In
this concluding message, beyond bringing forward a number
of fragments from the Word of God, I shall do little more
than make some statements, and leave the Lord to speak
out of those statements Himself. The message itself will
lie deeper than anything that can be said.
First
of all, we will recall the passage that has been running
through this whole series:
“Yet
it pleased the Lord to bruise him; he hath put him to
grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin,
he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the
pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. He shall
see of the travail of his soul, and shall be
satisfied” (Isaiah 53:10,11).
Then:
“Who
hath heard such a thing? who hath seen such things? Shall
a land be born in one day? shall a nation be brought
forth at once? for as soon as Zion travailed, she brought
forth her children” (Isaiah 66:8).
“So
the angel that talked with me said unto me, Cry thou,
saying, Thus saith the Lord of hosts: I am jealous for
Jerusalem and for Zion with a great jealousy”
(Zechariah 1:14).
“And
the word of the Lord of hosts came to me, saying, Thus
saith the Lord of hosts: I am jealous for Zion with great
jealousy, and I am jealous for her with great fury”
(Zechariah 8:1,2).
“But
ye are come unto mount Zion” (Hebrews 12:22).
(Note
those two statements: “I am jealous for Zion”;
“Ye are come unto mount Zion”.)
“And
he saith unto them, My soul is exceeding sorrowful even
unto death… And he went forward a little, and fell
on the ground, and prayed that, if it were possible, the
hour might pass away from him. And he said, Abba, Father,
all things are possible unto thee; remove this cup from
me: howbeit not what I will, but what thou wilt”
(Mark 14:34-36).
“Christ…
loved the church, and gave himself up for it”
(Ephesians 5:25).
Its Infinite Value to God
All
these passages, in principle and in ultimate meaning,
relate to one thing. In them and by them certain things,
in themselves altogether inexpressible, incomprehensible,
are somehow brought to our hearts. In the first place,
you notice that they all have to do with the travailing
love of God in Christ, the passion of God in Christ.
Therein lies a mystery — the mystery of the infinite
value of the object of His travail. There MUST be
something that justifies it; there must be something of
unspeakable preciousness to Him that would lead to this
— the travail of His soul. “My soul is
exceeding sorrowful even unto death.” “I am
jealous for Zion with a great jealousy… I am jealous
for her with great wrath.” Because of this tearing
of the heart of God to its very depths, something of
infinite preciousness and value must be in view.
Of
course this is all centred in the Cross, as we know. The
Cross forms the link with that which is of eternal,
supreme importance to the Son of God; it links with His
inheritance in the saints. It is not some inanimate,
insensate “thing”; it is not that God has an
objective interest in some THING. It is quite
clear that a heart-relationship is here involved —
the kind of thing that just tears your very being to
pieces. It is as though this inheritance were a very part
of Himself. That is borne out, as you will see, by these
Scriptures. Not to have it would mean that a very part of
Himself would be missing. It is a heart matter, a soul
matter; it is something that touches all the
sensibilities of God. The inheritance is, in fact, a LIVING
thing. Paul speaks of it as corresponding to the
wife. “Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ
also loved the church, and gave himself up for it”;
and the law that governs the husband-wife relationship
is: “And they twain shall become one flesh”
(Matt. 19:5). Divide them, and you tear apart and in
pieces something that is one thing; and that is the
relationship here. But, of course, such a character
transcends any human analogy. We are here touching the
eternal.
All
this, then, about His love, His suffering, His travail,
His anguish, at least implies, if it does not declare
with a very loud voice, that the object of it all is of
infinite value to Him. What is it? “He shall see HIS
SEED… He shall see of the travail of his
soul.” It is this of which we have been thinking all
through these messages; this that is represented by that
phrase, “his seed” — a people for Himself.
It is beyond us, altogether beyond us. We might hear it,
and have some kind of objective acceptance of it as truth
— yes: but the wonder is that this comes right down
to us — to you, to me. WE are in this. It is
a question of the infinite preciousness and value that
you and I are to Him. It is beyond us.
Our Difficulty in Believing it
That
is one thing — I speak at least for myself over this
— one thing that gives the greatest difficulty to
believe when it comes to oneself. Is it not so? Perhaps
there are two things, in the main, that constitute our
difficulty in believing a thing like this.
