REMEMBRACE OF THE LORD JESUS
[p. 141] REMEMBRACE OF THE LORD JESUS
1 Corinthians 11:23 - 26; Genesis 40:14,23; Genesis 41:9; Exodus 32:1
It is in my mind to inquire as to how we regard the Lord Jesus Christ in the way of remembrance, whether our remembrance of Him is an historical one, or whether we hold Him in affectionate remembrance. I have read the passage from 1 Corinthians because it suggests the latter. The Lord’s supper is to enable us to keep the Lord so before us, that we hold Him in affectionate remembrance. The designation used by the apostle Paul shows that it was so in his case. He says, “I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, that the Lord Jesus the same night in which He was betrayed took bread”. The Lord Jesus is the designation which denotes that Christ was held in affectionate regard and remembrance by Paul. We all know that in his different epistles he speaks much of Christ. If he is presenting a certain line of truth he uses the designations which cover that. If he speaks of the Lord as the One through whom things have been effected for God, he usually refers to Him as the “Lord Jesus Christ”. Indeed it becomes an inquiry to one whether the habitual use of any designation by us does not in some sense indicate our regard for Christ.
Now, as I have said, the apostle in setting out some line of truth usually employs a designation which covers that line of truth. For instance he says, “there be gods many, and lords many”; and there are, dear friends, gods many, and lords many; “but to us there is but one God, the Father”. That is not necessarily our Father, it is the Father; and he goes on to say: “of whom are all things, and we for him”. The Father is the Source of everything. And then he adds to that “and one Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Corinthians 8:5,6),
that is to say, “to us there is ... one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by him”. That is, he regards the one Lord as Jesus Christ who has effected things; and oh, beloved friends, what has He effected? Well, He has brought us in; “and we (he says) by him”. He has brought the saints in; the great result of His work in becoming Man is that He has us all. I do not know whether you regard yourself in that light, but I do; one regards oneself as by the Lord Jesus, brought in, as it were, as a trophy, “we by him”. But all things are by Him. Think of the vastness of the scheme, every divine conception brought in by Him; all that order of things of which the tabernacle is a figure, brought in by Him. But how blessed in the meanwhile that our place is now by Him. There it is “one Lord Jesus Christ”; and then if the apostle speaks about things that have been effected he refers to them as “in Christ Jesus”; they are in the anointed Man, I do not suppose any one of us would wish them elsewhere. God has been pleased to commit Himself to Christ; that is the idea of the anointed; God has been pleased to commit Himself to the Lord Jesus, and He has placed everything there; we do not wish them elsewhere.
If it is one’s own position one is entitled to reckon oneself “dead indeed unto sin”. The Lord resisted unto blood, striving against sin; we are entitled to reckon ourselves dead to it, but more than that we are to reckon ourselves “alive unto God”, in whom? “In Christ Jesus” (Romans 6:11). One is entitled to reckon oneself as in the Man to whom God has committed Himself. And if God has given to us, in His great act of favour, that which we so often dwell upon, and yet so little understand, eternal life, if it be that, where is it? Well, beloved friends, according to Paul, it is just there, it is “in Christ Jesus our Lord”; and the more we treasure it the more we [p. 143] are satisfied that it is there. If it be a question of what God is going to introduce for His own satisfaction as Father, He has revealed His Son in the apostle. He “was pleased” (Paul says) “to reveal his Son in me, that I may announce him (the Son) as glad tidings among the nations” (Galatians 1:16). So that in any line or thought of truth that the apostle has in mind, he uses the designation to cover it, and there are no discrepancies. But when it comes to what the Lord Jesus Christ was to Paul’s own heart he invariably refers to Him as “the Lord Jesus”.
Now I would inquire as to how you regard the Lord, and as I said, it just resolves itself into this, whether your remembrance of the Lord is simply historical, or whether it is an affectionate remembrance of Him. If it be the former I think I can point out to you that somebody else will ultimately take His place in your heart. In Christendom it is simply an historical remembrance, and never goes beyond that. What would be the result of what we learn in Christendom? They only honour the Lord with the lips, but what about the heart? The word says, “Son, give me thine heart” (Proverbs 23:26). Their hearts are far away, Jehovah had to say. Well now, it is an historical remembrance of Him that is around us, and that is not the Lord’s supper. If the apostle Paul were called to pronounce upon that which purports to be the Supper, what would he say? What did he say? “This is not the Lord’s supper”, whatever else it might be. And then he goes on to call attention to the Lord’s supper, and says, that he received it of the Lord, and what he received was, “that the Lord Jesus, the same night in which he was betrayed, took bread”. The Lord Jesus! Is that how you refer to Christ in your heart?
