CHRIST AS BEING MADE SOURCE

N. J. Henry

John 1: 43–51; Revelation 22: 16; 1 Corinthians 11: 23–25; Ephesians 4: 14–16; 2 Kings 2: 19–22

I trust from these scriptures to say a little as to Christ being made source. We are no doubt familiar with the expression that God is the source but the two do not conflict. Christ as Man has been made source by God. I think that is a very glorious study to think of what Christ has been made. As I say, they do not conflict because of who the Man is. God has made Him through the way He went to be source for us and eventually to men. The Lord here says to Nathanael, “Henceforth ye shall see the heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of man”. That had never happened before. We might go back in our minds to Genesis 28 where a dream was dreamed by Jacob, a ladder was set up on the earth and angels were ascending and descending on the ladder. The focus was on the ladder with Jehovah standing above it of course; here it is on the Son of Man—quite a different departure in the ways of God. No doubt to that great patriarch Jacob, God was opening something up to him that He would elevate man. He was not in his own land, he was a fugitive, and things that Abraham and Isaac held were not immediately seen and this dear man, who became a patriarch, had this dream; God in His grace extending to Jacob what His mind was.

But here there is a change—the Lord Jesus says, “Henceforth ye shall see the heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of man”. That was quite new.

God had anticipated this, it was not a new thought with God, this One was the Man of purpose. Adam could not be the man of purpose, you could not have a man made of dust in heaven. You would have a ‘heavenly man’ in heaven—that would be understood by all. Here He is on earth, the Son of man on earth, and I think what is opened up here is that God is going to make Christ a new centre and source. The great opposing sources come out in John 8. He says of certain persons, “Ye are of the devil”, there were the characteristics of the evil one.

Some reference was made in the second reading today to Enoch. Before Enoch walked this scene the world’s system morally was already up and going, it existed independent of God. Within just a generation or two the world’s system was in place.

In John 8 the Lord is raising the issue there. He is raising the issue as to where the source lay of these persons—the Lord says, “Ye are of the devil” (John 8: 44), and “he is a liar and its father”. John says, “the whole world lies in the wicked one” (1 John 5: 19); that is the world in which, dear young person, you go to school, you go to studies, or we go to work, or some are retired. It is a world where the whole thing whatever appealing face it puts on, is a world that finds its source in the evil one. The source of it is in the devil himself and, while scripture says as to the Holy Spirit that He restrains, the enemy is crafty enough to make the world appealing to you. He does not want to rouse a person from a Christian household, he does not want to rouse his feelings right away, so he makes the thing somewhat acceptable—that is the craft of the enemy. In John 8 the stakes you might say are made, it is either the evil one or My Father. “If God were your father ye would have loved me” (John 8: 42).

According to Galatians Jesus has died for our sins to deliver us out of the present evil world. That is what Christ did, that with the intent in dying for our sins the result would be that we are delivered from the present evil world. These angels are in keeping, it is remarkable. These angels are not the fallen angels, who are kept “in eternal chains under gloomy darkness, to the judgment of the great day”, Jude 6. These angels are serving the will of God and they are ascending, that means that they start from Christ, they ascend and descend on the Son of man. Is that not remarkable? Angels are remarkable beings; they were used and will be used of God in a peculiar way, but they come out at several points, it is most interesting. They ministered to the Lord in Matthew and Mark after the temptations. Think of the gaze of these heavenly beings, because He was seen of angels; they could look at this dependent Man who never gave into the wiles of the enemy or his system, because that was one of the temptations—he appealed if he could to give Christ the kingdoms of the world. They were in his grasp, that just confirms what is being said, and he made as if to bestow them on Christ. The Lord stood against every temptation and came out in perfection. The holiness of His manhood could not fit into the world’s system; He was a threat to it immediately He came into His creation.

Herod sought to kill Him at the beginning because he knew He was a threat to his system. The devil knew he was beaten when Jesus came in; because the “ruler of the world comes, and in me he has nothing”, John 14: 30. He came into the world and was in perfection in it.

That is what the angels beheld, “seen of angels”, they looked at that perfect life of dependence on His God and in complete separation from evil. It says, “in him sin is not”, 1 John 3: 5. That is more than walking in separation, it is intrinsic holiness, then they ministered to Him after it. Then later an angel strengthened Him, “an angel appeared to him from heaven strengthening him”, Luke 22: 43. It showed the precious humanity that took everything in according to the will of God and went forth.

