Address—C. Hendricks
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Which will set the theme for tonight's meeting.
Isaiah 42 verse one.
Behold, my servant.
Whom I uphold.
Mine elect.
In whom my soul delighteth.
God would have us to behold Him.
The perfect servant.
The one who always did his will.
The one, the only one that was.
Always the delight.
Of his heart, in whom my soul delighteth, God says.
Now let's turn to Philippians 2 for a few verses.
We won't dwell there.
But I'd like to.
Bring before us.
From Philippians 2.
Something that we have before us in verse 5. Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus. He begins this.
Discussion of the Lord's descent.
From the very form of God to the form of a servant issuing in the death of the cross the very lowest place he could go.
Impossible to go lower.
He went as low as low one can go, and yet he began from the very heights of glory.
And but it begins with an exhortation. Let this mind be in you.
Which was also in Christ Jesus? Well, what was the mind that was in Christ Jesus? What was the mind that he had? Who?
Being in the form of God, now that establishes his deity beyond all question.
No creature can exist in God's form as a creature.
He had to be God to be in the form of God, but here he was in the form of God and in nothing else.
He existed, He subsisted in the form of God from all eternity. What was his thought?
What was his mind? He thought it not robbery to be equal with God. Now that's a legitimate translation of what's in the in the Greek text, but it's it's a difficult passage to render this word robbery.
Mr. Darby translates it. He esteemed it not an object of wrapping. Now you might say that's no, that's no simpler.
But I think it is simpler when we think of what.
What that pictures picture an invading army coming into a city.
And they have conquered the city and the soldiers are going into the various houses there.
And plundering those houses. Now this is the very word that's translated robbery here.
Could be translated plunder or rapin. He had steamed it. Not an object of rapin and a soldier enters into a house.
And his eyes light upon an object that he has always wanted.
And he goes to that object and he lays hold upon it, he seizes it, and he says, that's mine.
And I'll never surrender it. It's mine and I'll never give it up. He's always wanted it.
Something that is most desirable, An object of rapid. An object that is before a plundering army.
That comes in and the soldier seizes upon it and grasps it and holds it tenaciously with the idea I won't let this go, it's mine.
He esteemed it not an object of rapid. That is, the mind that was in Christ was. He was in the form of God. He was deity itself. He was God over all, blessed forever, but his mind was not. I will never consider ever becoming anything less than that.
I will never give up the form of God. I am God and am in the form of God.
And he didn't have the idea. Look who I am. I will never become anything other than what I am. No, that wasn't his mind. His mind was to take upon himself the form of a servant, A tremendous thought, an absolutely stupendous thought, that he who was in the form of God and in nothing less and in nothing else.
He esteemed it not something to be held on to tenaciously and grasped, but he surrendered that. He laid that aside. He emptied himself. The King James has a paraphrase here in saying he took upon himself. He made himself of no reputation, That's really.
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A paraphrase of the literal Greek which says he emptied himself. What did he empty himself of? Well, he didn't empty himself of deity. He never ceased being God. But he did empty himself of the form of God. He emptied himself of that outward form of glory we sing in one of our hymns. He laid his glory by and for us. It's come from heaven as the Lamb of God to die.
Here he was subsisting in the form of God.
God over all blessed forever. He had never obeyed anyone as God. He was the one that issued the orders. Everyone obeyed him. And now he becomes a servant. He takes upon himself the form of a servant. And God says, Behold my servant whom I uphold, mine elect, in whom my soul delighteth. And once he came into the servant's place, once he assumed that form.
He never got out of it. He never.
Acted contrary to the place that is proper, and the action and the activity of it is proper to a servant.
Who being in the form of God, thought it not robbery or.
Esteemed it not something to be grasped and held onto tenaciously as an object of plunder.
But to be equal with God, he was equal with God. The thought that we get rather from the King James is that.
He didn't think it was wrong to be equal with God. That's not the thought.
That's not the thought.
The thought is he didn't say I'm God and in God's form, and I'll be nothing less. He, he surrendered the form of God. He laid it aside. He emptied himself of that outward form of deity. He didn't empty himself of his sonship. He carried his sonship into time. He didn't empty himself with his love or his compassion or his mercy or his grace or his truth or His Holiness or any of his attributes, but the outward majesty.
