THE LORD JESUS TAKING UP RELATIONSHIPS AS COMING INTO MANHOOD

P. Martin

Luke 2: 41–52; John 5: 19, 20; Ephesians 5: 22–33; 6: 1–10

I desire, dear brethren, with the Lord’s help, to speak a word as to the Lord Jesus. The hymn-writer says.

‘No subject’s more glorious than He,

No theme more affecting to us’. (Hymn 103)

How true that is. In occupation with the Lord Jesus we are occupied with perfection and we are occupied with glory. In His person, the Lord Jesus coming into this scene was none less than the Creator of the universe, God over all, blessed for evermore. What a Person! How great that the Creator should come into the very world of His creation! This causes the heart to worship. Not that He came and formed part of the creation—He came into the creation but He did not form part of it. He came into the creation in order to work out in it what God would secure in new creation and hold in relation to another world. I want to speak of the Lord Jesus taking up relationships as coming into manhood. It is a wonderful thing that He should not only come in, but that He should come in in relationships, that He should move here in relationships, and in those relationships everything was perfect.

When the law was given in Exodus 21 it was given to show that man had fallen from the fulfilment of his relationship with God and the fulfilment of his relationship with his fellow, but immediately the law was given you have One who says, “I love my master, my wife, and my children. I will not go free”. Every divinely appointed relationship was fulfilled in One who came in and said, “I love”. The law could never produce that. It was as if the blessed God, in giving the law through Moses should have in view immediately that there would be one blessed Man who would come in, and where the law showed man’s failure He would display perfection in every relationship into which He came. What perfection we see in the person of the Lord Jesus. Well may we be occupied with Him. He came in and made God known as moving in those relationships through which He passed. He entered into relationships that belonged to the earth. He entered into relationships that were not bounded by the earth and He established relationships that were dependent on His death, for us to come into them, in order that He might secure them in relation to another world. He entered into relationships that belonged to the earth, we shall see that in Luke 2 that there were relationships that were never carried beyond His death—they belonged to the scene into which He came. He entered into relationships as becoming Man, relationships in which He filled out the enjoyment of sonship with the Father; and He entered into relationships that we come into consequent on His having been into death and come out of it.

How full the pathway and walk of the Lord Jesus was, and how perfect. It says in Luke 2 that His parents went yearly to Jerusalem. The Lord Jesus as a boy had parents. The scripture says that. He was not here unrelated to what men were passing through, He had parents. What perfection was seen as it speaks of the child Jesus. There had never been perfection in a child before. Every parent thinks that their child is good but there had never been perfection in a child, but there was perfection in Jesus. I think Mr Darby says somewhere that in Luke 2 the Spirit draws back the veil in order that we might see something that God valued in secret and all the time was perfect. How wondrous! It says as to Him, “when he was twelve years old, and they went up to Jerusalem according to the custom of the feast and had completed the days, as they returned ... supposing him to be in the company that journeyed together”. It may be that there is someone here today who supposes that He is in the company. I just hesitate on this, someone perhaps who has not a link with Him for themselves, who has not the consciousness of moving with the support of the Lord Jesus. There may be someone in the company like that. They supposed that He was in the company. Dear brother or sister, however young or old, I would appeal to you today, do not go on without the consciousness of the knowledge of the Lord Jesus for yourself. You will not find the Lord through the company, that has often been said, you will find the company through your link with the Lord; but here they had gone on in the company supposing that He was present. We have spoken of the Lord’s supper already today. The Supper is to revive us if our affections droop, as they do so often; the Supper is to revive our affections individually for Christ in order that we might be set together collectively in the company. Dear brother or sister, do not go on supposing that He is in the company because you may lose your way in the company. You may lose the sense of the greatness of what Christ is as One who is not only able to satisfy your heart as an individual but He is able to satisfy the heart of the company.

What an appeal this was to these parents, divinely chosen of God to protect and provide for the Lord Jesus as a little Babe. Matthew brings out the system of protection in His parents and Luke more the system of provision. He says to them, “did ye not know that I ought to be occupied in my Father’s business?” The Lord Jesus, as coming into relationships that belonged to the earth, lived in the consciousness of the Father’s affections, that was His life.

