PREACHING OF THE WORD OF GOD – THE BONDMAN

Rodney Brown

Exodus 21: 2-6; Zechariah 13: 5-7; Philippians 2: 5-11; Romans 12: 1,2

It will probably be evident from the scriptures that I have read that I wish to speak about the bondman. We see it beautifully in the Lord Jesus and I would seek to draw out something in these typical scriptures of the way in which the Lord Jesus was here as a bondman. As we are affected by that it is to have an effect on our lives. The thought of the bondman is to do the will of another and that was shown supremely in the Lord Jesus. He came from the highest heights of glory as we read in Philippians 2 and He came into this scene. There is ample testimony to it in the prophetic scriptures and the beautiful narrative in the gospels, how the Lord Jesus was here in a lowly and humble way serving men, serving mankind, giving Himself in death. That was the result of His pathway of service, it led to the cross and He was there as bearing our sins. I trust everyone in this room knows what it is to have their faith in the finished work of the Saviour, who bore our sins in His body on the tree.

I had an impression this morning of the Lord Jesus the bondman saying distinctly. I think we see in the Lord Jesus’ life the way in which He was here entirely for the will of God. He had His own will, but it was always in perfect accordance with the will of His God and Father. Think of Him in Gethsemane saying, “if it be possible let this cup pass from me; but not as I will, but as thou wilt”, Matt 26: 39. His will was submitted to the will of His Father. He was perfectly in accordance with the will of His Father. What an object He is for our affections! I trust He has captivated your heart and I trust you have come to know Him as a friend, because I believe that this would be the outcome if we are affected by the Lord Jesus as a bondman when we come to it that He has given His all for us and He has drawn us to Him with cords of love. What effect has it on our lives? What has been effected for God through this pathway of lowly service? He “shall say distinctly”. The Lord Jesus has said distinctly, “I love my master, my wife, and my children, I will not go free”. It has been said that the Lord could have gone out free from the mount of transfiguration; we do not want to misunderstand what that means, but the Lord Jesus, because He was here as the perfect Man and sin did not attach to Him, could have been received up into glory at that point, but, “he stedfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem”, Luke 9: 51. It is not that there was any question that He would not complete the work, that He would not continue in the pathway of the Father’s will, but such was His personal excellence that heaven could have received Him at that point. At the time when He was delivered up He could say, “the Son of man indeed goes as it is determined” (Luke 22: 22). There was a way set out for the Lord Jesus, it was a way of humiliation and outward weakness, but the Lord did not deviate from that, He went through with everything for the pleasure of His Father. He did the Father’s will in every deed and in every day. We often are affected by the words of the hymn:

No thought of His e’er moved apart from Thine       (Hymn 119)

Think of the Lord Jesus here absolutely given up to the will of His God and Father. How He excelled, you might say, as a bondman in that. He could have gone out free, but He said distinctly, “I will not go free” and He gave his life “a ransom for all”, 1 Tim. 2: 6. What a wonderful Person we have to do with in the glad tidings.

We have been reading Zechariah locally and we had this chapter before us. Think of the Lord Jesus not taking any high ground, saying prophetically, “I am no prophet”. He was the Prophet of God. Think of who was there in the Lord Jesus as Man who could say, “I am no prophet, I am a tiller of the ground”, taking very lowly ground. It is interesting that Adam was set in the garden to till it. A bondman’s service is hard work and the tilling is necessary before the seed can be planted. Think of the Lord Jesus operating here as a tiller of the ground. You might say, He was here to undo the works of the devil, all that had come in in the fall, all that sin had brought into the world, the Lord Jesus was here as undoing the works of the devil. Think of the way that He worked unheralded, He was here doing what was necessary and was available to do what was necessary. What a wonderful Man He was and is! I trust you have a link with Him; I trust that He has tilled the ground in view of the seed being accepted into your heart. What arduous service; with all the weeds and everything that has sprung up, as the Lord Jesus came in and took this on He was starting again. What had been there at the outset when Adam was placed in the garden responsible to till it, become overgrown. The first man had not achieved anything, but the second Man – think about what the Lord Jesus has done – He started again, He has undone the work of the devil and He has done so in this way of lowly service, “acquired me as a bondman from my youth”. Think of man, think of the Lord’s service manward. He speaks of Himself – in fact it is one of the titles that He uses most of Himself, “the Son of man”. Think of everything that is involved in that title and everything that has been affected by the Son of Man for the heart of God. “Man acquired me as a bondman from my youth …What are those wounds in thy hands? And he will say, Those with which I was wounded in the house of my friends”. The Lord Jesus’ pathway of service brought on Him these wounds, there was nothing in the Lord Jesus that merited them. The sufferings which He endured were not on His own account; He was a perfect and sinless, spotless victim, but in this path of lowly service He came into the condition where He could be wounded.

