HOW LUKE PRESENTS THE LORD JESUS
The Lord Jesus Christ is the great subject of the glad tidings. This evangelist, Luke, presents the Lord Jesus first of all as the One who has satisfied the heart of God; that is what we find in chapter 3. It says, “the Holy Spirit descended in a bodily form as a dove upon him; and a voice came out of heaven, Thou art my beloved Son, in thee I have found my delight”, Luke 3: 22. Is that not glad tidings, that God has found a Man in whom is His delight? Think of all the men who had gone before, all the history of the Old Testament, never was a man like this Man. He came from heaven, He was a Man of another kind, another order; in His Person He was God, “the Word was with God, and the Word was God”, John 1: 1. He was found here as a blessed Man, and it was a full answer to every desire of God for man. Is that not wonderful that God has found a Man in whom He has found His delight?
Then He had the work committed to Him of taking up the whole question of sin in which God had been dishonoured; and He honoured God and glorified God in the working out of the solution of the great question of good and evil. In this world there is a great problem, the problem of good and evil, and the Lord Jesus came here to solve that great problem of good and evil. His sufferings and His death have satisfied God as to that great problem. It still exists in this world; it will yet be worked out in the universe. It was worked out in the cross of Jesus; it is to be worked out in every man and woman who is to be blessed. The question of good and evil has to be solved, but the Lord Jesus has laid the basis for good to triumph and evil to be dealt with. It will be solved eventually; it is to be in every believer, but the great work of reconciliation has been accomplished, as we sang—
All His toil on earth completed,
All His work for sinners done.
(Hymn 404).
The One in whom God has found His delight took on that great transaction, and finished it to God’s eternal satisfaction. He suffered as if He had been a sinner; He took the sinner’s place, and laid the righteous basis for God to offer forgiveness to every repentant sinner. The work has been done, there is nothing of that work for the sinner to do, it has been completed. Is that not glad tidings? That God has found a Man in whom was His delight here, and who has completed the work committed to Him. The Lord said, “I have glorified thee on the earth, I have completed the work which thou gavest me that I should do it”, John 17: 4. He came into manhood to undertake that work. Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, and He has completed the work, laid the basis whereby sinners can be saved.
The next thing is in chapter 4. He overcame the devil. There has been a blessed Man here who has overcome Satan. That is another feature of Luke’s gospel, he presents One who has defeated Satan. Every other man and woman succumbed to Satan’s power—or Satan’s craft; there was one blessed Man here who overcame Satan. It says, “the devil, having completed every temptation, departed from him for a time”, Luke 4: 13. Satan departed a defeated foe; is that not glad tidings? The devil is a defeated foe and he knows it, he will not tell you that, but he knows he has been defeated; and the believer has the light of the fact that the devil has been defeated by our Lord Jesus Christ.
Next the Lord says, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach glad tidings to the poor; he has sent me to preach to captives deliverance, and to the blind sight, to send forth the crushed delivered, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord”, Luke 4: 18, 19. Another feature of Luke’s presentation of the glad tidings is that He is a Saviour available for every human being. When He was here He met every need, even physical need. He met every human need, and He will do that at the present time. He may relieve you in mercy, or He will give you grace to support what physical need you have, but His great objective is to meet every moral need, every need of the matter of good and evil, “to preach glad tidings to the poor ... to captives deliverance, and to the blind sight, to send forth the crushed delivered”. These are samples of the kind of need that the Lord Jesus as Saviour is able to meet. He is available for every moral need of every person, every sinner’s need; need of meeting guilt; need of meeting sinnership, the Lord is available. He has done the work; the work has been completed that satisfies God, that God can offer to every one forgiveness; that is God’s attitude, His present attitude to all because of the finished work of our Lord Jesus Christ.
That is how the glad tidings come to us, by the Man who satisfied the heart of God. God had desires for man which were answered fully in the Lord Jesus Christ. He has finished the work given to Him; He has defeated the devil, and He is available for every moral need. That is what God is presenting in the glad tidings.