That was his in the form of God. He laid it aside. When he came into this world. There was no difference in His appearance to the eye of man than any other human being. When he was born of a man, When he became a servant, there was no outward difference.
Says in Isaiah 53, it says in the King James, it says he hath no, no form nor comeliness. I don't like that rendering because I think he was the most comely man that was ever here. But he hath no form nor lordliness is really what it says as you have it in the new translation. That is, he didn't go through the land as some mighty dignitary and monarch.
But he was a Carpenter and the son of a Carpenter, and they said who? How knoweth this man? Letters, having never learned. He wasn't educated according to the universities of the day.
He was just a poor man, born into a poor family, a servant of servants. The Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister and to give his life a ransom for many. The mind that was in Christ.
Was to surrender all the outward glory and dignity that attached to his position in the Godhead, and to come into a sphere.
And a condition of things that was that of a servant.
He took upon him the form of a servant.
And was made in the likeness of men.
He made himself of no reputation, or literally he emptied himself.
Of his outward form of glory and went down and down and down. Well, I wanted to just emphasize.
The first part, it's been often said there are 7 downward steps the Lord took and then seven upward steps that God gave him and exalting him to his own right hand in heaven. And I want to dwell on that so much, but just the emphasis that the mind that was in Christ was the willingness to become something less.
Than he than was his by uncreated right in the Godhead.
In fact, the only way we could know God, the only way we could know God.
Really know him is for him to have done this, for him to have come to where we were, to become one of us.
To become a servant.
To become a man.
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Because all men are servants.
It says in Luke 17, when you have done all that it was your duty to do, say we are unprofitable servants, we have done what it was our duty to do. Why should it reward me for being obedient?
That's proper to a servant. But here we see the one who had never obeyed. He was the supreme Commander, and now he takes the place where obedience, dependence, and submission are proper to him. And He was perfect in it. That's his moral glory.
His personal glory is who He is.
Uh, it says John says we beheld his glory.
The glory is of an only begotten with a Father full of grace and truth. That was His personal glory, the only begotten Son of God. Whenever you read of the Son of God in Scripture, you read of what He ever was in His person. It's not as some blasphemously, very erroneously teach, and I think it's blasphemy that He became Son in time. No, no, He was Son from all eternity. Hebrews 5 says that says though He were Son.
Yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered, though he were Son being in the form of God, he empties himself of that takes the form of a servant, and now he learns obedience in the servants form by the things that he suffers. So that one verse in Hebrews brings before us his personal glory as the only begotten Son, and then his moral glory.
As the perfect servant, he couldn't hide that he could hide his personal glory, John said.
Beheld His glory, but only by faith, because he veiled that personal glory. No one else saw it, but he saw it by faith. And then on the mount of Transfiguration there was his official glory as the as the Christ, the Anointed. 1 And he, he was transfigured before them. And it says they saw his glory. That was his official glory, and that will be the glory that that he will be seen in in the Millennium as King.
Kings and Lord of Lords, this personal glory is even deeper and greater than that.
And that is what he always was as the Eternal Son.
But his moral glory could not be veiled. He could never be less than perfect in the relationship and in the position that he had taken when he became this perfect servant.
And so God says to you and to me tonight, behold my servant, O how I don't know of a day when we need to look more at him, and the perfection of his submission to doing the will of another. The beauty of the life of Christ as seen in the four Gospels is here's a man that never did his own will.
Always did the will of the Father, always did the will of the Father. It would have been wrong for him as the servant now, as in the servant's place, to do his own will, perfectly right for him to do it as God, which he always was and never relinquished. But he did lay aside, empty himself of the form of God, and took upon him the form of a servant. Now let's turn back quickly.
To Luke chapter 2.
We'll just touch on this and then go into John's Gospel for a number of passages.
In Luke chapter 2.
Verse 40 And the child grew and waxed strong in spirit, filled with wisdom.
And the grace of God was upon him.
Now his parents went to Jerusalem every year at the feast of the Passover, and when he was 12 years old they went up to Jerusalem after the custom of the feast and when they had fulfilled the days.
As they returned, the child Jesus tarried behind in Jerusalem, and Joseph and his mother knew not of it.
But they, supposing him to have been in the company, went a day's journey, and they sought him among their kinsfolk and acquaintance. And when they found him not, they turned back again to Jerusalem, seeking him. And he came to pass that after three days they found him in the Temple, sitting in the midst of the doctors, both hearing them and asking them questions.
