Introduction
Most revival movements begin with an extraordinary display of the manifest power of God but end in disarray[1]. Whilst there is a growing excitement that something wonderful is about to be released in WA, the Father desires this to be pure and enduring. In order to protect his own work he is speaking about the character of the power that is coming. The Father is coming to defend the honour and reputation of his true Son with a quality of power that is eternal.
The Power that is Missing
It is transparent that both nation and church are dominated by temporal concerns. The obsession with finances, pleasure and influence is everywhere.[2] Very few believers seem to live with a sense of “forever-ness”; they are not living in the light of eternity. They are not living in an awareness of the eternal that comes with the witness of sonship[3].
Jesus said, “whoever commits sin is a slave to sin. The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son remains forever.”(John 8:35) It is a sense of sonship that imparts an inner knowledge of “forever-ness”[4], and what communicates everlasting sonship is the Word of Christ, “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.”(Mark 13:31).
As the eternal Word of God (John 1:1, 14), Jesus will communicate the Father to us his brothers eternally[5]. The essence of Christ’s sonship is his power/authority to communicate the Father’s nature – as love. This is the S/son’s true power. In our day many claim to be “spiritual fathers”, but the lack of a Christian community living by eternal values reveals that many of these claims are empty[6].
The Power that Makes Sons
“The power to make sons” cannot be reduced to miracles, healings, deliverances, mass conversions or any other extraordinary supernatural phenomena. In some way or other these can all be counterfeited[7]. The power to make sons is identical with the person of Jesus. “But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.” (John 1:12-13).
This power of the personal name of Jesus[8] is the authority of a crucified and restored name. The power of Jesus is a broken power. This is the impact of the anguish of the cross. When Jesus cries out “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Mark 15:34), he has no sense of his Sonship. This is the cost of his becoming sin for us.[9]
The resurrection is Jesus’ personal assurance of his sonship, “he is declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead” (Rom 1:4 compare Acts 13:33; Heb 1:5). After separation from the Father’s eternal presence on the cross he has re-entered the sphere of eternity from which he can convey the nature of the Father, as love.
Thus he is able to proclaim, “‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’” (John 20:17). In ascending to the eternal glory of his Father in heaven (John 17:5)[10] Jesus receives “the power to make sons” through the outpouring of his Spirit[11].
Jesus Promises to Manifest this Power
Jesus favourite way of talking about himself in the Gospels is, “the Son of man”. This comes from Daniel 7:13, “I saw in the night visions, and behold, with the clouds of heaven there came one like a son of man, and he came to the Ancient of Days and was presented before him. And to him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom,
that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him; his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed.”
Jesus uses this passage to prophesy a manifestation of power from the time of his return to the Father. In reply to the high priest’s question, “Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?”, he answers boldly, “I am, and you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power, and coming with the clouds of heaven.” (Mark 14:62)[12]
The power of heaven is being revealed from heaven across the earth as Jesus “makes sons” in the power of the Spirit to the glory of the Father.[13] This is the quality of power we should expect to see flowing through the church in every place and time, including here in WA.[14]
The Effect of this Power
The quality of Jesus’ son-making power makes it completely trustworthy. The weak and broken sense in Jesus someone who he has been through such suffering that all his personal resources were broken. He is able “to sympathise with our weaknesses” (Heb 4:15). Beyond this, while “he was crucified in weakness”, he “lives by the power of God” (2 Cor 13:4). He comforts the weak with the endless power of his triumphant life.
As the Spirit manifest Jesus’ familiarity with weakness and his boundless power men and women become acutely aware of sin, righteousness and judgement (John 16:8). This is what creates the remarkable softening of hearts and deep repentance of a true move of God. This is the sort of repentance the Father is seeking to bring to this city.
The quality of this power is holy for it is a power absolutely purified in the cross.[15] Whatever is completely holy is incorruptible, and whatever is incorruptible is eternal. Those born of this seed do not fall away[16]. When holy power is revealed suffering and struggle serve only strengthen faith.[17] This is the perseverance the Lord is working to impart among us.
