by T. Austin-Sparks
Chapter 4 - The Testing of The Fire
We return again to our
basic passage of Scripture:
"I came to cast fire upon the earth: and would that it were
already kindled! But I have a baptism to be baptized with; and
how am I straitened till it be accomplished! Think ye that I am
come to give peace in the earth? I tell you, Nay; but rather
division: for there shall be from henceforth five in one house
divided three against two, and two against three. They shall be
divided, father against son, and son against father; mother
against daughter, and daughter against her mother; mother in law
against her daughter in law, and daughter in law against her
mother in law" (Luke
12:49-53).
I confess that is one of our Lord's utterances that I least like,
and that I find myself most unhappy to speak about. If anyone else
but He had said it, perhaps we should have turned away. I am quite
sure that if that had originated with myself, or with any of my
brethren, it would have caused very great offence. But He said it.
And it seems to me to be all of a piece with the beginning of that
statement.
Perhaps you have noticed that this marks a very abrupt change in
the whole course of the narrative. Up to the end of verse 48 you
seem to have been on one thing: and then quite abruptly there is
this change. I can only think that there was a pause on His part.
He said that; and then He was quiet for a moment, and His mind
ranged the future - the future of His own influence and effect
upon the world. And then He began this part of His utterances, in
a quite different, strange realm.
"I came to cast fire upon the earth...". 'That is why I came; that
sums up the meaning of My coming. Why did I come? For what did I
come? What is to be the outcome and the issue? I came to cast fire
upon the earth... and how am I pent up, straitened, limited! What
do I want? What is it that is necessary? I have a baptism to be
baptized with, and I would that it were over! I wish that were
accomplished and then I should be free of this straitness and this
limitation. The purpose for which I have come could be realized.
Oh, that it were already accomplished - this baptism of the
Passion, of the Cross!' So He thinks and so He speaks. I have said
that this paragraph, from verse 49 to verse 53, seems to be all of
a piece. We see here the effect of the fire, and it is very
terrible. It introduces the element of judgment. There is no need
to argue with anyone who knows anything about the Bible that fire
in the Bible is so often the symbol of judgment - as here.
JUDGMENT
But we need to
comprehend the meaning of that word 'judgment'. We so often limit
it to one of its aspects, especially the final one. We speak of
'bringing to judgment' - meaning by that, to punishment - the
final effect of judgment. But judgment in the Bible is a more
comprehensive word than that. It is, to begin with - and this can
be clearly seen in terms of fire, or fire in terms of judgment - a
trying of things, a putting them to the test. Now Scriptures will
leap to your mind which bear that out. Fire tests, the fire tries,
the fire finds things out, does it not? That is the first effect
of fire. And that is the first meaning of judgment: to put
everything to the test, to try it.
Having done that, it discriminates: that is, it divides; it shows
to which category things belong, and it puts them there. Fire has
that effect. It says: That is of that kind, and it belongs to that
kind; it is of that category, or that realm, or that kingdom: this
belongs to another. Fire finds out: it discriminates and it
divides.
And then it relegates finally. It says: that has been found to
belong to a certain realm; it has been designated, it has been
discriminated; it belongs there, we put it there. That is the
final effect of the fire.
That is the content of the word 'judgment'. We need always to keep
that full meaning in mind when we use the word. We will not dwell
upon its application more fully at the moment.
We are told in the Word of God that this judgment - which would
come, mark you, with the coming of the Holy Spirit - the effect of
Christ's release through the Cross, in the coming of the Holy
Spirit was to cast fire. In other words, the effect of Christ's
release would be the coming of the Spirit as the Spirit of fire;
and as the Spirit of fire His presence would always be in terms of
judgments in this threefold sense of the word. The Holy Spirit's
presence is like this and it has this effect. Let us now look into
the Word to see the realm in which that operates.
HUMAN RELATIONSHIPS
Here in chapter 12 of
Luke's Gospel we have it operating in one realm. We read those
terrible words: "Think ye that I am come to give peace in the
earth? I tell you, Nay, but rather division." The word in the old
Authorized Version is "a sword". Division! It sounds terrible, and
we are on very delicate ground, we have to be very careful. But He
goes on to explain what He means by division: "There shall be from
henceforth five in one household divided, three against two, and
two against three." And then He gives examples of division in the
family. Here the fire is at work in the realm of human
relationships.
