“THE FACE OF JESUS”
These scriptures, dear friends, all speak of the face of Jesus. There is something extremely remarkable about the face of a man. God in approaching man has approached us in a Man. Scripture says that “God is one, and the mediator of God and men one, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself a ransom for all”, 1 Tim 2 : 5, 6. Jesus is far more than a Man, for He is in His own Person, as Scripture says quite plainly, “over all, God blessed for ever”, Rom 9: 5. Yet in grace He has taken manhood condition and is known as a Man, and is even now at the present time a Man at the right hand of God in heaven, exalted there as Man, and He retains manhood eternally. He has taken up manhood condition in order that He might communicate His own life as a Man to those who believe in Him. But before He could do that He had to take up the whole question of what lay upon man. There is judgment facing man, the power of death is upon man, the cemeteries all around are a testimony to it. I do not know how many cemeteries there are in the world, there are a good many, and every one of them testifies to the fact that death lies upon man. Yet Scripture speaks of the “second death”, meaning that death as we know it in the history of mankind, and as cemeteries testify to it, is not the finish. Scripture says, “It is the portion of men once to die, and after this judgment”, Heb 9: 27. There is the ‘after,’ and the scripture we have read in Revelation speaks of the “second death”. “I saw the dead”, it says. It is a vision given to John in order that he might know what was coming; God graciously gave a vision to John in order that he might know, and might make known to others, what was coming, and among the things he saw were “the dead, great and small, standing before the throne”, and then it speaks of those who finally are cast into the lake of fire and it says, “This is the second death”. I only say that by way of introduction, for I do not want to dwell unduly on that side of things, save that it is something that we all have to face.
These scriptures speak of the face of Jesus. If you meet someone, you can often tell, as you look into their face, what their feelings are in regard of you. You can see kindness in a face; you can see affection in a face, or reproof; you might even see enmity in a face; you can see sorrow in a face, and you can see joy in a face. The human face is a most remarkable creation of God on account of the great variety of expression that it is capable of, and Scripture speaks of the face of Jesus, “the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ”. That is to say, that all that God is in His thoughts towards men, which is His glory (for the glory of God is His love shining out in a way that it can be known, not in some general or visionary way, but in a tangible way, so that it is known and enjoyed) shines in the face of Jesus Christ. I hope to be able to show a little more what is involved in this.
In the first scripture we read it says that, “When the days of his receiving up were fulfilled”; that is, the time had just about come for Him to be received up into heaven. That is His present position. He has died, as Scripture says, and He was buried: “Christ died for our sins, according to the scriptures”, 1 Cor 15: 3. See how plain Scripture is, that He died for our sins! The question of our sins and of our guilt before God in relation to them, is not ignored. That is one of the great things about the gospel, that these things are not ignored or slurred over; they are faced and met. Nothing is glossed over, and so the apostle says, “For I delivered to you, in the first place ... that Christ died for our sins”. He died for them “according to the scriptures”. That is, God had given testimony beforehand that this was to come to pass, that Christ should die for our sins “according to the scriptures”, and now it has come to pass, He has died for our sins, and He has been buried, too. Why should it be necessary that Christ should be buried? I will tell you why. As soon as sin came into the world and man came under the power of sin and the responsibility of the guilt that resulted from his sin, God said that he should die, and not only that he should die, but that he should return to the ground out of which he had been taken; that is to say, he had to be buried. Burial is part of the penalty that lies upon man for sin, and Jesus not only died for our sins, involving that His life was yielded up and that His blood was shed, but He was buried. And then what? “He was raised the third day, according to the scriptures”. That is the present position, that He is not only risen but ascended up to the right hand of God. It speaks of “the days of his receiving up” (Luke 9: 51) and Scripture also says that He “has been received up in glory”, 1 Tim 3: 16. It is from that position that Jesus is occupying now at the right hand of God that the Holy Spirit has been sent from heaven in order to bear testimony to a finished work accomplished by Jesus, in which the whole question of man’s guilt has been taken up by the only One in heaven or earth equal to taking it up, as our hymn said,
Who but the sinless One could be
Sin-off’ring meet for God?
