The more we search into the words of Jesus, the more we see how entirely it is a new thing that He sets up on the ground of the redemption He accomplished.
“I have glorified thee upon the earth, I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do; and now, O Father, glorify thou me.” While the divine nature of the Lord Jesus shines out upon every page of this Gospel, not only doctrinally but in a thousand things when the eye is opened to see it, yet He never goes out of His place as man, the place He had taken in order to fulfill the Father's will. It was the very thing Satan wanted Him to do. He tried in the wilderness to make Him leave it when he said, “Command that these stones be made bread”: act from your own will, do not stay in the place of a servant. But the Lord would not listen for a moment, and says, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God.” He had taken the place of a servant; and, being in that place, He never went out and never will go out of it. Therefore He does not say, “Now I will glorify myself,” but, “glorify thou me;” yet it was “with the glory I had with thee before the world was.” Thus, while we see His title to the divine place, at the same time He never goes out of the place of lowliness and humiliation. He could speak of “the Son of man which is in heaven,” and yet walk about the earth as one that served. He came down to death, but He “gave up” His spirit. God was shining through the humanity of Jesus; and it is the joy and blessedness of the saint who has eyes to see (for He came in a shape in which I can see it), that he was down here a Man amongst men, but it is God whom I see there! God's power was manifested in creation; but we see nothing of His heart there. But when God is manifest in the flesh, we find all His perfect grace and goodness. There are both sides, and if one lose either, he loses everything. If He is only a Man, blessed grace and beauty are seen in Him; but I have really a Man who is so much better than myself that He could have nothing to say to me. If He is only God, a little bit of His glory terrifies me. But we have divine love serving; and the more we contemplate it, the more blessed we shall be. There is another thing. We cannot enjoy aright the bread of God, the true Manna come down from heaven, unless we first eat His flesh and drink His blood—unless we come by His death. We may be attracted by His grace, the Spirit showing it and drawing the heart, as with the boor woman who was a sinner: the grace that was in Him attracted her heart, and she goes into the house.
She had seen divine goodness and love so completely above all the evil in love and holiness, that He could bend down to all the evil (not allowing it of course). What a revelation of God we have in the Lord Jesus! He comes down to us where we are in our sins, but that would be nothing if it were not He who comes down. For I should say, “I have seen blessedness and holiness; but I cannot stand before it.” We must remember that love never gave up holiness; but there was His blessed testimony to a love which never gave them up, and could bend down to sinners and come to them; “for God commendeth his love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us.” He never says, “Come unto me” until He had come in perfect grace and holiness to them. But the moment He had thus come, He presents a blessed Object to attract the heart: the blessed Son of God come down to the place of sinners and of sin; and there is nothing like this and never will be! It is the one thing in which everything centers; all the purposes and counsels of God made good in that “I have glorified thee upon the earth, I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do.” The Son of God is exalted in consequence of what He has done. He has finished the work and glorified God as He never could have been glorified except for sin. This may sound strange: but what was in the heart of God never could have been shown out in any other way, as it has been shown at the cross. He displayed His power in creation; but when I come to the case of sinners, all that God is in goodness, grace, and patience comes out as it could not have done with an innocent man. All that is most blessed is unfolded when good and evil come out, and that to a meeting-point. Satan's and man's hatred found its complete utterance; it was shown in a fully complete way in the rejection of the blessed Son of God come in love. Every possible detail in which evil could be—proud treachery, base abandonment where love had been, injustice in the judge who should have defended the innocent, the priest (who should have pleaded for weakness) pleading against Him—everything man ought not to be was shown out then, man's enmity definitely proved when God was there in love, and in the perfect manifestation of what man ought to be in obedience.
All that God was in love met all that man was in evil, when Christ was made sin for us. It is clear that creation could not thus glorify God. What has creation to do with sin, except that it has been spoiled by it?
Sin having come in, God was dishonored in the creature of His delight; and the blessed Lord who had God's glory perfectly at heart puts Himself forward, is made sin for us, and the righteous judgment of God goes out against sin.
God was there manifesting such unspeakable love as could not have been manifested except for sin, and at the same time fully establishing His righteousness and glory. The cross was the pivot on which turned all that went on in the counsels of God before, and all that will be in the new heavens and new earth hereafter.
