CHRIST AS THE MAN AFTER GOD’S HEART

Acts 13: 16–22; Hebrews 10: 4–10; John 5: 17–27

PM It is thought that we might enquire in these readings into the reference in verse 22 of Acts 13, “I have found David, the son of Jesse, a man after my heart, who shall do all my will”. It must, of course, in its fulness look onto the Lord Jesus, David being a type. God had waited for this moment. This passage that we have read speaks of what God had done in relation to His people Israel. He gave them their land, and He gave them judges. What love lay behind it all until this very moment where it says, He “found”. Something came into expression in the incoming of the Lord Jesus that had never been there before. It had been foretold, and there had been types, but what came in came in in its fulness in the person of Christ was “a man after my heart, who shall do all my will”. I thought in this reading, we might just concentrate our affections together on the person of the Lord Jesus. Maybe later we shall see David as a type of the believer and the exercises that he goes through as a type of the believer. But I wondered in this reading if the Lord may just set us together, in relation to Himself as the One who is the “man after my heart, who shall do all my will”.

When we come to the epistle to the Hebrews, chapter 10, it is as if divine Persons draw aside the veil for a moment to give us an insight into what was in the divine mind even before the Lord Jesus came into manhood. Wonderful thing that there was one blessed divine Person who committed Himself to come into manhood, to be here in relation to the will of God. The vastness of that will was fulfilled by Him whatever it involved. He committed Himself as coming into manhood to fulfil that will, whatever the cost. Blessed glorious Man! He says, “Thou tookest no pleasure in burnt-offerings and sacrifices for sin”. He provided God an object for the divine affections in a Man here in which the divine pleasure was centred. I thought it might come out a little in John 5, “the Father loves the Son and shews him all things which he himself does”. That word, as we have been helped in the notes, suggests that the Lord Jesus gave the Father cause to love Him. He drew out those affections, because of what He was. Every movement was in accord with the divine heart, “the Father loves the Son and shews him all things which he himself does”. Maybe we shall look in David’s history as a type, of the way in which the assembly comes to appreciate what Christ is and what the Father’s feelings are for Christ. And then perhaps tomorrow, if the Lord guides us that way, we may look at David’s feelings in relation to the ark and then in relation to the house of God. Do you think we could profitably enquire on those lines?

RJC Yes, I am sure we could. We certainly cannot do wrong by focusing our attention on the Lord Jesus, blessed Man that He is, so precious to the Father. I thought on Lord’s day past as to the Father’s love for Christ; there is no one to compare with Him. While Peter was yet speaking the Father said, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I have found my delight”, Matthew 17: 5. But David is a glorious type of the Lord Jesus, and I am sure we will get help as we enquire into this together. He is a glorious Person.

PM And it may be that the Spirit of God will help us as we are together that He may become more attractive to us. What was here was a man after God’s heart.

NJH There was an equality between the heart of Christ and the heart of God, was there not? And that is why Abinadab and Shammah and Eliab were set aside because there was nothing inward in the hearts of these men with God, is that right?

PM Yes, that is helpful. But here in the heart of a man was equality with what was in the heart of God. We have to speak carefully of these things. We shall be treading on holy ground as we enquire together, but it is intended to cause us to worship, for in the pathway of the Lord Jesus, in that perfect pathway, there was always what was in full accord with the heart of God, “a man after my heart”. When Saul comes in he is a man who is compared with others. He was head and shoulders above his brethren. When Christ comes in it is an incomparable Christ. It is a different order of man. I would say to the young people here and to all of us, the One of whom we are speaking about is beyond compare. He is not only unique, but He is another order of Man altogether, a man after God’s own heart.

RJC I was just going to say what you have said, that Saul was not a man after God’s own heart. He was the people’s choice, but God had a Man in reserve, you might say, to bring forward, “a man after my heart”. David drew out the affections of God, did he not?

