The Riches of Christ in the Cross of Christ and in the Church of Christ — T. Austin-Sparks

For thou hast said, separated from me, he can do nothing. We know it, we acknowledge it, and it applies to this very moment and hour. But Lord, we pray, close up the gap, remove every form and degree of separateness from thyself.

May there be such a oneness with thee, that thou art able to share thine own through this ministry. Thou shalt the Father be glorified, we ask in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. I pray I must ask you to look at quite a handful of fragments of the scripture, going back to the first book of the Kings, chapter 8, verse 1, and King Solomon, these then Solomon assembled the elders of Israel and all the heads of the tribes, the princes of the fathers' houses of the children of Israel, unto King Solomon in Jerusalem, verse 22.

And Solomon stood before the altar of the Lord in the presence of all the congregation of Israel, and spread forth his hands toward him, and the king and all Israel with him offered sacrifice before the Lord.

And Solomon offered for the sacrifice of peace offerings, which he offered unto the Lord twenty thousand oxen and twenty thousand sheep. So the king and all the children of Israel dedicated the house of the Lord, the letter to the Ephesians, verse 8, according to the riches of his grace which he made to abound toward us in all wisdom and prudence, having made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he purposed in him, unto a dispensation of the fulness of the Father.

And he summed up all things in Christ, things in the heaven upon the earth, when ye were dead through your trespasses and sin, for a time ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that now walketh in the sons of disobedience, among whom we also all once lived in the lusts of our flesh, doing the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest, being rich in mercy for his great love wherewith he loved us.

Even when we walked dead through our trespasses, he quickened us together with us by grace, ah, he saved, and raised us up, made us to sit with him. Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith to the end, that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, may be strong to apprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height, and to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge, that ye may be filled unto all the fulness of God.

The Church Presented in Glory

Finally, chapter five, he might present the church to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that it should be holy and without, as far as I am concerned, these particular messages.

And I hand into this brief hour five, but I trust upon the Lord to get in an immense amount, but he will decide. We shall register and have been occupied with the richness of the unsearchable riches, and we have been allowing Solomon to be for us an illustration and interpreter.

There is always so much less than we have contemplated aspects of that greatness. Amidst the many aspects of Solomon's greatness, greatness of his wisdom, greatness of his riches, greatness of his glory, greatness of his, we shall have a whole hour on, the greatness of his honor amidst this many-sided richness of Solomon.

Stand out prominently at the altar just now, and you would be well to read the corresponding. What we have just, Solomon gathering all the people, princes and heads of fathers' houses, whole congregation to Jerusalem, for the dedication of the house of God, related to the unimaginable.

Notice before you go further with that, that these two supreme, predominant greatness of the altar and the house are focused in the person. It is the person himself, now as king, sitting upon the throne of David, lifted up.

It is he, as such, who gives the significance and the house. They take their meaning and their character from him in his exalted position, in his glory. What you will hold on to as we go on. Now consider the greatness of the description of the building of the altar.

To do so, you will see that it was an immense altar, an immense altar, tremendously. The very thickness of it is said to be a hand in thickness. Now that's something. Mine isn't such a big hand, but even if that span of grass was the thickness of the walls of the altar, the whole thing, when you get the full dimension, which means that it must have been a tremendous thing, a very weighty, some light thing at all, then a much fuller description of it is given, which makes you feel that this must have been an immense altar.

Coming, coming, in a procession reaching almost to the horizon. Here they come. Have you seen the beginning? Following them, thousands, almost unthinkable, unimaginable. Dark, reaching right away, as I have said, almost to the horizon.

Here they come. Many days it will stand apart. Rivers before, day after day. I would not like some Levites who had that job. Certainly needed a good many courses of Levites. Lay that one. My point is the immensity of this sacrifice and the meaning of this altar.

The Cross as the Greater Altar

An altar that could contain all that, put all that into effect. And a greater than Solomon is here. A greater altar. Transcendently greater sacrifice is here in the greater son of David. The Lord Jesus.

