THE DEPTHS TO WHICH THE LORD HAS GONE FOR US
Mark B Grant
Hebrews 2: 14-15
Jonah 2
Hebrews 9: 12 (from “but by”) - 14
Luke 15: 1-7
These scriptures all refer in some way to the extent to which the Lord has gone for each one of us; Hebrews chapter 2 is very affecting. If you were to think about the reasons why the Lord came into manhood that would be a subject that you could consider for a very long time and there are many things that you could look at in Scripture about why the Lord came. But this scripture highlights that one of the reasons that He came into manhood was so that he could take part in “the same”, that is the same condition that we are in, “sin apart”, Heb 4: 15. What a wonderful movement of grace of the Lord Jesus that He was prepared to come in as Man for this reason, so that He could take part in “the same”. The Lord Jesus, who is the theme and subject and object of the glad tidings, and yet He knows and understands you, dear friend, because He has been here, and He has taken part in the same condition that you are in. We must always bear in mind that that was “sin apart”.
But He has been here in flesh and blood, and He has lived here; at a different time, two thousand years ago, but the world has not really changed that much. Things outwardly might be a bit different, there are different circumstances and technologies, but the character of the world has not changed. Some aspects were worse then. Israel was under the Roman empire, at that point in time; think of the awfulness of the Roman empire, the cruelty, the violence; He has been here and been through all of these things.
Jesus grew up here; think of the wonder of it! He did not come in, speaking very simply, as an adult and in a public way to take up His rights as a King or anything like that; He came in as a Babe into the most lowly of circumstances. He was laid in a manger. Think of that, the lowliness of His incoming! He was laid in a manager; there was no room for Him in the inn. That was how He came in. He grew up here. We do not know much about those early years, but we know that when He was about twelve years old, He was occupied in His Father’s business (Luke 2: 49), and He grew “in favour with God and man”, v 52. But I just wanted to emphasise that point that, when we are speaking about the Lord Jesus Christ as your Saviour, He knows and understands everything about you and He knows what it is like to be here. He knows the kind of trials you go through; He knows the kinds of things you face. He knows even about relationships, natural relationships; when He was about twelve years old His mother and father did not really understand Him. He knows what that feels like, v 48! He knows all these things; so He is completely qualified to sympathise with you, and it says that in this book, in Hebrews 4: 15, it is put in a double negative, so He is able to sympathise with you. I just wanted to draw attention to that, that He was prepared even to come into such circumstances so that He could fully sympathise with you.
But then also He came into a condition in which He could die. Think of the solemnity of that! It could never otherwise have happened. We have to be careful what we are saying, but He came into a condition in which He could die. He came in as a real Man. What a solemn matter, but what grace! What a stoop, from heights of glory, we sang of that -
Once from glory’s height descending
To this earth the Saviour came; (Hymn 414).
Think of the glory of deity. We cannot say much about that but He, in His own Person being God, was prepared to make that stoop into manhood -
Here in grace His pathway wending,
Here He magnified God’s name.
Lowly Saviour!
How lowly was His incoming, the lowliness of His pathway. He was not given a place; He did not seek a place. Being who He was, He could have caused everyone to be absolutely overawed with His brilliance, He could have done that, but He did not; He came in as a lowly Man, and He served. Humanly and naturally, if we had even the slightest ability, we would be marked by pride and we would seek to let people know how able we were! That is the human heart. But the Lord being Creator, “all things have been created by him and for him” (Col 1: 16), came into the scene that He created and was prepared in grace to be a lowly dependent Man; that is the way that the Saviour came. But He “took part in the same, that through death he might annul him who has the might of death, that is, the devil”.
When Jesus came in, He faced that one, the devil. Satan found no entrance, no point of attack; and He resisted, He came through every trial and test in perfection that “through death he might annul him”: that is, to make of no effect. That word annul means that the thing has no effect or relevance anymore. That is how full and complete the work of Christ is! He has done that! He has taken away the sting of death. For those who put their faith and trust in Him and His finished work that article of death is now of no effect. I am not trying to make light of what we go through in relation to those who are taken to be with the Lord and those who die; I am not trying to make light of that at all, we feel these things, but for the believer in Christ death means that we are forever with the Lord and in His presence. So therefore, the sting of death has been taken away; it has been annulled, and the one who has the might of death has also been annulled. What a wonderful full work Christ has done! And “set free all those who through fear of death through the whole of their life were subject to bondage”. He was coming to set men free. You might not realise that you need to be set free, but you need to be liberated if you are in your sins and you have not yet owned Christ as your Saviour; you are in bondage. You are in bondage to sin, bondage to your own will and you need One who can deliver you from that bondage, and the One who can do that is the One who has annulled death so that He might set you in liberty.