The
first is, just what we are in ourselves. We know
something of ourselves — our sinfulness, our
worthlessness. When it is really true, and not put on
— not just language, not feigned or pretended, but
really true — that we know our utter worthlessness,
realise how abjectly worthless we are; and then we are
told that all this is true, that it relates to and
applies to US: ah, then we are presented with a
problem; we are called upon to believe something that is
not easy to believe! But I could take you through the
Bible and show you how, after all, it is so. I wonder
what you find the most comforting fragment in the Bible.
May I tell you which I do? “Faithful is the
saying… that Christ Jesus came into the world to
save sinners; of whom I am chief” (1 Tim. 1:15). It
is brought right down to the personal. Yes, there are
many comforting things in the Bible, but you cannot get
deeper than that, you cannot get behind that. All this
infinite passion and travail for such as we! The Bible
says it! I said that I would simply make statements,
without attempting to define or explain.
That
is one reason why we find such difficulty in believing
and accepting. The other probably is the mystery of
God’s ways with us. So often, in the mystery of His
ways, we are sorely tempted to wonder whether anything
like this can be true. It may be true, we feel, of some
people, but His ways with us do not seem to bear it out
at all. A love like this? Unto death? An estimate or
valuation of a soul to this degree? Is that really borne
out by these strange, mysterious dealings of God with us?
— by these darknesses, these perplexities, these
problems, these disappointments? Satan is always at our
elbow to say, “That is not His love for you!”
I am
not attempting to argue that out philosophically, or even
from the Scripture; I am simply making the statement: THE
BIBLE SAYS… Here it is! What is all this —
this about the travail of His soul? What is it for? HIS
seed. Who are His seed? Those who have believed on
Him unto eternal life. No more than that, no less
than that. And they become enwrapped in this unspeakable
thing — His soul’s travail. Oh, that we could
believe it, at all times! — that you and I could
believe that, behind all the mystery of His ways, the
strangeness of His dealings, the bewilderment and
perplexity as to what it is that He is after, there lies
such a love as this!
That
is the second thing — and, again, it is only a
statement. But, oh! the infinite suffering behind our
belonging to the Lord, the infinite suffering behind a
soul’s salvation — a soul that might be yours
or mine. What suffering! Peter draws this contrast:
“Ye were redeemed, not with corruptible things, with
silver or gold… but” — here is the
contrast — “with the precious blood of Christ,
as of a lamb without blemish and without spot” (1
Pet. 1:18,19). As you know, the word “blood” is
a simile for “soul”. In biblical symbolism, the
soul is in the blood (Lev. 17:11, mg.). And so, when He
poured out His blood, He “poured out his soul unto
death” (Is. 53:12). His soul is set forth by Peter
as something that is infinitely, transcendently more
precious than gold or silver; and He has given that for
our redemption! Behind your belonging to the Lord and my
belonging to the Lord there lies that whole travail.
In
saying this, I am trying to redeem this whole thing from
cheapness. We have made our salvation too cheap and too
easy; we have pulled it down to such a low level. We need
to ponder the infinite cost and suffering which lies
behind the salvation of one soul.
Christ’s Infinite Love for
His Own
Further,
there is the infinite love which Christ has for His own
when He has got them. Paul seems to make some tremendous
statements. Sometimes they almost sound like
exaggeration. “Who shall separate us from… the
love of God, which is in Christ Jesus…?” he
asks (Rom. 8:35,39). He catalogues every conceivable
thing that might be thought to be capable of doing that,
and then, lumping them all together, he says: “Nay,
I am persuaded that NONE of these things”: in
them all and over them all the love will triumph. The
love that He has for those who are His own, when He has
got them, is a tremendous thing, is it not? Sometimes we
are prepared to believe, or inclined to think and accept,
that the Gospel of our salvation is based upon all this
in order to get us; but then, as we go on a bit further,
we may sometimes feel tempted to wonder whether He still
loves us as much now as He did at the beginning, whether
He is still as concerned to have us now as He was then. I
trust that that statement will not be misunderstood.
There
is a wonderful picture of this in the Old Testament, in
that temple that Solomon built — perhaps the most
magnificent structure that had ever been built up to his
time. The predominant feature of that temple was gold:
everything was overlaid with gold: there was pure gold
everywhere — gold, gold, over everything. It
symbolizes the obtaining by the Lord, at last, of
something that He had set His heart upon. At last the
Lord has got that toward which He has been all the time
working with His people: a place in which He can dwell.
