Well, as we get together tonight, the one desire of our heart is that we may see.
Lord, we do pray that we may see Thy glory, even the glory of the Son of Man. We pray that, as we behold Thee with open face, we may be transformed from glory to glory according to Thine image by the Holy Spirit.
Lord, we do desire that Thou shouldst be highly exalted in our hearts, and we do desire that we may be a testimony to Thy name. We commit this time into Thy hands, trusting Thee. In the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.
We have been fellowshipping together at this time on the Gospel according to Luke. Luke, Paul’s fellow worker, Luke the evangelist, was a physician. His profession did not hinder him; on the contrary, we find that, as a physician, he served them.
Most likely, he was the one whom God used to help establish the church at Philippi. And, of course, his ministry to Paul was most valuable. Even to the very end, Paul said, “Only Luke is with me.”
Then God chose him to be an evangelist, to present to us one aspect of Christ which is unique. Luke is used by God to present to us Christ as the Son of Man.
Now, brothers and sisters, God has always been interested in that, and He has never given up that interest. In the very beginning, when He created man, He created man in His own image. He had a great purpose for man: He wanted to unite Himself with man.
Even though Adam fell, God had not given up His grand desire. So we find, three thousand years later, David, as a prophet, writing in Psalm 8:
What is man, that Thou art mindful of him?
And the son of man, that Thou visitest him?
For Thou hast made him but little lower than God,
And crownest him with glory and honor.
After three thousand years, God still had not given up His interest and His divine hope for man. Then another thousand years passed, and we find that Man in Christ. In Hebrews 2, we see Jesus made a little lower than the angels, crowned with glory and honor.
This man is a corporate man, not an individual man. When God created Adam, God created man; He created male and female. Adam is a type of Christ and the church. It is not only that in Christ God has found His Man, but this Man is a corporate Man, including all those who belong to the Lord.
This evening, we would like to go a little further. God wants this Man. In other words, it is not just any man; it is a man after God’s own heart. We would like to know that Man. We would like to know what His personality is, as revealed by that Man.
When you read the Gospel according to Luke, how can you see this? It is true that, in the Gospel according to Luke, as Luke says in the very beginning, even though he was not an eyewitness of all the things that happened, yet he made very careful investigation.
Out of his careful investigation, he put all these things together in a systematic way and presented the record to Theophilus. Now, we do not know who Theophilus was. Probably there was such a nobleman, Theophilus, at that time, because it was the custom in those days for a person to dedicate a book to a certain person.
Even today we find this custom. You write a book, and you dedicate it to a certain person. So Luke, in writing this Gospel, in a sense addressed it to Theophilus, probably a nobleman at that time, I believe, who was in Christ.
Or probably Theophilus was not a person; it was a pseudonym. Theophilus means “lover of God.” So whoever is a lover of God, this Gospel is presented to him. That is also possible.
But anyway, we find Luke collecting all this information, putting it in a methodical way, and presenting it to lovers of God. If you are a lover of God, the Gospel according to Luke is presented to you.
Perhaps you have read the Gospel according to Luke. Do you see there the words and the deeds of our Lord Jesus? No doubt about that. This Gospel records the words spoken by our Lord Jesus and the deeds that our Lord Jesus did. He spoke many words, and He did many deeds.
But is that all that you have got? If all you have got, after you have read the Gospel according to Luke, are the words and the deeds of our Lord Jesus, you will miss the very purpose of the Gospel according to Luke.
It is not that the words and the deeds are not important. They are important. But the very purpose, the very bottom of the Gospel, is that after we have read the Gospel according to Luke, after we have heard the words and witnessed the deeds, we are to see the Person.
It is the Person whom the Holy Spirit is trying to bring before us—not just the words, nor the deeds, but the Person who speaks these words and performs these deeds. In other words, the word and the deed are the expression of a personality.
If all you have seen and heard are only the deeds and the words, and you do not get to meet that Person, you have failed to see that personality. Then you have failed in the very purpose of the Holy Spirit in giving us this Gospel.
So we have to go beyond the words and the deeds to meet that Person. It is because of that Person that there are such words and deeds. The Holy Spirit is trying to draw us, through these words and these deeds, to that Person.
