Unsearchable Riches

Some of the Relationships of Christ to His People

By Edward Dennett

Chapter 1

CHRIST OUR SAVIOUR.

THIS is the first character under which Christ is apprehended. Son of God, Son of Man, the Christ of God, &c.,—all these are titles and glories of which we have but little, if any, conception until after we have been enabled, by the grace of God, to apprehend Him as meeting our need as sinners, and by faith to lay hold upon Him as our Saviour. Then, at peace with God, our hearts are at leisure; and, led by the Holy Spirit, we delight to trace out, study, and feast upon, every aspect in which He is presented for our contemplation in the Scriptures. This order is maintained in Matthew's Gospel. Thus when the angel visited Joseph, to direct him in his perplexity concerning Mary, he said, " She shall bring forth a Son, and thou shalt call His name Jesus: for He shall save His people from their sins" (Matt. i. 21). It is true, that we have His royal lineage and His miraculous conception previously set forth; but still the first announcement concerning Him is in His character as Saviour. So in the Epistle to the Romans. After the salutation and introduction, we have first of all the state and need of man—whether Gentile or Jew—set forth; and immediately thereon the blood of Christ as meeting man's guilt is introduced —i.e., Christ as Saviour. " There is no difference: for all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; being justified freely by His grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: whom God hath set forth a propitiation (mercy-seat) through faith in His blood, to declare His righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; to declare at this time His righteousness: that He might be just, and the Justifier of him which believeth in Jesus " (Rom. iii. 22-26).¹

In considering Christ, then, as Saviour, two things are mainly included, viz., His Person and His Work. Besides this, there is the action of God in raising Him from the dead and setting Him at His own right hand. But this is rather declarative, being the response of God to what Christ had done,—God's estimate of His work, of what was due to the One who had glorified Him on the earth, and finished the work which He had given Him to do (John xvii 4). Thereby God both exhibits and declares Him to be Saviour in virtue of His finished work —in virtue of the Cross.

The Person of Christ as the Saviour may first engage our attention. In the Scriptures already cited His person claims the precedence. Thus in Romans it is " the gospel of God concerning His Son (I quote the true order), who was made of the seed of David according to the flesh; and declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord " (Rom. i. 1-4). In Matthew also He is said to be the Son of David, the son of Abraham (Matt. i. 1); and then to have been begotten of the Holy Ghost—before He is announced as the Saviour. It is the Person that attracts the gaze before we can consider His work. It is otherwise with the sinner. As a rule he first learns the value of the work of Christ before he considers the truth of His person. The blessed Lord Himself, in His conversation with Nicodemus, first declares the mysterious dignity of His Person; and then proclaims His rejection and death. "No man hath ascended up to heaven, but He that came down from heaven, even the Son of Man which is in heaven. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up: that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life" (John iii. 13-15).

There are, then, two sides to the person of Christ. He was God manifest in flesh. "The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us (and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth " (John i. 14). The Word was the Eternal Son, and the Eternal Son became man. He was thus God and man—a union of extremes which was not possible in any other, and rendering His person so unfathomable, so incomprehensible, that He Himself said, "No man knoweth the Son but the Father" (Matt. xi. 27). But it is essential that we hold fast both His true Divinity and His as equally true humanity. For had He not been true man, He could not have been a sacrifice for sin, and had He not been God, His sacrifice could not have been available for all. Satan knows this, and hence, in every age, he has sought to undermine the one or the other of these truths, insinuating doubts sometimes concerning His humanity and sometimes concerning His Divinity. But it is the glory of the person of Christ that He is both Divine and human, that He is, in His one person, both God and man. This truth lies at the foundation of, and, indeed, gives its character to, redemption.

How vast a field is thus opened for our contemplation! Following Christ in His pathway down here, from the manger at Bethlehem to the cross at Calvary, we see the unfoldings both of the human and Divine. As we behold Him, His lowly guise, " His visage so marred more than any man, and His form more than the sons of men " (Isa. lii. 14); as we mark Him in companionship with His disciples, and see Him weary and resting, eating and drinking, weeping with those who wept (John xi.), and sleeping, too, on a pillow in the hinder part of the ship (Mark iv. 38), we cannot doubt that He was man. It was, indeed, the proofs of His humanity which, meeting their eyes, confounded His adversaries, and blinded them to His higher claims.

