Bible Treasury: Volume N5

The first notable trait in this Epistle is that the writer not only repeats the new name Christ gave him (Matt. 16:18) with his apostolic office, but adds his old one, object of divine mercy, with the confession of absolute subjection to his Master conveyed in “bondman.” Paul loved so to call himself, and Jude, and John. The Lord Jesus had drawn it out of that shame and degradation which only it could have in the estimate of the first man, and had invested it in His own person, when the Word became flesh, with all that is right and lovely and devoted in the sight of God and to the faith of those who have communion with Him.

For who such a bondman as He who, being originally in the form of God, counted it not an object for grasping to be on equality with God, but emptied Himself, taking a bondman's form, becoming in likeness of men; and being found in figure as man, He humbled Himself, becoming obedient even to death, yea death of the cross? Nor did it stop there; for He gave before His departure the beautiful pledge of carrying on in heaven the lowliest service of washing the feet of His own, as the Advocate with the Father. Nor did this satisfy His love; for He also intimated that, when those bondmen of His, whom at His coming He shall find watching with girded loins and burning lamps, are thenceforward blessed on high at His coming again, He will gird Himself, and make them recline at table and come forth and serve them. Nay, when He shall deliver up the kingdom to the God and Father, all things having been subjected to Him, then shall the Son also Himself be subjected to Him that subjected all things to Him, that God may be all in all. As He will never cease to be man, He will abide throughout eternity bondman, without derogating from that deity which He ever shares as Son equally with the Father and the Holy Spirit. It is Christ who alone gives us the full truth, and so of bondman as of all else. It is in an evil world, the place of active and suffering divine love which He loved so well that He will never give it up.

The same privilege and duty of love the Lord laid on His disciples, as we read repeatedly in all the Gospels, and in varying form. Let it suffice to quote what Luke (22) gives us at the last Supper; for he it is who brings together the deepest moral contrasts, if to man's shame, for the believer's profit, and above all to Christ's glory. “And they began to question together among themselves which of them it could be who was to do this [i.e., give Him up]. And there arose also a strife among them which of them should be accounted to be greatest. And he said to them, The kings of the nations have rule over them, and those that exercise authority over them are called benefactors. Ye however [shall be] not thus; but let the greater among you be as the younger, and the leader as he that serveth. For which [is] greater, he that reclineth at table, or he that serveth? [Is] not he that reclineth? But I am in the midst of you as he that serveth?”

The apostles by grace were enabled to make His bondman character their own. O what a contrast with His servants too soon, and ever since, especially with such as claimed to have the succession, though by no means confined to them! It is no doubt a hollow name of pride where taken up in word only; but what is comparable with it when in power? To be somebody is the desire of fallen man, the world's spirit; to give up all in love and obedience is Christ's, who alone really had all things. It is our pattern now. Greatness according to Him is to be a true servant; and to be chief is to be a slave, as He became, who not only served every need, but gave His life a ransom for many, His peculiar glory.

Peter therefore in his later Epistle, while he does not hide his Jewish name of nature with all its failure, puts forward before his apostolic title that lovely name of “bondman”; which more than ever shone in his eyes, so needful and good for the saints to ponder, delight in, and appropriate.

“Simon Peter, bondman and apostle of Jesus Christ to them that obtained like precious faith with us in virtue of [the] righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ” (ver. 1).

“Bondman and apostle of Jesus Christ,” he writes to the same saints as before (3:1). But the terms now employed strikingly differ, yet have they an equally appropriate application to those of the Jewish dispersion in Asia Minor, who believed in Christ. In his First Epistle he was careful to describe them as sojourners elect according to foreknowledge of God the Father by the Spirit's sanctification unto obedience and blood-sprinkling of Jesus Christ. This was a pointed and elaborate contrast with their previous position as of a chosen nation to Jehovah, severed from others by the fleshly ordinance of circumcision, and held to obedience of the law under the penal sanction of the blood of victims (Ex. 24) which kept death before them if guilty of transgression. Here in the Second Epistle they are said to have obtained like precious faith with the apostle and his brethren and theirs, in virtue of their God and Savior Jesus Christ's righteousness.

“Like precious faith” raises no question of measure of faith in those who believe, but asserts that what is believed is equally precious for the simplest Christian as for an apostle, in its source, agent, object, and result. It is that full revelation of God in Christ, and not merely from God as had been from the first.

There is however a remarkable expression that follows, differing wholly from “the righteousness of God” as used by our Lord in Matt. 5:33, as this does from its use by the apostle Paul in the Epistle to the Romans and elsewhere. Yet one is as true as the others, and all are in harmony as alike from God. It is therefore of interest and moment to distinguish them, whilst they all three agree in meaning God's moral consistency with Himself in varying aspects. In the First Gospel the disciple is enjoined to seek first, not the supply of our natural wants for which we may count on our Father's care, but “the kingdom of God and his righteousness.” This was then revealed in Christ, God's power and authority supreme, and in all goodness but consistency with Himself. To this the new nature responds in subjection and love; and this the disciples were to seek first, assured that He would see to all their need. But there is not a word about redemption, or saving lost sinners, but saints answering to what the Christ brought out to faith in Himself and His teaching.

Again, in Rom. 1; 3; 8; 10:4, we have the gospel of God based on the work of Christ, and sent out to all mankind on the very ground that they are lost. It is therefore a righteousness that justifies the sinner through the faith of Christ; God's righteousness grounded on His redemption, not man's, so that he, believing His witness to Christ, is justified by Christ's death and resurrection. God can afford through the Savior to bless him, whatever may have been his ungodliness, according to His cleansing blood and risen power.

But in our text it is not the believer obtaining God's righteousness through faith, but obtaining faith by the righteousness of their God and Savior Jesus Christ: a quite different truth, and peculiar to the remnant which God ever has in Israel. Branches may be and are broken off, but some, not all. There are ever the elect that obtain, while the rest are blinded; so it is at the present time, and so it was of old. They only of all men have this privilege, a remnant according to the election of grace. Of no other nation can it be predicated. As theirs were the fathers, so still better the promises. Accordingly the apostle here attributes their receiving Like precious faith to the righteousness of Jehovah-Messiah, Jesus their Savior and God. He at least was faithful to the promise, and in virtue of it they were given to believe, no less than the apostle and the saints in Jerusalem. So Peter had preached on the day of Pentecost; “for to you is the promise and to your children, and to all afar off, as many as Jehovah our God may call.” Them too He called, and they by grace believed; but it was in His righteousness— “our God and Savior Jesus Christ's.”

2 Peter 1:10-11

Here again in these concluding words of the introduction we may see the practical earnestness which eminently characterizes our apostle. His aim is not dogmatic clearing up but spiritual power for every day.

“Wherefore the rather, brethren, use diligence to make your calling and election sure; for in doing these things ye shall never stumble. For thus shall be richly furnished to you the entrance into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” (vers. 10, 11).

The true knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord is characteristic of Christianity, and rises far above what the law and the prophets conveyed, excellent as they were and are. But that knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ, which the gospel communicates, is meant to make us, as partaking of a divine nature, neither idle nor unfruitful meanwhile. Flesh has to be judged, and the world held aloof by such as have escaped its corruption by lust. We need, as all life does, to grow by suited divine fare; and we are called to do God's will.

There are the due affections to cultivate around us and upward. The pointed warning was just given of what surely follows indifference to the moral side, the blindness that ensues, the shortsightedness as to God's own glory and excellence, Jesus crowned with honor and glory in all that becomes our relationship and dangers here ever present. Otherwise one forgets the gracious and solemn remission of the gospel, and the meaning of baptism to Christ's death at the start of the Christian profession.

Thus the diligence called for in vers. 5-7 is impressed in another way in vers. 10, 11. There it was in faith as the starting-point to furnish the necessary and blessed elements that form Christian character, from moral courage to divine love reproduced in the heart and ways, with the happy result where they exist and abound, with the sad effect where they are lacking. Here looking at both sides the apostle exhorts his “brethren” all the more to give diligence, not merely to bear in lively recollection, in thankfulness, and exercised conscience, their first confession of divine grace to them as guilty sinners, but “to make their calling and election sure.” In our fallen state, as in the world, there is nothing at all to help for life and godliness. The fairest show in flesh is the most deceptive and dangerous; and if Gentiles, like the Galatian and the Colossian brethren, were so prone to this snare, how much more were those who had been Jews, both to slip back from grace, and to make it a creed to own, instead of the spring and proof and joy of faith?

It is plain that the fresh appeal is to our state and consequent course and character of walk. The very order of the terms indicates this; for on the side of divine grace election according to scripture necessarily precedes calling. God's choice of the Christian is in eternity; as His calling of us is in time out of darkness into His wonderful light (1 Peter 2:9). So in the opening of the First Epistle the saints were said to be elect according to God the Father's foreknowledge; but it was in virtue of the Spirit's sanctification that they were separated unto the obedience and blood-sprinkling of the Lord Jesus Christ. The well-known summary in Rom. 8:28-30 is still more precise and full. “And we know that all things work together for good to those that love God, to those that are called according to purpose. Because whom he fore-knew he also predestinated [to be] conformed to the image of his Son, that he should be firstborn among many brethren. And whom he predestinated, these he also called; and whom he called, these he also justified; and whom he justified, these he also glorified.” Thus the chain of blessing is completed when the many brethren are brought even as concerns the body into conformity with their glorified Lord. The order is as clearly of God's grace; as that in our text, where calling comes before election, is of its actual application to man. And this is in keeping with the context which deals with the present moral government of souls.

The passage answers in its place to what we have in 1 Peter 1:17, 18: “And if ye call on him as Father that without respect of persons judgeth according to the work of each, pass the time of your sojourn in fear, knowing that ye were redeemed, not with corruptibles, silver or gold, from your vain manner of walk handed down from fathers, but with precious blood of Christ as of a lamb unblemished and spotless,” etc. The fear enjoined is not from lack of certainty in our redemption, which on the contrary is enforced with all power and clearness. It is filial fear strengthened by the only efficacious sacrifice, but tempered because a Father holy and impartial watches over every step of our pilgrimage; and as He will not condemn us with the world, He chastens because He loves us too well to gloss over our failures. Here Christian responsibility is pressed, that there should not be inconsistency in our ways. His calling like His election is a matter of sovereign grace, and admits no question. But the case is different when we hear of our calling and election. Here negligence disorders the walk, and compromises our profession of His name, takes away our joy and enfeebles or hinders our testimony, and all the more if our conscience be tender. The heart condemns us, as is said in 1 John 3:20; and how much more does God, who greater than our heart knows all things, and draws us into self-judgment, so that it should not condemn us!

Practical fidelity, then, is urged the more with diligence to make our calling and election sure; “for doing these things” which please God, and are His will concerning us, they are made firm to our enjoyment, instead of being loose and unstable by a careless state; and so one may add, they are to others who look for our ways agreeing with our words. Walking in dependence and obedience we shall never stumble. It is therefore a most humbling thing when one thus trips by the way, and mistakes his own will or the enemy's suggestion for the Lord's guidance. How painfully it is learned that all knowledge here fails; and that we must be brought to deep self-judgment, and vigilance in looking to and leaning on the Lord that we may follow Him closely. For any one can see a failure, and flesh can censure without measure or heart. Grace alone can purify according to the standard of the sanctuary; but this may be retarded by failure in penetrating to the roots of what misled. And here it is ourselves who are to blame; for there is in Christ and the word all resource to meet the need, yea, so as to strengthen one's brethren also, as Peter himself had to learn, and learned so well.

But more encouragement follows here. “For thus shall be richly furnished to you the entrance into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.” Here again it is not a predicted fact that is intended, but the full realization even now by the soul that walks blamelessly before God. Thus it is that the entrance into the kingdom should be furnished. One is thus enabled to anticipate in rich measure the everlasting kingdom. So the Spirit was pleased to describe it. At any rate it is not put as a mediatorial display of glory in reigning over the earth for a thousand years, blessed as this will be; but rather what is unchanging. For there is also revealed that His servants shall serve Him and see His face, and reign forever and ever.

Here then to those walking by grace faithfully “shall be richly furnished the entrance into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.” Not only is evil avoided, but there is nothing to dim the eyes or burden the heart. And the future glory is made richly to fill the soul as that which, as it belongs to Him, is shared with us, heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ. We are thus led into it for heart enjoyment; for the Spirit, being ungrieved, is not stopped by our errors and wrong-doing to humble us, but can show us things to come. “He shall glorify me, because he shall receive of mine and shall declare [it] to you.” The entrance into it shall be richly furnished in the case described for practical joy and power over all that is present, whereby Satan seeks to dazzle and occupy the unwary.

2 Peter 1:12

A great principle of God appears in the words that follow, to which we do well to take heed. For the proof is abundant and plain, and a serious warning at this very time, and at all times, of the peril to God's glory, so far as His saints are concerned, from neglecting it.

“Wherefore I shall be ready always to put you in mind of those things, though knowing [these] and established in the present truth” (ver. 12).

Can anything give clearer evidence of the all importance of the written word, not only to communicate the truth on divine authority, but to keep it intact in the living remembrance of the saints, than the earnestness with which this inspired bondsman and apostle of our Lord impresses its need in his last message?

We learn, from Gal. 1:6-10, how prone those mercurial Gentile brethren were, under evil influence, to forget even the fundamental principle of the gospel they had heard from the greatest preacher that ever lived. “I marvel that ye are so quickly removing from him that called you in the grace of Christ unto a different gospel, which is not another [one]; only there are some that trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ. But if even we, or an angel from heaven, proclaim a gospel to you besides [or, other than] that which we preached to you, let him be accursed. As we said before, now also I say again, If anyone preach a gospel besides that which ye received, let him be accursed. For am I now persuading men or God? or am I seeking to please men? If I were still pleasing men, I should not be Christ's bondman.” We learn also from 1 Corinthians, that the vain Greek mind in the capital of Achaia, where the same apostle had preached and won much people to the Lord, was soon slipping away, when his back was turned, from the ways and will of God, even to the compromise of the resurrection, though not of the immortality of the soul, which philosophy favored and the first man might and did misuse to exalt himself. Hence that first Epistle, early as the date was, reproved their carnal schools with leaders, their low moral sense, their worldliness in going to law, their tampering with idol feasts as if nothing, and the laxity as to natural relationships. Even the gospel demanded re-statement in chap. 15, as their disorders at the Lord's supper, and in the assembly, called for rebuke and rectification in chaps. 11 and 14. Nor need there be more than a reference to the “doubtful disputations” which endangered the peace of the saints in Rome; nor to the preaching for envy and strife of some at Philippi, nor to others who caused weeping to the apostle while he named it, enemies as they were of the cross of Christ, whose end was destruction, whose God was their belly, and their glory was their shame, who minded earthly things. Nor does the Epistle to the Colossians here call for notice, though it might well be a lengthened and appropriate one in view of the havoc which threatened those saints from the inroads of Gentile philosophy and of Jewish elements on the glory of the Head and the unity of the body with Him. We know too that the Epistles to the Thessalonians were written among other things especially to disabuse those young Christians of error: the first, as to the departed saints at Christ's coming; the second, as to His day for the living saints. Then the letters to the trusty fellow-laborers, Timothy and Titus, explicitly deal with falling away from the faith, profane babblings, with vain talkers and deceivers, specially those of circumcision; and in every case supplying the adequate remedy in God's grace and truth, as we ought to learn.

Eminently instructive is the opposite snare exposed in the grand Epistle to the Hebrews. Therein the apostle sets out the glory of Christ in person, office, and work, to deliver the circumcised believers from their traditional attachment to Judaism with its priesthood, ordinances, and sanctuary, from which they had not got clear after so many years of knowing Christ. But the Spirit of God would no longer tolerate this dullness, natural to babes, but inconsistent with the solid food of full-grown men, who have their senses exercised for distinguishing both good and evil. There is therefore exhortation from God to take their true Christian place of entering with boldness into the holies by the blood of Jesus, and of going forth unto Him without the camp, bearing His reproach. This was expressly before the destruction of the city and the temple; that the saints might shake off their old swaddling clothes, thoroughly and only Christ's by faith, before the coming acts of God's providence.

The later Epistles are just the fullest on the impending ruin of the professing church, the latest of all (Jude's and John's) pointing out apostasy at the end with the Lord's unsparing judgment. For “the last hour,” however it might be prolonged in divine patience, was characterized even then by “many antichrists,” the sure token of “the Antichrist” to be destroyed in the day of the Lord.

Even this short survey of inspired correction is the most convincing proof how dependent the Christian saints were on fresh scripture to guard our souls from forgetfulness of the truth and the aberrations from all round its circle provoked and promoted by the spirit of falsehood. But, besides this, food was provided in due season. To the Roman saints the apostle only refers to revelation of a mystery or secret as to which silence had been kept in everlasting times, but now manifested, and by prophetic scriptures according to the eternal God's command made known for obedience of faith unto all the nations. But it was not here revealed. Nor was it to the Corinthians in its heavenly side but only in its earthly working; still less to the Galatians or the Thessalonians. Not till he was a prisoner in Rome did he unfold it fully to the Ephesians and the Colossian saints, and thence to the church gradually far and wide. The word is the truth, and its written form under the inspiring power of God adds to it His abiding permanence as alike the supply and the standard for His children.

Nor can it be doubted that to-day beholds the most fearful and widespread and deadly onslaught on scripture ever since the apostles departed. At all times had men had yielded; and with more or less daring circulated their doubts and disbelief. But now so shameless is unbelief that the seats of human learning are its citadels; and theologians vie with scientists and literary men in thinly if at all disguised denial of God's word from Genesis to the Apocalypse. Divine revelation is therefore a burning question to-day; and the more because it taints largely and deeply every sect in Christendom.

And how fares it with such as abjure a sectarian place? Has it not been affirmed among such, orally and in print, that the church needed not scripture, at least if walking decently and in order? Again, “it is no good sending out Bibles if there are not preachers”? Again, “the word of God is in the scriptures”? Not that scripture is the written word but Christ is the word of God? That “the scriptures are more the record of it, than the thing itself”? We are all familiar with such language among adversaries of the truth; but how solemn that such phrases of incredulity should pass as from God's Spirit among the more ignorant of those once most staunch for the Bible! And how still more solemn that such impiety has not been judged on the guilty and repudiated with horror and humiliation by the more intelligent! Are there not some true-hearted enough for God and His word to be above the dread of consequences?

There is another phase of unbelief which prevails among such brethren as claim to be the faithful in disowning and separating from that depraved confraternity. Their danger made itself manifest from the time when both these parties, now opposed, staked all on what they called assembly-judgments. It was a phrase unknown in days when faith and patience reigned, and scripture was demanded and given for every legitimate judgment. No right-minded saint conceived of a godly action save in obedience of the word. What honor the Lord habitually put upon it! But just when party-spirit was beginning to blow up ecclesiastical fire to a white heat, and scripture was found unavailable to justify an extreme and revolutionary action desired, the strange proceedings brought in strange phrases.

Scripture was denied to be necessary, when it could not be produced. Very distressing became the course of these brethren who claimed all the faithful qualities and denied them to those who blamed their doings as without and beyond scripture. It was laid down that all were bound by an assembly-judgment, however partial or hasty, nay, even if known to be wrong! And this, not only prima facie but excluding in future any revisal, when it was distinctly urged that the right should alone be done by such as were assured of error.

No, there could be, there ought to be, no rectification, no owning of a wrong! An assembly-judgment, once made, must be accepted as irrevocable, even if known afterward and certainly to be unrighteous and erroneous! This did not matter; it was bound on earth and in heaven! Therefore the prime duty henceforth of the intelligent saint was to accept this as due to the Lord's word and name! The natural home for such fanaticism seems to be Babylon.

No doubt in regular cases of discipline, conducted according to scripture, the assembly is entitled to pronounce in the Lord's name, and individuals are bound to hear. Even then elder men acquainted with facts well knew that, in ordinary times, errors if unredressed might be fatal, and that unsound decisions were abandoned to the Lord's honor and the assembly's shame, yet so done heartily for His name's sake. How much more was it called for, when souls were perplexed, agitated, and prejudiced on all sides; when the unprecedented step was taken, as in the world's way to change the venue, and this not as even there to secure impartiality, but to judge a question where strong bias for and against was known to exist! Hence some were satisfied that there was no scriptural authority for such a case, declined even going to hear, and only staid in fellowship till there was no remedy, and a case occurred which compelled them to act according to conscience guided by the word.

These samples of the need, not exemplified among the distant denominations, but among saints who were once simple, gracious, and faithful, may help, as really existing facts, to show how invaluable was the help of which our apostle here speaks to the saints. He should be ready always to put them in remembrance of these things, just before urgently pressed on their heed, though they knew them, and were established in the truth present with them. How considerately he appeals, and gives them credit for the utmost possible! He was truly a bondman as well as apostle of Jesus Christ, and ruled not over their faith, but as with Paul a fellow-worker, not only of their joy, but of their stability and safety.

2 Peter 1:13-14

It was not enough then that the saints should know the things which the gospel communicates to them, nor even that they should be established in them. Those grand facts of divine grace with the moral responsibility they involve are “the present truth": Jesus the Messiah actually come, rejected by the chosen nation, as the prophets did not omit to announce and the basis of all, yet easily let slip, because of the glowing visions of His kingdom not yet accomplished but apt to eclipse what was deepest and essential. Hence the earnestness of the apostle to impress on his brethren the truth which was then before them, so distinct from the past and from the age to come.

It is, as he had said, the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord (ver. 2); the knowledge in particular of our Lord Jesus Christ (ver. 8), without which none can know God as He now needs to be known. In vain people cried up that which was so precious in foregoing time. All the prophets and the law prophesied until John; and none greater than John the Baptist had arisen among those born of women. But from his days the kingdom of the heavens suffered violence, and men of violence seize on it. It is now a question of faith breaking through every difficulty and obstacle in the power of the Spirit to receive the Son of God come, which necessarily tests every soul of man. For this is life eternal, that they should know the Father revealed by the Son whom He had sent to this end. What was any knowledge compared with that? In vain they talked of “father Jacob,” or of all the fathers from Abraham, who exulted that he should see Christ's day, as he by faith saw and rejoiced. For One was come, who, though man also, could say, Before Abraham was, I AM. This changed all for faith, and made inexcusable the unbelief that only stuck to the past.

To slight “the present truth” was to lose God and His Son. For it alone puts the believer into living relationship with God, and makes available His divine power which has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness; for this is inseparable from the knowledge of Him that called us by His own glory and excellence. It is in fact what we mean by Christianity, as the life no less than the faith we confess; and therefore it involves growth practically as we have seen in all that becomes the Christian, of which God is the judge, who deigns to instruct us with all precision, as having become partakers of a divine nature, and thus escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust. For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God, sending His own Son in likeness of flesh of sin and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteous import (or, requirement) of the law might be fulfilled in us that walk not according to flesh but according to Spirit. For He slights mere forms now and will have reality in those that are His. The greater the present privileges, the more are saints to be diligent to make their calling and election sure, avoid stumbling, and have richly furnished to them the entrance into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. For as another apostle dear to Peter says, “he that doeth the will of God abideth forever.”

But practically believers are exposed to such injurious influences, distractive of spirit and attractive to flesh, that they are like watches in need of habitual winding up. It is not enough to know and to be established in the present truth. Therefore the readiness of the apostle always to put them in mind of these things (ver. 12). Here again he reiterates it as their urgent need while he lived, and in view of his speedy departure.

“And I deem [it] right, as long as I am in this tabernacle, to stir you up by putting [you] in mind, knowing that the putting off of my tabernacle is speedy, according as our Lord Jesus Christ manifested to me” (vers. 13, 14).

Whoever believes, as every Christian is bound to believe, that the great enemy sets himself most against all that God has actually in hand, can readily understand the importance of this care for the saints. It was always so. Cain and Abel were severally put to the proof by the then urgent truth of sacrifice, which faith prized and unbelief disdained. Enoch and Noah both recognized the old truth, but were tested by, and faithful to, what God revealed to each in their day. Abraham held all that went before, but believed in the promises and confided in the divine revelation of “God Almighty” to himself, a pilgrim among races to be destroyed for their iniquity. Israel again had God bringing them out of Egypt, through the wilderness and into the land of Canaan, under condition of the law which they undertook to obey in their self-confidence. The Christian begins with redemption by His blood who gives us life eternal, walking in the light of the true God revealed in love and calling us to His eternal glory. In every case power of faith shows itself in specially appropriating “the present truth,” whilst valuing all that had been made known previously, because it was all God's doing and communicating.

But, if this be true as a principle, the infinite nature of God's revelation of Himself in Christ makes the actual deposit of faith precious and momentous beyond all comparison. It is not merely revelation from God but of God. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are now made known through our Lord a man, and in His work of redemption who is now consequently in heavenly glory, and, by the Spirit sent forth from heaven, the Spirit of God and of glory, rest on the Christian. Not that our apostle makes known all these wondrous privileges, individual or as the church, Christ's body; but he does insist on the all-importance of the knowledge of God, which is now the portion of faith, beyond what could be before Christ came, or what is to be displayed in the kingdom to the world by-and-by.

It was the inspiring Spirit who laid this duty on the apostle, knowing that his time was short, and the putting off of the earthly tabernacle at hand. Of tradition, in the sense of handing down man's oral addition, he never thought. What had this done for men before the deluge or after it? What was the issue of pretending to it in Israel or in Christendom? The prophet spoke out on the worthlessness of the fear of Jehovah taught by a commandment of men; the Lord still more decidedly, as transgressing the commandment and making void the word of God on account of their tradition. Inspiration makes it not a word of men, but as it is truly God's word, which also works in those who believe, and clothes it with divine permanence when written in the Spirit.

So the apostle Paul bade Timothy abide in the things which he had learned and was assured of, knowing of whom he learned, and that from a child he had known the sacred letters that are able to make wise unto salvation through faith that is in Christ Jesus. This of course refers to the O.T. But he adds more: “Every scripture [is] God-breathed (or, inspired), and profitable for teaching, for conviction, for correction, for instruction that is in righteousness; that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly fitted for every good work.” It is a sentence framed expressly to embrace not only whatever of the N. T. had already appeared, but every part of it that remained to be written. Terms could not be devised more simply or absolutely predicating God's authority of every part of the written word. To call it genuine or authentic was wholly short of what is conveyed. It was inspired or God-breathed, that we might know the things freely given to us by God; and this spoken in words, not taught by human wisdom, weakness, defect of any kind, but taught by the Spirit. Thoughts and words were alike spiritual, that the result might be God's word certain and complete.

Our apostle, like Paul, had his dissolution before his eyes as well as the increasing evil through false teachers in depravity, and skepticism. Both are distinct in pointing to scripture as the great safeguard. As they alike set aside tradition, so they exclude any thought of apostolic succession. Grace might raise up faithful men to teach the truth they had learned, or even to instruct others competent to communicate it. But scripture alone is the rule of faith, the sole unerring standard given of God to all His children whereby to test what they hear; and it is all the more blessed and necessary, as wicked men and impostors advance for the worse, leading and led astray. Scripture alone has divine authority. Therein God speaks directly to every soul; as indeed the apostle John also expresses it in his First Epistle, We [the inspired, apostles and prophets] are of God: he that knoweth God heareth us; he that is not of God heareth not us. From this we know the Spirit of truth and the spirit of error” (chap. 4:6). No one honored scripture as Christ did from first to last, on the cross, and when risen from the dead. He even set the written word as a definitive witness beyond His own spoken words (John 5:47).

These are but a portion of what might be cited to explain what the apostle here felt as guided of God to write these last words of his. Tradition must be a foundation of sand; and the foundation of the apostles and prophets is too well laid by divine grace to admit of a supplement, either of a vague and imaginary apostolic succession, or of a rival twelve set up by modern prophets. Scripture must be itself complete to make the man of God complete and fully equipped for every good work. But divine power is needed to receive, enjoy, and carry out the written word; and this is imparted to every Christian in the gift of the Holy Spirit abiding in and with us forever. Yet that word is the only standard. With his departure in near view the apostle would write his last inspired words to stir up the saints by recalling what is easily forgotten, but by his speedy departure made the more urgent, “according as our Lord Jesus Christ manifested to me.”

Peter remembered the grave lesson he had learned through Paul at Antioch, when he himself failed to keep in mind the truth conveyed so vividly by the vision at Joppa and its fulfillment in Cæsarea, the grace of God to Gentile now as to Jew. The pillar of the circumcision stood condemned, and he who was entrusted with the apostolate of the uncircumcision resisted him before all, and for the truth's sake recorded so great a failure in scripture. For little as it might seem to carnal eyes, it was dissimulation to please certain that came from James, compromised Gentile liberty, and surrendered the truth of the gospel. God thus took care to register it as such, the overwhelming disproof of an infallible Roman see, even if there had been evidence, which there is not, that Peter was the founder of the church there, or its first bishop. So tradition says, and the credulous believe, not only without but contrary to the clear testimony of the written word. Nor did Paul found it, but wrote his Epistle to the Roman saints before he was carried there a prisoner of Jesus Christ for the Gentiles, as at length also His martyr there.

Yet Irenæus, who stands above all the fathers in the second century as Clemens of Rome above those in the first, tells us, in his book III. against Heresies, that Matthew brought out his Gospel in Hebrew, “when Peter and Paul were evangelizing in Rome and founding the church.” This the famous and we may say first ecclesiastical historian, Eusebius, adopts (H.E. v. 28), though an error irreconcilable with scripture; as he had before (2:25) from Dionysius, bishop of Corinth, that Peter and Paul had founded the church in Corinth before going on to Rome for a similar work. Paul we know to have been its planter, not Peter. Can anything more plainly indicate the absurdity of trusting tradition even of early days, in presence of the sure light of God's word? Yet all goes to justify our apostle in his zeal to leave nothing for edification to such a haphazard channel, but to write all needed to help, guard, and stimulate the saints in words taught by the Spirit, that they might thereby be brought face to face with Him who inspired these exhortations. Thus only can we know and have communion with God.

2 Peter 1:15

In a third form the apostle presents the urgent importance which he felt in the Spirit for the written word; here expressly that “after his departure” they should be enabled also at any time to call to mind these things.

“And I will be diligent also that at every time ye may have [it, or the power] after my departure to call to mind these things” (ver. 15).

This is one of the many and immense advantages of scripture above the oral word, no matter how distinctly this might be given by the highest authority. No one lays this down more clearly than our blessed Lord in John 5, where to the reluctant Jews He recounts the varied testimonies to Himself as grounds of faith. (1) “Ye have sent unto John, and he hath borne witness to the truth.” (2) “But the witness I have is greater than John's; for the works which the Father gave me to complete, the very works which I do, bear witness concerning me that the Father hath sent me.” (3) “And the Father that sent me hath himself borne witness concerning me.” (4) “Ye search the scriptures, because ye think that in them ye have life eternal, and those are they that bear witness concerning me.... For if ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me; for he wrote concerning me. But if ye believe not his writings, how shall ye believe my words?”

Never spoke man as this Man, His enemies themselves being judges; yet in His great climax of witnesses the Lord does not hesitate from that point of view to set the written word in the superior place of authority with a permanence peculiar to itself, so that the reader or hearer can weigh it again and again with prayer. Those who slight scripture to the exaggeration of ministry ought to consider His decision. And how remarkable that the Lord should thus speak of the books of Moses, which beyond fair question were then what they are now as many citations show, and not least His own! Yet modern audacity has lifted up its heel against those books quite as much as against Isaiah's or Daniel's. But He who knew what is in God no less than what was in man anticipated and pronounced against all this self-vaunting criticism of unbelief.

It is equally plain that the apostle followed His Master in abhorrence of tradition. Never was it trustworthy since God saw fit to convey His mind in holy writ; least of all then, when a fresh body of truth was being revealed for the enlargement, instruction, exercise and comfort of faith in what we call the N. T. The higher the truth, as is necessarily due to the person, work, and offices of Christ, opening out to an unlimited sphere, even of heavenly things morally, as well as of things to come, the more was new scripture needed imperatively and supplied bountifully, with the same Spirit personally given to help the believers as had inspired the chosen instruments for its perfect communication.

One of the greatest perils which the apostles foresaw on their own departure is the rise and increase of impostors, corrupted in mind, reprobate concerning the faith. These men withstand the truth: some by superstition, fables, and tradition; others by scorn and scoffing at God's word generally, and at prophecy in particular. As it may be read of Paul in 2 Tim. 3, so here of Peter, the great safeguards are (1) knowing of what persons the truth had been learned, not teaching only, but conduct, purpose, faith, long-suffering, love, endurance, persecutions, sufferings; and (2) not only the sacred scriptures, the O.T., able to make wise unto salvation through faith that is in Christ Jesus, but “every scripture,” divinely inspired as it is and profitable for teaching, for conviction, for correction, for instruction that is in righteousness; that the man of God might be complete, out and out furnished unto every good work. The value of a known source in immediate relation to the God who communicated His mind and grace and will is thus shown to be of the highest degree, as well as the divinely assured certainty that the words were as unequivocally Spirit-taught as the thoughts themselves. No safeguard entrusted to the church, not to ministers only but to all the saints, is so sure and unfailing as scripture.

It is merely a cheat of unbelief to argue from the infirmity of the men employed for this all-important work. Granting all the infirmity, we are assured (from what God tells us in 1 Cor. 2, as well as 2 Tim. 3) that His inspiration precludes the action of human weakness to impair the absolute reliableness of what is revealed to bring our souls who believe it into direct subjection to God. Conscience, understanding, and heart, are all addressed suitably; but the aim is that we may have fellowship with the inspired messengers, and thus by the Holy Spirit have communion with God Himself, with the Father and His Son Jesus Christ.

Hence the prime duty for the Christian to turn away from these evil men, no matter how learned humanly they may be, and sanctimonious in manner, who either undermine the scriptures or substitute tradition for them. The form of godliness only makes such self-deceived deceivers more dangerous. It is in vain to reason on the scriptures as partial or fragmentary. It is an essential feature of them that God therein selected, out of much more that was given by the Spirit orally, all that was intended to be permanent and useful, all that was requisite to make the most advanced and honored complete, fully equipped for every good work. Even if we could have from an uncertain source stray words carried down from the Lord's teaching or that of any apostle, what could it add to produce the spiritual result which scripture claims for itself? Nor is it the least of its merits that scripture, so astonishingly full as it is to meet every want and to refute every error, should be also unburdened by superfluity. How worthy of Him who gave it as it is!

Nor is it only against the skeptic we have to be on our guard. Corruption comes in through those who do not openly deny but pare down inspiration, allow errors in history or other (as they call it) secondary matter, and attribute the selection of what is written to the instruments without God. But this is to deceive themselves and others, to say and unsay. If God inspired the writings, He suggested, He selected, He included, He left out. He gave the thoughts and the words; He guided and controlled all. This is scripture.

The first and grandest characteristic is that God inspired every scripture, every whit that was written when Paul wrote his last to Timothy, his last to any. Every scripture is God-breathed, even anything that He added afterward. This is enough for all that know God, and have every reason to distrust themselves or other men that are not inspired. As the apostle John later still and most trenchantly says, “Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them [the deceivers and antichrists], because greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world. They are of the world; therefore speak they [as] of the world, and the world heareth them. We [the inspired] are of God: he that knoweth God heareth us; he who is not of God heareth us not. By this we know the Spirit of truth and the spirit of error.” What an awful warning to “higher critics,” and their victims! Scripture possesses beyond all else the indelible authority of God, not only what was meant, but what is written; but if this be so, it is in the fullest way profitable. Their value, not only as the ultimate source of truth, but as the standard by which the highest ministry, even an apostle's, was to be tried (Acts 17:11), is without a rival.

Ministry is the exercise of a gift from the ascended Lord (Eph. 4) who not only gave His precious gifts at Pentecost, whether to lay the foundation by the apostles and prophets, or to perpetuate gift till the body is complete in the fullest sense (ver. 13). But its basis and its supplies depend on the authority of the written word; and so He led the way when on earth who was the supreme Apostle of our confession as He is the High priest. Who so honored, loved, and used the scriptures with God, with man, with Satan? So we see with all the inspired writers. Whatever new truth had to be imparted, they were led by the Spirit to impress on the saints the divine claims of the old holy writ to the uttermost. Nor is anyone more notable in this way than he who calls himself the least of all saints, to whom we are indebted as to none else for the administration of the mystery hidden throughout the ages in God, but now revealed (Eph. 3) minister of the church (as he says in Col. 1) to complete the word of God.

We may next observe how carefully the apostle Peter excludes all dependence not only on tradition but on ecclesiastical office of any kind after his departure. When faith decays and the power of the truth proportionately, then man's energy displaces the Holy Spirit, and the world enters with the love of worldly things to dim, darken, and destroy the love of the Father; external things gain an undue and growingly false place. Baptism and the Lord's supper, instead of being kept in their true niche, become at length traps of error, and engines of destruction, being invested with the reality of the grace that is in Christ Jesus. So it was with the elders, especially when they had no longer apostolic authentication, direct or indirect. And so yet more proudly when the figment of apostolic succession was conceived, to say nothing of the modern dream of a whole twelve-fold apostolate nominated by prophets as pretentious and as false as these apostles themselves. Peter is silent on every such resource for the future. He was led of God to provide scripture for the saints. “And I will be diligent also that at every time ye may have [it, or the power] after my departure to call to mind these things.”

It was exactly so that the great apostle of uncircumcision charged the elders or bishops of the church in Ephesus who met him at Miletus (Acts 20). “I know that after my decease grievous wolves shall come in among you, not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things to draw away the disciples after them. Wherefore watch, remembering that for three years, night and day, I ceased not admonishing each one with tears. And now I commit you to God and to the word of his grace, which is able to build up and give an inheritance among all that are sanctified.” The very elders were to become a danger and evil to themselves and the disciples, not they only but they prominently; for out of them emerged ere long the clergy (not gifted men) unknown while the apostles lived. Had the word of Christ dwelt in the saints richly, such a change could not have been. Man was looked to, and the word of God's grace became more slighted, forgotten, and powerless.

And who that looks at Christendom, or even at that part of it which boasts of an open Bible and separation from the idolatries and mummeries of Popery, can doubt that the apostle's warning has been verified, and that far worse is in rapid progress? Who can survey the enormous change during the last seventy or eighty years, for spreading and deepening evil, whether in superstition or in free-thinking, without humiliation or horror, unless he be under either delusion? One of the most painful and certain signs of the great enemy's work is the all but universal spread of error and worldliness, not in the greater communities only but throughout them all, down to the least. So it is in the new or western hemisphere as in the older world; so it is in every land and tongue, and very markedly in those which once hailed whatever of truth the Reformation recovered to hungry and thirsty mortals.

How little those who glory in the light and liberty and progress of the twentieth century are aware that both the sensuous and sentimental church revivalists, and the irreligious intellectualists who mangle the scriptures, are fast preparing the way for what the apostle Paul calls the falling away, “the apostasy,” when both the O. T. and N. T. will be cast away with scorn; when the Savior and His cross, His glory in heaven and His coming again, will be objects of open derision and general ribaldry! Christianity as a whole will be rejected by Papists and Protestants, by Episcopalians and Presbyterians, by Independents and Baptists, by Wesleyans, &c., by Quakers, passive resisters and disputers of all sorts. The prevalent neglect of the prophetic word will only hasten the awful catastrophe.

2 Peter 1:16

His zeal in furnishing the saints with divine grounds of faith the apostle fortifies, by reminding them of an unique display of glory, into immediate vision of which he had been admitted personally and with adequate witnesses.

“For we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, not following cleverly devised fables, but made eyewitnesses of his majesty” (ver. 16).

A sight more marvelous than any miracle, a scene more impressive and august than every vision on earth, a living miniature of the future kingdom more instructive, vivid, and glorious than any prophecy could present, was there given to saintly eyes and ears, that it might be divinely recorded and strengthen the hearts of the faithful. All the Synoptic Gospels had already recorded it. But manifestly it did not fall within the scope of the fourth Gospel to describe it, though many have conceived it alluded to in the latter clause of John 1:13. But here our apostle attests it as one of the chosen three who actually beheld the glory and heard the Father's voice about the Son, by a word in the N. T. peculiar to Peter, capable of a wide application, but going beyond eye-witness and appropriated to those admitted into the highest grade of the mysteries among the Greeks. For ἐπόπται here is not the same as αὐτὀπται in Luke 1:2.

Nevertheless, without going into details, we can all perceive that the Epistle omits one most important lesson for the Christian which the Gospels were inspired to convey: “hear Him,” the Christ, the Son of God. It was drawn out by Peter's hasty, shallow, and irreverent proposal to make here three tabernacles, one for the Lord, and one for Moses, and one for Elijah. For, as Mark adds, and Luke too, he knew not what to answer, being affrighted as the others also. And their fear could not but be aggravated by the bright cloud (the pavilion of God's presence) that overshadowed them, into which they entered and out of which the Father's voice said in evident rebuke, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I found my delight: hear Him,” Moses and Elijah disappearing.

Yet “hear Him” Peter alone omits, as He alone gives the emphatic personal expression of the Father's complacency (ver. 17). To impute men's shortcoming, for either the omission or the addition, is to betray one's own unbelief in God's perfect word. These differences are as much intended as their concurrent evidence; they are in no real sense discrepancies, but distinct intimations of the truth to carry out the Holy Spirit's special design in each part of holy writ. The Gospels were to initiate and maintain the primary value and authority of Christ's word, not only as spoken but to be communicated permanently in due time in what is commonly called “The New Testament.” Peter is here corroborating the testimony to Christ's kingdom by the magnificent scene witnessed on the holy mount of the Transfiguration. But nobody had such reason as himself in every point of view to remember “Hear Him” in that never to be forgotten incident. His omission is therefore the fruit, not of weakness, but of divine design. He is here, as he says, making known to his believing Hebrew brethren “the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ,” to which that blessed oracle was comparatively as uncalled for here as indeed it was of the utmost moment for God's purpose by the Synoptic evangelists.

Let us then briefly consider the character and teaching of what came to pass on the mountain. What drew out the display of His glory in the kingdom before the time of its establishment was to strengthen His own in taking up the cross and following the Master. For the disciples, like the unbelieving brethren, like Christendom, looked for progress and triumph, and overlooked faith and love put to the proof in suffering with Christ, the pattern of all holy suffering. Hence the Lord told them plainly of His own sufferings and the glories after these. So indeed it must be for sinners to be saved righteously; and for saints that, suffering with Him, they may also be glorified with Him. If we endure, we shall also reign together. “For whosoever shall be ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him shall the Son of man also be ashamed when he shall come in the glory of his Father with the holy angels. And he said unto them, Verily I say to you, There are some of those standing here that shall in no wise taste death till they see the kingdom of God come in power. And after six days Jesus taketh with [him] Peter and James and John, and bringeth them up on a high mountain by themselves apart. And he was transfigured before them” (Mark 8:33; 9:2). Not only did the fashion of His countenance become different as He prayed, shining as the sun, but His garments were effulgent as the light. Again not angels but Moses and Elias appeared in glory, and spoke of His departure which He was about to accomplish in Jerusalem.

Here then was an anticipative and unparalleled sample of the kingdom, not as it has ever been since in mystery, but in manifestation as when He comes in its power and glory. As there was so much to try the disciples in His yet to be deepened humiliation, what could be more gracious on His part, or more suited to their need, than to grant chosen ones of the twelve who were to be alone with Him in His anguish, to be also with Him beholding so unexampled a foretaste! For here were the great elements of the coming kingdom.

It is not at all a picture of eternity, when the kingdom is given up to Him that is God and Father, after Christ shall have annulled all rule and all authority and power, and the Son Himself shall be subject to Him that put all things in subjection to Him, that God [Father, Son, and Holy Spirit] may be all. This we easily recognize in Rev. 21:1-8. But here it is the exalted Man, made both Lord and Christ after man crucified and slew Him. Here He is seen as He will reign in power that all shall see, with the dead saints raised and the living changed, answering to the two glorified men. There will be also the righteous in their natural bodies, like the three honored disciples made free of the blissful vision.

This may seem to Corinthian minds, that savor the things of men, an abhorrent mixture. But what an utter prejudice! For the kingdom is God's grand scheme and answer to the shame the world puts on the faithful Christians, as before on Christ to the uttermost. If they in their devotedness to Him became a spectacle to the world,, both to angels and men, how righteous in the coming day of glory their exaltation with Christ! It is that the world may know that the Father sent the Son, however low He stooped in grace, and that He loved the saints, however weak and unprofitable they feel themselves to be, as He loved Christ! There will still be “the world” of men not glorified; there will be Israel and the nations on earth to learn this; not indeed in the eternal state, but in the kingdom which Christ will establish and manifest during the “age to come.” When eternity follows the “white throne” judgment, righteousness dwells in the new heavens and a new earth, instead of ruling as in the millennial earth. For the latter the Son of man receives the kingdom and returns (Luke 19:15) to reign; for the former He gives up the kingdom to the Father, that God may be all in all after the mediatorial reign and judgment are quite over, and the universe is brought into perfect harmony with God's counsels and ways in grace and in righteousness, and as to good and evil, for His glory forever and ever.

It was reserved for Pope Leo X. to avow without a blush that to the Roman communion and its chief the gospel had turned out a profitable fable; and St. Peter's in Rome stands as the monument, built out of part of the cash paid by benighted souls for indulgences! the base traffic in sins, which brought on the Reformation. What a contrast with the holy man whom they falsely claim as their first pope! Here is the simple and true averment of a true fisherman of souls: “For we followed not cleverly devised fables when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ but were made eye-witnesses of his majesty.” What the three witnesses saw and heard on the mountain was a glorious display which God alone could accomplish. But it was not merely the manifestation of the highest honor put upon the rejected Christ. It was also a most instructive type of His glory in the coming kingdom in due time to close all suffering, when His church should be complete which began to be gathered on and from the day of Pentecost. Of that kingdom the vision shown was the wondrous pattern and the certain pledge. Hence the apostle expresses its difference from His first coming by the phrase “the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.” First He came to suffer and to die; “for ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that for your sakes he being rich became poor, that ye by his poverty might be made rich.” Yes, He was crucified out of (or, as we say, in) weakness. But when He appears again, He will come on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory, the indisputable Lord of all.

Hence we must avoid the error of godly Puritans who apply the verse to the power of Christ in the preached gospel for saving from the guilt as well as the corruption of sin. So they applied it either exclusively, or including His future advent also. But such vagueness as this last implies is the way to lose the precision of the truth, and at best a makeshift when men are not sure, and seek to cover it by that style of accommodation. For the Transfiguration was significant, not of grace to perishing sinners, but of that glorious kingdom of God to come, which will consist of heavenly things as well as earthly, and the Lord the glorified chief and center of them all. Compare Matt. 6:10; 13:41-43; 19:28, Eph. 1:10.

2 Peter 1:17

It is to be noticed that angels are not seen on the mount of Transfiguration. Yet we know that, when the day arrives for the establishment of His kingdom, the Son of man will come in the glory of His Father with His holy angels, or, as Luke puts it fully, “in His glory, and of the Father, and of the holy angels.” Here not a word is breathed about them. Men are prominent, two saints in glory of the past that represented the law and the prophets, three of the present “better thing” in their natural bodies. The delights of Divine Wisdom were with the sons of men; the Life was the Light of men, and so when He deigned to enter on His earthly mission and work, He took not hold of angels but of the seed of Abraham, not only for all that the promises to the fathers assured, but for heavenly and eternal counsels.

But there is more that we do well to observe, the unmistakable voice out of the cloud of the Divine Presence, not in thunder but in accents of the tenderest love, and in evident answer to Peter's well-meant but utterly unmeet desire to exalt His Master. The Father alone knows how His Son should be honored; as He indeed loves the Son supremely, and has given all things to be in His hand. Let us too hear the Father.

“For he received (literally, having received) from God the Father honor and glory, when such a voice was borne to him by the magnificent glory, This is my beloved Son, in whom I found my delight (or, complacency)” (ver. 17).

The Lord Jesus was Man, the Messiah, on the road to the most extreme humiliation, even to the death of the cross, and by none so keenly consigned to it as by His own people, the Jews. Such was the ruinous blindness and the guilty unbelief which pervaded mankind. Hence to encourage His feeble followers in a path of suffering, least of all anticipated by themselves, it suited Him Who is wise and good and righteous to rise above all natural limits which ordinarily prevailed, and to manifest in the most unwonted fashion and impressive way His predestined exaltation in the coming kingdom. This indeed is not even yet come; while Israel abides in hard incredulity, and the church is meanwhile called to its special blessedness in heavenly places. Then, the Jew too shall become object of God's healing mercy, as the Gentile now does, though rapidly abandoning the truth for the crisis at the end of the age like the mass of Jews.

Hence, in view of Christ's sufferings, and His glories to follow in due time, not only in the heavens but on the earth, grace gave to chosen witnesses this extraordinary anticipation on a small scale but with divine depth and power. As He prayed (so Luke tells us, who speaks most of His human perfection), the fashion of His countenance became different, and His very raiment white, effulgently so. And the two men of olden time, so renowned for fidelity to Jehovah and His people, talked with Him, the central Object for saints above or below; they appearing in glory spoke of His departure which He was about to accomplish in Jerusalem. How full of interest and instruction! One was the promulgator of God's law, the other its restorer and vindicator when Israel apostatized and worshipped Baal. Yet it was of our Lord's death they talked, not of the law. Where was anything comparable to His death? and how ominous, “in Jerusalem”! Thereby alone was God glorified morally as to sin; there Satan forever defeated; there man's sin, and the Jew's was darkest; there grace shown to the uttermost; there the judgment of our sins so borne, that God can only justify the believer in Jesus. What had either Moses or Elijah revealed to them that could fairly be put alongside of these truths? Yet they are the common faith of Christians, the faith once delivered to the saints.

Peter who was there does not say a word about His wondrous converse; and Luke who was not there is the only one to record it. Nor was Paul at that time anything but a Hebrew of Hebrews, as to law a Pharisee, ignorant of Christ after the flesh, knowing Him only as dead, risen and ascended to heaven, and in no way cognizant of the days of His flesh. What it proves is God's design and power and will as to inspiration; who gave to each writer what consisted with His purpose by each. Here the apostle, having before him the power and coming of our Lord Jesus, testifies the honor and glory He received from God the Father, when initiated into that mystery which transcended all the secret mysteries of the heathen; as much as the Father and the Son in truth and love transcended their wretched divinities, morally contemptible on their own showing, whether in their fables or in moral effect on their votaries. But it was in view of the coming kingdom and Christ's revelation to introduce it, with which this and the former epistle teem.

Peter does however speak here of “such a voice being borne (or uttered) to him by the magnificent glory: This is my beloved Son in whom I found my delight.” Soon, soon, would be proved by His departure in Jerusalem, that the city over which He wept saw in Him no form nor comeliness that it should at all desire; yea, hid as it were its face from Him, as an aversion of men and as smitten of God and afflicted. But here is attested by the voice out of the glory, This is my beloved Son in whom I found My delight. So it had been in eternity before creation; so it was when the world was made by Him, and in all the dealings of providence, in the secret working of grace with individuals, and in the public government of Israel under the law. So still more when the incarnate Word presented that object of His everlasting complacency as man on earth in unwavering dependence and obedience on His way to death for His glory, for man's salvation, for the church's blessedness, for His people's deliverance, and for the reconciliation of all things.

But Peter here too omits, what all three Synoptics tell us, the “hear Him” so important for their purposes, but not for God's task assigned to himself. Christ had lost nothing of His eternal glory by His extreme humiliation even to the cross. On the contrary, as He had thus glorified God both as Father and as God, so He was the object for God the Father to glorify; and here in view of His coming kingdom, incomparably more glorious in itself and in Him who would display its full character and power than ever Rabbi had conceived. Their aspirations and anticipations were as short of it as of Himself, the true Messiah and the beloved Son of God.

2 Peter 1:18

As the apostle once more recurs to the Father's voice, let us follow him also.

“And this voice we heard uttered (or, brought) out of heaven, being with him on the holy mountain” (ver. 18).

The three apostles were truly eye-witnesses of the Lord's majesty, all the more wondrous because it was His power and coming for a brief view in the midst of His humiliation in grace for God's glory. Every part of the scene before their eyes was a magnificent testimony to the future kingdom of the Son of man beheld on a small scale, before the Lord come to establish it in its visible grandeur and its appointed season before the universe. But the emphasis is manifestly laid on “this voice we heard,” borne out of heaven as it was, when we were with Him on the holy mountain.

Already had the Father's voice been heard in terms identical with these now recorded, save the pregnant construction of εἰς ὃν for ἐν ᾦ in the Gospel which makes no difference in translating. But none as far as we know, heard the first time but the Lord Himself and the Baptist, though the Lord adduced it as one of the four testimonies to His personal glory which proved the Jews to be thoroughly unbelieving: John the Baptist His predicted herald; then the greater witness which the Father gave Him to complete; next, the Father that sent Him had Himself borne witness concerning Him by His voice; and lastly the scriptures, to which He assigned a very great place (John 5). But man's will can resist any and all, as the Jews then verified to their ruin, and will another day and in another form, as He then warned them.

The occasion too was quite different. For the grace of the Lord Jesus led Him to take His place with the feeble remnant of the Jews who obeyed John's call to repentance, and came to the Jordan to be baptized as they did. Holy, guileless, undefiled, He associated Himself with those who had nothing but sins; yet as they confessed them, the first mark of awakened conscience bowing to God's call, He would not stand aloof though He had not the least evil to confess. It was the perfection of man's position in lowly active love; and so He, the Righteous One, corrected John's reluctance in the gracious words, Thus it becometh us (you and Me) to fulfill all righteousness. “And Jesus being baptized went up straightway from the water; and, behold, the heavens were opened to Him, and He saw the Spirit of God descending as a dove, and coming upon Him; and, behold, a voice out of the heavens, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” The heavens opened to Him, the Holy Ghost's descent as a dove on Him, the Father's voice expressing His delight summed up there and then, bore witness to the divine delight in Him and never so much as in that act of humiliation in grace.

Yet at the mount of Transfiguration the immediate occasion of the voice again heard, and by the chosen witnesses, was Peter's own attempt to honor His master in the highest way he could then suggest. But to put Him on a level with the chiefs of the law and the prophets would not suit the Father. “This is my beloved Son: hear Him.” And the terrified disciples fell upon their faces; but lifted up at the touch and the comforting words of their Master, they saw no one but Jesus, alone with themselves. He was to be heard, He paramountly, He the truth. Others at best wore His forerunners.

As noticed already, Peter here was not led to recall this last part of the utterance given in all the synoptic Gospels. His aim was to concentrate attention on Jesus as the center of divine affection and glory; theirs was also to attest Him as the complete fullness and revealer of all the truth. Matthew gives the Father's voice undiminished: as his province was to show the full consequence of the rejected Messiah, His larger glory as Son of man, and higher still as the beloved Son of God, the Rock on which the church was to be built. Mark and Luke omit here the expression of God's complacency in Him, so as to throw stress on hearing Him, the former as the Servant Son in the gospel; the latter as God's Son, yet fully man. Our apostle omits the clause they carefully record, not because he could or would forget it, but to make the more prominent the good pleasure the Father had in Him, His beloved Son.

2 Peter 1:19

We next hear of the confirmation given by the vision on the mount to the prophetic word, the light of which, however valuable, is very briefly shown to yield to the superior brightness of a heavenly light for the hearts of saints, not a display to the world.

“And we have the prophetic word firmer, to which ye do well in paying heed, as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until day dawn and a (or, the) morning star arise in your hearts” (ver. 19).

The prophetic word of O.T. and of N.T. alike converges on the coming and kingdom of our Lord Jesus; and this, the apostle here declares, was made firmer, or confirmed, by what the witnesses were there given to behold and hear, the glorious anticipation and precursor of that day of power and glory for the universe. The predictions were absolutely true and reliable; but it seemed good to the All-wise at the first coming of Christ and in view of His death of shame (so essential to lay a basis for the ways and purposes of grace), to confirm the truth of His second coming and kingdom by a sight which set on the word another seal more. A vivid though brief realization of its chief elements confirmed the prophetic word in a way beyond aught else. No season was so appropriate for it as when He earnestly charged and enjoined His disciples to tell no man that He was the Christ, saying, The Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and the third day be raised up. This was a fact wholly unexpected by all, even by him who had just owned His personal dignity as the Son of the living God. It was the substitution, for the Messianic testimony and hope utterly rejected by the people and their rulers, of the death and resurrection of the Son of man and Son of God. This laid the basis for introducing not only the kingdom of the heavens but the church, which now occupy the place which Israel once had in an earthly way under law, and when they repent shall have under Messiah and the new covenant.

The Christian Jews, as the apostle says, were doing well in paying heed to all that the prophets had announced of those coming days of glory. They did not misapply their words, as Christendom soon began to do, to the different character of the parenthesis which runs on between the first and the second comings of Christ. It is now an unseen victory which faith beholds in Christ raised from among the dead and seated on His Father's throne, and in Christians united to Him on high by the Spirit sent here below, whilst they suffer on the earth as their Master did (His atoning death excepted), not of the world as He was not. It will not be so on that day when Christ will appear and sit on His own throne, and they shall reign with Him, who now suffer with Him, if not also for Him.

Then Israel, instead of being lost in unbelief, shall be saved, and become Jehovah's witness in truth of heart and in power. And all the nations shall bow to His behest, not only having learned righteousness when His judgments are on the earth, but truly subject to His anointed King on Zion, the center of all the world's kingdoms, whence the law goes forth, their idols of silver and gold consigned to the moles and to the bats. For the great invisible organizer of iniquity is shut up in the abyss, whilst this display of righteousness, peace, and glory is enjoyed by all the earth, till the hour strikes for God to sift those who have multiplied when war and want and pestilence are unknown. But those who are on the earth (the risen being above), as many as are not born of God, will fall under Satan's power once more, when he is let loose to tempt, and prove that man's fallen nature is as unimprovable under a dispensation of glory, as of grace, or law, or anything else. Man ever prefers Satan to God that he may have license for his corruption or his violence. Dull as the Jewish Christians were as to our highest privileges, they were not so beguiled as to imagine that the prophetic word, save quite exceptionally, describes the Christian state which is now our portion. Their danger was rather to make the future kingdom to be their hope, instead of reading in the prophets the hope of Israel and of all the peoples who in that day accept Jehovah's word from Jerusalem. It is the delusion of Christendom to appropriate it now by what they call spiritualizing, and relegating to eternity what they cannot thus force. The believer called to heavenly hopes meanwhile does not forget that Jehovah will renew and restore Israel to their place of promise on the earth.

Here accordingly they were told that, however well it was to heed the word of prophecy, it is but “as a lamp shining in a dark place; “for so the earth is and must be till the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in His wings. But he just glances at the higher light of heavenly truth, which they might have as yet but feebly entered into, however truly they had received Christ Jesus as their Lord. The prophetic word did show the ruin of Israel as a whole for its idolatry, and the special further sin of Judah for the rejection of the Messiah. The prophetic word made clear the rise of the four Gentile empires while the Jews are Lo-ammi (not-my-people), and between Daniel and the Apocalypse also the reappearing of the last or Roman empire with the apostate Jews, who set up the Antichrist in Palestine, to be destroyed by the Lord shining out from heaven.

But the prophetic word nowhere reveals those heavenly counsels which the mystery (hid from the ages) made known through Paul. Nor does Peter here do more than allude to it under the strikingly distinct figures of “day” and “morning star.” The lamp is excellent to cast adequate light on this dark world, its evil and its doom; and they did well in paying it heed, “till day dawn and a (or, the) morning star arise in your hearts.” That is to say, till they apprehend with enjoyment the bright heavenly relationship which Christianity fully understood gives us now in Christ, and the heavenly hope of His coming to introduce us into the Father's house. The prophetic lamp is good to help us against the squalid place; but how much more is “daylight” in Christ to lift us above the world in all our associations of faith, and the bright hope, Christ as Morning Star, which He not only is, but has promised to give the overcomer (Rev. 2:28; 22:16, 17)!

It is a strange perversion to confound this last clause (which contemplates the heart now gaining the twofold heavenly light, far above the lamp of prophecy) with that which prophecy so fully shows, the day of the Lord coming for the world. But it may be well to add that the morning star of prophecy is not Christ, but His enemy, Babylon's last head, who vaunts as his what is true of Christ.

As we are occupied with this verse, it seems a duty to defend the text as it stands in all MSS. and ancient as well as modern versions commonly known. Nevertheless two zealous men now passed away took on themselves to depart from its very structure in their respective but different ways to give it a novel turn, and thus blunt its edge, as it stands. For thus it opposed their prophetic scheme, which merges the Christian hope with that of Israel, at least as far as limiting both to the same time, the day of the Lord or His appearing in glory to every eye. There is no wish to recall names, nor to indicate such writings as might do so; suffice it to state the nature of these mistakes, and to refute them in honor of the word of God to which such violence was done by blind zeal.

The first of these was to make a parenthesis in ver. 19 from “as unto a light” to “day-star arise” inclusively. This would sever “in your hearts” from the “day-star,” and would connect “take heed” with “in your hearts.” But such a dislocation, in my judgment, involves a twofold violation of the truth, in flat opposition to the mind of the Spirit of God. The prophetic word was ever cherished by God's elect in Israel; as now the Christian Jews are told by the apostle that they were doing well in paying heed to it, as a lamp shining in a dark place. For it judged the evil that man did, and especially the Jew, as favored of God to profit by such a lamp in the world's squalor; and it pointed to a Deliverer, who will put down by His power the haughty and rebellious governors who will then stand in flagrant antagonism to Jehovah and His Christ.

Nevertheless the language is studiously moderate as to this lamp for the dark place, the prophetic word. For prophecy indeed is peculiarly liable to monopolize the attention of the mind, and to divert the heart from what is still more profoundly requisite for the saint's edification and for God's glory. Christ Himself, the rejected of and from earth and the glorified in heaven, is an object that far transcends the lamp for a dark place; God's own Son in the highest honor of heaven, and His present exaltation there, expressly because of His emptying and humbling Himself to the uttermost in obedience, love, and suffering, for both God and man. Now here lay the deficiency of the Christian Jews, as we can certainly discern through both Epistles of Peter to those in the East, and yet more through the Epistle of Paul to the Hebrews, obviously addressed as being in Jerusalem, though not confined to such and applicable anywhere. The greatest pains will be found therein to raise their eyes to Christ on high, and make God's object their object as Christ is now and there. This heavenly glory of His is in no way developed in the prophetic word, but it is here glanced at in the words “till day dawn and a morning-star arise in your hearts.” Christendom has so lapsed into that judaizing, which was counteracted while the apostles lived, but prevailed since their departure, that we may readily apprehend why the commentators found a difficulty here insuperable; for they were really tainted by similar views. They could not make out why, if Christians, they should not enjoy the full daylight of the gospel or their hearts lack the bright hope of Christ as morning-star, content with waiting for the appearing when every eye shall see Him, and all evil shall be put down by His mighty hand to the joy of all in heaven and earth in that day.

But the two alluded to, who were keener than most for the general and earthly view, went farther than became sincere believers in manipulating the word to exclude the heavenly light and joy which they ignored and sought to get rid of. Hence their proposals jar with the inspired text, lose the precious aim of the Holy Spirit, bring in confusion, and are unmistakably erroneous. It is untrue that “the day” (i.e., of the Lord) is here meant, or that this, the great burden of prophecy, is intended; it is “daylight” such as the gospel of grace sheds when clearly apprehended, chasing away all legal dimness and anxieties. Still less is “day-star's arising in your hearts” to be confounded with its actual manifestation, any more than the order suits either matter of fact or prophecy. Its import is spiritual.

The lamp of prophecy was excellent for its own place and purpose; and those who do not heed it lose much, as those who misuse it do worse. But those who heed it do well, till day's heavenly light dawn in its distinctive Christian character, and Christ, not yet as Sun of righteousness but as Morning-star, arise in their hearts, separating them to the things above from earthly expectations as well as from occupation with the growing evils that portend the worst, and the divine judgment which will deal destruction. The apostle points to Christ as the hope of those who watch during the dark night before the day; and none thus await Him with joy in their hearts, unless they are filled with that “better thing” which sets them in the liberty of Christ, or His daylight. It is anarthrous, and therefore the character of proper Christian blessing.

The second vagary is of the same school and prompted by similar aims, but almost too insignificant to notice, save as betraying inability to appreciate what is heavenly. It divorces “in your hearts” from what God joined these with, and connects them, absurdly enough and by unwarranted usage, with what follows— “In your hearts knowing this first, that no prophecy,” &c. How could this be a primary object for Christian affection? The effort shows will, not intelligence of God's mind.

2 Peter 1:2-3

“Grace to you and peace be multiplied in knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord” (ver. 2).

The text of the salutation in ver. 2 differs from that in the First Epistle only by the addition of the words, “in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord”; which reappear in its course substantially elsewhere. They are characteristic of the Second Epistle, and of great weight and worth where living faith accompanied that full knowledge.

Yet the solemn fact is shown in chap. 2:20-22 that such a full knowledge might be only in the flesh, and end in a last state worse than a first, or total ruin. So we read in Rom. 1:18 of men that hold the truth in unrighteousness: very zealous for an orthodox creed, but quite unrenewed, and hence holding fast the truth with unrighteousness. The faith, Christianity, is so rich in knowledge of the utmost interest, that the natural mind, where the conscience is not before God, nor the soul purified by obedience of the truth, may deceive itself and readily acquire much, which only puffs up, instead of building up. It is never in this case receiving the love of the truth, that they may be saved; but their mastering the truth, as they would any department of art or science, rather than being searched by truth, and subject to it, unto salvation. In a word there is no repentance Godward, but intellectualism. When Christ is the object and the life, the truth is known and loved, while it also frees from bondage of every sort to make one all the more bondman of Jesus. Thus it was that the apostle desired “grace and peace multiplied in full knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.”

It was of great moment for the Christian Jews to learn (and indeed it is imperfectly understood in Christendom) that, before our Lord came, the knowledge of God though true was vague, comparatively speaking. Yet all the O.T. saints looked away from themselves to Him in the sure hope of the woman's Seed to destroy the enemy. They knew Him as a faithful Creator and Preserver and Savior, and by sacrifice too. His ways with Adam and Abel, with Enoch and Noah, gave ever-increasing light; though but partial, it was blessed. To Abraham more was vouchsafed, and the name of the Almighty, as a present help in the midst of the race ripening for judgment, was no small thing. Much more became known when through Moses He gave the name of Jehovah the Eternal, as the grand national watchword to Israel His people, the security of their final and everlasting blessing on earth under His government, whatever their changes meanwhile.

But the Lord Jesus has given us the knowledge of God His Father as He knew Him, generally in the days of His flesh, fully in His resurrection and ascension, that we might know Him as His Father and our Father, His God and our God, in the new creation consequent on His atoning death. What was all before in many modes and many measures, compared with this fullness? As the “beloved” disciple says in his First Epistle (v. 20), “We know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding that we may know Him that is true; and we are in Him that is true, in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life.” Is anything so wonderful, gracious, and practical, as the truth now made fully known? It could not be till He came who knew it Himself perfectly, and died and rose and ascended that we might be brought, as far as is possible, into His relationships, and have the Holy Spirit given to know it this day (John 14:20). Such is Christian knowledge of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. As the Father is revealed, so the Son reveals, and this only in its living reality by the Holy Spirit. It is the full revelation of God, confessed in our baptism, and needed, as it ought to be enjoyed, every step of the way till our pilgrimage closes in His coming to take us on high that where He is, we also may be.

“As his divine power hath granted to us all things that [are] for life and godliness through the knowledge of him that called us by his own glory and excellence” (ver. 3).

Such is the apostle's testimony to the intervention of God's grace in salvation. Who knew better than the chief workman on the great Feast of Pentecost when three thousand souls were added in one day? Who could testify as he of the power of God that wrought outside to save multitudes, and against evil within judicially, and assuredly not less in the devotedness with one heart and soul to Christ in love, which rose above all selfishness? Who could speak more nearly of the miraculous energy vouchsafed in those early days when, notwithstanding the awe that reigned, the sick were even carried into the streets and laid on beds and pallets, that, as he passed by, at least his shadow might overshadow some one of them; and this not of Jerusalem alone, but from the cities round about, the sick and the possessed, who were healed everyone?

Here however he speaks only of the divine power in its ordinary but supernatural operation. It is God's prerogative to quicken souls that were dead in their offenses and sins; the Father in communion with the Son gives life. He calls out of darkness into His wonderful light—yea, makes us, once darkness, now light in the Lord; once hateful and hating, to love because He first loved us. Think, too, of the relationships He confers on the Christians, His children and sons, yea, as the First Epistle said, a holy priesthood, and a royal one. Others we might recount; for, being Christ's, all things are ours, with the Holy Spirit ever indwelling since we rested by faith on Christ's redemption, that there might be power as well as capacity. How truly His divine power hath granted all things that are for life and godliness!

Jews, we know, ask signs, Greeks seek wisdom. Never were such signs of power and of goodness as in Christ; yet the Jews rejected Him. Never was such wisdom of God as in Jesus; yet the Greeks, the world, disdained Him. Had the rulers of this world known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory; but none knew. They were blind in unbelief. And a new thing was brought in; not yet the expected kingdom restored to Israel in power and glory, but “some better thing” in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord,” who is on the right hand of God, having gone into heaven, angels and authorities and powers being made subject to Him. Hence, carrying out what was surprising even to the Twelve, His divine power has granted to us even now all the things that pertain unto life and godliness. For the Christian is called to the life of faith in all reverence and godly fear, as having nothing yet possessing all things, sharing now Christ's reproach, while looking at the things unseen and eternal.

Such is Christian faith, which the apostle set before these saints, once Jews, in his First Epistle; and confirms with point and solemnity in the Second against all corruption and scoffing. Therefore from the start he would establish their confidence in the provision of grace for all wants, weakness, and dangers. Even the Jews were counted Atheists, because they had no images. How much more open to the charge were Christians without visible temple, altar, or sacrifice! Yet they, and they alone, knew the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom He sent. They alone had, now that Christ was on high, the other Paraclete, the Holy Spirit whom the Father sent in the name of Jesus to be with them forever, and to be in them, consequent on Christ's death and their acceptance thereby.

This was but part of the “all things” His divine power has given us for life and godliness. For we have now also an entirely new revelation, fully conforming to the O.T. which they had from of old, but conveying what was now suited to God, no longer hidden in the holiest whence His people were strictly debarred, but fully manifested in Jesus, His Son yet Man, perfect God and perfect man in one person. This involved a total change for all who now believe. We have redemption through His blood, and we await His coming for redemption of the body as well as of the inheritance. We are baptized in the power of the Spirit into one body whether Jews or Greeks, all fleshly distinctions therein gone which were strictly maintained in the O. T. We have a great High Priest gone through the heavens as He is, Jesus the Son of God, to sympathize and intercede; and if any one have sinned, we have with the Father Him as Advocate, the Righteous One that is the propitiation for our sins. And we have a hope no less precious and high, that He is coming for us, we know not how soon, to receive us to Himself for the Father's house, as well as to display us in the same glory with Himself before the world when we shall reign with Him. Hence we need, and we have, a new and special revelation in what is called the N.T., to guide us, not of the world as Christ is not, in His path till He comes. The Gospels, the Epistles, and the Revelation furnish this perfectly by the Spirit as our guide into all the truth.

We see how carefully the apostle guards the truth from mere speculation or sentiment. Knowledge that puffs up is as far as possible from his thought, save in these who had nothing else along with their dissolute or unrighteous ways. There may be a knowledge of God and of Jesus which never rises above the human mind, leads into no communion with God, has not even moral roots in the conscience and heart, and is ever liable to heterodoxy, because it is only natural. But the knowledge which he commends to the saints is what his fellow-apostle John treats as life eternal, and he himself as the means of life and godliness; for our apostle is ever intent on practical result. For this indeed divine power cannot but be needed, as the saints are here cheered by the assurance of it.

Its working is strikingly expressed, “through the knowledge of him that called us by his own glory and excellence.” Man is fallen, and thus is in a condition wholly different from his first estate. Then his duty was to obey, in thanksgiving to God for all the goodness that surrounded him. But with his disobedience came ruin not only for himself but for the creation of which he was head. Departing from God, he was an exile from paradise, a sinful dying man; and so the race in and by him. All deliverance hung on Another, the woman's Seed, who crushed in heel should crush the Serpent's head; a Man, but necessarily more than man thus to deliver by the utter defeat of Satan. From that day forward faith clung to the Coming One, later called Son of God, and Son of man, Messiah, in Psalms and Prophets. But only the N.T. brings out the truth with all simplicity, clearness, and depth; and not His personal glory alone, but His reconciling work shining out in divine light.

This salvation is by God's call; and one quits self, man, the world, sins and all for the object of faith He sets before us. Hence God calls us by His own glory and excellence. It is in Christ, but it is His own glory and excellence, not ours. Instead of staying where we are, which had been quite right if sin and ruin had not come in, we turn to One in heavenly glory who here suffered for our sins, that we should be not only forgiven but with Him there; and even here and now, while we are weak indeed, to enjoy that excellence which goes out of Him to preserve and guard us in the present scene of evil. We leave all by faith for Him. Our calling is the calling on high of God in Christ Jesus (Phil. 3:14); and there will the prize be. But there is He, dead and risen now; and to Him the sinner looks to be saved, for His is the power that keeps from the paths of the destroyer. He that rests where he is rests in self and sin, blinded by the enemy. The voice of Christ awakes him to his lost condition; and he, obeying the word, repenting toward God, and believing on the Lord Jesus, is called by His own glory and excellence. The Savior is there, and associates him who believes with Himself above in hope, thus separating him from the evil in him and around him.

It may help souls if we illustrate the same by the words of the apostle Paul in Rom. 3:23; especially as their sound is as familiar as the sense is not. “For all sinned, and do come short of the glory of God.” The first clause is plain; but what of the second? By sin man lost his place on earth as well as his life as it was. It became a question of meeting the glory of God, or of being cast into hell. And this is only met by the Savior and His work on the cross to fit the sinner by faith in Him for heavenly glory. Otherwise he is content with himself, neglects so great salvation, and refuses the Savior who will judge him at the last day. He verily comes short of the glory of God; whereas the believer rejoices in hope of it. Without the blood of Jesus we could not stand by faith before the glory of God; but, knowing that His blood cleanses from all sin, we are entitled there to stand in spirit even now, and thus do not come short of it. We are called by His own glory and excellence.

Justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, we repent toward God, we judge ourselves, and (instead of resting here on ourselves) we go forward in faith to Him who is at God's right hand, thereby entitled to boast, no longer in self, or man, or the world, but in hope of the glory of God. Meanwhile we are guarded in (or, by) His power through faith for the salvation even of our bodies in that day. But it is by His own (not our) excellence and glory that He called us, instead of license for ease, worldly honor, or natural enjoyment. Hence says the apostle Paul as the right experience of a Christian, “I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord; for whom I suffered the loss of all things, and do count them dung, that I may gain Christ, and be found in him, not having a righteousness of mine own, that which is of the law, but that which is of God by faith,” etc. “Not that I already attained, nor am already perfected, but I pursue, if also I may apprehend, seeing that also I was apprehended by Christ Jesus” (Phil. 3:8-12). Instead of abiding as unfallen man ought in his first estate, there is but one thing, forgetting the things behind and stretching forward to the things before, to pursue toward the goal for the prize of the upward calling of God in Christ Jesus.

2 Peter 1:20

The apostle adds an important caution to the commendation in ver. 19. They did well in taking heed to the prophetic word. God alone can speak with certainty of the future, for a world in confusion and change, prone to sin; and He has been pleased, not only to speak but to write by chosen instruments, that those who believe may profit by His communications, where otherwise they were liable to stray, but thereby were enabled by faith to enjoy the measure of light thus afforded. His people could not despise it, save to His dishonor and their own loss.

Before the deluge Enoch prophesied as to the ungodly in deeds and words, whose daring would bring on the Lord's coming with His holy myriads to execute judgment on their ungodliness: a prophecy preserved and cited by the inspired Jude as yet to be accomplished on those that deny our only Master and Lord Jesus Christ. Later still by faith Noah, oracularly warned concerning things not yet seen, moved with godly fear, prepared an ark for the saving of his house; by which he condemned the world, and became heir of the righteousness that is according to faith (Heb. 11:7). Abram had not only prophecy but a prophetic vision, centuries before the facts of his seed's oppression in Egypt and of deliverance from the oppressor by divine judgments, which should also deal in due time with the enemies who filled Canaan (Gen. 15). Further, he was given as a mark of divine friendship to learn from Jehovah Himself the imminent destruction of the cities of the Plain.

Nor is it otherwise with us Christians; for if given an incomparably “better thing” now in and with Christ glorified after the accomplishment of redemption, we do not lose the present value of prophecy. The same Holy Spirit, who guides us into all the truth (as He empowered the apostles and prophets to make it known to us), was to declare unto us the things that are to come, and He in us to make all good instead of leaving us to unprofitable guesswork.

But for this reason we need the control of God's word, and here we have it, “Knowing this first that no prophecy of scripture is (or, becometh) of its own interpretation” (ver. 20). “Its own,” which is the simplest and the strictest and the most frequent usage of the disputed word, alone satisfies the context. It is hard to see why the A. V. and the Revision adopted “private” except that they did not know what to make of it. So does Dean Alford, following in his commentary Huther's idea “that prophecy springs not out of human prognostication.” Such a view may be intelligible where the freethinking of higher criticism prevails as an antidote; but it could only be regarded with horror by the Christian Jews, whom the apostle was addressing. Nor was the canon which the apostle lays down directed against such humanizing skeptics; it is a serious caution to the believer for his profit in seeking edification and intelligence in studying the writings of the prophets.

Dean A. says “two references seem to be possible” (to us, and to the prophets themselves). He has overlooked a third, which is even grammatically the most exact, the prophecy itself, “No prophecy of Scripture is, or comes to be, of its own interpretation.” If you isolate prophecy and make each part its own interpreter, you counteract its origin and character, and lose its force as pertaining to God's grand scheme for glorifying His Son, the Lord Jesus. It is divine design which gives prophecy of Scripture, like the rest, this character.

The apostle is therefore guarded in his language beyond what the commentators in general have apprehended. He does not deny that many a prophecy had its scope only in a particular and passing event of sufficient moment to call for it. And not a few such are mentioned in scripture. Take in Genesis the dreams of Pharaoh and of his two chamberlains previously. Take in the Acts of the Apostles the prophecies of Agabus as to the famine and the apostle Paul. Many such are recorded in the O.T. Yet none of them is a prophecy of Scripture as here intended, not for instance so much as Jacob's in Gen. 49 or Moses' in Deut. 33, nor yet Balaam's in Num. 23, still less the Prophets' so-called. They had their importance at the time, as the Scripture intimates.

By “prophecy of scripture” the apostle; to my mind, appears to mean exclusively such as look on to the future Kingdom of God for Christ's glory; and this is the object in the prophets, so that it may be predicated of every “prophecy of scripture” whether in O. T. or N. T. They may speak not a little of the moral evil which necessitates God's intervention to put down Satan and a revolted world, and to bring in the long promised reign of the Lord in righteousness, peace, and glory. But it is of that blessed Kingdom as His theme that the inspiring Spirit delights to speak, because it will then be the sphere of Christ's glory manifested in the universe; as He has already in the N. T. made known to the Christian His hidden glory as the exalted Man on high.

Hence it is that from Isaiah to Malachi no “prophecy of scripture,” whatever the importance of any event in God's providence and the application of prophecy to it meanwhile, stops short of the grand fulfillment, “when the powers of the heavens shall be shaken,” Satan loses his bad eminence, and Israel shall be saved, to blossom and bud and fill the face of the world with fruit. It is what the first man never attained, neither Nebuchadnezzar nor Cyrus, neither Alexander nor Omar. It will be verified in Jehovah Jesus when “Jehovah shall be king over all the earth; in that day shall be one Jehovah, and His name one” (Zech. 14:9).

We need not here speak of Christ's exaltation; over all the heavens as well as the earth; nor of the church's union with Him, as Head of the body over all things: the two parts of that mystery which, hidden from the ages in God, was now revealed to His holy apostles and prophets in the Spirit's power, and hence to us Christians in the N. T. But the kingdom was in full and increasing view from God's sentence on the serpent throughout the ages; and any turning aside at the comparatively small events within their compass frustrates the design of God in the testimony of them all to the coming Deliverer and King.

Yea, this was so notorious that the very heathen were aware that His birth was expected at or about the time when our Lord appeared and had the cross assigned Him by the Jews and Gentiles, instead of the crown. Tacitus and Suetonius attest this; and so does their own historian of the siege of Jerusalem. Yet prophecy of scripture predicted that so it was to be, and in the true moral order of “the Christward sufferings, and the glories after these” (1 Peter 1:11). For thus only could those who believe be rescued from evil and share His glories. To reign first, and afterward suffer, would be nugatory and purposeless, with utter confusion. But because Christ was thus faithful in His infinite love, the unbelieving Jews rejected Him; and therefore God rejected them for a season of rich mercy to the Gentiles meanwhile.

We can understand accordingly that “prophecy of scripture” is fraught with God's mind about Christ's kingdom in power and glory, and this after His sufferings, though the latter element is not so frequent as the former, yet well attested in one form or another in the Law, the Psalms, and the Prophets. But where is not the future kingdom over the earth held out?

One exception may be alleged, the very peculiar but deeply interesting and instructive book of Jonah, which on the surface has no “prophecy of scripture,” but only a conditional threat of judgment arrested by repentance. Yet it conveys a true prophetic narrative on which the Lord affixed His seal, not only as preaching to the heathen Ninevites that repented, but as a sign of His own death and resurrection, when the Gentile that believes enters the blessing of grace, and the Jew who refused reaps the judgment of his unbelief. For Jonah shows us Israel shut up in a selfish prejudice that despised the Gentile, unwilling to warn and jealous lest, if Nineveh repented, God should be gracious enough to arrest the judgment, and thus set aside the prophet's denunciation.

In the way of a contrast Jonah typified Christ, though himself an unfaithful witness, and hence cast into the sea, and even for three days and nights swallowed by a great fish. Even then whilst going to the Gentiles, he sulked at God's grace, at the time when God made him feel his folly. Whereas Christ was the Faithful Witness, saved His ungrateful people, delighted in grace to the Gentile, and for the joy lying before Him in love and obedience endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of God's throne. Jonah's course was a true type prophetically of Christ, but as much to his own shame as to God's glory in the end; as to which his writing the book by inspiration is the best proof of his repentance. It also contrasts strikingly with the perfection of Christ, and prefigures the mercy God as a faithful Creator will show, not only to the dark heathen but to the meanest of His creatures. Had He listened to the Jew, yea and a real Jewish prophet, not a Ninevite had been spared in honor of his woe on the city. But God is righteous to the claims and worth of Christ's atoning death, which in the coming kingdom will shine in the mercy and blessing of all nations, so that “beasts and all cattle” shall join the chorus of praise to His name from the earth (Psa. 148).

Thus even the book of Jonah in its exceptional way differs only in its form from other prophecies of scripture. All point to Christ's coming Kingdom over the earth, which was so soon forgotten after the apostles, so that there is no proper statement of it in a single ancient creed, any more than in the symbols of the Reformation. Neither the Fathers, nor the Reformers, were at all versed in prophecy. The Oxford revival of the Fathers accordingly in no way helps; still less does the rationalist school, which denies it in principle. Nor has nonconformity any light of God as to the future, least of all since it has entered the arena of politics, and become as worldly as Popery itself in setting its mind on earthly things.

2 Peter 1:21

The last verse of our chapter gives the reason why no prophecy of Scripture can be limited to its own isolated solution, but forms part of a vast circle of divine predictions centering in Christ and His kingdom.

“For no prophecy was ever brought by will of man, but [holy] men spoke from God, moved (or, borne along) by [the] Holy Spirit” (ver. 21).

It is not surprising that those who are only conversant with man, his thoughts, sayings and doings, believe not in prophecy any more than miracle, and despise grace and truth. For all these are of God, and utterly impossible save by His power: grace and truth are only in and through our Lord Jesus. If we now turn our attention to prophecy, consider how Isaiah the prophet was led to triumph over heathen prognosticators and idolatrous stargazers, as Moses did over the magicians of Egypt, and Elijah over the priests of Baal.

“Produce your cause,” we read in Isa. 41:21 &c., “saith Jehovah, bring forth your strong reasons, saith the King of Jacob; let them bring forth and show us what will happen; let them show the former things what they [be] that we may consider them, and know the latter end of them; or declare us things to come. Show the things that are to come hereafter, that we may know that ye [are] gods; yea, do good or do evil, that we may be dismayed, and behold it together. Behold, ye [are] of nothing and your work of naught: an abomination [is he that] chooseth you. I have raised one up from the north, and he shall come: from the rising of the sun shall he call upon my name; and he shall come upon princes as [upon] mortar, and as the potter treadeth clay. Who hath declared from the beginning that we may know? and before time, that we may say, [He is] righteous? Yea, [there is] none that showeth; yea,[there] is none that declareth; yea, [there is] none that heareth your words.”

Here the challenge was beyond any votary of a false god to take up, though the demand was small compared with prophecy of scripture. It was beyond man's will to speak even in an isolated way of a future person or event. But those given by God's will are each part of an immense web which He has woven, on which is indelibly traced His purpose of glorifying Him who gave up the glory proper to Him as divine, that He might become man and by His death and resurrection conciliate the most jarring principles and join the most opposed persons. He will take away all the sins and iniquities of believers; He will establish righteousness, peace and joy over all the earth where self and will wrought only evil and mischief. He has defeated and will defeat the subtle and mighty adversary and all his host. He wins back the weak rebels (deceived to set God at defiance) into repentance, meekness and humility, rejoicing to be the ready servants of His will; and God deigns to make them His children, and His sons, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ. They enjoy even here and now fellowship with the Father and the Son in the power of the Holy Spirit, in this working on life in Christ; and they reign with Him when He reigns before the world, as forever before God.

Nor is it only that the reconciliation is what we receive now; but it will embrace the heavens defiled by the enemy's evil, and the earth where he, through man's servitude, set himself up as prince and the god of the world. Through Christ's death on the cross all things shall be reconciled unto God, whether the things on the earth or in the heavens; not those who live and die despising alike the unseen God and His Son who stooped so low and suffered infinitely for sin that God might be able to say righteously to the worst, Be reconciled to God. And as He will have the risen saints above with Christ, and give His children their special joy in the Father's house, so too to share Christ's glory before the universe. Nor shall anything fail of His magnificent plans for the earth, when Israel shall be delivered from his stiffneckedness, and adore the crucified Messiah, and rise out of all abasement to be God's son, His firstborn nationally upon the earth; and all the nations shall abandon their shameless idolatries, and willingly own the long guilty people to be the seed Jehovah has blessed. “And the sons of strangers shall build up thy walls, and their kings shall minister to thee; and the nation and kingdom that will not serve Zion shall perish,” when Messiah reigns, and Israel are under the new covenant.

To all this the will of man is adverse; but were it ever so zealous to help, who is sufficient but God to take in a range so vast, deep and high? Hence the only possible power is that of the Holy Spirit; and God has deigned, in His great love of man's blessing, to tell us beforehand of those coming glories of Christ, as through men He also predicted His sufferings. It was a competency so entirely conferred by God's grace, that now to pave the way for the apostasy Satan has raised up a new school of men in all the world's seats of learning, and very largely among the clerical and ministerial ranks, who agree in nothing so much as that true prophecy is impossible. They thus bear on their forehead and hands the stain of infidelity, and spend their activities in propagating their lie about a large part of both Testaments as God's truth.

Yet the fact is that direct, formal and avowed prophecies abound in scripture, positive and definite, some of the largest and loftiest character, and others minute to a degree that none could expect who is not familiar with the most condescending tenderness in God. But also the narrative of persons and facts from the first book of the O.T. has a deep scope of prophecy below its surface. The same principle applies to His instructions for His earthly people which none but the unspiritual fail to see running through not Genesis only but Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and in a less degree Deuteronomy, and really scripture in general which is not open prediction. Who but God was sufficient for these things? Truly when we accept and understand as well as believe that no prophecy was ever brought by will of man, but men spoke from God moved by the Holy Spirit, we can but say, How gracious of God! how needed by us!

2 Peter 1:4

The apostle proceeds to explain through what God has granted now, not the manifested kingdom of the Messiah for this is postponed to the day of His appearing in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory, but the greatest promises, as he calls them and precious, whilst we await Him walking by faith, and not by sight. For what are those of earthly glory and power for Israel on earth in comparison? Ours are association with Christ in heaven. In short another order of blessing now goes on. It is what we call Christianity.

“Through which he hath granted to us the greatest and precious promises, that through these ye may become partakers of a divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world in (or, by) lust” (ver. 4).

These words are the weighty expression of truth peculiarly appropriate to and needed by the persons addressed, but of permanent value for all saints since then to our day. “Which” refers to God's own glory and excellence, whereon we have dwelt the more because the force is quite lost in the common Greek text, and the current translation. No less a standard suited His call. He would have the called to estimate the total difference of that object which was familiar to them as Jews under law. To live long on the earth and be blessed in basket and store presented an incomparably lower prospect; and a hopeless ground, if one applied it spiritually to such sinful creatures as they were in God's sight, a ministry indeed of death and condemnation. The gospel proclaims grace reigning through righteousness unto life eternal through Jesus Christ our Lord; it is a ministry of the Spirit and of righteousness, even God's righteousness which we become in Christ. Therefore are we always confident, even in view of death and the judgment-seat of Christ, because God holds us for the very triumph we know in Christ, and has also given us already the earnest of the Spirit till we too are glorified.

Hence we can understand the bounteous provision of His word that we enter intelligently into what He has communicated to us in the carrying out of His gracious purpose. Through His own glory and excellence He has granted us the greatest promises, far more elevated than any given to His earthly people Israel. Take as a little example what the apostle himself had said in the early verses of his First Epistle, and its first chapter. “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who, according to His much mercy, begot us again to a living hope through Jesus Christ's resurrection from among the dead, unto an incorruptible and undefiled and unfading inheritance, reserved in the heavens for you who are kept (or, guarded) in (or, by) God's power for salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.” He does not, in the verse we are considering, repeat what these precious promises are, now proposed to the precious faith of the Christian. But this one sample may suffice to show their general character in contradistinction from the earthly hopes which once sufficed to fill them with satisfaction and pride in the highest degree, and so greatly contributed to their unbelief in the Messiah.

The Christian promises do not at all lend themselves to human feeling or worldly ambition. We can easily understand how the Jew might carnally delight in looking on to the day when, as Isaiah predicted, kings shall be Zion's nursing-fathers and Gentile princesses her nursing-mothers. Then they shall bow down to her with the face toward the earth, and lick up the dust of her feet. Then the sons of the strangers shall build up her walls, and their kings serve Zion, and her gates remain open continually day and night, to bring in to her the wealth of the nations, and their kings in triumphal train. For the nation and the kingdom that will not serve Zion shall perish; and those nations shall certainly be laid waste. It would be easy to accumulate, as any Christian can verify from the prophets generally, no less glowing visions of earthly glory assured to converted and restored Israel, when the day of Jehovah dawns. But here too a single inspired voice is surely enough.

Flesh in its unbelief and vanity among professing Christians may abuse every word of God. But the exceeding great and precious promises held out to the Christian do not in themselves afford any real handle to carnality. They presume the Lord's coming, and our body of humiliation transformed in order to be conformed to the body of His glory. In that day assuredly there can be no perversion for the Christian in heaven, nor will there be for Israel on the earth, all righteous under Messiah and the new covenant. It is here in an evil world ruled by Satan, and with flesh still in us that we are ever exposed to danger. But those promises has God granted to us, says the apostle, “that we may become partakers of a divine nature.” For it is in the exercise of His own will that the Father of lights begot us by the word of truth.

It was not a mere operation, however excellent and powerful, on the mind. This of course there was. Conscience was penetrated and overwhelmed with a just sense of our sins and evil state; the heart was exercised truly before God by His manifested love in Christ and His work. But, besides, a new nature was imparted, and this no less than supernatural in character. We were born of God, not only sons by adoption, but given the title and reality of His children (John 1:12, 13). Throughout the Fourth Gospel the divine design was to declare life eternal in the Son of God, to manifest its character in Himself and His ways and words, but also to announce that this life gives, all the more distinctly because He was the rejected of the Jews and man—the world in short. From chap. 3 to 20 this is written with more than sunbeam brightness; and if now denied by those who once rejoiced in that light, it can only be through the darkening power of Satan.

O.T. saints had life in the Son; they were God's children: without it they never could have walked in faith and fidelity as they did, nor share in the resurrection at His coming, nor reign with Him. But it was only revealed as a known, conscious, and present reality in John's Gospel. Its future privilege for converted Israel and the Gentile sheep (Psa. 133, Dan. 12:2, Matt. 25:46) is plain; and then, and even before, we shall have it, if deceased, in a resurrection for the body, as now we have it in our souls as a revealed and existing certainty. To doubt, darken, or deny this fundamental truth of Christianity is of the evil one; is connected with false doctrine as to Christ's person, and more or less the loss of almost all the truth characteristic of the Christian and the church.

Nor does it depend only on the phrase life eternal, or on the Gospel and First Epistle of John—the revelation of that blessed phrase which some would pare down to extinction. The apostle Paul intimates the same gift of grace substantially in other forms of speech suited to the scope given for his teaching. Let us look at the Epistle to the Romans only, though others are just as plain and abundant. He tells us of life in the future (Rom. 5:17, 21), but of “newness of life” in which we should walk now (chap. 6:4); he bids us reckon ourselves alive to God in Christ Jesus whilst here, and yield ourselves to God as alive from among the dead already (11, 13). In chap. 7:4 he says to those knowing the law that they were made dead to the law through the body of Christ to their being Another's that was raised from among the dead, in order that they might bear fruit to God—an impossibility without life in Christ, serving too in newness of spirit and not in oldness of letter. It would be mere letter in the way of exposition to deny that such a life is eternal, though the term is not employed. Again in chap. 8:2, what else was life in Christ Jesus?

No doubt in Christendom, and in its most evangelical circles there is the utmost feebleness as to a real spiritual life communicated now to the believer. Hence there is a dangerous tendency either to the amelioration of the old man, or to a miserable blank, as if we had but the flesh, and the Spirit of God only to guide and reprove according to need. It is a sad loss to overlook Christ in us, Christ as truly the life of the saint as the fallen Adamic life is shared by the race.

This is, according to Peter's line of things, implied in “a divine nature” of which, he tells the saints, they had become partakers through the divine promises God had granted them, “having escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust,” the spring of the evil. He does not speak of life eternal as John was given to do, nor of death and resurrection with Christ as Paul; but he presents the moral result, inseparable from the truth as each of them put it, and as important for the believer to apprehend and enjoy. Therefore he speaks of the same substantial privilege as partakers, or possessors in common, of a divine nature with the moral blessing annexed of “having escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust.” The one description looked more at the divine character into which the believer entered to form his practice day by day; the other, the negative side of the evil and danger from which grace had given the saints escape through faith: both eminently falling within the range of the truth on which the apostle loved to dwell. Of its source in Christ the Mediator, John delighted to testify; as Paul, on the association with Him to which His work entitles the believer in deliverance not merely from sins but from sin.

2 Peter 1:5-7

We have seen how carefully from the first the apostle was led to point out the distinctive character of Christianity in dealing with souls. It was not now the law, as they had known, demanding consistency with obligations to the God of Israel from a people in the flesh already formed and owned, as well as directed by a divinely appointed priesthood to maintain them according to the legal covenant for the trial if thus they could stand in His sight. The result was not only idolatry but the rejection of their own Messiah, the Righteous One, and, as He told them, in the consummation of the age the reception of the antichrist (John 5:42), the man of sin, and the destruction of that generation with him. The gospel is founded on the wholly different principle of sovereign grace; another character of things follows with results in manifest contrast. It addresses Jew and Gentile as alike guilty and lost. It calls them by faith in Christ to the God that reconciled us to Himself by the sinless One whom He made sin for us, that we might become God's righteousness in Him. Therefore is the ministry of reconciliation to win sinful souls through the saving grace of God; and the ministry of the church to nourish and guide the saints into and by all the truth, Christ being the great Priest, Advocate, and Head, etc., and the saved made kings and priests now in title and enjoyment, manifestly so in the day of glory.

Hence the stress here laid on their having received like precious faith (ver. 2), and (vers. 3, 4) on the same knowledge of Him that called by His own glory and excellence, through which He hath granted to us the greatest and precious promises, far beyond those to Israel. . .that through these they might become partakers of a divine nature, having escaped the corruption in the world through lust. For Peter ever insists on plain moral realities. For these no ordinances or institutions avail. In Christianity there is and must be the direct communication of God's grace and truth in Christ to the soul, and the consequent knowledge of God, with approach to Him in the confidence of His love and of our own nearness to Him in known favor, all sins being forgiven. For it is indeed no energy or desert on our part, but His divine power that has granted us all the things that pertain to life and godliness. Faith is the appropriating means.

Yet is much more needed on our part, which the apostle proceeds to enforce. A divine nature requires all care and diligence that it may grow; and as its spring and fullness are in Christ, and it is communicated and revealed to us by the word through the Spirit's agency, so is it formed in all that is suited to it by its requisite food and exercise, aims, and objects.

“But for this very thing also, bringing in besides all diligence, in your faith supply virtue, and in virtue knowledge, and in knowledge temperance, and in temperance endurance, and in endurance godliness, and in godliness brotherly affection, and in brotherly affection love” (vers. 5-7).

It is evident that the apostle is here enforcing experimental reality in the saints. But the Auth. Version hardly gives the force adequately. It is not “And besides this,” but an energetic call for what is due to the grace of God in communicating the signal blessing of being sharers in a divine nature through faith in His very great and precious promises. Even a fleshly mind might and does deduce from the power and certainty of divine grace that there is room for earnest and practical purpose of heart on the part of the believer. But scripture enlarges the argument, warns against sloth and easy-going, and summons to assiduous diligence on all sides. For this very reason also are they, along with what they had already, to apply diligence in every way.

Thus it may be seen that salvation, as Peter was given to view it, is not regarded (as in Eph. 2:8, 2 Tim. 1:9, and Titus 3:5) as complete in Christ, but rather a process going on to the end of the journey through the desert (as also in the Epistles to the Romans, Corinthians, Philippians, Hebrews, etc.). They are distinct aspects of the truth, and one as true though not so elevated as the other, but both highly important to hold fast and discriminate. For it is our privilege as full-grown, or in that sense “perfect,” Christians to enjoy the unclouded certainty and comfort of a salvation so complete, that we are not only quickened together with Christ, but risen together, and seated down together in the heavenlies in Him. For this we must turn to the later Epistles of the apostle Paul. Yet none the less are we, as full grown too, to work out our own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God that works in us both to will and to work for His good pleasure, with the prize in view, and at the goal of His coming as Savior to conform our body of humiliation unto His body of glory (Phil. 2; 3).

We are already by grace partakers of a divine nature; but we are still in a body not yet redeemed, and passing through a world of corruption through lust. And we that are in the tabernacle do groan, being burdened, not as once when in bondage, but because we are only freed in the Spirit and have still to await sonship in full, the redemption of our body (2 Cor. 5, Rom. 8). Hence we need meanwhile to bring to bear all diligence in presence of the world, the flesh, and the devil. Nor is it only a question of our weakness and exposure, if unwatchful to prayer or in any measure heedless of the word; for we belong to the Father and the Son, and are bound to witness a good confession by the Holy Spirit in word and deed.

It is assumed that all those addressed have faith, and are therefore not told to furnish it. But that we might be formed spiritually, or grow in grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, as is said later, we are exhorted here, not exactly to “add to” our faith, but to “supply in it” virtue, or spiritual courage before a hostile world. Phil. 4:8 has been cited vainly to oppose this: whether moral worth or spiritual vigor, it is just as clearly the sense there as here. A sense more vague would enfeeble both texts. It is the first out of seven requisites here laid down for practical need and power. The Christian has urgent occasion for them all, and it might be on any day and every day; so that we are not to conceive a progress from one to the other by successive stages, however wisely the order is here given by His power who inspired the writer. There is a perceptible rise in their character; but the principle of each and all more or less marks the believer from first to last, though here he is called very impressively to make them all his own.

Assuredly the youngest saint quickly finds the value of supplying in his faith virtue or moral power. This he needs to support faith, that he may not swerve from his new-born capacity of seeing things in God's light, instead of using the light of his own eyes or those of other men. As the Lord Himself, after He was divinely acknowledged the Son of God, was led into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil, so it is with each son of God by faith in Christ Jesus. We too in our measure are put to the proof, and need courage to resist the adversary, steadfast in faith, and subject to scripture. The confession of faith makes one an immediate mark for Satan's attack. But we have to apply scripture in due season. It may be for the babe the guileless milk of the word; but this is just the food whereby he grows unto salvation. It may be rather the solid for those of full age. In any case it is not the mere bread of man's labor, but the revelation of God which is the means of growing up unto Christ in all things. “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.” His word quickens. It reveals Christ the life-giver, and thus associates the quickened soul with God Himself immediately.

But clearly spiritual vigor is not all. Knowledge is necessary as well as courage. Scripture supplies it reliably, and in the N. T. both amply and with special precision to Christian privilege for direction and instruction. How beautiful the scene which Luke 2 presents of our blessed Lord, at twelve years of age, sitting in the midst of the Jewish teachers, both hearing them and asking them questions, when all that heard Him were astonished at His understanding and answers! He was true man as well as God, advancing in wisdom and stature, and favor with God and men. As partakers of a divine nature we have a new capacity from above; and yet more we received not the spirit of the world but the Spirit that is of God, that we might consciously know the things freely given us by God. There is thus the fullest provision made for these wants, and no excuse for a Christian's ignorance of divine things. The natural or foolish man receives not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot know them, because they are spiritually discerned. But the spiritual discerns all things, and himself is discerned by no one. For which knew Jehovah's mind, who shall instruct Him? But we have Christ's mind. How wondrous yet true is this abiding privilege of the Christian!

Again, “in knowledge” supply “temperance” or self-control. Knowledge, however precious, has its danger of puffing up, and begetting contentions; and in itself it is a poor safeguard against lust, feeling, or passion. There is therefore the utmost need of self-restraint. Against such a guard there is no law: rather is it a calm preservative against inflation, and so falling into the fault of the evil one, as well as reproach and his snare. At no time do we more need to watch than when our feelings are acutely wounded. For they only blind us to the character of any hasty impulse and hurry us to sacrifice every Christian consideration to self. But this we are bound to distrust. It was exactly what in no case or degree wrought in Christ, who ever bowed to His Father in accepting from Him the utmost slight, dishonor, and contempt which came from those among whom He went about doing good, especially from God's people in their unbelief.

No doubt, there is the deeper pain if our trial come from His children, and the keener if from such as we specially trusted and valued. But the point for the soul, and above all for God, is not what this one has done or that said (lest it should rankle and inflame), but am I above it all by grace? am I self-restrained through (not self, but) Christ working in me? This enables one not to brood on what provokes, but to think on the things lovely, and of good report, which heat on our own account makes us forget. If others stumble, am I manifesting Christ?

But there is suffering for righteousness, if not for Christ's name, that is never far or long from a Christian's path; and thus he has need of self-control supplying “endurance.” He is not to quail if called to suffer ever so wrongfully. How unworthy, natural as it is, to complain because of this! Would it be any satisfaction, or real alleviation, if one deserved it? “For it is better, if the will of God should will it, to suffer as well-doers than as evil-doers.” “But if as a Christian, let him not be ashamed but glorify God in this name.” Yes, believers have need of endurance. Let us then, in “self-control” that puts a quiet but needed check on ourselves and on every device of self-will, supply “endurance” under any wrong inflicted by others. This is quite compatible with, not reserve, but plain rebuke of a saint who so errs.

Yet another want of at least equal or greater weight is next urged: “in endurance godliness” or piety. What more momentous for the soul than preserving the links of reverence and affection, of dependence and obedience, in fresh and constant exercise with God and our Lord Jesus! Yet such is the pressure of work, to say nothing of the course of the age, the deceitfulness of riches, the disappointment at loss, or lusts of other things, that the peril from any earthly preoccupation is great. But here we are reminded to supply godliness in its constant place. To confide in Him, to bow implicitly to His will assured that it is the best, is all the more blessed in the pressure of the persecutions that try our endurance. For indeed He is good, and does good, overcame evil in our case with His good, and strengthens even us not to be overcome by evil, but to overcome evil with good. If we do not know what we should pray for as befitting, we do know that all things work together for good to those that love God. And surely this our piety feels. To the same end he bade them in his First Epistle (3:14, 15) not to fear the world's fear, nor be troubled, “But sanctify in your hearts Christ as Lord,” as He had Jehovah always before Him.

Then we are reminded that paying God His due takes nothing from “brotherly affection,” but on the contrary both cherishes and controls it; for in godliness, which is fitting and necessary to be supreme, we are told to supply this exercise of grace. As the apostle Paul wrote concerning it to the young and dear Thessalonian converts, “Ye yourselves are taught of God to love one another. For also this ye do toward all the brethren in the whole of Macedonia. But we exhort you, brethren, to abound yet more.” Nevertheless brotherly affection has its limits because of its nature and its objects; for it is not God, and it may often let in what shuts Him out. Thus brethren too frequently slip into evil of one sort or another; and if brotherly affection be pressed (as commonly it is) as the acme of love, what mischief must arise for the saints! and what dishonor to the Lord and the truth!

Therefore mark the divine wisdom and the profit for us, in that the apostle here distinguishes, instead of confounding, “love”; for he closes with “in brotherly kindness love.” Higher than this last he could not rise; for not only is love of God, but God is love. It is of all moment that in brotherly kindness we should supply that love which is of God, and which God is. Nothing here evinces the wretchedly fallen state of Christendom more than the chorus of commentators who think of nothing beyond brotherly kindness save love to all mankind, even enemies, overlooking the source and power of all good. So Alford and Wordsworth, Bloomfield, Webster and Wilkinson, &c. among moderns speak for most shades of modern theology; and the ancients as far as one knows are no better.

Even John Calvin's remarks, which were consulted after writing thus, are singularly meager, passing by the beautiful circle of truth here given us. From virtue and knowledge he turns off with few words to brotherly affection, and has no more to say of love than “Charitas latius patet, quia totum humanum genus complectitur” (“Love extends more widely, because it embraces the whole human race”). This is enough to represent the mind of the Reformers, of whom Calvin was regarded as the chief expositor. It is wholly defective and erroneous; for such a view loses what one of them calls “the crown of Christian virtue.” Surely it would be, not a meet climax, but a descent from the deep and faithful character of special affection toward the holy brotherhood to universal and benevolent love for men as such. He speaks like the author of Saturday Evening, chap. 12, who was far too humanitarian.

On the contrary it is an immense and blessed elevation from that affection, high as it is, to “love” in its fullest nature. And so speaks the apostle Paul who communicated not a little to his brother apostle of the circumcision for both his Epistles, and wrote to the Galatian brethren, after pressing on them “bowels of compassion, kindness, lowliness, meekness, longsuffering,” with a forbearing and forgiving spirit. “And over (or, to) all these, love which is the bond of perfectness” (3:12, 14), as he wrote to the Colossians at a later day. Nor need we quote the Epistles of John, rich as is their contribution of proof to the same effect. The reason too is quite plain. God's nature in its active energy of love is the complement of all, the standard withal that strengthens us against every evil. Love, as known in Him, of which Christ is the full expression, while the most expansive of affections as it is necessarily, maintains all His character intact, refuses any sacrifice of His rights to indulge or palliate a brother's fault or error, and rises to its full height in God.

Yet how deep and wondrous this is in the God who gave His beloved Only-begotten Son that we, lost and dead, might live through Him, who was sent into the world with life eternal in Himself for every one that believed! yea, to be the propitiation for our sins, that the evil in us, intolerable to Him and grief and abhorrence to us, might be blotted out forever! Not that we then loved Him, but He us to the uttermost: wherefore we do love Him whose perfect love casts out fear. We love, because He first loved us. God is love; and he that abides in love abides in God, and God in Him. Thus love gives its best force but also its preservative guard to brotherly affection; whilst it has its own highest and deepest scope according to its divine spring, nature, and character. “Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought to love one another” (1 John 4:11); but he never says that we “ought” to love God; for this we do, if indeed called according to purpose. It may be hard sometimes to love a brother when naughty; but we do love God always. What does it tell to leave this out?

It may be of interest for some to know that the too famous Bp. Warburton preached a sermon on these three verses, entitled, “The Edification of Gospel Righteousness” (Works, v. 123-143, 4to, 1788). But able as it is in his peculiar fashion, and not without his strong impression of its divine wisdom, it is vitiated by his ignorance of grace and truth, and so completely that he takes for granted (p. 127) that the N. T., here as elsewhere, refers us to what the Religion of Nature (!) taught concerning virtue for example.

2 Peter 1:8-9

The apostle enforces the importance of that diligence to which he had exhorted saints by a twofold consideration expressed in verses 8, 9. In the first of these he points out the blessing of being thoroughly furnished in our practical state for every good word and work; and in the second, the blighting effect of negligence as to our state.

“For these things being in you and abounding make [you] not idle nor unfruitful for the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ: for he with whom they are not present is blind, shortsighted, having forgotten the cleansing of his old sins.”

These varied qualities, set forth in a just order, were all of them requisite for the Christian character. The disciple is not above his teacher, nor the bondman above his lord. The Christian follows Christ and is His witness in the ways of every day. “Ye are our epistle,” says Paul to the Corinthian saints when recalled to obedience, “written in our hearts, known and read of all men, being manifested that ye are Christ's epistle ministered by us, written not with ink but Spirit of a living God, not on stone tables but on the heart's fleshy tables.” The new divine nature does not imitate outward points of moral propriety, but beholds Christ objectively, which with delight in His perfection works inwardly. Hence it participates in everything that pleases God, and is particularly vigilant where an awakened conscience has felt and judged special failure. So we read here “These things being in you.” Divine life works energetically in every right direction.

But the apostle was led to seek more. He urges that these things should “abound” also; and this they do where Christ dwells in the heart by faith. No doubt the words in Eph. 3:17 go out immensely farther; but Christ is and must be the spring and strength of the heart for all that is acceptable to God. The exercise of the heart in the full confidence of Christ's love promotes growth in what is good. These things are therefore not only a real subsistence in the Christian, but also abound in dependence on His grace. Nor do troubles distract, if instead of intensely occupying ourselves with them, we are simple in casting the burden on Him, who cares for us, and delights in hearing the cry of faith's confidence in Him, and gives His own peace to guard our hearts and our thoughts by Christ Jesus. If we be ever so pained, the new nature, while in no way sparing self in ourselves or others, gives us to turn to its own congenial occupation with what is pure, true, noble, just, lovely and of good report, to think on these things, rather than to be occupied with evil.

What is the effect? They “make you not idle nor unfruitful for the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.” It was a change for the worse when the A. V. for “idle” rendered the word “barren,” and led so many readers and preachers to guess what the difference could be between “barren” and “unfruitful.” But there is no room for doubt or difficulty. The first word is elsewhere properly translated “idle” in the A. V., as it should be here; and so Tyndale, Cranmer and the Geneva V. had given. Wycliffe and his follower, as well as the Rhemish, have “voide” or “vacant” (as the last), which can hardly be said to have any just sense.

If the practical characteristics of Christianity abound in the saints, they themselves would be neither idle nor unfruitful. How unworthy to be idle, not only as standing in so blessed a relationship and possessed by grace of a new nature so excellent and repellent of every evil thing! How unworthy to be fruitless, if branches in the True Vine, such as those whom the Father purges that they may bear more fruit (John 15:2, 1 Peter 1:17)! “Herein is my Father glorified that ye bear much fruit; and ye shall be my disciples” (John 15:8). So the apostle Paul prays for the Philippian faithful that they might be pure and without stumbling for (or, against) Christ's day, “filled with the fruit of righteousness that is through Jesus Christ unto God's glory and praise” (Phil. 1:11).

The holiness of the new nature makes all sin to be hateful in the believer's eyes. But as the flesh is still in us, and ready to work and manifest itself, there is the constant necessity of prayer and the word watchfully applied in self-judgment. The brotherhood too has unceasing claims that we should never wink at sin but abhor it both in brotherly affection and yet more strongly in that love which strengthens us in keeping His commandments and in rebuking a brother's disobedience and every iniquity. And if we cleave with purpose of heart to the Lord, can we be insensible to mankind around who remain, as once we were, unintelligent, disobedient, serving divers lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, hating one another? If idle in confessing earnestly according to our measure the saving grace of God in the gospel, we cannot be but unfruitful “for the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Where is our heart then for God and His Son, for saints or for sinners? For what are we, since our deliverance, left in such a world as this? Is it not that God in all things may be glorified, as far as His children are concerned, through Jesus Christ, to whom is the glory and the might for the ages of ages, Amen?

But the other side is next noticed, and we do well to take heed. “For” (this is the true connective, not “but”) “he with whom they are not present is blind.” How sad that such a description should apply to one bearing the Lord's name! For had not Peter in his First Epistle set forth Christians as loving Him whom they had not seen, and not now looking on but believing, they exult with joy unspeakable and full of glory? Theirs was no mere natural but supernatural sight in God's wonderful light. What a fall from divine privilege to be “blind,” or even short-sighted! It is the lack of spiritual perception by the neglect of communion with God, the result of habitual indifference and self-seeking, to the slight of Christ, and grief of the Spirit.

It is explained by the next word, “shortsighted”: the things afar off, the heavenly, are no longer the objects before the eyes of the heart. Thus things that are near and before all mankind absorb the mind. It is a worldly spirit actively at work after the things of the world, and not those which the Father loves. Because all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world, as the apostle John urges. And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof; but he that doeth the will of God abideth forever. The knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ is hindered and its separating power annulled, if we thus look, not at the unseen, but at the seen; for the things that are seen are temporal, but the things that are not seen are eternal.

Another immense loss too follows: “having forgotten the cleansing of his old sins.” It is not that a soul may here deny the truth of the gospel, or oppose his justification by faith of Christ and His work. But enjoyment of peace with God is gone. For the Holy Spirit, instead of bearing present witness to his spirit that he is a child of God, testifies to his inconsistent and evil state. The doctrine, however certain and true, that the worshippers once purged have no more conscience of sins ceases to be his joy, and becomes forgotten. His conscience is not clear but troubled as to his condition, instead of being trustful and bold before God. Till he is thoroughly self-judged, he feels when he reflects that his own heart condemns him; and if so how much more must the God who is greater than our hearts, and knows all things!

Is it not in this duty and sense that he incurs forgetfulness of the cleansing of his old sins? It is not that he either gives up the truth or despairs as to himself; but there is no comfortable consciousness of that cleansing of our sins which the very gospel proclaims to every believer. How can it be otherwise in that government which God as Father keeps up with His children in our time of sojourn here? When the cleansing of one's old sins is truly remembered, it acts on the soul to cleave to Him who for us died and rose, and strengthens us to hate evil of every kind, especially in our own ways. To forget the profession of being purged from one's sins is to lose the power and duty of practical purity; and to be a Christian becomes but a name.

2 Peter 2:1-3

The apostle turns to the first of the evil classes among those of the circumcision who, if not now, had once professed the Lord's name; the class of corruption in word and deed, as chap. 3 deals with the philosophic and skeptical class.

“But there were false prophets also among the people, as there shall be also false teachers among you, such as shall bring in by-the-bye sects of perdition, denying even the Sovereign Master that bought them, bringing on themselves swift perdition; and many shall follow their disolutenesses; because of whom the way of the truth shall be blasphemed. And in covetousness with feigned (or, well-turned) words, they shall make merchandise of you: for whom judgment from of old is not idle, and their perdition slumbereth not” (vers. 1-3).

Thus we see that the downward progress in Israel was to have its counterpart in Christendom and a similar tide of moral pravity both cause and effect of hateful heterodoxy. If God of old, as we were told, raised up for the evil day prophets as marked for the truth as for holiness of life, Satan was not slow to supply prophets as shameless for their lies as for their selfish and corrupt ways. This the O.T. shows but too abundantly; and here the apostle foretells it would be no better but more guiltily where grace was more open to be abused than the law under the gospel.

Let me refer to a modern development as a sample; the party extensively spread over Great Britain and America which adopts J. S. Russell's Parousia, London, 1878. It is the antithesis of the Seventh-Day Baptist school, which destroys the gospel by its extreme judaizing, and is therefore too repulsive to attract any save those completely under law. But the Parousia delusion captivates the wider and more refined minds who cannot shut their eyes to the “better thing” that Christ has introduced, and the ministry of the Spirit with its subsisting and surpassing glory; yet all herein taken up in a way merely natural. It starts with the assumption that the Lord's second coming or presence took place at the destruction of Jerusalem, A.D. 70 and that thenceforward the promised glory is fulfilled, so that we are now reigning with Christ! and therefore the fullest change so long looked for in both O. T. and N. T. has already taken place!!

Hence dogmatic and practical Christianity are alike and absolutely annulled in their pseudo-scheme; for the N. T. contemplates us and our communion, and our walk and our worship are in view of the blessed presence of Christ to receive us glorified to Himself for the Father's house, where He is now (not we till then). Not only the Gospels cease to apply but the Epistles, to say nothing of the Revelation; for they unquestionably exhort us to a path of suffering, both for righteousness' sake and for Christ's name, in a world wholly opposed to Him and His reign. When He really appears, God will use His solemn judgments, so that the world will learn righteousness, especially as Satan cannot then seduce. In short, the enemy has beguiled these visionaries into an entire abolition of all the state and duties of believers on which the Bible insists till “that day,” when all things become new, however true now to our faith and hope, as they will then be in fact, and to every eye.

Nor need one do more than glance at another egregious folly under the strange claim of “Christian Science.” It is worthy of a female teacher who cannot be ignorant that the apostle by the Holy Spirit calls her to learn in quietness with all subjection, saying by the Apostle Paul “I do not permit a woman to teach nor to exercise authority over a man, but to be in quietness.” He forbids “exercise,” and not usurpation only. Here too the notions are too preposterous to need anything but a rebuke for their presumption and impiety. If these set up to be new inventions, it would be a very long task to survey all the old schemes of falsehood which have been accumulating since our Epistle, and are designated as “heresies” or more correctly “sects of perdition.” For therein lies the difference of “schism” from “sect”: the former a party within, the latter, more aggravated as being a different party without, as 1 Cor. 11:18, 19 makes plain, though habitually forgotten in systematic divinity.

Even before the Kingdom of the heavens came or the church was founded on the Lord dead, risen, and ascended, He warned (in Matt. 13) of the darnel which the enemy would sow among the wheat. Clearly it is neither pagans nor Jews but nominal Christians, who could not be cut off, and should pursue their destructive evil till the Son of man come in personal judgment. So in Luke 12 He described the faithless though professing servant who would put off His return and accordingly be marked by worldliness and oppressive self-exaltation, and must have his portion with the unbelievers, punished all the more severely because he made not ready nor did His will though he knew it.

Again in Acts 20 the apostle Paul in his charge to the overseers or elders of the church in Ephesus told them that he knew of there coming in among them after his departure grievous wolves not sparing the flock, and from among their own selves men rising up speaking perverted things to draw the disciples after them. Earlier to the Thessalonian saints he pointed out the mystery of lawlessness at work, not among Jews or Gentiles desperately wicked as they were, but among Christian professors of the latter day which was to develop into the apostasy and the man of sin, the lawless one, to be consumed not by preaching however sound but by the judicial breath of the Lord Jesus. Later to the Philippians he mourned over “many” as enemies of Christ's cross whose end is perdition. So in 1 Tim. 4 he says that the Spirit speaks expressly of some in latter times falling away from the faith, heeding deceiving spirits in hypocrisy of legend-mongers without conscience yet ascetics; and in 2 Tim. 3 he speaks of the opposite school of self-will or self-indulgence and proud lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, with a form of piety but denying its power; from whom the word is, “Turn away,” with a twofold announcement, that all those wishing to live piously shall be persecuted, and that wicked men and impostors shall wax worse and worse. See also 2 Tim. 4:1-4.

The Epistle of James (5:7-9) calls to patience and establishment of heart, “because the presence of the Lord is drawn nigh.” “Behold, the judge standeth before the doors.” So Peter in his First Epistle declares it “the time for judgment to begin from the house of God.” And here we begin with his full testimony as to false teachers who corrupt the springs of all truth and righteousness. Jude goes over the same ground, only denouncing its apostate character which was a deeper view 1 John fully characterizes as the “last hour” the appalling prevalence of antichrists gone out the more freely to work their nefarious way. And we may regard the Revelation as the great Christian prophecy of the approaching judgments, first providential, then personal when Christendom becomes but a sad object for divine punishment. All point to the awful issue: not reunion save in an evil way so far as it may be; but the Lord's appearing in relentless dealing when the cup of iniquity is full.

There is no difficulty in the apostle's predicating of these false teachers that the Sovereign Master bought them. It is “purchase,” which is universal, not “redemption” which is limited to those who have in Christ the forgiveness of our offenses through His blood. In the parable too we read that He bought not only the treasure but the field. Purchase acquired all as His slaves or chattels; but redemption sets free from Satan's power as well as divine judgment. Hence they are never said to be “redeemed,” but they were bought and then disowned the purchase in rebellion against His rights.

What can bring a deeper stigma on “the way of the truth” than the dissolutenesses, whatever their form, of accredited false teachers? It is in Jeremiah's writings where we find most fully the prophets prophesying falsely and the priests conniving thereby at it so as to rule. “And my people love to have it so; and what will ye do in the end thereof?” says the true prophet in his anguish. But throughout Jewish history we see the same principle from the beginning to the crisis in our Lord's day, which ended in the Romans taking away both their place and their nation. Still more terrible is God's vengeance on the abominations of the N. T. Babylon and the false teachers who for their covetousness and well-turned words have all along drawn the mass into departure from the truth, despite of His Spirit, and rebellion against God and His Anointed. Jubilant at man's progress in his own way without Christ, how little they believe that God's eye is on their selfish merchandise, and that their perdition does not slumber according to the judgment pronounced on such evil even before the deluge! How utterly unfounded to expect in Christendom, any more than in Israel, a real reunion and recovery! For the mass it is worse and worse, whatever superficial appearances say to the contrary.

2 Peter 2:12-16

EVEN such a sketch did not suffice adequately to convey what the false teachers would turn out in Christendom. The Holy Spirit proceeds yet more vividly in His anticipative description of their words and deeds.

“But these, as irrational animals born by nature for capture and destruction, speaking evil in what things they are ignorant, shall also perish in their corruption, receiving as they shall wages of unrighteousness, accounting [their] ephemeral luxury pleasure; spots and blemishes, luxuriating in their love feasts [or, deceits], feasting with you; having eyes full of an adulteress and without cessation from sin; setting baits for unstable souls; having a heart practiced in covetousness, children of curse; abandoning as they did a straight way, they went astray, following out in the way of Balaam [son] of Beor, who loved wages of unrighteousness, but had reproof of his own iniquity; a dumb beast of burden speaking with man's voice forbade the madness of the prophet” (vers. 12-16).

It was already shown generally from ver. 10 how these nominal Christians proceed after flesh in lust of pollution, instead of walking according to Spirit, as freed from the law of sin and of death. Then their boldness was contrasted with angels greater in strength and power who are as reverent before the Lord as those were scornful. Now they are compared to such irrational animals as by nature are born to be captured and destroyed. How overwhelming that the apostle has thus to describe false teachers and those that follow their dissolutenesses! They were once enlightened and tasted the heavenly gift, and became partakers of Holy Spirit, and tasted God's good word and power of a coming age (not evil as the present is), and now yielded to malevolence, speaking evilly in what things they were ignorant. What was before such but also to “perish in the corruption?”

We may profitably remark that Heb. 6 in reviewing the many and great privileges of such spurious professors does not speak any more than Peter of being born anew or of God, any more than of being sealed of the Spirit. They had accurate knowledge of the Christian revelation and special gift in its characteristic power. Mind and feeling can go far in appreciating the wonderful works of God, and the moral beauty and grace of Christ. But in all the scriptures which designate natural men, the utmost care is taken to leave out the communication of life eternal and a divine nature, or “repentance unto life.” This supposes a real self-judgment before God, an overwhelming sense of sin in His sight, of total moral ruin, so as absolutely to need sovereign grace; but it is never found save in those begotten of God. Yet short of it, what is there that the intellect cannot appropriate, enjoy, and proclaim? Ere long the test comes, which life in Christ with the Spirit's power alone can stand; and Satan so touches and masters them that their departure from God becomes more apparent and complete. Shall they not receive wages of unrighteousness? Can any course of life be farther from Christ than esteeming ephemeral luxury pleasure? He never once sought to please Himself but in everything to do His Father's will; and did He not call His own to hear His voice and follow Him? Did He not suffer for us, leaving us a model so that we should follow in His steps?

“Spots and blemishes” were these men, “luxuriating in their love-feasts (or, deceits), feasting with you.” To bring self-indulgence into a love-feast was a shame to Christ, and the forerunner of worse corruption. “Having eyes full of an adulteress and without cessation from sin.” It was bad enough at a heathen celebration: what was it before the Holy and True? “Setting baits for unstable souls” in honor of Him who suffered to the uttermost to win the foulest from their sins to God! Who could wonder that they “have a heart practiced in covetousness” in order to carry on the basest self-indulgence, where all are bound, denying impiety and worldly lusts, to live soberly, and justly and piously in the present age, awaiting the blessed hope and appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ? But these who act as if the cross of Christ opened the door for any abomination, are they not “children of curse?” It was sinning that grace may abound.

“Having left a straight way” (and such surely is Christ), “they went astray, having followed out in the way of Balaam [son] of Beor, who received wages of unrighteousness.” No more solemn or apposite warning could be drawn from the Book of God; none of one who more deceived himself and others; none that so combined the most glowing and grand anticipations for Israel from Jehovah with the subtlest efforts to ensnare into evil which should compromise and endanger them. Yet had he crafty care for his own interest while pretending to be quite above it. Whatever his words, he loved wages of unrighteousness, but had reproof to his own iniquity, and in a form eminently adapted to appeal to his conscience and to be a continual warning in the east, less skeptical than the west. “A dumb beast of burden speaking with man's voice forbade the madness of the prophet.” He who boasted of having his eyes open saw not what the ass was given to see, and knew not why she turned aside (from the sword drawn in the angel's hand), and why she thrust herself unto the wall that Balaam might not have his head smitten, but at most his foot crushed; and why she fell down where there was no other way for her or her master to escape destruction. How much more guilty are false teachers since the Son of God came and gave us understanding to know Him that is true!

2 Peter 2:17-20

The indignant invective of the apostle is not even yet exhausted. So various are the forms of hypocritical unrighteousness, he would have the faithful fully informed and on their guard.

“These are springs without water, and mists, driven by storm, to whom the gloom of darkness is reserved. For uttering overswellings of vanity, they allure in lusts of the flesh, by dissolutenesses, those that are just escaping from them that walk in error, promising them liberty while they themselves are slaves of corruption; for by whom a man is worsted, by him is he also held in bondage. For if after having escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, but again entangled and worsted thereby, the last for them is become worse than the first” (vers. 17-20).

It is no longer contrast with angels or comparison with Balaam, but the gravest picture of spiritual worthlessness with the seal of everlasting darkness affixed before judgment consigns to it. It is the privilege of every Christian, not only to be begotten of God but to have the Spirit of His Son given to be in him a spring of water springing up into life eternal. Yea the Lord adds elsewhere, He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, Out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water; and that this great gift should not pass away like Jewish favors, but abide forever. And surely the Christian teacher has yet more, not only the δωρεὰ to enjoy but his special χάρισμα to make it known, and appreciated, and applied. But these teachers of Christendom, certainly not of Christ, “are springs without water” (they never had any), and “mists driven by storm,” instead of luminaries directed by the Holy Spirit; they express nature empty and fallen, and under gusts of feeling if not the enemy's power. And the end is not death only but divine wrath forever, in character with the darkness they loved because their deeds were evil.

