Faith Unto Enlargement Through Adversity (Transcript)

by T. Austin-Sparks

Chapter 4 - Faith in Relation to Life

I'm going to read those verses from the letter to the Romans chapter 4 which were placed at the beginning of our time of meditation. Chapter 4 of the letter to the Romans, at verse 16, the end of verse 16:

"That also which is of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all (as it is written, 'A father of many nations have I made thee') before Him whom he believed, even God, who giveth life to the dead," underline that clause and retain it. "God, who giveth life to the dead and calleth the things that are not, as though they were." Get the tense of that. Of course, it does not say who later on in the great resurrection day will give life to the dead; it is present, active, "Who giveth life to the dead".

"Who in hope believed against hope, to the end that he might become a father of many nations, according to that which had been spoken, 'So shall thy seed be'. And without being weakened in faith he took account of his body now as good as dead (he being about a hundred years old), and the deadness of Sarah's womb; yet, looking unto the promise of God, he wavered not through unbelief...". Unbelief always makes us waver, all our wavering comes from our lack of faith.

"But waxed strong through faith, giving glory to God, and being fully assured that what He had promised, He was able also to perform. Wherefore also it was reckoned unto him for righteousness. Now, it was not written for his sake alone, that it was reckoned unto him; but for our sake also, unto whom it shall be reckoned, who believe on Him that raised Jesus our Lord from the dead, who was delivered up for our trespasses, and was raised for our justification."

The word which stands over this time together is the word: faith. And we are being led to see the relationship of faith to three things.

Firstly, faith in relationship to enlargement. We have taken note that God's thought revealed for His people is enlargement unto His own fulness. "All the fulness of God" is the Word, which indicates God's thought concerning His people. But every fresh movement toward enlargement, or every fresh stage in enlargement, comes about by a fresh challenge to faith - faith being tested in a new way as not hitherto - and by faith's triumph there is further enlargement. And there is no enlargement, no increase of God, in any other way; so the Scriptures show from beginning to end.

Then secondly, faith in relationship to establishment. We have again seen the thought of God to have things established, in a state of stability, endurance, steadfastness, trustworthiness; something substantial, something deeply rooted and grounded and immovable. God works on that line, to have things like that, to eliminate all those elements which are present in us, which are weak, unreliable, unable to carry a weight and take responsibility; to bring us to the place where we are established in Christ. But every bit of this work of confirming, establishing, rooting and grounding is connected with some further testing of faith, proving of faith. Every fresh storm sends our roots down to take deeper and firmer hold. It's along the line of faith, [that we see] faith's proving, that we become established. Where there is no testing or trying, or adversity, we are weak and unreliable. And so we see that, again, right through the Scripture, God is moving towards having things settled and fixed, and after His own nature: eternal, abiding, enduring for ever. I say the whole Bible shows that this is brought about by faith.

And in the third place, we see faith in relation to Life. And that is to be our occupation for a little while this afternoon, with perhaps a closing word on faith itself; we shall see.

Faith in Relation to Life

I need hardly take you through the Scriptures to see how those two things go together. Much will come to mind as we proceed. But I just remind you of such a familiar thing as this, that this matter of Life does bound the whole Scripture. The Bible opens with the Tree of Life, and it closes with the Tree of Life, and that is the great issue from the beginning to the end.

From one angle, as we were saying yesterday, the Bible is all about this matter of Life as over against death. And so, as in the other two things - enlargement and establishment - we find that God has left us in no doubt whatever as to His mind on this matter. He has made it perfectly clear that His thought is Life, and Life in fulness. So much so that if the Lord Jesus, in His coming into this world, with one hand reaches right back to the beginning, and with the other hand reaches right on to the ages of the ages yet to be, He is in that position on one self-declared ground and purpose: "I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it abundantly". Life, and Life abundant.

Now, those other two things of which we have spoken - enlargement and establishment - are inseparably bound up with this very matter of Life. That is, that all God's enlargements are by Life. That of course is so clear, obvious. Taking the parable of creation, of nature, going right back to the beginning again: God filling the void, the waste, the emptiness which was the state of this world as we find it at the beginning of the Bible. God filling was in terms of Life. In every realm, His fulness, His increasing fulness was along the line of Life. I say, that is a parable of God's way.

Increase and fulness in the people of God, in the Christian life, is always in terms of Life. When God adds, it is always additional Life. The result of all God's work is that the issue is there's more Life than ever there was before. And so, progressively, by crises and stages, God is moving with His people - where He can, where they will let Him, where they will not waver through unbelief - He is moving in that direction toward His ultimate fulness on the basis of constantly increasing Life.

