Divine Declarations Concerning
Divine Declarations Concerning the Servant of the Lord
Behold my servant, whom I uphold; mine elect, in whom my soul delighteth; I have put my spirit upon him: he shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles. (Isaiah 42:1)
God Upholds His Servant
We Christians do not uphold God or the work of the Kingdom of God. God upholds us. When we commence the Christian pilgrimage we have a grip on God, or at least we think we do. But little by little God works matters around until He is gripping us.
The transition from our grip to God's grip occurs as we continually are being brought down to death because of the circumstances through which the Spirit of God leads us. At first we may be able to fight our way through to victory without too much trouble. But sooner or later the problems become too strong for us. God is gentle with us as He leads us to the realization there is nothing good in us. It requires a period of time before we learn how to "let go and let God."
The spiritual tasks that must be accomplished and the war that must be fought and won are so totally beyond our feeble powers to accomplish that we soon come to understand the necessity for the wisdom and strength of the Holy Spirit. Only the Holy Spirit working through the Word of God and the blood of the cross can enable us to make any headway in the Kingdom of God.
We have discussed previously the concept of the sovereignty of God in the plan of redemption, that is, the initiative of the Lord who predestines us according to His foreknowledge to be members of the Body of Christ. The further we go with Christ the more we are able to grasp that God is sovereign, not only in our initial acceptance of Christ but also in every part of our pilgrimage thereafter.
God desires to give us His wisdom and strength in exchange for our wisdom and strength; His grasp in exchange for our grasp; His plan in exchange for our plans; His zeal in exchange for our zeal; His judgment of people, events, and things in exchange for our judgment of people, events, and things.
We die day by day that He may live day by day. Our adamic nature must decrease so the new born-again nature, which is Christ being formed in us, may increase.
If we would be part of the Servant of the Lord, God must do the upholding. If we will follow the Holy Spirit moment by moment, performing by His wisdom and strength the simple tasks He sets before us, He will bring us to the place where our old personality is crucified with Christ and the new man, Christ, is living in us.
We do not hold up the Rock. The Rock holds us up in every aspect of our Christian life and walk.
Notice how God Almighty asserts His sovereignty when speaking of the Personality and the work of His Servant:
Thus saith God the Lord, he that created the heavens, and stretched them out; he that spread forth the earth, and that which cometh out of it; he that giveth breath unto the people upon it, and spirit to them that walk therein: I the Lord have called thee in righteousness, and will hold thine hand, and will keep thee, and give thee for a covenant of the people, for a light of the Gentiles {nations}; (Isaiah 42:5,6)
God is the LORD ! He is the One who brings into existence the Servant and who guides and empowers the Servant in every aspect of personality and actions. God is the Lord, the Lord God Almighty, the Creator of Heaven and earth.
We Christians are not to be operating at the lower levels of fleshly striving as we attempt to bring about the Kingdom of God. If we will wait on God He will lead us into His program. In God there is no strife. We are to be as Isaac, a person of peace and laughter. We laugh joyously with God.
"He that created the heavens." God always creates the heavens first. The promise to Abraham is that His Seed will be as the stars of the heaven. God is Master of the heavens and He is bringing the members of the Body of Christ up to the thrones of spiritual dominion.
The Body of Christ must gain dominion over the spiritual powers of the heavenlies before it can gain dominion over the earth. God's will must be performed in the spirit realm before it can be done in the earth. The strong man must be bound before his house can be spoiled.
The Servant of the Lord has mastery over the heavens. Whatever the Church binds on the earth is bound in the heavens.
Then comes the earth. Christ plants the heavens and then lays the foundations of the earth. The promise to Abraham is that his Seed shall be as the "sand which is upon the sea shore." God created the earth, its peoples, and its resources. The earth and its peoples belong to God, not to Satan. "The earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein" (Psalms 24:1).
The Lord God has determined that the Presence of His Christ shall fill not only the heavens (the "stars"), but also the earth (the "sand which is upon the sea shore"). Christ shall cause the will of God to be performed perfectly in the earth as well as in the heavens. The nations will learn righteousness, truth, and worship when Christ comes.
