by Rev. Frank Rowley
THE MEASURE OF THE MIND OF THE MASTER.
RESEARCHING THE SELF-DISCLOSURE OF JESUS.
Introduction
Our Lord Jesus Christ never apologised to anyone. He never said "Sorry" to anyone, and He never, ever changed His Mind about anything.
Jesus never had need or cause to do so.
Jesus never said the wrong word to any person at anytime.
Jesus was never found in the wrong place at the wrong time ever.
In the most wonderful sense of the meaning Our Precious Lord Jesus Christ was from the earliest second of conception in the womb of a young Jewish woman called Mary, possessed with a ‘One Track Mind’
His Mind and Will was ever and always to please His Father who sent Him into the world among the desperate sinful and fallen masses of humanity and with His Body provide a Blood sacrifice on a wooden cross at a place called Calvary, at Jerusalem in the Land of Israel.
Jesus came to Israel as the Messiah of Israel, and I hope to show in this Thesis, that Jesus died as the Messiah of Israel.
In this serious consideration of the Messianic Consciousness of Jesus the Messiah,
I will discuss
The Divine Decision.
The Tension of Truth.
Critical and Explanatory Commentary.
Crucial Importance of Messianic Consciousness.
Colours of Controversy.
Consciousness of Christ Is Chained to the Court of the Gentiles.
Messiah its Message and Meaning.
Son of David.
The Significant and Enigmatic Title of Jesus. ...Son of Man.
Son of God. Jesus Consciousness of His Sonship.
The Messianic consciousness will be seen under all the above headings and titles as a unifying and comprehensive whole. In this remarkable respect the Mind of the Master can truthfully be compared to a single one track mind.
All else entering into the Heart and Mind of Jesus is inevitably held in subordination and subservience to its one regnant and supreme purpose.
That purpose is always dominant in the mental world of His Pure Consciousness.
Let us consider the over-all plan in the Drama of God’s Redemption for the world. It is possible to define, as it were four Stage Setting’s. They are very briefly:
(1) Starting before Time. There was God’s decision before the world begun that man should be redeemed by the Incarnation of his Son, and by His atoning Death.
(2) Startling Announcements in Time. There was the many, many announcements of this Highly planned decision of the Lord, and the plan and strategy of Redemption by means of prophecies in the Covenant Scriptures of the Old Testament.
(3) Symbols and Types in the Old Testament. The work and witness of the Lord Jesus in Redemption’s completion, was over the pages of Scripture shown and symbolised in the Life's of the believers and saints of that time. Type can also be defined in people, buildings, religious ceremonies of various kinds, and the events of history, and historical incidents, all setting forth some wonderful aspect of Jesus’ person or work.
(4) Saviour Triumphs at the Cross. Finally, and for ever the work of Redemption was actually and literally accomplished by the Birth, Death, Resurrection, and Ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ.
That briefly is the over-all plan. I would like now to examine each of these four stages.
THE DIVINE DECISION.
(1) Starting Before Time
The Persons Deciding: The Holy Trinity. God is a Trinity of Three Persons in One Godhead, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. This Three-in-Oneness has existed from eternity. Before ever the Son became Man, He was co-equal, co-eternal and consubstantial with the Father and the Spirit.
To understand the Mind of the Master in any degree we must be fully aware that
it was the Three Persons of the Godhead who planned and decreed Redemption.
The Divine Foreknowledge of the Fall of Man. The Bible teaches that the fall of Satan, an archangel, with certain other angels, took place before the world was created, Jesus described this event in John 8.44. He said, "He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth."
It would appear that Satan cast out from Heaven, sought to secure possession of the world at its creation, and of man who was made by God to enjoy fellowship with Himself, and so rule over the lesser creation. In order to injure God , and to gain control of His world, Satan induced and tempted man to sin ( as described in Genesis 3.) who then became a fallen being. Man was separated and alienated from God, his spirit died, his soul was blinded and perverted, his body made liable to disease and death, and the moral malady called sin entered the blood-stream of the human race. So man passed from fellowship with the Lord to be under the usurped control of the devil, or Satan .
To open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in me Acts 26.18.
Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of His dear Son. Colossians 1.13.
Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil. Hebrews 2.14
It was in order to redeem man from the guilt and power of sin, to restore man, not only from his former position but to one far higher, that God’s plan of Redemption was determined on. It would indeed be an extremely costly, as ‘the wages of sin is death’
For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is Eternal Life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Romans 6:23.
God provided that the penalty should be paid for by the only One who was able to pay it, His own Son. And here is the Master plan, Jesus would take human nature ‘that through death He might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil.’ Hebrews 2.14.
