THE OBJECTIVE SIDE OF THE TRUTH
[p. 307] THE OBJECTIVE SIDE OF THE TRUTH
Hebrews 12:1 - 4; Proverbs 4:25
I am thinking in reading these scriptures of the objective side of the truth. We often speak somewhat disparagingly of it, but chiefly because we have been neglecting what is called the subjective side of the truth. By observation I have come to see that objectivity is a word that expresses what covers much of the holy page, the holy teaching. It is said of the saints that they shall be all taught of God. That, of course, alludes to men, for it is hardly within our reach to speak of angels being the objects of teaching, although doubtless they are, but men are in mind. In all the realm of creation men are supreme in importance outside of divine Persons, of course. Angels, too, have a great place, but men are supreme. So that the Lord became Man, for He could hardly honour us more than becoming one of us; and when I say ‘us’ I do not forget the distinction that belongs to Him; but, nevertheless, He has become one of us. Hence, the human race has a dignity that no others have. When I say the human race I am not forgetting that many in it are reprobate and never will be saved, alas; but it is to stand. It is to remain. The Son having become one of us gives it a status and a standing and longevity that exceeds all others. We are eternal. In saying that I remind the brethren of the fact that life is in Him; it is said of Jesus, the Son, that in Him was life. Of course, in God is life, too; in the Spirit is life; the same could be said of each and all divine Persons; but of the Son it is said that in Him was life; that is, viewed as Man; and the life was the light of men. That is to say, the idea of it is made exclusive, that is, in a relative sense. Others, of course, have life; the angels live;
[p. 308] but it is not said that the life that was in Jesus was the light of angels. It was the light of men. I wish to connect this with what I have just remarked: the idea of objectivity. That is to say, that men being so honoured and so blessed should be given to see afar off.
Now we may say, Why see afar off? People are constantly looking up at the heavens, but the wonder is whether they really see; whether it is not more or less accidental that they do; whether they look at the heavens as if they were an object, an object to be studied and learned from is the question. So that men are so honoured and so blessed and so constituted, for it is said of us that we have the mind of Christ. I do not suppose that could be said of even the archangels, any of them or all of them if there are more than one. Men are the objects. “In him was life, and the life was the light of men”, John 1:4.
I want to show now, as I said, how this matter of objectiveness enters into this great matter, and that we should become, if we have not now become, able to see things afar off. If we do not, there is a moral reason; is it that we are blind in any sense, or short-sighted. The point is we have forgotten that we are purged from our former sins. It is a moral matter. Whilst we remember much financially and the like, politically, historically, the moral side is largely overlooked; and, hence, the forgetting of our former sins; perhaps not the immediate ones, but the former ones. We forget this. There are many abroad in the profession of Christianity in which people used to be forgiven, used to be and knew they were but now they have forgotten. They have forgotten that they were purged from their former sins, and, hence, they cannot see afar off; because the matter of our former sins extends away back as to space and time. Centuries have elapsed since our sins, our former sins were dealt with, dealt with by God. But people [p. 309] forget and do not think anything of it. You talk to people and they say, Well, I used to attend the gatherings of saints and enjoyed them, but I do not any more. Alas, alas! that you should say that, or have to say that; and even further, to have to say or admit that your former sins have been forgotten by you, but not by God. It is well, indeed, if they are forgotten by God, because the sins of real believers are forgotten by God. “Their sins and their lawlessnesses I will never remember any more”, Hebrews 8:12. He has deliberately forgotten them, but He does not expect that we should forget them; not in the sense of which I am speaking, at any rate. It is a moral defect if we have forgotten our former sins, and, hence, as I said, the importance of looking at a distance, dealing with things at a distance as God does. And looking, of course, making examination inwardly; but I am not speaking of that now. I am somewhat afraid to enlarge on it, because I know in the most cases the inward look causes distress and it should not. We are to call upon all that is within us to praise God. Well, if I am not able to look in I cannot say, “Not a cloud above, not a spot within”, as one singer says; not a cloud above. I have in mind to speak now about the above, the distance. As I said, I should not at all suggest that we should forget the looking within, but not to cause us distress.
