We are meditating on this Gospel with the purpose of discovering the ministerial glories of Christ. Every jot and tittle ought to have an interest with us, because if we discover the ministry of Christ, we discover Himself. It is the complexion of all that He was. It is not so with us. We are all more or less deceitful in our ways.
Then we travel from that up to God Himself. Man by wisdom knows Him not, but in the face of Jesus Christ we do know Him; and the more we discover the lineaments of His face, the more we know of the Father. We should acquaint ourselves with Him as reflected in the ways of Jesus. We can track our way back to His presence only through Jesus. His precious death is my title to put my foot on the road, and all that He is and was is my light on the road.
"The second sabbath after the first," is generally supposed to be some one sabbath between the Passover and Pentecost. On this occasion, as they were passing through the cornfields, His disciples plucked the ears of corn. The Pharisees objected, and this brings out a beautiful commentary on the temple (Luke 6: 3, 4). What was the Lord doing after creation? Resting. And has He not had creation rest disturbed? To be sure He has, as John 5: 17 declares distinctly, when the Pharisees complain of His breaking the sabbath. The moment His rest was disturbed, He became a workman afresh, and prepared a coat for Adam. When sin turned Him out of creation rest, He entered upon the work of redemption. In the opening of Genesis, He comes forth as the Creator, and on the seventh day He rests. Man intrudes and disturbs His rest; and the Creator sets to work again. He is not overcome of evil, but overcomes evil with good. He sets to work for the very creature that had disturbed His rest. He quickens one poor sinner after another, till we shall see the sabbath of redemption the rest which is called glory. Creation rest depended on the fidelity of Adam; it was lost. Redemption rests on the blood of Christ, and can never be lost. If their ox or their ass fell into a pit, they would trespass on the sabbath. So God trespasses on it. The rest of the Redeemer was intruded on the rest of the Creator. We are debtors to Him for our eternity. He quotes Hosea (Matt. 12: 7), "I will have mercy, and not sacrifice." He is not looking for you to bring something to Him, but He brings something to you. If only we were happy in Him, we would work much better for Him. It is joy in Christ that gives victory over the world. Why are we all in subjection to the world? Just because we have not found in Christ all the joy we ought to find. If I rightly use the grace of God, it will purify me. As Titus says, "The grace of God... hath appeared to all men, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world" God links my redemption with my purification.
Next we get the choosing of the twelve. In Matthew we have only the choosing of the twelve; here the seventy are also chosen, because the Lord shows Himself in a larger character. There He is rather as the Son of David; here He is the Son of man. Therefore the seventy are sent out, to show how illimitable is the grace of God that surveyed the whole family of man. Salvation is to all the world. The twelve were confined to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Contrast that with Paul's wide-spread ministry in The Acts; and "that which was made glorious had no glory in this respect, by reason of the glory that excelleth." The Apostle of the Gentiles was standing as the representative of the present ministry of God. That ministry stretches to the ends of the earth.
After the choosing of the twelve, He came down into the plain; and great multitudes came to Him, and He healed all their diseases. He was a divine visitor to this world a heavenly stranger among men a divine visitor to men. He had not where to lay His head while He was visiting their necessities with all the resources of God. This is the ideal of a saint of God to be independent of all that the world can give, while, with open heart and lavish hand, bestowing upon it all the benefits and blessings of God. If he is a mere heavenly stranger, he may be an ascetic, if a visitor only to the world, he may get involved in its corruptions.
In this chapter there is an epitomized presentation of the sermon on the mount. It begins with the poor, the hungry, the mourner, and tells them that they are "blessed." Now, would that have been the voice of God when He had accomplished His creation? In Genesis 2 He put Adam among the fruits and Rowers of Eden an obedient creation. Enjoyment was the duty then, but patience now. God has not put me here to enjoy myself, as He did Adam. Sin has cast out the Lord of glory, the Prince of life, and my proper place is patience. It is not, blessed are they that walk amidst the fruit and Bowers, but, blessed are they that suffer, they that mourn, they that are persecuted. We have seen the Lord in infancy and then as a healer. Now we have Him as a teacher, and the burden of His teaching is, I call you not to enjoyment, but to patience. Was Adam in the garden to be poor? There was no end of his wealth. But there is a new kind of blessedness now, because He who became poor has been in the world. God is a stranger now in a defiled world, and are you and I to settle down in a world where Christ has been crucified? We will not go through these verses, but that is the burden of them. In patience possess your souls; do not count upon enjoyment.
