Reading: John 14:6; Acts 9:1-2; 16:17; 19:9,23; 22:4;
24:14,22; Luke 22:14-23.
We come now to the fifth of the five major features of Christ as
the Way - the meaning of His sufferings and the little clause - "I
have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I
suffer" (Luke 22:15). The table of the Lord particularly, brings
into view His sufferings. It is meant to keep His sufferings in
view, and inasmuch as He gave them the cup and the loaf, He called
them into fellowship with Him in His sufferings. These are not His
vicarious sufferings. We have no place or part in His atoning
sufferings, His redeeming sufferings. Blessed be God, He did that
completely, fully, utterly alone. We can add nothing to that, and
there is no need for us to add anything. It is complete and
finished. But the New Testament makes it perfectly clear that
there is a side of the sufferings of Christ into which we are
called, what Paul calls "the fellowship of His sufferings" (Phil.
3:10); not atoning, not redeeming, not vicarious, but the fellowship of sufferings. We
will see what those are as we go on, and what that means.
Let us understand right away that whenever we as Christians come
to the Lord's table, we are declaring that we are in the way of
His sufferings. Whatever else that table may represent - and it
does represent a number of other things - inclusively and
pre-eminently it represents His sufferings. There is an aspect of
His cup which He will offer to us to drink. There is an aspect of
His brokenness into which He will bring us.
His table, the symbol and representation of His sufferings,
embodies all that we have said, the whole of the five things. It
sets forth His unique humanity, for it is a Body which is
different. It sets forth the end of an old life; it sets forth the
beginning of a new, a risen Life, anointed and devoted to God. It
sets forth His holy, pure and heavenly walk, and it sets forth
that aspect of His sufferings which is vicarious. All that is
crowded into the testimony of the Lord's table, and we have all
those things before us whenever we come to the Lord's table.
But having said that, let us come exactly to this point. When we
speak of Him as the Way and when Christianity at its pure heavenly
beginnings was called the Way, that way is, whatever else it is,
the way of His sufferings. We need perhaps to make some little
adjustment to that fact. A very selfish Gospel is being preached
nowadays. The popular Gospel is the Gospel of what comes to those
who will accept Christ in the way of their own personal benefits -
attractions, offers, almost bribes, prizes and presents and what
not; that side of things which is to anybody an attraction, what
anybody naturally might want - peace, assurance of forgiveness, a
way to heaven, and joy; all those things which will come to the
individual who will accept Christ. Now those things may be quite
true, but there may be something of a hidden deception, and it may
lay the foundation for a good deal of subsequent disillusionment,
not that the joy will not be forthcoming, or the peace, or the
pardon, or the heaven. But it might be after a while that those
who came in on that ground only would say, 'You did not let me
know what I was in for; if I had known what I was in for, I
probably would have thought more seriously about it; you made it
too cheap.' Now the Lord Jesus never did that. Whatever He offered
of pardon and peace, of joy, (and He did offer those things), He
always offered them in fellowship with His sufferings, that is, He
always was perfectly honest, candid, frank about this. "Whoever
does not carry his own cross and come after Me cannot be My
disciple" (Luke 14:27).
And in other such words at the beginning He made it perfectly
clear that this was going to be no joyride to heaven. If that were
all, if we left it there, of course, it might be disconcerting, it
might set some back. But you see first of all, the Lord is not
going to minister to our selfishness by His Christianity.
Christianity is no ministration to anyone's natural self-interest.
Therefore the Gospel which Christ preached and which the apostles
preached, and the Way which they presented, was no cheap way, no
easy way. It was the way of suffering. It is to be noted that on
every occasion when that phrase occurred in relation to
Christianity in the beginning - the Way - it was connected with
opposition. The very first time that it is mentioned was in
connection with persecutions through Saul of Tarsus, and what
bitter and terrible persecutions they were, something that
followed and haunted that man himself to his dying day. "I
persecuted the church" (Gal. 1:13). "When the blood of Your
witness Stephen was being shed, I also was standing by approving"
(Acts 22:20).
When Paul said that years after, there was a sob in his throat.
The way from the beginning was the way of opposition, and, I
repeat, every time that it is mentioned as such it is in
connection with trouble. "There occurred no small disturbance
concerning the Way" (Acts 19:23). "Speaking evil of the Way" (Acts
19:9). That is the connection all the way through, the Way which
is the way of suffering.
