The Marks of the Lord Jesus

From The Gospel of Grace, a collection of sermons originally published in the early 20^th century. Edited slightly for modern spellings and flow.

“From henceforth let no man trouble me: for I bear branded on my body the marks of Jesus” (Gal. 6:17).

Paul had endured his share of trouble. In the world, according to his Master’s word, he had tribulation. Ever since he had entered the service of Christ, he had been familiar with pain and grief and shame. He gives in his second letter to the Corinthians an appalling list of the troubles that came upon him as the result of his devotion to Christ.

But I do not think that any of these hardships that came upon him in the prosecution of his work as a Christian apostle really “troubled” Paul. When the enemies of Christ heaped obloquy and scorn and shame upon him, when they beat and scourged and stoned him, Paul never murmured, he rejoiced that he was counted worthy to suffer for the name. But there was one thing that “troubled” him, one thing that cut him to the quick, and that was that there should be some within the Church who repudiated his apostleship and denied that he was a minister of Christ at all.

That was the “trouble” to which he alludes in our text. The Judaizers in Galatia had sought to overthrow Paul’s Gospel by assailing his authority as a teacher. They had drawn distinctions between him and the older apostles, and they had gone so far as to assert that he was not a real apostle at all. That had “troubled” him. That had wounded him. And here in our text, he gives his final answer to those who had cast doubts upon his apostolic authority and, in words that throb with a sense of wrong that he is called upon to prove his claim at all, says, “From henceforth let no man trouble me: for I bear branded on my body the marks of Jesus.”

What Were These “Marks”?
What were these marks of the Lord Jesus? The word used in the Greek is stigmata. This remains as our word “stigma”, which carries with it associations of shame and disgrace, and that is probably due to the special use to which the Greek word was put. Primarily, the word meant simply “spot” or “mark”, but soon it came to stand specially for the marks that were cut or branded into a slave’s body in order to identify him as his master’s property. These marks proclaimed the fact of his servitude and, at the same time, indicated the master to whom he belonged.

Now Paul describes himself again and again as the “bondservant” or “slave” of Jesus Christ. That is how he introduces himself in several of his letters. These Judaizers denied that he was a servant of Christ at all. Paul’s reply to them was, “but I bear the marks.” The badges and signs of his servitude were ineffaceably stamped upon him. It was absurd and foolish to deny that Paul was in Christ’s service. Christ had put his sign upon him.

“I bear,” he says proudly, “branded on my body the marks of Jesus.” What then were these marks? The wording of the verse leaves us in no manner of doubt. They were the scars and wounds he had suffered in the Christian service. The Saul who set out for Damascus with authority from the chief priests was a young man in the full flush of vigor and prosperity and pride. The Paul who wrote this letter was an old and battered man. His years of Christian service had stamped him for life. Lystra had left its mark upon him, as had Philippi. His back and face were seamed with the scars of the stoning and the scourging.

And Paul reminds his Galatian converts of them and speaks of them proudly as the “marks” of the Lord Jesus. Just as the soldier’s wounds are glorious and honorable wounds because they tell of his courage and his devotion to his country’s cause, so Paul points to the honorable scares he bore as proof of his fidelity to Christ. It was in the service of Christ he won them. The very wounds he bore gave the lie to all the insinuations and aspersions of the Judaizers and proclaimed him to the world as the “bondman of the Crucified.”

But while it is true that the primary reference of our text is to the scars of the old and recent wounds which Paul had endured in the service of Christ, these were not the only “marks of Jesus” that Paul bore. After all, the true marks of Jesus are not outward but inward, not physical but spiritual. It was the Apostle Paul himself who said, “If any man hath not the spirit of Christ, he is none of His” (Rom. 8:9). And in Paul’s own case, the wounds he bore, while in some respects the most striking, were not the deepest and most convincing marks of Jesus. I find the final proof that Paul belonged to Christ in the region of his spiritual life.

Our Lord said that the disciple must be as his Master. “As he is,” says John, “so are we in this world” (1 John 4:17). Between Christ and everyone who truly belongs to him, there is a kinship of the soul; there is an identity of character. Christ is reproduced in the Christian. Where there is not this identity of spirit, there is no real discipleship. Now the final and absolutely decisive proof that Paul belonged to Christ was that he had the Spirit of Christ and that Christ lived over again in him. It is to the marks of Jesus to be found in this likeness of spirit that I want to call your attention.

