HIS name shall be called “Wonderful” (Isaiah ix:6). And long before Isaiah had uttered this divine prediction the angel of the Lord had announced his name to be Wonderful. As such He appeared to Manoah. And Manoah said unto the angel of Jehovah, What is thy name, that when thy sayings come to pass we may do thee honor. And the angel of Jehovah said unto Him “why askest thou thus after my name, seeing it is Wonderful” (margin, Judges xiii:17-18). This angel of Jehovah, the Person who appeared repeatedly in Old Testament history is an uncreated angel. Of this Being we read that He is the Redeemer, for Jacob speaks of Him “the angel which redeemed me from all evil” (Genesis xlviii:15). He is the angel whose voice must be obeyed, who has power to pardon transgressions, in whom the name of God is (Exodus xxiii:20-23). He is the angel of His Presence who saved them (Isaiah lxiii:9) and Exodus xxxiii:14 must refer to this Being “My presence shall go with thee and I will give thee rest.” This angel of Jehovah speaks in the Book of Judges and declared, “I made you to go up out of Egypt, and have brought you into the land which I sware unto your fathers; and I said I will never break my covenant with you” (Judges ii:1). He appeared unto Moses in a flame of fire out of the midst of the bush and He spoke to Moses as the I am! (Ex. iii.) The same One appeared before Joshua and he worshipped in His presence. With Him Jacob wrestled, with Jehovah, the God of hosts (Hosea xii:4-6). Malachi iii:1 shows that the Lord Himself is this Angel, the Angel of the Covenant, who also visited Abraham in the form of Man (Genesis xviii).

And after all these manifestations, seven hundred years after Isaiah had announced Him, as the Wonderful, He appeared in human form in the midst of His people. And now we know by divine Revelation in the completed Word of God that He is wonderful in His Person and in his work; but no mind can fathom, no heart can grasp, no pen can describe, how wonderful He is.

He is wonderful if we think of Him as the Only Begotten of the Father. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him; and without Him was not anything made that was made” (John i:1-3). “By Him were all things created that are in Heaven and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers, all things were made by Him and for Him; and He is before all things and by Him all things consist” (Col. i:16-17). He is the image of the invisible God, the brightness of His glory and the express image of His Person. How wonderful such a One, who ever was, with no beginning, One with God!

How wonderful His humiliation. “Who being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, and took upon Him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men, and being in fashion as a man He humbled Himself” (Phil. ii:6-8). “For verily He took not on Him the nature of Angels, but He took on Him the seed of Abraham” (Hebrews ii:16). Wonderful condescension that He who created the angels should be made lower than the angels and lay His Glory by, to appear in the form of man on earth.

Wonderful is He in His incarnation, “that holy thing” as the angel announced Him, truly God and Man. Born of the woman, resting on the bosom of the virgin as a little child and yet He is the One who ever is in the bosom of the Father.

Wonderful that blessed life He lived on earth of which the beloved disciple bears such a beautiful witness. “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled of the Word of Life. For the life was manifested and we have seen it and bear witness and shew unto you that eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us” (1 John i:1-2). Wonderful are the blessed words which came from His lips, wonderful is His moral glory, His untiring service, His love, His patience and everything which the Holy Spirit has been pleased to tell us of His earthly life. The more our hearts contemplate Him the more wonderful He appears. But still greater and more wonderful is it that He went to the cross to give His life as a ransom for many, that the Just One should die for the unjust, that He who knew no sin was made sin for us and pay the penalty of sins on the cross. He is the Wonderful in His great work on the cross, the depths of which have never been fathomed. And what can we say of His wonderful Glory, His wonderful Place, His wonderful Power, His wonderful Grace! How wonderfully He has dealt with us, with each one of us individually. How wonderful it is that He knows each of His sheep, that He guides each, provides for, loveth, succors, stands by, restores, never leaves nor forsakes each who has trusted in Him and belongs to Him. How wonderful are His ways with us, that He guides with His eyes and that His loving power and omnipotent love is on our side. In His coming manifestation He will be wonderful. Wonderful He will be when we shall see Him and stand in His presence. What a day it will be when we see Him face to face! Then we shall know all the loveliness and wonderfulness of His adorable Person and His wonder ways with us. With what wonderment we shall then behold Him. And when He comes with His Saints, when the Heavens are lit up with untold glory, when He comes to judge, to establish His Kingdom, to speak peace to the nations, to restore creation to its right condition, when He reigns and all His redeemed ones with Him—Oh how wonderful it all will be!