He brought into relationship here what had never been seen before. He brought in a character that He alone could bring in, and it was witnessed to, and this passage would help us in feeding upon it. He brought it in in Himself, but He lived in the enjoyment of His relation with the Father, “did ye not know that I ought to be occupied in my Father’s business?” If we are to work out relationships rightly and according to God they will be worked out in the light of what our heavenly relations are. The believer’s relations have a character that is distinct from the relations of unconverted man. We have father and mother and children and husband and wife, these relationships go on, but they have a character that is distinct from the relationships of the unbeliever because they are worked out from a relationship that is above them all; that is what the Lord Jesus displayed in His pathway here. We are in a day when natural relationships have been set aside in the world. It is one of the things that Paul warns us of. In days of apostasy natural relations will be despised, but the believer fixes his eyes on the One in whom relationships have been seen in perfection. They have been seen in the person of Jesus. He came into those relationships, and displayed in them what God had ever in His mind and He set it forth for the pleasure of God.

You think of the Father opening the heavens upon Him at thirty years of age, when most of that life had been in secret, and proclaiming His delight, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I have found my delight”, Matthew 3: 17. It had been seen as He moved here in the ordinary affairs of life. They said, “Is not this the son of the carpenter?”, Matthew 13: 55. Think of the wonder of it that the Lord Jesus moved in circumstances like you and me, but in those circumstances He displayed all the perfection that God ever longed for in man, and displayed all that the blessed God was in His heart and manifested it in those lowly circumstances of manhood. He says, “did ye not know that I ought to be occupied in my Father’s business?”

Mary treasured these things in her heart. That is where the truth is held. You may get some impression, dear brother or sister, and I pray you may get an impression even in an occasion like this, treasure it in your heart, not just in your mind. It comes to you through your mind but treasure it in your heart. Mary kept these things in her heart. I have no doubt that when she found her place in the upper room at the beginning of Acts, there was some treasury there in Mary

that could be brought forth as to the Man that she had seen in lowly humiliation here, out of the sight of men. While Jerusalem was going on in its pomp and glory, in the lowly footsteps of Jesus in Nazareth, there was something being displayed that Mary carried through into the upper room as a treasury of the Man in whom God had found His delight.

I come on to John 5. The Lord Jesus, coming here into such a scene, moved into a relationship that gave character to everything attaching to Him. He moved in the enjoyment of Son with the Father. Think of the wonder of it, sonship in perfect holy communion was His. I seek grace to speak rightly of Him, He is so great and so wondrous, but He says here that “The Son can do nothing of himself save whatever he sees the Father doing—for whatever things he does, these things also the Son does in like manner”. The Lord Jesus moved here as an admirer of the Father; He admired the Father, He watched what He did. He says, I can do nothing of Myself. He watched what the Father did. In this chapter the Father was the worker and the Son was working with Him, “My Father worketh hitherto and I work”

(John 5: 17). The Lord Jesus watched the Father working. He watched the Father in the detail of His operations, He admired Him. Are you an admirer? The Lord Jesus was. He admired all that the Father did and He says, “these things also the Son does in like manner”. He could do nothing different from the Father. He says, “I and the Father are one”, John 10: 30. He could do nothing different, but He takes the place here as dependent. He could do nothing of Himself. He says, “whatever things he does, these things also the Son does in like manner”.

You might say the Father’s impress was upon what Jesus did. The woman in John 4 had some sense of that—that the Father’s impress was upon what the Lord Jesus did. “Our fathers worshipped in this mountain, and ye say that in Jerusalem is the place where one must

worship” (John 4: 20). Not having been the recipient of light until that point, she was feeling after something in her soul. The Lord Jesus speaks to her of the Father. He is speaking to her of relationships that were outside of what she had known, nothing like what she had ever touched. He is speaking of those relationships and, in what He does, the Father drawing her to Christ, she comes to appreciate the greatness of the Man who was there and she comes as a worshipper. Think of the wonder of it, that she should stand at the feet of a Man who was sitting weary at the well, the Lord Jesus speaking to her of the greatest things that had ever been made known to man, speaking to her of the Father, and the Father’s impress was upon that. You can see that right through John’s gospel, in what the Lord Jesus was doing the Father’s impress was upon it, securing persons for the Father’s glory. He is securing persons like you and me and He is putting the mark of divine ownership on them, to bring out the character of divine ownership in testimony.

