VICTORY IN ITS SOURCE AND HUB, AND THE WAYS OF HIS PRAISE

In the truth, there is a certain coherence, cohesion, integration and integrity, competence, completeness, invulnerability, perspective, power and immovability which is characteristic.

Man has often sought for this in some particle, omitting the non-particulate, in some theory, omitting the theoriser, in some concept, omitting the conceiver, in some part, omitting the whole, in some specialisation, omitting the generalities, in some evasion, omitting the cause, in some process, omitting the procedural institution and the ground of it. In Spiritual Refreshings Ch. 13, we see some of these inelegant squirmings in the face of the obvious, as in other constitutent respects, in Wake Up World Chs. 4-6.

These simplistic substitutes for rational thought are shown in their reductionist isolation in the above chapters. It is however more than the mere avoidance of that invalid type of reasoning that we seek. Truth is worth far more than the absence of error. It has a certain panache, for there is, quite simply, nothing else like it. Nothing can jar it, for it is; nothing can mar it, for it continues. IF it be known, it has nothing comparable to contest it, its whole contiguous concepts being irresistibly composed.

We would expect, then, in the area of victory, more even than we have seen so far, when we are considering this truth, where it comes from, whose it ultimately is, what it cost and how it may be obtained.

Briefly, we find in the Bible, such a conspectus of considerations as rejoices the heart: it is more than coherence, more than consistency, than insistence that never relents: it is a certain fulness, like a strong wind in the sails, a capacity to astonish in its scope, in its coverage, in its ease, in its splendour. Like a scene witnessed in actuality, after the more roving unrealities of dreams, it supplements, complements and fortifies itself on every side. It impresses with its beauty, it alerts with its intelligence, it astonishes with its resolve. That is one of the reasons that it is found so irresistibly delightful. It lacks nothing, and has past all imagination. Its victory is inherent, endemic and total.

Thus, in our present realm, we find not only that the staggering plan of the ultimate authority and author of the universe, to find a place in it in order to perform a task in which the love so readily found in creation, but quintessentially in that of God, is expressed not at all in deviation from justice and rectitude, but in a mercy which first being satisfied, is content for the peace of righteousness to rule. You see exactly this point in Psalm 85:10ff.:

What a declaration is this! It is simple - the first and the last, as is God's signature in Isaiah 41:4, 44:6, and Christ's accordingly, that of HIS WORD, in Revelation 2:8. He LIVES and He was DEAD! There is the Lazarus portent proliferated. Non human means raised Him, but in the integrities of reality, He died, for a purpose, and rose from the dead, expressly rupturing the texture of rotting (Acts 2:25-31, Luke 24), and restoring the dynamism of eternal life to man. Naturally, since HE is the supernatural God, He is "alive for evermore", and equally naturally, and for the same supernatural reason, to Him belongs judgment, in fact, His are the "keys of Hell and Death".

You cannot bypass Him as He declared would be the case, His words written in John 5:19-22; for it is to Him all judgment is committed, as Conqueror in Himself, of death, and it is He who provides remedy alone sufficient for sin. To Him also belongs the utterance of the future, in Revelation as in times past (cf. I Peter 1:10-12). As the very living and eternal word of God, His power is embracive, His person unpurgable, and His life indomitable.

No hint of egotism, arrogance or impotence is here. Nothing is explained away; everything is explained. The quiet authority of actuality speaks, and the effulgence of power occurs as expectedly as the rising of the sun, but this, it is of the Son, who on rising, controls the world in its ways, love unremitting, victory undisturbed, destiny inviting.

In Revelation 5, in its initial verses you find John weeping, in the vision presented. He is appalled that there is a scroll, the scroll divine, sealed and unopenable. No one is worthy. Who could perform such a task ? HOW could history resume ? What would bring about the end of the terribly testing times, and bring to consummation the whole purpose of history on this earth, yes and before the very powers of heaven ? HOW could the "manifold wisdom of God be made known through the church to the principalities and powers in heavenly places" (Ephesians 1:8-11) - some of which fell (as in Revelation 12), including the devil!

Certainly, the Gospel is the primary divulgement cited in Ephesians is here already, but it is its OUTCOMES in the world and in destiny, as well as its INCOMES of grace and salvation for many (but relatively to the other group ... 'few'), which is part of its own integrity. It is not a parade, a concert, a pantomime, occasional divine music. It is TRUTH. It must be unveiled, disclosed in principle and practice, so that its whole weight may fill the universe, so often and so long so divergent (cf. Colossians 1:19ff., I Timothy 1:1-6).

CHRIST now appears, in this vision of Revelation 5, as a Lamb, beautifully called the Lion of Judah. Thus His heroic qualities and His gracious kindliness are joined in one significant collision of concepts, which nevertheless have a dignity and strength which is majestic. HOW MANY kings, lions of history, have done what HE did! THIS king is the One who indicated that while Gentile leaders sought DOMINION over others, bearing rule, yet the kingdom of heaven sought SERVICE to others in truth, even to the point of sacrifice! His own was that of life, to overcome death, that many might shared it (Matthew 20:28 and preceding verses).

Thus the LION in power and performance is a LAMB in heart and intention. So does He enter the barren throngs, so far in John's vision, without deliverance, and it is HE who takes the unopened scroll and removes John's tears, for it is HE who can and will open the scroll. The entirety of God's provisions for the DRAMA of HISTORY can now proceed. His mercy has been vindicated, His pardon procured for as many as receive its sole distributor, Himself the salvation, Jesus Christ. The outworking of salvation is now freed to be applied; the outworking of history surrounding this may now eventuate. God is satisfied when His mercy is so profoundly purchased for man, by the sating of justice, and history is no more waiting for permission to proceed.

