Man’s Image and Jesus’ Authority

WHOSE is this image?' It was by this question that Jesus foiled His enemies when they thought to take Him, and settled the matter of duty regarding the tribute. The question and the principle it involves are of universal application. Nowhere more truly than in man himself. The image he bears decides his destiny. Bearing God's image, he belongs to God: prayer to God is what he was created for. Prayer is part of the wondrous likeness he bears to His Divine original; of the deep mystery of the fellowship of love in which the Three-One has His blessedness, prayer is the earthly image and likeness.

The more we meditate on what prayer is, and the wonderful power with God which it has, the more we feel constrained to ask who and what man is, that such a place in God's counsels should have been allotted to him. Sin has so degraded him that from what he is now, we can form no conception of what he was meant to be. We must turn back to God's record of man’s creation to discover God’s purpose and the capacities man was endowed with for fulfilling that purpose.

Man's destiny appears clearly from God's language at creation.

It was to fill, to subdue, to have dominion over the earth and all in it. All three expressions show us that man was meant, as God's representative, to hold rule here on earth. As God's viceroy, he was to fill God’s place: himself subject to God and keep all else in subjection to Him. It was the will of God that all that was to be done on earth should be done through him: the earth’s history was to be entirely in his hands.

His position and the power at his disposal were in accordance with such a destiny. When an earthly sovereign sends a viceroy to a distant province, it is understood that he advises as to the policy to be adopted, and that that advice is acted on: that he is at liberty to apply for troops and the other means needed for carrying out the policy or maintaining the dignity of the empire. If his policy is not approved of, he is recalled to make way for someone who better understands his sovereign’s desires as long as he is trusted, his advice is carried out. As God's representative man was to have ruled; all was to have been done under his will and rule; on his advice and at his request heaven was to have bestowed its blessing on earth. His prayer was to have been the wonderful, though simple and most natural channel, in which the intercourse between the King in heaven and His faithful servant man, as lord of this world, was to have been maintained. The destinies of the world were given into the power of the wishes, the will, the prayer of man.

With sin, all this underwent a terrible change; man's fall brought all creation under the curse. With redemption, the beginning was seen of a glorious restoration. No sooner had God begun in Abraham to form for Himself a people from whom kings, yea the Great King, should come forth, than we see what power the prayer of God's faithful servant has to decide the destinies of those who come into contact with him.

In Abraham, we see how prayer is not only, or even chiefly, the means of obtaining blessing for ourselves but is the exercise of his royal prerogative to influence the destinies of men and the will of God that rules them. We do not once find Abraham praying for himself. His prayer for Sodom and Lot, for Abimelech, and for Ishmael proves what power a man, who is God's friend, has to make the history of those around him.

This had been man's destiny from the first. Scripture tells us this and teaches us how God could entrust man with such a high calling. It was because He had created him in His own image and likeness. The external rule was not committed to him without the inner fitness: the bearing God's image in having dominion, in being lord of all, had its root in the inner likeness, in his nature. There was an inner agreement and harmony between God and man, and incipient Godlikeness, which gave man a real fitness for being the mediator between God and His world, for he was to be prophet, priest, and king, to interpret God's will, to represent nature's needs, to receive and dispense God's bounty. It was in bearing God's image that he could bear God's rule; he was indeed so like God, so capable of entering into God's purposes and carrying out His plans, that God could trust him with the incredible privilege of asking and obtaining what the world might need. And although sin has for a time frustrated God's plans, prayer still remains what it would have been if man had never fallen: the proof of man's Godlikeness, the vehicle of his intercourse with the Infinite Unseen One. This power is allowed to hold the hand that holds the destinies of the universe. Prayer is not merely the cry of the suppliant for mercy; it is the highest forth-putting of his will by man, knowing himself to be of Divine origin, created for and capable of being, in king-like liberty, the executor of the counsels of the Eternal.

