03.02. Part 2

Part 2 On opening the New Testament, we find ourselves on very different ground. Here type merges into antitype, shadow into substance, and prophecy is turned into history. Here the Holy of Holies of the sacred Book is before us where the richest treasures of inspiration are laid bare, and here, to the delight of adoring hearts, the glories of the Lord shine forth. We have travelled this way before, as the reader will recall, in our previous meditations, and the little gained quickens surely our desire for deeper acquaintance with Himself. "To whom coming," says Peter, "a living stone." Nor need we fear repetition, since the fulness which is before us in these holy pages will be upon our lips for evermore. The words "Son of Man" were often on the lips of our Lord when speaking of Himself, and that even in those incidents of His life which were more definitely connected with the house of Israel. We can feel in proportion as we are taught that this was a necessity, for being a representative people what applied to them applied to all; for this reason we are permitted to see the mediatorial place of the Son in all the great leading landmarks of His history. What has been spoken of as wisdom’s seven pillars, viz., His Birth, Baptism, Temptation, Transfiguration, Death, Resurrection, and Ascension, bear witness to this in a remarkable way. The Virgin’s Son is the Woman’s seed, and though coming in connection with Israel (Revelation 12:1-17), is the Man-child brought forth to rule all nations; the baptism in the Jordan, and the Holy Ghost coming upon Him, shows the anointing of the true meat-offering, the anointed Man who was here for the pleasure of God. And so it was with all the others, for who, that is taught of God, cannot see in the temptations and transfiguration of our Lord, as well as in the three later events, that He was standing for God, the representative of Him in the creation?

