THE BRETHREN OF CHRIST
[p. 91] THE BRETHREN OF CHRIST
I have thought that one never really understands the import of anything the Lord Jesus did in His ministry on earth except in the light of His death. That is what I understand the Lord Jesus to have meant in saying to the disciples, do this, that is referring to the Supper, in remembrance of Me. By His death they were to call Him to mind in His life. There are two principles to be seen in the death of Christ. One is the bringing in of God; that is the first and the greatest by far. The veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom. God was brought out in light. But then there is another principle, and that is the termination of man as after the flesh. It has been said that the man that was under judgement was removed in judgement. Christ took all that lay on man by the judgement of God, and in doing so, on the part of God, He removed that man. So we get such expressions in Scripture as “our old man is crucified with him”. That man was ended for God in the fact that the judgement that lay upon him was borne.
I want you to bear these two thoughts in mind, because you will get the key to everything the Lord Jesus did. If you attentively follow the miracles and discourses of the Lord, there were always two things in view; one was to bring God in, and the other to shut man out. The Lord gave no place to man morally, and wherever man set up any kind of pretension the Lord dealt unsparingly with the pretension. One principle that prevailed throughout the entire ministry of the Lord was the exclusion of man and man’s pretensions; but on the other hand what ruled in the discourses and in the miracles of the Lord was the expressing of the rights of God in mercy. God had visited man in mercy. He had the right [p. 92] to do it, and availed Himself of the right; the Lord was constantly going about doing good and healing all that were oppressed of the devil, for God was with Him. His ministry had that character; healing the sick, cleansing the leper, giving sight to the blind, and hearing to the deaf. All was the expression of the mercy of God. If we see the import of the death of Christ, then we understand the character of all the Lord’s service and ministry. I make that remark because I think it will help in that which I have to bring before you.
The chapter shows us a complete change in regard of everything; it is to that I want to draw your attention. The Lord revealed Himself in a new position; that is, as a centre of gathering, and that is what He came to be. He came here not simply to minister to man in mercy, but He became man that He might become the centre to which everything of and for God should be gathered. That is one great thought in connection with the Lord which comes out in this chapter. Now I want to enlarge a little on how different classes of people were affected by it. There are three classes of people that come before us in the early part of the chapter. The first is the friends of Christ; another class is the scribes from Jerusalem, and a third is His brethren. Everything is dependent on the position the Lord assumes in the early part of the chapter, that is, as a centre of gathering. What immediately led to it was the Pharisees and Herodians taking counsel to destroy Him. Evidently that had an effect on the mind of the Lord; consequent on that we have the Lord revealing Himself in a position which He did not assume in the beginning of His ministry. He was occupied in the two previous chapters with giving testimony. Do not suppose that the Lord came here to be a climax of or crown to anything that existed. He came truly according to the promises of God, of the seed of David and of Abraham; but He was a great deal more than that, He was the Son of God in whom God was revealed, the last Adam. And if He was the last Adam, then of necessity He was the Head [p. 93] and centre and point to which everything for God must be gathered. We find that brought out abundantly in the epistles; for instance, in Ephesians 1, we are told that God has made known to us the mystery of His will to gather up in one all things in Christ. That involves that Christ is the gathering point, and is to a large extent the accomplishment of the truth which comes out in Psalm 8, that is, all things put under the feet of the Son of man.
Now I call your attention to two verses, 13 and 14, “And he goeth up into a mountain, and calleth unto him whom he would: and they came unto him. And he ordained twelve, that they should be with him, and that he might send them forth to preach”. You get two distinct things in the verses. The first is, that the Lord reveals Himself as a gathering point. What the Pharisees and Herodians did becomes the occasion for revealing the real purpose for which Christ came. I think many have very inadequate thoughts of Christ. They have the idea that He was the Messiah of the Jews and came to sit on David’s throne; but to get an adequate thought of Christ as man, you must go back to the beginning, for Adam was a figure. Adam was in position far greater than Abraham or David, but he was only a figure. The One to come having now come and being the Head of every man, must be the point to which God would gather everything that was for Himself; and that begins to come out here in the place the Lord takes on the mountain. He leaves the multitude and calls unto Him whom He would and they came to Him. There was a point of irresistible power and influence in Christ.
