APPREHENDING CHRIST
I have read these four scriptures, dear brethren, with the desire to bring before you four aspects, four settings, in which Christ may be apprehended by us. Each of them distinctive and each of them important in its place.
Exodus 16 gives us the manna; that is Christ as the food appointed by God for the wilderness. When one speaks of the wilderness one speaks of our position as in this world where Christ is not, and the ordinary circumstances of responsible life in which we have to move. We are here, I need not say, dear brethren, for the will of God; that is the only reason why we are here. We have been redeemed by the precious blood of Christ and God has in that way established incontestable right to each one of us in a most absolute way. He has in mind that we should be with Christ eternally, but for the moment, as regards most of us, He is pleased to leave us here; that is in His will, and it is well for us to understand that we are here for the will of God. We have no right to have any other object before us than that our position here in the world as redeemed is to be here for the will
of God. And so Romans 12 speaks of our presenting our bodies a living sacrifice unto God, “a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God” (v 1), and our not being conformed to this world, but being transformed by the renewing of our mind in order that we may prove “what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God”, v 2.
Well now our position as here in the wilderness for God’s will needs to be sustained, or rather, we need to be sustained in it. As in natural things, so in spiritual things, the principle of being sustained is by the appropriation of suitable food; and God in His grace has provided food for His people in the wilderness, food suited to that position. This chapter presents to us that, having been brought out of Egypt, they found themselves without food. Just before, in the previous chapter, they found themselves at Marah and the waters were bitter; and that is an experience which we often find—that, to be here for the will of God, we find that the circumstances that He orders in His will are not at all to our natural liking and may not be at all what we would have chosen or what we would have expected; so that bitterness in that sense confronts us. But then Moses cried to Jehovah and Jehovah showed him wood; not a tree, but wood, and he cast it into the waters and the waters became sweet. There is no doubt that
the wood refers to the manhood of Jesus; but in the circumstances which the will of God has appointed for us, it is a great comfort to see that the Lord Jesus Himself as having become Man entered into the ordinary circumstances of human life, sin apart, and went through those circumstances on the principle of uncompromising obedience to the will of God. As He is contemplated in those circumstances and marked by that principle, there is that which is attractive to the renewed mind, the renewed spiritual being. So the waters become sweet as made attractive by seeing the Lord in relation to the ordinary circumstances of human life. And so it was at Marah that God made them a statute and an ordinance and said, “If thou will diligently hearken to the voice of Jehovah thy God, and do what is right in his eyes, and incline thine ears to his commandments, and keep all his statutes, I will put none of the complaints upon thee that I have put upon the Egyptians; for I am Jehovah who healeth thee”, Exod.15: 26. That is, God has established this principle of obedience to His will as the principle which is now to govern a believer’s life; and as that principle is followed we will be immune from all the diseases, all the complaints, which mark people of the world. And so it is, dear brethren, that we find it so in experience, that the more we are simply governed by God’s will, the more
we are freed from anxiety, the more we are freed from discontent, the more we are freed from all the elements of bitterness which characterise the world around us. It is a great thing to see that as redeemed to God and in the world for His will the principle of obedience to that will in all things is the governing principle of a believer’s life.
But then, as I say, that needs to be sustained, or rather, we need to be sustained in relation to it; and the manna comes in as a presentation of Christ as food for our souls to sustain us in that position. The people when they murmured (I am referring to verse 6) were answered by Moses, who said: “In the evening, then shall ye know that Jehovah has brought you out from the land of Egypt; and in the morning, then shall ye see the glory of Jehovah”. Well now, in verse 13 where we read, it says, “And it came to pass in the evening, that quails came up and covered the camp; and then in the morning the dew lay round the camp. And when the dew that lay round it was gone up, behold, on the face of the wilderness there was something fine, granular, fine as hoar-frost, on the ground”. I believe at this point the quails were given by God in such quantities that they covered the camp in order that they might understand that God was quite able to do anything in the way of power to meet any exigency. But then that is not what He
wants us to learn. He does not want us to learn to expect great displays of divine power to operate on our behalf; that is not His way. He can do it if necessary—and will do it if necessary. He could show Elijah an earthquake and a fire and a wind in order to assure Elijah that, if it is necessary, He can use any power, absolutely irresistible by man, to accomplish His end. But then that is not His way, and therefore while in the evening they were allowed to see that divine power was there, it was divine power that got them out of Egypt.
