"What Manner Of Man?"

by JOHN MILNE | Category: General | Feb 1950

(MATTHEW 8. 27).

So questioned the affrighted disciples on the stormy lake as they beheld the wonderful work of the Lord Jesus, when He commanded the winds and the sea to "be still." Was He not their Cicator and Maker? "He spake and it was done," arid the things which He created had to obey Him. Well might His wondering disciples marvel as they witnebsed the great calm which followed His commands. Their own fears were calmed also when they saw His delivering power on their behalf. Let us centre our attention upon Him for a little, and let us consider Him, and ask the question, "What manner of Man is this ?

In order to do so, we shall require to look upon Him as a Man amongst men here upon earth, sojourning in this "Vale of tears." The Lord Jesus Christ was the God-Man, a Man uni(1ue upon the earth. He taught, not as the scribes, but as One having authority. "Never

man so spake," was the verdict of the men sent to take Him. Let us consider Him as the Holy and the Righteous One, the kindly and compassionate One, the lowly and obedient One, the Man who was indeed "the Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief" (Isaiah 53.).

The term righteousness strictly denotes conformity to law. When we wish to express what Christ was in Himself, we not only state that He was the Righteous One, we affirm also that He was essentially the 'Holy One of God." Speaking of Him as a n~n, we note that His righteousness was in keeping with His holiness. It was His holy nature exhibiting itself in righteous acts. Our Lord Jesus Christ came, as it is written, "to do Thy will, 0 God." It was ever His joy and delight to fulfil the holy law of God, so the Spirit testifies of Him that God's law was within His heart. lie passed His whole lifetime doing his Father's will and giving Him pleasure, and though He suffered at the hands of His own, yet He manifested perpetual and perfect endurance. "For consider Him that endured such contradiction of sinners against Himself "-pain and trials, labour and sweat, poverty and hunger; sorrows, griefs, and disappointments ; weariness, fatigue, and exhaustion; shame, despite~ and spitting; reproach, distress and persecution; the forsaking of friends, the jestings of ~fools, and the persecution of enemies; accused of the worst of crimeb, and of being a consorter with the worst of company; accused by His creatures of the greatest sins against the law of God of which men can be guilty, the dreadful crimes of descending, as it were, to the lowest depths by being in league with Beelzebub; cited before the highest tribunal of the Jews for blasphemously making Himself equal with God; sentenced in the civil court for the highest offence which could be committed against the law of the land, namely, sedition and treason; subjected after each sentence to the most insulting and abusive treatment, mocked and struck; blindfolded and buffeted; scourged on the back, crowned with thorns on the head, and arrayed with fools' ensigns of royalty.

Consider Him in all this, how He endured to be led away to a painful, lingering, and ignominious death; to be hung upon a cross like a common malefactor, and worse than these, while under the curse of the law, to be afflicted by the most trying of all sorrows, the hiding of the countenance of God, and you shall behold the passive righteousness of the Son of God shining forth calm and undisturbed like the silent moon amid the storms of night. Clouds encGmpass., winds roar, and tempests rage; but every glimpse we obtain of her silver light serves only to exhibit her loveliness, clearness, and majesty. Such was the passive righteousness of the Lord Jesus; He never fretted at the prosperity of the wicked, or felt disconcerted at their ~frown; He murmured not at trials, nor grew angry at disappointments. 'A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief," yet He knew not either ~impatience or discontent. There was no sullenness and no selfishness in His nature. Amidst the strife of tongues that vied in reviling Him,

He reviled not again. "Like a sheep, dumb before her shearers, so He opened not His mouth" (Isaiah 53.). Like a lamb led to the slaughter, He was silent, and when death was transfixing Him with its sharpest stings, He endured the most piercing of them all without a single murmur. Thus every sorrow, trial, and suffering, which the Scriptures of Truth had foretold, were endured by Christ in the lowliest manner. His obedience and righteousness were perfect. He had neither sinned, nor come short in the smallest particular which the law prescribed, but had fulfilled it tQ the very uttermost.

