GOD’S MAN
Neil C McKay
Genesis 5: 21-24
Isaiah 53: 1-6
Romans 5: 12-21
Matthew 15: 21-28
I am impressed by the greatness of what came in in one Man, the man Christ Jesus, that had previously been lacking. We know that, as scripture says, God ”saw that there was no man”, Isa 59: 16. When Christ came in, He found everything in Him. It is a most striking fact that God always had in mind to set up the Lord Jesus as the great Head of all creation; the whole creation was to look to Christ and to find everything in Him. That was to be man’s means of salvation, man’s means of everything. Man was created by God and fell into sin, and has definite needs and wants, but God decreed that these would be met by a Man, and that Man would be Christ. And that Man is the Head, the Head of every man. Mr Darby said you could ask the man in the street if he answered to the Head (see FER vol 13 p233); that is, He is available to every man to hold as Head. There are few titles quite like that. As the Son of man, He is available to every man, but man must claim Him in that way; but He is Head of every man; He has a place in regard to every man, even though he might not get the gain of it
Adam was not the head of every man as Christ is. In a certain sense there was headship set out in him, in that as an innocent man before he fell, something was intended to be set out in him. He was never truly the head as God purposed; he was the figure. It says in Romans where we read, “the figure of him to come”. So, Eve, and Adam’s offspring, and others, might have looked at Adam as a person would look to Christ now, to find a right influence and what they would need in him, but they never found any such thing in him. He fell: he gave them sin; he gave them corruption. He gave them evil thoughts; he gave them sinfulness. And it struck me immensely that after Adam died, man had no head; everything waited on Christ coming in. From then on all that God had intended that man should get from headship waited for Christ coming in. There were persons saved at that time, and the reason any of them was saved was because of the work of Christ. Every man and woman that was saved, was saved through faith in God, by believing in God; and therefore God must bring in salvation. He must bring in the Christ, the Messiah, who would save them, even though they had died before His incoming - a most remarkable matter.
We read in Genesis in regard to Enoch. It is difficult to understand what it was like in Enoch’s day; things were primitive then; as far as we know, there were no governments - they had not been set up under Noah. There would have been no police; no formal organisation of society. There was no law such as Israel was given; man did not know by any formal outline how God was to be pleased. There was no ceremonial system; there was no tabernacle system; there was no formal approach to God. There were no altars; there was nothing like that. And man, in that time, got worse and worse every day – as if there was no restraint. The evil that went on in those days was such that God sought to destroy man from off the face of the earth; it was so bad. It seems that if something happened persons had no recourse; the only hope they would have had was in God. You know what they looked for, and what they needed? - a Man. Faith did not look for a civilized society; that was not going to help them much. We are thankful for the order it has brought, but what they needed was a Man; they needed a Head. Enoch is a striking example of this. What did man have until Christ came in? He had to rely on God; that was what he had.
When the law of Moses came in, it gave man an idea of what would please God, but all it did was condemn him. As we read in Romans, God sent the law in order to make plain the sin, to bring it to light. It says that, “the law came in in order that the offence might abound”. That is, the reason that God gave the law was so that man might realise that he was a sinner, because he could not keep it. God brought the law in as a provision for man in that way. And man used it to try and justify himself, only proving that he was further and further from God. It just shows the stark contrast of what there was before Christ came in, and what there is when Christ has come in. No doubt there were faithful men, men of God, friends of God. It speaks of Moses and Abraham, persons whom God found, and Enoch was one of these; he walked with God. It tells us in Jude what he found in God; he waited on the Lord coming amidst his holy myriads (v 14); he recognised what was due to God. He saw what was extant in the world at that time, and that the constant decline was not what was due to God; God could not have that, nor could God have that continue. It is a slight on God that His own creation should go on in sinfulness. God must come in amidst His holy myriads and execute judgment on it. Enoch recognised what was due to God. His prophecy might not be the gospel but it is true, none the less. Mr Darby points out that if a man has a son, and the son goes on in sinfulness, he can go with that son in patience; and plead with him and try with him, but if at some point the man does not say to that son, ‘you are wrong’, and chastise him for that sin, then the man is guilty of condoning and going on with it, Collected Writings vol 1 p333-4. God cannot condone sin and cannot go on with it. At some point God will come in in judgment. But not at this point; at this point, God is going on in grace. We will come to that in these other scriptures.