Yet on the other hand, in the morning, they were to see something different, they were to see the glory of the Lord. And in this setting, there is no glory so great as the wondrous fact that He who is God Himself in grace became a Man and in wonderful grace entered into the ordinary circumstances of human life, sin apart, and moved in those circumstances in obedience and daily dependence and confidence in God, and contentment too; in order that as thus moving He might become the food and the support of His people. That is great glory indeed. It shows how wonderfully God can come down in grace and adapt Himself to the needs and exercise of His people, and how in doing that in type, He has in mind that Christ should become not only our food in wilderness circumstances, but that in the very appropriation of Him in those
circumstances, He Himself should become endeared to us.
And so we can understand that God said that there was to be an omer of this food, this manna, laid up before Him, He would have it before Him. In the 9th chapter of Hebrews we have Paul, the writer of the epistle, telling us what there was in the holiest, and he refers to the ark and he says, therein was “the golden pot that had the manna”, v 4. We are not told elsewhere that this was a golden pot, but in the speaking of it in the light of Christianity, it says it was a golden pot, as though he would emphasise the glory of it. But there are specific tests in connection with the wilderness circumstances of God’s people here of grace that has come down so low. As the hymn says, ‘Christ, once humbled here’ (Hymn 79); come down as a babe and grow up, and be a boy, and be subject to His parents, and work in conditions not attractive to the natural man, and all that kind of thing. And in those circumstances work and move daily on the principle of obedience and of dependence and of contentment.
So if anyone wants to understand something of the moral excellence of Jesus as Man here, I would commend to them not only to read the gospels but also to read Psalm 16, for instance, and other scriptures which give us an
understanding as we look at them carefully of the moral excellence that marked Jesus in His pathway here. And so there was this manna. It says, “And when the dew that lay round it was gone up, behold, on the face of the wilderness there was something fine, granular, fine as hoar-frost, on the ground”; something very small, something that being very small would fit in to any circumstances, and the more you test it out, dear brethren, the more you will find that the principle of obedience to God renewed daily, the principle of dependence on God coming into expression daily, that these principles will fit into any circumstance and lighten any burden.
And so, dear brethren, this is the first presentation of Christ that I desire to bring before you; not to go into much detail as to the manna as the hymn puts it so beautifully ‘Of Christ once humbled here’, but especially in the ordinary circumstances of human life in which we have to move according to God’s will. And I do not think we shall ever get very far in practical, effective, identification with God’s testimony, or in ability to move in privilege in the service of God if we do not know something of what it is to be here in the wilderness according to God’s will and for His pleasure. Indeed, I believe I may say that, morally speaking, feeding on the manna is like the development of acacia wood; that is, acacia
wood is figuratively the kind of manhood that can stand in the testimony. And if we are to develop the kind of manhood according to Jesus Christ that can stand in the testimony, we must know what it is to feed on manna and go through wilderness circumstances as governed by God’s will and affording Him pleasure in those circumstances.
And there is something more before we leave this chapter on the manna, and that is that as you read the chapter you find that they had manna for six days and then there was a sabbath. And that is indeed the idea, dear brethren, that six days feeding on manna leads in principle to rest, leads to a sabbath, and in the gospel of Matthew, He says, “Come to me, all ye who labour and are burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me … and ye shall find rest to your souls”, Matt 11: 28,29. That is, the appropriation of manna day by day leads to rest.
