COMMITTAL BY IDENTIFICATION

W. Lamont

Leviticus 1: 1–5; Luke 9: 61, 62; Revelation 1: 17, 18

I would like, beloved brethren, with the Lord’s help, to say a word as to committal. You may say it is a very favourite and familiar subject. Often the examples are drawn upon, the devotedness of Ruth to Naomi, and Jonathan to David and many others, persons who were committed to one another. I believe that the measure of our committal today is the measure of our affection for Christ. That is, the motivation in committal would be our affection for Christ. I would love to have the commendation of the woman in Luke 7, “she loved much”

(Luke 7: 47). We might say also of those women who stood by the cross of Jesus, what a committal was theirs, because they loved Him. Are we committed to Christ because we love Him? Dear young people, are you here because you have been brought up in fellowship, so because your parents come to the meeting you come too, or are you committed to Christ because of your love for Him? That is the true motive of committal and devotion to Christ, the depth of our affection for Him. Would that one loved Him more; would that all here today loved Him more. Paul could say, “for me to live is Christ”, Philippians 1: 21. What a challenge! Because he loved Him! He was conscious of Christ’s love for him too—“the Son of God, who has loved me and given himself for me”, Galatians 2: 20.

What I want to speak about today is committal by way of identifying yourself with what you are committed to. Firstly in Leviticus, the offerer lays his hand on the head of the offering. In Luke, the ploughman puts his hand on the plough. Then how cheering it is in Revelation that the Lord lays His right hand on John; the Lord commits Himself to John there in the isolation of Patmos. I trust the Lord will help me to say a short

word on these things.

In Leviticus 1 it is the burnt-offering. I expect we all know that the burnt-offering is Christ in all His excellence to God. The burnt-offering comes first in the offerings; the sin-offering comes later as presented in Leviticus. These things are not without significance. He could never have been the perfect sin-offering apart from His excellence to God, apart from His perfection in manhood. He was perfect from the moment He entered the world, as Luke says,

“the holy thing also which shall be born shall be called Son of God”. Luke 1: 35. The Lord Jesus was perfect, intrinsically holy. What an Object for our affections! What delight for the eye of God! What delight for the Father to have Him in His presence now.

The offerer had to lay his hand on the head of the burnt-offering, that burnt-offering which was without blemish. I feel the importance of this, beloved brethren, to learn in committal to identify ourselves with Christ. It goes on to refer to the slaughter of the bullock. What a thing it is to be prepared to identify yourself with the death of Christ! Paul was prepared to do that, he says, “But far be it from me to boast save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom the world is crucified to me, and I to the world”. Galatians 6: 14. Is that true of us, beloved brethren? Is the world crucified to me, am I crucified to it, or do I dabble in it? It is a dangerous thing to dabble in the world, in whatever way it appeals to you; it may be sport, for example. The offerer had to lay his hand on the head of the burnt-offering. So it says, “and it shall be accepted for him to make atonement for him”. It is a wonderful thing to know acceptance; to know that you are taken into favour in the Beloved (Ephesians 1: 6). Then it says, “And he shall slaughter the bullock before Jehovah; and Aaron’s sons, the priests, shall present the blood ...”. It is not Aaron here as a type of Christ; it is Aaron’s sons, the priests; it is the saints, it is you and me in other words. So that

the offerer becomes the priest. As you identify yourself with the offering, and as you present it, you learn what it is to become priestly. Think of David in Psalm 51 speaking about offering up bullocks (Psalm 51: 19). It was not a small offering, it was a large one. How large is our offering, beloved brethren? How large is my offering? How far have we grown in our appreciation of Christ? I believe that is the measure of our offering. As we come up tomorrow morning, to assemble to break bread, what comes out on that occasion, and does so beautifully, so substantially, so livingly, is the appreciation of Christ as the burnt-offering; what He is in all His excellence, and what He means to God as the One who leads us into the presence of God. How great it is! What a practical matter it is!

