CHRIST IN AUTHORITY
[p. 30] CHRIST IN AUTHORITY
Luke 7: 1 - 10; Acts 4: 5 - 14.
THE thought I had in coupling these two Scriptures was that in each we find the idea of what is official, that is, of one placed in authority. The Roman centurion called the Lord’s attention to the fact that he was himself in the position of authority, the proof of that being that when he said to one to do so and so, he would do it; there was no question about it. The authority vested in him was of such a character that those who were directly under his control would immediately obey. He calls the Lord’s attention to this, but in doing so he did not wish to occupy the Lord with the fact that he was a Roman officer; he was not engaged with his own official place, that was a matter of no consequence at all. He might have been emperor for that matter: he could not effect the recovery of his servant. His servant was sick, and whether emperor or mere centurion, he could not alter the condition of his servant’s body. His authority was of such a character that he might very easily put a man to death, but he could not recover a man from illness; he could not raise a man from the dead. Not all the authority in the empire combined was sufficient to restore a man to health or to raise a dead man. Hence the centurion had no thought at all of occupying the Lord with his official position: the point was that the Lord was in such a position.
Now, beloved friends, that is what I want to speak about: the Lord is in an official place. The idea of an official is right; it is perfectly right, provided you have the right man. If you put the right man in the position of power, then I think you get something done, something good. I have no doubt this centurion was a kindhearted man; he had built a [p. 31] synagogue; but with all the means that he had at his disposal and with all the authority vested in him he could not do anything for his servant who was sick. How was the servant to be recovered? He says to the Lord, “I also am a man set under authority”, etc. What he really meant to say was that the Lord was in authority: he says, “Say in a word, and my servant shall be healed”. He recognised that the Lord was down here officially, delegated, as it were, on the part of God for the good of man. What was the centurion’s business? He was there on the part of the emperor. I do not think the emperor directed him to build the synagogue, but his official position was to carry out the decrees of the emperor. That is what he was there for. But he refers to his own position to convey to the Lord that he recognised Him as in authority. This indicates that he had light in his soul; for there was nothing outwardly in Christ that told of His official greatness. Hence the Lord says, “I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel”.
I want to put a question to every one here tonight: Has it ever dawned upon you that the Lord Jesus Christ is installed in office? In this country the idea of installation is very familiar. We all know what it means to be installed. Only recently the President of the United States was installed by the people. A man is put into the supreme office of the nation. Now, has it really dawned upon you that the Lord Jesus Christ has been installed in the supreme official position in the universe of God? He has. It is a past event, but it is an abiding fact, He has been installed by the only power that could install Him: not by the power of the people, but by the power of God. “God hath made that same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ”. Acts 2: 36.
Now, as to the result of the installation or the inauguration, all depends on the character of the [p. 32] person who is placed in office. That is simple enough. Before a man is placed in a responsible position he must be tested. In this country everybody knows publicly the character of the man, so that the people are taking no chances. The American nation took no chance at all from a political point of view when it placed the present man in the position of power. Why? He had been tested. He had had an opportunity to prove his character. But suppose he had never been in office before, he had never been in the president’s chair, and the people did not know him. In this case his wife and family, his associates and friends, knew him: they knew that he was a man of character and sterling honesty, etc., but the public did not know. They would have to wait and see. Now, the Lord Jesus had been tested, and that is what I wish to dwell upon. In what way was the Lord Jesus tested? He was down here a humble Man among men, and His constant activity was doing good. Can you find a single instance where the Lord did not help those who were in need where He came in contact with them? You take the passage in Luke 7. See what a marvellous presentation it is of the heart of Christ! The chapter begins with Christ recognised as in an official position, and what does He do? He heals the sick man. The Lord was a Man in authority; He could say to His servant, Do this, and he did it; thus the servant was healed.
Now look at the following picture: the woman at the gate of the city called Nain. What is He going to do now? What could all the power of the empire combined do? Simply nothing. It was powerless in the presence of death; but the Lord Jesus Christ had compassion on the widow, and He raised her son from the dead and delivered him to her. I say that is the Man who ought to be in the place of power — a Man who can [p. 33] have compassion on a widow. That Man alone is entitled to the place of power, and He is the Man who gets it. In that way He has been tested. I say, increase that Man’s power as quickly as possible. He is the Man to be in power. I could understand any of those characters in Luke 7 — the centurion, the woman at the gate of the city of Nain and the woman who came into the Pharisee’s house — saying to themselves, What a wonderful thing it would be if that Man were in the place of the emperor.
