THE CROSS (1)
Philippians 2: 5-11; Luke 22:39-46; 23:33-49;
A.M. The impression I have for these meetings, beloved brethren, is to consider the cross of the Lord Jesus. This has been spoken about many times. I am conscious that there was ministry in this place not too long ago on this very subject. It is a matter which we need to speak about carefully and is not for human sentiment. It is quite easy to become emotional, but we need divine help and guidance to speak rightly about the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.
We will see how we are guided through these four readings, but the impression I have is that this morning we might dwell upon the moral excellence of our Lord Jesus which was seen in relation to the cross. This afternoon, if we are led this way, we might speak about the greatness and capacity of our Lord Jesus to endure what He had to go through at the cross. Then, if we are left here, we may speak about the effect upon the testimony here, and finally what divine Persons have secured for Themselves in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. Those are my thoughts now but we will see how we are led as we progress through these meetings. For this occasion, I have an impression that we should speak about the moral excellence of the One who was there, as seen in Luke’s account.
We read first in Philippians because it brings out particularly the features of obedience and dependence. They are the two great qualities that God looks for in man, obedience and dependence, and they were seen, demonstrated in our Lord Jesus throughout the whole of His life here and in all their excellence when He anticipated the cross.
Luke’s account of the sufferings of the Lord Jesus is distinct; it is unlike that of any other gospel writer. He brings in features that the other gospel writers do not mention. As anticipating the cross, Jesus was kneeling down and praying. Think of the dependence of that lowly One as He was occupied in prayer in relation to this matter from which His holy soul recoiled. How right it was that He should recoil from it, and yet in lowly dependence He faced it with the Father, and in obedience to the Father’s will He accepted it from the Father and received a sign of heaven’s approbation as He did so. As to Luke 23, what was particularly in mind were the utterances of the Lord Jesus upon the cross. Luke gives us these three utterances. There are seven utterances of the Lord Jesus upon the cross. Matthew and Mark give us one of them and Luke gives us three, while John gives us another three. What came out in the utterances of Jesus on the cross was His grace, His submission, His acceptance of the Father’s will. His moral excellence shines in the words of Jesus upon the cross.
Some of us were speaking recently about the day of atonement. A brother remarked that he thought that the fire bringing out the cloud of incense that covered the mercy-seat was just like the sufferings of Jesus in Luke’s gospel. The mercy-seat was there, the ark was there, and even before the blood was taken in, there was this cloud of incense covering the mercy-seat. We see the moral excellence of the Lord Jesus, the One who was able to make atonement and that excellence was always before God, even before the work was accomplished.
N.J.H. It certainly should awaken interest in every heart here, young and old, and stir our affections. I thought that God took full account of the moral superiority of Christ. We have to get through to God’s estimation of the One that hung there on the cross.
A.M. Yes indeed, it was in contrast to all that men saw. At the cross, man was exposed for all that he is, and that is all of our hearts. Against that dark background, we see the moral excellence of One shining out and how much God appreciated that.
N.J.H. It was God who opened the hearts of those that had some appreciation of what was in Christ. I thought of your reference to Leviticus; the cloud was actually in the divine presence. The moral excellence of Christ can only be fully taken account of by God.
A.M. And do you not think that it is in the divine presence that we appreciate something of what God found so delightful in the One who went to the cross. Some time ago we sang a hymn locally which arrested me.
- ‘Gazing on Thee, Lord, in glory,
- While our hearts in worship bow,
- There we read the wondrous story
- Of the cross … ’ (Hymn 302)
You might say ‘Do we see the cross in glory’? As you get into the presence of God, you see the excellence of the One who is there and, without any sense of guilt, you see the great scope of the work that was accomplished at the cross.
W.M.P. We noted in Mark 10 that the Lord says “Are ye able to drink the cup which I drink, or be baptised with the baptism that I am baptised with” (v.38). A brother commented on how that was unique to the Lord Jesus. He was the only One who could bear this matter.
A.M. Yes, that is right; He was able for it on account of His greatness, but He was also able for it on account of His moral worth. Think of the Lord Jesus in that respect, that He was altogether what He said (John 8:25). Everything that God had looked for in man, He found in Christ. He was able for all that was laid upon Him.
