EXTRACTS

Now what is the character of the authority in Christ? I should like to refer to the case of Saul of Tarsus as an illustration. The Lord Jesus had died, had risen and had gone into heaven, and God had made Him both Lord and Christ. God had taken up the idea of authority in that Man and authority is invested in that Man in heaven. It waited for God to show what kind of authority was in that Man. There is a time coming when He will have a rod of iron and will rule the nations, but Christ did not rule Saul of Tarsus with a rod of iron, nor you, nor me. He said, “Saul, Saul, why dost thou persecute me?”, Acts 9: 4. Has the Lord ever spoken to your soul? If He speaks to your soul, it is to assert His authority in your soul. If so, you may become rebellious, but He overthrows your will. If ever the will of man was in activity, it was in Saul, but the Lord’s authority is greater than his will. He says, “Saul, Saul”—that is the rod of Christ! That is how He exercises His authority at the present moment. He speaks directly to your heart. He calls you by name! if the Lord spoke to you tonight by name would it not touch your heart? If He singled you out and called you by name, it would make an impression on your heart and establish His authority there.

He extends His kingdom in this way. The ruling men of this world are always concerned about extending their kingdoms. Before the kingdom was limited to Israel, God intended that His kingdom should be correlative with the universe. The Lord would extend His kingdom in your heart and would assert His authority in your soul. In the word “Saul, Saul, why dost thou persecute me?” there was the Lord extending the benign influence of His kingdom. I suppose none ever understood the kingdom better than Saul; he constantly preached the kingdom. For him to preach the kingdom was to announce a Man who loved him; so he says, We do not preach ourselves, but Christ Jesus Lord”; that involved the authority of Christ in the soul of man. What souls suffer from is the activity of their own wills. Let Christ speak to you, call you by name; He will undertake for you! The next thing therefore you find is that the Spirit of God was given to Saul.

J. Taylor (Vol. 98, pp.60, 61)

It is a great expression that—He “takes away the sin of the world”. I think the first part of the expression—“Behold the Lamb of God”—is sacrificial, but “takes away the sin of the world” is not so, as I understand it. Of course, had there been no sacrifice, the gravity of sin would not have been known, and on the other hand, if the sin of the world had been taken away without sacrifice, it would have looked as if God condoned the sin; but He takes away the sin of the world really by revealing God. If He brings God into the world, it must take away the sin of the world—the very fact of God coming in breaks the whole thing down. Sin all depends upon God not being there. The existence of sin depends upon that, but if God comes in, then sin cannot be there. That is true of ourselves individually—sin is really taken away by God being revealed to us. “For this purpose the Son of God was manifested”. The manifestation of God, the light of God, coming into the soul of a man, takes sin away practically. And so it is in that way that the light of God coming into the world takes away the sin of the world. But all this would not have been possible except for the sacrifice—hence the immense importance of the first part of the expression.

F. E. Raven (Vol. 5, p.21)

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