He gives Himself over into the hands of His Father, He receives the cup from the Father; He never received the cup from Herod, nor from Pilate. He never received it from the world’s system; the cup He received was from His Father. I think their work then was in a sense complete according to that path. As far as I am aware He goes forth and no doubt the darkness that shadowed Calvary, the angelic eye could not pierce that; they knew nothing that was going on. I think all was hidden from the creature eye during these three hours of darkness on the cross. Then we come to resurrection, and I would not want to go beyond scripture, but in Peter’s account the Lord is put over the angels. Before His death He says He could request of the Father twelve legions of angels, but after His resurrection I think He is over the angels. Peter says, “by the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who is at the right hand of God, gone into heaven, angels and authorities and powers being subjected to him”, 1 Peter 3: 21, 22. He is put over angels and authorities and powers.

Now in Matthew’s account He does not go up. The gospel finishes with the resurrection of Christ because it says, “I am with you all the days, until the completion of the age” (Matthew 28: 20), and in that account He says, “All power has been given me in heaven and upon earth” (Matthew 28: 18). Do you think Christ had not to do with the angel who rolled away the stone from the grave? He was then placed above angels. I know He was going on to glory which was the great final thought but He was already over it. He had secured everything,

“who was made some little inferior to angels on account of the suffering of death”, it says (Hebrews 2: 9). How great this Person is! That is why we talk about Him, we love Him, heaven is astir with Him. He comes out and this angel rolls away the stone. That was not to let Christ out, He was already out of the tomb. It was a testimony to His resurrection. He rolled it away and the guards became as dead men. Why was that? Because they were examples of the world’s system, and the world’s system would not only have put Christ in the grave, but they would have held Him there. These guards became as dead men. That shows how great He is. I am just speaking about these things to show how great Jesus is. He is put over everything, “Henceforth”. Nathanael would come into the good of that—he would see how great Christ is. You cannot say too much about Christ—He is so great; He is over it all.

Now when you come to Revelation 22 He says, “I am the root and offspring of David”. That shows in the mind of God that Christ was the source. David did not have a root in himself—everything of God in David, the root of that was in Christ. You think of all that David set out.

It comes right through scripture, God’s committal, His covenant with David. He made a covenant. We read this morning of the covenant that Jonathan and David made, but there was a greater covenant between God and David and, speaking simply, whatever there was in David of God, of what was right, the root of it was in Christ. According to the mind of God the source of everything should be in Christ. Finally of course He delivers up the kingdom to Him who is God and Father. You could go into that but in the meantime I want to bring out the glory of Christ as the source of things.

When you come to 1 Corinthians 11, the Lord gives the Supper from the glory. You might say, There is a divine Person here, why not leave the Spirit to open it up? He is quite able to do that, but there is far greater truth embodied in that, because when Jesus gave the Supper in the gospels it was in anticipation of His death. He was still in flesh and blood conditions.

When He gives it from the glory in 1 Corinthians 11 He is in eternal conditions. He delivers it to Paul, who says, “For I received from the Lord, that which I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus, in the night in which he was delivered up, took bread”. What is historical can be dry, but when it comes to divine things the Spirit of God brings what is historical right up to date, and I think He was doing that here. The Spirit of God was acting here in the way that the apostle received it from the Lord. He says, “the Lord Jesus”; that is the assembly title,

“the Lord Jesus, in the night in which he was delivered up, took bread, and having given thanks broke it”. I wonder, dear brother and sister, what actually the Lord Himself

said to Paul when He gave him the Supper, the words He would use. I know of course the words we get here, but just to get the sense of it.

He is now entering in, as we have in Ephesians, headship as to the assembly which is a great thought of being the source. The great thought of being the source is in relation to the assembly, the Head of the assembly. That is a special place Christ is given and here the Supper leads into the assembly. You might not quite recognise that from the gospels, but when you come to Paul the Supper leads into the assembly. I do not know whether there is exercise in this room, but if you read Mr. Taylor’s letters you will find that certain persons gave their heart to Christ and others committed themselves to the breaking of bread after such meetings. These meetings are to improve conditions and our anxiety is that there should be no one here who does not know the Saviour, who has not committed themselves to this function of the assembly, the breaking of bread. That is how the assembly week starts, it is the breaking of bread given from Christ where He is, and all the wealth of heaven comes in; I believe He brings it in at the Supper into the assembly. That is what we sang in Hymn 199.