What sin destroyed, grace has restored. What the first Adam lost, the second has won back. In Christ, man regains his original position, and the Church, abiding in Christ, inherits the promise: Ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.' Such a promise does by no means, in the first place, refer to the grace or blessing we need for ourselves. It has reference to our position as the fruit-bearing branches of the Heavenly Vine, who, like Him, only live for the work and glory of the Father.

It is for those who abide in Him, who have forsaken self to take up their abode in Him with His life of obedience and self-sacrifice, who have lost their life and found it in Him, who are now entirely given up to the interests of the Father and His kingdom. These are they who understand how their new creation has brought them back to their original destiny, has restored God's image and likeness, and with it the power to have dominion. Such have indeed the power, each in their own circle, to obtain and dispense the powers of heaven here on earth. With holy boldness, they may make known what they will: they live as priests in God’s presence; as kings, the powers of the world to come begin to be at their disposal." They enter upon the fulfillment of the promise: Ask whatsoever ye will, it shall be done unto you!

Church of the living God! thy calling is higher and holier than thou knowest. Through thy members, as kings and priests unto God, would God rule the world; their prayers bestow and withhold the blessing of heaven. In His elect who are not just content to be themselves saved, but yield themselves wholly, that through them, even as through the Son, the Father may fulfil all His glorious counsel, in these His elect, who cry day and night unto Him, God would prove how wonderful man's original destiny was. As the image-bearer of God on earth, the earth was indeed given into his hand. All fell with him when he fell: the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together. But now he is redeemed; restoring the original dignity has begun. It is in very deed God's purpose that the fulfillment of His eternal purpose, and the coming of His kingdom, should depend on those of His people who, abiding

5 God is seeking priests among the sons of men. A human priesthood is one of the essential parts of His eternal plan. To rule creation by man is His design; to carry on the worship of creation by man is no less part of His design. Priesthood is the appointed link between heaven and earth, the channel of intercourse between the sinner and God. In so far as expiation is concerned, such a priesthood is in the hands of the Son of God alone; in so far as it is to be the medium of communication between Creator and creature, it is also in the hands of redeemed men of the Church of God. God is seeking kings. Not out of the ranks of angels. Fallen man must furnish Him with the rulers of the universe.

Human hands must wield the scepter; human heads must wear the crown, – in Christ, are ready to take up their position in Him their Head, the great Priest-King, and in their prayers are bold enough to say what they will that their God should do. As image-bearer and representative of God on earth, redeemed man has by his prayers to determine this earth’s history. Man was created, and has now again been redeemed, to pray, and by his prayer to have dominion.

'LORD, TEACH US TO PRAY!

Lord! What is man, that Thou art mindful of him? And the son of man, that Thou visits him? for Thou has made him a little lower than the angels and crowned him with glory and honor. Thou madest him to have dominion over the work of Thy hands: Thou hast put all things under his feet. O Lord our Lord, how excellent is Thy name in all the earth!

Lord God! how low has sin made man to sink. And how terribly has it darkened his mind, that he does not even know his Divine destiny, to be Thy servant and representative. Alas! Even Thy people, when their eyes are opened, are so little ready to accept their calling and seek power with God, that they may have power with men too to bless them.

Lord Jesus! it is in Thee the Father hath again crowned man with glory and honour, and opened the way for us to be what He would have us. O Lord, have mercy on Thy people, and visit Thine heritage! Work mightily in Thy Church, and teach Thy believing disciples to go forth in their royal priesthood, and in the power of prayer, to which Thou hast given such wonderful promises, to serve Thy kingdom, to have rule over the nations, and make the name of God glorious in the earth. Amen.

