GOD’S WORD TO BEHOLD CHRIST
A. Martin
We started the day, those of us who met in this room, with the word ‘Behold’, taken from the words uttered by a wretched, sinful man, not really knowing what he said, “Behold the man!”, John 19: 6. That is what God is saying in the gospel—“Behold the man!”, God’s Man! Pilate did not know what he was saying, he did not realise the full implication of it. He knew that there was One there in whom he could find no fault. He knew there was One there who was completely different from any other man. He said “Behold the man!” Every other man set aside, every other man found guilty, every other man found to be a sinner, and Pilate said, “Behold the man!” What an echo those words find in our hearts. I wonder if every one of us here has seen Him, has had that view of Him. Have you taken account of Him? “Behold the man!” There He is, all that God had ever sought in a man, was there, the Man, coming short in no feature whatsoever. Every one of us has come short. We are all sinners, we have all come short of the glory of God. There was one Man here upon this earth who could say in truth and absoluteness, “I have glorified thee on the earth” (John 17: 4), the very sphere where every one of us has come short of the glory of God. Not only did he not come short of the glory, but He glorified God here. Behold Him! See Him in all His distinctiveness, in all His uniqueness and God would say, ‘take account of Him’.
God would appeal to you now in the gospel to take account of the Man, the Man Christ Jesus. God is above all, we are creatures; we have come short of the glory, we are sinful creatures here, and we have to do with a God who is holy and He is above all. How can we have to do with Him?—“For God is one, and the mediator of God and men one, the man Christ Jesus”, 1 Timothy 2: 5. He would say ‘Behold the Man!’, the Man Christ Jesus. They might have said, ‘What sort of a Man is He?’, what sort of a Man is He that is being delivered up, that is being cast out by His own people, what kind of a Man would be rejected by His own people’? Ah, beloved, the Man of God’s choice, the Man of God’s providing. Found here as a real Man, the manhood of Jesus was real. We know what He is in His Person and that remains unchanged and He never ceases to be that. What He is in His own Person is eternal and ever has been and remains unchanged. But He came into manhood’s condition. He came into your condition and mine, sin apart, He came into this very scene in which we are. Why?—in order that He should take upon Himself everything which lay upon you and which lay upon me. Ah, beloved, you think of Him, coming in to fulfil the will of God, to make God known, to establish everything that was in God’s heart, and He came in, beloved, as we were saying in the reading, he took a bondman’s form. And so God says, “Behold my servant”, behold Him, just look upon Him.
In one sense we have the account of the gospels, and you can go through them and you can wonder at them, you can marvel at the glorious perfections of God’s servant and Isaiah takes it up from a couple of chapters before this chapter, right to the end of the book. The theme of Isaiah is God’s servant, and He is saying, “Behold my servant whom I uphold”, who could He uphold? Only One, beloved, who glorified Him, only One who was perfect in every respect and answered to His holy mind and heart. God would uphold Him, He would say, ‘there is no Man like this’; you think of God saying, “Behold my servant whom I uphold, mine elect in whom my soul delighteth!” When did God say that? Ah, beloved, I think the Lord Jesus was conscious of it every day of those thirty-three and a half years. He was conscious of the delight of His Father. He was conscious that He was the One whom God upheld and in whom His soul delighted. You think of that extraordinary expression of God’s, “in whom my soul delighteth!” You think of God speaking in that way, “my soul”. You have to be careful what you say, but the soul conveys to us the deepest feelings, and God’s deepest feelings in relation to Christ were delight, the One “in whom my soul delighteth!”
He said that at His baptism, when that holy One came and identified Himself with a repentant people upon the earth. He could not repent; there was nothing in Him to repent of. He could not repent, Himself, but He identified Himself with them. What grace! What lowliness! John the baptist “urgently forbad him, saying, I have need to be baptised of thee; and comest thou to me?” and the Lord in wonderful grace said, “Suffer it now; for thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness”, Matthew 3: 14, 15. He links the baptist with Himself, John the baptist was conscious that Jesus was a Man of a different order, and yet He linked him with Himself, “Suffer it now; for thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness. Then he suffers him”, and the word came out from glory—“This is my beloved Son”, greater than the servant, the Son, the same blessed One, He came as a servant, He came to fulfil God’s will; His will should have been that of God’s servants, they were taken up to serve God and they failed, but Christ came in, He took up everything where Israel had failed, and He glorified God in doing it.
