In the tenth chapter of John the Lord is presented to us as the Shepherd, leading out of the Jewish things, and, by dying, bringing His people into the new place, obtaining the flock, the sheep, for Himself; securing them in a blessed enclosure, where they are characterized as going in and out, and finding pasture. He is seen, of course, as laying down His life, that He might have these sheep.
In the eleventh chapter He is represented as “the resurrection,” not only as laying down His life, and obtaining the sheep, but as “the resurrection and life” Himself, with power in Him to raise His own from the dead.
In the twelfth chapter (I just mention these leading points in the chapters) we find something far more blessed. He is there represented as the “corn of wheat” that “falls into the ground and dies,” that it may bear much fruit. His own are really there associated with Him; seen as the very fruit of this precious grain that has fallen into the ground. It has borne fruit, the corn of wheat itself, and they are seen as part of that very corn-part of its preciousness and beauty. It falls into the ground and dies alone, but it does not come up to be alone; it comes up bearing fruit.
It seems to me that in this thirteenth chapter the Lord is bearing all this in mind. He is here seen with His eye on the sanctuary, and on the things of God—the precious things of God. He is here the mighty High Priest, the Eleazar with the javelin in His hand. His first thought is God, His next, the things of God.
What He is presenting is plainly what is going on now. The hour is come that He should depart out of the world unto the Father. It was either the world or the Father with Him. It was where the Father was that marked the place where He was going, and which also marked His own in a very peculiar way, not only as His sheep, but as His in a divine, peculiar way. It gives us the value of the fact, not only that they belong to Him, but that the very perfection of the grain itself is seen upon those who are His in this world.
He goes up on high, and takes His place between the sanctuary and the world, where His own are. He is seen as the laver, which stands between the sanctuary and the brazen altar, and which is approached after the brazen altar has done its work. He is looking at them with all the results of that upon them most truly, but they are still in the world. He says, ‘You are bathed, you are perfectly washed.’ But then He is leaving them here, and He puts Himself as guardian over them, and as guardian, too, of the sanctuary, and not only over them. He says, ‘I have bathed you,’ but it is a question of service here. And thus He stands with a drawn sword, saying, Are you for God or for the adversaries?’ I cannot allow you to enter there until you have not only been bathed, but until you have submitted your feet to my care—until you have submitted your—walk to me. ‘Do you desire to enter there?’ ‘Not until you have washed your feet.’ But, you say, ‘The work has been finished!’ Yes, so it has, but there is your walk.’
How blessed it is to see the Lord thus with His eye upon the Most Holy, and His eye upon us! There may be nothing of this world about us—nothing of these selfish thoughts. You are not to go in there with these. He must look after the sanctuary. He must guard the things of God; and what is more, He must care for you. He cannot disconnect in their thoughts that sanctuary and His poor people down here. He cannot be satisfied without having them in there.
But, you say, ‘Have not I a right to be in there?’ Of course you have. But you have also a right first to have your feet in His hands, that you may go in there with priestly garments, with priestly walk, and with priestly discernment. How blessed it is to know, however careless you and I may be in this way, as to God’s requirements, that here is One who stands with His sword drawn, and will not let anything enter in that is not fit for God’s presence.
There is a twofold aspect of this. The place is so beautiful, so fitted for His own; and then they are so fitted for it! That is how He cares for them. It is those who are already washed that, by His priestly care, He looks after in this way. And what is so blessed in it all is, interested as the Lord is in us, He is still more interested in the sanctuary. if His interest took the form of mere love and graciousness it would lose sight of what God’s truth is, and it would lose sight of those for whom God has done everything, and shown them that they are really part of that corn of wheat that has come up and borne fruit.
And the Lord says all this; sets it before us, beloved friends, as our example. He says, if we call Him Lord and Master, He has given us an example that we should do as He has done, and that the servant is not greater than his Lord. You see service comes in—service. And, as He says elsewhere, though we are not greater, it is enough that we be as. That is to say, that we have the same place given to us that is given to Him—that place of service that is between the sanctuary and those who are “His own”—those who have received from God’s hands all the benefits of that altar. You end I have the privilege offered to us of standing as servants there, between that sanctuary and those who have come to the altar of standing in the way of those who would seek to pass that laver, without submitting themselves, and everything connected with their walk, to the hands of that Lord whom that laver typified.
How one sees it is so! See Moses, who comes forth from the presence of God with the Tables of the Law in his hand, and finds things as they were. Mark his holy zeal according to the presence of God—according to what he had seen there—what it was to him to come out from that presence, and see things as they really were down here. Mark his zeal for the tabernacle, that it should be taken away and put outside of that which was so contrary to it, so that those who went out to it should go in a manner suited to the One who dwelt there.
The Lord presents Himself here as the blessed Kohathite bearing the vessels of the sanctuary—every one of them blessed because they belong to it. And He puts us into the same place as those who have to bear the burdens of the sanctuary. Do you know what it is to bear the burdens of the sanctuary? Oh, you say, I have plenty of burdens to bear Yes; but do you know what it is to bear the burdens of the sanctuary? Do you know what it is to cover it up from the rude gaze of the world?
