“AN OPEN HEAVEN”

We have been led to think in these meditations about being in ‘the School of Christ’, where all the learning, all the instruction, all the discipline, is toward ‘knowing Christ’, ‘learning Christ’; - not learning about ‘Christ’, but “learning Christ”. 

That is the point of greatest difficulty in trying to make things plain and clear. 

We could take up everything there is about ‘Christ’ as
doctrine, as teaching, but that is not what we are after. 

That is not what ‘the Lord’ is after at all. 

It is ‘Christ Himself’. 

‘He Himself’ is ‘the Living’, ‘Personal Embodiment’, ‘the Personification’ of all ‘Truth’, of all ‘Life’, and ‘the Lord’s Purpose and Will’ for us is not to come to know ‘Truth’ in its manifold aspects, but to know ‘the Person’, ‘the Living Person’ in a living way, and that ‘the Person’ being imparted  to us, and we being incorporated into ‘the Person’, all the ‘Truth’ becomes ‘Living Truth’ rather than merely ‘theoretical  or technical Truth’.   
 
Just a word of repetition here: and I really cannot tell you with what force this has come to my own heart and how heavily it rests upon me in its meaning.  

But listen, whenever things are in danger of departing from ‘His full’, ‘His complete Thought’, ‘God’ will always seek to bring back a ‘fresh Revelation of His Son’. 

‘He’ will not lead to ‘the recapture of Truths’ as such.  
 
‘He’ will bring back all that is necessary by a ‘fresh Revelation of His Son’, an ‘Unveiling or Presentation of His Son in Fulness’. 

In that connection we have more than once said in these meditations that the Gospel written by ‘John’, and his Letters, and the Apocalypse, are the final things of ‘New Testament Dispensation’. 

They were written and brought in when ‘The New Testament Church’ was departing from its primal and pristine Glory, and  Purity, and Truth, and Holiness, and Spirituality, and becoming an earthly ‘Christian System’. 

‘The Lord’s way’ of meeting that situation was through these writings which are a ‘new Presentation of His Son’ in Heavenly, Divine, Spiritual Fulness. 

It is a coming back to ‘Christ’, and ‘the Holy Spirit’ would do that all the time. 

‘He’ would bring us back to ‘the Person’, to show us what that ‘Person’ represents in a ‘Spiritual’ and ‘Heavenly way’.

We must be very careful that in all passing on from ‘the Gospels’ to ‘the Epistles’, we do not get even unconsciously  into the position that we have left ‘elementary things’ and gone on to something that is not so ‘elementary’, that is, that ‘the Epistles’ are something very much in advance of ‘the Gospels’. 

Let me say it emphatically they are not. 

They are only ‘the opening up’ of ‘the Gospels’. 

All that is in ‘the Epistles’ is there in ‘the Gospels’, but ‘the Epistles’ are simply ‘the interpretation of Christ’, and ‘the Lord’ would never have us occupied with the ‘interpretation’ to the loss of ‘the Person’. 

“All things in Christ” 

Now, if I were talking to people who were responsible in the matter of ‘Church building’, that would be a very profitable  matter with which to stay for a little while; but it just amounts to this for us. 

We take ‘the Acts’ and ‘the Epistles’ as setting forth ‘the technique of the Church and Churches’ and adopt it as a ‘crystallized system’ of practice, order, form, teaching, and the weakness in the whole position is just this, that that is something as in itself and ‘the Lord Jesus’ has been missed and lost. 

I wonder if you detect what I mean by that? 

You see, ‘the Holy Spirit’s way’ is to take ‘Christ’ and open up ‘Christ’ to the heart, and show that ‘Christ’ is a ‘Heavenly Order’; not that ‘the Epistle’ is set forth as a ‘manual of Heavenly Order’, but that ‘Christ’ is that ‘Order’, and everything in this matter of ‘Order’ has to be kept immediately in relation to ‘the Living Person’. 

If it becomes some thing, then it becomes an ‘earthly system’; and you can make out of ‘the Epistles’ a hundred different ‘earthly systems’ all built upon ‘the Epistles’. 

They will support any number of different systems, different interpretations, represented by ‘Christian Orders’ here, and the reason is that they have been divorced from ‘the Person’. 

