If you would turn with me to the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 3, beginning at verse 13.
Then cometh Jesus from Galilee to the Jordan unto John, to be baptized of him.
But John would have hindered Him, saying, I have need to be baptized of Thee, and comest Thou to me?
But Jesus answering said unto him, Suffer it now: for thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness. Then he suffereth Him.
And Jesus, when He was baptized, went up straightway from the water: and lo, the heavens were opened unto Him, and He saw the Spirit of God descending as a dove, and coming upon Him;
And lo, a voice out of the heavens, saying, This is My beloved Son, in Whom I am well pleased.
Then, in Matthew 17, from verse 1:
And after six days Jesus taketh with Him Peter, and James, and John his brother, and bringeth them up into a high mountain apart:
And He was transfigured before them: and His face did shine as the sun, and His garments became white as the light.
And behold, there appeared unto them Moses and Elijah talking with Him.
And Peter answered, and said unto Jesus, Lord, it is good for us to be here: if Thou wilt, I will make here three tabernacles; one for Thee, and one for Moses, and one for Elijah.
While he was yet speaking, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them: and behold, a voice out of the cloud, saying, This is My beloved Son, in Whom I am well pleased; hear ye Him.
And when the disciples heard it, they fell on their face, and were sore afraid.
And Jesus came and touched them and said, Arise, and be not afraid.
And lifting up their eyes, they saw no one, save Jesus only.
Then, in the same Gospel, Matthew 26, from verse 36:
Then cometh Jesus with them unto a place called Gethsemane, and saith unto His disciples, Sit ye here, while I go yonder and pray.
And He took with Him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and began to be sorrowful and sore troubled.
Then saith He unto them, My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death: abide ye here, and watch with Me.
And He went forward a little, and fell on His face, and prayed, saying, My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass away from Me: nevertheless, not as I will, but as Thou wilt.
And He cometh unto the disciples, and findeth them sleeping, and saith unto Peter, What, could ye not watch with Me one hour?
Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation: the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.
Again a second time He went away, and prayed, saying, My Father, if this cannot pass away, except I drink it, Thy will be done.
And He came again and found them sleeping, for their eyes were heavy.
And He left them again, and went away, and prayed a third time, saying again the same words.
Then cometh He to the disciples, and saith unto them, Sleep on now, and take your rest: behold, the hour is at hand, and the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners.
Lastly, just two verses in Luke 22, verses 43 and 44:
And there appeared unto Him an angel from heaven, strengthening Him.
And being in an agony He prayed more earnestly: and His sweat became as it were great drops of blood falling down upon the ground.
Could we just have a further word of prayer?
Beloved Lord, we are so thankful that we are found here in Your presence this evening. We need You, Lord, for the speaking, the translating, and the hearing.
Lord, I can outline truths, my brother can translate them, and we can hear truth; but unless, Lord, You are here, present as the power and grace in the speaking, translating, and hearing, nothing will go through into eternity.
Beloved Lord, we are living at such a dangerous point in the history of the world, in many ways a turning point in the history of the church. Beloved Lord, meet with us.
To that end, we stand by faith in the anointing You have provided through the finished work of our Lord Jesus. Let the speaking be anointed, the translating be anointed, and the hearing be anointed.
Then, Lord, we believe that Your purpose in our time together will be fulfilled. Hear this our prayer, for we ask it in the name of the Messiah, our Lord Jesus. Amen.
Well, I think you all know that the theme of this conference is “The Way to the Eternal Purpose of God: The Cross.” My responsibility in this theme is “The Cross and the Christ.”
Last night I spoke of three matters. First, the fact that somehow, from before the foundation of the world, the cross was in the heart of God. Before even the world was created, the Lord Jesus had said, “I am ready to go.”
Then we spoke about Bethlehem: when God the Son became flesh, when He became flesh and blood, accepting restriction and limitation—the things that we all feel at times. It was the cross in action. Jesus was born to die. That was the reason for His birth.
It was that He might come, thirty-three years later, to Calvary and die in our place, that He might save us and bring us back into God’s eternal purpose.