God said, ‘Behold Him, just look at Him, look at the Man that I have before me’ and He said, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I have found my delight”, Matthew 3: 17. Ah, beloved, what pleasure He found, what pleasure was in the heart of God as that precious One, that holy One, moved amongst men, taking up everything which lay upon men. Matthew tells us that in His works of power, it was the fulfilment of this very prophet, he said, “Himself took our infirmities and bore our diseases”, Matthew 8: 17. You think of Him even bearing the infirmities of people, He bore them in His spirit, He moved about, He saw all the havoc that Satan had done, all the effects of sin upon men. You think of how it moved Him at various times; we read about it in the gospels, He felt it as none other has ever felt it, He was never hardened by sin. He was never tempted in the sense of having to resist the desire to do what was wrong as we may be tempted. There are times when we know what is right, and we do that, but we feel something in us that would like to do what is wrong, but the Lord Jesus never had that. No, He was perfect in every respect, perfectly in accord with the will of God. He had a will of His own, yes, but that will was perfectly in accord with the will of God, and everything He did was not because it was His will, but because it was the will of God.
Absolute perfection in a Man; wonderful! No wonder God can say, ‘Behold Him’, let us take account of Him, “Behold my servant whom I uphold, mine elect in whom my soul delighteth!”, think of the pleasure of God resting without qualification upon one Man. Nothing needed adjustment, without qualification, God’s deep pleasure rested upon one glorious Man. What are the effects of that? The effect of that to me, is to bring home how bad a sinner I am, how far away I am from God, how short I come of the glory of God. I see the perfection of Jesus and I realise that there is a Man of another order, and I realise that I am not like that; naturally I am not like that. The Lord Jesus came even to address that, He came to take away the order of man that gives offence to God. He came to address the very principle that came in between man and God; He came to take up the whole question of sin and sins. He took it all up Himself. You think of what that meant to Him. What did it mean? Who can measure that? We cannot tell. It was love, ‘unbounded love to us’ (Hymn 155), the hymn writer says. Let us just glory in the love of Jesus, let us glory in the perfection of that manhood, as we see Him taking those paths in perfect obedience to His Father.
I believe particularly it was obedience at the end, obedience that was coloured by His love for His God and Father, because throughout the life of Jesus the will of God was His pleasure, it was His joy to fulfil it; but there came a time when the will of God was such that it involved that which was not His pleasure. Nevertheless, in perfect, unquestioning obedience He went through, and He said “not my will, but thine be done”, Luke 22: 42. What wonderful obedience, that at that dreadful time. He could say “not my will, but thine be done”. He proceeded, accepting everything from God. He went forward, all that lay before Him He did not take from Satan, He did not take it from men, He did not take it from Judas, He did not take it from Pilate, He did not take it from the chief priests. No, He took it all from God, it was from the hand of God, it was His will and He accepted it in absolute perfection; and there He glorified God in the acceptance of it.
There lifted up upon that cross, that terrible cross, for these three awful hours He addressed the whole question of sin and sins. He answered to God in respect of that whole question that had stood out as an affront to God; it was an affront to God, and make no mistake about it that sin is an affront to God, it offends God. Sometimes we see somebody do something wrong and we may say ‘oh dear, that is not right’, but sin is an affront to God. It is totally offensive to Him and it is entirely contrary to His nature, and God’s terrible judgment must come upon sin. It came on the holy, sinless One there upon the cross, lifted up out of the earth. He could not die upon the earth, no, that was the sphere where He had glorified God. He was lifted up out of the earth, and there, upon that cross, He bore the whole judgment of God, bore it in its entirety. That awful wrath of God against sin was spent there upon the cross. Wonderful thing to think of, that upon those three hours the whole of time and eternity hangs. Everything hangs upon those three hours. How do you stand in relation to those three hours? Have you seen Him there, have you had a view of the One there upon the cross?
We may all know the picture, but have you, in the depth of your soul, in the secret of your own room, have you actually got before God and seen the One who was there, hanging upon that cross and accepted it in the faith of your soul, that He was there for you? That is what I deserved, the judgment of God, because I am a sinner, and every one of us has come under that same penalty. I can tell you now that He took that place for me, and although I know that I am a sinner, I can glory in it because I know that there is One who has dealt with the whole matter. I will even take my place with the apostle Paul, and say that I can “boast ... in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ”, Galatians 6: 14. Have you all, it does not matter how old or young you are, taken your place there at the cross of Christ saying, ‘He was there for me’. Put your faith in Him. When you have to do with Him, you have that conviction of soul and you repent; you have to repent, you have to come to it that you are a sinner, and you deserve nothing but the judgment of God, but there is One who has made a way through for you by bearing the penalty of your sins Himself. You repent, and you come to it that that burden which had begun to feel so heavy and so impossible to remove, you find that burden has gone because there is One who has taken it away. You feel like that one, in that book of old, who was there at the cross, and his heart gave a leap of joy, and he said, ‘blessed cross, blessed sepulchre, yea blessed rather be the One who was put to shame for me’ (John Bunyan).
