by Frank A. Viola
Part III: The Spirit's Supreme Operation
Let us turn in our Bibles to that great book of Ephesians wherein the purpose of God is unfolded to us in abundant measure. The subject before us tonight is the Lord's need for this present hour. May we once again read our two main texts:
Ephesians 4:10 - He that descended is the same also that ascended up far above all heavens, that he might fill all things.
Ephesians 1:22-23 - And hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all.
We have spoken at length concerning the Lord's supreme end. If you will recall, we said that what God is after in this present hour is the universal fullness of His Son. This is the supreme end that He has had in view from the beginning, and it is the object of all of His dealings. God is ever seeking to fill all things with Christ, and until that happens the Lord will not be satisfied. We also said that it is through the vessel called the church that God realizes this end. That is to say that the church is to be the fullness of Christ in the earth. This is the supreme vocation of the church. God has called the church to be a people that will manifest and express Christ in fullness, to reflect His nature and character outwardly.
In this connection, we also pointed out that the church is in a state of ruin and confusion. The church, by and large, has departed from God's full thought -- it has departed from God's intention. It has lost the vision of what God is after. Consequently, most believers are off on a side track somewhere. While many of the hearts of the Lord's people are good, many have lost the vision of God's purpose (or they've never had it to begin with). So in the words of Nehemiah: the people are discouraged, the wall is broken down, and the gates have been destroyed. By and large, there is no testimony on the earth for the Lord. The testimony has been fragmented, weakened, and confused. But the Lord is recovering His testimony.
God's reaction to spiritual decay and decline is to raise up a representative company -- to raise up a few out of the many -- who are willing to pay the price to maintain His testimony in fullness. These are those who are willing to be stripped of all that comes from self. They are willing to depart and forsake all the traditions and forms of man that have crippled His priesthood. These are those that are standing on this earth for the Lord's rights and are traveling the road less traveled, maintaining His testimony in the midst of decay and decline in a day where not a few confused voices abound. In effect, this remnant does for the Lord what the church as a whole has left undone. And so God's eyes are set upon this "whosoever will" company. This, in effect, is the principle of God's working whenever there has been a condition of failure among His people.
Recall the children of Israel. They had departed from God's full thought of taking the promised land. They forfeited it because of their unbelief. What was God's reaction? He raised up a remnant out of their midst -- a "Joshua and Caleb" instrument. These were the ones that stood with God in faith -- they stood with God's rights in the earth -- and they finally entered into the land, bringing the rest of the people in. In the time of the Judges, God raised up Gideon to deliver Israel from the Midianites.
According to Judges Chapter 7, ten thousand Israelites confessed that they were willing to go and deliver their people. But if you recall, the story says that God had to reduce them down to only three hundred because the rest of them were afraid or ambitious. Hence, God used a small company of only three hundred out of all His people to go in and deliver Israel from the hand of Midian. And so it is today. In the book of Revelation, the Lord Jesus speaks to the seven churches and He bids them saying, "Whosoever will hear what the Spirit is saying unto the churches will overcome (paraphrased)." The Lord's call involves a mandate to overcome the condition -- the present state of things -- so that the Lord's full purpose can be recovered.
If we have spiritual eyes to see, we can perceive that God is seeking to secure for Himself a people that are willing to fulfill His purpose at the expense of everything else. And so this is the Lord's need for the present hour. It is to secure those who are seeking to meet His need. We see what such ones do in Revelation Chapter 12. We see something of their character in Revelation Chapters 2-3.
We don't have time to go into all of this in detail, but I want you to be clear that those who overcome are not a special class of Christians. They are not a spiritual elite. Nor are they a spiritual aristocracy or an elect out of the elect. They are simply those who have seen God's purpose and are willing to stand by it. They are those who have entered into the travail of the Lord. They have seen something of what God is after, they have seen the present condition of things, and they have made themselves vessels to be used in God's hand. In effect, the overcomers are merely normal Christians. For Christianity right now is in a state of abnormality -- the testimony is divided and the walls are broken down.
THE CHIEF WORK OF THE HOLY SPIRIT
This evening, I would like to draw our attention to the third aspect of the Lord's present need; that is, the Spirit's supreme operation. How does God achieve His eternal purpose in and through us? It is by the work of the Holy Spirit. But how does the Holy Spirit operate in making us useful to His purpose? How is it that the Spirit of God prepares us to meet the Lord's need and have Christ formed in us? This is what I would like us to consider tonight.
