OUR DELIVERER, AND THE FAITH ONCE DELIVERED
We had reference to this word ‘delivered’ in the prayer meeting last night. In Scripture, it can mean something that is handed over, and it can also mean liberation or emancipation from some kind of bondage. It can also imply an element of sacrifice.
Our Lord Jesus was “delivered for our offences and has been raised for our justification”, Rom.4:25. His was the perfect sacrifice. He went down to the death due to the sinner and, as believing in Him as risen, we are justified. There was also what He endured as delivered up to men’s will. It says of Pilate that “he released to them Barabbas; but Jesus, having scourged him, he delivered up that he might be crucified”, Matt.27:26. That Roman governor delivered the Lord Jesus up to be crucified. Luke, in his gospel, says poignantly, “And he released him who, for tumult and murder, had been cast into prison, whom they begged for, and Jesus he delivered up to their will”, Luke 23:25.
Callous hands had seized and bound Him. Men dared to manhandle the Lord of glory, the One on whom their very breath depended. He was a prisoner before the high priest but it was He, in holy perfection, who had delivered Himself up of His own accord, giving “his strength into captivity, and his glory into the hand of the oppressor”, Ps.78:61. We have these endearing words: ‘Messiah delivered to Gentiles and cast down, the judge washing his hands of condemning innocence, the priests interceding against the guiltless instead of for the guilty – all dark, without one ray of light even from God’1. Jesus bore the fierce wrath of God on account of sin at Calvary but at the end of these three awful hours in which He was forsaken by God, He delivered up His spirit in a wonderful act of power.
So He delivered Himself up so that, in consequence of His work, He might become our Deliverer. 1 Thessalonians 1 speaks about “our deliverer from the coming wrath” (v.10). Wonderful assurance! But He is also our Deliverer now. To know Him thus is a landmark reached in a believer’s history. “O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me out of this body of death?” is a question posed in Romans 7 (v.24). When we are young – and perhaps not so young – we are often beset by doubts, dark despair and inner turmoil. We try to do what is right in our own strength but yet we feel powerless to do so. What is the answer? It is in finding the Lord Jesus as our Deliverer and in coming to appreciate that the same blessed Person, who was delivered for our offences, has also wrought to set us free from the law of sin and death and all that pertains to sinful man after the flesh. So that the apostle Paul goes on to say: “I thank God, through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then I myself with the mind serve God’s law; but with the flesh sin’s law”, Rom.7:24,25. The believer comes to learn that he is of an entirely new order of man, and that he is in Christ Jesus, where a completely new law begins to operate. We are now therefore in relationship with Another, our Lord Jesus Christ, who by the Holy Spirit is able to maintain us in life and vitality. “So that, my brethren, ye also have been made dead to the law”. How have we been made dead to the law? It is “by the body of the Christ, to be to another who has been raised up from among the dead, in order that we might bear fruit to God”, Rom.7:4. How much we owe to the Deliverer!
The scripture in Jude is challenging. Jude intended to write in his epistle to “the called ones beloved in God the Father and preserved in Christ Jesus” (v.1) about their “common salvation”, but he found he was not able to do that. Why? Because “certain men have got in unnoticed”, and he goes on to write about “ungodly persons, turning the grace of our God into dissoluteness, and denying our only Master and Lord Jesus Christ”. Those who would deny our only Master and Lord Jesus Christ had infiltrated the Lord’s people and were operating from within against the development of the divine work. They had come in unnoticed. It was a subtle incursion, yet such were their actions that they were “turning the grace of our God into dissoluteness”. They were bringing their own pernicious views to bear, and in doing so, they were turning the grace of our God into dissoluteness. How awful to so treat the grace of God: “the grace of God which carries with it salvation for all men” (Titus 2:11), and yet these persons had the audacity to do such a thing. Sadly, the history of Christendom reflects such harmful activity.
