A HEAVENLY MAN
A HEAVENLY MAN
There can be neither a correct desire as to what I should enjoy, nor a true standard by which to judge myself, unless I know, in terms at least, the calling of God. When, after the flood, man, set afresh on favourable terms on the earth, disclosed his independence of God in the building of Babel, God for the first time called out Abram from his country and kindred and father’s house, to come into the place that He would show him. This in figure set forth that the earth, as such, was not the place for God’s people. Abram went forth, not knowing whither he went. Faith was the great light which directed and marked his way. It rests on the word of God and not on anything that occurs within our senses here. Into the land of Canaan they came. Canaan then is the typical place of a heavenly man. Abraham sets forth in his sojourn in Canaan the course of the heavenly man - to the eye of nature he has no inheritance there, the right by possession only to a burying-place; while Caleb, and those led on by Joshua, typify the saints sealed by the Holy Spirit of promise, which is the earnest of the inheritance. And thus, while to the eye of nature there is nothing but a burying-place, there is to one walking in the Spirit of God the joys and associations of heaven, though he is still journeying on to it, and all the while encountering unremitting opposition from the inhabitants of the land. Israel was called to the high privilege of possessing the land - typically, to be heavenly men on earth, maintained there by God, which is the principle and power of a heavenly man. From the crossing of Jordan to the [p. 247] death of Samuel, the children of Israel enjoyed the land only through the power of God. The unseen power by which the walls of Jericho fell down was the same power which delivered them out of the hands of the Philistines in answer to Samuel’s prayer. Whatever the nature and extent of their failure, there was ever one source of help only, whether in the bright days at the beginning, or in the prayerful days at the close. Samuel, though weakness and failure marked the whole company, had as distinct and assured a sense of the power of God as Joshua had in his day; and this is the only succour and support of a heavenly man.
Though there were shadows and partial types of a heavenly man, no one was fully or entirely so until Christ came; He could say, “No man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven”, John 3: 13. It is of immense interest and value to us that we have had a perfect heavenly Man on the earth, that we are not trusting to mere partial shadows or imperfect types or precepts for the standard of what he really is, but we see it in perfection in the Lord Jesus Christ. He was perfectly and entirely dependent on and led by the word of God while on earth, doing His will here, as it is done in heaven. The more I look at Him and study His walk, the more I see that this great purpose is an accomplished fact. Now I learn that not only has He saved me through His death from my ruin and judgment, but that I also receive of His life, and that this is the ‘heavenly thing’ . “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life”. It is simple and conclusive, when we believe in the fulness of grace which has reached us. We are not only saved from the misery of our own state, but we receive life in Him who has saved us. He is our life; the life of the One who comes down from heaven is ours.
[p. 248] The first thing, then, that constitutes a heavenly man is that he has eternal life. This is the life “more abundantly”. The Lord sets forth in John 10 how He takes His sheep out of the Jewish fold. He is the good Shepherd, who gives His life for the sheep, because they were under the judgment of death; but besides this, He adds, “I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish”. Now eternal life leads us into an entirely new fellowship. “Our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ”. “This is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent”. This is an entirely new capacity; there are three witnesses to establish it, the spirit and the water and the blood. “And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son”. We are also His brethren, as He said to Mary Magdalene, “Go to my brethren”, etc. Now is fulfilled the word in John 12: 24, “Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit”. The Lord can now call us brethren, and He announces where He will be, when He says, “I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God”. It is in connection with this that the Lord breathes on His disciples. It is a life entirely outside and apart from the scene of man’s ruin, and in the scene where righteousness and peace kiss each other. Hence, when the Holy Spirit comes down from heaven, He unites us with Christ our Saviour, who is in heaven; so that we not only know where He, our Life, is in scenes of boundless light and glory, and we united to Him there; but the heaven is opened to Stephen in Acts 7, as developing the true position and association of the believer now. And he is, as I may say, in the power of Christ’s life here, as one with Him, so that he enters into the victory of Christ for him with regard to each and every thing against him, as detailed in Psalm 22, from sin down to the horns of the unicorn. So truly is he a heavenly man that he can persevere in his service, even [p. 249] while dying to all here. Now a truly heavenly man is really in the grace of Stephen at this moment. All hopes connected with earth have disappeared; he is becoming dead to them, but concurrently assured of his association with Christ in heaven.
Next, as we see in the apostle Paul, a heavenly man learns that, while he can entirely and happily die out of all here with the cheerful anticipation of heaven, yet he is to continue here, seeking “those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God”. He is a citizen of heaven, while journeying here, and waiting for the coming of the Lord, when the time of His rejection will be over. Stephen dies a heavenly man; he has the joys and testimony of one. Paul lives a heavenly man; and as his testimony is prolonged, there are greater trials, but there are also greater and fuller joys. A heavenly man in his sojourn here enjoys the special favour of God. His position on earth can be simply described by the words, “A land which the Lord thy God careth for: the eyes of the Lord thy God are always upon it, from the beginning of the year even unto the end of the year”, and it “drinketh water of the rain of heaven”. A believer sustained here only by the rain from heaven is the only antitype to the possessor of the land; and consequently all spiritual blessings are given to him. There is really no true knowledge of the “heavenly things” but as one is in Canaan - as one is a heavenly man on earth. A believer may know the “earthly things”, the work of grace in his soul, but all his associations are with earth, like a willow tree. But sonship, acceptance in the Beloved, priesthood, Christ as Head of His body the church, the One to give gifts unto man, can only be enjoyed by a heavenly man. And finally, as to testimony, no one can represent the rejected Christ in heaven, except a heavenly man, one who receives grace and power from Himself to stand for Him where He is not. So that nothing can be simpler, however humbling because of our distance from it, than that our [p. 250] calling now is heavenly, and that, while this casts us on God for grace in every step, yet it does not make us unnatural, but more truly in accordance with God’s intention in the old creation in which we still are.