by Rev. D. A. MacFarlane
As enabled, I would address you to some extent on the Headship of the Redeemer, the Lord of Glory. This verse is just part of the prayer He is praying for them about verse 15. In verse 16 he gives thanks and prays then, “That ye may know what is the hope of his calling and the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints”, and many other things as it is here revealed by God the Holy Spirit. The Father put all things under the feet of the Redeemer and made Him to be the head over all things.
If men are to be saved they have need of the Redeemer as their holy and divine head of His spiritual body the Church, and of being taught their absolute need of having the Redeemer as the alone and divine covenant head of his body the Church. The Father said to the Son, “Sit here at my right hand”. However little may be referred to on this occasion, He is the alone and Holy divine Head, able to save to the uttermost all who are made willing to come and who are brought unto Him. We are invited to come, welcome to come and we ought to come when God gives us the invitation and holy exhortation. Out of His covenant fullness they receive for ever and ever. However little we may grasp of this the Father hath put all things under His feet, and given Him to be head over all things to the Church. So that He is not only the Head of His body the Church but over all things for the good of the Church, according to the blessed promise, “All things shall work together for good”, according to His glory and the need of His people down through the ages. He has control over all things invisible and visible, whether in heaven, in outer darkness or in the world. Things that are seen and temporal, then, He has divine rule and dominion over, for the glory of the triune God and for the good of the Church. We will make a reference to begin with to the absolute need of our minds and consciences’ having the Redeemer as our head and our being of the Church of the living God which He purchased with His divine atoning self-sacrifice. We have this need because the first Adam believed the devil. He was seduced by the terrible counsel which poor Eve gave him when she herself was deceived and he took the counsel of Eve and became satanic. She was also satanic. Instead of being holy, harmless and healthily well as they were, in holy harmony with the heart of the Most High, sin entered into the bosom, mind, heart, conscience, thoughts, into the soul and therefore death eternal by sin. God the Holy Spirit from the Father and along the channel of the work of Christ tells us about the satanic, brutish nature that is in man. It is with trembling, and the Lord bless us with a measure of trembling, reverence and godly fear and gratitude for telling us the truth for our good that we may put our amen to the testimony of our malady. Man is in such a fallen estate since Adam’s first sin. All mankind descended from him by ordinary generation sinned in him and fell with him. However educated men may be with the learning of this world, however theological they may be, as far as we can see, unless they get repentance, they are on their way to outer darkness. There is a great deal of rationalistic theology in our day, a plague of rationalism — the reason of man sitting in judgement on the word of God. Men as far as we can see, who sit in judgement on the word and go by their own wisdom and their own philosophical views of the Bible, are still in the state of Satan, and are enemies of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost, the Three Persons, the one God in His self-existent being. May the Lord teach us; “who teacheth like Him?” All His children are taught of Him, though some have a deeper grasp than others. Those who are taught of him seek to set to their seal that there is a satanic nature in themselves, and that they are in a state of enmity. A person by common grace, restraining grace, may go very far, and be very kindly disposed and neighbourly, and have general good will, but below the surface is the hidden man of the heart. That hidden man of the heart in myself and your soul by nature is at enmity — which is another way of saying the state of man towards the Most High is one of enmity and moral poison. His law is holy and glorious. We ought to be grateful to him; we desire to thank him for forbidding what he forbids both with regard to the first and second tables of the law. The principle of satanic enmity of the carnal mind is in every mere man of the human race. He cannot stoop to the testimony of the law apart from the work of the Holy Spirit. It takes omnipotence to bring us down to stoop to put our amen to the law and the truth of the promise — any promise. The parent promise is that the seed of the woman, the Lord of glory, the express image of His character, that He would grasp our nature. May God the Holy Spirit seal this upon us. May we pray for others and for ourselves who by nature have this moral and immoral vacuum toward God as the Creator, Law-giver and Judge. When the Lord gives the summons, we are to stand before the judgment seat like a flash of lightning, men and devils will crowd to stand before him. May we and multitudes of our fellow creatures be secretly washed, consecrated, justified, united to the Saviour in and through the Saviour by the Spirit of our God. Oh that we may be found as debtors, that we may be fleeing from the subtlety of sin, the promises of sin. The natural man believes the promise of the devil in one way or another. No man can save us. Parents pray for their children and they are right to do so, and to bring up their young, and the Lord answer their prayers according to His holy will. God the Holy Spirit must bring it home that the soul is a bankrupt. We are in a state of enmity. The eternal son of His bosom was given to be the Head of His body. However learned a man may have been — he may get a great deal of praise in the world — unless he got Christ, he is in hell. Even though he may have a D.D., he may have a column put in the paper about him, but when it comes to the last, unless a man got effectual calling in the mercy of the Lord, that is utterly worthless.
