W W W W  World Wide Web Witness Inc.  Home Page   Contents Page for Volume  What is New

To lord it over people is an idiom. It is an idiom of grammar and of psyche in many. As Christ declared to his disciples in a moment of littleness among them, the mother of Zebedee's children having come to seek a position close to Him for each of her sons^*1:

"The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them, and those who exercise authority over them are called benefactors. But not so among you: on the contrary, he who is greatest among you, let him be as the younger, and he who governs as he who serves. For who is greater, he who sits at the table, or he who serves ?"

Which of us wants to be served by a snivelling self-seeker, a person whose only or chief or subsidiary aim is always to look good, to seem good; for it is not the look but the reality which concerns us in any service. God is TRUTH, and Christ who stated, I am meek, also pronounced this : I am ... the truth! Truth and reality can in no way be divorced in the kingdom of heaven, where He who IS the TRUTH is the source, cynosure and centre, focus and star!

What then is the WAY, the SONG, the real exuberance of relationship of man to God in this phase of greatness ? It is this: the LORD is great and great should be the motive to serve Him with a pure heart as He specifies for those who will see God (Matthew 5).

HOW will it be sung ? With lips which are attuned to praise, since in truth, God is worthy of praise.

In WHAT WAY will a man then walk, as he seeks to serve God, and in what manner will he achieve the directions and protections, so that he might serve, the energies and the actualisations of the presence of God, lest he stumble, or be diverted ?

Before we proceed, let us pause a moment at the Exodus, when GOD HIMSELF had just delivered them from a trap, lying in vulnerable masses between the Egyptian forces and the Red Sea area, where the waters seemed wholly impenetrable, and they in turn wholly penetrable by the chariots of that then massive Empire (but now slight nation as Ezekiel predicted - 29:14ff.). Not as she was to become according to the prophet, but in the ancient time, in her strength and pride was Egypt, but God delivered His people and so Moses and the Israelites sang this song (here only in part):

"I will sing of the LORD,
For He has triumphed gloriously!
The horse and the rider He has thrown into the sea!
The LORD is my strength and song,
And He has become my salvation.
He is my God, and I will praise Him;
My father's God and I will exalt Him...

"Who is like You, O LORD, among the gods ?
Who is like You, glorious in holiness,
Fearful in praises, doing wonders!"

(from Exodus 15:1-11).

Here you see the rhapsody of ringing praise, the assurance because of the facts in the unseen God whose actions are most visible! Here is desire to praise, delight in service for such a God as this, who alone is God!

Now let us ponder Christ who came to live in perfect purity and die in perfect grace, and Paul, sent to serve the Lord ,as we consider the meaning of living in the LORD.
 
 


EXAMPLES OF SERVICE
THE CRITERION OF CHRIST
AND THE CALL OF PAUL
 

1) CHRIST IN HIS SUFFERINGS NEAR THE CLIMAX

Let us commence at the beginning: Christ. In Isaiah 50 we see Him exposed, in the midst of the Messianic revelation of Isaiah 42,49,50, 52-5 and so on: here He is found to be in a stage of beard stripping as the eminently physical efforts were made to dethrone Him, whose place on the throne of Israel, yes of all the world is pre-eminently essential for the rule of men, the justice and the compassion, the mercy and truth without extenuation, release or compromise, which is our heritage. All else is mere accrual, like debt. It is defective. It may be delighted in for a season; when however the crops are up, it is weed. Wilful preference for the inferior in the presence of the perfect is artless rebellion, not improved by specious and devious pretences.

What however is the attitude of Christ relative to DUTY, to His MISSION on earth, where, as man in format, He is apart from all else giving us an illustration of humility before the LORD in HEAVEN! It is this (Isaiah 50:5-6):

"I was not rebellious,
Nor did I turn away.
I gave My back to those who struck Me,
And My cheeks to those who plucked out the beard:
I did not hide My face from shame and spitting."

Why then did He not turn away, rebellious ? It is the first part of verse 5 which tells us this:
 

• "The Lord GOD has opened My ear..."


God though He is in heaven (cf. John 3:13, 8:29, 5:19-23), yet in that He has taken the exemplary though pure form of a man, evidences the meaning of suffering without flinching, of heart vulnerable without falling, so that He might be a sympathetic Saviour to those who also are vulnerable, should they in some moment fall. We remember that a righteous man may fall seven times, and rise again (Proverbs 24:16). Indeed, we recall Peter's famed denial of the Lord, His bitter shame and weeping, and His commission from the hand of the merciful and strengthening Saviour (John 21).

What then was the Saviour's response when His own test, fittingly severe, came upon
Him ?
 

• 1) He did not hide.

 
• 2) He did not turn away from the test, the challenge at all, irrespective of the cost, in pain and in contempt.

 
• 3) Even the fact that a grandeur of spirit was being manifested, in which He suffered in exemplary and finally vicarious fashion for sinners; and even though it was these same categories of sinners which afflicted Him so witheringly, mentally, spiritually and physically as He did this; and further, though this whole exhibition of love and mercy was itself treated as if virtually and in fact wholly criminal, in vast disproportion, contortion and folly: yet even this and even all of these things in synthesis, they did not deter Him.

 
He who was to bring His merit to our demerits, was quite ready to die looking foolish to some, derided by many, abominated by authorities, even those whose souls He was even then preparing to offer His life to redeem, if so be they should come in repentance.
• 4)  In so acting, He was also showing us the meaning of Lordship. It is an exemplary thing. It shows the cost and pays, is concerned for the lost, and provides, is despised by the needy and yet acts. It is acting in the SOUND of authority from above. It acts because the EAR WAS OPENED, as it is here written.

