THE GLORY OF CHRIST IN RELATION
TO THE MEDIATORIAL SYSTEM
P. van den Berg
John 1: 1–3; 10: 7–9; 13: 3–5; 17: 24; 20: 17–20
I would like to say a word in relation to the glory of the mediatorial system and the glory of the Person who currently serves in relation to it—our Lord Jesus Christ. We get a sense in John’s gospel of what was set out in the tabernacle—an order of things which typically had its glorious centre in Christ. The glory of God filled it. John presents it to us in relation to the glory of the way God has come out in revelation in the Person of the Son as seen in the ark, the acacia wood, the manhood of Jesus, the glory of His Person. A Person indeed who came into manhood, and John saw the glory. He will
remain in manhood for ever. He is the glorious Mediator of God and men, the Man Christ Jesus, the One in whom God has come out finally in view of the accomplishment of His great thoughts in purpose, according to His eternal counsels, in view of that universe of bliss where eventually He will have the ultimate result of the way He has taken. What stands central in all the ways of God is the glory of the incarnation—the glory of a divine Person who came into manhood and will remain in manhood for ever. Then there is the distinctive place that the assembly will have in relation to Him as Man, and other families that will also come into blessing. Indeed there will be a universe filled with the glory of Christ, speaking to God in every detail of the Lord Jesus as having come into manhood, the details of the tabernacle suggesting what is seen in Jesus as it will come out in the universe of bliss where God will dwell complacently in what speaks to Him of Christ.
John takes us back as far as we are able to go back, the beginning in John relating to the purpose of God. It goes back before Genesis 1: 1. It goes back to the purpose of God where God in His love purposed that there might be for His own heart what would satisfy His heart eternally—what will be according to His nature and according to His attributes—how He was going to be glorified in the Person of the Son. This is what John presents to us. Christ was there in the creation of all things (Genesis 1). “All things received being through him, and without him not one thing received being”. Think of the glory of creation! It was the way God was taking to bring in the scene in which He was going to work out His great purpose.
How absolutely beyond man’s ken the creation is. The Lord Jesus is the One who is the Creator of it. The Creator must be greater than what He has created. You think of His glory in that way but this, beloved brethren, was not the end that God had in view. What God had in view was going to be accomplished on the basis of redemption. It was in that way that God was going to come out in the display of Himself and the
revelation of Himself beyond all that was seen in Adam. Adam never knew God in the way that has now been made known in the fulness of time. He was a figure of Him who was to come. But when we think of what is presented to us in John it is the beginning of everything from God. It says in Colossians, “all things have been created by him”, Colossians 1: 16. He is the One who created all things. Colossians 1 and Hebrews 1 refer to the glory of the Son—
God having spoken in Son, the One who is the effulgence of His glory and the expression of His substance. All that is knowable about God has come out in Christ in revelation and declaration, God having spoken in Son. Think of the glory of this Person in whom God spoke, “God having spoken in many parts and in many ways formerly to the fathers in the prophets, at the end of these days has spoken to us in the person of the Son, whom he has established heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds; who being the effulgence of his glory and the expression of his substance, and upholding all things by the word of his power, having made by himself the purification of sins, set himself down on the right hand of the greatness on high”, Hebrews 1: 1–3. It was in the purpose of God and in the counsels of God that that Person should not only come into manhood but die. That is the way God has taken—it was through death that God was going to reach His great thoughts in purpose displaying what He was in His nature. The love of God could not have come into greater expression than in the work of Christ.
So John says, “we have contemplated his glory”, John 1: 14. In his epistle he speaks of that which was from the beginning. You get all the beginnings in John—the beginning related to the purpose of God, the beginning of creation, and the beginning of what we get here in Christ in manhood. Everything has its beginning in Him. Christ is the beginning of the creation of God. In the tabernacle system you see it in the place the ark has—the centre of it—the glory of the Person of the Lord Jesus, the way God has come out in Christ. There
are other things there like the table of shewbread speaking of our being associated with Christ, and the candlesticks in connection with the testimony of the Christ. All these things were in mind in the purpose of God, that we should be associated with Christ in sonship in the presence of the Father, and also that in the present time there should be the display of the manifold wisdom of God in the assembly, what the assembly is as the vessel of testimony. It says that the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. What a majestic statement that is! A Person of the Godhead came into manhood. It was His own act that He came into manhood and in manhood He has not remained alone. There was what was terminated in the death of Christ as regards the blood and flesh condition but “the Word became flesh” is what goes through death and resurrection into glory, and the assembly is related to that—an order of things out of Christ in glory. We spoke about union earlier today, how glorious it is that there is what answers to the Man of God’s purpose in His counterpart—the assembly, His like.