There is a self-seeking spirit in us all and it is left even in the godly. Wrestle for others as well as for yourself. The godly are children of the covenant by faith in Christ Jesus. They are reconciled to the Lord in incomprehensible grace. They are wrestling and praying that all the ends of the earth, Jews and Gentiles in our time, will be built up by the Lord as stones united to the holy corner stone, the Holy blessed one. There is no hope in man alone because mere man will never convince and convert, although men are used and are being used in their own way, in a becoming way, praying for their children and others. “The prayer of the destitute he surely will regard.” May we be poor and little and frail in our own eyes — bruised reeds and a godly father, a godly man, and another man. However nice he is, if he has not Christ there is a gulf between them. The one is in the land of the living, the other among the dead. The man without Christ would hiss like a cobra if that was possible in the face of Jehovah. We are so fallen we cannot know, but we are told by one that cannot lie that the heart is deceitful and desperately wicked. May the Lord give us the publican’s prayer — what need we have of putting our arms to it, of seeing ourselves in the mirror of the law, ten thousand times in debt to law and promise. We must needs have His secret dealing and divine dealing with us to quicken the dead in trespasses and sins that they may come to the breast of a promise and get some milk for eternity. May He enable us to take a low place in our hearts and spirits, and may multitudes upon multitudes be blessed wherever the inspired word is. The Lord spared not His own Son. the one whom He gave was not a created angel, but the one from everlasting to everlasting the brightness of His glory and the God of majesty. We read these things and hear about them, but how little we know about them. We are only of yesterday, but Thou art from everlasting. If you feel your ignorance you will bow in your heart before Him. Seek to have tears in God’s bottle, and ask, “Grant me a glimpse of the holy suitability of Immanuel; grant that I be found in Him.” If you will have these things they will come out at the Great Day — pantings to be in Christ, hanging on Christ to get a sweet smell as of ointment poured forth. You may say, No one will know whether I am longing for him or not. Well the Lord knows and He has a book of remembrance and all the time He is recording these yearnings and longings for yourself and others. He remembers them and every secret thing will be brought to light in a way beyond our understanding.
I wish to point out that the Lord from heaven is Benjamin the son of His right arm, the son of His love, who grasped our nature. You must fill in a lot of this yourself. Adam the first man went in the teeth of the commandment, God said to His beloved Son, “Thou art to be the second Adam, the Lord from heaven. Take their nature and grasp the holy human nature — the body prepared in the womb of the virgin Mary. You will be the covenant Head of the Church. The law is in bits and fragments.” Christ said to the covenant of works, “How are you? I’m pleased to meet you: I promise to satisfy you, I promise to give up the ghost to fulfil you.” He promised to gather up the fragments of the two tables of Moses, with the worth of his life and death and to hide them inside Himself. The representative and surety was made of a woman. It ought to be wonderful to us. I heard these things from my early days. I can in a sense recall yet the late Mr MacFarlane giving out Psalm 85. I was an ignorant lump, a poor unprofitable useless creature. One may remember these things and they may be blessed to you. The Lord said that He would meet the law and the curse. He said, “I promise to come under the law, meet the curse and make an end of the curse.” This is another way of saying, there is no hell, there is no eternal doom. It is the Redeemer who tells us that. Christ is the author of the Old Testament, though men were employed as sub-authors. In the days of His flesh you know that again and again He himself spoke of a lost eternity and the worm that dieth not and the outer darkness and the division between sheep and goats. We might almost say in a sense He spoke about these things and about hell more than his disciples. They preached what He taught, He solemnly put before them the fact that men perish unless they have the Redeemer as their covenant Head. That is a wide field. He took a hold of the covenant of works and said, “Now Covenant of Works, I am shaking hands with you; I will please you and satisfy you infinitely. I will give up the ghost and hide you in Myself the way the two tables were hidden in the Ark.” Turn it into good food for your own soul, nutriment for your own soul. On the ground of that satisfying of the law everyone who hears the trumpet gets the invitation though they will not come. The point at issue is that He satisfied the covenant of works and hid it in himself. He is now the Covenant Head, Head of His body the Church, and you yourself may meditate upon portions. We read later on, that we who were dead in sins He hath quickened by grace, of the free goodness of the Lord. By nature men are like a lot of serpents hissing at law and gospel. The Redeemer says, “I must turn these serpents into doves. I must impart a new nature so that they will begin to be ashamed of their own evil ways.” The Redeemer was given a multitude, they are as the stars, and there are some in this house tonight who will shine as the stars forever and ever, with Christ in them the hope of glory. If you have reason to believe before the Lord that you got grace to turn against yourself, to say with Ephraim, “Turn thou me”, then He loved you with an everlasting love, and such are in this house today. The light may be very small. I see a handle here for putting on the lights; it can be put down to make the light very, very low. So it is with the Holy Spirit’s work, it may not be very clearly seen even, but when death comes and the Lord puts the light on them, then in an instant they will shine in the full blaze of light, in love and every grace.