And all that heard him were astonished at his understanding and answers. It would have been improper for him as a boy of 12 to be teaching them. And yet he knew far more than all his teachers. Here, as the psalmist says, I have understanding. I'm more understanding than all my teachers. And certainly it was true of the Lord Jesus.
And another thing we can say about the subject place that he took and that he lived in. He lived in that place in perfection.
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And that was that was absolutely essential and required in order to accomplish redemption. He had to be perfect in the place that he took. He had to do the will of God perfectly. He couldn't falter once. He couldn't be disobedient once. Otherwise he would have been disqualified. To be our Savior, to be the accomplisher of redemption, to glorify God, it required absolute perfection. And we only find it in the Lord Jesus.
US, oh, as we consider him, as we behold this perfect servant, one who always, always did the will of his father, never his own will. Here he sits in the midst of the doctors, hearing them and asking them questions proper to the place that he had taken, taken, and to his years. And all that heard him were astonished at his understanding.
And answers.
And when they saw him, they were amazed. And his mother said unto him, Son, why hast thou thus dealt with us? Behold, thy Father, and I have sought thee sorrowing. And he said unto them, How is it that ye sought me? These are the first recorded words that the Lord Jesus utters. First recorded words. And what does he say? Wished He not that I must be about my Father's business. And the last that he uttered was.
It is finished.
He had finished his father's business, and then he says, Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit. He had finished that work, but he was about the business and the things of his father here, though he was a boy of 12. And they understood not the saying which he spake unto them.
And he went down with them, and came to Nazareth, and was subject unto them, beautiful, perfect in that place of subjection. We have some children here tonight. And here was the boy Jesus, 12 years old, perfect in subjection, perfect in obedience. Never once did he disobey his mother or his father. Always perfect, perfect subjection. But his mother kept all these sayings in her heart.
Jesus increased in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and man. Now these are expressions which Christ's enemies will use to show and say, well, you see, he was just like any other man. He had to learn. He had to increase in wisdom and stature. Yes, as a man He did.
He did learn that was proper to Him. As a man He was subject. As a man, He was obedient as a man. That was His perfection. That was His moral glory. His moral glory is the glory that could not be hid, it could not be veiled. He could never be less than perfect in the relationship of obedience and dependence that He had taken in lowly grace.
And here we see him increasing in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and man.
As God beheld this perfect one, always doing His will.
It filled his heart with delight. Mr. Ballard is put it this way. He says there was an object here below that would commend the place, but now it is gone. Jesus is with the Father.
There was an object over which God Himself, the Father Himself, had to open the heavens 2 Times at the river Jordan. This is my beloved Son, in whom I have found my delight, all my delight in Him. And again on the Mount of Transfiguration, the Father's voice was heard declaring His delight in this blessed One. I remember, brother, years ago, preaching the Gospel, saying to us all, has He ever opened the heavens to you, declaring His delight in you if He was?
He would have done it, you know, but he never did.
Not to me, not to any of us, but there was a man here that so filled his heart with delight and joy that he had to declare it two times.
Now I want to turn. Now we could look at more passages in Luke that presents us to us the perfect man.
We could look at a number in Mark that present him to us as the perfect servant, and that's where you might expect we would go. But we're going to go.
Rather unexpectedly to the Gospel of John that begins by presenting him to us in his deity. Let's turn to John chapter 4, please.
And we're going to look at a number of scriptures in John's Gospel.
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That starts out with the majestic and sublime words in the beginning.
Was the word.
The expression of God, the Word. I am using words tonight to express the thoughts that are in my mind.
And Christ was the one that came here to express the very heart of God, and the very mind of God and the very thoughts of God to us.
And so he's called the word the expression.
Of God's heart.
Of love.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him.
And without him was not anything made that was made.
He's the Creator, He's the one who is with God the Father, and he is God the Son.
And then in the 14th verse of the 1St chapter it says the word became flesh.
And dwelt among us.
And we beheld his glory. John says the glory is of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.
Faith pierced the veil that veiled His glory and saw what was there.
Now in John 4, we're going to look at a number of scriptures that are of a different character, Verse 34.
Jesus saith unto them, my meat.
Is to do the will of him that sent me and to finish his work. You will notice as I read these many scriptures and I'm not reading all of them.
That talk of the Father sending him. But he refers to himself over and over again in John's Gospel especially.