PM Does Psalm 78 not touch on it in a very affecting way? Psalm 78: 65–72. The psalmist speaks of the state that there was among Israel at that time and then he says, “Then the Lord awoke as one out of sleep, like a mighty man that shouteth aloud by reason of wine” (Psalm 78: 65). And then he goes on, “And he chose David his servant, and took him from the sheepfolds—From following the suckling-ewes, he brought him to feed Jacob his people, and Israel his inheritance” (Psalm 78: 70, 71). There, in type, was the order of Man, after God’s own heart.

RDP You made a difference in your remarks between what He gave, and what He found, and also the expression is used as to the Lord that He raised Him up. He gave the prophets, some of them came on the scene very suddenly, did they not? There was something distinctive in what He found in Christ. You had more in mind as to it.

PM He waited for it, had He not? I think you get some impression of it in Colossians, “in him all the fulness of the Godhead was pleased to dwell”, Colossians 1: 19. You might say reverently, the Fulness had found a complacent heart in which Its affections could rest unreservedly. It was pleased to dwell. God had provided for Israel in His love, moment after moment. He had raised up one and then He had raised up another, but when it comes to David He says, “I have found David”. There was an immediate answer in this blessed Person to every longing of the heart of God, all was answered in Christ.

WMcK I was struck with your remark earlier that in this meeting we should focus on our Lord Jesus Christ, and I wondered if Mark’s presentation of the mount of transfiguration would help us. It says, “And suddenly having looked around, they no longer saw any one, but Jesus alone with themselves”, Mark 9: 8. That would be our experience in this meeting and the others.

PM We trust it will be, that all of us, however young or old we are, we may get some impression afresh of the greatness of what Christ is to God. The presentation here of David is not so much what he was to Israel, that is worked out later, but it is what he was to God.

JCG In Psalm 89, it says, “And my faithfulness and my loving-kindness shall be with him”, Psalm 89: 24. That bears on the way in which He brought out what was from God Himself in His lifetime here, does it not?

PM Yes, just open that up a bit please.

JCG Well, the detail in Psalm 89 is quite remarkable in type, but it brings out something of the distinctiveness of the kind of manhood that was seen in Jesus, and it came from, as you said, the roll of the book. The divine purpose was involved in it, was it not?

PM It was. We shall touch that in relation to Hebrews, but the Lord Jesus came into manhood, not as an ordinary man. The One who was going to accomplish God’s will—none other had been able to do it, or could do it—was One who in Himself was divine, and yet coming into manhood could accomplish God’s will. He was no ordinary man. He could say prophetically, “thou hast prepared me a body”.

CKR In 1 Samuel 16, when David was brought in, it says, “he sent and brought him in. And he was ruddy, and besides of a lovely countenance and beautiful appearance. And Jehovah said, Arise, anoint him; for this is he” (1 Samuel 16: 12). It is the divine intervention to affirm the uniqueness and beauty of someone coming onto the page of scripture that looked on to the perfect Man, the Lord Jesus.

PM Yes, and that is what He would say to us today, is it not? “Arise, anoint him; for this is he”. We are at a peculiar juncture in the history of the testimony. We are passing through circumstances that we have never passed through before. The Holy Spirit, I think, would just concentrate our affections on the One who is great enough to carry everything through for God.

CKR I thought it was fitting to have a hymn to the Holy Spirit, because if we are going to focus we need the service of the Holy Spirit to attach us firmly to that blessed Man, as the Spirit loves to glorify Christ.

PM And only the Holy Spirit can unfold the glories of that blessed Person in such a way that there is formation in the souls of those that hear. Someone wrote a book entitled the ‘Imitation of the Life of Christ’. That is not the divine way. The divine way is that there is formation in relation to the life of Christ.

RT It was when the fulness of time was come that God sent forth His Son. That was in God’s mind before time began was it not? But then when He came into the world it says, “Lo, I come ... to do, O God, thy will”. That has opened up the whole counsel of God has it not?

