These three subjects differ the one from the other; each, indeed, has its own distinctive peculiarities, yet they are united together in one, from having their source and center in one God, and also from the same parties often being the subjects of all three of them, and all working to one end.
1. The sphere of the providence of God down here and for time has its principles laid down, neatly enough, in Gen. 8:21,2221And the Lord smelled a sweet savor; and the Lord said in his heart, I will not again curse the ground any more for man's sake; for the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth; neither will I again smite any more every thing living, as I have done. 22While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease. (Genesis 8:21‑22); " And the Lord said in His heart,
I will not again curse the ground any more for man's sake: for the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth: neither will I again smite any more everything living, as I have done. While the earth remaineth, seed time and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night, shall not cease."
The rainbow became the sign of this covenant. And the longsuffering patience of God, on account of man's wickedness, solemnly pledged itself for certain blessings. It was a sphere of blessing as to earth, guaranteed by God to man.
That God's oversight and care is over all His works is true; and that He that made them cares for what He has made is also true,-but here we have His providence in a formal way put forward-and the rainbow its sign. A sort of formal kingdom of providence made known on earth.
2. Rule and a kingdom in government in time, under God, got its development in a tangible form when Israel was taken up as the people of the Lord: He would be their King. But if this came to light when the kingdom was formed, He had, before that, divided the peoples,- so as to give' to Israel a first-born son's place; and the sword, while in Israel's hand, was to keep the Gentiles under.. The Gentiles got the sword of government into their hand only when Israel had failed to own God as its King down here on earth and in time.
3. Salvation took its definite form of display when, the Lord Jesus Christ having been rejected by Israel, heaven opened beneath Him, and it was proclaimed on earth by the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven, that God in heaven was the God of eternal salvation to all whosoever should call on the name of the Lord. But while salvation got its unique place when Israel as the kingdom became lost among the nations, salvation had been going on covertly from Adam and Eve in Paradise; just as the principle of providence and of government had been acted upon from the beginning, before the respective principles got, each of them, a definite embodiment.
They were all three of them principles, which in themselves, and in their embodiment into constituted systems, had man for their respective objects; and the place which the emblems of each of them hold, in the glories of the throne of the. Lord God Almighty (in Rev. 4 and 5.), show how near and dear they are to God.
Man has been tried under each of them, and under each of them has signally failed. Noah got drunk it his tent and exposed himself to his sons; Israel danced before the calf which it had made to supply the place of the God of Moses; and Christendom, instead of being as the espoused virgin waiting for her Lord's return, has been as Babylon the Great. On the other hand, however much manmay have failed in the part he ought to have fulfilled, God still goes on, according to His own pleasure, acting upon the principles of each of these kingdoms, toward ruined man.
We may remark that, obviously, providence and the kingdom are for man upon earth; and when set up, were for time, though they may have been blessings to those who were to be saved for heaven and eternity, and they may also have pointed on, as types and shadows, to better things to come, even to that time when, at least, the King will be eternal, and will, with His court, reside in heaven. Still in itself government was for Israel, God to be its King down here: and the providence of God was for man as such down here upon earth, under the heavens and the earth which now are.
If I take the principle of God's governing man: man has resisted it and refused to be subject, from the beginning. Witness Adam and Eve in Eden; Cain and Abel outside of Eden; witness the whole world before the deluge; witness Noah and Ham, and Nimrod and Babel's tower. If, instead of the principle, I take the formal embodiment into a kingdom for Jehovah in Canaan, the golden calf tells of resistance, as well as does the whole of Israel's conduct. Now, when man has failed, being thus tried of God, man loses at once his right to blessing. God may deal in patience with him, but the judgment is sure to come, and He who is patient during the interval, will bring it in His own time. It is important to remember this, and also to recognize that when once that which God has dispensed to man has been perverted, we are thenceforth no longer upon the ground of blessing through the original gift, but upon the ground of the mercy of God, not willing that any should perish. This was the ground which the prophets of old acknowledged: Israel, the stock, had failed under the blessing through Moses, they must go back to the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob-the root.
If any of us do not understand how it is possible to live under God there where what God put into man's hand has been turned to God's dishonor,-there, where He has announced that judgment is at the door, we have not yet learned the obedience of faith; we have lost our proper standing as identified with God Himself in the midst of what bears His name, but has a name to live though it be dead.
