“What is man, that thou art mindful of him? or the son of man that thou visitest him?” is an inquiry from Psa. 8, founded upon what man is in himself, looked at as a fallen creature down here; but it brings out, in answer, what is Christ! He is the man of the counsels of God—One in whom all the wisdom and power of God are displayed —in whom all those qualities of God in which His nature comes out are made known—the One in whom even angels have to learn what God is. It is the Word of God become a man; and man—that is, the redeemed—share in the blessing, because he becomes associated with the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son. It gives man such a wonderful place—not preserved, as the angels were, but taken up by redemption when a sinner.
The highest character of God does not come out to angels, such as mercy and redemption. They do not want redemption. Grace, love, and righteousness from God are unfolded, when man’s righteousness was called in question; all these things come out in man. Angels desire to look into it. When man is utterly fallen, then grace comes in—a power connecting him with the Creator, so that “He is not ashamed to call them brethren!” Wretched fallen creatures! yet the moment I get the thoughts, counsels, revelation of God, I must look to man!
There never was any being set as a center of a system, in himself as man was, in the image of God. The first man failed entirely this place, but he will be set up again, in the Lord Jesus Christ, the center of everything that God has created. “He left nothing that is not put under him” i.e., Christ as man. “He hath put all things under his feet. But when he saith all things are put under him, it is manifest that he is excepted, which did put all things under him” (1 Cor. 15:27). The very exception makes it the more striking. It is the Lord Jesus Christ over everything, not only in dominion, but in dominion as Redeemer. “He that descended is the same also that ascended up far above all heavens, that he might fill all things” (Eph. 4:10), filling all things in the power of the redemption He has wrought out, “for by him were all things created, that are in heaven and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him” (Col. 1:16). But He does not take them till He takes them as man. We come in then; for it is all in grace, “that he might be the first-born among many brethren.” “He is not ashamed to call them brethren.” He takes us up to be in glory with Himself; “joint-heirs with Christ,” and makes His standing ours as sons, so that the redeemed should have the place that He has Himself with God. He says to them, “I ascend to my Father and your Father: and to my God and your God” (John 20:17). How could He take sinners as such to Himself? He could not. Therefore He comes down where the sinners are, puts Himself in every respect where they are (sinlessly, of course), even unto death. “For if one died for all then were all dead.” He was made sin, having first passed through all the toil, difficulties, temptations, trials of His lifetime here—perfect in them. He associates Himself with us down here that He may take up our hearts by the love He brought unto them, and make them know that the Father loved them as He loved Him; and that the world may know it.
It is not only that I have a place in glory, but Christ has come for this purpose, to associate me so completely with Himself; and that I might in heart, spirit, mind enjoy it with Himself, saying, “He is not ashamed to call them brethren!” There is nothing like the Cross, where the work was accomplished for all this. Well could He say, “Now is the Son of man glorified, and God is glorified in him” (John 13:31). There perfectness was perfectly tested!
We find the great original truth in Prov. 8 Christ was the wisdom of God. He was God’s delight—the eternal object with the Father, and where did His heart go out—downwards, as I might say? “Then I was by him as one brought up with him, and I was daily his delight, rejoicing always before him, rejoicing in the habitable part of his earth, and my delights were with the sons of men.” Then He became a man; took up men, Himself the source and foundation of all because He is the Son (see Prov. 8, Eph. 1, 1 Cor. 15). We see what the purpose and intention of God are, but we see not yet all things put under Him. The first half of Psa. 8 is fulfilled—known now to faith; but He is waiting for the joint-heirs—now gathering by the gospel His joint-heirs. Paul says, “I would to God ye did reign, that we also might reign with you”—that the time was come. In Psa. 2 He is set as King in Zion; but He is in a higher position—Heir of the world to come, in Psa. 8 He is rejected from it now for a time, passed into the heavens. He takes no place—sits upon the Father’s throne—He will have His own throne, and “to him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne” (Rev. 3:21). But He will not take it until He has got all the joint-heirs ready, that they may reign with Him.
Nathanael says, “Thou art the son of God, thou art the king of Israel:” that was a small thing. Jesus answered, “Henceforth ye shall see heaven open and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man” (John 1:51).
In Psalm 110 He is called to sit at God’s right hand until His enemies are made His footstool. As yet He is expecting His enemies to be made His footstool; but He is gathering out His friends, therefore we must suffer with Him. Satan is not bound yet; everything is spoiled that God set up good, and must be so till He takes His great power and reigns, and then we shall also reign with Him. Christ is sitting on the Father’s throne with title over everything, but having taken nothing—His enemies still in power. People are seeking to improve the first Adam; to mend man; to improve the world without Christ. He was here and did not improve it, and will you? Or will you be now Christ’s companion in it, associated with Him as one of the brethren of whom He is not ashamed?