We cannot sit and contemplate the blessedness of the life of Christ unless we first come in by the death of Christ. Am I not a sinner? And do I sit down and say I am competent to estimate all that beauty and blessedness? What! with my stupidly debased mind? No, if I come in truth, I must come as a sinner; and then I find the grace that suits a sinner. I must meet Him in the grace that meets my need; or I must meet Him in His glory when He comes to take vengeance on them that know not God.
But when gone into the holiest of all through the rent veil, then I can turn on God's side of the cross, and look back at all that it was to Him, and all that His life was in leading up to it; and thus I can eat the manna after I have eaten the flesh and drunk the blood. It is impossible that a sinner can come with a divine mind, and meditate upon all His perfect divine life upon earth unless He first comes through the cross. There is no truth else. How can I talk about contemplating God till I know His mercy? But I go in through the veil and am at peace, perfectly reconciled to God, not a question about me left, not with the spirit of bondage, but with the Spirit of adoption. I know that He has said, “I go to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.” Then, being at perfect peace, sitting in the heavenlies by the counsels of divine love, I can turn back and look at what that offering was by which I have come, and see its intrinsic value. It is of infinite value! He could say “Therefore doth my Father love me.” All our thoughts are poverty itself; but there is that aspect to the soul by which I can sit down and adore and worship.
This is a far higher thing than eating the flesh and blood. When I come as a sinner to the cross, as I must, what is the ground on which I come? My sins.
A young Christian has got forgiveness and he is full of his happiness; he is thinking about himself. No one can come in any other way, I would most strongly insist upon that; the first thing is to get washed. But we may see the character of what is meant in a very simple way. For coming about his own sins, he measures the grace and goodness, and the comfort and blessing, by the fact that Christ has met all those sins. But when I have come and am in perfect rest, then I can sit down and eat Him, eat that Bread come down from heaven—what I shall eat forever and ever! It is blessed to see in the sacrifices how this is always kept in view. In the peace-offering the fat was burned; it was Jehovah's part. The priests (all Christians) eat the flesh of the sacrifice, and the people who were invited eat it; that is, they entered into the blessedness that it was to God.
We get in these sacrifices the difference brought out. In the sin-offering, something wrong had been done; and they had to bring their offering; but it was not a sweet savor. The blood was carried within the veil; but the beast was burned without the camp.
The burnt offering was not for sin, and yet it would not have been there except on account of sin; Christ offered Himself without spot to God, and by the grace of God He tasted death for every man.
Note here, the sin and trespass offerings are directly in connection with our responsibility. He has borne the sins which we have committed; but then there is another thing—not only what we have done, but that our hearts should also feel where we were. Not only, “What hast thou done?” but as God said to Adam, “Where art thou?” Where was he? Away from God, and getting further away from Him if he could! This is the dreadful thing. He had sinned; but it was far more to be away from God, “without God in the world;” and “there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth” at the end. That is what man is.
We are not in paradise; and where are we? The first grand evidence of wickedness in Cain was that he did not know he was away from God. He was so utterly far from God that he never found it out! He had not the sense that he was totally away from God; he thought he could go and worship Him, and offer the fruit of his toil as if nothing had happened; but he did not enter one atom into the thoughts of God.
It is a picture not of the open rejection of God in an outward way, but of the utter dreadful insensibility of the human heart as to where we are. Abel recognized that he was outside; and that Another must make atonement. He owned where he was. The one came as if there was nothing the matter, nothing gone wrong; the other recognized that he must have an atonement, or he could not come to God at all.
The condition of man was definitely brought out at the cross of Christ: “If one died for all, then were all dead,” dead in trespasses and sins; and if so, there must be a new creation. “The Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the world.”
The first man is cast out of paradise and he is insensible; but we have Christ, the second Man, brought into a far better Paradise, and we are brought in with Him. “To-day shalt thou be with me in Paradise.” The second Man is brought into it; and we are made one with Christ—members of His body.
When looking at the wondrous glory of the church of God, if we would have these blessed truths really and solidly in our hearts, we must get thoroughly hold of the foundation. If I can look up, and say, It is all mine, an heir of God and a joint-heir with Christ, a member of His body—that I am given to enter into the joy of my Lord, that when He shall appear I shall be like Him—to enable us to hold the reality of these blessings, not only as scriptural statements, but healthily in the soul, we must enter into the truth of Christ having gone in grace where we were; and then we learn it could not have been otherwise.