I want to show you how we come into it. It is one thing to hear the glad tidings presented and the glory of them, the majesty of them, the greatness of them, the fulness of them, but then, how do I come into all the blessing of deliverance, satisfaction, joy, forgiveness? How do I come into it? That is why I read these scriptures in chapter 5. We come into it by repentance, the way Simon came into it, “I am a sinful man. Lord”. He had the manifestation of the goodness of God; had the knowledge and appreciation of the goodness of God which leads to repentance. He said, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man. Lord”. I wonder if you have reached this first step; I wonder if we have all owned before God that we are sinners and in need of a Saviour.
It is true of every one of us and we need to come in our soul history to facing the issue of good and evil. How is it met? It says, “But Simon Peter, seeing it, fell at Jesus’ knees, saying, Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, Lord”. On the one hand he said, “Depart from me”, that is, he felt the loathsomeness of his condition, his sinnership, his guilt before God, he felt all that keenly, but along with that he fell at Jesus’ knees, therefore he knew where the remedy was. The great subject of Paul’s preaching is “repentance towards God, and faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ”, Acts 20: 21. We see both in Simon here, but especially repentance, “I am a sinful man, Lord”.
That is how we begin to come into the blessings God has for us, it is by means of repentance. I would just challenge every one here, Have you come to face the matter of your sinnership, owning your sins before God? The Saviour is available. We live in a wonderful day of grace, when God is forgiving repentant sinners. Because of the value of the finished work of our Lord Jesus Christ, God can afford, being holy and righteous as ever He was, to forgive repenting sinners, because of the glory and the worth that He has in the work of our Lord Jesus Christ. I would urge every one here who has not yet faced that situation, own now your sinnership before God. It is the first step and the only way to come into the blessings that God has for us in the glad tidings. The glad tidings tell us the blessings God has for us, but then there is a way into them by experience, so that the blessings He has for us becomes ours, and the only way is repentance.
Then the next thing that is emphasised is faith. The Lord Jesus was teaching and it says there were “Pharisees and doctors of the law sitting by, who were come out of every village of Galilee and Judæa and out of Jerusalem; and the Lord’s power was there to heal them”. Think of the grace of the Lord Jesus. His power available to help and bless these Pharisees and doctors of the law, but apparently they were not interested. It is a great thing to first of all be interested. Think of being a sinner and not interested in forgiveness. O, what an awful state to be in! The Lord was there and His power available. Then they bring “upon a couch a man who was paralysed”, and they sought to bring him in and put him before Jesus. “And not finding what way to bring him in, on account of the crowd, going up on the housetop they let him down through the tiles”. This man must have realised that there was only one Man who could meet his need, and that was the Lord Jesus. He was helpless, he could not go himself, he had to have others to carry him. It says of Jesus, “seeing their faith”, that must have included the man who was paralysed. I can see them coming to this house and they could not get in because of the crowd. The man would say, I must get in somehow; I am so urgent about my need that I must get in somehow. So the four men opened the roof and let him in before Jesus, I have no doubt urged by the need of this man who was paralysed. There was faith with the men who carried him, but I can see him being really concerned about his, need and that it be met. He would say, I must be brought before Jesus because He is the only One who can heal me. So it is now, He is the only Saviour, “for neither is there another name under heaven which is given among men by which we must be saved”, Acts 4: 12.
So this man is let down before Jesus, and what is the word He says? The first word that Jesus says is, “Man, thy sins are forgiven thee”. He does not say, What is your story, what is your guilt? How did you come to be paralysed? What have you done? It is God’s attitude, dear friend, “Man, thy sins are forgiven thee”. Where there is faith, where there is repentance as well as faith, the first words are, “Man, thy sins are forgiven thee”. God can afford, being holy and just as ever He was, to say to a repentant soul that has faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, “thy sins are forgiven thee”. Would you not like to be assured of your sins forgiven, be sure that that is a settled matter for time and eternity, never to rise in your life down here, and never to rise in the hereafter? “Thy sins are forgiven”. This is the wonderful day we are living in let us value it.
He is still lying on his couch, he is still paralysed, his sins are forgiven, but he is still lying on his couch. There were those that challenged what the Lord was saying, they say, “Who is able to forgive sins but God alone?” God was there in the Person of the Lord Jesus. “But Jesus, knowing their reasonings, answering said ... which is easier, to say, Thy sins are forgiven thee; or to say. Rise up and walk?” It was no easy matter for the Lord Jesus to be able to say; “thy sins are forgiven”. He had to bear these sins; He suffered for these sins, and for the sins of every believer, “who himself bore our sins in his body on the tree”, 1 Pet 2: 24. That only applies to believers; He bore the sins of believers. He bore the sins of this man. What an ordeal it was for the Lord Jesus to be made sin, to be made the very thing He hated most; to be made sin. We can hardly understand what it meant to the Lord Jesus, to undertake the great transaction that no other one could undertake. What a work! What a cost to Him! Value the cost to our Lord Jesus Christ that forgiveness is available to you.
