Introduction

This teaching was initially titled “Guard Your Hearts”, but the more I prayed into what I sensed the Lord was saying to me concerning the work of his Word and Spirit the more I understood that a far more positive message was needed. This article flows on naturally from my earlier teaching on the River of God. The River flows from the heart of God through our hearts into the world, but can only do this with power when the human heart has been prepared in a certain way. Unless the heart of man has been prepared for the River of Life in a deep and mature way, the resulting impact will include disintegration in the Church and a failure to change national character. Tragically, after an initial cleansing the last state may become worse than the first (Matt 12:45; 2 Pet 2:20), something that the Spirit of God is strenuously seeking to avoid! As I proceed I need to make a few foundational comments about the perspective of this paper.

In the Bible the “heart” is not merely a source of feeling or emotions but the irreducible core of what makes us human. Man has a heart because first of all God has a heart (Gen 6:6; Jer 32:41). Of central importance for this article is the conviction that it is the heart that motivates all of our relationships. I am convinced both by scripture and experience that the restoration of the unity of the Word and the Spirit in their witness to our hearts is the essential precondition to sustainable revival.

The Gift of Guarding

The pattern of creation begins with a formless empty earth upon which order is imprinted in a particular mode. It is by the movement of the Spirit and the utterance of the Word of God that illumination breaks into the cosmos. “The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.” (Gen 1:2-3). This sequence of Spirit – Word- enlightenment is repeated throughout scripture[1] and reflects an indispensable pattern. The goal of creation can only be understood through the joint witness of the Spirit and the Word, who in their unity bring light to the purposes of God for human life.

The first record of the vocation of Adam is described in this way, “The LORD God placed the man in the Garden of Eden to tend and watch over it.” (Gen 2:15). Adam was no mere gardener, for the words to do with tending and watching are used throughout the Old Testament either as a command to guard God’s Word or of a priestly charge to guard the tabernacle as God’s dwelling place[2]. Central to Adam’s awesome responsibility to watch over the conditions for the divine dwelling with humanity was the prohibition, ““You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, 17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”” (Gen 2:16-17).  Whilst the text is not explicit, it must be the case that this Word of God was breathed out by the Spirit of God (cf. Job 33:4; 2 Tim 3:16). Adam was entrusted with the stewardship of a Word whereby Eden could be preserved as the joyful habitation of the LORD. As long as the Man held fast to the Spirit’s witness to the Word spoken into his heart (cf. Rom 10:9) everything was experienced as purposeful, ordered and a delight.

The Lost Watchman

From the narrative in Genesis 2 it is not exactly clear what guarding the Garden might mean; this uncertainty suddenly shifts when we read, “Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’” (Gen 3:1). The snake appears as an alien intruder who immediately challenges God’s authority represented by his Word. Though nearby, Adam fails to give testimony to the truth of the Word spoken directly to him by God (Gen 3:6). The first man, created to be a faithful watchman of the divine order, utterly abrogates his holy responsibly of guarding the sanctuary of God. Instead of exorcising the unclean spirit through word of command issuing from the witness of his spirit with the Spirit and Word of God, he abandons his post. The consequences of Adam’s failure to testify are horrendous and indescribable. To reject the divine order represented by Spirit – Word – God (Father) is to untie the cord of love that binds everything together in perfect unity (cf. Col 3:14).

In their fallen state the joy bringing witness of the Holy Word of God was now only a memory to Adam and Eve, another testimony now filled their hearts, one of indelible shame (Gen 3:7). Hope was lost, order destroyed and purpose dissolved. A sense of inward pollution filled their being and everything was suddenly fragmented. The pathetic attempt to cover themselves with fig leaves represents humanity’s tragic and age old efforts to guard the integrity of one’s own life without God’s own watchful Word indwelling the heart. The inner vulnerability of lost persons projected itself into countless psychological defences, the most potent being blaming others. As the old quip goes, when confronted by God the man blamed the woman, the woman blamed the snake and the snake didn’t have a leg to stand on! The dissolution of God –ordained death shows that all such attempts at self protection are hopelessly futile.

After the Fall the presence of God was still to be found upon the earth, but man could no longer fulfil his purpose as a guardian of the divine dwelling place. This task now fell to the holy angels, “He drove out the man, and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life.” (Gen 3:24)[3].