As being sent.
He says my meat is to do the will of him that sent me and to finish his work.
He came to do, He came on a mission. He was the sentiment of the Father, and he came to do not his own will, but the will of the Father that sent him. That was his meat, that was his sustenance.
As a perfect servant, striking that we find this expression over and over again in John's Gospel because it's there.
That pre begins by presenting His essential glory as the Word and as the sun. But now he says that his meat was to do the will of him that sent him to finish his work. Now chapter 5, we'll just step our way through John's gospel, noting these verses in chapter 5, verse 17. Jesus answered them. My Father worketh hitherto, and I work.
Therefore the Jews sought the more to kill him. Notice, he says, my father worketh hitherto.
And I work. That is, he places himself right alongside the father, working with the father. The father was working and he was working.
Did the Jews understand what he was claiming here? He was claiming equality with God.
Do they understand Him? They certainly did. Therefore the Jews sought the more to kill him, because He not only had broken the Sabbath as they thought, but said also that God was His Father. Mr. Darby has that God was His own Father, making it even a more intimate thing, making Himself equal with God. Did they misunderstand what the Lord was saying? No, they didn't. They understood Him perfectly, that He was claiming equality with God.
And notice what he says.
Then answered Jesus, and said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, the Son can do nothing of himself.
But what he seeth, the Father do.
And I can hear immediately the enemies of the Lord saying, See, He is no different than any other man, He.
He's weak and subject to error, error and so on. And he he can't do, he can't act all together of or from himself. But let's go on, it says, But what he seeth the father do for what things so ever he do it these also do with the son likewise.
What they don't seem to understand is that they take the place that he had come into, the place of a servant, the place of subjection, the place where dependence and obedience is called for, and only that.
And they use these things where the Lord says that's what he was. He says the Son can do nothing of himself. He did not act independently of the Father.
He always acted in subjection to the Father, and that's what he's saying here. It doesn't mean that he didn't have the power to do it.
For he was God, but it means that it wouldn't have been morally right for him to do it.
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Having taken the place of a servant.
Having taken the place of the servant, when he came into this world and became a man, he did not act of or from himself as a source, but what he saw the Father doing, or what things so ever he doeth, these also doeth the Son. Likewise again, in verse 30 he says, I can of that of could be translated from I can of, or from my own self do nothing.
That is, it would have been improper for him to have acted independently and apart from the Father because of the place that he had taken in grace. This was His moral glory. I can of mine own self do nothing, as I hear, I judge. That is, He acted according to the instructions that were given to him from the Father, as he gathered those instructions every day.
It says in I believe it's Isaiah 50. He says he openeth mine ear to hear as the learned or as the instructed.
Every morning, every morning, he gathered fresh instruction from his father.
And he had the opened ear to be obedient to what the Father told him. So he says as I hear, I judge.
And my judgment is just because I seek not mine own will.
But the will of the Father which hath sent me.
Just think of it. Here was a man so unlike you and me that he never sought his own will. He never did his own will. One time in the garden, he expressed it.
When he looked into the cup filled with the wrath of God, he said, O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me. He shrank with holy horror at the thought of being made sin, and undergoing the unmitigated wrath of a holy God against sin, and being forsaken of God. And he gave expression to that in saying, Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me. But then he said.
Nevertheless.
Not my will.
For thine be done.
There was the perfect surrender in the face of the most intense trial.
That anyone has ever gone through down here the contemplation of being forsaken of God and being made sin.
Infinite suffering. And he expresses the holy horror of his soul at that, in saying, Father, let this cup pass for me. But then in the perfection that was always his, he surrenders, and says, not my will, but thine be done.
Again verse 30 I can of my own self do nothing.
He couldn't act of or from himself. It would have been improper considering that he had taken the form of a servant.
As I hear, I judge, and my judgment is just because I seek not mine own will.
When we seek our own will and when we do our own will, that's what sin is. Sin is lawlessness. Sin is acting of or from ourselves without reference to God. That's what sin is. The creature ought never to do that. Man ought never to do that. And the Lord Jesus, though I would not say he became a creature, he became a man. He took, He came into the creature place. He came into the place where it was proper for him to obey.
And he obeyed in perfection.
Absolute perfection. That was his moral glory.
Now we turn on to chapter 6, verse 38.
For I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him.
That sent me notice again. I call your attention to it. My meat is to do the will of him that sent me.
I came down from heaven not to do my own will, but the will of him.
That sent me. He was here on a mission. He was here to do what he was told to do. He was here to speak the words that were given to him of the Father to speak. He was here to do the works that the Father gave him to do. And he did them, He spoke them, and he did them in perfection.
I came down from heaven. There's no other man that's ever been here that could say that not to do mine own will.
But the will of him that sent me?
Then a little farther down in John 6 verse 57, he says, As the living Father hath sent me.
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And I live by the father. By reason of the father is the thought on account of the father.
So he that eateth me, even he shall live on account of me, by reason of me.
So his.
Whole motive for living was the father. He lived on account of the father.
He lived to please the Father, and to do his will, not his own will. So he says, he that eateth me, even he shall live by me, by reason of me. Paul says it this way in Philippians 121. For me to live is Christ. For me to live is Christ.
Chapter 7 We have to move on.
Jesus answered them. Verse 16.
Jesus answered them and said my doctrine, my teaching is not mine.
But his that sent me?
Verse 28 Then cried Jesus in the temple, as he taught, saying, Ye both know me, and ye know whence I am, and I am not come of myself, but He that sent me is true, whom ye know not, but I know Him, for I am from Him, and He hath sent me.
Chapter 8.
We come to a very, very profound verse 25.
825 Then said they unto him, Who art thou now They asked John that same question in the first chapter.
Art thou the Christ? He says. No, I'm not.
Art thou he that should come? He says, well, he first he says, I'm not the Christ. And then they asked him if he was Jeremiah. So one of the prophecies says I'm not. And then they asked him another question. He said no.
But here they ask the Lord this question, Who art thou? And Jesus saith unto them, now the King.
And this Jesus saith unto them altogether and absolutely what I say to you.
That is in the universality and the principle essence of what He was. He spoke the truth and He was the truth. His teaching was not His, but the Father's, and He was here to be the living expression in a man of all that He was taught of the Father and spoke. He was just that in His blessed person.
Verse 28 Then said Jesus unto them, When ye have.
Lifted up the Son of Man. Then shall ye know that I am He, and that I do nothing of myself. But as my Father hath taught me, I speak these things.
Perfect servant.
As my father hath taught me, I speak these things, and he that sent me is with me.
The Father hath not left me alone.
For I do always those things that please him.
I can't say that none of us can say that here was a man on earth and it required this. It required this perfect obedience. It required one that could say I do always those things that please him in order to fulfill his will, even to the point of death, and that the death of the cross and had he faltered one step in that path of obedience.
Everything would have been lost.
Everything would have been lost. There would be no salvation. We wouldn't be saved. There wouldn't be any gospel to be preached today that required perfect submission, perfect obedience.
Thank God we have it in him and only him. Thank God.
There was one whose mind was such that he laid aside the form of God.
Took upon him the form of a servant to obey always.
Think of how many times I do you do your own will.
Think of how many times we do what pleases us. He never did.
Romans 15 says even Christ pleased not himself.
Who did he please? He said. I do always those things.
Please hit verse 38.
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I speak that which I have seen with my father.
He's talking to the unbelieving Jews, and ye do that which ye have seen.
With your Father, verse 42 Jesus said unto them, If God were your father, you would love me, for I proceeded forth and came from God.
Neither came I of myself.
But he sent me.
He sent me.
Chapter 9, verse four. I must work the works of him that sent me while it is day.
The night cometh when no man can work.
I must work the works of him that sent me.
While it is day.
Now we come to a very.
Special passages in chapter 10, Chapter 10, verse 17.
He says, therefore doth my father love me?
Because I lay down my life that I might take it again now.
Therefore, doth my father love me? Didn't he always love him? Yes, always love him.
He was the sun dwelling in the bosom of the Father, the very hiding place of love. He was the delight of the Father from all eternity.
He never left that place of intimacy and communion with his father.
But now he talks about having taken the place of subjection, having taken the place of a servant.
He says.
In this obedience even to death, the death of the cross, the horror of it.
The awfulness of being made sin and being forsaken of God.
Therefore doth my father love me?
Because I lay down my life.
That I might take it again.
His obedience even to death, and that the death of the cross provided a fresh motive to the Father to love his son.
Because their obedience was perfected. Perfected.
He says no man taketh it from me.
But I have power to lay it down and I have power to take it again. It sounds now like this is the exception to what I've been saying, that he's Speaking of or from himself, speaks of the authority that he had to lay his life down and to take it again. But let's read on. In the verse, he says this commandment.
Have I received of my Father? He did it all in obedience to His Father.
The father gave him the authority.
But it wasn't something that he took upon himself to do independently of the Father. No, he did it in obedience to the Father's commandment.
This commandment have I received of my father, and therefore he says, therefore doth my father love me.
As he saw his son going down into the very extremity of suffering.
Impossible for your mind or mind to conceive of what it cost him to put our sins away when he was forsaken of God and abandoned and left alone.
In the darkness enveloped his soul, and all the waves of divine wrath against sin were poured out upon him.
I can say this though, he was forsaken in those moments, those three dark hours. None like it before or after, and all the ages of eternity. Nothing like it.
Never was he more the delight of the Father than during those three hours. But God couldn't express his delight.
It was only wrath, unmitigated, pure wrath against sin.
And yet he was never more pleased.
With the obedience that was rendered then.
As at any other time, therefore, doth my father love me.
Because I lay down my life.
But I might take it again.
Verse 25 Jesus answered them, I told you, and you believe not the works that I do in my Father's name, they bear witness of me. Verse 32 Jesus answered them, Many good works have I showed you from my Father. For which of those works do ye stone me?
Verse 37 If I do not the works of my father, believe me not.
But if I do, though you believe not me, believe the works that ye may know, and believe that the Father is in me.
And I in him.
And then there's some verses in John 11. We know the account very well of Lazarus.
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And verse 38, we'll pick up the story in verse 38 of John 11. Jesus, therefore, again groaning in himself, cometh to the grave.
It was a cave, and a stone lay upon it. Jesus said, Take ye away the stone.
Martha, the sister of him that was dead, saith unto him, Lord, by this time he stinketh, for he hath been dead 4 days. Jesus sayeth unto her, said I not unto thee, that if thou wouldest believe, thou should see the glory of God. Then they took away the stone from the place where the dead was laid, and Jesus lifted up his eyes and said, Father.
I thank thee that thou hast heard me. You see what He was about to do in the raising of Lazarus. He had told Mary, He, Martha. He was the resurrection and the life.
And yet He was doing this in communion with and in obedience to the Father.
And he says, Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me, and I knew that thou hearest me always, but because of the people which stand by, I said it.
That they may believe that thou hast.
Sent me.
And when he had thus spoken, he cried with a loud voice. Lazarus.
Come forth.
All spoken.
In perfect obedience.
As the subject man, Chapter 12.
44.
Jesus cried and said he that believeth on me believeth not on me, but on him that sent me.
And he that seeth me seeth Him that sent me. You see, it's impossible to say as some men say I believe in God the Father, but I don't believe in Jesus. That's the Son. I don't believe in Him. You can't do that. Scripture doesn't leave you that option. Scripture says he says He that believeth on me believeth not on me, but on Him that sent me. And we're shortly going to look at another verse in John 15 which says he that rejecteth me rejecteth him that sent me or he that.
Me hated him that sent me. You cannot hate him and not hate the Father.
And you cannot love him and not love the Father. They are 1. And so here he says he that believeth.
On me believeth not on me, but on him that sent me. And he that seeth me seeth him that sent me.
The very precious thought, and one that we don't dwell on nearly enough. And that is that the only way we can know God.
And the only way we can really see God is in the circumstances through which we pass. And he came into those circumstances. He became a man. He became a servant.
And if he hadn't, we really would not know God.
In his essence, he is unknowable.
He has to come out of the essential light in which he dwells, light unapproachable.
We can't approach to that and he had to become.
One of us and he did that.
And now that eternal life that was with the Father has been what manifested unto us in a man on earth. Now I know what eternal life is like in a man. I know what it's like because I look at him and I see it in Jesus.
I see it in Jesus.
Just said that keep your place here in John. I just want to read you one verse in Ephesians 4 and this is what we're talking about. It's such a precious verse.
In Ephesians 4, verse 21, it says, If so be that ye have heard him.
And have been taught by him as the truth is in Jesus.
All truth. All truth.
Has to be learned.
This way as the truth is in Jesus.
He came into the place that we are in, as men, as servants, and he showed us.
In His perfect pathway of obedience and dependence and subjection.
Never doing His own will, what the real truth is. And we learn it in Him, and in no other way. No other way. And if we try to learn truth apart from him, apart from the truth as it is in Jesus, we've never learned it. Never learned it really, because I know it can only be learned in Him.
He that seeth me, seeth him that sent me.
It's the only way we can see God.
Now verse 49 of chapter 12 of John. For I have not spoken of myself, but the Father which sent me, He gave me a commandment, what I should say and what I should speak. He sums up all that the Father gave him to say as as he gave me a commandment. He sums it up as as a commandment.
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What I should say and what I should speak. His whole life was obedience. It was a life of obedience. It was a life of submission.
It was a life of doing the father's will, doing the father's commandment.
And then he goes on to say in verse 50, a very profound verse, I know that his commandment.
Is life everlasting? The Father gave him a commandment, and everything that he said and everything that he did was the living out as a man of what the Father commanded him either to say or to do, and as that is lived out in a man on earth.
That's eternal life.
That's eternal life, That's what has been communicated to us, and that's the way that life expresses itself.
In a man independence and when we act.
In self will and in independence.
We are acting.
Exactly contrary to the life of Christ.
Exactly contrary.
We always did our own will before we were saved. That was common to us. That's all that man knows how to do.
And now that we're saved this short time that we're here.
We have the privilege of no longer doing our own will, no longer doing that. The time passed suffices us to have wrought the will of the Gentiles, Peter says. That's the way we live. That's the way I lived. That's the way you lived before you were saved. It's the only way you could live.
Please yourself do your own will.
Now He's given us eternal life, and he's shown us what that eternal life does.
In a man down here, it's always obedience.
I know that His commandment is life everlasting whatsoever I speak. Therefore, even as the Father said unto me, so I speak.
Chapter 13. Verse 14 If I then your Lord and master, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet, for I have not. I have given you an example that you should do as I have done to you. Verily, verily, I say unto you, the servant is not greater than his Lord, neither he that is sent greater than he that sent him. If you know these things, happy are ye if ye do them.
And I really believe that the reason we're in the condition we're in today.
The terrible strife and trouble and problems that confront us today is because these principles of obedience and subjection.
Haven't been lived out in my life.
Your life.
Haven't been lived out.
And that's why we're not happy.
The measure in which we're not happy is the measure in which we seek our own will and do our own will and please ourselves.
If you know these things, he said. Happy are ye if you do them.
You will never be an unhappy Christian if you walk in obedience to the principles that we're dealing with.
Here the life of Christ imperfect. He was not unhappy. Oh, He was the Man of Sorrows.
Yes, he felt perfectly the affronts to his love and the disobedience and the hardness of hearts of those round about them.
About him he felt all that perfectly, but he had a joy, an inner joy that that came from obedience. That came from obedience.
And that's what he wants us to have.
Verse 8 of chapter 14 Philip saith unto him, Lord, show us the Father, and it sufficeth us. And Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip?
He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father.
And how sayest thou then show us the Father?
He that hath seen me has seen the Father. No way to know the Father. Impossible to believe in the Father without the Son. He is the one that declares the Father. He's the one that spoke the words of the Father. He's the one that did the works of the father. He's the one that always pleased the Father. And the only way you can know the Father and love the Father is to love him.
There's no other way.
Verse chapter 15 says it.
Verse 22 The Lord says, If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin, but now they have no cloak for their sin. He that hateth me.
Hated my father also.
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If I had not gone among them the works which none other man did, they had not had sin. But now they have both seen and hated both me.
And my father.
To heed him is to hate the Father, to love him.
Is to love the Father, to see him? Is to see the Father to believe on him Is to believe on the Father.
For as he says in John 10, he says I and my father are one.
Then in chapter 17, just a verse or two, he says in verse 4, I have glorified thee on the earth. I have finished the work.
Which thou gavest me to do.
There's only one man on earth that ever was here that could say that.
The end of his pathway could lift up his eyes to heaven and say, Father, I have glorified thee of the earth.
I have finished the work which Thou gave us me to do. And then he asks. And now, O Father, glorify thou me.
With thine own self.
With the glory which I had with Thee before the world was the glory that He had with the Father before He had ever become a man.
When he was in nothing else than the form of God.
The glory that he had with the Father before the world was in the very form of God. Now He asks to be reinstated into that glory as a man.
