Life in the Spirit
by T. Austin-Sparks
Chapter 5 - The Priestly Company
READING: Lev. 8; Heb. 1:1-2,5,8; 2:1; 3:1; 4:14; 5; 6.
Coming back to chapter 8 of the book of Leviticus, we have presented to us a priestly company, a company that belonged to the sanctuary. That is represented by the passage in the chapter which says that this priestly company was not to depart from the sanctuary, not to go out of the door of the sanctuary for seven days, the whole period of their consecration. "Seven" stands for spiritual completeness, and here we have spiritual completeness as governing a whole period, or as represented in a whole period, and it says to us that this separating, this consecrating, this binding to the sanctuary was to extend over a perfect period, and thus they belonged to, and were, so to speak, part of the sanctuary unto a full period. What that period is we need not say for the moment.
Another thing that is said is that their ministry is to the Lord. There is an aspect of ministry which is to the world, and to the people, but the specific or principal aspect of the ministry of this priestly company is to the Lord.
Before we go more fully into the chapter before us, let us say one or two general things which are brought out quite clearly in the Word of God.
A Priestly People
The first is this, that the Lord's thought for all His people is that they shall be a priestly company. You will look in vain in the Word of God for anything that will indicate that God has a certain level for some people and a higher level for others. The thought of God, the calling of God, and the provision of God, is full, complete, for all His people, and He has made no provision, given no instructions concerning a people who will not come to His full thought. There are levels recognised, there are differences taken account of, as we shall see, but the Lord has not so ordered it; and any one who will say, Well that high level is not for me, something less than that is for me, I am not called to such high things, I am one of the simple kind and must be satisfied with something less! has altogether misconceived the mind of God. God always regards His people as though they were going to attain unto the fulness of His thought. That is to say, you may find the people in anything but a satisfactory spiritual condition as you read the Word of God, but the Lord never comes down to that level to accommodate Himself to it. He always speaks as though these very people were destined to come to something fuller. It is an important thing to recognise. We must get it settled in our minds very clearly that, although there are differences amongst the Lord's people, and although there are ranges of light and knowledge and understanding and truth, and some have a smaller, and some a very much greater measure than others, the Lord never arranged it to be like that. The Lord does not intend it to be like that. That does not represent what the Lord wants. The Lord's thought for His people is His fulness, and this priestly company, while it looks to be a very solid company, something that is right on the inside of things in a particularly honoured, privileged position, does not represent God's thought as an arrangement for any special number or class of His children. That can be proved from the Word of God.
A great and all-embracing statement about the Lord's people is that they are chosen to be a kingdom of priests unto God. That is to say, not some few of His people but all of them are called to be a kingdom of priests unto God. That is how God regarded Israel from the beginning, as a priestly kingdom, an entire people in a priestly position. That is why the firstborn in every house took the place of the priest in the house. This in turn was taken up in the tribe of Levi, representing the firstborn in all Israel, and brought before the Lord, and separated unto ministry in the sanctuary. In the Lord's thought this was the bringing of all Israel into that position in representation. Yet at the same time you cannot fail to recognise that there are differences. There are the Levites, and there are the priests. There are the Levites, and there are the sons of Aaron. They are not the same, they are different; but the difference is not because the Lord intended that there should be a difference.
We will make that plain in a moment, but first of all we must get this settled, that the highest and fullest that God has is for all His people, and not just for some. If at any time you feel that some things are beyond you, and the Lord never intended you to attain unto them, will you remember this. The thought that His fulness is for some alone must be dismissed from your mind completely.
Differences because of Failure in God's People
Yet, while that is true, there is this second thing, which is equally a fact, that there are differences; not because God appointed it, determined that it should be so, but because it is so by reason of the people themselves. There will be in the innermost place a priestly company. Then you will have in a more outward place another company which is not a priestly company, but which may be termed a Levitical company. Then more outward still you will have the great mass of what we might call the common people. That latter is not necessarily a term of reproach, but simply means a general mass of the Lord's people who are not in any special way standing in relation to His testimony, and yet they are His people, called by His Name. That is how it works out, and that is how you see it in this book of Leviticus.
