THE SUFFERING ONE
THE SUFFERING ONE
Psalm 105:7 - 23; 2 Corinthians 4:7 - 12
I had in mind to speak about the life of Jesus, how it constitutes a testimony to God, what it was as in Him, and how it works out in us. For it is a divine thought that His life, so precious under God’s eye, should not cease with the Lord’s death. It was laid down, but it is to be continued, and was continued, so to speak, in Peter and John, who “stand and speak in the temple to the people all the words of this life”, Acts 5:20 that is, the life which was in Jesus. I selected this passage in the Psalms as presenting Joseph to us, who, as we all know, is one of the most striking types of the Lord Jesus that the Old Testament affords. As he first appears at his birth, Jacob, his father, evidently recognised the light involved in his advent, so he set to work to prepare to move out of the land of Mesopotamia, and return to the land of his fathers — to Canaan. We have, therefore, a clear intimation that Joseph typifies the Lord, for His coming into the world involved light for others. Even at His birth the shepherds who fed their flocks by night could see light, and so, as Jacob returns to Canaan and meets his brother, Esau, his wives and children were called to pass before Esau, and Joseph is placed before his mother; Genesis 33:7. He passes before Esau and before his mother, a clear intimation again of a type of Christ, for, in Matthew 2:11, the little Child is placed before His mother, “That in all things he might have the pre-eminence”, Colossians 1:18 and even as to His mother, she has to take a second place to Christ. So, at the age of seventeen, Joseph is again before us as one who recoiled at the evil discourse of [p. 140] his brethren. He was with the sons of Bilhah and Zilpah, as we are told, and brought unto his father their evil report. There, again, we have a type of Christ who is “holy, harmless, undefiled, separated from sinners”. Hebrews 7:26. Then he is said to be loved by his father more than all his brethren. Again we have a type of Christ, and he is distinguished as Christ was at the outset of His path of ministry.
Joseph had a vest of many colours, reminding us of the variety of glory that shone, and shines, in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father loving to honour Him. And then we have the suffering Joseph; he is hated of his brethren, but in his sufferings — and this is what I want to impress upon all — he receives light, that is to say, it was a clear intimation of the end at the beginning. The end is glory, universal dominion, but in between there are the fetters for the feet and iron for the soul. It is said, “Until the time when what he said came about”.
I wish particularly to dwell upon what he said. It was not his word exactly; it was what he saw in his dreams. He had two dreams, as you remember, and I dwell upon them so that we may be established in our souls, as in a corresponding position we have the light to begin with, which intimates the end — the great terminus to which the path of faith leads — and so “Until the time when what he said came about: the word of Jehovah tried him”. And what did he say, beloved? “Behold, we were binding sheaves in the field, and lo, my sheaf arose and also stood upright”. Genesis 37:7. What light there was in that! His sheaf stood up. The corn cut down and bound into a sheaf, and it stands up. No one of us is of any value in the testimony until we understand that dream, what it is to stand up. Until we arrive at a time in our souls when we know what it is to stand upright by power which we have received from God, by the Spirit — the power by which He raised up [p. 141] Christ from the dead — we shall not be effective in the testimony, nor shall we be prepared to suffer.
And so the first light that Joseph has is, when he saw his sheaf stand up. It is a type of the resurrection of Christ.
We believe that in becoming a Man, the Lord intended to die. “For this cause”, He says, “came I into the world”. John 18:37. For what cause — to glorify the Father’s name, and that involved death. “Now”, He says, “is my soul troubled”. John 12:27. Death was before Him in its reality. He knew what it meant. He had just been to the grave of Lazarus, and He groaned at that grave, for He knew what power held the loved one there, but He had power, a greater power, and He raised him. And after that He says, “Now is my soul troubled”. He had to face death in all its power. He knew what was in it, and so He looks up to heaven and He says, “Father, glorify thy name”, and the answer comes immediately, “I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again”. John 12:28. Then He says, “Father, save me from this hour”, and He adds, “but for this cause came I unto this hour”. John 12:27. It was the hour of death; He came to die. But then, in dying He had in His soul the perfect knowledge of resurrection. “Thou wilt not suffer thine Holy One to see corruption”, and again, “Thou wilt show me the path of life; in thy presence is fulness of joy; at thy right hand are pleasures for evermore”. Psalm 16:10,11. He saw right on to the end, nevertheless, He came to die. It was very real to Him, but then, as I said before, what Joseph saw at the beginning, was that the sheaf stood up. Remarkable testimony! He saw the single sheaf stand up, and then he says, “Behold, your sheaves stood round about, and made obeisance to my sheaf”. Genesis 37:7. It is the superiority of a Man risen. The risen Man is superior to all other men. Who can contend with a risen Man? No one! and the believer has to understand the significance of a sheaf standing up, and of [p. 142] other sheaves making obeisance to that sheaf. It is Christ risen. He sees beyond the path of suffering, and before the iron entered into His soul, He saw the end and the power of resurrection.
