Editor's Letters

by T. Austin-Sparks

July-August 1943

Beloved of God,

Space permits of only a few lines. The question which is occupying the minds of many of the Lord's people in these times is, "What is the object which God has in view particularly?" and therefore "What is the message for the hour?" While we will not claim to possess any special knowledge in this matter, with some conviction we would present the following for serious consideration.

(1) God's object in this dispensation has never changed, and is the same as ever.

(2) From time to time His emphasis has rested more particularly upon different phases of that object, and He has thus sought to recover its fulness.

(3) At the end of the dispensation there will be a Divine concentration upon the whole object, and less upon mere aspects of it.

(4) The inclusive object is His Son and "the One New Man": Christ as Head and the "called out company" as "Body" = one corporate man: organic, living, related, interrelated, interdependent, and spiritually authoritative under the One anointing - Head and members.

(5) To this all "things" must give place, whether they be teachings, traditions, institutions, missions, organisations, etc. The Lord will not be interested in anything only in so far as it directly and immediately ministers to His sole and utter purpose.

God is after a Man, a Race-Man, a Corporal Man; "conformed to the image of His Son"; to "have dominion"; and this demands that - as not since the beginning - Christ should come into His place as Lord and Head. The great 'movement' at the end should be a "Christ Movement"! Everything in the world points to this necessity.

The Lord give us a new apprehension of the greatness of Christ!

Yours in His fellowship,
T. Austin-Sparks