THE LIFE OF THE LORD JESUS
Paul Martin
Romans 6: 8-14; Hebrews 7: 17-25; Ephesians 5: 22-33
I desire to say a word as to the life of the Lord Jesus. I am not thinking so much of that precious life on earth of which we would delight to speak that was given up in death; that life that was so delightful to heaven and upon which heaven was opened and the Father proclaimed His delight in Him. I was impressed recently with the reference to the voice from the excellent glory. What a voice! I do not think anyone had heard a voice from the excellent glory before, but it spoke in relation to the Lord Jesus.
My thought is not to speak of that precious life on earth, but to speak of His present life. His present life is of infinite interest to those that love Him. The young people might well ask the question, ‘If the Lord Jesus is alive today what is He doing? What is the character of that life?’ When we were younger, those of my age, we often used to hear it said that He took my place in death in order that His life, His present life, might become my life. That really is the burden of my message tonight, that we might be freshly stirred as to His life and be exercised that that life might become ours.
How wonderful that life is! The Lord Jesus is living tonight! There is a Man living in glory tonight! I had an impression at the Lord’s Supper that He is currently sitting upon His Father’s throne. There is a Man sitting upon His Father’s throne. The Lord Jesus presented that to the overcomer in Laodicea. You might say it is one of the choicest statements that the Lord Jesus makes to those seven assemblies, and He presents it to the overcomer in Laodicea. He says “He that overcomes, to him will I give to sit with me in my throne; as I also have overcome, and sat down with my Father in his throne”, Rev 3: 21. What a moment of intimate enjoyment between the Father and the Son. I believe one who has helped us made reference to the fact that the Father found delight in making room for Christ to sit upon His throne. What joy was in the Father’s heart! What delight in the heart of Christ, to have a place along with the Father upon His throne.
Soon of course, He will take up His own throne and He will reign. I do not want to speak of that, but it is about to happen. He will have His own throne. He has the right and title to it now, but He will take it up in a day yet to come. When I think of the Lord Jesus living, I am thinking of it not only as a statement of doctrine: my desire is that it might be presented as a fact, to be known in the heart of every believer – the Lord Jesus is living. He is not inactive tonight. Indeed, He is very active and lying behind all that He is doing is His love. The same love that led Him to the cross, the same love that was manifested in giving His life when He was here in a flesh and blood condition is the love that pervades His present activity in relation to His own and in relation to His God.
I read in Romans because, Paul says “…in that He lives, he lives to God”. That is a profound statement in itself – “he lives to God”. You might say He lived to God when He was here! How blessedly true that was. He moved through circumstances like our own, sin apart of course. He worked. It would appear from the scripture that he took over the business when Joseph died. At one point, He was the carpenter’s son and then they say, “Is not this the carpenter?”, Mark 6: 3. It would appear that He knew what it was to work in the everyday responsibilities that we have in life. How wonderful that the One we are speaking of has come into such a condition in flesh and blood to take up and to move in the very circumstances in which you and I move, and is able to understand what you and I are going through in our day-to-day circumstances. How wonderful that is!
The One who came was no less than the Creator of the universe, but coming into such lowly circumstances and into the scene in which sin had dominion. That is Romans 6. The very world through which we are passing is a world in which sin has dominion. It is subject to the prince of this world, it is under his domination. Sin is not reigning for the believer, but it is reigning in the scene through which we are passing – what a world it is! The more we are kept in nearness to the Lord Jesus, the more we shall feel the inroad, darkness, and depravity of sin that is made way for and legitimised in the world around us.
Paul, in writing to the dear saints at Rome says, “…if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him, knowing that Christ having been raised up from among the dead dies no more: death has dominion over him no more”. It could not, could it? Death could not have dominion over the Lord Jesus. He went into death and broke its power. What a public testimony there was when the Lord Jesus went into death. When he uttered that loud cry upon the cross and expired – what a public testimony that He was going into death victoriously! He went in victoriously! No one else has entered into death victoriously, but He did! He went into death and broke its power and He came out of it. He was raised from among the dead by the glory of the Father. There was a public testimony that death had dominion no longer. It could not have! He also condemned the sin that brought death into this world in His going into death. He has to say to it no more. He has died to sin once for all – it is finished from the divine side.
It is a good thing to take our bearings from the divine side and from Christ, from His death and from His present life. If we take our bearings from what is around us we shall end in corruption, but if we take our bearings from Christ, we shall know what it is to be brought into life. The apostle then goes on to say, “…in that he lives, he lives to God” Wonderful statement! He is there living for the pleasure of God. He came into a world in which man lived for his own pleasure. He suffered in His obedience and devotion to the will of God. He suffered in His spirit and in going into death, He suffered in His body, but now He lives and He lives to God. All that could ever be for the divine pleasure is there in that blessed Man, a Man out of death. The vastness of the fruit of His death has been established in Him, a Man out of death and living to God.