God to Obtain a Priestly Company
Our concern at the moment is with the priestly company, for that is where God's full thought for His people is realised and represented. God must have such a company. With all that He will have - and He will have a great multitude, a great Levitical company in general service - He must nevertheless have a priestly company, or His whole intention and thought breaks down, and He is defeated.
So then, what is in view with us at this time is this, that God in all that He has, and is set upon having, must have that which is represented by the sons of Aaron, a priestly company. You can work back from that position to all kinds of true service for the Lord. The priests will work through the Levites, but, mark you, the Levites can never do the work of the priests. The Levites will work to the general mass, but the general mass can never do the work of a Levite. You have to be a Levite to do a Levite's work, and you have to be a priest to do a priest's work, but when you are a priest you can equally do the work of a Levite, and can serve all the Lord's people. Do not think that you are going to be cut off from the service of the Lord if you go right on to that which is specifically the Lord's thought for His people.
Now have you got the point? The Lord's heart is set primarily, ultimately, supremely upon a priesthood, and He is for such. To possess such He will work in the midst of His people, in the midst of the Levites, who are doing more or less general service for Him, though valuable. The Levites do all sorts of necessary things for the Lord, but He will work in the midst of the Levites, who are the doers of general service for Him, to get a priestly company, who represent something more than that.
We must note the relatedness of these things again, because the Levites cannot function without the priests. It is true that the priests must have the Levites, but let us note that God can never really fulfil all His purpose until He has this priestly company, and special pains, special provisions, special undertakings, are made for the securing of that company. To a detail it was all "as the Lord commanded Moses".
The Truth as Presented in the New Testament
The language of the New Testament is very similar in its terms with regard to this matter. You cannot fail to see the first thing that we said, that God is always dealing with, and speaking to, His people in the light of His full thought, and has never made any provision for anything less, and can never be satisfied with anything less. There will be less, but it never satisfies Him.
Then you can see in the New Testament perfectly clearly that the Lord, recognising quite well that many will not come to His full thought, is taking pains, nevertheless, to get a company there. Where shall we look for that? Take the Apostle Paul himself, and all that he has to say in this connection. Take, for example, the first chapter of the letter to the Colossians. In that chapter, as well as in others, the utterness of the Lord's mind is set forth in such urgent words as these: "Christ... whom we preach, warning every man, and teaching every man in all wisdom; that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus: whereunto I also labour, striving according to his working, which worketh in me mightily." Or again, take the great third chapter of the letter to the Philippians. Here you have Paul, who is the Lord's, and has served the Lord, who, though he has reached such a point of spirituality and life and development, in the depths of his being is yet conscious that the Lord does not want any man to stop there, but that He has called to something higher than that. The Apostle puts it in this way: "If by any means I may attain"; or, again: "That I may apprehend that for which I have been apprehended of Christ Jesus". He says these things as an example, and is urgent upon other believers to come that way.
Take the letters to the churches in the first chapters of the Revelation. I am not one who believes that those churches are not such as consist of the Lord's people, but represent just general, formal, nominal and professing Christendom. I believe that they are the churches such as the Lord holds in His hand; they are stars, and the Lord is in the midst of them. I do not believe such a thing to be true of a merely professing church that has never been the Lord's at all. Here they are on a lower level than His desire for them. He takes account of them, and the things which are good the Lord takes account of - the history of the true child of God - what they have passed through, what they have endured, what they have been, what they have done, what they are that still remains commendable, but He can never settle down and accept a measure, a part; He can never be content with their just reaching a point. To them all He addresses straight and strong words about overcomers, and when you begin to consider the matter, the word "overcomer" - in the light of what is said about the churches, and especially about those who have not gone into apostasy but simply lost out on the way, not maintaining their high level - means something utter, something more than ordinary. But it requires a going on beyond much. "I know thy labour and thy patience". What more do you want? What more can God expect? "...thou canst not bear them which say they are Jews and are not..." What more do you want? The Lord is standing for His full thought, and He is not satisfied with anything less than that, and has made provision for it. It is perfectly clear that the New Testament takes up the fact that there is a difference, but never allows the thought that the Lord has arranged that difference, nor that that difference represents what He intended.
