“JESUS HIMSELF”

Revelation 3:20; Luke 23:39-43; 24:36-53

My desire, dear friends, with the help of the Holy Spirit, is to speak about things that Jesus Himself has done. Many things in Scripture were done by the Lord’s servants. We read of one who was an “elect vessel”, Acts 9:15. How great it is that God has such persons: He has prophets; He also has angels. But there are certain things that Scripture tells us were done by Jesus Himself, and I would like to speak of some of these in the glad tidings.

I began in this verse in Revelation because we need to lay hold of this, that it is Jesus who is seeking you out. This portion in Revelation gives the words of the Lord Himself: He Himself revealed this to John. I was struck by these words that He begins with – “Behold, I stand”. The door in this verse has been linked with the door of your heart, and in the glad tidings that is what the Lord is occupied with. He wants you to open the door of your heart, and He wants to secure your soul for God. If you do not know that securing power, if you have not had to do with Jesus, God will have to do with you; and He will have to do with you as a righteous Judge. The end of that would be that you will be lost, and lost eternally. It is a very serious aspect of the glad tidings: it places responsibility on men, and if men do not accept Jesus, they will be held to account for it. But we are very thankful that, through the grace of God, the dispensation of grace continues and the Lord is still standing at the door, and He is knocking. He is not just standing there hoping that you will open the door; no, He is knocking, and I think the knocking links with the glad tidings. The gospel continues to be preached. It is not valued by the world’s system – we can see all around the things that the world is interested in – but the word of God continues to go out. We are thankful for the many hearts that treasure the glad tidings, because they treasure Jesus and love Him.

Have you opened the door of your heart? Have you heard that knocking? The Lord says, “if anyone hear my voice and open the door, I will come in unto him and sup with him, and he with me”. Jesus wants to have to do with you, beloved friend. He has already completed His atoning work so He can have to do with you. He has done everything that needed to be done so that your situation might be addressed fully, in its entirety, before a holy and righteous God. All that is required is that you open that door, that you hear the voice of the Saviour calling, calling you to open to Him. Open that door!

How wonderful that the first action is on the part of the Lord: “I will come in unto him”. The Lord is waiting; we often sing:

‘He is able, willing, waiting now to save’

                        (Hymn 439)

That is what Christ has in mind, indeed it is what the Father seeks. That is why He has made the Saviour available, because He is able, and willing, and waiting now to save. Do not wait another moment, do not go out of the door of this room, do not do another thing without putting your trust in the work that Christ has done. As we have said, He is able, and He is willing, and He is waiting now to save. Perhaps He is waiting just for you. There will be a day when the gospel will no longer be preached, when this dispensation will end. It has remained open until now, because there is at least one still to be saved – perhaps many more, but there is still at least one. Friend, accept Jesus and the work He has accomplished; accept Him in your heart; know Him as your Saviour and be ushered into the joy that is to be found in His presence, the joy of appreciating something of what God finds in Him.

That is why I read these passages in Luke, first of all in chapter 23. We read here of what was happening just before the completion of His work, when the Lord was already on the cross. Each one of us should put ourselves in the place of this malefactor, because what he says to the other, whom he rebuked, is very striking. It is a touching response from a heart that had apprehended something of the greatness and the perfection of Christ. He says, “we indeed justly, for we receive the just recompense of what we have done”. Do you know what is the “just recompense of what we have done”? Each one of us has been born into sinful flesh, each one of us is a sinner. The just recompense of being a sinner is death, and after death the judgment. That is what God will do, and He is a righteous Judge. It is not unfair in any way; men may say, ‘I was born this way; I could not have done anything to save myself’. No, and God is righteous, and He cannot abide sin, and this man came to that as he hung on the cross, so that he rebukes the other who was reviling the Lord. He says, “we indeed justly, for we receive the just recompense of what we have done”. And then he adds “but this man has done nothing amiss” – how precious!