In the New Testament, we find a distinction between faith and knowledge. To one is given, through the Spirit, the word of wisdom; to another the word of knowledge, according to the same Spirit; to another faith, in the same Spirit.’ A child or a simple-minded Christian may have much faith with little knowledge. Childlike simplicity accepts the truth without difficulty and often cares little to give itself or others any reason for its faith but this: God has said. But it is the will of God that we should love and serve Him, not only with all the heart but also with all the mind; we should grow up with an insight into the Divine wisdom and beauty of all His ways and words and works. It is only thus that the believer will be able fully to approach and rightly to adore the glory of God's grace, and only thus that our heart can intelligently apprehend the treasures of wisdom and knowledge there are in redemption and be prepared to enter fully into the highest note of the song that rises before the throne: O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God!'

redemption, and be prepared to enter fully into the highest note of the song that rises before the throne: O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God!' In our prayer life this truth has its full application. While prayer and faith are so simple that the newborn convert can pray with power, true Christian science finds in the doctrine of prayer some of its deepest problems. In how far is the power of prayer a reality? If so, how can God grant prayer such mighty power? How can the action of prayer be harmonized with the will and the decrees of God? How can God's sovereignty and our will, God's liberty and ours, be reconciled?--these and other like questions are fit subjects for Christian meditation and inquiry. The more earnestly and reverently we approach such mysteries, the more shall we in adoring wonder fall down to praise Him who hath in prayer given such power to man.

One of the secret difficulties about prayer,--one which, though not expressed, does often really hinder prayer- is derived from the perfection of God, in His absolute independence of all that is outside of Himself. Is He not the Infinite Being, who owes what He is to Himself alone, who determines Himself, and whose wise and holy will has determined all that is to be? How can prayer influence Him, or He be moved by prayer to do what otherwise would not be done? Is not the promise of an answer to prayer simply a condescension to our weakness? Is what is said of the power--the much-availing power--of prayer anything more than an accommodation to our mode of thought because the Deity can never depend on any action from without for its doings? And is not the blessing of prayer simply the influence it exercises upon ourselves?

In seeking an answer to such questions, we find the key in the very being of God, in the mystery of the Holy Trinity. If God was only one Person, shut up within Himself, there could be no thought of nearness to Him or influence on Him. But in God there are three Persons. In God we have Father and Son, who have their living bond of unity and fellowship in the Holy Spirit. When eternal Love begat the Son, and the Father gave the Son as the Second Person a place next to Himself as His Equal and His Counsellor, there was a way opened for prayer and its influence in the very inmost life of Deity itself. Just as on earth, so in heaven the whole relation between Father and Son is that of giving and taking. And if that taking is to be as voluntary and self-determined as the giving, there must be an asking and receiving on the part of the Son. In the holy fellowship of the Divine Persons, this asking of the Son was one of the great operations of the Thrice Blessed Life of God.

Hence we have it in Psalm ii.: This day I have begotten Thee: ask of me and i will give Thee! The Father gave the Son the place and the power to act upon Him. The asking of the Son was no mere show or shadow but one of those life movements in which the love of the Father and the Son met and completed each other. The Father had determined that He should not be alone in His counsels: there was a Son on whose asking and accepting their fulfillment should depend. And so there was in the very Being and Life of God an asking of which prayer on earth was to be the reflection and the outflow. It was not without including this that Jesus said, "I knew that Thou always hearest me. Just as the Sonship of Jesus on earth may not be separated from His Sonship in heaven, even so with His prayer on earth, it is the continuation and the counterpart of His asking in heaven. The prayer of the man Christ Jesus is the link between the eternal asking of the only-begotten Son in the bosom of the Father and the prayer of men upon earth. Prayer has its rise and its deepest source in the very Being of God. In the bosom of Deity, nothing is ever done without the Son’s asking and the Father’s giving.*

This may help us somewhat to understand how the prayer of man, coming through the Son, can have an effect upon God. The decrees of God are not decisions made by Him without reference to the Son, or His petition, or the petition to be sent up through Him. By no means. The Lord Jesus is the first-begotten, the Head and Heir of all things: all things were created through Him and unto Him, and all things consist in Him. In the counsels of the Father, the Son, as Representative of all creation, had always a voice; in the decrees of the eternal purpose there was always room left for the liberty of the Son as Mediator and Intercessor, and so for the petitions of all who draw nigh to the Father in the Son.