So we are confronted with this, that ultimately the Lord is out for a priestly company, whatever that may mean. Chapter 8 of the book of Leviticus makes it clear what that is. We cannot deal with all the details of the chapter, it is so comprehensive, but we can touch on one or two things which will make clear to us what a priestly company is.
We have seen that it is a company wholly separated unto the Lord, shut up to the sanctuary, and whose main ministry is to the Lord. This ministry is entirely governed by one thought. It is not so much the ministry of the Levites, which is that of a more general ministry; the first consideration of the priests is the satisfaction of the Lord. There is a lot of difference there. The priest is not governed by the thought that he is going to work for the Lord, and do all sorts of things for the Lord, but he concentrates upon that which answers to the Lord's own need and desire, that which satisfies the Lord. It is ministry unto the Lord.
God's Good Pleasure
Now you see in the chapter in question what that meant. You notice that Moses filled the hands of Aaron's sons with that which represented both sides of Christ's work; that is, the side of Christ's work which had to do with the putting away of sin, the utter putting away of sin, by atonement, so that the way is absolutely clear and free from that which is the old creation and man by nature, the death side; then representing the other side, he took out of the basket the unleavened bread, which speaks of the perfect sinless human nature of the Lord Jesus. The old man put away, the sinful man, and the new man brought in, the Christ, the perfect humanity. These priests have both hands full, full of that with which God is satisfied. That is not the nature of general service for the Lord. In general service for the Lord there is a good deal that is of the old man by nature. That does not satisfy the Lord. The Lord does not want the old man going into His service, in his own energies of mind, of will, and body, his zeal, enthusiasm, enterprise, judgment and ideas. If the truth were known, the proportion of real satisfaction to the Lord in that is very small.
The priest comes on to much higher ground. It is a spiritual position that is taken. On the one hand, that spiritual position rules out by the Cross all that is of man by nature from the service of God, and, on the other hand, brings in the Man who can serve God. It is simple, but these are laws which are underlying the Divine revelation, and it is for us to recognise them. A priest does not belong to a certain class of people called priests. A priest is one who has come to a spiritual position, and anybody who has come to this spiritual position can fulfil priestly ministry. The spiritual position is where it is recognised, on the one hand, that by the Cross man in nature has been put away from the service of God. Whatever God may get by sovereignty is quite another matter. The Lord does get something in a sovereign way, even when a sinning man is doing work for Him. But that never comes to the Lord's satisfaction so far as the man is concerned, so far as the state is concerned, and in the long run the man will find that he was never pleasing to the Lord while in that state. On the other hand, the priest is one who has come to the place where Christ is the basis of all service, and where His resources alone are adequate. He is the Man of God's right hand. That is a priest spiritually set forth.
