THE Commemoration of the dying love of the Lord Jesus Christ in the sacrament of the Supper brings us face to face with the great central fact of the Christian religion—the cross of Christ. It is the death of the Lord Jesus Christ that is commemorated but it should never be forgotten that it is the death of One who is alive for evermore. This truth, so often overlooked is embedded in the words of institution—”for as oft as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do show the Lord’s death till he come” (I. Cor. xi. 26). The One whose death is commemorated is One who is alive otherwise the words “till He come” would lose their meaning. In the preaching of the Apostle the cross, again, occupies a position of pre-eminence—”we preach Christ crucified” he says to the Corinthian believers and, in writing to the Galatians, he says: “But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world” (Gals. vi. 14). Again, in introducing his great utterance on the resurrection bodies of believers he says: “For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures; and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures” (I. Cor. xv. 3-4). What was in the cross that led both the mind and the heart of the great Apostle captive? We mention mind as well as heart because the truth he preached concerning the cross came from a heart that had been touched to its very depths by the noon-day glory of the divine love manifested on Calvary’s accursed tree. As he looked to the tree on which the Lord of
Glory died and realised that there eternal reconciliation for God’s redeemed was made and their ransom price paid he expressed his feelings in the words—”God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of Christ.” But it must not be overlooked that not only his heart but his mind was captivated by the cross. Standing by it he looked into some of its great mysteries, the claims of divine justice, the marvellous provision made by eternal wisdom to cancel the debt and pay the ransom price for all that the Father had given the Redeemer. Mind, heart, and conscience found true satisfaction there as well as divine justice. In that cross the Apostle saw clearly revealed the culmination of eternal purposes for His people’s salvation that had been kept secret in the divine mind from eternal ages. The light of heaven was now cast on the divine announcement—”Without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sin.” This requirement was kept continually before the minds of the children of Israel throughout their history by the sacrifices offered on Jewish altars. But the very repetition of these sacrifices indicated that the way into the Holiest of All was not made manifest. We are face to face with two inscrutable wonders here. First, what was in sin that required the shedding of blood and of blood so precious as was actually shed? Secondly, what was in that blood of the Son of God that removed sin from His people? We are not careful, to use a Biblical word, to answer these questions. We are accustomed to speak of sin as an infinite evil because committed against an infinite Being but that does not solve the mystery of iniquity or throw much light on the words—”without the shedding of blood there is no remission.” We are also accustomed to speak of Christ’s blood as having infinite efficacy because it is the blood of an infinite Person but here again the mystery is not solved. There may be depths here that will find a solution in minds forever freed from the trammels of sin or they may remain mysteries forever to finite minds. We use words and phrases in connection with such matters which, when examined, we discover we are just where we were before. There are depths in God’s way of salvation which only infinite wisdom can fathom.
This brings us to the problem underlying the title of this article. What if there be in the sinner’s salvation something which baffles all the wisdom of man? What, if behind God’s wonderful plan of salvation there is a background of eternal hopelessness as far as human effort is concerned? If there be, and we believe there is, then the salvation provided is immediately ruled out of the court of human endeavour and man has no part or lot in providing it. What also if the root nature of sin is the same wherever it is found among all races and in all places? Will not the remedy be one as the disease is one? This throws light on the fact so patently presented in Scripture that there is no provision made for change of the gospel in coming ages due to civilization, education, culture, etc. The disease is the same in Central Africa as in China and in China as in Scotland. Hence the gospel which is good news about God’s salvation is as unchanging as the disease and the remedy. It is because of this the Apostle takes up such an unbending attitude to any change in the gospel he preached. In writing to the Galatians he says: “But I certify you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached of me is not after man. For I neither received it of man, neither was I taught, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ” (Gals. i. 11, 12). He had no hesitating doubts in his mind as to the finality of God’s remedy and the gospel that proclaimed it. “Though we,” he says, “or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed. As we said before, so say I now again, If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed” (Gals. i. 8-9). This strong confidence rested on a sound foundation—a revelation received from heaven that man’s salvation was altogether founded on the work that was done on Calvary’s cross. In another epistle the same idea is emphasised in the words: “How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation?” (Hebs. ii. 3). If it required a sacrifice of such infinite value to open the gates into the way of life for lost and ruined sinners then surely the remedy is unique—for no other remedy can be placed alongside it. Hence it is hopeless to
look for any other remedy. The salvation of God of which the gospel tells has as its background a state of utter ruin in which the helplessness of the sinner is rendered hopeless but not eternally hopeless for those given by the Father to the Son. For them a remedy has been provided and all the means necessary to put them in possession of covenant blessings.
