When men sought to catch the Lord in the garden of Gethsemane, He stepped forward and said to them, “Whom do you seek? They answered Him, Jesus the Nazarene. He said to them, I am....They drew back and fell to the ground” (John 18:4-6). The Lord simply spoke one sentence, and they drew back and fell to the ground. What a glory we find here!
Our Lord prayed at the garden of Gethsemane, but He did not plead for anything at the court, before the high priest, or before the magistrate. This One is far above all. He is the Lord, yet He was judged. Who was actually judging whom? The high priest was the one who was agitated. He was the one who stumbled in words. Our Lord remained calm. When He appeared before the magistrate, it was the latter who became nervous; he was the one who was aimless in his questions. The Lord did not bother even to answer the questions. Jesus of Nazareth is God. Although He was put on trial, He did not lose His dignity or His honor.
In the garden of Gethsemane, He told the disciples to be watchful with Him (Matt. 26:38), but He did not ask them to supplicate for Him. Paul needed the brothers in Rome to pray for him (Rom. 15:30), but the Lord did not need anyone to pray for Him. He is the Son of God, and He does not need anyone to supplicate for Him. He asked the disciples to pray because He did not want them to enter into temptation (Matt. 26:41); He was asking them to pray for themselves. Here we can observe once again the Lord’s dignity and honor.
He lived in poverty on earth, yet He did not ask anyone for any money. He prayed to God in the garden, yet He pleaded with no one in the court. Who is like the Son of God? The throne is glorious, but the glory of the judgment and the cross is even greater. We have to worship Him and say, “You are Lord! You are God!”
The Lord always hid Himself; He did not like to have a name for Himself. After He healed the leper, He charged him not to tell anyone (Matt. 8:4). After He drove out the company of demons, He charged the previously possessed man to go home and to speak what God had done for him (Luke 8:39). After He opened the eyes of two blind men, He charged them not to let anyone know about it (Matt. 9:30). After God revealed Him to Peter as the Christ, the Lord charged the disciples not to tell others (16:20). On the Mount of Transfiguration, He was the only One who shone in glory. Yet when they came down from the mount, He charged the disciples not to tell others what they had seen (17:9). We find a similar case in John 7. The Lord’s own brothers did not recognize Him. They told Him, “Depart from here and go into Judea...for no one does anything in secret and himself seeks to be known openly. If You do these things, manifest Yourself to the world” (vv. 3-4). His brothers said this because even they did not believe in Him. Yet He said, “My time has not yet come” (v. 6). After His brothers went up, He also went up to the feast, not to perform any miracles there, but to teach. Here we touch our Lord’s glory. Everyone who tries to draw attention to himself is eager to present his work before men. But the Lord never wanted to purposely expose Himself before men. The Gospels are full of such records. He stood before men only when there was the absolute necessity for it. He did not like to tell others who He was. Even after He had performed a miracle on the blind man, He did not tell him who He was immediately. He held back the revelation of who He was until He brought the man into some further enlightenment (John 9). Before this, He would not tell him who He was. We need to know our Lord!
In order to understand the history both in the Old and the New Testament, we have to have the right impressions. In order to have the proper impressions, we have to be a tender person. This is the reason we have to go through proper lessons before the Lord. If a person has a low discernment, he cannot be expected to appreciate the dignity of the Lord Jesus when he reads the Gospels. If he is dealt with even a little, he will know what dignity is, and when he comes to the Bible again, he will have more appreciation of the dignity of the Lord Jesus. If he does not know the meaning of dignity and glory, how can he be expected to form an impression of the Lord’s dignity and glory? We have to receive the proper lessons from the Lord. His nature has to be added into us daily. In this way, our feeling towards God’s Word will be finer and finer every day. We will have deeper and deeper impressions every day, and we will understand more and more of His Word every day. We should remember the principle that whoever has, it shall be given to him, and he will abound; but whoever does not have, even that which he has shall be taken away from him (Matt. 13:12). We should never neglect our lessons. Otherwise, we will lose what we have.
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