SUFFERING AND GLORY
Luke 24:26; Isaiah 53:2-10; Philippians 2:8-11; Revelation 5:9-14; John 17:24;
T.W.L. I have been thinking of the Lord’s question here in Luke, “Ought not the Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into his glory?”. Everything that will be for God in a coming day will have been brought about because a Man suffered. Now there is glory; Christ is not suffering now, but He has suffered. We should be affected by the fact that He suffered for us. He suffered for everybody here in this room, but He also suffered, speaking very carefully, for God. I would like to look into that together, that He suffered to establish things in glory, things that breakdown could not touch, and He established them here in a scene where there is breakdown. We live in such a scene, where sin exists, where there is sorrow and death and all those things. But faith takes account of the glory that Christ has established by His sufferings. It should be said to begin with that the sufferings that Christ took on were taken on voluntarily, which is what makes Him such a precious and special Man for us, and special for God.
In Luke 24 it says, “And having begun from Moses and from all the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself (v.27). In Isaiah 53 we have one of the prophets speaking of the sufferings of Christ. Isaiah goes through the things He has borne, the sufferings, and what it was for Christ to be despised; what it was for Him to be alone. Also, what it was for no man to understand the things that He was taking on, voluntarily, for God. The prophet speaks about why He was wounded: “But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon him”. Christ took on all that suffering so that God should have an inheritance. He bore these things for God, in that sense. Sometimes we speak, rightly, of His sufferings as having been borne on our behalf, but He has secured an inheritance for God by His suffering. Then it goes on, “He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, but he opened not his mouth”. This speaks of the subject character of the love of Christ as He suffered. It should affect our hearts that such a Man has brought us to God. He has suffered, the just for the unjust, to bring us to God (1 Pet.3:18). That was according to the purpose of God. Our passage in Isaiah goes on: “he was cut off out of the land of the living … Yet it pleased Jehovah to bruise him”. You might ask ‘Why?’ Why did Jehovah bruise Him? Why did He have to suffer so? Because there was no other way for God to arrive at His thoughts for man, other than by such a Man as Christ suffering as Christ did. God proved the reality of the perfection of Jesus by what He put on Him: “it pleased Jehovah to bruise him”.
There are many scriptures that speak of the glories that Christ has now entered into. In Philippians 2 it is the glory of His name: “becoming obedient even unto death, and that the death of the cross. Wherefore also God highly exalted him, and granted him a name, that which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow”. The name of Jesus was given before that. That is how God has named Jesus: “and thou shalt call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins”, Matt.1:21. But the full character of the suffering Jesus was not known until He had died. The full lustre of that name was displayed as He became “obedient even unto death, and that the death of the cross”. Then there was a glory that He entered into: “Ought not the Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into his glory?”.
In Revelation 5, the passage speaks about those who recognise the worthiness of Christ in what He has done for God. The living creatures and the elders say, “Thou art worthy … because thou hast been slain, and hast redeemed to God, by thy blood, out of every tribe, and tongue, and people, and nation”. Then the writer goes on, “And I saw, and I heard the voice of many angels around the throne and the living creatures and the elders; and their number was ten thousands of ten thousands and thousands of thousands; saying with a loud voice, Worthy is the Lamb that has been slain”. Was He worthy before He was slain? Of course He was, but His worthiness took on a deeper lustre in the light of how He suffered for God. The Lord Himself said, “Ought not the Christ to have suffered these things”. Worthiness is ascribed to Him by those who know that He has been slain and has redeemed myriads to God.
In John 17, the Lord says, "Father, as to those whom thou hast given me, I desire that where I am they also may be with me, that they may behold my glory which thou hast given me, for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world". I believe that the Lord is speaking there of the glory given to Him as Man by the Father. That glory could not be given to Him until He had suffered for God, and the glory that is given to Him in this verse is not shared with anybody. It could not be. There is no one like Christ. No one has suffered for God like Christ has. The glory given to Him here is unique to Him. I suggest too that the Lord's reference to the Father's love for Him before the foundation of the world includes love for what He, a divine Person, would become as coming into manhood to secure God's glory and pleasure. Clearly there was always love between the Persons of the Godhead before time was, and before divine Persons entered into the relationships now known to us.