For what are the utterances of those that figure for mischief on the ecclesiastical stage? “Overswellings of vanity” by which to “allure in desires and lusts of flesh by dissolutenesses those just escaping from them that walk in error.” Take three plain examples of false teaching which directly tend to lower the standard of holiness and make provision for flesh's lusts. 1. Sin is not the transgression of the law (as in the A. V. of 1 John 3:4), but lawlessness which rejects all subjection to God, and applies to Gentile who knew not the law as Well as to the Jew who did, and to the wicked that heard but obeyed not the gospel. How much evil in Christendom is not touched by the Decalogue! 2. What license for evil ways is not covered by “so that ye cannot do the things that ye would” in Gal. 5:17? Its real meaning is the wholly different force, “that ye should not do the things that ye would” or desire. The error becomes the religion, or at least practice, of despair which is as far from Christian holiness as can be. 3. There is too the dogmatic error in the misreading of Rom. 7:6, where the too confiding public were taught that the law was dead, instead of the believers' death to it, so that they should serve in newness of spirit, and not oldness of letter which alas! has ever been the bane of mere profession. It was sad that good men were blinded to what their spiritual instinct must have revolted from; but who can tell the enormous influence of such a threefold cord for misrepresenting God's word, especially in the hands of unscrupulous false teachers who gloat in misrenderings which thus consecrate their wicked life and labors?

Love, lowliness, purity are essentials of the new nature, and hence so characterize the Christian that, when failure in any of these respects occurs, the weak are stumbled, and the strong are grieved for the Lord's sake. But when haughty vaporings as in ver. 18 takes the place of truth as it is in Jesus, one need not wonder that underneath they allure in flesh's lusts by wantonnesses those just escaping with the skin of their teeth from them that walk in error. For the young are peculiarly open to danger from these seducing ways in those they trust for precept and example. The promise of liberty has a fair sound to their ears. But the apostle points his finger to the fatal spot, which is not now nor ever that of God's children: they are veritable bondmen of corruption. No swellings can hide or excuse the evil, or disguise effectually to the simplest saint the enemy at work. “For by whom one is worsted, by him also is he held in bondage.”

The very babe in Christ only just escaping is sensitive to vileness and turns away, where old ones are dulled and deadened by theories which apologize for error or evil. Nor is any plea more insidious or successful than unity, precious where Christ is its center; but where it is not really His, it is the gilded bait of the soul-destroyer. “For if, having escaped the pollutions of the world through true knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, but again thereby entangled, they are worsted, the last for them is become worse than the first” (ver. 20). How graphic and energetic and solemn is the apostle's picture of the soul's ruin! And this after God's work in the cross of Christ, this gift of the Spirit sent forth from heaven, and His full revelation to man. Yet the cross had already shown man's enmity and guilt and ruin, with Satan's power over him; but, thank God, it has also shown man in Christ perfect for God, for sinners to save, for saints to keep, guide and bless, that Satan be wholly defeated.

But nowhere is the divine value of the cross more ignored than where it is made an external idol, the rival of the crescent that rules the night, or of the sun that rules the day. In all these sin is not seen to be already dealt with to faith for God's glory; but man profits by unbelief to make a tariff for it in a way suited to circumstances and his own will for Satan's pleasure.

2 Peter 2:21

The apostle confirms the awful end of the course he had just portrayed by the two concluding verses, one explanatory, and the other in the true proverb applied with its telling figures, too often exemplified.

“For it were better for them not to have known well the way of righteousness than knowing well to have turned back from the holy commandment delivered to them” (ver. 21).

The righteous tone of the warning is sustained with apostolic gravity to the close. Knowledge even of the most accurate sort, however desirable, is not the indispensable thing, but faith working by love and yielding our members in bondage to righteousness unto holiness. It is never affirmed or hinted that these false teachers were begotten of God; but they had professed His name who secures everything that is good to the partaker of a divine nature, to which they had ever been strangers. They had once abandoned the pollutions of the world through the moral effect of what they had received. For the light of Christianity has had not a little influence even on Jews and heathen and infidels; and this the false teachers had profited by as much or more. But when the crisis came personally, and they deliberately succumbed to known evil, their downfall was profound if not rapid.

Therefore it is that we know now that “it were better for them not to have known well the way of righteousness than knowing well to have turned back from the holy commandment delivered to them.” What can be clearer or more certain? The way of righteousness is Christ made known in the gospel; but the truth and the life accompany the way when it is taken by a living faith, and fruit of righteousness follows only through Jesus Christ to God's glory and praise. Here was nothing but the ground of fallen nature bringing forth thorns and briers, and therefore the end is all the worse for a beginning of outward culture and cleansing, and the end is to be burned as we read in Heb. 6:8. God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, this also shall be reap. For he that sows to his own flesh shall reap corruption from the flesh; but he that sows to the Spirit shall reap from the Spirit life eternal. In this the false teachers had no more part or lot than Simon Magus in the early days. Their ruin was all the more aggravated by the morning cloud of seeming promise or the early dew of good words perhaps blessed to others, without effect in themselves. The attempt of some to attribute to them a passing from death into life is disproved by scripture which never goes so far, but stops short of salvation by grace. The holy commandment delivered to them was not even mixed with faith in their souls; and from this they at length turned back, that they might do their own will and gratify their evil lusts.

We may see in Heb. 10:26-30 more analogy with our chapter than in Heb. 6:4-8. For in the latter case it was rather a return to Jewish ordinances after having professed the grace of the gospel. In the former it is a return to sins after being confessors of Christ's death, which means for us death to sin. This case is what we read of in the warning of Peter before us, only that he dwells on the aggravated guilt of false teachers, as the Epistle to the Hebrews does on the apostasy of professing Christians in yielding to sinful lusts. How fully and precisely scripture provides for every danger, and against all evil!

2 Peter 2:22

“[But] there hath happened to them the [saying] of the true proverb, A dog returned to his own vomit, and A sow washed into rolling in mire” (vers. 22).

The yielding to sin, described in ver. 21, is entirely confirmed by the application to their case by the point of the true proverb that follows: “a dog returned to his own vomit, and a sow washed into rolling in mire.” Never had these evil workers been sheep of the Good Shepherd's pasture. They had never been transformed by the renewal of mind which is of God's effectual grace. There was therefore no such anomaly in the Christian sphere as the degradation of a sheep to a dog, nor such a metamorphosis as into swine. When born anew, there is a new life and nature imparted; but the old abides to be disallowed, because we died with Christ to sin. But a dog does not become a sheep, nor do sheep become swine, save in the false science of theology. “That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit” (John 3:6). And this it is which the believer receives through faith in Christ, even His life communicated now to the soul in the Spirit, as by-and-by to the body also at His coming again. There is not the most distant thought that the false teachers were ever thus born anew. On the contrary they are described as having no more than what the natural mind is capable of knowing. They might have accurate knowledge in the intellect, but no divine work whereby they were begotten of God. Hence at last came a turning back to a worse state than before they professed Christianity.

What can exceed the loathing our apostle feels and expresses, as he denounces not only the errors but the immoral practices of these false teachers? The apostle of the circumcision described in solemn terms the ruin of which Paul at Miletus warned the elders of the church in Ephesus. “I know that there will come in among you after my departure grievous wolves not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves shall rise up men speaking perverted things to draw away the disciples after them” (Acts 20:29, 30). “Grievous wolves” are surely enemies, whether or not they get the position of guides; they were enemies who, instead of loving and tending the flock of God, ravenously and at all cost preyed on the sheep. And the alienated elders, who forgot the Lord with the grace and truth which came through Him, fell sadly from their office when they by means of perverted things drew away the disciples after them. Thus what man built in the Lord's name, man's will should mislead and destroy; and such is Christendom, an utter departure from the heavenly witness of Christ to which the church and every Christian is called. That which Christ has built will alone stand, for it is kept through the grace that is in Him, which is unfailing. But all that bear His name are responsible; and guides must give account, not merely as all saints, but of that entrusted to them in particular.

Still these self-seeking chiefs, and even the grievous wolves though violently injurious, are not depicted with the contempt which the apostle attaches to those of whom he warns in this chapter. What figure more expressive of abominable impurity can be found to express “A dog returning to his own vomit, and A washed sow into rolling in mire?” The dog so returning we hear of in Prov. 26:11, where the application is to the fool returning to his folly. Here it is still more emphatically said of him who once knew clearly the glad tidings of Christ and the truth of God in a general way. The better the knowledge, the worse if corruption ensues. What could match it but “A washed sow” again gone back to roll in mud?

Thus the awful issue of unrenewed man here set out in the unerring word of God keeps the security of grace wholly untouched. May the true believer not slip or fall? Surely he may, unwatchful. But “he shall be made to stand; for the Lord is able to make him stand (Rom. 14:4). Without Him he owns himself lost; but now “we more than conquer through Him that loved us” (Rom. 8:37). A man may preach ever so acceptably; but if he live evilly as one not born anew, he perishes a reprobate. And why any Christian should question this is the less excusable, since scripture is perfectly plain in its call to self-denial, and in its denunciation of unholiness particularly in such as profess the Lord's name, with full warning of the awful end.

2 Peter 2:4-5

In the three opening verses the apostle pointed out in plain and pointed terms the very class of false teachers which is now poisoning the fountains of Christendom. It is itself a prophecy fulfilled to every believer of Christian intelligence. As in Israel the false prophets, so now the false teachers are a fact more manifest in our day than ever before. The very scattering, which ought not to be among true-hearted saints, but which is inevitable under personal or party pressure, makes the peculiar evil more apparently the work of the spirit of error. They may differ each from the rest doctrinally in other respects; but they all agree to let in skepticism as to scripture, which necessarily destroys divine authority for every article of faith, and therefore directly tends to dissolve the credit of its rule in anything. Now where is there a single denomination free from this malaria? And the worst is that it is no longer eccentric individuals winked at to avoid trouble and split, but the leading seniors and energetic juniors in the ministry who are more zealous for that deadly error, though nominally some may not deny Christ and the truth of His work.

In former days, as the rule when such unbelievers found themselves opposed through their speculations to the Articles of faith they had subscribed, or to their public profession on becoming religious guides, they withdrew from a position they could no longer hold with common integrity. But in our day we see how those who are false in doctrine are bold enough to set conscience at defiance, and cleave to their position and emoluments when they abandon the truth which they had solemnly pledged themselves to preach and teach. It is not therefore the Lord and the truth only which they betray; but they sacrifice plain honesty of principle for a place and a living which they value. This depravity too is severely exposed in the apostle's words, “through covetousness with well-turned words they will make merchandise of you.” Nor is it his rebuke only since he adds the retribution which must befall those who thus mock God: “for whom judgment of old is not idle, and their destruction slumbereth not.” The maledictions under the seal of the Fisherman may return on the guilty ill-wisher, but God will surely give effect to the words of the bondman and apostle of Jesus Christ His Son.

The apostle proceeds to give examples of divine judgment executed on angels as well as men.

“For if God spared not angels when they sinned, but cast them down to lowest hell and gave them up to chains [or, pits] of gloom reserved for judgment, and spared not an ancient world but preserved Noah an eighth (or, with seven others), a preacher of righteousness, having brought a flood upon a world of ungodly ones” (vers. 4, 5).

We must not confound this fall of angels with the original defection of the devil and his angels, which had a distinct character and a different treatment on God's part. What can be plainer than that the earlier defection was before man was created? For the devil their leader became man's tempter, as his own fault was being lifted up with self-importance and pride against God, and his aim was to lure our first parents into like independence and rebellion. In the case before us the direction of sin was toward man in a way contrary to the nature of angels or of mankind; and so abhorrent to God that He executed an exemplary dealing of His displeasure at the time of the deluge. This too continues through all the ages of man on the earth till final judgment come for wicked men and angels when the eternal state opens. The devil and his angels have quite another destiny; for they are allowed to tempt man, as their chief tempted even the Son of God when here incarnate, rising more and more during the season of divine long-suffering till the ruin of Christendom, as well as of the Jews, shall revive the Roman empire in the Beast, and the False Prophet of Judea, the Antichrist, to sit not only as Messiah but as God in the temple of God showing himself that he is God. Even at the end of Christ's thousand years' reign, Satan will be loosed once more to deceive man for a little space. All so far is in contrast with the sinning angels here.

But the comparison with Jude 6, 7, renders another fact sufficiently clear; that the particular time and the special enormity of their sin point to what is described in Gen. 6:1-4, which played a prominent part in the accumulated evil for which the deluge was sent to destroy the world which then was. One knows how repugnant to most minds is the natural sense of this episode, what violent efforts have been made by learned men to evade it, provoked by absurd rabbinical legends gloating in what is vile and strange, and availing themselves of our Savior's words in Matt. 22:30 on the very different truth of the resurrection state to deny its possibility. Besides, the word does not necessarily mean “wives” but “women,” though ordinarily so employed. However this be, we may all admire the holy wisdom of God in telling us briefly and even obscurely a tale on which man has so much to say, and so great a desire to fill up the details, if he could.

Next the apostle speaks of Noah with his family of seven preserved when God spared not the ancient world. For this is important in his account of God's government. If His hand brought a flood on a world of the ungodly, He took care to guard the safety of Noah's house for the sake of its faithful head. And he draws attention to the interesting fact that Noah was not only a righteous man but “a preacher of righteousness.” The hundred and twenty years of which Jehovah spoke was the space of the preparation of the ark and of Noah's preaching. It has nothing to do with the duration of human life, as some have fancied, but of divine patience before “the flood came and took all away.” To the same time refers the mention of Noah and his preaching also in 1 Peter 3:19, 20 where we are told of their spirits, disobedient as they were to the word of his testimony, and therefore in prison awaiting a judgment still more terrible than aught of a temporal nature, however vast and exceptional.

And so it is now. The day of the Lord, of which the Lord Himself warned, and calls His servants to warn, is at hand; and it will come when men say Peace and safety, while their hearts are filled with fear and foreboding of what is about to be on the inhabited earth. Assuredly the revelation of the Lord Jesus from heaven with angels of His power taking vengeance on a guilty world disobedient to the gospel will even more terrify men in its sudden destruction.

2 Peter 2:6-8

The apostle addresses another divine judgment, not so vast as the deluge, but even more solemnly significant, though on a small scale.

“And reducing to ashes [the] cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, he condemned [them] with overthrow, having set an example to those that should live ungodlily, and rescued righteous Lot, distressed by the behavior of those abandoned in licentiousness; for the righteous [man] dwelling among them, in seeing and bearing was tormenting a righteous soul day after day with lawless works” (vers. 6-8).

The awful story is told with holy plainness of speech in Gen. 19. The sinning and doom of angels consigned to the deepest pit of gloom in chains of darkness for a judgment still more terrible; and the ensuing and unsparing destruction of an old world except Noah and his family, are followed by a catastrophe of fire and brimstone on the cities of the plain. There the bold monstrous depravity of mankind sunk to its lowest depths and cried aloud for heaven's open and indignant vengeance. These were early days comparatively speaking. The boasted civilization of man had borne much fruit to glory in, not only on the banks of the Euphrates and the Tigris, but on the Nile. And here on the borders of Canaan, destined for the seed of Abraham, and round the sea into which debouched the waters of the Jordan were men sunk into unblushing vileness not to be named, save in the days long after by the classic authors of Greece and Rome, who liked moral filth without shame. Most righteously did Jehovah execute His judgment on these cities, setting an example to those that should live an ungodly life, not providentially through the hand of man, but Himself raining upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire out of heaven.

Do any now bearing the name of Christians question this dealing of Jehovah? They may plead the unbelief of an erratic speculator like Origen to excuse their own skepticism, to which, as they allow, the free thinking of Hobbes and Spinoza and the like gave a great impulse; and they are not afraid to cheer one another with the godless cry that they are the winning side. But how will it be when, in the approaching consummation of the age, the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with angels of His power in flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God and those that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ? Will it be any consolation to the teachers of those responsible to preach the truth that they were successful in undermining God's authority in His word under color of historical investigation which has no real facts but fancy, and of criticism which is not to get rid of human error but to enthrone it and to dissolve, in will at least, all that is divine? Will they encourage one another in their work of mischief when such impious infidelity pays the penalty of everlasting destruction from the Lord's presence and from the glory of His might? O that where conscience is seared by the power of evil, there might be an ear to hear, and repentance be given to the acknowledgment of the truth, so that out of the snare of the devil, taken as they were by him, they might wake up for God's will! They may flatter themselves that they are as moral as the old cities were corrupt. But after all to reject God's word, and claim title to sit in judgment on it, is to have a character of pride and malignity more destructive than the abominable and unnatural debasement of Sodom. If God, not man, is the measure of sin, they who are caught red-handed in their war against His inspiration will learn then, if they mock now, what it is to have helped on the apostasy and the man of sin.

But the apostle here as before attests divine mercy as well as judgment. For as before He preserved Noah preacher of righteousness with seven others who shared the ark with him, so now “He saved righteous Lot, distressed by the behavior of those abandoned in licentiousness.” Peter's appointed view is righteousness and unrighteousness; as Jude's was apostasy from a place given by divine will. Both were true of old, and shall be true again in those who hate and deny prophecy, yet will prove its truth in the ruin of those they mislead. And shall they escape, who served Satan's aim and despised God's word, because they die before that day to which all the prophets point, though they had “settled” it to have been a mistake? Lot was not like Abraham in the secret of the Lord apart from the scene. But he was no scoffer, any more than a skeptic; “for the righteous man, dwelling among them in seeing and hearing was tormenting a righteous soul day after day with lawless works.” Whoever heard of such seriousness in a dilettante higher critic? Lot's was not the more blessed part of Abraham, yet was he truly grieved for the Lord's sake. And so it will be with a righteous remnant, when the Jews are in their last trial and the mass accept idols once more, and the antichrist too, as the Psalms and the Prophets amply prove.

2 Peter 2:9-11

Thereon the apostle goes out to show the divine government in a more general way both as to good and evil.

“[The] Lord (or, Jehovah) knoweth to deliver the godly out of trial, and to keep unjust [men] for judgment-day to be punished; and especially those that walk after flesh in lust of uncleanness, and despise lordship. Daring, self willed, they tremble not speaking railingly of dignities (or, glories), when angels, being greater in might and power, bring not against them before [the] Lord (or, Jehovah) a railing charge” (vers. 9-11).

Though it is still the evil day and the enemy is not yet hurled from his place in the heavens (Eph. 6), the eye of the Lord is not closed to the trial of the godly any more than to the ways of unrighteous men. There is a constantly active care of His own to deliver out of temptation, as He reserves unjust men for another day when judgment must requite them. But this is allotted to the Lord Jesus, whom the world despised and rejected. He it is who was determinately appointed of God Judge of living and dead. The Father judgeth none but has given all judgment to the Son, that all may honor the Son even as they honor the Father. He the Son is therefore the test. He that honors not the Son honors not the Father that sent Him. And as it is the self-emptying and humiliation of the Son in becoming man and dying on the cross which gave occasion to unbelief and contempt, instead of love and subjection, it will be as Son of man that the Lord will judge mankind. Those who believe on the Son of God receive in Him life eternal; those who despise and disobey Him as if only man must be judged by the glorified Son of man, and His judgment on the great white throne (Rev. 20:12) will be as everlasting as His life He gives the believer. There will be no escaping judgment for unjust men, even if a day of judgment too punish them in this life at His appearing.

The gospel has saved those who believe for heaven; but it has not purged the earth of iniquity. This will be in the age to come when the Lord reigns over all the earth. It is not what God is doing now, nor will it be till He appears in glory. The darnel was to grow with the wheat in the world of profession. His servants were too ready to uproot; but His word is, Suffer both to grow together unto the harvest or the age's completion. Then shall He send His angels; for it will be their work, not ours even then. We have to witness grace. Then a king shall reign in righteousness; and as the result of retribution executed on the wicked, not only shall the righteous nation enter in, which keeps faithfulness, but “when Thy judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world learn righteousness.”

But “specially those that walk after flesh in lust of uncleanness, and despise lordship” shall incur the divine indignation. To this the grace which God is now showing in the gospel will contribute, because unbelief works to indulge all the more in evil. For if favor be shown to the wicked, he does not learn righteousness, but trifles with sin, and hopes to walk as he likes with impunity; or as it is written in Eccl. 8:11, “because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the children of men is full in them to do evil.” Nor is it unclean lust only that is peculiarly offensive to God, and nourished by the abused grace of the gospel, but despising lordship. For God in His providence has set up the check of magisterial authority against evil; and what undermines this more than the self will of man in these last days which pleads liberty against law to indulge in license and rebellion? It was bad in Judaism; it is worse in Christendom, as this Epistle anticipates, and the corresponding Epistle of Jude. How this defiant haughtiness abounds now! And it will increase to more ungodliness, as the end of the age approaches.

In vers. 10, 11 the wicked spirit is still more pointedly designated. “Daring, self-willed, they tremble not speaking railingly of dignities (or, glories, literally); when angels, being greater in might and power, bring not against them before [the] Lord (or, Jehovah) a railing charge.” The tongue as is shown in the Epistle of James is pre-eminently the index of the inner man's feelings, aim and character. He cannot always do what he would; but his lips express what he is in audacity and self-will. The fact that some are set in a place above others in authority is enough to rouse hatred and revolutionary desires, to lower and destroy. Men tremble not to speak railingly of dignities. A debased Christianity helps this where the truth does not reign to produce self-judgment, yet is sufficiently known to make little of man's pretensions and wordly glories. With such presumption of the baptized the apostle contrasts the humility and awe of angels, superior as they are in might and power, who have such a sense of reverence before God as to restrain their speech before Him, whatever be the evils to call out their abhorrence.

2 Peter: Introduction

The authenticity and genuineness of the First Epistle needed not a word. It seems never to have been disputed from the first. Not so the Second. Eusebius, who died about A.D. 340, tells us (H.E. iii. 25) that among those scriptures that were controverted, but recognized by most (the many) was this Epistle. Even he did not dare to class it (as the Epistles of James, Jude, and John (second and third) or the Revelation) with the spurious; but he does not count it like the other books of the N.T. accepted by all without question.

Yet on its face the writer declares himself with yet more carefulness than when he wrote before, not “Peter” only but “Symeon Peter,” name and surname. So, at the Jerusalem conference on the Gentile question, James speaks of him (Acts 15:14) as “Symeon” (the Aramaic form of “Simon”), though historically designated “Peter” just before (ver. 7). A forger would have strenuously avoided any such shade of difference, superficial though it be; as he never would have conceived still greater care to attest thus minutely the Peter who added this Second Epistle. For he now was led with all holy energy and apostolic authority to denounce the false teachers that were to corrupt more and more the Christian profession, and the scoffers walking after their own lusts, willfully blind to the day of the Lord, through unbelief and materialism.

The late Bp. Christ. Wordsworth, though loyally defending the true inspiration of this Epistle, seeks to palliate the hesitation raised (at least in the third and fourth centuries). He pleads that, as “Writings were forged in early times by heretics in the names of Apostles, especially in the name of Peter,” it was therefore incumbent on Christian churches to be on their guard, and not to receive any book as written by an apostle and as dictated by the Holy Spirit, before they were convinced by irrefragable proofs that it was apostolic and inspired. “Little harm would arise from a temporary suspension of judgment. If the Epistle was what it professed to be, viz., a work of the Apostle Peter, then in due time it would not fail to be universally received as such. But if it was not what it claimed to be, then perhaps heresy might steal into the church under the venerable guise of an apostolic name, and the church might be convicted of reading a forgery as the word of God; and then the credibility and inspiration of those other hooks, viz, the four Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, and the thirteen Epistles of Paul, which had already been received by the Church, would be impugned; they too might be exposed to suspicion; and thus the foundation of the faith would be in danger of being overthrown. It was therefore the duty of all churches to take time to consider, before they received any book as the writing of an Apostle. It was their duty to doubt.”

The error here is serious enough; and Dr. W., a grave and sincere prelate (far above trickery), puts it in its naked deformity. “It was the duty of all churches” to doubt! How little did he mean to surrender the ground of faith! Ecclesiasticism led him thus astray. It is never a duty, even for the simplest Christian, to doubt Scripture, but only to believe; and if so, what about the duty for all churches, or even for any church, to doubt? Really, it was suicidal, and an utter dishonor to God who inspired the Scriptures, and a shameless failure on the church's part. One of the haughtiest sins of Popery is to set up the claim of the church to decide what is scripture. Whether they vest this prerogative in the church, in the ecumenical council, or in the Pope, makes no radical difference. In every form the bringing in of any authority but God's is treason against His glory.

So far is man, whatever his position, privileges, powers or responsibilities, from having the duty of judging God's word, it is it that judges man. For man to doubt God's word, or to sit in judgment to pronounce it His or not, is an overthrow of all righteousness and of all grace, one might add of all decency. It is at the peril of any soul, and peculiarly inconsistent with the Christian, or the church, to question what He has written. The Lord has decided for the intrinsic authority of His own words, to say nothing of His unvarying reverence for all scripture as the full and final sentence of God's mind. “He that rejecteth me and receiveth not my sayings hath him that judgeth him: the word which I spoke, that shall judge him in the last day. For I have not spoken from myself, but the Father that sent me, himself gave me commandment what I should say and what I should speak; and I know that his commandment is life eternal. What therefore I speak, as the Father hath said to me, so I speak” (John 12:48-50).

The Holy Spirit is no less precise in affirming the same principle in Heb. 4:12, 13. “For the word of God is living and active, and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and quick to discern the thoughts and intents of the heart. And there is no creature that is not manifest in his sight; but all things are naked and laid open before the eyes of him with whom we have to do.” What words could more directly refuse the monstrous assumption of the church pretending to accredit scripture, or the still more horrible assertion of its duty to doubt?

There is no evidence that the question raised as to 2 Peter was in the first century. We hear of it much later in the fourth century when unbelief and unspirituality had long prevailed to the decay of faith and the prevalence of heterodoxy, to which the open and sanctioned worldliness that followed gave great impetus and wide currency. The death of Peter no more invalidated his Second Epistle, than Paul's death for his Second to Timothy. This is a mere imagination of circumstances to account for a much later and a wholly ungrounded hesitation about our Epistle. The supposition of delay at first, and the collection of evidence from various parts, before the Epistle was received on the church's verdict of its genuineness, are but an amiable dream.

The Second Epistle, like the First, eminently bears on daily life, but with less doctrine, as is natural, being avowedly written afterward to the same persons. Both are hortative; but the Second pronounces, as the First does not, a solemn warning on closing evils, with the severest denunciation of false teachers denying the Sovereign Master that bought them. These bring on themselves swift destruction, and mislead many into their dissolute doings, whereby the way of truth shall be blasphemed; as also by covetousness with feigned words they make merchandise of the saints. Hence prominence is given to these appalling enormities under the garb, not only of professing Christians, but of accepted teachers. This, at a later date at least, struck superficial observers so strangely as to raise a question of the authorship. But they ought to have recognized the selfsame spirit in the early episode of the apostle's dealing (Acts 8:18-24) with Simon of Samaria, the sorcerer of old. The fervor of love which characterized his evangelizing kindled into a flame against the profanity of the baptized man, who thought to obtain the gift of God with money. Peter therefore pointed him out for the warning of others, yea, of himself as in the gall of bitterness and in the bond of iniquity. The advance and spread in corruption now descried by the Spirit called for still more energetic terms of abhorrence; as the last chapter exposes the latter day infidel mockery in a philosophic form.

After the suited salutation in chap. 1:1, 2, the apostle presents grace's foundation of all things for life and godliness in what was already given, even to becoming partakers, not of human nature ameliorated, but of a divine nature through God's precious and exceeding great promises, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust. But for this very reason there is need of diligence to make our calling and election sure (3-11). This he shows them in view of his speedy departure, not by any hint of apostolic succession, but by leaving the truth with them, and recalling the wondrous sight vouchsafed to him and two other chosen witnesses of the power and coming of our Lord on the holy mount, even in the days of His flesh, and the Father's voice out of the excellent glory: the divine miniature of the kingdom, in confirmation of the prophetic word, with a hint of a blessedness and hope more surpassing still for their hearts (12-21). And he explains that no prophecy is of its own solution, but rather forms a whole by divine purpose and power converging on God's kingdom.

Then in chap. 2 is the apostle's indignant prediction of the ungodly issue, the germ of which was already at work, and its judgment sure and unswerving from God. It is thus the complement of the First Epistle. As the latter was occupied with the suffering of the righteous from a hostile world turned to their good; so the former tells of the doom that must fall on the corrupting false teachers who hypocritically made truth and righteousness a mockery. The judgment on angels that sinned, on Noah's ungodly despisers, on godless and unclean Sodom and Gomorrah are set out as fore-runners of the punishment that awaits the still more guilty that now follow Balaam in his unrighteousness; whatever their highflown words of vanity, they despised lordship, and were slaves of corruption.

Chap. 3 follows up God's righteous government of the world to the uttermost, in dissolving the heaven and earth that are now, and so, purging the world of all associations with ungodliness, to bring in new heavens and a new earth wherein righteousness dwelleth. But the apostle is not content with withdrawing the veil from the destruction, not only of the corrupt, of covetous and insubordinate, but of the skeptical who rest on the stability of things material, which also perish. The saints who believe in God's promise, and wait for these awe-inspiring displays of divine retribution to come, he would have to be found of Him in peace without spot and blameless.

Thus any unbiased Christian apprehends clearly, even if he had not the inspired writer's word for it, that the two Epistles came in the power of the Holy Spirit from the same hand, mind, and heart: the one specially regarding God's present government of the righteous; the other as specially that of the unjust in the future. Only together do they complete the great theme, and this in the style of the great apostle of the circumcision, wholly different from that of James, or John, or Paul, while Jude has his own distinctive character, as can readily be proved in its season. “Ye therefore, beloved, as knowing [things] beforehand, take care lest, being carried away with the error of the wicked, ye fall from your own steadfastness; but grow in grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him the glory both now and to eternity's day! Amen.” The close is as directly practical as the beginning; so indeed, rightly applied, is all scripture, and every scripture, as surely profitable for man, as it is inspired of God. But through Peter it is peculiarly evident, and in his Second Epistle no less than in the First. Yet all is based on Christ's accomplished redemption, the possession of a new and divine nature to preserve from corruption, and a living hope through His resurrection Who is gone into heaven, angels and authorities and powers being made subject to Him.

But the Catholic principle is false, that the church teaches; for it is taught by those given as teachers by the exalted Head. Nor is it the church that preaches, but evangelists equally given by Christ in glory. The Protestant is just as false, who asserts the right of every man to private judgment. This directly tends to rationalism, and deifies man, as the Catholic does the church. The truth is that God has the right and the authority to send His gospel to every man; and woe be to every man that despises it. So God addresses His word in general to the Christian and the church; and woe be to such as do not bow and bless Him for it. Hence it is quite exceptional when those divine communications, however deep, are sent save to the faithful as a whole, either in this or that place, or quite unrestrictedly. There are three letters to two chief rulers, who had a special place as His servants in the word, and as apostolic envoys. Yet the richest unfoldings of grace and truth in the Epistles were not addressed to officials, but expressly to all the saints or to the church. Now is it not almost blasphemous to say that the saints or the church addressed had the duty of doubting? How a Christian could be beguiled so to think is the marvel. But human tradition and corrupt ecclesiastical habits account for many a mistake.

Take the N.T. facts. Did the church of the Thessalonians doubt the first of Paul's Epistles unexampled as it was? Did they not accept without question his written testimony, as they had his oral a little before, not as men's word—but just as it truly is—God's word, which also works in the believer, certainly not in the doubter? It is the more pertinent, because the Second of these Epistles exposes the fraud of a letter pretending to have come from the apostle, which had imposed on some at least. Thenceforward his salutation with his own hand in every Epistle is the token to guard the saints; yet far from him, or even them, the pestilent and unbelieving thought that their church, or any other church, was temporarily to suspend judgment—no, not even when they, or some of them, had just been drawn into error by a deceiver.

And if the sign-manual of Paul sufficed, surely also that of Peter, or Symeon Peter! The name might be a possible question; and this it was not difficult to ascertain. Silvanus a prophet (Acts 15:22) was the bearer. But this settled, there was nothing, when the Second came, but to receive as from God what His inspired servant conveyed to the same saints who had his First Epistle. Examining its contents for the church to accept it would have been a snare of the enemy. The inspired word was to judge their conscience; not they to judge it, but to have their hearts invigorated and souls cheered by His grace and truth through Jesus Christ our Lord,

Again, not only did the inspired writer preface his name and apostolic title in fuller fashion than when he wrote before, but he refers to personal facts, one of the weightiest import, the other of the most exclusive nature, early in the Second Epistle. He pathetically tells them of his knowledge that he was speedily to put off his tabernacle, as his motive for sending them a permanent testimony of what they needed for their continued remembrance. Then he introduces the most magnificent and unique scene ever vouchsafed on earth to saints, himself and his two companions: the transfiguration of the Son of man, acknowledged by the Father as His beloved Son, far above Moses or Elijah, with whom the apostle then foolishly placed Him, as if they could be on common ground. “Hear Him;” and as the voice out of the cloud came, Jesus was found alone. Therefore this Epistle must be either a base imposture, or the last words of love from that apostle.

Nor is there a part of the N.T. more pregnant with wise and holy counsels, suited to the wants of the. saints, or more characteristic of him that wrote it, following up his former letter. For as his First set forth God's righteous government of His children, founded on His grace which called unto His eternal glory in Christ Jesus, so his Second adds that righteous government about to fall on the corrupt false teachers, such as bring in by the bye heresies of perdition (chap. 2), as well as on the infidels that rest on the world's stability to mock at the coming of the Lord (3). The Second accordingly is needed to complete the First; just as that to Colossian saints from the apostle Paul completes what he wrote to Ephesians (the fullness of the Head, and the body His fullness). It is to grow in grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

The two Epistles of Peter dwell alike on the all-importance of the gospel, so blessed already, yet on the one hand surrounded by a world of persecutors as well as by immense dangers from evil men within and without. It is this development of evil which draws out the energetic sketch of the misleaders in all the second chapter, and of the skeptical enemies and their doom, down to the dissolution of all things, in chap. 3. Both led speculative persons, like the untaught and ill-established of whom he himself speaks in chap. 3:16, to question that Peter wrote it. No doubt that solemn warning has a stamp of its own necessarily different, not only from the First Epistle, but from what precedes and follows it in the Second. But can any objection be shallower? Its nature demanded an unsparing denunciation entirely out of season elsewhere. But when he is occupied with the souls of the saints as in the First Epistle, his style in the Second is impressed and instinct with the same ardent, fervent, practical earnestness in love and godliness, peculiar in its manner to him beyond any other writer in the N.T. And how beautiful his allusion to “our beloved brother Paul also,” as well as marked contrast with well-known patristic impostors who set the one against the other!

The Accepted Man: Part 1

There are two ways in which we may approach the judgment of man. We may judge of where man is (of the condition in which he is looked at by God) by taking the word of God and applying it to the condition of man in himself, to his state as an actual sinner. Thus, for instance, in Gen. 3, in the sin of Adam and Eve in the garden we see the character of evil against God Himself; in Gen. 4, in Cain's sin, the character of evil against man's neighbor. Here then is direct opposition to the requirement of God in both its parts (Luke 10:27).

But there is another thing of which scripture is full, the accepted Man, the Lord Jesus. We get in Him a precious living divine picture of what that Man is whom God does accept—of the Man after God's own heart.

If we find in Christ the accepted Man, whatever any other man's thoughts may be about himself, it is evident he is not this, because he is not like Christ (I speak not now as to divine power). In the glory Christ is the accepted and acceptable Man before God. As the pattern for the saint He is the exhibiter, not of divine power in grace toward man, but of manhood such as God can accept. Now no man can at any rate lay claim to being this. The unconverted man, though he cannot comprehend the Man after God's own heart, can plainly see that he is not this. A blind man may not be able to tell what is meant when I speak to him about light and color, because he has no perception of these things. He is blind; but he knows that he lacks the knowledge of the things I am talking about. So, when Christ is spoken of, the natural man is in a state of forgetfulness, or rather of ignorance as to who and what Christ is (whether looked at in relation to God or to the sinner), and therefore as to the real dissimilarity between himself and Christ; but he is perfectly aware that there are things which others know about Christ that he does not know. He may say he knows them, but he does not; and moreover he must be conscious that he does not know that which he professes to know. The blind man may hear me speak or be listening to sweet music, and in a certain sense lose nothing through his blindness (in the present enjoyment of what he hears he may forget his inability to see); but let him attempt to walk across the room towards me, and he will be reminded of it; for, unless one lead him, he will run up against that which stands in his way. The blind man may get used to his blindness.

So the sinner. When the natural man hears the word of God read, or when Christ is spoken of, he is blind, ignorant (as was said before) of who and what Christ is; but he is ignorant of the depth of his ignorance; his mind is so occupied with other things that he does not think about it, and he gets used to his ignorance. When the truth is put before him, he cannot see it; yet he must know that he knows nothing about it. If he looks into the scriptures, he does not apprehend Him of whom they speak. He is entirely ignorant of the motives that actuated Christ in His path through this world; yet, if his attention be at all called to what Christ was, he must have the consciousness that he is not like Him, that he is not and has not the thing spoken of.

If it be true that this is the acceptable Man, the Man in whom God delights, acceptable in His spirit, and ways, and character, it must be evident to the natural man that he cannot be. He may have many amiable qualities (in nature there is much that is engaging and beautiful: we see it even in the animals), but nothing that is acceptable to God. Morally we do not find one single motive that governed Christ governing man, as man. It is evident therefore, that if Christ's were acceptable motives, his are not.

Now being accepted is a great thing. It is impossible to think of a day of blessing, or of a day of judgment, without immediately having thoughts arise in the soul as to how it will be with us, whether we shall stand accepted in that day, whether we shall escape that judgment.

A man of the world must own that he has nothing in common with Christ, except indeed that he is a man and Christ was a man: he eats, drinks, sleeps; and Christ ate, drank, slept. But there is sin in every man, (and Christ was “without sin”), sin in the place of godliness, malice in the place of love. As regards the moral motives of the soul, he has not any of Christ's, and Christ had not one of his. The world would cease if its conduct were regulated by the motives which actuated Christ; it could not go on an hour. There may be the outward imitation of that which was found in Christ; but God is not mocked. “But,” it may be said, and many do say it, “God does not expect us to be like Christ in everything.” Now the fact is God does expect us to be like Christ. It is impossible for God to accept one thing as that which is agreeable to Himself, and then accept or be satisfied with the directly opposite. If the man of the world is the very opposite of what Christ was, God cannot accept him. He cannot deny Himself.

We shall see how God does bring into the very same place as Christ those who are accepted in Him You cannot have a third man. You must have either the place of the first man, rejected, turned out into the world, in the place of ruin; or that of the second Man, accepted, brought out of the world to God. There is no third man offering an indefinite acceptance in some unknown condition.

What then is the Christian? We read here of two things as characterizing him: he is an “epistle of Christ;” he has “liberty.”

What is the “liberty?” You will find this a characteristic of man, as man; he has not liberty with God, and (though he has not liberty from Satan) he has liberty with Satan. He is afraid of God; but he is not afraid of Satan. He would not like to be with Satan in hell, it is true; he is horrified at the thought of that; but he is not horrified at walking with him every day. He is at liberty with Satan, walking at his ease with him in the earth; but of walking with God he has a perfect terror. Now do you, dear friends, find yourselves at liberty with God? I know that in heaven by and by you would like to be with God; but do you covet this nearness now? That is the question. Do you feel at home with God? would you like Him to take you just such as you are? If taken just as you are, could you trust yourselves with God? You hope, perhaps, that when the day of judgment comes, all will be well with you; you have no thought but that you will be able to stand in the judgment then. But if God were about to take you just such as you are at this moment, is there not something you would be afraid of? What is there so terrible in thinking about God, why you should be so afraid of God, that you would not like to trust God with your present condition? You are not afraid to trust Satan.

Satan is “the god” (2 Cor. 4:4) and “the prince” (John 12:31; 14:30) “of this world;” yet men are not afraid of making their way through a world where the Lord tells His disciples to have their loins girded about and their lamps burning, to watch and pray lest they enter into temptation, to be armed at all points. Men are not afraid there. Is not this strange? In Satan's world they are at ease; but with God they are not at ease. They go readily into places of temptation where Christ is sure not to be; and in the place where Christ could honor God they are ill at ease. They go to seek their pleasures where Christ could not have found His; and they are not afraid of Satan, though they know he is there. They are afraid where the light is; but they are not afraid of the darkness. Darkness is their element; light their fear. Is not this a terrible thing! “God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.” Satan is the prince of “the rulers of the darkness of this world” (Eph. 6:12), “the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience” (Eph. 2:2, 3).

Man can compare himself with a reprobate sinner, and take credit in his own eyes for the difference between himself and the sinner, when God acts not in the conscience; but he puts away the judgment of God concerning himself. He never compares himself with Christ, “neither cometh he to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved” (John 3:20, 21).

Now let us look at Christ, as to this judgment of man about himself. We find Christ scorning what man delights in, passing by those who could thus compare themselves amongst themselves, and becoming the friend of the profligate and the abandoned. When He met with a publican, or a person of bad character, making no pretense to be anything but a sinner, He was at home with the sinner. Of such were His companions. He came in grace to sinners as sinners. He saw into the heart, and therefore detected the hollowness of all man's pretended righteousness. He did not come from heaven to this earth to look for righteousness: this is the last thing He would have taken the journey for. He came to seek sinners.

Again, you read a person's character in his letter. Now the Christian is Christ's letter to the world. In ver. 3 the apostle speaks of him as “the epistle of Christ,” written by the Spirit of the living God in the fleshy tables of the heart, and contrasts him with the law written on tables of stone. A Christian is therefore a person upon whose heart the Spirit of God has engraved Christ, just as truly as God wrote and engraved the law upon the tables of stone; so that the world may read Christ in the man, as an Israelite might read the law on the stones. Now how far can we according to this definition call ourselves Christians? We come short, I doubt not, we have blotted the letter: but I speak of the thing in principle.

Oh, the folly of man! He has taken for granted from the scriptures that there is a heaven, and then sets about getting to that heaven his own way. How does he know that there is a heaven at all to go to? It is impossible that he should know it except upon the authority of God. “I learn it from the scriptures,” he says: “it is in the scriptures, and therefore it must be true.” Yes, doubtless it is in the scriptures; but having taken for granted just that, he does not go to God to know who are to be there, or how he is to get there.

The very idea, floating as it is, he possesses of heaven, renders the assumption of his being there less pardonable than would have been his utter ignorance about it. A man would be less wrong supposing he did not know anything about a regal palace (a savage fit only for the woods), than a person who knew what the palace was, and had some idea of the requirements of the place, and yet thought to go and live there. The unconverted man acts and thinks more apart from God in thinking he ought to go to heaven, than if he thought there was no such place at all; he in a state of sin is expecting to get into the presence of a holy God!

One thing impressed my own mind most peculiarly when the Lord was first opening my eyes, I never found Christ doing a single thing for Himself Here is an immense principle. There was not one act in all Christ's life done to serve or to please Himself. An unbroken stream of blessed perfect unfailing love flowed from Him, no matter what the contradiction of sinners, one amazing and unwavering testimony of love and sympathy and help; but it was ever others, and not Himself, that were comforted, and nothing could weary it, nothing turn it aside. Now the world's whole principle is self, doing well for itself (Ps. 49:18). Men know that it is upon the energy of selfishness they have to depend. Every one that knows anything at all of the world knows this. Without it the world could not go on. What is the world's honor? Self. What its wealth? Self. What is advancement in the world? Self. They are but so many forms of the same thing; the principle that animates the individual man in each is the spirit of self-seeking. The business of the world is the seeking of self, and the pleasures of the world are selfish pleasures. They are troublesome pleasures too; for we cannot escape from a world where God has said, “In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return to the ground,” &c. Toil for self is irksome; but suppose a man finds out at length that the busy seeking of self is trouble and weariness, and having procured the means of living without it, gives it up, what then? He just adopts another form of the same spirit of self, and turns to selfish ease.

I am not now speaking of vice and gross sin (of course every one will allow that to be opposite to the spirit of Christ); but of the whole course of the world. Take the world's decent moral man, and is he an “epistle of Christ”? Is there in him a single motive like Christ's? He may do the same things; he may be a carpenter as Christ was (Mark 6:3); but he has not one thought in common with Christ. As to the outside, the world goes on with its religion and its philanthropy; it does good, builds its hospitals, feeds the hungry, clothes the naked, and the like; but its inward springs of action are not Christ's. Every motive that governed Christ all the way along is not that which governs men; and the motives which keep the world agoing are not those which were found in Christ at all. (To be continued).

The Accepted Man: Part 2

The infidel owns Christ's moral beauty, and selfishness can take pleasure in unselfishness; but the Christian is to “put on Christ.” He went about doing good all the day long. There was not a moment but He was ready as the servant in grace of the need of others. And do not let us suppose that this cost Him nothing. He had not where to lay His head; He hungered and was wearied; and when He sat down, where was it? Under the scorching sun, or at the well's mouth, whilst His disciples went into the city to buy bread. And what then? He was as ready for the poor, vile sinner who came to Him, as if He had not hungered, neither was faint and weary (John 4). He was never at ease. He was in all the trials and troubles that man is in as the consequences of sin, and see how He walked! He made bread for others; but He would not touch a stone to turn it into bread for Himself. As to the moral motives of the soul, the man of the world has no one principle in common with Christ. If then the world is to read in a Christian the character of Christ, it is evident the world cannot read it in him who is not a Christian; he is not in the road to heaven at all, and every step he takes only conducts him farther and farther from the object in view. When a man is in a wrong road, the farther he goes in it the more he is astray.

There is another terrible thing: we find men agreeing to take the commandments of God as their rule and guide, as Christ took them. “We take His directions,” they say, “all that God says about what we ought to be, and what we ought to do; we are not going our own way.” Well, granted; but you must take the law, such as it is, and with its consequences. If man says, “I accept the law to be judged by, I take this as my guide,” he makes himself the responsible party, that is, he has to answer for himself. And mark how God began with the law. What does the law say about him? It says he is “cursed” already. This law that he is taking to get to heaven by is the very thing that pronounces judgment against him “Cursed is everyone that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them” (Gal. 3:10). Suppose I bring a right and true measure to a man who is in the habit of using a wrong measure, what is it done for? Not to make him honest, but to prove his dishonesty. It is in vain for him to say, “I will change my character;” the thing is already done. The question is, Has he a character? and he is proved to be a dishonest man. Now the law was given “that the offense might abound” (Rom. 5:20). The right, perfect, holy law of God was given as a rule; but if that rule be given to a sinner who cannot keep it, and if it be applied with all the searching power of the holiness of God, he is a judged person, and brought in under its curse. He hopes perhaps to be better; he has some vague thoughts about the mercy of God; but it is no use to talk about what he will be: judgment is already pronounced against him.

But more than this, as a matter of fact the law tells man not so much what he is to do, as what he is not to do. If we look at the ten commandments, we shall find that they do not tell him to do anything, except to remember the sabbath day &c., and to honor his father and his mother. These are the only positive precepts. All the rest are, “Thou shalt not do this, and thou shalt not do that.” How comes it then that such a form is employed? This of itself is a sufficient proof of evil tendencies in those addressed. Men care not to make laws for a country to prohibit that which nobody thinks of doing. Just so God's law forbids people to do certain things because they have a tendency to do those very things; it touches the motives and dispositions of men's hearts as they are known by God.

The law is given most surely as a rule; but it is given to a sinner who already needs amendment. The first thing it does therefore is to prove sin, condemning the inward disposition as well as the outward evil. Paul's experience of it (Rom. 7) is proof enough of this. He could say he was pure so far as concerned outward compliance with its requirements, “touching the righteousness which is in the law, blameless” (Phil. 3:6). “Alive without the law once,” “when the commandment came, sin revived,” and he died. “I had not known sin,” he says, “but by the law, for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet (lust); but sin, taking occasion by the commandment, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence; for without the law sin was dead.” “When the commandment came,” he found he was a condemned sinner. The law, being the righteous demand of God from man, and applying itself to those who are already sinners, must necessarily work condemnation and death. It is “the ministration of death” (ver. 7), and of “condemnation” (ver. 9).

But, again, there are not only wrong motives in man, but a very strong independent will. Man likes to have his own way. Now what is the effect of putting anything in the way of a person who wants to go his own road? That he will push it out of the way if he can. Thus the will of man, if the man be resting on the law as such, and yet liking to have his own way in a single thing, proves him to be a breaker of all the commandments. The will of the man, being contrary to God, if opposed, would push aside the whole law. This is what is meant by “whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all,” &c. (James 2:10, 11). The authority of God is attached to His law; and therefore, if, when the authority of God meets the lusts of man, he is guilty of the breach of that law in one thing, he has overthrown the claim of the authority of God, and thus broken the whole law. If he commit not adultery, yet if he kill, he sets aside the authority of Him who made the law that says “Thou shalt not commit adultery;” for He that said, “Do not commit adultery,” said also, “Do not kill.” Suppose you had forbidden your child to do three things, and he was not disposed to do two of the three, or lacked the opportunity, would his not having done two of these three things make you hold him guiltless? No; you would say that he was not disposed to do them, or he would have done them had he found the occasion. Having set aside your authority in the one instance, your authority was not his restraint.

“How hard it is,” you may be ready to say, “that man when a sinner should have a law given him to keep which he cannot keep, and which therefore, after all, instead of helping him, only works death and condemnation.” These are man's thoughts and not God's. God never intended to save man by the law: that was not His purpose in giving it. He never meant to save any other way than by Christ. Bounds were set about the mount (Ex. 19:12, 13)—it is a barrier from God; and Moses required to have a veil put on his face when he spoke to the people (Ex. 34:33-35).

People have taken heaven out of the scriptures, and then they have taken their own way to it. But they are trying to go to heaven by the very thing God has given as the ministration of death and condemnation; and they expect to get there by the very thing which God says pronounces them “cursed!”

(Continued)

The Accepted Man: Part 3

The first principle of Christianity, whilst recognizing in the most solemn manner man's responsibility to answer for himself, puts the Christian on other and entirely different ground. This is the first principle and basis of all Christian truth, that there is a Mediator—a third person, between man and God. Another has implicated Himself, and, because man could not come to God, has taken up the cause of man, and wrought out an acceptance for him.

Two things (already noticed) are brought out here, as the result of this. “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty,” the liberty of grace. And we become the “epistles of Christ” (blotted ones, no doubt, in ourselves, but we are not epistles of ourselves), transcripts of Christ “written with the Spirit of the living God.” This we “are,” not merely we ought to be. Though in ourselves most imperfect and failing, the definition given by the Holy Spirit of a Christian is that he is a transcript of Christ.

Now the natural thought of many a soul is this, Well, if that be true, I do not know what to think of myself; I do not see this transcript in myself! No, and you ought not to see it. Moses did not see his own face shine. He saw God's face shine, and others saw Moses' face shine.

The glory of the Lord, as seen in Moses' face, alarmed the people. They could not bear that glory. But we see it now with “open” or unveiled “face” in Christ, verse 18, and yet are not in the least afraid; we find liberty, comfort, and joy in looking at it; we gaze on it, and, instead of fearing, we rejoice. How comes this immense difference? It is “the ministration of the Spirit,” verse 8, and “of righteousness,” verse 9.

It is Christ alive in the glory that I see; not Christ down here (sweet as that was), but Christ at the right hand of God. Yet though that glory is in the heavens, I can steadfastly behold it. All that glory (and He is in the midst of the glory and majesty of the throne of God itself) does not affright me, because the wonderful truth comes in, that this glory of God is in the face of a man who has put away my sins, and who is there in proof of it (Heb. 1:3). I should have been afraid to hear His voice, and have said, with the children of Israel (Ex. 20:19), “Let not God speak with me;” or, like Adam with a guilty conscience, have sought to hide myself away (Gen. 3:8). But I do not say so now; no, let me hear His voice. Thus I cannot see the glory of Christ now without knowing that I am saved. How comes Christ there? He is a man who has been down here mixing with publicans and sinners, the friend of such, choosing them as His companions. He is a man who has endured the wrath of God on account of sin; He is a man who has borne my sits in His own body on the tree (I speak the language of faith). He is above, as having been down here amidst the circumstances, and under the imputation, of sin; and yet it is in His face I see the glory of God. I see Him there consequent upon the putting away of my sins, because He has accomplished my redemption. I could not see Christ in the glory if there were one spot or stain of sin not effaced. The more I see of the glory, the more I see the perfectness of the work that Christ has wrought, and of the righteousness wherein I am accepted. Every ray of that glory is seen in the face of One who has confessed my sins as His own, and died for them on the cross; of One who has glorified God on the earth, and finished the work that the Father had given Him to do. The glory that I see is the glory of redemption. Having glorified God about the sin— “I have glorified thee on the earth; I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do” —God has glorified Him in Himself there (John 17).

When I behold Him in that glory, instead of seeing my sins, I see that they are gone. I have seen my sins laid on the Mediator. I have seen my sins confessed on the head of the scapegoat; and they have been borne away (Lev. 16). So much has God been glorified about my sins (that is, in respect of what Christ has done on account of my sins), that this is the title of Christ to be above at the right hand of God. I am not afraid to look at Christ there. Where are my sins now? where are they to be found in heaven or on earth? I see Christ in the glory. Once they were found upon the head of that blessed One; but they are gone, never more to be found. Were it a dead Christ, so to speak, that I saw, I might fear that my sins would be found again; but with Christ alive in the glory the search is in vain. He who bore them all has been received up to the throne of God, and no sin can be there.

As a practical consequence of this I am being changed into His likeness. “We all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image, from glory to glory, even as by the Lord the Spirit.” It is the Holy Ghost taking of the things of Christ, and revealing them to the soul, that is the power of present practical conformity to Christ. I delight in Christ, I feast upon Christ, I love Christ. It is the very model and forming of my soul according to Christ by the Holy Ghost—this is His revelation of Christ. I not only get to love the glory, it is Christ Himself that I love; Christ that I admire; Christ that I care for; Christ, whose flesh I eat, and whose blood I drink: what wonder if I am like Christ? The Christian thus becomes the epistle of Christ; he speaks for Christ, owns Christ, acts for Christ. He does not want to be rich, he has riches in Christ—unsearchable riches. He does not want the pleasures of the world, he has pleasures at God's right hand for evermore.

Does the heart still say, “Oh, but I do not, and cannot, see this transcript in myself?” No, but you see Christ; and is not that better? It is not my looking at myself, but my looking at Christ that is God's appointed means for my growing in the likeness of Christ. If I would copy the work of some great artist, is it by fixing my eyes on the imitation, and being taken up with regrets about my failing attempt, that I shall be likely to succeed? No, but by looking at my model, by fixing my eyes there, tracing the various points and getting into the spirit of the thing. Mark the comfort of this! The Holy Ghost having revealed to my soul Christ in the glory as the assurance of my acceptance, I can look without fear, and therefore steadfastly, full at that glory, and rejoice in the measure of its brightness. Stephen (Acts 7), full of the Holy Ghost, could look up steadfastly into heaven (doubtless in his case it was with more than ordinary power), and see the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God, when his face shone as the face of an angel. And look at his death. Just like his Master, he prays for his very murderers. Stephen died saying, “Lord, lay not this sin to their charge;” Christ had died saying, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” In Stephen there was the expression of Christ's love for his enemies. By the Holy Ghost he was changed, and that in a very blessed way too, into the same image.

The soul at perfect liberty with God looks peacefully and happily at the glory of God as seen in the face of Jesus Christ; and, because it sees that glory and knows its expression, it walks before God in holy confidence. Instead of being happy and at liberty with Satan in Satan's world, the Christian dreads Satan because he knows himself. At ease in the presence of God, he there drinks into the spirit of that which befits the presence of God, and becomes the “epistle of Christ” to the world, showing out to all that he has been there.

Well, what a difference! May we more and more make our boast in Him, in whose face all this glory is displayed—the Lamb, who has died for us, and cleansed away our sins by His own most precious blood.

The Lord give us hearts freed by Himself, whilst still in the midst of this poor world that is walking in a vain show.

(Concluded)

Active Neology

A JOURNAL of the day sent me gives the Dean of Westminster's theory of inspiration, which is really a denial of God in it. Scientific discovery [?] is assumed to have revealed facts plainly inconsistent with Genesis taken literally, and to cast Christians on Origen's mischievous allegorizing. The Dean is one of those who do not go as to miracles all the lengths of many Germans, Dutch, and Americans, to say nothing of some Britons. He talks of the vast difference between the historical evidence for our Lord's miracles, and that for many of the O. T. miracles. But such a defense cannot long resist the dead weight of unbelief. Evidence of sense was enough to render inexcusable those who saw; but it is slight compared with God's testimony in Scripture. If men did believe on evidence only, the Lord did not believe in them (John 2:24, 25). Man must be born anew for God's Kingdom; and this is of the Holy Ghost through faith, greater than any miracles, which are a sign to unbelievers, but have per se no power to bring sinners to God. Modern scientists, who dare to assail scripture will have to mend their hypotheses as well as their exegesis; in fact they are scarce better than heathen philosophers. But think of the folly and the sin of professed Christian teachers being influenced by speculative anthropologists, astronomers, biologists, geologists, against God's written word! Ascertained facts are very distinct from human theories, and have never been proved to clash with Holy Writ, ardently desired as this issue has been by some.

As to the Dean's principles, they are not of faith and cannot please God, any more than secure the truth to man. “Biblical criticism proper” is the reducing of the current text, injured by human copying and also by editorial guesswork, to the very words of the Holy Spirit as originally written. But neo-criticism is essentially infidel; because it consists of man's mind sitting in judgment on what no Christian can reasonably doubt to be the deposit for faith through the inspired writers. What he calls “the science of literary and historical investigation,” or the self-styled “higher criticism,” is unbelieving, illegitimate, and spurious, certainly as applied to Scripture, and uncertain for any other ancient book, such as Homer for instance, in the hands of even a first-rate scholar like Karl Lachmann.

The church of God did not take its stand on any such humanitarian ground, but persevered in the apostles' teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of the bread and the prayers. Christians accepted without question, as our Lord taught them, the written word as authoritative and beyond controversy. It was after the departure of the apostles and prophets (the foundation on which the house of God stands), that wicked men and impostors came out more openly, as the apostles warned, to push their school of doubt and incredulity, with all the evils in its train. “I know (said not the least) that after my departure will come among you grievous wolves, not sparing the flock. And from your own selves will rise up men speaking perverted things to draw away the disciples after them” (Acts 20:29, 30). The Christian student, nay the highest teacher, is not called to any such investigation as judging the scriptures, but to judge himself and others, and even what assumes to be the church, by the scriptures. Indeed it became a necessary question to judge which is the church, from the time that it openly split into bodies holding no intercommunion, aggravated since the Reformation by the gradual swarm of rival societies claiming to be churches. Thus, only one can be according to scriptural truth; and if this one had just grounds, it would surely take the place, not of boast, but of humiliation and grief that things had come to such a pass, where once was blessed unity.

If we turn, as the Dean did, from the abstract to concrete facts, his statements are equally shallow, unintelligent, and unfounded; as is the case with all rationalists, even of experts in Hebrew and Greek; which learning has little or nothing to do with their novel criticism. The command to Noah of one pair of animals is contrasted with another to take seven pairs of the clean: the first as by God's command; the second as Jehovah's, with corresponding differences in each case. “In this way we discover that two early accounts! written by writers of a different style!! have been welded together by the final author of the Book of Genesis!!!”

So this is his first sample of the revolutionary criticism, of “the science of literary and historical investigation!” It is a mere dream of imagination playing on the surface of facts and words, without the least understanding of the truth which the Divine Author was giving through its writer. Elohim is “God” in His sovereign dealing, as of creation. Jehovah is “the Lord,” in His unfolding special relationship. Is not this incontestably true in both respects? Let then men search the Scripture and believe as they ought; or, if they venture to deny it, proclaim their willful ignorance. For this explains the case to the honor of God, the unity of the writer, and the profit of the reader. And the difference of the names is not only accurate but indispensable without a circumlocution beneath a revelation. This too gives occasion to the beautiful differences which accompany divine wisdom. How absurd to conceive that “writers of a different style” are required, “welded together by the final author!” Yet the Dean is modest in imagining only three; for even Dr. Driver exceeds, and he is far from keeping pace with his German leaders in their crusade against this Holy Scripture as given through Moses, if we truly own the Lord Jesus. Take one verse (Gen. 7:16) to squash the bubble: “As God commanded him; and the LORD shut him in.” Two writers! because as “Elohim” care of male and female animals is expressed, while the special concern as “Jehovah” appears to shut Noah in. And the third tacked the two into his patch-work without a single ray of light, and not even an idea! What a whimsical scheme!

The same principle applies still more manifestly to Gen. 1; 2:3 as compared with Gen. 2:4-25. Let us consider it. The chapters are not two differing accounts, but two aspects of the same revelation; as to which historical investigation, no less than science, or this new and absurd pretension to “the science of literary and historical investigation,” claims new light beyond our Lord and His apostles. Now chap. 2 has no reference to creation save in ver. 4, the transition link with the relations established among His creatures by Him, who therefore is spoken of accurately and necessarily, not as Elohim, but Jehovah Elohim. Accordingly we have none of the general details of creation, so minutely given in chap. 1, but new matter in chap. 2 of what bears on man for special relationship, morally rather than as head of creation. Here only we learn that Jehovah Elohim formed man of dust of the ground like other animals, but, unlike any, breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. Others had the breath of life by creative will physically; man alone by Jehovah Elohim's inbreathing, the cause of his soul's immortality (for good or for ill unspeakable), whilst life perished for others with their bodies. He only of earth has direct moral responsibility, and must in resurrection give account to God, as other scriptures prove.

Therefore it is that chap. 2, not chap. 1, tells us of the garden or park which Jehovah planted in Eden, where He put the man He had formed, not only stocked with beauty and beneficence for the being in relationship with Himself, but having in its midst the tree with peculiar privilege, and another tree to test his obedience, the first man's responsibility. All this was not, nor could be, in chap. 1, but properly and only where Jehovah Elohim gave the keynote; not the creator God as such, but also the personal name, the moral Governor who in due time revealed it in His covenant with Israel: a fact of the profoundest interest and import to the only nation as such brought into relationship with Him of old as their God, the sole living and true God.

Without pretending to explain every other detail, we may all discern that only to chap. 2 falls the beautiful moral ground on which Jehovah Elohim acted in making him a helpmeet, his counterpart, separately and subsequently, out of himself; after allowing man the remarkable title to give each living soul of the lower creation its name, as pertaining to their sovereign: a striking refutation of another Dean's ridiculous and unbelieving dream that man learned to talk gradually from the chirpings of birds and the cries of beasts. But woman alone was built by Jehovah Elohim out of man's rib for their special relationship, and therefore appropriately recorded here, and not in chap. 1. Does not this commend itself to every purged conscience and true heart? Does not the bearing of the chapter, and especially when both are compared, convict not of error alone but of skeptical sin those carried away by the scheme of Elohistic and Jehovistic fragments and one knows not how many more redactors German ingenuity feels it necessary to invent in order to eke out these idle unmeaning dreams? Let the self-applauding “higher critics” remember that they too must give account to the Lord of glory, Who with His apostles and prophets vouches for the Bible's authority, as well as its genuineness and authenticity.

The fatuous and unspiritual hypothesis of Astruc yields nothing but Dead Sea fruit or even worse. The respective distinction of God's creation, and of the relationships laid down by Jehovah, is of great interest and importance, quite sacrificed by these would-be sages, who leave out God as the author, and deny Moses as His instrument.

What might help to show the untenableness of the theory is that the same distinction pervades all Scripture. Take the Psalms, where none of their fragments can apply: the difference of Elohim and Jehovah is conspicuous there throughout (and marked particularly in the first and second books); as expressive of what we have seen in Genesis, as exclusive of what the neologians say. Take again Jonah as a clear example of the same truth as against the fancies of these unconscionable critics, if critics they deserve to be called; for they really are free-thinkers.

The N. T. in its own blessed way presents the corresponding difference in “God” and “Father;” for this last, and not Jehovah, expresses the Christian relationship. Compare John 4:21-24; as indeed it is true and plain from the Gospel of Matthew to the end of Revelation in its own peculiar way.

The function of a sound and Christian critic is to detect and cast out every slip, or what is worse, any quasi-correction, which crept into the original text through the copyists. In the O.T. this is chiefly in names and dates. In the N. T. are more serious additions, as in Acts 8:37; 9:3, 4 (from elsewhere only), 1 John 5:7, 8; and omissions, as in 1 Cor. 9:20, 1 John 2:23. But though these and the like have their importance, especially for those jealous for God's word to the minutest degree, as believing in its plenary inspiration, they affect most slightly the reliable and blessed testimony of God in the Scriptures. And the most ample grounds are in general extant to convince any upright mind, whatever may be the case. True criticism goes on the ground of faith in God's authoritative and certain written testimony to man; the soi-disant “higher” believes in no inspired deposit in the Pentateuch, &c., in the Psalms, or in the Prophets, according to the measure of their incredulity. And this ungodliness cannot stop there, but will at length undermine the N. T., Christianity, and Christ Himself for themselves and their admirers.

Adam in Harmsworth's Encyclopaedia

As the early parts of this cheap and comprehensive Encyclopedia have been sent for a notice, it falls in with the B.T. to examine how it stands toward Scripture, not in things topographic, or literary. And the father of mankind affords a fair sample in the first part. “To obtain anything like an adequate view of the relations and implications of this Biblical story we must subject it to literary analysis.” This will suffice to convince our readers that it is a human view, and essentially inadequate. Think of the apostle Paul's indignation if any Christian had so spoken or written! God's word subjected to “literary analysis”! No believer could allow the thought here coolly laid down as indisputable, because, not being taught of God, he is under the free-thinking fad. “It is now generally accepted [by unconverted men who treat the Bible like any other book] that the narrative is a combination of two different accounts [neither of which is believed by these skeptics] of the creation of man.” Now I flatly deny that God-fearing men accept anything of the sort. Not many have examined the question seriously and before God. But those who have are clear that the hypothesis of various documents is unfounded and owing to ignorance of the profound wisdom of inspired scripture, which employs the divine names according to the truth that requires each. “God” is employed for His originating all, in contrast with the creature; “Jehovah,” where He forms relations with man toward Himself, his fellows, or other creatures, &c. Here (in Gen. 2; 3) the two are joined for the trial of Adam morally as the head of earthly creation. After the fall it is regularly Jehovah (as generally in chap. 4, and Elohim as generally in chap. 5) according to the propriety of the case. And this runs right through the O.T. where not even these critics of the scissors can dream of different writers, as in the Psalms and the prophets. Thus the whim of “different accounts” is not only a weak guess, but it shuts out the instruction derived from learning God's mind in revealing Himself either in His abstract nature or in His relationships. It will be said that the language and the coloring differ too and bring in distinct matters with each divine aim. But this necessarily goes with the aspect God takes; and it confirms the principle of truth asserted here; whereas it has nothing to do with different writers. A mistake of this nature is fundamental, and must vitiate all the handling of the O.T. (except in outward points). The N. T. comes under the same principle: only the relationship with the Christian is “Father.” But here too “God” and “Father” are employed, as the case requires, quite independently of the figment of different documents. It is really a very foolish fancy. And one cannot but regret to see Biblical truth utterly sacrificed in both the new edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica, and in this otherwise excellent cheap substitute. Worldly men are quite unreliable to write on what demands living faith. For “the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God; for they are foolishness to him; neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Cor. 2:14).

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“The Historical N.T., being the Literature of the N.T. arranged in the order of its literary growth and according to the dates of the documents: a new translation, edited with prolegomena, &c. by James Moffatt, B.D. Second and revised edition. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 38, George Street, 1901.”

The very title of this humanitarian book will suffice to reveal its unbelieving character to men of faith. Nor need it surprise any to read from the start extracts from Martineau, Westphal, and Goethe, occupying page 5 It is the “historical” method of neology, applied by Dr. Driver to the O.T., and here to the N. T. Under cover of a literary investigation the enemy seeks to undermine and overthrow its divine authority. “The enemy,” one says; for we need not impute such a consciously sinister design to the author. God in any reality is excluded from the N. T. as from the Old. Man takes His place with entire self-sufficiency.

The work is avowedly “a pioneering edition.” For the modern research, chiefly German, pushed forward of late by British and American disciples, is not at all satisfied. Nor will the impulse let them rest, till “the apostasy first come, and the man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition,” as the apostle warned at an early day. Development is the key-note, whether for Christianity, or the testimony of apostles and prophets in what is commonly styled the New Testament. Were God in Christ frankly acknowledged to be its author, whatever the instruments to do His work according to His own perfection, such an idea as development must be regarded as intolerable; especially as the latest of its inspired writers takes such pains to repudiate it (1 John 1:1-4; 2:24-27; 4:1-6 John 9-11).

As yet, the historical or new critical school professes to own that the scripture conveys, contains, or represents the word of God; they deny that it is the word, while admitting that it is to be the word of God written. This admission, if it kept its promise aright, would be loyal; but to their mind it means that the writing partakes of the fallibility of the writer, instead of being the perfectly true and reliable reflex of God’s mind which admits of no question. For, it is the writing, the scripture, “every scripture,” which the apostle declares to be God-breathed (2 Tim. 3:16). The issue, for the pioneer at the present juncture, is that the bulk of Paul’s Epistles appeared first, from those to the Thessalonians to the Colossians and Philemon; then came 1 Peter; after it the Synoptic Gospels, Mark first (save 16:9, &c.); then the Epistle to the Hebrews; afterward Luke’s Gospel and Acts next; then the absurdity of the Apocalypse of John, before his Gospel, the Epistles 1st, 2nd, and 3rd, being attributed to another John! The Pastoral Epistles are supposed to follow long after Paul by his scholars! 1 and 2 Timotheus, with Titus, before 1 Timothy!! After these came the Epistle of James, then of Jude, and lastly of 2 Peter (“during the course of the second century, and probably in its first half”), the fragment of Mark being added before the Pastorals. This bold tampering may be illustrated by the effort to turn Ro. 16:1-20 into a note to Ephesians, and 2 Cor. 10-13:10 into an intermediate letter. Who can set bounds to the mania of speculation? Lachmann’s pranks were bad enough, however clever, on the Iliad of Homer; but how sinful the profanity in dealing with scripture, and how mischievous to all who are proud of such cobwebs!

Courtesy of BibleTruthPublishers.com. Most likely this text has not been proofread. Any suggestions for spelling or punctuation corrections would be warmly received. Please email them to: BTPmail@bibletruthpublishers.com.

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The Reviewer of “The Prize of our High Calling” willingly expunges two or three lines (omitted in its reprint); because he is informed that the late Mr. Govett did not hold that the saints there are “tormented” like the rich man in Luke 16:23, as contrasted with one in Abraham's bosom.

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The Apocrypha Just Now

IT is notorious that at the time of the Reformation, certain uninspired writings commonly called the Apocrypha were still printed with the canonical books of the O.T. It was a relic not only of Popery but of the Catholic declension that set in strongly after the apostles. The so-called fathers, Greek and Latin, winked at the dishonor done to scripture by incorporating inspired and non-inspired in the Bible. But even in the darkest ages none of the least intelligence confounded the false with the true, though there they were together read for example of life and instruction in manners, heedless of the leveling up man or leveling down God which must be the result. The reformers were more or less aware that these merely human books were a bad example of life and a spurious instruction of manners, and above all a standing shame put on God's word; but they compromised, partly through the ignorance of high and low, partly through the politic influence of worldly potentates who sought to conciliate their contumacious subjects. Popery at the Council of Trent apostatized as never before so arrogantly and defiantly by binding the uninspired equally with the inspired. on its besotted votaries. But Protestants abroad and at home allowed the old compromise.

More than eighty years ago controversy sprung up in the British and Foreign Bible Society about allowing the Apocrypha to be mixed up with the scriptures: and in the course of some five years it was decided by the Society to exclude it from their printed Bibles. Indeed for years after the dispute continued and even led to the Trinitarian Bible Society. But within and without the older Society, and of course the new, no doubt can exist that the favorers of the Apocrypha were defeated, including H. Marsh, Bishop of Peterborough, who had been educated in Germany, and more rationalist than superstitious; a man wholly ignorant of divine grace.

It appears from a circular sent to the Bible Treasury that the Bp. of Winchester has now become President of the newly formed International Society of the Apocrypha, the avowed object of which is to make more widely known “the spiritual! ecclesiastical!! and literary value” of this incubus on, the Bible; and not a few learned men are the associated instruments of this movement. It seems to be deplorable, but not surprising that it should follow the wide-spread faithless and wicked effort to destroy the assured claim of scripture to be the only God-breathed testimony to man; a further working of the spirit of the age to subject His word to pretentious science, which is no science but a letting loose of human will and imagination to destroy divine authority, under the pretext “of literary and historical investigation.” Thus when these men are doing all they can to degrade scripture from its unique place, if we believe the Son of God, they and others are seeking the more general study of writings altogether human as Deutero-Canonical; though confessedly the Maccabeean books are ridiculously unhistorical and even self-contradictory; and use language incompatible with any divine character (2 Mace. ii. 23, &c., xv. 37-38), to say nothing of the silliness of Tob. iv. 18. How little any of these zealots for the Apocrypha are so instructed in scripture as to be a man of God complete, fully fitted to every good work!

Baptism and the Lord's Supper

Baptism and the Lord's Supper (1 Cor. 10) are for the wilderness. The first introduces into the wilderness; but it is Christ's death, not mine only. I thereon reckon myself dead as a consequence, planted in baptism in the likeness of His death. But in Romans we have not resurrection with Him; and even where we have, as I think we must say in Col. 2, no ascension, no Canaan.

As the one brings into, the other sustains in, the wilderness. So we show forth Christ's death till He come. I am on the earth, but in the consciousness of being a member of the one body, which implies union with Christ; but it is on earth I celebrate it, not in heaven. I look at the humiliation as over with Him, but remember Him in it. Our service in it is simply owning the preciousness of His death till He comes. Our state is in resurrection; but we are occupied and celebrate His having been once down here, and show forth His death. The question is, Where are we when we celebrate it? In the wilderness. J.N.D.

Behold My Servant: Part 1

Isaiah 52:13-15

The portion, of which the commencement is now entered on, does evidently assume the form of a dialog between Jehovah and the godly Jewish remnant about the Messiah. To read it thus on the sure ground of its own clear and unforced evidence adds not a little to its interest. Nor is this confined to our prophet. We have an even greater variety in Psa. 91, among others; for there in answer to Christ's reliance on Jehovah in ver. 2, the godly remnant express their conviction of His security from all evil, and of the judgment of His wicked foes in 3-13; and Jehovah responds to His love with the assurance of love and deliverance and exaltation. The form is poetical, the truth certain and cheering to a high degree, as evincing not only honor for His anointed but the communion between Himself and His people in that day.

“Behold, my servant shall deal wisely; he shall be exalted and extolled, and be exceedingly high. As many were astonished at thee—his visage so marred more than man, and his form more than sons of men—so shall he startle (or, sprinkle) many nations: kings shall shut their mouths at him; for what had not been told them they shall see, and what they had not heard they shall consider (or, understand).”

It is in chap. 42 that Messiah is first presented by Isaiah as “My servant” after Israel had been so designated in the chapter before, with help soon to come by means of Cyrus through the judgment of Babylon and its idols. But a greater than Cyrus or Israel is here, however similar the terms employed. “Behold my servant whom I uphold, mine elect [in whom] my soul delighteth! I will put my Spirit upon him; he shall bring forth judgment to the nations. He shall not cry, nor lift up nor cause his voice to be heard in the street. A bruised reed shall he not break, and the smoking flax shall he not quench; he shall bring forth judgment in truth. He shall not burn dimly nor be crushed, till he have set justice in the earth; and the isles shall wait for his law.” Beyond a doubt it is Messiah in His blessed abnegation or rather absence of self, such as no conqueror ever displayed, and of which He only was capable to perfection, but looking onward to the day when the nations shall submit to His law superseding every false God.

After this glance at Him, the prophet speaks of Israel as Jehovah's servant till the early verses of chap. 49 where is begun a new section; and Messiah takes the place of Israel who had failed to the uttermost, not only in abject slavery to idols but in still baser rejection of Messiah. He is not only to deliver Israel but always the true servant, though Israel be not gathered and the Jews to be again scattered. “And he said to me, Thou art my servant, Israel, in whom I will glorify myself. And I said, I have labored in vain, I have spent my strength for naught and in vain; nevertheless my judgment is with Jehovah, and my work with my God.” Hence it is said to Him, “It is a small thing that thou shouldest be My servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the preserved of Israel: I have even given thee for a light of the nations, that thou mayest be my salvation unto the end of the earth. Thus saith Jehovah the Redeemer of Israel, his Holy One, to him whom man despiseth, to him whom the nation abhorreth, to a servant of rulers: kings shall see and arise; princes, and they shall worship, because of Jehovah who is faithful, the Holy One of Israel, who hath chosen thee.” He is also given for a covenant of the people (Israel), to establish the land, restore the captives, and execute judgment on their foes.

Still more does chap. 50 prepare the way for all that was afterward told of the sufferings of Christ and the glories to follow. For here we have His servant with the tongue and ear of the instructed, whatever it might cost. “The Lord Jehovah opened mine ear, and I was not rebellious, I turned not away backward. I gave my back to the smiters, and my cheek to those that plucked off the hair; I hid not my face from shame and spitting. But the Lord Jehovah will help me: therefore I shall not be confounded; therefore I have set my face like a flint, and I know that I shall not be ashamed. He is near that justifieth me: who will contend with me? Let us stand together: who is mine adversary? let him draw near to me. Behold, the Lord Jehovah will help us: who is he that shall condemn me? Behold, they all shall grow old as a garment; the moth shall eat them up. Who is among you that feareth Jehovah, that hearkeneth to the voice of His servant &c.?” This is succeeded by the triple call to hearken in 51 and to awake, awake in 51; 52, closing with the announcement on the mountains of him that publishes peace, good and salvation, that saith to Zion, “Thy God reigneth.... Jehovah comforteth His people, He redeemeth Jerusalem.” Therefore were those that bear His vessels to depart, to go out, to touch nothing unclean; and this not with haste or flight, for Jehovah was both front and rear guard.

On what was this deliverance based? On the suffering Messiah; and as 50 revealed His sufferings from man, so with them does 53 reveal that which makes plain His still deeper and infinitely faithful sufferings from Jehovah. The end of 52 is thus the preface which, while connected with the foregoing chapters, is the due beginning of chap. 53.

Jehovah speaks in general terms to the godly remnant, the earnest of the generation to come. “Behold, my servant shall deal wisely; he shall be exalted and extolled, and be high exceedingly.” Christ is God's power as well as God's wisdom. Time was when many were amazed at the depth of His humiliation— “His visage so marred more than man, and His form more than the sons of men.” For He went about doing good, and healing all that were under the power of the devil, as neither Moses, nor Elijah, nor Elisha, nor any other ever did. Anointed with the Holy Ghost and with power, He was the lowliest of men and taught subjection to the powers that be. Why then the spite and contempt of men, especially of the Jews, beyond all measure?

They were utterly without excuse. For the same prophet Isaiah in his early visions had announced Him Immanuel (7:14, 8:8), and brought together (9:6), for “a child born to us, and a son given to us,” the many wonders of His name “called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Father of the age (or, eternity), Prince of Peace,” which made His humiliation inexplicable, save to those who see by faith that only thus could God be glorified as to sin in Messiah's atoning death, that all who believe might be saved by grace.

Now all was changed. This finds abundant illustration in Isa. 9:1-5; 11:1-10; 35; 63; Jer. 33:14-26; Ezek. 34:23-31; 37:21-28: Dan. 7:13, 14; Hos. 3:5; Mic. 5:1-5; Zech. 12:9, 10; 14:3-9. The Psalms are no less plain: 2:6-12; 8:5-9; 22:27-31; 24:2-7; 72:1-10. “So shall he startle many nations; kings shall shut their mouths at him,” as their menials used to do to them. “For what had not been told them they shall see, and what they had not heard shall they consider.” The glory, to say nothing of the grace, which shows us the once despised and hated and suffering Messiah so surpassing all that nations or their kings knew, filled them with unutterable astonishment. Yet this is but the introduction to the colloquy that ensues, on the deepest things for both God and man opened out in its course.

Behold My Servant: Part 2

In strong contrast with the kings astounded and abashed at Messiah's glory the godly remnant confess the incredulity even of the chosen people at their report.

“Who hath believed our report? and to whom hath the arm of Jehovah been revealed? For he grew (or, shall grow) up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground. No form had he nor comeliness, and when we see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him. He is despised and shunned by men; a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, and as one from whom men hide their face, he was despised and we esteemed him not.”

Judicial darkness overhung the people. So the prophet long before testified, according to the word of the Lord. They had eyes but they saw not; ears they had but they did not hear, and their unintelligent heart was hardened against Him who would have healed their desperate sickness. Hence there was no reception of what ought to have been the most welcome tidings, though the arm of Jehovah had been revealed unmistakably, but as yet only to a very small remnant.

Messiah's humiliation was an affront to the Jew as poor as he was proud and filled with nothing but earthly power and grandeur in his dreams of the coming king. And the root of it was the insensibility of the natural man to sin, his own sins and utter evil and ruin before God. But whatever the glorious things designed and assured to Israel, it is impossible that He could overlook iniquity. Of old they had been ready and confident to obey His law; and they made it their boast that they alone had it. But how had they kept it or honored Him? Their history, and He wrote who knew all, was a record of continual sin and rebellion. While Moses was up the mountain to receive the tables of stone on which Jehovah wrote the Ten Words, the people broke into open revolt, and made Aaron the instrument of setting up a golden calf to fall down and worship as the deliverer from Egypt, covering yet aggravating their apostasy under the proclamation of a feast to Jehovah. Wherefore that generation perished in the wilderness.

Were their sons any better under Joshua in the conquest of Canaan? Jehovah failed in nothing, they in everything; and so in Josh. 24:19 he told them, “Ye cannot serve Jehovah for he is a holy God; he is a jealous God; he will not forgive your transgressions nor your sins. If ye forsake Jehovah and serve strange gods, then will he turn and do you evil, and consume you after he hath done you good. And the people said to Joshua, Nay, but we will serve Jehovah.” But the covenant he made in this last interview of his had no more heed than that of Moses. And the book of Judges occupies its first chapter with the failure even of Judah to dispossess the defilers of the land, as the second declares that Israel served the Baalim, forsaking the God of their fathers who brought them out of Egypt. Though He raised up judges to restore them and to save them out of the hand of their enemies, they ungratefully on the death of each turned back, and behaved more corruptly than their fathers; so that His anger was kindled against (not the Amorite or the Canaanite but) Israel, and refused to drive out their enemies, left to prove His people.

But they rebelled against the best of judges, even Samuel the prophet, and would have a king like the nations, though this meant rejecting Jehovah. They soon proved that the king of their choice brought them into dismal subjection to the Philistine. And God chose David, type of the true Beloved; and things looked bright comparatively, but not without dark blots, notwithstanding the outward show of Solomon's reign, another type of the same Messiah in a different aspect. But the ruin that impended became manifest in his son Rehoboam when ten tribes revolted out of the twelve, never to know reunion till Messiah's day of power and glory.

Meanwhile the people, the priests and the kings increased their transgressions (2 Chron. 36:14), though Jehovah sent to them by His messengers; but they mocked at them till His fury rose against His people. “There was no remedy”; and they were carried to Babylon. Was the remnant any better on their return? Let the Cross of Christ, and the destruction under the Romans answer.

Yet the dry bones must live, and stand up an exceeding great army, before the union of Judah and his companions with Ephraim and his, to be one in Jehovah's hand (Ezek. 37). The chapter before lets us know the primary work on their souls when He sprinkles clean water upon them, gives them also a new heart, and replaces their stony heart with a heart of flesh; so that they repent and loathe themselves in their own sight for their iniquities and their abominations.

On what ground will this “regeneration” stand? On that very humiliation and the propitiation for sins which till now the blinded nation refused in Jesus with scorn. This is what the godly remnant take up and in the deepest contrition acknowledge to Jehovah on His call to behold His Servant before whose exaltation the kings are struck dumb.

Not so the converted remnant. They open their lips to tell out to Jehovah, not only the unbelief of others notwithstanding the fullest proof on Jehovah's part, but their own. They acknowledge their past folly and the people's in misinterpreting His matchless grace in stooping so low to vindicate God's nature and word, and to be their substitute and Savior. “O foolish and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets spoke!” Why fix on Isa. 63 and ignore Isa. 53? Why rejoice in Messiah's treading down their foes, and forget their own sins, and their need of Him to be trodden down under divine judgment for them to be saved and brought to feel their otherwise inexpiable guilt? “Ought not the Christ to suffer these things and to enter into His glory?” as He Himself told the mourning pair on the resurrection day.

The Lord therefore took His place in the ruin of the people and of its royal house. How unlike Adam who fell in the midst of pristine excellence, beauty, and sinless enjoyment! He accepted the lowliest position at Nazareth and under the dominion of the last heathen empire, because of the sins of the people. And thence He emerged, without a single advantage of birth, power, wealth, or human learning, to glorify His Father in His living ways, to glorify God as to sin in His death (rejected by all), yet dying for the lost as indeed for everything. For His is a twofold reconciliation, not only for all believers but for all the universe of heaven and earth, that all, save the wicked and the unbelieving, may be blessed forever by His redemption. If man despised, how did not God joy in Him that was His fellow humbling Himself for His Father's glory from first to last here below, as He expressed it from heaven repeatedly! In Him was His own best pleasure. How immeasurably above coming in power and pomp! “For He grew up before Him as a tender plant and as a root out of a dry ground. No form had He nor comeliness; and when (not Gentiles, but) we see Him, there is no beauty that we should desire Him.” Yet had they not this very word and many more to win and warn them? “He is despised and shunned (or, rejected) by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief (yes, He alike Messiah and Jehovah), and as one from whom men hide their face, He was despised, and we esteemed Him not.”

Behold My Servant: Part 3

But the latter half of the remnant's reply is a confession, not only of their once unbelief but of their now faith as simple as it is real and deep.

“Surely our sicknesses (or, griefs) he bore and carried our sorrows, and we regarded him stricken, smitten of God and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace [was] upon him, and with his stripes was healing to us. All we like sheep have gone astray, we have turned every one to his own way; and Jehovah hath laid (or, made to light) upon him the iniquity of us all” (vers. 4-6).

It is well that we have the divine application of ver. 4 in the Gospel of Matt. 8:17, where it is cited from the Septuagint as “Himself took our infirmities and bare our diseases.” It is not meant that He suffered under them as a matter of fact; but that He took them on His spirit and was burdened by their weight, whilst He removed them by His gracious intervention. He was perfect in this respect as in all others. What a contrast with Moses in Egypt inflicting scourges on the oppressors of Israel and despisers of the “I am” and with Elijah in the midst of apostate Israel recalling the guilty king and people from Baal to Jehovah! Here we have God in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself, not reckoning to them their offenses, but not yet the sinless One made sin for us that we might become God's righteousness in Him. It was He who, anointed by God with the Holy Spirit and power, went throughout doing good and healing all that were under the devil's power, because God was with Him. And it appears from this remarkable word of the prophet as applied by the apostle that as He healed in divine energy, He took the infirmities and the sicknesses as a load of sorrow on Himself before God.

Do we not see the detail of this peculiar way especially in the Gospel of Mark? Take the leper in chap. 1, the paralytic of chap. 2, the demoniac of chap. 4, the raised daughter of the synagogue ruler in chap. 5, the deaf and dumb in chap. 7, the blind man of Bethsaida in chap. 8, and the son with a dumb spirit in chap. 9. It was not only power that dispelled the evil, but His deep interest and grace in the way wherein He did it, as the perfect servant of man's need in God's power. Truly “He hath done all things well.” Thus we gain a truth through the prophet by understanding ver. 4 of His wondrous way in healing the afflicted, instead of forcing it to speak of His very distinct work of propitiation for our sins, which required far more and different from the cure of infirmities and diseases appreciated aright before God.

It is in vers. 5 and 6 that the godly remnant express their infinite debt in His suffering for them, instead of being regarded as one stricken, smitten of God and afflicted like Job, or in another way a Gehazi or an Uzziah. “But he was wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him, and with his stripes we are healed (or, healing was to us).” The figures are abundant and as strikingly differ: but they all agree in revealing Him as the expiatory sufferer and substitute: the ever present shadows throughout the Jewish ritual of His atoning for the believer's felt need and deepest want before God as a guilty sinner. “For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sin.”

The blood of such creatures did all that was available till the Lamb of God came and suffered for us, not only made sin and become a curse on the tree, but for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savor. For every shadow met and was more than fulfilled on our account in Him who glorified God as God in His death for sin, as He had in His life glorified Him as His Father in an equally perfect obedience. It is unbelieving blindness to see in His cross nothing more than a martyrdom for the truth and an example of holy love. These elements were in it beyond doubt, but incomparably more: the absolute necessity on God's part as well as ours of One as truly God as man, one mediator both of God and men, Christ Jesus man, who gave Himself a ransom for all, who suffered for sins once (and once was ample), Just for unjust, that He might bring us to God, not yet to heaven (however surely this in due time) but (what was of the utmost moment for the soul now and here) “to God.” And what can be plainer than the prophet's figures? He (none other in heaven or on earth could avail), He only, He truly, He effectually “was wounded,” not as reward for any good in us, but “for our transgressions.” When in their darkness they did esteem Him stricken, smitten of God, it was governmental, and significant of God's displeasure. But now they knew by divine teaching and state it as a certain truth that only in sovereign grace to helpless and otherwise ruined sinners, was He therein wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquities. It was God's way to save righteously. If the Jews did not dispute that through one man sin entered into the world, and through sin death; and thus death passed upon all men for that all sinned (adding then their personal sins to Adam's transgression); much rather did the grace of God, and the free gift in the grace of the one man Jesus Christ exceed unto the many. Was it not worthy of God and due to the Savior, that where sin abounded, grace should exceedingly surpass? Compare the unworthy first man's sin with the all-worthy Second's suffering for sins. Who but an unbeliever could fail to see the infinite contrast, that grace should flow abundantly for the salvation of the believer, as judgment must act all the more certainly against those who despise such a God and such a Savior?

Peace with God, for such as we were, needed an immovable foundation. And He is the foundation, righteous and holy even for us through “the blood of His cross.” “The chastisement of our peace was upon Him.” Who else could have borne it? Sinful man must have sunk under what sin deserved irretrievably and forever. But He whom knowing no sin God made sin for us endured to the utmost, and was raised righteously and triumphantly, Jesus Christ the same yesterday and to-day and forever. “And with His stripes we are healed.” Such is the one divine and only panacea for any and every lost one who bows to the Crucified One and to the righteousness of God, abjuring his own righteousness but confessing his guilt and ruin.

This is what takes away not only guilt but guile, and stablishes him that had been dishonest and deceitful in integrity even in God's sight. The mouth is all the freer and fuller to own its wicked folly: “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned each to his own way.” There was no exception: all astray, yet each in his own evil way. Yet in the face of all wrongs, and in His own spontaneous and all-overcoming goodness Jehovah caused to light upon Him the iniquity of us all.

Did not one of our own poets sing “I lay my sins on Jesus?” Nay, friend, God's truth is far beyond thy hymn. Jehovah who knew all laid the iniquity of all that believe on Him. Is not this far greater, better, and surer? We have all had habits of sin, even those converted young; and a sinful habit genders forgetfulness as well as heedlessness of sins. Which of us could be so confident for eternal salvation as to rely on our own memory in laying our sins on Jesus? How awful to have presumed fatally in such a case! How blessed, even apart from that danger, to have the certainty that God does perfectly for the believer what he himself could only do imperfectly! What grace on His part, and what pitiful consideration of our shortcoming He who could not but feel abhorrent every act of self-will, every uprising of independency and rebellion, caused the vile mass of iniquity to light on His head who is here shown to be its infinitely suffering Sin-bearer, willing because Jehovah willed it in a grace which is His prerogative, to save the lost.

Behold My Servant: Part 4

THIS is the answer of Jehovah to the remnant's confession of their past unbelief and their present faith in Messiah. The last clause of ver. 8 makes it certain that the strain in these verses is His language, beginning in 7 and ending in 9.

“He was oppressed and he humbled himself, and he opened not his mouth; as a lamb he is brought to the slaughter and as a sheep before his shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth. By oppression and judgment was he taken away, and who shall declare his generation? for he was cut off out of the land of the living: for the transgression of my people was he stricken. And they made his grave with the wicked but [he was] with the rich in his death; because (or, though) he had done no violence nor [was] deceit in his mouth” (vers. 7-9).

How precious it is to have the true God thus communicating His moral complacency in the rejected Messiah and in His work of sin-bearing to those who once despised Him but now share His delight in that meek endurance of all indignity! What a sight for the heavenly host, who at the marvel of His birth of woman appreciated the sign of a babe wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger, yet praising God and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good-pleasure in men! Now it is Jehovah musing on the deepest proof the only-begotten Son could give of the Savior's love and His own, not only to display the true nature of God where it was unknown, but to save His people from their sins, whose history had been a succession of divine favors followed by deepening departure and rebellion against Him.

When His law and His institutions were more and more despised, when His priests made His offerings abhorred by their corruption, when the kings became leaders in idolatry and its debasing consecration of vice, He sent prophets not only to reprove but to win Israel back extraordinarily. But they took His servants, beat one, killed another, stoned a third. He sent others more than the first; but they persisted instead of repenting and did even worse. Having yet therefore one beloved Son, He sent also Him to them the last, saying, They will reverence My Son. But they said one to another, This is the Heir. Come, let us kill Him, and the inheritance will be ours. Was there ever a truer sketch that the Son drew for that generation, which they recognized yet fulfilled in His cross?

The Lord of the vineyard did destroy the wicked husbandmen, and gave the vineyard to others; who if they heard the glad-tidings for awhile did not abide in goodness nor stand through faith, but presumed to think that God had cast off Israel to give Christendom an everlasting and indefeasible possession of the earth and of all nations. How utterly heedless of the solemn warning that this present evil age shall end with the apostasy and the man of sin, and that the day of the Lord shall dawn on Israel penitent, believing, and saved, after exterminating judgment of the wicked Jews and Gentiles while the heavenly saints shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father!

Here the prophet was inspired to present the renewal of Jehovah's relations with the godly Jew under the figure of the converse we are considering. And as it began in 52:13-15 with His pointing out the amazing change from One whose visage was marred more than man's, and His form more than the sons of men, to a glory which should astound kings when established before them, and this drew out in 53:1-6 the confession of their past unbelief and their present assurance of His sufferings in atonement for them, so Jehovah takes up the strain of the meek Sufferer doing the divine will whatever it might cost in a world at enmity with God. How suited and impressive the lesson to the remnant about to become a strong nation I Messiah, The Lord of all “was oppressed”; but, far from resenting, “He humbled Himself.” He “openeth not His mouth,” though He knew well the purpose of the religious chiefs to compass His death. “As a lamb is brought to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so He openeth not his mouth. He was taken away by oppression and judgment; and who shall declare his generation?” Whatever might be the form of judgment, all was unrighteous, and those who condemned Him condemned themselves unspeakably. For He who was perfect love “was out off out of the land of the living.”

Where was Jehovah then? He was there in a light strange to man: God would Himself provide a lamb for a burnt-offering, yea, a sin-offering too. “For the transgression of my people was he stricken.” It runs through scripture from Genesis to Revelation; but in no scripture is it declared more plainly than here by Isaiah. How then have the Jews failed to hear? Through the same unbelief as blinds the natural man. Sin unjudged makes a Savior hateful. A God of law is reasonable; the God of sovereign grace is intolerable to self-satisfied man, who trusts in himself, distrusts God, and denies the need or the value of the sacrifice of Christ.

Expositors generally assume that the oriental style in the Psalms and the prophets overflows and must be allowed for in the sober facts. Certainly it is not so in Christ and His cross! The truth exceeds in His grace and His endurance; as it does in the N. T. The reality penetrated more deeply and rose far above any anticipation vouchsafed. But there is another side not to be overlooked. The cross of Christ reveals His moral glory as nothing else could. Where was Jewish righteousness and priestly grace, where Roman law, and Greek letters at that solemn hour? Did not all of man and the world with its religion conspire against the only Righteous Servant the Lord of glory, full of grace and truth? And what can be said of the disciples, of His apostles, of Peter? Where can there be an atom for boast save in Him who was made a curse upon the tree, abandoned even of God necessarily that we might never be, yet vindicating Him to the uttermost when realizing it to the uttermost? Truly it was the hour which stands alone through all eternity, and the Lord Jesus could say of it, Now was the Son of man glorified and God was glorified in Him; if God was glorified in Him God shall also glorify Him in Himself, and shall glorify Him immediately, i.e. before the predicted glory of the kingdom be manifested.

Yet whatever He suffered, it is touching to observe how Jehovah cared even for the dead body of His Son as here noticed. “And they made his grave with the wicked,” the natural end of a crucified malefactor, “but [he was] with the rich in his death,” the unlooked for issue under His guidance, “because he had no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth.” The fact too of its being a new tomb where no dead body had ever lain gave occasion to make the truth of His rising the more unambiguous and manifest.

Behold My Servant: Part 5

“Yet it pleased Jehovah to bruise him; he hath put him to grief. When thou shalt make his soul a trespass-offering, he shall see seed, he shall prolong days, and the pleasure of Jehovah shall prosper in his hand” (ver. 10).

In the preceding section the last clause of ver. 8 is decisive that the speaker can be none other than Jehovah Himself meditating throughout 7-9 on the gracious sufferings of His Messiah. Here in ver. 10 it is no less certain that we hear the remnant's voice about Him in answer to Jehovah, and reckoning on the sure and blessed fruit of Jehovah's part in that momentous trespass-offering. If Jehovah viewed with delight the Holy One of God meekly bowing to all indignity and suffering at the hands of those among whom He deigned to dwell in infinite love, and with heart set on representing aright the true God who was as little known as He is as among the heathen, the godly tell Jehovah of the wonder, once hidden from them but now their delight, that it seemed good in Jehovah's eyes to bruise Him.

Long had the bruising of Him been revealed. It was disclosed to the guilty pair in paradise forfeited by their transgression (Gen. 3:15), before the responsible man was driven out, and the cherubim were set with the flame of the flashing sword to guard the way to the tree of life. Then the enmity of the serpent was in the foreground; and the word was “He shall crush thy head, and thou shalt crush his heel”; as this was the announcement proper then, and most true in itself. The crushed Savior should crush the Serpent's head, and at last be its utter destruction; for the God of peace shall bruise Satan under our feet shortly, howsoever long He has waited: as He is the last enemy with his power of death to be cast into the lake of fire and brimstone. Nor is it here the deceived and beguiled human adversaries Jew or Gentile who are dwelt on.

Of these the Lord spoke often to His disciples when unbelief became more and more pronounced. “From that time Jesus began to show to His disciples that He must go away [being then near Cæsarea-Philippi] to Jerusalem, and suffer many things from the elders and chief-priests and scribes, to be killed, and the third day be raised” (Matt. 16:21). Then after the transfiguration, while they abode in Galilee, He said to them, “The Son of man is about to be given up into men's hands, and they shall kill Him, and the third day He shall be raised up” (Matt. 18:22, 23). Again, in Matt. 20:17-19, He took the Twelve apart, and said, “Behold, we go up to Jerusalem, and the Son of man will be given up to the chief-priests and scribes, and they will condemn Him to death; and they will give Him up to the Gentiles, to mock and to scourge, and to crucify, and the third day He shall rise again.” Compare Acts 2:22, 23, 36; 3:13-15; 4:10; 5:30, 31.

But here the godly view His sufferings in the light of Jehovah's purpose and peace. Whatever man's wickedness, and it was immense every way, love still more unfathomable was behind to bring about a work of grace beyond human thought to God's glory, beyond all love in man who might die for his friend, as He for His enemies proves it essentially divine. “Yet it pleased Jehovah to bruise him.” What grace could compare with this? What an answer to Satan's base suggestion in paradise, that He begrudged His most favored creature the fruit of the tree in the midst of it! For what gift in heaven or earth could approach that unspeakable free gift? What sufferings too were like His? Truly He was subjected to grief; and by whom? How divine a way to demonstrate the love and holiness and righteousness of Him that sent, and of Him who was thus put to grief?

O sinful man, O doubting believer, accept the witness God has given concerning His Son. Professing Christian, go not below what godly Jews shall yet confess. As Isaiah here predicts to be fulfilled in them for the kingdom on earth; so we ought to do still more fully according to the gospel for heaven. “Herein is love, not that we loved God [as we surely ought], but that He loved us, and sent His Son a propitiation for our sins.” Indeed He loved us beyond parallel, and doubly. We were dead in sins; and God's love was manifested in sending His only-begotten Son, that we might live through Him. We were guilty sinners; and He sent His Son as the only efficacious sacrifice for our sins (1 John 4:9, 10).

The prophet so many centuries before as to this thoroughly agrees with the apostle who looked on the cross, and so many years after lived to give this witness of divine love. “When thou shall make His soul a trespass-offering, He shall see seed, He shall prolong days, and the pleasure of Jehovah shall prosper in His hand.”

There are those bearing the Christian name who venture to question and even deny that God dealt with our Lord Jesus judicially. But here is not a debatable type, if such it be counted; here is no trope which can be deemed Oriental, as so many love to find in scripture. It is the greatest of the O. T. prophets after Moses expressing in the Spirit what the future believing remnant of Jews will respond to Jehovah's intimate communications about Messiah. None can dispute that it is a term taken from the very heart of the offerings for sin in the Jewish ritual, illuminated by the light of Christ to those so long sleeping among things dead, as all must be in unbelief. It is more than an offering for “sin,” and expresses the addition to swerving from right the guilt of offense against relationship with Jehovah, a desecration of His name in respect of Him who deigned to make them His (and we may surely say in every respect); for in what had Israel not failed?

But when Messiah's soul (for it was not His body alone, but Himself in the most intimate and full way) was made a trespass-offering, how efficacious the result! What was blood of bulls and goats, of rams or lambs, in comparison? The worshippers once purged have no more conscience of sins, as the Epistle to the Hebrews so boldly declares. Messiah has already seen a seed purged and blessed thereby; and “He shall see seed” too for His manifested kingdom here below, not of His ancient people only but “all the families of the earth blessed in Him.” “Unto Thee shall the nations come from the ends of the earth, and they shall say, Surely our fathers have inherited falsehood, vanity; and in these things is no profit” (Jer. 16:19). Dead for our sins, He is alive again for evermore, the best prolongation of days; and “the pleasure of Jehovah shall prosper in His hand.” For “the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name is called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Father of the age to come (or, Eternity), Prince of Peace,.. upon the throne of David, and over his kingdom to establish it, and to uphold it with righteousness and with judgment from henceforth even forever.” “Behold, a king shall reign in righteousness, and princes shall rule in judgment; a man shall be as a hiding-place from the wind, and a covert from the storm; as brooks of water in a dry place, as the shadow of a great rock in a thirsty land.”

Behold My Servant: Part 6

Not less certain is it that the two concluding verses are the answer of Jehovah. Who but He could speak of Messiah as “My righteous Servant?”

“He shall see of the travail of his soul, he shall be satisfied; by his knowledge shall my righteous servant instruct the many in righteousness, and he shall carry their iniquities. Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong ones; because he poured out his soul unto death, and was numbered with the transgressors; and he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.”

The godly remnant had said in faith, “When Thou shalt make his soul a guilt (or, trespass) offering, he shall see a seed.” Now Jehovah responds emphatically, “He shall see of the travail of His soul.” It was no mere act done as a duty, though in truth out of the depths of His obedience. It was also “of the travail of His soul,” if these words ever applied to any suffering accepted in love, and endured for the glory of God and the salvation of the otherwise lost. What was it for the Holy One of God to be forsaken by His God, when He cried and could not be heard? when forsaken by His disciples? when despised of men, and scorned by His people, from the high priest to the meanest of the Jews? by the very robbers deservedly crucified on either side? Yet at no time was He so efficaciously suffering for God's glory; at no time so infinitely the object of divine delight, though His God who could not regard sin with the least allowance, so far from then delivering, made Him, the sinless One, sin for us.

Here and here only was the travail of His soul without a parallel; and hence the fruit of it no less unparalleled. It was thenceforward to be God's righteousness to justify the lost if they believed on Jesus, the sole way of salvation by grace for any. Others cried to Him who inhabited the praises of Israel. The saints before He came trusted, and Jehovah delivered them. But He went down under the burden of our sins, intolerable to all but Him; yet to Him more intolerable than to any; and He crying “Thou art holy,” yet the abandonment continuing till the atoning work was done, when from the horns of the buffaloes He was heard, and in departing could say, Father, into thy hands I commend my Spirit. And the demonstrative answer came in raising Him from among the dead and seating Him at His own right hand on high. This was God's righteousness to Him (compare John 16:10), who has also given us who believe to become God's righteousness in Him, and declares “He shall be satisfied.” For the Father's glory and God's glory thus He secured at all cost to Himself; and hence God, as God and Father, is concerned in glorifying Him who in love and according to divine purpose shares it with us. If He is head over all, we are His body and shall be associated with Him in His exaltation over all things, the things in the heavens, and the things on the earth. Our text speaks only of the earthly people's part; but Eph. 1:10-14, is no less certain as to the church's union and glory with Him in all things heavenly and earthly.

The rest of verse 11 needs the more care, because it has been forced to speak in concert with traditional views, instead of its real and simple meaning. For the Lord's ministry is first set out, and then His sacrificial death. “Justify many” would be a singular departure from due order, before His bearing our iniquities; which if such a sense were intended would require the preceding place as the necessary ground for justification. But the verb admits where requisite of “instructing in righteousness,” no less than of “justifying,” according to the context, as is plainly demanded in Dan. 12:3. “They that turn to righteousness” goes too far, especially when we take into account that it is “the” many, who have an evil place in the prophet's usage: not “many” but “the mass” of apostate Jews in the last days, who had their prototypes in those who rejected the Messiah when He presented Himself the first time. These He patiently and zealously instructed in righteousness as minister of circumcision; as the wise or teachers will do in the coming days. “The many” in either case might be instructed in righteousness without being turned to it; for they appear to be in contrast with the righteous few and perish in their stubborn unbelief. Here too, as the phrase is “the many,” it would seem that the same objects are in view.

Hence too there is no need for departing from the regular force of the last clause, “and He shall carry their iniquities.” Such was the second part of Messiah's work, His death-work, as instructing in righteousness was His life-work before. “Justifying” is rather attributed to God on the ground of Christ's death. Hence the necessity for another rendering, required for the human instruments in Dan. 12:3, pleads strongly for a cognate force in Isa. 53:11, because it falls in with the order here, which is adverse to “justifying” before propitiation. The change to “for” He shall bear (or, carry) their iniquities was to make the clause square with justifying, which would have been a harder saying with “and,” the true sense.

Jehovah ends the strain (ver. 12) with the proclamation of Messiah's earthly exaltation and all the more because of His humiliation in suffering love. “Therefore will I divide Him a portion with the great, and He shall divide the spoil with the strong ones.” He is the mightiest and most enduring of conquerors; but the spring lay not in strength or wisdom or majesty or glory. It originated in infinite love, it flowed out in divine grace, of which He will be the most suited administrator in the day of glory; because He, to make all effectual both for God's glory and for man's need and blessing, had gone down into suffering unfathomable to all but Himself. So the prophet here expresses it, “Because He poured out His soul unto death, and was numbered with the transgressors; and He bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.” He submitted to the last degree of creature weakness; He bowed to the foulest imputation of indignity; He carried the sinful load of not a few but “many,” and made intercession not for friends but enemies, “the transgressors,” who but for Him had been lost forever. What possibly plainer here than the sinless One suffering at God's hand sin's punishment, turning to God in bearing their evils that those who believe might be forgiven and purged, blessed and triumphant through Him? Christ is the way, the truth, and the life; but here primarily for repentant Israel. Yet as the substitute for guilty objects, He suffered at the righteous Jehovah's hand beyond all that man can conceive.

The Believer's Place in Christ: Part 1

The great thing in these ways and works of God in the gospel is to bring us to Himself. Groaning, burdened, if you like, still we are brought to Himself through infinite grace—grace reigning through righteousness—brought into the presence of God with a full sense of divine favor resting upon us. We are “reconciled to God,” and that is a large word. Being reconciled to God in all that He is in the full revelation of Himself through Christ, our hearts at ease with Himself, else we surely are not reconciled. We are going through the wilderness as regards these bodies, with all the government of God over His children; but there is no question of our place with Him, that in which the perfect revelation of His grace has set us with Himself. Christianity brings us into a new life-makes us partakers of a divine nature.

In Israel it was all an outward deliverance, but all written “for our admonition.” They were brought out of Egypt, their whole state and condition changed; they were brought into the wilderness, but brought to God there. And we have been brought out of the flesh and our place in the world as Adam's children, and are now sitting in heavenly places brought to God, with a nature capable of enjoying God.

It is not at all now whether a man is a righteous man according to the law: that is not the question now. The law was of course all right, and what is more, a perfect rule for a child of Adam; for it took up all the relationships, in which we stand, forbidding every breach of any in which God has set us. But Christianity, while putting its seal upon what man ought to be, and giving its highest sanction to the law, comes in behind all that and is another thing altogether; it shows that the law was just man's righteousness, which never could be wrought out, and brings in a distinct testimony as to the condition of man, proving “both Jews and Gentiles that they are both under sin.” “They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one.” Then comes in the dealing of God with men when they were proved to be such, and this very dealing of God demonstrates fully what man was.

When God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, the world would not have Him: “He sent unto them his son, saying, They will reverence my son. But they caught him and cast him out of the vineyard, and slew him.” Man has been fully proved, as He says: “What could I have done more to my vineyard, that I have not done in it?” They rejected His mercy when He came into the world in goodness, and with the manifestation of a power which was sufficient to heal man of all his diseases: all the effects of what sin and Satan had brought in, a single word from Christ was sufficient to set aside. But “for my love” says the Lord, “I had hatred.” “Now have they both seen and hated both me and my Father.” They had not merely sinned against God, but when God was there in full manifestation of goodness, they rejected Him. Therefore “now is the judgment of this world.”

If you would walk with God in the comfort of His love, you must get it distinctly before you that you are lost as well as guilty— “dead in trespasses and sins.” It is a question of the state we are in by nature as well as the guilt that we have incurred. But when I see that the old man is hopelessly bad and condemned, when I understand that my whole history as a man in Adam is closed, then I get Christ instead of myself before God.

Guilt is brought out by the cross of the blessed Lord: “He hath made him sin for us, who knew no sin.” But besides that, there is a new place and condition brought in for the believer; a new creation, in the midst of weakness and infirmity, yet in which we walk with God fully reconciled. God is fully revealed; nothing so revealed Him in His righteousness and in His love as the cross. There it is that all that I need He has met. But He has done more, though I have the treasure in the poor earthen vessel. It is an entirely new thing that He has brought me into. I am redeemed out of the condition of the fallen first Adam into the condition of the glorified last Adam; I am brought into the condition in which Christ stands before God as man; I am “made the righteousness of God in him.” All that He is thus is mine. And this is how Christ says He gives—not as the world gives. When the world gives, it gives away—it has no more the thing that it has given; but when Christ gives, He gives nothing away, He brings us into everything that He has Himself. The peace that He gives us is “my peace;” the words that He has given us are “the words which thou gavest me;” the joy is “my joy;” the glory is “the glory which thou gavest me;” and the love is “the love wherewith thou hast loved me.” He brings us into the enjoyment of all that He enjoys Himself. It is a wonderful thing this; it is set before us as the object of hope.

There are two ways in which happy thoughts and feelings are wrought out. One is by living in the midst of happy relationships, as in a family. The other thing that gives energy and joy is having an object before us that we are pursuing in hope. Now God would use both of these means to produce the happiness of the Christian state in us. As to the place of relationship He has brought us into, we have in it “fellowship with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ.” God has given us the same place with His Son. As the actual glory, of course we have not got it yet; but we have got the place and relationship now, and the joy also, and the object, and the hope of knowing that we shall be with Him and like Him in the glory.

“We know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.” It is all quite settled. “For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house that is from heaven.” It supposes that my heart is with Him. He had said “not looking at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal;” so he goes on, “we know.” It is quite a technical expression in scripture. “We know that the law is spiritual.” “We know that we are of God.” “We know that the Son of God is come.”

“For we that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened.” I do not want to die as if weary of conflicts, and wishing to get out of the world. But I see in this world of death the power of life come in in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, who has destroyed the power of him that had the power of death in such sort, that I can look, if the time were come, to not dying at all, that “mortality should be swallowed up of life.” The power of life has come in which can change the living saints into glory without anything more. And so it will be in fact, for those who are alive when Christ comes: “We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed,” so that not a trace of mortality remains. Ruin and death have come in; but the power of life of the last Adam has come in, and so completely set aside the power of death and Satan, that, if the moment were come, it would be all swallowed up in a moment. It does not make any difference if we do die, for we shall be raised. But one has come in who has gone into death, and spoiled it completely, and who has the keys of death and hell in His hands. The first Adam plunged me in death and ruin; the last Adam has come in and gone into the ruin, and destroyed the power of it. If He were to come now, and close this scene, and the long-suffering of God were to cease we should pass into glory without death at all.

But we have also our present state. Not only the redemption work is accomplished, but we are God's workmanship now for the glory. “He that hath wrought us for the self-same thing is God.” He has wrought us for it; “We are his workmanship.” God wrought us for that self-same thing, the unseen glory in which Christ is. He predestinated us “to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the first-born among many brethren. Moreover, whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified.” “As we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly.” Here we are in these poor dying bodies, but He has wrought us for this; it is a new creation. It is not a question of my responsibility as a child of Adam, but of God's intention—what He is going to do with us; He is bringing us into the same place in glory as His Son. It is not the clearing away my sins, though this was needed, and it is done; but it is God has wrought us for it.

Then comes another question for the believer's soul: “Who also hath given unto us the earnest of the Spirit.” We have not got the glory yet, but we are sealed for it, and we get the knowledge of it. The great and distinguishing characteristic of the believer is that he has the earnest of the Spirit—he is “sealed with the holy Spirit of promise.” It is most important to see that a believer may not as yet be brought into the Christian's place. But when he is sealed, the Holy Ghost gives him the consciousness of that place. The effect of the presence of the Holy Ghost in the believer is to give him the consciousness that he is in Christ, and Christ in him. His place is settled before God, and settled before the world. What he has to do consequently in the world, is to show forth in it the life of Jesus. As Christ represents us before God, so we represent Him before the world. Here is where we are seen, and this is what is so blessed, and what indeed you should not be satisfied without possessing—the knowledge of this relationship. The babes should cry, Abba, Father.

And mark this, that if we have not got the consciousness of the relationship, we cannot have the affections that belong to it. The consciousness of it is that upon which all holy affections are grounded. I might say, If only such an one were my father, what affection I should have for him, for he is such a good kind father I But if conscious of the relationship, the feelings come out at once. We must know the Father as such, and this is not great growth. It is the babes that know this—the fathers are characterized by being well acquainted with Christ. With Christ in us, we cry, Abba, Father: “Ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear: but ye have received the Spirit of adoption whereby we cry, Abba, Father.” I insist upon it, not as a special growth, but as the place of the Christian. My responsibility as a Christian is the consequence of my being a child. I am to be a follower of God— “imitators of God as dear children.” Peaceful, blessed, I am now to manifest the life of Jesus in everything—my life showing (out of the reality of the work) the life of the Lord Jesus Christ in me.

Now God has wrought us for the glory. This is the very thing that proves that we never can be perfect here. A Christian is a man who is walking with God now in full consciousness of his relationship, and who is wrought to be like Christ when He shall appear. Well, can I be like Christ in glory, when I am down here? Impossible! But whilst he cannot be like Him here, there is only one object before the Christian, and that is to win Christ, and to be raised to glory—changed into it, if he be alive. But there is no other object: Christ is the object. The only thing that is set before us to attain is a thing that is unattainable in this world, and this is to be like Christ in glory. We cannot have what is set before us until we are there. I am going to be like Him in glory, and I long to be like Him, and I am trying to walk as like Him as ever I can. “Yea, doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord; for whom I suffered the loss of all things, and do count them dung that I may win Christ and be found in him.” ( To be continued).

The Believer's Place in Christ: Part 2

My relationship with God and the Father is all settled and settled forever. I am a child, and my relations with God flow from that. It is important for us all to get hold of this, that we are not in flesh at all. Then where are we? In Christ; put into this totally new place, where Adam innocent was not, as to our life and course here. “The calling above,” this is the one thing; the pressing forward, the pursuing; but the very pursuit gives a consciousness that it is not attained. I am a son with Christ, but I am not yet glorified with Christ, this is clear; but I am wrought for it, and I “look for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body.” We try to be more like Him every day; we are chastened for it, if need be, in our course; but we are wrought for it, and we shall be it when He appears. The moment my mind descends below what Christ in glory is now, that moment my mind descends below what is my proper object as a Christian. If you look for perfection down here, you have lowered your standard.

You say, But am I not to be like Christ? Yes, but not down here. He was a perfectly sinless being; so born into this world, as it is said, “That holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.” But we are born sinful, “By nature children of wrath.” And if I say, How can I have a ground for such a wondrous hope as that I should be made like to Christ? the answer is at once, I know the blessed Son of God has been made sin for me. “He made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was found in the likeness of men: and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.” The moment I really believe this, I can believe anything as the result; nothing is too great for Him to do for me. He is to receive the fruit of the travail of His soul; what is the fruit? That He shall have sons with Him in glory. If I am “made the righteousness of God in him,” may I not expect anything? We have got these two great parts of the intervention of God for us: God in Christ in this world in grace to reconcile it, and our being made the righteousness of God.

I will say one word here on “the righteousness of God,” as many find great difficulty in understanding what it is. The question is, How can a righteous God justify sinners? Well, the proof and testimony of God's righteousness is, that He has set Christ at His own right hand. When Christ had perfectly glorified God, and that as made sin on the cross, God places Him at His own right hand in heaven: there only do I see righteousness. But this work, though perfectly to God's glory, was done for us, so that it is God's righteousness to give us a place with Him. In Christ we are thus made God s righteousness. So it is said “He is righteous and just to forgive.” But Christ is gone there as man, and I am united to Him, and with this righteousness I get Christ my life in which I am capable of enjoying all the blessedness of that which I am brought into. I have power to enjoy it, because Christ is my life.

The apostle, having considered the purpose of God, now turns to the side of man's responsibility. That place, as sinners, is death and judgment; where is the Christian as to these? If I die, he says, I am absent from the body, and present with the Lord. In dying for us He has made death, which closed our path in darkness, the way (as with Israel at the Red Sea and Jordan) of getting out of all the ruin here, and the way of getting into blessedness with Christ. When I take up, not the purpose of God, but that which lies on me in my responsibility as a child of Adam, death becomes a positive gain. I have done with trial, temptation, sin, the world; and I have begun with Christ in heaven: “present with the Lord.”

But judgment must be considered also. We cannot say this is gain, nor that it is ours, as we can of death; but we see here the way it works upon the Christian. All will be manifest before the judgment-seat of Christ: “That every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad.” We must all give an account of ourselves; nor does the apostle seek to conceal the solemnity of this: he calls it the terror of the Lord. But does he tremble? He does not think of himself in any such aspect. The love of Christ constraining him, he persuades other people, the unconverted, who have reason to tremble at the thought of judgment. This is the effect it has upon Paul; he presses upon others that, if their sins are not gone, they cannot carry them to heaven.

But it has also another effect upon the Christian—a sanctifying effect upon the conscience: and this is, that we “are” manifest now, not merely shall be. “We are made manifest unto God.” This is a present thing for the heart and conscience. The effect of the judgment in this way is most useful; there is no fear as to the result of the judgment, but the sense of that judgment acts in sanctifying power on the heart. Whilst Christ has put away our sins once and forever, yet I am manifest to God now; and I am before God estimating things that I do and say as they will be manifest before Him in the day of judgment. How many things would be judged and done with if we were now truly before God as we shall be in the day of judgment!

These two things are quite distinct: the purpose of God in putting us into the glory of God; and, that He has wrought us for it and has given us the earnest of the Spirit. I know that many think it is only presumption in such as on earth profess to know that they are saved; but it is not presumption to know God's thoughts when He has revealed them. It is real presumption to call in question what God has said. There is no such thing in the New Testament, after the day of Pentecost, as a Christian being uncertain about his salvation. Not that there is not exercise in getting into such a place, but there is no such thing as uncertainty as to our standing when in it. If I see that His blood cleanses from all sin, and that the salvation wrought through that bloodshedding belongs to the believer, it is no good saying, I do not know whether it is for me. If you believe in that work, God seals you with His Spirit; and if you have got the Holy Ghost, you will know it is yours. The Lord expressly declares “at that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you.” Nothing else is owned as the Christian place. How can I doubt, if the Spirit of God dwelling in me makes me know? and this Christ has positively declared. How can I doubt with the earnest of glory and seal in my own heart? “We have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father,” and I know God is my Father.

And now let me add another word in connection with this which comes farther on in the chapter. “If one died for all, then were all dead.” It does not say “guilty” here; it is “dead,” “dead in trespasses and sins.” Death and judgment came in by sin. We read, the dead shall be judged “according to their works;” and Christ came down into this place of judgment that our sins might be purged and put away. But there is another aspect of man here; one in which he is looked at as “dead” —dead as regards God; not a movement in his heart towards God. Now if dead, can you as such awaken any feelings in him? When I discover that not only I have sinned, but that in nature I am a sinner, I find that I am dead in sins. I am lost as well as guilty.

What is my state before God? It is “enmity against God.” There is not another thing which man will not bear and put up with in one way or another, but he will not bear to have Christ brought in. From the lowest and the grossest society up to the most elegant and refined, Christ cannot be brought in; it spoils everything. It is not so in false religions: men who have a false religion are not ashamed of their religion; it is only Christians who are ashamed of theirs. As a matter of courtesy I will listen to anything any man says; but by nature I cannot listen to him speaking about Christ: conscience cannot bear it. If I look at man as we all are naturally, I find nothing but “enmity against God.”

But now in Christ we find the end of man's history. I read “Now once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.” Why does He say this, when the end is not come yet? It is because the breach is total at the cross between God and the world. As to the full history of man's probation, the end is come; it was the end before God when once man had rejected God's own Son. I look at myself as man, and am a sinner without law. No less have I broken the law if I take that as my rule. But when all this was already true, God came into the world in grace, and the world rejected Him. And now, if Christ be presented to me—I mean as a natural man—I cannot stand it at all. My moral history is closed; I am a lost sinner. But in Christ I get brought out of this state altogether. “Ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit.” The sins are not only cleared away forever and always through the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, and I stand forever perfect before God through this work, but I am in a perfectly new state.

Where are sins for the believer? Gone in the cross of Christ. Where is righteousness? He is my righteousness at God's right hand. I have got a totally new place; not only are my sins put away, but I am brought into the place of Christ the Second man. Therefore you find it said, not There is no condemnation to those whose sins Christ has borne, true as it may be; but There is no condemnation to those who are in Christ. “There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus.” How can you condemn what is in Christ in glory? It is a new creation. The life of God is in us; the righteousness of God ours, and we standing before God in this entirely new place. “It is a new creation; old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.”

“And all things are of God, who reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ.” A blessed word! It is the very ground of blessing. Here God fully reveals all His holiness, all His hatred of sin. If His own Son go to the cross, He must bear the consequences. All is righteousness. We are now “after God created in righteousness and true holiness;” our sins forever gone, entirely gone, and we brought to God in the full revelation of Him as He is— “in righteousness and holiness of truth” —knowing Him as thus revealed in Christ. We, as in Christ, are brought to God now according to what God is as perfectly revealed. He will “reconcile all things unto himself—whether things in earth, or things in heaven;” the whole state of things will be reconciled to Him. “And you, that were sometime alienated, and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled in the body of his flesh through death.” “He hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ.” Can you say that there, where there was a full revelation of what God is, you see Him as one who has given His Son for you, so that you might be brought back to Himself without a single doubt, without a single question left to settle between your soul and Himself?

“Who reconciled us to himself!” O beloved friends, are you reconciled to God? We have not got the glory now, clearly; but we have the work done, so that Christ is sitting down at the right hand of God, the question of righteousness settled, nothing more to do but all finished. It says of the Jewish priests, that they stood “daily ministering, and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins: but this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins, forever sat down on the right hand of God.” He has no more to do for this. He has not merely borne my sins; but “when he had by himself purged our sins, he sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high.” And then the Holy Ghost is sent down from heaven, that I may know it and my part in it.

What I am in Christ is a new creation. It is not what Adam was. He was an innocent creature, just as God made him. But now we have got Christ substituted for what we are, and we are here with the Holy Ghost in us. And if you have not got this, and just think of the day of judgment, you are not at ease, though you may have hope through the cross. But if I know that “by one offering he hath perfected forever them that are sanctified;” and if I set myself before the judgment-seat of Christ, it is to have a settled place there. There is no place where the Christian has such a settled peace as standing before the judgment-seat of Christ; for when He shall appear, we shall be like Him. We are raised in glory. What fear can I have if I am like the Judge? God has come in to save, and now sees a totally new thing before Him —the Second man. And though we are here tempted and tried, our place is in Him where He is; we are now in Him and know it by the Holy Ghost.

Israel were not put to pass through the desert till they were clean out of Egypt. We are first reconciled to God. The soul has peace with Him; and then it seeks to glorify Him in everything it does. You are called upon to have no object at all in your life down here but Christ. Of course there are necessary duties in which we serve Him, but no object. The Christian recognizes where God has set him as to things here, but I have no object but Christ in all that I do upon earth. He is the one thing that I am running after—no other object whatever. If I eat, or drink, or do anything, it is to be “to the glory of God,” and “in the name of the Lord Jesus.” A man is characterized by his object; if money, he is avaricious; if power, he is ambitious; and so on; the Christian is a man who has Christ as his object.

Surely he will find temptations here, and snares, and he will have to overcome; all that is true. We have to learn and unlearn a great deal that is humbling to ourselves; but we have got our place, and our duties flow from the place we are in. No duty ever was the means of obtaining a place; if you are my servants, you have your duties because such. But you first get into your place, and then come the duties of it. One first gets into the place, and then comes service for Christ in that place. In these days it is all-important that Christians should understand that they are Christians. You have got your own place and your own relationships, and you are to walk according to them. J. N. D.

"Chef" or "Head" in the French New Testament

O. P. on “Chef” in the French N. T

A LETTER from O. P. gives ample corroboration from the old standard French Dictionary of the Academy that those who fancy some other sense, and not “head,” do not know what they write about. No other sense suits the matter in question. There are other dictionaries of later date and of great repute for research; but nothing to shake that sense. After all, as the Greek is the original, this only is divinely authoritative, and “head” is the, only possible sense, as required also by the correlation with body. But when men drift from truth once believed and confessed, they flounder into new follies as higher truths. So did the old Gnostics.

The Chief Baker's Dream and the Issue

The fellow-chamberlain ventures to rehearse his dream after the chief cup-bearer. How little did he anticipate its dread import!

“And when the chief of the bakers saw that the interpretation was good, he said to Joseph, I also [was] in my dream, and, behold, three baskets of white bread [were] on my head. And in the uppermost basket [there was] all manner of victuals for Pharaoh that the bakers make, and the birds ate them out of the basket upon my head. And Joseph answered and said, This [is] the interpretation of it: the three baskets [are] three days. In yet three days will Pharaoh lift up thy head from off thee, and hang thee upon a tree; and the birds will eat thy flesh from off thee.”

