THE SON OF GOD
[p. 497] THE SON OF GOD
Galatians 1: 15 - 17; John 5: 25; Ezekiel 39: 11 - 16; Ezekiel 37:1 - 14
The passages will show that I had in mind to say something about the Lord Jesus as the Son of God. What I may be able to say will be but a tithe of what could be said. One’s difficulty indeed is to compress what is in mind so that it may be intelligible and receivable into our souls. It is a great subject, standing out on every page, I may say, of the testimony of God. And God intends it to stand out at the end of His testimony on earth. It is a question, therefore, of vessels suitable to unfold it and to maintain the unfolding until He come from heaven — the Lord Himself, the Lord Himself. The Spirit of God would stress that pronoun and all that enters into it — “the Lord himself shall descend ...”. Correspondingly, as He enters into the assembly, it is as “I myself”.
I was saying that the subject stands out from the beginning to the end — Genesis, Exodus, right through you will find the testimony of the Son of God. And it has to be linked with the apostle Paul, for God had great regard, peculiar regard, for the subject, the sending forth of His Son, the truth of sonship, and made His own selection of one suitable. It might be assumed that Peter was the selection, for it is to him that the disclosure was first made by the Father. The Lord had challenged Peter and his fellow-disciples as to who they said He was, for people are saying much. It was not as to who they thought, but who they said He was. He had inquired as to what men said, who they said He was; and the disciples were not inconversant with what was current, nor would God have us to be inconversant with what is being [p. 498] said about Jesus. No one who loves Him will be indifferent as to what is being said by whomsoever about Jesus. Some said He was Elias. I suppose the person who said that thought he was saying something worthy of Jesus but it only proved how little he knew, that he did not know Him at all. Others said He was Jeremias, and there again were men writing themselves down as ignorant of Jesus. They did not know Jesus, did not know who He was, possibly had never really sought to find out who He was. They were not like Zacchaeus who wished to see Jesus, “Who he was”. These men that the apostles had heard speaking about Jesus had never made any such effort to find out. Zacchaeus went up into a sycamore and though he had to come down the thought of his heart was to know who Jesus was. These others had not gone to that trouble or they should have known something as to who He was. The apostle James tells us that Elias was a man of like passions as ourselves, and yet some of them were saying that Jesus was Elias — an ordinary man. That is what unitarians would say and others like them. Jeremiah was a man of great importance, too, heading the list of the writings of the prophets, but he was a man of like passions as ourselves, too, as I need not say. And then they say, “or one of the prophets”. As if, well, it is enough to say that He is as great as any of them, Micah, Obadiah, Malachi, just one of them, of those we call the minor prophets. So that the estimate of man was graded, but graded downward. The very best of it was not worth mentioning. Yet the disciples knew. It is remarkable the kind of knowledge that comes out in these apostles such as Peter. Peter knew whether the kings of the earth taxed their own sons or not. He was conversant with that. They did not tax their own sons. Those disciples were greater men than we think they were. They were wonderful men. They were not taken up [p. 499] haphazard. God had been looking down the line for centuries in regard of these twelve men, and prepared their ancestors. There were none there like them. I am not denying that they were men like ourselves but they were fitted men. They were not taken up at random but by fine selection, and they answered to the selection. As of Judas it says, “That the scripture might be fulfilled”.
So that God would have us to be conversant as to what is current as to Jesus and then be able to give a definite account ourselves. “Who do ye say that I am?” According to Matthew’s account (Matthew gives us the fullest account, he gives an account according to his own point of view in relation to the assembly), Peter says, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God”. So it might be assumed, ‘Well, this is the man to preach. He has been given this revelation to preach’. Not so. As far as I know Peter never preached Jesus as the Son of God. Not that he did not know, but these men were so great that they could keep the very greatest things in their hearts until God indicated to them that they should speak about them. He had the keys of the kingdom. Keys are for opening doors and one of the greatest things that Peter did was to open the door so that Paul might come in. When Saul of Tarsus was converted he preached the Son of God in Damascus. When he came to Jerusalem the disciples were afraid of him but Barnabas was not. It says, “He was a good man and full of the Holy Spirit”. He discerned something in this young man and brought him — not to all the saints but to the apostles. They would be the ones capable of taking in his thoughts about this young man. Barnabas was not afraid of him and his introduction of Saul to the apostles gave him an entree there that stood him in good stead. He had a fixed status among the apostles. Barnabas discerned the qualities and the light that were in that young man’s soul. There was not the like of him on earth. Not that he had the great thoughts of Peter and John yet, but potentially he had far more. And these men were so formed, so under the Lord’s hand, so under the instruction of the typical books (they were under the hand of authority and headship, too) that they held back. It is one of the greatest things to be able to hold back, to hold things, to be a vessel. If I cannot hold a thought it means that I am not a vessel at all; I am leaking. Mary, the Lord’s mother, represents the great thought, the ability to hold, to cherish things within, in her heart. She would take them out as treasures and ponder them and put them back again, as it were, but in due course they would come out in the house of the beloved disciple where she was in a maternal relation. Beautiful setting for the unfolding of the richness of the treasure which she had! And so with Peter. There was not one of them that was not qualified with this ability to hold things — speaking only what was needed, what was suitable.
