“What think ye of Christ?” is still the all-important question; the question on which eternal consequences hang. Many say, “Of course He was the Savior, everybody knows that.” But we do not ask who He was, but who He is? “Whose Son is he?” for though hated and put to death by man, He is alive again, and that for evermore. He is in heaven; and angels, principalities, and powers remade subject unto Him. There God has set Him. There faith now knows Him. There seeking souls find Him; and all those who have to do with Him for salvation are assured that He did make atonement for their sins by His death and blood-shedding on the cross, and they know Him as glorified at the right hand of God. They are sure that He is the Son of God. The believer rejoices in this; and scripture says that “whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ [not was the Christ] is born of God.” “Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is [not was, but is] the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he in God.” (1 John 5:1; 4:151Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God: and every one that loveth him that begat loveth him also that is begotten of him. (1 John 5:1)
15Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he in God. (1 John 4:15).) Though He shed His blood for sinners on the cross, He is now in heaven, and is the true Object of faith; He is the Christ, He is the Son of God. An ever living glorified Man now in heaven He is, and there is no other Savior. He was the Son by whom the worlds were made, He was the Son whom God sent to make propitiation for our sins, He was the Son in resurrection and ascension, and He is the Son now seated on the Fathers throne, whom the gospel declares to be the only Savior of sinners. Does the reader of these pages know Him there as the One on whom he believes to the saving of his soul? Oh, how blessed to be able to look back upon the cross, and see at what a cost the Son of God made a just atonement for all our sins! What suffering, what sorrow, what desertion that perfect One passed through to deliver us from coming wrath, when it pleased Jehovah to bruise Him and to put Him to grief, so that by His stripes we might be healed! But He is not there now. No. “It is finished.” He put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. Peace has been thus made; and all our blessings are founded on righteousness, though all flowing from divine grace, so that God is just and the Justifier of him that believeth in Jesus. He is not on the cross now Neither is He in the sepulcher. No. Jesus is risen. He was a risen Man on the earth teaching His disciples out of the scriptures, leading them, and eating before them; seen of them forty days, showing Himself alive after His passion by many infallible proofs; but He is not here now. He has ascended to the right hand of God. He is glorified. There we see Him now. Oh what wonders of divine love have come to us in the death of Jesus; even when we were enemies, sinners, and ungodly, Christ died for us! What unutterable grace! and yet what never-failing ground of peace and confidence!
There are two ways in which we may look at the death of Christ—the God-ward side, what it was to Him who sent Him; and the man-ward side, what it brought to us. Our necessities have compelled us to look to Him in the latter aspect, but it is for our rich blessing to consider what that marvelous death was before God.
In the immediate prospect of the cross, a wonderful expression fell from the Saviors lips. It was this: “Now is the Son of man glorified.” Had He said, “Now is the Son of man humbled and abased,” it might easily have been understood; but how this spotless One should have been able, when betrayed, hated, scourged, spit upon, and nailed to a cross between two malefactors, to speak of Himself as “glorified,” is beyond all human conception. But so it was; for on the cross He arrived at the climax of that path through this world of sin and death which was the perfection of moral glory. In an evil world, for one to be crowned with its honors could have no moral glory, could not possibly be for the glory of God; rejection therefore, and being hated without a cause, while treading the path of obedience unto death, even the death of the cross, surely brought Him to the highest point of moral glory, the end of that path which was wholly for the glory of God. And this too as Man, for though being in the form of God, and thinking it not robbery to be equal with God, yet it was as Man He pursued on earth that course which was continually for the glory of God. When Israel repents as a nation, and every knee bows to Him according to the will of God, then it will be for the divine glory that He should occupy a very different place on earth, for He will then have His rightful place as “King of Israel” as well as “King over all the earth.” He will reign before His ancients gloriously, and be “the Governor among the nations.”
Thus He was on the cross for the glory of God, and as Man He there reached that place concerning which He could say, “Now is the Son of man glorified, and God is glorified in him.” Every step of His path, every word He uttered, everything He did, or did not, glorified God on the earth. Once and again had the heaven opened over this blessed One, and a voice from the glory had declared, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased,” not merely pleased, but “ well pleased;” and now, when almost underneath the shadow of the cross, He could truly say to the Father, “I have glorified Thee on the earth, I have finished the work which Thou gavest me to do.”
