READING IN LUKE 5
READING IN LUKE 5
What follows cleansing in the history of the believer’s progress is power. As we have been seeing, the former is set forth in the leper, the latter appears in the man who had the palsy. The Lord was there in healing power and His wonderful service was available to all. “He withdrew himself into the wilderness and prayed”. As the great Physician He was the dependent Man. “The power of the Lord” was present to heal all kinds of men, Pharisees, doctors, etc. Grace discriminates against none.
Faith takes advantage of the great opportunity offered. This appears in those who brought the palsied man before Jesus. The Lord valued faith and it secured the blessing: “when he saw their faith, he said unto him, Man, thy sins are forgiven thee”. The man was suffering from the effect of sin: the Lord was administering forgiveness; but He would show that He had authority to do so by giving the forgiven man power to carry his bed and go into his house. On the man’s side this power was a public testimony that he was forgiven, he was manifestly released from the penalty of sin.
The man who had the palsy was sent to his house. The cleansed leper was sent to the priest. He was now fit for the camp, although there might be no camp fit for him; but as cleansed he was a testimony that God had visited man in cleansing and healing power. The point to see in the case of the leper is, that as cleansed he was qualified for the society of God’s people. But the palsied man was sent to his house. As cleansed, we are suitable for the assembly, but we have to be right in our houses. Sin had entailed certain consequences, forgiveness involves release from these. How different was the man as going back to his house from what he was when he came out of it! He went to his house in power. The believer is tested in his house. Power is evidenced in nothing more than in patience. We require patience in our houses. There is protection in the assembly for the believer, and we might have thought the Lord would send a man like this there; but he is sent to his house: “Arise, and take up thy couch, and go into thine house. And immediately he rose up before them, and took up that whereon he lay, and departed to his own house, glorifying God”. The man had power, and so was fitted to be for God in his house. We shall see the proof of this in Levi, who is the subject in the next part of the instruction.
The believer’s house obtains a notable place in connection with the spread of the gospel in the Acts, especially at Philippi; Acts 16. Lydia and her house were baptised, and she welcomed the Lord’s servants to her house. The Lord opened her heart, and when her heart was opened her house was opened. To the jailor the word was, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house”. What is noticeable about him is, that he believed all the gospel that was preached to him. I fear Paul’s testimony to the jailor is only believed in part now; but the jailor believed it in total. An accurate reading of Acts 16: 34 would show that the faith of the man embraces his house or household. And he brought Paul and Silas into his house and set meat before them there.
In Levi we have this side of the truth exemplified. He made a “great entertainment” for Christ in his house. Levi is the man who was healed of the palsy, only viewed in another light: he had been sent to his house in power and now Christ is honoured there. And there is a company present such as the Lord would desire; “a great company of publicans and of others”. Thus we gather that he understood what the Lord was about. The scribes and Pharisees murmur, but the occasion was according to God; it was in entire agreement with His present attitude. The Lord says, “I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance”. He was fishing for men, and the fishes were there in Levi’s house. There is peculiar liberty in the house of a spiritual man. Christ is considered in everything and the guests are such as He would wish. Our discriminations as to those we invite to our houses often indicate where we are spiritually.
As we proceed in the chapter we advance in the truth. The thought of the bridegroom in verse 34 suggests something beyond what has been before us. The disciples were “sons of the bridechamber”; this points to that which belongs to Christ, for the bridechamber would be, so to speak, in His house. The bride is not in view, but those who had a special place in connection with the bridechamber were there. The Bridegroom was everything to them, and they must have full liberty in His presence. Having to do with the Bridegroom is a new experience,
[p. 31] and, as applied to believers now, leads on to the truth of the assembly. “He that hath the bride is the bridegroom: but the friend of the bridegroom, which standeth and heareth him, rejoiceth greatly because of the bridegroom’s voice”, John 3: 29.
Now the old order of things has to be discarded; the new garment will not agree with the old. We get light as we are prepared for it. Christianity involves new and heavenly principles, and these are not to be tacked on to a system established in connection with man in the flesh on earth. “The new agreeth not with the old”. . And the old bottles would not contain the new wine. There would be new and heavenly joy which would be altogether too great for man in the flesh. A man has to be born anew, and he is to be governed by a wholly new set of principles. Further, a taste for the new wine had to be cultivated. The instruction here prepares the believer for the new order of things.