THE REVELATION OF GOD
“And the word became flesh, and dwelt among us (and we have contemplated his glory, a glory as of an only-begotten with a father), full of grace and truth.”
Last week we endeavoured, from the three scriptures we read, to bring before you the wonderful fact—the wonderful truth that the Lord is a divine Person—a divine Person and God. In John 1: 1 we are told: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God”. Now, it is this same Person of whom we wish to speak to you tonight; but we shall speak of Him as incarnate. That is why I have read this verse. It is the one verse in the Bible that declares the truth of incarnation—“And the Word became flesh”—that is the truth of incarnation, and we would remind you again of that term “flesh”. It is a term of condition, and further, it stands in the Bible not for angelic condition, but for human condition, and we want to speak of the blessed Lord tonight as incarnate, as having become Man. “The Word became flesh”.
I am conscious of the greatness of what we are attempting—conscious, too, of my own inability, but I count on the Lord to help me by His Spirit. I have found out this—that if the Lord, in the truth of His Person, is our theme—the subject of our hearts, we may count upon the help of His Spirit. You know what the Lord said later on in this gospel. “He shall glorify me: for he shall ... receive of mine, and shall shew it unto you”, John 16: 14. One might be so bold as to express it thus, with infinite freedom and delight—the Spirit of God glorifies Him.
Now, beloved, that our thoughts may be in some measure in order, I should like to speak of the Lord as having become flesh, and I should like to speak of Him in relation to man, and in relation to God. There are expressions—names—divinely given titles, applied to Him in scripture, that present Him in special relation to man. Perhaps the first distinctive title given to Him in scripture is the seed of the woman. He is the seed of the woman, and the Holy Spirit in the progress of scripture never forgets it. If He is the seed of the woman in the very first statement from God about Him (and it is God’s statement, it is God’s testimony about Him), we find, beloved, as I have said, the Spirit of God maintains it. You find it in Isaiah. He is the virgin’s Son—a virgin shall conceive; a virgin shall bear a Son.
So, when you come to the New Testament take that lovely account (for exquisitely lovely it is) in the opening of Luke. Take the interview of Gabriel with the virgin Mary and his language in connection with it. How perfectly beautiful it is! He first tells her that she was to have a child, and further, when she in holy grace (for there was no spirit of demurring, or any expression of unbelief) says, “How shall this be?” (chap 1: 34) the angel says, “The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God”.
There is another beautiful and very distinct expression in this connection about the Lord in Galatians 4. “When the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son”—mark—“made of a woman”, Gen 4: 4. I do not know whether the beauty of it has struck you, and whether the wonderful wisdom of God in connection with it has impressed you. We know the weak point in the creature of sin—the woman; the devil did not begin by attacking Adam, by gaining a point of vantage over Adam, he began with the woman, and scripture notes it. Look at 1 Timothy 2: 14 in the New Testament. Has the Holy Ghost forgotten it? Never. He speaks unmistakably about the woman. She was the first in the transgression, she was the one deceived, and so on. Now, beloved, there is something very beautiful in this. If Satan had apparently obtained a victory and gained a point of vantage in connection with the woman, what does Jehovah say? He says, as it were, ‘I will meet you, I will more than match you. Have you deceived the woman? Have you gained an apparent triumph through the woman? The woman’s seed shall bruise your head’.
What a beautiful thought that is! Let me emphasise this point a moment in this way—that in speaking of the Lord as the woman’s seed—the virgin’s Son—that holy thing, as the angel Gabriel said to the virgin Mary, that shall be born of thee—made of a woman—God’s Son made of a woman—made under the law. What is the point? Special connection with man as such. And the more you ponder the wonderful fact of the incarnation, and all the details given us in Luke in respect of it, the more it will impress you, because if there was to be established a link between God and man, it must be in connection with the woman. That is the point. I venture to enlarge a little on this point. I do not know how far we have studied it. What I mean by studying it is looking at it in the light of scripture; not imagining anything, not thinking out of our own minds, but how far have we turned it over in the light of scripture, because (to go back a moment) we know man was created in the likeness and image of God and there was the whole order of creation, and it involved not simply responsibility on the part of man, but it involved claim and right on the part of God. Man’s responsibility and God’s rights are inseparable. In the very nature of things they are inseparable, because man is God’s creature, and if he is a moral, intelligent, responsible creature, God has constituted him such. There was all the question of the glory of God, the rights of God, the claims of God, involved with the responsibility of man as created by God and placed herein the likeness and image of God—placed here responsible to represent God in all His creation; and accordingly what do you find? You find very early in the Old Testament God begins to assert His claim to the earth, and when God speaks of Himself as the God of all the earth, you do not imagine, do you, that it is a depopulated earth?