No mere man could make atonement for our sins. On one occasion Moses, in his love for the people, asked God that rather than that the people should be blotted out, he should be blotted out in their stead, but God could not accept that. Moses was a failing man, although a wonderfully faithful servant, and he had to die. God honoured him by burying him Himself, but he had to die. Moses could never take our place and bear the judgment due to us. He could never bear and exhaust the judgment due to himself, far less that due to others. But the gospel bears testimony to the fact that the only One in heaven or earth capable of taking up with God the question of our guilt and of our sinful state, and glorifying Him in regard of it, is Jesus, and He is able to do that first of all because of who He is in His Person, and secondly because having become Man He passed through life here as a sinless, spotless Man, as Scripture has testified in the offerings of old, “a lamb without blemish and without spot”, 1 Pet 1: 19.
When the Lord was on the cross there were two malefactors crucified with Him. Have you ever stopped to think what ‘malefactor’ means? The word ‘malefactor’ simply means one who has done evil, one who has done wrong. They are not said in the gospel of Luke to be murderers or anything of that sort; they are just malefactors, sinners, persons who have done wrong. There were two of them, one crucified on one side of Jesus, the other crucified on the other side of Jesus. Why did God allow that, why did He order it that Jesus should be between these two malefactors? You usually find in Scripture that if two persons are brought together and presented together they are very much representative of all men, and the reason for that is simple, for if you find two persons and there are certain differences between the two, you will find that they really represent all men for this reason, that all men are tested by how they react to the presentation by God of Jesus, the only Saviour. There are some who receive Him; there are some who reject Him. You must be in one or the other of those two classes, and everybody in the world will find himself or herself sooner or later in one or other of those two classes. So there were those two malefactors, and the one said to Jesus, “Art not thou the Christ? save thyself and us”, Luke 23: 39. “Save thyself and us”, that is what the proposal was, ‘If you are what you claim to be; then save us both’. That would be impossible, impossible even to Jesus. You might say that Scripture says that “with God all things are possible”, Matt 19: 26. It does; that is to say, God can remove mountains as easily as anything. But there is something that God cannot do. He “cannot lie”, Titus 1: 2. There is another thing He cannot do. He “cannot deny himself”, 2 Tim 2: 13. God cannot act in any sense inconsistently with what He is in His nature, and therefore He cannot pass over sin. If there is sin, then it must be judged, either in the sinner or in Someone great enough to take his place, willing to take it, able to sustain and exhaust the judgment. That was the position, and one of these malefactors said to Jesus, “Art not thou the Christ? save thyself and us”. But the other, the second malefactor, equally guilty, I suppose, with the first, but somehow or other light from God began to come into that man’s soul and he began to turn evangelistic, to seek the salvation of his companion. He rebuked him, saying, “Dost thou too not fear God?” Do you know what the force of that was? All around were people jeering at Jesus, making fun of Him, mocking Him, and so on. This malefactor in whom God began to work said to his companion, ‘Are you going to be amongst those?’ “Dost thou too not fear God, thou that art under the same judgment? and we indeed justly”. You can see how he was trying to get his companion to take his true place before God and say, ‘I deserve all the punishment that is coming upon me’. “We indeed justly”, he says, “for we receive the just recompense of what we have done”. Then he said something more than that, “But this man”, see how he speaks of Jesus, “has done nothing amiss”, not one sin, not one evil thought. And so God used that dying malefactor at that crucial moment to bear testimony to Jesus as the only possible Saviour for men. There He was, He had done nothing amiss, not deserving of any condemnation or judgment or punishment at all, but there in grace as the One who had done nothing amiss, on behalf of all men. So there was no reason, from that point of view, why both of the malefactors should not have been saved, but there is no evidence that one of them was, and that is exactly the position in the world today: there is no reason why all the world should not be saved, because the work of Christ is great enough in its efficacy to embrace all, but on the other hand, on the side of responsibility to pay attention to the message, some, alas, are not saved and never will be. The passage we read in Corinthians speaks of those who are lost. It is a solemn thing that there are certain persons of whom it is said that they are lost. I am not saying that anybody can be pointed out as lost who is alive at the present tune; I would not dare to say to anybody alive at the present time that they are lost, because the gospel is available to them, and in the mercy of God they may obey the gospel and believe in Christ and put their trust in Him. At the same time Scripture makes it clear that there are those who are lost.