So Paul gives us an account briefly in these verses in Galatians of what happened. He says, “But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother’s womb, and called me by his grace, to reveal his Son in me ...”. Think of the history in those few words! Separated from his infancy — that terrible man that stalked about Palestine, entering into houses and dragging men and women to the tribunals to be persecuted and put to death — God had actually separated him years before, marked him off. He had the very greatest thought in His mind for this young man and called him by His grace, as He calls every one of us. For it is simply a christian call he is alluding to, which Paul valued as much as any, but there is the additional thing: “to reveal his Son” not ‘to me’, but “in me”. One of the most wonderful transactions that ever happened to mortal man was [p. 501] that. Some of us in Council Bluffs the other day were speaking about divine transactions outside a man, right alongside his head when he was asleep. I do not think there is any formative work goes on in us while we are asleep. Formation requires the moral side in activity. Elijah had been journeying and he lay down to sleep. But God was operating outside of him; He was making cakes for him on hot stones — a most touching thing — and He had a cruse of water there for him. That was an operation that was going on right beside him and he was asleep. A great operation went on when Adam was asleep; Eve was taken out of him. The formation was not in him for Eve was being formed, but here it is: “But when it pleased God ... to reveal his Son in me”. I do not suppose anyone knows the insides of a man (if I may use that expression) but God; the insides of a man spiritually, how he is constituted, no one knows but God, as far as I understand, and it is in that relation that the revelation is made. “God ... was pleased to reveal his Son in me, that I may announce him as glad tidings among the nations”. That is to say, we have a vessel, divinely designed and now formed and fitted for this great service — one who was impregnated with this thought of the Son of God. He says, I did not go up to Jerusalem after that at all; I did not go up to those who were apostles before me; I went into Arabia. What a time he had in Arabia is left unwritten. I should like to have it written down; not that there might not be something of it protruded in his ministry. I have no doubt that Romans 7 enters a little bit into that experience — Arabia. It is mentioned again in this epistle, not accidentally: “Mount Sinai in Arabia”. Elijah went there. Paul does not say he went to mount Sinai but he went to Arabia, and there was nothing that happened in Arabia spiritually that would not be in his mind during that visitation. It was a learning time. Had he considered [p. 502] his own natural inclinations he would have gone into Jerusalem. No city had such a place, but God was taking him out of this world, and Arabia was as good as any place to learn something of that world. The less of the buildings of this world in view the better. The desert is the place — where there is nothing of antiquity, nothing that appeals to the natural. What a time he must have had! Need I say that heaven was as interested in this man as it was in Elijah? Certainly it was. He was to be a greater than Elijah. Heaven was active, possibly negatively for it was a learning time, and heaven is often more active negatively than positively. We need things taken away from us, this thing and that thing, so that this world might disappear altogether and that world come into view — the Son of God’s world.
So that he had a wonderful time, I am assured of that, and he came back to Damascus a better workman than he was when he left. When he came back to Damascus it says, “And straightway in the synagogues he preached Jesus that he is the Son of God”. Jesus, the Son of God. How one would love to have heard those accents resound in that building, be it small or great, in Damascus! Never had the like before been heard. He preached Jesus as the Son of God. God heard that but he had to go through a further process. Still there he was. God had revealed His Son in him and he was to announce Him among the nations as glad tidings. He tells us in the epistle to the Romans that he served, not merely in terms, but in his spirit: “Whom I serve in my spirit”. No anatomist can tell you anything about that, what that means, what a man’s spirit is. God knows. “Man’s spirit is the lamp of Jehovah, searching all the inner parts”, Proverbs 20:27. It is a medium through which God operates and Paul was affected by the Son of God. The Son of God had found a [p. 503] place in every part of his moral being — “that I may announce him as glad tidings among the nations”. And again: “Whom I serve in my spirit in the glad tidings of his Son”. Well, I have lingered on that because it is so great.
I wanted to come on to show you how the ministry is effective and how practical it is. John in chapter 5 tells us, quoting the Lord, “that an hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they that have heard shall live”. Doubtless all of us have heard the voice, not what He says, but the voice of the Son of God: “and they that have heard shall live”. That is what I have in mind to go into a little during the few moments that remain.
