Reading:
Matthew 16:13-15.
'Who
do you say that I am?'
The answer
that each one of us is able to give to that question will
reveal the measure of our own spiritual life. Let me say,
however, at the outset that, although our Lord was
undoubtedly seeking the answer that Peter gave Him - a
testimony to, an affirmation of, His Deity, as the Son of
God - we are not here concerned with any argument for, or
discussion of, the Deity of Christ, although that will,
we trust, be the natural and logical conclusion of all
that we say. Our aim is to help toward a fuller
realisation of the place and the significance of Christ
in the whole Divine scheme.
The
Knowledge of Christ Basic to Human Destiny
We begin
by making one basic statement of fact. It is that
everything related to human destiny is bound up with the
knowledge of Christ. And for the Christian, in a peculiar
way, the knowledge of Christ governs everything. The
Scriptures make two things very clear in that connection.
(a)
Christ the Foundation of the Christian Life
First of all, the
knowledge of Christ is the foundation and the beginning
of the Christian life. "This is life eternal, that
they should know thee the only true God, and him whom
thou didst send, Jesus Christ" (John 17:3). Although
that is recognised and accepted, as a simple and
elementary truth, let it be said at once that the Divine
record in the New Testament makes it evident that the
Christian life may have either a good or a poor
beginning. And much may depend, perhaps for some time to
come, upon which of these has been the case. We know that
to be true in natural human life. If a baby has a poor
beginning, it may cause anxiety and require much care for
some time to come. If it has a good beginning, it usually
goes ahead without much trouble to itself or anyone else.
So it is with the
Christian life: the beginning can be a good one, or it
can be a poor one, and the effect of the beginning may be
evident for a long time in the life itself. The strength
or the weakness, the progress retarded or accelerated,
the fruitfulness or the poverty of the life will greatly
depend upon the initial apprehension of Christ. This is
something that we need to bear in mind. The apostles were
well aware of it, and were very much alive to it, and
they always sought to lay the foundations of a good
beginning in an adequate knowledge of the Lord Jesus.
(b)
Growth in the Knowledge of Christ
A second thing that the
Scriptures make clear is that Christians, after their
beginning, are meant to be increasing all the time in the
knowledge and apprehension of Christ. This is indicated
in several ways.
Firstly, the very fact
of the existence of the whole body of teaching found in
the New Testament, addressed to believers, surely in
itself carries this implication.
Then again, a
progressive change can be noticed in the course of the
teaching. For the beginning of the Christian life, the
simple word 'know', or 'knowledge', is used, as in the
passage we have already quoted: "This is life
eternal, that they should know..." But that growth
and progress toward maturity is expressed by a fuller
word. It is not apparent in our English translations, but
it is there all the same. The fuller word, in its
substantive form (epignosis), is used at least
thirteen times in relation to the believer's progress in
the Christian life. It may be translated 'full
knowledge', 'recognition', 'realisation', and you would
be advised and helped to take account of the occurrences
of that word, with the aid of a good concordance. It is
very impressive that, after the mention of the knowledge
of the Lord in the beginning of salvation, the apostles
then speak so much about going on to full knowledge of
Him.
Further, this is
indicated by the specific teaching of the Word. We cite
just one instance of this in the familiar words of
Ephesians 1:17: "The God of our Lord Jesus Christ,
the Father of glory, grant unto you a spirit of wisdom
and revelation in the full knowledge of
him". Now these words were addressed to the people
who had already received what the apostle called
"the whole counsel of God" (Acts 20:27). It was
to the Ephesian elders, you remember, that the apostle
said that, during the long period in which he had been
with them, he had not shunned to declare to them the
whole counsel of God. And yet we find him, some time
afterward, praying for them, that they may have a spirit
of wisdom and revelation in the full knowledge of Christ.
That is significant and impressive.