Obedience
And the first mark of Jesus to which I wish to call your attention is Paul’s unhesitating and unfaltering obedience to the will of God. When I turn to the amazing story of the Gospels, and study the life, character, and conversation of our blessed Lord, the first feature in His character that impresses itself upon me is His devotion to the will of God. It was the dominating motive of his manhood. “I am come down from heaven,” He said, “not to do Mine own will, but the will of Him that sent me” (John 6:38).

It was the compelling reason of His death. Follow Him to the garden on the night on which He was betrayed, and listen to Him praying, “If it be possible, let this cup pass,” and you will know that Christ’s humanity shrank from the buffeting, scourging, spitting, and the cross. What nerved Him to face it all, what sent Him with unfaltering steps to the cross, was the knowledge that it was the Father’s will. “Nevertheless,” He cried, “not as I will, but as Thou wilt” (Matt. 26:39). That was Christ’s life from first to last, from birth to death, cradle to cross—it was a life of holy, unhesitating, utter obedience to the will of God.

Is there anything in the apostle’s life corresponding to this holy obedience of the life of Christ? Do we find this element of the Master’s Sprit in the disciple? Yes we do. I find the apostle has upon his life this mark of Jesus—the mark of a glad obedience to the will of God. “We make it our aim,” says the disciple, “whether at home or absent, to be well-pleasing to Him” (2 Cor. 5: 9). To Paul, as to Christ, the pleasure of the Lord was the supreme and determining consideration. Is not “to me to live is Christ” (Phil. 1:21) equivalent to saying that it was Paul’s meat to the Father’s will and accomplish His world? “I am ready,” said Paul in face of all that awaited him at Jerusalem, “not to be bound only, but also to die at Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus” (Acts 21:13).

Is this not a case of “like Master, like servant?” Christ marched to the cross because it was the will of God. Paul pressed on to Jerusalem, in spite of the appeals and entreaties of friends, because he was “bound in the Spirit.” The pleasure of God was the dominant and ruling motive in Paul’s life. He could say with David Livingstone, “My King, my life, my all, I dedicate my whole self to Thee.” Paul had that mark of Jesus.

The Passion for Souls
The second mark of Jesus which I want you to notice is Paul’s passion for souls. Again, when I come to the study of the Gospel story, that is an outstanding feature in the character of Christ that compels my attention—His measureless love for men. I have just been saying that the supreme motive in our Lord’s life was His unhesitating and utter obedience to the will of God. From another point of view, I can say that the constraining motive in Christ’s life was love for men. In saying that the master motive in Christ’s life was His love for men, I am not contradicting what I said a moment ago about His obedience to the will of God. His obedience and His love for men are two aspects of the same truth, for the will of God was the salvation of human souls.

But let us look at Christ’s life from this standpoint for a moment. This was one of its marks—a deep, strong, quenchless love for men—a passion for souls. You remember how He described His mission and errand to earth? “The Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10). From beginning to end, that was Christ’s business. To it He devoted Himself with tireless and unquenchable ardor.

He braved suspicion and scorn and obloquy that He might seek and save. He broke through all conventions and spoke to the Samaritan woman at the well that He might seek and save. He exposed Himself to misunderstanding and slander for allowing the woman who was a sinner to kiss His feet in Simon’s house that He might seek and save. He set at defiance the respectable religious folk of His day by going to dine with “publicans and sinners” that he might seek and save. He sacrificed ease, comfort, and reputation. He consented to be called a gluttonous man and a wine-bibber. He stooped to the very cross in order that He might seek and save.

Do we find this characteristic reproduced in the spirit of the disciple? Do we find in Paul this burning passion for souls? Yes, we do. I glance through the record in the book of the Acts of the Apostles, I turn over the leaves of these letters which have come to us from Paul’s own hand, and I see that the apostle has this mark upon him. “I am become all things to all men that I may by all means save some” (1 Cor. 9:22), says the disciple. Is not that a case of the disciple being as his Lord?

And this with the apostle was not mere fine talk. The master passion of his life was this passion for souls. Did Jesus become the despised and rejected of men because of His love for the lost? So did the servant become “the filth of the world and the off-scouring of all things” (1 Cor. 4:13). Did Jesus face hate and persecution because of this holy passion? So did the servant. Did Jesus’ compassions run out to the furthest bounds of the earth, for those “other sheep” which were not of the Jewish fold? So did the apostle. Like David Brainerd he grasped for “multitudes of souls,” laying down cheerfully upon this altar reputation, comfort, home, liberty, and life itself.

