IDENTIFICATION WITH THE RESULTS OF SIN
[p. 431] IDENTIFICATION WITH THE RESULTS OF SIN
Luke 5:12 - 16; Luke 13:10 - 17; Luke 22:50,51
These scriptures show how the Lord Jesus identifies Himself with certain conditions in men by touching them, so that they should be made well. I have in view to use these scriptures to show that, as the Lord identified Himself vicariously with conditions arising from sin, so we in our relative way are to identify ourselves with conditions that arise amongst the saints. That is, we are to help conditions that have come down to us because of sin, come down to us in ungodly men, and even amongst the saints. As we learn everything from Christ, we learn from Him how to deal with conditions amongst us, not at a distance, as if they were not our own, but in complete identification with them. This can only be safely done by priests, and, of course, all true saints are priests; all who have the Spirit are priests. But then, alas, there is a distinction made: “Ye who are spiritual”, that is, priests characteristically: persons who can meet conditions that arise amongst us safely without being contaminated by them. “Ye who are -spiritual restore such a one in a spirit of meekness, considering thyself lest thou also be tempted” (Galatians 6:1). “If even a man be taken in some fault” — not simply that sin has overtaken him, but saints have found him in it. Discipline may be necessary, but the obligation is to restore him, and the obligation is on those that are spiritual.
The first point is in chapter 5. It is leprosy, which may arise not only in an individual but in an assembly. It is an individual here, as it so happens, typifying a state of sin — not simply sins, but an unjudged state. This is very common, alas, and has to be faced, if it be in a christian, because if such a one is formally,
[p. 432] numerically in fellowship, he affects it, and, unless his local brethren deal with the state that has arisen, the whole meeting is affected by it, that is, it is not clear in the matter. Often conditions are allowed to continue; they go on, though it is admitted that the condition is infectious, but because of our inability and unwillingness to deal with it, perhaps more the latter, unwillingness for personal reasons, may be, such conditions are allowed to go on, and hence because of our indolence and unfaithfulness the enemy has a great advantage to carry on his noxious work. So “a little leaven leavens the whole lump” as the scripture says (1 Corinthians 5:6), whereas dealing with the matter might have saved the whole company. What is so solemn in this matter is what is said in the type: “I put ... leprosy in a house” (Leviticus 14:34). So from that point of view carelessness in not meeting the matter is most serious, calling attention to sin, bringing out where we are locally, whether we are really priests unto God, for He says, “I put ... leprosy in a house”, the house obviously being a type of the assembly, for this is said in connection with the land. The idea of the house could hardly be in the wilderness, because in the wilderness things are movable, whereas the land contemplates the house, and, in truth, the assembly viewed in the land is fixed; the bearing of it is heavenly. And yet God says, “I put ... leprosy in a house”. Why should God do that? Why should the Lord teach the disciples to pray, “Lead us not into temptation, but save us from evil”? The prayer is pointless unless it was so, and why should it be so? Well, is it not that God should bring out from His own point of view what exists in any given person or meeting or district?
So He says, “I put ... leprosy in a house”, and then the direction is that the priests are to visit the house; they are to do it, it is not optional. We are so [p. 433] casual, as if things were optional. I may say, ‘It is in another district, it is not my affair’. That is not a priest. It is my affair. The priest is not regarded as local; he is local, of course, but his service is universal, so none could say, ‘It is not my affair’. It is God’s affair; it is the affair of the Lord Jesus, and you are counting yourself out of it, and that is a poor thing! It is there just to bring out if you are exercised about it, whether you are a priest at all. So the priest is to go and examine the house and to shut it up for seven days; then he has to come back and see if the leprosy is actually spreading. God is doing it, God has His eye on that house and the priest has his eye on it; it is typical of the assembly. We do not get leprosy in stones now; we get it in persons. So the priest goes back and finds it spreading; then the affected stones are to be removed, but the house is not left with a void; the assembly is never contemplated incomplete, whether local or universal. If one man has to be withdrawn from that does not impair the status of the assembly. There were many sinners in Corinth, as the second letter tells us, but it was still the assembly of God. For the idea of the assembly is not simply that every person must be in the thing, but that it is a moral whole. It does not cease to be the assembly of God until the assembly commits itself to the wickedness. Corinth had not done that, so the second letter is addressed to the assembly of God at Corinth. So the removal of a stone by the priest does not impair the status of the assembly or of the one body. If the priest comes back and the leprosy is still working, then the house has to be pulled down. Now the assembly ceases.