Now let me say here at once, in parenthesis, and with considerable
emphasis, that this has nothing to do with outward divisions
within the Church, divisions amongst those who are in Christ. That
is not what the Lord is speaking about or pointing to. He is
thinking in a totally different realm, in the spiritual realm.
This division takes place entirely upon a spiritual basis. The
divisions as we have them in the first letter to the Corinthians
are because of other things amongst believers that are not
spiritual, but this is a spiritual division, essentially and
basically.
Perhaps the classic illustration or example of this is the one
that we have in the early part of the Old Testament, in the case
of the Levites. You will call to mind how, when they had reached
the wilderness, Moses was called up into the Mount. He was there
so long that the people came - I think deliberately placed by God
- under a very severe test, as to where their hearts really were:
whether they were after their own interests or after God's, their
own ends or His; whether their hearts were in this matter with the
Lord, or whether their hearts were set upon their own
gratification and pleasure. They were put to the severe test of
that probationary period of the forty days and forty nights in
which Moses was in the Mount, and they broke down under the test.
When Moses came down, hearing the noise in the camp, you remember
what had happened - the calf and the dancing. "These be thy gods,
O Israel, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt."
Moses stood in the gate of the camp, and cried: 'Who is on the
Lord's side?' "Whoso is on the Lord's side, let him come unto me."
'And all the sons of Levi went over to him. And he said, Gird
every man his sword upon his side, and go in and out and slay
every man his brother, every man his friend.' The sword, the fiery
sword, has come into the realm of human relationships. It is
finding out where the heart is, testing the heart; it is
discriminating between motives, "the thoughts and intents of the
heart" (Hebrews 4:12); and it is putting these people in the
category to which they belong. Here are the Levites, who have been
put to the test and have come through triumphantly, and for
evermore they stand as representing the full, pure thought of God
concerning His people. The point is that this work of judgment, of
the fire, of the sword, came into the realm of human
relationships, to find out the motives of the heart.
You can take that into Luke 12. That is just what it means. The
divisions, even within the family, the home, the household, will
be made by the Holy Spirit on this matter of the relationship of
the heart. We can see, as we read the story of Israel in the
wilderness, that the heart of that nation, that generation, as the
Psalmist said, "was not stedfast with God" (Psalm 78:8b). In their
heart they lusted after Egypt - the fleshpots of Egypt. Their
heart was back there, even while they were in the wilderness; and
that generation never entered the Land, because its heart was not
with the Lord. It is a matter of inward division, a division in
the heart.
Now the Holy Spirit is always a divider in that way; it is a work
of the Holy Spirit to do that. In a sense - not in the wrong
sense, and be careful how you take me up - in a sense the Holy
Spirit is the cause of divisions. There is a realm in which He is
the divider.
Let us take our Bible and go right back to the beginning. The
Spirit of God brooded upon the chaos, the darkness, the void. What
was the first thing done by and through the Holy Spirit? Dividing
between things: a process of division between light and darkness.
"And God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the
light Day, and the darkness Night" (Genesis 1:4-5). And then God
divided between the heaven and the earth. He divided the waters
which were under the firmament from the waters which were above
the firmament" (1:7). They had got too near; one was right down on
top of the other, so that you could not discern or discriminate
between the clouds of the heavens and the waters upon the earth.
He put the firmament - an expanse, a space - between: and He
called it Heaven. In the same way He separated the dry land from
the waters, and He "called the dry land earth; and... the waters
called He seas" (1:10). And He "saw that it was good."
Now there are Old Testament things which have, as we know, a New
Testament meaning. These are found in their counterpart in the new
creation. And when you come to the book of the Acts, the book of
the Holy Spirit at work in relation to the new creation, you find
all the way through that divisions are taking place as a result of
the Holy Spirit's activity. Indeed, you may say that that is the
characteristic of the Spirit's work right through the New
Testament: a dividing between light and darkness; a judging and a
pronouncing. 'That is darkness - that is one realm, and that is
light - that is another realm; and these two can never, in the
right and proper way, obtain together, they cannot co-exist. They
are separated and belong to two entirely different categories.'
