In this article we'll talk about the need for supernatural, and what it was Sparks meant by that.
Sparks said this:
WHEN our Lord made the great pronouncement about His Church: '... I will build my Church; and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it,' He intimated three things. One, that He would build a definite entity called His Church. Two, that that Church would encounter an opposing force in its full and final enmity. Three, that that power would be taken at its ultimate strength and be destroyed, that is, made incapable of prevailing against that Church. In this full statement there is a very definite indication of the fundamental nature of His true Church. We have been saying earlier that the Church is essentially a spiritual thing, and that spirituality is its basic principle. But can we be still clearer as to what we mean by spirituality? Yes, I think that we can, and that by using an alternative word, the word 'supernatural.'
"The Church is the embodiment of true Christianity, and true Christianity is supernatural, or it is nothing! It is only when and where that is fully realized and accepted that the Church really exists and can be the power that it is intended to be.
Let's get one barrier immediately out of the way when Sparks refers to supernatural, and that is it has nothing to do with the contemporary idea of when signs and wonders and healings are demonstrated, people will flock to Jesus Christ and the Church will be built.
In reality, that premise is largely a false one, as many decades of that experimental mindset and practices have shown. That's not to say there aren't healings and signs and wonders, just that in the way Sparks uses the term, it's not how we usually apply it. It was the source and resources, in Sparks view, which was the vital importance of the supernatural, not the outward manifestations that at times can accompany it. Think of Israel, which was called the "church in the wilderness," right after the extraordinary and supernatural deliverance from Egypt as an example.
Here's how he describes it:
1. SUPERNATURAL IN ORIGIN
First of all, Christianity and the Church (in truth, identical terms) came down from heaven, and have still unceasingly to be received and entered from there. This is the very foundational truth of Christ Himself and of the Church in every individual incorporated into it.
The teaching of the New Testament everywhere is this. The origin and home of Christ was in heaven. John's Gospel and Paul's Letter to the Ephesians are a particular and emphatic argument for this one thing, and they comprehend the New Testament in this truth. In the former the repeated affirmation of Christ as to His heavenly origin is the basis of everything in the whole Gospel. It is a "verily, verily" -- 'most truly', and everything in the Gospel is intended to bear that out and be evidence of it.
But when that has been recognized, the Gospel, and the rest of the New Testament return from that to affirm equally that the Church embodies that truth and fact of Christ. John 3 will employ the identical language -- "verily, verily" -- in connection with any single individual entering the Church. That individual, no matter if he be the best specimen and representative of the Old Testament Israel (such as Nicodemus) just "cannot" enter along the horizontal line of this creation; he cannot enter by the door of nature, of tradition, of 'religion;' he "must be born from above." By this birth he is constituted a super-natural being in the innermost reality of his being: what Paul calls "a new creation."
Then correspondingly the Church is born from above on the Day of Pentecost. The difference between the same persons before and after that event, and the corporate nature of the new entity, are patent to all who have eyes to see. It is supernatural.
2. SUPERNATURAL IN SUPPORT
What was -- and is -- true of the origin and home of Christ and His Church is shown with overwhelming evidence to be true of their sustenance and survival. 'Bread from heaven' only means the sustaining, supporting power of heavenly resources. This is seen in two connections. One, in the law of utter dependence upon God and heaven; the very principle of the Incarnation -- "He emptied himself" (Philippians 2:7). Again, John's Gospel is a constant emphatic assertion of this. The double "verily, verily" is employed to affirm this -- (5:19): "Verily, verily, I say unto you, the Son can do nothing of (out from) himself", etc., etc. For every work, for every word, for every time, He declared that He was dependent upon His Father, upon heaven. It explains His lowly birth, His lowly upbringing, His later homelessness. It explains His being "despised and rejected of men". But was there ever a life and work so powerful as His?
The other connection is that of the Church. When we consider the human material of the first nucleus, and mainly of its growth; when we take into account what it did not have of this world's goods and support; and when we think of all that was against it in every conceivable way, bent upon its annihilation; and then remark its more than survival as an entity, there is only one word for it - supernatural! I confess that I have marvelled at the sustained and triumphant faith of a man like the Apostle Paul when I see him suffering as he did, and when I read his own catalogues of sufferings. The natural mind would say: 'This is not the support of heaven', but we have the verdict of many centuries, and it is the evidence and verdict of the supernatural.
Surely all this is contained in that further double "verily" of John vi, where -- with an allusion to Israel's life in the wilderness -- Jesus declares Himself to be the Bread of God from heaven. Indeed, so strong, meaningful, and imperative is His mind on this matter that in that chapter He uses the double "verily" four times. The wilderness has always been the symbol or figure of a place outside of the world, and the succour and sustenance in conditions so inimical to life demand resources from another realm. The history of the spiritual life is the history of secret supernatural support. Silently, without demonstration; sustained, without failing, sufficient, without poverty, the Manna fell, and the Heavenly Lord of Life has maintained His Church in the same way. Yes, while it has been silent and often almost imperceptible to the natural senses, yet in fact, it has been a working of immense power. The New Testament will teach us that the very birth and sustenance of the Church is the counterpart of Israel's emancipation from Egypt. There and then the power of God extended and exhausted the whole might of Egypt and its gods, and then nullified death itself.
Sparks saw the quiet and slow impact of supernatural resources of the early church as vital to it being a church truly born of God from heaven. In his view, nothing in that regard has ever changed, as it remains a vital part of the overall picture of what constitutes the church in the heart and mind of Jesus Christ.
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