Jim D Gray
Ecclesiastes 7: 8 (to “beginning”); 12: 1 (to “youth”), 13, 14
Luke 22: 37
1 Corinthians 1: 4-8
Philippians 1: 6, 9-11
1 Corinthians 15: 24-28
It will be evident that I desire, with the Lord’s help, to speak a little about the end; not a gloomy end but a gladsome end.
Firstly I want to speak about Solomon. He says, “Better is the end of a thing than its beginning”. Now, Solomon was king in Jerusalem. He was blessed with wisdom from God and he ruled in that wisdom for a time. I would think he wrote this book at the end of his life. He was able to enjoy everything in nature to the full and, beyond the full, you might say, gratify every desire; then he writes this book. It is a book that delivers you from life under the sun. There is another life than the life under the sun, far more satisfying, but here he says, “Better is the end of a thing than its beginning”. I just want to caution everyone. Is that true, true of my pathway? It finally became untrue of Solomon’s pathway. Solomon is looked on as a type, but I am not speaking in type just now. He magnifies all that gratified his heart, and it resulted in him being influenced by those around him to introduce idol worship in Israel. That is what he did, and God, as a result, came in in judgment on him and divided the kingdom after his death, took it away and rent the kingdom so that his son had two tribes and the other ten tribes went to Jeroboam. It was not a very fine end, was it? But I think in Ecclesiastes he comes to a judgement of his course.
In chapter 12 he states at the beginning, “And remember thy Creator in the days of thy youth”. It is a good word. An old brother I knew in Saltcoats used to say, ‘You cannot bend a tree when it is old; you have to bend it when it is young’. Come into subjection to Christ, dear younger brethren, when you are young! Come into subjection to Him! That is, you delight in His will. Come to Christ as your Saviour. “And remember thy Creator in the days of thy youth”. You are going to have to meet your Maker. Men speak about it lightly, but it is going to be true. They are all going to meet their Maker.
Then he comes to this matter: “Let us hear the end of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments”. I think Solomon came to that. I would like to think that Solomon personally came to that, came to a judgment of his whole course of departure from God, and came to this: “Let us hear the end of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments; for this is the whole of man”. Personally, from this point of view, he ended well, but he left a legacy that was disastrous. We do not want to do that.
I pass over to the other matter which I want to speak about, the divine end. I will begin with Luke 22. I am seeking to impart some impressions I have had. The Lord Jesus had a beginning in relation to this life. He is a divine Person, but He had a beginning in relation to this life. He came in as a babe:
O strange yet fit beginning
Of all that life of woe
(Hymn 188).
He knew what the sorrows of humanity were, but the time came for Him to depart. Scripture says, “his time had come that he should depart out of this world to the Father”. That is John’s gospel (chap 13: 1); but Luke does not present that; he presents another view of Christ. We went through Luke’s gospel in our own place, a Man available for men. Blessed Man, available in grace for men! He is still available yet, but here He says, most touchingly, “And he was reckoned with the lawless: for also the things concerning me have an end”. I suppose that end is the fulfilment. Another has said the cross is ’the centre of the history of eternity’, JND Synopsis, vol 3 p361. That is a remarkable statement, the centre of the history of eternity. Everything hinges on Him. All that I am going to speak about after this hinges on Christ on the cross and His work on the cross: “the things concerning me have an end”. How feeling it must have been, how touching, to hear the Lord Jesus say of Himself, “And he was reckoned with the lawless”. Isaiah said it before that, many hundreds of years before that, prophetically, but here is a blessed Man saying He, Himself “was reckoned with the lawless”. Isaiah says a little further on He “made intercession for the transgressors”, chap 53: 12. On the cross He “made intercession for the transgressors”. “He was reckoned with the lawless”; He was crucified with lawless men, by lawless men, but He says, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do” (Luke 23: 34): He “made intercession for the transgressors”. Another has said, on the cross the thief was suffering for his own sins, and Christ was suffering for the thief‘s sins. That is the Lord Jesus.
