"He humbled
himself, becoming obedient unto death, yea, the death of
the cross" (Phil. 2:8).
So far we have been
occupied with that side and aspect of the Cross of the
Lord Jesus that has to do with sin, and we have seen that
sin is the basis and nature and power of the kingdom of
darkness, the kingdom of Satan.
We come now to one
further inclusive word on the matter of the nature of sin
before we say a word about its result, and then we are
brought immediately to the Cross of the Lord Jesus.
The
Essence of Sin - Independence of God
What does this whole
matter of sin amount to? Can we put it into a word? I
think we can, and that word is independence -
independence of God. Yes, the kingdom of Satan is really
built upon independence. He himself decided to take a
course of independence. Before he became Satan he was
Lucifer, the covering cherub. The Scripture says
"thou wast created" (Eze. 28:13), and a created
being must be less than, and dependent upon, the Creator;
but this one decided to be independent of Him and to
proceed to have everything centred in himself and not in
God, to be his own lord, to be god himself and to refer
and defer to no one - absolute independence; and it was
that which he introduced into the race by Adam.
"Hath God said...? God doth know that in the day ye
eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall
be as God, knowing good and evil" (Gen. 3:1,5). The
inference of his words was this 'Why not have your eyes
opened? Why always have to refer to God? Why not be as
God?' To that suggestion man fell. He used the greatest
gift that God has ever given to created beings - the
power of choice, will - he used his great trust,
freewill, and chose independence.
There are many ways in
which this independence works out. It works out along the
line of self-sufficiency, and we see that history right
up to date is only the story of independence,
self-sufficiency, in one form or another. At different
times or in different sections of the race this
independence expresses itself variously. Sometimes, and
in some places, it takes the form of definite and
positive Godlessness, where God is deliberately and
openly and unashamedly thrown over, repudiated, denied.
That sort of thing covers a very large section of this
earth today and is powerfully at work - utter and
positive and deliberate Godlessness, giving Him no place.
Sometimes and in other places this independence has been,
and is, expressed in a system of ideas of human
greatness. The word 'ideology' has sprung so much into
our vocabulary. It is simply a system or scheme of ideas
about human greatness - how great man is and how
inherently good he is; you have only to give him scope
and facility and suitable conditions, and you see what a
wonderful creature he is, both as to his ability, his
potentialities, and his inherent goodness. It is only
another form of independence of God, of man's blindness;
for man's blindness is most of all seen in his inability
to recognise his own need.
Or again, the same
thing shows itself in religious systems, systems of
works, salvation by works. This may be positive or it may
be negative, but it is the same thing. The positive form
is seen in Judaism and in Romanism and in other systems -
the religion of salvation by works. Paul summed it up
very well, speaking so sadly about his brethren after the
flesh - "Being ignorant of God's righteousness, and
seeking to establish their own, they did not subject
themselves to the righteousness of God" (Rom. 10:3).
That is the point. They have not done that thing which is
just the opposite of independence - submission to the
righteousness of God. That whole system, however it comes
out, is simply the system of 'what a good boy am I!' 'I
do this and that, I don't do this and that; see how good
I am!' - seeking to establish their own righteousness.
But this Satanic thing
is behind it all, and the Lord Jesus uncovered it. He
said to these very people who were making broad their
phylacteries, making long prayers in the market places,
parading themselves like peacocks with their tails spread
religiously - "Ye are of your father the devil, and
the lusts of your father it is your will to do"
(John 8:44). Pretty scathing for religion, is it not?
Or it may be negative.
It may be the poor ascetic, cringing and begging, with
his miserable face and his poor emaciated form, and he is
only saying in another way, 'What a good boy am I! I am
very religious, I do not do the things that all you other
people do. I am a man of prayer, of abstinence.' It is
the same thing. He counts on getting to heaven that way -
independence of God.