We have, therefore,
very much behind our statement that Christians are
supposed and meant to be progressive all the time in
their knowledge and apprehension of Christ. The Word of
God makes this abundantly clear; and although perhaps it
hardly needs to be emphasized, it must be established, as
part of any foundational consideration of a matter of
this kind, that the knowledge of Christ is basic to the
attainment of the fulness of Christ by believers.
Behind
the Scenes with the Bible
Now, let us take up our
Bibles and allow them to lead us to this whole matter of
the knowledge of Christ.
The Christian, with his
Bible in his hand, is led behind the whole scene of
history. On the stage of the world, a wonderful drama is
being worked out, set in all the branches of science: the
earth - geology; the heavens - astronomy; life - biology;
the human body - physiology; and the human mind -
psychology. All these things - the world and man and
history - are in the foreground. But with Bible in hand
the Christian is led behind them all - behind the stage,
so to speak, behind the scenes - into the background of
these things. He is led into the very presence of God -
to God behind it all. Moreover, with Bible in hand the
Christian is brought to see that God is a God of purpose,
a God of design, a God of plan; a God who has conceived
and projected this wonderful design which is being worked
out. And, as a third step, the Christian is led, through
the Bible, to see that that great design, that great
purpose, that great plan, with all the Divine resources
for its accomplishment, is all centred and summed up in
one Person, God's Son. The whole design, the whole scene,
the whole intention, and all the Divine resources, are
focused upon one Person; the Son of God. It all concerns
Him.
Seven
Sections of the Bible
Next, the Christian
discovers that, in relation to that God of purpose, and
to His great purpose concerning His Son, the Bible falls
into seven distinct sections. The first - the Creation -
is comprehended in quite a small compass of the record.
The Bible has much to say about the creation in relation
to the Son of God. In Him, through Him, and unto Him were
all things created (Col. 1:16). That is comprehensive!
The second, which we
will call the patriarchal section, runs from the fourth
chapter of Genesis almost to the close of the book in
chapter fifty. We shall look at this more closely in a
moment.
A third section,
beginning with the book of Exodus, is what we call the
Israelitish section. This runs from the beginning of the
book of Exodus right to the end of the Old Testament. But
it has some sub-sections. There is the priestly
sub-section, running from the twelfth chapter of the book
of Exodus to the first book of Samuel; the kingly or
monarchical sub-section, from the first book of Samuel to
the end of the books of Kings and Chronicles, where the
kingship is set aside and the people go into captivity;
and the prophetical sub-section, which occupies the last
quarter of the Old Testament.
The fourth of the main
sections of the Bible comprises the Incarnation, the
Life, Death and Resurrection, of God's Son.
The fifth, a short but
very important section, embraces the forty days after His
Resurrection.
The sixth section is
the heavenly session of the ascended Lord, with its two
aspects - the advent of the Holy Spirit, and the birth,
vocation and completion of the Church.
The seventh and final
section - the Son coming in His Kingdom - has various
aspects and implications and effects, in three particular
connections: firstly, in relation to the Church;
secondly, in relation to the nations; and thirdly, in
relation to Satan and his kingdom.
That comprehends the
whole Bible in seven sections. For the present I am going
to confine myself to the second and the third, the
patriarchal and the Israelitish sections, keeping in mind
our object, which is to discover the place and
significance of the Lord Jesus in the Divine scheme of
things, so that we may come to that adequate knowledge of
Him which is essential to spiritual fulness in the Church
and in the believer.
The
Patriachal Section
In the patriarchal
section of the Old Testament, we find seven outstanding
personages, who dominate the scene. Seven, as we know, is
the biblical number for spiritual fulness or
completeness; and, if we rightly understood the
significance of these seven men, who were Divinely and
sovereignly chosen for this very purpose, we should see
that in them God has outlined seven features of His Son,
which give a complete spiritual portrait of Him. It is
not my intention to follow that out in detail, but I take
it up in a general way in relation to our present
specific purpose. Here are the seven dominating
characters of that period: Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham,
Isaac, Jacob, Joseph. Every one of these represents a
distinct feature in the drawing of the portrait of
Christ.