Psalm 72 speaks of the glory that He will have when He comes to rule, in the millennium. It is wonderful that a Man will rule then who has the right to rule because He has suffered for God. Then Israel will take its place on earth as the head of the nations. It says in relation to Israel that “they shall look on me whom they pierced, and they shall mourn for him … and shall be in bitterness for him”, Zech.12:10. The whole nation will come into accord with God when they see a Man who has been pierced: He has suffered.
J.D. Do you think the reference in Luke to “the Christ” and then the reference in Isaiah to “a root out of dry ground” suggests a different order of manhood that must necessarily suffer as coming into this scene? It says of Moses that “the boy wept”, Exod.2:6. These are feelings that would belong to His perfection in this world.
T.W.L. Yes. We suffer because it is our lot, the result of what we are. Christ took on suffering voluntarily, being a Man of a completely different order. Christ suffered because of His love. We suffer because of our condition. It is one of the glories of Jesus that He voluntarily took on suffering, not only for us but also for God. He was securing an inheritance for God. When the Lord says, “Ought not the Christ to have suffered these things”, He is saying as it were, ‘It was not possible that I could do anything different’.
W.W.L. “The Christ” is the man who does things for God. The two going to Emmaus had an appreciation of Him as Jesus the Nazaræan, but “the Christ” elevates the whole thought in relation to what He is doing for God. The Lord relates “the Christ” to His sufferings; it is immediate: “Ought not the Christ to have suffered”. These two may have had an understanding about Christ being glorified, but they did not yet have an appreciation of the Christ suffering, did they?
T.W.L. Indeed. You can understand why these two would go back to the company at Jerusalem, because they would begin to understand that Christ had suffered to secure something for God. That is a wonderful thing: “Ought not the Christ to have suffered” is Christ saying, in effect, to them, ‘This was the way that love must move to secure the inheritance for God’. That would lead us to ask, ‘How much did He suffer? What did He go through?’. We are reminded of His words while suffering, “Now is my soul troubled, and what shall I say?”, John 12:27. Think of Christ suffering like that.
R.J.C. We often refer in the preaching to the Lord Jesus coming here to die. First the suffering, but then, as it goes on to say in this one verse, the glory.
T.W.L. He has moved into glory; that is not waiting for the rapture, for another day. The glory exists and He is already there. The saints by faith should be in the good of the glory.
R.B. Does it give character to this whole dispensation? In John 14, the Lord says, “the world sees me no longer; but ye see me” (v.19). In Hebrews, it says “but we see Jesus, who was made some little inferior to angels on account of the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour” (chap.2:9). That is present, is it not?
T.W.L. Yes. He is crowned with glory on account of the sufferings. You can understand why God crowned Christ with glory and honour, the Man who has done everything for Him. He has done everything for us, but this is the Man who has secured the inheritance for God, and He has done so at extreme cost to Himself because of His love for God. What a wonderful Man Jesus is.
J.L. Would we see that the range of His sufferings has found a full answer in the range of His glories? Along with that, these sufferings have brought about depth in the answer to them – depth of feeling in the fulness of the answer for God, do you think?
T.W.L. Yes. Recently the brethren were speaking about “the Lamb’s wife”, Rev.21:9. She appreciates that He suffered, and also takes her place in suffering here, because she is the Lamb’s wife. As the Lamb’s wife she is intelligent under His headship, and she understands what she is as with Him for God’s pleasure.
G.B.G. The Lord uses the word “Ought”. Earlier in Luke He says, “did ye not know that I ought to be occupied in my Father’s business?”, Luke 2:49. Do you think He felt the responsibility of it? But then underlying what He took on was His love for His God. He felt it, did He not?