J.L. Would it be true to say in that respect that the cross did not exactly produce the moral excellence, but it gave the occasion for its display?
A.M. That is good, because there are things that we would not otherwise have appreciated about the Lord Jesus which were always true of Him, but which shone in the circumstances of suffering and opposition. There are excellences which shone out, which we will be occupied with throughout eternity. I do not think we will be occupied with the opposition to Him, but we will be occupied with what shone out in the face of that opposition.
J.L. I think it is true to say that all that shone out in Christ in lowly circumstances here is now enshrined in glory in Christ above, and will certainly be our eternal occupation.
A.M. It will, and the assembly now has an appreciation of those moral features.
G.B.G. I was thinking about what our brother said, that nothing could be added morally to the Lord. He is what He is!
A.M. Yes, He is God’s ideal. He always was God’s ideal; right from the outset of time, God had His ideal before Him. Although He came here in such lowly circumstances, nevertheless everything was enshrined in Him. The “tender sapling” (Isa.53:2) contained all that would be manifested in the tree. And there He was – everything was embodied in Him.
J.D.G. Was the moral excellence seen in the mind which was in Christ Jesus? That was the kind of mind that was in the Lord Jesus, the mind to go down.
A.M. There was One who entered upon a pathway in which He never exalted Himself. He had the mind to go down. This scripture is so well known that we could almost recite it by heart, but how much have we actually imbibed this? It says that He “emptied himself, taking a bondman’s form”. He went down. You might say as a man you could not really go lower than a bondman, but He did; “becoming obedient even unto death”. That was the extent of His obedience, “even unto death”. You might think that that is the limit, but no, “and that the death of the cross”. There are seven downward steps here.
P.A.G. Does the moral excellence of Christ glorify God? He had in a Man what He had never had before. In a scene where God had been dishonoured, there was a Man who honoured Him completely.
A.M. Yes, there was One who always had God before Him. “Lo, I come (in the roll of the book it is written of me) to do, O God, thy will”, Heb.10:7. He had God always before Him and in that pathway He glorified God. He said, “I have glorified thee on the earth” (John 17:4); God was glorified and God was justified in taking up man because of what was set out in the life of Jesus. How right it was that God should glorify Him!
D.C.B. The moral worth is really greater than the atonement. We come to Him as knowing how much He has done for us, but then this is something that is greater. It is going to shine in excellence eternally.
A.M. The Person is greater than the work, you mean? Yes, that must be so. How much do we appreciate that? We appreciate His worth as being in His presence. That is how we get to know Him, in His presence. How much time do we actually spend in the presence of Jesus?
R.D.P. This seems to be in the setting of “So that, my beloved, ... work out your own salvation”, Phil.2:12. Paul seems to have brought this out in the midst of working out how we are to “think the same thing, having the same love”, Phil.2:2. As seeking to work out these exhortations, we are to have before us the Man who went down. It is not just a picture of Christ, but we may say a lesson in relation to what was to be worked out here, do you think?
A.M. Yes. He is really presented as an example. Philippi was a wonderful company, but it was not perfect, and so Paul says, If there are things which need to be attended to, consider this going down mind. It led right on to the cross. Now that is the place where all that I am that would introduce imperfections was done away, it was all terminated there, it came to an end at the cross. God has finished with it for ever! And Paul is saying, Look at this, this was the path to the cross and this is the way in which we arrive at God’s thoughts for us.
R.Gr. Do you think then that the Father would take delight in instructing us in these moral qualities? I was thinking of Mark’s gospel where it says “This is my beloved Son: hear him”, Mark 9:7. Would God lead us on in our understanding of what shines out in Christ?
A.M. Yes. You might say, why does Paul put this section here? Is it so that we should learn? It goes on “So that, my beloved, even as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much rather in my absence, work out your own salvation”, Phil.2:12. Paul is saying, There is the lesson, now work it out. The instruction is here; we see it in the lowly down-stooping steps of Jesus, the mind that was in Christ Jesus.
N.J.H. Is this how the moral universe for God is secured? It starts primarily with this glorious One, but the blessed God is going to have a universe morally in keeping with Himself.
A.M. Exactly. There will be no mind to go up in that universe. That was Satan’s downfall; he aspired to what was not his. In contrast to that, we have One whose mind was to go down. What Satan did has had an influence upon the whole human race. Adam’s fall was because something was seen which was to be desired. It was not allowed but it was to be desired; that was the mind to go up.