You see, this was, after all, but an historical thing. A thing in time, in the book, belongs to a long past day, a long ago. It's a record and a story of something that happened then. And it's a way back there and it stays a way back.

In itself, it stays. In the life of an earthling, when you pass Solomon and his altar and sacrifice to the greater, the greater than Solomon, it's there that you find the first point of the superiority, the transcendence of the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.

It is super historic. That is, it outbounds all time. It ranges from eternity to eternity. The Lamb was slain before the foundation of the world. And when all the ages passed in procession before our eyes, through the Bible, Old and New Testaments, we come beyond time when time is no more.

And in eternity, the Lamb, in the midst of the object dominating everything, super historical, all the reason of a virtue, a virtue that was never in two and twenty thousand options. Do you know the letter to the Hebrews?

Is it possible that the blood of bulls and of goats take away sin? Read that letter again in the light of this. He, not by two and twenty thousand options of sheep, but by one option of sheep, did more than all.

He did what they never could do. It's an impressive thing that in the earlier Christian literature, I mean the earlier narratives of the New Testament, the crucifixion is hardly mentioned. It is hardly mentioned.

Crucifixion. He died. He died. It's the death that is the prominent thing, not the crucifixion. The crucifixion is the historic aspect. It's just the thing that man did. But within that man did, within that outward aspect of his death, there was a virtue, a immense, unspeakably strong, deep force that accounted for eternity, deeper down than the crucifixion.

Mighty, virtuous death. Virtuous death. Something, if you touch it, or it touches you, means a registration, something awful, something spiritually sensitive. Certain realms. We have a customer, he used to call the earth touch.

You become involved in that, voluntarily. Voluntary, involved in that, in this world. If you're spiritually alive and sensitive, something there that stings you, you feel you've been tainted, feel that you've been pulled out of position, feel you've got to get away and have a spiritual bath, wash yourself, sit before the Lord, take the mighty efficacy of the blood, set you back again into your proper realm as a child of God.

Aren't you? This is a real, real evidence that we are born again. And it becomes increasingly like that as we go on. Part of growth is this deepening sensitiveness to what is life and what is death. And it is the governing and deciding thing in guidance.

The law of the spirit of life is the law of guidance. The mind of the spirit is life. That's a guiding law. Let's not be too detailed. There was a virtue that was never in all the sacrifices of Solomon.

The crucifixion. Where are the crucifixes? Make a lot of the crucifixes. The earthly, physical suffering. But the New Testament puts its finger not upon that, but upon the mighty, mighty power of his death that vetoes.

We're on the one side that says to a whole system and order and realm and universe, no. Be united with him in the likeness of his death is to become aware of what is and what is not acceptable to God because that is the effect of the cross of the Lord Jesus.

Life is that, is that. It's super historical. It reaches back to eternity, Father. It passes through all time and reaches on to eternity to be this mighty effectiveness and virtue of the death of the Lord Jesus.

Crucifixion was less than 40 years old when the epistles were written. If something like this had happened within the last 40 years of our life, we'd be talking about the things, shouldn't we? All that awful thing that happened.

That killing. What happened there on that cross, on that hill. We'd be occupied with all that. Apostles were not occupied with that. They're occupied with the inner meaning of it. What it means in the spiritual realm for all others is something, it's the spiritual and inner meaning and power of it is the new testament.

Immense thing. Of course, it's only a figure and type and it's given to us in Solomon to show us figuratively, symbolically and type how great, immense and massive is the death of Jesus of our Lord. Now, you see, I can strive to find words to set this forth but I know I'm defeated and I start because I know that it is going to take all the ages of the ages to tell this story.

We'll be singing the song of the Lamb. We know so little but all we can say here at a time like this is that to seek that the Lord shall make an impression upon us. This cross about which we talk so much and think we know because we've got the terms, the language, the phrasing, identification with Christ, union with him in his death and burial and resurrection and all the rest of it.

