THE GREATNESS OF CHRIST

J. Strachan

Hebrews 4: 14–16; 13: 20, 21; Luke 1: 32, 33

I have in mind to say a word about the greatness of Christ. Scripture abounds with references to His greatness, and this epistle to the Hebrews very specially brings it out by way of contrast. There are various features of His greatness. One is that He is the Creator. He had to do with everything in the creation. It says of Him, “by whom also he made the worlds”, Hebrews 1: 2. How extensive that may be we cannot tell, but He made them all. What a Person He is! He upholds “all things by the word of his power”. Think of the greatness of One who is able to do that, to keep everything going “by the word of his power”. Men have devised certain ideas about the creation, but faith lays hold of this, that He made the worlds, and upholds everything by the word of His power. It is good for our young people to realise that we know the Person who accomplished these things.

He not only had to do with creation but it says of Him, “having made by himself the purification of sins, set himself down on the right hand of the greatness on high”, Hebrews 1: 3. Think of Someone who is able to take up the whole sin question, involving the introduction of sin into the universe and the introduction of sin into the human race, and settle it to God’s glory. He dealt with it all in such a way that He could “set himself down on the right hand of the greatness on high”. That shows how entirely He has accomplished it. That work has been completed; it will never have to be repeated, nothing will have to be added to it. He has set Himself down in all the virtue of that great finished work. Now that has affected us as believers. We know that He died for our sins. We have faith in Him, we have faith in His precious blood. We have faith in the Person and faith in His blood, involving faith in His work. If we are believers we have come to know this glorious Person as our Saviour.

Now He is to be known by us in other ways too. You will notice where we started to read in Hebrews it says, “Having therefore a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God”. He is not just a high priest like they had in Old Testament times, but “a great high priest who has passed through the heavens”. That is what believers have. The writer of this book tells us, “We have such a one high priest”, (Hebrews 8: 1). Believers are regarded as being so great that they must have such a great and glorious High Priest, “such a high priest became us” (Hebrews 7: 26). It is fitting that believers should have such a High Priest. He says, “For we have not a high priest not able to sympathise with our infirmities, but tempted in all things in like manner, sin apart”. He is a real Man. He has passed through the heavens but He has gone there as Man. He has gone there with all the feelings and sympathies of a man. He has been here, and understands what believers go through in their experiences down here. He is qualified because of His first hand knowledge of all our circumstances and of all we pass through, but sin apart. He was not affected by sin as it can affect us. Nevertheless, as a real Man, He went through human experiences and understood them at first hand. Therefore He is qualified to sympathise with those who go through experiences of difficulty, pressure and distress. He can take account of us in the pressure of illness. Many of the beloved brethren are affected by illness; their bodies are affected by weakness and illness, and He understands. He can enter feelingly into what it means as it says, “Himself took our infirmities and bore our diseases”, Matthew 8: 17. How feelingly He entered into these things! Now He is no longer in these circumstances where illness and weakness pertain; He is out of them. He has passed through the heavens, but He can sympathise with us as not in any way being restricted by them. If you are ill yourself you might find it very difficult to really enter sympathetically into the circumstances of someone who is going through that experience because of your own limitations. But He is out of and beyond the circumstances of pressure, therefore He can take up our case and enter feelingly into what we are going through, and enter into it effectively. So He is able to sustain us in these circumstances of illness and weakness and bereavement too. How near He came to persons in bereavement! After the death of Lazarus He wept. He felt the pressure of death on the human spirit. He entered sympathetically into these circumstances yet He Himself was the resurrection and the life (John 11: 25). He understands what circumstances of bereavement mean and He can enter feelingly into them in His love. That is the kind of High Priest we have; not one who is “not able to sympathise”, but One who knows and understands and can serve us in His love.

Dear brethren are going through pressure of circumstances as to unemployment, going through reduced circumstances; He understands and would help us how to go through these things. Paul had learned something of it when he said that he knew both how to abound and how to be abased (Philippians 4: 12). Paul knew the One who could support him through them. Now it is for us to know it. It was not only for an apostle; it was Paul as a believer who went through these things. It was not unique to an apostle. There were experiences that were unique to Paul, but Paul had experiences that pertained to the life of an ordinary believer. We are to understand, therefore, how to be not only in affluent circumstances but in reduced circumstances. Sometimes affluent circumstances do not help us too much spiritually, but if we are in reduced circumstances perhaps it makes Christ more precious to us, and will yield spiritually even if we are restricted in some way materially.

The point in these things is that we are to come to know the Lord Jesus better than we did before; we are to come to know Himself. Not only do we get relief in the circumstances, but we come to know Himself. That is great gain, because the effect of it is, I believe, that as He comes in and makes Himself known to us in our circumstances, we come to know Him. As a result we want to know more about Him in His circumstances. That is what it is intended to do, dear brethren, to lead us into the knowledge of Himself and into the knowledge of the circumstances to which He belongs, these circumstances that are His. How glorious these are!