R.D.P. We recently read in Hebrews where it speaks of “strong crying and tears”, in which “he learned obedience from the things which he suffered”, Heb.5:7,8. It was not that the Lord Jesus learned to obey, but He had come from a condition in which obedience did not apply in that sense. He came into a condition in which obedience was the lot in which He took part, and in strong crying and tears He learned obedience. Is that seen here?
A.M. I am glad you mention that because we see the obedience that there was in the Lord Jesus in Gethsemane, the strong crying and tears, and the submission with it. We were saying recently that obedience is one thing, and it is one of the fine features that God is looking for in man, but subjection is greater. That was seen in the Lord Jesus in perfection; perfect subjection to the will of His Father and submission to all that that will involved.
R.T. Does the Hebrew bondman bring out that it was a love matter?
A.M. Yes, that is good. The whole pathway of Jesus, we could say, was motivated by love.
R.T. It says “I love my master, my wife, and my children, I will not go free”, Exod.21:5. He surrendered Himself, He left conditions that were normal to Deity to come into these testing circumstances, but He brought everything in with Him.
A.M. He did, yes. The first principle that was introduced into the world after creation was disobedience. That principle has remained and it has affected the whole human race, but when Jesus came in, He introduced a new principle and He brought the moral excellence in Himself. He did not bring obedience from heaven. Before He came into manhood, He was not in a condition to obey at all. What I mean is that He came from Deity, and obedience does not attach to Deity. He came in bringing every feature of moral excellence with Him and He introduced the principle of perfect obedience. It is wonderful!
R.T. And at the end of that, death had to bow!
A.M. Yes, it had no claim upon Him. Death had a claim upon all those who have been tainted by the principle of disobedience – that was the consequence. The moral result of sin was death, “the wages of sin is death” (Rom.6:23); it is that which we have earned. But Jesus came in, not at all subject to that principle in any way, not even tainted by it and death had no claim upon Him, so He went into death as overcoming it.
J.L. Do you think it will be highlighted in glory in that one of the closing features of moral excellence that is referred to in 1 Corinthians 15:28 is subjection? It comes immediately prior to the introduction of the eternal state, as if God would bring it in final glory before our view.
A.M. So the moral worth of Jesus remains unchanged; it goes into eternity. Think of the glory of that! The One who Himself inhabits eternity and yet retaining His manhood’s state, being subject, that God might be all in all. That is wonderful to think about!
R.G. The malefactor said “Remember me, Lord, when thou comest in thy kingdom”. The answer was “Today shalt thou be with me in paradise”. Paradise will take character from this character of man who said these words to the malefactor. We are as malefactors, privileged to take the same place and to be with Christ and view Him in His perfection.
A.M. And what we find is that His response is greater than the request. “Remember me, Lord, when thou comest in thy kingdom” is answered with “Today shalt thou be with me in paradise”. The answer is greater than the request.
W.M.P. You referred to the “tender sapling”. It was a “root out of dry ground”, Isa.53:2. Could you say a little more as to all that the Lord Jesus brought in in Himself?
A.M. Well, we tend to repeat the things that we have read, but how much of what we say is as a result of contemplation of Him? We know and we can understand that He derived nothing morally from Mary; that was nature. He came in wonderful divine grace, as the embodiment of every feature of divine worth.
W.M.P. In this gospel, Luke introduces Him as “the holy thing also which shall be born”, Luke 1:35.
A.M. Yes, “He shall be great”, Luke 1:32. Think of the holiness of that One.
R.Gr. Would it be right to say that the moral glories of the Lord Jesus shone the brighter in the presence of the tests that came along? There was a certain understanding of who He was, but the full outshining of that required that He went the full way to the cross itself.
A.M. Yes, I think the full outshining of His moral excellence was seen where we have the full display of man’s wickedness. It is not that the moral worth increased, but the display of it was there. You might say the darkness caused the light to shine even brighter.
R.Gr. Is there any parallel with current exercises, that as matters arise, we find practically what the Lord is and can be to us, what is there by way of resource as we, so to speak, put Him to the test?
