What an immense contrast there is between the “first man” in the third chapter of Genesis, and the Lord Jesus Christ in the twentieth chapter of John! the “last Adam,” as He is emphatically called in 1 Cor. 15 “The first man, Adam, was made a living soul,”— “The last Adam, a quickening spirit.” “As in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.” Nothing is more momentous than the fact that there are only two men; each the head of a race, and nothing more momentous than the question: —To which man—to which head—do you belong? If you belong to the one, it is death and eternal judgment; if to the other, it is eternal life and glory. How simple; yet how great the issue! You cannot belong to both. You must be disconnected with the one in order to be connected with the other. “The first man is of the earth, earthy; the second man is the Lord from heaven. As is the earthy; such are they also that are earthy; and as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly.” Nothing can be more definite, and nothing more simple than the question between us and God: To which man do you belong?
In Gen. 3 we find the first man involved in and under judgment, as driven out of the presence of God; and in John 20 we find the second Man having come out from under judgment, and in resurrection; having abolished death; triumphing over it—saying, through death, destroyed its power, and delivering them, “who through fear of death, were all their life time subject to bondage.” You cannot conceive anything greater. Turn to the man in Genesis, and there see him bringing in the terrible inexorable judgment of God upon his race—a judgment which impends over every one of us;—and then turn to the Man in John 20, and see the Blessed One—the Son of God—having come down here to bear that terrible inexorable judgment; and having borne it, rising out of it, and breathing on His disciples as the life-giving Lord! Look at the one, and then look at the other! See Adam set in the garden of Eden, in the midst of the display of the thought and interest of God about him. God tells him not to cat of a certain tree. God put him under an interdict. If I want to discover whether you are con. trolled by me, whether your will is subject to mine, it is little matter what is the nature of the interdict. Ought not the creature to be subject to the Creator? And if God is righteous, to go contrary to His nature must be unrighteousness. Can God suffer unrighteousness in His creature, which was made in His own image? It was not a question of its being a great offense or a little offense. Can God, the righteous God, countenance a creature who sets up a will of his own? If Adam only pointed at the tree when God told him not, he would have set up a will of his own; and if God had allowed it, He would have allowed the existence of a will contrary to His own.
This was no small offense, and He could not have fixed on a smaller penalty than He has done. If your soul does not get hold of what God in righteousness requires, you never will know what He has accomplished in His love. If you don’t see the penalty and the position in which the first Adam placed you—driven out from God, and under judgment and condemnation, you will never see the fullness of the blessed position in which the “last Adam” has placed you in Himself before God—you must understand the one in order to appreciate the other. The man who understands the terrible nature of the judgment, is the man who is practically more distinguished than others in his occupation with Christ. He has entered into the gravity of his own position, and into the magnificence of the deliverance wrought for him by the Saviour.
What is righteousness? It insists upon this—that judgment be executed. To forgive, merely, is not righteousness. God’s righteousness demands that judgment should be executed according to His nature. And on account of the penalty, death reigned from Adam to Moses; and after death the judgment. But now we find that “grace reigns through righteousness unto eternal life.” The righteousness of God demands that there must be a final settlement, and execution of that which offended against Him.
To be judged is to be lost! Why? “Enter not into judgment with thy servant; for in thy sight shall no man living be justified” (Psa. 143), is the answer. The life of a sinner must go in death, and after death the judgment. It is a forfeited life, and if we were to give up our life tomorrow, it would not save us, because it is a forfeited life.
How then am I to be saved? “God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh!” The whole thing must go in judgment. The thief (Luke 23) died as a thief; his life is not restored to him, for that would be to annul judgment, it must go, but another life is given to him. His own death is a matter of necessity; not God’s own Son dying beside him takes him out of judgment. Life in the last Adam—Christ, the Son of God,—is given him. In Adam he died; in Christ he lived. God’s Son comes down from heaven and meets the whole thing in His death on the cross. Mark the contrast in this blessed One—the “last Adam,” to “the first man Adam.” He can say, “I have glorified thee ON THE EARTH. I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do.” (John 17:44I have glorified thee on the earth: I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do. (John 17:4)).
In John 3:1414And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: (John 3:14), the Lord in figure brings out what He does Himself in order to bestow eternal life. In Num. 21 The people were all dying from the bites of the serpents, and Moses is told to put a serpent of brass on a pole, that every one that was bitten, when he looked upon it should live. One feeble turn of the eye brought life. Now this was a figure to tell out the grace in God’s heart, to exemplify God sending His own Son, “that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” See the condition of the Israelites—they were dying from poison; nothing could be more melancholy, but if the eye turned to the brazen serpent, be it ever so far off, it brought life. He looked! He lived! Of what was this typical? The great purpose of the heart of God. His own Son would come and take the place of judgment. He was hero for 33 years alone, a solitary One. He was a Man among men, but He was entirely separate from all— a Nazarite. Beautiful expression of the heart of God to man in his pathway here. But in the end we find Him saying, “Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone; but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit” (John 12:2424Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit. (John 12:24)). He bears the judgment, and what is the result? “much fruit.” He has gone down to death; He has borne that terrible judgment, relentless in its execution. Who can fathom it? Have you measured the extent of that inexorable judgment that rested upon man? Have you seen that the one who has borne it is God’s OWN Son? His work was not only to establish righteousness, but to disclose the heart of God. He says, “I have glorified thee on the earth.” He has removed every barrier out of the way that God may express His love according to the delight of his heart for a poor prodigal! Looking at Christ on the cross, I know what the love of God is; the love that was down in the folds of His heart was fully revealed.
How is it now with you? Are you still connected with the one under judgment, or are you connected with the one who came from God? The only one who ever could disclose the love of God’s heart? He was the only one who knew it; and He says, as it were, “I know thou desirest to set those captives free. I will go down, I will bear the terrible judgment that righteousness demands—Lo, I come to do Thy will.” Can any one contemplate with an unmoved heart that God’s own holy Sun bore the judgment of God for sin? But He did! He surveyed it beforehand, with fear—with anguish; but He says, “The cup which my Father hath given me, shall I not drill it?” Why? Because He knew the love of His Father and His will; and it was His joy to do it—nay, it was His delight! Now He is risen in all the stupendous power of the last Adam. “He dieth no more.” He has got dominion over death; He has the “keys of hell and of death.” He has abolished death, and now He stands in the midst of His disciples, and says, “Peace be unto you.” See the position He puts you in, and what you gain from the last Adam—Peace! There is an end of every hostile element. Why? Man’s nature was the hostile element, and that is what has been judicially put out of the way. Souls fail to see that if righteousness have not full sway, there could not be peace or an offer of it. But God’s righteousness has had its way, and has been carried out in the sacrifice of Christ; and so God’s love is free to take the thief to Paradise!
The sinner’s judgment has been borne—the old man has been crucified with Christ. Righteousness and peace cannot kiss each other, if righteousness itself is not perfectly satisfied. The element of disturbance is the thing to be judged, and if it is judged it is gone forever. Then He breathed on them and said, “Receive ye the Holy Ghost.” This is a new order of existence, in which there is “no condemnation,”— “the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death.”
Can any say, while seeing this new order of life, “I prefer to continue in the old thing?” If a man believes in this wonderful order of existence, is it any wonder to see him, devoted? Nay, it is a wonder if he is not.
The Lord lead our souls to remember, that “as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.” Believers can say, even now, “Our conversation is in heaven, from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall change our body of humiliation, that it may be fashioned like unto his body of glory.” Then tell me—can you be occupied with the Adamic existence? I press on each conscience the question, Do you belong to Adam or Christ? Man’s man, or God’s Man? You are under condemnation as connected with one, or you have obtained eternal life by believing in the other.