T.W.L. Yes. The Lord understood the obligations of love better than any man could. And the obligations of love meant that “Ought not the Christ to have suffered”. In John’s gospel, the Lord says, “that the world may know that I love the Father … Rise up, let us go hence” (chap.14:31). He was on His way to the cross. “Ought not the Christ to have suffered”: He is moving according to the obligations of love for His God.
J.W. I was thinking on the well-known verse about the Hebrew bondman: “if the bondman shall say distinctly, I love my master, my wife, and my children, I will not go free”, Exod.21:5.
T.W.L. It is a wonderful verse, where the case of someone who understands the obligations of love is spoken of. That bondman would not go free. Christ did not go free. He understood what the Father’s love was to Him, and He understood the obligations of love for His Father. The Lord suffered immensely, more than we will ever fathom, and He suffered for God.
D.G.C. Did the obligations of love involve Him not exercising His own will? The Lord says, “but then, not my will, but thine be done”, Luke 22:42.
T.W.L. Yes, that is one of the glories of Jesus. It is not that He did not have a right to exercise His will, and had He done so it would not have been any different from His Father’s, but it was not His Father’s. The glory of it was that though He had the right to exercise His will, and the result would have been the same, He chose not to because it was part of His glory as Man to be subject even as far as death. When the Lord says, “My Father, if it be possible let this cup pass from me; but not as I will, but as thou wilt” (Matt. 26:39), it was as a Man going on to death, facing even more intense suffering than He endured in His life.
R.G. The Lord came to do the will of the Father, did He not? “Lo, I come to do thy will. He takes away the first that he may establish the second”, Heb.10:9.
T.W.L. Yes, it is very interesting that that scripture goes on to say, “by which will”, that is the Father’s will, “we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all” (v.10). The offering of the body of Jesus Christ involved the cross. Think of all the hatred and the suffering He endured there. We have been sanctified through the offering of that body.
G.B.G. He is no longer suffering, as you said, but the savour remains, the savour of these moral features that were brought out for the pleasure for God in His suffering, do you think?
T.W.L. Yes, He offered Himself as a sweet odour to God and the odour remains. The burnt offering was entirely consumed, and the odour was really what only God could appreciate. The burnt offering was entirely for God and remains with Him. The offerings which were burnt were consumed but the odour of these offerings was really what only God could appreciate, and it remains. All that is for God as a result of the sufferings has the character of the sweet odour.
W.M.P. These offerings were offerings by fire. The severity of the judgement that came on the Lord Jesus should affect us. He suffered for sins, did He not?
T.W.L. Yes, and that may move us on to consider Isaiah. The passage we read starts with “For he shall grow up before him as a tender sapling”. Christ grew up before the face of His Father. From the time when He was a Babe until He was a Man in testimony, He grew up before the eyes of His Father. But then He was rejected of men: “He is despised and left alone of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief”. That was the life of the Man who understood the will of God and the obligations of love, yet He “has not where he may lay his head”, Luke 9:58.
G.B.G. He “shall grow up before him”: does that involve God being His Object? Scripture says: “before him”, drawing attention to God’s Person. And then “a root out of dry ground” involves that God was His resource. God was before Him continually.
T.W.L. Yes. This was a Man who came out from God, knowing the feelings of God, and was going back to God having secured His inheritance. He knew that that would require Him to suffer, to suffer as a Man all alone in a scene full of men that He came to die for. He died the just for the unjust, to bring us to God (1 Pet.3:18). That was His purpose of heart, the reason for His living. The Lord says, “As the living Father has sent me and I live on account of the Father”, John 6:57. The footnote says that “I live on account of the Father” means ‘I live by reason of his being and living’. That involved the Lord’s suffering. There were things that the Lord went through in quietness that nobody knew except the Father and Himself. There were sufferings that He went through that were never seen by the eyes of men. He was a Man entirely for God here. What a wonderful Man is Jesus for God.
