Episode Transcript
I was going to stand down here and say it, but I thought perhaps it would be a little difficult for some to hear. But if you will turn with me to Galatians six. There is just a little phrase there that I do feel I can share with you today.
Galatians six, verse 17. Henceforth, let no man trouble me, for I bear branded on my body the marks of Jesus. Henceforth, let no man trouble me, for I bear branded on my body the marks of Jesus. I want to ask you a very simple question and one which every single one of us must answer in our own heart.
Are we branded Christians? That's all. Are you a branded Christian? Paul makes it quite clear in this letter, oh if you read it right through, that the majority are not branded. There are, of course, those that he calls the circumcision.
They have a kind of badge, he says. It is a mark that is outward in the flesh. And they glory in it because they can call themselves the circumcision. And they believe that to them have been given all the promises contained in the law and the prophets.
They are the circumcision. They've got a badge. Many people are proud of a badge that they can wear on a lapel or anything else or a peculiar dress or a style or a collar or a title or anything, a name, that somehow or other just signifies that they are a certain class or type of people.
They belong to a certain society, they belong to a certain movement, they belong to a certain teaching. And in this world people always and will always to the very end love to have badges or signs or titles or certain kinds of uniform or dress so that they are marked out as belonging to certain orders or certain teachings.
Here Paul speaks of the circumcision amongst the growing number of the Lord's people when this letter was written. And this letter, by the way, was the first of all the documents of the New Testament.
Galatians was the very first ever written, first that Paul ever wrote and the first of all the others. We find that then, just at that point Gentiles were being saved on every side. They were coming in in their thousands into the kingdom of God.
And Paul saw this very strong Christian group called the circumcision. They felt that everyone should have this badge. Everyone should have this mark. They felt that anyone who didn't have it was outside the covenant of God, that to become a Christian you must first become a member of the Circumcision, then you could become a Christian. God would never save anyone who was outside that covenant that he made with Abraham. They must be in that before you could be saved, you see.
So there was one group and then there was another, much, much bigger group. And Paul, of course, hasn't written this letter to the circumcision. He's written this letter to the other group, a vast majority of Gentile Christians. They hadn't been circumcised, but they at the beginning really wanted to go on with the Lord right through to the end.
And they were filled with zeal. When they started off, when they were first saved, they just couldn't wait for the starting pistol. He said, you ran so well, you absolutely got off to such a flying start.
Now suddenly the cost has started to hit them. This has happened, that has happened. Their families have turned against them. They've found that they are being discriminated against. If you read through the letter, you'll find it all. They're despised.
They're not wanted. They even find the Jewish Christians look down their noses at them. There's something not quite very nice about a Gentile ancestry and they are seriously thinking of settling down to what they have.
They're not going to go on anymore. And they are listening now to this group of teachers from this circumcision party. And Paul says, simply, I have got, and he uses an emphatic I, I bear in my body branded the marks of Jesus.
You know, one of the things that trouble us more than anything else and is always coming out in fellowship of what other people say and how other people behave. This unsettles Christian more than anything else, what so and so says, how so and so behaves, their attitude to me.
Sometimes we've found those that agreed, or we've found those that are offended, or we've taken umbrage, or we're very angry, or we're going to have it out. There's always something and it's always the root of it is the way others behave, what others are saying, how others are reacting.
Paul has found a secret. He says there is a secret which once you've got, no one can trouble. Let them rant. Let them rave. Let them back bite. Let them gossip. Let them talk. Let them behave in the way they wish to behave.
Let them do the things they want to do. They can't trouble me. Why, Paul? Why can't they trouble you, Paul? These people are saying the most terrible things about you, Paul. They're saying you're not an apostle.
They're saying that you haven't really got a ministry. They're saying, anyway, that you're entirely erroneous, what you do say. They're saying that you just want to be something amongst the people of God, and yet you, Paul, can say simply here, it doesn't trouble you at all.
They can't trouble you. What is your secret? He said, My secret is that I have got in my body branded into me the marks of Jesus. Now, what are of these brand marks of Jesus? First, what is the figure?
The figure is a very simple one. It is to do with three things. Branding was used in the time of Paul in three ways. First of all, it was used of the slave. Often, when a slave became his master's complete property for good, a red hot iron was taken and his flesh was branded with his master's name. You could never erase it, you could never get rid of it.
For the rest of his days, there on his flesh, generally somewhere where it could be seen, was his master's name. Or again, often, prisoners taken in war were branded so that they could not escape with the general's name.
When he led them back in his train of triumph through his street back to Rome, all his captors chained behind his chariot, many of them, if he thought they would try to escape, had got upon them his name, branded into their flesh in a place that they could not hide or cover, so that anyone could see immediately, that man is a military prisoner.
