With the fifteenth chapter of the Gospel fresh in our memories, I just want to place alongside of it some words from the Gospel by Matthew, in Matthew 12:38.
Then certain of the scribes and Pharisees answered Him, saying, Teacher, we would see a sign from Thee.
But He answered and said unto them, An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given to it but the sign of Jonah the prophet:
for as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the whale, so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.
It does so happen—it is not deliberately arranged—that this evening, in memory, we are in that period between the death and the resurrection of the Lord Jesus: a period of three days and three nights.
It is upon the significance of that that we are going to dwell for a little while this evening, in close contact with all that has gone before in this time of gathering.
We note, in the first place, simply the symbolic number that is chosen here: the symbolic number three. Not just chance or hazard, but by divinely deliberate choice, and by very much foreshadowing and forecasting.
It is here intimated that Jonah’s experience was, in itself, prophecy. Jonah did not understand why that particular period should be appointed for him to be where he was—in the depth, in the darkness.
But in that divine ordering of things all the way through, the one mind of God always had His Son in view. It was no mere chance that Jonah went into the fish and stayed there for three days and three nights.
The number three, right through Scripture, always carries with it a certain significance. It is the number of divine completeness. You come upon that number, and that is what you find.
It is the number of the very Godhead itself: the Trinity, the triune God—Father, Son, Holy Spirit—one and complete.
It is a number of man: spirit, soul, and body. Paul says, “Your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless.” Man, as a whole, is a trinity: three in one.
So we could go on for a long time through the Bible and outside of the Bible. I mean that this number comprehends a threefold realm of things which makes for completeness.
But it is particularly related to the death of Christ. It is impressive to note this. We have read it: He was crucified at the third hour. There was darkness over the whole earth from the sixth to the ninth hour—three hours.
There was an inscription nailed to His cross in three languages: Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. Then He was in the heart of the earth, as the Scripture says, three days and three nights.
What does it mean? Why, in the sovereignty of God, has this number been nailed to the death of the Lord Jesus? Well, I think it is perfectly clear.
You see, it is the completeness of the work of His cross—the completeness of His death in all its significance. It is something that is full, something that is complete. It requires this number.
You take one: you cannot do much with it. You have got to add something to it. You take two: you cannot shut up anything in two lines. You have got to add a third, make a triangle, and that is your very first geometrical way of containing anything.
It is enough to contain all that you want. The death of Christ, governed by this number, is something which is complete.
Now, in these gatherings we have been occupied, with the exception of this afternoon, entirely with this particular relationship of Christ: an eternal, heavenly order which obtained, which was destroyed, and which He came to recover.
The first thing that the death, or the cross, of the Lord Jesus says, in the light of this number three which is so much in evidence, is that in the cross that old disorder is fully and finally finished. It is completed in Himself.
In this universe, by His cross, it is potentially brought to conclusion. The old disorder is finished. The death of Christ says emphatically that, with God and with heaven, all that belongs to that disruption in the universe—that dislocation, that upset which Satan has brought in—no longer obtains.
Before God and before heaven, He has put an end to it in His cross. That is the statement of a fact.
But it is a tremendous reality upon which God works continually in the life of every believer, and particularly in the life of His church.
This is a thing, dear friends, that we should remember. We should know and continually remember that God, from His side, is never working toward anything. From His side, He is always working backward.
He is working back to what was, in His mind, before time—eternal—and which He had actually in His creative activity. There it was. He has never given it up. All the departure is away; God is always coming back, always coming back.
God is never saying to man, “You must come on to Me.” He is saying, “You must come back to Me.”
It is only where we are concerned that we are moving toward a consummation, but God is always working backward. The cross is the ground toward which He is always working, to bring us back.
Every bit of His activity in our lives is to bring us back to what He meant in that cross. That cross was full, complete, and final as to an old disruptive system. God has said in the cross, “That is finished.”
Now, you cannot come back to that all at once, or there would be nothing of you left. But all through your life, He is bringing it back there. Bit by bit, that thing which the cross cancelled out and finished has got to go—got to go. He is working back to that. God is always doing that.
You see, it means that God, while He bears and forbears and is very patient and longsuffering with a lot that He will not have, never accepts it. He may be patient, but He does not accept it.
The cross says about that which Satan brought into His universe: “That is completed.” Nothing of that has any standing.
If we understood the workings of God in our lives, we would understand what we say so much about: the cross at work in us. What is it? What does it mean? Simply that there is still a lot that God is not accepting.
He has been very patient over it for a long time, but sooner or later we have got to come to God’s finality about the whole thing, His completeness about the whole thing, and ultimate perfection where we are concerned.
It is only the complete fulfilment of the work of the cross, making true in us that which Calvary meant in itself. It is the old disorder that is fully dealt with.
