GOD'S APPROACH TO MAN
GOD’S APPROACH TO MAN
Gospel Address by F.E.R.
Exodus 19: 16 - 25; Luke 2: 1 - 20 There is an interest attaching to the four gospels which belongs to no other part of the Scriptures. It has been pointed out that there is a character about what is recorded in them which you cannot find elsewhere, and the reason is that you are brought in them into the presence of perfection. There is no other part of scripture that has quite that character. The greater part of scripture is occupied with the conduct of men, and God’s consequent dealings, at the same time with the unfolding of the thought of God in regard to men; all that is taken account of more or less in the Old Testament; and when you come to the writings of the apostles you get the exercises of imperfect men; for after all the greatest apostles were imperfect men, and they make no secret of their own weakness. But in the gospels you are brought into the presence of divine perfectness, and that gives a character to the gospels which no other part of scripture can have.
Connected with this is a sense of rest which you can never get short of perfectness. I greatly admire the faithfulness and service of men like Paul or John or Peter, but at the same time I do not get in them perfectness. I get exercises and anxieties and sometimes failure, but the actings recorded in the gospels present to us perfectness, and therefore it is that you can rest.
It has been said sometimes that the gospels give to us four aspects of Christ. I do not entirely agree with that, because there is but one aspect of Christ; and the truth of Christ is presented to us in one gospel. The gospel that presents to us the Person of Christ is [p. 89] John. The other gospels set forth that same Person in relation to various things that existed. In Matthew He is presented in relation to the promises of God; in Mark, in relation to the testimony of God; and in Luke, in relation to humanity — the seed of the woman. Hence it is that preachers draw more frequently from Luke than from any other gospel, and I think they are right.
I have no doubt that is the reason why you get a great deal of detail in Luke in connection with the birth of Christ; for that is the point where He has touched humanity. He saw fit to become man in order that He might be a Saviour to men, and that is the deep interest of the gospel.
But one point is to my mind striking, and that is that the presence of Christ here was not for the pleasure of His parents; that comes out in a striking way in this chapter. It was too great a thing altogether for that; God did not intend to exalt the flesh. I have no doubt of the blessing of Mary in being the mother of Jesus, but His birth was not for the pleasure of man. It is striking that in this chapter, which speaks of His birth, the next thing is His circumcision, and that points to His cutting off, and the next is the offering a sacrifice, which again points to His death, and then Simeon speaks to His mother of a sword piercing through her own soul, an allusion, no doubt, to the sorrow which she would have to go through in connection with Christ; and at the close of the chapter we see that the Lord could not accept the control of His parents when the work of His Father was concerned. He was afterwards subject to them, because everything was divinely perfect, but He was here for the pleasure of His Father, and not for the pleasure of His earthly parents. The chapter which records the birth of Christ points on to His death. You may not see this at the first glance, but if you read the chapter carefully it is very clear. In fact all that [p. 90] the heavenly host spoke of, that is, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good pleasure in men”, could be effected only by the death of Christ. It was not going to be brought about simply through His birth, but through His death.
It has been pointed out that when the Lord entered Jerusalem to suffer, the children cried, “Blessed be the King that cometh in the name of the Lord: peace in heaven, and glory in the highest”. They did not speak there of peace on earth, but of peace in heaven.
Now I desire to point out the contrast between what comes out in Exodus 19 and in this chapter. The point in this chapter is evidently of God’s approach to man; in Exodus 19 God was bringing home to the people how impossible it was for them to approach Him. The two things are a striking contrast. That is, in Exodus we find God giving the strongest injunctions to Moses to prevent the people breaking through, showing how impossible it was for the people to approach God. I have no doubt that to approach God under those circumstances would have been death; death lay upon man as God’s judgment, and God would not have man to approach Him when it was a question of man as such. It was not there a question of God and of His grace to man; it was God having to deal with man with the judgment of death still upon him, and therefore it was impossible for man to approach God, and yet God was going to speak in man’s hearing.
In Luke 2 it is another matter altogether, it is the approach of God to man. When God saw fit to approach man, He approached him as it were at the very weakest point of humanity. There is nothing more blessed than the thought of the Son of God as a babe wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger. It was the outset of God’s approach to man. He was about to make Himself known to man as the Saviour-God. And the beginning was the Son of God become Man. He had become Man in all [p. 91] perfectness, but in all reality. The inn is a picture of the world, the busy, restless world, in which there is no rest nor room for Christ.
A town like this is a busy, restless scene, and though there is room in it for many things of man you will find very little room for Christ. So it was when Christ was born.
One can see what sin meant, at the beginning, in the case of Cain. He virtually said the earth is for man, but man will acknowledge God, and that is what man says today. But God will not have to say to man on those terms. The earth is the Lord’s and the fulness thereof, and the Lord disposes of the earth as He sees fit. What is seen in Cain gives the character of almost all the professed worship of God in christendom at the present day. There are harvest festivals and the like, a certain acknowledgment of God, but at the same time man is virtually saying in his ways the earth is man’s.
