Father; second, Christ lived it in dependence on the Father; third, Christ
gave it up in death to the Father; and now, fourth, Christ received it
again raised by the Father, by the power of the glory of the Father. Oh,
the deep meaning of the resurrection of Christ! What did Christ do when He
died? He went down into the darkness and absolute helplessness of death. He
gave up a life that was without sin; a life that was God-given; a life that
was beautiful and precious; and He said, "I will give it into the hands
of my Father if He asks it;" and He did it; and He was there in the grave
waiting on God to do His will; and because He honored God to the uttermost
in His helplessness, God lifted Him up to the very uttermost of glory and
power. Christ lost nothing by giving up His life in death to the Father.
And so, if you want the glory and the life of God to come upon you, it is
in the grave of utter helplessness that that life of glory will be born.
Jesus was raised from the dead, and that resurrection power, by the grace
of God, can and will work in us. Let no one expect to live a right life
until he lives a full resurrection life in the power of Jesus. Let me state
in a different way what this resurrection means.
Christ had a perfect life, given by God. The Father said: "Will you give up
that life to me? Will you part with it at my command?" And He parted with
it, but God gave it back to Him in a second life ten thousand times more
glorious than that earthly life. So God will do to every one of us who
willingly consents to part with his life. Have you ever understood it?
Jesus was born twice. The first time He was born in Bethlehem. That was a
birth into a life of weakness. But the second time, He was born from the
grave; He is the "first-born from the dead." Because He gave up the life
that He had by His first birth, God gave him the life of the second birth,
in the glory of heaven and the throne of God. Christians, that is exactly
what we need to do. A man may be an earnest Christian; a man may be a
successful worker; he may be a Christian that has had a measure of growth
and advance; but if he has not entered this fullness of blessing, then he
needs to come to a second and deeper experience of God's saving power; he
needs, just as God brought him out of Egypt, through the Red Sea, to come
to a point where God brings him through Jordan into Canaan. Beloved, we
have been baptized into the death of Christ. It is as we say: "I have had
a very blessed life, and I have had many blessed experiences, and God has
done many things for me; but I am conscious there is something wrong still;
I am conscious that this life of rest and victory is not really mine."
Before Christ got His life of rest and victory on the throne, He had to die
and give up all. Do you it, too, and you shall with Him share His victory
and glory. It is as we follow Jesus in His death, that His resurrection,
power and joy will be ours.
And then comes our last point. The fifth step in His wondrous path was: He
was lifted up to be forever with the Father. Because He humbled Himself,
therefore God highly exalted Him. Wherein cometh the beauty and the
blessedness of that exaltation of Jesus? For Himself perfect fellowship
with the Father; for others participation in the power of God's
omnipotence. Yes, that was the fruit of His death. Scripture promises not
only that God will, in the resurrection life, give us joy, and peace that
passeth all understanding, victory over sin, and rest in God, but He will
baptize us with the Holy Ghost; or, in other words, will fill us with the
Holy Ghost. Jesus was lifted to the throne of heaven, that He might there
receive from the Father the Spirit in His new, divine manifestation, to be
poured out in His fullness. And as we come to the resurrection life, the
life in the faith of Him who is one with us, and sits upon the throne--as
we come to that, we too may be partakers of the fellowship with Christ
Jesus as He ever dwells in God's presence, and the Holy Spirit will fill
us, to work in us, and out of us in a way that we have never yet known.
Jesus got this divine life by depending absolutely upon the Father all His
life long, depending upon Him even down into death. Jesus got that life
in the full glory of the Spirit to be poured out, by giving Himself up in
obedience and surrender to God alone, and leaving God even in the grave to
work out His mighty power; and that very Christ will live out His life in
you and me. Oh, the mystery! Oh, the glory! And oh, the Divine certainty.
