We have now come to a very serious chapter and must be a little particular on each verse. We have entered a solemn moment, and the impression produced on the mind is this: that all to whom we are introduced have their thoughts on death. Immediately we find the Lord's thoughts on death, but in a very different character. His thoughts on death are of laying the foundation of the eternal kingdom. They thought if they could but kill Him it would close the matter between Him and them forever. The doom of the old thing, and the foundation of the new and eternal thing are laid in death. The blessed Son of God entered into death, and laid the foundation of the new creation exactly at the point and spot where the old creation had its close. How the unfoldings of His ways are fraught with perfection.
We see all who represented religion found in this confederacy. You may lay it up as a sure and settled thing, that the religion of flesh and blood is ever at enmity with God.
We have remarked before, that in the close of the Lord's ministry two missions are glanced at; one was to get the ass to take Him in royal glory into the city; now here is a mission to get a room to eat the Passover in. The failure of the first mission makes place for the second. If the Lord had been accepted on earth, He had a title to fill the throne of David; but the citizens would not have Him, so, being cast out as a King, He must become a stranger. He offered Himself to crown the whole system of the earth in royal beauty, but the earth would not have herself crowned; so what does He do? When He was refused as the headstone, He must be the chief cornerstone. That is the knitting of the two missions. The first was to get Him an ass and, as Lord of the fullness of the whole earth, He claims it from its owner. He says, so to speak, You are the owner, but I am the Lord. The man bowed to the claim, and so it will be by—and—by in millennial days — the supreme Lordship of Jesus owned, and His scepter kissed to the end of the earth. Now He sends out a mission, as a traveler going into a guest chamber. How the Lord knew how to transform Himself! He knew how to abound and how to suffer need; how to be abased and how to be exalted; to ride as a King into Jerusalem, and to go and take supper with a few poor disciples in an upper room! So to this day the Lord is a mere guest here, visiting His people. The master of the house is as ready to own His claim as the owner of the ass, so they sat down at the paschal table — not yet the Lord's supper, but the Jewish Passover.
Now He says, “With desire I have desired to eat this passover [for it will be the last]... I will not any more eat thereof, until it be fulfilled in the kingdom of God.” That act blotted it out forever. Now, why did He not take the cup? It was not enjoined by the paschal ordinances. Now, said the Lord, I will not taste joy. As an obedient Jew, He celebrated the Passover, but joy was reserved for Him in the kingdom. Till then, He knows no earthly joy.
Now, He institutes His own supper. He did not eat of this. He merely gave it to them. He could not take of it. He does not want redemption — purchase by blood. “This do in remembrance of Me.” There is a deep and blessed secret in these words. That which in other days was anticipative, is now retrospective. The Lord's supper is a memorial. What has occasioned the transfiguration? “This is My body.” The Son from the bosom of the Father took a body. “A body hast Thou prepared Me.” And now we do not come on the principle that sin has to be remembered, but that sin has been remitted, put away; there is no more. The paschal table anticipated the coming of the Lord to die. Now He has spread a table at which I remember that I was once in my sins, but that sin has been put away. The body prepared of God has been broken [although a bone of Him was not broken; see John 19:3636For these things were done, that the scripture should be fulfilled, A bone of him shall not be broken. (John 19:36)] on the accursed tree, and now sin is put away forever. The whole character of the feast turns on the victim. The whole epistle to the Hebrews turns on the passage, “How much more shall the blood of Christ... purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?” If your conscience is purged, what do you do with your sins? Remember that you were once in them, but that you are in them no more — dead and risen with Christ.
Now see again how the thoughts of all are on death. So are the thoughts of the Lord, but with this difference: they were thinking of Him as a martyr. He was thinking of a sacrifice —the victim character He was about to fulfill. The Lord died in two characters. He died a martyr at the hand of man — a victim at the hand of God.
Now we see that Judas was not simply one of the multitude. He holds a more awful character. He is the representative of apostate wickedness. His was not the common form of man's enmity to God. Judas represents apostasy. There has always been apostasy. Christendom at this moment, if it be not fully blown, is on its way to apostasy. The apostasy of Judas formed the link between Christ and His enemies.
Now we are introduced to the disciples, and (oh, terrible!) were they thinking of death? They were thinking of their own pride. “I was almost in all evil in the midst of the congregation and assembly” (Prov. 5:1414I was almost in all evil in the midst of the congregation and assembly. (Proverbs 5:14)). Have you not been conscious, in the most solemn moments, of your vanity and lusts? In the midst of all these deep solemnities, the thoughts of the disciples were about their vanity. I wonder that a look of the Lord would not have stilled and hushed the workings of their carnal mind!
Now see the meekness of the Lord. The proud are flattered in this world. It likes the haughty and the great. There is a verdict on the world. “But ye shall not be so.” Does it not give you relief to come to the mind of Christ? “But ye shall not be so”; and He says elsewhere, “Go and sit down in the lowest room.” Oh, the beauty of His mind, as well as the perfection of His grace and the brightness of His glory! “Ye are they which have continued with Me in My temptations.” Rebukes never separate. Suppose you are conscious that the Lord is rebuking you; you ought to be conscious that He is not putting you at an inch of distance from Himself. A rebuked Peter, James, and John went up to the hill of glory. The disciples had all been rebuked when He said to the Father in chapter 17 of John, “They have kept Thy word.” Here they are rebuked, and yet the next moment He brings them nearer to Him, as the companions of His temptations, than the angels are. Did the rebuke put them at a single inch of distance?
In the kingdom of God there will be a table and a throne. The table is the symbol of personal family intimacy; the throne is the public display of glory. By a little word like that (Luke 22:3030That ye may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom, and sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel. (Luke 22:30)), what a volume the Lord conveys to our hearts! We get the sanctuary of the family, and the outer places where the dignities of the throne will be displayed and shared. Now He turns to them, and they had earned it. If He never withdraws tenderness, He never withdraws discipline. The use of the rod never for a moment stills the pulses of the heart. “Simon, Simon,” says the Lord, “behold, Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat: but I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not.” He had sifted Christ as wheat. Why did Satan get into Judas but that he might sift Christ? and now he desired to sift the disciples.
You see this introduces Peter in a very special way. From the very beginning he showed characteristics of being a natural leader, and the Lord can use such if there is self—judgment and dependence on Him. When all the disciples fled, Peter afterward came back, but he failed miserably. His courage failed; everything failed but his faith in Christ, thanks to this intercession. Later when he saw the Lord, he rushed into the water to get to Him. Then, when he was converted, he could stand before councils; they could not make him a coward. So, when he was converted, he strengthened his brethren. We find the opening chapters of Acts verifying this. He was sifted; he failed in all but in faith; he was strengthened and he strengthened his brethren.
“And He said unto them, When I sent you without purse, and scrip, and shoes, lacked ye anything?” The meaning of this is very simple. When He was with them, He sheltered them; the garment is the symbol of shelter. Now that He was about to be withdrawn, they must take His place and become a militant people. They must reckon on taking His place in the face of the world's enmity. These are a weighty thirty-eight verses — the beginnings of laying that foundation on which creation itself is to rest for eternity. Christ died under the doomed old thing, to bring in a new eternal thing. Nothing was as old there. The joy will be as fresh when it has run ten thousand years as it was in the beginning. The new creation is ever new and ever young.