“And it came to pass the third day, Pharaoh's birthday, that he made a feast to all his bondmen. And he lifted up the head of the chief of the cup-bearers, and the head of the chief of the bakers among his bondmen. And he restored the chief of the cup-bearers to his office of cup-bearer again; and he gave the cup into Pharaoh's hand. And he hanged the chief of the bakers, as Joseph had interpreted to them. Yet the chief of the cup-bearers did not remember Joseph but forgot him” (vers. 16-23).

It is clear how far the chief baker was from seeing anything to discourage his telling his dream to Joseph. But God gave Joseph the discerning ear which perceived the immense difference of the cup-bearer's action that Pharaoh should drink, from that of the birds (not the king) eating out of the basket upon his head. In no way is the credit given to his natural intelligence. The secret of Jehovah is with those that fear Him. Joseph was one whose faith was habitually in exercise: who knew that God remains the same in the midst of heavy trials, which had changed only from each great sorrow into a greater. In his lowest abasement he looked up for wisdom to its only source, and was called by His power to solve the enigma for good or for ill in the cases which came before him. For if he confided in Jehovah, his love too went out in compassion to fellow-sufferers whose countenances without a word betrayed the anxiety which their dreams cost them. Was it not faith working by love?

That both should have dreamed characteristic dreams in one night he did not impute to what men call chance. If they were sad because there was no interpreter to explain what they instinctively felt to be of the nearest interest to themselves, Joseph as simply reckoned that interpretations belong to God, the giver of every good gift, and of every perfect giving. So He is the answerer of faith's cry to Him, though unheard by any other ear.

Yet Joseph could not but know the serious and speedy fate that hung over the chief baker. We may notice therefore that he made no appeal to him for remembrance. To the chief cup-bearer only did he say, “Think on me when it shall be well with thee, and show kindness, I pray thee, to me and make mention of me to Pharaoh, and bring me out of this house.” There was nothing random in his words; nor was there any selfish desire for such royal favors as men expect. He sought simply to be delivered from the strange parody of justice inflicted on the righteous one through disappointed lust and falsehood.

In both cases the time was short, as indicated by the dream and interpreted by Joseph. On the third day the two chamberlains had each his head lifted up by the king, on his birthday; but the chief cup-bearer rose to his office near Pharaoh's person, the chief baker to the gallows. It became the cup-bearer to remember the striking service rendered by the prophet in the dungeon. But as far too commonly occurs in this world of sin and self, the spiritual benefactor was quite forgotten. For we are expressly told, that two full years passed away to try the faith of Joseph, when God wrought in His providence to make the same difficulty felt in the royal court as in the tower-house, and thus to rebuke the ingratitude of the cup-bearer, oblivious of him who had been stolen away out of the land of the Hebrews, and who also had done nothing why they should put him into the dungeon. “They hurt with the fetters his feet; into iron went his soul, until the time his word came [to pass]. Jehovah's saying tried him.” Yet he that sowed in tears would in due time reap with rejoicing. Joseph was but matured for the vast and difficult task to be assigned him without the least ambition on his part. How this was brought about the chapter that follows explains with all simplicity.

It may be noticed that Joseph is ever the interpreter, if not also the mouthpiece, of God's mind, and this in the future far off or near, beyond all creature prognostication. He was now at his lowest point of humiliation, as a dead man out of mind among the Gentiles, as before doomed to death by his own brothers, here the herald of restoration on the one hand, and of extreme judgment on the other. Little his brothers knew that they in their envious hatred were only the means of bringing to pass his exaltation for their own homage and preservation.; little could the Gentiles anticipate that the punishment so unjustly inflicted on him the guiltless was the necessary link in God's wonderful chain to have the administration of the world-kingdom committed to his hand Yet from the prison which he endured for years, as an evil-doer of the worst imputation, he was about to pass at one step to the highest dignity and the largest power. “Only in the throne,” as the king said, “will I be greater than thou.” “Without thee shall no man lift up his hand or his foot in all the land of Egypt.”

The Chief Cup Bearer's Dream

God had tried His dear child, and would try him longer. Yet this was an honor to Joseph, who was given not only to believe but to suffer for His sake. But the chain of providential links was being forged which would raise the suffering Israelite from the dungeon to the highest position in Egypt next to the throne. The dream of the chief cup-bearer was an important link in that chain.

“And the chief of the cup-bearers told his dream to Joseph, and said to him, In my dream, behold, a vine [was] before me; and in the vine [were] three branches; and it [was] as though it budded, its blossoms shot forth, its clusters ripened into grapes. And Pharaoh's cup [was] in my hand; and I took the grapes, and pressed them into Pharaoh's cup, and gave the cup into Pharaoh's hand. And Joseph said to him, This [is] the interpretation of it: the three branches [are] three days. Within yet three days will Pharaoh lift up thy head, and restore thee to thy place; and thou shalt give Pharaoh's cup into his hand, after the former manner when thou wast his cup-bearer. Only have me in thy remembrance when it shall be well with thee, and deal kindly with me, I pray thee, and make mention of me to Pharaoh, and bring me out of this house. For indeed I was stolen out of the land of the Hebrews; and here also I have done nothing that they should put me into the dungeon” (vers. 9-15).

God works often by simple means, as here by such a dream as fell very naturally to this official of Pharaoh's court. Yet was it truly prophetic; and only a prophet was enabled to give its unequivocal meaning. Here the wisdom of God was as evident as in sending the dream. No one looks for the unities of time and place in such a vision. The events of months, or years, might be crowded into a single transaction, as in the vine budding and blossoming and yielding grapes, and wine fit for a monarch's cup. Nobody ever heard historically of so rapid a result in the hands of a cup-bearer, without a wine press or vat, or the storage in jars, seen on the monuments, and some tomb-walls dating even before the Hyksos. For wine-drinking to excess is known to have prevailed, especially at certain festivities. So that it is without warrant to assume that the liquor pressed out into the king's cup was meant to imply literally mere grape juice from the cluster rather than the fermented issue. But this is an insignificant point, save to a teetotaler's mind.

The remarkable point which Joseph was given to seize is the precision of the three days indicated by the three branches. No priestly interpreter in Egypt would have ventured to say, as Joseph did at once, “The three branches are three days. Within yet three days will Pharaoh lift up thy head, and restore thee to thine office.” It might, if a guess, have been more probably three months; but no. The secret of Jehovah is with them that fear Him; and even more was given here, the exercise in Joseph's spirit, and the divine wisdom that sent the vision to the Egyptian official, with a sadness at its arrival so soon to end in his joyful reinstatement. Interpretation of what God says or does belongs to God, who communicates it as He will, and as the rule, to those whom He loves, even in circumstances of the deepest humiliation. For in this Joseph aptly figured what was verified in the blessed Lord Himself here below.

We too may have dreams; and one may not say that all spring from the busy working of the brain, or that God may not deal thus as of old in slumberings on the bed, to withdraw man from self-will and hide pride from him. But we have as believers, and especially as Christians, far better than such comparatively vague intimations. We have the scriptures in all their fullness, revealing God, His counsels, work, will, and ways, from eternity to eternity. We have also the Holy Spirit sent from the Father and the Son in heaven, and never to leave but abide with us and in us, Who when come was sent to guide us into all the truth, and declare to us the things to come, glorifying our Lord Jesus in both. He is the standing, intimate, and ready interpreter, not like one among a thousand, as Elihu says, nor even as Joseph supernaturally endowed, but a divine Person dwelling in us. May we have grace to abjure all that grieves and hinders, and to cultivate what is of Himself so as to enjoy the privilege and the fruit more and more.

Christ the Source of Immortality: Review

As two copies of this pamphlet have been sent to me this week, it seems called for to let Christians know how false and evil, dangerous and degrading it is. How shocking to teach that man, like the brute which perishes, has no more than animal life, unless he believe in Christ for immortality! This is to fall below very many of the heathen, who did and do believe in the soul's existence after death. In general men dreaded death as leading to judgment, save Brahminists, Buddhists, etc., who essayed philosophic schemes to soften or destroy their fears. But here are men bearing the name of Christians who are not ashamed to appeal to scripture for pretended proof that the crowds of unbelieving men, however endowed with intellect and thus superior to brutes, are only animals, and need not be alarmed at everlasting judgment.

No doubt they can quote as allies men like the late Sabellian Abp. Whately, the Congregationalist Dr. Dale, the Wesleyan Professor Beet, and, as at least they claim, Mr. W. E. Gladstone. But they are either ignorant or unscrupulous (as here, p. 45) to include Mr. J. N. Darby among a class whom he pitied and abhorred. Mr. D. did teach in “L'Attente Actuelle de l' Eglise” &c. (Hopes of the Church, etc.), when asserting the truth of the resurrection, that the idea of the soul's immortality has no source in the gospel, but from the Platonists who thereby replaced, as they quite ignored, the risen body. But he never doubted the immortality of the soul, as a truth conveyed even from the beginning of the O. T., and confirmed throughout all the scriptures to the end. Yet the truth is that it had no source in the gospel, and was misused by the Platonist; as I pointed out many years ago to Mr. E. White, when guilty of the same inexcusable misunderstanding. The Jews, save the materialist Sadducees, had from the O.T. no doubt of the soul's immortality; which proves that it is a truth independent of the gospel.

“God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness; and let them have dominion” (Gen. 1:26). How solemn the language! how strikingly different from that which ushers in other creatures for the earth, waters, or air! In chap. 2 where relations are stated (as Jehovah is added to Elohim), the distinction is carefully carried on morally. Into man's nostrils exclusively did Jehovah Elohim, after forming the man of dust of the ground, breathe breath of life. All the lower creatures become living souls without any such specific act: only thus did man become a living soul (ver. 7).

Here is the ground of man's immortal soul; and the body alone is called “mortal,” never the soul. Hence is man responsible to God, as no lion, or whale, or eagle; which animals cannot therefore be said to sin like man, any more than to repent; nor do they need life eternal or atonement, nor rise to give account to God for the things done through the body. Think of an error among professing Christians, not only so baseless but so debasing as to put “God's offspring” as the apostle recognized even the idolatrous Athenians to be, on the same level as a dog or a pig! The unsophisticated soul, certainly one born of God, feels (awful as it is to confess it) that his sins deserve everlasting punishment. Nor does scripture weaken but give certainty and power to that overwhelming conviction. And the Savior in particular says, “Be not afraid of them that kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do. But I will warn you, whom ye shall fear; Fear him who, after he hath killed, hath power to cast into Gehenna; yea I say to you, Fear him.” Think of the reckless unbelief that rejects the Lord's warning under cover, or through the doctrine, of conditional immortality!

See how the Lord in Luke 16:19-31 refutes this unholy falsehood. It is expressly to lift the veil off the state which follows death—not here resurrection but death. The pious beggar passes from his sad lot on earth through death, carried by angels into Abraham's bosom. The rich man that lived to self, not to God, died, was buried, but in Hades lifted up his eyes, being in torments. How dare a believer give the Lord the lie, how at least ignore or pervert the plain truth? The soul of every sinner, the worst, is as immortal as the saint's; but one is for judgment, as the other for life, not Adam's but Christ's, for God's everlasting glory, as we are told. The torments of Hades are not the lake of fire, as Abraham's bliss is not reigning with Christ. But wretchedness and suffering immeasurable begin for the lost soul before judgment seals it for the body as well as the soul; and happiness far more for him who departs to be with Christ. The heterodox notion of conditional immortality, which, the learned but eccentric Henry Dodwell (1708) favored, is a mere, wicked, and pernicious imposture.

The Christian's Special Privileges and Relationship: Part 1

The New Testament clearly shows that, since the Lord Jesus came, truths have been made known in distinctive reality to the heavenly family and the church of God. During the Lord’s life He spoke unmistakably of both, outside anything previously revealed, though the fulness of its blessedness was even further reserved until He was risen and glorified, and the Holy Spirit given as the power to make all good in us.

The truth of God's heavenly family is fully declared in holy life and relationship in both the Gospel and the First Epistle of John. Indeed the special nature and character of it awaited its revelation in the person of the Son of God, of whom John speaks as the only-begotten Son dwelling in the bosom of the Father; He declared Him. No wonder therefore that divine life and relationship depended upon Him, as it is written, “To as many as received Him to them gave He power (or, authority) to become children of God.”

These realities are further unfolded in John 17 by the Son of God Himself where love's eternal purpose is touchingly breathed forth in communion with His Father, which may well beget everlasting praise and worship. Though He came into the world in grace and presented Himself to be received, neither the world nor His own people recognized Him, but rather rejected and finally cast Him out. Thus speaking responsibly all was lost as to His rights and glories; for He was without a throne and people, having no home or place in the world He created, into which He came in light and love as a divine Savior and Giver. All was of no avail as far as the heart of man was concerned; yet even then sovereign grace and purpose shone with the fullness and blessedness of special relationship and privilege respecting the heavenly family On the threshold of the glory from which the Lord Jesus came He turned upward from this dark world to His Father, expressing precious words as to a new set of people of whom He could say, “They are not of the world as I am not.” Indeed the many precious utterances of this chapter surpass anything revealed in the past, or of Israel's coming blessing in the day of their Messiah's established kingdom in power and glory when the now rejected Lord will have the nations for His inheritance and the uttermost parts of the earth for His possession. The recipients of such grace and objects of so glorious a purpose of relationship and blessing have but to listen, receive, and adore, not only for the place given but for the wondrous work, its basis. Therein all the will of God has been accomplished, as the Son Himself said, “I have glorified,” etc.

In the inexhaustible fullness and unfathomable depth of such a fact it is not to be wondered at that the outcome of it should surpass all gone before, and that the Son who found nothing in the world but the Cross, should have a people given to Him by the Father to whom He would manifest the Father's name. Yea, He declares the reality of the eternal life by the knowledge of God now revealed, “And this is life eternal that they might know Thee the only true God and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent.”

Thus eternal life and relationship are blended by Him who put the Father's name upon those given to Him out of the world and of whom as the risen One He speaks (after redemption was accomplished) “I ascend unto My Father and your Father.” Distinctive indeed the relationship which is now fully known by the indwelling Spirit who bears witness to believers of being children of God according to the manner of the Father's love and purpose. Moreover it is formed and established in a world knowing not the Son nor those belonging to the Father, who are nevertheless destined to shine in the likeness and share the glory with the Son who declared “The glory Thou hast given Me I have given them.” Precious, holy destiny that may well call forth the worship of the heavenly family and keep them in true separation from a world knowing them not, and hating both the Father and the Son!

As belonging to the Father He prayed for those around Him, saying, All Mine are Thine and Thine are Mine; and I am glorified in them.” It was essential for them to be kept in His name, that they might be “one as we are” (ver. 11). But it was to be applied to all the Christians also. Such the marvelous oneness of the heavenly family as again in vers. 20, 21 stated by the Son, “That they all may be one, as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee, that they also may be one in Us.”

Truly such language exceeds anything past or future of earthly privilege or as known to the disciples when following the Father down here; and we may well extol the grace bestowing it and forming a testimony to the world that their Lord sent the Son. By-and-by, when all the heavenly ones are in the same given glory as the Son, there will be the unity in a new form (vers. 22, 23); and the world will know the Son as the sent One of the Father; and that those, His own, now unknown, are equally loved with the Son, for they shall be manifested with Him in glory.

Weighty realities these for every member of the heaven-born family to ponder; and recognize so special a relationship with its many privileges. The truth should assuredly have its sanctifying effect, remembering too the Lord has bound up present sanctification with Himself, the standard and object of it. First in ver. 17 He says, “Sanctify them in (or, by) thy truth. Thy word is truth.” It was the truth come down already as never before. But there is more in ver. 19, when He should go up as man where He was ever before as God. It is now a heavenly measure and character. “For their sakes I sanctify Myself that they also may be sanctified through the truth.”

Nor let us be unmindful too of the practical purifying of ourselves coupled with the Lord's parting promise, “I will come again and receive you unto Myself, that where I am ye may be also.” Compare 1 John 3:3. Every child of God by the Holy Spirit may well desire to have a deepening sense of these holy privileges and responsibilities crowned with the experience of what the Son said to the Father, “That the love wherewith Thou hast loved Me may be in them and I in them.” (to be continued).

The Christian's Special Privileges and Relationship: Part 2

The Christian's Special Privileges and Relationship.—No. 2

The truth of the church of God is equally, if not more fully, distinctive and special, than of the heavenly family, though the term “Church” is to many very vague, particularly in these days of human thought and judgment. But for this there is no ground when turning to the unerring scriptures about the church of God, founded on Christ the Son of the living God.

Indeed in such a day as the present, when in the sad moral ruin and nearing end of all in the professing church and the world, with judgment at the door, it is most important to turn to what God does in its abiding blessedness, not only in saving precious souls, and by the death of His Son bringing them to Himself in holiness, righteousness, and peace, but in giving such a place in His church. That the Lord Jesus came to seek and to save the lost is surely a truth to be sounded forth far and wide; but rarely is the further blessed fact declared, that Christ is building His church against which the gates of Hades can never prevail. This important fact was reserved for the Lord Himself to declare, as He does in Matt. 16, when as the rejected Messiah He speaks of Himself as the Son of Man. Then, asking men's judgment as to who He was, He finally puts the same question to His disciples, and Peter replies, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.”

Then it was, in point of fact for the first time, the Lord states His intention of building His church, on the immovable rock of His blessed Person; and assuredly the material of the newly declared structure would be in character with it. Whatever aspect the building may assume, all would be worthy of Himself, and His death. Peter, being a stone of the building, was the first servant to preach Christ risen and glorified by the power of the Spirit of God, and by the same power were sinners saved and added together for it; showing that the building was formed of souls saved by sovereign grace, who became part of God's church, which the same apostle in his First Epistle designates as a spiritual house. It is the contrast to the Jew's material Temple, or house of God. Moreover those forming part of it were a holy priesthood; so that instead of Aaron and his sons being the priesthood, all believers are priests, belonging to the spiritual house, with holy liberty to offer up spiritual sacrifices by Jesus Christ.

This truth was more fully made known by the apostle of the Gentiles, and he it is who unfolded the truth that the church was in the mind of God before time began or man existed. He also speaks of it in many aspects, viz: the one new man; a holy temple; the habitation of God; and not least as the body of Christ. All this the epistle of divine purpose (Eph.) clearly sets forth, together with the signal truth, that the church like Christ as Head over all things was a mystery hid in God, but now blessedly revealed, as to its origin, nature, character, and glorious destiny. Alas, how rarely these truths of abiding reality, with the work of the Spirit of God in relation to them, are spoken of and dwelt upon in their significance, even by true believers! A cry is often seriously raised, Where is the pure gospel of Christ and the needed atonement preached? To this may be added, Where is the further truth of the church inquired after, even in its least form? Who seeks to know? What does the “new man” mean? What the holy temple growing in view of completion and heavenly glory? and where are those desiring to know and own with holy consistency the “habitation of God by the Spirit?”

Conversion we mercifully know and hear of; but it is usually followed by joining the varied denominations, each having its own claim, to the slighting of the only church of God for all who now believe. Not this only, but the same Spirit who quickens the sinner, and seals the believer, is He who forms all those believers into one body, as it is written, “For by one Spirit were ye all baptized into one body.” Again God set “the members every one of them in the body as it hath pleased Him” (see 1 Cor. 12:13-18). Thus the body and its membership leaves no place for human thought or will, but it is for each believer to receive this God-formed relationship, and act upon the divinely appointed communion proper to it. The truth is clearly laid down in 1 Cor. 10 and 11, where the breaking of bread is set forth in the one loaf, as the true and only outward expression of the one body of Christ; no less is the remembrance of the Lord in His death enjoined, as the saints' holy privilege on the first day of the week, “until He come.” True, it is largely said, in these days of ruin and indifference, that the truth of the fellowship of the one body cannot now be acted upon for reception and discipline; and hence the breaking of bread would only be to individually remember the Lord in His death, without the expression of the one loaf or one body, according to 1 Cor. 10:16, 17! But where is faith?

By these thoughts practice on privilege of the highest order is sacrificed; and the truth of God's workmanship in His forming the church for Christ its living Head is completely lost sight of in its intended responsibility for the choicest collective fellowship of all the members. Alas for such failure and indifference respecting it! Nevertheless if obedience sadly lacks, God's side of the truth continues, whether the church be viewed as the body of Christ; or the holy temple growing; or the habitation of God by the Spirit even now.

Indeed, that which is the object of the Lord's special affection must and will have its corresponding answer, when Be shall see of the travail of His soul and be satisfied. Blessed indeed for faith to look away from failure and ruin (save to judge responsibility as to it), and dwell in holy meditation on the unceasing devoted love of Christ, in its past, present, and future, as declared in Eph. 5:25-27. Having given Himself for His church, it is not surprising that fie should sanctify and cleanse it, which He is now doing, as He will assuredly present the church to Himself glorious, without spot or wrinkle or blemish.

This then is the crowning point of the true church God is building by His Spirit for Christ. He for nearly nineteen centuries has been waiting on high for the moment to receive her to Himself; not like Isaac to welcome a Rebecca and take her into his tent, but to call her up on the clouds, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye; to receive her to Himself and have her as His bride, for the glorious marriage to follow in due time in heaven.

Till then surely the precious truth of the heavenly family and the church of God, is what the abiding Spirit would have all believers to know and enjoy, assured that the Holy Spirit has not given up His purpose and action, any more than His precious testimony and work in the gospel. He is ever true to the Father and Son who sent Him. However complete the ruin is, purpose goes on despite of the many churches, names and parties, humbling and appalling as this may be. The Spirit still gathers to the name and person of Christ, the unfailing Head of the church; so that even the twos and threes, obediently responding to His action, may prove and enjoy the promise of Matt. 18:20; “For where two or three are gathered together unto My name, there am I in the midst of them.” How important, therefore, to keep His word and not deny His name! May the Lord Himself, who says He is coming quickly, create, exercise and establish His own in the truth, begetting a response in obedience to His will and word for His name's sake. G. G.

Christ's Cry and God's Answer

The cry of Christ is of wonderful power and character (2 Cor. 6:2). His cry was the perfect expression of His nature, of a divine apprehension of evil, death, and judgment. It was the expression in need of all that God was against sin, when this came before His soul, so that He had the consciousness of that need according to the perfection of His judgment of evil, His sense of need as man under it, and thus in the perfect claim of what He was in person and in glorifying God in His work.

Hence God's answer must be according to all this, according to the perfection of the claim in the person of Christ. And hence salvation, our salvation is just this—the necessity of God's answering Christ according to the claim Christ had, and the cry made to Him. He was raised from the dead by the glory of His Father. What a wonderful salvation! And how it places us in the intimacy of the Father's acceptance of the Son! Hence in Psa. 22 when heard from the horns of the unicorns, His first thought is, “I will declare Thy name to My brethren;” and then He praises (in the joy of the answer and relationship with His Father into which He enters on the answer) “in the midst of the congregation,” His Father and our Father, His God and our God; and all the joy He has in coming with “Therefore doth my Father love me” added to His everlasting delight, into the renewed light of His Father's countenance He puts us in, and we sing with Him in it.

Our salvation is in the perfectness of God's necessary answer to Christ's cry according to the claim of Christ, and what God must feel about it and as to it. J.N.D.

The Church of God - Its Members and Unity: Review

Such is the title of a little tract just given for a brief notice to help souls. The writer follows the traditional view that the church means all believers from the beginning. When proof is required, he falls back on another tradition about Hades, and again on the promises given to Abraham, which occupy the most of his argument. But where is the direct, distinct, and full evidence of scripture? Even he admits that “the building of the Church began in Christ risen and glorified” (p. 4). How then could it consist of all saints, not merely from Abraham, but from Abel? The foundation laid efficaciously is Jesus Christ; dogmatically, it is that of the apostles and prophets who taught what we have now written in the new and final revelation of God. There was therefore no building together for God's habitation in Spirit before Christ came, wrought the work of redemption, and ascended on high as head over all things. The church existed only in divine purpose when Abel, Enoch, and Noah bore witness, or when Abraham, Isaac and Jacob followed in due time. In Jehovah's dealings with Israel was a state of things manifestly incompatible with the church; for by divine authority Jew and Gentile were severed peremptorily till the death of Christ. Compare the mission of the Twelve, while Jesus lived, in Matt. 10:5, 6. His death, resurrection, and ascension laid the ground for the Spirit to baptize the believers into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether bond or free (1 Cor. 12:13). There is not a word about the antediluvian saints, nor yet those from Abraham downwards, when scripture speaks of the new gathering into one in union by the Spirit with the glorified Head. Scripture never tells us of the departed spirits in this connection. It was a new work for God's glory for men on earth associated with Christ in heavenly places by the Holy Spirit sent forth to dwell and form into unity, as could only be by His divine presence since Jesus was glorified.

Heb. 12:22-24 (here misunderstood and perverted) gives us a beautiful view of the various objects to which the Christian is come by faith, in contrast with Israel at Sinai. Each is distinguished from the preceding by the connecting particle “and,” which clears away the confusion of “general assembly, and church &c. “Ye have come to mount Zion,” he says, the mountain of grace, not to Sinai of law; “and to a living God's city, heavenly Jerusalem,” the general image of heavenly hope; “and to myriads of angels, a universal assemblage” (the natural denizens on high); “and to a church of first-borns, enrolled in heaven” (by sovereign grace); “and to God, judge of all”; “and to spirits of just [men] made perfect; and to Jesus, mediator of a new (or, fresh) covenant; and to blood of sprinkling speaking better than Abel.” The spirits of just men made perfect are beyond doubt the O.T. saints, expressly a company distinct from the “church of first-borns” as associated with Him who is in the highest sense the First-born. To say that the subject here “is unity not diversity” is to miss the mark and to assert a glaring error. “General assembly” or “universal assemblage” is a further description of “myriads of angels"; and “blood of sprinkling” is for a blessing on the earth (not to bring a curse like Abel's blood); whilst “a fresh covenant” is to comfort the Israel of the future when restored: the virtue of the covenant will be as new as when their progenitors rejected the apostolic preaching of it.

Equally perverted is the plain truth of Heb. 11:39, 40, wherein it is taught that the O.T. saints, though they obtained witness through faith did not receive the promise at Christ's coming, “God having foreseen some better thing for us, that they should not be made perfect apart from us.” We are both to enter on our respective place in glory together when He comes again; but to say that they are to share a “better thing” with us is to deprive the passage of its only possible meaning. God foresaw it for us, of which they had no notion whatever, any more than the writer sees the truth now.

Further, the gathering of all things in Eph. 1:10 is the future restitution of all things in Christ, entirely distinct from that unity of believing Jews and Gentiles which the apostle subjoins. Of course the members of Christ's body share saintship with the antediluvian faithful and all others; as they are spiritually Abraham's seed, heirs according to promise. But they have their own special privilege as members of His body, which only began when He had the place of Head given Him in heaven after redemption.

The Closing Types of Leviticus: 1. The Duties of the Sanctuary

Lev. 24:1-9.

After the Feasts comes a new section of this third book of Moses, which we now propose to consider. It consists of a rather miscellaneous group of particulars not yet laid down in the book.

The first words treat of the provision for the candlestick and the table before Jehovah continually.

“And Jehovah spoke to Moses, saying, Command the children of Israel that they take unto thee pure beaten olive oil for the light to light the lamp continually. Outside the veil of the testimony, in the tent of meeting, shall Aaron dress it from evening to morning before Jehovah continually: an everlasting statute throughout your generations. Upon the pure candlestick shall he arrange the lamps before Jehovah continually.”

“And thou shalt take fine wheaten flour, and bake twelve cakes thereof; each cake shall be of two tenths. And thou shalt set them in two rows, six in a row, upon the pure table before Jehovah. And thou shalt put pure frankincense upon [each] row; and it shall be a bread of remembrance, an offering to Jehovah. Every sabbath day he shall arrange it before Jehovah continually on the part of the children of Israel: an everlasting covenant. And it shall be Aaron's, and his sons'; and they shall eat it in a holy place; for it [is] most holy unto him of Jehovah's fire-offerings: an everlasting statute” (vers. 1-9).

It is important for us to feel the part which God devolves on His children and expects from them, unless He be indifferent to His honor or their blessing. So it is here with His people. What a privilege and responsibility for the sons of Israel! They could not enter the holy place: the covering or curtain forbade it save for the priests. But on all the children of Israel lay the charge of providing pure olive oil beaten for the light of the sanctuary outside the veil of the testimony to cause the lamps to burn continually.

The meaning of the type is plain, That light was the exhibition of God in Christ who is the True Light. Light He was on coming into the world which lay in darkness; He was the light of men; He sheds His light on every man. There the Fathers are as dark as the Friends; for nothing can be more preposterous than that every man is lighted. On the contrary, every one, as man, is still darkness: so the apostle declares even of the elect in their natural state. And so terrible is this spiritual darkness that even the presence of the divine light did not dispel it, as darkness yields to light naturally: the darkness in that case did not apprehend the light. Nor is it without moment to see that it is on His coming into the world that the light so manifests every man. The common rendering, as in the A.V., is both grammatically and dogmatically false. It would require the article to mean “that” cometh. As anarthrous, it must mean “on coming.” But “on coming” has no distinctive force here, save as said of the true Light; but as predicated of Him, it is full of interest and instruction. Said of man, it not only adds nothing beyond that he is a man, who must therefore have already come into the world; but it might impart the strange notion that man is thus enlightened on his coming into the world, which yields no good sense.

Here however it is the same Light, yet not as when on earth He was “the light of the world.” He is the light shining in the sanctuary, the light of God for those who have priestly title to enter there during the darkness which rests on the Christ-rejecting people. For as we are told in the detail of ver. 3, “in the tent of meeting Aaron shall order it from evening to morning before Jehovah continually.” It is the function of the high priest (and we know Who He is that thus acts in heaven itself), not in the hand-made holies, the figures, but in the true. We know also what the oil denotes which caused the light to burn. It was the Holy Spirit given without measure. It was in that Spirit that the Lord met the tempter; in that Spirit that He was anointed for His service of every kind; in that Spirit that He offered Himself spotless to God. So was He raised from among the dead; so when risen did He charge the apostles whom He had chosen; so the Revelation speaks of Him as having the seven Spirits of God, not only in dealing with the churches, but in view of the crisis of judgment that follows to bring in and rule the world-kingdom. It was His perfection as Incarnate never to speak or act otherwise where we who have the same Spirit so often and sadly fail. Here we have Him under the figure of the candlestick displaying the light on high.

Again, the pure table with its twelve loaves of fine flour represents Him as the heavenly food of the priests, Him Who was also the manna that came down for the people on earth. And as the spiritual fullness was aptly couched under the seven lamps of the candlesticks, so the twelve loaves pointed to the human or administrative fullness of Christ. We readily see the same principle in Israel, in the twelve apostles, in the complement of Israel and of Judah, in the Revelation, in the gates &c., of the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God. Jesus was also the bread of life as man; and if Israel see this not yet, any more than the light of heaven, we whom by grace He made priests delight in both. For what nourishment is there not in that glorified Man whom we henceforth know and feed on (2 Cor. 5:16, 17)?

Nor must we omit to take into account the pure frankincense upon earth now, for a memorial, our acceptance in all the grace of Christ, the fragrance before God. We see the sabbath too here, as it followed the manna, as historically shown in Ex. 16. It is on Christ that rest for its depends, not on the Spirit in us, which is our help and power; but He, Christ, is our peace before God. Only the priests eat of Him thus, and they only in a holy place. “For it is most holy unto him of the fire-offerings of Jehovah:” a statute forever, as was the ordering of the candlestick, both figures of Christ in God's presence.

The Closing Types of Leviticus: 10. Incentives to Obedience in the Land

JEHOVAH did not fail to encourage His people in subjection to Himself as their God, and in a way suited to their position in the land He was about to give them. By their own act their tenure depended on their fidelity; but He exhausted all means to explain, and stimulate, to strengthen and cheer them. Yea, He would act on their behalf in mercy and judgment; and they shall celebrate soon in everlasting song.

“Wherefore ye shall do my statutes, and keep my judgments and do them; and ye shall dwell in the land in safety. And the land shall yield its fruit, and ye shall eat your fill, and dwell therein in safety. And if ye shall say, What shall we eat the seventh year? behold, we shall not sow, nor gather in our increase: then I will command my blessing upon you in the sixth year, and it shall bring forth fruit for the three years. And ye shall sow the eighth year, and eat of the fruits, the old, until the ninth year; until its fruits come in, ye shall eat [of] the old. And the land shall not be sold in perpetuity, for the land [is] mine; for ye [are] strangers and sojourners with me. And in all the land of your possession ye shall grant a redemption for the land” (vers. 18-24).

Obedience is indeed the essential claim of God on the creature, and the creature's inalienable duty. But even innocent, sinless, man never stood in it, but failed; and this very soon, when tested, as the opening facts of inspired history prove to every soul that fears God and trembles at His word. How much less did or could fallen man recover his balance? One perfect exception at length appeared, the hope of Whom acted powerfully on all who waited for Him in faith; but all others departed more and more sadly from God, and hardened themselves in disobedience and self-will with ever growing boldness of unbelief.

That exception however was the Creator become man; Who demonstrated the incurable evil of fallen man, only made worse by corrupting or defying all God's remedial means. Worst of all, He proved favored man's hatred of God come in nothing but goodness, for God was as far as possible from judging and publishing man's iniquity, but revealing Himself in sovereign grace. Man's answer was enmity to God in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing to them their offenses. Thereon God would and does now act in Him for His own glory, bringing in the gospel of His grace, and the church Christ's body. Then obedience assumes its fullest character in those that are His elect according to God the Father's foreknowledge by or in the Spirit's sanctification unto obedience and blood-sprinkling of Jesus Christ. The Christian by grace obeys God as a son after Christ's pattern, though he receives His blood-sprinkling to do it. It is in full contrast with Israel under the most solemn sanction of death if they violated the law (Ex. 24:7, 8,); as they shortly did thoroughly. But what can we say of our obedience either individually or collectively? Its very nature is ignored. The total ruin of Christianity proper is attested by the boast of Christendom in its twofold shame of Jewish ordinance and of Gentile philosophy.

But the land itself no less attests the no less ruin of the Jew. Does Israel therein dwell in safety? Does the land yet yield its fruit? Do the people of God eat their fill, and dwell therein in peace, honor, blessing and glory? When under the Messiah and the new Covenant, it will assuredly be so. No longer will they say, what shall we eat the seventh year? Jehovah will bless them every year, not when, by the political help of friendly Gentiles, the Jews, before the harvest and after the blossom, are becoming a ripening grape. Not so: the sprigs shall be cut off, and the spreading branches cut down. They are not yet a people prepared for Jehovah. The veil still lies upon their heart, which will not truly have turned to Him. They do not yet repent at the feet of the Crucified Messiah; and they shall be left together to the ravenous birds of the mountains and to the beasts of the earth, who shall respectively summer and winter upon them. Yet the same inspired prophet declares, following up their bitter disappointment, “In that time shall a present be brought unto Jehovah of hosts” of that very afflicted people, not with worldly aid without faith, to no provisional region half-way, but to the place of His name, the Mount Zion. There shall they be ranged in the land, yet in a wholly different order from that under Joshua, and carefully from north to south laid down in Ezek. 48 but with parallel lines from east to west, then only to be for all the twelve-tribed nationality of Israel.

The Jews are still under the retribution, not only of the law broken in all ways but of the Messiah rejected. So the prophet Isaiah forewarned in his second and still more mature and profound portion, which depraved wits will have to be of his nameless double. Jerusalem is trodden down of Gentiles till their seasons are fulfilled. And the Jews must face a darker page of sin and woe, when the mass of them in the land shall receive the Antichrist for King, as their fathers rejected the true Anointed. Then shall be seen the Son of man coming in a cloud with power and great glory; and when these things begin to come to pass, a godly Jewish remnant look up and lift up their heads, because their redemption draws nigh.

Jehovah will vindicate His rights in that day. “The land shall not be sold in perpetuity,” whatsoever the pretentious pride of Gentile masters. “For the land is Mine.” Strangers and sojourners with Him had been the men of Israel. But thenceforward He will hide His face no more from them; “for I have poured out my Spirit upon the house of Israel, saith the Lord Jehovah.” The right of redemption which they were responsible to grant in all the land of their possession, He keeps for the fit moment, and will triumphantly proclaim to their everlasting joy. And what unselfish joy will be the glorified church's in that day looking down from the heavenly places, and praising Him who is the giver of every good giving and every perfect gift, and of His Son through whom it all comes righteously, and of His Spirit in virtue of whom it can alone be divinely known and enjoyed.

The Closing Types of Leviticus: 11. The Poor Brother Selling Himself

Lev. 25:47-55.

This last case is the saddest of all to a true Israelite. It was not without a fault that a person under the government of Jehovah grew poor in His land (vers. 25, etc.), and had to sell his possessions, whether land, or a dwelling house in a walled city (vers. 29, etc.). It was worse to fall into such decay as to become an object of help to Jew, stranger, or sojourner, for money and victuals (35-38). Still worse was it to be sold to a brother Israelite, even if Jehovah in each interposed His shield of mercy (39-46). But here it is the poor brother selling himself to a stranger or sojourner becoming rich. Yet Jehovah speaks here also.

“And if a stranger or a sojourner with thee become rich beside thee, and thy brother beside him grow poor, and sell himself to the stranger [or] sojourner with thee, or to a descendant of the stranger's family: after he is sold, there shall be right of redemption for him; one of his brethren may redeem him; or his uncle, or his uncle's son, may redeem him, or any of his next of kin of his family may redeem him; or if he may obtain the means, he may redeem himself. And he shall reckon with him that bought him from the year that he sold himself to him unto the year of jubilee; and the price of his sale shall be according to the number of the years; according to the days of a hired servant shall he be with him. If [there be] yet many years, according to them shall he return his redemption out of the money he was bought for. And if there remain but few years unto the year of jubilee, then he shall reckon with him; according to his years shall he return the price of his redemption. As a hired servant shall he be with him year by year: he shall not rule with rigor over him before thine eyes. And if he be not redeemed by these [means], then he shall go out in the year of jubilee, he and his children with him. For to me the children of Israel [are] servants; they [are] my servants, whom I brought forth out of the land of Egypt: I [am] Jehovah your God” (vers. 47-55).

As this chapter is devoted to redemption by grace and in power, it is in perfect keeping with its aim to let Israel know the reserves which awaited their failure in responsibility to the law, which they had accepted as the ground of their standing before Jehovah. Their fall to such an extreme of want as for an Israelite to sell himself into voluntary bondage to a rich stranger or sojourner with them, or to a scion of such a house, is here provided for in God's considerate goodness. Jehovah would not hinder their tasting their evil or folly; but He was careful to lay down, that after he had sold himself, there should be right of redemption for him. One of his brethren might redeem him, or his uncle, or his uncle's son, or any of the near relations of his family: there was room for that affectionate and special interest, which He ever cherished and commended to His people.

Or again, the man, once so desperately impoverished, might somehow obtain adequate means to redeem himself, so that he could not be kept an hour longer in slavery. As being in that land, no strangers any more than a brother could plead a just title against the statutes of Jehovah. But justice must stand too. “And he shall reckon with him that bought him from the year that he sold himself to him unto the year of jubilee; and the price of his sale shall be according to the number of the years; according to the days of a hired servant shall he be with him.” Absolute slavery Jehovah would not tolerate for a child of Abraham. If the price of redemption was equitably offered, the stranger must accept it and set him free. If many years had yet to run, redemption price had to be returned out of the money that he was bought for (51); and if there remained but few years, the reckoning must be accordingly (52).

But Jehovah's pitifulness went farther still; for in ver. 53 it was prescribed, even where he had no means or prospect of redemption till the jubilee, that the Israelite bondman was to have a place like no other slave. “As a hired servant shall he be with him year by year: he [the stranger master] shall not rule with rigor over him before thine [Israel's] eyes.” Thus was the strain meanwhile to be alleviated, if Israel had the heart and power to see Jehovah's will enforced on behalf of His poor.

Then came the great resource when the trumpet of jubilee sounded over the land (54). If every other means failed, here was sure hope for Israel. “And every one that was in distress, and every one that was in debt, and every one that was bitter of soul” in abnormal bondage, was entitled to leap for joy at Jehovah's glad tidings of grace; as it is said here, “he shall go out in the year of jubilee, he and his children with him.” And Thou, blessed Jesus, true but rejected and only the more glorious Messiah, shalt have the joy of redeeming Israel from all his iniquities and all distresses and all indignities, Thyself the more loved then for Thy sufferings and shame at the Jews' hand, joining hand in hand thus with the lawless Gentiles as presently with the Antichrist against Jehovah and His Anointed. Thou shalt return in glory to destroy the destroyers, to deliver Israel in its godly remnant, and to crush the nations, with the old serpent that deceived them all, and that deceives Christendom now as blind as it is haughty.

The very learned prelate of Chester, Dr. John Pearson, had low views of Christ's personal glory, and accordingly of His work and offices. His was as “dry light” on divine things as might satisfy the most scientific of theologians. Yet even he saw in this chapter not the prototype of Christian privilege, but rather a strong contrast with the “better thing” God provided concerning us. So even his cold spirit warmed a little when he compared our privileges with those pledges of goodness to Israel. “We were all at first enslaved by sin, and brought into captivity by Satan, neither was there any way of escape but by way of Redemption. Now it was the law of Moses that if any were able he might redeem himself: but this to us was impossible, because absolute obedience in all our actions is due unto God; and therefore no act of ours can make any satisfaction for the least offense. Another law gave yet more liberty, that he which was sold might be redeemed again; one of his brethren might redeem him. But this in respect of all the mere sons of men was equally impossible, because they were all under the same captivity. Nor could they satisfy for others, who were wholly unable to redeem themselves. Wherefore there was no other brother but that Son of Man which is the Son of God; who was like unto us in all things, sin only excepted, which could work this redemption for us. And what he only could, that he freely did for us.” (An Exposition of the Creed, vol. i. 119, Oxford, 1797.)

Yes, we were all lost far beyond the worst picture of any Israelite; and we are saved as none could be till the Son of God had wrought soul-salvation for such as believe beyond what Dr. P. ever taught or knew; for God's salvation is come, and His righteousness is revealed. Such is His gospel to Jew and Greek through and upon faith in Christ.

The Closing Types of Leviticus: 12. Jubilee Concluded

THE last verse concludes the subject with a renewed statement of Jehovah's immediate interest in, His people. They were His servants; He had brought them forth out of the land of Egypt; and He in His eternal covenanted Name was their God.

“For unto me [are] the children of Israel servants; they [are] my servants whom I brought forth out of the land of Egypt: I [am] Jehovah your God.”

Throughout the great aim of these statutes of the jubilee is that the Israelite should remember that his best and unfailing Friend and mighty Deliverer is Jehovah. It is the same assured truth which the last of their prophets uttered, “I Jehovah change not; and ye, sons of Jacob, are not consumed” (Mal. 3:6). We learn that the jubilee is the pledge that the land as well as the people is to share the same deliverance at His hand. The scattering of Israel is the visible sign that the accomplishment has not yet taken place, as this cannot be till they own their rejected Messiah. It is Emmanuel's land, as they are His people; and His eyes are continually on both. Babylon was the instrument of punishing their idolatry; as Rome longer and more heavily, because of Him whom they despised with averted face and alienated heart. But the day hastens when they shall say in their heart, Blessed is He that cometh in the name of Jehovah. He will come when the godly remnant is rejected like Himself, and the mass fall victims both to idolatry and to the Antichrist.

How gracious and grand for Israel, when it shall be no more the shadow but the very image! when the Lord shall come to Zion a Redeemer indeed, and to those that turn from transgressions in Jacob, saith Jehovah! “And as for me, this is my covenant with them, saith Jehovah: My spirit that is upon thee, and my words which I have put in thy mouth, shall not depart out of thy mouth, nor out of the mouth of thy seed, nor out of the mouth of thy seed's seed, saith Jehovah, from henceforward and forever.”

Truly “the gifts and the calling of God admit of no change of mind,” as he wrote who loved them as much as Moses did. Both loved Israel because they are the objects of God's grace, and Messiah's people for the earth's glory in divine purpose. This makes their unbelief and its chastisement the more bitter, but gives certainty that the Deliverer is at hand. They belong to Him as His servants; and when they own it, He will appear for their rescue and redemption. He does not forget their old deliverance out of the iron furnace; bit then the new covenant shall eclipse the old, and glory shall dwell in their land, as the fruit of His grace and of blood that speaks a better thing than Abel. How will they exult when they learn that Messiah suffered that they might be saved, and own Him, as unbelieving Thomas did, their Lord and their God. In the fullness of His person Jesus is not Messiah only but also Jehovah, their God.

The Closing Types of Leviticus: 13. The Covenant With Moses, and That With the Fathers: the Mosaic.

Lev. 26:1-13.

Chapters 26 and 27 wind up the book as an appendix: the first on the obligations which bound all the people of Israel; the second on the vows of the individual.

Chap. 26 opens with the prohibition of image worship, and with the reverence due to the sabbath and the sanctuary of Jehovah, the pillars of the law; the very evils to which man was most prone (vers. 1, 2). This is followed by His blessings on their obedience (vers. 3-13).

“Ye shall make yourselves no idols, nor rear yourselves carved image or statue, nor shall ye set up a figured stone in your land, to bow down unto it; for I [am] Jehovah your God. Ye shall observe my sabbaths and reverence my sanctuary: I [am] Jehovah. If ye walk in my statutes and observe my commandments and do them, then I will give you rain in due season, and the land shall yield its produce, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit; and your treading out (or, threshing) shall reach unto the vintage, and the vintage shall reach unto the sowing-time: and ye shall eat your bread to the full, and dwell in your land securely. And I will give peace in the land, and ye shall lie down, and none shall make [you] afraid: and I will put away the evil beasts out of the land; and the sword shall not go through your land. And ye shall chase your enemies, and they shall fall before you by the sword; and five of you shall chase a hundred, and a hundred of you shall put ten thousand to flight; and your enemies shall fall before you by the sword. And I will turn my face toward you, and make you fruitful, and multiply you, and establish my covenant with you. And ye shall eat old store and clear off the old because of the new. And I will set my habitation among you; and my soul shall not abhor you; and I will walk among you, and will be your God, and ye shall be my people. I [am] Jehovah your God, who brought you forth out of the land of Egypt, that ye should not be their bondmen; and I have broken the bands of your yoke, and made you walk upright” (vers. 1-13).

The sons of Israel of all men had the least excuse for idolatry. Those who heard His voice out of the midst of fire, and besought a mediator lest they should perish, saw no similitude, and heard Him denounce the heathen device of representing Him by any likeness of the creature in heaven above, or on earth beneath, or in the waters that sink below it. He could not be true God if He tolerated bowing down to another god. Real service must be His exclusively; yet Aaron's deplorable weakness here betrayed itself at the beginning of their history, and Solomon's even worse in its zenith. There too lay the continual warfare of His true prophets with the false who misled kings and priests and people, till there was no remedy; and He who loved them had to say, “I will overturn, overturn, overturn it. And it shall be no [more], until he come whose right it is; and I will give it [him]” (Ezek. 21:27).

But there was another thing hateful in His eyes, where they set up no strange god. Nor is anyone more explicit in denouncing their profane irreverence and shameless hypocrisy than Malachi, the last of the post-captivity prophets. We know from his contemporary Nehemiah how His sabbaths were then profaned, and His sanctuary set at naught. The sabbath had a special place in the decalogue as flowing simply from divine authority, prescriptive and not in the same sense moral as the other nine commandments. It was instituted as a sign of creation and a pledge of God's rest; and God imposed it in His law for Israel, the measure of man's responsibility, as a sign to them as His people. A new day, the first day of the week, is the day of Christ's resurrection, the Lord's day for the Christian, as the day of the new creation in Him, and of sovereign grace to us who now believe for heavenly glory as His body and bride. The sabbath is in no way abrogated or changed or spiritualized, but must be fulfilled in all its own blessedness for man on earth, and for Israel God's firstborn among all nations, when idols vanish forever, and the sanctuary of Jehovah shall never be profaned more.

The conditional blessings are for Israel obedient to their God, Jehovah, and earthly, however rich; they are not those characteristic of the Christian, whatever special pleaders argue. If Israel walk in His statutes submissively, rain is assured in due season, the earth will yield its produce, and trees their fruit; the threshing reaches to the vintage, and it to the sowing time. Bread to the full should be theirs, instead of selling it for their other wants, and safety within their dwellings. Nay more, neither evil beasts, nor hostile sword should alarm. “I will give peace in the land, and ye shall lie down, and none shall terrify.” “And ye shall chase your foes, and they shall fall before you by the sword,” five chasing a hundred, and a hundred putting ten thousand to flight. “And I will turn my face toward you, and make you fruitful and multiply you, and establish my covenant with you.” The old store will abound beyond their eating and need clearing away because of the new. And, better still, “I will set my habitation among you, and my soul shall not abhor you; and I will walk among you and be your God, and ye shall be my people.” As He began, so would He continue: “I [am] Jehovah your God, who brought thee forth out of the land of Egypt, that ye should not be their bondman, and I have broken the bands of your yoke, and made you walk upright.”

The Closing Types of Leviticus: 13. The Penalties of the Violated Covenant

Then Jehovah pronounces the inevitable consequences of Israel's disobedience.

“But if ye hearken not unto me, and do not all these commandments, and if ye shall despise my statutes, and if your soul shall abhor mine ordinances, so that ye do not all my commandments, that ye break my covenant, I also will do this unto you: I will even appoint over you terror, consumption, and fever, which shall cause the eyes to fail, and the soul to waste away; and ye shall sow your seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it. And I will set my face against you, that ye may be routed before your enemies: they that hate you shall have dominion over you; and ye shall flee when none pursueth you.”

“18 And if for this ye hearken not unto me, I will punish you sevenfold more for your sins, and I will break the arrogance of your power; 19 and I will make your heaven as iron and your earth as bronze; 20 and your strength shall be spent in vain; and your land shall not yield its produce, and the trees of the land shall not yield their fruit.”

“And if ye walk contrary to me, and will not hearken unto me, I will bring sevenfold more plagues upon you, according to your sins. And I will send the beasts of the field among you, that they may rob you of your children, and cut off your cattle, and make you few in number; and your streets shall be desolate.”

“And if ye will not be disciplined by me through these, but walk contrary to me, then will I also walk contrary to you, and will smite you, even I, sevenfold for your sins. And I will bring a sword upon you that avengeth with the vengeance of the covenant, and ye shall be gathered into your cities, and I will send the pestilence among you; and ye shall be delivered into the hand of the enemy. When I break the staff of your bread, ten women shall bake your bread in one oven, and shall deliver you the bread again by weight; and ye shall eat, and not be satisfied” (vers. 14-26).

Israel's promises end in misery; and Jehovah judges his disobedience as it deserves, and with increasing severity at his ever-growing rebelliousness. He appoints over the people, when their soul abhorred His righteous ordinances, “terror, consumption and fever,” not only the dread of a guilty conscience, but disease in its wasting chronic form and in its raging acuteness; and sends their enemies to devour their harvests and rout their armies, and to domineer over them, even to their fleeing when unpursued. If this suffice not to humble them before Him, He will punish sevenfold more, to break their arrogance. He will make their heaven as iron and their earth as bronze, refusing all heat and moisture, and vegetation, so that their toil should be vain. And if this be not enough to recall them, sevenfold more plagues should fall on them, and the very beasts of the field should rob them of their children and cut off their cattle, to reduce them indefinitely and desolate their very streets. And if this failed to discipline their refractory spirit, He would walk as contrary to them in displeasure as they to Him in self-will. He must smite them Himself personally sevenfold for their sins, and bring a sword on them to execute the vengeance of the covenant. And as they gathered into their cities out of the goodly land, He would send the pestilence on them, and they should be delivered into the hand of the enemy. Their efforts at union for strength should only and surely bring on them death and degradation as a people. Scarcity of bread should do its withering work in their prostrate condition. How could it be otherwise under the condition of law between the righteous Jehovah, and His people more guilty than the nations which knew not God?

The law as such knows no grace; its function must be to condemn every breach. Grace and truth came through our Lord Jesus; undoubtedly God's grace, but through Him, the one Mediator of God and men, Who gave Himself a ransom for all, the testimony in its own time.

The Closing Types of Leviticus: 14. Sterner Woes on the People and the Land

It might have been thought hard to find strokes heavier than those Jehovah inflicted on His people according to the earlier half of our chapter. But as Israel hardened their necks and persevered in their iniquities, here we have His yet more awful dealings with their stubborn rebelliousness. He is gracious beyond measure; but we know Him that said, To me [belongs] vengeance: I will recompense, saith the Lord [Jehovah]; and again, The Lord [Jehovah] will judge His people. Fearful [is it] to fall into a living God's hands (Heb. 10:30, 31). If He punished the vile abominations of the doomed nations who had intruded into His land, much more strictly does He chasten His people. “You only have I known of all the families of the earth; therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities” (Amos 3:2).

“And if for all this ye hearken not to me, but walk contrary to me, then I will walk contrary to you also in fury; and I, even I, will chastise you sevenfold for your sins. And ye shall eat the flesh of your sons, and the flesh of your daughters shall ye eat. And I will destroy your high places, and cut down your sun-pillars, and cast your carcasses upon the carcasses of your idols; and my soul shall abhor you. And I will lay waste your cities, and desolate your sanctuaries, and I will not smell the savor of your sweet odors. And I will bring the land into desolation, that your enemies who dwell therein may be astonished at it. And I will scatter you among the nations, and will draw out the sword after you; and your land shall be desolation, and your cities waste. Then shall the land enjoy her sabbaths all the days of her desolation, when ye [are] in your enemies' land; then shall the land rest and enjoy her sabbaths. All the days of the desolation it shall rest; in which it rested not on your sabbaths, when ye dwelt upon it. And as to those that remain of you, I will send faintness into their heart in the lands of their enemies, and the sound of a driven leaf shall chase them, and they shall flee as one fleeing from a sword; and they shall fall when none pursueth; and they shall stumble one over another, as it were before a sword, when none pursueth; and ye shall have no power to stand before your enemies. And ye shall perish among the nations, and the land of your enemies shall eat you up. And they that remain of you shall waste away through their iniquity in your enemies' lands; and also through the iniquities of their fathers shall they waste away with them” (vers. 27-39).

The furnace of wrath waxes hotter against guilty Israel, and as Jehovah says, “I, even I, will chastise you sevenfold for your sins.” The flesh of their own sons and daughters should be their food, and the high places and sun-pillars which they had honored should be cut down, their own carcasses heaped upon those of their idols, and His soul abhorring them. He would proceed to devastate their cities and sanctuaries to the astonishment of their enemies dwelling therein (27-32).

Their land too should not escape; and as they had despised His sabbaths in days and years and jubilees, there should be a judicial sabbath: for it should be desolate while Israel should be in the enemies' land. The land that flows with milk and honey should lie desolate and have rest, against the rest which it had not when the tribes dwelt there (32-35). Instead of the courage He once gave them against all odds, they would fall into abject terror. “I will send faintness into their hearts in the lands of their enemies; and the sound of a driven leaf shall chase them; and they shall flee as one fleeth from the sword; and they shall fall when none pursueth. And they shall stumble one upon another, as it were before the sword, when none pursueth” (36, 37). There too should they perish among the nations and the enemies' land eat them up. Those left of them in their enemies' lands shall pine away in their own iniquities, and in the iniquities of their fathers with them (38, 39).

Thus brought down to the lowest misery and degradation, the goodness of God leads them to repentance. What a lesson to all the nations! Yet this they never learn, till Israel shows the way, forgiven of grace, when they cannot forgive themselves before Jehovah and His anointed! But we must not anticipate what is to follow. How awful when a people boasting of Jehovah's name sell themselves really to His enemy, and become slaves of demons which supplant His will and worship; and their religion so-called becomes their worst sin and their most destructive snare. Thus it was in Israel, as it now is in Christendom. The end for both (as far at least as “this generation” goes for the Jew) will be at the consummation of the age in judgment, which the Lord Jesus will surely execute. But the greatest reviler of revelation cannot charge the God of Israel with partiality to His people when inconsistent or unworthy. Demons instead of chastising humored their devotees for their own bad and mischievously vile ends. So it is in all religions, save the faith in God through Christ.

The Closing Types of Leviticus: 15. Israel Repents and Jehovah Remembers His Covenant With Their Fathers

Here however we have the turning-point of grace. There is no restoration for Babylon, and especially none for the Babylon of the N. T. which among her many lies dares to call herself “the eternal city,” but is really doomed to the everlasting judgment of God, as we read in Rev. 14; 16; 17 and 18 to the joy of all in heaven who in view of her smoke going up unto the ages of ages say, Hallelujah (Rev. 19:1-5) Reunion of Christendom or not, this is God's destiny for her of the seven hills. “Come out of her, My people,” says the voice from above, “that ye have not fellowship with her sins, and that ye do not receive of her plagues.” But there is sure restoration for Israel, and a history in the future of their land, more glorious than David's or Solomon's, or than any nation's that ever existed on the earth. The time hastens and is at hand. Israel will repent, and believe in Jehovah's Messiah, their crucified King of glory.

“And they shall confess their iniquity, and the iniquity of their fathers, through their unfaithfulness wherein they were unfaithful to me, and also that they have walked contrary to me, so [that] I also walked contrary to them, and brought them into the land of their enemies. If then their uncircumcised heart be humbled, and they then accept the punishment of their iniquity, I will remember my covenant with Jacob, and also my covenant with Isaac, and also my covenant with Abraham will I remember; and I will remember the land. For the land shall be left by them, and shall enjoy its sabbaths, when it is in desolation without them; and they shall accept the punishment of their iniquity; because, even because, they despised my judgments, and their soul despised my statutes. And yet for all that, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not despise them, and will not abhor them, to make an end of them utterly, and to break my covenant with them, for I [am] Jehovah their God. “But I will remember toward them the covenant with their ancestors whom I brought forth out of the land of Egypt before the eyes of the nations, that I might be their God: I [am] Jehovah.

These [are] the statutes and ordinances and laws which Jehovah made between him and the children of Israel in mount Sinai by the hand of Moses” (vers. 40-46).

Does anyone object that this blessed change is sometimes made conditional on Israel's repentance? The answer is that there is no real force in the objection, because Jehovah has promised unconditionally that He will so work in their hearts when the due moment comes as only known to Him. And this is remarkably confirmed even in this chapter of arraignment and denunciation and furious wrath against them for their wickedness. Yet here there is no condition but an express prediction, “And they shall confess their iniquity” &c. God may exceed in goodness and mercy; never does He come short; and He here declares that so it is to be. Undoubtedly He makes good the condition in their souls where such a condition is laid down in His word.

In fact such a prediction as this unconditional one entirely agrees with the covenant with their fathers; for this was its character in distinct contrast with the covenant of law whereof Moses was mediator. And observe the deliberate iteration of His assurance to Israel, beginning with the “worm” Jacob yet redeemed and called by name His servant and chosen, next with Isaac, and then with Abraham His friend. Why all this care but to give the most stable confidence to those just awakened to feel and own their ages of rebellious and even apostate iniquity? The covenant with the fathers as here joins in one common boon the entire people of spared Israel and the land. In this future kingdom of power it will not be what characterizes Christianity and the church, the extinction of Jewish and Gentile differences in Christ as now. The blessing to come in that day will be of Israel as the head, and of the nations in willing subordination, because Israel is the special people of Jehovah Messiah for the earth. We are of heavenly grace, wherein fleshly difference is of no account.

The Closing Types of Leviticus: 16. Personal Vows

THESE were special acts of devotedness to Jehovah through the priest, but according to his valuation who was king in Jeshurun and thus type of Messiah.

The chapter is a remarkable example of that divine inspiration, which underlies Scripture for the profit of faith, but above the ken of the wise and prudent who dare to judge God's word under the plea of historical and literary investigation, totally blind to their guilty unbelief and profanity. But the single-eyed believer delights to observe that chap. 25 looks on to the true and full day of Jubilee when Jehovah will make good His rights over the land on behalf of His people its failing tenants. Then chap. 26 sets out the sad ruin of His guilty people under the first covenant because of their disobedience and apostasy; but also restoring mercy under the second when they accept the punishment of their iniquity, and He remembers His promises to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and the land. Lastly comes this appendix of special or voluntary vows which turns on His absolute title when all on man's part had failed, and He acts through Him who shall there build the temple of Jehovah, bear the glory, and sit and rule upon His throne; when He shall be a priest upon His throne, and the counsel of peace shall be between Them both (Zech. 6:13).

The vows here brought together consist, first of person, male or female; secondly of beasts so devoted; thirdly of house or field, and this brings in the Jubilee, and proves the chapter to be in its precisely right and necessary place. The rest of the chapter states the distinction between persons or things thus devoted from those that were simply sanctified, with certain exceptions already established by His law. These verses 1-8 deal only with the persons.

“And Jehovah spoke to Moses, saying, Speak to the children of Israel and say to them, When a man devoteth by a vow, the persons [shall be] for Jehovah by thy valuation. And thy valuation shall be of the male from twenty years old even to sixty years old: even thy valuation shall be sixty shekels of silver after the shekel of the sanctuary. And if for a female, then thy valuation shall be thirty shekels. And if from five years old even to twenty years old, then thy valuation of the male shall be twenty shekels, and for the female ten shekels. And if from a month old even to five years old, then thy valuation of the male shall be five shekels of silver, and for the female thy valuation [shall be] three shekels of silver. And if from sixty years old and above, if a male, then thy valuation shall be fifteen shekels; and for the female ten shekels. And if he be poorer than thy valuation, then he shall present himself before the priest, and the priest shall value him; according to his means that vowed shall the priest value him” (vers. 1-8).

Jehovah would have seriousness in His people in making a vow. There was no demand on His part in this case, as in the firstlings of man and beast, &c. There was a whole tribe, the sons of Levi, already consecrated to the religious service of Jehovah; but He accepted the desire of any individual for devotedness to Himself, and laid down directions for Moses to value them on a certain scale of valuation, which varied according to their age and sex (vers. 1, 2).

The first estimate took account of the time when service was most prized from twenty years to sixty years old, the male at fifty shekels of silver, the female at thirty. This would mean of our money (say) six pounds five shillings, and three pounds fifteen shillings respectively (vers. 3, 4).

The next estimation for each is from five years of age to twenty, and is rated at twenty shekels for the male, and ten for the female, or two pounds ten shillings, and one pound five shillings (ver. 5).

Then the extreme point for males and females from a month to five years has the valuation of five shekels for the one, and three for the other, or twelve shillings and sixpence, and seven shillings and sixpence (ver. 6).

Next for the oldest class, from sixty years and above, for the male fifteen shekels or one pound seventeen shillings, and the female ten shekels or one pound five shillings (ver. 7). There the scale for the aged female rose nearest to the male, where man might be disposed to despise.

As Jehovah did not require these vows, He did not make them irrevocable. The persons thus devoted might be redeemed; and the foregoing scale of valuation was therefore provided. The use to be made of the redemption price is referred to in 2 Kings 12 as “the money of the persons for whom each man is rated.” This, with other contributions, fixed or voluntary there stated, the priests were to take in the days of the temple for repairing the breaches of the house wheresoever any breach was found.

But in its considerate equity there was another provision for in ver. 8, “And if he be poorer than thy valuation, then he shall present himself before the priest, and the priest shall value him; according to his means that vowed shall the priest value him.” It was due to Jehovah that something should be paid, that the exemption from his obligation might not be a light thing or God mocked by heedlessness. Yet there must be no harshness; only gracious care that the debt to God might not oppress the poorest of His people.

The Closing Types of Leviticus: 17. Beasts or House Devoted

But things also animate or inanimate might be set apart to Jehovah, as here we have animals and a house.

“And if it be] a beast of which men offer an offering to Jehovah, all that they give of such to Jehovah shall be holy. They shall not alter it nor change it; a good for a bad nor a bad for a good; and if he at all change beast for beast, then it and the exchange thereof shall be holy. And if any unclean beast, of which they do not offer an offering to Jehovah, then he shall present the beast before the priest; and the priest shall value it, between good and bad: according to thy valuation, O priest, so shall it be. And if they will in any wise redeem it, then they shall add a fifth thereof according to thy valuation.

“And when anyone halloweth his house, that it may be holy to Jehovah, the priest shall value it, between good and bad: as the priest shall value it, so shall it stand. And if he that halloweth it will redeem his house, he shall add the fifth of the money of thy valuation to it, and it shall be his.” (vers. 9-15).

A necessary difference at once appears between beasts clean or unclean, as there was no question of the firstborn of man and of cattle already claimed from the sons of Israel as Jehovah's (Ex. 13:2) at least the males (12, 13). The firstling of an ass if not ransomed with a lamb must have its neck broken; as the firstborn of man among their sons with a price. For the firstborn of Israel the tribe of Levi was substituted as we know from Num. 3; but as its number did not suffice to represent all the firstborn, the rest who were over and above those ransomed by the Levites were redeemed by the ransom-money of five shekels apiece according to the shekel of the sanctuary. Thus in every way Jehovah associated with Himself His people so liable to forget their high relations, grounded on different figures of redemption.

The first principle laid down impressed on the Israelite that if he gave to Jehovah a clean beast, one presentable for sacrifice, it was to be thence forward “holy” (9). It could not be bought back. Even if defective or bad in any way, he could not alter, nor change it for an unblemished beast, neither good for bad nor bad for good. All this should have been weighed before offering it; and if the offerer altered his mind, he must learn that God did not. If it was real concern for Jehovah's honor, he might bring another good beast; but the original animal and the exchange must remain holy to Jehovah (10).

There was more allowance where there was no such close link with Jehovah as with animals fit for sacrifice to Him. If an unclean beast were presented, he should present it to the priest and the priest should value it whether it be good or bad; and as he valued it, so should it be. If he wished to recall the unclean beast, it was open to him with a fifth added to the estimation, as a trespass or forfeit, because of his lack of due gravity in what was thus connected with Jehovah (11-13).

It is substantially the same with the latter ease, where one hallowed his house to Jehovah. The priest valued it good or bad; and at his valuation, so it was to stand. But if the Israelite did not stand to his purpose and wished to redeem, Jehovah made no difficulty, but impressed a reproof on his fickleness by requiring a fifth over its estimated value; and thus he might have his house back.

We see the same guard against second thoughts in the book of Psalms, though in a more general form and the converse too, where there was no such devotion to Jehovah. It is part of what is shown to please Jehovah and suits the hill of His holiness, that if a man have sworn to his own heart, he does not change. He who is by grace steadfast in word and deed, abhorring evil and cleaving to good, shall never be moved even in a world of vain show.

The Closing Types of Leviticus: 18. The Devoted Field Sanctified to Jehovah

THERE were two cases in the hallowing of the field, which are here distinguished, a field of the Israelite's possession, and a field which he bought. Descent or purchase involved a marked difference.

“16 And if a man hallow to Jehovah out of a field of his possession, thy valuation shall be according to the seed thereof: the homer of barley seed at fifty shekels of silver. 17 If he hallow his field from the year of jubilee, according to thy valuation it shall stand; 18 but if he hallow his field after the jubilee, then the priest shall reckon unto him the money according to the years that remain until the year of the jubilee, and there shall be a reduction from thy valuation. 19 And if he that hallowed the field will in any wise redeem it, he shall add the fifth of the money of thy valuation unto it, and it shall be assured to him; 20 but if he do not redeem the field, or if he sell the field to another man, it cannot be redeemed any more; 21 and the field when it goeth out in the jubilee, shall be holy to Jehovah as a field devoted; the possession thereof shall be the priest's. And if he hallow to Jehovah a field that he hath bought, which [is] not the field of his possession, the priest shall reckon to him the amount of thy valuation unto the year of the jubilee; and he shall give thy valuation on that day, holy unto Jehovah. In the year of the jubilee the field shall return to him of whom it was bought, to him to whom the possession of the land [belonged]. And all thy valuations shall be according to the shekel of the sanctuary: twenty gerahs shall be the shekel” (vers. 16-25).

God will not allow His people to forget that the land of Canaan is His peculiarly, as they were to whom He gave it in possession. This was their special favor. Israel were His people as no other nation could be then, and their land too was His that He might secure it to them forever, unless they apostatized, for which He drove them out and made them the slave and butt of their enemies' malice and contempt. So it was for their idolatry when the mother of idols led the Jew captive, as Assyria led away Ephraim long before; and so it was to be again as Isaiah foretold both (chaps. 40-48 and chaps. 49-57) when the Roman should take away both their place and nation because they rejected the Messiah.

But here it is an Israelite while acknowledged of Jehovah sanctifying to Jehovah a part of a field of his possession. The valuation was to be according to the seed required, a homer of barley being rated at fifty shekels of silver. Here the jubilee rules, the standard for rectifying man's weakness or fault and for restoring divine order. If he sanctified his field from the year of jubilee, it must stand according to the valuation. The jubilee proclaimed Jehovah's rights unmistakably; and if the field were devoted to Him, there could be no change. The estimation allowed no abatement, nor meddling.

But if after the jubilee the Israelite sanctified it, “then the priest shall reckon to him the money according to the years that remain to the year of the jubilee,” and thus equitable abatement ensues. Yet the case does not end there. “If he that sanctified the field will in any wise redeem it,” he must submit to the usual forfeit required in thus departing from his original purpose of devotedness to Jehovah. The fifth part has to be added of the valuation money to that valuation price, in order to gain back the portion devoted.

It is also laid down that, if he will not redeem the field, or if he have sold the field to another man, it “shall not be redeemed any more.” Further still, the rights of Jehovah are repeated by the provision that “the field, when it goeth out in the jubilee, shall be holy to Jehovah as a field devoted.” The terms of re-acquiring it had not been complied with. Jehovah was the real Landlord; and His title is not to be any longer subject to human caprice. “The possession thereof shall be the priest's.” Thus Jehovah would exercise His people in a due regard for His majesty and word, who sought thereby the best blessing for His people, and the restitution of the land as well as of the people.

On the other hand, if one sanctified to Jehovah a field which he had bought, outside the field of his possession, the priest must reckon unto him the worth of the valuation unto the year of jubilee; and this valuation was then and there to be given, a holy thing to Jehovah. There was no forfeit of the fifth part to be added to the price. Nor did it abide holy to Jehovah beyond the year of jubilee; for then it must return to its original possessor of the land who had sold it. Jehovah's gift held good: if man changes, He does not.

Another law was applied inflexibly throughout these transactions. “And all thy valuations shall be according to the shekel of the sanctuary: twenty gerahs shall be the shekel” (ver. 25). Israel might desire to purchase by what coin was most convenient in their dealings with the nations. But as in relation to the temple service and their redemption price, so here they must make their payments “according to the shekel of the sanctuary.”

We are under grace, not law; but what a profound error that we as Christians are left to our own will or wisdom! We are bought with an infinite price, and are in no wise our own. Undoubtedly all things are ours, life or death, things present or things to come. But we are Christ's by the same title which makes all to be ours; so that the bondman if called in the Lord is His freedman; and the free man if called is Christ's bondman. Such is Christian liberty. Humbled at our sins, we rejoice in His grace which has set us free to be all the more His servants, as He was the lowliest of all and the only efficacious One in love without measure to God's glory.

The Closing Types of Leviticus: 19. Concluding Regulations in Leviticus

It remains to notice briefly the verses that follow.

“Only the firstling among beasts, which is made a firstling to Jehovah, no man shall sanctify it: whether [it be] ox or sheep, it [is] Jehovah's. And if [it be] of an unclean beast, then he shall ransom [it] according to thine estimation, and shall add to it the fifth thereof; or if it be not redeemed, then it shall be sold according to thine estimation. Notwithstanding, no devoted thing that a man shall devote to Jehovah of all that he hath, of man or beast, or of the field of his possession, shall be sold or redeemed: every devoted thing [is] most holy to Jehovah. None devoted, which shall be devoted of men, shall be ransomed; he shall surely be put to death. And all the tithe of the land, of the seed of the land, [or] of the fruit of the tree, [is] Jehovah's, holy to Jehovah. And if a man will redeem [aught] of his tithe, he shall add to it the fifth thereof. And all the tithe of the herd or the flock, whatsoever passeth under the rod, the tenth shall be holy to Jehovah. He shall not search whether it be good or bad, neither shall he change it; and if he change it at all, then both it and that for which it is changed shall be holy: it shall not be redeemed. These [are] the commandments which Jehovah commanded Moses for the children of Israel in mount Sinai” (vers. 26-34).

It was not unneeded to remind the thoughtless, that the firstlings of clean animals being already due to Jehovah were not objects of the devotedness contemplated in this chapter. Such firstlings were already His as every Israelite ought to know. But it was here interdicted, lest any should make a vow as to such, and deceive his soul to Jehovah's dishonor.

The same principle applies as we have seen already, if a man sought to redeem the firstling of an unclean beast. He must submit to the appointed estimation, and was not to make one of his own; and he must add a fifth to it as the penalty of changing his mind about a vow to Jehovah. If not redeemed, it was to be sold accordingly, as being incapable of any holy purpose.

The great general rule was that what was devoted to Jehovah of all a man had, man, beast, field, should be sold or redeemed, every devoted thing being most holy to Jehovah. None devoted which shall be devoted of men should be ransomed, but surely put to death. As to the tithe of lend, whether seed of the land, or fruit of the tree, all was Jehovah's, holy to Him. And if a man would redeem of it, he must add the fifth as forfeit. Again, in tithe of herd or flock, the tenth was holy to Jehovah. And it was carefully insisted that he was not to search for good or bad, nor to change: Jehovah accepted it simply as it was. If however he did change it all, he must offer alike the original and the change: both should be holy, and neither to be ransomed.

Thus did Jehovah teach His people to be obedient, and hate self-will. How much more is this incumbent on us whom the Spirit sanctified unto Christ's obedience and the sprinkling of His blood, the Christian's place as distinct from Israel's!

The Closing Types of Leviticus: 2. Blasphemy Judged With Other Evil

In marked contrast with the provision for the full light of Christ to shine uninterruptedly in the sanctuary, till the morning without clouds, during the night, and in connection with the pledge of blessing for all Israel, stands the public insult to Jehovah, which is here recounted with His judgment on it.

“And the son of an Israelitish woman, but who [was] son of an Egyptian man, went forth among the children of Israel; and this son of the Israelitish [woman] quarreled with an Israelitish man together in the camp. And the Israelitish woman's son blasphemed the Name, and cursed; and they brought him to Moses (and his mother's name [was] Shelomith, daughter of Dibri of the tribe of Dan). And they placed him in ward, that they might decide at the mouth of Jehovah. And Jehovah spoke to Moses, saying, Lead the blasphemer outside the camp; and all that heard shall lay their hands upon his head, and the whole assembly shall stone him. And thou shalt speak to the children of Israel, saying, Every one when he curseth his God shall bear his sin. And he that blasphemeth the name of Jehovah shall certainly be put to death: all the assembly shall certainly stone him; as well the stranger as the homeborn, when he blasphemeth the Name, shall be put to death. And he that smiteth any man mortally shall certainly be put to death. And he that smiteth any beast mortally shall make it good, life for life. And if a man cause a blemish in his neighbor as he hath done, so shall it be done to him, breach for breach, eye for eye, tooth for tooth; as he hath caused a blemish in a man, so shall it be done to him. And he that smiteth a beast [mortally] shall make it good; and he that smiteth a man [mortally] shall be put to death. Ye shall have one law; as the stranger, so the homeborn; for I [am] Jehovah your God. And Moses spoke to the children of Israel; and they led the blasphemer outside the camp, and stoned him with stones. And the children of Israel did as Jehovah commanded Moses” (vers. 10-23).

The first portion of the chapter is the clear type of Christ, not only as the light of the heavenlies during the dark night for Israel on earth, but as the pledge by-and-by of their twelve-tribed fullness through the grace of Christ. Here we have not the shadows of good things to come, but the sad fact of Jehovah's name blasphemed meanwhile on the earth, where the responsibility lies to be His witness in reverence and righteousness and truth. Here is the sample, alas! in this one man of Israel after the flesh, the son of an Israelitess and an Egyptian father: an unhallowed union, the fruit of which reviles the holy Name. No doubt all flesh is as grass; but Israel was to be holy to Jehovah. And surely this is the most weighty step a woman (symbol of a state) takes in this life naturally. But Shelomith married an Egyptian, one of that oppressing world out of which Israel was brought with a high hand by Jehovah.

It is not that sin of idolatry for which they were to be swept off the land into Assyria; and especially even the royal tribe, when it apostatized, into Babylon. Here it is defiance, cursing the true God, or blaspheming Jehovah. This became emphatically true, when, weaned meanwhile from idols, they disdained and blasphemed the Name in the Messiah, Himself also Jehovah their God. Therefore are they given up nationally to a worse than Babylonish captivity. They are under the curse of Him they reviled, and the wrath is come upon them to the uttermost (1 Thess. 2:16).

Therefore also, as they despised Him who suffered for sins, all their other sins, as in the verses that follow, come up against them. They have not even the temporary relief in the blood of calves and goats offered for their transgressions. They have in God's righteous judgment neither king nor prince, sacrifice nor statue, ephod nor teraphim. But the heavenly reality, the dead but now risen Christ, in the tabernacle not made with hands, is the sure token that more than all they lost they will find provided by Jehovah in the mercy that endures forever, when they shall say, Blessed He that cometh in the Name of Jehovah. For repent they surely will, as it is the promise of divine grace, and turn again, that their sins may be blotted out; so that there may come seasons of refreshing from the presence of Jehovah, and that He may send the Messiah that has been fore-appointed to them. He is now in the Sanctuary above, where the heavens received Him, after His atoning work was done, till times of restoring all things, of which God spoke by His prophets since the world began. The security is on high where only faith's eye can reach; but it is unfailing before God, and awaits the moment when the gathering out of every nation as well as out of Israel is complete to join the Lord in the air. Then renewed dealings follow on, to form a godly remnant of Jews, His missionaries to preach the gospel of the kingdom to all the nations before the end come, when the day of Jehovah ensues for the judgment of the quick throughout all the habitable earth.

The Closing Types of Leviticus: 3. The Land and Jehovah's Earthly Purpose - the Sabbath Year

1. the Sabbath Year: Lev. 25:1-7.

The Feasts had given the entire circle of divine purpose and ways leading up to its effectuation, etc. (chap. 23). Chap. 24 presents, in a remarkable and concise twofold, the unfailing priestly light in the Sanctuary, whatever the darkness of Israel might be temporarily to their shame because of their rebellion and blasphemy of His Name. This is vividly set forth in the fruit of a mixed marriage in the same chapter and its unsparing doom. Now follows, in a seventh sabbatic year, and the jubilee when seven sevens of years pass, Jehovah's pledge that His mercy endures forever, and this for His land, for His people; as it is written in Deut. 32:43, “For He will avenge the blood of His servants, and will render vengeance to His adversaries, and will be merciful to His land, to His people.”

Jehovah means to bless all families of the earth in Abraham, and in his seed, the true (not the figurative) Son dead and risen; and so the apostle could justify, by its first clause, the gospel to every creature, and those that believe of the Gentiles, rejoicing with the Israel of God, all such fleshly distinction gone in the church. But the fulfillment for Israel, and the nations as a whole awaits the day of Jehovah; when after overwhelming judgments on both, and on apostate Christendom most of all, the Crucified, Jah the Savior, shall reign over all the earth. In that day shall there be one Jehovah, and His name one, all idols consigned to the moles and to the bats. Yet though mercy will surely bless the nations, even Egypt the old oppressor and Assyria that punished them for their idolatry, Israel shall still be expressly Jehovah's inheritance. No other is holy and pleasant here below. By the Christians, during Israel's night, as for the faithful elders, is seen a better land, that is, a heavenly, and not as by them afar off, but themselves brought nigh and lit up with the light of Christ, their life, known far more fully by sovereign grace. How can any, with the N. T. and the Holy Spirit as now given, doubt it for a moment? No wonder that such children are gloomy, under notions so defective (to say the least), and occupied overmuch with creature evil, to the loss of the spiritual good to be enjoyed; for whatever the reproach and the suffering, we more than conquer through Him that loved us.

The Jews are exiles again, and far longer the time required for their blind hatred of their, of Jehovah's, Messiah. But they shall yet sing, “His foundation is in the mountains of holiness. Jehovah loveth the gates of Zion more than all the tabernacles of Jacob. Glorious things are spoken of thee, O city of God.” At that very time God will have visited the judgments of saints and apostles and prophets on the corrupt city of confusion, which has so long dazzled the eyes of the superstitious as the false eternal, doomed to God's burning, the smoke of which is to go up to the ages of ages, when the earth as well as the heavens rejoice. Neither London nor Paris, neither Berlin nor Vienna nor yet Moscow, has the smallest claim to a sacred title. It is quite easy to understand that successful merchants, soldiers, and scientists think otherwise; but what is the worth of any opinion of man? The grass withers, the flower fades; but the word of our God abides forever. And the Christian can say so with an emphasis and joy unknown as yet to the Jew, if he but know his calling upwards, waiting for the Lord to receive him to Himself for heavenly glory as well as reigning over the earth in that day.

“And Jehovah spoke to Moses in mount Sinai, saying, Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them, When ye come into the land that I will give you, the land shall keep a sabbath to Jehovah. Six years thou shalt sow thy field, and six years shalt thou prune thy vineyard, and gather in the produce thereof; but in the seventh year shall be a sabbath of rest for the land, a sabbath to Jehovah. Thy field thou shalt not sow, nor prune thy vineyard. That which groweth of itself of thy harvest thou shalt not reap, and the grapes of thine undressed vines thou shalt not gather: a year of rest shall it be for the land. And the sabbath of the land shall be for food for you; for thee, and for thy bondman, and for thy handmaid, and for thy hired servant, and for him that dwelleth as a sojourner with thee, and for thy cattle, and for the beasts that [are] in thy land: all the produce thereof, it shall be for your food.”

Now here was to worldly ears the strangest edict ever imposed on a people. Nebuchadnezzar, despotic as he was, could not dare to issue it; nor Cyrus the Persian, nor Alexander. Julius Caesar or his imperial nephew would have counted it stark madness. Jehovah laid it down as a matter of course for a people separated to Himself; and this early in their wilderness history. For it is intimated that He spoke it to Moses in mount Sinai, whence they moved early in the second year; as then He told them of their coming to the promised land, though many years through their sinful folly must pass till the rebellious generation was followed by another one. He knew the end from the beginning, and has communicated to His own what was good for them to know, let the miscalled higher critics revile as they may. Nor did Jehovah ever fail to make good the extraordinary means He adopted, as explained in vers. 21, 22. He gave them, while Israel obeyed, the produce of three years on every sixth year, to carry over not that year only but the sabbatic and the eighth, when they sowed and waited for its harvest. It was therefore a constant exertion of divine power and goodness to a people whom He thus encouraged to trust and honor Him. But Israel soon became restive under His control and authority, and contrived to be “like all the nations,” growing mad on strange gods beyond any. Retrograding they violated the Covenant, and made it impossible for Jehovah to perform His wondrous part, unless He consented to His own dishonor.

The Sabbath had a great and holy interest from the beginning. It was God's rest from creating to make; but man sinned and failed to enter. It reappeared in His dealings of grace before Israel reached Sinai, when it was marked out after the manna was given, type of rest after the living bread from heaven. But Israel liked not that bread of God, and lusted after flesh, confiding in human ability to keep the law which embodied the Sabbath as a divine command. It became a sign to Israel, a sign of God: rest to faith, when God introduced any new principle in the great book of redemption, Exodus. But Israel despised and ignored His sabbaths, though every week closed with one, and the first month had an added one to which Messiah's death lent a most solemn import, with the sevens till Pentecost; and the seventh month more openly still, with its Day of Atonement, and its Feast of Booths, with its first day and eighth extraordinarily. But the sabbath year was the same writ large to be read and seen by all men. It brought into prominence the land: “a year of rest for the land,” of which Jehovah was landlord, and Israel His tenants at will.

O that His people had hearkened, and Israel had walked in His ways! But they would none of Him to their own ruin, to this day even worse than of old, but not forever. No: the land is His, and He will give it again to them, no longer on the condition of their faithfulness to Him but of His to them in mercy; when they are brought down truly to feel that mercy alone suits either their sin and ruin, or His grace and truth as their Savior God. God's rights remain to faith when man, yea the chosen nation, sinned away all pretension to right on their part. It is true that an unparalleled tribulation must be the last chapter of the Jew without the true God and His Anointed, alas! under the antichrist, the man of sin, “the time of Jacob's trouble; but he shall be saved out of it” (Jer. 30:7). Yes, Jehovah will be merciful to His land, to His people.

The sabbath year was also marked by the liberation of a brother who had become a bondman to an Israelite; for what anomalies might not be till Messiah come and reign over them? But even during the day of evil through one man's weakness or fault, and another man's availing himself of it for his selfishness, in that land only was the sign of the good time coming, and of Him who is competent to put down all enemies. But even now Jehovah insisted on all that heeded this law, that after six years of bondage the Hebrew slave could claim liberty. “In the seventh year thou shalt let him go free from thee” (Ex. 21, Deut. 15:12); and when sent free, he was not to “go away empty.” The law made nothing perfect; but it was a righteous, good, and holy check on man. It was not Christ and redemption, or the Spirit and the new man; so that neo-critics, who complain of things then as not on the Christian level, only betray their ill will and ignorance.

Again, the seventh or sabbath year was Jehovah's release for the insolvent Hebrew (Deut. 15:1-15), It is beautiful and affecting, how the lawgiver was inspired to appeal to the hearts of those who had, on behalf of the poor brother that had not. But the divine mind was clear and express in this beneficent obliteration of debts in the year when His own bounty was so conspicuous to His people, spite of sad faults.

There was the further care of His wisdom, that “at the end of every seven years, in the solemnity of the year of release, in the feast of tabernacles, when all Israel is come to appear before Jehovah, thy God, in the place which he shall choose, thou shalt read this law before all Israel in their hearing” (Deut. 31:10, 11). Thus admirably was it provided, unless rebellious wickedness hindered, that every Israelite, men, women, and children, ay, “and thy stranger that is within thy gates, should hear and observe to do all the words of this law.”

But as unbelief led to idolatry, so even before this, to profane the sabbaths of every kind, of days and years, as we find predicted in Lev. 26:14, 15, and accomplished in the carrying away to Babylon for seventy years (2 Chron. 36:20, 21). Alas! it is the old, old story of man's failure in every duty, and from the earliest; for what meant the setting up the calf of gold which Aaron made to the people's mandate, before the tables on which Jehovah deigned to write His law were brought down by Moses? These however are only the wretched ways of man; but days come, when all will be recovered by a poor and afflicted and repentant people under Messiah and the new covenant. Then will be fulfilled all the pledges of the sabbath year, and incomparably more every promise and every prediction to God's glory and the blessing of Israel and all the nations; as the heavenly saints will enjoy still higher and richer blessings with Christ above.

Here again note the testimony to Jehovah's beneficence to the humble and the needy and the stranger that sojourned with the Israelite, to their cattle, and to the very beasts in their land: none forgotten, all provided; though in the sabbath year not a field was sown nor a vineyard pruned, not a field reaped nor the grapes gathered. What a witness for God, if Israel had obeyed! But they disobeyed here as elsewhere; and were it not that Jehovah changes not, the sons of Jacob had been destroyed hopelessly. But He looked on to Messiah and His sacrificial work awaiting in the latter day their repentance in His grace. Then will He blot out their transgressions for His own sake, and will not remember their sins. Then the deaf shall hear, and the blind see. Then shall the lame leap as a hart, and the tongue sing; for in the wilderness shall waters break forth, and torrents in the desert. And the mirage shall become a pool, and the thirsty land springs of water; in the habitations of wild dogs where they lay, grass with reeds and rushes. In short, sorrow and sighing shall flee away.

The Closing Types of Leviticus: 4. Year of Jubilee

Deeply impressive as the sabbath year is in ushering in this chapter, more outward and imposing and thorough-going is the jubilee when seven sabbaths of years were fulfilled, or forty-nine years. This therefore is next introduced in a general way with details to the end of the chapter.

“And thou shalt count to thee seven sabbaths of years, seven years seven times; and the days of the seven sabbaths of years shall be to thee forty and nine years. And thou shalt cause a sound of the trumpet to go forth in the seventh month on the tenth [day] of the month; on the day of atonement shall ye sound the trumpet throughout all your land. And ye shall hallow the year of the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty in the land to all the inhabitants thereof: a jubilee shall it be to you, and ye shall return [every] man to his possession, and ye shall return [every] man to his family. A jubilee this fiftieth year [shall] be to you: ye shall not sow, nor reap its after-growth, nor gather one of its separations. For it [is] the jubilee; it shall be holy to you; out of the field ye shall eat its produce. In this year of jubilee shall ye return [every] man to his possession” (8-13).

As there was a sabbath day and month, so also a sabbatical year and one after seven times that year; this last being the jubilee, when the cycle of seven sabbatical years was completed. The first two referred to the people with Jehovah; the last two to the land. So it is with us now that the Spirit of God carefully brings out the individual's true and full relation to God, before our corporate privilege is unfolded, as we may read in the Epistle to the Ephesian saints. So here, after days of sin, sorrow, and ruin, it is the day anticipated in these pledges by the way whereon Jehovah who chose Israel will remember His people, even to the joy of the nations long envious and scornful; when He will avenge the blood of His servants, and will render vengeance to His adversaries, and will be merciful to His land, to His people. The land is prominent in the sabbatical year, still more completely in the jubilee.

Hence the explicit care to base the jubilee on the offering and acceptance of the atonement-day, the most solemn sacrifice of the year. The cornet which was to sound so loud and bring in the proclamation of liberty throughout the land to all the inhabitants thereof was not on the first of the seventh month but on the tenth. The first was a sabbath too, and distinguished by a memorial of blessing the cornet. It too was a holy convocation: no servile work was to be done, and a fire-offering made to Jehovah. But the tenth was the fast when no work was to be done, with the most peremptory warning that every soul not afflicted on that same day should be cut off from among his peoples, and that every soul doing any manner of work on that same day Jehovah would destroy from among His people. Christ's atonement alone accounts for this. Therefore the repentance in dust and ashes; therefore too the exclusion of any manner of work. His work, His suffering for sin, explains it all.

The “liberty” which immediately follows is the answer to that work of atonement completed and accepted. It is quite a different liberty from that deliverance from the law of sin and death which we know as Christians as traced in Rom. 8, 2 Cor. 3 and Gal. 5 The jubilee is in no way the type of what pertains to the Christian or the church, but of Israel for the land when Jehovah's people shall be brought into their full promised blessing. Pentecost typifies what we now enjoy by the gift of the Spirit, consequent on Christ our passover sacrificed for us, and His resurrection shown in its wave-sheaf and the wave-loaves, till at an untold moment the heavenly saints are changed and caught up to meet Him for the Father's house. Only this was a mystery not yet revealed in scripture but hid in God. After that, when time begins again to be counted, in the seventh month comes a new series of divine dealings to apply the already accomplished work of atonement to Israel, awaked from their long slumber of death on the first of the month, then brought by self-judgment and humiliation under the atoning sacrifice in power of truth, at length the feast of glory for time and even eternity.

It is here too that the jubilee finds its just place and true application; for it has its peculiar place for Israel so marked that it is treated here distinctly from the greater cycle of the Feasts of Leviticus. It has nothing whatever to say to any joy for us in the resurrection when the last trumpet sounds for our joining Christ on high to be with Him above. It concerns characteristically the people and the land; for Christ is to have glory everywhere, and a suited people for the earth as well as the heavens. Here the theologians are sadly astray and short of the truth. And the N. T. is as clear about it, as the O. T. is full of it. The fiftieth year the Israelites were to hallow, and proclaim in the land for all the inhabitants thereof. It is the era when all Israel shall be saved too, when all Zion's children shall be taught of Jehovah, and great shall be their peace. They shall be all righteous, and possess the land forever as the branch of Jehovah's planting, the work of His hands, that He may be glorified. The type was but the shadow of a greater antitype. But it is of Israel's blessedness here below when Messiah reigns.

“A jubilee shall it be to you, and ye shall return every man to his possession, and ye shall return every man to his family.” We can readily perceive how appropriate such consolation is to poor distressed Israel. They had a vested interest there, and from Jehovah, but by their own self-confidence held on the tenure of law, that is, of their own righteousness. Alas! they violated their law in every way. They were as mad as Babylon on their idols, and the Jews were exiled to Babylon, as the rest had been to Assyria. And when a remnant of Jews returned in God's goodness for the coming of Messiah in due time, it was but to reject and have Him crucified by lawless hands; as they also refused the Spirit's call in the gospel, and especially rose up against it for the Gentiles. For all that Jehovah waits to be gracious; and when the Gentiles, instead of standing by faith and continuing in goodness, claim all for themselves in pride and denial of Israel, they too shall become objects of judgment. Then God's mercy shall flow like a river on Israel repentant and believing; and the jubilee shall sound for the long distant and deaf, the atoning sacrifice being received in faith and true affliction of heart to the denial of self and all manner of work. Liberty shall be proclaimed, and a return shall be for every man, and for every man to his family. As the land shall mourn, every family apart and their wives apart in self-judgment, so all will be united in joy when the restitution of all things arrives. “A jubilee this fiftieth year shall be to you.”

Such language has a force to Israel as it has to no other people, because Jehovah gave them the land of His choice for them, as for none else. Still less can the words have fitness for the Christian or the church, chosen out of every family, and brought into union with Christ, so that henceforth as Christians we know no man according to flesh. We belong even now to a dead and risen Christ and are a new and heavenly family, not man's but God's for glory on high. And what is the possession to which every Christian returns? The notion becomes an absurdity. We had nothing in our natural estate as children of wrath; we had only sins and sin. There was no earthly paradise for fallen man to return to, nor yet possession in the land of Israel for a Gentile. To us all our portion as Christians is above nature and heavenly; and it is what sovereign grace gives us in and with Christ. Only thus could heavenly glory be ours, and all we enjoy as members of His body and shall inherit in that day.

So also the provision that follows, like that of the sabbatical year in vers. 11, 12. “Ye shall not sow, nor reap its aftergrowth, nor gather in its separations (i. e. the fruit of its undressed vines). For it is the jubilee; it shall be holy to you: out of the field ye shall eat its produce.” It is a little testimony to the great change when the land shall be no more barren or reluctant, but yield its increase with all fullness, to honor the great King and greet His people no longer small of mighty and exalted and blest. “Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress, and instead of the nettle shall come up the myrtle; and it shall be to Jehovah for a name, for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off.” How apply such words to the Christian and the church, save to drag us down from heaven to earth, and to deny Israel's hopes under Messiah and the new covenant? No, it is for them, not about us, that we read, “In this year of jubilee ye shall return every man to his possession.”

The Closing Types of Leviticus: 5. Jubilee the Standard of Value

The position of Israel on earth was unique. They were the only people over whom Jehovah's name was called. “Ye are my witnesses, saith Jehovah, and my servant whom I have chosen: in order that ye may know and believe that I am He; before Me was no god formed, and none will be after Me.” So the apostle, instead of depreciating their privileges, says in Rom. 9:4, “Whose is the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the law-giving, and the service, and the promises; whose are the fathers, and of whom is Christ as concerning the flesh, who is over all, God blessed forever.” It was they who in their blind unbelief stumbled at the stumbling-stone, the infinite grace of His humiliation, and His obedience unto death—the death of the cross, which shut out from the eyes of their heart the height of His glory far beyond that of the Messiah.

But even in the matter of the land allotted to each Israelite, we see a standard of valuation which was meant to keep before them their peculiar relation to Jehovah, as well as their bright prospect, whatever the failure or the chastening, whatever the change even to exile. For a restitution of all things awaits them on earth under the Messiah, the ground of all their blessings.

“And if thou sell aught to thy neighbor, or buy of thy neighbor's hand, ye shall not overreach one another. According to the number of years since the jubilee thou shalt buy of thy neighbor; according to the number of years of the crops he shall sell to thee. According to the greater number of the years thou shalt increase the price thereof; and according to the fewness of years thou shalt diminish the price thereof; for it is the number of the crops that he selleth to thee. And ye shall not overreach one another; but thou shalt fear thy God; for I [am] Jehovah your God” (vers. 14-17).

But like everything else here below committed to man's responsibility, the polity of the theocracy broke down through the rebellion of Israel. Those who were nationally set apart to Jehovah sought to be like the nations, that they might have not only a king but other and false gods. Thus the warnings given in His ordinances were trampled under foot. Has therefore the word of Jehovah failed? Far from it. Israel, having gone astray, has borne the chastisement and has yet more and worse to bear before the blessing. But the word of God shall stand forever: even while the ruin is complete, and before the manifested blessing comes for Israel and the land, we have it for our profit by faith.

To the Jew it ought to have been a precious resource that underneath such regulations as these the principle stood that the land belonged to Jehovah. This secures inalienable title for Israel in the long run. The Gentiles have trodden down the land and its capital for many centuries; but their times shall be fulfilled. The last empire is doubtless to revive in a portentous way, and shall be destroyed, not by conquest or decay, but by divine judgment. So shall be destroyed the Antichrist, the lawless king in the land; the Assyrian, or King of the North; and later his gigantic patron, Gog, Prince of Rosh, Meshech, and Tubal: these, with their allies and followers too, constitute all the nations of the earth. Their downfall in the day of Jehovah will make way for Jacob to take root. Israel shall blossom and bud; and they shall fill the face of the world with fruit. In that day shall be a root of Jesse, standing as a banner of the peoples: the nations shall seek to it; and his resting-place shall be glory.

How obvious the comfort thus rendered to the believing Israelite, who would enjoy the blessed assurance of Jehovah's loving interest in His people! Thus He secures the restoration of the property assigned, in spite of all their errors and imprudence, or the over-reaching of others meanwhile. We know that, among Gentiles who know not God, reigns a general anxiety as to both persons and property. To Israel only was there the divine guarantee at every half-century. But what when this beneficent pledge is incomparably exceeded in the great Jubilee? Then “Behold, these shall come from afar; and, behold, these from the north and from the west; and these from the land of Sinim. Shout, ye heavens; and be joyful, thou earth; and break forth, ye mountains, into singing; for Jehovah comforteth his people, and will have mercy on his afflicted ones” (Isa. 49:12, 13). No loss of liberty or land more; “for as the new heavens and the new earth which I will make shall remain before me, saith Jehovah, so shall your seed and your name remain” (Isa. 66:22).

But before that day, and as long or far as there was fidelity to Jehovah and His word, they were bound in selling or buying the land, or rather the lease of it, by the jubilee as instituted by divine command. Personal equity was not all, but Jehovah's valuation of the worth of its produce till the jubilee. A regularly recurring miracle accompanied subjection to His law. It was not, as for the Christian and the church, a constant hope of Christ's coming suited to the heavenly people; but the earthly people had their times and seasons, and the value of their sales according to the distance or the nearness of the jubilee. We are not of the world, and should always wait expectantly.

The Israelites were not to overreach one another; and, if obedient, had a free insurance of life, liberty, and land from Jehovah. “Thou shalt fear thy God; for I [am] Jehovah your God.” What could be more simple and sure for an earthly people? If rebellious, how could they expect it? God is not mocked.

The Closing Types of Leviticus: 6. The Right of Redemption

Here as elsewhere is no hiding of the people's failure in responsibility. Each would surely have his portion in Jehovah's land. Each was to enjoy the sabbath year of the land to Jehovah. For each throughout all the land the joyful sound of the jubilee should sound after forty-nine years, proclaiming liberty and return, each to his possession. Not because they were more numerous or able, nor yet that they were more righteous than others, had they been chosen; but because Jehovah loved Israel, and because He would keep the oath He had sworn to their fathers, He brought them out with a powerful hand from the then greatest kingdom on earth that oppressed them, redeeming them out of the house of bondage, and giving them these pledges of unfailing rest and deliverance for the day when judgment falls on the inhabited earth. But Israel shall have the kingdom under the whole heavens under the Son of man: an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and His kingdom which shall not be destroyed.

Yet it is a great mistake to confound this coming day of blessing for His earthly people with the secret hid in God, and thus from ages and generations, for Christ's glory in the heavens and the joint-heirs with Him, His heavenly bride. Restitution of all things now ruined here below is quite different from that glory which is above the world, wherein all distinction between Jew and Gentile disappears; because Christ is “the all” for all on high, in the faith of which the Christian and the church are called now to walk. In the world to come, whatever the blessing to every family on earth, the daughter of Zion shall have the first dominion; for great will be the Holy One of Israel in the midst of her. The glorified above as one with Christ shall with Him share the universe. He is given head over all things to the church, His body.

Meanwhile on the side of man failure is anticipated and provided for; and here is contemplated the first case of loss through poverty, the form which failure must take in this type; and which we know in a still deeper way.

“If thy brother grow poor and sell of his possession, then shall his nearest of kin come and redeem what his brother sold. And if the man have no one having right of redemption, and his hand hath attained and found sufficiency for its redemption, then shall he reckon the years since his sale, and restore the overplus to the man to whom he sold it; and so return to his possession. And if his hand, have not found what sufficeth to restore it to him, then that which is sold shall remain in the hand of the buyer until the year of jubilee; and in the jubilee it shall go out, and he shall return unto his possession.”

“If” is a serious word for man. No doubt it is righteous; but the fact is that the first man breaks down and fails in his responsibility. He is fallen and a sinner; and of this Israel in the past is the constant witness. Every help that mercy could furnish, while law governed, Israel enjoyed, priesthood, offering, sacrifice. But the failure was ever more and more; and the rejection of their own Messiah, added to their previous idolatry, made their tenure of Jehovah's land impossible, and their scattering over the earth complete, till the repentance of a godly remnant and return to their Messiah in heart. This will be of Jehovah's mercy enduring forever, and through the atonement which grace applies to Israel in that great day. For Jesus will then be owned as the Kinsman Redeemer. And He will indeed come to redeem. The right is His, and He will not fail to recognize and apply it, in everlasting mercy.

But Israel must be made willing. And so it shall be in the day of His power. They refused Him to their own sin and shame and loss in the day of His humiliation, proud as man is so often of his poverty, and blind to his need of grace. Kin otherwise will have failed, and their own hand will have attained to no sufficiency. But grace will count that the time of suffering is accomplished, and that iniquity is pardoned through Him that loved His people and suffered for their sins. It is quite a mistake that mankind is here in question, however wide the gospel call. But redemption, whether for forgiveness of sins, or deliverance of the body, is of believers only. The theologians forget relationship, or vaguely misapply it. We hear of a brother who had his possession lost through unfaithfulness, and restored through grace triumphant over all difficulties. And Israel will be the standing and public witness, both of the loss through evil, and of the gain through grace. Yet the merit is not theirs in any way but only of Jesus, as the grace here and in every case is of God delighting in good of His own nature and of His own will, which rises above creature weakness and worthlessness, whatever the fruits of His Spirit in any.

The Closing Types of Leviticus: 7. The Dwelling House

It is the people and the land with which Jehovah connects redemption. Both were objects of His gracious choice. Both have fallen under the greatest change through contempt of His goodness on man's part, and opposition to His will, even to rebellion and apostasy. But Jehovah will triumph on behalf of both, but by His own mercy in Christ the Redeemer, when Israel shall sing, Not unto us, O Jehovah, but unto Thy name give glory, for Thy loving kindness and for Thy truth's sake. The redeemed of Jehovah whom He had redeemed from the hand of the oppressor, and gathered out of the countries from the east and from the west, from the north and from the south, shall give thanks to Jehovah, and say that He is good, for His loving kindness endures forever. What a contrast with man's way who starts with confidence, and whose hopes tell a flattering tale; but, looking no more truly to God than the beasts that perish, he has this of His hand to lie down in sorrow. And none will have this more bitterly and manifestly than such of Israel as presume on their name and privileges as His people while their heart is far from Him—and under the enemy's power. But blessed are all who have their confidence in the Son—in Jehovah Himself. And Zion shall put on her strength, Jerusalem her beautiful garments; and her waste places shall break forth, for Jehovah comforts His people, and redeems her as well as them.

The truth is made more emphatic in the type by making an exception of what man builds, a dwelling-house in a walled city. “And if any one sell a dwelling-house in a walled city, then he shall have the right of redemption up to the end of the year of the sale; for a full year he shall have the right of redemption. But if it be not redeemed until a whole year is complete, then the house that [is] in the walled city shall be established forever to him that bought it throughout his generations; it shall not go out in the jubilee. But the houses in villages that have no wall round about them shall be counted as the fields of the country; they may be redeemed, and they shall go out in the jubilee. But [as to] the cities of the Levites, the houses in the cities of their possession, the Levites shall have a perpetual right of redemption. And if a man redeem from one of the Levites (or, one of the Levites redeem something), then the house that was sold in the city of his possession shall go out in the jubilee; for the houses of the cities of the Levites [are] their possession among the children of Israel. And the field of the suburbs of their cities shall not be sold; for it [is] their perpetual possession (vers. 29-34).

It was the dwelling-house in a walled city which thus lost its claim to redemption at the jubilee. The seller had the right to gain it back during a full year from its sale; after that, if not bought back, it passed forever to the possession of the purchaser. Though it was built on the land which God gave the Israelites, its privilege of divine gift was vitiated by the prevalence of man's failure, as a twofold witness may show us. “For every house is builded by some one.” It is only a man that builds it. But the God that built all things claimed the land as His and gave it to His people as their landlord, to make it all the surer as He will prove it to be in the great jubilee, when every intruder vanishes, and He reinstates His people, who had lost it meanwhile over and over again by their departure from Himself. The land will go out free for the Israelite in that day by Jehovah's vengeance on their wicked enemies, and His mercy toward themselves, at last repentant in dust and ashes and resting on the atoning blood of Him whom they now refuse and despise. But the dwelling-place which each built or took from the Canaanite was no such gift of God as the land of promise.

And this was made still more precise by the added feature of being “in a walled city.” For here is not merely man's hand everywhere apparent in his dwelling-house, but yet more the “walled city” marks the presence if not the prevalence of the enemy's power. There is therefore recourse to such a human measure of protection, which tells the tale how little as yet the Israelite enjoys His full privilege when they shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig tree; and none shall make them afraid; for the mouth of Jehovah hath spoken it. No doubt it will be because a King shall reign in righteousness, far beyond David or Solomon, His feeble types. And the man who is God, and Jehovah's fellow, shall be as a hiding place from the wind, and a covert from the tempest; as rivers of water in a dry place, as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land. And then shall the Spirit be poured from on high, and the wilderness be a fruitful field, and the fruitful field be counted for a forest; and His people shall dwell in a peaceful habitation, and in sure dwellings and in quiet resting-places.

So, when the work of dealing with Israel's enemies is in process but not yet complete, we hear in Ezek. 38 Israel shall then be gathered out of many peoples into the land bought back from the sword. But the chief of Rosh, Meshech, and Tubal, unmoved by the downfall of the head of the western powers in league with the Antichrist, and even by the destruction of the eastern hordes who opposed the west, persists in his mischievous purpose of self-aggrandizement, and hopes by coming down on Israel's unprotected appearance to become overlord of the earth. “Thou shalt say, I will go up to the land of unwalled villages; I will go up to them that are at rest, that dwell safely, all of them dwelling without walls, and having neither bars nor gates, to seize the spoil and to take the prey; to turn thy hand against the waste places that are inhabited, and against a people gathered out of the nations which have gotten cattle and goods, that dwell in the midst of the land.” But Jehovah will prove Himself the true and glorious bulwark of His people, and pour upon this last enemy and all his hosts, before the proper reign of peace over the earth begins, overflowing rain and great hailstones, fire and brimstone. So it shall be upon the mountains of Israel; nor will that exemplary punishment suffice. For Jehovah will send a fire on Magog, and among them that dwell at ease in the isles. Their walled cities, their fortifications, their formidable navies, will be a vain defense, for it is the day when the risen Lord will judge the inhabited earth; and they shall know that he is Jehovah (Ezek. 39:6).

Hence the house in the country parts, not thus protected, fell under the principle of the land, retained the right of redemption, and should go out in the jubilee. The strength and shield of man must fall in that day, and the defenseless that confide in Him shall triumph, when the fastness of the high defenses of men's walls will He bring down, lay low, bring to the ground, into the dust.

On a similar principle too the house of the Levites fell under His care who calls them to be His servants, and had perpetual right of redemption. Even if sold in the city of his possession, it must go out at the jubilee. On the other hand, their fields in the suburbs of their cities could not be sold. They must abide their perpetual possession, as God's sacred gift to them; and this He will see to when He comes whose right it is to repair all wrongs and failures for His own that wait for Him.

The Closing Types of Leviticus: 8. Poor Brother in Decay

Here we read a new statute respecting the poor brother fallen into decay. It does not touch on what might be done by his nearest relation, or by his own recovery, as in vers. 25-28, but on loving succor where there was no such resource from without or from within. For Jehovah encouraged compassion in His people, of which they had been so richly the objects from Himself. Nothing more alien from His mind, among His own and even to strangers, than the spirit of independence of which the Gentiles are proud in their self-sufficient ignorance of God.

“And if thy brother grow poor and be fallen into decay beside thee, then thou shalt relieve him, stranger or sojourner, that he may live beside thee. Thou shalt take no usury nor increase of him; and thou shalt fear thy God, that thy brother may live beside thee. Thy money shalt thou not give him on usury, nor lend him thy victuals for increase. I [am] Jehovah your God, who brought you forth out of the land of Egypt to give you the land of Canaan, to be your God” (vers. 35-38).

Three divine principles are here applied to the duty of the Israelite, standing in a relationship to Jehovah peculiar to that people of His choice, whatever the mercy it may involve as it does to the stranger; for God abides good in Himself and to all, and will not suffer His people to forget it, though prone to do so as scripture proves, to say nothing of experience.

(1) It is His grace which gives prosperity to any. Only unbelief is blind to His overruling who counts the hairs of our head, and without whom not a sparrow falls unheeded. Man, sinner alas! as he is, is no object of indifference to Him. The Israelite was then precious to him for the fathers' sake, as he will be by-and-by not for them also but incomparably more for Him whom in repentance and faith they will own as their Messiah, so long despised, their all-gracious and Almighty deliverer when ready to perish under the Antichrist and to be swallowed up by the nations. But even from early days He would have them pitiful to their brother, or even a stranger and sojourner by their side, that he might live and not die. It was grace that called out Abram from beyond the Euphrates, where their fathers in old time dwelt and even served other gods. It was grace that sent Moses to plague Egypt which oppressed the sons of Israel, and brought them out of the iron furnace across the Red Sea which covered their enslavers. When the same power should destroy the Amorite, the Canaanite, and the rest who dwelt in the promised land, they were bound to remember that all was of His grace, and that He enjoined it in due measure on those who prospered on behalf of their decayed brothers. It was no small grace which inaugurated the emerging, if not birth, of His people, when brought forth out of the land of Egypt to receive the land of Canaan, and have Jehovah their Savior and guide and governor to be their God,

Just so we, Christians, are privileged and bound ever to look back and cherish our beginning, the foundation of all our blessing in Him who died, rose, and ascended to the highest heaven for us. This rises far above what was given or possible to Israel; for we can say, and ought to know by divine teaching, we are quickened and raised together with Christ and made to sit together in Him in the heavenlies. And as we are such a workmanship as this, His body who is Head over all, so were we created in Christ Jesus (for it is a wholly new thing) for good works which God before prepared that we should walk in them, a new walk in many respects because of and suited to such a unique relationship.

Israel had to represent Jehovah and do His will as given to dwell in His land. If the strange gods gave a license to every passion of sinful man through the working of the great enemy of God and man, the Jew was called to practice mercy, as belonging to and confessing Him who delights in mercy. How could He maintain a people in His land, the good land flowing with milk and honey, where His eyes rested continually, if they set His will at naught and abandoned Him? They had deliberately taken their stand on their obedience of His law, and must abide the consequence. Mercy obtained is a valid ground for expecting mercy to be shown; and the law bound this on the Jew as we see here.

But there was also the powerful influence of hope, which governs the regulations of all this chapter. The Jew was called to act in view of the jubilee, and was inexcusable if he put it from his eyes in his conduct. When a brother was decayed, he was to bear in mind the deliverance that ere long would surely come, and thereby be strengthened to assist the need, and not to make it an occasion for selfish greed by interest for a loan, or return of food to increase his own store. For Israel in the land was not to be a merchant like the Canaanite; but the striking contrast of the Jews now among the nations, enriching themselves in this way beyond all others, the banking masters of the world. They have for the time lost their true place, because they became apostate from God, first by idolatry, then by rejecting Jesus the Christ; as they will descend lower still by receiving the Antichrist, Even on their return from Babylon, which was to see the Messiah in humiliation, they made the divine command of no effect by their tradition; and selfish interest prevailed over goodness and mercy, till unbelief wrought to the utmost.

But what has Christendom to say as to this? Has it the face to reproach the Jew? Christendom that has oppressed, plundered, and cruelly persecuted the Jew, instead of being a city of refuge to the man-slayer, till the death of the anointed priest (that is in antitype, till Christ closes His priesthood on high)! Thence He will come for judgment, and the believing homicide will be cleared and enter on his inheritance; but the blood of guilt shall lie on the unrepentant murderer who persists in his unbelief to helpless ruin.

The Closing Types of Leviticus: 9. Poor Brother Sold

There is a condition still more lamentable than the decay of poverty. The Israelite might be so reduced as to sell himself to bondage; and this condition comes under divine regulation to the end of the chapter. Here we may notice its first part.

“And if thy brother grow poor beside thee, and be sold to thee, thou shalt not compel him to serve as a bond-servant: as a hired servant, as a sojourner, he shall be with thee; until the year of jubilee he shall serve with thee. And he shall go out from thee, he and his children with him, and shall return unto his own family, and unto the possession of his father he shall return. For they [are] my servants, whom I brought forth out of the land of Egypt; they shall not be sold as they sell bondmen. Thou shalt not rule over him with rigor, and thou shalt fear thy God. And thy bondmen and thy bondmaids whom thou shalt have—of the nations that are round about you—of them shall ye buy bondmen and bondmaids. Moreover of the children of those that dwell as sojourners with you, of them shall ye buy and of their families that [are] with you, which they beget in your land; and they shall be your possession. And ye shall make them as an inheritance to your children after you, to inherit as a possession: these ye shall make your bondmen forever; but your brethren the children of Israel, ye shall not rule one over another with rigor” (vers. 39-46).

Whatever the disorder created by sin and its resulting miseries, Jehovah provided merciful checks, especially for the people of His choice till the day of restitution, of which the jubilee was the recurring foreshadow. The Israelite might through sheer distress be sold to one of his brethren, but never in perpetuity. Ordinarily it was but for the term of six years of servitude, and on the seventh he went out free for nothing, as we know from the deeply interesting “judgment” with its details in Ex. 21; 2-6. But, if as here with no such limit, the year of jubilee reinstated him. Meanwhile Jehovah imposed the duty on his Israelitish master that he should not be treated as a bondservant, but as a hired servant, as a sojourner and not a slave. Then should he go out from his employer, and his children with him unconditionally. The sale of bondmen did not apply. On the contrary he lifted up his head as free, and all his, returning to his own family and to the possession of his fathers.

With such considerate care did Jehovah provide for His people, whatever their improvidence. How affecting and securing the ground on which He laid it down! “For they are my servants whom I brought forth out of the land of Egypt.” There superstition took care of the priests who kept them in unceasing bondage to false gods who were but demons without truth or pity. The Eternal, who rescued Israel out of that house of bondage and iron furnace, did not hinder as yet such an Israelite as broke down in his responsibility from tasting the bitter effect of his or others' wrongs. But He restricted the chastening to measured times, and gave the sure hope of merciful return: the pledge of a glorious one forever, when the Divine Deliverer shall rescue them from sins and sufferings no less than enemies, and Himself be the ground of a holy freedom and an unfailing inheritance, as due to One who is David's Son and David's Lord. What a joyful sound will be the trumpet voice of the true and full jubilee, which needs not but precludes repetition!

When it was only a nation favored of Jehovah, the law did not interfere with an Israelite buying slaves, as we see in vers. 44-46. They were free to have such slaves of the nations round about them, or even of the sojourners with them. Neither could claim the relation of their own brotherhood holy to Jehovah: of both they might buy, and make them their possession, and leave them as an inheritance to their own children after them, their bondmen forever. And even in the day, when the creation shall be delivered from its present groans and thralldom, when the church shall share Christ's glory above and over all things, when Israel shall own the crucified but all the more exalted Messiah, the Son of man and Heir of all things, kings here below shall be nursing fathers of the Jew never more to be despised or persecuted, and queens their nursing mothers. Strangers shall build up Zion's walls, and their kings shall minister in that day.

Aliens shall be their plowmen and their vine-dressers. For that nation and kingdom that will not serve Zion shall perish. “But ye shall be named priests of Jehovah: men shall call you the ministers of our God. Ye shall eat the wealth of the nations, and to their glory shall ye succeed.” Need one refer to more decisive proofs of the change that awaits Israel under Messiah and the new covenant? And the time hastens: the zeal of Jehovah of hosts will perform this.

It is infatuation for Gentile theology to take any of this away from the hopes of Israel. True Christian faith maintains it all for the Jew when his heart shall turn to the Lord whom they despised to their own sin, shame, and loss. But God's gifts and calling stand without a change on His part, who awaits and will bring out their salvation in sovereign grace. Our calling is above: we can well afford to set our mind on heavenly things. Their portion will be all blessing and glory on the earth, and in their own land, then the joy and boast and crown of all lands. The word of our God, Israel's God, shall stand forever. God has provided some better thing concerning us [who believe while the Jews are impenitent] that apart from us even those who of old believed but received not the promises should not be made perfect. We shall all enjoy our proper portion practically at the same time to God's glory in Christ.

Conscience and Christ

Conscience is a law but in a figurative sense, because God has placed it as a monitor, taking care that, when sin came in, conscience should come in with it. But it is the opposite of true law, serving for those having no law (Rom. 2:14); and God describes it by man's becoming “as one of us, knowing good and evil” in himself (that is, not imposed by authority to which he had to answer as responsible). To apply such a thought to God is absurd. I could say, God is a law to Himself, just meaning He was under none, but that His own perfection made Him always act as He does. As a fact, fallen man has the knowledge of good and evil, which is not a law, even so in the sense of a rule, for it may be vitiated, as in Saul and millions else, “I thought I ought.” It is the faculty of making the difference, and holding one thing for good and another for evil, making the difference between good and evil in my mind, whatever my rule may be.

But you cannot speak of being “subject and accountable” when speaking of God. Obedience, conscience, and law, or the rule of conscience, are all distinct things. Obedience refers to authority, law to a rule imposed, conscience to my making a difference between good and evil, i.e. right and wrong, in myself, if there was no authority, no obedience, no law. For that is as God does. I have no absolute standard of right and wrong till I get the Second Man. In God I have sovereign love, learned in Christ's sacrifice, and I have a divine purity in a new nature which cannot sin. But to make a creature have the nature of the Deity as his absolute standard falsifies duty, because God, as such, cannot be in the relation man is in, and duty flows from this.

Hence when the Decalogue was given, there is no revelation of God's nature, but simply man's obligation towards God and his neighbor; and evil is already supposed as it was not before the Fall. Christianity says, “Be ye imitators of God as dear children,” when we are such, and gives Christ as the pattern—perfect as your Father,” but He is Father first. “God commendeth his love to us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” In Him were the two poles of perfection: absolute self-sacrifice (not merely loving a neighbor as oneself, which is no divine perfection, and cannot be) “for us” (which is purely divine, no worthy object but divine goodness), and “to God” (which is absolute human perfection, divine indeed but still of Him a man). The law knew nothing of this, but man's duties where he was. But Christ was God manifest in flesh; and this is our pattern.

That the law is the idea of the divine image is mere nonsense; for that image is not thought of in it, but man's duties toward God and his neighbor, which in the nature of things cannot apply to God. Christianity alone has it in principle, because Christ has come, the Second man, not the first. This makes the idea false, as it falsifies the nature of law. The first Adam is the history of responsibility in man, both innocent, and a sinner; the Last Adam, the Second man, is the display of God in man, the perfectly obedient Man. He was born under law; but He was much more than that—God manifest in flesh, which is not law at all. J.N.D.

Coronation of Joash

This interesting event as detailed in 2 Kings 11 we cannot but regard as a striking type of the recognition and welcome of the Lord Jesus Christ in the day when He takes to Himself His great power and begins His reign. A vile woman, Athaliah, type of the mother of harlots and abominations of the earth, contrived to massacre all the royal seed, except the one child in question. For this act, and her other idolatrous crimes, she is described as “that wicked woman” (2 Chron. 24:7) Joash, while an infant, was rescued by his aunt Jehosheba, the high priest's wife, and with his nurse, was conveyed secretly to the house of Jehovah, where he remained hidden for six years. He thus foreshadows our blessed Lord and Savior, in His present position. Jesus indeed was hated and rejected by man, who wished to put Him away altogether; but by the glory of the Father He was raised from the dead, and seated at His own right hand on high.

In the case of Joash, three persons only were in the secret as to this child's identity, that there was still a King in Judah. They were the high-priest, the aunt and the nurse; all the rest were ignorant of the real son of David in the royal branch who was going to reign. May we not compare these three personal witnesses with the three favored individuals, who were permitted to behold the Lord in His ascended glory? They were Stephen, (Acts 7:55, 56), Saul of Tarsus, (1 Cor. 15:8), and John in Patmos (Rev. 1:13).

There may have been some few faithful souls during the reign of Athaliah, who remembered the prophecy of the dying patriarch Jacob, “The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver... until Shiloh come.” Believers might rest on the promise, assured that God had His rightful king, although they could not see him, and that in due time he would be manifested. This of course was walking by faith, not by sight; and their number must have been small.

For six years only was the vile usurper permitted to occupy her false position. This indicates how thoroughly man's day was hers; since man attains but to the number six (Rev. 13:18), whereas God's number is seven for spiritual perfection. In the seventh year the priest Jehoiada (who seems to indicate the action of the Holy Ghost, because He takes of the things of Christ, and shows them unto us, John 16:13) called together the officers of the army into the house of Jehovah; and premising that he had a most important communication to make to them, he required that they should take an oath to be entirely at his bidding, and do exactly as he ordered.

This oath having been taken, it was confirmed by a covenant, which in those days was ratified by cutting a victim in halves, the contracting parties then passing between the parts. This shows how important the shedding of blood, or taking of life, was considered then. No testament, again, was in force as long as the testator lived (Heb. 9:17). In this case too the testator must die. In our case the Lord Jesus died and rose again. Thereon God has made with His people an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things and sure (2 Sam. 23:5).

The priest, having obtained the complete submission of these captains and officers, drew aside a veil and revealed to them a little child, whom he presented as their lawful king and rightful lord. Does not this show forth the wonderful privilege which each believer has of beholding by faith Christ who will surely come out of the heavens although as yet His manifested kingdom is wholly future? These officers were then told that, as their privileges were great, their responsibilities were equally deep. They were instructed to guard their young king night and day, to watch him when he went out, and came in, and on no account to let a single enemy come near him. Does not this declare to the believer his direct responsibility, to walk with the Lord, and to be in constant subjection to and communion with Him?

Jehoiada served out to all the faithful warriors king David's spears and shields, those which had been in many a severe battle already, and each one of them long tried and proved. This blessedly reveals how every Christian ought to be equipped with the whole armor of God; and king David's psalms still contain the divine magazine of supply as they afford the soul the experiences of a most varied and eventful life. No matter what the state of the soul may be, there can always be found a psalm portraying these same experiences. Our blessed Lord quoted entirely from this book when in His last conflict with the devil, and the still deeper forsaking of God on the cross.

How long this state of things continued, we are not told; but the eventful day for the revelation of the young king at last dawned. What a day for each faithful, devoted, loyal heart! and what a day for the murderess on the throne, and her idolatrous crew! What a day will it be when “Christ is revealed from heaven, with His mighty angels in flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ!”

“They brought forth the king's son, and put the crown upon him, and gave him the testimony and made him king and anointed him, and they clapped their hands, and said, God save the king.'“ Thus while joy and honor became the privilege of everyone who had owned Joash in his rejection, awful judgment and terrible vengeance became the doom of those who had supported the wicked creature whose reign had been so suddenly and completely cut short. Q.

Joseph: 21. The Crucial Test Applied

Gen. 44:1-17

It was needed in the moral government of God that the brethren should be searched still more thoroughly; and Joseph is His instrument in devising a still more trying means, not only to carry out self-judgment to the uttermost but to prove their affections now sound and fervent to their father and their brother, after their deep guilt in both respects of old. Love joined righteousness in thus working for their best good.

“And he commanded [him] that [was] over (or, the steward) of his house, saying, Fill the men's sacks with food as much as they can carry; and put every man's money in the mouth of his sack. And put my cup, the silver cup, in the mouth of the sack of the youngest, and his corn-money. And he did according to the word of Joseph which he had spoken. In the morning when it was light, the men were sent away, they and their asses. They were gone out of the city, not far off, when Joseph said to his steward, Up, follow after the men; and when thou overtakest them, say to them, Why have you rewarded evil for good? [Is] not this [it] in what my lord drinketh, and whereby indeed he divineth? Ye have done evil [in] what ye have done. And he overtook them, and spoke to them these words. And they said to him, Wherefore speaketh my lord such words as these? Far be it from thy servants to do such a thing Behold, the money which we found in our sacks' mouths we brought again to thee out of the land of Canaan; and how should we steal out of thy lord's house silver or gold? With whomsoever of thy servants it is found, let him die; and we also will be my lord's bondmen. And he said, Now also [be] it according to your words: he with whom it is found shall be my bondman, and ye shall be blameless. And they hasted and laid down every man his sack on the ground, and opened every man his sack. And he searched carefully; he began at the eldest, and left at the youngest; and the cup was found in Benjamin's sack. Then they rent their clothes, and loaded every man his ass, and returned to the city. And Judah and his brethren came to Joseph's house; and he [was] yet there; and they fell before him on the ground. And Joseph said to them, What deed [is] this which ye have done? Know Ye not that such a man as I can indeed divine? And Judah said, What shall we say to my lord? what shall we speak? or how shall we clear ourselves? God hath found out the iniquity of thy servants: behold, we [are] my lord's bondmen, both we and [he] also in whose hand the cup is found. And he said, Far be it that I should do so! The man in whose hand the cup is found, he shall be my bondman; but as for you, go up in peace to your father” (vers. 1-17).

Severe as the trial was, love dictated it in the fear of God, though we may feel that the mode adopted was in no way what the N. T. would suggest to the Christian. Unfriendly eyes ignorantly misapply the light of Christ to such as had not that light as we have, to disparage the ancient scriptures, and set the one against the other. Joseph acted according to his measure, impaired no doubt by the Egyptian life which surrounded him; and scripture tells us the facts as they were, without sanction or apology. So it is even in the N. T. when the true light was already shining: the record is not a divine sanction. But the written word is always the truth of things, be it what it may; and this is what God alone gives; and it is what we need and can find nowhere else. And the steward knew well what his master intended.

How blessed for us, and to God's glory that we have the unfailing and ever holy wisdom of God in Christ! Here the unbeliever may spy as he pleases; his carping malevolence may assail or pervert. But the wisdom abides without a flaw. By-and-by He will be reigning in power; but when He too suffered as Joseph never did, His every word and way was God's wisdom for us. And so it is when accepted on high and in the highest glory, though it be not yet His promised glory on His own throne, but exalted exceptionally as Joseph was with Gentiles in immediate view, not Israel under Him as when He reigns according to the prophets. He is God's wisdom alike in heavenly glory as in earthly humiliation, as the later revelation of God abundantly proves to our joy and blessing.

His type Joseph was here to carry out the necessary probe for the clearance of all the past mischief, and the forming of a new heart and a new spirit, in his brethren. It was for God's sake and their sakes, rather than his own, that there might be the reality and the evidence of a divine work in their conscience and heart. This dictated the cup in Benjamin's sack. No doubt the shock of its discovery there acutely troubled to the brothers. But so it must be where sin of the deepest kind lay at the bottom of all; and this was but a, means that it might be duly felt and judged. After all, the pain of the means employed was very brief (not more than a few hours compared with what Joseph drank so deeply for years), and the same day followed with forgiveness and joy and tender love.