It has been suggested by those given to change that the gospel telling of God’s salvation should change to meet the changing conditions of the times. A cultured and educated people are not, it is said, on the same platform as those less favoured. From a certain standpoint this is true but God’s remedy was provided for a disease that is common to the civilized and uncivilized, to the educated and the uneducated, to the cultured and the uncultured. All are victims of this disease and God’s remedy is universal. This is the peculiar glory of the gospel which the Apostle preached that it was as suitable for the cultured citizens of imperial Rome as it was for the fishermen of Galilee, unlearned and ignorant men. Hence when the Apostle appeared in the city of the mighty Caesars he did not set about to invent a new gospel and adapt his preaching to the changed circumstances but he announced to the citizens of imperial Rome that he was not ashamed of the gospel of Christ “for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith” (Rom. i. 16, 17). With such a message the Apostle knocked at the door of paganism until at length it was opened to receive the gospel. It is with this same message, good news, telling of God’s salvation, the remedy He has provided that the preacher of the cross is to go forth. It is stamped with the seal of heaven, behind it is the whole might of the Godhead to make it effective for all those for whom it is intended and its reception will bring joy and gladness into hearts almost on the border of despair. With such a message the messengers of Christ need never be ashamed for they, too, in declaring it to their fellowmen may taste of the joy it is bringing to their hearers who are drinking it in and forgetting all their sorrows.
Notes of a Sermon
By Rev. MALCOLM GILLIES, Stornoway.
Preached on Sabbath Evening, 5th March, 1939.
“Thou art fairer than the children of men” (Ps. xlv. 2).
DAVID, the sweet Psalmist of Israel is given a unique character in the Word of God—“To whom also He gave testimony, and said, I have found David, the son of Jesse, a man after mine own heart which shall fulfil all my will” (Acts, xiii. 22). No doubt, there were more ways than one in which this character belonged to David. We think it was eminently his in his whole-hearted delight in nearness and fellowship with God and in his soul yearning after that fellowship. This is evident not only by his seasons of joy, but by his deep sorrow and repentance when sin robbed him of that joy which was to him something better than life itself. David is pre-eminently the mouth-piece of the Church of God in every age, as far as a real and Spirit-given religious experience is concerned. An eminent preacher is often referred to as having said no matter how high he might rise in the exercise of the enjoyment of God’s favour, he found David much higher; and no matter how low he might be brought in darkness and desertion, he always found David much lower. The Psalmist was oftentimes in the depths. The deeps and darksome caves were well known to him. We find him on one occasion, pleading his own case and providing the very expression to be used by his Son and Lord in the sore amazement and agony of His vicarious sufferings:—
“Let not the flood on me prevail
Whose water overflows,
Nor deep me swallow, nor the pit
Her mouth upon me close.”
But it was otherwise with David when he poured out his whole soul in the words of this Psalm. It is evident that, like Moses he was given a Pisgah view of something better than the Promised Land. The Holy Spirit set before him the glory of “the King,” so that his heart could not contain itself but had to pour
forth its song of a good matter, good news, veritable gospel, the gospel which was to come to us in these latter days. The Holy Spirit is testifying beforehand in David, as He did the sufferings, so now the glory that was to follow. David seems to be comparing his heart to the sacred pot or pan in which the meat-offering of meal finely ground and unleavened was boiled in oil and presented to the Lord. His heart was bubbling up and boiling over with the goodness of his theme, and he must give full scope to his gladness as he sings of Him whose throne is for ever and ever, who loved righteousness and hated iniquity and who is anointed with the oil of gladness above His fellows.
A Song of Loves is the title of this wonderful Psalm. In it, David speaks of Christ’s love to the Church and that same love reciprocated in her love to Him. He will set forth the things concerning “the King” who loved His Church and at the same time loved righteousness; of Him who commends His love to His Church by His love to righteousness and His love to righteousness by His love to the Church. Samuel Rutherford, among other seraphic expressions, spoke of Christ as “my kingly King.” David here cannot but employ his harp to the praise of the kinglyness of King Jesus. The late Rev. Donald Macfarlane, Dingwall, in his own inimitable way, speaking from II. Sam. xxiii. 5. said that when David was on his death-bed, he sat up and announced to his courtiers that stood around:—”I am going to preach.” They asked him for his text. “My text is,” he replied, “Though my house be not so with God; yet He hath made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things and sure.” In like manner we can say that David’s text here is the matchless excellency of Him whom he is constrained to address in the words before us:—”Thou art fairer than the children of men.”
