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08/12/2007: Volume 94 - The Seamless Robe Part II    by T. Austin-Sparks

The Seamless Robe - Part II The New Man Related, and Corporately Expressed "And gave Him to be Head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fulness of Him That filleth all in all" (Ephes. 1:22-23). What is the expression of that? Or, shall we put it in another way: What is the significance and implication of Christ related as in the simile of a seamless robe? As Head of the Church which is His Body, He is a oneness of nature, a oneness of life, a oneness of everything! His Headship represents the oneness that is in Christ Jesus. We can hardly divide these last two features. They are really the two sides of one whole; related, and corporately expressed. They are represented by two Letters, the letter to the Colossians, and the Letter to the Ephesians. One sets forth the absolute sovereign Headship of Christ; the other the unity of the Church which is His Body. They have their own emphasis and meaning and value. The Colossian letter sees all things gathered up into Christ, summed up in Him, and all things holding together in Him; and then the statement is made that He is the Head of the Church, His Body. As Head, in that perfected, glorified humanity, there is secured and established a oneness which is indestructible. Look back for a moment upon that seamless robe. The Psalmist has prophesied. Hundreds of years afterwards the scenes of the Cross are transpiring. The scenes pass rapidly with their many details and incidents, and in the course of the whole these men, the roughest, most brutal, insensible, cruel, thoughtless, caring really nothing about fine things, having crucified Jesus, sit down to watch Him, so we are told by Matthew. They have stripped Him of His garments, and their eyes fall upon them, and they see the possibility of some capital in those garments. They were avaricious men, whose whole thought was any kind of acquisition, gain, profit; yes, profit out of a thing like this. Did ever man sink so low? To crucify a Man, and then in the presence of that dying One to think only of what they could get out of His garments. So they, being four, find four pieces, and take one each. Then coming to a fifth and recognizing that this is a garment which is of one piece and that there is not much to be gained by dividing it into four, they toss for it. That is what it amounts to. The dice is brought out and cast, and one man is lucky and gets the seamless robe in addition to the other. It all looks like a horrible bit of the whole evil programme. The Seamless Robe and The Sovereignty Of God. And yet, standing back in the shadows, is God Almighty, exercising His sovereign power, bridging the gap of hundreds of years. A Psalmist had prophesied under the inspiration of the Eternal Spirit, and God is watching that word to perform it, and the most brutal, cruel, insensible men come under that sovereignty unconsciously, that the Scripture might be fulfilled. Even the worst of men are compelled to fulfil the counsels of God, and that oft times unconsciously. Anything that belongs to Christ is watched over by God. It is because of the principle lying behind it, the spiritual meaning in the thought of God. What does that seamless robe mean? God is careful of His types, of His prophecies, even of His foreshadowings, until He brings them to fulfilment. Not one bit of the type has failed of fulfilment, and this shall not, and God brings it through in His sovereign over ruling. Of what does it speak? It speaks of a unity which Christ represents which is indestructible, a oneness in Him which cannot be divided. It means, in one broad, glorious word of affirmation, that in Christ victorious all the damage by the fall has been put away, and God has secured His thought. There is no rent here. That has all been removed. The old garment of Adam has been destroyed, and God has brought in His new seamless garment, and established it in the place where it can never again be rent. Satan cannot get at Him. Sin cannot get at Him. All these have tried themselves out to the limit upon that garment, and by sovereign power He has triumphed. By the glory of the Eternal Spirit in Him He has overcome. The oneness of Christ by the Eternal Spirit has been preserved, and it is there in a related position, related to you and to me. Turning it round the other way it means that through faith in Christ and by receiving the Holy Spirit, we are related to Him and all His perfect humanity. What is the corporate expression? "Till we all attain unto the unity of the faith... unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ" (Ephes. 4:13). "Joined to the Lord one spirit" (1 Cor. 6:17). What is the Church? What is the Body of Christ? It is that which by the Eternal Spirit is linked with the exalted and perfected Lord in one life and in one substance. When we take the loaf and the cup we are testifying to the fact that we are communing by faith and in the spirit with that perfect humanity. We look, in other words, into the face of Jesus Christ, and, as we look, we are changed into the same image. Oh, that we might see, on the one hand, what Christ installed and related means, and then what the Church is as the expression of the unity of Christ, the oneness of Christ, through partaking of Him. To use the word in Colossians, "Holding fast the Head." It is not too late even now for the Lord to have a company on this earth who will hold fast the Head. What does it mean to hold fast the Head? In a word, it means to allow the Lord Jesus to express Himself in us in absolute sovereignty; to bring us into the unity of the Spirit, the unity of the faith, the unity of direct government from heaven. That is the only way to unity. Now some of the