THE GOSPELS
[p. 79] THE GOSPELS
I have read this passage as introductory to what I want to speak of now. My object is to continue the thought of the testimony, taking it up in connection with the New Testament. Hitherto we have been occupied with the Old Testament, that is, with the aspects in which the testimony of God comes out there. It is very important that we should apprehend what comes out in the New Testament, for this reason, that while in times gone by the testimony was figurative or prophetic, the foundation of everything has now been laid. Christ has come, and has accomplished redemption; He has been exalted to the right hand of God to fill all things, and now the Holy Ghost has come. Well, that is an immense advance on the Old Testament, so that things are not spoken of figuratively or prophetically now, but as established. They are not yet displayed, though the moment is appointed for the appearing; but they are established. There is a remarkable passage in Hebrews 12: 22 - 24. It says, “But ye are come unto mount Zion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel”. This presents the contrast between what is true now in believers and what was true in Israel. Israel came to Mount Sinai, the mount that might be touched; we are said to have come to Mount Zion and to a great [p. 80] many other things too. We could not be said to have come to them if they were not there. The Spirit of God does not of course speak of material but of moral things. They are what we have to do with now that everything is established in Christ. The moment is appointed for the appearing, but the present is a time of testimony. The testimony instead of being figurative or prophetic is of that which God has established in Christ.
I refer briefly to what we have already dwelt upon: that testimony through Scripture invariably has reference to that which is to be displayed. The time of testimony and of the appearing are both spoken of in the New Testament. I want to show you the things spoken of typically and prophetically in the Old Testament, now established in Christ. The New Testament does not speak of different things from the Old Testament, but it shows you all established in Christ. Hence the testimony of the present time is not only of Christ, but of all that which God has been pleased to establish in Him. Until Christ came nothing could be established, there was not a suitable vessel or head. Now everything is established in Christ, and that is the testimony. The Holy Ghost has come down to report the glory and place of Christ at the right hand of God, and the fact of everything being established in Him; and that is the testimony at the present time. The church is really the depositary and vessel of the testimony; hence it has a very important place. I think we get the thought of this in the passage I read in the Epistle to Timothy, “which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth”. The testimony is the truth, and the church the pillar and ground of the truth.
I will touch in a few words on the points which have come before us previously. I spoke of three [p. 81] divisions in the Old Testament sanctioned by God Himself. It has been truly said that the great witness to the Old Testament is the Lord Himself. If you discredit the Old Testament you invalidate and falsify the words of the Lord — a very insidious mode of attack on Christ. Men do not quite care to do this openly through the New Testament, so they attack Christ through the Old Testament, to which Christ is the witness. If Christ is witness, as He is to every part of the Old Testament, then if you invalidate the testimony you invalidate Christ. We have to be on the alert, we are not, as the apostle said, ignorant of the enemy’s devices. The three divisions to which I referred in the Old Testament are well known, that is, the law of Moses, and the Psalms and the prophets. The Lord took up these three divisions, and expounded to the disciples in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself. Therefore I was justified in asserting that you must find the testimony of Christ in each of these divisions. I pointed out in regard to the first division that the central point is the tabernacle and its furniture; the tabernacle was the tabernacle of testimony. The testimony of God was figuratively in the tabernacle. Then in regard to the Psalms. They occupy us much more with the history of Christ. We get Christ come out from God to reveal God. Then the service of Christ; so long as He was here upon earth He was the preacher of righteousness and faithfulness. Then we have the accomplishment of redemption, “I come to do thy will”. He does the will of God, and is seen in that way as the Ark of the Covenant. Then He is raised and exalted, and being exalted He receives gifts and sheds them forth, and in result He comes again into this world. That is the history of Christ as found in the Psalms. Now as to the prophets, I refer again to an expression in the Revelation,
[p. 82] that is, the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy. The significance of the name Jesus is Jehovah saving. To sum up what we get in the prophets: we have God coming in to break up the existing system of the moral universe both in heaven and on earth; He is going to punish the host of the high ones on high and the kings of the earth upon the earth. But that is only one side, that is, what is going to be brought to nought; we get the other side, that is, God is going to save His people, that is, Israel, and to re-establish Zion. We have come to Mount Zion; He is going to make Zion His dwelling-place, to take up the kingdoms of the earth and to dwell, in order that He may accomplish the blessings which have been promised; so we have the assumption of the kingdoms and the re-establishment of Zion.
