"And the Lord spake again unto
Ahaz, saying, Ask thee a sign of the Lord thy God; ask it
either in the depth, or in the height above. But Ahaz
said, I will not ask, neither will I tempt the Lord. And
he said, Hear ye now, O house of David: Is it a small
thing for you to weary men, that ye will weary my God
also? Therefore THE LORD HIMSELF SHALL GIVE YOU A SIGN:
behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and
shall call his name Immanuel" (Isaiah 7:10-14).
In our
previous meditation upon the significance of Christ, we
were gathered around the Cross and heard the bitter,
anguished cry wrung from the breaking heart of our Lord
Jesus - "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken
me?" - and we sought to understand that in that
deepest moment of all the ages the Son of Man was dealing
with the deepest cry of the human heart, the cry for
fellowship with God, the cry for the face of God. All
through the ages that has been the one concern of man: to
know that the face of God is toward him. With the garden
and what transpired there, followed by man's expulsion,
the face of God was lost to the race, and so for ever man
has been, as it were, in a wilderness, having lost the
face of God. The Lord Jesus took up that state of the
withdrawn face of God on behalf of the whole race and
bore the sin which brought it about, and recovered the
face of God for all men who will believe. The face of God
toward man is only another way of saying that heaven is
opened again, having been closed fast by God himself.
Now we
are going to consider the man of the open heaven. There
is a man, we have seen, a man corporately, racially, a
humanity of the first Adam who cannot have the face of
God, cannot know the open heaven. There is the Man who
can, and who has, and we are going to look at these men -
the man of the closed heaven and the Man of the opened
heaven; the man without the face of God and the Man with
the face of God.
NATURAL MAN'S QUEST FOR POWER
We have
to ask at the outset - from what was the face of God
turned away and why? What was it that lay behind and led
to Adam's loss of the light of God's countenance and
resulted in the desolation of his soul as of a
wilderness? The Bible, of course, is full of the answer.
There are various ways in which that question can be
answered. Doctrinally, we should use certain words. We
should say it was because of sin or unrighteousness, but
then we are committed to explain what we mean by sin and
unrighteousness. I think the answer nearest to the heart
of the whole matter is given more fully when we say that
the reason for that lost face, that closed heaven, was
and is a nature which is opposed to God, a nature which
is sinful and unrighteous, a nature whose sinfulness and
unrighteousness is found in its desire to usurp the place
of God. That is the heart of it - a nature disposed to
usurp the place of God, and when you try to gather that
up and express it in a word, it amounts to this - THE
QUEST FOR POWER.
It is to
that that you trace everything in the fall, in what took
place in the garden in Adam's case, and we are informed
by the Scriptures that that quest for power, that unholy
quest for power which is unrighteousness, which is
contrary to what is right, had an earlier history in
another realm. We are informed of the one who came to
Adam having formerly made such a bid for power to usurp
the place of God, and that was the essence of the
temptation in the garden. Of course it was not explained
to be so. Deception wrapped it around. Adam would
probably have fled from that temptation had he seen its
nature, perceived its essence. Anyone who does not
implicitly obey the word of God because it is the word of
God, without any explanation of why He has given it, will
be deceived, and, being deceived, will be caught in the
deepest trap of evil, of unrighteousness.
The
essence of the temptation was to make a bid for power,
which would put man in an advantageous position over God,
make God unnecessary, put God out of His supreme and
exclusive place, and bring man in as equal with God, at
least. That is it. It was that that lost the open heaven,
the face of God. And we find that that is the very heart,
the very root, of the human nature which has sprung from
that first Adam. That is the battleground. You might not,
indeed, admit, when it is put so glaringly and nakedly
and luridly, that that represents yourself. How little we
know ourselves, and how little we make our deductions or
draw our conclusions from all the things that are
happening in human life! Why, this is the very stuff of
'psychology' - of what is happening today in the whole
nervous system of the race; it is the reason why people
are queueing up to see the nerve specialists - I will not
use their technical names - people who can tell them what
is the matter with them - because this and that and the
other symptom brings such a lot of distress into their
lives.
A whole
list of new terms has been produced in recent years in
that particular realm. 'Frustration' - what a word that
is! 'Inferiority complex.' You are beginning to recognize
the list. Behind many - not all, but many - of the
nervous breakdowns, when the matter is looked into and
explored, there is all the time something to do with the
selfhood: the selfhood cannot have what it wants, do what
it wants, be what it wants, get where it wants. In these
various and numerous ways it suffers nervous reaction.
