CHRIST A LIGHT OF THE GENTILES
[p. 93] CHRIST A LIGHT OF THE GENTILES
Isaiah 49: 1 - 13; Luke 1: 68 - 80, Acts 13: 46 - 48
There is a class of people in the present day (I think they are contemplated in Scripture) unwilling, in a certain sense, to give up the truth of Christianity, but who at the same time subject Scripture to a treatment which is entirely unwarrantable, and practically a denial of its being the word of God. It is all very well to accept simply the facts which are related in Scripture, but the facts related form a very small part of Scripture. We get a great many things related, and the relation of facts may be called in a sense history, but history forms a very small part indeed of Scripture. The bulk of Scripture is the revelation of the thought and feeling of God in regard to things down here. The impression Scripture makes upon any one accustomed to study it is, that it speaks of a living God. And when I refer to a living God, what I mean is this: a God who has His mind and feeling in regard to everything that is transpiring down here. If I might use the expression, He is affected by it. I do not mean affected in the way in which we are, but He is affected by things here. You get the expression in Genesis that He repented that He had made man; and such a thought is presented in Scripture as that He is afflicted in the afflictions of His people; and many another thought of the same description, all of which bring before your minds the idea of a living God — that is, a God of feeling, and of purpose too. It is this idea which Scripture forms in you in regard to God. I feel it more and more for myself; as I go to Scripture I become increasingly conscious in my soul of being brought into the presence of a living God, while conscious also that it describes a succession of generations of dying men down here; one generation passes off the scene and another appears,
[p. 94] but Scripture presents to you in contrast to that a living God, One who has His own mind from beginning to end; who has never been diverted from that mind; but is at the same time affected by that which passes down here upon earth. I think that is a most important thought to get of God; and you will find that Scripture is taken up with making known the thought and mind of God. We are told what the Spirit of Scripture is: the Lord is that Spirit. Paul speaks of the apostles being made competent ministers of the new covenant; not of letter but of spirit, and later on he says, “Now the Lord is that Spirit”. I think you get the idea of Scripture fulfilled in Christians. I have thought there is an analogy in Scripture to the prayer of Ephesians 3, the idea there is that the Church was to be a kind of living Scripture; not Scripture, but a living expression of the mind of God. I think that is the idea that comes out in the prayer; they were “to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man ..”. that they might “comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; and to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge”, This presents the great idea of a living expression of the mind and character of God in the Church down here. While you have the Scripture, that which is written, at the same time there is the living expression of God in the Church by Christ dwelling in their hearts by faith. If you were to ask me what the spirit of Scripture is, I would get a definition of it from this passage; it is the counsel of the Father made known by the Spirit, the object and centre of which is His Son.
There are people who would tell us in the present day (and they profess to be Christians) that there is no such thing as prophecy. Well, this begs the question to begin with. They cannot prove that it is impossible there should be prophecy. Supposing this part of Isaiah was never written by the prophet Isaiah, as some would tell us; supposing it was written at some [p. 95] later date than it was assumed to have been written, no one can contend for a moment but that it was written before Christ; and yet you get prophetically a most remarkable revelation of Christ. I could not say you get a history of Christ, but you get a revelation of Christ in a way that would never have entered into man’s mind. A Jewish mind would never have dreamed of Messiah being rejected by the people, but that is the way in which He is presented here; He has laboured in vain, and spent His strength for nought, and in vain. That was the result of the Lord’s ministry here upon the earth. It is the first thought so far as Israel’s Messiah is concerned. What Jewish mind would have conceived such a passage as that in anticipation of the Messiah? But it was written, and the ablest critic cannot contend otherwise for a moment, some time before Christ. I do not care if it were ten or one hundred years before Christ, the point is we get brought out here what no Jew as such would have penned, the rejection of Messiah when He was presented to the people. This is the beginning of a section, which section includes some eight or nine chapters, and brings before us God’s controversy with the people on this ground. That is prophetic, it brings before us the truth that Christ was to be presented to the people who were to return from the Babylonish captivity; and being presented, He had to say, “I have laboured in vain, I have spent my strength for nought, and in vain;” and, after, He says, “yet surely my judgment is with the Lord, and my work with my God”. I refer to that in an introductory way.
There are three thoughts in the passage I want to dwell upon — all of them spoken of prophetically; when you come to the New Testament, you find these thoughts fulfilled.