PM Yes, it is as if God waited for that, was it not? When the fulness of time was come. He had waited for that moment in which He would have a Man here, upon whom His affections could rest unreservedly, and a Man here who would accomplish everything for God. He says, “but thou hast prepared me a body”. In that body the will of God was going to be worked out, at a cost that only He could bear, but it was worked out in that body prepared for Him.

DBR Would it suggest really the disclosure of divine secrets? I was thinking of the psalm, “The secret of Jehovah is with them that fear him”, Psalm 25: 14. I think the note says, ‘the intimate (or private) communications’ (note ‘h’). You cherish an atmosphere like that today where somehow these divine communications are made known and the divine secrets. I thought the word ‘found’ is important. It means that what is found is substantial. The substantiality of the manhood of Christ, do you think? PM Yes, go on, please.

DBR Well I just thought that it says, “I have found”, not just that I have seen but “I have found”. I thought it was the appropriation by God of the qualities of the manhood of Christ. Wonderful thing. Wonderful contemplation for us, do you think?

PM I think so. He looked for it down through the history of Israel that Paul speaks of in this section. He had looked for those features. And in some measure He had found some of them in different men that He had used, but He found David, “a man after my heart”. Every feature that God longed for was there in expression in Christ, in its perfection. Every feature that He looked for was there, and there was not one feature that He did not admire. It was all there in that blessed Person.

JWr Was this found in Christ and found in David before the public service?

PM Yes, go on.

JWr David is brought forward and God commends him before he comes into public service. I was thinking of the moral features of manhood, the beauty, the first moral feature was dependence, was it not? I wondered if He carried through the will of God in dependence.

PM Maybe we should just look at that for a moment, because the kind of man that was going to fulfil God’s will, was the lowly Man who was here, as you say, in dependence upon God. We are living in a world, and I say this to our dear young brethren, in the business world men are forcing themselves, administrators are putting their mark on everything they do. That is not the kind of man that was here carrying out God’s will. The One who was here, fulfilling God’s will, fulfilled it in dependence. He says in John 5, “The Son can do nothing of himself” (John 5: 19). In His Person none less than the Creator of the universe, who could speak and it was done, command and it stood fast, but coming into manhood He came into conditions in which He depended entirely upon His God.

JWr You were stressing a little while ago that every feature seen in Christ was there in perfection. One feature of His perfect humanity, was His dependence.

JDG In Luke’s gospel chapter 2 the curtain is drawn aside to show us Christ as a boy here, “did ye not know that I ought to be occupied in my Fathers business?” (Luke 2: 49). Does that help us along in our enquiry?

PM Yes, I think so. At the age of twelve, Did ye not know that I ought to be occupied in the things of My Father? What an example for us. That was the whole character of that pathway. It was not that He reached a point, and I trust I speak reverently, where He committed Himself to the will of God. He had committed Himself to the will of God as coming into the world, right from the outset. We cannot compare Him with ourselves. It is another order of man, but what marked that order of man was that everything stood related to God’s will. He says in John 4, “I have food to eat which ye do not know ... My food is that I should do the will of him that has sent me, and that I should finish his work” (John 4: 32, 34).

JDG Heaven waited until He grew up too, waited until the age of thirty before He comes out in public service.

PM How delightful to heaven. In those secret years, of which we know so very little, there is just a view, as you say, of the curtain pulled aside at the age of twelve, to show that the character of that life stood entirely related to the will of God.

PJM The point is made, in the passage in Acts that He was the son of Jesse. Samuel, of course, asked the question, “Are these all the young men?” (1 Samuel 16: 11), and Jesse says, “There is yet the youngest remaining, and behold, he is feeding the sheep”. Is that the early evidence of what we were speaking about in Christ? He was already occupied in His Father’s business.

PM That is affecting. He took him from the sheepfolds. There he was, you might say, out of sight even by his brothers as far as David was concerned. And when he does come into public service, public activity in the meeting of Goliath, they say, “and with whom hast thou left those few sheep ...?”, 1 Samuel 17: 28. That was the character of man. The one whom quietly, you might say, out of the public gaze was there in the eye of God drawing out the divine pleasure.

