The Fellowship of His Son
“GOD is faithful, by whom ye were called into the fellowship of His Son Jesus Christ our Lord” (1 Cor. i:9). A blessed word this is. By nature the Corinthians were in another fellowship. The same Epistle (vi:9-11) tells us what some of them were. Like ourselves by nature they were in the fellowship of sin and death and in fellowship with him, who is the author of sin and the enemy of God, Satan. But a faithful God called them and has called us by the Gospel into the fellowship of His Son Jesus Christ our Lord. If we have obeyed the Gospel and accepted the gift of God we are brought through the Grace of God into the fellowship of the Son of God. All believers are in the same fellowship, one with the Lord.
But that is a truth and a blessed revelation far deeper than our mind can fathom or our pen could describe. No saint has ever sounded the depths of this wonderful call of God nor can God’s saints fully know what that fellowship all means, until the blessed day comes when we shall see Him as He is and when joined to Him we shall be like Him.
And yet we can remind ourselves of the little we know and through it encourage our hearts. Faith loves to dwell upon the blessed Person, whom faith alone through the Spirit’s power can make a living reality. And God, the faithful God, loves to hear His children speak much of Him, whom He loves, the Son of His Love, the Lord Jesus Christ.
Fellowship means to have things in common. And that is what God has done. He has taken us through His Grace out of the fellowship in which we are by nature, the things we have in common as enemies and children of wrath and has called us into the fellowship of His Son. And now called of God into this fellowship we have things in common with His Son the Lord Jesus Christ. This brings before us once more the old story, which never grows old, but is eternally new and becomes more blessed the more we hear it. The Son of God, He who is the true God and the eternal Life, came to this earth and appeared in the form of Man. “The Life was manifested; and we have seen, and bear witness, and show unto you that eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us” (1 John i:2). And He who is the true God and the eternal life, by whom the worlds were made, gave Himself for our sins. He came to give His life as a ransom for many, to make propitiation for the whole world. He who knew no sin was made sin for us and on the Cross peace was made. There in His own body on the tree He bore our sins. All who believe on Him, who have accepted Jesus as their Saviour, are taken out of that in which they are by nature and are brought into Christ. And here we can with praising hearts and full assurance sing of our blessed position in Him.
Lord Jesus, are we one with Thee?
Oh height, oh depth, of love!
And crucified and dead with Thee,
Now one in heaven above.
Such was Thy grace, that for our sake
Thou didst from heaven come down;
With us of flesh and blood partake,
And make our guilt Thine own.
Our sins, our guilt, in love divine,
Confessed and borne by Thee;
The gall, the curse, the wrath, were Thine,
To set Thy ransomed free.
Ascended now, in glory bright,
Life-giving Head Thou art;
Nor life, nor death, nor depth, nor height
Thy saints and Thee can part.
But the fellowship of His Son into which the Grace of God has brought us means more than this blessed new relation and the positional truth that as believers we have been crucified with Christ and that we are risen with Him. The life we possess as born again is His own life. We possess the life of Him, who died in our stead. Christ is our life. This means fellowship of His Son, we are one with Him. We also possess His Spirit. The Spirit of Christ dwelleth in us and we are “one Spirit with the Lord.”
This oneness with Christ, the fellowship of His Son, that we belong to Him and He to us, that we have an inheritance in Him and He has an inheritance in us, is a great truth. Like every other revealed truth it must be a reality in our lives. We are called by God to walk in this fellowship. We know we are in Him, and through Grace we abide in Him. But it is also written, “He that saith he abideth in Him ought himself also so to walk even as He walked.” His own life must be manifest. In this fellowship of His Son we have the strength to walk as He walked, because we have His life and His Spirit. There is no need to walk after the flesh, but we can always walk in the Spirit and walking thus we walk as He walked. And this spiritual walk becomes possible as our hearts dwell in faith on the fact that we are called into the fellowship of His Son. We must have this wonderful fact constantly before our hearts as a real thing. Then all we do will be governed by it.