Or again, it may come
in the most subtle form of all - spiritual pride amongst
the real children of God. There is no worse pride than
spiritual pride. I think there is nothing more abominable
to the Lord, because it exists just where much better
knowledge ought to exist; it exists right in the realm of
grace. If you think it is too strong a thing to say,
remember, we are poor little pygmies compared with such a
man as the Apostle Paul: we cannot match up to him as to
spiritual stature, as to his knowledge of God: and even
such a spiritual giant as he will say, "That I
should not be exalted overmuch, there was given to me a
thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to buffet
me" (2 Cor. 12:7). It is there, it is always there,
it is always present - some form of self-congratulation;
and the peril is greatest, always greatest, where
blessing is the greatest. Oh, the infinite peril running
side by side with the blessing of God! How very difficult
it is for the Lord to trust us with blessing! How very
difficult it is for Him to use us! How pleased we feel!
Yes, it is in the highest of all realms that Satan
appears - amongst the sons of God (Job 1:6). Yes, in
heaven. I cannot understand that literally, but I can
understand it spiritually - that in heaven Satan appears
amongst the sons of God; and Satan himself is transformed
into an angel of light when the Lord is using and
blessing His people. 'This is great! We are becoming
somebody!' - and there it is amongst the sons of God in
heaven. Independence - trying to get us unwatchfully,
imperceptibly, unconsciously, unintentionally, to
presume, because the Lord has done something. How
terrible this sin is! You can never track it down and
finally lay it to rest.
Now you see, power is
based upon authority, and, as we have said before, like
can never cast out like, Satan can never cast out Satan,
the flesh cannot cast out the flesh. "If a house be
divided against itself, that house will not be able to
stand" (Mark 3:25). Authority rests upon right, and
right is moral. Hence, we have got to know what the
kingdom of God rests upon, and there has to be a very
wide cleavage between the two kingdoms.
The
Result of Independence
(a) Enmity Against God
What is the effect, the
result, of all this which we have summed up in this word
independence? It is firstly, enmity, so far as our
relationship with God is concerned. All that is the sum
and the essence of enmity with God, and there is enmity
on God's part toward it. Any form of independence on our
part where the Lord is concerned is a positive factor of
warfare with God. Perhaps that needs a word adding to it,
because probably no one here will deliberately take a
line independent of the Lord. If it came to the immediate
issue of the Lord and you, you would not do it. But there
is a good deal of independence about us that does so
often seek to evade the Lord. The independence may show
itself in various directions. The Lord therefore has
constituted His house in such a way that the test of our
willingness to rely upon the Lord, to trust Him, to
commit our way unto Him, is found in relationships, in
matters of the House. We cannot say that we trust the
Lord, that we commit everything to Him, that we depend
upon Him, and then perhaps take an independent course
where another child of God is concerned. That is a
contradiction. "If a man say, I love God, and hateth
his brother, he is a liar" (1 John 4:20). The proof
of your love for God is your relationship to your
brother. So in this matter of independence, it is tested
out in many practical ways in the Christian relationships
of the house of God. I speak of 'the house of God' as a
spiritual thing - the relatedness of all believers. That
by the way.
Now this all comes to
be something positively set against God - enmity. If this
is Satan's nature, then Satan is enmity against God. That
is in us. There is the innate enmity against God in us.
We have only got to be put to the test in a suitable
situation and it comes out. I have only to ask you, have
you never in your life been put into a situation in which
you have found it difficult to yield to the Lord? Have
you always, in all circumstances, at all times, in all
conditions, in every trial and difficulty, found it
perfectly easy to say, Yes, to the Lord? Have you? But
here we are, we are put to the test in numerous practical
ways as to whether, after all, there is not something in
us that has got to be overcome in this matter of natural
enmity against God.