In the passage in Luke 9 the Lord had His face set in a certain direction. It says, “He stedfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem”. Why to Jerusalem? That was where He was to die, to die for you and me. That is why He stedfastly set His face in that direction; He was not going to evade it, He was not going to shrink from it. In Gethsemane He did shrink from what was involved in it, and rightly so, in a holy way, He said, “My Father, if it be possible let this cup pass from me; but not as I will, but as thou wilt”, Matt 26: 39. Thank God for that ‘but’! “My Father, if it be possible let this cup pass from me”, it is the contemplation on the part of Jesus of the awfulness of taking from the hand of God the cup of unmitigated judgment and wrath of God against every kind of evil. The Lord had to take it and drink it if you and I were to be saved, and here it says, “He stedfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem”. He knew well what it was going to entail, and when it came to the point, though He did not withdraw, yet in right, holy, sensitive feelings He felt what was involved and said, “If it be possible let this cup pass from me; but not as I will, but as thou wilt” Here, because “He stedfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem” it says there were certain ones, Samaritans, who would not receive Him. It was a solemn thing. The Lord in His attitude of mind was really indicating what was essential, that the matter of sin and the power of death had to be faced if the grace of God was to reach souls. He stedfastly set His face in that direction and certain ones would not receive Him. They are like people who will not receive the gospel. There are people like that, some who call it old-fashioned, some who will not listen to you. Well, there were those the Lord encountered, who set their face against Him because He set His face to go to Jerusalem. So two of the disciples, James and John, said to Him, “Wilt thou that we speak that fire come down from heaven and consume them?” You might say that if they are rejecting Christ they deserve it, and they will get what they deserve if they remain rejectors of Christ, but God is long-suffering and “not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance”, 2 Pet 3: 9. That is the attitude of God. We know in fact that all will not be saved, for Scripture speaks of those who are lost, but as far as the attitude of God is concerned, He does not desire that any should perish, “but that all should come to repentance”. So when James and John said, “Wilt thou that we speak that fire come down from heaven and consume them, as also Elias did?” it says, “But turning he rebuked them and said, Ye know not of what spirit ye are. And they went to another village”. Judgment was deferred, and the Lord went to Jerusalem, and when He went to Jerusalem He went there to die.
I do not know whether you have ever carefully and thoughtfully read the closing chapters of the gospels, Matthew 26 and 27, Mark 14 and 15, Luke 22 and 23 and John 18 and 19. Have you taken account of all the different kinds of people who had to do with Jesus at the end of His life? There were educated people, chief priests, scribes and Pharisees, leaders of religion, people that would be highly thought of in the world of that day; there was the Roman governor, Pilate, and another Roman governor in the person of Herod who happened to be in Jerusalem at that time; there were ordinary people there, there were the lower classes, and the criminal classes too. As you read through these chapters you find that they combine in opposition to Jesus, all of them; it was not confined to one class of mankind. All of them were marked, at one point or another, in one way or another, by the rejection of Jesus. When you think of who Jesus is, God Himself, “upholding all things by the word of his power” (Heb 1: 3), even now He is doing that, think of God in the Person of Jesus coming into His own creation and then being met by every kind of opposition, some of His creatures even spitting in His face, some of His creatures smiting Him on the cheek. Have you ever thought of it? I am not painting a picture of anything that is not in Scripture. God Himself, in the Person of Jesus, came into His own creation, and some of His creatures spat in His face, and others smote Him on the head with a reed, and others in mockery put regal garments on Him, a splendid robe, and mocked Him. You would say to yourself when you take account of all this that if ever any situation deserved that God should come in in judgment, it was then, when the Person of Christ was treated in such a way. Now what happened? The judgment of God did fall. It did not fall on the sinners; it fell on Jesus! When all had come out in its fullest expression, when all the evil that the heart of man is capable of had been exposed, then the Lord Jesus stepped into their place and the judgment of God fell, not on the guilty persons but on Jesus in their stead. That is what happened. Thank God for that! The judgment of God fell without any mitigation, and was endured by Christ and exhausted by Him and then, having endured the judgment, “he delivered up his spirit” (John 19: 30) and He died. Then a soldier “pierced his side with a spear, and immediately there came out blood and water” (John 19 : 34), a testimony to the fact that Christ had died, and that in His death the whole penalty that lay upon men for their sins was met. The blood was there testifying to the death of the Son of God. It is a wonderful thing, “The blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanses us from all sin”, 1 John 1: 7. There is no other way of getting the question of our sins met than by faith in Christ. “Faith in his blood” (Rom 3: 25), Scripture speaks of. The fact is that God has raised Him from the dead now, and crowned Him with glory and honour, in order that everyone might understand that the work is completed. If He died it was for us He died; if God has raised Him from the dead (as He has) He has raised Him for our justification. The resurrection of Christ testifies to the fact that every claim of God against us has been met and satisfied, and God has raised Him from the dead and crowned Him with glory and honour.
