MATTHEW 26
Ques “When Jesus had finished all these sayings”. How would that refer to what He said from then?
CAC The ministry of the Lord was finished, because nothing remained now but the accomplishment of that great work in which God should be glorified; something in a sense far greater than all the teaching. What it must have been to the Lord to have reached that moment in His history, no one understanding it but Himself. Indeed, it would appear there was one who entered in some measure at least into the fact that He was going to death, but she could not understand it. She anointed Him, not for His death, but for His burial; but how little she could have entered into it all. It is often a comfort to me in assembling together that the Lord knows perfectly all He has wrought and He regards His saints in the full value of it as known to Him. How limited we are! But there is One who can lead us into it freshly in power. He can add to it on every occasion; indeed, that would mark the assembly, would it not?
It is impossible that the Lord should look at His own in any less value than in the value of that which He Himself has done. That should put a great spring in our hearts in connection with the Lord’s precious death. That which would enable us to think rightly of it would be to seek to enter into what He thinks of it. I suppose the passover had never been eaten according to God before. It is rather striking it should say in Hebrews 11 that by faith Moses kept the passover, as though Moses had some apprehension of it, as the man of God at the moment, no doubt [p. 167] figurative of Christ.
Rem There seems to have been a kind of accumulation of the keeping of it. In Josiah’s day it was a wonderful time.
CAC Yes, it had not been kept for a very long period, and it seems as if faith acquired a deeper sense of the value of it as the ruin and failure manifested itself in Israel. Well, is that not so today? Is not the blessed God giving to us in the midst of departure and coldness around a very deep and blessed sense of the value of the death of Christ, and I suppose there is nothing so pleasing to divine Persons as that we should enter into the value of the death of Christ. It is wonderful that a divine Person should undertake to bear all the consequences of sin in such a way that God is supremely glorified, His nature and attributes, and His heart set free, and in such a way that nothing can be added to it, and certainly nothing can be taken from it.
Ques Did the woman seek a blessing?
CAC I do not think the woman was looking for any blessing; she had something greater than the blessing. She has got that blessed divine Person of inestimable value; she has got everything in Him — and He is going into death. “The Son of man” (verse 2) was, if we might say so, the Lord’s favourite designation of Himself, and He was never spoken of by anyone else as “the Son of man” until He was glorified, bringing in the whole scope of the thought of God, that is, in contrast to “the son of David”, showing that man is in the thought of God. It is a title that attaches to Him as suffering, and speaks of His universal place as coming in on man’s side; as of God He is seen in relation to God. How it ought to touch us that He has taken up our case! Where would man be if He had not? Not one single man would be left for the glory of God. But everyone can come in under “the Son of man”.
Rem “The Son of man” not “the Son of God” has [p. 168] come to save that which is lost.
CAC It is due to Him as having been insulted and dishonoured by man that all judgment should be committed to Him, so God is going to judge the world in righteousness by that Man whom He has ordained.
Ques. Why after two days?
CAC I have no thought of it except that it was near. God saw to it that there should be one heart deeply affected through it. It would not have been suitable to God un less it had been so. She was the only one as far as we know who anticipated His death.
It is very touching to see Him moving through all these closing scenes as anointed for His burial. That anointing must have been a comfort to Him, as He continued His way through the varying sorrows of that path, to think that there was one heart who entered into it in some measure; and, no doubt, it brought to His heart the thought of the female company that would appreciate Him, that is, the assembly. It must have been a consolation to His heart that there should be that which would answer to the Man. It is beautiful to see that besides the Son of Man there was one in a feminine way who appreciated where He was going, not in the full way the assembly could, but it is that character of thing. She understood the prophetic word that had spoken of His sufferings. The disciples never seem to have taken in that He was about to suffer. It is beautiful to see that one heart could be divinely taught.
Rem He always remembered it, “Wheresoever these glad tidings may be preached in the whole world, that also which this woman has done shall be spoken of for a memorial of her”, (verse 13).