We think we know. After all, twenty-five years being sacrificed, all the land around sacrificed, relay after relay being exhausted. Accomplish this thing. A mere shaft of reality of our Lord Jesus. It's extra-historical.

It is extra-terrestrial. Stumble at the language. Language will defeat us. Extra-terrestrial, that is, it is above, it reaches far beyond what is here. It is, may I use another phrase, it is super-cosmic.

This cross, this cross, this death of the Lord Jesus not only takes in all that is here on this earth, but it reaches unto heaven. The heavens were defiled. Heavens were defiled. Something happened in heaven before it happened on the earth.

It began there when the angels who kept not their cross, devil who led them, lost his place. Schism took place in heaven, the beginning of all schisms unto this day. That's where it began and that's where it became a much bigger thing than this world.

All in this letter, so-called Ephesians, does give us a glimpse, doesn't he, of wrestling years marked with patience. With principality of world rulers of this darkness, whose has its range and its reach what Paul calls in the heavenliest, in the heavenliest.

One of the most difficult phrases in the New Testament, the whole Bible to define and explain. We haven't time even to attack it. But our point is, it's the virtue of the death of the Lord Jesus reaches through all ranges and all realms until it reaches the very throne of heaven itself.

It's the testament that the universality was done in time. It is the death of the Lord Jesus. Solomon's sacrifice, great as it was, didn't reach beyond locality. Coming nearer, we've read Ephesians. We have redemption in his blood.

Or a lovely thing, redemption. We rejoice in redemption. Thing about it, one of our favorite words and topics, I'm redeemed. But do you notice that it's a compound word with a prefix. Re Look again at all the words with that prefix.

Re Conciliation. Toration. Something was, and it was lost. Something was, and it was forfeited. Something was sold into the slave market. Oh, you know your New Testament, you know so much about this.

This cross, this death, is a redemption. A recovery. Not only man's condition and man's loss, but more than that, a recovery of all that God lost in man. Of God's purpose, of God's intentions, of God's destiny, it was for the time being lost to him.

And there's a very much larger context, of course, to our gospel. The Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which was lost. Just sheep, if you like, hens, if you like, all that, and more. But the loss, the loss that took place is almost indescribable when you trace it to God.

You know, right there, right there, where the Lord Jesus is speaking about, the loss of the Son of Man coming, coming for the purpose of seeking and saving that which was lost. He includes what we call the parable of the prodigal.

Ron, Abyss, Numa, all together, of course, you go on using it like that. But when he comes to this man, this son, the prodigal, he is far away lost to the Father, lost to the home, lost to the family.

Translates that into heavenliness, heavenliness. He knows what he's talking about when he makes that man discovering and coming alive to his lost condition and the causes of it when he makes him say, puts into his mouth these words, in his return, Father, Father, I've been a bad boy.

I made a mistake. I did the wrong thing. I brought a lot of trouble upon myself. All this is because of my, my fault. You make him say that? Against heaven in thy sight. Lord Jesus is meticulously careful.

This, this loss is against heaven. It's heaven that is lost. And sin is robbing heaven of its rights and the Father of his right. I have seen joy in the presence of the angels over one sinner that repented because heaven has got back that which was stolen from him.

Heaven has recovered, recovered what heaven lost. And more than that, the angels are more concerned for the Father than even for heaven. You see, we have redemption. Oh, how great a thing is redemption.

Not only man, it is the universe. Universe is full of, full of power in the very atmosphere of this universe. It's a terrible thing when in our spiritual sensitiveness we get into that atmosphere, that realm where the two things, that which is of the Lord, that which is of heaven, that which we know to be our real realm and life, we come into the atmosphere, fairness and hate.

It is in the atmosphere in this world. Those who have laboured in heathen countries know what I'm talking about if you don't. Go there. I have been. Some of them, I remember my first visit to India. My, I went out where there was idol worshipping, where the idol was stuck up in a place with a fence round, and the people were hurting.

