In earlier days, the angels had desired to look into the things of Christ (1 Peter 1:1212Unto whom it was revealed, that not unto themselves, but unto us they did minister the things, which are now reported unto you by them that have preached the gospel unto you with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven; which things the angels desire to look into. (1 Peter 1:12)). When these things themselves were manifested and accomplished, this desire was answered; for in the history, as we find it in the evangelists, the angels are set to be eye-witnesses of that which they had thus long desired to look into. They are privileged to find their place and their enjoyment in the history of Christ in “the mystery of godliness”; and to find it, just as of old, they had found it in the sanctuary of God. In that sanctuary, it is true, all was for the use and blessing of sinners. The altars, and the laver and the mercy-seat, and all else, were provided for us. The action and the grace of the house of God were for sinners. But the cherubim gazed. They were set in that house to look at its deepest mysteries. And so, in the same condition shall we find them, in the day of the great originals, or of the heavenly things themselves, when “God was manifest in the flesh.” For then, it is equally true, all was for the service and salvation of us sinners, or that God, so manifested, might be “preached unto the Gentiles” and “believed on in the world”; but still all was as surely for this end, that He might be “seen of angels.”
Thus they took the same place in the sanctuary of old and in the great mystery itself. They looked; they gazed; they were eye-witnesses. And further, the sight they took of the mystery was of the same intense and interested character as the cherubim had before expressed in the holy of holies. “And the cherubim spread out their wings on high and covered with their wings over the mercy-seat, with their faces one to another; even to the mercy-seat-ward were the faces of the cherubim” (Ex. 37). And so in the history of Christ, the True Ark, they will be thus again seen.
The angel of the Lord comes, in his commission and ministry from heaven, to announce to the shepherds of Bethlehem the birth of Jesus. But as soon as he had fulfilled his service, “suddenly there was with him a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men” (Luke 2). And when the time came for another great event, and “God manifest in the flesh” was raised from the dead, soon to be “received up into glory,” the angels are again present with the like intense and interested delight. At the sepulcher, as Mary Magdalene looked in, two of them were sitting, “one at the head, and the other at the feet, where the body of Jesus had lain,” and at the crisis of the ascension itself, they are again present, instructing the men of Galilee in the further ways of Him who had just then gone up on high (John 20; Acts 1).
What hanging over the mercy-seat was all this! What cherubim-gaze again and again was this! This utterance of the heavenly host in the fields of Bethlehem was not part of their ministry to man, but an act of worship to God. They were not then instructing the shepherds, nor even formally addressing themselves to them; but breathing out the rapture in which their own spirits were held in thoughts of the One that had then been born. And so their attitude in the sepulcher. When Mary appears, they have, it is true, a word of sympathy for her; but there they were in the sepulcher before she had come, and there they would have been if she had never come. As the cherubim in the tabernacle had hung over the ark and mercy-seat, on either side one, so now in the sepulcher the angels hang over the place where the body of Jesus had lain, one at the head and the other at the feet.
What ways of seeing Jesus were these! As we read, “God was manifest in the flesh, seen of angels.” Well may we, beloved, covet grace to have like utterances and like attitudes over Jesus. And well may we grieve over what in our hearts is short of this; great indeed as some of us know that to be. I believe that many of us need to be attracted more than we are wont to be by these things. Many of us have dwelt (if I may distinguish such things by such terms) more in the light of the knowledge of the divine dispensations, than in the warmth of such mysteries as Bethlehem, the garden, and the Mount of Olives, revealed to the enraptured angels. But in this we have been losers—losers in much of that communion which marked the path and the spirit of others in other days. My desire has been to turn to this “great sight,” led that way by the condition of things around and among us.
Glorious, I need not say, is the Object—the same Person, “God manifest in the flesh,” followed by faith from the manger to the cross, from the cross through the grave up in resurrection, and thence to the present heavens, and eternal ages beyond them.
The Holy Spirit—in a way which we will now consider for a while—makes it His gracious business to aid this vision of faith by carefully forming before us (so to express myself) the links between the parts or stages of this wondrous journey, “God was manifest in the flesh ... received up into glory.” By the Apostle John, as our previous meditations may have led us to see, the Spirit very specially reveals or declares the link between “God” and “flesh” in the person of Jesus. We listen to this at the opening of his gospel and his epistle. I need not repeat it. But, of course, all the divine writings either assume or utter this truth, in their different ways, as well as John. But it is the other link, or that between “God was manifest in the flesh” and “glory” or the heavens, which is rather our present matter in the progress of these meditations; so that we will now pass on with evangelists and angels, from Bethlehem to the garden of the sepulcher, and to the Mount of Olives.
The Gospel by Matthew, in a general way, witnesses the resurrection. To be sure it does. The angels at the tomb declare it; the women on the road back to the city hold the feet of the risen Saviour; and the disciples meet Him on the mountain in Galilee.