Fellowship in Relation to the Supreme Purpose of God
But we must redeem that from oppression or depression. That does
not mean that gloom should at once gather over the way. This
suffering, this fellowship with Christ's suffering, is fellowship
in co-operation with God and with Christ in relation to the supreme
purpose of this universe. God is committed to immense things where
this universe is concerned. God has committed Himself to wonderful
things where this race is concerned, and God is working out those
purposes and they are being worked out through the cross of the
Lord Jesus; they are being worked out through the sufferings of
Christ and the fellowship of His sufferings; in other words, the
fellowship of God's eternal purpose. It is to be hand in hand with
God in the working out of the things of His own heart. Paul saw
that; he was a man who knew something about the fellowship of
Christ's sufferings. He could say the "sufferings of Christ are
ours in abundance" (2 Cor. 1:5). He could speak of, "I do my share
on behalf of His body, which is the church, in filling up what is
lacking in Christ's afflictions" (Col. 1:24). He knew something
about it and not a little, but at last right at the end he cries -
"that I may know Him... and the fellowship of His sufferings"
(Phil. 3:10). What does he mean? Is he inviting trouble? Is he
such a fire-eater? - let any suffering come, I can take it!? That
is not the spirit, that is not the attitude, that is not the
meaning.
Paul, perhaps more than anyone else, knew what God was after,
what God was engaged upon, the great eternal counsels of God, and
saw that because of things being as they were and are, the only
way for their realization is through travail and through anguish.
It is out of the pangs that the new creation will be born. "The
whole creation", said he, "groans and suffers the pains of
childbirth together until now"; "the creation waits eagerly for
the revealing of the sons of God" (Rom. 8:22,19). Out of the pangs
of creation, the sons of God will be born. Paul said, 'I share the
pangs which will produce the sons; I share the travail which will
bring forth to new creation, and that is a high honour; that
transfigures the sufferings, that gives an altogether new angle to
this Way.'
Oh, that we might find the transfiguration of all the sufferings
and the adversities which come to us because of the Way; that they
might take on a new complex; that we might see that this which
abounds unto us of the sufferings of Christ is fellowship with God
in the realization of His great purpose.
Suffering Because of the Testimony
But then that suffering - and there are several things to be said
about that - is because of the testimony of Jesus. And the
testimony of Jesus is first of all the testimony against Satan's
work in man. Satan's one object from the beginning was to capture
man, and, as we pointed out, when he gets hold of man, he will in
some way or another seek to make that man feel that either in
himself naturally or by his works he can be his own saviour. That
is the glory of man in the place of the glory of Christ.
Glorifying man has ever been Satan's object; to make something,
yes, to make everything, of man, so to work for the exaltation and
glorification and inflation of man that at last the great superman
comes as the incarnation of Satan himself.
When Jesus comes and says that whole manhood and humanity is
finished, that God is no longer going to make anything of that
man, that natural man, that God has brought in another Man and
that kingdom that Satan has hold of for his own ends is at an end,
that God has no place for it, do you think Satan likes that? See
what it cuts from under his feet, see what a tremendous thing that
is when all the ground of Satan's hopes and purposes and intrigues
is simply swept away, and Jesus stands to declare another kind of
man in whom God is interested. Therefore if we stand for the other
Man and with the other Man and on the ground of that different Man
in which Satan has no place at all, we are in for it. By any means
Satan will spoil us, will mar us, will break us, will put us out,
and that is the fellowship of His sufferings. It is the sufferings
which come because Satan cannot get hold of that Man, cannot do
anything with that Man, but he is going to do his best to spoil
those who are in the Way of that Man, to put that creation out of
the way.
Again, on the positive side, the testimony of Jesus (that is the
testimony in Himself, what He is) is the testimony of God's
eternally conceived and purposed destiny for His Man. "You make
him to rule over the works of Your hands" (Ps. 8:6); "You have put
all things in subjection under His feet" (Heb. 2:8). Satan says,
'Not if I can help it, I will have him under my feet.' God's
destiny in Christ as representing this new manhood and God's
destiny eternally determined for all who are of Jesus Christ, the
new manhood - that means that Satan's kingdom is going, that means
that his rule has its end secured, that means the time is coming
when this Man, Christ Jesus, and this corporate man in Christ
Jesus, is going to have the pre-eminence, is going to reign
together with Him, and that reign is not just something official,
it is spiritual, it is moral. It means that all enemies shall be
put under His feet and under theirs, and you can quite clearly see
that the enemy will postpone that as long as he can, and will do
everything to make it hard for those who are eventually going to
oust him and his kingdom. So it is a suffering way.