It was so in Isaiah 51:6, but it is not the mere nation of Israel, just as it is not in 49:3-4, where the same servant as in Isaiah 52-53 with 42, is found, glorious in exaltation yet marvellous in serviceability and staggering in grief as He pays for redemption. THIS is the "Israel" or Prince of God, which alone can save, the One who, being without sin, without iniquity, can do so. Indeed, it was BECAUSE there was no sin in His lips or evil in His heart, that He was slain (Isaiah 53:9).

Lambs have to be pure for sacrificial purposes (Leviticus 4:23, 28, 5:15,17, 6:6, 9:2-3, 14:19, 22:10, 23:12, Numbers 6:13-14, Ezekiel 43:23-25, 45:18, 46:13, I Peter 1:19, Hebrews 9:14, I Peter 1:18-19 where the symbol is interpreted expressly), or there is no cover. Here then is the Christ, an Israel "in whom I will be glorified" (49:3). HOW FAR short the historical nation fell short is revealed in Isaiah 30:8-11, where there is an expose on its evils which leaves a curse as its requital! What did He there say,

Only AN ISRAEL in whom He is well pleased, can now prevail. This is the Messiah, Christ, the 'Israel' or Prince of God, who alone has the power to remit sin and have the victory over death itself (as in Hosea 13:14's portent, where God makes it quintessentially clear that it is HE and no other who will do the redeeming!).

This follows in Revelation 5, and becomes cumulative and ultimate, so that it is FOR EVER AND EVER (5:13, cf.Rev. 21:22, 22:3-4, Ephesians 1:10), that there is to be praise to the Victor, and to Him who sacrificially allowed Him to go on His circuit: that crucial circuit of immolation into victory, desolation into triumph, humiliation into glory, as He went proceeding into the aweful atmosphere of His task, with that diligent delight that we see in Psalm 40:1ff. (cf. Joyful Jottings 22), and that intense anguish that we see in Hebrews 5:7, Luke 22:39ff.. Nevertheless, for the joy of attainment in the atonement set before Him, He despised the shame, endured the Cross and purchased freedom of access to glory, the aim of His life, the gift of His anguish, the attainment of His life so given, so irreducible, eternal (Hebrews 12:2, 9:12-15).

When, therefore, in the vision of Revelation 5, the Lamb arrives, with His delightful cognomen, the Lion of Judah (from Genesis 49:8-10, Jacob's inspired and ancient prediction), and takes the scroll, making history able to unfold, life able to find its final solution, not in gas-chambers as with Hitler's 'approach' to the Jew, but in grace, WITH God's approach offered to all (Romans 5:1-17), then we hear of a NEW SONG, as well there might be: "YOU are worthy to take the scroll, and to open its seals, for YOU were slain."

From every tribe and nation, are His redeemed found, and we, the song continues, YOU have made a kingdom of priests to our God and we shall reign on the earth! Reign ? but of course, as in Romans 5:17, where we find that just as by the initial man's offence, death 'reigned' so by the Lord as one man in His triumph, which leads to an outpouring of grace upon many, together with the GIFT OF RIGHTEOUSNESS, there is a REIGNING IN LIFE!

It is a combination, a glorious synthesis, a victorious blending of an IMPUTED righteousness, so that sin is covered by payment in the redemption of Christ by His death (Colossians 1:21-22), but ONLY BY FAITH, in its ACTUAL RECEPTION, and an ACTIVE SPIRITUAL POWER (Romans 8:6-11), so that just as the evil is conquered, so the good is indwelling, the LORD Himself is the holy Habitant of the house of the heart^*1. Thus does He "give life to your mortal bodies" (Romans 8:11), for the body is not merely theoretically "dead" in the sense that it is deemed to have died WITH Christ, who in bearing sins, bore the person who was the SINNER, and hence the form and force and original of it all (Galatians 2:20, 5:24, Colossians 3:1-10); for it is invested with the vitality, virtue and grace of the Lord Himself, who thus has resumed His own intimate fellowship with the heart. The "body" of course here is merely a synonym for the 'flesh' referred to above, which is found to incorporate as in Galatians 5, the whole gamut of mental, spiritual and bodily sins which constitutes the spiritual divorcee's signal of independence from the Lord.

As Paul there puts it, "Be transformed by the renewing of your mind so that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God." FIND BY EXPERIENCE, FIND BY TESTING, find by proceeding, find by the welling up of the Spirit of God, like a spring of water, yes in its abundance relaying on and out to the glory of the Lord, to bring relief to those nearby in the name of the Lord (John 3:14, 7:37).

There is a transformation of status (Titus 3:5-7), of situation, of dynamic, of power, of insight, of values, of disposition (II Cor. 3:18), of desire, of understanding (Colossians 1:9), of awareness of being a subject of divine adoption (Romans 8:16), so that one is "filled with might by His Spirit in the inner man" (Ephesians 3:16). The "carnal mind" which is really just a translation of the "fleshly mind" which in turn, as we have seen, just means the mind which is still under the control of the world, the limitations and lusts, the desires and the blinding, instruments of opacity in alienation of life (Ephesians 4:17-19): this is in a state of implicit or explicit ENMITY against God, neither conforming to His word nor accepting His crucial messages of deliverance, salvation in Christ.