There were two sinners there, and one Man, Jesus, in the middle. This malefactor recognised that he was beside One who had trodden a pathway that led to the cross and it was a pathway of perfection. That is why Christ is able to save. He is willing and waiting, and He is able to save. He is able because He is perfect and has completed a work whereby the righteous claims of God have been fully met in relation to sin and sins. He came into this scene as One who “did not esteem it an object of rapine to be on an equality with God; but emptied himself, taking a bondman’s form ... and … humbled himself, becoming obedient even unto death, and that the death of the cross”, Phil.2:6-8. What a death it was, a death of shame and deep suffering; and the malefactor recognised that this Man, Jesus, had done nothing amiss, had done nothing against God and nothing against any man; He was perfect in His pathway here and as such He had made Himself an offering to God. He was the precious and perfect offering upon which God could look, and as a result of this God is able to forgive you your sins which should be laid to your account, and mine. That is the work of Christ on the cross: He gave Himself as an offering. It says in Hebrews that He “offered himself spotless to God” (chap.9:14), and so God has a righteous basis on which He can forgive sins.

Then this man turns and says to Jesus, “Remember me, Lord, when thou comest in thy kingdom”. What this man had arrived at! Not only did he appreciate the greatness of the Man who was hanging on the cross next to him, but he also realised that He was coming into a kingdom, and that He would rise again – that there was life in this Man who hung next to him, dying on the cross; there was life in Him. He says to Jesus, “Remember me, Lord, when thou comest in thy kingdom”. I was struck by these words. Did the malefactor expect a response? He was a sinner; he knew that, but he wanted some remembrance by One who was greater than he was; and the Lord answered him. In the glad tidings, the preacher speaks with the joyful assurance that if you hear the glad tidings and reach out to Jesus, and if you say, as it were, “Remember me, Lord, when thou comest in thy kingdom”, if you commit yourself to Him and put your faith and trust in the work that He has done, He will answer you. He says, “To-day shalt thou be with me in paradise”. Does that mean that you will be translated away from this world as soon as you believe? No, we may be left in this world for a little while longer, in the conditions that are here, but now you will have a link with One who is in heaven, One who has borne the judgment, who has tasted death and has gone into the very depths of death itself, depths beyond what we can ever understand. He has suffered in going that way, yet He has come out triumphant.

In the next chapter we have the words of the angels, “Why seek ye the living one among the dead? He is not here, but is risen” (chap.24:5,6). That is the way heaven sees Christ, One who is living, One in whom life is found. There is another hymn that says,

‘Life is found alone in Jesus’ (Hymn 266)

There is no other man with such attributes, no other man who has gone this way, no other man who could go this way. ‘Life is found alone in Jesus’. Have you put your faith and trust in Him? That is the responsibility of every one who listens to the glad tidings. We must be sure that we have put our faith and trust in that glorious Man and that our soul salvation is secure in that One who has come out from heaven and has died for you. He has gone into the grave and now is alive, to die no more. “Why seek ye the living one among the dead?” Friend, do not look among the dead things of this world to save yourself. Salvation can be found in only one Man, the One who is the Giver of life, the Man who is in heaven, having been raised from among the dead.

I want to speak now about these wonderful verses we read in Luke 24. It is notable that everything is undertaken by the Lord, the Lord in resurrection. He has been into death, He has completed the work, He has secured the victory and now He is raised from among the dead. He is not yet ascended – we come to that at the end of the chapter – but here He is moving among His people. In verse 36 we read that “he himself stood in their midst”. Now, this was a company where each one had come to it that life, and enjoyment, and everything that they sought, was in Christ. They knew it to some extent while He was here amongst them, before He died. You might say, ‘We cannot know that, because the Lord is not here now.’ That is true: the Lord is no longer in this scene and we cannot walk and converse with the Lord physically. These dear ones had known and laid hold of the Lord when He was here, and now He was no longer with them and they felt lost. But they were gathered together, and as they were so, the Lord Himself came into their midst. The Lord has made a promise, you can read it in John’s gospel, “I will not leave you orphans, I am coming to you” (chap.14:18). The Lord promises that where His own are gathered together to His name, He will be in the midst of them (Matt.18:20). Why is that? The Lord not only desires that you should be saved – you could say that that is His first desire – but once you know your sins forgiven, His desire is to be with you.