The Spirit of God has done that.
Interpret that spiritually, and you see what it means. What a
tremendous amount there is bound up with that in spiritual life!
It works out in this way, that anyone - and this is the test - who
really has the Spirit is very sensitive to light and very
sensitive to darkness. They know quite well about the big division
that God has made; and, when they touch anything that belongs to
the darkness realm, they feel the darkness in their own spirit,
they know they have touched darkness, they know they have come
into another realm. That is a work of the Spirit, and a very
important work indeed.
On the other hand, anyone who has the Spirit will be equally
sensitive to light. When there is true light - we will define that
in a moment - the spiritual man or woman at once leaps to it. Why?
Because this kind of light is not cold light: it is the light of
fire - it is living light, that has energy in it. You can have
light, but it is cold. You can have imitation fire, but it is cold
- like those things that you switch on, with the imitation of
glowing coal, but it does not make any difference, other than
psychologically! You see the thing, and perhaps you imagine
something, but really it is all an illusion. And you can have that
kind of light, but it is imitation, it is artificial, it is false.
You can switch it on and equally quickly switch it off. But that
is not the light of fire, which is energetic. And the light of the
Spirit, the light of God, the light of Christ, is always living,
energetic light. When you and I who have the Spirit come into
touch with light, it is not that we become mentally and
intellectually interested, fascinated, charmed or captivated. It
is that something within us leaps up and responds, because we have
met energy.
These are marks of the Spirit, judging which is which and what is
what, what belongs to this realm and what belongs to that; and
these things are set apart: so that it is something quite abnormal
if darkness comes into the day or light into the night. It is not
the ordinary course of things at all. Do you see the point? You
can have those differences of kingdom or realm within your own
family, your own household, and there can be no fellowship at all
because there is the division which is made by the Holy Spirit
Himself. Many can confirm and testify to this from their own
experience, and some are suffering because of it. But the point is
that is how it will be if the Holy Spirit comes in, and the Lord
Jesus was faithful and honest enough to let it be known that that
is how it would be. You cannot avoid it, you cannot get over it,
you cannot bridge it. It is painful, but it is a mark that the
Spirit has done something. Would that we, as the Lord's people,
might be more and more sensitive to those different realms which
are put apart by the Spirit of God! It is a mark of growth in the
light of the Spirit to become more and more sensitive to what
belongs here and what belongs there.
You may remember that on two different occasions Paul used that
phrase: "the things which differ" (Romans 2:18; Philippians 1:10);
and he said it to believers. He would have them know, as
Christians, the things that differ. That was the true kind of
division that ought to have existed at Corinth. The other was a
false and a wrong division; but this was where things had got
mixed up. Day and night had been all mixed up together; things
which belonged to the night were present among the "sons of the
day" (I Thessalonians 5:5), and they were not sensitive to them.
And so the first letter to the Corinthians has so much about the
Holy Spirit - the real effect and work of the Holy Spirit. We must
recognize that the life of the Spirit is a life of spiritual
dividing; the course of the Spirit-governed life is that of
discerning, being sensitive to the things that differ.
CHRISTIAN WORK
The next
application of this is to the whole matter of Christian
work. Paul speaks about this in his first letter to the
Corinthians, chapter 3.
"According to the grace of God which was given unto
me, as a wise masterbuilder I laid a foundation; and
another buildeth thereon. But let each man take heed how
he buildeth thereon. For other foundation can no man lay
than that which is laid which is Jesus Christ. But if any
man buildeth on the foundation gold, silver, costly
stones, wood, hay, stubble; each man's work shall be made
manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it is
revealed in fire; and the fire itself shall prove each
man's work of what sort it is. If any man's work shall
abide which he built thereon, he shall receive a reward.
If any man's work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss:
but he himself shall be saved; yet so as through
fire" (I Corinthians 3:10-15).