Or again, branding was often done, this time voluntarily, by those who were priests and priestesses of a god. In different places where gods were worshipped, different Greek cities, you found these priests and priestesses, these servants of this particular god, and they had branded again on their forehead or somewhere else, quite visible, the name of their god.
They were devotees to that god. So devoted, so given up that branded into their very flesh by red hot iron was the name of their god. That's the figure. Then what did Paul mean when he said I bear branded in my body the marks of Jesus?
What did he mean? He meant that over against all this wanting of a badge that was outward, that was in the flesh, he had something that was inward and was spiritual. It was something that had been utter pain but the result was that branded into his spiritual flesh was the name of Jesus. Just the name of Jesus. He could never erase it. He could never get rid of it. He could never lose it. It had been burned into his very being.
Just simply the name Jesus. Brand marks of Jesus. Paul just simply said I am like one of those devotees. I can't have a home, I can't have a family, I can't have any of that life. I am just absolutely given up to my God.
The priest and the priestess that had that branded was never allowed outside temple ground. They had to live from the beginning to the end of their days in the temple precinct. Paul was simply saying I have been so utterly given up to the Lord Jesus.
I've got this brand mark in me that means that I can never, never get out of the precinct of the house of God. I'm here for keeps. This is my place. This is where I could be [unintelligible] spiritually in Christ all my days.
Never can I get out. I'm ruined for anything else. What can I do with such a brand mark? I'm ruined for anything else. No one else will take me. No one else will want me. I'm ruined. In the same way he spoke of himself as a slave who had not got the right ever to redeem himself again.
It was not merely that his ears had been pierced as was the Hebrew custom. It was that he had the Gentile custom of his owner's name branded right across him. Couldn't go away. No one else would want him.
He was his master's property. He belonged to his master for good. Oh, Paul thought of himself as the prisoner of the Lord Jesus. There he was in the triumphful train of the Lord Jesus, in the train of his triumph. He was chained to a prisoner in front of him. He was chained to a prisoner beside him.
He was chained to another prisoner behind him. There was real fellowship. There were other prisoners, mind you, these prisoners were also branded and he was chained to his captor. That's what the brand marks of Jesus mean.
He was chained to his brothers and to his sisters, and he was chained to the Lord. What did Paul then mean deeper than that? Well, I want you just to reflect for a moment. Is it not true that when you and I meet Christians, we can without being critical and without being unkind and without being malicious, we can detect something?
Have you ever, ever met that certain something that you cannot put your finger on, but which is just some inexplicable something which you know in a Christian. There are thousands of Christians in the world.
We can talk with them, they can talk with us, they can talk theology, and sometimes we can talk theology. They can talk about the work of God, and we can talk about the work of God. They talk what we call Canaanite phraseology, and sometimes we can talk Canaanite phraseology.
But this mysterious something is all together lacking, not there. And yet you can touch another person and without hardly there being a word, there is something about that person, something about that person which, you know deep down in your heart means that person means that person is riveted to God.
I'm not saying they're perfect. I'm saying they're riveted to God. It is the kind of perfume, the kind of fragrance that comes from something crushed. That's all, something broken. There is in their presence a sense of something that has lost its own drive.
It has, somehow or other, been broken at its heart so that a fragrance is escaping which is unmistakable. Unmistakable. This is what Paul meant when he spoke about being branded with the marks of Jesus.
What are the marks of Jesus? Have you ever thought of the marks of Jesus? Do you not know that the Lord Jesus was just like us? Don't you think he wanted to enjoy life? Don't you think he would have loved to have got around?
Don't you think he would have loved his pleasure? Don't you think he would have loved to have had a family? Don't you think he would have loved to have had a home? Don't you think he would have loved to have settled down?
Do you think he wanted to die at 33 years of age? Do you think that the Lord Jesus was an automatic divine machine that just was suddenly planted in this life, wound up and went through 33 years and then died?
Or do you believe the Lord Jesus was as human as we are, yet not fallen? And if he was human, do you not think he had all the desires that are common to the human being? Do you think that he wanted his life just to be absolutely chained in, limited, restricted to a course that was just from beginning to end a way of brokenness?
Do you think that? Don't you think there were times when the Lord Jesus would have loved to have got away from them all, loved to have had a good holiday, loved to have turned his back on it and thought, my if only I could get away from them?
Did you ever think that? I do. I don't believe that's sin. I believe that's just human. There must have been times when the Lord Jesus would just love to have rested, just love to have dropped all, gone out and gone right away, when his own people he'd had within three years, were squabbling and fighting and all that back biting going on amongst them.
He must have at times, would have loved to have turned his back on it all and just gone out. But no, you see, there was about his life, from beginning to end, something that at the heart of it was broken. It was the meal offering, ground exceedingly fine.
Something broken, something not broken once, but broken again and again. It was not just grains of wheat that had already had a resurrection in order to live. It was not that they had just died once more, but they had been taken and ground very fine and then, you know, they had been burnt in fire.
