A Living Hope - Part 3 — T. Austin-Sparks

We shall read again the two passages around which much of our meditation has circled at this time, and then we shall add to them a third fragment. First is in the first letter of Peter, chapter 1, verse 3.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to his great mercy begat us again unto a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, unto an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.

The letter to the Colossians, chapter 1, verse 27, is to make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the nations, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. Living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ, Christ in you, the hope of glory.

Christ the Bread of Life

Now this fragment from a very considerable setting in the sixth chapter of the Gospel by John, verse 33. For the bread of God, he which cometh down out of heaven and giveth life unto the world. Just the small, the bread of God, the hope, glory.

It is possible that you have been impressed, as I have, with the fact that throughout the Bible, from beginning to end, feeding has such a large place. Some will have discovered that with great pleasure.

Others of us, perhaps, are not so pleasantly surprised that it is so. But there it is, the first thought of God for man after having created him was his food, everything for food, is the word. And on from that point, the whole matter of eating and drinking developed tremendously.

Religious convocations in Israel were mainly characterized by this feasting. They were feasts of the Lord. And everything in relation to the Lord, in the Lord's relationship to man, in the Old Testament, seemed to be centered around the matter of eating and drinking.

And there's not a little in the Gospels about it, some of the parables, the parables of feasts. We can be quite sure of this, that inasmuch as it is so largely by the instigation, instruction, prescription of the Lord, his thought never ended with the merely physical, the gratification of natural desire and appetite.

We can be quite sure that back of all that, there is a spiritual thought, and an eternal thought. And it looks very much as though John 6 brings it right in, in fullness, for it's so very largely a long chapter on the bread of life.

Feeding on Christ as the Basis of Spiritual Life

Christ, the bread of life, feeding, drinking, as he said, his blood and eating his flesh. The word bread, as we quite well know, is a term. It's a term which everywhere is synonymous with the stable food of life.

Some countries, it is not what we call bread. But to everybody, whatever the form is, whether it is this or that, it is bread. That is, it is the very basis of existence, and is not a great distance from the symbol and the temporal to the spiritual.

The very subsistence of life, the very basis of life, is Christ. I think that is the deepest meaning of the Lord's table. The eating and the drinking is symbolic of this one thing, Christ in you. Christ becoming your very imbue of existence, as in so many other things, is a great illustration of this great truth.

Israel’s Three Phases: Passover, Wilderness, and Inheritance

For Israel's life had three aspects, every one of which was based upon food. The very beginning was the Passover meal, the eating of the Passover. Their sojourn in the wilderness, or their journeys through the wilderness, based upon the manna.

And when they came into the land, it says, and when they had eaten of the old corn of the land, the manna ceased. It's a new phase, but still this governing factor of bread. Those three phases of Israel's life configure the three phases of every Christian's life.

The life of the church, the life of any company of believers, there is that which answers to or is typical of the Passover. The very foundation of our being the Lord's people is in the Passover. We know that it was foundational to their national history.

It was in the eating of the Passover, on that night ever to be remembered, that their deliverance of this world, their deliverance from the old bondage to its tyranny, their deliverance from defeat and frustration of that old life, their emergence to become the Lord's people in by Him in blood, all that was centered in the eating of the Passover.

Their salvation rested upon their eating of the Passover. That night bondage was broken and death destroyed for them, or nullified. Judgment escaped. They were constituted, the nation of God, the Lord's people, His own possession, by eating the Passover lamb.

And that became an institution throughout all their generations. Passover was an annual event, as we know, meaning that it governed all their years and all their generations to this day in Israel, always in relation to what happened at the beginning, a feeding.

The Passover and Feeding on Christ Crucified

You may think that that is simple and elementary. My dear friends, it does make a difference to us what we eat. What are you feeding on? It will show itself in your face. If you are feeding upon yourself, your miserable, wretched self, that self that is not redeemed and cannot be redeemed, and God never intended to redeem it, that sinful self, which He never patches up or repairs.

If you are feeding on yourself, well, no wonder you're miserable. It's a poor affair, isn't it? When you go to prayer at first thing in the morning, and I take it that you do, what do you feed on? All the time telling the Lord what a wretched thing you are, what a miserable thing you are, what a failure you are.

You can't give the Lord any new information about that. He knows far, far more about that than you could ever tell Him. No wonder you begin the day in defeat. Feeding on food that is not convenient, our Passover has been sacrificed.

Feeding upon the very elements and constituents of the redemption of salvation, Christ crucified. That's the way to start any day. There are many other things that you might be feeding on, not only in the morning, but through the day and through all the week.