Many very blessed and glorious thoughts are presented to us in the Old Testament, but they could not be fulfilled at the time: they had to wait for the Man of God’s counsels before they could be fulfilled. What [p. 96] is lacking in the Old Testament is the Man. God was testing man in a variety of ways, but the Man of God’s counsels was not here; so whatever might be the thoughts presented in the Old Testament, they had to wait for the Man in whom those counsels and thoughts could have their fulfilment. In the New Testament, the change is this; you have the Man. You will remember what the angels announced to the shepherds at the birth of Christ, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men”.
There are just three thoughts that I will refer to in the passage. The first is in verse 5: “And now, saith the Lord that formed me from the womb to be his servant, to bring Jacob again to him, Though Israel be not gathered, yet shall I be glorious in the eyes of the Lord, and my God shall be my strength”; that is one thought. The next is in verse 6: “And [Jehovah] said, It is a light thing that thou shouldest be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the preserved of Israel: I will also give thee for a light to the Gentiles, that thou mayest be my salvation unto the end of the earth”. Now I read the verse in Acts 13 to show that Paul takes up that thought, and connects it with his testimony. That is, he turns away there from the Jew, and quotes this passage to show that God had accomplished the thought in it. That is, that Christ who had been rejected on the part of the Jew was set for a light to the Gentiles.
There is still a third thought, and that comes out in verse 8: “Thus saith the Lord, In an acceptable time have I heard thee, and in a day of salvation have I helped thee:” that is quoted in 2 Corinthians 6 as having its application to the present time. The apostle says there, “Now is the accepted time; behold now is the day of salvation”. I do not doubt that the strict application of the passage is yet future, but a present application is given by the apostle Paul in writing to the Corinthians.
[p. 97] It is those thoughts that I want to dwell upon. To enlarge a little upon the thought of Christ being set a light to the Gentiles; I want to make plain to you what that means. In Luke 1 we see what, properly speaking, Christ is to His people; that is, God had raised up among His people a “horn of salvation”, and John the Baptist was to give the knowledge of salvation to His people by the forgiveness of sins. That is what Christ has now brought to the Gentiles; He has brought the salvation of God to the Gentiles. The word was turned away from by the Jew and was addressed to the Gentiles, and they heard it. I shall go a little further to show you what the object of the salvation was. The object was that they might come into the divine thought, and that was eternal life: “As many as were ordained to eternal life believed”. They were to be brought into the thought of God about them. Salvation was sent to them to that end. The salvation which properly belonged to the Jew, according to the song of Zacharias, went out, according to the prophecy of Isaiah, to the Gentiles — “It is a light thing that thou shouldest be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the preserved of Israel: I will also give thee for a light to the Gentiles, that thou mayest be my salvation unto the end of the earth”. The point is this, that Christ takes the place of the servant of Jehovah here; He in that sense supersedes Israel. Israel had that place in regard to Jehovah, they were His witness and His servants. Christ comes in and takes that place. You will find that principle prevailing through Matthew; Christ takes the place of Jehovah’s servant, so that eventually the remnant of Israel may come again into the place of Jehovah’s servant. Properly speaking His service was to bring back to God the tribes of Israel. The tribes of Israel were lost, but Christ came to restore them; but instead of being received and welcomed here, He was rejected on the part of His people; and therefore Christ has to accomplish Jehovah’s will.
[p. 98] Christ retires into the pleasure of Jehovah. He says (although the purpose of God in regard to Israel was not accomplished) “yet shall I be glorious in the eyes of Jehovah, and my God shall be my strength”. He takes up the position which we see brought out elsewhere: “Behold I and the children which God hath given me”. “I will wait upon the Lord”. That is the position which comes out here. It was a very wonderful place for the Lord to take — for the One who was Jehovah to take the place of Jehovah’s servant; and having once come into the place of a servant, He never leaves that place, and I am sure of this, that if ever the tribes of Israel are to be brought back to Jehovah (which they will in due time), it will be Christ, Jehovah’s servant, who will bring them back; they will be placed in connection with Christ their Saviour.