The word 'frustration' is a very good one. People are
bothered and troubled about themselves, and the matter
resolves itself into a clash with the power to do and to
be - the defeat of the SOUL. How deeply related
to the soul, that is, to the self-conscious life of man,
is this question of power - power to be, power to do;
power to find one's satisfaction and contentment in being
something and doing something, and not being a nobody
without significance - the whole soul revolts against
that. It is a question of power. As I have said,
frustration and the inferiority complex are the very
stuff of psychology.
You see,
this soul of ours must in some way or other be on top. In
order to be on top, it must subject everything and
everybody to itself. It must go one better and be one
better than the others, and there rise all the
jealousies, the rivalries, the competitiveness, the
possessiveness, the impatience - to be on top, not to be
underneath.
PRIDE LINKED WITH THE LUST FOR
POWER
The lust
for power and pride are inseparable. You know why pride
is an abomination to God, why God 'beholdeth the proud
afar off' (Ps. 138:6). It is because behind the pride is
this selfhood which took its rise from the spring of
Satan in the human race: the desire to have power. We can
see quite clearly how true that is in human life
individually. It lies behind the whole world today -
power and pride working together to have domination,
everyone going one better than the other. You have only
got to suggest that some nation or people have made a
certain discovery, or produced some invention and it will
not be long before some other people or nation will say
they have gone one better, and so it goes on. That is the
thing that constitutes the root and basic sin of this
universe - the quest for power. It is the commencement
and the consummation of Antichrist.
This is
the human nature of the first Adam, and as with its
originator, Satan, so it is always insinuating itself
into the things of God and invading His very presence.
The whole painful story of the Church's disruption,
dissension and failure is the story of this selfhood
coming into the realm of the things of God -
self-assertion, possessiveness, domination, place in the
Church, place in the work of God. What a story is bound
up with this inherent lust for power, which, if it does
not show itself in the more positive forms of
self-assertion, will express itself in a feigned
meekness, and is manifest in this inferiority complex.
You do not know anything about such a thing as an
inferiority complex if you do not suffer: and what is it
that you are suffering? You are suffering the
mortification of being less than you think you ought to
be - and that is simply an expression of the lust for
power, I am not going to dwell upon the miserable
picture. I am only seeking to come to the main point.
God is
not going on with that. He decided right back at the
beginning, in the garden, that He was not going any
further with that, His face was not toward that, it was
turned away; never would that kind of humanity or human
nature find His face. No, God will not go on with that
kind of humanity.
CHRIST'S UNDERCUTTING OF THE
NATURAL MAN
There is
another kind, another type, with whom God will go on; but
this former has got to be completely undercut; and herein
is the significance of Christ, where we reach the more
helpful phase of this contemplation. Everything about the
Lord Jesus relates to this very thing - on the one hand,
the undercutting of a human nature, a human order and
kind that can never know the face of God, and, on the
other side, the bringing in of a humanity that can have
that face, that countenance and that open heaven. I
repeat - everything about Christ relates to that issue.
THE SIGN OF THE VIRGIN BIRTH
Now I go
back to that passage in Isaiah 7:14 - "The Lord
himself shall give you a sign: behold, a virgin shall
conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name
Immanuel": the sign of the incarnation; and
there are several things about that - connected with the
incarnation of the Son of God - which simply, beautifully
and clearly bear out the issue we are considering.
Firstly,
the sign of the virgin birth - "Behold, a virgin
shall conceive". Man is ruled out. What is said
about those who through faith have the right to become
children of God? - "who were born, not of blood, nor
of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of
God" (John 1:13). 'Not of the will of A
man', it is literally: man in his strength, and his
initiative, has no place in this new kind of humanity
that knows the face of God. It is man on his weak side.
You remember in the beginning He called them - man and
woman together - He called them both "Man"
(Gen. 5:2), meaning that the race had two sides, a strong
and a weak. That woman is the weaker vessel is, of
course, not universally acknowledged in these days! But
therein lies a reversal of all the glorious Divine
thought. Only on his weak side has man a place in this;
shall we say, only in his weakness and not in his
strength, not in his initiative by deciding: "not...
of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man".
"A virgin shall conceive." That represents
weakness, the weak side of the race, humanity on its weak
side.
