THE EFFECT OF THE SON OF GOD ON THREE PERSONS
W. McKillop
Mark 15: 37–39; John 9: 35–38; 11: 25–28
It is my desire to speak about the Son of God in this preaching and to speak about Him, not merely objectively, but to speak about Him in relation to the effect that He had on these three persons of whom we have read; the centurion, the man who was cast out, and Martha. It is blessedly true that the Son of God has come; it is a great abiding fact that the Son of God has been here and that He was manifested that He might undo the works of the devil. He came that He might undo the works of the devil in you and in me and in others. He came as bearing witness to the love of God for men, and exercising the power of God to undo the works of the devil, but this involved that the Son of God had to deal with the matter of sins and sin and death in order to bring men into the blessing that was in the mind and heart of God for them.
It is a wonderful consideration that the Son of God has been here. John, speaking about Christians, says, “we know that the Son of God has come”, 1 John 5: 20. I would ask every person here. Do you know that the Son of God has come? If you know that merely as an historical matter then there is a good deal more that you need to know in regard of the Son of God.
One of the things is what I mentioned, “To this end the Son of God has been manifested, that he might undo the works of the devil”, 1 John 3: 8. “The works of the devil” would allude no doubt to what he has succeeded in inculcating into the minds and hearts of men and what he has succeeded in setting up in this world. Satan is the god of this world and the Son of God has no place in it. The Son of God has come that He might deal with the matter of death, and it is well for us to consider that, for scripture says, “thus death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned”, Romans 5: 12. That is one of the sorrowful evidences of the success of the devil, that all have sinned. He deceived the first man and the first woman, and the result is that every person since, save our Lord Jesus Christ, is under that indictment, “all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God”, Romans 3: 23. So the Son of God has been manifested to deal with that. One of the things that He has to deal with, it may be, is your misapprehension of God and of His attitude towards men. I remember many years ago, when I was a student in high school, we had to read a preaching by a noted preacher in New England, Jonathan Edwards, and he spoke about persons being so abhorrent to God that they were like some venomous spider that is being held over the fire. I asked my father about that and he said, That utterly misrepresents how God views the race. One of Satan’s most successful weapons is that he has misrepresented God to men and has caused them to distrust God. If there is someone here who has not come to trust God, it is our prayer that as the glad tidings proceed you may come to trust God, to hope in a living God, and that the Son of God may become the object of your affections.
I have read of these three persons because the Son of God being presented in the glad tidings is to bring about some result in persons. Saul, when he was converted, “preached Jesus that he is the Son of God”, Acts 9: 20. That was a great result in Saul of Tarsus, from being a hater of Jesus, he could preach that “he is the Son of God”. But there is no record of anybody being affected by that preaching at that time.
Elsewhere he says, “the Son of God, Jesus Christ, he who has been preached by us among you (by me and Silvanus and Timotheus)”, 2 Corinthians 1: 19. That was in Corinth and there were great results there. While this preaching is far inferior to the preachings of Paul and Silvanus and Timotheus, nevertheless we are looking for some result in persons in regard of the Son of God.
This passage in Mark shows how one man, out of all those who were there around the cross of Jesus, was affected by what he saw and heard. He said, “Truly this man was Son of God”.
It says, “And Jesus, having uttered a loud cry, expired”. I did not read the earlier part, you can look at that, but this is His second cry on the cross; “having uttered a loud cry” would point to the power that marked the Son of God as going into death. The veil of the temple was rent in two from the top to the bottom. The Son of God having died, God is coming out in His nature and His attributes toward men. Then it says, “the centurion who stood by over against him”. Doubtless that was his attitude, up to this time he was over against him, and he stood by. It might be that there is somebody just sitting by here, but if you are indifferent to the Son of God you are over against Him. The preaching is to deliver you from that attitude of mind and heart. So “the centurion who stood by over against him, when he saw that he had expired having thus cried out”. I suppose this centurion had seen many men die, but he had never seen anything like this. He had never seen anyone cry with a loud voice and then expire, so when the centurion saw that He had expired having thus cried out, he said, “Truly this man was Son of God”. The striking thing is that nobody was preaching to this
centurion. This shows that what I may say in this preaching is not the main thing. The main thing is what is penetrating into your conscience, your mind, and your heart as to the Son of God. Let it come into your soul that He was in this position for you and for me, and that having uttered a loud cry and expiring, which was vicarious, was for you and me. It would be a wonderful result if every person in this room, whether for the first time, or again, would say, “Truly this man was Son of God”. That would be a very great result reached in all our hearts, that this Man is Son of God. I would ask you, Have you been so affected by the death of Jesus that you can say this, not merely giving lip service to it, but as affected in your inwards? This centurion is the only man whose testimony we hear of, according to Mark’s account, as to what had transpired. In a certain way, there was nothing finer that he could have said than “Truly this man was Son of God”. Whatever the works of the devil were in this man, the manifestation of the Son of God had undone them, and the centurion became a witness. Whether he fully understood what he was saying or not, he became a witness as to who this Man was, “Truly this man was Son of God”. One of the results in view in the glad tidings is that you should become a witness for the Son of God.
I refer to the man in John 9 because the question there is not what he saw only but also what he heard. “Jesus heard that they had cast him out, and having found him, he said to him, Thou, dost thou believe on the Son of God?” You can see that the Lord is putting something to this man that is in advance of what I read in Mark. No one put a question to the centurion. I suppose it was just what welled up in his soul as he took account of the death of Jesus. But here Jesus found this man, and He is here in this preaching and would put this question to each one, “Thou, dost thou believe on the Son of God?” You might say, I believe on Him as my Saviour, I believe that He died for my sins. That of course is precious knowledge but it does not answer the
question that Jesus puts to this man saying, “Thou, dost thou believe on the Son of God?” Do you believe on the Son of God? He is the Centre of another world. He has been in this world, the Son of God has been manifested, but He is no longer here. He is now the Centre and Sun of another world and the question that would be put to you as the preaching proceeds is,
“Thou, dost thou believe on, the Son of God?”
Very great things are in view for those who believe on the Son of God; not only that the works of the devil should be undone in them but that they should receive eternal life. John in his epistle tells us that it is those who believe on the only begotten Son of God who have eternal life. According to John 3 the intent of God in the preaching is that men should receive eternal life. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whosoever believes on him may not perish, but have life eternal”, John 3: 16. Do you know that you believe on the Son of God and that therefore you have eternal life in Him? The Lord does not proceed with the matter of eternal life in speaking to this man because the man is quite honest, he says, “And who is he, Lord, that I may believe on him?”. If we are not conscious that we believe on the Son of God, the Lord Jesus is quite ready in this meeting to be available to us to open up to us what this means. So when he answered and said, “And who is he, Lord, that I may believe on him?” Jesus said to him, “Thou hast both seen him, and he that speaks with thee is he”. It is the Son of God addressing Himself to you in the preaching of the word of God.
The great moral issue for you in the preaching is that you might be a believer on the Son of God, and that you might become as worshipper, for it goes on to say of the man that he said,
“I believe, Lord—and he did him homage”. The word ‘homage’ here means, I understand, an act of personal reverence. Has it ever so come into your soul at any time in a preaching or another meeting,
or when you have been alone, that this is the Son of God and the result has been that you have done Him an act of personal reverence? It is wonderful not only to believe on Him, but also to be among His worshippers. The glad tidings really would not reach the full divine intent if we were not made worshippers of the Son of God. To become worshippers, we must be believers on the Son of God, that Person outside of this world altogether who has manifested the Father’s name, who has declared the Father’s counsels, who has accomplished the will of God, who has vanquished death, who has opened up the realm of eternal life. That Person is to be worshipped! The glad tidings are to bring us to this point that individually we become worshippers of the Son of God. How the Lord’s heart must have been gratified when this man said these things, “I believe, Lord”. His subject faith is active in him in relation to the glorious Person who is speaking with him, and “he did him homage”. May all of us come to this in our souls before we leave this preaching, that we are so affected by the glory and greatness and attractiveness of the Son of God that we leave, not only rejoicing in the forgiveness of our sins, but also that our spiritual affections are going out to Him in reverence and adoration.
Well I referred to Martha, often spoken of in regard of her shortcomings, but she certainly shines in what it says here. “Jesus said to her, I am the resurrection and the life: he that believes on me, though he have died, shall live; and every one who lives and believes on me shall never die. Believest thou this? She says to him, Yea, Lord; I believe that thou art the Christ, the Son of God, who should come into the world”. In the presence of the death of her loved brother Lazarus and her sorrow over his death, she rises in her understanding as affected by the speaking of the Son of God who says, “I am the resurrection and the life”.
These wonderful matters, resurrection and life out of death are bound up with the Son of God.
He says, “he that believes on me, though
he have died, shall live”. It is a wonderful comfort to anyone whose loved one has fallen asleep, “and every one who lives and believes on me shall never die”. That is, even though we may go through death we shall not be in its power. Our bodies may be affected by it, but our spirits will be living in relation to Christ and to God, it is the bearing of what the Son of God says, “every one who lives and believes on me shall never die”.
You might say, does that mean that I may never die physically? No, it means that you will never die spiritually; that even if you are disembodied for a time, you will be alive in relation to God and the Son of God. So He says to her, “Believest thou this?” That is a word for everyone here. Do you believe this? Whether you are old or young, it is a great matter to have your faith in the Son of God in this connection; that though you may be disembodied, you will not die in the sense that you will not lose your link with the Son of God. Paul puts it differently saying, “absent from the body and present with the Lord”, 2 Corinthians 5: 8. But who is the Lord save the Son of God? The great thought is, of course, that while I am in the body I should live with Him outside this order of things of flesh and blood. That is what the gatherings of the saints are for, that we might enjoy life out of death. “She says to him, Yea Lord; I believe that thou art the Christ”, that is, the anointed One of God, and she adds, “the Son of God, who should come into the world”. So she becomes a messenger, that is one of the fine results in Martha here. “And having said this, she went away and called her sister Mary secretly”. That is, she wants to put someone else in touch with the Son of God. That would be another effect of the knowledge of the Son of God coming into your soul, that there is someone else you know who ought to be in this, and so “she went away and called her sister Mary secretly, saying, The teacher is come and calls thee”.
Well I only want to add one other thing that John tells us in his epistle, “we know that the Son of God has
come”, 1 John 5: 20. We, I think, would be intelligent Christians. Whatever the confusion may be in the minds of others, we have this clear definite full knowledge as to the Son of God. “We know that the Son of God has come, and has given us an understanding”. The Son of God has given us a divinely bestowed faculty, which is called an understanding, so that we are capable of taking in the wonderful, spiritual thoughts that are centred in the Son of God.
Then John goes on to say, “that we should know him that is true; and we are in him that is true, in his Son Jesus Christ”. You can see how the knowledge of the Son of God shines out in the beloved apostle for, he adds, “He is the true God and eternal life”. In those words he sums up what I have been trying to say. The Son of God, that glorious Person, has brought this wonderful thing called eternal life within our range; it is our common possession as persons who believe on the Son of God, it is not, as persons used to think, they have it in themselves; this life is in His Son. John tells us, so that we should know where God has located it. You might say, How do we then enjoy it? We enjoy it by being in the company of the Son of God, with believers on the Son of God, whose hearts are worshipful as they are affected by this glorious Person.
May God grant that we may all be included among those who believe on the Son of God and who are among His worshippers. How worthy He is of the adoration and personal reverence of every heart. The Spirit of God would work in us urgently so that as we finish this preaching there might be nobody outside of this wonderful matter of adoringly believing on the Son of God and enjoying what has come to us through Him, the knowledge of God, eternal life, and other things that might be mentioned, all brought to us by the Son of God.
How worthy He is of our adoration and our praise! May God bless the word.
Preaching at Aberdeen, Scotland
22 August 1999