A.M. That is right. I have had quite an exercise in recent weeks; many have said to me, you will be very exercised to get the Lord’s current word at the present time. Should we not at all times be looking particularly for the Lord’s current word? I really do feel this, brethren, that if we are fully exercised to get the Lord’s current mind when the south wind blows gently, we may be spared something of the hurricane. I am just drawing on that figure in Acts 27. Surely our desire is that we might at all times be living here according to the word of God. The One we are speaking of was governed every day by the word of God; “morning by morning, he wakeneth mine ear to hear as the instructed”, Isa.50:4. If we were more marked by that spirit, beloved brethren, I feel how much we would be spared. But we have the example in Jesus; we have Him here. God’s pleasure in that blessed One is unbounded, and God is presenting Him as an example to us!
T.R.C. Could you help us further in the feature of subjection that you have brought out? It characterised the Lord Jesus right through His life. Even as a young boy He was subject to His parents, then right to the time that you are bringing before us where He says ”not my will, but thine be done”, Luke 22:42.
A.M. It is Luke who tells us that He was in subjection to His parents (Luke 2:51). An extraordinary thing about that verse is that it follows an incident where His parents had been a little bit off the line. They had gone off without Him and when they eventually found Him they rebuked Him, and yet it says “he was in subjection to them” – beautiful excellence there. It shows what pleasure God finds in the principle of subjection. As I said, it is greater than obedience. We were speaking recently about how subjection is a greater thing than obedience because obedience can be unwilling, but subjection is a state of soul that is looking for the word and is guided by it.
D.M.C. This man came to it that the Lord had done nothing amiss, but he came to it at a time of crisis. Do you think we should prove every day that the Lord does nothing amiss?
A.M. Oh yes. “He does all things well”, Mark 7:37. Among the testimonies that there were to the Lord Jesus, this is one of the greatest. Pilate said “I find no fault in him”, John 19:6. That was according to Pilate’s standard, but this malefactor says “this man has done nothing amiss”; that was light in his soul. It was not just from what he had observed in the Lord Himself, this was light in his soul. How did he know what the life of Jesus had been like, that He had “done nothing amiss”? He does not even say that Jesus had done nothing wrong, but nothing amiss! Nothing that Jesus did in His life here could have been done better.
N.J.H. Was the malefactor affected by the current word of the Lord? He had heard the Lord say “Father, forgive them”. Compared with what was meted out to himself as a thief, he found something vastly different in this Man. Was it the current word of the Lord that brought him to it?
A.M. I am sure it was. He heard the word of the Lord and then afterwards he saw what took place, that miraculous death. The Lord Jesus laid down his life and the thief saw all these things. What he saw here was One who could not be compared with any other man, the spirit of Jesus being marked here, “Father, forgive them”. Then at the end, Jesus says “Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit”. The Father would rejoice to receive the spirit of that blessed One.
R.D.P. You spoke about when the south wind blows gently and perhaps we become lax in what we take in, and then in times of pressure we feel very tested and we perhaps sometimes flounder a bit to find an answer to questions. In Hebrews we have been struck with the link between the word of God, of which scripture says “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God” (Luke 4:4) and the availability of the High Priest which relates to our infirmity. There seems to be a link between accepting and imbibing the word of God and finding the availability of the Lord as High Priest (Heb.7:25).
A.M. I think that is right. We need His word at all times. We often imply that we need His word when we are in a corner, but we need His word at all times; “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word which goes out through God’s mouth”, Matt.4:4.
R.D.P. So that they did not profit because they did not heed the word of God. It was through not recognising and not hearing the word, although the word is constant.
A.M. And they lost out on the inheritance because of that.
A.R.H. Is that seen in Luke, when “he entered, according to his custom”, Luke 4:16? I thought that would fit in with what we are speaking about, the south wind and the north wind. With the Lord, it was according to His custom.
A.M. Yes, it was. We read of Him spending the night in prayer (Luke 6:12). How great He was to be sustained in that, and what dependence that showed. Prayer is a wonderful thing; it is wonderful that we have this recourse to God. On the one hand when we pray, it shows that we have need and we are dependent, but on the other hand it shows that we are acknowledging that there is One who has the answer and He has the guidance and the direction. Think of the Lord Jesus, that holy Man, being maintained in prayer daily; it was a custom for Him.