Let us begin looking at the Holy Spirit's chief work. When the Lord Jesus ascended into heaven, being glorified, He sent His Spirit into the earth. Those of us who are in Christ have received His Spirit. But what is the chief work -- the primary object -- of the Holy Spirit? I believe that many of the Lord's people would say that the chief work of the Holy Spirit is to give us power for service. Such people lay stress on the empowering of the Spirit to enable us to do the works of the Lord Jesus. These folks emphasize supernatural power (the power to cast out devils, heal the sick, raise the dead, speak in tongues, etc.).
There is another group of believers who would say that the chief work of the Holy Spirit is to teach us and guide us into all truth. It is to reveal to us what we have in the New Covenant -- to show us all of the riches and the wealth that is in Christ -- to unveil the promises of God to us. Still another group would say that the chief work of the Holy Spirit is to bless us -- to bring us into spiritual experiences -- to comfort, encourage, uplift, and deliver us from our hurt and pain. This may come in the form of ecstatic experience.
While all of these things are legitimate works and functions of the Holy Spirit, they are not the chief work of the Holy Spirit. For the chief work of the Holy Spirit that governs all of His working is simply this: it is to conform us to the character of the Lord Jesus Christ. Put another way, it is to form Christ in us. It is to make us, you and I, His fullness in the earth corporately. It is to have the nature and the character of the Lord Jesus Christ wrought in us. This is the chief work of the Holy Spirit. It is to make us something that we by nature are not.
TRANSFORMED INTO HIS IMAGE
The character of Christ is the supreme object in all of the Spirit's dealings in our lives. The object of all spiritual experience is the fullness of Christ in us. We can really miss what the Holy Spirit is doing in our life and misunderstand an experience if we are not clear on this. By grasping this reality, we may be spared much loss as we labor onward to follow the Lord. In 2 Corinthians 3:18 the Scripture puts it this way,
But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, [even] as by the Spirit of the Lord.
Note the words, "changed into His image," "transformed into His likeness by the Spirit of the Lord." Whenever the Spirit of God is working in our lives, it is exclusively to work in us the character of Christ. This is he object of all of the Spirit's energies, dealings, and workings. Hence, if a work is not doing that and we call it the Holy Spirit, we are mistaken. Today, there is much talk about renewal, revival, and awakening. Yet, what many call renewal and revival reflects little of the character and nature of Jesus. When this is the case, it is not the work of the Spirit but a substitute.
THE WAY OF THE SPIRIT'S OPERATION
Let us consider how the Spirit works Christ into us. Like many spiritual things, there is both a negative aspect as well as a positive aspect. First, let us give our attention to the negative aspect. On the negative side, the Spirit of God empties us. Now let me ask you a question. Let's suppose that I have a glass of sour milk and my intention is to fill it with fresh grape juice. What must I do in order to fill it? I have to empty it.
Turn with me to John 3:30. I want to show you a spiritual law that is very practical. In John 3:30, we find the words of John the Baptist speaking of the blessed Lord Jesus. What He says is simple, yet profound and full of meaning: "He must increase, but I must decrease." In other words, "He, the Lord Jesus, must increase, but I, John, must first decrease."
For the Spirit of God to fill us with Christ, He must first empty us. Before Christ can be increased in us we must first decrease. In a word, we must be emptied before we can be filled -- we must be reduced before we can be enlarged with Christ. This is a Divine law: emptiness unto fullness. It is a spiritual law that governs all of God's working in our life.
The Holy Spirit through His operation, breaks down what is in us. And what is it that is in us? What is this "sour milk?" It is self. It is the old Adam. He is in everyone of us; that which is born of the flesh is flesh. We received the old Adamic-life at birth. Subjectively speaking, it is the self-life and it comes in many forms: self-sufficiency, self-confidence, self-preservation, self-occupation, self-consciousness, self-doubt, self-vindication, etc.. Here is the problem brethren -- we are already full! Consequently, before the Lord Jesus can be formed and wrought into us -- where we can express His fullness -- He must first empty us. The instrument that He uses is the cross -- the principle of the cross -- which puts to death the self-life.
