CHRIST IN SUPREMACY
D. E. Burr
Christ has been elevated to the position of supremacy, all power has been given to Him in heaven and upon earth. He is the One that we have to do with, the Mediator of God and men, and He is in this place of power. The news, typically, of Christ’s supremacy here causes the people to cry before Him, “Bow the knee!”, or as the alternative rendering gives, ‘Rejoice thou’. It is a matter of rejoicing that Christ has been put into this place, that He has been given a name which is above every name. Every knee is going to bow to Him. We are living in the day of grace and it is not exactly a time of compulsion, although the commandment goes out that God is calling upon all men everywhere to repent. But those of us who know the Lord are to rejoice in the place that He has, to rejoice in His place of power. His place of supremacy, not to be doleful, but to be happy and glad in the knowledge of the place that Christ has been given.
Well, certain consequences flow from that; Christ is given here, typically, a new name. He is given a name which, looking at the alternative renderings, means ‘Saviour of the world’, ‘Sustainer of life’, ‘Revealer of secrets’. I think that in the present time of pressure we do well to have a view of the Lord Jesus in the light of these titles. He is ‘Saviour of the world’. Our brother has been referring to what God can do; He can do everything. He is acting in Christ, and He is the Saviour of the world. Whatever problem arises, whatever matter comes about circumstantially, testimonially, in the bodies of the saints, or whatever it may be, there is One who is the Saviour of the world, the Saviour of the body too. How great that is, to know One who has been elevated to this place.
And He is the Sustainer of life—you think of life ebbing out in various persons—we have to recognise the reality of life, of age; we are all getting older, and we might as well recognise the reality of the fact that life is brief, and that it is ebbing out for each one of us, more so for some than for others. But then there is One who is the Sustainer of life. What a thing that is, that He is maintaining things, maintaining things for God, maintaining a response, maintaining a testimony, maintaining those that are committed to Him in His place of supremacy.
Then the ‘Revealer of secrets’. I suppose, in a sense, the Tuesday night meeting has that in view; the prophetic word would have in view the revealing of secrets, something of the divine mind coming in to disclose what is needed for the moment, what God and the Lord Jesus would teach us, would have us occupied with, just at the present moment—the Revealer of secrets.
So this is the One that takes up our case, the One who is the Mediator, the One who is the Intercessor, and it says, “And Joseph went out over the
land of Egypt”. Think of Christ being in control, able to go out, to survey the whole of His inheritance and to regulate it, “without thee shall no man lift up his hand or his foot in all the land of Egypt”; “according to thy commandment shall all my people regulate themselves”.
Well, what a wonderful thing it would be if that were so, if all God’s people were regulating themselves by the commandments, by the word of Christ. It is not so in a general sense, but, as our brother said, there is the side of the acceptance of our place, the acceptance of authority, and the acceptance of the Lord’s word, so that we are a people that are regulated not arbitrarily, not autocratically—but regulated in love by One who has taken His place in relation to Asnath, has taken a place in love in view of the working out of a wonderful administration of supply, where all the people are fed, where life is sustained.
Well, maybe the Lord would encourage us to know Him in these ways and to seek to get some gain from present exercise and experience in being drawn nearer to the One who is the Revealer of secrets. May it be so, for His name’s sake. Amen.
Word in meeting for ministry, Redbridge
1 January 1985