You will
not misunderstand my usage of that word weak. It is a
glorious word when rightly related. Do not misinterpret,
you sisters who read this, and say you have to be weak in
the wrong sense. You have got to be strong in weakness as
you have to be weak in strength. When the angel appeared
to the virgin and announced what was going to happen, and
she got through her perplexity and the battle which would
very naturally arise in her, and surmounted the natural
human factors, her response was, "Behold, the
handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy
word" (Luke 1:38). A virgin, a handmaid -
weakness, humility and subjection. It was along that
pathway that the new Heavenly Man came and recovered the
face of God for man. That is the very beginning of this
humanity, the kind of person who will have the face of
God, who will inherit the open heaven: weak, humble, not
assertive.
You see,
right back even before His birth, His very door into this
world was the door which undercuts the whole Adam race,
in that nature of unrighteousness which, in its own
strength, or in having strength in itself, would usurp
the place of God. For "Be it unto me according to
thy word" speaks of a disposition that is far
removed from usurping the place of God. It was the sign
of the virgin, that had been promised: "the Lord
himself shall give you a sign". What is the
significance of Christ? Here is the answer. Right there,
before He is born into this world, He has undercut the
human strength of the race, man's will, the strength of
the flesh - nay, more than that, has undercut the very
work of the devil in the race. He was manifested
"that he might destroy the works of the devil"
(1 John 3:8). While it was by His Cross that He did that,
the basis of it was the incorruptible life in Him. The
Virgin Birth is a deep thing of God in the undercutting
of a fallen nature, the work of the devil.
THE SIGN OF THE UNIMPORTANT TOWN
"But
thou, Beth-lehem Ephrathah, which art little to be among
the thousands of Judah, out of thee shall one come forth
unto me that is to be ruler in Israel" (Mic.
5:2). Little among the thousands of Judah - the thousands
of families, that is, of Judah. The sign of that
unimportant town. The Lord is sovereignly keeping to
principle. Everything connected with the very birth,
incarnation, of the Lord Jesus contains the principle. To
be ruler He ought to have been born surely in Jerusalem
or some important place, but no. By that time Bethlehem
Ephrathah had lost its place of importance. Its
importance was spiritual, not natural. it was just there
that Rachel died when Benjamin, 'the son of Jacob's right
hand' was born (Gen. 35:18,19), and it was said that in
him Israel was to find its realization. It was spiritual
significance. All natural significance has gone now, and
there, where there was no significance, the most
significant thing happened and the most significant
Person was born. It is very simple. It is not making
something of nothing. It is following the working out
of a principle.
THE SIGN OF THE MANGER
Listen
again to this sign in Luke: "And this is the
sign unto you: Ye shall find a babe wrapped in swaddling
clothes, and lying in a manger." "This is
the sign unto you." What does it signify? What is
the significance of the lowly manger? Well, it is
obvious, it is plain. Surely such a One as He ought to
have had a more imposing, impressive place for birth, for
entering the world? But no: He is undercutting all the
importance of this world, all the glory of the flesh, of
the old race. He is just undercutting it with every step.
Many, many have been the homilies and helpful addresses
upon Bethlehem's manger, the place of His birth; but oh,
let us see right back behind that manger, behind that
humble cattle-trough, right back into hell, right back
through the whole depth of a fallen and God-abandoned
humanity. That is what it touches. It is related to that.
"A SIGN... SPOKEN
AGAINST"
And then
in that very same chapter - Luke 2, verse 34 - we have
this: "And Simeon blessed them, and said unto
Mary his mother, Behold, this child is set for the
falling and rising up of many in Israel; and for a sign
which is spoken against." "This child is
set... for a sign which is spoken against." As you
know, the reproach which was laid upon Him by His nation
was that He was not important enough. He disappointed all
their expectations and hopes as to what their Messiah
would be. Oh, what a crashing of their castles in the air
was the actual fulfilment of the prophecy - "Behold,
thy king cometh unto thee: he is just, and having
salvation; lowly, and riding upon an ass"
(Zech. 9:9). A sign spoken against. If only He had been
somebody of greater importance, a personality with power
in the temporal realm, they would not have spoken against
Him as they did. It was all the time - "Is not this
the carpenter?" (Mark 6:3). 'Who is this fellow
making Himself out to be? He is a nobody! He is taking
far too much on Himself. He really cannot rightly lay
claim to all this. Look at Him!' A sign spoken against.
What was it for? It was to undercut all that the world
looks for and must have in its great ones - strength of
their own kind, power of their own. "A sign which is
spoken against."