On the other hand, the evidences of His Divinity are no less clear to the anointed eye. Who but God could cleanse the leper, open the eyes of the blind, raise the dead to life, and control the winds and the waves? Hence He said to Philip, in answer to his demand to show him the Father, " Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me? the words that I speak unto you I speak not of Myself: but the Father that dwelleth in Me, He doeth the works. Believe Me that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me: or else believe Me for the very works' sake" (John xiv. 10, 11). And what He was, what He is declared to be in the Scriptures is, if possible, still more conclusive. "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." " No man hath seen God at any time; the only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him " (John i. 1, 18). He is said to be " the brightness of God's glory, and the express image of His person " (Heb. i. 3). In another epistle He is de scribed as "the image of the invisible God, the first-born of every creature: for by Him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by Him, and for Him: and He is before all things, and by Him all things consist" (Col. i. 15-17). Consider moreover His own words: " He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father " (John xiv. 9); "I and My Father are One " (John x. 30); "Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am" (John viii. 58); and who can doubt that He claimed to be Divine? ²

We cannot too often bless God for the four Gospels, in which are blended these two aspects of the person of Christ. Hence they are the profoundest of all the Scriptures—because they contain the unfoldings of a Divine-human life. No doubt the narratives are simple on their surface; but as we are led on by the Spirit of God we begin to discover that there are depths of which we had never dreamt, and into which we must gaze, and continue to gaze, if we would behold the treasures that are therein contained. And the more we are familiarised with their contents, the more shall we be impressed with the majesty of the person of Christ as the God-Man, God manifest in flesh. And it should never be forgotten that there can be no stability where there is any uncertainty as to the person of our Saviour. What strength it gives to the soul to be able to say (to quote the language of another) —" The pillars of the earth rest upon that Man who was despised, spit upon, and crucified! " It is the know ledge of what He is, no less (if not more) than what He has done, that draws out our hearts in confidence, adoration, and praise. For indeed He is over all, God blessed for ever. Amen (Rom. ix. 5.

We may now pass to the work of Christ. By it we generally understand what He accomplished on the cross—His death. In a larger view of it, there would be included His life as well as His death; but there is a broad and essential distinction between these two things. It was in His death alone that He bore the sins of His people (i Peter ii. 24).³ His life revealed what He was, showing, if we may so speak, His qualification to be an offering for sin, and proved Him to be the Lamb without spot or blemish—the Lamb of God; but it was on the cross alone that He stood in the sinner's place, met all God's righteous claims, and endured the wrath that was due to sin. It is the blood that maketh atonement (Lev. xvii. 11; see also Lev. i., ii., and xvi.). It was, therefore, on the cross alone that God dealt with Christ concerning the question of sin and sins. All through His life, though He was the Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, He reposed in the consciousness of the Father's love and smile: not a cloud ever passed between His soul and God. But when He was on the cross, there was a total change; for there it was that He was made sin; and in the unfathomable anguish of His spirit, when all God's waves and billows rolled over Him, He cried, " My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me? " (Matt. xxvii. 46). He was thus forsaken of God— forsaken because of the place He had voluntarily taken as the sacrifice for sin. At that awful moment, there fore, God was dealing with Him, instead of us, about the question of sin; though He was never more precious to God than then: for it was on the cross that He proved His obedience to the uttermost. " Therefore doth My Father love Me, because I lay down My life, that I might take it again " (John x. 17).

It was, then, on the cross—by the shedding of His blood, by all, indeed, that He suffered there, by His death, that atonement was accomplished. Hence, ere " He bowed His head and gave up the ghost," He cried, anticipatively,⁴ " It is finished " (John xix. 30). Then the work was completed which so glorified God, that on that foundation He saves, and is righteous, nay, He is glorified, in saving every one who believes. All the blessings of all the redeemed, the millennial blessing of the earth, the reconciliation of all things, the eternal happiness of saints of all dispensations, the perfection of the new heavens and the new earth —all these manifold blessings and varied glories will flow from the finished work of Christ.