Abel: the door
of Heaven had been closed to Adam, but reopens to a man
who was prepared to let go everything in this life in
order to serve the thought of God. Cain tried in his own
way to get through the door of the garden, but found it
closed and barred to man - there was no access. To Abel
the closed door of Heaven re-opened: Abel got through
because he was prepared to let go everything in this
life, and even life itself, in order to correspond to the
thought of God. Here we can see an outstanding feature of
the Lord Jesus.
Enoch: the man
who alone walked with God on this earth when everyone
else walked away from or far from God. The Lord Jesus did
that, and He was probably the only man who did that in
His day. He walked with the Father, as no one else did.
And so, when everyone else was walking apart from God, or
away from God, Enoch walked with God.
Noah: the man
who lived in the light of a coming day of judgment and
renewal, and worked in relation to that day. That is a
brief and very comprehensive statement. The whole life of
Noah was a long-drawn-out business. Tested by time;
tested by all appearances which seemed to contradict and
deny the line that he had taken; tested perhaps supremely
by his utter loneliness, yet he lived and worked through
a long life in the light of a day to come - a day of
judgment, and a day beyond judgment in renewal. Is not
that a picture of the Lord Jesus?
Abraham: the man
whose portion alone was the Lord. "Fear not, Abram:
I am thy... reward" (Gen. 15:1). That is all. A man
deprived of his country and deprived of all foothold in
the land of his sojourn, he went up and down that land as
"a stranger and a sojourner" (Gen. 23:4), but
his portion was the Lord. We are told that he was looking
for "a better country... a heavenly"; for
"the city... whose builder and maker is God"
(Heb. 11:16,10). Abraham's alone portion was the Lord.
There is very much more in it than that, but that sums it
up. And such was the Lord Jesus. What a lonely life was
His, and, so far as things here were concerned, what a
life of forgoing, of deprivation! But the Father was His
portion, and that was enough for Him.
Isaac: the
living embodiment of the fact that there is a life which
cheats death of its prey, renders death null and void and
leaves it behind, and goes on. Again, that is the Lord
Jesus: a life which all the time declares that death is
vanquished; and death is cheated; life that goes on and
ever on, triumphant over death.
Jacob: a
difficult character, Jacob. Yet, when you come to sum up
his story, here was a man who came to know the thing
which the Lord Jesus knew, and which characterized Him
perhaps more than anything else: that it is only the life
in the Spirit that is ascendent life. Jacob made a very
thorough and exhaustive trial of gaining ascendency in
the flesh. The day came when his flesh was smitten, and
he was weakened and broken. He discovered in that moment
that ascendency is not by the wit and cunning and
strength of the flesh, but wholly by the Spirit. The Lord
Jesus lived on that principle. God brought Jacob through
to the ground of His own Son - the ground of ascendency
in the Spirit.
Joseph: he sums
up all the others and embodies the great truths of
Christ: suffering and glory.
Here, then, in outline,
we have God's portrait of His Son. Now remember: it is
said that it was by the Son that all things were created
(John 1:3; Col. 1:16). The end of the first section, the
creation, therefore, is arrived at by the Son. What is He
doing after that? It is true that God has entered into
His rest - but what is the Son doing? Has the Son sat
down and said, 'That is the end of everything'? For the
whole of that long period afterward, what is the Son
doing? The Son is active in the inculcation of Himself in
the lives of those seven men. He is building Himself into
their spiritual experience. He is bringing out the lines
of His own character in this sevenfold way. The only
profitable and right way to study the Patriarchs is to
study them in the light of Jesus Christ. They are
interesting as human studies, but that will not get you
anywhere. If you can see that what God is after, what He
has committed Himself to, and what the Son is engaged
upon, is to reproduce Himself in the spiritual life of
men, then you have something to bring you into a
knowledge of Christ that is helpful knowledge, building
knowledge, constructive knowledge, knowledge that is
power and life.