It is not merely NOT subject to the law of God, but it CANNOT BE (Romans 8:7). Thus comes that magnificent assertion for the Christian: "But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His."

There is no talk of second blessing or partial conversion. It is IN or OUT. It is Christ or chaos, as Peter Marshall once put it. It is conversion and nothing less to Him who, unless all be forsaken for Him, does not find in such any disciple at all (Luke 14:27ff.). It is this with enduement with His Spirit by whom HE rules in the heart (Titus 3:5). It is likewise to be equipped with "the washing of regeneration" and the transforming "renewing of the Holy Spirit", so that such are inwardly rebuilt as well as formally adopted, as CHILDREN OF THE KING, and CHILDREN OF LIGHT, ready to be filled with the light which He bestows, since HE IS the light, and His presence means that the illumination is present. Making psychic anomalies and degrees of this or that, it is a perilous preoccupation. It is like concrete. If you are forever messing about with it, you may mar its setting. It needs to be still and to execute its inner mode undisturbed.

IF you are in Christ, IF you are a Christian, THEN you have the Spirit, and THEN you are not IN THE FLESH but in the Spirit, and then whereas on the one side, the body is dead because of righteousness (Romans 8:10), on the other, the Spirit is life because of righteousness, all barriers removed, and the life is transmitted. In this, it is as in a resurrection: but this is spiritual, so that the 'corpse' that was, becomes the copse that is, a growing assemblage of beauty in the Lord.

THIS is not to say that the victory which is by the Lion is either merely automatic or without its pangs, nor to deny the possibility of individual reverses in the spate of challenge and overcoming. There is however a characterisable procedure, a categorical change and a relish for righteousness conferred. Thus the flesh lusts against Spirit and the Spirit wars against the flesh (Galatians 5), but there is no highway for sin, there is no concourse, nor is this a two-lane highway, but a policed route, not with the baton of the law, but with the beauty of holiness that appeals, seals the road and sends the Christian urgently upon it.

Sin, that antithesis of righteousness is shed to the cross, the efficacy of which continues to this hour, like garbage collected, and not allowed to accumulate.

The grant therefore of victory is not to say that perfection is present. It is however to say this, that that war has a determinate end. If one needs to be humiliated like David with Bath-Sheba in some life exposing horror, so be it. Then in the humiliation perhaps because of some imaginary self-sufficiency which has inadvertently been creeping in (as with Paul in II Corinthians 1), then the naked reality of faith and the embracive power of Christ is soon restored. The victory over death is secure, the adoption premiss is certain (Ephesians 1), the power of God in one's life is a gift, the destiny is granted, the role is provided, the position of child of light, child of God is a donation.

If then in the PROCESS of such a life, there is battle, confrontation and conquest in the name and power of the Lord, this is the medium of growth, the experience of victory, the forcing of the issue so that Christ is trusted to DO WHAT HE only has power to do.

if the fulfilment of such a provision, the living in such an inheritance, not in dead symbolism but with the living Christ resident within by His spirit, in sanctification and moulding into the format of the Lord, into the mind of Christ: if all of this involves training, growth in knowledge and in grace (II Peter 3:18), the practical experience on the battle-field of conflict with Satan (cf. II Corinthians 12:7), who may even be permitted to send a messenger to "buffet" one's pride or expose a weakness: what then ? Is not the victory the delight ? Is not the Victor present in His own domain ?

Is not the life granted, the life growing ? Is it not able to stand steadfast in the midst of the evil dynamics which ruin the world, oppress millions and invade the souls and spirits of the unwary, whom the devil takes captive at his will! (cf. II Timothy 2:254-26)! The resurrection was PRACTICAL, the non-rotting of the crucified flesh was ACTUAL, and so is the power of God available to believers (Ephesians 1:19): indeed, its scope is from that resource, and by that measure, which depicts the absolute nature of the provisions made.

Are you in an athletic squad in order to sit drinking lemonade, or to hurdle, hurtle or relay with precision ? Is the provision of status, the evacuation of actuality, or its presence (Romans 6) ? With God it is always the latter, for the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give His life as a ransom for many (Matthew 20:28): and in the very exposition of this fact, Christ was likewise showing just this, that Christians, the children of light, the denizens of the kingdom of heaven are NOT to seek to dominate, but to serve, JUST AS HE is not doing so, but giving His life as a ransom.

NOT dominating, incidentally, as you see in the Lord, is NOT resigning from the truth, but applying it; yet it is not a forcible invasion, but a tender-hearted provision, and if there must be discipline, as with a coach, it is not at all to dominate, but to ensure the quality which all in common are seeking! If there must be war, when the faith itself is attacked, then it must be fought only with spiritual weapons, as if one were trying to spare 'civilians', and in this one must indeed be very valiant for the truth (cf. Jeremiah 9:3).

So is there a reigning in life as Paul puts it in Romans 5:17, and thus are they made KINGS and PRIESTS^*2A, as shown in the song in Revelation 5:10. Indeed, they all shall "reign for ever and ever" in the Lamb (Rev. 22:5), who is the Temple (Rev. 21:22-23) and the light (This is the case however only because He was slain, and because He is indeed actually worthy (Revelation 5:12) to receive blessing and honour and glory and power. It is because what He has done is not a fiction or a function of faction, but the very deliverance from the forces that subdue and spoil the spirit of man, through the provision of pardon and power, presence and peace, understanding and help, opening of the soul to the light and the splashing of light as waves upon rocks, in its exuberance and in its transforming beauty.

