“AS FOR ME”

Psalm 89:27; Job 19:25; Psalm 73:28; Psalm 17:15

Each of these scriptures speak of “as to me” or “as for me”. The first one is God speaking typically of Christ. Whatever men think of Christ, whatever men have done to Christ, God is saying, in type, of Christ, “as to me, I will make him firstborn, the highest of the kings of the earth”. The other three scriptures are men speaking, and I find it very attractive that these persons should say “as for me”. Whatever anyone else says, or does, or thinks, they said “as for me”. Job said, “as for me, I know that my Redeemer liveth”.

The Lord Jesus came here in lowliness. The magi said that they were looking for the One who was born King, and they found Him (Matt.2:11). His earthly people generally rejected Jesus, but the magi were Gentiles and they appreciated Him. He was King. In Zechariah it says that Jerusalem would rejoice, because “thy King cometh to thee: he is just”, Zech.9:9. He would be lowly, and come to them in a lowly way, “even upon a colt”. Jesus came in as a lowly King, different from all others, but a day is coming when all kings will acknowledge Him as King of kings and Lord of lords.

“And as to me, I will make him firstborn, the highest of the kings of the earth” is what God will do with Christ – He will give Him the highest public place. “I will make him firstborn”, that is the pre-eminent One. This verse refers to what is yet future, but God has already highly exalted Jesus; that is what God has done with this Man. Men rejected Him. He was the stone which the builders cast away as worthless (1 Pet.2:7). The prominent religious men at the time rejected Him, but God raised Jesus, exalted Him and made Him Lord and Christ (Acts 2:36). Irrespective of what men did to Him, God did what He delighted to do with His beloved Son. Men put Him to death, but God raised Him. God does what He will; that is like what is said here, “as to me”. It was a righteous thing for God to raise Christ, to exalt Him and give Him the highest place in heaven. I love this thought, “as to me”. God always does what is right. He exalted Christ and made Him Lord and Christ, crowned Him with glory and honour. That is what God has done with Christ, with that one Man.

Jesus came to this world. How wonderful was the incarnation; “today a Saviour has been born to you in David’s city, who is Christ the Lord”, Luke 2:11. How personally great He is! He came here, and it was as though His pathway was a pathway to heaven, but He had to go by way of death. God’s thought was that He should be on this earth for thirty-three and a half years, but Jesus has been nearly two thousand years in heaven, crowned with glory and honour, and available as a Saviour for sinners because of what God has done with Him. Satan was against Him all the time when He was here, as was seen in the temptations, but Jesus defeated Satan. In the first two chapters of Job, God allowed Satan to test Job in every way possible, but Satan was defeated by Job because Job would not curse God. After the second chapter in Job, Satan is never mentioned in the book again. He was defeated by Job, although not in the way that Christ defeated Satan – Jesus completely defeated him. Satan has always tried to keep men away from God and turn their affections from the Lord Jesus and from God. He thought that he had secured a victory when he caused Adam and Eve to sin, and he thought he had a greater victory when Christ was put on the cross and crucified. God had said to the serpent that the seed of the woman, which is a reference to the Lord Jesus, would “crush thy head”, Gen.3:15. The Lord Jesus did that. Satan did not take into account the significance of the death of Christ, and how God was coming in to secure man for Himself. Despite his wiles, Satan did not think of that; he was defeated.

The glad tidings go out from where Christ is in His present position, so that men, women and children might be secured for God, recovered to God through the work of Christ. Job said, “as for me, I know that my Redeemer liveth”. What light that man had! There may have been many others like him – we do not know – but we know that Job said, “as for me, I know that my Redeemer liveth”. Paul affirmed that Jesus was living (Acts 25:19). The religious view was that Jesus was dead and that the cross had been the last they would see of him, but Paul wrote, “I know whom I have believed” 2 Tim.1:12. No one could change Paul’s mind as to that. So Job said, “as for me, I know that my Redeemer liveth”, and that is the truth. The Lord Jesus is a glorious, living Man in heaven.