This work, to speak generally, has two aspects — towards God, and towards man. The first, and, we may add, the essential aspect is God- ward. Thus on the great day of atonement, the blood of the sin-offering was carried within the veil and sprinkled " upon the mercy-seat eastward; and before the mercy-seat shall he sprinkle of the blood with his finger seven times " (Lev. xvi. 14). This was done both with the blood of the bullock which was the offering for Aaron and his house (specially typical of the Church as the priestly family of God), and also with the blood of the goat of the sin-offering which was for Israel. With out entering here upon the characteristic differences and details of these sacrifices, the point I press is that the blood in both cases was for God. I do not say (for that would be to forget other scriptures) that the blood is never for us, but here it is wholly for God; for indeed it was sprinkled before as well as upon the mercy-seat, and sprinkled there seven times, so that when the worshipper drew near he might find" its perfect testimony in the presence of God. Still it was for God, atonement being made therewith according to the requirements of His holiness, and the righteousness of His throne. It made propitiation for the sins of the people. So with Christ. " He is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the whole world" (1 John ii. 2). The efficacy, therefore, of the blood of Christ is according to its value in the eyes of God; and that is infinite. Thus if the blood sprinkled upon the mercy-seat availed, on the one hand, to make propitiation for the sins of His people; on the other, because of its unspeakable preciousness before God, inasmuch as He had been so glorified by it, and at such a cost, it became the foundation on which God is able to deal in grace with the whole world, and to send out His servants with the entreating message, Be ye reconciled to God. "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life " (John iii 16).

The other aspect to which we have alluded is that of substitution —shadowed forth by the live goat. After the blood had been sprinkled, according to Divine direction, it is said, "he shall bring the live goat: and Aaron shall lay both his hands upon the head of the live goat, and confess over him all the iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their transgressions in all their sins, putting them upon the head of the goat, and shall send him away by the hand of a fit man into the wilderness. And the goat shall bear upon him all their iniquities into a land not inhabited: and he shall let go the goat in the wilderness " (Lev. xvi. 20-22). This exactly answers to what we have in Romans. At the end of the third chapter Christ is shown as the mercy-seat through faith in His blood (ver. 25); and then at the end of the fourth, we read, "Who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification" (ver. 25). Thus not only has propitiation been made to God through the blood of Christ, but, if we are believers, we can say that He was delivered for our offences, that He has borne our sins in His own body on the tree, and carried them away into a land not inhabited —and left them there —where they can no more be found; for if He was delivered for our offences, He has been raised again for our justification.

One other thing may be added. Our sin, as well as our sins, has been dealt with in the cross. " What the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God, sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh " (Rom. viii. 3). Thus not only has God been glorified, but the whole case —both the need and the state of the sinner—is met by the work of Christ. The truth of all the sacrifices is embodied in it—the burnt-offering, as well as the sin-offering, the paschal lamb, as well as the sacrifices on the day of atonement. All these were but adumbrations—shadows of the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world — of that one sacrifice which, in the consummation of the ages, was accomplished on Calvary. But it is only after we know Him as our Saviour that we learn these things. Then, at peace with God, we delight —as we shall do throughout eternity—to contemplate the death of Christ, and to trace out, even though we may see but in part, the wondrous outlines of the work it effected, and its manifold relations both to God and ourselves.

The resurrection of Christ has a particular and special significance. " Him," says Peter, " being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain: whom God hath raised up, having loosed the pains of death: because it was not possible that He should be holden of it" (Acts ii. 23, 24). And, again and again, he emphasises the fact that God had raised up, and exalted at His right hand, the One whom they had rejected and crucified (see Acts iii. 14, 15; iv. 10; v. 30, 31). The Apostle Paul like wise enforces the same truth (see Acts xiii. 27—31; xvii. 31, &c.; also Rom. iv. 24, 25; 1 Cor. xv.; Eph. ii., &c., for his doctrinal teaching on the whole subject of the resurrection of Christ). The point I would here dwell upon is, that the resurrection of Christ was God's declaration of satisfaction with His work, that setting Him in the glory at His right hand was the expression of His estimate of its value—the response of His heart to the preciousness of the One who had done it, as well as to the claim which Christ had established upon Him by it. Our blessed Lord Him self presents this truth. Thus He said, after the traitor had gone out to accomplish his evil work, " Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in Him. If God be glorified in Him, God shall also glorify Him in Himself, and shall straightway glorify Him" (John xiii. 31, 32). Accordingly, when, in the seventeenth chapter, He takes His place in spirit beyond the cross, He pleads His work as constituting a claim upon the Father, to glorify Him with the glory which He had with the Father, before the world was (vers. 4 and 5). God's righteousness, indeed, was thus displayed in glorifying the One at His right hand, who to glorify Him " had become obedient unto death, even the death of the cross" (Phil. ii. 8-10).