J.W. I was thinking of the word “He wakeneth morning by morning”, Isa.50:4. I was thinking how the Lord Jesus Himself lived; morning by morning He looked for a word from the Father.
A.M. Yes. Does that not show that the Lord’s motive for everything was the Father’s will? So we get to this point in the garden when He says “not my will, but thine be done”. The Father’s will was His motive, it had priority in everything. As you say, it was morning by morning; the day was started in that way.
P.J.W. There is a verse in the Psalms “the law of his God is in his heart; his goings shall not slide”, Ps.37:31. I wondered if that was a word for us. It would speak of affection for the law of God in the heart, then it says “his goings shall not slide”. Somebody said of it, ‘In the head it puzzles, on the back it burdens, but in the heart it upholds’1.
A.M. That is very good. In Christianity, everything that we have is to be held in the affections. What we hold in our minds is one thing, and the renewed mind is a great faculty that the believer has, but the truth is to be held in the affections; “the law of his God is in his heart”. It links with what the psalmist says elsewhere; “Oh how I love thy law! it is my meditation all the day”, Ps.119:97. The word of God was uppermost in the life of Jesus.
P.A.G. Could you say a little about what moral excellence is? The Lord is excellent personally, and He is excellent officially, but here we are speaking about Him being excellent morally. What is the distinction?
A.M. I remember years ago a brother saying that the scripture in Psalm 45 “Thou hast loved righteousness, and hated wickedness” (v.7) was almost a definition of moral worth. What comes out in this One who loved righteousness were these features that are appropriate to man: dependence, subjection, obedience. These are all features which are appropriate to man in God’s sight.
P.A.G. I think that is very helpful. I wondered if this point at which He says “if thou wilt remove this cup from me: – but then, not my will, but thine be done” shows that because He was morally excellent, because He was perfect, He shrank from what the cup involved because it involved His being made sin. He shrank from that, He recoiled from it as Man because of what He was morally.
A.M. He recoiled from both the matter of sin and the matter of death. “In him sin is not”, 1 John 3:5. It was totally foreign to Him. He knew what death really was. A believer will never understand that as Jesus did. Both matters were awful to Him. In His holy soul He recoiled, but again in His holy soul He remained in obedience to the Father “not my will, but thine be done”. There is affection here, is there not? I sometimes think of Genesis 22, where Abraham was being tested. “Abraham took the wood of the burnt-offering, and laid it on Isaac his son; and he took the fire in his hand, and the knife, and they went both of them together”, Gen.22:6. That is the life of Jesus. “And Isaac spoke to Abraham his father, and said, My father! And he said, Here am I, my son. And he said, Behold the fire and the wood; but where is the sheep for a burnt-offering? And Abraham said, My son, God will provide himself with the sheep for a burnt-offering”. Then it says again “And they went both of them together”. In the garden, Jesus rose up; “they went both of them together”. At that time in the garden, the communion was unbroken, the Lord Jesus and the Father went through it. Jesus accepted the cup of His Father’s will from the Father, and they went both of them together.
R.T. It says “And being in conflict he prayed more intently”; is that an example of moral excellence, of His dependence?
A.M. Yes. The dependence was unchanged, more intent prayer was there. His feelings came out in that, and think of how the Father would have entered into this with Him, the more intense the prayer, and yet the unchanged devotion to the Father’s will.
R.T. The angel appeared, but He did not ask for it.
A.M. Yes. The angel appeared after He had made this request, and He had accepted the cup from the Father. Then the angel appeared; a sign of the Father’s approval. No heavenly messenger could go forward with the work that Jesus was going to do, but what the angel could do was to come to give some touch from those heavenly realms as the Lord was about to go forward to suffer.
R.G. In the psalm it says “though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me”, Ps.23:4. Was that the Lord moving on to the cross? We know there was the time when He was forsaken, but “though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death ... thou art with me”. You have referred to Abraham and Isaac; I have often pondered on the fact that the Father and the Son moved on together in the “valley of the shadow of death”. They were together; what feelings there must have been between the two!
A.M. Yes, what holy communion. We cannot really enter into it, but we know that it was perfect; it was absolutely holy and perfect as the Lord Jesus moved forward. He was always going forward. In the synoptic gospels, He always had the cross before Him, and now He was moving forward here. He says later, “this is your hour and the power of darkness” (Luke 22:53); the moment had come and He was moving forward.