It is where we shall spend our time eternally. I cannot really use that expression, ‘spend our time’, for eternity will never finish, but should rather say ‘to be with Him eternally’. As the apostle, says, “thus we shall be always with the Lord”, 1 Thessalonians 4: 17. We shall be transferred from these circumstances of pressure and difficulty and distress, and we shall be taken into His glorious circumstances where certain things will not be, they will not exist. In Revelation 21 we are told that certain things will not exist; not death, nor grief, nor cry, nor distress will exist any more. We shall be with the One who has loved us, who has served us, who has brought us through, who has given us to know Himself. I think that is the great gain of our circumstances down here that we get to know Him.

He has “passed through the heavens”, and yet He is able to sympathise with us. So it says, “Let us approach therefore with boldness to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy, and find grace for seasonable help”. The throne of grace is available to us; then let us use it, let us approach to obtain mercy and find grace for seasonable help. It means that we get help just when we need it. We do not exactly build up a storehouse of help, we receive the help as we need it. So let us approach with boldness and find it is available; “grace for seasonable help”, just when we need it. One thing we may find we need help in is when the word of God comes to us and we find it testing. Sometimes something comes to us in ministry or as we read the Scriptures, and we find in some way it is testing to answer to it. That is where our great High Priest comes in to help us; He will help us to answer to what is presented to us in the word of God. The word of God has a living, searching, operative character, and God uses it to help us in our spiritual histories, to help us forward into what He has in mind for us. So as we seek to answer to it and come into the gain of what is for our spiritual prosperity, then our great High Priest is available to help us and sustain us. We may find it difficult but He is there to help us through the exercise involved.

Now another feature of His greatness that comes up at the end of the epistle is that He is “the great shepherd of the sheep”. It says, “But the God of peace, who brought again from among the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep”. He is the good Shepherd, of course; we have come to know Him, and to value Him as the good Shepherd, the One who “lays down his life for the sheep”, John 10: 11. He is the One by whom we can go in and go out, to enjoy the liberty of Christianity, to have liberty to move in and out and to find pasture. We find that He provides food for us, that He makes us restful, that He causes us to enjoy life and to have it abundantly. Then He is the great Shepherd and God brought Him again from among the dead. He would not leave Him in death. He lay in death but He was taken again from among the dead. We see Him as brought out from among the dead and how He carried on His shepherdly activities.

We read in Luke’s gospel (Luke 24) of how He went after those two who were on the way to Emmaus, having turned their back on the centre of divine operations at that time. They were going away, their faces were in the wrong direction, but the great Shepherd of the sheep went after them and went along with them; He listened to them, disconsolate and discouraged as they were. Sometimes we may be like that. I suppose most of us have felt like that at some time, felt discouraged, felt like giving up, and then the great Shepherd of the sheep came in suddenly. Maybe He used someone, but behind it all there was His activity as the great Shepherd of the sheep. As those two went into the house, He made as if He would go further, but they took Him into their circumstances. He had been saying wonderful things to them.

How their hearts burned as He spoke to them about Himself, opened up things from the Scriptures about Himself. I think the Lord would serve us in that way to open up something that makes an appeal to our hearts, causing our hearts to burn within us. But He did not leave it there. He went into the house with them, right into those circumstances where they were, and there He was made known to them in the breaking of bread. If persons are getting away, it is a great thing to

get a touch from the Lord that leads them back to where the breaking of bread is known, where His own service comes out in its fullness. He was made known to them, and the result was that they went away back to Jerusalem. Just before, it had been too late to go any further, but then they go readily about eight miles back to Jerusalem. What did they find? They found the eleven and those with them, gathered together. The gathering power of the great Shepherd had been operating to gather them together. They were saying, “The Lord is indeed risen and has appeared to Simon”, Luke 24: 34. O the grace of that! Just shortly before, Simon had denied Him, but the Lord had appeared to him. There they were saying these things, and how much these two would have to contribute. I wonder if we have something to contribute, in the circle of the saints, from our experience of the great Shepherd of the sheep?

There they were back together, and then He came in. It is wonderful to have an experience like that. As He came in He raised the question, “Have ye anything here to eat?” Was there anything in that company? There was something. They were enjoying something together, the broiled fish and the honeycomb. They gave Him part of a broiled fish and of a honeycomb, and He took it and ate before them. O how He would enter into the circumstances and serve them, so that they should prove the blessing of it, and that there would be something for Himself. That is what is in mind, dear brethren, that there should be something for Himself.

How beautifully He served Mary of Magdala and gave her that message in John 20, after His resurrection. The result was that the disciples were gathered together and as He came they were just ready for Him. We are looking forward to His coming to us tomorrow morning.

What a thing it is to be gathered as a result of the service of the great Shepherd of the sheep, so that we are just ready for His own touch. What He did on that occasion was to lead them into something of the enjoyment of eternal things, because behind those closed doors of John 20 really lay eternity. Now the Lord wants to lead us into the enjoyment of eternal things.