So you see, the Lord Jesus' life wasn't just one breaking, it was a breaking and a breaking and a breaking and a breaking. That's the brand marks of Jesus. Riveted to the purpose of God. Riveted to the will of God. Riveted to the person of God.
That was the Lord Jesus. He could not get away. When there came a point in the garden when for one solitary moment he drew back and said, oh, my God, if this could pass from me. Yet quickly he reacted nevertheless,
not as I will but as thou will, enough to show us that he was human, just enough to show us that he didn't go that way easily, even though he were without sin. When he humbled himself and took upon him the form of a servant, that wasn't facile.
It wasn't just cheap, it wasn't smooth. It meant a lot. Meant a lot. And the Lord Jesus was tested out to the last degree. These are the brand marks of Jesus. These are the brand marks of Jesus and they're voluntary.
They're voluntary. You needn't have them. You can belong to the circumcision party. You can belong to the vast group that just settled down halfway. They're very happy in some ways, miserable in other ways, but they found an excuse for their misery in all other kinds of circumstances and people and things.
Not them. They're not the root of their own misery, everyone else and everything else. And they've settled down to a halfway house. Paul says, no, you let no man trouble me. Can't you see? I've got something branded inside.
That name of Jesus isn't just a name to me. It's a name with which God has taken the red hot iron of circumstances and burnt it into me. He's taken the red hot iron of people, yes, people, brothers and sisters, and burnt that name into me.
You ask me how can I have this brand mark in me? How? Just you give yourself to the Lord Jesus. Just you give yourself to the Lord Jesus. And remember, just accept all that the Lord brings your way. That's all. Just to accept it.
If you've said to the Lord Jesus, Lord Jesus, I'm your slave, I'm your prisoner, I'm going to go right the way through. You said it in a moment. I think perhaps you didn't think very deeply. You didn't count the cost.
Then there comes a point when something happens. Oh, other Christians are getting on very well, but you, you have to go this way. What is happening? God is taking the branding iron and he's branding the first letter of the name of Jesus into.
And then a bit later something else happens. You can't understand it. Why? It seems such a contradiction? Why do I have to go this way? The Lord is taking the branding iron and he's marking the next letter. So gradually the brand marks of Jesus are becoming apparent in your life.
And this is so true. You can never kill yourself. You can never break yourself. God will break you. He won't do it himself. He will do it indirectly through Satan but he will break you. You will be broken and all the fragrance locked up inside that's Christ not you will get out, will just get out.
You will be very, almost oblivious of it. But others will note there is something that you can only call something like a meal offering about that life. It's all fine, it's all ground, it's all broken. You are not conscious of it
but other are. There's something beautiful about that life. There is something fragrant about that life. There is a meekness about that life. There is an accent. That's what it means to be branded with the marks of Jesus those brand marks.
That's how it comes. God takes people, God takes circumstances, God takes our lives and by these things he brings us into an experience of the cross of the Lord Jesus. I would just point out that if we are branded with these marks, it means we're sold utterly, sold utterly.
That's all. We can't question what God does with us. We're sold. Those prisoners in the triumphal train of the Lord of a general couldn't go this way, they couldn't go that way. Neither could they complain. They might lose their heads if they complain.
They just had to go the way. And they couldn't complain about the prisoner next to them. Nor could they complain about the prisoner in front of them. Nor could they complain about the prisoner behind them. They were there by appointment of the general. Who the Lord has put behind you and before you and around you above you, it's all
by appointment. Can't complain. If you're a slave in the house, you're sold. You're sold utterly. Everything, your wife, your children, your everything belongs to your master. Everything. It's just his. It's no good complaining.
That's what it means to be branded. Sold, just sold. Utterly sold. We can't choose, we can't direct, we can't govern ourselves. We're just sold to the Lord. And it means simply that we can't groan about things that come to us.
We've just got to take them, take them, accept them. We have to accept what comes out. We have to accept if we've got the brand marks of Jesus, we just have to accept. This is the way the Lord's marked out.
Just as the Father marked out for the Lord Jesus the way, so he's marked out a way for us. We've got to go up to Jerusalem. Whether Peter stand in our way or whether anyone else stands in our way, we've got to go up to Jerusalem.
We can do nothing else about it. We've got to go up. So it is with us. Let's remember that if we've got those brand marks, we're not free to do our own. We are wonderfully free, but we're not free to govern ourselves,
free to choose, free to decide. We're his utterly and completely. Sold to him. Given up to him. Lord, just help us to understand that. We want to thank Thee, beloved Lord, for what Thou art. O what a life Thou didst live, Lord, and what a cost.
We very rarely ever think, Lord, of the cost of Thy life, but we thank Thee for it this morning. Pray that we too may be truly given grace to walk in Thy footsteps, for we ask it in Thy name. Amen.