R.B. There is a comment in ministry regarding the oblation in Leviticus 2, that the oblation baked in the oven (v.4) is a secret matter1. You do not see what is happening in the oven. It was said that there were utterances that only the Father heard and understood. It says of Abraham and Isaac, “and they went both of them together”, Gen.22:6.
T.W.L. Yes, there were things expressed as Christ endured suffering in His life of perfection here that only God could hear, only God could understand. Then the savour of the offering, speaking of the Lord’s perfection in His dying, is that by which we are accepted before God. We approach in the good of all that Christ is and all that He has done in offering Himself to God.
D.G.C. Do the three hours of darkness come into that? There was what was shut away from the eye of man. It was not for man to see or understand. We can perhaps appreciate a little of it as we come to know Him. But there was much more than we can understand.
T.W.L. Yes. Our passage says, “Surely he hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; and we, we did regard him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon him, and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray, we have turned every one to his own way; and Jehovah hath laid upon him the iniquity of us all”. That was what took place in the three hours of darkness. God laid upon Christ the iniquity of us all. Christ took on and removed everything that would hinder God’s enjoyment of His inheritance in the saints.
W.W.L. Christ suffered from men on account of righteousness and He suffered from God on account of sin. Regarding the suffering from men on account of righteousness, the Lord in His perfection felt things more keenly than we ever could. He felt the condition of sin around Him, and its effects on man, and that was a suffering that He entered into. But what He suffered from God on account of sin was greater.
T.W.L. Yes, that suffering was far more intense. It would make Christ even more precious to us as we understand how He knew and anticipated the intensity of what He was going to suffer at the hands of God. He knew about these sufferings before He took them on. He knew before He came into manhood what the intensity of the sufferings would be and that there would come a time when He would cry, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”, Matt. 27:46. Christ knew before taking up manhood that, as Man here, that point would come and yet He voluntarily took it up. What a Man for God, beloved brethren.
G.B.G. God knew as well.
T.W.L. Yes. And God never had a man who could endure those sufferings until Jesus came.
A.G.M. It is important to distinguish between these sufferings. The Lord endured many kinds of sufferings. We can understand something of what He suffered at the hands of men, but we cannot penetrate into the atoning sufferings. What you are saying is important, that these atoning sufferings were between a perfect Man, a Man of a different nature and order, and a holy God. We can only stand in awe at the greatness of it.
T.W.L. Yes. This is the same One of whom it could be said, “who by the eternal Spirit offered himself spotless to God”, Heb.9:14. The wording of that is of the utmost importance as we look at this subject: “who by the eternal Spirit offered himself”. Scripture does not say, ‘was offered’. It is what He did voluntarily in the obligations of His love to God. No one else in the history of men has done this, nor could they. Christ took up this matter in His love. That makes Him so precious to us.
A.P.G. John the baptist twice says, “Behold the Lamb of God”, John 1:29,36. That suggests both the sufferings and His attractiveness to God and to others. Others then followed Him, did they not?
T.W.L. Yes. When John says, “Behold the Lamb of God”, it was in appreciation of the Person Himself, without reference to the work. It is what He was: there had never been a man that could offer himself to God, until Christ. In saying, “who takes away the sin of the world”, John brings out the wondrous work that Christ would do for God. No one else could do that work.
T.M. There was a substitute for Isaac in the ram (Gen.22:13), and there was a substitute for Joseph in the buck of the goats (Gen.37:31), but for our Lord and Saviour there was no substitute. He Himself was our Substitute.
T.W.L. Yes, such a man was needed to save men for God – nothing less. What Christ did in offering Himself spotless to God is not only a reference to His being undefiled in His pathway here, unaffected by temptation; it is a reference to His inward character as Man. He was absolutely perfect, in every thought and intent of His heart for God.
R.G. Is that seen in verse 7: “He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, but he opened not his mouth”? It conveys the greatness and the beauty of His humanity and the holiness of His person, do you think? He went through with everything in a way that was completely in accordance with God’s will.
