Down to Earth But Heavenly Minded

Jesus Showing Himself: and on this wise showed He Himself

If you are a backslider, and have become cold of heart; if divine things have lost their lustre and reality to you; if a distance has come in between your Lord and you. What do you need? You need to come afresh into the realisation of what Jesus suffered for you. You need to stretch forth your hand afresh and come into contact with His wounded hands and side. Say, The Son of God loved me, and gave Himself for me. It will bring you where it brought Thomas, prostrate on his face at the Master’s feet. It will make you cry as he cried, “My Lord and my God.”

“He showed to them His hands and His side. Then were the disciples glad when they saw the Lord. … Thomas answered and said to Him, My Lord and my God. … After these things Jesus showed Himself again to His disciples. … This is now the third time that Jesus showed Himself to His disciples after He was risen from the dead.” — John 20, 21.

John’s Gospel gives to us the resurrection and the results of the resurrection on the very highest possible plane. In each Gospel we see that side of resurrection truth that is in keeping with the character of the Gospel, but John sets the disciples, and us, for they represented the whole Christian company, in an association with Christ, as risen, that the other writers do not give us. He shows us the way in which Jesus showed Himself to His disciples. It is HIMSELF and the incomparable grace that is in Him that John unfolds.

THE FIRST SHOWING

In the first appearing, we have the Lord Himself in what I might call the most intimate circle — His own circle — the saints gathered together. His disciples ought to have remembered His word, that on the third day He would rise again from the dead, and they ought to have been assembled outside the sepulchre to greet Him with songs of triumph, as the Victor from the dead. But their faith had all but failed, and their hopes they thought had been blasted, and they were filled with despair. They were not there to welcome Him from the dead. The Lord had to spend a very busy day seeking them out and restoring their faith and souls in order to gather them together to meet Him at the end of the day. There was Mary. He had, first of all, to drive the sorrow from her loving, broken heart, to show her that there was no cause for tears, but every cause for laughter and triumph. There was poor, burdened, conscience-stricken Peter. The Lord thought of back-sliding Peter; He knew the shame and sorrow that filled him, and graciously He sought him, for He loved him, and He did not want him to be an absentee at the evening’s meeting. There were those two who, disconsolate and discouraged, were returning to their home in Emmaus. The Lord took that long journey with them to bring them back to Jerusalem. What a busy day He spent in His loving service! Think of those nail-pierced feet following those wandering disciples until He reached them, and then think of Him speaking to them with such tenderness and patience, coming down to their ignorance and unbelief to remove it all and to make their heavy hearts burn. The Lord laboured that day for His own; they were His great thought, and His labour was not in vain, they were ready in the evening, and in the evening when they were ready, He was there with them. Think of Him showing Himself like that to His disciples: and in showing Himself to them He is showing Himself to us, that we may know what kind of a Saviour and Lord we have. Do not we dishonour and grieve Him many times by doubting Him? And having doubted Him we often continue to grieve Him by thinking that our failure is too great for His grace.

They were gathered together in the evening of the day. He had made Mary His messenger. To her He revealed what up to that point had not been revealed to anyone else. He found her without the sepulchre weeping, distressed and desolated at His absence, and to that affectionate heart He imparted the most wonderful message that mortal lips ever carried: “Go to My brethren, and say to them, I ascend to My Father and your Father, to My God and your God.”

We do not get this in the other Gospels. It is the great revelation that John gives. The Lord had said before His death: “I have a baptism to be baptized with; and how am I straitened till it be accomplished!” There were great things in His heart, but He could not speak of these things until after His death. But now that death had taken place and resurrection was a fact, He keeps nothing back, He makes haste to tell all that is in His heart. “Except a corn of wheat fall to the ground and die, it abides alone,” He had said. If He had not died, He would have been alone for ever, alone as the Object of the Father’s love, alone in His Father’s bosom. He would have had no companion to share that eternal favour and love with Him. But in resurrection He has brought forth many grains — much fruit. The disciples were the beginning. We have come into it. He addresses us and says, “My brethren.” That does not mean that He has come down to our level. But that He has brought us up to His. Let no one of us call Him “elder Brother.” The only one who is spoken of as “elder brother” in Scripture is the disgruntled and graceless son of Luke 15. We bow down before Him and say, “My Lord and my God,” and yet, matchless grace! He is not ashamed to call us “brethren.” That is because He has lifted us up to His level and given us His own life and nature. The youngest babe in the family of God has the same life and nature as Christ, the risen Christ; He has imparted this to all His brethren. The flesh is still within them. But they have that which neither sin nor death can touch. They have that which is eternal, for eternal life is theirs; it is the life of the risen Christ. This never could have been if He had not borne all the judgment that their old sinful life deserved. It passed under God’s unsparing judgment when Jesus died that they might be united to Him in this new life. He looks upon us all with infinite tenderness, with infinite love, and He says, “My brethren.” That means that His Father is our Father, that His God is our God, as He said, “I ascend to My Father and your Father, to My God and your God.”