You will find a similar expression in Paul’s charge to the elders of Ephesus. Having said much to them, and called attention to what he had been amongst them, he says, you “remember the words of the Lord Jesus”. The words; we have to remember Him affectionately, to remember Him, and then His words. Now what were these words that they were to remember? “It is more blessed to give than to receive” (Acts 20:35); simple words to be remembered. Mark, how they are to be remembered, how they are to be treasured in the affections. You may give something as a trader; there is a good deal of that; you expect value back for what you give. Now to remember the words of the Lord Jesus would save you from that. God is comparatively little interested in your material gifts. It is not said, that He loves them, but that “God loveth a cheerful giver” (2 Corinthians 9:7). He loves the giver. How do you become a cheerful giver? Well, I do not know a better way for that than to remember the words of the Lord Jesus. What are they? “It is more blessed to give than to receive”. He shows the way; He shows the way in everything, beloved brethren.
Well now, I want to go back for a moment to Joseph, I want to show you from Joseph as a figure of Christ, how one had greatly benefited by him. I desire to be simple and elementary. It is a question of getting at the heart, for if the heart is not touched there is nothing done; we have to bear that in mind. Wisdom always gets at your heart. The chief butler had been greatly benefited by Joseph, and Joseph lays upon him the obligation, “Bear a remembrance with thee of me when it goes well with thee”. That is the true reading. I need not say that for us that is the supper. That request was laid upon Pharaoh’s cup-bearer by Joseph, and we are told that he forgat Joseph, but that does not signify that he forgot him historically; we know he referred to him afterwards and said “I do remember my faults this day”. How often is it so with the convert, with the Christian? You may refer to what [p. 145] has occurred; you can give the date of your conversion. Pharaoh’s cup-bearer remembered his sins; it is remarkable how people recall their sins, but that is a poor way to remember Joseph. It is quite right to have a remembrance of your faults, but it reminds one of ‘God be merciful unto us, miserable sinners’. That is not the remembrance of Joseph; though he did call to mind that such an event had occurred. But what about that remembrance he was to bear with him?
Young Christian, what about that remembrance you are to bear with you? Do you bear it? Joseph says, “Bear a remembrance with thee of me”. He never made any note of it, he did not even put it in his diary apparently. Have you that remembrance with you? He adds, “when it goes well with thee”. It is well with us, if we are Christians; how wonderfully well! If we do not know it, we ought to know how wonderfully well it is with us if we have become so through the true Joseph, through Him into whose soul the iron went. He went down into the depths, the iron went into His soul, it was all real to Him. He bore with Him a remembrance of us there, and oh, what a remembrance! Our sins were all there, He remembered them; that was the remembrance that we placed on Him. He could say, “My sins are more than the hairs of mine head”. What a remembrance of us He had in the depths! He bore it with Him. Look at Him there on the last night. Remember the apostle says, it was that night; it is not simply that it occurred some night, it was that night, the night in which the Lord Jesus was betrayed. We may not all be conscious of what betrayal is, perhaps we have not endured it, but there is nothing keener in the way of suffering. He says, “the hand of him that betrayeth me is with me on the table” (Luke 22:21). What a remembrance He had with Him of the natural heart of man and what it is capable of! It [p. 146] is capable of betraying the Lord Jesus; “the hand of him that betrayeth me is with me on the table”. What a remembrance the Lord had of that!
I could speak of other things that were there besides the betrayal. But, oh beloved, He thought of us there! The Lord’s supper is especially intended to show the place that the saints have in the heart of Christ. How much He loves us! And that remembrance of Him is given to you and to me to bear with us. “Bear a remembrance with thee of me”. It was in that night He said, “This is my body, which is for you”. Do you ever think of that? “Lo, I come to do thy will, O God” (Hebrews 10:9). That is what His body was for God. Think of what it is for you and me. “This is my body, which is for you”. And as He journeyed from the supper table to the cross, He had them in His heart; not indeed their sins as yet, but He had them in His heart. They did not know it, they little realised the place they had, but He says, the day is coming when you will know it; the Spirit’s day. “At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you” (John 14:20). They were in His heart; from the supper table to the cross they were in His heart; and as He hung there during those three hours of which we have often spoken, beloved, what a remembrance He had of us there! Would that these thoughts might sink into our hearts! They are very serious thoughts. He had a remembrance of us with Him. It was a most terrible time. At the table He was reminded of our traitor hearts “the hand of him that betrayeth me”. That hand that took the money, the thirty pieces of silver, was there; and on the cross our sins were laid on Him in all their terribleness, as judged by his holy soul in the light of God. “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? ... But thou art holy, O thou that inhabitest the praises of Israel” (Psalm 22:1,3). There in the depths He had a remembrance of us.