That is the comprehensive thing. Within that compass there is, of course, very much that we shall not stay to even mention. But one thing can be mentioned.
There was an old system in the Old Testament—an earthly system—which was in types, symbols, and figures, intended to point to this very fact of what the cross means: everything that is not of heaven.
That Jewish system was a system which, in every part, declared this truth of Calvary: that what is Satan’s doing has no place with God. Here is another order, a heavenly order, introduced in this system of types and figures.
It all implied that; it all pointed to that. But it was a system that utterly failed. It utterly failed. That Jewish system, with all its implications and meaning from God’s standpoint, failed completely. It never did bring in the heavenly order.
Calvary says, then, an end to a system that fails—to every system that fails to produce what God wants. Even though that system may have been prescribed by God for a purpose, if it does not result in or lead to this heavenly order, it must go.
Be it Christian or Jewish, if it does not produce the heavenly order, Calvary says, “It is finished.”
There is an immense amount of Christianity that is going to go under divine judgment. Because it has the name “Christian” on it, there is no guarantee that it is going to stand. Oh, no. Christianity as a mere system will go the same way as Judaism.
The cross says this one thing: only that which really does put away all that is not of heaven, and only that which does bring in what is of heaven, has any standing with God.
The cross makes that declaration. You remember the parable of our Lord which is directed at Israel and Judaism: that tree, and the looking and expecting of fruit, and the verdict, “These three years I come seeking fruit.”
Three years: completeness of opportunity, the completeness of disappointment in a system. That tree was Israel.
God said, “I have given Israel a complete, a perfect opportunity.” Surely anybody who knows will agree: if ever a people had an opportunity, with every provision, to produce fruit, they did.
God was complete in the provision that He made, in the patience that He showed. But these three years—no fruit. That is all. Cut it down; therefore, wither it from the root.
You see, that was a system: Israel, Judaism. It was a system brought in by God. But it is not the thing, dear friends—this is the point—it is not the thing; it is that for which the thing is intended.
It is not the truth that you and I have, not the teaching that we possess, not all that has come to us outwardly. It is: does it produce what God intended? That is the point.
Does it bring us through to the heavenly thing, actually? Does it lead us out of that confusion and disorder which contradicts the mind and will of God?
It speaks also of the completeness of God’s abandonment of the world. That world is the world of a disrupted system, a disordered system. It lies in the wicked one.
That needs no argument. If ever we wanted proof of this great truth, it is all around us today. Our daily papers are full of it, column after column: this lawlessness, this anarchy, this disruption and disorder.
It is just there. It is the problem of all countries today. It is everywhere, and it is forcing its way into the very church of God.
It is everywhere. The great trouble today is just that, is it not? Lawlessness, disorder, repudiation of authority and control—worse and worse.
Now, in the cross, because that whole thing is expressive and demonstrative of a broken-down divine order, God said that world is cut off; it is put away.
We have a great illustration of that in the Old Testament, in Israel coming out of Egypt. Do you remember the prescription for Pharaoh, from which neither God nor Moses would depart one hair’s breadth? Three days’ journey into the wilderness—no less.
Three days’ journey into the wilderness. Pharaoh would make bargains, but Moses said no. He needed to win everything, retain, limit—but no. The number is fixed, divinely fixed: three days’ journey into the wilderness.
Because the Lord knew what that meant. Perhaps Pharaoh had some idea: get that far, and they are gone; they are lost; they are beyond recovery. They get this well—that is God’s meaning, at any rate: the completeness of separation from this world, number three.
That is God’s thought in the church. The church is a long time coming to it; Christians are a long time coming to it—to see that what is called worldliness was nailed to that cross with the Lord Jesus, fully, finally, and utterly.
None of it stands with God. He will be patient and longsuffering, but sooner or later we shall be brought up against this fact: that to tolerate, to allow, to condone anything that the cross is set against is to jeopardise, at least, our own spiritual life.
It will find us out somewhere with God—out of favour with God.
If we want still stronger proof of this, note that after this great double three—crucified at the third hour, darkness over all the earth for three hours—it was then that the cry went forth:
My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?
Abandoned by God. That is the end—the terrible and awful end. There is nothing beyond that. There is no hope when it is like that, no hope at all.
No, it is darkness indeed for three hours when it is like that. You see, a completeness of darkness when God turns away and forsakes.
We know that was because He, there in His cross, gathered to Himself all these evil forces, in the first place, which had brought this world’s disruption; and to Himself all the sin of this disrupted man. He gathered it to Himself, and God said, “Finish with that completely and forever,” and turned away and abandoned that One in that capacity.
The cry of forsakenness is the great cry of something that is forever finished—finished with by God.