That Person is the Son of Man—the Man after God’s own heart, the new humanity, the new Man. That is what we have to see as we read the Gospel according to Luke. Otherwise, we are just touching the surface, and we fail to come into the very source of all things.
In the Gospel according to Luke, it is most important that we catch a glimpse—not only a glimpse, but that we may gaze upon the glory of the Son of Man. If we gaze upon the glory of the Son of Man, then we give the Holy Spirit an opportunity to transform us into His image.
In other words, Christ is the firstfruits. God wants us to be like Him: a new mankind, a new human being, a new personality manifested in this world. This is the real purpose behind the Gospel according to Luke.
So this evening, we hope to share together something of the characteristics of that personality.
Now, I do not know if I am correct in saying this: personality is the sum total of the characteristics in a person. The development and expression of all his characteristics form his personality.
Now, we as believers—God does not want to wipe away our individuality. It is not God’s purpose that we should lose our individuality. We will be different forever.
When God created us, He created us all differently. When we are put in the Body of Christ, we are different members of the Body of Christ. And even through eternity, Peter will be Peter, Paul will be Paul, and John will be John.
It is true that we must lose our individualism. God has to deal with us that we may lose our individualism. But that does not mean that we should lose our individuality.
Yet what is the personality of the church? What is the personality of a Christian? Christ should be the personality of a Christian. He should be the personality of the church.
In other words, when you see a Christian, he should manifest Christ, because Christ becomes his personality. He is not to manifest himself. When you see the church, you should see Christ. You should not see people; you should see Christ, because Christ becomes their personality.
That is the reason why character-building is so important to us Christians. Unless the Holy Spirit is able to form Christ in us, so that the character of Christ becomes our character, it is impossible for His personality to be expressed.
In the Gospel according to Luke, the Holy Spirit is presenting Christ to us. He wants us to see Christ, the Son of Man. What is His personality? What kind of Person is He? What kind of character does He have?
As we see Him and see His character, the Holy Spirit may transform us, working that character in us, so that the personality of Christ may characterize this new mankind.
This is really the purpose behind the Gospel according to Luke. Dear brothers and sisters, as you read the Gospel according to Luke, you have to meet that Person. You have to see His character, His personality—a personality totally different from anybody else in this world.
This personality is to characterize the church. This personality is to be manifested by all of us—by all of us.
We will not read any particular passage in the Gospel according to Luke, because if you read this passage and that passage, you may get some words and some deeds. But if you want to know a personality, you have to take the whole thing.
So we are not reading any special passage, but remember: the whole Gospel according to Luke is before us. This evening, I would like to fellowship with you on just a few points—a few features, a few characteristics that characterize this wonderful Christ as the Son of Man.
Number one: I do not know whether, after you have read the Gospel according to Luke, you have been impressed by some feature of Christ more than others. Whenever you meet a person, you hear what he says and observe what he does, and an impression comes upon you as to that person’s personality.
Now, after reading the Gospel according to Luke, what impression does this Man leave with you? I believe it would be different with everybody. You may be impressed with Christ in one manner; another person may be impressed by another characteristic. There is no uniformity there.
But if you allow me to share my impression, I feel that after I have read the Gospel according to Luke, the impression it makes upon me is this: here is a real Man, a transparent Man.
Have you ever met a real man in this world? Have you ever met a true man in this world? Have you ever met a man as transparent as this Man, Christ Jesus? Have you ever met such a person?
You see, fallen man is no longer what he ought to be. Man is no longer what he should be. Man is no longer what God wants him to be. No longer.
When I read Genesis, I find that God created man, and then Eve came. At the end of Genesis 2, it says that Adam and Eve were naked, and they were not ashamed.
Now, I really do not know fully what that means. They were naked, and they were not ashamed. Most likely, they must have been clothed with glory. God clothed every animal with something, and He could not have left them without any clothing. Probably they were clothed with glory.
But anyway, I think that when God created man, man was naked and was not ashamed. In other words, they were very real. There was no covering—no human covering. There was glory, that is true, but in one sense they were naked.