It may be that it is not simply that we have forgotten that we are purged from our former sins, but that we do remember them and they cause us distress. They have never been settled with God. I did not intend to drift on to that line, but I am reminded of the widow of Sarepta; how she was reminded, she thought, by what happened in her house. Her son became sick and died and she blamed Elijah for calling her sins to remembrance. It was well that they were called to remembrance. Apparently she had forgotten them. They had not been settled, I [p. 310] would say; and I hope nobody here listening to me now will in any way construe what I am saying to mean that they should not remember former sins as not yet settled. It is much holier and happier and more wholesome to remember them even if they are not settled. One has hope for anyone who has committed sins and has not settled them with God if he recalls them. We should recall them. We should keep them in mind, because heaven is looking after that matter and expects that you should reflect what it is looking after; that if there are sins unsettled, they should be settled in the divine way, for God has set up a system in heaven, and it extends down to earth to deal with all kinds of sins, and particularly sins that have been committed and not settled; committed a long time ago, it may be, and the soul is hampered by them. It is sure to be. You look down instead of looking up, and when you lift up your countenance it does not shine. You would rather talk about current events here below than talk about God and Christ and about the saints.
Well now, as I said, I am speaking of objectivity, and the importance of it with God, and in a practical sense, and with the thought that no one should forget his former sins. And so here, what I am really thinking of in reading these few verses is, “looking stedfastly on Jesus”. I always feel that I have to turn to the New Translation on certain points so as to clarify what may be there. Now, the word ‘stedfastly’ is rendered, ‘It means, looking away from other things and fixing the eye exclusively on one’. Now, the authorised version, as you can see, hardly treats these words fairly. It says, “looking unto Jesus”. It is not looking unto Him; it is looking on Him. It is not a question here of looking to Him for guidance, but looking on Him. God looks on Him. “This is my beloved Son”, He said, when He was here on earth. He looked down on [p. 311] Him, and He looked up to God, too. But He looked down on His beloved Son as He was here on earth, and said, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I have found my delight”, Matthew 17:5. He was looking on Him, and that is the sense in which I would hope that the dear brethren will follow what I am seeking to say: “looking stedfastly on Jesus the leader and completer of faith: who, in view of the joy lying before him, endured the cross, having despised the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. For consider well ...” I want to read the translation of that word ‘well’ there, too. It says, ‘”weigh so as to judge its value”, and sometimes in comparison with other things’. So that you see what our minds are to take in now is looking well: “For consider well him who endured so great contradiction from sinners against himself”. And what for? “That ye be not weary, fainting in your minds”.
Now, I hope the dear brethren, not that I wish to say much as to what I am able to say, but I hope the dear brethren will just be aroused as to these words, because we have come to a time of great anxiety. Of course, we have been in this time for five and one-half years, but it is peculiar now, because there are other ways to look. We do not have to look to the immediate east any more, to Europe. We look in the other direction, of course, but our minds are divided; men’s minds are divided and rightly. But when you come to Christians, how is the division going to take place? We are creatures, of course, and not capable of very much, but what is bound to influence the world and nations and men in it is bound to influence us, too. But how? They have not any such words as these mentioned in these settings. They have not got them. We have them. We have these words, and we have them in a perfect setting. The Spirit of God has set them here in this book of Hebrews. The writer, I believe verily, as [p. 312] most of us do, was the apostle Paul. One can see his characteristics in the book and especially in the ardour in which he writes. It is a time for that; a time for ardour; a time for energy, and to see to it that we are able to look away; suppose we are looking towards the east. All is well there, because presently the Lord Jesus will come out of that point. He will come straight out of it. “For as the lightning goes forth from the east and shines to the west, so shall be the coming of the Son of man”, Matthew 24:27. So it was that the temple was set that way. Jehovah came in that way according to Ezekiel, and the Jehovah of Ezekiel is Jesus and He is going to come in that way again. We are told His feet