But we get another point in the next verse, that is, He chose twelve who were to be the vessels of His administration. There is the principle of administration in Scripture, and it was to be carried out through the twelve. They were to be with Him, that is, to come morally under His influence and that He might send them forth to preach. They were to preach under His administration. That is the position which comes out in this chapter and [p. 94] it is important to apprehend it. It was premonitory of what has come to pass now, for at the present time, at the right hand of God, Christ is constituted the point of gathering. Everything is to be gathered to Christ; the church, the Old Testament saints, Israel, the nations, everything will be gathered to Christ. He is the great point of gathering, not now on the mountain, for He has gone up a great way above the mountain to the right hand of God; a power of attraction was in Him; He called unto Him whom He would; there was sovereignty in that way, and they came unto Him. We can throw now the light of Christ’s death upon His life, and see how every act of His life was in view of His death. One point I may say in regard to that is, that for the Lord to take up such a position as the point of gathering for man, necessitated redemption, because man was under liabilities by the judgement of God, and it would have been impossible for the Lord to gather to Himself those who were under liabilities, save in view of redemption. The Lord had everything before Himself, and it could only be in view of that the Lord could take up such a position on the mountain, just as now redemption is accomplished, and Christ at the right hand of God. What is being effected is that men are being gathered to Him by divine power, and they come to Him.
Now I want to speak of the three classes I have referred to. There are in fact four classes, the multitude is one. “And the multitude cometh together again, so that they could not so much as eat bread”; the multitude, His friends, the scribes and His brethren.
It is remarkable that everybody would entertain their own opinion in regard to Christ, as in the present day people all entertain their idea of christianity. You may say there are the friends and the enemies of Christ; the scribes were the enemies of Christ. They wanted to discredit all that He did, and therefore put His work down to the agency of Beelzebub. Then there is the multitude. The multitude had no particular opinion.
[p. 95] They were prepared in a way to be swayed one way or the other, like people in the present day. The great mass have no judgement of their own. Then the fourth class comes in, that is His brethren, “whosoever shall do the will of God, the same is my brother and my sister and mother”.
I want to give a present application to these things, not simply to dwell on what took place then. We have not Christ on the mountain but at the right hand of God, the blessed point of gathering. Every person converted in the present day is really gathered to Christ, that is what the Holy Spirit is come down for. He is the point of gathering for individuals. Hereafter He will be the point of gathering for companies. All will be gathered to Christ. Well, now you get His friends coming in, and I think I see the class of His friends in christianity. You get those who assume to be His friends at the present day, those who would claim Christ for man after the flesh. One of the greatest dangers is an effort to claim Christ for humanity. The great truth in regard of Christ is that He is for God. He died the just for the unjust to bring men to God. He never came to be an ornament for humanity. In the same way great preachers are claimed for humanity just as Shakespeare and great minds are regarded as a credit to humanity. The truth is that Christ came to die that by His death He might open a door to God, and every one who comes to God has to come in by the door that Christ has opened. There is no way to God except by the death of Christ. When people were converted in the early days of the Acts of the Apostles they were baptised, and baptism meant burial. They were buried with Christ, that is, they died to the world and were buried, but at the same time they emerged, so to speak, on the other side, were brought to God. That is the purpose for which Christ came, that man might accept death, because man was under death, but that he might rise in the power of the Spirit, and in that way be brought to God. That was the reason for the coming of Christ,
[p. 96] to bring us to God on the other side of death. Baptism is the figure of that. Christ Himself is risen, and we are risen with Him through the faith of the operation of God who raised Him from the dead. It is on the ground of resurrection that people are brought to God in the present time through the death of Christ. But then, the friends of Christ claim Christ as an ornament for humanity. Many in the present day do not entirely deny Christ, but they do not think Him much more than a great prophet. They have no idea of what He came to be, that is, the centre and point to which everything for God was to be gathered; and they regard Christ as come for the benefit of humanity, and to put sanction upon man. A common idea on the part of certain christians is that baptism and the Lord’s Supper are an extension of the incarnation, that is, that Christ has come to amend and build up man as he is after the flesh. It is an error largely abroad.
