THE SERVICE OF THE LORD JESUS IN RELATION TO COLLECTIVE SETTINGS
P. Martin
John 12: 1–8; 13: 1–8, 31, 32; 20: 19–23
These three passages refer to the presence and service of the Lord Jesus in a setting of what is collective, where He is loved. John’s gospel presents the Lord Jesus as we have been reminded already, moving through a scene of hatred and contrariety.
John is a little like the priest in Numbers 10, where Moses was told to make two silver trumpets of beaten work. We did not read it, but we might just look at it—“And Jehovah spoke to Moses, saying, Make thee two trumpets of silver; of beaten work shalt thou make them; and they shall serve for the calling together of the assembly, and for the journeying of the camps” (Numbers 10: 1, 2). When John writes his gospel, as we know he is one of the last writers in the Scriptures, if not the last, and he writes in the light of the coming tide of apostasy, and he sounds out two silver trumpets; Paul does that too. Paul sounds out two silver trumpets to the Corinthians and he sets before them the principles of the house of God. Then in 2 Timothy he sets before the believer in a broken day how he should proceed. The silver trumpets are for the gathering together of God’s people and to rally them to where the Lord is, and to the truth.
John does that here in this gospel. He begins the gospel with the knowledge of divine Persons; “In the beginning was the Word”, John 1: 1. I would like you to lay hold of that. We have had reference to it already today; “In the beginning was the Word”. Whatever else comes in, whatever else has come in, that remains unchanged and unchangeable; “In the beginning was the Word”. It is a little like Moses, when he wrote his first book he says “In the beginning God”, Genesis 1: 1.
Our young people are moving through a scene in which the presence of God is denied, the existence of God is denied, the deity of Christ is denied. The scene of apostasy has come in like a flood, but what John wrote and what Moses wrote stands; “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God”. That is a great foundation upon which you can rest your soul. It is unassailable and unquestionable. He was there before time. I remember a beloved brother in London used to remind us, He was there in the beginning before there was a beginning. Before anything had a beginning, the One who we now know as our Lord Jesus was there. What a blessed Person!
We have been speaking of Him already today, speaking of Him as the One who is there in divine counsel and divine purpose, and the centre of divine ways this blessed glorious Person. John says, “the Word became flesh”, John 1: 14. What a wonderful stoop, that that blessed Person who was there before there was creation, indeed He gave existence to creation, should come, and “the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us”. John says in his epistle, “That which was from the beginning, that which we have heard ... and our hands handled, concerning the word of life” (1 John 1: 1); that is not the creational beginning, that is the beginning of all that centred in Christ as coming into manhood. Right at the beginning of that pathway there was He who was so distinctive, marked out from every other in His glory; moving here in lowly humility, but nonetheless glorious, as the magi from the east gave witness, “we have seen his star”, Matthew 2: 2. There had been none other about whom that could be said, but the One who was none less than the Creator; the Word becoming flesh.
John goes on in his gospel, he is taking up material in his ministry. In chapter 1, we have been reminded of it already today, persons say to the Lord Jesus, “where abidest thou?” He says “Come and see” (John 1: 38, 39). Have you been, have you answered to the invitation young people, and perhaps those of us who are not so young, have I answered to the invitation? He would invite you today, “Come and see”. Not here in Bethlehem, no, not in Nazareth, no, but a Man in the glory, and the word to you and to me beloved brother and sister is, Come and see where He abides, the hymn writer takes it up;
‘Thou abidest in the bosom
Of the Father’s love’ (Hymn 127)
We do not need to ask the question for the invitation stands in all its distinctiveness; “Come and see”. We shall never move here rightly in the scene of His rejection unless we have on our view the glory of the Man who is there in the presence of God. Everything is established in that blessed Person, everything for God and we can say through grace, most of us here, that everything for us is centred in that blessed Man; what a Man!
Then John goes on in chapter 2 to the marriage at Cana of Galilee and the wine being deficient. And so it is when everything is held on a natural line, it runs out. Persons may anticipate marriage, or may have just been married, I do not know, but if it is only held on natural affection, (of course natural affection must be there and it must be pure) but if it is only held by what is natural eventually dear friend it will need something else, and that something was there in the Man of John 2. I would say to myself and to perhaps each of us, questions do come up in the best of marriages and maybe we do not always see things eye to eye; kneel down and pray about it, bring the Lord into it. If the wine has run out bring the Lord into it; speak to Him about it and when you get up off your knees everything looks different. There is a dignity in the fellow-heirs of the grace of life (1 Peter 3: 7). The standard is set out for us in Christ and the assembly and there is no breakdown in that relationship and there is the resource in the Man of John 2, and in the presence of the Spirit, to maintain our relationships in what they should be.
