Luke 24:49, Acts 1:4
When the fullness of the time was come, God sent forth His Son. Never had intercourse been so fraught with healing and joy to publicans and sinners. The Son of man had power on earth to forgive sins. He was come to save what was lost. Never had saints of God listened to such words of sweetness whereby was disclosed to them the bosom of His Father, which He, the only-begotten Son, knew so well. “The Word became flesh,” one of them could say, “and dwelt among us (and we beheld His glory, the glory as of an only-begotten from a Father) full of grace and truth.” In the simple tale of the Gospels, we have the blessedness of the disciples in the presence of the Lord. There is no distance nor reserve. He speaks to them face to face; He calls them and treats them face to face; He calls them and treats them as His friends. And oh, what a friend was He! Blessed pattern of all meekness, of lowliness unknown, of patience that could not be wearied, of grace that flowed out the more, the more He was wounded in the house of His friends, like a sweet herb that breathes fragrance when trodden by the heedless foot of man!
It is indeed sadly true that His presence rendered more conspicuous the infirmities, the dangers, the sins, and the enemies of God's people. But never did murmur break from His lips Who had undertaken their cause—God's cause. Notwithstanding their unbelief, their pride, their insensibility, and their perverseness, never did He complain, “Wherefore hast thou afflicted thy servant? Wherefore have I not found favor in thy sight, that thou layest the burden of all this people upon me?” Instead of saying, “Have I conceived all this people? Have I begotten them, that thou shouldest say unto me, Carry them in thy bosom, as a nursing father beareth the sucking child, unto the land which thou swarest unto their fathers?” Jesus, the good Shepherd, looks onward through the vista of His sufferings to the day when He would say, “Behold I and the children which God hath given me.” Instead of saying, “Whence should I have flesh to give unto all this people?” He, and He alone, could say, “The bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.”
It was assuredly a crisis when Jesus appeared. God had given His law; but holy, just, and good as the commandment was, it could not better, and was not meant to better, the heart of man. It detected and condemned what issued thence; for through law is the knowledge of sin. Prophets, too, had been sent by the Lord God of their fathers. But what could those avail save to show the importunate love of Him Who rose up betimes and sent them, because He had compassion on His people and on His dwelling-place? They alas! mocked and misused His prophets “until the wrath of Jehovah arose against His people, till there was no remedy.” In this state of things He appeared. Truly we may say that in the person of Jesus God brought Himself nigh to the sinner. But in vain. Jesus must suffer for sins, the Just for the unjust. So must He bring us to God. All might bear Him witness and wonder at the gracious words which proceeded out of His mouth; and surely had there been one pure thought in the heart of man, one feeling undepraved by sin, Jesus must have drawn it forth. But there was none—nothing Godward. His presence, therefore, could but demonstrate, that the carnal mind is enmity against God. “If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin; but now they have no cloak for their sin. He that hateth Me hateth my Father also. If I had not done among them the works which none other man did, they had not had sin: but now have they both seen and hated both Me and My Father.”
“Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken and by wicked hands have crucified and slain; whom God raised up (Acts 2.).” The grand basis of blessing was laid. God's righteousness was declared not only at this time, but for the passing over of sins that were past in His forbearance.
Still, while in that death all the past dealings of God were divinely vindicated, Christ Himself, in anticipating His approaching departure, hints at a new order of things: an order consequent upon His rejection by the world, and exaltation to the right hand of God. And was it not worthy of Him, that, when Jew and Gentile joined to show their implacable enmity to God, He should then show the exceeding riches of His grace to them?
From Christ, I say, risen and seated at God's right hand on high a new and unprecedented and peculiar work of God begins. Their sins had been borne away. They were sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. They did believe on Him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead, Who was delivered for our offenses, and was raised again for our justification. If a work of God commenced then, it was necessarily something above and beyond the blessings they at that time enjoyed, however great these might have been.
Both before His death and after His resurrection the Lord had told His disciples of the promise of the Father. He had spoken of another Comforter Whom the Father was to give them, an ever-abiding Comforter (John xiv.). In chapter xv. He speaks of the same Comforter as not yet come, One Whom He would send from the Father. In chapter xvi. we have further particulars still.
“These things (their, as well as His, sufferings from the world) I said not unto you at the beginning, because I was with you. But now I go my way to Him that sent me; and none of you asketh me, Whither goest thou? But because I have said these things unto you, sorrow hath filled your heart. Nevertheless I tell you the truth: it is expedient for you that I go away; for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send Him unto you.” He had told them that He was going to prepare a place for them in heaven, and that He would come again and receive them unto Himself.
On these two truths, deeply interesting as they are, it is not my present purpose to dwell. Suffice it to observe here, how closely bound up with them is the truth of the intermediate descent of the Holy Ghost. It hangs upon the departure of Christ to the Father. So peerless was the gift, “that,” said our Lord, “it is expedient that I go away.” Wherein then was this inestimable preciousness that outweighed the presence of the Lord Jesus? For Him they had forsaken all; and more than all He had been to them. He is about to go. What could turn a loss so grievous and seemingly so irretrievable into positive gain? Was it solely that the Crucified was about to take His seat on the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens, crowned with glory and with honor? Was it needful merely for the display of God's righteousness in vindication of His Son? “I tell you the truth; it is expedient for you that I go away.” The reason, and the only reason stated here is, “If I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send Him unto you.” (To be continued, D.V.)