JESUS LIFTING UP HIS EYES
It will be obvious that what I have to say is consequent upon what our brother has just been saying as to lifting up our eyes. I do not want to detract one iota from any of it, particularly from what was said so positively about Christ and the assembly. But I just felt, beloved, that I would like to read these two verses as to the Lord Jesus Himself lifting up His eyes to heaven, a Man on earth lifting up His eyes to heaven and saying “Father”.
I read the last verse of chapter 16. It comes in the setting of chapter 13 and after what Jesus had said in chapters 14, 15, 16. He was leaving all this with His disciples. He knew what their feelings of sorrow would be. He had reassured them all the way through their time with Him, giving them that which was so positive, leading them through, but knowing their feelings. He had twice said, “Let not your heart be troubled”, John 14:1,27. And now in this setting, He says, “In the world ye have tribulation; but be of good courage: I have overcome the world”; but before that He says, “These things have I spoken to you that in me ye might have peace”.
The Lord Jesus knew fully what lay before the disciples, and He also knew what lay before Him, yet in the midst of that, having said all that He had to say to them, we get another reference to what our brother has been mentioning as to lifting up the eyes. The Lord Jesus is our great Model and He is unique in what He does here, unique in His prayer that follows. There is no prayer in scripture like this prayer of the Lord Jesus, presented here in all His glory. There are other prayers of the Lord Jesus which of course have their own fulness; “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do”, Luke 23:34. But in this prayer, what a Model He is, a Model beyond us, and what does He say? He does speak about the preservation of His own, their sanctification, and so on, but having lifted up His eyes to heaven, the first thing He refers to is , “Father, the hour is come”. It would relate to what He was about to go through, for He says, “I have glorified thee on the earth, I have completed the work which thou gavest me that I should do it” (v.4). “Father, the hour is come” – all would be accomplished, and then He says, “glorify thy Son, that thy Son may glorify thee”.
So, beloved, I would leave this word, just to add to what our brother said. He has given us illustrations of one and another, persons of like passions to ourselves, who lifted up their eyes, and we are to remember this example also of the Lord Jesus Himself doing so. May it be to His glory. Amen
Word in a meeting for ministry, Sunbury
10 June 2019
A. John E. Temple
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