It will help us to a right understanding of this passage, if we see how it is illustrated in the life of our Lord, our perfect Example.
A striking instance of this is given in Matthew 12:46-50. Our Lord was discoursing to the people. As He was thus engaged His mother and brethren stood outside, desiring to speak with Him. When told of this our Lord answered, “Who is My mother? and who are My brethren?” Then stretching His hand in the direction of His disciples, He said. “Behold My mother and My brethren! For whosoever shall do the will of My Father which is in heaven, the same is My brother and sister and mother.”
Thus He spoke in relation to the sphere of God’s work and service, calculated to produce in the minds of His disciples the idea of a relationship nearer and closer and altogether different than any earthly tie. The earthly tie was on a different plane from the spiritual. The one is not to set aside the other. The natural must not intrude upon the sphere of the spiritual; the spiritual should not set aside the natural.
But though our Lord spoke thus, did He fail in filial love and care for His mother? Surely not! As a blessed Man in this world He was ever perfect in all the relationships of life.
For instance there is a supreme example of His love and care proper to human relationship. When He hung upon the cross, when life was fast drawing to a close, when His body was racked by excruciating physical torture, when the great event for which He assumed manhood, even to lay down His life under the overwhelming judgment of God as He took the sinner’s place on the cross, had arrived, He even then thought of His mother, with tender solicitude and deep affection. He saw John, “the disciple whom Jesus loved,” and His mother standing at the foot of the cross. He said to His mother, “Behold thy Son,” and to John, “Behold thy mother” (John 19:25-27). “And from that hour that disciple took her to his own home.” How beautifully the Lord cared for His mother, and counted on His loved disciple to take His place in caring for her.
Further it is informative to see how Scripture refers to our Lord’s mother, when it is a question of a SPIRITUAL, and not a human setting. Incidentally it is a deeply interesting study as rebuking Mariolatry, that is the worship of the Virgin Mary, or setting her up as an intercessor with our Lord.*
{*In a similar way the calling a celibate priest father is rebuked in Matthew 23:9 when we read, “Call no man your father upon earth: for One is your Father, which is in heaven.” Of course this does not set aside a child calling an earthly parent father, but it is prohibiting the calling any man on earth father in a spiritual sense.}
Among the women who followed Jesus from Galilee and ministered to Him, and were standing round the cross, were “Mary Magdalene and Mary, the mother of James and Joses, and the mother of Zebedee’s children” (Matt. 27:6). Note carefully that the mother of our Lord is not mentioned first in order in this list, but second. Nor is she described as our Lord’s mother, but as the mother of James and Joses. This order is also carried out in Mark 15:40. An uninspired writer would have most certainly put the name of the Virgin Mary first, but Scripture does not, and for a good reason.
Is it not significant that James, the author of the Epistle that bears his name, does not claim that he is the brother of our Lord? He surely had learnt the lesson that “though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth we know Him no more” (2 Cor. 5:16).
This is further borne out in the little Epistle of Jude (called Juda in Mark 6:3). He identifies himself as the brother of James. Why does he not call himself the brother of our Lord, for he was as much his brother as James? But he carefully abstains from doing so. Guided by the Spirit of God, this again illustrates 2 Corinthians 5:16.
It is true that in Galatians 1:17-19, the Apostle Paul, visiting Jerusalem, staying with the Apostle Peter for fifteen days—by the way what a deeply interesting fifteen days it must have been—wrote, “But other of the Apostles saw I none, but James, the Lord’s brother.” One can understand why this is. The burden of the Galatian Epistle was a vehement denunciation of the attack on the gospel of the grace of God by the introduction of Judaising principles. The Apostle Paul was careful to define his position as the Apostle of the Gentiles, and that he owed his position as such directly to God’s appointment, and that it was in no way connected with Jerusalem, nor with the other apostles sent to Israel. The matter was very serious, the very foundations of the faith were at stake. Hence his carefulness to designate which Apostle he had met, and to point out he had met none other.
