THE GREATNESS OF THE NAME OF CHRIST
P.Martin
These words, written by Isaiah eight hundred years before the incoming of the Lord Jesus, could speak of no one other than the Lord Jesus Himself. Isaiah loved to speak of Him, under the direction of the Holy Spirit. He speaks of Him early in his prophecy as sitting upon the throne, he speaks of His glorious name; he speaks of Him as Jehovah’s servant and he speaks of Him as the Lamb, led like a lamb to the slaughter. You get the impression in reading through this prophecy that the glory of this blessed Person was filling the heart of the prophet. Through the preaching, dear friends, it is intended that He should fill your heart. I might say reverently that He fills God’s heart. One who has helped us said, that He ascended up through all the heavens and filled every heaven through which He passed, and He fills the Father’s heart. No one else could do that. You and I as saved have a portion in the Father’s affections, such a portion that we could not measure, but the Lord Jesus fills those affections and fills them with His own excellence and worth. What a Man, and it is that blessed Man that I would like to say a word about.
I had an impression as to this verse this morning, “his name is called Wonderful”. Have you ever met anyone with a name called Wonderful? There are many names in the world but there is only One person whose name is called Wonderful. The prophet writing as to Judah, because that is Isaiah’s prophecy as bearing upon Judah, he says, “unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given”, unto us. In speaking to you tonight, I am conscious that He has come to us. I do not know if you could say that, but many here, most if not all, could say He has come to us, “unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder; and his name is called Wonderful”. When He was here they said of Him, “What sort of man is this, that even the winds and the sea obey him?” Matthew 8: 27. Was He not wonderful? He met that woman whose son was being carried out of the city, the widow of Nain, and He touched the bier, it says, and He spoke to the dead. Who could speak to the dead? “And the dead sat up”, Luke 7: 15. Is He not wonderful? Who else could have done it?
Opening up on to our view through that perfect pathway all that He carried in His affections; speaking to Nicodemus, speaking to the woman sitting by the well, speaking to the man of John 9 and the woman of John 8. He was opening up on to their view what was in His affections. Who else could do it? Is He not wonderful?
He was on a pathway which men never realised or appreciated, but He knew. He was coming in to accomplish for God a basis upon which the blessed God could secure a universe on the basis of redemption. He came to undo the works of the devil; who else could do it? Is He not wonderful? Think of all that the devil had done right down from the fall onwards, “by one man sin entered into the world, and by sin death; and thus death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned”, Romans 5: 12. But there was One who came to undo the works of the devil, even creation itself coming under the effect of the mighty work that He was going to accomplish, and He would provide for God a basis upon which a new creation would all be held in relation to God through the work that He was going to accomplish upon the cross.
And securing for God men who had lived many years ago and who had died in faith, whose eternal salvation rested upon what He was going to do, that God should pass by the sins that had taken place before (Romans 3: 25). How was it going to be? It was on the basis of what He was going to do for God, providing the blessed God with a righteous basis to come out and offer blessing to the whole world, offering it to men through the work of His own beloved Son. Who else could have done such a work, is He not wonderful? Providing a basis whereby all that was in the heart of God might be poured out in its unlimited character and known by men, and men be taken up in relation to it and secured for God. Is He not wonderful?
The gospel, dear friend, comes that you and I might not only be set free from what we were but that we might be secured and held for the blessed God, “Christ indeed has once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God”, 1 Peter 3: 18. That is in all its fulness, bringing us to God, not only as sinners saved by grace, thank God for that, but that He might bring us to God in the full thought of what was in God’s heart for men. He has provided the basis whereby the blessed God could secure men. No one else could do it but He alone. It says, “I have laid help upon a mighty one”, Psalm 89: 19. How mighty He is you know. One able to answer to God in His down-stooping in relation to the whole moral question that had come into the universe, and bear in Himself the judgment of God against sin, and provide a basis that the love of God might be known—how wonderful! The hymn writer says,
‘Then onward to the cross
Through toil, and grief, and loss,
The Man of sorrows wends His way’ (Hymn 245).
Publicly there was nothing wonderful in the eyes of men in Jesus. It says in Isaiah 53 there was no beauty in Him that we should desire Him; but I might say reverently that the blessed God could not take His eye off Him. He was the object of the blessed God’s attention right through that pathway to the cross, and perhaps we might say never more so as He went to the cross in perfect obedience; “by the disobedience of the one man the many have been constituted sinners”, that is where we are and have been, “so also by the obedience of the one the many will be constituted righteous”, Romans 5: 19. Think of the obedience of the Lord Jesus in going onwards to the cross in such a way that the blessed God would be glorified through His work and in His person.