God possesses all power in the heavens and on the earth. God has given the fullness of His authority and power to Christ. Jesus is King of kings and Lord of lords, both in the heavens and on the earth.
And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power {authority} is given unto me in heaven and in earth. (Matthew 28:18)
When the Servant of the Lord, Christ - Head and Body, ministers through the Spirit of God performing the will of God, then all authority and power in Heaven and on the earth is supporting the effort.
I the Lord have called thee in righteousness, and will hold thine hand, and will keep thee, and give thee for a covenant of the people, for a light of the Gentiles; (Isaiah 42:6)
First of all, we are called in righteousness . God will not work apart from righteousness. We receive imputed (ascribed) righteousness when we first accept Christ. Righteousness is assigned to us on the basis of the shed blood of the cross of Calvary. Then, as the Holy Spirit leads us in the conquest of our fleshly nature and self-will, righteousness is wrought in us - an actual, observable righteousness of deed, word, motive, and imagination.
In the ultimate sense, all righteousness is imputed. God reserves the authority to determine who is righteous and who is not righteous. As we obey God, walking by faith in Him, He imputes righteousness to us. In the beginning our behavior is not according to God's standards. Yet, God imputes righteousness to us because we have obeyed Him. Divine righteousness was obtained for us through the fact that the Lord Jesus died on the cross in our place.
As we move ahead in our discipleship our behavior begins to approach God's standard. God still imputes righteousness to us because we are obeying Him, because we are living by faith in Him, because we are receiving the salvation He has provided through the death of His Son. But now it is an actual righteousness, as measured by both the Divine and the human standard, that has been produced in our personality by the grace of God working in us.
The mammoth error of much Christian thinking is the concept that our salvation in Christ includes only forgiveness and a righteousness imputed to us independently of and without reference to our personality and behavior. This error has destroyed the Christian churches. It is a modern expression of the ancient heresy termed antinomianism .
The truth is, Jesus did not come primarily to forgive us and to give us righteousness apart from what we are and what we do but rather to conform us to His image in personality and behavior. God's Glory is not so much in forgiving the sinner as it is in making the sinner a son.
The Servant of the Lord always is called "in righteousness." The warfare between the Kingdom of God and the kingdom of the devil is not waged in terms of power. God possesses all power and never relinquishes His almighty power. God never gives His glory to another. No creature, angelic or human, has any power whatever except that which has been assigned to him and is supervised directly by God Himself.
Rather, the battles of the Lord are fought according to righteousness, holiness, and obedience to God. Michael and his angels can cast Satan and his angels out of Heaven only as the saints overcome the accuser. The saints do not overcome the accuser by fighting in their own strength but by faith in the blood of the Lamb, by the word of their Spirit-created testimony, and by loving not their own life to the death.
Every soldier in the army of Christ is clothed in the righteous conduct of the saints (Revelation 19:8,11,14). There can be no victories for Israel when there is sin in the camp. The Old Testament narratives assure us of that.
We cannot work the works of Christ apart from righteousness: first, imputed only; and then created in us through means of the Word of God, the body and blood of Christ, and the resurrection Life of the Holy Spirit of God.
"I . . . will hold thine hand." If we take a child into a dangerous situation we do not allow him or her to hold our hand. We hold the child's hand. So it is that God lovingly but firmly shakes loose our grasp on Him and in its place substitutes His grasp on us.
"And will keep thee, and give thee for a covenant of the people, for a light of the Gentiles {nations}." The entire program is of God. We do not save the world. God calls us, holds our hand, and gives us for a covenant of the people, for a light of the nations.
The Servant of the Lord - Head and Body - is the covenant God has made with the nations of the earth. God creates His holy law, His Word, in our hearts and minds. We become the personification, the expression, of God's Word. Christ is the Word of God made flesh. We are the flesh being created the Word of God.