Mark tells of several appearances of the Lord, after His resurrection, to His own whom He had chosen; as, to Mary Magdalene, to two of them as they walked into the country, and to the eleven as they sat at meat.
Luke, however, goes more carefully into the proofs which Jesus gave His disciples, that it was indeed He Himself and none other who was in the midst of them again. He eats before them. He shows them His hands and His side. He tells them that a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as they saw He had. He shows them out of the Psalms and out of the prophets that thus it was to be.
John has his own peculiar style still, while dealing with this common testimony. In his gospel, we may say, all with the Lord is strength and victory; and so is it at the sepulcher, as well as everywhere else. When the disciples visit it, they see the linen clothes lying and the napkin, that was about the Lord’s head, wrapped together in a place by itself. There was no disturbance, no symptom of effort or of struggle, no sign as though something arduous had been accomplished there. All is as the trophy and witness of victory, rather than the heat and strife of battle. “Bless, bless the Conqueror slain,” is the voice from the tomb, as it is opened before us by John. And if the place thus speak, so does the Lord Himself afterward. It is not that He verifies His resurrection after the same manner as we find Him doing in Luke. He does not, so properly, give them sensible signs that He Himself was in the midst of them again. He does not eat and drink with them here, as He had done there. The broiled fish and the honeycomb are not called in to stand in evidence. But in other courts, so to speak, the truth of His resurrection is recorded. He makes it good to the hearts and to the consciences of His disciples. His voice on the ear of Mary tells her who He was, because her heart had been familiar with that name on those lips; and His pierced hands and side were shown, that they might speak peace to the conscience of the others, in the assurance of the accepted sacrifice; yea, even to the drawing out, from the depths and secrets of the soul of one of them, the cry of thorough conviction, “My Lord and my God!”
Thus do the evangelists lead us into the garden of the sepulcher. The Mount of Olives has its witnesses likewise—the ascension as well as the resurrection of Jesus. And again I would say, to be sure it has.
Neither Matthew nor John, however, declares it. The Lord is still on the mountain in Galilee when Matthew’s gospel closes. Neither does John take us to the Mount of Olives or to Bethany, the same thing. In a parabolic action, as I judge, after the disciples had dined in His presence on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, He intimates His going up to the Father’s house and their following Him there; but it is not the ascension itself; it is not the scene at Bethany; it is not the actual translation of the Lord from earth to heaven (chap. 21.).
Mark, however, asserts the fact: When the Lord had done speaking with His disciples, He was received up into heaven and sat down at the right hand of God. Here the fact, the very moment of the ascension, is declared. But, I may say, that is all. It is simply the ascension of One who had all rights and honors belonging to Him and awaiting Him on high; but among the disciples there is no communion, in spirit, with that event. The story in Mark does not so much as tell us whether or not the disciples were eye-witnesses of it.
But Luke gives us something quite beyond this. In his gospel, the ascension of the Lord is witnessed by eyes and hearts which had, and felt they had, their own immediate and personal interest in it: “And He led them out as far as to Bethany, and He lifted up His hands, and blessed them. And it came to pass, while He blessed them, He was parted from them, and carried up into heaven. And they worshiped Him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy and were continually in the temple, praising and blessing God” (Luke 24:50-5350And he led them out as far as to Bethany, and he lifted up his hands, and blessed them. 51And it came to pass, while he blessed them, he was parted from them, and carried up into heaven. 52And they worshipped him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy: 53And were continually in the temple, praising and blessing God. Amen. (Luke 24:50‑53)).
Thus then, as the risen Man from among a throng of witnesses, that He was indeed the same Jesus, Jesus reaches the heavens. And though a cloud received Him out of their sight, He was thus known to be beyond it, in the highest, the same Jesus still. Jesus, who had eaten with them in the days of His sojourn with them, had now eaten with them in His risen days. Jesus, who had given them drafts of fishes in the days of His sojourn with them, had now given them drafts of fishes in His risen days. Jesus, who had blessed the meat and given it to them then, had done so in like manner now; and this was He who had now ascended in their sight. How are all the stages of this wondrous journey thus tracked distinctly for us, though variously, by the same Spirit in the evangelists! We hold the same blessed One in view at Bethlehem, in the garden of the resurrection and at the mount of the ascension. Manifest in flesh, the Son journeyed from Bethlehem to Calvary. Risen from the dead, with His wounded hands and side, He ate and drank with His disciples during forty days; and then, with the same wounded hands and side, He ascended the heavens. He gave them counsel after He rose, as He had done before. He entrusted a commission and ministry to them then, as before. He knew them and called them by name, just as before. And, at the last, when they looked after Him as though they had lost Him forever, the angel appears to them to tell them that “this same Jesus” had other ways still to accomplish for them: “Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? THIS SAME JESUS, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen Him go into heaven” (Acts 1:1111Which also said, Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? this same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven. (Acts 1:11)).