And did he not with Him Who is the Way, try to turn Him aside by
any means, by subtle tricks, by friends, and by opposition and
suffering, from being that great predestined Head of a new eternal
kingdom, to stop Him from going to the cross to accomplish it? The
way of suffering is the way of its accomplishment and its
realization.
Suffering Because of
Misunderstanding
Then the sufferings of Christ are seen to be so much in the realm
of the complete impossibility of the world to understand, and that
includes the religious world. One thing that the world, the
natural man, desires, is to be understood. The most difficult
thing for anybody is to be misunderstood or un-understood. Oh, how
we naturally long to be understood! "For this reason the world
does not know us, because it did not know Him" (1 John 3:1). And
there is a great deal of suffering bound up with the world being
entirely unable to understand.
You will never be able to explain yourself to the satisfaction
of the world if you go on with the Lord Jesus. You will carry
about something hidden in your own heart which others who have not
gone your way will never understand. It will be the suffering of a
lonely way so far as the whole world outside of Christ is
concerned. "You... will leave Me alone. And yet I am not alone,
because the Father is with Me" (John 16:32 NKJV). But there was
something of a pang in His voice when He said that. "You will
leave Me alone", you just will not be able to understand. How true
it was even of His closest friends and disciples; they could not
understand why He should go to the cross, and why He should accept
the cross, why He should not do everything to avoid and evade it,
to escape it. They begged Him, they pleaded with Him, not to go
that way. They could not understand. For them every hope was
dashed should He go to the cross. He had to go His lonely way
without one person being able to understand. There may have been
sympathy, there may have been pity, but there was no
understanding. And that is always the way of those who are going
right on with the Lord. You will always find that even amongst
Christians if you are going right on with the Lord, there are many
who will not understand. They can go so far and they do not know
why it is you will not stop there, why you will go that bit
further. Yes, it is a lonely way, and that is a large part of the
suffering.
Suffering Because of Prejudice
The way that Jesus took was the way which encountered the blind
prejudice and pride of the whole religious world, which would not
come under the government of the Spirit of God, the world which
would govern itself by its own judgments and standards - that was
the religious world of His time. And it is the religious world of
our time, that which is not wholly governed by the Holy Spirit and
therefore not wholly open to all the thought of God that will be
marked by prejudices, by pride, by a closedness, to a great deal
which it will not have, is not prepared to accept. For such as are
going the whole way - and this is not just a statement of a
theory, it is the borne-out experience of many - they will
encounter their chief prejudice and opposition from religious
people themselves. They will find less sympathy in that realm than
even in the world. Is that true? It is true. The Book from which
one speaks is a very large volume of history, the history of those
who have set their faces to go in this way wholly. Yes, prejudice
and pride and jealousy and envy and much more of that kind, and it
creates a great state of suffering. You just have to get on in
spite of it and suffer because of it.
I do not think I need enlarge upon this any more. All I have said
and all that I could say would simply resolve itself into this -
the Way, as in the case of Christ personally and in the case of
the church and Christianity at its beginning, is a Way of
suffering. It will be that for all those who are going to identify
themselves with the Way, but that suffering in the Way in
fellowship with the Lord Jesus is infinitely fruitful suffering.
It is tremendously impressive when you just stand back and think
of it, that here is a throne, not necessarily a literal throne,
but a throne, a centre of universal government and supremacy, a
glorious throne. Around that throne are ever-widening circles from
the immediate circle to larger and larger circles until you get a
great multitude out of every nation and tongue and kindred, a
multitude which no man can number, all in the ecstasy of their
full redemption realised and possessed, all in the glory of a
mighty triumph, all now in fellowship with the supreme universal
Lord, and that Lord is a Lamb in the midst of the throne. It has
all come from the offering of the Lamb, it is all out from His
sufferings.
The Lamb of sacrifice always speaks of suffering. But look, from
the heart of things where there is the symbol of suffering, the
Lamb, the whole universe is full of glory and praise and worship
and adoration. The language being used around that throne is not
human language. Human language is defeated in its effort to set
forth the worship that you find around that throne. Yes, by way of
suffering. Ah yes, it is not all in vain. If that is a true
revelation of the fruit of suffering, it is not in vain; and if
that is true, then it is worth our having some fellowship in it.
It was not fruitless suffering. It was not suffering to
desolation. It was suffering to glory, "...if indeed we suffer with
Him, so that we may also be glorified with Him" (Rom. 8:17).