Recovery of the Lords Name - Part 6 of 6 — T. Austin-Sparks

We are now returning to the point from which we began on Saturday afternoon when we said that all that we were going to consider would be gathered into the cross and the name of the Lord. We then did very briefly and lightly indicate that these two things are found together right through the Word of God.

We instance several of the occasions where they are found together. It only needs to be said again here that that is so and that is open to proof if you will look at it. In the Old Testament of course the cross is represented by the altar and there it is a matter of the union of the altar and the name of the Lord.

The name of the Lord connected with the altar. In the New Testament as we expect to find it the altar is changed for the cross but the name is still kept with it. I just return your thought to a couple of passages which indicate this very definitely and clearly.

The Cross and the Name in Philippians and Ephesians

One we have already considered fairly fully. We are going to briefly abbreviate or shorten it for our purpose at this time. The letter to the Philippians chapter 2. At the end of verse 8 we just have the word the cross and then verse 9 goes on wherefore the name which is about every name the cross wherefore the name all the rest that is there is gathered into that.

Turn back to the letter to the Ephesians you have the same thing indicated chapter 1 verse 20 He raised him from the dead and made him to sit above every name that is named. He raised him above every name that is named.

Of course you will take account of the context of both of those passages and you will find that it is all about what God has done through the cross of the Lord Jesus as the basis for glorifying his own name for bringing his own glory into full manifestation.

With that then is our basic position the union between the cross and the name the name of the cross let us go on. The book of the Acts which is a very large and full book as you know stands entirely on the ground of the cross.

That book is just the issue of the cross the spontaneous issue of the cross. It would never have been written and all that was there would never have happened but for the cross it rests upon the cross.

The Name of the Lord Jesus in Acts and the Early Church

And in that book of the Acts the term or phrase the name is mentioned no fewer than 33 times which carries its own significance. The name which is preeminent and predominant throughout that whole wonderful book called the book of the Acts rests upon the cross.

And in the New Testament as a whole everything is in the name the name of the Lord Jesus. People are exhorted to believe into the name in answer to their inquiry as to what they should do they are bidden to be baptized in the name.

Their gathering together as the Lord's people was gathering in the name. All their prayer was in the name. They were praying in the name. They were preaching and teaching in the name. And the work that they were doing healing the sick and so on was all in the name.

It was that that caused the trouble. The rulers came upon them and forbade them to speak or teach any more in this name. And it is a most inspiring and helpful and instructive study just to look at that in the New Testament.

All that rests upon the cross and is inseparably connected therewith. The name of the Lord Jesus came before Christianity. Christianity took its character in the first place from the name. It was the name that gave to Christianity its nature.

I fear that it may have been reversed since. Seems, though perhaps not deliberately and intentionally or consciously but it does seem that Christianity has come before the name and gets in the way of the name and very largely is a contradiction of the name.

So that what we have to understand and what has to be recovered if there is going to be anything like the power and effectiveness and fruitfulness that there was at the beginning is what the name signifies and implies.

The Meaning and Power of the Lord's Name

Because it is not just a title, a designation, some phrase, some tag put on in the name of Jesus. It becomes so commonplace to do that. So matter of practice and course to use the phrase in the name of Jesus but nothing seems to happen with all that.

So little results. So little is present even when that kind of speaking and terminology is used as the commonplace thing. No, it is not just a title. It is not just a designation. Just not the name of someone.

Although that someone may be the Lord Jesus himself. It is something very much more than that. It is impossible to consider this matter of the Lord's name in the Old Testament without recognizing that it is not just a different title from other gods and other lords.

It is an entirely different kind of being. And there is more in it than that. What is true in the Old Testament is true, yes, infinitely and transcendently more in the New Testament. May I repeat, what we have to understand and what has to be recovered is the significance and implications of the name as the apostles understood it and the Holy Spirit caused it to mean.

