that line of the technical instruction of
things Christian or religious.
This is not a merely mental or academic
or intellectual thing at all.
It's a work of the Holy Spirit.
Well, that's the foundation.
And may the Lord even now begin to
shine into our hearts.
I want to go on just for a
little while in answering the question, what did
Paul see in the face of Jesus Christ?
Yes, he saw the light of the knowledge
of the glory of God in the face
of Jesus Christ.
Comprehensive statement.
What did Paul see in Christ?
Would you like to drop out the word
face?
You can.
What did he see when he saw Jesus
Christ by divine illumination?
And I suggest to you that the first
thing that he saw was Christ as the
purpose of God.
Christ as the purpose of God.
If there was one thing that was true
about Saul of Tarsus, it was that he
was a man of purpose.
He was a purposeful man.
No doubt about that.
He was bent upon something.
He was after something.
He was in quest of something.
He was on full stretch for something.
That is, he was characterized by this spirit
or sense of purpose.
Now, as a Jew, the member of the
Jewish nation, his whole horizon was Israel.
For him, all divine purpose was centered in
Israel.
It was the nation that stood at the
heart of the purpose of God.
For him, that nation, as in ascendancy over
all the nations, superior to all the nations,
ruling all the nations, having that central place
in the midst of the nations, to make
all the nations serve it, and, well, yes,
to serve all the nations.
This was what divine purpose meant to Saul
of Tarsus, as it meant to every Jew,
every member of the Jewish nation.
That was the whole horizon.
That was all temporal.
That was all earthly, albeit it was religious.
But that was the whole horizon.
That spirit of purpose for every Jew, and
inasmuch as Saul of Tarsus was a Jew
plus, we can see how that idea of
divine purpose for his own nation was intensely
strong for him.
Let anybody call that into question.
That really was the cause and the reason
for his vehement antagonism to Jesus.
You know quite well that that is why
the Jews crucified him.
They said, if we let this man go
on, the Romans will come and take away
our nation, our kingdom.
And Saul was one of them.
He saw that Jesus setting up another kingdom
was a menace to Israel and all Israel's
heritage.
That, for him, was the meaning of divine
purpose.
When he saw the face of Jesus Christ,
all that was changed.
All that was changed.
His whole horizon expanded to the universe.
And what a universe it is that is
presented to us in his letter to the
Ephesians.
What an immense expanse and range of divine
purpose that comes out called according to his
purpose, who worketh all things after the counsel
of his own will.
From eternity to eternity, divine purpose.
Poor little Israel, shrinking and shrinking and shrinking
until, for him, while he would that they
would be saved and give anything to have
them saved, they no longer occupy that place.
His horizon has become universal.
And again, the temporal has given place to
the spiritual and the eternal.
He is talking about every spiritual blessing in
the heavenlies unto the ages of the ages.
These, you see, are all terms which explain
what happened in this tremendous revolution in which
Paul's horizon was pressed out to the uttermost
bound.
Paul saw all this in the face of
Jesus.
Jesus signifies this.
Jesus is the embodiment and the sum of
purpose.
From eternity to eternity, it is the purpose
in Christ Jesus.
That's his language.
He is the purpose of God.
And it's not of this earth, temporal or
temporary, material and transient, but of heaven, of
eternity.
And it's all in him, summed up in
Christ, the fullness of all things.
If only we could, what a tremendous amount
we could draw in quotations from Paul, God's
purpose concerning his son, that he should fill
all things and that he should be the
fullness of all things.
All things should in him dwell.
All things should be gathered together into him.
Indeed, his world has enlarged and all the
barriers have broken down.
Dear friends, what does this mean to us?
This is not just a beautiful story or
description of what happened to a man.
I'm speaking of spiritual principles.
If you and I really did get a
sight of the significant significance of Jesus Christ,
we really did see the glory of God
in his faith, we could never be little.
We could never be just tied up in
our own little local things.
We could never be sectarian or anything like
that at all.
We should be all-embracing.
We could not.
We'd get into a lot of trouble because
we could not and would not accept the
confines of human systems and Christian departmentalisms and
all that.
You're emancipated right out when once you've seen
the Lord Jesus.
And all that is silly nonsense.
Churches and chapels and clinging of things.
No.
Christ is far, far greater and faster than
all this.
For enlargement, you just need to see him.
For deliverance, you need to see him.
What happened to Paul and Paul's universality of
vision and ministry, Paul's spiritual and heavenly impact
upon this earth through the centuries is due
to this in the face of Jesus Christ,
the greatness of God's purpose for this universe.
That the universe was Christocentric, not
Israel-centric, but Christo.
He saw then that divine purpose is centered
in Christ.
And that revelation, that seeing, that apprehending brought
with it certain other things.
First, it brought with it the understanding, recognition
of God's energy in relation to Christ.
God's energy in relation to Christ.
He came to see that the creation was
for, through, and unto Christ.
And all the energies of the Godhead called
forth in creation.
And their tremendous energy, tremendous energy, called forth
in the creation of this universe.
Those energies in creation were working toward Christ's
inheritance.
