Position and Power
by T. Austin-Sparks
Undoubtedly the word which occurs most often in religious - and especially evangelical - circles today is the word "power." In addresses and prayers it is the keynote from which and to which there is a constant movement. All the world over it is the same. Listening to speakers and praying in languages in which one is not conversant, a certain word occurs with almost monotonous reiteration, and on enquiry one is not surprised to learn that it is this word. The absence of power and the necessity for it is betrayed or confessed in many ways; not only directly and humbly by the more spiritually minded among God's people, but by the loud display of ingenious resourcefulness in advertisement, "stunts," organisation, drives, etc., which are a more sad giving-away of the case than what is meant to be implied by them, viz.:- that there is life.
We do not intend to embark upon a consideration of this subject in general from all of its angles, but to deal with one basic thing, more basic even than the reception of the Holy Spirit. The matter is very rarely dealt with in relation to the Holy Spirit, and certainly no treatise can be anything like complete otherwise. The scriptures give good warrant for this, and yet there is a sense in which this matter does not begin there. The Master made it very clear that before there could be a Pentecost there were certain very deep and vital things to transpire. Pentecost was to be very truly an effect, and not only a cause; the end of much as well as a beginning; a seal and not only a pledge. Before there could be the counterpart of Christ's Jordan anointing upon the members of His Body the Church, there must of necessity have been a Baptism into His death, a union with Him in the entombment of the "body of sin." His death had meant the closing of the door upon the old creation; the first Adam had been dealt with and effectually relegated to the place where he would no longer have any consideration or acceptance from God, and being reckoned as dead, only the inclusive "Last Adam" would receive the fulness of God. In the day of the anointing of the servants of God of old, very definite and explicit instructions were given in relation to the anointing oil. This holy oil was in no wise to come upon man's flesh and there was to be no attempt to make anything like it. The oil is always a symbol of the Holy Spirit, and the "flesh" a type of the old fallen nature or "Adam." God strictly refuses to allow the Holy Spirit to come upon uncrucified men and women. "Being made conformable to His death," is the only path to Pentecost. All our motives in seeking power will be tested by fire. Are we seeking personal influence, popularity, demonstrations, reputation, prestige, acceptableness, success, something of a kingdom of this world? We may think our motive to be perfectly pure; but not until we pass into death, death to any or all of the above, and find ourselves "despised and rejected of men," our names cast out as evil, and a real falling to pieces (seemingly) of our work, do we really come to face the real purpose and motive of our having any place in the work of God. The death of everything, or the eclipse of everything within and without is a good test, and all the men of God who have been truly used by Him have gone this way. Not upon our flesh - whether it be the gross flesh or the refined, soulish, educated flesh - will God allow His Spirit to come. Before there can be a Pentecost there must have been a Calvary. Before there can be the fire of God there must be an altar and a sacrifice; and it must be the burnt offering in which everything is consumed. Undoubtedly the disciples of our Lord went through the death of everything of ambition, expectation, vision, self-confidence, etc., when their Master was crucified, and then they tasted deeply of that death which was to be wrought out progressively during all the days which were to be. Their views, ideas, "convictions," methods, scales of values, standards of judgment, dispositions, temperaments, personal influence, and every part of their life later went through this process of judgment, disintegration and death, and in every deeper baptism into death they were raised more fully into His life - not their own. Each experience was more critical and crucial and devastating than the last, and doubtless they sometimes wondered if there would be anything at all left; but so the life was becoming more abundant. |