A Further Figure of the Same Truth
That this is a spiritual state can be seen by regarding it from another standpoint, or in the light of other words. Sonship and priesthood are synonymous in the Word of God. It is Aaron and his sons who are the priests. It was the firstborn son in Israel who was the priest, and the Levites took up the firstborn's place, and then the principle was carried right through to its highest form of expression in Aaron's sons. That is sonship governing priesthood all the way through. Priesthood is one with sonship. When you come to the New Testament, apart from the types and symbols, you know that there is this distinction between children and sons of God. Unfortunately in the Authorised Version these terms are confused, and the distinction is not made. In the Revised Version you get the distinction. Why use two different words? They represent two different things. A child, according to the usage of the Greek word, is an infant, whilst a son is one who has come to maturity, grown up in the family, and come to a place of responsibility. The Lord employs the two words. Now that is the point underlying Hebrews 3 and 4 and when you go on to chapter 5 you are still dealing with priesthood. You have reached Melchizedek as the highest type and expression of priesthood, and the Apostle says: "Of whom we have many things to say, but..."! They cannot be said. Why? Because they are still infants, and not sons; they are still immature, babes. Then, in order to go on with this matter of priesthood, to bring the real meaning of priesthood to them, he has to bring this word right upon them: "Let us go on to full growth". It is like a tremendous parenthesis. He is talking about priesthood, and reaches a point where he is still about to say something more, but is arrested, and the things are never said. He has met a hindrance in the immaturity of these believers. It is not that there is anything wrong with being a babe, but there is something wrong with being a babe when it is time you were a man. The Apostle, therefore, breaks off to bring in this urgent appeal to press on, and having given expression to it, he goes on to talk about priesthood again. So that to come to the priestly company we must come to spiritual maturity. We must get further away from infancy every day. That is according to nature, and it is according to grace. We should be coming progressively into the priestly position.
Right at the end of chapter 3 of the letter to the Ephesians we get what is really expressive of a priestly condition: "For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named... (here you come to the Father, and have the priestly family in view) that he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man; that Christ may dwell (the word here is "settle down", make His home) in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love (love is always a priestly feature; the first thing said about Aaron was something about his heart - the Lord said to Moses: "When he shall see thee, he shall be glad in his heart"), may be able to comprehend with all saints, what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height (spiritual intelligence is the mark of a priest), and to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God." What does all this lead to? Let us read on. "Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us, unto him be glory in the Church..." Surely that is fulness! When is there glory in the Church? When the priests are in their place, when the priests have come to their measure, when the priests are functioning.
Really that speaks to us of the Lord's thought for all His people. You will look in vain in the letter to the Ephesians, which is the great Church letter, for any discrimination between the Lord's people, and you will look in vain in the New Testament and in all Paul's writings for anything which suggests such a thing as this: 'Now some of you are called to that and others are not'. The Lord's thought is that all saints should come to His fulness. The Lord knows they will not all come, nevertheless He does not change His thought, and say, 'All ,right, I will excuse some of you, and I will make provision for some of you just to go so far'. Priesthood is a spiritual thing. It is the value to the Lord of a company who are moving into His full thought for His people.
The Lord is seeking to bring His people, wherever they will respond to Him, on to the highest and fullest ground of His desire. That makes possible a ministry of peculiar value and richness in all directions. Please do not think that if you are going on this way it means you are going to have to give up some service for the Lord. I have heard it said that some men react to this sort of thing in this way: 'Well, the Lord has called me to be an evangelist, and all this teaching about the Church does not interest me at all. It is not my job, it has nothing to do with me; I do not understand it, and I do not want to; the Lord has made perfectly clear to me what my job is'. Well, you have nothing like that in the New Testament. If you are a priest in the full spiritual sense you will do very much better evangelistic work, if you are going to call it that. If you have a fulness of Christ to bring, those to whom you bring it can be brought into that at once. Do we not need to bring the greater fulnesses of Christ to men right at the beginning of their life with the Lord? Multitudes of Christian people, who have been born again ten, twenty, thirty, forty years, are no further on today than when they were born again, because there was nothing more brought to them at the first. So many say, Oh, if only it had been presented to us at the beginning!