The same is true in relation to establishment - confirming, making things stable, solid, deep. This work of establishing is always again in relation to Life: confirming in Life, making strong in Life. The real element about this Life is its eternity.

An increase of Life is always an indication of something deeper having been done in the heart. The emergence from some state of uncertainty, through the victory of faith in a crisis, in a difficulty, a dark experience, the emergence just means, well, there's more Life - that's all. It's like that every time: more Life, we are experiencing and enjoying and knowing more Life. Life is the basis of our becoming more settled.

See, there are lots of people who think there are other things which lead to consolidation and establishment, and certainty and assurance. But when you come to look at it, it isn't that way at all. You don't get established by a lot more teaching, a lot more information, even about Divine things. You don't even become spiritually established by knowing your Bible better. That's not to say that you shouldn't do that, and that it's not necessary, but the real establishment is that of Life known in ourselves. The answer: "This is the testimony, that God gave unto us eternal Life". The testimony is not a form of teaching, an interpretation of truth, a system of doctrine, a way of doing things. The testimony is none of those things. "This is the testimony, that God has given unto us eternal Life", and to be established means to be constantly knowing the increase of this Life.

Well now, that being the connection, as we said earlier, between these three things, because they go together invariably. We will take a look at some of the evidences of God. And inclusively, of course, the evidence of God is Life. The evidence of God, is Life. The proof, the testimony to God, and the testimony to what is of God - is Life.

Again, I need not turn aside to say that the evidence of God is not this and that and many things, but the evidence of God is Life.

Let us go back to that original criterion in the symbolism of the beginning.

The Tree of Life

It is perfectly clear, is it not, that that Tree of Life, and what it represented and symbolised, held the whole issue of whether God was going to continue with man or not, whether man was going to continue with God or not, whether their relationship was going to remain intact. The evidence of God was centred there.

Now that tree evidently represented another and different Life from what man already possessed. That's perfectly clear: God had brought in the living things. The waters swarmed, as we have seen, with living creatures; the air swarmed with the living fowl; the earth was full of living creatures and living vegetation. And then man was created, into his nostrils already there had been breathed the "breath of life" and he was an animate being. Already he had what we all have by nature - this life that we call [natural]. It was after the imparting of that kind of life, and man becoming a living soul, that God pointed to the Tree of Life, and made that the issue of life and death! It was not the life that was in man that was the issue of life and death, because man did not forfeit that life which was in him when he disobeyed. The tree evidently represented and symbolised another Life altogether than that which God had already breathed into him - a different Life.

Death, therefore, came to mean two things. In the first place, it did come to mean a change in man as he was. Although he would continue as an animate being over a tenure of years, a change took place in him. We will not stay to analyse that change, but he became different by disobedience, even in his own natural being. But on the other hand, he forfeited his right to this other and extra and really true Life, as represented by the tree. He never inherited that, he never possessed that. He forfeited his right to it.

It throws just a little light upon the words about the Lord Jesus by John, that "to as many as believed Him," here's the whole question of faith coming in in relation to the right, "to as many as believed Him, to them gave He the right, the right to become children of God". It's only saying, in other words, the right to this other Life of God, which is through being begotten of God. The right to that Life was forfeited by Adam through disobedience, or unfaith. The right to that Life is restored through faith in the Lord Jesus. That's very simple and very elementary.

Now. Satan said, "Hath God said, Thou shalt surely die? Thou shalt not surely die, thou shalt not surely die!" What a categorical statement! Now note: apart from his known rupture in fellowship with God through his disobedience because of unbelief, man, Adam, probably was not conscious of what had happened. "Thou shalt not surely die..." very well, believing the devil instead of God, he acted. He acted in disobedience. True, a frown came over the face of God and a shadow instead of the light and the clearness of fellowship; but man went on living. He didn't there and then fall dead and perish. He went on living and went on living quite a long time, went on growing, developing, enlarging. When you see the tremendous enlargement after its kind from that man - the growth, his children, family, the tribe, the race - development and enlargement in every way, and this looks very much as though the devil was right, "Thou shalt not surely die" and God was wrong, the devil was right. But what has happened?

There has entered into man a deep and terrible delusion and illusion of a false life, a life in which there is a lie right at the very core. And that has surely worked itself out, and is still working itself out. Oh, the increase of days, yes, unto many years, it may be. All the development and enlargement, of its kind, in the matter of this world; but right at the core of it all: bitterness and disappointment. At last, at most: emptiness, disillusionment. What has it all been for? What is it all about?