When I behold the blessed Son of God going down as man into death, then I see that glory is the natural consequence. I do not get this till I believe His bearing our sins in His own body on the tree. This makes it not a mere matter of head knowledge, but one which calls forth the adoration of our hearts.
I believe that God made Him sin, and that He gave Himself for it; and then I find another thing full of awe: He drank the cup of wrath due to me. I find Him going down into the place where there was no patience! God has patience towards us; He is long-suffering towards us; but with Christ made sin there was no long-suffering, no patience.
He was made sin: no hiding or covering up of sin there. Christ brought it right into the very presence of God who was dealing with sin; and His cry upon the cross was, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”
In Psa. 22 He speaks of all the external troubles; but then He says, “Be not thou far from me” —the very thing He was! There and then we find Him taking this place, bearing our sins. But now look at the other side: “Now is the Son of man glorified.” It was in man that all the glory of God was made good, not merely the putting away of sin that we should not be judged, but the ground laid, according to the glory of God, for man to be in the glory of God—a totally new thing!
It does not follow in itself that I must be in the glory because I am forgiven. But here I find the blessed Son of God takes this place before God as man, tasting death, offering Himself without spot. The One who knew no sin presents Himself, the spotless Lamb of God, not only to bear my sins, but to put away sin, and thus to glorify God. How wonderful that in man this should be done!
Everything that God is was in question. Yet He does not say, “I have borne the sins of my disciples,” but “I have glorified thee.”
How could God have glory where sin was, where everything was corrupt, and Satan had got the upper hand? Christ puts Himself there, and takes all the sin and all its consequences; thus He glorifies God. And now all the counsels of God can be accomplished, and Christ takes the glory as the fruit of His work. “I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do. And now, O Father, glorify thou me.”
We see His perfect life through the testing of God in the meal-offering, and nothing but a sweet savor comes forth. But when we look at the burnt-offering, death is there. Christ comes in and glorifies God in the place of sin and death; and then we see death destroyed, the power of Satan broken, judgment gone, and, as the result of this, Man takes His place with God!
The first man, once innocent, brought in sin, failed in every way, was conquered by Satan, and dishonored God. But before judgment comes, the second Man brings the triumph of Satan to a close. He comes here, and in that very place was made sin, when all that was in God was perfectly glorified in that place of sin and death and judgment. And now all the counsels of God come out, which could not have been before.
God had been dealing with man on the ground of his responsibility. The more we look, the more we see God setting man up in goodness and uprightness, and man always failing. Adam ate the forbidden fruit; Noah, brought out into the new earth, got drunk; Israel worshipped the golden calf; the priests offered strange fire on the first day of their office; Solomon loved strange women; Nebuchadnezzar, when government was committed to him, exalts himself and casts the three young men into the fiery furnace. The first thing which man does with that which God gives him is always to spoil it. It was the same thing with the church also: “all seek their own, not the things which are Jesus Christ's.” This is what we find man is! But One Man comes and in the very place where all this was true, and ripened out to its full extent of evil, He was made sin who knew no sin. He stands before God in that character: all is dealt with; and a foundation is laid which nothing can shake!
It is a precious thing to have some little sense of what Christ was doing: fathom it of course we never can. Not only are my sins effaced, but Christ had God's glory perfectly at heart; and now this is fully established, it comes out that what God had at heart, before the foundation of the world, was to have man with Himself in glory. His delight was with the sons of men; and what does He do? He puts them in the same place as His own Son: they are sons too, and they have the glory with Him. He has finished the work and gone into the glory; and this gives the Christian's place.
He will come again in glory, and we have complete association with Him, “We rejoice in hope of the glory of God.”
“If God be glorified in him, God shall also glorify him in himself, and shall straightway glorify him.” It is the next thing. He will not wait till the kingdom is set up. The disciples saw His glory on the Mount; but they did not see inside the cloud from whence came the Father's voice.
The union of the church with Christ was never revealed until the foundation was laid; and then God says, “I am able to do this in virtue of what Christ has done, and I will have you perfectly with Myself.”