It is also noteworthy that it goes on to refer to the other offerings where the offerer had to lay his hand on the head of the offering, speaking typically of committal by identification with the object of your affections. Would to God it was true in full measure, beloved brethren, of every one of us. It is not without significance, that when the Lord Jesus was brought into the temple by His parents, to do for Him according to the law, that it was the smallest of the offerings they brought, pointing out the poverty of the circumstances into which the Lord came. Following the bullock in its largeness, is the small offering of the turtle-doves or young pigeons, where the priest had to pinch off the crop and the feathers; that which might speak of grandeur had to be set aside as no use in the service of God; yet the smallest of offerings is of value to God. Dear young ones, get on your feet on the Lord’s day morning or give out a hymn, have a sense of the value to God of your offering, however small it may, be. If you start you will find the substantiality and size of your offering will grow; but whatever it may be it is acceptable and of pleasure to God.

Well, I go on to Luke. It is a question here of

laying your hand on the plough; identification with that which will be useful in producing right soil in order that seed might be sown, and in order that there might be fruit for God.

Persons make excuses to opt out. One says, “Lord, allow me to go first and bury my father”.

Another said, “first allow me to bid adieu to those at my house”. I would say a word of exhortation to myself and to us all regarding the danger of natural influences. Persons have gone astray through undue allowance of natural influences. It is a great danger at the present time. I am not saying there is anything wrong with natural relationships, they are of God and have to be honoured as such—“Honour thy father and thy mother”, Exodus 20: 12. That stands, but there is the danger of giving undue place to what is natural and that can do great damage. So these persons make excuses on the natural line. The Lord says, “Suffer the dead to bury their own dead”. Impossible humanly, but the Lord is bringing out a point that we cannot have anything to do with what is morally dead, we have to leave that. Another said, “I will follow thee. Lord, but first allow me to bid adieu to those at my house”. But Jesus said to him, “No one having laid his hand on the plough and looking back is fit for the kingdom of God”. I say again, beloved brethren, there is great need for all of us to lay our hand on the plough and not look back. You notice it does not say, turning back, just “looking back”; looking back means you will miss the mark. While you are ploughing, if you look back your furrow will go awry, you will miss the mark, you will get your eye off the objective.

I think Paul puts it very well in Philippians, when he says, “forgetting the things behind”. It is a fine word that, “but one thing—forgetting the things behind, and stretching out to the things before, I pursue, looking towards the goal”, Philippians 3: 13, 14. That is like the ploughman, his eye on the goal, “for the prize of the calling on high of God in Christ Jesus”. That is the true ploughman having laid his hand on the plough, he does

not look back. Some of us will remember, when we asked to break bread, this scripture was drawn to our attention; if you lay your hand on the plough do not look back, keep going forward. The end in view is “the prize of the calling on high of God in Christ Jesus”. If you lay your hand on the plough, it engenders faithfulness down here, so you are fit for service, fit for work. Ploughing is hard work and hard work is needed in the testimony, there is plenty of work to do. The Lord could say, “behold the fields, for they are already white to harvest”.

John 4: 35. That is the end result of the ploughing and sowing, and He says that the workmen are few (Luke 10: 2). So they are, dear brethren, the labourers are few and there is plenty of work to be done. Let us lay our hand on the plough and not look back. That is an exhortation to all of us both old and young. There may be a tendency with some of us, I have proved it in my own experience, to look back and say, Well, is it worth it all? At times of stress, at times of pressure, at times of suffering and sacrifice, the tendency may be to look back, like those in John 6 who went away back and walked no more with Him. O, how that word of Peter’s would come to us, “Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast words of life eternal”, John 6: 68.

That is just a word of exhortation. What is our qualification for the kingdom of God in this setting? It is laying our hand on the plough, and not looking back. Let us be like Paul and go forward with our eye on the great objective, “the prize of the calling on high of God in Christ Jesus”.

Now just a word as to Revelation. Time is well on in the testimony at this point. Paul had gone but before his departure all those in Asia had left him; not only had they looked back but they had turned back. What it must have meant to Paul! What it must have meant to the Lord Jesus Himself, as taking account of the testimony, as taking account of His beloved servant, in all his sufferings, all his labours, all his toil. No one ploughed like Paul ploughed, and he had also planted (1 Corinthians 3: 6). He saw the fruit of his toil in Ephesus. Think

of the Lord’s feelings as He saw all in Asia turning away from Paul! Often we speak about Paul’s feelings about the departure; but I would like to draw attention to the Lord’s feelings about it and the feelings of the Spirit of God about things. So often we are governed by our own feelings, and sometimes we become obsessed by our own feelings. There is a great danger in becoming obsessed; it beclouds our spiritual judgment, being coloured by our own feelings. Let us consider and get the divine viewpoint of everything. That is what John gets here, the Lord appearing in judicial garb.

