OVERCOMING
John 16: 33; Revelation 2:7,17; 3:21
These scriptures speak of overcoming. One who overcomes, I would say, is someone who in the presence of general departure would seek to maintain God’s thoughts. We have a model in the Lord Jesus; He is the great example of one who has overcome. Every other man has been overcome, but the Lord Jesus has never been overcome, He has always overcome! The Lord Jesus says here; “In the world ye have tribulation; but be of good courage: I have overcome the world”. He says that triumphantly, it is to encourage us. The world has been overcome by the Lord Jesus, the devil has been overcome by the Lord Jesus. The enemy’s power is limited, but the power of the Lord Jesus is unlimited, for He is there on high to support us in the feature of overcoming. While the Lord was here, the enemy sought to turn Him aside from the path of God’s will at every opportunity, but He upheld everything that was right in God’s sight. He said “I have glorified thee on the earth, I have completed the work which thou gavest me that I should do it”, John 17:4. He upheld what God is in His nature and His attributes. The Lord Jesus upheld every moral feature of God. In saying this, the Lord Jesus knows the grace which we will need to overcome, because He has been here Himself. Paul says to Timothy “be strong in the grace which is in Christ Jesus”, 2 Tim.2:1. The grace is there, but to draw on that grace we need to be near the Lord Jesus. What a terrible world this is, that it could not tolerate the Son of God and yet He overcame while here in the face of such terrible opposition. He overcame in the temptations; He overcame in Gethsemane, Satan seeking if at all possible to divert the Lord Jesus from going the full way in relation to God’s will. If he had been successful, God’s purpose for blessing could not have been brought to pass.
In the last scripture we read in Revelation, it is the only specific thing that the Lord mentions about His own pathway here. He speaks of His own pathway here, “as I also have overcome”. He says to those who overcome at Laodicea that He has overcome; that was a definite feature of the Lord in His pathway here. He puts it in a very gracious way. He speaks of the one who overcomes first; “He that overcomes ... as I also have overcome”. The result of the Lord’s overcoming has been this great dispensation in which we have part. The Father so appreciated the Lord as the One who overcomes, as it says here, that He has put the Lord in this place; “sat down with my Father in his throne”. So this dispensation of grace has begun and continues until now because the Lord Jesus has overcome. He has gone into death, broken that power, taken upon Himself the judgment of God against sin and sins. He said in Gethsemane “not my will, but thine be done”, Luke 22:42. Therefore we have this dispensation of blessing for men, the dispensation in which God can work out His great thoughts in men.
The Lord Jesus understands more than anyone what is involved in being one who overcomes. He would seek to encourage in any measure at all in which we are able to overcome. I realise that I am in the presence of those who know more about this than I do. Severe testing in many ways, in circumstances, in health and so on; that all calls for overcoming. What is impressive in the Lord addressing the one who overcomes in each of the addresses to the assemblies is the special link between the Lord and the one who overcomes. All through them, it is what the Lord does personally towards such a one. He says “I will give to him to eat”; it is not that you will do it yourself, but “I will give to him to eat of the tree of life which is in the paradise of God”. We know that at Ephesus there was the beginning of decline, some measure of loss of true living affection for Christ. So the Lord gives to the one who overcomes to feed on Him, and as feeding on this Person we then appreciate Him more, and there is with the individual who overcomes the appreciation therefore of what was generally departed from. I think it is as we appreciate Christ that we then appreciate Him as Head. I think that vital touch was lost with Ephesus. So it is the tree of life that is fed on; it is in its proper setting now. In Revelation 22, there is “the tree of life, producing twelve fruits, in each month yielding its fruit” (v.2). When the Lord Jesus was here, every different circumstance He was placed in bore fruit to God; we sometimes sing of “Varied fruits” (Hymn 50). Whatever circumstance the Lord Jesus was in, He was pleasing to God in it. As a babe He trusted in God; as a boy He said “did ye not know that I ought to be occupied in my Father’s business?”, Luke 2:49. He was content with God’s ordering for Him in the ordinary circumstances of life. That was all fruit for God. God had pleasure in that blessed Man here. As we feed on Christ in that way, we come to appreciate Him more, and we give Him His proper place in our affections.
