God's Supreme Interest in Man #1 — T. Austin-Sparks

Verses 8 to 11,. But now put ye away all these anger, wrath, malice, railing, shameful speaking out of your mouth, lie not one to another, seeing that ye have put off the old man with his doing, and have put on the new man, which is being renewed unto knowledge after the image of him that created him, where there cannot be Greek and Jew, circumcision and uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, bondman, freeman, but Christ is all, and in all.

Moving Beyond Christian Theory Into Spiritual Reality

May I say, dear friends, as we approach the message that is in these words, that my real, very strong concern is that we shall touch reality at this time. That we shall go beyond theory, beyond teaching as such, and meet the Lord at the point of deep reality, where his need in us is really met, our need in him is met.

For we are in times when the build-up of Christian truth, teaching, knowledge is immense, and the corresponding reality in life is by no means commensurate. There is a margin, a gap, between what is known and what is lived.

And we want to get into that gap, as the Lord may enable us, and close it up, or let him close it up, so far as we are concerned, at this time. Truth and life close together, indeed become one. That is the object that is in my heart at this time.

Not to say so much more, however true it may be, but really to touch a very vital issue. Now there may be a lot said, but I have one thought and object that is governing everything that will be said. All will be gathered around just one issue, which I trust will become increasingly clear as we go on.

Having said that, let us look at this fragment of the world, which we have just read, verses 9 to 11 of the third chapter of the letter to the Colossians, and we will analyze it, break it up, and note the five very distinct points that are touched upon by the Apostle in these words.

The Creator, the Created, and the Purpose of Renewal

First of all, there is a retrospect to the Creator and the Created. Being renewed after the image of him that created him, that is a throwback to creation and the Creator. Just note it, we're going to take up each of these points separately, but number one is this retrospective upon the beginning of everything in the Creator and the Created.

The image of him that created. Secondly, the pattern and purpose of the Creator in the creation. Being renewed after the image of him that created him. The pattern, the image, the purpose, renewal of that image.

The Christian Crisis and the Beginning of Transformation

The real and effect of the crisis in the life of Christian has happened in the life of Christian, which marks the beginning of a process. A process indicated by these words, being renewed, made anew, made over again.

A crisis in the life of the believer, when something happened, he put off and he put off. That's the nature, meaning and the effect of the great crisis in the life of the Christian. The occupation and energy of the Holy Spirit who is doing this renewing work.

The Holy Spirit’s Work of Renewal

Being, being renewed. Well we are not doing it, either for ourselves or for other people. Other people are not doing it for us. This is the occupation and the energy of the Creator Spirit. He who brooded over the chaos and brought out of the chaos the divine order.

The same Spirit now occupied with his own energy in making anew according to the image. Renewing the activity of the Holy Spirit. And in the fifth place, the exclusiveness and the inclusiveness of Christ.

The Exclusiveness and Inclusiveness of Christ

Now this is the last statement where there cannot be. That's the the right kind of exclusiveness or exclusivism. Realm and system and order and nature is excluded. There cannot be. It's just Christ. Christ is all.

That's the analysis of these verses. Very simple, very comprehensive, very important. Begin to take them up one at a time. Firstly then, man and his creator. The creator and the created. Perhaps it would be as well if we arrange several other passages alongside of this one.

Christ as Creator and the Center of All Things

Going back to the beginning of this same letter, chapter 1, verse 16. All in him, in him were all in the heavens and upon the earth. Things visible and things invisible. Whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers.

All things have been created through him and unto him. He is before and in him all things. That in all things he might have the preeminence. Through him to reconcile all things. The center and circumference of all things is Christ the creator.

Then familiar words in John's gospel, chapter 1, verse 3. All things were made by him and without him was not anything made that hath been made. John and Paul are one. Perfect agreement on this matter.

Was the originator of all things. Then to the letter to the Romans, chapter 11. Always good to have, right to have, an adequate scriptural basis for what we're saying. 11 and verse 36. All of him and through him and unto him all things.