In thinking of this in relation to the extent to which the Lord has gone for each one of us, I was just impressed that He was prepared to come into manhood and take up all that God had in mind in His work, that work of redemption. All that God had in mind in the liberation of men, setting men free from sin: “for all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God”, Rom 3: 23. Without the work of Christ that would have been our position forever, sinners away from God, and come short of the glory of God, never able to do anything about it, never able to do anything for ourselves. What a position of hopelessness we find ourselves in away from Christ, at a distance from God. What Christ has done sets us free but also brings us into nearness. Think of the blessedness of that!
Then in reference to Jonah; the Lord speaks of Jonah as a sign (Matt 16: 4); so we have to be careful in the application. There is a hymn we sing -
Thy grace, O Lord, that measured once the deep
Of Calv’ry’s woe, to seek and save thy sheep (Hymn 293).
That was what was in my mind in this scripture; how far the Lord was prepared to go to save you and to save me. This scripture gives an illustration of how far the Lord was willing to go. It says -
And the flood was round about me:
All thy breakers and thy billows …,
that is - God’s breakers and God’s billows - “are gone over me”. The Lord when He went to the cross, in those three hours of darkness, suffered the righteous wrath of God against sin and sins, and that is why it says here, “thy breakers and thy billows”. Think of that, measuring sin’s distance. We cannot even begin to take that in; we do not even remember our own sins, many of them; we might remember some of them, probably a fraction of those that we have committed! But the Lord Jesus measured the distance of sin, and sin is the root cause, it is the root problem, it is the thing that causes us to sin and commit sins, and the Lord Jesus has measured that distance. He has gone into that distance and as doing so He has atoned for sin and sins. He has satisfied God, He has borne all the judgment of God against sin and sins, and there is no more judgment to be meted out against anyone who has faith in Him, in relation to sin and sins because Christ has borne it! If you put your faith and trust in His finished work, He has borne your sins, and therefore that is liberating; so you can be set free from the bondage of your sins because you know Christ has borne them and God has judged them, and Christ has taken each one of them on. It is not just that they have been forgotten about or that they were put to one side: Christ has actually borne the judgment of God against them. That is how far the Lord Jesus has gone for you, dear friend, that He was prepared to do that. It says, “The waters encompassed me, to the soul”; think of the depth of the Lord’s sufferings and feelings in relation to this matter. You see it at Gethsemane where “his sweat became as great drops of blood” (Luke 22: 44), as He anticipated what He was about to go through. He suffered in His soul: “The deep was round about me”. We spoke in the reading about how the Lord would have felt things perfectly. He would have felt this perfectly in His moral perfection, being made the very thing that He hated the most. Think of how He would have felt that: a perfect Man, sin apart, being made sin. What a sober matter that is, that that is what the Lord Jesus did for me, and He had to do it for me otherwise I would be lost forever! What a sober matter; but blessed too! He has taken it away!
It amazes me that God could say about our sins, “I will never remember any more”, Heb 8: 12. I think that is an amazing thing! Why would God never remember my sins any more? Because Christ has borne the judgment against them! What a wonderful thing it is! It says -
The weeds were wrapped about my head.
I went down to the bottoms of the mountains;
The bars of the earth closed upon me for ever.
