CHRIST ON GOD’S SIDE
W. McKillop
Matthew 16: 13–16; Luke 9: 18–20; John 6: 67–69
These passages refer to Christ on God’s side—“the Son of the living God”; “The Christ of God”, and “the holy one of God”. The Lord would have us to understand more fully and clearly what He is on God’s side before the assembly period finishes. In speaking to the overcomer at Philadelphia, He says, “I will write upon him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God ... and my new name”, Revelation 3: 12. That scripture warrants our saying that the Lord would have us to apprehend more clearly and definitely what He is on God’s side. The more we look into Paul’s intelligence as to the mystery the more we shall see what is before the great apostle is what Christ is on God’s side. Of necessity Christ had to be on our side too. The purpose of God as to us had to be effectuated, but the prime thought of all that Christ has done as having come into manhood is really that He has been acting on God’s side, to bring out who and what God is, and then to effectuate in man an answer to that in affection and spiritual intelligence.
So I have selected Peter, out of many others who could have been spoken about, because his history is peculiarly helpful to us. He was a man of like passions with ourselves. I am not thinking for the moment of his place as the first of the apostles, but what he was as a man who came under the Lord’s hand, and upon whom the Lord lavished a great deal of love and care and skilful workmanship, in order to free Peter from his natural characteristics and tendencies, and to make him the kind of vessel capable of uttering the things we have read in these passages. The Lord is acting on God’s behalf in His labours with every one of us, and with all of us, in order to bring us to answer to the divine standard;
as the apostle writes to the Ephesians, saying, “until we all arrive ... at the full-grown man, at the measure of the stature of the fulness of the Christ”, Ephesians 4: 13. He also says in that same section, “until we all arrive at the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God”. Ministry would fail of the divine intent if Christ on God’s side was not brought before us, and if we were not helped by it to apprehend the blessedness of what it is to see Him on God’s side.
So the Lord, as He comes into Caesarea-Philippi demanded of His disciples. The word
‘demanded’ here is not exactly peremptory, but rather implies that the Lord would appeal to us as to what we understand about Himself. So He demanded of His disciples; those are persons who are under divine discipline, if we think of the discipline among us universally of one kind and another, we need to see that running along with it is the Lord’s affection and His enquiry to us all as to what we understand about Himself. So He said, “Who do men say that I the Son of man am?” The passage is one well known to the brethren because it has been referred to thousands of times in the ministry in the last hundred and fifty years. So they report what men in general were saying, and all of it was wide of the mark. I would say without hesitation that you can only find persons who can speak accurately and spiritually about Christ where persons are in the light of the assembly, and maintain assembly principles.
Matthew is a book of assembly principles. In fact in this book the Lord distinguishes the assembly, speaking of it by itself in Matthew 18 as “the assembly”. It would seem therefore, if the Lord refers to it by itself, to bring out its distinction, it would be well for us to ponder that, and begin to appreciate increasingly the distinctiveness of the assembly.
So He says to them, “But ye”, the word ye is collective. The Lord is not asking in these days two or three brothers who they say He is; He is putting the question to everyone here.
Whatever our motives might
have been for coming here, the Lord would raise this question with us, “But ye”. He would say, You are here now, and I am here, and I want to pose the question to you, “who do ye say that I am?” So Simon Peter—notice his responsible name as well as his spiritual name—
answering said, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God”. Peter answered this because the Father had revealed it to Him. This revelation as has often been said is in the treasury of the assembly, so it does not need to be repeated, but the question is. Am I getting the gain of it as in the assembly treasury? Are you getting the gain of it, that this Person, this Jesus, is the Son of the living God? It can only be by the Spirit that we apprehend the truth as to this glorious Person. John the baptist said, “I knew Him not”. As we know He was the Lord’s cousin naturally, but the natural link did not help at all in his proximity to the Lord, he says,
“And I knew him not; but he who sent me to baptise with water, he said to me, Upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending and abiding on him, he, it is who baptises with the Holy Spirit. And I have seen and borne witness that this is the Son of God”, John 1: 33, 34. The urgency, beloved brethren, is that we should be cast on the Spirit in order to apprehend who this Person is, and to speak accurately and spiritually about Him, as on God’s side, as Son of the living God. Therefore we want to get the gain of what has preceded us and is in the treasury of the assembly, whether it be on the principle of revelation to Peter, or revelation in Paul as to God’s Son, or in the ministry of the recovery, or in what the Lord is saying as He moves in and out of our local assemblies at the present time.