In chapter 3 it goes on to speak of Nicodemus, the Lord Jesus is taking a man up, not on the basis of what is natural, but on the basis of the sovereign operation of the Spirit, and that man, although he does not shine in the gospel, he shines at the end. What a wonderful thing that the work of God, that had been sovereignly begun by the operation of the Holy Spirit, comes into expression in a person who identifies himself with one who comes and demands the body of Jesus. I love that expression as to Joseph of Arimathaea, it says he “demanded”, John 19: 38.
Then in chapter 4 we have that woman. These are all persons who the Lord Jesus is taking up in view of what is collective in whom He is going to work out and secure something for Himself. But in chapter 4 we have that woman to whom He speaks of the living water; “If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that says to thee, Give me to drink, thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water” (John 4: 10). What richness of supply is available in the gift of the Holy Spirit as we have been speaking of it already today, and the result in that woman’s soul was, “Come, see a man who told me all things I had ever done”. “Come, see a man”; that is the Man of John 1, the Man of John 2, the Man of John 3. He was the Man of John 4 and He became the Man of John 5. The man who said “I have not a man” (John 5: 7), he had Him there right in his presence, the glorious Person who was gathering up material to have its part in the assembly.
All that leads up to what we have in John 12 because the Lord Jesus has been working formatively. He is not taking up persons that were born into their place; none of us were born into Christianity. Young people, you have been born into a Christian house and you may be in the most favoured Christian house that there is, and you can thank God for it, but you have to come into the experience of a link with the Lord Jesus yourself, and that is really why I have touched on these persons; they had to do with the Lord themselves and He took them up individually. We come into things individually each one of us. Not just because we have sat under the sound of our parents’ teaching, precious as that is and valuable as it is, but we have to come to know the Lord Jesus ourselves individually; as those persons that we have spoken of already, they had to come to know Him, and what a Person He is to come to know. There is no one to compare with the glorious Saviour who is portrayed in the scenes of John’s gospel, taking up one and another, unlikely persons, securing them and holding them for the assembly. They are persons like you and me, unworthy, disreputable by nature, but He is taking them up in view of the assembly and He is giving the gift of the Holy Spirit. How wonderful it is that the gift of the Holy Spirit should be known by men, who turn in repentance towards God, and put their faith in our Lord Jesus, and ask for and will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. What a wonderful gift that we who were once afar off should be brought nigh and given the gift of a divine Person. I cannot understand it! It is beyond man to apprehend its greatness and yet we have come into the blessedness of it through divine grace.
Now we come to John 12. The Lord Jesus has had to do with these persons individually, preparing them for the company. In chapter 12 it is a company where He is loved, in chapter 13 it is a company in which He is glorified and in chapter 21 it is a company in which He has confidence. It is a wonderful thing; in chapter 12 He is loved. “Mary therefore, having taken a pound of ointment of pure nard of great price, anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped his feet with her hair, and the house was filled with the odour of the ointment”; what a moment this was! The Lord Jesus came to Bethany no doubt with His disciples, and He came there and “they made him a supper”. We are privileged dear brethren to constantly have gatherings together, it is a wonderful favour. I can remember when I was younger not thinking that it was a privilege to be together, but God wrought in my soul and gave me the gift of the Holy Spirit, and I began to appreciate being in a company in which the Lord Jesus was made everything of and we have had some experience of that today that the Lord Jesus has been the centre; “they made him a supper”. This is not the Supper as presented in 1 Corinthians, but it is the outgoing of affection for Christ that makes everything of Him. That is the object for which we assemble together, whether it be for the prayer meeting, or whether it be for the care meeting, or the reading, the object of our coming together is that Christ should have that which He longs for, for His own affections. How worthy He is of it!
But I want to come to Mary because she anointed His feet. It says here, she “anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped his feet with her hair” and the Lord Jesus says as to her, “Suffer her to have kept this for the day of my preparation for burial”. The Lord Jesus had in the company someone who had His mind, who was in sympathy with His mind and where He was going and what He was going to effect. There was that there in the company as deriving from His headship and in full sympathy with Himself. The Lord Jesus looks for that in the gatherings together of His people. We can thank God that in some measure He has in the hearts of His people those that know what He is about to do, and where He is going, and what He is going to work out in the winding up of this dispensation and the ushering in of others. Those that have gone before us in previous dispensations will come to appreciate that all they entered into by faith, centred in a Man who is the centre of God’s world. Dear brethren, dear young person and older one, we have come in through grace to have a link with a Man who is the centre of God’s world. He has gone that way through death and burial, a striking word here, she “kept this for the day of my preparation for burial”; His preparation for burial. Burial did not belong to Him. That order of man in which He moved here in absolute perfection did not need of itself to go out of sight, but there was one who realised that if there was going to be an answer secured for God He must go that way for her, and for us, and she anointed Him in order that every man might be removed and that Christ Himself should have a company of men that take character from Himself, persons in whom He can secure His thoughts, as He does with Mary.