Again, he dreams another dream. “Behold, the sun and the moon and the eleven stars made obeisance to me”. Genesis 37:9. Now we are on heavenly ground; not only is He risen from the dead, but He sees the position in heaven, and all heavenly authorities and powers made subject unto Him.
This, which Joseph said, stands out at the outset of his pathway. Then he is sold as a bondman to the Egyptian, and it is said, His feet were fettered, and the iron entered into his soul, typical of the sufferings of Christ. Between what he said of his dreams and the time when what he said came about, they afflicted his feet with fetters, and the iron came into his soul, and the word of Jehovah tried him. How perfectly he answers to the test! The word of the Lord tried him, and in that trial the light of Jesus shines for heaven and for earth.
His life was a continual offering, it was the meat offering. The meat offering, beloved, was for others, and it was for God. The priests had their part in it; it was for others, and that is what I want to dwell upon; “That they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them and rose again”. 2 Corinthians 5:15. As Paul says, “Death works in us, but life in you”. Paul’s life was a sacrifice. It was laid down for the brethren. It was for Christ. It was for God. He was “poured out” we are told.
So in the dungeon, the butler and the baker come to Joseph, and as the butler tells his vision, he says, “I saw a vine”. Genesis 40:9. It is a picture of Christ. The butler had no light, but the Spirit of God knew about it. The Spirit of God saw the life of Jesus, and the light of that life shone in the dark Egyptian dungeon in which Joseph was imprisoned. Think of the backward [p. 143] throw of the light. Even as Peter says, “In which also going, he preached to the spirits which are in prison, heretofore disobedient, when the long suffering of God waited in the days of Noah”; 1 Peter 3:20 and so the Spirit of God throws back the light of the life of Jesus into that dark Egyptian dungeon into the soul of Joseph. Indeed, Joseph was himself working out that life. It was the Spirit of Christ in him, and, as holding his vessel for God, he was suffering. He was not only a type, but there was the substance there, for the Spirit of Christ was in him, the Spirit of a suffering Christ, and the life of Jesus was wrought out in that dungeon. He was prepared to serve others. Indeed, he was a man sent before his brethren to preserve them, a posterity upon the earth. And so the butler says, “In my dream behold a vine was before me; and in the vine were three branches; and it was as though it budded, and her blossoms shot forth; and the clusters thereof brought forth ripe grapes”. Genesis 40:9,10. We have portrayed before us the beautiful life of Jesus. First the bud — for things were normal. It is not a question of miracle, but what is normal in manhood, what is divinely normal, what is perfect. There is the bud and the blossom, and the cluster, and the ripe grapes. All that was in the life of Jesus under the eye of God. Others may not have seen it, even His mother did not appreciate it, but God looked upon the bud, and it is said, “I was cast upon thee from the womb; thou art my God from my mother’s belly”, Psalm 22:10. It could not be said of any other babe that there was the principle of dependence upon God from the very outset of his being. How delightful that was to God; as the race of mankind were utterly indifferent to God’s claims. There was a Babe, a Babe in dependence.
Think of the kind of life that came under the eye of God in that bud. And then the blossom — how, at the age of twelve there was a blossom, and the cluster,
[p. 144] and finally, the fully developed One, the Man, Christ Jesus — the Holy Spirit coming down, as Luke presents it, in bodily form, showing that the totality of the Spirit was here. It was the Holy Spirit in Person, in its entirety, which could never be said of any other man. But then these ripe grapes were taken and pressed into Pharaoh’s cup. The precious results of the press, not, indeed, an ordinary wine press, but the fingers. It was the personal act of Christ. He says no one can take His life from Him — “I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it again”. John 10:18.
