(John 17)
The burnt-offering was not for sin, and yet it would not have been there except on account of sin. Christ offered Himself without spot to God, and by the grace of God He tasted death for every man. Thus we see Him made sin: He gives Himself for it. And then we find another dreadful thing—He drank the cup of wrath due to me. We find Him going down into the place where there was no patience! God has patience towards us; He is long-suffering toward us; but there no long-suffering, no patience could be. He was made sin: no hiding or covering up of sin there, He brought it right into the very presence of God, Who was dealing with sin, and His cry upon the cross was, “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?” In Psa. 22 He speaks of all the external troubles, but then He says, “Be not Thou far from Me” —the very thing He was!
We find Him taking this place, bearing our sins; but again look at the other side. “Now is the Son of man glorified.” It was in man that all the glory of God was made good, not merely the divine judging of sin that we should not be judged, but the ground laid according to the glory of God for man to be in the glory of God—a totally new thing!
It does not follow in itself that one must be in the glory because he is forgiven; but here we find the blessed Son of God takes this place before God as man, tasting death, offering Himself without spot; the One Who knew no sin presents Himself, the spotless Lamb of God, not only to bear my sins, but to be made sin, and thus to glorify God. How wonderful that in man this should be done!
Everything that God is was in question, and He does not say, “I have borne the sins of My disciples,” but “I have glorified Thee.”
How could God have glory where sin was, where everything was corrupt, where Satan had got the upper hand? Well, Christ puts Himself there and takes all the sin and all its consequences, and therein He glorifies God; and now all the counsels of God can be accomplished, and Christ takes the glory as the fruit of His work. “I have finished the work which Thou gavest Me to do. And now, O Father, glorify Thou Me.”
We see His perfect life through the testing of God in the meat-offering, and nothing but a sweet savor comes forth; but when I come to the burnt-offering, death is there. Christ comes in and glorifies God in the place of sin and death; and then we see death destroyed, the power of Satan broken, judgment gone; and, as the result of this, Man takes His place with God!
The first man, once innocent, brought in sin, was conquered by Satan, failed in every way, and dishonored God. But before judgment comes, the second Man brings the triumph of Satan to a close. He comes here, and in this very place was made sin, and all that was in God was perfectly glorified in that place of sin and death and judgment; and now all the counsels of God come out, which could not have been before.
God had been dealing with man on the ground of his responsibility. The more we look, the more we see God setting man up in goodness and righteousness, and man always failing. Adam ate the forbidden fruit; Noah, brought out unto the new earth, got drunk; Israel worshipped the golden calf; the priests offered strange fire on the first day of their office; Solomon loved strange women; Nebuchadnezzar, when government was committed to him, exalts himself and casts the three children into the fiery furnace. The first thing which man does with that which God gives him is always to spoil it. It was the same thing with the church also: “all seek their own, not the things which are Jesus Christ's.” This is what we find man is! But One Man comes; and in the very place where all this was true, and ripened out to its full extent of evil, He is made sin Who knew no sin; He stands before God in that character: all is dealt with, and a foundation laid which nothing can shake
It is a precious thing to have some little sense of what Christ was doing. Fathom it of course we never can. Not only are my sins put away, but Christ had God's glory perfectly at heart; and that, now this is fully established, it comes out that what God had at heart, before the foundation of the world, was to have man with Himself in glory. His delight was with the sons of men; and what does He do? He puts them in the same place as His own Son: they are sons, and they have the glory with Him. He has finished the work and gone into the glory; and this gives the Christian's place.
He will come again in glory; and we have complete association with Him. “We rejoice in hope of the glory of God.”
“If God be glorified in Him, God shall also glorify Him in Himself, and shall straight way glorify Him.” It is the next thing. He will not wait till the kingdom is set up. The disciples saw His glory in the mount, but they did not see inside the cloud from whence came the Father's voice.
The union of the church with Christ was never revealed until the foundation was laid, and then God says, “I am able to do this in virtue of what Christ has done, and I will have you perfectly with Myself.”
Christ was not merely the sin-offering, but a whole burnt-offering, in order that God might be perfectly glorified. The Man who has done this is in glory, and that is the way I get in!
