CHRIST SINGING IN THE MIDST
[p. 126] CHRIST SINGING IN THE MIDST
Christ singing praise in the midst of the assembly is consequent upon the sin-offering in Psalm 22. He is answered from the horns of the buffaloes. In Hebrews 2 He is the Sanctifier; He has taken up that service; everything essential to the setting apart of the many sons whom God is bringing to glory is found in Him. He is fully qualified for that office, we might say, consecrated to fill it for the pleasure of God. But He exercises that office for certain persons who are sanctified by Him; He does all, and they have the character of “sanctified” entirely on account of what He does as the Sanctifier, so that they cannot be detached from Him or viewed apart from Him in regard to this matter. They are “all of one” or ‘all out of one’; what the saints are as “sanctified” is entirely the work of the Sanctifier; therefore there is no flaw in it. (It is, as it were, one piece with Christ, as the cherubim were one piece with the mercy-seat, or Eve one piece with Adam.)
He is the Sanctifier by setting His saints before God in the sanctification effected by His own death. It was God’s purpose to bring many sons to glory; so Christ was to taste death for every thing by the grace of God, and He was to be perfected as the Leader of the saints’ salvation through sufferings. The Leader is made perfect, or consecrated; He is made fit to be installed in that office, as having gone through the sufferings of death. But then those whom He leads must be sanctified; they must be apart from sins, apart from sin in the flesh. It supposes men of the seed of Abraham; that is, men called of God, men in whom there is divine working. The Hebrews would understand that men must be sanctified in order to have anything to say to holy things. But Christ is the Sanctifier. He has this honour from God, and He and those sanctified by Him are all of one. As before [p. 127] God, Christ and the saints are indissolubly “all of one”; it is a remarkable expression, only found here. He does not say they are one because it is Christ and His brethren. It is not the individual believer joined to the Lord and one Spirit, nor is it the body with Christ as its Head. It is Christ and the sanctified company all of one as being in a perfectly identical suitability to God in His holiness. That could only be as the company is sanctified by Christ. It supposes a work in them, but it is not the work in them that sanctifies them but what Christ does for them. By what He does as “he that sanctifies” they are apart from sin and they partake of His suitability for the holy presence of God. (This links on with being “wholly clean” in John 13, though it is not exactly the same thought. That directs us to a moral cleansing of individuals.) But this sanctifying brings before us what is effected by Christ for a company of persons so that they are made suitable for God in holiness by what is done for them. They are so “all of one” with Christ that there is no disparity between Him and them as regards suitability to God. How this magnifies Him as the Sanctifier! And we may be perfectly certain that He regards the saints as those whom He has sanctified: “For which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren”. That is, it is a question of how Christ regards them. The Hebrews had probably entered very little into this, but he is speaking here of Christ and of how He regards His saints. If He was ashamed to call them brethren He would be ashamed of His own work! So that it is as the sanctified company that we are the brethren of Christ, and He can declare God’s name to us. It is on the ground that we are sanctified by what Christ has done as the Sanctifier. So that now our hearts can open freely and in perfect liberty to His declaration of God’s name. It is a wonderful name, for it covers all that in which He would be known by men; His name is really Himself in revelation.
And this leads to Christ taking a wondrous place Godward: “In the midst of the assembly will I sing thy praises”. We [p. 128] have no example of this in Scripture, except as hinted at in the hymn they sang after the supper, which was no doubt intended to suggest this to us. In Matthew, Mark and Luke the gospel side of the risen position is prominent. But in John 20 it is, “I ascend to my Father and your Father, and to my God and your God”. His ascension stands connected with His movement towards His Father and God. So that for the full development of Hebrews 2 we have to bring in John’s gospel and the ascension. We are to say, “Our Father”, but He says first, “My Father”: He speaks Godward, He takes His place with His brethren; of course He is pre-eminent, He is the Firstborn. So that there is a distinctiveness about His singing, just as there is in His being “in the midst”. He has His own distinctive place as the Firstborn: He is not one of the many brethren. He will be the Firstborn and the distinguished One among them. So it is, “Will I sing”. The Spirit would lead us to think of His singing. Scripture does not even say He leads the singing; our thoughts are concentrated on the wondrous fact that He sings. But the assembly surrounds Him to learn how He sings because how He sings is the way they are to sing, though without ever forgetting His headship. If a divine Person comes as Man to our side, there is something in His relation Godward that transcends the creature. But He is the glorious Head, coming to the assembly to sing in the midst that the assembly may know how He sings. He sings of all that His Father is to Him, of all that His God is to Him, the glorious ascended Man. The assembly is to know that what His Father is to Him is the fulness of what our Father is to us. Not that we can compass it as He can, but it is no more restricted as to us than what it is to Him. What His God is to Him is the completeness of what God is eternally. We cannot rise above what our stature and spiritual formation are equal to, but each time He sings in the midst should enlarge our apprehension of how He sings, and as we apprehend that spiritually we acquire ability to [p. 129] sing to the Father and to God as our Father and as our God.