And if the thought comes that this liberty and power of the Son to act upon the Father is at variance with the immutability of the Divine decrees, let us not forget that there is not with God as with man, a past by which He is irrevocably bound. God does not live in time with its past and future; the distinctions of time do not reference Him who inhabits Eternity. And Eternity is an ever-present Now, in which the past is never past, and the future is always present. Scripture must speak of past decrees and a coming future to meet our human weakness. In reality, the immutability of God's counsel is ever still in perfect harmony with His liberty to do whatever He will.

Not so were the prayers of the Son and His people taken up into the eternal decrees that their effect should only be an apparent one; but so, that the Father-heart holds itself open and free to listen to every prayer that rises through the Son, and that God does indeed allow Himself to be decided by prayer to do what He otherwise would not have done.

This perfect harmony a Tre sovereignty, and human liberty is to us an unfathomable mystery because God as THE ETERNAL ONE transcends all our thoughts. But let it be our comfort and strength to be assured that in the eternal fellowship of the Father and the Son, the power of prayer has its origin and certainty, and that through our union with the Son, our prayer is taken up and can have its influence in the inner life of the Blessed Trinity. God's decrees are no iron framework against which man's liberty would vainly seek to struggle. No. God Himself is the Living Love, who in His Son as man has entered into the tenderest relation with all that is human, who through the Holy Spirit takes up all that is human into the Divine life of love, and keeps Himself free to give every human prayer its place in His government of the world.

It is in the daybreak light of such thoughts that the doctrine of the Blessed Trinity is no longer an abstract speculation but the living manifestation of how it were possible for man to be taken up into the fellowship of God, and his prayer to become a real factor in God's rule of this earth. And we can, as in the distance, catch glimpses of the light that from the eternal world shines out on words such as these: THROUGH HIM we have access by one spirit onto the father.

Everlasting God! The Three-One and Thrice Holy! With veiled face, I would worship before the holy mystery of Thy Divine Being in profound reverence. And if it please Thee, O most glorious God, to unveil aught of that mystery, I would bow with fear and trembling, lest I sin against Thee, as I meditate on Thy glory.

Father! I thank Thee that Thou bearest this name not only as the Father of Thy children here on earth, but as having from eternity subsisted as the Father with Thine only-begotten Son.

I thank Thee that as Father Thou canst hear our prayer, because Thou hast from eternity given a place in Thy counsels to the asking of Thy Son. I thank Thee that we have seen in Him on earth, what the blessed intercourse was He had with Thee in heaven; and how from eternity in all Thy counsels and decrees there had been room left for His prayer and their answers. And I thank Thee above all that through His true human nature on Thy throne above. Through Thy Holy Spirit in our human nature here below, a way has been opened up by which every human cry of need can be taken up into and touch the Life and the Love of God, and receive in answer whatsoever it shall ask.

Blessed Jesus! in whom as the Son the path of prayer has been opened up, and who givest us assurance of the answer, we beseech Thee, teach Thy people to pray. O let this each day be the sign of our sonship, that, like Thee, we know that the Father heareth us always. Amen.

"God hears prayer." This simplest view of prayer is taken throughout Scripture. It dwells not on the reflex influence of prayer on our heart and life, although it abundantly shows the connection between prayer as an act, and prayer as a state. It rather fixes with great definiteness the objective or real purposes of prayer, to obtain blessings, gifts, and deliverances from God. Ask and it shall be given," Jesus says.

"Seek my face;" this is the magnet that draws us, this alone can open heart and lips...

In Jesus Christ the Son of God we have the full solution of the difficulty. He prayed on earth, and that not merely as man, but as the Son of God incarnate. His prayer on earth is only the manifestation of His prayer from all eternity, when in the Divine counsel He was set up as the Christ.... appointed to be heir of all things. From all eternity the Son of God was the Way, the Mediator. He was, to use our imperfect language, from eternity speaking unto the Father on behalf of the world! -SAPHIR, The Hidden Life, chap. vi.