When they came out of God’s hand, one thing we may say of them is that they were real. They were naked. There was no cover, and they were not ashamed of that.
But immediately after man fell, the first thing they did was try to cover themselves. They began to use fig leaves and tried to make aprons to cover themselves. Even though those aprons did not really cover them, they thought they were covered.
In the cool of the day, the Lord came. When the Lord came, they hid themselves. Why? Because they knew that though they were covered with aprons, they were still naked.
These aprons made of leaves could not cover their nakedness, especially in the cool of the day. Not only would the leaves not give them warmth, but perhaps there was some wind there. It was not a covering. They hid themselves among the trees, but even among the trees they could not cover themselves.
Then God questioned them. You find that Adam was no longer true to Eve, no longer true to himself, and no longer true to God. God asked, “What have you done?” Adam said, in effect, “It was the woman. Not my fault.”
He tried to cover himself. He tried to cover his sin. But the Bible says that sin came by one man, and that one was Adam. Eve was deceived, but Adam committed sin deliberately. Yet Adam tried to cover himself: “The woman whom Thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the fruit.”
Dear brothers and sisters, that is the habit of fallen man: to cover up. We are no longer real, no longer true, no longer transparent. We dare not be.
The wisest and most successful man, according to this world, is the man who can cover himself most skillfully. A man would be a fool if he tried to reveal himself.
Now, Christians, that is what the world is. It is just deceiving ourselves and trying to deceive one another. The whole world is under a great deception. As the Bible says, the whole world lies in the evil one.
It is unreal. It is all untrue. It is all opaque. It is all darkness. The very character is opposite to God’s character.
No wonder, when I was a boy, we read in our English lessons of a philosopher who, in the daytime, carried a lighted lamp and searched for something. When people asked him, “What are you doing?” he said, “I am looking for a man.”
But when you read the Gospel according to Luke, one thing that impresses me is this: here is a Man who is so true, so real, so transparent. There is no hiding in Him. There is no pretension in Him. There is no falsehood in Him.
He is the one real Man whom you have met in this world. He is real. He is true. He is transparent.
You know, there is a difference between being honest and being true. You may be honest, but you may not be true. Sincerity does not necessarily mean reality.
You see here a Man. He walks alone, or He is with His disciples and friends, or even in the midst of His enemies. You find that He is the same.
The whole of mankind acts differently under different situations. When you are alone, you are one kind of person. When you are with your friends, you are another kind of person. When you are with others, you are still another kind of person. We are actors. We are diplomats.
We have to protect ourselves, and we have to take advantage of others. Our whole human being is based on selfishness. Because of selfishness, we are under a great deception. We cannot afford to be real, because if we try to be real, people will take advantage of us.
But here you find our Lord Jesus. Before men, before God, there is no change, no contradiction. He is the same.
Oftentimes, you find that we may say one thing, but think another thing. Sometimes we want to take advantage of others; at other times, we simply want to be diplomatic. How often we say one thing and think another.
But that is not our Lord Jesus. Everything He says comes out of His heart. There is no mixed motive with the Lord. It comes out of His heart.
Does it mean that because He is so real, therefore He is foolish? No. The world says, “Be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves.” He is real, but that does not mean He is foolish—not at all.
Only a real person, only a transparent person, is truly wise. If you have transparent glass, then you can look through it and see everything clearly.
You find that our Lord Jesus can look through everybody because He is so real. When He comes in contact with people, He knows what is in their hearts. They do not need to tell Him. Whenever people come before Him, everything is exposed.
That spiritual discernment is the result of being true, real, and transparent. We are not real; therefore, we are not able to see people through. In the first place, we do not even see through ourselves. If we do not know ourselves, how can we know other people?
But if we are really true, real, and transparent before God, when people come before us, they do not need to say anything. It is exposed.
So it does not mean that because you are real, you become foolish. Not at all. You become wise. You have discernment. Because of that, you are able to minister to people.
Brothers and sisters, I do not know how you feel, but I feel very deeply that, in this world, we are living under a cover. Everybody conceals himself. We may be together, we may have contact, but after many years we do not really know each other.
