CHRIST'S PLACE WITH REGARD TO MEN - THE SANCTIFIER AND THE SANCTIFIED
CHRIST’S PLACE WITH REGARD TO MEN — THE SANCTIFIER AND THE SANCTIFIED
This psalm is one of surpassing interest, and stands out distinctly as being more personal to the Lord than any other psalm. To bear this in mind will be a great help, because even in the latter part of the psalm, where the result of His work is seen, it is the place which the Lord Himself takes with regard to others which comes before us, rather than the blessing into which they are brought. There are two parts to the psalm, the first part refers to the sufferings of the Lord, and the second part to the place which the Lord takes consequent upon suffering. There is another thing which characterises this psalm, it does not go beyond the earth, and this is the position which is generally found in the psalms. There are one or two which speak of the Lord’s present session at the right hand of God, but that is not the general line of things in the psalms. The great question in the Old Testament was, whether God or man was to have the earth. Man claims it for himself, but it belongs to God, and He will possess it in the Person of His anointed. It is very interesting to see that in the fourth book (Psalm 90 to Psalm 106) you get the coming of the Lord, and the fifth book brings us to the closing glory. That which underlies the early psalms is, I should say, the truth of the Son of God. It is important to see this because it is the key to those psalms and especially to Psalm 22.
It has often been said with regard to verse 1 that this is the only instance in which the Lord addresses the Father as ‘God’; it was suitable to the place which He had taken for the moment. In the gospels we get the expression ‘Father’. The Lord commends His Spirit to the Father. We have seen in Psalm 2 that the truth comes out that the anointed is God’s Son who will subdue all things to give effect to the will of God; and in Psalm 8 that He is Son of man, and that He is supreme in the world to come. Son of man is the title which the Lord takes in connection with His sufferings and exaltation; but when we come to this psalm, the great truth which underlies it is that the Person of whom it speaks is the Son of God. The theme of the psalm is the sufferings of Christ and the glory which follows, The sufferings here are sufferings which were necessary for atonement; there were providential sufferings, and those at the hand of man; there was suffering for righteousness’ sake also, but in all these we find others associated with Him, but in suffering for redemption no one could be associated with Him — no one could have part in that which He suffered at the hands of God. I have no doubt that Israel will suffer at the hands of man in a future day; the apostle Paul speaking of Jews says that wrath is come upon them to the uttermost. In all suffering of this kind the Lord took part, but in this psalm the sufferings are at the hand of God, and no one could be with Him in them. It was there He was made sin, and knew what it was to be forsaken of God, so that He said, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me”, Psalm 22:1?
I said just now that the first part of the psalm gives the sufferings, and the latter part the place which the Lord takes with regard to man; it is a wonderful place, I cannot explain it, but you get an idea of it in what the angels said at His advent into the world. God’s good pleasure is in man; and here it comes out in the greatest way, because we find that God places Himself in connection with man in the Person of the One who has suffered. We get the solution of that which came out in John 1. “The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us”, John 1:14. He came amongst them, but He could not be one with them until the corn of wheat had fallen into the ground and died. Another important point is that He did not cease to be God when He dwelt among them; the apostle tells us that they “beheld his glory, the glory as of the only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth”, John 1:14. Nothing is more beautiful than the associations of the Lord with His own down here. At the very close He said, “With desire I have desired to eat this passover with you before I suffer”, Luke 22:15. In Psalm 16 we find that His delights were with the saints; He found His own pleasure in them, though I have no doubt He was very poorly understood by them. It has been said that they did not understand anything the Lord said to them, yet they believed it. When He told them that one of them would betray Him, they believed it, but they did not understand it. His very presence had a wonderful influence over them; they were attracted to His Person, and at the close He could say of them, “Ye are they which have continued with me in my temptations”, Luke 22:28. The secret of it was that they had beheld His glory. What a wonderful thing for them to contemplate! On the other hand He found His own peculiar delight and pleasure in the saints. Thus the principle of their association with Him came out in the Lord’s life, you get the idea of it. He had to do with them after the order of flesh in which they were — still they were His companions and He delighted in them and to be with them. But when we come to His death we see Him forsaken of God. No one else had been forsaken, others had cried and were heard, but He was forsaken, and I think we can understand in some measure why He cried, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” (Mark 15:34) because He was unconscious of any reason why He should be forsaken. We know that it was because of sin, but He was made sin that He might remove it completely [p. 222] from the eye of God. There was only one possible way in which sin could be put away, and that was by sacrifice, and what comes out here is that the sacrifice was adequate.
We get also in this as in other psalms what came from the hands of men, it is simply terrible; in Psalm 69 we find that from the highest to the lowest all expressed their hatred of Him. There were those that sat in the gate, that was the highest, down to the drunkard, that is the lowest; all expressed their enmity against Him, but it is most important to distinguish between that which He suffered at the hands of man and His sufferings for sin at the hands of God; and while sin no longer stands in the way of the accomplishment of His purposes, the present result for us is that we have boldness to enter the holiest. We are brought into heavenly and eternal privilege, because what is true for God is true for faith. Faith brings divine light into the soul, and if sin is removed from the eye of God, it is removed to faith, and the Holy Spirit has come that we may be led into the enjoyment of it.
