XO 21:2-6{It will be profitable to look at what Scripture says about the Lord Jesus as " The Servant," and to meditate a little season on the moral glory attaching to Him as such.
Another has very beautifully and truly said, " Love delights to serve;" and we see it exemplified in perfection in the blessed Lord. " In all things He hath the pre-eminence" is as true of Him as the Servant as in every other position that He has ever filled.
How brightly the above passage in Exodus lights up when we see in it a type of Him as the Servant! Phil. 2:7, shows us that He " took upon Him the form of a servant" when He " was made in the likeness of men." It was a new thing for the one " by whorl: all things were created" (Col. 1:16); who " spake, and it was done, He commanded, and it stood fast" (Psa. 33:9), to be in the position of receiving commands; and so we find in Psa. 40:6, it is said of Him, " Mine (lit. ' for me') ears hast thou digged (margin). Then in Heb, 10:5, the Holy Spirit accepts the Septuagint rendering (conveying as it does the right thought), " a body hast thou prepared for me," thus identifying what Psa. 40:6-8 says with Phil. 2:7.
What led Him to take this place? " Lo, I come to do Thy will, O God." In keeping with this, we get Him saying on one occasion, " Wist ye not that I must be about My Father's business " (Luke 2.); on another, My meat is to do the will of Him that sent Me, and to finish His work" (John 4), showing what was ever before Him. Did the selfishness of His disciples manifest itself in " strife" as to " which of them should be accounted the greatest" (Luke 22), he tells them that what obtains in the world was not to be the case among them, adding, " I am among you as He that serveth." 0 beloved reader, what a rebuke to the selfishness of (the disciples' hearts, do you and I say?-nay', but of) your heart and mine; and not only selfishness, but pride, when we find that men-yea even the people of God-nowadays, object to be called "a servant." If there is one position that, more than another, has been lit up with moral glory, in this world of pride and selfishness, it is that of servant. In connection with this very position we find some of the most precious teaching in the New Testament, Eph. 6:5-8; Col. 3:22-25; (How exquisite for the heart, where the eye is single, are those words in ver. 24, " Ye serve the Lord Christ." What higher object could a saint have?); 1 Tim. 6:1-5; Titus 2:9-14; 1 Peter 2:18-25.
How full of moral beauty is the way that the Spirit of God portrays Him in the Servant's place in Isa. 1:4. Having, in the previous verse, shown Him as the One who " clothes the heavens with blackness, etc.," where He is represented as waiting " morning by morning" for the " word in season;" and what " apples of gold in pictures of silver" (Prov. 25:1) were "the gracious words which proceeded out of His mouth!" (Luke 4:22). Well might the officers say, " Never man spake like this man!" (John 7:46). Surely we may connect Mark 1:35, with Isa. 1. 4. Beloved reader, what lessons and what an example for you and me in these two scriptures! If we were found acting upon them more, what the Holy Spirit enjoins in James 1:19 would be made good in us, in increasing measure.
All through His wondrous pathway in this world do we see the same perfection as the servant, ever doing His Father's will. In Gethsemane, in all the solemn agony of that moment, with the cross before Him, when praying, " Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me," He immediately adds, " nevertheless not My will, but Thine, be done" (Luke 22). Thence He passes onward, in the path of obedience, to the cross, " Obedient unto death, even the death of the cross" (Phil. 2).
Now let us return to Ex. 21 We have glanced at Him as the Servant and seen what perfection shone out in Him as such. Now comes the question, " Will He r go out free'?" That He could have done so John 10:18, and Matt. 26:53, show plainly enough. But no: " I love my master, my wife and my children; I will not go out free" were about to be fulfilled. There was not only the One whose will He came to do (and which He did perfectly), but, " my wife and my children." Turn to Eph. 5:32, 25-29; and Heb. 2:13-15, and I think we shall there find what corresponds to the type.