The words of the heavenly choir give praise since they are also made PRIESTS to God. Such is the declaration of joy in this victory song of praise, for what God has done, and what He has freely made His people. No more do you need some priest to come and mediate; for there is but ONE mediator, the whole category, role and procedure, as symbolically exhibited with such a scope and coverage in the Old Testament, is now swallowed up in HIM, who as HIGH PRIEST HIMSELF performs ALL the functions and has all the blessing ever to be found in the former system, which was a symbol of Him who was to come.

Now He has come, that is all passé, and more, He is soon to return (Hebrews 8-10, 4:14-16, 9:14, 10:22, cf. Answers to Questions Ch. 5, Questions and Answers 2). No more do they need some earthly king, prone to oppress, for "you are all brethren", and ONE is your Master, even Christ (Matthew 23:8-10), who loves not to dominate but to serve, and just as His word rules, so has He given His life to make the way for such service in the cleanness of heaven, in the joy of truth and in the river of peace.

Thus in coming to God in the New Covenant, it is like being a priest, in that the coming is direct; but it is TO THE PRIEST, Christ Himself that one comes, and in Him one has assurance and help and comfort and strength and grace and peace and joy and longsuffering with joyfulness.

HENCE this NEW SONG has new things to say, which fulfil just as the prophets had predicted, the things which had come before, and these with them are like one indivisible robe (cf. Matthew 5:17-20). Again, it is like the foothills with the mountains beyond, the preliminaries an introduction, the mountains themselves, the mountains of righteousness, now revealed in their intimacy at the closest of quarters.

In this way, the New Song showed that the Lamb was worthy to take the scroll, and why it was so, indicating the new role as priests and kings of His people. The angels continue like a chorus, a deep and devotional one, singing of the Lamb's worth, of His being fit to receive power and riches, wisdom and strength, honour and glory and blessing. And every creature (created being, here of course those with personality) was in the attestation,

Such was the swelling, swaying, outreaching totality of the praise of the VICTOR, whose ground of name and fame are shown in this case, in His accomplishments, just as His name exhibits from the first, His status, which John has carefully presented in Revelation 1-3.

Here then is that cohesion and complementarity, like waves that come incessantly, ceaselessly, unable to be contained or stopped, from the depths, themselves an exhibition of the scope and wonder of the ocean.

Now we have seen the DECLARATION, the PRESENTATION and the PRAISE of the Victor, all with the meaning, the message, the ground, the basis, the reason, the impact, the consequence, the implication, the extent made apparent, as can be done when there is not an hypothesis, as so often in science, of most limited and specialised application, but a fact that is absolute and indisputable.

Here therefore there is neither a squandering of specialisation in generalisation, nor a needless limitation of the general by the partly understood particular, the frequent fliers in the limitations of mere empirical knowledge, but a presentation immaculate, illimitable, where not only is the scope clear, but apparent, not merely statable, but exhibited in praise and song, in wonder and word, in detail and in meaning, in wholeness and atmosphere, as only truth in divine perspective can be^*2.

It is so whether the Lamb speaks, or those who praise Him, whether history is to speak (as it does, in the fulfilments of His words), or its Mentor.

It is all one, and of One, and its waters reach to every shore, or if you prefer, its witness meets every phase of the world of man, the spirit of man. It is comprehensive, unique, original, divine and detailed, with overview and application in its own terms, as befits the Almighty.

This victory is sudden, certainly, in its performance, but in the mind of God it is eternal (Revelation 14:6, 13:8, Ephesians 1:4), and though suffering be found in its outworking (13:8 above), yet as in the Cross where the generic conquest was made, and the redemption achieved, yet this is the paraphernalia of love, the attestation of truth. Here if need be, is the Job-like exhibition of reality, in this, that it is not a question of which power is stronger at the outset, but of truth. Here is the back for persecution, here the power for prevailing, here the way to witness, here the passage of life in this temporary format, on its way to the Maker with His provision for eternity.

Better than beauty, for which many suffer, is this which is the heart, key and disposition entirely of life. Here the quest of man is acquainted with truth, his ardour with action worthy of his stature, his looking with discovery so final, that it reaches to the beginning, before it all was made, and to the end, after this universe is unmoored and unwanted, and 'flees away' (Revelation 20:11).

What then do we find ? With Him, the Lord, the life, inherent, eternal, is seen in the sublime sovereignty which beats even death in suffering. With us, it is the spiritual outworking which attests the spirit of it, in which Christ has done it.

In and indeed especially at the end, because it is true, and because God is the truth, and because in His love He leaves nothing undone which might exhibit His mercy, or find the lost, then the entire gamut of evil is allowed its final boast. That dreadful 'dragon' scene (Revelation 13, 17) is not mere sport or misfortune. It is the ultimate test of what is best by what is power-hungry, ambition-crazed and truth-defiant.

For their part, the saints show that their derivative, but adopted and eternal lives are indeed no sinecure for 'success' or 'self-elevation' but a work of the very love of God in the truth: not cowered nor cultivated as culture's 'pearls, they answer in word and deed in the midst of such an evil furore of misguided imagination, misplaced conceptions as resembles an atomic attack. These, with those idle fables disguised as science, but having nothing to do with it except by contradiction, for they rupture its method, seek to dominate, as for long they have already sought, without ground, reason or substance, while the young are grossly indoctrinated and the old tend to yield to mere repetitious pretence, as in Adolf Hitler's days - and he, for that matter, also had a great desire to 'educate' youth in his own particular set of myths.

