BEHOLD THE MAN

D. M. Welch

John 18: 40 (from “Not this man”); 19: 6 (“Behold the man!”) I had thought to speak of the eyes of God and how God sees everything. Perhaps we can think about that as we consider briefly these few words that have been read for the preaching.

It is said twice in the Psalms that Jehovah or God “looked down from the heavens upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand, that did seek God” (Psalm 14: 2; 53: 2), as if God would impress upon us that nothing escapes His eye. In one of the psalms it is very striking where it says, “Thine eyes did see my unformed substance, and in thy book all my members were written; during many days were they fashioned, when as yet there was none of them”, Psalm 139: 16. God’s eyes beheld even that which was not formed.

Considering that verse, think what it was to God when He said, “Let us make man”, suppose that His beholding our unformed substance would have to do with what proceeds in a generational way. The point is that God beholds everything, even the evil and the good.

I sometimes wonder, in testing my own soul about these matters, as to how much really I believe what I say and what I read. Is it not a crucial time in the testimony? Perhaps the glad tidings were never more important than they are today. It is as though the Spirit of God would recall us to just where we are in Christianity and whether we really believe what we say.

What we believe, what we live for is not simply a matter of words. It has been well said that Christianity is not what I say, it is what I am. It is good for us to take soundings in all these matters, and it is good for us to take soundings in the glad tidings too.

The times of the Gentiles seen prominently in the four great monarchies have come and gone, in a sense, and the revival of one is yet to be. We look back and see the fall of the Roman Empire. Have we thought about what has come forth in the stead of the Roman Empire? Not long after the apostles had been called home, the world religion was declared to be Christianity, although the times of the Gentiles run on and the Roman Empire will be revived.

Ten kingdoms will be in alliance and there will be a prominent political personage rising out of the sea of the nations. There will be a trilogy of evil, Satan himself being involved, and the Antichrist too, thought to be Jewish in character. All this will be given effect and the Roman Empire will be revived. But there is a period of time, we might say, when the Roman Empire is not so much in evidence, although the western world certainly exerts great power, especially from this country.

What has struck me lately is how, at the end of John’s gospel, politics and religion are merged together. Where we read, the empire was once known in outward power, but it has not so much power as it had then. However there is a certain power manifested, and things have gone on since the world religion was declared to be Christianity, but we are not to be deceived by this. It was not the infidel that said, “Not this man”, although it is likely the infidel would say it. In my mind it was the element that would succeed the Roman Empire, the religious element. I am not saying there are not governments for which we pray. We pray there might be sympathy with what is right. But a Christian’s calling and life are outside the world of religion and infidelity. So I ask, Have we believed the glad tidings? If we believe the glad tidings we are not attached to the world. We are separate although we have to do with things in the world. God is not intervening directly with governments; He is dealing indirectly with governments, using them to hold things in check while things are developed in the assembly, and while persons are

brought out of the world by the glad tidings. God has prolonged the day to give honour to Christ, who is spoken of in derision by Pilate, saying, “Behold the man!” The glad tidings go out to all men irrespective of whether they are religious or infidels. The power of God is an amazing thing; it has its effect on persons who were lawless, even perhaps religious. The glad tidings are to be believed, it is a matter of faith, and if believed then it becomes our life, so that we are no longer lawless, but we become lovers of Christ. Then there becomes a state with us, and we want to go on and want to lay hold of the truth, which involves the assembly and fellowship.

The Lord spoke in John 18 of those who were of the truth, it says, “Every one that is of the truth hears my voice” (John 18: 37). That is the great test. What we were reading in John’s gospel on Lord’s day marked the end of the testimony in perfection in Christ. John’s gospel was written for the end of the testimony and is especially applicable to us. It tests us as to our inwardness and our reality.

May we lay hold of the glad tidings—“Behold the man!” What a Man He was! What can we say that would appeal to us about the Man? This was a Man who purposely came to die. This was a Man who introduced the full mind of God into the creation. This was a Man who laboured and of whom it could be said prophetically that He laboured in vain. Of course none could go as far as He went, but just for a moment I would like for us to think about the Lord Himself. It is not abstract deity that is presented here as I understand it, but a divine Person in manhood. The Jews had said, “We have a law, and according to our law he ought to die”.