This is different from that which we get in Matthew’s Gospel, “Our Father which art in heaven.” There “our Father” had to do with our needs in this world. He is caring for us in our earthly circumstances, numbering the very hairs of our head. But this is something else. It is not the Father’s care that is in question, we must never have a doubt about that, but here no question of need arises, but we are brought into the very relationship with God in which His Son stands, to find our full satisfaction there. The love of the Father is upon us, and not only upon us, but He would have it to be in us, that it might be the deep and continuous experience of our hearts. This wonderful message gathered the disciples together, and there they were in that upper room; the doors shut for fear of the Jews. Despised people, they were — “the things that are not.” But to them Jesus comes, He Himself stands in their midst. And being there He gives to that company His own dignity. The glory had left the Temple, that magnificent structure was of no account in Heaven’s eyes; instead the glory was there in the midst of those Galilean fishermen, they were the companions of the Son of God, and though the world did not see it, those simple fishermen gathered there in the presence of the Lord were greater in the eyes of Heaven than the angels. They were His companions, His brethren. It is upon this plane that the assembly of God stands. When we come together in the full truth of what the Lord has called “My church,” we do not come as saved sinners exactly, we are that most surely from one point of view, but we come as the brethren of Christ.

What matchless grace, what incomparable love is here, Christ in the midst of His brethren! His love cannot endure any distance; He wants His loved ones near to Him. The story of Joseph and his brethren illustrates it. Often it has moved our hearts. He said to his brethren, “Come near to me.” So the Lord stretches out His hands to us as His brethren, and He says, “Come near to Me.” And when they came near, Joseph kissed all his brethren and wept over them. He had no favourites. He treated them all alike. He kissed all his brethren. Then they talked with him. Thus the Lord puts anew the kiss of His love upon us, and makes us thoroughly at home with Him, and we are able to talk with Him. Blessed and wonderful privilege!

He said, “Peace be to you.” It was His first word to them. God is not the Author of confusion. He is the Author of peace. Where the presence of Christ is realized, and His supremacy in the midst of His saints is acknowledged, there will be peace. He came into the world and the world would not have Him, and Israel rejected His rightful claims as King. He was cast out of Jerusalem, which was His own city. His rights were utterly denied, but in resurrection life He could come into the midst of His brethren. There He could be supreme — there His rights were acknowledged.

“Then were the disciples glad when they saw the Lord,” we read. It does not say, “When they saw Jesus.” Of course, the Lord is Jesus, and Jesus is the Lord, but they were glad when they saw the Lord. They recognized His supremacy, and yielded a complete allegiance to Him. And this is a matter that should give every one who desires to be faithful to Him much thought and concern. Are we owning His Lordship, not in our individual lives only, but when we gather together as His brethren, as those early disciples did. One mind alone should guide and govern there, and that mind the mind of the Lord. Every heart should be subject to Him then, and there can be no practical unity in the truth in His church apart from that, no fellowship according to God. There will be unity in heaven, but why? J. N. Darby’s beautiful hymn explains it:
“Every knee to Jesus bending,
 All the mind in heaven is one”

But how did these disciples know that it was the Lord who stood in the midst? He showed Himself to them. He showed them His hands and His side. He revealed Himself to them in His love, that had suffered for them, He showed them the marks of His suffering in His body. What is it that gives Him the right to be supreme in the midst of His saints? Those pierced hands and the wounded side! He has the right, of course, to be supreme everywhere, for He is the eternal God, but it is those wounded hands and that pierced side that give Him supremacy in His church beyond all question. He is supreme in His love. Did He not say to His disciples, the one who serves most is the one who loves most and he is the greatest? He has served us even to death, and His suffering and self-sacrificing love give Him the supreme place. On the resurrection day, Peter was not looking to John, or John to Peter. Every eye was looking at the Lord, and the disciples were glad, when they saw the Lord. None of them would want to be greater than the other that day. He alone would be great in their eyes.