“For also the things concerning me have an end”, but what was the end? That God might be glorified. The end was that the matter of sin and of sins would be finished and dealt with completely and the man that sinned would go out of sight; so, “Christ died for our sins, according to the scriptures; and that he was buried; and that he was raised the third day, according to the scriptures”, 1 Cor 15: 3, 4. Scriptures are brought in in regard to His death and His resurrection, but it says “he was buried”, a salutary matter to grasp hold of. The line of humanity that had displeased God and had been lawless was ended in the burial of Christ. The atonement involved the burial of Christ, completed there, finished there, all the history of our sins finished in the grave of Christ. He “has been raised up from among the dead by the glory of the Father”, Rom 6: 4. What an end! He glorified God in His death, and then was exalted above. It was not man’s end. Man thought they had finished with Him when they saw Him on the cross and when He died, but it was not God’s end. The things concerning Christ had an end: “he was reckoned with the lawless”. How affecting: let it sink into your soul that the Lord Jesus should say that! What it was for Him, a holy Person, “holy, harmless, undefiled, separated from sinners” (Heb 7: 26), to be “reckoned with the lawless” and have to declare on the cross that God had forsaken Him! That was included in the end. But then He was “raised up from among the dead by the glory of the Father”. A new hope opens up, a new vista. You know, young friend, the end that we are going to speak about finally is when time ceases to be. Time is a creation. “Even from eternity to eternity thou art God”, Ps 90: 2. God came into time. Mr Darby said that it presented itself to him in this way; that all time was a kind of parenthesis in eternity, Letters vol 3 p213. The Lord Jesus came into that parenthesis, into time, as a Person, a blessed Man, and a Man who is going to live for ever, a Man that we delight in as believers, a Man we are going to delight in, a Man we are going to be like: “we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is”, 1 John 3: 2. What a prospect! What an end for the believer!
Well, on the way to that you get Corinthians and this remarkable statement by Paul, “so that ye come short in no gift, awaiting the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ; who shall also confirm you to the end, unimpeachable in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ”. God is going to do that. God came into the life of these Corinthian saints, and they were converted, and they had the gift of the Spirit; but they departed from the dignity and the characteristics of one who had the gift of the Holy Spirit. They were not characteristically spiritual persons. But Paul says, before he enters into the state of the Corinthian saints, and there was a bad state, ’In the day of our Lord Jesus Christ you are going to be there “unimpeachable”’. What does that mean? You are going to be without reproach. What a thing to say! They were squabbling and fighting amongst themselves as the following verses state, but Paul says, first of all, ’You are going to be presented before God in the day of our Lord Jesus - that is when He comes to reign - “unimpeachable”. There will be no charge against you’. What a thing to say! I am not accusing anyone here of fighting or squabbling, but the scripture speaks about the state of this locality, Corinth, and that is what they were doing. Paul introduces this thought about being unimpeachable. When it would be read, what would they think? ’Wait a minute’, they would say, ’We are not in that state of unimpeachability now. We are not without reproach now.’ The Corinthians were certainly not without reproach, but Paul says to them ’In the day of our Lord Jesus Christ you will be without reproach’. Why? Because He “bore our sins in his body on the tree”, 1 Pet 2: 24. They are all gone. At the judgment seat of Christ, if a Corinthian saint came there and he had never adjusted these matters, he would “be saved, but so as through the fire”, 1 Cor 3: 15. The Lord may have to say to him, ’I bore your sins in My body on the tree and you know it. Everything is gone. Your behaviour in life after your conversion was not approved of God, it fell far short of that; but through God’s salvation “your sins are forgiven you for his name’s sake”’, 1 John 2: 12. “The blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanses us from all sin”, 1 John 1: 7.
If you have a true link with Christ, young friend and older friend, your behaviour does not alter your final destination, but it will alter the Lord’s commendation to you. But I say to you this much: if we do not adjust ourselves in relation to being “unimpeachable” now, and we wait until the judgment seat, we will miss out in formation spiritually after Christ. God has intended that the exercises on the way lead to spirituality, lead to the development of features of Christ in each one of us on the way, and we will get the gain of them. Every Corinthian saint who had adjusted his ways in the light of the death of Christ and the work of Christ would come into the commendation, “Well done”, when he meets Christ at the judgment seat, Luke 19: 17. Paul opens this up to reach the conscience of these persons, to reach the conscience of the Corinthians, when he says, ’In the day of the Lord Jesus Christ you will be there “unimpeachable”’. You are in the presence of God now. It is God’s grace. He says, “in respect of the grace of God given to you in Christ Jesus”, v 4. They had received the grace of God. How had they handled that? How had they lived in relation to the grace of God? At the time he wrote they were not “unimpeachable”; they were not without reproach. But he says, ’In the day of the Lord Jesus you will be without reproach’. Why? Because of the work of atonement of the Lord Jesus. The reading of this passage became a lever in the hearts of the Corinthian saints, before he went on to show that they were certainly not without reproach, and caused them to judge themselves. Let the matter of unimpeachability finally, if we are not in line with it now, cause us to judge ourselves.