J.T.B. Is there some sense here of the oblation being parted in pieces? When the angel came down it was a sign that divine examination had found perfection.
A.M. That is good, say some more.
J.T.B. Luke brings out the oblation in a very expressive way, but I wondered if here we see the oblation being parted into pieces. Every element of that precious life, as subject to divine inspection, really produced perfection. That was the only outcome, perfection. I thought the angel coming, appearing “from heaven strengthening him”, was the sign of divine approbation of the moral excellence of such a One.
A.M. Yes, that is right. What was seen here is the expression from His own heart, and that was totally in keeping with what God had sought in man. It is interesting that at a time when David had been so convicted of such a great sin he says “thou wilt have truth in the inward parts”, Ps.51:6. Speaking carefully, the inward parts of Jesus were perfectly in accord with the will of the Father.
J.B.I. The enemy was soundly defeated here as the Lord Jesus rose up from His prayer. He was soundly defeated; he had never been defeated like this by any other man.
A.M. Yes, I am glad you refer to that. There is something here that Luke brings in that the other gospel writers do not. Jesus was in conflict, but just to make it clear, so that we all understand, He was not in conflict with the Father’s will for Him. There was no conflict there, He accepted that, but He was in conflict with Satan. When the Lord Jesus was in the wilderness and tempted of the devil, it says “the devil, having completed every temptation, departed from him for a time”, Luke 4:13. Here in the garden Satan returned, bringing before Jesus all the awfulness of death. He brought it to bear upon the Lord Jesus in order to turn Him aside from the will of God, but in prayer and dependence, the one who had held the whole human race in thrall was overcome by one perfect and holy Man who was here to fulfil the will of God. Satan was overcome!
Q.A.P. In Colossians it refers to combating in prayer (Col.4:12). Is that the bearing of this on us?
A.M. Yes, because the enemy would introduce all sorts of things. I am sure I am not alone in finding that you can be engaged in prayer and your mind has wandered off to something else and you feel ashamed of yourself. The enemy would do anything to prevent a saint being occupied in prayer.
Q.A.P. Linking with your first scripture, “let this mind be in you”, or ‘be found amongst you’ (note l), I wondered if there was a moral counterpart in Abigail? She took the responsibility upon herself in lowliness of mind to resolve that situation (1 Sam.25).
A.M. She did indeed, and I am sure what you say is right. She went down, and the whole matter was diffused.
G.B.G. Was the Lord’s obedience therefore an expression of His dependence? He was obedient to the Father’s will, but it was always in dependence on the Father, because He was praying to the One whom He knew could “save him out of death”, Heb.5:7.
A.M. Yes, that is what I thought about the scripture referred to earlier; “him who was able to save him out of death, with strong crying and tears”. The Lord went forward in faith. He was a Man, He acted in faith, and He acted in submission to the Father’s will, and in dependence on the Father. “Not my will, but thine be done”. We find in other scriptures that He spoke to the Father about the fact that the Father was going to raise Him, but here He was just going forward. I think the example for us is to go forward. We do not know what is before us, except we know that we have a glorious future. The Lord went forward in faith, knowing fully the cost.
D.C.B. The setting here is the mount of Olives, which is a suggestion of the Spirit. Would you say something about the relationship with the Lord Jesus to the Holy Spirit?
A.M. We are on holy ground because we are speaking about divine Persons, although One in manhood. But the Lord Jesus as a perfect Man always acted in the power of the Holy Spirit. He had the Father’s will before Him and He acted by the Spirit; “But if I by the Spirit of God cast out demons”, Matt.12:28. You might say He could have done it Himself in His own power but that dependence is part of what is becoming to man, what God looks for in man. There is a divine Person here, the Holy Spirit, and the Lord Jesus acted in His power. What would you say?
D.C.B. We had a reference to the oblation. The whole of what was in the oblation was mingled with the oil, so that there is perfection as displayed in manhood. It is perfection according to what, typically, is totally saturated with the Holy Spirit.