One might say carefully, and I trust the brethren will understand what I mean, that in His present life, His God remains His object. All that He does, He does for the pleasure of God. That will yet be seen publicly when He comes out and gathers up the kingdom and presents it to God. God remains His object in all that He does! What a man! The One who has title to every dominion, will soon take it up, and yet in the devotion of His love is living to God.
Now Paul says, “So also ye reckon yourselves dead to sin and alive to God”, that is the believer’s portion. I am to ‘reckon myself’. Reckoning comes into Romans, even God reckons in this epistle. He reckons persons as righteous. But the reckoning also comes in from the believer’s point of view. It seems to me, having been affected by the way the Lord Jesus has been and having a heart moved by the greatness of the love that is flowing from Him where He is, the believer says, I want to reckon myself dead that I might have part with Him. You remember the eunuch travelling back from where he had been was reading in Isaiah 53, and he came to the point where it says, “for his life is taken from the earth”, Acts 8: 33. Not that He died, but His life was taken from the earth, that is – it was taken to where it belonged. The eunuch says ‘I want to be with Him where He is’. He says, “Behold water; what hinders my being baptised?”, Acts 9: 36. I think he is an example of a believer who reckoned himself dead to sin. He said ‘let me go into the water of baptism, let me take my part alongside of Christ’. The eunuch identified himself with Christ in the likeness of His death. Mr Darby’s footnote (see note ‘c’ to Romans 6 verse 5 – Darby Translation), says it means as we have grown together with Christ in the likeness of His death – “so also we shall be of his resurrection”. The eunuch really was one who laid hold of the light of it. The appreciation of His person so filled his soul that he said I want to be with Him where He is.
So Paul says, “so also ye reckon yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus”. How wonderful to be in Christ Jesus, in that heavenly Man, the centre of everything for God’s pleasure – the One who was anointed of God. Paul says reckon yourselves alive to God in that blessed Man. Not in the Adam in which we have died – in the Adam all have died. I am no longer viewing myself as in Adam, but I view myself as in Christ Jesus. Paul says, “…alive to God in Christ Jesus.” If that Man is living for the pleasure of God and all God’s delight is centred in Him, Paul says you see yourself in that blessed Person and reckon that is where your life is – “reckon yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.”
In Hebrews, we have the Lord Jesus as our great high priest. The writer says, “For such a high priest” (7: 26). He is beyond compare. If I had written it, I would have said having a high priest but the writer says, “For such a high priest”. How distinctive He is in everything that He does and in all that He is. He stands in His own distinctiveness. The writer goes over in these verses the distinctiveness of the system of which Christ is the centre as over against Judaism. Hebrews is a very interesting book. It is a book of better things. One thing that is mentioned in relation to the priesthood of Christ in this chapter is what is perfected. The law could never make perfect. It showed up the imperfections of man. The result of this section, in which the writer is speaking, is a Son perfected forever. There was never anything perfected in the system in relation to men, but here is a Man who is fit for the office that God has given Him and is sustaining people like you and me in relation to the will of God. That is what is in view in His priesthood, that while we are here we might be sustained in relation to the will of God.
How wonderful that service is! As living, He is fulfilling that priestly function before God. You will remember that in the old dispensation when the priest went in to serve before God, he had bells on the bottom of His garments and the children of Israel as standing outside would know that he was active and that he was still alive – he was there serving in the Holy place (see Exod. 28: 33). What a service! But the Lord Jesus needs no bells, if one might speak reverently. The witness of His living and interceding lies in the affections and strength that the believer proves as flowing from Himself. There is the witness that He is interceding. I ask myself and maybe others, am I conscious of the intercession of Christ? I am conscious of the fact He has been into death for me. I am conscious that He has laid down His life and that He has taken it again and that He has been received up in glory, but have I the witness in myself of His present intercession? I would just leave that question with myself, because the witness of His intercessory service lies in the strength and the support that persons have to be here in fidelity to the will of God. The strength for the testimony lies not in ourselves. It lies in a Man glorified and in the presence here of the Holy Spirit. What strength there is in divine persons and that strength is available to us.