John’s gospel presents to us that He had authority to do it, and He did it, for He poured out His life unto death. It was all for God, as it were. The grapes were pressed into Pharaoh’s cup. The life of Jesus was the light that came into that dungeon, and it is the light that radiates today in the hearts of God’s people, where there is subjection to Christ, and this is to be reproduced in the people of God at the present time. I may add that it is only as we know Him glorified in Heaven that we can have part in that life. What we are brought into is eternal life, as it is said, “This is the witness, that God has given to us eternal life; and this life is in his Son”. But the life that we have in the Son works out in us as we are here in the body. It is the life of Jesus manifested in our mortal flesh; that is to say, it has reference to us as we are now in the body of mortal flesh. What a triumph! That in mortal flesh there should be portrayed here that same life that shone on earth in the Person of Christ! It was poured out to God, and so it is for man, too, and so it says in the Psalm, “Until the time when what he said came about, the king sent, and loosed him”. Yea, He came Himself. He was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father. Think of the Father in all His affection, as that blessed One lay three days and three nights in the [p. 145] bowels of the earth. The King sent and loosed Him. He loosed the pangs of death. How real it was! for that has reference to His being in the grave — the pangs of death. It was not possible that He should be holden of it, and so the King sent and loosed Him, and made him Lord of His house and Ruler of all His substance. That is the position Christ has now. He made Him Lord of His house and Ruler of all His substance. That is the time when His word came about. He is taken from the dungeon, “and made ruler of all his substance; to bind his princes at his pleasure, and teach his senators wisdom”. That is what He is doing now, but I am not dwelling upon that, precious as it is for our instruction. What I have before me is the life of Jesus, and so the apostle says, “We have this treasure in earthen vessels”. What treasure? Well, he had been speaking about the covenant. If Christ is made Lord over the house, He will bring the love of God into that house, and in 2 Corinthians 3 it brings the love of God into our hearts, so that we are free. If we are in the house of God we are in liberty, not only as sons, but because we know the love of God. We cannot be free in the assembly, or the house, except as we know the love of God. Perfect love casts out fear, and the glory of the Lord is that He brings in that love. As Lord over the house He is an Official, and He brings in the love of God, and makes it effective in our hearts. That is what He is doing for us. The service that He is carrying on at the present time, as Lord over all the house, and in the house, is to bring in the love of God, and to make known that God loves us. He comes as a minister of love. He is the minister of the covenant, and as a mediator of it, makes it effective in our hearts by the Spirit. He has attested it in dying, and makes it effective in our hearts, so that we should be free and happy in the presence of God. We need light and love, and that is the glory [p. 146] of the Lord, to bring in the love of God and make it effective in our hearts; for we are put in the house in the presence of God in liberty. It is the most precious ministry conceivable, to bring in the love of God. He has died to attest it, for the mediator dies; otherwise the covenant cannot be effective. But there is to be the opening of the will, and the making clear to the beneficiaries of the terms of the will, and these terms are that God loves us all alike. The mediator makes it effective. The reading of the will is of interest to every heir, and we are all heirs of God, and we desire to come into the benefits of the covenant, and the Lord has not only died to make them valuable, but He makes them effective, and brings them into our hearts. He is Lord over the house. The apostle said that he was a minister of the covenant. He was a competent new covenant minister. He was not the only one; he was one of them, and the greatest of them, and so he says, “We have this treasure in earthen vessels”.
The Lord is administering the covenant, and He has engaged Paul and others, and so the latter, having this treasure, is prepared for the iron and the fetters, for the testimony is in reproach and under persecution, and, as Paul said, he was prepared to suffer along with the glad tidings — “Take thy share of the sufferings”. 2 Timothy 2:3. It is when under persecution we get the treasure, and we have the same precious light as Joseph had in the dungeon. Not in the way that he had it, but shining in the face of Jesus; and so the next thing is, am I prepared for the fetters and the iron? “Until the time when what he said came about”; it is only for a moment until the release comes. The apostle said, “The time of my release is come”, 2 Timothy 4:6 “for our light affliction, which is but for a moment, works for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory”, and “the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal”. 2 Corinthians 4:17,18.
And so he says, “If our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens”. 2 Corinthians 5:1. The end is sure. In the meantime, it is a question of the life of Jesus and how it is to be expressed. So the apostle Paul gives us here a list of things that he went through. He says, “We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed”. The power of resurrection is there, and there is no possibility of overcoming such a power. He goes on to say, “Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus”. Think what a believer’s body is. Think of the value of it. It is that in which I may bear about the dying of the Lord Jesus. That is, how He died, how He poured out His life to God, as Joseph saw it when told of the butler’s dream, the grapes pressed into Pharaoh’s cup. And so the apostle goes on to say, “For we which live are alway delivered unto death for Jesus’ sake, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh”. Note that the apostle refers to the body and then to mortal flesh. It seems to me that mortal flesh appeals to me if I have no faith, but if I have faith, the mortal flesh is fettered. I am supporting the life of Jesus, bearing it about. Think of the importance of mortal flesh, what a great moral victory. He has turned mortal flesh into a vessel for the bearing of His precious life, and, so the apostle goes on to say, we must live to present our bodies as he does, for he could say we are always delivered unto death on account of Jesus.
God sees that you want to use your body, that it may be like His precious Son in this world now, and God helps you to this end. It is a serious thing, for God took Paul at his word. He poured in death on him, that the life of Jesus should be made manifest in his mortal flesh, and he says, “Death worketh in us, but life in you”. In effect he says, “The more I die, the more you live”. It is laying down one’s life for the brethren, and doing it as under the eye of God, and for His pleasure.