A.M. So to refer to a previous comment, you can understand that the Lord Jesus was anointed after thirty secret years. We do not know much about those thirty secret years, but the moral worth was there. At the culmination of those secret years, the expression of God’s pleasure is given in the anointing so that Jesus is able to go out in the power of the Holy Spirit to represent God to man and to act in service amongst men.
P.J.W. We are told in Hebrews that “who by the eternal Spirit offered himself spotless to God”, Heb.9:14. Would that reference to “spotless” cover not only the cross, but the whole of His life?
A.M. That is right. There is a sense in which you can say that the life of Jesus was offered to God from the outset. He was here for the Father’s will, the Father’s pleasure, and that involved that all that He did was by the Holy Spirit.
T.R.C. Is the fact that He was raised “by the glory of the Father” (Rom.6:4) a witness to us of the Father’s approval of this life of moral excellence?
A.M. Yes, indeed it is. You might say the Father could not do otherwise than raise Him. All that the Father is, was involved in the resurrection of Jesus. You might say it was His love, and it was; the Father’s love would claim His Son from the tomb, but it was also a matter of righteousness, it was a matter of holiness, “neither wilt thou allow thy Holy One to see corruption”, Ps.16:10. Every divine attribute came into play in the resurrection of Jesus. It was a matter of grace too, in order that we should have an Object for our affections who is now exalted in heaven: it is wonderful! Think of the Father’s glory, all that He is, all that expresses the Father, involved in the resurrection of His Son.
J.L. One of the things that has been coming out in our conversation is that there is a perfect blending of every excellence in Christ. In your passage about the incense, there was a blending to produce the incense and that is what marks the moral excellence of the Lord Jesus. We have been speaking about a great variety of features, but there was such a perfect blend and the Father’s holy delight was in Him and the Spirit’s complacency upon Him as Man.
A.M. I am glad you have referred to that. The passage in Exodus 30 describes how the whole of the infrastructure of the tabernacle had been specified and then it says, “Take fragrant drugs”, Exod.30:34. Some of them refer to suffering, some to fragrance and sweetness, but it is a perfect blend. The perfection was so great if natural man tried to copy it, then that would be abominable (Exod.30:38).
N.J.H. So the moral excellence of Christ will remove sin from the universe. I am just thinking of Leviticus 16. It is the sign that God will remove everything that is displeasing to Himself.
A.M. Yes, and it involves of course the taking up the whole matter of sin and the shedding of the precious blood of the Lord Jesus and the laying down of His life. All that is one great work and it secures the universe for God.
R.T. Is that not seen when He says “Father, forgive them”? I thought that secured everything, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do”. What an excess of grace, what moral beauties shone in that. It was the basis for the introduction of an economy of blessing.
A.M. Yes. We have often said that those words have rung down through the years, “Father, forgive them”. It has characterised the whole dispensation.
D.M.C. If there is going to be any profit from these meetings, there should be some moral effect with all of us inwardly. Would that only be gained by dwelling on these precious things?
A.M. That is exactly my exercise. We are speaking about the Lord Jesus; He has gone to the cross, He said “Father, forgive them”. We are the beneficiaries of that now. What effect is that going to have upon me? These meetings will only be of profit if we allow this to have an effect on our souls.
N.C.McK. The incense here covers the mercy-seat, then the blood is put on after that. Why is that?
A.M. God has the worth and the perfection of Jesus before Him. I remember someone saying once of the cherubim who were on the mercy-seat with their faces turned towards the mercy-seat, that they only saw three things – they saw the gold, they saw the incense and they saw the blood. It is of course just a figure, but that secures everything. The rights of God are maintained. There is the worth of Christ; that is the incense, the perfection of that Man who went to the cross in absolute perfection, in perfect obedience. The cloud of incense was produced by the fire; that is the test which produced the cloud, but then the blood is applied, the rights of God have been met. Every divine claim has been met by Christ.
R.G. They saw these three things as you refer to them. What they did not see was the wood. Only the Father has a full appreciation of the perfection of the manhood of Jesus. Is that right?
A.M. Yes, there is a quality of manhood there that had never been seen elsewhere which meets the divine standard absolutely.
R.D.P. It is very affecting; the incense was beaten small. You get the impression that every bit of that fragrance was before God. The Lord’s conversation with the thief on the cross was only a very small incident in a way, considering the immense things that were happening there, but the fragrance extended, the moral excellence extended to the smallest detail.