Think of the irony of that because of the next statement, “because he made himself Son of God”. That is deity. But He is declared to be Son of God with power by resurrection of the dead, meaning others were raised by Him, not His own resurrection. It would not be excluded,

but that is not the point in the scripture (Romans 1: 4). In John 11 it is, “I am the resurrection and the life” (John 11: 25). There can be no doubt as to who that Man was. Then think of the suffering in His spirit. Consider the Lord weeping, groaning in His spirit at the grave of Lazarus. Why did the Lord weep? He was a real Man and yet divine feelings were behind that weeping. The condition of the human race affected Him, and here He saw Martha, Mary and others, absolutely, totally helpless in the face of death, they could do nothing. But He could and He has done something; this is the Man who came to die.

Did He feel the rejection of His own? “He came to his own, and his own received him not”, John 1: 11. He was a real man, and the Messiah; He was more than a man, but He was a real Man. Yes, He felt being rejected by His own. He was a stone of stumbling to them, as we sang in the hymn, ‘the rejected Corner-stone!’ He could say, “the reproaches of them that reproach thee have fallen upon me”, Psalm 69: 9. The Lord never missed anything in His experience as to right feeling, as to righteousness pursued, and as to the will of God accomplished in obedience. He never missed anything, including the feelings in His spirit, which involved what would come upon the nation, especially the remnant, consequent upon His own rejection by that nation. What sufferings! The Psalms in part tell us about those sufferings of Christ as feeling these things.

Presently that which restrains is the Spirit in the saints and governments, God uses governments to check evil in view of the testimony, the glad tidings, and in view of bridal affections being formed for Christ. But when the assembly is gone the whole matter will collapse eventually. Think of what will come upon the world, especially Israel. There was a period of time when man was let go, no government, no restraint, and the result was corruption and violence. Do you not think this kind of man—God’s Man—is needed? My appeal is based

upon the attraction of Christ. He was lifted up between heaven and earth to become the attraction for persons who would believe and be His followers. He said, “ye shall become disciples of mine”, John 15: 8. Are we? We read in the Scriptures about life, and perhaps we think it is something that is just in us. If it is, it will come out in our living. What is our life? I do not want to get carried away on this, but in general, what is thought to be Christianity is that God will help me do everything down here; I will bring Christianity along with my occupation to get help on how to get on in the world. That is not really Christianity. It is true, we can depend upon the Father to help us get through the circumstances every day testimonially in doing what is right. The righteousness of God has been manifested, and it ought to be manifested in Christians who believe, but that is not Christianity in its fulness.

Christianity separates us from this world for another one. We are separated unto God; so that becomes our life and everything else then is incidental. Is this our life? If it is our life, it comes out and even the incidental things are taken up dependently for God.

I am not preaching at persons but I am speaking a little from experience. I was touched lately in that reference in John’s epistle to “our faith”, 1 John 5: 4. I had that wrong in my mind for many years; but what delivers us from the world is Christianity livingly, the whole body of truth, “our faith”. Pilate asked the question, “What is truth?” John 18: 38. If someone asked you or me, What is truth? could we tell them? How many years have we preached the glad tidings? How many years have we heard the glad tidings? How many years have we been coming to the meetings and reading the Scriptures? Are we believing these things? John’s gospel was written to believers, to make believing believers. Does that sound odd? That is why it was written, it was written for our day, that we might grasp the glad tidings livingly and be liberated from the world.

Where are our associations? Religiously, socially, and

in other ways we have to do with things, but we are separate from the world because God is working directly in the assembly. He will have truth in the inward parts. God will have it no other way, it says very clearly. He will have truth in the inward parts. So John’s gospel is an inward matter; inwardness and spirituality are tested thereby.