THE SECOND SHOWING

Thomas was not with the disciples on the first Lord’s Day, but when they came together again he came with them, but it was with a cold and unbelieving heart. How will the Lord bring that stubborn, faithless disciple, who would believe nothing that he could not feel or see, into a right frame of mind? He brings him into contact with His wounded body: “Come hither, Thomas,” He says; “reach hither thy hand. Behold the wounds in My hands. Thrust thy hand into My side, and be not faithless but believing.” It was as though He said, “Those wounds were for you. Come near to them, Thomas, see what My love has done for you. Do not doubt Me. Do not stand coldly by with heart of stone. I want you near to Me to know what I have suffered for you. Be not faithless but believing.” This has something to say, surely, to each individual heart. Are you a backslider? If you have become cold, if Divine things have lost their lustre and reality to you, if a distance has come in between you and the Lord, what do you need? You need to come afresh into the realization of what Jesus suffered for you. You need to reach forth your hand afresh and come into contact with His wounded hands and His side. Say, “The Son of God loved me and gave Himself for me,” and it will bring you where it brought Thomas, prostrate on his face at his Master’s feet. It will make you cry as he cried, “My Lord and my God!”

THE THIRD SHOWING

We come now to the third time that He showed Himself, and “on this wise showed He Himself to them.” The Spirit of God very specially emphasizes this. The disciples went out fishing without any direction from Him, and they toiled all through those long, weary hours and caught nothing, and when morning began to dawn Jesus Himself stood upon the shore, and He spoke to them. His gracious voice sounded in their ears. He said, “Children, have you any meat?” “Children!” What does that mean? Affection and reproof were in it. It meant that He cared for them and they had forgotten it. Children are dependent upon someone else. Children do not provide their own breakfast, it is there for them when they awake. “Children,” He said, “have you any meat?” They said, “No.” He said, “Cast the net on the right side of the ship,” and the disciple whom Jesus loved said, “it is the Lord.” They come ashore, awed and abashed. And to their astonishment they find a fire there, a fire lighted by His own hands, and bread and fishes laid thereon, all ready for them. This is how He showed Himself to them. He knew they were cold, so He lighted a fire. He knew they were hungry, so He prepared them a breakfast He knew they were timid, so He, invited them to come and dine. It was as though He said to them, “Why do you doubt Me? I am just what I used to be.” Many and many a time He had prepared their breakfast before His death. He arose a great while before day to meet their needs, and when they arose, their breakfast was ready for them, for He was among them as their Servant (Luke 22). It was as though He said, “My heart is just the same. I have just the same care for you as ever I had. Death and resurrection have not changed Me.” And He showed Himself thus that we might see and know Him. He is the same to us as He was to them, He knows the needs of every one whom He loves; He knows your needs, burdened and troubled believer. Do not doubt Him? He is acquainted with every trial, and He shows Himself on this wise to you. He is equal to every difficulty. He is alive to every need. Arising up a great while before day, He is ready to meet your need when it arises. He is up before you, and if you got up hours before you usually do, He would be there! And if your needs began with your waking moment, and were ten thousand times greater than they are, there would still be the grace to meet them. Your need will never exhaust the resources of the Lord.

How blessed it is to see the risen Lord, the Conqueror of death, showing Himself on this wise to His disciples, so that they might henceforth trust Him! That they might say to one another: “These are great difficulties in which we are, but we must not doubt Him. Do you remember how He lighted the fire, prepared the bread and the fish, so that we might be warmed and fed, when after that night of fruitless toil we feared that we should have no food? Do you remember the tender way in which He invited us to sit down, and then served us, our risen Lord? Served us with the pierced hands, gave us the bread and fish, and was our Servant in resurrection just as He was before He died?”

Oh, the Lord grant that, as He shows Himself to us, our hearts may be awakened; that we may be alert; that our eyes may see; that our hearts may adore Him; that we may never doubt Him, but that He may be everything to us! The Lord grant it for His Name’s sake.