Cast out from the presence of the LORD, Adam and Eve found themselves in a dread-full situation. Having abandoned the Spirit-filled Word their own consciences witnessed to them that they were morally and spiritually unreliable at the core of their being. This was their (self) condemnation and it was experienced as ineradicable. Human guilt registers most deeply as the loss of the authority to testify to the glory of God (Rom 3:23), only a restoration of communion with the fullness of the Spirit and the Word can heal humanity of such deep depravity. Until this takes place, I possess the shattered heart of an unfaithful broken witness.

A Witness Remains

It is not however as if God left himself without any sort of witness in the world. He still spoke clearly to all people through the order of nature and the provision for human need (Acts 14:17). More importantly in terms of the destiny of the race, God never ceased to send prophets. The pivotal Old Testament text on the role of the prophet, ““For the Lord GOD does nothing without revealing his secret to his servants the prophets. The lion has roared; who will not fear? The Lord GOD has spoken; who can but prophesy?”” (Am 3:7-8), implies that no plan of God for the good of humanity is without the grace of testimony. The authentic prophet knows only one King. The prophet guards not so much the human heart but the reign of God as King upon which the transformation of the heart depends. As such the prophet is essentially a watchman of the Word[4] and of the divine theocracy, i.e. the rule of God[5]. This is why the prophets fiercely oppose all false prophecy which must ultimately lead to the destruction of God’s people[6].

New Testament prophecy is of essentially the same order as Old.  From the time of John the Baptist the Kingdom of God is proclaimed (Matt 3:2). Jesus likewise proclaims God’s Kingdom[7].  The striking new element in the new covenant proclamation however is that the gospel identifies Jesus as the King in his kingdom[8]. The prophetic vocation of the whole Church on behalf of humanity is to guard the message of the Word of God concerning the LORD’s plan to restore his dwelling place with humanity through Christ. This is what is meant by the climactic declaration, “the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.” (Rev 19:10). When the people of God exhibit lawless behaviour, as so often in our time, the following must be true; “Where there is no prophetic vision the people cast off restraint” (Prov 29:18). At such times the Church has lost all sense that the divine promise concerning them is true, “I am watching over my word to perform it.” (Jeremiah 1:12)

This gracious and indispensable prophetic ministry of watching is far more difficult than most imagine. Apart from the miraculous presence of the Spirit-filled Word of grace every mention of the government of God over human affairs strikes lost sinners with an apprehension of judgement (Isa 33:14; 1 John 4:18). The classic quip, “God created man in his own image, and man returned the favour.” is tragically true. The picture of God that underlies all natural human conceptions of the divine is one of judgementalism. The human heart witnesses to itself[9] that the close presence of such a condemning “God” must by every means be avoided (Rom 3:9-18). This is the great obstacle which the Spirit-filled Word of the Father must overcome. As such the human dilemma necessitates the life of the Mediator, “the man Christ Jesus” (1 Tim 2:5).

God Guards His Own Heart

“No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is in the Father’s heart, he has made him known.” (John 1:18) The Word which proceeds from the Father’s heart in the fullness of the power of the Spirit is Jesus Christ. The final revelation that God is the true, faithful and trustworthy watchman of humanity is found in the life witness of the Son. It is trust in the guardianship of the Father that is the basis of the eternal Son’s stepping forward into the outwardly insecure realms of human history.

Mary was told ““The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy—the Son of God.”” (Luke 1:35). The Spirit’s hovering over the dark and disordered state before the first day of creation was finding its ultimate fulfilment in the Word itself entering into the darkness of fallen flesh (John 1:14). The themes of the watching and witnessing God become even more manifest at the baptism of Jesus; “Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heavens were opened, and the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form, like a dove; and a voice came from heaven, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.” (Luke 3:21-22). The Spirit of God and the utterance of the Father witness in perfect unity with Jesus’ own heart that he is the beloved Son. At the commencement of his ministry Christ is filled to overflowing with the inner awareness that not only is he a witness to the things of God, but that he is sealed with the perfected witness of God to his own life and mission (John 5:32, 37; 8:18).