The active righteousness of the Lord Jesus is seen in that He fully discharged all His obligations as the sinner's Friend. He fully met all the requirements of the law as a Man, and all the commands of God as the obedient One. He was the perfect and willing sacrifice, "the Daysman between us." His heart and life so overflowed with love to God and man, that He perfectly fulfilled those two commandments on which hang all the law and the prophets~; for He loved the Lord His God, with all His heart and with all His soul and with all His strength, and with all His mind, and He loved His neighbour as Himself. The duty of every relationship by which He stood connected with His fellow-men He discharged to the utmost. When a youth, He was subject to His parents and obedient unto them (Luke 2.51). When a man, He evaded not His duty to the state, but wrought a miracle that He might pay the tribute that was levied upon Him. In His intercourse with men, the law of kindness was on His tongne, and gifts and blessings dropped from His precious hand. From His earliest moment as a man, to the commendation to His Father of His departing spirit, He always bethought with alacrity that He must be about His Father's business. As a Man amongst men, He never lost a single opportunity of warning a sinner, instructing an enquirer, or relieving the distressed.

The active obedience of the Saviour towards men is summed up in the words of Acts 10. 88: "Who went about doing good." In regard to God, and His holy law, His life, His righteousness, were of the most perfect, energetic, and fervent kind. As His custom was, He went into the synagogue every Sabbath day (Luke 4.16), where the Scriptures were read. On solemn festival days, He presented Himself in the Temple at Jerusalem, as the law commanded, and never failed to yield the most complete and cordial obedience to the divinely appointed ordinances. His was a spiritual worship: His soul slumbered not in the outward ceremonies, but ascended, through them, into the highest communion with God. With Him there was no procrastination of prayer, no wandering of thought, no dulness of mind, no coldness of affection. In the morning He rose up a great while before day that He might be alone in prayer with God (Mark 1.85). At times He continued all night, pouring out His soul ~ fervent supplications, living and breathing for the glory of God.

He moved amongst men and demons untouched by sin, and was acl,;nowledged by both to be the Holy One of God (Mark 1.24; Luke 4.84; Acts 3.14).

Every moment of His life He possessed the most unhesitating readiness to accomplish all that His Father commanded:

"I delight to do Thy will, 0 my God;

Yea, Thy law is within my heart" (Psaha 40. 8).

He came to Jordan to be baptized of John; and He said, "Suffer it now; for thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness"; and upon Him who had performed this work of righteousness in such a seWdenying and God-honouring spirit, the Holy Spirit descended like a dove; "and, lo, a voice out of the heavens saying, This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased" (Matthew 3.15, 17). when He ascended the Mount and was transfigured in glory, the same voice uttered the same declaration, proving that His righteousness in the sight of God was perfect and complete. Thus, by a testimony frem heaven on two occasions, by the admission of His watchful enemies that they were at a loss to lay hold of Him, by the contradictions of the witnesses whom they suborned to accuse Him, by the solemn declaration of the judge who condemijed Him, "I am innocent of the blood of this righteous Man " (Matthc~' 27.24), and by the affirmation of one of the dying malefactors, "This Man hath done nothing amiss" (Luke 23.41), we conclude with the most triumphant assurance, that, in the sight of God and man, the active righteousness of our Lord Jesus Christ is pure, spotless, and perfect ; bright with the lustre of its excellency; yea, clear as the sun, resplendent and beautiful before the throne of God with the brightness and purity of its effulgence, the admiration of heaven, the glorious light of the eternal day. He is rightly denominated, "The Son of Righteousness," who will rise on a dark and benighted world~, and impart a healing warmth and light, and life, with His unsullied ray (Malachi 4.2).

This, beloved, is the manner of the Man we have been considering. The " Lord our Righteousness "is His name. Let us bow in adoration and say in the words of the Song of Songs :"My Beloved is white and ruddy,

The Chiefest among ten thousand,

His head is as the most fine gold,

His locks are bushy and black as a raven

His eyes are like doves beside the water brooks

Washed with milk and fitly set

His cheeks are as a bed of spices as banks of sweet herbs

His lips are as lilies dropping liquid myrrh

His hands are as rings of gold set uith beryl

His body is as ivory work overlaid with sapphires

His legs are as pillars of marble. set upon sockets of fine gold:

His aspect is like Lebanon, excellent as the cedars.

His mouth is most sweet: yea, He is altogether lovely.