T.W.L. Yes. He accepted what came upon Him. When He was in Pilate’s court as a sheep dumb before her shearers, He was at that moment accepting from the hands of the Father the afflictions that came by the hands of man. He accepted them from the Father.
R.G. The glory of obedience shines in Him.
T.W.L. Yes. It has been said that the subjection seen in Jesus is the greatest expression of love between God and man in the universe, because it was that subjection that carried out everything for God as God would have it. That included that God, Jehovah, was pleased to bruise Him.
J.L. The whole subject before us conveys intensity of feeling, and it is intended to generate such feelings in our hearts. But it involves intensity of feeling on the part of the Father as well, and on the part of the Lamb, the Son, who suffered. The Father did not spare Him. I was touched by that remark in Isaiah 53, “Jehovah hath laid upon him the iniquity of us all”. Think of God laying that upon Him. Little wonder that, in the greatness of the answer to that suffering, God has glorified Christ in the highest way. How worthy He is of that name and place.
T.W.L. Yes, the Father could not help but glorify Him. He had a Man who carried out in absolute perfection everything according to His will.
G.B.G. Psalm 17 says, in regard to men causing Christ to suffer, “From men who are thy hand, O Jehovah, from men of this age” (v.14). You were saying that all that Christ suffered from men He accepted from the hand of God. That is what characterised His spirit. He was not bitter because of His sufferings. In our small measure we should be characterised by that as well. Any suffering we go through, we should accept it from the Lord and from God, even if it is suffering unjustly at the hands of others.
T.W.L. Yes. As we look on Christ and His sufferings, the first thing is that we begin to appreciate Christ. But a second thing is that it will have an effect on us practically. As you say, that will include how our suffering as believers is to be turned to account. Mr Stoney said, ‘I have often readily accepted a truth and in great joyfulness, yet it was not really known to me until, through suffering, its virtue possessed me’2. God has arrived at everything for Himself as a result of suffering.
W.W.L. At the end of Luke 24, the Psalms are brought in (v.44). They are not mentioned in what the Lord opens up to them (v.27). The Psalms involve that there is some experience gained by the saints. There has to be a result in us.
T.W.L. Yes. We will appreciate in a greater way the glories that Christ has entered into when we have some experience of being with Him there. We appreciate His blessed Name because we appreciate the Man, and what He has done, and because of the order of Man that is there. That order of manhood is demonstrated in the way that Christ suffered to bring to pass the will of God.
A.G.M. The two on the way to Emmaus say, “Was not our heart burning”, Luke 24:32. You would think that is the result of them going over what the Lord unfolded to them. The prophetic Scriptures to a Jew might be a dead letter, but here was a glorious Man who was the subject of the Scriptures. We are thankful to have the Holy Spirit who is able to bring divine things to us and make them good in our hearts, so that there is affection towards Christ and God.
T.W.L. Yes. Their hearts were indeed burning within them. That was instinctive. Then they recognised the Lord, the One who had suffered and died and had been buried, and they returned to Jerusalem that same hour. I think it was because they understood that the nucleus of what Christ had suffered to secure could be found in Jerusalem. It was the beginning of what was for God, and at that time they were found in Jerusalem. If we truly appreciate the sufferings of Jesus, and understand what was secured for God in these sufferings, we will be brought into accord with the Lord’s great objective in securing what is for God’s pleasure.
J.W. We are looking for the Lord Jesus to come to take us to be with Himself. Paul says “Henceforth the crown of righteousness is laid up for me … but not only to me, but also to all who love his appearing”, 2 Tim.4:8. The consideration of the Lord’s sufferings would affect us so that as well as looking for Him to come for us, we also look for His appearing when, as I understand it, He will be publicly justified here.
T.W.L. Yes. Psalm 72 refers to the influence of Christ on the whole scene, when Israel has been restored and all those things have happened that are spoken of. The nation that would not have Christ to reign over them, the people of whom scripture says, “He came to his own, and his own received him not” (John 1:11), He suffered to restore them to God, and He is going to take His place among Israel and be seen by people living on the earth where He died and suffered. Order and liberty will be established when He takes His place in relation to the earth. He will be publicly glorified here. Does it cheer our hearts that the Man who suffered and died here will walk in the same scene and be glorified in it? We should speak more about His appearing – we do not speak enough of the world to come. It will be the day of the public vindication of the Man who suffered here.
