WHAT GOD IS PRESENTING THROUGH CHRIST TO MEN
D. M. Welch
Acts 3: 19–24; Hebrews 1: 1–3; Romans 14: 17; Isaiah 11: 1–9
Where would we be without Christ? What condition would the world be in without Christ or without what proceeds here in those who know Christ? In many places grace has super-abounded. “All we are witnesses” the scripture says (Acts 2: 32), all witnesses to the super-abounding grace of God. His mercy, love and kindness; salvation having appeared He is known thus as a Saviour God. I read these scriptures, not to go into detail, but to speak a little of Christ, as Peter speaks of Him so wonderfully here. How Paul loved his countrymen and how Peter loved his countrymen, and love is characterised by faithfulness. Peter is a faithful man, himself taken up by God to be a witness. He discharges his faithfulness by speaking to his own countrymen, speaking the truth. Times of refreshing are referred to, restoring of all things referred to; these kinds of days are referred to in this portion. Repentance is immediately touched by Peter, desiring that the word would bring conviction to his fellow countrymen. Israel had been taken up by God, chosen by God from the foundation of the world, and cultured with everything that God could provide to man in the flesh. This proved only that with everything man was provided, even if he were to keep the law, it would be his own righteousness; something that man would claim. Perhaps we would be entrapped in that ourselves, if God’s grace had not laid hold of us, and given us to repent. Repent is a very important word and having the reality leads to God’s righteousness. We quoted from a brother’s ministry that upon conversion and receipt of the Spirit, persons were the same but with another life. The working out of repentance and righteousness is through conviction and believing the truth.
We would be nowhere without Christ; nowhere without the intervention of God Himself, and that leads us to repent; to have a judgment about ourselves and our condition in this world, in Adam’s race. That leads us, in conviction, to understand that we are accounted with the guilty. This nation (Israel) was guilty, as it says in verse 15, and Peter’s faithful word confirmed it, “but the originator of life ye slew”. I do not know your state of soul, I would just say to you “Repent”. By extension, you are accounted among those who slew the Lord Jesus, and if for no other reason, because you are rejecting Him to this time. (The world we live in has done that). In the second chapter Peter, again speaking faithfully, could say the Lord Jesus was “given up by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God”, but then it goes on to say, “ye, by the hand of lawless men, have crucified and slain” (Acts 2: 23). So repentance is to be real; we are to be convicted as to our part in all this.
Left to our natural state as part of Adam’s race in a fallen condition, and guilty, we would never desire that God would have any authority over us. What would characterise us, save for the grace of God, would be self-will, lawlessness. Lawlessness is sin, sin is lawlessness, it has to do with my will and lusts. It is contrary to what God has in mind in His love to man. So righteousness must be settled before the times of refreshing can come and the restoring of all things can come. God has settled it and I would say, dear friends, He has settled it for you; He has settled it for Himself and has been glorified, because the Lord Jesus, who knew no sin, was made sin. He was made sin; He met all the claims of God against our condition in Adam’s race. He discharged the debt that we owed personally, each owes it personally, as reckoned among the guilty; but He has discharged the debt for persons who repent and believe. How did He do that? How could He discharge that? How could He remove an offending state; a condition so obnoxious to God because God’s will was not desired by any of us? How could He remove guilt? Righteousness and peace kissed one another at the cross when the Lord was lifted up between heaven and earth.
You say, that was a terrible thing men did, your conscience may go that far. But what about the rejection of a perfect Man fulfilling the will of God in love to creatures? Does your conscience and the conviction from the word take you further, to see that in discharging what lay upon the race, the condition of the race, and in paying the debt owed because of our guilt, it must first have been between this perfect Man and God Himself? The transaction must be between Them, He who knew no sin was made sin. How can we fathom this? As we sang in the hymn ‘The darkness sought His woes to hide’ (Hymn 13). Who could fathom the perfect Man, alone with God, but abandoned by the God whom He loved, the God He served, the God whose will was His; every morning hearing the word as one of the instructed, proceeding in relation to the excellent of the earth, never failing in thankfulness to God, never failing in faithfulness to man; but He was left alone of God. He was not only left alone of men, but He was left alone of God! That is how awful the condition was upon the race, that is how awful it is, that is how awful my state, my offending state, my guilty state, that is how awful it is. So must it be that the One who was without sin, be made sin, and bear in His own body my sins on the tree. To discharge that terrible guilt He laboured alone. He was left alone of God.