The writer says as to this glorious Person that He lives in the power of an indissoluble life. How wonderful that is! The priesthood of old had no power of indissoluble life. They took up their service because another had died and they knew that they would die and another would take it on in their stead. However, the Person of whom we are speaking lives in the power of an indissoluble life. Dear brother and sister, He is living for you – always living to intercede for us. I think that is of immense encouragement in the moment in which we are. Publicly there seems to be so much weakness and breakdown on every hand and yet the One who lives in the power of an indissoluble life has never ceased in His intercessory service.
Now I would just raise the question with myself, as to how much I have taken on the service of intercession? If His life is mine, what He is doing will be the very things that interest me and I will take them on. Paul says to Timothy that he desires that “prayers, intercessions, thanksgiving be made for all men”, 1 Tim 2: 1. There is an interesting footnote to that section. Intercession is the ‘personal and confiding intercourse with God on the part of one able to approach Him’ (note ‘g’ – Darby Translation). How wonderful! How much do I know of it?
The day in which we are is a sobering one. There is everything to rejoice in, Paul says “Rejoice in the Lord always”, Phil 4: 4. That is on the one side, but we are in a day that is sobering and it calls for the character of the intercessor. He is able, in this verse, to save completely – that is not, as we know, our eternal salvation – but He is saving completely. That is, while we are moving through this very scene, we are proving the saving power of Christ in relation to every circumstance through which we are passing. He is able to hold us in relation to the will of God but His service is proved by those who desire to know it – those who desire to know what the will of God is, who desire to reckon themselves dead to sin and alive to God, and that that will should be supreme in their life. As it is so, the present service of Christ comes in immediately to strengthen and to support us in the very scene through which we are passing. What a service it is, dear brethren! All the power of the throne is available to us through the One who is there interceding before it. Am I putting myself in the way of that intercessory service?
So the writer goes on here and says, “For such a high priest became us, holy, harmless, undefiled, separated from sinners, and become higher than the heavens” (v 26). You can understand in the light of that priestly intercessory service of Christ, why the writer says “such a high priest became us”, that we as moving through this scene belong to that order of life in which He has His part. We belong to it and He is sustaining us here in the scene of His rejection.
I come now to Ephesians. In Colossians, we have the power of the life of Christ; in Ephesians, we have the strength of the love of the Christ. Ephesians gives us the power of the Spirit to enjoy it, Colossians gives the power of that life. In Colossians, Paul says, “If therefore ye have been raised with the Christ, seek the things which are above, where the Christ is”, Col 3: 1. “When the Christ is manifested who is our life, then shall ye also be manifested with him in glory”, Col 3: 4. Everything in Colossians is there resident in that blessed Man, but in Ephesians through the power of the Holy Spirit, we are proving currently the strength of the love of Christ. How wonderful are the resources available to us. We are not here only because One has been here in perfection and died. What testimony would there be if that were the only hope and experience of the believer? We are here because One is living before God and the Holy Spirit is here and indwelling those that love our Lord Jesus.
I read this section in Ephesians because I wanted to touch on His service in relation to the assembly. He is living and if one might say carefully, His chief occupation at the present time is serving in relation to the assembly. It has been said it is His chief joy. Is it mine? If His life is mine, is the assembly my chief joy? I believe, dear brethren, as we prove what it is increasingly to be united to Him we shall know in greater measure that His joy becomes ours. Paul speaks of “Christ also loved the assembly, and has delivered himself up for it, in order that he might sanctify it, purifying it by the washing of water by the word”. This is a profound reference in Ephesians 5, “has delivered himself up for it, in order that he might sanctify it”.
One might ask, does the assembly need sanctifying? Paul in writing to the saints here has in view what she is here as the wife in the absence of Christ. She is taking up responsibilities. She is moving here through a scene of evil and as moving through it, she maintains his judgment as to it in every detail. That is what the assembly is doing as His wife and the Lord’s present service is that she might be untarnished by that which she has to pass through and which she may even at times have to handle. He sanctifies and purifies her. It has been said often that it is preventative and I am sure that is right. It is not exactly that the assembly has become spotted and tarnished by the things of the world. The thought rather is that whilst she is acting in her wifely duty of upholding His rights in a scene of evil and corruption, He is serving her that she might be held at the true level in which she will come out in bridal beauty towards Himself in a day yet to come.