THE INSTRUMENT OF THE CROSS
The cross, then, is the instrument of the Holy Spirit to reduce self in us. (When we speak of the cross, we are referring to the principle of death to self as used by the Lord Jesus in Matthew 10:38,39, 16:24-25, Luke 14:26-27, and John 12:24-25.) I would dare say that this aspect of God's purpose not only receives little attention among the Lord's people today, but many oppose it. As in Paul's day, it is not popular to talk about the cross. For the cross is the instrument of breaking, pain, suffering, devastation, crisis, and death. The cross speaks of self denial -- the cross speaks of sacrifice -- the cross speaks of trial and tribulation.
The cross, however, is the way to fullness and glory. The Scripture teaches that the word of the cross is the very power of God (1 Cor 1:18). For many of us, we want to have resurrection life without first going to Calvary. We want to have the heavenly fire without first being laid on the altar. This is a mistake not only of doctrine, but of practical reality. We must understand that the way the Holy Spirit realizes God's purpose is to first empty us and that through the cross.
THE NEGATIVE SIDE: EMPTYING
There are two main aspects of the cross. One of them is often talked about while the other is often neglected. There is both an objective aspect of the cross as well as a subjective aspect of the cross. Objectively, the Lord Jesus died on the cross for us. This was a historical event in space-time history. And this is the aspect that we often stress. That is, through the blood of His cross He has forgiven us of our sins.
Some who have advanced beyond the simple understanding of being forgiven have seen the teaching of Romans 6:6. Accordingly, they have seen that not only does the blood of the cross forgive us of our sins before God and cleanse our conscience, but the death of the cross itself has destroyed our old man that used to serve sin. But this is all objective, for it refers to God's view of his Son dying on the cross and our faith in that. There is another aspect of the cross, and it is a subjective matter. It is the experiential side of Christ's work on Calvary. In this dimension, it is not Christ's cross wherein He bore us and our sins that is in view, but our cross that we must bear daily. It is this aspect of the cross that we are speaking about. That is to say that the Holy Spirit brings the cross right in front of our face, into our comfort levels, through our day to day experiences, and arranges our environment and our circumstances to work death in us.
The goal is to empty us -- to be break our self-life and our reliance upon all that is natural and out from ourselves. What we do when we find the cross in our life will determine whether or not we are going to be emptied so that there is room for Christ to fill us. I want to read two passages of Scripture that deal with this more personal aspect of the cross. Once again, the objective aspect of the cross is what Christ has done for us at Calvary. The subjective aspect of the cross is what the Spirit works in us today. 2 Corinthians 4:7 says,
But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us.
We have a treasure in an earthen vessel. Inside this earthen vessel there is a treasure. What is that treasure? It is Christ. It is His life; it is His nature. But before that treasure can be manifest and before that treasure can develop into character, what must happen? The earthen vessel must be broken. If the earthen vessel in not broken, the treasure has no expression; it remains hidden from view and doesn't grow. Now notice the language of verses 8-12:
We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; Persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed; Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body. For we which live are always delivered unto death for Jesus' sake, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh. So then death worketh in us, but life in you.
"We are troubled on every side (there's the cross), yet not distressed: we are perplexed (there's the cross), but not in despair;" "Persecuted, (there's the cross) but not forsaken; cast down, (there's the cross) but not destroyed;" "Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus" (Why?) "that the life of Jesus" (the treasure) "may be manifest in our mortal bodies. For we which live are always delivered unto death for Jesus' sake, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh. So then death works in us, but life in you."
The way that Christ is formed in us, the way that He is manifest through us, the way that the life of the blessed Lord Jesus is revealed in and through us is through the working of the cross in our day to day situations. It is through the experience of dying with the Lord Jesus where our self-life is broken, reduced, eliminated that we are filled by the Spirit. I pray, therefore, that the Lord will open your eyes to see the crosses that lie before you in your experiences right now. It is no accident what you are going through. God in His wisdom arranges every circumstance that is around us.
At face value, the trials and tribulations that we go through -- whether it be with our family, our job, our finances, and yes even in the church among our brothers and sisters -- look destructive. Yet, they are arranged by the Spirit to discipline, to break, to train, and to eliminate self. And if we understand that, we will recognize the hand of the Lord behind it -- breaking us down, eliminating, reducing, and destroying self. We look at the circumstances, we see the suffering, we see the trial, and ask the Lord to remove us out of it by His sovereign hand. Sometimes the Lord does that. Yet, at other times, He brings us right through it so that we will learn the lessons of brokenness.