Peter speaks of those prophets who sought out, or searched out what kind of Man would come in. “Searching what, or what manner of time, the Spirit of Christ which was in them pointed out, testifying before of the sufferings which belonged to Christ, and the glories after these. To whom it was revealed, that not to themselves but to you they ministered those things”, 1 Pet 1: 11-12. Isaiah, it says, saw His glory and spoke of Him, John 12: 41. Yet what did he know of Christ? Nothing like what we know of Christ. I suppose he really writes for our time, although the saints in a coming dispensation will no doubt read this and get the help from his prophecy in a special way, it having a peculiar application to them, but it has an application to us now. “Who hath believed our report? and to whom hath the arm of Jehovah been revealed?” Can you answer that question, dear young friend?
Sometimes when you are young you may look at older ones and see them enjoying the truth - they are saved and you wonder what it takes to save a person. God has used, since the Lord’s death and resurrection, principally one means of saving persons from their sins, and that is the gospel. He has used it through persons preaching the gospel, and He has used it through persons receiving that preaching of the gospel. He uses your ears, just to be simple about it; God has entrance to you through your ears. I am not to look, in the present day, for public miracles or great demonstrations of divine power; God is speaking to persons in the gospel. If you are going to get help in the gospel at all, if you are going to be saved, you must accept that God is speaking to you through persons in the gospel. You must accept that. That is God’s chosen way to salvation. He may use some material means; He may use some means of arresting your progress, but God is saving persons through persons speaking the gospel. That is the report: “Who hath believed our report?” Friend, if you accept it as the word of God, and it has gone in, and you feel a pang in your conscience, it is God who is speaking to you through His word. He uses the word, and He uses the reception of that to save persons. God is saving persons through simple speaking to them of Christ. I cannot persuade you to become a believer; I cannot persuade you that Jesus is the Christ; it is not in my power. I do not have the means to bring that about, but I can simply say in faith that the Lord Jesus is my Saviour, and I find Him to be the One that saved me from my sins. And I know that He is the only means of salvation for you; you must accept that, otherwise, the Lord says, you will die in your sins. Awful thing!
I remember hearing of Mr Coates. After he had preached the gospel for the first time, an older brother approached him and asked how he could tell people, 'Christ died for our sins; and that if they did not believe they would die in their sins', as they were contrary statements., CAC volume 28 - Notes of Readings on Matthew's Gospel p152. One of the two is true. Either Christ died for your sins (1 Cor 15: 3), or you will die in your sins, John 8: 24. Thank God, that I can say that Christ died for my sins. I trust that Christ died for your sins. He has borne the sins of many (Heb 8: 28); the Bible does not say He died for the sins of all, although He did die that all might believe and be saved.
What we come to in Isaiah 53 is another Man - another kind of Man, a Man that derived nothing from what was here. “For he shall grow up before him as a tender sapling, and as a root out of dry ground”. You can understand the figure being used is a young tree that does not derive its sap, its fruitfulness, its moisture from what is here. Jesus came here as a Man, yielding precedence to nothing that had previously existed, though He acknowledged the law and all that was of God. He took everything from heaven; He derived from heaven, His was a glorious manhood that was not of this earth; it was not an earthly manhood; it was another order of manhood. He required nothing that man could give; man could add nothing to Christ. He was a different kind of Man; no flattery had any inroads to Christ. No slight, no insult, had any adverse effect; this was a kind of Man that took His bearings from God. He entirely took His bearings from heaven. “There is no beauty that we should desire him. He is despised and left alone of men.” Men could not understand this kind of man. “A man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief…Surely he hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows.”
We spoke about Christ being the Head of every man. When did that begin to be? If you look at the history of Christ when He was here on earth, you will find that every person that approached Christ was answered. There was no one that went away unsatisfied; they may have gone away unsatisfied with what was in themselves. The young man who came to Jesus had much riches, but he did not go away unsatisfied with what he found in Christ; he found an answer, not only to what he desired and needed, but an answer to himself. I think that is the Head; He has got the answer for everything; that is the Man we are presenting in the gospel. He is the answer to absolutely everything. When you are young you have cares and troubles at school; and your friendships and other things become huge difficulties to you, and loom large in your life; they become such that you may wonder if the Lord Jesus can really help you in these things. But I just say simply; there is nothing that the Lord cannot help you with. When you get to the Lord Jesus and go over these things with Him, you realise and recognise that the problem is you. The problem is your will, what you want, and I want, and I need; and I like things to be this way, and I want things to go this way, and I would like things to be my own way; I like things to suit myself. The more and more you go to the Lord you realise that is the problem; the problem is you. And the one Man can answer it. He will take your eye off yourself, and take it on to another perfect, blessed Man before God. “He hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows”: that is not a once and for all matter; He bears our griefs and carries our sorrows. Older brothers and sisters in the testimony know what it is to have griefs and sorrows, and they know what it is to have some sense of the Lord carrying them, and being with them in it. “But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities”; He took up everything for man, and He took up everything for God. What a blessed Man He is.
