Reading Matthew 4:4, "But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God." John 6:63-68, "It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life. But there are some of you that believe not. For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that believed not, and who should betray him. And he said, Therefore said I unto you, that no man can come unto me, except it were given unto him of my Father. From that time many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him. Then said Jesus unto the twelve; Will ye also go away? Then Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life." John 8:47, "He that is of God heareth God's words: ye therefore hear them not, because ye are not of God."

John 14:10, "Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? the words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works." I Peter 1:23-25, "Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever. For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of the grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away: But the word of the Lord endureth for ever. And this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you."

Hebrews 4:12-13, "For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight: but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do."

I John 4:17, "Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as he is, so are we in this world." The first four of these passages arise out of the fact that the Lord Jesus was the heavenly man. Keep in mind we are talking about the man Christ Jesus. In the wilderness temptation, it was following the opening of the heavens and the attestation of the Father, "This is my beloved Son..." that the enemy made his challenge to all this designation of Christ as the heavenly man implied. The temptations had their foundation in the fact of the heavenliness of the Lord Jesus. In the passages in John's Gospel the same feature is seen. John keeps in view always the heavenliness of Jesus from the first word of his Gospel to the end. The challenge of the Lord Jesus carries that same meaning, "Believest thou not that I am in the Father..."

The heavenly man is brought before us at this point in relation to the Word of God. We have looked at Him in relation to eternal life. Now we are going to look at Him in relation to the Word of God. Looking at Him in this direction, we are going to see the progressiveness of the heavenly man, and in so seeing we will discover our own path to glory. We have shown how Jesus was born a baby, and how He grew in wisdom, and knowledge. We shall see how the Word of God effected the development of His life, and in so doing we shall find our own way. Understanding from this how we are to pass from this old life, to the new progressively.

So we come to bring all of this life principle in the heavenly man in relation to the Word of God. The Word of God is very closely related to this life, and this eternal life is very closely related to the Word of God, both of them as in the heavenly man. So much is this true, that, they are not things in Him, but He is them. He is the Word of God; He is the Life. The life and the Word are in Him as His very being. He did not say I am going to show you life, He said, "I am the life." He never talked about showing the way, He said, "I am the way."

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God; And the Word was made flesh..." (John 1; 1,14) Didn't clothe itself in flesh, "...was made flesh..." In spite of this, the word is utterance as well as person. He is the Word; He is the life, yet the Word is still utterance. If you take time to study the technique of the point that is raised in the use of the words logos and rhema, you know how difficult it is to make a difference between the two. These two words run into one another, and often they melt and become one. So it is, the person is the Word, and the Word is the word of the person. That may sound complicated but it will clear up as we go on. There is a difference, and yet they are both bound up with the person.

First we come to this thought, "Begotten by the Word." The Lord Jesus as the heavenly man, was "Begotten by the Word." The angel came to Mary, Presented the word, and waited for her response. The word of the angel was, "And, behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shall call His name JESUS." (Luke 1: 31) After consideration, fighting her way through the battle, Mary replied, "How shall this be, seeing I know not a man?" (v.34) The angel answered, "...The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee..." (v.38) Again the angel waited for her response. After thinking her way through, Mary responded, "...Behold, the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word..." Only then, that is, was the living Christ imparted after the responce. Jesus the Heavenly Man was "Begotten by the Word."

The Word of God is the seed of Christ. The planting of that Word in the receptacle of the human Spirit is the miracle of a new creation. "Begotten by the Word." Then comes the testing by the Word. In the temptation it is clear that in the background of things, it is the word of God governing the Lord Jesus Christ. "It is written..." "It is written..." Life is contingent upon the word of God. In the heavenly man the life question is bound up with the word of God. Satan says to Him, "If thou be the Son of God, command these stones to be made bread."

Jesus answered, "It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God." (Matthew 4:4) The test is the word of God. Take the opposite of that, and you see the earthly man dies because he refuses the Word of God. Here the last Adam is taken upon the same basis as the first Adam, and inasmuch as He met the three temptations with the word of God, it is clear His life was bound up with that Word. God's word to the first Adam, "But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." (Genesis 2:17) Instead of being governed by the word of God he was governed by his own self-will, and he failed. Jesus, the second and last Adam, was governed entirely by the word of God. The word of God governed the entire wilderness experience.