I love that expression, “as for me”. Have you a link with Him? Irrespective of what others do, irrespective of what the crowds in the world think, can you say, “as for me”? I know that I have a link with the Lord Jesus. Do you? It is a tremendously important thing to be definite and know that you have a personal link with Him by faith, know that He is your Saviour, know that He has saved you from the penalty of your sins and know that He is your Lord. The angel said, “thou shalt call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins”, Matt.1:21. Can you say, As for me, I know the Lord Jesus. How stabilising it is that you are His and His forever and you belong to Him. You need definiteness in how you arrive at these things, in having to do with the Lord Jesus. You come to a definite point, when you can say, ‘As for me, I know …’.

Paul had an encounter with the Lord Jesus. No one could change Paul’s mind about that, no matter how much it caused him to suffer. One person, Festus, called him mad (Acts 26:24) but that did not change Paul. He just kept on expressing God’s grace towards him. Paul desired that all in that auditorium would be as he was, except for his bonds. Saying “as for me” is a very individual matter. We all must have that individual transaction with God, and with the Lord Jesus, so that you have this definite surety in your soul that you know Him as your Saviour and as your Redeemer. There is now far more light available than Job had. The Lord Jesus has actually been here and accomplished the work of redemption. It was not so in Job’s time, but he had this light: “I know that my Redeemer liveth”. And he looked for a mediator; he said, “As for me, I know that my Redeemer liveth, and the Last, he shall stand upon the earth”. “The Last …”; no one will hinder God from bringing in blessing for men as He has purposed. God will have the last word; He will do what He wants to do and what He has set His heart upon. He set his heart upon securing the affections of men, women and children who put their faith in Jesus.

Job was convicted; he knew that there was a living Redeemer. Jesus, that blessed One, came here into manhood. God celebrated the time when the Lord Jesus came in; He had said prophetically, “Thou art my Son: this day have I begotten thee”, Acts 13:33. What a day in the history of time it was when that blessed Person of the Godhead came into this scene as a Babe. Jesus went through His pathway here, despised and left alone of men. How God appreciated Him. It was as though God would say, As to me, “Thou art my beloved Son, in thee I have found my delight”, Luke 3:22. God made that known publicly. Jesus went to the cross and suffered and died. He suffered under the hand of God. God is a holy God, a righteous God, and Jesus suffered there as made sin by God. The sins of all who believe were laid upon Him; it could be said that “Jehovah hath laid upon him the iniquity of us all”, Isa.53:6. The Lord Jesus suffered there on the cross, held by love – love for you, dear friend, and love for His God. He suffered there, He bore the full weight of God’s judgment against sin and sins, and Jesus exhausted that judgment and emerged from it, the judgment having been completely exhausted, leaving God’s grace for men. So the glad tidings go out, and there is no judgment for all who place their faith and trust in the Lord Jesus, in His work and in His shed blood.

Then God raised Him from among the dead; that is what God did with that blessed Man. He raised Him and exalted Him. No one could hinder God in doing that. The resurrection was altogether secret; there was no interfering hand there. Many saw Him afterwards, but the resurrection was done in secret, between God and Jesus alone. God raised Him and then He exalted Him to His right hand. That is what God has done with Christ, and with no other one. God has set Him there, and Jesus is available to you, dear friend, as your Saviour, your Redeemer, your Lord.

Job was brought to repentance. God put him through tests and spoke to him and brought him to repentance. We all have to be brought to repentance. God enjoins repentance (Acts 17:30). Why does God enjoin you to repent? He knows you are a sinner. He commands you to repent because He has forgiveness for you. It is one of the great blessings of the glad tidings that the repentant sinner knows the forgiveness of God, all based on the finished work of the Lord Jesus. Do you have that? Do you know, dear friend, the forgiveness of sins? That is a blessing which God would delight to dispense to you. It is based on faith in the work of Christ and repentance towards God. Then the Holy Spirit would give you the certainty of it – the joy of forgiveness of sins. What a blessing it is – all your sins forgiven, completely cleared, as far as the east is from the west (Ps.103:12); your sins cast into the depths of the sea (Mic.7:19), gone for ever! You can be free and have joy and peace with God, in your relations with God, and you can know for yourself a personal relationship with the Lord Jesus.

