We shall now consider more fully
this one particular thing at the heart of this whole matter of
the greatness of Christ, lying beneath the choice of Solomon and
summing up his significance, and this one thing is his
sonship. We are passing as quickly as we can from Solomon
to Christ, and perhaps we might remind ourselves of the words
said about him in this connection. The Lord said to David: “Solomon
thy son, he shall build My house and My courts; for I have chosen
him to be My son, and I will be his father” (1 Chronicles
28:6).
Now that, as the first fragment
in that connection, gives us the key to the basis of this matter
of sonship. Let me say again this general word—before we
come to the particular—that the significance of Solomon lies
in that word ‘sonship,’ for, while Solomon’s
kingship did represent the very peak of Israel’s history in
the matter of the monarchy, David is always, in the Word of God,
kept to the fore as the greatest of Israel’s kings.
David certainly was a very much greater man than Solomon when it
comes to personalities; and it might be wondered at that things
did not end with David, seeing that he was what he was in the
Divine thought and was going for ever after to be kept by God in
the first place of Israel’s kings. Why did the history
not stop with David? For this reason: that a spiritual
principle is being held to by God in a sovereign way, and the
principle is that everything is gathered up in sonship.
Ultimately, it is sonship which represents and embodies all God’s
thought. So the one thing that is constantly reiterated
about Solomon is sonship. “Thy son... my son.”
David said: “Of all my sons (for the Lord hath given me many
sons,) He hath chosen Solomon my son” (1 Chronicles 28:5)—the
inclusiveness of sonship, and in a certain sense, the
exclusiveness also. It is this word ‘son’ that
rules where Solomon is concerned. And when we come over to
Christ, to the greater Son of David, we find that everything
heads up to, and takes its character and its meaning from, His
Sonship. Well, that is a general statement of fact which
you will do well to remember and to ponder, for reasons which
will become apparent as we go on.
We find that John and Paul are
the great exponents in this matter. John presents Christ
pre-eminently as the Son. He sums up all his Gospel in a
statement that everything written therein was with one object:
that the readers might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son
of God; and that believing they might have life in His Name (John
20:31). John, then, presents Christ as the Son; it is the
Person that he has in view.
Paul also represents Christ as
the Son, but he goes further. I have just said that there
was nothing further, but what I mean is this: that Paul goes on
to open up the content of sonship, and to show that there is an
aspect of it which is a related matter. By the Holy Spirit
we are sons. Christ is a first one, the Firstborn; and
(leaving out the factor of deity) sonship as a relationship is
something into which we are called. And the meaning of
sonship is Paul’s great theme; the content, the explanation,
the relatedness and the inclusiveness of it.
Now it is with these two things
that we shall be occupied for a little while at this time, and
here we must make some links in the Word:
“Moreover the Lord
telleth thee that the Lord will make thee a house. When
thy days are fulfilled, and thou shalt sleep with thy
fathers, I will set up thy seed after thee, that shall
proceed out of thy bowels, and I will establish his
kindgom. He shall build a house for My name, and I will
establish the throne of his kingdom for ever. I will be
his father, and he shall be My son” (2 Samuel 7:11–14).
“He shall build a house
for My name; and he shall be My son, and I will be his
father; and I will establish the throne of his kingdom over
Israel for ever” (1 Chronicles 22:10).
“Solomon thy son, he
shall build My house and My courts; for I have chosen him to
be My son, and I will be his father. And I will
establish his kindgom for ever” (1 Chronicles 28:6,7).
“And we bring you good
tidings of the promise made unto the fathers, that God hath
fulfilled the same unto our children, in that He raised up
Jesus; as also it is written in the second psalm, Thou art My
Son, this day have I begotten Thee. And as concerning
that He raised Him up from the dead, now no more to return to
corruption, He hath spoken on this wise, I will give you the
holy and sure blessings of David” (Acts 13:32–34).
“Unto which of the
angels said He at any time, Thou art My Son, this day have I
begotten Thee? and again, I will be to Him a Father, and He
shall be to Me a Son? ...But of the Son He saith, Thy throne,
O God, is for ever and ever; and the sceptre of uprightness
is the sceptre of Thy kingdom” (Hebrews 1:5,8).