In considering these words as enabled, let us notice:—
- That the Lord Jesus is fairer than the children of men in His Adorable Person.
- That He is fairer than all in His Mediatorial Office.
III. That He is fairer than the children of men in the several relations He sustains to His people.
I. Christ, fairer than the children of men in His Person.
The fairest of the children of men, apart from Him of whom the text speaks, was Adam in a state of innocence. Even those who from the beginning of time were made new creatures by the grace of God had in themselves many blots and blemishes. But Adam was in his whole person spotless and pure. He was eminently fair. God made him even in his body upright, giving him an excellency in that which He formed out of the dust, above all earthly creatures. Man stands in spite of all Darwinian and Higher Critical theories, exalted in his bodily nature far above all the creatures which the Lord God has made. But it was in his living soul, breathed into his nostrils and which was formed after the image of Him that created him that the fairness of Adam excelled. There is no beauty comparable to that knowledge, righteousness and holiness which was to reflect as the basis of that glory and honour and lordship given to him under God over all the other creatures. But the Lord Jesus Christ in His Person is fairer than Adam, the fairest of all the children of men. In His Person, He is no creature, but the eternal One, the Son in the bosom of the Father. Him the Father addresses:—”Thy throne, O God is forever and ever; a sceptre of righteousness is the sceptre of thy kingdom. Thou has loved righteousness and hated iniquity; therefore, God, even thy God hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows. And thou, Lord in the beginning hast laid the foundations of the earth and the heavens are the works of thine hands: they shall perish but thou remainest and they all shall wax old as doth a garment; and as a vesture thou shalt fold them up and they shall be changed, but thou are the same, and thy years shall not fail (Heb. i. 8-12). In that adorable Person, He took our nature into union with His eternal divine nature—a holy human nature made in all points like unto His brethren. In the state of humiliation, He emptied Himself so as to be dependent on the Father’s sustenance given to Him in promise. He drew not from His own infinite resources as God for His own immediate
needs. If He walked on the sea, if He made bread to increase miraculously, it was to minister to the necessities of those He came to save. What a source of comfort and blessing it is to know that Jesus then and much more now exercises the infinite fulness which is His as Immanuel to succour His people and meet all their needs to the very uttermost. In the days of His flesh He was made in all points like unto His brethren. They are made like unto him in this that they must not depend on any grace and privilege already theirs, but draw by faith on His promise from the all fulness that dwells in Him.
Adam received a holy human nature from God but he destroyed it by sin. Jesus is fairer than Adam, in that He is still and forever the Holy, the Undefiled and Separated from sinners. Adam in the midst of the fulness of the Garden of Eden and wanting nothing was tempted by the Devil and weakly succumbed. Jesus, after fasting forty days in the wilderness in which the very loaf-like stones seemed to mock His hunger, withstood Satan so that he fled wholly defeated. Is Christ not fairer than Adam and all the children of men in this? But Jesus is fairer than all, in that at the end of the journey, He could say:—”The Prince of this world cometh and hath nothing in Me.” This was not because Satan ever allowed an opportunity of temptation to pass. Who for instance was behind the action of Peter when he drew the sword to defend his Lord in the Garden of Gethsemane? Satan’s subtle policy, we think, was behind that act, in order to bring the Lord Jesus Christ and His weak Church into unlawful conflict with the civil and ecclesiastical power. The subtlety of the Devil is only all the more illustrated by how altogether right and praiseworthy Peter’s act was in his own eyes and how this and similar acts are so ready to be applauded and defended by such as are so blinded by prejudice or carnal reasons as to be totally incapable of discerning the real issues involved.
We come now to consider:—
II. That the Lord Jesus Christ is fairer than the children of men in His Mediatorial Office. Adam was set up as a Covenant Head. God made the Covenant of Works with him as having
all his posterity federally in him. By his obedience or disobedience he and they in him were to stand or fall. The Lord Jesus was set up from eternity as the Mediator of the Covenant of Redemption and as the Covenant Head of an elect people given to Him by the Father. He undertook to answer and satisfy all the claims of Law and Justice on their behalf and glorify all the attributes of the Divine Nature in their reconciliation to God.
We have to remark that the Lord Jesus Christ is infinitely fairer than Adam as a Covenant Head. Adam himself and his federal children in relation to the Covenant of Works were viewed as in a state of innocence and holiness. By his own sinful act, he brought himself and the whole human race into an estate of sin and misery. The Lord Jesus as the Surety and Covenant Head of His people was held accountable for them, viewed as ruined in state and in nature, under the wrath of God and under the fearful curse of a broken Divine Law, and held captive by their own sinful lust and thus under the dominion of Satan. They were thus given to Him as utterly lost and undone as in themselves. He undertook their complete salvation from that awful condition and will ultimately bring them to a more glorious state of perfection than the human race could have, even though Adam had retained innocence.