Jesus Christ means to live out that life in you and me. What think you,
ought we not to humble ourselves before God? Have we been Christians so
many years, and realized so little what we are? I am a vessel set apart,
cleansed, emptied, consecrated; just standing, waiting every moment for
God, in Christ, by the Holy Spirit, to work out in me as much of the
holiness and the life of His Son as pleases Him. And until the Church of
Christ comes to go down into the grave of humiliation, and confession, and
shame; until the Church of Christ comes to lay itself in the very dust
before God, and to wait upon God to do something new, and something
wonderful, something supernatural, in lifting it up, it will remain
feeble in all its efforts to overcome the world. Within the Church what
lukewarmness, what worldliness, what disobedience, what sin! How can we
ever fight this battle, or meet these difficulties? The answer is: Christ,
the risen One, the crowned One, the almighty One, must come, and live in
the individual members. But we can not expect this except as we die with
Him. I referred to the tree grown so high and beautiful, with its roots
every day for a hundred years in the grave in which the acorn died.
Children of God, we must go down deeper into the grave of Jesus. We must
cultivate the sense of impotence, and dependence, and nothingness, until
our souls walk before God every day in a deep and holy trembling. God keep
us from being anything. God teach us to wait on Him, that He may work in us
all He wrought in His Son, till Christ Jesus may live out His life in us!
For this may God help us!
CHRIST'S HUMILITY OUR SALVATION.
VII.
_Philippians 2: 5-8_.--"_Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ
Jesus. He humbled Himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of
the cross_."
All are familiar with this wonderful passage. Paul is speaking about one
of the most simple, practical things in daily life,--humility; and in
connection with that, he gives us a wonderful exhibition of divine truth.
In this chapter we have the eternal Godhead of Jesus--He was in the form of
God, and one with God. We have His incarnation--He came down, and was found
in the likeness of man. We have his death with the atonement--He became
obedient unto death. We have His exaltation--God hath highly exalted Him.
We have the glory of His Kingdom,--that every knee shall bow, and every
tongue confess Him. And in what connection? Is it a theological study?
No. Is it a description of what Christ is? No; it is in connection with a
simple, downright call to a life of humility in our intercourse with each
other. Our life on earth is linked to all the eternal glory of the Godhead
as revealed in the exaltation of Jesus. The very looking to Jesus, the
very bowing of the knee to Jesus, ought to be inseparably connected with a
spirit of the very deepest humility. Consider the humility of Jesus. First
of all, that humility is our salvation; then, that humility is just the
salvation we need; and again, that humility is the salvation which the Holy
Spirit will give us.
Humility is the salvation that Christ brings. That is our first thought. We
often have very vague,--I might also say visionary--ideas of what Christ
is; we love the person of Christ, but that which makes up Christ, which
actually constitutes Him the Christ, that we do not know or love. If we
love Christ above everything, we must love humility above everything, for
humility is the very essence of His life and glory, and the salvation He
brings. Just think of it. Where did it begin? Is there humility in heaven?
You know there is, for they cast their crowns before the throne of God and
the Lamb. But is there humility on the throne of God? Yes, what was it but
heavenly humility that made Jesus on the throne willing to say: "I will go
down to be a servant, and to die for man; I will go and live as the meek
and lowly Lamb of God?" Jesus brought humility from heaven to us. It
was humility that brought Him to earth, or He never would have come. In
accordance with this, just as Christ became a man in this divine humility,
so His whole life was marked by it. He might have chosen another form in
which to appear; He might have come in the form of a king, but He chose the
form of a servant. He made Himself of no reputation; He emptied Himself;
He chose the form of a servant. He said: "The Son of Man is not come to be
ministered unto, to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom
for many." And you know, in the last night, He took the place of a slave,
and girded Himself with a towel, and went to wash the feet of Peter and the
other disciples. Beloved, the life of Jesus upon earth was a life of the
deepest humility. It was this gave His life its worth and beauty in God's
sight. And then His death--possibly you haven't thought of it much in this
connection--but His death was an exhibition of unparalleled humility. "He
humbled Himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the
cross." My Lord Christ took a low place all the time of His walk upon
earth; He took a very low place when He began to wash the disciples' feet;
but when He went to Calvary, He took the lowest place there was to be found
in the universe of God, the very lowest, and He let sin, and the curse of
sin, and the wrath of God, cover Him. He took the place of a guilty sinner,
that He might bear our load, that He might serve us in saving us from our
wretchedness, that He might by His precious blood win deliverance for us,
that He might by that blood wash us from our stain and our guilt.
