The reins of life are never rightly held until Jesus has been glorified. When the Spirit of God has entered in His fullness and power, the problem of guidance will at once be raised; this is seen and solved in the incident of the colt which our Lord found and claimed. The facts are clear and simple, but they could not be understood until Jesus was glorified (Jn. 12:12-16).
In the narratives of the earlier Gospels, two disciples are sent to find and fetch the colt; the evangelists record the conversation which took place between the messengers and the owners, and much else as they acquired this conveyance at the town of Bethphage. John bypasses all these details, simply stating that Jesus found the colt Himself and mounted it.
Throughout the Old Testament, the ass is used to represent the natural, self-willed man, “void of understanding…born as a wild ass’s colt…and scorning the control of a driver” (Job 11:12; 39:5-8). It is a striking rebuke of human pride and stubbornness that, under the law of Moses, the foal of an ass and the firstborn son of a Hebrew family stood side by side at the altar of sacrifice, and had to be redeemed at the same price. Unless the blood of the lamb was shed as a token of their redemption, the neck of the colt must be broken, and the life of the firstborn forfeited (Ex. 13:13).
Here then is the picture as drawn by John. The Lord has need of the colt and claims it for His service. If the colt could speak, as a dumb ass once did, it would say, “Lord, I am ready to yield myself to Thee, but I have never left my mother’s side, nor have I been broken in. I have no strength to sustain Thy weight and I do not know the road by which I must travel.” Our Lord would reply, “I have all the strength you need for every burden; moreover, I am the Way, and if my hand rests upon the reins, every yard of the dusty road will become bright and clear.”
At the time, the disciples merely saw the colt and the crossroads, and had no inkling of any deeper meaning. It was not until Jesus had been glorified and they themselves had received the gift of the Spirit, that they remembered that Jacob and Zechariah had spoken of these things and, with that remembrance, every detail of the narrative shone with heavenly light.
On his deathbed, the patriarch Jacob, in vision, had seen the Messiah, Shiloh the rest-giver, binding his foal unto the vine and his ass’s colt unto the choice vine (Gen. 49:11). The prophet Zechariah had cried, “Shout, O daughter of Jerusalem: behold, thy King cometh unto thee: He is just and having salvation; lowly, and riding upon an ass, even upon a colt, the foal of an ass” (Zech. 9:9). The reception and fullness of the Spirit had altered their whole mental outlook, and as they thought upon the scene at “the place where two ways met,” they recalled the Scriptures, saw their meaning and realized the glorious possibilities of a life surrendered to God.
In the Lord Jesus, they recognized the pattern of absolute authority, resting in the hands of Him who said, “I delight to do Thy will, O God.” In the colt they saw stubborn self-will in the presence of Him whose service is perfect freedom. Thus, the enthroned Lord claims the service of those who have received the gift of the Spirit.