A lovely old illustration comes to mind at this point, at the core of certain types of rope there is always a scarlet thread, and whenever the rope is cut, the scarlet thread will be seen. In a similar way the scarlet thread of the ‘Blood of Redemption’ runs through the pages of the inspired Word of God - The Bible.
While it is clear from God’s word that the Lord foreknew that the fall of man would occur, it must never be thought that God foreordained it. (We have to have a crystal clear understanding of this vital truth) This would be to regard God to be the author of sin! and to be morally responsible for all the ghastly effects of sin.
God Foreknew the Fall; but He Foreordained Redemption.
A true story of a train crash helps one to see the difference between the two words, the signalman saw the train travelling at over seventy miles an hour just before the diversion point of changing from fast to slow line. the points should have been crossed at fifteen miles an hour. Consequently the train left the track, and forty precious life's were lost. At the enquiry the signalman stated that he had observed the train running too fast for safety and testified, ‘I saw it would happen.’ He foreknew there would be a train-wreck but he did not foreordain it indeed he did every thing in his power to avert it.
It was so with God in relation to the Fall of Man. This area is one of mystery even for Bible believing, born again Christians. Why God did not prevent it taking place is a problem which the Inspired Word of God does not explain. We can in faith and trusting love only take the facts as we find them, and as the Bible states them to be, that is that God’s creature, Man, has fallen into sin and death, and that God working as The Trinity has Redeemed him through the Sacrifice of the Son of God upon the blood stained Cross at Calvary.
Until we have clearer light and revelation in this particular area of Divine Decisions, we must continue to fully trust where we cannot trace.
The Divine Foreordination of Redemption. Because God foreknew the Fall, He foreordained man’s Redemption. One becomes aware that before the first act of sin and rebellion had been committed in Eden’s Paradise, the Slaughtered Lamb of Sacrifice had already been accepted upon the altar of the Cross. Who can explore this great provision, this plan, this purpose of the God of Heaven and Earth. It is mighty, meticulous, and the Mind of the Master was already set in love, to carry out the intrusion, the invasion into the battle field of death among the fallen son’s of men. His Mind was ‘Set in every tiny, minute detail, every thought was set in golden rods of love’. Jesus would never for one single second at any time in His life be deflected in His Mind from the purpose of His coming to seek and to save the lost sheep of the House of Israel and the millions of sheep on the far flung pastures of every nation on the surface of this hanging sphere on which we live and move and live our life.
Jesus’ Messianic Consciousness was not for turning, for it was nailed to the Cross. From the cradle at Bethlehem to the Cross at Calvary, the Mind of the Master was in full focus on completing and finishing the Work He had been given and had willingly accepted to do.
Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers; But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot: Who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you, 1 Peter 1. 18 - 20
Again this same great truth is to found in the last Book in the Bible: And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship Him (Lord Jesus Christ) whose names are not written in the Book of Life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world . Revelation 13:8
Perhaps a point of clarification might be helpful concerning these last two verses of Holy Scripture. Questions are often asked about them and the vital truth they reveal, by believers and un-believer alike. Questions along these lines of enquiry. If Jesus died on the Passover Preparation Day, A.D. 30, how could He be said to die before the foundation of the world? Did He die twice? Could He die before He became a man? The answer to that is, He was slain before the foundation of the world not in point of time, but in the intents and purposes of the Triune God. Two considerations will help make this fact clear.
(1) With mankind in general, willing and doing are two different positions altogether. Man often wills what he is unable to perform: or he may change his mind later for various reasons.
The sovereignty of God finds expression, not only in the Divine Will, but also in the omnipotence of God or the power to execute His will. He is never unable to carry out what He purposes.
"And being fully persuaded that, what He had promised, He was able also to perform." Romans 4:21. - and because He is unchangeable His plans and purposes never alter. With Him to will and to do are identical, however far apart in time the decision and action may be.
(2) With God, the past, present and future are an eternally present NOW . A solo long distance county runner sees only the stretch of road or track he is covering, but the helicopter pilot following the event, and looking down from his cockpit sees with perfect and equal clearness where the runner has been and where the runner is going.
To the Holy Trinity the Cross was eternally present, for God’s foreknowledge of the event caused it to be as near and real before the foundation, the beginning of the world as in the moment of time when it actually took place.
These foundational truths also explain to any believers with enquiring hearts how the Lord could forgive sin in the Old Testament times on the ground of the yet future sacrifice on the Cross of the Lord Jesus Christ.