Jesus as the heavenly man was being assailed with a view to tearing Him out of His heavenly life. The test then, and the test now, was to get Him, or us, in some way to refuse, violate, or ignore the word of God. That is, to act independently. How much of that we see today. Some of the biggest names in the Pentecostal ranks are playing down sound doctrine and the truth as it is in Jesus. Jesus maintained His position as the heavenly man on the grounds of the word of God.

He was begotten by the word, so we were begotten. Peter wrote, "...born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever." (1 Peter 1:23) John wrote that word was Christ. The Word came to us. We had to respond. Now we like Him must be tested by the word. He as the first born of this new race, which race we are, was begotten, tested, tried, and governed throughout the whole of His life by the word of God. Christ embodied and fulfilled all scriptures. Over and over again He said, "...that the scriptures might be fulfilled." For this to be, He had to continually walk in the Spirit of God. He was moving in the Spirit life, and as He did so He moved according to the word of God. It cannot be otherwise.

When one first begins to look into the word of God there appears to be various paths to walk upon. There is the way of faith, the way of the will of God, the way of the word of God, and the way of the Spirit of God. But as you move out into the economy of God you realize that all paths merge and become one. You cannot walk in the faith of God without walking in the Word of God. You cannot walk in the word of God without walking in the will of God, and you cannot walk in the will of God except you walk in the Spirit of God.

Jesus was so governed by the word, that even as a man on the cross, utterly helpless said, "...that the scripture might be fulfilled..." (John 17:12) That man is under the government of the word of God because of the Spirit possessing, because of the Spirit taking responsibility. Conformity to Christ embraces this. This is the pathway to the ultimate intent of God.

The Word of God can never be set aside. What we have said does not mean that we can take up a course of trying to walk in the Spirit, and neglect the word of God. To safeguard this, that is our trying to walk in the Spirit and neglect the word of God, Paul writes, "Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom..." Many times you may not have the exact scripture, yet the Holy Spirit will make good in you what He knows to be the word of God. We have produced a Holy Ghost only movement. When you hear someone say, "this is revelation knowledge," that is a buzzword. You had better run from that. When the Holy Spirit is talking He never leaves the word of God. Though we may not be able to give a particular passage in its exact phrasing, yet we are governed by it. We belong to the heavenly man. As He is, so are we in this world.

What is true of the Head is to be true of the members. If we are joined to the heavenly man, and that same life is in us, we shall be governed by the word of God. We shall be governed by the word of God through the Spirit of life that is in the word. "...the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life." (John 6:63) The Spirit of life is all knowing, all intelligent. So, as we come to be possessed by the Spirit we know in our hearts whether a thing is right or not. It is impossible to deceive the elect.

The devil's deception is by imitation, and his imitation is everywhere. One of the greatest signs of the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ is deception. Christ warned, "Be not deceived..." There was always the emphasis, watch out for deception. The heavenly man, the elect of God, cannot be deceived. It is impossible. As the Spirit possesses him he is kept in the boundaries of the word of God.

Now you see the heavenly man, eternal life, and the Word of God governing all things. What a difference there is in being governed by the letter and being governed by the Spirit of Life in the letter. We can have the book, possess the letter, and yet never come to the knowledge of the truth. We can kill with the letter. So we must be brought to the place where it is the Spirit in the word giving life.

Look at the twofold aspect of the word unto growth in Christ. We have already shown how this life principle is progressive in the believer. First of all, the word is a Spirit breathed utterance. We are talking about the Spirit working in the Word of God, and the word made real by the Spirit. The Word of God is not just something that has been written. Second, the Spirit of life associated with the word. The question is this: How far is the written word, as it stands, the Word of God? Now we have got to be very careful here, because we know the Bible is the Word of God, it doesn't contain the Word of God. You can take a fragment of the Bible, as the letter, and use it in fifty different ways at the same time. Which of these fifty ways is the Word of God? We are saying something is necessary to make that fragment the word of God in truth, and that extra something is the Spirit of life in the word. The Word of life (the Holy Ghost), Himself, must use and apply that word to make it the Word of God.

