MATTHEW 3
Ques “The kingdom of the heavens has drawn nigh”. Is that good today?
CAC I suppose the difference would be that it had drawn nigh then but it has actually come now.
Ques It is not the visible aspect of the kingdom yet, I suppose. Are there two aspects?
CAC We read in the gospel later on of the mysteries of the kingdom of the heavens so that it takes a mysterious character before the manifestation in a later day but it is a wonderful time in the ways of God. I suppose it had drawn nigh when John served. This gospel would rather stress the fact that the Lord was passing through on His way to heaven; what was before Him in His service was heaven. He was going to take His place of might and authority in grace in heaven and men were called to repent in view of that.
Rem “From that time began Jesus to preach and to say, Repent, for the kingdom of the heavens has drawn nigh” (Matthew 4:17) would be a kindred thought with John the baptist. That is, it begins with the thought of repentance.
CAC And showing that Emmanuel was not going to be received. There would have been no kingdom of the heavens if He had been received.
Ques Would you explain why not?
CAC Well, He would have been received here.
Ques Is it not heavenly rule on earth?
CAC I think the force of it really depends on the fact that Jerusalem has not become what it should be — [p. 16] the city of the great King. The chapter stresses that the heavens were opened to Him — a wonderful moment. That is, if earth refused Him, which it did, heaven was ready to give Him a place.
Rem In Revelation there is a male child caught up to heaven (Revelation 12: 5).
CAC Yes. I think we should read the gospels in the light of this. As has often been remarked, the evangelists must have had a deep impression when writing that He was in heaven. They must all have written their gospels in the light of that. I suppose in verse 3 it is, “Prepare ye the way of Jehovah”, showing that Jesus is Emmanuel and that He is Jehovah and is about to take His place in heaven, so that there is a wonderful opportunity for men to fall into line with what is now in heaven. It was about to be placed in heaven, what He was here, so that it did not absolutely subsist then but had drawn nigh in a very short space of time. So that we read the gospels in the consciousness that the One of whom they speak is in heaven. He is exercising His rights in heaven and He is very available to men. It only needs repentance and a man to turn from his course to another course in the light of Jesus in heaven.
Rem “Except ye become as little children ..”. is the same thought. It is all on the line of reduction.
CAC There is no place in that kingdom for man after the flesh. He has rejected the King. “We will not that this man should reign over us”, Luke 19: 14. It is the universal expression of the natural heart of man.
Rem Nebuchadnezzar would know that the heavens do rule, it says (Daniel 4: 26).
CAC That is a different thought. The heavens always did rule; that is, there never was a time when God did not sit as Sovereign on the throne. Nebuchadnezzar had to be humbled to the dust to learn his own nothingness and realise that the heavens do rule. Whereas the kingdom [p. 17] of the heavens depends on the presence of the Lord Jesus in heaven; that is it involves His life on earth and death, resurrection and ascension. All that is involved and men have to repent in view of that. So that the position is that the heavens were opened to Him, to a Man (He was not actually going there for three and a half years) in His baptism. And in His baptism was set forth in a figurative way that it was to be death here. Baptism is the gate for His followers.
Rem It must mean then that all would be centred in Him in heaven.
CAC And it shows the kind of repentance that God would bring about now. It is not merely that I have been a thief or liar; that is not so important as to realise that I belong to a world that has rejected Him. That is a far more serious matter than any individual repentance. The true extent of the fall was never known in the Old Testament. The awful condition of man as after the flesh could not come to light before it was exposed by the presence of divine goodness. But the exposure brings to light all there is in God as a resource, and repentance is a wonderful opportunity to escape from myself to Christ. I value repentance more and more. Mr. Darby said that repentance goes on deepening more and more through the lifetime of a saint.
Rem To give repentance to Israel is in view (Acts 5: 31).
CAC It is the greatest possible favour that God could show to His poor creature that He gives him opportunity to repent. Here the proposal is that he should have the Holy Spirit and that he should be set up in a new kind of life with adequate capital to carry on the business. If you would think of God clearing the slate and giving me a fresh start; if I have no capital I shall soon be bankrupt again. But if the Holy Spirit can be given and if it is [p. 18] possible that those spoken of here — such persons — can be immersed in the Holy Spirit, well, there is hope for any one of us! The Lord is introduced as the One who baptises with the Holy Spirit, carrying us to the thought of Him as glorified. It is as the ascended One in heaven that He does it, so the whole position depends on where He is now. Jesus is in heaven and has baptised from there; that is the position.
Ques. Why fire?
