The Inexhaustible Riches of Christ.

The Inexhaustible Riches of Christ.

The queen of Sheba heard about the fame of Solomon. Stories regarding his wisdom and wealth were so amazing that she felt sure they were exaggerations. So she decided to go and see for herself. Here is part of that story:

The queen of Sheba heard about Solomon and his connection with the Name of GOD. She came to put his reputation to the test by asking tough questions. She made a grand and showy entrance into Jerusalem--camels loaded with spices, a huge amount of gold, and precious gems. She came to Solomon and talked about all the things that she cared about, emptying her heart to him. Solomon answered everything she put to him--nothing stumped him. When the queen of Sheba experienced for herself Solomon's wisdom and saw with her own eyes the palace he had built, the meals that were served, the impressive array of court officials and sharply dressed waiters, the lavish crystal, and the elaborate worship extravagant with Whole-Burnt-Offerings at the steps leading up to The Temple of GOD, it took her breath away. She said to the king, "It's all true! Your reputation for accomplishment and wisdom that reached all the way to my country is confirmed. I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it for myself; they didn't exaggerate! Such wisdom and elegance--far more than I could ever have imagined. (1Ki 10:1-7 Message)

Mat 12:42 The queen of the south shall rise up in the judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it: for she came from the uttermost parts of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and, behold, a greater than Solomon is here.

If the wealth and wisdom of Solomon could not be adequately described; if it was impossible to exaggerate, how much more impossible is it to exaggerate what we have in Christ. We cannot make too much of Him. And the treasure we found in Him cannot be fully appreciated by simply hearing about it; it is a treasure that needs to handled and experienced to find a sense of what it is really like. 1Jo 1:1: That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life;

Hearing (or reading) is but the first step into an experience much greater than what can be captured in words. Our words can simply point towards this experience, but can never capture it. Let me illustrate. Imagine sitting in a hot, humid room with all the windows closed. The air is stale and breathing is unpleasant. Then someone opens a window and a breeze brings in a fresh fragrance. The cool movement of air revives your body and soon the stale atmosphere is forgotten.

This is what God-inspired words do. They simply open the window for the Spirit or wind of God to blow and bring refreshment. Much of theology and much of Christian writings are centred on trying to capture this fresh wind. Instead of opening a window, these formulas and definitions attempt to capture the wind by closing the window. But as soon as the window is closed the wind ceases to be wind; the refreshing that came from it becomes a memory and pretty soon the same stale air fills the room.

Read the Word of God with this in mind; read this book with this in mind. These words refer to a reality greater than themselves. The substance is Christ Himself and the intimacy He has in mind can never be understood by mere words alone; your spirit needs to connect with His. These words simply open a window and point beyond themselves.

Obviously we will use our minds in loving the Lord, but never forget that loving Him with all your heart precedes loving Him with all your mind. Mat 22:37 Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.

Paul’s love affair with Christ was clearly growing throughout his life. If we read His letters in the sequence in which he wrote them we find that His insight into Christ grows with leaps and bounds. His focus never gets diversified; rather he sees more and more of the meaning of all things in Christ.

Lets look at his initial experience of Jesus and how it grew.
Act 9:3-9 And as he journeyed, he came near Damascus: and suddenly there shined round about him a light from heaven: And he fell to the earth, and heard a voice saying unto him, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? And he said, Who art thou, Lord? And the Lord said, I am Jesus whom thou persecutest: it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks. And he trembling and astonished said, Lord, what wilt thou have me to do? And the Lord said unto him, Arise, and go into the city, and it shall be told thee what thou must do. And the men which journeyed with him stood speechless, hearing a voice, but seeing no man. And Saul arose from the earth; and when his eyes were opened, he saw no man: but they led him by the hand, and brought him into Damascus.