You cannot get divine results by simply quoting scripture as scripture. This is the fallacy of the word of faith people. The Holy Spirit has to come into the word, express Himself as in it, and make it alive, before you get any results from it. A living heavenly man is not made by mere words, even though they are the words of scripture. Men have tried to make the church by mere words of scripture, so you have a half a dozen different kinds of churches, all of them standing on what they call the Word of God, and the thing does not live. It is a living heavenly man God has in view, and to produce that, the Spirit must operate through the Word.

"The words I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life," said the Lord Jesus to His disciples. "Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life." On the part of Peter this was a word of discrimination. The scribes and Pharisees had the scriptures, but they never knew them as eternal life. This is the difference.

This life is in God's Son. It has to be in a living relationship to the Lord Jesus for the scriptures to be made effective. The sovereignty of God, then, has to be seen in the creative Word. That works in the first place, sovereignly in the direction of the unsaved. Preach the word of God as it is written, but you have to leave the matter to the sovereignty of the Spirit. Preach the word to a hundred persons, and to the vast majority it is as dead as anything. Ninety or more of the hundred see nothing, feel nothing, but a small minority of them is sovereignty touched. The Word is something more than utterance, more than letters, it is Spirit and life to those that respond. The Spirit of God has come into the Word in relationship to the few. We have to commit ourselves to the waters, and believe that God will somewhere come into the word and touch some life, though the majority is left untouched. Only God can give the increase.

That is the creative Word, and brings us to see that in the heavenly man the Word of God is God's act, and not just God's statement. The word in relation to the Spirit of life in Christ is an act. Something is done. When the Word comes by the Spirit of life, those to whom it comes can never again be the same, though they may seem to go on in the old way. "...the word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day." (John 12:48) Something has been said, the word of God has come, and the thing is done, never to be undone. That is the value of giving the Word in the Spirit, it is an act. It is creative. God's Word is always God's act. "...the worlds were framed by the word of God..." (Hebrews 11:3)

From the unsaved we move to look at the life principle established in the case of the saved. In the new creation, the operation of the Spirit in relation to the word of God is no longer purely sovereign. In the case of the unbeliever, the word was given with a view to bring about a new creation. Creation is a sovereign act. But from that time onward that which is sovereign ceases and growth is by the Spirit of life in the word. Growth on the basis that there is life in us to correspond to the life in the Word.

No matter how much you force-feed a corpse, you will not get development or growth. There must be some life in the man that corresponds with the food before there can be growth. That is what is meant when we say, the activity which bears the mark of sovereignty ceases in the new creation. The sovereign act is something apart from us. It is the grace of God to sinners who give nothing back. Now that life is in us, our growth is on the basis of the life within, cooperating with the life in His word. The Spirit-accompanied word quickens into life where there is a dead state, but the Spirit-accompanied word requires a response in the Spirit by those who have been sovereigntly brought into relationship to Christ through the word.

The same life in the Word governs our life, as governed our new birth. That is, the same life that brought into being must be in the Word, which governs the life, to bring us to full growth. All is a matter of life. Doctrine comes out of life and not life out of doctrine. The church comes out of life, and not life out of the church. It is not attachment to doctrine or the church, but attachment to the heavenly man, that is a vital necessity.

In the Word, as we have it, the doctrine comes after life. The church existed before the doctrine of the church existed. Life comes, and where life is found the rest will follow. There has to be life, and life by its working forms the church. The reversal of that order leads to Babylon. What is Babylon? Babylon represents the loss of authority of the Word of God as a living thing. King Jehoiakin cut up the Word of God, and it was then that Judah was carried to Babylon. When he repudiated the living authority of the Word of God, all vessels of gold and silver were carried to Babylon. It is a parable. It means that the Lord's people come into bondage and death, and the Lord's ministry is not going on in life, because the vessels have departed. Right up to that time they were going on with sacrifices, going on with Levitical order. You can have the form of things, the system, yet be in Babylon. It is the Word of the Lord as Spiritual and Living that keeps you out of Babylon.

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