I desire to explain in a few words the reason of the contrast between the two passages before us; it is not one God speaking in one passage, and another in another; the same God who spoke on Sinai, spoke in Luke. The difference is this, that in Exodus 19 He spoke on earth, and in Luke 2 He was, I think, speaking from heaven. He spoke in man’s hearing in Exodus 19; He spoke as to what man ought to be, but He hardly spoke to man. But in Luke 2 it pleased God to speak to man as to what was in His mind towards man. It is the beginning of God’s approach to man, God coming out of His place to make known His thought and mind toward man. You have a description of it doctrinally in 1 Timothy 2, “there is one God, and one Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus; who gave himself a ransom for all”; and the thought in connection with that is that God would have all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.
I think you will admit that the contrast between the [p. 92] two passages is striking, considering that it is the same God speaking. When God spoke on earth He spoke on man’s level, as to what man should be for Him. You have immediately following, in chapter 20, the ten commandments; the expression of God’s mind as to what man should be for God, but it was not the expression of God’s thought and mind toward man. That comes out in Luke 2; He approaches man at the very weakest point of humanity. There is nothing more helpless in this world than a babe, though the germ of a man is there. I ask anyone, was there anything to terrify in Luke 2? You get the multitude of the heavenly host, but there was not anything to terrify man. Would the birth of a babe terrify the shepherds? But in Exodus 19 there was everything to terrify. When God sees fit to approach man in divine goodness and grace, there is everything to assure the heart of man: “unto you is born this day ... a Saviour which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger”.
But the most momentous consequences flow out of the birth of that Child. Christendom is one result. I know what christendom is, but say what you will, it is a great power in the world. Had that Child not been born, there had not been any christianity in the world, and the existence of christianity and christendom, whatever it may be worth, is the result of the birth of that Child. I go further, the birth of that Child means the complete overturning of things in heaven and on earth. We have in the Revelation a sort of narrative of the birth of a Man-child to Israel, and that Man-child is caught up to God and His throne; with the result that there is an overturning of things in heaven. There takes place there a conflict that ends in the overthrow of Satan and his angels, and that Man-child is to rule all nations with a rod of iron. When that Man-child comes again into the world He [p. 93] will break the nations to pieces like a potter’s vessel. When He is brought again into the world the angels worship, and everything is changed. You may say it was a very little matter for a babe to be born into this world. Man took no account of it; there was no room for Him in the inn, but no observant person can fail to see the momentous consequences which have flowed, and will flow from the birth of that Child.
The fact is that it meant the approach of God to man in grace; God was approaching man in the Mediator, and as we have seen, every detail that comes out in the chapter points to the truth that Christ must die; that is, that in touching humanity He must give Himself a ransom for all. Nothing can be more solemn than for the Son of God to have become man, because having thus touched humanity it involved the deliverance of man; and to deliver man there was nothing for it but for Him to go into the death which rested upon man. All men were under death when Christ came into the world, and He was to give Himself a ransom for all. If the goodness of God toward man was to take effect, all depended on the Son of God tasting death for everything. He “was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, ... that, he by the grace of God should taste death for every man”. What could be the meaning of circumcision but the cutting off of Christ? Sin was to be condemned in the flesh in the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ, that God might impart to man the gift of the Holy Spirit. All that was involved in the birth of this Child to Mary. He was not born into the world that He might adorn the flesh, though flesh was adorned — God was perfectly glorified in man on the earth. The Lord could say, “I have glorified thee on the earth: I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do”. But the fact is He came into this scene that in death He might remove man sacrificially from [p. 94] under the eye of God, in order that God who was now revealed might impart the gift of the Holy Spirit to those that believe on Christ.
The way of God’s approach to man was in a Mediator who gave Himself a ransom for all. The truth is come to light that God is one, and the Mediator between God and man is one. There is not one mediator for the Jew and another for the gentile, one for the rich and another for the poor; the Mediator is one, the Man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself a ransom for all. There is no truth of more importance to press upon souls than that the Mediator between God and men gave Himself a ransom for all; it evidences that God had but one mind in regard to all men. The attitude of God toward all is the same. When Christ was here, the Pharisees and scribes could not tolerate His receiving publicans and sinners and eating with them. He did that continually; in fact He went into any house to which He was invited of Pharisee or publican; but there was this difference between the two. In the house of the publican He was usually welcome, but He was not very welcome in the house of the Pharisee. You find that in Luke 7.
