MATURING IMPRESSIONS

E. C. Burr

Luke 9: 28–31, 34–36; 1 John 1: 7–10; 2: 1, 2; 1 Peter 1: 10, 11

Jesus took three men and went up into the mountain to pray. The life of one of them afterwards was short. Herod “slew James, the brother of John, with the sword”, Acts 12: 2.

The other two, as we may find in the Scripture, evidently lived long lives and they wrote epistles in their advanced age. I have the impression from their epistles that they wrote them in the light of the way in which they had subsequently companied with Jesus and in which the Spirit had developed things in them, but on the basis of the impression that they received on the mount. I wondered therefore what capacity we have to retain and develop impressions.

Our beloved brother has just spoken to us somewhat on that line, as to the way in which we may receive and develop impressions.

This was an intensely privileged occasion, three men chosen to be there with Jesus, to be found alone with Jesus on that mountain. In Mark it says that they saw “Jesus alone with themselves” (Mark 9: 8), helping us to see both His personal distinctiveness and our association with Him. I was impressed on Lord’s day morning with the way in which Paul speaks of “Each in his own rank—the first-fruits, Christ” (1 Corinthians 15: 23)—one rank has only one Man in it—“then those that are the Christ’s at his coming”. That is, “Jesus alone with themselves”. These three had the privilege

of being in this occasion with Him. We are not told in detail of the conversation which Jesus had with Moses and Elias but I suggest that we can gather, especially from John, the kind of things that were spoken about. What Elias contributed is a thing I have always wondered about. There is something secret, in a sense mysterious, about it. We can understand more of what Moses was involved in in the conversation because of the types that are set out in the great instruction given to him in Exodus and Leviticus especially. As to what Elias had to say, we often refer to the way in which he asserted the rights of God in a day of departure and decline, and that would be a valuable thing to be spoken about with Christ in any circumstances, but I wondered if the impressions that John drew were peculiarly what may have passed between Moses and Jesus.

It says, “Who, appearing in glory, spoke of his departure which he was about to accomplish”, and if we look at the section we read in 1 John we will discover things that would have been familiar to Moses developed, and in their fulness and completeness to be wrought out, not only in a different kind of Man, but in someone who superseded everything that Moses had had to deal with. Moses dealt largely with bulls and goats (see Hebrews 10: 4), but it says in Psalm 69: 31, “It shall please Jehovah more than an ox—a bullock with horns and cloven hoofs”. There would be that coming in which would please God more, but there is that also that would supersede what had been seen in Moses himself. The verses that we have read in John’s epistle, and indeed his gospel, could be explored further in this relation, touching on things that Moses would be familiar with. It says, for instance, “I write to you, children, because your sins are forgiven you for his name’s

sake” (1 John 2: 12), and Moses would be familiar with the forgiveness of sins. That is explicitly said in relation to the sin offering, “And it shall be forgiven them”, Leviticus 4: 20.

There is also that touching verse in Numbers 14: 19, where Moses says to God, “Thou hast forgiven this people, from Egypt even until now”. Moses would understand what the forgiveness of sins was, and you can think of John on the mountain, listening to conversation as to the departure of Jesus, and as to the perfection of the Sin Offering which would provide a basis for forgiveness—Moses would understand that, that that forgiveness in the wilderness had been related to what was yet to come in in One who superseded every offering that he had had to do with.

Moses would understand the blood. In a sense you might say, Who would understand the blood like Moses? Who had had more to do with the blood than Moses, both in relation to the passover in Egypt, and then in the setting out and setting on of the offerings? Who would understand the blood better than Moses? John would have gathered up an impression on the mount of transfiguration that the departure which Jesus was about to accomplish would involve blood of a different quality from that which Moses had had to do with. You can see John there as a privileged eavesdropper on that conversation, gathering up impressions as to what the blood would be, in relation to the departure which Jesus was about to accomplish.