In Psalm 73, we get this expression again, “as for me”. The writer is a type of a believer. He saw that unbelievers seemed to get on well and prosper, and he was upset about that, he could not understand it. In verse 2, he wrote “But as for me, my feet were almost gone, my steps had well nigh slipped; For I was envious at the arrogant, seeing the prosperity of the wicked”. He was honest, but then he was brought to this: “But as for me, it is good for me to draw near to God: I have put my trust in the Lord Jehovah, that I may declare all thy works”. That speaks to us typically of a relationship with God and with the Lord Jesus. “But as for me”; others may not have that relationship, but for me I know that it is good, I know that it is the way of blessing, I know that it is the way of safety as a believer in the Lord Jesus. “But as for me, it is good for me to draw near to God”. God has come near to us in the person of Christ. Asaph came to it that it was good for him to draw near to God, to have to do with God.

You can have to do with divine Persons for yourself as a believer on the Lord Jesus. “I have put my trust in the Lord Jehovah”; what is there that the Lord cannot do? “My flesh and my heart faileth” (v.26); we might feel like that at times, and you might feel that your feet have almost slipped, almost gone, and that it would not take much for you to go the wrong way. But Asaph said, “My flesh and my heart faileth: God is the rock of my heart and my portion for ever”. Our hearts can feel like this. We might get discouraged, depressed, down, when everything seems difficult, but this man came to it: “But as for me, it is good for me to draw near to God”. What can God not do for you? He knows our needs. He knows our anxieties. He knows what our troubles are. We need to draw near to God and prove what He can do. “I have put my trust in the Lord Jehovah”. What power there is in the Lord Jesus to sustain us and keep us and guide us. We all need to prove what God can be to us each one.

Then Asaph said, “that I may declare all thy works”. There is a testimony going out that you can be part of. Another psalm says, “Come, hear, all ye that fear God, and I will declare what he hath done for my soul”, Ps.66:16. In this Psalm 73, “that I may declare all thy works” is a testimony to what God had done for the psalmist. Think about how much there is to say about the Lord Jesus and what He has done for you, about all His works. He has done works that no other could ever do. So just as this psalmist says, “But as for me, it is good for me to draw near to God”, so it is good for every one of us to draw near to God, to have to do with Him continually, to prove His sustaining grace. God would say, As to me; I have exalted Christ. Christ did not glorify Himself. He did not make Himself our High Priest, but He was called by God and God put Him in that position of High Priest (Heb.5:5). Dear friend, you can prove His grace as you draw near to God by Him. You can prove divine grace coming in and sustaining you in the pathway. The Lord Jesus came here, He was on His way to heaven and He has been there for nearly two thousand years. He is awaiting the Father’s time when what we read of in Psalm 89 will actually come to pass, but He is available there now for persons to call upon Him, to draw near Him.

I read in Psalm 17 because we get the expression again; “As for me, I will behold thy face in righteousness; I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness”. The believer has a hope – we are not here for ever. We may be taken one by one to be with the Lord Jesus, or when the Lord comes for all His own, all those who are alive, we might be among the living who remain (1 Thess.4:17). But in any case, we will be satisfied when we have the Lord’s likeness. Every right desire will be completely satisfied then. God’s purpose for us will be completely brought to pass then. In a moment, the living will be changed, the dead in Christ will be raised and we will have bodies of glory like unto His own body of glory (Phil.3:21). Think of awaking with His likeness. That is the hope of the believer, “the prize of the calling on high of God in Christ Jesus”, Phil.3:14. Paul was stretching out for that, longing for it. How Paul had suffered, what discipline he had known. All that he went through must have told on his body, but he will be satisfied when he awakes with the likeness of Christ.

That is God’s full thought in the gospel. Divine light comes to us in the gospel. We are not here for ever; the Lord Jesus told His own before He left, “I am coming again and shall receive you to myself”, John 14:3. Then we will be in His likeness, we will be in the Father’s house. Do you have this sure hope? Is this what you are longing for – to be with Christ for ever? It is all on the basis of grace, and not on the basis of our merit or efforts. How could we possibly give ourselves a body of glory? It is grace from God’s side that we will all be like Christ. We are being formed after Him here; the blessed Holy Spirit is operating in that way, to keep our affections set on that One. Each one of us needs to say, “As for me”. There is a definiteness in that, a surety that nothing will change. One psalmist said, “lead me in the way everlasting” (Ps.139:24), that is in a pathway in which you do not need to change course. Do you have a sense that you are on the right pathway? This is the end of the way everlasting, to be with Christ in glory. Thank God that we have that hope, that we will be soon forever with the Lord Jesus.

May the Lord bless the word.

Preaching of the gospel, Dundee

14 January 2018

G.B. Grant