Small wonder Paul, giving the saints great rest of heart, predicted this allurement of fables, which would grip it at the end (II Timothy 4:1-9).

Seen in its setting, here we find an acme of devotion in the midst of this warning from two millenia ago, concerning our own last days (SMR Ch. 8).

Errors, stories made up, philosophic sweet-meats, revisions and acclamations of fancies that are fed without bases, but desire. Such indeed are we facing now in an epidemic so unreasonable, of naturalism in psychology, biology, sociology, of evolutionism by wish and dream, of the pretensions of power and how to get it, of the parades of systems and how to rule, that killing is a method, war is an exhibition, peace is a word, for the many (cf. Secular Myths and Sacred Truth). It is just as in the latter days of Israel, when they wanted the 'prophets', false ones of course, to prophesy to them 'smooth things', 'deceits', and to make God to 'cease' from before them (Isaiah 30:8-11 as cited above).

Alas it is man, not God, who is on the way to a cessation which will be the only alternative to the return of Christ, which however, is the scenario (Matthew 24:22,29ff.). How amazing that NOT ONLY was the knowledge explosion forecast (in Daniel 12:4), but the simplistic descent into fables which would accompany it, as if mesmerised with so many data about workings, man would assert his old and idolatrous heart almost with a vengeance, to give to sin, unalloyed by divine truth, it full throttle: and how he plies his artful trade, how he misteaches, overreaches, ends in endless contrivances, muddles and contrarieties^*3, each against each, here as likewise in politics.

In this setting, the children of light may be 'down' because of the misspent fury of a dying world, down but not out, as Paul puts it of his own sufferings. Arising in the midst of the very flames of furores in this world, they continue in Him and His ways, if by any means any more might be found: so it continues till the time is past, the martyr roll is filled up (Revelation 5:9-10). How often has a gaoler or a guard been converted by seeing the indomitable spirit, the grace and the kindness of the Christian, the faith at work and the love in action! God is not ashamed of tests, and His people have always had to endure, for darkness is not keen on light, and when that light is His, who is the Light of the world, then the antipathy can be greater (Revelation 12:11), whether as often, covert or explicit.

If we are "led in triumph" (as in II Corinthians 2:14), it is IN CHRIST who diffuses His knowledge like a fragrance of faith, a perfume of purity; and as to Him, HE was crucified, rejected, despised and afflicted (Isaiah 53), who said, "The servant is not greater than his master," in that most delightful of understatements! (John 13:16).

Do you love what you reject ? Do you respect what you utterly renounce ? Do you have peace with God when His Gospel, the kernel and core of His proclamation, even of peace, is not in your heart! It is not a mere thing of emotion, but of implicit action, attitude and approach.

No small part of the victory in Christ then, is not to reign as kings in the Gentile sense of having and utilising power for one's own purposes, or for pomp, but in overcoming the tests, temptations and trials, in the very Spirit of holiness, and being a testimony, like crushed flowers with their resultant available perfume, to truth, identifying clearly who the Lord is in this very confused and multi-partite, tribulation. Kings in tribulation ?: but of course, for was not the Master crucified, and was not the Lamb slain ? Did He not shine in glory when abased to the gallows ?

Was not His word, "Father, forgive them for they do not know what they are doing!" (Luke 23:34), which He did not merely utter, but pled, a victory in itself ? Was it not, more, in the very spirit and nature of His whole mission, that it did not matter what evil they did to HIM, it was for THEM that He came, and their deliverance was the reason for His own non-deliverance, according to plan: until, of course, when it did come, it was with death itself as a trophy for His pains. Gone was the penalty's power, residing in its justice, for in justice He wrought its payment.

We however who put the truth in the midst of the lie (II Thessalonians 2:10-11), and attest the peace in the midst of the warrings, are indeed like those after whom spew out the heaped waters of rushing assault, as in Revelation 12:15-16, where Satan, having failed with Christ Himself (Revelation 12:4-5) pursued the children of God with his spurious lusts, to overcome them, There, the earth "swallows" the furious tide, for it does not conspire with the fraud, and the Lord watches over His friends, so that their work is done, and their strength does not fail.

Since neither attestation nor indication are for Satan, but only power and corruption, his power fades and his day comes as the end comes for all tyrants and frauds (Revelation 20:11). Meanwhile, in overcoming these dynamics with the grace of the Lord, in the power of His Spirit and in His name, the saints exhibit His majesty, and that neither comfort nor personal success, place, position nor power is the aim, which the world so desperately needs to see and to know, if by any means any may be grasped and apprehended for what is their most blessed destiny in the Lord (Revelation 12:11), it is to "overcome" indeed, "by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony". Moreover, "they did not love their lives to the death". Thus does suffering speak, and thus do deeds make discourse.

These, they are the victories in the Victor and for Him, which apply the action He alone performed, and exhibit the work which He alone can do, as He moves by His Spirit to dwell in the households of faith, the tabernacles redeemed from sin, and to exhibit the motivation and the message which He had, brought and has consummated. Thus if sinlessness is a piece of self-deception (I John 1:6), then submergence in sin is equally alien to the kingdom; and if a fall can produce realisation of personal presumption, and better reliance on the Lord, so can the exercise of the God-given faith in the Victor over sin's claims, produce strength in the peaceable paths of righteousness. In these, any obstacle is removal on application (Mark 11:23-24, II Peter 1:3ff.).