In Colossians, “not holding fast the head” (Col.2:19) is presented negatively but the intention is that we do hold fast the head. The Father publicly declared His delight in His beloved Son at the age of thirty (Matt.3:17). The Lord will sustain those who overcome in this way as we feed on Him. It is as in life that we overcome. A dead fish goes with the stream, a living fish goes against the stream, so the believer by the Spirit can draw on the life that is in Christ Jesus. It is a wonderful thing that the Lord Jesus met all our liabilities, all that stood against us. He was put out of sight in burial vicariously. That deals with all the negatives, but He died that we might live. It is a wonderful thing that we partake of the life of the Man who is in heaven.
There are moral exercises that are gone through in the formation of one who overcomes. We all have some measure of overcoming to do, young and old. As soon as you become a believer in the Lord Jesus, you have to overcome because there is a change in you and you are in the world from which He was cast out. Young people at school, at college, at work – you have to know what it is to overcome, to confess Jesus as Lord, and know the wonderful power that comes into your soul as you do that, because the Lord is greater than man. In our individual exercises, there is what we have to overcome in ourselves, but we have the power of the Holy Spirit to help us to judge the flesh. That all goes into the moral fibre of the believer in forming the one who overcomes. All through the dispensations, what is of God has been upheld by those who overcome. We are now near the end of the greatest of all dispensations, and the Lord would encourage us to be of good courage.
So in the scripture we read in Revelation 2 verse 17, there was some deterioration, and some of the features of the world were coming in, and the Lord says, “To him that overcomes, to him will I give of the hidden manna; and I will give to him a white stone, and on the stone a new name written, which no one knows but he that receives it”. It is a personal link between Christ and the one who overcomes; it is very attractive! It is the Lord Jesus giving the hidden manna to persons who overcome. What a wonder it is that a divine Person was prepared to come into manhood so that He might be food for us in the ordinary circumstances of life. He came in for many other reasons, but that was one of them. The Lord Jesus was content when He was here; it says prophetically “The lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places”, Ps.16:6. The wonder of it is that He who was in His person God came into such lowly circumstances and was prepared to be a carpenter! He was subject to His parents (Luke 2:51) so that we might be sustained in our pathways here by feeding on Him. So it says here “I will give to him a white stone, and on the stone a new name written, which no one knows but he that receives it”. It is the Lord’s appreciation expressed in a secret way as we are those who overcome here. The Father appreciated the Lord Jesus as one who overcame while here and the Lord Jesus appreciates those that in some measure seek to overcome here. It is that secret sense of the Lord’s approving gaze. The Lord in these promises would seek to encourage us to continue on the line of overcoming.
In chapter 3 He says “He that overcomes, to him will I give to sit with me in my throne”. He is with His Father in His throne, and there is a day coming when those who overcome will be with the Lord in His own throne. What a blessed thing that will be! It might not be the greatest of the promises. I think there is a greater promise made to the one who overcomes in Philadelphia; it is what the Lord does, “him will I make a pillar in the temple of my God ... and I will write upon him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem, which comes down out of heaven, from my God, and my new name”, Rev.3:12. There was a local assembly called Philadelphia. We cannot point to that now, but what we can point to is the Laodicean public condition of which we are part, and what the Lord is looking for in Laodicea is what is real. The way in which there will be anything found of a Philadelphian state is that there will be those who overcome in Laodicea. That is the public state of the church and we are part of that. The Lord is looking for those who overcome in Laodicea. These persons will hold fast what they have!
You might say, I do not have much, but what you do have, hold fast! You have the Lord Jesus in your affections; hold fast to Him. We have been very privileged to have had the truth unfolded in such a full way. Through the whole dispensation, the Holy Spirit has been here maintaining something for God’s pleasure, and in what we speak of as the recovery, divine Persons have operated in a remarkable way to unfold the truth so gloriously. So the Lord says “hold fast what thou hast, that no one take thy crown” (v.11). You hold fast what you love! Much could be said, but “hold fast what thou hast, that no one take thy crown” is the precious truth as to Christ and His assembly, and the light and experience of serving God in the assembly. I think that is touched on in what I read of in the promise to the one who overcomes in Philadelphia. What a blessed thing it is to experience the leadership of Christ in His love for His God and Father.
May we be encouraged to continue, and to be among those who overcome here in the short time that is left. There is every resource in divine Persons available to us. The Lord will give His own sense of approval and support. The two or three that He speaks of (Matt.18:20), as He foresaw what would happen, are two or three who overcome. He gives us not exactly a promise, but the consequence of gathering to His name. May we be cheered and encouraged to go on and prove the blessing of the promises that the Lord gives to the one who overcomes, and may He bless the word.
Address at Bad Endbach, Germany
1 October 2016
G.B. Grant