As we become an increasingly pure expression of the law of God the nations of the earth begin to have a light, a picture of God they can behold. If the nations respond joyfully to the expression of God's Person, ways, and will they see in us, they will be accepted of God. This is the manner in which the Servant of the Lord is becoming a "covenant of the people."
We saints are the light of the world. But it not only is what we say that is the light, it also is what we are and do. It is Christ who is the Light of the nations, and it is as Christ is created in us that we become a covenant of the people.
For two thousand years the Christian churches have been attempting to teach the world of the will of God. But what the world sees, in many instances, is the self-seeking and sin of religious people. The world is waiting to behold Christ.
Forasmuch as ye are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of God; not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart. (II Corinthians 3:3)
For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the Glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. (II Corinthians 4:6)
Notice the upholding, saving, protecting power of God directed toward Israel, toward the Servant of the Lord:
But now thus saith the Lord that created thee, O Jacob, and he that formed thee, O Israel, Fear not: for I have redeemed thee, I have called thee by thy name; thou art mine. (Isaiah 43:1)
The sovereign will expressed in the above verse reminds us of some of the statements made by Paul concerning the Divine will of God in selecting the members of the Body of Christ:
Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ before the world began {before the ages of time}, (II Timothy 1:9)
According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love: (Ephesians 1:4)
And then Peter says:
But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people {people for God's own possession}; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light; (I Peter 2:9)
Every member of the Servant of the Lord has been called, has been chosen, that he should become holy. To be holy is to be free from the uncleanness of evil spirits and to belong to God and be reserved for His own use. In its purest sense, holiness is the Presence of God.
When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee: when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle on thee. (Isaiah 43:2)
Here is the protection of the Lord. The Lord protects His Servant whom He upholds. Water and fire, in the Scripture, symbolize the judgment of God. The earth was destroyed by water in the days of Noah. Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed by fire.
God is promising Christ and each person who is part of Christ, part of the Servant of the Lord, that none of the judgments, pressures, perplexities, dangers, plagues, distresses, confusions, overwhelming catastrophes, or accidents or pitfalls that are a part of life on the earth will be able to destroy Christ or any member of Christ's Body.
A way of escape always is open to the faithful Christian no matter how severe the test or how potentially destructive the environment may become. No plague can harm us when we are abiding in Christ. The Lord delivers us from the snare of the fowler (Psalms 91:3,10).
How wonderful it is that God has provided such protection for His witnesses! The days in which we are living are filled with danger, perversity, distress, confusion, tormenting situations that cause the hearts of people to quake with fear. But the Servant of the Lord is able, through the Holy Spirit of God, to gain victory over all fear.
Love, power, courage, and a sound mind are being created in each true saint. Although he may be called on to pass through the rivers and through the flame, no lasting spiritual harm will come to him if he keeps looking to Jesus. He will profit from his tribulations and testings. He will be fed in the time of famine (Psalms 37:19) and received into the Presence of Jesus when his work is completed.
In the heart of each diligent Christian believer will be found righteousness, peace, and joy in the midst of an age becoming lawless and insane as people lust for "fun" and "self-fulfillment." The Servant of the Lord will be a giant in the earth, a strong man who rejoices to run the race of righteousness. His Head is Christ Himself.
This holy warrior is strong in the strength of the Lord's might. He is destined to inherit the heavens and the earth - all the works of God's hands. He cannot be harmed because of the protection of the Lord. Every weapon formed against him shall turn back on its inventors. Those who spread traps for him shall fall into their own traps. The Servant of the Lord is upheld by the power of the Lord God Almighty.
The twelfth chapter of the Book of Isaiah describes the member of the Body of Christ who has learned to exchange his own strength for God's strength; who has entered the spiritual fulfillment of the Old Testament feast of Tabernacles.
Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust, and not be afraid: for the Lord Jehovah is my strength and my song; he also is become my salvation. (Isaiah 12:2)
During the first part of our experience with God we come to understand that Christ is our Lord and Savior and that we must serve Him to the best of our ability. But as we press forward, the Lord Himself becomes our salvation. Christ Himself Is the Salvation. Our position changes from that of conducting our own program of redemption by our own wisdom, our own strength, our own faith, into that of trusting Christ.