You feel the relief because of the fact the Lord Jesus has done that work and the sins have been taken away. How can it be? It is by faith. You have to come to it, my friend, you have to come to it yourself, that you need a Saviour, you need a Saviour. Dear friend, you are a sinner, you know that you are a sinner; you know that you are going to have to answer to God, you know it, and there is a way that has been made through. Do not leave it, do not put the day off, do not think that will do for another day. It will not. You need to know what it is to have to do with the Lord for yourself. God says, “Behold my servant whom I uphold”. There is the One who has taken up everything for God. He has borne the whole judgment of sin and sins, and He laid down His life and He shed His precious blood. Wonderful thing that there in the blood of Jesus, we see the basis on which everything has been secured, because God looks at the blood and God is satisfied. How do I know that God is satisfied? Because He raised Him from the dead, He exalted Him, He established Him at His own right hand. You think of God’s joy in Christ, and He would say, ‘behold Him now, look at Him now, He is at my right hand’. He is the One who has been established there and I am presenting Him to you tonight as a Prince and a Saviour, and upon Him is the basis on which all your blessing hangs.
Jehovah says, ‘I have this as a basis, as a foundation’; the world has rejected Him, God has established Him. He has become the Corner-stone. That is what we sang, ‘Thou, the rejected Corner-stone!’ (Hymn 322). He is the point of reference for everything which is going to be for God eternally, and the word is “Behold, I lay for foundation in Zion a stone, a tried stone, a precious corner-stone, a sure foundation”. God says ‘that One provides the basis for everything I have’. God is able to come out in sovereign mercy because of the work of Jesus, “I lay for foundation in Zion”, it is the foundation there, and it is in Zion. God is able in sovereign mercy now to come out to every man, woman and child in the world, and He would say, Christ is the foundation of it all, the basis of it all, “I lay for foundation in Zion a stone, a tried stone”. I like that word; “a tried stone”, it does not come through to the New Testament where this scripture is quoted. He was tried, He was tested in every respect, He was never found wanting, a tried and proven stone, and God says, “I lay for foundation in Zion a stone, a tried stone, a precious corner-stone”.
You do not think of preciousness generally when you think of the corner-stone of a building. No, but you do with a heavenly building, with a spiritual building. That holy city is marked by preciousness, and everything that God has secured is precious to Him; there is One who is the beginning of it all, and He is the precious Corner-stone. Whichever aspect you look at the building, you see the Corner-stone. If you look at the front or you look at the side, the corner is there and God says, ‘He is the One I am presenting to you’. He says, “Behold, I lay for foundation in Zion a stone, a tried stone, a precious corner-stone, a sure foundation”. Is He your foundation? You may even know the Lord Jesus as your Saviour, and yet still try to build on other foundations. I know what I am talking about, and what you will find is that it will not work and whatever else you build on, it will collapse. I can tell you too, that it will cause you greater grief, and it will cause you to feel that you wish that you had never tried, that you wished you had just been satisfied with Jesus right from the outset. The Holy Spirit would help us in this. He would help us to keep Christ before us. God is saying “Behold my servant”, ‘behold the Man’, and the Holy Spirit having been sent down from an ascended Christ. He would help us to keep our eye on that blessed One, keep our eye on Him. We will find beloved, that as we keep our eye on Him, and are sustained in the power of the Holy Spirit, even the temptations of the world will change,
‘Turn your eyes upon Jesus
Look full in His wonderful face
And the things of earth will go strangely dim
In the light of His glory and grace’ (Helen H. Lemmel, 1922)
Keep your eye on Him, ‘he that trusteth’. Well, we have trusted in Him, have we not, for our sins? Supposing He leaves us here a little longer, suppose Monday morning, I do not know what temptations I am going to face if I am left here any longer. What I can tell you is that I can always look back and I can see the One who has kept me until now, I can see the One who shepherded me, even when I wanted to go astray. He shepherded me and I know that I can safely trust in Him. I know that whatever comes up tomorrow, if we are left here, whatever time we have left to us, I know that there is One in whom I can trust, and “he that trusteth shall not make haste”, or as the footnote says in other words ‘shall not hasten with fear’, there is no fear needed for the believer. Who knows what time we have left? I have been reading letters of a young sister who lived in the nineteenth century. Lady Powerscourt, she was a young lady when she was only thirty-six years old when she died, and in one of her letters she says,
‘No yesterday but the cross of Jesus, No tomorrow but glory, No today, but Christ’.
Is that your experience as a believer? ‘No yesterday but the cross’, everything has been dealt with at the cross. ‘No tomorrow but glory’, that is what is before us, immediately before us, is it not? ‘No today, but Christ’. Christ should be everything to us and God would say, “Behold my servant”, ‘Behold the Man’! Is He everything to us? That is my simple message. May the Lord bless the word.
Preaching at Glasgow
March 2011