On some grievance, some offense, some trouble that you're nursing, something you're feeding on it. Is that your daily food? You do not get very far in the Christian life until the foundation provision of God is your daily meal, like that.

I say it does make a difference what we feed on. Prayer is the first phase, you see. It's a mighty phase, but it was basic to everything else, basic to everything else. An eating of that which represented and symbolized the completeness and perfection of our redemption in Christ Jesus.

A finished work, a mighty deliverance from the power of the enemy and of the world and of our spiritual bondage. Oh, let us feed on it more. If we did, we'd be far more triumphant people if we would feed on that first aspect of God's provision.

And Israel in Egypt, what's the picture? An oppressed and a depressed, in shame, in disappointment, yes, in everything. That was not glorious, but the opposite to what is glorious. What a picture. We don't have to look back to Israel in Egypt to see the picture come nearer.

We know how true in the spiritual life that state is without Christ. From that despair, and God saw to it that they did reach the point of utter despair. From that despair and that shame and that recruit, and they had everything.

So contrary to glory, the hope of glory sprang when they fed on the Lamb. When they took Him inside, Christ in you. The hope of glory right at the beginning to change everything. Like that. The second phase, they're in the wilderness.

The Wilderness as God’s School of Faith

Redemption has been effected. They are out as the Lord's own people. This phase has its own particular features and characteristics. They're at school, under discipline, learning the deep and drastic lessons of a walk of faith.

God's school, for it is a life of faith indeed. There's nothing for sight in a wilderness that you can find any hope in. Nothing there that will grow of itself or that you by any effort of yours could make to grow.

You're cast upon God for everything. You've got to learn right from the beginning all the way along that God and God alone is your resource. God is your resource. With every element against you. With every difficulty around you.

With everything that speaks of desolation on the outside and hopelessness. By daily lessons of testing in this one thing situation, God is sufficient for this. He is the only recourse. But he is the recourse.

The manna signified that when they first saw the manna, they said, what is it? Translation of the original language which can hardly be translated. If we were to try to put it into a phrase, difficult to do so, but something like this.

This is a mystery. What is it? We've never seen anything like this before. Never known of anything like this. There's nothing within the whole compass of our natural knowledge that explains this. It's a mystery.

It's something quite strange. It's something from outside of this world. The sustenance of the Lord's people in all that which corresponds to the wilderness discipline and chastening and training and trial.

I say the sustenance through it all is a mystery. You and I have gone on through the years with everything calculated to destroy faith. To undermine confidence. To shake us. To destroy us. How we've gone on, it's a mystery.

That's manna. It is this unsearchable, inexplicable ministry of Christ where we can do nothing about it at all. It's like this. They couldn't do anything. What could they do to get food in the wilderness?

Nothing. No use ploughing and sowing. Nowhere to go for anything. Could do nothing and yet all this is on them of demand. Demand and they can do nothing about it. What can we do today? What can we do in this situation which is a part of our spiritual education and training?

To know the Lord. To prove the Lord. What can we do? We can do nothing. That's just the truth, isn't it, about so much of the Christian life. You can't do anything about it. How we look round, search and explore for some way of being able to solve the problem, we shut up to it.

Nay, we shut up to God. And we've come through a thousand experiences like that. When there was no way and no record, no solution, no answer and nothing that we could do. The mystery of Christ in you, the hope.

We've come on. Had no more hopeless situation than a desert. Have you ever seen a desert? I've passed over that very same desert many times. My word, it brings it home to you. People should be in that for 40 years and survive.

God’s Provision Despite Human Failure

No food. What is the hope in such a situation? Christ in you, the bread of God. The bread of God. Of course, a very great deal of all this. While necessary training and discipline, a very great deal of it was due to themselves.

Due to themselves. Their own fault, shall we say. And we're all going to be perfectly candid and frank about this. A great deal of our trouble is our own fault. Though it was so much their own fault. He didn't say, it's your own fault, I leave you to it.

He gave the manner out of him. See, the Lord, from his side, didn't intend that. When they were leaving Egypt, he told them to take victorials. And their kneading troughs. What's the good of a kneading trough in a desert?

This, that it was only from the divine standpoint an 11 days journey to the land. Extended to 40 years due to their fault. The Lord did not intend it to be like that. But you know, there's so much in our lives the Lord never intended.

But what I'm coming down on all the time is this. Oh yes, let that be true. Fully true. And how many of us today have to say, oh, if only I had my time over again. With the knowledge that I have today.