(b)
Distance from God
And the enmity, of
course, creates distance. That is how it was at the
beginning. Immediately the enmity came into Adam, God
withdrew, distance was created. It was distance of
nature, not only distance of Persons. God had to put man
apart from Himself, and man knows perfectly well by
nature that he is at a distance from God. One of the
characteristics of the unregenerate man is that he feels
that God is such a long way off. Where is God? -
somewhere out on the rim of the universe. God is far
away. One of the first blessed characteristics of a
born-again soul is a sense that God is near; the gap is
closed up; God is at hand.
(c)
Impotence
And sin brings
impotence, helplessness. It is a fact, whether we realise
it or not, which is brought out very clearly and strongly
immediately the question of real salvation arises. Even
though you may be one who has most thoroughly stood for
salvation by works, as did Saul of Tarsus, when it comes
to the real matter of the relatedness of salvation to
your inner life, you have to say, "The good which I
would I do not; but the evil which I would not, that I
practise... Wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me
out of the body of this death?" (Rom. 7:19,24).
Impotence, helplessness - that is the result of sin.
The
Issue of Independence - Death
That leads us at once
to what that amounts to, what that is. It is death. What
is death? We know it is not cessation of being. It is the
change of the nature of our being, change in our
relationships in being. Here death is the awful sense
that God is against you - enmity working itself out in
fear and dread of God; your full consciousness awakened
to the wrath of God. That is the realm of enmity; that is
death. Distance? - ah, yes; far, far away, far out of
reach, out of call. You cannot get Him, you cannot find
Him. You cry, but no response; He is far away. That is
death, when your consciousness is fully alive to it.
Impotence? - no hope, no resource, no recourse, helpless,
abandoned; that is death. That is the result of sin.
We come to the Cross.
Do you understand that aspect of the Cross of our Lord
Jesus? There are two aspects to the Cross. We have said
that Christianity is a system of paradoxes or
contradictions. At one time you will be reading about the
Cross as the most awful thing - the place of the wrath of
God, the darkness, the terror. At another time you read
about the Cross as that in which the Lord Jesus offered
Himself without spot to God - God fully satisfied: all
the heart longings and cravings of the very nature of God
are answered to fully. That is the other side of the
Cross. Those two things meet in the Cross of Calvary, and
you find that God has in all time given pictures of those
two sides.
Types
of Sin
(a) Leprosy
You turn to the book of
Leviticus where the whole question of relationship is
being threshed out. In the fourteenth chapter you have
the matter of leprosy and the cleansing of the leper. Two
birds are called for for the cleansing of the leper and
the cleansing of his house. One bird is killed, its neck
is wrung, its blood is shed. It is killed as by an act of
anger, of destruction. The other bird is sprinkled with
its blood and let go. It lives - touched with that blood,
but it lives. That is the cleansing of the leper from his
leprosy - a picture of sin dealt with. Leprosy is the
Bible's worst picture of sin; leprosy, the thing which is
hateful, in which are all the elements of enmity. And
leprosy separates; it is so against everything that is
lovely and beautiful. There is an element in it of
hostility to all that is good. The enmity leads to
separation, and the poor leper has to depart. Lest
anybody should come near, he cries with his hollow cry,
Unclean! Unclean! He is put aside. And what can a leper
do? Of course, today we have remedies, we are able to
rescue the leper. But then leprosy was regarded as a
hopeless and a helpless thing.
How is the leper
cleansed? Well, there are two sides to his cleansing.
Typically, he must bear judgment and be destroyed from
the presence of the Lord, but, being sprinkled with the
blood, he may also live. It is the same person, not two
halves. On the one hand, judged, condemned and destroyed
from before God; on the other hand saved, the blood
sprinkled. Judgment has passed, destruction has been
carried out, but somehow 'from the ground there blossoms
red, life that shall endless be.' The leper is saved.
(b)
The Scapegoat
You pass to Leviticus
16, and you have the ritual of the great day of
Atonement, and the central things are two goats. The
priest brings the two goats and places them before the
Lord. Then lots are cast upon the two goats, one for the
Lord, one for the Scapegoat or "Azazel" -
meaning for abandonment, dismissal. The latter goat is
for judgment, all the sins of Israel being put upon it.
