Within Our Boundaries

Within Our Boundaries

Man is (represents) what he is ruled by. Authority is expressed by means of an instrument, and the instrument’s effects reveal the intent and the goal of authority.

God blew the spirit of life into man and he became a unique being whose blessed ways were kept within the boundaries that God had established. God establishes a boundary for everything. Within this boundary is an inherent law, and with this law, its life, which can only reach its zenith and its highest goal of blessedness within this boundary. Outside these boundaries are transgressions against these limitations, against its laws, and against its exalted Giver. Being outside our boundaries therefore means being outside the happiness that God has determined for people in their respective area. Being outside the boundaries therefore means being outside the area God has established for man’s blessedness. This means that a person moves from the condition for obtaining the highest happiness and blessedness to being outside the boundary—to fall and destruction. He is moved from his own, original, allotted place, his roots being planted outside of God’s will. He leaves his own dwelling place, his high estate where “The Highest One” in His wisdom has placed him, and he enters into a lower state where he meets the opposite of wisdom in his folly.

Why has God set a boundary for everything? It is because He Himself is without limitations; therefore everything that He has brought forth must find its limitations within Him. For everything that is created is an expression of Him and within Him who encompasses and fills all things. If the things that were created did not have their boundaries they would be without limitations just as He is.

The essence of sin is that we seek something beyond our boundaries, beyond God’s laws or God’s will, and enter into areas that are unbounded in order to be like God. God’s intention was that man should be dependent on His will, and the essence of sin is that man seeks to be independent just as God is.

Satan was the first one to breach his barriers, leaving his abode, breaking free from the established laws that God had ordained. It was he who shouted an appeal into man’s dwelling place—Paradise—which was inside as well as outside of man. At Satan’s word people break through their boundary; they tear down the barriers that God has given them; they free themselves from God’s will and step out into infinitude; but because they do not have life in themselves—life is only in God—they step out into a restless yearning that is evident in people even until the present day. The enclosure around them has been torn down; their vineyard within this enclosure has been laid waste by man himself; they themselves have forsaken it. The hedges are always torn down from within by people themselves going beyond their boundaries, that which is God’s will. Children of God! Take care that you do not desire anything that is outside of God’s will, tearing down your hedges in order to lay hold of it. Be on guard against the voice from without, from him who wanders around restlessly on earth. He has left the law that God has given him, and he is molding the “lawless one.”

However, God also sets boundaries for those who have broken out of their own safe state by saying to them as He says to the sea, “This far you may come, but no farther, and here your proud waves must stop!” Job 38:11.

God has limited our time to the momentary execution of His will; He has limited our place by our body and our deeds, apportioning to everyone his field of activity and work.

Are there only limitations; is there no liberty? There is no liberty, only dependence. Within there is liberty by permission. “You may freely eat . . . .” There is liberty in rest and in harmony with God. But will the hedges not limit our development? Not at all! We discover the highest law and its power inside; there is ruin and destruction outside. Inside we discover an infinite number of opportunities for development, just as it is written: “For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily; and you are complete in Him . . . .” Col. 2:9-10. Paul did not venture outside; he stayed within the apportioned area that God had allotted to him as his measure, namely to obtain all that is within his limitations. That which is now inside (in Christ Jesus) is so vast that only a life’s walk in faithfulness can fulfill it; that is, obtain the full measure of our faith which is born of life itself.

The laws of life are decisive as to the requirements for our development according to God’s own nature. And life’s requirements are its strength. Eph. 3:20. Life has a desire to give birth and to grow, and Christ, who is our life, shall fill our needs where we are, according to the riches of His glory—precisely where everyone is, within his limits; i.e., in God’s will for him he finds great opportunities of growth for himself. There he can grow up to the Head, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. In Him, in the church, in the body we have access to Christ’s unsearchable riches, to God’s mysteries that the Spirit reveals to the searching spirit. Outside of God’s laws we find the mystery of lawlessness.

The one who rules over men is revealed in them. Within one matures in Christ Jesus; without one fills up the measure of one’s sins.