There are two points, beloved friends, which I have a little on my mind to speak of; one we have directly in this chapter, and the other more in connection with the settling of the soul in the consciousness of the place into which grace brings us, and which enables us to stand before God according to that place now. All this is founded on the rejection of the Son of God in this world. Here He charges them, for instance (v. 20), not to say He was the Christ; the time for that testimony was all over; the Christ had been rejected by His own; God Himself had been rejected in this world. The moment this came out, and that the disciples knew Him, who He was, He began to say that He “must go up to Jerusalem, and suffer many things of the elders, and be killed, and be raised again the third day;” then Peter began, unthinkingly, to rebuke Him.
God will take account of His Son having been rejected. “If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin;... but now have they both seen and hated both me and my Father” (John 15:22-2422If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin: but now they have no cloke for their sin. 23He that hateth me hateth my Father also. 24If 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. (John 15:22‑24)). Then God accomplishes His work in the gift and death of His Son, man being the outward instrument; still it was God’s work. When Christ speaks of being rejected here, Peter began to rebuke Him; but what did the Lord immediately answer? “Get thee behind me, Satan; thou art an offense unto me: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men.” What a warning to us not to hinder, on supposing that because we really believe certain truths by divine teaching, that our hearts are in a condition to walk and take the place of the truth we have learned; that is quite another thing. This will lead me to the second point, and that is, the Lord says here, “ Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven.” There is no mistake where he had learned who Jesus was, and yet in almost the same sentence, the Lord calls him “Satan.” The flesh in Peter was not judged, and therefore he “savored not the things that be of God, but the things that be of men.” God had revealed to him that Christ was His own blessed Son, but Peter was doing the work of Satan, in seeking to turn Him from suffering.
A person may have mere head knowledge, but it is more than that in Simon Barjona; yet, for all that, the state of Peter’s soul was not on a level with the truth; the whole was founded as to salvation, upon Christ having been crucified and raised again, that is, God was beginning upon a new footing altogether, It is now the second Man, raised and glorified, as the starting point of blessing; you must have the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ whether for redemption, or laying the foundation of the Church, and then you have all the blessing on the other side of the cross when Christ is risen again—that was all foreseen through the Gospel.
As soon as the disciples were able to bear it, He takes them aside and tells them, “The Son of man must suffer many things, and be killed, and be raised again the third day.” It is resurrection that we find is the foundation of all blessing, “If Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins.” It involves these two things, first the solemn, terrible truth, “The world seeth me no more;” looked at in that character in which He came in grace. The world as such will never see Christ again; but, on the other hand, there is God’s work in which He has laid the blessed, perfect foundation of acceptance. If Christ be raised, ye are not in your sins; thus it is a new starting point altogether. That is the reason He has this special character here. It does not say merely that He is the Christ, but the moment Peter says, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God;” then follows, “Upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” I learn this immense truth, that where death had come in through sin, and sin had reigned by death, He who was life in Himself came into this scene in love, and, blessed be His name, met the whole of it. Sin was there; He was made sin; death was there, and He goes and dies; judgment and condemnation were outstanding against man, and He drinks the dreadful cup. “He was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death.” He goes and stands in that place and perfectly glorified God in it. “Now is the Son of man glorified (speaking of the cross), and God is glorified in him.”
The work was perfectly done, which God has accepted and proved He has accepted, by raising Him from the dead, and setting Him at the right hand in glory. God has anticipated the day of judgment by giving His Son to meet the question of sin, and has completely settled that question for faith, before ever the day of judgment arises. “He appeared once in the end of the age to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.” There I see the whole question of sin is met with, and by God Himself, according to God, in the cross-death, the curse, sin, as to Christ, all passed, and He has entered as Man into the glory of God, and sat down because the work was finished. There I find this great and blessed foundation for what is entirely new, and then there is a new creation altogether; the old thing is judged, entirely judged. The patience of God goes on bearing with it, and testifying of this work of Christ; but the whole thing is judged, and the second Man is He whom alone God acknowledges. Then as regards the saints, “You hath he reconciled;” things are not yet reconciled, but we are reconciled to God, in a world that is not reconciled.