 
• 5)  Lordship in the kingdom of heaven is led by the EXEMPLARY SUFFERER, the COMPANION IN COMPASSION, the LORD OF GLORY (I Cor. 2:8ff.), misrepresented and isolated in much even as and worse still, BECAUSE He is being glorious, as if base. This is the spirit of service. It is not lordliness, it is lordship. It does not lead by pushing; it leads by example and shows in suffering the way of truth.

 


2) CHRIST IN HIS SUFFERINGS AT THE CLIMAX

Here we come to the cry, "My God, My God why have You forsaken Me!"

This is a quotation from Psalm 22, and as such shows that the Lord knew well what He was about. He was not exhibiting pangs unthought of, agony not foreseen. His very words of agony and cry of anguish had long been known, indeed for a millenium, for those of His race who would read it and understand. It was written by King David, as prophet of the Messiah, His lineal descendant on the female line.

Hence it is here merely the cry of actuality: when the due experience is duly experienced, then the due cry is duly made. This does nothing to reduce its sincerity, its travail or its reality; but it does remove utterly any alien and foolish concept that Christ was unaware of what He was doing. He even quoted from the due 'line' in the script!

He did not fail to meet the coming and foreseen horror to the point that the most precious thing was to be touched. Many who would use the term Christian of themselves, may alas NOT be willing to pay the thing that they value most. It may be a child, a prestige or a power, an easy life or a 'great' one in the eyes of the world. Too bad: unless you forsake ALL that you have, you CANNOT be My disciple, comes the word of Christ in Luke 14, with many more like it!

This obedience cost Gethsemane (Luke 24:44), when so intense was the perception of what was to come that sweat like blood came from His brow before any nails touched Him. In Hebrews 5:7 we read of His piercing cries to His Father; but He was WILLING IF NEED BE, to suffer (as in Luke 24:42), even if it came to a sensation, a veritable experience of being rejected; for when sin is before God, rejected is precisely what it is. It is ONLY to be borne as tolerable before God when it is covered, sufficiently.

Yet who is sufficient but the pure whose purity of God is perfect , the infinite whose coverage knows no limit! (Hebrews 7:25ff.), whose Zeal knows no respite, and whose compassion is never at a loss. HOW could it be covered ? Only then by HIS doing it! HOW did He do it, only by suffering its blame. WHAT penalty is at the uttermost ? Why this, to be separated in awareness! (Isaiah 59:1-2). HENCE Christ was not only predicted to have to cry out in this way, but it was necessary that the desolatory experience should be of no less a kind! It is treated as first because it IS first.

That, it is Lordship in the Kingdom of Heaven. It is at the primary level in reputation because it is there in reality! That is why! The lords of the Gentiles have dominion, He said, but with YOU it will not be so. Even elders must not (I Peter 5) LORD it over people, but be HELPERS of their joy! Paul acted like a nurse at times, being so tender, solicitous and concerned (I Thess. 2:7): "We were gentle among you, just as a nursing mother cherishes her own children."

For us who are not lord, but disciples, we find this an EXAMPLE. We (Psalm 49) CANNOT redeem, but we can act in the spirit of service in this splendour of divine love, being sent and opened to it, strengthened in it an enabled for it. This is what Christ is telling them in Matthew 20:27-28! "And whoever desires to be first among you, let him be your slave - just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many." What unserviceable person would want to be as a slave!

Yet to apply it to a well known theme: What mother worthy of the name would NOT be willing to slave away for her family, and how many do just that for long periods!

The phenomenon is not unknown, even in the most common of levels. But here, it must be at a level wholly uncommon, where there is no merely instinctive drive (not that many mothers do not far surpass this in spirit), but WHEREVER THE LORD SENDS!

This means that it is not mere choice or preference. Naturally one should use gifts present and not absent, for what is the use of what is not there! However, with God all things are possible and often does a gift appear as someone simply meets a need, which did not before seem evident.

Hence one must walk with the Lord, as Father, and as God, and be willing, ear opened, the scripture well studied, to be led as He will, according to His word, and His own good pleasure. It is not dictatorial, for HIS OWN serviceability is past all measure. But it IS in the realities of spirit, where God who knows all, serves and would send His servants; and it is NOT in the pleasures of the flesh, be these conceit, or aspiration, or the flame of desire for recognition or for power.

God, the sender, is also the source; and His Spirit knows well who is to do what, and where and how, and indeed apportions gifts by His own sovereign will (I Corinthians 12:4-7).
 
 


3) CHRIST AND PAUL :
EXEMPLAR and FOLLOWER

moving to Jerusalem
 

A) CHRIST

It is time now to consider a fascinating parallel, and to see the sense of Lordship both in Christ as Messiah doing the will of His everlasting Father, and Paul, doing the will of Christ in his apostleship: each, as approaching the outthrust crucial to the work to be done.

First, consider Christ, now not in His final agonies, but in those still requiring a deliberate discipline, a challenging directedness, and a love which would be co-ordinate with the duty; for God IS love.

Thus we find Christ journeying towards Jerusalem (Luke 13:22).