Living in these experimental conditions stirs the heart, stimulates faith and brings strength, for in the end, the multitudes of false paths, such as self-reliance, self-esteem, self-satisfaction, pride, vanity in one's virtue and so forth, are like so many weeds which, when removed, have occasioned such trouble that one is sensitised to their next appearance and looks early to the Lord for gardening vigour!

There then lies the Victory over death, over its power, over its propriety, over its source: and this is a gift, receivable by faith, the exercise of which helps that patience, forbearance and gentleness which is the need, and the due place of the Christian in his personal attributes.

As you would expect, where God Himself is in view, there is nothing novel but the DOING of this work of Christ, and the EXPOSURE of it. It was attested thousands of years ago, and before He did it, it was written. Often has this been shown on this site, as in Joyful Jottings 22-25, and in the expositions of Isaiah (cf. With Heart and Soul, Mind and Strength Chs. 4 ff.) On this occasion, in terms of victory, however, let us simply look at Isaiah 25.

The lovingkindness of God is shown in 25:4, "For You have been a strength to the poor, a strength to the needy in his distress, a refuge from the storm, a shade from the heart, for the blast of the terrible ones is as a blast against the wall". This is the place of His grace in His race, amidst those whose trust is in Him and with many who look to Him, seeking (cf. Romans 2:4), when the "riches of His forbearance and longsuffering" may work, so that the "goodness of God leads you to repentance."

As Isaiah 25, proceeds, we find next the action to come: "You will reduce the noise of the aliens..." Indeed, "In this mountain, the LORD of hosts will make for all people, a fast of choice pieces, a feast of wines on the lees, of fat things full of marrow ..."

This has many facets to its meaning. Thus in Mount Zion there is to be indeed a vast feast as Revelation so expressly indicates:

"Then I saw an angel standing in the sun; and he cried with a loud voice, saying to all the birds that fly in the midst of heaven,

"And I saw the beast, the kings of the earth, and their armies gathered together to make war against Him who sat on the horse and against His army..."

There can be only one outcome of such a conflict, and in Revelation 19, it was categorical victory for the Lord, whose forbearance and love is sometimes confused with inaction! (cf. Psalm 50:22-23).

The "feast" in this case signified not only the baseness of the opposition, its folly of flesh, in setting itself witlessly and wrongly against its Maker, against whom and His Messiah it was assembled to "make war" (cf. Psalm 2, Revelation 19:19), so that as flesh it went where flesh must go when it imagines itself capable of contest with its author. The 'feast' therefore is given in the sense of ironic display of the nether side of the victory, of catastrophic loss, and it is a sort of gluttony of desolation in the non-victor camp. This 'feast' was given a type or precursor in the overthrow of Sennacherib, king of Assyria in the later days of Isaiah, so that this vast and proud army was brought to utter and sudden ruin by a supernaturally imposed action (cf. Isaiah 37:36ff.).

It was not at all that the kingdom of Hezekiah, at that time the proposed victim of the Assyrian assault, did not suffer; it was just that it HAD THE VICTORY, in that day when the theocracy was alive, the State being directly appointed for praise to the Lord (Isaiah 43:21). Victory too as is available to the Lord's saints, scattered throughout the world in many nations, tribes and sites; but it is FOR HIS PURPOSES. These of course include pure testimony and living, godliness and kindness, grace and thoughtfulness, the love of God and the seeking to love one's neighbour as oneself, love of mercy, the sustaining of the attestation of truth and the spreading of the Gospel of grace, by which man may find his way out of this devastated earth, to the source of it all, and the only Renewal Agent, even its very Creator.

Let us however return to Isaiah 25, and the feast. If Sennacherib of Assyria was the first to find overthrow, a feast of sorrow, there was worse to follow. Alas, how sadly did the second instalment of the feast hit those who so unnecessarily and tragically became the Lord's enemies, even the rulers of Jerusalem itself, when centuries later, they slew Christ (cf. Acts 4:9ff.). In fulfilment of the Lord's dictum before it happened (Matthew 24:1ff., 23:37ff., Luke 19:42ff.), great was its fall, and grievous the exposure as reported, of many Jews, crucified by the Romans.

There is however a third application of this feast in Isaiah 25. Neither is this in reverse nor in irony, for now it concerns the actual victory amongst those who care to share it, the people of the Lord Himself. In Isaiah 25:7, we find that the onset of the enemy and the horror of the 'terrible' is now forgotten, for the Lord "will destroy on this mountain the surface of the covering cast over all peoples, and the veil that is spread over all nations."

The veil ? The veil of the temple is the covering which protects the interior where the mercy-seat dwelt, from the probing eye of the outside person. It symbolised the secret depths of mercy and their dispersion to His people. Now the veil is to be removed. It was in fact of course symbolically as well as physically torn at Christ's death (Luke 23:45); and the portent is as shown in Hebrews, the open door to the heart of God. Whereas before, the blood of animals was placed in the secrecy of the Holy of Holies, upon the altar beneath the golden cherubim, now with the veil to that portion of the Temple removed, there is a public display. The Cross was not in the least private. Now there is the covering of the blood, openly shed and openly applied on the altar of the Cross. It was shed in glorious freedom and all but inconceivable liberality, for all who would use it, for all who are His.

Thus He did indeed DESTROY on Mt Zion, that veil, both in fact and in significance.

