The Holy Spirit's Biography of Christ # 7

The Holy Spirit's Biography of Christ # 7

Eternal Life Reserved In Jesus Christ, continued -

It is all symbolic, but, you see, it contains eternal principles. The whole kingdom and reign of satan are built upon that basis. The mind, the heart and the will of humanity are captured by the devil,  but it is false life. What about all the emotion in the world, even in Christianity? There is a vast difference between spiritual, eternal life, and soul life. There is such a thing as false life, and that thing is the mater stroke of satan! You will remember that there was a time in the history of Israel in the wilderness when certain sons of Aaron brought false fire and offered it upon God's altar. You know what happened! You know all about God's jealousy. There is a vast amount of false fire in this world today. It looks like true life, true fire, what is of God, but there is a lie in it, and the fruit of that tree is bitter fruit in the end.

I think this is a time in the world's history when we need to understand this more than ever. How can we discern the difference between the true life and the false life? Well, I think John is the great messenger of this, because his writings were particularly in this connection. He wrote in a time when everything in Christianity was being falsified. There was Christ and antichrist. In fact, there were many antichrists, for many false spirits had gone abroad. It was a time when Christians were being deceived, and John, writing for that time, said: "The anointing which ye received of Him abideth in you, and ye need not  that any one teach you" (1 John 2:27). In effect, John was saying: 'By the Holy Spirit, Who is the Spirit of the true life, you will be able to discern between the true and the false.' Even when they look so much alike,k the Spirit in you will say: 'There is something not true about this!'

I think that one of the things that indicates  whether it is true or false is whether man made it or not. You see, those sons of Aaron had their incense, and they did not make it of the same ingredients as those with which the true, but  it was false, and the Spirit of God knew the difference. We have to be very careful that we do not create false fire, for that is the danger of strong personalities. Do you notice how many of these things which look like life have come from strong personalities? They are uncrucified Christian men! Is that a contradiction in terms? No, the Cross has to divide between soul and spirit, and if you see the fire coming from strong, forceful, soulish men, you have reason to doubt the reality of it. When the true fire comes, it is always through crucified men.

I think the Apostle Peter who was always trying to get things going! He would rush in in front of someone else, and would even tell the Lord Jesus where to get on and where to get off! It would have been a poor lookout for Christianity if it had come through Peter! But Peter had to go to the Cross, and the true fire of the Holy Spirit did not come until he was an utterly broken man.

Well, perhaps I have said enough on that matter, but it is something that should be an instruction to us in these days. We do verily need to know the difference between the true life and the false life, for satan's master work is to imitate God.

Now an we go on with the next chapter in this spiritual biography?

(B) The Crisis of Bethlehem

I want you to read these passages very carefully. You may thing that you know them, but before we have finished I think you may find that you do not!

Luke 1:20-34, 37-38
Mark 10:42-45
Philippians 2:5-8

There has to be a Bethlehem in the spiritual history of every believer. What is the Bethlehem of the child of God? It is not in Luke's Gospel, for that is the Bethlehem of the Lord Jesus. John's Gospel is the spiritual history, and the Bethlehem of the child of God is in chapter 3. 'Most truly I say unto you, you must be born anew.' That is our Bethlehem.

The Renunciation of the Lord Jesus

Things did not begin with the Lord Jesus at the little town of Bethlehem in Palestine. I have called that a "crisis," for it was a turning-point in Christianity, but it all began in heaven. You have to go back behind Bethlehem and into heaven, and see what was happening there. The eternal Son of God was there, and He was equal with God. He was one with God in position, having all heaven's fullness and Divine glory. In John 17:5 the Lord Jesus prayed in these words: "Father, glorify thou Me with Thine own self with the glory which I had with Thee before the world was," and that was before Bethlehem! In heaven, then, before this world was, there was the Son possessing the glory of God, occupying the very throne of God, the throne of the universe. Then, speaking in human language, the point came when something needed to be done in this little world. God had lost His place, had been rejected, and man had lost what God had intended for him. He had forfeited the eternal life which God had intended him to have. So to speak, satan and man together had turned God out of this world, and it was in pride. satan had said, 'I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God...I will be like the most High (Isaiah 14:13-14). We know the result of that! And man entered into a complicity with satan and God's place and God's life were lost to man. There is so much more in that word "lost" than we are accustomed to thinking! We sing "I was lost, but Jesus found me," but when were you lost, and what did you lost?

Here we are in an eternal setting. Jesus said: "The Son of Man came to seek and to save that which was lost" (Luke 19:10), and as we go on we shall see what that was.

In this situation in eternity the Son said: 'I will undertake to bring it all back. Father, I will do this service for you. I know what it means. Because it was pride that did all the mischief, pride must be destroyed in Me. Because it was disobedience that resulted in all this trouble, obedience must be law of My life.' Well, to make it short, away back there in eternity the Lord Jesus made the great renunciation. He relinquished His position, emptied Himself of His fullness, humbled Himself, and then came forth to do this service for God, which was to recover God's place in this world and in this universe. That was the crisis of Bethlehem!

Can it be true? Is that little babe in that manger in the innermost reality of His being that eternal Son Who occupied the place of supreme authority in the past ages? Is this little baby the same One Who was filled with the glory of God and all heaven? Oh,wonder of wonders, He has indeed taken the lowest place! What ought He to have had? But what He did have was a manger in a stable! There was no place for Him in the world that He Himself had created. "He came unto His own things, and they that were His own received Him not' (John 1:11). What a crisis in the ages!

That is what took place in heaven, so you are not surprised that heaven is interested in this crisis! To begin with, an archangel, Gabriel, is interested, and then we read of a "multitude" of angels who are interested, for they know something of the meaning of it.

~T. Austin-Sparks~

(continued with # 8 - Mary's Renunciation