“JESUS CHRIST IS THE SAME”
D. C. White
I desire to speak, beloved brethren, simply and briefly I trust, about this blessed Person,
Jesus Christ. What a glorious Person He is! “Jesus Christ is the same”. This would make us think of the nature of the One who was here; “Thou art the Same”, the psalm says of Him, “and thy years shall have no end”, Psalm 102: 27. Oh how glorious is the blessed Lord! Think of what He did; think of what He was; think of what He is; “Jesus Christ is the same”.
If we are looking for an example, if we are looking for an Advocate, we must look to Him; His standard, His excellence, His worth, have never varied, nor will they. So if we think of the greatness of the Person, we must think of what He did, the One by whom the worlds were made. Think of the greatness of the Word, and of the Lord as the Creator—the One to whom we owe everything. The great physical universe we see around us was made by Him; He is the One, too, who upholds all things by the word of His power.
What a mighty One He is!—“Thou art the Same”. As the Same He is One whose Person is impenetrable. We cannot enter into the greatness of the One who exists as “the Same”. How precious, however, to think of the way in which He came into revelation, how He took a bondman’s form, how He humbled Himself, how He was found in figure as a man, how He became obedient even unto death, and that the death of the cross. The name by which He was known amongst men was Jesus—“and thou shalt call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins”, Matthew 1: 21. Do we all know the Saviour? Many young folk are here today; I wonder whether each one knows the Saviour—the Saviour, Jesus; as the hymn puts it—
‘The Saviour, Jesus, who is He?
The mighty God, a Man become!’ (Hymn 34)
O, beloved young people, put your trust in Jesus; come to know Him, come to love Him, come to serve Him early in your lives, and prove the blessing of belonging to Himself. Jesus; what a name it is! And Jesus Christ; “Thou art the Christ” (Matthew 16: 16), this was the revelation that was vouchsafed to Peter, the Christ, the anointed Man, that blessed One who has been made both Lord and Christ. Matthew’s gospel starts off by listing the generations of Jesus Christ, Son of David, Son of Abraham; what a wonderful lineage, what precious ancestry on the natural side, but then the Lord was, and remains, ever greater than either Abraham or David—“Before Abraham was”, He could say, “I am” (John 8: 58); and He was David’s Lord. So we must be reverential and worshipful as we think of Him in the greatness of His Person.
Then what shone out in Him as Man is most blessed to contemplate. Think of the perfection that was seen in His every movement, the One who, as we were reminded in the reading, could say that He was “Altogether that which I also say to you”, John 8: 25. There was a testimony to Him even from His foes, even from those who went to question Him, they said, “Never man spoke thus, as this man speaks”, John 7: 46. So about Jesus there was that which was unique, and no matter how He was tried, no matter how He was tested, no matter how He was assailed, those perfections, those beauties, shone through in Him as Man, the One who called forth the Father’s delight, the One who by the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God.
Everyone who approached the Lord Jesus for help proved He was the Same in being ever approachable; they knew He would not turn them away. He was the One who could be detained by the voice of the blind beggar who said, “O Son of David, Jesus, have mercy on me” (Mark 10: 47); the One who was the Same could deal with that condition. He could deal with more extreme cases, even raising the dead, raising Lazarus; think of the perfection that shone forth in Him at that tomb; think of the might that was displayed when He said, “Lazarus, come forth”, John 11: 43. What power was resident in the blessed Son of God, the One who could say, “I and the Father are one”, John 10: 30. The gospels tell us about His life on earth; we would never find the slightest imperfection in anything that Jesus did, in those things that He began to do and to teach. How perfect His words! How perfect His works! How perfect the great, finished work which He did at Calvary.
So let us be assured, beloved brethren, of the unchanging value of that work which remains eternally, that which has never to be repeated, that wondrous, eternal sacrifice that has been offered. What worth was in Jesus! So He was the Same yesterday, and He is the Same today.
Oh let our hearts delight in that the attitude of the Lord towards His own will never change; the value of His work will never be diminished. That blessed Advocate, of whom we read earlier, “Jesus Christ the righteous (1 John 2: 1), how valuable is the service He renders currently, a Man in heaven there appearing before the face of God for us. So He is the Same today, and how comforting it is to take account of that. It is good to see various ages represented here today, including brethren who have proved the Lord in the past; what an example they are to those of us who are younger; what a testimony to the faithfulness of the Lord; what a witness to His ability to save and to bring His people through. They, with every one of us here, can say that “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, and today”.
Thus we can speak of Him from our own experience. We can think of many difficulties through which He has brought us, and we have come to know Him, not only on account of what He did for us at Calvary, but also on account of His present service to us. His daily service to us. Let us all draw more upon Him and rely increasingly on what the Lord can do for us. He will bring us through this day, and if He should leave us until tomorrow He will bring us through that day also, a day to be spent with Himself and in which we can be restful in His praise and service. Oh what a wondrous, present resource then we have in Jesus Christ the Same.
The same Jesus, too, will come for us; the testimony in Acts was, “This Jesus who has been taken up from you into heaven, shall thus come in the manner in which ye have beheld him going into heaven” (Acts 1: 11). Jesus is coming for us, and what a comfort that is. He is coming for us, to take us out of this world of strife and sorrow; coming to take us to be with Himself, and coming Himself for us, not acting by an intermediary, not acting in any remote way, but Himself coming into the air to take all His own to be with Him, and He will be the Same for ever. The same Jesus whom we have known, whom we have loved, will come to take us to be with Himself, and as the apostle says, “thus we shall be always with the Lord”, 1 Thessalonians 4: 17. One could say, ‘It will not be a strange Jesus’; how comforting it is to think of that, that it is our Lord and Saviour who is coming to take us to be with Himself, and to be with Him for ever. May these things comfort our hearts.
And this is the One to whom every knee shall bow, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to God the Father’s glory (Philippians 2: 10, 11). So the One who has proved Himself, the One who has shown Himself able, that One is worthy to reign, and everything will be put to rights when His glorious reign comes. Today we are surrounded by turmoil and chaos; every country is facing problems and difficulties; many people are finding pressure in their circumstances, in their businesses, in their relationships with others; countries are finding difficulty in their relations with one another, and all that is a sign of man’s inability to control events. Things have gone beyond the control of men. But there is one blessed Man into whose hands all power has been committed, and that One will return shortly to take His own to be with Himself, and in the not-too-distant future thereafter He will come to reign. In the meantime our hearts can be restful in the knowledge of this One who is the Same.
Well, I just want to leave this simple impression with us, and I trust the Lord will bless it to our hearts and will use it to our comfort and encouragement, for His name’s sake.
Address at Redbridge
7 May 1983