We must remember while we are speaking about love for all the saints, that the Lord appears here in judicial garments in regard to the public profession, and it is no different today. The Lord loves all the saints, but in regard to the public profession in unfaithfulness to Him He is girt about the breasts with a golden girdle. He is not free to show His love; that is quite plain from this scripture. Where there are not conditions suitable to Himself He appears judicially as He does here. John is given a review of the whole public position in Christendom and the Lord’s perfect assessment of each of the assemblies. He says to each, “I know”. Sometimes we know what is happening in localities and sometimes we may think we know, and sometimes we can be wrong. The Lord knows perfectly the state of each locality. There is no instruction here, by the Lord, to any of these assemblies that they should have to do with any administrative matters in any of the rest of them. They are each directly responsible to the Lord Himself. I am not saying priestly help should not be taken account of; priestly enquiry is right, interference is wrong.

The Lord gives His assessment of the whole thing here. John, the one who had lain in His bosom and leaned on His breast, fell at His feet as dead. No wonder! He sees the Lord in His judicial garb, “clothed with a garment reaching to the feet, and girt about at

the breasts with a golden girdle—his head and hair white like white wool, as snow; and his eyes as a flame of fire; and his feet like fine brass, as burning in a furnace; and his voice as the voice of many waters; and having in his right hand seven stars; and out of his mouth a sharp two-edged sword going forth; and his countenance as the sun shines in its power”, Revelation 1: 13–16. What a picture of the One in whose bosom John had lain. “I am meek and lowly in heart”, the Lord could say (Matthew 11: 29). What a picture here, but it is the same Jesus. John was engaged with what is heavenly, he became in the Spirit on the Lord’s day. Through the book he is engaged with what is happening in the heavens, and also what is happening on the earth. He identifies himself in Revelation; in his gospel he simply says,

“one of his disciples in the bosom of Jesus, whom Jesus loved”, John 13: 23. He is specific in Revelation, saying, “I John”, he is a bondman. John would say, Now I understand Exodus 21; I understand the Hebrew bondman, the one who would not go free. John would say, I can read that now in a new light, I see the antitype of it before me, the true Bondman. One who was devoted and committed to His God. There is no committal like the committal of Jesus.

John says, “he laid his right hand upon me, saying, Fear not”. Beloved brethren, we have no need to fear, the Lord’s right hand is for us, in identifying Himself with persons who are prepared to go on with Him. He says, “behold, I am with you all the days, until the completion of the age”, Matthew 28: 20. That does not mean that the Lord Jesus is supporting Christendom. He is not. What He is referring to there, I have no doubt in my mind at all, is to those in Matthew 18, “where two or three are gathered together unto my name, there am I in the midst of them”, Matthew 18: 20. He has regard for all believers, I have no doubt, but I believe the Lord has special regard for believers who are exercised to be with Him in relation to His present mind, what He is saying presently, and what the Spirit is saying to the assemblies.

So He says to John, “Fear not; I am the first and the last, and the living one—and I became dead”. That is a study for you young people, to read of what the Lord became and what He was made; there is a big difference. He says here, “I became dead”, an act of His own. There is what was done by wicked hands, crucifying Him on the cross, but no one took His life from Him (see John 10: 18). “I became dead, and behold, I am living to the ages of ages, and have the “keys of death and of hades”. Some of us often refer to that remarkable address

‘Christ in control of the powers of good and of evil’, J. Taylor (Vol.1, p.256). I would encourage the young ones to read it. Whatever we may have been, may we be persons who commit ourselves, for the rest of our days, in affection and faithfulness to the One who is truly worthy of it. Then I am sure we will find what it is to be fully supported by Him in our movements in the testimony. May it be so for His name’s sake.

Address at Edinburgh
9 November 1996