The Lord went into Simon’s house, and Simon had his misgivings as to whether Christ was a prophet, because He accepted the service of a sinful woman; the fact is, the Pharisees and scribes could not tolerate the idea of His receiving sinners, and yet if He did not receive sinners and eat with them, with whom was He to eat down here? The poor Pharisee forgot that death was upon him just as much as upon the sinner. Scribe and Pharisee, publican and sinner, were all under death. In the present day, you may get moral people or immoral people, but the philosopher is under death just as much as the immoral man. “By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin, and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned”. The inventor and the philosopher [p. 95] and the man of high cultivation, whoever he may be, are all under death, like the beggar on the dung-hill. When Christ came into the world He was not under death; He was the Prince of life. But if He would have to say to anybody in this world, He must have to say to sinners. He went wherever He had an entrance because all were equal in the eye of Christ. The Lord pictures this in the two debtors in Luke 7. There was a point of equality, in that neither had anything to pay. The parable presents a picture of the attitude of God in Christ on earth. God was the creditor, and every man a debtor, and in their inability to pay He frankly forgave them both. My point in connection with that is, that if Christ became man it involved the cross. He might have abstained from taking up the case of man altogether, but it is evident that He intended to touch man in grace, and there would have been no meaning in His becoming man but in view of death, on account of the condition in which man was. There was no salvation for man if the Son of God did not die upon the cross. He must enter vicariously into the judgment that lay upon man. He was made sin, and entered into death in order that God might be glorified and His righteousness declared in the presence of the universe. Christ died and was buried. That was, so to speak, the manner of God’s approach to man. When Christ died the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom, significant of the truth that God in grace had come out to man. Every demand of righteousness had been met, and love flowed out freely to man.
But God raised Him from the dead in testimony of righteousness. Righteousness was accomplished in the cross, and the resurrection of Christ was the testimony of righteousness. It meant that God had broken the bands of death; death was no longer the victor. One man out of death proves that. God was the victor. The death of Christ was the accomplishment of righteousness on man’s behalf, and the resurrection of Christ the testimony of righteousness on the part of God.
Peter says, God raised Him from the dead and gave Him glory. In giving Christ glory there was the expression of divine satisfaction in what had been accomplished for man. The resurrection of Christ was, as we have seen, a testimony; the glory of Christ was a celebration. He was received in heaven with acclamation, and the glory of Jesus at the right hand of God is the blessed expression of the infinite satisfaction of God in that which has been accomplished for man. It is wonderful that God should have supreme satisfaction in that which has been effected for man. The Son of God became man and ministered here in the world, setting forth to man what God was, “doing good and healing all that were oppressed of the devil”; but He went into death, because death alone could meet the case of those on whom death was; but He has been raised from the dead and glorified. And the great supper is the answer down here. It is the celebration here. I allude to Luke 14. The Holy Spirit has come down to bring tidings of the celebration in heaven. God now compels men to come into the great celebration. Do you not think that God must be very willing to receive man when He has expressed His satisfaction in what has been accomplished for man?
A few words more; I want to show you how man comes into the good of what has been done. I want to set before you a very simple truth; Christ died for all. The practical result of that is that He has claim on everybody. It could not be otherwise. If anyone here were under pressing obligations, and it was in my power to discharge those obligations, and did so, it would be admitted that I had some claim on that person. Christ has done this, and surely His claim upon all must be admitted. What do you think He [p. 97] claims? I should say two things: the faith of your heart, and the confession of your mouth. He claims that you shall acknowledge what is true. You are called to believe with your heart that God raised Him from the dead. He claims the faith of the heart, and then the confession of the mouth; the confession of Him as Lord. That means salvation to you, “if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation”. So the terms are not hard; His claims are not exacting. He does not claim the confession of the mouth and then the faith of the heart, but first the faith of the heart and then confession with the mouth; and the confession is unto salvation. It is infinitely blessed that we should have the light of what has been effected in heaven. We know what had been done on earth. The death of Christ was not in a corner, but in the presence of the world. He was put to shame in the presence of the universe. He was made a curse by being hanged on a tree. And now Christ is Lord at the right hand of God, having been received in heaven with acclamation, and the Holy Spirit has come down to report His glory. God “raised him up from the dead, and gave him glory; that your faith and hope might be in God”. He is Lord for the glory of God the Father, but He is Lord for the salvation of man; and to confess Him as Lord is salvation for man.
I ask, are you out of bondage? God has remitted His claims upon man that man might be set free from the power of the enemy.
Salvation means that God has come out of His place to deliver man from the captivity in which man was held, just as He delivered the Israelites from bondage to the Egyptian.
The difficulty on the part of man is that he does not [p. 98] care to be delivered, but would rather remain in bondage. But to remain in bondage means that you go on to death, and after that the judgment. God’s mind and will is to deliver man from the bondage of the god and prince of this world.
Now I put it to you whether you would not be prepared to answer to the claims of Christ, to confess the Lord’s name. To escape thus out of the power of the enemy, to have forgiveness of sins, so that you will never come into judgment, because God has remitted His claims; that your soul should be free and yourself brought into the light of the goodness of God, into accord with His righteousness, with the rejoicing in heaven consequent on Christ having completed righteousness and gone back to glory.
May God be pleased to bless the word to you, and to grant that you may have the deepest sense of the grace and goodness of God and appreciate more the manner of His approach to man, not to terrify man, but to make known to him His infinite satisfaction in that which has been accomplished on the behalf of man.