So Jude was diverted from writing in his epistle about the sweetness of “our common salvation”, and instead he challenged his readers “to contend earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints”. The faith would embrace all that was expressed through the apostles. What sacrifice was involved in the faith being delivered to the saints. What sufferings Paul endured as articulated in the Corinthian epistles: straits, stripes, prisons, riots, scourgings, shipwrecks, a night and day in the deep, in perils of rivers and robbers as well as stonings. Why? That his contribution to the faith once delivered to the saints should be delivered inviolate. Affectingly, when he speaks of what he received from the Lord Jesus in relation to the Lord’s supper, Paul says “that which I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus, in the night in which he was delivered up, took bread”, 1 Cor.11:23. Paul received that revelation from the Lord Jesus glorified, His sufferings forever over. Why then, we might ask, was there a need to refer to the night in which He was delivered up? How deeply it would stir Paul’s affections, as surely it should do ours, to be ever reminded of the cost to the Lord Jesus in order that the truth and blessings which “the faith” entails might be delivered to us in all their perfection and glory.
Paul also speaks in 1 Corinthians 15 about another glorious unfolding of “the faith”. “For I delivered to you, in the first place, what also I had received, that Christ died for our sins, according to the scriptures; and that he was buried; and that he was raised the third day, according to the scriptures” (vv.3,4). How Paul would cherish that wonderful truth about the work of his Lord. How refreshing and stimulating it is to our affections to be reminded of these precious matters, the reality and immutability of which can never be altered.
Then surely it is a challenge for us “to contend earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints”. It is not done by argument, but really by standing by the truth and contending for the principles, as set out in the Scriptures and as expressed by faithful men over many years. In 1 Timothy 6:12, it says “Strive earnestly in the good conflict of faith”, and note ‘f’ says ‘Or ‘combat of the faith’’. That is a very interesting comment, implying that the conflict of faith will involve energy, commitment and sacrifice. There is a fine illustration of this in 1 Chronicles 11. There was Eleazar the son of Dodo, one of the three mighty men; it is said of him that he was “with David at Pas-dammim”. A plot of ground there, full of barley – emblematic of what so preciously pertains to our Lord Jesus as out of death – was under attack by the Philistines. But it says that “they stood in the midst of the plot and delivered it, and smote the Philistines; and Jehovah wrought a great deliverance” (vv.12-14). Men attack the person of our Lord Jesus in these days, they deny His resurrection; and seek to challenge the very foundations of Christianity. But despite the opposition, Eleazar stood resolutely with David, typically standing for the rights of Christ in a day when the most precious truths are under attack.
Ecclesiastes 9 refers to a “little city and few men within it.” It was outwardly insignificant perhaps, but inwardly valuable to heaven and so giving cause for an enemy, “a great king”, to attack it. Satan, although he has been vanquished by the Lord Jesus, still wields his influence in this benighted, sin-torn world; and he comes with all his forces against the city “and encompassed it”. He actually surrounded it, seeking to destroy what was precious in the divine sight. Was there any hope? He pressed on all points. He built great bulwarks, he brought all his weaponry against this city, and what was to be done? There is a remedy! There was found in the city a “poor wise man”. For us, that is the Lord Jesus Christ, “that for your sakes he, being rich, became poor, in order that ye by his poverty might be enriched”, 2 Cor.8:9. What wisdom is found in Jesus. The glory of our day is that “Christ Jesus, who has been made to us wisdom from God” (1 Cor.1:30) remains, and there is thus wisdom for every exigency to secure our deliverance from the attacks of the enemy. So by the wisdom of the poor wise man the city was delivered. What a comfort for the believer in these days that the Lord Jesus has the resource and answer to every difficulty.
Jude emphasises the responsibility on every believer to honour the faith delivered to us at such tremendous cost, but what a joy to be able to rely on Christ, the “poor wise man”, for help in every situation, collective and individual. Then comes this sad rebuke: “but no man remembered that poor man”. How worthy He is to be remembered! Let us always have recourse to Christ and to His holy presence, to draw from Him, the “poor wise man”. He is available for us, though in glory, no longer poor. What riches attach to Him now! Glory has been given Him, and He has “a name, that which is above every name”, Phil.2:9. Yet the scripture poignantly adds that no man remembered the poor man. It is as if the writer – Solomon, the preacher – is saying: ‘Cast your mind back to what it cost the Lord Jesus to make these things available to us, to that poor Man who suffered for us at Calvary’, “who has been delivered for our offences and has been raised for our justification” (Rom.4:25), that we might find a place of favour for ever in His presence. We look forward to that day when the enemy’s power shall be for ever ended and when the true King, the King of kings and Lord of lords, will reign supreme.
May we be freshly attracted to Him for His name’s sake.
Word in meeting for ministry, Edinburgh
26 May 2015
J.T. Brown