I wouldn't do that. I wouldn't do that. I would do other. I see where I made the mistake. Where I involved myself in difficulty. Where I made confusion and a mess of things. But the Lord never abandoned us.

As he never abandoned them. Thank God. He gave the manner out of him. He still sustained them with this mysterious sustenance. That they knew not of. They could not explain. But there it was. Second phase.

Entering the Land and the Responsibility of Faith

They did have to learn very much. In a hard school. But the Lord provided the sustenance. Third phase. They pass into the land eventually. Or the next generation. They pass into the land. As I have said.

Joshua 5 it says. And when they had eaten of the old corn of the land. The manner ceased. Now I want you to note this before you go that far. These other two phases are not left behind. Something done forever.

The Passover was maintained all the time. Year by year. You've always dear friends. Right to the very end of your history with God. Got to reckon on and stand into all the values of that Passover. That is not something just done and left.

You and I will right to the end have to stand upon the infinite virtue of the body and blood of Christ. So the Passover is an ordinance forever in Israel. And even though they left the wilderness and the manor behind.

They took a part of it over with them. In the ark. It is there still as a testimony. Right at the heart of their life. In its changing aspects and phases. Nevertheless right at the center. In the ark there is this part of manor.

A testimony to how God people in the wilderness. Great thing to have that in the background of your life. If you hadn't. You couldn't go through this next phase. For when you come to the third phase in their life and history.

It's the phase of tremendous responsibility. Up to that time it has all been what the Lord has done for them. Now it's going to be what the Lord will do through them. They're involved now not in the kindergarten or childhood education period.

They're now in the maturity responsibility phase. There's warfare. Continuous desperate warfare on. It's another phase. Now all that has been by way of provision, instruction, teaching and education. Has got to be put to the test in practical ways.

What's the value of it now? You're up against it now. It is not the matter of your salvation now. It's a matter of your testimony before principalities and powers. Your testimony before the world nations.

Now it's something tremendous that's on hand. Firstly the warfare with the adverse, the antagonistic. Then the taking possession of the inheritance. The mighty wealth. And then the turning of that inheritance.

That which you have come into turning it and exploiting it. Making it serve divine purpose. Out of whose hills you can dig brass. There's some hard work to be done to exploit the resources that you've come into.

To make good the values of the inheritance. We've graduated now from being the irresponsible people of the wilderness. To being the responsible people in fellowship with God in his great purpose. For this there's a change in the food situation.

From Appropriating Faith to the Works of Faith

Now you've got to be very careful that you mark the real point of the change. Before it was always the appropriation of faith. They went out every morning to appropriate by faith God's provision for the day.

And while they observed the laws of that provision. And were obedient to what the Lord said about it. That it was to be day by day and none left over for tomorrow. While they were obedient faith made good God's provision.

It is not a change from faith to something else when you get into the third phase. But it's a change of faith. It's a change of faith. Then it was faith appropriating, receiving, taking, getting. Now it's the works of faith.

It's faith working. You've learned something about faith by the Lord's wonderful goodness to you. Have you noticed how in the Christian life so often, not invariably, because it seems sometimes the Lord hastens things by shortening the time and making it very intense for some young Christians.

But have you not noticed that very often young Christians are treated like children and given so much of the Lord at the beginning. It seems to be made so easy for them. He almost seems to pander to them, spoil them.

They have a wonderful time. They've only got to ask and they get it. Isn't it like that? Yes, it's just as we call it simple childlike faith. And the Lord responds to that at the beginning. But there comes a point at which it changes.

Not from faith. But where you have got to fight, fight a faith. You're in the land. There's a battle on. Tremendous battle now of faith. Faith is not just that simple thing that it was. We must preserve, we must preserve that simple appropriating faith where our salvation is concerned, our continuous salvation.

Take that, take that simply by faith. But we're in something more as we go on. We're involved in tremendous things. With the evil powers. Now something that we've got to do about all these resources that are ours in Christ.

We just do not find that they're coming to us. We are put through exercise. Through, yes, exercise. We have to do some real spade work now to turn to good that which is our inheritance. Do you follow?

If you don't understand the teaching, you know it in experience. It's like that. It is that changed aspect of faith because of a changed position. It is not now just salvation. I don't mean by that that salvation is a little thing.

Do you know what I mean? Not just our acceptance and that we are made children of God. Not that. We are in a mighty, mighty thing. In this universe. Out of Romans we are into Ephesians. We are in a mighty, mighty thing.

