PREACHING OF THE WORD OF GOD

(i)        

Jim D. Gray

Matthew 3: 13-17; 4: 1-11; 26: 36-46; 27: 45-54; Romans 5: 7-10

I want to speak to you about the trials of the second man. There are two men in the scriptures, the first man and the second man. 1 Corinthians 15 speaks of “the first man out of the earth, made of dust; the second man, out of heaven” (v 47): John 3 speaks of “He who has his origin in the earth … He who comes out of heaven” (v 31).

I want to speak to you about the Man who is out of heaven, and about the trials and testings of that Man. God would give you an assurance that the Man whom He is commending in the glad tidings can be trusted. What He has secured, God will honour; that is what God will have you to understand. He is presenting to you His Christ, the second Man out of heaven. He is commending Him to you as a Saviour for sinners, and He would have you assured through the glad tidings that your confidence is real in that blessed Man. It is not going to be undermined; what He has promised, what He has secured will come to you, all the blessings that Christ has for you will be assured to you. Your eternal welfare is assured through Christ because He is tried and tested. Adam was tried and tested too. Adam was the lord of creation when he was brought in on the sixth day of creation. God put him in that place, but He tried him because He put him in responsibility. God never put the beasts in responsibility, He never took any of the cattle, or any of the beasts, or the fishes of the sea and put there responsibility, but He put Adam and Eve in responsibility. He told them that they were not to take of a certain fruit in the garden; it was a moral responsibility. Adam did not know evil, he knew only good, and Adam failed and brought his posterity down, that is he brought every one of us down, we are all children of fallen Adam. We inherited the awfulness of his fall; that is obvious; the state of the world at the present time shows that.

Now when the Lord Jesus came, God also arranged for Him to be tested and tried, His Christ, and that is what I want to speak to you about, His testings and His trials, and how He overcame, blessed Man. He is a worthy Saviour, I can tell you that before we begin.

I began with John the baptist’s ministry. There were persons in Jerusalem and Judea who answered to the preaching of John the baptist, telling them to repent – “Voice of him that crieth in the wilderness: prepare ye the way of the Lord”, Matt 3: 3. He was preparing the way of the Lord, he was a forerunner of Christ, and there were persons who answered to that, persons in Israel who answered to that at that time; they were alive then and they came out to John and they were confessing their sins. The Lord Jesus identifies Himself with such a company, He goes to the Jordan to John to be baptised. Did Jesus need to be baptised? Those who were there might have said, Well here is Jesus coming to be baptised: does He have sins to take account of? No, my friend, He did not. Things do not always appear what they are on the face of them; Jesus came to identify Himself with those who were confessing their sins, because He found pleasure in that. He was attracted to them. He was not attracted to the rebellious Jew seen particularly amongst those in Jerusalem, the chief priest and the Pharisee, but He was attracted to those, whether they be Pharisees or Sadducees, who were coming and confessing their sins and being baptised by John. He was attracted to the remnant in Israel, to the godly ones, the pious persons in Israel, and He identified Himself with them in humility. I said to you that Adam was the lord of creation. I have said to you that he failed, but now we have the One who is the firstborn of all creation coming in as the chief of creation, coming in as the One who created everything, not as Adam who was created, but coming in as the Creator of everything. The Lord Jesus was the Creator of everything; He comes in and takes His place as a humble man, with the meek and lowly on earth. Blessed Saviour! He says to John, “it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness”. He was going to take it all up on the cross anyway. He was going to take all the matters of their sins upon Himself on the cross, but in lowliness of heart He comes in as a blessed Man and takes His place with the lowly on the earth, those who desire to confess their sins and be suitable for the divine presence. They had a sense of conviction of their sins. It is a good thing to start that way, to be convicted of your sins.

The Lord Jesus came in in righteousness and He identified Himself with these lowly people. What does heaven do? It opens to that blessed Man, “This is my beloved Son”, Matt 3: 17. It does not say, ‘thou’, in this scripture: “Thou art my beloved Son”, is a direct address to Christ. It says, “This is my beloved Son”. It is drawing attention to the One upon whom the Spirit of God came in the form of a dove. He is distinguished at His baptism, heaven’s delight in Him. Heaven delighted in the place that this lowly Man had taken, the One who was the chief of creation.