shall stand on the mount of Olives. We are told that, but I am speaking now of this matter of the compass; the points of the compass, and how that the east is the line of hope. Evil has been coming in from the east, flooding into the west, but the Spirit of God has to say in all this. He has wrought wonderfully in our times, and has brought in objective truth. He has brought in prophetic truth which is all objective truth, because it is yet to come. It has to be viewed in that way. And then the truth of the assembly was brought in objectively. The Spirit of God wrought and brought things to us and wrote them all on that principle. The whole of Christendom was affected by the movement, the objective movement of God so as to enlighten the minds of Christians. God was aiming at the Christian, and hence in the early days we had ministry, prophetic ministry. We had that then. The Spirit of God began in those days with that. The meetings of the brethren — and this brings me down to practical things — they used to meet at first in a furniture shop in Dublin. St. Patrick’s was there and, of course, many other churches, but they did not select any of those churches. They were diverted. The Spirit of God diverted them. The voice of the [p. 313] Spirit was heard in that hall and in many other like it through the western world; not much in the east. And the word was, “For where two or three are gathered together unto my name, there am I in the midst of them”, Matthew 18:20. The Lord said that thousands of times in those days in little gatherings, in little rooms, furniture shops and grocery stores and the like; empty ones, but filled with brethren. The Lord told them — we love to think of it: “Where two or three are gathered together unto my name, there am I in the midst of them”. And again the Lord would say, “And behold, I am with you all the days, until the completion of the age”, Matthew 28:20. The brethren never tired of those wonderful phrases or verses.
Well, then, I must not descend. I want to keep to my point. The Spirit of God kept the brethren looking up and looking out. I have already spoken of the objective in the sense of prophetic ministry, prophetic ministry in the sense of dealing with future events. They had great meetings, large meetings in Dublin as to prophecy: Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel and all the minors were constantly under review. And, therefore, the whole matter was opened up to them; other minds, other spiritual minds; the whole matter was opened up; the whole matter of prophetic testimony was opened up and the brethren began to see where they were. You say, Why do you use that phrase? It is for each of us to understand where he is; where he is spiritually and morally, because each of us will have to give an account of himself to God as to everything, and particularly as to these matters I am speaking of: what God is ministering to His people. It is for each of us to challenge himself as to where he is in regard of God and in regard to the assembly, in regard to the place of meeting. That is how the matter took form, and it is going on today right here, and elsewhere, I know.
[p. 314] So, as I said, the heavenly side of the truth was another great feature — that the brethren began to look up to heaven. In the early patriarchal days God took Abraham out and said, Look up to the heavens, Genesis 15:5. He pointed him up to the heavens for a purpose. He pointed him to the heavens, and so God has done it in our day, and now the question is for you young people here as to where you are looking; as to whether you have learned to look up. The Psalmist says, as we have often remarked, “I lift up mine eyes unto the mountains: whence shall my help come? My help cometh from Jehovah, who made the heavens and the earth”, Psalm 121:1,2. That is where he looked for the help, you see, and that is where we can, too. But then we must not forget, as I said before, that the Spirit of God is here. He is here. We do not have to look up for Him. Before Pentecost He was in heaven, of course. He was here in a sense, too. He was here in Jesus but not in others. It is when Jesus went up to heaven that the Spirit of God came down and indwelt others, and He is indwelling others now; and that is another thing I have to challenge myself about, as to whether I know I have the Holy Spirit. Let everyone challenge himself as to that. It becomes an objective thing in the sense of which I am speaking of it, that the Spirit is objective. If I have not got Him I cannot regard Him as in any sense objective in me. He is there in others. I can look out on others and in on myself, but I want to look into myself and prove. They did it at Ephesus. Paul says, “Did ye receive the Holy Spirit when ye had believed?” Acts 19:2. They had to inquire if they did and they soon got Him. You do not have to wait for it — the blessed Spirit, if you find out you have not got Him and you turn to God about it. “How much rather shall the Father who is of heaven give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?” Luke 11:13. Think of that.
