Jottings

by J. Miller | Category: Jottings | Jun 1967

In his judgement of the Lord Pilate said three times, in John's Gospel, "I find no crime in Him". But there is no doubt that the Jews' indictment and that of Pilate emerged from two different points of view of the Lord. The principal cause of the Jewish condemnation was, "We have a law, and by that law He ought to die, because He made Himself the Son of God" (John 19.7). This accusation terrified Pilate, and he interrogated the Lord in the palace as to whence He was. The Lord gave him no answer, and Pilate told Him that he had power (authority) to release Him, and power (authority) to crucify Him. Whereupon the Lord said, "Thou wouldest have no power (authority) against Me, except it were given thee from above: therefore he that delivered Me unto thee hath greater sin". He who will be the Judge of all men, in these words assessed the grievous character of the sin of the high priest of Israel as compared with that which Pilate was about to commit. Pilate would have released the Lord, but the hardhearted Jews cast the stone that felled the Roman judge, "If thou release this man, thou art not Cesar's friend: every one that maketh himself a king speaketh against Cesar". This was the choice that Pilate had to make, Christ or Cesar, Cesar and the present world, or Christ and the world to come. Pilate forthwith came out and sat on the judgement-seat, and he said to the Jews, "Behold, your King!" The Jews cried, "Crucify Him". "Shall I crucify your King? The chief priests answered, We have no king but Cesar". Then he delivered Him to be crucified. Pilate wrote the title of identity of Him who was to be crucified and also His indictment, and put it on the cross, "JESUS OF NAZARETH, THE KING OF THE JEWS". The Jews wanted this altered; "Write not, The King of the Jews; but that He said, I am the King of the Jews. Pilate answered, What I have written I have written". Christ died bearing witness to the truth that He was the Son of God, and the King of the Jews.

These two facts appear in the first page of the New Testament, for Matthew writes there of the kingship and the deity of the Lord. This Child was to be called "Immanuel" ("God with us"), and He was to receive the name of Jesus (Jehovah the Saviour), who would save His people from their sins. His coming was not to drive Cesar from his throne, nor Pilate from his judge's bench, He had come for a far greater work and that was to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself.

The end of the Lord's life was as fully proclaimed in the Old Testament as His birth. On the day of the Fall the word of judgement was pronounced over the old serpent who had used the serpent of the field to do his work:

"I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy

seed and her Seed: It shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise His heel" (Genesis 3.15).

He was to be of the Seed of the woman and of the Seed of Abraham and David. In Matthew 1 the one-time publican traces through the royal line of Judah and Israel the generation of the Lord back to Abraham. But in Luke 3 we have many names in the Lord's generation not given in Matthew. We point out one outstanding difference. In Matthew, Solomon is the son of David, but in Luke David's son Nathan is given, who was the third son of Bath-sheba. Solomon was her fourth son. This is but one of the variances between the two generations that are given. Some outstanding scholars explain the difference by saying that Matthew's line of descent is that of Joseph, and Luke's is that of Mary. Others do not agree with this, but have no answer for the difficulty that arises between the two generations. Matthew's generation goes back only to Abraham, but Luke's goes back to Adam, who was the son of God.

Had the Lord's generations been examined by the Jews they would have found that, viewing the Lord according to the flesh, they had crucified the Messiah. The Gospel that Paul preached was, that He was the Son of David and also the Son of God (Romans l.l-4).

Whilst Matthew writes of the Lord as the King of the Jews, and Luke as the Son of Man, John writes of Him as the Son of God. This he makes plain when he writes, "Many other signs therefore did Jesus in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book: but these are written, that ye may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye may have life in His name" (John 20.30,31).

There are two verses in John which seem to me to present different meanings. "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God" (John 1.1). The other verse is in chapter 17.5, "And now, 0 Father, glorify Thou Me with Thine own Self with the glory which I had with Thee before the world was". "With" in John 17.5 is the Greek preposition para with the dative, which means "by", "in proximity", "alongside". Thus the Lord seeks what He had with the Father before the world was, and which He did not have while He was on earth. To His murmuring disciples He said, "What then if ye should behold the Son of Man ascending where He was before?" (John 6.62).

Philippians 2.6,7 gives us the other side of the matter, "Who (Christ Jesus), being in the form of God, counted it not a prize to be on an equality with God, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant (or slave)". He emptied Himself of the glory which He had with (by or alongside) God when He stooped to earth and became the Child Jesus. There was no visible difference between Him and another child, and when He grew to be a Man there was no difference in external appearance between Him and other men, save it was in the lowliness of the character of Him who became the Man of sorrows. Before He came to earth He shared the glory with the Father upon the throne in heaven, and when He returned from earth to heaven He was addressed in the words of Psalm 110.1, "The LORD saith unto my lord, Sit Thou at My right hand". The Lord has gone back to the place and the glory that were His before He came to earth.

We come now to the first verse of John 1; "And the Word was with God". "With" here is not para, but the preposition pros with the accusative. It means "towards", "direction of motion or relation", "actual or antecedent motion". We have here the eternal and unchangeable relation and motion of the Son toward God the Father. The closeness of this movement and relation are given in the most intimate terms in John 1.18, "No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him". Time, space, and circumstance cannot affect the infinite nearness, affection and knowledge, that exist between the Son and the Father. Certain have thought that this place in the bosom of God followed the resurrection of the Lord. The glorification of the Lord at God's right hand followed His resurrection, but not His place of being with God, as in John 1.1, nor His being in the bosom of the Father, these are His in the unique and unsearchable relations within the Godhead. The glory referred to in John 1.14, is the glory inherent in the Person of the Lord, quite different from that which He had before the world was, of which He emptied Himself, and in which He asked the Father that He should be glorified with Him. His glory as the Only Begotten was seen only by faith, and of this John writes, "We beheld His glory, glory as of the Only Begotten from the Father". That glory was hidden from mere human sight by the veil of His flesh.

J. Miller | Jun 1967
Jottings