And it was not just something objective. You felt, as you feel in those temples, those heathen temples, evil, something evil. I'm going to say a thing now that put me into a lot of trouble in certain realms.

I felt that on my first visit to St. Peter's Rome. Visiting Rome, you wanted to see all this. I went to the college. I went to this place and that, and I wanted, and I went in. Dear friends, this is no fiction, imagination.

I went in innocently to see a site. I was a Christian, and when I got in there, I felt physically ill. I couldn't stay long. I looked round, I watched what was going on, and I had to get out. Not until I got right away, did I feel better.

There, mutual antagonism, saying that in this very universe, there is this cause of what began at the beginning. Coming from heaven through all realms, and polluting all realms, and at last registering its pollution upon this.

The death of the Lord Jesus has delivered from that. Glorious and wonderful thing to be delivered from that. I'm not talking of geography. It's where you need an explanation of the meaning of the heavenlies.

See, the heavenlies, you get a mentality up there somewhere. I want to say to you that all that is in the heavenlies, good and bad, registers in your spirit. You are as near to the heavenlies in your spirit as you'll ever be geographically.

I didn't know what he was talking about when he said to his men, who is sent up into all this, first of all, you look around, see if you can find this place that the Christians call heaven. And they came back and reported.

He said, I asked them to look for this thing. They said, of course, they'd never found any such place. Poor man, if he'd become a Christian, he would know. He would know there is something more than a geographical realm.

When you speak of the heavenlies, you're speaking about super-cosmic forces, evil and antagonism. We have reason. It's good to be outside of that world, isn't it? Had a week outside of it, or in some of the meaning of being outside.

Well, you have to go back, but you need not be going. They are not gone, even as I am redeemed. And then, thank God, this creation itself is redeemed. And it's waiting now for the day when that redemption will be consummated.

And the creation, as Paul puts it, shall itself be delivered from the bondage of corruption. When this earth as it is, and this world will have been bond up, all that is in it, and a new heaven and a new earth redeemed.

That was effected and secured in the death of Jesus Christ. In the death of Jesus Christ. Now you want an hour on 1 Corinthians 15. Wonderful revelation. Redeemed, resurrected physical bodies. It's a great question.

Resurrection and the Redemption of the Body

I thought that I might have had some time to talk about this. It's a great question. How are the dead raised up? And with what body do they come? Cremated bodies taken out and scattered on the waves of the sea.

Body burned to cinders in some fire and with what? And here's the exceeding greatness of his wisdom. Thou fools are governed in your ideas by your own natural wisdom. Wisdom of man is utter foolishness.

The dead raised up and Paul answers. You have got a spirit. You have got a spirit. As believers that spirit has been born in you. In that spirit is a divine life. Indestructible life. Incorruptible life.

That is the germ and God in your physical disintegration shows, shows that spirit and then gives it up as it pleases him. Gives it a body. You get a germ. Weaken it. The body corresponding will follow.

This is a mystery. Old Paul says, in this we groan. In this we groan waiting for our adoption to wit. The redemption body to what it was before this corruption, this seed of corruption was sown. Not fully perfected but I believe it was a glorious body then.

Now this is a point of dispute. But I think when Adam and Eve became aware that they were naked, that symbolic language, some kind of covering had been removed from them. I believe that covering was a covering of some glory.

And they became aware that they had lost something as their covering and they were naked. You know the New Testament takes up there and relates it. Not to, not to physical but to a spiritual state. Oh I am getting you too deep.

But to redeem the body means to bring it back to something which it lost. Which it lost. Have we anything to go upon to establish that? I think we have. I think we have. I have seen people pass from this life.

I am very near to myself. The compass of my own life. One who had lived, sacrificed and suffered for the Lord, only for the Lord through many years. The other, a rejecter of the Lord through the years.

I have seen them both under my own eyes pass out. And as this one passed, all the radiance, the physical radiance, the glory on that face, the renewal of childhood on that. I am not exaggerating. I am giving an instance.