CAC Yes indeed, the Lord esteems it worthy to be put alongside the glad tidings. ‘When you are talking about Me do not forget her’. So it ought to enter into the glad [p. 169] tidings. Not only does the Son of man love man, but there is something more wonderful than that, He can make man love Him! It does not say she broke the flask; in Mark she did. I wonder why it is left out in Matthew? I think I can understand the breaking of it in Mark (Mark 14: 3). I am not sure why it is left out in Matthew. In Mark you can understand this is a very choice vessel full of fragrant ointment, really representing Himself, and breaking of the flask represented that the fragrance was all coming out in His death. It was to be broken that the fragrance should really fill the universe — it is going to fill the universe!
Rem She was not told to do it.
CAC I think that is the beauty of it. And she is not named here. We know who she is. It is left open to any of us to put our name in if we can. So do you not think that is what recognises headship? It is not quite a matter of faith, it is something greater, that is, love; I think love appreciates the headship of Christ. It is a relationship of affection, and it is love that claims Him in that character. Does she not really claim Him? We know who it was, we know her history, and we can put things together a little. And that is what the Lord looks for in the Supper, is it not? We get the Supper later in the chapter, but I was looking for it in this connection. She represents one who gathers up in her affections what is there; as Peter says, “To you therefore who believe is the preciousness”, 1 Peter 2: 7. Now it is our business to be gathering up the preciousness of Christ, so that we can anoint Him in a suitable manner. We bring Him not foreign matter but what is of Himself. It shows we cannot be deprived of that privilege even when in an unsympathetic atmosphere and how love triumphs! They were not all smiling at her! I suppose strictly she represents the Jewish remnant, and there was nothing in the outward conditions that was helpful, but all the other way. The disciples had all come under the influence of Judas — [p. 170] the whole assembly if you think of the twelve as representing the assembly. It shows how the Lord values affection for Him, and especially at that moment. She takes in the full thought of the length of His burial. He was going to be in the heart of the earth for three days and three nights; she had measured, so to speak, the length to which His love would go. You see death did not meet the whole extent of the sentence of judgment on that order of man; it is really in burial that order of things disappears.
Ques Would it be like Ruth? “and there will I be buried”, Ruth 1: 17.
CAC Yes! — “buried”. As long as Christ was there on the cross there was not the removal sacrificially; it was in His burial that the man was put an end to. We used to sing, ‘Buried in His grave we lay’; it is the great truth of christianity. Burial is most important, because, it is the disappearance of that order of man. I do not know that many of us are thankful to be buried! It means you are so convinced of what you are that you are truly thankful that you are gone for all eternity! So that now we can only live in Another — another Man. I am not only dead with Christ according to the truth but buried with Him, so that now we live to Another, and Another lives in me. You cannot think of this woman wanting to make a show of herself after this. It is just the secret of her own heart with Him and it is open to us to have this secret, and to stand to it as a fixed principle. I may give way, and, if I bring myself in, it is a cause of distress, but it is not my life! If I am vain or proud I can say, ‘It is not my life, it is a bit of what I was, but it does not enter into what I am’.
Rem It is baptism.
CAC Yes.
Ques The Lord is seen alone in His holy sufferings from verse 56. Psalm 69 would fit in here, would it not?
Rem The cause of his solitariness is found in [p. 171] verse 59.
It is remarkable what is stated there.
CAC The Lord had never been before face to face with the nation as represented officially in its authorities.
Rem They were unified in their determination to destroy Him.
CAC The most solemn thing that took place on earth in the government of God takes place here. Here it is God exposing the true character of everything, in His holy government. It came out in the most solemn way, the necessity of the Messiah bearing the judgment of those He came to bless. He was about to bear all that was due to Israel in the holy government of God.
Rem This Lamb-like character comes out here in face of that tribunal: He is so silent, so perfect, so good; He stands out against this terrible background of evil.