He says, “which is easier, to say, Thy sins are forgiven thee; or to say, Rise up and walk?” Then the Lord said to the paralytic, “I say to thee, Arise, and take up thy little couch and go to thine house”. That was power; what a sinner needs is forgiveness on the one hand but also power, that is power to move, power to be here for the will of God, and that power lies in the gift of the Holy Spirit. It is one thing to have our sins forgiven, that is a very blessed matter indeed, but then we need power. This man has to go to his house, it says, “Arise, and take up thy little couch and go to thine house”. He had to take on responsibilities, and how can we do that except in the power of the Holy Spirit? We need power, and so the Holy Spirit is available to us as power. It is one thing to commit ourselves in the preaching; to face the matter of good and evil, and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, but we have also to go out on Monday morning and maintain our committal, and that is in the power of the Holy Spirit. When we are forgiven and desire to do the will of God it is then that we feel the need of a power outside of ourselves. We are not able in ourselves but the Holy Spirit is available in the glad tidings as power. The Lord has power on earth to forgive sins, and there is power in the believer to be committed to the will of God, and to fulfil that committal in the power of the Holy Spirit. So it says, “immediately standing up, before them”. You cannot prove to anyone that you are forgiven, it is a secret you have, you cannot prove it to anybody else; it is a matter of faith, we are justified by faith. When the world to come is set up, it will then be manifested that believers are forgiven and justified, but in the meantime it is a secret we have in our souls. When he rose up and departed to his house there was testimony; power was evidenced in a change with him; he was a different person in his house; not a victim of circumstances as he had been before, but now he is an overcomer in the power of the Holy Spirit. The way into the blessings that God has in the glad tidings is by way of repentance and by way of faith.
Then in the next incident, what is called attention to is obedience, another very important feature. If we are going to enjoy the blessings God has for us there has to be obedience. This man’s right hand was withered, and the Lord said to him first of all, “Get up, and stand in the midst”. That was a command which called for obedience, and this man was obedient. His hand was withered but he could get up and stand in the midst, and that was simply obedience, and that is a very important feature in the history of the believer, to maintain obedience, to come under the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ as this man does, he comes under the authority of the Lord Jesus. It says, “And having risen up he stood there”, he was obedient. The way to blessing, and to be maintained in the way of the will of God, the way of joy and satisfaction, is to be obedient. That is, we confess Jesus as Lord, own Him as our Lord and come under His dominion; in other words, come into the kingdom. The kingdom consists of obedient persons, who have submitted to the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ. It will yet be set up publicly, meantime it is in mystery, it consists of those who come under the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ in obedience.
The first command is what he can do, what he has strength to do, but then the second command involves faith, because the Lord said to him, “Stretch out thy hand”. He might have said, But my hand is withered, but he got the power in obeying, the strength came in obeying. The first command was, “Get up, and stand in the midst”, which he could do, and he did, he was submissive under the Lord’s authority; the next word was, “Stretch out thy hand”, and the hand that was withered he stretched out. He received the power in obeying the command, and that is another very interesting feature the believer needs to understand. You might say, I have not faith for this, but then you always have faith to do what is right; you always have faith to come under the Lord’s command as this man here. He might have said, I cannot, it is withered; but he got the strength in obeying the word of the Lord, it is the obedience of faith.
That is all I have to say. There is abundant blessing available, righteously established in the work of our Lord Jesus Christ. The way into it, and the way to be maintained in it, is by repentance, by faith, by the gift of the Holy Spirit, and by subjection to the authority of the Lord Jesus. That is how the great question of good and evil is settled in the believer’s soul. I remember an old brother in Edinburgh often told us, The kingdom exists for the solution of the question of good and evil. Come into the kingdom; come into the area of what is good where the judgment of good and evil prevails. May the Lord bless the word.
DUNDEE
29th March 1992
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