"Strive," He cried, "to enter through the narrow gate, for many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will  not be able: When once the Master of the house has risen up and shut the door, and you begin to stand outside, and knock at the door, saying, 'Lord, Lord, open for us, and He will answer and tell you, 'I do not know you, where you are from' " (Luke 13:24-25).

Warning many religious Jews that not few would those be who would come from West and East, North  and South and sit down in the kingdom of God, whilst some of these very privileged and ostensibly righteous religionists would be 'thrust out', He went on to make one of His most characteristic emphases. "And indeed, there are last who will be first, and there are first who will be last." Appearance and reality are readily divorced before the eyes of the all knowing God! It is not less than He with whom we are concerned; and as the grandeur of our opportunity and His presence is a marvel of wonder and a glory for praise, on the other side, the negative, without Him, there is a grotesque hollowness and a sure judgment.

It is in these circumstances that a glowing and fiery gem of divine truth appears, concerning His Lordship, and as Messiah, His obedient responsibility, and knowledgeable passion!

At this time, we read, some Pharisees told Him to get out for Herod would seek to kill Him! We recall the same message of doom, proper for cowards, given in Nehemiah's day (Nehemiah 6 where multiplied diversionary tactics failed), but the man who led would not heed: he would not come down from his work in contributing to the rebuilding of the Jerusalem that had been destroyed, a city now commissioned for restoration.

Far less would Christ desist from rebuilding towards the New Jerusalem (Revelation 21:2 cf. Galatians 4:26), whose inhabitants would be both free and found from all sides. Few however would they be, compared with the lost: that city is both for Jew or Gentile, yes for one and for all of the children of God, redeemed by His righteous life, sent godlessly to death for criminal and vicarious action; yet it was criminal in this, that He, the ultimate righteousness was criminally so adjudged by those who being lost, rejoiced in their follies and added to them this, that they denied their own restoration to the Father of all, by both damning and then damaging their Judge (as predicted in Micah 5:1f).

Worse, when they did this they perpetrated the punishment of One whose sins were zero, but who before His Father, in this very way  took the place of all sinners who would come to Him; for there was the authority for peace in the presence of God, and in that place was pardon (Isaiah 53:4-5,8,10).

While this horror scene was unfolding as prepared and predicted, there was nevertheless Jesus Christ, God incarnate, truly human utterly divine. Yet human He was. What then did Christ do in response to the challenge to cowardice, to the easy way, when confronted with the concept of saving HIMSELF! of running away because King Herod was, said they, after His blood! GO! they had said,  since Herod may otherwise kill you!

He answered the advice like this (Luke 13:32-33): "Go, tell that fox, Behold I cast out demons and perform cures today and tomorrow, and the third day, I shall be perfected. Nevertheless, I must journey today, tomorrow and the day following: for it cannot be that a prophet should perish outside of Jerusalem."

It is clear, in passing one notes, that a measure of sublime subtlety is here, not to avoid evil, but to rebuke it, while in perfect candour and complete compassion finishing His task.

Herod was not a delightful character, but appears devious and scheming, subtle and unattractive in his devices of rule and power. He had been guilty of the blood of Christ's relative according to the flesh, John the Baptist, Mary and Elizabeth being cousins (Luke 1:36). Thus, as Christ spoke in parables (Matthew 13:12-16) because of the hardness of hearts of those who resisted him so chronically in spirit, people who might simply ignore a direct  approach, at times, so here in meeting this particular challenge concerning King Herod,  He spoke with an artistry quite divine.

The reference to the three days in Luke 13:32-33 of course, as often found in His words, related to the time of His coming affliction before arising from the dead (e.g. Matthew 17:23, Luke 9:22). This as noted in SMR Ch. 6 was one of the Old Testament predictions He had to fulfil: for it was not enough that He had to rise from the dead, His body unavailable because required for His own use, so that none could by any means find it among the dead (Luke 24:5). "Why do you seek the living among the dead ?" the divine delegation asked on the Sunday
morning of the resurrection, one which changed for all time the day of rest to itself: for there was no rest till He rose, and holy rest came for ever when He completed this, the greatest of all the works of God, the consummation of the crucifixion, its base (cf. Biblical Blessings Appendix  I,  II,  III).

That was insurpassable but it was not enough. God is thoughtful and leaves nothing undone. It was as if the task of rebuilding the World Trade Centre in New York was not enough; it would not be enough to have it arise like a soaring eagle contrary to all expectation, by divine mandate, speedily replaced! That, it does not happen;  far less does it occur as if the mere process of nature were overshadowed by the powers that made the earth.  Buildings do not overthrow their destruction with an ease similar to that of their destruction! This, it is not the way life is! Painstaking work is needed at human rates and with the organisational ingenuities of large amounts of time. Thus, and a fortiori,  to have Christ's body raised at all from the dead, and to have this done summarily, it would be a portent beyond all comprehension, except from the super-natural God.

Yet God,  always as thorough as love would be expected to be, when lodged with infinite power: He went further. The body was to rise as so often declared and indeed denoted for hundreds of years before, in THREE DAYS. Not four, or two. Thus the test of the authenticity of Christ's claims to be deity was still more searching, as is fitting in matters of such moment and portent. To portentous power would be added precise arithmetic!

He was to rise in just three days, like Jonah from the dead. The first night was the harassment of His liberty, the mutilation of His words in false accusation, and the deliberate contempt at the hands of men who ostensibly then had Him in their power. The second was that of Friday, the third that of  Saturday; while the first day was the part of Friday left , the second the Saturday, and as for the third, it arose at the first peep of sun in the morning of it, for His tomb to be obviously vacated, inspectable and empty. Such is the inclusive counting of the culture.