I have said all that to show you the bearing of this verse, that the Lord touched the leper. Were I preaching the gospel I would endeavour to bring in Peter here, for, in truth, it is what is seen earlier in the chapter in Peter’s confession, “I am a sinful man, Lord”. I am that, not only a sinner, but a sinful man. If that confession is made, then according to the type (see Leviticus 13:12,13) the leprosy is all out, he is covered all over. You cannot withdraw from that man, although I have known of persons being withdrawn from who made a full confession, but it is not right. So this leper knows that he is a leper, and where there is true contrition as to any conditions that caused sorrow to God and to the saints, then it is our business to stand by and identify ourselves with the person — not with the leprosy; the Lord identified Himself with that and put it away on His own body on the tree. We cannot be vicarious, but we can identify ourselves with the person or persons. We do it in the sense that it is our common shame; it is our matter and we identify ourselves with it before God. The Lord stresses that side of the truth to make us watchful. If I live in the Spirit I shall go out to the whole area of the assembly, and if one meeting suffers all do. Other scriptures show that the nearer ones are the ones to deal with it directly, but still it is our matter. The Lord touched the leper and said, “I will: be thou clean”. We have no other thought for our brethren than that they should be clean. Then He said, “Go, and shew thyself to the priest, and offer for thy cleansing, according as Moses commanded, for a testimony unto them”. This is to show that in these matters a testimony develops; that is, that amongst the people of God there are curative powers, means of healing, means of recovery. No human organisation has those things. The Lord is not amongst them. Where the Lord is there is the power of the Spirit and healing power, so we need not say, “Is there no balm in Gilead? is there no physician there?” Luke would say, ‘There is’. He would make us all physicians. Luke would make us all priests, real priests. The man on the road to Jericho is taken [p. 435] to the inn where they take care of him. Our care meetings ought to be that: taking care of needy ones, taking counsel as to how it is to be done, and we do it, and the Lord is with us in it.
In chapter 13 it is not a question of a sinful state or leprosy, but of persons who cannot worship, persons who cannot pray. There are those amongst us who do not say anything. In chapter 11 the Lord is talking to the disciples about assembly furnishings, and He stresses prayer. It is that power that is needed in a local company. He says to them, “How much rather shall the Father who is of heaven give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?” Luke 11:14 tells us that the Lord was casting out a demon and it was dumb. The Lord was doing that. The allusion is to persons who do not say anything in the assembly; outside they have plenty to say. Think of a brother being in the assembly for years and never saying anything! The devil has tied that man; that is the devil’s aim in the meeting. The devil’s aim is to cripple persons and to hinder them from speaking to God The Lord is casting out the demon. That is what He is doing if we allow Him. When our wills are at work He does not do it. “He was casting out a demon, and it was dumb”. Attention is called to what He is doing, as much as to say, This is a very important matter. Mark speaks of a man who was deaf and dumb, a man who could not speak right — if you cannot speak right, it is better not to speak at all — and he was brought to Jesus. The Lord looked up to heaven and groaned. He felt that sorrowful condition, and He put that man right too. I speak now only of the importance of speaking in the assembly.
Unbelief in Luke is penalised by dumbness. Zacharias is the first example; he was a priest, but he was a dumb priest, he could not officiate. So speaking is a great feature in Luke.
[p. 436] In chapter 7 we are told of a dead man. That is another phase of the results of sin we have to deal with: the state of deadness, spiritual deadness. I refer to it because the Lord touched the bier. The dead who was being carried out was a young man, the only son of his mother, who was a widow — a sorrowful state of things. It might apply to one out of a meeting in poverty where the leaders have failed, and here is the only young brother, the life of the meeting, that dies — I am speaking of spiritual death — but the Lord touched the bier and said, “Young man, I say unto thee, Arise”. The Lord is saying that to someone here tonight. “Young man, ... Arise”, whatever the older ones are doing. Young man, the hope of Israel is on you! Even in a state of things as under Ahab of old, the young men were to be used. Ahab asked who should go, and God says, ‘The young men’ — not the sophisticated ones in the city, but the unsophisticated ones in the country, so to speak — they are to go, and they were victorious. The hope of Israel is the young men, and the young women too, of course. So the Lord touched the bier and said, “Young man, I say unto thee, Arise”. He identified Himself with that state of things, and we are to identify ourselves with it, the state of a low and impoverished meeting. We are to bring it in prayer before God; God loves prayer, and He will answer prayer. Luke tells us to keep on praying, keep on! — the importunity of it. So the Lord comes in; the woman was destitute, her husband was dead, and now the young man, the hope of Israel, so to speak, died. Everything was gone, but the Lord touched the bier and the dead sat up and began to speak, because speaking is a great feature of the assembly. It says of the Lord, “He began to say to them”, meaning that He continued to speak. The young man began to speak, it is an allusion to what is going on. But then the young [p. 437] man was given to his mother; that is, the assembly has him now. Do not let him die, pray for him, feed him; he may become the deliverer of Israel.