This speaks prophetically of what the Jews did to the Lord Jesus, “What are those wounds in thy hands? … Those with which I was wounded in the house of my friends”. It was not an enemy that had done it. It would remind you as to what He says prophetically as to Judas, ”For it is not an enemy that hath reproached me – then could I have borne it … But it was thou, a man mine equal, mine intimate, my familiar friend”, Ps 55: 12,13. Think of the Lord Jesus receiving these wounds in the house of His friends. He “came to his own, and his own received him not; but as many as received him, to them gave he the right to be children of God”, (John 1: 11,12) and then “Awake, O sword, against my shepherd”, not only was He wounded by man, by those who had acquired Him as a bondman, those whom He had served, it came to the point on the cross when God’s sword awoke against Him. I think this speaks of the cross, “Awake, O sword, against my shepherd, even against the man that is my fellow, saith Jehovah of hosts”. Think of the Lord Jesus and the devotion of His service and in His love towards His Father going to the cross.

We read in Philippians 2, “becoming obedient even unto death, and that the death of the cross”. What a death of humiliation! Man’s hands put Him there, but it was in the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God that He should go that way (see Acts 2: 23). He was wounded there, He was forsaken of God. Think of what it cost the Lord Jesus to go that way. What affects me, as thinking a little about it, was that the Lord Jesus knew that this was before Him, and He did not deviate from the pathway of service, not in the least degree. He went through with everything, everything that was set before Him. He went through in perfect submission to the will of His Father, even though the cross in all its terribleness lay before Him. The suffering that He faced at the hand of man was terrible, but think of what it was for Him to be forsaken of God. Have you thought of that? The One who was just, the only One of whom that could be said, the One that died, “the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God”, 1 Peter 3: 18. All of us as sinners deserve death; the only One who did not deserve it went that way vicariously, dear friend, for you and for me. The gospel would draw our hearts to that blessed One, set out His pathway of perfection, set out too who it was that hung on the cross, the One who, “subsisting in the form of God, did not esteem it an object of rapine to be on an equality with God; but emptied himself”. Think of the Lord Jesus as emptying Himself, taking a bondman’s form, “taking his place in the likeness of men … humbled himself, becoming obedient even unto death”. That was the extent of the Lord’s committal that He was “obedient even unto death, and that the death of the cross”. How wondrous He is as an object for our hearts and affections. The Lord Jesus went into death – there are those who would try and say otherwise – but the Lord Jesus died. His blood was shed on the cross; He bore my sins there, I trust that you can say that He bore your sins there. He is available as a Saviour to all who call upon Him. How necessary that man should recognise this and come and own Him as their Saviour. The Lord Jesus as going this way, was qualified to become the Offering for sin. His perfection was such, indeed it could not have been otherwise. If anything had attached to Him that was marked by sin, and thanks be to God there was nothing, He would not have been able to be the sin offering, but God, as a result of the perfection of that sacrifice, was satisfied and He laid our sins upon Him. We read in Isaiah, “stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon him, and with his stripes we are healed”, Isa. 53: 4,5. There is no other way into salvation but to have your faith in the One that went this way, who was here as a bondman, for the glory of God, who died on the cross and went into the grave. He is no longer in the grave. The satisfaction of God in the work of the Lord Jesus is such that He raised Him, “even as Christ has been raised up from among the dead by the glory of the Father”, Rom 6: 4. He had been in death, in the heart of the earth, for three day and three nights, but is no longer there. He has been raised and He has been granted a Name “which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow”. This is going to happen in a day to come – publicly the Lord Jesus is going to be vindicated but we have this opportunity to accord Him this place of exaltation in our hearts now. We are tested by this. Is Jesus exalted in my heart? Is He given the place of which He is worthy? Sometimes I fear a mental assent to these things without the reality of it having its way in my heart, but the fact is that God has highly exalted Him. What a wonderful answer to the pathway of devotion to the Father’s will that God has exalted Him. He has been raised and He is ascended and glorified and seated at God’s right hand and He has this place of exaltation in glory. What an answer to the pathway of shame and humiliation, but how worthy He is of it.

