LUKE 14
In this chapter the Lord is not only regarding things with compassion, but He comes in with healing. The Pharisees and the doctors of the law were themselves set forth in the dropsical man; he was a sample of the company. They were [p. 177] watching to condemn the One in their midst who was Jehovah, but He saw the inflated condition of the dropsical man as evidence of their state, and He was there to reduce man to his right dimensions. To receive divine grace a man has to be healed of his dropsy; nothing will take away man’s self-importance but the action of the Lord Himself. If a man is going about to establish his own righteousness he is dropsical; he is not prepared to take the lowest place. There is no other way of promotion but to take the lowest place, and no one but the Lord Jesus could heal my self-importance and make me willing to take that place. He alone can reduce man to his proper dimensions, and when he is reduced the Lord can exalt him. It is a matter of sovereignty, because the man did not ask to be healed, and the company were averse to it; the Lord took him and sovereignly healed him. Man made the Sabbath minister to his self-importance, and people sought out the first seats — that is self-importance. Every one of us has had that disease and no one but the Lord can heal it.
In Philippians 2 we read that the Lord made Himself of no reputation; the One in the form of God who could claim equality with God made Himself of no reputation. He came down to go to the cross for us; but we have to come down from a diseased condition to be prepared to take the place of the last, to give up all our self-importance. It is the last who are going to be first. That very self-importance makes me an object of interest to God; if I realise that, it makes me ready to be reduced. All the things that mark our moral degradation awaken interest in the heart of God. When we begin to see we are self-important under the Lord’s teaching, we loathe ourselves, and think God must loathe us too; but He loves us and says, I will heal you so that you may be small enough to come into My family for time and eternity. It is the action of His grace. If I take the lowest place, He says, “Go up higher”. God will allow all kinds of things to operate to reduce our self-importance. No saint will go into the presence of the Lord with self-importance.
We may profess to think nothing of self; we are often ready to say self-depreciating things; but God is working to make it true, and it is in presence of His love that we learn to take the lowest place. The ministry God sends is the ministry of Christ, and if that gets its place in our hearts what is of flesh must go out. If Christ comes in, self-importance must [p. 178] go out. But with most of us it is only a little; it is like a dissolving view. Self-importance begins to go and Christ begins to be seen. God is working on these lines with us, so we should leave it to the Lord to promote us. Let the Lord say, “Go up higher”. Mary said, “Behold the handmaid of the Lord, be it to me according to thy word”. She was ready to go up to the highest favour ever shown to one of the human family; but it was the Lord who exalted her. It was because she was so without self-importance that she could go up to the highest place. One would desire to be in the spirit of this, content to be last so that one might have a greater appreciation than anyone else of the favour of God to a poor sinner.
One who puts himself down in the last place commends himself to the favourable notice of the Lord, and to the favourable notice of the brethren too. If we see anyone wanting a prominent place, wanting to be noticed, and to be something, it degrades him, and our estimate of him is lowered. But if we see a spirit of readiness to put himself down in the last place, there is something commendable about it. No one can find fault with me for wanting to be last. Paul speaks of himself as “less than the least of all saints”. I have often said, If Paul was less than the least, what size are you? It is a beautiful spirit in the kingdom, and a spirit that prepares us for the greatest enjoyment, because enjoyment comes through the appreciation of grace. The lower down I am, the more I am prepared for the exaltation of grace, like the man who was last and the host says, “Go up higher”. It is never the Lord’s mind to abase us; His thought is to exalt us, not to abase us; He would like us to do that, and then He can exalt us. If people walk in pride He knows how to abase them, but we do not want that. It pays to take the low place, it is to our advantage. If we want the best place it is to our disadvantage, for perhaps the Lord will give it to another and we shall feel ashamed; we “begin with shame to take the last place”. The Lord would like us to be in a state where He can exalt us. We should each be esteeming others better than ourselves; we can do that if we are not taken up with our own quality but with the qualities of others, and admiring them, and looking upon them as better than our own. We may pretend to like the low place when we do not, but the Lord can take all the dropsy out of us.
In the next section of the chapter we come to the service of [p. 179] grace; we are not thinking of having a good time with people who can be as good to us as we to them, but we are thinking of the service of grace. Mutuality is not grace; grace is always one-sided. Mutuality is found in the family circle; love is in the family circle, but grace is always one-sided, it is all on God’s side and flows down from God to unworthy men. We must have grace first, then love. In the family circle you have love and mutuality, but this is the kingdom, not the family, and in the kingdom we are to be prepared for the service of grace. The one who has is prepared to put what he has at the disposal of the one who has not. Nothing else is righteous. If I am not prepared to put what I have at the service of the brethren without looking for any recompense, I am not on the line of the kingdom. So do not ask those who are as good as you are and can ask you back again, but ask the poor, and the blind, and the crippled. We have to act on God’s principle — how does God act? He has everything for the poor sinner who has nothing, and we are never to get away from this service of grace. It is in the lowest place we become qualified to serve, because it is there we learn grace; and having learnt it we can express it to others without recompense. We do not want recompense at the present time, but only in resurrection. Paul did not want recompense; he said, “the more abundantly I love the less I am loved”. The Lord would discourage us from providing for people who can give back as good as we give them, but He tells us to manifest grace to those who cannot give to us, and then we shall have something in resurrection. It is worth while to have recompense then. You may have great recompense for a time in this world, but you find that people who think well of you one moment will think badly of you the next.
