To view the Lord Jesus as Man in all the perfections and beauties of His ways as such in the pathway He trod in this scene, or in the varied offices He fills, and the place of glory He takes as Man according to the counsels of God cannot be too largely insisted on. But this raises no question of His Person, if it is the Spirit of God who directs our thoughts. The very fact of such questions being raised here should lead those who raise them to judge that their minds were leading them astray, and cause them to pause and judge their folly. His Person in itself is altogether outside the sphere of our meditations whether we contemplate Him in His Godhead or His Manhood. Not of course by this do we mean His Person in all its infinite value and beauty and grace and perfections; but His Person doctrinally, i.e., the truth of who He is and what He is in Being and Nature whether as God or as Man. This is not a subject which can be divided or defined or comprehended as J. N. D. has written
How beyond all our wonder and praise is the Person of the blessed Lord! As an Apostle could say and more because he knew it better ‘Great is the mystery’ . . . No man knows the Son yet He lets us see that He is that which no man knows.
As to His ways and as to His relationships, in the offices He fills and in the activities of His grace, in His sufferings and His sorrows, in His joys and His glories, we may well be engaged with Him as Man or as God.
We may look at Him as the weary Man at Sychar’s well, grieved with the heartlessness of His people, wearied with the journey His love must needs take in order to reach a poor sinful woman, outside the limits of God’s earthly dealings, but do we view Him “apart from what He is as God”? or do we not necessarily recall to our souls the truth – wondrous beyond description as we see Him there – of who He is and what He is as God? To abstract what He is as God from our view is to reduce the picture to a bare cold study of the mind: the heart cannot thus afford to lose Him for a single moment, when we are near Him. We see Him there a Man – weary, thirsty, hungry, grieved at heart with the indifference of His people yet even then finding His joy as Man in making God known to a wretched and unsatisfied heart – making Himself known –the One who could say “If thou knewest . . . who it is.” Adorable Person! become a Man that He might thus reveal Himself to such poor sinners. We contemplate Him there we worship that One – that Man who is God.
We may gaze upon Him a Man in the home at Bethany, that sweet retreat for His aching heart: retiring from the coldness of the world He made and into which He had come in grace – from His own people to whom He had come according to the special love He had towards them –retiring hated and unknown – to enjoy for a moment the company of those He loved, who gathered there, and whose love to Him He so fully appreciated {John 12:1-31Then Jesus six days before the passover came to Bethany, where Lazarus was which had been dead, whom he raised from the dead. 2There they made him a supper; and Martha served: but Lazarus was one of them that sat at the table with him. 3Then took Mary a pound of ointment of spikenard, very costly, and anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped his feet with her hair: and the house was filled with the odor of the ointment. (John 12:1‑3)}– He the lonely Man in a contrary scene. Yet what fills to overflowing our cup of joy and praise as we too, in spirit enter into the sweetness now of that which then filled Mary’s heart? Is it not the wondrous yet unknown depths of His peerless Person which cause us, together with her to expend upon Him the worship of our hearts, His worthiness filling the house and ascending to the Father?
the fragrance of His Person – the Man of Sorrows retreating into the fellowship of those who through grace loved Him – that gracious One – the ever blessed God come down thus to make us know Him in such a manner in order by the Spirit to produce and draw out this love towards Himself: this love which formed the holy atmosphere at Bethany, as indeed of heaven itself.
What is it gives surpassing beauty to that scene in Simon’s house, where we see the Lord as Man partaking of the hospitality of the one who had invited Him? Do we see it if we close our eyes to what He is as God? or as we see the woman of the city finding a heart she could trust –finding One she could approach and who would not spurn the love of such an one – would not gather up His garments as we in our self-righteousness and exterior carefulness would have done – do we not of necessity remember that that heart was the heart of God – that One was God Himself? The mighty fact that He, the thrice Holy One, could thus draw a poor vile sinner to Himself, restful in the confidence of the love He had Himself produced gives the marvelous charm, in the eyes of those who have in any measure tasted such grace, to this Divine picture of the heart of Jesus.
We may view Him as Man asleep on a pillow: as before we have seen Him, wearied with His journey sitting on the well. What perfections shine in all! Was ever Man, amid such surroundings, like this? Absolutely man yet so entirely dependent upon God that He can sleep restfully amid the storm of wind and waves: perfect man utterly cast upon God with no care of circumstances whatever they m ay be. But is this view complete? Do we shut out the other side – the background as it were of this lovely picture of human dependence and of Divine power?
Should we gain here (even if we could have it) by taking a view of Christ “as man, distinct and apart from what He is as God”? or shall we not find infinite beauty imparted to the scene by seeing Who He is – what He is, as God? the Creator, the Upholder of all things, Who can still the storm, saying “Peace be still,” yet having taken the place of man – “firstborn of every creature” – in that place trusts God unreservedly, to keep Him in all His ways moving not a finger for Himself, though how ready to exert His power to remove the faithless fears of His own.