Now, what did God do? He put Him in the supreme place of the universe; and now His power is universal. Everywhere the power of Christ will triumph until every hostile power is removed from God’s universe. I say it is only right and proper; it is what is suitable, that the meek and lowly Man, the One who died for His people, should be exalted and given the highest place in the heavens. There is a passage in Acts 5 which I think would support in a way what I am saying. It says, “They ceased not teaching and announcing the glad tidings that Jesus was the Christ”, Acts 5: 42. What were the glad tidings? That Jesus was Christ: Jesus, the Man who would do anything to help people. That Man has been made Lord and Christ. That is glad tidings. Suppose a man has a family and he is in need, and his eldest son, who is in the confidence of the father and knows all about the trouble of the family, is taken up by a sovereign and made supreme in the nation; what would the man and his family receive from that son? That son would do all in his power for the family: he has affection for them. What would be glad tidings to that family but that the eldest son is made supreme in the nation and that he has the king’s resources at his disposal? I say that is not half a picture of Christ. Look at those poor disciples whom He left down here in the midst of a hostile world. He is [p. 34] going up to heaven, to the place of power, and will He forget them? No, the very first thing that He does is to “shed forth this”, as Peter says (Acts 2: 33); and what was that? It was what they needed. They needed the Holy Ghost. You may say, I need the forgiveness of sins. You do, but you need the Holy Ghost. The Lord Jesus Christ did the very best thing He could have done for the disciples and for man in the gift of the Holy Ghost. It was the only possible means of salvation for the people of God in view of the fact that the Lord Jesus Christ was absent from this world. While He was down here He kept them; for He says, “Those that thou gavest me I have kept, and none of them is lost, but the son of perdition; that the scripture might be fulfilled”. John 17: 12. But since He is gone, in what way are they to be kept? The only way is the way which He has devised Himself: the gift of the Holy Ghost. “He hath shed forth this”, says Peter, “which ye now see and hear”. Acts 2: 33. It was present. The Lord in going to the right hand of power had done the very best He could have done.
Maybe you would like a position in this world. The Lord would not give you a position like that; it is not good enough for you. No, He would give you a place in His own world. He would give you a position of dignity. He would set you up in power in His own world. That is what the Lord proposes to do. He established a world entirely of His own order, of His own liking and of His own device; He has established it Himself, and He proposes to give you and me an abiding place in it. That is His thought for you. But He would meet your present need. There was the need of the centurion. I do not know what your need is, and perhaps you do not know what your need is, but the Lord knows. He knew the centurion’s need. He knew the need of the woman at the gate of Nain,
[p. 35] and He met it. And the woman in the last part of the chapter who came into Simon’s house: what did she need? You say she needed forgiveness. She received forgiveness, but I think she needed more than that: she had affection. She did not come to get forgiveness, I am bold to say. It is a poor thing to come to Christ simply for forgiveness. I am not belittling forgiveness, but it is a poor thing to come to Christ for it alone. This woman would not have come to Christ for forgiveness: the barrier that lay between her and Christ was too great. She could never have surmounted it for that barrier was Simon’s house. You must remember it was not an ordinary house. Simon’s house was the house of a Pharisee, and it was the last place in the world where a woman such as she would dare to enter to ask forgiveness of Christ. If it had been merely a question of need she would have waited until Christ came out of the house. Everything (the whole atmosphere of the place) was against her. You know, generally, if you want to ask a favour of a man you wait until you find him under the most favourable circumstances, where the conditions are not adverse; hence I think if this woman had wanted forgiveness only she would have waited till He came out.
What, think you, took that woman into that place? Christ took her in. The Magnet was there — she had affection. The Lord said of her, “she loved much”. Luke 7: 47. Christ had become a magnet to her heart and she saw no barriers. All the barriers are overthrown by love; it is as strong as death. But this woman had to go out of Simon’s house again, and I will tell you why: the house did not belong to Christ. Do you think He would have sent her away? No, I am sure the Lord felt it that He did not have a house of His own. There she was at the Lord’s feet weeping, washing His feet with [p. 36] tears and wiping them with the hairs of her head. That woman was not thinking of forgiveness: what she had before her was Christ. He did forgive her. The Lord says, “her sins, which are many, are forgiven; for she loved much”. Luke 7: 47. If you love Christ you are forgiven. The Lord tells her, “Go in peace”. But why, “Go”? Because the house did not belong to Him. It was Simon’s house. She came in because He was there. She would never have come in otherwise. He did not ask her to stay.