How wonderful that this was in the purpose of God.
Now, I thought we might just have some thoughts as to the glory of the Lord Jesus as currently serving in relation to this glorious order of things. There is some suggestion in the door of the tabernacle that there was the access into this order of things. The Lord speaks in John 10 of the door. It is in relation to the sheep. We should think of the glory of this Person in His present activities. The shepherd service of the Lord Jesus is a current matter. He is the great Shepherd of the sheep, “the God of peace, who brought again from among the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep”, Hebrews 13: 20. In His present position He has committed Himself to service, it says of the Hebrew servant in Exodus 20 that he would not go out free. Love is motivating the Lord Jesus in all that He is doing in the present time in relation to the assembly, in what the Father has given Him to do. It says of Jacob, “for a
wife he kept sheep”, Hosea 12: 12. What the Lord has in mind is the assembly for His heart.
And He is regarding His sheep here as having a knowledge of Himself that is very distinct.
He says, “I know those that are mine, and am known of those that are mine, as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I lay down my life for the sheep”, John 10: 14, 15.
Think of the character of knowledge that was there between the Father and the Son. There is what is infinitely beyond us in what is unrevealed, but there is what has come into expression in the economy in which the assembly is so close as we have spoken of it today and yesterday. These glorious things are to be arrived at, beloved brethren, and shepherd service has a very important place in relation to it along with the work of the ministry, the washing of water by the word which also is a present activity of the Lord Jesus in view of the glory of what we are speaking about. It is in order that He might have the assembly glorious without spot or wrinkle or any such things. This is currently going on, as well as His priestly service in which He is ever living to intercede for us, able to save completely those that draw near to God by Him (see Hebrews 7: 25). It is by Him that a door has been opened into the most holy things.
John would impress us with the shepherd service of the Lord Jesus in view of the one flock.
There are other sheep besides the remnant of Israel and they were going to be one flock. It was going to be one flock and one shepherd and there would be no disparity. It refers to the one body in Paul’s ministry; the idea of one flock, one shepherd is bound up with it. If there is any need today, beloved brethren, it is for shepherd service. I believe that a lot of the failure that has come in in latter years has been due to the lack of shepherd service, a lack of understanding of the glory and greatness of what we have been called into and the Person that would readily be there to serve us in His shepherd love, a love that would seek recovery. We are all recovered persons and there is need for shepherd service. In Luke’s gospel
the Lord goes after the lost sheep “until he find it”; it is a ‘kingdom sheep’—in principle obedient. Such will have the priestly service of Christ and there will be no possibility of missing our way, whatever weakness we may find in ourselves. There is provision made in the priesthood of Christ to enable us to answer to our heavenly calling. The Spirit would impress us as to the greatness of the One who is currently serving us in His shepherd love. In Matthew’s gospel it is “if ... he find it”. It is connected in Matthew 18 with ‘if thy brother will hear thee’, and if the brother will not hear he will miss it. Well, dear brethren, it enters into assembly history, assembly sorrows as we have had and known them. We are here in the grace of God and we have been preserved unto this day and we can thank God for one another and for the brethren here. May we be preserved in relation to this great and glorious mediatorial order of things which will go through into eternity. Christ is the glorious Mediator and the Holy Spirit is here and He is with us for ever. The tabernacle was anointed.
It is an anointed order of things. The ark is there and the anointing is there—the Holy Spirit.
There will be an order of things where God will be all in all and the Spirit will be all pervading and Christ will be the centre.
So in John 13 we have the laver. We have already touched on the Lord’s present service in relation to the washing—how we need it. We need the present service of the Lord Jesus, the One who took the bondman’s form. We have spoken about it and therefore we do not need to go into much detail but just to indicate how there is the service of the Lord Jesus Himself in getting to the feet of His own in order that they might have part with Him, and how it bears on us too and that the Lord lays it upon us that this is what we also should do to one another.
May there be currently with us an expression of what the Lord Jesus is doing.