Time would really fail to try to enlarge on this thought of the Son of God, but clearly we should understand that certain thoughts shine in regard to this title. One of them is glory, another is love, and another is power. John refers to the glory of the Son of God; Paul refers to the Son of God who has loved me. Think of that Person coming in on God’s side and loving you
and loving me! That should greatly help us and liberate us as we gather at the Supper tomorrow. But then Paul also says, in Romans 1, that He is marked out Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness, by resurrection of the dead (Romans 1: 4). The answer to all these exercises that are current among us—what was mentioned, for instance, in the reading about the reduction in numbers and the aging of brethren in certain localities—is really to drive us to the Son of God who has power to deal with all these things and maintain something in every place that exists at the moment for Himself and for God. He was marked out Son of God in power by resurrection of the dead; there could be no more extreme condition than death, and no greater exhibition of divine power than resurrection, but it was all according to the Spirit of holiness. So that is to characterise you and me as believers according to the epistle to Romans, and it is to characterise us in our localities, according to the epistle to the Hebrews, where we are addressed as holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling.
Luke seems to be similar but he is taking up things from a different point of view. “And it came to pass as he”, that is Jesus, “was praying alone, his disciples were with him”. You can see the way the Lord is acting here, “he was praying alone, his disciples were with him”. If we are going to be rightly in the assembly it can only be as persons who have spiritual intelligence and can understand the Lord’s movements. He asked them, “Who do the crowds say that I am?” It is men in Matthew, but the crowds in Luke. The crowds would represent persons, whatever they may be as to profession outwardly, who really are not assembly persons; they have not been formed in the truth of the assembly. “But they answering said, John the baptist; but others, Elias; and others, that one of the old prophets has risen again”.
You see how vague that is. Vagueness in spirituality is not suitable to assembly persons.
Above all we have not to be vague about the Person of Christ. We ought not to
be vague or uncertain about any feature of the truth, or any divine principle. “And he said to them. But ye, who do ye say that I am?” Again the Lord is thinking of all of them—“Who do ye say that I am? And Peter” (not Simon Peter now, but Peter)—see how Luke regards him from the priestly point of view—“And Peter answering said, The Christ of God”. I would ask, Do we really understand that the Jesus whom we love, the Jesus in whom we believe, is the Christ of God? Have you come to that in your own soul? Can you say with assurance that He is the Christ of God? Can you say that He is the anointed Man who is acting to establish every feature of the purpose of God for God’s glory? Whether He be building the assembly, or giving gifts from having gone up above all the heavens, or coming preaching peace; from whatever point of view we think of Him, He is acting on God’s behalf, He is the Christ of God.
Our brother referred in his remarks earlier today to the fact that there are older brethren here. I would like to say to encourage the older brethren what was said to Simeon, that he should not see death till he should have seen the Lord’s Christ; the Christ of God. I am not forgetting the younger brethren in saying that to the older brethren. Generally we speak to the younger brethren because we want to encourage them, which is right. But I want to encourage the older brethren so that they do not droop, they do not become discouraged because of the weakening of the body, and maybe even of the mind, which is humbling. But Simeon had it disclosed to him by the Holy Spirit. It was not some wishful, imaginative thought. It was divinely communicated to him by the Holy Spirit that he should not see death till he should see the Lord’s Christ. I think it would be right to say that the Holy Spirit would disclose to older brethren whether they will be here in the body when the Lord comes. It may be that like Peter, the Lord will say to them, the time of putting off your tabernacle is near at hand.
But my point is to have us think about the wealth in this statement of Peter’s, “The Christ of God”. With regard to the assembly, it really alludes to the headship of Christ. In Ephesians, to which I referred, the apostle says, “we may grow up to him in all things, who is the head, the Christ” (Ephesians 4: 15). So the form the activity of Christ takes, the Christ of God, in regard of the assembly is that He is the Head of the body. How wonderful to come under His influence, and to find such resource in that blessed Man as we go on together, because again you notice it is collective “we”. We began with that hymn, ‘Great source of wisdom, power and food’ (No.199); that is the Christ of God, but He is our Head, the Head of the body. God has given Him to be Head over all things to the assembly which is His body. The Spirit of God would help us to get on to that level because the Lord has nothing less in mind than that the dispensation, or as I would rather call it, the assembly period, is to finish on that level.