First letter to the Corinthians. Eight. There is one God of whom are all things and one Lord, Jesus Christ. Well that establishes this, what we have called the throwback to the creator and the created.

The Disintegration of Human Life and the Frustration of Creation

Then we have of course to in order to come to these words about renewing or making anew or starting again a process of recovery. We have to contemplate that terrible disintegration of the man to whom these scriptures are referring.

Yes, the disruption of human life. The disruption of every member of the human race. We need not argue, I think, from scripture on this because the argument is finished immediately. We consider ourselves a mankind as we know mankind.

We are perhaps more aware today than ever of this disruption, disintegration in human life. But there is a fundamental schism in man and in mankind. Wherever it is found always means is the evidence of a schism, a divisiveness in human life and in human nature.

We see this of course right from the beginning of history as recorded in the bible all the way through and coming out in our time in a consummate way. There is frustration in human life. Thought to be a step of progress, of advancement, of development, brings with it its own frustration.

No matter how far advanced, how fully developed, phenomenal the enlargement of knowledge and our ability to do, to achieve, no matter how great, how large, how amazing. Frustration goes with it in the same measure until we reach the point in the world's development we have reached in our own time when discovery, when invention, when the in this universe and the bringing them into the service of man.

Terrible! Amazing! Never, never have believed it. Only a few years ago. There right alongside of it is its own doom, its own undoing and those who know most are most terrified of what they have for possibilities and potentialities they wish they'd never discovered, never known.

Frustration hand in hand through history with every fresh development and movement. It's there in human life. It's in the creation. And it's in the universe as it now is. And God himself has taken pains to bring this out for man's realization.

The Law Reveals Human Weakness but Cannot Save

For instance, the law. We have it in the Old Testament as we have it vested in a nation chosen for this very purpose to be God's object lesson to all the nations, to all the world. The Apostle Paul puts his finger upon that whole system, its long history, its meticulous application.

He says the law was given in order to show how impotent. A being employed by Almighty God to demonstrate and expose the law of Moses as it is called, the law of God. This same apostle who has made such a terrible declaration as to the effect of the law that it has only brought to light man's weakness, impotence, helplessness, hasn't done anything to save it, rather to condemn it, writes a chapter, a whole chapter.

The good that I would, the good that I would, and I would with all my heart, I do not. And the evil that I would not, and with all my heart I would not. I struggle and I strive and I labor and I grow not to do these things, the evil that I would not.

Wretched who shall deliver me. How did ever I know that the thing was right, should be done. However did I discover that the thing is wrong, that I should not do it. The law made me know right and wrong and left me paralyzed of rising to it, either to say no or to say yes.

Isn't that frustration? And isn't that history up to date? Well that's the law of Moses. You and I dear friends are living a time in the world when not a law of all the multiplications of laws cope with human nature.

Oh what a time. Lawlessness, which is only another way of saying the law's utter inability. There is this schism in human nature, dividedness, impersonality. That's a word today, isn't it? Frustration.

My word, what a love, is covered by that word today. It is in every realm. Yes. I have just cited Romans 7, the man that I am. I don't. What I would, I would not do. This division, this, what a, no one can, new or eyeing it and going one better or trying.

The many sidedness of this conflict in the social order, economical realm. We are here to talk about economics, but let's put another word in place of that. It means money, doesn't it? The realm of money, the love of it is the root of all evil.

Everything that speaks of on the one side, schism, divisiveness. Never people in this world so much, never before in the history of this country have people had so much money and never before was this.

In the political realm, as I have said before, into the moon or to the planet and beyond. It could go on in the industrial world and frustration in the national life and frustration in international relationship.

Death as the Ultimate Frustration

What a world it is. It's also true in nature became disrespectful. Very different from the beautiful. God almighty who is in his tenders, infinite. God being able to look at all things and saying, it is very good.

It is very good. My, it's something if the Lord can look upon one little bit and say, it's very good. You and I would feel very happy if there was one little thing about us that the Lord could say, that's very good.