W.M.P. I wondered if that would form part of the “fruit of the travail of his soul” (Isa.53:11). It is primarily the assembly, of course, that is in view, but I am attracted by what you say about the fulness of the result in glory that there will be from this line of suffering.
T.W.L. Yes. “He shall see of the fruit of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied”: the cost to God has been immense so that He should be satisfied with men. He had to have one Man first out of death, after He had suffered.
R.B. In Revelation 21, John is told, “Come here, I will shew thee the bride, the Lamb's wife” (v.9) and then “and shewed me the holy city, Jerusalem, coming down out of the heaven from God, having the glory of God. Her shining was like a most precious stone, as a crystal-like jasper stone” (vv.10.11). Does it refer to what is formed as the result of suffering? All these precious stones are the result of suffering. Nothing in Christianity of any worth has come without suffering, has it?
T.W.L. Exactly. A dear brother now with the Lord said, ‘There will be nothing seen in the heavenly city that was not formed either by pressure or heat’. There is nothing for God that has not been acquired through intensity of suffering. That began with Jesus.
G.J.G. Do we need the help of the Spirit to understand the sufferings? It is through the Spirit that we understand the Lord’s glories. How much we need His help to be able to contemplate these things and consider them! Would that also link to knowing more of His place in glory?
T.W.L. Yes. We know a Man in heaven who once suffered. Tomorrow morning, if the Lord leaves us here, we will look on the emblems on the table which are a testimony to the Man who suffered. It gives a quality to the service of God. He suffered to secure a great answer for God.
G.J.G. The value to God of what the Lord has done is immense.
T.W.L. Yes. What Christ has done for God, no other man could do. Moses could not do it, Daniel could not do it, Abraham could not do it, Adam could not do it. Nobody could do it but Christ. “When the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son”, Gal.4:4.
J.D. In the scripture in Philippians 2, would the reference to “Wherefore also God highly exalted him” bring out what has been referred to? Does it suggest the value that God places on what has been done?
T.W.L. Yes, what God has done is consequent on Christ’s sufferings. The exaltation and the name are consequent on His “becoming obedient even unto death, and that the death of the cross”. God gave Him that name with that lustre as a moral consequence of what is spoken of in verses 7 and 8. But what a precious thing for God that He could give that exaltation and renown: He had a Man to whom He could give them.
W.W.L. It is because that Man went down. All these things recorded in verses 7 and 8, the Lord did Himself. But when it comes to His exaltation and glorification, God does it. It is the result of the perfection of the humanity of Christ; it is the vindication of the righteous One and God does these things to His Man. You might say His moral qualifications were such that God must exalt Him and grant Him a name above every name.
T.W.L. Yes. God could not help but do it because it was Christ, a Man who had spent His entire life focussed on what was for the pleasure of God. He had suffered to such an extent; commitment like that had never before come under God’s eye. You can understand why He honours Him.
R.B. In John 17, He says, “Righteous Father” (v.25).
T.W.L. Everything is established for God in righteousness, by love, through suffering.
A.G.M. Could you say something as to the mind of Christ? “Let this mind be in you”, Phil.2:5. We have that same mind by the Spirit. We are to take account of the things that the Lord Jesus was prepared to do. These downward movements have been referred to: we are to take them on ourselves. Later in the book, Paul speaks of laying things aside, “that I may gain Christ” (chap.3:8). I would like you to open it up.
