(Continued from page 234)
The chapter that follows, as the one before, shows us the church, the one founded and the other in its practical operation. I do not say the body, but I do say Christ's church. He says, “On this rock I will build my church.” But I only refer to it to show how all these three things are brought here together, and are quite distinct. The church is as distinct from the kingdom as both are from Christianity and salvation. Christian relationship is involved in this very scene.
“Then are the children free” —the place of association with Christ in a common relationship before God; always remembering that, while He has brought us by grace into it, He has that relationship in His own eternal right, and that He is not merely one that is born of God, and He is never said to be so. We are. He consequently is never called a child of God. He is called Son. We are called sons, too, but we are called children of God in a sense in which it is never said of Christ. John's great point, I may observe, is that we are children of God. Properly speaking John never calls us sons of God. There are one or two places in the epistles or in the gospels where our version makes us out to be the sons of God in John's writing, but it is a mistake. Our translators did not understand the difference. They thought one word as good as another. They were mistaken; there was a very great difference. A man might be adopted as a son without being a child in the family. We are not only adopted sons, we are children of the family. We are born of God; and here you see, as connected with this, the Lord Jesus shows us this place of sharing His own exemption. But then look at the grace in it. He that had this divine power said, “Notwithstanding, lest we should offend.” And there is one great point of our weakness. We do not know how to carry our privileges. We learn, for instance, about a church, we learn about grace, we learn to talk about both; but I would ask this—have we, and do we, carry with us, especially in the time of trial and grave action, the spirit that becomes those that are brought into such a place?
And more particularly now, when it is not only the church unfolded, but the church recovered, when we had basely forgotten it, when we had shared the sin of Christendom in going after all the institutions that they were pleased to make out here below—things fashioned according to the will of man for man's own purposes, if not for man's own glory. God has graciously recovered it, but have we not used it to adorn ourselves; and have we not used it oftentimes with a hard spirit towards those that have not had one hundredth part of the advantages that we possess? Is that grace? I do not believe it, and I am persuaded, therefore, that there ought to be a lowlier tone while holding fast the depth of grace that the Lord has shown to us, but a deeper sense of our own shortcomings, for the Lord surely judges us according to what we know, and not according to the ignorance of others. And do not we feel, beloved brethren, that there are many children of God at this moment that walk more faithfully and more humbly, according to their little light, than we do according to our much greater light?
And ought we not to be humble? I am sure we ought.
Well, here now was one in whom there was no question of failure at all, but there was failure in Peter, and he would show Peter, too, that the very fullest consciousness of glory, the very fullest consciousness of nearness to God, goes along with a consideration of others, and of other's ignorance, too. They did not know the glory of the Son. They saw that He was a man; that He was a Jew. Well, the Lord did not stop to argue it, or to prove it with them. It is grace giving the knowledge of it to those that have faith; and now Peter was in the secret of it, and Peter was given to know that he, too, had a little of it, for the Lord was not making it known for His own glory. He had it from everlasting to everlasting; but now He was letting Peter know a little of it, and at once He shows the grace in which this glory acts here below in the midst of an unbelieving world. “Lest we should offend them, give them all they claim.” The Lord did not come to assert His glory, or to claim the obeisance of those that had not faith, but to teach those that had faith to walk in the power of His own grace as those who behold His glory. This then will suffice for the seventeenth chapter.
On the eighteenth I need not dwell, though there is just one point of importance that may claim a moment. “Then came Peter to him” (ver. 21), “and said, How oft shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him? Seven times?” He thought a great deal of that, but Jesus enlarges the sphere infinitely. “Jesus said to him, I say not seven times, but seventy times seven.” Here you see it was not merely grace with unbelievers who do not see his glory, but with a failing brother—the very thing in which we are apt ourselves to fail, because how often one hears, “Well, if he were not a brother one could understand better.” But this is a brother, and a very offending one too. What is the measure? What is the limit of grace? “Till seven times?” Until seventy times seven. It has no limit.