Son on the
Principle of Eternity
I think it is quite patent that
the things said by God to and concerning Solomon were not meant
to be fulfilled in their entirety and fulness in him. The
Lord was speaking with a further thought, with a mind beyond
Solomon. He was really, in His own mind, speaking about the
Lord Jesus. Solomon would be but a temporary, partial
fulfilment of what God said about sonship, and about the kingdom
and the house. God was thinking further on. (That is
our manner of speaking as men. God does not speak in past,
present and future; everything is present with Him, an eternal
Now, and, when He spoke, Christ was present in mind and intention
with Him. But so far as we are concerned, as children of
time, the completeness of the statement related to the future, to
the Lord Jesus.) “I will be to Him a Father, and he
shall be to Me a Son;” “I will establish his kingdom”—these
words were spoken of Solomon, but it is not difficult to see
that, in the case of the Lord Jesus, there is an infinite
transcendence. There is something here in connection with
Him which goes far beyond anything that was possible in the case
of Solomon, and the one thing which proves that is the very
language that the Lord uses: "I will establish his throne for
ever.” That was not true of Solomon, nor of
Israel, but it is true of the Lord Jesus.
What I am stressing in the first
place is this: that John and Paul bring Christ into view as Son
on the principle of eternity. You know how John seeks to
press that home in his Gospel in a number of very impressive
ways. He opens: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word
was with God, and the Word was God,” clearly intending to
emphasize the eternity of this sonship, for He very soon comes
into time: “And the Word became flesh, and tabernacled among
us;” that is the time aspect, the Now; the other is
timeless. He seeks to emphasize the eternity of the Son in
other ways, but there is one way which is tremendously impressive
throughout John’s Gospel, and that is his use of the title
“I am.” That title comes out specifically, and I
think supremely, in John 18, in the narrative of the guard, led
by Judas, coming to take Jesus. There He was with His
disciples, and the band with lanterns and torches and weapons
arrived. He quietly said: “Whom seek ye?”
They said: “Jesus of Nazareth.” He said: “I
am,” and they went backward, and fell to the ground.
And He said again: “Whom seek ye?” “Jesus of
Nazareth.” “I told you that I am.”
(There is no ‘He’ there, as you know. ‘I am
He’ is not in the text at all.) “I AM!”
You are at once taken right back to Moses. “And
Moses said unto God, Behold, when I come unto the children of
Israel, and shall say unto them, The God of your fathers hath
sent me unto you; and they shall say to me, What is His name?
what shall I say unto them? And God said unto Moses, I AM
THAT I AM: and He said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of
Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you” (Exodus 3:13,14).
You remember the other occasion when the Lord Jesus used that
title for Himself: “Before Abraham was, I am” (John
8:58). What a mix-up of tenses! “Before Abraham
was, I am.” That takes us outside of our language
altogether, right out of time and of natural sense, into God’s
realm. I AM is not time at all. I AM is not this
world at all. I AM is from everlasting to
everlasting. John brings in Christ as Son on that basis of
eternity.
But Paul not only brings Christ
in in His eternity: he begins to build the Church upon that
eternity. In the Letters to the Ephesians and Colossians,
which are in my mind just now, we have Christ in His eternity,
and then: “He chose us in Him before the foundation of the
world” (Ephesians 1:4). From that eternal election and
foreordination and predestination Paul builds the Church.
He says: ‘This is no thing of time or of earth. This is a
thing which has its roots and its foundation away back in
eternity, and it goes on unto the ages of the ages. Time is
a mere fragment in this thing.’ Paul is building upon
the eternity of Christ. What has that to say to us?
Well, of course, it bears out our first and all-governing point—the
transcendence of Christ over Solomon. This greater than
Solomon that is here, this Son—how infinitely more He is
than that son!
What is sonship? In
accordance with God’s full thought (not His partial thought
in Solomon—that is only representation and type and figure
and shadow), it is something which takes its rise out of eternity
and goes on when time shall be no more. That is sonship in
God’s thought. But what more does it say to us?
Chosen in Him before the world was, foreknown, foreordained,
predestinated before time was—what does it convey?
Well, I AM is the synonym for stability: “Thy throne, O God,
is for ever and ever”—the stability of Christ, the
stability of the Church, and the stability of saints. Oh,
what an assurance, what a strength and what an immense thing for
faith is this matter of the sovereign grace of God! Grace
working hand in hand with sovereignty! As we have pointed
out before, there is no accounting for Solomon, seeing what
happened in relation to his birth, except for the sovereign grace
of God, and that is the message of sonship. Yes, sovereignty
and grace: how vast! how great!