As a sinless person with no consciousness of guilt such awareness is present in Jesus in extraordinary measure. He therefore stands fearlessly before the devil in the wilderness and is not at all shaken by various attempts to take his life (Matt 4:1ff; Luke 4:29-30; John 8:59; 10:39). In every situation, no matter how hostile, Christ felt perfectly safe for he knew that until his hour had come he was under the protection of his Father (Mark 14:41; John 7:30; 8:20). All of this shifts radically under the shadow of the cross.

““Now is my soul troubled. And what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? But for this purpose I have come to this hour. Father, glorify your name.” Then a voice came from heaven: “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.””(John 12:27-28). The distress of Jesus draws forth from heaven a personal and comforting word from the Father, but as the moment of sacrifice approaches there can be no such comfort. Jesus’ anguish in Gethsemane appears unbearable, “he began to be greatly distressed and troubled. And he said to them, “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death. Remain here and watch.” And going a little farther, he fell on the ground and prayed that, if it were possible, the hour might pass from him. And he said, “Abba, Father, all things are possible for you. Remove this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.”” (Mark 14:33-36) The cup represents the wrath of God[10] , and Jesus must endure a state with which fallen humanity is intimately familiar, the experience of God-forsakenness.

When Jesus cries out from the cross, ““My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?””(Mark 15:34) we are witnessing the most profound utterance of his spirit. In the very depths of his being he is experiencing absolute aloneness; there is no witness of the Spirit that he is the Word and no anointing knowledge that he is the Son. This is the condition of the total absence of the watchful guardianship of God over the human heart. The full force of the ravages of evil in its power to shatter the human spirit floods his inner being. The spotless Christ is filled with the fragmented state of the fallen heart of humanity in all its condemning judgements against God and others. Such an experience is unbearable; but all is not what it seems to be.

To surface appearances God the Father seems totally absent and remote whilst the Son endures the crisis of the cross. There are those who would teach that “The Father turns his face away”[11] because of the repulsiveness of the sin Jesus took on himself on the cross. This understanding is certainly false[12]. Since the Father and the Son are “one” (John 10:30), the pain that Jesus experiences in not receiving the witness of the Father is equal to the anguish that the Father’s heart feels in not being able to witness to the faithfulness of the Word in his hour of need. Despite all observable and tangible appearances, Jesus’ experience of isolation and marginalisation is perfectly at the centre of the Father’s purpose for all things.

Jesus is in fact filled with the Spirit on the cross (Heb 9:22), but in his unique function as the Word bearing the divine judgement upon the sin of the world (Isa 53:10-12; John 1:29). As part of the cost of bearing the totality of the consequences of our evil Jesus must not be aware that his sacrifice is purposeful. Yet even as Jesus is dying we have a sign that a radical shift in the relationship between God and humanity is imminent; “Jesus uttered a loud cry and breathed his last. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom.” (Mark 15:37-38). This showed that the way was now open for all humanity to come into the dwelling place of God through body body of Christ (Heb 10:19-22), but it also signifies that Jesus himself is the sole watchman of the divine presence. The fragmented temple veil was covered with cherubim (Ex 36:35), the guardians to the tree of life (Gen 3:22).  Through the prophetic action of the death of Christ all obstacles between man and the divine presence are now taken away; the tree of life is now the man upon the cross. It is however the resurrection of the crucified Word in the power of the Spirit that throws light upon all of God’s purposes in judgement.

The resurrection of Jesus reveals that the whole fragmented state of human life was taken into his body on the tree and judged (1 Pet 2:24) so that it might be integrated, healed and restored in his glorified life. Seeing all of human history through the lens of Jesus’ cross-and-resurrection causes us to conclude that God’s goal in judgement from the beginning has always been to impart risen life[13]. To see that working beyond all human judgements[14] was God’s plan to impart risen life is immensely liberating. Through being included in Jesus’ death-and-resurrection nothing that has ever happened to me is lost and useless, all has become purposeful. In words that came powerfully to me in prayer, “The resurrection imparts intelligibility to a broken and fragmented universe.” Yet despite so much talk in the Church about Christ’s rising we often lack the power to witness to him as the hope of the world; this is why we need to consider once again what the unity of the Spirit and the Word mean in our experience.