I will now turn and look at the way of our entrance practically into this new state of things—what I rest upon for it all. Let me say, God has foreseen all these last days, and, after describing (2 Tim. 3:2-42For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, 3Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, 4Traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; (2 Timothy 3:2‑4)) the terrible things that would characterize them, He says there is a resource, and what is that? “From a child thou hast known the holy Scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation, through faith, which is in Christ Jesus.” That is, God has given His word, the Scriptures, as the security when there would be a form of godliness, but denying the power, if there was faith in Christ Jesus. But mark, whoever hinders the direct authority of the Word of God upon the heart of a believer is meddling with God’s rights. If I were to send a message by a servant, and someone was to go and meddle with that message, it would not be meddling with the servant but with me.
I must have that which was “from the beginning”— nothing else will do, I must have it from the beginning; why? Because it came from God— “that which was from the beginning,” that is what God taught. I have got what is from the beginning; and I must know from whom I learn it. The apostle had said, that “after my departure grievous wolves would enter, not sparing the flock.” I am told that there would be a time of failure, and if you do not give me that which was from the beginning I know very well it is worth nothing. I have, in the Word of God, that which is from the beginning distinctly. Take the last thing said to the Church of God in the seven churches (Rev. 2:33And hast borne, and hast patience, and for my name's sake hast labored, and hast not fainted. (Revelation 2:3)). Isaiah it a call to hear the church? On the contrary, it is to “ hear what the Spirit says to the Churches,” I am called upon to listen to what the Holy Ghost says to them.
“Upon this rock I will build my church.” I have thus what is certain, and who is doing this work? Christ. “Upon this rock I will build my church.” You get Christ in heaven, the head, and the Holy Ghost came down forming this church. “By one Spirit are we all baptized into one body,” thus connecting them with Christ, who is “ head over all things to the Church.” I find, then, not only salvation, but Christ raised from the dead and set above all principality and power as head over all things to “the Church, which is his body, the fullness of him that filleth all in all.” That is not yet fully accomplished, because all the stones are not built in, but I have this testimony of the purpose of God having exalted Christ, and by the Holy Ghost uniting us to Christ. He baptizes all who believe into one body, and thus is formed the Body of Christ, a thing never revealed or spoken of before Christ had been glorified: for the existence of the Church, Christ must be rejected, as also accepted as the Son of man, in glory, at the right hand of God, and the Holy Ghost come down to unite souls to Him. It could not exist before. You must have the Head before you have the body. Then I have not only the individual here, but all Christians united by the Holy Ghost as members of “His body, of his flesh, and of his bones;” a figure, no doubt, alluding to Eve, that is what we are now in connection with Christ.
“Upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” I have the power of death on one side, and on the other I have Christ building, after He had broken the bands of death, after He had met all the righteous judgment of God, after all was done He builds up one stone after another. Satan’s power is already destroyed, even for the individual. “Resist the devil and he will flee from you.” It does not say that you will overcome him, but he will flee from you.
Peter alludes to this in the second chapter of his first epistle-” To whom coming, as unto a living stone, disallowed indeed of men, but chosen of God, and precious, ye also, as living stones, are built up a spiritual house.” There is not a word about the building of that—there is no person meant as doing it; but what I find there is this, the Word of God declares that He will carry it on, a work of grace; that Peter says is going on, and Paul says that it “is growing unto an holy temple in the Lord.” But in 1 Cor. 3 we find a very different thing— “As a wise master-builder, I have laid the foundation, and another man buildeth thereon.” Now I have man’s building, and I have man’s responsibility—that alters the whole thing. If he builds with God, that is good work; if he builds with wood, hay, and stubble, that is another thing. Has no wood, hay, and stubble been built in? The mistake made is, to confuse Christ’s building with that of the wood, hay, and stubble. You find three cases in this third of 1 Cor. You have a good Christian, who is a good builder; then a bad builder, though a good Christian; then a corrupt builder, and the man destroyed. Here I find another thing entirely: God has set up man as responsible; and what God set up good, in the responsibility of man, breaks down, as has ever been so; but whatever has been ruined in the first man has been gloriously established in the Second, and a thousand times more gloriously than what was lost—infinitively more than was lost; but still everything is reestablished in Christ, and so with the Church. Christ will have a Bride. “He will be glorified in his saints, and admired in all them that believe.” But God does put it in man’s responsibility, and man has always failed; then God calls me to hear what the Spirit says unto the Churches-taken on their responsibility. Christ is seen walking amongst the golden candlesticks, not as Head of the Body, but He walks amongst the profession of the Churches, judging their state, and I am told to listen to what He says, and He gives me God’s divine authority to direct me what to do in such a state of things.