In John chapter seven there is another case of finding Christ. Christ was doing some marvelous things, and the people were saying, “This is truly the prophet. Others said, This is the Christ. Still others said, Does then the Christ come out of Galilee? Has not the Scripture said that Christ comes from the seed of David, and from Bethlehem?” (vv. 40-42). Yes, the Scripture does say that; the people were one hundred percent right. Nevertheless, they missed the mark by being right. If they did not know the Bible so well, I believe it would have been easy for them to grasp the Christ. They were frustrated by their Bible knowledge. Yes, He was born in Bethlehem, but He was raised in Nazareth. Such a situation confounds the natural understanding. If we merely hold the Bible in our hand, we may miss Christ. We need to follow the living Christ.
Then Nicodemus, who had come to know Christ somewhat, began to argue with the Pharisees, but they protested, “Search and see that no prophet arises out of Galilee” (v. 52). They were right; not even the least prophet came out of Galilee. What would you say? We should not say, “Search and look,” but “Come and see!” If we search and look, we may miss the mark; we may miss Christ. Christ was right there; yet they said, “Search and look.” There is also the possibility in today’s situation that Christians would miss Christ in a similar way. We may give our attention to the Scriptures and say, “Has not the Scripture said?” Nevertheless, we may miss Christ. Here is the Bible, and here is Christ. We should not be those who care for the Bible but fail to care for Christ Himself.
Oh, it is possible to be so right, but wrongly right! We may be right, but we are only partly right; eventually we may not be right, for we may miss the mark. The Lord acts in a “sneaky” way to those who feel that they are so right. He does it purposely: He does not want us to have only the knowledge, and then go to sleep. He wants us to be alert at all times lest by knowing the Bible only in that way we lose His presence. Oh, it is possible to lose the presence of the Lord simply by knowing the Bible only in the letter! I would rather lose the knowledge of the Bible and keep the presence of the Lord. We should not think that, as long as we are scriptural, we are all right. Regardless of how scriptural we may be, if we lose the presence of the Lord, we are wrong. May the Lord be merciful to us. Knowledge alone does not work. It did not work with the scribes, the chief priests, and the Pharisees, and it will not work for us.
What is the New Testament way to find the Lord and serve Him? It is continually to keep His presence, His hidden presence. He prophesied that He would come out of Bethlehem, but He came out of Nazareth. We should give up our searching, for God can never be understood by searching. I am not searching; I am seeing, I am enjoying. Many things I do not understand and I do not care to understand, but I am enjoying. The Lord’s presence is hidden. Isaiah 45:15 tells us that He is a hidden God. He is a God that hides Himself. We need to learn to praise Him, to see Him, to trace Him, and to find Him, but we should not try to understand Him. We are not qualified to understand Him; we are only qualified to enjoy Him. Therefore, we should encourage others to “Come and see.”
Those who come to see should not see Christ after the flesh. When Jesus came into His own country, the people said, “Is not this the carpenter’s son? Is not his mother called Mary, and his brothers James and Joseph and Simon and Judas? And his sisters, are they not all with us?” (Matt. 13:55-56). It seemed that they knew everything, but this was the knowledge of Jesus according to the flesh. In Matthew 22:43 we read that David in spirit called Him Lord. We should not follow those people in the flesh, but follow David in the spirit.
Now let us apply this practically to the present situation. If you would come to see the local church—for example, the church in Los Angeles—that is good. However, you should not see it after the flesh. If you see it according to the flesh, you will say that there are many peculiar people.
We should not know any man after the flesh, but should know one another after the spirit. Once we knew Christ after the flesh and considered Him the little man of Nazareth, but now we know Him no longer in this way (2 Cor. 5:16). We know Him after the spirit; in spirit we call Him “Lord.” We should forget about the outward things, forget about the flesh; we need to see the church not after the flesh, but after the spirit.
If you beheld the tabernacle in the Old Testament outwardly, you could only see the outer badger skins (Exo. 36:19). There is no beauty with the badger skin; it is quite mean and common. What, however, was within the tabernacle? There was gold, there was silver, and there were the precious stones; there was the beauty of the precious things. Would you rather see the church outwardly or inwardly? Outwardly speaking, the church is clothed with badger skin—there is no beauty, but there is toughness and even perhaps wildness. Within, however, there is something of glory. Within, there is Jesus; within, we have Christ. Hallelujah!
How can we find Christ and serve Him according to the New Testament? By the Bible? Yes, we need the Bible, but we also need to see the living star.