Now Philippians is a happier matter. These saints were going on well. Happy conditions, brotherly conditions, sisterly conditions, in large measure existed at Philippi, “each esteeming the other as more excellent than themselves”, chap 2: 3. Happy matter! Happy fellowship! And he says, “having confidence of this very thing, that he who has begun in you a good work will complete it unto Jesus Christ’s day”. They had fellowship with the gospel. That is, they had fellowship with the gospel and all that related to the going forth of the gospel, the reproach of the Christ and all that related to it in this world, despised persons. They were in fellowship with that. Publicly they were Christians. They were known as that in their city and amongst themselves. He says, “he who has begun in you a good work will complete it unto Jesus Christ’s day”, and then he says again, “that ye may judge of and approve the things that are more excellent, in order that ye may be pure and without offence for Christ’s day, being complete as regards the fruit of righteousness”. Keep up the good work, dear brethren! Keep up the good relationships! In Philippians, salvation is at the end of the road. You are going to get salvation, from this point of view, when you reach heaven, when you reach Christ. That is how it is presented: it is all at the end of the road. You get help on the way. ‘I take the heav’nly road’, Hymn 228. They are on the heavenly road. They are drawing their resources from heaven, but they have to keep up the good work until Christ comes; so He has nothing to rebuke them about. They were “unimpeachable”, I believe, at the time. They had completed the “good work”: “unimpeachable”. What a joy to heaven to see believers set together and “unimpeachable” now, without reproach now. He says, ’You keep that up!’. He says, “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling”, chap 2: 12. You are working it out along with others in your place, “your own salvation”, kept from the world, kept for Christ, and, in the end of the day, looking forward to that body of glory, “into conformity to his body of glory”, chap 3: 21. What a prospect! I encourage us all here with all the pressures on the way, whatever they are, if relations are good in your locality, and I believe they are, keep it up! Keep it up! Patience is needed. Endurance is needed. The way is still continuing in God’s hands. The testimony is still going on. He has not closed the day of grace yet. But you need help on the way. Paul says, ’I am convinced that that good work He has begun in you He will complete unto Jesus Christ’s day’. What a completion! The Lord will say to you, “Well done, thou good bondman”. What a commendation at the judgment seat of the Christ!
Well, then in Corinthians - I only touch on these things - the Lord Jesus Christ at the end “gives up the kingdom to him who is God and Father”. What a moment! I believe it is the last act in time. I think this matter of the Lord committing the kingdom to the Father is the last act in time. It is right on the verge of eternity. What a moment! You will be there, friend, if you belong to Christ! You will see Him do it. You will be there when He hands over the kingdom to the Father. In the day to come when He reigns over the earth, it is the mediatorial kingdom. He is reigning on behalf of God and in that time, and in the gospel time too, He subdues persons. You and I are among the persons who have been subjugated, brought into subjection, in time, for the praise of God, but He will do it finally in judgment. It says, “when he shall have annulled all rule and all authority and power”. He will have dealt with the last rebellion on earth; that is at the end of the millennium, Rev 20: 10. The Lord has dealt with that at this point. He has dealt with the wicked dead. It says, “The last enemy that is annulled is death”. He has dealt with that. The great white throne is past before this; He has dealt with that. Persons who died in their sins, raised in their sins, have a place in the lake of fire. What an end! He has brought all things into subjection under His feet, then He is going to hand over the kingdom to the Father, and He Himself is going to be in subjection to the Father.
He was in subjection to the Father in His lifetime here, and He is going to take that same subjection in eternity; so you can understand the Lord saying in His prayer, “thy kingdom come”, Matt 6: 10. He is anticipating this moment when the Father would be supreme and take over rule: so it is the Father’s kingdom. Christ’s mediatorial kingdom ceases and ceases for ever. We will be there, dear brethren.
Everything will be in subjection to God. It says, “then the Son also himself shall be placed in subjection to him who put all things in subjection to him, that God may be all in all”. He is placed in subjection to the Father as a Man. When Christ hands over the kingdom to the Father, He takes a place in subjection, Man in His true place. We are in our true place when we are in subjection to Christ, in subjection to God. And then it says, “that God may be all in all”. What a moment, dear brethren. Christ has His place in that as a divine Person. It is beyond our understanding, but not beyond our appreciation of divine Persons, the Father, the Son and the Spirit, “that God may be all in all”. The new heavens and the new earth are there. There is a sphere in which God is going to rule and time is going to be ended. What a prospect! We shall have bodies of glory like to His own body of glory: what an end, the divine end!
May it cheer our hearts, may it encourage us on the way, to be like the Philippians and continue in patience and earnestness and desire and sincerity, to be on the path, pleasing to the Lord Jesus; and if, indeed, my heart is like the Corinthians, to adjust myself in accordance with that divine word. No matter what I do, if I belong to Christ I am going to be “unimpeachable”. What a work Christ undertook! Every redeemed creature there will be “unimpeachable”: not one will be able to be charged with anything because of the work of Christ. Let us be in accord with the work of the Lord Jesus and appreciation of what He has done for us and walk here as guided and helped by Him for His Name’s sake!
Glasgow
3rd September 2011