T.W.L. Paul knew Christ as risen and glorified: He knew by what the Lord said to him, “I am Jesus, whom thou persecutest”, Acts 9:5. He also knew about the suffering path of the Christian here because of what he had inflicted on believers (Acts 26:10,11). Paul knew by the testimony of Luke what the Lord had suffered and what He had said: “Ought not the Christ to have suffered these things”; and he also knew by what Peter wrote about the Lord, “testifying before of the sufferings which belonged to Christ, and the glories after these”, 1 Pet.1:11. Paul valued sufficiently the Man of whom those things were written to say, “But surely I count also all things to be loss on account of the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, on account of whom I have suffered the loss of all, and count them to be filth, that I may gain Christ”.
He took account of what suffering would be involved in following that Man. Paul also said, “For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the coming glory to be revealed to us”, Rom.8:18. As we look on Christ, we are to appreciate the kind of man that secures things for God. Salvation is not primarily for us; God saved us for Himself and His pleasure. God values persons enough that He gave Christ for us, so that we are made His.
J.S.D. When the Lord is raised from amongst the dead, the first thing He says is, “go to my brethren and say to them”, John 20:17. It shows the value that Christ places on those who love Him. And His brethren were in a suffering position at that time, were they not?
T.W.L. Yes. It is a wonderful thing that He could say, “go to my brethren and say to them, I ascend to my Father and your Father, and to my God and your God”. Until He was out of death, with all His work completed, He could not say “my brethren” in the same way He says it in that scripture, because His claim on them was yet to be established. God’s claim on them was established once Christ was out of death. The death of Christ was a necessity for God. It is not only to meet things that stood out against men; but for God to have men before Him after the order of Christ, death was a necessity.
We have touched on Philippians 2, and we should consider Revelation, in relation to Christ’s worthiness. Was Christ always worthy of praise? Yes, of course He was. We have had reference to John the baptist’s words, “Behold the Lamb of God”. That is praise – it was appreciation of Jesus. In Revelation too we have worthiness, “because thou hast been slain, and hast redeemed to God, by thy blood”. This was a whole new character of worthiness and glory in which Christ is seen here, and it could only be taken up once He had suffered. How worthy He is now of the praise of these “ten thousands of ten thousands and thousands of thousands” – the angels and the living creatures and the elders, all of them; how worthy He is of the acclamation. Then, “Worthy is the Lamb that has been slain, to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and blessing”. That is the Man who has suffered for God, and has died, and has been raised.
J.D. One way to consider the Lord’s suffering is that it removes what affronted God. But suffering also secures a formative response for God, do you think?
T.W.L. Yes. If we want to acquire something for God, it comes at a cost. If we are to acquire features of the Man who suffered and died, we must be prepared for suffering. It involves that we value Christ enough to suffer for Him. We must also see that Christ valued what was for God so that He suffered to secure God’s inheritance for Him. Christ is the Model in suffering. The motive was love for God. Referring again to “I live on account of the Father”, it says in the next sentence in John 6, “he also who eats me shall live also on account of me” (v.57). That is, that Christ becomes my motive for living. And how will that come into evidence? By my willingness to suffer for Him.
R.J.C. Does what you are saying show that what is secured is acceptable to God, and can only be in Christ?
T.W.L. Yes. As was said earlier, the sweet odour of the offering of Christ is always before God. It lasts for ever. Jesus is enough for God and He is enough for us too.
T.M. We must never forget about the blood. It says, “by thy blood”: appreciating the blood brings about the response.
T.W.L. Not only has Christ died, but His blood has been shed. If there had been no shedding of blood, there would be no remission of sins (Heb.9:22). But God saw to it that, after Christ had died, His blood was shed. In one view, it was the result of the actions of a lawless man, but it was under divine control. What man did in hatred, love had determined. All the sufferings of Christ were determined by God, and Christ took them up voluntarily. How wonderful that He did that for God.
W.M.P. Help us about this word, “worthy”. In what sense is Christ worthy of these things, of honour and praise and riches and power?
T.W.L. It is good to speak about the glories of Jesus. There are glories that He had along with the Father before the world was (John 17:5). There were the glories that He received when He was here as a Man, glories that He acquired. His worthiness involves that He has the right to have in His possession these things because of what He has done. You can help.
