The 1966 Southam Cheswick Convention, Dallas Texas, January 20th, Major Thomas.
Message: A Man approved of God.
Thank you so much for that very wonderful message to our hearts. It is lovely to share
the ministry in this way with our brother Frank Barnes and to add the spoken Word to the
sung Word. And it is all about our wonderful Lord Jesus in whom—as we have already
had tonight so wonderfully demonstrated—we share such rich fellowship.
When is saw that show of hands I felt very much at home as I am a baptized Episcopal
Presbyterian from leanings towards Methodist and the Brethren with a Congregational
background with just a splash of Salvation Army I really felt at home.
Folks sometimes ask me my denominational allegiance, well I just had to tell you.
It is so wonderful to be with you again tonight and to know that you are here as I believe
those of us on the platform and in the choir consciously to enjoy the presence of our Lord
Jesus. Isn’t it a thrilling thing to think that all throughout this past day we have been
sharing his love? Because that is exactly what it means to be a Christian, to share the life
of the Lord Jesus. And as we share his life he shares our lives. He is not ashamed. He is
not ashamed to call us his brethren, the firstborn among many brethren.
And that is why tonight I want to talk about him, because, you see, the subject officially
for the night, as it has been throughout this day, is the person, office and work of the
Holy Spirit. And there is no person who more wonderfully, [?] demonstrated in his
humanity the person, office and work of the Holy Spirit than the Lord Jesus himself. So
the obvious person to talk about is the Lord Jesus, because for 33 years he gave a
demonstration of this wonderful glorious truth. He was himself the most vivid, glorious
demonstration of this phenomenon, this phenomenon of all phenomena which Dr.
Redpath described this morning as the eschatological phenomena, God in the flesh
manifest, the Word, the eternal Word, the created Word incarnate. That is a phenomenon.
But what we do need to recognize constantly and I again and again remind ourselves of is
that if it is a phenomenon that God can be manifest in the flesh, it was precisely to be
such a phenomenon that God created you and me. And I want to remind you at the very
Page 2 of 13
outset of our session this evening as we consider the person of our wonderful Lord Jesus
that everything he was as a man he, as God, created us to be.
Now sometimes we don’t recognize that fact. We tend, of course, to think of the Lord
Jesus as Superman. And by thinking of the Lord Jesus as Superman, we rob ourselves of
the glorious emancipating message that his life brings to you and to me.
The amazing thing is this, that although the Lord Jesus was never less than God in
eternal, unchanging co-equality, in the tri-unity of deity with the Father and the Holy
Spirit, the amazing thing is this, that when he came into this world he came to be
precisely man as he, as God, created man to be.
You see, when I think of the Lord Jesus as Superman, essentially God in his humanity
and behaving only in all the fullness of his deity as a man, I tend to worship him, love
him and admire him. But when it comes to my responsibility to live the kind of life on
earth that he lived then 1900 years ago, I almost dismiss it and say, “Well, it was all right
for him. He was God, but I am not God.”
But, you know, if we think like that, we rob ourselves of the message of the life of the
Lord Jesus, because what the Lord Jesus is trying to teach us and tell us throughout the 33
years of his sinless humanity on earth is how to be man as he, as God, was man,
demonstrating man’s humanity.
You see, the Lord Jesus is not only eh truth about God, he is the truth about man. He was
the truth about God because he was the truth about man. Because, to tell you the truth
about man, man was to be the truth about God. Is that obvious to you?
Let me say it again. Think it through. The Lord Jesus on earth for 33 years was the truth
about God because he was the truth about man, because, to tell you the truth about man,
was to have been the truth about God.
Genesis chapter one, “And God said, Let us make man in our image.”1 And “ in the
likeness of God made he him.”2
So if Adam in his innocency created efficiently the function of the purpose which God
made him...
...walked this earth and you wanted to know the truth about God, who ought you to have
looked at? The one whom God created to make an invisible God visible, Adam. And if
Adam was being true to his humanity he would be the truth, exactly truth about what God
was like. Now isn’t that an amazing thing?
And, of course, you see today in the 20th century you and I are being true to our humanity
on in the measure that we are the truth about Jesus Christ.
The tragedy is this. And, of course, this is the nature of our sin that all too often we are
telling lies about Jesus Chris. We call ourselves Christians inhabited by the living,
eternal, timeless God and we should be telling the truth about Jesus Christ by what we
are. We should be telling the truth about Jesus Christ by the attitudes we adopt, the
language that we use, the thoughts of our minds, but we are not telling the truth about
Jesus Christ as he so perfectly told the truth for 33 years about his Father.
He could say, “He that hath seen me hath seen [who?] the Father.”3
“Because I am the truth about my Father. I just don’t tell you about my Father. I am the
truth about my Father. But nothing about me that is incompatible with what my Father is.
I am the truth about God.”
That is a phenomenon. And yet it was precisely for this glorious function that you and I
were made, that man should be inhabited by God himself in such a way that God can
communicate his character, his nature, his very being through a man. It is wonderful.
Do you know what it says in the57th chapter of the prophecy of Isaiah? Isaiah 57 and
verse 15.
“For thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity...”4
What? Where is God? What is his habitat? What is God’s habitation? Eternity. Only
eternity is big enough for God. For God is preexistent, self existent, eternally existent.
From the timeless ages of the past on into the timeless ages of the future. You see, God’s
character is eternal. He is eternal life.
“And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life,”5 and this quality of life
called eternal is vested in the person of the Son, the Word, who was with God and is God
and by whom all things were made, the created Word. And there is only one place big
enough for eternal life and that is eternity. And God who is eternal inhabits eternity. But
the amazing thing is this.
“For thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy; I
dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit.”6
The amazing thing is this: that the God who inhabits eternity is the one who is prepared
to inhabit you. God incarnate, God clothed with a man’s humanity. This is the unique
character of man as God made him that he was literally, not just figuratively, but literally,
factually to enter into it experientially, created by God, literally to be inhabited by God.
And when the Lord Jesus Christ came into this world he came to show us exactly what
man was intended to be and how a man on earth may be inhabited by an eternal God so
that that eternal God can give tangible expression, his character, his person, his being, his
name for the man whom he inhabits.
And to this end the Lord Jesus became man.
Would you turn with me to the epistle to the Philippians chapter two?
Verse five tells us, “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: Who, being
in the form of God...”7 a form that no man has seen and a form that no man can see, the
form of God. God has a form, but we don’t know what that form is. The Lord Jesus we
know was in the form of God.
But he “thought it not robbery to be equal with God.”8
He did not think this equality with God was a thing to be eagerly grasped or retained.
But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a
servant, and was made in the likeness of men: And being found in fashion
as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the
death of the cross.9
The Lord Jesus in the form of God, possessing all the attributes which make God God,
deliberately set aside those divine attributes that make God God and submitted himself to
those limitations that make a man man. But he, as God, created a man to be inhabited by
God, that the God who inhabits eternity might inhabit that man and that the God
inhabiting that man might through that man make tangible, visible his own character, his
own being as in a man without the God who inhabits is nothing. For it is the God in the
man who make the man man as God intended man to be.
And that is why when the Lord Jesus Christ came to this world, though he was never less
than God, deliberately made himself all that a man is without God, nothing. He made
himself of no reputation.
In the New English Translation it says, “He made himself nothing.” Amazing.
The Lord Jesus of his own free volition, he need never have done it, made himself
nothing, all that a man is without God, nothing.
Now, the purpose for which, of course, the Lord Jesus made himself nothing was that his
Father, as God, might inhabit his humanity and be in him everything, that there might be
a total communication of the character of his Father as God through is humanity as man.
It was the office of the Lord Jesus in the sinlessness of his humanity to place God where
he could be seen.
For, “No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of
the Father, he hath declared him.”10
So the first consideration for tonight against this background is Jesus becoming, Jesus
becoming as man, the Son of God in his humanity, Jesus becoming.
And we are going to examine the office of the Holy Spirit in that process whereby Jesus
became. And to this end we are going to turn to the first chapter of the record that Luke
gives us in his gospel, Luke chapter one.
Jesus becoming man. The Son of God and the Son of Man.
Twenty-six of chapter one in the book of Luke.
And in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God unto a city of
Galilee, named Nazareth, To a virgin espoused to a man whose name was
Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin’s name was Mary. And the
angel came in unto her, and said, Hail, thou that art highly favoured, the
Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women. And when she saw
him, she was troubled at his saying, and cast in her mind what manner of
salutation this should be. And the angel said unto her, Fear not, Mary: for
thou hast found favour with God. And, behold, thou shalt conceive in thy
womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name JESUS. He shall be
great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest: and the Lord God shall
give unto him the throne of his father David: And he shall reign over the
house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end.11
Now that is how it all began. Bethlehem, over 1900 years ago, that first Christmas day
when the Lord Jesus was born into this world and God was incarnate stepping out of
eternity into time and clothing himself with man’s humanity. This is how it began. It
began with the Word of God upon the lips of God’s faithful servant the angel Gabriel
who suddenly burst into the life of this woman Mary.
And, behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and
shalt call his name JESUS. He shall be great, and shall be called the Son
of the Highest: and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his
father David: And he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of
his kingdom there shall be no end.12
The astonishment, in that incredible Word of God, that this message should come from
God upon the lips of his faithful servant into this woman’s heart. He began with the
Word of God, something God had to say. God said it. The angel Gabriel delivered the
message. That is all.
And the natural reaction of the natural heart of this natural woman to this unnatural word
was one of incredulity.
“How shall this be, seeing I know not a man?”13
I am sure our brother who led us in prayer at the opening of this session had no idea that
this is the particular passage that God had laid upon my heart for the opening of this
evening hour, but my heart rejoiced when he quoted these words, because this was the
natural reaction of the natural heart of a natural woman to the unnatural Word of God.
“How can this [thing] be, seeing I know not a man?”14
Here the woman Mary repudiates the physical, natural premise of physical, natural birth.
We may recognize from this, of course, that if the Lord Jesus Christ had not been born
miraculously by divine intervention, conceived of the Holy Spirit, then this woman Mary
was not only unfaithful to the one to whom she was betrothed, but she was a bad woman.
She was a liar.
But her protest in the face of the angel, was simply this. The physical prerequisite of
natural birth is not extant. This is a sheer physical, natural impossibility. How can this
thing be?
Not only did Mary herself repudiate the physical prerequisite of natural, physical birth,