THE SUFFICIENCY OF THE LORD’S WORK
James L Bedford
Exodus 12: 3-13
Numbers 19: 1-13
The work of the Lord Jesus is sufficient to save us and to keep us; and that is what I had in mind in these scriptures. Firstly, we need salvation, but then to be kept upright before God, in the sense of the value of the work of the Lord Jesus.
The need for a Saviour is because we have all sinned. Scripture says that, Rom 5: 12. God sets out His description of how we are to behave. Much of it is in the law in the Old Testament. Even the laws of the land we have to abide by come in many cases from the Scripture. We find that we are not able to do what God wants us to do. How early it is in our lives that we decide we want to do what we want to do. We know the children start to say, 'No’. We have all been that way, “Behold, in iniquity was I brought forth, and in sin did my mother conceive me”, Ps 51: 5. How needful it is that there is a Saviour. If it were left to us, then judgment would be the answer; God would have to judge each one. The way was made open for the nation, for Israel; they were provided with the law and with the offerings that could keep them. Their continuing to sin meant that the offerings had to be offered repeatedly. As we have been reminded in Hebrews, there was never a way to resolve that sin in them completely; it kept cropping up. The offerings had to continue, to be repeated. So it is that left to ourselves we cannot address the question of our personal sin.
The Lord Jesus has come as a Saviour so that we might receive salvation. God has offered in Him a way of salvation. He came from the heights of glory. I have been impressed with the One who had equality with God. It says that he “did not esteem it an object of rapine to be on an equality with God”, Phil 2: 6. He was equal with God and would not be usurping what He had no right to. It says in Daniel, “there came with the clouds of heaven one like a son of man, and he came up even to the Ancient of days”, chap 7: 13. How remarkable that is: here was One who could come up to God Himself. That One was the Lord Jesus; He could come up to the Ancient of days, come up to God and be equal with Him. It was not that He had a lower place. He is equal with God as one of the three divine Persons; and the Lord Jesus has that glory. That is His Person, who He is, One who is God in His own Person. He came into manhood. As the hymn writer says,
No act of power could e’er atone,
No wonder-working word
Could, from the brightness of the throne,
Make love’s sweet voice be heard
. (Hymn 431)
The Lord Jesus had to come into manhood, and He came in a way in which He was approachable. He came in, in human infancy; and how glorious that was, the way that God chose. The Lord Jesus came into manhood as a Babe and was even in those conditions laid in a manger. He was brought in in such conditions of smallness and outward weakness; I think it would be right to say that. The Lord Jesus came in, in that condition of poverty. It was in order that we should know salvation. The Lord Jesus, having perfectly glorified God here upon the earth, could say, “I have completed the work which thou gavest me that I should do it”, John 17: 4. The greatness of all that God was shone in Him.
If we take the parable of the good Samaritan, the Lord Jesus was the good Samaritan. No one else could do anything for the man who had fallen into the hands of robbers. It is the Lord Jesus who would have the resources to be able to resolve the man’s need, to be able to provide everything that was needed. The love of God was seen fully in the Lord Jesus. We can be quite sure that God loves us because of the way the Lord Jesus showed God’s love in the way that He came. They brought the woman who was taken in adultery (John 8), and they wanted Him to say one thing or the other. If He condemned the woman then there was no salvation. If He allowed the woman to go, they would say that He was not righteous. The Lord answered perfectly: He said to the woman, “go, and sin no more”, v 11. The Lord Jesus had the wherewithal to deal with the question of sin. God’s love can shine and yet God’s righteousness can be upheld. It had to be that the Lord Jesus should give Himself as a ransom. Our sin and waywardness needed to be borne. If we were to be set free it needed that the Lord Jesus should be a sacrifice for us, that He should go that way instead of us. The Lord Jesus went that way in God’s ordering upon the cross. The Lord Jesus was offered as a perfect offering for sin and sins. He gave Himself as a ransom. After bearing the sins of many upon the cross, He died and rose again the third day. After forty days, being seen with the apostles and those that were near to the Lord Jesus, those that believed on Him, He ascended to the right hand of the Father. That is the background to these scriptures that I have read. I am sure we all know that truth very well, but I do not apologise for saying it again because it is the glory of the glad tidings. It is the centre of the history of the universe. Everything was looking forward to that time, and everything goes from it. How glorious it is; it is God’s glad tidings concerning His Son.
The judgment that the Lord Jesus had to bear is brought out in these scriptures that I have read. Regarding the lamb that was slain, it says, “Ye shall eat none of it raw, nor boiled at all with water, but roast with fire; its head with its legs and with its inwards”. That expression means that the Lord Jesus had to bear the unmitigated wrath of God if we were going to be set free. How He bore that judgment upon the cross! It involved His suffering in the three hours of darkness; it involved that He had to die. The depth of that is beyond us really to understand, that the Lord Jesus had to go that way, and that the judgment had to be borne, so that there might be liberty. The blood had to be shed: “they shall take of the blood, and put it on the two doorposts and on the lintel of the houses in which they eat it”. Salvation for the house, salvation for the firstborn in each house, was in the power of that blood on the doorpost and on the lintel. They would have put that blood on there thoroughly, I am sure, because it meant salvation for the firstborn. The blood had to be shed for each of them. It has been said that it was a recognition that the same judgment was upon them as it was upon Egypt. The world’s judgment was taking place. It was the same for them as it was for the world. We are just as deserving of judgment; it is just as much due to us as it is to the world. The blood is the answer to that. We can receive salvation by putting the blood on the doorpost and on the lintel. May our confidence be in the blood of the Lord Jesus. That blood has been shed; the blood that flowed from the side of the Lord Jesus on the cross is that which secures our salvation, so that we can be free from the judgment that is due. Salvation lies in having our confidence in the blood of the Lord Jesus.