W.M.P. As you say, He is fully qualified to have these honours. We could say that there is a wonderful equivalence between what is found in Christ and what these statements suggest. There is power, there are riches, there is glory. These are all in Him, are they not?
T.W.L. Yes. The elders were not told to say this; no one was told to say these things. They gave expression to the impulse of their hearts as appreciating Jesus.
A.P.G. It is a new song here. Glory and honour and power are attributed to the Creator earlier (chap.4:11), but the new song is following redemption, and is particularly for divine pleasure, do you think?
T.W.L. Redemption’s song satisfies the heart of God, and it can be sung because a Man has suffered. God has His inheritance; He has set His heart on men, and that is because they have the character of Jesus.
J.L. Why should angels join in proclaiming such appreciation of worthiness about the Lamb that was slain? We can understand the feelings of men as redeemed, but such is the immensity of what Christ has secured for God that angels, and every creature, will be brought to acknowledge His worthiness. There is a fulness in that, and although it may not carry the same intensity and depth as enjoyed by the redeemed host, it conveys acknowledgement of Christ’s worthiness by the whole universe, does it?
T.W.L. Yes. It seems that the angels desire to look into the glad tidings (1 Pet.1:12). The angels were there before Adam sinned, and they were there when Adam was created. They saw the fall. Angels would have seen men in their depravity up to Christ, and then the heavenly host witnessed the incoming of Christ in the incarnation. They would have seen the cross, and how God answered the breakdown by that Man, a Man different from every one that had been before. Now in Revelation the angels join in honouring Him because of what He has secured for God. They appreciate what Christ is for God.
J.L. I enjoy that hymn that says,
‘We praise and worship as we see
Thy glory spread abroad,
And love that, giving all, secures
The universe for God.’ (Hymn 171)
That is the ultimate in this passage in Revelation. Every creature, the whole universe, is secured in acknowledgement of Christ’s worthiness, He who suffered and was slain.
T.W.L. That makes Him so wonderful to us, and motivates us to be for God.
J.D. Do we see the extent of His sufferings, that He secures the universe for God?
T.W.L. In the place where sin has had influence – and that is the whole universe – Christ, because of His excellence and His suffering, has secured it all for God again, and now on unshakeable moral ground.
G.B.G. Paul says in Romans, “in hope that the creature itself also shall be set free from the bondage of corruption into the liberty of the glory of the children of God” (chap.8:21). We are intended to feel even how the lower creation suffers; and also how men are suffering. But it is all going to change. At present we are meant to feel it in our spirits; it is part of “if indeed we suffer with him” (v.17). That is, feeling with Christ how He feels about these things. Animals live in fear all their life – we are to feel that, are we not? It is all part of what sin has brought in, but there will be a universe of bliss where Christ is supreme and God is Head, and rightly so.
T.W.L. Yes. In this scene where fear exists and death is all around, when the Lord comes again death will stop. The fear that you speak of will stop. All the results of sin will cease because a Man suffered to make it so. A Man went to the extremity of death so that those things would cease. It is a Man who has suffered and entered into His glory, and we are to be occupied with that Man.
Reading in Aberdeen, Scotland
22 February 2025
Terry Lock
List of Initials
R.B. Robert Bain Fraserburgh
D.G.C. Derek Coull Aberdeen
R.J.C. Richard Cumming Aberdeen
J.S.D. Stewart Duthie Aberdeen
J.D. James Drummond Aberdeen
R.G. Robert Gardiner Aberdeen
G.J.G. Graham Gaskin Aberdeen
A.P.G. Allan Grant Dundee
G.B.G. Bruce Grant Dundee
J.L. John Laurie Brechin
T.W.L. Terry Lock Edinburgh
W.W.L. Bill Lovie Aberdeen
A.G.M. Alex Mair Cullen
T.M. Tony Mair Cullen
W.M.P. Walter Patterson Glasgow
J.W. James Webster Fraserburgh