It only needed now the three short days in the grave, the perplexity of visitations to an empty tomb, the gradual awakening realization that it was empty because the Lord had risen; the slowly and hardly won conviction in wooden hearts that it was real, the gradual realization to Mary, to the other women, to Peter, to the ten in the upper room, to Thomas with them, to above five hundred brethren at once, to Paul born out of due time, to convince those who took so much convincing; that the Lord had indeed risen and the whole dreadful episode was in the past. Well; No! not the whole dreadful episode in the past, for it is with us yet.
There sits at the right hand of God, as it were, the Lamb, as it had been slain. There is present in heavenly places, through a torn down veil, one by whose offering we are able to go to God’s presence and “the hands outstretched to bless”, we have sung, “bear the cruel nails’ impress”. We are bidden to choose what we will do with this crucifying of Christ; what we will make of it. Whether we will ignore it, join the mockers and crucify the Son of God afresh; or participate with the man who said: “We indeed justly, for we receive the due reward for our deeds; but this man hath done nothing amiss.” It is with us yet to glory in. “God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of Jesus Christ our Lord, by which the world has been crucified unto me and I unto the world.” To accept, to wonder at, to dispute about, to despise. In the very denials of its spirit we watch not our hearts and our lips, as we consider the grace of God who gave His Son to die for us. Let it never be that when we think of the things of God, we shall in the presence of the Most High, who knows our every thought; make a “market place” of Himself and His being and His Name and His grace. Never let it be when we are thinking of the dying of His only Son, that we shall take that dead body, and not content to see the soldier pierce it with a spear, dismember it for ourselves by any disputings of ours. Let us banish the thought, that if we think of the wonder of the love that was poured out for us when God purchased His Ecclesia, with what the best texts seem to call: “His own blood”, we dip our fingers in the blood and dabble in it; in thinking about its meaning and in troubling one another with our words.
This is too high a topic, too great a deed; we are too deeply in debt to it, to needlessly and without consciousness that with shoeless feet we tread on holy ground, debate its import in a voice in which there is any trace of anger in us or bitterness or strife. High in the heavens, close to our heart, there watches the one who died; there listens the one who knew what his disciples were talking about when they walked behind him by the way; the one who needed not then and certainly needs not now, that any should testify of man, for he knows what is in man; and the one who, whatever we may think about him, knows what was in and what is in himself.
Use our minds about his offering we must. To meditate about what has been done for us, is our privilege and should be our chastening joy. But to strive or antagonise or frustrate the grace of God, this surely we dare not. So if your servant this night should use unaccustomed words, having thought in a different environment, to attempt to put before you what seems to him, to be part of a meaning of an offering, whose meaning is not to be comprehended within our bounds, then be gracious to him. And if your brethren or your sisters in their own halting words (for we all halt before this Divine thing we discuss) find it hard what in this gracious deed was done, and say things not easy on your part to accept, then remember it was the Lord who said, of the drivers of the nails at least, “Father forgive them” that we are talking about. And if it be possible remember, “If ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive you.”
“… He Also Himself Likewise …
” This Lord Jesus of ours, this Saviour who is not ashamed to call us brothers (if in brotherly fashion we behave), was made in all points like unto his brethren. And the life he lived, like in all points unto his brethren, was recognisably, in many of its characteristics, like the life we have lived, with this exception: that whereas when temptation confronted him he said No! we so often say Yes! He was tempted in all points like as we are — indeed he was. Could we not go further and say in some respects there were temptations he encountered which are no temptations to us? Are you ever tempted to make stones into bread? I haven’t got that temptation and you know why. Would you be tempted to call down fire from heaven upon your enemies? Well, knowing your limitations you wouldn’t; but perhaps if you could, your enemies wouldn’t be safe. We’re that kind of people. I can also lose my temper, but Jesus had temptations that came to him, every whit as keen as those that come to us and some of them of a kind we cannot know; because we have not the power to fulfil them.
Tempted in all points as we are, yet … and therefore temptable in all points like as we are; gaining a praiseworthy victory over the temptations that assailed him; denying, when he might have accepted, the sin that proffered itself to him.
He can be touched, this Lord of ours, with the feeling of our infirmities. For he knew what it was like to feel the power and know the desire and savour the possibility of doing things he would not do. He knew what it was like to face that, and calling upon his Father for strength said, No! and pushed it away from him; today and tomorrow and the next day, ever and again till the day that he died. Yet he was tempted in all points like as we are. As we can be tempted so could he. “Forasmuch as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, Jesus also himself likewise (a threefold repetition of similarity) also himself likewise took part of the same. We know why it was that he was temptable. He was made in all points like unto his brethren; as his brethren are and as all our race have been, since our first parents accepted temptation and sinned. He did not do it.
We say therefore and we must say — I think — with all the reservations I have already made about the limitations of our language; we have said and we must say: that the Lord during the days of his weakness was the Lord who lacked something that would come to him, after his weakness and been brought to an end in death. So when we find that the word `perfect’, in its verbal form used four times about the Lord Jesus, is used on each several occasion of what he would become and not what he was, we needn’t be surprised.