And the people who have most, are the most dissatisfied people always. Always! That is true, isn't it? The people who have the most and have not the Lord are the most dissatisfied people in this world. The evidences of it are patent.

As I was saying yesterday, I have just come back from a part of the world where the last whim and fancy is satiated to the full. Everything that the soul of man could crave for and ask for seems to be available. Take in the realm of natural things, down there where I've been in Southern California, see the acres and acres and miles and miles of the most beautiful fruit. I picked sackfuls of the most beautiful grapefruit and oranges that you ever you did see. [There it was by the mile.] Now, my friend on whose fruit-farm I was staying, said, "Do you know, it's so prodigal that, in order to keep any market at all for it, tons and tons of this most beautiful fruit are put into a ditch, and acid poured over them, so that no one will get hold of them to try to make a business out of them." Poor people who might make a little out of this surplus are deprived of it in order, you see, to keep some sort of market. It's so prodigal!

And it's like that, not only in natural things, and fruit and other things like that, but in pleasure, in pleasure. I was told that very often in one family there, there are three or four cars; all the children have a car. One in every three of the state has a car. Well, I could go on. And you know what the word 'Hollywood' means, the very last thing in gratification of human desire. You can see it all there in display. But, but, but! The feverishness, the restlessness, the uncertainty, the anxiety! The biggest hospital in the world is there in Los Angeles, and four thousand cases are treated every day, in a country like that! Where everything can be had, for health.

What's it all about? It's the strain of life, to cope with life. And as I stayed out in a very beautiful suburb, everything very nice, I saw as I went along, house after house up for sale, or to let. And I asked my friend, "What's the meaning of this?" "Oh, everybody within miles of this city is living as on the edge of a volcano, over this atomic bomb business. And they're all moving out, as far out as they can get, because they think that any day the atomic bomb may be dropped upon Los Angeles." Life in tension, with everything conceivable to fill life, the [strain and tension] and fear! You see? Well, I haven't exaggerated, dear friends, because I couldn't. You've only got to go to see.

Now, here is an example of what I mean. Of course you don't know anything about that in experience, but it's true; the more men have, the more dissatisfied they are. The more you give to this life, the more it will take - and can take - and the more it will demand, and the more dissatisfied it is. It wears it out in no time. The whole thing fails to last - it doesn't last; and that is the life that the devil has given in place of this other Life. You and I can have very little in this world - nothing at all comparable to a Californian set-up, very, very little - and yet have the Lord Jesus and be satisfied in our hearts. It's a very practical thing, this matter of the difference. As you see, the devil, the devil said, "Thou shalt not surely die", and man took it up and walked away with it and thought that God was wrong, and the devil was right; and that he was alive. And this is what it led to - a false life, hollow at the core, never, never answering to man's real need; a mockery, a mockery in the end, the fruit looking beautiful but falling from the trees before it's ripe. A hidden deception in this life.

And in that Life which was represented by that tree, that other Life, it's just all the other way. It has nothing to do with things at all: it has all to do with a Person. This Life does not wear out: it wears well - it survives. It is not, like the other, only kept going by artificial respiration and stimulants - and how artificial they are! This is maintained from a living source and requires no stimulant. Nothing artificial can maintain it.

But mark you, that's very searching. That's very searching! It's very, very important to be quite sure that this thing has taken place with every convert: that there is no illusion about this or delusion, but that they have really become, definitely and surely, the recipients of this other Life - which will not require a constant succession of stimulants from without, but when all outward things cease, it goes on. That's the test; that's going to be the test. It's a very important thing.

Now, this illusion, you see, this illusion can get into religion, and that's the place where the devil likes to have it more than anywhere. An illusion. The Lord has something to say to a church on that very matter, didn't He, to Sardis: "Thou hast a name, a reputation to live, and art dead". A reputation to live, to be alive, for Life - and art dead. The eyes of flames see through the reputation, the name, the false situation.

It would not be difficult, of course, to portray what that would be, how that would be, what a church like that would be. We need not stay with it. There are many things that have a semblance of Life, that look like Life, that people call Life - but they are not Life. As I have said, they require these external stimulants to be applied to keep the thing going all the time. What the Lord calls Life is quite another thing; quite another thing indeed.