He is altogether lovely and he is altogether wonderful. Glory to His name! Well has one said: “He pervades the whole of the New Testament with His presence, so that every doctrine it teaches, every duty it demands, every narrative it records, every comfort it gives, every hope it inspires, gathers about His person and ministers to His glory.” So dear does He thus become to the heart of the believer, that Luther may well be excused for exclaiming, ‘I had rather be in hell with Christ, than in heaven without Him.’

“We believe in Him as our Saviour, Acts vi:31; confess Him as our Lord, Rom. x:9; we have redemption through His blood, Eph. i:7; we look to Him as our Leader, Heb. xii:2; we follow Him as our Teacher, Eph. iv:20, 21; we feed upon Him as our Bread, Jno. vi:48; we go to Him in our Thirst, Jno. vi: 37; we enter by Him as our door, Jno. x:9; we are in Him as our vine, Jno. xv:5; we find in Him our rest, Matt. xi:28; we have in Him our example, Jno. xiii:15; He is our righteousness, 2 Cor. v:21; we are succored by Him in temptation, Heb. ii:18; we turn to Him for sympathy, Heb. iv:15; we obtain through Him our victory, 1 Cor. xv:57; we overcome by Him the world, 1 Jno. v:5; we have in Him eternal life, 1 Jno. v:11, 12; we gain by Him the resurrection, Phil. iii:20, 21; we appear with Him in glory, Col. iii:4, we exult in His everlasting love, Rev. i:5, 6.”

May the Holy Spirit fill our hearts and eyes with Himself and reveal to us through the written Word more of the matchless beauty of the wonderful Person of our Saviour and Lord. We honor and adore Thee, blessed, blessed Lord, and while Thou art rejected we thy feeble people would know more of Thyself and keep closer at Thy feet. Amen.

IN Revelation V, that great worship scene, beginning some day in heaven and going on into future ages, we read of the Lamb to whom honor and glory are due. He alone is worthy. And every heart who knows Him rejoicing in His love, cries out, “Thou art worthy!” Yea, the sweetest song for the redeemed soul is the outburst of praise, which we find on the threshold of His own Revelation. “Unto Him that loveth us and washed us from our sins in His own blood and hath made us kings and priests unto God and His Father; to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.” Soon the great worship John beheld prophetically may become reality.

As long as we His people are here in this present evil age it is God’s call to us to honor and glorify His Son. This surely is God the Father’s expectation from His children, who are begotten of Him. This is His call to us in the last days of this rapidly closing age.

It was on the mountain of transfiguration that the Father bore witness to His Son. “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” The Father bore not alone this witness, but He vindicated the honor of His Son, whose glory flashed forth on that mountain. Peter had spoken; in fact, he was still speaking when the Father’s voice was heard. “Lord, it is good to be here; if Thou wilt let us make here three tabernacles, one for Thee and one for Moses and one for Elias.” These were Peter’s words. At the first glance they appear harmless. Indeed, they are generally used in spiritual application of having a good time here. But they have a far different meaning. Peter had spoken once more in the impulsiveness of the flesh. By putting the Lord of Glory alongside of Moses and Elias, he had lowered the dignity of Him. The One whom he had but recently confessed as the Christ, the Son of the living God, he now put into the same position and place with Moses and Elias. He lost sight of the wonderful and glorious person of Christ. When he uttered this human suggestion the Shekinah cloud appeared and its glorious splendor covered them. Out of that cloud came the Father’s voice vindicating the honor of His Son. Who is Moses? Who is Elias? Sinful men they were, man of failure and weakness. But here is another. This is my Beloved Son in whom I am well pleased; hear Him. And how that beloved Son is in our day dishonored!