A.M. You get that suggestion elsewhere in the types of the Lord as seen in the oblation, the fine flour, and the manna, which was small, granular; the detail of the life of Jesus was represented. It was not just a broad review of the life of Jesus, but as the hymn writer says
‘Each holy footstep gave Thee fresh delight’
(Hymn 119)
The details in that life all caused joy to the Father.
R.D.P. I suppose it is often the small details that test us out.
A.M. They do.
R.D.P. We may think we are able for the great matters, but the small details are the test. It was beaten small, there was not anywhere in the presence of Christ that this moral excellence would not be seen.
N.C.McK. Is it fundamental that the moral excellence of Christ lays a basis for the tremendous work that was done? It lays the foundation for and underlies the greatness of that work. The sin-offering was to take place in the place of the burnt-offering.
A.M. Yes; the Lord Jesus stands alone in His moral excellence. In Leviticus 16, no one entered into the tent except Aaron; the Lord stands alone in moral superiority to every other man. It is absolutely wrong for the Lord Jesus to be put at the head of a list of great men; He stands alone. I remember it being said that it is not enough to say that the Lord was unique; Churchill was unique, we are all unique, but He stands alone, He stands apart from every other man.
N.J.H. This was the only time that the blood was taken in. It was something very special. It was applied to the individual sinner, but here it is actually taken into the presence of God.
A.M. It is really the resolution of every divine claim, according to the holiness of God. Who could go into the holy of holies apart from Moses and Aaron? But there was the blood in the very presence of God, typically speaking, there on the mercy-seat above the ark – that holy vessel in which every divine thought was treasured. There the blood was sprinkled. The divine claims have been met.
G.A.B. In Hebrews, it says “by his own blood, has entered in once for all into the holy of holies, having found an eternal redemption”, Heb.9:12. He went in “by his own blood”. No other high priest can do that.
A.M. No, there is no blood in the creation that has not been tainted, but Jesus went in by His own blood. The life is in the blood. He went in by His own blood and He found an eternal redemption. The work of Jesus stands for eternity and there is nothing that can be done to add to it, or take from it; it is perfect.
W.W.L. What would you say about his hands; “both his hands full of fragrant incense beaten small”?
A.M. This is Aaron, but it brings out the Lord’s total commitment, His perfection. Aaron was occupied with nothing else; both his hands were full, they were consecrated.
W.W..L. There is nothing lost out of the Lord’s hands.
‘No trait is lost, each beauteous grace we see’
(Hymn 229)
It is going to shine eternally.
A.M. Everything has been committed into those hands, the capable hands of Jesus. You can understand that those hands contain the incense that fills the holy of holies. It has filled it for God and we can take account of Jesus there; “the pleasure of Jehovah shall prosper in his hand”, Isa.53:10.
A.E.M. It says at the end of John’s gospel that the world itself could not contain the books if all the things He did were written (John 21:25), but the Father’s heart can.
A.M. And it does! The world would not want them.
A.E.M. It is not just the number of things that Jesus did, it is His moral qualities that the world cannot contain.
A.M. No, the world had no place for Him or for what He has done, and it has no place for what takes character from Him; the world has no place for it at all. But there is a place where it is treasured and Jesus fills that place.
P.A.G. One of the features of the fragrant incense was “in like proportions shall it be”, Exod.30:34. On the cross above all, the perfect blending of the life and the moral qualities of Christ were seen; the fragrant incense was there.
A.M. Yes, every feature of moral excellence was perfectly blended in Him. The cross did not change that. Sufferings change people; they often bring out bitterness. One of those malefactors was marked by that, but not the Lord. Think of the wonderful way in which He went through.
‘Unmoved – by ill untainted –
The path of grace pursue’2
J.L. And it finally formed a cloud. What would you say about that?
A.M. I would be glad of your thought, but it seems that the whole atmosphere is filled with His worth.
J.L. We might have been writing down some of the moral glories of the Lord Jesus during the course of this reading and that is a good and profitable thing to do, but the accumulation of it all seems to form a cloud. There is something for God’s glory in it. I do not know how to fully express it, but does it fill the whole atmosphere and the whole scene like a cloud of glory before God’s eye.
Glasgow
14 August 2015