The
Israelitish Section
The next section, the
Israelitish period, from Exodus to Malachi, is divided
subsectionally into, firstly, the priestly aspect, from
Exodus 12 to the first book of Samuel; secondly, the
monarchical aspect, from 1 Samuel to 2 Chronicles 36:21;
thirdly, the prophetical aspect, from Isaiah to Malachi.
(a)
The Priestly Aspect
In order to appreciate
the significance of the priestly aspect of the
Israelitish section, it is necessary to recognise the
Divine meaning in choosing Israel; that is, to recognise
Israel's place and nature and vocation. Very much has
been said and written regarding the Jewish people, and
what a wonderful people they are. They have been called
the most wonderful people in history. Comment has been
made on what is termed 'the Jewish genius for religion'.
I do not so read the Bible! Anything at all wonderful
about these people was not due to themselves at all, but
wholly to the grace of God.
What the Bible reveals
as to the children of Israel is not their 'genius for
religion', but the fact that they were a people no better
than, if as good as, many others. Their outstanding
characteristic was rather a genius for covetousness and
selfishness and hard-heartedness and stiffneckedness and
murder, if their interests were threatened or their
ambitions frustrated. Stephen rightly summed up their
history when he said to their leaders in his own time:
"Which of the prophets did not your fathers
persecute? and they killed them which shewed before of
the coming of the Righteous One" (Acts 7:52).
"Which of the prophets did not your fathers
persecute?" There is a challenge. In that marvellous
discourse of Stephen, the whole history of Israel was
taken up and presented in very dark lines. Not a genius
for religion - very much to the contrary! God's own
categorical statement about Israel was: 'I did not choose
you because you were better or greater than other
peoples' (Deut. 7:7).
Why, then, did God
choose such a people? How could such a people come to
full acceptance with God and have access to God, stand in
His love, draw out all His favour, stir Him to fierce
jealousy on their behalf - how could that be with such a
people? Let it then at once be recognised that their
whole life was based upon the mediatorial principle: a
holy priesthood, a holy altar, holy sacrifices and
offerings, blood sacrifices of creatures without spot or
blemish, meal offerings of very fine-ground flour, meat
offerings of that in which the closest inspection could
detect no trace of corruption. Everything proclaimed with
a loud voice that - not for a wonderful people at all,
not for a people with a genius for religion and goodness
- but for the chiefest of sinners, the most hopeless of
men, the most disobedient, most provocative, most
reprobate, most unfaithful people on earth - for such,
God has provided a basis for the closest intimacy with
Himself! Let anyone who despairs of themselves read Psalm
105, and then, having read it, turn to the Psalms
immediately preceeding and following it. In Psalm 105 you
have the long-drawn-out, monotonous story of the
unfaithfulness and unreliableness of that nation. And yet
all the way along He forgave, and He forgave, and He
forgave. Why?
The history of Israel
can only be read in the light of Jesus Christ. He is the
only explanation. Why did God choose Israel? What is
their place, their nature, their vocation? Israel is
God's great object-lesson of grace: grace providing all
that which is lacking in man, but which is essential to
fellowship with God. God provides it Himself. Out of the
womb of Israel Jesus Christ was born, but He was implicit
in the whole priestly order of her history, declaring all
the way along: 'It is not your merit or your goodness -
it is My perfection.' Israel shows forth - not her own
greatness, not her own goodness, not her own genius, but
just the greatness of Christ, who, for such as they and
such as we, is "made unto us wisdom from God, and
righteousness and sanctification and redemption" (1
Cor. 1:30). For what purpose? "That no flesh should
glory before God" (vs. 29). All the glory comes to
Christ. God thought it worth while to take that long
section of human history and constitute it in such a way
as to set forth, in a people and through a people, to the
nations, to the world, to sinful and worthless men, His
wonderful grace - His 'grace which is in Christ Jesus'
(cf. 1 Tim. 1:14).