He was in all eternity the beloved Son. When God created all things, for Him and by Him, He was the delight of God. This is the foundation of our faith. When he spoke of coming into the world, as we read in Hebrews X, to do the Father’s will, the Father’s love and delight was upon Him. In humiliation beginning there in Bethlehem He was the beloved Son of God. In all He did, every step of the way, the Holy One had above Himself the loving Father. And then He went to the cross, putting away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. In the awful suffering on the cross, in the hours of darkness, when as the substitute of sinners He tasted death, God’s holy hand rested upon that beloved One in judgment, so that He uttered that never to be forgotten cry “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” And God in His mighty power opened the grave and brought Him forth. He raised Him from the dead. He was received up in the Glory, exalted into the highest position. He is the heir of all things, the upholder of all things, all things consist and exist by Him. God has given Him the pre-eminence in all things.

And this blessed One, the beloved Son of God is denied, He is rejected, dishonored and refused. God speaks in Him, by Him, and he who has made known God, in whom redemption for man was procured is dishonored. But how is He dishonored and robbed of His Glory? And where is He dishonored? Not in the world as such so much but in Christendom. The harvest of this destructive and evil criticism of the Bible, rejecting the Bible as the inspired Word of God is being reaped. After the written Word has been attacked and lowered the enemy who stands behind “Higher Criticism” in a disguised form has thrown off the mask and bluntly strikes at the Person of the beloved Son of God. First the devil in the garb of “reverend criticism” denied Isaiah vii:14, the promise of the virgin bringing forth a son, as having anything to do with Christ, and now the harvest, the denial of the virgin birth of our Lord. It would take many pages to mention all how our ever beloved Lord is robbed of His Glory, how His Person is dishonored. This denial of the Person of Christ is the apostasy. It is the very breath of the personal antichrist, the man of sin, which we feel in these last days.

The Father’s voice is not heard in these days as it was heard on the transfiguration mountain. The heavens are silent to all the dishonor heaped upon Him, who is in the heaven of heavens. But God the Father looks to His people in whom the Holy Spirit dwells to honor and glorify His Son. The Holy Spirit gives us the power to stand as bold witnesses for Himself and to contend earnestly for the faith once and for all delivered unto the Saints. The Father expects us that we stand up for the honor of His Son. His voice to us is “Honor my Son!”

We feel deeply impressed with this great call of God to us at the present time of increasing darkness and apostasy. Let each child of God act accordingly. Honor your Lord wherever you are. “Be thou not ashamed of the testimony of our Lord” (2 Tim. i:8). If you cannot publicly stand up and honor Christ then honor Him, speak well of Him, in the home circle or wherever you are. O child of God, walk close to Him! Sit more at His feet! Cast yourself more upon Him! Let Him be your all in all! And as He is the sole object of your heart you will honor Him in the day when He is rejected.

But this will mean something else. It means separation. God’s call to His people is to stand aloft from all which dishonors His Son. This means much in our days. How can we honor the Beloved One if we have fellowship with that which dishonors Him? No child of God should go on with any institution, school or church where the written Word is set aside or belittled. The second Epistle of Timothy, which has special reference to our times is very clear on this separation. No one needs to wait for a special call from God to act and separate from the corruption of Christendom. It is all given before hand by the Holy Spirit. “From such turn away” (2 Tim. iii:5). And those from whom God commands us to separate are persons who have the form of godliness and deny the power thereof. Again it is written: “But in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and of silver, but also of wood and of earth, and some to honor and some to dishonor. If a man therefore purge himself from these, he shall be a vessel unto honor, sanctified and meet for the master’s use, prepared unto every good work” (2 Tim. ii:20-21). Hear the Word of the Lord! Hear His call! Be faithful to Him! Keep His Word and do not deny His Name! Honor and glorify Him who is our Lord whom we soon shall see face to face.