Thus in speaking about the alleged threat from  Herod, Christ was providing a complex and eminently testable answer, and in so doing, confirming what He so often had stated elsewhere. Overall, then, three lines of evidence adduced.
 

First, He had to rise on the third day, prophetically, if the true Messiah; such was the stringency of the test, for Him, and the evidence, for believers.
Secondly, He SAID He would rise on the third day, and had said it often enough (cf. Luke 18:33, Matthew 16:21), so that the disciples depicted in Luke 24, on the Emmaus road, noted this fact as part of their deepest concern. The third day had come, and they were still concerned at the Messiah's continued absence. Alas, it looked to them very bad.
Thirdly, however, as far as the testimony to that murderer, Herod was concerned, when the time came, Christ would not only have 1) the obligation to rise according to the prophecies of old, and 2) that to fulfil His own statement that He would rise then, but 3) He would need to DO IT.
 
It would be the fact as well as the word that would be the testimony for Herod and all else. Thus in that symbolic way of speaking of the first and second days, and that on the third He would be perfected, He gave to His detractors (Luke 13:31) the sort of message which would stir his mind, like a parable, trouble his heart and eventually shock his eyes into more guilt. Already indeed, we learn that Herod at first thought in the earlier times, that the amazing power of Christ related to His being John the Baptist (Mark 6:14), whom he had had beheaded in a combination of weakness and bravado, at the request of a young lady. So did the royal delusions echo his damaged conscience, here given more ground for concern, duly ignored, though for all that penetratingly provided.

As to this Herod, It was always POSSIBLE he would repent, and such is the way of the Lord: to the cunning He shows Himself shrewd, says the Psalmist, to the pure, He shows Himself pure (Psalm 18:25-26).

It is however only now that we come to the pearl in the exposition of the light of lordship in the kingdom of heaven. Said Christ: "... for it cannot be that a prophet should perish outside of Jerusalem." NOT ONLY did this mean that He knew precisely WHY He was going with such determination to Jerusalem: He was able even to see and to say this element of its necessity, pithily, promptly and in the presence of evil.

HE, the high priest in spiritual terms who would, in honesty and integrity, offer not lambs but Himself, obviously had to be slain in Jerusalem. Thus was fulfilled the symbolism of the very Temple which He came to replace in Himself, the sacrifices in one, all of them, in Himself, and the very shrine His own body. Indeed, in this city, Jerusalem,  central location for the pageantry of sacrifice, the symbolism of spirituality and the mode of the atonement for which Christ paid, often enough did prophets in the presence of evil and rebellion meet the death of devotion to duty. How much more in view of His redemption, must He die there: He,  the prophet whose death instituted a new Age, the New Covenant, and whose resurrection confirmed both the true love of God, since it was the Truth who in human format, died, and His relevant power.

He then, as the quintessence and completion of the prophets, the king of eternity, He for one must perish in Jerusalem. Then Jerusalem would indeed itself perish, for its symbolism would now be fulfilled, while the rebellion which led to the slaughter of its King and the sacrifice of its High Priest led to irrelevant continuation of sacrifices, would be quenched. It is in this regard of vast interest that the Lord has so arranged things that even though now in 2001 the Jews are back in their promised land, and appointed city: yet being in breach of the covenant, and lost to the Messiah who completed according to their covenant, its meaning,  they CANNOT sacrifice again at this time in the temple.

It is not there. Its land is otherwise engaged. It is possessed if possible, by a worse defilement; for it harbours a Mosque there or in its near vicinity. If ever the Temple be rebuilt, then indeed would the site become one of appalling horror, fit for the end of the Age with the advent of Christ as King (cf. II Thessalonians 2:4,8). Why appalling ? it would use the things of God as given, for the abuse of the Son of God as sent!

Thus, as the one temple of stone went (destroyed in A.D. 70 as He predicted in Luke 19:46ff., in accord with the tenor of the prophecy of Daniel 9:24-27), so Christ had come, making its endurance pointless, and making indeed something more to be present in the realm of biological architecture. He the living temple would now arise to die no more, so that the temple that was operative in His own Person would now be indestructible:
 

"I am He who lives, and was dead; and behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death" (Revelation 1:18).


It is amazing but a true testimony o the powers of darkness, that any should then in HIS name try to get keys. Do they then think they can snatch them ? like hijackers of the plane of Christ ? or BECOME Christ, and so have existed from eternity ? or bear sin ? as already fully done (Hebrews 9:12, 27ff.).

It then became a divine grace to exhibit the weakness of a temple not only as something grossly misused, as if a wedding ring were a married relationship, and needed more attention than the marriage itself! but to show it as now wholly extraneous. HE had replaced it (Hebrews 9).

No more priests, no more sacrifices, no more architecture, for that supreme architecture, the human body, as the format for His own sojourn the Author, amidst His players: this was the new Temple to make old all others, all preparations and all preliminaries.

As a prophet, He had a place; as the priest for all time, He had a place; as the Saviour He had a place; as the sacrifice to end all expiatory sacrifices, He had a place. To perform these things to perfection, He had to do it in time, in 3 days, matching the symbolism and meeting the words of Hosea 6 (SMR pp. 472ff.). If the matrix of prophecy moved towards Jerusalem, how much more then this! What wit! and what terse exposition, yes and with what poignancy, strength and imagination He spoke as becomes the Lord who is Lord indeed!