Friend, if you come to Christ tonight, He will never send you away. He will not say “Go”. Why? He has a house now. And what will you find there? There are no barriers. The atmosphere is not adverse now. No, beloved friends, it is the best time in the world to come for forgiveness; but do not come for forgiveness merely, come for Christ. You will find Him in His house. You will never find the Lord’s people sending you away: they have love for you. If you want forgiveness, you will find it, but you may stay too. You will not only get a scripture to prove that your sins are forgiven, but you will get the atmosphere, so to speak, of forgiveness among the Lord’s people, which is love, and you will not want to go away. Some people get what they call salvation from the Lord, and then they go away, but that is a heartless thing. The idea of salvation away from Christ is an absolute impossibility: there is not salvation in any other. If you go away from Christ you go away from salvation. I did not intend to speak about the woman in Luke 7, but I do like the idea of the Lord having a place to which He can invite His guests and where He can ask them, so to speak, to stay.
I wanted to connect Luke 7 with Acts 4, because in the fourth of Acts you get the idea of an official. Peter had preached his third sermon (so far as the Scripture goes) since the descent of the Holy Ghost:
[p. 37] the first one in the second chapter, the second one in the third chapter, and the third is found in the fourth chapter. I think the prominent thought in every single one of these sermons was, not that people might be blessed (although of course this is in view) but that people had been blessed. That was what he was speaking about it: was the proof of Christ’s exaltation. The thing was there: the man at the gate of the temple was Peter’s witness, he was with him. I always read a Scripture myself when I try to speak, and it is necessary to support everything you state by Scripture, but the basis of your preaching is not exactly Scripture. I suppose you will all admit that the apostles were the best preachers. Notice how they presented the gospel: Peter quoted Scripture, but the great convincing argument was in the man who had been healed. “Beholding the man which was healed standing with them, they could say nothing against it”. Acts 4: 14. It was undeniable as living and evident support to the testimony he bore. I think from Peter’s preaching in these three sermons you will get the true idea of preaching; his point in each case was what was there already, what nobody could deny, and this was the result of Christ being made Lord in heaven.
Among the one hundred and twenty were the wonderful things of God. Beloved friends, it may be you do not know much about the things of God. There they all were at the beginning, every one of them, and every single thought of God is wonderful. When the Holy Ghost came into the one hundred and twenty the wonderful things of God were there: all that is in the heart and mind of God. The saints were talking about these things, and Peter arose and explained the matter. It was a masterpiece, the sermon which the apostle preached. It was an explanation that what was there in Jerusalem on that day was consequent on the installation of Christ [p. 38] on high. The best Man, the only Man fit for the place had been installed in His office at the right hand of God, and the result was the presence of the Holy Ghost down here in the saints, in the one hundred and twenty. In the second chapter, Peter preached to the men of Judea and the inhabitants of Jerusalem; in the third he speaks to the men of Israel. The nation of Israel is appealed to, and on what ground? The lame man, the impotent man, who had been sitting at the gate of the temple asking alms, was there walking and leaping and praising God. There is the illustrious power of God for good. There is the evidence of it and it cannot be denied. It is wonderful. God takes up every kind of man and speaks to them through Peter, first, to the men of Jerusalem, then to the nation of Israel, then to the elders of Israel. These latter were Sadducees. They were opposed to God. They were infidels; and yet God speaks to them through Peter. But the groundwork of each sermon was the power of God. Note how he speaks to the elders: Christ was the Nazarene. He was of no account in their estimation; they had crucified Him, but God had raised Him from the dead and made Him the head of the corner. The elders of the Jews might say, Peter, how do you know; what is the evidence of it? Well there was a man who had been lame from his mother’s womb, walking, leaping and praising God, and they could not say a word, their mouths were closed. There was the evidence of the power of God.
I do not feel that I can say much more. I should like to have spoken a little more about salvation, but I have really anticipated it. “Salvation is in none other”. I think you can understand that a Man who would save people down here, who spent all His time (and His pleasure was in it) while down here in doing good, would not change His style nor His occupation when He went into the place of power.
[p. 39] And He did not charge His occupation. Christ has the power of God in His hand and He is using it for salvation. He is not using it to destroy men’s lives. He will use that power to destroy the world-power. He will clothe Himself with salvation and He will come out in power and destroy everything that opposes or exalts itself against God, but He is not doing that now.
If you only knew the Lord, you would say He is the only Man for the office and you would be unlimited in your expectations from Him. He will do the very best for you, and I would encourage every single person in this room tonight, whether you are a Christian or not, from my knowledge of Christ, not only from what I see in the Scriptures, but from my own personal knowledge of Christ, you would do well to commit yourself into His hands. “There is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved”. Acts 4: 12.