CHRIST, THE GATHERING POINT NOW
[p. 79] CHRIST, THE GATHERING POINT NOW
It is a great thing for us to know who the Person is to whom we have come. He has said, “come unto me”. He came and presented Himself to the Jews, and had they received Him, all the blessing would have gone out from the midst of Israel, as Elisha said of Naaman, “let him come now to me, and he shall know that there is a prophet in Israel”, but they rejected Him, and He accepts the rejection from His Father’s hand. “No man knoweth the Son, but the Father”. The Father well knew whose hands He was putting everything into: the Son who was ever in His bosom knew well what was in His heart, and is the One to make it known to us, all was in the hands of the Son. It is not now, ‘come to Israel‘ as a fountain of blessing, but “come unto me”, He is the bright gathering point now, not Jerusalem or this or that place, but Christ. Now He wants us to know who we have come to, and what is founded upon that. In chapter 12 He is thoroughly rejected. They attribute what He did to the devil, and then when His mother and His brethren come, He disowns the natural link, and stretches forth His hand to His disciples. A beautiful thing to see Him saying to us, Those are the ones I own, those who have come to Me; the same is my brother and sister and mother.
In chapter 13 the Lord is sowing a new seed in order to get a people for Himself. The parables in this chapter furnish a picture of the mystery of the kingdom. The word produces an outward aspect of things; that is what man’s eye is upon, but the Lord’s eye is upon the treasure. He says, I have a treasure down there in that field; to Him it is the pearl of great price. And that sets us thoroughly in the company [p. 80] of the Lord; He is very dear to me, but I have learned another thing, that I am very dear to Him. Any poor sinner says — He is dear to me, see what He has done for me, but do we know that we are dear to Him? In chapter 14 Christ’s forerunner is killed. In a figure it points on to the last days, but it is the power of the world against Christ. We are not going to suppose we are to have an easy time in this world; the One precious to me is cast out, which makes this world a wilderness. The disciples come in the evening and say, ‘this is a desert place’, we have found that out; the Lord is rejected, all the power of the world dead against Him and we find we are in a desert place. But if the blessed One we have come to is there in the desert, we are sure to be fed, there is enough for us all, and there is not one the Lord cannot feed. We may say, ‘There is very little, Lord’, but the Lord was there. Do we know what it is to be in His company? The Lord is gone away on high, and they are crossing all the stormy waters of this world and apparently they are alone. But His eye sees them, and in the fourth watch of the night He goes to them. Now I learn, not merely that if it is a desert place He can feed me, but whatever the waves, He is above them. He does not make a calm here, but He shows there is a power He has which is above them all. He walks on the top, and I learn this fresh thing about that blessed Saviour. They were troubled till the word reached their ear: “it is I”. Do you know who it is? Peter answered Him; the Lord wants an answer. “Lord, if it be thou” — not, I would like you to give me that power, or, Will you still the water, but “bid me come to thee”; I would like to come to you. Another point He brings us to. I feel He can meet all my needs, but He presents Himself in this power of walking on the waters, and He wants this answer from our hearts. Peter had very little faith, but still he did actually walk on the water to go to
[p. 81] Jesus. He presents Himself in the same way in Revelation 22 at the end of all the storm, “I Jesus”. He draws our hearts. He says, “It is I” — now where is the answer? Like the virgins, I go out to meet the Bridegroom.
In chapter 15 religiousness is what we have to meet — the scribes and Pharisees, and at Jerusalem the religious place; and the Lord exposes the whole of their formality and brings out at the end that “every plant, which my heavenly Father hath not planted, shall be rooted up”, the distinction between all this religiousness and the true work of God.
Verse 21. We get the transition from the Scribes and Pharisees of Jerusalem to the most cursed race upon earth. The Lord departed from Jerusalem and goes to the coast of Tyre and Sidon, and a woman of Canaan comes to Him, first with a kind of claim, saying, “Son of David”, but she was not one of David’s people at all. Then she pleads in a certain sense her wants, “Lord, help me”, a piteous cry, but no — He does not answer to either, “it is not meet to take the children’s bread and cast it to dogs”. Then she says, “Truth, Lord”, she takes the place of a dog, and then she gets the greatest answer anyone ever got, “Be it unto thee even as thou wilt”. If you take the ground of debtor to mercy alone, you may have anything you desire. I have no claim, I get on the ground of sovereign mercy, and then there is nothing He won’t give, a full overflowing of goodness to the worst of sinners.