If this is real how can we be conformed to this world? The world in all its aspects is the enemy of God. In that fellowship we walked once “according to the course of this world.” Should we then turn back to it and enjoy its pleasures and ambitions? If we do, we walk in the flesh and then we do not know the joy and peace of the fellowship of His Son, but are joyless and miserable. But if the fact of the fellowship of God’s Son is a reality in power, it will keep us from being conformed to this world.
We believe the Spirit of God presses this home to the consciences of His people and calls us to a separated walk.
And this must lead to another phase of the fellowship of His Son Jesus Christ. It is written “always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body” (2 Cor. iv:10). This stands in connection with persecution and suffering. Walking in the fellowship of His Son Jesus Christ the Apostle had one great desire, “That I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being made conformable to His death” (Phil. iii:10). To the Colossians he wrote “who now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for His body’s sake, which is the church” (Col. i:24). He suffered and bore His reproach. His heart in the enjoyment of the fellowship desired the fellowship of His sufferings. We know little of these because we are conformed to this world and not loyal to our Lord and God’s calling. But if we walk in conscious fellowship with Him and are loyal to Him we too will know a little of the fellowship of His sufferings. Then our hearts long that we may “bear His reproach.” The blessed One of God is rejected, can our hearts be satisfied with anything less than being rejected too? Perhaps if we were to lift up our voices now against the Christ dishonoring things, both in doctrine and practice, which are the leading features of the present-day religious world, we would know a little more of this fellowship.
Called into the fellowship of His Son Jesus Christ our Lord means also to share His work. We are called to serve. He was here as One that serveth, and we are “to serve one another in love.” “Whosoever will be great among you let him be your minister; and whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant” (Matt. xx:26-27). We can be servants with Him. He is intercessor and burden-bearer and we have a share in this likewise.
And there is the fellowship of His Son in its eternal aspect. God’s calling is to be like His Son. “For whom He did foreknow, He also predestinated to be conformed to the image of His Son that He might be the firstborn among many brethren” (Romans viii:29). We shall be with Him forever and like Him.
And is it so – I shall be like Thy Son?
Is this the grace which He for me has won?
Father of glory, (thought beyond all thought!) —
In glory, to His own blest likeness brought!
Oh, Jesus, Lord, who loved me like to Thee?
Fruit of Thy work, with Thee, too, there to see
Thy glory, Lord, while endless ages roll,
Myself the prize and travail of Thy soul.
Yet it must be: Thy love had not its rest
Were Thy redeemed not with Thee fully blest.
That love that gives not as the world, but shares
All it possesses with its loved co-heirs.
May the Holy Spirit hold these great truths before our hearts and in His power may we be consciously and constantly enjoying the fellowship of His Son Jesus Christ our Lord, till we are called by Himself to be with Him.
Out of His Fulness
John i:16
“AND of His fulness have all we received, and grace upon grace” (John i:16). This precious word was not spoken by John the Baptist. It must be looked upon as an outburst of praise, similar to the one which stands in the beginning of Revelation (Rev. i:5-6). It is the adoring utterance of all believers acknowledging the reception of that unfathomable and never failing grace, which flows from the eternal fountain, the Son of God. Out of the fulness of Himself believing sinners receive grace upon grace. His own fulness is the source, which supplies all the need of those, who by Him believe on God, that raised Him from the dead and gave Him glory (1 Pet. i:2). That exhaustless fulness is always ready to sustain, to help, to comfort, to strengthen and to fill those, who are in Christ, one with Him.