Not so Moses, when the Lord said to him, " Let me alone, that my wrath may wax hot against them, and that I may consume them; and I will make of thee a great nation (Ex. 32:1010Now therefore let me alone, that my wrath may wax hot against them, and that I may consume them: and I will make of thee a great nation. (Exodus 32:10)) Moses besought the Lord his God, and said, Lord, why doth thy wrath wax hot against thy people, which thou hast brought forth out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand. Wherefore should the Egyptians speak and say, For mischief did he bring them out, to slay them in the mountains, and to consume them from the face of the earth? Turn from thy fierce wrath, and repent of this evil against thy people. Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, thy servants, to whom thou swarest by thine own self, and saidst unto them, I will multiply your seed as the stars of heaven; and all this land that I have spoken of will I give unto your seed, and they shall inherit [it] forever, ver. 11-13.
So again: "And it came to pass on the morrow, that Moses said unto the people, Ye have sinned a great sin: and now I will go up unto the Lord; peradventure I shall make an atonement for your sin. And Moses returned unto the Lord, and said, Oh, this people have sinned a great sin, and have made them gods of gold. Yet now,-if thou wilt forgive their sin;-and if' not, blot me, I pray thee, out of thy book which thou hast written," ver. 30-32. Here was the wrath of the God of Israel, threatening to blot out Israel and to begin afresh with Moses. Here was Moses identifying himself with the people who were. under God's displeasure and bearing their cause and pleading the Lord's own glory, as the reason why He should not begin afresh with him (Moses), but must spare the people.
And he gained his suit; for the Lord said, " Behold, mine Angel shall go before thee; nevertheless, in the day when I visit, I will visit their sin upon them.
"And the Lord plagued the people, because they made a calf, which Aaron made" (ver. 34, 35).
Moses' heart was right with the Lord in all this. He stood in the gap and turned aside the threatened destruction of Israel for that time. And this was not a solitary act in Moses' life; nor was it peculiar to him alone.
There was fierce wrath too in the days of David (2 Sam. 24) about numbering the people. David too knew his own place here; and he said, " Lo, I have sinned, and I have done wickedly; but these sheep, what have they done? Let thine hand, I pray thee, be against me, and against my father's house" (ver. 17).
Time would fail me to tell of all the rich expressions of this principle in the word. The providential ways of God are for time: for a witness of His goodness in time, He gives fruitful seasons: the governmental ways of God too are for time. Any good man might stand under the sore displeasure of God in judgment, though he were not a Moses, or a Samuel, nor a Jeremiah, to whom the Lord said: Cast them out of my sight. Though Moses and Samuel stood before me, yet my mind could not be toward this people; cast them out of my sight (Jer. 15:11Then said the Lord unto me, Though Moses and Samuel stood before me, yet my mind could not be toward this people: cast them out of my sight, and let them go forth. (Jeremiah 15:1)). Paul did stand under the sore displeasure of God against Israel (Rom. 9:1-31I say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost, 2That I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart. 3For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh: (Romans 9:1‑3)). It is a matter of fact, too, a plain substantial fact, that Jerusalem was broken up and Israel ceased to be in its own land. And yet many a Jewish convert may have passed through the crisis. And will not some, yea many, in the end go through the time of trouble such as never
was: will not the Lord Jesus bring His people through the times of Matt. 24
God's desolating judgment swept the earth with the deluge, destroyed Pharaoh in the Red Sea,-but made the very judgments which destroyed to be the means of salvation to His own. Noah and his were saved by the deluge; Moses and Israel were placed in safety by the very waters of the Red Sea which destroyed Pharaoh and his host. It was solemn to be thus in the midst of the judgments! most heartsearching; but most blessed to find God, in the midst of judgment, remembering mercy to His own that walked with Him.
But when I speak of being saved from the wrath of God revealed from heaven,-this is quite another subject. I am not then looking at myself as for a time upon earth, or under a government, the head of which was God as King. I am an immortal soul before an eternal God that made it, and against whom it has rebelled. God's wrath here leads me to look onward to resurrection from death and the great white throne and eternal judgment: where their worm dieth not and where their fire is not quenched; in the lake of fire and brimstone prepared for the devil and his angels. As to myself, or any mere man bearing that, passing through that, it were impossible. But I know One who took the place, in subjection to His Father's will of bearing this wrath; and who could and did bear it in my stead.
Happy and blessed do) I count myself that that is finished, and that my conscience is at rest with Him as to this wrath of God revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men. He has borne it for me.