I read in Romans because I believe that as we are taken up with the Lord Jesus as the One who did the will of the Father, so we may be encouraged to prove what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God. I can see the necessity of it in the days in which we are, “be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind”. How important it is to keep our minds pure and clear of what would trouble us in the world. I was affected by this expression, “by the compassions of God” -think of the interest that God has in the glad tidings and in you personally. As you come to the gospel I think you need to be reminded that you are addressed as an individual and you are responsible to answer to the word however feebly it has been presented. These scriptures speak for themselves of the glory and of the beauty of the way that the Lord Jesus has gone and of the compassions of God. Think of the feelings of God as entering into it, the love of God, everything that God has expressed in the gospel is towards you and the responsibility on you is to answer to that and to put our faith in the Saviour and in His finished work and by being obedient to the word. It speaks of the obedience of faith (see Rom. 1: 5), That may relate to the thought of the bondman, “by the disobedience of the one man the many have been constituted sinners, so also by the obedience of the one the many will be constituted righteous”, Rom 5: 19. That is what the work of the Lord Jesus has effected, that many shall be constituted righteous. It depends on us accepting the Lord Jesus as our Saviour, accepting that we need a Saviour, accepting that there is nothing in ourselves that can please God. To be saved we have to come and own that the Lord Jesus is the only way to salvation and He has shown the love of God in such a beautiful way. He has said distinctly, “I love my master, my wife, and my children, I will not go free”. What answer is there from my life? This chapter in Romans 12 beseeches us to “present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God”, so that in our lives, in our thoughts, in our pathway we are here for that One, “a living sacrifice”. We do not have much, you may think there is not much you can do, well we all have bodies and they can be held here in devotion to the divine will. There is resource for it, the Holy Spirit is here, and the Spirit would help us in this. If we are not going to be conformed to the world, the Spirit is essential. There is no other way that we can be kept from the stream of things than by the Holy Spirit and the renewing of our minds too. The Spirit is surely necessary for that, and if we are to prove what the “good and acceptable and perfect will of God” is, how necessary the Spirit is. I trust that everyone has some knowledge and some consciousness of the Spirit in their lives and if there is anyone who does not, ask the Father. The Father would delight to give the Spirit to those that ask. Again, obedience comes into it as it says, “and the Holy Spirit also, which God has given to those that obey him”, Acts 5: 32. I feel the necessity of it in these days, “the good and acceptable and perfect will of God”. It may not always seem that way, but as we prove God in our circumstances and in our lives I think what we come to is that it is acceptable and it is perfect. The Lord Jesus was here as a Model for us. He suffered in a way in which we will never be called to suffer, and He has been given a place of exaltation and glory which is His alone but, dear friends, we can be here as giving God pleasure in a simple way, poor perhaps in the world, but rich in faith. I believe it is open to every one of us and I want to be in it more livingly. I trust that there may have been something in the word for every soul here, that the Lord Jesus would be freshly before us in an attractive way in the devotion of His pathway to the Father’s will and perhaps too we could be stimulated to be more in that pathway ourselves. May it be so, For His Name’s sake.

DENTON

20 October 2002