But what is this fulness of which we receive and receive so abundantly? The blessed Son of God possessed in all eternity fulness. The Holy Spirit in this chapter bears a testimony to this fact by a great revelation. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him; and without Him was not anything made ‘that was made.’ In Him was life; and the life was the light of men” (John i:1-4). What a wonderful revelation this is! The Word which was in the beginning, which ever was God, by whom all was made, without whom nothing came into existence, is the Son of God. The fulness of the Godhead was His before the world was made, for He is God. Then we read in this chapter, “and 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.” He came to this earth, He took on the form of man, the eternal Word was made flesh, God manifested in the flesh. And as He walked on the earth the fulness of the Godhead was pleased to dwell in Him (Col. i:19). But before we could ever receive out of His fulness grace upon grace, the Son of God had to die. If He had not died and accomplished the great work for which He came into the world, His fulness would have been forever inaccessible to sinners. But He went to the cross and finished there the great work. Christ died for us; He who knew no sin was made sin for us. And now it is written of Him, the glorified One, the Man in Glory. “For in Him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily. And ye are complete in Him, which is the head of all principality and power” (Col. ii:9-10). He, who possessed eternally all fulness, who came to this earth and in whom the fulness of the Godhead dwelt, who died on the cross the just for the unjust, who His own self bore our sins in His own body on the tree, is now as Man in glory and there dwelleth in Him bodily the fulness of the Godhead. It is all for us; we can now receive grace upon grace, because of Him who is the Second Man, the Head of the new creation and with whom God has made us, who believe, one. This is the deep and yet simple Gospel. God gave His blessed Son, who was forever one with Him, that through Him we might receive of the fulness of the Godhead, grace upon grace. Brought to God in such a way, washed, sanctified and justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God, we are receiving all we need. We receive it not on our merit, because we labor or agonize for it, but we receive of His fulness. But who can begin to tell out what that is, grace upon grace? Pages upon pages might be written and filled with the good things, the spiritual blessings, the joy, the peace, the comfort, the power and the wisdom and many other things, which are included in “grace upon grace.” And after we mentioned all these precious things, we would have to put the pen down and confess our insufficiency to tell out the riches, the fulness and vastness of “grace upon grace.”
This expression brings a great cataract like Niagara to our mind. Here we stand and behold the mighty waters rushing down. Oh! the mighty rushing waters, who can measure them! What a vast, inexhaustible supply! Water upon water dashing down. For ages this has gone on. Hundreds of years, more than that, thousands of years have witnessed the same mighty waters. Every day, every hour, every minute, every second, every fraction of a second – incessantly mighty rushing waters upon waters!
In the same way there is pouring forth out of His fulness, the fulness of the Lord in Glory – grace upon grace. There is an unlimited, inexhaustible supply of the water of life from Him who is the life. For ages the saints of God, saved by grace, have received grace upon grace. A never ceasing stream of grace has been flowing forth and it has not impoverished the marvellous eternal supply. Still it flows undiminished – still there is grace upon grace. Yea it is grace upon grace by which God’s people live. Every hour, every minute, every second, every moment it is His grace, grace upon grace which keeps us, surrounds us, flows upon us and overshadows us. And the more we take and enjoy the more we learn to sing.
More and more, more and more,
Always more to follow!
Oh, His matchless, boundless Grace,
Still there’s more to follow!
Will it ever stop? No, never! We shall keep on singing in all eternity “still there’s more to follow! – still there’s more to follow.” Hallelujah! “That in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His Grace in His kindness toward us through Christ Jesus” (Eph. ii:7). Always more to follow! Still there’s MORE to follow. All Praise to Him who died to have it so for us poor lost sinners, whose lot should have been, as it is the lot of all who reject this marvellous grace – always more to follow – in eternal darkness and despair.
And how simple it is to receive “of His fulness grace upon grace.” Look at this never ceasing spring of pure water, it never fails. You approach it a weary, thirsty, dustladen traveler. You need to be refreshed. You need the cooling drink. You need washing. What then is necessary? Oh! to fill your cup. Just to take for it is for you. And so this wonderful grace which flows out of His fulness. It is for you, just come and take. Fill your cup, fill it again! Drink oh drink! “Of His fulness have all we received, grace upon grace.”
The Twenty-second Psalm
The Cross of Christ
THE Twenty-second Psalm contains a most remarkable prophecy. The human instrument through whom this prophecy was given is King David. The Psalm does not contain the experience of the King, though he passed through great sufferings, yet the sufferings he speaks of in this Psalm are not his own. They are the sufferings of Christ. It is written in the New Testament that the prophets searched and enquired diligently about the coming salvation. The Spirit of Christ, which was in them testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ (1 Peter i:10-11). David was a prophet, and in this great prophecy the Spirit of Christ testified of the sufferings of Him, who is both David’s Lord and David’s son.