And we place alongside of that a passage from the letter
to the Hebrews:
"Whose voice then shook the earth: but now he hath
promised, saying. Yet once more will I make to tremble
not the earth only, but also the heaven. And this word,
Yet once more, signifieth the removing of those things
that are shaken, as of things that have been made, that
those things which are not shaken may remain. Wherefore,
receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken..."
(Hebrews 12:26-28).
Here we come into the realm of values in life - in life's
work; and the discrimination is brought in by the fire.
The fire tries "of what sort it is". And
remember, this is addressed to Christians. It is not
addressed to those who are doing their work, following
their profession, as people of the world. This is
addressed to Christians, and it is speaking about Christian
work: Christ as the foundation, and the work that you do
on that foundation. Paul is saying about Christian work
that there is one realm which will abide the fire, and
there is another realm - in Christian work - which will
go up in smoke: it will be proved that all that was for
nothing: the worker will just get into heaven, and that
is all! Saved - yes - "so as through fire".
Here is a division which the Holy Spirit makes in the
realm of Christian work. If we want to sum it all up,
really get to the heart of it, it just amounts to this:
Only that which is done by and through the Holy Spirit
Himself will remain, will abide the test, will be
"found unto praise and glory and honour at the
revelation of Jesus Christ" (I Peter 1:7). There can
be a tremendous amount of activity and energy, of work
and works, engaged in by Christians in relation to
Christ, at least in intention, which comes into this
category of being consigned to the fire, disappearing in
the flames, and leaving the worker at the end with
nothing for all his toil.
This is what was happening in the book of the Acts. Look
through this book and see the discrimination that is
being made. Yes, a discrimination is truly being made.
Oh, how those Judaizers laboured! How they travelled and
compassed sea and land! It must have cost them quite a
lot to make those long journeys. Their movements were far
and wide. You are forced to conclude, not only that they
were men who meant business, but that, so far as they
understood themselves and their position, they were what
we would call sincere men. I do not see very much
difference between these Judaizers who pursued Paul
wherever he went and gave their very lives to this sort
of thing, and Saul of Tarsus as he was. It is just what
he was doing; he was one of them.
"I verily thought..." - 'I truly thought'; if
you like, 'I honestly thought' - "with myself, that
I ought to do many things contrary to the name of Jesus
of Nazareth" (Acts 26:9). That is the utterance of
an honest man, of a sincere man. 'I verily thought that I
ought... I considered this thing: this was no mere
impulse, this was no mere fanaticism. I thought' - Paul
was a man who thought - 'I thought that I ought... It was
a matter of conscientious conviction with me that this
was what I ought to do, that it was the right thing to
do, that I was called upon to do it. It was a matter of
conscience with me. I verily thought within myself that I
ought...'
Yes, but how possible it is to be as utterly sincere as
that and as utterly mistaken! The Judaizers were like
that. But their work did not last. Here is the work of
the Spirit going on: and it has gone on, and it is still
going on. It has stood all the testing and all the trying
out, and it survives the fire - the fire of judgment, the
fire of testing. It has proved itself to be the work of
the Spirit. It shows the supreme importance, as the key
to the whole of this thing - not of being sincere, not of
being enthusiastic, not of acting on the basis of
conscientious conviction - but of being governed by the
Holy Spirit. That is the important thing! It is only that
that lasts.
This all comes into the realm of Christian work. Perhaps
you may have felt a little catch just now about the
Judaizers: but you have got to concede them quite a lot,
you know. These Judaizers were not anti-Christian. What
they really wanted was Jewish Christianity - a
Christianity with a Jewish complex. They are prepared to
have Christianity, if only Christianity will conform to
the Jewish order, to the Jewish pattern. I am not going
to argue that out now, but I could bring forward much
evidence to show that that is so. Paul shows by his
letter to the Galatians that that is not the work of the
Spirit. It is something quite different.
CHRISTIAN TESTIMONY
The next
thought here takes us into the realm of Christian
testimony: the fire at work in the realm of Christian
testimony. We turn to a very well-known passage:
"But thanks be unto God, which always leadeth us in
triumph in Christ, and maketh manifest through us
the savour of his knowledge in every place. For we are a
sweet savour of Christ unto God, in them that are being
saved, and in them that are perishing; to the one a
savour from death unto death; to the other a savour from
life unto life" (II Corinthians 2:14-16).
