This is Monday morning, August 7, 1972, in western Virginia. The ministry is being given to Brother Stephen Kaung.
As we gather together, we ask that Thou wouldst reveal Thyself to us in such a way that we may say, “We have seen the Lord. We have seen His glory, even the glory of the only begotten from the Father.”
So we do come at this time, trusting Thy Holy Spirit to give wisdom and revelation to us. In the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.
Last night, we mentioned that there is but one Christ, Jesus Christ; yet He is presented to us in four different aspects.
The Gospel according to Matthew presents Christ to us as the King. Whoever puts himself under the authority of the King belongs to His kingdom. Whether we are actually part of His kingdom depends upon whether our lives are in subjection to the King.
The Gospel according to Mark presents Christ to us as the Servant of the Lord. As Son, He serves the Father perfectly. When we see Him as the Servant of the Lord, then we begin to learn the lesson of service.
The Gospel according to Luke presents Christ to us as the Son of Man—put another way, the Man of God. Luke, being a physician, was always interested in men. So here you find the Holy Spirit using this physician to turn our eyes upon the Lord Jesus Christ as Man.
Now, brothers and sisters, God is always interested in man.
You find in Psalm 16, verse 3:
As for the saints that are in the earth,
They are the excellent in whom is all my delight.
This speaks of our Lord Jesus. God’s delight is in man. God is always interested in man, and that is the reason why He created man in the first place.
Then, in Hebrews 2, when it comes to the matter of redemption, you find that God does not take hold of angels, but He takes hold of the seed of Abraham. All this shows us that God is truly interested in man.
Sometimes we are not interested in ourselves as men. We would rather be angels, or even spirits. We think that, to be spiritual, we have to be like angels, or like spirits.
But God is more interested in man than in angels. God does not want us to be angels. God wants us to be men—spiritual men, but not spirits.
If you go back to Genesis, you find that, in the beginning, when God created all things, on the sixth day He said, “Let Us make man in Our image, after Our likeness.”
The creation of man is unique. Man was created very differently from all other created things. God created everything by His word, by His power, by His authority, and by His wisdom. But in the creation of man, there is something unique.
God said, “Let Us make man in Our image.” Man was created in God’s image, and you never find this said of any of the other created things.
Why did God create man in His image? It is because God had something in mind concerning man. He did not create man merely as something He had made. He created man with a very definite purpose behind it.
That purpose is that He wants to join Himself with man. He wants to unite Himself with man, and man with Himself. In order that this union might be possible, He created man in His own image.
Only in His image is there the possibility of God being united with man in that special way.
If Adam had eaten of the tree of life instead of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the garden of Eden, then he would have received God into him, and God’s purpose in creating man would have been fulfilled.
But unfortunately, instead of eating of the tree of life, he ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. In doing so, he rebelled against God and frustrated God’s purpose concerning man.
Not only was man created in God’s image, but God also blessed man and said that he should be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, subdue it, and have dominion over the birds of the air, the beasts of the field, and the fishes of the sea.
Man was not only created in God’s image; he was also given a very special work. Man was to subdue the earth and have dominion over it.
The earth needed to be subdued. The earth needed to be brought back to God. This work of bringing the earth back to God was a work appointed by God.
So, you find two things: man was created in God’s image that he might be united with God, and secondly, man was given a task—to subdue the earth and bring everything back to God.
But unfortunately, in yielding himself to temptation, man himself was put under the dominion of sin. Instead of being an agent of God, he became an agent of the enemy.
But God did not give up His hope. God did not change His mind. God still wanted man, so He did not throw man away.
Three thousand years later, David, as a prophet, spoke concerning God’s interest in man. In Psalm 8, he said:
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.
Thou makest him to have dominion over the works of Thy hands;
Thou hast put all things under his feet.
In other words, God’s original interest, purpose, and design concerning man had not changed. God had not given up. God was still working toward that man.
During those three thousand years, we see here and there a man in whom God’s thought was expressed in a small measure. In Abraham, in Joseph, in Moses, in David, and in others, we see a little bit here and a little bit there of the man God desires.
But we never see that Man in totality.
