Our Lord Jesus lived and died and rose again; he ascended to heaven and is waiting to be revealed once more in the earth. To these facts we all heartily ascribe; and wait in earnest expectation. Each ‘first day of the week’ we meet to remember our ‘absent Lord’ in the way appointed and by so doing, we ‘show forth His death until he come’.
Just as Israel on the day of atonement afflicted their souls, we in remembrance of his sacrifice for our sins afflict our souls and ‘examine ourselves’ that we ‘eat and drink not to our condemnation’. In the course of our meeting we read the scriptures, pray and sing hymns. Some of our hymns praise God, some invoke the unseen Head whom we have met to remember —
‘Lord we are few, but thou art near; Nor short thine arm, nor deaf thine ear; O rend the heavens, come quickly down, And make all righteous hearts thine own!
In melody we are conscious of the presence of the Lord Jesus. However, in practice, ‘absent Lord’ would seem to mean a long, long way distant. But it might be said that Jesus is only as far away as our Bible! In a sense this is true, for there we can and must refresh our minds of His Way; but we are talking about a LIVING Christ, not someone who lived only in a period of yesterday’s history! Not only so, but God has given him ‘all power in both heaven and earth’. How then do we view the powerful ever-living Christ? Can we expect any experience of His presence or is his present role distant and passive? And again it might be asked, Is our concept of Christ as Mediator simply limited to saying ‘through Jesus Christ our Lord’ in our prayers?
The gulf between us and the first century is not easily bridged; indeed we may ask, ‘Can it be bridged at all?’ One often has the impression that all that we grasp is an intense theoretical and doctrinal concept. This is readily understood for, since our pioneers, we have been contending for doctrinal truth in the face of error and it has left its mark. Our concern for doctrine has imposed upon each believer a hypersensitivity to such a degree that, in many hearts, fear of straying from our imposed ‘jots and tittles’ has displaced love. It’s like the Pharisees of old who went to extraordinary lengths to please God and missed the very essence of what God required! We are as a body extremely aware of the untruth of the trinity and the personality of the Holy Spirit. So much is this so that we are even reluctant to concede that God’s power (call it His Spirit if you will) is ever present and willing to work through us. It appears that we disqualify ourselves from the full power of God working in us if we limit His mode of working to mere reading and handling of the Word of God. One of our favorite passages is Philippians 2:12, which ends with ‘work out your own salvation with fear and trembling’ and there we place a full stop! We should continue to verse 13 ‘For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure’.
The former, misapplied, can readily degenerate into self-reliance and little better than works of the law; the verses together, recognise that we are not islands, but our efforts desperately need to be supplemented by the superabundance of the Spirit of God. There is a real danger that the ‘God’ of our creating is the outworking of our prowess — His Word, fanatically dissected, weighed and interpreted, reduces God to between the pages of our Bible. Upon the same lines the Living Christ Jesus can and often does become another ‘specimen’ upon our Word-dissecting table!
There is ‘another point of view’ required of Jesus now. Paul, in 2 Cor. 5:16 says, ‘yea, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we him no more’ — that is, as ‘spirit’ our view must be quite different, even as we view God himself. Though, if needs be, we must assert the truths about the greatness of His accomplishments ‘in the flesh’, our Head must be pre-eminently as such a person like only to the Father. These are the tremendous implications of Ephesians 1:19–20 RSV.
‘What is the immeasurable greatness of his (God’s) power in us who believe, according to the working of his great might which he accomplished in Christ when he raised him from the dead and made him to sit at his right hand in the heavenly places far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the age to come; and he has put all things under his feet and has made him head over all things for the church, which is his body, the fulness of him who fills all.’
The Book of Revelation brings us face to face with the glorious Jesus in such a role as Paul thus described. Chapters 1 to 3 need careful re-appraising, for in them is a tremendous testimony as to what our Lord is NOW; from omnipresence, as Chapter 2:1 describes, he ‘who walks among the lampstands’, plainly interpreted as the Ecclesias; to omniscience, where it is said Chapter 2:23 (RSV) it is Christ ‘who searches mind and heart’.