We have said before that
emancipation from all our difficulties and problems will be along
the line of spiritual enlargement, and spiritual enlargement will
be by way of a new and a far greater apprehension of Christ; and
here it is. Look at Him! What is the object of
telling us all this about Christ? Do we just want
information that Christ is God’s Son, and that He was one
with the Father in eternity, and will be for ever and ever?
I am quite reverent in asking that question, and in saying that,
as a purely objective matter somewhere out in God’s
universe, it does not matter to me very much. But when you
say that God has revealed this to men, then I want to know
why. What is in the Divine mind in revealing it? And
the answer is here—you and I are concerned in it, we were
chosen in relation to it before the world was, and in Him we are
bound up with it. Oh, then, what an immense thing it is to
be receiving eternal life, age-abiding life, and being linked
with the eternal Son of God! Sonship goes beyond anything
that is merely temporary and transient. Our union with
Christ brings us right into the roots of His eternity, not only
in duration but in character, in nature; for eternal life is not
merely endless duration, it is the glory of God in nature, in
essence. So Paul builds everything upon this fact of eternity,
and brings us in. What a wonderful revelation! As a
mere presentation of truth it is fascinating, captivating,
bewildering. But brought home by the Holy Spirit, how
transforming it can be, how establishing and how emancipating!
Oh, if only the Church lived in the good of that, how all these
petty, temporary factors would go out! After all, what does
this and that matter? It is only for a time, and for this
world at most, but the thing that matters is what God is doing
above and beyond this world altogether.
Well, that is the first thing
which comes in here through John and through Paul: Christ as the
Son, and then the content and nature of sonship.
Son in Terms
of Sovereignty
Then John brings in Christ as
Son as Sovereign King. He brings Him in in a strange way, but how
deep and terrific is its significance:
“Pilate therefore
entered again into the Praetorium, and called Jesus, and said
unto Him, Art Thou the King of the Jews? Jesus
answered, Sayest thou this of thyself, or did others
tell it concerning Me? Pilate answered, Am I a
Jew? Thine own nation and the chief priests delivered
Thee unto me: what hast Thou done? Jesus answered, My
kingdom is not of this world: if My kingdom were of this
world, then would My servants fight, that I should not be
delivered to the Jews: but now is My kingdom not from
hence. Pilate therefore said unto Him, Art Thou a king
then? Jesus answered, Thou sayest that I am a
king. To this end have I been born, and to this end am
I come into the world, that I should bear witness unto the
truth. Every one that is of the truth heareth My voice”
(John 18:33–37; ASV).
A strange way of bringing in the
Son in terms of sovereignty! There is a statement here:
“My kingdom is not of this world.” It is just a
naked statement, made in the presence of none who could
understand it, but it is recorded by John with a purpose, for it
links sonship and kingship. But Paul not only takes up the
fact; he explains and opens out the statement.
“My kingdom is not of this
world.” What has Paul to say about that?
“...He raised Him from
the dead, and made Him to sit at His right hand in the
heavenlies, far above all rule, and authority, and power, and
dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this
world, but also in that which is to come: and He put all
things in subjection under His feet, and gave Him to be head
over all things...” (Ephesians 1:20–22).
There we stop, for the next
words take us to the greatness of the Church, and we are dealing
with the greatness of Christ. That is Paul’s
explanation of Christ’s statement: “My kingdom is not
of this world”; “...at His right hand in the
heavenlies, far above all rule, and authority.” You
cannot say that of Solomon! Great as Solomon was—and
the statement about Solomon is that he was vastly superior in
every sense to every other king that was known—here is One
Who leaves Solomon altogether in the shade! He is far above
all rule and authority, not only on this earth, but in every
realm. He is over all things. That is the greatness
of Christ the Son in terms of kingship.
But then what about His
kingdom? “I will establish his kingdom for ever”
(1 Chronicles 28:7). Oh, that has its full fulfilment in
Christ, in His kingdom. Paul takes this up in Colossians:
“...Who delivered us
out of the power of darkness, and translated us into the
kingdom of the Son of His love” (Colossians 1:13).