Then, four thousand years later, we come to Hebrews 2. There we find that God has finally obtained the Man He had in mind.
Hebrews 2:6-9 says:
What is man, that Thou art mindful of him?
Or the son of man, that Thou visitest him?
Thou madest him a little lower than the angels;
Thou crownedst him with glory and honor,
And didst set him over the works of Thy hands:
Thou didst put all things in subjection under his feet.
For in that He subjected all things unto him, He left nothing that is not subject to him.
But now we see not yet all things subjected to him.
But we behold Him who hath been made a little lower than the angels, even Jesus, because of the suffering of death crowned with glory and honor.
Finally, in Jesus, God has obtained the Man He had in His mind when He first created Adam. Adam is a figure of Christ. Adam failed, but Christ did not fail.
The Gospel according to Luke presents to us the Man God had in mind from the very beginning: the Man created in His image, the Man united with Him, the Man given authority and power over all His created things in heaven and on earth.
In Christ, all this is fulfilled. This is the Man that Luke seeks to present to us.
But God’s original design is not merely an individual man. It is a corporate man.
God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, after Our likeness.” Then God created man in His image; male and female created He them. The man in God’s thought is corporate: male and female, Adam and Eve.
The Man in God’s thought is Christ. But this is not only the personal Christ; this is Christ in His corporate expression.
That is why, as you read on in Hebrews 2, you find in verse 10:
For it became Him, for whom are all things, and through whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the Author of their salvation perfect through sufferings.
Here you find not only one Man, but many sons. These many sons are conformed to the image of God’s Son, and together they become that corporate Man God had in His mind.
Brothers and sisters, Luke was used by God to write two books of the New Testament. He wrote not only the Gospel according to Luke, in which he presents Jesus to us as Man, but also the book of Acts.
In the Gospel, God has finally secured a Man in Christ. But that is only part of it. Therefore, Luke had to write another book, the book of Acts, to show us the many in the one—the church.
It is Christ personally and Christ corporately. In this way, you see the Man God desires, and then you begin to understand why God is so interested in man.
Brothers and sisters, I do hope these words serve as a background for us, so that we may see how much God is interested in man. God is out today to secure man. He wants you and me.
He is not out to secure angelic beings. He is here to secure men—human beings—but of a new order. Actually, that new order is after His own heart: divinely human.
That is the reason why we mentioned last night that the end of redemption is to redeem us from all such inhuman conditions back into that which is divinely human. That is the purpose of redemption.
God comes out to redeem us so that we may be men—real men, real human beings.
Now, in the life of a human being, there are certain events that stand out. We may call these the crises of life.
First, there is birth. Without birth, there is no history. Then, from infancy, one goes to childhood and adulthood. There is work or ministry. Finally, there is death.
In the case of an ordinary person, these are the major crises of life. But in the life of Christ, there is something more, because after death there is resurrection and ascension.
In the Gospel according to Luke, Christ is presented to us as Man, and Luke places emphasis upon these stages: His birth, His growth, His ministry, His death, and His ascension.
Of all the Gospels, Luke gives us the most detailed record of the birth of Christ.
Mark does not relate the birth of Christ. Why? Because the birth of a servant is of no public interest. Nobody is interested in the birth of a slave.
Matthew records the birth of our Lord Jesus because He is the King, and the birth of a king is of great importance.
The Gospel according to John does not record the details of Christ’s birth. It says, “The Word became flesh.” That is true, but it is a statement rather than a detailed record. Why? Because He is God, and God has no beginning; therefore, there is no record of His birth.
But Luke, in presenting Christ to us as the Son of Man, gives us a very detailed record. Of all four Gospels, he gives us the fullest account of the birth of Christ.
In the incarnation of Christ, there are two important principles involved. First, there is the divine side. Second, there is the human side.
The Son of God became man. What a tremendous thing that is!
Do not think that God simply came down to earth and entered into a human body as a child. No. God, who is infinite, put Himself into the finite.
Suppose you have a small box, one inch square, and you want to put something ten inches square into it. How are you going to do that? You have to cut it down in order to squeeze it into that one small space.