Chapter 2:22 (RSV) sets forth the Lord as one who now exercises the prerogative of chastisement, ‘Behold I will throw her on a sickbed’ and of those with her ‘into great tribulation’. But we must never lose sight that this is the same Jesus who lived and died for us and still says ‘Because I live you will live also’ (John 14:19) ; in Rev. 1:17 he restates in the glory of His power, ‘Fear not, I am the first and the last, and the living one; I died and behold I am alive for evermore and I have the keys of death and hades’ (RSV) . More personal and relevant to our constant need, day by day, he extends his gracious offer ‘to come in and sup’ with anyone who will open the door of his heart (Rev. 4:20) .
This latter promise was made in John 14:21-23, where he said ‘I will manifest myself to him’ who keeps his words and loves him, and truly shows that remarkable link with the Father himself in v.23 where he says ‘we will make our abode with him’.
In several ways, our interpretation of Rev. chapters 1 to 3 has obscured its relevance to today. We have either been overly interested in its passages as proof texts concerning the Kingdom, or similarly with the rise of the apostasy. Further, we have been inclined to limit these chapters to the 1st Century Christian era. Either of these has clouded our acknowledgment of the powerful LIVING Christ.
There is a continuance here which the contemporaries of the Lord would have appreciated — an appreciation which we can only but strive to duplicate. He had been with them and sent them forth now convinced of His mighty deathless power; they, with the outpouring of power from on high, continued the work. But this was not the whole story. If we believe his words to his hearers of that day had a continuing force, then we must mightily affirm that, short of ‘the spirit gifts’, his presence and help must be available today.
It is not for us to say just how the Lord Jesus manifests himself but one caution is needed — intense zeal must not presuppose his presence — for such zeal may be entirely misplaced — nor must we suppose that lack of positive signs indicate that He is not manifesting himself. There is only one reasonably sure guide both in and out of the meeting and that is truly prayerful, and patently evident, spirituality. Even so. our Lord’s dwelling with the believer is very personal and so dependent upon him or her having ‘his spirit’. It would help us to read again Romans 8:9-11, for here is a vital link in all our aspirations. Our concept of our Lord is often warped by our own intense doctrinal emphasis.
We are inclined to view him as the uncompromising theologian, unbending in his attack on every jot and tittle; more concerned with the unity of God than the unity of the heart in tune with God, illustrated by our actions. Uncompromising he was — and unholding truth, yes — but sin, in all its forms, was his greatest hate, especially where it hid under the cloak of religion. If the Pharisees had strayed from the exactitudes of understanding, which they obviously had, our Lord wasted little time correcting them; but he did berate them often on the far greater sin, that of hypocrisy. Our relation with our Lord in this day must stand the same test. We must be careful not to view the Lord’s relationship through the mediocrity of our limitations. Hairsplitting and dogmatism and sheer timidity shut out the Lord Jesus just as effectively as unbelief.
Consider our daily experience. Can we say that Jesus is consciously nigh? Are we so monotheistically inclined that we would be afraid to speak with him? Can we draw an example from the apostle Paul speaking to the Corinthians about his affliction? Tor this thing I besought the Lord thrice, that it might depart from me. And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities that the power of Christ may rest upon me’. Jesus may not speak to us today, but his power continues. When Paul said ‘I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me,’ what did he mean? Did he mean ‘at the thought of Christ, I receive courage? Perhaps . . . or did he mean that the impression of Jesus’ words upheld him? Yes, possibly. Or did he have a conscious awareness of the risen Lord standing by him — so much so that he surely KNEW IT. To Paul, Christ was real and present.
We, in this day, struggle to capture the spirit of the reality of the risen Lord. It goes without saying that such an understanding in no way displaces the supremacy of God. It is curiously so that, in our hymns, we acknowledge him but in so many other ways we ignore him If it is as he promised — where two or three are gathered in His name he would be there in the midst of them — it is a sad reflection that such is not manifest by our actions!
He lived and died and rose again for us. he intercedes . . . does he really pray for us ??? How absent IS our absent Lord?
Reflections on the Potter and the Clay