How I would like to stop there,
by way of parenthesis, to try and disentangle the situation into
which Christianity has got today through mixing up the idea of
the Kingdom and the Church—a tangle which is entirely the
cause of its weakness and defeat. What I mean is this: that
today the Lord’s people—yes, even evangelical
Christianity—are trying to run the Church on the Solomon-kingdom
line, that is, an earthly thing, something of this world, to be
seen, known, heard of, taken account of by and in this world;
bigness to impress, to write up; to gain place and influence by
names, titles and all the things that belong to this world; and
they call it: ‘Extending the Kingdom.’ They have
a false idea of the Kingdom. Here Paul links these two things for
this dispensation—Church and Kingdom—and says it is
heavenly and not of this world at all. Immediately after
this he goes on:
“If then ye were raised
together with Christ, seek the things that are above, where
Christ is, seated on the right hand of God. Set your
mind on the things that are above, not on the things that are
upon the earth” (Colossians 3:1,2; ASV).
No, not even in a religious
way. “My kingdom is not of this world,” said the
Lord, and Paul explains it. The Church in this dispensation
is the embodiment of the Kingship and Kingdom principles of
Christ in a spiritual way, and they lift the Church clean out of
this world and make it a heavenly thing. Immediately we
begin to get a church with its own orders and forms and means
which belong to this earth, in architecture, vestments and all
that sort of thing, we are back on a Solomon basis of the
Kingdom, and we have left the heavenly basis of the Church.
“My kingdom is not of this
world,” said John as to this Son, and Paul explains: “...seated
at His right hand in the heavenlies, far above all rule,”
“all things in subjection under His feet,” “Head
over all things.” But where is it? Go over the
world and see where you can find it, and the only thing you will
find is that ghastly caricature of it, the Pope and the Roman
Church—a false presentation of this “Head over all
things to the church,” a temporal thing. With Paul it
is a spiritual thing. In union with Christ we are not only
lifted out of time into eternity, but out of earth into the
heavens; and all now is of a spiritual and heavenly order in this
dispensation. “My kingdom is not of this world: if My
kingdom were of this world, then would My servants fight.”
That is the statement, putting it in one way. Put it the
other way: ‘Because My Kingdom is not of this world, My
servants do not fight with flesh and blood for its establishment.’
Paul tells us what that means: “Our wrestling is not against
flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the
powers, against the world-rulers of this darkness, against the
spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenlies” (Ephesians
6:12). That is what Christ meant! Here it is Christ
speaking and explaining Himself through Paul, explaining what He
said to Pilate when there was no one who could understand.
Now it is possible to explain. The Spirit has come and
formed a company of people who, by the Spirit, are capable of
understanding things the Lord said when no one did understand and
He had to say: “I have yet many things to say unto you, but
ye cannot bear them now. Howbeit when He, the Spirit of
truth, is come, He shall guide you into all the truth” (John
16:12,13); and here it is. Not with flesh and blood, for it
is spiritual. It has gone out into a vast realm, so much
greater than the realm of Solomon, and it is in and from that
realm that everything is being governed. Do not make any
mistake about it! This world, and the kingdoms of this
world, are not taking their own course, and they are not
ultimately taking the devil’s course. Yes, the world-rulers
of this darkness—that is the immediate scene, the devil’s
work, but behind there is One Who is using the devil and his
work, Whose servant Satan is, Who is Sovereign Lord, far above
all rule and dominion, authority and name, whatever that name may
be, man or devil. He is over all. Either the
Scripture is not true, or that is a fact.
How tremendous is this
sovereignty of the Lord Jesus! So many of our problems will begin
to dissolve when we get a true conception of the greatness of
Christ! Why this? Why that? Why the
other? Why does Satan seem to have it all his own
way? Why does Satan score and win? Are you sure he
does? Look beyond, and see if that very work of Satan is
not going to be taken up into the sovereignty of our Lord and
made eventually to serve Divine ends. “I would have
you know, brethren, that the things which happened unto me have
fallen out rather unto the progress of the gospel”
(Philippians 1:12). The sufferings of the Church at the
hands of devils and men have, in the end, resulted in the
furtherance of the work of God.