And this is the secret or the principle of all divine religion. It is “the mystery of godliness.” Nothing recovers man to the knowledge and worship of God, but the understanding and faith of this through the Spirit. This is the truth which forms and fills the house of God: “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.”
Do we, indeed, beloved, vividly and constantly hold this one Person in view from first to last? He journeyed through the fatigues and sorrows of life, died upon the cross, rose from the bowels of the earth, and ascended to the very highest place in heaven. The links are formed never to be broken, though they bind together the highest and the lowest. The Spirit holds them in our view, as He has formed them, and holds them in view at times with divine desire and delight. In such breathings as Psalm 23 and 24, how rapidly does He carry His prophet from the lowly life of faith, of dependence and of hope, which Jesus passed here in the days of His flesh, onward to the day of His entrance as “the Lord mighty in battle,” “the Lord of hosts,” “the King of glory,” into the “everlasting doors” of His millennial Jerusalem!
Are we, in spirit, on that road with Him also? And, as a further question for our souls, which may well humble some of us afresh, are we in real, living power with our Lord in the present stage of this mysterious journey? For He is still in this world, the rejected Christ. How far are we, in spirit, with Him as such? Are we considering “this poor man,” or continuing with Jesus in His temptations? (Psa. 41:11<<To the chief Musician, A Psalm of David.>> Blessed is he that considereth the poor: the Lord will deliver him in time of trouble. (Psalm 41:1); Luke 22:2828Ye are they which have continued with me in my temptations. (Luke 22:28)). “Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God?” (James 4:44Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God. (James 4:4)) Jesus was no more any one in the world after His resurrection than He had been before it. The resurrection made no difference as to this. The world was no more to Him then than it had been in other days, when, as we know, He had not where to lay His head. He left it for heaven then, as He had left it for Calvary before. When He was born, the manger at Bethlehem received Him: Now, when risen from the dead, heaven receives Him. As born, He had proposed Himself to the faith and acceptance of Israel, but it was to be refused by Israel. As risen, He published Himself through the apostles to Israel again; but it was to be refused by Israel again; and Jesus is still the Stranger here. The present time is still the age of His rejection. He was a lonely One on the road from Jerusalem to Emmaus, though then the Risen Man, as He had been before on the way from Bethlehem to Calvary. But, beloved, is it in such a character that you and I have joined Him on the road?
Many a thought would be too much for us, were we not trained for it after the method of the divine wisdom: “I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now,” says our divine Teacher to us; and in this way, His “gentleness” makes us “great.” We are prepared for enlarging communications from Him. Jesus can annihilate distances as He can control oppositions. On the Lake of Tiberias, He trod the troubled waters outside, and then, when He entered the ship, immediately it was at the land whither they went (John 6:18-2118And the sea arose by reason of a great wind that blew. 19So when they had rowed about five and twenty or thirty furlongs, they see Jesus walking on the sea, and drawing nigh unto the ship: and they were afraid. 20But he saith unto them, It is I; be not afraid. 21Then they willingly received him into the ship: and immediately the ship was at the land whither they went. (John 6:18‑21)).
As the irradiations from the hidden glory that was there break through, after these manners, and enter the soul, how welcome they are! And what have we to do but to open all the avenues of the soul, and let Jesus enter? Faith listens. The Lord would have had the poor Samaritan at the well simply a listener from beginning to end. She may speak, and does speak; but what are her words but the witness of this, that understanding, conscience and heart were all opening to His words. And when the whole vessel was open, Jesus poured Himself in.
It is this listening attitude of faith we long more simply to occupy; and especially so when tracing these profound and holy subjects.
The links between the parts of this great mystery, the transition moments in the progress of the way of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, we have been now shortly considering with the evangelists. In other words, we have been with angels and with disciples at Bethlehem, in the garden of the sepulcher and on the mount of Olives.
As we enter the book of the Acts of the Apostles immediately afterward, we shall be struck with this: That what fills the mind of the apostles, and forms the great burden or thought of all their preaching, is that Jesus of Nazareth, the Man denied and crucified here, was now in heaven. Peter makes it his first and constant business to link with the fact of the ascension of Jesus of Nazareth all the grace and power, which were then (in that day of his testimony) ministered from heaven in the midst of the Jewish people. On the descent of the Holy Spirit, the prophecy of Joel becomes (properly and naturally, nay, necessarily) the text of Peter’s sermon. But the manner in which he preaches from it is this; he finds Jesus of Nazareth, the Crucified One, in it. He declares the man who had been lately approved of God in the midst of them by miracles and signs, to be now in heaven, and, as the God spoken of in that prophecy, to have now shed forth the promised Spirit; and moreover, that this same One was the Lord spoken of in that prophecy, whose name was for salvation now, but whose day would be for judgment by and by.