Well now I pass on to Luke 21 in order to draw attention to the principle upon which the Lord lived as here now in testimony. Not now the ordinary circumstances of human life, but here as in testimony for God, though for the moment it is not the side of testimony that I want to suggest because that I suppose is seen in connection with the scripture read from
Timothy. But what is particularly in mind is in verse 37, it says, “And by day he was teaching in the temple”, that is the side of testimony and service, “and by night, going out, he remained abroad on the mountain called the mount of Olives”. It is put here as not something done on one particular night; it is put here rather as that it was His habit. As we remarked this afternoon, at the end of John 7 we read, “And every one went to his home” (v 53), and then at the beginning of the next chapter it says, “But Jesus went to the mount of Olives”. That again confirms that the idea is that it was His habit. Now the idea of a mountain, as the mount of Olives, is that it is a sphere which can be entered upon while we are on earth and yet is above the level of the earth. The mount of Olives suggests a spiritual sphere, and in the case of the Lord Jesus I have no doubt that what is referred to is the continual communion which He had with His Father. We were saying this afternoon that the eternal life which the apostle discerned as contemplated in Jesus was with the Father. It had that character, it was lived in relation to the Father. It was characterised by communion with the Father, the Father’s interests, the Father’s pleasure, the Father’s world, was that in which the Lord Jesus really found His life.
Now dear brethren, for us these things involve the Spirit, which is what the mount of Olives
has in mind. The mount of Olives has in mind a sphere to be known here on earth that can be resorted to in the power of the Holy Spirit but lies outside of the world itself and is above its level. Now that is something for us to ask ourselves about as to how much we know of it, because it is quite clear that it is the principle upon which the Lord Jesus moved. His life was lived with the Father. It says in verse 38, “all the people came early in the morning to him in the temple to hear him”. That is, when the morning came, He would again take up His place of service and testimony, and in that position, He would encounter opposition, as He did. But what lay behind the position publicly which He filled in service and testimony, and all the opposition He encountered in it, was that He had spent the night abroad on the mount of Olives. I am not suggesting, of course, that it is physically possible for us to do without sleep. I am not suggesting that, but I am suggesting, dear brethren, that if we would be maintained in spiritual power in the position that we are to fill here in service and testimony, we must see to it that this principle of resorting in the power of the Spirit to heavenly things which are really ours and in which God intends we should find our life, should not be given up; should not be neglected.
And so in the passage we were reading this afternoon John says to the little ones, the little children, He told them “if what ye have heard from the beginning abides in you, ye also shall abide in the Son and in the Father. And this is the promise which he has promised us, life eternal”, 1 John 2: 24,25. It is a great thing to withdraw in our spirits, to the system of affection which belongs to us and into which we have entrance in the Holy Spirit. It says, “The Father loves the Son, and has given all things to be in his hand”, John 3: 35. There is a system of divine affection established now, it is subsisting in the Son, having its part in the Father, and we through grace have our part in it. The Thessalonians were “in God the Father”, 1 Thess.1:1. And so it says in the end of the first epistle of John, “we know that the Son of God has come, and has given us an understanding that we should know him that is true”, 1 John 5: 20. That is, God has come out now in full revelation in love according to His will. It is apprehended in Christ and “we are in him that is true, in his Son Jesus Christ”. That is, God has set us before Him in Christ and in Him we are in the abiding position of love. We are loved of the Father, we are loved of the Son, and I may say we are loved of the Holy Spirit. For He has taught us as having taking up His abode in us and keeping us livingly in touch with Christ
where He is and the Father known in Him, so that whatever arises here we may find our resource, our retreat in a scene of love where Jesus is and where the Father is known and where we belong. We belong there: we are in Him that is true, that is, in God, “we are in him that is true, in his Son Jesus Christ”. That is a fixed position, and the Holy Spirit enables us to withdraw into it and to enjoy it; and that all the Father’s things are ours. Not only the love of the Father but the Father’s things are ours because they are all of Christ and all that is Christ’s is ours. It says in the epistle to the Corinthians, “all are yours; and ye are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s”, 1 Cor 3: 23. Wonderful position, wonderful position that we are in these affections, that all things are ours because we are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s.