The way in which He thus brought others into this full association with himself was this, “By the grace of God, he tasted death for every man.” He did not go back and take His place at the right hand of God until He had gone down to the lowest depths that man could go—to the tasting of death—that in which was expressed all the consequences of the ruin of the first man. This was the great and blessed testimony to the way in which He took man up to glory. He left the glory and came down, and went back again; not with twelve legions of angels, as He might have done, but by tasting death for every man! We learn two things: the fact of His death, and the fact of a life spent where hatred and death were reigning. He had come to redeem us and bring us to God, come to destroy the power of Satan, come to sympathize with every trial and sorrow in my heart.
This He does as Priest. We read again— “It became him (God) for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings.” The moment the blessed Lord took up our cause, He must take the full consequences before God. God deals with Him according to the place He took; and this is full of blessing for us. God’s righteousness must be maintained. It never could be but by Christ. Perfect now Himself, as He ever was here, in the full results in glory, He must go through these sufferings if He would bring many sons to glory; otherwise we could not go there. But He was always there— “ the only-begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father”—not who was, for He never left it. The Father could not be silent, so to speak. He must express it when He began His service on earth, “And lo! a voice from heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.”
What a thought it gives of the place Christ was in—that place of death—made sin, and among sinners, making good the glory of God (see verses 10-12.) The next thing we find is association with Him. “Both he that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of one.” This was after death and resurrection; it never could have been said of Him in incarnation: a risen Christ, and those who are quickened with Him, are “all of one” (i.e., one truth of humanity) before God; they are the redeemed and He the Redeemer; they the sanctified, He the Sanctifier, are “all of one.” The more you look into it the more striking it is. All through the life of Christ He speaks not of “my God,” but “my Father,” for He was always in the joy of that perfect relationship. On the cross, when He says “my God,” this was the expression not of relationship, but of infinite suffering and infinite perfection. Upon these names of God all our blessing depends. I can look to God and say “my God,” because I am before Him in righteousness, according to all that Christ is—suited to Him. I get also the blessed relationship of son, so that I can say “Father.” Grace has brought us perfectly to God as redeemed ones, and the Spirit of adoption calls Him Father. Now my place is settled; it is Christ’s place; “My Father and your Father, my God and your God,” and the Holy Ghost given to keep us in the sense of constant relationship, and that we are made the righteousness of God in Him.
The Epistle to the Hebrews takes up the question of coming to God, and I can go into the holiest; a place I can go through as a redeemed one, by the same way by which Christ took His place as Priest (how often the Priesthood is used as if it were to bring us there!)
It is a moral mistake to suppose that because I have got a place in heaven in Christ that God is not concerned about the place I am in down here. While present in the body absent from the Lord; and hence all the exercises I get now. He brings practical death on all that is in us; but I get to know the blessed grace of Christ with my heart in all I am to pass through; when I need help, and where He obtains help before the throne of grace.
Blessed to know God dealing with me, taking up my heart in connection with all the things down here! I can ask of God in confidence, because I know God is for me. I can come with boldness, because I have got one standing there as High Priest—witness of the righteousness—witness of the propitiation, because He is both. In failure (though I have no right to fail; but if I do—if I sin), I have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, and He is the propitiation too! If I fail, I know Him as taking up my cause, His grace coming to deal with my heart, to speak of a righteousness that never can be touched; but it is not my highest place, my highest place is in Christ, but it is the highest character of His grace, it is what makes Him precious when in infirmity and failure. He helps me in the place where He has learned to do it—when He showed that He loved me, when there was nothing in me to love It is the grand testimony to the absolute divine love which took up the sinner—but it is not my highest place. It makes Him great, this wondrous grace; but my place in Christ makes me great.
Another reason that He took up man’s condition was “That he might destroy him that had the power of death.” Destroy his power. What association in those words, “I will declare thy name unto my brethren, in the midst of the church will I sing praise unto thee!” He has so associated us with Himself that He leads our praises up to God! He declares His Father’s name unto His brethren, then leads up all our praises, all our thoughts and feelings that we have as men down here, that can go up in praise. He enters into all, and says, “In the midst of the church will I sing praises unto thee!” He is the person who leads and carries them up, and He can do so because He has gone through it all Himself, entering into every trial and suffering that I am in, carrying up every thought and feeling in the measure in which I am looking to God in it. As I belong to God in it He belonged to God; and according to our association with Him we must pass through it, our weakness and difficulty finding an echo in Christ’s heart—a link between our hearts and Him—Christ taking them up for me in the presence of God, “seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for us,” the Holy Ghost carrying on the divine work in me (Rom. 8:28). He is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by Him. This blessed consciousness is given rue in my weakness. I am weak, but I lean on One who can be touched with the feeling of my infirmities. Do you believe in Christ’s heart? You do not, until you see that He is your righteousness. You are put into this world to learn all that He is by the way. His grace is begetting confidence in your heart, in the presence of the God whom He came to reveal, and while absent from Him I am learning His love, and the blessed exercise of His heart for me.