“HIS OWN RECEIVED HIM NOT”
D. J. Hutson
Psalm 55: 12, 13; Zechariah 13: 6–9
It is noticeable that this prophet Zechariah is quoted more in Matthew’s gospel than in the other gospels, which would no doubt have a bearing on what was said earlier, that in a time of recovery we are to be brought back to the original truth as to the assembly. The truth was opened up by Paul. As he says, it was given to him “to complete the word of God”,
Colossians 1: 25. But it is wonderful that we can get right back to the words of the Lord Jesus and what He would say about “my assembly”. So I thought we should occupy ourselves with the Lord Jesus Himself, because in Him there is always food for our souls and there our affections are always stimulated.
The connection I see between these two scriptures is that they both refer to the sufferings of the Lord Jesus in the house of His friends. Psalm 55 refers to “my familiar friend” (Psalm 55: 13), and Zechariah refers to “the house of my friends” (Zechariah 13: 6). I believe we should therefore have feelings, beloved, in relation to what has come in in the way of departure in the recovery and the way in which we have ourselves failed and have added, may we say, to these sufferings. They would be like the sufferings of which it speaks in John’s gospel, “He came to his own, and his own received him not”, John 1: 11. But then, over against, all that, it says that “as many as received him, to them gave he the right to be children of God”. So that as our hearts are affected by the sufferings of Jesus, and as all the sorrows that have come in among us turn us afresh to those sufferings, we can experience the blessing afresh, and what it is to be brought into relationship with God. Features which these scriptures show in contrast are, on the one hand, the wonderful place that the Lord Jesus took in humanity, and, on the other, the greatness of His place as Jehovah’s Fellow. It says in the epistle to the Philippians, “taking his place in the likeness of men”, Philippians 2: 7. None other could take the place that Jesus took, and yet how real His humanity was; indeed, apart from the reality of the manhood of Jesus there would be no blessing for us.
This verse has always been a source of wonder to me, “It was thou, a man mine equal, my intimate, my familiar friend”. The note tells us that the word for ‘man’ is ‘Enosh’, that is, weak, mortal man. To think that Jesus would speak of His familiar friend this way, that He would say, “a man”, that is weak, mortal man, “mine equal”. Not that Jesus was weak, mortal man, far be the thought—as it says in another psalm, “I have laid help upon a mighty one”, Psalm 89; 19. Think of the power and the might of Jesus; think of who He was in the glory of His Person, as it says in the scripture in Zechariah, “against the man”, that is, the mighty Man, “that is my fellow”. How wonderful that He should take in lowly grace such a place as to say, ‘a weak mortal man Mine equal’, and yet such is the glory of His Person that Jehovah Himself could speak of Him as “the man that is my fellow”.
So we see the feelings of the Lord Jesus expressed in this psalm, and it would help us to know His feelings at the present time as despised and rejected of men, Isaiah 53: 3. We have just witnessed in the open-air preaching that there is no room for the Lord Jesus in the world at the present time. And yet here in speaking of one with whom He had sweet intercourse He was saying that He could have borne it if it had been an enemy, but it was “thou, a man mine equal, mine intimate, my familiar friend”. So how the Lord Jesus would feel all that has come in among us, and how our hearts would be drawn to Him as we ourselves come to a judgment of all that has transpired, not in a general way, but as each one searches his own heart. It is very wonderful that in all this there should be a positive result with us. We can see that the hand of the Lord Jesus has been over everything. The Father has committed everything into the hands of the Son; things have never got out of hand, so that everything is designed towards this great end that we should have a greater appreciation of the love of the Lord Jesus, a greater understanding of His Person and of His manhood, and a greater knowledge of God.
So we can review what is past with this positive end in view and find food for our souls and be refreshed in relation to our affections as we take account not of what we have suffered, but of the feelings of Jesus. How much we owe to the expressions of the psalmist and of the prophets. The Spirit of Christ in them gives expression to words which show to us certain feelings of Jesus, in the perfection of His humanity, which are not recorded in the gospel narratives. As we go over them together we can understand these feelings, and as we may have been called to suffer in some little measure we can enter into them. They would draw out our hearts to our blessed Lord in relation to all that He has suffered.
We have in Zechariah the way in which everything has been met. There is, on the one hand, what He suffered in the house of His friends, there are the wounds in His hands. Those were the hands into which everything had been committed and in which He was carrying everything through for the glory of God; but the time came when God’s judgment sword was awakened against His Shepherd, against, as it says, “the man that is my fellow”. He alone could bear the judgment, involving as it did that He should bear the penalty and go into death itself so that there might be a way out for us. But now He is presented to us in glory as an Object for faith, and we can go to the mountain and we can find wood. We can look to Jesus the Leader and Completer of faith (Hebrews 12: 2) if we are tested, and if we suffer we see Jesus the One who suffered as no other, and we can see Him there as our great High Priest, the One who is able to save completely all who come to God by Him, Hebrews 7: 25. What a wonderful result of the pressure and the suffering that may have been our portion, if we have a clearer view of Jesus, the Leader and Completer of faith.
Then it speaks here of the two times of testing, and I would suggest that this is like what we have passed through in recent years. “It shall come to pass in all the land, saith Jehovah, two parts therein shall be cut off and die; but the third shall be left therein”. It is not the majority. See what happened in 1970—if we had gone with the majority, where would we be today?
But it says, “the third shall be left”. But then again that was not sufficient in the way in which the Lord was operating to secure His own end, and so it says, “I will bring the third part into the fire, and will refine them as silver is refined, and will try them as gold is tried”. But what an end, beloved—“They shall call on my name, and I will answer them; I will say, It is my people; and they shall say, Jehovah is my God”. Think of these wonderful relationships that we were speaking of on Lord’s day—and not only speaking of them but enjoying the reality of them—what it is to have that message coming freshly to us, “My Father and your Father … my God and your God”, John 20: 17. They are wonderful experiences that we have as we enter into the greatness of God’s thoughts for men, and as we enjoy them He enters into “the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints”, Ephesians 1: 18.
So let us be encouraged; let us see what the end is in these things. It may have been necessary, after the testing, to bring again through the fire, but it would be in view of vessels being secured in view of the service of God. Everything is secured on the basis of the sufferings of the Lord Jesus, so that we would not be occupied with what we have passed through and what we have suffered, but with the One who has secured everything for God.
May the Lord bless the word.
Address at Gothenburg, Sweden
25 August 1973