Thus we see the PRACTICAL READINESS to face whatever it took, and to do so resolutely as we read of it in Luke 9:51-2:
 

• "And it came about, when the days were approaching for His ascension, that He resolutely set His face to go to Jerusalem, and He sent messengers on ahead of Him."

While He Himself is here seen being steadfast, resolute and organising for His departure, following the death which He had to accomplish, of which we read in Luke 9:31, He is also deeply moved for Jerusalem, since though He should die for its inhabitants, being offered up with appeal to all men, they in their masses would have none of Him.  How beautiful, let us observe in passing this point, was this phrasing, 'the death which He would accomplish'.  It reflected the point that death was a JOB He had to do, something to be PERFORMED since that was the way to LIFE ETERNAL for those who by this death, would sacrificially be covered, their places available on repentance and in faith. It was like an operation, and uses the language of one. When God in human form does this, it IS an operation: it is planned for a purpose and done to achieve it. It is part of what the life of God is like, that He had both will and means to meet it and overcome it, then use it for salvation: even death!

Thus we look at His sorrow, a sorrow measured by the fact that He was willing to suffer sufficiently for all, though effectually only for some, since without faith none of His treasures are tapped, but rather reserved (John 8:24). The unsearchable riches of Christ (Ephesians 3:8), like vast waters tapped to houses involved, make no difference whatsoever to the unbelieving, except to underline their guilt in not receiving them: the riches of atonement, of reconciliation, of the beauty of holiness, of friendship, of spiritual creativity, of companionship, of sanctification, of opening the understanding, of peace, of love and joy, of spiritual power for His purposes, of longsuffering and grace, patience and longsuffering, forbearance and exploits of wisdom to reach those in need.

Accordingly, when we observe His grief at sure-to-be-ruined Jerusalem, a doom arising not because of some impersonal fate, the Lord forbid, but because they did not realise, and WOULD not realise the marvel of the opportunity they execrated, since their wily leaders were more interested in preserving their lives than rendering them justly to God: it is an intense thing.

• "If you had known, in this day, even you, the things that make for your peace, but now they have been hidden from your eyes"

 
• (and with what preliminaries, opportunities and munificence! Matthew 13:14-17).

Men have changed but little!  To be levelled to the ground! this was what was to come to this old time Hiroshima, if you will... The NEW buildings would be spiritual, and how many would try to spill the fires of their fury against these buildings, the saints of God, the Christians, starting early with the Herod family, trying its hatred of God on James (Acts 12:1ff.) and trying, but in vain, to do the same to Peter. It has continued (cf. Revelation 12:15ff., John 16:2), precisely as predicted. Everything predicted always does; there are no exceptions.

There then we see His living Lordship in non-domineering, but dutiful and gracious dynamic. Indeed, still compassionate, not tampering with realities but expressing them, not lost in a system but expressing as the word of God, the mind of God, Christ left another sharp incision in the consciences of the people, no doubt not least in order that they might reflect, and their descendants on what they did, and seek the Lord against whom the nation had so critically roused itself. Accordingly, as He went to the cross, He saw them weeping and cried to them:

"Daughters of Jerusalem: stop weeping for Me! but weep for yourselves and for your children. For behold, the days are coming when they will say, 'Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that never bore, and the breasts that never nursed.' Then they will begin to say to the mountains, 'Fall on us,' and to the hills, 'Cover us.' For if they do these things in the green tree, what will happen in the dry?"

So like a surgeon speaking of a coming operation, but this time one for them, did Christ speak of history to come, yes not only in A.D. 70 and later when the city of Jerusalem was levelled, suffering enormously as Daniel had forecast of the destructions (Daniel 9:24ff.), but also in the pogroms of Europe and Russia to sprinkle themselves like radioactive waste in the Middle Ages and indeed beyond,  in the way of Hitler, and yes, now, from the donations of the Arab world. These are provided with much help from the enriched cartel driven powers of the Islam exterminator, seemingly content now to take over the role of Hitler, by openly, brazenly and even unashamedly declaring it better that the nation of Israel, its advent deemed a catastrophe, should perish!

In all of this, then, we have observed the nature of divine Lordship when the Lord Himself comes in the form of a servant, an illustration and even an example to us all who, though we may never redeem since that is something which is paid for once only and then ceases (Psalm 49:8, Hebrews 9:12), yet may and should act in this way. The nature of His celestial kingdom and rule seen and assured in Him, with man long informed of these things because of His word, He is seen pleading but not parlaying since what is written will not change. IF EVEN IN THIS YOUR DAY, YOU HAD KNOWN THE THINGS WHICH BELONG TO YOUR PEACE ..

Now this love and tenderness is not alone in the skies of the sublime: it is said WHILE He nevertheless continues to ACT to provide this peace for ANY who will receive Him as Lord and Saviour as His word declares, and follow Him with that faith without which He CANNOT be received, but with which He CANNOT be lost (John 10:9,27-28) for then He UNDERTAKES to keep what is committed to Him

He did not, does not and never does change. Perfection has no need. It is only the heart of man which must change!
 
 

Let us however return to Paul on his accelerated and determined way to Jerusalem, where repeatedly he had prophecy provided of the force from which he would suffer. We saw him with the elders brought from Ephesus, at Miletus.