[p. 315] Well now, to return to this matter of objective truth, as I said, “Looking stedfastly on Jesus the leader and completer of faith: who, in view of the joy lying before him, endured the cross, having despised the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. For consider well him who endured so great contradiction from sinners against himself, that ye be not weary, fainting in your minds”. I am shut out from others, you see. Think of what is happening on earth. At times I cannot even look at the papers in which they are spoken of — the things that have happened, but turn away with sorrow and with grief that it is possible for human beings to treat one another in such a way. But I have to learn to look away even from that, and look stedfastly on Jesus. I shall never get any good from looking at these sorrows; not that I do not feel with men, but I am now speaking of the subjective matter and how I can steer my eyes that way, to look that way, so to speak, and no other way; no other way at all. That is the meaning of this passage. And then to see what is happening or what has happened in that precious Person; what has happened in Him. There is so much there as to exclude from my mind altogether everything: sorrows, whatever they may be; misery, without the words to speak of them. The point here is; see what happened in Him. We are to look stedfastly on Him, “Jesus the leader and completer of faith: who, in view of the joy lying before him, endured the cross, having despised the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God”. I have to look at all that. Think of it, dear brethren. It is my privilege to look on all that in the objective sense; what has happened in that Person, and what has happened remains there in its effect for me to feed on for ever and for ever, what has happened there.
I just take the liberty of running down the page a [p. 316] little. The first thing to be noted particularly is that He is the Completer, the Leader. The word ‘leader’ means ‘author’. The word ‘leader’ here is said to mean one who sets a thing on; one who is the originator of it. The Lord Jesus is the Originator in Himself of faith. You may look back and say Habakkuk spoke of it. You may say, Abel had it, and Abraham had it, but none of these was the author of it. Think of the importance, the magnitude of the importance of a person being the author of faith. Well, look into it then. Examine it. He is the Person; He is the Author of it. It is from Himself; it has come out of Himself, and He is the Completer of it. He has run the whole course of it, and I can look on Him. I hope you will not think, dear brethren, that I am stressing one thing too much. I hope not. There is a Person. He is in heaven now, said to be there. He has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. He is to be looked at. Now you can understand it is not as the disciples saw Him when He went up. It is while they looked on Him that He went up, but the cloud received Him out of their sight. But then that is not what I am talking about; I am talking about this matter of looking on Jesus in a spiritual way. As it says in the earlier part of this book, we are to look on Him. We are told in the early part of the book to look on Jesus in the sense of having accomplished redemption, but here we are to look on Him in view of examining, as I might say, analytically, if you will allow me to use that word, that there should be an analysis of this matter of faith, because it is a Person concretely; there is a Person whom you can see and see it there. It is there. He is the Author of the thing, but He has run the whole course of it, and the end of that course is that He has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. The word ‘sitting’ does not mean He is going to sit there for ever. He is not. He [p. 317] is active. He is there in the sense of being quiet, staid, for the moment here that we might look at Him. I am sure that what I am saying is capable of being understood, although I may be stressing some words too much, but I am stressing this: that the Person is to be looked at and the Holy Spirit in us as believers will impress you and stress that you should look at Him; that you should learn to do it and that you can look at Him analytically, so to speak, and see how this thing called faith is actually there; that it has begun there and that He has demonstrated it. He has walked in it to the end of it, until He has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
Then, the next thing that I venture to call attention to is, “who, in view of the joy lying before him, endured the cross, having despised the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God”. Now, look at what you can see spiritually; the enduring of the cross. Let my soul come up in activity at the thought of it, that He endured the cross. And what a cross! The forsaking of God. The cross was there. It was a gibbet. There were two others there. Physically it is a terrible thought, raised up on that gibbet; I suppose so as to be there with the other two. Think of it! You can look at Him. We are not called to look upon the other two, although they are there and we are glad to think of one of them who went up to heaven just immediately after Jesus. But think of Jesus, that we can look on Him. I cannot look on that man; he is a thief; but Jesus is the particular theme. Only Jesus can be spoken of in this way now, because He is the only One raised from the dead, and it is in Him all this can be seen. What I am stressing now is the terribleness of enduring the cross. But it was not simply that He was able to bear it, but there was joy in His heart. I cannot just put it too strong about what I am saying, but think of the sorrow that was there;
[p. 318] the forsaking of God, but the joy. I suppose we might say the Lord looked at all that objectively. You say, He felt it in Him. I think it is more accurate to say He looked at it objectively, the joy that was set before Him.
