Monthly Archives: April 2013

The New Man River

Posted on April 24, 2013 by Allan Halton

A few years ago my wife and I were at a picnic with some of her relatives along a river in southern Alberta called the Oldman River.  While they were visiting after the meal I went for a stroll over to the brink of the river.  I watched the water flowing and the swallows flying over a bluff on the opposite bank.  There was a sense of great age about the place; the sandstone along the bank had long since been worn smooth.  This Oldman River had been flowing for a long, long time, sustaining the creation all around it.

As I looked across the water, suddenly a very strong impression arrested me.  It wasn’t a vision, but I knew it was Spirit birthed.  On the other side of the river I could see in my mind’s eye a New Man, a new-creation man.  The thing that arrested me was…oh the simplicity of the life and walk of this Man.  Just as the earthly life is to the earthly man, just as sin is to sinners, life in the Spirit was simply nature to this man.

And I realized that this is all God is seeking.

Not that this Man has not yet come into being; He is here, and growing to full maturity, but usually is not recognized for who He actually is.  This is the major focus of the New Testament—the transition from one humanity to another, from one man to Another, from the first man Adam to the second Man, Christ, who is the outshining of the glory of God.  So we find this expression “in Christ” over and over again in the New Testament—77 times according to the Blue Letter Bible search function.  And what does it mean to be in Christ?

If any man be in Christ he is a new creation; old things are passed away, behold, all things are become new (2 Cor. 5.17).

This new creation Man, as I said, is all God is seeking.  This is what church is all about—or should be: a new-creation Man who walks according to a new Rule of life—the rule of new creation life, which is hardwired in him; this law is written in his heart and mind.  So he walks in righteousness and holiness and life and love as simply and as easily as the old man walked in sin.

His life is sustained by a new River, the River of the Spirit of God.  The Newman River, I guess you could call it.  And not only does this River sustain this New Man, it also flows out from Him.  John saw this River proceeding from the throne of God and of the Lamb in the City of God.  It was running down the middle of the street of the City.  In other words, you would have to walk in the water to walk down the street—a beautiful picture of our walk in the Spirit.  In this City you must walk in the Spirit to get anywhere.

And the River flows outward, outward from the Throne of God.  And so the Throne of God and of the Lamb is in that river of the Spirit, bringing life and healing wherever it flows.  It brings an end to the curse God laid on the old creation.

Ezekiel saw this river.  He saw it flowing from the temple of God—this Man.  It began as a trickle.  The man in fine linen with the line of flax measured out a thousand cubits and led Ezekiel through the waters.  This happened four times at various depths—water to the ankles, to the knees, to the loins, till the river had become “waters to swim in, a river that could not be passed over” (Ezek. 47.5).  Ezekiel could no longer touch bottom now, could not find a foothold on anything earthly for a sense of security.  He was moving in the total control of the Current of the river wherever that Current was going.

Beloved, God has this for us, a walk in the Spirit that is nature to us, instinct, and we are totally released from the law of sin and death—and from all that is earthly.  Moving out into these waters means we must let go of all our securities.

And our insecurities.  I’ve been thinking much of this—that the reason we hang on to our insecurities so tightly… it’s actually a sort of security to us, an attempt to secure our own little world.

But we must release our securities, let go of them—and our insecurities, and abandon ourselves to the Current of this River.  Being totally ruled by the Spirit of God is the answer to every problem we face either in our own lives or in the whole world.  Our own mental toilings are futile; in fact this itself is one of the problems.

It can be a very difficult thing to let go of thought patterns, to break the bondage of anxious or negative thought; we mull over things, dwell on them, feed on them: problems, troubles, difficulties.  The answer is to simply get into the Current of this River.  The New Man is no longer debtor to anything of the first man, the old man.  We are not debtors to his mode of thinking, to the carnal mind.  There is another mind, the mind of the New Man, the Lord from Heaven who has all things under His feet.

All things under His feet?  Because of this there is a great warfare for this Mind; it is fiercely resisted.  But we must wage this warfare and bring every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ.  For “the mind of the flesh is death, but the mind of the Spirit is life and peace” (Rom. 8.6).  This is why Paul emphasized again and again that we are to “be transformed by the renewing of our mind,” that we are to “be renewed in the Spirit of our mind,” that we are to “put on the new man which is renewed in knowledge after the image of Him that created him” (Eph. 4.23, Col. 3.10).