Well, some of the marks of this Life, this Divine Life, in the first place it is:

Perennial Freshness

It is called newness of Life, "That we should walk in newness of life". While that word 'new' in our English language has two Greek words behind it, one means something that never was before; another means something that is altogether in freshness. This Life, of course, is something that no one has ever possessed before, outside of Christ, but its mark, its characteristic, is its freshness - its freshness, its freedom from the 'earth touch'. This earth is an accursed earth; this earth is in death, it is under judgment, and all that belongs to it is under judgment and if this earth, this earth touches anything, it touches it with death. This Life, this Life of which we are speaking is completely free from the earth touch, and free from the touch of man by nature. It is fresh [though,] and for its freshness it demands that it shall be kept free from this earth and kept free from man's touch.

That has been the issue, hasn't it, all the way along. You see the Life come in, the Life of God comes in, and is regnant and wonderfully fresh and wonderfully beautiful; and then what? Well, man must take hold of it in some way, and put it into his mould, and run it according to his ideas, and organise it and set up machinery for this Life, and it is not long before the thing is no longer in freshness. It's touched with something that takes the bloom off of it and in the course of time it has become old; old! And (I suppose I am permitted to say this, as being no longer young!) God has no interest in anything that is old. Many of you, some of you are perhaps older than I am, but I still say it. No, God is only interested in that which is of Himself, that Life in us, and His interest is to keep it fresh, "Even to old age... and to grey hair", there is freshness. If the Life of God is the principle upon which we are living, there's still freshness, still freshness.

Yes, but we must keep man's hands off, and we must keep the earth touch away, we must not bring it down. Oh, man's terrible habit of wanting to take hold of, and run, the Life of God. It has killed more works of God than anything else, brought an end to wonderful movements of the Spirit. Man has taken hold, brought it into his framework, and under his control and the direction of his committee. Very well; the Lord withdraws, and it is no longer in the freshness of His Life. Freshness, newness, is the mark of God's Life.

The church is His new creation, the church is His new "cruse", to refer to Elisha and the falling fruit of the trees of Jericho, because of the lack of this vital element in the water. "Bring me a new cruse", he said, "and put salt therein". The waters were healed. And Pentecost is the counterpart of that. The church as the new cruse with the Life in it, against all the death in this world: newness of Life, and newness of vessel. The Lord Jesus put His finger upon this very principle when He said: "No man" (He might have said, 'much less God!') "no man putteth new wine into old wine-skins". Man, you're going to lose everything if you do that, you will lose everything. "No man putteth a new piece of cloth into an old garment"; God doesn't do that, He must have everything new and fresh. We are citizens of the new Jerusalem; and so we could go on. You just look up the words 'new' and 'newness', and you'll be surprised how it covers everything in the New Testament. Everything is new where this Life is.

A second feature of this Life is its productiveness, or:

Productivity.

See, that is God's method of increase, as we have said; it's the matter of Life. There is all the difference between putting on, adding to from the outside, accretion, and increase from the inside. That's God's principle, the organic principle of increase and multiplication by Life from within, and it really does happen that way! Life produces Life! And life produces organisms after its own kind: the seed with the life in itself to reproduce, to multiply a hundredfold. And the characteristic of this Life is its productivity.

Now, that, of course, is a testimony, it is also a test. If there is Life, if there is Life, there will be increase, there must be increase, because it's the law of that Life to increase itself. This is also a test. It's a challenge. If there is no increase, no increase, then there is something wrong in the matter of the Life. If you and I are not bearing fruit, if we are not really in the way of increase, then we had better look to this matter of our Life, because it is inevitable, it is unavoidable, because it is so spontaneous. If there is to be productivity, then there must be Life: and if there is life, there is reproduction - unless, of course, we thwart the Life, we get across [the flow,] somehow or other we block up the well, then our fruitfulness ceases.

Further, this Life is characterised by its:

Inexhaustableness

There is no end, there is no exhausting it; it goes on. As we have said just now, it doesn't get old. We may get old, but that Life in us doesn't get old at all. It just goes right on; it is inexhaustible.

And then, for now finally, it is:

Incorruptible Life

Because it is God's life, it is incorruptible. Life corresponds to salt in the Bible. The symbolism of the new cruse and the salt therein is just the vessel of God here, with the Life of God in it. And the presence of that Life is the counter to the presence of corruption, wherever it is.

Now this, of course, is quite clearly seen in the book of the Revelation, in those first chapters: the challenge and message to the churches. It was or is a time of spiritual decay. Look at those messages, and in the main, they are in spiritual decay. We could go further, and say 'spiritual corruption'. Strong language, "Thou hath there that woman Jezebel... Thou hast there those that teach the doctrine of Balaam, who taught Israel to sin". See, here is corruption, and the challenge to that state of corruption, in the first place, is indicated by the announcement, the announcement of the Lord Himself. "I am He that liveth, I became dead, but behold, I am alive unto the ages of the ages". And it is as though He was saying, "Now then, according to this incorruptible Life, I am measuring you, on the principle of this incorruptible, this deathless, this death-conquering Life I am challenging you in your corruption." And the effect of the message is this: "If you had the Life vibrant and regnant and triumphant, there would be none of these conditions at all. These conditions of corruption are due to something having arrested the Life."