He delivered himself up in view of this service. There are certain things in this epistle to the Ephesians that have in view the dispensation in which we are and do not go beyond it; this is one of those things. It has in view Christ going into death in view of His service in this dispensation. It will not be a service that will be rendered beyond this dispensation; the assembly will be presented to Himself glorious. He is serving her now in view of the day of her presentation to Himself. You get a similar reference in Ephesians 3, that the all-various wisdom of God is manifested now to the principalities and authorities according to the purpose of the ages (see vv 10,11). Think of divine purpose from before time that there should be in this dispensation the manifestation in the assembly, of the all-various wisdom of God. Does it not give some impression of the greatness and glory of the moment in which we are? That God purposed for this moment. The death of Christ had this moment in view. Of course an eternal result was in view, but He delivered Himself up for it in order that His present service might proceed in this dispensation. I say to my own soul, we are living in the greatest moment that there has ever been. You say, there is breakdown and confusion on every hand. I say, take your bearings from where Christ is and what He has done. Take your bearings from the scripture here, presenting to us what is entirely for the pleasure of God and for which Christ has not given up His service. He lives and serves! What a service it is, sanctifying it, purifying it by the washing of the word. You say how do I know that service is proceeding? We know that it is proceeding through the word that He gives. I am not speaking of just this occasion, but through the present living ministry of Christ, we are conscious that His service is proceeding, proceeding in men and women like ourselves who form part of this great vessel, the assembly, drawing us apart from the world. I read a remark of Mr Coates the other day; he said if ministry does not help to put greater distance between my soul and the world it is of no value at all. One has to stop and think when reading a statement like that, but that is the present service of Christ, that He is serving each one of us. As He served His own when He was here, so He is serving now in view of the features that mark the world never having a part in the lives of those who form part of the assembly. As to the assembly, He serves that in all that she is doing for Him she might be kept in her beauty, attractiveness and perfection for His heart and satisfaction.
Then it goes on to say, “For no one has hated His own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, even as also the Christ the assembly” that is another aspect of His service. Not only is He sanctifying it, but He is also nourishing and cherishing. He is bringing in the resources of His love. What is the power of the assembly’s life? The power of the assembly’s life is in His life; she finds her life in His. John does not give us the teaching of the assembly, but he gives us the experience of it. He says in his gospel “In that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you” (John 14: 20), and He says, “because I live ye also shall live”, John 14: 19. That is the assembly’s life. John is not putting labels on things. We have often been told that John gives us the substance without the labels, but Paul puts the labels on. The Lord says, “because I live ye also shall live” – that is the present life of the assembly, sustained here in the power of the Spirit, living in the life of Christ. She needs nothing outside of Him and in the resources of His love He is bringing all that would nourish and cherish, satisfying her heart, maintaining that constitution that radiates in His presence in the appreciation of His glory. What resources He is bringing in. He does it in our local companies. He does it through ministry of the word and He does it as he comes in at the Supper; bringing in impressions of Himself and leaving them in the company, in order that He might nourish and cherish that vessel and that it might be held in all its beauty for Him. Oh, may He be increasingly the object of my heart, great as He is, glorious as He is! One whose love is great enough to hold this vessel and to hold it eternally and cause that it is responsive for the pleasure of God and from which the glory of God will shine forth. What a vessel He is sustaining. He is sustaining it with the strength of His love.
Now that is His service, where do I come in? What is my chief joy? Is the assembly my chief joy? We are in a day in which largely the light as to the assembly has been turned away from and in many places given up. I am not speaking of those with whom we walk, although we would be kept in exercise that the glory and lustre of this vessel might be kept in our appreciation. But, is His chief joy my chief joy? We are living in difficult times, times that need overcoming. What lies at the root of the overcomer’s movement is love for Christ. I ask my soul, is He not worthy of some overcoming? Is He not worthy of it or would I rather have an easier path and cause that what is His chief joy becomes secondary in my life? In this scripture, He gave Himself up for it in order that He might serve in all the faithfulness and fidelity of His love that which so delights His heart even now. He is maintaining her in love for Him. That is the result of the nourishing and cherishing. She is responsive to Him – to those affections that He bestows upon her. He finds an answer. His affections are not received in a vessel that is stoical. His affections are received in a vessel that loves Him and that can respond to them and moves in such a way that satisfies His own heart even in the present time. What a time we are in.
Well, is His chief joy mine? If He is my life, dear brother, dear sister, what is so delightful to Him will become increasingly delightful to me? I must arrive at it through the acceptance of death. I could have no part with Him in the life in which He was here in flesh and blood conditions. That life had to be laid down and if I am to take up His life as mine, I have to come to it that it is through the acceptance of His death for myself. All that belonged to the first order of man had to be removed. The Lord says in John 6, “Unless ye shall have eaten the flesh of the Son of man, and drunk his blood, ye have no life in yourselves” (v 53). He goes on to say “he also who eats me shall live also on account of me” (v 57). How wondrous to be living in that life, the life that is in Christ Jesus. May it be so increasingly for His Name’s sake.
TWICKENHAM
1 April 2006