Self-Sacrifice
The third mark of Jesus to which I wish to call your attention is the apostle’s self-sacrifice. Again when I turn to the picture of our Lord’s life, I find that His story culminates in the cross. The “shadow of the cross” is upon it from first to last; it is to the cross it leads; it is in the cross it finds its reason and explanation. Now, in a certain aspect of it, the cross of Christ is unshared and unshareable. As a sacrifice for human sin, it stands alone and solitary. And yet there are certain ways in which we not only may but must share in the cross of Christ. The cross stands for the sacrifice of self, and further stands for our Lord’s identification of Himself with human sin. He the sinless One took the burden and shame of the sin of His brothers and sisters upon His own heart and felt it as His won. In these respects, we must enter into the fellowship of Christ’s sufferings.

Is there any of the spirit of Christ’s great sacrifice to be found in the Character of the apostle? You cannot glance even superficially through Paul’s epistle without seeing that he bears this mark of Jesus. Take first the cross of self-sacrifice. The cross was the utter surrender of Christ’s own will. Paul said, “I am crucified with Christ” (Gal. 2:20) Life for the servant as for the Master meant self-sacrifice. What things were gain to him, these he counted loss for Christ.

Of the cross as the taking upon one’s own heart the sin and woe of the world, Paul talks about, “filling up that which is behind the afflictions of Christ” (Col. 1:24). We read that Paul was pained as he beheld Athens, a city full of idols, burdened by its sin (Acts 17:16). He did not walk through the world a callous and heedless spectator. The shame of human sin lay like a load upon his heart. Again, without doubt, Paul had this mark of Jesus—he bore the cross.

Have We These Marks?
There are other marks of Jesus which might be mentioned, but let these suffice. In our passage through life, we may not have to suffer blows and wounds in the service of Christ and so to have our bodies seamed with scars as Paul had. But after all, the real marks of Jesus are these inward and spiritual marks on life and character. Have we these marks?

There is a tendency, even in these days, to think Christ’s marks are external and mechanical. We think sometimes that the mark of a Christian is that he observes the Sabbath and attends church services and belongs to some ecclesiastical organization. I do not disparage the Sabbath and church attendance and membership, but these external things are not the real marks of Jesus. Did not Jesus Himself say that a man may have all manner of Church guarantees and certificates and be none of His? Did He not say, “Many will come to Me in that day and will say, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy by Thy name and by Thy name cast out devils, and by Thy name do many mighty works?’ And then will I profess to them, ‘I never knew you, depart from Me, ye that work iniquity” (Matt. 7:22-23).

No, it is not the crucifix on the watch chain, or the S.A. on the collar, or the name on the church roll that constitute the marks of Jesus. The marks are inward and spiritual. They are certain features of character, and especially obedience, love, and sacrifice. Indeed, our Lord Himself emphasized and underlined these things as being, par excellence, the marks of His servants. I ask again, have we got these marks? Is our life characterized by an utter obedience to God, a great passion for souls, a remorseless sacrifice of self?

Have we the marks that single us out as His? Does the world recognize Christ’s marks on us? Life always leaves its mark. The life of greed leaves its mark; the live of frivolous self-pleasing leaves its mark; the life of sin leaves its mark. And the life of Christian service leaves its mark. “They took knowledge of them that they had been with Jesus” (Acts 4:13). The world, in their courage and devotion and self-sacrifice, saw the marks of Jesus.

More important still, does Jesus see the marks? “The Lord knoweth them that are His” (2 Tim. 2:19). How? By the marks. We read how, in the last great day, there will be a division and a discrimination. The Great Shepherd will then gather and fold His sheep, and that is how He will know them—by the marks. Shall we then be amongst the sheep on the right hand? It all comes back to this: do we bear branded upon us the marks of Jesus—the infallible signs and tokens of His service? Do we possess that spirit of obedience to God, love to men, and utter self-sacrifice which a real surrender of ourselves to Jesus Christ always produces? “For if any man hath not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His.”

J. D. Jones (1865-1942) was a Welsh preacher renowned as much for his adherence to Scripture as for his tremendous speaking ability. The bulk of his ministry was spent in two churches, Newland Church in Lincoln, England, and Richmond Hill in Bournemouth, England, but he also wrote widely.