If we linger a moment over His wondrous pathway we are reminded that He who was the source of all that is morally good and blessed is here covering Himself with fresh glories in the place of man’s sin. How utterly incomprehensible all this is to the mind of the man of the world? Here was One whose delight it was to glorify God and enjoy Him for ever. Have we noted sufficiently the moral beauty exhibited in His unfaltering trust and unshaken confidence in God in every circumstance right on to death itself? The best of men become chilled and discouraged through lack of appreciation of their services by their fellows: He was always the same. Surrounded by lack of sympathy and tender sensibilities which produced misunderstanding and even desertion by his friends, malevolent and cruel persecution by enemies, nothing could turn Him aside or diminish the unwearied activities of His goodness in carrying out the will of God. As to demeanour He vaunted not Himself nor was puffed up; so meek and lowly indeed that an Apostle could beseech the saints "by the meekness and gentleness of Christ." He who was rich became poor, down even to a bondsman’s form, and by the prophetic Spirit we hear Him say, "I am no prophet, I am a tiller of the ground, for man acquired me as bondman from my youth" (Zechariah 13:5, New Translation). He could say, "I am among you as one that serves"; "My Father worketh hitherto and I work"; "The Son of Man came not to be ministered unto but to minister and to give His life a ransom for many." But what must have been His feelings in a world where man had departed from God and at his best was living in a show of vanity and appearances? What, we ask, could be the feelings of One whose holy sensibilities could not be blunted by sin as He beheld man religiously, socially, and politically under the power of sin and death. Able to estimate sin in the light of the divine majesty in all its enormity and beholding the indisputable sway of death over the whole race; surely it was not possible for Him to be other than a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And yet there was a joy, a holy joy, there with which nothing could interfere; a joy which sprang from unbroken communion and heavenly intimacy which belonged to the relationship in which He stood with the Father though He was in a scene of sin and death. He was dependent, sorrowful, made to suffer and despised, but never murmured or was embittered. No despairing words fell from Him like what may be heard from a Moses or an Elijah, a Job or a Jeremiah (Numbers 11:11-14; 1 Kings 19:4; Job 3:3-14; Jeremiah 20:14-18). Paul could say: "I exercise myself to have always a conscience void of offence," not so with our Lord. It never says He was exercised, doubted, believed, or hoped in the way such words are used of His greatest servants. We have said before that He never had anything to withdraw, but may we not go further and assert that there could be no misunderstanding or wit’s end as we speak. Our common vocabulary of think, wish, feel, or long for, could in no wise be applied to Him. Imperfection has its ideals, and every bit of knowledge gained proves ignorance; but in these things as in all else the Man Christ Jesus stood alone. But withal He was a dependent Man and a Man of prayer. In Luke’s Gospel He is seen many times praying, and many of the outstanding events of His ministry are connected with His communings with God. At His baptism, at the call of the Apostles, after feeding the 5,000, and before walking on the sea, at His transfiguration, as well as Gethsemane and the Cross. What was the subject of many of these prayers we are not told, and yet there is much we might gather since we read how that His ear was opened morning by morning that He might succour those that were weary. He prayed as none other prayed, using, too, a word all His own, for His prayers like His obedience and service must for ever stand alone. In this world we have kings and subjects, masters and servants, supreme and subordinate, etc., but in our Lord both thoughts combine, there we see supremacy and service, authority and subjection; cut off in the midst of His days, yet continuing through all generations, all of which hangs upon the mystery of the incarnation which must for ever defy the creature’s ability to understand. With your permission, then, dear reader, we would before leaving this matchless theme, let the heart loose in all affection after the adored object of its delights. If I go through these holy Gospels hanging on the footsteps of divine love, drawn by the attractions of One whom I have learned to know and to love by my deepest needs; One who is everything to me, whose movements entrance my poor heart, so that my soul adores; One who can say, "Before Abraham was I am," who is marked by majesty, splendour, and wonder; controlling creation, yet stooping to the cries of a frail mortal; equal with the Father but stooping to wash the disciples’ feet; here, oh here, my soul rests in the tranquillity of bliss, and with His gracious approval I pillow my weary head upon His blessed breast. Here I taste a love that interests itself in such as me and that will take its own, though poor and ignorant, into confidence with itself in all the holy intimacy which it delights to bestow, keeping nothing back from the inquiring heart of all the interests, plans, and movements of the Godhead, in the working out of the counsels of eternal love. Here there is intimacy but no familiarity; matchless mystery of grace that frail and feeble mortals can be at home with Him who in His own mysterious greatness must be beyond them for evermore. But like Moses, I would still draw near. He beckons me to Himself to dwell in the home of love begetting fullest confidence because of a nature and relationship which permits of no distrust. But there is more, for He makes known His interest in me not merely by meeting my needs but by communicating His own and the Father’s interests, so that I might know the things of the Father and the Son and with an enlarged capacity be able to appreciate the wondrous heavenly favour heaped upon my soul. But still I linger and gaze with adoration upon Himself noting His power over all things, physically in the grandeur of creation, morally in the ranks of created intelligences, and above all His relation to the Father and the Holy Spirit in the carrying out of all the divine plans for time and eternity, knowing that while He is and does all this He has time to think of such as me. He calleth His own sheep by name, notes the town, street, and house where they live; wonder of wonders He creates, upholds, governs, and supplies, but beyond all this He loves. It is because He loves and is love that He does everything else, and it is because of this He interests Himself in me.

We make no apology for this since there is a distinct call for living affections for Christ. Orthodoxy, however good it may be, is not enough; there must be vitality. The well-known saying that one may be as clear as a sunbeam and as cold as an iceberg describes that which is sadly possible because of a mental acquisition of holy things. Surely there is abundant scriptural warrant in the way saints are seen all through the ages giving expression to the joy that filled their souls through occupation with the Lord and what He has revealed of Himself; if in the twilight of God’s ways saints are found voicing their appreciation of heaven we who live in the full light of divine revelation may well let ourselves go. "Let the heavens rejoice and let the earth be glad; let the sea roar and the fulness thereof." Are we not reminded here of the words of the Lord when asked by the Pharisees to rebuke His disciples for this very thing: "I tell you that if these should hold their peace the stones would immediately cry out." It was a saying of an eminent servant of Christ about Samuel Rutherford: "For an hour at glory’s gate commend me to heavenly Master Rutherford."

All that we can ever know of God must come to us by redemption, the person of the San, His work upon the Cross, and both of these for us, the latter being the means by which we can be brought in to appreciate and take delight in the former so that our hearts may be captivated by and for Himself, even now is a thing worthy of God Himself. Such a life as His must remain for ever blooming in the garden of God in all its holy fragrance; no books, even the world itself could not contain it; thank God the heavens will, for there it will be enshrined upon an ornament carved out as fruit of God’s eternal counsels, to be read throughout eternal days. The assembly now being formed is that in which all that Jesus is and has done will be treasured up forever for God’s eternal praise.