There is nothing material about God. God is a Spirit, He is ever and always a Spirit, and He has His claim and He begins early to assert His claim. The further you read in Genesis the more the assertion of claim on the part of God stands out. You must be satisfied with my just touching this point, but look at Israel after God took them up in a distinct way.
Take the point of their crossing the Jordan with the ark. The ark was everything for them in crossing the Jordan. When they got there it was the time of barley-harvest, and it was full; and there could not have been any passage of the Jordan but for the ark. How is that ark spoken of? It is the ark of the God of all the earth. I am bold to say when God took that people into that land, that in putting that people into possession of that land God was giving expression to His right and title to all the earth. Let me give you one more very striking scripture. I am tempted to read it to you. It is at the end of Revelation 4. “Saying, Thou art worthy, O our Lord and our God, to receive glory and honour and power; for thou hast created ALL things, and for thy will”—mark that: what does that mean? It means for God’s purpose—for God’s satisfaction, and for God’s delight—“and for thy will they were and they have been created”. Now, beloved, I speak simply; we are familiar at least with the statements as to the consequences of sin on the part of man—how it dragged the whole system of creation here into ruin. Romans 8: 22 expresses it, “the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now”. Even the creation as such is represented in a state of bondage—bondage to corruption. Now, we know that we are a heavenly people. I wish we knew it better! I am sure it would be a wonderful thing for us if we did know it better! Our calling is not to the land of Canaan, our calling is on high—not here. We are “holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling”. In 1 Corinthians 15 we find—“the first man out of the earth, made of dust; the second man, out of heaven. Such as he made of dust, such also those made of dust; and such as the heavenly one, such also the heavenly ones”, Cor 15: 47. That is blessedly true. But there is another side, and I sometimes think that even in the little measure in which we may have apprehended the heavenly side of things in Christianity, we have perhaps been disposed to lose sight of the other side, and I just now want to recall you to it, and to speak a little of incarnation, “The Word became flesh”. A divine Person enters into human condition and is found here as a Man. How marvellous! He is the “seed of the woman”, the virgin’s Son, the root and offspring of David, “the holy thing that shall be born of thee”, God’s Son, made of a woman—and as the seed of the woman He has taken up everything connected with the responsibility of man; He has taken up everything connected with the rights and claims and glory of God. If you read merely the account in Genesis, it would seem as if the enemy just had what we call a ‘walk over’. He seemed to triumph so easily. He did not seem to encounter any difficulty whatever; it looks as if man the moment he was tested fell, and we know what has come in. As the result of that, even in Genesis, what results do you find? Well, you find at least three things—toil, sorrow, death, and that before Cain comes forward. Then when Cain comes in you have another element—hatred, murder. Now look at Genesis 6. The Lord looks down and takes account of things. There comes a distinct moment when the Lord takes a definite account of man down here. What does God see? The whole scene is filled with corruption and violence. And what about God? It grieves His heart. Think of that! Scripture says that God is grieved in His heart, and it goes so far as to say He repented He had made man upon the earth. Then follows the flood. Oh, beloved, it would seem for the moment like a complete triumph of the enemy. Not a live man is to be seen, Noah is alive, but he is not seen, he is hidden in the ark, and the rest—but outside the ark it is just one unbroken scene of death. But has the enemy scored a triumph? Not he. He will never triumph when it comes to God’s will. It is a foregone conclusion that the victory is with God. What about the woman’s seed? God had not overlooked that when He sent the flood. Oh no! You may go through all the dark, sorrowful, painful history that went on for four thousand years. But oh, beloved, Christ comes in! Christ comes to take things up in connection with the earth and in connection with the responsibility of man and of all the rights and claims of God. He takes it all up. Time would not admit going into detail, but