RG John the baptist said, “Behold the Lamb of God” (John 1: 36) and two were attracted, “What seek ye?” (John 1: 38) and they went with Jesus and abode with Him that day. Do you think when they went in there with Him they would see the Father’s approbation and the Father’s feelings, and the Lord’s feelings, as the Lamb of God, as He moved about in this world?

PM Yes, having some sense, of that sacrificial walk, the Lamb of God. Giving those men some impression that there was One whose whole life was sacrificially devoted to the will of God. If we might say reverently, the Lord Jesus moved that way not without cost. The devotion which marked those years was marked by the enjoyment of perfect communion. But in His pathway what suffering, bearing in His spirit the hatred that there was against God, carrying it all, moving forward as a sacrificial Lamb.

RHB In the Psalms, when we think of David, do the Psalms shed light on why he was a man after God’s own heart, and does that bear on what you are saying? I was thinking of what was being said as to the intimate relationships. The Psalms bring out that David was intimate with God, was he not? and God with him it would seem too. We know that he was a man of like passions to ourselves and that he failed, but characteristically he was a man that was on intimate terms with God, was he not? I wondered if that comes out in the verse you read, that being a man after God’s own heart is said, before anything is said about what he would do.

PM It is only that kind of man that could effect God’s will. Saul had tried, and others had tried before him. What they exerted was their own will. The Lord Jesus came in and His will stood entirely related to the will of God. Paul says in Philippians 2, He took a bondman’s form (Philippians 2: 7). That was the character of that humanity. It stands on its own, does it not? It is intended to cause us to worship that the One who was none less than the Creator should take a bondman’s form.

RHB You have read from John’s gospel where He asserts frequently in that gospel, “I know him”, does He not, in relation to the Father? and we bear witness of that which we know. I was thinking of how that comes out; what came out was that He bore witness to One, who as Man He was on intimate terms with and in whose love He lived.

PM And every moment of that pathway was spent in communion. “And every one went to his home. But Jesus went to the mount of Olives”, John 7: 53; 8: 1. I believe John writes to attract us there too. Not that we could enter into the relation that He had, but he writes to attract us to the mount of Olives. To take up the relation that we have with the Father, and to move forward from the enjoyment of that relationship, into the scene of testimony.

JCG The prophet says, “For he shall grow up before him as a tender sapling”, Isaiah 53: 2. That brings out the uniqueness of the dependence that was there, and the different kind of manhood that God looked for, does it?

PM “A tender sapling, and as a root out of dry ground”. Yes, I think what you touched there is important, because that brought out the character of who was here, the tender sapling. The root out of dry ground showed that He drew nothing from what was here. He was not educated by man. The Jews said, “How knows this man letters, having never learned?”, John 7: 15. He derived nothing from man. All that He brought in He brought in with Himself, and He lived in the enjoyment of that communion which was sufficient entirely to Him.

JSp I was thinking of the expression, “who shall do all my will”. He had a tremendous capacity to take in every thought of God. I wondered if you would just open it up a little?

PM Well, I would be glad to hear what you say, but the vastness of what that will involved is presented to us in the different epistles in different settings, as you would know, and in Hebrews it is in relation to the sanctification of the saints. But the scope of that will, “all my will”, seems to me to cover the whole scope of what would be secured for the pleasure of God. Not only in the saints of the assembly, but

what He would secure through the work of redemption in relation to every family, all gathered in for the pleasure of God in one Man great enough to commit Himself to it and to carry it all through.

JRW At Gethsemane the Lord makes reference to “my will” and also to “thy will”. Can you say something as to that in the light of what we are saying? There is evidently brought out there that there is a distinction, and yet both are one. But I would like some more help on it.