“I will declare thy name unto my brethren: in the midst of the congregation will I praise thee” (verse 22); then in verse 23 there is the appeal to Israel; in verse 25 He praises in the great congregation; finally in verse 30 a seed serves Him. The point before me is the place which the Lord takes consequent on redemption in relation to men. First, “I will declare thy name unto my brethren”. Turn now to John 17:26. It gives us great insight into what we are considering. The idea of ‘his brethren’ is not exactly the church as presented by the apostle Paul. Paul speaks of it as the house of God, and as the body of Christ, but here it is the congregation. What you get in the house aspect is Jew and gentile builded together for a habitation of God by the Spirit, and the body is that which is derived from Christ, as Eve was derived [p. 223] from Adam, and thus she was of him, but here there is more the thought of His company. It is the company of His brethren. The same thought comes out in Matthew 16:18, “On this rock I will build my assembly”. The first thought is that the saints are His, they are those given to Him during the time of His rejection by Israel and the world. Thus they are partakers of His rejection; it must be so if we are to take a place with Him. In John 17 the Lord puts His disciples in His own place in the presence of the Father, and also in His own place before the world. It is the same in Matthew 16, the disciples were no longer to speak of Him as the Christ, and He goes on to speak of His sufferings and rejection as Son of man, and finally of His ultimate glory; but in the meantime He gets His brethren who are given to Him by the Father, and who share in His rejection. Primarily it doubtless refers to the Jewish remnant who were given to Him when He was rejected by His brethren according to the flesh. He gets spiritual brethren, and that brings with it the thought of His rejection. In the gospels the more we see Him rejected the more light we get as to Himself; this is specially so in John’s gospel, where He is seen as rejected from the outset. In Matthew 16 also the Father gives Peter a revelation of something which had never come out before.
It is a great thing to get the idea of being His brethren; I will tell you how we are brought into it. The Father gives us to enter into the thought that Christ is the Son of the living God, the Son of the Father’s love, and yet He is the Living Stone, disallowed of men, but chosen of God and precious. Thus we are drawn to Him. There never was a person on earth before to whom the saints could be drawn. Having been drawn to Him they are very dear to Him. He will cast out none that come, He delights to receive them. John 17 shows how exceeding precious they are to Him. He loves them as the gift of [p. 224] the Father, and if we are drawn to Him of the Father we get an apprehension of His Person as the Living Stone. He has become man that we might be drawn to Him, and then we have to share His rejection here. Is every one here conscious that they have been drawn by the Father to Christ? We were converted by the grace of God, but then perhaps we apprehended little of the grace by which we had been saved, but it is a wonderful thing to come to the Lord as to the Living Stone. It is this which was made good in the soul of Peter, it comes out in his epistle, “To whom coming, as to a living stone, ye ... are built up a spiritual house”, 1 Peter 2:5. Aaron and his sons are a beautiful figure of the spiritual house.
I pass on to the declaration of the name which comes out so clearly in John 20. The name He declares is the Father’s name. He speaks of what God was to Him — His Father and His God, and He brings the saints into the same relationship with Himself. This is the first time the Lord recognises them as His brethren. There had been light as to it before, but this is the first time that it comes out clearly and distinctly. He is not ashamed to call them brethren, and He makes known to them that the relationship in which the Father stood to Him was the relationship in which the Father stood to them, and the object was, “that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them”, John 17:26. He brings out the object for which He declares the Father’s name, that there might be a continuance down here of that which had been hitherto true of Himself. That which had been peculiar to Himself is now to be extended to a company, and this is the proper portion and place of saints on earth. God is bringing many sons to glory, and now both Jew and gentile form part of those whom the Father has given to Christ, and what is so blessed is that the ruin of the church cannot deprive us of this portion. It is on the ground of this relationship that [p. 225] we come together in assembly, that is, with the consciousness that we are His brethren, and that we are in His relationship as Man before His Father. We must ever remember that He is pre-eminent, the Firstborn among many brethren, yet we are the objects of the Father’s love as He Himself was down here, and I can understand the apostle saying, “Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God”, 1 John 3:1. He declares the Father’s name that they may be conscious of the Father’s love.
He then goes on to say, “In the midst of the assembly I will sing praise unto thee”, Hebrews 2:12. It is His assembly and He is the leader of the praises, and that upon earth where Christ was rejected and where He suffered for the glory of God, and to secure praises to God. What a thing it would be if every one in the assembly was conscious that He is the One who leads the praises. We are poor leaders, the only thing for us is to answer to His leading, and we do it in proportion as we have affection for Him.
As to praising in the great congregation, Psalm 40: 9 will help us. That psalm is prophetic of Christ and so referred to in Hebrews. When the Lord was here He declared the righteousness of God in the great congregation. In the sermon on the mount He disclosed the righteousness of God and exposed the pretended righteousness of the Pharisees. He preached God’s righteousness which went to the root of the principles which govern man naturally. He declared also the faithfulness of God, and was Himself faithful in all His path. He speaks of Himself as the faithful and true Witness, and that He was in the great congregation of Israel; and in Psalm 22 He looks to the time when He will praise in the great congregation. He has not yet done so, but the time will come when Israel will answer to the appeal of verse 23. His praise will be heard in the great congregation, and it [p. 226] will go out to the ends of the earth, and a seed will be born which shall serve Him.
May the Lord give us to understand what it is to get to Him in this the time of His rejection, and to know more of the power of affection. If affection has a real place with us we shall grow in affection and have affection for everything connected with Him down here. May we be more conscious of the truth that the Sanctifier and the sanctified are all of one.