Blessedness consists in acting like God: “It is more blessed to give than to receive”. If I act like God nothing is more blessed; whatever we have in the economy of grace is to be at the service of those who cannot make any recompense. Many labour, and if they are not appreciated they feel unhappy as if deprived of their due; but we are to look on to resurrection. One would like what one does to be appreciated in resurrection. We need to live more under the eye of God for His pleasure, not to be approved of the brethren or anyone else: that is not the motive, though no doubt the brethren will approve.
[p. 180] The poor, crippled, lame and blind are people who cannot make recompense; not bad people, but people poorer than yourself. Amongst the people of God are found those that are defective, who might answer to cripples, blind and lame; but they are to be served in grace. The point is that God is going to have His recompense in resurrection when the saints are raised in spiritual conditions and there is not a trace of weakness or infirmity. There is nothing more one-sided than resurrection: there is a man dead in the grave, and the sovereign power of God acting in love comes in and raises him, and God has His recompense. When God looks down on the whole risen company, all like Christ, He will have His recompense. He will look down and see all the risen saints for one moment on earth. It is good to think of God having His recompense in resurrection, We have to admit we have not recompensed Him much in the present condition. God’s people have been to Him, as Israel was, a source of anxiety and grief. God has been seeing His poor people worldly and carnal, but He will have them all in spiritual conditions in resurrection eternally. What a recompense that will be! If I am working towards you in view of resurrection I shall be on spiritual lines; we should all work on spiritual lines in view of the resurrection. Those who act on these principles are righteous; they act like God, and will be recompensed at the resurrection of the just. God would have us to have regard to the recompense. It pleased Him for Moses to have respect to the recompense. Paul looked for a crown; speaking generally he saw all seeking their own things, but Paul will get his recompense when he sees the saints in resurrection, He says to the Thessalonians, “What is our hope, or joy, or crown of rejoicing? Are not ye also before our Lord Jesus at his coming?” That is the time when Paul will be recompensed. We shall be recompensed then even if we have to suffer now.
In the family there is mutuality which works both ways, but grace is one-sided. This gives the secret of the great supper; it is for the joy of God. The great supper was not to meet need, unless for the need of God to have His house filled. The great supper is to give expression to what is in the heart and mind of God. He makes ready according to the greatness of His own mind, and says, Come: it is all one-sided, None of them could contribute; all the people who had resources missed it, and those who had nothing were glad to come in.
[p. 181] It is God providing for His own satisfaction; there is not a word said about repentance or forgiveness. There is a greater setting forth of grace in this parable than in anything we have had in this gospel. It has been called the celebration of righteousness, and I think that is very beautiful. Those invited made excuses because they were not interested in the pleasure of God; they had another set of interests. The great point is now that God is saying: I have provided everything for the supreme satisfaction of My heart; I have secured My pleasure to the full — are you interested to come in and see what I enjoy? That is the gospel. The place where Jesus is glorified is the scene of God’s delight; righteousness is accomplished, and God is saying to man, I want you to come in. God makes everything ready. The need that exists is on God’s side; He makes the supper and He needs guests to come in and enjoy it. There is no thought of the antecedents of persons; it has nothing to do with their previous history. What God has prepared is for His own satisfaction; there is no reference here to man’s state. It is God providing according to His own pleasure, and now He says “Come”.
The invited guests were Israel, “whose are the promises”. A certain people had the promises, and God had been intimating what He would do for His pleasure, but Israel was not interested in God’s pleasure any more than people are today. If we go out into the streets and speak of God’s pleasure, people are not interested; they have their business, their families and other things to interest them.
The feast in Matthew 22 is what God has prepared for the honour of His Son, but in Luke 14 it is for the gratification of His own heart. He makes everything ready on the ground of the death of Christ. A Man has entered into the presence of God for His satisfaction, and the Holy Spirit has come down to report it so that there may be the enjoyment down here of what God has secured for His pleasure. Before it is in display in the world to come there is to be the enjoyment of it down here.