May we be of the spiritual seed of Immanuel. The secret things belong to the Lord. It is of sovereign grace that vipers are turned to be like doves. Watch that you will not make an excuse of divine sovereignty — because you cannot come, you will not be accountable. It is natural for us to make our excuse, to justify ourselves. Ask the Lord to change you to be a babe. “Make a little child of me. Enable me to close in with Thee on thine own terms.” It is true that no one can do this of himself. We are walking lumps of mud and mire, and the horrible pit is in us. If it were not for grace there would be no church, no salvation, nor sinners saved. Have prayers in your bosom for yourself and for the ends of the earth that they will be saved from their false wisdom, to be of the blades of grass. We read of this city, “The city shall be flourishing.” The devil has a city in this world. He has a city in Europe where Babylon is established. He has a city, to a large extent in Russia and he has a city in our own land too where we are so given to our lusts. When the Holy Spirit will come, Christ’s city shall be flourishing, her citizens abound in number shall like to the grass that grows upon the ground. None can keep it back. You might as well try to stop the sun rising tomorrow. When the Son of Righteousness rises and blesses his word men will fly as a cloud and doves to their windows. If you like Christ then you are of that number — and blades of grass. Who can count them or the fourth part of the dust of Jacob? Christ — prophet, priest and king is now in glory, stretching out His hands, “Come along now and I will make a bargain”. Ask the Lord that the Saviour be your living Head, not only your covenant Head — that God the Holy Spirit would take of this truth of Immanuel. May He take away the veil and captivate our hearts, give us a gracious frame of soul, to be good and climbing down. It is a promising sign to be climbing down. People naturally like to climb up. That the Lord would visit us and bless us! Ask the Lord to bless you with effectual calling. You read about it and hear about it time and again and we should be seeking to press our way into some of these matters. We are persuaded when the Holy Spirit works in us. Flavel is very nice on the difference between moral suasion and persuasion. Persuasion is the work of the Holy Spirit. He has won your heart and will, He was created a nature in you so that you turn against yourself, so that you turn to Immanuel on His own terms. We heard today about the crops, and how the Lord showed us kindness in giving us the barley crop and the wheat crop, and so on. The woman of Samaria after she met with Christ, the corn of wheat that was to die, went to her friends and said, “Come and see a man that told me all things ever I did — and what a mess I was!” The Holy Spirit appears to have touched them invisibly, divinely, compassionately. They poured out to see Jesus. Here was now a whole field to wheat, white all ready to harvest, ready for the Divine reaper to put in His sickle, and gather them into His garner. They appear to have been all changed before they reached Him though they listened to Him and got corn and milk from the corn of wheat who was about to fall into the ground and die. Do you think you have reason to say, “I was as a bullock; turn thou me, that Christ would be mine. Let me be thine unreservedly, in total”? Do you have this — “turn thou me and help me to hide in Immanuel, let Him be my all and in all — He who was the Son from the bosom of the Father — my Prophet, Priest and King”? How little any one of us grasps or can grasp of the holy, inconceivable, incomprehensible fullness of Immanuel in His justice, goodness and truth. Christ is the bank, and Christ is the safe, and the door of the safe is wide open. The Father is saying, “Come and welcome to Christ; in Him are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge”. They will not send detectives after you, saying you are stealing from the bank. The bank door is open. The safe is full of wisdom, justice and you are welcome to Him.
In conclusion, He is head over all things for the Church over all things in Heaven, in outer darkness and in the earth. You read all about that in the Lord’s Prayer. He is Head over all the angels in glory and He has dominion over all the spirits in hell. They are only allowed to go so far. He has put a rein on them. “The Lord will never suffer you to be tried above that ye are able to bear but will make with the trial a way of escape whereby ye may be able to bear it”. In Psalm 65 which we had He is Head over the sun and moon and stars and winds and waves. He spoke in the boat on the sea of Galilee, and the winds and waves were calmed. He is head over all the wild and tame animals, fish of the sea. He is head over the seasons — the fruits of the earth. He has created food for man and beast. “Good unto all men is the Lord”, as in Providence as was brought before us this morning. Oh! to render thanks unto the Lord, to get a little grace, a baptism, to be saturated. Our bellies may be cleaving to the dust in our ignorance, all the same may the Lord take a hold of us and saturate us with the grace of Father, Son and Holy Ghost, that we be thankful for wheat and barley, fruits of the earth and His kindness to the unworthy and undone.
We read in the scriptures of those in heaven that followed Him riding on white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and clean. They are in the army of Christ. This is difficult and mysterious; perhaps I should not refer to it. Perhaps in its primary reference this text speaks of the angels who are ministering spirits. Probably it is the case that the angels will meet the spirits of the just made perfect. I would like to think that they are in this house tonight who got this white horse of a promise and are riding on that white horse of a promise in the army of Christ. They are in the kingdom of heaven here below. There is a truth coming to my mind, I may say just floating before my mind, “This is a faithful saying, full of fidelity, and worthy of all acceptance, or acceptability”, so that we should just pounce on it. If that is made precious to you I would think that would be a white horse. You would follow Him here in the kingdom of grace to the kingdom of glory hereafter. The world is to be rolled up like a scroll. The Lord has given us corn and wheat and barley and pretty trees and flowers. The pretty things He has given us are all under His hand, He is so kind to give us pretty flowers to look at, but He is going to destroy it all with a fervent heat. Ask that you would get Himself.
May He bless His word.