What marks the present time is this, He says, “yet shall I be glorious in the eyes of Jehovah, and my God shall be my strength”. He is glorious in the eyes of Jehovah. The Lord says, “Now is the Son of man glorified, and God is glorified in him. If God be glorified in him, God shall also glorify him in himself, and shall straightway glorify him”. Christ might be despised (as He was despised in the eyes of the people), but He is now glorious in the eyes of Jehovah. Do you think there was ever a moment when Christ was so glorious in the eyes of Jehovah as when He suffered on the cross? That was the moment of glory, though put to shame on the part of man here. He was glorious in the eyes of Jehovah, and His God would be His strength; and the supreme moment of that was the cross. You have to estimate things morally. If you look at things outwardly, it was the moment of His shame and reproach; but if you look at things morally it was the moment of His glory. He was glorious in the eyes of Jehovah at the moment of His shame and ignominy. He glorified God in the place of man’s dishonour. That same language ought to have its [p. 99] application to us; you may be in reproach on the part of man, if you go forth unto Christ, but I think we ought to understand that the Church is glorious in the eyes of Jehovah, and God is their strength. But Christians have evaded the reproach. They attempt to make out in the present day that Christ is in honour. Christ is not in honour, He is in reproach. He has never been in honour here since He suffered on the cross; the reproach has never been set aside. The proper place of the Church is to be in His reproach here, but at the same time glorious as partaking of the Spirit of glory, as the apostle Peter says, “The spirit of glory and of God resteth upon you”.
Now, the next point is, God says to Him, “It is a light thing that thou shouldest be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the preserved of Israel: I will also give thee for a light to the Gentiles, that thou mayest be my salvation unto the end of the earth”.
What I see is this (may God give me to make it plain), Christ is salvation to the Gentiles because the kingdom is established in His hands. The moment the testimony of the Lord Jesus Christ is presented to man, the kingdom is presented because the kingdom has its expression and seat in the Lord Jesus Christ at the right hand of God; and the kingdom is preached that men may come under the sway of grace; and that being under the sway of grace, they may be brought into the knowledge of salvation. No one ever came to the knowledge of salvation in any other way. I am confident that it is in being brought under the moral sway of God as presented in the Lord Jesus Christ that you and I get salvation. It is a great thing to be brought under the moral sway of God; to know that God has pleasure in grace; that He has pleasure in accounting us righteous. His attitude toward man is grace, and nought else. “The grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men”. It is the one important point for us [p. 100] here upon earth that our souls should be sensibly and consciously under the sway of divine grace, and that we should be maintained in the sense of what the mind and attitude of God is towards man; we are brought into the light of a Saviour God, who has pleasure in salvation, who would have all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. With such a God as that we have to do. I trust that we all have full confidence in the grace of God, and are pleased to be under His sway.
The sway of God means the greatest blessing to you and to me. We are maintained in His favour, God imputes nothing to us; and in effect we look for the glory of God: “we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God”. We do not expect to be down here for eternity standing in the grace of God, but we “rejoice in hope of the glory of God”. The present is a time of great weakness, although you stand in grace — you have the throne of grace whereby to find grace to help in time of need; but you will not always have a time of need, and will not always need mercy and grace. The time will come when the glory will be displayed, and then you will rejoice with exceeding joy. It will no longer be a time of weakness, when you will need the service of the Priest. It is a moment of weakness now, and you need to be sustained by the Priest; that is, Christ touches you, and the place where He touches you is your weakness. If you had not a weak point, you would scarcely have a point where Christ could touch you. His sympathy can touch you because you have a weak point. But you will not always have that; the glory will come. We wait for the blessed hope and appearing of the glory, and when that comes we shall be glad with exceeding joy.
Now, the fact of being under the sway of God brings in another thought, that you are delivered from the sway of the enemy. No man was ever delivered [p. 101] from the sway of the enemy but by being brought under the sway of God. No man can stand in independence; you are under the sway of Satan, if you are not under the sway of God. If, on the other hand, you are brought under the sway of grace, you are delivered from the sway of evil. God has delivered us from the power of darkness and translated us into the kingdom of the Son of His love. The transfer has taken place by our hearts being brought under the sway of grace; and we have forgiveness of sins — all in the Son of His love. You have a change of lord; by believing in the Lord Jesus Christ you come under the law of the grace of God, you have forgiveness of sins, and at the same time are delivered from the god of this world — that is, delivered from the power of darkness. That is salvation. I say, to be delivered from the great world system, and sin, and the god of this world, means salvation to man. We have it in figure in the history of the children of Israel: they were brought to God in the wilderness, but at the same time in being brought to God they were delivered from Pharaoh and his hosts. This is celebrated in the song in Exodus 15. So we are brought into the kingdom of God and under the blessed sway of grace, and “the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit which is given unto us”. The kingdom of God is righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit; and our hearts being under the sway of grace, and subject to the Lord Jesus Christ, are delivered from the power of evil.