The book of Psalms, so rich and full of Himself, so inexhaustible in description of our ever blessed Lord, is divided into five books, which correspond to the five books with which the Bible begins, the Pentateuch. The first book (Psalm i-xli) contains some of the great prophecies about the Christ of God; these prophecies are in the so-called messianic Psalms. Perfect and divine is the order in which they are revealed. Son of God– The Second Psalm. Son of Man– The Eighth Psalm. Obedient One– The Sixteenth Psalm. Obedient unto Death, the Death of the Cross – The Twenty-second Psalm. Highly exalted by God– Revealed in each of these Psalms. This is the order in which the Holy Spirit describes the path of the Lord in Phil. ii:6-11. How perfect the Word of God is!
The Twenty-second Psalm, the center of the first part of the book of Psalms, the Genesis portion, corresponds to the twenty-second chapter in the book of Genesis. There we see Isaac bound upon the altar having been led there and put upon the altar by his Father while he opened not his mouth. Here we behold the true Isaac on the cross. Everything in this Psalm speaks of our blessed Lord; in the first part of His sufferings, in the second part of His Glory and exaltation.
And we must not overlook the two Hebrew words the Holy Spirit has put over this Psalm: Aijeleth Shahar. The margin tells us they mean “the hind of the morning.” This has a beautiful, though hidden meaning. Some have thought of the innocent suffering of a wounded hind and the dawn of the morning brings relief. They have applied this to the death and resurrection (in the morning dawn) of the Lord. But the meaning is better still. The oldest Jewish traditions give us the key. They take the expression “Aijeleth Shahar” to mean the Shechina, the glory cloud, which was visible among His people and they speak of “the hind of the morning” as being the dawning of redemption. The dawning of the morning is compared by them with the horns of the hind, on account of the rays of light appearing like horns. According to their tradition the lamb was offered as the sacrifice in the morning as soon as the watcher on the pinnacle of the temple cried out “Behold the first rays of morning shine forth.”
But what pen can describe the predictions and the fulfilment of His sufferings, the sufferings of the Holy One! Here we behold what it cost Him to redeem us. Here we have the full description of what His atoning work meant. Here we see the full meaning of the sin-offering.
Well may we bow our heads and hearts here and worship as we gaze upon this picture. The opening word of the Psalm expresses the consummation of all the sufferings of Christ, that word which came from the darkness, which surrounded the cross and in which we are face to face with the unsearchable depths of His atoning work. “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me.” He who was ever with the Father, one with Him in all eternity, who could say on earth “I am not alone” was left alone. He was forsaken of God. But more than that. Jehovah bruised Him; He put Him to grief. The spotless One bore the wrath of God alone. It was then that He who knew no sin was made sin for us. How significant it is then that the Holy Spirit puts that word of the Lord Jesus Christ before the predictions of His physical sufferings. They tell us what our redemption cost Him – the awful price, forsaken of God. The Psalm also emphasizes what man under the terrible instigation of Satan did unto Him. We glance at some of these sufferings as expressed by His own Spirit.
“But I am a worm, and not man; a reproach of men, and despised of the people” (verse 6). This is His own complaint. No longer a man but writhing on the ground like a worm, the substitute of sinners, thus the Holy One felt when He was numbered among the transgressors. The Hebrew word “worm”, means the small insect, the coccus, from which the scarlet color is obtained by death of this worm, that color which was used in connection with the tabernacle. Thus He died as our substitute that our sins though they are as scarlet might be white as snow. Men reproached Him; His own people despised and rejected Him. Then we read how He was mocked and scoffed at. They “laugh me to scorn,” they “shoot out the lip,” they “shake the head.” The very language of the leaders of the people as they surrounded the cross is given by the Spirit of God. “He trusted on the Lord that He would deliver Him, seeing He delighted in Him” (verse 7). What depths of the depravity of the human heart they reveal! And in all this, while He suffered thus from man His sole trust was in God (verses 9-10). His whole life was to trust in the Lord to lean upon Him, till that moment came when God could no longer know Him as His own, when the sword, the sword of judgment awoke against the Man, the fellow, the companion of the Lord of hosts (Zech. xiii:7). What that sword did to Him is expressed by the cry of the forsaken One.
