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A PREPARED BODY AND A PREPARED PLACE

THE FOUNDATION OF THE GOSPEL

David Robertson

I thought to speak, firstly, of the foundation of the glad tidings. That would be chapter 3 of Romans. Then, in chapter 5, I would like to draw attention to the administration of the glad tidings: and in chapter 8 to the result of them.

It is a wonderful thing to have some apprehension of the foundation of the glad tidings. The psalmist says that He has established His foundation "in the mountains of holiness", Ps 87: 1. Everything for God, and, indeed, everything that God has in mind for man, is established on the redemptive work of Christ: that is the basis upon which God is operating in blessing towards man. The foundation has been laid in the redemptive work of Christ. I think that to understand the glory of the redemptive work of Christ, we must first of all have an understanding and an appreciation of the Redeemer Himself. I think John in the beginning of John's gospel - we were struck with that in the home this morning - was one who had an appreciation of the glory of the Redeemer: "Behold the Lamb of God." What language!

No doubt, as divinely impressed, John makes that exclamation: "Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world." I think he apprehended through the work of God in his soul the glory of Christ as the Redeemer, the glory of the One who could work a work that would satisfy the claims of a holy God with respect to the whole moral issue. What a wonderful glory for a person to have in his soul! God intends that you should have it in your soul, an apprehension of the glory of Christ as the Redeemer, ''the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world." John says, "Behold" and that is God's language and that is the preacher's language: "Behold the Lamb of God." If there is to be glory for God, if God's rights have to be maintained and established in the face of what had come in through sin, if man is to be brought into blessing by God, there must be a Redeemer, and that is the glory of the One whom John sees. He says, "Behold the Lamb of God."

I often wonder what John actually saw at that moment. It says, "looking at Jesus as he walked." How that walk must have conveyed something to him! The Lord Jesus was not here casually. David says at one point, no doubt typically of Christ, "Was it not laid upon me?" (1 Sam 17: 29). That is, David felt obligation that God had pressed upon him, but how much more the Lord Jesus felt the obligation that was placed upon Him as in manhood. We think of that typical language, and how the Lord would use it to affect our own hearts, "Was it not laid upon me?" Something of that must have laid hold of the soul of John. Here was the One who was able to glorify God with respect to all that had come in as the result of sin and here was the One who, through the effective character of His work on the cross of Calvary, could remove sin from before the sight of God, and finally give God the basis to remove it from the universe; but in the meantime, also to give God the righteous basis to bless His creature. John apprehended that glory: "Behold the Lamb of God."

And so in Romans chapter three, God is setting Him forth. It says, "being justified freely by his grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus; whom God has set forth a mercy-seat, through faith in his blood." God sets forth Christ as "a mercy-seat, through faith in his blood" in the light of an accomplished work. The glory of that work, its perfect value, stands in the sight of God - the work of Christ on the cross. How He has glorified God at tremendous cost to Himself with respect to the removal of sin! The whole matter has been dealt with thoroughly. If it had not been, there could be no blessing for man, and God would not have been glorified. Jesus Himself testifies from His own lips in that unique moment when He said, "It is finished." It is the glorious witness of the Accomplisher Himself that there was a work accomplished that glorified God. What a work it is! It is the foundation of everything for God and of the blessing of God for man. Who else could have done it? It says, God has "laid help upon a mighty one" Ps 89: 19. There were two things that had to mark the redeemer: one was that He had to be mighty; the other is that He had to be wealthy. That is Boaz. It says he was "a mighty man of wealth", Ruth 2: 1, and these are the features that Christ brought into manhood. He was mighty, that is, He had the ability, the power morally because of who He is and because of what He was in the spotlessness of His manhood, to take up the whole question of sin and glorify God in the judgment of it. He is not only mighty, but He was also wealthy. Paul speaks of ''the glad tidings of the unsearchable riches of the Christ", Eph 3: 8. And also to accomplish redemption, He had to draw near to man. That is another glory that comes out in the book of Ruth, that the redeemer had to be a kinsman, and we know a Kinsman Redeemer, One who in His own Person is God and ever will be God. As the scripture says ''who is over all, God blessed for ever", Rom 9: 5, and yet He stoops into manhood to be the Redeemer. He became a man in order to redeem man, not only to redeem man in the sense that He would extricate him from the evil and the bondage in which he was held, but to redeem man as a vessel for the pleasure of God. As we quoted yesterday, that beautiful verse in Revelation 5: He has redeemed us to God. It is "out of every tribe, and tongue, and people, and nation", v 9. The new universe will reflect the glory of that work. What a witness it will be eternally to the glory of the completed work of Christ at the cross of Calvary! Well, that is the great foundation. All God's operations are founded on it. Everything that God does is sound and Christianity is sound, and those who are brought into the blessing of Christianity are blessed on sound ground, established ground, and Christ is the One who has established it.