It is thus you get the real knowledge of salvation and the forgiveness of sins, the object being that you may be brought into the divine thought. Christ is God’s salvation to the end of the earth, and a light to the Gentile. This was not a new thought consequent upon Christ’s rejection by the Jews, it fulfilled a very old thought; certain things had come to pass consequent upon certain circumstances, but these things had ever been in the counsels of God. Do you think it was [p. 102] possible for a moment that the grace of God could be limited to the Jews? One of the first things that comes out in Christ’s ministry is that the grace of God could not be limited to the Jews; you get mercy for the Gentile in the case of the centurion. The sovereign power of God was working in the Gentiles as well as in the Jew. You will remember the case of the Syrophenician woman, the Lord reaches her in grace; He answers and fully commends her faith. All this is clear proof that the sovereign power of the Spirit of God was working outside the Jew.
Now the thought of God has come out, Christ is set for a light to the Gentiles. Salvation has come to the Gentiles in the testimony of the kingdom of God, in order that they may come into the thought of God, and that is, eternal life. Just one word as to the way of it. I think it comes to us through righteousness. The last verse in Romans 5 is important — “grace reigns through righteousness”. The effect of the rule of grace is that you can touch the question of righteousness; you never could touch that until you were under the sway of grace. As long as a man has any kind of doubt in regard to his position as to God, that man can never bear to face the question of righteousness. Many a person goes on in sin because he does not know the grace of God; but being brought into the light and under the sway of grace, the practical result will be that you will carry out righteousness. Grace reigns through righteousness.
The reign of grace will not tolerate sin. It will be true in the millennium when the reign of grace is established publicly. Christ takes away the sin of the world, and grace will reign through righteousness; and so, in regard to the Christian, grace reigns through righteousness now. If you profess to stand in the kingdom the proof and evidence is that righteousness is maintained in you down here; it will work out in the way of self-judgment. You will walk in the light of the [p. 103] altar (if I may so speak) in the light of the holy judgment of God; and disallow in yourself that which has been already judged in the death of Christ. God has delivered you by bringing you under the sway of grace; and now you seek to walk soberly, righteously and piously in this present age. The result is that you are drawn very much more fully into the light of God, the Spirit of God is free to work in you, to help and to instruct you, and you begin to reap a great deal in the power of the Holy Spirit. Many a person has the Holy Spirit who does not reap much from the Holy Spirit. You may find people in the condition of the Galatians giving licence to the flesh; they are not carrying out righteousness, and therefore the Spirit of God is hindered. The Spirit of God will not tolerate the flesh, the Spirit and the flesh are entirely irreconcilable. If you give place to the flesh, then the Spirit of God will set Himself against the flesh. On the other hand, if you give place to the Spirit, the flesh is not tolerated. The two are irreconcilable — “the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these things are opposed the one to the other, that ye should not do those things which ye desire”. The presence of the Spirit in the believer involves the obligation to righteousness, the disallowance in himself of that which has been judged and ended in the death of Christ. You have come into the light of the cross of Christ, where sin was condemned in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit. Supposing the Spirit is free, what then? You will find that the Spirit will spring up as a well of water in you, and you will get more and more liberated in spirit, and your heart brought more and more in contact with the holy love of God. “The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit which is given unto us”. The effect is that you respond to that love; you are so affected by it as to produce response.