Then the last thing I spoke about was those thirty-three years of the life of our Lord Jesus. Though He was the Son, He learned obedience by the things which He suffered; and being made complete, or mature, He became the author of eternal salvation.
We do not know all the many things that the Lord Jesus suffered: the contradiction of people, the gainsaying of people, those who argued with Him, those who told Him when He was young that He was wrong, those who returned His work to Him and said there were flaws in it—when there were no flaws.
We do not know what the Lord Jesus suffered, but through it all He learned obedience. And that is the cross in that.
Now this evening, I want to take three more events: the baptism of Jesus, the transfiguration of the Christ, and the victory won by the Christ.
The first, of course, is the baptism of Jesus. We have read it in Matthew 3.
Why did the Lord Jesus get baptized? If it was the baptism of John, it was a baptism of repentance. Jesus did not need to repent. Though He was tempted in all points like as we are, He was without sin.
Why then did He come to John and ask John to baptize Him? He was not a sinner. He had no sins to wash away. What exactly was it?
Was it for religious reasons? We have, in Judaism to this day, what we call the mikveh. Jews can be baptized many times. As soon as you are defiled, as soon as you touch something dead, you have to be baptized.
Was it for that reason Jesus was baptized? No, I do not think so.
When John said, “Why do You come to me for me to baptize You? I have need to be baptized by You,” the Lord Jesus said, “Suffer it now, that I might fulfil all righteousness.”
I think the New American Standard Bible is better in its rendering in English: “Permit it at this time; for in this way it is fitting for us to fulfil all righteousness.”
Those waters of baptism spoke of death, just as they speak of death for you and me.
When the Lord Jesus went down into those waters of baptism, He was confirming in the sight of the Father why He had come into the world. It was not just to work miracles, although that was part of it. It was not just to teach, though that was the revelation of the heart and mind of God. It was to die.
At thirty years of age, the Lord Jesus committed Himself to the death of the cross three years before it happened.
The moment Jesus stepped into those waters and committed Himself to the death of the cross, something happened that had never happened before—other than at His birth.
At His birth, it was the angels singing. Now the heavens opened. For the first time, the heavens opened, and the voice of the Father was heard:
This is My beloved Son, in Whom I am well pleased.
I often put it very crudely, but I think it gets to the point. It was almost as if the Father said, “This is My Son. The cross is in My heart. Now He has committed Himself to that heart.”
Then the Holy Spirit fell upon Him. Jesus was born of the Spirit. Jesus was already indwelt by the Holy Spirit. Now something else happened.
At thirty years of age, the age of Levitical and priestly service, the Holy Spirit fell upon Him. He was born of the Spirit. He had the fruit of the Spirit. He was like His Father. And now the Holy Spirit fell upon Him and anointed Him.
Dear brothers and sisters, I have heard through my life a whole number of messages about the Holy Spirit being like a dove. These messages are always about how sweet a dove is, how gentle a dove is, how meek a dove is, and how easily frightened a dove is.
I am not being irreverent, but doves are very stupid birds. They are very sweet, very gentle, and incredibly stupid. They are not very clever.
Why did the Holy Spirit come, as it says in one of the other Gospels, in bodily form as a dove? It was not just meekness. Jesus was already meek. It was not just gentleness. He was gentle.
What was it? The dove was the most normal form of sacrifice.
If you were middle class, you bought a lamb or a goat. If you were more wealthy, you bought a bullock. But the poor bought turtle doves—two doves.
As soon as John saw the Holy Spirit falling on the Lord Jesus as a dove, he understood it:
Behold, the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sin of the world!
Here is God’s sacrifice. It is the cross.
I wish I could make it clearer to you, but the Holy Spirit can illuminate it. The Holy Spirit came upon the Lord Jesus to enable Him to die daily for three years, and then finally to be the ultimate, complete, absolute sacrifice for sin.
As our brother said this morning, it was by the eternal Spirit that Jesus offered Himself up to God without spot or blemish. The Holy Spirit came upon the Lord Jesus that He might enter the service for which He was destined, that He might fulfil the purpose of His coming.