Supposing Adam had by perfect obedience established himself and all his posterity, that standing would only be in creature righteousness. His children could then say:—”We enjoy the favour and blessing of God because our first father continued by his obedience in the condition in which he was created.” But Christ is fairer than Adam as a Covenant Head in that He as God-Man in all His Glory as a Redeemer is the Standing of His people. “Behold the days come, saith the Lord, that I will raise up unto David a righteous Branch and a King shall reign and prosper, and shall execute judgment and justice in the earth. In His days Judah shall be saved and Israel shall dwell safely, and this is the name whereby He shall be called, THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS.”
Further, the Lord Jesus Christ as a Prophet is fairer than the children of men. He Himself was with the Father from all eternity and received the words which He was to speak to men in time. The Lord God gave to Him the tongue of the learned that He might know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary. He could say:—”The words I speak are not mine but the Father’s which sent Me.” Who can estimate the preciousness of having fellowship with Jesus as a Prophet. “I have given them the words Thou hast given Me, and they have received them,” etc. None other can set forth the glorious matters pertaining to a Triune God and to man’s salvation as He can. None at all can apply them in a saving manner but Christ alone. His glory as a Prophet is that He reveals to us by His Word and Spirit the Will of God for our salvation. You are saying in your heart:—”I am so dark and brutish. My case is a hopeless one.” Not so, My Friend, Jesus never failed to make the darkest sinner that applied to Him, wise unto salvation. He would lose His Glory as a Prophet if it could be said that there was one sinner so utterly ignorant and undone that Christ was unable to make him wise unto salvation, and the one is as impossible as the other.
The Scriptures emphasize the all-fairness of the Lord Jesus Christ as the one and only High-priest between God and man. The Priesthood of the Lord of Glory is the basis of His whole mediatorial function. It was with a view to His exercising an unchangeable priesthood that He was set up from everlasting. He is a Redeemer because He is a priest. He is a prophet and a king because He is a priest. In His all-availing priesthood, His mediation is as glorifying to the claims of an infinitely holy and righteous God as it is saving to us. Aaron was very fair as the High-priest in the things pertaining to God as he stood before the Mercy Seat to intercede for Israel. Jesus is fairer than Aaron, than all the priests that ever were. Over against the glory of our adorable Lord, they and all that they ever did, were weak and beggarly elements (Gal. iv. 9). Sinful men, taken from
among men, they were beggarly priests, not worthy to be compared though they typified the Son in the bosom of the Father and in Man’s nature whom He caused to draw near and to approach unto Him (Jer. xxx. 21). As His person, so also His sacrifice of Himself constitutes Him infinitely fairer than the children of men. This sacrificial act of His opened up a special channel for the love of the Father to flow forth to Him. “Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life that I might take it again.” As the fat and the blood in Israel belonged to God alone and was consumed on Jehovah’s altar, so it is He alone who weighs the mountains in scales and the hills in a balance that can infinitely estimate the infinite value of that One Offering and who can adequately comprehend the unsearchable love to Himself as Father and as righteous Judge which was the motive in the heart of the Great High-priest in offering that Sacrifice. That He purchased them with His own blood is especially that which makes Jesus the fairest of the fair in the estimation of all His people. It is His Holy Spirit by the Word revealing Christ and Him crucified who performs the creative work of regeneration in their souls by which God the Father, formerly only a righteous Judge, becomes their Covenant God in the gift of His Son. His cross becomes not only the basis of their hope of salvation but the undeniable proof of His everlasting love for them. They begin here to learn that song:—”Unto Him that loved and washed us from our sins in His own blood” and they shall sing this song with ever increasing knowledge and unspeakable joy throughout the endless ages of eternity.