God, who is infinite, majestic, glorious, holy, rich, and full, entered the realm of a woman and was born as a baby to become a man. What a tremendous emptying that must have been!
The incarnation is not a small thing. It speaks to us of tremendous love behind it.
For God to empty Himself—to empty His glory, His honor, His position, and all the things that rightfully belonged to Him—and to become a man: that is love. That is love.
It is a mystery we cannot understand. It is beyond our understanding. Yet God has done that. Oh, what great love!
Philippians 2 tells us that, being in the form of God, He emptied Himself and took upon Himself the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men.
This is the divine side. This morning, I will not emphasize that side, because we considered it last time in the Gospel according to Matthew. This morning, I want to emphasize the human side in Christ.
His birth is very different from our birth. The birth of John the Baptist was miraculous because Elizabeth and Zacharias had passed the age at which they could naturally bear children. Yet John was still born of a human father and a human mother.
The birth of Christ was miraculous in a different way. It did not follow the ordinary natural order, because Christ was born of a virgin.
Has there ever been a virgin who conceived? Never. It is impossible with man. But here we find Christ born of a virgin by the overshadowing of the Holy Spirit.
In other words, God did it all. It was the overshadowing of the Holy Spirit upon Mary that enabled her to conceive. Therefore, the One born of her was the holy thing, the Son of God.
Our Lord Jesus had no human father. Joseph was only the husband of Mary. But our Lord Jesus had a real human mother, and thus He was truly man.
Why did God choose Mary among all the pious Jewish women of that time? Why did God use this human instrument?
This is the human side we want to consider. To bring the God-man into this world, on the divine side there was the emptying of the Son. But on the human side, there had to be a vessel suitable for God.
In Mary, you find a spiritual suitability. She was chosen by God to bring forth Christ the Man. Without such a human vessel, the Son of God could not come as a man. He could come as God, but not as man.
If He was to come as a man and be the Man, He had to come out of humanity. This human vessel was found in Mary.
Mary must have been among those who were truly looking forward to the consolation of Israel. The Jews at that time had a custom of praying for the coming of the Messiah, but many were not really waiting for Him.
Yet there were a few people who were truly looking for the consolation of Israel. They were not only looking; they were ready. They were prepared for His coming.
In the case of Mary, you find this suitability. When the angel told her that the power of the Highest would overshadow her and that she would bring forth the holy Son of God, she said:
Behold, the handmaid of the Lord;
Be it unto me according to thy word.
Here in Mary there was a faith that was absolute and complete.
She did not think of what would happen to her name or to her life. According to Jewish law, an unmarried woman found with child could be considered guilty of adultery and could be stoned to death.
Nobody would understand. How could she explain it? It had never happened before. Even Joseph, being a righteous man, did not want to put Mary to open shame, and he considered putting her away privately.
But here you find a perfect obedience, an absolute yieldedness. She thought nothing of herself. She said, “I am the handmaid of the Lord. I am Yours.”
There was no self-concern in her. She was wholly for God. Brothers and sisters, this is the suitability on the human side. When God can find such a suitable vessel, the Son of God can be brought forth as a man through that one.
It is true that we should not worship Mary, but we should not forget her. She was very special to God because of her absolute yieldedness to Him.
Brothers and sisters, God has that Man, Jesus. Now He applies this to us today, for we are to be many sons.
When we believe in the Lord Jesus, the holy seed is planted in us. It is not simply a matter that, now, you can go to heaven. Thank God for that—it is true—but that is not all.
It is as if the power of the Highest has overshadowed us and a seed has been conceived within us. We have received the life of Christ in us. The life of Christ is like a seed deposited within us.
Do we allow that life to develop? Is the life of Christ able to be formed in us and manifested through us to this world?
You are born again, yes. But there is much more to be fulfilled. We have the seed that is Christ Himself.
Brothers and sisters, Christ is to be formed in us, and Christ is to be manifested through us. This requires spiritual suitability. It requires an absolute commitment and yieldedness to Christ, a giving up of all else.
Otherwise, how can Christ be brought into this world? It is the same principle. What was demonstrated in the birth of Jesus is to be verified in the lives of believers.
When that is multiplied, then the Man who is after God’s own heart will be manifested in this world.