To reward the governor's good with such an evil as stealing his cup filled the brethren with all the more anguish that it was found with Benjamin. No wonder that they rent their clothes, and loaded every man his ass, and returned to the city heartbroken. And now more than ever they paid Joseph the fullest obeisance in unconscious accomplishment of his dreams, as they fell before him on the ground. In the latter half of the chapter we shall learn the depth of their renewed feeling for their father and their brother: the very issue which Joseph desired, as he on his part proved the reality and depth of his own love for all. But we need not say more now, as we have a pleading to hear which touched and delighted the heart of Joseph, as it has spoken to innumerable hearts since to our day. And what will it be when the type is fulfilled, and the Lord Himself appears to the Judah of the future day when they look on Him whom they pierced, and mourn as for an only son, every family apart, and the wives apart (Zech. 12)?

Divine Purposes in Human Suffering

At various times, and in diverse places, scripture presents suffering as fulfilling six separate purposes in divine economy.

In the case of the Egyptians, first of all, it is inflicted as punishment for sin—the oppression of Israel.

In the history of David again, we read the record that before he was afflicted he went astray; but that the result of suffering was his establishment in faithfulness to the word of God.

In Job is found the record of God's lovingkindness in His dealings with the patient Patriarch even from his earliest days (Job 31:18, amended). “He brought me up as a father, and guided me from my mother's womb,” and yet Job is brought to confess, in spite of all that God had been to him, “I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes.” His deliverance from himself is at length accomplished through his sufferings, and even more abundant blessing marks the close of his history.

In the story of the few interesting incidents in the life of the apostle Paul, he tells us with unmistakable plainness, that the thorn in the flesh was sent for the express purpose of preventing self-exaltation, and thus suffering wrought in the prevention of sin.

In Heb. 2:10 we read that the Captain of our salvation was made perfect through sufferings, sufferings that were preparation for His work and necessary concomitants thereof.

Finally, in some incidents in the life of the Philippians, we find suffering in the character of divine gift, or privilege. Christ's mystic body, like her all-glorious Head, is destined to suffering on earth preparatory to the everlasting reign of the Lord's Anointed, and so she suffers in those of her members endowed with the gracious gift.

Amongst the many good and perfect gifts bestowed by the bounty of our liberal giving God, this is the one less frequently imparted, perhaps, than all others—at least now-a-days. For though it be morally best of all, who covet this gift earnestly? and few there be who can exercise it to the great Giver's worthy praise. It is not the eloquent and persuasive tongue, that convinces the conscience, and touches the heart; which brings repentant sinners in living faith to God, and then builds them up in their most holy faith. It is not the outbreathing of the poetic soul in fine frenzy, kindling earnest thought into energetic action. It is not the genius of the painter quickening dull canvas into quivering, palpitating life and movement. It is not the sculptor's magic touch creating a loving soul in the chilly marble; nor is it the mysterious power in the great organizers of victory, that leads warrior hosts to heroic deeds of self-immolation; nor is it any other gift or might that wins world-wide renown and amplitude of fortune. No, indeed, it is none of these gifts, nor anything in the least degree resembling any of them. For they, upon whom the heavenly boon referred to is bestowed, get none of the rewards men love to lavish upon those whom they delight to honor.

But the poor sufferers for His dear sake, though their sufferings and themselves be alike unknown to their fellows, have already His approving smile consciously; and in due time they shall have His great reward—His who trod so valiantly the path they now pursue. For to all such is written, “Unto you it is given on the behalf of Christ not only to believe on Him, but also to suffer for His sake. Yea, “If we suffer, we shall also reign with Him.” The gracious gift of suffering is as distinct and specific a gift as that of healing, or of tongues, or any other of God's natural gifts that win honor and renown as well as more substantial rewards. But this gift transforms the blessed recipient more surely perhaps than all the others into resemblance to Himself, and is for this fellowship, the highest, greatest, noblest of them all. EMETH.

Either in Adam or in Christ? Part 1

I have thought, on weighing the request of some as to a paper on the great principles of our being dead and risen with Christ, that a review of the progressive character of the blessing, connected in scripture with it, might be profitable for all. I have not the expectation of satisfying myself in what I shall present; but, as my purpose is to follow scripture, I may be able perhaps, in the Lord's goodness, to help others.

There are three great points to consider as regards sin (and I speak and purpose speaking entirely in a practical way): sins actually committed, involving us in guilt as regards deeds done in the body; the principle of sin as a law in our members, sin in the flesh; and separation from God. But in this last respect there are two aspects—separation of heart, and judicial separation. Both must be remedied.

The root of all sin is not in the lusts in which it is so hatefully shown, but in having a will of our own, the departure of the will from God, the will to be independent, free to do our own will. “Who is lord over us?” When we do thus separate from God, we must have something; we cannot suffice to ourselves, and we sink into lusts—lusts in which our will works.

There is indeed another element which seems to me to have preceded both lust and will in man's fall, namely, distrust of God, which left him to the working of both.

Happy and confiding in God, he had no need to seek happiness in any other way; but Satan suggested to him that God had kept the forbidden fruit back from him, because, if he ate it, he would be as Elohim (God). Lust by this got entrance.

All this has to be remedied, and remedied according to the glory of God. Is that remedy a return to the old estate of man, a restoration or reestablishment of his original paradisiacal state? is it that which is new new, that is, as regards man? The answer is simple it is wholly new. It is blessing in the last Adam, who is the Lord from heaven. Man remains man, and the individual remains the individual; all their responsibility in their previous state is recognized, and the glory of God provided for and vindicated as to it; but the state and blessing into which they are brought, as brought to God, is a wholly new one. It is God's way of doing this, and what He has done, which we are now to inquire into, according to the true and blessed word of God, who only can reveal these things.

It may be well first to turn to the responsibility of man as such, though the thoughts and purposes of God preceded it all. But the revelation of them came after it, as we shall notice, with the Lord's help, farther on.

Responsibility attaches to every creature who is placed in intelligent relationship with God. Where-ever there is consciousness of such a relationship, there is obligation to God in it. It may be (1) in a holy nature, and obedience delighted in; (2) in an innocent one, and little else but thankfulness known, save so far as we know it was in Adam, as obedience may be tested by commandment; or (3) it may be in a state of sin, which does not alter the fact of relationship in which the fallen being stands, but his whole state is in such a relative place. The first is the condition of the elect angels preserved by God, so that they have not left their first estate. The second was Adam's state before his fall. We may stay a moment to, contemplate a state which passed away as if it were one intended only to give a lovely picture, that men might learn what it was, but incapable of lasting, the bright but peaceful freshness of morn for one who rises early to a busy and wearying day. Little is said of it, nothing of its joys. It was the true and real but transitory ushering in of that in which all moral truth has been brought out of a scene which results for faith in a head anointed with oil, and a cup running over, favor that is better than life, and dwelling in the house of Jehovah forever, our Father's house, but not in itself the green pastures and waters of quietness which are the natural effect of the hand and guidance of the Good Shepherd.

The knowledge of good and evil was not there. The enjoyment of a good conscience was not there in the exercises which keep it without offense; there could not be a bad conscience. The peaceful natural enjoyment of goodness was there, and no thought of evil disturbed it. God could be thanked and praised, His gifts enjoyed. Evil, sin, sorrow, conflict, passions, were unknown. It was a peaceful scene and a happy scene; occupation in what gave natural pleasure, innocent pleasure. They were set to dress the garden and keep it, and all was pleasant there; no want was there, nor would suggest itself. One only moral point bore another character, and tested willing subjection to God, namely, the ready acceptance of the divine will by a confiding soul. If man was to be a moral being at all, he must have obligation and responsibility somewhere: not in any object which supposed evil lusts, for he had none. It was obedience that was required; and simply obedience. What was forbidden would have been no sin, had it not been forbidden. It did not suppose sin in man; confidence in God would have made it easy, and a delight. A dutiful child assumes the goodness as well as the rightness of a command, and both, as well as the duty to obey. In fact, up to the temptation all went on in peace.

This was the difference of man's and Satan's sin. He abode not in the truth, for there was no truth in him. Man was tempted into the knowledge of good and evil. The destruction of confidence, as we have said, lets in will and lust. It was dreadful to belie God's goodness in the midst of blessing, and to trust one who could call it in question. All was really over then; for man was far away from God, had ceased to believe what He said—had ceased to believe Him good—alas! no uncommon case since. But will and lust brought in this transgression at once, when the heart was away from God, and trusted itself and Satan—the history of our hearts ever since. Man had departed from God, sin had come in, transgression, and (by the fall) conscience, or the knowledge of good and evil. Up to this, righteousness and holiness were unknown to man; they require the knowledge of good and evil. But thus the normal relationship of man with God had closed; his responsibility could not, for he was a creature, and God his Creator. Nor was that all. He had himself the knowledge of good and evil, or (to make it intelligible) of right and wrong. His responsibility had taken the form of conscience, and relationship to a God forsaken indeed, but known (so far better as conscience makes us know Him) as a Judge.

Into God's rest, Heb. 4 teaches us, man in creation never entered. Such natural peacefulness without combat, as he may then have had for a moment, cannot be on earth now. “There remaineth a rest for the people of God;” where nature, then a new and divine one, will have it in fullness of blessing in God's own presence. There all will be according to the nature we have, without a disturbing element, yea, according to God's own nature, when we enter into God's rest.

But on the fall sin and responsibility ran on together in the place into which man, who had fled from God, was drawn out by God; and the world as such began. But man was separated from God, though He overruled all things. That which God has wrought for us as regards this state, and the accomplishment of His own counsels in grace towards us, is this: perfectly meeting, according to His own righteous requirements, our state of sin connected with man's responsibility; closing, as to our standing before Him, our whole Adam life; laying a foundation, according to His own glory, for our being with Himself in that glory, in a new state altogether; giving us the life in which we can enjoy it; giving us the energy, revelations, and power of the Holy Ghost, by which, in this scene of combat and ruin, we may (through what He has given and done) be in relationship with Him according to the place He has set us in, and look forward to the glory; and finally, introducing us into the rest with and like Him, who being our title, is also our forerunner in glory—all in and through the second Man, the last Adam, the Lord Jesus Christ.

As to responsibility and its effects, I may be brief. The place in which man was set according to God, the only place he had according to Him, he has wholly lost. He had turned away from God in heart, had fled from Him, through his newly-acquired conscience, and has been driven out—that life and sin might not go on forever together in the world. Return was precluded. This state and standing was in itself that of one wholly lost. Man was away from God. Mercies might and surely did remain, but place and relationship were wholly gone. In the judgment on the author of the calamity a promise was given, not to Adam but on which faith might rest, that Another should arise, and, through His once suffering, totally destroy the power of him who had brought in the ruin. The Seed of the woman should bruise the serpent's head. This was simple promise and grace in another than Adam.

The two great principles of responsibility and life-giving had been set up in the garden. Man had failed in the first; and, having failed, was debarred in that state from perpetuating evil by the second. He could not be innocent and die. He could not be a sinner and allowed to live forever in the place of responsibility in wickedness. It would have been a horror. Return to innocence is in the nature of things impossible when good and evil are known.

But man was to be tested, having the knowledge of good and evil, and the pretension with it to be good and righteous. The result, though of all importance, I state rapidly, because it is surely familiar to most of your readers; and only, as necessary, do I recall it here.

Man has been tried, left to himself, though not without ample testimony and ground for faith. The earth was corrupt before God and filled with violence; and the judgment of God, in the deluge, closed a scene which had become intolerable in every way.

But the world, yet again, would not retain God in its knowledge, and, in its various national divisions, worshipped demons; for man must have some god.

God then began the distinct history of grace.

Promises were given to one called out, who became the spiritual, and to some, even natural, head of a race set apart to God: Abraham became the heir of the world. The great spring of hope being thus established, as the apostle reasons to the Galatians, the question of responsibility on the footing of revelation and special relationship was renewed: first, on the ground of requirement, man's obligations according to the true and perfect rule of them; secondly, on the ground of promise and grace.

The law was given by Moses. Israel, God's called and redeemed people, undertook to inherit the blessing on the footing of doing all that Jehovah said to them; and a just rule of outward relative conduct to God and their neighbor (and that, reaching to desire or coveting) was given to them. We know the result. The golden calf began, the Babylonish captivity closed, their path.

The second trial was on the ground of promise and grace, when Christ came and presented Himself in forgiving mercy and healing to Israel. It resulted in His rejection by His people; and they were finally cast off, to be restored only by sovereign grace, the grace of One faithful, at any rate, to His own promises. Isa. 40-48 treats of one; 49-57, of the other of these trials.

But this last proof of man's state went farther. It was really a trial of man as man. As regards the law, the blessed Lord brought out a deeper essence than the Ten Words—loving God with all our hearts, and our neighbor as ourselves; and, as regards grace, He was the goodness of God manifest in the flesh, the Light of men. It was not promise; it was the love of God—God present in love. But man's sin was thus fully brought out. For His love He had hatred. As God is love, He was hated, instead of loved with all the heart; as man, in gracious goodness and righteousness, they were His murderers instead of loving Him as themselves; they hated Him without a cause. This was too in full grace, Gentile wickedness being full, law-breaking in Israel already accomplished. But, though in the way to the Judge, they would not be reconciled; and man's heart was fully tested by God's goodness.

The cross was the distinct witness of Israel's and man's sin. The mind of the flesh, of what man was in himself, was enmity against God. It had been fully tried and tested, and that by goodness. Its evil and will were only more and more brought out. It was manifested in its will (pure evil in the presence of pure good), not only by sins, though these abounded, but by the principle of sin and hatred of God. Amiable creature qualities there might be; but enmity against God—self—was its root.

Was the flesh to be restored, or a new life and blessing to be brought in by Christianity? Is it the restoration of the first Adam, or salvation in and by the Last? Where is the place, the scene, in which the blessing is to have its result? To what does the life it is enjoyed in belong? To answer these questions we must look to the positive revelation of God, however that may be made good in the conscience when known.

I say, we must look to the purpose of God as revealed, to know fully what His mind as to this is. But we must look to the responsibility of man too; to the guilt under which he was lying as child of the first fallen Adam. For God's glory is affected by it.

I shall first call attention to the purpose of God Himself as revealed in Scripture. Eph. 3 (as other passages) speaks of a mystery hidden from ages and generations, hid in God. But it adds, that now the manifold wisdom of God is known by the church, “according to the eternal purpose which He purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord.” There was then a plan, before ever responsibility began, of glorifying God by the church in and with Jesus our Lord. This precedes responsibility, which begins with creature relationship, and was dependent on it. Creation was the sphere of responsibility. Purpose belonged to God.

Nor is this all. Paul's apostleship (Titus 1:2) was “in hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began.” So 2 Tim. 1:9: God “hath saved us, and called us with a holy calling, according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began, but is now made manifest by the appearing of our Savior Jesus Christ.” The life which we have as Christians, new in us, is in origin before the worlds. “God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son; he that hath the Son hath life” –that eternal life which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us. This present world and time is but the scene where all this is developed and brought to light. Thus in Eph. 3, “To the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by the church the manifold wisdom of God.” So in Titus, “But hath in due times manifested his word through preaching.” So in 2 Tim. 1:10, “But is now made manifest by the appearing of our Savior Jesus Christ, who hath abolished death, and hath brought life and incorruptibility to light through the gospel.”

It is not, remark here, that there is a predestination of individuals, important as this may be in its place, but that the church, eternal life, the promise of that life, our present saving and calling, had their place before the world existed. The life itself had, in the person of the blessed Son of God. And though from Adam individuals may have been, and were, quickened, they differed nothing from servants in their revealed standing. Life, the church, incorruptibility, our salvation and calling, have been brought to light and revealed, yea, as to the church, begin to exist since Christ came. But we must now inquire into the application of these truths, and how they are brought to bear on the child of Adam; how he has a part in the blessings contemplated in this purpose.

“The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us.” The blessed Son of God became Son of man, the last Adam, the Second Man. He came as man before God, born of a woman, as under the law (Gal. 4:4). In both He perfectly glorified God; walked as the obedient man, in the midst of temptation; and, as the law in the highest sense required, loved God with all His heart, and His neighbor as Himself. Victorious over Satan, as the first Adam had succumbed to him, He humbled Himself in obedience instead of seeking to exalt Himself by disobeying. In this God was perfectly glorified by man in Christ's person. Responsibility even in the most adverse circumstances, and every way put to the proof, was fully met; so that as man God had nothing to claim and found His delight. This was perfect as between Him and God, but redeemed no one. He abode alone, only so much the more perfect because He was, but still alone in it. As to His own perfectness, He could have had twelve legions of angels, but He did not come for that. Still this was an immense truth as to man and God and His glory. God had been perfectly glorified by a Man there, in the scene where He had been dishonored.

This in itself was of immense moment and to the glory of our blessed Lord. Not that this could be tested without His death, for the question was till then (not for faith but for fact), Will He be faithful in spite of everything? He was. His death threw back the light of absolute unmingled obedience on all His life from His birth on. He came to do God's will: His will was the spring of all Christ did; and if He had to learn what obedience was in this world of sin, where it had to be made good, He was, in spite of all suffering, obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. He was the blessed, gracious, perfect man but the obedient man, as Adam had been the disobedient one—the obedient One in the midst of all suffering and trials, as Adam was disobedient in the midst of blessing. (To be continued).

Either in Adam or in Christ? Part 2

As to this God had been glorified in man; but He was thinking too of all of us, of His glory in grace and purpose. He was going to bring many sons to glory. But these sons were found in sin, to guilty too in fact in every way. All that the first Adam produced hateful to God was thus to be removed; and where grace and God Himself had been revealed in Christ, it only, as we have seen, drew out hatred in man. Other questions arose, though questions connected with sin in one way or another: death which stood out against man; and as regards the Jews, there was the breach of the law and positive transgression; and in rejecting Christ, not only man's common sin, but the rejection and the loss of the promises in Messiah, the promised Seed. Messiah was cut off and (surely the only true translation) “had nothing.”

But we may now see what, in the substance and purpose of it, was the import of the cross. As regards the previous Adam state and its fruits, and (I may add) any special transgressions of Jews against law, it was by the deep and blessed work of atonement, the total putting away of all guilt for the believer, all the fruits of the old nature being blotted out and effaced—gone out of God's sight. So it proved the righteousness of God as passing over in forbearance the sins of Old Testament saints (Rom. 3), and sets the believer now, Jew or Gentile, righteously clear in God's sight before Him in peace—this as regards the sins of the old Adam, or, if a Jew, transgression also under law. They are gone. The work as to this had a double character: the blood sprinkled on the mercy-seat so that it should be presented to all, it was the righteousness of God towards all; and as the sins of His whole people, they were confessed and borne, so that there were none to impute.

This met responsibility as to the old man. As children of Adam we were under guilt in this place and condition. All is perfectly cleared; and we are before God white as snow, righteously owned as clear. But there was the tree as well as the fruit; the evil will, the lawlessness of nature Jew or Gentile—by nature the children of wrath. But Christ has died a sacrifice for sin. “What the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God, sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin [a sacrifice for sin, περὶ ἁμαρτίας] condemned sin in the flesh.” Sin in the flesh, the principle of evil working and producing sin in us, is condemned. I do not say sins are, but sin; but it is condemned when a sacrifice was made for it—when it was put away by Christ's sacrifice of Himself. It is not forgiven; we doubtless are, as to it. An evil principle cannot properly be forgiven; it is condemned, but put away judicially by atonement in the sight of God by Christ's sacrifice. All that constituted the old man in God's sight is put away wholly in Christ's death, and that judicially by a work which has glorified God as to it; it was what became Him

Thus far God has been glorified by Christ's perfect personal obedience as man, and by His work in atonement for sin. This work indeed for sin goes much farther. The whole new estate of the universe is founded on it. As remarked elsewhere, all God's dealings with this world are now on the ground that sin is there, and must be, because it is there. But Christ has wrought a work in virtue of which God's relationship with the world, the new heavens and the new earth, when all is accomplished, will be on the ground neither of innocence nor of sin, but of righteousness. He is the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin (not the sins—this He does not do, as falsely cited) of the world. But as to this object of Christ's death, that is, for man as a sinful child of Adam and sin in the flesh, this is not all. Christ not only died in consummation of ages (that is, when man's probation was fully gone through, as we have seen) to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself, but He died to sin. He, the sinless One, closed all His connection with the whole fallen Adamic scene and Adamic state of death. He, ever sinless in it, had come into this scene in grace, walked up and down in it, had been tempted in all points, and carried obedience on to death. He had thus done with the whole scene, and with the sin which He had to say to as long as He was here, though it had only proved at the end, as a result, that He knew no sin, that He lived as a man out of it and above it. Had He stopped short of death, that could not have been said, though now we can say so; we know He died to it.

Thus Christ was no longer connected with man in the state in which life in man was sin, though in Him sinless but tempted, and by temptation even to death proved sinless. Satan had tried to introduce sin into it in Him, but in vain; and now He died to it, ceased to be associated with man in that way absolutely by death. The estate of life in which He had thus to say to man ceased. He destroyed the power of death then, and annulled his power who had it, by undergoing the full extent of it, and rose into another condition of human life, in which man had never yet been at all, the firstfruits of those that slept. But the resurrection of Christ was not only divine power in life, and that in Christ Himself, who had authority to lay down life and authority to take it again; there was another truth in it. Divine righteousness was shown in it. He could not be holden by it, but all the Father's glory was involved in this resurrection. His person made it impossible He could be holden of it. His Father's glory, all that the Son was to Him, was concerned in His resurrection; but, He having perfectly glorified God in dying, and finished His Father's work, divine righteousness was involved in His resurrection. And He was raised and righteousness identified With a new state into which man in Him was brought; and more than that indeed, for more was justly due to Him—He was set in glory as man at the right hand of God.

But for this another thing was needed. Not only did the blessed Lord for us who believe meet all our sin as children of Adam by His death, so as to clear us according to the glory of God from it all in His sight, but He perfectly glorified God Himself in so doing. “Now is the Son of man glorified, and God is glorified in Him. If God be glorified in Him, God shall also glorify Him in Himself, and shall straightway glorify Him.” So John 17:4, 5. Hence, as stated in both these passages, man in the person of Christ entered into the glory of God. But it was wrought for us; our sin was put away by it. Christ, as having thus glorified all God is, is our righteousness. We become thus the righteousness of God in Him. We have a positive title to enter into that glory as regards righteousness, though owning it all to be grace (grace reigning through righteousness), and rejoice in hope of the glory of God, by the work and worth of Christ. “As He is, so are we in this world.” But this took place in Him as entering into—beginning in His person—a new place of human existence, a risen Man entered into glory. The power of eternal life was in it. Dead to the old scene and all that state of being and place and ground of relationship to God, He lives, in that He lives, to God. Christ has thus His perfect place of acceptance as Man with God, and we in Him. He is gone in the power of divine life, and according to divine righteousness, into divine glory.

A further truth connects itself with this. Christ risen and ascended has sent down the Holy Ghost which unites us to Him; so that we are in Him, members of His body, sitting in Him in heavenly places. Moreover, the Holy Ghost dwells in us. I will, with the Lord's help, take up this farther on, but only notice here, in connection with Our present subject, that the Holy Spirit makes us clearly know the efficacy of Christ's work and our redemption; so that we are at liberty, knowing on the one hand that our sins are put away, on the other that we are in Christ. He is the earnest of the glory, the Spirit of adoption, and sheds the love of God (who has done all this) abroad in our hearts. We know that we are in Christ, and Christ in us. Yea, we dwell in God, and God in us; and we know it. His presence is more than this; but I reserve this part for a moment to consider our place in Christ.

The double effect of the work of our Lord Jesus Christ will be noticed here. There was, we have seen, responsibility to God on one side as born of Adam in the world, and God's purpose on the other, to bring us to glory and privilege in the last Adam. Christ has perfectly met one for us, and entered Himself, consequent on the work of redemption into the other. He has glorified God as to the first Adam's state, but has died to it; not that He was ever in any of the sin of it, save as bearing it, but as with us here below as man, in like manner taking part of flesh and blood with the children in the likeness of sinful flesh, and made sin for us on the cross, when fully manifested as in that state knowing no sin. Now He is entered into the glory, the glory He had with the Father before the world was, as the last Adam according to the purpose of God as to man, and according to righteousness (John 16; 17).

Our state, our salvation, hangs on this: and we may add, the whole condition of the Jews or the fulfillment of promises on the earth. The sure mercies of David are based on and identified with the resurrection of the Lord, as surely as He died for that nation also.

The cross is for God's glory, our salvation, and our state before God; it is the turning-point of everything. First, our sins, and sin, are put away. All is clean gone in God's sight according to God's glory. But as alive and having our place in Christ, we see, and are in, Him as having died to that whole estate and condition, suffering as Son of man. The cross, as it showed man's rejection of Him as come into the world in grace, so it breaks in an absolute way (nothing so absolute as death to close our connection with what we lived in, and the rather as He was rejected in will by man) with all He was in as alive down here. Our guilt as responsible men has been perfectly met for God; but we have done too in Him as to our life and standing before God with all down here by the cross. We are baptized to His death. It is the point we come to—we are crucified with Christ, nevertheless we live, but not we, but Christ lives in us. We “are dead, and” our “life is hid with Christ in God;” we are to reckon ourselves dead. Hence we say with the apostle “When we were in the flesh.” We are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of Christ dwell in us; if not, we are none of His. If we are Christians, our only true standing is in Him, as having died and risen from the dead.

I can well understand a Christian knowing only that, as a sinner, as guilty, Christ has died for Him, and so seeing what he can rely on before God as judge; and he is blessedly right. But his true standing, his place with God, is in Christ risen. “If Christ be not risen, ye are yet in your sins;” and in this is for the Christian, as quickened, the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus, which makes him free. The standing and life of the Christian, as such, rests in this; for he is risen with Christ, in this place before God, not in Adam state or nature: Christ has died, the Just for the unjust, so that he is not for faith in that at all, but alive from the dead through Jesus Christ our Lord.

But, further, Christ has gone up on high, as man, into glory, and as His work was for us, righteousness must put us there. All beyond the cross is not thus meeting our responsibility, but bringing in God's purpose. The good pleasure of His will was to give us sonship with Christ, adoption and glory with Him. Yet this according to God must be in righteousness and holiness too. It is righteous, for God has been perfectly glorified in His whole being and nature by Christ on the cross. And we know the firstfruits of this in His being glorified (John 13; 17); but thus it becomes according to sovereign grace and purpose indeed, but righteous, that we should be in the glory with Him. It was free purpose, but now according to what God is, righteous, and according to His holiness too, for Christ is our life withal—not our sinful Adam one—a nature which cannot sin, for we are born of God. Thus the flesh is judged as entirely evil, and we are of God; and, through grace, according to righteousness, our standing is in Christ before Him.

The Holy Ghost the Comforter is therefore given us as soon as Christ went up on high; and thus we know not only that we are risen with Him, but that we are in Him and He in us. This sets our standing, and consciously so, through the Holy Ghost in Christ; sitting in heavenly places in Him, accepted in the Beloved: a blessed place; but this in purpose. Responsibility was there. It has been met according to God's full requirements. His resurrection is the witness of that, and so insisted on in Romans (not ascension there); so 1 Cor. 15:17. We are justified through His blood. But there was a value in Christ's work for God's own glory, His righteousness, majesty, love, truth, all He is and according to purpose. This, done for us (good and evil being known) and in the way of redemption, gives us a righteous and blessed place in perfect love in the presence of God and our Father, according to a life and nature, and in a place which Adam innocent had not at all. Our place in heaven is founded on the glorifying of God: Eph. 1 brings this fully out.

I may add collaterally that, through far inferior and national (yet divinely given) joys and promises, this is true of Israel—true, I mean, that the death of Christ has broken all relationship with God founded on flesh, or connected with their standing as heirs of promise as to it, though to secure them on a surer basis. He who was heir of the promises came, as a minister of the circumcision for the truth of God, to confirm the promises made to the fathers. But if Israel in the flesh was naturally heir to them, Jews by nature, He labored in vain, and spent His strength for naught and in vain. His people would have none of Him The bill of their divorcement ran thus: “Wherefore, when I came, was there no man? when I called, was there none to answer?” Often would He, the Jehovah of Israel, have gathered Jerusalem's children; and they would not. If they had but even now known, in the day of their visitation, the things that belonged to their peace I but now they were hid from their eyes. Not only was Israel thus shut out according to their title to the promise, but the Messiah must give up, as thus come in the flesh, all that belonged to Him as so come in the flesh, though His work was perfect and with His God. He was cut off, and had nothing (so only can Dan. 9:26 really be translated). But this, by the depth of the riches of the wisdom of God, brought Israel, like the Gentiles, under pure mercy, as the apostle teaches us in Rom. 11; and God, ever faithful to His promises, His gifts and calling without repentance on His part, accomplishes them, but in pure grace, and yet in righteousness, through Christ's dying for that nation; and the mercies of David are assured in His resurrection from the dead. They indeed will enjoy the blessings of the new covenant and all their promises down here, but through Christ's death, and based on His resurrection. But, as in a deeper and more absolute work in us, their blessings are given with the complete setting aside of all their old standing under the old covenant in flesh, and founded anew on the cross and the resurrection of Christ. But this by the bye. ( To be continued).

Either in Adam or in Christ? Part 3

I may add that what came on man by sin, death, as well as an awaiting judgment, Christ has truly gone down into, and broken its power for the quickened soul forever. Resurrection has told its tale, and the power of death as the dread of judgment is gone for the believer forever.

But this is not all. The Holy Ghost has been given to dwell in us, for we are cleansed. And as Christ has done that work which is the foundation of the eternal blessing of heaven and earth, so the Holy Ghost has been given to us to unite us with Christ and dwell in us, so as to set us, as in Him and He in us, in the center of the whole scene of His glory. This will be perfectly so in the ages to come. But even now, not only are we one with Him, according to Eph. 1, but the Holy Ghost is in us, and the apostle looks to our being strengthened with might by Him in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in our hearts by faith, that we may be rooted and grounded in love, and able to comprehend all the glory on every side, length and breadth and depth and height, and to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge, filled even to all the fullness of God. Thus it is we are a testimony. Thus it is that glory is to God in the church throughout all ages. Thus the way Christ the blessed Lord has perfectly glorified God Himself, on the cross in His death, brings us into that glory according to divine purpose in and with Him, and fills us with the Spirit, that we may be able to comprehend all the glory of which Christ is the center, and know the love which has made the glorious One bring us so into the center of all with Himself to whom all glory belongs (all things that the Father has are His, and we, His children, heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Him)—not only bring us with Him there, but, better yet, give us Himself, and with Him a place with Him in the Father's love.

The result is this: the whole standing, condition, or estate in life of the believer is changed, not outwardly as to the body yet, as is evident, but in relation to God, and that really by a new life. He is as completely out of the old as a man is out of the life of his former state when he has died; and now he looks to live with Christ who is risen; yea, in spirit as having partaken of life from Him when risen, he can say he is risen with Him. His place before God is in Christ risen, not in Adam in the flesh. But as he is there by the death and resurrection of Christ, he is there according to the value of what He has there wrought; that is, all his sins, all he was in the first Adam, atoned for and put away totally and wholly out of God's sight. He is fit, according to God's own work and nature, for God's sight and presence. Morally he is justified before God; and, as regards God's nature and presence, he must be fitted for it to be in it. And Christ has perfectly glorified God Himself.

Harmless, holy, in love we must be to be there. Hence in Eph. 1:4 it is not said “according to the good pleasure of His will.” We must be that according to God's nature. But here, as we have seen, we cannot leave out God's purpose, if we would know His mind about us. His good pleasure was to predestinate us to the adoption of sons, and bring us in glory as such into His presence. Such was the worth of Christ's death; so did He therein glorify God, that this purpose is righteously accomplished, and He becomes our life as risen that we may have this place, and He, in unspeakable goodness, be the Firstborn among many brethren.

But there is yet more. He in an especial way loved the church, and gave Himself for it; and thus it has a place with Himself as His body and His bride, which He nourishes and cherishes, as a man would his own flesh. By the Holy Ghost, consequently given to us, we know our place thus given to us, sonship in present consciousness, the bride's relationship in divinely given knowledge. For the former ( sonship) is individual, the latter clearly not. So far we learn what closely connects itself with it, that individually we know we are in Christ and Christ in us. But we are members of His body [of His flesh, and of His bones]. We are consciously in Him in the presence of God, holy and without blame before Him in love, and the Father's children by Him: “as He is, so are we in this world.” This, according to God's purpose, is justly founded on His perfectly glorifying God in His offering of Himself. This is our place with and before God, a perfect one as and in Christ: Eph. 1 brings it most richly before us.

This is privilege, not testimony, save as all privilege rightly so acts as to produce testimony. But, besides, Christ is in us; the Holy Ghost dwells in us individually and in the assembly. And here present joy, responsibility, and testimony come in. We have fellowship ( the blessed Lord being our life) with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ, that our joy may be full; we abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Ghost; the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost given to us. Yea, “we know that we dwell in God, and God in us, because He hath given us of His Spirit.”

Our responsibility depends on this too. It is often thought that responsibility is connected with uncertainty; but it is a mistake. Responsibility is founded on the relationship we are in. If we are always in it, we are responsible to act rightly in it. My child cannot be other than my child. Hence he is always bound to act and feel as my child. Were he not in the relation, he would not; and so of others. We are not to grieve the Holy Spirit of promise by which we are sealed to the day of redemption. Our bodies are the temples of the Holy Ghost; we are not to use them for sin. We are to walk worthily of the calling wherewith we are called, in the unity of the Spirit.

Hence, when the apostle has shown the church in that unity as the dwelling-place of God, and us all heirs of glory in our position in Christ, he prays according to the riches of that glory, that we may be strengthened with might by His Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in our hearts by faith. And thus God was to be glorified in the church by Christ Jesus—this by a power that works in us. This becomes thus testimony. So the church is a testimony to principalities and powers in heavenly places. So are we called on to mortify our members on earth; to apply the cross to all the workings of flesh in us and every movement of our will; to mortify by the Spirit the deeds of the body. And the result, as in Paul, of hearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus is that the life of Jesus might be manifested in our mortal body.

Thus our being in Christ is the highest possible place as to standing, and perfect. But God's dwelling in us, our being individually and collectively His habitation and temple, Christ's dwelling in our hearts by faith—here is the power of fellowship grounded on our standing. Here our responsibility, our state is tested, as compared with our standing, not to put this to doubt but to use it; here are the character, means, and way of our testimony.

We then are to reckon ourselves dead; we are not in the flesh at all, but in the Spirit; in Christ who has died, and justified us as to all we were in Adam, before God; alive to God through Him, and in Him members of His body. We are not to know ourselves as alive in the flesh, but as having died and risen again; not to know even Him after the flesh (that is, as down here connected with man and with Israel, as in the world) but as passed through death to all here, and by resurrection into glory and a new state, to begin and be the Head of a new creation, of which we are the firstfruits.

I do not pursue the consequences of this as to law, conflict, and other collateral subjects. My object was to lay the great basis of truth as to it, as Scripture states it. We must look at the atonement in all its truth to know it thoroughly. No compassionate remembrance of weakness was there, no patience with poor dust and ashes as we are. God had no need—it was not the time—to consider weakness, as if the spirits should fail before Him, and the souls which He had made. One was there who could drink the cup, made sin before Him; and all the outgoings of the divine nature against sin were let loose against sin, as such, on One able to sustain it, that sin might be put away out of God's sight according to His nature; and eternal blessing might be in righteousness before Him.

Our special place must then be sought in His purpose. The foundation in righteousness is according to His nature: not merely the putting away of the old thing, needed for God's glory as it was, rebellion, and disobedience, and sin; but Christ by glorifying God entering as man into (yea, beginning) the new thing, the fullness of which will be in eternity, and in that the First-begotten from the dead, the Head of the body, the church, and withal the Firstborn among many brethren conformed to the image of God's Son in glory.

The Lord make us to know how truly it is all new. If permitted, I may enter more specifically into the prayer of Eph. 3, and compare it with that of the first. For the present I confine myself to a skeleton of the whole subject. The reader will find the question of righteousness, and the essential character of the new thing through death and resurrection, treated of in the Epistle to the Romans; the purpose of God, our place in His presence in Christ and His dwelling in us to fill us with blessing, in Ephesians. Hence, as to doctrine, Romans does not go beyond resurrection; Ephesians goes to ascension and union. (Concluded).

Eternal Life

To avoid personality both lecturer and publisher are not named. But it is due to the Lord and His own to warn against what is calculated in this tract to deceive the simple. If it were an honest recantation of the recent error, all would hail it; but it is a crafty effort to adopt as far as possible the language of those who can say that Christians have life eternal now, while denying that they have it in any real sense, and confounding it with Christ's raising us up at the last day when its result is made good for the body. The late defender of this false doctrine was candid, compared with the new one; “It used to be commonly said, I know that I have got eternal life. Why? Because scripture says, He that believeth hath everlasting life.'“ Alas! no reason could be better, if there were living faith too. But that defender openly at least avowed his unbelief, and thought he had persuaded people to think that no believer has the thing itself but only a promise, not the thing promised. The present defender of the same unbelief laboriously tries to make people believe that they can say and unsay, and think this is upright instead of being a cheat.

He starts with saying, “You must never confound the Gospel of John with the Epistle;” but he is all wrong himself. For not only does the Epistle speak of the eternal and only-begotten Son like the Gospel, but the Gospel is throughout the unfolding of the Person become Man on earth; and the Epistle as truly as the Gospel, though briefly, as a divine Person with the Father before His incarnation. Again both Gospel and Epistle alike testify His present glorification. But as the Epistle followed the Gospel and supposes it known, so it even more subtly and beautifully identifies Christ with God, purposely passing from Him to God and from God to Him in a way which all false doctrine ignores, and which orthodox theology does not understand or enjoy.

As to confounding eternal life with everlasting existence, who does this but the grossly ignorant or heterodox men who talk of conditional immortality? Perhaps however those whom he addressed may have needed this elementary truth. Hence he turns to confounding the new birth with eternal life. But here he is again utterly wrong. The Lord did unfold life eternal in its Christian fullness as now revealed. It is a false inference that the O.T. saints in being born anew had not life in the Son, though they knew it not as we do, or ought to do. What is this life but eternal, as no one ever questioned till of late? Those must be ill-instructed indeed, who are “accustomed to think of life as only the vital spark.”

Our Lord Himself, in John's Gospel (6:35-40, 10:10) makes it certain that the use found here of John 5:24; 17:3, or any other text is mere human reasoning to oppose the truth, if “involves” means that the believer could not have life eternal till the new creation (4:9, 10). So does the Epistle refute the thought. He that ate of the living bread, that is, Himself incarnate, had life eternal; and if it were a work of the Spirit, he went on to eat His flesh and drink His blood (51-59), when he was also assured of having that life, instead of its being annexed to Christ's ascension (63) where it is not said, as there was no need to say it. But this system, if true, ought to have it exclusively there. Hence also the absurdity of saying, “'That which was from the beginning' supposes the first man set aside,” save in God's mind. It was Christ incarnate, before the work was done, or Himself the risen man in glory. Is it not impudent, and misleading for such a defender to speak thus, “you say you have eternal life: no one disputes it for a moment;” when he knows well, that this is the very truth which was not only disputed but denied? Alas! it is what one has seen before: when the truth is lost, untruthfulness follows; especially where the desire is to shirk a plain profession of what has been exposed and discredited.

Nevertheless this defender does here and often contradict his late leader. For he utterly denied eternal life as a present possession for any: it “is God's purpose for you” — “mine in title, but to say that I have it is another matter.” This is given up by the lecturer, who dares to say that “no one disputes for a moment” what exactly contradicted it. Think of another glaring contradiction. It was then taught that “eternal life refers to earth (!) I don't think we should talk about eternal life in heaven” (!!) with the wild talk about a sphere. Here on the contrary the change is complete, and heaven is insisted on as “the sphere, or home, of eternal life.”

In p. 10 the cloven foot appears. Even for the believer now to be born again is severed from life eternal, and has it not yet till redemption, and the Spirit's gift. It is quite true that no one is indwelt by the Spirit till he is by faith washed from his sins in Christ's blood. But to say that eternal life and the Holy Ghost go together is the system, and unscriptural. Where does Scripture couple them thus? In Scripture faith in Christ is associated with eternal life, and in the most immediate way” hath,” and not merely shall have. But the gift of the Spirit is consequent on faith in Christ's work, His blood or redemption, not on life eternal; for it is allowed that even John 4:14 looks on to the glorious result, whatever the intermediate joy.

Again, it seems a pity that one who used to be a fervent evangelist should, in setting up for a teacher, alas! be a false teacher, and extremely inconsistent too with the system he was supposed to defend. For the system ostensibly expounded, and never repudiated, was, that “there is a gulf between you and it [eternal life], and you have to pass over that gulf,” and again that “there is no truth in the assertion that eternal life was communicated this side of the bridge,” and that “the gift of the Holy Ghost” is what is communicated, not life eternal, but He the well of water springing up to eternal life. What wretched cloaking, and tinkering, and concealing the change in most important respects, while still pretending to be the same!

Take further the lecturer, with his “objective and subjective,” which he either misunderstands or misapplies. If we have life in the Son, it is not objective but subjective. It is our new being and a divine nature we never had before; and it is or ought to be in exercise throughout our life. “I am crucified with Christ, and no longer live I, but Christ liveth in me,” &c. This is not called life eternal as it was from Paul's pen; but it is what is so called by the apostle John, to whom this great truth was given to make known. It is also a mere blunder to say that the indwelling Spirit (and this is the question) is subjective; for though He has a subjective place like Christ even in life, He is regularly and truly revealed as a real objective Person, witnessing with our spirit, helping our infirmity, interceding for us according to God, guiding into all the truth, and thus glorifying Christ in every way as regards us.

The remarks on 1 John 5:13 seem only brought in apparently to support his leader, while on the contrary they really oppose. What then is the meaning of “it says so,” and in italics? The notion that “knowing” there is objective, as first conveyed to faith, is merely an error, whoever “said so.” It is on the contrary inward and conscious, which the apostle desired for the family of God. But the system, here revised and altered by its defender, denied any possible inward consciousness, because it did not allow but refused any real present possession for the soul.

So far one may hail a rent in this flag of unbelief, though totally without the candor to acknowledge its departure from the system. It is partial homage to the truth; yet its apparent design is to deceive the simple folk who think that there is no change. It is to be hoped that the lecturer is not so far gone as to follow his leader in holding that Christ became (instead of was) the Word, the Eternal Word; or that, in becoming man, He became an incomplete and imperfect man (if He had no soul), but had His personality in the divine Word or Son: Monotheistic heterodoxy without doubt and never yet purged out, but hidden leaven still at work.

Exodus: 3. Israel Made to Serve With Rigor

Exod. 1:8-14

So rapid an increase in the population of Israel did not fail to arouse the attention and the fears of the Egyptians, when the memory of Joseph and of his services had passed away.

“And there arose a new king over Egypt, who knew not Joseph. And he said to his people, Behold, the people of the children of Israel [are] more numerous and stronger than we. Come, let us deal wisely with them, lest they multiply, and it come to pass that, if war occur, they take side also with our enemies and fight against us, and go up out of the land. And they set over them task-masters to oppress them with their burdens. And they built store-cities for Pharaoh, Pithom and Raamses. But the more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and spread; and they were distressed because of the children of Israel. And the Egyptians made the children of Israel serve with rigor; and they embittered their life with hard labor in clay and bricks, and in all manner of service in the field: all their service with which they made them serve [was] with rigor.” (verses 8-14).

The wisdom of the world overreaches and defeats itself. It was bad policy for the Egyptians to live in idleness and luxury, and to leave their works of hard toil and skill as an oppressive burden on their servants. It was a good apprenticeship for those who were to be mighty as well as populous, and to possess the gate of their enemies. In any case the righteous Lord loves righteousness, and is indifferent to injustice nowhere, least of all when done to the family of “the friend of God.” None shall prosper who are unfair or cruel to his seed. “I will bless them that bless thee,” said Jehovah to Abram, “and curse him that curseth thee.”

In the present case it was a breach of the friendly understanding which set Israel and his sons in Goshen. There had never been hostility. The sons of Israel were in no way prisoners of war or captives in any way. They had given no reason for suspicion of seeking dominion over Egypt. They had never abandoned the hope of returning to Canaan as their land of promise. The burial of Jacob proclaimed this loudly; the unburied coffin of Joseph, still more loudly. Yet did the king who knew not Joseph dread the increasing number and strength of a people which served now as if due for a long while. Nor this only. Come, said he, let us deal wisely with them, lest they multiply, and it come to pass that, if war occur, they take side also with our enemies, and fight against us, and get them up out of the land. Was this in any degree just? And is an unjust policy “wise” in the long run, or in itself justifiable?

No doubt it is so that the kingdoms of the world have ever acted. God is not in their thoughts, even if He be on the lips of any. Selfishness reigns publicly as it governs individually. So it was increasingly when kings ruled over Israel and Judah with a slight exception. So it was when Babylon followed and the other world-kingdoms of Medo-Persia, Greece, and Rome: So it will not be when He comes whose right it is beyond every other ruler. But before that King reigns in righteousness and princes rule in judgment, a dark page of prophecy must be fulfilled not in blood only but in burning fuel for fire, and such overturning of things above and below as the world has never known. Out of that hurly-burly Israel shall emerge as Jehovah's people, His Son reigning in Zion, and they shall dwell in the land that He gave to His servant Jacob, when He shall have executed judgments on all those that despised or spoiled them near and far off, and they all shall know that He is Jehovah their God.

Meanwhile man's will had its way; as Israel built store-cities for Pharaoh, Pithom, and Raamses (or Rameses). But God's providence acted also; for the more the Egyptians afflicted the Israelites, the more these multiplied and spread. Therefore were their masters vexed with fear and horror, and hardship was added to their bondage. The Egyptians made the children of Israel serve with rigor; or as is so graphically described in the text, “they embittered their life with hard labor in clay and bricks, and in all their manner of labor in the field: all their labor with which they made them serve was with rigor.” It was quite different from the conditions of slavery once in the West Indies, and later still in the Southern States of America, where such malice was the exception, yet with a race never in honor but degraded grievously. But the face of Jehovah is against them that do evil, to cut off the remembrance of them from the earth, even in a day when the moral foundations are out of course. His eyes are upon the righteous, and His ears unto their cry. But the furnace became hotter still, and the divine intervention took a more definite and impressive shape.

Exodus: Introduction

There can hardly be a greater contrast than between the first book of Moses called Genesis, and the second called Exodus. For the former is the book of beginnings, and hence exhibits the most striking variety, so as to present the germs of almost all the truths or topics expounded in other books of scripture, creation, relationship with God and one with another, temptation and fall of man, revelation of grace and the enemy's defeat, sacrifice, and sonship in faith and without it, the world, &c. It is needless to pursue here what is manifest, and fully explained in its own place.

But in the abundance of Genesis one vast truth is not included, redemption. It is the characteristic subject which fills the book of Exodus: first, the evil and wretched state of God's people which called for it from God; second, the accomplishment of it, as far as the type went; and, third, the blessed consequence of it in God's dwelling in the midst of the redeemed.

In the earlier chapters we are told of the oppression which befell Israel at the hand of Egypt, ever harder as they grew and multiplied (1). God meets the faith of the parents of Moses, and preserves the life of the destined deliverer, when exposed, by the daughter of the king who was bent on their destruction. But even Moses must learn to wait on God for His time and way when his own energy proved abortive (2); yet even then faith is proved superior to providence, which gave what looking to God gave up. And Moses learned in the desert what the wisdom of Egypt could not teach. There appeared to him Jehovah's angel in a flame of fire out of the midst of the bramble bush, and announced His coming down through him to deliver His people out of Egypt (3). As distrustful now as before bold, Moses receives the signs of the serpent-rod, the leprous hand, and the river's water become blood as his signs of divine commission, with Aaron as mouthpiece, and gets Jethro's consent for his return to Egypt with his wife and sons (4). But Pharaoh vents his pride and unbelief in the rudest rejection of Jehovah's demand through His envoys; and the oppression is made cruelly heavier: no straw now, yet the tale of bricks undiminished, so that they were worse off than ever (5). On the remonstrance of Moses, the God-Almighty of the fathers reveals Himself by His covenant name of Jehovah to their sons, though they listened not through anguish; and Moses confesses his despair (6).

Pharaoh's obdurate heart was made harder still, and the plagues begin. Their boasted river and waters everywhere are turned into blood (7). The frogs emerge from the smitten waters and cover the land and their dwellings everywhere (8). But the respite given only hardens the king more. And Jehovah turns the dust under the staff of Moses into gnats on man and beast, so that the scribes own the finger of God; but Pharaoh still rebels. Then dog-flies sent everywhere save in Goshen become a yet plainer judgment, and Pharaoh yields for the moment, but hardened his heart when the pressure was withdrawn. Next was sent (9) the grievous murrain on Egypt's cattle, not on Goshen's; but Pharaoh's heart was stubborn, and he did not let the people go. Then the fearful murrain fell on man as well as cattle throughout Egypt, yet in vain. Next came such a grievous hail and lightening and thunder, as Egypt had never known, yet none befell Goshen. Pharaoh owned his wrong, but only for the moment. After this were sent locusts beyond precedent, so that Pharaoh's bondmen entreated, and himself called Moses and Aaron in haste to ask forgiveness. But darkness to be felt for three days in Egypt, while Israel had light in their dwellings followed his impenitence (10), and one more plague must come, the death of every firstborn of man and cattle (11) from Pharaoh to his meanest slave.

But this night of passover had quite another character for Israel. It was the foundation of their redemption through the blood of the lamb sprinkled on their two doorposts and the upper lintel. Within these they feasted on its body roast with fire and unleavened bread, eaten in haste with loins girt, sandals on feet, and staff in hand, on the month of Abib, once the seventh of the year, now the first of the sacred reckoning for Israel. It was an ordinance forever on the fourteenth day at evening, with a feast till the one and twentieth, which forbade leaven on peril of cutting off. At midnight Jehovah executed judgment on man and beast and the gods of Egypt; and a great cry arose, for there was not a house in which there was not one dead (12). And Pharaoh and the Egyptians rose to bid Israel depart, long since laden by the favor of their neighbors with raiment, and silver and gold utensils abundantly. Then most impressively did Jehovah lay it on Israel to remember that day of death for Egypt's firstborn, and therefore sacrificing to Him every firstling of males, breaking the ass's neck, unless ransomed with a lamb, and ransoming their own firstborn (13).

Yet God led His people about lest they should be discouraged; and Jehovah went before them in a pillar of cloud by day, and of fire by night, so that they could go day and night. Not even then did Pharaoh bend to God. Redemption would have its type of power in the final destruction of the foe, as well as by atoning blood which is the deepest for the soul before God. This was not for the Egyptians but for Israel. It was a question for sin before Him; and the lamb's blood alone secured him that was within the blood-sprinkled door. If they partook of a lamb's body, it, was eaten with bitter herbs and with unleavened bread. Self was judged. Repentance accompanied faith. Jehovah saw the blood, and passed over according to His estimate of its worth which is perfect for each, as ours could not be: we rest therefore on His value for it, which is the essence of faith.

Ex. 14 typifies not Christ's blood sprinkled for Jehovah's eye on the night of judgment, but His death and resurrection for the deliverance of the redeemed, who now sing of His salvation and the destruction of His foes. Thenceforward is the proper journey of His own across the desert for the mountain of His inheritance, the place that Jehovah has made His dwelling, who shall reign forever and ever, but guided already to the abode of His holiness, the fruit of redemption. Yet they prove the trials and the mercies of the way, three days without water, and the water, even when found, too bitter to drink; but the wood cast in by Jehovah's direction makes it sweet; and followed by the ample refreshment of twelve wells and seventy palm trees (15). In 16 the bread from above is shown to precede and mark the sabbath; as in 17 the living waters from the smitten rock strengthen for conflict with Amalek, wherein the victory depends on the uplifted hand of the mediator. Grace meets every fault, which at other times called for judgments. This closes in 18 with the picture of divine government which is only realized when Messiah reigns.

All changes in 19 where the people, heedless of such grace and confiding in their fidelity, accept the condition of law to their ruin, whilst its terrors begin with darkness, and lightning, thunder, trumpet, and the voice more terrible than all to the sinner. And God spoke His ten words (20), and set out His judgments (21-23) not without better things in type. Yet in 24 the legal covenant with death as the penalty was sealed with the sprinkled blood; and the elders ate and drank before Him. But Moses draws into higher access to see the pattern of the sanctuary, pledges too of the good things to come. After the heave-offering of the material, we have the ark with the mercy-seat prescribed, the table, and the lampstand, and their appurtenances in 25; the tabernacle itself with its curtains, loops and clasps, its coverings of goat's hair and of ram's skins, the boards too and the bars, with the veil of the innermost and the entrance curtain (26). But we may remark for our profit that 27 closes this portion with the great altar of burnt-offering and the court around it, and the command to bring oil for the lamps continually.

Then follows in 28-29 the order of consecration of the priesthood, Aaron and his sons; and only then in 30 the golden altar of incense figuring Christ in His sweet savor in the light of the Spirit manifested perpetually, and the people identified by redemption with it, though unable to enter the holiest as we can; and next the laver for purification if there was failure, the washing of water by the word; the holy anointing oil, and the fragrant drugs for the sanctuary. These were all associated with the priesthood for maintaining feeble man in accordance with His relationship to God; whereas the types preceding the order for consecrating the priesthood were to manifest God in Christ for man's blessing in the knowledge of Him.

In (31) we have Jehovah calling and qualifying men for the work; and the sabbath anew associated with it; and the tables of stone given to Moses. But who can adequately tell the horror of Israel's departure from God in (32) who the guilty weakness of Aaron, saint of Jehovah, or the anguish of Moses! The broken tables declare it, and the avenging sword of Levi's sons, and the intercession of Moses, willing to be blotted out for Israel. Nor will he let Him go (33) without His presence; as he had already pitched the tent outside the camp and called it the Tent of meeting whither every one that sought Jehovah went outside the camp. And Jehovah asked for fresh tables (34), and came down before Moses' face, revealing Himself as Jehovah governmentally in mercy and long-suffering but by no means clearing the guilty, under this mediation of Moses, and not under law simply as such. How much goodness was here added! Yet this is what 2 Cor. 3 treats as the ministry of death and condemnation! Privileges of divine goodness aggravate our guilt if we are under law, but cannot deliver us from its curse.

In 35 the sabbath is again enjoined; and the work goes forward in 36-39, till on the first day of the first month in 40 all is set up in order, and in every part of it, “and Moses did so; as Jehovah had commanded Moses.” The oil anointed it wholly. It was thus not only the fruit of redemption but in the power of the Holy Spirit, and in figure God's habitation.

Exodus: Israel in Egypt

Ex. 1:1-7

It was a wondrous act of grace when the God of glory called Abram in Ur of the Chaldees to Himself. The fathers of the chosen race no less than the accursed of Canaan then “served other gods:” a then new and destructive evil, striking directly at God's truth and honor, of which we never hear in scripture till after the deluge. In the early days of Seth, particularly from the birth of his son whom he called Enosh with a due sense of what man is now, frail and mortal, we know that people began to call on the name of Jehovah. Eminent among those who believed later were Enoch and Noah; but all these walked with God where they were. Their spirit was separate to Him whom they knew by His word and Spirit, and they looked onward in confiding hope for Him, the mysterious Seed of the woman who should crush the enemy of God and man. They, or some, called on Jehovah's name with a reality which a new nature alone gives.

But idolatry as an open affront to God could be met by nothing less than His call to open separation unto Himself, not only from the nearest ties of kin and nature but also from the providential order He had Himself lately set up in tongues, countries, and nations. His call was sovereign grace but imperative and paramount, with promises to an earthly seed and to a spiritual, only to be fully accomplished in Christ's day above and below. O how feebly realized meanwhile by faith!

As Abram went down into Egypt under natural pressure, so he was given to know in prophetic vision with a smoking furnace and a flaming fire, that his seed should be a sojourner in a land not theirs, and be in bondage and affliction four centuries, to emerge with great property and divine judgment on their oppressive masters, when the time approached to deal with Amorite iniquity (Gen. 15). Having come down under the prestige of Egypt's greatest governor and the warmest royal favor, Israel might have looked for nothing but ease and honor, settled as they were in the best of the land, in Goshen, the extreme province of Egypt toward the south frontier of Palestine. But spite of appearances Egypt in Jehovah's eyes betokened servitude and affliction; and so it came to pass when Joseph's bulwark no longer subsisted. The word of God abides, and cannot fail, whatever the weakness of man, or the pride of unbelief. For the mind of the flesh is enmity against God, and His word is the proof of His goodness toward man, and of counsels of grace and glory unfailing when man comes to the end of his folly and sin, and the divine judgment is proved as sure as is His grace.

“And these are the names of the sons of Israel who came into Egypt: with Jacob came they, the man and his household, Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah; Issachar, Zebulun, and Benjamin; Dan and Naphtali; Gad and Asher. And all the souls that came out of the loins of Jacob were seventy souls; and Joseph was in Egypt [already]. And Joseph died, and all his brethren, and all that generation. And the children of Israel were fruitful and swarmed and multiplied and became exceeding strong; and the land was filled with them” (vers. 1-7).

Egypt was the providential nursery provided for the chosen race whilst growing up from a great patriarchal family, the sons and sons' sons of one father, into a people for their destined inheritance. They were sheltered mercifully for a season, that they might grow all the more under adversity when it came, as it must, under man's antipathy to any who claimed relationship with the true God, not without dread as we shall soon find.

Let none deem it carping or unkind criticism, if I cite the words of so excellent a Christian as M. Henry in order to save souls from following him where he shows his utter ignorance of God's church, which he confounds, one while with the saints before or during or since Israel, and as here with Israel as such. This is to ignore all the N. T. light on what is found exclusively there, and impossible to exist alongside of Israel, which supposes the middle wall of partition to have God's sanction; whereas He took it down as an essential act for the being of the church, wherein is neither Jew nor Greek, but Christ is all and in all. The family of faith again was a fact throughout the world's history, and independent of it with increasing degrees of light from God. But the church of God was a wholly new thing, which only began with the Jew's rejection of the Christ, whom God raised and exalted to His right hand, and then and there gave Him to be Head over all things to the church which is His body.

Judge then the profound lack of intelligence in these words which open his Exposition of Exodus, “Moses..., having in the first book of his history preserved and transmitted the records of the church (!), while it existed in private families, comes in this second book to give us an account of its growth into a great nation (!!); and as the former furnishes us with the best Economics, so this with the best Politics.” It is not that other divines of any school are more reliable: they all agree in the display of the same misconception. Nor is it a question of an idea or a theory. The truth of the church is bound up with Christ's glory in heavenly places, and immediately acts on our judgment and our affections; because this is what God is now occupied with, along with the gospel sent to all the creation. Now we, without right understanding of our church relation and of God's revealed will as to it, cannot but drift helplessly from what is of the deepest importance to His glory and the blessing of all concerned. The misunderstanding is through the like Judaizing that was the earliest and widest spread of all the forms of unbelief with which the apostle Paul had his life-conflict. It is no less persistent and ensnaring to-day, blinding not a few of the excellent of the earth against our highest privileges.

Here we have exclusively the sons of Israel brought before us under circumstances favoring an extremely rapid increase to which ver. 7 directs our special attention. There is not the most distant allusion to the church throughout.

Exodus: Pharaoh's Malice and God's Blessing

We have seen from ver. 13 that it was not only a new king who regarded the rising strength of Israel with fear and jealousy: “the Egyptians made the sons of Israel serve with rigor, and embittered their lives with hard labor,” in town and country. It was not merely service but harsh bondage, as complete a contradiction to their original tenure of Goshen as could be.

The oppression became more cruel still, and stopped not short of plans of the most cowardly kind and in a crafty and perfidious way.

“And the king of Egypt spake to the Hebrew midwives, of whom the name of the one [was] Shiphrah, and the name of the other Puah; and he said, When ye do the office of a midwife [or, help in bearing] to the Hebrew women, and see [them] upon the birth-stool, if a son, then ye shall kill him; but if a daughter, then she shall live. But the midwives feared God, and did not as the king of Egypt commanded them, but saved the male-children alive. And the king of Egypt called the midwives, and said to them, Why have ye done this, and saved the male-children alive? And the midwives said to Pharaoh, Because the Hebrew women [are] not as the Egyptian women; for they are strong, and they have borne before the midwife cometh to them. And God dealt well with the midwives; and the people multiplied and became very strong. And it came to pass because the midwives feared God, that he made them houses. And Pharaoh charged all his people, saying, Every son that is born ye shall cast into the river, but every daughter ye shall save alive” (vers. 15-22).

Such an instance as this, and as Herod's in dread of Messiah's birth, could so exceed the ordinary evil ways of man as to remind one of the hidden wicked one, the old Serpent and the Devil, and his enmity to the woman's Seed from first to last of man's day; whose blindness becomes the deeper because he ignores the secret power that works behind the scenes of the world's sad history. How little its rulers, any more than its classes and masses, believe that he is the spring that actuates the sons of disobedience, slaves of a mightier rebel than themselves! For here is a conflict unceasing between the arch-enemy instigating to destruction the first man against the Second and those dear, to Him, till the last war whether above to clear the heavenly places (Rev. 12), or the earth enters for the displayed kingdom (Rev. 19), or the final judgment and eternity (Rev. 20; 21:1-8). All other wars generally are petty in comparison, springing from ambition, revenge, or other depraved lusts. We may except such as may have typified on a small scale those immensely momentous events for the deliverance of man and the creation from Satan's thralldom, for God's glory in His purpose of exalting the Christ and all that are His in the heavens and on the earth in the highest, largest, and richest way, and alas! too in the destructive punishment of all His enemies.

Here it is but a dastardly and diabolical effort to thwart what God was doing with the sons of Israel, even through the midwives for the male-children. But it was frustrated by the fear of God in the midwives, whom God established in their houses, as they refused the perfidy and the murder the wicked king commanded.

Faults and Forgetfulness Confessed

Gen. 41:9-14

The trouble of the king, the failure of the world's resources, the magicians of Egypt and its wise men summoned in vain, touched the chief-butler's conscience and recalled to his memory what he ought never to have forgotten. He who still lay unremembered of man in the dungeon had been years ago used of God, to interpret truly his dream and his fellow-prisoner's. The king's perplexity reminded him of their sadness before light from above came to his own immense relief and on his comrade's shameful end. Might not the same interpreter who so justly forecast the servants' future be enabled to help their king?

“And the chief-butler spoke to Pharaoh, saying, I remember my faults this day. Pharaoh was wroth with his servants, and put me in ward in the captain of the guard's house, me and the chief-baker. And we dreamed a dream in one night, I and he; we dreamed each man according to the interpretation of his dream. And [there was] with us a young man, a Hebrew, servant of the captain of the guard; and we told him, and he interpreted to us our dreams; to each man according to his dream he interpreted. And it came to pass, as he interpreted, so it was: me he restored to mine office, and him he hanged. Then Pharaoh sent and called Joseph, and they hastened his exit [made him run] out of the dungeon; and he shaved, and changed his raiment, and came in to Pharaoh” (vers. 9-14).

Here as ever, man's extremity is God's opportunity. The chief-butler forgot Joseph's service, so rare, opportune and unremunerated, which no money could have bought, which God alone could have enabled the blackened but blameless prisoner to render. Was it not inexcusable that the sure fulfillment of his own restoration to honor, and of his companions fatal degradation, awoke no speedy gratitude, not to say burning sense of justice, on behalf of the suffering prophet? But the patience of God is as instructive as His wisdom is reliable, and His love never fails. Who that weighs the fact can doubt, that, while man has every ground for humbling himself, God timed as well as wrought for the greatest good of His servant and for His own glory? Joseph was allowed still to endure grievous things, the chief-butler to confess his faults, the king to be as agitated as his imprisoned chamberlains, and Joseph to come forth in a luster incomparably brighter than through any possible rehearsal of his predictions in the dungeon.

It was the Egyptian monarch that was now at his wits' end, and full proof afforded that the nation's boasted wisdom was as unavailing for its troubled king, as their help would be in vain for Israel at a later day against the Assyrian.

Repentance, too, is for sinful man the necessary condition of blessing to the soul. It is God's goodness that leads to it, wholesome and steadying for him who really judges himself before Him and honestly owns it. “I remember my faults this day.” It was no mere terror of consequences that confessed how much he was to blame. “Pharaoh was wroth with his servants, and put me in ward in the captain of the guard's house, me and the chief-baker.” He hides nothing of his shame or danger; and he tells how they two had dreams the same night, and repeated them to the young Hebrew (their fellow-prisoner in the state prison), who interpreted them forthwith; as they were fulfilled with a markedly different issue to each and no less surprising than distinct and immediate: “Me he restored to mine office, and him he hanged.” The same God, who sent the dreams to the two Egyptian chamberlains, explained their prophetic bearing through Joseph, and accomplished them by Pharaoh in His providence.

No wonder that Pharaoh was so deeply moved as to send and call the long and deeply wronged prisoner from the dungeon to the royal presence. No wonder that the officials lost not a moment in bringing one of whom such good things were attested by the best possible witness to the king. Gates and guards, bars and bolts, must yield him up without delay. Yet would and must he come with due care and respect for the proprieties of the court. There was strong and sound ground to expect the light which not the king only but all the sages of Egypt craved the more to receive, after a testimony so weighty and energetic as they had heard from the chief-butler. How little any then could anticipate God's gracious wisdom, when he came in to Pharaoh, by his means, both to enlighten the anxious mind of the monarch, and to provide for the husbanding of the exceptional plenty about to come in, for aiding not only Egypt but those of other lands during the extreme dearth to follow But God meant, and not least of all, to rescue the blameless Israelite from the shame and punishment he never deserved, to raise him at once to a higher honor which was only his due; and to make him as wise, just, and pious an administrator as any king ever appointed, and any realm ever enjoyed. Of a design yet nearer to His affections, in caring for those He had separated to Himself, as witness for the true and living God against all strange gods, we need not speak now. This will appear self-evident from chap. 42 and onward, and, higher than all, as the fore-shadow He was giving of the Coming Anointed One, as to whom more remains to be said in its place; for God ever loves to speak of Him, if deaf and dead man may but hear and live.

Fragment: Service of Christ

O my brother, be ours to fill the little while separate from the world, and above fleshly ease in the devoted service of Christ. Nothing so good and happy now, and nothing so appreciated on high and through all eternity, unless it be the communion with Himself and the worship which accompany it.

The Friend of God

James 2:23.

“By faith Abraham, when he was tried offered up Isaac: and he that had received the promises offered up his only-begotten of whom it was said, In Isaac shall thy seed be called, accounting that God was able to raise him up even from the dead; from whence also he received him in a figure” (Heb. 11:17-19). The presence of sin in this world shows itself in its results and effects of dishonor to God, and of sorrow and toil for man all his days, with death at the end to be followed by judgment afterward. But it has given God occasion to reveal Himself in grace in the person of His beloved Son, not only with a view to the final restoring of all things by Jesus Christ now hidden in the heavens of which God has spoken by the prophets from the beginning, but also that the fruit of the Spirit and of faith might be fully developed in those who were once sinners, saved by grace and standing in righteousness of faith, approved of God in Christ. It is indeed wonderful that, after all man's sad history set before us in Old Testament scripture and now closed up at the cross, the righteousness which is of God by faith of Jesus Christ should be unto all (in presentation) while effective upon all them that believe. But God delights to conduct the believing soul, now accepted of Him, to far greater spiritual elevation than any to which unfallen man could ever have been advanced, and develops in him fruits of such excellence as would have been impossible in a world in which everything answered to the will of its Creator. It is good to notice then that righteousness which is of faith, and essential for subsistence before God, is first revealed in Gen. 15:6 in connection with the earliest and most elementary exercise of the principle of faith in the beginning of Abraham's pathway, while the apostle Paul in writing to the Romans and Galatians carefully maintains the same connection (Rom. 4:3, Gal. 3:6).

But James pleads with equal necessity as to the saints, and with equal wisdom as an inspired teacher, for the principle of justification by works, and refers to the latter and more fully matured example of faith quoted above, justifying his title of the “Friend of God,” referring indeed to the righteousness of faith as an already revealed principle. “And the scripture was fulfilled” (James 2:23). The title must have had its origin in connection with Gen. 22 and not Gen. 15. Had it been otherwise what confusion there would have been for our souls? The earlier scripture shows us our God can accept and justify a sinner that believes. The latter shows us what God can make of a justified man under His own special training. The great central doctrine of Paul's gospel has for its foundation in fact before God the death and resurrection of Christ, “delivered for our offenses and raised again for our justification.”

Gen. 22 sets before us in a figurative way the only-begotten Son of the Father in the full enjoyment of the Father's love, in the world the place of man's responsibility, and in His devoted obedience to the Father going far beyond all that could possibly have been required of man as such merely. He became obedient unto death. Righteousness, obedience, His love to the Father and His love to us, took Him into the very place where sin had brought us. Then came the intervention of divine power. He “was raised from among the dead by the glory of the Father” for the perfect display of righteousness in His present exalted position on the Father's throne. These blessed truths are (of necessity) but imperfectly shadowed forth in the type. Instead of the glorious ascent from the lowest parts of the earth to the Father's throne, there is angelic interposition that the hand of Abraham might be stayed, and what would otherwise have been an unfinished sacrifice, completed and accepted by that which God Himself had provided.

Instead of the revelation of accomplished righteousness in which every believer stands accepted, there Was the oath of God pointing Abraham still onward to Him who should be received (not in figure but actually) from the dead, in life, and glory, and blessing. Without doubt God had His own delight in all this. The thoughts of God were concerning His own beloved One: the divine counsels and plans could only be fully accomplished by one who could say, “Lo, I come to do thy will, O God.” But there is another side to this: it was in God's heart to bring blessing to man by the very One in whom He Himself shall be glorified. Just as Abraham was required to surrender Isaac through whom alone the promises already received could be made good; so would the godly in Israel when the Lord Jesus actually came to them have to give up an earthly Messiah that they might receive a heavenly Christ and for the time abandon all hope of earthly blessing and glory in display here, receiving instead the Holy Ghost who should bring heavenly things to their knowledge and communicate to their hearts all that concerned Christ risen and exalted in the heavens. It was not until the Spirit came that they were at all able to appreciate this change from earthly things to heavenly and from a Christ living and walking amongst them to Christ glorified and known only by faith. Hence the insistence upon this by the Spirit in this Epistle to the Hebrews, and especially in chap. 11.

The twelve apostles seemed to enter more readily into the spirit of their Master's teaching when they were first in His company, than at the close of His ministry when dullness and incapacity to understand characterized them. They were disinclined too; the cross and the separation which death would bring were most unwelcome to them. Compare John 1 with its rapturous confessions of faith in Him. “We have found Him” etc. with chapters 13-21. “Show us the Father.” “How, is it that thou wilt manifest Thyself unto us and not unto the world?” “Why cannot I follow Thee now,” etc. Abraham had honored God before by faith and obedience, he had been for a long time a fruit-bearing plant. But now as the result of the skilful pruning and purging of the divine husbandman (John 15:2), fruit of such exceeding excellence had been produced that God was glorified and man could be blessed.

The good olive tree (Rom. 11:24) was here seen at its best in its “fatness wherewith by me they honor God and man” Precious in itself as an example of faith, it was most applicable to the Hebrew saints partakers of a heavenly calling, and accentuates the contrast between the Jewish and Christian positions. The former is limited to earth; the latter connected with a Christ seen by faith in heaven itself, crowned with glory and honor; so that Isaac passes into the heavenly position typically to whom the Servant conducts the Bride chosen of the Father. G. S. B.

From Judaism to Christianity

We Gentile Christians, who have not been under the bonds of the law and have the N. T. Scriptures the key to the O. T., should consider how great is our privilege above the believing Jews in the early days of Christianity. They had only Moses and the prophets; and these did not reveal the great and wonderful change which would take place after the cutting off of the Messiah, the parenthesis between the sixty-ninth and the seventieth week of Daniel's prophecy (9:25-27), a few passing hints excepted which only shone out after the True Light came or rather when the Spirit led beyond what they could previously bear. That system ceased which had been ordained of God for Israel and had existed for fifteen centuries: “carnal ordinances,” which men could see with their natural eyes, and in which every soul of Israel might take a part. All that was now set aside by spiritual sacrifice and by the priesthood of every believer become a priest, Christ Himself in heaven being their great High Priest. It was no longer sights and sounds acting on the senses, but now eternal and unseen things discerned only by the eye of faith.

Hitherto Jerusalem had been the place wherein God had chosen to put His name; thither they were to bring their sacrifice and offerings, and there at the altar where He recorded His name He was to come and bless them (Ex. 20:24). But under the new order of things how great the change! Jerusalem is no longer the place where men worship truly. “The hour cometh,” said the Lord, “and now is when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth” (John 4:21-23). It is well to remember that these believers did not see this written till more than fifty years after Pentecost. Neither James, nor Peter, nor Paul when he at first comes on the scene, unfolds as yet such a truth so far as we know. The time had not arrived till a late day for Paul to tell them, “Let us go forth to him without the camp (the Jewish system) bearing his reproach.” This they were not yet prepared to do. Neither were they told till then, “We have an altar whereof they have no right to eat who serve the tabernacle” (Heb. 13). This last the saints in Jerusalem had been all doing, and continued to do till the Epistle to the Hebrews was written, more than thirty years after Pentecost.'

If we take these things into serious consideration, we shall the better understand how these saints could continue to follow Moses, “all zealous of the law,” for so many years after the cross. How many saints think that from the moment of the utterance of the Messiah's dying words “It is finished,” when “the vail of the temple was rent in twain,” there was an end, not merely in principle before God but in fact, of Judaism, material sacrifices, priests, temple, with all other legal ordinances? In Acts 6:7 we read of a great crowd of priests obeying the faith; and Christians who read it now jump to the conclusion that they then gave up all sacerdotal functions, because the Lord added them to the church. But this is premature; there is no ground to believe it, but that they continued their service in the sanctuary. How slow most of us find it to apply a principle so new, strange and deep!

If we pay attention to Heb. 8:13, we see that the first covenant which had ordinances of divine service and a worldly sanctuary “was becoming old and growing aged,” and thus ready to vanish away. Thus the Levitical regime had not yet disappeared; and it was made known to the Christian Jews only at the close, before the city and temple fell under public and divine judgment. A little later (viz. A.D. 70), Jerusalem was destroyed and not one stone left on another of the temple. Then Judaism finally passed away. Its death-blow had been given at the crucifixion. During this interval God patiently bore with the “untoward generation,” delivering out from among them “daily such as should be saved” (Acts 2:47). Up to this the Jewish saints continued to worship according to the law and the prophets; to which they superadded elementary Christian truth, putting the new wine into the old skins. “They continued with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house (or, at home)” (Acts 2:46). Here we see the two things going on together. Their old reverence and attachment to the temple was evidently retained.

We know with certainty that up to Acts 21:20, or some twenty-seven years after Pentecost, the many myriads (or ten thousands) who believed were all zealous for the law. Among these James who was “a pillar” at Jerusalem, and even Paul too who “had come with offerings and alms to his nation,” were not behind in deference to the Mosaic routine. It was at James' instigation that Paul agreed to prove his subjection to Moses, and that he did not, as had been calumniously reported, persuade the Jews who dwelt among the Gentiles to forsake Moses and the customs, and the circumcision of their children. Hence Paul went, with others who had a vow, into the temple, and, had he not been hindered, would have offered the offering which was ordained for the Nazarite. Clearly he had not learned the truths he was taught some years later after his arrest and first imprisonment.

But can it be that these many thousands of believing Jews who were all zealous for the law were guilty, when offering a lamb, of the terrible crime equivalent to “cutting off a dog's neck”? Or would any one of them in offering an oblation be as if he offered swine's blood” (Isa. 66:3)? No. This solely refers to the future day when the man of sin, Antichrist, sits there, and the temple is the scene of apostasy and defiance of Jehovah, and the temple is not owned but for judgment, and the sacrifices utterly abominable in His eyes. What has all this to do with the temple, where after Pentecost Peter and John used to go up statedly for prayer? Is it possible for God to permit of such adhesion if the old ritual was so evil in the Jewish saints, without raising a voice against continuance in it for so many years?

So far from it indeed, that long after His devoted servant Paul was in prison for what many call building again the things he had destroyed, the Lord comes to him to comfort him without uttering one word of rebuke for what the advice of James brought upon him “Be of good cheer, Paul,” says He, “for as thou hast testified of Me at Jerusalem (what was the testimony?), so must thou at Rome.” Peter had early a vision to direct him to go outside the Jewish fold and learn that “what God had cleansed” was not common nor unclean. His preaching in Acts 3 does not rise above the earth: blessings for Israel if they would repent, “when times of refreshing would come from the presence of the Lord.” Peter clearly had much to learn. Had the teaching of the Epistle to the Hebrews been given to the Jewish disciples in the early days of Christianity, they could not have continued on the old lines without being guilty of despising God's word and offending Him. How far it was agreeable to God or accepted, we cannot say; but if itself utterly offensive, it is unlike God to allow all the saints, apostles, prophets, etc., to continue sinning without remonstrance. We see what the consequence must have been if, after abandoning the shadows for the substance in coming to Christ, they fell away from Him and went back to the shadows. It would be “crucifying for themselves the Son of God and putting Him to shame” (Heb. 6). Up to this time the saints had evidently followed Moses, and, although believing in the Messiah, had failed to apprehend the results of His death, resurrection, and ascension. They had not profited by the Jewish elements as read in the heavenly light. The time had now arrived when they must “leave the word of the beginning of Christ, and go on to what belongs to full growth.” Theirs was a heavenly calling. Jerusalem was not, nor ever had been, the place for worshipping the Father, revealed by the Son. It was now their privilege to enter in spirit into the holiest where Christ had entered, as their great High Priest; into no figures of the true but heaven itself, the true tabernacle which the Lord pitched and not man. Thenceforth all the Jewish saints, like all believers, are invited to approach within the rent veil, having boldness to enter, in virtue of the eternal redemption which Christ obtained, having their hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience. Such a condition the blood of Jewish sacrifices never did nor could procure.

Blessed this was for those now by faith familiar with the old sacrifices, etc., to know them more than fulfilled in Christ. But one must perceive what of divinely given courage it required, added to faith, in order to turn away from that which was dearer than life to a godly Jew; established as it had been by Jehovah's judicial authority under which every transgression received a righteous retribution. No Gentile believer of this day in leaving any of the sects or human organizations, which never were of God but of man's device, can be compared with a Jew giving up what till then had God's sanction and command in all its details. It is plain that the believing Jews added Christianity to their Judaism; and most patiently did God deal with them.

But it is no less plain with what warmth Paul writes to the Gentile Galatians who were adding the law to Christianity. How scathing are his words! “O senseless Galatians, who bewitched you?” etc. (3:1). “Whosoever of you are justified by the law, ye have fallen from grace” (v. 4). “If ye be circumcised Christ shall profit you nothing” (2). They were also observing Jewish festival-days and months and times and years. To Gentiles they were beggarly elements (4:9), a return in principle to idolatry from which they had been delivered.

But Christendom, not satisfied with Jewish festivals, has added to its calendar many pagan festivals with Christian names and so-called saints-days, some of them of reprobate character, like St. George of merry England, merry in being patronized by a scoundrel after his death a saint! Can we close our eyes to the manifest increase of ritualism everywhere? Rome has spread the leaven in almost every section wherever the Lord's name is named. “A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump,” as Paul told the Judaized Galatians (v. 2). Christendom is advancing far and fast in this evil direction. The end we read in Rev. 14; 15; 17; 18, as well as in 2 Thess. 2. God calls, as He has called long, His people to come out of her, lest they partake of her sins, and so receive of her plagues (Rev. 18:4). We may and must be accused by the old serpent; but we ought not to be deceived, as the whole world will be. J. S. F. C.

Brief Words on Genesis 22:1-14

The well-known saying of the famous Bishop of Hippo, that in the O. T. the New is latent, while in the N. T. the Old is patent, has no more striking justification than in this familiar chapter, which has an interest far beyond what attaches to the personal exercises of Abraham. Not but what the trial of the patriarch's faith is both most important in its place and most valuable for our instruction. But, as every believer knows, we have here a divinely drawn picture of the Atonement. What does it matter that the incident took place some two thousand years before Christ, but that it enhances the overwhelming proof that the writer was inspired by the Spirit of God?

But before attempting to look at the story in its typical aspect, let us try to note a few points in the narrative itself. God tried Abraham, as He ever does those who are truly sons (Heb. 12:8). And mark that God graciously tested His servant in such a way as to make prominent the very characteristic with which he was best equipped. He was very strong in faith; and God puts him to a supreme test. So I suppose that if any be marked by love, or grace, or wisdom, etc., the Lord will sometimes give such the opportunity of sealing, so to speak, their possession of such “fruit of the Spirit” by some special exhibition of them in circumstances naturally calculated to make manifest our human limitations. At any rate here we see Abraham strengthened to surrender even his well-beloved son at the call of God.

Next note how responsive Abraham is. God calls, and at once comes the reply, “Here am I.” Then consider how all that would make the demand still more terrible to nature is emphasized, not minimized: “Thy son, thine only son, whom thou lovest.” Such minute traces have we of the Divine knowledge, and the Divine interest. Nor is anything left to Abraham's choice in the matter of locality. The sacrifice was to be on one of the mountains that God would tell him of. So must it ever be. In the service of the Lord all must be ordered by Himself, and in accordance with His will. Accordingly Abraham goes to the place of which God had told him. He did not, like Jonah, go west when told to go east, though the task laid upon him, being so personal, must have been far harder. Nor was it a brief trial—a matter of moments or even minutes. It was not till the third day that Abraham saw the place afar off. Imagine the deep exercise of the father's spirit during those solemn days. Yet we note the serene confidence with which he answers Isaac, who naturally wondered where the lamb for the sacrifice was to come from, and won the response, “My son, God will provide Himself a lamb for a burnt-offering” —prophetic words indeed, and that doubly so, with far off pathetic promise of Calvary. How much Abraham saw of hidden meaning in his own words we know not—perhaps nothing—but it is surely there, even if he thought only of an immediate succor.

And now Isaac's eyes must have been opened to the imminence of the offering, when, the last initiatory rites having been performed, he lay bound upon the altar. We know how in the dread moment God appeared, and arrested that obedient hand. We know too how the father's faith was crowned, and the living Isaac unbound. Thus was Abraham bidden to spare his son by Him who spared not His own Son. No ram was found in the thicket in the stead of the blessed Lord. No Barabbas might take the place of the true Son of the Father.

And now let us briefly note one or two more details that clearly point to the great mystery (I use the word in the scriptural sense of revelation) of redemption. We read that “they went both of them together,” and this statement, twice recorded, most significantly suggests that wondrous understanding between the Father and the Son in the blessed Trinity, between both of whom was the counsel of peace, as we read in Zechariah (vi. 13). Again in the words “I and the lad,” as we read in an earlier verse, it is not fanciful to see another indication of the perfect accord between the Father and the Son. It is a picture truly; but when the light of the N. T. is thrown upon it, how luminous it stands out in every detail as pointing to the work of our Lord, even, as we have seen, emphasizing the common purpose that actuated the three Persons of the Godhead. Our great poet Milton recognized this in the words he puts into the mouth of God the Father in reply to the pleadings of the Son, (“All Thy request was My decree"); and, though it is possible to read into these words an Arian twist, at least if we are aware of the poet's doctrinal proclivities, yet it shows us how all thoughtful believers must recognize the immense share that God the Father takes in the salvation of mankind. It was the Father who sent the Son, (what must it have cost Him to deliver Him up for us all?) and if Abraham felt so keenly in the case of his son, who yet, he had confidence would be restored to him, what, we may reverently say, must it have been to God not to spare His only Son? We cannot make too much of the Savior; His indeed was the humiliation and the suffering, if we do need to be reminded of the love of God the Father. Truly we do not honor the Father least when we honor the Son; but the Father seeketh worshippers, and sometimes He only gets our prayers.

Thus briefly and inadequately has it been attempted to say a few words on this peculiarly interesting chapter.

The chapter was brought more immediately to the mind by recently reading that it is among those portions of the Bible that a Canon of the Church of England, who is starting an unhallowed Index Expurgatorius, would exclude from the “lessons”! How true it is that, when we pronounce a judgment, we virtually are judged. Could blindness and daring go farther? And what would this blind leader say of the Epistle to the Hebrews, in which Abraham's wonderful faith is singled out for emphatic eulogy? May such unholy handling of God's word give pause to some who are ready to go a certain way with the destructive critics. Happily there are many thousands in his communion to whom the Canon's words will have given deep pain. R. B.

God the Father Manifested and Glorified (Duplicate)

The more we search into the words of Jesus, the more we see how entirely it is a new thing that He sets up on the ground of the redemption He accomplished.

“I have glorified thee upon the earth, I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do; and now, O Father, glorify thou me.” While the divine nature of the Lord Jesus shines out upon every page of this Gospel, not only doctrinally but in a thousand things when the eye is opened to see it, yet He never goes out of His place as man, the place He had taken in order to fulfill the Father's will. It was the very thing Satan wanted Him to do. He tried in the wilderness to make Him leave it when he said, “Command that these stones be made bread”: act from your own will, do not stay in the place of a servant. But the Lord would not listen for a moment, and says, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God.” He had taken the place of a servant; and, being in that place, He never went out and never will go out of it. Therefore He does not say, “Now I will glorify myself,” but, “glorify thou me;” yet it was “with the glory I had with thee before the world was.” Thus, while we see His title to the divine place, at the same time He never goes out of the place of lowliness and humiliation. He could speak of “the Son of man which is in heaven,” and yet walk about the earth as one that served. He came down to death, but He “gave up” His spirit. God was shining through the humanity of Jesus; and it is the joy and blessedness of the saint who has eyes to see (for He came in a shape in which I can see it), that he was down here a Man amongst men, but it is God whom I see there! God's power was manifested in creation; but we see nothing of His heart there. But when God is manifest in the flesh, we find all His perfect grace and goodness. There are both sides, and if one lose either, he loses everything. If He is only a Man, blessed grace and beauty are seen in Him; but I have really a Man who is so much better than myself that He could have nothing to say to me. If He is only God, a little bit of His glory terrifies me. But we have divine love serving; and the more we contemplate it, the more blessed we shall be. There is another thing. We cannot enjoy aright the bread of God, the true Manna come down from heaven, unless we first eat His flesh and drink His blood—unless we come by His death. We may be attracted by His grace, the Spirit showing it and drawing the heart, as with the boor woman who was a sinner: the grace that was in Him attracted her heart, and she goes into the house.

She had seen divine goodness and love so completely above all the evil in love and holiness, that He could bend down to all the evil (not allowing it of course). What a revelation of God we have in the Lord Jesus! He comes down to us where we are in our sins, but that would be nothing if it were not He who comes down. For I should say, “I have seen blessedness and holiness; but I cannot stand before it.” We must remember that love never gave up holiness; but there was His blessed testimony to a love which never gave them up, and could bend down to sinners and come to them; “for God commendeth his love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us.” He never says, “Come unto me” until He had come in perfect grace and holiness to them. But the moment He had thus come, He presents a blessed Object to attract the heart: the blessed Son of God come down to the place of sinners and of sin; and there is nothing like this and never will be! It is the one thing in which everything centers; all the purposes and counsels of God made good in that “I have glorified thee upon the earth, I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do.” The Son of God is exalted in consequence of what He has done. He has finished the work and glorified God as He never could have been glorified except for sin. This may sound strange: but what was in the heart of God never could have been shown out in any other way, as it has been shown at the cross. He displayed His power in creation; but when I come to the case of sinners, all that God is in goodness, grace, and patience comes out as it could not have done with an innocent man. All that is most blessed is unfolded when good and evil come out, and that to a meeting-point. Satan's and man's hatred found its complete utterance; it was shown in a fully complete way in the rejection of the blessed Son of God come in love. Every possible detail in which evil could be—proud treachery, base abandonment where love had been, injustice in the judge who should have defended the innocent, the priest (who should have pleaded for weakness) pleading against Him—everything man ought not to be was shown out then, man's enmity definitely proved when God was there in love, and in the perfect manifestation of what man ought to be in obedience.

All that God was in love met all that man was in evil, when Christ was made sin for us. It is clear that creation could not thus glorify God. What has creation to do with sin, except that it has been spoiled by it?

Sin having come in, God was dishonored in the creature of His delight; and the blessed Lord who had God's glory perfectly at heart puts Himself forward, is made sin for us, and the righteous judgment of God goes out against sin.

God was there manifesting such unspeakable love as could not have been manifested except for sin, and at the same time fully establishing His righteousness and glory. The cross was the pivot on which turned all that went on in the counsels of God before, and all that will be in the new heavens and new earth hereafter.

We cannot sit and contemplate the blessedness of the life of Christ unless we first come in by the death of Christ. Am I not a sinner? And do I sit down and say I am competent to estimate all that beauty and blessedness? What! with my stupidly debased mind? No, if I come in truth, I must come as a sinner; and then I find the grace that suits a sinner. I must meet Him in the grace that meets my need; or I must meet Him in His glory when He comes to take vengeance on them that know not God.

But when gone into the holiest of all through the rent veil, then I can turn on God's side of the cross, and look back at all that it was to Him, and all that His life was in leading up to it; and thus I can eat the manna after I have eaten the flesh and drunk the blood. It is impossible that a sinner can come with a divine mind, and meditate upon all His perfect divine life upon earth unless He first comes through the cross. There is no truth else. How can I talk about contemplating God till I know His mercy? But I go in through the veil and am at peace, perfectly reconciled to God, not a question about me left, not with the spirit of bondage, but with the Spirit of adoption. I know that He has said, “I go to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.” Then, being at perfect peace, sitting in the heavenlies by the counsels of divine love, I can turn back and look at what that offering was by which I have come, and see its intrinsic value. It is of infinite value! He could say “Therefore doth my Father love me.” All our thoughts are poverty itself; but there is that aspect to the soul by which I can sit down and adore and worship.

This is a far higher thing than eating the flesh and blood. When I come as a sinner to the cross, as I must, what is the ground on which I come? My sins.

A young Christian has got forgiveness and he is full of his happiness; he is thinking about himself. No one can come in any other way, I would most strongly insist upon that; the first thing is to get washed. But we may see the character of what is meant in a very simple way. For coming about his own sins, he measures the grace and goodness, and the comfort and blessing, by the fact that Christ has met all those sins. But when I have come and am in perfect rest, then I can sit down and eat Him, eat that Bread come down from heaven—what I shall eat forever and ever! It is blessed to see in the sacrifices how this is always kept in view. In the peace-offering the fat was burned; it was Jehovah's part. The priests (all Christians) eat the flesh of the sacrifice, and the people who were invited eat it; that is, they entered into the blessedness that it was to God.

We get in these sacrifices the difference brought out. In the sin-offering, something wrong had been done; and they had to bring their offering; but it was not a sweet savor. The blood was carried within the veil; but the beast was burned without the camp.

The burnt offering was not for sin, and yet it would not have been there except on account of sin; Christ offered Himself without spot to God, and by the grace of God He tasted death for every man.

Note here, the sin and trespass offerings are directly in connection with our responsibility. He has borne the sins which we have committed; but then there is another thing—not only what we have done, but that our hearts should also feel where we were. Not only, “What hast thou done?” but as God said to Adam, “Where art thou?” Where was he? Away from God, and getting further away from Him if he could! This is the dreadful thing. He had sinned; but it was far more to be away from God, “without God in the world;” and “there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth” at the end. That is what man is.

We are not in paradise; and where are we? The first grand evidence of wickedness in Cain was that he did not know he was away from God. He was so utterly far from God that he never found it out! He had not the sense that he was totally away from God; he thought he could go and worship Him, and offer the fruit of his toil as if nothing had happened; but he did not enter one atom into the thoughts of God.

It is a picture not of the open rejection of God in an outward way, but of the utter dreadful insensibility of the human heart as to where we are. Abel recognized that he was outside; and that Another must make atonement. He owned where he was. The one came as if there was nothing the matter, nothing gone wrong; the other recognized that he must have an atonement, or he could not come to God at all.

The condition of man was definitely brought out at the cross of Christ: “If one died for all, then were all dead,” dead in trespasses and sins; and if so, there must be a new creation. “The Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the world.”

The first man is cast out of paradise and he is insensible; but we have Christ, the second Man, brought into a far better Paradise, and we are brought in with Him. “To-day shalt thou be with me in Paradise.” The second Man is brought into it; and we are made one with Christ—members of His body.

When looking at the wondrous glory of the church of God, if we would have these blessed truths really and solidly in our hearts, we must get thoroughly hold of the foundation. If I can look up, and say, It is all mine, an heir of God and a joint-heir with Christ, a member of His body—that I am given to enter into the joy of my Lord, that when He shall appear I shall be like Him—to enable us to hold the reality of these blessings, not only as scriptural statements, but healthily in the soul, we must enter into the truth of Christ having gone in grace where we were; and then we learn it could not have been otherwise.

When I behold the blessed Son of God going down as man into death, then I see that glory is the natural consequence. I do not get this till I believe His bearing our sins in His own body on the tree. This makes it not a mere matter of head knowledge, but one which calls forth the adoration of our hearts.

I believe that God made Him sin, and that He gave Himself for it; and then I find another thing full of awe: He drank the cup of wrath due to me. I find Him going down into the place where there was no patience! God has patience towards us; He is long-suffering towards us; but with Christ made sin there was no long-suffering, no patience.

He was made sin: no hiding or covering up of sin there. Christ brought it right into the very presence of God who was dealing with sin; and His cry upon the cross was, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”

In Psa. 22 He speaks of all the external troubles; but then He says, “Be not thou far from me” —the very thing He was! There and then we find Him taking this place, bearing our sins. But now look at the other side: “Now is the Son of man glorified.” It was in man that all the glory of God was made good, not merely the putting away of sin that we should not be judged, but the ground laid, according to the glory of God, for man to be in the glory of God—a totally new thing!

It does not follow in itself that I must be in the glory because I am forgiven. But here I find the blessed Son of God takes this place before God as man, tasting death, offering Himself without spot. The One who knew no sin presents Himself, the spotless Lamb of God, not only to bear my sins, but to put away sin, and thus to glorify God. How wonderful that in man this should be done!

Everything that God is was in question. Yet He does not say, “I have borne the sins of my disciples,” but “I have glorified thee.”

How could God have glory where sin was, where everything was corrupt, and Satan had got the upper hand? Christ puts Himself there, and takes all the sin and all its consequences; thus He glorifies God. And now all the counsels of God can be accomplished, and Christ takes the glory as the fruit of His work. “I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do. And now, O Father, glorify thou me.”

We see His perfect life through the testing of God in the meal-offering, and nothing but a sweet savor comes forth. But when we look at the burnt-offering, death is there. Christ comes in and glorifies God in the place of sin and death; and then we see death destroyed, the power of Satan broken, judgment gone, and, as the result of this, Man takes His place with God!

The first man, once innocent, brought in sin, failed in every way, was conquered by Satan, and dishonored God. But before judgment comes, the second Man brings the triumph of Satan to a close. He comes here, and in that very place was made sin, when all that was in God was perfectly glorified in that place of sin and death and judgment. And now all the counsels of God come out, which could not have been before.

God had been dealing with man on the ground of his responsibility. The more we look, the more we see God setting man up in goodness and uprightness, and man always failing. Adam ate the forbidden fruit; Noah, brought out into the new earth, got drunk; Israel worshipped the golden calf; the priests offered strange fire on the first day of their office; Solomon loved strange women; Nebuchadnezzar, when government was committed to him, exalts himself and casts the three young men into the fiery furnace. The first thing which man does with that which God gives him is always to spoil it. It was the same thing with the church also: “all seek their own, not the things which are Jesus Christ's.” This is what we find man is! But One Man comes and in the very place where all this was true, and ripened out to its full extent of evil, He was made sin who knew no sin. He stands before God in that character: all is dealt with; and a foundation is laid which nothing can shake!

It is a precious thing to have some little sense of what Christ was doing: fathom it of course we never can. Not only are my sins effaced, but Christ had God's glory perfectly at heart; and now this is fully established, it comes out that what God had at heart, before the foundation of the world, was to have man with Himself in glory. His delight was with the sons of men; and what does He do? He puts them in the same place as His own Son: they are sons too, and they have the glory with Him. He has finished the work and gone into the glory; and this gives the Christian's place.

He will come again in glory, and we have complete association with Him, “We rejoice in hope of the glory of God.”

“If God be glorified in him, God shall also glorify him in himself, and shall straightway glorify him.” It is the next thing. He will not wait till the kingdom is set up. The disciples saw His glory on the Mount; but they did not see inside the cloud from whence came the Father's voice.

The union of the church with Christ was never revealed until the foundation was laid; and then God says, “I am able to do this in virtue of what Christ has done, and I will have you perfectly with Myself.”

Christ was not merely the sin-offering but a whole burnt-offering, in order that God might be perfectly glorified. The Man who has done this is in the glory; and such is the way I get in!

“I have manifested thy name unto the men whom thou gavest me.” The whole of this chapter speaks of the Father's name. It is not the Almighty, Jehovah, Most High as He will be known in: millennium, “most high God, possessor of heaven and earth;” but it is the Father, putting us in the place of sons.

People very little realize this when they talk of “our Father,” and say, “Thy kingdom come.” What is the Father's kingdom? People do not notice words. It is astonishing how our wretched hearts glide over scripture as if it were ice.

He is Almighty, but this name does not save. He is Jehovah, but this name does not save. But if the Father sent the Son, it is that we might live through Him; and that He might be the propitiation for our sins; that the world through Him might be saved. This is salvation, also eternal life; and the Holy Ghost is given in virtue of the precious blood of Christ, giving us association with Himself, making us sons as Christ is a Son: we are “heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ.”

He says, “I have manifested thy name.” We find He had been doing this throughout this Gospel. “The only begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him;” but they as yet dull and ignorant, not having the Holy Ghost, could not recognize it; they had not the Spirit of adoption whereby they could recognize it.

See chapter 16:29, 30. He had been telling them that the Father had sent Him; but they do not understand a word of it, and only say, “By this we know that thou camest forth from God.” And we often see the same thing now in those who have not the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry Abba, Father: the name of Father is not known.

I do desire that, while our hearts get peace through seeing Him made sin for us, we might also see what He was for God in the place of sin.

We are not only forgiven and cleansed, but we stand in the whole value of that work of which Christ could say, “Therefore doth my Father love me.” The act itself so infinitely glorified God that He could give it as a motive for the Father's love to Him.

“Holy Father, keep them through thine own name which thou hast given me.” He puts them in the place of sons, and looks to the Father to keep them according to that Name.

The world had no part in that; men must have life to be children, and must be born of God.

He puts us into the present consciousness of the place into which His sacrifice has brought us, that is, His own place in all its blessedness: the veil rent, the heavens opened to us, sealed and anointed by the Father, owned by Him as His Sons. When He was here as Man, at His baptism the heavens were opened, He was sealed and anointed; and the Father owned Him as His Son (which is the first time that the Trinity was fully revealed); and then He goes to be tempted. He takes the blessedness of the place with God, and stood in that place as a man, and then goes into the conflict like us.

Look at Phil. 2:14, 16. Take this sentence, and word by word it is a statement of what Christ was. We are in a wicked generation—exactly what Christ was; sons—what He was; light in the world—He was the Light of the world; holding forth the word of life—He was the Word. Take it word by word; and we are in it all! He puts us into His place before the Father, and gives us His place of testimony before the world.

“That they might have my joy fulfilled in themselves.” How does He bring that about? This Man was upon earth, the Son of man, the Father talking with Him in all the delight He had in him; and He says, “Whatsoever I have heard of my Father, I have made known unto you.”

Are our hearts taking this place? Where was His spring of delight and joy and blessing? His Father. And have you anything of the joy of Christ fulfilled in your hearts?

You may tell me your thoughts are weak and poor; and I am sure they are. Our hearts answer miserably to all His love: but this is where He has brought and placed me; this is what is in His heart if I cannot trust my own! But, while we see all the glory before us—going to be in the glory of God, our souls should also look about the foundation it is all built upon; and if you have forgiveness, the Lord give you to see what you are as belonging to the Father's world.

If we see how completely He has glorified God, so that glory for Himself, and for us too with Him, is the natural and necessary result, it must surely humble us, while it brings in adoration. I cannot look at the Lord Jesus going down in grace into such a place, without adoration, forgetting self in the presence of such wondrous grace. And it keeps the heart subdued.

The Lord give us to have Him before our eyes and hearts, that we may be occupied with Him and satisfied with Him, and that in some measure we may walk as He walked through the words which He has given us. J. N. D.

God's Purposes and Ways in the Feasts

In considering this important subject in Lev. 23, there appear to be two prominent and blessed thoughts in the mind of the Lord. In the one, He strikingly sets forth His purpose to establish a rest for Himself; and in the other, to gather a people around Himself, that they may share that rest. Though the rest is before Him, it is not yet reached; neither are those called to share it yet gathered. Further, it has to be seen, how far the appointed Feasts have passed from Type to Antitype. Again, whether a rest for the earthly scene, in the form of Christ's Millennial reign of righteousness and peace, or the eternal rest, it is quite clear that neither the past nor the present has presented either; so that the rest must be looked for as yet to come.

That these Feasts were to have their actual fulfillment in their literal form is plain, irrespective of their antitypical meaning; they in their order, fixed by Jehovah, had to be maintained by Israel, whatever their spiritual significance. There being seven feasts is notable, especially considering that a period of time is connected therewith. They give a complete history of the ways of God.

With this we may compare what the Lord Himself taught on the seven parables of Matt. 13, and, later still, with the seven churches of the Revelation (in Rev. 2 & 3).

Whilst bearing in mind therefore the responsibility of Israel to heed each and all of the appointed Feasts, scripture beyond this warrants the conclusion, that like the seven parables, and the seven churches, they have their importance historically; and not least will they be seen to make known the person and work of God's beloved Son, and of His redeemed as associated with Him. It is also clear, that the teaching looks forward through the whole vista of time, even to the eternal future of bright glory, the never-ending Sabbath of the ever blessed God.

In looking at the Feast of the Sabbath, it is evident that the Lord intended it should stand out in its own dignified importance, being treated as unique in itself. The true thought of the Sabbath appears to be, His rest after labor; an order maintained throughout scripture by God Himself, and His beloved Son. Here it is thus enjoined upon His people (ver. 3). The closing account of creation is the first given proof, when after six days' work God rested on the seventh day, and blessed and sanctified it. But this rest was soon broken up by Satan's lie received and acted on; which resulted in the ground being cursed for man's sake, and himself turned out of Paradise. Throughout the book of Genesis no mention is made of the Sabbath, indeed not until God's earthly people were redeemed from Egypt, and brought to Him in the wilderness. There, in the ways of divine grace, Jehovah in Ex. 16 instituted the Sabbath in connection with the Manna that preceded it. Israel was enjoined to gather a portion each day, but double on the sixth, laying up for the seventh, which the Lord declared to be “the rest of the holy sabbath” unto Himself. It is no longer His creation an d rest, but the gathering of manna, and rest; which surely testifies to the blessed Christ becoming the True Bread come down from heaven, by Whom rest would be established for us also.

If pure absolute grace is shown in the timely boon to Israel of that which shadowed the gift of God's beloved Son as the alone provision for living bread, and rest, how marked the change, combined with the ground of Jehovah's dealing, manifest in the connection and mention of the Sabbath!

But Israel in Ex. 20 passed from grace to law, having through Moses pledged their obedience as the condition of blessing. Thereon the Sabbath was enjoined as a part of the law; for they were to “remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy:” an authority embracing, in solemn detail, the family, the employed, and the very cattle.

Moreover in chap. 31 it was to be a sign between Israel and Jehovah, who sanctified them. But if Jehovah kept in view a rest, man totally failed, both as to creation, and the law.

With regard to the latter, after long testing, Ezek. 20 charges the people with rebelling against Jehovah and polluting His Sabbaths. Before this Canaan had been set before them as a place of rest. Yet in this too they signally failed, for the mass who originally started fell in the wilderness; and even Joshua, their new and faithful leader, did not bring them into promised rest, seeing that David, at a later day, spoke of a future rest (Heb. 4:7-9).

Before explaining how these facts are used by the Holy Ghost, it may be well to follow up Israel's sin and failure in connection with the position and action of their Messiah respecting the Sabbath. The Gospel of Matthew, which has a special instruction for Jewish ears, will suffice; especially the account in chap. 12, bearing in mind the position of Jesus in the previous chapter. There He had been morally rejected, not only in His forerunner, but personally. Consequently He turns from the whole scene to His Father, owning Him as Lord of heaven and earth, and in the dignity of His own person as the eternal Son, invites the weary and heavy-laden to come to Him for rest. Instead therefore of kingdom-rest by and by, He now offers soul-rest. In the following chapter the position and practice of the rejected but true David as to the seventh day Sabbath is seen by His vindication of His disciples, when they plucked and ate the ears of corn. He thus silenced the scrupulously religious Pharisees, and bade them learn that mercy and not sacrifice was what God desired.

Then He Himself goes farther and heals the withered hand on the Sabbath, thereby testifying to His own saying that “the Son of Man is Lord even of the sabbath day.” Such a blow struck at their formalism brought out their rage and desire to kill Jesus. Alas! when it was eventually done, they kept sabbath while the Messiah was lying in the tomb. Happily, another path was before the Lord, which He in the absoluteness of divine grace states (John 5) when the Sabbath was again in question, “My Father worketh hitherto and I work” up to the deepest which His Father had given Him to do. If the cross of Christ brought out Jewish, as well as Gentile, hatred to God, and crushed out every hope for man in the flesh, it is there and there only that

God was glorified as to sin, and that a righteous basis was laid to make good all the divine counsels, and the eternal rest ever in the mind of God. In the anticipation of the infinite results of that work, how significant are the words of Jesus! “I have glorified Thee on the earth, I have finished the work which Thou gavest Me to do.” How well calculated to open out the bright future, of God's eternal rest!

It is in view of this, that the Epistle written to the believing Hebrews sheds light, both on the present position of their Messiah, and the promised rest. The Son of God, Who had glorified God, in Himself purging our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high. Moreover as to the world to come (or age of long promised glory), the Son of Man, Christ Jesus, has all put in subjection under Him, already crowned in heaven with glory and honor. Thence the Christian knows that the sabbath of rest is above, whilst encouraged in the place of labor and sorrow. “There remaineth therefore a rest for the people of God,” this future rest of God, earthly as well as heavenly. Rest of conscience is not the point here, for this would deny the truth insisted on in chap. 10:12-14, where Jesus, having completed His work, is “forever sat down”; and by His offering the believer is forever perfect as to conscience. Rest in this sense being the believer's abiding portion, the order now is—using diligence and then rest; so that Christ giving present rest in His right as the Son of God, and the rest which His finished work gives to the conscience, are blessedly consistent with the rest of God in future glory. Then toil shall be o'er and God's eternal day enjoyed. Like the joy of the father with the prodigal, it began and knows no end.

Vain is it therefore to seek rest here, or debate upon the Jewish Sabbath, which so many now unwarrantably confound with the Lord's day. Important as the Lord's day is for the Christian as the day of privilege in worship and service, it turns distinctively on Christ risen and the new creation. But God shall have His rest for and with His people in the millennial sabbath, and finally in the eternal day. That glorious time is briefly spoken of in Rev. 21:1-8, where it is written, God will make all things new, and the tabernacle of God shall dwell with men; death, pain, and sorrow shall be no more, and God Himself shall wipe away all tears. Then will He rest in His love, and His people share the rest of God through an unclouded eternity. Bright indeed the present prospect to energize the Christian's daily labor, and to calm amid the conflict, as the Holy Ghost leads into the realities of the rest secured by Jesus for the people of God.

( To be continued).

God's Purposes and Ways in the Feasts: the Blowing of Trumpets and the Day of Atonement

It has appeared, from the Feasts already touched on, how God, in His infinite wisdom, sketched in brief His intended ways—ways carrying us on through centuries with all the varied history as to Israel and all the nations. It was in view of His declared intention of having Israel as the head, and not the tail, of the nations. Thus is the earth ordered in relation to His people, as was stated by Moses in their early history, “When the Most High divided to the nations their inheritance, when He separated the sons of Adam, He set the bounds of the peoples according to the number of the children of Israel. For Jehovah's portion is His people; Jacob is the lot of His inheritance” (Deut. 32:8, 9).

This treasure and portion Jehovah has never yet truly possessed. For as the antitypical Passover and Wave-Sheaf testify that Jehovah, their Messiah, was by the Jewish builders cast out, and despised and set at naught, whilst exalted by God to heaven, so from thence the Holy Spirit has come, and remains, the clear and positive antitype to the Feast of Weeks. During such time Israel are out of the land, scattered and peeled all over the earth, bearing the marks of Jehovah's displeasure, especially Judah for their guilt in crucifying their Messiah, and willfully saying they had no king but Caesar; also, “His blood be upon us and our children.”

Ever since their Messiah's death, judicial blindness has rested upon them; the like condition is alas! rapidly overtaking Christendom, which for its sin and unbelief must be cut off by judgment, and Israel will again be brought into prominence. True, before Jehovah's action of gathering His earthly people, they may reappear in Canaan, as stated by the Prophet, “They shall gather but not by me.” Moreover their Messiah testified that they would become a prey to antichrist, saying, “I am come in My Father's name, and ye receive me not: if another shall come in his own name, him ye will receive” (John 5:43).

Notwithstanding all this, the unconditional promises coalescing with the new covenant await their fulfillment in full and complete blessing. For their still rejected Messiah will then be king in Zion, reigning gloriously over Israel from Jerusalem to the ends of the earth. In view of this, after the Pentecostal period, the Feast of Trumpets, under the figure of the moon, heralds the reflected light to shine on them, and summons them, not only by the blowing of the trumpets as in the days of the type, but as it is termed, by the “Memorial” to regather them in antitypical blessedness.

Before this moment, the twenty-second verse touchingly shows Jehovah's care and provision for the poor, at the end of the harvest, and outside those contemplated in the closing Feasts. The remaining corn should be for the poor and stranger to glean, and thus share the portion of those gone before who are to come on the scene after the coming of the Lord for His saints. Those slain shall be blessed and share heavenly glory with Christ. Yea, “blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth;” and blessed and holy those that suffer death for Christ and the truth's sake, for they shall have part in the first resurrection. Though not raised till later, they will nevertheless reign with Christ (see Rev. 20:4-6). Such poor and forgotten ones will thus be honored and blessed, as intimated in the wonderful order of the type, which may enhance its application.

Respecting the blowing of trumpets, Num. 10 sheds light on their purpose, also on those responsible at the appointed time, and their distinct object. Two silver trumpets were to be made of a whole piece, “that thou mayest use them for the calling of the assembly, and for the journeying of the camps.” The priests, Aaron's sons, must blow them according to Jehovah's appointment, for gathering, guidance, or alarm of impending danger. Of this the scriptures from time to time give samples, some of a most humbling character; whilst others clearly are prophetically given in relation to the day of the Lord and Israel's future, in view both of judgment and of their after restoration to blessing.

Many passages in the Prophets are instructive as to detail; but Joel 2 will suffice to show that the trumpet is to be blown in Zion, and the alarm sounded because the day of the Lord cometh; bringing first judgment, then blessing. The people are to be gathered for fasting and repentance, and finally for blessing and glory on earth.

It is evident therefore, that the summons by the trumpets denoted an unfulfilled epoch in the experience of Israel, when they will respond to the call at the time distinctly future. “In the seventh month, in the first day of the month, shall ye have a sabbath, a memorial of blowing of trumpets, a holy convocation.” To this period of Israel's summons the varied books of the Psalms assuredly apply, when Jerusalem will be the joy of the whole earth and the prayers of David are ended in the full cup of peaceful blessing under the true Solomon. The preliminary summons with its pointed allusion is thus stated in Psa. 83 “Blow ye the trumpet in the new moon, in the time appointed, in our solemn feast day.” The new moon and solemn feast day, when responded to in the reflected light of Israel's new beginning, will gather them for the following feast with their God-given experience, to know and value the one and only work of Atonement, accomplished in the death and shed blood of Him, who died for the nation of Israel, as well as for the salvation and gathering of the children of God.

Blessed indeed for us who now believe is this teaching or lesson in the ways of God, but not least for Israel's nearing future, to learn the feast of Atonement, when on the tenth day of the same month with the blowing of trumpets, “there shall be a day of atonement: it shall be an holy convocation unto you"; and ye shall afflict your souls “and offer an offering made by fire unto Jehovah and ye shall do no work that same day.” For this most important feast, Lev. 16 and Zech. 12 will furnish deep instruction later as to Israel's experience yet to be made good in the glorious antitype. Hence in the feast, the people's part in the day of Atonement is distinctly stated, namely, “ye shall afflict your souls and do no work.” Both are one as to this. But Lev. 16 also minutely gives the work of the High Priest in which Israel took no part. As the representative of all Israel, he took the blood of the slain bullock and goat, sprinkling it before and upon the mercy seat, thereby declaring that, only by death and shed blood, atonement could be made. This is in character with the passover, and both find their perfect answer in the work of Christ, who has in the value of His own blood entered heaven; from whence He will return to make good in the very people that crucified Him the benefit of His atoning work, when they shall indeed look on Him whom they pierced.

Then a corresponding work in them will follow the work done for them. This has ever been the case; but the distinct and perfect work of Christ for souls is often confounded with the work of the Spirit of God in them, to the hindrance of enjoyed peace with God, which Christ Himself made by the blood of His cross. Truly repentance toward God and faith in our Lord Jesus must be enjoined upon souls in relation to heaven; as affliction of souls, and no work, will be Israel's experience when brought into peace and blessing upon earth in the value of the atoning blood. Then by a divine work of grace they will learn Jehovah's intention to have Jerusalem again inhabited, and by the people spared through all their great and final tribulation. So He saith, “And I will pour upon the house of David and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem the spirit of grace and supplication, and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced,” etc. (Zech. 12:10).

Supplication and mourning will mark them, from royalty and priestly dignity to families generally, even to husbands and wives mourning apart. Then, no longer scoffing and turning their backs on their Messiah, they will look on Him whom they pierced and say, “Lo this is our God: we have waited for Him.” It is then they will prove the value of the water and the blood, when Isa. 53:3-6 will be intelligently hearkened to, both expiation of their sins by blood, and the purifying power and cleansing of the water; as it is written “In that day there shall be a fountain opened to the house of David, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem for sin and for uncleanness” (Zech. 13:1).

Such are the privileges in boundless grace Israel has in store, associated with their coming Feast of Atonement, when Jehovah will speak peace to His people, who will never more return to folly, or fall under the yoke of the oppressor. Alas! ruin will be the case of the apostates, “the many” Daniel speaks of, justly doomed to shame and everlasting contempt. But it is to those in whom the Spirit will work in grace according to the new covenant that the day of Atonement applies, as also the following Feast.

God's Purposes and Ways in the Feasts: the Feast of Tabernacles

It has been seen that a new era distinctly marked the ways of God in the blowing of Trumpets which led to the unique and eventful Day of Atonement: a time which not only contemplates those concerned being in Jerusalem, but that their mourning and bitterness is associated with the return of their Messiah from heaven to the very spot and place from which He ascended. The final Feast of Tabernacles is evidently dependent upon Christ Himself coming to introduce and establish the day of glory; then this closing Feast will be truly kept and continued from year to year at Jerusalem, the divinely appointed metropolis of the whole earth, the city of the King of kings, and Lord of lords. He it is Who will sit between the cherubim, and, as the Royal Priest in true Melchizedek power and glory, will establish and bless in righteousness and peace.

This blessed time, the theme of Psalms and Prophets, will be known by Israel, when after beholding the wounds of their pierced Messiah, they will be brought under the value of the blood of atonement, and what is written of the Feast of Tabernacles (Lev. 23) will be accomplished, incomparably beyond the typical language thus stated. “Seven days ye shall offer an offering made by fire unto Jehovah, on the eighth day shall be an holy convocation unto you, and ye shall offer an offering made by fire unto Jehovah; it is a solemn assembly and ye shall do no servile work therein.” Then follows the special feature of the feast. “Also in the fifteenth day of the seventh month, when ye have gathered in the fruit of the land, ye shall keep a feast unto Jehovah seven days: on the first day shall be a sabbath and on the eighth day shall be a sabbath. And ye shall take you on the first day, the boughs of goodly trees, branches of palm trees, and the boughs of thick trees, and willows of the brook, and ye shall rejoice before Jehovah your God seven days,.... Ye shall dwell in booths seven days... that your generations may know that I made the children of Israel to dwell in booths.” This joyful assembly should begin and end on the sabbath, with the addition of an eighth day. But it begins after the vintage and ingathering of the harvest; which implies that the land and people had been cleansed, not only by discriminating, but also by utterly unsparing, judgment when the bad will have been removed and the good grain gathered in, as to which the prophetic Jewish scripture of Matt. 24 is instructive. At the appearance of the Son of man the tribes shall mourn, when they shall see Him coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. “And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.”

Clearly the elect of God's earthly people is here meant to be gathered to celebrate the harvest feast on the first sabbath. It is a statement distinctly Jewish, denoting the renewal of the Jewish feasts and sabbaths in their own land: a fact not true since the scattering, after crucifying their Messiah.

Strange as it may seem to the Christian who is enjoined (as being dead and risen with Christ) against having to do with holy days, new moons and sabbaths; yet Israel will again keep her sabbaths and feasts. Indeed both the Passover and Feast of Tabernacles will be obediently observed as well as the revived sacrifices and priesthood. Not as once pointing on to the Antitype, but in the instructive retrospect of His having come, and made good for them in manifest glory all that Jehovah shadowed forth, as His sovereign intention of grace for the nation, for whom their Messiah died. Not only was the blood of the everlasting covenant shed by Him Who is raised and glorified, but in due course its application to Israel of Abraham's unconditional promises (as yet unfulfilled) will be made good, with all their glorious accompaniments. Many Old Testament scriptures testify to Israel's coming glorious kingdom; but Ezekiel gives a striking order from chap. 36 to the end of the book, where the future is set forth as to the land, people, city and temple, with its restored ritual, crowned with the closing words, “Jehovah is there.”

Chap. 36. deals with Israel's uncleanness when Jehovah their God will give them a new heart and spirit. “And ye shall dwell in the land which I gave unto your fathers, and ye shall be My people and I will be your God.” When cleansed from all their iniquities, and dwelling in their cities, they shall say, “This land that was desolate is become like the garden of Eden.” Moreover the remarkable vision of the figure of dry bones, giving the present state of Israel dead and buried among the nations, declares their restoration and union as one people under the antitypical David, their king. Wholly lost, and unknown to man as the ten tribes are, Ezek. 37 shows them definitely gathered back to their land at the appointed time, as well as united to Judah as “one stick,” which has never been the case since the days of Solomon. “Neither shall they be divided into two kingdoms any more.” Jehovah also declares, “My sanctuary shall be in the midst of them for evermore.” Such holy and blessed statements may well be followed by the description of the coming glory of the temple and city, with the appointed sacrifices, sabbaths, and feasts, leading to the celebration of the passover before their temple with its returned glory. Then assuredly they will read their glory, blessing, and redemption, in the light of the Cross, which the Passover and the varied sacrifices will declare beyond all typical days. Thus, when reaping the full harvest of the precious fruit of the death of their Messiah, they as a united blessed nation will be fitted to keep the Feast of Tabernacles.

The remembrance of their long history will heighten the value of the death of Christ, which secured everything and righteously laid the basis of the new covenant. Nor this only, for their booths on their houses will recall the wilderness life and path, when they dwelt in tents with the given shade, tears, and overcomings, which the thick trees, willows, and palm branches may severally signify, as doubtless will be the lesson learned to call forth their joyful praise and worship, as they appear before Jehovah of hosts in His sanctuary. That this Feast will be held when the Messiah, the King of glory, is in His temple, is clear from Zech. 14.

Moreover, it will be kept year by year, at the time when the representatives of the nations of the earth go up to Jerusalem to worship the King, Jehovah of Hosts, adding, “And to keep the feast of tabernacles.” Then the precious things recorded in Isa. 60 about the future sanctuary of Jehovah and His people will be realized, when He will make the place of His feet glorious, and Jehovah shall be unto them their everlasting light, and “thy God, thy glory; and the days of thy mourning shall be ended; and they shall inherit the land forever.” When the glory of Jehovah is then risen and shining upon the land, and peoples, Gentiles and their kings will minister to them, like the queen of Sheba, beholding with wonder, and bringing glory and riches in homage to the true Solomon, the King of glory, Israel's reigning Messiah. Such will be the sabbath and complete circle of the seven days' joy and glory, the last and final Feast of Tabernacles to continue surely through the full and perfect reign of Jesus, the King of the Jews, and King of the whole earth.

Moreover, does not the eighth day imply going on to the skirts of eternal rest and glory, when dispensations will close, and millennial glory will be merged or established in that period when God will be all in all? Then will the fruit of redemption in the eternal blessedness of God's own rest be fully realized in the stability of the new heaven and the new earth. Surely in the retrospect it only remains for those having part in it to bow in lowly worship at the little seen and touched upon of the marvelous wisdom in the ways of God, past, present, and future. Above all we bless His Son Who, by His death as the one and only effectual sacrifice, so glorified God, as to secure these precious results both for the heaven and the earth; for the church above and Israel below. Both await the coming of the Savior. The heavenly saints meet Him in the air, to go into heaven for the marriage of the Lamb; and Israel, when for them His precious feet shall again touch Mount Olivet, shall have the earthly kingdom and glory.

Till then may the teaching and lessons in the wonderful ways of God be better known in sanctified grace and power, make the word of God a deeper reality, and beget an intelligent holy walk, till our Lord and Savior make good His word, “Surely I come quickly.”

What Israel will presently learn of the mind of the Lord and His marvelous ways, the heavenly people are now privileged by the Spirit of God to know still better, and can already exclaim:

“O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God, how unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways past finding out... For of Him, and through Him, and to Him, are all things, to Whom be glory forever. Amen.” G. G.

God's Purposes and Ways in the Feasts: the New Meal Offering of Two Wave Loaves

Lev. 23:15-22

It is clear, that the Feasts have not only their intended place with Israel, but indicate a divine order in the time when each would find its antitype to the end of all things, when all would have their holy fruit in eternal rest and glory. In this order as in all other things, how entirely everything depends on Christ, the Second man, the last Adam. The Lamb slain once for all annulled the power of death, and as the risen One He lives to die no more, has become the victorious Firstfruits as well as the real and purposed Wave-sheaf, presented to God and accepted by Him for those for whom Christ died, as was expressed in the type, “It shall be accepted for you.”

This then opens the way for the new Meal-offering, as it is written. “Ye shall then count unto you from the morning after the sabbath, from the day that ye brought the sheaf of the wave-offering, seven sabbaths shall be complete; even unto the morrow after the seventh sabbath, shall ye count fifty days; and ye shall offer a new meal-offering unto Jehovah. Ye shall bring out of your habitations, two wave-loaves of two tenth deals of fine flour; they shall be baken with leaven: firstfruits unto Jehovah” (15-17.) The time and character of the offering, with its state, are clearly defined. Though but little is recorded of the Feast, it is implied like the Passover, that it actually took place in Jerusalem, at Pentecost, the time of the descent of the Holy Ghost, its antitype. The space of time, between this Feast and the Wave-sheaf, is definitely stated.

That Christ after the Passover or the Cross, was not seen by the world that crucified Him is clear. Nevertheless He alive again for evermore made Himself known to His disciples from time to time, during those forty days of His risen life. But seven sabbaths must be complete before this next Feast could be accomplished. Accurate indeed was the time of our God, as when the fullness of the time had come, He sent forth His Son. So in this case, when the fiftieth day set in, the Holy Spirit came to make good the new Meal-offering of two wave-loaves, composed of those hitherto His Jewish disciples attached to their Messiah for His kingdom. They had witnessed His rejection, and crucifixion, but also during forty days to their great joy, the same Jesus had been seen and heard, contemplated and handled in resurrection. Next, after tarrying ten days at Jerusalem in prayerful expectation, the promise of the gift and presence of the Holy Spirit was fulfilled. Not only had the wave-sheaf been presented but the risen Christ was glorified. Consequent upon it, the two wave-loaves were formed as a thing entirely new, and to occupy an unparalleled place in the ways of God on earth, which might well suggest both the number and the nature of the offering, with the exceptional fact of leaven baken in it.

The distinctive and wondrous truth at Pentecost, and still running on, is the presence of the Holy Spirit, who is forming the church as the body and bride, for the exalted heavenly Bridegroom. This, for other purposes, was not revealed when the Spirit first came. Moreover the type does not present “one body and one Spirit,” the church formed as it will be presented in glory, pure, holy and spotless, but rather taking her place in the ways of God upon earth, as a witness to her being associated with a heavenly Christ, and to reflect Himself during the hour of His absence. For its fellowship in the breaking of bread in the expression that was to be of the one body, the Lord had provided the one loaf. The new Meal-offering evidently means those that are Christ's now gathered upon earth; where though having life in Christ risen, and being indwell by the Holy Spirit, yet leaven, typical of sin, remained in them. For while the flesh is condemned and gone in Christ made sin for us (Rom. 8:3; 2 Cor. 5:21) before God, still it remains in the believer though he is bound not to allow its activity. The same Spirit, that presents the two wave-loaves with the leaven is the power to give superiority over the flesh, the world, and Satan. Notice that the type says “baken leaven,” implying that, though there, it was not to work. Alas! it did so very early in the church's history to the dishonor of the Lord and the grief of the abiding Spirit. Yet the new oblation was to be of two tenth deals of “fine flour”; and “they are the firstfruits unto Jehovah,” manifesting how intimately the newly formed association was by the Spirit bound up in life and acceptance with Christ the Firstfruits. So the apostle John declares of all Christians, “As he (Christ) is, so are we in this world,” whilst awaiting His full likeness at His coming. Then the leaven within will be completely gone, to the eternal praise of Him who died for that holy and blessed end. Meanwhile, the accompanying sacrifices to be offered shed their light and beauty, for acceptance and joy as well as for answer to the leaven within for unhindered communion. With the Wave-sheaf were only sweet savor sacrifices, as was due to Christ alone. Here were the same, fuller for the need; but as with the First-fruits, wherein was signified, the savor of Christ's perfect obedience in life and death; so here no less associated with the presentation of the wave-loaves. Thus is shown how blessedly God's estimate and Christ's savor would rest upon the new Meal-offerings, together with the Drink-offering that testifies to the joy in the power of the Holy Ghost.

“And ye shall offer with the bread seven lambs without blemish of the first year, and one young bullock, and two rams; they shall be a burnt-offering to Jehovah with their meal-offering and their drink-offerings, an offering made by fire of sweet savor unto Jehovah. Then ye shall sacrifice one kid of the goats for a sin-offering and two lambs of the first year for a sacrifice of peace-offerings. And the priest shall wave them with the bread of the firstfruits, a wave-offering before Jehovah with the two lambs: they shall be holy to Jehovah for the priest. And ye shall proclaim on the selfsame day, [that] it may be a holy convocation unto you: ye shall do no servile work: a statute forever in all your dwellings throughout your generations” (vers. 18-21).

But in contrast with the Wave-sheaf type of the risen Christ were the sin-offering and the two lambs for a sacrifice of fellowship or peace-offerings. Thus, however blessed the church may be, was expressed the infinite and essential distinction of Christ. In the sin-offering the baken leaven was adequately met, and the basis for the blessed privilege of communion, was laid by the peace-offering. Whether acceptance or the joy of communion and no less divine testimony, all awaited the descent of the Holy Spirit, to be made good by the antitypical wave-loaves. This was largely displayed in Acts 2, both in communion, and testimony, when the bonds of unity and oneness gave witness to its precious fruit.

