THE POWER OF GOD AND THE DIGNITY OF THE SAINTS

^[p. 231] THE POWER OF GOD AND THE DIGNITY OF THE SAINTS

John 12: 1, 2; Luke 7: 11 - 15

In seeking to minister one always has in mind that we know in part. In the epistles the truth is presented in this way — in part — the Spirit of God taking account of our limitations so that we minister according to our capacity, having in view that in due time “we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ”, Ephesians 4: 13. As arriving at this, we are in a position to read the gospels rightly. We may read them as we read the epistles, in order to obtain help in our souls, but to read them rightly we have to take up the divine point of view and to see that in becoming Man the Son of God had in view the carrying out of the entire will of God. He refers, in spirit, in the Psalms to a book in which it had been written of Him that a body should be prepared for Him in which He would do the will of God, in which, indeed, He would delight to do it, so that there should be no item of that will neglected or unaccomplished; Psalm 40: 7, 8. We are therefore on a much wider platform in the gospels than we are in the epistles.

The gospels present the incarnation of Christ and the death of Christ in connection with the whole will of God, and consequently with the whole work of God; they, therefore, become the solid food by which full-grown men are sustained, and as thus sustained are instructed in all His mind. Hence the Lord says in the gospel of John (chapter 4), “My meat is to do the will of him that sent me”. We have to understand what His meat was. What did He live on? The disciples had gone away into the city to buy meat, and having returned they propose to the Lord that ^[p. 232] He should eat, and so He makes this remarkable statement which is full of spiritual import as to what a man who is here for God is to be sustained by “My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work”. It was to be finished; every thought of God will find its completion in Christ. He is on the way to that; things are not all done yet, but He speaks in this gospel of having finished the work which is given Him to do; He speaks thus in anticipation, referring to the cross and all that preceded it. In detail there is much to be done, and so He is not found sitting; He stood in the midst, and indeed He is on the way yet to the completion of the work, and He would have us with Him in what He is doing.

What I wanted to point out from the passage I read was that He would have us to understand the dignity that attaches to us whilst still in this world. Our dignity in the future will be indisputable, we shall come out in wonderful dignity; it is said of the holy city that it descends from God out of heaven, having the glory of God, and her light like unto a stone most precious. (See Revelation 21: 10, 11.) There will be no question at all as to her dignity then, but the Lord would have us to understand that there is a dignity now, even whilst in the same circumstances in which we were converted, for it is not the thought of God to change these circumstances. His thought is to change us as in them; and so Lazarus came out of the tomb into his old circumstances, he came out with his graveclothes on. The Son of God in coming out of the grave Himself, came out without them, and He remains without them. He entered into new conditions, new circumstances, and He remains in these. But in His ministry here He was in very lowly guise. John presents Him to us at the well of Sychar; he says, “Jesus ... being wearied ... sat thus on the well”. He sat on it as He was; He was weary.

^[p. 233] Nothing touches the heart more than that, especially of any one who serves. The Lord knows what weariness in service is; but then in these lowly circumstances He says to the woman, “If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that says to thee, Give me to drink”. There you get the clue, as I apprehend, to levitical service in John. The Servant is in the consciousness of His dignity; He knows it.

In chapter 13, in preparing to minister to His own, it says of Him, “Jesus knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he was come from God, and went to God” — knowing it — “he riseth from supper, and laid aside his garments; and took a towel, and girded himself. After that he poureth water into a bason, and began to wash the disciples’ feet, and to wipe them with the towel wherewith he was girded”, verse 3 - 5. Who is doing it? — the One who knows that He came out from God. He is in conscious dignity, and it is that that lends lustre to what is done. And so with the woman at the well, He said, “If thou knewest”. It requires divine light in the soul for one to have that knowledge, for how is one to see a divine Person in a weary Man who asks for a drink of water out of a well? Hence He says, “If thou knewest”. It was a thing to be known, and doubtless she knew it afterwards. John says, “We know that the Son of God is come”, 1 John 5: 20. That is wonderful knowledge to be in a man’s soul. How many of us know it as a matter of light, as one says, “Who hath ascended up into heaven, or descended? who hath gathered the wind in his fists? who hath bound the waters in a garment? who hath established all the ends of the earth? what is his name, and what is his son’s name, if thou canst tell?” (Proverbs 30: 4). What a question that is! The speaker may reflect the exercises of Solomon himself. When one thinks of the glory of his service, and the glory of his knowledge, the glory of his ^[p. 234] wisdom, divinely given, one is profoundly impressed with the inquiry and with the humble attitude of his mind — the secret, I apprehend, of true knowledge. One is reminded of Job as God Himself speaks to him and calls his attention to a testimony already present — the testimony of creation; Job 38: 4, 5. “Declare, if thou hast understanding”. We have to understand by the testimony presented. It is a question for every Christian to face, for the Spirit of God is aiming at our all arriving at a knowledge of the Son of God, and of our confessing Him, for “Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he in God”, 1 John 4: 15.