Now, that work is completed. What it cost the Saviour! Who could ever estimate it? Who could ever fathom it? Those words, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" Matt 27: 46 - who could explain the depths involved in them? Who could comprehend the feelings of the Saviour when He was abandoned in those three hours of darkness? Who could enter into them? Our hearts should be touched by the way God has had to move to reach us, to extricate us from our sinful state and to secure us for His own glory. The Lord Jesus had to go this way and suffer at the hands of God without any pity. What a thought! What a contemplation! Let it be appreciated by us! A heart that can say, Yes, I know why He was forsaken? He was forsaken that I might never be forsaken. It says in one scripture, as to those who reject the gospel, "who shall pay the penalty of everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord", 2 Thess 1: 9. What a thing that is! There is no need for it. The Saviour has paid the price.

He has paid the price that you might be brought into the knowledge of the love of God, into the fulness of the blessing that God has in His heart for you. Oh, that each of us, young and old would be affected by the sufferings of the Saviour, what He endured at the hand of God, then what He removed from the sight of God as He goes into death and burial!

After He died, He shed His blood. There is wonderful teaching in these things. The contrast between the blood-shedding of the animals in the Old Testament (a figure of the death of Christ) and the actual shedding of Christ's blood is to be noted. All these animals died by blood-shedding. The Lord's blood was shed after He died. No man took His life from Him. He laid down His life of Himself, and the blood came forth as a witness of the love of God for man:

'Though man in hatred pierced Thy side,

Thy blood love's answer gave.' (Hymn 230)

What an answer to the hatred of man was the shedding of the blood of Jesus.

The Lord goes into the grave, and all that sinful history was removed from the sight of God, put out of sight. The work was complete and He arose triumphant from the grave. We had that this morning, a wonderful sense of triumph in our souls: the Lord was out of death! What a thing it is to apprehend it and be affected by it! Death could not hold Him. He is out of it. Now, as a risen Saviour, God sets Him forth "a mercy-seat, through faith in his blood." It is a risen Saviour that is set forth as a mercy-seat. The work has been completed. The whole question of sin has been disposed of to the satisfaction and glory of a holy God and there is such a foundation laid that He is now "set forth a mercy-seat", a place where God can meet and where He can bless the sinner and where He can secure man for His own glory. What a work the work of the Saviour is! It says, "whom God has set forth a mercy-seat, through faith in his blood." Faith in the Person is one thing and absolutely essential, but you need also faith in His blood. Can you point to it when the enemy assails you and when you are attacked by the sceptics, attacked by the mockers? Can you point and say, There is the blood of Jesus: my faith is in it. God's eye looks on it. It was put once on the mercy-seat, and seven times before it. God's eye was upon it. These cherubim looking down: there was the abiding testimony there in the blood on the mercy-seat that God was perfectly satisfied with the settling of the moral issue. Then it is not only on the mercyseat, but it is seven times before it. It speaks of the fulness of its value manward, to bring man into blessing. What a precious thing it is, faith in the Person and faith in His blood.

It is absolutely solid. The psalmist says, "If the foundations be destroyed, what shall the righteous do?" Ps 11: 3. The foundation can never be removed. This foundation is established in the light and the glory of the sacrificial work of Christ and it is established for eternity. Not only would it operate for the establishment of man's blessing eternally, but it will be there and upon it will stand the whole new world.

So I point to that so that our faith might be assured. The sinner needs the gospel of relief, but the believer needs the gospel of assurance and we need it often. There is nothing assures the soul but to look and see the great basis on which God has brought you into blessing, and that is the basis that Christ has established through His sacrificial work. I wanted to touch on chapter 5. You will find everything in chapter 5 is ''through our Lord Jesus Christ." Not only is He the Accomplisher of this great foundational work, but He is the Administrator of the glad tidings. Christ is now up there. He is on high. Many believers are not really consciously aware of where the Lord Jesus is. They know very little of an ascended Christ. Another great feature of the gospel is that it brings you into the faith of the ascension of Christ, that Christ is now in the presence of God. His might established the basis - God "laid help upon a mighty one" - but I think in His wealth He operates this great administrative system of blessing. That is the glad tidings of God "concerning his Son ... Jesus Christ our Lord" Rom 1: 3,4. Christ is the great Administrator of it.

