Is 53.2: For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him.
There is a wonderful truth in this, not only for the historical unveiling of Jesus Christ to the world, but also for the operations of God in the lives of His saints. For He is the “pattern son”; and, as we are expressly told in the letter to the Hebrews, both He that sanctifies, and we who are sanctified, are all of one: one in suffering, one in His work in our lives, one in glory. We are told by Paul that we are called, by the gospel, “to the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ [2 Th 2.14].” Does this thrill you?
The question before us is whether we will allow the work of the Son — which is to say the operations of the Father toward the Son, bringing Him into full perfection — to take place in our lives, even as Jesus allowed that work in His life. Many people in the church are confused on this point, and have become passive, no longer pressing toward the mark for the prize; but we want to be clear on it from the outset. We are called to obtain, and yet there are conditions which you and I must meet, if we are going to obtain all that God has purchased for us at Calvary. “If we suffer, we shall also reign with him [2 Tim 2.12].” Note the very clear requirement. The fact is that we must be prepared by God’s own operations to bear that eternal weight of glory. This preparation takes place here, and now, while we occupy these mortal bodies, and experience time. We need to live this short time in the eye of God’s Eternity. Let your moments be your preparation; let them tell for Eternity, with God having His full work of deep cleansing and regeneration! It is in light of this that I want to consider our subject text.
Let us look first at the historical unveiling of Christ to the world and to His people. “He grew up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground.” These words paint a vivid picture of the condition of Israel into which Jesus was born. It was a condition of total hopelessness, with all past glory gone, and no prospect of revival short of the miraculous intervention of God Himself — and God had not spoken to His people in 400 years. According to Alexander Maclaren, the “tender plant” meant a sucker, and the root was more properly a shoot from the original root of a great tree which had been felled. If this was so, what a desolate condition it was, one contrived to break the heart of all who would see the glory of God. The tree was the house of David, humiliated and stripped of all its former grandeur. It was the same house that God promised to build for David, upon whose throne His seed would be established forever. That house was originally one of great splendor, and had swiftly grown into a mighty tree, a great kingdom which overshadowed all of the known civilized world in the times of David and Solomon. And what glory there was in the righteous reign of God through David and his rightful heir! I cannot now take the time to describe the glory, but would refer you to 2 Chr 9.27 (but read the whole chapter): “And the king made silver in Jerusalem as stones, and cedar trees made he as the sycomore trees that are in the low plains in abundance.” Note also verse 6, quoting the queen of Sheba: “…behold, the one half of the greatness of thy wisdom was not told me: for thou exceedest the fame that I heard.”
But consider! At the time of the incarnation, there was no glory left. It was not just that there was no glory, but that all of the formergreatness had been laid waste. This state of total humiliation was infinitely worse than one of expected dryness. Beloved, it’s not just the difficulties: it’s the disappointments and the shame, the broken hopes and dreams, that cause the worst sufferings. The splendor had departed; Ichabod was written on the door of the temple; Israel, God’s Chosen, and the Guiding Light of the world, had become a slave to the ruling kingdom of that age. It was into such a hopeless situation that the Son of God was made flesh.
“For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant.” Note that it was not before the eyes of man that He grew and prospered. Natural man could not discern the divine potential in this tender shoot. There is no beauty in Him from our natural, carnal point of view. Only Calvary can truly show the nature and fullness of the glory of God, and the preaching of the Cross is foolishness and a stumbling block to the carnal mind. We cannot see Him in His glory until an operation of God has taken place within us, and we are born again. Just so, no man noticed or suspected the true nature of the young man who was the Son of God; no man expected anything out of Him. Do you remember what Nathanael said: “Can there any good thing come out of Nazareth [Jn 1.46]?” He was rejected of man, but accepted of God, and grew up before Him. His life was one of tremendous activity, but an activity that was hidden from the eyes of man, for it was initiated by the Father within Him.
