In this issue:
i)    Man of sorrows - J.Carattini
ii)   The accepted man (2 Cor 3) (Part 5) - J.N. Darby
Man of sorrows
Jill Carattini
 
"Please—Mr. Lion—Aslan—Sir?" said Digory working up the courage to ask. "Could you—may I—please, will you give me some magic fruit of this country to make my mother well?"

A child in one of the Narnia books, Digory, at this point in the story, had brought about much disaster for Aslan and his freshly created Narnia. But he had to ask. In fact, he thought for a second he might attempt to make a deal with Aslan. But quickly Digory realized the Lion was not the sort of person one could try to make bargains with.
 
C.S. Lewis then recounts, "Up till then the child had been looking at the lion’s great front feet and the huge claws on them. Now in his despair he looked up at his face. And what he saw surprised him as much as anything in his whole life. For the tawny face was bent down near his own and wonder of wonders great shining tears stood in the lion’s eyes. They were such big, bright tears compared with Digory’s own that for a moment he felt as if the lion must really be sorrier about his mother than he was himself."
 
Dickens often spoke of his characters as beloved and "real existences." I have often wondered if the "safe but never tame" Lion ministered to C.S. Lewis half as much as this Christ figure has ministered to others. Lewis was a boy about the age of Digory when his mother lay dying of cancer and he was helpless to save her.
 
"My son, my son," said Aslan. "I know. Grief is great. Only you and I in this land know that yet. Let us be good to one another…"
 
The tremendous figure that fills the Gospels towers above all attempts we have made to describe him. Yet had we been in charge of writing the story of God becoming man, I doubt it would have been Christ we described: "He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not" (Isaiah 53:3). He was not the stoic, man of nerves we might have imagined. Nor was he the ever-at-peace teacher we often describe. He was, among other things, a man of sorrows.
 
There is, for me, immense comfort in a Christ who wasn't always smiling. As I picture his face set as flint toward Jerusalem, my fear is unfastened by his fortitude. As I imagine the urgency in his voice as he defended a guilty woman amidst a crowd holding rocks, my shame is freed by his mercy. And as I picture him weeping at the grave of Lazarus, and sweating blood in the garden of Gethsemane, my tears are given depth by his own cries. I don't grieve alone.
 
"But you, O God," cries the psalmist, "do see trouble and grief." Becoming man, the character of God was not compromised or misrepresented in any way. God cannot be something other than Himself. As Jesus knew tears, the heart of God is one that knows grief: "Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted" (Isaiah 53:4). "Then [Pilate] released Barabbas to them. But he had Jesus flogged, and handed him over to be crucified" (Matthew 27:26).
 
Perhaps mourning hearts are blessed because they are at this point closest to the deepest wound of the heart of God. "My son, my daughter, I know."
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[Copyright(c) 2004 Ravi Zacharias International Ministries (RZIM). Reprinted with permission. A Slice of Infinity is a ministry of Ravi Zacharias International Ministries.]
The accepted man (2 Corinthians 3)  (Part 5)
John Nelson Darby
 
There is another terrible thing: we find men agreeing to take the commandments of God as their rule and guide, as Christ took them. We take His directions, they say, all that God says about what we ought to be, and what we ought to do; we are not going our own way. Well, granted ; but you must take the law, such as it is, and with its consequences. If man says, I accept the law to be judged by, I take this as my guide, he makes himself the responsible party, that is, he has to answer for himself. And mark how God began with the law. What does the law say about him ? It says he is " cursed " already. This law that he is taking to get to heaven by is the very thing thing that pronounces judgment against him.
 
"Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them," Gal 3 : 10. Suppose I bring a right and true measure to a man who is in the habit of using a wrong measure, what do I do it for ? Not to make him honest, but to prove his dishonesty. It is in vain for him to say, I will change my character ; the thing is already done. The question is, has he a character ? and he is proved to be a dishonest man. Now the law was given " that the offence might abound," Rom. 5 20. The right, perfect, holy law of God was given as a rule but if that rule be given to a sinner who cannot keep it, and if it be applied with all the searching power of the holiness of God, he is a judged person, and brought in under its curse. He hopes perhaps to be better ; he has some vague thoughts about the mercy of God; but it is no use to talk about what he will be: judgment is already pronounced against him.
 
But more than this, as a matter of fact the law tells man not so much what he is to do, as what he is not to do. If we look at the ten commandments we shall find that they do not tell him to do anything, except to honour his father and his mother. That is the only positive precept. All the rest are, "Thou shalt not" do this, and thou shalt not do that. How comes it then that such a form is employed ? This of itself is a sufficient proof of evil tendencies in those addressed. Men care not to make laws for a country to prohibit that which nobody thinks of doing ; and so God's law forbids people to do certain things because they have a tendency to do those very things ; it touches the motives and dispositions of men's hearts as they are known by God.
 
The law is given most surely as a rule ; but it is given to a sinner who already needs amendment. The first thing it does therefore is to prove sin, condemning the inward disposition as well as the outward evil. Paul's experience of it (Rom. 7) is proof enough of this. He could say he was pure so far as concerned outward compliance with its requirements, " touching the righteousness which is in the law, blameless," Phil. 3 : 6. " Alive without the law once ... .. when the commandment came, sin revived," and he died. " I had not known sin," he says, " but by the law, for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet ; but sin, taking occasion by the commandment, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence; for without the law sin was dead." " When the commandment came," he found he was a condemned sinner. The law, being the righteous demand of God from man, and applying itself to those who are already sinners, must necessarily work condemnation and death. It is " the ministration of death " (v7), and of " condemnation " (v. 9).   [To be concluded]
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