January 1928
13
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K i n g ' s
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is in these circumstances that He speaks to the disciples of “My peace.” As we read on in the 15th chapter, the other qualities mentioned under the fruit of the Spirit come before us in the order. They are not specifically mentioned, but we cannot read the Lord’s words concerning Himself without readily discerning these traits in His character, and espe cially as He speaks of the treatment He received from men. The world, He says, had hated Him (verse 18), and this in itself serves to remind us of His L ong suffer ing . This is particularly seen in His controversies with the opposing Jews as recorded in John’s Gospel, chapters 5 to 11. It was only after they had sinned away all their opportunities that He finally departed from them (chap. 11:54). Men had persecuted Him (verse 20). Their perse cutions served to draw forth a display of His G en t l en e ss . His gentleness, which never ran into weakness, was the expression of His sympathy, His tender compassion for all in feebleness, distress, and need. In spite of the hardness of heart and the wilful resis tance and antagonism of His enemies, He had “come and spoken unto them” (verse 22), and in this He veritably displayed His - G oodness . . “Their ill but drew His goodness forth.” In addition to this He had “done among them the works which none other did” (verse 24). In this He exhibited His- F a it h fu l n e s s . For all His works were done in “faithfulness and truth” (see Isa, 25:1 R. V.). The malice His enemies had displayed against Him had fulfilled, as He says, the word that was written in their Law, “They hated Me without a cause” (verse 25), and the trait of character which stands out in Him conspicu ously under it all is His
M e ekn ess . "He was as a Lamb that is led to the slaughter, and as a sheep that before her shearers is dumb,’’ “The meekness and gentleness” of Christ fastened themselves indelibly upon Paul’s heart. How tellingly he makes them the basis of his appeal to the Corinthian saints to rectify their rela tions with himself! (2 Cor. 10:1). Christ’s meekness was never disunited from His Majesty. The incomparable splendor of His greatness shone especially through His meekness. He gained the mastery over injustice while suffering it. Never were words more impressively grand and yet tender in their meekness and love than when, while undergoing crucifixion, He said, “Father, forgive them: for they know not what they do.” S elf -C ontrol . Strikingly is this exhibited in the Lord’s character in the discourse in the upper room! How patient were His dealings with these disciples, with their misunderstandings and slowness of heart! How much He had to tell them! His heart was yearning to unlock its secrets to them in fuller measure. “1 have yet many things to say unto you,” He says, “but ye cannot bear them now” (chap. 16:12). He felt indeed a tender sympathy toward them in their weakness, and hence His Self-restraint. But this is only one instance of, that same quality which manifests itself throughout the discourse, with a sublime majesty, an in expressible grandeur. All that perfection of character which is summed up in the phrase “the fruit of the Spirit” stands forth in its full beauty of combined virtues in the self-witness of the Lord’s teaching here, as indeed it does in all His ways. The effect upon the disciples, itself an evidence of the ascendancy the Lord gained over them, was at the same time a proof of His moral strength. He who at first was recognized by them as a Teacher, not differing much per haps from a Rabbi, was now their Lord. Is His ascen dancy absolute over our own hearts ? Is His character being stamped upon us, changing us from glory to glory, as into His own image ? May it be so for His Name’s sake! vidually appropriated, the roast lamb was to be eaten. The fact that It was not to be eaten raw but “roast with fire” brought out the truth that men need a Savior who has gone through the fires of wrath against sin. To be an admirer of Jesus as a moral Teacher is far different from feeding upon Him as the One who suffered vicariously for us. Mark, too, that the whole of it'was to be eaten, nothing left over until the morning. It is a whole Christ we need. We need the holiness of His life, the devotedneSs of His death, the efficacy of His blood, the power of His resur rection, the dignity of His ascension, the glory of His second 'coming. To leave any of this is to be an under nourished Christian. So “let us keep the feast,” as Paul exhorts (v. 8 ). The Christian life is to be the perpetual feast of the redeemed. We cannot enjoy it, however, until the “old leaven” is purged out—corruption of all kinds, fitly symbolized by vegetable ferment, or sour dough. If there be present the leaven of hypocrisy (Lk. 12:1), or the leaven of rational ism (Mt. 16:11), or the leaven of worldliness (Mk. 8:15), this feast means nothing to the participant. ^>4.
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Mk Éé Christ, Our Passover, is Sacrificed for Us i N 1 Cor. 5 :7 Christ is presented to us as the fulfill ment of the Passover. Did you ever think how great was the self-assertion of Jesus when He laid His hand upon that most ancient and sacred of Jewish rites, the Passover, and brushed it aside as fulfilled in Himself ? This is what He did when He instituted the Lord’s supper to express the fulness of its .accomplishment. Jesus claimed, thereby, to be just what Paul calls Him here, the Passover sacrifice, or, as John the Baptist presented Him, “the Lamb of God” (Jn. 1:29).
Christ crucified is therefore the foundation stone of redemption. Of this great central truth the Paschal lamb is one of the most perfect types in Scripture. t»r ; The lamb was taken on the 10th Nisan and kept till the 14th at eve (Ex. 12). This corresponds with the four- day interval between Christ’s public entry into Jerusalem and His crucifixion (cf. 1 Pet. 1:18-20). Perhaps it is also significant that from the time the first promise of the Redeemer was given (Gen. 3:15) until the Redeemer’s death, there were four millennial days (4000 years). : In the Passover night after the blood had been applied to the doorpost, the token that redemption had been indi
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