And so the issue for the overcoming, the setting aside of all corruption, is that of Life. Life! False teaching... the corrective for heterodoxy is not orthodoxy. Shall I change the word? The corrective for modernism, is not fundamentalism. The corrective for error, is Life! That's what the Scriptures show. The corrective for error is Life. So it is in the seven churches, there's error, false teaching. And John, who wrote that, also wrote his letters, you know, and very much about the same time, and his letters are dealing with falsehood, error, decay, decline, corruption, antichrist, and all the rest - a bad state coming amongst believers; and John's word in his letters, in his gospel, and in the Revelation, is Life. You know that, the most elementary study of John's writings produces that: it is all about Life!

He begins his gospel: "In Him was life; and the life was the light of men" and that's the keynote to the gospel right the way through: resurrection. His letters are on that note aren't they, all the time: Life. "This is the testimony that God has given unto us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He that hath the Son hath the life..." Life! And so you begin the Revelation with: "I am He that liveth" or, "I am the Living one". You pass on to the "four living ones" and their testimony and influence. And you close the Revelation with the Tree of Life and the water of Life, "the river of the water of life". It's all about Life! But that is all presented in a day of corruption. The answer to corruption is Divine Life, it is not argument. It's Life.

Now, this, this Life is something which is only appreciated and understood by those who have it. Others who have not got it can see its effect or its fruits, but they don't understand it at all. They may say, "Well, those people have got something that I don't know anything about, that I don't understand at all. I don't know what it is. They seem to be happy about it all, but I am certainly a stranger to all that, I don't know." Or it may not affect them at all. They may come in where there is abundant Life and go away unaffected. They don't just understand or appreciate it. But you and I do.

See, those of us who have this Life do appreciate it and do understand it. We cannot explain it to anyone else, any more than we can explain what natural life is. No one can explain what life is! But you cannot explain what this Life is, but we know it! If we are spiritually alive, really spiritually alive, alive unto God, alive in the Spirit, when we go in amongst other children of God, we feel something. We feel something, it may be we feel death, a lack of Life, an absence of Life, something here that is not alive; there's some check to Life here. On the other hand, we may sense the presence of Life. Now, that capacity, ability to appreciate and understand is the guide of the Lord's people. It's our intelligence, it's a very intelligent faculty, isn't it? It is. We feel something is wrong here, and why do we feel something is wrong, or why do we say something is wrong here? Because we don't feel the Life, we don't sense the Life; there is something that is not alive. Isn't that it? Very well, we then, are alive to the fact that something is wrong! That's our intelligence and that's our guide.

What is it? What is it? I believe that's exactly what Paul found in Ephesus when he found those certain disciples who were disciples. And they were having some of that rich Bible teaching that Apollos could give, because he was a man mighty in the Scriptures and he was giving them a lot of Bible teaching. But when Paul came down to them: "You've got a lot of Bible teaching here, and you are professing disciples of the Lord - but what's the matter with you? There's something I miss here. Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?" See? The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Life, he registered the absence of the witness of Life, even with all the Bible teachings and the profession. It was his guide and it led him to put his finger upon the situation, the cause of it, and to clear it up. This Life is a very instructive thing, a directive thing. And so it works in so many ways which I am not going to try to point out, but you see the principle.

Now, all the Lord's progress, as we have said, the Lord's going, the Lord's enlarging, the Lord's establishing, is along this line of Life. But we come back: it is the Life of faith. It is all governed by faith. We are thinking much of Abraham, we have a little more to say about him yet. But there it is. Every fresh movement toward enlargement and consolidation and increase of Life was by way of a fresh testing of faith. A fresh testing of faith! Everything rests upon this matter of tried and proved faith.

If you and I pass, then, to a time when our faith is being sorely tried, really being put through it, let us try, or ask the Lord to help us to adjust ourselves to this: "for this is not unto death, but unto Life". This is not meant or allowed by the Lord to bring an end in death. This is allowed, or meant by the Lord, to bring us into larger Life yet. If only we could have that faith, we would rob the dark times and the difficult times of their deathliness, and make them the very ground upon which we might come into newness of Life through fresh victories of faith. Faith is the way to Life through trial, testing, suffering, adversity.