Now gold is always a figure of the divine love; and so
everywhere His dwelling-place is simply covered and
smothered with gold. He has got what He wanted, and it is
to Him exceedingly precious; and so He writes that
preciousness everywhere, lavishly. Oh, the lavishness of
that gold in the days of Solomon! It is just a picture of
God’s love for and in something long desired, when
He has come into possession of it. No, His love does not
change after He has come into possession. It is still the
same.
The Infinite Importance to Him of
the Church
So we
are led to the next thing: the infinite importance
attached by the Lord to His church. The word
“church” is only another title for that which
is elsewhere referred to as His temple, His wife, His
bride. They are all in reality the same thing, and they
all emphasize the infinite importance of the church in
the eyes of the Lord. There are many people, I fear, who
think that “church” is “teaching”. It
is what they call “church teaching”. There is
nothing that makes me shudder more than to hear people
use that phrase, “church teaching”! I have even
heard people speak about “the church teaching of
Honor Oak” — “church teaching”! The
Lord pity us, the Lord save us! The church is not a
truth, it is not a teaching, it is not an idea. The
church is a Gethsemane — the church is a bloody
sweat. The church is a Golgotha — the church is the
cry of a broken heart from the Cross, the pouring out of
His soul unto death. The church is the great sob of God
in this universe.
I am
not exaggerating; that is not just words. I could take
you to the prophets, and show you from them that all that
is true. Oh, go back to some of those prophets and hear
them! Do you not hear the sob of God as they speak?
“O Ephraim… O Judah… How shall I give thee
up, Ephraim?” (Hos. 6:4, 11:8). God is
broken-hearted, just broken-hearted; and that broken
heart is reflected in the words of the prophets, as they
cry and weep over the Lord’s people, as an
unfaithful bride, a wayward daughter, a prodigal son, a
family repudiating the best of fathers. Do not talk about
“church truth”, “church teaching”
— oh, no, “Christ loved the church, and gave
himself for it”. “I am jealous for Zion”
— that is only a title for the church —
“with great jealousy… with great wrath”.
He
loved the church — there is an infinite importance
to Him in His church. Again I say, I cannot explain it;
but there is the truth. Oh, that you and I might see THROUGH
the truth and the doctrine and the teaching, to the REALITY,
might see that THIS is the thing involved in
that ruptured heart, in that agonized cry, in that
sweating as it were great drops of blood. It is the
church that is involved. That is not a “thing”,
not a “theory”, not a “line of
truth”. It is something tremendous.
The Infinite Motive for our
Response
What,
then, does it lead to? Surely it leads, finally, to the
infinite motive for our response to the Lord. To a first
response, yes, for any who have never yet responded to
Him: there is an infinite motive for your responding to
Him — no less a motive than all this that we have
seen. But then, there is the infinite motive for our own
response — His own people’s response to Him on
all matters. Why should I settle any controversy with the
Lord, why should I set aside my own personal interests,
why should I do this and that? Why…? In the light of
all this, WHY NOT?! Is there anything that can
really be set against this? For going on with the Lord,
for responding, being obedient, giving Him everything, we
have an infinite motive.
And
this is the infinite motive for service. Why should we
give Him our life in service? Just for this reason. In
the first days of the Moravian Brethren, when everything
was so pure, so true, the Lord used them marvellously all
over this world. It was a wonderful thing that happened.
At the Edinburgh Conference in 1910, John R. Mott said
that, if the whole Christian church had proceeded on the
lines of the Moravian Brethren, the entire world would
have been evangelized long ago. They had one missionary
for every ten members of their fellowship. Yes, it was a
wonderful story of sacrifice, of suffering, of giving
themselves. What was the secret? They had a motto, which
was written on everything and which they took with them
wherever they went. It was this: “To win for the
Lamb that was slain the reward of His suffering.”
That is the infinite motive — the reward of His
suffering for the Lamb that was slain.
I make
the statement — that is all. It is something that is
altogether beyond us; but this is what is here. That is
the heart of Isaiah 53, and of all these other
Scriptures. If this is true, He is not going to give us
up easily; He is not going to abandon and forsake His
purpose. He is going to return to it again and again. He
will say: “I am returned unto Zion” (Zech.
8:3); He will come back again and again for what He has
set His heart upon. But oh, may we have something of this
same love of God shed abroad in our own hearts by the
Holy Spirit.