It was, moreover, not only for the Jew that He did this, for the Gospel is for Jew and Gentile alike, so that the public openness to the uttermost of His death, matching the lovingkindness which freely offers it to all, means that He has destroyed likewise "the veil that is spread over all nations" (Isaiah 25:7) - that of the blindness which obscures (II Corinthians 4:4), the fear that impels dimly, the confusion that controls hearts and imbues minds (Hebrews 2:14-15). Freely shown is the truth, the way and the life. It prefers death to violation (Isaiah 53:9, Mark 14:62).

Indeed, here the word of God becomes categorical on the content: "He will swallow up death in victory" (Isaiah 25:8). This is in Isaiah 25:8, as a culmination. There is the eternal victory which nothing can subdue. In this eternity of relish and reality,

Thus, there is that vital and crucial action of the Lord specified in Hosea 13:14, where He Himself declares that HE will be the very plagues of death, and deliver His people from this ultimate scourge, in an act of redemption. By Himself it is envisaged, by Himself is it proclaimed and by Himself it is to be, as it was, wrought. Thus did He remove the rebuke of His people, of those who would believe in Him, to whom thus would come as it does come, eternal life.

The "rebuke" ? It is sin, and He will take it away (as in Zechariah 3:9, which indicates that this He will do "in one day", which of course He did, at Calvary). The same is seen in more detail in Zechariah 12:10, where He is seen pierced, and because of this, as a focus for those amid Israel who would repent of this crucifixion, and believe in Him. It is in Zechariah 13:1 that we see in Jerusalem the fountain of blood, for the washing of all uncleanness (cf. I John 1:7-2:2).

All of this is tidily displayed in turn, for Calvary, hundreds of years before it occurred, and for Israel yet to come in this, thousands!

So does the Lord in many images, in many declarations, in multiplied forms and formats have this message from earliest times to the latest (cf. Barbs, Arrows and Balms 17, TMR Ch. 3).

There is that prodigious emphasis found throughout the entire Old and New Covenants, the former showing Christ to come, the latter His having come and its results, in which ONE personal being ALONE saves; there is NO help required or meaningful; “we have WAITED for Him, and He will save us.” it is a PROVISION and a GIFT of God, and whether as here it be personal (as in Isaiah 64:6, where the ‘righteousnesses’ which might obsessively be paraded before God in hope of acceptance for salvation, are as “filthy rags”, or national, there is a need NOT to trust in the arm of flesh.

As to the servants of the LORD (Isaiah 54:17), “their righteousness is of Me, says the LORD.”

“I will make mention of Your righteousness, Yours only,” says David (Ps. 71:16). Even so the sacrifices were not of men, but of animals; the ram caught in the bush, when Abraham was tested, was provided ALTOGETHER by the Lord, and WHOLLY displaced the efforts of Abraham to satisfy God (Genesis 22:7-14). “The LORD will provide” was the message, just as Christ’s purity, and deity indeed in the flesh, was “provided”, the only sufficient and acceptable sacrifice, wholly of His own donation (Romans 6:23, Hebrews 9:14) who alone without spot, offered Himself to His Father, to meet the calamitous case of man. He does not change, nor does His message, whether in Isaiah, Kings or Chronicles, in Christ, Paul or Peter (I Peter 1:18ff.). It is one, identical and the same rebuke is to those who arrogantly, indeed impertinently and hence impenitently push their flesh or its products at God as if that could meet, in whole or in part, His light.

“With him,” said brave King Hezekiah (II Chronicles 32:8), “but with us is the LORD our God, to help us and fight our battles.” Declared King Asa in his commended action (II Chronicles 14:11), “LORD, it is nothing for You to help, whether with many or with those who have no power: help us, O LORD our God, for we rest on You, and in Your name we go against this multitude. O LORD, You are our God; do not let man prevail against you.”

Indeed, in the converse, when he relied AT ALL on savvy, on sophistication, on diplomatic works, on seeking by wealth in have help from an alien source, not the LORD, he was rebuked very sharply (II Chronicles 16:7ff.). Reliance must be on the LORD alone, and on His righteousness as well (Psalm 71:16). He suffers NO admixture, just as Paul so vigorously shows, to the detriment of many straying Jews in his generation (Romans 10, 2-3). His words apply no less to Gentiles or any others: as to God, HIS ways are everlasting, and HE does not change (Malachi 3:6, Habakkuk 3:6).

Reverting now to Isaiah 25’s triumphant glorying in the Lord, we find strength over death, over sin, granted in victory, the gift of God.

Now is the world itself able to rejoice in the provisions and the works of God, not merely in the prodigious grandeur and ultimate wisdom of the creation, but in the magnificence of the redemption, which God also, as surely as He worked the creation, has also in and by Himself wrought alone. So does His love reach to the Gentiles also (as in Jeremiah 16:19-20, Isaiah 42:6,49:6), in one work of one God in one sweep of victory implanting first the earth, liberty and rationality for man, with a spirit of his own, and then upon the earth the means of grace, the tree of truth, the courage of love and the joy of salvation (cf. Isaiah 12:3, 51:6).

Man is challenged at the outset, being outside God by (pathologically derived) nature; and many are they who seeing the curse on creation (Romans 8:20ff., Genesis 3), yet try to read it, as if one would make out what a city should be, by examining Berlin at the end of the last World War! Again, it is like a new schoolboy, coming to a boarding school, seeing the welts on another child's posterior, derived from strong discipline, deciding that it is all a mere question of violence.