We would love to be able to say more about this, the fact is in what we are reading of here, there will be those who will look upon Him whom they had pierced, and will recall that this was the One, the spotless Lamb of God, who sacrificially took on everything that was needful to clear the way, to meet the claims of God in His suffering, in His death, and in His blood-shedding, as a witness that He had done it. And, to complete it He went into the grave and bore that reproach, but God did not suffer His holy One to see corruption. He met the claims of God, how glorious a Person He is, and He has met your need and mine in His work on Calvary. This is the Person God has raised up. You know, men speak of God, but in their anger and violence do harm and murder to man, then cry out God is great. That is blasphemous. There is no God in that as men may speak of their prophet, but I speak of the prophet of God; the same One Moses and Samuel pointed to, and who Peter speaks of. I am speaking of the One who speaks the oracles of God and of One who has been raised from among the dead. I am speaking of One who is exalted as Man in heaven, yet I am speaking of One who is God in His Person. God did not die at Calvary, but the Man who died at Calvary is God.
And God is going to have His way; the kindness and love of God have appeared. Why is that? I can tell you it is because of God’s love towards you. He does not love the offending state. He does not love the obnoxious character of man’s will and lust. He does not love your guilt, but He loves mankind. Not only that, but He so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son. He so loved the world, that is the world where you and I live at the present time, a world that looks on to the world according to God when Christ will rule; it is where God’s love to man is declared. His righteousness declared, and where His grace is towards men. He loves the habitable world where man can dwell in relation to Himself. Did you know that? What is obnoxious to God is what is morally proceeding according to man’s will, according to the devil’s devices and according to the lusts of men. But God loves mankind and He loves the world. He will have the world suitable to Himself where man can enjoy wonderful things. In fact, times of refreshing will come, the restoring of all things will come.
So what we read in Hebrews may correspond to Peter’s sermon—“God having spoken in many parts and in many ways formerly to the fathers in the prophets, at the end of these days”. That is what Peter was speaking of, these days, the days when the end of the law, the days when the introduction of the Messiah would come. The end of these days of the law, and the introduction of someone in rule, who only is capable of rule, would bring in days of refreshing. We are thankful that in the providence of God there is government, and persons who know the Lord Jesus, who have a fear of God, pray for governments, for the restraint of evil, but in view of what? In view of God bringing to light a testimony to the times of refreshing and the restoring of all things, and in view of God preserving the preaching of the word, so that persons may be called out of a corrupt, immoral world, and into a world of love and light, the light of God and to be available for fellowship. There is a new condition where all resources provided by God can be enjoyed. Let us never forget that as the Lord Jesus was crucified on that centre cross, He was distinguished because of what He was doing and because of who He is. He has done God’s work, God’s will. Those beside Him were not distinguished, although one was spoken to by the Lord. Has He spoken distinctly to you and to me? Has it brought conviction?
Here, as we read in Isaiah He is distinguished. He is the divine Speaker. Dear friends, make no mistake about what God is doing. God is speaking. Just as the Lord speaks and serves mediately among the saints. God will have His voice heard in the preaching of the word—so that the prophet spoken of by Peter, the Lord Jesus Himself, and by extension of the word of God, the speaking comes to us in the preaching. We are to be convicted and set free this very day. There is the One who is distinguished, the divine Speaker Himself, established Heir of all things; by Him God created the worlds, that wonderful concept that God had relating to the habitable world was in His mind for man by this particular Person. How particular, distinguished and specific he should be in our minds! He is established Heir of all things, the Creator Himself and the perfect expression of everything that God had to say to man. This is a divine Person, become Man, revealed to us as Son, and that character of things carries forward at the present time. Not exactly the same way as in past days, because personally He is the filling out of all as the great prophet of God; but He speaks in the character of Son. He can establish persons in manhood and in relationship because He sets it all out Himself.
Who else but a divine Person could uphold all things by the word of His power? It is this Person. He is upholding all things by the word of His power, and He is the mediator. Peter spoke of Moses in the first reference we read. Moses was the mediator; that is the law came to Israel through Moses, but the Lord Jesus fills out every title, every example, every type He fills out all perfectly and gloriously, so that He holds the whole system Himself. What a great Person we are speaking of in the preaching; who but a divine Person, and yet in manhood, could make purification of sins? What a matter it is to contemplate Calvary, and see this is the Person that was there, who by Himself has made purification of sins. Does that not attract your heart? Do you want to know great people in the world? They will only lead you down the path of destruction if you follow them. There could be some people with a conscience who would not want you to be led down the path of destruction, but it is a God-consciousness. The idea is conversion, repentance and to be attached to another kind of man, a Man who Himself is God, a Man who is great enough to be the mediator. He is the one mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus.