But this fact has another voice to the believer. If Christ bore our sins in His own body on the tree, went down into death under the wrath and judgment which were our due, the fact of His resurrection by God shows, proves indisputably, that our sins are gone. For where is our substitute? In the glory of God. If, then, He is in the glory of God, we know, not only that our sins are left behind, but also, that God rests in perfect complacency in the One who expiated them by His death, inasmuch as He has given Him the supreme place in heaven. To borrow the language of another—"I cannot see the glory of Christ now with out knowing that I am saved. How comes He there? He is a man who has been down here mixing with publicans and sinners, the friend of such, choosing such as His companions. He is a man who has borne the wrath of God on account of sin; He is a man who has borne my sins in His own body on the tree (I speak the language of faith); He is there, as having been down here amidst the circumstances, and under the imputation, of sin; and yet it is in His face I see the glory of God. I see Him there consequent upon the putting away of my sin, because He has accomplished my redemption. I could not see Christ in the glory if there were one spot or stain of sin not put away. The more I see the glory, the more I see the perfectness of the work that Christ has wrought, and of the righteousness wherein I am accepted. Every ray of that glory is seen in the face of One who has confessed my sins as His own, and died for them on the cross, of One who has glorified God on the earth, and finished the work that the Father had given Him to do. The glory that I see is the glory of redemption. Having glorified God about the sin—' I have glorified Thee on the earth; I have finished the work which Thou gavest Me to do '—God has glorified Him with Himself there. When I see Him in that glory, instead of seeing my sins, I see that they are gone. I have seen my sins laid on the Mediator. I have seen my sins confessed on the head of the scapegoat, and they have been borne away. So much has God been glorified about my sin (that is, in respect of what Christ has done on account of my sins), that this is the title of Christ to be there, at the right hand of God. I am not afraid to look at Christ there. Where are my sins now? where are they to be found in heaven or on earth? I see Christ in the glory. Once they were found upon the head of that blessed One; but they are gone, never more to be found. Were it a dead Christ, so to speak, that I saw, I might fear that my sins would be found again; but with Christ alive in the glory the search is in vain. He who bore them all has been received up to the throne of God, and no sin can be there."

How, then, we may ask in conclusion, are we connected with Christ? It is by faith. " He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life " (John iii. 36). Again, " He that believeth on Me hath everlasting life " (John vi. 47). "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house " (Acts xvi. 31). " Being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ" (Rom. v. 1). God, in the Gospel, presents the Christ, of whom we have spoken, as the Saviour. It is therefore the Gospel of the glory of Christ (2 Cor. iv. 4), as well as of God's grace. Receiving His testimony, bowing before Him in self-judgment, exercising repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ, we are saved, linked with Christ, and are brought to God in all the acceptance of Christ Himself. Every believer is thus associated with Christ before God, and is brought into the enjoyment of all that Christ is for us, as well as of all the blessings which He has secured for us through His meritorious death and resurrection. How unspeakably blessed, then, is it to be enabled by the Spirit of God to say, Christ our Saviour. Beloved reader, are you able to claim Him as such? If not, how unspeakably sorrowful is your position. But God, even now, in the tender yearnings of His grace, meets you, as He directs your gaze to Christ at His own right hand, and proclaims by His Word, "He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life." If you are able to call Him your Saviour, then we have no words to express your blessedness; but we may remind you ' of the obligation under which you are thereby placed, to show, by word and life, that you are saved, and to testify to that grace which has called you out of darkness into God's marvellous light.  

"Oh, draw me, Saviour, after Thee,
So shall I run and never tire:
With gracious words still comfort me:
Be Thou my hope, my sole desire.
On Thee I'd roll each weight and fear:
Calm in the thought that Thou art near.

"What in Thy love possess I not?
My star by night, my sun by day,
My spring of life when parch'd with drought;
My wine to cheer, my bread to stay,
My strength, my shield, my safe abode,
My robe before the throne of God!"

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1) It is not forgotten that the Lord Jesus can only present Himself as Saviour on the ground of accomplished redemption. Hence, in this respect, He is first Redeemer and then Saviour. But we speak here of the order of apprehension.

2) When speaking of the proofs of our Lord's Divinity, it has always seemed to me that if you grant all that He claims, you must concede that He is God. For example, if we believe in, come unto, love, and serve Him as He requires, we make Him Divine: for if He were but a man it would be derogatory to the claims of God for Him to require, or for us to give, what He continually demands.

3) We are quite aware of the controversy which has been raised upon this passage. For the sake of maintaining particular views, it has been contended by some that ἐπὶ τὸ ξύλον taken with the verb should be translated " up to the tree. " But not only is this contention shown to be baseless by the usage of the words themselves, but the whole teaching of Scripture on the doctrine of the Atonement is exactly opposed to it.

4) We use the word "anticipatively," inasmuch as His death was not then actually accomplished. But all things were now fulfilled. (See verses 28-30.)