CAC Yes, I think so. The Lord alone remains without a stain of reproach upon Him in face of every test that could possibly come on a holy Being in a world of evil. He observed according to the Old Testament “a time to keep silence”. He knew it perfectly and He observed it. There was an attempt with them to ascertain the truth. They might have called Lazarus or the two blind men as witnesses.
Rem Sometimes we need to be silent to evil.
CAC That is important. A true testimony may sometimes be rendered in perfect silence.
Rem He was a model for us as it says in 1 Peter 2:21 - 24: He “gave himself over into the hands of him who judges righteously”.
CAC And He was in the presence of the righteous government of God Himself, and it is good for us to be there, is it not? There is no reason anytime for us to vindicate ourselves.
Rem He does answer when adjured.
CAC Yes. He says, “Ye shall see the Son of man [p. 172] sitting at the right hand of power, and coming on the clouds of heaven”. The Lord is in the presence of the issue of it all; the whole issue of the matter is present to His consciousness.
Rem Peter could not stand up for Him then.
CAC It was an hour in which nothing would stand the test. It all confirms the thought of Him as the ‘trespass offering’. What was coming out in the nation was a most terrible trespass against all divine rights. But He was shortly to become the ‘trespass offering’ and bear the judgment of it before God, and He is, indeed without blemish. I feel sure if we pondered more the Lord’s sufferings and death we should more ardently love Him. Sometimes we seem almost wholly occupied with the resurrection and ascension side, and we do not give adequate place for the sufferings and death of Christ, which are most wonderful, more so than His resurrection and ascension which are very simple matters if we think of who He was, but His sorrow and suffering unto death are more wonderful and deeper than anything else.
Ques Is it not because we were once occupied with one side of things — our sins and our salvation? Now we want to be occupied with the Person, with His sufferings and death.
CAC Yes, with what came out in His death; a way it never will again to all eternity. His love, His perfection, all His supreme excellence came out there in a way never to be repeated.
Ques The Psalms should be pondered by us?
CAC Quite so! We do not get the inward exercises of the Lord much in the gospels.
Rem Psalm 88, for instance.
CAC He entered into the state of Man — of Israel; He entered into all feelingly.
The symbols in the Lord’s Supper bring it constantly [p. 173] before us. We begin our assembly service with that every week; we cannot escape it. We cannot arrive at the resurrection side without it. It is His death, and we call Him to mind in the light of the unspeakable love in which He went into death. He said “This is my body, which is for you”, and “This cup is the new covenant in my blood”, 1 Corinthians 11: 24, 25.
Rem It is love in suffering which gives a poignancy to it.
CAC Yes, and the love of God comes out in it, because the love of God shed abroad in our hearts is the love in which Christ died for us; and it is the great power of love, the volume of love, that God sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
Rem A brother remarked once that he thought we did not dwell sufficiently on the suffering side at the Supper.
CAC We must not pass over His sufferings and death unduly.
Rem It should be always present with us. In the Song of Songs it says, “A bundle of myrrh is my beloved unto me; He shall pass the night between my breasts” (chapter 1: 13).
CAC I believe if we contemplated His sufferings and death more in private before we come, we should better be able when together to pass on to the other side. The Lord would have us to pass on to where He is beyond death, and if we pass over, we have to contemplate Him in the Jordan before passing over with Him. The Ark stood still in the Jordan until all the people had completely gone over. There must be the Jordan. Would it not obliterate all that we are in ourselves? What hinders us at all points is self, and we do not get free of self, except in the death of Christ. Peter had thought of his readiness to die, but if he had been occupied with the Lord’s readiness to die for him, he would have escaped the power of Satan to sift him.
[p. 174] Rem If we entered into His sufferings and death more, there would be more savour about our service in the assembly. You see it with J.N.D. in a marked way.
CAC If we entered into it more, there would be a savour about us all the time. I think that lay at the very foundation of J.N.D.’s ministry, the very deep sense he had of the Lord’s sufferings and death.
Rem The line of a hymn says, ‘Of all thy sufferings talk’ (270:2) as though it would be our occupation for all eternity.
CAC Well, the One who suffered will be.