let me ask, have we thought of, have we pondered how Christ came in to take up every question for God? You first get Adam in innocence but in responsibility. Then you get man sinful, but still in responsibility. Then God takes up Abraham, takes up the children of Israel, takes up the Jews—still in responsibility. It is breakdown with Adam, breakdown all through—nothing but breakdown and failure. Then, thank God, Christ comes! “The Word became flesh”. He—that blessed One, came here, the seed of the woman, and He began at the very beginning. What a wonderful life was the life of the Lord Jesus Christ as Man down here! I see Him taking up every broken thread in all the history of man in responsibility. Adam and Noah, and Abraham and Isaac, and Jacob and the children of Israel—the whole thing—I see every thread taken up and every thread maintained. You and I may fail and be very seriously defective in our appreciation of the Lord Jesus Christ, but I can tell you of One who does not fail to appreciate Him—the One who opened the heavens above Him and said, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I have found my delight”, Matt 3: 17. The heart of God was filled with divine delight and joy.
“Ye shall find a babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger”, Luke 2: 12. What a sight for God! What a sight for heaven! The heart of God (may I say) cannot contain itself; it bursts out through the angelic heavenly host, “Glory to God in the highest, on earth peace, good pleasure in men”, v 14. “For thy glory they were, and they have been created”, Rev 4: 11. We might go into details but we have not time tonight, but oh, beloved, just think how God has been (I was going to say) at such infinite pains to write it all, not only from Genesis to Malachi, but from Matthew to Revelation, He has spread it thickly, brightly, gloriously upon the pages of scripture. Look at the Lord’s statement to the Jews: “Ye search the scriptures; for ye think in them ye have eternal life and they it is which bear witness of me”, John 5: 39. There they are—Genesis to Malachi, God’s testimony of that blessed One. They testify of Me. We seem to think it wonderful when someone maybe gets up and begins to unfold a little of Christ from the Old Testament. I tell you what I think is wonderful and that is, that our eyes and hearts are not full of Christ as He is seen from Genesis to Malachi! That is wonderful! But such is our feebleness.
Well, beloved, in the life of Christ God is glorified. Look at the record in the gospels of Satan’s temptation—how the Lord was subject to the direct effort and attacks of the enemy, but, oh, how beautiful it is to read it! Then afterwards there were Satanic agencies and instruments—Pharisees, Sadducees, lawyers, Herodians—religious men and politicians, and they all had a try, but He more than answered every one of them. He had the last word with everyone. In Matthew 22 we are told that after that no one durst ask Him a question. Every mouth was stopped, the mouth of Satan and his agents were closed. He did it. Ah, beloved, have you considered Him as a Man down here? We are apt to put responsibility on the Lord as if it were only on the cross, but He took up the responsibility in His life. There was the question of what sin had brought man into—death and judgment—the judgment of God. He took that up on the cross, but He took the question of responsibility up in His life also. Go to the mount of transfiguration. There see a Man who has a perfect title to live, and not only to live here. There is a Man who could have gone up from the top of the holy mount right straight into heaven. There He is—look at Him. Did He go up then? No. He came down from that mount of glory to die! By the grace of God He tasted death for everything. Had death any claim on Him? Oh, no; it had a claim on Adam and made its claim good. But here is a Man, beloved, on whom death has no claim, who knew no sin. “That holy thing”—holy, not innocent—One who had a perfect right to live upon God’s earth, for death had no claim on Him. Oh, how wonderful it is, beloved! There He is, I want to call your attention to Him. Just rapturously gaze upon, by the Spirit, that blessed, peerless Man. What does the Holy Ghost say of His life as a Man here?—“that eternal life which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us”. Look at what He was here! And then He died, that others might enjoy it with Him. He died, and established a title for others, that others beside Himself might have a title, and more than a title to live! And He died, beloved, that we might get the Spirit, and have the real, real might and enjoyment of it now. What do you think of that?
