I . THE PERSONAL GLORY OF CHRIST HIS DEITY
John 1: 1-18; 1 John 5: 20-21; John 1: 27-34;
Colossians 1: 15-20; Hebrews 1
What I have before me in the present address, and in the future ones that may follow, if the Lord permit, is to set forth the great fundamental truths of Christianity—and what moves me to desire thus to do, is the fact that all these great fundamental truths are being called in question and denied to a very large extent in Christendom today by those who are professedly Christian ministers. There is a great flood of infidelity passing over Christendom at the present time, and, unless saints are established in the present truth, they are in great danger of being swept off their feet. Many a one has been carried away by it, we are all in danger of it, and it is not enough to receive the truth in a traditional way, as that which we have been brought up to believe, as that which is commonly taught and held amongst us. It is a great mercy to us that we should have been brought up in this way, and that we should be found amongst those who acknowledge the truth, and where the truth is ministered continually; but this is not sufficient, the truth must be received and held in our own faith, and not as from somebody else. Unless our souls are established and founded in the truth, we are very liable to be swept away by the great flood of infidelity. Satan is most active by these means in preparing men to receive the antichrist, the man of sin who is about to come, and when he comes he will be received by the great mass of professing Christians—I mean those that are left when the Lord has come and gathered all His own to Himself, when all true believers will be taken out of this world, then shall that wicked one be revealed.
On the other hand, it is well to recognise another blessed fact, and that is that the Lord is active today in preparing the hearts of His people to look for Him, to receive and welcome Him when He comes. “The coming of the Lord draweth nigh”, Jas 5: 8. If I think of what Satan is doing on the one hand, and of what the Lord is doing on the other in preparing the hearts of His people, I say the coming of the Lord must be very nigh. It is not far off, and it is important for us that our hearts should be prepared to say, “Even so, come, Lord Jesus”, Rev 22: 20.
I mean by the fundamentals of Christianity, the truth as to the Person of the Christ, the truth as to His Manhood, the truth as to His death and resurrection, and the truth as to His ascension as Man into heaven into the glory of God, His coming again, and, lastly, the gift of the Spirit. Those are what I consider to be the great fundamental facts on which the whole truth of Christianity is based.
First of all, and most important of all, is the truth as to the Person of the Christ. If souls lose the Person, they have lost everything. The apostle says in that last verse I read, “Little children, keep yourselves from idols”, 1 John 5: 21. Now, there are thousands of persons today in Christendom who are idolaters though professing to honour Christ—to serve Christ—to worship Christ, but the Christ they have before them is the Christ of their own imagination. They have settled in their own minds an idea of what Christ is, and it is a false Christ. It is not the Christ of God, nor of Scripture. They are worshipping a false Christ, and a false God, because, if souls have not the true Christ, they have lost God.
Now I say solemnly, there are thousands of people today professedly worshipping Christ, and they are idolaters, it is not the Christ of God. Everything depends on the knowledge of the Person; His own personal glory, and that is what I have before me tonight, and we have the most definite statement here in the first chapter of John’s gospel. The divine glory of the Son of God shines out in every chapter of this gospel. John says, “I saw, and bare record that this is the Son of God” (John 1: 34), and the Son of God in John’s writings is a divine Person in Manhood, it is God in a Man. That is the thought of John when he speaks of the “Son of God”. So he introduces the gospel in this way: “In the beginning was the Word” (John 1: 1); the beginning of anything that ever did begin. We cannot grasp it, but if you will carry your minds back as far as ever you may, and think of anything that began to be, at that moment when everything else began to be, “He was”. He did not begin to be, He was God from everlasting to everlasting, the Eternal One, the Son. Then he says, “All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made”, John 1: 3. We could not think of anything more definite than that—as the Word, He is the living exponent of the mind of God. That is how it is seen in this gospel. “The same was in the beginning”—a divine Person.
Now what is characteristic in Christianity is that God is revealed in three persons: The Father, the Son, and the Spirit. Each of those three Persons is equally God, and the word often used in the Old Testament for “God” is Elohim, which signifies three persons. “Let us make man in our image”, Gen 1: 26.
But then it says, “All things were made by him”. Whatever has come into being, has come into being through Him and by Him. God created all things by Jesus Christ. In this chapter (and in what I may read afterwards in Hebrews and Colossians) creation is attributed to the Son, the One we speak of as the second Person of the Trinity. “All things were made by him”, and He is the Originator of all that God has created, so that as we sing of Him,
Heaven and earth alike confess
Thee as the ever great I AM
“The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament showeth his handiwork”, Ps 19: 1.
There are three things declared in this chapter that could be only declared of a divine Person: “The Word became flesh” came into man’s estate, that divine Person was pleased to enter into human condition. The Word was not made, but “became flesh and dwelt among us”, John 1: 14. Then follow the three things I have referred to.
