After the Holy Spirit descended upon the Lord Jesus, He was the qualified minister of the New Testament ministry. John was qualified, but in comparison with the Lord Jesus, John was not so thoroughly qualified. John was qualified only to a certain degree. John was not such a person as the Lord Jesus was. John was not a person conceived and born of the Holy Spirit with the divine essence mingled with the human essence. Only Jesus uniquely was such a person. To the uttermost, what John had was a pouring out of the Spirit upon him.
Luke tells us that John was to be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from His mother’s womb (1:15). According to the black and white letters, when we read that John was filled with the Holy Spirit, we presume that to be filled means to be filled within. Actually this is not the case. When the one hundred twenty were filled with the Spirit on the day of Pentecost, that filling did not mean that the Holy Spirit entered into them, but it meant that the Holy Spirit descended upon them (Acts 2:4). Not only John the Baptist but also his mother Elizabeth and then his father Zachariah experienced such a filling of the Holy Spirit. John was the first one to be filled with the Holy Spirit in the New Testament. In that family the son took the lead, the mother followed, and the father concluded this filling of the Spirit. The entire family was anointed by the Holy Spirit. Nevertheless, John did not have the intrinsic thing within him as Jesus did. Jesus had something intrinsic that was conceived of the Holy Spirit with the divine essence mingled with the human essence. That intrinsic element is the basic difference between John’s conception and birth and that of Jesus.
All of us need to grasp this basic point that after His baptism and the Holy Spirit descending upon Him, Jesus became such a being with divinity and with humanity, but with a humanity that had been terminated and resurrected. After He was anointed, He began to minister. It is crucial for us to see what it was that He ministered. The four Gospels present His ministry to the readers, but many readers do not realize adequately what the four Gospels present.
Most readers only realize that the four Gospels are a biography, telling the stories of one life. Some good students of the Bible may present some spiritual teachings, doctrines, out of this biography. All of us need to see what the purpose of God is in presenting these four Gospels to us. These four were selected by the Holy Spirit out of many gospels that were written (Luke 1:1). It is very meaningful that these four were selected and all the others were not qualified. In these four Gospels that were selected out of so many we have a clear picture of the ministry of this unique One. Such a ministry is hard to describe.
In recent days we had a conference on Christ, the Spirit, life, and the church. In those messages I pointed out that there are no human words available in any language to describe the wonderful One whose life is recorded in these four Gospels. When Christ came out to minister, He acted, He lived, He worked, He moved, and He ministered in such a way that no vocabulary in any language can describe. Language depends upon culture. If there is a certain kind of culture, surely there will be language to match it and to convey it. However, in all of human history and all of human culture, there had never been such a One as this unique One, and there had never been such a life as the life of this One. Therefore, there is no vocabulary available for us to describe Him. Human eyes had never seen such a One or such a life. Therefore, there are no human words adequate to describe this One or His life. You cannot find one adjective in any language which is adequate to describe the One presented in the four Gospels.
Even you cannot find a single adjective adequate to describe the life portrayed in the sixteen chapters of the Gospel of Mark, which has been somewhat disregarded by many Christian readers. Not many Christian readers respect Mark as much as they do John, Matthew, or Luke. In the Life-study of Mark we have seen a life that human words cannot describe. We could say that this life is a holy life, a divine life, an ethical life, a godly life, a righteous life, a life that is right both with God and with man, but none of these words is adequate. No philosopher ever invented a term that can describe Christ’s character. We could say that He was loving, humble, kind, meek, mild, but again none of these words is adequate. A life is portrayed in the Gospel of Mark that stood out uniquely. You can only see it, but you cannot describe it because of the shortage of human language. No adjective can adequately describe this person, the life He lived, the way He moved, the way He worked, the way He acted, and the way He ministered. No words are adequate, but a picture is presented which we have seen in the Life-study of Mark.
This One was willing to be under God as a slave. He served God, and He took care of God’s house, of God’s chosen people. All of them got lost, and He took care of the lost household of His Master, the very God. Again, we are short of vocabulary to describe the way He took care of them.
By the Lord’s mercy, we have picked up all the elements of His ministry in our human words, in human expressions that we can understand: to preach the gospel, to teach the truth, to heal the sick, to cast out demons, to cleanse the lepers. We do have words such as these in our human language, and this is all that we can understand. Yet there is something further that we cannot utter. In the notes on each of these items we saw that to preach is to announce the glad tidings to the miserable people, to teach is to shine upon the people in darkness, and to cast out demons is to destroy Satan’s kingdom and release God’s people. However, after we have said all that we could say, even with much consideration, we realize that there is still something more that we cannot utter concerning this wonderful One and the life He lived. Not only is it true that with Him you cannot find any fault, any shortcoming, or any wrongdoing; even you cannot find words adequate to describe Him on the positive side. Surely He was humble, patient, and enduring, but there is also something that we cannot put into words. When we have exhausted our human vocabulary, there is still something more.
Furthermore, it is clear that the Lord Jesus would never let His followers go, especially Peter, James, and John. We have covered this point in the Life-study of Mark. Whatever He did, He did with them. Wherever He went, He went with them. For many years I did not know what His purpose was in bringing them with Him all the time, but now we understand that His intention was to bring them all into His terminating death and into His germinating resurrection.
In addition, we need to realize that Peter, John, and James were the ones who were miserable, in darkness, under Satan’s usurping hand, sick of fever, and contaminated by leprosy. It was Peter, John, and James who heard the gospel, who received the truth, and who were released from Satan’s possession. These disciples were the ones who were healed of their fever, healed of the abnormal condition of their human life, and they were cleansed from leprosy. However, they were still deaf, dumb, and blind and thus they were still in need. When the time came, the Lord healed their ears. He thrust His fingers into their ears so that they could hear, healed their mouths so that they could speak, and especially the Lord opened their eyes so that they could see.
When the day of Pentecost came, we can see Peter standing there. He was the one who received the gospel, who saw the light of the truth, who was liberated from the possession of the usurper, who was healed from his abnormal situation and cleansed from his leprosy. His deaf ears were opened. Surely he heard God’s word, his eyes saw the divine vision, and his mouth was opened wide to speak. As we have seen there was still something further. Finally, Peter was replaced. Peter as such a one was brought into Christ’s death and into His resurrection. We may say that he became another person, a reproduction of Jesus, in the sense that something within him was conceived of the Holy Spirit with the divine essence, mingled with the human essence, yet terminated and germinated. In chapter one of Acts Peter was there as such a person. He was ready there for ten days. After those ten days the Holy Spirit that descended upon Jesus after His baptism descended again upon those people, and they were anointed. In a proper sense, just as we may say that Peter became a reproduction of Jesus, we may also say that they became Jesus. This is the ministry of the New Testament in the section of Jesus’ ministry, along the line of Peter. Mark and the first twelve chapters of Acts are in the line of Peter.
If you consider this very Jesus who served God as a slave in such a ministry, what words could you use to describe this ministry? We have used a number of sentences to describe something of this ministry. I do believe that what has been spoken has created an impression within you that will cause you to see His ministry, which is the ministry of the New Testament.