Estrangements can have results; in spiritual things, they do have large ones; and the use of nature as one giant parable, both of the splendour and the beauty of its Creator, and His discipline and His parodying of the fussing arrogance or cruel oppression of man, is His prerogative. How like the fox, the wolf, the horse, the sheep, the pig are some people in their very physical appearance! How like the tiger are some in their rapacity, or the hyena; or on the better side, the badger with his tenacity of purpose and enormous skill, industry and ingenuity.

Naturalism in all its forms is not merely logically bankrupt^*3. It is inanely irrelevant. It involves simplistic generalisation, acute reductionism, reverse order scientific method, starting with desire, not facts, presumptive intrusion and wholly irrational verbal power play.

It is necessary instead of such wry antics, to go to the Administration Block to understand the school of life. (Cf. Biblical Blessings Ch. 7, Beyond the Curse.)

Its beauty is not in vain, nor its parody in terse irony, of some of the ways of sin, nor its areas of love, tenderness and kindness, co-operation and collaboration. It is all there. It is for man to find the source, the Creator, the plan, the deliverance and the Redeemer, before the day of Judgment, and to cease to parody his Maker by examining the complexities of His past actions, such as the flood, in the darkness of mere ignorance, and with the self-elevation of assumed innocence. This world is under judgment, and this shrieks with the wind, just as its parade of magnificence and splendour, astounds in its scope.

To know the heart of God, you must find Him, and to do that you should have not the slightest trouble, in terms of reason at least. There is none but Christ on display for divine honours, in terms of verifiable prophecy to and from Him, records that concur and abound, in word and deed, nor is there in written attestation, but the Bible, which alone and industriously provides endless seeming tests of its veracity, in the very best tradition, for those whose interest is in the empirical (as in John 14:11, cf. SMR Chs. 6, 8-9, TMR Chs. 1, 7, 8), just as its validity is likewise unique (cf. TMR Ch. 5, Repent or Perish Chs. 2, 7, SMR Chs. 3, 15, 10, TMR Ch. 8).

So too is the power provided for victory NOW, in life, alike open to test; and the scope of the victory, meeting in power the chief needs of man, not merely in some abstracted way, but in the teeth of the actual, the factual, with the spars of the voyage thrust out with the wind of the uttermost provision.

Not only, then, in scope and sweep, in coherence and cohesion, in amplitude and application, in consistency and insistence, but in time and in prediction, in forecast as in fulfilment, comes the victory. It is displayed for all, in that sovereign strength of thought and detail of speech which, mirrored in history, and exhibited in the blessed frankness and fearlessness of speech and action of the Messiah (cf. Mark 2). Prepared to be tested, the Creator and King in fearless robes, He was always willing to face trial of truth, of love, of grace, from which has come His victory.

Not aloof has He wrought this, but in format as a man. Not painlessly has He achieved this atonement, but in pangs on a Cross. Not in cold dignity has He 'paid', but amid mockery of the most intensely repugnant kind, the more horrible because He could have stopped it, and they who did it, were amongst those for whom, even at that time, He was acting, in providing the necessary basis for any to enter His kingdom.

As to this victory: The VICTOR confers it, the world despises it, but many drawn from mundane deceptions, find the covering swept away, and the blessed favour of light. If such things were natural to the creation in God's image, because supernaturally provided by the Creator, yet because of sin, rebellion and puny pomp or arrogance, there were removed. Freely for us, but not for Himself, He has borne what is required to remedy and remove from the defilement of the narrow defiles of sin, of mind, of body and of spirit, and bring to the paths of righteousness, truth, love, compassion, pity and peace.

Never was such a Victor; never such a motive; never such largesse; never such ingratitude; and with those who receive His victory over death, His cover for sin, His power for life, there is a song as in Revelation 5, which comes from fervour, not force, from delight, not duress:

“ ‘Worthy is the Lamb who was slain

To receive power and riches and wisdom,

And strength and honor and glory and blessing!’

“And every creature which is in heaven and on the earth and under the earth
and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, I heard saying:

‘Blessing and honor and glory and power

Be to Him who sits on the throne,

And to the Lamb, forever and ever!’ “

While the translation "a kingdom of priests" as in Exodus 19:6 is better attested in the majority text, than the 'kings and priests' in the AV, yet the result does not alter, for it proceeds in Revelation 5, "and we shall reign upon the earth" (cf. Revelation 22:5), where "they shall reign for ever and ever." Whether direct or indirect, the sense is the same. 'Priests' with direct access, now openly as believers, brings out the derivative and dependent character of the reign, a just consideration.

*3 See for example, TMR Chs. 1, 7, 8, Secular Myths and Sacred Truth Chs. 7, 8, Earth Spasm ... Chs. 1, 7, Wake Up World... Chs. 4 - 6, News 57, Cascade... Ch. 3, Spiritual Refreshings Ch. 13 and see Ch. 16.

	as Bunyan so graphically put it in his picture of the fire constantly being fuelled by oil, but on the other side of the wall, as constantly being quenched with water,
	the 'flesh' is still sought by sin, the devil and the world, to activate it and renovate its lures, of mind, body and spirit,
	then on the other hand, its sway is spoilt, its hold is remitted, its guilt is removed, its Master is resident by the Holy Spirit, the mind is illuminated, refreshed and renewed (Romans 12:2).

	^"I charge thee therefore before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom: Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine.
	^"For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; and they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.
	"But watch in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, make full proof of thy ministry. For I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing."