WE looked at chapters 1 and 2 of this gospel in our last meditation. Let us now look at chap. iii. There is a great interval between the time of chapters 1. and 2. and that of chap.3. We get the Lord there in infancy and boyhood. Now He has traveled on to the age of thirty years. I ask what sense we are to have of the Lord during that period of eighteen years. What apprehension of Him is my soul to take? The answer is intimated in the closing verses of chap. 2., and the intimation is full of meaning. He was all that time under the law, growing up as an untainted sheaf, and the only untainted sheaf of human fruit-" and He grew in favor with God and man." This was the proper fruit of fulfilling the law. By-and-bye He provoked much enmity. But suppose I fulfilled the law, and loved my neighbor as myself, should not I grow in favor with all men? So with the Lord. There is nothing more interesting than this, and I invite you to consider it. One act of complacency waited on Him from the manger to the cross;-perfect complacency in the mind of God. The complacency might change its character, but not its quantity. There was not a single flaw in it, from first to last. It is delightful to know that one such person has passed before the mind of God. He was equally perfect growing up in subjection to His parents as when the vail was rent.
Eighteen years have passed, and now we find Him introduced to His present ministry. He has magnified God under the law, and now He comes forth to walk among men as the witness of grace-a vessel about to display the grace of God to a ruined world. We must be prepared for tracking His path in its varied glory. Now we see Him as the perfect one under the gospel. He was introduced by John. John preached the baptism of repentance. " Bring forth fruits worthy of repentance."
Moses had prescribed a law, and they failed to keep it. John prescribed repentance, and they failed in that too. Then the Lord comes and dispenses grace. Supposing I had offended you, you would be disposed to give me space for repentance. This is just the ministry of John. The way of God is so simple that a wayfaring man will not err as he tracks it. Man broke the law, but before God gave him up, He gave him space to repent. He failed in that, so that we see that whether he be tried by law, or by ability to repent, he fails under all. We must each one conclude upon self, that this poor self is a ruined thing. I have destroyed myself, but in God is my help.
The Lord comes to John, but He is not kept under John's ministry for a single hour. Ere He left the water the Holy Ghost descended as a dove, and ordained Him for His ministry. Why was this? For a most simple and beautiful reason. There could be no fruit of repentance demanded from one who had never broken the law. You would not ask a person to repent who had never erred? He would fulfill all righteousness. This was the Divine appointment, and He would pass under it; but He could not stay under it for a moment. The moral beauty of this is most perfect. We see the Lord for thirty years fulfilling all the demands of Moses, and though He passes under John's baptism, He does not stay under it for a moment. Now He goes forth to do His own work. Now we see a minister, not coming with demands to you and me, but bringing something to you and to me. Moses and John came in the way of righteousness. The difference is this:-The law exposes you in all your failure; the gospel reveals God, in the plenitude and riches of His grace, for salvation.
Now we enter chapter 4 and it is as beautiful as all else. Now that the Lord has been ordained, what is the first thing He ought to do?:What is the first thing any man ought to do before he speaks to another? Speak to himself Do not speak to another and carry a careless heart yourself. "Thou that preachest a man should not steal, dost thou steal?" Now, before the Lord goes to assail Satan, He must withstand Satan. He lets him see that he has nothing in Him. If I take part in evil, I cannot rebuke it. So now He lets the Devil see that there was not one single principle or touch of the power of darkness in Himself. The Holy Ghost leads Him up as the champion of holiness—as the champion of light-to contend with darkness, and His victory was complete. Satan may come in every form. He tries to get into the Lord what he got into Adam, but he utterly fails here, as he entirely succeeded before. In chapter iii. of Genesis you iet the defeat of man; here you get the victory of man. Did you ever study with interest the Lord's being tempted? It is our stupidity that does not make every scene, jot, and tittle of His journey interesting to us. The Lord lets us know that " the prince of this world cometh, and bath nothing in me."
Now He returns in the power of the Spirit into Galilee. Under the power of the Spirit, He goes into the Synagogue and teaches; and, as He teaches, He opens the Book of the Prophet Esaias. He does not find it open, but finds out the place Himself. I pray you mark that. Why does He turn it over till He comes to chap. 61.? Because chap. 61. is the deep, earnest, precious expression of the ministry He was entering upon, the ministry of grace. It was the very language that expressed the infinite, varied grace that was about to mark His ministry. Do you believe that you and I are entitled to listen to such a voice? It makes no demand on me, as did Moses and John 1 am called to listen to One that is doing everything for me. How do you find secret communion of heart with God-as a judge, or as a Savior! Nature puts you before Him in the character of a Judge; the gospel puts Him in the character of a Savior. While you are figuring God to yourself as making demands upon you, you are under law. If you are listening with ravished attention to grace, you are under the gospel. Oh, happy soul that knows what it is to listen to Jesus I it will do more for the purifying of the soul than can Moses or John, " The joy of the Lord is your strength." If I drink it in, it will make my heart too glad for it to serve my pride and vanity. Then He closed the book-as much as to tell them: " that is everything." Do I believe, when I have listened, that there is my rest forever? Happy the poor sinner that takes up that attitude,-that closes his heart where Jesus closed the book. The people marveled at His gracious words. At the close they said: " Is not this Joseph's son?" What principle in human nature dictated that? It was their pride that could not brook the thought that the carpenter's son should be their teacher. They wanted a teacher from the college,-fresh from the hand of man. The Lord finds out the two currents in their hearts. Supposing a mere sentiment awakens in your mind, is there any moral power in it? There was sentiment here; but pride got the mastery. Nothing will do but faith-that principle that lays hold on Jesus. Their fine admiration is gone; they are a defeated people. Their sentiment has been obliged to yield to a stronger current of pride, and they would have cast Him over the brow of the hill. He that trusts his heart is a fool. There is much excitement abroad now, and I welcome it, but I do not trust it. There must be a hold on Christ to secure victory. The lusts of the heart are too powerful to yield to excitement.
Then we find Him teaching in the synagogue, and they were amazed at His word; and, at the setting of the sun, He healed all that were sick.
And now I will introduce you to chapter 5., just to show how and where it is that the link is to be formed between Him and you. Admiration, as we have seen, will not form it, nor the healing of the body; of the ten lepers but one returned to give glory. Nothing but a work in the conscience will do. You must learn your need-learn that a poor sinner cannot do without Him. Then the link is formed for eternity. We get this in Peter. How blessed to see this simplicity! The world is full of its wisdom, its religion, and its speculations. The gospel makes short work of it. It lets me know that I want a Savior, and then shows me that I have a Savior. If any soul cannot comfortably say, " I have Him," I just ask, do you want Him If so, you are welcome to Him.
" He stood by the lake of Gennesaret," and He entered into a boat. It was Peter's. Peter was a goodhearted man, and would lend Him the loan of a boat. It is simply told. So He taught the people, and when that is done, He says: "Launch out into the deep, and let down your nets for a draft" " Well," says Peter, " we will; but we have toiled all night and caught nothing." It is the reply of a good-natured man, willing to lend his boat to a stranger, and do a little thing the stranger asked him. But when Peter saw the multitude of fishes, the spirit was forming a link that never was to be broken, he cried: " Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, 0 Lord." What had taught Him that? The draft of fishes was the expression, to his conscience, of divine glory. The veil had dropped off from the face of the Nazarene, and the glory of God shone out. 'Who but God could have commanded the wealth of the lake into Peter's net? So Peter's conscience, coming in contact with the glory, found out that he was a sinner. How do you know you are a sinner? Because if God broke the blue heavens and came down, you could no more stand before Him than did Adam. You would call on the rocks to cover you. There was the happiest intercourse between God and Adam in Genesis In chap. 3., Adam flies from Him and hides himself behind the trees of the garden. This is just the difference between innocence and sin. Peter says, "Depart from me," and what is the Lord's answer? " If you have found out, poor sinner, that you want Me, you shall have Me. Fear not." Has that intercourse ever gone on between you and Christ? Have you found out that "you are a poor sinner, and nothing at all, but Jesus Christ is your all in all?" You may spend your admiration, scholarship, sentiment, on the book. It will not do. Your conscience must have to do with Him. How simple it is How worthy of God to be so simple! " God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light, of the knowledge of the glory of God, in the face of Jesus Christ." He who said "Let there be light," said also " Believe, and be saved."