PM You will know, of course, Mr. Darby’s comment that there was ‘one will and three willings’. The motive for what the Lord Jesus did was not the exercise of His own will, but as a dependent Man, even though it was in full accord with the Father’s will, but what He longed for was that He might move in relation to the Father’s will. That seems to me to emphasise the fact that He took a bondman’s form. He really moved as One that took up the ground that He was not here to exercise His will, but the will of Another.

JRW I wondered if it just confirmed the impression you are bringing before us of what God says, “a man after my heart”. When the Lord speaks of My will, that would be after the Father’s heart, would it not?

PM Yes. It says in Genesis 22, “and they went both of them together” (Genesis 22: 6). What steps they were! Isaac carrying the wood and Abraham the knife and the fire. There may be something for us in that in our own pathways, because what is judicial is often best in the hands of those who have experience with God, and the burdens of the testimony, practically, are best in the hands of those that have the energy. But with Abraham and Isaac they went both together. What movements they were.

GBG Was the Lord’s joy involved in doing all God’s will? I wondered as to the scripture in Hebrews, “in view of the joy lying before him, endured the cross, having despised the shame” (Hebrews 12: 2), whether the Lord’s joy would be involved in securing all God’s will?

PM And as coming into manhood, carrying in His heart the very fact that every thought in relation to God’s pleasure rested in that will being fulfilled. He knew all that as He came into manhood. He carried it through, not only for His own satisfaction; the joy lying before Him, seems to me to stand related primarily to what was for the heart of God. We often link it with what He will have in the assembly, and of course that is true, but it seems to me that is only a part of it. What was His real joy? The fulness of His joy stood related to what He would carry through for the divine pleasure.

RT So at the end of His pathway He says, “I have glorified thee on the earth ... now glorify me, thou Father”, John 17: 4. What joy that was to the Father, but great joy to Christ’s own heart, that God had been glorified on the earth.

PM Yes, never before in that way, “I have glorified thee on the earth, I have completed the work which thou gavest me that I should do it”. Think of God, glorified in a Man upon the earth. He had been dishonoured in generations of men, but here was a Man who was of another order. And in that blessed Man carrying through everything that would be for God’s pleasure and glory. What a Man Jesus is!

RFW We were reminded here last week of Simeon. I wondered if he had some sense of it, “now thou lettest thy bondman go ... in peace; for mine eyes have seen thy salvation” (Luke 2: 29, 30), do you think?

PM That is helpful, because you get touches through the gospels of persons who had some impression of what Christ meant to the Father, and the Spirit would help us to have some impression of what He means to the Father; not only what He means to us. Mr. Alfred Gardiner used to say, ‘ask the Father to give you some impression of what it was that He found in the Lord Jesus that was so delightful’. It brings stability into our souls. It is not only what He is for me, unchangeable and perfect and glorious as that is, but what He is to the Father. It lifts our spirits to another realm.

DBR Would the movement of Christ in that way be regulated by the counsels of God? You mentioned that in your opening remarks. What is flowing out here is something that, you might say, gives us entrance into something of the glory of the counsels of God. Is that all seen in the path of Christ?

PM It was. It had been there, written in the book of divine counsel. I do not know how much we could say about that, but it is as if the Spirit for the moment just draws aside the curtain to give us a view of what divine Persons were going to proceed with in relation to the incoming of the Lord Jesus. What a wonderful thing that one divine Person, who in Himself was none less than the Creator, should, even before He was in the path of obedience and dependence, devote Himself to come and carry out the will of God.

DBR We clearly need the help of the Spirit to understand and to feed on what came to light in the pathway of Christ. Both in a moral and sacrificial sense, do you think, because I wonder if what you read in Hebrews 10, the sacrificial glory of Christ enters into that, does it not?

PM It does. Yes, go on please.

DBR I could not say more but I can see the whole thing affected, I can see what you said in your opening remarks, I can see how the whole thing was regulated in government by the counsel of God. There were no accidents in the life of Jesus. Everything was deliberate and according to the counsel of God, do you think?