He did not suffer, friend, for His own sins; He had no sins. God did not mete out upon Him in judgment anything that was due to Him personally; He did not suffer on His own account; He was perfect. He only suffered vicariously - for others. He bore my sins. It says here, “He bore the sin of many” v 12. “All we like sheep have gone astray”; here He comes in as a Man ready to bear sins, ready to be “wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon him, and with his stripes we are healed.” He suffered, He died, and He rose again, on our account. It is helpful to go over these fundamental facts of the gospel. On the mount of transfiguration there was an exclamation from heaven, from the Father, about His delight being found in His Son; there was perfection there. But then, in order that we should come in to this, the Lord Jesus had to suffer, and He had to die, and He had to shed His blood because God required that blood from man. He required righteousness; God must be righteous. In order to save me, and to save you, He must be seen to be righteous. In order to be seen to be righteous, our sinful blood could never atone for sins; He must claim the blood of a sinless, righteous Man. If I am to be saved, the Lord Jesus must die in my place, in place of my sins, in place of my life which was required of God for the sins I committed. He became my substitute on the cross. He shed His blood; He gave up His life in order that I should live. He shed His own precious blood for me. Scripture speaks of righteous blood, “the blood of righteous Abel” (Matt 23: 45), but the blood of the Lord Jesus far exceeds that righteous blood; no blood like that was ever shed. That blood has satisfied God. The blood was put on the mercy-seat in the old dispensation; it is the greatest application of the blood which we know, Lev 16: 14. It is available to all. The whole root principle of sin was judged and met there through the sacrifice of Christ. Tremendous matter!
Romans 5 gives us the Man we have been speaking of. I know this scripture is difficult to follow in the wording of it. But Mr Taylor comments that Romans is a logical epistle, JT vol 94 p140. There is nothing that goes against sense, or logic; it is absolutely true, and can be seen to be true. Paul says that sin came into the world, and through that, death came in; and that was by Adam, one man. “By one man sin entered into the world, and by sin death”. But over against the sin that came in, there was one Man that came in and brought in grace, abundant grace. He did that through His suffering and His death on the cross, but also in His life. It has been helpfully said that Romans 5 gives us the moral qualification of Christ to be Head of every man; that means, to my understanding of it, not only that Christ was morally great - He was the greatest Man that ever lived, and the only Man that always pleased God, morally supreme, superior to every other man - but, not only was He morally great, for Him to be Head of every man He must be great enough to meet the liabilities that lay on man. To put it simply, there is no point in being head of man if man is left still in his sins and would die in his sins. If Christs going to be Head of every man he must be able to bring man into blessing; into life. He must be able to do some good for man, and man in the flesh was only going on to death. So, the moral qualification for Christ to be Head to man is that He can remove the liabilities that lie on every man and bring him into life. That is a wonderful thing! It shows the greatness of Christ. He had to accomplish reconciliation; He had to put you on a sure footing with God, because He is your Head. He represents you, if you will have Him, before God. So, He can go before God with persons that are qualified - persons who can stand before God. Is that not wonderful? What a Head; what a person! No wonder you can go into the street and say to any man, ‘Christ is your Head. He has done everything for you. The Head is your Saviour; He is your Lord. Come into these things! He can save you; He can bring you into all these things; He is qualified for it’. There is no one else who could do that. Other persons will set themselves up. We read in the reading of someone who is going to set himself up in the place of God (the antichrist); he will not be able to do anything for man; he will have no moral qualifications whatsoever. So, “by the disobedience of the one man the many have been constituted sinners” - that is what Adam brought in; he brought in sinners; everyone became a sinner through Adam. But “by the obedience of the one the many will be constituted righteous”. What a Man that is, able to bring about righteous persons, and give them life. He is going to bring them into newness of life in the next chapter; He is going to give them the Holy Spirit. The woman is told in John 4: 14 of “the water which I shall give him”- that is Christ, who gives the water, and the Holy Spirit, Christ says, “shall become in him a fountain of water, springing up”. He does not only say it will be the Holy Spirit as a power. I wonder if sometimes we consider if the Holy Spirit has such a power that, if we did not have Him, we would be a sort of husk. It says, “become in him”: that is, the Spirit channels the affections of the believer in right lines, springing up to enjoy heavenly things, eternal life; the Spirit actually in the believer. Think of the greatness of the One who is able to do that, and reconcile persons to God and give them living water. You have a source in the Spirit within yourself, your affections set on right lines, and rightly in relation with God.