In the Acts of the Apostles, we read of the Apostles being found in an upper room, awaiting the promised gift of the Holy Spirit. “These all continued with one accord in prayer and supplication, with the women and Mary, the mother of Jesus, and with His brethren” (Acts 1:14), Note how the women are mentioned first, and then Mary, the mother of Jesus and finally His brethren. Mariolatry would have put the name of Mary first. Those who practise Mariolatry, deny that our Lord had brothers and sisters according to the flesh. There would be no chance of foisting this untruth upon the minds of its adherents were it not that the are kept in ignorance by the fact that the Word of God is withheld from them. They simply believe tradition and superstition and what they are told by their religious leaders.
It is very significant that the Virgin birth is not referred to in the Epistles, save in Galatians 4:4, where we are told the Lord was “made of a woman.” This expression would have been meaningless, if it had only referred to the way that all children come into the world. “Made of a woman” surely limits the human parentage of our Lord to the maternal side. It is the affirmation of the virgin birth. The way it is put is the affirmation of what was well known and believed, and not the statement of a fact, made for the first time. Again we say the silence of Scripture is full of meaning. Superstition puts the Virgin Mazy on a level almost with our Lord, the Epistles say nothing about the Virgin save this one statement “made of a woman.”
When our Lord rose from the dead, and made Himself known to the sorrowing Mary Magdalene, He said, “Touch Me not; for I am not yet ascended to My Father” (John 20:11). In the joy of her heart she was about to resume links with her Lord, the Son of Mary, the Hope of Messianic glory. But this was not to be. Henceforth she was not to know Him after the flesh, but to know Him in heavenly circumstances, in the spiritual sphere.
True our Lord carried Manhood to the throne of God. He became Man when the Word became flesh. The body in which He lived His earthly life was laid down in His sacrificial death, that body was raised from the dead. In that risen body He ascended to glory, and in that both He will come again, and for all eternity He will be God and Man, one blessed adorable Person. We know Him as the glorified Son of God in heavenly glory.
Let us quote again 2 Corinthians 5:16, “Henceforth know we no man after the flesh: yea, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we Him no more.” Then the Scripture goes on to speak of a new creation into which the believer is introduced, old things have passed away; behold all things are become new, and all things are of God.”
In the new creation there is neither Jew nor Greek [no national or religious distinction], there is neither bond nor free [no social distinction], there is neither male nor female [no natural distinction].
No national distinction. The writer years ago partook of the Lord’s Supper in the United States. There were present Americans, English, Scots, Irish, Germans, Russians, Swedes, French and a Jew. National distinctions were lost sight of, and we enjoyed Christian fellowship together. We were all one in Christ Jesus.
No social distinction. The writer knew a Christian gentleman of wealth, a landed proprietor, who was driven to the morning meeting by his Christian coachman. They both sat down at the Lord’s supper, one in Christ Jesus, just as Philemon, the master, and Onesimus, the slave, did at Colosse long years before.
No natural distinction. Brothers and sisters alike are “priests to God and His Father” (Rev. 1:6); brothers and sisters alike are the sons of God by faith in Christ Jesus” (Gal. 3:26).
True it is that brothers are exhorted to take part in assembly prayer and praise, whilst sisters are bidden to “keep silence in the churches” (1 Cor. 15:34), and a woman is not to as “usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence” (1 Tim. 2:12). That holds good in time where sin has come in, but in glory every earthly distinction whether natural, social, or national, will have vanished. In eternity God shall dwell with men, and “they shall be His people” [not peoples] (Rev. 21:3)
Let us close with a practical illustration that may help. A father and son are in the same assembly. Outside the assembly they are father and son, and right and godly parental and filial relationships should be observed. In the assembly they do not know each other after the flesh, but are one in Christ Jesus. Father and son outside the meeting; brothers in the Lord inside the meeting.
The reader can apply this line of thought in many ways, once the thought of Scripture is grasped.