The Cross and the God of Hope — T. Austin-Sparks

The God of Hope in Romans 15

The letter to the Romans, chapter 15, chapter 15 of the letter to the Romans, the doctrine of hope, fill you with all joy in believing that ye may abound in the holy God of hope that ye may abound in.

The apostle has walked his way up to that point a very great of things the whole and its out walkings then placing at the end of all that the cross of the Lord Jesus point an entirely new prospect and future the terminal point to which on which everything takes a new ride.

The apostle comes at length to this all comprehending and all governing the God of hope as we represented or presented in this book and in the New Testament we find ourselves a paradox. It is this that God of history in this way that the answer of God to sin to disobedience and to all the fruit and results thereof he has written that the only answer that he can give and death with all he is the God of hope only way of hope that is written deeply in the hope of God's dealings with men.

The Cross as God's Remedy and Way of Salvation

This fall God has had to walk on the basis of the cross. The cross has been implicit in all God's but with his own people in particular I repeat the cross has been implicit in all God's dealings with men.

The cross means it is the very symbol of suffering. The cross means travail and the cross means the cry of despair. My God my God in God's desire and God's is unto joy it is unto sheer thankfulness. Hope a new hope.

All the things which are exactly the opposite to what the cross seems to say is the God of hope. Even when you look and look at the one there and here he all that is going on there if you understand you look at history Adam's and all involved the tragedy the anguish of the generation and see why God not only allowed it he's the God of hope to say that his way of hope.

The cross has always been God's way of salvation. Salvation God's remedy. It's a very drastic remedy a very terrible remedy. It's God's remedy. And if it is an effective remedy then it produces hope. It's something with hope.

New hope is a mighty power a mighty power a perfection once in history. But a power running through all the ages we have said implicit in the old dispensation. Now there is one thing many aspects of course against which is other than God.

Purity, Separation, and the Cross

The cross always stands and against the intended to be. I say that has many aspects. We're going to just look at one or two of them this morning. They're perfectly apparent in the bible. The cross stands over nature of things.

That nature has become whenever the nature of things has changed from what God either made it at the beginning or intended it to be. God has brought in the cross in some way or another. At once he has introduced the cross.

The nature of man was changed at the beginning his nature was changed. He became something different from what God intended in nature. We all know that by our inheritance and immediately God introduced the cross in the law of travail of adversity and wrote immediately over that state and death over against a changed.

The only hope for recovering the divinely intended state or condition or nature of things lay in the cross is the great purifying thing of mixed things which do not correspond and tally. There are two natures two realms impurity, adulteration, two opposing elements.

Cross stands for square against anything like that to purify. Dear friends the very first thing with God in the individual in any company of his people locally meeting and in the church universal the very first thing with God is its purity separation from all iniquity and all mixture.

Our christian life is based upon the cross individually locally and universally. It's based upon the cross in the first instance in this very way sees God's terrible mighty eternal declaration against impurity decontamination and corruption that has come in to make man and in this world which he never intended to be the only way of purification is by making very effective and real the hopelessness from God's standard.

That which is not pure as we look out in a general way of an impure unclean is therefore complete cleansing in that realm and the constituting of something pure something clean something unmixed. If you look into the bible and all its wonderful symbolism of what God's thought is you will find it is that transparency crystal clearness the end of God's walk.

We have it at the end of the book of the revelation a jasper stone something pure clear as crisp and the blood of the lamb that leads to that. If the Lord therefore any state that he never intended to be and that contradicts his mind in this matter he'll bring in the cross as a working power they'll begin to arise a situation come to a standstill.

God is not going on. We are in distress we are in travail we are in anguish we are in despair we are coming to death. You see the cross is working in that way in order to produce a situation full of hope full of cross.

I think the law is very clear that is not according to God's intention which has got to be cleared up by the application of the great principles of the cross that is hopeless that is hopeless. There is no hope that is not pure.

Israel and the Loss of God's Intended Greatness

Next when things have become less than God intended they should be. They have become smaller. God intended something have become smaller than he intended is the history of that tendency more than a reducing both God and God's things bringing everything of God and God himself within the compass of man reducing God to man in measure making God less than he is and the things of God less than they really are.

We can see how that has gone on. It is all the time going on as a trend as a tendency as some working and always always we're near that peril of things becoming less than God meant them to be God intent or the peril of loss reduction things becoming smaller losing.

Whenever the Lord's working or that peril becoming very real he introduces the cross and suffering. Everything comes into a realm of uncertainty and weakness and question and some failure and despair was written.

We're not going on. We are not going through. God intended something great and it has lost something of that greatness or failed to go through to that greatness. It's become something smaller than he intended.

Allow that I repeat. Oh what tremendous reactions in this very connection history shows. You take illustrative case of Israel. While Israel was a chosen people taken out of the nations for God God never never intended Israel to become something in themselves never intended that Israel should be the beginning the and the end of all his work.

To be a light to the gentile to be a testimony to all the nation to God. To be a a ministry a missionary instrument to all people. All the nations should walk in their light or come into the light of God as they were raised up not for themselves.

Evangelize the nation knowledge of God. What did Israel come to. To despise the nation. Call them dogs shut them out and shut themselves in from the nations and have nothing whatever to do with them look upon them as something to be despised to be rejected to be cut off.

We are the people. Everything begins and ends rather than God intended. No hope in that direction. The end of that story is Israel. While of that mind must be put aside broken smashed brought to this something less than God intended and becoming something in themselves.

There's a large lesson for us to learn. Never bear in mind with all that God gave to Israel and all that God is willing to lavish upon us. It is not for ourselves. It is not to end in ourselves. And it is not to be allowed to make us just something in ourselves that we are the people a trust for all men.