If the glory of that life is so far beyond us what shall be said of His death where all the accumulated forces of evil are seen at work spending themselves upon the sinless One. Before the Council the charge was, He called Himself the Son of God; before Pilate it was that He claimed to be a King; but with the people it was, "Behold the Man." Ecclesiastically, politically, and socially the world would not have Him. At that very time, however, something infinitely more solemn came to pass, for having taken the place of the sinner’s surety there could be no help for Him in God. The Righteous One is abandoned and treated as guilty by His God. In these closing hours we read of the mock robe which is said to be scarlet, purple, and gorgeous; there need be no contradiction, for as we have seen, the first two are closely connected and may well be called gorgeous, but all foreshadows the time when every glory shall be set forth in Him. But think for a moment on the connection between His birth and death. Both were a necessity and each lay outside the common course of mankind. He chose to be born of a virgin; no one else ever had any choice about his birth; He lived outside the common course of that life which "must needs die," yet gave Himself up to the shameful death of the Cross. The period of His life here must eternally abide before God, ever producing fresh praise in all its imperishable and incomprehensive grandeur but it had to come to an end. His people’s state called for relief and God’s glory called for a sacrifice, hence the necessity of the sacrifice at Calvary. The presence of Moses and Elijah with Him on the holy mount proved the necessity of the Cross for the securing of their right to be there, but the glory in which He Himself shone on that occasion necessitated death, for on the Mount of Transfiguration He stood anticipatively in the glory of redemption. On His side, too, there was a necessity for death that He might take up the place appointed for man in the counsels of God. He comes upon the scene to walk in the path of responsibility by way of the virgin’s womb, but enters .the place and condition marked out in the purpose of God by resurrection from the dead. "This is He that came by water and blood." As He said to the two on the way to Emmaus: "Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into His glory? ’ (Luke 24:26). In resurrection we see the new state, and what it involved, for, though not yet ascended to heaven, the links are cut with flesh and blood; not only does the world see Him no more, but His friends cannot have Him in the same associations as before. But if He could not be with them in the same order of life as before His love had made a way for them to be with Him in the new conditions in which He now stood beyond death. The forty days are evidently peculiar, since they tell of One who has left this world but not yet gone to heaven; in the wisdom of God they set forth the position of His own for which they would need the presence and power of the Holy Ghost after He had gone on high. This exaltation to the right hand of God is still more wonderful. Who can estimate the changes involved in the ranks of creation by His going there? We should mark well the bearing of this new thing upon man and the earth, for His going there had in view the sending of the Holy Ghost, an event which puts this planet and the beings upon it in a place of immeasurable favour before God. The events of the moment are of such enormous import that heavenly intelligences must stand by; they desire to look into these things, but a divine person is here to Whom is committed the whole range of the interests of Christ. So many important principles are seen at the point we have reached that it is needful to take account of the position. On the side of purpose Christ had appeared in the end of the ages to put away sin, while in the bearing of the divine ways and man’s responsibility He had been offered to the world and refused. Before going to the Cross He had pronounced judgment on the world, but before that judgment is carried out and the full public result is seen in the glorious reign of the Son of Man there comes a sudden break in the outward dealings of God with the world. In divine wisdom all public transactions with man and the world cease, and the intervening gap during which the assembly is brought upon the scene begins to run its course.