We have often been reminded of the richness of His administration and the proof of it is that His first great administrative act when He went into heaven was to send down the Spirit. It is the proof of the wealth of the Administrator. That is, He sends down the greatest blessing of God for man. Wonderful thing that! It is a great thing to apprehend in your soul that the greatest blessing that God has in mind for men is the gift of the Holy Spirit. Through the dispensation He continues to administer. It is a living matter: it is in the hands of the true Joseph in this sense, one who is the Sustainer of life, the Saviour of the world, the Revealer of secrets. The administration is in His hands and He is administering the wealth of the glad tidings. No wonder Paul says it is ''the glad tidings of the unsearchable riches of the Christ." I want to point out that His administration is meaningful. It is not just that He is broadcasting blessing everywhere like the showers of blessing the scripture speaks about. That is true: there are showers of blessing coming down. But it is meaningful. That is, the Lord Jesus considers for man, takes account of man as affected by sin. There are three things that I see in this chapter, three effects that have come upon man as the result of sin, and the Lord as the Administrator meets them. The first thing is that sin brought in disturbance. It brought dislocation of the relationship between man and God and the relationship between man and man. So you find a man slaying his brother very early in scripture. It is all the result of sin, the disturbance that sin has brought in. But what is the Administrator's answer to disturbance? ''Therefore having been justified on the principle of faith, we have peace towards God." He would bring you into this great matter of "peace towards God." He would dispel the disturbance that may exist in your heart. Eventually in the world to come He will dispel the whole disturbance, He is doing it in individuals like you and me. Instead of the disturbance, He would have you to have "peace towards God." "Therefore having been justified on the principle of faith, we have peace towards God through our Lord Jesus Christ".

The next thing is in verse 11; you find that sin has brought in not only disturbance, but distance, and the Lord Jesus feels that. He Himself, of course, went into the distance to remove it, not to bridge it. He has effected the great work of reconciliation. He has done that in His death. We are told that in this very chapter that we are "reconciled ... through the death of his Son", v 10. What an affecting thought! But think of how the Lord Jesus is affected by seeing a person at a distance from God. What is the answer to it? "And not only that, but we are making our boast in God, through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom now we have received the reconciliation." These are persons who know that the distance has all gone. Has it happened in your history? Have you received ''the reconciliation", not received reconciliation merely, but received ''the reconciliation" because there is no other. It is ''the reconciliation." That is what meets the distance and God would bring you out of the distance. That is what He is doing: He is bringing the Gentiles out of the distance. It says He has opened up a door of faith to the Gentiles. He has done that, that the Gentiles might be brought out of their distance and that those of us who were afar off might be brought nigh. How wonderfully this great Administrator of the glad tidings is operating in the work of the glad tidings, removing the effects of sin in the history of persons. If it be disturbance, He will give you "peace towards God"; if it be you are feeling your distance, He will bring you out of it; and through Him you will receive ''the reconciliation", brought in not only to have peace with God, but to have a near relation with God, to be near to God. That is the glory of reconciliation. It is a wonderful matter.

Then in the last verses we read, it says, "But law came in, in order that the offence might abound; but where sin abounded, grace has overabounded, in order that, even as sin has reigned in the power of death..." - ''the power of death": that is the next result of sin I want to speak of. Sin brought death in. It was the penalty that God imposed because of sin coming into the world. How would the Administrator meet that? The great Administrator takes account of man and that penalty lies upon him. Of course, the Lord Jesus bore the penalty or else He could not relieve us of its pressure. Nevertheless, death is inevitable. It is the wages of sin. It is a solemn thing: "For the wages of sin is death", Rom 6: 23. You see the efforts of men medically and you admire them in their effort to save life, but the truth is that "the wages of sin is death." Those wages must be paid. It is a solemn matter. It comes to the old and to the young: it touches the rich and the poor. It is inescapable. The poet had some sense of it when he said, 'The paths of glory lead but to the grave.' But the Administrator takes account of all that and He is able for it because of the work He accomplished, because of the glorious fact that He has abolished the power of death. He is able to give you something that is far greater than death. What is that? It is eternal life.