We are in danger of thinking about Christ, as God, as man, as the
atonement, as the Saviour, and as exalted upon the throne, and we form an
image of Christ, while the real Christ, that which is the very heart of His
character, remains unknown. What is the real Christ? Divine humility, bowed
down into the very depths for our salvation. The humility of Jesus is our
salvation. We read, "He humbled Himself, therefore God hath highly exalted
Him." The secret of His exaltation to the throne is this: He humbled
Himself before God and man. Humility is the Christ of God, and now in
Heaven, to-day, that Christ, the Man of humility, is on the throne of God.
What do I see? A Lamb standing, as it had been slain, on the throne; in
the glory He is still the meek and gentle Lamb of God. His humility is the
badge He wears there. You often use that name--the Lamb of God--and you use
it in connection with the blood of the sacrifice. You sing the praise of
the Lamb, and you put your trust in the blood of the Lamb. Praise God for
the blood. You never can trust that too much. But I am afraid you forget
that the word "Lamb" must mean to us two things: it must mean not only a
sacrifice, the shedding of blood, but it must mean to us the meekness of
God, incarnate upon earth, the meekness of God represented in the meekness
and gentleness of a little Lamb.
But the salvation that Christ brought is not only a salvation that flows
out of humility; it also leads to humility. We must understand that this
is not only the salvation which Christ brought; but that it is exactly the
salvation which you and I need. What is the cause of all the wretchedness
of man? Primarily pride; man seeking his own will and his own glory. Yes,
pride is the root of every sin, and so the Lamb of God comes to us in our
pride, and brings us salvation from it. We need above everything to be
saved from our pride and our self-will. It is good to be saved from the
sins of stealing, murdering, and every other evil; but a man needs above
all to be saved from what is the root of all sin, his self-will and
his pride. It is not until man begins to feel that this is exactly the
salvation he needs, that he really can understand what Christ is, and
that he can accept Him as his salvation. This is the salvation that we as
Christians and believers specially need. We know the sad story of Peter and
John; what their self-will and pride brought upon them. They needed to be
saved from nothing except themselves, and that is the lesson which we must
learn, if we are to enter the life of rest. And how can we enter that life,
and dwell there in the bosom of the Lamb of God, if pride rules? Have we
not often heard complaints of how much there is of pride in the Church of
Christ? What is the cause of all the division, and strife, and envying,
that is often found even among God's saints? Why is it that often in a
family there is bitterness--it may be only for half an hour, or half a day;
but what is the cause of hard judgments and hasty words? What is the cause
of estrangement between friends? What is the cause of evil speaking? What
is the cause of selfishness and indifference to the feelings of others?
Simply this: the pride of man. He lifts himself up, and he claims the right
to have his opinions and judgments as he pleases. The salvation we need
is indeed humility, because it is only through humility that we can be
restored to our right relation to God.
"Waiting upon God,"--that is the only true expression for the real relation
of the creature to God; to be nothing before God. What is the essential
idea of a creature made by God? It is this: to be a vessel in which He can
pour out His fullness, in which He can exhibit His life, His goodness, His
power, and His love. A vessel must be empty if it is to be filled, and if
we are to be filled with the life of God we must be utterly empty of
self. This is the glory of God, that He is to fill all things, and more
especially His redeemed people. And as this is the glory of the creature,
so this is the only redemption, and the only glory of every redeemed soul,
to be empty and as nothing before God; to wait upon Him, and to let God be
all in all.