There are many ways in which you can be with the Lord. You can be with Him individually, and it is a very great encouragement to have individual links with Him. You can reach out to Him in prayer. We can be occupied with Him as we read the Holy Scriptures. There is no better place to be than in the presence of the Lord, to have some touch of His greatness and glory, especially when we are in a company of those who love Him. It says, “And as they were saying these things, he himself stood in their midst.” They were confounded, they were frightened, they did not really know what was going on. The flesh does not know or understand anything relating to heavenly enjoyment. These things cannot be understood in the flesh. But if we hold fast to Christ and to one another, we will find that we get what we need. The Lord says, “Why are ye troubled? and why are thoughts rising in your hearts? behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself”. He was showing to them that He was a real man, One who was risen from among the dead. He had been with them in flesh and blood, and now He was risen, in flesh and bone; He had come out from the grave triumphant; He was victorious. He says “behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself”: how interesting that He should draw attention to these hands and feet. The last they had seen of His hands and feet was when they were nailed to the cross, and the marks of His suffering were still there, yet here He was before them, in life, desiring to bring them into what was greater, the entrance into what was heavenly.

The Lord continues; He eats with them, and then He opens their understanding to understand the Scriptures, and says, “Thus it is written, and thus it behoved the Christ to suffer, and to rise from among the dead the third day”. What that was for the Lord! He has secured something, and this is what He seeks now from your heart, that there might be an answer to the precious love that He displayed at Calvary, and an answer to the precious light that shines out from heaven even now. It is the light of the glad tidings, the light of the glory of the testimony and all that has been secured for the glory of God, the light of the eternal day that we can touch now, because Christ has gone into heaven. The passage says, “And he led them out as far as Bethany, and having lifted up his hands, he blessed them. And it came to pass as he was blessing them, he was separated from them and was carried up into heaven”. He “was carried up into heaven”, He was “received up in glory”, 1 Tim.3:16. You can also read in the Scriptures about the One who has ascended far above all the heavens (Eph.4:10). It has been said that ‘every intelligence and sphere were filled with the Lord Jesus Christ as He went up’¹; what a glorious reception, as Christ ascended to the right hand of the Father. You can give Him that same reception in your heart now, as you are sitting in your seat. Open up your heart and let Him in; recognise that He is “King of kings, and Lord of lords”, Rev.19:16. Friend, recognise that His glory and His light – all that is associated with Him – shines out and fills heaven. You can enjoy this now and in the eternal day.

These wonderful things are for us to lay hold of. That is what they did here: “And they, having done him homage, returned to Jerusalem with great joy, and were continually in the temple praising and blessing God”. You might ask, ‘How did they do that? How could they do that when the Lord had been taken up?’ The answer is in verse 49: “And behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you; but do ye remain in the city till ye be clothed with power from on high”. Yes, the Lord has left this scene and has gone to glory, and the glorious heavenly sphere that will be enjoyed in the eternal day has begun there. It has begun in heaven, but it has begun on earth too, although not yet publicly here. But it will be so in the coming day, when “the Lord himself, with an assembling shout, with archangel's voice and with trump of God, shall descend from heaven; and the dead in Christ shall rise first”, 1 Thess.4:16. That is the rapture, when He will come to take all His own to be with Himself.

Then there will be His appearing, the day of the public vindication of the Lord on the earth, and He will reign supreme for a thousand years; what a period of blessing it will be! But the joy of heaven can be known in our hearts now in the power of the Holy Spirit. The Lord speaks of the coming of the Holy Spirit when He commands them to remain in the city until they were “clothed with power from on high”. There would be a period of time in which the Holy Spirit was witness to the ascension of Christ into heaven. Now the Holy Spirit has come here as power from on high. Why? To dwell in the hearts of those who love Christ. As you open the door of your heart to let Christ in, you can ask the Father for the gift of the Holy Spirit, and as you do there is no doubt that you will receive the Spirit. God loves to give the blessing of the Holy Spirit freely. Scripture speaks about the windows of heaven opening and the blessing being poured out (Mal.3:10). That speaks of the Holy Spirit coming in, the storehouses of heaven being poured out, so that your heart might be filled with the joy of heavenly things, and with the glory of Christ, for the pleasure of God.

May this be the portion of each one. May the Lord bless us, that there would be edification and increase in our hearts from what has been said, to His glory.

Preaching of the gospel, Linlithgow

29 December 2024

 

Ross Pye