I see these are the three things in this chapter: disturbance is met by the Administrator bringing you into the joy of "peace towards God"; distance is met by being brought into the joy of ''the reconciliation"; and death is met, the believer is delivered from its terror and given eternal life that can be enjoyed in the very scene where death meets us. As the word says here, "So also grace might reign through righteousness to eternal life..." How? - ''through Jesus Christ our Lord." I wonder if you have ever come under the hands of this Administrator. He longs to lay His hand upon you, to claim you for Himself, and for God. To pour in, because of the wealth that He has, all the fulness of the blessing that God has in mind that you should be brought Into. He is the "mighty man of wealth." How rich the glad tidings are!

I suggest that in chapter 8 we have the result. It is the great chapter of the Spirit. I trust each of us here know what it is to be consciously indwelt by the Spirit. It is a great blessing to have the Holy Spirit. It is the greatest of all blessings. It must be because it involves the reception of a divine Person. I trust everyone here is indwelt by the Holy Spirit. It is a sad thing if a believer is without the Holy Spirit. The great proposal of God in the glad tidings is to give man the gift of the Holy Spirit. That is the greatest of all God's proposals. So it says here, "For ye have not received a spirit of bondage again for fear, but “ye have received a spirit of adoption." It is a reference to the Holy Spirit, a spirit of adoption." So we are delivered from fear too, delivered from bondage, "but ye have received a spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father." It thrills my soul that verse, that you and I can take up that language. It is part of the vocabulary of the glad tidings, that the believer is brought into such a state and given such a power in the Holy Spirit that he can use such language, language used by the Lord Jesus Himself. The believer takes up this language and he cries out of the fulness of the joy of his soul, "Abba, Father." You are brought to the fountainhead. The Father represents the Source in the economy. The believer is not left disturbed, at a distance, under the fear of death through the administration of the "mighty man of wealth." He finds that the effects of sin can all be overcome, and he is brought into a position where his soul is so full that there is an outflow to God, from a satisfied heart. An outflow that satisfies the heart of God!

So the foundation of the glad tidings, how unchangeable, how fixed it is! How fine it is to have your feet upon it! The psalmist says, "And he brought me up ... out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock", Ps 40: 2. I trust all our feet are set upon this rock, that there is no doubt, no fear that we are saved. It is a great matter to be sure of it, not that you might be saved but you are saved. Are we all standing on this imperishable foundation? It says of the Lord Jesus that He has established "an eternal redemption", Heb 9: 12. That is the ground we need to be standing on, and then your soul filled with the administration, what comes from the richness of the One who administers the glad tidings. What an Administrator He is, ''through our Lord Jesus Christ", then the gift of the Spirit, and leading on to the great result of the glad tidings, that there are worshippers secured for God.

Well, may God bless the word for His Name's sake.

COLCHESTER

20 April 1997

A PREPARED BODY AND A PREPARED PLACE

James Marshall

Hebrews 10: 5-7; John 14: 1-3

I would just seek help, beloved brethren, to say something in regard to a prepared body and a prepared place. We had no part in these two preparations. The prepared body - you might say the curtains pulled back to give us a view of the greatness of divine counsel of which it was said, "thou hast prepared me a body." This was God's approach to man. Man could not prepare himself to approach God, so God devised a way whereby He could approach man, in a body. It meant limitations, but the limitations that were expressed in it brought forth the wisdom of God. It involved the incarnation and even in the incarnation you see that there is preparation as well, not our preparation, but divine preparation, in regard to this One who was coming in to do the will of God. Divine preparation is a wonderful matter. Think of what surrounded the incarnation! There were persons who were filled with the Holy Spirit in regard to the incoming of the Lord Jesus as a babe. I think it would be fair to say that where the babe lay was a prepared place. He was found in a manger, a prepared place. It brings before us God's approach to man. How lowly, how wise, how impressive! Simeon took the babe into his arms, and he blessed God and said, ''for mine eyes have seen thy salvation, which thou hast prepared" (Luke 2: 30,31). And he blessed God. He did not bless Mary and Joseph. He blessed God. He realised the source behind the incoming of that lowly babe.