Now comes this remarkable matter of His trial. God would have that humanity tested to let you and me see how foolproof it was to the approaches of the devil. He bound the strong man in this chapter: He was going to plunder his goods. He did that in His lifetime here, He secured persons for God. He goes into the wilderness and He is tempted forty days. Another has said that He was not with God exactly in those forty days; He was in the presence of the enemy, the presence of the tempter. He never ate during those forty days, He fasted, and He was hungry because He was a man. His humanity was real. The Lord Jesus hungered after these forty days because His humanity was real, and the devil seeks to take advantage of His weakness, as he thought. He says, “If thou be Son of God, speak, that these stones may become loaves of bread. But he answering said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word which goes out through God’s mouth”, Matt 4: 3,4. He came to do God’s will. He was not going to take any commandment from the devil. If He had spoken He would have taken Himself out from the place of obedience to God’s will, He would have used His own will to secure His own needs, and He would not do that. How different from Adam was the Lord Jesus Christ. He did not use His power or privilege to secure amelioration of His hunger; He was prepared to suffer rather than yield to the temptation of the devil. What a glorious and blessed Saviour! Humanity that the devil could not penetrate; “In him sin was not”, but He was prepared to be here for the will of God. He waited for a word from the Father, from God, as to His needs. He was not prepared to take the devil’s commandments. The devil in his craftiness and his wile used the scripture. The devil knows the scripture. The Lord used the scripture, and then the devil used the scripture. The Lord Jesus was proof against Satan; he was not prepared to take Himself out from the hands of God. The devil asked Him to cast Himself down from the edge of the temple saying that God would take charge of Him to prevent Him from falling and damaging Himself. He says, “Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God”, Matt 4: 7. He trusted God; He did not have to prove God by throwing Himself off the edge of the temple. He trusted God, He knew that God would protect Him, but He did not take Himself out of the divine hand, He did not yield to the wiles of the devil to prove anything.

Then the devil shows Him all the kingdoms of the world. All those kingdoms were going to be Christ’s kingdoms - “all the kingdoms of the world, and their glory, and says to him, All these things will I give thee if, falling down, thou wilt do me homage” (v 9). That was the Lord Jesus’ inheritance, but He was not going to take it the way the devil wanted Him to take it. If He had taken it this way what disaster there would have been. He may have got it without suffering, but what kind of kingdom would He have got? A kingdom of lawless men. He says, “Get thee away Satan” (v 10). He resists the devil, He drives him away, “for it is written, Thou shalt do homage to the Lord thy God, and him alone shalt thou serve” (v 10). There was the humanity that was proof against every aspect that the devil could devise, worthy Saviour! The reliability of His humanity against all the wiles and the strategy and opposition of the devil to God, He did not yield to any of them and He commands the devil to depart. A blessed Man who came to do the will of God, how perfect He was.

The Lord Jesus was ministered to by the angels, they brought Him food. He waited the divine time and His hunger was satisfied. I am speaking literally, His hunger was satisfied, blessed Saviour!

“Repent for the kingdom of the heavens has drawn nigh” (v 17), that is His preaching, Repent. You need to repent to come into the blessings of the kingdom of the heavens. The kingdom of the heavens is drawn nigh, the way in is in repentance, to confess your sins - just as those who went to John at the Jordan to confess their sins. That is your access in to the kingdom of the heavens. If you come under the sway of a glorious and blessed Man, you enter the kingdom of the heavens. What a blessing is in the glad tidings! It is a new preaching; it has never been on the earth before. It says, “From that time began Jesus to preach and to say, Repent, for the kingdom of the heavens has drawn nigh”. The devil was bound, Jesus could exploit his goods; the strong man was bound, and He could preach the glad tidings and there would be results. The Lord Jesus is the great liberator, to preach glad tidings of the kingdom of the heavens. What a thing that is, to come under the sway of God, the influence of the kingdom of the heavens, as over against what had been on this earth, darkness and distress, wars and rumour of wars. Here were glad tidings that were bringing in the sway of God into the heart of men and women, bringing them to know Christ as their Saviour and to have their sins forgiven.