You see, there are numerous things, numerous subjects, themes, teachings. 

There is the “Kingdom of God”, there is ‘Sanctification’, there is ‘Eternal Life’, there is the ‘Victorious Life’, the ‘Overcomer’ or the ‘Overcoming Life’, there is the ‘Second Coming of Christ’; and so on.  

These are only a few subjects, themes, truths, as they are called, which have been taken up and developed out of ‘the Scriptures’ and become ‘things’ with which people have become very much occupied, and in which they are very interested as things. 

And so certain people ‘hive off’, as the British would say,  around a ‘Sanctification teaching’, and they are ‘the Sanctificationists’, and it becomes an “ism”.

Others ‘hive off’ (i.e., swarm around); and they are bounded by the hedge of ‘Second Adventism’, ‘the Lord’s Coming’,  ‘Prophecy’, and all that.  
 
So you get ‘groups’ like that. 

I want to say that would be utterly impossible if ‘the Person of the Lord Jesus’ was dominant.  

Let me ask, what is ‘the Kingdom of God’? 

It is ‘the Lord Jesus Christ’! 

If you get right inside of ‘the Gospels’ you will find that ‘the Kingdom of God’ is ‘Jesus Christ’! 

If you are livingly ‘in Christ’, you are in ‘the Kingdom’, and you know, as ‘the Holy Spirit’ teaches you ‘Christ’, what ‘the Kingdom’ is in every detail. 

‘The Kingdom’ is not some thing, in the first place. 

‘The Kingdom’, when it becomes something universal, will simply be ‘the expression’ and ‘manifestation of Christ.   

That is all. 

You come to ‘the Kingdom’ in and through ‘Christ’; and the same is true of everything else.  
 
What is ‘Sanctification’?  
 
It is not a ‘Doctrine’. 

It is not an ‘it’ at all.  
 
It is ‘Christ’! 

‘He’ is made unto us ‘Sanctification’. (1.Cor.1:30)

If you are ‘in Christ’, and if ‘the Holy Spirit’ is teaching you ‘Christ’, then you are knowing all about ‘Sanctification’; and if ‘He’ is not, you may have a theory and doctrine of ‘Sanctification’, but it will separate you from other ‘Christians’,  and it will be bringing any number of ‘Christians’ into difficulties.  
 
Probably ‘the Teaching of Sanctification’ as a thing has brought more ‘Christians’ into difficulty than any other particular Doctrine, through making it a thing, instead of keeping ‘Christ’ as our ’Sanctification’. 

I am only saying this to try to explain what I mean that it is in ‘the School of Christ’ that we are to be found, where ‘the Holy Spirit’ is not teaching us things; not ‘Church Doctrine’, not ‘Sanctification’, not ‘Adventism’, not any thing, or any number of things, but teaching us ‘Christ’. 

What is ‘Adventism’? 

What is ‘the Coming of the Lord’? 

Well, it is ‘the Coming of the Lord’. 

And what is ‘the Coming of the Lord’? 

Well, such a word as this, which is found in 2.Thes.1:10 will give us the key: “He shall come to be glorified in His saints,  and to be marvelled at in all them that believed”. 

You see, it is the consummation of something that has been going on in an inward way.  
 
How then do I best know that ‘the Coming of the Lord’ draws nigh? 

Not best of all by ‘Prophetical Signs’, but by what is going on within ‘the hearts of the Lord’s people’. 

That is ‘the best Sign of the Times’, namely, what ‘the Spirit of God’ is doing in ‘the People of God’. 

But maybe you are not interested in that. 

But let me ask, where has all the talking about ‘the revived Roman Empire’ gotten us? 

That is ‘Adventism’ as a ‘thing’. 

If only we keep close to ‘Him’ who is the sum of all ‘Truth’, and move with ‘Him’ and ‘learn Him’, we shall know ‘the course of things’. 

We shall know what is imminent.  
 
We shall have in our heart whisperings of preparation. 

The best ‘Advent Preparation’ is to know ‘the Lord’.

Now, I am not saying that there is nothing in ‘Prophecy’: please, do not misunderstand me. 

But I do know that there are multitudes of people who are simply engrossed in ‘Prophecy’ as a thing whose ‘Spiritual Life’ counts for nothing, who really have no deep inward walk with ‘the Lord’.  

