“The Very Least” Makes All Men See

“To me, though I am the very least of all the saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unsearcha­ble riches of Christ, and to make all men see what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God who created all things.” Verses 8-9.

Hypocrisy and lying are so common that hardly anyone believes that the Apostle really meant what he said about being the least of all the saints. Yet the Spirit constrained him to say that. Indeed, he was very lowly in his own eyes. The slightest thought about one­self, or the slightest bit of arrogance causes the Spirit to retreat. But the stewardship of the mystery that Paul proclaimed was re­vealed to him in the Spirit. The Spirit does not testify about any man; He does not even testify of Himself. The Spirit testifies of Christ. Therefore, to receive revelations in the Spirit, we must be exceedingly lowly in our own eyes. To dwell upon God’s mysteries and make discoveries in the Spirit, and then to serve others with what the Spirit gives us, requires that we have humble thoughts about ourselves.

Paul felt that he was a public spectacle to both men and angels. The reason for this was that in all his ministry he was led by the Spirit against the flesh of others in order to bring them onto the cross as a sacrifice. This brought him much opposition and many tribulations, all of which had such an effect on him that he consid­ered himself to be the very least, the most wretched, of all the saints.

To encounter opposition from every quarter makes us feel wretched. It is written of Jesus in Isaiah 53:4, “...yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and made wretched.” And since the true light also testifies about our total wretchedness and demands many sacrifices by the judgments of its light, the awareness of our wretchedness increases and we truly become the least of all the saints. People resist our spirit, and God resists our flesh.

In this wretched condition of ours we are humble enough to enable everyone to grasp what is the stewardship of the mystery which has been hidden from ages past in God. This stewardship is made clearer by the judgments of the light. The various sacrifices related to the many-faceted priestly ministry produce “court cases,” so to speak, in which judgment is handed down by the light and by perfection (the Urim and the Thummim). Thus we get at the root of sin in the flesh, and we come to understand Romans 8:3: “For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do: sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh.”

Even in this day and age, the dispensation with respect to this light and these judgments is still a mystery, because the flesh cringes at the prospect of being the object of such radical treatment. But where one suffers with Christ, and where one endures everything for His name’s sake, a dispensation is being carried out with these very hidden things within the veil, which is His flesh. A stewardship is being exercised from hour to hour, a dispensation with real value in life. Here one is losing and finding one’s life continually. This is what makes this dispensation more exciting and more interesting than any other. Do you dare to enter in and take part in this dispensation? Will you allow yourself to be served by the one who is the very least?