So the whole system of the Father’s pleasure, and all that is so soon to be brought into display, seen by the Spirit and centring in Christ is all ours, and we may enter upon it and withdraw into it. Indeed the Father’s Spirit is seen in that character, the power to dwell in our hearts by faith and to enable us to understand “the breadth and length and depth and height”.
Well now what I have been saying touches on what we have spoken of this afternoon as to the enjoyment of eternal life, and it is most
important that we should know something, and increasingly so, of the enjoyment of eternal life, if on the one hand we are to be furnished with right substance and right feelings in the service of God, and if on the other hand we are to be effective in the position of testimony, so that we are not overcome by the world in which we have to render testimony. And so I commend this verse to you, dear brethren, that “by night, going out, he remained abroad on the mountain called the mount of Olives”. We gather from the first chapter of the Acts that it was on the mount of Olives that He was taken up into heaven. It says the disciples, after they had seen Him go up, that they returned from the mount of Olives to Jerusalem, about a sabbath-day’s journey. The mount of Olives represents our retreat in the power of the Holy Spirit; Jerusalem is the sphere of testimony and it is near, it is only a sabbath-day’s journey off; the one stands in relation to the other. So if there is to be power in testimony in Jerusalem then we must know something of the mount of Olives.
And so that leads me now to the epistle to Timothy where we have the Lord Jesus presented to us as having witnessed before Pontius Pilate “the good confession”. That is, it is now Jesus in the position of testimony. Of course He was in that position from the moment that He went forth as anointed by the Holy
Spirit. I am not in any sense limiting this thought of testimony in the case of the Lord Jesus to His testimony before Pontius Pilate; because He was faithful in testimony, the faithful and true witness from the moment He went forth in testimony as anointed by the Holy Spirit until the moment that He lay down His life. And so it says, “I enjoin thee before God who preserves all things in life”. That is a great thing that, as having any little part in testimony, and incurring opposition and feeling it, and understanding that the opposition if permitted might go to any lengths, it is a good thing to be before God, and before God who “preserves all things in life”. That is to say, it is God that we rely upon, the God who “preserves all things in life”, and he says, “and Christ Jesus”, “I enjoin thee before God … and Christ Jesus who witnessed before Pontius Pilate the good confession”. It tells us in the gospels, in the gospels of Matthew and Mark and Luke, it was reported that before Pontius Pilate that the Lord said two words only. In each of those three gospels it is recorded that Pontius Pilate said to the Lord, “Art thou the King of the Jews? And he answered and said to him, Thou sayest”, Mark 15: 2. And then accusations are made and He answered him, “not so much as one word”, Matt 27: 14. So that it says the governor marvelled, Mark 15: 5. In the gospels of
Matthew and Mark especially, and Luke perhaps to a lesser degree, but the gospels of Matthew and Mark especially present the Lord Jesus in testimony here was “led as a lamb to the slaughter, and was as a sheep dumb before her shearers, and he opened not his mouth”, Isa 53: 7. It presents the Lord in that character as committing Himself to Him that judges righteously (1 Pet 2: 23), and not answering a word in personal defence; but if the testimony required it, answering at once. So if it was a question put to Him involving the testimony, “Art thou the king of the Jews?”, He immediately answered, “Thou sayest”; but if it is a question of personal accusation He answered not a word. But then when it comes to the gospel of John, we find that according to record there, He said a good deal to Pontius Pilate, and that He was there in faithfulness in witness to the truth. He said before Pilate, according to John’s gospel, “I have been born for this, and for this I have come into the world, that I might bear witness to the truth”, John 18: 37.