[p. 104] It is not simply that you are brought into the love of God, but in the light of what God is as revealed in the Person of His Son, you become acquainted with divine Persons and learn to discriminate between Them. You learn how to address yourself to the Father and to the Son — you become intimate, and sensible of what is suitable to the Father and to the Son. You love the Son, and the Father loves you because you love the Son; and the Son loves you because the Father gave you to Him. You are brought into the light of all that by the power of the Holy Spirit. You get the value of the witnesses in John’s first epistle — the Spirit, the water, and the blood; not only their efficacy but their value as witness. Many a person may know their efficacy who knows very little about them as witness. You may have faith in the blood, may be cleansed by the water, and may have the consciousness of the Spirit as a seal, but you want to have them as witnesses; they are witnesses that God has given to us eternal life, and that life is in His Son. You are thus brought to the reality of eternal life in the power of the Holy Spirit. You advance in holiness in becoming acquainted with love. The nearer you come to God, the more your heart is in the light of His love, the more holiness is promoted; and as you become a partaker of the divine nature, you are able to say God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son.
That is the great thing which God has in view in regard to every saint; and if the testimony is given in the Person of the Son of God, if God has set Him a light to the Gentiles, it is to make His mind known to the Gentiles, that He may be God’s salvation to the end of the earth. God has pleasure in salvation; but God has also His own blessed end to serve in that salvation; and that end is that He might be known in all that He is in His own blessed nature in the heart of man, so that the heart of man may be filled with confidence in God. You know what the effect of the fall was! To destroy man’s confidence in God. I do not doubt that before the fall man had confidence in God. The effect of the fall was the sowing of distrust in the heart of man. The next step was that man set himself up as a rival to God. “The Son of God was manifested that he might destroy the works of the devil”. God has set Himself to undo the works of the devil; and this He has achieved in the most blessed way by making Himself known in the heart of man. Allow me to say, that you do not confide in a person unless you are conscious of that person’s love. Confidence is not exactly the fruit of faith; many a person believes who has but a very small measure of confidence. Scripture puts confidence in another way. “We love him, because he first loved us;” and in the knowledge of divine love you get confidence. The first great witnesses of love are the water and the blood which flowed from the side of Christ. The next is the Holy Spirit; and these three agree in one common and consistent testimony; and it is the pleasure of God to bring you into the light of His holy love, and to build up your hearts in confidence of that love.
One word more. “In an acceptable time have I heard thee, and in a day of salvation have I helped thee: and I will preserve thee, and give thee for a covenant of the people, to establish the earth, to cause to inherit the desolate heritages”. I will say a word as to the bearing of that. You have to turn the grace of God to account so that as the apostle puts it, “ye receive not the grace of God in vain”. If you know the grace of God do not bury your light under a bushel; turn the grace of God to account. Turn it to your own account; do the best you can with it in regard to yourself, but at the same time if you have salvation make manifest that you have it. Do not let people think that you are still a wretched slave to the course and system of this world. Rather make manifest that by the grace of God you are in the blessed reality of salvation, delivered [p. 106] from the great world system which exists here, and from the god of this world; let this become manifest. I would like people to be simple in turning the grace of God to account, going on in the practice of righteousness, looking for the hope of glory; going on, in that sense, in light of eternal life, though they actually have not come to it. We know where it lies, and it does not lie very far off, it lies in the region of the holy love of God; and this love has been witnessed to in this world. You have not to go to heaven to find expression of the love of God; God has been pleased to give expression to it in the three witnesses here upon the earth. The Holy Spirit Himself has come in that line.
One word more. The Christian has the witness in himself: “He that believeth on the Son of God has the witness in himself”. “The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit which is given to us;” and it is the pleasure of God to welcome believers into the most blessed circle. “As many as were ordained to eternal life believed”. They were ordained to it, and the apostle Paul brought salvation to them, that they might be led by the Spirit of God into the thought of God about the poor dogs of Gentiles; that they should be brought into the most blessed circle in the universe — into the circle of holy love where the Son of God is, and into which the Spirit of God has been sent to conduct them. That is the thought of God with regard to the Gentiles. As I said before, it is an acceptable time, a day of salvation. It is a time when opportunity is given to us to be witnesses to the grace of God. He first gives us to be witnesses to the reality of His salvation; and then He gives us grace to carry the testimony of His kingdom to others. But in order that your testimony may be effective, you need to be in the sense and power of His great salvation.
Now I have only to say one word more, and that is, if you are content to walk in the light of God’s salvation and to accept reproach, when the kingdom is displayed,
then it will be God’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Instead of being a subject of the kingdom in that day, your part will be to sit with Christ on His throne and to have part in His glory; and whatever God has given to Him, He gives to you, that you may share in His glory, just as, while in this world, you share His reproach.