This does not mean we become passive or fatalistic. But it does mean that we come to God with an ever-increasing awareness that He is in charge of our redemption. Such a change in attitude requires an enlarging of our trust that God knows what He is doing, that He is absolutely dependable and trustworthy, and that He is seeking our good. It was this concept of God that Satan challenged in the garden of Eden.
Many of us are fearful that God is not able or not willing to bring us into the image of Christ or to perform all the other good works He has promised us. As our trust increases, our fear decreases. "Perfect love casteth out fear," John informs us, and our love for God grows stronger as we draw closer to Him.
God saves us and keeps us through means of His own sovereign power and wisdom. It is difficult for us to let go of our things, our circumstances, our relationships with people even though it appears God may be asking for them. We are not certain the Lord knows precisely what He is doing, that He is interested in the details of our life, that He always is seeking our good. Perfect trust in the goodness and faithfulness of God is the mark of the mature Christian.
When we begin our Christian discipleship we commence the study of the Scriptures. There we discover many teachings and admonitions we cannot perform in our own strength. Jesus commands us to be loving and forgiving to those who harm us; to act toward other people as we would have them act toward us; to make the seeking of the Kingdom of God, the will of God, the number one priority, the chief interest, the focus of our whole life. Our adamic nature, our first personality, finds the Word of Christ exceedingly difficult and, in many instances, impossible to obey.
As we attempt to obey the Words of Jesus we soon discover we must pray constantly for the wisdom and strength to do what is pleasing to God. As we gain experience in the way of Christ there comes into our heart and mind the creation of inner righteousness, peace, and joy.
The new man, the Lord from Heaven begins to be formed in us. Little by little Christ becomes our Strength. He Himself becomes our Song. He Himself becomes our entire Salvation, our All in all.
The Christian who has come to the fullness of the stature of Christ, of the Servant of the Lord, is the one who has been created the expression of the Word, of the way, of the Person, of the will, of the Divine purpose, of God Almighty. This is a high calling. The program is not of man but of God. The same God who created the heavens and the earth is the One who creates the new man in us and then fills that new creation with Himself.
Paul was living in the rest of God, trusting in Him.
I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me. (Galatians 2:20)
Paul, after a remarkable life of Christian experience and service, still was seeking a more perfect grasp on the righteousness that can come only through faith.
And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith: (Philippians 3:9)
Paul understood and had received the assigned righteousness that comes to us on the basis of the atonement made by Christ. He had been justified by his faith in the blood of the cross. But Paul was not speaking here of being saved from wrath by an assigned, substituted righteousness. He was referring to the righteousness that comes to us as day by day we die to our adamic nature and learn to live in resurrection life, that is, as we learn to walk in dependence on God, living by God's wisdom and strength.
We know this is so by the context:
That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being conformed unto his death; (Philippians 3:10)
Philippians 3:10 assures us that Paul, when referring to "the righteousness which is of God by faith," was not speaking primarily of the righteousness assigned to him on the basis of professing belief in theological facts concerning Christ. Paul was learning to live in the crucifixion and resurrection of the Lord - to live rather than just to believe .
Previously Paul had earned righteousness by observing the numerous ordinances of the Law of Moses.
The expression "the righteous shall live by faith" is being employed today to mean if we profess a correct theological position our sins will not be held against us. This is not what the expression means. The just shall live by faith is an Old Testament declaration that indicates men ought to live by humble dependence on God and not by their own wisdom and strength.
The eleventh chapter of Hebrews was written as a definition of the just shall live by faith, and there is no suggestion in this chapter that the just shall live by faith means that if we profess a correct theological position our sins will not be held against us.