Well, we see that for those three days. You just have a little glimpse of what happened with the twelve, with the larger company. It was a scene of desolation, of despair, of disappointment.
The cross, you see, has written that and registered there. You and I, dear friends—well, it is very terrible. I have tried to impress the utterness, the completeness, of the work of the cross.
Now, that is one of the three great aspects of the cross. It is the darkest—indeed, it is the dark.
There is a second, and upon this, of course, we believers dwell with the profoundest gratitude. It was in our first hymn. Yes: the completeness of the removal of everything that comes between us and God.
How complete, where our sin is concerned! Nothing left to be done. Nothing left to be done.
Judgment exhausted upon that One for us—nothing left to be done.
Well, that is the theme for eternity: what we refer to as the finished work—a finished work.
We always need reminding that the word finished does not just mean that you reach the end. That word means it is complete. It is complete. There is nothing to be added, nothing more to be done. It is complete, it is whole, it is full.
The cross says that.
We mention it and pass on to the next—the other side, you see: the completeness and utterness of the new order which is made possible by the cross, the way to which is opened up by the cross.
I want to put emphasis upon the two words: the utterness of the new order that is brought in through the cross of Christ.
We have seen earlier that all the disruption, the disorder in this universe, came by an attempt to put the Son of God out of His place—His divinely appointed place.
That is what happened in the garden. Man put himself in the place of the Son of God. The Son of God was displaced, and everything that we know of this anarchy and chaos and disruption followed in the train of that.
Because in Him all things consist; in Him all things hold together. Put Him out, and things fall to pieces.
The cross not only dealt with that, but made a way for this. This is the glory of the new order: Christ is back in His place.
Christ is back in His place. That is the shout of triumph, is it not? That is the message of the evangel. That is what they are saying wherever they go, beginning in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea and Samaria, and unto the uttermost parts of the earth: Jesus Christ is Lord.
He is back in His place. The beginning of the new creation is the beginning of the recovering of the lost order in this universe.
He is the Head of the creation. He is the Head of everything. He is back in His place. Only when He is back in His place do things begin to be set right.
The cross, you see, means this: everything has got to be displaced that gets in the place of the Lord Jesus.
And so the new order was an utter thing, beginning with this completeness of His exaltation.
God raised Him from the dead and set Him at His own right hand, far above all rule and authority and principality and power. He is in His place again. Now, from that, God says, “We will get on with the work. We will reconstitute everything.”
But you notice the next thing: Christ in His place. That is the beginning of everything, dear friends, it is—for salvation, for every aspect of redemption, for the recovery of that lost divine harmony in the universe. It all starts there: Jesus in His right place.
But notice what happened next. What we said earlier was this: that it is all a matter of environment. We took an illustration from the human body.
We are told by those who know about it that these living cells, which constitute the very living being of the human body—these living cells, millions and millions of them—are all environed by something: this lymph.
In that environment, in a healthy body, there are those things necessary to their very life, progress, and reproduction. There is, in the healthy body, the absence of all that which is detrimental to their life.
We lifted that illustration out and showed how God has written His spiritual laws in all His material creation, and in our bodies particularly. The life of every cell depends upon its environment, and you and I ourselves are in the great body corporate.
Disease, disorder, disruption, and death came in when man got out of his right environment, which is God.
In God there is everything that is needed for the sustenance and nourishment of the life of man. In God there is nothing poisonous to injure man’s life. God is our environment.
Man stepped out of his environment, and all this has resulted. Now you notice what happens after the cross: when man is brought back into God.
Into God, in Christ, in Christ, in Christ—that is back into God. Jesus came to bring us back into God.
When that happens, man is back in his environment, in God. Christ becomes his new environment.
And you see in the New Testament what a living, living condition there was right there and then. These people—why, they are living in the Lord, are they not? They are just living in the Lord.
It is difficult to put it, to explain it, but this is what it is: Christ was their whole sphere, the whole realm, their whole world, their environment.
As they were drawing upon Him, you see a new order beginning to show itself. They continued steadfastly—continued steadfastly—in the teaching, in the breaking of bread, in fellowship, in prayer.
A new order is coming in: a new relationship, a new fellowship. It is very beautiful at the beginning, and it is all because they are back in their right environment.
We have a lot in the New Testament, of course, that speaks of the need and meaning of the cross in Christians in that very respect: how things break down when the cross is not doing its work, or is not allowed to do its work.
We have it in Corinth. I think it is very impressive, dear friends, in the light of what we have been seeing, that Paul said about the condition of things in Corinth that there were many sick among them, and some even died.
Why? Why, they had gone out of their environment of life and health, which was the Lord. In other words, they had not come into all that the cross meant. They were not allowing the cross to mean to them that which was involved in bodily life.