We have seen it so often. 

It is all external, all objective; such things as ‘the Roman Empire revived’, ‘Palestine recovered’, ‘the rebuilding of the Temple’, and so on.  
 
You know the sort of thing, I am sure.

But when it comes to ‘Spiritual things’ as for instance, “... Every one that has this hope set on Him purifies himself, even as He is pure” (1.John 3:3); to speak on ‘the Spiritual effect’ of that ‘Spiritual Hope’, they are not interested. 

Oh listen, it is ‘the Lord’, and ‘the Holy Spirit’ who would bring us back to ‘the Lord’ and it is not, after all, coming back to nonessentials, to elementary things, but to come back to ‘Christ’. 

It is coming on to the only basis upon which ‘the Holy Spirit’ can really accomplish all ‘God’s Will and Purpose’, to be in ‘the School of Christ’ where ‘the Holy Spirit’ is teaching us ‘Christ’; and ‘the Holy Spirit’s way’ of teaching ‘Christ’ is  ‘experiential’. 

Now, here is where we become so seemingly ‘elementary’. 

You see, the very nature of this ‘School’ requires the most drastic change in ‘ourselves’. 

Actually, it is impossible to get into ‘the School of Christ’, where ‘the Holy Spirit’ is ‘the great Tutor’, until ‘the greatest change’ has taken place in us. 

We have to be made all over again or that ‘School’ will mean nothing. 

We cannot come in here with any hope of ‘learning Christ’ in the smallest way until a whole ‘new set of faculties’ has been given to us. 

We have to have ‘faculties’ given to us which we do not possess ‘naturally’. 

“Except one be born from above, he cannot see the Kingdom of God” (John 3:3); and that is ‘the Lord’s way’ of stating a ‘tremendous fact’. 

That ‘Kingdom’ is one in which certain things prevail with which I have no correspondence at all, with which naturally I have no power of communication. 

To illustrate, let me say this, - take a walk around the Garden; - walk down by the potatoes and other vegetables and talk about, well, anything you like. 

What would the potatoes think about you? 

What would the cabbages say about you?  

They neither hear nor understand what you are talking about,  whatever it is. 

You see, their kind of life is not your kind of life. 

They are not constituted in your kingdom. 

There is no correspondence between them and you at all. 

They have not the capacity, the gift, the qualification, for the most ‘elementary things’ that you may be talking about. 

You may be talking about the most ordinary, every-day things; they do not know. 

And so, it is like that. 

There is just as great a divide between us and ‘the Kingdom of God’.  
 
“The natural man receives not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him; and he cannot know them...” (1.Cor.2:14)

The divide is so utter that if you and I were brought in our ‘natural state’ right into the place where ‘the Spirit of God’ was speaking, unless ‘the Spirit of God’ worked a miracle in us, the whole thing would be of another world. 

And is it not so? 

But how many ‘Believers’ go out into this world and talk about ‘the things of the Lord’ and see men gape at them.  
 
It is all ‘foreign’ to them. 

“Except one be born from above, he cannot see the Kingdom of God”. 

And so, to get into this ‘School’, something has to happen to us, and that means that we have to be constituted anew, with altogether other qualifications and abilities for ‘the things of God’. 

That is ‘the nature of this School’. 

It is ‘the School of the Spirit of God’.

Of course, I know that is very elementary to most of you, but,  after all, is not that ‘the thing’ that is being pressed on us all the time?  

It is being brought home to us how that we may hear words,  and yet that they may not mean anything to us.  
 
We need our capacity for ‘Spiritual Understanding’ enlarged more and more. 

We are ‘naturally’ handicapped in this whole matter. 

Well, we shall leave it here for now, but will pick it up, next week, Lord willing! 

“The Breaking of the Self-life” 

There is ‘one passage’ that I cannot get away from. 

It has been with me for some time and has been here as the basis of our meditation. 

It is John 1:51, and it seems to me that those are words which introduce us to ‘the School of Christ’, namely, those words of ‘the Lord Jesus’ to ‘Nathanael’. 