I want to go into Ezekiel. Ezekiel is a book of life, treating of life among many other things, very like John the apostle. Paul labours in this great subject in writing to the Romans, Corinthians, Galatians, in fact in almost all his epistles he brings in the Son of God, but particularly in Romans. He says, “Separated to God’s glad tidings (which he had before promised by his prophets in holy writings,) concerning his Son (come of David’s seed according to flesh, marked out Son of God in power, according to the Spirit of holiness, by resurrection of the dead)”. That is what I have in mind in these two chapters in Ezekiel briefly so as to make the thing practical, applicable to ourselves, because the passage cited from John’s gospel refers to the present time. It is the present service of Christ to us that makes the dead morally (not persons in their graves but persons who are unconverted) alive. That is the present service of Christ. The hour was coming and then was.
Now I seek to help young people here. I may point out that the raising of the dead implies burial. Death implies burial. It was never God’s thought that dead people should be left unburied. When God [p. 504] said to Adam that he was dust and that he should return to dust, He had that in mind. So that in Romans it is said, “Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptised into Jesus Christ were baptised into his death? Therefore we are buried with him by baptism”, Romans 6: 3. Buried with Him. Anyone who is not buried with Christ is lost. Ungodly people are buried. Scripture recognises that they are to be buried: “Let the dead bury their dead”. It seems a heartless thing to say but the Lord knew what He meant. The rich man in Luke’s gospel died and was buried, but he was not buried with Christ. He was lost; in hell he lifted up his eyes. So that burial with Christ is the point, and resurrection of the Son of God implies not only that one has expired but has been actually buried, like Lazarus.
The first burial we have in Scripture is that of Sarah. Burial now of which I am speaking is in the light of resurrection. It is a precious thought when we have Christ risen in our minds: “Marked out Son of God in power, according to the Spirit of holiness, by resurrection of the dead”. He raised Himself, indeed. He raised others. How precious to be buried with Him! It is a most precious thing to know that as baptised unto Christ, He has a claim upon you. But you are baptised unto His death and that means burial. His death implies His burial. He was buried. Paul says that to the Corinthians as part of the vicarious work of Christ: “that Christ died for our sins, according to the scriptures; and that he was buried; and that he was raised the third day, according to the scriptures”. Some here may be baptised but they really are not buried in their own minds, and I wanted to touch on that word in Ezekiel 39 so that we might be exercised about it.
It is the burial of a great multitude from the extreme north, that is to say, those that are far away from God and His land, true of all of us. From the [p. 505] uttermost north they will come, a great army into the land of Israel and they will die there. They will die under judgment but it will take seven months to bury them. And I am afraid it takes seven months and more to bury most of us. That is the greatest difficulty, the time it takes to bury us. The question is whether we are buried. Beloved, I speak feelingly, you know. I invite you to look into the Scriptures to see the detail given to this matter of burial. Speaking modernly, they are just those Russians, but they will be in the land of Israel, and their burying place is to be the land of Israel. That is not Russia. The land of Israel has a spiritual meaning. In a sense, every baptised person is in that land, a privileged land, but a place where burial goes on. First, because an unburied person is so offensive. Even a bone after the flesh is decayed is to be buried. Some of us see the bones unburied. It is not so much the idea of offensiveness in them as the idea of identity. You do not want the Lord to find you exposed, identified above ground with the world. The bones suggest the frame work, the idea of identity. Joseph’s bones, for instance, were carried into Canaan; carried day by day for forty years as a testimony to the identity of that blessed man who would be buried in Canaan. He had it in mind that he should live in Canaan, but for the moment he would be buried in Canaan. It is Romans 6 really. The difficulty really in regard to our lack of knowledge of the Son of God is the want of the sense of need of Him. If I do not understand the need of burial, I will not need the power of the Son of God. All the people of the land will be occupied with this burial. Perhaps these meetings are for that purpose; we want to put the flesh out of sight. Here is a brother who is very hard. We put a notice on him if we are faithful. He is a brother, but there is a bone of his. Put a sign on that. He is known in the community as unburied, at least in that particular.
[p. 506] It is remarkable that there are to be people occupied in it officially, too, besides everybody else. There will be people especially employed: “And they shall sever out men of continual employment, passing through the land to bury with the passengers those that remain upon the face of the earth, to cleanse it”. The burial is so important that the land should be cleared of all that is offensive, that we should go down so as to realise the power of God. We want to get the gain of resurrection, but the burial comes before the resurrection. “Buried with him in baptism, in which ye have been also raised with him through faith of the working of God who raised him from among the dead”. We cannot afford to miss that, but there is no possibility of reaching it aside from burial. So it says, “and it shall be to them a renown the day that I shall be glorified, saith the Lord God. And they shall sever out men of continual employment, passing through the land to bury with the passengers those that remain upon the face of the earth, to cleanse it: after the end of seven months shall they search. And the passengers that pass through the land, when any seeth a man’s bone, then shall he set up a sign by it, till the buriers have buried it in the valley of Hamon-gog”, Ezekiel 39: 13 - 15.