Everybody puts on a mask, and we all hide behind a wall. We are afraid. We are really afraid.
This is the most painful thing. Suppose you go out to work in an office and find that you cannot afford to be real. You have to be diplomatic. You have to deal with people and try to be nice and diplomatic.
If you come home and find that you have to be like that in your home, my, I do not know how you can live. At least in your own home you can be real, right?
But, dear brothers and sisters, even in this world you cannot get that. Where can you get it? I sometimes tell brothers and sisters, in the world you cannot afford to be real, but in the church we must be real.
If we cannot be real and true and open and transparent to each other, it is just too much. It is just too much.
This is quite God’s thought. When you come to the end of the Bible, in Revelation 21 and Revelation 22, you find that in the New Jerusalem even the gold is transparent.
Now, I do not have to tell you that gold today, no matter how fine, is not transparent. But in the New Jerusalem, the gold is transparent. Everything is transparent, real, with no hiding—open.
This is the new mankind, the new mankind that God is after: first of all, a character that is real, true, and transparent.
Dear brothers and sisters, how can we be real? How can we be transparent? How? What is reality? What is truth? How is it?
First, if we live by the outward man, we are unreal. If we live by the inward man, then we are real.
With the Lord Jesus there is a oneness, a harmony, between His outward man and His inward man. But with us it is not so. With us, the inward man is Christ in us; our outward man is our own self—ourselves. That is the outward man, to put it simply.
So you find that in our Christian life we may live by the outward man, or we may live by the inward man. Sometimes we live by the inward man, and sometimes we live by the outward man. Whenever we live by the outward man, we are not true; we are not transparent.
It is only when we live by the inward man that we are really true, real, and transparent.
To say it another way: if we live by the flesh, we remain as the old creation, the old mankind, which is corrupted. But if we live in the Spirit, then we belong to this new mankind. It is recreated; it is new. It is true. It is real.
So the whole thing comes down to this point: how do we live on this earth? Do we live on this earth by the old life? Then we are unreal.
Or do we live by the new life, the life of Christ, life in the Spirit? If we do, brothers and sisters, we all know that we are true and transparent.
That is why it is so important that we walk in the Spirit and not according to the flesh. There is a difference between the old mankind and the new mankind. There is a difference in personality.
What is your new name? Christ, is it not? God’s purpose is that Christ may live. Only when we live in the Spirit is Christ able to manifest His character. Then you find that it is real.
One thing that God hates most, one thing that our Lord Jesus denounced most strongly, is hypocrisy, because it is not real. It is not true. It is pretense. It is darkness.
So this new humanity is marked by realness, truth, and transparency. That is the first point.
The second point: as I read the Gospel according to Luke, another character of Christ as the Son of Man impresses me. That is His dependence upon God—His childlike dependence upon God.
What characterizes the old man? Independence.
When God created man, God created man in His image. He put man in the garden of Eden, where there was the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. In other words, God’s purpose for man was that man should eat of the tree of life and thus live in dependence upon God.
Now, that does not mean you become a person with no character, like a reed shaken by the wind. Not at all. It is not dependence upon people, leaning upon people, having no will of your own or no strength in yourself. That kind of dependence is weakness.
Yet the new mankind is characterized by a dependence upon God in a childlike manner. Because there is such a dependence, that life is true.
How do we know that our Lord Jesus lived such a dependent life? In reading the Gospel according to Luke, you find that, of all the Gospels, Luke is the one in which the prayer life of our Lord Jesus is most prominent.
It is not that our Lord Jesus did not pray in the other Gospels, but in the Gospel according to Luke, His prayer life is most prominent. If you try to read the Gospel according to Luke and find all the places related to the prayer life of our Lord, you will be surprised how many there are.
In Luke 3, when He was baptized and came out of the water, He was praying. In Luke 6, He spent all night in prayer before He chose His disciples. Before He did anything, He prayed first.
In Luke 9, before He asked the question, “Who do the multitudes say that I am?” He prayed by Himself. Before He asked the question, He prayed first.
Again, when He took three of His disciples to the Mount of Transfiguration, He went there to pray.