Now I refer to chapter 13, where the Lord was teaching in the synagogue. We may have teaching, and there is much of it, thank God, however little we may take it in, for the Lord would teach. There was this woman listening. “And lo, there was a woman having a spirit of infirmity eighteen years, and she was bent together and wholly unable to lift her head up”. She was unfit to worship God, to say the least; whatever else she could do, she could not look up to the face of God. What a sorrowful condition! Psalm 42 tells us that God is the health of our countenance and our God. This time it is a woman in the assembly. We must have the woman. Indeed Luke shows us that we must have the man, the woman, and the child. Now here is the woman. She cannot lift her head up. The Lord says, ‘The devil has done that to this woman; he has bound her for eighteen years’. She is not able to do anything. There is much of that amongst us, dear brethren, secret things that have paralysed those once spiritual, so that they are not able to serve, not able to pray. The Lord knows about us. This person who used to be happy with us is not so now, and this sorrowful thing is in the synagogue; she has not forsaken the meeting, but this is a condition. The Lord sees her and calls to her — how that ought to appeal to us! We are called by name. It is like saying, ‘I am missing you, the assembly is missing you, you used to be different, you used to be spiritual’. He calls her; she is within His call, as much as to say, I have a link with you. He did not call the leper, but He called a little child to Him. The implication is that He knew her by name; the sequel shows she was a daughter of Abraham. She was that, not that He made her that. That is,
[p. 438] the Lord has a claim on her. He straightened her out because she was a daughter of Abraham. He had missed her for eighteen years. The devil had done this; he had bound her for eighteen years. When the Lord speaks to the woman of Samaria, there is no mention of years; she had not had a previous link with the Lord as is suggested in this woman here. He knew what happened eighteen years before. She is really a daughter of Abraham, meaning that she is a true believer. Those of us who knew her at that time might know that she is unquestionably that, but now it is different. But the Lord called to her. That is what He is doing: He is casting demons out of dumb people and He is straightening out crooked people. This woman was a daughter of Abraham, yet she was crooked. Satan made her that, but the Lord is ready to make her straight. The Lord called her, and said, “Woman, thou art loosed from thine infirmity”. “Thou art loosed”; that is to say, it was not so at first. And He laid His hands upon her, notice, His two hands, for He is honouring a daughter of Abraham as she is honoured in heaven. She has a status up there, and a status among us. Before we were ashamed of her. Look at the picture! She is looking down like a cow; looking down, a shame to the family of Abraham. Perhaps a little bit of money is the cause of such a state among us. The Lord says, It is not going to continue: “Woman, thou art loosed from thine infirmity” — what a word! — and He lays His two hands on her. It is complete identification. The Lord silenced all His traducers. How can we see our brothers and sisters continue in crookedness when there is this straightening power? “Ye who are spiritual”. We are to completely identify ourselves with these matters. The more we become like Jesus, the more this same power will be active in us, for the same power which wrought in Him works in us now,
as the apostle says, “According to the power which works in us”. Why not apply it to needy people in faith? So God is glorified in this woman. It is very interesting, for she represents the feminine side of the family of Abraham. We must have all our brothers and sisters with us; we cannot afford to be without them; if they have turned aside we must think of them and pray for them. There is healing power ready to work with us. Why should Luke make so much of prayer? If we pray we will get power. The apostle says, “Pray without ceasing”. Prayer brings in power.
Now in chapter 22 it is damage done to a person who is not amongst us, by one inside. There is much of that, dear brethren, doing damage to persons who are outside of the fellowship. You will say, the Lord told them to get swords, and, of course, we might say, Why not use them? Well, this raises the whole question as to teaching. We have to approach the gospels by the epistles. We are instructed in the gospels by the epistles, and you can see when the Lord says, “Buy a sword”, He did not mean here that it should be used literally. The letter kills in those cases — not that the letter is not to be observed — but then we must understand the spirit of Scripture. It is a question of what the words mean. They say, “Lord, shall we smite with the sword?” The Lord did not answer. Why not take notice of the Lord’s silence? They were not alert as to what is really meant. This brought about a serious misunderstanding and error; to hurt such a person may be disastrous. Why should we take the matter into our hands? The one who did it was Peter, the leading apostle, and what he did impaired the whole public position. We may easily do damage to one outside. We can easily do this in financial matters, in business, even in family matters to relatives that are outside. We may discredit the whole public [p. 440] position by a wrong inflicted on an outsider. We have to be on the alert about this, because an unconverted person damaged by a christian makes all the more of it; Satan spreads it abroad. “Have also a good testimony from those without”: this depends on our conversation, on our demeanour. Here they were doing damage to an outsider and the Lord has to come in to repair the matter. It is a question of the public position. “And Jesus answering said, Suffer thus far; and having touched his ear, he healed him. And Jesus said to the chief priests and captains of the temple and elders, who were come against him, Have ye come out as against a robber with swords and sticks?”. We may impair the whole public position by doing damage to an outsider. He is in Satan’s camp, but the Lord said, ‘It must not be’. He repaired the matter at once, and those who are priests are to see to such matters also. Here the Lord did it. He touched the man’s ear and healed him. The whole position is cleared. There was power inside to heal the matter at once. No doubt that man would listen to the gospel later. Everything has to come back to Jesus. In our case the Lord is not here. We look to the priests, those who are spiritual. Everyone is a priest, but everyone is not characteristically a priest. The call is upon the spiritual. Let us not say, It is not my business. It is your business. Wisdom teaches you to leave it with those nearer by, but nevertheless it is your business, for if you are a priest you will pray to God about it, and God will bring in healing.