Christ was not merely the sin-offering but a whole burnt-offering, in order that God might be perfectly glorified. The Man who has done this is in the glory; and such is the way I get in!
“I have manifested thy name unto the men whom thou gavest me.” The whole of this chapter speaks of the Father's name. It is not the Almighty, Jehovah, Most High as He will be known in: millennium, “most high God, possessor of heaven and earth;” but it is the Father, putting us in the place of sons.
People very little realize this when they talk of “our Father,” and say, “Thy kingdom come.” What is the Father's kingdom? People do not notice words. It is astonishing how our wretched hearts glide over scripture as if it were ice.
He is Almighty, but this name does not save. He is Jehovah, but this name does not save. But if the Father sent the Son, it is that we might live through Him; and that He might be the propitiation for our sins; that the world through Him might be saved. This is salvation, also eternal life; and the Holy Ghost is given in virtue of the precious blood of Christ, giving us association with Himself, making us sons as Christ is a Son: we are “heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ.”
He says, “I have manifested thy name.” We find He had been doing this throughout this Gospel. “The only begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him;” but they as yet dull and ignorant, not having the Holy Ghost, could not recognize it; they had not the Spirit of adoption whereby they could recognize it.
See chapter 16:29, 30. He had been telling them that the Father had sent Him; but they do not understand a word of it, and only say, “By this we know that thou camest forth from God.” And we often see the same thing now in those who have not the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry Abba, Father: the name of Father is not known.
I do desire that, while our hearts get peace through seeing Him made sin for us, we might also see what He was for God in the place of sin.
We are not only forgiven and cleansed, but we stand in the whole value of that work of which Christ could say, “Therefore doth my Father love me.” The act itself so infinitely glorified God that He could give it as a motive for the Father's love to Him.
“Holy Father, keep them through thine own name which thou hast given me.” He puts them in the place of sons, and looks to the Father to keep them according to that Name.
The world had no part in that; men must have life to be children, and must be born of God.
He puts us into the present consciousness of the place into which His sacrifice has brought us, that is, His own place in all its blessedness: the veil rent, the heavens opened to us, sealed and anointed by the Father, owned by Him as His Sons. When He was here as Man, at His baptism the heavens were opened, He was sealed and anointed; and the Father owned Him as His Son (which is the first time that the Trinity was fully revealed); and then He goes to be tempted. He takes the blessedness of the place with God, and stood in that place as a man, and then goes into the conflict like us.
Look at Phil. 2:14, 1614Do all things without murmurings and disputings: (Philippians 2:14)
16Holding forth the word of life; that I may rejoice in the day of Christ, that I have not run in vain, neither labored in vain. (Philippians 2:16). Take this sentence, and word by word it is a statement of what Christ was. We are in a wicked generation—exactly what Christ was; sons—what He was; light in the world—He was the Light of the world; holding forth the word of life—He was the Word. Take it word by word; and we are in it all! He puts us into His place before the Father, and gives us His place of testimony before the world.
“That they might have my joy fulfilled in themselves.” How does He bring that about? This Man was upon earth, the Son of man, the Father talking with Him in all the delight He had in him; and He says, “Whatsoever I have heard of my Father, I have made known unto you.”
Are our hearts taking this place? Where was His spring of delight and joy and blessing? His Father. And have you anything of the joy of Christ fulfilled in your hearts?
You may tell me your thoughts are weak and poor; and I am sure they are. Our hearts answer miserably to all His love: but this is where He has brought and placed me; this is what is in His heart if I cannot trust my own! But, while we see all the glory before us—going to be in the glory of God, our souls should also look about the foundation it is all built upon; and if you have forgiveness, the Lord give you to see what you are as belonging to the Father's world.
If we see how completely He has glorified God, so that glory for Himself, and for us too with Him, is the natural and necessary result, it must surely humble us, while it brings in adoration. I cannot look at the Lord Jesus going down in grace into such a place, without adoration, forgetting self in the presence of such wondrous grace. And it keeps the heart subdued.
The Lord give us to have Him before our eyes and hearts, that we may be occupied with Him and satisfied with Him, and that in some measure we may walk as He walked through the words which He has given us. J. N. D.