[p. 147] Well now, we are told that the cup-bearer forgat Joseph; but the time arrived when it seemed that it might give him an increased favour with his master, and then he remembered Joseph! Now how do you remember the Lord Jesus? Do you remember Him selfishly? Do you speak of Him only before the saints? Well, there is not much reproach in speaking of Him among the saints; the Lord Jesus is held by them in affectionate regard, they love to hear about Him. How do you speak of Him outside? What kind of designation do you use? Does it denote One whom you love, or is it just that of a benefactor, a public benefactor? The apostle spoke of Him as “my Lord”. Mary Magdalene said, He is mine; “they have taken away my Lord” (John 20:13). Did you ever say that publicly? That is what I regard as affectionate remembrance. It is a designation that denotes One that has a place in your heart.
The cup-bearer, as I was noting a moment ago, called to mind his faults; that was not calling Joseph to mind. I would emphasise that, to call to mind your faults is not calling Joseph to mind. It is quite right to judge sin, but calling Joseph to mind would be the remembrance that Joseph told him to keep with him, and that he did not keep; he made not even a note of it, so that he forgot Joseph. He did not forget the event, it was an historical event that he could never have forgotten. Do you think for one moment he forgot he was in prison, and this captive Hebrew revealed to him his dream? But he forgot Joseph in the sense in which Joseph intended him to remember him, he had no remembrance of Joseph.
Now that too was the case with the Israelites. The same principle appears in Exodus 32. It was when Moses had left them. You always find it is when God leaves you to yourself it brings out just where you are. The Israelites were left to themselves for a little while, less than six weeks; it was not very [p. 148] long. See what kind of memories they had! They had seen Moses go up into the mount, but they could not tell where he was. Now let me say to you that if your remembrance of the Lord Jesus is such as theirs was of Moses, simply that he had led them out of the land of Egypt, you will very soon lose all sense of where He is; you can give no account of Him. They say, “As for this Moses ... we wot not what has become of him”. “This Moses”, they say; it was the very opposite of affectionate regard and esteem. Yet they remembered the historical event, he had led them out of the land of Egypt. He had been their leader, they admitted it, but what account did they give of him? “We wot not what had become of him”. You remember the day of your conversion, but what about every day since that? The second day of your conversion ought to be a brighter day than the first; and it would be if you had the Lord Jesus in affectionate remembrance, for things increase. The affectionate remembrance in which you hold Him as having converted you would be brighter, and so on; as the days are multiplied your remembrance increases, and your joy increases.
They said, “We wot not what has become of him”. During those forty or thirty-nine days they had not taken account of the provision Moses made for them, in leaving Aaron and Hur to look after them. If I had been there with the light I have, I should have looked at Aaron as Moses’ provision. They had Aaron and Hur. I should have looked at Hur and said, That is Moses’ provision for me; but what did they say? “As for this Moses we wot not what has become of him”. Now it is as sure as anything can be that if there is not affectionate remembrance for a person, somebody else will take his place, that is so in the history of Christendom. Presently some one else is coming in to take the place of the Man who is held in regard only in an historical light. The Lord said, “if another shall come in his own name, him ye will receive” (John 5:43). The way is being prepared for him. The seed was sown long since that has borne the crop which is preparing for his advent. “This Moses”, what did that mean? There might be another equally good if not better. Is it not so with regard to the Lord, that in the minds of men He simply ranks with other men in the present day? That is the situation. I have seen His name put up with other men, with great leaders of thought in this way; we have not got Him, we may as well have another. Now the Lord’s supper saves you from all that. Do not say, you have not got Him, and that you do not know where He is. If that is the language of your heart you will look for another. John the baptist said, “Art thou he that should come, or do we look for another?” (Matthew 11:3). Christendom is looking for another already. Let us take it to heart. The word has gone forth that Christianity is a failure; they are looking for someone else. The thing is simply a fact in an historical light, the Lord Jesus Christ is not in their hearts. The way is being prepared for another, for they would have another to come.
Well, I do not dwell further on that, but I turn to the Lords supper. The supper is brought to us Gentiles from heaven, by one who valued it. The apostle Paul does not use dry doctrinal language. He says. “I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you. That the Lord Jesus the same night in which he was betrayed, took bread”. This is his own language; the structure of the sentence is his own. We must not assume that he quoted from Luke, Luke quoted from him if anything. The Supper is presented to us couched in the language of one whose affectionate regard for Christ is conveyed in it. “The Lord Jesus, the same night in which he was betrayed, took bread”. When Paul [p. 150] was amongst them he had delivered it to them. I have no doubt that the first breaking of bread at Corinth was by him; he says, “I delivered it to you”. One would have loved to have seen Paul break the bread. The Lord Jesus was in his heart; the night on which He was betrayed was in his heart. How all that scene would come in power into the heart of Paul as he broke the bread at Corinth! He says, I delivered it to you.