But then there is another class, that is, the enemies of Christ. They were at work. Here it was in the attributing His miracles to the agency of Beelzebub. There are plenty of miracles in the world at the present time. It is quite a mistake to suppose this is not an age of miracles. Miracles may be of a different character, but just as real miracles as ever the Lord wrought when He was here upon earth. I see a man converted as the effect of the preaching of Christ; that is as great a miracle as any miracle the Lord wrought. You could not have a greater miracle or proof of power than that you were converted to God. All of us here are witnesses to it, for I suppose all of us have been converted. We are all miracles, and in that way witnesses to Christ; but then the enemies of Christ attribute that to some other agency, to enthusiasm, or I know not what; the effort is to discredit Christ, and the exercise of divine power here in the world. What men will have in the present day is all that comes within the range of man’s observation, and anything outside of that they refuse. There are enemies of Christ that will account by some other agency for what are really mighty miracles. I have [p. 97] found that there is no power in the world so great as grace. Men who never would be touched by anything else are brought down under the influence of grace, and that takes place here in the world. It is a real miracle. But the effort on the part of the enemies of Christ is to attribute the work to other agency. The multitude is ready to be swayed by anything. One day they would follow the Lord, and the next they would seek to crucify Him. The mass of people are as unthinking and as fickle as can be, led by one thing one day and another the next. They are not to be trusted. I come to another class, and that is the brethren of Christ, and that is a much more interesting class. At the close of the chapter, when the Lord’s mother and brethren put forth their claim on Christ, the Lord refused their claim. He did not come to put a sanction on humanity, to ennoble His mother and brethren; to make the Jew great. The fact is the Jew became very small by the coming of Christ. Their perverseness and lawlessness came out, and the kindred of Christ after the flesh became very small. They stumbled over Christ, and the Lord makes nothing of them. The Jew would have been well pleased if Christ had come to be an ornament to them as they were, but it was not for that purpose that He came. He came here for the will of God. We get that in Psalm 40, “I delight to do thy will, O my God: yea, thy law is within my heart”. I do not know whether you remember the circumstance at the close of Luke 2, of His parents going to Jerusalem, when the Lord was twelve years of age, and losing sight of Him, finding Him in the temple sitting with the doctors, hearing them and asking them questions. Do you remember the answer the Lord gave to His parents when they chid with Him, “wist ye not that I must be about my Father’s business?” He came to accomplish the will of God, “My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work”. We have to take that into account if we would understand anything at all about the Lord Jesus. That is; the end and purpose on which He was bent here was to give place to [p. 98] the will of God. The time will come when everything in which God has pleasure will come into view, when Christ is manifested in glory. He will bring all God’s will into view. He did not come to do man’s will, but to accomplish God’s will. My impression is that all the will of God is accomplished in principle, redemption has been accomplished and Christ, at the right hand of God, is the great gathering point in whom everything is established; so the will of God has been brought to pass in Christ; but another thing remains, and that is that all shall be brought into view in the universe. That is what Christ comes the second time to bring to pass. He says, “Who is my mother or my brethren?” “For whosoever shall do the will of God, the same is my brother, and my sister, and mother”.
Now I dwell on that point because it brings out a beautiful thought, that is, association with Christ. If we come into the place of the brethren of Christ we are brought into the closest possible relation with Him. The Lord on the one hand disowns His kindred; they sought to establish a claim on Him, and the Lord disallowed their claim; but on the other hand, a new bond is established between Christ and those who sat about Him, and that is, the will of God. Now I take it that all here would be found in the position of sitting about Him. Of course I am only taking up what occurred in the chapter as figurative. Morally we are sitting about Christ. That is the real ground of our being here. We have Jesus as centre, and are sitting about Him. It is no good sitting about Jesus if you are not prepared to do the will of God. His true brethren are marked by this. You cannot be doing right if you are not doing the will of God, because there cannot be any other will that is right except the will of God. The terrible thing in the world is, that there are as many wills as people. It is a lawless world, where every man does his own will. Now how do you do the will of God? What I understand is that Christ has been pleased to draw us to Himself. That is the first principle of doing the will of God. The Lord went up into the mountain [p. 99] and called unto Him whom He would, and they came unto Him. Christ is the point of attraction, and has drawn us to Himself, because He has revealed to us the mind of God toward man. That is the power of attraction in Christ The Lord said, “And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me”. I look upon His being lifted up from the earth as the great testimony of divine love. Divine love came out there, Christ is the expression to us of the mind of God toward man. It is a very wonderful thing that we cannot have any doubt or hesitation as to what is in the mind of God toward man, for Christ has come and died that He might make it known; that is the power of attraction that subsists in Christ. All of us have felt the power of it.
