HOW WE SEE JESUS

A.J.E.Welch

Hebrews 2: 8 (last sentence), 10; John 20: 19,20; 2 Corinthians 3: 18

I seek to say a brief word on how we see Jesus. The thought springs from some conviction that we need more constant engagement of heart and mind with the Person Himself. The concern is, too, that, as we see Him, the experience may be richly productive in us, for the Lord would use every disclosure of Himself to quicken what answers to Himself. It may well be said that the number of times of celebrating the Lord's supper before He comes will not be many, and I feel the need that the remarkable way in which the Lord Jesus discloses Himself among His own might be more richly productive, reaching into affections that become increasingly matured and developed, as every touch of His comes home to us. The Lord is, in this sense, at the close seeking for the best. He has suffered that He might receive it; and, as we see Jesus, every hindrance is to be cast aside that would not only deprive us of the experience but would deprive Him of the fruits of it.

The first passage read is what we might speak of as the dispensational position, that is to say, we are waiting the moment of all things being subjected to Him. Think of the majesty in which He will take His place in relation to all things! How worthy He is of that place! How eagerly our hearts expect it! How blessed it is to show forth His death until He come! He is to be given the place, such that all things are subjected to Him. But that is, as we speak, and as this writer pens his word, not yet: "we see not yet all things subjected to him". Notice the emphatic 'him', as if to bring home to us the glorious reality, thrilling our hearts, as it does, to contemplate it, to see all things set in relation to Christ. There will not be a vestige of anything anywhere that does not in some sense bear witness to the glory of that Person as He takes this place; but it is not yet. "But", he says, "we see Jesus", we see the Person. We wait for all things to be subjected to Him but we do not wait to see Him: "we see Jesus". Faith apprehends Christ where He is. The blessed Spirit, as ever, discloses glory to us in Christ where He is. In that sense we see Him. We are marked off from what is just in Judaism as such, from those, alas, who reject Him; but it is characteristic of such persons, lovers of Christ, waiting for the moment of disclosure of His supremacy, that they see Jesus. That is the general position; it is to govern us in every relationship, it is to determine the whole course of things in which we engage here. Many other things would obtrude them selves on our view, if possible. How many distractions the enemy would bring in!

How much there is in this dark world to bring in elements of distraction! We say feelingly and affectionately to our beloved younger brethren especially, Come into the gain of this precious point, that we see Jesus. The seeing of Jesus eclipses all else. It is as if the Spirit would at this point in this wonderful book, the book of the opened heavens as has sometimes been said, focus our attention on this one point, that we see Jesus. But that one point is all-important. If we are in the grace which God gives to fill out in uprightness and in fulness the point of testimony to which we have come, that we see Jesus will allow of no other object. We see Him in the sense that He "was made some little inferior to angels on account of the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour". God has given Him that place. We are reminded of the place that He has with God and before God, which He possesses, in which He is at the present time, to be seen by us as in it. So that every other authority, every other point which claims any authority or bearing upon us, is rejected inasmuch as we see Jesus crowned with glory and honour. I want to be simple as to this, to attract every heart, every young heart, into what it is to see Jesus. "So that by the grace of God he should taste death for every thing". Notice how attention is called to the suffering of death and the tasting of death. The same glorious Person whose sufferings were the sufferings in which He went into death, the One who tasted death, entering into death as no one else ever entered into death, has come forth glorious beyond death in the power in which He rose from the dead. What a Person! The scripture here is intended to give such an One, even Jesus, a total grip on our affections, that our attraction to Him and attachment to Him becomes firm and definite, and resistant of every other attachment which the course of things here might propose.