Tremendous energies in creation, again, were unto Christ.
For unto him were all things created.
Things in the heavens, things in the earth.
Unto him, mighty energy of God in creation,
in changing chaos to order, light to darkness.
Darkness to light and emptiness to fullness.
All that was mighty, mighty power of God.
But it was unto his Son.
The end is that he should be the
heir of all things.
For he was appointed heir of all things.
And he was to come into his heritage.
We've been dwelling in the book of the
Revelation.
These are the final moments.
To the kingdom becoming.
The kingdom of our God and his Christ.
The inheritance of his Son.
But that's only a mere fragment of the
whole story of divine energies.
After that creation we see the fall of
man and the fall of this earth.
And it's a tremendous fall.
It's not just a moral fall, moral collapse.
We dare not stay to contemplate the immensity
of the thing that happened when Adam disobeyed
God and what he dragged with him and
all the tremendous forces that were focused upon
him from the outside spiritual world to make
him do it.
Yes, it was a fall indeed involving tremendous
and far-reaching things as we very well
know.
That was power.
But does God abandon?
Does he give up?
He at once reacts.
Reacts to that.
And with new application and new energy proceeds
along his line, same line, toward his Son.
And he immediately gives intimations that all this
that has happened which has come from the
great usurper, the serpent, the devil, will one
day in his Son come unto you and
be crushed forever.
Immediately he reacts.
And you and I, dear friends, know what
power is called for to bring that about.
The energy of God concerning his Son.
God says that the seed of the woman
shall bruise the head of the serpent.
That's not a fanciful statement.
That's a terrific cosmic conflict.
The battle of the ages.
But at last we see it.
Forces in the heavens hurled down, no more
place found for them.
Cast into the abyss.
It's done.
But this is the energy concerning his Son.
And that again is but a fragment.
People in whom all this was to have
its illustration and display as a kind of
token, Israel, find them because, because of their
failure, spiritual failure, follow on in the way
of the covenant, in the bondage of Egypt.
And what bondage?
You see, God has taken pains to let
us know that this thing was a thing
of tremendous spiritual power.
We are impressed, aren't we, with how Pharaoh
could stand up to it.
Why, surely he'll let them go after that,
even the first judgment, and the second, and
the third.
No, not a bit of it.
We're amazed.
I venture to say that you wouldn't hold
on to anything if you had a little
bit of that.
Curious.
God is drawing out this thing, extending it
to show what terrific force there is behind
this whole matter, and then finally with one
blow he smashes the whole thing and delivers
those people.
And forever their deliverance from Egypt becomes the
Old Testament illustration of the exceeding greatness of
his power.
Always refer back to that as the example
of God's exceeding power, deliverance from Egypt.
But it's all in line of his Son.
Son's in view.
It's the energy of God, you see.
Moving on.
I've missed the flood.
Another thing, God's reaction to a departure of
the world.
But so you must go on, pursuing this
through the Old Testament.
Israel coming through the wilderness to the border
of the land, and then again the whole
thing breaking down by unbelief.
God give it up.
No, that land forever stands as a type
of his Son, and it's his fullness into
which he's going to bring a people.
Therefore he cannot give it up in the
light of the spiritual meaning.
He cannot give it up and say, well,
I must abandon my purpose of all.
Let that generation fail.
He'll have another, and he'll bring them in
and see the mighty energies of God in
that new people as they take possession and
overcome in the land.
Failure again, and you have exile in Babylon.
Surely God's purposes are defeated now.
Land lies desolate, the city is waste, and
the people are gone.
No.
For your sake have I sent to Babylon
and have brought down all their mighty ones.
Remnants shall return.
But this is not something in itself.
It's still with the object, the ultimate object
in view.
Kingdom of his Son.
Moving on.
So we go on.
Like that, we come as we have been
in this book of the Revelation, where his
church is suffering untold agonies, persecutions and martyrdoms.
But how does it end?
Well, it just ends in God's power, God's
energy.
Does it?
But his Son is at last on the
throne.
That's the point.
The purpose of God, calling out the energies
of God, all in relation to his Son.
And what I have said to you is
only what is contained in Paul's writings.
I haven't added or imagined.
I've given it to you, and I've given
it to you imperfectly.
It's all there.
This is what Paul saw, the purpose of
God, drawing out the energies of God.
He puts it in one so familiar phrase,
the exceeding greatness of his power, which is
to us, Lord, who believe, according to that
working of the strength of his might, which
he wrought in Christ, in raising him from
the dead and setting him at his own
right hand.
Far above all rule and authority and every
name that is named, the exceeding greatness of
his power, the energy of God in relation
to his purpose concerning his Son.
Paul saw that in the face of Jesus
Christ.
I repeat, if we see something of that,
it's going to be a tremendous strength to
us.
It's going to mean tremendous enlargement, enrichment, and
strengthening to see us through.
Now, because of my warning not to put
too much on you at one time, I'll
stop there, though there is so much more
of what Paul saw as to that very
matter, God's thought concerning his Son, the purpose.
We'll have another session yet, perhaps.