In the nineteenth and twentieth—the connection of the two the Lord throughout is vindicating the relationship of nature. By “nature” I mean the relationship which God has established here below. The Lord had suffered men to derange it somewhat. It was not true, as they said, that Moses commanded a bill of divorce. It was constantly used when a poor unhappy Jew wanted to be rid of his wife. “Moses suffered this,” He said, “because of the hardness of your hearts.” That is, the law was a state of things where man was on suffrance. It was not perfection; it was not the image of the mind of God at all. Christ is. Man was made after it, and soon failed. Christ really is the image of the invisible God, and Christ alone. And Christ, accordingly, brings out God's glory in these things, and He shows how it was at the beginning. God did not make a man and two women, but “male and female created he them.” It was evident, therefore, from the very formation of man what God's mind was.. And so another thing. He takes up the case of little children, slighted constantly by rabbis. They did not like the trouble of them, but the Lord paid special attention to them. I do not know anything that brings out the tender grace of the Lord more than this. He laid His hands upon them, and rebuked the disciples because of their spirit about them. And, further, He appreciated a fine character—the young man—even the man that did not follow Him, but liked his possessions too well. Yet the Lord looked upon him, as we are told in Mark, and loved him.
Well now, I say there we find nature in various forms, and the Lord's feelings about it; but the whole point of the chapter is something superior to nature. It is not, therefore, that a Christian ought to speak slightingly of anything that is of God even in the creation. There is no reason for it—no ground whatever. You constantly find that when men are on a ground of rivalry they abuse one another; but if you are brought into an entirely different and higher ground altogether it is no question of finding fault—you are completely out of the scene. Well, that is the place into which the Christian is brought now. It is not lowering the relationships of nature, or speaking unbecomingly of anything of the kind; but you are brought into a new place altogether. So the Lord shows at the close of the chapter. He said, therefore, that a rich man shall hardly enter into the kingdom of heaven, which astonished these disciples who had regarded riches as a great sign of God's favor. “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.” But then, He explains, when they ask, “Who can then be saved?” because they thought that a rich man had far less temptation than a poor one. A poor man might be covetous, a poor one might forget God in the extremity of need. They thought a rich man would not have such temptations. No doubt it was a very poor and low view. “Who then can be saved? But Jesus said unto them, With man it is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”
This then is the real truth of salvation, as it is, I may say, of everything Christian; for if it is not of God it is not Christian. The whole thing is founded upon what is not of nature—what is divine, what is heavenly; and that comes out far more in the epistles than even here. But the Lord brings it out as far as they could bear it themselves. “Then answered Peter, and said unto them, Behold, we have forsaken all and followed thee; and what shall we have? And Jesus said unto them, Verily I say unto you, that ye that have followed me in the regeneration when the Son of man shall sit on the throne": that is, it is not following—in the regeneration, but it is “in the regeneration when the Son of man shall sit on the throne of his glory, ye also shall sit on twelve thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel.” The regeneration means that new state of things that shall he brought in at the coming of Christ. The washing of regeneration now is in view of that state; that is, it is really a new condition, only not now brought in. It is only testimony; it is the washing; it is the word of God, and that which belongs to the word of God connected with it that supposes a new state of things; but it will be only displayed then. Well, when that new state shall come— “When the Son of man shall sit in the throne of his glory, ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.” That is, you have the Lord fully acknowledging all fidelity. No man has ever done anything for the Lord for which the Lord will not—if I may say so—pay him back the capital with the best interest. “Surely every one that hath forsaken house, or lands, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my name's sake.” He does not here say, “For the gospel's sake"; but it is so in Mark where it is wanted. There He brings the most comforting thing. He says that, instead of the gospel being a lower thing, it really is bound up with Himself. Here He says, “For my name's sake,” and there He says, “For the gospel's sake.” It is of all importance to bring in what Mark does—the word; but here it is the Christ, it is Himself. It is the Son of man, the rejected Christ; for that is the point of it. Those that follow Him in the day of His rejection will be with Him the sharers of His glory in the day of His power; “in the regeneration when he shall sit on the throne of his glory.” They shall receive a hundred-fold and shall inherit everlasting life.