Humility has a prominent place in almost every epistle of the New
Testament. Paul says: "Walk with all lowliness and meekness, with
longsuffering, forbearing one another in love; endeavoring to keep the
unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace." The nearer you get to God, and
the fuller of God, the lowlier you will be; and equally before God and man,
you will love to bow very low. We know of Peter's early self-confidence;
but in his epistles what a different language he speaks! He wrote there:
"Let the younger be subject to the elder, and all of you be subject one to
another; humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt
you in His own time." He understood, and he dared to preach, humility to
all. It is indeed the salvation we need. What is it that prevents people
from coming to that entire surrender that we speak of? Simply that they
dare not abandon themselves, and trust themselves, to God; that they are
not willing to be nothing, to give up their wishes, and their will, and
their honor to Christ. Shall we not accept the salvation that Jesus
offers? He gave up His own will; He gave up His own honor; He gave up any
confidence in Himself; He lived dependent upon God as a servant whom the
Father had sent. There is the salvation we need, the Spirit of humility
that was in Christ.
What is it that often disturbs our hearts, and our peace? It is pride
seeking to be something. And God's decree is irreversible, "God resisteth
the proud; He gives grace only to the humble." How often Jesus had to speak
to his disciples about it! You will find repeatedly in the Gospel those
simple words: "He that humbleth Himself shall be exalted; he that exalteth
himself shall be humbled." He taught His disciples: "He that would be
chiefest among you, let him be the servant of all." This should be our one
cry before God: "Let the power of the Holy Ghost come upon me, with the
humility of Jesus, that I may take the place that He took." Brother, do you
want a better place than Jesus had? Are you seeking a higher place than
Jesus? Or will you say: "Down, down, as deep as ever I can go. By the help
of God I will be nothing before God; I will be where Jesus was."
And now comes the third thought,--This is the salvation the Holy Ghost
brings. You know what a change took place in those disciples. Let us praise
God for it; the Holy Spirit means this: the life, the disposition, the
temper, and the inclinations of Jesus, brought down from heaven into our
hearts. That is the Holy Ghost. He has His mighty workings to bestow as
gifts; but the fullness of the Holy Ghost is this: Jesus Christ in His
humility coming to dwell in us. When Christ was teaching His disciples, all
His instructions may have helped in the way of preparation, breaking them
down, and making them conscious of what was wrong, and awakening desire;
but the instruction could not do it, and all their love to Jesus and their
desire to please Him could not do it, until the Holy Ghost came. That is
the promise Christ gave. He says, in connection with the coming of the Holy
Ghost: "I will come again to you." Christ said to His disciples: "I have
been three years with you, and you have been in the closest contact with
me, and I have done the utmost to reach your hearts; I have sought to get
into your hearts, yet I have failed; but fear not, I will come again. In
that day ye shall see me, and your hearts shall rejoice, and no man shall
take your joy from you. I will come again to dwell in you, and live my life
in you." Christ went to heaven that He might get a power which He never had
before. And what was that? The power of living in men. God be praised for
this! It was because Jesus, the humble One, the Lamb of God, the meek, the
lowly and gentle One, came down in the Holy Spirit into the hearts of His
disciples, that the pride was expelled, and that the very breath of Heaven
breathed through Him in the love that made them one heart and one soul.
Dear friends, Christ is yours. Christ as He comes in the power of the Holy
Spirit is yours. Are you longing to have Him, to have the perfect Christ
Jesus? Come, then, and see how, amid the glories of His Godhead--His
having been in the form of God, and equal to God; amid the glories of
His incarnation--His having become a man; amid the glories of His
atonement--His having been obedient to death; and amid the glories of His
exaltation, which is the chief and brightest glory, He humbled Himself from
Heaven down to earth and on earth down to the cross. He humbled Himself to
bear the name and show the meekness, and die the death of the Lamb of God.
And what is it we now need to do? How are we to be saved by this humility
of Jesus? It is a solemn question, but, thank God, the answer can be given.