And what else do we find here? We can follow the whole story of the cross in the first part of this Psalm. His enemies are described, the bulls and the ravening and roaring lion. – “I am poured out like water.” – “All my bones are out of joint.” – “My heart is like wax; it is melted in the midst of my bowels.” Like fire melteth wax so His heart melted in the fire of wrath against sin. The strength of the mighty One, who fainteth not and knows no weariness, failed. His tongue cleaves to His jaws. “Dogs” and “the assembly of the wicked” – Gentiles and Jews were there. “They pierced my hands and feet;” crucifixion, unknown among the Jews when David lived, is here predicted by the Holy Spirit. “I may tell all my bones” as well as the words “all my bones are out of joint” refer to His suffering on the cross. Then after they hung the Prince of Glory at that cross we read “they look and stare upon Me” (verse 17). “They parted my garments among them, and cast lots upon my vesture.” What man did to Him, what He suffered from man and from Satan’s power is here described. Yet it was God who bruised Him. Concerning man the sufferer spoke what “they” did unto Him; but He also addresses God “THOU hast brought me into the dust of death.”
And thus He suffered and died for us. Our sins were laid upon Him and He bore them in His own body on the tree. At what an infinite cost we have been redeemed! What a price has been paid! The Father did not spare His only begotten Son, but delivered Him up for us all. The Son of God, was made sin for us, smitten, stricken and forsaken of God.
Jehovah bade His sword awake —
O Christ, it woke ’gainst thee!
Thy blood the flaming blade must slake;
Thy heart its sheath must be —
All for my sake, my peace to make;
Now sleeps that sword for me.
The Holy God did hide His face —
O Christ, ’twas hid from thee!
Dumb darkness wrapt thy soul a space —
The darkness due to me.
But now that face of radiant grace
Shines forth in light on me.
Wonderful Love! But how unable we are to realize adequately these blessed facts! How little after all we think of these marvellous things and how weak is our devotion to that blessed, loving Lord, who loved us thus!
And what do we behold about us? An ever increasing darkness; a turning away from the blessed Gospel of the Son of God as it centers in the Cross; a greater rejection and neglection of the great salvation which God has so graciously provided in the great sacrifice. It is fearful to see the enemies of the cross increasing and rushing on to their coming doom. What is to be our attitude? It is for us to glory more and more in the cross of Christ. We must exalt and magnify the Person and Work of our blessed Lord as never before. The more He is rejected by the world, His blessed work on the cross disowned in such latter day delusions as the new theology, Christian Science and the numerous other systems, the more we must give Him the pre-eminence.
But it means also for us if we are faithful to Him the fellowship of His sufferings. God has called us into the fellowship of His Son Jesus Christ our Lord. This includes the fellowship of His sufferings. Never, of course, suffering from God as He did. But as He is rejected and despised so are we called to share His rejection and take upon us His reproach. He suffered without the gate and the Word exhorts us “Let us go forth therefore unto Him without the camp, bearing His reproach.” In these last days we must like Moses “esteem the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt (the world).” And if we are faithful to Him, if we walk in separation from the world, including the great “religious world” with its Christ and the Cross rejecting schemes and tendencies, we shall know something of the reproach of Christ and the fellowship of His sufferings. Oh! that we might know more of that in these easy going days. Such a precious Word of God as contained in 1 Peter iv:13-14 ought to make us long for bearing His reproach and for sufferings with Him. “But rejoice inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ’s sufferings that when His glory shall be revealed, ye may be glad also with exceeding joy. If ye be reproached for the name of Christ, happy are ye; for the Spirit of glory and of God resteth upon you; on their part He is evil spoken of, but on your part He is glorified.”
Be true to Christ and to the cross of Christ. Live out the doctrine of the cross “crucified with Christ” – dead to the things here below, then you will have some suffering from the side of men and Satan as well.
