It is blessed beyond all expression to remember that the servants of God, as well as the great apostle of the Gentiles, are not only “ministers of Christ,” but also “stewards of the mysteries of God,” and as stewards our great delight should be to keep incorrupt and inviolate the precious peculiarities of divine revelation. The mind and reason of man will no doubt not only refuse them, but in the absence of affection, will speculate in the region of notions and theories. It has been very beautifully remarked that “The guardianship and witness of the personal glory of the Son of God is a chief part of this high and holy stewardship.”
A mere journeying from Egypt to Canaan would not have constituted true pilgrimage. Many a one had traveled that road without being a stranger and a pilgrim with God. Nay, though the journey were attended with all the trials and inconveniences of such an arid, unsheltered, and trackless wild, it would not have been divine or heavenly pilgrimage. A merely toilsome, self-denying life, even though endured with that courage which becomes God’s stranger on earth, will not do. In order to make that journey the journey of God’s Israel, the ark must be in their company, borne by a people ransomed by blood out of Egypt, and tending in their faith of a promise to Canaan.
“This was the business of Israel in the desert. They had to conduct the ark, to accompany it, to guard and hallow it. They might betray their weakness and incur chastening, and dis- cipline in many a way and on many an occasion; but if their direct business were given up, all was gone. And this did come to pass. The tabernacle of Moloch was taken up, and the star of Remphan; and this was despite of the ark of Jehovah; and the camp had therefore their road turned away from Canaan to Babylon or Damascus” (Amos 5; Acts 7).
Assuredly, beloved reader, what the ark was to Israel, the name and Person of the Son of God is to us, the very mystery committed to His people today.
It has often been observed in how many different respects He is called the Son of God; as born of the Virgin (see Luke 1:35); as in resurrection. (See Acts 13:33.) “He is the Son, and yet has obtained the name of Son (Heb. 1:1-3). Matthew and Mark first notice this sonship of God at His baptism. Luke goes further back and notices it at His birth. But John goes further back still, even to the immeasurable, unspeakable distance of eternity, and declares His sonship in the bosom of the Father.” The same writer adds what will surely find a responsive echo in every heart that truly loves Him.
“We must not, beloved, touch this precious mystery. We should fear to dim the light of that love in which our souls are invited to walk on their way to heaven.” Oh, that all His own might better learn and know the manner of the reverence that our God and Father delights to see given to Him who is His beloved Son, in whom is all His good pleasure. May we not say that if there be absent from us that adoring, worshiping affection, which is due to His Person and glory, we are antagonistic to the great object for which the Comforter has come, even as the blessed Lord Jesus Himself said, “He shall glorify me.”
It has been blessedly said by another in words which one’s heart gladly adopts as its own “In the form of God He was God indeed; in the form of a servant He was a servant indeed. He ‘thought it not robbery to be equal with God,’ exercising all the divine rights and using all the divine treasure and resources with full authority; and yet making Himself of no reputation, emptying Himself and being obedient. This tells the secret.”
“All that appears in the history is interpreted by the mystery. It is as the glory in the cloud again. The companion of the camp, in all its afflictions, afflicted was the Lord of the camp.”
How blessed to think of Him in this way, to dwell upon the preciousness of Him in whom we see the veiled glory all through all His lowly life here on earth, to honor, worship, adore Him.
I would in conclusion quote the beautiful words of another, who has long since gone to be with Himself for ever: “His glorious meetness (to use very much the language of another) for all the acts and duties of His mediatory office is resolved into the union of His two natures in the same Person. He who was conceived and born of the Virgin was Immanuel, that is, God was manifest in the flesh: ‘To us a child is born, to us a son is given: . . . and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.’ The One who spake to the Jews, and as a man was then only a little more than thirty years old, was before Abraham (John 8), the perfect and complete work of Christ in every act of His office, in all that He did, in all that He suffered, in all that He continueth to do is the act and work of His whole Person. This is the mystery. Faith apprehends it in the full certainty of the soul.”
I would here add another word, in view of rightly distinguishing between His Person as God and Man, and office, which in various aspects He was pleased to undertake. His subjection, it has been well said, is that of office, the subjection of Him who had all things put under Him to Him who did put all things under Him. “It is the mystery of mysteries, the Person we are here looking at. When we think rightly of Him, even all the brightness of the coming kingdom will be seen but as a veil. Can the splendor of the throne display Him? Would not the honors of Solomon, yea, of all the kingdoms of the world, be a veil over the glory of the Son, as really as the scorn of Pilate’s judgment-hall, or the thorns of Calvary? Is the Bethlehemite the measure of His personal worth, a single tittle more than the Nazarene? Therefore to faith it is easy to see the servant still, in days of exaltation as in days of sorrow. He served as servant, He serves as a Priest, He will serve as a King.”
With all our hearts we say –
“O Lord, we adore Thee,
For Thou art the slain One,
That livest for ever,
Enthroned in heaven!”