This is Peter’s sermon and exhortation upon the text from Joel. It is the Man now in heaven whom he finds or declares in all the parts of that magnificent oracle. If John 1 may here say, find in Jesus on earth full, unsullied glory; so Peter now finds in heaven, in the place there of all grace and salvation and power, the Son of Man, the Nazarene, who had been despised and rejected here.
So, in the next chapter, it is Jesus of Nazareth, (the name of all slight and scorn among men) now glorified on high, of whom Peter speaks, and by whom he acts. The lame beggar at the Beautiful gate of the temple is healed by the faith of that name. And then the apostle further declares that this same Jesus the heavens had received, and would retain, till the time when His restored presence should bring refreshing and restitution with it. And being challenged by the rulers, in the chapter that follows, on the ground of this miracle of healing, Peter publishes this same despised Jesus of Nazareth as the Stone set at naught by the builders here, but made “the Head of the corner” in heaven.
This is the name, and this the testimony. Whether we see the apostles in the face of the power of the world or in the midst of the sorrows of the children of men, this is their only thought; here all their art is found, their virtue and their strength. And immediately after this, this same name of Jesus is all their plea and ground of confidence in the presence of God. The weak One, as men might say, the “Holy Child Jesus,” whom Israel and the Gentiles, Herod and Pilate, the kings of the earth and the rulers, had stood against and refused, this One they hope in before God. They know Him in the sanctuary now, as they had known Him among men before. And mark their different style in using that name. Mark the assurance with which they pledge it to the needy; the boldness with which they contend for it before the world; and the tenderness (“Thy Holy Child Jesus”) with which they plead it with God. The beggar at the gate of the temple had been healed by it; and the place where they had thus named that name before God is shaken, and they are filled with the Holy Spirit. All power is now owned in heaven as belonging to that name, as before all power had flowed out of it here. Yea, more; the world, or hell itself, is moved at it, for the high priest and the Sadducees are filled with indignation and cast the witnesses of that name into the common prison.
With all this, Peter, in the fullest manner, sets forth the weakness and humiliation of the Jesus whom he was thus again and again testifying to be now exalted to the highest in the heavens. This is very striking in these early preachings of his. Jesus had been slain, Peter says, set at naught, delivered up, denied, taken, killed and hanged on a tree. He puts no restraint on language like this. And, in the same spirit, he seems to glory in the despised name of “Jesus of Nazareth.” He has it on his lips again and again. All the forms of sorrow and of scorn which “the Prince of life,” “the Holy One and the Just,” wore or carried in His heart, His body, or His circumstances here among men, are remembered and rehearsed by him in his fine, vivid style, under the fresh anointing of the Holy Spirit. This is the One he glories in, all through these chapters of his earliest ministry to the Jews (Acts 2, 5). And yet this One who had been thus dealt with here he declares to be God’s great Ordinance, “Lord and Christ.” That a Man in heaven was David’s Lord; that the Seed of Abraham was raised up for blessing; that the promised Prophet, like unto Moses, was ascended on high; this was the word that he spoke with boldness.
And as this anointing of the Holy Spirit thus leads Peter to testify of the Man in heaven, of Jesus of Nazareth, once denied here, but now exalted there, so rapture in the Holy Spirit, immediately afterward, does the same for Stephen. If Peter speaks of Him in heaven, Stephen sees Him in heaven. The preacher declares Him without fear, and the martyr sees Him without a cloud: “But he, being full of the Holy Ghost, looked up steadfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God, and said, Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing on the right hand of God” (Acts 7).
Thus, after this manner, the Spirit gives Jesus in heaven to the lips and the eyes of His different witnesses. But it is blessed to add, that Jesus in heaven was as great a reality to Peter as He was to Stephen, though Peter knew that mystery under an anointing only, while Stephen knew it under a rapture, in the Holy Spirit. May we, beloved, know it in our own souls in more of the like power. May we enjoy it in the light of the Spirit now, as we shall enjoy it in more than the vision of it forever.
Such is the first preaching in the Acts, after the great link had been formed between “God” and “flesh,” and between “God manifest in the flesh” and “heaven.” But what a vast and wondrous scene is in this way kept within the view of faith; and all for our blessing and light and joy! We see the links between heaven and earth, God and sinners, the Father and the manger at Bethlehem, the cross of Calvary and the throne of the Majesty in the highest. Could human thought have ever reached or planned such a scene as that? But there it is before us, a great reality at this hour and for eternity. “Now that He ascended, what is it but that He also descended first into the lower parts of the earth? He that descended is the same also that ascended up far above all heavens, that He might fill all things” (Eph. 4). The Spirit had revealed the God of glory in the Babe of Bethlehem: and now, when all power and grace is ministered from heaven, the shedding forth of the Holy Spirit, the healing of the sorrows of the children of men, the salvation of sinners, the promise of days of refreshing and restitution—all this is found and declared to be in and from the Man glorified in heaven.