Think of the deep; it illustrates what the Lord Jesus went through. I do not know if this is a right way to think about it but when I read this I think of the literal deep, the depth of the ocean; the deepest part is miles deep; we can hardly take in how deep the ocean is! And that is just a physical illustration of the moral depth and the moral matter that was resolved here. It is just a way of trying to picture it in our minds in some way to try and take in a little bit about what this must have meant to the Lord Jesus. How deep and how low: what a sober matter it is. The Lord Jesus had to go that way if God was going to be satisfied in respect of sin and sins, and He went there, “I went down to the bottoms of the mountains”. There are mountains in the sea that are far higher than Mount Everest; if you start from the bottom of the sea, they are much higher. That is how deep - it is just an illustration, but it paints a picture in our minds of the depth to which the Lord Jesus has gone, and He went there; it says, “I went”; He took it on Himself. What a glorious matter! “The bars of the earth closed upon me for ever”: it was a real matter. He went into that domain, and He suffered there as Man, and we need to be careful what we say because it is a holy matter and it is beyond our minds, but He took it on in a real way; “The bars of the earth closed upon me for ever”. There was almost a finality about that judgment: “But Thou hast brought up my life from the pit, O Jehovah my God”. God is so satisfied with the work that Christ has done that He has raised Him! What a blessed matter. Death could not hold Him; think of the blessedness of that that “Christ has been raised up … by the glory of the Father”, Rom 6: 4.
So, He has been there, He has atoned for sin and sins, and He has suffered there on the cross, and He has died and shed His precious blood. We have read about that in Hebrews 9: “but by his own blood”, think of the perfection of that blood, “precious blood, as of a lamb without blemish”, 1 Pet 1: 19. Then it says, “how much rather shall the blood of the Christ, who by the eternal Spirit offered himself spotless to God”; it required a perfect holy sinless Offering. No other offering would have been of any effect, but He offered Himself; so it has often been said that He was the Offering and the Offerer; no one else could do that!
For those who put their faith and trust in that blessed work of His, and put their faith and trust in this precious blood, the effect is that it would “purify your conscience from dead works to worship the living God”. And also, He “has entered in once for all into the holy of holies, having found an eternal redemption”. The Lord has come here as Man and has taken part in the same condition that we are in and He has gone to the cross, and He has suffered the most awful judgment of God against sin, but He has also “entered in once for all into the holy of holies”. He has come out of death triumphant, having annulled Him who has the might of death, and it also says in 2 Timothy, speaking of God’s purpose and grace, “but has been made manifest now by the appearing of our Saviour Jesus Christ who has annulled death, and brought to light life and incorruptibility by the glad tidings”, chap 1: 10. By putting your faith and trust in what God is saying to you in the glad tidings you can know what it is for death to have been annulled, and for life and incorruptibility to be yours. That is like eternal redemption, so that the work that Christ has done saves you and redeems you, it brings you back to God, and it does so now and forever; how effective the work of Christ is.
In Hebrews it brings it out again, later on in this chapter, He has done it “once in the consummation of the ages” (v 26), and then in chapter 10, “But where there is remission of these, there is no longer a sacrifice for sin”, v 18; so it never needs to be done again. That is how perfect and complete the work of Christ is: it will never need to be repeated. There are the things which go on in the scene in which we are, the jobs that we do and all of those things, and you think you have done a good job, and then a while later you might need to do it again and again, and so on; but the work of Christ is not like that; it never needs to be done again. It has been done in perfection and has an eternal result for God, but also an eternal result for you and for me if we put our faith and trust in it. If you put your faith and trust in Christ and His finished work you are saved for eternity; what a wonderful thing that is. You may lose the joy of it, you may even in human weakness doubt it, but that does not change the fact that you are saved forever. It is a wonderful thing that the work of Christ and its effect does not depend on how I feel about it: it depends on what Christ has done and God being satisfied with it. Therefore, it is certain, absolutely certain, and guaranteed. It cannot be undone! Once you have put your faith and trust in Christ it can never be undone; God will always view you as righteous because you are covered by the blood of Jesus. What a wonderful thing that is! Our ups and downs and failures do not affect it in the slightest; it is an amazing thing that how we are has no bearing at all on the efficacy of the work of Christ. I say that for our assurance because we are all weak, and we can all find life difficult and there are ups and downs, and I do not know exactly what is going on in secret for each one in this room, but you can be absolutely assured that if you put your faith and trust in Christ you are saved forever. You never need to doubt it; that is a blessed thing, and it is an eternal redemption. God is satisfied with the work of Christ and will be so forever.
That scripture was referred to in the reading, “a Lamb standing, as slain”, Rev 5: 6. God will always view us in the light of what Christ has done and His righteousness. There is a hymn which says -
Nothing in my hand I bring,
Simply to Thyself I cling (Hymn 396).
We could not do it ourselves anyway, and Christ has done it all; that is how far He was willing to go.