This is the history of the Man. It is the beginning of the history of Christ, the history of the church, and the history of every individual believer.
If we think that, because we are born again, that is all, then we miss God’s purpose. God has created you anew because God wants man.
Then you find the second stage of life: growth.
For a child, after he is born, the most important thing is to see that he grows. That is the concern of the parent: the growth of the child.
In the Gospel of Luke, you find a detailed description of the infancy, childhood, and manhood of our Lord. He was brought under the law so that a right relationship might be established under the covenant.
He was presented to God in the temple, because the firstborn must be presented to God and set apart for Him.
Then Luke 2 tells us that the child grew and waxed strong, filled with wisdom, and the grace of God was upon Him.
You see the growth of our Lord Jesus: strong in body physically, increasing in wisdom mentally, and increasing in favor with God spiritually. He grew in every way.
When He was twelve years old, He came into a full consciousness of His relationship with the Father. When Mary and Joseph found Him in the temple, He said, “Knew ye not that I must be in My Father’s house?”
Yet, even though He had come into this consciousness of His relationship with the Heavenly Father, He was still a child. He went back with His parents and was subject to them.
Because He was conscious of His relationship with the Heavenly Father, He could obey His earthly parents. What a lesson that is for us.
At thirty years of age, He came to be baptized. Thirty was the age at which a Levite entered into service. At His baptism, He offered Himself to God.
At twelve, He came into full consciousness of His relationship with the Father. At thirty, He entered consciously into the work God had entrusted to Him.
He offered Himself to God. He identified Himself with sinful mankind, especially with the repentant people. He offered Himself as a sacrifice. Therefore, the Holy Spirit descended upon Him.
We who believe in the Lord Jesus are saved, but that does not mean that in one day we are fully grown. Not at all.
The life of Christ within us is complete and perfect, yet we need to grow in understanding, appreciation, and appropriation of all that Christ is to us.
There is no such thing as instant maturity. People today are impatient. Everything must be instant—even animals are given injections and medicines to make them grow quickly.
But anything instant is unnatural. There is no such thing as instant spirituality. You cannot do seven things, or have some special experience, and instantly become spiritual. No such thing.
Growing pains are unavoidable. We have to grow.
As you grow in Christ, two things happen. First, you grow in understanding your relationship with the Heavenly Father. More and more, you begin to realize that you are His child. More and more, you know that He is your Heavenly Father.
Second, as you grow in the Lord, you gradually grow into a consciousness of what the Lord has called you to fulfil: your ministry, your mission, your purpose, and your work.
This relationship and this mission do not come instantaneously. They come as you grow in the Lord. The more you grow in the Lord, the fuller is your understanding of your relationship with the Father, and the more conscious you become of the ministry and calling God has given you.
So do not be impatient. Many Christians are very impatient. They want to help God pull them up a little faster. But if you pull up a plant, it dies.
We have to grow. We have to grow in the right way and in the right time.
How we need to humble ourselves and put ourselves in the hands of the Lord, so that we may grow in our consciousness of our relationship with the Father and grow into the ministry He has for us.
The third stage is work—His ministry. In the Gospel according to Luke, you find much concerning what Christ did.
But remember this: He did not do these things for success, for popularity, or for reputation. He did many things, and yet He was not occupied with these things.
He had only one concern: to do the Father’s will. That was all.
He was not interested in this or that. All that concerned Him was the will of the Father. His whole life-work was governed by this one thing: the Father’s will.
Even when there was no apparent success, He praised God. He had gone to Chorazin and other cities, done miracles and wonders, yet they did not repent.
Then He said:
I thank Thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth,
That Thou didst hide these things from the wise and understanding,
And didst reveal them unto babes:
Yea, Father, for so it was well-pleasing in Thy sight.
He never measured His work by visible results. He did not measure His work by popularity. He measured His work only by the Father’s will. If it was the Father’s good pleasure, He thanked God.
Even if it ended in apparent failure, it did not trouble Him. His life-work was to do the Father’s will, and in doing the Father’s will, to the extent of laying down His life.