Oh, beloved, these times of refreshing and of restoring of all things do not have to be put off! How often the Lord Jesus referred to “that day” in John’s gospel. Even the kingdom does not need to be put off, except in its public glory and display; in the purging of all things, yes, that is put off, yet we take it up individually and purify ourselves according to the light that comes to us in relation to the Son of God, so we can enjoy the kingdom now. The scripture that we read confirms it to us. It basically says that we do not have to wait for the display of the kingdom, for the things of the kingdom are to be in us and to be worked out among us. It is not eating and drinking; it is Pharisaical to make that out as the kingdom. The Lord will have a people in liberty and in service to Himself, a kingdom of priests to His God and Father. God provides the resources to every converted soul, who by faith receives the light, is convicted and exercised and wants to receive the Spirit of God. God would set His seal on such a person. But it has to be your exercise, dear young brother or sister, to get with the God, who is a Saviour God, who is the beneficent provider that Adam knew, yet you can know Him in a real, deep and personal way, and receive the Spirit.
Righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit—what a matter that it! The kingdoms of men may proceed, and as Christians we pray for the governments, but we want to go on in the great light that has come out of heaven, which appeared to Paul on the Damascus road; that light showed the way in relation to the One who said, “I am Jesus, whom thou persecutest”, Acts 9: 5. We pray for the governments in that light, and we pray for men in the gospel to come into that light, as we pray for the restraining of evil through governments. When the Spirit and the assembly go there will be chaos. Why? It will be one will pitted against another, another will pitted against another, and the lusts of men will pervade the scene, and they will put temporary fixes on things. Man has developed himself in such a way that 666 will answer to the man of sin, the fullest development of man possible. Whether it be in his knowledge of computers and micro-chips or whatever it pertains to, man will develop himself as far as possible without God. And that will result in chaos. Man is now held in check because of the Holy Spirit and the kingdom of God in persons who have the Spirit. Did you ever think about that? In one sense the world may not depend upon us, but God depends on us; He does, God depends upon us to hold things.
“We ourselves, who have the first-fruits of the Spirit, we also ourselves groan in ourselves, awaiting adoption, that is redemption of our body”, Romans 8: 23. God has His way in that, in discipline, and He knows what He is doing, but discipline is to bring us more into correspondence with Christ. What the blessed Spirit is doing here is forming us in kingdom features that underlie the privilege of being in the assembly. The Spirit is in charge of the testimony, the Holy Spirit Himself; so we have the opportunity to be with Him as to these things. Notice this scripture, “The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid, and calf and the young lion and the fatted beast together, and a little child shall lead them”. You say that is going to be a wonderful time; it is going to be a wonderful time, even the lower creation will be set free from the bondage of corruption. We ourselves of course will have a transformed body, a body like unto His body of glory. This body is needed for the purposes of discipline in God’s ways and wisdom. But where is an answer to this scripture in Isaiah 11 to be found now? It is found in the assembly. What was your character before you were converted? I do not know. What I see, and what you should see in believers, is the development of spiritual personality, and the evenness of things in them even as Peter spoke of God sending Jesus Christ that times of refreshing might come.
That order of manhood characterises the assembly today by the work of the Spirit, and is especially seen by our intermingling in fellowship with one another.
You may not know me as I was before I was converted. The wolf tears and devours; humanly speaking, a man who is like a wolf can be under the power of the devil or, since all men are proud, there may be persons who appear to be like a lamb but are quietly proud. We are to see the evenness of things today in the assembly, where the days of refreshing, the restoring of all things, is found and enjoyed and experienced. The wolf and the lamb, they dwell together and lie down together. True leadership and the place of each in the assembly, leads to this evenness and environment in the assembly. Persons who receive the revelation of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, the revelation of the purpose of God fill this out anticipatively now. We see such now because the Lord Jesus said, “Unless ye ... become as little children, ye will not at all enter into the kingdom of the heavens”, Matthew 18: 3. It is a wonderful scene. Do you enjoy it? Do you fear the devil? Oh beloved, greater is He that is in us than he that is in the world. It says, “the sucking child shall play on the hole of the adder, and the weaned child shall put forth its hand to the viper’s den”. That which would characterise human personality, as the wolf or the lamb, whatever, is all brought into evenness because of the development of spiritual persons. And as those persons are spiritual and dependent, and features of the kingdom come out in them, the devil has no power. So, as we sang, ‘The Conqueror must reign’. But we are more than conquerors now; it says so in the epistle to the Romans.
This is a wonderful setting and I want to end with it. Are we enjoying it in power? Are we persons with thankful hearts that God in His sovereign goodness and in His mercy has wrought with us? Has He attracted you to this Person, this Man, by whom He created the worlds? Has He attracted you to the King Himself, great David’s greater Son? You cannot go wrong, whatever you were like before conversion, you are to have a new life, a wonderful life among the brethren, as having received the Spirit, and as joining in and supporting the preaching of the word, and as recognising that the Spirit and the assembly are still here, and that God is calling persons out of the present evil world for this land of life. What a glorious message! May we be helped to enjoy what we have been called into, for His name’s sake.
Preaching at Ormond Beach/Bunnell
20 February 2005