The condition of things was a great declaration, a testimony to the fact: if you abide in Christ, it is a good thing for you. It is a matter of life and not death; it is a matter of strength, not weakness.
So it was there. Well, this is what Paul saw, at least, and others too, and constantly, continually used that little phrase, “in Christ, in Christ, in Christ.”
We have not got that yet, you know, in all its profound depth of meaning: Christ as the living environment of the new creation.
There it is: if any man be in Christ, there is a new creation. The old things are passed away. All is new. All is new. All is new.
It is a new way—a new and living way, it is called—but here it is. Come back to the cross in our chapter this evening. What happened at the end of the double three, when it is complete and He cried with a loud voice?
The veil of the temple was rent from the top to the bottom.
That veil was typical, or symbolic, of the barrier between man and God, between earth and heaven. God is behind that, and the veil says, “No entrance. No entrance. Stay out.”
Now, I think this is all very wonderful. Go back to the beginning, in the garden. Satan has displaced God’s Son in the heart of man; the disruption has come in. What does God do?
He drove the man from the garden. He drove him out from paradise, and closed the door, and set His cherubim with a flaming sword at the door, and said, “Outside you are. There is no way in.”
Listen to Jesus. Listen to Jesus with His wonderful story: the king who made a supper for his son, invited the guests, who spurned his offer and invitation. What does he say to his servants?
“Go out into the highways and the byways, and compel them to come in, that my house may be full.” What a reversal! Outside, no way in; compel them to come in.
Something has happened to open the door. Something has happened. The veil has been rent from the top—from heaven—in the cross of the Lord Jesus.
That which said, “Outside, and no entrance,” has now been split asunder. The way is right open: an open heaven through the cross. Compel them to come in.
It changes altogether, does it not? The divine attitude, which once was, “No way in”—the veil hung through all the centuries, just saying, “No way in, no way into God, no way in”—now is, “Compel them to come in, that my house may be full.”
The way in is open. By the cross, it is split open. The cross of the Lord Jesus speaks of a new and a living way, to quote from the letter to the Hebrews.
A new way—a way that never was before, since man sinned. It is a new life. It is a new position. He is in heaven, and now we are regarded as seated together with Him in the heavenlies. It is a new position.
It is a new power. The power of the Spirit comes down from heaven.
How powerless they were! How powerless they were! Their leader, the chief among them, in speech and in action, was powerless before a little serving maid in the hall of Pilate.
Listen to him now before those selfsame rulers in Israel: “Whether it be right for us to obey God or man, you judge.”
We have not any question about this matter. Do as you like—that is what it means. Do as you like with us. We stand here true to that One whom you crucified.
A new power has come in.
When we turn to the letter to the Hebrews, we find ourselves at once in the presence of a new order. It is a heavenly order now; it is not an earthly order.
It is not made with hands, to use the very phrase there—not made with hands. Not something of man’s creating, not something of man’s ingenuity or organising ability, whatever. It is something heavenly, this new order.
It is something that is not of time, for anything that is of time grows old. It grows old. It loses, therefore, its vitality.
Now, that is true of a lot of Christianity. It becomes something made by men, organised by men, planned and run by men. It becomes a thing of time, and it only endures during man’s time. It is of the earth.
This new order is something from heaven, and it is not of time; it is of eternity.
Dear friends, take all that this implies, if you can. I am making statements, but in the back of my mind I am seeing so much more of what is implied.
We have got to be very careful that we do not bring heavenly things down to earth and make eternal things merely time things. We must not take hold of heavenly things and shape them into an earthly system.
They are forever to be heavenly: living, eternal, vibrant with newness. Newness. There has got to be something of newness about everything all the way along.
The cross says that, you see. There has got to be continuous newness.
Oh, it is very true: if we are in this new creation and walking according to this new life, we do not come to an end of anything. We are constantly coming to new beginnings—new releases, new openings up, new fullnesses. Newness is the whole mark.
New, because there is a new man, individual and corporate: a new man in Christ, who is the inclusive new man, the heavenly man, the man in whom life is.
I must leave it there. But the emphasis is here: the cross of the Lord Jesus, those three days and three nights, does say so utterly that one whole order is finished—or dissolved, is finished—and another, which is so utterly different, completely different, comes in on the other side of the cross.
It has all got to be right there, starting from zero, completely at every stage and in every phase: something new, something new.
Oh, may we never get old in our spiritual life, never get old in our order of things so that it is set and fixed. I am not saying that we have got to try to be novel and original in our methods.
I am saying that there has got to be something about it that is not just a dead custom, a repetition of things all the time. There has got to be about it a freshness, a newness, a livingness.
That is what it means. He completed the old and put it away, and by so doing opened the way for all things to be made new.