CAC The element of fire is necessary so long as we are here in a flesh condition. So in the testimony of the apostle there was that which burnt up all that was of the flesh. It is necessary because of what we are. The Holy Spirit is a necessity.
Rem There were tongues of fire at Pentecost.
CAC He takes in hand to “thoroughly purge his threshing-floor” and to “gather his wheat into the garner”. It is spoken of as His wheat.
Rem So that the baptism of the Holy Spirit would be in advance of baptism by water, though both are needed.
CAC It is a question of what is genuine here. John was not put off by mere religion.
Rem In Acts 19 “they were baptised to the name of the Lord Jesus” and “the Holy Spirit came upon them”.
Rem The name of Jesus is something very precious and so the giving of the Holy Spirit would be connected with the pleasure of God in those who received it.
CAC It is a kind of extension of God’s pleasure in those that believe. There is an element come into the soul that is delightful to God. There was something very drastic about John’s baptism; it is not like any ordinance that would improve man. It is the setting aside of man after the flesh altogether; he goes out of sight figuratively under the waters of death.
Rem John is a different-living man from those in cities. “His nourishment was locusts and wild honey” and “his garment of camel’s hair”.
CAC There was nothing about him that made anything of the flesh.
Rem I suppose the record of Naaman suggests baptism. It was the same place — Jordan, which signifies death.
Rem They are strong words in verse 7. Would they be preached now?
CAC Yes, it is still true that wrath is corning. The book of Revelation ought to be sufficient to show people there is “wrath to come” even if they did not understand it. The effect would be to show them there is a terrible time coming on the world and all that is going on now is a very feeble shadow of what is coming in dread reality, and men might indeed be moved to flee from the wrath to come. “To await his Son from the heavens, whom he raised from among the dead, Jesus, our deliverer from the coming wrath”, 1 Thessalonians 1: 10. That is how we know Him as a deliverer from the wrath to come. It is a very needful thing for men to flee from the wrath to come. The apostle says, “There is revealed wrath of God from heaven”, Romans 1: 18. It was not revealed in the Old Testament and men would be well-advised if they fled from it.
Ques Is there a thought of God’s sovereignty in verse 9, “God is able of these stones to raise up children to Abraham”?
CAC That is, God works sovereignly. It is an allusion to what He intended to do with the Gentiles, those who had no pretension to life at all, of such material to raise up children to Abraham. So we have the thought of repentance and faith — the two things necessary on man’s part. So wonderful things are suggested here, repentance, faith, the gift of the Spirit and the place of sonship seen in Christ Himself — God’s great and wondrous thoughts as to man brought out at the very beginning, so we can get an [p. 20] impression of what God has before Him to effect by the glad tidings.
Rem The Jew too is included in the tree. It is the entire cutting off of man naturally.
CAC And there is something secured that is of value to Christ, His wheat. And there is a hint of the service of the Lord in the use of the winnowing fan. It is “in his hand, and he shall thoroughly purge his threshing-floor”. I suppose that process is going on for the discipline of the flesh. It is going on so that the pure wheat which is the product may remain and be stored. This is one of the things worked out in the assembly now. The assembly is the garner; there is no other garner that I know of. It is where the wheat is stored. The Lord’s object is to get rid of the chaff and keep the wheat.
Ques Is “gathered” an assembly thought?
CAC I think it is. The assembly is the garner where what is precious to Christ is stored and He has pleasure in it. What He must have when He comes into the midst and looks round (apart from what is said), when He sees what is of God in each one that is precious to all eternity! What pleasure it must be to Him!
Rem It is very impressive to see the Lord linking Himself with repentant Israel and then linking Himself with John in this ‘us’. It is very affecting.
CAC Yes, it is. We should not naturally have thought of it as righteousness; there was no personal need for the Lord to be baptised.
Rem “Then comes Jesus from Galilee to the Jordan to John, to be baptised of him”. Jordan is put before John, showing that His death was a necessity.
CAC Yes, I think His death comes in on that line, but righteousness is viewed from the standpoint of divine grace.
Rem “To fulfil all righteousness”. It seems [p. 21] a filling out.
CAC Yes, this matter of righteousness was involved in the Lord identifying Himself with the condition of men. It really involved His death. He was coming in on the line of righteousness but it was righteousness identified with God’s thoughts of grace for men. It is a little in keeping with Paul’s presentation of righteousness. God’s righteousness is the manifestation of how He can act in grace towards men so that righteousness and grace are nearly synonymous terms.
Ques Does not Romans 8, referring to the righteous requirements of the law being fulfilled in us, seem based on what Christ could do in going into death? “For what the law could not do ... God, having sent his own Son, in likeness of flesh of sin, and for sin, has condemned sin in the flesh”.