THE SIGN OF NAZARETH
And so
we can glance through His life and see the same principle
always obtaining. His home was in despised Nazareth. "Can
any good thing come out of Nazareth?" (John
1:46). 'Give a dog a bad name, and hang him!' Nazareth
had a bad name, and He lived there. Not much of a
prospect, coming from Nazareth. His work? - a carpenter
of Nazareth! "Is not this the carpenter's son?"
(Matt. 13:55).
THE SIGN OF TWO TURTLE-DOVES
Then
consider His poverty. In that chapter, Luke 2, we find
that they brought Him to the temple, to offer the
offering commanded by Moses, and what was it? - the
offering of the poorest people in the land. Some could
bring a bullock, some could bring a ram, but the poorest,
who could not afford anything like that, could bring two
turtle doves; and His parents offered two turtle doves.
How poor they were! His life throughout was like that.
THE ACCOMPLISHMENT OF CHRIST'S
WORK OF UNDERCUTTING
And then
His death. Oh, the depth of shame, of SHAME, of
ignominy, of disgrace! Oh, the stripping of every vestige
of human pride when He became "obedient unto death,
yea, the death of the Cross". The death OF THE
CROSS! Not being compelled to it, but being obedient
to it: not having by outward compulsion to yield, but
Himself accepting it. Does it need that we should say
more? Has He not undercut the old Adam in all his pride,
in all his self-importance, in all his quest for power?
Yes: He did it when He was "crucified through
weakness" (2 Cor. 13:4). This is the Man who has
opened heaven; this is the Man to whom heaven is opened
and heaven's attestation is given, who lives in the light
of God's countenance; and this is the Man who, because of
what He was and is, has secured that open heaven, that
countenance FOR US.
CHRIST FOR US
The
first principle of our Christian life, the very
foundation of our Christian life, is not that we are like
Him, or that there is anything about us like that. The
beginning of the Christian life is not that you have in
some way to forsake your pride and be like Jesus. The BEGINNING
of the Christian life is that what He was and is is
given to us by the grace of God through faith in Jesus
Christ. It is put to our account. Yes, I know - you and I
are still proud, we still suffer from this horrible
thing, it is in our nature. We still resent and resist
being made nothing of, being left out of account, being
despised and rejected. There is still that in us which
does not like it, to say the least. We like to be
acknowledged, to be recognized, to have some kind of
title amongst men, if we can. It is still there. But,
blessed be God, the whole meaning of grace, the grace of
God, is that what Jesus Christ is - not what we are, but WHAT
HE IS - is put right to the account of every
one who will accept Him. We speak about accepting Jesus
Christ as Saviour, accepting Him as Lord; but what does
that mean? It means accepting Him as the One that we are
not, but that God requires; as the One who makes good all
that God demands and we can never supply. That is
accepting Christ. Never depart from that. However much
you may become concerned and occupied with conformity to
His image, that is a later consideration. However much
you may be occupied with being made like Christ, never,
never at any time allow the matter of the process to get
into the place of what He is for you ALL THE TIME. He
IS that Other whom God favours, and we have been
made accepted in the Beloved One.
I am
going to stop there for the present, in our consideration
of the significance of Christ, of the many-sided sign of
the Son of Man. Every thing about Christ sets forth some
aspect of the undercutting of one kind of humanity or
mankind - of one kind of man who has come into this
universe and has no longer any place or standing with
God. That kind was put away by His great substitutionary
and representative act, when He accepted the full, final
and consummate result of it in the moment of His cry
'Thou hast forsaken Me'. It was all swallowed up in the
bitterness, the unspeakable bitterness, of His soul's
desolation, and having been swallowed up, there is no
longer any place for it; and inasmuch as He Himself in
His own nature was not that, He could be raised again -
what wonderful words! - "by the glory of the
Father" (Rom. 6:4). It is shame that has gone in the
Cross; it is glory that springs out of it, the glory of
the Father. And, being raised, He is the "firstborn
among many brethren" (Rom. 8:29). He is the
first of this new and different race, the race of those
who are begotten, "not of the will of the flesh, nor
of the will of man, but of God", and have the right
to be called children of God, a new race in Christ.
Because of what He is, being put to our desolate and
hopeless account by the unspeakable grace of God, we
ought to sing, with the deepest, the most profound
gratitude and wonder -
Not what I am, O Lord, but what Thou art:
That, that alone, can be my soul's true rest.