Being Made Perfect
Jesus said to the Pharisees who sent to warn him about Herod: “Go and tell that fox: I do cures today and tomorrow and the third day I shall be perfected.” As if to say, today I will cure these and tomorrow I will cure those and the third my perfection comes. And the letter to the Hebrews says three times the same things. Perhaps to be sure of ourselves we should turn to the references: letter to the Hebrews chapter 2:10 — “For it became him for whom are all things and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings. For he that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of one, for which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren, saying I will declare Thy Name unto my brethren; in the midst of the church I will sing praises unto Thee. And again I will put my trust in Him. And again, Behold I and the children which God hath given me. Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil.”
The captain of our salvation was made perfect through sufferings. Something was achieved by his sufferings that was not there before. Hebrews Chap. 5 v.7 “Who (Jesus) in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him who was able to save him from death, and was heard in that he feared; Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered; and being made perfect, he became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey him. Called of God an high priest after the order of Melchisedec”. Like his brethren with strong crying and tears he cried for help; learned obedience through his suffering; was made perfect through his dying and last of these: Chapter 7:26 “For such an high priest became us, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and made higher than the heavens; who needeth not daily, as those high priests, to offer up sacrifice, first for his own sins, and then for the people’s: for this he did once, (for all) when he offered up himself. For the law maketh men high priests which have infirmity; but the word of the oath, which was since the law, maketh the Son, who is perfected (that is the word really) for evermore.”
So when the Lord said, and the letter to the Hebrews said, three times about him, that perfection came by his death; then we must realize what betterment of his body was brought about by his dying.
We can sum it up in Paul’s words we have already quoted, more than once perhaps: “Being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient unto death: even the death of the cross; wherefore also God hath highly exalted him and given him a name that is above every name; that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow; of things in heaven and things in earth and things under the earth; and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God, the Father.”
Undefiled
But, having said that, let it be clear what we do not say. He is called in this passage “Holy, harmless, undefiled”. We must not so presume to a knowledge of the right words to choose for Jesus, that we take words used here about him and prostitute them by using their opposites of him. We must note; that, despite our recognition that before he died he could be tempted, though never yielded, and might have sinned though he did not. And after his resurrection these things were impossible for evermore: we must not speak of those days of his weakness; even though we know where his temptations might have found their lodging place, had he yielded: and speak of him as though he were not what he evidently was: the Son in whom God was well pleased.
Learning Obedience
God said of him “This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased” and there is in all the earthly experience of the Lord Jesus, no possible suggestion that while he lived the life he lived before he died, the wrath of his Father, or the displeasure of his Father rested upon him. Very close to his Father he was; but he bore our nature and he knew its weaknesses. And when they tried to call him good, he refused the title and said: “There is none good but one; that is, God” and acknowledged that those weaknesses that exist in a nature inherited on his mother’s side, from our common parents, could not be overcome save by dying.
He was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death. He became obedient unto death. He learned obedience by the things he suffered. He died because his Father willed him to die; bearing a nature that was capable of accepting that will.
May we not be satisfied to say of the dying of the Lord Jesus: that in his dying without having sinned, and in putting away that power that could have sinned, by dying; it was right for God to raise him with a nature that could not, cannot and will not; and that we, in looking upon his offering and seeing the way he put away the power of sin by dying, may acknowledge not only our weakness, which is like the weakness that was his; but also our indulgence of that weakness in our sinning? — and say what the penitent robber said: “We indeed justly, for we receive the due reward of our deeds, but this man hath done nothing amiss.”
All our natures are liable to sinning. All of us can feel the pull to do that which is displeasing in God’s sight and when the Lord in his solitary soliloquy within himself, declared: “What shall I say? Father, save me from this hour; but for this purpose came I unto this hour. Father, glorify Thy Name,” we see that he saw within himself, that a voice that comes from flesh must be answered by a voice that comes from God; he answered and denied its power; and then put it away by dying.
Bringing Help To Those Who Are Tempted
And if we see this and know that his dying was the culmination of his combat with sin and its ultimate conquest; that his dying was the culmination of his obedience to his Father and its final sealing; that the dead one had dedicated all to God and now renounced what might have made him do otherwise; may we not now be content and more than content to know, that the Lord that looks down upon – us in our need and in our weakness, and having adopted us as brethren to himself and sons and daughters to his Father, sees where our temptations may take lodgement and all too often do, and seeing that, looks with infinite compassion born of his own painful experiences, successful though they were, and have not a high priest that cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, but was tempted in all points like as we are, yet without sin? Inasmuch as he hath suffered being tempted, he is able to bring help to those who are tempted; and we are content to know, in our needs and afflictions, that the Father has appointed for us, as a bridge to link up with His heavenly places, one who can see the holiness of God as he declared it and can see the needs of his servants; and with compassion, can, when we are contrite, cleanse us from it and forgive.
As we leave the days in which the Lord met sinners and confounded them; met a traitor and reproved him; met a denyer and prayed for him and strengthened him; saw his death and provided in love our means of sharing it; declared his office as the son of God; pronounced his destiny as a King and died with forgiveness on his lips: let us seek to fulfil that also which he asked of us: “Fulfil ye my joy”; nor make him sad that we frustrate his grace.
And when he promises “My peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you; not as the world giveth, give I unto you”; accept!; joining hands with him, the peace he proffers, and with each other; to complete the circle of fraternal friendship, secure; and seal it amongst ourselves.
Reflections on the Potter and the Clay