Verse 32. There is a difference between this and the other case of feeding the multitude. We learn that the Lord is always the same. Jesus never could be anything but what He was. All the rejection, all the failure cannot alter Him, and this is a great comfort, for if we look at all the wonderful provision of grace the Lord gave at the beginning we may say it has all [p. 82] failed; but if there have been eighteen hundred years of failure we can say the Lord is always the same. The twelve baskets signify the perfect order of administration. He gave all the gifts when the church was set up; it is very different now, but here they gather seven baskets full, a figure of spiritual perfection. Though we have not all the vessels of ministry, the servants of God, we can never say we have not the power of the Spirit of God to reveal Christ to us. We have no apostles and prophets, but there is the spiritual power and energy which the Lord can use to feed His people when we have not all the gifts. Now we see what a Saviour we have! In Jonah we have the Jew sent to the Gentile to bring the message of God, as the Jews ought to have done, but he gave it up, and fell into the judgment of God. The Lord points to the sky and says, You can tell Me all about the clouds, but do you not see your own sinful wretched condition ready for the judgment of God like Jonah? But that is where the church begins, we are on the other side of judgment. The Lord left them and departed — nothing more solemn. In chapter 16 they had no bread, not even five loaves here, no resource whatever. The Lord says, “Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees”. We always think if we have nothing to give Him He is chiding us. Ah! I have everything in Him, He is everything. He, as it were, says, Have you not Me, do you not remember the five loaves and the five thousand — and then they saw it was the leaven of the Pharisees He spoke of, hypocrisy. There is no sin in poverty, the sin is in pretending to be rich when I have not a penny; the Pharisees had nothing but pretension to be something, but when I come to Christ I not only have everything from Him but everything in Him. Then He turns round and says: ‘who do you think I am?’ I could never know the deep mystery of His Person, not that He is a blessed Man, a prophet, one who can [p. 83] walk on the waters, but the Son of the living God, except as taught of the Father.
We get here another thing: all we have had hitherto is in this world, but now we have something right outside this world. He has triumphed over death and He is building an assembly, outside of it all, against which the gates of death shall not prevail. Flesh and blood never taught Peter that He was the Son of the living God in perfect power over death. Now you see what the church is. I plant you on the rock of the confession of My own Person. I have been teaching you by your wants, and now you have this revelation of what My Person is. Verse 17: the Father reveals this to Peter. Verse 18: Christ says, Now I will say something to you; I will tell you, Peter, who you are, a stone; Christ the Rock, Peter a stone — part of Myself, not only in My company and learning who I am, but I give you a name that tells you, you are part of Myself (Petra, a rock — Petros, a stone), a bit of the rock. “He that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of one”. Now we see how the church is formed. In paradise Eve was formed from Adam, and he calls her, “bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh”. Christ communicates to the believer His own life; the life that the believer has is all Christ. Christ his righteousness — everything. He calls him first by his name after the flesh — “Simon”, but now he has another name which signifies that he was part of Christ. Now we see what the church is, members of His body. We get the judgment of flesh in the Jew (religion). Judaism showed that the flesh could not bring forth anything for God, the cup and platter might be clean outside but corruption was within. Then the poor cursed woman comes and He gives her everything. Is the church out of reach of death?
There is no necessity that we should die; we have a life that belongs to heaven, and if the Lord were to come we should not die. As the Holy Spirit forms [p. 84] Christ in us we have the life that belongs to heaven. We know that the Lord had to die; that does not come in here, but to lay the foundation He must die; “Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone”. He must clear me as a responsible man out of judgment and death, but He could not be holden of it, and now He unites us to Himself by the Holy Spirit. In His death He ends our state as children of Adam to give us life in Himself the other side of death. We have a life in having Christ, that belongs to another region and order of things altogether. One thing more, He charges them that they should not tell anyone He was the Christ, and begins to tell them that He must go to Jerusalem, that the earthly religion would put Him to death, and, “if any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross”. After showing what His own Person is, He begins to open out that it must be the pathway of rejection and suffering down here. Man no more likes heavenly and unseen things now than he did in the Lord’s day. How far we are able to tread that path is just how far we have apprehended the Christ we believe. He brings us to a place where we have nothing but Him, as in the boat with no bread, and then His fulness shines out on our souls and we feel well, we have got something now in having Him; brought to the end of self altogether. It is not knowing all the doctrine of the church and the right way of meeting, but if I am to be in the power of the thing I must know Him in this way. We might gather together and read and get blessed truths, and yet have nothing really, unless we get it with Him. We often read a passage and find but little in it, and another time if lowly and dependent the Lord lets His light shine in on it, and gives us what we never had before.