More and more we are going to see this new-creation Man in the earth, this Man I saw along the Oldman River that day.  We are going to see Him walking in the earth, walking in the Spirit… walking in this River that flows from the Throne of God… and which has that Throne in its waters.  That River, the New Man River, is Lord; it flows out from the Throne of God and of the Lamb, and therefore the Throne is in its flowing waters.

All those problems and difficulties that are growing more intense by the day… the New Man is the answer, the new creation Man with the mind of Christ.  And so we have great hope in the midst of the grievous things that are taking place in our world.  I believe we are entering days when men will despair of finding answers to the things that are coming upon the earth.  All the wisdom of the natural man is going to utterly fail, as the Bible prophesies (Jer. 49.7, Jer. 8.9, 1 Cor. 1.19,20).  The wisdom of the mind of Christ—the greater than Solomon—is the only wisdom that will avail.

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The Pathway Of The Wind

Posted on April 16, 2013 by Allan Halton

Solomon said, “As thou knowest not the pathway of the wind, nor how the bones do grow in the womb of her that is with child, even so thou knowest not the works of God who maketh all” (Eccles. 11.5).

It has taken me several years to understand this verse, which it seems Jesus had in mind in a reply to a certain Pharisee, Nicodemus by name, who had come to Him by night to acknowledge what his colleagues refused to acknowledge.

Rabbi, we know that Thou art a teacher come from God, for no man can do these miracles that Thou doest, except God be with him (Jn. 3.2).

I believe that in these words of Nicodemus we are touching more of a plea than a statement.  I believe they are the words of a man who wanted God, but in spite of all his credentials and the religious things he was involved in, felt painfully distanced from Him.  Jesus knew his heart, and this is the response He gave him.

Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.

Well, yes, Nicodemus was painfully aware there was something he wasn’t seeing.  But now this on top of it all?  How could a man be born again when he was old?  Could he enter the second time into his mother’s womb and be born?

Jesus answered, Verily, verily I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.   That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.
Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again.

Just quickly, notice the use of thee and ye here.  “Marvel not that I said unto thee (singular), ye (plural) must be born again.  You must all be born again, Jesus was saying.  Even though this one individual He was speaking to was a learned Pharisee and a teacher of Israel, he was no different from all men born of Adam’s race.  Just like everyone else, he needed to be born again in order to enter the kingdom of God.

And then Jesus continues—and I wonder if I don’t see Him and Nicodemus somewhere out on a rooftop in the cool of the evening, and they can hear the wind blowing in the trees nearby—and I think also that we hear the echo of Solomon’s words in what He says:

The wind bloweth where it listeth (desireth), and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth; so is every one that is born of the Spirit.

Remember that in both Hebrew and Greek the word for wind and spirit is the same word.  Solomon the wise man said it wasn’t possible to know the pathway of the wind, or how the bones do grow in the womb of her that is with child.  But a wiser than Solomon was now saying to Nicodemus that there is in fact one way to come to know the pathway the Wind walks on.  That is to become like this child in the womb, and be born of the Wind.

There is pathway, and a life, a realm, a wisdom, that cannot be known by the natural man.  But those born of the Spirit can indeed know and walk in this realm and this Pathway.

As thou knowest not the pathway of the wind, nor how the bones do grow in the womb of her that is with child, even so thou knowest not the works of God who maketh all.

As I said, it has taken me several years to understand this verse.  It’s the part about the works of God that has evaded me.  But just like the pathway of the wind, and the mysterious inner workings of life in the womb, even so the realm of the works of God simply cannot be known by man.

Paul said the same thing:

But the natural man (the soulical man) receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, for they are spiritually discerned (1 Cor. 2.14).

It takes the new creation man, a spiritual man, to know these things, these things of God, and to walk in them.  These are the works that Paul says God has prepared beforehand for the new creation man to know, and walk in.

For by grace ye are saved through faith, and that (salvation) not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:
Not of works, lest any man should boast.
For we are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained (before prepared) that we should walk in them (Eph. 2.8-10).

Works—the Bible distinguishes between dead works, and good works.  These good works Paul speaks of are simply the things we are about in our daily lives, the things we do, the spontaneous outflow of our walk with God, our love relationship with God.  They are living works—the works of a new creation Man, works God has prepared beforehand for us that we should walk in them.  We are just walking in sync with God Himself as a great eternal purpose unfolds.  Our works are works of rest, you might say.

The thing is… the beautiful, the liberating, thing is… this new creation man is under no other obligation.  He or she need not get under any other yoke whether in thought or deed.

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The Hidden Pathway

Posted on April 9, 2013 by Allan Halton

We’ve been talking of a certain Way which the redeemed of the Lord can walk in through the wilderness of this world.  Isaiah tells us they’re safe as they walk therein, for it’s a path that lions and other ravenous beasts cannot walk in.  They know nothing of this pathway.