He says anticipatively in John 17, “I have glorified thee on the earth” (John 17: 4). Have you glorified God on the earth? Has any man glorified God on the earth? unconverted man I am speaking of. He could say, “I have glorified thee on the earth, I have completed the work which thou gavest me that I should do it”. No one else could do it but He alone; He has done it and He has effected an eternal redemption. In His death and through the shedding of His precious blood, He has provided a basis whereby God can come out in forgiveness to the sinner. God is not forgiving sin tonight, dear friend, He is forgiving the sinner, and forgiving sins of persons who have put their faith in Him. He said, “Man, thy sins are forgiven thee”, Luke 5: 20. You think of God having a basis to come out in forgiveness. He has not forgiven sin, He could never do that. Sin was that which rose up in its opposition against the will of God, and it continues to do so in every aspect of men’s lives, but there is One who bore the judgment against sin in all its totality and exhausted that judgment there upon the cross. What it meant for Him to do so! That cry sounding out from the cross, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”, Psalm 22: 1. Dear friend, as you are passing through the world if we are left here tomorrow, remember those words when you see sin on every hand, remember what it cost the Saviour that sin should be judged. Take your bearings, dear young believer, not from the world, but from the cross and what was effected there for God; take your bearings from that. He exhausted God’s judgment against sin on the cross and in His burial He removed from before God the order of man that was offensive to God; but He has come out of it, glorious Saviour; He is wonderful.
He bears a name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee must bow. They will, Pilate will come, Herod will come and bow the knee to Jesus. They sought to belittle Him in their presence and make mockery of Him, and those men who spat upon His face and beat Him upon the head; God will see that the judgment is reversed, and in the very scene where the Lord Jesus was rejected, the blessed God will see to it that every knee will bow and acknowledge that He “is Lord to God the Father’s glory”, Philippians 2: 11. How glorious the work that He has done; every family named of the Father will come to know the Father on the basis of what Jesus has done, and even creation itself will feel the blessing of the sway of this glorious Person; He is great enough to be the Taker-away of the sin of the world, and to cause the moral sway of God to be known in the very place where sin has had dominion; how glorious, such a Person, such a work, surely His name must be Wonderful.
But it is not only Wonderful, He is Counsellor, and He would counsel you, dear friend, today where you are. Maybe you are unconverted and do not know Him. A brother who used to be local with us preached somewhere many years ago and someone came up to him after the preaching and said, ‘I have been breaking bread for fifty-five years and I am not saved’. You may be sitting here resting in a position and yet not saved, and He would come to you and counsel you like He did to Saul of Tarsus. He said, “it is hard for thee to kick against goads”, Acts 26: 14. You have sat under the sound of the preaching week in and week out. Is it not hard for thee? He felt for Saul. He was going to secure him. He felt for Saul putting up the barriers. Maybe that is what you have been doing. I can remember having done that, week after week my conscience was touched in such a way that I thought everyone in the room was hearing my heart beat. Maybe you have been like that. Yet Saul had had opportunities before.
He was present he says at the martyrdom of Stephen. But what an opportunity as the Counsellor drew near to him, shining in His radiance out of heaven. O, dear friend, I would appeal to you this afternoon. Do not go on without the Saviour. You are going on to a lost eternity. It is not in His heart that you should do so. You say I am all right, I do not need Him; do you not? I tell you He needs you, and you do need Him; you need Him more than anything else or more than anyone else, you need Jesus.
Why not open your heart to Him today? He has been knocking on the door of your heart in order that He might have a place there, and fill that heart like He did with the woman in John 4—what a Counsellor. He draws alongside of her, sitting there as He was by the well, what a Counsellor. He says, “Go, call thy husband”. She says, “I have not a husband”. O, He knew, He says, “Thou hast well said, I have not a husband; for thou hast had five husbands, and he whom now thou hast is not thy husband”, John 4: 17, 18. Dear friend, how many husbands have you had? Maybe you have thrown yourself into something, maybe sport, maybe your work, and it has become your husband. What a Counsellor. He was going to open up what was in His heart exposing what was in hers, not to condemn her, but that she might come to appreciate what was in His. There is no counsellor in the world like that. In our country we have what are called Queen’s Counsellors, they are specialists in the law. You go along by appointment only, and what impresses you is the grandeur of the office, the antique desk and the leather chair, and they give you some advice and you pay the bill and the case goes to court and the advice is overturned. It was not accurate and all that you are left with is the impression of the grandeur of the office and the incapability of the man. I want to tell you, dear friend, that this Counsellor’s advice has never been overturned. He is greater than His office, and He never charges because He has paid in full the price that you and I might come into the fulness of all that is in the heart of God.
