The Living God and the Battle for Life # 1

The Living God and the Battle for Life # 1

Read Matthew 16:13, 16, 18; John 10:10; 2 Corinthians 3:3-6, 17-18; Hebrews 9:13-14; 12:22; 1 Timothy 3:14-16; 1 Thessalonians 1:9-10; Revelation 7:2-3.

"As he saith also in Hosea, I will call that My people, which was not My people; and her beloved, that was not beloved. And it shall be, that in the place where it was said unto them, Ye are not My people, There shall they be called sons of the living God" (Romans 9:25-26).

We are very familiar with the phrase - the living God - and it is not the first time in which we have dwelt upon it, but it is the only word that comes to me just now as containing something of the Lord's mind for us in this present hour.

I begin by reminding you that this phrase lies behind everything in God's universe from eternity to eternity - The Living God! And it is not only a designation of God or a title, it implies the entire work of God. The work of God throughout is the work of Life; the work of the living God is the work of Life.

The passages which we have read, as you notice, bringing in this phrase and this title so frequently, relate to the kind of thing that comes out from God, the kind of thing that belongs to God. The first, the Son of the living God, - "Thou art... the Son of the living God" declares "I am the Life", and says, "I came that they might have Life." He, the Son of the living God, is Himself the Life and the mediator of Life.

Then the sons of the living God are not just those people who belong to a certain company, a certain few who bear a certain title, that is, 'sons of the living God.' They are those who share with God His own Life; they are the living ones in that Divine sense, inasmuch as they have received God's own Life.

The Church is called "the church of the living God" and again the designation is not of some particular institution which belongs to God as differing from others; it is that which, differing from all others, is distinguished by the very Life of God which is in it.

So you go on from passage to passage and you find that it is a discriminating word. That is seen in John 10:10: "The thief cometh not, but...to kill...I am come that they might have Life" - a discriminating word.

So, behind everything, back of the universe which comes in after God, we have the living God, and all the work of God is the work of Life, until you head right up to that great discriminating act at the end when the earth and the sea are to be delivered over to judgment and the final destruction, and there is a staying call to the angel - "Wait a minute, before everything is handed over to destruction and death, there is a seal, not just God, but of the living God. These are to be marked as sharing God's Life, marked out by the seal of God, the mark of God, and what is it? These cannot be engulfed in the general destruction, these cannot be involved in this work of judgment, these are distinguished and discriminated from all the rest. They have a seal upon them and that seal has God's stamp. What is the hallmark of God anywhere at any time? It is always Life, just as the hallmark of satan is death. Those two things stand clearly apart and distinguished - one to kill and destroy, the other to make alive and by that Life to preserve even through all the work of death.

Now, this, as we have often seen, is the great issue of all time. It is the issue of Life and death, death and Life. The issue is not first sin and righteousness; that is not the first issue. The issue is death and Life, Life and death. Sin is the ground upon which the issue is decided; sin is the ground of death, but death is the objective, therefore satan, in order to kill, to bring death into God's universe, must first corrupt it. He must get the condition of corruption in order to get a state of death. Righteousness, while it is a matter of great importance with the Lord, is not the first thing. Life is God's first thing but now, because of sin, God must have righteousness unto Life. He must create righteousness before there can be Life, but the object is Life, just as the object with satan is death. All accusations from satan, all condemnation, all bringing under the cloud of an evil conscience, is with a view to death. All the values of Christ our Righteousness to be appropriated and continually held on to by faith are God's provision for Life, not just to make us good, but to make us live.

~T. Austin-Sparks~

(continued with # 2)