But let me speak a little more of Him as Man in relation to God. We have spoken of Him in relation to man. Now look at Him as a Man in relation to God, for there is a distinction there. There was a Man here, beloved—that blessed One, and that Man is great enough to reveal God. I delight in John 1: 18, “No one hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him”. Who has He declared? God. The Word as become flesh, He has declared God. Mark! it is the same divine Person that we have been looking at, but we are now looking at that divine Person in incarnation, as having become Man, and it is as having become Man that He declares God. It is as having become Man that He is the image of the invisible God. There could not be any image of the invisible God in a man until that blessed One, the Word—became flesh. The moment He became flesh, there is the image. He is the brightness, the effulgence, the outshining of God’s glory. Think of it! Oh, beloved, have you thus looked at Him? One would speak soberly, but if in any measure you have by faith seen His face, you need not fear to look at the face of an angel. Have you thus seen Him? He is the brightness of God’s glory, the exact expression of divine substance, and hence, beloved, He has declared God. In that blessed One as having become flesh God has been perfectly revealed. I am not forgetting that His death is the point where it all culminates. If you want the climax of the revelation of God in a Man, it is in that Man who hung upon the cross—that is the Man in whom God was revealed.
Have you thought of that? Oh, think of Him as Man! And then there is another point—think of a Man who fully answered to the God He revealed! There was a perfect answer in Him to God. That is why the Lord says what He does in John 17: 3: “And this is the eternal life, that they should know thee, the only true God”. If you ever know Him as the only true God, you will have to learn Him in that One—nowhere else. Are you what they call a student of nature? If you are, I am sorry for you, for you have no true knowledge of God. You may know something of the divinity and power of God in the visible things of creation, but God remains, unrevealed, unknown and unknowable, outside the Lord Jesus Christ. I do not wonder that men turn their backs on Christ and on the blessed revelation of God in Him, when with learned, educated eyes they begin to peer into creation. They tell you, “We have looked everywhere, and we do not know God, we cannot find Him”. No, of course they cannot. But oh, how wonderful it is to look at a Man who answered to God! What it must have been to God! What a wonderful thing that God had One here in whom He could reveal Himself—One in whom He could come out to man in all that He is as God, and yet, at the same time, One who as Man down here perfectly responded to the revelation of God. Does it tire you, beloved, to hear of Him? Some could sit for hours and hear about their blessings. They say, ‘How sweet it is to hear how wonderful our blessings are’. True! but have you got no further? Even Charles Wesley, who was a Methodist, got on to this—
Give me Thyself; from every boast,
From every wish set free;
Let all I am in Thee be lost,
But give Thyself to me.
Thy gifts, alas! cannot suffice,
Unless Thyself be given;
Thy presence makes my paradise,
And where Thou art is heaven.
Are you sure that you would feel at home if you went to heaven tonight? It is all Himself there. All are absorbed with Him there. Oh, beloved, we shall at last, thank God, if not before, get to the end of ourselves. We shall at last find ourselves in holy, heavenly liberty to be absorbed and occupied and taken up with Himself. I desire to speak soberly. I just begin to understand what Paul said, “Having a desire to depart and to be”—what? to be very happy up there with all the saints? No, “to be WITH CHRIST; which is far better”, Phil 1: 23. Oh, beloved, think of One great enough to be the revelation of God and great enough to respond to that revelation, and in response to fill the heart of the infinite and eternal God with delight. May the Spirit of God bring Him in all His glory and in all His beauty and in all His perfection as a Man before our hearts. May He really do it! I have only just touched this subject. I have only touched the fringe of it. But think of who He is and what He is! He is great enough for earth and He is great enough for heaven, and the time is coming when He will flood the universe of God with love, and light, and glory. He will. He will, and oh, beloved, what a marvellous thing it will be! and how wonderful to be taken up by Him, and to be in any way contributory to His glory. It is indeed marvellous!