The Maturing of a Nation

The topic of maturing a nation flows on from Jesus’ Great Commission to “make disciples of all nations” (Mat 28:19). This task does not entail the expectation that the majority of people in any given country will confess Christ, but it does involve a vision that the character of a nation can change. Since the Church is called to be both salt and light in the earth (Matt 5:13-16), the task of being a maturing presence in a nation depends on a mature church. It is certainly NOT the case that the contemporary Australian Church in any of its major varieties can be considered full grown. Since the people of God often embody dominant cultural values it is helpful to reflect on certain of our national characteristics before considering how God wants to change us.

Of all nations Australia stands out as a nation birthed without a sense of a guardian parent. Who was the loving guardian of the convicts sent out in the First Fleet, who was watching over the military guards themselves, and who protected the welfare of the Indigenous people of the land[15]? Despite the manifest material advantages we enjoy compared to almost all other lands there is little or no national sense that these blessings come from above. Deep in the Australian psyche is a conviction that we have to take care of ourselves. At its most profound level, the Australian heart seems not to understand that divine justice will in the end prevail against all human injustices. This is a gospel revelation that can only be mediated by a mature Church. Mature Christians understand that in Christ God’s judgement is always passed on man’s judgement: on the cross, in history and at the End (2 Cor 5:19; Rom 1:20; Rev 20:11-14).

It is the experience of unjust judgement at the hands of men, combined with a projected expectation that God will likewise punish us, that keeps the people of God separated from intimacy with the Father (1 John 4:17-18). An infantile church is marked by competitiveness, division, manipulation, abuse, monetary desire, doctrinal instability and many other common features of the Christianity with which we are sadly familiar (1 Cor 1:10-13; Eph 4:13-14; Heb 5:11-14). The remedy presented for this condition in scripture may surprise us.

Lift Up Your Hearts

Paul’s great passage about Christ bringing his Church “to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, 14 so that we may no longer be children…” (Eph 4:13-14), flows from Jesus’ own exalted position. “He who descended is the one who also ascended far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things.” (4:10). The Word and the Spirit proceed from the heart of the Son of God in union with his Father in the heavenly realms beyond all possible judgement. A revelation of the exalted position of Jesus is absolutely indispensable to the maturing of the Church in the stable love of God the Father; let me explain this in more detail.

If indeed God has “raised us up with him (Christ) and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus” (Eph 2:6), then our hearts dwell in the realm where nothing can destroy us[16]. A revelation of our position “in Christ” assures us that we are enfolded in the love of the Father and guarded from every ill; such a revelation means that all of our infantile defence mechanisms of fear and control can be left behind forever. As Jesus promised to his faithful witnesses, “not a hair of your head will perish” (Luke 21:18).

As we begin to sense the witness of the Spirit and Word to our hearts is essentially heavenly, we begin to understand why all the ancient rites of the Early Church[17] contain the refrain, “lift up your hearts”. As we are drawn to lift up our hearts before the throne of grace the Spirit and the Word witness to us about our own exalted position in Christ. It is as our hearts lifted up to Christ in the heavenly places that we enjoy the “the fullness of the blessing of Christ” (Rom 15:29) which is popularly known as “revival”.

Conclusion

We are in the midst of a time of intense spiritual pressures which can only increase. With time these forces will lead either to a remarkable maturation in leadership amongst the people of God or a regression into typical dysfunctional childhood patterns of competition and conflict. In the former case those in leadership will be enabled to bear the weight of the kingdom presence which is coming, in the latter case what at first sight appears to be a sign of unconditional divine favour will break down and fragment. This bipolarity seems to be a characteristic of most revival movements; and is exactly what Jesus wants us to avoid.

Christ is never passive, he is working to heal his Church by guarding the glory which belongs to her alone (Eph 3:21). Such glory is not an abstract concept, nor is it neither a dazzling light nor a mere miraculous power. A mature Church understands that the glory of God is God in his fullness; it consists in nothing less than the united witness of the Word and Spirit, who are the glory of the Father. This glory is wholly manifested in only one place, the death and resurrection of Jesus. It is the purpose of the cross to fragment all the attempts of our natural strength to unify our lives, concentrated as they are around the infantile self- defences. This work of the cross is operative in all the pains and struggles of life. The goal of the resurrection is to reintegrate us around the person of Christ in his unique saving power. It is as we guard our hearts by submission to this great movement of death-and-resurrection that they become increasingly one with the heart of God, this is eternal life.