Please do not think this is to take you from useful service of some kind. It is to strengthen, and deepen, and enrich all kinds of service that is really valuable to the Lord. The Lord give us understanding.
http://www.austin-sparks.net/english/books/003082.html
Saturday, July 10, 2010
“A Scriptural Examination of the Modern Doctrine of Financial Prosperity in the Church” By Josef Urban
It is a very common thing within the church nowadays to hear a preacher making references to supposed promises in the Bible that promise believers to have financial and economic prosperity. Statements like, “God doesn’t want us to live in poverty” and “God promises to bless you economically if you honor Him” and so on, give the impression that Christians should believe for and seek material, financial, economic prosperity on this earth. Frequently the impression is given which ultimately makes people think, “God wants me to have more money”. And so believers start praying and asking God for more financial prosperity and even begin to seek after increasing their economic status in this world. –But does God really promise to give all Christians in the New Testament financial and economic abundance and prosperity? Does the Lord really want us to not be satisfied if we are living in poverty (if that is our appointed lot) and to seek after increasing our material substance?
The Scriptures are very clear about the subject of financial prosperity in the New Covenant. In fact, the Lord Jesus talked about money more than He specifically talked about Heaven and Hell combined –so there’s absolutely no excuse for ignorance on this subject. We have simply to look at what the Word of God teaches. But before we do this, let us first understand that God doesn’t always work the way we work. His thoughts are as high above our thoughts as the heavens are above the earth (Isa. 55:9). So God may operate in ways that we don’t quite understand with our natural minds, and He may do things that are contrary to what we have thought or understood about Him.
Many times we hold to traditions, mindsets, or beliefs that aren’t Scriptural, and when we do, there comes a time when God is faithful to confront us with truth and bring us correction. Whether we are obedient to the Lord or not, and whether we will continue to walk with God or not, is largely determined on how we respond to the correction He gives us. It is important to realize that He doesn’t correct us because He wants to rub our errors in our own faces, but because He loves us and wants us to walk in truth. When we are confronted with the Word of God and it teaches us that we were in error on some point, then we need to humble ourselves, repent where necessary, and correct our views.
Now, with that being said, chances are that some of the things you are about to read may not be what you have been taught or believed. So the question is: what are you going to do with the truths that you are about to be presented? Will you diligently search the Word of God and pray for understanding from above and seek the Lord in humility until it becomes clear? Or will you just reject and ignore everything you’re about to read and continue to hold to unscriptural doctrine and practices? I urge you in the name of Jesus Christ to receive with meekness the blessed Word of truth and to take your stand with God’s Word rather than with the preachers on TV, your own traditions or mindsets, or even your own church.
Before we continue, it is important for every one who is going to continue reading this lesson to get their Bible and to have it close at hand. There will be frequent statements in this lesson that are paraphrasing or relating to some particular passage of Scripture, and the Scripture reference is given in parenthesis after the statement. It is important that whenever you run across a statement with a Scripture reference after it, that you look it up in your Bible and read it for yourself. This will take some discipline and much more time to finish reading this lesson if you look up all the Scripture references, but it will be much more rewarding and will allow you to get the full benefit from this teaching. In fact, if you don’t have your Bible by your side right now, go get it, and don’t continue reading unless you have it and are ready to look up every Scripture reference.
So let us now proceed to answer the initial questions we asked about financial prosperity, namely: Is it promised to every Christian? Does God want us to live in material abundance? Does the Lord promise to increase our economic status if we serve Him? Let us not speculate or reason, but rather, to see what the Word of God says.
FINANCIAL PROSPERITY NOT SIN IN ITSELF
First of all, let us make it absolutely clear: It’s not a sin to have a large income and be financially prosperous in this world. There were saints whose lives are recorded for us in the Bible who were financially prosperous and who the Lord delighted in, and the Lord was even the cause of their financial prosperity. Their hearts didn’t depart from the Lord on behalf of their prosperity, but rather, they used it generously to glorify His name, to demonstrate His love and to serve His purposes. Let us never make the mistake of thinking that because someone has a large income that they are in sin. It is easy to judge such people and be wrong because even though we may know that they receive a lot of money, we don’t always know what they are doing with all that money, unless of course we see that they are using it to live in luxury and self-indulgence on the earth.