The woman in Matthew 15 was an example of this. What you get in Romans 5 is someone who comes to the need of the grace of God which has come in through Christ. That is that Christ becomes, in Romans 5, the test of every man. God is not saying to man tonight, ‘Unless you do such and such you will die in your sins’; God is saying tonight, ‘I have presented a Man to you, and that Man is everything I have ever looked for, and He is everything that you will ever need’. He is saying, ‘That Man has come with all the grace, and all the truth, and all the compassion, and all the love that you will ever need. He will present you in a place before Him in heaven’. He is not saying you need to conform to a set of rules; He is not saying you need to put your signature at the bottom of a list of doctrine or laws; He is not saying that at all: He is saying, ‘This is my Man; this is Christ’. You must have Him, and He is your only means of salvation. There is no other way of salvation. The answer is a Man, and the gospel is about a Man. This woman is one of the countless that came to the Lord Jesus in His life here. She was from Tyre and Sidon; she was not an Israelitish woman; she was a Canaanitish woman, coming out of those borders toward the Mediterranean. She was outside the normal range of blessing. We know the teaching of this section, but it is worthwhile going over it. She says, “Have pity on me, Lord, Son of David” - she appealed to the Lord Jesus on the basis of Him being Son of David. She was not a Jew so she had no claim on the Lord in that regard. While her case had merit, the Lord did not even answer her - He said in effect, ‘You ought to know that you are not a Jew, and you have absolutely no claim on me in this regard’. He was not averse to persons coming to Him, but she could not come to Him on these terms.
She perseveres. The disciples say, “Dismiss her, for she cries after us”. He answers saying, “I have not been sent save to the lost sheep of Israel’s house”. That was the commission He had from God, to come in in regard to Israel and to save Israel. “She came and did him homage, saying, Lord, help me.” Now she is getting help; she just admits her own need. She recognises He is Lord and that He is what she needs, but she is not far enough. You might say she is far enough, but the Lord is going to bring her truly into a knowledge of Himself. He says, “It is not well to take the bread of the children”, that is, the Israelitish nation, “and cast it to the dogs”. Dogs speak of those that are without the range of blessing; dogs are left outside the house, they suggest those who are outside the blessing. The Lord was saying that was not the commission He had, and He was not going to act outwith what God had given Him. And she says, “Yea, Lord; for even the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from the table of their masters”. She says, effectively, ‘I know that God is so superabundant in grace, that even some of the grace which is towards Israel, will spill over the edge, and fall to me, who am absolutely not deserving of it whatsoever’; that is what she came to. Mr Darby said as to this that she knew God ten thousand times better than all the disciples that were there, Collected Writings vol 12 p156. This poor woman knew that God in His grace, as appealed to in pure grace, must answer her. That is a wonderful thing. People try to mix grace; they try and say, ’Yes, I want to believe and be saved, but I think there is a bit of good in me, and it will be saved’, or, ‘I am not such a bad chap after all; I do not mind being saved, but I will work my way through this passage; I will conform to the law and be good enough’. The only means of salvation is pure unalloyed grace, and that is, God has supplied every single thing in another Man. All you need to do is accept it in another Man; that is the pure and simple fact of the gospel. The Head has come in lacking not one single thing that you require; He has come in with it all, and all you need, and what you must do is acknowledge that blessed Man as your Lord and Saviour. That is where the blessing comes from, not from any creed, or doctrine, or law, or other things. It is a Man; you need a Man; everybody needs a Man. That Man is Jesus Christ.
“Then Jesus answering said to her, O Woman, thy faith is great. Be it to thee as thou desirest. And her daughter was healed from that hour.” What faith! Faith is what brings you into it, friend. We spoke about the report going out, and maybe it is going into your soul, and maybe something is niggling at your conscience; maybe you realise that these things are right; maybe things are beginning to stir your conscience. What you need is faith - faith to lay hold of the word of God. And faith to see in Christ what God sees in Christ, faith to see in Christ what others see in Christ. Would you like to see what these brothers and sister here, who have known the Lord a long time, see in Christ, dear young friend? Would you like to understand why they love Christ so much? Get to God, and ask for faith. Ask to see what there is in Christ for your salvation and blessing. Come to know Him as your Saviour; that is the first great step. Great Man that He is! I trust we have presented something of that great blessed Man, a blessed different kind of man, different from any other man, but One who has come with everything for your salvation.
May you do so, for His Name’s sake.
Linlithgow
7th January 2018