And therefore, which resulted in such tremendous things. When they said in the name of Jesus something happened. When they prayed in the name of Jesus Christ something happened. When they preached in the name something happened.

It is that, that something which is there that we have to know and recover. The name and its glory has got to come back into its right place. Well, we have said, and we repeat, that the name rests upon and issues from the cross.

The meaning of the cross is embodied in the name. That is simple enough. But it is very important. All the meaning of the cross is embodied in the name. And to separate these two is to put asunder what God has put together.

And when you do that you destroy the real badness. The name can never be effective without the meaning of the cross behind it. For present wisdom, for the name to manifest all its divine power and fullness it must be kept vitally bound up with the cross.

It must rest all the time upon that which has given it those values. And to death, wherefore the name, cannot divide those two. Wherefore the name. And they remain together. So that it becomes necessary for us, dear friends, to reconsider some of the great meanings of the cross.

Which are gathered into the name of the Lord Jesus. And give that name its real meaning and value. I'm going to assume that we here today or this morning are the Lord's children. So that it becomes unnecessary for me to spend time in speaking about those values of the cross which have made us the Lord's people.

To speak about the atonement and justification by faith. And the initial union with Christ by new birth. These are values of the cross. Meanings of the cross which are gathered into the name. Of course nothing more can be until that is true.

But I am assuming that you here do know and understand what the name of the Lord Jesus means for you. Your sins forgiven. Your union with Christ. Your justification before God. So that I can dismiss that in this company and proceed beyond that to these further values and meanings of the cross which are gathered into the name.

The Cross Overthrows Satan's Kingdom

Firstly then the cross was the place the scene and the occasion of the overthrow of a kingdom and its prince. We've got to be very sure about that. Of course we all believe in the common phrase the victory of Calvary and well we know, we think we know a lot about that.

We've got to be very sure about this because it doesn't always seem to be working out. It was definitely and positively if the New Testament means anything at all the occasion of the overthrow of a kingdom and its prince.

That kingdom is a nature and a system in this world. Ruled by Satan and because of nature a system. Every nature produces its own system. Every system is the product of a particular nature. When I use the word system I'm only using another word for kingdom.

In every different kingdom a certain nature predominates. That need not be followed up. It's obvious. In the kingdom of this world there is a nature and that kingdom takes its strength and its form from that nature and it is in that nature through that system that Satan rules.

And the principle of that rule of Satan is the alienation of man from God. That sums up everything. All the works and ways of Satan have one object. Just one object. His ways and his works are perhaps countless.

So various that they are often difficult to track down. But howsoever many they be and however great their variety they are all gathered into one single object. And that is to alienate men from God. That may be done by making a great deal of man.

Making him his own god. His own lord. The very deification of humanity. The enthronement of man on the throne of his own glory. Or it may be on the other hand to the other extreme by depression and misery and suffering and degradation.

And everything between those two extremes is just to make man on the one hand independent of God and on the other hand bitter against God. The object is one. Alienation from God. Making man to part with God.

To be independent of God. To take a course of self-will. To blind man. Make him ignorant. Everything to get in between man and the law. That is the nature that is in the kingdom of this world. Isn't it?

For the most part you can divide the whole world into those two sections. On the one hand man may feel that he doesn't need God. That he can get on quite well without God. Be independent of God and give God no thought.

And then very lastly along the line of many preoccupations and what he calls pleasures. Filling of his life so full that there is no place for God. Or on the other hand that more positive attitude toward God of bitterness and rebellion and hatred in greater or lesser degrees the whole world is summed up for those two things.

And it is in every natural heart, every natural heart that is the kingdom of Satan. That is the kingdom of this world of which he is prince. We keep on the focal point that which comes in between God and man and man and God as Satan's supreme objective and activity.

The cross of our Lord Jesus Christ meant the destruction. It was the occasion when the prince of this world was carved out. When that kingdom received its fatal blow. When that work of Satan was met mastered and overcome.