It was then that outside testimony brought in three thousand souls, and inside “they continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship, in breaking of bread and the prayers.” A new thing indeed in the ways of God on earth, still in principle going on by the Holy Spirit, until the antitype of the wave-loaves has run its course of completion, when Christ the Firstfruits, and His church, are found together in heavenly glory, to make way for further purposes on earth, as will appear in the Feasts to follow.

God's Purposes and Ways in the Feasts: the Passover and the Unleavened Bread

IT has been seen that God's sabbath of rest depended on the person and work of His beloved Son, in order that others might share it. It will be no less clear that the sacrifice of Christ alone settles the question of sin, and gives souls a new beginning with God, as well as a holy and righteous title to present peace and coming rest.

The Passover, whether looked at as following or apart from the Sabbath, ranks first in importance even in the typical order. This Israel as a nation had already been taught in their start with Jehovah. Ex. 12 speaks minutely of their appointed beginning with the sacrifice and shed blood of the Paschal Lamb. This was the only ground of difference between them and the Egyptians, as well as the exclusive means of escaping the righteous judgment of God. Typically it raised the question of sin, and settled it on behalf of the guilty who bowed.

Their part was obedience to the divine command; to sprinkle the blood of the slain lamb upon the lintel and side-posts of their houses, and inside to eat its roasted flesh with bitter herbs. Thus, and only so, were they secure from the destroying angel, who, seeing the sprinkled blood, passed over them as assuredly marked off for Jehovah's mercy.

Judgment being settled, the feast of Unleavened Bread, in its most important connection, follows. But the typical appointment of the Passover remains in the order of the Feasts of Jehovah, as well as its blessed and perfect antitype, for the believer in this day. The lamb slain and the blood sprinkled, on the evening of the fourteenth day of the first month, laid the foundation of their deliverance from Egyptian bondage, as with it came the hour of solemn judgment executed on the Egyptians. It may well be spoken of as a night to be long remembered. Indeed the Passover was instituted, to be kept henceforth by Israel as a memorial throughout their generations. It was observed in Egypt, the place of judgment, enjoined upon them in the wilderness, and kept by them on their entrance into Canaan, under the very walls of Jericho. In the course of their national history the keeping of the Passover retained its fundamental significance.

Alas! like all other divine appointments, it was neglected, though revived from time to time when the power of the written word called them to Jerusalem to keep this feast. When they were under the empire of the Romans, their going up to Jerusalem to keep the Passover is frequently spoken of in connection with Jesus. He who came according to promise and prophecy, and proved His presence by many signs of power and grace, was despised and rejected with hatred even unto death. That hate was willfully carried out, in the full energy of flesh and Satan, when the Lord Jesus spoke of keeping the last Passover with His disciples.

So Luke 22 solemnly declares when the precious details were gone into by Him who knew all from the beginning to the end, with the crowning fact that He who was about to become the antitype to Israel's paschal lamb touchingly said, “With desire I have desired to eat this passover with you before I suffer.” His sufferings were in obedience unto death, even the death of the cross; His body given and His blood shed, when He through the eternal Spirit offered Himself as the spotless victim to God.

Then again, as the one and only true sacrifice, when suffering on the cross the righteous judgment of God due to sin, He became the antitype of the paschal lamb; yea, the Lamb of God, to bear away the sin of the world. There, in and by Him, judgment was exhausted when, so to speak, the action of the fire spent itself on Him who knew no sin and yet was made sin, suffering once for sins, Just for unjust. This being once and forever accomplished, it is no longer Israel's feast pointing onward to Christ; for the appointed Savior has not only come and died, but God has raised Him from the dead, and set Him at His own right hand: the proof that the question of sin is settled, leaving no further offering for sin.

Indeed, Rom. 3 plainly states how and by what means God showed His forbearance in “passing over” believers in the past through the blood of His Son. Now it is added that He is just and the “justifier” of him that believes on Jesus. Moreover, the apostle Peter writes, giving peaceful certainty in the knowledge of present redemption by the precious blood of Christ, who was without blemish or spot. Such was the Lamb fore-ordained before the world was, or sin entered it, but manifested for all that by Him believe in God, who raised Him from the dead and gave Him glory, that their faith and hope might be in God (1 Peter 1:19-21): an advance truly on the type of the slain lamb, with its sprinkled blood, which shut God the Judge out. For the believer is now cleansed and justified by God through faith of Jesus in redemption with the added proof of the Lamb risen and in glory.

The Passover having run its typical course, and redemption being accomplished by Christ the Lamb of God, the feast of Unleavened Bread necessarily follows in its intimate connection, as will be seen both in type and antitype. On the same evening as the Passover, Israel was commanded to keep the feast for a whole week, in both a negative and a positive way. No leaven was to be allowed in their houses, and from the fourteenth till the one-and-twentieth day of the month, they were to eat unleavened bread. Already, on the night of the Passover, had they eaten of the roasted lamb, unleavened bread and bitter herbs, with feet shod, loins girded, and staff in hand, ready to quit the place of slavery. Henceforward they must shape their ways and feed on what God their Savior appointed for them. It was no question of choice or opinion on their part. Jehovah's mind was clear and express: no leaven allowed through all the seven days, and only unleavened bread to be eaten. To neglect either would involve, not only the loss of privilege, but cutting off from the congregation. None could with impunity despise the appointed memorial that Jehovah brought them out of Egypt, as He declared: “Therefore shall ye observe this day in your generations by an ordinance forever.”

This is confirmed when again commanded in Deut. 16, where obedience is laid down in view of entering Canaan, to which is added the place of Jehovah's choice, where the Feasts should be kept, as well as the unleavened bread should be eaten (as the bread of affliction). Leavened bread was absolutely excluded. “Neither shall any of the flesh which thou sacrificedst the first day at even remain all night until the morning.” The lamb's flesh must not become ordinary food but be treated as holy.

Thus is shown the intimate connection of these two feasts, in privilege and responsibility as clearly appears in the antitype. Indeed, 1 Cor. 5 will at once manifest the way the Spirit of God applies it both to awaken the church of God at Corinth to its slighted privilege, losing the sense and object of the sacrifice of Christ, and also to the holy obedience proper thereto in the exclusion of all leaven. He who laid down what Israel should do, and what they should not do, fully understood its significance, and it was only for them to obey His word in the way and time appointed. Now that Christ, the antitype, has come, it is no longer the shadow or figure of truth, but the abiding reality made good by Him in and by whom God was perfectly glorified at the cross, where the leaven of evil was fully judged, and holiness as well as righteousness everlastingly established.

Such is the mighty sacrifice of Christ, the Lamb, who maintained what God is, and met all that His people needed. Hence it cannot be wondered at that such a death should be the God-given basis of life in holiness and truth. To allow sin, which leaven implied, defiled the assembly at Corinth, and testified that holiness in practice was wanting. But this is to deny what the death of Christ claimed in life, walk, and associations. Therefore they were not keeping the antitypical feast of unleavened bread; for known leaven was allowed in their midst. Being truly a redeemed people, they were unleavened before God; and such was their obligation to be as an assembly before the world. Hence they must put out the leaven, as it is written, “For even Christ our passover is sacrificed [for us], therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with unleavened [bread] of sincerity and truth” (1 Cor. 5:7, 8).

Clearly here the combined feasts of Ex. 12 have their practical antitype, and explain their intention as to purity of walk and conduct, measured by Christ and His sacrifice, where holiness and truth were seen, and maintained in perfection, to the glory of God, for life and salvation to His people. Infinite is the grace to be thus bound up with the person and work of Christ, so as to have a holy and righteous beginning with the living and true God, and a secured title to eternal bliss and glory. No less, throughout the complete earthly pilgrimage as set forth in the seven days, are we to keep the feast, guarding against all evil on the one hand, and walking in the fear of God and true sanctification on the other, whilst we cherish that deliverance known by the death of Christ, God's own Lamb, the foundation of all.

God's Purposes and Ways in the Feasts: the Sheaf of Firstfruits

This sheaf is most important, and fraught with deep instruction, as the antitype with its application declares and teaches. Jehovah's command was, “When ye be come into the land which I give unto you, and shall reap the harvest thereof, then ye shall bring a sheaf of the firstfruits of your harvest unto the priest. And he shall wave the sheaf before Jehovah, to be accepted for you: on the morrow after the sabbath the priest shall wave it” (vers. 10, 11). Evidently the wave sheaf is in character with all the fruits of the land, to be offered by Israel, as enjoined in Deut. 26. All necessitated being in Canaan, and to reap the produce of the land, so as to offer the firstfruits to Jehovah Who had pledged Himself to Moses in Exodus not only to deliver them from Egyptian bondage, but to bring them “unto a land, flowing with milk and honey”: “a land of wheat and barley, and vines and fig trees, and pomegranates, a land of oil olive and honey, a land wherein thou shalt eat bread without scarceness.” It cannot be surprising that Jehovah's claims should so fully and distinctly be stated, and that with holy jealousy of being first. Whether corn, fruit, or any produce of the newly possessed land, He who gave it was to have the firstfruits, which should ever keep their hearts in the conscious sense, and becoming gratitude toward the Divine Giver. That which comes from God should return to Him, in the supreme blessedness, not only of being worthy to receive the firstfruits, but as the source, of every good and perfect gift.

How far Israel answered to the claims and privilege, their history in sin and disobedience too plainly declared. They forgot Jehovah their God, and neglected His ordinances, which involved His righteous judgment, in the loss of the fruit of their land; and finally of the land itself.

Infinite the wisdom of divine purpose, and marvelous the grace, that the antitype was the reserve, to make good what Israel's passover shadowed forth, as already seen in the death of Christ. It will also appear that Jehovah's appointed sheaf of firstfruits finds its alone antitype in Christ Himself, in whom God has found His blessed portion, as the Firstfruits of the new creation, where all is of God. If Christ, as the true Paschal Lamb, laid the foundation in His death for the glory of God, is it not in Christ risen up from among the dead, that God displays His righteousness in power and glory? Therein also, Christ is emphatically declared to be the antitype as the Firstfruits in resurrection. Corn is a significant figure, being used by the Lord Himself, which as the sower He sowed to produce the wheat, to be duly reaped for the heavenly granary. In John 12 He unmistakably refers to Himself when answering Philip concerning the Greeks wishing to see Jesus. What was then before Him was the solemn moment of His cross and death, when He must be alone with God: for He, the corn of wheat, must die, if others were to be associated with Him, which He most definitely states. “Verily verily, I say to you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone; but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.”

This fact of itself is the death-blow to the propounders of the erroneous teaching of union with Christ incarnate. For clearly He was alone in His pure, holy, spotless life, as He was in death; where His absorbing desire was that the Father's Name might be glorified, as the Father would glorify Him. Yea, the corn of wheat dying points not only to the death of the cross, where all man's need, even to his moral end, was met, but to the believer's sad history forever closed for faith. Not this only but it was the direct highway for Christ to become the Firstfruits, and the antitype of the true wave-sheaf presented to Jehovah, to which is added “to be accepted for you.”

The Lord's disciples were unconscious when eating the last Passover with Him (Luke 22) that He was then to become the antitype, as also they were ignorant respecting His resurrection as the Firstfruits; although He had plainly told them, that the Third day He would rise again, thus fulfilling the type of the morrow after—the Sabbath. Very early in the morning of what would henceforth be called the Lord's Day, the loved ones ignorantly brought spices to embalm their Lord; but they found the stone rolled away from the sepulcher, and they entered in, and found not the body of the Lord Jesus. At the tomb they were challenged, if not rebuked, by angelic voices saying, “Why seek ye the living one among the dead. He is not here but is risen.” The amazing truth, that He who died and was buried had become the Firstfruits in the field of resurrection life, was the living proof that all was over as to the cross and the grave; and that Christ the Firstfruits from the dead, had once and forever triumphed over sin and Satan, death and the grave. Though Mary Magdalene vainly waited at the grave, hoping to find the dead body of her Lord, yet her devoted heart was rewarded by being the first to behold her risen Lord and Savior, though not to handle or have Him as heretofore.

Is it not a touching intimation, and precious aspect of the presented wave-sheaf? The Lord in following Mary's confession as Master, said “Touch me not, for I am not yet ascended to my Father” (adding also the truth of association with Himself as the fruit of His death). “But go to my brethren and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father and your Father, and my God and your God.” Not only was it the ascending to the Father after the Lamb was slain, but all the Father's will in life and in death had been fully completed, so that He was raised by the power of God as by the glory of the Father. Thus is He presented as the Wave-sheaf no less in and by whom His brethren are set apart and accepted. The application to Christ the Firstfruits is most positive in 1 Cor. 15 and also to His own as associated with Him. Therefore is it that the dead in Christ who have fallen asleep would be raised, and with the living be changed into His image. For the divinely appointed order is “Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ's at his coming.”

“And in the day when ye wave the sheaf, ye shall offer a he-lamb without blemish of the first year for a burnt-offering unto Jehovah. And the meal-offering thereof [shall be] two tenths of fine flour mingled with oil, an offering made by fire unto Jehovah [for] a sweet savor: and the drink-offering thereof [shall be] of wine, the fourth of an hin. And ye shall eat neither bread, nor parched corn, nor fresh ears, until this selfsame day, until ye have brought the oblation of your God: it is a statute forever throughout your generations in all your dwellings” (vers. 12-14).

Thus the type is established in its true dignity in the risen Lord, with its presentation, acceptance and divine application; not omitting the accompanying sacrifice of the Burnt-offering, the Meal-offering, and Drink-offering. Such must be offered and accepted with the Wave-sheaf, before Israel could eat of the corn of the land, declaring beyond mistake Jehovah's claim and portion first, which in the antitype is blessed and important. To whom should the Lord present Himself, but to His God and Father who gave Him? “I came forth from the Father into the world; again I leave the world and go unto the Father.” In the significant space of His life and death is accomplished the whole will of God. Who could estimate all His devotion expressed in the Burnt-offering, and the Meal-offering, as the one to whom it was rendered? with the Drink-offering in the joy and delight He had in doing it? Blessed be God the acceptance and estimate rested with Him; not on the one hand with angels, nor on the other with those who share the eternal benefits of the Wave-sheaf and the varied offerings, though it will be the theme and adoration of the redeemed throughout eternity. But God has His own delight and satisfaction in the Son Himself, and in all that He has done.

Gospel Words: 101. Your Heavenly Father Knoweth

Matt. 6:31, 32

How wholesome, direct, and complete is the Lord's rebuke of earthly care!

“Be not therefore anxious, saying, What shall we eat, or What shall we drink, or With what should we be clad? For after all these things do the Gentiles seek; for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things” (vers. 31, 32).

As the Lord began, so He closed, His charge to the saints against anxiety in the earthly life. He purposely presents the homely commonplace of daily fare and clothing. The birds of the sky He adduces as the witness of bounteous provision without solicitude, and the unequaled splendor of the lilies of the field, as a rebuke to troubled efforts after vain show. The sentiment and the phrase of vers. 26 and 31 are substantially alike; but in the latter He exchanges “ye” and “your” into the more tender and family expression “we.” Each is as it should be, and both make His word only the more touching as well as complete.

The poor as to the world are habitually burdened and distressed on both accounts in their daily and domestic life. But the noblest and the richest spend much time and thought on their food and attire; and the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, have their mortifications among the highest. And if, as things are, the majority of Christians are too much like others, it only confirms the wisdom and goodness of the Lord in deigning to say so much to elevate the motives and form the ways of His own according to the mind of God.

Yet there are a few here and there all over the earth who hear His words in this discourse as elsewhere, and seek to do them from the heart. Nor do they fail to find their blessed account in pleasing Him, apart from the world and its things, with happy deliverance from all its anxieties and selfishness. Is not this what the Lord here enjoins on all that bear His name? Do these lay His will to heart when temptation arises to settle down in earthly comfort if not luxury and show? Is this consistent with being pilgrims and strangers on the earth awaiting glory on high with Him?

No doubt it is what men of the world do, who mock at faithful stewardship as fanaticism, and ignore being not their own but bought with a price to glorify Him with their bodies. If not their lips, their life says, Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die; yet their constant study is to spin out their mortal life, with no real heart for the resurrection, no habitual joy nor practical value for Christ as their life. Is it not to “mind earthly things,” and to forget day by day that “our commonwealth is in the heavens, whence also we await the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior, who shall transform our body of humiliation into conformity to His body of glory according to the working of power which He hath even to subdue all things to Himself?” “For” as He says, “after all these things the Gentiles seek:” the contrast He seeks in His disciples. O let us too seek it in our ways for the little while, and thus help to impress it on such as wish to make the best of both worlds, a shameless motive and character for those who are Christ's.

Are we then left without consolation or resource? Far from it. The Lord winds up with blessed cheer to such as seek to be faithful; “For your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.” And is it not the Father's pleasure to consider every need of every child? Who can pretend that He does not abound in all good things? or that He would not have us to confide in Him, not in ourselves? Be it yours to abjure self, and “cast all your care upon Him, for He careth about you.

Gospel Words: A Forgiving Spirit

The Lord was not content with this impressive call for practical grace in the prayer prescribed to His disciples: “Forgive us our debts, as we also forgave our debtors.” He immediately after follows it up with emphasis.

“For if ye forgive men their offenses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you [yours]; but if ye forgive not men their offenses, neither will your Father forgive your offenses.”

There is such confusion in Christendom as to the forgiveness of sins that the true force of the Lord's solemn words is lost for the most part. The vast majority have so hazy a view of eternal redemption that they fear to believe in the full and abiding efficacy of Christ's work. The glad news, or the gospel, of God is thus for them shorn of its power. They are no better off than a Jew who brought his offering, confessed his sin, and went away with the comfort that it was forgiven. As he had to offer often, so the ill-taught Christian talks of his need to be resprinkled again and again with that blood, though expressly said to be shed once for all.

What blindness, if we adduce nothing else, to the testimony of Heb. 10:1. The perfect sacrifice has caused the imperfect to cease. The worshippers once purged have no more conscience of sins; in plain contrast with the Levitical sacrifices, wherein is made year by year remembrance, as the Christian is entitled to remission of sins. Christ came to take away the temporary, and to establish the everlasting. Therefore, when He offered one sacrifice for sins, He forever [in continuity] sat down on God's right hand. He had done all perfectly to blot out the guilt of His friends (once His foes); and took His seat as its triumphant proof, from henceforth waiting till His enemies who reject Him and His work be set as footstool of His feet. Then He will come forth and tread them down in their open rebellion at the consummation of the age. But to the Christian the Holy Spirit testifies that their sins and their lawlessnesses God remembers no more. Now where remission of these is, there is no longer an offering for sin: everything of the kind is superseded and more than fulfilled in that of Christ.

But here faith fails, because God's word is not received in its own divine and conclusive authority; and thus are souls defrauded of peace and joy in believing; and entire devotedness to God is curtailed, bought as we are with a price so incalculable. This unbelief is helped on by confounding things that differ, like our text with that complete redemption which rests solely on Christ's cross. Still more when such blessed institutions of Christianity as baptism and the Lord's supper were made saving ordinances, not figuratively but intrinsically; and a clerical class was made necessary and of divine right to apply them with due effect to the laity: a figment which outdid the highest claims of Jewish priesthood, and in principle denies the gospel.

But while the Lord does not, here or in any part of His teaching on the Mount, refer to that redemption which He was to accomplish, He has a weighty lesson to enforce on His disciples in cultivating a spirit of grace. If the Jew in general could not rise above the law in its distance from God, the fear which made the very mediator full of trembling, and the readiness to denounce and curse which it engendered, grace is the atmosphere in which the Christian lives and flourishes. No doubt it is through righteousness; but withal it is grace reigning.

What was it that drew to the Lord Jesus even from John the Baptist? What was it that in spite of a legal environment at length blossomed and bore fruit so sweet in Peter and John and James and a noble army of martyrs and confessors? What was it that melted Paul's heart of steel and made him the most ardent and suffering witness to the world of Jesus Christ and Him crucified? What else could begin with the proudest, most self-satisfied, stiff-necked, and rebellious race, and transform them into the poor in spirit, the mourning, the meek, the hungering and thirsting after righteousness, yea the merciful, the pure in heart, the peace-makers, persecuted for righteousness' sake, and even for His sake, for whom the nation and its high priest judged crucifixion only His due, and so fulfilled the Law, the Psalms, and the Prophets?

As it was the grace and truth which gave the disciples life, and would give it abundantly in the power of Christ's resurrection, so would follow that full and abiding remission which only His blood secures, and this uninterruptedly. But sin indulged does interrupt communion with our God and Father, and needs the advocacy of Christ to cleanse the feet thus defiled, by the washing of water by word. His blood retains intact its atoning virtue; but the word is applied by the Spirit in answer to Christ on high, and he that sinned repents in dust and ashes. For this is He that came through water and blood. We need and have both, and cannot do without the water from first to last, as we have had the blood once for all. Whoever ignores, or (still worse) denies, the twofold provision of grace, undermines redemption and muddles the truth of God.

Now the Lord specifies an unforgiving spirit as intolerable to our Father in His daily government of His sons. And no wonder. It is to go back from grace to law, from Christ to wretched self. Hence, as in the prayer, He urges grace toward those who may offend us ever so painfully, and love which He commends to our loyal and tender warning of its lack practically as hateful in His eyes. “For if ye forgive men their offenses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your offenses.”

O you who keep up your resentment, and brood over the offenses (often exaggerated if not imaginary) of others, beware. You, a Christian, if so, are in utter default of this characteristic duty, as unlike Christ as you can be. Need one say that you are as unhappy as you are hard? Is it nothing to your high spirit, degrading as this is to a Christian, that “your heavenly Father will not forgive you your offenses” Trifle not with so bad and proud a state, and no longer grieve the Holy Spirit of God who sealed you. Let not the sun set upon your wrath, nor give room for the devil.

Gospel Words: Alms

The Lord takes for granted that His disciples would walk righteously before God in alms, prayer, and fasting. He is not satisfied with bidding such give to him that asks, as in the preceding chapter (42), and from him that would borrow not to turn away. It is by the grace of Christ in contrast with legal narrowness. Here we have the single motive of pleasing our Father that is in the heavens. Thus would their light shine in Christ as believed and confessed by them, not their righteousness be done before men to be seen of them, which is the object expressly forbidden. As in alms we have the needy and distressed of mankind directly brought before us, we have this followed up by prayer to our Father in the closet, fasting subjoined to set aside self-indulgence for the body and leave room for humiliation before Him: thus dealing with man, apostles, self and God, in ways suited to the Father revealed by the Son.

“When therefore thou doest alms, sound not a trumpet before thee, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be glorified by men. Verily I say to you, They have their reward. But thou, when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth; so that thine alms may be secret, and thy Father that seeth in secret will repay thee.”

It is not the habit of giving or lending in liberality of heart, unstintedly and unselfishly, but that merciful consideration of the wretched and suffering, which becomes those who serve God in a fallen world (James 1:27). Each duty has its place. Both adorn the teaching that is of our Savior God, as we are called to do in all things. Prudence may question, common sense hesitate; but faith acts on His word, and without faith it is impossible to please Him. It is no question of doing another's will, but of Christ's will.

In all cases the snare is ostentatious, doing our righteousness before men to be seen of them. Otherwise, says our Lord, ye have no reward of your Father that is in the heavens. He lays the utmost stress on the manner and the motive with which the act is done. Display in the doing of alms He compares to sounding a trumpet before the doer, and denounces it as what the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, within and without where people meet and pass. Can anything be conceived baser than a son of God playing a part to win the notice and approbation of men? How solemnly He adds, Verily I say to you, They have got their reward!

How elevating it is for the soul, in having to do with the relief of distress among men, to act in secret, and in the sight of the Father that seeth in secret as the One to repay! It is not enough to exclude other men. To bring Him in and in secret is essential to the purity of the case. It is He who is above all, and through all, and in us all; and the least of His gifts to us is what enables us to help the suffering and the needy. To leave Him out is the essence of unbelief. To bring Him in is what we as His children owe Him in love and honor, the witness of our dependence, of our gratitude, and of our loyal service.

We have only to look at the ways of men in Christendom, in order to learn where neglect of the Savior's teaching leads His disciples, and the influence of self, not only on the world but on the godly swayed by the spirit of the age. What notoriety! What emulation! What boasting or pride, and even ambition! What a contrast with Him who being rich for our sake became poor, that we by His poverty might be enriched And how striking that not in rich Corinth but in the poor churches of Macedonia, scripture tells us of the grace of God bestowed in this way; how in a great trial of affliction the abundance of their joy and their deep poverty abounded to the riches of their free-hearted liberality It was not even according as the apostle hoped, but beyond; and the secret of it was, that they gave themselves first to the Lord, and to us by God's will. Thus is genuineness of love proved.

But there is another invaluable word of the Lord as to this which calls for our heed. “But thou when thou dost alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth; so that thine alms may be in secret, and thy Father that seeth in secret will repay thee.” It is not only from others but from ourselves that such doings should be hidden. Self is a subtler evil than men. The action of grace is defiled and becomes a poison to me and a dishonor to God when I think of it with complacency. If rightly done, it was passed to our Father for His remembrance, not ours.

Here lay Job's failure, which no inflictions of Satan, nor unsympathy, nor yet suspicion, of friends even touched. He was a most gracious man, but he thought of it, and not of God only who wrought in Him. To this he must be and was brought: to boast only in God, judge himself, and submit with all his heart. Part of the lesson was that his left hand should not know what his right hand did. This on the contrary, up to the end of his appeal (Job 31), he knew only too well. But all was changed when, instead of looking at fruits of grace in himself, he saw God in very faithfulness withering up all self-satisfaction. “I had heard of Thee by the hearing of the ear, but now mine eye seeth Thee: wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes” (Job 42:6).

Thus we hear that even in alms the Father in secret must be the motive in order to make it acceptable to Him. The Lord insists on inward truth. O my fellow-sinner, how can this be while you are dead in trespasses and sins? “Ye must be born anew;” and life, this new life, is in Christ only. But He is the object of faith set for this purpose by God. “He that believeth hath life eternal;” and as Christ is the source, so is He the strength of that life. “I live; no longer I, but Christ liveth in me.”

Gospel Words: as Having Authority

From first to last of the word of righteousness on the mountain, the Lord had spoken as none but a divine person was entitled to do.

“And it came to pass, when Jesus concluded these sayings, the crowds were astonished at his doctrine, for he was teaching them as having authority, and not as their scribes.”

The Lord, alone on earth, was qualified to speak with authority peculiar to Himself. Beyond all others He knew what was in man (John 2:25): He alone here below knew what was in God (John 3:11). On one side He is the Man whom God raised from out of dead men, marked out by God as judge of living and dead, who will both bring to light the hidden things of darkness and make manifest the counsels of the hearts. On the other hand no one hath seen God at any time, the Only-begotten Son that is in the bosom of the Father—He declared Him. He is thus in every way qualified to speak with authority; yet who so lowly?

But the Jews were used, now that the Prophets of Jehovah for four centuries had ceased, to lean on their rabbis. Indeed they had shown the same unbelief in the days of prophets of the highest character; as Isaiah bears witness (29:13). It was with them in Israel, as afterward in Christendom, a sea of uncertainty, and a conflict of learned or rash opinions. How could it be otherwise when they were thus cheated to give up God's word for man's ideas? So our Lord cites this very oracle in His day, “In vain they do worship me, teaching as doctrines men's precepts.”

But not so the Lord Himself as He sat on the mount, and taught the disciples, within the hearing of the crowds. This Matthew was inspired to present continuously and in orderly relation for permanent use. He began with the characters, the blessed characters, of such as enter the kingdom of the heavens. Four are righteous, three gracious, each class with its consequent persecution, as being in the age where evil still runs on (chap. 5:3-12). Their position follows, righteous and gracious, toward those outside (13-16).

Then from ver. 17 to the end of the chapter He proceeds to show that far from coming to make void the law or the prophets, He was here to give the fullness of God's mind therein, the light of the kingdom before it is established in any for those who bow to Him. The unbelieving and unsubject shall not enter on the new privileges. Not a tittle should in any way pass from the law till all come to pass. To enter the kingdom a real and inward righteousness, of which Christ is the perfection, must be, far exceeding that of the scribes and Pharisees.

Next He goes farther, not merely “for verily I say to you” (18) and “for I say to you” (20) but with all the emphasis of superior divine light, worthy of God's Son, “Ye heard that it was said to the ancients, Thou shalt not kill... But I say to you” (21-26), and “ye heard that it was said, Thou shalt not commit adultery. But I say to you” (27-30); and incomparably more searching commandments are applied to the law's prohibition of violence and corruption only in their extreme forms.

After that the Lord deals with divorce, and oath in ordinary converse (not judicial), putting all in the same highest place of God's light, with no allowance of human weakness (vers. 31-37). These were matters of righteousness.

In what follows He looks at the higher and deeper claims of grace. Instead of retaliation as in the law of “eye for eye and tooth for tooth,” we hear “But I say to you, not to resist evil,” &c. (38-42); and instead of “Thou shalt love thy neighbor and hate thine enemy,” He urges “But I say to you, Love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you, that ye may be sons of your Father that is in the heavens,” to the point of your being perfect (i.e. in grace), as your heavenly Father is to evil and good, just and unjust (43-48).

In chap. 6 He points out the true spirit of the life in alms, prayer, and fasting toward God (their Father that is seen in secret before them) (1-10); again in calm confidence above the world's anxiety in ordinary things (19-34): righteousness and grace are here also.

Lastly, in chap. 7 He guards against evil thoughts of brethren, and communion with the unclean world; and He counsels confiding dependence on their Father, acting toward others as they desired from them, and holding to the narrow gate and the straitened way (1-14). He solemnly warns against false prophets, whose fruits betray them notwithstanding their fair speech (15-20). The vanity of profession without vital reality is pressed even where service and gift are pleaded. It is finally compared to the folly of building on the sand, instead of on the rock of genuine obedience to Christ's words (21-27).

To any anxious soul let me say, Do not mistake. The Lord is not here showing how the sinner is to get pardon and peace. He is teaching His disciples how they are to walk and please their Father. Confusion here denies salvation by grace, is itself mere error, and can only endanger and ruin souls.

Gospel Words: Fasting

It remains for us to weigh our Lord's words on fasting, as the third part of His teaching on “righteousness” (not “alms”) in the first verse of the chapter. Prayer holds the intermediate place between alms and fasting, the pious and holy basis to guard the other two, binding them up with faith against formality.

“And when ye fast, be not gloomy-faced as the hypocrites; for they disguise their faces, so that they may appear to men fasting. Verily, I say to you, They have their reward. But thou while fasting anoint thy head, and wash thy face, so that thou mayest not appear to men fasting, but to thy Father that [is] in secret; and thy Father that seeth in secret will recompense thee.”

The Lord does not so much enjoin fasting as bring it like prayer under the Christian principle of having to do with our Father in secret. It falls under the individual life of faith. Yet He undoubtedly sanctions and approves of it when so practiced; and this independently of the more open and united aim, such as we find in Acts 13:2, 3; 14:23. He also intimates its value for spiritual power. Pious men have ever felt and must feel its appropriateness in chastening the soul before God, where public or private need called for humiliation. But even in Mark 9:29 it is well to note that the two most ancient copies ignore “and fasting,” as they with other authorities also the entire verse 21 of Matt. 17, nor is there a word corresponding in Luke 9. The apostle however who more than others was given to stand for liberty in Christ speaks (in 2 Cor. 6:5; 11:27) simply and piously of “fastings” and “fastings often” in his service, to the rebuke of that levity which the Corinthian assembly betrayed, and which characterizes modern Christianity, save where superstition and self-righteousness give it an artificial moment in very different eyes.

In Matt. 9:14, etc. the Lord shows its true place and time in answer to the disciples of John saying, “Why do we and the Pharisees often fast, but Thy disciples fast not? And Jesus said to them, Can the sons of the bride-chamber mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them; but days shall come when the bridegroom shall be taken away from them, and then will they fast.” Neither those who were only disciples of John had any real appreciation of the Bridegroom's presence, nor still less the Pharisees filled with forms and self-righteousness. It was joy to the believing disciples of Jesus. Feeble as they were, they had left their all for Him, and they tasted a divine bliss in Him wholly unknown to the others, who were wholly unprepared for the awful purport to them and the Jews of His being taken away, little as the true disciples as yet comprehended that solemn approaching fact with its immense consequence. The joy of Messiah's presence made fasting altogether inappropriate. Those who tasted none of it were blind to Him whom God's grace had given and sent. Greater still would be their darkness, when the Bridegroom should be taken away. Then would those that believed and loved Him fast, both spiritually and literally.

It might not be like Jews accompanied by rending of garments or with sackcloth and ashes, but deeper communion with God's mind than could be known before the Holy Spirit came to make it good. And fasting among Christians is all the more striking because of the peace, joy, and boundless delight they have in the love of Christ, and fellowship with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ. Still if loyal to Christ we cannot but have the constant sense of His rejection, and of the judgment ever impending and certain to fall on the guilty world, and all the more because it pays Him the hollowest of lip homage. Yes, days are come when the Bridegroom thus ignominiously taken away is still absent, and fasting lends itself to mourners, whatever their even enhanced joy in being united to Him as members of His body, a privilege never dreamed of before, and the joy of grace in the revelation and active working of a Savior God to lost sinners, Gentile no less than Jew.

But Christendom perverted fasting, through vain philosophy, into a reflection on the creative glory of God. And abstinence from meats, which He created for thanksgiving, was early turned into human merit, and the lie of inherent evil in matter. Grace and truth through Jesus Christ were thus denied; and days of fasting were imposed, as ecclesiastical history records, first by custom, and afterward by legal sanction. In the second century, if not in the first, the fatal error also drawn from philosophy was in full swing not for their life and complete cleansing by His blood, but of a twofold rule, the one for the despised flock of God, the other for the spiritual superior; the one the Precepts for all sorts, the other the Counsels of Perfection for those who aspired to a higher life, which issued in asceticism and grew into monasticism. Who can wonder that God poured contempt on these unbelieving efforts to improve the first man, by letting the flesh with all this inflation break out into the grossest immorality on one side, and legendary falsehood against God on the other? But this too was just what was found with older Platonists and Pythagoreans, who taught that it was not only lawful but commendable to deceive and lie, for the sake of truth and piety. Hence, even in those early days the large harvest of forgeries which are coming to light in our days, the witness of the rapid departure from the Christianity taught by the inspired apostles, long before the papal system systematized it and enforced it on pain of death.

Gospel Words: Prayer

It is the same principle with prayer as with alms. The disciple of Christ has nothing in common with the hypocrites, whatever they say or do, or do not. The Son has made known the Father's name to us, and made it known still more intimately and deeply, in association with Himself, on and since He rose from the dead. It was not only the wondrous message through Mary of Magdala, “I ascend unto my Father and your Father, and my God and your God;” but that resurrection day at evening the Lord came and stood in the midst, and said to the disciples, Peace to you, showing them His hands and His side. Again He said “Peace to you: as the Father sent me forth, I also send you,” and having said this He says to them, Receive [the] Holy Spirit; whosesoever sins ye remit, they are remitted to them; whosesoever sins ye retain, they are retained.

Such is the added Christian privilege, even before the Pentecostal gift was conferred, and the special gift the apostles had as such, like prophets, teachers, &c. in their place. O what responsibility, not only to rejoice but to pray unceasingly, flows from such a relationship! and how apt are we to relax or forger! But if we are thus blessed and have in our measure and way such a mission, we have no place to covet; for we have Christ's. And we as His epistles know that we are called to walk in the faith of His grace that we may not shame Him before men. Having received His word, it is our constant call to pray, that, living in the Spirit, we may walk in the Spirit. And the Lord, alone perfect here and everywhere, impresses His principles on His own followers. He is their life in order that there might be an inward living relationship.

“But when ye pray, ye shall not be as the hypocrites; for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may appear to men. Verily I say to you, They have their reward. But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy chamber, and having shut thy door pray to thy Father that is in secret, and thy Father that seeth in secret will recompense thee.”

This secrecy is still easier, and no less essential in prayer, the most constant of all relative duties. Many saints find a great incentive with others in supplication; and this has its suited and weighty place, as the Lord elsewhere urges. But here as the habitual privilege and claim of relationship to our Father, how careful He is in bidding saints like us to “enter into thy chamber, and having shut thy door pray to thy Father that is in secret, and thy Father that seeth in secret will requite thee.” How delightfully simple, yet how deep and wise! It is just between the soul and God, and now His Father and our Father, as Christ knew Him and declared Him to us. Solemn and holy it is to meet our Father alone and expressly, as to everything of need, sorrow, or joy.

What a contrast with the arrangements that have prevailed in Christendom, which press formal prayers in a public building once, twice, or oftener in the day! When the Lord enjoined the united petitions as giving ground for an answer from above, it was a specific need as the context in Matt. 18 makes plain. But nothing superseded the normal habit of individual secrecy in prayer to our Father. And it will be the comforting resource of the godly remnant in days to come, as we may trust, when things arrive at such a pass that joint public prayer is impracticable. But now, when the world's feeling is too indifferent to punish or hinder open prayer, can anything give more weight when we come together in assembly than the cherishing of individual prayer in the shut chamber to our Father that sees in secret, as He will surely requite?

Now what can you say to this, dear friend as yet not born of God, but only God's offspring like the heathen Athenians or men of the world generally? Will you not own frankly that it sounds the most irksome bondage to you, and that you in no way pretend thus to live to God? Till you are sons of God by faith in Christ Jesus, knowing your sins blotted out by His blood, and yourselves brought nigh to God, you cannot freely cry, Abba Father. For mere profession, however requisite in the renewed soul, is offensive to God in those dead in sins, as we all were till we found life in Christ by faith. Then such prayer as this suits both our need and our blessing. For, though redeemed in soul, we as to our bodies await redemption at His coming, and meanwhile have to do with an evil world and a subtle foe on the watch to ensnare and defile us. Therefore do we need so to pray without ceasing.

Gospel Words: the Birds of the Sky

How beyond measure sad is the state which our Lord here describes! How solemn the contrast with the eye being single, and the whole body full of light!

“But if thine eye be wicked, thy whole body will be dark. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great the darkness!”

We perceive that the Lord, as throughout all His words on the Mount, is not here occupied in any way with redemption, but with the need of a new nature and its proper internal effect on the one hand, or on the other with the moral evil, where one is not born of God. There is no possible apprehension of God's mind or will; where there is only the natural man. Such a one does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him; and he cannot know them, because they are spiritually discerned. But the spiritual one discerns all things, and he is discerned by no one. Mental capacity and learning avail nothing save to conceal the awful void from oneself or from others who are carnal.

The “eye” is the index of the nature, not outwardly alone but inwardly. “But if thine eye be wicked, thy whole body will be dark,” This is man's condition unless renewed by grace. In this all-important respect the Jew, judged by the light in our Lord Jesus, was no better off than the Gentile. They loved not the disciples whom they saw, still less the God whom they saw not. Had they really loved Him that begot, they had also loved him that was begotten by Him. The Lord made this certain and manifest; for in Him was no sin, yet they reviled Him. Grace and truth came through Him, yet they east Him out as an eater and wine-bibber, a friend of tax-gatherers and sinners, instead of recognizing the Son of man come to seek and to save that which was lost.

Hence said He to His disciples when nearing the end of His earthly course, “If the world hate you, ye know that it hath hated me before you. If ye were of the world, the world would love its own; but because ye are not of the world, and I chose you out of the world, on this account the world hath hated you. Remember the word that I said to you, A bondman is not greater than his master. If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they kept my word, they will keep yours also. But they will do all these things to you on account of my name, because they know not him that sent me. If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin; but now they have no excuse for their sin. He that hateth me, hateth my Father also. If I had not done among them the works which no other did, they had not had sin; but now they have both seen and hated both me and my Father. But that the word written in their law might be glorified. They hated me without a cause” (John 15:18-25).

What comment could be more direct and simple on the wicked eye, and the whole body dark! It is the awful and unremoved evil of the natural man; the mind of the flesh, which is not only death morally, but enmity against God, whose grace is unintelligible to it, no less than His righteousness by virtue of Christ's atoning death to justify the ungodly, if he believe on Him. The natural man's faith, if faith it is to be called, is to believe in himself, utterly blind to his iniquity and lawlessness and his total ruin before God.

The very fact that God was in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself, not reckoning to them their offenses, adds, as the words of the Lord Himself prove, immeasurably to man's guilt.

Who so pitiful to failure, who so ready to forgive sins, if they be felt and confessed to Him? But the demonstration of the world's irremediable evil lies in the undeniable truth that, when God was in Christ reconciling it, it refused all reconciliation; when God rose above all offenses, it scorned the boon, buffeted the one who proffered and pressed it on their acceptance, spit in His face and crucified Him.

It was no use to make overtures to man. Who could conceive any so great as God had made in Christ. Man was irretrievably ruined. If the Jew boasted that he only was a light of those in darkness, could he deny that he was leader of the blind against the true light, and did his utmost to extinguish what condemned himself no less than the despised Gentile? If therefore the light that was in Israel was thus proved to be darkness, “how great the darkness”!

The only hope for lost man lay in the rejected and crucified Christ; and such was the unfailing grace of God, that His best came out when man did his worst. For Him who knew no sin He made sin for us (who believe), that we might become God's righteousness in Him. It is solely a question of the second man, the last Adam, who once for all—it was enough—suffered for sins, just for unjust, that He might bring us to God, cleansed from every sin by the blood of Jesus Christ His Son. It is God that justifies the believer, as He made Christ sin for us, that we might become His righteousness. What grace! what a salvation!

Gospel Words: the Birds of the Sky

The Lord appeals to the disciples, in view of the creature subjected to man, against personal anxiety. It is humbling but wholesome for them to draw lessons of dependence thence. And first, He points to the winged class, familiar everywhere to human eyes, as objects of divine care and dependent on His beneficent provision. How much more are not His own in their incomparably higher and nearer relationship to Him and how powerless too is their anxiety to effect relief!

“Look at the birds of the heavens, that they sow not, nor reap, nor gather into barns; and your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are not ye of much more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add one cubit to his stature?” (vers. 26, 27.)

The birds are of a large class and of immense variety; so much so that the famous Cuvier had to confess his dissent from all the scientific systems he had seen. Can any competent naturalist since deny that an adequately true arrangement still awaits its discoverer? He in his “Règne Animal” proposed six orders with far more numerous genera; Temminck, sixteen orders; Latreille, seven, with 252 genera. Though some few excellent observers as Willughby and Ray preceded and have followed since these distinguished French writers, there is no end as yet to that controversy.

But our Lord drew His invaluable lessons, not from the recondite secrets, still less from the uncertainties of the science, but from the patent and undeniable facts of God's creation and providence, which none but the perverse can cavil at even in this age when the whole creation groans together, but not without hope that deliverance shall come from on high. All disciples can therefore understand and feel what He meant, and they need. The birds neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your (not their) heavenly Father feeds them. They may share the consequences of a fallen world, as other animals, and man more than any, as being their head, a moral creature, and deeply to blame directly and indirectly. Nevertheless without means and without the least carking care, our heavenly Father feeds the birds, as the plain and beautiful and instructive rule.

Hence of old the Psalmist (104) celebrated Him that sent forth springs into the valleys, that run among the mountains, and not for man only, or for every beast of the field, and the wildest of them, but for the birds that utter their voices among the branches where a dead silence prevails, broken now and then by loud shrieks of anguish so different from their cheerful strains. The stately spreading cedars were planted not for man's use only, not for taste or pride, but for the birds also to make their nests, unless the taller firs suit some better still. Nor are the creatures of the sea great and wide overlooked. These all look unto Thee, that Thou mayest give them their food in its season: that Thou givest they gather. Thou openest Thy hand: they are filled with good. Thou hidest Thy face: they are troubled. Thou takest away their breath: they expire and return to their dust. Thou sendest forth Thy Spirit: they are created; and Thou renewest the face of the earth.

But here the Lord guards His own from anxious thoughts in their daily life. Sparrows, as He taught later, are cheap enough; yet as not one of them shall fall to the ground without our Father, so He preserves them and other birds great or small without foresight of their own.

If such creatures, the unclean as surely as the clean, are the habitual recipients of His beneficence, how much must His sons be? It is an argument from the comparatively mean and distant to those whom grace deigns to bring into the nearest relationship with Himself. And the Lord's aim is to impress on His disciples, so favored, the obligation of confiding in the love of their Father without a doubt or a fear. Why should they not, instead of yielding to the anxiety natural to such as either know not God at all like Gentiles, or own Him in an altogether lower way like the Jews?

It seems almost needless to say that the words afford not the least ground for those who alleged a discrepancy with Prov. 6:6-8. For the latter impresses the common duty of industry, and therefore reproves the sluggard from the text of the laborious ant. The former calls the believer to cherish faith's reliance on the Father's care, without an anxious thought. The one is as true as the other; but the latter goes deeper and rises higher because of the revelation of the Father's name to those who believe on the Son.

Then again a strange set of fanatics, both in rather early and in later days of Christendom, made abstinence from labor a counsel of perfection. They claimed to be in a peculiar degree men of prayer, and were called Euchites by those who condemned them. Their boast was neither to sow nor reap; but they could not escape the reproach that they liked the barn and to have it well filled. The germ of this selfishness showed itself among the Thessalonian saints. But it did not fail to receive immediate discouragement and a heavy blow from the apostle, who could appeal to his own work with his hands where it made for the Lord's glory. But he also ruled such a claim as unworthy of Him, and a dishonor to such as were ensnared in cheat. “Now we enjoin you, brethren, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, that ye withdraw from every brother [not rising to superior spirituality but] walking disorderly and not according to the tradition which he received from us. For yourselves know that ye ought to imitate us, because we were not disorderly among you, nor did we eat bread of any one for naught, but with labor and toil working night and day, that we might not burden any of you. Not because we have not authority, but that we might give ourselves an example to you, that ye should imitate us. For even when we were with you, this we enjoined you that, if any one will not work, neither let him eat. For we hear of some walking among you disorderly, working not at all, but busy-bodies. Now such as those we enjoin and exhort in the Lord Jesus Christ that working quietly they eat their own bread” (2 Thess. 3:6-12).

The question in ver. 27 exposes impressively the impotence of anxiety to add to our stature the familiar unit of measure. Yet many moderns incline to length of life, instead of “stature.” But this is hardly the place to discuss such a question. The general sense at all events is clear to the simplest.

Gospel Words: the Light of the World

Here the character of the position for the disciples goes beyond “the salt of the earth.” For this was expressive of righteousness; a righteousness not outward like that of the scribes and Pharisees (which sought reputation of man, and was little beyond the pride of a Stoic), but lowly and real as in God's sight. Whereas “the light of the world” is the shining forth of grace, and inseparable from the confession of Christ in that respect. Salt preserves, but does not make everything manifest as the light does.

“Ye are the light of the world: a city set upon a hill-top cannot be hid. Nor do they light a lamp, and put it under the dry measure but on the lamp-stand, and it shineth unto all that are in the house. Thus let your light shine before men, so that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father that is in the heavens (vers. 14-16).

“The world” had no such special dealing of God as “the earth.” There moral darkness had reigned, which the light was to dispel as far as He gave it scope and power. Redemption, Christ's death, resurrection, and ascension, would give the light a penetrating energy unknown before. For such was the deadly pall which overhung the favored land during our Lord's earthly sojourn that, contrary to nature, the darkness resisted the light, and “comprehended not” even the True Light in His person. But when He rose victorious over all the power of the wicked one, the old commandment became the new, and was true not in Him only but in us, Christians, because the darkness is quite passing and the true light already shines.

This is confirmed by the figure which follows and carries the truth out farther. “A city set, or situated, upon a hill-top cannot be hid.” The sphere is no longer the circumscribed area of the earth or land, but, as for another aspect we read, “the field is the world.” The God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ would make Himself known at least in testimony, before power effectuates His will far and wide. As perfect love He came down in Christ to man; but the world knew Him not, and His own people received Him not, yea insisted that He should be crucified. Now He sets Christ in the heavenlies above every principality and authority and power and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in that to come, and put all things under His feet, and gave Him as head over all things to the church which is His body, the fullness of Him that fills all in all. And they, His disciples, are the light of the world: a city set upon a hill-top cannot be hid. Once darkness, they are now light in the Lord, and responsible to walk as children of light, corporately as well as individually. For the fruit of light is in all goodness, and righteousness, and truth. They are to prove what is agreeable to the Lord, and to have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness but rather to reprove them.

Men treat their light more fairly than Christendom does the light of which our Lord spoke. Men shrink from natural darkness, its inconveniences, and its dangers; and when they light a lamp, they do not put it under the dry measure (which of course would quite hide it) but on the lampstand, and it shines to all that are in the house. But Christendom fears the light that exposes its neglect of scripture, and of the Holy Spirit's guidance, and of Christ who is and ought to be the all. Therefore, Christianity and the church being sadly misrepresented, all the privileges and duties suffer in the same proportion; as the Lord and the apostles prepare us to expect. But the faithful are bound with humility yet in courage of faith to let the light shine; for it is not of self, but the confession of Christ in everything going forth as God has taught them, whether men hear or forbear. It is meant by our Lord to shine to all that are in the house, and beyond too.

Do we want to make known God as He is? Christ is His image and alone perfectly represents Him. Would we show Him as Father? He the Son declares Him and is the way to Him. Would we see man as he ought to be? It is not on the first man we must look but on the Second. Would we measure the true wickedness of Satan? It is in his direct, constant, personal hatred of and antagonism to Jesus the Son of God. Do you crave the sight of life eternal in the midst of this evil and guilty world? There it is in word and deed fully revealed in the same Lord Jesus. Would you consider death in all its solemn nature? It is He who manifests it. Would you look at life in risen power? Jesus alone and perfectly discloses it. Do you wish a true sight of the highest heaven? It is where the Father received Him with the fullest love and glory. Would we warn of hell? It is the everlasting fire, in which all that despise, hate and reject Him must have their portion with the devil and his angels. Christ is the light that makes everything and one manifest.

So it might be shown in the whole range of privilege and duty and from the least thing to the greatest. He is the measure of love and holiness, of service and worship, of devotedness, of suffering, and of communion. He is the standard of sin and of judgment no less than of righteousness. And as the Father is only known through and in Him, so the Spirit acts to make all good in the believer, that we might be delivered from all our thoughts and imaginations, and be led into all truth and kept.

“Thus let your light shine before men, so that they may see your good (or, comely, καλά) works, and glorify your Father that is in the heavens.” This is practical Christianity in its outgoing, as the salt is the preservative power of purity which we always need to have in ourselves. It is to confess and live Christ, not only in secret which is essential and so pressed elsewhere before Him who sees there, but also truly and unflinchingly before men. Benevolent works are no test, and are not what Christ looked for and here expresses. He spoke of works excellent in the sense of what suits the Father and the Son, and of which the Holy Spirit is the sole power in us. It is not His mind to let our good works shine before men, but our light, or confession of Himself in word and deed.

Nor can anything other or short of this secure the end He proposes. For I might dole out all my goods in what men call charity, or deliver up my body to be burned without confessing Christ, and therefore without in any way glorifying the Father. There is neither light nor love without the faith and the confession of Christ; and self might thereby be honored, but not the Father. Whereas let the light of Christ shine in your confession; and when men see right works in accordance with the will of God, they glorify not you but the Father who is the spring and aim of what you do.

Gospel Words: the Lilies of the Field

From the birds of the sky in vers. 26, 27, the Lord turns to the lilies of the field in vers. 28-30: a lesson against anxiety, the former in eating and drinking; the latter in raiment. Notoriously they comprise the two branches of ordinary living which so test the masses, not of mankind only, but of disciples, to whom He addressed Himself throughout His teaching on the mount. His disciples ought not to forget or distrust their heavenly Father by such doubts of His loving care over their daily wants.

“And why be anxious about a garment? Consider the lilies of the field how they grow: they toil not nor spin; but I say to you that not even Solomon in all his glory was arrayed as one of these. But if God so clothe the herbage of the field, that is to-day, and to-morrow is cast into an oven, [shall he] not much more [clothe] you, O little of faith?”

Here as He points, not to birds but to the flowers, He does not speak of sowing or reaping or storage, but of toiling and spinning: God cares for the birds without the one, and for the lilies without the other. Were not His children far more to their heavenly Father than either? Not only were they God's offspring as mankind universally are, but His children by grace through faith. It is not that sowing or reaping, toiling or spinning, might not be a duty, if they had to provide for themselves and their household, and could earn their supplies by these labors more readily than otherwise. Even in an unfallen world, Jehovah put Adam whom He had formed into the garden of Eden to till it and to guard it, when there was none to hire for the needful work, and he himself might happily employ his own hands.

Sin brought in sad change, not only for man's soul and body, but for the very ground on which he trod, as scripture plainly tells us. It was no longer easy and delightful work, but in toil or sorrow he must eat of it all the days of his life. And no wonder; since thorns also and thistles it should yield to him, only to be overcome by the sweat of his face in order to eat bread. If self will kick against the goad, it only aggravates the case; if the yoke (and it is not here grievous) be accepted, it is all the better for murmuring men. There is no deliverance from guilt and sin but through faith in Christ, to whom the Holy Spirit bears witness, and by whom He gives power to the believer. But for children as yet unconverted as well as adults in the same state, occupation is a merciful help, against the dangers of idleness and indulgence of lust and passion. Even for the faithful it is good, as declining to work where the person is without means is bad: so much so, that the apostle curtly lays it down, that if a man likes not to work, neither let him eat. This prescription, if duly administered, would in general prove a salutary medicine, and without fail.

Such idlers, apt to be busy-bodies too, are comparatively rare; but not so those who trouble themselves about their clothes. What after being born of God, and now having redemption as well as life everlasting, and the Holy Spirit to take up our every need and difficulty, not only the Lord interceding for us, but the Father blessing who sent His only begotten Son to and for us when we had nothing but sins? And do souls so favored distress themselves perhaps about clothes, and possibly fine clothes, beyond what becomes a Christian man, woman, or child?

What a rebuke from the herbage of the field, as our Lord interprets it Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these lilies which, the more they are inspected and by the most powerful means, only the more eclipse the splendor of Israel's richest king. Yet that lavish beauty of form and color was but a carpet spread for the feet of the poorest Israelite on one day, and on another was fuel for an oven. And this end of its glory was far from being an offense to the Lord. He, who was above all jealous for His Father's honor in His work uses the double fact to judge nature's anxiety about earthly things (were they as the lilies ever so beautiful to the eye, yet utterly evanescent too), to banish doubts and distress and unworthy desires, and to establish the heart in confidence of His Father's present, perfect, and loving care.

It was not the least in His mind to occupy the disciples with the birds of the sky or the lilies of the field as objects of their care, though not a few may abuse His allusions. Nor did He mean by His calling their attention to them, that they should treat cynically what evinces His interest in all the works of God's hand and the creatures of His will. His aim is that the disciples, under His holy notice of the incomparable goodness of God toward that which is so little in His eyes, should rise up to the Father above them all, and be assured of the considerate and constant love He bears to His own. Are they not peculiar objects of His counsels before a world was founded, now of infinite grace in Himself who for them died and rose, and at His crowning of glory, above not only the mightiest potentates of earth but also the highest principalities in the heavens? Are we to share the anxiety of those who know not God? He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not also with Him freely give us all things? No one was such a sufferer as Christ here below; yet who ever heard a complaint? and who can forget that, when rejected more and more where His mighty acts of goodness and His words of grace and truth still more wondrous were alike despised, and even He had to say, Woe, woe, at that season our Lord Jesus answering said, “I thank thee, Father,"... and “even so, Father; for so it seemed good in thy sight"? So the prophetic Psa. 16 attributes to Him the confession, “The lines are fallen to me in pleasant places; yea I have a goodly heritage.” And so the apostle, who had the fellowship of His sufferings, and knew afflictions, persecutions, and want of all things beyond any other, is the very one who rises superior to all circumstances, and declares that God affords us all things richly for enjoyment. May we follow, though alas! how distantly, in like faith!

Gospel Words: the Morrow

There is another fear that is apt to cause trouble, forecasting the trials of the morrow. How fertile is the heart, in creating difficulties, and forgetting our Father as a real and constant resource!

“Be not anxious therefore for the morrow; for the morrow will be anxious about itself: sufficient for the day [is] its evil.”

The morrow is in God's hands, not in ours. And He gives us the place of sons, as well as of children, on a firmer ground than could be even when the Lord here addressed His disciples. As He said to the Father before His suffering, “I made known to them thy name and will make it known”; so too He did in the fullest way in His message through the Magdalene, “Go to my brethren, and say to them, I ascend to my Father and your Father, and my God and your God.” The relationship rested now on the definite ground of His death and resurrection, wherein their sins were blotted out, and themselves in the same nearness to His Father and God, as well as to Himself, the Firstborn of many brethren.

The one awful difficulty, sin, was not only removed by His cross for the believer, but made in His death the occasion of glorifying God as He never was before and never needs to be again. His love and man's hatred met there for the triumph of good over evil to faith, as it shall be to sight when Christ takes His great power and reigns before every eye. There Satan was vanquished to faith, where he seemed to the natural eye absolute victor. There not only the outward, but yet more the religious, world disclosed to faith its hateful unrighteousness and its utter infamy. There the very disciples prove their worse than nothingness. There the righteous One suffered to the utmost that God might be just and justify all that believe, and that grace might send out the glad tidings even to all that do not believe. For God thereby clothes with the best robe the guilty, bankrupt, ragged prodigal who turns to Him in the faith of the Name, the name of Jesus.

Thus the work of Christ, and the present indwelling of the Holy Spirit consequent on it, set the new relationship in the clearest light and on the most solid footing which even God in Christ could give it. O what dependence on Him becomes such as know themselves thus blessed! What confidence in His love to us to-day and forever! Why then allow the least worry about to-morrow?

That men of the world should be troubled is natural. They know not God. Still less do they cry, Abba, Father. Their satisfaction is in their substance, their position, their pleasure. Their uneasiness is because all in this life hangs on a trembling balance, between their fellows whom they cannot trust, a life as uncertain as the wind, and a God whom they dread as their Judge, and with too good reason as they are.

But the child of God, why should he give way to anxiety about the morrow? He is entitled to happy boldness on his own part and assured love on His Father's to do His will today, whatever the trial. God is equally above tomorrow's anxiety, which he can cast on Him, if it come. Sufficient for the day is its evil. Christ is our burden-bearer. Through Him we more than conquer. If God be for us, who against us?

Some who read these words may be still in their sins, and not reconciled to God. If you cannot be contemplated in a warning to believers, you have an especial danger in putting off to the morrow the call of the gospel which God makes to you to-day. “Behold, now is an acceptable season, behold, now is a day of salvation.” Delay will only increase your sins, and harden your heart to resist the Spirit to your imminent danger. Be not like the naughty and foolish child, so quick to say, I will never do it again; I will be good tomorrow. Be honest with God to-day, and own the sin, and yourself a life-long sinner, and confess the Lord Jesus the only Savior, counting on God's grace to save you in His name. How many have put off to a morrow that never came So perilous is it not to own the sins to-day to Him who waits to be gracious, and can keep as truly as He forgives.

Gospel Words: the Salt of the Earth

The Lord had laid down in vers. 5-9 the distinctive moral qualities suited to the kingdom of the heavens, with the supplemental blessednesses in sufferings (10-12). He now proceeds to state definitely their position here below according to His mind. The first is given in ver. 13, answering to righteousness, as we saw in the earlier qualities He endorses; the second in 14-16, answering to the outgoing energy of grace, remains for its separate notice in due season.

“Ye are the salt of the earth; but if the salt lose its savor, wherewith shall it be salted? It availeth for nothing any more but to be cast without and trodden under foot of men” (ver. 13).

The disciples were familiar with salt not only in ordinary life but in the oblation to Jehovah,

“the salt of the covenant of thy God”: “with all thine offerings thou shalt offer salt” (Lev. 2:13). And so we read of “a covenant of salt”: as expressive figuratively of what was to be preserved inviolate and unchanging (Num. 18:19; 2 Chron. 13:5). Accordingly the Lord, in Matt. ix. 49,50, declares that “every one shall be salted with fire, and every sacrifice shall be salted with salt. Salt [is] good; but if the salt become saltless wherewith will ye season it? Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace one with another.”

If fire represents God's avenging judgment of evil, salt does no less clearly His preserving power in relation with Himself. For, as the Lord lets us know, the figures of the law are now by and in Him translated from the past shadows into present and everlasting realities. There is therefore a necessary dealing with “everyone” because all are ruined by sin. Faith bows to this now, as unbelief braves the warning to find it solemnly true and too late vindicated for eternity before the great white throne, and the unquenchable fire that follows. But as grace sent the Savior to bear God's unsparing judgment when He made Jesus on the cross sin for us, so the believer judges himself all the more when he recognizes in Him that suffered without the gate the true and divine sin-offering, consumed to ashes without the camp; Whose blood enters in all its value the holy of holies, and entitles himself boldly to approach even there, with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having the heart sprinkled from a wicked conscience, and the body washed with pure water.

He then, there, and thus was salted with fire in a way of absolute perfection as none other could be, as those who reject Him must be in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone, which is the second death. But all who believe enjoy the full efficacy of that fire of God which He endured for our sins, whilst given to judge ourselves as in the sight of God and to reckon ourselves dead with Him to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus; for he that died is justified from sin as well as sins. We have also the privilege of “every sacrifice salted with salt.” It is not only that “our God is a consuming fire” against every evil thing, every inconsistency with relationship to Him and with His nature; but as offered to God, our bodies even as a living sacrifice, we know and have the seasoning with salt that we may be kept pure and incorrupt, abhorring any working of flesh as vile and condemned in Christ's death.

The disciples had yet to learn that wondrous and mighty sacrifice of His; but here they find themselves set in the only position which suited Him, and them too associated with Him. Its moral nature, not only inwardly but publicly, is here conveyed by the words. “Ye are the salt of the earth.” To the Son as to the Father anything but this pure and purifying or at least preservative savor was intolerable for the kingdom of the heavens which they were to enter on the earth. The law, as we are told, made nothing perfect. And Moses, in view of Israel's hardheartedness, allowed what could not be when God was revealed in a Son. In that divine light He looks for suitability to His holiness. How it was to be made good in them they did not yet know; for the discourses on the mount did not unfold redemption nor yet the new birth. But there could be no doubt that this was the plain and certain expression of the place in which the Lord set His own.

Let it be noticed that they, and only they, and they emphatically, were “the salt of the earth.” The Lord does not say the salt “of the world.” This will come for fuller elucidation when we consider what was meant by their being “the light of the world,” not of the earth. But when thus distinguished as here, we may remark now in pointing out the force of our text, that “the earth” means that ordered scene where God had dealings beyond other parts. It was then as of old where Israel was set; as it was about to be enlarged by the outward profession of His name far beyond the land of Palestine. The Lord accordingly begins with that position of conserving purity, alike privilege and responsibility. “Ye are the salt of the earth.” Less or other than this was unrecognizable since He, the Son, came and called into association with Himself. The life He communicated to the believer, and the redemption He would accomplish for his sins, would be explained fully in its season. But here He shows what consisted with the Father, as well as the kingdom He would establish.

But He adds words—most grave words— “If the salt lose its savor, wherewith shall it be salted?” Profession there would be, and an excellent thing it is, if it be a heart testimony to God, true not only in word but in deed. Here, at the beginning and still more clearly at the end of His communications the Lord prepares us to expect what soon and increasingly became evident how hollow and false it was to become; and He intimated by His question and comment that the true and holy savor if once lost would be irreparable. Whatever grace might work individually, or with a few here and there, the pure position cannot be restored. Salt is itself. Nothing outside can give the saltness that disappears. Wherewith shall it be salted?

He goes farther, and pronounces its unfitness even for the useful purpose of fertilizing supplied by that which is most offensive. Saltless salt is unavailing even to manure the earth. It is only fit to be thrown outside, and trodden under foot of men. And so it will be, as it has been. When Christianity vanishes and only a savorless Christendom remains, men have trodden it down as more worthless than Judaism or even Gentilism, and the more insufferable as so much prouder and more persecuting. And so it will be when the final blows come for Babylon; and the powers which once had their illicit commerce with her shall hate the harlot, and make her desolate and naked, and eat her flesh and burn her with fire. Not only is God strong in judging her, but she shall be trodden under foot of indignant men.

Gospel Words: the Sermon on the Mount as a Whole

As the different parts of our Lord's wondrous instructions have been before us from time to time, though not in the orderly form, it seems not without interest to survey it comprehensively. Also it is well to take note of the striking difference between the task assigned to the First Gospel as compared with the Third. In the latter we have various portions dealing with the persons or things to which the instruction applies; whereas the former presents all in an unbroken fullness. Hence if we had not Luke's Gospel, we should not have known the interruptions, which in fact did occur, on the occasions for drawing out the teaching applicable.

It is known that many excellent persons have tried to make out, for the clearing up of what enemies treat as discrepancies, that our Lord repeated the same or very similar instruction under different circumstances. Assuredly on the one hand no one would affirm that the same truth may not have been often reiterated in the course of His service here below. But on the other there is no proper ground for doubting that the Spirit of God has in a remarkable and deeply interesting way presented the same teaching in a differing connection and with distinguishable shades, according to the divine design of the books which incorporate it. Thus there is no need to conceive a new rehearsal, in order to reconcile (as it is called) the writings, or to vindicate the credit of the writers. It is on the contrary the wisdom of God in which the Holy Spirit acted when He thus directed the so called Evangelists. For we must not assume that Matthew and Luke entered fully into His reasons for so inspiring them. What is certain is that they were so led of Him as to give us the truth of God, the more perfectly to fulfill His purpose in each.

Take, as the first instance in fact, the account of Luke 6:12-49, and compare it with the chapters of Matthew; as also Luke 11:1-13. and 33-36. Quite aware that pious men have argued from “the plain” in Luke 6:17, opposed to the “mountain” in Matt. 5:1, one is constrained from the clear evidence of both to reject such a solution of the difficulty felt as to the identity of the discourse at the same place and time. For Luke's language does not mean “a plain,” but rather a level place or plateau on the mountain, up to which the Lord went to pray all night, before calling the chosen twelve, and then coming down with them, so far as to meet a crowd of His disciples and a great multitude of the people out of all Judea and Jerusalem. It was clearly the same discourse; but the Spirit acted, not as a mere reporter (which is not the manner of inspiration) but as an infallible editor, as it were, for the distinctive design of each Gospel.

Hence we may observe that Matthew does not relate here the apostolic institution, as Luke does at this time and place, like Mark, who omits the sermon as being occupied with His work rather than His words. Matthew was led to reserve that call as its fitting place to the mission to Israel in his chap. 10. which corresponds with the beginning of Luke's chap. 9. Ignorance or error is out of the question for the Evangelists, but too true of those who carp at what they do not understand. The first striking distinction in the discourse is, that in the briefer sketch Luke was given the address personal, “ye,” not the abstract “the” as in Matthew before the final benediction of verse 11; while Matthew was led to reserve his far fuller woes till chapter 23 which was a later time.

The Kingdom has no such place in Luke as in Matthew. It is those that gather to Christ and follow Him truly who are blessed; and thus for man as he is, outside and despising Him. The contrast of what Messiah authoritatively said with what was said to the ancients is peculiar to Matthew. Luke gives fully the great and new morality of loving our enemies, being merciful as our Father also is, not judging or condemning, but remitting according to the divine pattern; as Matthew gives the pointed teaching on practical righteousness in acts and words, prayer and fasting, as directed against hypocrisy; and the prayer for disciples comes in here in his chap. 6:9-13. In Luke it is not only reserved for a moral connection with heeding the word as the appropriate exercise of life according to God, but we learn too that it was the Lord's answer to a disciple's request. To record this in Luke's Gospel was as suitable, as to leave it out in Matthew's who presents the Lord in all meekness but full of authority, without taking notice of any such human circumstances.

This too explains why the First Gospel gives it not only as an unbroken whole, but in immediate sequence of a very broad and general view of His service and the wide impression produced (Matt. 4:23-25). In a similar way His teaching next follows, though historic detail was given later.

But not to see that these ways of the inspiring Spirit are perfect for the adequate revealing of Christ's various grace and glory, and in no less admirable adaptation to man's condition and wants—to conceive that they are blemishes of human infirmity, is indeed to be dim-sighted if not blind. Such are those who, if they do not altogether deny God's word, “Just hint a fault and hesitate dislike; Willing to wound, but yet afraid to strike.” But if we are to be kept in these difficult and dangerous times, if we are not to be carried away by superstition or by skepticism, we need uncompromising adherence to scripture and dependence on His guidance who inspired every word from God but through man, and to be now characteristically (I do not say absolutely) able to say, as could not be of old, “we know,” as we read in the Epistles of Paul and John particularly, not said of themselves only but of Christians their brethren, who have God's Spirit dwelling in them.

As to the sermon, it is instruction in the righteousness proper to all that enter the Kingdom of the heavens. Those born of the Spirit alone can meet the state of soul blessed in the Lord's eyes. It is not a requirement as on Sinai, but Christ's description of such as suit the Kingdom. Not a word of grace to sinners is uttered. It is not the gospel of God's grace to the lost, but His words for His disciples; and personal obedience is the rock at its close. To misrepresent this is mere error; and it is evangelical men who find most difficulty. Others no doubt are wholly wrong; but we must not confound it with redemption or saving grace.

Chapter 5 is not only a sketch of what the blessed ones are, but with the authority of Law and Prophets fulfilled, not weakened, the higher conduct suited to the Kingdom, in contrast with what God of old forbore with, now that the Father's name is revealed, and relationship with Him.

Chapter 6 speaks of the inner life or ways as seen of the Father, distinct from the world, and its cares apt otherwise to be absorbing.

Chapter 7 shows their due attitude to others, saints or sinners, with counting on God encouraged, and avoidance of false prophets (no matter what their gifts), and practical submission to Christ's words.

Now, my reader, if you have not judged yourself as lost and found by grace, salvation in Christ and His work, how can you face the Sermon on the Mount? It is far more to be dreaded by you than the Ten Words of Sinai with all the terrific sights and sounds which accompanied them. Jesus invites and urges you to come to Him, and even assures that “him that cometh to Me I will in no wise cast out.” Have you ever so come? Come now. Delay here is most dangerous.

Gospel Words: the Treasure and the Heart

The moral principle here laid down by our Lord calls for our deep and constant heed; and the more, because the flesh ever deceives, and struggles against it, to indulge itself under fair disguise and for reasons seemingly strong and excellent. But we walk by faith, not by sight, and only so rightly.

“For where thy treasure is, there thy heart will also be.”

Where faith is not, a present object engages the heart, and becomes the treasure. It is self in one shape or another, whereby Satan is the master, and not God: what then must be the end for eternity? The most prevalent is what our Lord calls “filthy lucre”; for money is the readiest means of gain for gratifying carnal lusts. It may be the heart abandoned to the pleasures of sin for a season. Power again is the ambition of some, as fame is of others. Also it may take a religious direction as readily and more dangerously than a literary one, or for worldly honor. In such ways men perish, even where no grossness appears, but the nicest refinement.

Christ alone delivers and preserves from all such snares. He is given and sent by God to win the heart by His ineffable grace, adapting itself to our guilt and misery and worthlessness through sin, to save the vilest from his evil, to reconcile unto God, to be life as well as righteousness to him who had neither, to associate with heaven, and thus separate from the world not only in all that is evidently bad but in all that claims to be good or its best, that we should no longer live to ourselves, but to Him who for our sakes died and rose again. And as this is for the Father's glory, so is it by the Spirit's power who is here, sent forth now from heaven on and since Pentecost, to glorify Him who never sought His own will but at all cost that of God.

Christ is therefore the true treasure, and in and by Him the riches of God's grace, yea and far beyond all question of need, to the praise of the glory of His grace which will make us like Himself before Him, not only in nature but in relationship as far as this can be. But we have this treasure meanwhile in earthen vessels, that the exceeding greatness of the power may be of God and not from ourselves. “Wherefore we faint not; but though our outward man is decaying, yet our inward man is renewed day by day. For our momentary light affliction worketh for us more and more exceedingly an eternal weight of glory; while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.”

Hence our Lord urges our not laying up for ourselves treasures upon the earth where moth and rust spoil, and where thieves dig through and steal; but to lay up for ourselves treasures in heaven where neither moth nor rust spoils, and where thieves do not dig through nor steal. “For where thy treasure is, there thy heart also will be”! The heart follows necessarily the object of its affection; and Christ, the treasure of the Christian, was not of the earth but comes from above, from heaven, and above all. “What He hath seen and heard, this He testifieth; and none receiveth His testimony. He that received His testimony set to his seal that God is true. For He whom God sent speaketh the words of God; for He giveth not the Spirit by measure. The Father loveth the Son, and hath given all things [to be] in His hand. He that believeth on the Son hath life eternal, but he that obeyeth not (or, is not subject to) the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him” (John 3:32-36).

It is not only then what the treasure is, but where that the Lord presses on our heed. And this truth of the treasure in heaven derives great accession and force from our Lord's ascending where He was before (John 6:62), no longer Son of God only as He came down, but Son of man as He is now also in heavenly glory. For this is the proper and full way in which the Christian knows Him. Wherefore we henceforth know no one according to flesh; but if even we have known Christ according to flesh, yet now we know [Him] no longer. So if any one [be] in Christ, [it is] a new creation.

To Christ glorified is the Christian united by the Spirit, now that he rests on redemption accomplished. He that is joined to the Lord is one spirit. Only then and there could it be. Hence having died with Christ and being raised together with Him, we are exhorted to seek the things that are above where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God, to set our mind on the things that are above, not on the things that are upon the earth. For we died, and our life is hid with Christ in God. And we wait that, when Christ our life shall be manifested, we too shall then be manifested with Him in glory.

We may notice that in Luke 12 the connection of this truth expressed more broadly (“For where your treasure is, there your heart also will be”), is not only with the warning of the precariousness of all save a treasure in the heavens, but with the Lord's coming as a proximate hope. “Let your loins be girded about, and your lamps burning; and ye like men waiting for their own lord whenever he may leave the wedding, that when he cometh and knocketh they may open to him immediately.” It would be scarce possible to conceive words more clearly indicating the call to be constantly looking out for Him.

Altogether the aim is unmistakable if we are walking in the Spirit. We are now “heavenly” in title (1 Cor. 15:48, 49), and we expect on the surest authority to realize it even for our bodies at His coming. Let us see to it meanwhile to live, serve, walk, and worship, consistently with our faith and our hope. Nothing short of this is the Christianity of the N.T. when the many things were known which the disciples could not bear till they had redemption through His blood and the gift of the Spirit. When the Spirit was come from Him on high, He did not fail to guide them into all the truth.

Reader, beware of being deceived. If you are not a disciple of Christ, if not born of the Spirit, the Lord's exhortations are inapplicable to you: you are not yet one of His. Own your evil and guilty state before God. Own Him the only efficacious Savior, the Son of man come to seek and to save the lost. Then indeed such words as His to the disciples will be precious and blessed by grace to your soul. But you must be born anew, born of God, to receive and understand them. Beware of those who deify ordinances to Christ's disparagement, and their own vain pride of a baseless office.

Gospel Words: Vain Repetitions in Prayer

Having laid on the individual secrecy in prayer to the Father, the Lord widens here His injunction, and warns His disciples against a habit unworthy of Him, and of them too in so blessed a relationship, though it had to be still more deepened and elevated on His resurrection day, and in view of His ascension to heaven. It might be, as it was, a natural feeling which thus wrought even in heathen. The Lord looks for and inculcates what is supernatural.

“But when praying use not vain repetitions, as the Gentiles; for they think that they shall be heard by their much speaking. Be not therefore likened to them; for your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye beg of him.” It is not a warning against a hypocritical spirit. Of this He spoke first, as they were Jews, a people responsible to observe God's law, but faithless for the most part, and the orthodox among them prone to high pretensions, moral as well as ceremonial, with a heart far from Him. Therefore He inculcated the value and duty of prayer to the Father in secret, as the contrast with the hollowness of prayer to be seen of men.

Notwithstanding His words, the evil grew till in the fifth century it reached its height of folly in Simeon a Syrian who at the last erected a pillar on which he might stand, elevated at first six cubits and at last forty. On the top was a space three feet in diameter, surrounded with a balustrade, and here he stood day and night in all weathers. During the night and till 9 a.m. he was supposed to be constantly in prayer, after stretching out his hands, and bowing so low as to touch his toes with his forehead. Someone who attempted to reckon these prostrations counted up no less than 1244. At nine he began to address the superstitious crowd below; for, strange to say, this religious mountebank not only heard and answered to such as were present, and wrote to the absent, but took on him the care of the churches and corresponded with the highest dignities in both church and state. As evening approached, he dropped these activities and resumed his repeated prayers as before. It is recorded that he partook of food but once a week, and never slept, thus spending with a coat and cap of sheepskin some seven and thirty years, and dying in the attitude of prayer in his sixty-ninth year. His scholar and chronicler Antony tells us that he went up after three days and that his dead body gave forth a sweet odor. So naturally allied is deceit to these quasi-spiritual shows.

But here our Lord reprehends a far more prevalent snare. “When praying use not vain repetitions, as the Gentiles.” The words occur nowhere else in the New Testament, nor did the Seventy employ them in the Greek version of the O.T. Nor is par. found in any writing independently of ver. 7 till 500 years after Christ. There is therefore divergence of views as to its precise meaning. This is not the occasion for such a discussion; and though it has been sought to derive what is peculiar from the Hebrew for “unadvisedly” or “rashly babbling,” the context tends to support the Authorized Version.

It is quite unworthy of the Father, and even of His children thus to trifle in prayer. There are no doubt occasions for long persistence, as well as earnest repetition, in prayer. Our Lord Himself is the example of thus spending the night through, and of praying over and over again the same words. Neither of these special supplications could be reprehended in others where they are seasonable and requisite. But there is scarce any habit more common, even among believers, than lengthy utterances which are not prayers at all. For they express the individual's views sometimes of the discourse preceding, his own or some other's, sometimes of all he can muster of the varied circumstances of the church, or at least his own party, and of all the world outside. Occasionally if not often the one in the attitude and form of prayer forgets that he is speaking to his Father, and slips unwittingly into what sounds like teaching Him the doctrines which delight himself.

These things ought surely not to be. What reverence becomes one by grace entitled to say, Abba, Father! What deep sense of His majesty and holiness who has shown infinite mercy to such as deserved everlasting judgment! How often do we not fail, however favored we may be, in judging self and grieving the Holy Spirit! The royal preacher could say of old, “Be not rash with thy mouth, and set not thy heart to utter anything before God; for God is in the heavens, and thou upon earth: therefore let thy words be few. For a dream cometh through a multitude of business, and a fool's voice through a multitude of words.” How much deeper should be our humility whom, notwithstanding a far fuller sense of our evil and of His grace, He calls His children! How sad the inconsistency, if kept from Pharisaic hypocrisy, to drop into the inconsiderate foolish verbiage of Gentiles!

We are brought to God at an infinite cost. We are taught our utter vileness as well as our shameful sins. When we draw near to pray, ought we not to have the hallowing solemnizing effect in weighing our words, whatever the love that invites us into His presence? Then we may be without anxiety as to anything, but in everything make our requests known to Him by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving. He loves that we should confide in dependence on Him. Let us never forget that “our Father knoweth what things we have need of, before we beg of Him.” To think that we shall gain a hearing by our much speaking is a dishonor to Him and even to us.

Growth Through the Truth

1 Peter 2:1-6

In one sense, as here taught us by the Spirit of God through the apostle, the healthful position of the saint is ever that of the “new-born babe;” whilst in another sense we are, of course, to be making progress so as to become young men and fathers in Christ. As to practical position of soul in receiving truth from God, it is that of the new-born babe: “as new-born babes desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby.” This is the place in which, as believers, we are set by the Spirit, in order that we may grow up into Christ.

But if we are “to grow by the sincere milk of the word,” it is not by the exercise of our minds upon the word, nor yet even by the greatest study of it. We need the teaching of the Holy Spirit, and in order to this, there must be the exercising of ourselves unto godliness; the “laying aside all malice, and all guile, and hypocrisies, and envies, and all evil speakings,” so that the Holy Spirit be not grieved. Has the Christian envy, guile, hypocrisies, allowed to work in his heart? There can be no growth in the true knowledge of the things of God. Therefore he is called upon to be ever a “new-born babe,” in the consciousness of his own weakness, littleness, and ignorance, and in simplicity of heart, coming to receive food from the word of God.

The Lord always keeps His simple dependent ones thus. “Grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God, and of Jesus our Lord.” But then the knowledge of God always humbles; the more we know of Him, the more shall we know of our own emptiness. “If any man thinks he knoweth anything, he knoweth nothing yet as he ought to know.” Just as the babe is constantly receiving nourishment from the mother, so need we to be constantly receiving spiritual nourishment from the word of God. When the word is received by us in faith, we become strengthened; we grow thereby in the knowledge of God, and of His grace. The apostle Paul, having heard of the faith of the Ephesians, in the Lord Jesus, prays “that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory,” would “give unto them the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him, the eyes of their heart being enlightened, that they might know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints,” &c. Having “tasted that the Lord is gracious,” we come to His word and receive from Him that which we need to comfort, nourish, and refresh our souls. The word always comes with savor from Himself; it is known as “the word of his grace.” I may study the word again and again; but unless I get into communion with Him by it, it will profit me nothing—at least at the time.

God reveals not His things “to wise and prudent,” but unto “babes.” It is not the strength of man's mind judging about “the things of God,” that gets the blessing from Him; it is the spirit of the “babe desiring the sincere milk of the word.” He says, “open thy mouth wide, and I will fill it.” The strongest mind must come to the word of God as “the new-born babe.”

And so too in speaking of God's truth; whenever we cannot “speak as the oracles of God,” through the power of communion, it is our business to be silent. We should be cautious not to trifle with unascertained truth. Nothing hinders growth more than this—trifling with unascertained truth: we then act as masters and not as learners. Our position as regards the truth of God must be ever that of “new-born babes desiring the sincere milk of the word that we may grow thereby unto salvation.”

But there is nothing so hard for our hearts as to be humble, and nothing so easy for them as to get out of this place of lowliness. It is not by precepts merely that we are either brought into this state, or preserved there; it is by “tasting that the Lord is gracious.” It is quite true that God is a God of judgment, that He will exercise vengeance on His enemies; but this is not the way in which He stands towards the Christian. He is made known unto us as “the God of all grace;” and the position in which we are set is that of “tasting that he is gracious.”

How hard is it for us to believe this, that the Lord is gracious! The natural feeling of our hearts is, “I know that thou art an austere man.” Are our wills thwarted? we quarrel with God's ways, and are angry because we cannot have our own. It may be perhaps that this feeling is not manifested; but still at any rate there is the want in all of us naturally of the understanding of the grace of God, the inability to apprehend it. See the case of the poor prodigal in the Gospel; the thought of his father's grace never once entered into his mind when he set out on his return, and therefore he only reckoned on being received as a “hired servant.” But what does the father say? What are the feelings of his heart? “Bring forth the best robe and put it on him; and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet; and bring hither the fatted calf, and kill it: for this my son was dead and is alive again, he was lost and is found.” This is grace, free grace.

So too in the case of the woman of Samaria (the poor adulteress, ignorant of the character of Him who spake with her, “the only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth,” and therefore the suited one to meet her need): the Lord says to her, “If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink, thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water.” Hadst thou only understood what grace is, thou wouldest have asked, and I would have given!

It is not only when there is open rebellion against God, and utter carelessness and unconcern about salvation, that there is this darkness of understanding as to grace. Our natural heart has got so far away from God, that it will look to anything in the world—to the devil even—to get happiness; anywhere but to the grace of God. Our consciences, when at all awakened to a sense of sin, and of its hatefulness in the sight of God, think that He cannot be gracious. Adam, had he known the grace of God, when he found himself naked, would at once have gone to God to cover him. But no, he was ignorant of it; he saw his state, and he sought to hide himself from God amongst the trees of the garden. And so it is with us. The consciousness of being naked before God, apart from the understanding of His grace, makes us flee from Him.

Nay, further, as believers in Jesus, when our consciences come to be exercised, and we feel that we must have to do with God in everything, we may not have the distinct sense of the Lord's being gracious: and there will then be not only a deep sense of our responsibility, but at the same time the thought that we have to answer to God's requirements, and shall be judged of Him according to the way in which we do so. There is a measure of truth in this: the requirements of God must be met: but then the wrongness is in thinking that, if we do not find in ourselves what will please God, He will condemn us because of it.

On the other hand there is sometimes the thought that grace implies God's passing by sin. But no, quite the contrary; grace supposes sin to be so horribly bad a thing that God cannot tolerate it. Were it in the power of man, after being unrighteous and evil, to patch up his ways, and mend himself so as to stand before God, there would then be no need of grace. The very fact of the Lord's being gracious shows sin to be so evil a thing, that, man being a sinner, his state is utterly ruined and hopeless, and nothing but free grace will do for him—can meet his need.

A man may see sin to be a deadly thing, and he may see that nothing that defiles can enter into the presence of God: his conscience may be brought to a true conviction of sin; yet this is not “tasting that the Lord is gracious.” It is a very good thing to be brought even to that, for I am then tasting that the Lord is righteous, and it is needful for me to know it; but then I must not stop there: sin without grace would put me in a hopeless state. Peter had not “tasted that the Lord was gracious” when he said, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord!” and therefore he thought that his sin unfitted him for the presence of the Lord.

Such too was the thought of Simon the leper, respecting the poor woman who washed the feet of Jesus with her tears, and wiped them with the hairs of her head. Ah, if this man had been a prophet (if he had known the mind of God), he would have sent away this woman out of his presence, “for she is a sinner” And why? Because he did not know that the Lord was gracious. He had a certain sense of the righteousness of God, but not the knowledge of His grace. I cannot say that God ought to be gracious; but I can say (if ignorant of His grace), that He ought to cast me, as a sinner, away from His presence, because He is righteous.

Thus we see that we must learn what God is to us, not by our own thoughts, but by what He has revealed Himself to be, and that is “the God of all grace.”

The moment I understand (as Peter did) that I am a sinful man, and yet that it was because the Lord knew the full extent of my sin, and what its hatefulness was, that He came to me, I understand what grace is. Faith makes me see that God is greater than my sin, and not that my sin is greater than God. “God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” As soon as I believe Jesus to be the Son of God, I see that God has come to me because I was a sinner and could not go to Him.

Man's ability to meet the requirements of the holiness of God has been fully tried: but the plainer the light came, the more did it show to man his darkness; and the stricter the rule, the more did it bring out his self will. And then it was, “when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly” — “when we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” This is grace.

God, seeing the blood of His Son, is satisfied with it; and if I am satisfied with it, this is what glorifies God.

But the Lord that I have known as laying down His life for me is the same Lord that I have to do with every day of my life; and all His dealings with me are on this same principle of grace. Do I want to learn what His love is? it is taught in the cross; but He gave Himself for me in order that all the fullness and joy that is in Him might be mine. I must be a learner of it still—a new-born babe “desiring the sincere milk of the word that I may grow thereby.”

The great secret of growth is the looking up to the Lord as gracious. How precious, how strengthening is it, to know that Jesus is at this moment feeling and exercising the same love towards me as when He died upon the cross for me! This is a truth that should be used by us in the most common everyday circumstances in life. Suppose, for instance, I find an evil temper in myself, which I feel it difficult to overcome: let me bring it to Jesus as my friend, virtue goes out of Him for my need. Faith should be ever thus in exercise against temptation, and not simply my own effort; my own effort against it will never be sufficient. The source of real strength is in the sense of the Lord's being gracious.

But the natural man in us always disallows Christ as the only source of strength and of every blessing. Suppose my soul is out of communion, the natural heart says, I must correct the cause of this before I can come to Christ. But He is gracious, and, knowing this, the way is to return to Him at once, just as we are, and then humble ourselves deeply before Him. It is only in Him, and from Him, that we shall find that which will restore our souls. Humbleness in His presence is the only real humbleness. If we own ourselves in His presence to be just what we are, we shall find that He will show us nothing but grace.

But though “disallowed indeed of men” —of the natural heart in every one of us—who is this that says, “Behold, I lay in Zion a chief corner stone, elect, precious; and he that believeth on him shall not be confounded?” It is God; He laid this corner stone, not man; and He says, This is what I think of Christ. By learning of God, through His teaching me by the Holy Spirit, I come to have the same thoughts about Jesus that He has. Here I find my strength, my comfort, my joy. That in which God delights and will delight forever is now my joy also.

God says, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased,” “mine elect in whom my soul delighteth;” and, receiving these (His) thoughts into my soul, I, too, see Jesus to be precious, and find my delight in Him. Thus He who was crucified for me, who “bore my sins in his body on the tree,” is precious to God and precious to me.

God could find no rest save in Jesus. We may look throughout the world, we shall find nothing which can satisfy our hearts but Jesus. If God looked for truth, for righteousness, all He could desire He found in Jesus; and He found it in Him for us. Here is that which gives comfort to the soul. I see Jesus “now in the presence of God for us;” and God is satisfied, God delights in Him.

It is Christ Himself in whom God rests, and will rest forever; but then Jesus, having borne and blotted out my sins by His own blood, has united me to Himself in heaven. He descended from above, bringing God down to us here: He has ascended, placing the saints in union with Himself there. If God finds Jesus precious, He finds me (in Him) precious also.

Jesus, as man, has glorified God on the earth: God rests in that. As man, having accomplished redemption He “has passed into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us.” It is Jesus who gives abiding rest to our souls, and not what our thoughts about ourselves may be. Faith never thinks about that which is in ourselves, as its ground of rest; it receives, loves, and apprehends what God has revealed, and what are God's thoughts about Jesus, in whom is His rest.

It is not by human knowledge or intellect that we attain to this. The poor ignorant sinner, when enlightened by the Spirit, can understand how precious Jesus is to the heart of God, as well as the most intellectual. The dying robber could give a better account of the whole life of Jesus than all around him, saying, “This man has done nothing amiss;” he was taught by the Spirit.

Are we much in communion with God? Then our faces will shine, and others will discover it though we may not be conscious of it ourselves. Moses, when he had been talking with God, wist not that the skin of his face shone; he forgot himself, he was absorbed in God. As knowing Jesus to be precious to our souls, our eyes and our hearts being occupied with Him, they will be effectually prevented from being taken up with the vanity and sin around; and this too will be our strength against the sin and corruption of our own hearts. Whatever I see in myself that is not in Him is sin; but then it is not thinking upon my own sins, and my own vileness, and being occupied with them, that will humble me; but thinking of the Lord Jesus, dwelling upon the excellence in Him. It is well to have done with ourselves and to be taken up with Jesus. We are entitled to forget ourselves, we are entitled to forget our sins, we are entitled to forget all but Jesus. It is by looking to Jesus that we can give up anything, that we can walk as obedient children: His love constrains us. Were it simply a command, we should have no power to obey.

The Lord give us thus to be learners of the fullness of grace which is in Jesus, the beloved and elect One of God, so that “we may be changed into the same image from glory to glory, as by the Spirit of the Lord.”

May we, beloved, in searching into the truth of God, “having tasted that the Lord is gracious,” ever be found “as new-born babes desiring the sincere milk of the word, that” we “may grow thereby unto salvation.” J.N.D.

Heathen Theories

Such is the title of a short paper, which cannot be called a query. The writer seems above inquiry, and filled with Hindu ideas which he attributes to Christians. But it is untrue of the Christian, if it is true of the Hindu, that he regards scripture “as a single, indivisible, and mechanically inspired book, dictated throughout by the Deity, and from which all human elements are jealously excluded.”

Now on the face of the Bible, there is the patent fact that it consists, not of “a single book,” but of an immense “division:” the older in Hebrew with a small part for good reason in Aramaic; the later in Greek when the door of faith was to be opened to Gentiles; the one occupied with God's ways on earth, the other with His heavenly counsels based on the manifestation of His Son, the Lord Jesus, and of redemption. But yet more its contrast is apparent with the impostures of the Hindu and Arabian, in the vast variety of its writers in the O.T. as well as in the N.T., separated by very many centuries of old, but in a brief space for the more recent; yet with absolute unanimity where the same subject is broached. There is therefore in this and in all other ways the reverse of a “mechanical inspiration” in its many distinct but harmonious books; by a legislator and a general, by judges and prophets, by kings and great ministers of state, by priest and herdman, by known and unknown; again, in the N.T. by a taxgatherer, and a physician, by fishermen of little learning, and by a tent-maker of great. “Dictated by the Deity” it is not, save in a comparatively small degree in the Pentateuch (chiefly in the latter part of Exodus, and we may say in all Leviticus), and in the later prophets. Nor are “all human elements jealously excluded,” but abundantly; considerately, and most touchingly found, as the rule, from Genesis to the Book of Revelation. But it is inspired of God, God-breathed every part of it— “every scripture,” as the apostle lays down authoritatively. The Lord Himself and the apostle Paul and Luke often used the Greek translation, not as if it was perfect everywhere but as adequate in its way. No wonder that neither the Veda nor the Koran bear translation, and attain it but slightly for the curiosity of some and of others to refute their vain imagination. The Bible lends itself remarkably to transfusion into all the tongues of men. The grand truth is that God controlled the many writers, notwithstanding their infirmities and allowing each his own style, so as to exclude error and give His word, Who cannot lie and needs not to repent.

The Higher Criticism: Part 1

Dr. Kirkpatrick opens the first of these papers with words which sound well— “The aim of the Christian student is truth; and the aim of the Christian teacher is to bring that truth to bear upon human character and life. The Old Testament forms an integral part of the Bible. It was placed in the hands of the Christian Church by its Founder and His Apostles as the record of God's revelation of Himself to His chosen people and the manifold preparation for His own coming; as the source from which instruction in conduct was to be derived, and as the means by which the spiritual life was to be fed. We cannot therefore treat it as any other book: it is sacred ground; reverence is demanded of us as we approach it. But it is no true reverence which would exempt it from the fullest examination by all legitimate methods of criticism” (p. 3). Textual criticism as applied to Scripture has for its aim to set out the very words of the original, and the rejection of every intrusion, omission, or change through the copyist whether unintentional or designed. Such was the recognized task of the orthodox critic from the first; and the MSS., the Versions, and ancient citations furnished the materials which the critic employed to give, in his judgment, the most exact approach to the deposit of faith: a difficult and delicate work, which demanded spiritual discernment at least as much as patient research and multifarious learning. Such is the criticism alone considered “legitimate” till of late.

But this is not “The Higher Criticism,” which as a system is of comparatively recent date, and under cover of literary problems has raised fundamental doubts incompatible with divine inspiration in any real and honest sense. Individuals or parties may have indulged from early days in similar incredulity and on a small scale; but neology did not then spread, being reprobated by men of simpler faith, even if not very intelligent. Nor would Dr. K. dispute this, as one may gather from his page 5: “Now, what is the position of students and teachers of the Bible to-day? They are face to face with a treatment of the Bible, especially the Old Testament, which half, nay, a quarter of a century ago, would have seemed utterly irreverent, subversive of the foundations of the faith; and which still seems to many (and it is not to be wondered at) irreverent and mischievous.”

In a note to page 14 (his last), he acknowledges, not the energy of the Holy Spirit acting on pious and prayerful souls distressed by the revived superstition and infidelity of our day, but “the influence of contemporary methods of study and modes of thought; and, in particular, how modern methods of examining literary and historical documents and the doctrine of development compel us to revise many of our traditional ideas in regard to the Old Testament.” Yes, there you have the impulse which has carried away in its skeptical current the crowd of literary speculators. It is not God's grace, but the spirit of the age, applying the fashionable craze of development without faith or even fear of God in owning His word, but boasting of present-day methods of criticism, where we have no authentic history save what He has given by His servants the prophets, whose limbs they would rend into the galvanized factors of their unbridled imagination. Did not the Lord of glory, the “before Abram came into being I am,” know all the truth about the Bible? Did not the inspiring Holy Spirit? If both declare and sanction the common faith of God's elect against the revolutionary scheme, where and what are the new critics?

The real position of the party represented by these two distinguished leaders in Cambridge and Oxford is, on their own showing, presumptuous to the last degree. It is a conspiracy against the confession of all the Christian martyrs and saints who have lived and suffered for righteousness and the Lord's name for some 1800 years. It is rebellion against the plain yet profound and divinely inspired revelation, which the church of God received admittedly from its Founder, the Truth itself, and through Apostles, assured by Himself of the Holy Spirit's power to guide them into all the truth. During many centuries were prophets of old raised up by God in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, children of no faith, but perseveringly addicted to idolatry. They warned Israel from the beginning of their national history; even the greatest of them before they entered on the promised land predicted their ruin for a while, His hiding His face from them because of their abominations, and also His moving them to jealousy with a no-people, and provoking them to jealousy with a foolish people (Deut. 32). And we Christians have the greatest of apostles interpreting these words in Rom. 10:19, as that which Moses said of the rejection of Israel and the present call of the Gentiles; yet looking onward in chap. 11 both to the Gentiles cut off because of their unbelief, and to the restoration of Israel in sovereign mercy, by an everlasting covenant never again to rebel nor be defiled, when Jehovah's sanctuary shall be in their midst for evermore.

It is too evident that these sponsors for the revolt against the Bible, as the Lord and His apostles undoubtedly taught, and the faithful in their measure have accepted with all confidence in Him and them (the foundation on which the church is built), have in no way profited either by the prophecy of Israel's ruin or by the brightness of their glorious recovery, when Christendom falls under the unsparing, judgment of its unbelief in yet richer privilege. But there is another warning still closer and more serious. The same Lord and His apostles solemnly assure us, that the Christian testimony would be corrupted as certainly as the Jewish one had been; that the evil was at work even in the apostolic days, and that so far from being extirpated, it would surely work up to a head of entire revolt from God, the apostasy and the man of sin, the full and foul contrast of the righteous Man who never did but the will of God.

In presence of the many words of God pointing to this awful consummation before the present age ends, it were wise for the leaders and the followers of the new movement to weigh the Lord's question, “When the Son of man cometh, shall He find faith on the earth?” (Luke 18:8.) He goes far beyond the Roman sack of Jerusalem and dispersion of the Jews, and the city trodden down by nations still later till times of nations are fulfilled, which is clearly not yet come. He tells us of signs of sun, moon, and stars, and upon the earth distress of nations in perplexity, the roar of the sea and rolling waves, men ready to die through fear and expectation of what is coming on the inhabited earth, for the powers of the heavens shall he shaken; and then shall they see the Son of man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. If the moral end for man was his iniquity in crucifying the Messiah, God's Son, He will come as the glorious Son of man to judge mankind and establish the world-kingdom of God which neither the gospel nor the church could do. He alone is competent and worthy (Rev. 11:15); but how overwhelming the judgments whereby the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness!

We know how little the new school cares for traditional views; and there in principle I cannot blame them. But no tradition-monger is so ignorant of prophecy as they. It is well then before they fall into the same destructive criticism as to the New Testament, that they should lay to heart that the Lord's approaching judgment of Christendom as well as of the world generally is the uniform testimony of the apostles and prophets. It is a day of Christ's manifest triumph for faith, but of ruin for unbelief in teacher or taught.

“The night is far spent and the day is at hand” (Rom. 13:12). “Waiting for the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Cor. 1:7). “For indeed we that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened; not that we would be unclothed but clothed, that the mortal might be swallowed up of life” (2 Cor. 5:4). “For we through the Spirit by faith wait [not for righteousness, being already justified, but] for the hope of righteousness,” i.e. glory with Christ (Gal. 5:5). For God's purpose is to head or “sum up all things in the Christ, the things in the heavens and the things upon the earth—in Him in whom we also obtained inheritance,” we being not the heritage, but heirs of God and coheirs with Christ (Eph. 1:9-11). “For our citizenship is in [the] heavens, whence also we await the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior who shall transform” &c. (Phil. 3:20, 21). “When the Christ, our life, is manifested, then shall ye also be manifested with Him in glory” (Col. 3:4).

So we are told that from the very first the Thessalonian believers turned to God from idols to serve a living and true God, and to await from the heavens His Son, whom He raised from out of dead [men], Jesus our deliverer from the coming wrath (1 Thess. 1:9, 10). If more were needed, much more could be added in proof, that as tradition has never known or kept up the true faith and hope, so none in Christendom could more thoroughly renounce revelation in this respect than this self, vaunting new party. Who ever heard of so much as one neologist absorbed, as all Christians ought to be, by “the blessed hope,” of any devoted as not of the world to the indisputably primitive and faithful attitude in awaiting Christ's coming as our constant hope? Who can tell us of one new critic separate from the world, enjoying grace, suffering from Christ's reproach and withal filled with joy?

But there is the dark and awful side which follows that hope, the day of the Lord's judging the inhabited earth (Acts 17:31). His day for the everlasting downfall of all man's worldly and fleshly glory (Isa. 2, 1 Thess. 5). It is grievous to say that the New Testament speaks unambiguously on the special guilt of false teachers in Christendom, whether sanctimonious like the traditionalists, or audacious and profane like most of the new pretenders to know the Scriptures better than the Lord and His inspired ambassadors, who in effect make Him and them to err in declaring, for instance, that Moses, David, Isaiah, Daniel wrote what they did not write. It is nonsense to talk, as rationalists habitually do, of the superiority of their own day, of modern progress, of new modes of thought and more searching methods of literary and historical investigation; as if God's Word did not stand on ground peculiar to itself, and not therefore to be treated confessedly, “as any other work.”

Inspiration in any proper sense, and allowing for errors of copyists, etc., is essentially superior to the advances of knowledge in material things or in human experience. It is therefore unreasonable to expect that any increase of such knowledge should affect the truth committed to the church; so distinct are the things of man from those of God. As man's spirit knows the things of man, and of the lower creation set under man, so the things of God knows no man but the Spirit of God. Are the leaders of this new movement abroad or at home such as could uprightly say, “Now we received not the spirit of the world but the Spirit that is of God, that we might know [consciously know] the things freely given to us by God?” I do not allude to the willful disputers of this age, if men of this stamp ever were; but would the few reverent ones avow that they have the anointing Spirit abiding in them, which another apostle declares that the very babes of God's family received from the Holy One? If they would not (and I have sure ground for saying that they venture not), are these, whatever their ability or acquirement, entitled to the least weight where angels would fear to tread? They are as a class restrained by no such scruple; for they have never learned from God their own nothingness in His things; yea, if not renewed and indwelt by His Spirit, that they have only the mind of flesh which is enmity against God.

Hence, because they know not God by His teaching, they shrink from claiming life eternal as a present possession, and have never faced their sins before God so as to know themselves become His righteousness in Christ They talk of His revelation as progressive. Now, the revelation of God is itself, and does not admit of that progress which man boasts. Take the grand intimation of deliverance from the serpent's malicious and deadly power in man's fall. Expressly was it not to be through the merit or virtue of fallen man; it stood in Another. And in this first announcement after sin and death entered, we cannot but see, unless we be blind, that the Deliverer is human because He is the woman's seed, and that He is divine, for He will utterly crush the mighty angelic rebel, the liar and murderer from the beginning. If the Oxford and Cambridge Professors know of a revelation in the O. T. progressive beyond this, who would not hail the discovery with joy?

There was a very different revelation of divine wrath, recorded early in the same book of Genesis, which swept away all mankind, save eight persons, the family of Noah, whom grace preserved for the righteous man's sake who believed. Do they count this progressive as compared with God's announcement of the bruised Deliverer from the coming wrath? It is hard to conceive that any could so reckon who know God or themselves. Again, we have the self-centering pride of man judged at Babel, and the hitherto united race confounded by the difference of languages and nations, but as we learn from Josh. 24 serving other gods. And the God of glory appears to call Abram to Himself from the strange gods of which we then first hear (a call of grace so absolute as to separate him from country, kin, and father's house), the depositary of promise for a seed both fleshly and spiritual (see Rom., Gal., and Heb.), the grand result for heaven and earth being not yet seen. But can even that or its repetition to Isaac and Jacob be rightly deemed progress on the woman's Seed and, after suffering, His triumph over the power of the wicked one?

Then long after, the lawgiving at Sinai, so awe-inspiring and terrific as to make Moses its mediator “exceedingly fear and quake,” was a revelation of God to all Israel which every true Christian accepts literally as recorded in Ex. 19; 20. Is it the fact that the new school are as incredulous of the display at Sinai as of the creation recorded in Gen. 1; 2? Are not their German leaders as scoffingly infidel in regard to both as the French Encyclopædists, T. Paine and C. Bradlaugh? Do the best of the British guides differ at heart, or is it only in decency of tone, whilst equally unbelieving? But as to progressive revelation, was the law at Sinai an advance on the woman's Seed? or even on the promises to Abraham and to his seed? On these the apostle argues with care and energy to show their precedence by 430 years, and the unconditional grace they held out to the believers, in contrast with the law which was added for the sake (not of sins, but) of transgressions until the Seed came to whom the promise was made. Does not the apostle Paul thereby refute this progressive theory? The promises assuredly were the support of faith through the ages; as the law, right, wise and needed in God's ways with man, could only condemn the guilty and destroy all hopes of a standing or escape on that ground.

It is needless to enumerate the divine interventions that studded the history of the chosen nation, which equally refute the progressive assumption. God had taken care that grace on His part should precede law, not only from the lost paradise of Eden but in the world that now is from the call of Abram; and whatever was vouchsafed in fresh revelations only confirmed both the one and the other which met in Christ. Then when the people were ruined and driven out of His land for their idolatry, and the unbelief of the returned remnant to still greater sins and severer punishment rejected His and their Messiah, it was not only revelations from God but God Himself revealed in His Son Jesus our Lord, in His person, His life, His death, His resurrection, and His ascension to God's right hand and throne in heaven.

This, no doubt, is beyond comparison. It is not promise merely but accomplishment, the ground of God's glad tidings of grace and of Christ's glory, the soul's redemption secured to God's glory, the church united by the Spirit to the Head, in readiness to save the last member of the body for Christ's coming and His subsequent revelation before the universe manifestly put under Him. Does the new school truly believe in this glorious issue as God reveals it? Does it accept in God-fearing simplicity any one of these revelations past, present, or future? To think of progress, since the fullness of the Godhead dwelt and dwells in Christ, is such presumptuous unbelief as to be no less than blasphemy against the necessarily complete and final revelation of God in His person. May they be preserved at least from that revolt! what can one think of any one so deceived by the enemy? Christ is not a divine dealing or a doctrine merely, but a divine person fully revealed for life eternal, redemption, and glory.

Some, we know, speak of their faith in inspiration; and personally one may have clung to hope against fear that the faith might be living under the wretched incubus of their complicated cobweb on cobweb, woven by the brains of Teutonic legend-mongers, without a single solid fact. A most amiable apologist puts it thus—Jehovist¹, J², J³; Elohist¹, E²; J E combination of Jehovistic with Elohistic; D Dh Dp, the author of the Urdeuteronomium with two later redactors; J E D, combination of J E with Deuteronomy; P P¹ P² P³ Px, the author of the priestly code with its later editions (Px=P3 P4 P5 &c.); Rj, the editor who combines J and E; Rd Rd², two authors or editors, the first of whom combines J E with P, contributes to Joshua and Judges, and writes most of Kings, while the second is a later redactor of that work; Rp, the editor who combines J E D with P.

The Higher Criticism: Part 2

The credulity of the incredulous is proverbial. When did inspiration enter this extravagant patchwork? Was it with the first or the last? or were all these cobblers inspired? He who cites gravely such speculations from another's scheme tells us that this critical apparatus goes up to the furthest limits as yet reached. He may be assured that so wild an appetite must grow without end. He speaks of the “enormous amount of labor which will be apt to seem wasted;” but such minds as leave God out of labor, “accurate” as they may think, must always waste it. Only he who does God's will abides for eternity; and was anything farther from God's will than this nothingarian quest? He magnifies His word above all His name, and will avenge the insult done to Scripture on all the guilty. He may warn those that add to or take from the things in one book, peculiarly the scorn of erudite unbelief; but His indignation is not limited to that book. It is deplorable to look to any specialists who trust in themselves and each other but not in the word and the Holy Spirit who imparts it, and alas! “our own scholars!” “to decide judiciously.” “Thus saith Jehovah; Cursed is the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from Jehovah.” May the Christian profit by Israel's danger, a danger never more real than now. It is the precursor of the apostasy (2 Thess. 2:3).

Prophets wrote the O.T. books; prophets authenticated the original drafts, and added as they were led of the Spirit such confirmations at a later date as were called for in the days of the kings, and the still more factious time of the return from captivity when the Jews were subjected to the Persian, Greek, and Roman powers. But the crowning mercy was the presence of Messiah, the Son of God, not only to suffer for our sins but to give to believers understanding to know Him that is True. Hence the all-importance of His pronouncement on the O. T. and promise of the Holy Spirit for the apostles and prophets as to the final scriptures in the tongue of the Gentiles. No moment was so wise and necessary or auspicious. Never was the O. T. so verified and honored, as when the so-called N. T. was to follow, all given before the first century A. D. closed.

For the Lord did strikingly seal the truth of the law of Moses, and the Prophets, and the Psalms, not only in the days of His flesh but in His risen state (Luke 24:44). Even His own when raised shall be superior to the prejudice of time and sense and shall know as they are known. Both He and His inspired servants alike bear the testimony of divine authority to all, and particularly to Moses, David, Isaiah, and Daniel, the most assailed by vain and empty sciolists, the last men in the world to trust for origin, date, literary structure, character, or meaning of scripture, because their system does its worst to unsettle for themselves and the faithless world godly heed, and find pleasure in doubt. As a Christian student, I may be allowed to say that I have been tolerably familiar with the arguments of the new school long before these Professors of Oxford and Cambridge, and I fail to recall a single service of value any one of them has rendered to revealed truth. How could it be otherwise? since it is the essence of rationalism to deny God's authority and mind in scripture as a whole, not one of them can rightly estimate any of its parts. Is anything more “settled,” as the first article of their unbelief, than that there is not nor can be for most of them true miracle or prophecy? Yet every Christian knows that scripture itself is both miraculous and prophetic, to say nothing of the many miracles and prophecies it attests.

But the extraordinary and distracting phenomenon presents itself of a crowd of speculators who still claim the name of Christian and busy themselves, not on the Koran or the Hindu Vedas or the Parsee Avesta, but on the O. T., and represent “an enormous amount of labor, which will be apt to seem wasted” if on fabrications and priestly impostures. Does it not rather seem the homage which infidelity pays to the truth they dislike, dread, and fain would destroy, yet in vain and, alas to their own destruction, unless they repent? It is the more extraordinary that the people whom the critics despise as so prejudiced transmitted to us as sacred those very prophecies which denounced their disobedience, corruption, and idolatries, and predicted their consequently present anomalous state. “For the children of Israel shall abide many days without king and without prince, and without sacrifice, and without pillar, and without ephod and teraphim.” Who but an infidel can deny that Hos. 3:4 is fulfilled? Which of the new school believes that his ver. 5 will as surely be to the joy of all the earth? “Afterward shall the children of Israel [mark, Israel] return and seek Jehovah their God and David their king; and shall come with fear to Jehovah and to his goodness at the end of the days.” Blinded as the Jews are judicially, they are not so unbelieving as the neologists.

Let us now come to the earliest charge of “false science” in Gen. 1 laid by the Lady Margaret's Prof. of Divinity, Cambridge. “It was once as easy as it was natural to regard the first chapter of Genesis as a literal account of the way in which the universe was brought into being; now that we have read the records of the rocks, and learned some fragments of the mystery of the heavens, we know that it cannot be regarded as literal history” (p. 4). Dr. Driver (Regius Prof. of Hebrew, Oxford) is if possible more curt and peremptory (p. 52), and alludes to Gen. 1 as “this imperfect and in many respects false science.” Is such language becoming from professing Christian teachers about God's word? It is calm and deliberate, and therefore far more guilty than from an avowed enemy of revelation. Now I distinctly affirm that these two Professors do not understand the chapter. There is no collision whatever between it and the ascertained facts of geology. It is ignorance in both to affirm any such contradiction. Room is left for the geologic ages of science, with the strata and their fossils before the six days; but scripture is silent thereon. There is therefore no excuse for the evil insinuation, invented by infidel scientists, and repeated by these D.Ds.

The chapter starts with the grand truth of creation, of which many geologists really are as ignorant now as the ancient philosophers of every age and school: a truth which idolatry of old as willingly ignored as modern science in its desire to forget and exclude God. From neither was it learned. “By faith we understand that the worlds have been framed by the word of God, so that what is seen hath not been made out of things which do appear.”

Thus it was, even before Moses wrote, known from Adam downward among the faithful. And from Rom. 1:19, 20 it appears that creation was not doubted for a long while afterward. For we do not hear of idolatry till after the deluge. But when Moses wrote by God's inspiration, details were added of the deepest import, far beyond the general truth. What was the testimony on which faith rested? Mainly and literally on these opening words of the Bible: a truth subversive of heathenism and immeasurably nobler, higher, deeper, and more spiritually instructive than all the discoveries of astronomy, geology, and other sciences put together.

No science, ancient or modern, ever taught this great truth, any more than later Gentile tradition. The heathen oracles assumed and gave out falsehood on eternal matter which issued in atheism and pantheism, or what Gibbon, ever heartless, called the “elegant mythologies of Greece and Rome,” the basest and most demoralizing of all, reducing their divinities to very wicked males and females like themselves. Here the oracles of all science are dumb now as ever. For science as science knows nothing beyond its own subject matter and cannot speak aright of God. Hence men the most disposed to cry up the triumphs of science are compelled to allow its total failure in this respect. J S Mill (Logic, 8th ed., 398), owns that “we can give no account of the origin of the permanent causes themselves” [such as the earth's rotation]. So H. Spencer says of science, “It conducts us to a blank wall by a method which is wholly powerless to penetrate the mystery which lies behind.” How strange that the professedly Christian teachers should not acknowledge where geology and every other science failed! Moses was inspired to communicate this fundamental revelation, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth": a sublime truth, stated in as noble simplicity, to begin the Bible, as God alone knew and made it known through His servant by the Holy Spirit.

Ver. 2 is most important in its way: for it reveals without limitation of date, yet as a subsequent fact, that the earth was made waste and empty, with darkness upon the face of the deep. Not only does the expression of the Hebrew verb in the first clause lend itself to this (for so is it used often even in this chapter as elsewhere); but Isaiah 45:18 is to my mind decisive in its favor. “For thus saith Jehovah that created the heavens; He is God; that formed the earth and made it; He established it, He created it not a waste; He formed it to be inhabited.” He did not create it in the chaotic state, but for good and wise reasons threw it into that state. We can readily understand that only so could man when it was inhabited get at the coal, the marbles, and the metals, etc., so useful afterward. For as the chapter itself shows that acts of creating followed the origination, so there may have been of destructive and temporary breakup as the strata sufficiently indicate to the geologist. It is here that the geologic times would come in, but this could be no matter of revelation. That science like others was left for man. But room is left for it, before the days of getting ready the earth as it was to be for Adam and his race. These begin with ver. 3; and “the evening and the morning” point to literal days, so suited to and connected with man on the earth, not with the vast periods when other conditions prevailed, and man was not. And this is corroborated by the sabbath that followed man's creation, which a prolonged geologic age would not.

Is it not plain that this is the genuine meaning of Gen. 3? Does it not refute the hasty misinterpretation, not confined to mere men of science, but common among the theologians of Christendom who read this scripture without sufficient waiting on God to apprehend its comprehensive scope and the exact bearing of its distinct parts? Yet not a few have thus seen and taught for more than the half century of a modern Germanic) irruption, which may damage romancists, but is powerless against the word of God. British Darwinism, like the kindred metempsychosis of Lamarck, is no doubt set aside as an unbelieving dream by the distinct speeder. attributed to God's will in Gen. 1 to both the vegetable and the animal kingdoms with which the human race is conversant. Yet there are men of science apart from faith who refuse the fashionable craze which undermines the fixed laws that God has thus impressed, without which science could not be, with a decision which puts to shame these higher critics so ready to believe and not God. Development to that extent is absurd and would destroy science. What scheme more unworthy of God or even man ever was invented by his feverish brain?

Take only the swamping of the human race with the brute in contrast with the affectingly solemn and self-evidently true place assigned to man, as the chief ruler of creation in Gen. 1, and in moral relation to God as well as the creature in Gen. 2 where we hear of Jehovah Elohim inbreathing his soul alone of all beings on the earth. Is this nothing? or is it “false science?” The fact is that it is not science at all; and the exactest science could not attest it. It is the revealed light of God, which is the truth, and immeasurably above all science. And one can only grieve over professing Christians beguiled by such dreams; but we must be indignant that they claim to be Christian ministers, Being that they slight the scriptures though divinely inspired, and bow to the passing delusions to which scientists are notoriously liable like others. Never has any savant of any land or tongue produced an account of creation to compare with Gen. 1, still less with its profound and necessary supplement in Gen. 2.

Gross ignorance of and positive fall from the light of Christianity appear on Dr. K.'s own showing: “Times of change must be times of trial, They call for faith, courage, patience, sympathy—for faith that God is still teaching His Church as He taught it of old, πολυμερῶς καὶ πολυτρόπως, by divers portions and in divers manners' (Heb. 1:1); for courage to go forward trustfully, following the light of the reason which God has given us,” etc. (pp. 4, 5). Now the scripture cited contradicts the sense for which it is cited. Of old God spoke thus to the fathers in the prophets; at the end of these days He spoke to us in a Son. There had been revelations from God on a deliverer, on the deluge, on promise, on law, on a kingdom in Israel, on Gentile dominion; prophecies fully while Israel so existed; prophecies sufficiently when Israel was Lo-ammi. Now it is Himself revealed in the person and redemption work of His Son: a revelation absolutely perfect, of which it is not only false but blasphemous to think that it admits of development. Those who pretend to progress after this are apostates, even if they call themselves Christians. Nor is it the great apostle only who taught so, but the Gospel of John (1:18), and emphatically his First Epistle (2:24-27), as also 2 John 3. Equally does Dr. K. offend when he substitutes for the divine guidance of the Holy Spirit the characteristic power of the Christian and of the church, “following the reason which God has given us;” as if we were no better off in this respect than the most benighted heathen! Could any one ask clearer proof that Higher Criticism leads even its ablest guides into the ditch of infidelity?

Next we are told whereby these moderns trust to subvert not merely what the church has believed for many centuries, but what the Lord and the apostles taught of the scriptures. 1, Textual criticism, which is in no way their province. 2, Linguistic criticism, which surely belongs to competent Christian students. 3, Their pet “higher criticism,” the most visionary attempt to imagine a variety of interpolators instead of the alleged author. 4, Historical criticism, sought to be distinguished from the higher, it is hard to say why. 5, Archæology and comparative religion. In these and other ways they hope to revolutionize men's thoughts of the Bible, and urge the clergy to understand their methods, to estimate its results, and to consider how these affect their teaching.

Now in the face of this conspiracy of soi-disant experts to shake the O. T. to its center and cast the Law, the Psalms, and the Prophets avowedly into a sea of uncertainty, we have the sure fact of infinite comfort to every believer that the incarnate Son of God ruled the divine authority of these very scriptures, and that, risen from the dead, when prejudices disappear from the weakest of saints, the Lord authenticated them as testimonies to Himself in the flattest contradiction of modern criticism. So did the Holy Spirit sent forth from heaven from Him glorified, and this both to such ecclesiastical rulers as Timothy and Titus, and with no less freedom and fullness to the mass of the faithful in the Epistles, remarkably anticipating the skeptical attacks on Moses and David, Isaiah and Daniel, by declaring each the writer of the books attributed to them, as for instance of the latter part of Isaiah no less than the former. “He [Moses] wrote of Me.”

To faith this is and ought to be the end of controversy. Splitting such investigation into higher and historical or others makes no difference worthy to speak of; nor does calling it “literary” mitigate the awful presumption of giving the lie to the Son of God, or of the unbelief that attributes ignorance of what must have been known to a divine person. Think of Him who is to judge quick and dead, and who searches the reins and heart of every child of man, not knowing who wrote the Pentateuch! Think of those who call themselves Christians and Christian teachers denying to His face that Moses wrote of Him, and seeking by all sorts of vain perversions to make it seem a patchwork, contributed by a rabble of nobody-knows who; and this last pretended largely to be Jehovah's words spoken to Moses for His people, yet designated as “the God-given record of God's special revelation of Himself through Israel in preparation for the Incarnation, and as such of permanent significance for the Christian Church” (p. 7)! Is not this to betray with a kiss?

That the world hearkens to these men in our day, beyond the old Encyclopædists or individual freethinkers who preceded them, is true. They are, therefore, encouraged to dare greater things. Believers on the contrary are all the more distressed, both for the dishonor done to God's word, and for their guilt who are not only misled but misleaders. In 1 Tim. 4 the apostle referred to the ascetic and legend-loving spirit which early led some to apostatize from the faith; but in 2 Tim. 3 he speaks of a later and more prevalent departure from God, when men having a form of piety should deny its power, and advance in evil. In chap. 4 he says that the time shall be when they will not bear sound teaching, but according to their lusts will heap up to themselves teachers, having an itching ear; and they will turn away their ear from the truth, and will turn aside to fables. In fine, as he wrote in 2 Thess. 2:3, the apostasy will come, the rejection of Christian truth by Christendom itself. Can any means be conceived more suited to bring this about than the modern criticism? Their denial and despising of prophecy will blind them so much the more to the godless movement. For this is what will characterize the consummation of the present evil age, and bring on not only God's preparatory dealings in judgment, but the Son of man's appearing in the clouds of heaven to trample His enemies under His feet. The universal establishment of God's world-kingdom follows (Rev. 11:15; 19; 20).

In p. 10 Dr. K. admits that “The results of literary [or higher] criticism are at best only probable, though in many cases the probability amounts to practical certainty (!); but literary criticism has been pushed to the wildest extremes, as for instance when we are told that we have no genuine writings of the prophet Jeremiah except,” etc. Now this discloses in its confession what we know from the entire spirit and language and aim of the school, that, like Romanism, modern criticism has no divine faith. Its results are at best, only “probable.” The school of literary criticism comes to the same result in principle as the school of ecclesiastical tradition. The faith of both turns out to be without absolute truth to rest on. Such only is scripture, the word of God who cannot lie. This was what Cardinal Newman laid down in his Grammar of Assent when a full-blown Romanist, confounding the church probability men must act on with the certainty of a divine testimony to faith. As begotten of God I believe Him because He has written, and believe neither the church on the one hand (for how often has it erred?), nor these modern critics who believe in man's disproof of what the Son of God authenticates, as well as the apostles and prophets inspired by the Holy Spirit. If as a Christian I am bound to reject the church intervening between God and my soul as to His revelation, how much more to reject men who evince their unspirituality by their ignorance of His mind in scripture, and flee to Babylonian, Assyrian, Egyptian, and other heathen sources of the flimsiest kind for that external knowledge of which they never weary of boasting.

On his three points wherein modern criticism, he says, affects theology, we need not dwell now: the mode of revelation, the character of prophecy, and the nature of inspiration. The use of “revelation” is a blind; for, in the growth they contend for, God is really excluded, as really as in the imaginary development of creation with which it is compared. In both the believer owns divine design—in scripture, and even in creation defaced as it is by sin. But it is an utter mistake that the Lord taught us anything inconsistent with its divine authority. He was, as befitted His person, introducing the heaven's light with His Father's name for those destined to the Father's kingdom; but He insists in the plainest terms on its divine authority for God's end in it. “Think not that I came to destroy the law or the prophets: I came not to destroy but to complete. For verily I say to you, Till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle shall in no way pass away till all be fulfilled. Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments shall be called least in the kingdom of the heavens; but whosoever shall do and teach them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of the heavens” (Matt. 5:17-19). If God spoke in the scriptures, woe to those who say I must judge them first! His word will judge them at the last day. It is not so that any man was ever brought to God; he believes God and is blessed; as those who set up to first pronounce on all the canon are going the direct road to lose their own souls. The enemy lures these to hope that the way of “modern criticism” is to have “our theology” liberated, deepened, and strengthened. The more they seem to succeed in their blind glorying in man, the sooner will fall divine retribution on their inventions against the word which abides forever. You might challenge the entire multitude to produce a single truth of God which the higher criticism has rescued from the darkness of unbelief. What future can rationalism have but judgment for despising God's word and God's Son? Unbelief may destroy as far as God allows, but can produce nothing.

It seems bold to speak of “prophecy” as Dr. K. does; for he knows well that scarce any conclusion is more “settled” and accepted by the great majority of his school than that there is neither prophecy nor miracle in any real sense. A few like himself admit prediction to a small extent. But all reduce it more or less to what the apostle Peter stigmatizes as of “private interpretation” i.e. its own particular solution, instead of each one forming part of the divinely given scheme of predictive testimony to God's glory in Christ, which is to sum up in Him, the head, all creation in heaven and on earth (Eph. 1:10). Is any one of his company, even of those who shrink from applying the knife to the N. T. as they do to the O.T. really living with that divine purpose of glory for Christ before his soul as his living hope? Is one of them truly waiting for His coming again to reign over the universe heavenly and earthly to God's glory?

(Continued)

Historical Sketch of the Brethren

This booklet of 30 pages has been sent by a reader of the B. T. who asks, “Is this book true or false?” To call it “false” might imply that the writer (whose name is purposely suppressed) stated what he knew to be untrue; but there need be no hesitation to say that it is in every respect unreliable. Like many party-men he is so shortsighted and one-sided as to see nothing right but his own mistakes. “Separation” is his bugbear, “fellowship” his idol, not with the Father and the Son, but brotherly, which is often wrong. Scripture is decisive that “love” brings in what is of God; whereas “brotherly affection” may become faulty and faithless (2 Peter 1:7). Nor has the truth the first place for his soul. The great sin to him is not keeping together and welcoming everyone charitably hoped to be a brother. Christ's glory in the church and the saint by the word and Spirit of God, does not sway him.

Yet our leaving nationalism and denominationalism, as all but our weak ones did, if scriptural condemned all sects as opposed to God's will; if unscriptural condemns our aim and position, which is a return to “what was from the beginning.” I admit the writer had no such principle, nor any other; for by his own account (p. 11) he bargained when coming into fellowship to stick to his clergyman's ministry, and those who had to do with his reception were accommodating enough to exceed his demand. This was no doubt amiable on both sides; but God's will or way was forgotten by all concerned. This looseness is what he admires; to me it is caring for self and not Christ. I, as earlier than the writer, can say that it was not the rule in those days, though not disposed to question what he states of his own personal experience.

About 1843 or 4 I remember a brother asking me what was to be done, if evil got the upper hand among those gathered to the Lord's name, as of old after the apostles; and replying that we must adhere in faith to what unfaithful souls compromised. So 2 Tim. 2:19-22 teaches. Alas! the need arose at Plymouth itself soon after, where a leader with several coadjutors came to the conclusion that “Brethren” were wrong ("Christian Witness,” and all). Instead of going quietly out, as uprightness must have dictated, they chose to leaven the meeting there with his independent church system, ministerialism, and judaizing (of the hope especially), to say nothing of personal conduct. Mr. Darby did all he could in vain to have this judged; and when the mass stuck to local majority, and gave up all sense of the Spirit's unity, and common consistency, he withdrew as did others, that they might be subject to the word and Spirit as before. Not long after a system of heterodoxy was discovered secretly at work in the same party. This was exposed to the deliverance of many and the scattering of the unworthy. But a part of western England really sympathized with the Plymouth system of independency, ministerialism, and the earthly hope to supplant the heavenly; and this is what the booklet tries to defend without knowing what was at stake.

