HEAVENLY INFLUENCE
R.Swan
Luke 10: 17-24; Acts 2: 17-18, 21; Ephesians 3: 8-12
I would like, dear brethren, to maintain, if I can, the height of what our brother has been bringing before us as to the fulness in Christianity which is available to everyone who has come into the city of refuge. Luke seems to open it up in its wealth and its extensiveness because it is only Luke who refers to the seventy. What an excess of grace that the Lord should send these seventy into every city and place where He Himself was about to come! He would have them to represent Him rightly, as surely He would have every one of us in our day, as sent out as lambs in the midst of wolves, to represent Him in heavenly character. In chapter 9 of this gospel, on the mount, the Lord is making things very attractive; He went up to pray. Luke is the only writer who tells us that He went up to pray, and as He prayed the fashion of His countenance became different. How unsuited we are naturally to such a position but there is a fulness in Christianity beyond anything that has gone before. There were inklings no doubt - many kings and prophets had some inkling as to what was going to come in and in some sense they were desirous of understanding it - but we are in the dispensation that every other dispensation converges on. Are we giving a right representation, dear brethren, in our movements amongst men in order that persons might see something in each one of us that has a heavenly character?
There were three of these cities on each side of the Jordan. I remember Mr Lyon saying we might wonder why two-and-a-half tribes on the wilderness side should have three cities and nine-and-a-half tribes over Jordan should have three cities. He said that the more we are living in the land and in the centre of things the less likelihood will there be of injuring a brother with our tongues or in any way misrepresenting the greatness and glory of the inheritance. This chapter (Luke 10) would show something of the tremendous wealth at the centre of things. No one knows who the Son is. Luke uses that little word "who" - "who the Son is" - as if the Spirit of God in this wonderful gospel is giving us to see the lowliness of the descent in grace, His coming within the range of everyone - the Lord Jesus as a Babe, as a Child, as a Boy, as a Man beginning to be about thirty, coming near to men so that there might be something made available to men of what He would accomplish in His precious death and in the opening up of the city of refuge; and what a wealth there is to be had in it, dear brethren. What a revelation there is for us if we are maintained with this heavenly outlook, as those who appreciate what it is to have our names written in heaven - not merely written, as it were, just like in a register, but it speaks about the book of life. We would therefore be persons who would be expressive of life; and there would be something under the eye of heaven, some of these heavenly features that rightly represent the dispensation, and the door might be fully opened to persons who are seeking refuge.
So Peter would love to open up the door, open up the way to the city of refuge. He himself must have appreciated it. At the end of Luke it says, "The Lord is indeed risen and has appeared to Simon". What an opportunity there was for all those at Pentecost, every nation under heaven: what a contrast to Babel when God came down and confounded the language. The city of refuge was made available. Peter says, "This which ye behold and hear". It suggests, dear brethren, what is really resident in the saints, what can be seen and what can be heard. There would be some extension in that of all the things that Jesus did and taught. There must have been a right representation at Pentecost for these persons to be just delighted to avail themselves of the city of refuge. We are all refugees, dear brethren, we have all run to the city of refuge. How eager God is that there should be no stumbling block in the way! So Peter would open the door and say, This is what has taken place. He quotes from Joel but he does not quote it exactly. Joel says, "I will pour out my Spirit" , but when Peter quotes it he says, "I will pour out of my Spirit". There is a fulness, dear brethren, and behind what we know as to the Spirit lies His Deity, and how great that is! How worshipful we should be in the contemplation of what God has done - I will pour out of my Spirit. So Peter opens the door. What a wealth! - every nation under heaven. What a wonderful evidence of God coming near to men! They even heard the preaching in their very own dialect. What a wonderful touch, God coming so near to men that He gave ,them the preaching in their own dialect so that there should be no hindrance in the way to the city of refuge.
I thought in the passage in Ephesians there is one who has really come into the city of refuge and, the more you have a sense of that, the more it keeps you humble. He says, "To me, less than the least". These are wonderful expressions in Ephesians - superlative language - "the love of the Christ which surpasses knowledge". There is always something which is beyond us but there is also something which we can know. This perhaps is the greatest expression of the glad tidings - "the unsearchable riches of the Christ". How great they are! You remember how they burned their books at Ephesus and counted the price. But what is it, dear brethren, anything we may surrender, compared to the cost of these glorious glad tidings, "the unsearchable riches of the Christ"? What a wealth there is, "the riches of the glory of his inheritance" to be known and enjoyed in the city of refuge.
May we all appreciate it more for His Name's sake.
Edinburgh
10th July 1973