No lion shall be there, nor any ravenous beast shall go up thereon, it shall not be found there, but the redeemed shall walk there… (Isa. 35.9).

Job talked of this same Pathway.

There is a path which no fowl knoweth, and which the vulture’s eye hath not seen:
The lion’s whelps have not trodden it, nor the fierce lion passed by it (that is, along it)” (Job 28.7,8).

Job has been talking of the great lengths men will go to as they explore the natural creation (I urge you to read that whole chapter); they stop at nothing to mine out its hidden riches.  In our day we see this same unquenchable quest in the field of technology. From day to day you wonder what will be next, where it will stop; man has such a voracious appetite for knowledge, he continues to search out things to the utter limit.

But, as Job says, with all this there is a certain Something that man simply cannot find.

But where shall wisdom be found?  And where is the place of understanding?  Man knoweth not the price thereof; neither is it found in the land of the living.

And so it’s wisdom that Job is seeking to disclose to us—the way of wisdom, the place of understanding.

But what does he mean by the land of the living?  He is not referring to the land of those alive in Christ, but the “land” confined to the life and earthly boundaries of the natural man.  The things of God are foolishness to this man, “neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Cor. 2.14).

Job continues to ask this question; I am sure he does so to stir us to begin probing and asking the same question.

Whence then cometh wisdom?  And where is the place of understanding?
Seeing it is hid from the eyes of all living, and kept close from the fowls of the air (Job 28.20,21).

There is a Way that the “fowls” of the heaven, and the vultures—those principalities and powers in the heavenlies—have not seen.  Apparently the vulture has such a keen eye that it can see its carrion from so high in the air that it would look like no more than a speck to you and me.  But even with that piercing eye it cannot see this Pathway.  This Pathway is “kept close” from the fowls of the air.  Maybe we think that the Devil and his princes in the heavenly realm have great insight, and can see a lot.  But they know nothing of this pathway.

For if they had known it they would not have crucified the Lord of glory (1 Cor. 2.8).

It’s the Way of Wisdom—the wisdom of the Cross—that Jesus walked in to the ultimate dismay of the Princes of this world.  This must be why Job says,

Destruction and death say, we have heard the fame thereof with our ears.

For, Christ brought destruction and death to naught by walking in the Way of this wisdom.  He destroyed them with their own devices.

There are also some very frightening beasts spoken of in Scripture, beasts with many heads and horns, beasts like bears and leopards and lions, beasts that look like lambs but speak like dragons.  The “beasts” also know nothing of this pathway.  They cannot go up thereon, cannot touch anyone who is walking in this Pathway.

And so Job brings us to his conclusion. There is One who knows this Pathway, and the Place it leads to.

God understandeth the way thereof, and He knoweth the place thereof.
For He looketh to the ends of the earth, and seeth under the whole heaven;
To make the weight for the winds; and He weigheth the waters by measure.
When he made a decree for the rain, and a way for the lightning of the thunder:
Then did He see it, and declare it; He prepared it, and searched it out.
And unto man He said, Behold, the fear of the LORD, that is wisdom, and to depart from evil is understanding.

Those words echo often in my ears.  Behold… Behold…. the fear of the LORD, that is wisdom, and to depart from evil is understanding…

Do I see?  Do I yet understand? Do I yet behold this wondrous Way, this hidden Way, this prepared Way God has for me?  Am I searching it out with Him—this Way of Wisdom? Do I know the Place thereof?

It’s all so wondrous, so awesome, and who am I?  I don’t think I’m all that wise.  How am I to discover this Way?  How am I to walk in it?  Paul the apostle calls it “the hidden wisdom” (1 Cor. 2.7), and it’s the same Pathway Job says is hidden from the fowls of the air.  Those are very intelligent beings.  If it’s hidden from them, who am I?  But Jesus said these things were hidden “from the wise and prudent.” And “revealed unto babes” (Mt. 11.25).  Here then is our answer.  It’s not found in seeking to be wise in our own eyes, but in seeking to get into a certain Yoke and learn from Him who is meek and lowly of heart.

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The Way—My Destination

Posted on April 4, 2013 by Allan Halton

Isaiah prophesied that “in the wilderness shall waters break forth, and streams in the desert.”  And he said, “a highway shall be there, and a way…” (Isa. 35.8).  He is talking of something God has created—a river, a way—through the terrible wilderness of life.