Even if the alleged facts were correct (which they are far from being according to my information), the writer's notion of fellowship is a fallacy without a divine principle—neither truth, holiness, nor love. His ideal is a free-and-easy religious club with license to roam at will, spiritual nothingarianism, and exclusion of anything to try conscience as “contentious.” Where the Lord's name is a living center, Christians grow and correct themselves by the word and Spirit of God. Brethren, even when they met in Aungier St. (Dublin), used to settle on Saturday night for the scriptures and hymns on Lord's day! Later still at Plymouth an elder's chair was occupied at the Lord's table. But they learned ere long that “the gifts” of Christ are permanent; whereas “elders” required apostolic nomination direct or indirect. Now the writer seems not to have learned this or anything else, making a tradition of lax ways however wrong. “The word of our God shall stand forever;” though even this we can only use to His glory by the Holy Spirit.

In Christ God and Man Thoroughly Manifested

How solemn, yet how blessed, the truth which the gospel reveals to faith, that both God and man are thoroughly manifested All is out on both sides: God in all His grace and truth; man in all his hatred and guilt. The cross of Christ makes the good and the evil perfectly plain to the uttermost. It is not merely that man, the chosen people, failed in every respect under the law of God (that is, in the duty to God and man which was justly required); but that when God in the person of Christ came in love and active unmerited goodness to ruined man, He was cast out with nothing but ignominy and scorn. Man would not have the true God of grace at any price, but crucified Him who is His image.

This necessarily and in principle closed all question of relationship with God for the people who had His law and boasted in that which could only condemn them. But the same death of the Cross, which proved the Jew's irretrievable ruin on the ground of law, opened the door of indiscriminate grace to all mankind as manifestly lost sinners, Jew and Gentile alike. It is in vain for the Jew to talk of the law, vainer still for the Gentile still more openly God's lawless enemy. The gospel goes out since Christ's death, resurrection and ascension, expressly on the ground that all sinned, and that none is righteous, no not one.

When man had thus manifestly, and after all patience and long-suffering, done his worst against God, no less is it manifest that God in the face of all did His best in giving His Son to be a sin-offering for such a wicked and rebellious world, that whosoever calls on His name should be saved. There is no ground of salvation in man. All turns on the Second man. Not only is He alone worthy, but He suffered for sins, Just for unjust, that the vilest who believes in his heart and confesses with his mouth might be saved. It is God's salvation complete, perfect, and everlasting; in contrast with Israel's temporal favors; and they too as a nation, when their heart turns to Him whom they despised and refused, shall enter into His mercy forever.

Why then parley with the enemy, or listen to the evil heart of unbelief, when God sends you the word of reconciliation? He assures you that the atoning work is done by His Son, the only work which could glorify Him as to sin, the only work which could cleanse you from your sins. Yea the Son of Man so glorified Him, not only as Father but as God, that He is now glorified as man in God Himself, before the kingdom comes in displayed power and glory. And thus the gospel is not only of God's grace, but of Christ's glory as now on the Father's throne, whence He is coming, we know not how soon, to take us there where He is now. This is incomparably more than to reign with Him over the earth, though we shall share in it also.

So complete thus is the manifestation of God in grace and truth, yea and in heavenly glory, to bless the lost sinner who casts himself as he is on Christ. And so completely does He prove that there is no good in us but evil beyond our fathoming, that there is no excuse for the least delay. All of badness on my part is out; all is out of sovereign grace on His part. Both of these are the strongest motives to come and find life eternal and everlasting redemption in Christ Jesus the Lord. “But if also our gospel is veiled, it is veiled in those that are perishing, in whom the god of this age blinded the thoughts of the unbelieving, so that the radiancy of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is God's image, should not shine forth.” What madness to hesitate or question! Who but God could so bless a lost sinner? and He only through Christ's cross, which makes it to be God's righteousness; and thus by faith we too become His righteousness in Christ.

What a joy it is, that when man was proved irretrievably lost, God in the gospel reveals His righteousness justifying the believer in the most glorious way! For it is not only in what the blood of Christ effects that his sins should be cleansed away atoningly, but that the believer himself should enter the new and heavenly place, yea in Christ as He is in glory before God. Thus if no one saw the heavenly vision as the apostle did, every Christian is entitled to say that he has the substance of the blessing which was made known to Saul and through him to all who believe His word. The grace of God gratuitously met him in his sins when he bowed to Christ; it has also made bite to become God's righteousness in Him, not as He was but as He is in heavenly glory.

No wonder then that the apostle could speak of the gospel of God's glory. For if love brought down the Son to us as the only but perfectly efficacious propitiation for our sins, He so glorified God about sin that God has glorified Him in Himself, and gives us to become His righteousness in that glory, whence the light of Christ in glory reached our dark hearts, and we are henceforth identified with Him there. The light of the knowledge of God's glory in the face of Jesus Christ was not for Saul of Tarsus only, but through his inspired testimony that the Corinthian saints of old and that we now who believe might know ourselves blessed after the same rich pattern. What wondrous grace to be a Christian in the simple, unadulterated, and full faith of Christ according to the gospel of His glory! How unutterably wretched to be anything less! Between the two there is no middle ground of standing sanctioned by God. Christendom is utterly short of the truth, and hastening full sail into the abyss of the apostasy.

JND and Bethesda

It would be an invidious thing after so many years to rake up evil without a cause; but as there is a bold effort just now to white-wash, it becomes a duty to speak plainly for the Lord's sake and those who desire to be faithful.

A good deal, calculated to mislead those who do not know the facts, has been made of Mr. D.'s gracious visit to Mr. M., as soon as he had opportunity after the seven meetings. At length they seemed uprightly to judge the heterodox tracts of Mr. N. Among others who examined, there had been no doubt whatever of his heinously antichristian error. For themselves as Christians it was hailed as far as it went. But not a few were grieved that the meeting was kept from its clear duty to put away the persons come into their midst, who not only held those evil doctrines, but diligently circulated the incriminated tracts. Yet this paramount duty was evaded by the request made privately that they should withdraw for peace' sake. To this the Newtonians acceded, only adding their title to return when they thought well or to that effect; which I never heard to be denied then. Proof, however, that the strong denunciation of the heterodoxy was hollow and transient became evident after the break-up of the N. meeting, which the seceding pair of the Ten leaders set up and carried on with Mr. N.'s presence and help. For, as already stated, these two, R. A. and. J. W., on its failure, sought fellowship again at Bethesda, and were received without question of the heterodoxy and of their deliberate and public support of that antichrist (though G. M. said his Christ would need a Savior for himself)! All that Bethesda asked, all that R.A. and J.W. gave, was confession of the wrong of leaving Bethesda! Its leaders' sole care was to vindicate themselves, not an atom for the traduced Lord Jesus.

It is therefore a suppression of the truth, and a suggestion of falsehood, to imply that all was cleared away by Bethesda in Mr. D.'s eyes. To remove every doubt, let the following extract of a letter of Mr. D., written in 1873 (many years after), tell its own tale— “When the loose brethren pretended that Bethesda had changed, and acted in discipline, C. declared they had not, and that as far as he knew, they would do the same in like case; and that he did not know a single person at Bethesda who held Mr. N. for a heretic. This was Mr. Craik's published statement long after the thing had happened. It was the open support of blasphemy, and the breach took place by an effort on the part of neutrals to force us to go on with B., as they openly stated, and I personally know.” (Letters of J. N. D., ii. 263.)

To avail oneself of a particular point in the history, which was a mistake however well meant, is it anything less than a fraud, and all the more because it touches the truth and the will of the Lord so seriously? Neither Mr. N. nor B. ever said or did aught to mitigate the evil done to His name during the many years that have elapsed. Conceive too the strange folly, and insensibility of reading the subsequent writings of one acknowledged to be a false Christ, and never disowning it!

Thoughts on John 16:27-28

The Lord had much to tell His disciples of the Father. But hitherto, as He says in ver. 25, He had spoken to them in proverbs, as they were able to bear it. Then He went on to say that the hour was coming when He would speak to them plainly of the Father. Clearly this hour dawned at Pentecost, and it is interesting to see how what we have here accords with the statement in Acts 1:1. “All that Jesus began, both to do and to teach.” In the one passage we have the clear intimation that our Lord would instruct His servants at a coming hour; in the other the blessed fact is implied in the striking word “began,” which is far from being otiose, as indeed naught in holy scripture is or could be. In short it marks the continuity of what our Lord did on earth with what He did after His resurrection and ascension.

Hereby we learn incidentally how impossible it is to isolate the persons of the Godhead. If “in the days of His flesh” the Savior cast out demons by the finger of God (Luke 11:2), by the Spirit of God (Matt. 12:28); if through the eternal Spirit He offered Himself without spot to God; if again, it was through the Holy Spirit that He gave commandment unto His chosen apostles, it is equally true that what the Spirit revealed at and after Pentecost was virtually revealed by the Son. “I shall show you plainly of the Father” (ver. 25).

But, if that fuller revelation still tarried a while, the Lord does tell the disciples in the clearest language truth concerning Himself which it was of all consequence that they should know, and which it was supremely blessed to hear from His own divine lips. Needless to say, it is also truth most instructive for us to ponder. I allude now to the closing sentence of ver. 27, and to ver. 28. Let us read the passage as it is more accurately given in the R. V. “I came forth from the Father. I came out from the Father, and am come into the world; again, I leave the world, and go unto the Father.” The careful reader will note some difference between the above and the A.V. In the first place “Father” is found instead of God in the first statement; secondly, there is the distinction of “came forth from,” and “came out from.” Together they give us the fullness of the truth. As one has said, “no phrase could express more completely unity of essence than the original of these words.” Nor was it the first time that the blessed Lord had held such language. In the eighth chapter of this Gospel we read (ver. 42), “I came forth from (ἐκ as here in ver. 28), and am come from God” —words wholly inexplicable and unintelligible except as a statement of the essential Godhead of our Lord Jesus Christ. He is “very God of very God.” And how blessed, as remarked above, to have all this truth as to His person from Himself. The former expression “I came forth from(παρὰ) the Father” implies the leaving of the Father's side; the latter, “I came out from (ἐκ) the Father,” points as we have seen to the true Sonship of the Savior.

It is also interesting to notice that there is a third preposition (ἀπὸ) found in the 30th verse of the sixteenth chapter, and also in the third of the thirteenth. It is sufficient to point out that as distinguished from παρὰ it marks the separation involved in the Incarnation while the latter word emphasizes the fellowship between the Father and the Son. And all these wonderful shades of meaning are conveyed in the original with a directness and a simplicity that I suppose no other language but Greek is capable of. It is matter of common knowledge that this tongue is unique in its powers of subtle precision. Learned men may praise the accuracy of Plato, and cleverness of Aristotle; the believer, learned or unlearned, can feel and admire the profound and striking accuracy of the Scriptures of God.

“I leave the world, and go unto the Father.” Thus does the blessed Lord return to Him from whom He came. True He was always the Son of man who is in heaven. But divine intimacy could not be enjoyed when the sinless One was made sin during those three hours of supernatural darkness. Then and then only does He say, “My God, My God.” “Father” precedes and follows in the well-known utterances on the Cross, whereby God can in very deed be the Father of all who believe in His Son. “Ye are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus” (Gal. 3:26).

The consideration of points like these leads us perhaps into what may be called side-tracks of the truth. They may possibly not come within our purview when expounding the broad principle of evangelical or ecclesiastical doctrine. They may suggest the microscope rather than the telescope, but they are none the less highly illuminative. R. B.

Thoughts on John 17

There are different kinds of unity we trace in the reading of this Gospel; the unity of the twelve, of saints now in grace, and by-and-by in glory. Verse 9 of the chapter begins intercession. Before this the Lord had been setting things in order, whereby His disciples learned the principles of the grace they are brought into. Then He takes His eyes in a sense off them, and looks up to His Father, pouring out His heart to His Father, and putting His disciples between Himself and the Father. Thus did He bear them on His heart. “Father, the hour is come: glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee.” He had been glorified by the Son in His humbling Himself; and now He was going to glorify Him in another way—in resurrection. He takes a double place. First, it is Headship or Lordship in full glory, as having a title of dominion over all flesh by taking His place of power in heavenly places; and He has all in His hands. Secondly, it is His giving eternal life to as many as the Father hath given Him; and this is the most precious part in grace, though there is nothing of which Christ is not the legitimate Head. “The head of every man (ἀνδρὸς) is Christ, and the head of Christ is God.”

“Eternal life” is not only to know God the Father, but to know Jesus Christ whom He sent. To trust God's power, and to believe in His providence, is not eternal life. For this, we must know from God that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the world. Relationship in grace must be established too.

Another thing follows, that He, having finished the work given Him to do, goes back into glory. “Glorify Thou Me, with the glory which I had with Thee before the world was.” Having accomplished what He came for, He goes back into glory. What a peculiarly blessed place it is into which we are brought, poor wretched things that we are! “The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us “(John 1:14), and “out of His fullness have all we received” (ver. 16). We have all with Him. The saint's present standing is a portion in union with Him who existed before ever the world was. In ver. 6 He says, “I manifested Thy (the Father's) name to the men whom thou gavest me out of the world: thine they were, and thou gavest them Me, and they have kept Thy word.”

We belong to the Father; and all this grace in Him comes to us from the Father. “Thou hast magnified Thy word above all Thy name.” We have been brought up by Jesus, through all these counsels of love, to see the Father; and this is “eternal life.” I know the Father by the things Christ speaks. “They have kept Thy word,” feebly, feebly indeed; but the Lord's grace owns them and speaks of them as having continued with Him in His temptations.

Verse 7. “Now they came to know that all things whatsoever Thou hast given Me are of Thee.” This is more than knowing Him as Messiah. They knew the Father, and Christ the object of the Father's heart, and all the counsels of God about Him.

Verse 8. “For I have given them the words which Thou hast given Me.” Thus He put them into the same measure of communion with the Father as He had Himself (not the realization of it, which is another thing). For the moment they have life, they are made “partakers of the divine nature,” and they are looked upon as having everything. “And they received them, and did know surely that I came out from Thee.” They saw by the glory of His person that He came out from the Father. “And they believed that Thou didst send Me.” They believed in the actual love of the Father, as well as in the glory of His own person. He rests the claim upon the Father's care for them upon two points. They belonged to the Father; and the Son loved them (ver. 10): we are the objects of the common interests of the Father and the Son. “I request for them,” &c. They would now no longer be under His own care, as they had been while He was in the world with them; and He commits them to the Father “that they may be one, as we are.”

This is the first intimation of the unity of the disciples. The Holy Ghost makes them all divinely one. There cannot be two Holy Ghosts, one in you and one in me; but union is produced by one Holy Ghost. Flesh indeed there is, but that is something in you and something in me, not in Him. Thus the unity here alluded to in ver. 12 is properly the unity of the apostles as such, though there may be also unity of the same kind in a very little, or ever so low a sphere. There is unity in the activities of active service, and the unity of the body, as members of it. But “one as we are” is apostolic unity. There was unity of purpose in all the active energy of accomplishing salvation between the Father and the Son. They were one in it. The Father prepared a body for the Son, and the Son said, “Lo I come.” There was one mind in the Father and in the Son about our salvation. Whatever the active energy of love may be in the saints, too, the Holy Ghost is the source of it. Thoughts, purposes, actings, all are produced from one spring; and it creates unity. The Holy Ghost has made us one in it; but according as the Holy Ghost works actively in us, it produces unity in service. “And now I come to Thee; and these things I speak in the world, that they may have My joy fulfilled in them” (ver. 13).

All He was thus, He would have us be. He had joy in doing His Father's will in communion with His Father's mind; though He had the contradiction of sinners against Himself.

He says, “I have given them Thy word” (ver. 14), that is, as we have it in the Gospels; and the effect of the testimony is to make the world hate them, because they are not of the world. This was not merely having life. Mark, it is not “the words” they received, which excite the hatred of the world. They would gladly share the Christian's joy and happiness, if they could: it is the word of testimony that they held. “I request not that Thou wouldest take them out of the world,” &c. “Sanctify them through Thy truth.” Two things are connected with the sanctification of the saints. Firstly, the Father's word, which is communicated to us by Christ. Secondly, Christ set apart in glory in heaven; not only the Father's word coming to us through God in the Man coming down in humiliation, but Christ setting Himself apart on high as the glorified Man (ver. 19).

From vers. 14 to 19 He is referring to their passage through the world. In vers. 19 to 21 He is speaking of them, not as messengers of the word, but as receivers. They ought to be both; but now He speaks of communion, “that they also may be one in us” (ver. 21), not “as we.” In singing a hymn there may be the expression of the unity of the Holy Ghost in us. This will be fully realized in the eternal state; but now we know something of it. People of different countries, habits of thought and feeling all different; directly they get on this ground, they are one. Every motive that governs man, every feeling and thought, gives way; peculiarities of natural character all sink when on this common ground. What a testimony to the world grace is! “That they all may be one, as Thou, Father, [art] in Me, and I in Thee, that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that Thou didst send Me.”

Vers. 22, 23. “And the glory that Thou hast given Me I have given them, that they may be one as we are one; that they may be perfected into one, I in them, and Thou in Me.” This is the manifestation of the glory; and then it is, “that the world may know that Thou didst send Me.” They cannot help it then, and they do not believe it then but know it, “and that Thou didst love them even as Thou didst love Me.”

Saints have been loved as Jesus is loved; and the proof of it is that they are in the same glory. Yet, this last is not the highest thing. The love that has given the glory is better than it, and the grace that has spent itself in procuring it is better than the thing procured. The world will see the glory; but they will never see the love in the Father's house. Christ has submitted to be spit upon, and to every kind of humiliation; but He is glorified because of it, and we shall see Him as He is. We shall behold that glory which was His before the foundation of the world. This is more than sharing with Him the glory which He receives consequent upon His humiliation.

The saints are in a more blessed place when off their thrones and casting their crowns at His feet, than when on their thrones, because they will be adoring Him who has given them. “Thou lovedst Me before the foundation of the world,” and I want them to see even that glory. He would have us see the way He was loved before the foundation of the world. This is the personal glory (ver. 24); as the world's lot is in ignorance of the Father to its ruin (ver. 25).

Ver. 26. “And I made known to them Thy name, and will make known.” This He is doing now; and then would have us enjoy the love, and know Himself as the conductor of it into our hearts, “I in them.”

How dreadfully short we come in the realization of all this, for communion or for active service, by the power of the Holy Ghost! Nevertheless we know that all this is our portion, by the Lord's opening of the case, so to speak, to the Father. J.N.D.

John the Baptist

It is evident that John the Baptist holds a unique place among the outstanding servants of God of whom we read in the Bible; there was no greater born of women. So says the unerring voice of our Lord; but also the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. Clearly not because such a one is in himself greater than that strenuous missioner, but because of the wonderful position that grace was about to confer upon the simplest believer who has part in the “kingdom of heaven,” and of all therein involved. But John was great in his individual position, as were Abraham and Joseph, Moses and Elijah. In short the Baptist was the link between Judaism and Christianity. He was also (and this was a still higher distinction, though bound up with the former one) the Forerunner of the Messiah, His Messenger, as he is styled in Malachi, and duly appeared in Judaea to herald Him to whom all the prophets had borne witness, and whose shoes' latchet John says he was not worthy to stoop down and unloose. This, we know, was the office of the humblest slave. Such was the reverence paid by the Baptist to the Lord Jesus. Whatever the grace shown us (and faith loves to appropriate in proportion to its vigor), still we can never be too reverent. An intelligent appreciation of Christian liberty is not more becoming than the humility that would veil the face and the feet (Isa. 6).

Now this reverential attitude on the part of John the Baptist was displayed on the occasion of the Lord's baptism, when He, in lowly grace and desiring to fulfill all righteousness, took His place with the faithful remnant, and submitted to be baptized by His servant. It was indeed natural for the latter to demur, nor did such diffidence in the least indicate a weak character. There is no necessary connection between reverence and weakness, any more than there is between weakness and affection. Rather is it the other way. At any rate John was habitually stern, as the burden of his mission was a vehement call to repentance. No doubt he did not then enter very clearly into what lay before his Master, spite of many a pointed prediction and pathetic forecast in psalm and prophecy. It was his to warn solemnly of coming judgment as he told of Him Whose fan was in His hand, and Who would thoroughly purge His floor, burning up the chaff with fire unquenchable. Yet the same John was the first to point to the Lord Jesus as the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world. This is in keeping with what we often find in Scripture, viz. the union of opposites. It was one of the seven angels that had the seven vials full of the seven last plagues that showed to another John the Holy City.

Thus, although the general purport of his message was judgment, the Baptist bore striking and comprehensive testimony to grace, and to the Savior's work. Afterward, it is true, he was fain in a moment of dejection to wonder whether after all Jesus was He that should come, or whether another was to be looked for. Some expositors, we know, anxious for the credit of this most honored servant of Christ, have explained his question as asked on behalf of others rather than his own. But such carefulness is unnecessary. One only was perfect, who always said and did the right thing; and He was more than man, though most truly man. At the same time we need not wonder if John was depressed. Think of the gloom of his surroundings in Herod's prison. Thence it was that he sent two of his disciples to our Lord to prefer the question alluded to above.

But earlier how nobly the same John had answered those who told him that all were flocking to Jesus. Did they think it would fret his spirit? At least they seemed not to understand this desertion on the part of his disciples. Probably there was honest perplexity in their minds. So John tells them that far from feeling slighted, he was glad, and his joy was thereby made full. He had told them he was not the Christ, and he gladly retires that the Christ may be all. What if he had to decrease day by day, while Jesus increased? This was but the heightening of his joy. He was the friend of the Bridegroom, and he rejoiced greatly to hear the Bridegroom's voice, not to hear his own. What a lesson for us! Still the Lord deigns to speak through the faltering lips of His servants. R. B.

Joseph: 1. Introduction

Of the many biographical sketches in the Bible none for interest exceeds that of Joseph. It therefore attracts those of tender years not yet hardened by intercourse with the world, or sophisticated by the spirit of the age. It is distinguished even among the patriarchs by domestic affections no less than hatred of evil, by personal purity sustained and guarded by faith, by the favor of Jehovah that communicated His secrets to one that feared aim from youth, throughout an unusually diversified life and the extremes of slavery, of prison, and of the highest position next to the greatest throne then on earth without a cloud, the most prudent and kind of viziers in times of abundance no less than of famine, the most skilful of statesmen for his master's interest. Again what can one think of his filial honor to his father? what of his gracious returns to his envious and spiteful brethren (only short of his blood)? And though for a believing Israelite he seems to have gone far in complying with the words of a heathen, and to have risen up to the airs of a great lord as to the manner born, his heart sustained the divinely given hopes of Israel, as evinced by his punctual heed to his father's burial, where lay Jacob's father and his father's father.

Nor did his earthly rank in Egypt dim his own faith before his death, that God would surely visit his brethren and bring them into the land promised by His oath to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He too took their oath when that day came to carry up his bones hence along with them.

The long desired son of his mother Rachel, herself his father's first and tenderest love, he derived a name from her (Gen. 30:23, 24), Joseph i.e. adding; which pointed to another son, the son of his father's right hand, who was to be the occasion of her death. Sadly impatient with God's dealings in her case, grace opened her heart to Jehovah's goodness and gave her to look on through her son of unexpectedly wondrous destiny to another son, about to be born in Palestine, the little one who should become great both in the land and to the ends of the earth in its own season. For Benjamin figures in that day of earthly power and glory. Joseph is the vessel of divine wisdom in humiliation, despised by his brethren, suffering from them, and sold to Gentiles who punish him yet more; but unknown to Israel, exalted to the right hand of power for unmeasured blessing to both, and married to a Gentile wife, the names of whose sons testify to his forgetting his past toil with his kin, and his fruitfulness in another land. Yet at the end like Christ he that was separated makes himself known to his brethren whom he established in the best of the land. Even from this brief summary the reader will gather how hard it would be in all O.T. scripture to find so rich a mine of typical wealth, so varied and comprehensive a figure of the Lord Jesus.

Hence the history of Joseph abounds in the forecasting of the lights as well as the shadows of Christ, and thus is singularly instructive in the ways of God. This is all the more striking, because it is found in an unvarnished and perfectly reliable history, when man's annals, or even monuments, afford but a flickering gleam But all that these remains tell us goes to prove the perfect accuracy of that which the closing chapters of Genesis disclose of that land which was to be the nursery of Israel, where they were led on from a family group to become a people, Jehovah's people, waked up under oppression to the knowledge of their peculiar relationship to the Eternal, and at length from the furnace of affliction to that deliverance, which had His blessed mission in their midst, of which the second book of the Pentateuch treats so copiously.

It appears (for we must not say more when we go outside scripture) that the ordinary succession of native rulers was interrupted for more than two centuries by the invasion of Shepherd Kings from Syria (Hittite or Khita); and that the sudden rise of Joseph occurred during the reign of Apepi, the last of this foreign or Hyksos dominion. If this be so, it accounts in a great measure for the rupture made with the set ways and jealous forms of an old civilization, in the exalted place to which Joseph was advanced, in his long continued rule, and his marriage with the daughter of Potipherah the priest in On (Heliopolis); still more perhaps for the readiness with which a shepherd people were given a quarter so valuable as Goshen, not far from either the royal residence on one side or the frontier of Palestine on the other. The abomination of a shepherd lay in the native eye, not in those who favored Joseph and his brethren, but in the restored native rulers, who soon after regained the upper hand, knew not Joseph, and proceeded to persecute the chosen people. This providential concurrence we leave. God is above circumstances, though His wisdom is often shown in His availing Himself of them on behalf of His plans.

But whatever be the worth of these thoughts as to the then circumstances of Egypt and its rulers, there is certainty of God's directing hand, in His allowance of all the unworthy ways of Jew and Gentile in Joseph's early history, to bring about that very position of lofty distinction which, when foreshadowed, drew out the hatred of his brethren. His duty changed its form from his father's house to that of a foreign master, and from shame, even in the keep of a prison, to the highest rank in the realm.

But it was everywhere the same obedience in the sight of Jehovah, the same prosperity for all that he touched. He was tender even to tears as he was firm of purpose, clear of insight too, and resolute in execution, a man of mark and modesty, who rose to the command of every occasion without the least self-seeking. Jehovah was with Joseph, as Joseph was subject to Jehovah: a rare man among the Jewish people or any other, look where and when you will.

Joseph: 10. His Counsel and Promotion

Nor was Joseph content only to interpret the dreams of the king, though this he did with a quiet simplicity and decision which so approved itself to Pharaoh's conscience, that he too had not the least doubt that God was in the matter. He saw that the case demanded the most energetic and prudent measures to turn to account the light given from above on the long super-abundant plenty against the no less long, sure, and extreme years of scarcity which were to follow. He therefore rose above all scruples which ordinarily would hinder one emerging from the obscurity and the shame of a prison from tendering advice to a king and his courtiers on affairs of state and of the most urgent and important kind. Confidence in the revealed mind of God took away the fear of slight, as it also drew out his heart in goodwill to the king and his people, not to speak of others, so intimately concerned. Otherwise they might soon forget the dream and its interpretation, as a nine days' wonder, and fall into the usual listlessness of unbelief, wasteful of the coming plenty, and heedless of the scarcity to follow. God indeed was not before the eye of the vast majority, ready on second thoughts to accredit Joseph with no more than ingenuity or, as even professing Christians would say, a lucky hit. The king at once was struck and solemnized, as the rest in measure; so that Joseph was encouraged to advise with prompt seriousness.

“And now let Pharaoh look himself out a man discreet and wise, and set him over the land of Egypt. Let Pharaoh do [this]: and let him appoint overseers over the land, and take up the fifth part of the land of Egypt during the seven years of plenty; and let them gather all the food of these good years that come, and lay up corn under the hand of Pharaoh for food in the cities, and keep [it]. And let the food be a store to the land for the seven years of famine which shall be in the land of Egypt, that the land perish not through the famine. And the word was good in the eyes of Pharaoh, and in the eyes of all his servants. And Pharaoh said to his servants, shall we find [one] as this, a man in whom the Spirit of God [is]? And Pharaoh said to Joseph, since God has made all this known to thee, there is none discreet and wise as thou. Thou shalt be over my house, and according to thy word (mouth) shall all my people order themselves: only in the throne will I be greater than thou. And Pharaoh said to Joseph, See, I have set thee over all the land of Egypt. And Pharaoh took off his ring from his hand and put it on Joseph's hand, and arrayed him in clothes of byss, and put a gold chain about his neck. And he caused him to ride in the second chariot that he had: and they cried before him, Bow the knee (Abrech)! and he set him over all the land of Egypt. And Pharaoh said to Joseph, I [am] Pharaoh: and without thee shall no man lift up his hand or his foot in all the land of Egypt” (vers. 33-44).

Thus without an effort of his own was Joseph elevated from the unmerited depths of suffering and ignominy to be prime minister of the greatest kingdom then on earth. Who could deny that it was God's doing in His providence, though not without extraordinary means in His Spirit's power working in His servant? And how plain the type of a greater than Joseph, Who suffered first from His own people that received Him not, afterward unto the death of the cross from Gentiles who knew Him not, yet in the midst of both the vessel of divine wisdom far beyond Joseph or any other born of women! For He was indeed the wisdom of God in the days of His humiliation, as He is now at the right hand of power while His people are estranged from Him, and blessing flows to the nations (little as they too know Him yet), besides the little flock of faith, the sheep out of both that do hear His voice and follow Him. All authority meanwhile is given Him in heaven and on earth, though He still waits for the kingdom and the restoration of His alienated people; when all the ends of the earth as well as Israel shall see the salvation of God, and the earth shall make a joyful noise to Jehovah, breaking forth and singing for joy, yea singing praises. For it will be manifested power and glory then when He has remembered His mercy and His faithfulness to Israel, no longer haughty and self-willed, but humbled by grace, self-judging and submissive at the feet of the crucified Messiah come to reign.

No, Christ is not yet on His own throne as it will be then. He overcame the world and its prince that adjudged Him the cross; and, rejected by Jew and Gentile, He is received up in glory to sit for the little while on His Father's throne, while the heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ are being called out to await His coming to receive them to Himself for the Father's house above. To this end the gospel of God's grace goes out which the Holy Spirit, sent forth from heaven on the Son's ascension, uses to call them out. This done, the world question will be raised; for He is Heir of all things, and the Jew with Israel will come into the foreground for their deliverance, as distinctly as punitive dealings on His, and their, Gentile foes.

Joseph: 11. Governor of Egypt

Had Joseph been adopted by Pharaoh's daughter, had he like Moses been trained in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, had he enjoyed the king's favor as fully as that of the princess his daughter, we could scarce conceive of a stranger acquiring such confidence with the king and his servants at court as to be made grand vizier earlier than his thirtieth year. Then he stood nearest to the throne. It was God's doing; and at once represented by Pharaoh's seal-ring put on Joseph's hand, by his array—the court attire of byss [the finest cotton], and by the gold chain put on his neck, and by his riding in the second chariot of the realm with the suited proclamation of the honor due to his office. And we hear more; yet his elevation was wholly unknown to his brethren after the flesh.

“And Pharaoh called Joseph's name Zaphnath-paaneah, and gave him as wife Asenath, daughter of Potiphera priest of On. And Joseph went out over the land of Egypt. And Joseph [was] thirty years of age when he stood before Pharaoh king of Egypt. And Joseph went out from the presence of Pharaoh, and passed through the whole land of Egypt.”

“And in the seven years of plenty the land produced by handfuls. And he gathered up all the food of the seven years that were in the land of Egypt, and laid up the food in the cities; the food of the fields of the city which [were] round about it, he laid up in it. And Joseph laid up corn as the sand of the sea, very much, until he left off numbering; for [it was] without number.”

“And to Joseph were born two sons before the year of famine came, whom Asenath daughter of Potiphera the priest of On bore to him. And Joseph called the name of the firstborn Manasseh (for God made me forget all my toil and all my father's house). And the name of the second he called Ephraim (for God caused me to be fruitful in the land of my affliction).”

“And the seven years of Plenty that were in the land of Egypt were ended; and the seven years of the famine began to come, according as Joseph had said. And there was famine in all lands; but in all the land of Egypt there was bread. And all the land of Egypt was famished; and the people cried to Pharaoh for bread; and Pharaoh said to all the Egyptians, Go to Joseph: what he saith to you, do. And the famine was over all the face of the earth. And Joseph opened every storehouse [all in which was grain], and sold to the Egyptians; and the famine was grievous in the land of Egypt. And the whole earth came into Egypt to Joseph, to buy, because the famine was grievous on the whole earth” (vers. 45-57).”

Pharaoh gave Joseph a new name, as to which the learned question whether it means “Savior of the world,” or “Sustainer of life.” Either way it points to the eminent service rendered, not in word only but in deed and truth, though the Rabbis and Josephus incline to “Revealer of secrets.” But God had especially His purpose for the people of His choice, not Joseph only but the ungrateful and envious brethren, who led the way in his sufferings, and were yet to behold his glory and share his grace.

The two sons were born before the years of famine; and their names are the more remarkable as indicating the striking difference with those of the sons of Moses, notwithstanding a strong moral and typical resemblance between their respective fathers. Manasseh means “causing to forget"; as Ephraim means “fruitfulnesses"; and they express their father's affections in his remarkable exaltation outside Israel for blessing. The names Moses gave his sons express, not his forgetting his brethren, but his sense of “strangership” in being separated from them, and counting on “God my help.” Both meet in perfection in our Lord Jesus.

The details that follow reveal the admirable administration of Joseph. Exuberant plenty with most leads to prodigality and waste. But he knew in Whom he believed, and entered wisely into the duty which devolved on him more than on any in the land of Egypt, and provided accordingly for the years of excessive want. Thus all living on the soil were to benefit in the highest degree from the sovereign to every subject, and far beyond that land. The superabundance affixed the first seal on the prophetic truth afforded and divinely interpreted; the, famine affixed the second, still more impressive to such as hardly credited a change so disastrous to comfort and increasingly dangerous to life. But the monarch had unbroken confidence in his prime minister and his measures. When the Egyptians, in their distress and fears, cried to hill as the father of the country, his one answer was, “Go to Joseph: what he saith to you, do.”

Grievous was the famine, not only in the outside countries, but in the land which at a much later day became the natural granary for the Empire; the crisis passed without riot, still less a revolution rising against the government. Yet in a simple and righteous statesmanship, which none questioned, the people were fed throughout, and gave up their lands and all they had; so that royalty was thus beyond doubt set on the most favorable position, beyond the ruler's ambition, and with the nation's gratitude to Joseph as their best friend. In all the history of the nations is it possible to find a match for what came to pass under Joseph's ministry for crown or for subject?

Faith marked Joseph's policy throughout, and his wisdom which became increasingly apparent. And if this were so with the type, what is it with Him whom he represents on high? And what will it be when He takes the world under His scepter, and all the earth shall be filled with the glory of Jehovah? None can expect, in a pious Israelite called to rule Egypt, the light which the Lord's death, resurrection, and ascension afford to the Christian, and the responsibilities which attach to his relationship as not of the world even as Christ was not. But, according to the measure then vouchsafed, Joseph was a bright witness of faith in that day, as incorrupt in his lofty charge as when a slave of the foreigner, and the persecuted of his brethren.

Joseph: 12. His Brethren Bow Down to Him

How often God is pleased to use straits for His own purposes and in His ways for the good of all, saints and sinners! So it is here. The pinch of want fell on Jacob and his sons; “for the famine was in the land of Canaan.”

“And Jacob saw that there was grain in Egypt, and Jacob said to his sons, Why look ye one on another? And he said, Behold, I have heard that there is grain in Egypt: go down thither, and buy for us from thence, in order that we may live and not die. And Joseph's ten brethren went down to buy out of Egypt. But Benjamin, Joseph's brother, Jacob sent not with his brethren; for he said, Lest mischief may befall him. So the sons of Israel came to buy among those that came; for the famine was in the land of Canaan. And Joseph, he [was] the governor over the land; he [it was] that sold to all the people of the land. And Joseph's brethren came and bowed down to him, the face to the earth. And Joseph saw his brethren, and knew them; but he made himself strange to them, and spoke roughly with them, and said to them, Whence come ye? And they said, From the land of Canaan to buy food. And Joseph knew his brethren; but they knew him not. And Joseph remembered the dreams which he dreamed of them, and said to them, Ye [are] spies; to see the nakedness of the land ye are come (vers. 1-9).

The righteous Jehovah loves righteousness and had a controversy with those brethren of Joseph who had wronged their faithful brother, and had not judged their cruel envy and evil deeds. But this must be for the very reason, that they were His chosen family for His earthly plans, as none other could pretend to be. If therefore they had sunk below natural equity, God in His admirable patience and wisdom knew how to deal with their conscience, vindicate fidelity, chastise self-will, and cleanse from a defiled state. This first meeting of the ten brothers with Joseph had its importance in the moral government of God; who, as He had exalted His wronged and abused servant, was about to break down the hardened, and to clear their hearts from old iniquity which falsified their relationship as bearing His name.

But it was also the first step in the accomplishment of His word to Abram in Gen. 15, “Know assuredly that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land not theirs, and shall serve them; and they shall oppress them four hundred years. And also that nation whom they shall serve will I judge; and afterward they will come out with great substance. And thou shalt go to thy fathers in peace; thou shalt be buried in a good old age. And [in a] fourth generation they shall come hither again; for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full “(vers. 13-16). Of course turns what it does not understand to aspersion; yet all was made good in due time. God was faithful and accomplished as He spoke, but with His wonted patience toward the corrupt and hostile usurpers, as well as their hard taskmasters, whilst using both as a moral test of His stiff-necked people. It was His way now in progress to effect discipline for the past and present, and to increase family life into a national one under circumstances which soon changed to such as justified His intervention for His afflicted people, and gave a deep moral lesson to Israel when called to avenge His honor on the abominations of the Amorite. No forecast of man could have anticipated such a future. The God who made it known to Abram was now working in providence to bring it to pass.

Famine had wrought before in Abram's day, and not at all to his honor; but grace brought him back to his tent, and the altar as at the first (Gen. 13:3, 4). Isaac was absolutely forbidden, under similar pressure, to migrate; he alone abides in Canaan: the instructive reason has been considered in its own place. But Jacob and all the family were expressly to sojourn there, and for a long though limited season: an altogether different lot from those before him as type of Israel, whose name he alone bore and remarkably represented.

Our chapter opens with the perplexity of the sons, and their father's proposal that they should go down into Egypt for supplies. Only Benjamin must not go, lest mischief might befall him, like his brother Joseph; for that burden, though unexpressed, ever weighed on his heart. How little he could foresee that ere long Benjamin must go too! But God was working out His good and holy design surely if slowly; man's will or intelligence had nothing to do with bringing all to pass according to His word (vers. 1-5). Things as yet were far from His mind. As it was said in chap. 12:6, “The Canaanite was then in the land,” so now “The famine was in the land of Canaan.” How different when Christ reigns in Zion, and Israel is under the new covenant!

Next we hear emphatically of Joseph as governor over the land, the administrator of the vast stores of corn against the predicted and now fulfilling years of famine. “And Joseph's brethren came, and bowed down to him, the face to the earth. And Joseph saw his brethren, and knew them.” This is all simple and true. The change in him from a mere growing youth in their own lowly sphere, to be prime minister and a great deal more in the greatest kingdom of that day, must have seemed immeasurable in their eyes. They, grown men, remained much the same for his observant glance. Yet the fulfillment of his early dreams rolled out so unmistakably as must have brought no small emotion, even to him already familiar with God's relationships and their certain verification.

We need not wonder that one in his position, not in the least through pride or lack of affection, “made himself strange to them and spoke roughly with them.” So he “said to them, Whence come ye? And they said, From the land of Canaan to buy food.” He was entitled to prove them; as his conduct equally proved his prudence and goodwill. They deeply needed the moral probe, which lay with him above all else; especially as he “knew his brethren, but they did not know him,” as is repeated here.

But there is another element which ver. 9 draws attention to. “And Joseph remembered the dreams that he had dreamed of them; and he said to them, Ye are spies; to see the nakedness (or, exposed parts) of the land ye are come.” The reality of God's interest in those who honor Him was plain before him, and the humiliation too of those who slight Him by their unbelief. One might not expect such a measure or manner adopted by an apostle, or a spiritual Christian; but it was quite in keeping with the governor of Egypt, albeit a pious man, and albeit brother of those who had never fully judged their persecution of one who had given them no just ground of offense. It is not love to be indifferent to flagrant evil, even in a brother. Faithful are the wounds of a friend. In remembering his dreams Joseph had God before him, and sought the good of his brethren, who as yet remembered nothing as they ought. But God is faithful, and Joseph in the main, notwithstanding the spiritually uncongenial air of Egypt.

Joseph: 13. Proves His Brethren

Here a quite different scene opens for Joseph, yet recalling his earliest associations and God's dealings with him since he last saw his brothers: he discerning the past, the present, and in his measure the future; they as yet nothing aright. In his natural home he told the true dream of the exaltation which God purposed above not only his brethren but his parents, which they were soon to own. In his rejection only short of death he was the interpreter of life for one man and of judgment for another. Out of prison he was called to interpret for the Egypt-world a full period of plenty followed by as long a period of dire want; and not predicting only, but chosen to administer in power, as he had wisdom to impart, according to God. How it was to probe the hardened consciences of those dear to him notwithstanding their baseness to Jehovah, to their father, and to their brother! We left off with his knowing his brethren who knew not him, his remembrance of his own early dreams, and his imputation that they were spies come to see the nakedness of the land.

“And they said to him, No, my lord; but to buy food thy servants are come. We [are] all sons of one man; we [are] true; thy servants are not spies. And he said to them, No, but to see the nakedness of the land ye are come. And they said, Thy servants [were] twelve brethren, sons of one man, in the land of Canaan: and, behold, the youngest [is] this day with our father; and one [is] not. And Joseph said to them, That [is it] that I have spoken to you, saying, Ye [are] spies. By this ye shall be put to the proof: as Pharaoh liveth, ye shall not go forth hence unless your youngest brother come hither. Send one of you that he may fetch your brother; but ye shall be bound, and your words shall be put to proof whether the truth [is] in you; and if not, as Pharaoh liveth, ye [are] spies. And he gathered them all into ward three days. And Joseph said to them the third day, This do that ye may live: I fear God. If ye [are] true, let one of your brethren remain bound in the house of their prison; but go ye, carry grain for the hunger of your households; and bring your youngest brother to me, in order that your words may be verified, and that ye may not die. And they did so” (vers. (10-20).

Joseph had no thought of vengeance; nor would he invoke or trust process of law. He with grace in his heart does not spare profitable lessons for the conscience of the guilty. So he speaks like a governor as he truly was of Egypt, and makes himself strange to them for no other end than their real good. If God wrought by the pressure, he who had His mind would lead them, by his words and ways which troubled them, to awaken their long-slumbering conscience, that they too might fear God as he did. It is just so in principle that grace wrought with every one of us who has been truly brought to God. The affections are not to be trusted, unless conscience also cries out to God in a true sense of our own ruin and deep distress. We must approach Him about and in our sins, yet in the name of Jesus.

As they were all guilty, which no one on earth knew so well as Joseph, he committed them all to custody. But as underneath the frown of the governor lay compassion to them all, he on the good witness of the third day proposed that one only should remain in prison, and the rest, with the food he supplied them freely (though this they never suspected), should return to the comfort of their kin. But there was one condition, which for their sakes as for his must be stipulated: “Bring your youngest brother to me.” No doubt such a word sent a pang into their hearts; for well they knew what Benjamin was to his father and theirs with the then difficulties. They had sinned against their father and especially about one brother, who to their conviction was not alive yet the very lord who now confronted them. But if the way of transgressors is hard, the way of grace is beyond all thought of man good or bad. Here is nothing but goodness from first to last, if we can rightly say last of that which shall have no end. Only the sinner must learn his own badness, all the more guilty in presence of the love of the Father who sent His Only-begotten into the world, not only that we might live through Him, but that He might die for us as propitiation for our sins.

Joseph: 14. His Brethren in Self Reproach

Gen. 42:21-28

On the third day we have seen the governor of Egypt relented; and instead of keeping all in prison while one was sent to bring Benjamin, he offers the terms of keeping one as the pledge in custody, while the rest convey back the grain which their households required. But he dropped a few words of great significance to the sons of Jacob, and to them also exceedingly unexpected from the great lord of a people so idolatrous as the Egyptians. And he uttered these words as the explanation of a proposal so just and considerate: “I fear God.” Who can doubt that this following their serious position and the relief just proposed was calculated to act powerfully on conscience?

“Then said they one to another, We [are] indeed guilty concerning our brother whose anguish of soul we saw when he besought us and we did not hearken: therefore is this distress come upon us. And Reuben answered them saying, Did I not speak to you, saying, Do not sin against the lad? but ye did not hearken; and now, behold, his blood also is required. And they did not know that Joseph understood, for the interpreter was between them. And he turned away from them and wept.

And he returned to them and spoke to them, and took Simeon from among them and bound him before their eyes. And Joseph commanded to fill their vessels with corn, and to restore every man's money into his sack, and to give them provision for the way; and so it was done to them. And they loaded their asses with their corn and departed thence. And as one of them opened his sack to give his ass provender in the lodging place, he saw his money, and, behold, it was in the sack's mouth. And he said to his brethren, My money is returned, and, behold, it is even in my sack. And their heart failed, and they were afraid, saying one to another, What [is] this God hath done to us?” (vers. 21-28).

Their sin against Joseph as well as their father, their sin against God too, after being hid for some twenty years, had now begun to be brought home to them. God would work not the grief of the world unto death, but according to His goodness repentance unto salvation, that the truth they had heard from their father might be no longer a mere theory but a living reality, as it was in Joseph's soul. Think how their confusion must have touched his loving heart, as he heard them acknowledge the sin of their heartless turning away from his agony when he besought them as his brethren in vain; first in leaving him to perish, and next in selling him as a slave! Who but God ordered the matter so that he should now hear their self-reproach who then conspired to their sorrow and shame in devising one mischief after another? If it was amazing to him that God was giving such a token for good in his hardhearted and envious brethren, how much more would it not have been to them had they known that Joseph was now listening to their penitence?

Reuben who had shown some compunction then recalls to them their wicked deed and his remonstrance. Altogether Joseph was so overcome that he could only turn away and weep. Those tears were not of selfish feeling but of gratitude to Him who had watched over all his sufferings and dangers. Now too he could see God's working not only to humble and to bless his brethren but to cheer his father's heart, both by his own restoration to him as one from the grave, and as to his other sons who had been so little a solace and so often a shame. Their distress must deepen yet, for God does not spare the flesh; but the profit would be all the greater at last.

Joseph soon rose above his emotion and returned to them, and before their eyes bound Simeon (not Reuben) on adequate ground. No chastening seems to be of joy but of grief; but the end is worthy of God, even if we have to wait and trust Him in the trials we need by the way.

But Joseph followed up what he began by directing the money of each to be returned in their respective sacks. He sought to deepen the work beyond the sense of retribution for their past evil toward himself. Provision for their journey alone might not have had any such effect; but the money restored would strike them as not at all the way of sale or of man. And it came on them by degrees. For in their halting-place one only opened his sack to feed his ass and saw his money in the mouth of his sack. And this he told the others, to the consternation of all, who could but say to each other, “What is this God hath done to us?” A bad conscience brought God before them; for why should the governor act so kindly who suspected that they were spies, had one brother in his custody and imperatively demanded the one on whom their father doted? Surely it was God working for good, which they did not yet at all realize. Part of that good was that they should judge themselves thoroughly, still more that they should learn God's ways and end as they had never done.

Joseph: 15. Jacob Resists the Demand for Benjamin

The way of restoration is not easy when souls had got astray like the sons of Jacob. But conscience had begun its deep and wholesome work, however much might be needful. Joseph knew far better than themselves that God was really at work, and using their self-judgment for their blessing through the very trouble which pressed on them and resulted in Simeon's detention in Egypt, confirmed for one by the discovery of the money in his sack's mouth. Their heart failed through fear, and the question was raised, What is this God has done for us?

“And they came into the land of Canaan to Jacob their father, and told him all that had befallen them, saying, The man, the lord of the land, spoke roughly to us, and treated us as spies of the land. And we said to him, We [are] true; we are not spies; we [are] twelve brethren, sons of our father: one [is] hot, and the youngest [is] this day in the land of Canaan. And the man, the lord of the land, said to us, Hereby shall I know that ye [are] true: leave one of your brethren with me, and take [for] the hunger of your households, and go and bring your youngest brother to me; and I shall know that ye [are] not spies but [are] true: your brother will I give up to you; and ye may trade in the land.

And it came to pass as they emptied their sacks, that, behold, every man [had] his bundle of money in his sack; and they saw their bundles of money, they and their father, and were afraid. And Jacob their father said to them, Ye have made me childless: Joseph [is] not, and Simeon [is] not, and ye will take Benjamin! All these things fall on me. And Reuben spoke to his father, saying, Slay my two sons if I bring him not back to thee again; give him into my hand, and I will bring him to thee again. But he said, My son shall not go down with you, for his brother is dead, and he alone is left; and if mischief should befall him by the way in which ye go, then would ye bring down my gray hairs with sorrow to Sheol” (vers. 29-38).

The terror of the brethren was greatly increased by the evident purpose of the money in every man's sack. Even one case alarmed them, now that conscience was awakening. Yet this might have seemed a singular accident; but not so the nine. Jacob too was afraid with them. It appears too that it was not mere goodwill on Joseph's part, but done in communion with God to work yet more in consciences so long seared. They were far as yet from understanding the way of the Lord with them; even Jacob was occupied with the wounds to his heart, and at once recalled the loss of Joseph and Simeon as a reason for utterly refusing to let Benjamin go.

Yet these blows which fell so heavily on his affections were the needed path for blessing and joy to all. And such is the end of the Lord for all that fear him, however trying the way. Joseph too had known it and far more deeply than any, in which he was rather typical of Christ, faithful amidst unfaithfulness; his brethren and even Jacob buffeted for their faults, a very different alternative; and so it will be in the latter day for the Jewish saints during that hour of Jacob's sorrow,

But even for Joseph, and a far greater than Joseph, humiliation was the path to glory. And so with the Christian now. Our place is to suffer with Christ in a spirit of uncomplaining grace. But even the godly Jewish remnant will bow before the retributive dealing of moral government. They shall by sovereign grace “be saved out of it,” and they shall look upon Him whom they pierced, and they shall mourn for Him, as one mourneth for his only one, and shall be in bitterness for Him as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn. And the answer will be, Speak ye to the heart of Jerusalem, and cry unto her, that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned; for she hath received of Jehovah's hand double for all her sins. Yet without Christ's cross all had been vain: on Him Jehovah laid the iniquity of all that believe.

Joseph: 16. Jacob Lets Benjamin Go

Gen. 43:1-15

The sons quietly left the difficulty till the family need forced Jacob to speak, which gave Judah opportunity to plead without impropriety. Feeling would yield to famine. Yet God was in Jacob's thoughts, and in a measure in those of the sons, as compared with the past. But the mercy that fails not would shine through the dark clouds.

“And the famine [was] grievous in the land. And it came to pass, when they had finished eating the grain which they had brought from Egypt, that their father said to them, Go again, buy us a little food. And Judah spoke to him, saying, The man did positively testify to us, saying, Ye shall not see my face, unless your brother [be] with you. If thou wilt send our brother with us, we will go down and buy thee food; but if thou do not send [him], we will not go down; for the man said to us, Ye shall not see my face unless your brother [be] with you. And Israel said, Why dealt ye so ill with me, to tell the man whether ye had yet a brother? And they said, The man asked very closely after us and after our kindred, saying, [Is] your father yet alive? have ye a brother? And we told him according to the tenor of these words. Could we at all know that he would say, Bring your brother down? And Judah said to Israel his father, Send the lad with me, and we will arise and go, that we may live and not die, both we and thou and our little ones. I will be surety for him: of my hand shalt thou require him; if I bring him not to thee and set him before thy face, then shall I be guilty before thee forever. For had we not lingered, we should now certainly have returned already twice. And their father Israel said to them, If [it is] then so, do this; take of the best fruits of the land in your vessels, and carry down the man a gift, a little balm and a little honey, tragacanth and ladanum, pistacia-nuts and almonds; and take double money in your hand, and the money that was returned to you in the mouth of your sacks, carry [it] back in your hand: perhaps it [is] an oversight. Take also your brother and arise, go again to the man. And the Almighty God give you mercy before the man, that he may send away your other brother, and Benjamin! And I, if I be bereaved [of my children], am bereaved. And the men took that gift, and took double money in their hand, and Benjamin, and rose up, and went down to Egypt, and stood before Joseph” (vers. 1-15).

It is in a world of evil and sorrow through sin, where grace works for good. As long as the food lasted, the dreaded condition remained in abeyance. But when their supply came to an end, facts must be faced, and God be found above their hopes as much as their fears, turning their faults to their profit, but abundant in suited mercy to His own glory. The sons left it to their father to propose a fresh visit to Egypt; and not Reuben but Judah states the case. They were absolutely forbidden to see the ruler's face without Benjamin. With him they were ready to go down and buy the needed food; without him they durst not go. Thereon Israel yielded to their complaint; for they could well plead the ruler's keen inquiry. It is indeed a vivid transcript of the situation, and of the agitated feeling on all sides growing out of iniquity, with God not only to exercise and chasten but to carry out His own way for blessing all round.

So it will be with the generation to come of Israel's sons, guilty of far deeper dereliction and against an immeasurably greater than Joseph, whom “this generation” spurned in their blindness and consigned in their hate to a far more ignominious doom than their fathers ever conceived for their brother. And the repentance of the coming day will be proportionate, as the necessary trials through which they must pass retributively in God's government will be immense. But the end of the Lord will be rich in promised blessing, not only for Israel but for all the nations of the earth. And how deep and loud will be their thankful praise and joy and triumph in Him their own Messiah to whom they owe it all in mercy without measure or end!

Here Judah again pleads with his father, with touching effect offering to bear the blame forever. Now Israel yields, however it might wring his heart, and with careful instructions that all should be done honestly and with comeliness, he surrenders his beloved, the more beloved because of the missing link, recalling the proper patriarchal name of strength in their weakness. It was after a long interval, when God recalled it thus to Jacob, and along with El-Shaddai, the name of Israel (Gen. 35:10, 11) with glorious promises yet to be fulfilled in Israel's sons. But this glory turns, as does their salvation, on their long rejected, soon-to-be-received, Jesus Messiah.

Joseph: 17. Benjamin With the Rest Meets Him

Gen. 43:15-34

Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning. So it will be for Israel when existing shadows yield to the reality Christ's appearing will bring in to the glory of God. So it was for the dawn of heavenly light and blessing in Christ for the Christian; and so it will be when this age ends, and a new one begins for Israel and the nations of the earth.

“And the men took that present, and they took double money in their hand, and Benjamin, and they rose up, and went down to Egypt, and stood before Joseph. And when Joseph saw Benjamin with them, he said to the steward of his house, Bring the men into the house, and slay, and make ready; for the men shall dine with me at noon. And the man did as Joseph bade; and the man brought the men into Joseph's house. And the men were afraid, because they were brought into Joseph's house; and they said, Because of the money that was returned in our sacks at the first time are we brought in; that he may seek occasion against us, and fall upon us, and take us for bond-men, and our asses. And they came near to the steward of Joseph's house, and they spoke to him at the door of the house, and said, O my lord, we came indeed down at the first time to buy food; and it came to pass, when we came to the lodging place, that we opened our sacks, and, behold, [every] man's money [was] in the mouth of his sack, our money in full weight; and we have brought it again in our hand. And other money have we brought down in our hand to buy food: we know not who put our money in our sacks. And he said, Peace [be] to you, fear not: your God, and the God of your father, hath given you treasure in your sacks: I had your money. And he brought Simeon out to them. And the man brought the men into Joseph's house, and gave [them] water, and they washed their feet; and he gave their asses provender. And they made ready the present against Joseph came at noon; for they heard that they should eat bread there. And when Joseph came home, they brought him the present which [was] in their hand into the house, and bowed down themselves to him to the earth. And he asked them of [their] welfare, and said, [Is] your father well, the old man of whom ye spoke? [Is] he yet alive? And they said, Thy servant our father [is] well, he [is] yet alive. And they bowed the head and made obeisance. And he lifted up his eyes and saw Benjamin his brother, his mother's son, and said, [Is] this your youngest brother of whom ye spoke to me? And he said, God be gracious to thee, my son. And Joseph made haste, for his bowels yearned upon his brother; and he sought [where] to weep; and he entered into [his] chamber, and wept there. And he washed his face, and came out; and he restrained himself, and said, Set on bread. And they set on before him by himself, and for them by themselves, and for the Egyptians who did eat with him by themselves; because the Egyptians might not eat bread with the Hebrews, for that [is] an abomination to the Egyptians. And they sat before him, the first-born according to his birthright, and the youngest according to his youth: and the men marveled one with another. And he took messes for them from before him; but Benjamin's mess was five times as much as any of theirs. And they drank and drank largely with him” (vers. 15-34).

The inspired narrative in its own beautiful simplicity shows us God's working in the conscience of the sons of Israel. How little they yet understood that His goodness was leading them to repentance, and that the brother they had so deeply wronged and bitterly hated was but accomplishing their best good by the exercises they passed through! That they were invited into the governor's house filled them with uneasiness. “The men were afraid because they were brought into Joseph's house; and they said, Because of the money that was returned in our sacks at the first time are we brought in; that he may seek occasion against us, and fall upon us, and take us for bond-men, and our asses.” Hence their eagerness to tell the story of their mysterious discovery, and to repay the money that was not theirs. But the steward assured them that all was right on that score without further explanation. God would work more deeply yet.

Meanwhile Simeon rejoins them; and all are treated with the kind attention due to guests, and their beasts of burden too. And they made ready the gift for presentation to Joseph when he should appear. And very graphic is the meeting, and the inquiries on his part out of the love which he felt, as they bowed down again and again in obeisance. “And he lifted up his eyes and saw Benjamin his brother, his mother's son, and said, [Is] this your youngest brother of whom ye spoke to me? And he said, God be gracious to thee, my son. And Joseph made haste, for his bowels yearned upon his brother, and he sought [where] to weep; and he entered into [his] chamber and wept there.”

Who can fail to realize it as a scene of human feeling? But it has also a far deeper character to him who reads in faith, and knows the blessed import of grace to be held out by a far greater than Joseph in His restoring His guilty and long alienated brethren to the knowledge of Himself and of themselves, for the glorious consequences when the blessing shall be on the head of Jesus “in that day” which is coming, and on the crown of the head of Him that was separate from His brethren.” No wonder that those who limit the language to the past think scripture hyperbolical. Christ is not only the key to, but the fullness of, the truth, which here so nearly concerns, not the church of the heavenlies, but the earthly people of God, who must be inwardly fitted for the place to which they are destined before all the nations of the earth, “the glory of Thy people Israel.” For figuratively Benjamin, the son of his father's hand must be joined to Joseph, “the separated from his brethren,” in order to the accomplishment of their glory which awaits to be fulfilled in its own time. It could not be at this time while the church is being completed in which is neither Jew nor Greek.

Joseph: 2. His Early Days

Joseph, it appears from comparison of clear dates in scripture, was born in his father's ninety-first year. He was the elder son of Rachel, long desired by his mother, and at length given of God, when her impatience had met its just rebuke. Leah had her six sons already born; and a daughter followed who later became the occasion of shame and grief to her kin, of a reckless and revengeful desolation to Hivite Gentiles, far beyond the demerit of the one that wronged her.

We need not repeat the tale of Joseph's birth, and of the remarkable utterance of his mother with the name given and the anticipation of the one who was to be son not of her sorrow only but of her death. In Jer. 31:15-17 is a very touching reference to Rachel and connection with the affliction of “her children” in the day of the captivity to Babylon, but looking to the blessed time of gracious reprisal when Jehovah will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. “Thus saith Jehovah, A voice was heard in Ramah, lamentation, bitter weeping: Rachel weeping for her children, refusing to be comforted, because they are not. Thus saith Jehovah, Refrain thy voice from weeping and thine eyes from tears; for thy work hath a reward, saith Jehovah; and they shall come again from the land of the enemy. And there is hope for thy latter end, saith Jehovah, and thy children shall come again to their own border.” Between the prophecy and its fulfillment in the coming days of Israel's restoration and national blessing, it is applied to the murderous onslaught, in vain meant for Jesus, which Herod brought on all the boys from two years and under that were in Bethlehem and in all its borders. In all their affliction was He afflicted, though exempted from that blow for the anguish of His rejection unto death, under the hatred of His own people and the infinitely deeper suffering in atonement at God's hand for their sins.

Not only was the birth of Joseph an epoch for the spirit of his mother (elsewhere dilated on), but we find Jacob thereon awakening to his due place and to his country associated with the promises of God. “And it came to pass when Rachel had borne Joseph, that Jacob said to Laban, Send me away that I may go to my place and to my country.” The needed discipline was not ended: Jacob had yet to learn more of himself under the good dealings of God. There was still a sadly mingled crop to be seen. But thence we see his heart turned toward the land from which he had been long an exile through his mother's devices and his own. If he served Laban longer, God took care to bless his own portion so conspicuously that the sons of Laban wished him gone, and the word was given which decided him to flee. Then the return by God's grace, notwithstanding his crippled weakness, became no less an epoch for Jacob.

Next, we turn to chap. 37, “The generations of Jacob,” where Joseph, young as he was, becomes the leading figure, with his brothers a dark background, and God at work in a remarkable way.

“Joseph, being seventeen years old, was tending the flock with his brethren; and he was a youth with Bilhah's sons, and with Zilpah's sons, his father's wives; and Joseph brought their evil report to his father. And Israel loved Joseph more than all his sons, because he was his son of old age; and he made him a sleevecoat of many colors. And his brethren saw that their father loved him more than all his brethren, and they hated him and could not speak to him peaceably. And Joseph dreamed a dream, and told his brethren, and they hated him yet the more. And he said to them, Hear, I pray you, this dream which I have dreamed. And, behold, we were binding sheaves in the field, and, behold, my sheaf arose and also stood upright; and, behold, your sheaves came round about, and bowed down themselves to my sheaf. And his brethren said to him, Shalt thou indeed reign over us? or shalt thou indeed rule over us? And they hated him yet the more for his dreams and for his words. And he dreamed yet another dream, and told it to his brethren, and said, Behold, I have dreamed a dream more, and, behold, the sun and the moon and eleven stars bowed down themselves to me. And he told [it] to his father and to his brethren; and his father rebuked him, and said to him, What [is] this dream that thou hast dreamed? shall I indeed come and thy mother and thy brethren, to bow down themselves to thee to the earth? And his brethren envied him; but his father observed the saying” (vers. 2-11).

The witness of their evil ways and his father's love made Joseph hateful to the sons of the servile mothers. Nor did the distinctive robe which Jacob gave Joseph soften their asperity, nor yet his two dreams. “Fury is cruel, and anger is outrageous; but who is able to stand before jealousy?” Whether it was wise or comely to rehearse his dreams to those who had no love for him may be a question; but the dreams were of God, as the effect on his brethren was of the enemy. Even to his father the second was distasteful, though he kept it in mind. But as all that is recorded stamps Joseph as a pious youth, of moral courage, of faithfulness toward the erring, of a lowly mind that wondered at the dreams as much as any or more; so he too like his father could hardly shut out from his spirit that God betokened some singular exaltation in due time; and the strengthened repetition could not but confirm, as indicating that they were not casual, but from above. This however always provokes adversaries to madness and revenge, while, strange as it may be in their eyes, God turns even their spite and wicked ways to the accomplishment of His purpose, as we shall see beyond fail in the history.

Joseph: 22. Judah's Plea

Gen. 44:18-34

WHAT can be found more candid and lowly, or more affecting, than the appeal to Joseph of the man once so hard and heartless?

“Then Judah came near to him, and said, Ah! my lord, let thy servant, I pray thee, speak a word in my lord's ears, and let not thine anger burn against thy servant; for thou [art] even as Pharaoh. My lord asked his servants, saying, Have ye a father, or a brother? And we said to my lord, We have an aged father, and a child born to him in his old age, a young one; and his brother is dead, and he alone is left of his mother; and his father loveth him. And thou saidst to thy servants, Bring him down to me that I may set my eyes on him. And we said to my lord, The lad cannot leave his father; for [if] he should leave his father, he [his father] would die. And thou saidst to thy servants, Unless your youngest brother come down with you, ye shall see my face no more. And it came to pass when we came up to thy servant my father, we told him the words of my lord. And our father said, Go again, buy us a little food. But we said, We cannot go down: if our youngest brother be with us, then will we go down; for we may not see the man's face unless our youngest brother [be] with us. And thy servant my father said to us, Ye know that my wife bore me two [sons]; and the one went out from me, and I said, Surely he is torn in pieces, and I have not seen him since. And if ye take this one also from me, and mischief should befall him, ye will bring down my gray hairs with evil to Sheol. Now therefore, when I come to thy servant my father, and the lad [is] not with us, seeing that his soul is bound up with the lad's soul, it will come to pass, when he sees that the lad [is] not [with us], that he will die; and thy servants will bring down the gray hairs of thy servant our father with sorrow to Sheol. For thy servant became surety for the lad to my father, saying, If I bring him not to thee, then I shall be guilty toward my father all the (or, my) days. And now let thy servant stay, I pray thee, instead of the lad a bondman to my lord, and let the lad go up with his brethren; for how should I go up to my father if the lad [were] not with me? lest I see the evil that shall come to my father” (vers. 18-34).

The immense change God had wrought in his brethren was thus made manifest to Joseph. Their envy and selfish cruelty had given way to tender love to their father and his affection for the younger son of Rachel. The old jealousy was supplanted to the root; and he who took the lead was ready to become a slave to the governor, that Benjamin might return to be his father's joy and consolation, instead of death if he remained a bondman. What Joseph had sought was given him, though, none as yet knew what he realized, the fraternal guilt how gladly forgiven, the father about to taste comfort beyond all his hopes; and his own pious heart recognized God's goodness and wondrous ways in bringing about all that was about to be the portion of the family of promise.

Good M. Henry casts about for reasons why Judah should be here so prominent. But those who favor either Patristic expositors or Puritans will pardon me if I point out the great loss which all sustain who do not study the dispensational ways of God in scripture. They consequently are too little versed in the prophets, who rendered invaluable and indispensable aid for apprehending the types. There is no real ground for conceiving Judah “a better friend to Benjamin than the rest were,” or “more solicitous to bring him off.” Nor need we think that “he thought himself under greater obligations to endeavor it than the rest, because he had passed his word to his father for his safe return; or the rest chose him for their spokesman, because he was a man of better sense and better spirit, and had a greater command of language than any of them.” I am not aware that anything is extant from Origen, Chrysostom, Theodoret, and Cyril which treats of this, or from Augustine, Jerome or any ancient Latin father. For they too entered so little into the study of the purposes of God as revealed in scripture that we could not expect gleanings of weight on this score.

Yet to those who have profited anything to speak of from prophecy it is evident that to a romancer Reuben would have seemed from Gen. 37 the natural one to have taken up the case, and Judah far from promising, especially when we read the revolting figure which he cuts, in chap. 38. But the truth according to God is that Judah was the one whom grace had now fitted for the work. And this harmonizes with the divine disposition of the land, where Benjamin had a special nearness in their respective lots. “Of Benjamin he said, The beloved of Jehovah—he shall dwell in safety by him; he will cover him all the day long, And dwell between his shoulders” (Deut. 33:12). And so it was ordered of Jehovah, that notwithstanding the almost extermination of the tribe for their defiance of their brethren in a gross case of sin, and later still their natural repugnance to the anointed king of Judah who superseded Saul's line and their tribe, they became attached to Judah and the house of David beyond and unlike all the others.

So it will characterize the future and its bright hopes when the heart of Jerusalem is spoken to, and she will hear the cry that her time of toil and trouble is accomplished, and her iniquity is pardoned. The ten tribes will share the blessing later; but Judah and Benjamin precede. They rejected the true Christ; they will receive the Antichrist. Hence Judah here has a place with and for Benjamin quite peculiar; and He who inspired the scripture did not forget to point to this fact only known to God, which gives it a meaning full of interest to those who honor the word as truly His and not man's, all of it worthy of Him. As Joseph clearly prefigured Him that was rejected by and separated from His brethren, yet exalted in a sphere outside them for the blessing of men in all the world, so Benjamin typifies Him in His tearing to pieces the enemies of the Jew in the day of retribution that is coming, not for blessing only like Joseph, but for power, executing divine judgment on the adversary.

One quite understands how few since apostolic days in the past or present exhibit a state to apprehend or enjoy the things to come. But this, thank God, does not enfeeble the truth, nor hinder faith's delight in looking beforehand to the glorious things for Israel on the earth then made ready for them. Our portion is with Christ for the heavens.

Joseph: 23. Joseph Sends for Jacob and All

Gen. 45:16-28

THUS was Joseph led tenderly to care for his father and his brethren, as he was enabled to administer for the relief of Egypt and its surrounding peoples, that the exceeding and long plenty should not be wasted but turned to provide against the distress of the equally long famine which followed. Thus those who heard the word of God could see the hand of God accomplishing what the divinely-sent dreams portended of the ruling place which Joseph was to fill, and this not only in patriarchal limits but far beyond, while accomplishing God's ways with His choice line as made known to Abram in Gen. 15 “And the report [or, voice] thereof was heard in Pharaoh's house, saying Joseph's brethren are come; and it was good in. Pharaoh's eyes and in the eyes of his bondmen. And Pharaoh said to Joseph, say to thy brethren, Do this: load your beasts and depart; go into the land of Canaan, and take your father and your households, and come to me; and I will give you the good of the land of Egypt, and ye shall eat the fat of the land. And thou art commanded—this do: take waggons out of the land of Egypt for your little ones, and for your wives, and fetch your father and come. And let not your eye regret your stuff; for the good of all the land of Egypt [is] yours. And the sons of Israel did so; and Joseph gave them waggons according to the commandment of Pharaoh, and gave them provision for the way. To each one of them all he gave changes of raiment, but to Benjamin he gave three hundred [shekels] of silver and five changes of raiment. And to his father he sent this: ten asses carrying the good things of Egypt, and ten she-asses carrying corn and bread and food for his father by the way. So he sent his brethren away, and they departed ; and he said to them, See that. ye fall not out by the way. And they went up out of Egypt and came into the land of Canaan to Jacob their father. And they told him, saying, Joseph [is] yet alive, and he [is] governor over all the land of Egypt. And his heart became numb, for he did not believe them. And they told him all the words of Joseph, which he had spoken to them; and when he saw the waggons which Joseph had sent to carry him, the spirit of Jacob their father revived. And Israel said, [It is] enough; Joseph my son [is] yet alive: I will go and see him before I die” (vers. 16-28). No circumstances could be devised by man's wit so favourable for the entrance of Jacob and his sons into Egypt; and none could be conceived more simple than the plain facts of the case, to give Joseph the administration of the land, attaching to him alike the king and his subjects. If they did not surpass fable, they were true; and they bear thus the clear impress of God's ordering, as they prefigure that which the prophets pledge in Jehovah's name of what a greater than Joseph was exalted to do when rejected by His brethren to sit on God's right hand in richer supplies to a famished world, and about to make Himself known “the second time” to His brethren with broken hearts and deep repentance, entering for the first time their real and unchanging history of obedience, when all the nations shall indeed be blessed in the one Seed, which is Christ as the apostle speaks in Gal. 3:16.

Even in the world that now is, how rare to find a king and his servants united through respect for an alien governor to yield a hearty and harmonious welcome to his alien fathers and brethren! And Egypt had its strong prejudices then as it is known to have had for ages afterwards; and to none could it be so strongly opposed as to those who confessed God (unknown to them), who denied their gods, with that exclusiveness which ever must be where divine truth is consciously professed. So it was with the believers of Israel; and so it is with the faithful Christian. Neutrality in God's things condemns itself as false and evil to such as know Him.

Here at any rate they had special reasons showing no doubt that the Egyptians, king or people, could not deny how warm a reception was proffered to all the kin of Israel for Joseph's sake. The very waggons suggested by the king and left for Joseph to supply played their part in assuring the father to credit the tale, which made his heart fail at first, that Joseph still lived. “The Jews ask for signs;” and there it was in the means of going down into Egypt which his sons could not have provided, as indeed in much more which his loving and bountiful son gave for the whole of them, Benjamin in particular, and his father yet more.

But we can recognize words, so characteristic of Joseph and so suitable to his piety, which scarce one but he would have thought of at such a moment of excited wonder and self-judgment. “See that ye fall not out by the way” is the last thing for a forger to invent, the expression of godliness and affection in perfect keeping with him who uttered the words.

Joseph: 23. Made Known to His Brethren

The dealing with the conscience of the guilty had done its work. So it will be with the righteous remnant of the latter day. The chastening seemed at the time grievous, but was really in love and for profit, in order to the partaking of God's holiness. After that grace can display itself freely.

“And Joseph could not control himself before all those that stood by him, and he cried, Put every man out from me. And no man stood with him while Joseph made himself known to his brethren. And he gave forth his voice in weeping; and the Egyptians heard, and the house of Pharaoh heard. And Joseph said to his brethren, I [am] Joseph does my father yet live? And his brethren could not answer him; for they were terrified at his presence. And Joseph said to his brethren, Come near to me, I pray you. And they came near. And he said, I [am] Joseph your brother, whom ye sold into Egypt. And now be not grieved, and let it not be an occasion of anger in your eyes, that ye sold me hither; for God sent me before you to preserve life. For the famine [hath been] these two years in the midst of the land; and [there are] yet five years in which [shall be] neither plowing nor harvest. And God sent me before you to preserve you a remnant in the earth, and to save you alive by a great deliverance. And now [it was] not you sent me here, but God; and he hath made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house, and governor over all the land of Egypt. Haste and go up to my father, and say to him, Thus saith thy son Joseph, God hath made me lord of all Egypt: come down to me, tarry not. And thou shalt dwell in the land of Goshen, and thou shalt be near to me, thou and thy sons and thy sons' sons, and thy flocks and thy herds and all that thou hast. And there will I nourish thee, for [there are] yet five years of famine; in order that thou be not impoverished, thou and thy household and all that thou hast. And, behold, your eyes see, and the eyes of my brother Benjamin, that [it is] my mouth which speaketh to you. And ye shall tell my father of all my glory in Egypt, and of all that ye have seen; and ye shall haste and bring down my father hither. And he fell on his brother Benjamin's neck, and wept; and Benjamin wept on his neck. And he kissed all his brethren, and wept on them; and after that his brethren talked with him” (vers. 1-15).

Judah's appeal gave full and conclusive proof that the means employed by Joseph had wrought its designed effect. What a true sense of their cruel wrong toward their guiltless brother! What intense feeling for their father, only less wronged of old than their brother Joseph, and now to be fatally smitten in his old age by the loss of his beloved Benjamin! Judah craved as the greatest favor to remain instead of the lad as slave to his lord; for how could he go to his father without Benjamin? Joseph could not, would not hold out longer, but without delay yields to his pent up affection; and, that he might do so freely and fully, charged every attendant to leave his presence. No stranger must intermeddle in such a scene. “And no man stood with him, while Joseph made himself known to his brethren” (ver. 1). All must be out now; and as in chap. 43:30 he sought to weep apart, and refrained himself, he now gave vent to his feelings without measure that they might be delivered from their fears and be assured of the love which was ever in his heart. For well he knew that the discovery must fill them with dread no less than astonishment. And he yielded to weeping so loud that the Egyptians and the house of Pharaoh heard (2). “And Joseph said to his brethren, I [am] Joseph: doth my father yet live? And his brethren could not answer him; for they were terrified at his presence” (3). Who can wonder that they were mute? But his love would cast out their fear. “And Joseph said to his brethren, Come near to me, I pray you. And they came near.” And not content with divulging the great secret, as “he said, I [am] Joseph your brother whom ye sold into Egypt,” so he at once seeks to remove their terror by the words, “Now therefore be not grieved nor angry with yourselves that ye sold me hither; for God sent me before you to preserve life.”

Now what a lesson follows in rebuke of the shameless unbelief of prophecy that prevails among this generation of professing Christians! Joseph speaks with the calmest confidence to his brethren, as he had to the king and court of Egypt, of the five years of famine in addition to the two which had led his brethren to repair to the stores, which the years of exuberant plenty enabled him by his faith to provide against the years of want. Near or distant is alike easy to the revealing Spirit of God: both are beyond man's power. Incredulity would explain both away. All the more the grace of God which was pleased to make the future known in a veiled shape, that the sufferer in the dungeon should not only be vindicated, but become the witness that God gives wisdom to the wise, and reveals the deep and secret things as He sees fit, and on behalf of His people even in their lowest estate.

We can truly and rightly judge how low the fathers of Israel's tribes had fallen and how calculated Joseph's words were to give them a new confidence in God's interest in them, far more intimate than His beneficence to Egypt's king and people and the lands which profited by His wondrous ways. “And God sent me before you to establish you a remnant on the earth, and preserve your lives by a great deliverance.” Here was the true key, not merely the discovery to Pharaoh and the rescue of Joseph, and the provision generally in the singularly long plenty and the equally long dearth, but the accomplishment of His plans, long before divulged to Abram (in Gen. 15), whereby His ancient people should grow up from the family of Jacob in a stranger land of bondage and affliction, the oppressing nation to be judged, and themselves to emerge with great substance.

Who can fail to see that the prophetic powers for Abram, and now for Joseph, were equally from God, whether for centuries beforehand, or for running septads of years? What difference can this make to God, known to whom are all His works since time began, yea, from all eternity? It is only a question of His pleasure directed by wisdom and love. And if Israel were called to own and witness the privilege vouchsafed, how much more Christians who are entitled by the Spirit to search all things, yea, the depths of God For we can discern a greater than Joseph herein and anticipate the day when the Jews shall be brought to learn by grace their incomparably worse conduct to Him, who, though God over all, deigned to become their Messiah, who died to save and will restore them as a people to their land, and to reign King not only there but over all the earth, equally Jehovah as Messiah. In that day shall there be one Jehovah, and His name one. Yea more, He shall have things in the heavens and the earth summed up and together under His headship of all the universe, and all the earth filled with His glory as truly as the heavens. We can read in Zech. 12 the recognition scene for the Jews when the long despised Jesus appears in glory to the confusion of their enemies and their own everlasting salvation.

But to return to Joseph, what concern to console his brothers! “And now not ye sent me hither, but God; and he hath made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house, and governor throughout all the land of Egypt” (ver. 8). Was not this the truth by grace to faith, not to the blinded skeptic? Thereon in vers. 9-11 he bids them go up to his father without delay, tell him all, and bring him down to dwell in Goshen near Joseph, both him and all his with flocks, herds and possessions. “And there will I nourish thee, for yet [are] five years of famine,” lest all should come to poverty.

And what more touching than his final words? “And, behold, your eyes see, and the eyes of my brother Benjamin that [it is] my mouth which speaketh to you. And tell my father all my glory in Egypt, and all ye have seen; and haste, and bring my father quickly hither.” Not content with this, “he fell on his brother Benjamin's neck, and wept; and Benjamin wept on his neck. And he kissed all his brethren, and wept on them; and after that his brethren talked with him.” Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks, not only he with them, but they with him. But what is even this compared with that which is yet reserved for Israel?

Joseph: 3. And His Brethren

The dreams of Joseph were God-sent, and as real in the event, as realities of others are but day-dreams. And what a mercy it was for his half-brothers, who were not in heart brothers, that their cruel purpose took effect but in part, and was turned in divine goodness, wisdom, and power to bring about the elevation which they hated as much as they envied. Cain-like their intent was to slay their brother. And wherefore? Because, at the bottom of all, their works were evil, and their brother's righteous.

“And Joseph went after his brethren, and found them in Dothan. And when they saw him afar off, and before he came near to them, they conspired against him to put him to death. And they said one to another, Behold, there cometh that master of dreams! And now come and let us kill him, and cast him into one of the pits, and we will say, An evil beast devoured him; and we will see what becometh of his dreams. And Reuben heard, and delivered him out of their hands, and said, Let us not take his life. And Reuben said to them, Shed no blood; cast him into this pit that is in the wilderness; and lay no hand on him (in order that he might deliver him out of their hand, to bring him again to his father). And it came to pass, when Joseph came to his brethren, that they stripped Joseph of his coat, the coat of the colors that [was] on him; and they took him and cast him into the pit. And the pit was empty: no water [was] in it. And they sat down to eat bread; and they lifted up their eyes and looked; and, behold, a caravan of Ishmaelites came from Gilead, and their camels bearing tragacanth and balsam and ladanum, going to carry [it] down to Egypt. And Judah said to his brethren, What profit [is it] if we slay our brother and conceal his blood? Come and let us sell him to the Ishmaelites, and let not our hand be upon him, for he [is] our brother, our flesh. And his brethren hearkened. And Midianitish men, merchants, passed by; and they drew and lifted up Joseph out of the pit, and sold Joseph to the Ishmaelites for twenty [pieces] of silver, who brought Joseph into Egypt. And Reuben returned to the pit, and, behold, Joseph [was] not in the pit; and he rent his clothes. And he returned to his brethren and said, The child [is] not; and I, whither shall I go? And they took the coat of Joseph, and killed a buck of the goats, and dipped the coat in the blood; and they sent the coat of the colors, and had [it] brought to their father, and said, This we have found; discern now whether it [is] thy son's coat or not. And he discerned it, and said, My son's coat! an evil beast hath devoured him. Surely torn in pieces is Joseph! And Jacob rent his clothes, and put sackcloth on his loins, and mourned for his son many days. And all his sons and all his daughters rose up to comfort him; but he refused to be comforted, and said, For I will go down to my son mourning to Sheol. Thus for him wept his father. And the Midianites sold him into Egypt to Potiphar, a chamberlain [lit. eunuch] of Pharaoh, captain of the executioners (or, lifeguard)” (vers. 17-36).

Such is the simple but most touching account Moses was inspired to give of the atrocious wickedness on the part of Joseph's brothers, heads though they were of the tribes of Israel. Who but God would have told the tale, with whatever difference in Reuben and Judah? How evident that in Jehovah alone can one boast, and that the objects of His choice are in themselves nothing and worse than nothing! Yet in the midst of heartlessness toward the guiltless sufferer and the father who had sent him in love rises the foreshadow of Him that should come, a greater infinitely than Joseph. He too was the Beloved of His Father, and sent as Son of man in quest of the lost. It was His to arouse the enmity of His brethren after the flesh and beyond all as the Faithful Witness who drew out man's evil by divine good, and in all things pleased God the Father.

But in how many soever ways of love, enough was done and is written to show how the Holy One of God was before His eyes who knows how to effectuate His deliberate counsel and foreknowledge, not only in spite but by means of the apostate unbelief of the Jews, and of the hands of lawless Gentiles, in their blind pride alike knowing not what they did, yet knowing more than enough to make both utterly inexcusable. O what a Father! O what a Son, given up by His brethren after the flesh, Messiah and withal Jehovah, ready to die for their sins, as none other could or would! For His price too was silver paid, as in the case of another Judah: a goodly valuation for the Lord of all! O what is man, be he Jew or Gentile! and what is God but the God of all grace! And what Jesus, full of grace and truth, who if He drew out by His perfection, as God to man and as man to God, the causeless and uttermost evil of man as a whole, died as the efficacious propitiation to purge every sin in those who repent and believe the gospel of God in His Son's death!

Nor is it only that peace was made through the blood of Christ's cross for believers who once were alienated and enemies in mind by wicked works, yet now reconciled in the body of His flesh through death, by which and nothing less it could be. But in virtue of the same death He will at His appearing reconcile all things, whether the things on the earth or the things in the heaven. God's blessed work of gathering out His heirs, the joint-heirs with Christ, to reign with Him in that day must first be completed. Then man's and Satan's accursed work of the apostasy and of the man of sin, the spurious Messiah set up in God's temple and worshipped as God by Jews and Gentiles, will bring down summary judgment by the appearing of His coming. But the manifestation of the Son of God, and of the sons of God in the same glory, is followed by the deliverance of the whole creation that now groans together and travails in pain together unto now. The work that followed Joseph's elevation over Egypt, so striking for its beneficence not only to the heathen but to all the Israel of that day, how small in comparison of a deliverance worthy of His person and of His reconciling work wrought in the cross, wherein God was glorified even as to sin forever; for there met face to face man's sin in its height and God's love in its depth! But where sin abounded, grace more exceeded; and God could send His glad tidings, yea His best, to the worst of men, “beginning,” as the Lord Jesus told them, “with Jerusalem.”

Joseph: 4. Prospered in Potiphar's House

It is not without a profoundly moral purpose that, before Joseph's history is continued, the Spirit of God, in chap. 38 discloses the debased state of Judah. We have already seen that the sensual Reuben was the only brother to show the least natural affection, or at least pity, to Joseph. It was he who suggested the pit, from which their offending brother could not escape, in order to bring him to his father again. But Judah, in Reuben's absence, took the lead in taking him out and selling him to the Ishmaelites, who in turn sold him to an Egyptian master. What a presage of Christ, suffering first from a faithless Judah; then too from the Gentile world! Divine history is as truly predictive in the types of the law as in the heart-breathing of the Psalms, or the more direct prophets. And so all must be, if scripture be God revealing His grace in Christ, His own delight, and the only salvation for wretched guilty man.

Judah, about to be not only the pre-eminently royal tribe but the progenitor of the King of kings, is to take profanely to himself a daughter of Canaan. No wonder that wickedness slew his firstborn, and infamy his brother. No wonder that the widow had no regard from the third. But how shocking her shameless and incestuous vindication of right! how self-righteous Judah's readiness to burn the mother of babes unconsciously his own, one of whom is carefully marked out in Messiah's direct line! Such is man, and such Judah; but such too is God. Where heinous sin abounded, grace much more exceeded. Let us now turn to what follows.

“And Joseph was brought down into Egypt; and Potiphar, a chamberlain of Pharaoh, captain of the guard, an Egyptian man, bought him of the hand of the Ishmaelites who had brought him down thither. And Jehovah was with Joseph; and he was a prosperous man, and he was in his master the Egyptian's house. And his master saw that Jehovah [was] with him, and that Jehovah made all that he did to prosper in his hand. And Joseph found favor in his eyes, and served him; and he made him overseer over his house, and all [that] was his he put into his hand. And it came to pass, from the time he made him overseer in his house and over all that was his, that Jehovah blessed the Egyptian's house for Joseph's sake; and the blessing of Jehovah was on all that was his in house and in field. And he left all that [was] his in Joseph's hand, and took cognizance of nothing with him save the bread which he ate” (vers. 1-6).

Little did the Egyptian anticipate the treasure one small price brought to his house. But the explanation is not far to seek, and it makes all clear. “Jehovah was with Joseph, and he was a prosperous man.” Never before was the word so emphatic. Not that Jehovah had not been with him at home or abroad hitherto. Jehovah was with him when he gained his father's confidence and love. Jehovah was with him when by his fidelity he earned the envy and hatred of his brethren. But now of him, a bondman in a strange land, it was said with marked force. Yet who but one inspired of God would have so written of one torn from his father's house, and this by his own brothers, who sold him for a slave, instead of taking his blood or leaving him to perish of hunger. But Jehovah was with him all the more because the need was greater. The favor of divine light shone on him even then; and it made him hateful in the eyes of wicked kinsmen who ought to have loved him, if they understood not but only disliked what seemed to his honor, besides the rancor for their evil report which he felt bound to carry to the father for their good.

In the Egyptian's house he recognized a new sphere of duty, and looked to Jehovah that he might serve Him and thus best serve his master. His eye was single, and the whole body full of light. Delivered from a cruel death which seemed imminent, he humbled himself under the divine hand, and sought to do diligently and conscientiously what lay before him day by day to please the Master above. Hence the prosperity that surrounded him and made him master of the situation. Never had Potiphar or any other such a slave: in him was neither self-seeking nor eye-service. “And his master saw that Jehovah was with him, and that Jehovah made all that he did to prosper in his hand.” One cannot wonder that things went wrong under such a mistress, when no Joseph was there, only the bondmen. But now there was a force for good at work with the most marked results of blessing which the discerning eye even of a heathen did not fail to see. “And Joseph found favor in his eyes, and served him.” Not heart only, but faith was in his work; and this gave a new character and power, which a shrewd master with large experience of human deceitfulness and incompetence made him appreciate all the more.

As he was faithful in the least, his master promoted him to greater tasks and much more honorable. “And he set him over his house, and all that was his he put into his hand.” This was no small sphere of service, and involved the administration of an immense establishment. For there is ground to accept the view that Potiphar had command of the White Castle at Noph (or Moph) of the prophets, the Memphis of Greeks and others of later times. But extensive, varied, and new as it was to him who had been so lately and singularly introduced, “Jehovah blessed the Egyptian's house for Joseph's sake; and the blessing of Jehovah was on all that was his in house and in field.” For “A wise man's heart is at his right hand,” says Solomon.

At a later day, when Israel had become a kingdom and so rebelled against Jehovah that even Judah was carried into captivity to Babylon, we have like faith and allegiance to Jehovah in Daniel and his three companions. On them too for their separateness to His honor the favor of Jehovah rested; and, in a way similar to that of Joseph yet to come, Daniel rose to the highest elevation in the empire of Nebuchadnezzar, and the rest also to high honor. But they knew no such sufferings as fell to Joseph, nor were they proved in such experience of slavery from its lowest form as was his lot. For there was all the difference possible between the house of Potiphar, to say nothing of the dungeon to which he was afterward assigned, and the palace of the first Gentile world-kingdom wherein they were tried. Yet the trial of faith and its bright results were beautiful in their case as in Joseph's before he rose to his great eminence. Here it was manifest blessing in his servitude, and his master's trust at last without limit. “And he left all that was his in Joseph's hand, and took cognizance of nothing with him, save the bread which he ate.” Corruption was in that house, as it came out soon in a shameless guise; but till then “Jehovah blessed the Egyptian's house for Joseph's sake.”

How wondrous His grace then shown! how much more now, if the eye of faith were not dim!

Joseph: 5. Suffering for Righteousness

Every reader of the book of Genesis can see the larger space given to his life than to any of his fathers, even to the first and greatest of them all. We may profitably ask why; nor is the answer doubtful, for it is the key to all the O. T. No one in these early days was in so striking and varied ways the type of Christ. Nor did any other arise till David was given pre-eminently that place, both in humiliation and on the throne, to say nothing of his own inspired outpourings in the Psalms.

As seeing Him who is invisible, Joseph repelled the temptation, through which he passed unsullied, and meekly suffered under the false imputation of the shameless lady who sought his seduction. It is evident that he, a young man, not only resisted her importunities, but was careful not to wound his master by the proof of the wife's guilty passion and still guiltier revenge on the blameless. For lust, whether gratified or not, soon turns to hatred: so we see in Amnon, as in this depraved woman.

“And Joseph was beautiful of form, and beautiful of countenance. And it came to pass after these things that his master's wife raised her eyes on Joseph,... But he refused and said to his master's wife, Behold, my master takes cognizance of nothing with me: what is in the house, and all that he hath, he hath given to my hand. None [is] greater in this house than I; nor hath he withheld from me anything but thee, because thou [art] his wife. And how should I do this great wickedness, and sin against God? And it came to pass, as she spoke to Joseph day by day, and he hearkened not to her,... And it came to pass about this time that on a certain day that be went into the house to do his business, and none of the men [was] there in the house. And she caught... and he left his garment in her hand, and fled, and ran outside. And it came to pass, when she saw that he had left his garment in her hand, and had fled outside, that she called to the men of her house, and spoke to them, saying, See, he hath brought in to us a Hebrew man to mock us: he came in to me.., and I cried with a loud voice; and it came to pass when he heard that I lifted up my voice and cried, that he left his garment with me, and fled, and ran outside. And she laid up his garment by her till his master came to his house. And she spoke to him according to these words, saying, The Hebrew servant whom thou hast brought to us came in to mock me; and it came to pass, as I lifted up my voice and cried, that he left his garment with me, and fled outside” (vers. 6-18).

Egypt, a land of strange anomalies, was remarkable for the combination of a very high standard of morals in theory with extremely lax practice. If one cannot accept the exaggeration of Brugsch (Histoire d' Egypte, 17), we may safely receive Prof. Rawlinson's statement that “the Egyptian women were notoriously of loose character, and, whether as we meet with them in history, or as they are depicted in Egyptian romance, appear as immodest and licentious. The men practiced impurity openly and boasted of it in their writings,” etc. (Hist. of Ancient Egypt, I. ch. iii. 104-107, 147, 292, 552; II. 361, 362, 404). There is extant “The Tale of the Two Brothers,” which experts believe to have been written near the age of Joseph, which tells the tale of female dissoluteness from an Egyptian witness, a romance or novel as it is written to warn of the ruin to which such courses lead. Herodotus, as is well known, charged them with no less immorality at a later day (ii. 60, etc.).

Another remark may here fittingly be made. Learned skeptics have too hastily objected to the freedom which the incident supposes for the mistress of the house, apart from anything wrong. But such men only betray their prejudice, and, it must be added, their ignorance of Egyptian domestic life in that day. The very monuments bear testimony to the liberty which women, and especially the wife or mother, then enjoyed; but these objectors are as ready to credit that testimony as to distrust the Bible. Yet we need not labor so small a point.

Here then we have the holy youth resisting the tempter, and enduring grief, suffering wrongfully. And this is grace in the day of trial. For what glory is it if, when ye sin and are buffeted, ye shall take it patiently? But if when ye do well and suffer, ye shall take it patiently, this is grace with God. For hereunto were ye called: because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example that ye should follow His steps; Who did no sin, neither was guile found in His mouth; Who when reviled reviled not again, when suffering threatened not, but gave [it] over into the hands of Him that judges righteously; Who Himself bore our sins in His body on the tree, in order that, being dead to sins, we may live to righteousness; by Whose stripes ye were healed. Of the atonement Joseph could be no real type; but of Christ's suffering unjustly and in grace he was a blessed foreshadow.

Joseph: 6. Blessed in the Tower House

We can readily conceive the difficulty for Joseph's master created by the wife's perfidy. On the one hand was the proved unimpeachable trustworthiness of his slave; on the other a wife capable of such solicitation must have long betrayed her evil character in many ways if not in that, so as to make her credit dubious. Still she was his wife; and whatever her bold, impudent, and malicious fraud, we hear of no effort on Joseph's part to vindicate himself by exposing her wickedness. A simple denial of the evil she laid to his charge would not avail against the natural indignation of a husband unwilling to search narrowly into the terrible alternative.

“And it came to pass, when his master heard the words of his wife which she spoke to him, saying, After this manner did thy bondman to me, that his wrath was kindled. And Joseph's master took him and put him in the tower-house, a place where the king's prisoners [were] confined; and he was there in the tower-house. And Jehovah was with Joseph, and extended mercy to him, and gave him favor in the eyes of the chief of the tower-house. And the chief of the tower-house committed to Joseph's hand all the prisoners that [were] in the tower-house; and whatever they were doing there he did. The chief of the tower-house looked not to anything under his hand, because Jehovah was with him; and what he did Jehovah made to prosper” (vers. 19-23).

Unnatural as was the cruelty of his brothers which ended in his slavery, baser still was the fresh trial through a woman's guilty rage. In them both Joseph suffered, for love and for righteousness' sake. In both Jehovah stood by His wronged servant, and caused His favor to rest on him even during the time of his sufferings. Never had his master a slave so efficient and prosperous. Never had chief of the tower-house such a prisoner. Which of the king's grandees in disgrace had ever so won his confidence? In both cases the secret of all was that Jehovah was with Joseph. Brothers, strangers, or jailers made no difference. Violence did not overcome him, any more than corruption; he overcame evil with good; and the heathen recognized it, if the evil state of his brothers blinded them for a while. It was hard enough for a free man to be sold into slavery; it was harder still for a pious man to be condemned for a crime, to which the false accuser had invited him in vain. But Jehovah was with Joseph, and extended mercy to him, and gave him favor where it might least have been expected. Slaves and felons do not as such approve themselves in the eyes of their guardians, as everyone knows.

But God abides the same forever, and in fact now reveals Himself more endearing still as Father to all that believe since the Son came thus to reveal Him. The enmity of the world was even more pronounced when the true Light shone, and made the darkness visible universally, and the ancient people of God deeper in their enmity than the blind Gentiles. In Christ was no sin; and thus He, the righteous One, convicted them as only the guiltier sinners, because of their blasphemous unbelief along with religious pretension. And what were Joseph's sufferings compared with His? Jesus died for our sins according to the scriptures. Once (and it was ample) He suffered for our sins, Just for unjust, that He might bring us to God cleared of all charge or condemnation. None but Christ could thus suffer for us; for all others had sins to be atoned for. He alone who knew no sin could be made sin for us, as God made Him on the cross. His sacrificial suffering there furnished the efficacious ground for God's righteousness, not only in raising Christ from the dead, but in justifying all that believe on Him. Thus, where sin abounded, did grace all the more surpass; and man's total failure in righteousness is answered in the cross which lays the necessary, adequate, and blessed ground for God's righteousness which we become in Christ.

But though none but Christ could suffer for sins, we who believe on Him are called, when doing well, to suffer and take it patiently, as grace with God. So the apostle suffered the loss of all things, and went on counting them but refuse to win Christ on high and be found in Him, not having his righteousness that is of law but what is through faith of Christ, the righteousness of God on faith: to know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, becoming conformed to His death, if anyhow he might arrive at the resurrection from among the dead. This was undoubtedly the bright personal experience of the apostle; but it is divinely communicated to us for our like edification, and open to every saint in the power of the Spirit Who alone can make it good in our spirit and conversation. See how his faith shone in what he wrote at the last to Timothy when with a slight exception all those in Asia turned away from the apostle, “ashamed of his chain.” Yet looking for the punishment of death, he sees the crown of righteousness laid up for him, and tells how, when no man stood with him, the Lord did and should deliver him from every wicked work, and preserve him for his heavenly kingdom.

Joseph: 7. With the Dreamers in Prison

It is the way of God to give prophecy in a time of present ruin, that those who sin may be finally warned, and those who believe may be sustained by the hope of “some better thing” in His grace superior to all the powers of evil. Such it was in the midst of His earthly people when He was mocked in His messengers, and despised in His words, rising up betimes and sending, because He had compassion on the Jews and on His dwelling-place, till there was no remedy. As His wrath arose and fell upon them was exactly the time when the prophets, not content with oral predictions, wrote more formally and fully. Such is the plain matter of fact in the O. T. Here too we find the same principle in the first book of the Pentateuch, given through Joseph the witness of supernatural light in very dark circumstances, and of divine interest even in the comparatively insignificant changes of man; as He had already both gloriously and graciously intervened in announcing for faith the Second man, on the fall of the first in a lost paradise.

“And it came to pass after these things, the cup-bearer of the king of Egypt, and the baker, offended their lord the king of Egypt. And Pharaoh was wroth with his two chamberlains, with the chief of the cup-bearers and with the chief of the bakers; and he put them in custody, in the captain of the life-guard's house, into the tower-house, the place where Joseph [was] imprisoned. And the captain of the life-guard appointed Joseph to them, and he served them; and they continued for days in custody. And they dreamed a dream, both of them in one night, each his dream, each according to his dream's interpretation, the cup-bearer and the baker of the king of Egypt that [were] imprisoned in the tower-house. And Joseph came in to them in the morning, and looked on them, and, behold, they [were] sad. And he asked Pharaoh's chamberlains that [were] with him in his lord's house of custody, saying, Why [are] your faces sad to-day?”

Joseph had served as a bondman in Potiphar's house. Now he served as a criminal in the tower-house, falsely accused of what was true of his accuser. But his faith remained simple, peaceful, and bright; and we note its effect on those who had no faith themselves, yet highly valued faithfulness. Joseph was charged by the captain with the care of the king's chamberlains. As before in the house of his master, so now in the governor's state-prison, he became the responsible agent: whatever was to be done there, he did it. Jehovah was with him in each place of trial; and what he did, Jehovah made it prosper.

But it is in God's hand to work out His purpose. And as in his own dreams much had been divulged, while he was a young freeman in his father's house, which drew out the envious spite of his brethren, grace gave him now the opportunity of light from above on the dreams of his fellow-prisoners. So little were they instructed by their having each a suited dream the same night, that their visage presented similar sadness to their gracious and sympathetic attendant the next morning. His soul entered into the iron; but love rose superior to evil, and flowed out readily.

In all this Joseph typified Christ who shone to the eye of faith in His humiliation with a grace even beyond glory. He was manifestly the wisdom of God, where human wisdom proved itself utterly weak, foolish, and malicious. He was the prophet raised up from among His brethren, like to Moses, yet greater and with the highest authority. The deeper the enmity, the more He opened things to come, as not only the Christ for Israel, but the still more glorious if rejected Messiah, the Son of man, that all the peoples, and languages should serve Him: a day not come yet though fully revealed, when He shall be displayed as the power of God. How awful the portion of those bearing His name who help the world to despise His words which will surely be accomplished to the ruin of all His adversaries! Christendom is even more guilty and pretentious than His poor blinded people who cried, His blood be on us and our children; as alas! it is till they repent, as they surely will in God's mercy. But this is not to be now while the church is here.

Joseph: 8. Pharaoh's Dream

“God however did not forget, and kept Joseph in mind. Faith is tried to our profit (ver. 1), but never disappointed in result.

“And it came to pass at the end of two full years (years of days), that Pharaoh dreamed; and, behold, he stood by the river. And, behold, there came up out of the river seven kine, well-looking and fat-fleshed; and they fed in the reed-grass. And, behold, seven other kine came up after them out of the river, ill-looking and lean-fleshed; and they stood by the kine on the bank of the river. And the ill-looking and lean-fleshed ate up the seven well-looking and fat kine. And Pharaoh awoke. And he slept and dreamed a second time; and, behold, seven ears of corn came up on one stalk, fat and good. And, behold, seven ears, thin and parched with the east wind, came up after them. And the thin ears swallowed up the seven fat and full ears. And Pharaoh awoke, and, behold, [it was] a dream” (vers. 1-7).

We may notice how appropriate the dreams were, as ordered of God throughout for each case. In Gen. 37 what more simple and suited to those in view than Joseph's sheaf rising up and continuously standing, whilst the other sheaves came round about and bowed down to his sheaf? or the even more emphatic vision of the sun and the moon and eleven stars bowing down to Joseph? A dream so plain, vivid, and startling as to need no interpreter, and to incur the rebuke of his dearly loving father. Darker and more adapted to an Egyptian were the dreams of the chief cupbearer and of the chief baker in chap. 40, and as matter of fact beyond any interpreter among the experts of their race, the lack of whom they lamented. He who owned a living God alone was enabled to expound its prophetic meaning, soon to be punctually verified as he said. But here in the chapter before us, how wild and strange and portentous the double dream sent to arouse the king! Yet the “river” is expressed by a word pointing beyond question to the Nile, and so is the marsh-grass on its brink which cattle loved to browse. But egregious as dreams may often be in confusing the proprieties of person or object, of time and place, here it is heightened to the utmost, first by the ill-looking and lean kine eating up the fine-looking and fat ones, next by the thin and parched ears of wheat devouring the fat and good ears that grew on one stalk.

Who that believes God's word can doubt that the wonders so opposed to nature were all the more evidently of divine purpose? But that purpose was worthy of His goodness and compassion. In a world of sin and suffering, of death and moral ruin and wretchedness He works alike by uncommon bounty and by the hard pinch of want; and for the good of souls yet more by the pain than by the prosperity, that in his anguish the heart might consider why such an affliction came from such a God. The teaching of the two dreams was enigmatic in their forms, but identical in the aim; abundance to the fullest followed by the most abnormal consumption. But why the seven kine and repeated? why the seven ears of corn no less repeated? This needed His interpretation who sent the dreams, Man's power was powerless to open the lock. Wisdom was essential, not that which is earthly, sensual, devilish, but what comes down from above.

To whom did God give the key? To the humbled sufferer in the dungeon. The hour of his vindication was about to strike, and his exaltation at a bound from the deepest though unmerited dishonor to the highest position a subject could fill, always excepting the Antitype foreshadowed by both, yet with whatever resemblance beyond all comparison. But even then what a scheme of goodness while the evil day still dragged its slow length along! The abundance was not to be wasted in a luxurious and injurious waste; the famine was to be alleviated by a wise policy so as to consolidate the king's authority and power and means, instead of breeding discontent and despair and revolution. Joseph had the place of honor and administrative wisdom, after his long endurance of shame and grief at home and abroad; his father to be permanently comforted, and filled with joy overflowing after his life of trial and change beyond his father's; and his brethren to be rebuked and humbled before his grace and glory, with verification of those dreams in his youth which then only increased their base envy and aggravated their hatred of his purity and love.

But if we may not run on longer in the anticipation of this great and sudden change, let us think of the deep and divine prophetic outlook which underlies even such a history as Genesis supplies. Let us abhor the blind and destructive incredulity, which perverts by false-named knowledge, or the modern veil of “higher criticism” over real infidelity. Let us delight in the written word of God, which would and does unite a simple unvarnished and true tale, which even a child can take in and enjoy, with moral wisdom at the time and for all time. It is the Holy Spirit's vision of Christ's coming both in humiliation and rejection by Jew and Gentile, and in His administration of the Kingdom in power and glory to the blessing of both in the mercy of God at the end. Then He who chastised the unbelief of them all shall show mercy to all manifestly, and with universal confession of the once despised Jesus. O depth of riches both of wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable His judgment, and untraceable His ways! For who knew Jehovah's mind? or who became His counselor? or who first gave to Him, and it shall be given to him in return? Because of Him, and through Him, and for Him are all things: to Him be the glory for the ages. Amen.

Joseph: 9. God's Interpreter

Long had been the trial of Joseph's faith and patience, and the keenest morally and physically at the close, though Jehovah was with him all the while. But then “they hurt his feet with fetters: his soul came into iron, till the time that his word came; the word of Jehovah tried him. The king sent and loosed him; the ruler of peoples, and let him go free” (Psa. 105:18-20). How sudden the change from the king's tower-house to the perplexed king's court, and the baffled sages of Egypt!

“And Pharaoh said to Joseph, I have dreamed a dream, and [there is] none to interpret it. And I have heard say of thee, thou understandest a dream to interpret it. And Joseph answered Pharaoh, saying, [It is] not in me: God will give Pharaoh an answer of peace. And Pharaoh said to Joseph, In my dream, behold, I stood on the brink of a river. And, behold, there came up out of the river seven kine fat-fleshed and fine-looking, and they fed in the reed grass. And, behold, seven other kine came up after them, poor, and very ill-looking, and lean-fleshed, such as I never saw in all the land of Egypt for badness. And the lean and ill-looking kine ate up the first seven fat kine; and when they had eaten them up, it could not be known that they had come into their belly, and their look was as at the beginning. And I awoke. And I saw in my dream, and, behold, seven ears came up on one stalk, full and good. And, behold, seven ears withered, thin, parched with the east wind, sprung up after them; and the thin ears devoured the seven good ears. And I told [it] to the scribes; but [there was] none that could declare it to me. And Joseph said to Pharaoh, The dream of Pharaoh [is] one. What God is about to do he hath declared to Pharaoh. The seven good kine [are] seven years; and the seven good ears [are] seven years: the dream [is] one. And the seven lean and bad kine that came up after them [are] seven years; and the seven empty ears parched with the east wind will be seven years of famine. This [is] the word which I have spoken to Pharaoh: what God is about to do he letteth Pharaoh see. Behold, there come seven years of great plenty throughout all the land of Egypt. And there will arise after them seven years of famine; and all the plenty will be forgotten in the land of Egypt, and the famine will consume the land. And the plenty will not be known in the land by reason of that famine that followeth; for it [will be] very grievous. And for that the dream was doubled to Pharaoh twice, [it is] because the thing [is] established by God, and God will hasten to do it” (vers. 15-32).

The king forthwith tells Joseph of his dream and of none to interpret it; of him he had heard as one that could. Joseph replies with modest and pious disclaimer for himself, but with faith in God's willingness and goodness in the matter. Thereon Pharaoh recounts it in yet more energetic terms than originally, the two-fold kine, the two-fold grain, the lean and ill-looking devouring the good and well-favored, who came before. Joseph explains that both dreams related to one event, seven years of plenty, followed by as many of famine, beyond parallel. Both were of God's doing for extra-ordinary ends; as was His making all known to Pharaoh, outside the ken of man. The doubling of the dream indicated not only its certainty, but the speed of its accomplishment. God deceives not, nor is He mocked. Behind His good-will to man and those providentially set in authority, He cared intimately for the prophet who had suffered long for righteousness and His name's sake; as He had designs for humbling his brethren, chastising their evil ways, but eventually bringing them in the fourth generation into Canaan, with great substance, out of the land of their slavery, whilst He judged the nation that oppressed them. And this He did as punctually and plainly before the world's eyes, as He now wrought to save life generally and cause the wise dealing of His servant to be at once welcomed.

Indeed Joseph was the type of One incomparably higher, Who shall astonish many nations, and shut the mouths of kings on account of Him, and melt the proud heart of His ancient people; for in their self-will they esteemed Him not but despised Him. Yet it was the reality of His humiliation, and of its infinite grace, not only in bearing their griefs and sustaining their sorrows, but far more deeply in being wounded for their transgressions and bruised for their iniquities. These gave the enemy occasion to aggravate their unbelief, as unwilling to allow their sins as to feel their need of a Savior from God, independently of themselves: at bottom the difficulty insuperable to all flesh, of Gentiles as well as Jews. But, strictly speaking, Joseph typified Him, first, in being “the Prophet that should come” and endure all griefs and shame, but be God's wisdom during His humiliation, rejected by His brethren, punished unjustly, though the righteous One, by the Gentiles, yet raised out of the depths to wield the authority of the kingdom outside Israel and the land, to the great relief of Israel and Egypt, before the day come to put the children in fulfilled possession of the promises made to the fathers.

It is intelligible that an ungodly reasoner like David Hume, or a dissolute sentimentalist like J. J. Rousseau should deny prophecy as well as miracle. One can understand too the trifling speculation of philosophers, who talk of alleged miracles or prophecies falling under a higher law which transcends the ordinary rule of natural causes and effects. The common and fatal defect of all such schemes is the sin that forgets and leaves out God, in a day particularly when there was neither the completed word of God or the scriptures, nor the presence of the Spirit imparted as the fruit of Christ's redemption. How sad that their erring and rebellious steps should be followed by men, who are not only professing Christians, but bound by their position to proclaim all revealed truth, and expound it faithfully in its fullness and precision to all disciples as well as opposers. It is both scandalous indifference and real hostility to God and His Son, and in fact less honest than those unworthy skeptics. But the apostasy must come before the day of the Lord, who will execute judgment on all evil among the living here below.

Latter-Day Kings of the Book of Daniel: Part 1

There are four rulers brought into special prominence in the latter part of Daniel's prophecy. Each of these will take a more or less active share in the great drama, about to be enacted here below, immediately preceding, at, and just after, the Lord's coming in judgment of the habitual earth. They are designated respectively by the prophet:

(1). The little horn of the fourth empire (7:8);

(2). The little horn out of the third empire (8:23);

(3)."The king who shall do according to his will in the land” (11:36); and

(4). The king of the south (11:40).

The first three are more fully noticed in the word, whence it appears that they will take each his allotted part in the coming struggles of the nations for supremacy. These kings have many things in common apparently. They are, therefore, often mistaken the one for the other by prophetic students. Yet there are differences in their rise, political aspect, and religion, by which each may be clearly distinguished from the others, without doubt or confusion. In the interpretation given to Daniel by the holy one (7:17-26), the fourth beast is said to be the fourth kingdom upon the earth, the Roman. When the political power was taken from the Jews because of their unfaithfulness, it was handed over to the Gentiles in the person of Nebuchadnezzar (chap. 2:37, 38). Thus his kingdom was the first of the world-wide order. After it came the Medo-Persian; then the Grecian; after that the Roman. Here, however (chap. 7:7 and onward), the Spirit of God views the Roman Empire in its last aspect. It had seven successive heads, and ten horns, which are ten contemporary kings.

Formerly it was a consolidated Empire with but one leader, and at length two or more. But about the fifth century the Goths, Vandals, &c., broke it up; and it ceased to be an empire, being divided into separate kingdoms. In its resuscitated form, however, there will be imperial unity through one chief of the Beast or Empire. At the same time there will be ten separate kings (Rev. 17:12, 13). From the midst of the ten horns (or kings) rises a little horn. At first he is insignificant politically, but intelligent and arrogant. By his conquests three of the ten horns are brought under his dominion; and, through power or policy, the remaining seven give him their allegiance. He thus secures the mastery of the ten, and becomes the most powerful potentate of the west.

In Dan. 8 we are introduced to another vision and its interpretation also. In a few words the rise of the Greek or Macedonian Empire is given, and Alexander's rapid conquests are depicted in a most graphic manner. Then follows on his death, soon after, the division of his vast Empire between four of his generals (ver. 8). Out of one of these divisions comes a little horn (or king), which increases in power and becomes great through craft and force of arms (vers. 9, 10). This was undoubtedly Antiochus Epiphanes, the bitter enemy of the Jews and of their religion, who indeed used every means in his power to heathenize or crush them out of existence. “In the last of the indignation” the king of fierce countenance (ver. 23), whom Antiochus typified, will have his seat of government in the very quarter where Antiochus had his power—i.e. Turkey in Asia. Elsewhere (11:40-45) he is called “the king of the north” to distinguish from Egypt's then king; and also in Isaiah and Micah “the Assyrian,” because he will be the representative of Israel's old oppressor. It is well to notice, in passing, that the little horn of chap. 7 rises out of the Roman Empire when it is finally divided into ten kingdoms, whilst the “King of fierce countenance” comes out of the Syro-Greek kingdom. They are not only not the same person, but persons wholly opposed.

In chap. 11:36 another important personage comes into prominence in a most abrupt manner. He is called “the king” distinctly and solely, characterized by self-will and extreme self-exaltation. That he is a Jew seems clear from the fact that he is said not to regard “the God of his fathers” (which is not at all a Gentile designation), nor “the desire of women,” alluding to the honor sought by Jewish maidens to bear the Messiah. But unlike Him this king will not own the God of Israel as Lord; but while setting up himself will honor a god whom his fathers knew not. From the expressions “glorious land” and “glorious and holy mountain” (vers. 41-45) we may not doubt that the sphere of his government is Emmanuel's land.

In Isa. 30:33 (as well as 57:9) this personage is also spoken of as “the king.” “Also for the king it is prepared.” Thus “the king” and the Assyrian of the same chapter are really two instead of one. Notwithstanding they are too often confused.

The Spirit of God gives a short notice of the “king of the south,” in contrast with him “of the north.” The seat of his rule is Egypt, “south” of Palestine, as Turkey in Asia is “north” of it. Further details come under his political aspect.

Thus then we are introduced to four distinct rulers: (1) “the little horn” of chap. vii.; (2) the king of “fierce countenance” or little horn of chap. 8; (3) “the king” in the Holy Land of chap. 11:36; and (4) “the king of the south” or Egypt. Such are these kings, looking at their political aspect. Nevertheless 1 and 3 act together in the future; because they will make a close compact the one with the other, though their respective seats of government are widely apart. After the two tribes, Judah and Benjamin, have returned to Palestine, and “the king” (3) is reigning over them there, another great power north of the land threatens them with invasion. The head of this power is “the king of fierce countenance” of chap 8, called also in chap. 11 “king of the north.” In Isa. 14:24-27 he is designated “the Assyrian,” and is the bitter enemy of the Jews. To counteract this threatened invasion, “the king” (3) in league with the then great power of the west, the future Roman Emperor (1), calls his ally into the crisis. This agreement is mentioned in Isa. 28:15, 16, where it is called a covenant with death and hell—instruments of Satan.

In Dan. 9 further details as to time, &c. are given. The Roman Emperor (1) shall confirm “a” (not “the") covenant with “the many,” i.e. the mass of unbelieving Jews, “for one week” or seven years. His armies are afterward sent to Palestine to oppose the (2) invader's hosts. But the covenant with death will not stand; for the overflowing scourge, or the invading army, will pass through; and the Jews will be trodden down by it, as we read in Isa. 28, Zech. 14:1, 2. These scriptures inform us that this same leader (2) extends his conquests even to Jerusalem, and besieges the city with a measure of success. Half the city is taken, and its inhabitants led into captivity. But not as of old: the other part holds out against the foe; and, then far more, Jehovah Himself intervenes. The king of the south (4) comes up, but is opposed by the king of the north; since we find that the king of the north (2) turns away from Jerusalem, and overruns the countries where the king of the south (4) rules or has influence (Dan. 11:41-43). Of “the king” (3) nothing further is said here, as his exceptional end was given elsewhere.

Latter-Day Kings of the Book of Daniel: Part 2

Next we may look at the religious character or aspect of these kings.

In Rev. 13 the prophet sees a Beast rise out of the sea. A “Beast” in prophetic symbol means an Empire, and “the sea” represents people in a state of anarchy and confusion. Here then is seen its human origin, as chap. 12 had shown its place in Satanic design. In chap. 17 too the same Beast is said to ascend out of the bottomless pit: there we have its Satanic revival. Hence morally it is under the power of Satan. True it is that in Rev. 13 the future Roman Empire is meant, and in Dan. 7 how its chief comes to the point, and the two seem to merge, so that what is said of one is true also of the other. He blasphemes God, and sets himself up as equal with Him. “I will be equal to the most High” (Isa. 14:14) says the last wielder of the power that began with Nebuchadnezzar. In his covenant with the Jews he promises them religious liberty for seven years; but at the end of three and a half years “he causeth sacrifice and oblation to cease.” Nor does he only stop the performance of Jewish rites, but he seeks to force idolatry upon them. Of the faithful among the Jews who will not bow to the image set up in the temple, some will be persecuted to the death, others will flee into the wilderness to escape. Compare Psa. 42, Matt. 24 A remnant will be spared, and delivered when the Lord appears in glory, to become a strong nation.

Next the prophet sees a Beast rise out of the earth, that is, a political power rising out of a more settled state of affairs. But, as with the former Beast, the power is wielded by a man, and this one lamb-like in appearance with a voice that is Satanic. (3) He is the man of sin and the Antichrist, “the King” of Dan. 11:36, the idol shepherd of Zech. 11 “The wicked one” of Isa. 11:4, or rather “lawless one” of 2 Thess. 2:8. In Rev. 13 he is the wonder-working one who exercises the power of the first Beast (1) before it, and causes his image to be worshipped by all in his domain. 2 Thess. 2 describes him as sitting in the temple of God and claiming to be God.

Herein then lies the difference between the two (1 and 3). The first seeks to be equal to the Most High, the other shows himself that he is God. Thus both are blasphemers of God; but the bolder pretends to displace Him in His temple by claiming to be himself God.

Next the “king of fierce countenance” (2) will be, not only a great king but a sort of Rabbi in a philosophic way. He will have not only force of arms but also a spirit of crafty wisdom, so as to be able to explain enigmas; a sort of prophet like the second Beast in Palestine, who expounds profound and mysterious things. Thus by a deceitful and penetrating spirit he will gain great influence over the intellectual part of the Jewish nation, and persuade them into a false and irreligious security in which they forget and forsake Jehovah.

He will also be powerful but not by his own power, that is, another is to support him in his ambitious pretensions; which seem to be the “total destruction of Israel and the complete blotting out the very name from the earth” (cf. Psa. 83:4) Further, this king will neither own the supremacy of God, nor the right of His Son to earthly dominion. Obviously like the others (1 and 3), this personage is a blasphemous adversary. Who can doubt that “the King of the North” is supported by Gog the Czar of all the Russias? He is his Suzerain, and farther north still.

We have lastly to consider the end of these kings.

What leads up to all is their opposition to the authority of the Lord Jesus. God's decree is that His Son shall be declared King over all the earth; and He invites the kings of the earth to submit to His rule (Psa. 2:9-12). But they follow their own way and are guided in their policy by the overpowering object of self-aggrandizement. Nevertheless God's decree is sure and irrevocable, and He will carry out His purpose in spite of earthly kings and their intentions. Hence Dan. 7 speaks of one like a son of man coming to the Ancient of days, and receiving from Him an everlasting dominion and a universal kingdom, that all nations should serve Him (vers. 13, 14). The nations will not submit to His rule, however, but will rise up in proud rebellion against Him, and must be dealt with in judgment by the Lord in person.

The first gathering of nations against the Lord will be the western or European ten kings under the revived Beast's chief, or Emperor (1), with the third King (3), the religious chief of the future, but Lieutenant politically as King of Palestine; in Rev. 19 he is designated “the false prophet” simply (ver. 20). Whatever dominion he had, he is seen in his ecclesiastical character, as a teacher of lies; in which capacity he denies not only Jesus as the Christ, but also the Father and the Son. When Babylon is judged and gone, there remains still this lawless ecclesiastical power which had wrought with the Beast (13:12-18). Compare also 2 Thess. 2:3-9. Both meet with the same tremendous judgment at the hand of God. “These both were cast alive into the lake of fire.” See also 2 Thess. 2:8. Thus summarily will end the earthly career of these two atrocious enemies in chief.

After this “the King of the north” (2), having heard (it would seem) of the destruction of the Beast and the False Prophet with their armies at Jerusalem, comes up a second time to complete his conquest of that city (cf. Zech. 14:3). His thought may be that, as its Western allies are destroyed, he will be able to make him an easy prey (Dan. 11:44, 45). But his intentions are vain. For when he returns before Jerusalem, with all the confederate Eastern nations under his leadership, Jehovah shall go forth and fight against them; and the doom of the Assyrian (2) will be substantially similar to that of the Beast and of the False Prophet. If the Beast and the False Prophet were thrown alive into the lake of fire when the Lord shone out from heaven, the Assyrian must follow a little later (Isa. 30:33). The Lord Jesus will assign the doom on both these occasions; and it will be executed. First of all, from heaven, He deals with the Beast and the False Prophet; then on the earth He will go forth as King of Israel but in an incomparably glorious way, and thus dispose of the Assyrian at the head of all the combined nations of the East, as the Western powers had been destroyed with the “Beast.” Here, too, the Lamb shall overcome: for “He is King of kings, and Lord of lords.”

We see, then, from what we have gathered in the word of truth, that each of these latter-day kings, though in some respects similar to the others, yet has certain features in connection with his career which necessarily and obviously distinguish him from the rest. At the same time there must be the simple dependence upon the Spirit of God and the diligent study of His word, if one would clearly understand the various truths taught therein. Thus does the hand of the diligent make rich, and such riches bring no sorrow with them.

The fifth personage, one might add, the Emperor of the Russias, in that day goes forth as in Ezek. 38; 39. But this may await another paper, as it is somewhat later than even the destruction of the Assyrian. W.T. H.

The Law Through Moses, Grace and Truth Through Jesus Christ

O, WEIGH these wondrous words for sinners to hear and receive from God in all their force “And the Word became flesh, and tabernacled among us (and we beheld His glory, glory as of an Only-begotten from beside a Father) full of grace and truth... For of His fullness we all received, and grace for grace; because the law was given through Moses, grace and truth came into being through Jesus Christ.”

What grace in Him to come here below as truly Man as God! Neither God nor man had ever been so seen and heard before.

God made man sinless and set him in a garden of delight under the simplest possible test of refraining from a single tree. But man's first recorded act was to transgress; and thus sin, death, and ruin entered for him and all put under him. Yet it was not without God's word of saving mercy in the very sentence on the enemy who misled: the woman's Seed, however crushed, should crush the serpent. All for man's blessing turns, not on the first man, but on the Second, and is therefore of God's sovereign grace through faith in Jesus.

Meanwhile rebellious man who fled from God was expelled from Paradise. Left to himself, he waxed worse and worse, though not without divine goodness leading to repentance, till corruption and violence brought down the deluge to sweep all away save one man and his house. Noah began with sacrifice the world that now is, where God has wrought and spoken in many measures and in many manners, till all was eclipsed and surpassed in His Son incarnate to declare Him and do on the cross the work which efficaciously supersedes all shadows for man to His glory.

Here came He in whom was life, the light of men; but the darkness comprehended it not: a darkness so dense was it that it yielded not to the True Light. He was in the world, and the world was made by Him, and the world knew Him not. He came to His own things, but His own people received Him not. Yet at that time Greece boasted of its knowledge, Rome of its power, Jerusalem of its religion. But what was all worth when the Gentiles knew not their own Creator, and the Jews received not their own Messiah? O the grace that brought Him down from heaven to live as man among men, that they might believe and follow Him who was God as He also perfectly represented the Invisible! But some did and do receive Him, “all we” that believe, who receiving Him receive of His fullness, and grace for grace, in overflowing abundance. For it is divine giving and so without measure in Him.

The explanation is added, “because the law was given through Moses, grace and truth came into being through Jesus Christ.” The law was the divine requirement, if the first man sought to draw near to God. “The law is holy, and the commandment holy and just and good:” what could it do then but condemn the Israelite like any other, because the race is unholy, unjust, and bad? Even if favor were joined to the law, as when Moses went up the second time (Ex. 34:1-17), it is a ministry of death and condemnation; for favor only aggravates the guilt if man is under law which will by no means clear the guilty.

Salvation is impossible save for sovereign grace apart from law. And this is what God provides in Christ. Hence the Galatians (chap. v. 2-4) were warned that to require or submit to circumcision, though it was of the fathers, was to derive no profit from Christ and be fallen from grace. The same chap. 18-24 excludes law as the rule of life, which is solely Christ in the power of the Spirit according to the written word. It is therefore grace from first to last; and grace means not God's love only, but His love rising above all our evil, love wholly undeserved, love in Christ to give us a new and holy nature and to suffer for our sins, but also strengthening us to all holy obedience and suffering for Christ and righteousness' sake.

Nor is this all. Grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. It came in Him when He came. It was what He manifested, taught, and lived. His death made it effectual for the worst who turned to God repentant and believing in His name. The veil was rent, the sanctuary on earth annulled to its innermost shrine, the way of the Holies manifested for every believer, Gentile no less than Jew.

This is truth no less than grace, never made known before He came and accomplished the work of sacrifice which supersedes and more than fulfills all sacrifices on behalf of sinful man, yet necessarily through faith. And “the law is not of faith” but of doing, as alas! we all sinned, instead of doing right only. But our Lord suffered with the fullest efficacy for our sins. Hence His blood cleanses the believer from every sin; and the gospel is God's glad tidings that all might believe.

For the truth is the manifestation of every person and everything as it is. Hence Christ is declared to be “the truth,” and this not personally alone but as making known every one and everything really. It could not be till He came. God Himself dwelt in the thick darkness; but Christ declared Him as He is, not only as Savior in Christ to every one who owns his sins and believes on Him through whom He saves, but as the Father of all who believe, His Father and their Father (as He Himself said), His God and their God. For this is life eternal to know the Father and the Son; as it is through His word and Spirit. It is not law, but the truth, “the grace and truth” which “came through Jesus Christ.”

If only so we know God as He is, so too we know man as he is. Only Christ made man thus known, ungodly, lost, powerless, God's enemy, yea, dead in offenses and sins, the Jew as well as the Gentile children of wrath by nature, and only salvable and saved by grace through faith; and this not of ourselves, God's gift, not of works that none might boast.

It is through Christ that we know the devil as he is; not merely the tempter of our first parents in the Paradise of Eden, or the adversary of Israel in the land, or as he had proved to righteous Job in patriarchal days, but above all the antagonist and hater of Jesus the Son of God, the holy angels being revealed as occupied with Him and His as the continual object of their service.

Through Jesus we know heaven truly, as filled with His praise and homage, and in particular the Father's house where He is the object of His Father's delight, and whither He will bring us in His delight to share love and glory with Himself to their fullest.

Through Him we know, not only His coming kingdom as Son of man over all the nations, and with His ancient people as His nearest earthly circle, but as the Head over all things to the church, His body, associated in the closest relationship. Then the blessing of Melchizedek shall characterize the most High God, Possessor of heaven and earth, and those of faith are everywhere blessed with faithful Abraham.