Do we believe it, beloved brethren? I do not say that when our souls are fairly brought in contact with it we do not bow; but what I mean by believing is this: have we it as a living truth before our souls every day? No man, then, that has lost for Christ's name sake but shall receive a hundredfold and shall inherit everlasting life.
“But many that are first shall be last, and the last shall be first.” There is a solemn word. “But many that are first shall be last"; and I will tell you who particularly: those who think much of their losses and talk much about them. They are the very men that get weary of this trial, and the reason is plain. If they were filled with Christ they would not be talking about what they have done, and what they have lost; and I say that such persons, though they may not have been first, shall be last. But, thank God, He will always fill up. “The last shall be first.” A serious thing for both sides—blessed in one, but very humbling in the other.
But then the Lord adds another, because that would not give the full truth, and there is nothing more remarkable, beloved friends, than this in the word of God—the care to keep us from being one-sided. There is hardly a more common, or a more serious, danger, and I shall be so if I am occupied with that which clearly Peter was. “Behold,” he says, “we have forsaken all and followed thee. What shall we have therefore?” It was clear that Christ was not all to him at that moment. He was thinking about himself. But the Lord brings in another word. “For the kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that is a householder, which went out early in the morning to hire laborers in his vineyard.” And then we find him hiring at different hours of the day, on which we need not particularly dwell now. “And when they came that were hired about the eleventh hour they received every man a penny,” or what we should call a shilling, if I may so say. That is, it was at that time a sort of day's wages. That is, what was supposed to be necessary, and what was given for a day's work of this kind. “When the first came they supposed that they should have received more; and they likewise received every man a penny. And when they had received it they murmured against the goodman of the house, saying, These last have wrought but one hour, and thou hast made them equal unto us which have borne the burden and heat of the day. But he answered one of them, and said, Friend, I do thee no wrong; didst not thou agree with me for a penny? Take that thine is, and go thy way; I will give unto this last even as unto thee. Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with mine own? Is thine eye evil, because I am good?”
There is the secret. It is not merely a question, therefore, of righteousness in God. God is righteous, and He is not unrighteous to forget the work of faith and labor of love, but He always reserves the sovereignty of grace. He claims to be good, for He is good, and He knows therefore where to show this goodness; and further He will ask no man's leave to show it. He will show it because He is God. If He is God He is good, and so He condemns these men. They were found out—the covetousness of their hearts. They were thankful to get their day's wages for their day's work, but the covetousness was stirred by men that had only labored for an hour. And why so? Because they could not enter into God's title to be good—not merely to be righteous. The Lord stands to His righteousness as a question with them, but the Lord stands to His goodness as a question of whom He pleases. So He says, “Is thine eye evil, because I am good.” “So the last shall be first.” You see its reference now. It is not the first last. There was man's breaking down, and man's breaking down because he was a little presuming; but here is grace triumphant. “So the last shall be first, and the first last; for many be called but few chosen.”
Thus it is that the Lord meets what was in Peter's heart, first bringing out the righteous ways of God, the full remembrance of everything, let it be soever small, that has been done for His name's sake, even to a hundredfold repayment. But God never renounces His own title to sovereign grace. We have these two things—the one as a reward for labor; the other sovereign grace that will show the goodness of God where He pleases, when He pleases, and how He pleases. And may our hearts delight that so it should be, for He that delights in goodness will have his own heart formed accordingly. He that rises not above the reward will find that he has made but a losing bargain for his own soul. I do not speak merely of the future, but I do say that it is to take the very least and lowest way of God in His dealings. No doubt God acts always worthily of Himself, only our Wisdom is to enter into the deepening views that the Lord, and the Lord alone, could give at that time. Afterward God forms others according to Christ, and we have it wonderfully in His blessed apostle Paul, and in Peter too, but I do not enlarge now.
May the Lord bless these lessons of His own grace, and His own truth, for Christ's sake.
[W. K.]
(To be continued)