Christ’s Resurrection Song.

WHEN the blessed Lord appeared in the midst of His disciples and they beheld the risen One in His glorified body of flesh and bones and He ate before them, He told them that all things which were written in the Law of Moses, and the Prophets and in the Psalms concerning Him, had to be fulfilled (Luke xxiv:44). While on the way to Emmaus He said to the two sorrowing and perplexed disciples “Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into His glory? And beginning at Moses and all the prophets he expounded unto them all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself.” It seems to us He must have then spoken much of the Psalms, these wonderful prayers and songs of praise, with which His Jewish disciples were so familiar. In the Psalms the richest prophecies concerning Christ are found. There we behold Him in His divine perfections as well as in His true humanity; in His suffering and in His glory; in His rejection and in His exaltation. Oh that we, the Lord’s people, might read the Psalms more, so that the Holy Spirit can reveal Christ more to our hearts. In many unexpected places we can find Him in these songs. There is for instance the xxxvii Psalm, so much enjoyed by the Saints of God. It contains such precious exhortations to faith, to be patient and to hope. But in taking the comfort of these blessed exhortations and their accompanying promises, we are apt to overlook some verses which tell us of our Lord. Verses 30-33 apply to Him. “The mouth of the righteous speaketh wisdom and His tongue talketh of judgment. The law of His God is in His heart; none of His steps shall slide. The wicked watcheth the righteous, and seeketh to slay Him. Jehovah will not leave Him in his hand, nor condemn Him when He is judged.” Our Lord is this righteous One. Words of wisdom and judgment, mercy and truth flowed from His lips while righteousness in heart and life, and perfect obedience were manifested in Him. Then His death and deliverance are indicated in these words. However, care must be taken not to apply all the experiences of the Psalms to Christ. We saw recently an exposition of Psalm xxxviii:7. The words “For my loins are filled with a loathsome disease and there is no soundness in my flesh” were applied to Christ. This is a very serious mistake. He knew no sin and therefore no loathsome disease could fill His loins. Such exposition is evil.

Many joyous expressions of praise to God are found in the Psalms which properly belong first to Him, who is the leader of the praises of His people (Heb. ii:12). One of these sweet outbursts of praise is contained in the opening verses of the xl Psalm. The first three verses may be called “the resurrection song of Christ”:

It is the experience of our Saviour, which must here first of all be considered. Patiently He had waited for Jehovah. Himself Jehovah He had taken the place of dependence under God His Father and patiently He endured. He was obedient unto death, the death of the cross. He endured the cross, despising the shame. He cried to God. “Who in the days of His flesh, when He had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and fears unto Him that was able to save Him from death, and was heard in that he feared; though He were Son, yet learned He obedience by the things which He suffered” (Heb. v:7-8). The place of death is given in this Psalm: “the horrible pit and the miry clay.” Who can describe all what is meant by these words! “Surely He hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows; yet we did esteem Him stricken and smitten of God and afflicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions, the chastisement of our peace was upon Him; and with His stripes we are healed” (Isa. liii:45). He went into the horrible pit, or as it reads literally, the pit of destruction, the place which belongs to fallen man by nature, so that we might be taken out of it. He went into the jaws of death and there the billows and waves, yea all the billows and waves of the judgment of the holy God passed over Him. In another Psalm the Holy Spirit describes His agony. (Ps. lxix). There we read His cry “Save me, O God; for the waters are come in unto my soul. I sink in deep mire, where there is no standing; I am come into deep waters, where the floods overflow me. I am weary of my crying, my throat is dried; mine eyes fail while I wait for my God.” And deeper He went for our sakes. The miry clay has a special meaning. Any one who sinks into a pit filled with miry clay cannot help himself. All his struggling does not help; the more he labors the deeper he sinks. One who is in the miry clay cannot save himself. And does this not remind us of the Lord and of what was said of Him “He saved others, Himself He cannot save.” He was in the miry clay. He might have saved Himself but He would not. His mighty love it was, that love which passeth knowledge, which brought Him from Heaven’s Glory down to the horrible pit, the miry clay.