First, (v 18): “No man hath seen God at any time, the only begotten Son” (there could be no mistake who that is), “who is in the bosom of the Father” (He was just as much in the bosom of the Father when in this world of sin and evil as in eternity), “he hath declared him”. That is what no creature could do; no man, no prophet, no angel could declare God. The One who could fully express God must be Himself God: He could not be anything else than God if He was to express Him as He has done, and that was the first great thing in connection with His coming into Manhood, so that He should bring the light of God to men’s hearts. In His ministry He declared God, and He was Himself the living expression of what He ministered. I am “altogether (He says) that which I also say unto you”, John 8: 25.
Now again in the 29th verse John says, “Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world”. Who could undertake that work? Do you think any creature could take up the question of sin in relation to God, and take it up in such a way as to completely take sin out of God’s world? Here is One great enough to take up that question of sin, and remove it for ever. Who is He? Is He merely a man? Ah! He is God in a Man; He is a divine Person, and if you have a sense of what sin is and how it affects God, and what is involved in taking sin out of the world, I think you will acknowledge that none but a divine Person could undertake that work! John bare testimony to this, saying, “Behold the Lamb of God”, the Lamb that God provided. It involved, as we know, His death, the sacrifice of Himself to make expiation for sin, to meet divine claims, which was the foundation on which He will ultimately take sin out of the world. Thank God, that work has been done. He said, “I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do”, John 17: 4. Who “offered himself without spot to God”, Heb 9: 14. He entered into Manhood that He might die, bear the judgment of sin, and on the ground of redemption establish a universe for God, where sin will never enter. Now that is the second thing that is predicated of Him, and could only be true of a divine Person.
Thirdly, John says, “I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it abode upon him. And I knew him not: but he that sent me to baptise with water, the same said unto me, Upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending, and remaining on him, the same is he which baptiseth with the Holy Ghost”, John 1: 32, 33. Could an angel do this? Or an archangel? None but a divine Person, surely, could accomplish this, it is the Son of God who only could baptise with the Holy Ghost. The effect will be that He will bring men under the influence of all that has been revealed of God. The Spirit was outpoured at Pentecost, but when an individual really receives the testimony of God, he receives the Holy Ghost personally, and in that way comes under the outpouring of the Spirit of God, and what is the effect of this? The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts. What has been revealed of God is made good in our souls; the work of Christ is made good to us through the reception of the Holy Ghost. There is a day coming when “I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh” (Acts 2: 17), and all men will be brought under the power of the Holy Ghost, and thus under the power of the love of God, and the world, the universe of God will become filled with the blessing of God, and every intelligent being will respond to what God is. “That God may be all in all”, 1 Cor 15: 28.
Well, now, who is going to bring that about? This wonderful and divine Person, surely. These three things are predicated of Him as showing definitely His Divine glory:—
He reveals God;
Takes away sin; and
Baptises with the Holy Ghost.
Colossians 1: 19 is better read: “For in him all the fulness of the Godhead was pleased to dwell”.
Now the great danger of the Colossian saints was being robbed of Christ through the teaching of the philosophers of the day, Judaising teaching as well. Therefore the apostle in this chapter enlarges very much on the greatness of the One who is the Head, and speaks of Him as the One “who is the image of the invisible God”, chap 1: 15. A Person who is the exact representation of the invisible God, for in Him “all the fulness of the Godhead was pleased to dwell”, v 19. God in Himself is invisible; He is a Spirit that no man has seen, or can see, but here is One who is the “image of the invisible God”. God has become visible to us in the Person of Christ. The apostle says to Timothy, “God was manifest in the flesh” (1 Tim 3: 16), so that in Him we have the full expression of God. He says “the firstborn of every creature”, Col 1: 15. That is when He became man. As Man coming into the creation, He must necessarily have the first place in it, and He gives the reason why He is “the firstborn of every creature: for by him were all things created”. What a wonderful thing that is! The Creator was pleased to come into the Creation in the form of a Man, that He might reconcile all things to God. “He is before all things”, v 17. If He created all things, then He must necessarily be “before all things, and by him all things consist”, and none but God could maintain these things. Then he goes on to say, “For in him all the fulness of the Godhead was pleased to dwell”. That which had to be accomplished could only be accomplished in that way. All things are reconciled to itself (v 20), that is to the Godhead. Everything has been put out of order by sin, the throne of God has been dishonoured, not only on earth, but also in heaven (in heaven through the pride and fall of Satan). God has a remedy in His mind—a blessed Person who was great enough to take up the whole question as to what sin had done. “Having made peace”, he says, “through the blood of his cross”. It is wonderful that this reconciliation of all things depends upon the blood of His cross. He has made peace (not our peace), but peace in connection with the throne of God, and here is One who has made peace, has removed the disturbing elements, and established the throne of God in righteousness and peace. In the end of Luke’s gospel, when there was no longer peace on earth, they sang “peace in heaven”, chap 19: 38. In another scripture He says, “Think not that I am come to send peace on earth; I come not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law”, Matt 10: 34. But there is peace in heaven.
