Mark 10. and Phil. 3
THE Lord is showing all through this part of the gospel, that the flesh profiteth nothing. It must be crucified, or go through death. However lovely and amiable, it was all profitless—to Him utterly worthless. In comparing this passage with the other subjoined, we see the liberty that the Holy Ghost's coming has given. The cross is truly known, but yet liberty and power in the bearing of it.
God puts his seal, as it were, upon nature. The creation of His own hands is good; but it is of no profit in having to say to God. At the beginning of the chapter, when they inquire about divorce, the Lord said it was not so at the beginning. It was not according to the natural law, but because of the hardness of their hearts. Christ took delight in the infants that His disciples supposed He would have sent away. But no: He was full of human kindness and divine grace, and said, “Suffer the little children to come,” &c. Then with the young man, Christ saw he was a lovely character, and, beholding him, He loved him. He had run to know what he could do to inherit eternal life, having an idea of some great commandment there is to fulfill. And when Jesus tells him the commandments, he says, “All these have I kept from my youth. Then Jesus, beholding him, loved him.” And so it ought to be with us. We must love the attractive, amiable, and agreeable. It has nothing to do with the conscience and God. (It is the mere animal. Take a dog's love, for instance.) It was only Christ who could separate between mere loveliness in nature and the wickedness of the will. The young man comes up to Him, and speaks to Him as Rabbi, Good Master, thinking himself something good all the while, (a grand mistake, which proved the evil of his heart and will.) “There is none good but one, that is God.” His heart is tested, and he cannot bear the test, and so he went away from Christ, away from the cross.
There are three such cases in this chapter: 1St, this young man; 2nd, the disciples who were going up to Jerusalem, (ver. 32,) but could not bear the thought of the cross; and 3rd, the last case is the sons of Zebedee, who desire to be greatest in the kingdom; but the Lord replies by asking if they can drink of the cup He is going to drink of.
The Epistle to the Philippians just takes up the difference the power of the Holy Ghost makes, presenting Christ as the one object. In Phil. 3. we see the different feeling's with which one there looks upon the cross. (Ver. 4-6.) “Touching the righteousness which is of the law, blameless.” This was exactly the case of the young man. But what did Paul do with all that when he saw Christ in glory? He could not, would not, have it when he got Christ. As he says, “not mine own righteousness, which is of the law"? What a contrast to the young man now! It is as though he said, No; I would not have my own righteousness, but that of God in Christ. We shall see presently that he got something that gave him energy and power to work for Christ.
To have to get a righteousness of my own is quite another idea from having it by faith, for that is God's righteousness. What I acquire of my own cannot be God's; neither can they be mixed. My own will not do, because I have got God's righteousness by faith. I can never work out God's righteousness myself; therefore what was gain to me is all loss. “Now is the Son of man glorified, and God is glorified in him.” Take love and righteousness. How both were perfectly glorified in the cross! God must be perfectly righteous against sin—but perfect love to the sinner. The young man did not come rejecting Christ; but he was thinking about himself, and caring about his possessions; and this because of self. But look at Paul. It is all loss. He saw Christ in glory, and he cares for nothing else—all is gone besides. Paul had great advantages, too, of nature and religious privilege. Nor was it necessity made him give them up; but once Christ was seen in heaven, he could only count them as dung.
Whatever a man's heart desires most, he strives to attain. See a young man spending all his fortune to get honor, if that is what his mind is fixed upon. If money is what he cares most for, then he will keep his money. But whatever he spends for what his heart is set upon, he does not count a sacrifice. He who sacrifices a thing must set a value upon it, or he would not think it a sacrifice. With Paul, Christ was the object of his soul, and nothing else was counted worth anything. But this sets the soul at liberty. He had Christ for righteousness, and now he has Christ as an object to win.
The disciples again thought they had taken up the cross. “Peter said, We have given up all.” But when going up to Jerusalem, they could not understand it. They were amazed. They did not give Him up; but as they followed, they were afraid. The cross was a terror to them. But now look at Phil. 3. where Paul says, “that I may know.... the fellowship of His sufferings.” This was not being afraid; but it is the very thing he desires. The disciples, afraid and amazed, could not bear going up to Jerusalem; but Paul says, That is just the thing I want: I want fellowship with His sufferings, and conformity to His death. It was the very thing he saw to be desirable. He is just going to die too. Death is staring him in the face, and he did suffer for Christ's sake. Mark, he does not say, I want to suffer, I want to die; but it is the fellowship of His sufferings, conformity to His death, that I want—to go outside the camp, bearing His reproach. Death would be nothing but death if Christ were not with him.
Look at the disciples once more, who desired the best thing in the kingdom—the highest place next to the Lord, as though they had said. But do we find Paul (who deserves the best, if any did; for he says he “labored more abundantly than they all “) desiring the best place? No; he does not think of himself. It is to win Christ, not the seat of honor, that he cares about. His heart was purified filled with the Holy Ghost, filled for righteousness, and filled for suffering. He had seen Christ, as it were, on the other side; and by any means, he says, even through death, or anything else— “by any means,” he would attain to it. I want to possess Christ at the end, and all the way through; and so it must be by the cross. I am looking to be like Him in the end. Even this vile body will be changed, and made like unto His glorious body. I have not got Christ really yet, and shall not till I am with Him in glory; but by the power of the Holy Ghost, I may be nearer and more like Him as I go on—changed into the same image. (2 Cor. 3.) It is like a man going along a straight road, who sees a lamp at the end. He has not got to the lamp, but every step as he goes on, brings him nearer to it, and the light is more and more reflected on his path. Paul had seen Christ in glory. and this fellowship of His sufferings was just a part of the way to Him there. It was the way to the same glory. It does not matter whether it is a little or a great service in the Church—a door-keeper, or an apostle; but when Christ fills the heart, all is simple and easy. Spiritual energy made Paul like the cross: and as he was going on to the glory, he got his affections purified by the glory. A single eye is just having Christ the one object. Temptations, conflicts, things to overcome there are; but they do not divide my heart if Christ is the sole aim of my soul. The Holy Ghost, filling it with Christ, gives righteousness, power, comfort—makes the Christian in the practical sense of the word.