In Luke 7 we find the Lord in company with the centurion. Two needy ones crossed the path of our Lord here the widow of Nain and the centurion. The centurion took his place at once, and he pleads through the Jews. This is a beautiful instance of the intelligence of faith. He took his place as a Gentile, having no right to approach immediately to the Lord, but comes through His own nation. There is great beauty in the intelligence of an understanding illuminated by the mind of Christ. He approached by the right door got at the Lord by the elders of the Jews. And the Lord says, I will go. Then, at the due time, he began to be busy when Jesus was on the road. He did not begin by going to Him, but the moment He was on the way to the house, it was time for the centurion to begin to stir himself. We want these fine touches of the mind of Christ, for we are not only cold and narrow, but awkward and clumsy. By a Spirit- led soul we get all this beauty. Now, he says, Lord, I am not worthy, but speak the word only, and it is enough. Servants are at my bidding, he says, but diseases are at Yours now.
I pity the soul that cannot enjoy such a specimen of the workmanship of the Spirit. That is communion, when we can sit together and enjoy one another as the workmanship of the Spirit. The Lord marvelled. It was the marvel of deep and rich enjoyment. Nothing in this world refreshed Christ but the traces of His own hand. The joy of the woman at the well of Sychar did not come up to her Saviour's joy. So here, He was overwhelmed for the moment. To speak after the manner of men, He did not know what to do with it. Christ found no water in this world, but when the Holy Ghost knocked a poor rocky heart to pieces, then there was water for Jesus.
Now we have the widow of Nain. The Spirit presents, in a few words, the deep loneliness of her condition. The dead man was "the only son of his mother, and she was a widow." The heart of Jesus was arrested, and then He arrested the bier of the dead young man. His compassions always went before His mercies. It is commonly said that the heart moves the hand. Do you not prize a blessing that comes to you in that way? Salvation came gushing forth from the heart of Christ. To say that the cross of Christ is the source of our blessedness, would be slandering the heart of God. God loved the world, and sent His Son; Christ's heart went before His hand. A blessing from Christ is given, as Jeremiah says, with His whole heart and His whole soul. "He came and touched the bier." He was undefilable, or He must have gone to the priest to cleanse Himself after touching it. Did Christ ever need the washings of the sanctuary? He might have restored the young man without touching him, but He has God's relationship to iniquity. He not only stood apart from the actuality of sin, but from the possibility of it. "And He delivered him to his mother." Let me be bold and say, The Lord does not save you that you may serve Him. To suggest the thought would be to qualify the beauty of grace. He did not say, I give you life that you may spend it for Me. Let His love constrain you to spend and be spent for Him, but He never stands before your heart and says, Now I will forgive you if you will serve Me. Surely, He had purchased him; yet He gave him back to his mother. Yet you and I go back to the world, and seek to make ourselves happy and important in it. Ah, throw the cords of love around your heart, and keep it fast by Jesus! Amen.
We have now reached the well-known mission of John the Baptist to the Lord. We were observing that the Lord's ministry is the discovery of Himself, because everything about Him was infinitely truthful. So also it is a highway cast up before us by which to reach the blessed God. If man seeks by wisdom to reach Him, His answer is, I dwell in this darkness; but when we follow Him through Jesus, we get Him in His full glory
Now John sends his messengers to inquire, "Art Thou He that should come? or look we for another?" There is such a thing as faith, and the patience of faith. Abraham illustrated both of these. He was called out to listen to the promise in the starlit night, and he believed God; that was simple faith. Afterward, he was called to give up all he hoped in; that was the patience of faith. That is where John failed. He believed, and pointed out the Lamb of God, but the prison was too much for him. He was a choice servant, but he failed in this, and did not like being passed by when others were being attended to. He was offended. Therefore he sends this unbelieving and rather a little insulting message. It was very faulty, but the Lord bore with it. He stood as the champion of God's rights in the world, but He passed by every insult to Himself. This was part of His moral perfection. He does not resent John's insulting style, but sends a word home to him that none but he could understand. "Blessed is he, whosoever shall not be offended in Me." He couched His rebuke in such terms that none could decipher it but the conscience of John. If I find a fault in anyone, nature disposes me to go and whisper it in the ear of a neighbour. The blessed Lord did exactly the contrary. He saw that John was not quite prepared for what the service of Christ brought upon him. If another trespasses against you, you ought to rebuke him, but take care to tell him his fault between him and you alone. It is as if the Lord had written an admonishing letter in a language that none but John could understand.