Living in the "rest" of God is not as easy as it may sound. We have to labor to enter the rest of God. The pressures of the world, the lusts of our flesh, our personal ambition and stubbornness - all seek to move us out of the peaceful abiding in Christ. In addition, we have our own ways of attempting to assist God, our own standards that must be met before we can believe that God is pleased or that the Kingdom of God is being established according to God's will.
Yet it remains true that the Christian salvation is a Divine intervention in our life, not the product of our religious efforts. Simply to abide in Christ and to trust God Almighty for our righteousness, our life, our joy, and our accomplishments is a way of life a child can understand but which the most mature saint finds quite challenging.
"Letting go and letting God" is fairly easy at times. But in other instances it can be difficult. It requires considerable experience as a saint before we are able to dwell in God's rest without being seduced into sin, without lapsing into spiritual carelessness and inactivity, or without going back and picking up some burden we had committed to God previously.
That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being conformed unto his death; (Philippians 3:10)
The saint spends his life in diligent seeking in order to begin to know Christ the Lord. There must be consistent, earnest walking in the Spirit of God, continual meditation in the Word of God, daily victory over the lusts of the flesh and eyes and the pride of life, and total obedience to the will of God before we gain some proficiency in being able to live by the power of the resurrection of Christ.
Resurrection power is available to every believer from the moment of accepting Christ as his Lord and Savior. The power of Christ assists us from the first day of our Christian pilgrimage. But there is a gradual increase of resurrection life in us as we make our way toward the fullness of Christ.
To attain the fullness of resurrection life is to attain perfect redemption. To always think, speak, and act in the power and wisdom of eternal resurrection life is to abide in the land of promise.
John 14:23 and 17:21-23 teach us of the coming to abide in us of the Father and the Son. These verses reveal to us the perfect oneness, the complete reconciliation to God, that is to be ours through the Lord Jesus Christ. There is to be nothing whatever in us that is not in Christ, of Christ, and through Christ.
As we walk in stern, joyful obedience to the Lord Jesus, through the wisdom and power given to us by the Holy Spirit, we find that the Lord is making us aware of our total dependence on Himself. Sometimes trouble and afflictions are sent to us and these may call to our attention the areas of our life that have not as yet been brought wholly into oneness with God through Christ.
We always must be pressing on to the fullness of life in the Spirit of God. If it is our intention to abide in Christ, and Christ in us, we must learn to think, speak, and act in the Spirit of God.
If the Spirit of God uncovers sin in our life, that particular sin must be confessed and then resisted in the Lord. If the Spirit of God leads us into difficult situations in which we are required to do things unpleasant to us, our prayers not being answered for a season, then we must ask the Spirit to give to us the body and blood of Christ in order that we may possess sufficient virtue to overcome the present evil with the good of Christ.
It is time now for the saints to wash their robes in the blood of the Lamb and to progress to a union with the Lord Jesus so perfect and complete it may be referred to truly as "the marriage of the Lamb."
Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him. (John 14:23)
God will not be content with His work of redemption until He has brought His elect, and finally every member of the nations of the saved, into perfect oneness with Himself. God desires to be our Salvation, our Song, our Wisdom, our Health, our Life.
And when all things shall be subdued unto him, then shall the Son also himself be subject unto him that put all things under him, that God may be all in all. (I Corinthians 15:28)
When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory. (Colossians 3:4)
"Christ, who is our life"! God will be upholding us fully when He Himself is dwelling in us and is our eternal Life. His Holy Spirit is bringing us to the place where we shall be able to accept the coming to rest in us of the Father and the Son. Then God Himself will be our Life.
The member of the Body of Christ does not live and walk in his own strength. Little by little he is led to exchange his wisdom and strength for the Divine wisdom and strength of the Lord Jesus. It is the Holy Spirit who directs the process of exchange. The Spirit of God brings us down into death in order that He may raise us in His eternal strength.
This exchange goes on each day if we are walking in obedience to the Spirit of God. Death, and life! Death, and life! Death and life until we are filled with resurrection life.
Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body. For we which live are alway delivered unto death for Jesus' sake, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh. (II Corinthians 4:10,11)