Through Him too we know the awful and endless doom of all who live only to disregard Christ and to please themselves, to reject His word and gratify their self-will and superstition always idolatrous, and their skepticism always hostile to God and self-exalting. It is Christ who made known, as Moses and the prophets never did, “Gehenna where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched,” or as the beloved disciple says, “the lake that burneth with fire and brimstone:” tremendous figures of a still more tremendous and everlasting reality for “cowardly, and unbelieving, and those that make themselves abominable, and murderers, and fornicators, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars.” Yet such is the dark background of a new heaven and a new earth for all eternity, with the new Jerusalem the blessed and holy city of love.

Life and Death

No question has ever troubled men more than this great riddle of life and death. Nor has science as yet advanced one single solution, nor ever will. The philosopher in his theories gets back to what he calls the Great First Cause, but there he stops; and the reason is plain enough, for he cannot pass outside the limit of things natural and seen, beyond which the solution of this riddle lies. True it is, that the word of God has stated the whole case and solves for believers every difficulty; but, it being “spiritually discerned,” even the wisest man, if unenlightened by the Spirit of God, cannot accept or understand its truths.

Man was formed in the strength of his manhood, nor were there any influences of decay or any signs of death upon, around, or before him. All was life. But God had proclaimed that in the day of disobedience he should “surely die (Gen. 2:17).” We know the true and awful story of the fall: indeed its sad evidences are around aria in us all to-day. But Adam did not expire at once. True it is that death set in, and that in this sense from the moment of his fall he was a dying man; but what did actually happen was that he became an outcast from the presence of God. This was “death” in a most terrible aspect. The bodily act of dying was but a small thing, compared to the spiritual death, the separation from God, which was beyond measure appalling, as it surely ends in judgment everlasting.

Till now God had provided all things and man lived but to enjoy the manifold blessings in the garden of Eden. Now, he was an outcast condemned to toil for his daily bread, and to see in the thorns and thistles, with which his own hands had to fight for the mastery of the soil, the bitter fruits of his disobedience, which called to his mind unceasingly the fact that he was mortal. Yet in the very hour of judgment came the promise of mercy (Gen. 3:15), through the Seed which should bruise the serpent's head. And it is our privilege to-day to look back over the long years and see the promise fulfilled in wonderful perfection.

Some deem it strange that throughout the Old Testament we have but three or four scriptures pointing to eternity. The most striking perhaps comes from the lips of stricken Job, whom God was schooling in adversities, for in the middle of his affliction he could cry out “I know that my Redeemer liveth” (Job 19:25). Here then he points to One who lives untouched by the power of death, a living Redeemer, life-giving as we know as well as living.

In a later day God gave His rebellious people the choice of “life and good, and death and evil” (Deut. 30:15). I do not suppose that their choice in any way affected their allotted span of years, but it did affect their position Godward.

Life was a state of communion resulting from the obedience of faith; whereas death was the reverse.

The apostle Paul writing to the Romans tells us that “death reigned from Adam to Moses”! Did men then live from Moses onward? No! but it was through Moses that God instituted a probational order of things For at the hand of Moses came the schoolmaster or child-guide (Gal. 3:24) unto or up to Christ. Not that the law typified Christ, but that it convicted man of sin and of his need of redeeming blood.

Again through Moses, the tabernacle, pointing Christward in its every detail, was constructed. Above all through Moses came the Aaronic or mediating priesthood by which God condescended to act towards man. Again, after Passover and the Red Sea He came to dwell with men conditionally, and to commune from the mercy-seat; for men were guilty and condemned by the very giving of the law, and mercy was needed most of all. The law pointed to the need of life, and though it was in no way against the promises of God (Gal. 3:21), it could never of itself give life. As yet redemption was only in a figure; and although the new dispensation of ritual pointing at life was established, life in its true sense could not yet be said to have come to dwell with or in men.

It was the intermediate stage leading Christ-ward. The absolute reign of death was no longer in power; but the absolute reign of life was not yet established. There was still the veil of separation there; but its very texture showed that it was not forever, and behind it life was wonderfully symbolized. Over the people still hung the fear of the condemnation sounded later in the dread word “Ichabod” (1 Sam. 4:21). The glory that was with them was conditional upon their attitude. Sins under the existing state of things could never be taken away; for the very priesthood was but human, and prone as other men to fail. But this same state of things, imperfect though man had made it, pointed toward the greater future blessing. And this in all its fullness came in Christ. He came bringing life in Himself; for “in Him was life, and the life was the light of men” (John 1:4).

Early in His ministry He proclaimed “He that believeth hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation (or rather judgment), but is passed from death unto life” (John 5:24). He ever pressed the essential need of being born again (John 3:3), “born of the Spirit"; and to impart life to all who owned their need of it (John 10:10) was His chief mission. “The wages (though not the full wages) of sin is death” was the word of doom; not only the cutting short of man's earthly span but far more the separation from God, and this of course including corruption both spiritual and bodily, all ending in the lake of fire. “But the gift of God is eternal life (in the fullest sense) through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Rom. 6:23). Here then was the One who had power to establish communion between fallen but repentant man and God; for this had been implied from the fall. So, as man came Christ Jesus the Son of God, in whom was life; and this right through from the manger to the cross, so gloriously manifested by the angel's words to the astonished but rejoicing hearers at the tomb, “He is not here, but is risen.” He, in whom was life, could not be overcome of death; but on the contrary death everywhere gave way before Him where it was felt and acknowledged.

The remission of sins was only possible by blood (Lev. 17:11, Heb. 9:22). Nor could reconciliation be accomplished without death and blood-shedding, and this not of bulls and goats “which can never take away sins.” Therefore He said, “Lo, I come... to do Thy will, O my God (Psa. 40:6);” and we know how perfectly that will was wrought out. Death was vanquished, and the grave with all its terrors was overcome by Christ alone. No longer did the veil separate man from God, for from top to bottom it was rent as by God's own hand. The way into the holiest was made open (Heb. 10:19, 20) to all believers through the blood of Christ. The separation from God and from His unhindered blessings which resulted from Adam's sin, was now in the second Adam removed. A direct means of communion with God was now open to all men by faith. No longer was the entry into the holiest the prerogative of a high priest, but all that believe from every nation under heaven were called into its holy blessings (Rom. 5:2, 18).

Now the “free gift” was offered to all (through the perfection of the work of Christ) conditional upon nothing but man's confession of his need; and acceptance of Him “Eternal life” is the knowledge of God and of His Son (John 17:3). Without such a personal and individual appropriation of this actual communion with God, the life was unattained and unattainable. It could not come by rite or ceremony at the hands of men. It comes solely through the agency of the Holy Spirit, convicting of sin and pointing to Christ the Son of God and the Son of Man as having atoned for sins upon the cross.

Are we then as well off as Adam before the fall? Surely incomparably better! for we have promises of glory (1 Cor. 6:3; 1 John 3:2 Tim. 2:12; Rev. 5:10) which Adam never knew. We have “eternal life” (1 John 5:13), and we know it now, communion with God by the indwelling Spirit; and “life everlasting in the world (age) to come” (Luke 18:30), with the cheering and splendid assurance that nothing can separate us from these blessings (Rom. 8:39). The legacy of Christ was a promise fulfilled at Pentecost, and as true to-day as then, God dwelling in and with man by the Holy Spirit through redemption (John 14:16; Rom. 8:16; Acts 7:48 Cor. 6:19). Thenceforth for us was to be no temple of God built with hands, but the individual believer became ipso facto, consequent on the redemption that is in Christ, the temple of God Himself; as also is the church or assembly of God (1 Cor. 3:16; 2 Cor. 5:16). Such a state of blessing can be arrived at solely by faith in God and His Word.

The fall with its resultant separation from God, expressed in death now and judgment to come, must be acknowledged and confessed, not only for the race but individually; and God's reconciliation by Christ's work, together with the gift of eternal life, must now be accepted as the only way to God. He who is that life Himself died to give us life, was forsaken that we might be made nigh, and told us that He alone is “the way.” Moreover He has told us that none can come to the Father but by Him. He has told us too (can we praise Him sufficiently for it?) that whosoever cometh to Him He will in no wise cast out (John 6:37). L. L.

Life in Resurrection

The great principle upon which a Christian stands is as to what is his life, and from whence it flows. The Christian is said to be raised from the dead—to have risen with Christ; and whatever is not thus quickened and risen is not of Christ. “He that hath the Son hath life, and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life.”

All blessing and comfort is associated with this life in resurrection. There is the entering on a new position, and the setting aside forever of all previous and natural relation.

The apostle alludes to this in the preceding chapter, where he says, “And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses.” And again, in chapter 3:1; “If ye then be risen with Christ.” The principle of life flows then from this: that he is dead, dead with Christ, quickened with Christ, risen with Christ; thus manifesting his practical identification with Christ in all things.

In Eph. 2 it is said, “You hath he quickened who were dead in trespasses and sins,” to manifest “what is the exceeding greatness of his power to usward who believe, according to the working of his mighty power which he wrought in Christ when he raised him from the dead.” The same power which wrought in Christ's resurrection is effectual now for the spiritual resurrection of His people.

“God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ and hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus.”

The Christian then, being quickened along with Christ, has the resurrection life of Christ, and is privileged to sit in Him in heavenly places, unto eternal life, as Christ is now sitting at the right hand of God; and the consequence of this position, when made known to the soul, is to bring in a rich revenue of joy and comfort, even “joy and peace in believing.”

Now, where an individual is not in this position, it is just to be under all his trespasses and sins—to have them upon himself. He is a sinner, as all are; but he is nothing else than a sinner in thought, principle, affection and standing—all that he is; and he is nothing else.

Perhaps he may not outwardly have manifested as much sin as others. He may have been restrained by regard to decorum; he may not have been placed in such circumstances as to draw it out equally with others. He may not have had the opportunity as others of appearing as great a sinner; but still he is a sinner, and nothing else. If he has in thought, word, or act, committed one sin, that is the evidence that he is a sinner, as one bad fruit evidences the unsoundness of the tree.

When did he get the inclination to transgress? No union of outward circumstances could have brought forth what was not within.

Now there is no association of principle with God as long as man remains in that state; but it decidedly manifests his departure from God. It was that which caused Adam to be driven out from the presence of God—actual transgression, arising from dissociation of principle from God. And all Adam's responsible posterity have actually gone astray; and so their natural position is, “alienation from God;” and (except those who have received the new life, being dead with Christ and risen with Him) that is just the position and standing of every individual. There is no difference as to their being driven out—all were driven out in Adam. As it says in Romans, “There is no difference, for all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.”

There is one grand sin which leads men to the commission of all others—the desire to please themselves. If this has once been acted on, it constitutes that man a sinner; just as the breach of one law of the land stamps a man a criminal. We do not require him to run through the transgression of every law in the statute book in order to bring him in guilty. His having broken one is the evidence of his guilt: we need no further proof.

While acting then on this as a principle, we are spiritually dead in trespasses and sins. There is no life, no love, in us; as our Savior said to those by whom He was surrounded: “I know you, that ye have not the love of God in you.” Now this is the real fact, that there is no assimilation to God in man's natural state, but the contrary principle—hatred, enmity.

But this is the position of every individual of the human race, until called out of the general mass by divine grace. He is sprung from Adam, associated with him in his sin, as to its guilt not only of leaving God but of positively rejecting Him. That is the world he loves, belongs to, and forms a part of; and whether his transgressions are few or great, he is doomed to destruction, if he continue so to the end.

Just as in the case of the flood—doubtless there was a wide difference in the amount of actual delinquencies among the sinful inhabitants of the world at that time; but none were saved but Noah. Many might even have bid fair to be saved, so as to be near the ark; but none were saved except such as were in the ark. So in Sodom: many had not so openly exhibited their enmity to God as others; and yet, in the general conflagration, Lot alone escaped: and why? Just because all the others, without distinction, were opposed to God—were quite opposite to Him in every principle, and consequently had come to that state of exclusion from God's presence.

If so, we are at present without God in the world; and to be forever without Him is perfect misery. And is not this really the present position of the world, though men are unconscious of it? There is a veil cast on futurity, as it regards them. They are occupied in the pleasures, amusements, profits, and pursuits of a Christ-rejecting world. But when the veil is raised, then will their position be disclosed. And whosoever is of Christ will have Christ's portion; they will enter on the enjoyment of that portion, which by faith they now see is prepared for them.

By faith alone have we any of these exceeding great promises now. Now is the time for us to ascertain by faith our personal identification with Christ. Now are we to know our interest in Him. The time is coming, yea, swiftly coming, when we shall know even as we are known; and as we are now quickened, raised, and exalted, what should be the effect but to manifest our identification with Christ, in a union so close and abiding that Paul says, “We are members of his body [of his flesh, and of his bones]”?

Christ went down into death for our iniquities, though holy, yet accounted guilty. He did suffer the penalty of sin, and was brought “into the dust of death.” He became dead.

Having thus been made sin, He rose again—He is a risen Christ. A risen Christ is one that was dead; and it is with a risen Christ that we have now to do. This state of blessedness He reveals to the soul by the Spirit of truth. He reveals what He had done in man's estate for man as having borne our sins, and thus evidencing that “the wages of sin is death.”

The believer then knows experimentally what Christ was doing here. He was bearing sin on the cross, and making the sacrifice of Himself to the justice of God, “it pleased Jehovah to bruise him.”

Now there is the point on which the Christian rests: the power of the recognition of God's pleasure and God's approbation in the sufferings and sacrifice of Christ; the point at which we feel the woes of Jesus inflicted. It is not the external perception, irrespective of a personal interest in His unexampled afflictions, such as the daughters of Jerusalem felt, when they bewailed and lamented Him. “Daughters of Jerusalem,” said He, “weep not for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children.”

To weep in tender sympathy for human sufferings and woe does not testify a union of sentiment with God; but the recognition of the wherefore “it pleased Jehovah to bruise him,” leading us to sorrow for these sins, and to rejoice at the Lord's approbation of their removal. This is a godly affection; this brings to the soul a perception of Christ's woes, when He says, “Thou hast brought me into the dust of death.” When the cup of suffering was presented to Him, mixed up with the bitterness of our sins—holy, yet agonized—sinless, yet bruised: does not this present us with the view God must take of sin? When we see, not the perpetrator, but only the bearer of sin exposed to such unexampled sufferings; and yet where, in what position, can we perceive so clearly, and completely the riches of divine grace, and love, and mercy, as here? “He spared not his own Son.”

It is not merely the fact that He was left as it were to the unmitigated rage of man; it was not merely that Adam's sinful race were permitted to “persecute and take him;” but God Himself withdrew the comfortable perception of the light of His countenance, which extorted from Him that bitter cry, “My God! my God! why hast thou forsaken me?” The prophet, in the prospect of this event, declares in Isa. 53 “He had done no violence, neither was deceit found in his mouth: yet it pleased Jehovah to bruise him” —and why?

There must have been some great concern passing between heaven and earth; some wonderful transaction pending betwen God and man; some immense negotiation which was now to be decided, sufficient to awaken the world, and into which the very “angels desire to look.” There must have been a something great and tremendous to have had such consequences attached to it; to have seen Him of whom the Father's testimony was, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased,” and yet “pleased to bruise him!”

When this great mystery is understood (and none but a believer can enter into the spiritual perception of it), the soul is brought out of a state of death and darkness, and is translated into life and light. It then sees and feels what it was that caused the Father to bruise Him, and the Son willing to be bound.

When the believer sees Christ reduced to that state of suffering as to “cry, ‘Now is my soul troubled,' then the believer himself experiences something of this soul-trouble; when he hears Him exclaim, “The waters have gone in, even unto my soul!” and sees Christ “sore amazed, and very heavy,” then he participates in spirit in it; he sees, feels, believes it; and, seizing in it the evidence of the love of Christ, is glad, and rejoices.

And now, what were all these sufferings about? Sin, sin was the cause of all, and such sin as to draw down such fearful consequences on the bearer of it—how tremendous! Now, if we are not such wrath-deserving sinners, for whom was it undertaken? Assuredly not for us. If we have not come to the consciousness that our individual sins were so aggravated that in full justice they deserved what was laid on Jesus; that as He was bearing our sin, so was He bearing the penalty of it; if we are not brought to see these sins as ours, and the guilt of them ours, we have no consciousness of assimilation or union with Christ.

If any of you can say, “I know nothing of this soul-trouble; this does not describe my feelings and state,” then what have you to do with the promises of eternal life to the miserable, wretched, sinful?

If you can say, “It is not so with me; I do not think myself so bad as to draw down such heavy judgments upon me individually; I am not worse than others, and sin is not such a grief to me;” then assuredly all these sufferings and agony and woe cannot be, manifestly, about you.

If the consciousness of it has not been to make you “sore amazed and very heavy,” troubled and oppressed, then is Christ crucified no concern as yet of yours. But if we have seen and received the truth, that the death of Christ was the wages of our sins; if we have felt and understood the meaning and sense of His sufferings and death, and by appropriation can lay claim to them as ours, then the resurrection comes home to our souls with a quickening and revivifying power.

If we have seen Him really bearing the consequences of our sins, brought into the reality of death for us; if we can experimentally understand Christ on the tree, bearing the heavy burden of His people's sins—so heavy, that they bore Him to the very dust of death and brought Him low, even to the cross; if we can see Him rising without them, having blotted them out by His precious blood; then are we in a state to enter into the perception of that glorious privilege, “having forgiven you all trespasses.”

Though our sins brought Him down to the grave, yet they could not hold Him there; “because it was not possible that he should be holden of it.” He rose, having triumphed over sin; He left sin no longer on His people or Himself, but washed it all away, never to appear against them, never again to draw down heaven's wrath.

The grave then has borne witness with us that He was dead; that He put away sin, rose above it and every enemy: the full tide of His people's iniquity was here expiated, and forever! Absolute justice poured down the punishment which it deserved, until sin was no more.

Christ, having risen from the dead, became the living witness that the justice and truth of God were forever satisfied. Had there been one sin unatoned for, there the surety must have remained. “Thou shalt not depart thence till thou hast paid the very last mite” —that is what the law exacts; but the penalty was paid in all its demands, and divine justice perfectly satisfied.

There was no more required, nothing more demanded; and all this in perfect accordance with the purpose, counsel, and determination of God. The sins were owned, were confessed in penitence and shame, were mourned over, and the bearer held up to heaven, on which were to be inflicted the terrible effects of God's wrath. That wrath He met, and thus forever settled the question between God and sin.

There is no more suffering for sin; the controversy is now at an end forever. Now the believer has done with sin, as regards God's anger and condemnation; he also is risen, risen with Christ—has recognized it as his sin which is put away by the Redeemer, as though He was accounted the guilty one. Seeing this, he sees his sin condemned; if he did not, it would be to suppose that the sufferings were not commensurate to the extent of sin; that the death of the victim has not expiated all; that sin is not done away with; but the believer, who is conscious of having risen with Christ, sees sin gone, forgotten, no more to be remembered. It is actually gone as regards us (believers); and in that position we are actually standing in the presence of God, justified from all things, risen with Him without sin unto salvation, brought up before God in a justified state.

Who then can (or shall) lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It is God Himself that justifieth; it is Christ Himself that died, yea rather, that is risen; nay in Him His people are complete, and made one by virtue of union with Him here. How solid is the ground for peace, and an occasion for great rejoicing! “He was delivered for our offenses, and was raised again for our justification.”

Now we see that this mighty transaction was all about us, and that we are the persons interested in it. Now indeed we see why Christ became incarnate, suffered, and died: it was for us, and for us too He rose again.

The moment we can, by faith, see our personal interest in the sinless sufferings of Christ, that moment we have the certainty of our redemption; we taste of the cup which He drank, and are associated with Him in all He did and suffered.

Having seen what we belonged to as heirs of the first Adam, “by nature children of wrath, even as others,” we now see our entrance on another position, as heirs of the Second Man. We see that, as we did belong to that system of whose members it is said, “They have all gone out of the way;” and that “there is none good, no, not one;” and that “they drink in iniquity like water;” so believers can say, “Jehovah hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.” They are now translated into another state, another system of things; they are “risen with him through the faith of the operation of God;” “they have heard the voice of the Son of God, and live;” they live the life of Christ; and though this life is not fully exhibited in this present dispensation, yet it is a real true life.

There is more truth in God's life than in man's life. It is not a name, a voice, a notion, but eternal life, that very life which Christ has now, that very life which is without end, that we have. “He that hath the Son hath life;” he has it now: there is no such thing as “shall,” as regards our possession of it. “He that believeth hath everlasting life;” and is not the believer called upon, by these wonderful mercies, by this stupendous grace, to exhibit his possession of this eternal life? He is! And how? The apostle says, “Seek those things which are above.” (Col. 3:3.)

Now, brethren in the Lord Jesus, are you doing so? Are you dead now to all that you were conscious of being alive to before? It is true, your life is hid now to sight, you see it not; but “blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.” It is, nevertheless, a certain life; and when Christ who is our life shall appear, then shall they who have been quickened by the life-giving power of the Son of God appear with Him. Then will it be seen that there is, and there can be, “no condemnation to them who are in Christ Jesus.” Of this they are now conscious, for “he that believeth hath the witness in Himself.” Yea, they have the eternal Spirit testifying to the believer of the truth of God, making known to him his personal identification with Christ, his oneness with Him, as well as his perfect acceptance and justification in consequence of His work.

In the sensible enjoyment of this the believer lives, and walks accordingly. He lives, subject to this new life which he derives from Christ; it has its desires, affections, and objects of delight. Your natural life has its likings and attractions, “the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life.” And so has the life of God—Christ in glory, having triumphed over every enemy, and holiness and happiness with Him in heaven: these are our objects, our desires—the affections tend upwards to them.

Suppose a person now alive with Christ in glory, what would be his desires, feelings, and pursuits? Just similar, then, should be that of those who are alive with Him with that life which Christ gives. The glory of God should be their one end and aim. They have not merely the forfeited life which Adam lost, but eternal life.

The peculiar joy of the believer is the consciousness that he stands before God as Jesus stands; that he is a partaker of that love which God has for Jesus. So prayed Christ, “that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them.”

Where can we know anything of this love but in Jesus? The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He alone declared it. He brings it to souls as one that knows it Himself, and tells us that God has loved us as He loves Him.

Here then is the position of the Christian, and it is a position of deep blessedness, everlasting blessedness, to stand as Christ stands before God, without the shadow or imputation of sin, perfectly justified, and loved with the same love.

This is wondrous blessing; and this is Christ's joy and delight, to bring them into the same blessedness with Himself, as happy as Himself. It is His very rejoicing to come and make known to the soul these great and inestimable privileges, to reveal Himself and the Father by the eternal Comforter; and, notwithstanding the weariness of the flesh, the body of corruption, and the many, many hindrances to the enjoyment of this privileged spiritual existence, yet doth grace triumph over all in the soul of the believer, enabling him in faith to enter into the appropriation of Christ's declaration, “my Father and your Father, my God and your God.” He stands as in the presence of God, free from all condemnation, resulting from what Christ has done and suffered, having made reconciliation for iniquity and brought in everlasting righteousness.

Now faith realizes this; it recognizes the justice of God satisfied, and His love well pleased; it rests on this, and lives in the enjoyment of it.

Now do you believe this? If you do, what practical effects has it led to? Are you dead to the world? Would you like to be dead? Would you feel it painful to be as dead to the world as Christ is now? There can be no assimilation to heaven in the things, desires, and pursuits of this world. The world does not like heaven, nor anything belonging to heaven: such is the judgment that was passed on it. This was proved when the Lord came down from heaven, and they turned Him out of the world.

God had one Son. There was just one thing in heaven with which God would try man: “He had yet one, a beloved son... it may be they will reverence him.”

But no; they would not let Christ have the world, neither would they have Him. Men did not like Him: He was not the portion they wanted, and therefore they got rid of Him.

Now we must either have the portion of the world or Christ's portion. Happy are they who have the Lord for their portion! Happy they who are dead to all the little gilded toys of the world, which Satan has scattered around in order to entrap us!

All the blessing and fullness of the Father's love is in Christ's portion. But then He is a Savior that is dead to every other portion; soon will this be not a hidden treasure but a manifested one. He is now gathering out of the world His own, picking them out from among all nations, testifying His unwearied patience and forbearance towards still unpunished sinners. But when the last saint has been brought into the church, Christ Himself will then come, to the joy of those who have confessed His name here and borne testimony to His truth, who have been content to give up all for Him. It will be then quite another scene from what the world anticipates, quite another dispensation; and what the saints have been waiting for will then be accomplished— “the manifestation of the sons of God.”

Have you believed this? If you have, do you act on it? Are you looking for, and hastening towards, the appearing of the glory of the Lord? Are you conscious of being dead to that world which crucified Christ? When you say, “We are risen with Christ,” are you conscious of a distaste to, a dissociation from, those things that crucified Him? Are you alive to a judged world? or are you favoring that world? If you are, then are you fit assessors over it? for the word of God declares, “the saints shall judge the world.” “Such as are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts.” “If we suffer with him, we shall also reign with him.” “Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth."'

If you are one with Christ, walk in the privileges of that union, and “when Christ who is our life shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory.” J.N.D.

Lights in the World by F.E.R.

After a careful reading of these, I am compelled to say, that to any one of spiritual discernment they prove a mind abandoned to its own ideas and unsubject to God's revelation of the truth. They have been sent for a judgment; as I never seek such reading.

“Lights in the world” in Scripture mean heavenly luminaries, in no way comparable to a candle or lamp, which is the figure for prophetic light in 2 Peter 1:19. In Phil. 2 the children of God shine as Christ, and bear no such earthly analogy. Nor is “word of life” confounded with light anywhere as in this poor fancy, though it seems a new thing to speak of life, after giving it up as unintelligible previously. Here it is analyzed into “two or three” elements meeting in one person, which is mere stuff. Life is itself as Scripture clearly shows; but this system is sound and clear as to nothing, only launching out into fancies foreign to God's word.

After a good deal of irrelevant talk about the wick, i.e. “My self,” he comes in pp. 6-9 to “the first great fact in God's work in the soul.” Yet characteristically he avows “I cannot tell you what new birth is.” Why then did he speak or write? He tries to get rid of the stigma of such ignorance by saying that his auditors were equally ignorant. But, though this may be true of both, a birth is a manifest fact whether naturally or spiritually. Ignorance of the new or spiritual birth is simply because they deny God's impartation of life to the believer. This writer entirely left out the Spirit's use of the word to the soul dead in trespasses and sins by revealing Christ as life to it. He talks of its not being “the communication of anything”! but by the Spirit's power without the word or anything else. This is all fundamentally false and fanatical. The effect he says is “collapse,” and “a cry,” both clearly the effect of a new life, which he denies to be communicated in defiance of the plainest scripture.

The next thing is the “light” (p. 13). What foolishness! The True Light lighteneth every man, converted or not (John 1:9). Life alone profits by it; but this victim of his own imagination puts it after the new birth! He understands nothing according to God. Further he shows his utter darkness by making the second thing, the enlightening, to be “properly the work of the evangelist”!! For he excludes the evangelist and human agency in general from the first work. One verse of scripture exposes and demolishes this wicked nonsense; “For in Christ Jesus I begot you through the gospel” (1 Cor. 4:15).

As the oil figures admittedly the Holy Spirit's anointing, we may leave this.

But a great deal is made in the latter part of Christ's “glorifying God on the earth,” in distinction from His being lifted up so as not to die there. Here however the truth is quite missed. For it is in addressing the Father that our Lord said “I glorified thee on the earth. I finished the work, which thou hast given me to do” (John 17:4). On the other hand in John 13:31, 32 He said, Now is the Son of man glorified, and God is glorified in him. If God be glorified in him, God also will glorify him in himself and will glorify him immediately.” The glorifying of God was as to sin on the cross, the glorifying His Father was all His life through on the earth. Here all is muddle with egregious pretension to accuracy. So it is also to say, I could only tell you that “the light is the love of God.” How much better to have been silent than to let out such unconscious confusion oracularly!

On the “Gravity of the Moment” a few words suffice. “The Son of God,” who is the rock on which the church is built, is revealed in Rev. 2:18 as the unchanging object of faith, when Christendom was given up to idolatry and persecution, combined with the pride of prophesying or the claim of infallibility in the church; but not in the earthly place of Psa. 2. Again it is false to confound the promise “I will give him (the overcomer) the morning star” (at the translation of the saints) with that star arising in the heart now as in 2 Peter 1:19, which ought to characterize the Christian's present hope. The promise includes the two parts of the Lord's future presence: His kingdom judicially as the Sun of righteousness; and the special heavenly hope that He will give us the Morning-star before that day dawns.

I have only to add the inveterate error as to righteousness (p. 15), a shameless misuse of Rom. 5:21. For he makes it “obligation to righteousness” and “the practical setting aside of sin”; instead of believing it to be Christ made to us righteousness, and the obedience of the One (just before spoken of) to constitute the many righteous. This too is fundamental error destructive of the gospel of God. What is the worth of many true things with such falsehood? “No lie is of the truth.”

Man's Hatred and Christ's Love

God has not left us in darkness as to our state, nor as to His ways in grace toward us in that state. The blessed truth of Christ's coming in love to this world, before He comes in judgment, is a testimony to our state, but also to the love of God toward us in that state; and if we neglect this testimony, we have to come before Him in judgment. “Every knee shall bow;” but there is all the difference between bowing to Him as a Savior and as a Judge. If we come to Him in grace as a Savior, we find our sins dealt with in another way than judgment. If my creditor comes to claim a debt, and I have nothing to pay, it is all over with me; but if he comes to pay it, I am clear. So we must have to do with God in one way or the other: if, as having our sins dealt with on the cross, it is putting them away; if in judgment, it is imputing them to us.

The gospel is the testimony of what God has done before the day of judgment, that man might not have to answer for his sins. It is only in Christ. For God cannot approve of iniquity—that is impossible. But it is very different to insist upon the payment of a debt, and to come and pay it. The gospel is the testimony of what Christ did as Savior before He comes as Judge; and this testimony is for us to believe.

There is the work of the Spirit of God, which gives us a sense of our sins. There is Christ's work done outside us, by which sins are remitted and forgiven to faith. There is the testimony of the Holy Spirit to give believers the knowledge of that work; for if unknown, I should be as wretched as before.

We have in this scene what the human heart is when fully brought out (for it does not always show itself). We see, too, a work in a man, and a work for a man; and then the consciousness of it wrought in his soul. God makes us know forgiveness; He has not given His Son that we should be ignorant of it. I cannot talk of walking with God, if I do not know whether He is going to condemn me, or not. Who ever heard of a criminal walking with his judge?

In looking at mankind, you will see how all were against the Lord Jesus. And why? He had healed their sick, cast out demons, raised the dead, so that Pilate could say, “Why? what evil hath he done?” I cannot call myself a Christian without saying that the world has crucified the Son of God; and the terrible fact for it is, that all His works showed Who was there. God had said, “I have yet one Son: may be they will reverence him when they see him.” But His revelation of what God is only brought out man's enmity: and now God has to say to the world, What have you done to my Son? What did He do to you? Nothing but good. Then why spit in His face, and crucify Him? If any one had done so yesterday to my mother, could I go and be “hail fellow, well met,” with him to-day? Man has done this, but when the light comes in, he confesses that he has done it, and that he cannot answer one charge in a thousand.

The world is under judgment, and assuredly will come to an end: this is owned after a fashion, and yet men go on with it, as if it were fabulous or uncertain.

The law comes to tell man what he ought to be: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart;” “Thou shalt not covet.” But I know I have not loved God, and I do covet. I have broken the law through and through; and if I offend in one point, I am guilty of all. It is very simple: I tell my child not to do three things; he does not care one bit to do two of them, but he does the third, which he does care about. A man must be a monster of iniquity to have committed all the sins in the world

If you apply the law, “there is none righteous.” God however does not say this in the day of judgment; but in the day of grace He warns us. He tells us beforehand in mercy what His judgment as to us is if He were sitting on the great white throne: could it be any plainer than we have it in Rom. 3? Can a man stand up after that, and say, I am righteous? Is this the way to meet God? Is He a liar? or is man faithless?

People talk about mercy; which means they hope God will think as little about their sins as they do. A man has committed, say, ten sins, and yet he hopes to go to heaven; if he has committed eleven, he thinks that is not too much; if a hundred, he hopes still, for he has no true care for holiness. One sin shuts out from God; but the door is not shut to any, if they own their sins. If I am set to wash this table, it is not a question whether there are five spots or fifty, but can I wash it well?

But a sinner is worse still. See how man only mocks the blessed Son of God, every detail” of the scene at the cross gives us a picture of what man's heart is.

Man is never ashamed of a false religion. A Mahometan will say his prayers in the market; and if you are making a bargain with him, you may wait till he has done. A Hindu is not ashamed of the worship of his false gods. But a Christian is ashamed of Christ! And so the Lord says, “Whosoever will confess me before men, him will I also confess before my Father and the holy angels.”

The chief priests, who were set to intercede for weakness, cry out for His blood. Pilate, who was to judge the guilty and protect the innocent, washes his hands of the innocent. His own disciples flee from Him. What is man?

If two men are hung together, when did you ever hear of one insulting the other, unless he had brought him into the trouble? But when it comes to Christ, even they railed at Him. The human heart is enmity against God. The moment they have the opportunity, they all trample upon Him. Thank God, He was there in grace; but it shows what our hearts are. We all know some are criminal and vicious, and some are not. But the prodigal son was as truly a sinner when he crossed his father's threshold, as when he was eating the husks; and that is where we all are.

Do you not like to do your own will? Do you not see it in your children? You find it even in them. And this is what sin is. The law condemns it, but it condemns me too: do not fancy that it only condemns the sins. It says, “Cursed is every one who continueth not in all things that are written in the book of the law to do them.” It does not save but curses.

The law only shows what we ought to be, but does not tell us what we are. If I apply a right rule to a person who has cheated me, what does it do? It condemns him. The law does not give life nor help, but only a measure of what a child of Adam ought to be. God tells us what we are, and He tells us before the day of judgment comes, that we may lay it to heart, and find His remedy. When Christ came, He put His sanction upon all that, for it was His own law; but He came in quite the opposite way. The law claimed the debt: Christ paid it, and this is grace! “God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them.” God came into the world because we were sinners. He did not stay in heaven and say, You behave well, and all will be well; but He came down, because we were all wrong, to save sinners.

Who put it into God's heart to give His Son? Did you? Did the world? Why, it was in God's own heart to do it! He so loved the world, that He gave His Son. I can trust God's heart more than I can trust my own. For there is no inconsistency in His heart: He is not double-minded; and I know His thoughts of mercy concerning me and you.

But more than that: Christ died for us. Why should I go to pull a person out of a ditch, if he is not in it? Why did He taste death? Because we were under death. Why, take the cup of wrath? Because we were under judgment. What was all His sorrow about? My sins. Oh! I say, what unutterable love His, and what a sinner I must be! It gives honesty of heart, not excusing ourselves, like Adam—hiding our sins if we can, and, if not, excusing them.

If a friend comes to pay my debts, do I not take care to bring up every farthing I owe? The effect of God's love is to give honesty of heart. I believe His love; I am glad to tell Him everything, or rather to know that He knows beyond all that I can tell Him. He has come to clear us completely; and this produces honesty, instead of concealment.

God is light and love, and He must be both wherever He comes. If He comes in light, and shows me where I am, He comes in love to forgive.

Look at the poor woman who was a sinner. There was one heart in the world she could trust, and this was God's heart. Did she hide her sins? No; she came weeping and confounded about them, but she trusted the Lord; she trusted the love that brought the light to her. The great man of the house said, This man is not a prophet. He was so dark, as to have God in his house, and could not find it out: the poor woman did.

Take Peter in the ship. He goes up to Christ, and says, Depart from me. What did he go to Him for, then? He was drawn to Him by the sense of what He was, and, when there at His knees, felt he was not fit to be there. But Jesus said, Fear not.

Again, look at the converted robber. There was the Spirit's work in him, and the Lord's work for him. What does he say? The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom; it is the sense of what God is. He says to his fellow, “Dost thou not fear God?” Then he confesses his sins; he owns he is suffering justly. God's light had reached his soul.

We have been saying the world is wicked; and so it is; but when the light comes, I confess that I am wicked. An honest conscience owns its sins; “we indeed justly, for we receive the due reward of our sins.” But he adds “This man hath done nothing amiss.” How did he know this? He had never been with Christ; he was taught of God; he could guarantee that Christ never did a wrong thing. Do your hearts pass their word for it that He never could? Has He been sufficiently revealed to your hearts for this?

Then he says to the Lord, “Remember me when thou comest in thy kingdom.” He was dying the death of the gibbet. The sign that God had come into the world was a babe lying in a manger; and He ended on the cross, all the way through having not where to lay His head. What faith in this poor thief! No matter, if all the world was against Him, He was a king, all the same; and he says to Him crucified, You will come in your kingdom.

What was he thinking of? He was in an agony of pain on the cross, but he does not say, “Save thyself and us.” He owned Jesus to be the King, but does not ask Him to spare him one bit of pain—only, “Remember me when thou comest in thy kingdom.”

How could he—he that was a robber—have such confidence in Him? Because what the light and love always do is to give confidence. What to one that was a robber, who had just owned he was suffering justly? Can you trust Him like that man, honestly confessing your sins, but confiding in God's heart when you own them? Do you trust Christ's heart? If you do not, you do not know Him, for above all He is trustworthy, and for any one.

God gives us striking examples that they may strike us. All are not robbers, but it is really the same ruin by sin for us all. Have your hearts had Christ so revealed to them, that, honest in your conscience before God, you trust God, when you know what you are? See the poor woman trusting Christ with all her sins before her. That is not so easy always; for if our sins are before us, we reason, and wonder how God will receive us. Are you wondering how God will receive you? Then you have not met Him yet, or you would know how. When the prodigal came to his father, he said nothing about, Make me as one of thy hired servants. And why not? Because his father was on his neck, kissing him as a son.

The robber owns his sins, but trusts Him. Then we hear the Lord's answer, “To-day shalt thou be with me in paradise.” Now is the Son of man glorified, for to-day shalt thou be there with Me.

The poor robber was bearing the punishment of his sins from man; but who was bearing it from God? The One who hung beside him. “He bore our sins in his own body on the tree.” When I have confidence in Christ, I can and must go to God; for I find Christ on the way; and what is He doing there? Judging me? No; bearing all my sins. There is that blessed One, whom I have been despising all my days, and I believe that He has taken my sins and borne my burden. Yes, He has taken them all, and I shall not bear them. Trust Him, no matter how bad you are: if you cannot trust yourself or any man, trust Him.

If He has won my heart to this confidence, I find that He who is going to be Judge has already died for my sins. How then can He impute them to me? Supposing, of course, that I have owned and confessed my sins, and am coming to God about them, I find the wonderful truth that Christ has been bearing them, and that God has dealt with them, having laid them upon Christ. If I look beforehand to the day of judgment, I see in the Judge the Man who bore all my sins. How then can I dread Him? I find that God, because of my sins, has given His Son to bear them all into a wasteland, not inhabited.

The work for me is totally finished, but it is not finished in me. I ought to grow more like Him every day; but the work for me as regards my guilt is finished; and if it is not perfectly finished, when is it to be? He cannot die again, cannot suffer again, cannot drink that dreadful cup again. He suffered once, and cannot again. That cup made Him sweat great drops of blood in only thinking about what it was to be made a curse for us; and He will not drink it over again. He is set down because the work is done.

How little men thought they were sending the poor robber straight to paradise, when they sent to break his legs!

But now, about knowing it, for that is the important point, the Lord told him he was to be with Him that day. Was he, or was he not, to believe it?

It happened to him, but it was written for us. If I come to Christ, I know He has finished the atoning work, and has blotted out my sins. The work was done once for all, and through the grace of God brought to me. Knowing no other name under heaven whereby I can be saved, I am told the Lord Jesus has blotted out the sins for all that believe, and I know it! He has gone back into the glory, because He has finished the work. The Holy Ghost brings it home to our hearts, and He says Christ has finished the work. As in Rom. 4, “He died for our sins, and was raised again for our justification.” His resurrection is the proof that God has accepted the work. If Christ be not raised, ye are yet in your sins; but if raised, He has borne them, and I who believe am not in them.

What part had we in the cross, that is to say, in bringing it about? Nothing but our sins, and the hatred that killed Christ. Such is all men do! And this is what humbles us, and makes us dependent on the grace of God—we say, my sins brought Him there; but God, instead of putting me away, put them away.

Why is the gospel preached? Is it that we should know it, or that we should not? Christ has made peace by the blood of His cross; and how careful God is to show us this, that we may be happy! Defiled, I am cleansed; guilty, I am justified. Do you say, but I have offended God dreadfully? So you have, but there is forgiveness with Him that He may be feared. God has nothing against faith: Christ has borne all for the believer. He took the fruit of my sins, and I receive the fruit of His work. If we come thus to God, the very Christ who put our sins away is the very Judge before whom we shall appear. How do believers come before the judgment-seat? “Sown in dishonor, raised in glory.” He comes, and receives me to Himself; and this is the way I get to the judgment-seat. How can the believer fear, if, when he sees his Judge, he is like Him?

What opened the Samaritan's heart in John 4? Not speaking about the living water, but “Go, call thy husband, and come hither.” Her heart was opened by her conscience being reached. “If thou knewest the gift of God.” He gives, and does not impute. If you knew Who it was that came so low as to be dependent on a woman like you for a drink of water, you would have confidence in Him. And so would you, if you knew why the Son of God came down to a manger and a cross; you would have confidence in Him.

And that is what God is doing in Christ—winning back the confidence of man's heart, when he cannot trust Him because of his sins. The love of God came into the world when men were in their sins. There was love enough in Christ to give Himself.

Do you believe that love? If so, there is the plain statement, “By him all that believe are justified from all things.” He did not bear half, and leave me to perish by the other half. Accordingly when I come to Him, I find that instead of meeting me in the way of judgment, He has met me in the day of grace.

Man's Judgment of Charity and the Christian's

We hear of a judgment of charity when men walk morally, attend to their relative duties, avoid debt, frequent their church or chapel, read the scriptures a little, and say their prayers night and morning. It is counted uncharitable to doubt that they are Christians, still more to be concerned for them as guilty and lost in the sight of God.

How different is the judgment of Christian love as asserted in these verses! “For the love of the Christ constraineth us, having judged thus that one died for all, therefore all were dead; and he died for all, that those that live should no longer live to themselves but to him that died for them and was raised.”

Christian love is not the mere expression of human feeling and superficial circumstances. It is based on the truth of God, and, in order to arrive at this, brings in and applies to the case Christ and His death. There man was proved God's enemy; for He sent His only-begotten Son into the world that we might live through Him. But man would not allow the thought that he was morally dead, dead in offenses and sins, the Jew as truly as the Gentile. The Jew had been warned of it more distinctly and directly than the Gentile (Psa. 32 as in Isa. and in Zech. 12). But for the most it was in vain. “Ye will not come unto me, that ye may have life,” said the blessed Savior grieved at their unbelief. And the Gentile joined the Jew in the worst they could do to One who could and would have given life eternal to all that looked to Him for it. Rarely did they unite; but they did unite to slay the Lord of glory who emptied Himself of the honor proper to His deity, and humbled Himself as man to death, even death of the cross.

Thus He proved His love, as they their hatred, to the uttermost. For only thus could sin be divinely judged, God vindicated, and the sinner cleared. Good and evil met in the cross. Infinite goodness provided the lamb for the sacrifice. Hatred without cause rejected and denied Him who went about doing good, and healing all that were under the power of the devil, because God was with Him. Satan instigated all, but to his own destruction in the issue. The righteous One God made sin for us who had nothing else but sin, and forsook Him that He might never forsake us who believe on Christ and have in Him life that can never die. Wherefore God highly exalted Him and granted Christ a name which is above every name, that in the power of that name every knee should bow of heavenly and earthly and infernal [ones], and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.

This will be the glorious purpose of God to be fulfilled in His day, But what is the present result for those who now believe? It is the contrast with all dead, though One, Christ, died for all. Its aim is that they which live should no longer live to themselves but to Him who for them died and was raised. For the God who sent Him in love takes His part in raising Him up and giving Him glory, that our faith and hope might be in God. And His joy is not only in glorifying Him who in that death of the cross was glorified even as to sin, no less than in justifying us who otherwise were lost forever. But now we are not only slaves pardoned with a divine salvation, but we live to Him who for us died and was raised.

The true judgment of love is that all were dead. But One died for all. This alone does not meet the desperate case, unless we believe on Him. Then we live in Him, instead of being only dead in Adam and in ourselves too. And as we judge that some live in Him as believers, constrained by His love and having His life, we apprehend our new privilege and bounden duty—to live not to ourselves but to Him whose death and resurrection have brought us into such a new relationship of blessedness.

It is a paltry idea of Christianity to regard it as mere pardon, and perhaps only a partial measure, with the need of a fresh dole from day to day. Nor is it only to receive remission in the fullness of which Heb. 10 speaks, where the worshippers once purged have no more conscience of sins. Here in 2 Cor. 5 it is the constraining love of the Christ, and the positive blessing of risen life in Him. And we judge not in the vague hope, miscalled “charity,” about every baptized soul, but in the faith of His death to deliver us from our evil, and of His risen life to live of His good, even to Him whose grace wrought for us when dead in sins, that we might live to Him and not to ourselves.

Any other judgment of charity is a lie and a fraud. All turns on receiving Christ out of God's love and His own, and through His word that it may be of faith, and thus according to grace. For no flesh shall glory but to ruin. Let him that glorieth glory in the Lord. And this knits us to the Savior. We hear His voice, not a stranger's, and follow Him who alone is entitled and alone worthy. He is the way, the truth, and the life.

Brief Meditation on Mark 9

The division of the Bible into chapters and verses, which is said to have been accomplished by the learned editor R. Stephens “inter equitandum,” while he was journeying from place to place, may not be ideal, and is certainly unfortunate here and there; but no one can question the felicity of the arrangement that makes Mark 9 a separate chapter. It is a perfect and majestic whole, peculiarly vivid in this the most graphic of the four Gospels. It has been called a picture of heaven, earth, and hell. It is full of divine dignity and mystery, of attractive beauty and grace too, as also of awful solemnity in the closing verses. One only shines out in His unapproachable perfection whether on the Holy Mount or on the troubled plain. Of the rest, those other than the Savior who come before us, one only wins our Lord's marked approval. It was not one of the twelve. On the contrary they were hasty to resent what they doubtless considered the irregular activity of the man who cast out demons in the Savior's name. A certain mistaken zeal for their Master very probably mingled with their motives; but they had to learn, as we have, how constantly the flesh is prone to act on the side of exclusiveness or of license. And who may presume to say which is the graver fault always?

It is interesting to note that here it is John who voices the feeling of the disciples in forbidding the man. Usually, as we know, it is Peter who is spokesman, which may have led some to overlook the energetic character of the former. The truth is that the apostle John, like all who really love much, had a very ardent and strenuous nature. No weakling was he, nor was it in words of gentle irony that our Lord called James and John “Sons of thunder.” It was well to be a Boanerges. The Lord, who had endowed them with their several ability, and given them a gift suitable to that ability, sealed it, so to speak, when (see Mark 3:17) he gave them that striking appellation. It was no word of reproach, as a well-known writer (Mark Guy Pearse) suggests. Who could thunder as Christ Himself? He always thundered at the right moment; the disciples, like ourselves, and like John on this occasion, at the wrong time. Had it been a question of the Lord's Person, had the man, instead of casting out demons in Christ's name, ascribed the Lord's expulsion of demons to Beelzebub, this had been another thing. For he that is not with Christ, where His divine glory is assailed—ay, and His human perfectness likewise—is against Him, and scatters abroad, (Matt. 12:30).

But here it was no question of disloyalty to Christ, but rather of one, who was true to the light, no doubt the growing light, he had, and who, we may confidently believe, was afterward brought into a place of greater nearness practically. But mark how no outward connection with Christ or correct ecclesiastical standing in itself conveys intelligence or place, at least until self is judged.

Often a less intelligent soul, at least one less enlightened, is the more devoted saint. It should not be so, no doubt; but there is always the danger of being puffed up by knowledge, whereas love builds up. In no wise is a slight intended on the importance of true ecclesiastical position; but it is well not to forget the privilege of owning all that is according to Christ.

Yet this is to dwell perhaps too prominently on a particular point to be in place in a brief meditation on the chapter generally. First, then we have the scene of dazzling glory to which the three chosen disciples were admitted, which they so feebly apprehended, and which so little influenced them, that not only did they subsequently grievously misapprehend the Lord's mind (ver. 38), but actually disputed one with another who should be greatest—clearly a lower descent still. How great the contrast between the Master and the disciples! The transfigured Lord in His robes of light speaks of His approaching death, of His Exodus (see Luke 9); the disciples, eager for a little brief authority, discuss who shall be leader, amid the ordinary conditions of their humanity.

But we have another picture. The Lord has come down from the mountain, and we note a circumstance recorded by Mark alone of the synoptists, “Straightway all the people, when they beheld him, were greatly amazed, and running to him saluted him” (ver. 15). It would seem that the glory still lingered about the Lord's face. Not only is this a probable explanation of the eagerness of the crowd to approach our Lord, but it points an exquisite contrast with what occurred of old when the great Lawgiver descended from Mount Sinai. Then Moses had to veil his face. It was law, not grace; and the people, at any rate, could not look upon that searching radiance. Here they are irresistibly attracted; but what a scene for the Savior after the brief sojourn on the mount! No longer the calm intercourse of the Christ with two chosen witnesses, one of whom His own hand had buried, the other raised without dying, but a scene of dire distress. And the Savior is graciously at hand to supply the need, typical of what He will do when He ushers in the millennial day. Then His own will haply be less impotent than they showed themselves now. For, while full of their own consequence, they were powerless to heal the sufferer who had been brought to them. But the Lord is there, back again in the scene of sorrow and distress. Let us listen to the gracious words that fell on this occasion from His lips.

Evidently the father of the demoniac comes next to the man who cast out demons in Christ's name. At first it is true he seems not to have been sure if our Lord could heal his son. The case was of long standing (ver. 21), and seemed inveterate; but our Lord at once tells him that the real question is, not whether He can heal, but whether the father can believe. That was where the doubtfulness lay. Then the man makes his well-known confession. How grateful to the Lord who had just before deplored the unfaithfulness of that generation! May we not say it must have been more acutely painful to Him as just coming down from the mount of His transfiguration? For, needless to add, He estimated at its true worth the momentary interest of the multitude. He knew what was in man.

A word only on the closing verses. The most solemn words as to future punishment are the Savior's words. The thrice repeated refrain is indeed, as one has said, a “solemn dirge “ What writings of philosopher or sage can compare with these burning sentences! Then we have two verses of the deepest importance, setting forth much vital truth under symbolic terms, the fire which must salt every child of Adam, now or hereafter; the salt that typifies the preserving power of the grace that delivers and saves. R.B.

Miriam or Michal?

Two women who held prominent positions in Israel form a striking contrast to each other, and may serve as an example and a beacon to us in these last times. Both were closely linked with leaders of God's people, for one was the sister of Moses, the other the wife of David. Both were witnesses of God's gracious care of His people, and His deliverance of them from the hand of their enemies; and each had reason to rejoice that His chosen instrument for the accomplishment of His designs was the one who held or at any rate should have held the dearest place in her heart. The one recognized her privileges, and responded with joyful thanksgiving; the other tried by her bitter contemptuous words to infuse wormwood into her husband's cup of holy gladness.

When Jehovah had led His chosen people triumphantly through the Red Sea, and their once dreaded foes lay “dead upon the seashore,” they with Moses as the leader of their thanksgiving sent up to heaven the grateful song, “I will sing unto Jehovah, for He hath triumphed gloriously: the horse and his rider hath He thrown into the sea.”

And Miriam the sister of Moses and Aaron, timbrel in hand, led forth the women in the dance re-echoing her brother's words, and encouraging him and his fellow-singers.

She did not seek to damp his enthusiasm; she did not suggest that he had better be a little more collected and dignified in manner, better think a little more of his position as leader—nay, almost king in Israel, and leave the management of such matters as singing to a less lofty personage. No, she took up the very words he had used, and (doubtless from a full heart) urged a continuance of the songs of praise. “Sing ye unto Jehovah” was her refrain, “Sing ye unto Jehovah, for He hath triumphed gloriously; the horse and his rider hath He thrown into the sea”!

True, there was an occasion later on, on which Miriam forgot the respect due to the God-appointed station and noble character of her younger brother, and joined Aaron in uttering jealous and seditious speeches against him But we may safely conclude that sad episode to have been an exception to the general tenor of her life, since the Holy Spirit speaks of her as the prophetess” (Ex. 15:20), and also honorably associates her name with those of her brothers as a leader of God's chosen people (Mic. 6:4).

A few hundred years later another woman of exalted position had the opportunity of helping and encouraging, not her brother but her husband, in his actions of thanksgiving to the God who had delivered and blessed him and His people.

How did she make use of her opportunity?

David was bringing the ark of God after many years of seclusion to its rightful place in Jerusalem, “the city of the great king.” His heart was filled with gratitude and praise, and, laying aside his royal robes, and clad simply in a “robe of fine linen” and a “linen ephod,” he gave vent to his joy in “leaping and dancing before Jehovah,” as well as triumphant shouts in which he was joined by all Israel.

But what about his wife Michal?

Looking out of her window she beheld this, to her unseemly exhibition, and with a heart cold and untouched by the feelings with which the heart of David glowed, she secretly despised her once ardently loved husband. The triumphant entry into the city over, and the ark placed in “the tabernacle that David had pitched for it,” he “offered burnt offerings and peace-offerings before Jehovah.” David's was not the emotional joy of nature, it must have a firm foundation in that which prefigured the sacrifice of Christ; all other joy, he knew, was vain and fleeting.

Having worshipped God, the giver of all good, his thoughts now turned to His people: “he blessed them in the name of Jehovah of hosts,” and provided generously too for their temporal needs. Then, his public ministry over, he was not forgetful of his domestic relationships. “Then David returned to bless his household.”

But what kind of greeting met him at the door? Did Michal, his wife, come out to meet him like Jephthah's daughter “with timbrels and with dances"? Were her lips filled like Miriam's with a song of praise to Jehovah? Or, if such a public display would in those later days have been unseemly in a queen, did she at least come to meet her husband with words of loving sympathy and congratulations? Alas, no! Far from repenting of the feeling of contempt which had arisen in her heart as she had witnessed David's entry into the city, she had nursed it until it now broke out in bitter sneering woods unworthy of a woman, a wife, and a queen—wholly unworthy of a woman who was the wife of the “man after God's own heart.”

“How glorious was the king of Israel to-day"! she sarcastically exclaimed. David's linen robe and priestly ephod were contemptible in her eyes: the royal robes were what she valued. She could appreciate the king, but not the worshipper. And no doubt to any eye but the eye of faith, there was something ludicrous and unbecoming in the scene she had just witnessed. A king dancing, leaping and shouting in the presence of his subjects!

Ah! but David's reply makes it all clear. “It was before Jehovah.” Yes, that was the secret of his self-forgetfulness. To him, it was not in the presence of his people that he had acted thus, but in the presence of Jehovah. Before his people no doubt it was quite right to wear his royal robes, and behave with dignity, in short to show himself “every inch a king.” But in the presence of Jehovah, and on a special occasion of thanksgiving, he was a worshipper rather than a king: not the gorgeous robes of state became him, but the plain linen garment and the priestly ephod.

But this was a secret of which “Michal, the daughter of Saul,” knew nothing. When David had previously disobeyed God's command by having the ark carried in a new cart instead of by the Levites, we do not read that Michal or anyone else found fault with him; but now, when he had judged his error, and was acting in full accordance with the mind of God, Satan immediately stirred up an adversary against him in his own home.

Is there no instruction for us in this? Are we joyfully adding our voices to the chorus of praise going up to our God? Are we, even if ourselves debarred from much active service, helping and encouraging God's servants by our loving sympathy? or are we acting as dampers, cold or lukewarm ourselves, and throwing cold water on the praises and labors of others in whose hearts there dwells a greater wealth of love and gratitude than in our own? Are we Miriams or Michals? H.

The Monthly Magazine Interpreter

The English “higher critics” seem on their good behavior in their tone. They are thus a strong contrast with their German companions who are overbearing and irreverent. But what is it all in the sight of God? The more decorous exterior covers the same destructive unbelief. Without faith it is impossible to please God.

The Editor's name does not appear; but perhaps we may presume that the “Prefatory Note” emanates from “the unnamed.” He begins with these words— “In the settled conviction that ignorance, not knowledge, is the enemy of Christianity, we seek the fullest light from every source to reveal the firm foundation of our Faith.” Can anyone imagine a falser start? Since Christianity began, is there a single true believer who could so overlook the Word personal and the word written? “This is life eternal to know thee [the Father], the only true God and Jesus Christ whom thou didst send?” Nor did His faithful bondman speak differently: “Other foundation can no man lay beside that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ;” or if divine dogmas be asked, the same inspired voice answers, “being built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets.” These gentlemen give the impression of philosophic divines, like other philosophers, in quest of truth, which they have not and never find. There is but one Way; but they turn their backs on it, to “seek the fullest light from every source to reveal the firm foundations of our Faith”! They do not confess the one true Light which, coming into the world, lighteneth every man, whether he receives or rejects. He only is the Revealer and the revelation.

What exposes the incredulity at work is the perfect folly to a Christian believer of the next short paragraph. “Scientific processes have wrung her secrets from nature; the historic method has shed new light upon the ancient literatures, and patient research in archeology has caused the dim and far off past [? of heathenism] to live afresh.” If these students or teachers by grace knew themselves possessed of life in Christ, could they write such trash with cap in hand to such researches, interesting to men who know nothing better, not even seeking the Living One, but occupied with the dust of death? No Christian ought to fear such knowledge as these external pursuits yield; but he will never glean a single atom of divine truth from all of them put together.

Take the nearest approach to anything in Scripture. It was thought wonderful many years ago, as one looks back when Sir H. Rawlinson found and deciphered the cylinder which bore witness to the truth of Belshazzar's reigning in Babylon, notwithstanding the total silence of history. What it proved was that learned men who doubted the prophet believed a cylinder. What is the worth of faith grounded on evidence of this kind? None, if we believe our Lords estimate as given in John 2:23-25. If it be allowed that there must be antecedent faith, but that these evidences enlighten and sustain, one must demur again on the ground of John 20:5-10, For here were two eminent and pious souls; yet the aim of the inspired record is to show that evidence, no matter how convincing, is not what feeds and edifies, but the truth revealed in the scriptures and God believed therein. Both Peter and John “saw and believed,” “For as yet they knew not the scripture, that he must rise again from the dead.” And this is confirmed later in the chapter, where Thomas, who refused adequate testimony and never thought of the scripture, was shamed out of his incredulity by our Lord's condescension, yet rebuked by more than one word; and the true principle was affirmed in ver. 29, “Because thou hast seen, thou hast believed: blessed are those that saw not and believed.” This is Christian faith, not the mongrel which Christendom has brought forth alike to ritualism and to rationalism as here.

The age of faith was the apostolic only, when the holy deposit to the Christian was given fully and finally. But the germs of “the knowledge” falsely so called were already sown, “the profane babblings and oppositions” which the apostle sternly denounced as missing the mark concerning the faith. Most of the scanty remains of the second and third centuries betray a sprouting and spread which could hardly have escaped the indignant denunciation of an apostle. Apostolic succession is a fancy and a fraud; and because there was to be none, the saints and elders were, by all their writ, thrown on God and His word expressly. Judaizing and Gentile philosophy did their deadly work, issuing in the formal and superstitious on the one hand, and in the skeptical and heterodox on the other, till all sunk into the dreary darkness out of which grew the haughty assumption of the Papacy and the vain rivalry of the Greeks and others, as disputatious and idolatrous as Rome. The Reformation began with a heavy blow at the shameless sale of indulgences to gratify the covetousness and the aesthetic taste of the pagan-hearted and infidel Pope Leo X.; but it was turned by grace to give an open Bible where it could. But the truth, though powerfully preached and largely blessed, was scarcely recovered beyond the remission of sins, not really the Christian's deliverance and proper relationship, still less his heavenly hope, the presence of the Spirit, the one body of Christ, and the purpose of God in setting Him over all things above, and the glorified with Him, and Israel with the nations below under His reign.

Soon reaction set in, but no spiritual progress; and now a fearful retrogradism, both unbelieving, earthly and human: one hankering after Babylon about to be judged with God's judgment on her for her idolatry and worldliness the other denying and seeking to destroy God's authority in the Bible from Genesis and onward, under the pretext of “the science of literary and historical investigation;” both preparing the way, little as they suspect it, for the apostasy and the man of sin, and a still more awful doom than corrupt Babylon's. This is what one is profoundly convinced is the spirit of the age, not of God, and the evident character of the “Interpreter,” as we cannot but interpret it.

But it would not be perhaps fair to this new publication, nor satisfactory to enquirers, to condemn it because of the Prefatory statement of its merely human principles. Let us consider then its first and weightiest article, “The permanent religious value of the Old Testament by the Oxford Regius Professor of Hebrew.” Does not this look a solid building superior to the attacks of incredulity? Dr. Driver makes the first and primary claim to that value to consist in its surprisingly elevated conceptions of God, hut with grave abatement from the very first chapter of Genesis! Its science is “imperfect, and in many respects false.” Yet “its author, under the influence of the Divine Spirit, has grafted a wonderfully sublime and spiritual representation of the Sovereign Author of nature” &c. Here we have the hateful, impious and blasphemous spirit of error inseparable from the “higher criticism.” The reality of God's inspiration of scripture is given up. For no instructed believer allows that what the apostle authoritatively reveals as to it in 1 Cor. 2, 1 Thess. 2 and 2 Tim. 3 (if we refer to no more) is to be lowered to what people call “the influence of the Divine Spirit,” as on a Christian preacher in converting sinners or on a Christian teacher in truly expounding scripture to the edifying of saints. The absolute exclusion of error is the essential difference of inspiration, which is secured neither by men's piety nor wisdom but by the power of the Holy Ghost guarding against human infirmity and giving us the word of God Who knows all and cannot lie. The new criticism fatally sins against the N.T. doctrine of inspiration; and betrays in limine its own real infidelity.

It is as absurd in Prof. Driver to assume that Gen. 1 or any other scripture teaches “science” as in the late Prof. F. W. Newman to expect a disquisition on “logic” from the apostle Paul. I have never known a geologist whose self-sufficient skepticism gave occasion for insinuating falsehood against that chapter, whose words did not prove his own failure to understand what Moses wrote. All those who have so written betray their ignorance, not of geology but of the scriptures in question. They hastily attack therefore not what is written but their own misconception. This is all which they, very unintentionally, prove. And no wonder. What geologist of reputation had any sufficient title to expound this word of God or any other?

Perhaps we might ask what peculiar claim Dr. Driver has to speak of “science,” and in particular of geology, which is but partially a “science.” Geology beyond doubt is as ignorant as men like Mill and H. Spencer (who are surely freethinkers enough to satisfy the most exigent of these new critics) confess themselves and all scientists to be, of “primeval causes” Yet these “primeval causes” were just here in question, which these philosophers, and others who rightly dub themselves Agnostics, own to be for science an impenetrable secret, or as one says the “dead wall” to which science leads, but cannot pass. Behind that wall is God, whom His own revelation can alone make known to man; and this is what is given in scripture.

Accordingly the O. T. is preparatory, as being first promise holding forth a divine Deliverer, where death had entered; and then His law to Israel which was a restraint on man's fallen nature; governmental dealings too in varied forms, during which prophecy was given, in presence of ever growing declension, to assure believers; whereas nothing can convince unbelievers but the judgments which punish them, Isa. 26:9. The N. T. is revelation not only from but of God in His Son become man; grace and truth, that men, dead in sins, might live through Him; and that He might die for us who believe as propitiation for our sins. And it is the N. T. which gives perfection (“the law made nothing perfect”) in Christ dead, risen and ascended. For He is coming, who will bring His own into His glorious likeness for the Father's house on high; as He will judge the habitable earth, and finally all the dead at the end, who during this life refused to honor Him by faith.

It is scarce needed to follow the platitudes Dr. D. adds, secondly, of man's duty to God and men: thirdly, of man's mutual duties; fourthly, O.T. examples of character, as models in a measure; fifthly, of devotional material; sixthly, of great ideals in human life and society; and seventhly, the great stress laid on a pure and spiritual religion; which last was chiefly a yearning for what did not exist. Our Lord certainly points in John 4:21-24 to such worship in “the hour that now is,” and in contrast with Jerusalem as well as Samaria. In all the Christian ring is as wanting as any just confession of Christ. There is nothing but what a Unitarian might receive or write; for they too speak of grace and love, as well of a great redemptive process in the earlier stages, consummated in the N. T. Throughout Dr. D., cautious as he is, drops words which every sound Christian must resent as libels on the O.T., incompatible with the principles and practice of the Lord and His apostles and prophets, and subversive of the faith in the Bible as God's authoritative word to man.

Moses or Manasseh?

Q.-Judg. 18:30. The Revised Version substitutes “Moses” for “Manasseh” in this verse. Has this change good authority? INQUIRER.

A.—The R. V. is not without good reason for the change from “Manasseh” to “Moses.” Even D. Kimchi, a famous Rabbi, allowed that the copyists were ashamed that a grandson of the legislator should have sunk into becoming the priest of an idol, and sought to conceal the fact by the substitution of “Manasseh.” De Rossi as well as Kennicott have the witness of MSS. for the true reading. Even in the Masoretic text there is the remarkable and suspicious circumstance that the “n” is written above the proper line. Now this is the only letter in the unpointed Hebrew, by which the one name differs from the other.

It may be added that the two incidents at the end of Judges (chaps. 17; 18, and 19-21) are not in chronological sequence of what precedes (as a careless reader might assume from their place), but occurred in the early days of its history. Both took place in the second generation after Aaron and Moses, as attested by Gershom's son in the one, and by Phinehas in the other. The aim of both accounts was to show how deeply Israel was even then corrupted Godward and manward.

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LONDON: T. WESTON, Publisher, 53, Paternoster Row.

Mr. Beaumont's Testimony

A slip from some periodical, the title of which does not appear, has been sent, impugning our brother's witness, because it was not accompanied by one or two others. Undoubtedly for a case of discipline, or formal judicial decision, this is necessary. It was simply given for what it was worth, as that of an earnest God-fearing laborer, known widely in town and country, as later in America (U.S. and British). In such a case who acquainted with him can doubt that he could and would have produced adequate testimony when challenged? But he departed to be with Christ years ago; so that it is impossible to get his facts and witnesses. But it appears to me that the language of the objector is unwarranted, and his denial absurd. What does he know of the meeting referred to? Still less can he speak of its constituents then. Of his own name I have only heard within a comparatively short time whereas the case in question occurred at least a quarter of a century ago in the south wherein I never heard of his living or working so as to be able to speak with the least weight. I am glad to be assured that he at least is firm in rejecting God-dishonoring laxity. But he is absolutely without title to charge the departed, or those who believed him, with slander; and I trust he will himself recognize this when less heated.

No More Conscience of Sins

It is not enough to believe that the atoning work is done, great a truth as it is. The Christian knows that Christ entered once and for all into the holies, having obtained everlasting redemption. There and now He appears before the face of God for us; not that He should offer Himself often, else He must often have suffered, which could not be. But now once in the consummation of the ages He hath been manifested for putting away of sin by the sacrifice of Himself.

Such is the Christian's confession not of His person only but of His work. But the Holy Spirit follows it all up by declaring its revealed effect, in contrast with those under the shadows of law and its sacrifices which they offer continuously year by year, unable as they are to perfect those that approach. “Else would they not have ceased to be offered? because the worshippers having been once purged would have had no more conscience of sins.” This is the result for every Christian. So perfect is the cleansing of the worshippers one and all, that they have “no more conscience of sins.”

“Believest thou this,” my reader? It is revealed as the consequence of Christ's work, not for some only but for all that believe. Do you believe it for your own soul? It is of the utmost moment that you should receive it as God's mind about yourself, as the settled and continuous state Christ's work has effected for you and every other Christian, that you may enjoy it by faith, honor Christ in it, bless God through it, worship and serve in the consciousness the indwelling Spirit gives of so great a privilege.

1. Time was in your unconverted days when you made light of sins, and tried to quiet yourself that as we were all sinners, it was no wonder if you sinned like others; but then God was very merciful to those so born and brought up with bad examples on every side. Conscience awoke qualms now and then, especially when you read or heard scripture warning of God's hatred of evil and of His judgment righteous and inevitable. But you soon went to sleep again after a vain effort to do well. It never occurred to you that you were by nature a child of wrath, and Satan's slave by doing your own will. You went to church or chapel, you read the Bible or good books occasionally, being in fact not so bad as many you could name but that charity forbade it. During this while you practically had no conscience of sins, save a painful twitch now and then which quickly passed and left you no better but worse.

2. A moment came when God by His word and Spirit laid on your conscience your evil, dangerous and lost state. No longer did you parry the dread conviction that you were wicked and ungodly, an enemy of God, and powerless for good. But He probed the wounds, and made their depth felt, and gave you to bow down in the confession of your guilt, and of your corrupt and willful nature. Palliatives you refused, and you loathed yourself, and cried to Him whose goodness was leading you to repentance; and like Peter at the knees of the Lord Jesus, you said, Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord; yet still like him, there you knelt, and owned Him as your hope. You had now the conscience of your sins, and the dread of God; but to go away from Jesus, No, No. To whom should you go? He had words of life eternal; He was the propitiation for sins; and you felt the need of both.

3. How precious then to hear from the Lord Jesus, the judge of quick and dead, that He came, the Sent of God, to give all of which the Holy Spirit made you feel the want! to give it in the fullness of love and grace and truth according to the worth of Christ and His work in His sight. Who but He could even have conceived of such a standing as “no more conscience of sins” for such as had been brought to the feet of Jesus, owning themselves as nothing but guilty and lost? Yet there and then never had they so deep a sense of their inexcusable evil; never was the burden of their sins felt to be so intolerable. The gospel of God was His answer in the cleansing power of Christ's blood. It cleanses from all guilt, from every sin, him that believes. Rest then on Him at God's word for your iniquities; and they are remembered no more.

We may and ought to remember our sins as the witness of our ruin, of God's righteousness, of Christ's grace, and of the efficacy of His work. Henceforth this is our new place as Christians. Having been once purged we have no more conscience of sins. When unconverted we were dark and dead as to any right sense of our state or of God's abhorrence of them and necessary war against them. But now that we believe, God sees not our shameful sins but the blood of Christ, which has forever and completely effaced them. Thus the worshippers, having been once purged, have no more conscience of sins.

Dear reader, this is a fundamental truth of the gospel; and God looks for your appropriating it to the utmost, as due to His own Son's suffering once for your sins. It is here in its unmeasured fullness of blessing without a word to qualify it or any statement of the resource of grace, if a believer should sin. This we have in 1 John 2:1, 2; but not in the Epistle to the Hebrews, which is occupied with our drawing near to God, not with the provision for restoring our communion when interrupted by sin. The serious thing for believers now is the same defect as characterized the Hebrew saints to whom the great Epistle was written. Therefore are they so fully instructed in that perfected state of the conscience to which Christ's work entitles them, but which few, then as now, enter into as becomes them. This is pursued in Heb. 10:9, 10, and especially in 12-14. “But he [in contrast with the Jewish priest], having offered one sacrifice for sins, sat down continuously at God's right hand, waiting from henceforth till his enemies be set as footstool of his feet. For by one offering he hath perfected continuously the sanctified.” It is a description of the standing His work gains for every true Christian, not a special attainment of some, but the new and common privilege for all by faith.

What a living illustration Peter affords in Acts 3:13 of a worshipper once purged, having a clear conscience! How else could he charge the men of Israel with denying Jesus? Had he not denied Him notoriously, recently, and repeatedly with oaths? Now so completely was he cleansed by the Savior's blood, that he boldly taxed them with that sin! Had it not been effaced, he must have been ashamed to whisper the words. This clearance you by faith are entitled to know and say as to all your sins. You owe it to the Savior and may you own it for His glory.

Not Sinai, but Zion, With Other Coming Glories Heavenly and Earthly

“For ye are not come to a palpable thing and all aglow with fire, and to obscurity and gloom and tempest, and to trumpet's sound, and a voice of words, which those that heard deprecated that a word more should be addressed to them; for they were not able to bear that which was enjoined: And, if a beast touch the mountain, it shall be stoned; and, so fearful was the scene, Moses said, I am affrighted and trembling all over. But ye are come to mount Zion; and to a living God's city, heavenly Jerusalem; and to myriads of angels, a universal gathering; and to an assembly of firstborns, enrolled in heaven; and to God judge of all; and to spirits of just made perfect; and to Jesus mediator of a new covenant; and to blood of sprinkling speaking better than Abel” (Heb. 12:18-24).

Let us look at this wonderful contrast drawn between the people under the law, after which so many uninstructed and unsteady of the Jewish confessors of the Lord Jesus were hankering, and the Christian privileges to which the gospel entitles all who now believe. Therefore was the Epistle written to wean them from an unbelieving return to a covenant which the prophet, who predicts a new one of divine grace and blessing to come, makes the first old and nigh to vanishing away (chap. 8:8-13). The sin, folly, and danger of such unbelief is vividly set forth here in Heb. 12:18-21.

Hence this word boldly declared to the circumcision that confessed Jesus, “ye are not come” as the Jewish people in their fathers came, to Sinai, a mountain that might be touched, before all eyes in its stern and barren and solitary grandeur. Then also was a state of burning with supernatural fire still more terrible than anything ordinary, along with obscurity and gloom and tempest. What an unearthly and strange aggravation (attested in Ex. 19 and Deut. 4, 5.)! and a trumpet's sound, never heard before nor since, which waxed louder and louder in its awful summons; and a voice of words audible to every soul as God's, more terrifying than all the rest in majesty and deadly meaning for the conscience! Therefore did they above all deprecate this voice that they might hear no more, but Moses on their behalf. For was it not charged that even a beast, unconscious of sin, if it touched the mountain, should be stoned? How then could a poor sinful Israelite stand? And so fearful was the scene, that the very mediator on whom they set their hope said, as the inspired writer could avouch, I am affrighted and full of trembling.

How truly the law was a ministry, not of life and the Spirit, not of pardon and peace, but of death and condemnation! Could God have made it plainer than that, in itself and in its accompaniments, it was to make sin exceeding sinful, and to warn sinners off the delusion that the least help for the sinner lay within its condition? Salvation must come through another, the Messiah; salvation is and must be of God's grace in Him, of whom God had spoken from the day sin entered man and the world (Gen. 3:15); as He confirmed it by many signs and tokens and sacrifices and deliverances throughout the O. T., which no believer that searches can overlook.

Alas! it is not only that Jews are still obdurate. Christendom is more guilty still; and as faith in grace and truth declined, a judaizing reaction has tainted it everywhere. Hence the more ancient bodies have revived the temple, altar, sacrifice, and priests (some with its three orders of high-priest, priests, and Levites). The more modern societies follow the synagogue with its preachers. Both are now flooded with rationalism, superstition, heterodoxy, and worldliness; and this in their all but universal prevalence and alarming growth. Sight and sound, learning, science, sentiment, oratory, show, carry away high and low, with the utmost zeal to gain the masses, but gold and silver also, earthly rank and reputation. Thus is the cross of Christ (abused in a material or idolatrous form) undermined and overthrown on earth; and His heavenly glory in dogmatic and practical power utterly ignored, as is the Holy Spirit's presence and action and testimony to both set aside more and more. It is Judaism and Gentilism supplanting Christianity; and his is Christendom.

Next is the divine picture for Christian eyes, as presented to correct and instruct and warn the Jewish confession (22-24). “But ye are come to mount Zion;” etc. It is a coming, not actually in letter, but in spirit by faith, even if only professedly so. Sinai was the original standing of Israel, their proudest boast. What nation could truthfully say that the living God appeared unequivocally as to them in giving His fiery law, spoken directly and afterward written on tables of stone by His own hand? But ye, Christians, have come to the mountain of grace, not law.

Such then is the principle of Zion. 1 Samuel tells us of the priests corrupt and profane; of the ark taken, of Ichabod written even on their religion and state; of the people sick of Jehovah in their midst, and demanding a king like the nations, in disobedience of the prophet; and their king disobedient like themselves, and pursuing him whom Jehovah chose till he wearied of faith, and the king sought a witch and fell with his three sons by Philistine hands on mount Gilboa. David came at length to the throne of all Israel; but Jerusalem, the future and true metropolis, was so firmly Jebusite, that they taunted him with the insult that the blind and the lame could hold the fort in his defiance. Nevertheless David took the stronghold. of Zion; and there was the king's palace, as the temple later on Moriah.

Thus Zion became the most marked. sign of royal grace; but it awaits great David's greater Son to prove and display it effectively and forever. And the day hastens. He whom the Jews rejected in reckless hate shall sit on the hill of Jehovah's holiness in royal glory as well as grace. It is not heaven, as the Socinians expound; nor is it the church, as the theologians of Christendom dream. It is the center of the kingdom restored to Israel, when they repent and are converted to their true King. Compare Psa. 2; 9; 14; 48; 68; 69; 76; 78; 84; 87; 110; 128; 132; 137; 149. The Prophets abound in similar anticipations, as Isa. 1; 2; 4; 12; 24; 33; 35; 40; 49; 51; 52; 59; 62; 66; Jer. 3; 31; 50; 51. See too Mic. 4; 5; Joel 3, Obad. 17; 21, Zeph. 3, Zechariah 1; 2; 8; 9.

Zion therefore is not merely like Gerizim a pledge of blessing at the start, but an ever recurring signal of sovereign and royal grace triumphing after utter sin and shame and ruin. No mountain named in the Bible suited the aim here so admirably as Zion, the Zion of scripture, not the whimsical substitute of theology, “the catholic church” as even Cromwell's Vice-Chancellor of Oxford University, the able and excellent J. Owen makes it to be, militant and triumphant, and to this end omits the copulative (Works, 24. 329, Goold's Ed.). But here we may add that almost all editors of the Greek Test. as well as the commentators almost universally fall into error sometimes repeatedly, by not heeding the plain and sure fact that the conjunction (καὶ-and) connects with Zion each new and distinct link in the chain of glory. In the next page after, as in the text of the page before, it is given correctly; but such laxity makes sound exegesis impossible. The most prevalent instance is in joining “general assembly” (as in the Auth. V.) with “the church of the firstborn;” of which Dr. Owen of course is also guilty, to the destruction of all right intelligence of the context. The least skilful of handlers could not have the hardihood to construe “God the judge of all,” “Jesus the mediator of the new covenant,” and “the blood of sprinkling” etc., as the further description of the catholic church; but they do strive hard to merge “the spirits of just men made perfect” in the same object.

Even J. A. Bengel (Gnomon ii. 467, Ed. 1836) lumped “myriads of angels and firstborns” in one category, so as to make out his double sevenfold; whereas the latter consists really of eight, not of seven. Yet in the next p. 468 he properly asks, who would join together as synonyms the church of the firstborn with the general assembly of angels? Nevertheless, who knows not that able men of research like Dean Alford, and Bp. Chr. Wordsworth, and Bp. Westcott, persisted in the same false punctuation, and in joining more or less two categories so different as the angels and the church; as the erudite Bp. J. Pearson laid down in his famous exposition of the Creed since 1658? The perplexities of the learned are great and varied, as F. Delitzsch here speaks of three closely connected questions, and among the hardest in our Epistle. But, whatever the connection, the difficulty is largely due to overlooking the help rendered by the conjunction as the introduction of each added object after the first, or Zion. The neglect of this threw even so eminent a preacher. and teacher as J. Howe into confusion like almost every other, as we may see in his use of this scripture everywhere, particularly in his sermon, or part of it, dedicated to Lady Russell. Lesser lights we need not notice.

The inspired picture then starts as a great principle from the spot of all on earth most ennobled by its associations to believing Israelites. For though the Epistle would bind their hearts and relations with Him who sits in heaven at God's right hand (and therefore Christian truth, above all visible forms and shadows), care is taken to notice briefly by the way the people of God and their hopes of the Kingdom and rest on earth also (chaps. 2; 4).

Next, we read, “and a living God's city, heavenly Jerusalem.” There is thus no connection with a dying David's city, but a rise from earth to heavenly glory, as this Epistle testified of Abraham's case when in the land. For “by faith he sojourned as a stranger in the land of promise as a foreign [country] having dwelt in tents with Isaac and Jacob the joint-heirs of the same promise; for he waited for the city that hath the foundations, of which God is architect and builder” (chap. 11:9, 10). The same truth is if possible more plainly stated in vers. 13-16. It will be in addition to what their seed will have on earth under Messiah and the new covenant for their joy and the blessing of all the families of the earth; their own seat of glory above as risen saints. Not that we should confound the coming and abiding city on high of which this Epistle speaks with the holy city in Rev. 21:9, which was seen coming down out of heaven from God, For the Epistle never rises to the mystery in the Epistles to the Ephesians and the Colossians. When “church” is spoken of in chaps. 2 and 12 in this context, it is not in its unity but in its constituents, as “of first-borns” proves. Its city is a place of glory which risen saints are to occupy. But in the Revelation it is what the church is to be, and not where; not objective but subjective, as men say. For it would contradict scripture, to infer that Abraham or any other O.T. saint had any idea of that union as the one body with its heavenly Head which is its essence, being the great mystery expressly declared to be not made known to the sons of men, the mystery or secret hid, not in scripture, but in God, and now revealed to the holy apostles and prophets in the Spirit.

Then we hear, “and to myriads of angels, a universal gathering (or, myriads, universal gathering of angels).” A multitude of this heavenly host at the Incarnation hailed with unjealous delight the Divine Savior's birth as man, praising God and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good pleasure in men. Here they are seen as the indigenous denizens of heaven in festal assembly, rejoicing in the results of grace for men on earth.

But now follows not only the glory of God seen above supremely, but first an unexpected sight: those who, expressly as lost ones saved irrespectively of special promises (after all seemed a hopeless ruin of Jew no less than Gentile in the cross of Christ), were brought into the nearest association with Him for heavenly places. “And an assembly of firstborns, enrolled in heaven” by sovereign grace as angels are not, and called to reign with Christ which a created angel never is. If we do not hear of them as Christ's body and bride of the Lamb, as the apostles Paul and John speak elsewhere, their being heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ is here recognized in the remarkable title of these as individuals. Contrary to nature which admits of but one in human limits, here they were all and equally first-borns, as He who in His own right infinitely above them deigned to treat them as His “fellows,” in no way ashamed to call them “brethren” (chaps. 1: 2), His holy brethren partakers of a heavenly calling, not like Israel of an earthly one however grand. They were enregistered in heaven as their proper fatherland in sovereign grace.

Thence we ascend to Him who is supreme. “And to God judge of all.” Judicially He had been known, though by few comparatively in O.T. times, as in the age to come here contemplated He will be universally manifested, proved, and confessed. So for instance He is celebrated in Psa. 1, to take one witness out of many. “El Elohim Jehovah hath spoken, and called the earth from the rising of the sun unto the going down thereof. Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty, God hath shined forth. Our God will come and will not keep silence; fire shall devour before him, and it shall be very tempestuous round about him. He will call to the heavens above, and to the earth, that he may judge his people. Gather to me my godly ones, those that have made a covenant with me over sacrifice! And the heavens shall declare his righteousness; for God is judge himself.” Isaiah points out (24:21-23) His action still more loftily and profoundly: “And it shall come to pass in that day Jehovah will punish the host of the high ones on high, and the kings of the earth on the earth. And they shall be brought together, an assembly of prisoners for the pit, and shall he shut up in prison, and after many days shall they be visited. And the moon shall be confounded, and the sun ashamed; for Jehovah of hosts shall reign on mount Zion and in Jerusalem, and before his ancients [in] glory.”

As God is and must be the summit of glory, it is clear that, if another step be added, it is to come down from Him on the other side. And this is just what we see next. The richest manifestation of grace in Christ is toward the church; and this we had, before we were directed to God in His judicial capacity, the great burden of O.T. expectation, which is to be displayed in the Kingdom, which our Lord taught us to consist of two distinct parts, not only the heavenly kingdom of the Father, but also the Son of man's kingdom, out of which His angels shall gather all offenses and all that do lawlessness. God as judge of all prepares the way naturally for the saints in O.T. days who knew Him thus, yet walked in hope of Messiah. “And to the spirits of just [men] made perfect” fits those saints more aptly and fully than any other class. They all died according to faith, having promise but in no way its accomplishment; whereas the church of first-borns did not begin to exist as such till the Son and Heir of all things, being rejected of Jew and Gentile, suffered for sins on the cross, rose, and ascended to heaven; whence He sent forth the Holy Spirit to commence and establish that new creation by baptizing those that believe into one body, Christ's body. These spirits are the elders that obtained testimony before the Lord came, and are here grouped as spirits of men who had finished their course, but not yet crowned or enthroned till their bodies are glorified at Christ's coming. No more exact phrase could be used about them; nor any less adapted to the church, even if we had not the church already, which must have a surviving part on earth when the Lord comes, instead of being all separate “spirits.”

The seventh object we come to here is, “and to Jesus mediator of a new [or fresh] covenant.” This is a remarkably precise and significant clause. It is not said that we are come to the new covenant, which, as Jer. 31:31 34 tells us, is to be made with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah; not according to the first covenant at Sinai where all hung on the people's faithfulness to Jehovah, and, as they were unfaithful, to their ruin till this day. The new covenant is on the opposite principle of His grace and faithfulness to them, when He will put His law in their inwards and within their heart; and He will be their God and they His people in His love and power, not on their responsibility. They shall all know me from the least to the greatest, saith Jehovah; for I will pardon their iniquity, and their sins will I remember no more—the great hindrance to knowing Him being thus taken away. To this state of Israel we are not said to have come, but to Jesus its mediator, as is indubitable; and we enjoy “the spirit,” if not “the letter,” of that covenant, on the principle of grace in contrast with law, as 2 Cor. 3 intimates. But there is more here implied in this, the only place where occurs a “fresh” covenant in the N. T. Its force appears to be that, however long that covenant of grace got suspended for the ancient people of God in their unbelieving Lo-Ammi condition, it awaits their sure and repentant acceptance of it, as “fresh” as when founded on the only sacrifice by which it could come to them.

The last is “and to blood of sprinkling speaking better than Abel.” Here we descend to earth again, but it is not to the central seat of Zion, from which we rose. It is the earth in all its extent, with any such exception as is due to God's indignation during the kingdom before “a new heaven and a new earth” in their absolute form, and for the everlasting state, as in 1 Cor. 15:24, 2 Peter 3:13; and Rev. 21:1-8. As the blood of Abel cried to Jehovah from the ground and brought a curse (Gen. 4:10-12), Christ's blood of sprinkling has reconciling power, in virtue of which when He is revealed and the sons of God along with Him in glory, all things (not all persons) that were dragged down through Adam's sin shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the liberty of the glory of the children of God. We even now know by faith the liberty of grace, as Rom. 8:1-4 teaches, and Gal. 4 v. and many another scripture. This the groaning creation cannot from its unintelligent nature enter into and enjoy through the Holy Spirit, as is now our portion. But none the less shall the whole creation which fell with the first Adam share the blessed power of the Last Adam when He appears, not only to save Israel, but to gladden the wilderness and the dry land; and the desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose or lily: not a leaf or an insect too tiny to expand to His honor in that bright day of glory.

The Obedience by Faith

“By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should afterward receive for an inheritance obeyed; and he went out not knowing whither he went” (Heb. 11:8). Obedience of faith is involved in the submission of heart of all who truly listen to the gospel of His Son Jesus our Lord. For in no other way are received the great facts of His incarnation (made of the seed of David according to the flesh), His death on the cross as a sacrifice for sin, and the triumphant vindication of the glory and holiness of His blessed person by resurrection from among the dead.

The gospel is therefore preached unto all the nations for obedience of faith in the act of submission to it as God's righteousness (Rom. 1:3-5). This is an essential principle; and nothing less suits God's righteousness; and as it is a revelation of grace working in Christ bringing life, pardon and peace to such as were under wrath, it should be by grace simple and immediate. Grace by itself is undoubtedly attractive in its presentation; at least it would be so, were men left to themselves. But beneath the indifference or contempt of the natural man towards the things of God, there is the positive enmity of which Gen. 3:15 gives us the origin. Satan will not willingly part with his captives. Hence the commandment of God to repent and believe the gospel meets with the most determined opposition from the sinner who is to be saved, no less at first than from all who wholly reject it. The evangelist must remember that he is not only a witness of grace, but of the glory of a risen Christ, and of righteousness which, having placed Him there, requires submission of heart and faith-obedience, as indispensable for all who would profit by the salvation which He has wrought.

The condition of the world too had to be considered. You cannot go on with Christ and Satan, nor yet with the Father and the world. The cross has made it an impossibility. The world to-day is that which crucified the beloved and only-begotten Son of the Father; it hates the light, and refuses God's testimony to a risen and glorified Christ; it loves everything which can appeal to the mind of the flesh; it “lieth in the wicked one.” A powerful government of a prosperous nation has no difficulty in getting its laws obeyed, and itself respected, because it offers protection of life and property, so that the law-abiding citizen finds it to his profit to obey. It is not so with obedience of faith, nor with the practical obedience to which faith leads. Satan has given his own character to the elements which constitute the world.

Abram was called out from the demonolatry of the world in his day, that he might enter into the mind of God concerning it, viz: its judgment, prefigured by the destruction of the cities of the plain (Gen. 19), and its compulsory subjection to Christ in the day of His power (“Thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies”), and finally the full blessing of the world as such after judgment. This is quite a different thing from the call of grace now, and the Spirit of God in the heart and conscience of the individual. For God now separates from the world to walk with Himself; but Gen. 22:17 points on to a time of earthly blessedness under the reign of Christ in millennial days. If Adam had not disobeyed God in Eden, his obedience would have been his natural duty and natural blessing, but not “obedience of faith” for life eternal and glory in the heavens; for the power and goodness of God were in evidence in such a way as rendered faith in the Savior unnecessary. The obedience and homage of the nations to the King in the day of which Psa. 72 speaks will be the result of displayed glory and power in judgment. So too Psa. 110, “Thy people shall be willing in the day of Thy power;” whereas the Jews were unwilling in the day of His weakness. But then too the Gentiles must bow. “The nation and kingdom that will not serve thee shall perish.”

It is for faith now to discern the glory of a risen Christ, and to obey One whose power is not now displayed. There are two things necessary to produce the perfect result. God deigns to call, and the soul must be impressed with a sense of the authority of Him who calls. We read that many are called but few chosen; for we might say that the gospel invitation is a call from God to every sinner that hears it to come into the “fellowship of His Son Jesus Christ our Lord” (1 Cor. 1:9). “But they (Israel) have not all obeyed the gospel.” They were already in revolt from the One who called; and while many excuses were pleaded, the real reason was that they were not in sympathy with the divine purpose but in antagonism thereto. They refused to submit to Him whom the Father would make both Lord and Christ (Matt. 22:1-14).

As for Abram, the God of glory appeared unto him with a distinct call to leave his country, and separate himself from his kindred, and await further instructions. Its principle involved the moral judgment of the world and the rupture of every natural link with it. We learn from Acts 7 that obedience was not immediate, while Heb. 11 presents only the result when reached. God has long patience; but at last the pruning knife is used. Terah (the principal hindrance, as we may judge) is removed, and Abram fully obeyed. Yet even then nature manifested itself in such a way that he takes with him one who did not receive the personal call, and could only prove an encumbrance and a thorn in his side. However this was not so serious a mistake as allowing himself to be taken by his father, which was not obedience. And if Lot had shown himself worthy of such a portion, he might, for all we know, have shared with his uncle the blessing and dignity of walking by faith before God. Yet all proves the absolute necessity of an individual call, and a personal revelation of glory. The heart indeed must be strengthened and elevated in a very special way by God Himself to refuse the entreaties of nature, to overcome the world, and to walk with God in the face of the great enemy. One must be like Levi who “said unto his father and his mother, I have not seen him, neither did he acknowledge his brethren, nor knew his own children” (Deut. 33:8-11).

“Into the land of Canaan they came;” and as the Canaanite was then in the land, Abram recognized the necessity of making good his position and maintaining his relations with God Himself by means of the altar and afterward the tent; so that he was first a worshipper, then a sojourner.

At a later day, the little remnant of returned captives (his descendants) were led of God's Spirit to place the altar of God between their enemies and themselves (Ezra 3:1). If we, as saints of God and partakers of a heavenly calling, would walk before God in obedience by faith, we too shall find that the “Canaanite” is in the land ("spiritual wickednesses in heavenly places"). And we must make good our position on the same principle: inside the veil because Christ is there; and outside the camp, because Jesus suffered without the gate. For “here we have no continuing city, but we seek the coming one.” G.S.B.

The Only Key to Daniel's Prophecies

This is a bold title, but such a thing is not so uncommon across the Atlantic. Dr. Sayce counts it “a great advance on previous interpreters “to make these prophecies” end with the beginning of the Christian Church, instead of lengthening out into a still unknown future.” Most Christian students in Europe and elsewhere will agree that neither Mr. A. nor the Assyriologist know anything of value about the matter. If it were not that Mr. A. sincerely believes that the book is “a most important part of the word of God,” his “only key” should have no notice here; if he really understood Daniel, he would find it incomparably more important than all he sees of it as yet.

Perhaps his strange omission of chap. 2 accounts for much. Nebuchadnezzar's first dream, to say nothing of the second in chap. 4, is of immense moment. There the four Gentile empires or world-powers, according to the prophet's interpretation, are Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, and Rome; paralleled by Daniel's own vision of the same powers, as beasts out of a great sea: all at the end of the age rising up into collision with the Son of man coming in power and glory to establish His kingdom universal and everlasting. By attempting to squeeze all this into near about the First Advent, the book is shorn of its chief value. Every vision goes on to that future judgment of the quick. It is the Lord's judicial dealing with the last phase of the powers, which as God's first act shall be destroyed, and then “the whole earth” is to be filled forthwith with His kingdom.

Neglecting chap. 2, Mr. A. makes a false start with chap. 7, in taking the lion as not Babylon but the Medo-Persian empire; then the bear as Greece. What a blunder! In the leopard he gets right as the Macedonian or Greek. But his notion about the ten horns of Rome how grotesque! 1 Marius, 2 Sylla, 3 Pompey, 4 Crassus, 5 Julius Cæsar, 6 Brutus, 7 Cassius, 8 Octavius, 9 Antony, 10 Lepidus. For the ten horns are concurrent vassal monarchs supplanted in part by a subsequent little one who becomes sovereign of all, and by his audacious wickedness brings down final and fiery destruction on all, and makes open the way for the public kingdom in righteousness of the Son of man, when the saints of the high or heavenly places shall take the kingdom. For the saints are to reign with Christ. To apply this to the First Advent, or to events since, is preposterous. It is the same fourth or the Roman Empire, which played its part in crucifying the Lord of glory, which (Rev. 12; 13; 17; 19) is to rise again by Satan's energy, but for perdition. Then the Lord will take His great power and reign, instead of the kingdom of God to faith as now, when all enormities are done in the world unjudged of Him. To make this accomplished A.D. 70 or so is to bring Daniel's prophecy and all others into contempt. It is to be carried away by a human idea. See p. 20.

Mr. A. is less astray as to Dan. 8 in the preliminary part; but he is wholly wrong as usual in the most momentous conclusion of the matter, of which Antiochus Epiphanes was but a type of “the king of the north” in the fatter day, the antagonist of the Roman Emperor about Jerusalem and its sanctuary. Both are to perish with their adherents, successively, at our Lord's coming again. What in the past can compare with this? Then, and not till then, will come the days of heaven upon the earth. Earthly judgments precede them; for “when thy judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness” (Isa. 26:9). The latter rain of the Spirit will as it were fertilize it. The gospel does not, nor is it its nature to, govern the world; and the so-called church (no matter which) has made an awful mess in attempting it. Its true work is to gather saved souls out of it for Christ and heaven.

Similarly Mr. A. is entirely ignorant of the true bearing of the last of the seventy weeks. For the Roman siege and subsequent trials are supposed to have taken place before ver. 27. After the 69 weeks began a great gap created by Messiah's cutting off; and the last verse is about “a” (not “the") covenant for seven years, which the future chief of the Roman empire will make and break, depriving the Jews of their rites; whereon the great catastrophe follows (Dan. 11).

The prophecy in chap. 11 is similar: only it is not the western power that figures; but the willful king, the Antichrist in Palestine “in the time of the end,” and his enemy, “the king of the north,” the then monarch of Turkey in Asia, as “the king of the south” is of Egypt. It is the hour of judgment for all powers, the last of which is Gog, the lord of all the Russias; after which Daniel himself is to appear and stand in his lot among the risen saints of the high places. Thus there ought to be no such mistake as men make in foreclosing prophecies, which all end with the Lord's appearing, and then only.

Mr. A. ought not to have confounded Darius the Mede, the ad interim and complimentary king after Babylon's fall before Cyrus succeeded, with Darius the Persian, who was conventionally chosen after Cambyses and the impostor Gomates. Ezra 4 makes this certain, Ahasuerus answering to the former, and Artaxerxes to the latter. Then comes Darius (Hystaspis) King of Persia.

Part With Christ (Duplicate)

Three things, beloved friends, especially come out in this chapter: first, the full and complete finishing of the work which the Father had given the Lord Jesus to do; second, while that gives the full consciousness of the place we are in with God, there is very jealous care for the holiness and watchfulness in the path in which we are called to walk down here; and third, the blessed and gracious love of the Lord, “having loved his own which were in the world, he loved them unto the end.” All the way He made Himself a servant in order to minister to us.

It is important for us as Christians to see our place with God in Christ, to know distinctly what that place is. Many sincere souls stop short of this, and do not know their relationship with God, through what the blessed Son of God has done already in dying for them and bringing them to God; and at the same time, how it all bears on holiness of walk.

The Lord shows here that no defilement can be allowed, and then adds its measure. Suitability of walk and conduct flows from the place you are in: you cannot expect any one who is not a child or a servant to behave as a child or a servant. Evidently then it is of all importance to know the place I am in, as all my duties flow from it. The moment the relationship is there, the duties are thence; but none can get the relationship by doing the duties.

It is therefore of all importance to see the connection between the grace of God that brings salvation, and our walk and conduct. We must see what the relationship is before we can have the consciousness of its duties. The Lord would bring us, perhaps through painful exercises, to the consciousness of the place we are in; and the gracious, loving provision there is for us in that place, never to allow unholiness. If it were only the being saved, this would be a blessed thing; but He brings us into positive relationship with Himself, in infinite love and perfect righteousness. He came into a world of sinners for this. We have the treasure in earthen vessels; but the relationship is settled: “Ye are all the sons of God by faith in Christ Jesus.” Therefore His first word to Mary after His resurrection is, “Go and tell my brethren, I ascend to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.” My Father is your Father too. He puts them into His place, having brought them into it; and tells them where He has brought them.

But this is not all. The moment I estimate the cross according to the word of God, I learn, as the apostle says, “If one died for all, then were all dead.” We see One who came in unspeakable love to save us. For God, as it were, said, I have yet one Son: one thing I can do to see if I can waken up right thoughts and feelings in these husbandmen. But when they saw the Son, they cast Him out and slew Him. In calling ourselves Christians, we profess to be in a world which has cast out the Son of God; we are in a world of sinners, condemned sinners.

God was dealing with man. He tried and tested man, who had got out of his place where God had put him in Paradise, to see whether He could reclaim his heart. But all this ended in bringing out the condition in which man was. It proved that he preferred anything to God—money, pleasure, duties (I do not speak now of sin). No object is too small to govern the heart and to shut out Christ. Take dress: is that too small? Take money: is it? It is the same case with all our hearts. You never found a natural man thinking of Christ as the object of his heart. If alone in a room for two or three hours, he thinks of his sorrows, or of his joys, but not of Christ.

You never find a man ashamed of a false religion. Of gods that even man might be ashamed of, they are not ashamed; but true Christians are ashamed of confessing Christ. People are ashamed of the true God; but of a false religion, never

Any and every object in the natural heart has displaced Christ. I own Jesus the Son of God has come and died for me, and do I prefer a bit of dress to Him? All this tells us what scripture says: that the carnal mind is enmity against God, every object being dominant over it; and even when we do love God, how often we are ashamed of Him!

It is not now a question of trying to arrange ourselves a little and set things straight. But the Son of man came to seek and to save that which was lost: this is my natural condition; I am lost.

Where men find their enjoyment, only bring Christ in, and it is all spoiled. The natural man never enjoys Christ, and as Christians we have to watch ourselves, lest we slip more or less into that state of things.

First comes the honest conviction that I am lost, and then I believe what God has done: that is another thing altogether.

The law came to require righteousness from me; but He came to bring salvation to me, because I was lost. Owning myself as a sinner, I cannot of course go into heaven as a sinner. So the question is, What has He done for me that I may be cleansed? Supposing I have been brought thoroughly to confess that I am lost, and I turn to Christ, what do I find there? That when I did not think of God, He was thinking of me. This is the truth; and I have then, with no seeking of mine, what the spring of God's thoughts and heart were towards me: He spared not His own Son. Acknowledging myself as a sinner, I find what the blessed Son of God has done. I find the spring of His heart. He cannot allow sin, being perfect in holiness and righteousness; and I find Him doing what love always does when it is real, considering the whole state of its object. I was dead, and He comes into death; judgment was against me, and He takes the judgment.

The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us. In Him I see One coming in love and goodness and grace. This astonishes me, as it did the poor woman by the well. He must bring us into truth and light. He says, You are vile, not fit to show your face to a decent person. But there is the revelation of God in Christ. It comes not as a claim upon me, but as grace to me. It tells me I am a sinner; or why should it come? It brings God's love out to me. If the highest measure of grace is the cross of Christ, it is the very thing that shows me where I was. Why should He go down into so dreadful a ditch, if there were not some there to pull out? This perfect work is done. “I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do.” Therefore He is set down at the right hand of God, accepted by Him. God gave Christ in love and accepted Him in righteousness. God is satisfied, more than satisfied—glorified about sin. The cross is the place where good and evil met absolutely. All the evil of man was shown out against Christ. He was going about doing good, healing all their diseases, and even Pilate could say, What do you kill Him for? It was enmity against God.

But if all the wickedness of man's heart be there, what do we find on the other side? Absolute obedience and perfect love to His Father. “That the world may know that I love the Father, and as the Father gave me commandment, even so I do.” Where do we learn love? “Hereby know we love, because he laid down his life for us.”

There is no such perfect display of perfect righteousness anywhere, as in Christ drinking that dreadful cup. There is most solemn righteousness, yet the perfect love of God to the sinner too. If we look at the moral glory of the cross, the whole question of sin is perfectly settled, and God has glorified Christ above. For what did He die? For my sins, according to the scriptures. If I come as a poor vile sinner to the cross, I see Him bearing my sins in His own body on the tree, and now in glory. Has He got them there? I see Him standing here for me in righteousness, drinking that dreadful cup, the very thought of which made Him sweat great drops of blood. Then, having purged our sins, He sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high. He is not like the Jewish priests who were often offering the same sacrifices, but He forever sat down because the work is finished. If the work is not perfect, it never will be. I am not speaking now of your appreciation of it, but of the work itself; if we live near to God, we shall appreciate it more every day. But the work is done.

We have then, beloved friends, this blessed truth—that coming to God by Him I find that work which is a proof of the love of God to me when I was a sinner, and I find it done and accepted when I was a sinner. Of course my soul is purified by obeying the truth too, or I should not care about it in that way. Christ is waiting till His enemies are made His footstool, having brought me to God by that work. And God is active in His love to put it before us in every shape in which it can meet our need. Do you say you are guilty? but God has justified you. Defiled by sin? yes, but God says, I have cleansed you with the precious blood of my Son. Do you say, Oh! I have offended God dreadfully? So you have; but I have forgiven you. Then the Holy Ghost came down at Pentecost, and is given to every one who believes. “In whom, after that ye believed, ye were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise.” “Your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost.” “If any man confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him and he in God.” O that those words rested in our hearts and consciences, beloved friends! There is the place we are brought into; but we shall not get fully into the glory till the Lord Jesus Christ comes again. “I will come again and receive you unto myself.” “When he shall appear, we shall be like him.” “The glory thou hast given me, I have given them.” The purpose of God is (I am speaking to you as believers) to bring us into the same glory as His Son.

I earnestly desire for your hearts, that you should get clear hold of this—how all is cleared of the first Adam, that we might have all the blessing the last Adam gives. He became a man that He might be the Firstborn among many brethren. The dignity of His Person is always maintained; but He will never be satisfied until He sees you there in the same glory with Himself and as Himself forever.

If I pay a man's debts, and leave him without a farthing, he is a ruined man still, But Christ has paid our debts, and has, so to speak, given us an immense fortune besides. “As is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly.” The scripture teems with passages which show the way in which we are associated with Himself. As soon as Christ was gone up into heaven, the witness of divine righteousness, the Holy Ghost, came down, that we might know it. “Because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying Abba Father.” How can I say Father, if I do not know I am a child? It would be hypocrisy. If the conscience is purged by the blood of Christ, relationship is known by His Person, and then I must walk as a child; but I must know that I am a child first. We cannot expect people to walk as Christians if they are not Christians. Something else has to come first: they have to confess Christ, as well as their sins, and be saved.

Now if you believe in the Lord Jesus, beloved friends, can you say, I know I am in Christ? “At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you.” We have to manifest the life of Jesus in my mortal body; but we must have it first. How can I manifest it if I have not got it?

Have I listened to that word, “My Father and your Father,” &c. He has brought me into the same place as Himself; and I am waiting for God's Son to take me there in person. Death has lost its sting, and if I die, it is to be with the Lord, “Absent from the body, present with the Lord.” The full result will not be till He comes again, and the marriage of the Lamb takes place; we are not in the glory yet, we know.

We might think that, Christ having gone up into glory, all His service was over. But it is not so. Love never gives up itself, and never gives up the happiness of those it loves. If a child goes wrong, the Father's heart yearns over him; he may have to punish, but the heart goes after him. Christ's love is perfect, and it never gives up its service if it can make the loved one happy; and this we find here. The supper was come. He came from God, and was going back to God in all the blessed perfectness in which He came; and what does He do? It is as, “I am among you as one that serveth.” Is there an end of His service now? No; He rises from supper, testifies He cannot stay with them here, but tells them He must have them with Him there. He could not stay as Messiah. I am going away as your Forerunner, “I go to prepare a place for you.”

This is in two ways. First, He is as priest, serving, “He ever liveth [think of that!] to make intercession for us.” This is not exactly for sin, but that we may not sin. I am a poor tempted one upon the earth, and He always at God's right hand occupied with me.

But in this chapter there is another thing. Supposing I do sin, how are my feet to be washed? This alludes no doubt to the custom of the priest's consecration. His body was washed when he was consecrated. But whenever he went to do anything at the altar, he washed his hands and feet. It was as much as to say, There must be holiness. “He that is washed (or, bathed) needeth not save to wash his feet; he cannot be regenerate over again. The word used for washing the body and washing the feet is not the same in the original of this chapter; one means bathing complete, the other partial.

We are cleansed by water and by blood. But then there is always this danger: here I am, walking through this world always ready to defile me. There is the danger of picking up dirt upon my feet. When the Lord goes into heaven, He takes what heaven is as a measure of our walk. He does not pray that we should be taken out of the world, but kept from the evil. Looking up to the Lord in glory, we are changed into the same image from glory to glory. “Every man that hath this hope on Him purifieth himself, even as He is pure.” Seeing Christ in glory, I know I am going to be like Him, and my heart wants me to be as like Him now as ever I can. This is what Paul meant, “that I may win” Him. He sees Christ in glory, knows he is going to be like Him, and now tries in every possible way to imitate Him here.

But supposing we fail—there is no excuse for doing so, it is our own carelessness and neglect—yet He says, I am going up on high, and I shall wash your feet. I have washed you here: “already ye are clean by reason of the word that I have spoken to you.” Peter was ashamed of seeing the Lord there like a servant to wash his feet; but when he hears he must be washed, he says, “Not my feet only, but also my hands and my head.” No; He says, That is enough. “If any man sin, we have an Advocate with the Father.... and he is the propitiation for our sins.” The propitiation is unchanged, but another service comes in. If I have sinned, I do not say that I am not under the blood of sprinkling, but, Can the Father have fellowship with an unholy thing? No! Yet the word says, “If any man sin,” not “if any man repent.” The advocacy, to be sure, brings us to repentance.

If only I have let an evil thought come in, do you think God has communion with that? It were blasphemy to say so. I have found my pleasure, if only for a moment, in what made Christ's agony on the cross. Horrible to say so; but if it made His agony, it cannot be imputed to me. I am convicted, and humbled, and, like poor Peter, led to repentance. It was not because he repented that Christ prayed for him; but Peter repented because Christ prayed.

What is given in the present service of the Lord Jesus is this: if by anything I defile my feet, He takes away the taint, because I belong to His place. He does not raise the question whether I still belong to it; He acts because I do belong to it; “Whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth.” Holiness is maintained, because I am in this relationship. God says, I cannot have defiled people in My house; He chastens that we may be partakers of His holiness. He brings the word of God, which reveals what I am, to bear upon my conscience. He restores my soul, and leads me in the paths of righteousness for His name's sake.

The Christian is standing between the first coming of Christ, which accomplished redemption, and His second coming which takes him to glory, Meanwhile the Holy Ghost is given to every one that believes; He makes me cry, Abba, Father, being seal or witness that I am a son, and is the earnest of the inheritance. He gives me the certainty of the efficacy of Christ's work when He first came, and leads my heart on to the glory.

But there must be holiness, and I find grace still working and giving me the measure of what I am. He tells me I am going to be like Christ, and he who has this hope purifies himself; and here is the measure of my walk— “even as He is pure.” Not that I have attained, I never shall until I am with Christ; but I ought to be always going on, never to soil my feet, that is to do nothing inconsistent.

Scripture, let us remark, speaks of three things: we are to walk worthily of God, who has called us to His kingdom and glory; worthily of the Lord unto all pleasing; worthily of the vocation wherewith we are called. The standard is put before us in these three shapes.

There is thus the perfect settled consciousness of the relationship into which we are brought; then the conduct which suits those who are in this place; and the provision of grace, if we fail.

Do your souls know, beloved friends, supposing you profess it, that you in conscience have got hold of the efficacy of His work? “Peace I leave with you”; can you say you have it? Do you fear the judgment-seat? There is no place in which a Christian may be so bold, because raised in glory, as He is, so are we. Do you believe that your sins will be no more remembered? Many a one sees it in scripture, and says it is true; but can you stand in thought before the judgment-seat, in the consciousness that it is yours?—that you are become divine righteousness in Christ before God?

One more question. If you can thus stand, are you seeking to be in everything the epistle of Christ? whatever you do, to do all in the name of the Lord Jesus? We shall need carefulness, searching of the word, &c., exercises which make good soldiers. The motive is the great thing. If I love my father, and he wishes this book to be laid this way instead of that, I put it so because I love my father.

The Lord give us to have His will as the one object of our lives, the motive of all we do, remembering that we are not our own but bought with a price. May He give us to have our eyes upon Him, that we may know His love and seek His will! J. N. D.

The Pathway of Faith

THE path of faith, from beginning to end, from its earliest manifestation in the soul to its final triumph, is before us in this chapter. It is illustrated by many examples of such as through grace found acceptance with God, and were enabled to honor Him, to maintain in this world the testimony He required of them. In many cases also blessing was thus ministered to man. For that divine principle brings light into the soul (however dense the darkness of the world), and the power of God, whatever may be our own weakness. Indeed the more conscious we are of this, the more simply and readily shall we embrace that which brings about complete moral deliverance from all that which is in the world, and in saints also (sad to say), which is not of God.

“This is the victory which overcometh the world, our faith.” Of course every child of God proves this, and is in that sense an overcomer. Receiving God's testimony about His beloved Son, we escape the judgment of the world and are in favor and acceptance before God. “Who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God” (1 John 5:5)? But something more is required of the saint than this. The Lord in His addresses to the seven assemblies of Asia (Rev. 2:3) gives His own judgment of their moral condition, their fitness or otherwise to be light-bearers for Him. In each case He defines the evil, and He promises rewards to the overcomer. The question for each child of God to-day is, Do I care for what the Lord Jesus thinks of me? Do I desire His approval? Is the prize which He holds out worth having? Of course every Christian would answer “yes” to each question; and he would perhaps say, Why do you ask? Because our professions are to be tested by the Lord Himself.

In 1 Tim. 3:15 the church, viewed in accordance with God's counsels, and as the result of divine workmanship, in described as “pillar and ground of the truth.” But its failure as a responsible witness is before us in 2 Tim. 2:20; 3:1-3. And what is the resource for the “man, of God” then? I can no longer find support and encouragement where failure has come in; it ceases then to be a prop or a safeguard. Hence I am drawn closer to God in an individual walk with Him and service for Him, with His word for my guide (2 Tim. 3:14-17).

As to Laodicea, no doubt applicable to our own day, although Philadelphia (like the two before it) remains, the Lord is seen outside, yet they have not missed Him. But here in grace He challenges “any one,” and whoever responds will enjoy His presence and communion. Things around go from bad to worse; but he who hears and obeys the voice of Christ is an overcomer.

One has felt it necessary to make these few remarks at the commencement because of a too usual readiness to be satisfied with being in our right place ecclesiastically. Is God satisfied? We know that in these last days much has been recovered for the children of God. There has been an open door for communion and service, and much light has been drawn from the word of God. Faithful ministry of the word, and not a few faithful men were raised up and long continued in the field of testimony and conflict. What has been the result? Can you, dear child of God, be satisfied? Has not spiritual pride (for knowledge puffeth up), and self-satisfaction blinded many eyes to the need of all that Christ is in Himself and would impart to us (Rev. 3:17, 18)?

Coming back to our chapter, we find the names of two men and only two approved of God in the old world. No doubt there were others, but these alone are presented as examples of that faith which satisfies God, because it is His gift; for Noah rather connects the old with the new world. Abel was one born in sins and shapen in iniquity, who coming to God by the sacrifice (as every sinner does now who obeys the gospel) obtains the witness of God that he was righteous. Under the sentence of death, he bows to it, and brings a gift of which God testifies. The divine testimony is ever to His beloved Son.

Enoch, in the power of life's victory over death in a judged world, walks with God three hundred years, and escapes entirely that which is the common lot of mankind. But before his translation (and notice this, dear reader), before he quits this world, he had the testimony that he pleased God. There is really no one else to study; although surely His children will he our care, but God Himself in Christ is our object. “Study to show thyself approved unto God.” This personal witness of God to our hearts we need now and here day by day, before the Lord comes for whom we wait. “Without faith it is impossible to please Him.”

The character of Enoch's life and testimony should be before the heart of every believer in Christ to-day. It is not only to walk with God, inestimable privilege indeed as this is, but to have fellowship with the Father and the Son. For we are permitted to share in the divine affections, as being personally and intimately interested in them. Not even Enoch could have entered into this wondrous fellowship; for the Father had not then been revealed in and by the Son, nor glorified by Him here below in His life and death.

Nevertheless by faith he had the mind of God, and was taught that the Lord would come amidst His holy myriads in judgment of all the ungodly. Such a revelation was essential to him for the enjoyment of God's presence in those days of quite unparalleled iniquity. It imparted dignity, strength, and peace to his spirit.

The fuller revelation to us should the more separate us from subtler evil, whether in the world or the church, while making us faithful witnesses of the grace that is in our Lord Jesus Christ, and not only for the saint in his place but for the vilest—for all that come unto God by Him. The witness of the love of Christ must be in our hearts, with a consciousness of having His approbation, in order that we may declare to others the gospel of His abounding grace toward a ruined world.

Perilous Times: Review

As a Christian friend sent me these little fly-sheets, I am bound to say that they are not reliable, not as I suppose from any wish to deceive, but ignorance of truth and facts through trusting those already deceived.

Take for example the opening article of No. 70, “Sanctification through the Spirit,” or what 1 Peter 1:2 calls “of the Spirit,” and the paper designates erroneously “this indwelling of the Spirit.” This confusion demonstrates total ignorance of Peter's meaning, which the apostle himself explains to be “in (or, by) sanctification of the Spirit unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ.” These elect saints, like all others, were set apart, or sanctified, by the Spirit, for or unto Christ's obedience and His blood-sprinkling. The truth is here reversed; for the expositor clearly means that it is the Spirit's indwelling after blood-sprinkling. This I hold to be taught elsewhere. But B.W.N. never knew what is here taught, that the Spirit sets apart to God, by a vital action through the word, the believer to obey (not like a Jew menaced with death under the sanction of the blood sprinkled on the book and its people, but) like Christ as a Son, and to be sprinkled with His blood for cleansing and the pardon of his sins. Mr. N. held the blunder of Papists and Protestants alike in overlooking this quickening operation of the Spirit leading the soul unto (εἰς) Christ's obedience and His blood-sprinkling, not the practical sanctification which is accompanied by His indwelling. It explains why the apostle Paul (1 Cor. 6:11) puts “sanctified” before “justified,” which no Reformer understood any more than theologians since. Hence they either evade such texts, or boldly pervert the inspired word to suit their own shallow views of scripture like Théodore de Bèze. This truth has quite dropt out of their divinity.

The statement in 71, p. 3, col. 2, near the bottom is the direct reverse of the facts. Before 1848 Mr. B. W. N. was rejected by brethren as fatally heterodox, and was deserted by his chief fellow-laborers save Dr. Tr. his cousin who held his Semi-Irvingite tenets subversive of “the doctrine of Christ.” Before that evil scheme was discovered, Mr. N.'s followers had been treated with grace; but from 1847 they were rigidly refused. And the late Dr. Scrivener, whose word I believe, has recorded in print that Dr. Tr. before his death avowed his turning to the English Establishment: that is, he (not N.) went back to one of the most worldly of religions in the estimate of the Editors of “Perilous Times,” as full of superstitious men as now of skeptics.

Positive Testimony to the Pentateuch

Objections do not destroy the historic character of the Pentateuch. But it is well to remember, that, independently of all solutions of difficulties, there is testimony sufficient to prove its genuineness and Divine origin. That testimony is found in the books of the Old and New Testament. It is possible to trace the existence of the Pentateuch in every age, from Malachi to Joshua: that is sufficient to prove its genuineness. It has the sanction of the Savior and His Apostles, and that will prove its Divine origin. The question may, however, occur to some minds, How do we know that the Pentateuch, which we now possess, is that referred to by our Lord, and cited by Hebrew writers?

To this the answer is, We have most satisfactory proof of the identity. The Pentateuch has descended to us in at least four independent channels. The whole people of the Jews, Rabbinists and Karaites; the Greek, Syrian, and Roman churches, all possess a Pentateuch. It stands at the beginning of their Sacred Scriptures. And those different copies—the Hebrew, Chaldee, Greek, Syriac, and Latin, all so wonderfully agree, as to leave no doubt of identity. The present Jews have received their Hebrew copies, and the Chaldee translations, from those who dwelt not only in Jerusalem, but in Babylon. The Pentateuch of Eastern, and Western, Indian, African, and Chinese Jews is the same. The translation possessed by the Greeks is that received at the time of their conversion, and has come down in a perfectly distinct channel from the Hebrew. There was no love between Jews and Greeks, so as to induce the latter to conform their Scriptures to those of the former, and yet the Greek Pentateuch is manifestly a translation of the Hebrew possessed by the Jews. The Syriac version agrees still more minutely with the Hebrew; and yet the intercourse of Syrian Christians with Jews was as little as that of the Greeks.

With regard to the Latin, there is the same agreement, and the same independence of transmission. Between Jews and Christians there was a wall of separation which entirely prevented either from borrowing of the other. Amongst Christians themselves there were differences, both in language and theology, sufficient to prevent collusion. The Greek translation was not made from the Syriac; nor the Syriac from the Greek. They are entirely independent one of the other; and yet all present to us, with a few unimportant differences, the same Pentateuch. The Hebrew is that which the Jews received from their fathers. The Greek existed before the Incarnation of the Savior. The Syriac version was made, as is generally supposed, early in the second century, probably before that time. We have, therefore, four independent witnesses to prove the identity of the Pentateuch which we possess, with that which was known to our Lord. And to these might be added the testimonies of Philo and Josephus, in whose writings sufficient portions of the Pentateuch are found to prove the identity of their copies with ours, and their belief that Moses was the author.

But, from the days of our Lord to the time of the last canonical Hebrew writer, there is a long interval. How can it be known, therefore, that the Pentateuch as then existing was that received from Malachi and his contemporaries? Here again there is a chain of sufficient testimonies. About one hundred and thirty years before Christ, the grandson of Jesus, the son of Sirach, translated the book of Ecclesiasticus into Greek. That book is acknowledged to be genuine, and has so many references to the Law as to prove the identity of the book so called. The first book of Maccabees, also received as authentic by modern critics, carries us nearly fifty years farther back. The mad efforts of Antiochus Epiphanes to destroy the book of the Law; and the zeal, not only of the priests, but of the common people, ready to die rather than disobey it, attest the existence of the book, and the popular belief that it was from God. That our Pentateuch existed, and was received as the law of Moses, one hundred years earlier, that is about two hundred and eighty years before Christ, is attested by the fact that it was then translated into Greek by Alexandrian Jews. Their version, commonly known as Septuagint, is that quoted by Evangelists and Apostles, and handed down to us by the Greek Fathers; and of whose agreement with the Hebrew we have already spoken.

Nor is this by any means all. The Providence of God has preserved a still more ancient testimony, in the Samaritan Pentateuch. Its existence was known to the Christian Fathers; but for a thousand years it lay concealed, and at last came forth as from the grave, to assure us of the identity of the Pentateuch. Suppose that in that long interval some doubter had said, The Samaritans were a distinct and rival sect, hated by the Jews, and hating in return. Josephus, and the Fathers of the Church, and the Rabbis, all bear witness that they had a copy of the Pentateuch: bring it forth and let us compare it with the Hebrew and Christian copies, and see whether they agree. How would he have triumphed had the Samaritan copy been produced, and found to differ altogether from those of Jews and Christians! But what is the fact? The Samaritan copy has been produced, written in a character equally unknown to Jews and Christians.

A little remnant of the people still exist to present it to the world. And lo! with the exception of a very few passages, it is the same in narrative and legislative enactment as that known to the Synagogue and the Church. This testimony carries us back to the erection of the Temple on Mount Gerizim, to the days of Sanballat, that is, to the time of Nehemiah, and the close of the canon of the Old Testament; and assures us not only that it existed, but that it was not and could not be a compilation of those times. Manasseh, of the family of the high priest, being excluded from the priesthood because he refused to dismiss his heathen wife as the Law required, does not protest against this Law as ungenuine, and therefore unworthy of obedience; but, when he leaves the Jewish people, imposes its yoke upon his Samaritan friends. Such conduct can only be explained by Manasseh's firm conviction that its origin was divine. Its acceptance by the Samaritans testifies a similar conviction on their part, produced by what they had already learned. At all events, the Pentateuch then existed, was ever afterward preserved by the Samaritans. and their copy now shows the identity of their Pentateuch with our own.

(To be continued).

Positive Testimony to the Pentateuch: Ezekiel

The correctness of this statement is abundantly proved by the writings of Ezekiel, who was himself a captive. He had been carried away eleven years before the destruction of Jerusalem, began to prophesy in the fifth year of the captivity, and continued to prophesy at least until the sixteenth year after the city had been destroyed. Concerning the genuineness of these writings modern criticism raises no doubts. Its estimate of Ezekiel's style and genius is not very flattering, but it pronounces that the prominent and unequivocal peculiarities of the man are stamped on every page from the beginning to the end; that the book was written, and its parts arranged in their present order by Ezekiel himself. If, therefore, he was acquainted with the Pentateuch, or Law, it must be that which Ezra and his companions brought with them from their exile, even if we had no details to prove their identity. That he was thus acquainted with a law, judgments, and statutes, acknowledged by the people as divine, to which therefore he could refer in order to convince them of sin, and on which, as upon an infallible authority, he could found his reproofs, is certain beyond the shadow of a doubt.

In chap. 22:26 Ezekiel says, “Her priests have done violence to my law.” That in this passage the Prophet does not use the word “law,” generally, of any religious doctrine given by God, but of “The Law,” is evident from the detail which precedes and follows the words quoted. In verses 7-12 we read, “In thee have they set light by father and mother: in the midst of thee have they dealt by oppression with the stranger: in thee have they vexed the fatherless and the widow. Thou hast despised my holy things, and hast profaned my sabbaths. In thee are men that carry tales to shed blood, and in thee they eat upon the mountains: in the midst of thee they commit lewdness. In thee have they discovered their fathers' nakedness: in thee have they humbled her that was set apart for pollution. And one hath committed abomination with his neighbor's wife; and another hath lewdly defiled his daughter-in-law, and another in thee hath humbled his sister, his father's daughter. In thee have they taken gifts to shed blood: thou hast taken usury and increase.” In these few verses there are at least twenty-nine references to, or rather quotations from, the Pentateuch, from Exodus, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy, perceptible in the English version, but the very Hebrew words used in the original of those books. In the twenty-sixth verse, first referred to, we read, “Her priests have done violence to my law, and have profaned my holy things: they have put no difference between the holy and profane, neither have they showed difference between the unclean and the clean, and have hid their eyes from my sabbaths, and I am profaned among them. In this one verse are at least four more references, to Lev. 10:10; 11:45; 20:25, and Ex. 31:13. Besides which, it is to be remarked that the word translated profane occurs only in the Pentateuch, in 1 Sam. 21:5, 6, and in Ezekiel. Let the reader also examine chapters 18 and 20, where he will find references and quotations without end. The latter chapter is also worthy of attention as a recapitulation of the history of what happened in the wilderness. (To be continued).

Positive Testimony to the Pentateuch: Ezra

Ezra, Nehemiah, and the Later Prophets.

Thus, without having recourse to the sacred records, we have traced the existence of the Pentateuch to the time of the return from Babylon. From this time on we have the testimony of Hebrew writers. Of these, during the rebuilding of the temple and city of Jerusalem, and the restoration of the Hebrew commonwealth, there are no less than five, Malachi, Haggai, Zechariah, Nehemiah, and Ezra. With the two last-named writers modern criticism has dealt unceremoniously. But the unsparingness of the criticism has done more good than harm. The most skeptical admit enough to be genuine, proving that the Law existed, and was received as the Law of God given by Moses. These books describe the endeavor of the leaders of the Jews to restore the temple and the worship, as they had been before the captivity; and the Law of Moses is the norm according to which all was to be done. Ezra (7:21) speaks of “the law of the God of heaven.” Nehemiah (1:7) confesses the transgression “of the commandments, statutes, and judgments, which God commanded Moses.” Malachi (4:4) commands Israel “to remember the law of Moses given in Horeb, with the statutes, and judgments.” Haggai says, “Ask now the priests concerning the law.” Zechariah testifies against Israel, that “they made their hearts as an adamant stone, lest they should hear the law.” Now the Law which is here spoken of must be that known to Manasseh and the Samaritans, and therefore identical with that which we now possess. It was evidently not written or compiled at the time. The tithes and sacrifices were burdensome under the circumstances of the returned Jews; the laws with respect to marriage more burdensome still. Nothing but faith in the Law, as received from their fathers, could have led the people to submit, or the leaders to persevere in the trying and ungrateful task of restoring the ancient worship and discipline. Indeed, it is admitted on all hands that the Law spoken of, or alluded to, in these books, is the Pentateuch in all its completeness as we now possess it. The Jews must therefore have possessed it in their exile, and brought it back with them on their return.

Positive Testimony to the Pentateuch: Ezra, Nehemiah, and the Later Prophets

Ezra, Nehemiah, and the Later Prophets.