Brothers and sisters, this is always the purpose of the Holy Spirit coming upon a child of God. It is not for our satisfaction. It is not for our fullness. It is not for some kind of personal aggrandisement. It is not for building some empire of our own.
The Holy Spirit comes upon a child of God to enable that one to die daily. It was as if the Holy Spirit came upon the Lord Jesus so that He could bear, spiritually, the crossbeam of the cross for three years.
You understand, you always see these pictures of a great cross. There was no such thing. The stake was always in place. Sometimes it was a tree; sometimes it was just a great stake. But those sentenced to be crucified bore the crossbeam on their shoulders, and around their neck was hung a card with the sentence of death.
This is what the apostle Paul meant when he said, “We had the sentence of death within ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God Who raiseth the dead.”
We have the sentence of death, and we are on our way to the place of execution. When the Holy Spirit came upon the Lord Jesus, it was to enable Him to bear the crossbeam for three years—in all His acts, in all His responses, in everything He did.
Beloved brothers and sisters, what do we learn from this? I say it reverently: the Messiah needed the Holy Spirit to die daily.
The Messiah needed the Holy Spirit in order to go through finally to the cross. He needed the Holy Spirit in order to offer Himself up without spot or blemish, to become the source of eternal salvation for all of us who put our trust in Him.
Second, we need not only the indwelling of the Holy Spirit; we need the anointing of the Holy Spirit. The indwelling of the Holy Spirit brings fruit. The anointing of the Holy Spirit brings power: the ability to overcome, the ability to fulfil God’s purpose in your life, the ability that you might become a channel of rivers of living water.
You cannot divide the Holy Spirit and say, “I will have the indwelling of the Spirit, but I will not have the anointing of the Spirit.” The anointing of the Holy Spirit is absolutely essential.
Every single thing that was of God was anointed in the temple. Anything that was not anointed, God would not use. An unanointed Christian, God will not use, because then it is their saved flesh that is doing the work anyway. It is their unbroken energy, their own talents and gifts.
Every single thing in the tabernacle was anointed: the altar of burnt offering, the laver, the lampstand, the table of shewbread, the incense altar, the priest, the Levite, the prophet, and the king. Everyone was anointed. There was no such thing as anything unanointed.
Dear brothers and sisters, there may be some who go overboard on this matter and do the weirdest and strangest things. There may be many things taught that are not biblical. But the facts still remain: every child of God needs to be indwelt by the Holy Spirit and anointed by the Holy Spirit.
Then there is another thing: we cannot carry the cross without the Holy Spirit. Try it. Please, try it. See if you can carry the cross without the Holy Spirit.
I tell you what you will have: religion—sad, miserable, defeated religion.
As our brother said this morning, the Spirit leads to the cross, and the cross leads to the Spirit. I know of no one who is crucified and living a crucified life who is not anointed. It is just religion otherwise, and there is an awful lot of religion in many of us.
We know all the teaching about the cross, but we are still filled with jealousy, gossip, and a thousand other things. We can speak about the cross and sing about the cross, but without the Holy Spirit it never becomes a reality.
Why? Because the deepest instinct in the human being is self-preservation. We need the incredible power of the Holy Spirit to overcome that instinct of self-preservation and help us to fall into the ground and die. Only then can life come forth.
We can never fulfil our ministry. We can never fulfil God’s purpose without the anointing of the Holy Spirit.
I know for myself very well what I tried to do. I tried to minister to people. I tried to teach them. I tried to save them. I tried to convert them. What a mess I got myself in. It was all religion.
Of course, I thought it was what a Christian ought to be. I came from a non-Christian background, so for me I took this as what a Christian ought to be. But it did not work.
I found it the heaviest thing in the whole world to be a Christian. Only when I was with everybody else, all singing wonderful hymns, did I feel a bit better. But as soon as I was on my own, that awful heaviness came back.
Then I would renew and redouble my efforts to be a good Christian, and I made the situation far worse.
When the Lord opened the heavens for me, suddenly I saw that the Holy Spirit was in me and on me. I saw Pentecost as a historic fact, once for all. I could enter into it. I had no idea that it was mine.