Think of the wisdom and riches that come from Christ as Head. It is a wonderful experience to be in the assembly; there is nothing like it. Here it says first of all, “the Lord Jesus ... took bread, and having given thanks broke it, and said, This is my body, which is for you—this do in remembrance of me”, and then, “In like manner also the cup, after having supped, saying, This cup is the new covenant in my blood—this do, as often as ye shall drink it, in remembrance of me”. Is someone going to do it?

He has shown His love for you. I say, have you shown your love for Him? That is what it is, it is simple love. You must turn your back on what finds its source in the devil, which is left extant. The Lord is about to come and judge the world’s system, and He is going to deal with the beast and the false prophet who have deceived men and deceived Christendom. That is what the false prophet has done and the beast, and they will be cast alive into the lake of fire. That is a thousand years before Satan goes into it himself. How much God feels it. In the meantime you commit yourself in simplicity to what comes from the true source, from Christ above.

Now to touch a little in Ephesians, in chapter 4 we are told, “holding the truth in love”. You can see how our relationships together are so vital, so that as long as we have one another let us work in love for the truth, “holding the truth in love”; I do not know if you could hold it any other way. If you lose love you will lose the truth. I do not think it can be held any other way, and it says that “we may grow up to him”, that is to Christ, back to the source, “grow up to him in all things, who is the head, the Christ”. That is the whole system, the anointed system. I love to think of what came down, as it says in Psalm 133, the precious oil upon Aaron’s head and beard and it flowed down to the hem of his garment. Whatever garments the high priest would have on then you would be in keeping with that—that is what it means.

Unity is not disturbed; whether it is judicial garments, whether the breastplate of judgment is worn, or when he is free of it and he is going into the presence of God, unity should exist. It is the hem of his garment, whatever the high priest would wear.

It is incumbent upon us, brethren, to see that disunity does not mark us. It is a slight against the Spirit. If we are not holding the truth in love then of course that takes place. So it says,

“we may grow up to him in all things, who is the head, the Christ—from whom the whole body, fitted together, and connected by every joint of supply, according to the working in its measure of each one part”. It comes down pretty close, does it not? You cannot say, Well it is somebody else’s fault. You might say the body has an inherent power to operate; it is working together; then it says, “works for

itself the increase of the body to its self-building up in love”. Is not that wonderful? It is from the Head, it is from the source. He will yet of course be the source in the day to come. He will yet be that. Then none shall say, ‘Know the Lord, because all shall know Him in themselves’

(Hebrews 8: 11); but in the meantime we prove Christ in a special way as the source.

Now when you come to 2 Kings 2 it says, “Behold now, the situation of the city is good”.

Well, we would have to say that the situation of the city is good, that is not to sound presumptuous. But there are references in the Old Testament to walled cities, and you would have to be careful about losing your dwelling in a walled city. Some persons might go out.

How careful we should be that we honour our place in the walled city. Here “the men of the city said to Elisha, Behold now, the situation of the city is good, as my lord sees; but the water is bad, and the land is barren. And he said, Bring me a new cruse”. Do not bring anything you have tried before. Do not try the old thing, it is a new cruse they have to bring and put salt in it. The only thing that is going to preserve our localities is plenty of salt at the source. The city is good, the situation is good. So much has come down to us in the recovery of the truth and there is good knowledge and good readings, but it may be the water is bad and the land is barren. There is no fruitfulness. We must be connected to the source if there is going to be fruitfulness, so it says, “And he went forth to the source of the waters, and cast the salt in there”. That is not any reflection of course on Christ Himself, but it comes down to the local meeting as to whether there is plenty of salt to preserve things. I am just going to say one final word; in Judges it says, the men of that city, those responsible. Such persons would be concerned with the inhabitants of the city and, beloved brethren, we want the inhabitants of the city preserved. That is the earnest prayers that the inhabitants of the city will be preserved and the only way is by casting in salt at the source of the waters. May it be so, for His name’s sake.

Address at Aberdeen, Idaho
13 April 2001