Then John also speaks of propitiation, and Moses would understand propitiation. He had had to do with that in the offerings. Propitiation is involved in them, and John would gather up impressions as to it as he understood the conversation between Jesus and Moses as to a departure which was going to involve propitiation for sins, “not for ours alone, but also for the whole world”. You can see how the thought would develop in John as he grew older, but one wonders whether it was not from some initial impression as he was on the mountain with Jesus. It is, beloved, just this that I would impress on us this evening, that there is capacity to receive an impression and then the way in which it will develop and grow as we retain it.

Then, if we speak of advocacy, it says, “We have a patron” (or advocate) “with the Father”.

Moses himself had taken on advocacy in the wilderness, and yet the departure which was about to be accomplished would establish an Advocate who surpassed Moses in every respect. It is very interesting to trace the links between Moses’ ministry and John’s ministry, and to see how the way in which Jesus was there on the mountain with Moses would give John impressions that would develop as he grew older, growing into an old man. He received those impressions in that holy and privileged environment that provided a basis of things that he develops for us and that have become precious to us as we read his subsequent ministry.

Then, of course, in the first chapter of his gospel John says, “We have contemplated his glory, a glory as of an only-begotten with a father, full of grace and truth” (John 1: 14), and you can see that that too is an impression that John would have gathered up distinctively on the holy mountain as the Father said, “This is my beloved Son”. John, or the Spirit through John, puts that sentence in parentheses in the first chapter of the gospel, almost as if it is enclosed there, but it is to give a flavour to the whole of the gospel, but it rested on an initial impression, and one place where that initial impression would be received would be on the holy mountain.

Now if we refer to Peter, he does not (although we might have expected him to) so much take things up from Moses’ point of view. It would be difficult to say that the idea of the sufferings of the Christ, or of suffering, was excluded from what Moses had, but one could certainly say that it is not prominent in what Moses had. If you want to discover the suffering side of the life and death of the Lord Jesus in the Old Testament, it is not to Moses you would go, nor to Elias; it is to Isaiah, the prophets, and the Psalms. I wonder, therefore, whether, since Peter is so replete with impressions as to the sufferings of the Christ, he is not carrying through for us Jesus’ side of the conversation, John in a sense carrying through Moses’ side.

Peter perhaps and we speak carefully, reverently—is carrying through Jesus’ side of the conversation, because it would be something that would have to be explained and enlarged on to Moses that the departure which He was going to accomplish involved suffering never before known, never to be known again; sufferings unexampled; sufferings, in their reality, I think we could safely say, quite unknown to a man like Moses. But Jesus knew them. He knew what was going to be involved in His coming down from the mountain and going to the cross. He knew what lay before Him in all that long section of Luke’s gospel, from chapter 9 through to chapter 23, and as they spoke of His departure which He was about to accomplish He would not fail to allude to the suffering side that was coming in distinctively for Him.

Peter later, as he says, was to be a witness of it, a “witness of the sufferings of the Christ” (1 Peter 5: 1), but he refers in the verses we read to “The sufferings which belonged to Christ, and the glories after

these”. Peter’s first epistle, as we know, has a reference to the sufferings of the Christ in each chapter. His second epistle is concerned with the glory of Christ and His second coming in glory. Peter has almost lost sight of himself now when he speaks about the glory. He is not afraid to speak about himself in right circumstances, “who am their fellow-elder”, he says, 1 Peter 5: 1. Peter can speak about himself, conscious of what the Lord has worked out in him, but the impression that he carries through to his second epistle is the glory, the distinctive glory of One who was the beloved Son of the Father.

I just suggest, beloved, that the roots of these impressions lie in what Peter and John received as they listened to this holy conversation on the mountain. They “spoke of his departure which he was about to accomplish”, and as those men grew old they would find that the initial impressions that they had received there matured and were further developed by the Spirit, and they would grow in relation to their own experience, both personally and in the assembly. These things would grow, but there is nothing to grow if there is not an impression first received. It may be instructive for us to trace the way in which these men may have received impressions there that become the foundation of the whole of their subsequent ministry.

May the Lord encourage us in the retention and pursuit of impressions that we may receive, so that we may become not only increasingly intelligent, and admire, as our brother has said, but be increasingly able to bring out for the advantage of the rest of the saints the way in which what Christ has given us in privilege has developed in ourselves.

Word in meeting for ministry, London
24 September 1974