This is the Man who came to set all this on—“Behold the man!” Think of the dignity by which He proceeded in His sufferings here. Mr. Darby has a piece of ministry that I have read (I do not know that I understood it very much), but it is well worth reading, ‘The Sufferings of Christ’. He came to die, but why did He come to die? His was a death that was unlike any other death. His life too was unique, it was not common; His life was very precious to Him and to God. White He was in the suffering pathway, John the baptist had to say, “I knew him not”, but he did say, “Behold the Lamb of God”, John 1: 36. How different that is from Pilate saying, “Behold the man!” What a difference there is when one who is a lover of Christ says,

“Behold the Lamb of God”, and when another speaks in derision (even though Pilate was a convicted man), “Behold the man!” The sufferings of Christ on Calvary cannot be penetrated.

Also, as a dependent man, He suffered great pressure from the enemy, who brought before Him the awful fact that He would be left alone, forsaken as a man, forsaken by God. The enemy applied that pressure to Him in Gethsemane. The Lord Jesus had never known what it was to be alone; He could say, “the Father is with me” (John 16: 32); He never took a breath, never made a move except in perfect communion with God. What a Man He was! Yet this is the Man who came to die! We can say, I think legitimately, but reverently. He came to be forsaken of God. Does that mean anything? We cannot fathom His atoning sufferings. We do not know why it was three hours on the cross as forsaken of God, but that is the time He went through it before delivering up His spirit, and nothing was held back,

everything was meted out at that time. So here was a Man like no other man. He was a Man who would bear judgment, who could bear the judgment of God for others. He was a perfect Man, who took up the judgment for sins and sin, the whole moral issue before God. He went through it that there might be disciples, persons who would not only be lovers of Himself, but followers attached to Him, those who would live Christianity.

But it is not only the Christ who suffered and died and was buried that we preach. We preach a Christ who is victorious, risen and ascended. The best robe has to do with a Man in heaven, that is the robe the returning prodigal receives, and as returning he is characterised by repentance. We do not slight repentance; repentance and remission of sins are preached. But it is not a question of putting definitions on words, it is a question of inwardness again, facing the reality of these things in our consciences, and facing the reality of these things in our inmost being in God’s presence. These persons in John’s gospel, Joseph of Arimathaea and Nicodemus, finally came to it saying, as it were, We will no longer go along with the world.

That is repentance; they were turning from the world, they were turning to God. It was not just an attitude, or precursor to their movements, they actually came to this—‘How long are we going to go on with this? If the world has treated Christ in such a way I cannot belong to it’. And so, they come out and identify themselves with the Lord. How far have we identified ourselves with the Lord? Do we understand just how little the enemy will accept? He may accept a form in the service of God, he may accept good meetings, day in day out, week in week out, and good preachings if no results follow. The great test is seen in these women who stood by the cross; John also standing by, and in the movements of Joseph of Arimathaea and Nicodemus, who identified themselves with Christ. As it were, they said, ‘I am crucified with Christ, no longer live I, but Christ liveth in me’. It would mean that my mind is set, I am getting back to my baptism, I am committing myself to prove that life is not just something to be spoken of, but to be lived; it consists of objects, persons, relationships, associations. It is not something that we think about theoretically or whether we are adequate, that is not life. The Lord says, “ye will not come to me that ye might have life”, John 5: 40. Everything is in relation to Him now in another world.