We may come to the Lord Jesus, but it is important that we are maintained in the sense of what the work of the Lord Jesus has done. In Numbers, the red heifer comes in towards the end of the wilderness journey. It is God’s intention that we should be kept in the sense of what the Lord Jesus has done, kept in the sense of the value of His work even at the end of the journey. We are very much in those times today, when the end of the day of grace is near and the coming of the Lord Jesus is near. We may be well on in our pathway, in our Christian pathway, having put our confidence in the Lord Jesus a long time ago. The Lord Jesus would have us to be maintained before Him in the sense of what He has done. In this scripture, the red heifer was to be burnt completely: “And one shall burn the heifer before his eyes” - that is the priest’s eyes - “its skin and its flesh, and its blood, with its dung, shall he burn”. It was a complete judgment that the Lord Jesus had to bear; it was unmitigated. The wrath of God had to be poured out upon Him, completely, so that there was no sparing, typified in that the heifer was to be burned. What we are is put into the burning as well. “The priest would take cedar-wood, and hyssop, and scarlet, and cast them into the midst of the burning of the heifer”. That speaks of what we are, what we take pride in. I am sure we are all like these things to some extent; there is always that in us which needs to go, which needs to go into that burning. The more we have an appreciation of what the Lord Jesus has done, what He has accomplished, what we are, what we take pride in will become less in our own eyes. They were to take these ashes; and they were to be kept for when they were needed. They would be put with the water when the need arose, when someone touched a dead person, the dead body of a man. The dead body of the man refers to what is within ourselves. For Israel, somebody else was dead, but for us the dead man is inside us. There is that flesh inside us which is unchanged even though we may have been believers on the Lord Jesus for a long time; that is the dead man that is referred to here. When it rises up, in God’s mercy, and in His ordering, there is this water of purification, speaking of the work of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the One that is able to bring to our remembrance the work that the Lord Jesus has accomplished; and thus the water is brought to bear. The Holy Spirit would bring to our remembrance these ashes, the completeness of what the Lord Jesus had borne. The result for us is to be maintained in the value of what the Lord Jesus has done. The Holy Spirit would cause us to remember the suffering that the Lord Jesus has borne, how much He had to bear for each one of our sins. The Holy Spirit would cause us to be repentant and to come to a value of what the Lord Jesus has done, afresh.
The younger son went out from the father’s house. He had been in the father’s house, like a believer that had been with God at one time. He had enjoyed the father’s house, and then he went off and went his own way. He came back into the father’s house. There was grace available to him to come into the real enjoyment of what the father’s house was. In the glad tidings, it is God’s desire that even if we have gone away, even if we have been wayward, we might come us back into His house and come into the enjoyment of what is there. The way that that occurs is by repentance. As we are told by Paul, the way in is repentance and faith: “repentance towards God, and faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ”, Acts 20: 21.
The Holy Spirit is given to us. One of His services is to cause us to be mindful of the work of the Lord Jesus so that when we fail, we are brought back into the knowledge of what the Lord Jesus has had to bear so that our sins should be put away. How valuable that service of the Holy Spirit is, that we should be brought to repentance. May we be those who are readily repenting, for repenting sinners are what God has in mind. There is joy in heaven over repenting sinners. We each need to be continually repenting. May we be brought afresh to be remembering what the Lord Jesus has done. It may be that these things come out into the assembly: there is the priest and the clean man, these persons who are there. How thankful some of us can be that there have been those that have been able to help us at times when we have gone astray. The provision is there, in the scripture here, that there should be this water of purification for sin. How valuable it is that we can come afresh to the Lord Jesus, see what He has done, see the suffering that He had to bear that we might be maintained in liberty before God.
Those are my thoughts. May we come to the Lord Jesus initially. May we put our confidence in the blood of the Lord Jesus. How great that work was. May our confidence be in it. Then may the Holy Spirit bring us back if we go astray, so that there might be the water of purification put upon us and we might be brought back into the sense of what the Lord Jesus has borne, and brought into repentance, into confession of our sins, so that we are maintained before the Lord Jesus until He comes.
The Lord is at present sitting at the right hand of the Father. That is the glory that He has, the glory that He has won. He has come into other glories that He has won as a result of the way that He has been. The Lord Jesus is there at present sitting at the right hand of the Father, waiting for the Father to give the word so that He can rise up and come to take those who belong to Him to be with Himself. How near that time is. May we be looking for it, waiting for the Lord Jesus to come so that we may go to be with Him. May we be encouraged.
Dorking
9th April 2023