Now you can see something of the idea of “the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ”. It is not now Jesus in humiliation here; it is a question of Jesus as the Man who is in the presence of God, the Man who endured and has exhausted the judgment of God and is now in the presence of God, there in perfect acceptance, and He is there for those for whom He died. The full measure of the favour in which God is pleased to set those who trust in Jesus, is set out in Jesus as He is in the presence of God. Have you a view of Jesus as He is? Scripture says that “As he is, we also are in this world”, 1 John 4: 17. Have you the idea of it in your mind? If you are a believer in Jesus, “As he is, we also are in this world”; wonderful glory, that God can take up sinners such as you and I are, and in perfect righteousness, without surrendering anything that is right, put us in glory with Christ, soon to be like Him, soon to be in His image. That is the glory of God. It is not something mystical; it is shining in the face of Jesus Christ. You can see that God is absolutely toward us now, in the face of Jesus; it is what is expressed in His face. He is there as the One who has given Himself for us, been delivered for our offences, been raised again for our justification; it is all for us, it is all shining in the face of Jesus Christ. As you take account of Jesus as He is in the presence of God, not a suspicion of one single sin remaining upon Him, although He bore our sins in His body on the tree, all have been left behind for ever, He is there in the unclouded favour of the blessèd God. That is what God is willing and able to do for every one who believes in Jesus. Indeed, God Himself takes the initiative, for we are told that He sets forth Jesus “a mercy-seat, through faith in his blood”, Romans 3: 25. What is the idea of that? The idea of a mercy-seat is the point where God Himself is to be apprehended as having taken up a definite position that He is able now to deal in mercy with every one who believes in Jesus, every one who has faith in His blood. So the glory of God is shining in the face of Jesus Christ.
The apostle says, “But if also our gospel is veiled, it is veiled in those that are lost; in whom the god of this world has blinded the thoughts of the unbelieving”. That is a very solemn consideration, that there is Satan to reckon with. He is called here “the god of this world”, and he is actually acting in blinding people’s thoughts. What are your thoughts? Are they governed by the truth of God, or has Satan been allowed to blind your thoughts? It says, “in whom the god of this world has blinded the thoughts of the unbelieving, so that the radiancy” (that is to say, ‘the bright shining out’) “of the glad tidings of the glory of the Christ, who is the image of God; should not shine forth for them”. Christ is the “image of God”. In His Person He is God, and He is the perfect expression of God, too. When He took our place on the cross, and bore the judgment of God it was the bringing to light in the most perfect way of what God is in His disposition towards us, and now He is there in the presence of God, a glorious Man in perfect acceptance with God for ever and wholly suited to the position He is in, and there He sets forth what; God is able and willing to do for every one who puts his trust in Jesus. The glory of God shines “in the face of Jesus Christ”. The face of a person who is favourably disposed towards you is very attractive. I would mention again what I have said before, that the human face is a most wonderful creation, even from a natural point of view. You take occasion, as you move amongst men, in a train or bus, and just look round at the different faces and see what different expressions they are capable of, and God has concentrated all His glory in the face of Jesus Christ. We are intended to get a right impression of what God is toward us in what we discern shining upon us in Jesus.