It is driven out of the camp, away into the desolation of
the wilderness, never to come back again, to be lost
forever, never again to be looked upon. I have often
thought one of the most pathetic pictures in the whole
Bible is that poor goat.
But the other goat -
the lot has fallen upon him for God, and he is offered to
God.
Now in the Bible and in
the Hebrew language, there are two words which are of
particular interest in this connection - one, holiness;
the other, consecration. Holiness means 'set apart for
God.' Consecration means 'devoted.' I do not know why,
but in the Authorized Version the translators have
strangely translated that word 'devoted' as 'accursed.'
You remember, Achan took the accursed thing (Joshua
7:10-26). It is the devoted thing. Saul was commanded 'to
devote' Amalek to the sword - man, woman, child, and
beast. (1 Sam. 15:3 R.V.M.). Here are two sides of one
thing. One, separated unto the Lord as holy unto the
Lord; the other, devoted. Ah, but what does devotion
mean? It may mean devoted to judgment, devoted to
destruction. Achan found that. He, his family, his tent,
all that he had, was destroyed. He was devoted,
consecrated. You have a new idea of consecration now,
have you not? Consecrated; devoted to destruction from
the presence of the Lord. That was the goat of dismissal.
Devoted to be shut out for ever, never again to come back
into the company of what is God's.
The
Significance of the Cross
(a) Christ Made Sin for Us
There is the Cross.
Looking now on that dark side of the Cross, what happened
on that side? Is it too terrible a thing to say that the
Son of man took the place of Satan? He took the place of
that very nature which had come from Satan into the race,
the place of the outpouring of God's wrath because of
enmity. He was made sin in our stead (2 Cor.
5:21). What is sin? We find in this dealing with the
goats on the day of Atonement, the words are these -
"Aaron shall... confess over him all the the iniquities
of the children of Israel, and all their transgressions,
even all their sins" (Lev. 16:21). All their
sins; their transgressions (their rebellions) and their
iniquities (their perversity). That is put on the goat of
destruction - rebellion and perversity. Does this not
give some new tremendous meaning to that word
"obedient unto death"? Why did the Lord Jesus
sweat as it were great drops of blood falling down to the
ground - what the Apostle speaks of as resisting unto
blood, striving against sin (Heb. 12:4)? He had been
called upon by the Father to become rebellion,
perversity, to take the place of iniquity and
transgression, and to have all that laid upon Him.
"He was wounded for our transgressions (rebellion),
he was bruised for our iniquities (perversity)"
(Isa. 53:5). Why did He say "As Moses lifted up the
serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be
lifted up" (John 3:14)? Why was it a serpent that
was set up? You see the nature that He was asked to
accept at that moment. Know Him in the truth of His
being, know Him as He really was, know how for three and
a half long, weary, bitter years He fought against all
that evil, refusing everything that belonged to it -
refusing pride, refusing the temptation of the devil to
act independently of God, to accept a kingdom
independently of God - how He had fought all the way
through against that which Satan tried to put upon Him -
and at the end to be asked by the Father to accept it for
our sake! Can we enter into it? We cannot.
"He became
obedient." Oh, what obedience meant in His case!
Obedient to God Who said, 'Will you, for the sake of the
race, take all that, be judged as that, be dealt with by
Me as that, step right into that very position and let Me
deal with you so that My wrath due to enmity against Me
is poured out upon you in judgment, and so that the
complete withdrawal of My presence becomes known to you
in awful reality and you cry, "My God, my God, why
hast thou forsaken me?"' As to helplessness -
"He was crucified through weakness" (2 Cor.