You say, Oh, I do not know such an one! I cannot get on with him! Well, you have lost an opportunity of bearing the burdens of the sanctuary. It is one thing to detect flesh in any one; but is not the vessel beautiful? Wherever it has got practically, wherever its feet are, it may not be submitting them to the washing of that blessed One. Still, do you know how to be like Him, always ready? He never takes His eye off the saint. He is always ready. The moment you take your eye off the saint, and get your eye on the people, you have lost the sense of what God has made them, and consequently you are not fitted to deal with them as those who have got at heart the testimony of the Lord—the claims of God. Having lost your ground you come down, and show perhaps a sentimental care for them, but you will find you have lost your true place.
It is a question here, too, not only of the Lord’s priestly service, but of ours. For you know how it is said of the seed of Aaron, that they were not to have any blemish; if they had, they were not to come nigh to offer-a question it was of offering, not of eating. It is a question of your being used. And surely we see it in the Lord himself, What was it with Him? You say, Well, He had a few precious things, and He knew what it was to spread His wing over them, and protect them. And so He did, but He had His eye always on high whilst He did so. He never took his eye from that place that He knew so well. Never!
If He went into the temple, He said, as it were, This the temple! This the house of prayer! I know better than that! His priestly eye discerned it at once, and He did not shrink to denounce it.
Nor did His love to His own—precious as they were to Him, but only precious in a divine way—shut His eyes to what they were. Do you think He could have allowed his love to be blind to their defects—blind to their faults?
And then, in the end of the chapter, He presents Himself to them as going away. He says, You cannot follow me now; you shall seek me, and you shall not find me, for you cannot follow me now; but you shall follow me afterward. He is showing that our love here, one for another, is in connection with going where they could not follow Him then, but where we can follow Him now. Unless we know what it is to have followed Him, gone with Him where He is gone now, how can we know the sort of love to display one to another? It is a question of going inside the evil. When we get there we see the sort of place it is; we see what is suited to it; we know the character of love that is worthy of the place.
Peter had no thought of God’s love, of God’s glory, of God’s place. His love to the Lord was such as to actually blind Him to what God’s glory claimed. What could be more subtle? It was his love which led him to be really devoted, and yet his eyes were closed to that character of devotedness that was needed. He did not know what it was to put his feet into the Lord’s hand.
Surely it is a wonderful thing to submit our feet, our walk, into His hands; our feet being, of course, looked at as that with which we walk on this earth. Do we know what it is to have the Lord Jesus really wash our feet? to handle them as one who has got God’s interest at heart? He will not for a moment forego His claims, however much he may compassionate us in our need.
And we, too, are called thus to be priests inside; as He says, our joy is connected with this —with our doing these things. But how little we know what it is to regard one another in connection with God, and so we lose sight of that wondrous beauty that the Lord has put upon His people! How little fitted we are in that way to bear the burdens of His people! Do you know anything of what it is thus to bear the burdens of others as having fixed your eye upon that which is precious and perfect, because it is part of Him? To bear them in that sense? —not merely bearing them as far as sympathy goes, but because they are vessels of the sanctuary? Do I know what it is to be a Kohathite? If we lose the sense in our own souls of what the Lord has made His people; if we lose sight of the sanctuary, we must lose sight of what the vessels are; our estimate of them must be according to the sanctuary. Can we, whatever the enemy comes in to do, lose sight of the fact that the only ones fit to adorn that sanctuary are those whom Christ has taken up as His own? Would the Lord be ashamed of His own? Could the Lord do a work for His people that would do any less than make them answer to the brightness of the sanctuary itself? —that would not put upon them the brightness and the perfectness of the Being who was going to bring them there where He was Himself-who was going to introduce them to it? Let an accuser, a Balaam, say what He likes. No, says the Lord, ‘They are mine, and I will not hear a word against them.’
Of course, if there is a refusal of the heart to submit its walk to the Lord, then He will deal with it; but still He looks upon us in our preciousness, and it is one thing to look upon a saint because he is precious, and another thing because he has flesh. I go to deal with a saint, not because he has failed, but because he is perfect. Otherwise our care for each other will become a sort of twilight thing. But if we are in the light, if we have submitted our feet, our walk, to that Blessed One, how jealous we are to be first for that sanctuary, and next for those whom He has made fit to be in it; and if there is flesh in any way working, rather to help them away from it, by showing them the beauty of what they are called to. How interestedly we should then learn to look at them, instead of regarding them as that which is a trouble to us, we should find they would make us learn the activity of the priestly place in which He has set us.
And as to our walk, He lets us know, however little we may think about anything, He thinks about it. He cannot trust you to get through it, however small, but you must put your feet into His hands, and then He will pass you through in such a way that it shall be worthy of the sanctuary. And if you are thus jealous of the walk of others, surely you will be more jealous of your own.
May the Lord lead us to think more of this! May He make us know what it is to be a Moses, an Eleazar—what it is to guard the sanctuary—what a thing it is to have God’s truth in our hands! In Moses it was the sense of the truth—it was the sense of the importance of the testimony—it was because his soul was so connected with the sanctuary that he never could grow lax in his care of the people. Lose the truth and you must lose the care—you must lose the love:
May He give us, whatever form things are taking here, to remember that we are standing to guard the sanctuary—to keep our eyes on those precious things that belong to it, so that our love and care, one for the other, may be really divine.