In that moment, I gave the keys to the Holy Spirit. Then suddenly I realized I was crucified with Christ. I had never heard of such a thing.
It was the greatest relief I have ever experienced as a Christian. I did not have to try anymore. I just sank back. I just became myself.
Isn’t that unbelievable to say, as a Christian, “I became myself”? But it was true. That is how it began.
Beloved brother and sister, if you have any argument with me, let me say this: if the Lord Jesus, Who was born of the Holy Spirit and indwelt by the Holy Spirit, needed the anointing of the Holy Spirit to fulfil His ministry, so do you. And so do I. I think that settles an argument.
Then there is the second thing: the transfiguration of the Lord Jesus. Our brother spoke about that this morning, and all I want to say is that I think it is amazing what happens in that transfiguration.
We often think of the transfiguration as a kind of spotlight that shone on the Lord Jesus, as if the light was focused on Him and made Him very bright. But that is not what happened in the transfiguration.
It was a change that took place. Something was switched on inside. It was the glory of God. Suddenly the glory of God did not just shine on Him; it shone out of Him. He was transfigured. His face shone like the sun. His clothes radiated light.
It was as if somehow something happened to His being. Now, this is interesting. What is transfiguration? It is the glory of God, from within the human being, changing them—and yet they are still the same.
The Lord Jesus was not transfigured as God the Son. He was transfigured as the Son of Man.
If you compare, for a moment, 1 Corinthians 15:45-47, it speaks of Him as the last Adam:
So also it is written, The first man Adam became a living soul. The last Adam became a life-giving spirit.
Howbeit that is not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; then that which is spiritual.
The first man is of the earth, earthy: the second man is of heaven.
The Lord Jesus was not the second Adam. He was the last Adam. He closed the whole thing. When He went to the cross, He not only died to save us; He died as us. He took Adam to the cross.
The Lord Jesus is the last Adam, but He is the second man. Adam was the first man. Jesus is the second man. The Lord Jesus, as Man, succeeded where the first man fell.
It says in Romans 3:23:
For all have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God.
If, as our brother said this morning, Adam had taken up the tree of life instead of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, there would have been a whole training period. He would have learned obedience by the things which he suffered.
And if he came through, Adam and Eve would have been transfigured in glory, and the whole story of this world and of mankind would have been different. But he fell short of the glory of God.
He disobeyed God. He took up the tree that was forbidden. People often argue about what kind of tree it was: an apple tree, an orange tree, an apricot, perhaps a mango. It would not have mattered if it was a rose bush.
The point was that the Lord said, “Do not eat of that tree.” It was not the taste. It was not the fruit. It was the disobedience. That was the key to falling short of the glory of God.
Now the Lord Jesus comes as the second man, and He is tempted in all points like as we are, yet without sin. He succeeds where the first man failed.
As our brother said this morning, at that point the Lord Jesus could have ascended to the throne of God, and there would have been one Man in the glory—one Man who succeeded where all the rest failed.
And this is where we see the cross in the Lord Jesus before He even came to Calvary. He turned away and set His face toward Jerusalem.
It is very interesting. Almost immediately, a multitude comes to Him, bringing a boy whose father is almost out of his mind. He says, “I brought my son to Your disciples, and they could not do anything.”
The boy was filled with something. He foamed at the mouth. He rolled on the floor. He damaged himself. While Jesus turned toward the boy, the boy had an exceedingly powerful convulsion.
Dear brothers and sisters, it is a picture of the world we live in: demonized. At one moment, so intelligent, so sophisticated, so clever, so creative, so beautiful; and the next moment, wallowing on the ground, foaming at the mouth, caught by another power—something satanic, something destructive.
The poor boy could not get out of it, and the disciples were paralyzed. What a picture of the church. What a picture of the world.
It would have been easier for the Lord Jesus to have stepped into the throne of God. But instead, He turned and deliberately came down and threw the demon out of the little boy.
In one sense, that is what God has done for every one of us. He has thrown out the devil. He has delivered us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of His dear Son.
How did He do it? Not by the transfiguration, although that was important. There was no other way but the cross.