It is this gap of time when Israel is set aside and under judgment, and the Church, the heavenly company, is being called out, which demands our deepest attention, because in it we have not what is of earth and time but what is heavenly and eternal. The Son of Man, while waiting for the full public answer to all that He has done, is glorified in God. His atoning work had met the sin question in its bearing on the whole creation and paid the price for the redemption of the whole in which way He stamped His claim upon it with a view to putting the whole under His beneficent sway. This will be the full answer to what He has done, and in that way the thoughts of inherited and acquired glory are brought together: what He inherits, as the appointed heir of all, He acquires by His death; all to be taken up in the double claim of personal and redemption rights, but between the Cross and the glory there comes in the gap of which we speak — the present Church-age during which time He is in a more wonderful place still — glorified in God. Had the public ways of God gone on, judgment must have come upon the guilty world immediately after Christ went on high, but instead, the Holy Ghost comes down, and the Gospel, with the full blessing of God, begins to go out far and wide. The atoning work of His Son had so met the claims of God, and the majesty of His throne, that for the moment judgment would have been out of place, and instead a holy banquet to which all mankind are called, takes its place. This is the Gospel. Heaven rings with joy, and to the world guilty of the Saviour’s death the Spirit is sent to bring men into the feast. What a triumph for God, and what a marvellous display of His grace and patience: He meets the creature’s worst by His very best at the time of that creature’s greatest extremity. At the moment when the world — both Jew and Gentile — had left itself open to unsparing judgment and had incurred the greatest debt, He frankly forgave them both. Nor did it stop at forgiveness merely, for the feast is spread and the dress for the guests provided (see the best robe, Luke 15:1-32); that the fruits of Christ’s victory may be seen by the saints being before God vested in the beauty of His Son. This is where the proclamation of the Gospel links with the counsels of eternity, bringing to light the secret that men should be brought into sonship and that the Church should be presented to Christ as His complement, the fulness of Him who filleth all in all, so that when the heir comes into His inheritance the bride is seen associated with Him in all that pertains to His glory in that vast domain. Note, then, the perfect beauty of God’s ways combined with all that He ever proposed in counsel as brought out in this divine parenthesis; had His judgment fallen when Christ ascended there could have been no heavenly city and no suitable helpmeet for the Man of His counsels. It had been written long before, "It is not good that the man should be alone. I will make him a helpmeet for him"; we can see surely that not merely Adam but Christ was then before Him. All these things converge, so to speak, at one point. Christ’s rejection, the end of man’s testing, and of his moral history and the judgment of the world in the Cross. In this way room is made for bringing into effect the counsels of eternity, the revelation of heavenly things, and the call of the new heavenly company.

Before passing on to the nature and calling of the Church, a few words are necessary on the truth of deliverance on account of its being the process of experience the soul must pass through before entering properly into these things. Who that is acquainted with the movements of God’s testimony during the last century does not know that the conflict of truth raged round the fact of the accomplishment of divine righteousness in the Cross, and the consequent inauguration of a new creation by resurrection. The battle-ground lay chiefly in the Epistle to the Romans. In the most elaborate argument perhaps ever put upon paper the Apostle brings out there the way that divine righteousness had been established in the judicial removal of man in the flesh from the platform of God’s dealings and a new order of man seen in a risen Christ now before the face of God forever. Much was made to revolve around the phrase, "Union in Incarnation." The assertion of this in one way or another by many was a denial of man’s lost state in Adam and amounted to the averment that in becoming Man the Son had connected Himself morally with a fallen race. We may be thankful that there were those raised up of God who were enabled to put before the saints that which had been before given through the Apostle. It was amply demonstrated from the scriptures by one well-known servant that not only could there be no moral link with man in Adam but there could be no union between Christ and the believer till after redemption was accomplished, by which the sinful state was set aside in judgment.

Conditions have changed since then, but alas, not for the better. The same truth is opposed today though in a different way among those who stood so valiantly for it then. Union with Christ is admitted, but the subjective work of the Spirit is denied or beclouded with the result that the richest blessings are accepted and spoken of as possessed without the necessary state for their enjoyment. It is not uncommon to meet with those who assume to be seated in heavenly places in Christ, and very zealous for the truth in orthodox statements, who show a great deal of activity in the Gospel but yet ignore the Spirit’s work and practically deny the new creation. This lack of deliverance from the flesh, and ability to take account of oneself under the Headship of Christ as belonging to a new race, produces a class of Christians that can be outwardly devoted but know nothing of the offence of the Cross. God’s richest blessings are slighted, the path of separation unknown, the very birthright of souls is lost and God dishonoured.

We insist, then, that deliverance by the death of Christ is the key to the whole situation: it opens up to the soul another order of things beyond death, while at the same time it enables us to see everything in this world at its true moral value. Where it is refused, no matter how conscientious the person is, there is bound to be confusion, because the person is surrounded with disorder and can see no way out. But now we turn for a few moments to the place of the assembly and those things which are so blessedly reached by the journey of the soul from Adam to Christ.