The Universal Calling of Paul and the Church

Apostle Paul recognized that and what a tremendous thing his recognition of that meant in his own case. When you think of him as a typical Israelite his faith was he may present every man not every Jew but every man.

The immensity of things the immensity of Christ the immensity of the church. If there's one thing about the church that is so evident in the new testament it is it's taking its character and its dimensions from the Lord who have seen the greatness of Christ.

You can never tolerate a little church a little fellowship a little licks. That is an end in itself. It must have a universal vision and a universal heart to get that any tendency to become something less will be met by the cross.

And there will come in hopelessness despair sense of no way through and a great deal of inward suffering and trouble. This is the way of salvation. It is the way of salvation from something being smaller than God intended.

But it's a painful way. It's the way of travail. The cross releases from all smallness. Lord Jesus made that clear in his own words I came to scatter with which I must be baptized. Baptism of the cross the passion being accomplished.

He's released from all history. This is no national movement. Now this is no limited thing or to any other spot. He is released into the universal by the cross from the smallness of judaism israelitism painful way that release of breaking.

Human Wisdom and the Cross of Divine Revelation

He does react and react very painfully if anything that he intended to represent his greatness and his fullness becomes less once more when anything becomes governed by human wisdom by the mind brought into the bondage of the brought in the cross over against that.

You see it you see it again in this while the cross has been introduced over against that situation where the scribes and the rulers of israel gave to divine things their own human interpretation and imposed upon the things of God their own minds created this great and intolerable burden to which Christ referred simply the mind of man imposed upon divine things.

And it always means bondage always means bondage. The Lord is not going to allow that. And so he acts again. And there comes an impasse an impasse. And what is the nature of this new crisis. Absolute bewilderment.

A situation where you do not know what to do where to look and what direction to move. How the situation can be resolved. No it's beyond altogether beyond human wisdom. It's an impasse of what can we do.

Is a situation to be met effort. You're defeated. The Lord has got to rescue out into the realm of divine revelation from merely human of divine things. A tremendous thing the Lord must have. You know this this realm where he is perfectly free to give new light if he wants to perfectly free to give new light that may seem to upset all our interpretations.

You see to upset the whole thing. That is what you find in the new testament. In the book of the acts. Here is Peter a representative here is Paul one of those interpreters of the law who held everything within the limit of their own minds and is final interpretation is the authority.

What is the Lord doing with men like Peter and Paul and others in that book. He's bringing them up against situations where if if God does not now come in with some new light and some new revelation they're at a standstill.

But he was doing that taking them all together beyond their best traditions and their strongest convictions and their settled interpretations and making them see that the bible meant far more than ever with all their learning and knowledge they had realize it to me.

Peter, Leviticus, and the Enlargement of Biblical Understanding

Yes Leviticus 11 stands true about unclean creatures and reptiles not to be eaten. Does the holy spirit contradict that when he tells Peter to arise kill and eat. Not at all. But Leviticus 11 had a meaning that Peter had never seen.

Now he's up against something that seems to contradict his knowledge of the scripture. But in principle it doesn't. It just doesn't. One can only hint at that. Because you see we bind that we do not leave God free to enlarge the revelation of his meaning to give new light.

And if that is a peril or if that is where we come to that our interpretations are made binding and limiting he will bring in the cross and bring us to utter confusion. Now if God doesn't give us some new light we're finished.

We haven't got the wisdom for the situation. What's he doing. The god of hope is getting rid of a hopeless situation. And it is always hopeless. When man is the last word in anything always hopeless become or have become.

Liberty of the Spirit Versus Legalistic Tyranny

Bringing anything of God into God has reacted with the cross has been a terribly devastating reaction. Whole matter of the law of that was a terrible business a terrible business. And it always is. The Lord is not going to tolerate anything like that making his things of the spirit a tyranny of law.

Not a bit he will react for the spirit's complete liberty in all things. Now you see what the situation is. Cross tends between a pure unadulterated state and a mixed and therefore an impure condition.

The cross stands between those two. The cross stands between the full intention of God and something less than he intended. Yes the cross demands fullness not imperfection not something less even in degree.

Believe me dear friends that if the cross really is a working power anywhere it will never allow us. It will always demand going on and ever on because it opens the way for that. The cross stands between a knowledge or a wisdom that is without life and spiritual knowledge which is life is between a knowledge or a wisdom that is without life which is life.

Knowledge Without Life and the Tree of Life

Adam made his choice his bid for knowledge and he got it without life. Tree of life was shut off. Knowledge without life. God doesn't stand for that knowledge. Oh yes how even religious knowledge can be lifeless and dead may be true us we have a lot of knowledge.

But whereas the commensurate life the commensurate the Lord's against that says i can't go on. We must have some trouble about this. We must have some anguish some pain about this. All the knowledge must have a corresponding life.

The knowledge must be living. You can eat of the tree of knowledge. The tree of knowledge now i mean that that other tree of knowledge the knowledge of the Lord of heavenly things. You can eat of that.

But even so you must have the tree of life to keep the balance. But knowledge and life go together. The Lord is against any state other than that. Again form exact form perfect form in teaching and in practice.

Spiritual Power Beyond Correct Doctrine and Practice

Without power is something that God will not allow. Yes perfectly right in teaching and in practice. But what about the power. What about the power. You see Israel had the oracles had the law had all the truth the spiritual power.

None at all cross will act. Put that right. There's nothing to be said against correct procedure and accurate must be. The Lord will see to it that by keeping things on the move in exercise in travel in trouble the whole question of power becomes a very very real one.

We've got so much teaching but we've so little power. And that must become an anguish a real anguish. All that we have and all our way of doing things which we think to be so right the new testament order it has a corresponding power and impact will not allow rest in that.

In all these ways you see is the God of hope by travel. There's hope by despair. There's hope. It's his way. May he give us understanding.