Very little is recorded in the scriptures of the childhood of Jesus, save that He “grew, and waxed strong in spirit, filled with wisdom: and the grace of God was upon him [Lk 2.40].” This is God’s testimony of Him, not man’s. One incident occurred when He was twelve, in which He was found in the temple, astonishing the scribes with His understanding. We remember that when His parents found and rebuked Him (though there was no sin in Him; He was only going about His Father’s business), He returned to Nazareth and was subject to them. And that is the last we hear of Him for eighteen years.
What happened in this time, hidden from the eyes of man? The deepest works of preparation are always secret works. Men could not witness the intimate communion between Him and the Father, nor would such communion have any meaning for the natural mind. There were men around Him, but they could not guess, and would not have liked, the true nature of His life, hidden, as it was, in the bosom of the Father. There was no beauty that we should desire Him; no form nor comeliness that would attract us.
Such was the state into which Jesus as born, and in which He was prepared for His ministry. It was one of hopelessness and lost glory,and only the Father knew that it was the perfect environment in which to nurture His only Son.
And now consider the condition of the believer: your condition, perhaps, or mine. Have you had any deferred hopes, or broken dreams? In your walk with God, have you received all that you expected? Have you experienced conflict with the world, and suffered loss? Many have, and some have almost lost hope altogether. Some are even embittered, feeling that God has ignored or forgotten them. The psalmist cried: “Is his mercy clean gone for ever? doth his promise fail for evermore [Ps 77.8]?” But it is never the fault of God if we find ourselves in dry situations, and we must not lose hope. Open yourself up to the reality of the Word of God: it was into such a situation that God spoke His Son, His final Word concerning you. Are you willing to let God’s view of the situation prevail over yours? There is no scene so hopeless that God is not able to yet bring forth glory unto His Name.
Do you want to see Jesus come forth more in your life than you have yet known? There is a work that must be done in you, and that work is hidden from the eyes of other men. Don’t be afraid of the quiet periods in your life when nothing seems to be doing: those are times that God has given you to experience the deep operations that concern His Son. Every believer must go through this hidden working if he is to come forth in the likeness of Jesus. You must experience the victories of the Word of God within yourself, and no man may witness these sacred transactions; and no man will, for they are too deep, and too tender, for any to see. Do not worry about the length of this period: it must not be rushed, and cannot be. Too many are too hasty. They never receive the full benefit of the private dealings of God; they want something more tangible, more public, more “real.” But what a gift these times can be if we give ourselves over to these working that take place in the very presence of God, hidden from the prying eyes of men. Do you become impatient? Remember that eighteen years was not too great a time in the life of Jesus.
Finally, consider this: What happened at the end of this hidden time? Were those years of outwardly silent communion merely to prepare Jesus for a successful ministry? Or were they the first part of a continuing operation of God that would take Him all the way to Calvary? The deep work of God to prepare Jesus for the Cross was not over, but the surroundings did change. Men mistook Him in His public life as thoroughly as they misunderstood Him during His silent years. His suffering continued, as did His training in obedience, until the Father, knowing that His preparation was complete, graced Jesus to taste death for every man. And as with the pattern Son, so with us: the Father knows what we need to prepare us for Eternity, and He knows when we need it — and we do not. We can trust God to provide just the right atmosphere and circumstances which will most enhance our growth. We must never believe that we know a man until we have seen the end of the matter, and that man’s true character and nature are revealed by God. And we must never allow the opinions of men to define and limit us, but submit to the Father’s dealings with us in Christ Jesus.
Are you willing to allow the activity of the Son to take place within you? Your true life is hidden with Christ in God, and you must go there, hidden from man, to find it.
“So is the kingdom of God, as if a man should cast seed into the ground; and should sleep, and rise night and day, and the seed should spring and grow up, he knoweth not how.” – Mar 4.26-27
How silently, how silently,
The wondrous gift is giv’n!
So God imparts to human hearts
The blessings of His Heav’n.
No ear may hear His coming;
But in this world of sin,
Where meek souls will receive Him still,
The dear Christ enters in.From O Little Town of Bethlehem
Bethlehem Christian Work 