PM And every movement in relation to it. What was in His heart was the fulfilment of what divine Persons had committed themselves to, in divine counsel. We can hardly say much about it, because we are going back into circumstances that were there before the Lord Jesus became man, but everything for God waited for that moment. “Then I said, Lo I come (in the roll of the book it is written of me) to do, O God, thy will”. How profound!

JTB So do you think the force of “I have found” relates not only to the life of Christ down here, but He has found for all eternity, do you think?

PM Yes, and I am thankful you say that because in John we may get some impression of that, that He still is carrying through the work of the Father. Not only what He has done, glorious as that is and it stands in its distinctiveness, but He is carrying through the Father’s work, and the Father’s will is still before Him in all that He is doing.

JTB Yes, I was thinking of the psalm, “take me not away in the midst of my days!”, Psalm 102: 24. Heaven immediately interjects, “Thy years are from generation to generation”. What was in that life was so precious it must continue, and answers fully to the counsels and purposes of God, do you think?

PM It must continue, and must find an answer in the assembly, even in the present time. It must find an answer, for what was involved in the counsels of God, was the setting aside of man for God Himself. He says, “by which will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all”. So that man is now to be set aside for the will of God.

RDP I was thinking of that. David himself, when he could not carry through his very best endeavours in relation to a place for Jehovah as to the ark, he sits before Jehovah and he says, “is this the manner of man ...?”, 2 Samuel 7: 19. As far as man’s world was concerned, you could say David’s desires were almost faultless, but he has to admire the manner of man that was before God.

PM And although David had learned much through his experiences and his failures, yet he was not allowed to build the house because he was a man of war and had shed blood. That is a sobering thing. But in the Person of whom we are speaking everything was for the divine pleasure. That was the manner of man.

RDP I just find for myself, and perhaps some of us do, that it is difficult to concentrate upon this aspect. Later you get the Lord’s work, “On this account the Father loves me, because I lay down my life”, John 10: 17. But this is an aspect that we perhaps find difficult to hold our minds to, is it not? The perfection of the One who was there in Himself.

PM Yes, as our brother says, the Spirit will help us as we make way for Him to do that. He would help us not only in an occasion like this, but help us to live in the appreciation of this manner of man.

NJH In this portion we are reading it refers to “thy will” and “thou willedst not”. Christ knew both did He not, in coming in?

PM Yes, just open that up please.

NJH We see it is not an improvement of what is for God but it is superseded, is it not in Christ and His sacrifice, is that right? That is the counsels of God. In writing to the Hebrews literally here, Paul is setting aside the material sacrifices completely, what Israel held, and it was superseded in Christ, is that right? It is by the offering of His body, and so on.

PM Just so. And from this point onwards Israel offers no sacrifice to God. That whole system has closed. There is no priest. Israel has no priest. They have no altar. They have no ark and they have no sacrifice. Because they rejected the One in whom everything for God was going to be carried through. The whole counsel and the purpose of God rested on this blessed Man, and God was going to take up men, sanctified to the will of God in the assembly.

JWeb I wondered if Matthew 3 would fit in with what you are saying. When He came to the Jordan to be baptised of John and John forbade him. He says, “for thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness” (Matthew 3: 15), and just at that point Matthew says, “and lo, the heavens were opened to him” (Matthew 3: 16). I was just thinking of the impression it must have made in the way that Matthew presents it. There was something there that had never been seen before. He says, “and lo”. It just shows the impression that was there. The heavens were opened to Him and a voice said, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I have found my delight” (Matthew 3: 17).

PM One blessed Man, great in His Person, but identifying Himself with a repentant remnant, going down into the waters of baptism. There was nothing in Jesus that needed to be removed in baptism. Everything there was perfect. But He did it, as He says, “for thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness”. What words they were. JWeb So that must have been related to the will of God.