There is the dividing effect of the fire. You know the
picture, the background. Paul is thinking in terms of the
Roman procession, the triumphant General leading his
prisoners in his train, holding celebrations of his
victory from place to place. At every such place the
altar was erected, the fire was lit, the flame leapt up,
and the incense filled the air, and that had a double
effect. There were some who were in the way of perishing,
and that was the place where they would perish; they will
be sacrificed there. There are others who are not in the
way of perishing: they will pass that fire and go on;
they will be saved. The background, you see, is very
vivid. The fire is discriminating and determining here.
But Paul says that this is the dual effect of the Holy
Spirit in our life and ministry, as we go from place to
place. Something happens everywhere and every time. One
or both of two things happens in every place. On the one
hand, those who refuse the light, who persist in fighting
against the victorious Lord, who resist the Holy Ghost,
are brought to condemnation: they are put into the
category to which they belong - condemned. On the other
hand, those who believe, those who accept are, by the
same Holy Spirit, brought into liberty. They pass the
testing fire and go on in life. "To the one a savour
from death unto death; to the other a savour from life
unto life."
Now the point is this: Paul is saying that this is the
effect of the Holy Spirit in our ministry and in our
testimony. In other words, the Holy Spirit never leaves
things as they were. The presence of the Holy Spirit
always brings about some kind of a crisis and verdict. If
the Holy Spirit is present, speaking, we cannot be the
same afterward as before. Some thing has happened. We are
either more hardened or more softened; we are either more
condemned or more saved. In the presence of the Holy
Spirit something happens; the fire does this work of
judging.
This is what the Lord Jesus meant when He spoke of
'casting fire upon the earth'. What will the fire do?
Well, it will make this division, it will bring this
judgment; it will determine things and people and their
destiny. We know how true that is in history. That is the
effect of the Holy Spirit. But what I want to underline
in that particular connection is this: If you and I are
really men and women who are governed by the Spirit and
filled with the Spirit, the effect of our presence and
our passing this way will be to leave things otherwise
than they were before. There will be eternal verdicts
reached by our having gone this way. That is, of course,
the object of ministry. 'Thanks be unto God who leads me
on from place to place to celebrate His victory.' The
effect is either the one thing or the other; things are
not afterward as they were before. Holy Spirit ministry
must be like that: it must produce something, it must
effect something, it must make a difference. And in fact
it does! It does that!
THE FIRE DISCRIMINATING
The fire is
cast upon the earth, and, as we go through this book of
the Acts, we can see all these things happening: they are
happening all the time. The fire is doing it: the fire is
finding out, is testing, is discriminating, is
relegating. The end of the story is that you have got two
realms set apart, and shown for what they are and what
they belong to.
There is very much more, of course, that could be said on
this matter of spiritual discrimination; the things that
belong to the different categories, that essential
spiritual difference. But I think we can sum everything
up by saying this: that if we are really governed by the
Holy Spirit, we shall all belong to one category. That is
the point. There will not be so many different
categories, or realms, in which we live: there will not
be two - there will only be one. The Holy Spirit seeks to
secure one category of people, and that is a people
wholly governed and led by Himself. And if you have to
say: 'I fundamentally disagree with you' on anything,
then one of us is not in the Spirit. It is up to us to
find out where the wrong is, because the Holy Spirit is
not fundamentally of two different minds. He never can be
that. To be really in the Spirit means, I repeat, to be
of one category, of one kind.
And so the Apostle wrote so much to these churches about
this oneness of mind, of heart, of spirit, this 'all
speaking the one thing' (I Corinthians 1:10). He said it
again, he asked for it again, he was pleading for it (cf.
Philippians 1:27, 4:2); therefore it is possible. The
solution to all those problems and difficulties is life
in the Spirit. And that, of course is based on the Cross,
where we find an infinite capacity for letting go to the
Lord. If we forget all the rest, let us remember that.
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