That is an important matter, dear brethren. I was saying at the outset that we are here for the will of God, and what is involved in that among other things is that we are here identified with the truth. We are here in order to walk in the truth, and we are here as occasion requires to
testify to the truth, the truth as to God, because all that the enemy has brought into this world is a denial of the truth unto God. And now God has made Himself known, “we are in him that is true, in his Son Jesus Christ”, 1 John 5: 20. We have a fixed known position in His love. He has come out in righteous grace and in holy love, and so, dear brethren, it is a question of God in His real nature and His moral attributes being expressed by the saints, and testimony as the occasion requires being borne to the truth. That is what we are here for. Now in that position,
the Lord, I need not say, He has been a faithful and true witness; indeed He presents Himself in that way in the first chapter of Revelation, and He is presented in that way also, or rather presents Himself in that way to Laodicea, so that is “the Amen, the faithful and true witness,
the beginning of the creation of God”, Rev 3: 14. And so it says here, “Christ Jesus who witnessed before Pontius Pilate the good confession, that thou keep the commandment spotless, irreproachable, until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ”. The commandment I take it is all that was enjoined upon Timothy in this epistle, and he is to keep it spotless, irreproachable, and indeed, dear brethren, as we draw near the end, I believe that God expects a higher standard.
It says in the prophecy of Ezekiel if you remember you get a man with a measuring reed, and the reed, if I remember rightly, was six cubits long, but then it says that every cubit was a cubit and a hand breadth (Ezek 40: 5), which seems rather anomalous, but the Spirit of God is suggesting to us that there is a measuring-reed with a precise standard of six cubits long, but then it is as though the Spirit says that now in these closing days the standard has got to be more exacting. It has to be a cubit and a hand-breadth each cubit, which is a remarkable thing, and I believe in that way God would exercise us that as the end approaches we are to see to it that God is looking for a higher standard of things. Indeed, He is looking for nothing short of perfection, and if we are to have perfection before us, we can only have it before us in every setting in Jesus. And so he says, “that thou keep the commandment spotless, irreproachable, until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ”, that is the public appearing, “in its own time the blessed and only Ruler shall shew”, that is God, “the King of those that reign, and Lord of those that exercise lordship; who only has immortality”; He has it, He has it Himself. We are going to take on immortality; it says, “this mortal must put on immortality”. We are going to take it up by the power of God, but God has it, “who only has immortality”. That is,
however man may seem, however great they may appear to be in opposition, they are only mortal. God only “has immortality, dwelling in unapproachable light; whom no man has seen, nor is able to see; to whom be honour and eternal might. Amen”. That is, that the approach in our exercises is before God, but also before Christ Jesus.
Well now, finally I come to Philippians because it is not now a question of Christ as food for the wilderness, but Christ as exemplifying to us the importance of eternal life, and entering into it livingly and enjoying it while Christ is in the position of testimony here, Christ as in heaven; as it says in the first epistle of John, “we know that if it is manifested we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is”, 1 John 3: 2. Not ‘as He was’ but “as he is”. This third chapter of the epistle to the Philippians presents to us Christ as He is and where He is, apprehended by Paul as the expression in Himself, that is in Christ, as God’s calling on high has a place, “the calling on high of God in Christ Jesus”. Christ Jesus is, as we often say, the Man of God’s purpose.
That is to say, He is the One who has from the very outset been in the mind of God. God’s purposes are bound up with Him, and it is a great thing to apprehend that in Him God sets forth His calling of place, it is called “his calling on high” in order that we might be impressed
with the exalted and elevated character of it, “the calling on high in Christ Jesus”. Let me refer for a moment to a well-known verse in 1 Corinthians 15, the Spirit of God says, “the first man is of the earth, earthy: the second man, out of heaven”, v 47 KJV.