Just think of it. There's a man in that glory now.
A man we sing in one of our hymns. He wears our nature on the throne. I love that expression.
A man in heaven, a man in the glory, where he was only in the form of God. Now he's taken the form of a servant and he's there.
And he's there.
Now, who's going to reign over the coming millennial earth? Who is it that God is going to select that will that will reign? To whom will he give the the reins of government? Who is worthy?
Worthy is the Lamb, Revelation 5, to receive power and riches and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and blessing. Everyone of those seven things that he is eulogized for and praised for are expressions of what He will have in the millennial reign. Power.
And riches and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and blessing, all attributed to whom? To the Lamb.
To the one that went into death and to the extremity of suffering.
To the one that was obedient unto death, even the death of the cross, he is worthy to have it all conferred upon Him. Hebrews 2 Says Not To angels hath He subjected the world to come whereof we speak. But one in a certain place testified, saying, What is man, that thou art mindful of him, or the Son of Man, that thou visited him, Thou madest him a little lower than the angels.
It says in Philippians 2 That we were looking at, he took upon him the form of a servant. He could have become an Angel and the angels are just just servants.
But all he went below that.
He was made lower than the angels, and he took upon him the form of a man.
He was found in fashion as a man, it says.
And he became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.
Wherefore God is highly exalted him, and this man that lived in perfect obedience and subjection.
In that place that He had taken in lowly grace to accomplish redemption and put our sins away.
And win for us a place to share with him in heaven for all eternity. He's the one that's going to reign as King of Kings and Lord of Lords. He's worthy.
The only one that is qualified to exercise authority and rule and dominion is the one that was perfect in obedience and subjection and dependence.
The only one that fulfilled that place in perfection.
Is the one that will be given the highest place.
In the coming day.
One Corinthians 15. We'll just close.
Quickly now.
Verse 24, the end of verse 23 says they that are Christ at his coming. It's the only mention in this resurrection chapter of Christ at his coming. I believe the the the rapture and then it says it it passes from his coming to the end of the Millennium, passes over his reign, passes over the tribulation period and says then come at the end when he shall have delivered up the Kingdom to God, even the Father, when he shall have put down all.
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All authority and power.
For he must reign till he hath put all enemies under his feet.
The only proper answer by God.
To the indignities, to the malignity of man and the hatred of man and the abuse of man.
And all that man did to his son the only proper answer, and it will be answered.
Righteously is that all Christ's enemies will be put under his feet.
Think of we were talking about this today. Think of the man that smote him, the Roman soldier that smote him in the face.
Within hit him with his first, and he said, Prophecy unto us, thou Christ, who is it that smoked thee?
The one that spit in his face.
The one that crowned him with thorns and all the indignities that he suffered.
God looked upon that scene.
This has gone on for 2000 years and there's been no retribution for that. There's been no answer for that, for those indignities. But there's something coming yet, the Great White Throne, and they're going to stand before that man.
That man that will sit on that throne.
And if they died unsaved, unrepentant.
The ones that abused him and misused him and spoke so insultingly to him. Pilate.
And Herod and all the ones that mocked him.
They're going to stand before that man and they're going to look into his face.
I can't.
Conceive the terror.
And the awfulness of that scene.
And then they'll hear those words depart from me.
Never knew you.
And.
They'll suffer eternally.
Away from him.
But he came to save.
He came to give his life a ransom for many.
And he's going to reign the only one that's entitled to that place.
And it says, When he hath put all things under his feet. When he hath put all things under his feet, Verse 27. But when?
He saith all things are put under him in his manifest, that He is accepted, which did put all things under Him. That would be God the Father.
And when all things shall be subdued unto him.
We read a very tremendous statement. Then shall the Son also Himself be subject unto him that put all things under him, that God may be All in all, God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
But it says the son of all these three persons takes still the place of subjection, showing us that he remains a man forever.
He remains a man forever.
And as man, it's proper to be subject, so even in eternity there will be a man around whom we gather. So Luke 12, I won't turn to it.
He's going to gird himself and come forth in service in the glory.
As man.
Let's sing 230 in closing.
230.
Oh Lord.
When we the path retrace.
Which thou on earth has trod to man Thy wondrous love and grace, thy faithfulness to God. We wonder at thy lowly mind, and fain would likely be.
And all our rest and pleasure find in learning.
Lord of the.