The Cross Of Christ
THE CROSS OF CHRIST
The cross of Christ has a double aspect; on the one hand it represents God's judgment of man in the flesh—and a very severe and unsparing judgment it is; on—the other hand it represents the world's estimate of Christ and of those who are true to Him. These two aspects are closely connected, and the more we are true, in our own souls and in our walk, to the cross of Christ as the expression of God's judgment of man in flesh, the more we shall come into reproach and rejection from this world. The world is made up of man and his will; his ambition and his independence of God and His glory. Jude refers to those who speak great swelling words, having men's persons in admiration because of advantage. That is very characteristic of the world, and any one who appreciates the cross of Christ would completely disallow anything of that kind. He would not permit the very beginnings of it in his own soul; it would be entirely contrary to the bearing of the cross of Christ. Thus his very movements and attitude become a condemnation of the world, and he experiences the same character of reproach and rejection as Christ had. He finds that the result of carrying in his soul the cross as representing God's judgment of man, and being true to it, is that he comes in for the world's judgment of Christ; the world has the same contempt for him as it had for Christ. Paul says, “God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world”: the judgment was reciprocal. He judged the world in the light of the cross of Christ, and the world judged Paul according to what its estimate of Christ was.
Now it is not all at once that we arrive at these things, and the section of the book of Numbers from chapters 11 to 21 has in mind that God's people should learn by experience what the flesh is in themselves. It was not a question of God having to discover it, for He knew it from the outset, but it was necessary for His people to discover it, in order that they might learn how God had dealt with it in the cross of Christ. We find, when we come to chapter 21, that the children of Israel “journeyed from Mount Hor by way of the Red sea, to compass the land of Edom: and the soul of the people was much discouraged because of the way”. Edom was their brother, and a most unreasonable brother he was, as we may read from the previous chapter. Israel had only requested that they should be allowed to go through his territory; they promised to keep to the king's highway; they even promised to pay for any water they drank; nevertheless Edom refused to give them passage.
What God had in mind in setting Edom in proximity to Israel was that by Edom's contrariness and unreasonable attitude, the flesh in Israel should prove itself. And therefore it may be that sometimes in God’s ordering we find ourselves set amongst some who are a great test to us; but what has God in mind in it? God did not say a word about Edom; He would deal with Edom in due time. If we want to know what God thinks about Edom we can read Obadiah and Amos and others of the prophets. The whole point was that His people might discover, in the presence of what was so unreasonable, the true character of the flesh in them.
It says, “the soul of the people was much discouraged ... and the people spake against God, and against Moses, Wherefore have ye brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? for there is no bread, neither is there any water; and our soul loatheth this light bread”: a most terrible conclusion. Christ as the manna was loathed; that is what the flesh is capable of. And so it says, “The Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people; and much people of Israel died”. God was bringing home to the people what was the source of the murmuring and the loathing of the light bread; it originated from the serpent; the poison of the serpent was in them, and could not be eradicated. It is a solemn thing for us to come to, that the poison of the serpent is in our flesh, and cannot be removed. It is what we are in flesh, as it says in Romans 8: “The mind of the flesh is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God; for neither indeed can it be: and they that are in flesh cannot please God”. A most solemn thing it is to discover it in ourselves!
That is what they had to realise and then God set before them His remedy. They cried to Moses and asked him to pray to Jehovah that He would take away the serpents from them, but God met the difficulty in another way. He did not remove the serpents, for it is not a question of mending the flesh or improving it; it is a question of judging it and setting us up in Christ by the Spirit. And so God told Moses to make a serpent of brass and put it on a pole, and everyone who looked upon it lived. We know what answers to that, for we read the Lord’s own words in John 3:14, “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, thus must the Son of man be lifted up, that every one who believes on him may not perish, but have life eternal”.
The Son of man is a title of the Lord Jesus as the One who has come in as Man to fill out all God’s thoughts for man; but before He could do that, He must take up and remove all that lay upon man. Man being what he is, the Son of man must be lifted up on the cross. He must, as made sin, endure the judgment of God against sin, so that sin in the flesh might be condemned, as it says in Romans 8, “God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh”. Now that is set before us objectively in the cross of Christ. There was a divine necessity that the Son of man should be lifted up, but divine love also entered into it, for “God so loved the world, that he gave his only… begotten Son”, John 3: 16. So there is the love of God, and there is the love of Christ in it too—a twofold lever, as power in our souls to accept the truth. The answer to the look of faith, by which the truth is accepted, is life eternal, and this is in the Spirit. That is how God has met the position. He has set us in Christ, in the life of another Man—for the Spirit is the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus, and with power to move in accordance with that life. From this point they journeyed; they no longer wandered. It is a point reached in the soul from which there is definite progress. So it says, after introducing certain intermediate journeyings, “And from thence to Beer: that is the well of which Jehovah spoke to Moses, Assemble the people, and I will give them water”. Now this is evidently an allusion to the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit viewed collectively. We have to learn the gain of the Spirit individually, which is what is in mind in John 3, “Whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life”; but the springing well in Numbers 21 is the Spirit recognised collectively as the only power for life and freshness and living ministry when we come together. And so it says, “Then Israel sang this song”. They all sang it. “Rise up, well! sing unto it”.
The cross of Christ has thus removed all that was offensive to God, while the Spirit brings in what is for His pleasure in man and provides what is living and refreshing for the people of God.
LONDON
From Words of Truth 1952
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