CAC In Matthew 1 it says, “He shall save his people from their sins”. It is Christ very much in sin-offering character in this gospel and would not righteousness enter very much into that, for that is really where death takes place? So all His wonderful service in this gospel is in view of His death. These are His first recorded words in this gospel.
Ques Is it not the expression in grace of God’s righteousness?
CAC It is becoming on man’s part to do this. God looks at it as becoming.
Rem The Lord having in mind His death and linking Himself up with Israel, it would seem fitting that He should take the lead in this movement which would be righteous ness for man to do although it had no claim on Him personally; He would be foremost in it — hence the “us”. And I thought the voice out of the heavens would be the answer to it, that there might be no mistake about it.
CAC I was thinking that. His place in sonship is [p. 22] based upon this wonderful fulfilment of all righteousness. It does not appear before; it is not declared before He has taken the position that it is becoming to man to fulfil all righteousness. It needed that the Lord should go that way, as it were, to give substance and value to what the people were doing, in taking the ground of repentance and confessing their sins. It would not have gone very far of itself but required that One should come in who was under no obligation whatever and should charge Himself to fulfil all righteousness, regarding it as a becoming thing that man having to do with God should fulfil all righteousness, that everything that was right should be fulfilled. Then the coming in of the Lord and His taking up what was purely a matter of grace prepared the way for God’s declaring the great thought of sonship. It could not be declared yet in regard to us, but it was declared in Him personally.
Ques Is this like the man after God’s own heart here?
CAC It is at this moment, when identifying Himself in grace with the remnant, that He is saluted as the beloved Son, as if God had peculiar delight in His grace being expressed in that blessed One.
Rem It had in view others; sonship was now established on that line.
CAC And He saw the Spirit as a dove descending on Him. He saw it.
Rem It is rather a remarkable expression, “And lo, the heavens were opened to him”.
CAC It is not here as elsewhere that heaven is opened to express heaven’s delight; it what is opened up to Him.
Rem He is not addressed personally here but it is in view of others taking note of it.
Ques Have you a further thought on the opened heavens?
CAC Does it not suggest that heaven was to be the place [p. 23] for man?
Ques Would it be in keeping with what Stephen saw?
CAC Yes. Is it not the first intimation in Scripture that heaven is the place for man? That entered into the consciousness of this blessed Man, not merely that it was just a fact but it entered into His consciousness that it was so.
Rem And that necessitated the giving up of the earth. If we accept that heaven is our place we must give up the earth. He had just done that.
CAC Yes, the great thought of God is that man in the relationship of son should know that heaven is his place. He had it in mind in the psalm, “Thou wilt make known to me the path of life: thy countenance is fulness of joy; at thy right hand are pleasures for evermore”, Psalm 16: 11. He looks for His portion there.
Rem The earth was the wilderness now in principle. He was in the wilderness in chapter 4.
CAC Yes. We are sons down here, no doubt, but sonship properly belongs to heaven. This additional thought that the Spirit of God descended upon Him is really very wonderful. All this entered into His consciousness as a Man.
Ques Does this movement of the Spirit take place sovereignly? He comes here; He is not ‘sent down’. He comes sovereignly and as identifying Himself thoroughly and completely and altogether with that One.
CAC Yes, and as a dove; there is perfect rest — complacency. Such is the character of the Lord’s manhood, not only to the Father but to the Holy Spirit. It has often been said we get the first distinct intimation of the Trinity here.
Rem So it is a passage to be dwelt upon by the saints, showing how pleasurable the Lord was to the Father and to the Spirit of God when He came up out of the waters of baptism.
[p. 24] Rem All have been baptised but He comes up and He is saluted in this way.
CAC Yes.
Rem It is wonderful that God could declare that He has found His delight in a Man.
CAC Everything hangs upon that. It changes everything in our outlook when we see that Jesus is the One in whom God delights. It seems very simple to say but it is profound and far-reaching in its application.
Ques Is it the thought of anointing here?
CAC Yes, when He says, “This is my beloved Son”, it is public distinction placed upon Him as the anointing. When He says, “Thou art my beloved Son”, it is more the thought of sealing, is it not?
Ques Does the dove set forth the gentle character of Christ and the gentleness that marks His service too?
CAC Yes. It says, “He shall not strive or cry out, nor shall any one hear his voice in the streets”, Matthew 12: 19. We see the impossibility of going on with the two men. If we go on with the Man who is the Object of God’s delight we must finish with the other man.
Rem So that baptism becomes a great reality, a great necessity, to us; there is the finishing of the one man and the going on with the One who is God’s delight.