We have to learn to look at things objectively. The Lord Jesus had joy, but I should not be speaking of it exactly as experienced in His soul then because He was forsaken of God. It was terrible. But I can think of Him and see Him in the spiritual sense now as having endured all that. Think of what there is for the analysis, the spiritual analysis of the assembly, to go through all that. It is all there for us to look at, beloved; that the Lord Jesus was there enduring the cross. He was made sin. Who can understand that? Depict what that means? He was made sin. He who knew no sin was made sin. It was all so real and yet there it is. He is in heaven now and we can look at Him. “Looking stedfastly on Jesus”. We may say that. But here it is “Looking stedfastly”. Not on anything else, but just that one Person; looking stedfastly on Jesus who endured the cross, for the joy that was set before Him. He knew that. He knew it was set before Him. It was an incentive from the outset, but as I was saying I would prefer to think of it as objective in His own soul. He was thinking of what He was coming into at the moment He was enduring that awful cross; and then it is said further, “For consider well him”. That is, to value Him “who endured so great contradiction from sinners against himself”. You can look at Him from that point of view, the contradiction of sinners, especially Jews. How contrary they have become; contrary to all men, we are told, as if sin in that character was allowed to work itself out in them; the contrariness that the Lord Jesus endured: the contradiction from sinners against Himself, as if it were not against any other but Himself. As you [p. 319] look at that blessed Man, He has been through all that, and it is for our food. I am to partake of all that, as it were. The Lord Jesus speaks of our eating Himself, eating His flesh. I am only speaking of it in that sense; eating is appropriation, and if I look at it as to taking the thing in fully, it is appropriating that Man in the sense that He endured the contradiction of sinners against Himself.
And then, to just make a few more remarks because of the effect of it upon ourselves, “that ye be not weary, fainting in your minds”, because things are coming and coming against us in our circumstances. We are apt to faint, but this passage is to tell us, to show us we are not to faint because of Jesus. He is so brought before us. It is so vivid, the Spirit making it vivid, so that you can fix your eyes stedfastly on that blessed Man.
Then, just to enlarge on Proverbs 4:25, “Let thine eyes look right on, and let thine eyelids look straight before thee”. It is not looking up now. It is the path here. You learn to focus your eyes that way, as I was already saying; not looking up; I have already dwelt on that; but look straight on. Do not turn aside to the right or to the left. Hence, “Let thine eyelids look straight before thee”. I speak now to you young people, because you are so easily misdirected, turned aside by a little influence or something that happens, and you miss the great moment. The Lord is saying to us now, He is calling attention to the need of intentness and energy and purpose. All these organs of ours, whether it be the eyes or the feet — whatever it be, for they are mentioned, too — we are to see to it that we have proper balance and learn how to control ourselves. Flee youthful lusts. That is one of the things that helps the saints. Flee youthful lusts. “But youthful lusts flee, and pursue righteousness, faith, love, peace, with those that call upon the Lord out of a pure heart”, 2 Timothy 2:22. Do not forget them; do not be an isolated person; do not be a single unit unattached. God hates unattached people. Good enough if you are detaching yourself from something evil, but not to remain unattached, because you are exposed to the devil if you are unattached. You want to get attached to the Lord’s people. “Pursue righteousness, faith, love, peace, with those that call upon the Lord out of a pure heart”. That is all I had to say. You can see how this verse helps to recommend what I have been saying. “Let thine eyes look right on, and let thine eyelids look straight before thee. Ponder the path of thy feet, and let all thy ways be well-ordered. Turn not to the right hand nor to the left; remove thy foot from evil”. If it is touching it in the least measure, remove the foot. It is your member. You say, I am not doing very much harm. You know how to use the language to minimise wickedness, but it is wickedness. Remove your foot from it. Your foot belongs to you, and the Lord is saying, It belongs to Me, too, if you are Mine as you are. “Remove thy foot from evil”. That is the word, dear brethren. May the Lord bless it to us!