The Father is very jealous for the honour of his Son[18] and will soon act to reveal it by a holy truth that imparts tremendous security. Every believer should and can know a “sealing of the Spirit” that gives the deepest possible revelation that God is our Father forever through Jesus Christ.[19]
The End of an Old Order, the Beginning of a New
No revival has ever taken place within the “business as usual” forms of institutional Christianity. The reasons for this are not sociological but spiritual.
Sharing with Jesus the same source of life in the Father[20], as sons of God we have a natural affinity with his power. We are “naturally supernatural”. However, just as Jesus had to move through death into resurrection in order to attain son-making power, so do we, not only at level of personal conversion, but at the community level of church life. The power to make sons only emerges when the old order/wineskin dies and the new order/wineskin rises.
This is the message of the gospel.[21] It is the message of crucifixion and resurrection (1 Cor 15:1-3), of passing from death to life (John 5:24), of new creation (2 Cor 5:14-17), of being raised up to heaven (Eph 2:5-7).
While the old order of man prevails in the church the ever new power of sonship is stifled. Every genuine reformation/renewal is created by a revelation of what it means to be a child of God. This is the power of the Father that is coming.
[1] We are all familiar with stories to do with the fracturing of leadership, counterfeit signs and wonders, false teaching, immorality etc. The classic text on this is, War on the Saints, by Jessie Penn-Lewis.
[2] A recent radio programme spoke of “style fascism”, that our society, particularly in WA, is in the grip of a need to upgrade, enlarge and renovate home after home (pool, spa, entertainment centre etc.). Not only do we see this same materialistic obsession operating in how believers’ live, but the mood is paralleled in the vocabulary and priorities of many churches. The church building must exhibit maximum comfort with the best technology and so on.
[3] This is the work of the Spirit e.g. Rom 8:16; Gal 4:6. Importantly, we know we are the children of God (1 John 3:10; 5:2, 19), we do not have to muster faith for sonship.
[4] This can be reversed, where there is a lack of awareness of sonship, sin will abound, leading to an increasing slave-like status. This is what is happening commonly in the church today where multitudes are enslaved to sinful habits.
[5] “I will tell of your name to my brothers… here am I and the children God has given me.” (Heb 2:12-13)
[6] The resort to trends and idolatries in the church manifests a basic lack of assurance that God is our Father. Without a revelation of sonship, no amount of attacking sin will free those afflicted; “Little children, keep yourself from idols.” (1 John 5:21).
[7] “False christs and false prophets shall arise and perform great signs and wonders, so as to lead astray, if possible, the elect” (Matt 24:24), “man of lawlessness…all power and false signs and wonders” (2 Thess 2:9), “It (the false prophet) performs great signs, even making fire come down from heaven to earth” (Rev 13:13).
[8] The crisis in sonship is visible in and related to the decline in the use of the name “Jesus” in poplar preaching and singing. Usually, it is replaced by the vague term “God”.
[9] Rom 8:3; 2 Cor 5:21; Gal 3:13 etc. Adam was created a son of God (Luke 3:38), but through sin accepted Satan as his father (John 8:44; 1 John 3:10)
[10] Discussions of the “greater works” (John 14:12) of the disciples usually overlook the key to this promise is that Jesus is about to “go to the Father”, as he says later, “the Father is greater than I” (John 14:28).
[11] See, “as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.” (John 7:39), “Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this that you yourselves are seeing and hearing.” (Acts 2:33).
[12] The accented you means the high priest personally will see this power. Similarly the context in Mark 13 “And then they will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory.”(Mark 13:26), is not the second coming but a heavenly power manifested to “this (his own) generation” (v.30).
[13] From the time of Pentecost Jesus has been revealing his power from heaven in “bringing many sons to glory,” (Heb 2:10)
[14] Compare Galatians 3:26-28.
[15] Compare “the founder of their salvation made perfect through suffering” (Heb 2:10)
[16] “since you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God;” (1 Pet 1:23)
[17] “he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time” (1 Pet 1:3-5)
[18] Compare, “I feel a divine jealousy for you, since I betrothed you to one husband, to present you as a pure virgin to Christ.” (2 Cor 11:2)
[19] See John 6:27; 2 Cor 1:22; Eph 1:13; 4:30.
[20] “For he who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one source. That is why he is not ashamed to call them brothers,” (Heb 2:11)
[21] “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes” (Rom 1:16)