What divine mysteries are these, passing all conception of the heart! “Whom do men say that I, the Son of Man, am?” was the inquiry of the Lord in the day of His humiliation; and the only right answer was this: “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.” And now, in this season, when it is asked of the apostles in the day of their preaching, “By what power or by what name have ye done this?” The divine answer is this: “By the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom ye crucified, whom God raised from the dead, even by Him doth this man stand here before you whole.”
This is the One, the same One, the only One. He has left His memorial in “the lower parts of the earth,” and borne it with Him upward, “far above all heavens.” He fills all things. God has been here; Man is there. That God was here on earth in full glory was told to faith in other days, the Son among the children of men; that Man was now in heaven, having passed in there from amid the slight and the scorn, the weakness and the humiliation of the scene here, was now told to faith in like manner in these days. And faith apprehends the mystery that it is the One, the same One, the only One; that He who ascended is He also who had descended; that He who descended is the same also that ascended.
“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 continueth to do, is the act and work of His whole person.”
This is the mystery. Faith apprehends it in the full certainty of the soul. And faith apprehends more of the same mystery, and listens with intelligence and delight to this: “Justified in the Spirit....preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world.” God, though manifest in the flesh, was justified in the Spirit. All in Him was perfect moral glory; all was, to the divine mind and for the divine acceptance, infinitely, ineffably right. We have need of a justification from without or through another. Nothing in us stands justified in itself: all in Him did so. Not a syllable, not a breath, not a motion, which was not an offering acceptable, well-pleasing to God, an odor of sweetest smell: “He was as spotless as Man as He was as God; as unsullied in the midst of the world’s pollutions as when daily the Father’s delight before the world began.” Faith knows this, and knows it well, without a thought to cloud it. And, therefore, faith also knows that His history, the toils and sorrows, the death and resurrection of this blessed One, “God manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit,” was not for Himself, as though He needed it, but for sinners, that He and His precious history might be “preached unto the Gentiles” and “believed on in the world.” In the sacrifice He accomplished, in the righteousness He wrought out and brought in, He is presented to sinners, even the most distant, be they who they may, far off or near, Gentile or Jew that they may trust in Him, though still in this world, and be assured of their justification through Him.
Time would fail me to watch and follow upon this mystery throughout the Word of God; but I would add that among all the epistles, as they follow the book of the Acts, that to the Hebrews is preeminent in doing for our souls’ service connected with it. “Received up into glory” is a voice heard throughout that divine oracle from beginning to end. Would that the soul had in power what the mind has in enjoyment when listening to such a voice!
One cannot write but with the sense of this, and one would not write but with the confession of it.
Each chapter of this wondrous writing, or each stage or period in the argument of it, gives us a sight of the ascended Jesus. It opens directly and at once with this. It seems as though it were forcing this object upon us somewhat abruptly. Most welcome indeed is all this to the soul; but this is the style of it. The Son, the brightness of God’s glory and the express image of His person, is seen—after having by Himself purged our sins here—in His ascended place in heaven, inheriting there a name more excellent than that of angels, getting title to a throne which is to endure forever and filling a seat in highest dignity and power, till His enemies be made His footstool.
The second chapter gives us another sight of the same object. The Sanctifier having descended to be the kinsman of the seed of Abraham, and to do for them a kinsman’s part, is then in His assumed manhood declared to have re-ascended the heavens, there to fulfill for us the services of a merciful and faithful High Priest. And this scripture, I may say, so abounds with this thought that this same chapter gives us this same object a second time. It shows us, as from Psalm 8, that “wondrous Man,” made for a season lower than the angels, now crowned on high with glory and honor.
The next chapters (3-4) are but parenthetic, incidental to previous teaching; but still this sight of Christ is kept before us. He is declared to have been here on earth, tempted in all points like as we are, yet without sin; but now to have passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, to give us grace and help from the sanctuary there.
In the next subject, that of the priesthood (chs. 5-7) we have the same ascended Lord still in view. The Son is declared to be made a Priest, “higher than the heavens.” He had descended to come to the tribe of Judah and to perfect Himself in the days of His flesh here; but was now ascended again, the Author of eternal salvation to all that obey Him.
And so, in the next great matter dealt with—the covenants (chs. 8-9). Immediately on their opening before us, we see Jesus in the tabernacle in the heavens; that tabernacle which the Lord pitched and not man; and there from ministering “the better covenant.”