“Show Me Now Thy Way.” Ex. 10-Num. 24
The study of this passage brings out very clearly the position. in which grace sets us with God, and the blessed confidence it gives us in God; and at the same time the effect of a mixture of grace with law, leaving us really under the latter; at any rate as to our state of mind, where the atonement is not applied, though really all exercise of grace depends on it.
To arrive at a clear understanding of both these states as depicted to us in the passage, we must carefully distinguish between Moses and Israel. Of Moses it is said, “I know thee by name, and thou hast found grace in my sight.” He stood in grace. The effect of this I will consider further on—I turn first to Israel. Israel had just made the golden calf. As a formal institution they never came under strict and absolute law. God had spoken to them out of the midst of the fire, and they had undertaken obedience. But before Moses had come down from the mount, they had made the golden calf and broken that first link of all: “Thou shalt have none other gods but me.” Moses consequently never brought the two tables of the law given of God into the camp—how could he place them beside a golden calf? —but broke them at the foot of the mount, and left the camp-setting up anticipatively a tabernacle of the congregation outside the camp; and there God met with Moses and talked with him face to face, as a man talks with his friend.
But he is told to go up to God again in the mount; and here we may look at the state of Israel. He had told them, “Ye have sinned a great sin, and now I will go up unto the Lord; peradventure I shall make an atonement for your sin.” He does so, “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; separate himself at all from their interests, and wanted God’s presence with them. God meets what is in his heart: “My presence shall go and I will give thee rest.” He will not call the people indeed “My people,” but there will be His presence (through Moses’ faith), and then in the way rest.
Moses at once presses on the manifested grace, “If thy presence go not, take us not up hence.” He must have God’s presence, and be brings the people in. This only (16) separates evidently a people to God, a notable point. Thus it is known that favor rests upon them, for Moses is emboldened by grace, yet just in word and thought in the place of faith, “I and thy people have found grace.” It is by his mediation, for that was the true exercise of faith with a heart for God’s people; but the same faith will say “Thy people,” and that is granted too.
Then, (for he cannot see the face of God, that for sinners was in atonement, and Christ, the blessed One, alone could do it), the goodness is passed before him, when the glory of His face had passed by, and sovereign mercy, as we have seen, spares. This is the blessed confidence of grace, only we have to say that now we can look at the glory in the unveiled face of Christ, because atonement is made, and the glory is the witness of acceptance and of sin put away.
But there is more as to this grace. We have seen how God is with us in grace in His own way, mid knowing Him. But we shall see it meets the evil of our nature. This is shown in the most striking way in this passage. First, God had said, “I will come up into the midst of thee in a moment, and consume thee,” for thou art a stiff-necked people. He could not tolerate sin in His presence, and He would not go at all, though He would now let them go up as spared. This gave occasion to the pleading of Moses which we have considered, who felt the value of God’s presence. It was everything to him, in holy desire; he could not do without it: and everything boldness through the grace shown him, for he had found grace, and was told so, he claims and obtains it. And now he stood in grace and known goodness; and when all the goodness had passed before him, he says, bowing his head to the earth, “ If now I have found grace in thy sight, O Lord (Adonai, not Jehovah), let my Lord, I pray thee, go among us; for it is a stiff-necked people,” the very ground God had given for cutting them off.
And could we go: could we get the better of our stiff neck of our flesh, and get safely through the wilderness, if God were not with us?
But oh, what a change grace has made. Here is the very reason for consuming in just judgment, the motive for asking God to be with us.
How complete this grace! God, in whose present grace we stand, is our resource against the evil in us, which was the just ground in itself of maths, us off. How very perfect and complete this grace is, and the ground of God’s relationship with us. Here, too, though it rests on the Mediator, as we know it does, yet Moses brings the people fully in “go among us; for it is a stiff-necked people; and pardon our iniquity and our sin; and take us for thine inheritance.” His faith is very beautiful here, and faith knows God, and indeed it only. -J. N. D.