The Lord's common method of deliverance, then, is "over and above" and not "from." It is one of triumphing over rather than escaping out of. Is this not what Paul said in his letter to the Corinthians? In 1 Corinthians 10:12, we learn that God provides a way of escape so that we may endure the trial. Strikingly, this is an escape from temptation by bearing it. And why? So that there is more room for Christ to be inwrought in our character. This is the way of the Lord's working.
Look with me at 2 Corinthians 12:9-10 and read about the emptying effect of the cross.
And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ's sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong.
Here, if you recall, Paul was continually buffeted by an evil spirit. In verse 9, the Lord responds to his prayer of deliverance. His word is that His grace is sufficient to carry him through this. So the way that the Spirit operates in our lives in achieving God's end of forming Christ in us is first to empty us. And if we don't understand this, we will fight the cross. We will kick against the goads as Paul did. We will resist. The end of that is perplexity and discouragement. In reality, emptying is the Divine means for spiritual fullness.
Stated simply, the objective of the cross is to make Christ all in all. There must be room in us for Christ to fill us before He can be constituted in our character. Take heed and take courage in this because what the Lord is doing in your life right now is intended to empty you. It's designed to cripple your self-sufficiency. Don't resist it, submit to it. Let the Spirit empty you so that Christ can fill you.
THE POSITIVE SIDE: FILLING
The second aspect is filling. After the Spirit of God empties us and disciplines us, then He begins His work of spiritual constitution and construction. For example, suppose that I am impatient. That is a weakness; it's source is self. And so the Lord brings me through trials and tribulations to test me. He brings me through experiences that try my patience, that reveal my impatience. In effect, He levels me to the ground -- breaking me and showing me that I am hopelessly impatient.
If I submit to this breaking of the cross, the resurrection aspect can now work in me. Christ can now form His patience in me wherein it becomes a very part of my character. The same holds true for other aspects of the self-life. It is the process of being emptied unto fullness, reduced unto the increase of Christ. And this is how the Spirit of God works in our lives; it is His all-embracing work in the believer's life. This is no mere teaching or doctrine. This is a very real thing. And if we can understand it, we will be helped much. Although the way be costly, we can learn to kiss the hand of Him that is behind our suffering.
The call to overcome is embodied in the cross and the Spirit. This call is something that is connected with great reward, because only those who suffer in this life will receive the capacity to be glorified beyond measure in the next age. In other words, those who suffer will reign with the King. Yet, herein lies the real test of spiritual growth. The real test of spiritual growth is not how much you have learned, it's not how much service you are engaged in, it's not how many times you have been in church or heard deep teaching.
The test of spiritual growth lies in how much your character has been changed to reflect Christ. How much have you changed? How much has your character been touched and changed? It is tragic, and abnormal, when a Christian has been saved for many years and remains the same, experiencing little change, having the same flaws of character, the same infirmities, the same weaknesses and manifestations of self. This happens when we fail to allow the cross to do it's reducing work in our lives. Without emptying, there can be no fullness. The Divine law that governs all of our spiritual experience and our spiritual history, then, is emptying unto fullness -- reduction unto enlargement -- vacancy unto vastfullness.
ABRAHAM
Let us look at five men in the Bible to see this principle at work. These five men demonstrate that what we have been saying about the Spirit's supreme operation is no mere theory, but life and reality. The first one I'll mention to you is Abraham. If you remember, Abraham, the father of many nations, was a man of immense substance; he was very rich, very wealthy. His social standing when he lived in Ur was very strong. But then the Lord began His emptying work.
In Acts 7, Stephen tells us that the God of glory appeared to Abraham and told him to leave his family and to go into a strange land. The Scripture tells us that Abraham obeyed. God was reducing him. He lost his standing and much of his considerable wealth. God restored it to him afterwards, but there was a time when Abraham only possessed an altar and a tent as he traveled without substance to the land that God had called him to.
In addition, the ultimate stripping occurred in Abraham when God commanded him to surrender his son, Isaac. Here the Lord performed a tremendous emptying work. He emptied Abraham not only of his substance, of his standing, but also of that which was most precious to him, his own son. And what do we see in the life of Abraham? We see fullness. When all is said and done, Abraham enters into the land and he truly becomes the father of many nations. The life of Abraham demonstrates that God's way of emptying unto fullness is not a mere doctrine, but a reality.