So again, in the next chapter (10) when the victim is the thought, as the priesthood and the covenants had been before, we have the same ascended Jesus in view. It is the One who could say, “Lo, I come,
” that is, revealed as having sanctified sinners in the body prepared for Him on earth; but then to have gained the heavens; opening for us a way to tread with all boldness those highest, purest, brightest courts of God’s presence.
Here the doctrine of the epistle formally closes; and, after this manner, we see, in various lights and characters, the same glorious and wondrous Person, the ascended Son of God. And, I may add, so rich is this epistle in this thought, so faithful is it to this its object, that after we formally leave the doctrine of it, we soon find that we have not left this great mystery—Christ in heaven. In the practical warnings that follow, we find it still. Jesus, as “the leader and completer of faith,” is seen at the end of His life of faith in heaven: “Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of faith; who, for the joy that was set before Him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God” (Heb. 12:22Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. (Hebrews 12:2)). Thus is He seen in heaven in this new character: The life of faith leads Him thither; as all that He did and suffered for us in divine grace leads Him thither. And there He shines before the eye of faith: And had we but senses to discern it, and a heart to enjoy it, we should know it—that heaven itself is bright with beauty and glory unknown to it before, since Jesus, in all these characters, won and acquired on earth and for us sinners, has reached there.
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.” And blessed is the task of inspecting, as we have been seeking to do, these mysterious links. And these links are formed never to be broken, though they bind together what lay at distances beyond all created thought to reach. The Spirit holds them in our view, as He formed them for the divine delight and glory, according to divine, eternal counsels. “The Word made flesh” of John 1 is the “good thing” out of Nazareth (vss. 14, 46). The Emmanuel of Matthew was the Babe who lay in the manger at Bethlehem. In the midst of the throne, there has been seen a Lamb as it had been slain (Rev. 5). In the Person of the One whose lips were telling of wisdom suited to the commonest traffic of human life, He was found who had been set up, in the secrecy of the Godhead—Persons, as the foundation of all the divine way (Prov. 8). In the bush of Horeb, there was the God of Abraham; in the cloud of the wilderness, the glory; in the armed man of Jericho, the Captain of the Lord’s host; in the stranger that visited Gideon in his threshing-floor, and Manoah in his field; the God to whom alone worship is due throughout the whole creation.
These are among the witnesses that (in unspeakable grace and for the divine delight and glory) the highest and the lowest are linked together: “No man hath ascended up to heaven, but He that came down from heaven, even the Son of Man which is in heaven” (John 3:1313And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven. (John 3:13)).
How finely that thought of the apostle, which we get in the Epistle to the Ephesians, rises upon the renewed mind: “Now that He ascended, what is it but that He also descended first into the lower parts of the earth?” (Eph. 4:88Wherefore he saith, When he ascended up on high, he led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men. (Ephesians 4:8)). The dignities, the offices, the services, which the ascended One fills and renders, are of so eminent a character, that they tell us He must be He who had already descended, already been One in heaven “above all”; as it is written: “He that cometh from above is above all” (John 3:3131He that cometh from above is above all: he that is of the earth is earthly, and speaketh of the earth: he that cometh from heaven is above all. (John 3:31)). The dignity of His person is involved in this mystery of His ascending and descending. That challenge in Ephesins 4:8-9 seems to intimate this; and the epistle to the Hebrews opens the reasons of it more fully. For it tells us, that ere He ascended, He had accomplished the purging of our sins; that ere He ascended, He had destroyed him that had the power of death, and delivered his captives; that ere He ascended, He had perfected Himself as the author of eternal salvation to such as we are (Heb. 5). In these characters, and in such others, He went up: and when He had actually ascended, He filled the true sanctuary in the heavens, the tabernacle, which the Lord pitched and not man, there to secure to us an eternal inheritance (Heb. 8-9).
Who could have ascended in such glory and strength as this—and far more than this—but One who had been already in heaven “above all”? “Now that He ascended, what is it but that He also descended first?” The offices He fills tell who He is. His sufferings, even in weakness and humiliation, bespeak His person in full divine glory.
But then again: “He that descended is the same also that ascended up far above all heavens, that He might fill all things.” This follows, and this tells us the boundlessness of His sovereignty, as the other had revealed to us the dignity of His person. In His works, His journeys, His triumphs, the highest and the lowest regions are visited by Him. He has been on earth, in the lower parts of the earth. He has been in the grave, the territory of the power of death. He is now in the highest heavens, having passed by all principalities and powers. His realms and dominions are thus shown to the eye of faith. No pinnacle of the temple, no exceeding high mountain, could have afforded such a sight. But it is shown to faith: “He that descended is the same also that ascended up far above all heavens, that He might fill all things.”