And so the Lord sets this inquiry, as one might say, in the soul of the Samaritan woman, “If thou knewest ... who it is”. It is true she did not refer to it in preaching to the men, as far as the record goes, but would she be indifferent to it in after history? Would she not recall with intense interest later the Lord’s word, “If thou knewest”? One is humbled constantly at the consciousness of one’s ignorance of God and of Christ. One feels that “if thou knewest” has a present application, for there is but little knowledge of the Son of God. “Who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God”, 1 John 5: 5. The measure in which the world holds influence over me is, in a sense, the measure of my ignorance, as a believer, of the Son of God.

He is “declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead” (Romans 1: 4), as we have in these two cases. His fame is known in the utmost regions of the domain of death; His very accents suffice in that wide domain to call one out of it. Is not that victory? He says, “Lazarus” (calling him by name), “come forth. And he that was dead came forth”, John 11: 43, 44. What then can the Son ^[p. 235] not do for you? The utmost that the enemy can do is to place you in death. The two witnesses in Revelation are seen dead, slain by the beast, and their bodies lay three days in the street of the city; they did not get a burial, but they stood up in the power of life; Revelation 11: 11. John, in the isle of Patmos, hears behind him a voice, and he turned to see the voice, and having turned he sees a wonderful sight. I need not go over it, it is well known to us. John says, “I fell at his feet as dead”, and the Lord says to him, “Fear not; I am the first and the last: I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore”, Revelation 1: 17, 18. We have nothing to fear as to what is against us. What a word that is! The Son of God “became dead”; He lay in the grave three days; He lay there vicariously for us — a fact for heaven to note and to appreciate, as it did; but a fact that we too are to note. John was to note it. The Lord says, “I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death”. What facts these are for our entering into this knowledge that I am referring to — the knowledge of the Son of God, by whose faith, as the One who loved us and gave Himself for us, we are to walk in this world.

“If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink; thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water”. The woman would have that word in her heart. One is brought in that way into the region of gift, the unspeakable free — giving of God, but I speak for the moment of the One who is in such lowly circumstances, and as I said, I think that gives the clue to the levitical position in John. Lazarus being the subject of His power, represents, I think, the dignity of the saints as apprehending that power and the One who wields it, and so it says, “Then Jesus six days before the passover came to ^[p. 236] Bethany, where Lazarus was which had been dead”, John 12: 1. The Lord knew what would take place there; He knew they would make Him a supper, for He knew well the great result of His ministry in the company at Bethany. Hence He had waited two days where He was, so that exercise might be produced, and that all this might come about. “There they made him a supper” and “Lazarus was one of them that sat at the table with him”. Lazarus represents the dignity of the saints, who are the subjects of the power of God. The point in John is not what Lazarus said, that is more Luke; Lazarus was loved by Christ, and the point in John is the dignity of those who are the subjects of the power of the Son of God, and who know it, and who know the love of the Son of God. You cannot add to them; no earthly dignity can add to them, and so John begins his narrative with the statement that “As many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons [children] of God” — no worldly family can compare with that — “which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God”, chapter 1: 12, 13. Where is the parentage to compare with that, where is the family dignity to compare with it? Lazarus, I believe, represents that dignity; he is the subject of the power of the Son of God, he is loved of Him, and so he is one of those who sat at table with Him. We may contemplate that company as they sit around, with the Lord there. Think of being the subject of the power of the Son of God, as having actually been in death! So that the company of the saints in that way is marked off by a dignity known to them, and it is only in the sense of such dignity that we can overcome the world.

Now in Luke we may observe that the young man who was raised from the dead is not addressed by name. The Lord says, “Young man, I say unto thee,

Arise”, Luke 7: 14. “And he that was dead sat up, and began to speak”. Now in dwelling on the dignity of the saints I had before me that we are to speak. Luke, I think, brings forward that side, because he would have priestly compassions. We hear a good deal about “priestly state” (and I suppose of the Lord); the word has become very prevalently used, and oft-times when a word becomes frequently used and used by those who are not in the realisation of its meaning, it loses its power; but there is a side to priesthood that I wish to call attention to, that is, sympathy and compassion. It is quite true that in the first mention of priesthood in regard of Aaron and his sons, it is said, “to minister unto me in the priest’s office” (Exodus 29: 1); but then it also says that the “priest’s lips should keep knowledge” (Malachi 2: 7), and that he should have “compassion on the ignorant” and on the “erring”, Hebrews 5: 1, 2. I apprehend, therefore, that this young man may be taken to suggest, or perhaps to illustrate, the point of view in Luke, because it says that in sitting up he began to speak. I think the Lord would impress upon us at the present time that there is a good deal to be said. We say a good deal to one another; thank God for that! And one hopes that what is said will become more spiritual. The Lord would lead us on to spiritual lines, I am sure, but then there is the wide domain of need, and Luke has that in view. Luke was a physician. Doctors are not always sympathetic, but Luke was sympathetic. There is a personal touch about his gospel that you do not find in the others. He writes to one person, as if to suggest that God would convey to everybody that He has a personal interest in him; every person is, as it were, in the mind of God, and God takes account of you sympathetically. That, I believe, is what the gospel of Luke would impress upon us. There is much to be said.