Assembly persons are to know Christ’s God, and to know His name written on them, and to know what it is to have the name of the city of His God written on them. The Christ of God is Christ operating in order to effectuate these things with regard to ourselves. It is immensely touching, beloved brethren, that in our very selves, who are here at this time, the Christ of God is acting toward us so that we should not fail to reach and be maintained on this wonderful level. Never mind the smallness and distance, the scattering, and all these other things that have grieved us. Let us fill our souls with exaltation, that the Christ of God is acting to effectuate in us, in the assembly, the whole purpose of God. You might say it is too great a thought. It cannot be because the apostle of the Gentiles said, “I have not shrunk from announcing to you all the counsel of God”, Acts 20: 27. The Christ of God was operating in that apostle, that the full thought might come to us; and the Christ of God is operating in these meetings, beloved brethren, that we should, in some little measure, reach it more.
Surely we have to say like Paul, I have not yet attained, but then he did not say I am sitting down because there is so much, he said, I pursue, I press on. We should not be content with less than understanding Paul’s intelligence in the mystery.
I read in John 6 because Peter shines again. The Lord is not asking here what they thought of Him, or what the crowds or men thought, but He tests them as to the intent of their hearts.
When He says, “Will ye also go away?” He is testing them as to the secret intention of their hearts. If there is someone here whose secret intention is to leave, the Lord would expose that to you so that you will see, as Peter says, that you cannot go away because there is no one else to go to. “Jesus therefore said to the twelve”—the twelve would allude to those who have love amongst themselves—“Will ye also go away? Simon Peter answered him. Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast words of life eternal”. There is the thing that fixes our position morally and spiritually, “to whom shall we go?” There is no other One than the Son of God, the Christ of God, the Holy One of God. We are bound up for time and for eternity in affection and devotion, in His life. Peter says, “thou hast words of life eternal”. We often speak about eternal life conditions being enjoyed among us. Thank God they are. How is it so? It is because the Christ of God has opened out the great thought to us in the words of eternal life. He has broken it up so that it is intelligible to us, and we can take it into our renewed minds, and into the fibre of our being.
Then Peter says, “and we have believed and known that thou art the holy one of God”. I suppose we would all say we believe that Christ is the Holy One of God. He is the true Aaron, but Peter does not say only we have believed, he says, “and known”. He does not say ‘I’, you notice, he says “we”. So, can you speak for your local brethren, can I speak for mine and say, “we have believed and known that thou art the holy one of God”? Believing is not only the result of the word of God
coming, but knowing I think would be the result of observation of Christ. Where we read in Luke, it says, “as he was praying alone, his disciples were with him”. They observed the Holy One of God; they knew Him to be such as they saw Him in prayer. They knew Him to be the Holy One of God; He spoke of giving the living water, as He spoke of the living bread in this very chapter. All these things are to bring out the value of spiritual observation of Christ as He moves among us in the divine system. Aaron is really the type, he is called Aaron the saint of Jehovah. It is not only the priesthood of Christ to sustain us in the wilderness, that is implied, but the Holy One of God is acting on God’s behalf in service Godward in the assembly. We ought to be able to say, that we have come to this point of fixed spiritual knowledge. We know the Holy One of God because we have been with Him as He has sung the praises of God in the midst of the assembly. This has a wonderful bearing on what we shall have tomorrow, if the Lord has not come. As He comes in among us, it is the Son of God, it is the Christ of God, but it is the Holy One of God as well. He is the Minister of the holy places. There is a great spiritual system that is functioning Godward which Christ has inaugurated, which is maintained in the Spirit’s power, but in the midst of which He is active Godward, His own affections as Man to His God entering into that. Think of Christ as being set apart, for He is always unique; even though we share with Him in many things, He is always distinctive. He is the Minister of the holy places, He is the One who sings in the midst of the assembly.
So Peter is saying we have clung to this fixed spiritual knowledge or intelligence and we will not depart from it. Let that be the desire of our hearts, beloved brethren, as we finish this day, that we will not, regardless of what happens, depart from this glorious Person, this blessed Man whom we have come to know as the Son of God; the Christ of God, and the Holy One of God. The whole function of the assembly Godward on the morrow, and it has begun already as we know in other parts of the world distant from us, is all in His hand, and we are alongside of Him, capacitated to be there by His own wonderful action; we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all; the Sanctifier and the sanctified are all of one for which cause He is not ashamed to call us brethren. All these things are wonderful! Would that I could convey them more spiritually, more effectively, more attractively, but only the Spirit of God can give effect to them in our minds and hearts. As we finish this day, let us leave with our hearts just filled with Christ, this glorious Person. Let us say affectionately, spiritually, and intelligently with Peter in each instance, that He is the Son of the living God, the Christ of God, and the Holy One of God.
The Spirit of God will give us grace and power, beloved brethren, to reach this in greater measure, for the glory of God and for the pleasure of Christ. May God bless the word.
Address at Denton
24 May 1997