“I have manifested Thy name onto the men whom Thou gavest Me.” The whole of this chapter speaks of the Father's name: it is not the Almighty, Jehovah, or Most High as He will be known in the millennium— “Most High, possessor of heaven and earth;” but it is the Father, putting us in the place of sons.
People very little realize this when they talk of “our Father,” and say, “Thy kingdom come.” What is the Father's kingdom? People do not notice words: it is astonishing how our wretched hearts glide over scripture as if it were ice!
He is Almighty, yet this name does not save; He is Jehovah, yet this name does not save; but if the Father sent the Son, it is that I might live through Him, and that He might make propitiation for sins. It was that the world through Him might be saved. This is salvation, as it is eternal life; and the Holy Ghost is shed in virtue of the precious blood of Christ, giving us association with Himself, making us sons as Christ is the Son: we are “heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ.”
He says, “I have manifested Thy name.” We find He had been doing this throughout this Gospel: “The only-begotten Son Who is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him.” But they as yet, dull and ignorant, not having the Holy Ghost, could not recognize it; they had not the Spirit of adoption whereby they could enter into it.
See chapter 16:29, 30. He had been telling them that the Father had sent Him; but they do not understand a word of it, and only say, “By this we know that Thou tamest forth from God.” And, we often see the same thing now in those who have not the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father: the name of Father is not known.
I do desire that, while our hearts get peace through seeing Him made sin for us, we might also see what He was for God in the place of sin.
We are not only forgiven and cleansed, but we stand in the whole value of that work of which Christ could say, “Therefore doth My Father love Me.” The act itself so infinitely glorified God that He could give it as a motive for the Father's love to Him.
“Holy Father, keep through Thine own name them that Thou hast given Me.” He puts them in the place of sons, and looks to the Father to keep them according to that Name.
The world had no part in that: men must have life to be sons; they must be born of God.
He puts us into the present consciousness of the place into which His sacrifice has brought us, that is, His own place in all its blessedness: the veil rent, the heavens opened to us, sealed and anointed by the Father, owned by Him as His sons. When He was here as Man, at His baptism the heavens were opened, He was sealed and anointed, and the Father owned Him as His Son (and this is the first time that the Trinity was fully revealed); and then He goes to be tempted. He takes the blessedness of the place with God, and stood in that place as a man, and then goes into the conflict like us.
Look at Phil. 2:14, 1614Do all things without murmurings and disputings: (Philippians 2:14)
16Holding forth the word of life; that I may rejoice in the day of Christ, that I have not run in vain, neither labored in vain. (Philippians 2:16). Take this sentence, and word by word it is a statement of what Christ was. We are in a wicked generation—exactly what Christ was; sons—what He was; light in the world as He was the Light of the world; holding forth the word of life as He was the Word. Take it word by word, and we are in it all! He puts us into His place before the Father, and gives us His place of testimony before the world.
“That they might have My joy fulfilled in themselves.” How does He bring that about? You get this Man upon earth, the Son of man, and the Father talking with Him in all the delight He had in Him Who says, “Whatsoever I have heard of My Father I have made known unto you.”
Are our hearts taking this place? Where was His spring of delight and joy and blessing? In His Father. And have you anything of the joy of Christ fulfilled in your hearts?
You may tell me your thoughts are weak and poor; and I am sure they are; our hearts answer miserably to all this love. But that is where He has brought me, and placed me; that is what is in His heart, if I cannot trust my own! But while we see all the glory before us—going to be in the glory of God, our souls should look and search into the foundation it is all built upon. If you have already forgiveness, the Lord give you to see what you are as belonging to the Father's love and house.
If we see how completely He has glorified God, so that glory for Himself and for us too with Him is the natural and necessary result, it must surely humble us, but it brings in adoration. I cannot look without adoration at the Lord Jesus going down in grace into such a place, forgetting self in the presence of such wondrous grace. And it keeps the heart subdued also.
The Lord give us to have Him before our hearts and eyes, that we may be occupied with Him and satisfied with Him, and that in some measure we may walk like Him through the words which He has given us. J. N. D.