(b)
The Monarchical Aspect
The monarchy runs from
the first book of Samuel to the end of the second book of
Chronicles. The supreme factor in the monarchy was that
of glory: God's glory manifested, enjoyed and displayed
in the people of His grace, - for, as we have seen, they
are indeed that. Now, because they are such, they are to
be the people of His glory. The throne is the symbol of
ascendency, of power, authority, dominion. It was
intended to be the expression of a 'glorious high throne'
set in the heavens (Jer. 17:12).
Now, as we considered
Israel in themselves, so in this connection we have to
consider the father and the son in whom the monarchy came
to its peak of glory and power - David and Solomon. What
shall we say about them?
Consider David. Who is
David? What does he think and say about himself, about
his past, his present? We are told that David went in and
sat before the Lord and said: "Who am I, O Lord God,
and what is my house...?" (1 Chron. 17:16). The Lord
said to David: "I took thee... from following the
sheep" (vs. 7). David - a man of humble and despised
beginning, of little account in the eyes of his own
brothers, and of less account in his own eyes. David - a
man whose faults and weaknesses are written in large
letters and not hidden by God. Things which we fain would
cover, and which we wish were not in the Bible - acts of
murder, treachery, passion - the Spirit of God has had
written and preserved for all time. This is not the story
of a man who is outstanding for his perfection and moral
excellencies. Indeed, there are good things about David,
there are wonderful things about David; but God has given
this other side. He is a man, and a man
compassed by all the weaknesses and passions of humanity;
falling into the deep, deep mire of sin - terrible sin;
crying out of the mire for deliverance, and eventually
praising God that he has been taken from the pit, the
horrible pit. But he had been in it.
Then consider Solomon.
Think of his beginning, the handicap of his birth, the
sin in which he was born, the iniquity in which he was
shapen. Have you never felt a shock reading the eleventh
chapter of the first book of the Kings? Here is the man
for whom God had done everything: the man whom God had
endued and endowed with wisdom above all men, with riches
and honour and power beyond all precedent; standing out,
as he did in those days of his glory, head and shoulders
above everyone else by Divine blessing: and yet, with all
that God had done, his real nature was revealed, and in
that terrible chapter - "Now king Solomon loved many
strange women" there begins the story of decline and
downfall, the awful tragedy of a man going down into the
muck and the mire of human iniquity, leading directly to
the division of the kingdom and the terrible line of
tragedy in the monarchy, issuing eventually in the exile.
That is Solomon. It seems almost unthinkable that such a
man should have such a downfall.
And yet God knew all
that about Solomon before ever He gave him a first
blessing. God knew His man; God knew all that could
happen and would happen. What are you dealing with in
David and Solomon? Ah, you are dealing with men who were
ordinary, common stuff, coming to the peak of power and
glory - why? - because of the grace of God. And why did
God do it? Why did He give Solomon, as the Scripture
says, wisdom and riches and glory and power beyond any
man that had ever been before him or should come after
him (1 Kings 3:12)? Why did He make the glory of Solomon
fabulous? He has become a proverb. If you want to speak
of wisdom, riches and glory, you mention the name
'Solomon'. Even the Lord Himself did that: He spoke of
"Solomon in all his glory" (Matt. 6:29). Why
did God go out of His way to do all that with, and for,
David and Solomon?
The answer is found in
the New Testament, quite clearly and definitely. Read the
passages in the New Testament where David and Solomon are
linked with the Lord Jesus. God always had His Son in
view. In David and in Solomon God was as it were throwing
upon the screen a symbolic presentation of the kingdom of
His Son, with all the glory and the blessing that would
come to His people through grace, by Jesus Christ. That
is the explanation of the period of the monarchy. It has
no meaning otherwise. By means of these people God is
drawing upon the canvas of history the great truths
concerning His Son. He portrays first, in the priesthood,
the great truth of redeeming grace: everything is
provided to bring a people into His presence in unclouded
fellowship. Then, in the monarchy, He draws the picture
of what grace will lead to: it leads to glory through
Christ Jesus.