Further on, you find our Lord Jesus praying, and the disciples said, “Lord, teach us to pray.” In Luke 18, the Lord Jesus gave a parable that we ought always to pray and not faint.
Further on, you find, of course, that our Lord Jesus was praying for Peter, saying, “I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not.”
In the Garden of Gethsemane, of course, He was praying. On the cross, He prayed, “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.” When He died, He prayed, “Father, into Thy hands I commend My spirit.”
We find that the whole life of our Lord Jesus is characterized by prayer.
Dear brothers and sisters, what is prayer? How do you think of prayer? We often think of prayer in terms of asking for something and getting something. But actually, prayer is an expression of how much you depend.
If you can depend upon yourself, then you do not need to pray. Is that not so? If there is something you can do by yourself, you just go ahead and do it. When you cannot do it, then you begin to pray. That shows that you are dependent upon it.
The problem is that we are so independent; therefore, we do not pray much.
But with our Lord Jesus, you find His whole life characterized by prayer. He waited upon God, because in all He did, whether big things or small things, He lived a childlike, dependent life before God.
While He was on earth, He turned around and prayed, “Father, I thank Thee, because this was Thy good pleasure.” Like a child depending upon the father—dear brothers and sisters, this is one character of the new mankind.
We shall not live on this earth so independently. If we should live on this earth doing everything by ourselves, even though we may be doing Christian work, we are living in the old creation.
This is not the Man after God’s own heart. The Man God is after is One who is dependent upon the Father.
No wonder you find the Lord saying:
I can do nothing of Myself.
I can say nothing of Myself.
I speak because I have heard My Father speak.
I do because I see My Father doing.
In other words, you find a perfectly dependent life. Do you see that life as a weak life? Not at all. It is the strongest life in the world.
The Lord does not give you any impression that He is weak. No, no, no. He is a real Man. He can stand up before people. He can go to the cross, because He knows the Father’s will. He depends upon the Father.
So this is another character of the Man after God’s own heart.
The third point: as I read the Gospel according to Luke, another impression comes to me about Christ as the Son of Man. Dear brothers and sisters, let me ask you a question: Have you met anyone who is really big? I mean big inwardly—a big man?
Very rarely. Very rarely. We are very small, very small. Why? Because we are all self-centered. Self has made a dwarf out of us.
But when you read the Gospel according to Luke, you see a big Man—oh, a big Man—with a heart that embraces everyone. You do not find just a small person. He is a big Man.
He was raised up in the hills of Nazareth. For all His life, He walked around within two hundred miles. He never traveled more than two hundred miles. He had never been to school. We would say, “Now, a person with such a background surely must be a very small person.”
But you find our Lord Jesus transcending the tradition of His time. The Jewish people at that time were very narrow in their concept: they thought they were God’s chosen people and that God would not come to anybody else but them. They were very prejudiced and narrow people.
But our Lord Jesus transcended the tradition of His time. He was a universal Man. His heart was open not only to the Jews but also to the Gentiles. He could talk with Nicodemus; He could talk with a Samaritan woman. You find His heart was so big; it embraced everyone. His bigness was universal.
You can see it in His choosing Judas. There would be one who would betray Him. Did He know Judas? Yes. He knew from the very beginning.
Yet our Lord Jesus kept Judas by His side for over three years. He knew everything that Judas did. But did the other eleven disciples know anything about Judas? The Lord never gave a hint.
He knew Judas all the time, yet He never exposed him before the others. He treated Judas the same as the other disciples. Is that not bigness?
Suppose you knew a person who was going to betray you. You would not be happy in the first place. If you had him within an hour, everybody would know.
Even toward the very end, when Judas had determined to betray the Lord Jesus, when they were eating the Passover feast, the Lord said, “One among you shall betray Me.” But nobody knew who it was.
Peter motioned to John, who was by the Lord’s side. John leaned upon the breast of the Lord and asked, “Who is he?” The Lord said, “He to whom I shall give the morsel when I have dipped it.”
The Lord took the bread, dipped it, and handed it to Judas. The strange thing was that the disciples still did not know.
According to the custom, this was a gesture toward the most honorable guest. The host would dip the morsel and hand it to the most honorable guest.