Then it says, “But the God of peace, who brought again from among the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, in the power of the blood of the eternal covenant, perfect you in every good work to the doing of his will, doing in you what is pleasing before him through Jesus Christ”. God wants to perfect us, doing in us what is pleasing, or producing in us what is pleasing, “before him through Jesus Christ”. The service of the Shepherd would be to secure us in this way, amenable to doing the will of God; He would produce “what is pleasing before him through Jesus Christ”. Think of God reaching such a result in persons who wanted at one time to do their own wills, that there is such a change that they want to do God’s will, and He produces what is pleasing to Himself. I think that is a wonderful thing, and lying behind it all is the service of the great Shepherd of the sheep. What a heart He has!

David was brought from the sheepfolds to shepherd Israel, to feed them and to lead them. It says, “And he chose David his servant, and took him from the sheepfolds—From following the suckling-ewes, he brought him to feed Jacob his people, and Israel his inheritance. And he fed them according to the integrity of his heart”, Psalm 78: 70–72. David had the heart of a shepherd. There were no mixed motives in what he did, he fed them according to the integrity of his heart. The supply of food is always needed among the saints. Then it says, “and led them by the skilfulness of his hands”. The way the shepherd deals with his sheep would be skilful. The Lord Jesus showed the skilfulness with which He dealt with His own. So God had this in mind in David, using him as a type, but God was really looking forward to Christ, the great Shepherd of the sheep. He could not leave Him lying in death. He had to bring Him again from among the dead in order to accomplish what He had in mind as to His people.

Now in Luke it says, “thou shalt call his name Jesus. He shall be great, and shall be called Son of the Highest; and the Lord God shall give him the throne of David his father; and he shall reign over the house of Jacob for the ages, and of his kingdom there shall not be an end”. He came into the world in a very lowly and unobtrusive way, coming in by way of Bethlehem’s manger, coming in by way of human infancy. There was no pomp, no worldly show as He came into the very lowly conditions that are depicted here, but of Him it is said,

“He shall be great”. This looks forward to the time when He will be displayed in His greatness, to the world to come when He will come out publicly to reign, but meantime He has been rejected. Believers today follow the Man who has been rejected. He is not given a place in the world. Ostensibly men may connect His name with certain things, but He is not publicly honoured in the world. The world would be a very different place if He were. When He comes in and is acknowledged as having right to reign, then there will be the display of His greatness for a thousand years and, as it says here, “the Lord God shall give him the throne of David his father”. There was a time when David was in rejection, but later he came to the throne. So this is looking forward to the time when Christ will come to the throne publicly, when He will be given the throne of David His father.

One thing that marked David was that he became attractive to persons in whom God was working. The Lord Jesus is attractive to those who love Him. It is not only that He has done certain things for us, but He has become attractive personally. He has indeed done things gloriously for us; He has vanquished the power of death. He has not dealt with the power of death partially, nor dealt with the sin question partially, but He has dealt with those matters completely, so that believers can be secured for Him in all the gain of His victory. But then we are attracted to Himself personally because of the moral worth there is in Him; and that is like David in the type. How persons were attracted to him, how they gathered round him, how he became a captain over them!

You see the influence that he gained over persons. That is like the Lord Jesus, how He gains influence in affection, and in moral quality over us, so that He acquires a place with us. It has not to be forced on us, dear brethren. He acquires a place because of what He is.

So He shall be given “the throne of David his father; and he shall reign over the house of Jacob for the ages”. O, you say, why reign over the house of Jacob? Jacob with all his ups and downs, his chequered history, and his house, Is He going to reign over that? Think of all that belonged to Jacob as they came to Joseph, and see the way that he came into supremacy over the house of Jacob. They were persons with mixed histories, with all sorts of problems, persons who had difficulty in getting on together, and were experiencing famine, yet he gradually worked with them so that he gained the ascendency over the house of Jacob. That is how the Lord works with us and puts us together, so that He acquires such a place with us that we are held in relation to Himself and in relation to one another as brethren. How wonderful the way the Lord can work with us. The fulness of these things will come out in the millennium, but I think they operate in believers now in the assembly; they operate in the hearts of believers as He acquires this place. He has title to the throne of David because of His personal worth, and to reign over the house of Jacob because of the way He comes in to help us and reach His end with us.

It continues, “and of his kingdom there shall not be an end”. Men set up their kingdoms and then they collapse. There is the rise and the decline, and that can happen very, very rapidly, but His kingdom will not be like that, therefore “He shall be great”. Another scripture speaks of Him as the great King, and it speaks of His having a city, Jerusalem, “the city of the great King”, Psalm 48: 2. It will be a city that will be suited to such a King, suited in its greatness to be the earthly metropolis in the world to come. Presently there is great Babylon, that is built up by man in all its ostentation and sophistication and all that pertains to it, everything that keeps the commercial and the religious world going. But the Spirit of God is here working in view of another city, the heavenly Jerusalem. That is what believers in the present day have been called to have part in. We are waiting for the great King to come and have His rightful place publicly, and meantime we are engaged with this wonderful city, a suited counterpart for Him, something that is entirely in keeping with Himself. One who is so great and glorious. There is the great King and there is the city of the great King. May we come to appreciate the Lord Jesus more and more in His greatness, and the greatness of what is connected with Him, in which we have our part through grace. For His name’s sake.

Address at Rotherham
10 March 1993