In this universe. Into Ephesians. In the mighty things. The deep things. In these things we only turn our resources to account by some very, very hard work. Shall I put that another way? By really being put to it.

Resurrection Power Through Suffering and Spiritual Warfare

Are we going to know the power of his resurrection? My word, to know that we've got to know something very deeply of the power of death. Are we going to come back to our theme? Are we going to know the wonder of the hope which is Christ in us?

The hope of glory. We'll taste something of despair to discover it. We'll be plunged sometimes. Oh yes, you say that, that's terrible. But listen. Listen to your favorite apostle. We despaired even of life.

You say you despaired. Yes, I despaired. And I've written it down. We had the sentence that it was death. That we should not trust in ourselves but in God who will raise us from the dead. If you're going to know that kind of raising, you've got to know something of that kind of experience.

But you see, Paul was not just there circling round his own personal salvation. His context is, I fill up, that which is lacking of the sufferings of Christ for his body's sake, which is the church. I don't mean that that's the context in his writings.

I mean that that's the spiritual context. It's his sufferings, his deep places, his being put to it to tremendous spiritual exercise. Not just personal, it's related, it's connected with the church and the church's destiny.

When you get over into the land, things cease to be merely personal. It's the responsibility of the whole purpose and people of God. Christ in you is the hope of glory even there. It's very true. Whatever is true, and it is very true, about our appropriating Christ, and about our sustenance in the Christian life through the years by simply feeding upon him, taking him from day to day as our life, as our strength.

Christ in the Church and the Hope of Glory

Whatever is true about that, I could almost say more true in this third realm, where it's not because of our responsibility at all, it's not our fault, it's not because of what we have done or not done, nothing to do with our merely human weakness and faultiness and error and wrong.

We are involved in something objective, a tremendous thing. No, this battle rages. And there's no explanation for many of the situations into which we are brought, many of the ordeals, there's no explanation in the realm of our own faultiness.

It is not because of something that we have done or not done that this situation arises. It arises altogether apart from us, and we are thrust into it, become a part of it. It's something immense, far beyond the individual, the personal.

It's related to the Lord's people everywhere in this world. But here I was saying, the marvel, the marvel of that provision of the Lord. Christ in you, the hope of glory even in that, in that, when all the forces of evil are let loose, when all of the enemy is released.

This great battle of the ages in the heavenlies, in you, is the hope of glory. See, that's the point upon which Paul finishes in that very letter, which brings this third phase of Christian life so fully into view.

Glory unto all ages and therefore ever and ever. Why glory in the church? How glory in the church? Christ in you, the hope of glory. Christ in the church, his presence makes everything possible for an issue of glory.

Feeding on Christ Through Every Phase of Christian Life

What have we said? Simply pointed out with all these words and in these illustrative ways. One has made Christ, bases the foundation of eternal glory, Christ being within. Oh, take him, procreate him, day by day, stand on him, bases of your salvation.

What you are, if you do, you know, you know you're feeding upon ashes in the great altar. Don't feed on ashes, feed on Christ. Training and chastening and education, learning the lessons of faith, feed on Christ.

Take him, take him in every time of faith trial in the great battle in which we are. We find ourselves from a certain point in the Christian life, thank God it is not left to us, not left to us to get through.

I did drop a word just now, which might be helpful if I were to come back to it. As I said, in some cases it does seem that the Lord is saving a lot of time by pressing into a short period the intensity of this training and trial.

You can see some young Christian, the trial of mature Christians you would think should only come to those who have a lot of experience. But there it is, maybe you're one of those. The Lord is shortening the time to get you matured quickly for some purpose.

You'll be able to take responsibility early. Wait until you've had years and years of Christian life before you're able to take serious responsibility in the battle. It's not necessary, but there are a great many people you know.

Unfortunately and tragically, a vast number of Christians today who will not face or contemplate any difficulty. They're going to have a good time. They're going to turn the Christian life and Christianity into a continuous picnic, a continuous holiday, making it all a matter of pleasure.

Break, if ever they get into them. They should have to face something of the third stage of the Christian life. It's not the Lord's unkindness to put any young Christian into a hard school. It's that he might trust them with large response and do it early.

It's a grand thing to see a young Christian. A young Christian, an old Christian, you know what I mean? One who really now can stand up to things and doesn't have to be nursed like a babe. One who can shoulder responsibilities in the house of God.

Does not all the time got to be chased after and looked after. No, but to be such, be such. It's always this way. A difficult school, a difficult school. But the point is that for every phase and aspect, Christ is the bread of God.