The death of the cross then was for the glory of God. The first man Adam in a world of blessing had dishonored God; the last Adam, the Son of man, in a world of sin and death with Satan as its prince, glorified God. How wide the contrast! How blessed is the contemplation of this most precious reality of the work of Christ, and how infinitely acceptable to God it all was! The throne of the Majesty in the heavens is the witness of how truly the Son of man glorified God on the earth, and finished the work which He gave Him to do. Hence we find He added, “If God be glorified in him, God shall also glorify him in himself;” as we find Him also when in prayer, saying, “I have glorified Thee on the earth; I have finished the work which Thou gavest me to do. And now, Ο Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was.” This He was righteously entitled to, and this glory He now has, for “we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor.” (Heb. 2:99But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor; that he by the grace of God should taste death for every man. (Hebrews 2:9).) Thus Man is in the very glory of God. Thus One has been found on this earth who so perfectly glorified God, that nothing could justly answer to the infinite worth of what He did, but placing Him as Man in the glory of God. He is there then not merely as having His true place as the eternal Son, but as righteously entitled to it as Man. Adam because of sin against God was righteously entitled to be thrust out of the place of honor and blessing, and all his posterity too, as in him; but Christ was justly entitled to the right hand of the throne of God, to be there crowned with glory and honor; and all in Him will share His glory with Him. Precious truth! In Philippians we are taught that though Christ Jesus was equal with God, yet being found here in fashion as a Man, He humbled Himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. “Wherefore” (let the reader ponder carefully this word “wherefore”) “God hath highly exalted Him, and given Him a name which is above every name,” &c. (Phil. 2:6-106Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: 7But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: 8And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. 9Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name: 10That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; (Philippians 2:6‑10).) And, as Jesus said, “He shall straightway glorify him,” it was so done; for He ascended into heaven, and sat on the right hand of God—“after he had purged our sins [He] sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high.” As has often been said, He did not wait for the kingdom in order to enter into that glory to which He was in righteousness entitled, but He went into heaven itself, according as He had said when Judas had gone out, “God shall glorify him in himself, and shall straightway glorify him.” He was therefore glorified “straightway.”
Let us think then what must have been before the eye of God in the death of Christ as a sacrifice offered upon the cross. What love, infinite, perfect love to the Father came out there! It was, as we know, a motive for the Father’s love; as He said, “Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life that I might take it again.” (John 10:1717Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again. (John 10:17).) What perfect obedience! Obedience under the most adverse circumstances, obedience in a path the end of which was being deserted of God, and yet He went obediently straight on to death, even the death of the cross! What entire self-surrender also, “Not my will, but thine be done;” no reserve, no wish for anything for Himself, but entire giving up of Himself in perfect surrender to the will of God, and that when all had forsaken and there was no comforter or friend near Him. What faith too! When in deepest bodily agony, His whole weight suspended on the nails which pierced His hands and feet, when reproach had broken His heart, and darkness covered the land from the sixth to the ninth hour, then that bitter cry of anguish, and yet of faith, was wrung from Him, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me!” All was perfect. He poured out His soul unto death, and it was a sweet savor unto God.
In life, God saw One in whose heart, and mind, and ways, He found a continual meat-offering of sweet savor. In death too, as we have seen, the perfections which there clustered in the cross were a sweet savor to Him. In Him Jehovah saw and accepted perfect surrender and obedience to His will, and it came up to Him as a sweet savor. Though as a sin-offering there could be no sweet savor, and God must forsake Him because of His infinite holiness; yet in the basis laid in His death for peace and communion with the Father and with the Son, and with one another, God also found a sweet savor, that which was infinitely acceptable and well-pleasing to Him. May we learn from scripture more of the Godward side of the death of Christ, as well as the eternal blessings it brought to us in the exceeding riches of the grace of God! How soon He may come again! “A little while and then—”
All tears shall have passed from our eyes,
When Him we behold in the cloud,
We taste the full joy of the skies,
The joy of our Father and God.”