That is the general situation, a wonderful situation. How wonderfully the course of thin s here among His lovers is provided for, that we may constantly keep in view that glorious Person where He is, faith and the Spirit working that we may be alert as to all that comes into expression and has come into expression in that glorious Person. But then we come to specific experience. The disciples in John 20 had occasion to rejoice, they rejoiced "having seen the Lord". This would relate to a distinct experience as the Lord Jesus Himself, God's beloved Son, comes in among His own and takes His place among them. Beloved brethren, what an experience! Are we dull or slow or reluctant, in any sense, to have our hearts drawn out to this glorious Person at such a moment as this? He is giving His lovers such experiences, peculiarly so at the Supper. Not that the manifestations of Himself are limited to the Supper, but we have learned through constant experience of it in the faithfulness of His love that it is at the Supper that the uniqueness of such a presentation of Jesus is to be known. How urgent that we be ready, that we follow the word which comes constructively in 1 Corinthians 11, "let a man prove himself" and eat and drink, as if there is a course of preceding exercise of heart as to what the saints are to be engaged with soon, if the Lord does not first come; that we may be ready, dear brethren, for Jesus, that we may see Him: "having seen the Lord". We would guard the point, of course, that this took place in the days of His being here after He rose from the dead, that they saw Him corporeally, which we do not as yet; we see Him by the Spirit, but we see Him. I mention these things, familiar in many respects to us, that we may get from the Lord a fresh touch of what this time of the Spirit involves, when the Spirit is free to engage us with this glorious Person in some sense that we see Him. One would seek not to be fanciful as to the idea, but we get a real view of this glorious Person as He comes in. John refers in his first epistle to seeing Him with the eyes, as if to bring out the substantiality of what was here in: Jesus in manhood; how glorious it was and how the gospel writers present that side to us, the uniqueness of the humanity of Jesus as He was here in manhood, before He died, yes, and in a different sense, after He died and before He went up. How much those men saw that were in His company! And being in His company became the necessary basis of qualification for the apostle who was to be appointed. What a refining experience it would be! What searchings would come as they were in His company and were contemplating constantly what was morally in entire perfection! They saw Him in that sense.

How much is carried forward in that regard in the apostles, the twelve and Paul, of course, the great apostle of the assembly, did not see Him in those conditions and yet he says as to his apostleship, "have I not see Jesus our Lord", 1 Cor 9: 1. He had seen Him as a Man in glory, he received his commission from the Man in glory, but as to the twelve, it was essential that they should have been in His company and have seen Him. I dwell on that a moment because it brings in in a peculiar way, I believe, the moral side of things, to see Jesus as He was, sinless, perfect, the One who knew no sin; in the very scene in which the power of sin was in constant expression, free of its power entirely, unsoiled, speaking reverently, unstained at every point by the power of sin which has held every one of us in its grip. Think of the perfection of the manhood of Jesus. Have we a view of it? Are we content, in a moral sense, with anything less than what came into expression in the Person of Christ here? Are our standards, in any sense, diminishing as to that? Do we hold in our minds and hearts in holy jealousy the infinite, moral perfectness in which Jesus was and is that governing us? We have not seen it with our eyes in a human sense, we could not see it thus as the apostles did, but we have the benefit of their experiences. The Spirit will bring us into the gain of their experiences, the gain of their instruction, the gain of what the Spirit has brought in in His own way and skill in this remarkable time which is His time, the day of the Spirit, to relate us back to the perfection of what came into view in the manhood of Jesus. Have we a view of that? Have we an understanding of it?

