Not
by might nor by power, but by My Spirit, says the Lord of hosts. Zechariah 4:6
Does it not strike you as significant, and very impressive, that
when the veil was rent Israel was set aside? Israel had been called in to
maintain a testimony in types. Christ had come and fulfilled all the types, and
being the center of all the types, the veil, all that kept God shut off from
man, was now dealt with, and the way was open. There was no need for types now.
So the custodian of the types departs with the types. This is not the
dispensation of the types: this is the dispensation of the reality, the
dispensation of a heavenly union with a risen Lord, and of all that that means.
Our danger is of bringing back types. The types have gone and that is the whole
message of this letter to the Hebrews. Christ is everything. The outward order
of the Old Testament is set aside, and now all that obtains is Christ Himself.
He is the Priest; you no longer have priests on earth in the Old Testament
sense. He is the Sacrifice; there is no need for any other sacrifices. He is
the Tabernacle; He is the Temple; He is the Church.
What is the Church? It is Christ in living union with His own,
that wheresoever two or three are gathered together in His name there He is in
the midst. That is the Church. You do not build special buildings and call them
"the Church." You do not have special organizations, religious
institutions, which you call "the Church." Believers in living union
with the risen Lord constitute the Church. This is the reality, not the figure.
That is to say, His flesh, human limitation, is done away. Now in union with
Christ risen all human limitations are transcended. This is one of the wonders
of Christ risen as a living reality. We are brought into a realm of capacities
which are more than human capacities, where, because of Christ in us, we can do
what we never could do naturally. Our relationships are new relationships; they
are with heaven. Our resources are new resources: they are in heaven. That is
why the Apostle wrote to the Corinthians and said that God hath chosen the weak
things, the foolish things. The things which are despised, and the things
which are not, that He by them might bring to naught the wise, the mighty, the
things which are. Why did God appoint it so? Because it is not by might, nor by
power, but by His Spirit; and to show that there are powers, energies,
abilities for His own which transcend all the greatest powers and abilities of
this world.
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