And what will be the awful judgment for the multitudes, the ever increasing multitudes who reject the Cross of Christ, who are either opposing it by their ethical gospel, to whom the preaching of the cross is foolishness, or who are indifferent? The Holy Spirit has told us that where the Gospel, the Cross of Christ is rejected or perverted the Anathema, the curse of God must follow (Gal. i:9; 1 Corinth. xvi:22). Well has one said “Distance from God was the climax of the Lamb’s dying sorrow.” It is a fearful solemn thought that the world while with heedless selfconfidence it still pursues its way, is no nearer now to God than Jesus was when, under the burden of the world’s iniquity, He cried, “My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?” How solemn this is! May we learn to say more fully with Paul, “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.”
The Glory of Christ
The first twenty-one verses of this Psalm describe the sufferings of Christ. This part closes with an appeal to Jehovah for deliverance. “But be thou not far from me, O Lord; O my strength, haste thee to help me. * * * Save me from the lion’s mouth.” Then comes the joyful statement that He has been heard. The answer He received to His cry is resurrection. We find therefore that the second part of this great Psalm, which reveals so fully the Cross of Christ, is taken up with the Glory of the forsaken One. God raised Him from the dead, and so we hear at once in this Psalm the notes of triumph coming from the lips of Him who is dead and now liveth. His triumph and His Glory are revealed. All for whom He died, the Church, Israel, the ends of the earth, the nations are mentioned. He is seen in the midst of the church as well as in the midst of the future great congregation. All the ends of the earth are yet to remember and turn unto the Lord. The nations will come to worship before Him; His will be the Kingdom, He will rule among the nations. But we must look at some of these precious predictions a little closer. We need to consider them as much as the Sufferings, the Cross of Christ.
The day of His Resurrection is first mentioned.
“I will declare Thy Name unto my brethren
“In the midst of the congregation will I praise Thee.”
It is a joyous word which stands at the head of the glory section of this Psalm. Raised from the dead He met His own with an “All hail” – rejoice. In the Gospel of John we see Him meeting her who sought the living One among the dead and telling her “Go and tell my brethren.” How literally this prediction has been fulfilled. And what He tells her of “my Father and your Father, my God and your God” declares that intimate relationship which is the result of His death on the cross. Brought through Him to God, we are Sons of God and Heirs of God. “He that sanctifieth and they that are sanctified are all of one, therefore He is not ashamed to call them brethren” (Heb. ii:11). Precious truth! He owns us as brethren. He is the Firstborn among many brethren. The congregation mentioned here is the church. In the midst of the church His praise is heard (Heb. ii:12). It is true the church is not revealed in the Old Testament but it is anticipated. And as we, saved by Grace, in possession of His life, approach God in His worthy Name His own voice is heard; He is the leader of our prayers and our praises. That new and intimate relationship brought about by His atoning death at the cross is mentioned first. He gave Himself for the church (Eph. v:25). In the next place we hear Israel praising Him. “All ye the seed of Jacob glorify Him; and reverence Him all ye the seed of Israel.” They who rejected Him, His people who despised Him and had such a part in the suffering of Christ, now own Him. They acknowledge Him, whom they thought afflicted of God, as having been heard of God.
That time will come when He returns in power and glory, when Israel will see the Man in Glory, the First begotten coming in the clouds of Heaven. Then they will realize the full truth of Isaiah liii. The blessed Lord will then have the travail of His soul and be satisfied. But there is more glory still for Him.
A great congregation is mentioned; there too His praises will be heard. All the ends of the earth will remember and turn unto the Lord. Nations will worship before Him.
“For the Kingdom is Jehovah’s
And He ruleth among the nations” (verse 28).
The great congregation are the nations of the millennial age. Then the ends of the earth will remember Him while He ruleth among the nations. What Glory awaits Him! Now we behold Him, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor. It is a spiritual vision; we see Him there by faith. But a little while longer and He will appear in the Glory of His Father bringing His co-heirs with Him, the Son bringing many sons to glory, the sons He is not ashamed to call brethren, for whom He was forsaken on the cross. What a procession of triumph and glory that will be when the Heavens open and He is coming forth, bringing His church with Him! What will be His Glory when Israel at last owns Him and nations submit under His rule, when His visible Glory will cover the earth as the waters cover the sea! All hail! Oh blessed, blessed Lord!