Even after the Lord had suffered such pain, He still could do that. Why? Because the whole concept was that He wanted to treat Judas in the most honorable fashion.
The Lord, for the last time, tried to restore Judas. But when Judas refused, he went ahead. Nobody knew. Is that not big?
What a big Man our Lord Jesus is. There is nothing small in Him.
Sometimes we talk among Christians. We are so small. We are still contentious, and because of that, we are small. But this new mankind is big.
As you read the last two chapters of Revelation, the New Jerusalem, you cannot imagine how big that city is. It is beyond our imagination. It has twelve gates open toward the four directions. It is universal.
What the church is, that is what we should be.
The fourth point is this: pressure enlarges us. We are naturally small, but we have that big life, that Christ, in us. Therefore, when God puts pressure upon us, instead of becoming smaller, we may become enlarged.
If we did not have that life, when we are pressed, we would become smaller. Anything that is pressed becomes smaller. But because we have Christ, when we are under pressure, we are not crushed.
Look at the Lord Jesus. The more pressure He was under, the more His bigness was expressed. He was able to endure. How big He is!
Look at the rejection, misunderstanding, opposition, and human questioning that came upon Him. The apostle Paul said in 2 Corinthians 6, in effect, “Our heart is enlarged.” He was in no way restrained.
The more people criticized him, the more he loved them. The apostle Paul was a big man. He was a man who had the life of Christ, and after the Lord Jesus, the new man came forth.
Brothers and sisters, is that not one reason why the Lord allows pressure to come upon us? We may be surrounded; we may be perplexed; the earthen vessel can be broken. But the power of the treasure living in us is manifested. That is the secret of bigness.
Finally, let me just mention the last point. Of course, there are many other points, but I will just mention one more. This Man is characterized by single-mindedness.
Throughout the life of our Lord Jesus, as you read the Gospel according to Luke, you are impressed by how single-eyed and single-minded He is.
Even when He was a child, He said:
Wist ye not that I must be in My Father’s house?
With Him, there was only one thing: the Father’s business. He set His face toward Jerusalem. He never wavered from it. He could not be distracted. He could not be diverted. He was single-minded toward God—to do the Father’s will.
That characterizes this new humanity. That is how the Lord Jesus says:
If thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light.
But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness.
No man can serve two masters. He will either hate the one and love the other, or else he will hold to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.
Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you. In other words, singleness—single-mindedness—marks the life of Christ.
That is the reason why, in Luke 9, one man came to the Lord and said, “Lord, I will follow Thee.” The Lord said:
The foxes have holes,
And the birds of the heaven have nests;
But the Son of Man hath not where to lay His head.
To another He said, “Follow Me.” But the disciple said, “Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father, and then I will come and follow Thee.”
Still another disciple said, “Lord, I will follow Thee; but first permit me to bid farewell to them that are at my house.” The Lord said:
No man, having put his hand to the plow, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.
There is a single-mindedness that characterizes this new Man, this Man Christ. Brothers and sisters, how we need to be characterized by that.
We need to be occupied with the Father’s business, perhaps in different capacities, but it is God’s holy concern. We seek His kingdom and His righteousness. We do not look back, but we follow Him to the very end.
This is the character of the new Man, the new mankind.
Now, when you take these characteristics together, and many more that you can find in the Gospel according to Luke, then you see a personality. It is the personality of Christ, the Son of Man.
As the Son of Man, He is the beginning of a new mankind. We who are His, He wants us to be human—divinely human. He wants us to have all these characteristics.
These characteristics should be our characteristics, and these characteristics flow from the personality of the church. Dear brothers and sisters, may we see Him. May we see Him.
That is what the Gospel according to Luke is for. Otherwise, we may read it, we may touch the surface, but if we do not see Him and His personality, it does not accomplish the purpose of the Gospel.
May the Lord have mercy upon us. Shall we pray?
Our heavenly Father, Thou hast presented to us our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of Man, the new mankind, the Man who has entered Thy heart.
Oh, Lord, we pray that we may see Him. And as we see Him, may we be transformed by the Holy Spirit from glory to glory according to His image.
This is the prayer of our hearts. In the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.