In a letter to the believers at Corinth he gives us further insight into this experience. 2Co 4:6 For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

So much preaching has focussed on man’s decision for Christ; man’s faith in Christ; man’s repentance. Here we have an example of God’s initiative to reveal Himself to man, in this case Paul. Paul’s response was based on Jesus’ initiative. Paul did not need any teaching on repentance or how to have faith or making a quality decision. The revelation of who Jesus really is was all that was needed to draw from Paul the appropriate response. If, in our declaration of the gospel, we once again make Christ the focus; if we place our confidence in God’s ability to reveal Himself rather than placing our confidence in man’s faith, we will see genuine conversions as in the case of Paul. A conversion not based on popular Christian formulas, but based on a spontaneous response to ‘the light in the face of Jesus Christ’

We have changed the natural consequences of seeing Jesus into conditions for seeing Him. There are no conditions you can meet for God to reveal Himself to you. You can simply respond to His initiative. Isa 65:1 I gave access to them that asked not for Me, I was at hand to them that sought Me not; I said: 'Behold Me, behold Me', unto a nation that was not called by My name.
God is ready to reveal Himself even to those who do not seek Him! I remember the words of a beautiful song: “You are the rarest of treasures, yet so easy to find”
Paul gives us a further insight in Gal 1:15,16: Gal 1:15 But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother's womb, and called me by his grace, to reveal his Son in me.

How different is Paul’s language from today’s believers. His testimony is not: ‘When I made a decision for Christ then He….’ or ‘when I came to repentance then God…’ No, he has the order completely reversed! He starts with the initiative of God and his response is not even spoken about as a wilful decision, it’s just mentioned as a consequence! (be careful of making the consequences the conditions)

In this book you will find the same. I don’t place much emphasis on how man must respond or the importance of man’s contribution, simply because there are truths of much greater importance. God’s initiative, what He did before you were even born is the focus of this writing. Obviously man’s response is valuable, but I acknowledge that it is spontaneous and natural if Christ is revealed. A revelation of Christ is therefore the direction these words point to, the window it opens. If I have to teach a person how to respond to such a revelation, that person obviously did not have a revelation of Christ. It is dead religious traditions that need to teach its followers how to respond. An introduction to the living person of Christ needs no artificial protocols.

The light in the face of Jesus Christ is the light that blinded Paul. It is interesting to find this same Paul saying “While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal. “2Co 4:18
In the three days of natural blindness that followed, Paul started seeing with a clarity beyond his wildest dreams. God began to reveal His Son in him. He saw a reality within himself that was greater than anything outside of Him. Later he wrote: ‘So that we henceforth know no one according to flesh; but if even we have known Christ according to flesh, yet now we know him thus no longer.’ This time of natural blindness was obviously also the beginning of seeing spirit realities regarding God and man that remain hidden to those who do not know how to draw revelation from within.

T. Austin-Sparks expresses it as follows:
"I can understand now why Paul was revolutionized. He saw the face of Jesus Christ. He did not simply see a blazing light on the way to Damascus. He saw the significance of Jesus of Nazareth in the glory - the Man whom he had probably seen in Jerusalem... the Man whom he had hated - had loathed - as a blasphemer, as an apostate... the Man whom he thought had been rightly handled and given His due when He was crucified.

He saw that Man... and what that Man meant as installed in heaven at God's right hand; and there broke upon him something of the significance of Jesus Christ, as he saw the face of Jesus in that eternal, universal, and spiritual sense - that all-inclusive sense. Out from that beholding - for he never stopped beholding inwardly the face of Jesus - there grew and grew the explanation of history, the explanation of the race, the explanation of man, the explanation of human destiny, the explanation of the Cross... this unveiling of things which no man could ever know by reason or study. There came out into the heart of Paul the knowledge of what went on in Divine counsels in eternity of old. It was all seen in the face of Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ interpreted everything - explained everything - revealed everything."

In one of Paul’s last letters, the letter to the Philippians, we see his adoration of Christ did not weaken through the years. On the contrary, we find in this letter his most expressive desire to just know Christ more. Think of it…He spent His life exploring the depths of Christ and his ultimate wish remains: ‘That I might know Him more’! This is not a revelation that we grasp, categorize and file with all our other neatly ordered doctrines; this is a revelation that grasps us, consumes us, until we say ‘I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me’ It’s a revelation that takes you beyond individual life into union life. Can you sense the call of Christ within you; inviting you to union with Himself. Can you sense His cords of love drawing you into a deeper understanding of Him; a spiritual understanding not a mental one. He is so ready to reveal Himself to you in a deeper way than what you ever experienced Him before.

By Andre Rabe
andre.rabe@gmail.com
http://eclesia.blogspot.com