JACOB
Next we come to Jacob. If you remember, Jacob was a man who was filled with self-sufficiency, self-strength, and self-confidence. He was always conniving, always manipulating, always scheming to get ahead. He was not a man of prayer; he was a man of cleverness with a strong intellect. How Jacob finds many of us out when we reason our way through problems instead of looking to the Lord and depending upon Him. God had to empty Jacob. And we see that the first thing that God allowed Jacob to enter into was related to his own flesh and blood. He had to flee from his brother Esau. At a tender age, he had to leave home and flee from the wrath of his own brother.
Afterwards, Jacob meets his uncle Laban. But, against our expectation, Laban mistreats and abuses him terribly. Jacob works twenty years under this man and receives constant tribulation at his hand. Laban changes his wages over and over again, not to mention the trouble he had with Laban's daughters.
It is no surprise, then, that when Jacob stood before Pharaoh, he could say to him, "Many are the days of evil that have befallen me." In fact, later on he thinks he lost his most beloved son Joseph. For his brothers made him believe that Joseph was dead. So here is a man who is emptied of his self-confidence and his self-sufficiency. Ah, but later we find fullness there. He became "the prince of God." After God touches his thigh and weakens him, he is a prince with God -- the father of the twelve tribes of Israel. Jacob becomes Israel, the embodiment of God's household. So again we find emptying unto fullness in the life of Jacob.
JOSEPH
And then we have Joseph. For years I looked at Joseph and I thought that he was blameless. After all, theologians consider him to be the perfect type of the Lord Jesus Christ. But you know, I have come to believe that Joseph was quite a conceited young boy. Remember the vision that he had. How he blatantly told his brothers about the lofty dreams he received, implying that they would be the ones that would worship him. Not a very smart thing to do. They were already jealous of him. He just provoked it. And so here he had a little bit of self that was too much for the Lord.
So the Lord dealt with Joseph. He allowed him to go into the pit and then the dungeon for many years. Until finally, after he had suffered much injustice, we see fullness in the life of Joseph. We see him on the throne of Egypt in a rulership position, exercising the wisdom and authority of God. What a tremendous story! How the Lord will often have iron enter into our own souls to bring the fullness of Christ into our lives.
MOSES
Then there is Moses. Moses was also a man filled with self. He was self-sufficient and self-strong. In the book of cts, Stephen tells us that Moses was learned in all of the wisdom of Egypt. He tells us that he was mighty in word and deed. Moses, it seems, thought that he could deliver Israel himself. Recall how he killed the Egyptian when he saw him beating a fellow Israelite.
Again, the Lord must take this man into His hand. The Lord leads Moses into the desert of Arabia for forty years where he is rendered utterly inactive, not doing anything for the Lord. And how this is a real cross for many of us, when the Lord makes us inactive with respect to ministry. Sometimes God has to do this to some of us. During the forty years of inactivity, God empties Moses until he gets to the point where he confesses that he is uneloquent, slow of speech.
What has happened? He has been emptied; Moses is no longer trusting in himself, in his Egyptian learning. No longer does he consider himself powerful in word and in deed. Moses has been stripped to the point where God's verdict upon him is that he is the meekest man in the world! Following that, we see fullness come into the life of Moses. He becomes the mighty deliverer of Israel, the instrument in the Lord's hand to fulfill God's purpose for His people.
NOT A MERE TEACHING
What we have thus stated is not a doctrine. It is not a teaching; it is no mere theory. It is God's way with all of His children. Consequently, if we are going to serve God's purpose in this hour, if we are going to enter into fullness, if we are going to be of use to the Lord in maintaining His testimony, we need to yield to the operation of the Holy Spirit. We need to submit to the discipline of the Holy Spirit and let the Lord do His emptying work. And it is only in this way that the Lord can gain what is central in His heart for us.
Let me leave you with this: this matter of reducing unto the increase of Christ and emptying of self unto the fullness of Jesus is the Divine law that governs all of our spiritual history and experience. It is the object of all of the Lord's dealings in our lives. He wants to form Christ in us. But we must be willing to allow Him to do this. This means that we must forsake our complaining when God's hand is upon us. May we see the greater purpose in view.
As I close I want to challenge you to let the Lord have His way in your life. With regard to the tribulations and trials that you are going through right now, may you allow them to be an instrument of God's reduction and breaking. Let us not resist them any longer. Let us not be found fighting against God's hand. But may we let Him work His character in us by emptying unto fullness. And in this way we can be a useful vessel in His hand. Amen.
«--Previous | Bibliography | Next--»
Place online by the Neve family - July, 2001. We'd like to hear your reactions to or comments on this article : click here