^[p. 238] Think of what has come in in the incarnation! Luke gives us the full detail from the infancy to the manhood of Christ. He gives us many details, and they are given to be spoken about, and so here is a young man, the only son of his mother, and she a widow, and he is being carried out of the city a dead man; and the Lord had compassion on the widow. This is a scene marked by divine compassion, the widow denoting what is all about us. We have no record of the name, because it is not a question of the son of a believer as at Bethany, it is just a widow and a widow’s son; it is what is around us on every hand. If God allow an awful catastrophe (such as the late war) to come on the human race, it is to bring to our attention the terrible physical sufferings that we are liable to at any time in order to accentuate to our minds the awful spiritual sufferings, the spiritual dearth that there is abroad in the religious world. One is impressed with this, that that which they seemed to have has been taken away, but then it says, “To him that hath shall more be given”, and if we have got things that we can speak about so much to one another. God would impress upon us that we are to speak to the widows and the widows’ sons, and to care for them. The Lord had compassion on the widow — that was a true priestly mark — one who could take account of human need, and meet it. The Lord would impress upon us that what we have got is not for ourselves alone. He says, “Give ye them to eat”, “I have compassion on the multitude”. He had feelings for them, and, dear brethren, this young man is raised up, and he began to speak, and there was “much people” there. He could speak about having been down into death, and he could speak of the power of Christ in raising him up. I am not saying that he did. Luke does not tell us what he said, but the Scriptures are to set our minds, under the Spirit of God, in motion; the Holy Spirit ^[p. 239] would bring to our notice what is, as it were, written “between the lines”. John says, that if all that Jesus did were written, the world itself could not contain the books that should be written. Hence by the Spirit of God we can take in the situation of this young man speaking; he sat up, and began to speak; no doubt he would continue. At any rate, the speaking is now to go on; it is a time of speaking; God would speak to us.

In Mark 7 we get a man made to speak, and it says he spoke right; that is, we are to present things according to God. “If any man speak, let him speak as the oracles of God”, 1 Peter 4: 11. Let us remember that it is a time of speaking. There are wonderful things to be said, and if I have experienced the compassion of God in Christ, I am not to be quiescent, because the need exists, and I am to speak. I have much to say, because I have experienced the compassion of God in Christ. “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the compassion of God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God”, Romans 12: 1. God claims our bodies; it is an intelligent service to yield our bodies to God. The tongue and the mouth are to be for God.

Luke tells us of the mouth of Christ; they marvelled at the “words of grace that were coming out of his mouth”. We are to be in correspondence with this in our service. Peter “opened his mouth” in the house of Cornelius. I perceive, he says, that God is no respecter of persons; he began with that. He was brought into accord with the divine attitude towards the whole race; a sheet had come down, knit at the four corners, indicating the universal attitude of the mind of God. Peter is brought into accord with that. But the Lord is the great pattern in the synagogue of Nazareth; one would never tire of dwelling on that scene. “Having rolled up the book, when he had delivered it up to the attendant,

^[p. 240] he sat down; and the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed upon him. And he began to say to them, Today this scripture is fulfilled in your ears”, Luke 4: 20. The Lord would lead us into the knowledge of our dignity and of the power that is involved in it, so that we should be far above the wretched pride of the flesh in accrediting itself with the service; our dignity does not admit of that, I am greater than my service; in the consciousness of that dignity I can go down, like John the baptist, who rejoiced to hear the voice of the Bridegroom. John was “the voice”, but he preferred to hear the Bridegroom’s voice; he did not rejoice to hear his own voice. He says, “This my joy ... is fulfilled”; he goes down joyfully, as one may say, in the light of the ascending glory of Christ. The Bridegroom was filling the scene; He was coming up in His majesty, so John is content to disappear in the light of that.

Then, on the other hand, in that dignity God would bring about a mouth, or mouths, speaking out divine compassion. The body is yielded up for God, as I understand service. It is really a priestly act to deliver up your body to God. I often think that one has always got something to yield to God while one is in the body; it is an intelligent service. And then it adds, “holy, acceptable to God”, and “that ye may prove what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God”. The body is for God, and God will take it up according to the principles set out in that chapter (Romans 12) and use it for the expression of the compassion of God. That is what the epistle to the Romans leads on to. I believe God would enlist us in that way in view of what is on hand, the finishing of things, so that we may be with Him in what He is doing. It is a wonderful thing to see what God is doing and to have part in it — to say a word in regard of the compassion of God and of Christ.