It is like that. You know, sometimes you know the real enjoyment of the Lord, it makes a difference to our face. Even in poor bodies, who have suffered much, undergone a great deal, you do not have to be introduced to a true child of God.

You are a Christian, aren't you? God is not. This is simple. Do you know what I mean? Yes, we have evidence now that there is a glory which belongs to this body, which sin has marred, taken away. Sin does take.

Shall be made, says Paul, like unto his body of his Lord. How great is this God. Again, his sacrifice, being so much greater than Solomon's, is inclusive and not all of God. Pre-ending the day of Abel, Israel, and Moses.

Oh, and then, throw in this fist. Throw it all in. Throw it all in. And never could do. This one offering embraces all, having made one offering forever. So far as his work is concerned, as his work is concerned as the offering, it is, let me say this before perhaps, and they brought, after it had been laid up for fourteen days of scrutiny and examination, who was it over, who, with those clean eyes, find one blemish, one spot, one wrinkle.

It was rigid. After its period of probation, truthfully find not one hair on that lamb that was another color, on that L-S-R-E, say the words of the Lord Jesus. He offered himself. It is a blessed big God for this unspeakably marvelous.

These are unsearchable, the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus. I've only touched the cross, you see. I told you I was going to be beaten. I haven't started on the house. And is yet young and tender, says David, and the house which he did.

It is for the Lord. Very great and very wonderful. You suffer me a few minutes in this. For here we pass from the pipe. Oh, magnificent. What a virtue. It was very great in itself. I'll ask you to join me.

I probably know in this thing. You come to the house. He is the Lord. He calls my house, your house, his house. This house which he has built is the embodiment of the concept which is that. All this immense sacrifice was in the dedication of the house.

The Church as the Embodiment of Christ

The house takes the spiritual dimensions from the altar. If that altar is immense like this and that, incalculable how great this house must be. If all that is required for it, if it takes up all that into it, takes its character from all that in the altar of the house, it must be a story in the context people willingly offer me.

But it costs too much to lift it. If it is all concentrated in that, there is a world of time. But he goes and sells all of it to get the picture of Philippians 2. And away he is back to heaven. Heaven's throne.

His right is inherent of equality with God and he sells it all. He invests himself on it. Can't it not be heaven's right, heaven's prerogatives? Everything that he had as the agent gave him so that he might present to you and I, dear friends, needs to cover something beyond the truth of it, the doctrine of it.

And if we did that, not just objectively as someone with some wonderful teaching, realize that man was obsessed, so loved, what a difference it would make. But it's meant to do that. But if it doesn't do that, with all that we know about the church, we don't know anything.

Church, however you may put it, are embraced, not becoming excluded, who are embraced by that sacrifice of God. It's been narrowed, small, legalistic, because in seeing the church you have seen Christ, cannot separate you from seeing him.

The value of the house of it, speaking of communion, all the composition of it, all this is, singing our hymns, singing our hymns, and we sing, you know you sing a lot of things with the post office, and you sing a hymn about marching to Zion and walking the golden street, walking the golden street, there's only one street, golden street in there.

We've all got to live on the same street beside each other and live together. Oh, now you're going to give up Christianity, see what I mean? This preciousness of the Lord Jesus is going to make it possible for us at least to live together happily.

It will be Christ and not ourselves. That's the purpose of the church and we can never, never bound it, never get beyond it, we can get into the church. Again, super mundane, or how I do wish I could get this over to Christians.

Biggest problems, I think, that many Christians have are connected with the church. They bring it down to the local church, church locals, heathens, and Christians who are supposed to be members of the body of Christ.

What we see in local companies of believers, how is this the body of Christ, is this Ephesians? Along that line, they tell you that the church exists at all according to the New Testament. Isn't this our trouble?