So in John 17 we have the priestly service of the One who is gone within the veil—a high priest able to
feel with our infirmities, a great priest over the house of God. He says, “Father as to those whom thou has given me, I desire that where I am they also may be with me, that they may behold my glory”. Think of the way the Lord Jesus in His priestly service is seeking the best for His own — that they might be with Him where He is! This is what the Lord desires. We have spoken earlier of the glory that the Father had given to Him, that the saints in sonship should be in the same glory as Himself. How great it is that as Man He should have a companion, His bride, and that in sonship we might be associated with Him in the presence of the Father. I think that the greatest place we have, greater even than union, is association with Christ as the Son of God for the pleasure of the Father. What a wonderful place that is. How the Lord would have us impressed with what. He in His love would undertake for us, what was there in divine purpose and counsels for us to come into. He could say prophetically,
“Behold, I come, in the volume of the book it is written of me” (Psalm 40: 7), in order that He might give effect to the purpose of God, that ‘the corn of wheat’ might not remain alone.
Glorious as He was in His manhood it is stated in Genesis that “It is not good that Man should be alone” (Genesis 2: 18). There was to be that which was the fruit of His death. The purpose and counsels of God involved the death of Christ. The counsels of God involved the wisdom of God, and the wisdom of the way He was going to take to bring them about. Think of all that proceeded in the Old Testament, the way God operated in wisdom’s way with a view to the fulness of the times that these thoughts might be brought to fruition. O dear brethren, the glory of the present dispensation! There will never be a dispensation like it. The world to come will not be as great as the present dispensation. It is in this dispensation that the bride is being formed and there will be what is choice for the heart of Christ and what will be for God’s eternal pleasure. Throughout eternity there will be the tabernacle of God with men and there will be what will answer to the heart and love of God in a mediatorial order of
things that will go through into eternity in which God dwells where Christ is the centre and the Spirit all-pervading. The Father is the source of all these great thoughts of love. Beloved brethren, how wonderful to be caught up in these great and wonderful thoughts that are set out in the economy. It was designed in wisdom in order that these thoughts might be brought to fruition.
In John 20 the result is seen and how touchingly a woman is brought in—Mary, to whom the Lord conveyed this great message, “Go to my brethren”. Here the fruit is seen, secured in resurrection, in order that we might be associated with Himself as the glorious Firstborn among many brethren. We are going to be like Him, we will shine in His image eternally. He the glorious Firstborn and we as His brethren associated with Him. Brethren is what we are for Christ and sonship is what we are for God. What blessing is involved in this! By the Spirit we can be in the living reality of these wonderful relationships with the Father and the Son.
This is really what is involved in eternal life in an out of the world order of things altogether in which we enjoy eternal relations. What we are in sonship is for God and eternal life is for us. So the Lord says, “go to my brethren”—how precious, “my brethren”. Here was this woman, what sorrow she had been through. You could say she might have been more intelligent but her affections were in the right place. There can be nothing for the Lord’s heart apart from love—love working in His own. He had asked the Father that the love with which the Father loved Him might be in them—that the Father’s love for the Son might be in us. We need to be strengthened by the Spirit of the Father in order that Christ might have the place in our affections that He has in the affections of the Father. I think Mary would come into that, the Lord says, “go to my brethren and say to them, I ascend to my Father and your Father, and to my God and your God”. Dear brethren, what could be greater than that this should be our portion. It is not only His Father but our Father and it opens the whole realm of the revelation
of God when He says, “my God” as only He could say it—none of us could say it as He could say it but we are brought into it when He says “and your God”.
These are the great things that God has in mind for us. We are just on the eve of translation. I think the Lord is going to bring in the best at the end and we want to be in full committal to it as the Lord was in full committal. How much this is seen in John’s gospel throughout in His being the sent One—there are some twenty-four or twenty-five references before John 10 to His being sent, and others after that. Chapters 1—9 give us what is secured in the way God has come out, and chapter 10 and onwards leading us into what is collective. What the Lord in His love has in view for us is that we might be in collective blessing in associations in which we shall be eternally with Him and with the Father by the Holy Spirit who is the bond between the Father and the Son and between Christ Jesus and His own. We could not have been brought closer than this in this wonderful economy—this wonderful circulation of divine affections—those reciprocal affections between the Father and the Son by the Spirit in order that we might be brought into them that we might function in the liberty of sonship and the sense of union with Christ in the working out of things. Later the Lord says, “as the Father sent me forth, I also send you”, John 20: 21. That would be their responsibility and then He breathed into them and says, “Receive the Holy Spirit—whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted to them”. That is the working out of things in love in maintaining divine standards in the light of this glorious order of things where we can serve now in responsibility in seeking the welfare of His testimony here so that it may prosper in His hand. Thank God it is prospering today.
May the Lord bless the word. May the Lord help us in our committal that we might grow in the knowledge of these things by the kind of knowledge that the Lord is speaking about, “as the Father knows me and I know the
Father”. May it be so for His name’s sake.
Address at Barbados
12 October 1996