But then to come back to this scripture in John 20, Jesus came in. It is not that much was said. The first word that came from Him was "peace", a most blessed word. How the Lord would love to extend peace among His beloved people! How the enemy from his side would seek by every means at his hand to rob us of peace! I say that as negative contrast, but it is very, very true. But the Lord came in and said "Peace be to you". Everything from His side is in glorious accomplishment, the whole scene is set for the setting aside of everything that has raised its head against God and the bringing in of a universe where the glory of Christ will be in display and in which God shall find His pleasure; God shall be all in all. The Lord says "Peace be to you". What a word for us, dear brethren! In times that in some respects are full of disturbance as to our surroundings the Lord would have peace amongst His beloved disciples. He does not extend His word, He just says "Peace be to you". Then "having said this, he shewed to them his hands and his side". It is as if He would quicken their powers of perception. He was not extending His word to them, He shewed them something. Dear brethren, are we equal to this, to discerning if the Lord may be pleased to shew us something as He comes in? And what He shews is of Himself. It is not an environment of any kind; what He shews relates to Himself. May our view of Christ be quickened, to be ready for such experiences as these, as the Lord takes His place amongst His own. In our time, as I have sought to guard the point, the experience is distinct in the sense that He does not corporeally come, and yet, what an experience by the Spirit, in the grace that the Spirit loves to give, to discern the coming in of the Lord, as He said Himself in chapter 14 of this same gospel, "I am coming to you" (v 18). We look forward to it if the Lord leaves us a little longer, but the concern is that we apprehend something of the greatness of what is specific as the Lord presents Himself. This is the way in which our view of things spiritually becomes so richly extended as we discern what is presented to our hearts, and our renewed minds, in the Person of Christ, apprehended by the Spirit, and we may say as we go on through the week, consolidated by the Spirit. The question is whether we are ready for that, whether these experiences are leaving impressions of such depth that the Spirit can expand them and apply them in the course of what we could speak of as our spiritual history through the week as we have our part in the assembly.

Well now, in 2 Corinthians 3 there is a change, the change is on our side, it is through looking on the glory of the Lord. We have often referred to this, I do not dwell at any length upon it, but what a wonderful way the Spirit of God has to bring about formation spiritually in the saints! This section flows out of a chapter in which ministry of a distinctive kind is brought before us new covenant ministry. That is in itself of great benefit to us; new covenant ministry leads us on to something by way of real experience company-wise of Christ. It is the kind of ministry that works on the principle of divine supply, searches out situations (because they must be searched out if God is to have His place) but bringing in what meets situations gloriously, bringing in Christ and the work of Christ, asserting it, however searchingly, in its own positive worth and value. We have had it, dear brethren, in this city, and whilst we say it very humbly, we still know it in this city, new covenant ministry, the kind of ministry that builds up, where necessary searching out what is negative, but building up on the sound basis of what is effected by God in Christ. But it leads up to the glory of what belongs to the present time. The ministry had its place and wrought wonderfully at Corinth, as it has wrought wonderfully in a city like this and in every city where the saints are gathered to the Lord's name; it leads up to the experience of seeing Jesus: "we all, looking on the glory of the Lord". It is a united movement, a united action, so to speak. The glory of the Lord is to be seen and known in some distinctive sense, that is His dominant relations amongst the saints and in every respect. And there is to be a change: "we all, looking on the glory of the Lord, with unveiled face"; not a question of a veil as under the old covenant, but with His face unveiled. Let us think of what the face of Jesus is and of what is disclosed in that face. Then it continues: "are transformed according to the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Lord the Spirit". A change goes on. Where is the change? In the saints. What kind of change is it? Something the Spirit effects, something which is unknown and unseen and never understood by the mere human mind, but which, as we grow in what is spiritual, we begin to see in the saints that we have never seen before. Wonderful experience for us! But it is really for God in what may appear in conformity to Christ as this point of "from glory to glory" is taken on. Dear brethren, these experiences are to be productive, to find an answer in ourselves, to bring out the quality of what God has in the assembly, that the assembly is always to be affected by some fresh presentation of Christ, and always to be affected by the glory of His Person, and always to be ready to come into things on the basis of seeing them presented to our hearts and our renewed minds, helped as we are by the Spirit Himself to discern what the Lord may have in mind at any particular time. May this quicken our expectancy, beloved brethren, on every occasion, that in some sense the glory of the Person of Christ is operative amongst us to bring this great change about not from degradation to glory, as Mr Taylor sen reminded us, but from glory to glory, as if continual increase is in mind in view of the soon-coming moment when we go to be with Him. May God bless the word.

 

LONDON

19 June 1976