In His continual intercession before the Throne, Jesus is infinitely fairer than the children of men. Such is the fairness of His Person, such is the glory accruing to Him who is God over all by the presence of the Great High Priest, such are the all-availing grounds upon which He carries on His mediatorial function that He needs no strong crying and tears which were necessary to Him in His deep humiliation. The Holy Ghost assures us that all that is necessary is that He appears in the presence of God for us. This brings forth the fulness of the
blessing out of the House of the Lord (Psalm cxviii. 26). The context sets forth in a special manner Jesus as the fairest of the fair as “The King.” Our Lord is King in His own inherent right as God. He is His Father’s Mediatorial Priest-King. He is His people’s Redeemer-King. He is His enemies Judicial-King. What a fair King is Jesus, each one of His people will say, when He made of the city an heap and of the strong city a ruin, the palace of strangers to be no city, and which can never be rebuilt (Isaiah, xxv. 2). My heart was such a city, such a palace which the strong man armed kept in peace. Thou, O Jesus, art the stronger than He; who hast overcome Him and taken from him the armour in which he trusted and hath spoiled his house. Christ who is fairer than the children of men executeth the office of a King by subduing us to Himself. Grace in the heart of the believer desires more and more of this subjection. The child of God will never be at peace until he and all that in him lies altogether prostrate at the feet of Jesus, like the woman who washed His feet with her tears and wiped them with the hairs of her head. “Thou art fairer than the children of men,” for thou must reign till all thine enemies are made thy footstool.
III. In the many relations He sustains to His people, the Lord Jesus Christ is fairer than the children of men. In the context of this Psalm, there is a relation between Christ and His Church, which is much insisted upon throughout the Scriptures, the relation between Husband and Spouse, between the Bridegroom and His Bride. In this mysterious relation, Jesus is transcendentally fairer than the children of men. He is so in His infinitely gracious condescension in that He should set His everlasting love upon hell-deserving sinners who had lifted up the heel of rebellion and who spurned His overtures of love and mercy with disdain. His determination to have as His fulness a people lying in their own blood, unwashed, uncared for, hateful and hating one another is the great mystery of godliness. In His love He resolved to become such a fulness for them as would eternally establish them as His fulness which He cannot
do without. He foresaw all the humiliation, sufferings, death which he would have to endure, but “many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it. Though a man would give all the substance of His house for love, it would utterly be contemned” (Song, viii. 7). His, verily, was sovereign, electing love; suffering, dying love; reigning, wooing love; uniting, sustaining love; and, ultimately, eternal, perfecting love. Jesus further is fairer than the children of men as His people’s foundation before God. The Scripture declares, “None other foundation can any man lay than that which is laid, Jesus Christ” (I. Cor. iv. 11). He alone is the Rock. All in the creature, all in the world, everything temporal is either sinking sand or miry clay. Jesus alone is made unto His own people by God, Wisdom, Righteousness, Sanctification and Redemption. Build alone on the Rock of Ages, on the Stone that has seven eyes. Jehovah has engraved the graving thereof and has thus removed the iniquity of that land in one day (Zech. iii. 9).
Jesus Christ the Lord is a Friend that loveth at all times and a Brother that is born for adversity. Oh! how unlike Jesus the children of men are. Those they love to-day, they hate tomorrow. Our friends and brothers are such as allow us to follow the bent of our uncircumcised hearts and that flatter us in our pride and rebellion and sin. Jesus is fairer than the children of men as a Friend and Brother. He gives wounds but they are faithful wounds. He rebukes and chastens, but it is in order that we may be partakers of His holiness. He is the One that will not leave you when all others may or must leave you. He will go with you even through the dark waters of the river that must be crossed to reach Immanuel’s goodly Land. He loves at all times, not only when you have His presence but when your groaning voice utters:—
“Forever will the Lord cast off,
And gracious be no more?
For ever is His mercy gone?
Fails His Word evermore?”
You must see the back parts of your Lord, if you are to enjoy His face forever. Weeping may endure for a night, but joy will come in the morning. Dear Child of God, wipe your face. There is a bright everlasting morning before you, for Jesus is fairer than the children of men and will never deny either His friendship or His duty to His brethren. “I am the Good Shepherd,” Jesus says, and in this also He is fairer than the children of men. Never did a shepherd have such a flock of sheep and lambs; a number that no man can number is only possible to Him. But the Lord Jesus Christ is He who brings out the starry hosts of heaven by number. “He calleth them all by names by the greatness of His might for that He is strong in power; not one faileth” (Isa. x. 26). “The sheep hear His voice: and he calleth His own sheep by name, and leadeth them out” (John, x. 3). The Jehovah of the starry heavens “shall feed His flock like a shepherd; He shall gather the lambs with His arm, and carry them in His bosom and shall gently lead those that are with young” (Isa. xl. 11). He shall say to the Father at last:—”Of all that thou hast given me, I have lost none.” Dear friend, have you a hope that you belong to the flock of the Good Shepherd? Have you been folded by Him. There is a stormy night of everlasting darkness at hand and the Roaring Lion will have a morsel sweet to his taste in the soul and body of every sinner outside Jesus’ fold and to whom He, in His matchless excellency is not fairer than the children of men.