Luke 15 is really the scripture which was firstly in my mind in relation to what we have been speaking about, because the Lord Jesus is presented here when it says, “What man of you having a hundred sheep … does not … go after that which is lost”; this is the Lord Jesus as the One who cares for the sheep. This confirms what was in my mind; you might ask how far the Lord Jesus was willing to go for you. It says here, “until he find it”. That is how far! There is no boundary put on that, no thought of there being some limit to the distance the Lord Jesus would go to save you, dear friend; it is “until he find it”: it is until He finds you! In our own things if we lose something, especially something we find valuable, or that we are particularly attached to, and we might look carefully for it, but there would be a point where you would give up; you have looked and looked, and you cannot find it. But how much time you would spend looking would probably depend on how much you valued that thing. The Lord Jesus does not give up! In the gospel He would seek you until He finds you; He will never give up! I trust that it would affect you that the One who has been here and gone through so much, suffered at the hands of men, those atoning sufferings that we have gone over a little, all that He has been through, that same Person where He is now, risen and ascended, He would be seeking you as a lost sinner. I trust that would affect you; it says, “and having lost one of them, does not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness and go after that which is lost, until he find it?”. And it says, “and having found it, he lays it upon his own shoulders, rejoicing”. Think of the joy to the Lord Jesus if you put your faith and trust in Him and His finished work. It says He would lay you “upon his own shoulders”. He would take you up and support you.
In John 13 it says, “having loved his own who were in the world, loved them to the end.” He would carry you and be with you forever in this scene. And then when this time is over you will be with Him forever. It says, “and having found it, he lays it upon his own shoulders, rejoicing”; think of the joy of the Lord Jesus in each one who comes to Him. You and I, poor needy sinners having no hope in ourselves, putting our faith and trust in the finished work of Christ, coming to God in repentance, can actually cause joy for the Lord Jesus: that is a real thing; “being come to the house, calls together the friends and the neighbours, saying to them, Rejoice with me, for I have found my lost sheep”; the joy widens. Think of the joy that would be caused to others too! That is what the Lord is saying here: “Rejoice with me”; so the Lord’s joy is primary, but others come into it. It is a wonderful thing when someone puts their faith and trust in Christ, what a joyful matter that is. “I say unto you, that thus there shall be joy in heaven”, so it is even wider, “joy in heaven for one repenting sinner”.
This emphasises that each one has to come one by one: “one repenting sinner”. We do not come en masse. There have been preachings, and there are some recorded in scripture where thousands were converted, but every single individual came himself or herself, and the work in that person’s soul is individual and unique to that person. Dear friend, no one else can do this for you. The gospel is intensely individual: you must put your faith and trust in that finished work yourself. How thankful those of us who have been brought up in Christian households, and have come to the gospel many times can be; how thankful I am for that, but we must come ourselves -
Come as you are in all your sin. (Hymn 245).
That is just as you are! As another hymn says -
If you tarry till you’re better,
You will never come at all (Hymn 208).
You will never get better; you will never be able to resolve the sin question yourself; you must come as you are, putting your faith and trust in Christ’s work and owning that He has done everything for you. That is the gospel message, and it is very simple. Christ has done everything for you!
And then, this eternal redemption, and to “purify your conscience from dead works to worship the living God”; that really requires the gift of the Holy Spirit. As we are left here, we can know what it is to receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, and that is another thing that the Lord has done. He said, “I will beg the Father, and he will give you another Comforter”, John 14: 16. So the Lord has gone on high and therefore the Spirit has come and He has come to be with you and in you forever. There are lots of ‘for evers’ in scripture but this is another “for ever”; the Spirit will be “with you for ever”, John 14: 16. A divine Person here indwelling the believer: what a great thing that is. How much the Spirit can bring you into, and how He can help you! He can help you in your circumstances but can bring you in to enjoy the greatest things; so therefore we can be found as worshippers, which would really be the end in mind in the gospel. Firstly, we must put our faith and trust in Christ and His finished work, but then as we are left here, and then in a day to come, we will be occupied in worship and praise and the blessedness of the presence of God. That is the blessing that is available in the glad tidings.
I trust that you have been affected by what Christ has done for you. May you put your faith and trust in that work and in Him.
May the Lord bless these thoughts.
Bo’ness
14th January 2024