The Lord Jesus through his cross holds that victory in his hands. It has not yet become of course true in the world actually but we are coming to this in a moment the fact is there that the Lord Jesus has done that and believers into the name of the Lord Jesus know it and are in the good of that.

So that the name the name embodies this. That that kingdom and that ruler has been cast out. The cross means its destruction. The name is the name of the one who specifically did that. Did that. How did he do it?

Christ's Victory Through Unbroken Fellowship with the Father

Firstly there was none of that kingdom that nature in him. Oh how Satan worked along every line by every means to get in between the son and the father. Between Christ and God. I say by every means. We haven't the record of all the secret battles but we've enough to know that there was a battle going on throughout his life.

In some way get in between him and the father. If thou be the son. If thou be the son. If thou be the son. Trying to insinuate a question a doubt. Open the way for a breach. So I'm not saying to take you through his life showing how here and there in this way and in that the enemy was at work by pressure and oppression by subtlety, by foes, by friends working all the time to find this gap where he could just thrust in his wedge and then he would drive it home and do with the last Adam what he did with the first.

The prince of this world cometh and hath nothing in me. The prince of this world? No, the phrase. Not the devil cometh. Not the great adversary. The prince of this world and hath nothing in me. He could not get in between him and the father.

He could not bring about this alienation. This division and separation. He just could not do it. For our Lord it was a matter of constant vigilance and constant conflict. It was not automatic. The mystery the mystery of his humanity the humanity of God God incarnate is just that, that he had to fight our battle.

It's a theological problem I know. How a perfect being could be tempted to believe it the fact is writ large in the word that it was real. He was not just preacting. It was real. It was battle unto blood to maintain this to the last.

You know it's no small thing no small thing when written just immediately after he'd been raised from the dead he said I ascend unto my God and your God, my Father and your Father. That's a tremendous victory over the dividing work and power of the enemy.

He is still in union. Ah but what that meant what that meant in the moment of his being forsaken by the Father yes that's not the last word no that cry of forsakenness was not the last cry the last cry was Father into thy hands.

Relationship to all is unbroken he has triumph in himself. Yes that's how he did it. All hell raged raged on that ground alone. Everything everything is focused in this man Satan's kingdom is at stake in this one man all his hopes all his age long hopes and ambitions are in the balances of this one man and the pivot of all is this relationship with God and so hell raged from its depth against him on this ground alone this one ground of fellowship with God.

It cost him everything it cost him everything here in this world it cost him everything. Satan saw to it that he didn't have anything here in this world all right all right if you are not coming into my kingdom and yielding to my law and falling down and worshipping me and putting me in the place of God your Father you shall have nothing.

I'll speak of that and he had nothing not so much as a place to lay his head. He did much more than that right through to the end and then from Satan's side and the instruments of Satan he was murdered for it.

Thank God we know another side to that but from that side he was literally murdered by Satan and Satan's agents for that reason only. Because of the battle that he had come to fight out to a victorious issue and to prove of this relationship with God God gave triumph and he triumphed through death there's God's miracle.

The thing that was intended and calculated by that evil kingdom to be his destruction was his own destruction the one who planned all that thinking that it would be his supreme triumph found it to be his supreme triumph in a way that was not meant the undoing of that kingdom and that dear friend is the cross now you see the book of the acts which brings in the church.

The Church Standing in the Victory of the Cross

The book of the acts and all that is there and the church stood on that ground it stood on that ground. It took up the values, that value of the cross. By the Holy Spirit it was caused to stand upon that tremendous victory which Christ had brought by the very Holy Spirit the church at the beginning was brought into a marvellous union and fellowship with God for all how strong it was.