But looking on all things, it is good. It is very good. That's the opening picture of the Bible. Something happened. Disrupted the universe. Shot through this universe, this schism and this resultant.

And what is the ultimate frustration? The ultimate frustration is death. There's nothing that speaks more of frustration than death. It says defeat. It says imperfection. Nothing to do with frustration.

They're talking now about science arriving perhaps before long at the point where they'll be able to destroy death. Where death will be defeated. To imagine such a thing. To say nothing of saying such a thing.

Everything in this universe saying that's a lie. For death has a date with every mortal being. Never is it beating you all the way along. You may, by your science, prolong, add to your tenure. That is not always a blessing.

A lot of people today wish the Lord would take them and live by reason of a few more years. Yes, this is very nice. Now that may not be true of you very old people. But the longing of life is very often a doubtful blessing.

I remember many years ago reading something on a sundial in Stirling Castle, Crown, and it ran like this. Our life is like a winter's day. Some only breakfast, others to dinner stay and are full fed. The oldest man butts up and goes to bed.

Large is his debt who lingers out the day. And he that goes through it soonest has the least effect. Well that's not the bible. Not scripture. But I don't know who wrote it. Maybe a morbid view. But there's some truth in it.

They'll have a long life with the blessing of the Lord. The length of days is no guarantee of happiness. But if they're going to destroy death, they think they can. They think they can. It doesn't mean that they're going to be benefactors of humanity.

It may be very much the other way when men long to die all the more because see that as it may, the point is that the final consummate outworking of frustration is death. When we have said all this about this schism and frustration in every realm, to where do we trace it?

To man himself, isn't it? It's just man. It's this that has happened in man. This devastation in human nature. Indeed, the image of God has been lost. The purpose of the creator in the creation itself has suffered frustration.

See human life today. The divine property in the beginning is under frustration. Well that's the dark, miserable side. It's so true. I have to note it before we can get on to the other side. Our scriptures, here, while they touch on that, and my word, don't they touch upon it.

Renewal Into the Image of God Through Christ

You'll see them later. They turn us over to the other side. Being renewed after the image of him that created him, the reintegration, reunification in the creator. Notice every schismatic element is touched upon here.

Every schismatic element is touched upon. In man's nature, we'll see. Perhaps we'll inform it again in a minute, or presently. In man's paragraph, all the racial divisions, Jews, Gentiles, every disintegrated element of Christ, the unifier, and the unification of all.

Beginning in the individual, and ultimately manifested in a whole race, beside which there will be no other race, because you cannot have something extra to all, can you? If you come to all, then there's nothing more.

Nothing more than all. And how we underline that phrase, don't we? In all these passages, we've read all, all things, all things, all things. That final consummate, everything reunited. It's at that point that we begin the great positive revelation of the meaning of Christ.

The Incarnation and the Perfect Humanity of Christ

We light upon the real significance of the incarnation, son of God becoming man. Man, made in the likeness of man, himself man, and his own favorite, chosen, cherished title for himself, son of man. You love that, don't you?

In preference to every other title, son of man, the son of man, son of man. His incarnation, the object of his coming out of eternity into time, out of eternity into history, the very meaning, purpose, object of his second coming and glory is found in this word man.

That is not just a proper name, son of man. That's a purpose, that's a meaning, that's an explanation, that's a definition. Man, Christ Jesus, this son of man is a unity in himself. There is no schism in this humanity, not dual, unity, an integration in him.

You know the Lord Jesus, in all his life here, never suffered from conscience. I don't mean he didn't have a conscience. Conscience is a constituent of full personality. But Jesus never fought a split.

If he had done that, he would not have been a unity in his personality, in his nature. Because conscience is always a divisive element, isn't it? It strives, doesn't it? Paul says it either accuses or it excuses.

Or it does, it speaks of something to be combated in the person concerned. Who have I to prove conscience, argue about conscience? Don't we know all about conscience that is accountable for 90 of our misery?

