THE OPERATIONS OF THE FATHER AND THE SPIRIT IN RELATION TO THE LORD JESUS
D. C. Brown
Perhaps we will look at other scriptures, but we were impressed on Lord’s day by the operations of the Father and of the Spirit in relation to the Lord Jesus. How wonderful that two glorious divine Persons should, in their different ways, according to the way in which They have come out and taken Their place in the economy, as we refer to it, and the arrangements in divine love, each has acted in relation to the Lord Jesus. I suppose this may be the first time we distinctly and publicly see it, that the Lord Jesus, having completed these thirty years of perfection, the Father and the Spirit are acting together in this sign of divine approval of this glorious Person before He takes up His public service. How wonderful that one divine Person should serve another, and how we see it has characterised Them. Of course, we see the Lord Jesus predominantly as the One who has served; but the Holy Spirit was prepared here to descend, take His place, signify the distinctiveness of that Person, and at the same time the Father would act to set Him out in the distinctiveness and glory that He had—“Thou art my beloved Son, in thee I have found my delight”. How wonderful that this one Man was glorified as the subject of the operations of the Father and of the Spirit!
So we have a life, a pathway, that followed on that kind of line, and we come to the fact that when it was a matter of the Lord Jesus going to the cross, both the Father and the Spirit were engaged so that He would take His place. We see it in Luke 22—“having knelt down he prayed, saying, Father, if thou wilt remove this cup from me—but then, not my will, but thine be done” (Luke 22: 41, 42). But also, as Hebrews brings it in, this is One whose offering was “by the eternal Spirit”—“how much rather shall the blood of the Christ, who by the eternal Spirit offered himself spotless to God” (Hebrews 9: 14). The One who took up that wonderful action in going to the cross did so in relation to the Father, accepting the cup from the Father’s hand, but not only that. He did it as “by the eternal Spirit”, offering “himself spotless to God”. How wonderful that the Lord Jesus in going that way, that way for us, that way for the securing of the purpose of God, set Himself, in relation to the Father, accepting the cup from His hand, and set Himself in relation to the Spirit by offering Himself “by the eternal Spirit”!
When it comes even to the resurrection, there is the glorious fact that the Lord Jesus was raised by the glory of the Father. Romans 6 refers to that—“even as Christ has been raised up from among the dead by the glory of the Father” (Romans 6: 4). What rights the Lord Jesus had, what distinctiveness there was in His right to raise Himself, but the Father was there, the Father was engaged that Christ should be raised with a fresh and distinctive sign of the Father’s approval.
But then Peter brings in a scripture which I cannot pretend to understand very much. 1 Peter 3 speaks of Christ “that he might bring us to God; being put to death in flesh, but made alive in the Spirit” (1 Peter 3: 18). I do understand it refers to His resurrection. What a glorious fact that the Father was there, the Spirit was there, each in their way showing divine approval for One who had secured and accomplished everything according to the purpose of God.
But when it comes to the thoughts of our own souls, our own appreciation of what there is of Christ in all His glory, we are depending on the activity of the Spirit of God that we should be born anew. According to John 3, “Except any one be born of water and of Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God” (John 3: 5). The Lord Jesus also says, “No one
can come to me except the Father who has sent me draw him”, John 6: 44. How wonderful that each one of us has been the object of the operation of the Spirit of God and of the Father drawing us to Christ! What glory there is in that! We can look at that and the glory of it in us individually, and how it would magnify the operations of the economy to us.
But then also we see that the Father and the Spirit are engaged in securing the bride, as we see in Genesis 24 where Abraham speaks to the servant. Abraham a type of the Father, the servant a type of the Spirit, have that in mind, with the divine thought in view, to “take a wife for my son Isaac” (Genesis 24: 4). The assembly for Christ, in the purpose of God and the Father’s thought, and the operations of the Holy Spirit, that there should be that seeking, that reaching out, that bringing back, so that there should be what is for the heart of the Lord Jesus.
How wonderful that these two Personages in all their majesty and glory, the Father, greater than all, the Spirit, the Holy Spirit of God, have acted in this way for the glorification of the One who is the Son, and to secure ourselves, and to secure what we are as having our part in the assembly! I trust these things, as in contemplation, would magnify the whole arrangement of the divine love to us for the Lord’s name’s sake.
Word in meeting for ministry, Edinburgh
24 July 2012
Edited and Published by J. Strachan, 59 Frederick Street, Dundee, DD3 9DE, Scotland
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