We must not think this is the first time they heard of the Supper; he calls attention to what he had delivered to them. And how far they had got away from it! so far that he says, that what they were doing was not the Lord’s supper. The Lord’s supper is what I delivered to you; your supper is sectarian, the rich eating before the poor, that is not the supper of the Lord. One would have loved to have been there when Paul spread the supper table. He would take the loaf and break it and call to mind, using the Lord’s exact words. “This do for the calling me to mind”. Not an historical event, it is the Person; it is “for a remembrance of me”. It was as if Paul, like Joseph, had left it with the Corinthians so that they might have it by them, a remembrance of Christ. How far away they had got from it! Sectarian views, carnal jealousies and pride, all that in the holy supper of the Lord Jesus! he says, It is not the supper. He does not say what it may have been, he could have said much. He says, This is the Supper, what I delivered to you. It was delivered tangibly by his own hands in their own sight; they had moved away from it. I believe the Lord would lead us back to the simplicity of the Supper, so that it might be with us, as Joseph desired it should be with the cupbearer, a remembrance of Him. Till when? Till He comes. “In like manner also the cup”. That word “manner” is very suggestive; “in like manner also the cup, after having supped, saying, This cup [p. 151] is the new covenant in my blood; this do, as often as ye shall drink it, in remembrance of me”.
Now I just want to refer for a moment to the end of the Scriptures. In Revelation 22:20 the apostle John says, “Even so, come, Lord Jesus”. There is the same affection that he began with, but it had become intensified, if anything. The Lord at the end of the book announces Himself to the assemblies. He says, “I Jesus”; not appearing now as the long-robed Personage of the first chapter of the book. It is “I Jesus, have sent mine angel to testify unto you these things in the churches;” to you, not to the angels of the assemblies now. He speaks directly to us now, and what is the regard in which the assembly holds Him? It is triumph to dwell on this, it is the triumph of His care and attention all the way through the dark night. He is now the Morning Star; things are brightening into day. He says, “I am the root and offspring of David, and the bright and morning star”. What does the assembly think of Him? What do you think of Him? “The Spirit and the bride say, Come”. (verses 16,17). That is the Man they have come to admire. Antichrist is not admired, antichrist is the opposite of that Man, and he is not admired in the assembly, he is admired elsewhere. The remembrance the Lord Jesus left has been effective. He has not been forgotten, thank God; the assembly has come back to the remembrance of Him, as if to say, You are the Man. It is the Person she wants.
Now just to make the point clear, you will observe in regard to Enoch, that, though he was translated, he did not speak in his prophecy about translation. Enoch was a prophet. We are told in Genesis 5:24, that he walked with God and that “God took him”, and we are told in Hebrews 11, that he was translated, but he says nothing about it. What Enoch said was, “Behold, the Lord cometh” (Jude 14). Faith looks on to the [p. 152] scene of testimony here that must be occupied. If Enoch goes, the Lord comes. Does He come with Enoch? No, with ten thousands of His saints, with the holy myriads. What joy and strength that would be to the heart of Enoch amid all the terrible corruption that surrounded him! Think of the Lord coming with holy myriads!
The assembly does not speak of her translation, the Lord is coming; that is her witness. Is antichrist to hold sway? Is he to prevail? No, he is not to prevail. The Lord is coming in with holy myriads, they are to occupy the ground. He is to take vengeance on those that know not God, and obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. So the assembly is not telling us about her translation, she is occupied with the coming in of the One she loves, the One of whom she has had the remembrance in her heart all the time. Then John, too, to add to the position after all He has said and done, says, “Even so, come, Lord Jesus”. It represents the affectionate regard in which the Lord is held on earth through grace.
May the Lord enable us to give Him that place. I believe He is seeking it; as I was saying elsewhere, it is before our translation that He would bring about a state in us that is pleasing to God. The Supper brings it about. “Before his translation he had this testimony, that he pleased God”. Before it. So that there is the affectionate regard in which John holds the Lord. He does not say, Lord, take us; no, “Even so, come, Lord Jesus”. “Amen come, Lord Jesus”.
Now just another word: David says, “Let all the people say, Amen” (Psalm 106:48). Well, that is what the Holy Spirit would bring about. If there is anything right and true, and surely the truth of the coming of the Lord is, it is what is needed all around us, “Let all the people say, Amen”. Let us not be divided about that, “Let all the people say, Amen”. So John says, “Amen”; he wishes the Lord Jesus to come.
Pages 153 - 250 — “Readings on the Epistle to the Ephesians”. New York, May, 1916 (Volume 32).