In chapter 26, the devil comes back again. The testings of the second Man were not yet complete. You wonder what His thoughts were in those forty days when He fasted. The Lord Jesus would not be in a vacuum; what were His thoughts in the beginning of His ministry, His public service when He was going forward to the cross? He must have thought of the glad tidings of the kingdom of the heavens that was going to be preached through His faithfulness. He had come in to do the will of God, and He knew that it involved His death. If He was to secure the kingdom for Himself it involved His death; if He was to secure persons for that kingdom, it involved His death. He came in to take up the question of sin and sins. He exploited the goods of the strong man. He had delivered persons from Satan in His preachings. What preachings the gospels bring out of Christ. Now He comes to the cross and what was before Him. It says, “Then Jesus comes with them to a place called Gethsemane, and says to the disciples, Sit here until I go away and pray yonder. And taking with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, he began to be sorrowful and deeply depressed”, and then He says to them, “My soul is very sorrowful even unto death; remain here and watch with me. And going forward a little he fell upon his face, praying and saying, My Father, if it be possible let this cup pass from me; but not as I will, but as thou wilt”. A holy Man; the Lord Jesus. It would be no light matter for Christ to go to the cross. I will say one thing to you, He is not deviating in this scripture; He never deviated, His face was set to go to the cross, but the scripture brings out how He felt. What was death to Christ? I was impressed by the poet who says:

I pause - for in Thy vision,

The day is hastening now,

When for our lost condition,

Thy holy head shalt bow.

Christ felt the matter of the cup that He was to drink. What cup was that? It was the cup of the wrath of God, and He had to drink that cup. He was prepared to go forward, He who knew not sin; He was made sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. He was made sin, not made to sin, but made sin. It was fixed on Him, something that was abhorrent. How Christ abhorred sin. The expression in man and woman and boys and girls of their own will, of lawlessness, fixed on Christ. God condemns sin in the flesh in the death of Christ. Jesus knew that He was going forward to that, forward to the forsaking, forward to take that cup that would involve the forsaking, and His spirit shrank from it and His soul was depressed. How real was the humanity of the Lord Jesus Christ, and here was His testing. He had been tested already, here He is tested again, and He goes forward in complete submission to the will of His God and Father. He will not take the cup from any other hand than the hand of His Father. What a moment that is to consider, that the cup of wrath was given to Him by His God to drink - no other. Instruments were used to crucify Him, but He takes the cup as from the hand of God.

He is tested here and He goes three times in prayer, “My Father, if it be possible let this cup pass from me; but not as I will, but as thou wilt”. One of the hymns says:

No act of power could e’er atone,

No wonder-working word

Could from the brightness of the throne,

Make love’s sweet voice be heard.

If sinners ever were to know

The depths of love divine,

All Calvary’s weakness and its woe,

Blest Saviour, must be thine.

 

He had to go this way, God had to be glorified, “I have glorified thee in the earth, I have finished the work thou gavest me that I should do it”. He went forward to the cross with a determination to finish that work. John’s gospel tells us that when He bowed His blessed head, He said, “It is finished; and having bowed his head, he delivered up his spirit”. What a work it was, what a trial it was, what testing for His humanity. The second Man out of heaven, tested and tested in a way that the first man was never tested. The pressure of temptation on His spirit, the pressure of the death on His spirit, two things it says, “He watched and prayed”. He watched because Satan was there, He was on His guard lest Satan should get an inroad, but he never interfered with His communion. The Lord Jesus was in full and complete communion with His Father in His prayer here. There was no thought of distance here in this scripture. The devil was there but He could not penetrate to affect that blessed Man, he never affected Him in any way. His soul was deeply depressed and He was sorrowful on account of what He Himself had committed Himself to, to the will of God that involved Him taking up the matter of sin and sins on behalf of humanity, on behalf of God. There are two matters in the death of Christ, the propitiation and the substitution. Propitiation involves that God is satisfied. The glad tidings can go forth then and tell you that God is satisfied in Christ, and God will be glorified in that even if there was never one soul saved. The other side of it is the substitution side, that Christ bore my sins in His body on the tree. That side brings us into the blessing. Propitiation is the basis that God has for proclaiming the glad tidings to all men; Christ “gave himself a ransom for all”, involves propitiation. What a Saviour! So we come into the blessings that He has secured.