I think it would be helpful to read the whole section from verse 47: “Jesus saw Nathanael coming to Him, and said of him, “Behold an Israelite indeed, in whom is no deceit!” Nathanael said unto Him, “How do You know me?” Jesus answered and said unto him, “Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you.” Nathanael answered and said to Him, “Rabbi, You are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!” Jesus answered and said to him, “Because I said to you, ‘I saw you under the fig tree,’ do you believe? You will see greater things than these.” And He said unto him, “Most assuredly, I say to you, hereafter you shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.” 

Here we are approaching ‘the School of Christ’, and there is one thing which is essential before we can even come to the threshold of ‘the School’, and that is what is marked by those words, “Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom is no deceit!”

That put alongside ‘the final words’, - “The angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man,” - gives us a ‘complete Picture’ of what ‘Spiritually’ lies behind. 

At the time when ‘Jacob’ in deception, - you remember the story of his deception, - he stole ‘the Birthright’ and had to escape for his life, he saw a ‘very great Truth’, although only dimly as in type or figure, and a ‘Truth’ moreover into which he was not then able to enter. 

‘Jacob’ at that time could never have entered into the meaning of what he saw, namely, ‘the House of God’,- “Bethel”; that place were ‘Heaven’ and ‘Earth’ meet, ‘God’ and ‘Man’ meet, where ‘the Glory’ - uniting ‘Heaven’ and ‘Earth’, ‘God’ and ‘Man’ is ‘the great Link’, - where ‘God’ speaks and makes ‘Himself’ known, where ‘God’s Purposes’ are revealed.

Now why was this the case with ‘Jacob’? 

He was in ‘deception’. 

Let him leave it there then, as he must, and go on, and for ‘20 years’ come under ‘discipline’, and at the end of ‘20 years of discipline’ meet ‘the full impact of Heaven’ upon his ‘earthly life’, his ‘earthly nature’, the full impact of ‘the Spirit’ upon his ‘flesh’, the full impact of ‘God’ upon himself at ‘Jabbok’, and let that fleshly, natural life be smitten and broken and withered, to bear the mark for the rest of his days of its having come under ‘the ban of God’; and then with the ‘Jacob’ judged, the ‘Jacob’ smitten, wounded, withered, he can go back and pour out his drink-offering at ‘Bethel’, and abide. 

‘The deception’ is dealt with. 

He is now not ‘Jacob’ but “Israel”, in whom, speaking in type and figure, there is no ‘deceit’. 

‘The Lord Jesus’ is saying here, to put it in a word, just this;  to come into the place of ‘the open Heaven’, where for you ‘God’ is coming down in communication, and ‘the Glory of God’ abides, and where you enjoy all that ‘Bethel’ means, is nothing else than to come into ‘Me’; and to come into ‘Me’ and abide in ‘Me’ as ‘the Bethel’, ‘the House of God’, and have all the good of ‘Heaven’ and of ‘God’ communicated, means you have come to the place where ‘the natural life’ has been laid low, broken, withered.  

You see, we cannot come into ‘His School’ until that has happened, and it is necessary for ‘the Lord’ to say to us ‘in Christ’ as we come to the very threshold of that door, ‘Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no ‘Jacob’; you shall see the heaven opened’! 

To speak of the ‘Jacob-life’, is, after all, only another way of saying the ‘Self-life; for ‘Self’ is the very essence of ‘the natural life’; - not just ‘the Self-life’ in its most positive evil forms, but the ‘Self-life’ in its totality.  
 
Let me stay with that.  

Notice: here is ‘the Lord Jesus’. 

No one will dare to say that the ‘Self-life in Christ’ was like our ‘Self-life’, polluted, corrupted, sinful. 

Not at all!  
 
And yet ‘He’ had a ‘Self-life’, a sinless ‘Self-life’. 

For ‘Him’ the ‘Self-life’ simply meant that ‘He’ could act and speak and think and judge and move out from ‘Himself’.  

That is all.  
 
Not with ‘evil intent’, not as motivated or influenced by anything ‘sinful’ or ‘corrupt’, but simply ‘independently’.  
 
‘He’ could have done and said a lot of ‘good things’ ‘independently’. 

But ‘He’ took the attitude, the position, that, although there was no sin ‘in Him’, ‘He’ could not and would not at any time act or speak apart from ‘His Father’. 