Now I go a point further. It is not simply that He has attracted us, but has attached us to Himself. I use the word “attached” in a sense which is strictly right, but not in the conventional sense. We use it often in the sense of affection. I use it in the sense of a bond, as the earth is bound to the sun, or a wife to her husband. Our attachment to Christ is a great point, it is in order that we might be recovered from lawlessness. If the earth were to get out of attachment it would become lawless. Every man who is not in attachment to Christ is lawless because God has appointed Christ to be the centre and sun of the moral universe. Everybody ought to allow that. Lawlessness is the ruin of this world, the existing system. It is on account of lawlessness that God will set aside and judge it, for lawlessness is intolerable to God. You may have man moral and intelligent and refined, but none of these will subdue lawlessness. Nothing can set aside lawlessness except the fact of our being in attachment to God’s centre, and that is Christ. He attaches us to Himself by the Spirit. The Spirit is the bond between Christ and the believer, so that we are recovered from lawlessness.
But now we come to a further point. We are brought into attachment that we may come under influence. I take up my illustration again. The earth is in attachment [p. 100] to the sun. It is held to the sun by laws which God has been pleased to appoint, and the effect is that the earth travels in its appointed orbit in relation to the sun; the earth comes under the influence of the sun with the result that the earth is fertile and brings forth fruit. Now the same principle holds good as to the believer. He is brought into attachment to Christ, that being recovered from lawlessness he may come under the influence of Christ, and be fruitful toward God. We get that brought out in Romans 7. Now our sitting about Christ is the proof that we are brought into attachment. Christ gave Himself that He might deliver us from all lawlessness, and purify unto Himself a peculiar people zealous of good works, a people that should be recovered from lawlessness by being brought into attachment to Himself, and should sit about Him, so that they should be zealous of good works. What are good works? Doing the will of God. A man may do works of benevolence on his own account, but they may not be good works as regards God. There cannot be any good works properly, except they be of the will of God. The Lord did not do works of beneficence according to man, giving millions of money to this and that; the fact is, He had no money to give; and so, too, afterwards Peter had to say, “silver and gold have I none”. But He could say to a lame man, rise up and walk. The apostles were full of good works, and we are to be full of mercy and good works, but your good works must be the expressions of God’s will to be good works. Some one might say, how am I to do the will of God? You will do it as you are under the influence of Christ. Every law of nature is subtle, you cannot trace it out, so the influence of Christ is subtle; but at the same time it is extremely real, and the heart of the believer is affected by it, as the apostle Paul said, “and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me”. We need to appropriate and in a sense to individualise Christ and His love to ourselves, and under the influence of His love we do [p. 101] the will of God. I have seen people pay a great deal of attention to ministry and be diligent at meetings, but I do not think they are helped so much by meetings or ministry as they think. I do not undervalue ministry, which is like rain, but what people want is sunshine. Rain would be no good without sunshine. If there were no sunshine there would be no rain, because the rain is dependent on sunshine; it is everything for us to get into the sunshine; that is, to get our hearts under the influence of the love of Christ. And Christ has brought us into attachment to Himself that we may come under the influence of His love and be zealous of good works. Good works are what Christ did. He went about doing good and healing all that were oppressed of the devil. And he that doeth righteousness is righteous as He is righteous. He stands in relation to Christ, and practises righteousness, that is what is right. People have all sorts of theological ideas about righteousness. Righteousness is what is right, and what is right is determined by the light of God. Whatever Christ did was right; He was doing righteousness, and we want to travel in His path, as the apostle puts it, “He that saith he abideth in him ought himself also so to walk, even as he walked”; doing good as God gives us opportunity; our influence is for God; we want to bring God in and to give no room for the pretension of man. If I disallow flesh in myself I will not tolerate it in other people. That would not be consistent or logical; my reason for disallowing the flesh is that there may be room for the Spirit of God, and so that there may be fruit for God. It says, “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against such there is no law”. Now may God give to us to understand the purpose of His grace, that we might be really sitting about Jesus. It is a great thing to recognise Him as the divinely — appointed centre. He is not a self-constituted centre. There will be one hereafter in this world; that is, the man of sin.
[p. 102] It is a great thing to be in this world denying lawlessness, and refusing to be controlled by your own will, but doing the will of God; then it is you are brother and sister and mother of Christ. That is our position, so that we should be with Him in the day of His glory; we shall be around Him then. We shall sit with Him at His table in His kingdom and the light will shine out through us. The church is to be the great vessel of light in the moral universe. The kings of the earth bring their honour and glory unto it; it is the moral luminary, but in the meantime we are left here that we might be bringing forth fruit unto God. As the Lord Jesus said to the disciples, He has ordained them that they should go and bring forth fruit and that their fruit should remain.