HOARDING TREASURE FOR SELFISH INDULGENCE IS SINFUL
So while the Scripture doesn’t condemn a large income in itself, it does emphatically condemn selfish spending, selfish accumulation, and hoarding up earthly luxuries and treasures for ourselves; as Jesus said: “Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal: For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also” (Mat 6:19-21).
Jesus commanded us not to store up “treasures” on earth, because if we do, it proves that our hearts are not with Him in Heaven. Storing up earthly “treasures” proves that our affection is on things of the earth and not with the things of God in Heaven. It proves that we are so worldly-minded that we’re of no Heavenly good. The Scripture commands us to set our affections on the things above, not on things of the earth (Col. 3:2). If we are laying up financial abundance for ourselves on earth for the purpose of enjoying ourselves in this world then we are in disobedience. Even if we say, “Well, I know that I have much material abundance laid up on earth, but my heart is really with Jesus in Heaven”, it doesn’t matter because Jesus said that our heart will always be wherever our treasure is. If you have such treasure on earth, it proves that your heart and affection is on earth and not in Heaven, and that you love the things of this world more than you love God. If you didn’t, you would love Jesus enough to obey Him (Joh. 14:15) and you would get rid of your earthly treasures for the Gospel’s sake and store up treasure in Heaven just as He commanded (Luk. 12:33), thus proving that your affection is in Heaven (Luk. 12:34). If you refuse to get rid of your abundant earthly treasures and abundant non-essential luxuries, it proves that you love them more than you love heavenly and eternal things, because Jesus said that you couldn’t have both.
The Lord goes on to describe these “treasures”, they are things that the moth eats away (such as the extra and abundant clothes in the back of the closet that are rarely used), things that rust corrupts (such as metals, jewelry, and fancy cars), and things that thieves break in and steal (such as things of great value). Do thieves break in and steal toilet paper, food, your clothes, and other necessities? –Not usually. What they look for is treasures, for things of extraordinary value. So Jesus forbids us to store up luxurious abundance on earth for the purpose of self-gratification.
Yet, this is EXACTLY what these prosperity preachers on TV and all over the world are doing. They are living extravagant lives, living in luxury, self-indulgence, buying the most expensive hotel suites, driving in the most expensive luxury cars, living in the most lavish multi-million dollar homes, feasting on most expensive dinners as a lifestyle. They are in clear disobedience to the Lord Jesus and are living in the practice of sin as they play the harlot and commit spiritual adultery on God by being friends of the world: “Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God” (Jam. 4:4). There is no middle ground and no room for compromise in the Kingdom of God –they either love God and hate the fleshly appeals of this world, or else they hate God in their hearts (despite what they say with their lips) and love the things that this world has to offer. Their actions prove where their hearts are, for “ye shall know them by their fruits” (Mat. 7:16).
Furthermore, these famous prosperity preachers are RICH by ANYONE’S standards. Who would dare say that they aren’t rich when they live such lifestyles? Now hear what the Lord Jesus said: “But woe unto you that are rich! for ye have received your consolation.”(Luk 6:24-26). Far from pronouncing them blessed and favored by God, the Lord Jesus pronounces woes and sorrows upon them! He tells them that they have already received their consolation, which means ‘reward’. They have no reward waiting in the Kingdom of God for them, because they have lived in luxury on the earth and have decided to receive their reward here on earth. As James describes: “You have lived on earth in luxury and self-indulgence. You have fattened yourselves in the day of slaughter.” (Jam 5:5 NIV). James was talking to the rich in this world who live in selfish luxury. In contrast, he says in the same epistle: “Hearken, my beloved brethren, Hath not God chosen the poor of this world rich in faith, and heirs of the kingdom which he hath promised to them that love him?” (Jam 2:5). James, just like Jesus, clearly rebukes the rich who live in abundance, luxury and self-indulgence while he pronounces blessing on the poor and oppressed.
Continued here:
Thursday, July 8, 2010
Yield Not To Temptation- The Roberta Martin Singers
Delois Barrett Campbell takes lead in this song from 1947..Yield Not To Temptation
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