It is a wonderful thing that He is holding men for God even at the present time, securing them and holding them for God in order that they might be for the Father’s pleasure. He says, “The Son can do nothing of himself save whatever he sees the Father doing”. May our hearts worship in the light of that, in the wonder of the One who came in in such lowly grace. John presents Him as moving as in the bosom of the Father, “the only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father”, John 1: 18. We had a touch of that in our morning reading today. You know, you get something in the morning reading. Young people, I say this humbly because I am not sure that I always appreciated it as a boy, but I have come to appreciate that you get something in the morning reading; it may only be a sentence but it stays with you through the day. I would say to you, just get something and think about it through the day. This is what we had in the morning reading today, a reference to the fact that the only-begotten Son, who is in the

bosom of the Father, He has declared God. Everything has flowed from that wondrous relationship.

The Lord Jesus moved in absolute and perfect communion in all that He did. He never ceased to be in communion; in serving men He remained in communion with His Father. We take up service, it may be we spend time with divine Persons before it, and so we should, the more the better, but the Lord Jesus never ceased to be in communion while He was speaking to men. What a perfect Man. I touch on these things in order that we may have before us the perfect standard that the Father has found His delight in. The Lord Jesus was here in relation to the Father. He remained in relation to the Father. When all else went to their own home Jesus went to the mount of Olives. Think of Him spending all night in prayer. We are told of Him doing that, how many times He did so we do not know. The foxes had holes and the birds of the air roosting-places but He had nowhere to lay His head. He found His rest in spending nights in communion with His Father. What nights they were for the Father! Here in a blessed Man the Father was feasting upon that which He found entirely delightful to His own affections.

When we come to Ephesians the Lord Jesus gives character to the relationships that we take up. There is a dignity in the relationships that the believer takes up. Husbands are to love their own wives. It has often been pointed out that that word ‘own’ is important—“Husbands, love your own wives, even as the Christ also loved the assembly, and has delivered himself up for it”. The Lord Jesus is presented in this passage as loving the assembly before He had secured it. He loved it and delivered Himself up for it. What love has been manifested in the person of Jesus for the assembly. The believer’s relations are to take character from what has come into expression in Jesus. The nearer we are to Him the more these relationships will be maintained in their normality before God. So it says, “Husbands, love

your own wives, even as the Christ also loved the assembly, and has delivered himself up for it”. He has loved the assembly. He loved it as being in the thoughts of God, in the purpose of God. He came in and secured it. I think it would not be going too far to say that He saw something of the character of it in those persons who moved with Him; in the Mary who washed His feet, in the Mary and Martha and Lazarus, in whose affections He had secured a place to the exclusion of all else. He saw in them something of the character of what the assembly was. I am not saying those persons were the assembly, but they bring out something of the character of it, and the Lord Jesus saw there in substantiality that which He loved and delivered Himself up for. Husbands are to love their own wives, “even as the Christ also loved the assembly”.

Then it says, “that he might sanctify it”, set it apart from all that is here, “purifying it by the washing of water by the word, that he might present the assembly to himself glorious, having no spot, or wrinkle, or any of such things”. Think of the Lord Jesus serving in view of that moment of presentation when He will have the assembly in all her glory, without one mark of the old order. He served in the light of what she is according to the purpose of God, and has in view the presentation of her, according to all that she is according to divine purpose. He secures her in His love, and He serves her in His love, and He is going to present her to Himself in His love, and He will hold her in His love before He comes out in His dominion.

He will have that period alone with her in His own realm, in His own affections. He does it all Himself because He loves her. Paul says. Now husbands, you love your own wives, “even as the Christ also loved the assembly”. I feel measured as I speak of these things, but there is a dignity that is to mark the relationships of the saints, that takes character from Christ and the assembly that is not present in the world.