I pass on to the gospels. I maintain that everything that comes out in the gospels is in perfect accord with what went before. I want to present to you in the gospels the confirmation and establishment of all that was previously spoken of. There is just one other point, a very important one, namely, that the Lord passed everything on to the disciples. The great salvation began to be spoken of by the Lord, then it was confirmed unto us by them that heard. At the close of each gospel we see that what Christ had been doing Himself He passed on to the disciples. At the present time the church has come in, and has its place as the pillar and ground of the truth. I take up first in that connection the Gospel of John; the arrangement of the gospels as we have them in Scripture is, of course, only arbitrary, there is no particular purpose; morally I think you have to begin with John. We see there the ark of the covenant and the mercy seat; that is the basis of all God’s ways. I want to make the point plain if I can. What I understand the ark [p. 83] of the covenant to point to is God glorified in man. The tables of the first covenant were put in the ark, and it is in the true Ark of the Covenant that the will of God has been done. Now that is essentially what appears in the Gospel of John. Christ glorified God on the earth; but there was in Him a greater thing, He was the Word, the perfect expression of all that was in the mind of God in regard of man. The love of God had its perfect expression in Christ as a Man down here. He is the true Ark of the Covenant and the Mercy Seat — the point where God has put Himself in communication with man. The Gospel of John is the foundation, so to speak, of all. Other things, equally important, come out in the other gospels; but the Gospel of John is the foundation. Have you ever noticed how prominent in the Gospel of John is the thought of the Son of man; and it is in the Son of man that God has put Himself in communication with man. You get remarkable statements connected with the Son of man; to begin with, “Hereafter ye shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man”. Then “the Son of man which is in heaven”. Then “What and if ye shall see the Son of man ascend up where he was before?” The question is raised by the people, “Who is this Son of man?” The Son of man was an enigma to them; the Son of man is really everything, but you cannot understand anything about the Son of man if you do not apprehend that the Son of man is the Son of God. “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life”. The Son of man is the only begotten Son of God, the last Adam,
[p. 84] the true Ark of the Covenant, the One in whom God has been glorified. “Now is the Son of man glorified, and God is glorified in him. If God be glorified in him (that is, in the Son of man), God shall also glorify him in himself, and shall straightway glorify him”. We see Christ as the Ark of the Covenant. He is the perfect expression of God’s disposition toward man. At the same time He is the Mercy Seat, because in Him God has put Himself in communication with man. His body was the temple, and the temple means that the oracles of God are there. “In him dwells all the fulness of the Godhead bodily”.
I pass on to Matthew. Undoubtedly the thought in Matthew is very much more of the kingdom, that is, administration and light. You can hardly get any true idea of the kingdom that does not take in these two thoughts. In Matthew we get the thought of the righteous shining forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father (Matthew 13: 43). Now almost the last prophetic word in the Old Testament is, “But unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings”, and the Gospel of Matthew connects itself with that word. In Matthew we have the Sun of righteousness, and the two principles of administration and light are brought in. They are two great points connected with the kingdom. We certainly get in the sun both light and warmth, but then also by the sun everything in the universe is held in its place; that gives an idea of the administration that resides in Christ. The kingdom of heaven is seen in Christ exalted; we come under the sway of that which God has established in heaven. Christ having accomplished redemption as the foundation, everything is established in heaven in the Sun of righteousness; we have in Christ that power of administration that can hold everything [p. 85] in its own appointed place, while at the same time He can afford light and warmth to the whole moral system.
Now I touch on the other two gospels, which present things more on man’s side. In the Gospel of Luke we see Christ much more on the priestly side, on the part of man. What I mean by that is this: We have Him from the beginning, humanly; the circumstances connected with His birth are given. Great pains are taken, so to speak, to bring out the reality of His birth. We get the same thing in connection with His resurrection. The Lord assures the disciples by various means that He is still a real Man. The end of all is that He goes up as Priest in the act of blessing; blessing really belongs to the priest; and from above He was to send the promise of the Father, fulfilling what we get in Psalm 68, “Thou hast ascended on high, thou hast led captivity captive: thou hast received gifts in man”. Having received gifts in man, He would shed forth those gifts. In Luke we get Christ as the vessel of reconciliation. The prodigal was reconciled to his father; he was presented to the father in the best robe. It has been said that all those things which were put on the prodigal formed no part of the prodigal’s first inheritance; when he came back to his father he was invested in them. I take it that the object was that the complacency of the father in the prodigal might be complete. Christ has become Man to that end. At the birth of the Lord Jesus the song of the angels was “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good pleasure in men”; it could only be by Christ; He was the vessel of good pleasure, His birth was the pledge and sign of good pleasure in men. You may carry that thought all through the gospel; Christ is the point of complacency, and in the end He is received up; God is complacent in [p. 86] man; reconciliation has come to pass in Christ, for there is a Man in whom God is infinitely complacent. He was received up in the act of blessing others. He had drawn them to Himself; He blesses them and so is parted from them; they are to wait in Jerusalem until they should receive the promise of the Father. He goes up on high as the accepted Man, the blessed vessel of reconciliation. When the work of offering was done, the offering Priest goes to the right hand of God to be saluted as High Priest, and to receive gifts that He may shed forth these gifts on men. That is what we have in the Gospel of Luke.
In Mark we have the brief period of Christ’s sojourn on earth as the servant. Very many things had apparently lapsed in the ways of God. For instance, there had been four or five hundred years without any prophetic testimony. Israel had largely passed out of sight; man generally was hid in the darkness and degradation of idolatry. The temple of God had become a den of thieves. Now in the gospels we see all these taken up afresh; they are revived, but in a different way; they are revived in Christ. In Matthew we get the true Israel; in Mark the prophetic word; in Luke man is brought into view, and in the Gospel of John we get the true temple. There is the revival of all that had been in connection with Israel, and it goes beyond Israel to man. In Mark Christ is seen as the servant ministering the glad tidings. And what were the glad tidings? The glad tidings could only be Christ Himself; but at the same time He was the servant-prophet preaching the word and casting out demons, and at the close of the gospel He goes up to the right hand of God, and the disciples are sent forth to preach the glad tidings to every creature, and the Lord works with them and confirms the word by signs following.