In the Gospel according to Luke, you find that He set His face toward Jerusalem. He knew danger was waiting for Him there, but He set His face toward Jerusalem.
When people told Him that Herod wanted to kill Him, the Lord Jesus said, “Go and say to that fox, Behold, I cast out demons and perform cures today and tomorrow, and the third day I am perfected. Nevertheless I must go on My way today and tomorrow and the day following; for it cannot be that a prophet perish out of Jerusalem.”
There was no deviation in the Lord. He was not moved by these things. To do the Father’s will and to finish it—that was all that mattered.
Brothers and sisters, we are united with this Man. That is our work. What is our attitude toward our work?
Are we seeking results, or do we measure our work by success, popularity, and visible happenings?
Our whole approach to Christian work and Christian service must be to do the Father’s will. That is the only thing that matters.
If it is the Father’s will, even if you end up in what seems to be failure, you can still say, “Thank God.” To God, it is a success.
But if it is not the Father’s will, even though it may appear successful, it is worthless.
Our attitude toward work should not be occupied with the work itself, but with the will of God. Because we are occupied with the Father’s will, it does not matter what people say. It does not matter what happens to us.
There is another side. In all the works of Christ, you find that His interest was always with men.
In the Gospel according to Luke especially, Luke gives us the human touch in all the works Christ does. There is always a feeling, a human touch.
Luke mentions the woman who came to the Lord at the table in Simon’s house—how she wept, how she washed His feet with her tears, and how she anointed Him. That is a human touch.
In all that our Lord did, there was this human touch. He was deeply interested in man.
We are involved with God in bringing man to that which God wants man to be. That is one purpose of our service.
In the Gospel according to Luke, you find the human side of the death of our Lord Jesus presented in a very special way.
On the cross, according to Luke’s record, our Lord spoke three words that reveal this human side.
First, He said, “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.”
Even though they crucified Him and put Him to death, He prayed for their forgiveness. “They know not what they do.” This is the highest expression of true humanity.
Second, He told the thief, “Today shalt thou be with Me in Paradise.”
Third, He said, “Father, into Thy hands I commend My spirit.”
In these three words, He reveals the human side of His death. Yes, there is the divine side. There is the matter of atonement, of His precious blood cleansing us from our sins and giving us new life. But there is also the human side.
Even on the cross, He manifested the highest quality of true humanity.
We are identified with Him in His death. Now, death for a believer is very different from the death of an unbeliever.
Sometimes we say that a man has been cut off in his prime; he has not finished his work, and his life seems to have ended too quickly. Sometimes a man has wasted his life, and then dies; that is indeed tragic.
But we are not supposed to die before we have finished our course and fulfilled God’s purpose. We believe that we can live until our work is done and God’s purpose is fulfilled.
We will not be cut off before our time. We have this faith.
Of course, the Lord may come, and we may not go through death. We may be changed. But let me put it this way: Christ first lived and then died; with us, we die first and then live.
We are dead with Christ. Therefore, we live today no longer for ourselves, but Christ lives in us.
After that comes the fifth crisis: ascension. Here you find Christ ascending into heaven and seated at the right hand of the Father.
Matthew does not record the ascension in the same way because Matthew ends with the Lord’s promise, “Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.” The emphasis there is that Christ is with us.
The Gospel according to John likewise does not emphasize the ascension in the same way, because John presents Him as the One who is in heaven even while He is on earth.
But Luke records the ascension in a very special way because the Man in the Gospel is now the Man in glory.
There is a Man in glory today. Because there is a Man in glory, we know that one day there will be many sons in glory. Thank God, He is there as the Forerunner, as the guarantee that He will bring many sons to glory.
The whole Gospel according to Luke begins with a baby and ends with a Man in glory.
It begins with prayer, and it ends with the praises of the disciples. That is the Gospel according to Luke.
Father, we do praise and thank Thee because Thou dost desire to have man. Thou hast him in Christ, and Thou art going to have him in us.
O Lord, Thou hast set Christ before us as our example, and Thou hast put Him in us as our life. So we do desire to yield ourselves to Thee today and let Thee work out Thy perfect will in us.
May we become that man after Thy heart from the very beginning. To Thee be all the glory. In the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.