It is equally beautiful when He turns to the multitude. He paints two or three dark grounds to set off John to them. The first is a reed, and by that He shews out John; then, king's courts; then all that are born of women. He is presenting these things that John might shine out in relief. How perfect the Lord's path is! He sends a message of rebuke to John's conscience, and then turns round and sets him out in every way He can. Now what is meant by, "He that is least in the kingdom of God is greater than he"? Did you ever look upon John as greater than Moses or David? No. It is not the person the Lord speaks of here, but this secret that God's ways are always advancing, as from the prophetic to the evangelic. In this way John was greater than all that were born of women. He was not personally above Moses, but he stood in an advanced stage of God's dispensational purposes. So now, every saint, however feeble or strong, is in a higher dispensational condition than John, Moses, or David. The light of His unfolding purposes shines brighter and brighter. You stand in the resurrection and in the risen glories of Christ; and will anyone tell me that it is not a higher place than Moses had?
In verse 31 He looks at the generation and says, Now what are you like? How He delights to hang over His servant John! He has got John before Him here, and He puts him in company with Himself. In substance He says, "We have come to you, children of the market-place, both piping and lamenting, and you have neither danced nor wept." The hand of God is very skilful in touching the instrument, but He can get, no, not one note of music in return. That is you and me, beloved; for the Lord is delineating our common nature, and He says God's finger has touched the instrument in every possible way, and He can get no answer. "In me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing."
Let us pause for a little at verse 36. Did you ever consult the occasions on which the Lord is seen at different tables? We see Him at the Pharisee's, at Levi's, at Zaccheus's, with the two disciples going to Emmaus, and at the table at Bethany. What an interesting theme for meditation, to see the Lord sitting and forming one of a family scene in this social world of ours! He occupies each table in a different manner. In Luke 7 and Luke 14, He sits at the tables of two Pharisees in the character He had earned outside. He goes there, not to sanction the scene, but because He is invited. One Pharisee may have a better apprehension of Him than the other, but He goes in on the credit of the man He was when outside. He continues to be the teacher in the chapter before us. He has a right to be a teacher or a rebuker, because it was in that character He was invited when outside. Then we see Him at the house of Levi. Levi had been called, and left all and followed Him, and was so impregnated with the mind of the One he had invited, that he puts publicans and sinners at the table with Him. The Lord sits there, not as a teacher, but as a Saviour. How beautifully He can thus morally transfigure Himself! Then, when the Pharisees complain, He pleads for Levi and the poor publicans with him: "I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance." Zaccheus had just been moved by a desire to see Him, and He calls him by his name, "Zaccheus, make haste, and come down." He went in as one that had been desired, and would gratify that desire. He said, as it were, You have looked for a passing sight at Me, and I will abide all day with you. Do you look around in the gospel for these glittering rays of His moral glory? He does not violate His character in any of these. He goes to Zaccheus as one who would cherish and nourish an infant's desire.
Now we come to look at the disciples journeying to Emmaus. Here we get two, I will not call them backsliders, but two who had got under the power of unbelief. "O fools, and slow of heart," He calls them, but He does not leave them till He leaves them with kindled hearts. It was a kindled heart that said, "Abide with us," and He stays till He could have them, in spite of the nightfall, go back to Jerusalem and tell that they had seen the Lord.
Last, we see Him at Bethany, not here as a teacher or a Saviour, but as a familiar friend, one who adopts completely the sweet and gracious truth of the Christian homestead; and He would have left the family scene as He found it, if Martha had not stepped out of her place. She might have been a housekeeper still, but the moment she leaves her place and becomes a teacher, He will rebuke her.
In the case before us, in the Pharisee's house, we have two persons. This is the most complete expression we get in the gospels of a consciously accepted sinner. She came, knowing that her sins were forgiven, and bringing everything she had with her, her heart, her person, and her wealth. This is a beautiful witness of what we would be if the sense of salvation were simple with us. The Lord entered into Simon's reasonings, but they were lost on the woman. One loves the soul that is resting peacefully in the conclusion, "I am my beloved's, and my beloved is mine." If the reasonings of a doubtful mind are lost on you, happy are you! So happily have thousands reached this conclusion, that they cannot understand the reasonings of others. She is occupied with her joy.
Another thing: When the Lord speaks to Simon about her, it is of what she has done; when He speaks to her ear, it is, "Thy faith hath saved thee." It was not her love, but her faith that saved her. Was that a cold word? Do you ever suspect the Lord of treating you coldly? She might have thought it a cold word, but go behind her back and hear His words: Simon, do you see her? Was that a cold heart? So if in His direct immediate providence He seems to deal coldly with you, just go behind what is behind your own back, so to speak. Do not judge Him by His providence to your face, but by the love that never, no, never forsakes you, but has recorded in His book every cup of cold water given in His name. Let us pray that He will keep us near Him. We want, inside, to be as near to Christ as ever we can get, and outside, to go on from victory to victory in His name.