(c)
The Prophetical Aspect
The third sub-section,
the prophetical, falls into two periods: that before the
captivity and that after the captivity. Now the prophetic
ministry was intended to re-present the full mind of God
as to His Son and His people, and through them to the
nations. The prophets were the bulwark against the
incorrigible downgrade tendency of the people of God. It
is always there, this downgrade tendency, even in the
Lord's people, and the prophets were the bulwark against
that tendency. They either encouraged or combated priests
and kings in relation to this matter, and in so doing
they stood for the Divine meaning both in the priesthood
and in kingship: that is, holiness, incorruptibility,
righteousness, and truth. But they were oppressed by the
hopelessness of their own immediate times, and so spoke
much of a coming day, and a coming Person. The day of
that Person was the strength, the hope, and the
inspiration of the prophets. For them salvation and glory
were in the coming One.
When Jesus put this
question to His disciples 'Who do you say that I am?' -
they gave answers from public opinion which brought
forward the prophetic hope; but to Him this was
insufficient. He was the answer to that hope,
and so He pressed them for their answer in order to see
whether they had arrived at that point.
They had been with Him
for some three very full years, in which time they had
seen His works, heard His words, known Him in person, in
the flesh. The time is finished, and there away up in the
North, as He turns His face towards Jerusalem (to be the
scene of the last moments of His life here on earth) He
probes, He probes with this question: "Who do men
say that I the Son of man am?" (Matt. 16:13).
Getting a variety of answers as to what men were saying,
He brings the question straight home: 'Who do you say
that I am?' He is asking, 'What does it all amount to,
for you? After all, what does it amount to? You have
heard it all, you have seen it all, you have been in
touch with it all: now, what does it amount to? What is
your apprehension of Me? What is your conclusion? How
much have you really seen, after all?'
Now, although Peter
gave an answer which in itself satisfied the Lord
Jesus, it was a transient, fleeting illumination, for so
soon afterwards the man who said it denied his Lord. From
the Gospels we are led to one sad conclusion: that,
although they had companied with Him in close
association, heard all that He had to say and seen all
that He had to do, though they had listened to Him and
watched Him, they had not really seen Him. Are you
thinking, 'That is a terrible thing to say!'? Ah, but
there is all the evidence and proof of it. This was not
the only time that He exposed their failure to recognise.
Just look what happens afterwards, after He has gone and
He comes back and visits them here and there, and speaks
to them. See their profound and utter ignorance. They had
not seen. They knew their Bibles - they knew
Moses, they knew the Psalms, they knew the prophets - but
they had not seen Him. That is the thing that He
makes perfectly clear. And - this is what I am coming to
- because they had not really seen, disaster overtook
their lives as disciples. That is why they all forsook
Him and fled; that is why the leader amongst them denied
Him thrice, passionately and vehemently; that is why they
are found, after the Cross, scattered and disillusioned
and hopeless. They had not really apprehended Him.
I come back then to our
main question: the fundamental importance of an adequate
apprehension and knowledge of Christ, as born in our
hearts by the Holy Spirit. We could sum up by saying that
the Bible has but one object from beginning to end, and
that is to reveal the mind of God concerning man, with a
view to bringing glory to God in man's eternal good. But
the one means of that revelation is God's Son. He not
only brings God's mind to us - He is
God's mind for us. He is not only the Word as an
utterance - He is the Word as a Person. Therefore the
whole Bible is comprehended and governed by Christ. He
answers the one purpose of it all - past, present, future
and eternally. Christ is central, Christ is supreme,
Christ is universal, Christ is dominant in all. The
Christian life will be greater or smaller according to
our spiritual apprehension and knowledge of Christ,
through what Paul calls 'having the eyes of our hearts
enlightened' (Eph. 1:18). Christ is the sum of all
things; and the kind of Christians we are and the measure
of His fulness to which we shall attain will be
determined exclusively by our knowledge of Him.