You say, how can I come into it? Through “repentance towards God, and faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ”, Acts 20: 21. This blessed Person who is so wonderful, who has done everything for God, is the same blessed Person who can do everything for you; and if He has provided for God an eternal answer, He can provide for you an eternal salvation that can never be overthrown or questioned, because it is established in Himself a blessed and glorious living Man out of death. He is not only the One who has borne the judgment, blessed be His name, but the One who has provided the basis in the shedding of His precious blood that your sins might be fully washed away, never to be raised or questioned again. No one else could do that; He has done it Himself, He needed no help in it, He did it all. What He has done in His death will stand eternally. What He is in His glorified risen life will remain eternally. He lives in the power of an indissoluble life, never to be touched by death again. That life in all its intrinsic value to God remains in the appreciation of the Father’s heart. Nothing will ever spoil it. You and I can know what it is to have salvation through His precious blood, and know that eternally we are secured for ever, washed from our sins, and secured for ever for God’s greatest thoughts.
And not only that but we can be “saved in the power of his life”, Romans 5: 10. You say, What does that mean? Not only has eternal salvation been effected through His death and burial and rising again, but practical salvation can be known through His present life, we can be saved in the power of His life. O how wonderful He is! Does it not grow upon you as you think of Him, that no one else could have accomplished what He has done, and no one else could be what He is, glorious blessed Man, ever living to intercede for us! All the power of the throne is available to those who seek to be here for God, because there is a Man who is living to intercede that we might prove mercy and seasonable help. How we need it, we are needing it in this hour, seasonable help. Where is it coming from? It is coming from the throne of God. How is it coming? It is coming because there is a Man living there in the presence of God, living to intercede for us. What a Man, is He not wonderful, is He not glorious, dear friend? Do you know Him where He is?
I have met many persons who say that they know Him where He was, thank God for where He was. I ask you to soberly answer in your soul.
Do you know Him where He is at the right hand of God, and is that One who is at the right hand of God filling your affections? like He came to fill the affections of that woman in John 4 and she needed nothing else. She left her water-pot and said, “Come, see a man who told me all things I had ever done: is not he the Christ?”, John 4: 29. What a testimony. “They went out of the city and came to him”. I guess half an hour earlier they would not even have listened to her; they see her now without her water-pot. She is delivered from herself. There is a Man great enough to deliver you from yourself, to eclipse all that you might be in your own estimation and valuation; He is great enough to eclipse it all, so that you might leave your water-pot, that you might come to it, as that woman did in saying, He has “told me all things I had ever done”, so you also might come to it that you and I are but sinners, and what we are by nature has had to be removed, as well as our sins having to be removed. There is only One who could do it and He would draw alongside of you today.
Why do you not take Him into your affections and into your soul and have Him, dear friend, as your own personal Saviour and your own Deliverer? He would not only deliver us from the coming wrath, and deliver us from our sins, but deliver us from ourselves, that we might be here set up in the power of another life, and in another power altogether, the power of the blessed Holy Spirit. He says to that woman, “Every one who drinks of this water shall thirst again; but whosoever drinks of the water which I shall give him shall never thirst for ever”, John 4: 13, 14. Have you drunk of that water that He can give? The water that is capable of bringing into the soul such satisfaction. The Holy Spirit would shed abroad the love of God in your heart, as occupying you with another Man in another world. I would ask my own soul and yours, How well do you know the Holy Spirit? Is He a Person known to you, or is He Someone spoken about in the meetings and you know nothing about Him? The Lord Jesus coming to that woman in John 4 came to her that she might receive the gift of the Holy Spirit typically, and that she might be set up as a worshipper. You know, it is only satisfied persons that can worship, persons who are set free from themselves, delivered from what they are in the light of what Christ is. The Holy Spirit would help us to have power to be delivered from what I am, and to be set up in the power of all that Christ is for God and for me. The Deliverer is Jesus, but the power for deliverance lies in the Holy Spirit.
I say to you, dear young soul, who may be sitting here and who has sat here for three days, the Lord Jesus takes account of that and He values that, but He would desire that you might come to know for yourself the Person and the power of the gift of the Holy Spirit. He is given to believers. In the old dispensation the oil was placed upon the blood in order that the priests might move forward in heavenly dignity. That is what is in view in the reception of the gift of the Holy Spirit, that the believer might move forward in heavenly dignity. It was upon the right ear and the thumb of the right hand and the great toe of the right foot. The Holy Spirit would help you in what you listen to as the Unction; He would help you in what you are listening to. He would help you as to what you put your hand to; He would desire that you might receive power to put your hand to the divine service. He would help you in where you walk, that you might walk as a son in the dignity of the anointing. How full is all that the Holy Spirit is effecting!