In the reading we spoke about these garments in verses 23 and 24 of John 19. We mentioned about Christianity as once declared to be the world religion. I am not going to be critical about any person or persons even in a sect, but a sect is surely not the body coat. There are persons who speak about Christ, they even believe on Christ in some way, but they do not believe in His deity. It is a whole Christ or no Christ. The Lord could say, “for unless ye shall believe that I am he, ye shall die in your sins”, John 8: 24. Now that is very solemn, but that is the truth of scripture. So persons might believe in Christ in some sense, and believe that He was a man, or a son of God (but something less than God), and even try to imitate Him in His life down here. But He is not down here, His body is here, but He is a Man out of death, and He is seated on His Father’s throne. It is a whole Christ that is the faith of Christianity, and as having a whole Christ we have a life to live in relation to Him. Everything that we are taken up with down here is in relation to this life. We spoke earlier of Revelation 13, the beast rising up out of the sea, a reviving of the Roman Empire. He has had a wound because the testimony is still here, the truth is still here. What is the truth? Is it not what has given the wound to the beast? The truth is the full revelation of God, that is why we cannot settle for anything less than a whole Christ, for it was Himself here, the Man who came to die, the Man who has died and was raised for our justification, and who has gone back in the glory. The present day is characterised singularly by Him there and the presence and power of the Holy Spirit here. The truth is the full revelation of God, and so the Lord Himself is the truth, and the Spirit is too. That Man has opened up everything; everything that can be known is known, the full revelation of God is out, that is the truth. It is the way it is presented in Scripture, the way that it was revealed by Christ. That is the truth, and so the Spirit leads us into all the truth, the full revelation of God. That is what we want, beloved, Christianity in fulness.

It seems to me that God would freshly appeal to us that we might get back to our baptism because He intends this Man to be honoured here. In the first preaching Peter said, “Repent, and be baptised, each one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, for the remission of sins, and ye will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit”, Acts 2: 38. Baptism was included there and it is a principle we have to understand. Baptism is a picture of death, and when we are baptised we commit ourselves to the Lord. If we have been baptised householdly, the children, by the faith of the parents are brought out of the world into the sphere of profession, that is household baptism. It is the removal of one order and the removal from a world which is under judgment. True Christianity is being called out of the world, being here in testimony for God and for Christ. Yes, but living a life that is characterised by these wonderful things; associations and fellowship we have in the assembly, the meetings, the relationships, the Scriptures, the ministry, a blessed Object in heaven, all these things, that is what living is. It all begins with beholding the Man. The most wonderful truth I ever heard was that God had become a Man.

God has become a Man, He has come out, He has made Himself known. Could anything be more touching than Him being delivered up for us all? To save us from our sins? Yes, to save us for eternity. Yes, but to be here where He gives us all things. It is a very wonderful matter to be livingly in Christianity, and to be in it faithfully. God is looking for this.

In John’s gospel, as written especially for those who are at the end of the dispensation, it is that these things might go through in our affections, similarly to the way of those women who were standing by the cross of Jesus. They stood, and would we not be standing by it as trustworthy persons? A verse in Genesis is helpful, speaking of the Lord Himself typically, but which continues because the Lord is entrusting things to those who are His lovers, “And Joseph found favour in his eyes, and attended on him; and he set him over his house, and all that he had he gave into his hand”, Genesis 39: 4. Everything has been given to Christ, who is now with the Father, and also everything has been given into the hand of the Spirit. In a sense, God is depending on persons to go through faithfully and be formed to call Christ back. It begins with the glad tidings which have great scope. After some of the great evangelical movements persons have been left floundering. God did not intend for us to flounder but that we should be brought practically out of the world and into the assembly, the place where He is directly operating and working. He depends on persons not only to believe the glad tidings but to take up these things livingly, believing that baptism means something.

While it is an outward rite once done, and it initiates us into the sphere of blessing, into Christianity, it also becomes a matter of continuing in the principle of it. In John 15 the Lord said He laid down His life for His friends. What does that mean? It is not atonement, although I am not excluding that, but I do not believe that to be the primary matter there.

Friends are persons who love Him and are attached to Him and who can be trusted with these great things that compose Christianity. Now that is what He is looking to find.

They said, “not this man”, and that is the present situation, the Lord is outside the door of the public profession. The first man is a robber, and that order of

man has nothing for God; it usurps God’s Man and the order after Him. The burial of Christ is very important, it removes one order of man from before God; the order that has offended God has been removed in the burial of Christ. God will have nothing else but Christ, nothing else but the order that the Lord Himself has set on, and is the Head of now in glory. So when we read these words, “Behold the man!”, though they were spoken in derision, it would be very touching to us. That Man morally is to be continued livingly in the assembly at the present time, that is the Man that God delights to honour. He still honours the features of that Man which He finds here in the assembly. May God bless the word.

Preaching at Denton
27 October 1996