We now watch the apostle, advancing like a panzer division, but yes, not to destroy but to deliver, a benevolent one facing death, but not causing it. Last  time, then, it was the Lord Himself going devotedly to death in Jerusalem. Now it is Paul whom we see,  coming to Jerusalem, a trip pregnant with both danger and meaning. As if he had heard Christ indicate that a prophet could scarcely perish outside Jerusalem, this apostle also was very resolute, very determined, organising carefully to that end, bringing the point home again and again as he went.

This we first begin to see in Acts 20:16: "For Paul had decided to sail past Ephesus, so that he would not have to spend time in Asia: for he was hurrying to be at Jerusalem, if possible, on the Day of Pentecost."

Sailing without delay past Ephesus, where he had spent so long, he called to the elders of that city to meet him at Miletus, further on. His message to them  is filled with a sense of grandeur, not in bloated arrogance, but in a teeming awareness of the rain of grace, of what was to be wrought in the grace and through the power of God, of what the disciples would need to be prepared to face, of what was coming in the seasons seeking admission to history, and of the end to await him in a little. Such things are seen in Acts 20:20-23, where Paul stressed the sincerity of purpose and depth of communication wrought through him in terms of the gospel and the word of God. Indeed, he roundly declared,

• "I have not shunned to declare to you the whole counsel of God" - Acts 20:27.

They would seek to  "draw away the disciples to themselves." What then is the physiognomy of these frauds ? These godlets, who cared not for the true and living God, did care for their own prestige, power or pomp, influence and condition (cf. II Peter 2:1ff., Matthew 24:24, 7:15). Servants of self, Satan, culture, commerce or some synthesis, these were to come. In our century, as predicted for the "latter days"  (in Jeremiah 23:9ff., with 23:19-20 with II Peter 2:1ff.), we have our culture riddled with them. Indeed, we shall see an example of great portent, DV in our next chapter, one fresh from the pot of the stew of spiritual sedition.
 

With his eye on a blessed future for them (20:32), he knelt and prayed with them.

• " 'And see, now I go bound in the spirit to Jerusalem, not knowing the things that will happen to me there, except that the Holy Spirit testifies in every city, saying that chains and tribulations await me. But none of these things move me; nor do I count my life dear to myself, so that I may finish my race with joy, and the ministry which I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God.

 
• " 'And indeed, now I know that you all, among whom I have gone preaching the kingdom of God, will see my face no more.

 
• " 'Therefore I testify to you this day that I am innocent of the blood of all men. For I have not shunned to declare to you the whole counsel of God. Therefore take heed to yourselves and to all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God which He purchased with His own blood. For I know this, that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock.

 
• " 'Also from among yourselves men will rise up, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after themselves. Therefore watch, and remember that for three years I did not cease to warn everyone night and day with tears.

 
• " 'So now, brethren, I commend you to God and to the word of His grace, which is able to build you up and give you an inheritance among all those who are sanctified. I have coveted no one’s silver or gold or apparel. Yes, you yourselves know that these hands have provided for my necessities, and for those who were with me. I have shown you in every way, by laboring like this, that you must support the weak. And remember the words of the Lord Jesus, that He said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’

 
• "And when he had said these things, he knelt down and prayed with them all. Then they all wept freely, and fell on Paul’s neck and kissed him, sorrowing most of all for the words which he spoke, that they would see his face no more."

It is instructive now to follow Paul as he comes nearer to Jerusalem, and to find the end of this epic.

 At Tyre, he was told "through the Spirit not to go up to Jerusalem". At Caesarea, Agabus, the prophet, came down from Jerusalem, and taking Paul's belt, he bound his own hands and feet, declaring: "Thus says he Holy Spirit, 'So shall the Jews at Jerusalem bind the man who owns this belt, and deliver him into the hands of the Gentiles.' "

Some were distressed at this, pleading with him not to go, but the answer (20:13) shows much of the Lordship in which the Christian lives, and has his being.

"What do you man by weeping and breaking my heart ? For I am ready not only to be bound, but also to die at Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus."

"Take courage, Paul; for as you have testified for Me at Jerusalem, so you must witness at Rome also."

It is clear that Paul is given an inner command, constraint and awareness of his duty to be at Jerusalem, in the midst and hub of things, at whatever cost. The Lord's clear direction in the midst of the legal and physical processes which followed Paul's visit to Jerusalem, the apostle sometimes near to death, attests further the wisdom given to him. Thus not only was unusual transport to Rome thus provided, but this method proved spiritually fruitful. In going 'in state', as a strange seeming prisoner of conscience, he attracted great attention both among the Jews at Rome and among the Gentiles, teaching relatively freely there for 2 years!

SUFFERING, in the avoidance, is NOT a focus of divine guidance; for as we have seen, the Son of Man when He came Himself, was anything but devoted to comfort, though filled with sensitivity.

There is however a question of great import which arises here.

How then was it said THROUGH the Spirit , as we have just read, that Paul should not go to Jerusalem; or is this a correct translation ?  It appears thus that the urging was for Him to count the cost. The Greek here is a matter of striving, of persuasion, not direct command. It is urged upon him the danger, and there is a sort of pleading. The disciples "said through the Spirit not to go". This could be compared to Gideon of old,  sifting out the people to follow him in a difficult and perilous enterprise against the enemy: the mode of selection of those to accompany him then ? It was  in terms of those who lapped and those who used their hands to gain water from a stream.
That was the mode of selection then. What of this protestation towards Paul ?