Son as
Redeeming Kinsman
John, then, presents Him as
King; yes, in humiliation and in suffering, but King. Oh,
there is a marvellous secret and mystery there which it would
take me too long to deal with now. I see it there but
dimly, but I see it in that outstanding incident in the life of
Solomon, selected as an isolated example of his wisdom. No
doubt there were many others, but this was taken out of them all
and recorded as an example—the two women and the two
babes. They were living and sleeping together, and in the
night one of the babes was overlaid and died. The woman,
whose babe that was, quietly put her dead child over by the other
mother, and took the living baby to herself. In the morning
the rightful mother saw that her child was gone and this dead one
was not hers, and she went to Solomon about it. The two
women were arraigned before Solomon and the whole problem was
presented to him. Solomon, with that insight, discernment
and wisdom which God had given—and remember, wisdom is
always the means by which problems are solved—decided on a
very radical course. He called for a sword and said: ‘Divide
the living child in two, and give half to each of the women.’
That settled it! The false mother stood as a spectator,
coldly unmoved by this procedure. The rightful mother let go; she
let go herself, let go her own rights, for the life of that
child. “Oh,” she said, “give her the living
child, and in no wise slay it.” In effect: ‘Do
not kill my child, even if I must part with it. I let go
all that is dear to me. If it costs me everything, let the
child live!’ Solomon said: ‘That is the
mother. Give her the child.’
Do you remember the Lord Jesus
saying: “He that is a hireling and not a shepherd, whose own
the sheep are not, beholdeth the wolf coming, and leaveth the
sheep, and fleeth, and the wolf snatcheth them, and scattereth
them: he fleeth because he is a hireling, and careth not for the
sheep. I am the good shepherd; ...and I lay down My life
for the sheep” (John 10:12–14)? Have you got the
principle in the two things? You have to solve this problem
of life and death. How is it going to be solved? By
yielding up your own life. This is true of Christ. He
could only solve this problem and establish His right, His claim
and His ownership by letting go. “Whosoever would save his
life shall lose it: and whosoever shall lose his life for My sake
shall find it” (Matthew 16:25). It would take much
longer than that to investigate the matter properly, but I see
dimly a kingship here. A greater than Solomon is here, and
He is dealing with a much greater problem and situation.
His right and His ownership have
to be established. How will He do it? By grasping, or by
fighting in the flesh, or by asserting Himself? No, by
giving His life a ransom for many (Matthew 20:28).
There He deals with the whole problem of life and death, and that
is what John brings out.
What I am seeing here is this:
John records what the Lord Jesus says—“Father...
glorify Thy Son, that the Son may glorify Thee: even as Thou
gavest Him authority over all flesh, that to all whom Thou hast
given Him, He should give eternal life” (John 17:1,2).
“As the Father hath life in Himself, even so gave He to the
Son also to have life in Himself: and He gave Him authority to
execute judgment, because He is a Son of man” (John 5:26,27).
Here is sonship brought out in a third aspect, and in this He
comes immediately into vital relationship with mankind. The
Son of Man is a racial title: it speaks of relatedness to
man. But how does He find man? In death. How is
He to redeem man? As the Redeeming Kinsman, the Son of
Man. How is He to exercise the authority which He has been
given to raise man from the dead? He will lay down His
life, He will let go His own right, He will yield up His own
claims, He will set His own personal interests aside, He will die
for that which He has come to redeem. “I am the good
shepherd... I lay down My life for the sheep.” The Son
of Man redeems. How? In that infinite wisdom of the
Cross; “Christ crucified... the wisdom of God” (1
Corinthians 1:23,24); that infinite wisdom of laying down the
life, of letting go. That woman let go what was her
right. The Lord Jesus, “existing in the form of God,
counted not the being on an equality with God a thing to be
grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant, being
made in the likeness of men; and being found in fashion as a man,
He humbled Himself, becoming obedient even into death, yea, the
death of the cross” (Philippians 2:5–8). In that
letting go He redeemed us unto God, He saved the flock.
Solomon was very wise, and that story is very impressive and
beautiful, but he could not do this. He could not go right
out into that vast realm of redeeming kinship with a whole race,
and, on the principle of becoming obedient unto death, redeem the
race.
That is the greatness of
Christ. Son, Eternal Son in Sovereign Kingship, Son as
Redeeming Kinsman. Paul opens that up to bring the Church
right into the full stature of a man in Christ—but that is
another subject.