things we are up against are just in that realm. The question arises, Is it to be ecclesiastical government or government by the Holy Spirit? That is one of the great issues-the government of a man established system, or government by the Holy Spirit? Is it to be an order imposed from the outside, or is it to be the life expressed from the inside? In a word, is it to be organized, or is it to be organic? These are tremendous issues. The answering of those things all bears upon this great question of holding fast the Head. Is it to be the Holy Spirit, or is it to be the counsels of men? The head governs the members. The members of the body do not conspire or confer to tell the head what to do; to arrange the plans and programmes for the head. Neither does the head ask the members to make the plans. The members are but informed of what the plans already are, or of what the next step is, and their responsibility begins and ends with obedience. Which kind of order will obtain depends on how far the truth of holding fast the Head is being expressed. The oneness of Christ in His thought, His purpose, His way, His means, His time, His everything, expressed in the saints, is what is in view. It is not too late to have that in a company. Old Adam is not a unity like that, and that is why you get such a contrary expression in what is called the Church. Discords, divisions, contradictions, contrasts, schisms, etc.! Oh, the history of the Church as an earthly thing is just a history of internal friction. But Christ is one, and I do not believe that you will get three or four different interpretations of the same Scripture if you are under the government of the Holy Spirit. I do not believe that you will get three or four different orders of Church government if you are under the government of the Holy Spirit. He is one. Christ is one. It is not for us, mark you, to say, Well, we are right and everybody else is wrong! Beware of any spirit like that! But I do say this, Be quite sure that the ground upon which you stand is not the ground of your study, your reason, your comparing of one thing with another; but upon the ground of the absolute sovereignty and Headship of Jesus Christ by the Holy Spirit. We come to this position at length: The Cross surely does come in and cleave between Adam in all his dividedness, his discord, his torn and rent state. Individually and collectively, the Cross cuts that whole thing off, in its ruined fabric, and it is put away. It is rolled up like a garment and buried for ever, and in the resurrection of the Lord Jesus the new Man comes forth, a unity, a whole. We can test our relationship to the Lord Jesus in two connections. Firstly, that we find that there is a progressive triumph in our own being of that which is ruling out the contradiction, a progressive victory taking place over the schism in our own being; that Christ is getting the upper hand more and more, and bringing us to that glorious peace which is the peace of harmony. That, of course, wants a lot of explaining and breaking up, but let us touch it at one small point and you will see what we mean, and it will open a great field. As we go on with the Lord, walking in the Spirit, or in other words, as Christ is becoming more and more Master in us, so there is a lessening and a decreasing of those awful conflicts, and of that awful unrest and lack of peace that springs from our trying to explain the ways of the Lord. Faith has ruled out our reasonings, and we are learning to trust the Lord, and peace comes in. We are in the ascendant, and the dividedness, the stormy conflict of our own souls, is silenced, is hushed; He is bringing about a harmony. I believe as we become more and more spiritually mature we shall have fewer storms between ourselves and the Lord, and more peace. Not because things will become easier, not because problems will cease to exist, not because mysteries will disappear, but because faith is trusting the Lord, and all this schism in our being is being subdued; and we are coming to a poise, a balance, a rest, a settledness. It is the oneness in us of Christ. How long this takes is determined not by time, but by the Lordship of Christ within. It may be very swift, or it may be long delayed, it depends upon our abandonment to Him. And then what is true in the individual becomes true amongst the saints, and we can again test our relationship to the Lord, our progress, by the transcendence through His love of those human elements, those natural things, which come between us, so that while the natural things are still there, and people are still themselves, and the old Adam is not eradicated, nevertheless there is a growing ascendancy over that in others, a forbearance, an understanding, a love, and the seamless robe is governing; for the beauty, so to speak, is being expressed in the Body. Woven from the top! Where is that? Where the Head is. Woven from the top throughout! In closing let us be reminded that the seamless robe is not in process of being woven. It is already an actuality. The unity of Christ is not something to be achieved. It stands complete now. Whatever may be the immature state of the believer or the Church as seen here, the fact that in Christ we are complete is not affected. A responsibility rests upon us to glorify Him by living according to the heavenly fact. We must recognize that all in Christ are one, for "There is one Body, and one Spirit... one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father...." We must put on the seamless robe, and not contradict in conduct the high and holy garment which we wear. "Putting away all strife, anger, malice, etc." We have not to make the garment; it is made. Ours it is to be suited to it. Written by T. Austin-Sparks

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