The Moral Beauty of Christ
Luke 9:1-17
Do you think that God has come into the world bringing salvation to surrender His own rights to your necessities? He could not do it, and you, if in a right mind, could not wish it. The glory of the gospel is that He is glorified while you are saved. Could you enjoy a robbery? It would be a robbery if you could get a blessing which took glory from God. You get this in the cross if you read it right. It is the glory of the gospel that God could be just and yet the justifier of him who believes in Jesus. We get a sample of that in Luke 9.
He tells His apostles to take with them neither scrip, nor money, nor bread. He says, as it were, You are going forth with My message; lean on Me. No man goes to warfare at his own expense. I will take care of your necessities, and let your moderation be known unto all. He then says, "Take nothing for your journey, neither staves, nor scrip, neither bread, neither money.... And whosoever will not receive you, when ye go out of that city, shake off the very dust from your feet." While there is a graciousness attached to such ministry, there is a solemnity too.
Now let us look at Herod for a moment. Tell me, do you think you have done with sin, when you have committed it? One thing is certain: it has not done with you. The charm of sin is gone the moment it is perpetrated. That is your way of disposing of sin, but conscience, which makes cowards of us all, lets you know that it has not done with you. Herod had beheaded John long before, but now it was said of some that John was risen from the dead, and he is perplexed. Here the worm that never dies was doing its business. I am not, of course, determining its eternity, but the Lord in such cases lifts the veil from hell and shows us the worm at its work. Herod could not rest. How could he? He was the murderer of the greatest witness of God in the world at that moment!
Now the apostles return and tell what they have done, and we have the scene of feeding the multitude. Here we get the largeness of the heart of Christ in contrast with every human heart. Could you get a sample of the human heart more easy to love than Peter's? He was an openhearted, good-natured man that you could easily have loved, but look at it in contrast with the heart of Christ! They said, "Send the multitude away." "No," said He, "give ye them to eat." And they said, "What! are we to go and buy?" It was said in a sulky mood of mind, but the Lord did not refuse to go on with His sulky disciples. He met with vanity, ignorance, heartlessness, and bad temper.
It is a very interesting study to see how He always overcame evil with good. If my bad temper puts you into a bad temper, you have been overcome of evil. God never gives place to evil and this is a beautiful instance of it. The disciples said, "Send them away." "Make them sit down," said Jesus. Then, being the master of the feast, He must supply the guests.
Now notice something of the moral beauty of Jesus' feast. He sits at the head of the table in the glory of God, and as the perfect Man. As God He puts forth creative powers, and was acting without robbery. He not only was God, but there was no form of divine glory that He would not assume, no act of divine power that he would not put forth. But He took His place also as the perfect Man. He was an entire contradiction to Adam. What was Adam's offense? He did not give thanks, but assumed to be master of all. It was a man refusing to be thankful.
The Lord gives thanks. I see Him taking His place at the head of the table in the wilderness, as perfect God and perfect Man. The worship that God got in the Person of Jesus was richer incense to Him than if Adam had lived forever as a thankful man. He came to erect out of the ruins a temple for the glory of God that the creation in integrity would never have yielded.
The blessed God would have us know that at His table there is always more than enough. We know what it is to sit comfortably at a plentiful table. When I see very God making the feast and very Man giving thanks and then leaving an abundant overflow of fragments, what can I do but be thankful! We may each, one and all, be full and go away thankful that there is plenty for others.
J. G. Bellett
Questions and Answers
QUESTION: Will you please explain the passage in 1 Cor. 11:5, "Every woman that prayeth or prophesieth with her head uncovered dishonoureth her head," and verse 13, "Is it comely that a woman pray unto God uncovered?”
ANSWER: In order to understand the force of the teachings of the Apostle in these verses attention must be given to verse 3, which forms the groundwork of what follows it. "I would have you know," he says, "that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God." We have here the divine order and relative position of man and woman, which was to have its recognition and display in the assembly.
Man praying and prophesying in the assembly did it in the presence of his invisible Head-Christ, whom he represented, and to cover his head would be to dishonor Christ as his Head. A covering being the visible sign of subjection to another, it would have looked as if he were praying or prophesying in recognition of some other head than Christ, and was not conscious of representing Him.
Now the woman's head is man, and in praying or prophesying she was to recognize her visible head, and thus a visible sign of her subjection to him was to be worn. This is the meaning of verse 10 where it is said, "For this cause ought the woman to have power [the sign of subjection to man] on her head because of the angels." Angels, who are the observers of God's ways in the assembly, as well as in creation, should see in the woman the intelligent recognition of the position in which God has placed her with reference to the man.
The point here is not whether the woman may actually pray or prophesy in public, but the outward appearance she is to bear in the presence of men in the assembly while praying and prophesying are going on. To find in these passages authority for women praying and speaking in public, as is often done, is to pervert the plain teaching of the passage. It might with as much reason be inferred that it was only while a man was actually praying or speaking that he was to take off his hat, or, in other words, that all the men in the assembly were to be there with their heads covered except the one actually praying or speaking.
The simple meaning of the Apostle we believe to be this, that, when assembled before God with Christ in their midst, all the men were to be uncovered as the sign of their recognition of His presence as their Head. In like manner, all the women, when so gathered, were to have their heads covered as a recognition of their sense of being in the presence of their head.
Having laid down authoritatively the divine order on this point in verse 13, he appeals to the Corinthians to judge for themselves. From the analogy of nature, was it comely that women, when in the assembly where God was recognized and looked to in prayer, should have their heads uncovered?
And here again, "pray unto God" does not mean audibly addressing God. Women silently lifting their hearts to God, or when joining in the Spirit-given prayer that some man as the mouthpiece for all is uttering, are surely praying to God. They should, therefore, be covered with something in addition to their hair, which according to nature was given them apart from any question of God's presence in the assembly, as a veil or covering before men. From nature itself, then, they should have learned what was fitting in the assembly without the Apostle having to formally prescribe it in teaching.