Not a single invited guest ever came in or ever will: all who come in are commanded or compelled. No one will come into the celebration of grace unless compelled. There is no room for man’s free-will. God has provided for His own ineffable delight; it is not man in innocence or fallen, but Man in righteousness in heaven, a glorious Man in righteousness. God has secured His supreme delight in Christ and He [p. 182] is saying, Come in and enjoy it with Me. There are first the invited guests, then the blind and halt and crippled in the city, and then those in the “highways and fences”, the open country, which would bring the Gentile in.
The bondman represents the Holy Spirit, who has come down to say, “All things are ready”. God has secured everything for His own delight in a risen and glorified Man, and no questions are asked about the guests; everything is secured. The invited guests will not come, and it raises anger in the one who prepared the supper. There is no anger so terrible as the anger of grace. Not a single thing can be added to make the pleasure of God greater than it is, and it is all outside of us, whether innocent or fallen; it is all in the sovereignty of God. What will be displayed in the kingdom of God in the future is now to be enjoyed in the house of God.
The compelling work is attributed to the bondman. In the epistle to the Romans Paul makes a good deal of the commandment of the eternal God; the gospel in Romans is not on the line of invitation but of commandment, a positive divine commandment: “It is done as thou hast commanded”. Then the compelling is connected with the call of God. Romans brings in the divine calling: certain persons are called in the compulsion of divine grace. God calls in an irresistible way. The calling is developed in Romans as the means of blessing — “whom he called them he has also justified”, and Paul said to the Corinthians, “Ye see your calling” — that is, Look round and see what kind of persons God has called. There is no resisting the calling; it is a matter of sweet compulsion. It was an action of grace to send out the invitations, but on the line of invitation no one ever did come; there must be a divine compelling power to operate so that the house is filled. The gospel does not take effect in any but the called ones, however powerful the appeal. The gospel preached is God beseeching; God will justify Himself before all men, and no creature of God can ever say, You did not give me a chance.
This wonderful development of grace goes beyond chapters 7 and 10; it is a new system brought in, not to meet man’s need, but to satisfy the heart of God. It is a wonderful picture; none could have drawn it but the Son of God. In His going as Man into the presence of God the summit of divine pleasure is reached; God has Man in righteousness before Him. Now, He says, Come in and enjoy it, and see that My thought is to [p. 183] have you like Jesus for My pleasure. The question of suitability is not brought in here. In the next chapter there are the best robe and the ring and the shoes, but in this chapter the thought is purposely left out so that we might see the altogether one-sidedness of grace.
Now we have to see that we do not take up grace in a superficial way. “Great crowds followed him”; it seemed to be an easy path to follow One who spoke so blessedly of divine grace. It is wholesome to keep the two sides before us; there is such a tendency with us to take up the thought of grace lightly, and not to understand what is involved in it. Both in regard of chapters 14 and 15 the Lord gives us the practical effect of receiving grace; the practical effect is the test of whether we have come in to the great supper. If we have, we shall be prepared for discipleship; that is the test of whether I have really come in to the supper.
This system of grace, the celebration of righteousness, is something altogether outside the region of the natural. The tendency of everything in the natural is to oppose it, just as the oxen, the piece of land, and the wife tend to make one uninterested in the pleasure of God. The tendency of the best things in nature is to divert one from the blessedness of this new system of heavenly grace, so that discipleship is needed to maintain in our souls the joy of the new system into which we have been compelled to come. We cannot be in the great supper without being committed to the path of discipleship. You cannot say, I will have Jesus, and all His love and grace to men, and I will not have anything else; if you have Him in His love and grace to men you must have Him in His faithfulness to God — that is the faithfulness of discipleship. The Lord Himself was the Disciple. In Isaiah 50 He says that He has been given “the tongue of the instructed”; that is the same word as disciple. The Lord never allowed Himself to be diverted by the natural: He had a mother and He loved His mother, He had the most tender care for her in committing her to John even in the hour of the cross, yet He never allowed her to bring any influence to bear on Him. He said, “Woman, what have I to do with thee?” when at one time she made a suggestion to Him. He was uninfluenced by the natural and ever governed by faithfulness to God. We have to recognise the tendency of the natural, however attractive, to divert us from the grace into which we have been brought; therefore [p. 184] we must learn to hate it from that point of view. All our natural relationships have to be watched in view of the tendency that is in them to divert us from the knowledge of God in grace.
Nothing is more testing than grace; it is much more testing than law. “His own life also” (verse 26) comes very close home. It involves a moral separation from all that would be naturally one’s own life, which is not the system of grace that we have been compelled to come into. The Lord would teach us to draw a sharp line of distinction between heavenly grace, God’s satisfaction in Christ which I enjoy by the Spirit, and the best thing in nature and one’s own life viewed apart from that system of grace. I have to have everything in myself that is apart from that system of grace. What is of the natural has a tendency to divert us and we have to watch it. That is just a simple fact, and most of us are old enough in the school of God to have learnt it.