How great the value of that blood! Do you think the blood of any mere creature could establish anything like that? No, it was none less than this One who has made peace and removed from before God all the disturbing elements, and only awaits the time when He will come forth in power, and establish the whole of God’s universe, and bring about a world in which God will find His rest for ever and ever. This you get prefigured in the day of atonement in Israel when the high priest carried in the blood and sprinkled it on the mercy-seat, and then from that point came forth and reconciled the tabernacle, the figure of the universe. How great and glorious the Person who undertakes to reconcile all things to God.
The blood is on the mercy-seat so that God can look out now and carry on His blessed will, nothing can stand in the way of God accomplishing every iota of His will, and He owes it all to this glorious Person. There is a verse in the second chapter which puts it as a present fact, “in him dwells all the fulness of the Godhead bodily”, Col 2: 9. The first chapter speaks of what is past, and the second chapter speaks of what is true now in Him as Man in heaven—“in him dwells all the fulness”. The fulness of God dwelling in a Man! It is too great for our finite minds, but we can believe it and accept it. To deny it is to deny the Christ of God.
The object of the Spirit of God in setting forth the glory of the Person here is to emphasise the greatness of that which God is speaking today. The Jewish system was established on what was spoken by Moses. Judaism was a divine system, and these Jewish believers found it very difficult to break away from the system that had been established by God, and to embrace the glad tidings of the grace of God, and therefore the apostle lays such stress on the greatness of the Person by whom God is speaking today, and he says in the next chapter, if those who despised the word of God in the past received a just recompense of reward, “how shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation; which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed unto us by them that heard him”. Now in order to call attention to the greatness and importance of what God is speaking today (not by Moses or the prophets) but by the Son, He says, “Who being the brightness of his glory”, the effulgence of the glory of God. A Man, a blessed Man, and yet so great in His Person that he could be the effulgence of the glory of God; every ray and every part of divine glory shone out in that blessed Person. The express image of His Person, corresponding to what we were considering in Colossians, and upholding all things by the word of His power. This is Jesus, the One we know as Jesus, the Christ our Lord! How glorious He is!
Why do not these great orbs we see in the heavens come into collision with each other? They are held by the word of His power. There is a Man in heaven who upholds all things by the word of His power. It says, “having made by himself the purification of sins, set himself down”, as One who had a divine title, on the throne of the majesty in the heavens; having accomplished the work, He Himself goes back and takes that place which was His from eternity. Would any creature dare to do that? or any angel? or archangel? He came down to do the will of God on the earth, and having done it, He went back, and sat Himself down at the right hand of the majesty on high. When it is a question simply of what He had done as Man, God answers it by raising Him from the dead and exalting Him, but that is not the point here, as it is the desire of the apostle to bring out the greatness of the Person, the One who could go back and set Himself down on the right hand of the majesty on high.
In this chapter the apostle established the truth of His personal glory as the Son, by quotations from the Psalms, but it is remarkable that they all apply to Him in Manhood; God addressing Him as Man. He was always the Same, the same Eternal One, the I AM from eternity. As He said to the Jews—“Before Abraham was, I am”, John 8: 58. It is in the estate of manhood that all these passages are addressed to Him. “Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever”, Ps 45: 6. He is the Same, yesterday, today, and for ever. Foolish and ignorant men are ashamed to acknowledge the divinity of this Person. Speaking of all that He created, it says, “They shall perish, but thou shalt endure; yea, all of them shall wax old like a garment, and as a vesture shalt thou change them … But thou art the same”, Ps 102: 26. The apostle Peter says the “heavens shall pass away with a great noise”, 2 Pet 3: 10. The One who created them, will roll them up as a scroll to make room for a new heavens and a new earth, and God will then have all His rest and pleasure eternally. He is the “I AM ” of the Old Testament, as He says to the unbelieving Jews, “Before Abraham was, I AM”. “The Same” is another form of it. This is the Christ of God, this is Jesus; this is the One whom God has made Lord and Christ. You may say you love the Lord Jesus, but what is He to you? A mere man? The Lord Jesus to me is God over all, blessed for ever more. I think of Him coming down in His love unto man’s estate and taking my place in death, but that Blessed Man is God over all, blessed for evermore. We own Him as such, we worship Him as such. Is this the Christ you have? If not, you have a false Christ, and thousands have. God deliver every one of us from it. This blessed Person is One who is God over all, blessed for ever. Amen.