That seems to me a very important employ. I begin with myself, but I cannot afford to see the brethren unburied. It is a spiritual matter. To remain unburied is to be offensive.
Then we have the quickening also in Colossians “And you ... he has quickened together with him”, Colossians 2: 13. We come into the resurrection by faith of the work of God, but it follows on burial. Oh, beloved, do not leave yourselves unburied! If you see a bone, it is my responsibility and yours to put a sign on it so as to cleanse the land, otherwise we shall have trouble. I know it takes courage to put a sign on a man that is unburied, but it is a great service, it [p. 507] is a renown. We shall share in the resurrection if we share in the putting down of what is offensive. Chapter 37 is a counterpart although it comes in first. It is a dispensational thought, representing Israel. It applies to Israel’s death in the sense that they are out of view and hidden away until God removes the veil. But it corresponds with what is going on, dear brethren, in those who have faith. “An hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they that have heard shall live”, John 5: 25. It is a question of the voice, and so the prophet is taken out to see this valley. You say they were not buried, but they were buried. It is a buried set of people that is in mind. They are seen all together in a valley and the prophet is taken round about to see them. There are many like that today. There is the acceptance of the truth of baptism but only the bones are visible and they are dry. There is no sap at all. They are not offensive; there is nothing about offensiveness here. They are just dry bones. There are many meetings that one could speak of, brethren who have turned away. They think the Lord is with them, like Mary and Joseph. They thought Jesus was with them, but He was not. What a dry company it must have been! What can there be in any company where Jesus is left behind? Nothing but dryness, to say the least. Ezekiel is taken round; he can pass a judgment, and he says, “They were very dry”. And the Lord says, You are the man I can use. They are dry. You prophesy to them. It is a great ministry, the ministry of prophecy. Prophesy to dry bones? You say, There is not much hope. But there is. God has already begun to work. They are to be brought to order by ministry. God could do all this without ministry. He raises the dead by the voice of Jesus, the assembling shout, but today people are being brought into life by ministry; not mere words but [p. 508] powerful ministry called prophecy. And Ezekiel prophesied. He was told what would happen. He is not working aimlessly. He is told all that will happen — bone will come to bone, etc. Why should they allow me to be unburied if they are to be dignified in this way, life coming out of death; a wonderful thing happening, bone to bone coming together? Every single man’s identity is there, whatever his name was in Israel. All the bones I have shall be my own. The identity of the persons remains. Thousands of years in the grave but the same person comes out, but I am speaking now of the present time when life has taken place in a moral sense, bone to bone comes together. Then the sinews. The bones represent the identity of the person with all the old thing gone, the old sinews, the old flesh all gone, and a new thing entirely brought in. That is the idea. New sinews, new flesh. What kind of flesh? Like Jesus. That is the kind of flesh. I mean morally now. Literally by and by we shall be like Him. He “shall transform our body of humiliation into conformity to his body of glory”, Philippians 3: 21. Now it is so morally, but a real change nevertheless. A metamorphosis is a real change, a substantial change, so that there is new flesh and, if you please, new skin and all that goes with that. Why should there be skin? For beauty; skin is the groundwork of beauty. How beautiful men are, even naturally, as compared with all other creatures! The handiwork of God, but how much more so spiritually, dear brethren. And the prophesying goes on, the beautifying takes place, but yet no breath. Yet the breath was the most plentiful of all, the Holy Spirit. So that the prophet prophesies now to the four winds of heaven. What a great thought that is, what a great thought when a believer gets the Holy Spirit! He gets a divine Person. It is a great thought, beloved friends. Why should the four winds be needed?
[p. 509] To bring out the volume, the greatness of the thought, that God gives not His Spirit by measure. It is a wonderful dispensation this. The Holy Spirit is here personally and available to us. Hence the great importance of ministry at the present time, the great importance of prophesying. So that the winds come and the breath enters into them and they stand up on their feet, an exceeding great army. That is what is going on, dear brethren, and one would urge the importance of burial; not to be above ground naturally. Let all that go down, then the coming up — the power of Christ, the power of the Son of God — “according to the Spirit of holiness, by resurrection of the dead”, Romans 1: 4. We come in for that. “For if we are become identified with him in the likeness of his death, so also we shall be of his resurrection”, Romans 6: 5.
May God bless these thoughts to us as, I believe, fitting that the Lord Jesus as the Son of God should be before our eyes. I am not now speaking of what has been occupying us but more what He is as announced as glad tidings among the nations, and how the process of life-giving is going on, so that we should have part in the great army of God, made to live by the power of God.