See Him a Man in the wilderness tempted of Satan.
Fully tested as Man in every respect (sin apart), in the scene of the first man’s utter failure and ruin. In nature and “in person” man too, or the testing were incomplete and wanting, yea impossible. There really and truly man: and found absolutely perfect as Man: subject, dependent obedient. Living by every w ord that proceeded from God’s mouth. Not a movement of will of His own. But who is He who is thus exposed? Who is He who has thus taken voluntarily, that God may be glorified, this place of unparalleled testing and trial? What mere creature dare expose himself thus? Who is there amongst the most exalted who could do more than be preserved himself through obedience in his own place? None! It is God who is there – there a Man – and as a Man. But He is God –the Son, who had said, “Lo, I come to do Thy will, O God.” And the recollection of this gives it its perfection.
We may learn of Him as Man when we view Him as the perfect servant – the subject Son, here in this scene of proud self-will – a self-will that rejected the lowly Jesus.
In the midst of it all, in perfect submission, He says “I thank Thee, O, Father,” even for this, “because Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent and hast revealed them unto babes” – “for so it seemed good in Thy sight.” Rejected, He was to give, and delights to give, rest to poor, heavy-laden, burdened sinners: thus, too, show the character of the yoke which was His – a yoke of perfect willing service to the Father: doing only His will and delighting to do it, though it led in such a path. What yoke of law could cause the soul to delight therein? but this is the yoke of a Person who wins our poor hearts, and making the Father known, makes His fellowship ours.
What a Person! With title to all, yet the rejected one – the servant Son: delighting to do the Father’s will if thereby not “the wise and prudent,” but “babes” might be brought into the same place of favor, and relationships, and subjection, that was His, as Man. But even such, lowly –rejected – Servant – whatever the place which, according to the counsels of God and in grace He had taken, how beautiful to see the jealousy of the Father as to His Person – He “the Son,” whom though thus come down – yea because thus come down – “NO MAN KNOWS BUT THE FATHER.” Glorious Person! Philosophy and vain deceit are powerless, where the truth concerning Himself holds the mind in subjection.
We add a few extracts from The Son of God, J. G. Bellett, 1891 Edition, that it may be seen that the truth Mr. R. sets aside by his teaching has been insisted upon as fundamental truth, in the very language he refuses, by more than J. N. D., and thus to show also that no forced interpretation has been made in our quotations, as if to bolster up a “creed” which only unintelligent “orthodoxy” insists upon, and which brethren now passed away rejected as much as F. E. R. In view of the facts it would be impossible, consistently with truth, to take such ground as this; and to continue to do so in face of the multitude of distinct statements, whose unquestionable meaning it is impossible to explain aw ay by any theory of “person and condition” such as the tract supplies, would be to lead to doubt as to the sincerity of those who would thus tamper with the plain meaning of plain words, uttered by men who can no longer contend for the truth which they so dearly prized and so clearly taught.
“The Person in the manger was the same as on the cross. It was ‘God manifest in the flesh’” (p. 63). “He was as truly ‘God manifest in the flesh’ when on the journey to Egypt in His m other’s arms, as when in Gethsemane, in the glory and power of His person, the enemy coming to eat up His flesh stumbled and fell. He was as simply Emmanuel as an Infant in Bethlehem, as He is now at the right hand of the Majesty in the heavens” (pp. 71, 72). “The Person is the same throughout, God and man in one Christ” (p. 168). “That Person will be ‘the eternal wonder and ornament of the creation of God.’ Some may own, in general, the manhood and the Godhead in that Person. But we are also to own the full unsullied glory of each of these.
Neither the soul or moral man, nor the temple of the body is to be profaned. The whole man is to be vindicated and honored” (p. 76). “The person of Christ, and therein His human nature, shall be the eternal object of divine glory praise, and worship” (pp. 113, 114). “Faith acquaints itself with this whole path of Jesus. It owns in Him the Son while He tabernacles in the flesh among us; and when His course of humiliation and suffering had ended here, faith owns the once rejected and crucified Man glorified in the heavens – the one Person; God manifested in the flesh here, Man hid in the glory there. As we read of Him and of His blessed wondrous path: ‘God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles believed on in the world, received up into glory’ (1 Tim. 3:1616And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory. (1 Timothy 3:16)). He was, indeed, very Man and very God in one Person. All depends on this ‘great mystery.’ The death of the cross, would be nothing without it, as all would be nothing without that death” (p. 78). Again Mr. Bellett says, “‘His glorious meetness,’ to use very much the language of another, ‘for all the acts and duties of His mediatory office is resolved into the union of His two natures in the same Person. He who was conceived and born of the Virgin was Emmanuel; that is, ‘God was manifest in the flesh’: ‘Unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given; . . . and His name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace’ (Isa. 9). The One who spake to the Jews and as a Man was then only a little more than thirty years old, was ‘before Abraham’ (John 8). The perfect and complete work of Christ in every act of His office, in all that He did, in all that he suffered, in all that ‘He continued to do, is the act and work of His whole person’. This is the mystery” (p. 101). “By the apostle John . . . the Spirit very specially reveals or declares the link between ‘God’ and ‘flesh’ in the person of Jesus” (p. 86). “And this is the mystery: the assumption of flesh and blood by the Son, so that He became the Kinsman of the seed of Abraham, and then the assumption of that wondrous Person into heaven ‘God was manifest in the flesh – received up into glory’” (p. 106). “This is the mystery. It is the same Jesus Emmanuel, the Son, and yet the Kinsman of the seed of Abraham. And here I would say – for there is a call for it – I know we are not to confound the natures in this glorious and blessed One. I fully bow in faith to the truth that the Sanctifier took part of flesh and blood. I avow with my whole soul the true humanity in His person” (p. 109).