That would be ‘independence’, and give ‘the enemy’ just the opening that he was working for.  
 
But we can leave that. 

My point is this, that you and I must not think of the ‘Self- life’ only as something manifestly ‘corrupt’. 

Listen, there is a great deal done for ‘God’ with ‘the purest motive’ that is done out from ‘ourselves’. 

There are many thoughts, ideas, judgments, even visions which are sublime, beautiful, but they are ours, and if we did but know ‘the Truth’, they are altogether different from ‘God’s’.  

No, ‘Self’ is not necessarily ‘the obvious corrupt thing’, although we shall find, as we go on with ‘God’, that there is a ‘strain of corruption’ behind everything in ‘ourselves’. 

Of course, ‘God’ knows all about that. 

And so, right at the very door of ‘His School’, ‘the Lord’ puts something utter.  
 
It is ‘Jabbok’. 

‘Jabbok’ was a tributary of ‘the Jordan’, and the effect and the out-workings of ‘Jordan’ are right there at the very threshold of ‘the School of Christ’.  
 
‘He’ accepted ‘Jordan’ in order to enter into that ‘School of the Holy Spirit’ for three and a half years. 

You and I will not get into ‘the School of the Anointing’ in any other way. 

It has to be like that.  
 
If you and I are going to ‘learn Christ’, it will only be as the ‘Jacob-nature’ is smitten. 

I am not talking to you mere ‘doctrine’ and ‘technique’; and I am not here to preach ‘sermons’ or give ‘talks’.

We are right down on ‘the reality’ of this matter of ‘the Holy Spirit’ directly and immediately revealing ‘Christ’ to us, and that ever-growingly; - and this cannot be until we have come to our ‘Jabbok’, until the ‘Jacob-life’ has been dealt with through that ‘crisis’, and ‘the Lord’ is able to say, ‘an Israelite indeed, in whom is no Jacob; you shall see heaven opened’! 

Please Notice: there is that ‘dome’, ‘the closed Heaven’ over us by nature, but, ‘Thank God’! ‘the Cross’ rends ‘the Heavens’, ‘the Veil’ is rent from top to bottom, and ‘Christ’ is revealed through ‘the rent veil of His flesh’. 

‘He’ is no longer seen as ‘the Man Jesus’; - ‘He’ is seen in our hearts in all the fulness of ‘God’s consummate Thought’ for ‘Man’. 

It is a tremendous thing to see ‘the Lord Jesus’, and it is a tremendous thing to go on seeing ‘Him’ more and more.  
 
That is where it begins - ‘Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom is no deceit, no Jacob’!   

‘You shall see heaven opened’! 

“A new Prospect for a new Man”

Now, that word, “You shall see heaven opened” is ‘the new Prospect’ for a ‘new Man’. 

A ‘new Man’, ‘new Prospect’! 

In ‘the Authorized Version’, a word is added which has been left out in ‘the Revised Version’. 

I take it for the simple reason that it is implicit in ‘the original’, without the word necessarily being introduced. 

In ‘the Authorized Version’ it says, “Hereafter You shall see heaven opened”.  
 
In ‘the Revised Version’, that first word is left out, and it  simply reads, “You shall see...”. 

But “You shall” is something ‘prospective’, it is a tense pointing on to a ‘future day’. 

Not ‘you are seeing’, but “You shall see”. 

It is a ‘new Prospect’ for a ‘New Man’; and therein lies a ‘new Era’.  
 
It is ‘the Era of the Holy Spirit’, for by ‘the Coming of the Holy Spirit’, ‘the open Heaven’ is made a ‘Reality’.  

‘The Cross’ effects ‘the opening of the Heaven’ for us, but it is ‘the Holy Spirit’ who makes it good in us, just as was the case in ‘the typical or symbolic Death and Burial and Resurrection’ of ‘the Lord Jesus’ in ‘Jordan’, when the Heavens were opened to ‘Him’. 

Coming up on ‘New’, on ‘Resurrection Ground’, ‘He’ had ‘the open Heaven’. 

‘The Holy Spirit’ then came upon and, abode upon ‘Him’, and ‘the Holy Spirit’ became, shall we say, ‘the Channel of Communication’, making ‘the open Heaven’ all that it should be as a matter of Communication, Intercourse, Communion. 