The last scripture I have read is a very solemn one, but one that has to be faced. John says that he saw “a great white throne”; what he was impressed with was the greatness of the throne and then the whiteness of the throne, the purity of it, that it was a throne that would not brook any kind of evil; it is an absolutely white throne. On the mount of transfiguration the garments of the Lord Jesus “became shining, exceeding white as snow, such as fuller on earth could not whiten them”, Mark 9: 3. That was the impression they had of Jesus on the mount of transfiguration, of absolute purity there. Now there is this great white throne. It has not yet been set, but it is going to be set. “I saw” John says, “a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face” (He has a face, not a face now expressive of the grace of God, but a face expressive of absolute refusal of every form of evil, that God is not going to tolerate evil any longer; when this moment comes it is the expression of the fact that God is no longer going to tolerate evil of any kind whatever, He has borne with it for a long time, but when this takes place He is not going to bear with it any longer) “the earth and the heaven fled, and place was not found for them”. Think of that! The earth and the heaven fled before the face of the One sitting on the great white throne, and then he says, “And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened ... And the dead were judged out of the things written in the books”. Do you say this is impossible? It would be impossible for man to keep such records of what every person on the earth has done, but it is not impossible with God. Books are being written all the time. Do you realise that books are being written every day? fresh entries made about millions of people? You may say it is impossible, but with God nothing is impossible, and He can do it very quickly, too. You remember the woman in John 4 who had a comparatively short conversation with Jesus, and what she said as a result of it was, “Come, see a man who told me all things I had ever done”, John 4: 29. God is able to bring them back to the memory and conscience of one person with whom He is dealing, and if He can do it with one He can do it with a million, and He will do it. Books were opened, and it says, “And the dead were judged out of the things written in the books”. God will see that everything is accurate; there will be no suggestion of injustice, no one will be condemned except for things that are recorded with divine accuracy in those books. The book of life is opened also, to see if anyone has his name in the book of life. “And the sea gave up the dead which were in it”; you read of people nowadays who in their foolishness and unbelief give orders that when they die their bodies are to be cremated and the ashes are to be taken out to sea and to be scattered over the sea, and I have no doubt they think that by doing that they will evade the resurrection. How foolish it is! If you read Proverbs 8: 26 you will see that God created “the dust of the world”. How fine is dust? Yet God created it. The original meaning of that word is ‘particles.’ If God can assemble particles, as He has done, to form the dust of the earth, do you think He will have any difficulty in assembling the ashes of those who have been cremated? There will be no difficulty at all with God! God can handle everything of that sort, and it is utter folly of anyone to think that he can get out of the hand of God by having his body cremated and the ashes scattered to the winds of heaven. John says, “And the sea gave up the dead which were in it, and death and hades gave up the dead which were in them”. ‘Death’ refers there to the grave, it is what applies to the bodies of those who have died, and ‘hades’ applies to their spirits. If you die your body goes into the grave, and your spirit, where will it go? ‘Hades’ is an indefinite term used in Scripture to describe the condition of departed spirits. God has them all under His hand. You get that in Revelation 1: 17, 18, where the Lord says, “I am the first and the last, and the living one: and I became dead, and behold, I am living to the ages of ages, and have the keys of death and of hades”. All the bodies of those who have died are in the hands of Christ, He has the keys of death; and all the spirits of those who have died are also under the control of Jesus, He has the keys of hades. John sees in the vision that “Death and hades gave up the dead which were in them; and they were judged each according to their works: and death and hades were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death, even the lake of fire”. I am not here to preach judgment, because that is not the character of the present moment, and God is “not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance”, 2 Pet 3: 9. At the same time this vision which was given to John, the “great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled”, is given to us in order that we should see that God has the whole matter in hand.
Solomon was given peculiar wisdom by God, such as no one else ever had; He wrote Ecclesiastes, ‘The Preacher’, and the end of this book is, “Fear God, and keep his commandments; for this is the whole of man. For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good or whether it be evil”. God is going to bring every work into judgment. That does not necessarily mean condemnation; it does if condemnation is deserved, but He is going to bring everything into judgment; everything has to be before God and He will express His own judgment upon it, not our judgment upon it, but His. If God expresses His judgment about what you and I have done, you will find that there is a great deal that is sinful in it. “All have sinned, and come short of the glory of God” (Rom 3: 23), but God would bring these things home to us in order that we may realise how blessedly He has met it all through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, met it all through the precious death of Christ, and the one who obeys the gospel is given the gift of the Holy Spirit, he partakes in the Spirit, in the life of Christ as a Man, He is set up before God in Christ, and there he remains for all eternity.
May God bless the word to us, and may we get some fresh impression of the glory of God shining in the face of Jesus Christ!
DUBLIN
25th August 1963
From The Word Proclaimed, 1963
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