In Psa. 40:4 we have seen ears digged or prepared for Him, and that that corresponded to His taking the Servant's place. Now it is the question not of His being a servant, but of His being A SERVANT Forever. The Cross answers to Ex. 21:6, and so we find in Scripture that He never gives up being a man. God the Father has righteously decreed that He shall judge the world as Son of Man (John 5:22, 23, 27; Acts 17:31; Cor. 15:25-27); and that all things shall be put under Him as such (Psa. 8; Heb. 2:5-8). After the millennial reign, even in the eternal state, He will not cease being a man (1 Cor. 15:28). 0, dear reader (if you are a believer), that blessed One has served you and me, where, and in a way, that no one else could. " Ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, that ye through His poverty might be rich" (2 Cor. 8), may well come before us in this connection, and may the Spirit of God apply those words to our hearts with such power that " The love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if One died for all, then were all dead; and that He died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto Him which died for them, and rose again" (2 Cor. 5), may be practically true of us during the " little while" that He leaves us here to " occupy till I come."
We find then that He has served us on the cross bearing the judgment of God for us and shedding His precious blood-our only title to glory.
If we turn to John 13 we shall find a precious picture of His present service. " His hour was come that He should depart out of this world unto the Father." Was he going to cease serving them? Oh, no! Love delighting to serve, as has been said, His service is as unceasing as His love; so now " having loved His own which were in the world, He loved them unto the end;" and so " He riseth from supper and laid aside His garments and took a towel and girded Himself. After that He poureth water into a basin and began to wash the disciples' feet and to wipe them with the towel wherewith He was girded.
The reader will notice that it is water in the basin, not blood. When a person has taken his true place before God as a sinner and rested in simple faith on the work the Lord Jesus accomplished on Calvary's cross, he is " justified from all things" (Acts 13:39), has " peace with God" (Rom. 5:1), and is a "child of God" (Gal. 3:26). Then comes the question of communion, which the least allowance of evil, or of defilement contracted, interrupts. The Lord uses the simplest things of every day life to teach lessons by. In those countries where they wore sandals, however clean the individual might otherwise be, the dust was very apt to settle on the feet as they walked about. So we, in this sin-defiled world, are very apt (through lack of dependence and watchfulness) to contract defilement, and this interrupts communion. In ver. to the first " washed" is rather " bathed" or " washed all over" and corresponds to the action of the word when we are " born of water" (symbol of the word, Psa. 119:9; John 15:3; Eph. 5:26; cf. 1 Peter 1:23, 25) " and of the Spirit," and of which there can be no repetition, for " He that is washed needeth not save to wash (a different word, and used more particularly with reference to the feet and hands) his feet, but is clean every whit."
" Clean every whit;" Thou saidst it, Lord; Shall one suspicion lurk? Thine, surely, is a faithful word, And Thine a finished work.
How often, though, dear fellow-believer, have you and I, since we have been the Lord's, lacked watchfulness and tailed in dependence, and done or said something naughty. Perhaps, too, we have gone on our way and forgotten, or tried to forget,' about it; or, what is still worse, made an excuse for, it But in spite of all our efforts to do so, it has, kept coming before us again and again, till at last we have been broken down in self-judgment and confession; and the soul, looking back, said, "Why, here have I, after all the love and grace I have been brought to know, gone and taken my pleasure (be it only for a moment) in that which caused the Lord Jesus His agony on Calvary's cross"-or some such words; and, going to the Father, a simple and full confession has been made (specifying what has been done), acting as 1 John 1:9 shows us. But what has produced this? The blessed Lord Jesus has had His eye on us all the time; and, in His unceasing, unwearied love has stooped down to wash our feet, by His Spirit applying the word to the conscience. John 13. shows us His side of it; and 1 John 1:9 the effect in us.
Lastly we come to His future service. " Blessed are those servants whom the Lord, when He cometh, shall find watching; verily I say unto you, that He shall gird Himself, and make them sit down to meat, and will come forth and serve them" (Luke 12:37). He will Himself minister to our joy, when we are with Him in glory. What surpassing love! Well may we sing: