JESUS, THE ANSWER TO EVERY QUESTION
There is a question raised in each of the three scriptures which we have read. God is presenting in the glad tidings a Man, Jesus, who has the answer to every question that could ever be raised by anyone. I suppose it would also be right to say that every question that God has posed to His creature man finds its full answer in this beloved One. We read the equivalent scripture in our morning reading in Luke’s gospel, and the question is raised, “Who is able to forgive sins but God alone?”, Luke 5:21. The answer is – the Lord Jesus. The answer is the Lord Jesus to each one of these questions of which we have read. There is no question that anyone could ever raise to which God does not have the answer, and He has it in His beloved Son. And the Lord Jesus not only has the answer, but He Himself is the answer to these questions.
And so this question is raised, “Who is able to forgive sins except God alone?”. The persons who asked that were opposed to Jesus. In the other scriptures read, it was the disciples who raised the questions, but here, these opposers did not understand or accept the glory and greatness of the One who was in their midst. We spoke in our reading of the glory of who was here, a blessed Man. One of our hymns says
‘Blessèd Man, and yet divine!’ (Hymn 147)
We spoke about how John tells us, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things received being through him, and without him not one thing received being which has received being”, John 1:1-3. How glorious, how great, is the Man who God is presenting in the glad tidings, the One who can forgive sins. The Lord Jesus responded to these opposers when He said, “Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, Thy sins are forgiven thee; or to say, Arise, and take up thy couch and walk?”, Mark 2:9. It has been said before that it would have been easier for Jesus to say, “take up thy couch and walk”. That would have involved an act of power, but think of what it involved for Him that He should say, “Thy sins are forgiven thee”.
How much that involved for this blessed One who came into this scene, God come near to men. How near God has come, in the person of Christ, to win the hearts of His creature. It says elsewhere “God commends his love to us, in that, we being still sinners, Christ has died for us”, Rom.5:8. Jesus is able to forgive sins because He has taken upon Himself the whole liability of what lay upon man. What a wonderful thing it is to know that all the burden of sin that lay upon you and me has been borne by Him. Without that, we could never answer to a holy and righteous God with whom we have to do in the glad tidings. Each one of us has to do with Him individually for ourselves. In the words of the hymn writer:
‘Nothing in my hand I bring’ (Hymn 396),
an acknowledgement that before a sin-hating God, there is nothing that I can do for myself but point to that blessed One, Jesus, that One who came into this world, as our hymn writer says:
‘Nor yet in triumph passing,
But human infancy!’ (Hymn 188)
The wonder of it is that the Creator of the universe came into this very scene as a Babe in Bethlehem’s manger. Think of the way that God has taken, that He should draw so near to you and me. How wonderful was the incarnation, how glorious the pathway of the Lord Jesus, that pathway in which at every step He did the Father’s will perfectly. It was said of Him prophetically, “Thou hast loved righteousness, and hated wickedness”, Ps.45:7. We naturally love lawlessness and hate righteousness, but that blessed One “loved righteousness and hated wickedness”. He always did the things which pleased the Father (John 8:29). We have to admit how much we spend our lives pleasing ourselves, but think of One who was here who did not please Himself, a meek and lowly Man, One who was able to say in answer to the question “Who art thou?”, “Altogether that which I also say to you”, John 8:25. As we walk here, there may be a certain veneer with us, but there is only One who could say, “Altogether that which I also say to you”.. And He said, “for the ruler of the world comes, and in me he has nothing”, John 14:30. In every man of Adam’s race, the enemy of this world could come and find an inroad into our hearts, because of what we are as sinners. But the Lord Jesus says, “for the ruler of the world comes, and in me he has nothing”. What a contemplation for our hearts is the blessed pathway, the unique pathway of the Lord Jesus here. Think of God looking down through the ages, from the time of His making man, looking for a man who answered in every way to His own heart. He never found one until Christ came. God found features that He loved in David, “a man after my heart” (Acts 13:22), but even David failed. Many of the great men of the Old Testament rose at times to be what we call types of the Lord Jesus, and yet each and every one of them failed. There was only One who never failed, and that is the Lord Jesus, One in whom we can put our implicit trust because He has fully satisfied God.
That Jesus should be able to forgive sins meant that He had to go that way of suffering and shame. He came to do good, He healed persons, He was the One who, on every hand, showed divine compassion to men. That same glorious Person is now ascended and exalted at God’s right hand, but that compassion is unchanged. All that was seen in God’s disposition to men in the Lord’s pathway here is just as available at this very moment. How wonderful that is! You think of the Lord Jesus feeling the way that sin has caused so much havoc and sorrow and suffering in this poor world ,and He has the answer to it in His own glorious Person. He could say, “Come to me”’ (Matt.11:28); that is the message in the glad tidings. The message is very simple, it is an appeal to come to Jesus. He has the answer to your needs, He can satisfy your soul, He can satisfy “the desire of every living thing”, Ps.145:16. How great and glorious a Person we have to present, but He had to go that way of suffering and shame. He suffered at the hands of men. Such was and is the heart of man that although the goodness of God was displayed in the Lord Jesus, it only brought out the opposition and hatred of man’s heart against the Lord Jesus. And that is what our hearts too are like according to nature. The hymn says:
‘Man’s violent hatred meekly borne’ (Hymn 322)
You think of what they did to the Lord Jesus, the One who they knew had healed the sick, the One who they knew had brought in life. He could say, “I am come that they might have life, and might have it abundantly”, John 10:10. These persons knew those things and yet they cried, “Away with this man”, Luke 23:18. They brought Him before Pilate and falsely accused Him. Pilate had to say, “I find in him no fault whatever” (John 19:4), but then he had Jesus scourged. Think of Him being spat upon, being beaten, that crown of thorns being placed upon His head, and then He was nailed to a cross.
How much Jesus suffered for righteousness sake at the hands of man, and yet greater and deeper than all these sufferings was what He suffered at the hands of a holy and righteous God. Another hymn says:
‘Unsparing judgment, in that dark, lone hour,
In love He bore’ (Hymn 123)
All that was due to you and me as sinners, the judgment of God’s holy wrath against sin, was laid upon that blessed One by a God who is so holy that He cannot look upon sin. How lightly we sometimes think of sin, but how dreadful it is in the light of what it cost God in the giving of His beloved Son, and in the sufferings our Lord Jesus. How great was God’s judgment against sin, and it was laid upon that blessed One. Jesus exhausted that judgment. How glorious that is, that God was fully satisfied with that perfect Offering. In the Old Testament, the offering had to be an animal that was without blemish, speaking in type of that glorious sacrifice of the Lord Jesus, that perfect sacrifice which fully satisfied God. So God’s judgment was borne and exhausted by Jesus in those dark hours when He suffered on the cross for sin and sins.
Afterwards, the soldier pierced the side of the Lord Jesus and it says, “and immediately there came out blood and water”, John 19:34. Oh, the precious blood of Jesus! It says, “and without blood-shedding there is no remission”, Heb.9:22. Think of all the blood that was shed in those animal sacrifices of the Old Testament, but the blood of Jesus was shed once for all and fully satisfied God. Therefore it says, “and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanses us from all sin”, 1 John 1:7.
So the Lord Jesus died and His precious blood was shed, and then He was laid in the grave, speaking of removing entirely from God’s sight the order of man that could never satisfy Him. Jesus went that way for us vicariously, the perfect, holy, spotless One, “undefiled, separated from sinners”, Heb.7:26. He alone could go that way, He alone could satisfy God about the great matter of sin and sins. He bore the “sins of many” (Heb.9:28); He did that for every one who believes on Him, for each one of us here who in faith can say that He bore my sins in His body upon the tree (1 Pet.2:24). What liberty it gives us before God to be able to say that.
Jesus “gave himself a ransom for all” (1 Tim.2:6); it says of Him that “he is the propitiation for our sins; but not for ours alone, but also for the whole world”, 1 John 2:2. But we have to make this our own by putting our faith and trust in Him. Only then can I say that Jesus bore my sins in His body upon the tree. There is only one Man before God now, the Lord Jesus, and every believer is in Him before God. How liberating, what freedom believers in the Lord Jesus have as knowing that their sins are forgiven through their faith and trust in the blessed One who has died and His precious blood has been shed, the One who has gone into the grave and has risen victorious! He broke the power of death. We know that, in this scene, there is no greater power than the power of death. How men are absolutely helpless in the face of the power of death, but the Lord Jesus has broken that power, and as going into death He has annulled him who had the might of it (Heb.2:14). What a victory!
Thus we are able to present in the glad tidings that God has highly exalted Jesus; “Wherefore also God highly exalted him, and granted him a name, that which is above every name”, Phil.2:9. Peter was able to say to those persons who had their part in crucifying Jesus, “Let the whole house of Israel therefore know assuredly that God has made him, this Jesus whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ”, Acts 2:36. This world is fast going on to destruction, but the time will come when the Lord Jesus will reign supreme. God has appointed a day and He has appointed the One who will “judge the habitable earth in righteousness by the man whom he has appointed, giving the proof of it to all in having raised him from among the dead”, Acts 17:31.
To the question “Who is able to forgive sins … ?” which these persons asked in derision, the answer is that the Lord Jesus is able to do that, because of His completed and perfect and absolute work which is to God’s full satisfaction. The hymn writer says:
‘Repentance only, God requires from man,
And faith in Christ, His well-belovèd Son’
(Hymn 123)
We have to acknowledge that we have a need. It says in the Old Testament, “All we like sheep have gone astray, we have turned every one to his own way; and Jehovah hath laid upon him the iniquity of us all”, Isa.53:6. In the New Testament it says, “for all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God”, Rom.3:23. No one can elect themselves out of that, but God has provided the answer to it in His beloved Son.
I read in chapter 4 where the Lord asked His disciples, “Why are ye thus fearful? how is it ye have not faith?” – faith in this glorious Person. You can put your implicit trust in the Lord Jesus. And so it says, “And they feared with great fear, and said one to another, Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?”. “Who then is this?”; it is the same glorious Person! The wind and waves come in our lives, in the testimony and in our pathways through this world. Who is able to calm them? The same glorious Person who has answered the whole question of sin and sins to the entire satisfaction of a righteous God is the One who has control of everything. God has given everything into the hands of this blessed One; “All power has been given me in heaven and upon earth”, Matt.28:18. It says here, “And awaking up he rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, Silence; be mute” (v.39). The One who is able to do that is the same glorious Person in whom we are to have our faith. Faith is the gift of God. God has provided everything from His own side, and in the glad tidings, He does not ask anything from any one of us except repentance, and faith in His well-beloved Son. The goodness of God leads men to repentance (Rom.2:4). How wondrous that God, being who He is, should operate entirely from His own side to provide everything that we need, so that we may come into blessing and that He may secure your heart and mine. How worthy He is of it.
Then we read where the disciples again raised a question: “Whence shall one be able to satisfy these with bread here in a desert place?” God does not leave us to our own devices. There are several references to Him in relation to the gospel; “our Saviour God, who desires that all men should be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Tim.2:4) and “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. Initial salvation is not the end – the acceptance of Jesus as Saviour is really only the beginning. The Lord Jesus would love to take over our lives. And then we are to be fed. We need feeding to live. The Lord Jesus speaks of Himself as “the bread out of heaven” John 6:32. I suppose we acknowledge that we live in a desert scene, that all that is around is lifeless as far as God is concerned. It may not appear so on the surface; scripture speaks about “the temporary pleasure of sin”, Heb.11:25. Men look for life, but it ends in death, it always will. This world is a desert scene, a lifeless scene, but as we go through it, there is food. What is that food? It is Christ Himself
To obtain the benefit of that food, you need the gift of the Holy Spirit. We have no interest or desire for this food apart from the gift of the Holy Spirit. This heavenly food will be our eternal portion. The believer’s outlook is not down here but in relation to another scene altogether, but in the meantime we can have some experience of that scene by feeding on this food, which is Christ, and that must involve the gift of the Holy Spirit. God would give us the means whereby we may appreciate this food and appropriate it and enjoy it, and that is by the gift of the Holy Spirit. There is a scripture in which the Lord Jesus speaks of persons in this world giving gifts to their children; He says, “If therefore ye, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much rather shall the Father who is of heaven give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?”, Luke 11:13. The Father gives the Holy Spirit to those who obey Him, to those who ask. He gives them the divine Person who would give us an appetite to enjoy this food. These things which are going to be the eternal portion of believers can be enjoyed now by the gift of the blessed Holy Spirit, the One who is able to satisfy us with food in a desert place.
Believers have a resource outside of this scene altogether, food for life. It is what promotes life, sustains life and it comes from another scene entirely, from our Lord Jesus Christ. Everything for God’s glory and pleasure is centred in that blessed One. Everything for our blessing is centred in Him too, as putting our faith and trust in Him. He is the One who has the answer to every need and every longing. He can fully satisfy whatever right desire may arise in our hearts, whilst we are in the testimony to Him here in the world. It is all in the Lord Jesus. May our hearts give Him a greater place. No doubt each one of us here has heard the glad tidings many times before, but may the result of what has been said be that He has a greater place in our hearts, for His name’s sake.
Preaching of the gospel, Malvern
29 April 2018
I. Barlow