The Lord Jesus is the mighty God and all that He has done will stand and will stand eternally.
How mighty He is, the One who has effected redemption. As another has said, The Man that died is and was and ever will be God; He remains that. We have been speaking of nearness to Christ, a place with Him, but we must always remember that the One of whom we are speaking is none less than the mighty God, and yet He came to effect my salvation
and yours. What wonderful grace. Mr. A. J. Gardiner said that when John wrote in his gospel,
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God ... All things received being through him, and without him not one thing received being which has received being” (John 1: 1–3), John would say, ‘And He stooped to wash my feet’. Such a glorious Person, the mighty God, and yet He stooped to wash my feet. O, how we love Him, do we not? Those who know Him love Him. Maybe, dear friend, this is just another preaching to you, but I tell you there are persons here whose heart goes out to you.
He is the Father of eternity, Father of the age. He will come into His rights in the day to come, and in that day think of the tenderness of His own service. The little child, it says, shall play by the hole of the adder, there will be no danger. The tenderness of the touch of Christ, the Father of the age, will be known throughout the millennial day but it can be known now.
It says, “I gently caused them to eat” (Hosea 11: 4); He will gently do it. Think of the tenderness of the Father of the age. He would protect you through life’s exigencies. He is available to you. I do not know how persons get on who have not got Jesus. We see witness of it, persons taking their own lives because they cannot face life any more. How could you stand to face life without Him? He would guide you through life’s difficulties that may come in in God’s ordering. They are divinely ordered. You say, Why? I seem to get one thing after another, in our bodies, in our circumstances, in our work, it is just one thing after another, why? Because He loves you and He is forming His own work in the soul that will stand eternally, and He is doing it through His disciplinary ways, the Father’s ways. It says, “shall we not much rather be in subjection to the Father of spirits, and live?”, Hebrews 12: 9. He is forming our spirits; the Lord Jesus is with us in such circumstances that our spirits might take character from His. The Spirit of His Son strengthening us as we move through this very scene that our spirits might take character from the Lord Jesus. Think of the wonder of it that God should have given “the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father”, Galatians 4: 6.
He says, “I do always the things that are pleasing to him”, John 8: 29. What a Man, how wonderful, what a “Counsellor, Mighty God, Father of Eternity, Prince of Peace”.
That will soon be witnessed over the earth. There is not peace now, this nation knows that as does every nation. There is only One who can bring peace. You say, I would like to go out and make the world a better place. I would ask you one question, Do you think you could do today what Christ is waiting to do tomorrow? You could not do it. Many believers, and we do not speak critically of them, but many of them go out thinking they will make the world a better place, but they are trying to do today what He is waiting to do tomorrow; He will do it on the basis of what He has done on the cross. He is the Taker-away of the sin of the world; no one else could have done that. What He did at the cross He will put into effect when He comes again; it says He will come with healing in His wings. The same blessed Person who desires to be your Saviour, is the same blessed Person who is going to bring peace to the earth. He will bring it, not on men’s terms, but He will bring it through righteousness. What a scene, when righteousness will reign upon the earth (where death and unrighteousness reign now) but it will be present through One blessed Man who is wonderful.
His name is called “Wonderful, Counsellor, Mighty God, Father of Eternity, Prince of Peace”. Who called Him that? The gospel goes out, dear friend, that you might call Him that, that you might come to appreciate Him yourself, to know that glorious Name; and to find that everything for God has been done on the immutable basis that can never be shaken, that everything for you has been done by that same blessed Person, and all that He is now as a glorious living Man at the right hand of
God may be yours, and all the blessings that are in the heart of that blessed God might be yours through the acceptance of the Lord Jesus into your heart. You say it sounds too simple to be true. Dear friend, it is so simple for you but it was so hard, if I might say carefully, for Him that it might be true for you. He suffered so much that no one else could know,
‘Suff’rings unfathomed for us hast Thou known’ (Hymn 4), we sometimes sing. That was the basis of it all. I say to you, dear friend, just accept Him. He is knocking maybe on the door of your heart today, just accept Him. Let Him come in and acknowledge Him as your Saviour and Lord, and find the blessings that He brings with Him, which are beyond anything that you could imagine. May you accept Him for yourself. For His name’s sake.
Preaching at Denton, Texas
7 March 2004