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; but it was not an imperfect humanity in the condition or under the results of sin in any wise. But I ask, is there not some unsuspected and yet real unbelief touching the mystery of the Person in the minds of many? Is the undividedness of the Person throughout all the periods and transitions of this glorious, mysterious history kept in the view of the soul?
I would have grace to delight myself in the language of the Holy Spirit, and speak of “the Man Christ Jesus.” The “Man” that is risen is declared to be the pledge of resurrection to us (1 Cor. 15:2121For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. (1 Corinthians 15:21)). The “Man” that is ascended is the great assurance to us that our interests are, every moment, before God in heaven (1 Tim. 2:55For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus; (1 Timothy 2:5)). The “Man” to return from heaven by and by will be the security and joy of the coming kingdom (Psa. 8). The mystery of the “Man,” obedient, dead, raised, ascended, and returned, thus sustains, we may say, the whole counsel of God. But still, again I say, the Person in its undividedness is to be kept in the view of the soul. “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 continues to do, is the act and work of His whole person.” Yea, indeed, and His whole Person was on the cross, as everywhere else. The Person was the sacrifice, and in that Person was the Son, over all, God blessed forever. He “gave up the ghost,” though He died under God’s judgment against sin; and though He was by the hands of wicked men crucified and slain. And this is an infinite mercy.
It was Himself, beloved, from first to last. He trod the mysterious way Himself, though He trod it unaided and alone. None other than He, “God manifest in the flesh,” could have been there. The Son became the Lamb for the altar here; and then the Lamb that was slain reached the place of glory, far above all heavens. It is the Person which gives efficacy to all. Services would be nothing; sorrows would be nothing; death, resurrection, and ascension, all would be nothing (could we conceive them), if Jesus were not the one He is. His person is the “Rock”; therefore “His work is perfect” (Deut. 32:44He is the Rock, his work is perfect: for all his ways are judgment: a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is he. (Deuteronomy 32:4)). It is the mystery of mysteries. But He is not presented for our discussion, but for our apprehension, faith, confidence, love and worship.
God and man, heaven and earth, are together before the thoughts of faith in this great mystery. God has been here on earth; and that too in flesh; and Man glorified is there on high in heaven. It is the links between these great things that I have sought to look at particularly; fitted as this exercise is to make the things of heaven and eternity real and near to our souls. The moral distances are infinite; but the distances themselves are now nothing. Nature, beset with lusts and worldliness, makes it hard indeed for the soul to pass in; but the distance itself is nothing. Jesus, after He was in heaven, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, showed Himself to Stephen; and, in a like moment of time, shone across the path of Saul of Tarsus as he traveled from Jerusalem to Damascus; and though we have not like visits from the glory, the nearness and reality of it are pledged afresh and made good to our souls by the sight of these great mysteries.
And is not the kingdom to be the exhibition of the results of these mysterious links? For heaven and earth, in their different ways, shall witness and celebrate them. “Let the heavens rejoice, and let the earth be glad” (Psa. 96:1111Let the heavens rejoice, and let the earth be glad; let the sea roar, and the fulness thereof. (Psalm 96:11)). The church, one with this exalted, glorified Man, will be on high, far above all principalities and powers. The ladder which Jacob saw, shall (in the mystery) be set up; the Son of Man shall be the center as well as the stay of all this predestinated system of glory and of government. The nations shall learn war no more. The stick of Judah and the stick of Ephraim shall be one, and one King shall be to them both. “It shall come to pass in that day, I will hear, saith the Lord, I will hear the heavens, and they shall hear the earth; and the earth shall hear the corn, and the wine, and the oil; and they shall hear Jezreel” (Hos. 2:21-2221And it shall come to pass in that day, I will hear, saith the Lord, I will hear the heavens, and they shall hear the earth; 22And the earth shall hear the corn, and the wine, and the oil; and they shall hear Jezreel. (Hosea 2:21‑22)). And what is all this, but the happy fruit to be gathered in the days of the coming kingdom, of these links, which, as we have been seeing, have been already formed? The germs and principles of all these manifestations in heaven and on earth, among angels and men, and all creatures, and the creation itself, are found, so to speak, at Bethlehem, in the garden of the sepulcher and at the Mount of Olives.