On the cross He says, “My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me?” I read that just to bring home for the younger persons here the awfulness of the moment when it came. What a moment for Christ to cry, “My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me?”. The testimony given to an audience who had taunted Him, who said “He saved other, himself he cannot save. He is King of Israel: let him descend now from the cross, and we will believe on him. He trusted upon God; let him save him now if he will have him” (vv 42,43) – in the face of those taunts the Lord Jesus cried that God had forsaken Him. What a humiliation for the Saviour, what reproach for the Lord Jesus, tested and tried. Then at the close, He having “cried with a loud voice, gave up the ghost”. That is the Lord going out in triumph, having exhausted the wrath of God, drunk the cup to the last dregs, blessed Saviour, glorious Saviour! He is worthy to be believed in. I should also say to you, concerning all the happenings of the time they show that it was a miraculous matter. The things that happened; the earthquake and other things, it affected persons.

Romans 6 tells us “He was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father”. God’s delight in Christ, “Man of the Father’s choice, faithful and tried”, God’s delight in Christ. I want to show you how God delighted in Christ, that He would have Him. It says, “He trusted upon God; let him save him now if he will have him“, God says, I will have my Christ. He was in death for three days and three nights, but God says, I will have my Christ and He raised Him from among the dead by His glory. All the divine power and affections entering into that blessed moment when the Father raised Christ from the grave. He would have Him and the proof of it is that He is made Lord and Christ, and the tangible evidence is that the Holy Spirit is come, come from Christ in glory bringing proof to the believer, “God has made this Jesus whom ye have crucified both Lord and Christ”.

In Romans 5 Paul is saying that man might have a motive to die for someone. It says, “For scarcely for the just man will one die, for perhaps for good man some one might also dare to die”, speaking about humanity; but then he says, “God commends his love to us, in that, we being still sinners, Christ has died for us”. There is no merit in us to induce Christ to die for us, from our side, we were sinners, but Christ died for us. What a love! What a blessing the believer has that He comes into touch with the Lord Jesus, “faithful and tried”, to know the love of the Christ which surpasses knowledge. At the Lord’s Supper you drink into the cup, a cup of blessing, an expression of the love of God in Christ, and the love of Christ, that God has given His Son, “the just for the unjust”, that Christ has poured out His blood, “this is my blood which is poured out for you”. What blessings come to us, all the blessings that Christ has secured are real, because the Man Christ Jesus has been faithful and tried.

It says, “Much rather therefore, having been now justified in the power of his blood, we shall be saved by him from wrath”. There is no wrath going to come on the believer. Cast in your lot with the people of God, cast your lot in as one who believes in the Lord Jesus Christ; there is no wrath going to come on you. John the Baptist says, “Who has forewarned you to flee from the coming wrath”, and then Thessalonians says, that they trusted in the Lord Jesus as Son of God, awaiting Him from heaven, the deliverer from the coming wrath. Christ is the deliverer for us from the coming wrath. Wrath is going to come upon this ungodly scene. When Noah went into the ark and the ark was shut, there was nothing but wrath for those outside, no mercy, only wrath. Mercy was shown to those in the ark. God will execute wrath upon this scene, but, thank God, for the believer, He gets relief from that through trusting in Christ. There is nothing that can be charged against him, he is saved by Christ from wrath and more than that, “being enemies have been reconciled to God through the death of his Son”. The work of reconciliation was done on the cross, apart from you and me. That work by Christ on the cross involved reconciliation of man and God, distance removed. So as trusting in Christ we come into the blessing of the reconciliation. That is when the son came back from the far country in Luke 15, he was reconciled. Reconciled involves that I am no longer in Adam, but I am in Christ, another order of humanity, laying hold of Christ as my Saviour, I come into an order of humanity that belongs to Christ. “For being enemies, we have been reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much rather, having been reconciled, we shall be saved in the power of his life”. I wonder if you have proved what it is to be saved in the power of His life. What life is that? That is not His life in flesh and blood condition. That is Christ’s life presently, the risen and ascended Man. The believer is saved in the power of His life as going through this world, walking in newness of life, another kind of life exhibited, Christ’s life exhibited in this world where Christ once was. You are in touch with a Man in heaven, a Man in the glory, and you are saved in the power of His life, you come under the influence of the life of Christ in glory. What blessings are these that the believer has?

All these things are assured. I want to leave with you an impression that the Man whom God is presenting to you has been fully tested and tried, and what is secured is an absolutely firm foundation that nothing can shake and God is going to honour it to all eternity.

May it be our portion for His Name’s sake.

 

EDINBURGH

10 December 2000