I would just ask you, dear brethren, to consider that for a moment, “the first man is of the earth, earthy”. Adam was never more than that, he was never any more than that. Even in innocence before he fell, he was never any more than that, “of the earth, earthy”. “The second man”, that is the Man Christ Jesus, is “out of heaven”. What kind of manhood do you think, what kind of glorious manhood, what supreme moral excellence in manhood is to be found when one of the Godhead Himself becomes Man, manhood that is characteristically out of heaven? And think of the grace of God that has called us that we should have part in that order of manhood, as Paul says, that I may know Him, that I may be found in Him, found in Christ. Not a trace left of what Paul was as a natural man, and yet it is Paul, identifiable as such, and he knows himself as such, “a man in Christ”, 2 Cor 12: 2. Think of the glory of it, dear brethren, the calling is that every one of us has been called, that we should be found in Christ; as it says, “such as the heavenly one, such also the heavenly ones”. We are heavenly already,
and as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly. And hence we may well desire to get an impression by the Spirit of what Paul speaks of here as “the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord”. Paul is here speaking near the end of his days, a devoted servant of Christ, and in no way relinquishing the exercises connected with the testimony and the welfare of the saints, although he was a prisoner. But here he is as a brother, as an individual saint, and he allows us to see the kind of thing that is occupying his mind as he draws near the end of his course. He has Christ in glory before his heart as the One in whom he himself is about to be found, he is going to be found in Christ, and he says, I would like to know Him, I would like to apprehend and take up the moral excellency that is found in Christ Jesus. And so he would accept every exercise that came upon him as the means by which God would grant further to promote in Paul correspondence with Christ Jesus.
And so in the second chapter of this epistle we are told, “let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus” (v 5), that is to say the epistle is full of the thought of Christ Jesus, and we are intended to contemplate Christ Jesus, not as He was, but as He is, and yet as that wonderful
mind that was in Christ Jesus came into
expression in that stoop, and in obedience even unto death. But then the apostle says, Let that be in you. And now the apostle has before him that he is to be found in Christ, and he says, Whatever it involves I want to reach it; he says, that I may “know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings”. I believe he means that he saw in the sufferings of Christ such moral excellence, that he wanted to have some part in them, the sufferings of Christ, “the fellowship of his sufferings, being conformed to his death”. He found moral excellence in the dying of Jesus, the death of Jesus, and he wanted to be conformed to it, so to speak the moral road by which he would reach this; his resurrection from among the dead when he will be found entirely in Christ.
So he says, “Not that I have already obtained the prize, or am already perfected; but I pursue, if also I may get possession of it, seeing that also I have been taken possession of by Christ Jesus”. And then most encouragingly he says, “Brethren, I do not count to have got possession myself; but one thing—forgetting the things behind, and stretching out to the things before, I pursue, looking towards the goal, for the prize of the calling on high of God in Christ Jesus”. The goal is at the end, and the prizes that we shall get at the end, and the prizes at the end are
to be found wholly in Christ, in all the moral excellence that that involves. Even as to our bodies, as it says at the end of the chapter, we look from heaven, “we await the Lord Jesus Christ as Saviour, who shall transform our body of humiliation into conformity to his body of glory”, v 20,21. So that our calling, the calling on high of God, is to be found in every way in Christ and conformed to Him both morally and bodily.
Well now in the light of that, dear brethren, may the Lord help us to take character from Paul and be marked by one thing; one thing, not to be diverted from it. If we have one thing before us, that is Christ known now in glory, as the expression of God’s mind for us, then I say we will move on the lines that I have indicated as appropriating manna in wilderness circumstances, as availing ourselves of eternal life and contemplating Christ in faithfulness in testimony. As having Him before us where He is and as He is, the great end that we are to reach by the grace of God, and the more we have Him before us, the more we shall find that God will use everything to promote that end in moral conformation in us now. May the Lord bless the word.
CRANFORD NJ 106
10th June 1950
From a recording—and not therefore revised by Mr Gardiner
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