This then was the impulsion not to go, so what could have been the impulsion to go in any case ? Presumably, and certainly apparently, the Lord had made it clear to Paul's heart where his responsibility lay, and in this he felt the motherly, the gracious, the kindly pangs of the urgings which showed him the dangers of going; and it appears that these, together with the authoritative awareness he had of what he had to accomplish, made him feel as if his heart would break (Acts 20:13). This was at Caesarea.

• " What do you mean by weeping and breaking my heart ? for I am ready not only to be bound but also to die at Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus."

 
• We then read: "And when he would not be persuaded, we ceased, saying, The will of the Lord be done."

Thus the contesting of the journey  as in Acts 21:4 appears thus: The apostle is urged to consider his ways, to ponder his path, to be assured doubly of his intention, to survey in spiritual wisdom his course since there is to be a sure imprisonment. The mh here in the Greek shows that the mood is not indicative, but hortatory, or that there is an urging, something other than command, a sort of communication which has a sense of striving. This fits with the conception of counting the cost, with the unspoken ellipsis, UNLESS you are willing to suffer greatly. It appears then to be a warning, not a prohibition. It is a tenderness of solicitousness, but not a directive. MUST you go ? says the mother to her son, proceeding to war. Be sure of your call.

Thus it appears  was Paul placed, and in terms of the compassion shown, his heart felt the impact. It is harder for a warrior to face the battle when his mother's tears speak!

Thus his reply in 21:13 is not elaborate or unnecessary. He HAS weighed the cost, it seems, and despite the awareness of the grace of the warning, is assured that the cost not being too great, he will pay it gladly. Hence we see his words concerning his intention: he is not only willing to be bound, but to die!

Here you see the elements of the guidance, the strength of the lordship, the sense of compassion, concern and willingness allied with a grace of personal deportment which is most human, since after all, he is serving God in the seeking the lost, even if in seeking, he must lose liberty and then life. It is HIS OWN life he is willing to give in faith, freely to bring the faith, not others to be destroyed for the seizing of the earth by the compulsions of some 'faith' where love is as absent to the eye as liberty to the heart: as with modern day Islamic terrorists! There lies one of the most crucial differences.

SO went Paul to experience the contempt and derision of truth prepared for him, as a servant of it. This,  having been shown to Christ, was now freely visited on his servant, reminding us keenly of a cardinal point in the lordship of Christ over our lives, those of us who are Christian, that the servant is not greater than his master (John 15:20), and that if they have done it to the Lord Himself, they will also do it to us. Thus when one suffers, as one has suffered all but routinely, at the hand of false or straying churches, or their false prophets, one does not shudder.

It is a matter of profound grief to see such good so wrongly abused that the very servant of God has to be despitefully used and slandered in various ways, cut off this side or on that: but it is not unexpected. The wolves Paul indicated proliferate at the end; and they hunt, as we all know, in packs! The false prophets of the contemporary Judaism, like the false proponents of the false prophet Muhammad are alike in this: the blood flows. The Koran makes it clear that such is not to be unexpected, by its prescriptions (cf. SMR p. 91) , just as does the Bible by its predictions. To the former we shall look as often before, but in a new context, in the next chapter.

Meanwhile, we have completed our survey of the movements of Christ and Paul to Jerusalem in terms of the divine Lordship and its nature, its lessons and its wonder. Let us now consider the findings.
 
 

The Lordship of Christ, the LORD as God and Saviour, Companion and Guide, Counsellor and wisdom,  is a matter of the utmost profundity, of duty and courage, of light and love, of compassion and of grace, of constant readiness as in a Hospital where both day and night nurses are freely provided, of wisdom and understanding, both from the regulative and definitive word of God, only source of doctrine, and from the leading of the Spirit of God as He will. It incorporates the receiving gifts as He will (I Cor. 12:4-8,28), and using them as one ought; being strengthened and ever ready to suffer, or die, or to live in patience, securing triumphs for Christ and victories for His name. In the end, this helps the wandering to look, the conceited to be humbled, the arrogant to ponder and the weak to be strengthened.

Seemingly a slavery, to some, it is actually a liberty; for where the Lord is, there is power for anything, action to cover and grace to deliver: when God is there, nothing else can stand, and everything else is in perspective (cf. II Timothy 4:18). In the end, it is like being in a house  with one's father, except in this case, that Father is not only sublime, but divine, not merely in charge, but charged with such grace that perfumes symbolise their expression, jewels their light.

It is living in this, that lesser living is mere time-passing. Living in His kingdom and hence under His lordship is what we are for:  it is the inheritance, certainly not luxurious, assuredly not hedonistic or sybaritic, but right and proper, in which one can prosper in what one is sent to do by One nothing less than one's own Creator. From him is the conscience, from Him the might, the light, the radiance and the reality; in Him the answers are free in all truth, and by Him is the love without which man becomes like vinegar to the nostrils. Strong ? yes, but very bitter.

The Lordship of Christ, God as Lord, it is a thing of song, of triumph and joy, of steadfastness, like the ground under one's feet but more sure, like the mountains aspiring to the uttermost, with grave joy and solemn portent, or the lambs in their lively happiness, the cows that graze in their peaceful contentment, the little birds in their energetic antics, the clouds in their softness and imaginative configurations, the wind in its directional force, the sea in its depth.