Now let hell rage against the church as it raged against him and hurry it to death to martyrdom. It can't get in between them and their Lord. They've come into the good of his tremendous victory over that kingdom and its prince, the church stood on that ground and seeing that that was the content of the name we can understand now the potency of the name in and through the church and on the church in those days that standing on that ground when they employed the name they employed the mighty victory that was gathered into that name what Christ had done in his cross and things happened but Satan has not given up the name for the church to set the ground of the cross and the name.

The Church's Vigilance Against the World's Spirit

The name and the cross and to be as vigilant as was its Lord and to be all the time girded because the world as a spirit the world as a nature the world as a spiritual system is all the time seeking some point at which it can insinuate itself to get between the church and the Lord to make it necessary for the Lord to stand back unable to go on with his people because that other thing has got some place in some way.

This is the work that is going on yes how subtle it all is go back to this part of the Old Testament again you see not always was it by open assault that the enemy brought in the peoples of the world against the people of God to overpower them and to subject them to their deities not always along the line of open suffering and affliction but oh how often in the Old Testament it was a very subtle quiet insinuation of something just working like that almost secretly.

People were hardly alive to what was happening but then they woke up one day to find that the Lord was no longer with them woke up to find that they were in defeat they lost their Lord and lost their power and lost their position and then the prophets who were the seers the men who saw the men who knew the reasons seeing what the people did not see.

The prophets came to interpret their condition and their situation they put their finger always and ever upon some secret thing that was of that other kingdom which had got in. This is a tremendous business dear friends for the people of God.

It is like that. Why the loss of power? Why the loss of the Lord's presence? Why the loss of a situation such as obtained at the beginning in the days of the book of the Acts? Why are things so different?

Why all the weakness and the defeat and the poverty and the hunger amongst the Lord's people? Why? Because though that with which the Lord will not cannot ally himself it's got in between him and his people you may call it the world if you like.

Why? Because though that with which the Lord will not cannot ally himself it's got in between him and his people you may call it the world if you like we speak about the world and the church and worldliness of Christians.

Well, well, what do you mean by that? What do you mean by that? It is not always the gross thing sadly enough amongst many Christians multitudes of Christians there are the blatant worldliness and in Christian assemblies and companies what are called churches it's gross worldliness but that's not all so many methods employed ways of going about things, so much of the energy and heat brought in is just of that other kingdom, it's not the Holy Ghost.

Where does it come from? I sometimes think, and I'm going to say rather seriously, I sometimes think that Satan can energize to do what looks like the work of God. Satan is always parseeing and if he can get a false movement in the name of the Lord a false movement which is ostensibly a Christian movement but which is false and is drawing upon other resources than the Holy Spirit of God he sees quite clearly that the time will come when it will be far more difficult to touch things in that direction than it was before.

The thing will have become harder so hard as to be almost impregnable you may speak about the Lord there, oh no we've had that, we've seen how that works out, that doesn't last we're not going to have any more of that that's a state at last worse than the first well if you don't understand me and agree with that, leave it but there it is, there's a subtle way to get his kingdom in the place of the kingdom of God and he'll do it by any means the cross, the cross does represent the undoing of that kingdom and therefore the church must be a cross governed church the cross must be its foundation and its basis, not in doctrine only not in theory alone.

It may have all the doctrine it may be most accurate and sound as to the atonement and as to the cross the life, death, resurrection of the Lord Jesus, all that and it may count for nothing spiritually, in effect we can be outright fundamentalists and spiritual real spiritual life and power may be utterly absent.

It's not that, it's not that it is that the cross is there as an actuality, a reality undercutting all the kingdom and nature of Satan's kingdom. It must be there. The church will know nothing of that first power unless it is so or shall I say will only know power in so far as it is so that's the meaning of the name.

We use the name, we ought to be in our own hearts meaning the bringing in of all the potency of the cross of the Lord Jesus over a basement kingdom of Satan in its nature and in its objectivity. You know quite well that without understanding all this without having had it explained and interpreted to you when you really have come as we put it to the cross that is when you have received by faith the values of Christ's death and resurrection, you know that the very first thing that springs up in your consciousness is somehow I can't explain it but I feel nearer to God and God feels nearer to me.