PM Just so. And immediately, as you say, the heavens opened upon Him. Every movement, downward movements that they were, going down, the cross was before Him, what movements they were, but every movement calling out the divine pleasure. We may get some touch as to this reference in Hebrews 10, “thou has prepared me a body”, as to what was wrought out in relation to the will of God in that body that was prepared. The psalmist in speaking of it says, “ears hast thou prepared me”, Psalm 40: 6. I think it gives some indication of the character of the humanity that was here, that was always receiving communications from the Father.

JS In regard to “a body hast thou prepared me”, would you connect that with the action of the Holy Spirit? “The holy thing also which shall be born”, Luke 1: 35. PM I thought that, but please open it up.

JS I just thought that at the very outset of His humanity, there was something that was of a different order altogether.

PM We need to lay hold of that, that that humanity was different. Different to the humanity that Mary had. “That which is begotten in her is of the Holy Spirit”, Matthew 1: 20. These references give us some impression of the oblation mingled with oil. You might say, woven through that humanity in its perfection was the Holy Spirit’s presence and operation.

PAG Could you say then something about the offering of the body of Jesus Christ? Well that, too, was by the eternal Spirit. He offered Himself spotless to God. But I wondered if it would suggest that as having received everything from God as Man. He offered back to God everything God had given Him.

PM Yes, he did. And in that body offered what was entirely in keeping with the longings of the divine affections, a body that was offered “by the eternal Spirit”, Hebrews 9: 14. It gives us some indication of what we are touching as to the eternal counsels of divine Persons, that He came into that body and offered it without spot to God. There had never been an offering like that before. A body that had been held for the pleasure of God in His life, and a body that was offered, and could be offered, as fully in accord with the heart of God.

CKR So then it adds, “once”. This is something that has glorified God and never needed repeating. It was perfect.

PM Over against the volume of blood that had been shed, and the beasts that had been killed, right through the history of Israel, the offering of the body of Jesus Christ, “once for all”. How full, how complete that is, and in that offering every righteous claim was met. The holiness of God was answered to. The claims of his throne cleared. Everything met, but offered in view of man being held in relation to the will of God.

CKR So he has sat down in perpetuity at the right hand of God.

PM Yes. What does that mean?

CKR It just impresses me that the whole victorious, glorified finish to the whole matter is that Jesus, having offered Himself, is sitting in perpetuity. Which means for ever, really, does it not, at the right hand of God, and the whole eternal counsel has been achieved and God glorified in it?

PM And the work which he has done never needed to be added to or modified. It stands in all its glory and the One who has done it, received by God Himself in all His perfection. What a Person is at the right hand of God.

JCG So that the taking away of the first was a necessity because of the superior quality of the man that God had found in the second. It is very similar to your first scripture, where it speaks about Saul being removed. We have to come to that, have we not, to find a full appreciation of the quality of the manhood of Jesus?

PM And to realise that in us naturally, there was nothing in Him that we should desire him. Our brother has quoted from Isaiah 53. That is the heart of man naturally, seeing no beauty in Him that we should desire Him. We are shut up to the divine operations of the Spirit in the soul, to give us not only a touch as to the glories of the person of the Lord Jesus, but to form us in relation to the perfection of that blessed Man.

In John it tells us that “the Father loves the Son”. I wondered if we might just get some impression afresh of the One who is “a man after my heart”. He “loves the Son and shews him all things which he himself does”. Not ‘has shown him’, but “shews him”.

RG Does the prophet give us some insight into this when he says, “Behold my servant whom I uphold, mine elect in whom my soul delighteth”, Isaiah 42: 1? Is that the Father loving the Son?

PM I am sure it is. “I will put my Spirit upon him”. Yes. “In whom my soul delighteth”. It is a very affecting reference that. It brings out the sensitive feelings of God Himself, that were answered to and met in the Lord Jesus. How wonderful that is!

RGr Does the scripture that has been referred to already bear on what you are saying? That is, “On this account the Father loves me, because I lay down my life that I may take it again”. The Lord would seek to attract His hearers into that sphere in which He was operating, and show that it was operating on the basis of divine love, do you think?