May the heart and conscience learn the lesson. May we gaze on these mysterious links of which we have been speaking, more in company with the angels in the fields of Bethlehem, and in the tomb of Jesus; or, I might here add, more in the dear minds of the disciples on the Mount of Olives, as they gazed there on the glorious link which was then forming between Jesus and the heavens. See them in Luke 24:44-5244And he said unto them, These are the words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning me. 45Then opened he their understanding, that they might understand the scriptures, 46And said unto them, Thus it is written, and thus it behoved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day: 47And that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. 48And ye are witnesses of these things. 49And, behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you: but tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, until ye be endued with power from on high. 50And he led them out as far as to Bethany, and he lifted up his hands, and blessed them. 51And it came to pass, while he blessed them, he was parted from them, and carried up into heaven. 52And they worshipped him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy: (Luke 24:44‑52). They were then like Israel in Leviticus 23:9-149And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, 10Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, When ye be come into the land which I give unto you, and shall reap the harvest thereof, then ye shall bring a sheaf of the firstfruits of your harvest unto the priest: 11And he shall wave the sheaf before the Lord, to be accepted for you: on the morrow after the sabbath the priest shall wave it. 12And ye shall offer that day when ye wave the sheaf an he lamb without blemish of the first year for a burnt offering unto the Lord. 13And the meat offering thereof shall be two tenth deals of fine flour mingled with oil, an offering made by fire unto the Lord for a sweet savor: and the drink offering thereof shall be of wine, the fourth part of an hin. 14And ye shall eat neither bread, nor parched corn, nor green ears, until the selfsame day that ye have brought an offering unto your God: it shall be a statute for ever throughout your generations in all your dwellings. (Leviticus 23:9‑14), celebrating the waving of the sheaf of firstfruits. Jesus, the True First Fruits, had just then been gathered, and He had, as their divine teacher, expounded to them the mystery of the gathered sheaf, that is, the meaning of His resurrection. They then watched that mysterious moment. They looked as their risen Lord ascended, and they kept the feast as with a sacrifice of burnt-offering. “They worshiped Him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy.”
Surely we may say, “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.”
He was received up gloriously, or in glory as well as into glory. He entered the light of the highest heavens; but He entered it glorious Himself: There He now is, a glorious body, the pattern of what ours is to be. The real manhood is there, in the highest heavens; but it is glorified. And though thus glorified, yet it is the real human nature still. “Jesus is in the same body in heaven wherein He conversed here on earth. This is that “Holy Thing” which was framed immediately by the Holy Spirit in the womb of the Virgin. This is that “Holy One” which, when He was in the grave, saw no corruption. This is that “body” which was offered for us and wherein He bare our sins on the tree. That individual nature wherein He suffered all sorts of reproaches, contempt and miseries, is now unchangeably seated in incomprehensible glory. The body that was pierced is that which all eyes shall see, and no other; that tabernacle shall never be folded up. The person of Christ, and therein His human nature, shall be the eternal object of divine glory, praise and worship.
Thus speaks one for our edification and comfort. And one of our own poets has thus sung of Him, looking after Him up to heaven:
“There the blest Man, my Saviour, sits,
The God, how bright He shines,
And scatters infinite delights
On all the happy minds.
“Seraphs, with elevated strains,
Circle the throne around,
And charm and fix the starry plains
With an immortal sound.
“Jesus the Lord their harps employs;
Jesus, my Lord, they sing;
Jesus, the name of both our joys,
Sounds sweet on every string.”
“His present state is a state of the highest glory of exaltation above the whole creation of God, and above every name that is or can be named.”
He was received up with the unspeakable love and with the boundless, unmeasured acceptance of God the Father; as He had wrought out and accomplished the purpose of His grace in the redemption of sinners. He was received up in triumph, having led captivity captive, and spoiled principalities and powers; and there He took His seat at the right hand of the Majesty on high, with all power given to Him in heaven and on earth. He was received up as the Head of His body, the church, so that out of the fullness of the Godhead, which dwelleth in Him bodily, it “increaseth with the increase of God,” through the Holy Spirit given to us. He was received up as into a temple, there to appear in the presence of God for us, there to sit as the Minister of the true tabernacle, there to make continual intercession for us; and in this and in like ways of grace to serve in His body before the throne. He was received up as our Forerunner, as into the Father’s house, there to prepare a place for the children, that where He is, there they may be also. And further: As He sat down in heaven, He sat down as an expectant. He waits to come forth to meet His saints in the air, that they may be with Him forever. He waits till He is sent to bring times of refreshing to the earth again by His own presence; and He waits till His enemies be made His footstool.
Cold is the affection and small the energy; but in principle I know nothing at all worthy of such visions of faith, but that spirit of devotedness that can say with Paul, “I know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound,” and that spirit of desire which looks after Him still and says, “Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly.”
Beloved, our God has joined Himself thus by links, which never can be broken, with His own delight and glory in them, as well as His counsel and strength will secure forever. These links we have gazed at, mysterious and precious as they are. Himself has formed them; yea, Himself constitutes them, faith understands them, and on the Rock of Ages the believing sinner rests and rests in peace and safety.
With my whole soul I say, may these meditations help to make these objects of faith a little nearer and more real to us! They will be worthless if they tend not to glorify Him in our thoughts, to give Him, with a fresh pressure, beloved, to our hearts.
“Nearer, my God, to Thee,
Nearer to Thee.”
May that be the breathing of our souls till we see Him. Amen.