Isn't that true? Oh my conscience, what a time it is. Jesus never suffered from conscience, not for a moment. There was no duality in his thinking. It was single. It was single. Why? No fighting in his nature.

You see, if there is perfect obedience, perfect obedience, there's no place for conscience. Isn't that true? No place for conscience to trouble the obedience. And he was able to say, as no other part of the human race could ever say, I do always those things which are well-placed and perfect.

What a claim. What a statement. In a world like this, a man, human creation, standing up before heaven and earth and hell and saying, I do always those things which are well-placed and perfect. No citizen in heaven.

Because of perfect obedience. And now as our time has gone, do you begin to see perhaps a little, a little more of a little, to your own heart, satisfaction. Why the apostle was always, always using one little phrase, what he meant by it, what it meant to him, what it meant to him, ravishing it was to him in its meaning.

The Believer’s Position in Christ

In Christ. In Christ. There is therefore now no condemnation for them that are in Christ. Conscience is redeemed. In this matter, a condemnation which carries with it more than anything else, frustration.

In Christ is God. There is none in Christ. He uses that phrase, it's always we in Christ. When you're a man, he says, in Christ, positioned in the realm where all that contradiction is righteousness of God through faith.

There's a God in Christ. Would that I could grasp it. Would that we could all grasp that. It is reality because there's never a time when the saints of God are more assailed and harassed by accusation and condemnation than at this time.

Frustration very largely due to a failure to apprehend the real meaning of being in Christ. This one, this one, in whom there is no conscience worrying, in whom there is no system. That's the position that we are brought into.

I have more to say about that when we come to the crisis. Oh, the infinite blessedness, if only we could grasp it. And we're all defeated here, we all fail here, every one of us failing here, to grasp this initial, fundamental blessedness of being what it means to be placed in Christ.

Where, so far as God and we are concerned, there's no controversy, no conflict. He's not against us, and yet we believe so often that he is. And the devil tells us a thousand times every day that God is not for us, he's against us.

Anything that he can use as a ground of argument to bring us under condemnation, the shadow again of that terrible habit he has brought about in the human mind, the infinite preciousness of our position before ever the work is taken up of perfecting our position in Christ.

A New Humanity Conformed to Christ’s Image

A new humanity, a new kind of humanity. A humanity has been regenerated, humanity has been introduced into this creation, the destiny of which is final conformity to his image. Being renewed, made anew after a wonderful wonder with all that he had to meet, encounter, suffer, he went tranquilly on his way.

Not until that day, that hour, that moment, when being made sin for us, and a curse for us, taking the place of this disruptive creation, when his soul was torn asunder, not until then was he ever disturbed by any kind of controversy with his father, or his father with him.

Frankly, dear friends, I'm saying tremendous things to you, but after all, what is it? This is, after all, the simple truth of a Christian's position by faith in Jesus Christ. No more controversy between us and heaven and earth.

No condemnation created by him for a position and a state like that, to redeem from all that contradicts that state, to redeem man, to redeem man. But what I want, and I say that I had one object, one thought, this pioneer, around which all this is being gathered, I want to emphasize this, that it's man that God is after.

God’s Supreme Interest in the Renewal of Man

It is man that God is after. Human life, he's come to get it, to redeem it, to make it again. Our humanity, upon which he has focused. There, if I could go on, we should find so much help in the explanation of his dealings with us, in his attention, a man, a human life, his own image, renewed after the images.

We ask a thousand questions to what the Lord is doing and why he's doing this and that, so many things with us, why he's taking this way, and all the questions are answered in this one thing, as I see it.

He's after our manhood, after our human nature, he's after our humanity, he's after this creation, this peculiar, unique creation, human beings, to make them after his own image. He's dealing with us, sometimes it seems he's dealing with us as though we were the only individuals in the dark universe.

It's all so real, sometimes so terrible, so drastic. Sometimes it seems he's singled us out from everybody else to deal with us. Here's the answer. In Colossians 3, 9 to 11, being renewed, made anew, after the image of him that created.