PM This whole gospel proceeds on that basis does it not? “We have contemplated his glory, a glory as of an only-begotten with a father”, John 1: 14. The whole of John’s gospel really proceeds from the viewpoint of the One who was here in the Father’s affections and giving the Father cause to love Him because of what He did.

RGr Do you think the way the Lord uses the expression, “Verily, verily”, would bear on what you are saying? It must have been difficult for a Jew to turn aside from the line of things he had been engaged with and come into this sphere. But the Lord had nothing less in mind, do you think, and so for us?

PM Just so. Yes, here in John 5 they sought to kill Him because of His relation with the Father. He did not fit into their system. But what a divine system was proceeding here, the Father working and “I work”, divine Persons operating together. The Father had worked, and is working now, in drawing persons to Christ. And Christ is working in view of what is for the Father’s pleasure. “My Father worketh hitherto and I work”. And then He says, “The Son can do nothing of himself’.

JWr There is a perfect expression of the Father. What the Father did the Son did in like manner.

PM Yes, He was not here just as a representative. We know in our own time publicly an ambassador can go to another country and represent the Queen, but he is not like her. He says things that she may not approve of. But the Lord Jesus was not just a representative. He did represent the Father but He was more than that. He manifested the Father in all that He did.

JWr The Father was in Him, was He not?

PM Yes, just so.

NJH What would enter into the things that the Father would show the Son?

PM Had He not shown Him something in chapter four? And then going on through this gospel, in chapter nine, the works of God being manifested. Is He not showing Him what He is doing? What works they were. The Father working hitherto, bringing out in persons that which could be taken up in view of the present dispensation, and carried right through for the glory of God.

NJH Something of it must have entered into the thirty years of the life of Christ, would it not? I was thinking of references to Simeon and others, the Father was operating in them to show them to Christ, is that right?

PM Yes, and those women who carried things in their hearts right down from the commencement of His pathway here. There was a subjective answer in the saints to what the Father was doing. Luke writes of it from that point of view. There was a subjective answer to the divine operation that was left here and carried through into the present day.

SP If we read 1 Samuel 16, where we note this wonderful thing that is morally divine, a great prophet, Samuel, fails to recognise a real person who is after the heart of God. He was thinking about Eliab, and we can also see that Jesse is a godly person. He also failed to understand and he did not invite his youngest son. But we read, when David appeared then only Jehovah can say, “Arise, anoint him” (1 Samuel 16: 12). So when Christ is in, it is the only cause which can actually please God, and how wonderful the Man after God’s heart, our Lord Jesus.

PM And, therefore, we are shut up entirely to the Spirit of God, in order that what He finds in the Lord Jesus might be appreciated by us. The natural man cannot receive the things of God. They are folly to him. We are shut up to the Spirit of God for the unfolding of the great things that divine Persons are doing, and the One in whom they are all centred. The Spirit of God would unfold the glories of that blessed Man to us.

GBG “Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave to him” (Revelation 1: 1), is that in His present position? You mentioned earlier about what proceeds at the present time, in this dispensation. I wondered if that was an example of what proceeds between the Father and the Son.

PM The book of Revelation involves the whole winding up of God’s ways, does it not? which no doubt was in the heart of Christ when He came into manhood. But there seems to be something distinctive here, “The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave to him, to shew to his bondmen” Revelation 1: 1. There is something distinctive. There should be men here in the appreciation and intelligence of what the Lord Jesus is carrying through even in the present time for the will of God.

Reading No. 1 at Glasgow
13 August 2010

KEY TO INITIALS

J. T. Brown (Ed.)	R. Gray	C. K. Robinson
R. H. Brown	N. J. Henry	J. Spinks
R. J. Campbell	W. McKillop	J. Strachan
R. Gardiner	P. Martin	R. Taylor
G. B. Grant	J. Mutton	J. R. Walkinshaw
J. C. Gray	S. Parmar	J. Webster
J. D. Gray	R. D. Plant	R. F. White
P. A. Gray	D. B. Robertson	J. Wright