Beloved brethren, we do not take our bearings from what is around us; we take our bearings from our link with the glorious Head in heaven. That is where the assembly takes her bearings—she has no other character than what she receives from Christ glorified. She is taking her standard and her bearings from that blessed Person, and holds Him in her affections, and delights in the place that she has as subjected to Christ. What a place—she is drawing from Him for everything. May we prove it in our local companies increasingly. I say this carefully, the Lord may send help in a local company through one and another. Through it all, the help that is received, is received as the local assembly is deriving from the Head—

that is where the help comes—that “we may grow up to him in all things, who is the head, the Christ”, Ephesians 4: 15. We are thankful for the gifts, such as the Lord has set in the assembly, but the operation of gift is to draw our hearts to the One from whom everything is flowing, from Christ glorified. As we trace it back to Him we find that we are proving what He is and the resource that He has and the love that He has and the wisdom that He has to sustain the assembly while she is moving here in the scene of His absence.

Then he goes on to say, “So ought men also to love their own wives as their own bodies”. Husbands are not to be selfish; the Lord was never selfish. It says, “For no one has ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, even as also the Christ the assembly—for we are members of his body”. And then he goes on to speak as to children, “obey your parents”

and then “Honour thy father and thy mother, which is the first commandment with a promise”. I am not speaking as trying in any sense to bring in regulations, but just to draw attention to the fact that these things have been displayed in perfection in Christ. He has given the character to that which believers, as wrought on and operated in by the gift of the Holy Spirit, will take up and fulfil in the scene in which we are. So he says, “Honour thy father and thy mother”. That does not stop when you reach twenty-one, that goes right on. Fathers and mothers are despised in the world today. We should feel these things, the Lord Jesus feels them. It is a relationship that has been ordained of God. “Honour thy father and thy mother ... that thou mayest be long-lived on the earth”. May we feed upon the perfection of the Lord Jesus, the One who honoured His Father in everything that He did. May we, beloved, be helped in the relationships in which God has set us.

Then he touches on bondmen and masters. These things have all been displayed in Christ, and they are to be continued in some measure in testimony here in the scene of His absence. What has been displayed in the Lord Jesus is perfection. The more we feed upon it, the more heavenly will be the character of our walk as believers in the scene of His absence. The believer does not take his bearings from anything other than the Person who is there glorified. He takes his bearings from Christ, he is receiving his directions from Him, a Man in the glory. He is living in the power of the life of Jesus. The Lord Jesus said that Himself,

“because I live ye also shall live”, John 14: 19. It is a wonderful thing that we have a resource to maintain us here, not according to the thoughts of the earth, but to maintain us at the true standard of heavenly testimony, because we are drawing from the One who has become our life. Paul says in Romans that “we shall be saved in the power of his life”, Romans 5: 10.

That is present practical salvation as we are moving through this scene, that we are saved in the power of the present life of Christ, because we are united to Him and drawing our resources and the character of our life from the One who is there glorified.

Now I have presented these things feebly but I trust the Lord may use something that may touch our affections. May we concentrate on Himself, and see the perfection of that blessed Man, who delighted as coming into manhood, in the relationship that He took up with His Father. He found His delight in that. “My food is that I should do the will of him that has sent me, and that I should finish his work”, John 4: 34. He found His food, not in what was here, He found His food in what He had in His own distinctive relation with the Father.

Through grace, beloved brethren, we have been brought in to see something of what that delight was, and is in that blessed Man, and to find our food in relation to Jesus, for there is no other food that satisfies. You may go after other food but there is no food that will satisfy your heart like you find in Christ. There is nothing that will hold your affections like a living Man in the glory.

If you do not have a link with Him today, or if that link may have been lost, or if you have gone a day’s journey without Him supposing Him to be in the company, but the importance of His presence not being known to you, dear brother or sister, I would appeal to you, to get back to that blessed Man and form or renew that link. You will find that towards you He is unchanged, His love for you is just the same, His affections for you remain just as they always were. Even though often mine have grown cold, His have always remained. How wondrous He is! Prove that He can be just the same to you as He always was, and in fact, greater to you than He ever has been. You will find that you can work out here, in the very scene in which He has been, the relationships of life which He has given character to, which He has dignified by His coming into them and that you can move in the sense of that dignity as worked out by the Holy Spirit. May it be so, for His name’s sake.

Address at Dundee
19 August 2000