13:4); He could not save Himself. The outworking of sin
in the Cross was like that; the goat of dismissal sent
far, far away. "I cry in the daytime, but thou
answerest not" (Psa, 22:2). There is no one to
answer the crying from the far desolate wilderness of
God-forsakenness, God-abandonment. We cannot enter into
it. In order to undo for us that power of Satan, for one
terrible, eternal hour, He tasted death; the wrath of
God, the remoteness of God, and utter impotence and
helplessness.
(b)
Christ Accepted of God
Yet there is the other
aspect of the Cross (of which we shall have to speak more
again if the Lord wills) where, while all that we have
been saying is true, and we take nothing from it - the
awful darkness and blackness and terror of it all -
something else is going on. He offers Himself without
spot unto God (Heb. 9:14). He was an offering unto God.
That is the other aspect. The word gains strength for us
- "who delivered us out of the power (authority) of
darkness, and translated us into the kingdom of the Son
of his love" (Col. 1:13). That is the value of the
Cross. Out of that darkness into this - into God's
absolute good pleasure. "The Son of his love."
"Accepted in the beloved" (Eph. 1:6). Out of
one into the other by the Cross.
Oh, I wish that it were
in my power to make the Cross known in more of its
wonderful depth and fulness in both its aspects. I trust
that you see a little more. We are now thinking of the
Cross in both aspects - judgment and acceptance. Let us
see what He has done. He has devoured and swallowed up
all the wrath of God; there is no more remaining for us
if we will believe. He has bridged and closed up the
mighty gulf between God and us, and brought us nigh unto
God through the Blood of His Cross, if we will believe;
and He has brought us back into the place of the power of
God out of our impotence, that we should be endued and
endowed by the Holy Ghost with the mighty power of God.
"...strengthened with power through his Spirit in
the inward man" (Eph. 3:16). While in ourselves
remaining weak, we are nevertheless able to say, "I
can do all things in him that strengtheneth me"
(Phil. 4:13). There is the great change over.
The
Practical Application
But, you see, the
practical application has got to be made. We have got to
come definitely to the meaning of the Cross like that,
and say, 'Well, if that is what the Cross means so far as
I am concerned by nature, there is no place left for
self-will, for independence; that must go to the Cross;
and all that belongs to the old creation must go to the
Cross.' And, thank God, the Cross is not just some wooden
thing set up long years ago, neither is it a crucifix to
be worn around our necks; it is a mighty power of God.
"Christ crucified... the power of God" (1 Cor.
1:23,24). To do this thing, to save us from the strength
of our own will, to break the power of this enmity in us
against God, to transform us into the image of His Son,
there is the power of God centred in the Cross. Oh, what
an immense thing the Cross is! Let us go away from this
meditation solemnly - I would almost say brokenly -
worshipping for what it cost Him. Obedient! Have a
proposition like that put up to you! Even in our
sinfulness, in all our great capacity for sin, if a
certain proposition were put up to us we should shrink
from it, and say, 'God forbid that ever I should have to
touch that!' We know a little of shrinking from
atmospheres and conditions which are so contrary to the
Lord. Think of Him! We cannot, we just cannot, understand
what it meant to Him, the Holy One, to be sin, and to be
asked by the Father to be placed in a position - not
doctrinally and technically, but actually - where the
wrath of God was let loose and exhausted itself upon Him,
and the far, far abandonment of God broke upon His
consciousness; He could not find God. He was helpless,
impotent. That is what it cost; that was the meaning of
His obedience for our salvation. Oh, how costly is our
salvation! Let us dwell upon it with reverent and
heart-moved adoration.
But we are not left
there, thank God. Not one of us ever need taste the
judgment of God; not one of us ever need know
God-forsakenness or God even at a distance from us. We
know just the opposite of that in our Lord Jesus Christ,
by faith in Him.
May the Lord take the
feebleness of this presentation and impress upon our
hearts how great is the price of our redemption. We were
redeemed "not with corruptible things, with silver
or gold... but with precious blood" (1 Pet.
1:18-19).