God would impress on us the entirely new character of what He has brought us into by compelling us to come in; it is something as entirely apart from natural relationships as from sin. Many think of Christianity as liberating us from sin, but it has come in to liberate us from the best things in nature. A brother may be surrounded by every domestic joy and comfort, but in touching the things of God there is something much more precious to the heart, a deeper joy to be tasted, and if we are rightly exercised we must be careful lest even domestic happiness should divert us from the blessedness into which we have come. The Lord put it as a test, as much as to say, You have been pleased to hear what I have been saying, and you are crowding after Me, but do you understand that it means an entirely new life, not only apart from sin but apart from the natural life? There is always a tendency for the natural to hinder it, and therefore the natural has to be regarded with jealousy.
Here it is a question of the salt of the covenant. The covenant is pure grace, but you cannot have the covenant without the salt, which is the principle of faithfulness to God. It is faithfulness to God in regard to that system of grace which He has set up, faithfulness to the true character of grace. The Lord lived in the full blessedness of the favour of God to man, but He never allowed anything for a moment to hinder His faithfulness to God. We cannot come into the Supper and partake of its festivities without taking up the path of discipleship. To [p. 185] divorce the two things would be to spoil the grace of God; nothing is to be allowed to take one out of the enjoyment of this wonderful system.
Taking up the cross is more public. The Lord uses the strongest word He could possibly use. The idea of crucifixion in those days was the most extreme shame and degradation that a man could be subjected to; it was a death only permitted by Roman law to be executed on a slave, and then only for some terrible crime such as the murder of his master. Think of the Lord taking that up! We are so accustomed to the word that we do not think what it meant; it was the extreme depth of shame and degradation. Now, the Lord says, you must be prepared for that; you must be prepared to carry your cross. There is a tendency with us to expect to be appreciated as Christians, but to be carrying the cross is that we are prepared to be “the offscouring of all things”, as Paul says. We get very little of that kind of suffering now. We are living in such easy times; we are not thrown into prison or burnt at the stake as many of our brethren have been, but this principle in the soul would fortify us for the little bits of shame and contempt and reproach which come our way. Many of our brethren even now are facing cruelties and persecutions in some places of this world while we sit quietly here, but we need the same preparedness to face our little bits of reproach as they have to face greater things. We have to accept it as the normal condition, so that we are not taken aback or surprised if people laugh at us, revile us, or regard us with contempt. The carrying of the cross is an essential part of discipleship; the measure in which we are prepared to carry it is the measure in which we have come into the supper.
All this hangs together; there is the building of a tower and the king going to war. The Lord raised the question, Have you resources to go on with? Are you quite sure you can finish? It is one thing to begin, but it may be very superficial, and the Lord says, Sit down and consider. Have you resources? If you have not resources to meet the enemy, you had better surrender; it is the wisest thing to do. If everything for the delight of God is provided in Christ and if we have left behind everything of self to come in and enjoy it by the Spirit, then the more we sit down and consider the more we shall see that we have enough to begin with and to finish. The Lord says in verse 33, “Thus then everyone of you who forsakes not all [p. 186] that is his own cannot be my disciple”. The question is, Are we going on with what is our own or with what is of God and of Christ? If we are going on with what is of God and of Christ, we have enough to finish. “If God be for us, who can be against us?” We have more with us than against us. If the enemy has twenty thousand we have much more. This whole question is a matter of relying on the faithfulness of God in grace; He can bring us through if the power of the enemy is ten thousand times as many. God can enable us to conquer; there is no need to capitulate.
All these things are emancipating. I find I have something better than the sweetest natural relationship, and I have something better than any resources I could possibly have of my own. I have such a sense of glory in the presence of God that I am prepared for the deepest degradation. This is simple Christianity, and it goes along with the supper; this is the line of supreme satisfaction and victory. This is not depressing, but to a true soul it is encouraging, for in the light of the grace expressed in the great supper he would say, I have enough to finish.
The Lord’s words about salt are very important; it is important not to apostatise. To apostatise from grace and faithfulness to God is most serious, because there is no recovery; if salt loses its savour there is no recovery. Salt is the principle of faithfulness which is applied practically in all the details of life so that no corrupting element is allowed to work. A good supply of salt is necessary. There is a scripture which speaks of “salt without prescribing how much” (Ezra 7: 22); there is to be an unlimited supply. The salt of the covenant was not to be wanting in any offering. For instance, if I am praising God for the meekness and gentleness of Christ — the meat offering — the salt of the covenant would make me feel that nothing else will do for me, that I must be set to maintain that character. I cannot praise God for it in Christ and not maintain it in myself. The thought is well expressed in the verse of our hymn:
“We wonder at Thy lowly mind,
And fain would like Thee be,
And all our rest and pleasure find
In learning, Lord, of Thee”.