Lastly: Gethsemane.
It is my conviction that the Lord Jesus won the battle of Calvary, not on Calvary, but in Gethsemane. Once He won the battle in Gethsemane, He was calm. He could go forward.
Before the religious leaders, before Pilate, before Herod, before that crowd of brutal Roman soldiers, He went through it all. When they nailed His hands to the cross, He said, “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.”
What a prayer. The Father answered it. Some of those soldiers got saved. It is an amazing, amazing way in which the Lord Jesus faced the cross once He had won the battle in Gethsemane.
But what happened in Gethsemane? Gethsemane simply means, in Hebrew, “oil press.”
What happened in this garden? Was Jesus afraid of the pain? Look at Him. He did not just stand and pray, which was the normal Jewish way to pray. He did not just kneel. He fell on His face. He was prostrate, and said:
Father, if this cup cannot pass away from Me, except I drink it, Thy will be done.
What was it that seized Him? Why was He so distressed? After all, He knew from eternity that it was the cross that would be the fulfilment. He was born to die.
He said, “My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death.” That was not just Jewish exaggeration. Luke tells us that His sweat became as great drops of blood.
Medical authorities tell us that there is a form of trauma in which blood actually comes out in perspiration, and it is nearly always just before death.
There were two things that happened in the garden. The first was this: Satan brought before Jesus the horror of One Who was sinless being made sin.
He brought before the Lord Jesus a vision of all the sin in the world, piled upon one Person—the sin of all history, from its beginning to its end, with all its evil, gathered upon the Lord Jesus.
For the Lord Jesus, it was the unknown. Never before had He been divorced from His Father—not for a moment.
I believe that for the Lord Jesus, it was not the torture, the ridicule, the nails, or the physical ill-treatment. It was the separation from His Father when He was made sin for us.
Let it sink in: made sin for us.
That is the first thing. For a moment, the Lord Jesus said, “Father, is there not another way?” I do not believe for a moment that Jesus thought there was another way. He knew there was no other way.
That is why He almost immediately said, “Not as I will, but as Thou wilt.”
Thank God, the second thing was that Satan tried to kill Him in the garden. I believe that Satan tried to bring Jesus into such trauma that He could have died. Then He would never have reached the cross.
The angel came. It was as though the Father said to an angel, “Get down there immediately. Strengthen Him. Do not let this trauma kill Him. Do not let My enemy win.”
And almost immediately Jesus got up and said, “Sleep on now, and take your rest.” He had won.
Dear brothers and sisters, this is the cross and the Messiah. The next time you break bread and drink the wine, remember: this is what it cost your Lord to save you. This is what He had to suffer.
How can you and I be apathetic, lukewarm, affluent, undevoted, self-pleasing, and selfish?
Dear family of God, not in all eternity will we ever know what it really cost the Lord Jesus. Not even when we have been there a million, million years. We are created beings with finite minds. Not even in eternity will we ever really know what it cost the Lord Jesus.
But this we know: in that garden He won the battle, and He went forward with absolute calmness. He never lost that calmness.
When the darkness came across the whole earth, He cried out:
My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?
The unknown had become His experience. In that moment, that which He had feared so much in the garden became His experience.
Do not despise your salvation. Do not treat the love of God for you lightly, as if you deserve it. Your Lord loved you so much, and He went through all of this.
And He did not need to. He had been glorified. He could have reached the throne as Man alone. But He wanted to bring many sons to glory.
Dear brothers and sisters, may our hearts be touched. May we be allowed to see Him.
We do not understand our real condition in the sight of God. We have so much knowledge up here that it actually makes us deaf to His voice. May the Lord touch our hearts and bring us back into first love.
What shall we say, Lord? Forgive us. We often, Lord, have so little idea, in the busy lives we live and the routine that we have, of what it cost You.
We never stop to think: what did it cost You? We even come to Your table and break bread and drink the cup, and it becomes routine.
And yet You said, Lord, “Do this in affectionate bringing to mind of what I did for you.”
Lord, touch our hearts. We ask it in the name of the Lord Jesus.