It's my problem. How to get this over? You see, dear friends, you and I in ourselves are not the church. We are not the church and we are not parts of the church. We are excommunicated, not in it. Therefore, therefore the church, universal or local, is not the aggregate of Christian bodies.

The church is the measure of Christ in everyone. See that when we come to the tables of Christ is the church and it's just the measure of Christ that is in us that makes up the church. You can't join the church, transform again your phraseology.

There's no such thing as joining the church. If you are not an organic part of Christ, produced by his divine life that's different from your own, you're not in the church. But if through new birth you have become inwardly an organic part of Christ, the church is there.

It's when we meet, not in bodies, but in spirit. We can meet in bodies as congregations. No church. No church. It is when we meet in spirit, in the spirit, that Christ is spontaneously, may I say naturally, Christ.

It just is. Don't make it. It may shock you when I say that the apostles never had the idea that they've got to go out and form churches. Now, let's get inside. They never conceived that they were called upon by the Lord to go and form churches.

What they did was to go and preach Christ. And not only preach Christ, but bring Christ in their own person. And when people responded to and received Christ into their life, they spontaneously came together.

Now let's go out and find these people and get them saved and then collect them together and form them into a church. Never. Church was, as our brother said, born. It was a spontaneous birth. And it was the bringing together in a corporate way.

And it's inward. You can violate the church. Immediately you get out of the spirit. Sin against the church. Immediately you get onto natural ground. Only when we abide in Him. Abide in Him. What a lot there is in you.

Abide in Him. We abide inwardly in the Lord. That the church is born and grows. It is the increase of Christ Himself in us. It doesn't mean, of course, that altruistically we can behave anyhow, careless.

Let us get our true ideas. Peter is very clear about this. His spiritual house. His spiritual house. And it's impressive. Note how Peter begins his letter. He asks you about the spiritual house. God's spiritual house and the living stones.

And he begins by saying, unto the saints, at abroad, throughout Asia, within you, after you. What are you talking about? Saints scattered all over the world. And you are going to say one house. One spiritual house.

Geography is not the first thing. Being together in one place. It's wherever Christ is. Wherever Christ is. There are two or three in any place with Christ in them. That is the church. He is the church.

It's His own body. Or how impossible it is to get it over. But you may get an infant. I'll close, before I finish, I'll close by reminding you that this thing, more than Solomon's house, magnificent and wonderful, this thing is eternal, timeless, not only super mundane above the earth, all that belongs to it, but eternal, chosen in Him before the foundation.

Unto Him, in the church, unto all ages, when we are called by Jesus Christ. That's not the beginning of it. That's not the beginning of it. It's only stepping into us again, long, long ago before we had a beginning.

The Church's Eternal Destiny and Final Victory

This is an eternal thing. And you say, why say that? We know that. All right. But thank God, I do thank God, when I look at the forces against me, in the early days of the apostles, before the last of them had left any part of the world in the nations.

All that has happened, this was a mere flea bite in the whole thing. Fight this out. Ideologies, martyrs, yes, lay down their lives, but the church of Jesus never will prevail. The gates of Hades shall not prevail again.

It is timeless. We may go, on he goes, with his church, we'll all be caught up in the end, the day when he presents without stop, in it, died in the martyrdom, the persecution, or whatever has come in time with his church.

I'll leave it there, big enough for you. After all, dear friends, let me say again, all that I had ever hoped would be the result of this ministry, this week. I have been so much exercised about it, and not least how on earth I would ever have been but in such an indelible, deep and strong, I am in the thing, outbounding all ages, outbounding all enemies, and adversaries, and oh how great our Christ is.

How great is his house, God make this govern our conduct, our behavior, our manner of life, our influence upon other people, be that these people are people of dignity, of means, about that otherwise insignificant little man of another realm.

It came from thee, we believe, we hand it back to thee, do what you can with it Lord, work upon it, keep it alive, watch over it to protect it, and we say through it all, through it all, unto him, Jesus Lord, in the church, by Christ Jesus, unto all ages, forever and ever.