The body that was prepared had not in mind only the incarnation: it was in regard to the accomplishment of the will of God. That is what lay behind it. "Lo, I come (in the roll of the book it is written of me) to do, O God, thy will." Think of those feelings that were expressed before the revelation of God, and how they came to pass when the revelation began, the fulness of the time began, God's approach to man. But it involved the will of God. There was no other equal to accomplishing the will of God: it all came from the divine side: "but thou hast prepared me a body." No other could do this: no other was able for it. But there was One that was able for it and that, as we all know, involved the cross where the will of God was accomplished. Further down it says, "by which will we have been sanctified though the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all", v 10 -the body again: "the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all." This was something done, and it never needs to be repeated. It was done "once for all". How God must have looked forward to this, that there was going to be something done and it would supersede everything that had gone before. Wondrous, glorious matter, what was done on the cross! Something was done at the cross, a completed work! I venture to say that it was not only the cross; it was resurrection; it was ascension; because He sat down at the right hand of God. When? After His work was completed: He completed work and sat down at the right hand of God.

I just feel touched with this matter of a body being prepared. It was not compulsion; it was love! It was love that brought this body into expression. It was love that took this Man, this beloved Man, to the cross. I think you need only to read Philippians chapter 2 to get a glimpse of what was involved in the will of God. Just look at it! Just read it! It did not stop at the cross; it did not stop at resurrection. It says, "Wherefore also God highly exalted him", v 9. Like the Hebrew bondman He says, "I love." That was all involved in the body:" I love my master, my wife, and my children..." and what characterised the Hebrew bondman was that he had his ear bored through with an awl. Day by day this Man received communications. He was obedient to what He was told to do. Never a day was He marked by disobedience: never a day did He not hear the divine voice, He had His ear bored through with an awl! When it comes to the word "bored" in regard to His body, I think what Peter says is very touching, ''who himself bore our sins in his body on the tree", 1 Pet 2: 24. It does not say 'who bore our sins on the tree'; it says, ''who himself bore our sins in his body on the tree." These things should touch us, should affect us, that there was a Man here devoted to the will of God. It raises a challenge. It is not only what has been done, but it is a model for all mankind that there was one Man and He was not disobedient. Everything was lost through disobedience, but here was One who recovered everything on the principle of obedience.

In John chapter 14 we have a prepared place. I think it would be right to say that this is the result of One doing the will of God, and, before He ascends, He is thinking of His own. Before He departs out of this world, He speaks to His own, and the first thing He says in this chapter is, "Let not your heart be troubled." I think that is very tender language. Sometimes things come in and we do get troubled. There had been trouble in chapter 13: it says, "Jesus was troubled in spirit", v 21. Nobody has experienced trouble like the Lord Jesus. He was troubled in His soul; He was troubled in His spirit; and He endured the sufferings of the cross. That is what Jesus did. And here He is saying, "Let not your heart be troubled; ye believe on God, believe also on me. In my Father's house there are many abodes; were it not so, I had told you: for I go to prepare you a place."

I feel touched that there is a prepared place. We need to know what it is to resort to this prepared place, because we live in a world that is full of trouble. It is full of sorrow. There might even be trouble and sorrow amongst us, but here is a place where there is no sorrow, a prepared place. Jesus is beyond the sorrow, and beyond the trouble, and He wants us to be with Him in that place: "I go to prepare you a place; and if I go and shall prepare you a place, I am coming again and shall receive you to myself, that where I am ye also may be." One has referred to what is around us and really, if we are healthy spiritually, I would say that we have no place there. I cannot reconcile any lover of the Lord Jesus finding a place in this world. I do not think it would be in keeping, because the Lord Jesus here is leading them out of the world and His desire is that we should know what it is to have a place where He is. And so He says, "and if I go and shall prepare you a place, I am coming again and shall receive you to myself, that where I am ye also may be." We need to experience this: what matters to be occupied with the Lord Jesus where He is. Time was when He was in the depths, but now He is on the Father's throne. He has a place of preeminence there. He had no place in the world: indeed, the places that refer to the Lord Jesus should affect our hearts. In regard to His body it says there were “two angels sitting in white garments, one at the head and one at the feet, where the body of Jesus had lain", John 20: 12. The body was treasured.

Just these simple impressions, beloved brethren, that we might know what it is to be affected by what the Lord says, “that where I am ye also may be." These are eternal matters: they are not temporal matters. We are speaking about eternal matters: "Seek the things which are above, where the Christ is", Col 3: 1. He is above and He wants us above. One day we will actually go up, but He wants us to go up in spirit and in mind even now.

EDINBURGH

18 February 1997

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