[p. 87] That is the light in which Christ is presented in the gospels, fulfilling all that we get in the Old Testament. You have the account of Christ, that had been set forth prophetically, fulfilled in the gospels. We have “Immanuel, God with us”. At the same time we have what was set forth in the ark of the covenant established in Christ. Now I want to give an idea of the greatness of the system which is contemplated in the gospels. That system takes in not only earth but heaven. In the Gospel of John Jesus speaks of the heavens being opened and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of man. It is evident that the heavens and earth are brought morally into conjunction. Then we have the thought of the Son of man ascending up where he was before; and, in the Gospel of Luke, there is another point in connection with heaven, referred to in the prophets: the Lord Jesus said, “I saw Satan as lightning fall from heaven”. The power of evil is to be cast down from heaven, and all things delivered to Christ; this last is seen in Matthew. The point in Matthew is the kingdom of heaven, the universal moral sway of that which God has established in heaven: at the close of the gospel the Lord says, “All authority is given to me in heaven and upon earth”. What I have said will convey to you the truth that the gospels not only contemplate the blessing of man upon earth, but of all things being taken up, so to speak, for the abode of God, all things brought under the Son of man, the power of evil cast out of heaven, and the angels attendant on the Son of man; everything brought under the moral sway and administration, and into the light, of that which God has been pleased to establish in heaven. You can hardly understand the kingdom of heaven if you do not take it into account in that way. Administration is committed to the church and to Israel, and light is conveyed [p. 88] through both. Now I will refer to the way in which the Lord passes all things on to the disciples. They had a remarkable place. In Matthew’s gospel the disciples are to be teachers; in the Gospel of Mark they are to be preachers, in the Gospel of Luke they are to be witnesses, and in John they have a mission, and a remarkable mission too. The Lord Jesus breathed on them and said, “Receive ye the Holy Ghost”. Then He said, “As my Father hath sent me, even so send I you”. I have no doubt the Father sent the Son to be the beginning of something entirely new. It is remarkable in the writings of John how we get “What was from the beginning”. Christ is indeed the beginning. The fathers knew Him that was from the beginning. Christ came here, not simply as the witness of the righteousness and faithfulness of God, but as the beginning of the creation of God. This was inaugurated morally by the coming of Christ Himself, but then the Lord Jesus said, “As my Father hath sent me, even so send I you”; He was about to ascend, and they were to be instruments to establish that which was connected with Him ascended to the right hand of God. In Luke they were witnesses of His death and resurrection, and are to preach the import of these. It is of great importance that they were witnesses of the facts. The Lord says you are witnesses of these things. Then in the Gospel of Mark the Lord Himself had first been the servant and the preacher, and they were now to preach the glad tidings to every creature. That was their commission in the Gospel of Mark, and to baptise. In Matthew they are looked upon as a remnant of Israel, and were to teach the nations to observe all that which Christ had commanded them. I think you will admit that we get in the gospels the establishment, confirmation and setting forth of all that which had been spoken of in the Old Testament.
[p. 89] There is a point where everything is established. Redemption is accomplished, and everything established in Christ. It is that which marks this moment. Another time I hope to take up the gift of the Spirit, as bringing in the witness of Christ at the right hand of God, and what we get in that connection. The gospels bring before us that which Christ was here upon earth; but if you contemplate Christ in any light, He is necessarily the point where everything for God is established and confirmed. My object is to show you the unity of the testimony of Scripture. Scripture contains its own evidence. People do not argue whether the sun shines or not, they know very well it shines: and if men want evidence of the authenticity of Scripture the great point is to find that evidence in Scripture itself. There is nothing more important to apprehend than the unity and perfectness of Scripture testimony. The Old Testament does not speak of one thing and the New of another. The Old Testament speaks of all that which was before God, and which God intended to establish, and will establish; it speaks of it figuratively and prophetically, and in the New Testament every thought in the Old Testament is established and confirmed in Christ, every type fulfilled. Christ is gone up on high for the moment and is at the right hand of God, and the Spirit is given. You may say, What do we want to know all these things for? Well, how are we to grow as Christians; what is to be the principle of growth? I know of no principle except that of which the apostle speaks. “Till we all come to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ”. I have endeavoured to point out the unity [p. 90] of the faith. There are not different faiths presented in Scripture, we are to come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God. I pray God to give understanding and enlargement so that you may be able to take in the extent of that which is presented to us in the Scriptures in regard to Christ, and all that hangs on it; the universe in which God will dwell, and which of necessity will be filled with life and blessing. The world at the present time is filled with lust and pride. God has before Him a universe which He intends to make His dwelling-place; and everything in it will take its character more or less from the One who dwells in it. I think we ought to have it before our minds. We are left here in the moment of testimony that we should bear witness, and are morally apart from the present course of things because we are in the light of that which God has established in Christ.