This is a theme much on Isaiah’s heart, for he brings it up again in Chapter 43.  Notice again the intermingling of these two—the water, and the way.

Behold, I will do a new thing; now it shall spring forth: shall ye not know it?  I will even make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert (Isa. 43.19).

We’ll speak more of this river road in a coming blog entry, but first we want to ask: just what is a highway?  In our day and age we think immediately of the asphalt freeway out there.  When you want to go somewhere you don’t have to make your own way; you just get on the highway and step on the gas, and you are soon at your destination.  And this is the idea behind the Bible word.  It means simply a raised way, a HIGHway, a prepared way.  Back in those days they built their roads by going along and casting rocks and other obstructions out of the way.  They would level the terrain to some extent by bringing down high places and raising up low places.  Thus, they would “cast up” the highway, and there are several Bible passages that use this imagery—one we’re very familiar with.

The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the LORD, make straight in the desert an highway for our God.
Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low: and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain;
And the glory of the LORD shall be revealed… (Isa. 40.3-5).

This was the way, the highway, that God prepared for the coming of the glory of the Lord—His Son.  He had a man go before Him to prepare His way.

And it’s a highway—the same way of the Lord—that we too are to walk in.  When Isaiah prophecies of the return of God’s people from their Babylonian captivity, he brings up this same highway through the wilderness.

Cast ye up, cast ye up, prepare the way, take up the stumblingblock out of the way of my people (Isa. 57.14).

Go through, go through the gates; prepare ye the way of the people; cast up, cast up the highway; gather out the stones; lift up a standard for the people (Isa. 62.10).

This is an utterly awesome prophecy.  There comes a time when God brings His people out through the gates of Babylon where they have been captives, His intent being to return them to Zion, His own dwelling place, where He will dwell in their midst.  I realize we’ve seen this in a measure all through the new covenant dispensation.  But the promise of God is that there will yet be a great company returning on this highway.

Behold, I will bring them from the north country, and gather them from the coasts of the earth, and with them the blind and the lame, the woman with child and her that travaileth with child together; a great company shall return thither.
They shall come with weeping, and with supplications will I lead them: I will cause them to walk by the rivers of waters in a straight way, wherein they shall not stumble… (Jer. 31.8,9).

Why won’t they stumble?  It’s because God sees to it that the stumblingstones that have been such a hindrance to His people are removed.  Thus they walk in a prepared Way, a way raised up, a way not of our own making, a Way of rest—right through that great and terrible wilderness of ours.  I am not trying to be unfeeling, but I don’t care how difficult, how grievous, how tormenting, how impassable, that terrible wilderness of yours and mine is; the God who loves us with an everlasting love has created a Highway there, and you and I the redeemed of the Lord shall walk therein, and return to Zion, the heavenly City unto which our Lord Jesus Christ has brought us in the New Covenant (Heb. 12.22).

One more thing.  This way of rest… it sounds so easy.  You mean this is something for the idle, the spiritually lazy?  Not when you consider this verse:

The way of the slothful is an hedge of thorns, but the way of the righteous is made plain (Pr. 15.19).

Notice the contrast.  The slothful are travelling a way that’s so difficult it’s like trying to get through a hedge of thorns.  The righteous are walking in an easy way.  The Hebrew says something like, “the way of the upright is raised up as a causeway, or highway.”  It’s the same word used in the other verses about casting up the highway.  This is what the way of the upright is like; it’s a prepared way, a way raised up.  The upright don’t have to contend with brambles and thorns as they try to make their own way; they just have to follow the prepared way.

I like this very much.  I am not being slothful when I am seeking to walk in rest.  On the contrary, it’s slothful to neglect this beautiful highway.  I understand that.  This highway must be maintained.  It takes earnest spiritual diligence, earnest prayer, and continually maintaining a close communion with the Lord Jesus, to walk in this prepared Way, the Way of the Spirit.  It’s far from slothful; it’s when we neglect it that we are being slothful.

And if we neglect it we will continue to walk through thorns.  I know by personal experience what it’s like to try to fight my way through the wilderness thorns toiling and sweating and struggling, piercing myself through with anxious thoughts… and never getting anywhere.  I also know by experience that when I cry unto the Lord in my troubles He shows me His Way.  And I repent of my foolishness.  Why do I torment myself with thoughts that pierce like thorns, when there is a Way, oh, so beautiful a Way, through my wilderness?  The God who loves me has prepared a Way for me, a Way of rest.  Yes, the frightening thorns of circumstance may still be there, but I am walking through them on a raised Way—who at one and the same time is my destination—Jesus Christ Himself.

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