But the sufferings of our adorable Lord are not so much before us in this Psalm as the fact of His resurrection. His cry was heard. The prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears were answered; His resurrection from the dead was God’s blessed answer. While in other Scriptures it is stated that Christ Himself arose, here His resurrection is seen as an act of God. “He brought me up.” This act of God bears witness to the completeness and perfection of the accomplished salvation. “We believe in Him who raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead. Who was delivered for our offences and was raised again for our justification” (Rom. iv:24-25). But we read also that His feet were set upon a rock. “And set my feet upon a rock.” He is the first born from the dead. Sin and death are abolished by His mighty work. “Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over Him. For in that He died, He died unto sin once, but in that He liveth, He liveth unto God” (Rom. vi:9-10). Upon that rock the feet of every believing sinner securely rest.

But His ascension is likewise mentioned in this resurrection song. “And established my goings.” He “whose goings forth have been from old, from everlasting” (Micah v:2) and who came from everlasting glory to walk in obedience to the cross and the grave has gone back into heaven. He was received up into glory; He ascended on high and led captivity captive.

And the mighty victor sings now a new song. It is the triumphant song of redemption, to the praise of God. On account of Him, what He has accomplished in His death on the cross and Who is raised from the dead and in glory “many shall see it and fear and shall trust in the Lord.” But this wonderful resurrection song the Lord sings not alone. We, who have trusted in Him and know Him have part in this song. Believing in Him we are taken out, yea forever, from the terrible pit and the miry clay. There is no more death and no more wrath for us. We are also risen with Him, our feet are planted upon the rock, our goings are established. We belong to the heavenlies where He is. We sing praises in His name unto our God, His God and our God, His Father and our Father, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Oh! that our hearts may enter deeper into this song of accomplished redemption “praise unto our God;” the loving God who spared not His only Begotten.

And indeed “many shall see and fear and trust in the Lord.” This reaches into the future. Israel too will be taken from the place of spiritual and national death, and raised to life to join the new song. Nations will see it and fear and trust Jehovah. At last the great new song of resurrection and the new creation will swell in its divinely revealed length and breadth, heighth and depth. Now He sings the song, and His co-heirs sing it too in feebleness, yet by His Grace and through His Spirit. Ere long in His presence all the Redeemed will praise in Glory with glorified lips. Heavenly beings will utter their praise and in a wider circle down on earth, every creature will join in.

“And they sung a new song saying, Thou art worthy to take the book and to open the seals thereof; for thou was slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood, out of every kindred and tongue, and people, and nation. And hast made us unto our God, Kings and priests, and we shall reign over the earth. And I beheld, and I heard the voice of many angels round about the throne and the living creatures and the elders; and the number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands. Saying with a loud voice, Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength and honor, and glory and blessing. And every creature which is in heaven, and on the earth and under the earth, and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, heard I saying, blessing, and honor, and glory and power, be unto Him that sitteth on the throne, and unto the lamb forever and ever” (Revel. v:9-13). That song will never end. Oh may we learn to sing it now, and in His Name sing praises unto our God.

May we follow the great leader of Praise, Him who is anointed with the oil of gladness above His fellows. May the path He followed down here become more and more ours. May we serve, be obedient, give up, wait patiently for the Lord, after His own pattern, suffer with Him, be rejected with Him, bear His reproach and through it all rejoice in Him and sing “the new song.” How happy we ought to be as linked with Him, the blessed Christ of God. And as we walk in His fellowship the heart longs to see Him as He is. Even so; come Lord Jesus.

The Glory Song.