Fellowship with God Through Christ's Death and Resurrection

That's the most elementary way of putting it. Isn't it. That's the language of a little child. I feel that God is nearer to me and I'm nearer to God than ever before somehow or other God and I have been brought together.

There is fellowship with God no longer enmity. There is a consciousness of union no longer separation. There is a consciousness of love no longer bitterness or hatred or independence. And it comes to this, this is my life.

And if ever I lose this I lose everything God has become in Christ everything that's the first consciousness. Isn't it. Well here you are. That's the work of the cross. That's the proof the simple elementary proof that the Lord Jesus in his cross went right for the heart of this whole thing this separation between God and man.

He went right there and fought that out. And so in him risen we are brought to and joined with God. If that sounds too simple too elementary for you wonderful advanced Christians don't brush it aside.

It's the most beautiful thing but the most costly thing. Oh what a cost. What it cost our Lord just to fight out that battle to overthrow that tremendous force of power to get in between God and man he fought out our battle.

Do you see that's the meaning of the name. That's the outworking of the name. If that is true if we are in the value of that how wonderful the name how powerful the name. It's a great victory. And do you not see that the object of the enemy all the way still his object still his object is to recover that ground.

Maintaining Union with God Through Vigilance

And he persists in trying not now to keep us away from God but to again get in between us by any means whatsoever. It's a terrible thing for one who has really known that fellowship with God to lose the consciousness of it.

It's the terror of the cross again. Isn't it terror of that moment of forsakenness casting its shadow over it is almost as though it were being said he did not he did not win that victory. It's as though all that Christ did is being nullified.

Oh what a thing it is this fellowship with God. And therefore our whole new testament is constructed for believers upon this one thing the way the way are maintained and deepened union with God only another way of putting away of life in the spirit.

It's a battle. It calls for vigilance. Remember dear friends that till the prince of this world in his own kingdom to which thank God we do not belong because we have been translated out of the authority of darkness into the kingdom of the son of his love.

He still assails us. He still assails us from without try to get in between us and the Lord. If that happens you know where it comes from. You know where it comes from. That doesn't come from the Lord.

Beware what interpretation you put upon the shadows between you and the Lord. You know where they come from. You know the remedy. You know the remedy. It's Christ and what he has done in his cross. But do you see the issue of this.

The Honor of the Father's Name

Ah the dishonor of his name. We come back to that every time. The motive, the motive. What is the motive for our vigilance for our warring. What is the motive for our watchfulness. What is the motive, the only adequate motive for dealing with everything that comes between us and the Lord.

The motive must be the honor of his name, in the fighting out of that battle in life and death, it was the name of the father, the name of the father, oh how much we have got to realize of what we know that marvelous prayer which is called his high priestly prayer as he was just going so to speak to the altar he was going to the cross.

It's the name the name, the name, and it's the name involved indeed this company he is praying, pouring himself out in his concern for the name which he has given them, I have given them thy name. I have given them thy name.

Oh keep them in thy name. The honor of the father's name is the passion of his soul. He fought the battle of that honor right through the cross. And you and I must be baptized into that same concern for the honor of his name in his people.

Not something objective and abstract but true in his people, the honor of his name. We go on later perhaps this afternoon we shall see that in some very practical way. And I feel that that's enough to challenge us and occupy us this morning.

We don't need more than that. Oh that we should see one thing when we say in the name of the Lord Jesus we are not just repeating some formal attitude some habitual way of speaking which really ought to be meaning by the cross of the Lord Jesus and all of you.

You can put it that way if you like this and that and the other by the cross of the Lord Jesus the ground upon which God intends. But that cross in all its values is embodied in the name and the name just means that and it means nothing without it.

Lord give us to see and understand the meaning of the name. And it is set upon the recovery of its dead.