These are but pictures WITHIN Creation of elements of His prodigious presentations; but to know Him for oneself, this is joy unspeakable and full of glory (I Peter 1:8). People will watch jarring, dangling characters, jolt and thrust themselves this way and that like drunken golliwogs, and call this entertainment, or even a lively event, a form of life. Yet when it comes to the God whom such actions frequently divorce, making themselves the very art of the senseless, as if this were anodyne to difficulties never resolved because quite wilfully, the light of this world is turned off in the heart: these things are like childish follies. Children may grow out of them, but when it is grown persons who so act, what is the end ?

Or is it to be some statuesque morality, invented by one’s tribe or psyche, which is preferred to the lordship of God ? In this sort of perversion of spirit, people often proceed judging by instinct, feeling or self-importance, the nature of things, though lacking any contact with the absolute in His wisdom, or even deriding His life in this way or that, so that the truth is unknowable on such a basis. Indeed, they proceed with renegade authority. I do not know, they may say; but in practice they work it so. They live as they think, and erecting their own criteria, judge themselves, and so conveniently avoid the unanswerable judgments of the God of objectivity and the Lord of truth, as if ignorance were bliss, or disdain, contempt or disregard gave one a standing, like little children standing on their heads in the sand, and thinking their new worlds really quite interesting.

Yet the actual world does not, for this, change at all.

It is Lordship and love, or lostness and the contrived captions of an artless way, an extravaganza of meaninglessness, seeking to explain what becomes in their ways,  the inexplicable, since they have  thrown away the key; or it is as in some difficult cross-word, which had it all worked out with consummate ease in a discarded paper. Now they just say the answer; but their words are void.

Yet it is not merely that there is no other solution; there is not other life. There are in the end no options; it is life or a form of death so volatile, that it is like vapours instead of rock, a breeze of air expressed momentarily, instead of wisdom found where woe cannot penetrate, since the brightness is too much: and further,  it is a defeat before the face of a life so wonderful, that its demise in the sullen airs of the lost in lordships of their own devising, is the very pith and performance of tragedy.

Indeed, as to this Lordship, it is the summum bonum, the cornucopia of content, the acme of all aspiration, for here is the greatest, the most powerful, and to the uttermost,  the incomparably powerful, for whom not as some phrase or dogma of the mind, but as a fact this is so: and here is the best, omitting no consideration, knowing every phase and facet, just and true, responsible and assured, intimate as Creator and ultimate as redeemer, providing heaven for the spirit by blood for His body.

It is so, for nothing is too hard for the Lord. This, it is found, it is seen, it is practised, it is true in necessities of logic, in profundities of love, in performance criteria, in history as it will be found in heaven.

Creativity is His dower, fresh from the factories of His creation; and in Him there is so august and profound a Being that to add to this that He is personal and has contrived the very construction of persons, and after this, that He has wrought their redemption from the sin to which they are vulnerable and for which now liable, is to meet the inimitable, the unsurpassable and the unique. It is to meet the answer to all questions and the condemnation of all vacuous follies of the human mind and its stalwart follies of imagination, acting as if it had mandate to make gods, or itself to be one of these.

Moreover, as if this were not sufficient, we find that He has provided for His people yet more. He has enabled their polishing like gems, like diamonds multi-faceted in the hands of a jeweller, so that they might gleam with reflected light and be imbued with its presence like translucent rubies suffused with light (II Cor. 3:18), and so we find in perfection in Christ, and in illustration for redeemed sinners, in Paul as we have followed their goings above.

But what is it like ?

It is like adding billions to millions for the cupidity of lust.

But this is no lust. It is love.

When God is concerned,

• the greatest in and even beyond the universe is the best;
• the ultimate is the wonder beyond all, the height is the help; and
• the most available is the most desirable.

Truly "the desire of the nations" (Haggai 2:6-7, Hebrews 12:24-28), He is one for whom the earth will be shaken, for there is no other. It is He who is the acme even when His name is laid in the dust by witless sin; and with this, the most pleasant of companions, even when His discipline for a moment must be severe, to correct a trend or instil a wholesome fear, as a father might do with fire for a careless child (Heb. 12): for fire, for all its brightness can burn, and must be realised for its strength (Heb. 12:29).

Strength with spirituality, wisdom with power, wonder with love, radiance with reality: who would not be happy in the open presence of such a Being as this! (John 14:21ff.). Who would not find it a privilege unspeakable or at least impelling to the heart, enlivening to the spirit and stirring to the uttermost to the mind, to be allowed to serve Him!

But to be asked to do so, what is it like ? It is like a drop of water being asked if it would play in the waterfalls of Niagara in full flow, or a leaf being asked if it would be pleased to hang next to the Springtime tassel of an oak, itself with a heart of constancy and a spreading beauty of comely proportions, set in a glade of moist and dappled shade by a waterfall. LORD! It is lovely to know the Lord, and a privilege of immeasurable joy to serve such a One as He . ..such a One ? No, it is He Himself, incomparable: to serve HIM! Departure from Him is taking leave of life, while retaining its form.

Small wonder Job exclaimed of the Redeemer, of whom these words were inscribed, "I know that My Redeemer lives": "Whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold, and not another. How my heart yearns within me!" "In a moment," says Paul, "in a twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet shall sound and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed."

You take your shoes off when you enter heaven.
 
 

*1  This followed on an earlier defeat in their lives, when they were striving amongst themselves as to who should be greatest in the kingdom of heaven (a virtual contradiction in terms, and in essence little less! - the point is covered in Matthew 20:20, and in 18:1ff. with Luke 9:46ff., and  22:24).