It is ‘the Era of the Holy Spirit’, making all ‘the Values of Christ’ real in us.  
 
“You shall”; and, ‘Thank God’!, what was ‘prospective’ for ‘Nathanael’ is ‘present’ for us. 

That ‘Era’ has come. 

We are in ‘the Era of the Holy Spirit’, of ‘the open Heaven’. 

And so, what is ‘the mark of the life’ anointed by ‘the Holy Spirit’?  
 
You remember when ‘Paul’ went to ‘Ephesus’, he found certain Disciples and, without giving us any explanation of the reason for his question, he immediately said, “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed”? 

Their reply was, “No, we did not so much as hear whether the Holy Spirit was given”. 

Then Paul’s next question is full of significance, taking us back to ‘Jordan’. 

“Into what then were you baptized”?  
 
‘Baptism’ is bound up with this vital ‘Reality’.  
 
If you do not know ‘the Holy Spirit’, what can your ‘Baptism’ have meant? 

They said, “we were baptized into John’s baptism”. - Then ‘Paul’ said “John baptized unto repentance, saying unto the people, that they should believe on Him Who should come after him, that is, on Christ Jesus. - When they heard this they were baptized into the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit came upon them”. (Acts 19:2-5)

And so they came into ‘the School of Christ’; and ‘the mark of a life’ anointed by ‘the Holy Spirit’ is that you know ‘Christ’ in this living and ever-growing way. 

Oh, listen to me, this is not so elementary and unnecessary as it may seem.  
 
Of course, some of us take such a long time to learn.  
 
We know so much, and we discover that our real knowledge, that is, personal knowledge of ‘Christ’ is a poor thing. 

We are constantly brought up against that.  

At last, sooner or later, you and I are going to come to the place were we exclaim, ‘It is not Doctrines and Truths and Themes and Subjects and Scriptures as mere Matter that I need to know’! 

It is all very wonderful when you are taken up with it; but let a man come into ‘the fires’, into ‘deep trial’, into ‘trouble’ and ‘perplexity’ and then what about all your Doctrines and all your Themes, and all your Bible Study?  
 
What is ‘the value’ of it? 

It does not really solve your problem, it does not get you through. 

This is a ‘tragedy’! 

It is true of many of us who have got certain ‘Doctrines’, we who have gone through ‘the Doctrines of the Bible’ and worked them out, and who know what is in ‘the Bible’ on these things’; - Regeneration, Redemption, Atonement, Righteousness by Faith, Sanctification, and so on; - it is true that after we have gone through them all, and have got them all well worked out, and we come into a terrible ‘spiritual experience’, the whole thing counts for nothing, and we come to the place where, but for ‘the Lord’, we could easily throw ‘the whole thing’ over and say, this ‘Christianity’ does not work! 

Yes, for those who have known ‘the Lord’ for years, so far as ‘the accumulation of Truth’ is concerned, that is about ‘the value’ of it in an hour of ‘the deepest spiritual distress’. 

The only thing then that can help you is not your beautiful notebooks full of ‘Doctrines’, but, what do I know of ‘the Lord’ personally and livingly in my own heart? 

What has ‘the Holy Spirit’ revealed in me, and made a part of me, of ‘Christ’?  
 
Sooner or later, that is where we are coming to. 

We are going to be brought back to ‘the Living, Spiritual Knowledge of the Lord’; for ‘He’ alone personally, as revealed in our very being by ‘the Holy Spirit’, can save us in ‘the deepest hour’. 

The day will come when we will be stripped of everything but what is spiritually, inwardly known of ‘Christ’, stripped of all our ‘mental’ and ‘intellectual knowledge’. 

Many of those who have been giants in ‘Teaching’ and in ‘Doctrine’ have had a very, very dark hour at the end of their lives, because all that has proved to be of less account than the one thing, ‘the measure’ of real ‘inward Knowledge’ of ‘the Lord’: and I say inward. 

How can I explain what I mean by that? 

Well, for example, you discover something in ‘the realm of food’ that really does help you. 

You have gone all around trying everything, all that ‘the food people’ can provide to help you in a specific malady or weakness, and nothing has helped you. 