And, throughout his whole tract, Mr. R. disavows his belief therein: founding his charge of confusion “as between person and condition,” upon the fact that we maintain “that the truth of Christ’s Person consists in the union in Him of God and man,” that is, the union of the Divine and human natures in the One Person of Christ. He thus absolutely destroys “the true humanity in His person” – “His whole Person,” and denies that “This is the mystery” of the incarnation.
There is no alternative. If the teaching of the tract be true, the doctrines which we have hitherto received are false: but if the quotations from those now passed away express the truth, then alas! the doctrine of Mr. R. (whatever hopes we may tremblingly entertain as to himself) is anti-christian: it is apostasy from the faith.
NOTE. – References to the Synopsis in brackets are to the pages of the most recent copies, when not otherwise marked; but L. E. marks the larger copies of the Third Edition Revised.
We have used quotations from “Notes and Comments” as, although unrevised, they simply bear out the views of their writer as expressed in his revised works.
N. B. – The doctrine of Mr. R. concerning the Person of Christ, as developed in the tract we have considered, does not differ essentially from that which he taught in 1889 and 1890. It was manifest from the commencement of his propaganda that the effort of the enemy was to divide the PERSON of Christ, and it was evident that Mr. R. did not hold the truth of the indivisibility of that Person, in its integrity. The difference is that whilst now he flouts the truth of the union of manhood with Godhead in Christ, he then implied (in the most distinct manner however) that this union, or connection as he then termed it, could not be. He then insisted (see his letter of Dec. 6th, 1889, together with his paper of July 3rd, 1890) that to keep “the true deity the eternal Sonship of the Word” clear and distinct from eternal life, was of all importance, because though the latter “was ever an integral part of the Person of the Eternal Son” (whatever that may mean) it was “such as could according to the divine counsels be connected with manhood”; and thus plainly he implies that Deity could not be thus connected with manhood. Now Mr. R. brands as error this doctrine of the union of Godhead and manhood in Christ’s Person, and boldly teaches (what so many dear saints would not acknowledge that he taught five years ago) that His manhood is not united with His Godhead in His Person. It is only human condition, into which He brought that which was morally of His own Person, so that “Manhood in His case derived its character from what He Himself was.” It is not HIMSELF that we see as the MAN Christ Jesus. The identity of the doctrine which first implied and then asserts that the union of Godhead and Manhood in Christ is not the truth is thus fairly and unquestionably established. But this awful heresy should have been plain to all in Mr. R.’s teaching concerning the babe in the manger; of whom he said that “He was as a babe the exhibition of infancy in its helplessness, for all else, though there, was for the moment veiled.” Here God veiled in flesh is substituted for God manifest in the flesh as the necessary result of a theory which separates His humanity from His Person and replaces this mighty truth by a human condition into which He brings that which can be connected with manhood and is morally of Himself, but which is not Himself. Because the moral qualities which we are told He brought into manhood were for the moment hidden, in Mr. R.’s eyes, God was not there MANIFESTED in the flesh, but he sees only the EXHIBITION of infancy in its helplessness, and ALL else VEILED. Who that owned Christ to be personally Man and whose soul acknowledged “Jesus to b e, in the true full sense, ‘God . . . manifest in the flesh’ – not, as it is commonly slipped out of now also, the manifestation of God in the flesh, but God manifest,” would assert what Mr. R. asserts? NONE. God manifest in the flesh speaks to the soul of the Person of the Son incarnate, the Person of Christ, whole and indivisible, and this Person Mr. R.’s teaching knows not, and knew not five years ago. He knows and he knew a divine Person only, setting forth God morally in human condition, “the manifestation of God in the flesh,” and not God in the Person of the Son taking manhood into union with Himself so as to be God manifest in the flesh in His own Person as Man.