You will notice that from this incident here in John 12 the Lord Jesus goes into Jerusalem and is owned as the One who is worthy to reign. He has an answer in the company and from that answer He goes forward into Jerusalem, the city in which He was going to be rejected. There is the witness to what He will be in a day to come, but at this time as it says, “thy King cometh, sitting on an ass’s colt”, John 12: 15. Think of the One who will yet ride into Jerusalem in majesty, who will yet take up His rights in Jerusalem. But He rode into Jerusalem here to be rejected publicly but He moves forward as having an answer to His affections privately in the company.
When we come to John 13 the Lord Jesus is washing their feet. The Lord had taken them up, and His work that He was going to accomplish on the cross was in view of what the Lord Jesus says here; they had been washed judicially, but they needed to be refreshed in the scene in which they were. This simple act drove out the opposition. The Lord Jesus brought into that company in serving His own in such lowliness, an atmosphere in which the opposition could no longer stay. He “lays aside his garments, and having taken a linen towel he girded himself, then “ he pours water into the wash-hand basin, and began to wash the feet of the disciples, and to wipe them with the linen towel with which he was girded”; what a service! The Lord Jesus does that. We are moving through a scene of great corruption and defilement and we need to be constantly kept from that which would appeal to us, and the enemy knows how to appeal, as he did to Eve so he would do so to us. He knows how to appeal because he is seeking to rob Christ of His portion. Oh I say to my own soul and to you dear young person, hold yourself for the Lord Jesus, hold yourself for Jesus.
The man in John 9 was such a testimony to the Lord Jesus that the world had no place for him. He was so fully identified with Christ that the world said we do not want you we will cast you out, if we are going to be true to the Lord Jesus we shall face what it is to be cast out by the world and it is a blessed thing when it happens. Some of us like to be popular. We do not like it when persons say things against us, or do not want our company, I know what it feels like, and many more do far much more than I do. That man’s blessing lay in the fact that because he identified Himself with Jesus the world had no room for him. It is a sober thing if we fit into the world. Whether it be the religious world or the commercial world or whatever it be, it is a sobering thing if the world has room for us and we fit in. We are to be moving here in the footsteps of the Lord Jesus who left us a model. He is the One that suffered, leaving us a model that we should follow in His steps. What steps they were! John’s gospel as we said is full of references to a rejected Jesus. Are you prepared dear friend, through love for Him, to be identified with Him in His rejection?
The Lord Jesus here washes their feet in order that they might be refreshed and kept while moving through such a scene. Then Judas goes out and the Lord Jesus says, “Now is the Son of man glorified”. Think of Him saying that in that company. They had just experienced something that had shaken them. They had said as it says in another gospel “Is it I?”, Mark 14: 19 They must have been quite shaken by what happened. But the Lord Jesus says immediately “Now is the Son of man glorified”. He was glorified in a company in which evil could no longer remain, glorified in a company in which what was against Himself had to leave. “Now is the Son of man glorified, and God is glorified in him”. God was glorified in this blessed Man because He had secured there in those men surrounding Him, whom He had served, that which was identified with Himself, and in which the enemy could no longer remain. God was glorified in that Man. How wonderful! What a vessel the assembly is, what a vessel we have been called to have a part in, that here, moving through the wilderness in the scene of His rejection, there is that which is entirely of Himself, where darkness cannot remain and Jesus is glorified; “the Son of man” it says “glorified, and God is glorified in him”.