Then suddenly you discover something that really does help you, and the next time you are put to the test you take some of that and find you can go through on that.   

It is in you, something that gets you through your ordeal. 

That is what I mean, with reference to this question of how and what ‘Christ’ is to be to us. 

‘He’ is to be in us, that upon which we can rest back in ‘confidence’ and ‘assurance’, and, doing so, ‘He’ gets us through.  
 
We are to know ‘Him’ in that way.  
 
That is the only way in which to ‘learn Christ’, and that is ‘experiential’. 

“You shall see the heaven opened”.  
 
‘The Holy Spirit’ has come to make for us an altogether ‘new order of things’, so that ‘Christ’ is being revealed in us as our ‘very Life’. 

You shall see when ‘the Holy Spirit’ comes: that is the mark of an ‘anointed Life’. 

You shall see! 

And those are ‘great moments’ when we do see. 

Some of us have had those ‘great moments’ in specific connections, and some of us have seen others have their ‘great moments’ in specific connections. 

Yet we have known that they knew all about ‘the thing’, and have been taught it, and have had it drummed into them for years; and then after years suddenly it has broken upon them, and they have said, ‘I am now beginning to see what has been said all this time! - I have discovered that ‘Christ’ is ‘in me’!’ 

Listen, “Christ in you, the hope of glory”, has become a ‘Reality’ to me. (Col.1:27)

Oh, that ‘the world’ were full of ‘Christians’ like that! 

Let me ask, is this not ‘the need’? 

But inasmuch as this was said to ‘Nathanael’ it must be for all of us. 

It was not said to ‘Peter’, ‘James’, and ‘John’ up on ‘the Mount of Transfiguration’: it was said to ‘Nathanael’, one of ‘the general circle’. 

It is for all; and if that wants proving, notice what ‘the Lord Jesus’ said, - “You shall see the heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man”.  
 
What has happened? 

A tremendous transition has taken place in the course of a few sentences.  
 
Behold, an ‘Israelite’ indeed! 

That is for ‘Israel’; - for ‘Jacob’, yes, ‘the Father of Israel’; -  for ‘Sons of Jacob’, ‘the earthly Israel’. 

But that is purely within ‘the limitations of earth’, purely within ‘the limitations of a people here amongst the nations’, and within ‘the limitation of types’. 

Yes, but now for this ‘tremendous transition’.  

‘The Lord’ has cancelled out something ‘Nathanael’ said. 

“You are King of Israel”, said he. 

‘King of Israel’?  
 
That is nothing! 

‘You shall see greater things then these’. 

“You shall see the heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man”!   

That is something vastly greater than ‘Israel’. 

‘Son of Man’! 

That is not ‘racial’, that is ‘universal’; that is for all ‘Men’ who will come in, not just for ‘Israel’. 

‘You shall see greater things’! 

‘Heaven opened’ - and for whom? 

Not just for ‘Israel’, but for all ‘Men in Christ’. 

‘The Son of Man’! 

That title, ‘Son of Man’, simply represents ‘God’s thought’ concerning Man. 

‘The open Heaven’ is for ‘Man’ when he comes into ‘God’s thought in Christ’. 

‘The open Heaven’ is for ‘Man’: ‘God revealing Himself’ to ‘Man’ in ‘the Man’. 

Thank God! - It is for all of us!  
 
Let no one think that this ‘open Heaven’, this ‘Anointing’, is for a ‘certain few’. 

Oh no, it is for ‘everyone’! 

‘God’s desire’, ‘God’s thought’, is that you and I, the most simple, foolish, weak amongst men, the most limited ‘naturally’ and, with the least capacity ‘naturally’, should find that ‘our very Birthright’ is an ‘open Heaven’. 

In other words, you and I may come and ‘in Christ’ know this wonderful ‘Work’ of ‘the Holy Spirit’ in an inward ‘Revelation of Christ’ in ever-growing ‘Fulness’. 

That is for us, ‘every one’ of us. 

May we all have a ‘new movement’ toward ‘the Lord’ in this matter, and may we all know an ‘open Heaven’, ‘the Holy Spirit’ revealing ‘Christ’ in our hearts, for ‘His Glory’.