First we must desire it above everything. Let us learn to pray God to
deliver us from every vestige of pride, for this is a cursed thing. Let us
learn to set aside for a time other things in the Christian life, and begin
to plead with the Lamb of God day by day, "O Lamb of God, I know Thy love,
but I know so little of Thy meekness." Come day after day, and lay your
heart against His heart, and say to Him with strong desire: "Jesus, Lamb
of God, give, oh, give me Thyself, with Thy meekness and humility," and He
will fulfill the desire of them that fear Him. It is not enough to desire
it and to pray for it; claim and accept it as yours. This humility is given
you in Christ Jesus. Christ is our life. What does that mean? Oh, that God
might give you and me a vision of what that means. The air is our life, and
the air is everywhere, universal. We breathe without difficulty because God
surrounds us with the air; and is the air nearer to me than Christ is? The
sun gives light to every green leaf and every blade of grass, shining hour
by hour and moment by moment. And is the sun nearer to the blade of grass
than Christ is to man's soul? Verily, no; Christ is around us on every
side; Christ is pressing on us to enter, and there is nothing in heaven,
or earth, or hell, that can keep the light of Christ from shining into the
heart that is empty and open. If the windows of your room were closed with
shutters, the light could not enter; it would be on the outside of the
building, streaming and streaming against the shutters; but it could not
enter. But leave the windows without shutters, and the light comes, it
rejoices to come in and fill the room. Even so, children of God, Jesus and
His light, Jesus and His humility, are around you on every side, longing to
enter into your hearts. Come and take Him to-day in His blessed meekness
and gentleness. Do not be afraid of Him; He is the Lamb of God. He is so
patient with you, He is so kindly towards you, He is so tender and loving.
Take courage to-day and trust Jesus to come into your heart and take
possession of it. And when He has taken possession, there will be a life
day by day of blessed fellowship with Him, and you will feel a necessity
ever deeper for your quiet time with Him, and for worshiping and adoring
Him, and for just sinking down before Him in helplessness and humility, and
saying: "Jesus, I am nothing, and Thou art all." It will be a blessed life,
because you will be conscious of being at the feet of Jesus. At this moment
you can claim Jesus in His divine humility as the life of your soul. Will
you? Will you not open your heart, and say: "Come in; come in?"
Come to-day, and take Him up afresh in this blessed power of His wonderful
humility, and say to Him: "Oh, Thou who didst say, 'Learn of me, for I am
meek and lowly in heart, and ye shall find rest unto your souls,' my Lord,
I know why it is that I have not the perfect life; it is my pride, but
to-day, come Thou and dwell in my heart. Thou who didst lead even Peter and
John into the blessedness of Thy heavenly humility; Thou wilt not refuse
me. Lord, here I am; do Thou, who by Thy wonderful humility alone canst
save, come in. O Lamb of God, I believe in Thee; take possession of my
heart, and dwell in me." When you have said that, go out in quiet, and
retire, walking gently as holding the Lamb of God in your heart, and say:
"I have received the Lamb of God; He makes my heart His care; He breathes
His humility and dependence on God in me, and so brings me to God. His
humility is my life and salvation."
THE COMPLETE SURRENDER.
VIII.
_Genesis 39: 1-3_.--_Joseph was brought down to Egypt; and Potiphar, an
officer of Pharaoh, captain of the guard, an Egyptian, bought him at the
hands of the Ishmaelites, which had brought him down thither. And the Lord
was with Joseph, and he was a prosperous man; and he was in the house of
his master, the Egyptian, and his master saw that the Lord was with him_.
We have in this passage an object lesson which teaches us what Christ is to
us. Note: Joseph was a slave, but God was with him so distinctly that his
master could see it. "And his master saw the Lord was with him, and that
the Lord made all that he did prosper in his hands; and Joseph found grace
in his sight, and he served him,"--that is to say, he was his slave about
his person,--"and he made him overseer over his house,"--that was something
new. Joseph had been a slave, but now he becomes a master. "And he made him
overseer over his house, and all that he had he put into his hands. And it
came to pass, from the time that he had made him overseer in his house,
and over all that he had, that the Lord blessed the Egyptian's house for
Joseph's sake, and the blessing of the Lord was upon all that he had in the
house and in the field. And he left all that he had in Joseph's hand; and
he knew not all he had, save the bread which he did eat."