Now I come on to John 20, the Lord Jesus here a Man out of death. He comes to the company, the doors shut on the first day of the week. We are beginning to value the first day of the week more than ever. We come together and we come together in faith that the Lord Jesus will come, the doors shut through fear of the Jews and that the Lord Jesus will come and manifest Himself. There could be no greater privilege on the earth than to come and remember the Lord Jesus, and have faith that He will come and manifest Himself. We shall not need such a privilege eternally, no, we shall be with Him. He comes in and we move with Him and are accepted in Him before the Father. Very soon we shall be accepted with Him in the Father’s presence, wonderful thing, that He will take us right in to the very scene where His own belong in association with Himself. But at the moment these persons were gathered together, not despondently, but expectantly. They had had the message from Mary of Magdala, and they knew that if the Lord Jesus was risen that He would come to them. He had told them that He would come to them (John 14: 18), and they knew that He loved them so much that He would not pass them by, He would come. And they gathered in faith, and provided conditions to which He could come. And that is our responsibility right down until He comes, that we might provide conditions into which He can come and make Himself known. But then, coming in, He says to them “Peace be to you”. What a wonderful thing to be known in a scene of unrest; what Jerusalem must have been at that time in its tumultuous agitation as the psalmist speaks of it (Psalm 2: 1). Even before this when the Lord Jesus was facing death He says to His own, “I give my peace to you—not as the world gives do I give to you”, John 14: 27. He does not give peace and relinquish the enjoyment of it Himself; in giving His peace we come into that which He is enjoying, and that is what He was giving to the disciples, as He was facing going into death. He gave to them Himself the enjoyment of His peace, which He Himself was enjoying.
I remember Mr. Meek saying that when the disciples were in the boat and the sea was agitated and He was asleep on the cushion (Mark 4: 38), the disciples woke Him and it says He arose; Mr. Meek said He left the cushion there for us. How true that is you know, that there in the divine presence is not hasty agitation as we may find often, even among ourselves, in the divine presence is His peace. For Him it involved the enjoyment of that relationship that He had with the Father. He could say when all His works of power had been rejected, “I praise thee, Father, Lord of the heaven and of the earth”, Matthew 11: 25. You think of Him addressing the Father as Lord of the heaven and of the earth. The One who was in control of everything; in control of what was proceeding on the earth, securing men from the earth and leading them to Christ, drawing them to Him, the Father was in control, “Lord of the heaven and of the earth”. What peace there was in the enjoyment of that relationship! And when the enemy does his worst as he did to the Lord Jesus, and he is seeking right at the close of this dispensation, to do his worst to the testimony of our Lord, the Lord Jesus would assure us that His peace, that peace, settled and undisturbed, is available to us.
He comes in and He brings it with Him and breathes into them. He says, “as the Father sent me forth, I also send you”. What a wonderful thing that is! Here were these men, the eleven, they were the subject of His service, day after day, what patient grace the Lord had exercised towards them. At one point He says to them, “Have ye understood all these things?” (Matthew 13: 51), and they say, “Yea, Lord”. He shows them that they had not, and in patient grace went on as He does today and has done. Most of us would not be here if He had not. But He went on in patient grace and He says He is going to send these men forth, the product of His own work, send them forth into the scene of testimony. He had confidence in them. It is a wonderful thing that in the company where He is loved and in which He has been glorified the Lord Jesus is able to have confidence in His own. He breathes into them and He says, “whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted to them; whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained”. There was that here, as the subject of the inbreathing of the heavenly Man, that could act for Him. He had confidence that they would do what was right in the scene of His absence; what a wonderful thing that was! You might say that in the next chapter they all went away, they all went to fish. Had the Lord’s service been incomplete? no, He gathers them all, and how does He gather them? He asks them to come and dine. He had there the provision that would maintain an order of life out of death in relation to another world, it says, “Jesus stood on the shore” (John 21: 4). That is what they see, a Man who is the centre of another world, and He says “Come and dine” (John 21: 12). What wonderful grace!
We have been doing something of that today, the Lord has said to us, “Come and dine”, come and feed upon Me, the bread that God feeds on. He says, “I am the living bread which has come down out of heaven”, John 6: 51. Think of God feeding on that order of Man, finding what was so delightful to Himself. The Lord Jesus, right at this very point when He is just about to ascend, has that which he can share with His own. He was out of death, and had confidence in the company that they would move forward from this point. Indeed we see in the book of the Acts that they do. He says to them to just come and dine; feed on the same food that I am feeding on, not what belongs to this world. Young people do not fill your soul with the filth that this world offers, it is full of it. If you feed on filth you end up moving to the source of it. If by the Spirit, you feed on the bread that has come down out of heaven, you are prompted to move to the source of it—to God Himself!
Well I touch on these things to give us some sense of the Lord’s own valuation of what He finds in the company even in the midst of a scene of reproach and hatred, and in the midst of a scene of breakdown within. The Lord Jesus not only serves the company, but finds an answer in it that is for His own affections. May we have our part in it increasingly, for His name’s sake.
Address at Dundee
6 April 2012