Indeed the whole book of Ezekiel is impregnated with the language of the Pentateuch, as has been proved long ago. It is especially remarkable for the use of the figures and language peculiar to the Pentateuch. Thus, the phrase, “Pine away in their iniquity,” Ezek. 4:17; 24:23, 33:10, occurs only here and Lev. 26:39. Again, a favorite expression of Ezekiel's, “Mine eyes shall not spare,” Ezek. 5:11; 7:4, 9; 8:18; 9:5, 10, occurs in the Pentateuch, once in Gen. 45:20 (margin), five times in Deuteronomy, and only once besides in the whole Bible, Isa. 13:18. Another phrase peculiar to Ezekiel and the Pentateuch is, “I will draw out a sword after them.” Compare Ex. 15:9, Lev. 26:33, with Ezek. 5:2, 12; 12:14, and observe in Lev. 26:33, and Ezek. 12:14 that the threat of drawing the sword is in both cases accompanied with “the threat of dispersion,” expressed in the original in the very same words. Again, the phrase “Staff of bread,” occurring in our Prophet, 4:16, 5:16, 14:12, is found only in the Pentateuch, Lev. 26:26. In like manner, the expression “I will set my face,” employed several times by Ezekiel, is (excepting two passages in Jeremiah) found only in the Pentateuch.

There are many other similar points of agreement; but these are sufficient to identify the Law of which Ezekiel speaks with the Pentateuch which we now possess. And it is particularly to be observed, that his references to the Law necessarily imply that the priests, the prophets, and the people all knew the law to which he referred, and received it as an undoubtedly Divine authority, to which they were amenable, by which they were to be judged, and from which there was no appeal. We have therefore unexceptionable testimony that the Pentateuch existed in the captivity, and seven years before the destruction of Jerusalem.

JEREMIAH.

The testimony of Ezekiel is overlapped by that of Jeremiah, who was partly his contemporary and partly his predecessor, whose writings also, with a few exceptions to which it is not necessary now to refer, have stood the test of modern criticism. If Jeremiah knew a Divine law, it must be that known to Ezekiel, and therefore that known to us. That such a law was known to him is certain. He mentions it expressly, and often quotes it. Thus in 9:13 (12) the Lord says, “They have forsaken my law which I set before them;” and, 16:11, “They have not kept my law;” and, 6:19, “They have not hearkened unto my words, nor to my law, but have rejected it;” and again, 32:22, the prophet says, “They have not obeyed thy voice, neither walked in thy law.” But some will perhaps say, as some have said, that of course the law was known to Jeremiah, as in his days the Book of the Law is said to have been found in the Temple; but that, before this book was found, it was unknown, and therefore fabricated by Hilkiah and his fellow-priests, and imposed upon Josiah. The reasoning upon which former skeptics arrived at this conclusion is absurd.

They argue thus: A book was found, or pretended to be found, by the priest, who said, “I have found the Book of the Law,” which never existed, and of course was unknown to the king and the people. And yet, though utterly unknown, it was instantly received by the king and all the people without suspicion or inquiry, and all submitted to the extirpation of the idolatries then practiced, and to the burdens which it imposed; and, according to this unknown book, reformed Church and State. And although they had never before heard of its enactments, they believed that it had been observed by their fathers from the days of Moses. This is plainly impossible. That the king and the court, and many of the people, might have been, and probably were, ignorant of the contents of the Law, is highly probable.

The two preceding reigns had been decidedly hostile to true religion. Manasseh was both a seducer and a persecutor. “He seduced them to do more evil than did the nations whom the Lord destroyed before the children of Israel.” He reared up altars for Baal and Asherah, and worshipped all the host of heaven in the courts of the Lord's house, and filled Jerusalem with innocent blood.

Amon, his successor, walked in all the ways that his father walked in, and served the idols that his father served; and these kings were followed by priests, prophets, and people, as we find Jeremiah complaining, “The priests said not, Where is the Lord?... The pastors also transgressed against me, and the prophets prophesied by Baal. . . The house of Israel is ashamed: they, their kings, their princes, their prophets, saying to a stock, Thou art my father, and to a stone, Thou hast brought me forth” (Jer. 2:8, 26). Even of Jerusalem itself he says, “There is not one that seeketh the truth” (v. 1).

No wonder, then, that they who are so described permitted the Temple to go to ruin, and the copy of the Law, belonging to it—perhaps the very autograph of Moses—to be lost. No wonder if Josiah, with such a father and grandfather, such priests, and such a court, had been ignorant of the denunciations of the Law. Hilkiah, on the contrary, was not astonished He says, “I have found the Book of the Law.” He knew, therefore, that there was such a book, and says, “I have found it:” as Thenius, who is certainly no believer in inspiration, says in his commentary, “The expression, the Book of the Law, shows plainly that the question here is not about something that came to light for the first time, but something that was already known.“

It is true that this commentator does not believe that the book found was our present Pentateuch, but he believes that what was found was not something new, or something never heard of before, but a written law, previously known. He believes that such a written law had existed; just as Hitzig asserts, in his commentary on Jeremiah (p. 60), that a written law had always existed in Judah. But as the Law known to Ezekiel was our present Pentateuch, that known to Jeremiah, partly his contemporary, cannot be different. That it was known to Jeremiah before the finding of the book can be proved by his prophecies delivered at the beginning of his ministry. He began to prophesy in the thirteenth year of Josiah. The Book of the Law was not found until the eighteenth year of that king. Now even Hitzig admits that chapters 2:1-8:17 were written before the eighteenth year, and the second chapter probably in the thirteenth year of Josiah, that is, the first of Jeremiah's ministry.

Both testify the existence of the Law. In Jer. 2:8 it is said, “They that handle the law know me not;” and in 8:8, “How say ye, We are wise, and the law of the Lord is with us?” Before the finding of the book, therefore, “The Law” existed and was called “The Law of the Lord.” These chapters also contain references and quotations which serve to identify it with the present Pentateuch. Thus, chap. 2:6: “Neither said they, Where is the Lord that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, that led us through the wilderness, through a land of deserts and of pits, through a land of drought and of the shadow of death, through a land that no man passed through, and where no man dwelt? And I brought you into a plentiful country, to eat the fruit thereof and the goodness thereof: but when ye entered, ye defiled my land and made mine heritage an abomination.” Here are allusions, either in sense or word, or both, to Deut. 8:15; Num. 14:7, 8; Lev. 18:25-28; Num. 35:33, 34. In ver. 28 the prophet says, “Where are thy gods, that thou hast made thee? let them arise if they can save thee in the time of trouble,” evidently a quotation of Deut. 32:37, 38. Chapter 3:1 is an undoubted reference to Deut. 24:3, 4. Chapter 3:16 refers to a number of places in the Pentateuch, and the chief features in the Mosaic worship: “In those days, saith the Lord, they shall say no more, The ark of the covenant of the Lord; neither shall it come to mind, neither shall they remember it, neither shall they visit it, neither shall that be done any more.”

This tells us that there was a covenant, Ex. 24:7, 8; Deut. 5:2, 3, that there was an “ark of the covenant of the Lord” —the very words found in Num. 10:33, and Deut. 31:26, that the Israelites used to visit it—words to be explained only by the commands, to go up three times in the year, Ex. 23:17; Deut. 16:16. In the days of Jeremiah, before the finding of the book therefore, the whole history of the covenant (that is in fact, of the giving of the Law, all the directions about the ark, the three great feasts) is presupposed, and without the existence of the Pentateuch would be unintelligible. Chap. 4:4, “Circumcise yourselves to the Lord,” is a quotation from Deut. 10:16, and an allusion to Deut. 30:6, and contains a figure found in no other sacred writer. Chap. 5:15, “Lo, I will bring a nation upon you from far, O house of Israel, saith the Lord God.... a nation whose language thou knowest not, neither understandest what they say,” is a quotation from Deut. 28:49; and ver. 17, “they shall eat up their harvest,” &c., from Lev. 26:16, and Deut. 28:31. Again, in chap. 7:6, “Oppress not the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow, and shed not innocent blood in this place, neither walk after other gods to your hurt: then will I cause you to dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers,” are unmistakable allusions to Ex. 22:21; Deut. 19:10; 6:14, 15; 4:10; Gen. 15:18; 17:8; 26:3 &c.

The prophecies written subsequently to the finding of the book also contain numerous undoubted allusions to, or quotations from, the Pentateuch. But those written before that time prove abundantly that Jeremiah, like Ezekiel, was well acquainted with the letter and the spirit of that law, which we now know as the Pentateuch. There can therefore be no doubt, that “The Law” of which he speaks as the Law of the Lord, existing at the same time as that known to Ezekiel, must be identical with it, and also with “The Book of the Law” found in the Temple. And thus the existence of the Pentateuch from the days of our Lord to the thirteenth year of Josiah is firmly established. But it was not then invented nor written for the first time; it was not anything new. Jeremiah had known it from his youth, for he was called at an early age. The people knew of it as well as the prophet; and therefore it could not have been invented any very short time preceding that in which Jeremiah began to prophesy. Neither could it have been invented in the days of Amon or Manasseh. Theirs were not days for trying to introduce a new religious system of laws, of which the great object was to extirpate idolatry. And therefore we must pursue our inquiry to the time of Hezekiah.

ISAIAH, MICAH, AMOS, HOSEA.

As “the Book of the Law” existed at the beginning of Josiah's reign, and could not have been forged in the days of Amon or Manasseh, it must have existed in the time of Hezekiah. But it is not necessary to depend on inference in this matter. There are four unimpeachable witnesses of the fact, the prophets Isaiah, Micah, Amos, Hosea, who bring us back beyond the days of Hezekiah to those of Uzziah and Jeroboam the Second. Three of these expressly mention “The Law of the Lord.” Two testify that it was written in a book. All cite the contents of that book sufficiently to identify it with that which we possess. Thus, in Isa. 5:24 we read, “They have cast away the law of the Lord of Hosts;” and again, 30:9 “Children that will not hear the law of the Lord.” Amos says (2:4), “They have despised the law of the Lord”; Hos. 4:6, “Seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God I will also forget thy children;” and again, 8:1, “They have transgressed my covenant, and trespassed against my law.”

These passages assuredly prove without just doubt that there was a law well known to the people, acknowledged as the Law of God, which it was a sin to transgress; and, as appears from the last passage, obligatory in the nature of a covenant. The title, also, appears to have been in these days, “The Law of the Lord,” as in Jer. 8:8. That it was written is testified by Hos. 8:12, “I have written to him the great things of my law, but they were counted as a strange thing.” And therefore Isaiah speaks of it as “The Book,” just as we speak of the Bible. In chap. 29:18, it is said, “In that day shall the deaf hear the words of the book,” which even Gesenius interprets of the Law. His commentary on this verse is worth transcribing.” The deaf and the blind are the hardened and blinded free-thinkers (mentioned verse 9), who shall then leave the darkness in which they had been sitting, and turn to the light of the Law (comp. 2:5). Sepher, The Book, by pre-eminence, is the Book of the Law, like ‘the roll of the Book,' Psa. 40:8, and ‘Books,' Dan. 9:2, the Holy Scriptures. The Arabs also use the expression, 'The Book,' pre-eminently of the Koran, though sometimes of the Holy Scripture of the Jews and Christians.”

Only one Book of the Law could have been called “The Book;” and, therefore, this Book, mentioned by Isaiah as so well-known as to require no further description, must be identical with “the Book of the Law” found in the time of Josiah. But, as we have shown that this Book was our present Pentateuch, it follows that the Pentateuch existed in the days of Hezekiah; indeed, the words of Hos. 8:12 show that it was known in the days of Uzziah and Jeroboam the Second. Even if these prophets had quoted nothing from “The Book,” the identity stands fast; but they have references amply sufficient to satisfy all impartial minds, that they were well acquainted with the Pentateuch as known to us.

In the first place, it is plain that they are acquainted with the history. They know of the sin of Adam “Like Adam, they have transgressed the covenant” (Hos. 6:7): they know of the sentence on the serpent, “They shall lick the dust like the serpent, they shall move out of their holes like creeping things of the earth,” Mic. 7:17. But we have here, not only a reference to Gen. 3:14, but a quotation of certain words found Deut. 32:24. The Hebrew word for “creeping things” occurs only here, in Deut. and in Job 32:6. The references to Sodom and Gomorrah are frequent, Isa. 1:9, 10; 3:9, Amos 4:11, and Hos. 11:8. The promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, are also referred to, Mic. 7:20. Hosea refers to the history of Jacob. “He took his brother by the heel in the womb, and by his strength he had power with God; yea, he had power over the angel and prevailed, he wept and made supplication unto him. He found him in Bethel.” Here are three allusions, to Gen. 25:26; 32:24; and 28:11.

The bringing up out of Egypt, and the wandering in the wilderness, are spoken of in the very language of the Pentateuch; as Mic. 6:4, “I brought thee up out of the land of Egypt, and redeemed thee out of the house of servants; and I sent before thee Moses, Aaron, and Miriam.” Comp. 7:15. Hosea (2:15) says, “She shall sing there, as in the days of her youth, and as in the day when she came up out of Egypt,” referring both to Exodus, and to the song of Moses and Miriam; then again 11:1, “When Israel was a child, then I loved him, and called my son out of Egypt:” alluding particularly to the language of Ex. 4:22; 23, “Thus saith the Lord, Israel is my son, my firstborn: and I say unto thee, Let my son go, that he may serve me.” Amos (2:10) says, “Also I brought you up from the land of Egypt, and led you forty years through the wilderness, to possess the land of the Amorite.” Besides the Exodus, and the sojourn in the wilderness there is also a reference to Gen. 15:16. Compare also Amos 3:1, and 5:25. Micah (6:5) refers to the history of Balaam.

Positive Testimony to the Pentateuch: Ezra, Nehemiah, and the Later Prophets

Ezra, Nehemiah, And The Later Prophets.

These prophets also show an accurate acquaintance with particular precepts. Thus, when Isaiah says (ch. 1), “I am full of the burnt-offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts; and I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of he-goats;” in the original, the names of the animals are all masculine, because, according to the Mosaic Law, the males alone were lawful for burnt-offerings. In the next verse, “When ye come to appear before me,” he uses the language of Ex. 34:24, respecting the three great feasts. In the thirteenth verse, “Bring no more vain meat-offerings: incense is an abomination to me: the new moons and sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with. It is iniquity, even the solemn day of assembly.” Isaiah not only refers to several Mosaic precepts, but shows the same exact knowledge. Thus, he puts meat-offering together with incense, because for the former the latter was required. See Lev. 2:1, 16, and 6:14, 15. And, next to new moons and sabbaths, he mentions calling of assemblies or holy convocations, because these convocations were held at those times, as well as on the great Feasts: see the whole of the 23rd chapter of Leviticus.

Along with these holy convocations, he speaks of what is translated “solemn assembly;” but means particularly the seventh day of the feast of the Passover, and the eighth of that of Tabernacles. See Lev. 23:36; Num. 29:35; Deut. 16:8. Again, in chap. 2:7, Isaiah complains, “Their land is full of horses, neither is there any end of their chariots:” and in 31:1 he pronounces a woe against them “that go down to Egypt for help, and stay on horses, and trust in chariots because they are many, and in horsemen because they are strong.” Without the Pentateuch it would be difficult to explain the sin of having horses and chariots. Deut. 17:16 tells us, that to have them, or to send down to fetch them, was forbidden by Jehovah. Isa. 3:14, “Ye have eaten up the vineyard,” is an allusion to Ex. 22:5, “If a man shall cause a field or vineyard to be eaten and shall put in his own beast, and shall feed in another man's field; of the best of his own field, and of his own vineyard shall he make restitution.” The Hebrew word for “eat” is peculiar, and the same in both places, so as to leave no doubt of the allusion.

The prophet says (5:26), “He will lift up an ensign to the nations from far, and will hiss to them from the end of the earth, and, behold, they shall come with speed swiftly.” This is a citation from Deut. 28:49, where it is said, “The Lord shall lift up a nation against thee from afar, from the end of the earth, as swift as the eagle flieth.” At the same time Isaiah shows that he is the later writer by the alteration of the words, “He shall lift up a nation,” into “He shall lift up an ensign.” The latter part of the verse in Deuteronomy, “A nation, whose language thou shalt not understand,” is here omitted by the prophet, but it is referred to elsewhere in Isa. 28:11, and 33:19. Again in chapter 30:16, 17, there is a verbal citation of two passages of the law: “But ye said, No; but we will flee upon horses; therefore shall ye flee: and we will ride upon the swift; therefore shall they be swift that pursue you. One thousand shall flee at the rebuke of one; at the rebuke of five shall ye flee.” Exact parallels are found in Lev. 26:8, “Five of you shall chase an hundred, and an hundred of you shall put ten thousand to flight; and in the threat, verse 17, “Ye shall flee when none pursueth you.” Compare also Deut. 32:30. The reader will easily find many more.

But we must hasten on to the other and the so-called lesser prophets. Hosea, in chap. 9:3, &c., refers to a number of the Mosaic commandments. “They shall eat unclean things in Assyria. They shall not offer wine [offerings] unto the Lord, neither shall they be pleasing to Him: their sacrifices shall be unto them as the bread of mourners: all that eat thereof shall be polluted; for their bread for their soul shall not come into the house of the Lord. What will ye do in the day of the appointed assembly, and in the day of the feast of the Lord?” And again, 12:9 (10), “I will yet make thee to dwell in tabernacles, as in the days of the appointed feast,” not “feasts” as in some English Bibles.

In like manner Amos says (8:10), “I will turn your periodical feasts into mourning.” The Hebrew word is used especially of the Passover, Ex. 34:25; and of the feast of Tabernacles, Lev. 23:34. He uses the same word, chap. 5:1, and couples with it that peculiar word which we have translated above, “day of the solemn assembly.”

The new moons and sabbaths are also mentioned, Hos. 2:11 (13), and Amos 8:5. In Amos 4:4, 5, there is one short passage which shows an intimate acquaintance with many of the Levitic laws. It is this, “Come to Bethel and transgress; at Gilgal multiply transgression: and bring your sacrifices every morning, and your tithes after three years, and offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving with leaven, and proclaim and publish the freewill-offerings.” Now here is, in the first place, an allusion to the continual burnt-offering, Num. 28; in the second place, to the tithe to be laid up at the end of three years, Deut. 14:28, and 26:13; in the third place, to the thank-offering, in which sacrifice alone leavened bread is permitted. In Lev. 2:11 it is expressly said, “No meat-offering which ye shall bring unto the Lord shall be made with leaven: for ye shall burn no leaven, nor any honey in the offering of the Lord made by fire.” But with regard to the thanksgiving-offering an exception is made. First, it is said, Lev. 7:12, “If he offer it for a thanksgiving, then shall he offer with the sacrifice of thanksgiving unleavened cakes mingled with oil, and unleavened wafers.” But then it is added, “Besides the cakes, he shall offer for his offering leavened bread, with the sacrifice of thanksgiving of his peace-offerings.” In the fourth place, the prophet speaks of the freewill-offering, mentioned in Lev. 22:18-21, and Deut. 12:6; so that the accuracy of agreement in this one passage goes far towards proving that the law of which Amos speaks is identical with that which we now possess.

In Amos 2:11, 12, he speaks of the Nazarites in conformity with the command in Num. 6 In 3:14 he mentions “the horns of the altar,” commanded to be made, Ex. 27:2. Amos threatens, “The horns of the altar shall be cut off and fall to the ground.” But how is this a threat? what damage was likely to ensue because the ornaments of the altar were removed? To understand this it is necessary to remember, that, according to the Mosaic law, in order to effect an atonement for individuals or for the nation, it was necessary that the blood of the sacrifice should be put on the horns of the altar, as we find in Lev. 4:7, “The priest shall put some of the blood upon the horns of the altar of incense before the Lord, which is in the tabernacle of the congregation:” and again, in Ex. 30:10, “Aaron shall make an atonement upon the horns of it once a year, with the blood of the sin-offering of atonement. Once in the year shall he make atonement upon it throughout your generations.” This one threat presupposes, that the people threatened were well acquainted with these ordinances, and valued them so highly as to think deprivation a punishment.

These references may suffice to convince us that as these prophets are acquainted with the Law of the Lord, a written law, called “The Book,” and at the same time refer to the history and ordinances—to the periodic Feasts generally, and the feast of Tabernacles specially—to the new moons and sabbaths, to the accurate distinction of the sacrifices into burnt-offerings, sin-offerings, and thank-offerings—the nature of the animals required—the tithes—the distinction of clean and unclean food—the Nazarites—the construction of the altar, the mode of atonement, &c. &c.; and all this in the language of our present Pentateuch, the law of which they speak is the same as that known to us, even if there were no other records in the world but the Pentateuch and the writings of these prophets. But when we remember that the Pentateuch has been traced up to the days of Hezekiah, when these prophets exercised their ministry; and that besides there are historic books recording such a state of things as the Pentateuch must necessarily have produced, we can entertain no doubt as to the existence of that book in the days of these prophets, that is, in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, and Jeroboam, king of Israel.

A book received in the days of those kings and by such men as these four prophets, so intimately acquainted with the history of their people, so bold in contending against error and sin, and so zealous for the truth, could not have been a forgery of their own days, nor of those immediately preceding. It must have been received of old as the law of the Lord. Indeed, the fact that in their days, and long before, there were two rival kingdoms, two rival priesthoods, and two different systems of worship, makes it impossible that any new system of law could have been imposed by either of the kingdoms on the other. The priests in Bethel were not likely to receive a new law branding themselves as impostors, and their worship as idolatry; nor were the kings of Israel more inclined to acknowledge a law, which, if firmly believed, must put an end to their royalty. As, therefore, the Pentateuch existed in the days of Uzziah and Jeroboam II, and could not have arisen during any period of the schism, it must also have existed in the days of Rehoboam and Solomon. And this conclusion is confirmed by the historical books. A state of things is there described, just such as would have arisen from the knowledge of the Pentateuch, and allusions are made to certain portions of that book.

BOOK OF KINGS.

In the kingdom of Judah, to which the whole body of the Levites gave in their adhesion, distinct traces of the Pentateuch may be found. In 2 Kings 14:6 it is related that Amaziah slew the murderers of his father, but the children of the murderers he slew not. The historian adds, “according unto that which is written in the book of the law of Moses, wherein the Lord commanded, saying, The fathers shall not be put to death for the children, or the children for the fathers.” But if the historian had omitted this reference, and only stated the fact, every attentive reader would have thought of Deut. 24:16, especially as Amaziah was a pious king, “who did that which was right in the sight of the Lord.” In the reign of Joash there are several obvious allusions to the Pentateuch. Thus 2 Kings 12:16, “the trespass-money and sin-money was not brought into the house of the Lord: it was the priests',” is in conformity with the laws in Lev. 5:15, 16; 7:7; Num. 5:18. Again, in ver. 4 we read, “And Joash said to the priests, All the money of the dedicated things that is brought into the house of the Lord, even the money of every one that passeth the account, the soul-money of his valuation, all the money that cometh into any man's heart to bring into the house of the Lord, let the priests take it unto them.” Here are three sorts of money reckoned; first, “that of him who passeth” —our translators have put in “the account.”

The language is that of Ex. 30:13, “Every one that passeth among them that are numbered:” the money is the half-shekel. As here for the Temple, so in Exodus this money was destined for the tabernacle of the congregation. Secondly, the money at which the persons, or souls, were valued, Lev. 27:2-8, “Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, When a man shall make a singular vow, the persons [Heb. souls] shall be for the Lord by thy estimation;” and thirdly, the freewill-money. Without the Pentateuch this verse would be unintelligible. Again, in describing the elevation of Joash to his kingdom, it is said, “And he brought forth the king's son, and put the crown upon him, and the testimony.” The word testimony here means “the Law,” as Thenius says “The Law, a book in which the Mosaic ordinances were written. After the king had been adorned with the diadem, this was held over his head in a symbolical manner.” In this sense the word testimony occurs Psa. 19:7 (8), where it is parallel to Torah, “The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul; the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple;” on which words Hupfeld thus comments: “Testimony, common expression in the Pentateuch for the Mosaic Law, properly a testimony, inasmuch as it testifies the will of God especially against sin.”

Thus a Book of the Law existed in the time of Joash; and as it also existed in the days of Uzziah, as we have already proved, it must be identical with it, that is, it must be identical with our present Pentateuch. About thirty years before, we find this book also mentioned. In 2 Chron. 17:7-9, we are told that Jehoshaphat sent five princes, nine Levites, and two priests to perambulate the cities of Judah, and teach the people; and they had the Book of the Law of the Lord with them. We have just seen that Thenius admits that there was such a book. Bertheau makes a similar admission here. He says, in his Commentary on the place, “The Book of the Law of the Lord was probably, in the opinion of the historian, our present Pentateuch. But if this book did not exist in the time of Jehoshaphat in its present form, there did certainly exist a collection of Mosaic laws; and it is possible that to make them known to the people was the task to be executed by those whom Jehoshaphat sent forth." But, as there was a collection of Mosaic laws in the days of Joash, only thirty years distant from this time, it is highly improbable that it was different from that which had been taught to the people by the command of Jehoshaphat. That book which existed in the days of Jehoshaphat must have existed before. It could not have been new. It could not have been fabricated in the days of Ahaziah or Jehoram, and must therefore have existed in the days of Asa; and accordingly we read, 2 Chron. 15:12, 13, that in the reign of Asa, Judah and Benjamin, and many out of the other tribes, “entered into the covenant, to seek the Lord God of their fathers with all their heart and with all their soul, that whosoever would not seek the Lord God of Israel should be put to death.” Now the idea of the nation entering into covenant with God is plainly taken from the Pentateuch. But here it is said, not merely that they entered into a covenant, but, as the Hebrew has it, into the covenant; and the great features of the covenant are described, “to seek to the Lord God of Israel,” and “to put to death those who would not.”

A known covenant must, therefore, have existed between God and the people. That covenant is described in Ex. 24 and Deut. 29, and the substance of the covenant thus described is the same as that here recorded. The beginning of the words of the covenant, in Exodus is the first commandment, requiring Israel to worship God and none else. And amongst the words of the covenant, Ex. 22:20, is found the same sanction, “He that sacrificeth unto any god, save the Lord only, he shall be utterly destroyed.” That described in Deut. 29 is precisely similar. They entered into covenant to have the Lord for their God, and to renounce all other gods, verses 12-21. In the description of Asa's zeal, the historian describes in some places in the very words of the Pentateuch that which the Pentateuch requires: “to seek the Lord God of their fathers, and to do the law and the commandment."

Positive Testimony to the Pentateuch: New Testament

But the Christian has still stronger reasons for believing in the genuineness and divine origin of the Pentateuch. He has the testimony of the Son of God and His inspired apostles. And here it is to be observed, in the first place, that our Lord and His apostles speak of the Pentateuch in the language common to the Jews in all times, as “The Law.” Sometimes this expression was used of the Old Testament. But when spoken of in connection with the other portions as, “The Law and the Prophets,” or, “The Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms," it means the five books attributed to Moses. In the next place it is to be noted, that our Lord, the evangelists, and the apostles regard the Law as a divine revelation, and therefore possessing a divine authority. By Luke (2:23, 24, 39), it is called “The law of the Lord.” Paul (Rom. 7:22) calls it “The law of God,” He also teaches that obedience to the law gives life, transgression entails death (Rom. 7:7-11: compare Gal. 3:10). Again, when St. Paul cites the words of the Pentateuch, he ascribes them to God; for example, “God hath said, I will dwell in them and walk in them,” (2 Cor. 6:16, compared with Lev. 26:11, 12).

The whole system of New Testament doctrine concerning salvation, the guilt of man, the curse of the law, and redemption by the blood of Christ, rests upon the supposition that the Law is a divine revelation. In like manner the whole argument of the Epistle to the Hebrews concerning Christ's priesthood, the nature of His atonement, the typification of the gospel in Levitical ordinances, necessarily presupposes the divine origin of the Law (Heb. 8:5; 10:1, &c.). Our Lord also ascribes divine authority to the Law. He refers to it as the highest authority (Matt. 12:5, and Luke 10:25, 26), and speaks of its precepts as “The commandments of God” (Matt. 15:3). According to our Lord's teaching, the Law is so entirely divine, that “it is easier for heaven and earth to pass away, than for one jot or tittle of the law to fail” (Luke 16:16, 17), and therefore is to be violated by none (Matt. 5:19), “Whosoever shall break (or, weaken the authority, λύσῃ) of one of the least of these commandments, and shall teach men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven. But whosoever shall do and teach them shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.” To assert the divine authority of the Law more strongly, is impossible.

In the third place, it is to be observed, that our Lord and His apostles taught that the Pentateuch was given by Moses, that he was the penman and wrote the laws as given him by God. Thus the word “Moses” is frequently put instead of “the Law.” So Luke says (24:27), “Beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself” Again, our Lord says (Luke 16:29), “They have Moses and the prophets—if they hear not Moses and the prophets.” In these places the name of Moses is put for what Moses wrote, as “the prophets” for their writings. Still stronger is what the Lord says (John 7:19), “Did not Moses give you the law?” In Luke 2:22, and Acts 15:5, it is called “The Law of Moses.” Our Lord Himself says, “All things must be fulfilled which were written in the Law of Moses” (compare Acts 28:23, and 13:39).

No doubt it may, however, be said that the Pentateuch is called Moses and the Law of Moses, because it contains the history and some commands of Moses, on which was based the subsequent legislation; but that these expressions do not necessarily imply that Moses wrote the books. But the New Testament goes farther, and states distinctly that the books were written by Moses. In Matt. 22:24 the Jews said to our Lord, “Moses said;” in John 8:5, “Moses in the law commanded us;” again in Mark 12:19, and in Luke 20:28, “Moses wrote unto us.” The Lord, in His reply, confirms this opinion as to the authorship of the law, saying, “Have ye not read in the book of Moses?” (Mark 12:26). In the parallel passage (Luke 20:37), our Lord says, “Now that the dead are raised, even Moses showed at the bush, when he called Jehovah the God of Abraham,” &c. Moses can only be said to call God by that title by being the historian of what God had called Himself. The historian calls God the God of Abraham.

Moses therefore was the historian; and therefore our Lord says to the Jews (Mark 7:10), “Moses said, Honor thy father and mother,” and again, when speaking of divorce (Mark 10:5), “For the hardness of your heart, he wrote you this precept;” and, in like manner (John 5:46, 47), “Had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me; for he wrote of me. But if ye believe not his writings, how shall ye believe my words?” (Compare John 1:45, 46; Acts 3:22). James says in like manner, “Moses is read in the synagogue every Sabbath day” (Acts 15:21), Paul says (Rom. 10:5), “Moses writeth (γράϕει) the righteousness of the law,” referring to Lev. 18:5. It is evident therefore that our Lord and His apostles regarded the Pentateuch as the law of Moses, the book of Moses as the writings of Moses.

Fourthly, it appears also that they received the history which that book contains as true and authentic, the miraculous and supernatural as well as that which is according to the common course of nature. Thus in Mark 10:9 the Lord refers to the creation of Adam and Eve as historically true, and on the words of Adam founds His own command” What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.” In Matt. 24:37 He refers to the deluge, the destruction of the world, and the preservation of Noah; in Luke 17:32, to the fire and brimstone which destroyed Sodom and the cities of the plain, and the transformation of Lot's wife into a pillar of salt. So He refers to the appearance of God in the burning bush; the miraculous effect of looking at the brazen serpent; and the miraculous supply of manna as typical of Himself, where the comparison necessarily implies the truth of the fact (John 3:14; 6:49-51). Stephen repeats almost word for word the history of Abraham's miraculous call, the birth of Isaac, Jacob, and the twelve Patriarchs, the miraculous circumstances of the Exodus, and the giving of the Law (Acts 7).

Furthermore Paul compares the first and last Adam, and refers to the creation of the former from the dust of the earth (1 Cor. 15:21, 47, &c.), and to the creation of the woman (1 Cor. 11:7-9). He also refers to the temptation by the serpent, and the transgression of the woman, as real history (2 Cor. 11:3; 1 Tim. 2:13, 14); and in Rom. 5:12 he founds an argument upon the fact that death entered by sin. In Rom. 4:19 he refers to the miraculous conception and birth of Isaac, and in 9:10-13, to the election of Jacob and the rejection of Esau, as true history. He makes the Passover the ground of an exhortation to holiness (1 Cor. 5:7, 8) and presses upon the attention of the Corinthians (10:1-3) the passage through the Red Sea, the guidance of the pillar and cloud, as well as the miraculous supply of water; and upon that most miraculous trait in the history of the manna, that he that had gathered much had nothing over, and he that had gathered little had no lack, he founds directions respecting the exercise of charity (2 Cor. 8:15). In 1 Cor. 10:8 he refers to Baal Peor; and in 2 Cor. 3:13, to the miraculous glory in the countenance of Moses. He evidently receives the whole as inspired, authentic, and authoritative; holy, just, and good; a schoolmaster unto Christ; when the one object of his life, to preach justification by faith without the law, would naturally have led him to depreciate its authority, if he had not been instructed by the Spirit to receive it as a divine revelation.

Again, in the Epistle to the Hebrews, chap. 11, reference is plainly made to the Mosaic history from Cain and Abel to the passage of the Red Sea, as well as to the circumstances of awe and majesty under which the Law was given (chap. 12:18-21); to the wanderings and death of the rebellious Israelites (chap. 3:7-19), and the early institution of the Sabbath.

St. James, it is clear, refers to the offering of Isaac (2:21); and St. Peter points to the example of Sarah (1 Peter 3:6), to the deliverance of Noah (2 Peter 2:5, 9, 15); the destruction of Sodom; and the dumb ass rebuking the madness of the prophet.

These direct references, not now to speak of the numberless allusions to the Pentateuch in all the writings of the New Testament, prove that Christ, and the apostles to whom He gave the Spirit to guide them into all truth, did not accommodate themselves to the popular belief of the Jews; but knew, and heartily believed in, the truth, the divine origin and Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch. Christ's omniscience and the working of the Spirit of Truth in the apostles are sufficient warrant for the faith of every Christian man. Whether he can solve difficulties or not, he has the infallible testimony of Christ and His inspired apostles, and that is an answer to all objectors. He feels that he cannot reject the Pentateuch without renouncing his faith in his Savior. Christ Himself has stated the indissoluble connection between faith in the Pentateuch and faith in Himself. “If ye believe not his writings, how shall ye believe my words?”

Bishop Colenso has proved in his own person the truth of the Savior's appeal. He first rejects the Pentateuch; he then robs Christ of His Deity, by denying His Omniscience. According to him, Christ's knowledge as to “the authorship and age of the different portions of the Pentateuch” did not “surpass that of the most pious and learned of His nation." In perfect consistency with these sentiments, when he rejects Moses and the Pentateuch, he does not ask us in order to fill up the aching void, to fall back upon Christ and the Gospels, but upon the theology of the Sikh Gooroos, and other heathen, “who had no Pentateuch or Bible to teach” them. And this is in fact the drift of the new theology, to bring us back to scientific heathenism. Bishop Colenso has spoken out what others have been mumbling in dark sentences. But whilst it is possible to contrast the condition of Christendom with that of the Hindus, the Chinese of the present day, or the great nations of classical antiquity—the republic of Moses with the republic of Plato—the power of Christ's doctrine with the effects of the teaching of Socrates—we think it more agreeable to reason, as well as to piety, to refuse the new heathenizing theories; to abide by the old catholic doctrine, and hold fast the faith once delivered to the saints. [We are indebted to the late pious and learned Alexander 11I'Caul, D.D. for this masterly refutation of these shallow attacks borrowed from German sources by deluded Englishmen, as apposite to-day as more than forty years ago in his Examination of Bp. Colenso's Difficulties (London, Bivingtons, Waterloo Place).—Ed. B.T.]

Positive Testimony to the Pentateuch: Ruth and Judges

The Kings, And The Early Prophets.

Now here are three transgressions described: first, that they took meat to which they had no right; secondly, that they took it in a wrong manner; and, thirdly, that they took it at a wrong time. It is therefore evidently presupposed that the order to be observed had been fixed and was well known. In the Pentateuch that order is described: and perfectly agrees with what is here related. First of all, a certain portion was appointed for the priest, and it was not to be taken by himself but given by the sacrificer. See Deut. 18:3, and Lev. 7:29. With this compare also the account of the peace-offerings contained in chap. 3, from which it appears that the burning of the fat was an essential part of the sacrifice, as it is said, ver. 3, “And he shall offer of the sacrifice of the peace-offering an offering made by fire unto the LORD, the fat that covereth the inwards.... and Aaron's sons shall burn it on the altar upon the burnt-sacrifice, which is upon the wood that is upon the fire: it is an offering made by fire, of a sweet savor unto the LORD.” The anxiety therefore of a sacrificer, as described in the book of Samuel, that they “should not fail to burn the fat presently,” as well as the sin of Eli's sons, is explained by the ordinances of the Pentateuch. And yet it is quite evident that the mention of all these particulars is incidental, though a natural and necessary part of the narrative.

But as yet there is no mention of the Levites, not even when it is related that the ark of the covenant was conveyed to the camp of Israel to help them against the Philistines. This appears an omission, but it is no contradiction; for in chap. 6:15, where is related the return of the ark to Bethshemesh, they who are not alluded to before or after in the book, are described as being at their proper work. “The Levites took down the ark of the LORD.” No explanation is given, who they are, or why they should do it? To understand the circumstance related, the command (Num. 1:50, 51) is absolutely necessary.

In the account given in this book of the use to which the Ephod was applied is contained one of the most convincing proofs of the existence and knowledge of the ordinances of the Pentateuch, and one of the best specimens of Dr. Hengstenberg's skill and diligence in investigating Scripture. In 1 Sam. 14:37, it is related that “Saul asked counsel of God.” But how this was done we are not told; only we learn from verse 36, that the priest said, “Let us draw nigh hither unto God;” and from verse 3, that Ahiah, the son of Ahitub, was the LORD'S priest in Shiloh “wearing an ephod.” In chap 22:2 Doeg tells Saul, that Ahimelech, the son of Ahitub, had inquired of the LORD; and from chap. 23 we know that he did so by means of an ephod. In verses 2, 3, we are told that David twice inquired of the LORD; and in the following verses this is explained: “It came to pass, when Abiathar, the son of Ahimelech, fled to David to Keilah, that he came down with an ephod in his hand.” And at ver. 9 we are told, that when David knew that Saul secretly practiced mischief against him, he said to Abiathar, “Bring hither the ephod.” Then it is said, that David inquired and the LORD answered him; and again. in 30:7, 8, David said to Abiathar, “I pray thee, bring me hither the ephod. And Abiathar brought hither the ephod to David, and David inquired at the LORD.”

Now here is a use of the ephod not mentioned in the Pentateuch, in any of the passages where the making and the purpose of the ephod are described. Num. 27:21 helps to solve the difficulty and explain the mystery. There, speaking of Joshua as Moses' successor, it is said, “And he shall stand before Eleazar the priest, who shall ask counsel for him after the judgment of Urim before the LORD.” Here, the mode of asking counsel, namely, by the Urim, is made known, but there is no mention of the ephod. Ex. 28:30 informs us that the Urim and Thummim were in the priest's breastplate: and ver. 28, that this breastplate was inseparable from the ephod. “They shall bind the breastplate by the rings thereof unto the rings of the ephod with a lace of blue, that it may be above the curious girdle of the ephod, and that the breastplate be not loosed from the ephod.” When therefore Abiathar brought the ephod, he brought also the breastplate of judgment, and therefore the Urim and Thummim by means of which the answer was given.

Thus the incidental mention of the ephod requires and presupposes an intimate knowledge of the ordinances of the Pentateuch, not found together, but scattered about in various places of that book. At the same time it is to be observed that the historian, though he does not mention the Urim and Thummim here, does mention them expressly in chap. 28:6, where he says, that “when Saul inquired of the LORD, the LORD answered him not, neither by dreams, nor by Urim, nor by prophets.” There are allusions to many other ordinances of the Pentateuch, as 1 Sam. 21:3, 4; to the difference between the common bread and the shewbread, Lev. 24:5, &c; Ex. 25:30. In 1 Sam. 14:32, to the prohibition to eat blood, Lev. 7:26; 17:10. In 1 Sam. 20:5, 18, 27, to the feast of the new moon; in ver. 26 also, to Deut. 23:11, and Lev. 7:20, and 15:5, 8-11. In 1 Sam. 28:3, to the Pentateuchal prohibition against consulting those who had familiar spirits, Deut. 18:10, 11, and Lev. 20:27, &c.

In fact, in this book none can deny that we find all these ordinances of the Pentateuch: the tabernacle of the congregation, the ark of the covenant, the yearly visitation, the rejoicing with the whole household, the duties of the priests and Levites, the altar, the incense and the ephod, the Urim and Thummim, the priests' dues, and the manner in which they were to be received, the inquiring of the LORD by the priests, the new moon, the laws concerning ceremonial uncleanness, wizards and possessors of familiar spirits; and many of those described in the exact and peculiar language of the Pentateuch. And when to this we add, that the Pentateuch existed in the days of Solomon, to what other conclusion can we come than that it existed in the days of David also?

But, side by side with these historic records, there was from the time of David a series of hymns used in the public worship of Israel's God, and in the private devotions of His worshippers; and the total impression left by their perusal is, that the sweet singers of Israel were thoroughly imbued with the sentiments and the language of the Pentateuch. Many of them sing praises of the Law of the LORD, and many more refer to the history and great principles of the Pentateuch, so that if judged after the manner of human writings, one would say that the Pentateuch is the source and parent of that devotional literature which stands alone in the history of the ancient world. This grand impression no microscopic criticism can remove. The devotions of Israel all testify to the existence and power of the Pentateuch.

At the same time, a similar testimony may be elicited from the Psalms which confessedly belong to the times of David and Solomon. Thus, the eighth Psalm is an echo in the very words of Gen. 1. Psa. 29:10, “The LORD sat at the deluge (Mabbul), and sitteth a king forever,” is an unmistakable reference to the narrative of Genesis. The word Mabbul, deluge, is used only in these two places of the Bible. Psa. 11:6, “Upon the wicked he raineth snares (coals), fire, and brimstone,” is an obvious reference to the history and language of Gen. 19; Psa. 110:4, “Thou art a priest forever after the order of Melchisedec,” to Gen. 14 Melchisedec is nowhere else mentioned in the Old Testament. The epithets of God in the Psalms also show knowledge of the Pentateuch. Thus in Psa. 132:1, “The mighty one of Jacob,” occurs only in the Pentateuch (Gen. 49:24) before the time of David. “The God of Jacob,” Psa. 20:1, and “The God of Israel,” refer to the history of Jacob, and the change of his name. The sixty-eighth Psalm describes the majesty of God by a reference to the wonders of Egypt, the wilderness, and the giving of the Law at Sinai; and begins with the very words of Num. 10:35. Psa. 132:8, 9 contains references to the ark, the holy garments of the priests (Ex. 40:13), and the joyful shout of the people (Lev. 9:24). Verse 12 refers to the covenant and the testimony, that is, the law. Psa. 1 refers to “the statutes” as well as to the covenant by sacrifice. To enter into a discussion as to the authorship of other Psalms, which testify still more strongly as to the existence of the Book of the Law, is not possible here, nor is it necessary. Enough has been said to show, that in the days of David, Samuel, and Eli, the Pentateuch was known; and if so, it must have existed in the days of the Judges, and of its existence there are plain traces in the

BOOKS OF RUTH AND JUDGES.

The nature of these documents forbids us to expect a detailed narrative of the progress of religion, or of rites and observance of public worship. The book of Ruth is a family record, a sketch from private life. The book of Judges is a collection of memoirs of the remarkable persons, whom the LORD raised up to defend or to deliver the invaded provinces of Israel, not even an outline of the history of the whole nation. Allusion therefore to priests or religious laws or even to those parts of the land not similarly exposed, must be few and incidental. Those that do occur are the more satisfactory and convincing.

The first thing to be observed with regard to these books is that the fundamental principle of the Pentateuch, the dependence of blessing or cursing on obedience or disobedience, is the hinge on which every particular history turns. This is the binding principle that holds all these separate narratives together. The prosperity of a poor Moabitish widow and the success of armies are made to depend upon the fear of the true God and, the practice of the true religion. National calamity is the consequence of disobedience. God is the God of Israel, and rewards or punishes: the LORD who revealed himself on Sinai, as Deborah tells us in that wonderful song which Ewald and others admit to be the genuine work of the prophetess. In the next place, we find such a state of things as would naturally have arisen from the knowledge of the Pentateuch. There was a congregation, also a tabernacle of the congregation, here called the house of God, as in Samuel, Judg. 20:18; and an ark of the covenant of God, ver. 27; and the practice of inquiring of the LORD, vers. 18 and 28, and a priest to make the inquiry, ver. 28; and Levites consecrated to the service of God, 17:13, 19:1; and an ephod, 17:4 (Heb.); and burnt offerings and peace-offerings, 20:26, and Nazarites, 13:5, 7, and a yearly feast, 21:19, where the words refer to the passover; and the duty of marrying a brother's widow, and the punishment of him who refused, Ruth 4; and the obligation to redeem, 4:3-5; and the prohibition to marry the heathen (Judg. 14:3); and to eat that which is unclean, which caused Samson to conceal from his father and mother whence he got the honey, 14:9; and the belief in the inalienability of that which was solemnly devoted to the Lord (11:35), and the duty of overthrowing idol-altars, (6:28). Now all these things mentioned in the language of the Pentateuch testify to its existence in the days of Judges, and bring us back to the time of Phinehas the son of Eleazar, who was himself an eyewitness of the giving of the Law, and the LORD'S dealings in the wilderness.

The book of Joshua also gives the same evidence. But as without it we have traced the existence of the Pentateuch to a contemporary of Joshua and Moses, and as the controversies respecting the Book of Joshua would require much discussion, it is necessary to stop here for the present. The Pentateuch which we possess has been traced from the present time to the days when it was written; it must therefore be genuine. No apparent difficulties are sufficient to shake the testimony of the prophets and the historic books. In a book so ancient there may be many difficulties arising from the brevity of the narrative, from our ignorance of all the circumstances, from the errors of transcribers, &c., and some of them may be beyond the power of solution in the present day. But they who urge them as objections against the genuineness or authenticity are bound to account for the existence of the testimonies to which we have referred, and satisfactorily to set them aside before they ask us to reject what rests upon such an accumulation of evidence. The testimonies adduced can be examined by every reader of the English Bible. An attentive reader may find many more; and sure I am that he, who will take the trouble of patiently studying the Scriptures from Malachi to Joshua in reference to this subject, will arrive at the firm conviction that there never was a time in Israel from the days of Moses on, when the Pentateuch was unknown. (To be continued).

Positive Testimony to the Pentateuch: the Kings and the Prophets

The Kings, And The Prophets.

Asa brings us to the time of Jeroboam, the setter-up of the new kingdom and the new worship that existed in Israel from the days of the separation to the times of Hosea and Amos; and in all its institutions Jeroboam paid an involuntary homage to the Pentateuch. The object of worship was the golden calf, which the Pentateuch tells us was loved by the Israelites in the wilderness. The worship itself was inaugurated by the king in the very words used by Aaron on a similar occasion— “Behold thy gods, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.” The chief place of worship, “the king's sanctuary,” was at Bethel, consecrated as “the house of God,” by Jacob's vision and his vow. The priests were of the lowest of the people; as the Levites, living amongst the ten tribes, remained faithful to the ancient worship of the law. The great feast was an imitation of the Feast of Tabernacles, and the reason for its appointment, lest the people should go up to Jerusalem, as the law required; so that every circumstance of the new religion of Jeroboam is a reference to the Pentateuch. Even the king's residences at Shechem and Penuel have their reminiscences of the law.

Thus, in all his arrangements he appears to have had the history and ordinances of the Pentateuch before his eyes. Jeroboam brings us to the time of Solomon, and Solomon to that of David; and here the allusions to the Pentateuch are so many that a small selection must suffice. In 1 Kings 2:28 it is related that Joab fled unto the Tabernacle of the Lord, and caught hold on the horns of the altar; an unmistakable allusion to the construction of the altar, as commanded in the Law. On the horns also the blood was put, in order to procure forgiveness of God. Joab hoped, therefore, that his hold on these might procure him pardon from man. But the law, Ex. 21:14, commanded that the murderer should be taken even from the altar and slain; and, therefore, he was not pardoned. The expression, “Tabernacle of the Lord,” is also remarkable, and shows the great reverence for that which was Mosaic. The Tabernacle at Jerusalem was that which David had erected as the receptacle for the ark of the covenant when he brought it up to Zion. It is, therefore, not called “The Tabernacle of the congregation,” which was elsewhere. Though erected by a great and pious king, it did not obtain the title belonging to the original Tabernacle. In chapter 3:4 we read that Solomon went to Gibeon to sacrifice; and, verse 15, that he sacrificed at Jerusalem. But even this apparent irregularity shows a reverence for that which was Mosaic. The Tabernacle of the Congregation, and the altar of burnt sacrifice, were at Gibeon (1 Chron. 16:1-37; 2 Chron. 1:3-5). The ark of the covenant was in the new Tabernacle on Zion. Therefore sacrifice was offered in both places. In the description of the Temple of Solomon we find all conformable to the original commands respecting the construction of the Tabernacle: the Holy of Holies, and the Holy place, and the court, and the altars, and the golden candlesticks, and shewbread, and the Priests, and the Levites, at their respective duties. All was evidently arranged with the precepts of the Pentateuch before the eyes of the king and the priests; so that it is impossible to compare the two accounts in the Book of Kings and in the Pentateuch without coming to the conviction that the precepts of the latter were the same for the construction of the Temple.

But Solomon was an author; and some of his writings have been preserved; and in those universally received as genuine there are plain references to our Pentateuch. Thus, in Prov. 13:13, “Whoso despiseth the word shall be destroyed, but he that feareth the commandment shall be rewarded.” Here “the word” is parallel to “the commandment,” and proves that Solomon knew of a divinely-revealed law, sanctioned by reward and punishment. Ewald translates somewhat differently, but acknowledges that “word” and “commandment” mean revelation, saying in his note, “Who despiseth the word, that is, revelation and its doctrine, loses his true liberty.” And again 19:16 “He that keepeth the commandment keepeth his own soul: but he that despiseth his ways shall die.” Here, again, “commandment” is used in the same sense and in the singular number, just as it is repeatedly in the Pentateuch to express the whole of revelation. Thus in Deut. 8:1, “the whole commandment [not “commandments” as in our English version] which I command thee this day ye shall observe to do.” And again, 7:11, “Thou shalt keep the commandment, both the statutes and the judgments.” The commandment includes both the statutes and the judgments. The promise also, that the obedient shall live, and the transgressor die, is an allusion to the words of Moses, especially to Deut. 30:15: “I have set before thee life and good, death and evil.” Bertheau, preferring the other reading (the K'thib), “He that despiseth his ways shall be put to death,” finds another reference “to the common expression of the Mosaic law when it threatens capital punishment.” This reference to life and death is frequent, as in Prov. 11:4, 12; 10:16; 18:21. The words in Prov. 10:27, “The fear of the Lord prolongeth days,” are a direct reference to Deut. 6:2.

But besides these general references to the great sanctions of the Mosaic law, there are particular allusions to different places of the Pentateuch as, for instance, to Gen. 2 Thus 13:12, “When the desire cometh, it is a tree of life;” 15:4, “A wholesome tongue is a tree of life.” Again, Prov. 10:18, “He that uttereth slander is a fool,” uses the peculiar phraseology of the Pentateuch. The expression occurs only here and in Num. 13:32; 14:36, 37. In like manner, 10:23, “It is sport to a fool to commit impurity,” can only be understood by reference to Lev. 18:17; 19:29. In Solomon's declaration, that “a false balance is an abomination to the Lord: but a just weight is his delight” (11:1) and again, “divers weights and divers measures, both of them are an abomination to the Lord” (20:10, 23), the very words are taken from Lev. 19:36, and Deut. 25:13. The expression, “abomination to the Lord,” is particularly to be observed. It occurs again 15:8, 26, and is taken from the Pentateuch, Lev. 18:22; 20:13; Deut. 7:26; 12:31, &c.

Again, the words, “He that walketh a talebearer revealeth secrets” (11:13, 20:19), are taken from Lev. 19:16, “Thou shalt not walk a talebearer among thy people,” and do not occur elsewhere, except Jer. 6:28, and 9:3. Again, in Prov. 11:26 we have the verb Shabar used in the sense “to sell corn.” In this sense it occurs in no book written before Proverbs, except in the Pentateuch, and there it is found frequently, both in Genesis and Deuteronomy. But here in Proverbs the words, “Blessing shall be upon the head of him that selleth,” contain a beautiful allusion to the blessing of Joseph, that great seller of corn, Gen. 49:26. Again, 17:15, “He that justifieth the wicked, and he that condemneth the just, even they both are an abomination to the Lord,” is the very language of the Pentateuch, Ex. 23:7, and Deut. 25:1. Again, 20:20 “He that curseth father or mother” are the very words of Ex. 21:17. Again, 20:25, “It is a snare to a man who devoureth that which is holy, and after vows to make inquiry” is a plain reference to Deut. 23:21, “When thou vowest a vow, thou shalt not be slow to pay it,” and to the numerous laws (Lev. 27:9, 10, 14, 21) which forbid the alienation of anything consecrated to the Lord,

These specimens (and more might be furnished) are sufficient to prove that both the contents and the language of the Pentateuch, as we possess it, were familiar to Solomon. And as from the history it is certain that a written Book of the Law existed in his days, this agreement in substance and diction proves beyond a doubt that our Pentateuch was extant in the days of the wise king; and if in the days of Solomon, then undoubtedly in the days of David and Samuel. Let us, then, see if there be traces in the books of Samuel and the Psalms of David. But here the references are so many, that we can only select a few. In the first place, there are several references to the coming up out of Egypt. In 1 Sam. 15:2, we find in Samuel's address to Saul, “Thus saith the Lord, I remember that which Amalek did to Israel, how he laid wait for him in the way when he came out of Egypt)” and again, in the message of Saul to the Kenites (ver. 6), “Go, depart you, get you down from among the Amalekites, lest I destroy you with them; for ye showed kindness to all the children of Israel, when they came up out of Egypt,” the exodus is distinctly mentioned; and the command to Saul, and Saul's message to the Kenites, are necessary parts of the narrative. The extirpation of the Amalekites is accounted for by the history of their ancient enmity and cruelty; and the preservation of the Kenites by their former kindness. Both are connected with the coming up out of Egypt, and the historic narrative of the Pentateuch.

A second feature [and easily overlooked] in this history deserving of notice is, that Israel is described as having a public worship dependent upon a tabernacle and an ark of the covenant. The manner in which the ark is spoken of shows that it was well known. It is called “The ark of God” (1 Sam. 3:3); “The ark” (1 Sam. 6:13); “The ark of the covenant of the Lord of hosts;” “The ark of the Lord of hosts that dwelleth between the cherubim” (1 Sam. 4:3, 4). At the same time, these descriptions of the ark can only be understood by remembering what is told us in the Pentateuch, that there was a covenant between God and Israel; that the Ten Commandments are called the words of the covenant; and that stone tables of the covenant were deposited in the ark. The mention of the Cherubim, without any explanation, also refers the reader back to Ex. 25:18; 37:7 and Num. 7:89; and without these references we cannot tell who or what the Cherubim were. Then, as to the Tabernacle, we find that there were priests to minister and Levites to serve, and that the place of its location was visited annually by Israelites from a distance, as in the case of Elkanah and his family: a circumstance easily explained if we remember the commands in the Pentateuch, and inexplicable without them.

There were sacrifices also, and the various observances relating to them agree minutely with the ordinances of the Pentateuch. In describing the wickedness of Eli's sons, the historian incidentally mentions the rites and ceremonies which they violated; and on considering them with attention, they agree exactly with what Moses had ordained Thus, in chap 2:12 and following verses, it is said, “Now the sons of Eli were sons of Belial: they knew not the Lord. And the priest's custom with the people was, that when any man offered sacrifice, the priest's servant came, while the flesh was in seething, with a flesh-hook of three teeth in his hand, and he struck it into the pan or kettle or pot: all that the flesh-hook brought up the priest took for himself So they did in Shiloh with all the Israelites that came thither. Also, before they burned the fat, the priest's servant came and said to the man that sacrificed, Give flesh to roast for the priest: for he will not have sodden flesh of thee but raw. And if any man said, Let them not fail to burn the fat presently, and then take as much as thy soul desireth, then he would answer him, Nay, but thou shalt give it me now, and if not, I will take it by force.” ( To be continued).

Prince of Rosh Gog

In a former paper on, “The latter-day kings of Daniel” it was shown that “the king of fierce countenance,” of Dan. 8 is no other than the person generally called by the Jewish prophets “The Assyrian,” (Isa. 10:24; 14:25; Mic. 5:5, 6), and that he “appears to be the political enemy of restored Jews, and energetic leader of the confederate nations North and East of the Holy Land,” who say “Come and let us cut them off from being a nation, that the house of Israel may be no more in remembrance” (Psa. 83:4). But cruel and despotic though he be, “the Assyrian” will not be a truly independent potentate. For the word declares “his power shall be mighty, but not by his own power” (Dan. 8:24). From this we may safely conclude, therefore, that his power is a delegated one. As in the case of the Beast and the false prophet, the latter is the vassal of the former and receives his support, so the king of the north is the servant of another and does his bidding.

Now the question arises, Who is this mighty monarch that is more powerful than even the king of the north, and at the same time an equally bitter enemy of God's people the Jews? The book of the prophet Ezekiel (chaps. 38; 39) gives the answer to this question, and adds many interesting details on the last invasion of the land of Israel by their united foes.

In the opening of chap. 38 the prophet's attention is called to “Gog of the land of Magog,” the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal” (A. V.). Many scholars, however, follow the Septuagint or the oldest translation of the Old Testament extant, in rendering “chief” as a proper name instead of an appellative as in the common Bible (A. V.), thus “prince of Rosh, Meshech, and Tubal.” Young in his version gives the same; Newcome in his translation of our prophet, over one hundred years ago, understood the verse in the same way. So did W. Lowth, who wrote one hundred and fifty years ago. Again, without mentioning the long list of names that might be adduced in favor of this rendering, one would call attention to the last revision of our English Bible which also reads “prince of Rosh, Meshech and Tubal.”

Hence it is that many scholars taking it as a proper name, see in “Rosh” the Russian people or nation without any sound reason for doubt.

Objectors to this, however, argue that “Rosh” Should not be thus translated, but rendered as in the A. V. The word, they say, occurs in scripture between four and five hundred times, and is nowhere else rendered as a proper name. But this is really of no force, for the word would not be used as a proper name where no occasion called for such use. Here no other meaning can make tolerable sense nor agree with the rest of the context.

Still it seems desirable that the earlier names mentioned in these chapters should be examined a little more fully, both historically and geographically, in order to arrive at a more definite conclusion respecting the point at issue.

First then as to Gog, Michaelis compares the name Gog with Kak or Chak, the general name of kings among the ancient Turks, Moguls, Tartars, and Chinese; just as “Pharaoh” was the title given to the kings of Egypt in ancient time. “In our day the name is thought to have been discovered in cuneiform inscription which reads—Larisi and Pariza sons of Ga-a-gi, a chief of the Saka (Scythians) (Speaker's Comm. vi. 155).” Some writers make its origin to be Semitic, and derive it from Ga (to be high) and associate it with Gag (a roof) Josh. 2:6, (top of an upperchamber) 2 Kings 23:12, and Gog (high, a mountain). From this we may safely conclude that, when applied to a person, the word would mean an exalted and mighty one, an appellation particularly appropriate to the Autocrat of the Russias. By some the name is said to be symbolic; if so, it may be aggression and self-exaltation, in which case it would be most suitable to the above dignity.

Magog was the second son of Japheth and is said to have given his name to a land and people of the extreme north beyond the Caucasus. Josephus says “Magog founded those that from him were named Magogites, but who are by the Greeks called Scythians” (Ant. i. 6, 1).

Of these we have three principal tribes mentioned. The first in order and importance is Rosh. Now we are informed by an early writer that the Tauri inhabiting the Crimea were a Scythian people known by the name of Ros. Another traces this name to the Rha or Volga (some say Araxes) in the neighborhood of which this tribe lived. Gesenius makes Rosh to be “undoubtedly the Russians who are mentioned by Byzantine writers of the tenth century, under the name of οἱ Ῥώς dwelling to the north of the Taurus.” It is generally supposed also that the Basses mentioned in the book of Judith were the same people, with the name slightly altered. “To the north of the Tauri or Ros, between what is now the Dnieper and the Don was another tribe, the Roxolani, a mixed Sarmatian or Slavonic race called Scythians by Greek and Roman writers; and these are also said to have been progenitors of the present Russian race.” Thus may be gathered that the modern Russians can be traced to tribes in eastern Sarmatia, and that their name, or resemblances to it, present themselves among these tribes from at least the second century before Christ downwards. Hence too the name may be accounted for, as used in the Septuagint.

Meshech, a word meaning “to draw out (hence possibly to be “tall of stature"), was the name of Japheth's sixth son. Coupled with this is generally found the name of Japheth's fifth son Tubal which means “flowing forth” (i.e.” increase and diffusion of a race”).

These two brothers are generally admitted to have been the progenitors of the Moschi and Tibareni respectively, tribes constantly associated under the names of “Muskai and Tuplai,” in the Assyrian inscriptions, just as Meshech and Tubal are in scripture. “They can, therefore, scarcely fail to belong to one and the same ethnic family: so that if we can succeed in distinctly referring either of them to a particular branch, we may assume the same of the other. Now the Muskai (or Μόσχοι of the Greeks) are regarded on very sufficient grounds as the ancestors of the Muscovites, who built Moscow, and who still give name to Russia throughout the East. And these Muscovites have been lately recognized as belonging to the Tψhad or Finnish family, which the Sclavonic Russians conquered and which is a well-known Turanian race."

From the above may be gathered, then, that the consensus of testimony, both Ancient and Modern, is in favor of the opinion that the present nation of Russia is composed mainly of descendants from the Japheth mentioned first in Gen. 10 and repeated in Ezek. 38 as well as in other places in the Old Testament.

The vision which the prophet records here, however, refers to the time of the end, and is connected with the judgment of the nations prior to the millennium. Now when the descendants of Noah were scattered, we read “By these were the isles of the Gentiles divided in their lands.” And as God had His people Israel in view when He divided the nations: so will they be found in connection with that nation in the latter days. Then there will be two great confederacies of nations, that of the last under the “Assyrian” or “King of the North;” and that of the West under the first Beast of Rev. 13. The former will be the sworn enemy of the Jews, but the latter their then firm ally. However, they both perish by the hand of the Lord, at different times, it is true, but previous to the invasion here mentioned. This of the Russian leader will probably take place just on the eve of the millennium. Gog (the last representative of the Assyrian policy) will gather to his standard a mighty army of infantry and cavalry fully equipped with all modern weapons of destruction. There will be representatives of the various peoples that will comprise Russia at that time, or be under her influence (38). And so great will be the multitude of men and horses that they are described, by the prophet, as a cloud covering the land (ver. 9). In this invasion their leader will be but carrying out the well-known Russian system of steady aggression and acquisition, particularly in The East. Greed impels him to come up from the north quarters upon the mountains of Israel; and the plunder of an externally defenseless, but reputedly rich, people will be the object of the expedition. Their apparently unprotected condition will cause Gog to anticipate an easy victory, and a rich spoil for his armies (vers. 11, 12). But he will discover, to his dismay and utter discomfiture, that “He who keeps Israel neither slumbers nor sleeps.” For the LORD will lead His people and go forth to fight against him and his mighty army which will be destroyed with a great destruction. The slaughter will be so vast at this time that seven months will be occupied in burying the dead. Gog himself will also find his grave in the valley of Haman-Gog, where his followers will be buried with him: a wholly different end from that of Isaiah's Assyrian or Daniel's king of the north. Judgment will he executed at the same time on the land of Magog [i.e. the land of Russia] and among those that dwell carelessly in the isles,” and they shall know that I am the LORD.” He says thus will the Lord deal in righteousness with the enemies of Israel and clear the way for His reign of peace. The dream of a millennium introduced by “pacific principles” is not based on revelation in any way. On the contrary, scripture declares, “let favor be showed to the wicked, yet will he not learn righteousness.” “When thy judgments are abroad in the earth, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness” (Isa. 26:9, 10).

At present God is dealing with man in grace, but how few comparatively profit by this favor! Soon the day of grace will close, however, and He will mete out judgment to the rejecters of His gospel and the despisers of His Son—judgment by that Son whom they will oppose. Thus they will be punished with everlasting destruction from His presence and from the glory of His power (2 Thess. 1:9). Such is the doom that awaits the Prince of Rosh and his followers, the last of His enemies previous to the millennium. The Gog and Magog of Rev. 20 are judged subsequently to the thousand years of the Messiah's reign: a symbolic N. T. designation of the multitudinous hordes in Satan's last deception. How blessed to know the heavenly saints will be kept from the hour of trial which precedes all judicial dealings on a guilty world! W.T.H.

The Prize of Our High Calling: Part 1

Such is the title of a tract in defense of the late R. Govett's endeavor to prove that many who receive life eternal fail to reign with Christ, and suffer in Hades all the thousand years of the kingdom, because they were not immersed and rose not up to the requisite mark of good works. “It is of great importance,” says the author in his opening sentence, “to distinguish between (1) eternal life as the gift; and (2) the prize as a reward according to works.”

What saith the scripture? Does not the Lord identify what this theory distinguishes? Take Luke 18:29, 30: “Verily I say unto you, There is no man that hath left home, or parents, or brethren, or wife, or children, for the kingdom of God's sake, who shall not receive manifold more in this present time and in the age to come life everlasting.” Do not both coalesce here? Only the Gospel of John among the Four treats of eternal life as a present gift of grace, the special known and enjoyed privilege of him who receives and follows the rejected Christ. So in Matt. 18 to “enter into life” is when saints inherit the kingdom; which surely overthrows the alleged distinction.

The alternative again is not a punitive or purgatorial Hades for so many years, but “to be cast into everlasting fire.” Scripture nowhere anticipates for believers such a lot as Mr. G. imagined. The sheep on the King's right hand, or saved of all the nations at the end of the age (Matt. 25:31-46), were very defective in knowledge, but practically honored the King in His messengers. Those who will not are consigned to everlasting punishment, not to temporary suffering. So in Mark 9:42-50 it is either entering into the kingdom at whatever cost, or to be cast into hell-fire. There is no middle position between the kingdom and irretrievable ruin. Scripture nowhere speaks of crownless kings. The foolish virgins without oil in their vessels were but empty professors, who cry too late, Lord, Lord, open to us, whom He answers in the solemn words, “Verily I say unto you, I know you not.” Without doubt the Lord knows those that are His (2 Tim. 2:19). These virgins were not His, save externally and therefore for responsibility and judgment, not for life.

It is in John's Gospel we hear Christ opening the Christian privilege of present known life eternal, far beyond the hope of the kingdom which was revealed in the O.T. and enjoyed by all saints. What lack of spiritual intelligence to treat the kingdom as the grand prize and life in the Son as the common portion, even of the unfaithful to be in Hades while the rest reign with Christ for the thousand years! Not so does the Lord anywhere speak. In John 5:19-28 He lays down that one of two things awaits men now that He the Eternal is the Rejected here: life everlasting as a present possession, of which no O.T. saint ever thought; or judgment executed by Him as Son of man. To hear the voice of the Son of God made the dead even now to live of His life; to despise and reject Him as but man was to be left in death for dread and sure judgment. For there are two resurrections of wholly distinct character: one of life for those who have life already for their souls in Him, and do good according to that new nature, as none else do; another and later at the close of the kingdom when they that have done evil according to their sinful nature come forth for inevitable and endless judgment. But not the least hint is here, or in Rev. 20 where the prophetic vision of both is given, of a class who had life eternal raised to be judged according to their works, and yet to enjoy a blissful eternity in God's presence, after being in Hades for a thousand years as the penalty of non-immersion and a careless walk. The dead raised in the resurrection of judgment are cast into the lake of fire.

Indeed an O.T. saint knew better than this strange dream. It is due to the blind unbelief of Christendom which talks of universal judgment for sinner and saint, though Mr. G. cleared himself in part from that error. But the psalmist knew better, saying (Psa. 143:2), “Enter not into judgment with thy servant; for in thy sight shall no man living be justified.” Were God to enter into judgment even of His servant, there could be no justification for him; for judgment must deal inflexibly with sins. And what servant of His has not sinned since his confession of the Savior? No, salvation is by grace through faith, but impossible on the ground of judgment according to works, which is reserved for those who refused the Lord and rejected His “so great salvation.” Of the wicked only Rev. 20:11-15 speaks. “The dead were judged out of the things written in the books according to their works.” With this condemnation of each and all the book of life agrees. For therein was the record of the objects of saving grace. “And if any one was not found written in the book of life, he was cast into the lake of fire.” Not a word is here found of one written in that book. The books condemned them; the book of life had no such names written for grace.

Where then is there room for the distinction here thought of great importance? Where the intimation that any possessed of eternal life miss the prize of our high calling? Rom. 11:6 does not contradict Rom. 2 God will render to each according to his works: to those who, in patient continuance of good works, seek for glory and honor and incorruption, life eternal (that is, in God's kingdom as well as for all eternity too in God's grace; so little is the distinction found in scripture); but to those that are contentious and are disobedient to the truth, wrath and indignation [shall be], &c. But why set this against “grace”? For grace alone gave a new nature through faith of Christ, and works meanwhile in obedience and good fruit, so as to inherit life eternal for the body in the day of glory. Error dislocates the truth, puts one scripture into collision with another, and thus unwittingly makes a chaos.

No Christian doubts that 1 Cor. 9:25 tells us of an incorruptible crown as the prize. But the “disapproved” one at Christ's judgment-seat here spoken of is a worthless professor, and not a child of God. The apostle feared for some of the Corinthians in the church, Some were fleshly and party-spirited, making contentious badges not merely of Paul, Apollos, and Cephas, but of Christ. They were morally loose, and so worldly-minded as to sue their brethren at law-courts. They sought ease and honor among men, and made light of heathen temples and sacrifices. Levity and shame had clouded even the Lord's table in their midst, and gross vanity their misuse of spiritual gifts. Nay some questioned (not the soul's immortality, but) the resurrection of the dead. Who can wonder that the apostle was deeply concerned? Yet in his delicate consideration he applies the danger to his own case (compare 1 Cor. 4:6); as if he said, Supposing I were to walk without conscience and self-judgment before God, what must be the end of it? “I therefore thus run, as not uncertainly; so I combat, as not beating the air [as many there were doing]. But I buffet my body and lead it captive [his was no easy-going walk]; lest having preached to others I should be myself rejected.”

The preaching might be zealous, powerful, and blessed; but if the preacher indulged his lusts instead of mortifying them, God is not mocked, and he himself must be “reprobate.” The word which is softened down to “disapproved” is never used in the N. T. in any sense but the worst. If said of “land” (Heb. 6), it means “worthless,” bearing thorns and briars, but no acceptable fruit. So it is employed in 2 Cor. 13:5, 6, 7, never for what is good though failing. Lack of perception that the apostle had no real fear as to himself, but was transferring the case to himself to make it all the stronger if he were to walk so wickedly, misled not a few to imagine that he meant works rejected but the preacher saved. It is precisely the contrary here. The preaching might be all right, but the preacher's life was offensive to God, and himself therefore rejected or as the A.V. says, “a castaway,” which is quite sound, though it is a pity to multiply needlessly the rendering of the Greek word.

As to 2 Cor. 5:10, the true force is that “we must all be manifested before the judgment-seat of Christ.” It is not the same as the “we all” in 2 Cor. 3:18. A different form distinguishes them. In the latter “we all” means all and only Christians; in the former it is so framed as to take in not only all saints but all sinners too. Hence it does not say “judged,” but “manifested.” For the believer does not come into judgment, as the Lord ruled in John 5:24. We shall be fully manifested and give account and receive accordingly. But how will it be with the ungodly? Their manifestation must be “judgment;” for they believed not on Christ, and went on in unremoved sins till death. The believer did repent and believe the gospel, and was justified by faith. Nor will God reverse but stand to it; for “it is God that justifieth”; whereas His wrath abides on him who disowns the Son of God. And is not this truly righteous, however awful? The manifestation is therefore at different times, of distinct character, and with opposite results for those manifested. But it remains that we, the whole of us, shall be manifested, that each may receive the things in (or, through) the body according to those he did whether good or evil. Nothing more sweeping or precise; not a word to countenance failing believers shut out of the Kingdom, and judged with the wicked at the end according to their works.

It is ever wholesome and cheering to hear our Lord say, “I am coming quickly: hold fast what thou hast, that no one take thy crown” (Rev. 3:11). But this is far from implying that there will be crownless kings in Hades; and though we shall share the authority He will give us over the nations with Him who shall shepherd them with iron scepter, we shall be associated with Him who is the Morning Star which is far higher and better. This is before He dawns on the world as Sun of righteousness in both judgment and healing (Rev. 2:26-28; Mal. 4:2).

Christendom seeks to reign now, a heartless reign hollow and faithless. This, with error of all sorts, is what has been “garnered” during the centuries of insubjection to the word and Spirit of God. The only true place of the bride is to suffer here and now where He suffered to the utmost, awaiting the day when we shall be glorified on high and reign together with Him. Some of the Corinthians in their light-heartedness forgot the truth, and as the apostle said “reigned without us.” But with his large heart he added, “I would that ye did reign [for as yet it was a delusion and a wrong to Christ] that we also might reign with you.” He was far from menacing them with being punished in Hades, though he did not hide the apostolic path of present reproach and shame for Christ's sake in which so few are ambitious to be their successors. They prefer to be enthroned as bishops and archbishops, patriarchs or popes, from which earthly glory the apostles were wholly apart. Nor are the so-called Free Churches a whit less covetous of money, ease, and honor, as far as they can compass it. But in Luke 17 the Lord points two aspects of the kingdom: one present in the midst of men, which does not come with observation but is known in righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit; whilst we await a quite different, one. “For as the lightning which lighteneth from heaven to under heaven, thus shall the Son of man be in his day.” “Every eye shall see him”; and “where the body is, there shall the eagles be gathered together.” God's judgments shall not fail to light upon the objects of His displeasure.

Yet the apostle did not put off, the power of the kingdom till that day. He sought and exercised it not in word but in power by the Spirit, even now and here. (To be continued.)

The Prize of Our High Calling: Part 2

To speak of “imputed sanctification” is to diverge from scriptural truth. But sanctification is not merely in practice, which is always imperfect and admits of varying degrees. Mr. G. and his defender were not aware that the word of God speaks of a sanctification by a new nature coincident with being born anew, and antecedent not only to practical holiness but even to justification, of which popular theology is wholly ignorant. It is identical with saintship. This is meant in 1 Cor. 6:11: “But ye were washed, but ye were sanctified, but ye were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.” The order stated is exact, but it perplexes all who draw their doctrines from man instead of from scripture. 1 Peter 1:2 may make this truth clear to those that doubt: “elect according to foreknowledge of a Father God, by (or, in) sanctification of the Spirit unto obedience and blood-sprinkling of Jesus Christ.” Here too these human teachers are at sea. Yet the truth revealed is certain and plain. Election as God's children is shown in sanctification of the Spirit for obeying as (not the Jews, but) Christ obeyed, and His blood-sprinkling which cleanses from all sin, that is, for justification. There is a real and vital sanctifying by the Spirit when we are converted to God before we obey as God's sons and know ourselves sanctified. It is a life setting-apart to God, which precedes acceptance, and is overlooked by universal theology, Arminian and Calvinistic; but scripture, as here shown, makes much of it.

No serious person doubts that real Christians may be “carnal, walking as men,” as many Corinthian saints were; but those with whom they were not even to eat were under discipline and put away from among them, as “wicked” persons, no longer in the assembly, nor called a brother though he had been, and might be again if or when restored. But to be regarded as at the same time a saint and a wicked person is merely human theory, unscriptural and pernicious. The old leaven was to be purged out, that they might be a new lump, according as they were unleavened. Therefore, Christ having been sacrificed, we are to celebrate the feast, not with old leaven, nor with leaven of malice and wickedness, but with unleavened [bread] of sincerity and truth. If leaven enters, the church is bound to cast it out when seen, never to sanction its presence, being directly inconsistent; as the form was in Israel, so its reality in us. Some in the church might turn out unjust, but they were not to be tolerated but put away and should not inherit God's kingdom, any more than they had life eternal. None were to be deceived, as they had been. They had been baptized and eaten the Lord's supper, and were none the better but the worse, as chap. 10 warns. Evils such as these involve everlasting ruin no less than loss of the kingdom, though 1 Cor. 5; 11 leave room for repentance in the wondrous grace of God, and if restored, not only for renewed fellowship but for inheriting the kingdom; contrary to this singular theory.

The remark under 4 (p. 3) is quite inept, as far as Rev. 20:4 is concerned; and it is decisive on the point. “Notice the Church is not spoken of as reigning with Christ; but blessed and holy (practical sanctification) is he that hath part in the first resurrection. Unholiness excludes from the first resurrection.” Now it is certain that of no class of believers is holiness so strongly predicated as of the church in Eph. 5:25-27: “The Christ loved the church, and gave himself up for it that he might sanctify it, purifying it by the washing of water by the word, that he might present the church to himself glorious, having no spot, or wrinkle, or any of such things, but that it might be holy and blameless.” Where is anything said so deep and full of any other object of grace?

The real bearing of Rev. 20:4 is most comprehensive; for three classes are included. “And I saw thrones; and they sat upon them, and [instead of being judged according to their works] judgment was given to them.” These are the saints of the O. T. as well as the church caught up to meet the Lord at His coming (1 Cor. 15:23, 51, 52; 1 Thess. 4:16, 17; 2 Thess. 2:1), and seen glorified above from Rev. 4 onward. Secondly, the early martyrs of the Apocalyptic time, Rev. 6:9-11. Thirdly, those of the later and severer persecution of the Beast and the False Prophet before the Lord appears in glory. These two are distinguished in the subsequent clause, as “the souls of those beheaded on account of the testimony of Jesus and on account of the word of God;” “and those that did not worship the beast or his image, and received not the mark on their forehead and hand.”

As these witnesses for God were only raised after the translation to heaven of the first general class, and suffered to death for the truth as far as they knew it, they are here clearly described, seen by the apostle in their disembodied state, and raised from the dead to join the first great class after the Lord appears for the destruction of the Beast, the False prophet, and their armies, as well as for consignment of Satan to the abyss. Hence the announcement of the first resurrection here, in order to include in it these two classes of Apocalyptic sufferers, who might have been hastily thought too late to share the reign with the Christ the thousand years, as well as perhaps spiritually inferior, because their intelligence was small as the Revelation shows. But “Blessed and holy is he who hath part in the first resurrection”; and as they were slain by hostile authority, it is said “over these the second death hath no power.” But to infer that any living members of Christ's body, the church, do not share the rising to reign is wholly incongruous, unintelligent, and wild to the highest degree.

An attempt however is made to find a basis in Phil. 3, a chapter specially setting aside every dependence and boast but Christ, on whose account, says the apostle, “I suffered the loss of all, and count them to be filth, that I may gain Christ, and that I may be found in him, not having my righteousness which is [or, would be] of law, but that which is by faith of Christ, the righteousness that is of God through faith; to know him, and the power of his sufferings, being conformed to his death if any how I arrive at the resurrection from among the dead. Not that I already obtained the prize or am already perfected; but I pursue, if also I may get possession, since also I have been possessed by Christ. Brethren, I do not count to have got possession myself; but one thing—forgetting the things behind, and stretching out to those before, I pursue toward the goal for the prize of the calling above of God in Christ Jesus.” It is really the power of life in faith of Christ glorified which fills the apostle's heart to run the race with that prize in view; as far as possible from the notion of a reward according to works, which is essentially law, sterile and deadly. He utterly repudiates his own righteousness for that which is by faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith.

This agrees with what the Lord made of the resurrection of His own in John 5, the issue of what He gives the believer now—life eternal, which loves good, hates evil, and produces good fruit, according to (not law, but) sovereign grace, its opposite. Hence we hear of those that are counted worthy to have part in that age, which is the reverse of the present evil age, and the resurrection that is from among the dead. But He nowhere speaks of it as a reward of our good works, but the fruit of His life in power according to divine grace and its counsels.

No doubt it is a manifest token of God's righteous judgment that the saints should be counted worthy of His kingdom, as their wicked troublers deserve the penalty which awaits them. But this strange doctrine looks at the surface of things, overlooking the spring of grace and the power of the Spirit working in the heart by faith. Yet even while page 4 says that the incorruptible crown, the resurrection from among the dead, and the kingdom of God are different aspects of the prize, it adds that thus all may be lost through disobedience and consequent unholiness, and concludes that none of these is a question of pure grace. Yet the very next paragraph owns that grace is indeed needed every hour to insure them. Is not this to say and unsay? It is to confound those begotten of God with such as are not, in order to countenance the fable of saints left to unholiness, and hence to punishment for the thousand years when other saints shall reign. The simple truth is that the Lord prepares us for unreal professors, for those that say and do not, whom He denies to own, while Mr. Govett and his followers declare that they are His to the great dishonor of His word, the grief of the faithful, and the false hope of the fruitless.

As to failure and sin on the part of true saints through unwatchfulness, there is the plain duty of the church to exercise discipline; and the Lord acts as we read in 1 Cor. 11 to deal even to death of the body; just as the Father judges in loving care, as 1 Peter 1:17 no less than John 15 says. They are thus chastened in this life. Nowhere is there a hint of saints suffering in Hades while their brethren reign. Saints by call are disciplined now that they may be saints practically. If all these fail, they are not of God, and only false professors.

The Prize of Our High Calling: Part 3

It is not exact to say that “all saints will share in the Kingdom” or the millennial reign with Christ, but for a plain reason wholly different from the misteaching. The fact is that there will be a harvest of saints possessed of life eternal during the kingdom, who are (whether Israel or the nations) reigned over instead of reigning. These, like all those glorified before them, reign in life through the one Jesus Christ (Rom. 5:17); they and we shall reign to the ages of the ages (Rev. 22:5). This will be the eternal state to the exclusion of time or any other characteristic of a dispensation. But that saints by call are not saints by practice also is not apostolic doctrine; for the notion is directly denied in Rom. 8:30 and many other scriptures. When our Lord tells that many are called but few chosen, it is clearly the public call in the kingdom of heaven, and distinct from the work of peace according to His counsels, whereby all that have life in Him are described as having done good, and rise to a resurrection of life in contrast with a resurrection of judgment which is only for the unbelieving, unholy and unblessed.

But we come next to what in the same page 4 are called proof-texts, and first John 17:22. This is said to “refer to present union with Christ.” Its terms declare the contrary. “And the glory which Thou hast given me I have given them, that they also may be one even as we [are] one; I in them and Thou in Me, that they may be perfected into one; that the world may know that Thou didst send Me and lovedst them as Thou lovedst Me.” It is clear that the glory is not actually ours till He comes again, and that there can be no perfecting for us into one till then. But it is now for the world to “believe,” as in verse 21. When the glory is revealed, and not before, the world shall “know”; because it is a fact before their eyes and impossible to deny; and such is the distinction of vers. 22, 23 from what had been already presented by our Lord. The oneness “perfected” will be in the day of glory (as the oneness in ver. 21 is during the day of grace in order to act on faith now), and will only be matter of fact when the Lord appears and we with Him in the same glory (Col. 3:4; 2 Thess. 1:13).

We have already shown that Rev. 20:13 is the resurrection of judgment, in contrast with that of life, the one of the unjust only as the “first” is of none but the just. Neither Eph. 1:21 nor Eph. 2:6 applies save to our portion as in Christ. Thus the “age to come” is the millennial one, and our state is everlasting, as reigning in life (Rom. 5:17) is unlimited.

Then too Luke 22:29, 30 is no less misunderstood and misapplied. The Lord speaks of His own in a grace which secures from all their slips and follies. To construe His words here or anywhere else as a reward of their righteousness is distressing error and real self-righteousness. As a fact, they grievously failed, and Peter in particular. How can saints be so blind as to argue the contrary? Besides, glorious as “the kingdom” may be, it is not so deep or precious, as life eternal or union with Christ. The kingdom will be a magnificent display of honor; but eternal life and union with Christ suppose communion with God, and enjoyment of His love which is intrinsic and far beyond any display. The scheme spiritually is thus a total fallacy.

Again, Rom. 8:17 draws out the mistaken comment that the Greek particles “always signify contrast.” They may mean no more than distinction, like our “on the one hand” and “on the other.” All depends on the nature of the case intrinsically. Thus in 1 Cor. 12:8 to one (μὲν) a word of wisdom, to another (δὲ) a word of knowledge, though here different persons, were varieties rather than contrasts; and in Eph. 4:11 these (μὲν) apostles, and those (δὲ) prophets were so far from being in contrast that they form a joint class in 2:20 and 3:5. But we need not go so far from it. Take for instance Rom. 6:11, “dead indeed to sin (μὲν) and (or, but) (δὲ) alive to God in Christ Jesus.” To make one grace, and the other conditional, is not only error but absurdity. And so it is to separate heirship of God from being joint-heirs with Christ, though it is expressly a gift of grace (as in Phil. 1:29) to suffer for Him as well as with Him. He who does not suffer with Him now has not His Spirit and is none of His. It is perversion to make such a contrast in Rom. 8:17, and 2 Tim. 2:11, 12. The contrast, if any such thing were intended, would be with the millennial saints who enjoy entire exemption from such suffering, and therefore do not reign with Christ during the thousand years. But to make this of works is utterly unscriptural; for good works characterize all saints as born of God.

So with James 2:5. Loving God and one's brother is shown in 1 John 5:1 to be inseparable from being begotten of God. It is essential to the new nature. How dreadful to conceive a saint without loving God or obeying Him! Extremes meet when those who profess sovereign grace can thus talk like the lowest latitudinarians. It is precious to know that God has chosen the poor as to the world rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom; but when it is added “which He promised to those that love Him,” who but the legal would confine the latter clause to the poor and refuse it to a Nicodemus or a Joseph of Arimathea? This is not to read the scriptures in the Spirit; nor should we deny practical holiness to any one born of God, though he may fail here or there through lack of intelligence. Not a few who are correct in outward points easily apprehended by the mind may be far behind in the faith that worketh by love, which is characteristic of all who have passed from death into life, and will assuredly share the resurrection of life. One can believe in utterly “disobedient” profession of Christ, but hardly in a “most disobedient child of God.” Every true Christian is watched over by our God and Father in order to the partaking of His holiness. Does He not scourge every son whom He receiveth? Heb. 12:5-11. See also 1 Cor. 11:31, 32. Why overlook such plain scriptures as preclude and deny the extravagant theory before us? Gal. 6:8 is quite in harmony with the truth generally. But the word is akin everywhere.

The rapture of the saints is the crowning act of sovereign grace instead of being when the day of grace is past. The throne of judgment only comes into view when the heavenly saints are seated on their thrones around it above. And “who is worthy?” is answered by the Lamb alone, not by them (Rev. 4; 5). Can anything be more certain?

It is impossible to allow the correctness of the thoughts on the two letters to the Thessalonians, as not touching on the standing and privilege of the church, but on faithful service in waiting for Christ. The opening words refute this. What grace can be plainer than addressing them in both as “the church of Thessalonians in God the (or, our) Father and the Lord Jesus Christ”? and in the first saying, “Knowing, brethren beloved by God, your election”? Their awaiting His Son from the heavens in 1 Thess. 1:10 the apostle treats as part of their conversion to God from idols, no less than serving a living and true God. “The church in God the Father and Lord Jesus Christ” is a unique expression of the grace in which that infant assembly stood, conveying the strongest assurance of divine security in love, just because they were so young and had to face persecution from the first. Nor is such a beginning more than a sample of the privileges of grace of which these two Epistles are full, though no doubt there is not the unfolding of the body as in that to the Ephesians or of the Head as to the Colossians, written when the apostle was a prisoner of Christ in Rome so many years after. But they are the Epistles wherein is found the brightest communication of our heavenly hope, and the triumph of grace in our association with Christ far more intimately and profoundly than in the display of the kingdom in which He vindicates us before the world, and rewards some specially.

To say as p. 7 does, that “some of the Church will not be accounted worthy of the kingdom at the judgment-seat of Christ,” is to assert the strange doctrine without one word of proof. The exhortation to walk worthily is valid; the deduction of harsh dealing with failing saints is a fable. The idea that the question of reigning is decided at the judgment-seat is inconsistent with the likeness to Christ consummated in a moment at His coming to present the church glorious to Himself (not a part but the whole), and then bringing us into the Father's house, is a monstrous one. So in the Revelation the glorified are seen at home in heaven from chap. 4 which gives the first view of them there after their translation. And very striking it is that grace so deals; for we naturally might have thought of a judicial inquiry first of all. But nothing of the kind is implied till the close of their presence before the Lamb's marriage and the world-kingdom of our Lord is about to begin, when He and the glorified appear in glory and judgments. Only then is it said that His wife made herself ready; and I know nothing else that answers to such a phrase but our each giving account to Him of the things done through the body when we shall know as we are known. For we must all be manifested before His tribunal that we may each receive according to what he shall have done whether good or evil. This affects his particular place in the kingdom, but all reign without doubt if scripture decide.

What a solemn but withal joyful fact to those taught of God that we are already reconciled, justified, saved by grace as fully as God could through and in Christ our Lord, the last to question His own perfect and perfecting work! No longer a mistake in anything; no hasty thought to mislead; no prepossession or prejudice to warp, to which all here and now are liable. All will be in perfect light and perfect love. Even now we do not fear but delight in what manifests all as it really is. Then it will be without alloy, and ourselves like Christ to enjoy it to the uttermost, without an atom of the old man to darken or excuse; so that it would be real loss not to be thus manifested perfectly, if this could be. And we can understand why it should be just before we come in His kingdom where our particular place will depend on that which shall have been manifested of fidelity and devotedness, or the lack of it (Luke 19:15-26 Cor. 3:8; 1 Thess. 2:19, &c.).

Hence it is not with His coming to take us on high, but with His appearing and kingdom that scripture connects the crown of righteousness which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award in that day; but this, says the blessed apostle, not only to me but also to all that have loved and do love His appearing. Thus is sovereign grace reconciled with the nicest righteousness, His coming to receive us to Himself and for the Father's house being as evident for the one, as His appearing and kingdom will manifest the other. Nor can one conceive a sadder wound to this harmony, for all the elect children of God whom He justifies, than the notion without any solid ground for it, that the great mass of saints are to suffer the pains of Hades for a thousand years, say for not being duly immersed or some other point of difference, which multitudes glory in without the least fellowship with the Father and with His Son. Can there be a dream more distant from the general analogy of the faith? or more decidedly set aside by revealed statements as here shown?

The Prize of Our High Calling: Part 4

It is a fundamental mistake, then, to conceive the rapture of the saints “to be when this day of grace is past, and the throne of judgment set up” (p. 6). On the contrary, that the once lost sinners and the children of wrath should be caught up and set before the Father, in the closest association with Christ above, is the highest expression of sovereign grace. Instead of being display when this day is past, it is its triumph without an atom of judgment in it any more than in our Lord’s ascension which did not touch a single sinner in this world. “The appearing” on the contrary is the beginning of the Lord's action in personal judgment after God's providential inflictions close.

Again, how short and shallow is the view this system imposes on “worthiness of walk for the Kingdom of glory” (p. 7)! It supplants the love and holiness proper to every Christian for a then mercenary motive. The apostle comforts the Thessalonian saints in their endurance of persecution as a manifest token of God's righteous judgment, “to the end that ye may be counted worthy of the kingdom of God for which ye also suffer.” Christ was the object and spring of power; the kingdom, as the glorious day when the tables should be forever turned into rest for the suffering righteous, and trouble for their troubles, was but the consoling recompense. And this is so true, that every discerning eye can see how these very scriptures are stript of their fullness by this narrow and withering hypothesis. “That ye would walk worthily of God that calleth you unto His own kingdom and glory” (1 Thess. 2:12). How incomparably richer and holier His word than reducing it to the millennial kingdom, true as this may be! But why overlook that this is but one of three such appeals? “To walk worthily of the Lord unto all well-pleasing, bearing fruit in every good work, and growing by the right knowledge (ἐπιγνώσει) of God.” Here is yet more than the young Thessalonian saints had put before them. And Eph. 4:1 is larger and higher still than Col. 1:10, “Walk worthily of the calling wherewith ye were called”: a calling which embraces God's dwelling-place, and Christ's body in union with the Head over all things, immeasurably beyond the kingdom.

Thus we are throughout on the ground of grace which alone produces an answer in practical righteousness, which it does in those begotten of God, as 1 John elaborately states. Undoubtedly the difficulties are so great that to unbelief they seem insurmountable; but faith is entitled to count on being guarded by God's power for salvation complete, and is in no way disturbed by judgment's beginning, now as of old, from God's house (1 Peter 4:17). But the apostle gives no hint of believers suffering as an example, only “those that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus”; as it is in 2 Thess. 1:8, 9. The second sight of Hades which the scheme claims is a delusion.

So it is to deny “that all the dead in Christ will have part in the first resurrection.” Take Rom. 5-8 All points from “reigning in life” (5:17); “so also we (not some only), shall be of His resurrection” (6:5); “to be conformed to the image of His Son,” and if justified, also glorified (8:29, 30). How preposterous to be raised and glorified for Hades!

Take again 1 Cor. 15 the capital seat of the resurrection: “For since through man death, through man also resurrection of dead. For as in the Adam all die, so also in the Christ all shall be made alive” (that is, the simply Adam family in its universality, and the Christ family in its completeness) (vers. 21, 22). Is not this categorically all the dead sharing Christ's resurrection? So it is repeated in ver. 23, “But each in his own order (or, rank): “Christ, first-fruits; after that, those of Christ at His presence” (or, coming). Can any scholar question that οἱ χριστοῦ comprehends all the dead in Christ then to live? “Then the end” at once carries us, not to the resurrection of the unjust (for the chapter is occupied with that of Christ and His own), but to His giving up the conferred kingdom to Him that is God and Father after all such government is over. Then in vers, 49, 50 as we bore the image of the dusty man, we shall bear also the image of the Heavenly One; and this in connection with inheriting the kingdom with Christ, while those converted then in their natural bodies enjoy its blessed effects, as in both O. T. and N. T. But not a hint of some of the sons of the resurrection (Luke 20:36) falling short of their inheritance! yea, suffering torments in Hades that long while! And when from ver. 51 he opens the mystery of the living saints changed without death, the modern legend of excluding many real saints, in whom the Holy Spirit dwells (else they are not properly Christian), is itself excluded as an unscriptural invention. For though we shall not all die, “we shall all be changed.” For (52) “the trumpet shall sound; and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we (the then living saints) shall be changed.” Had the νεκροὶ been anarthrous, it might have left room for exceptions; but the article denotes the whole class, as the “we” does the survivors of God's family without exception with a destiny as far from Hades as can be.

It is exactly similar with 1 Thess. 4:14-17. And 1 Thess. 3:13 is the more striking, as we are therein assured, not merely of the raising of all that are Christ's for the first resurrection and reign with Him when He comes for them; but here we read of His coming “with all His saints, which is when He appears in His kingdom.” Can one ask a more overwhelming disproof of this strange doctrine? No less destructive is Rev. 20:4-6. “The first resurrection” there is for the purpose of supplementing the earlier and later martyrs in the Apocalyptic times. They were witnesses after the rapture of the saints generally, who were already seen seated on thrones; and those two classes are raised after the Lord appears to the destruction of both the Beasts, etc., and added to the enthroned. This is styled “the first resurrection,” embracing all who have part in it, in contrast with that of the unjust before “the end,” “the second death.” But here too is not a whisper of one emerging from Hades to join the rest of the risen when the thousand years are over.

We may add, that nowhere does scripture teach that the first resurrection is a judicial question; or as it is said in the tract, “This will depend on the decision of the Righteous Judge.'“ It exclusively depends for us on the grace which has given the Christian life eternal in Christ. Such a one cometh not into judgment, but has already passed from death into life; and He will raise him up at the last day, as He repeatedly declared. It is decided already by grace; and the believer is raised and glorified before he stands before the Beam of Christ to give account of all done in the body: a process of solemn interest for the saint and affecting his particular position in the kingdom, but only of judgment for the unbeliever when he is raised for judgment before the end. These things essentially distinct are here confused.

Further, as it is admitted (p. 8) that “all the church are called to this glory of the first resurrection,” let it not he forgotten that “ye were also called in one hope of your calling” (Eph. 4:4) is not declarative merely or dispensational but of effectual grace, like “one body and one Spirit” with which it is bound up. “One baptism” attaches to “one Lord” and “one faith too,” which belong to the sphere of profession, and might fail of effect in one way or another. “One God and Father of all” is wider than either, but expresses intimacy of the closest in the case of all Christians. Holiness practically, we all agree, is so imperative that without it no one shall see the Lord; and the professing Christian who does not pursue it only deceives himself. It is false and misleading to let people fancy that they may be real saints, yet unholy. “Every one” that has the grace-given hope resting on Him purifies himself as He is pure; others that have not are self-deceived. Because of iniquities the wrath of God cometh upon the sons of disobedience; but believers are essentially sons of obedience, and His love rests on them. If one sin, it is a grievous inconsistency. But grace does not fail to awaken self-judgment through our blessed Advocate with the Father, and restoration ensues. Those who do the wicked works of the flesh, and abide impenitent and indifferent have no part nor lot with Christ, shall not inherit the kingdom of God, and in no way share the portion of the saints in light.

Proverbs 15:8-17

Here we have admonition of still graver character.

“The sacrifice of the wicked [is] an abomination to Jehovah; but the prayer of the upright [is] His delight.

The way of the wicked [is] an abomination to Jehovah; but him that pursueth righteousness he loveth.

Grievous correction [is] for him that forsaketh the path; he that hateth reproof shall die.

Sheol and destruction [are] before Jehovah; how much more then the hearts of the children of men!

A scorner loveth not that one reprove him; unto the wise he will not go.

A joyful heart maketh a cheerful countenance; but by sorrow of heart the spirit is broken.

The heart of the intelligent [one] seeketh knowledge; but the mouth of the foolish feedeth on folly.

All the days of the afflicted [are] evil; but a cheerful heart [hath] a continual feast.

Better [is] little with the fear of Jehovah than great treasure and disquiet therewith.

Better [is] a meal of herbs where love is, than a fatted ox and hatred therewith.”

It was natural and a plain duty for a Jew, in case of a transgression, to bring the appointed offering to Jehovah. But this however was not only unavailing for the godless, but added fresh insult to God, unless with self-judgment before Him and that hatred of the evil committed which would work deeper care and vigilance against repeating it. If it were only to get rid of uneasiness, the man would be weaker than before, and more ready to sin afresh, and offer his sacrifice again. Integrity of repentance was indispensable. Accordingly the heinousness of such self-deception as compounding with God for sin is here strongly pointed out. “The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to Jehovah.” This is as certain, as that He has delight and favor in the prayer of the upright. He looks into the heart.

Nor is it only the perversion of a religious duty that is abominable in His eyes, but “the way of the wicked” in general; whereas He loves one that pursues righteousness, that is, practical consistency with his relation to God and man. This never was nor can be for fallen man unless he be born of God. Such were those that looked on to the Messiah. Blessed are all who have their trust in Him, said Psa. 2:13; and only those.

Meanwhile there is a righteous government of God who ever concerns Himself with the state, and not only the delinquencies and iniquities, of His own, even if not within the Abrahamic covenant. This and its present consequences even the patient and pious Job had to learn, and yet more his three “comforters of distress” and “physicians of no value.” He disciplines those He loves for their good. Here we read of “grievous correction for him that forsaketh the path,” leaving the time and way rather indefinite; but all is plain for him that hateth instruction—he “shall die.”

It is indeed a serious thing, but withal blessed if in faith, to have to do with a living God who searches, as the Lord Jesus does, the reins and the heart. When His grace is really known, it is a joy to welcome His search against unconscious self-love or levity; and one can plead, Search me, O God, and know my heart; prove me, and know my thoughts; and see if there be any grievous (or idolatrous) way in me; and lead me in the way everlasting. Here it does not go so far as Psa. 139, but says, “Sheol and destruction (Abaddon) are before Jehovah: how much more then the hearts of the children of men!” All things are naked and laid bare to His eyes with Whom we have to do.

A scorner is a bolder sinner against God and his own soul. He loves not to be reproved: “unto the wise he will not go.” Self is his aim and practically his God, and folly his life, which makes him a contemptuous refuser of all wisdom from above.

But next we read that a joyful heart maketh a cheerful countenance; just as the spirit is depressed or broken by sorrow of heart. Otherwise life is hollow, and a vain show. There can be no reality in the joy, and no rising above sorrow of heart, unless we are open and right with God. He would have us depend on Him with confidence—in His mercy and favor in Christ. We wrong Him if we so yield to the sorrow, as to break the spirit.

Then, how true it is that a man of understanding seeks knowledge He knows his shortcoming, and desires to fill the gap. But the mouth of the foolish feeds on folly, as he has no care for, and no perception of, wisdom.

There is danger for the afflicted to give up all their days to their grief; but this is to occupy one with nothing but circumstances of sadness. How wise to turn to Him who makes all things work together for good! This makes the heart cheerful, which is or has a continual feast.

Then one proves that “better is little with the fear of Jehovah than great treasure and disquiet therewith;” and “better a meal of herbs where love is than a fatted ox and hatred therewith.” The fear of Jehovah is the beginning of wisdom; and many waters cannot quench “love,” neither do the floods drown it. Love, as the N. T. pronounces, is the bond of perfectness.

Proverbs 20:24-30

IT is very certain that dependence on God alone secures a clean or righteous walk. So it was of old; so it is now. Man needs direction from above, and grace too, that in this world of pitfalls and confusion his ways may please the Lord. This is most impressively pointed out in the next words.

“The steps of a man [are] from Jehovah; and how can a man understand his own way?

[It is] a snare to a man rashly to say, [It is] holy, and after vows to make inquiry.

A wise king scattereth the wicked, and bringeth the wheel over them.

Man's spirit [is] Jehovah's lamp, searching all the chambers of the belly.

Mercy and truth preserve the king, and his throne is upholden by mercy.

The glory of young men [is] their strength; and the beauty of old men the hoary head.

Wounding stripes purge away evil, and strokes [purge] the chambers of the belly” (vers. 24-30).

It is not a weak one's goings but a strong man's, which are here said to be from Jehovah: how blessed, as well as necessary, to know Him who knows the end from the beginning, to whom the night shines as the day, and the darkness is as the light! Him faith can count on to direct the steps.

Jephthah was rash in the vow he made, but he stood to it and bore the consequence. Not so Ananias and Sapphira; but their deception did not shield them from death. We are bound to weigh seriously what we say before God, and not to retract for selfish reasons.

A wise ruler is not one who is too amiable to punish the wicked. The very aim and reason of his office is to be God's minister in externals, and a terror, not to a good work, but to an evil one. It is the more imperative, if men conspire, to scatter them and crush their power fearlessly.

Man's spirit is Jehovah's lamp, and so, far beyond that of a beast that goes downward. But it is going beyond scripture to boast of the great soul of man, and against scripture to say that it is the light which lighteth every man. For this is Christ alone; and the real meaning of John 1:9 is, that the True Light is that which, coming into the world, lightens, or sheds light on, every man. It had been another state before He came thus. The Incarnate Word so deals with every man, high or low, Jew or Gentile. Conscience is a solemn inward monitor for God against sin. Christ when He came did incomparably more—made every one and thing manifest in due character. Divines for ages are apt to talk like the Friends or the heathen: how little they have learned Christ!

Here again we learn that the king is preserved, not by inflexible firmness against the wicked, but by “mercy and truth.” Negative qualities fail to sustain. “His throne is, upholden by mercy” a godlike prerogative. He needs love as well as fear, not only for the people's happiness but for the stability of his rule.

It is folly and blindness to set young against old, instead of helping them to profit by an experience of great value which they lack. Let the old admire the energy of the young, and the young fail not to own the beauty of the gray head.

Stripes that wound we all need from time to time; for nothing less probes and cleanses the hidden evil that is at work. The deeper the mischief, the more painful the corrective that must pierce to its core. Such a chastening is not pleasant, but causes grief. Afterward it yields peaceful fruit of righteousness to those exercised thereby.

Proverbs 21:1-8

In Jehovah's hand is here shown to be the heart, whether of the highest or of the least; then what pleases and displeases Him, with the issues, for the evil or for the good.

“The king's heart in Jehovah's hand [is] brooks of water: he turneth it whithersoever he will.

Every way of a man [is] straight in his own eyes; but Jehovah weigheth the hearts.

To exercise justice and judgment [is] more acceptable to Jehovah than sacrifice.

A high look and a proud heart, the lamp (or, tillage) of the wicked [is] sin.

The thoughts (or, plans) of the diligent [tend] only to plenteousness; but every hasty one only to want.

The getting of treasures by a lying tongue [is] a fleeting breath of them that seek death.

The robbery of the wicked sweepeth them away, because they refuse to do judgment.

Very crooked [is] a guilty man's way; but [as for] the pure, his work [is] right” (vers. 1-9).

Of all men a king's heart from his position and duty might instinctively seem reserved and inflexible; but who resisteth Him that secretly rules as He will, even in the worst of circumstances? He will reign righteously and for the largest blessing, when the world-kingdom is taken. But even now the king's heart is in His hand Whom he may not know or disdain. Little as he thinks it, he subserves Him, as brooks of water the man who controls every rill for his gardens, his vineyards, or his fields. It is turned as He pleases.

It is natural to man as he is to count right every way of his; but the solemn truth for every one is that Jehovah weighs, not the acts only, but the heart. All things are naked and laid bare to His eyes with whom we have to do: let us never forget it.

Unless men be reprobate, they are apt to be religious after a sort and a measure; and their sacrifices are a resource too often for indulgence in sin. The sacrifice to God who gave Christ to suffer for our sins is a wholly different matter, the resting-place of faith, and the start of holiness. To do judgment and justice flows from it, and is indeed acceptable to God if with faith; as sacrifice without faith is nauseous and presumptuous.

Haughty eyes, and a proud heart, how abhorrent to God and unbecoming in man! It is sin unequivocally; the tillage of the wicked, their business, or their glory; their lamp or sinful field. The meek shall inherit the earth; Christ's time is their time. The present is the evil age. Diligence, directed by thought or plan, tends to plenteousness; as haste destines every one that so acts only to want; for haste leads to mistake, and mistake to loss, and loss to ruin. On the other hand the getting of treasure by a tongue of falsehood, even if it succeed for a while as it may, ends in worse ruin, like the fleeting breath of those that seek death, happy neither here nor hereafter. Truly they seek death without knowing it. Others who are bolder than to deceive resort to robbery in their wickedness; because they refuse to do judgment, their end is destruction. It will drag or sweep them away whence is no return. Christ is the only true and safe way; and we can now say He, the Son, is the way to the Father. The guilty man's way is not evil only but perverse or strange; for he does not stick at anything. The pure man on the contrary is upright in his work, carrying conscience with it, and pleasing God. Blessed are the pure in heart; for they shall see God.

Proverbs 21:16-23

A cluster of observations is here found of divine value for warning and wisdom in practical life.

“The man that wandereth out of the way of intelligence shall rest in the congregation of the departed (or, shades).

He that loveth pleasure (or, mirth) [shall be] a poor man; he that loveth wine and oil shall not be rich.

The wicked [is] a ransom for the righteous, and the treacherous in the stead of the upright.

[It is] better so dwell in a desert land, than with a contentious and irritable woman.

[There is] a desirable store and oil in the dwelling of the wise one; but a foolish man swalloweth it up.

He that followeth after righteousness and mercy findeth life, righteousness, and honor.

A wise one scaleth the city of the mighty, and casteth down the strength of its confidence.

Whoso guardeth his mouth and his tongue guardeth his soul from troubles” (vers. 16-23).

The goodness of God leads to repentance, and the fear of Jehovah is the beginning of wisdom. Christ attracts the heart, the one Mediator between God and men. He is the way, the truth, and the life, always the object of faith to the believer. Here is the way of wisdom; and the man that wanders out of that way shall abide in the congregation of the dead, far from God (16).

Next, we have the man that loving mirth or pleasure, and wasting life's time and work in that vain pursuit, must pay the penalty of indigence. Just so he that devotes himself to wine and oil, or enjoyable living, cannot acquire wealth for any worthy or legitimate end (17). Present indulgence forbids future profit.

Then a still more pronounced character comes before us, a wicked person as such. Even in the then and present evil age, when the divine government is not yet in manifested power, who but the blind can fail to see in the downfall of the wicked a ransom for the righteous from destruction, and the transgressor laid in the pit he dug for the upright? Everyone acquainted with scripture will remember how its history teems with such proofs. But outside its range, and in rather modern times (little beyond two centuries ago), take the return of the cruelly banished Waldenses, who were enabled to make their way back to their father-land, few in number and with no external military aid, against French and Italian armies of disciplined soldiers, against the Pope, the priesthood, their Romanist countrymen, and even their own sovereign of Savoy till he was ashamed to destroy the bravest and most loyal of his own subjects. Not that I for one defend fighting for rights; but God pities the oppressed that cry to Him, even if mistaken like most of their fellow-Christians (18).

Further, we hear of the sad hindrance to peace and comfort in the home from the presence of a contentious and irritable woman. Who has not seen the misery of having to do with such a one presiding? To dwell with a termagant of this kind is worse than living in a desert land (19).

Next, we are told of what is good and wise, and the advantages which ensue. The wise as the rule lack no good thing even in their earthly dwelling; for they aspire not nor covet, contrary to wisdom and the fear of Jehovah. The foolish live in ease, and swallow all up; and who is to blame but themselves (20)?

Again, he that pursues righteousness, and mercy (that is, faithfulness in relation to Jehovah and to mankind according to our true place as well as kindness also), finds “life, righteousness, and honor” —his own at compound interest. “His own,” did I say? say rather God's excellent gift. For none can so walk without faith in God and pleasing Him (21).

Nor is it only that the dwelling of the wise has a desirable treasure therein; but if danger threaten, a wise man surmounts all opposed—scales the city of the mighty, and cuts down the strength of the confidence thereof. What can force avail against wisdom (22)?

Moreover, valuable a faculty as good speech is, it is wise to spare the tongue as well as the mouth. The time, the tone, the way, and the end have all to be considered, lest a fair intention might not only fail but provoke. As the mouth has to beware of taking in beyond what is right and good, so the tongue of letting out what is not edifying. To keep one's mouth and tongue as in God's presence is to keep the soul from troubles without end (23).

Proverbs 21:24-31

We have seen that “slow to speak” is a safeguard against troubles; we now hear how evil it is to be swift to wrath and its expression. How many are the evils of humanity as it is!

“A proud [and] arrogant one, scorner [is] his name, dealeth in haughtiness of pride.

The longing of the sluggard killeth him; for his hands refuse to work.

He longeth greedily all the day; but the righteous giveth and withholdeth not.

The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination; how much more [when] he bringeth it with a wicked purpose!

A false witness shall perish; but the man that heareth shall speak enduringly.

A wicked man hardeneth his face; but the upright, he ordereth (or, considereth) his way.

[There is] no wisdom nor understanding nor counsel against Jehovah.

The horse [is] prepared for the day of battle, but deliverance [is] of Jehovah” (vers. 24-31).

If self-control in speech protects from many a trouble, how different is the scorner's lot and reputation! For pride and arrogance can brook no difference, haughty to superiors and disdainful where they can dare it. O what a blessed relief to learn of Him who was meek and lowly in heart! Yet was He the Son of the Highest, who bowed absolutely to His will, when despised, rejected, and loathed of men. “Even so, Father; for so it seemed good in thy sight!”

Honest labor has its duty, its interests, and its satisfaction. Sloth, which shirks from the work of the hands, leaves all the more room for carking care because of its fruitless desires, disappointed even to death.

The empty longing fills the day, in vain for the man himself and every one else. The righteous on the contrary, with a conscience exercised in the duties of his relationship, has the means through his diligence to open both heart and hand ungrudgingly to the need around him.

Jehovah has respect to the person before his offering. If it be a wicked person, how could his sacrifice be other than an abomination? So in Isa. 66:1-4 we read of the apostate Jews in the latter day: they may trust in the temple they build, where once the Lord of glory filled it; they may sacrifice a lamb, and offer an oblation, and present a memorial of incense, but they are no better than a dog's neck or swine's blood, or blessing an idol in His eyes who looks for and to the afflicted and contrite that tremble at His word. Worse still is it to bring a sacrifice with wicked aim, as superstition does.

Witness-bearing is the more solemn, because done with deliberate purpose and before God avowedly as well as man. To be false thus is indeed ruinous; but to hear the call and speak the truth is to honor God and serve man, and such a one speaks unchallenged and abidingly.

A wicked man has no shame, he acts and speaks with no restraint. Not so the upright, who looks up for the direction of his way, and considers well his steps.

No axiom so sure as that every claim to wisdom, understanding, or counsel against Jehovah is utter folly. Only destruction can be the end of such a policy.

And in vain is it to trust in ordinary means without Him. The horse may be prepared for the battle; but the victory is with neither the rider nor his horse. Deliverance is of Jehovah.

Proverbs 21:9-15

Next we have the vivid sketch of one who has to do with a helpmate whose willful temper is the source of continual chagrin and shame. Yet the word of wisdom gives good counsel to relieve and comfort notwithstanding such a calamity.

“Better to dwell in a corner of the housetop than with a contentious woman in a wide house [or, house of society].

The soul of the wicked desireth evil; his neighbor findeth no favor in his eyes.

When the scorner is punished, the simple becometh wise; and when the wise is instructed, he receiveth knowledge.

The righteous considereth the house of the wicked: the wicked are overthrown to ruin.

Whoso stoppeth his ears at the cry of the poor, he also shall cry, and not be heard.

A gift in secret pacifieth anger; and a present in the bosom, vehement wrath.

[It is] joy to the righteous to do justice, but destruction to the doers of iniquity “(vers. 9-15).

A contentious woman is of necessity a trial to every member of the household, but most of all to her husband. The house may be roomy, but only jars follow her; and if visitors call, it is but to increase his pain. No better place is there for him than to find a corner in the housetop; there can quiet be found, and, for piety, access to the Highest.

The soul is the living man's center; it is himself, the seat of his will. If this be unrenewed by, grace, and therefore under the enemy's dominion, he has pleasure in evil, not only himself doing things worthy of death, but enjoying the evil of others. What room is there in such a heart for loving another, whatever his need or distress? Favor in his eyes there is none even for the nearest neighbor.

The scorner has not only no respect for what is excellent, but affects to despise it and actively hates it. When such a one meets an exemplary retribution, it is a wholesome lesson to the simple who takes warning against that wicked way. But the wise, when he is instructed, receives positive knowledge for good.

So again the righteous is not merely grieved at the house of the wicked, but considers it to solemn profit. And no wonder; for the wicked are overthrown to ruin, even in this world.

Then the world is full of want, suffering, and misery. Is anyone disposed to stop his ears at the cry of the poor? God is not mocked, but resents hardness of heart; for “he also shall cry, and shall not be heard.”

On the other hand even the angry are not insensible to a gift if it be in secret. It would be resented if others saw or knew, or if the donor were prominent or talked. It is not only bad men whose anger is thereby pacified. See the effect on David when Abigail brought to his bosom a reward that exercised his conscience.

To the righteous it is their life and joy to do what is right, as it is a great sorrow when through any lack of care they, may fail. But nothing is so uncongenial to the workers of iniquity, ever in quest of gain through wrong. And destruction must be their portion. For there is not a creature unapparent before God, but all things are naked and laid bare to His eyes.

Proverbs 22:1-7

Even in a day when Israel was under probation and the earthly government of Jehovah with present results for good or ill, there could not but be the working of great moral principles in those that feared His name, far beyond what the natural man covets.

“A name [is] rather to be chosen than great riches, loving favor rather than silver and gold.

Rich and poor meet together: Jehovah [is] the maker of them all.

A prudent one seeth the evil and hideth himself; but the simple pass on and are punished.

The reward of humility, the fear of Jehovah, [is] riches and honor, and life.

Thorns, snares, are in the way of a perverse one; he that guardeth his soul keepeth far from them.

Train up the child in accordance with his course; and when he is old, he will not depart from it.

The rich ruleth over the poor, and the borrower [is] servant of the lender” (vers. 1-7).

It is usual to supply the word “good” in the version of the opening clause of this chapter. But this is so necessarily implied as to seem needless. For who could suppose that a false pretension is of any value? One's name in scripture is the manifestation of what one is: the object of the heart determines the character; and here it is supposed to be what is excellent in God's eyes as well as man's. Hence loving favor accompanies it; which is far from due to silver and gold, often the portion of the worthless.

In the essentials how little is the difference! Alike they come into the world, and alike they stand when the world passes away. “Rich and poor meet together; Jehovah is the maker of them all.” This the poor man is entitled to remember, and the rich man ought not to forget. Job had it distinctly before him: “If I despised the cause of my bondman or of my bondmaid, when they contended with me, what then should I do when God riseth up? and if he visited, what should I answer him? Did not he that made me in the womb make him? and did not one fashion us in the womb?”

The value of prudence in a world like this is next urged. The circumspect sees the evil and seeks timely shelter; the heedless goes boldly forward and suffers the consequence.

Humility of a true sort, the fear of Jehovah, has its reward in riches and honor and life, which greater ability misses for the lack of it.

The crooked or perverse man finds painful experience on his way, thorns, snares; whereas he that guards his soul keeps aloof from all such trials.

Early training, whatever the exceptions, has its good result. Train up the lad according to his course; and when he is old, he will not depart from it. So it was with Isaac thus trained by his father. Solomon's course was a much more checkered one, though we may hope there was repentance.

It is a difficult thing for a man of money to avoid airs with him that has none, and particularly if the latter puts himself under obligations to him. But faith delivers from this snare, and still more when there is a real living Christ.

Proverbs 22:15-21

THESE brief moral axioms here close with the following pair, the thoughtless child, and the calculating adult, which we do well to lay to heart.

“Folly [is] bound in the heart of a child: the rod of correction shall drive it far from him.

He that oppresseth the poor to increase his [wealth], he that giveth to the rich, surely [cometh] only to want.

Incline thine ear, and hear the words of the wise, and apply thy heart unto my knowledge.

For [it is] a pleasant thing if thou keep them within thee: they shall be together fitted to thy lips.

That thy trust may be in Jehovah, I have made [them] known to thee this day, even to thee.

Have not I written to thee excellent things in counsels and knowledge,

That I might make thee know the certainty of the words of truth; that thou mightest report words of truth to them that send thee?” (vers. 15-21).

It is a sure and solemn thing that folly is no calamity from without, but bound in the heart, and this not only when in the conflicts of busy life, but from our early days, departed as all now are from God by nature. “Folly is bound in the heart of a child”: exemption there is none from the most tender age. Nor does the utmost love or care adequately restrain folly. There is the rod of correction to drive it far away by Jehovah's prescription and with His blessing. It is the folly of a father or mother to think their way better than God's.

With the grown up another snare is too common: to oppress the poor in any form of increasing one's means; very especially to commend oneself to the rich by gifts they do not need. God's eye is on this folly too; and such “come to want” as such selfishness deserves.

To give heed to the words of the wise is itself a wise thing, to apply the heart as well as the ear to such as know better than ourselves. How sad the self-sufficiency that doubts it!

These words if kept within give satisfaction and pleasure; whereas all else palls and becomes distasteful, if not a shame. Nor is this all. They contribute to our own growth and the help of others by the help they render and the confidence they inspire. Thus do they become “together fitted to thy lips.”

But there is a better effect still, “that thy trust may be in Jehovah.” Therefore are such words made known; for who otherwise is sufficient for them? and what good is there that we have not received? Surely we do well to mark precisely the debt of each of us, “this day, even to thee.”

Further, let us not overlook the enhanced value of excellent things in counsels and knowledge by their being “written” to us. However good oral instruction, there is no small danger of mistake in the hearer, and still more of letting slip even what we understood. But we can read again and again what is written, and make it our own more fully. Hence the signal profit of scripture, as the permanent word of God to our souls, as nothing else can be.

A similar advantage, here noted next, scripture possesses, is “that I might make thee know the certainty of the words of truth.” Pure science has nothing moral in it, still less an affection, and least of all makes known God to the soul, and in His true relationship to me. This is just what His word does communicate in all certainty, for His word is truth of that spiritual kind. Unbelief makes the truth of God the most uncertain of all things, like heathenism with its gods many and lords many, but the one true and living God unknown.

How good too is the fruit resulting to others! “That thou mightest report words of truth, to them that send thee” as a trusty representative, or that “send to thee” for advice in difficulty. Does not God give songs in the night, Who teaches us more than the beasts of the earth, and makes us wiser than the birds of heaven?

Proverbs 22:22-29

THE apothegms before us have all a prohibitory character save the last which is a positive example to be followed and honored.

“Rob not the poor, because he [is] poor, neither oppress the afflicted in the gate; for Jehovah will plead their cause, and despoil the soul of those that despoil them.

Make no friendship with an angry man, and go not with a furious man; lest thou learn his paths, and get a snare to thy soul.

Be not of those that strike hands, of those that are sureties for debts; if thou hast nothing to pay, why should he take away thy bed from under thee?

Remove not the ancient landmark which thy fathers have set.

Hast thou seen a man diligent in his work? He shall stand before kings, he shall not stand before the obscure” (vers. 22-29).

It may seem singular to say, “Rob not the poor,” and in particular “because he is poor”; but it is a warning especially: so base, selfish, and cruel is human nature as now. The rich who might appear the more inviting prey to the unscrupulous are able to take care of themselves in ways that the poor would or could not essay. Hence bad men flatter the rich for gain, whilst they also rob or oppress those who ought to be objects of pity. But Jehovah has His eye on such villainy, at the very gate whence justice should flow, pleads the cause of the poor and the afflicted, and repays heavily those who despoil them.

With one given to anger it is hard to keep friends, and unsafe to make a friend; and to go with a furious soul is to run the risk of learning his ways, and thus to get a snare instead of a deterrent. Let not the sun go down upon your wrath, says the apostle; not to hear him in this is to give place to the devil. Even if we have grave reason, the only right Christian feeling is to forgive; and if you forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your heavenly Father forgive your trespasses. You who are so slow to forget your wrongs, perhaps imaginary, do you believe Christ's words?

If one realized the duty of having to pay, in any bargain that is made, or suretyship which one agrees to, there would be a serious consideration whether God approves and leads the way. But as drowning men catch at a straw for life, so the imprudent lose their own means, and then seek to draw to their help their trusting friends, even if these have little or nothing to spare. It is a trifle, say they or a mere form without risk; for it is sure to answer. The sanguine and the improvident thus ensnare others into their own ruin. How homely and pungent the hint! If thou hast nothing to pay, why should he take away the bed from under thee?

Another dishonesty is then held up to censure, in which men are apt to cheat craftily rather than with open violence. The ancient landmark set by thy fathers is to be kept contentedly, and without allowing a covetous desire.

Lastly, it is well to regard a man diligent in his work in a world where so many begrudge their time, care, and labor. No wonder that one who does his business with conscience, despatch, and skill makes himself at length an object for the king's honor if not need, leaving behind the obscure with whose company he began. Those who rule value industrial integrity.

Proverbs 22:8-14

Next we have an alternating series of characteristics to strive against or to cherish, with only evils following, which call for our heed.

“He that soweth unrighteousness shall reap vanity; and the rod of his wrath shall have an end.

He that hath a bountiful eye shall be blessed, for he giveth of his bread to the poor.

Cast out the scorner, and contention shall go out, and strife and ignominy shall cease.

He that loveth pureness of heart [with] grace of his lips, the king [shall be] his friend.

The eyes of Jehovah preserve knowledge, but he overthroweth the words of the treacherous.

The sluggard saith, A lion without, I shall be killed in the streets!

The mouth of strange women [is] a deep ditch; he with whom Jehovah is indignant shall fall therein” (vers. 8-14).

To begin here injustice is to end with mischief and disappointment; yet if this sours the temper and leads to wrath, its effect is neither great nor long. It is the O.T. analogue to Gal. 6:7, 8: “Be not deceived. God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall be also reap. Fur he that soweth to his own flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth unto the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life eternal.”

The bountiful eye, on the contrary, does not wait for the appeals of want, but looks out for it in this world of disorder and distress; and his hand and heart go with the good will of his eye; for he giveth of his bread to the poor. And such a one is and shall be blessed.

The scorner is not only ungodly and a sinner, but a source of mischief where he enters. Would you have contention to disappear, you must get rid of his presence, for it surely brings strife and shame along with it.

How different with the man who joins love of a pure heart to grace on his lips! He is a treasure, not only in private but for public complications. The king seeks such a one for his friend. It is the combination that is so rare.

Even in a world of deception, before the king shall reign in righteousness, when eyes are dim and ears dull, where the vile is called liberal and the churl bountiful, the eyes of Jehovah preserve knowledge, which otherwise would perish from the earth; and He overthrows the words of the treacherous, were they as high as Haman in the eyes of Ahasuerus.

Again, the sluggard who likes to lie abed says in his foolish fancy, A lion is without, I shall be killed in the streets! He is blind to the worst enemy that besets his chamber and enchains his soul.

But the mouth of strange women is yet more dangerous to the unwary, “a deep ditch” for such as yield to her snares. He who falls therein is apt to sink indeed to utter ruin, or, in the energetic phrase of this book, he is one against whom Jehovah hath indignation.

Proverbs 23:1-8

Here we have the cautions of wisdom against self-gratification and seeking the riches which furnish its means.

“When thou sittest to eat with a ruler, consider well who is before thee, and put a knife to thy throat, if thou [be] a man given to appetite. Be not desirous of his dainties; for they [are] deceitful food.

Weary not thyself to become rich; cease from thine own intelligence. Wilt thou set thine eyes upon what is not? For indeed it maketh itself wings, and it flieth away, as an eagle toward the heavens.

Eat thou not the meat of [him that hath] an evil eye, nor desire his dainties. For as he thinketh in his soul, so [is] he. Eat and drink, saith he to thee; but his heart [is] not with thee. The morsel thou hast eaten thou shalt vomit up, and waste thy sweet words” (vers. 1-8).

In Luke 16 our Lord depicts the easy-going gentleman, not an infidel but orthodox, who lived to indulge himself, clothed in purple and fine linen, and making good cheer in splendor every day. But, dead and buried, in Hades he lifted up his eyes, being in torments, the immediate consequence of living to self and not to God. But here it is rather the danger to one not used to luxury; and he is told to consider what, or who, is before him, and to put a knife to his throat rather than yield to self-indulgence. “Give us this day our sufficient (or necessary) bread” as the Lord told His disciples to pray. Dainties are deceitful food even for a Jew, how much more for a Christian!

If possible, more insidious and absorbing is the danger of seeking and setting the mind on being rich. Here it is not the mere appetite one has to guard against, but to cease from one's own understanding, so apt to find good reasons for an evil and selfish thing. The apostle declares that those who desire to be rich, even if they avoid by-paths to it, fall into temptation and snare, and many unwise and hurtful lusts which plunge men into destruction and ruin. For the love of money is a root of every evil; after which some having aspired have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves through with many sorrows. Hence it is their uncertainty, as well as our own self-confidence, that is graphically described. Our wisdom is to set our mind on the eternal weight of glory where Christ is, and to look not on the things that are seen; for how transitory these are, while the unseen are eternal. Wealth, says the wise man, does indeed make itself wings and fly away as the eagle to the skies.

There appears to be a link of connection between the counsel in ver. 6, not to eat the bread of one that has an evil eye, with setting the mind upon what is not in a covetous way as in ver. 5. And this tends to bind up ver. 4 both with what precedes and with what follows. For the desire of money is far less commonly for its own sake than in order to enjoy with more ease the things of the world and of human life. And the table forms no small part of these in general. But the point here pressed is to beware of accepting the hospitality of the insincere, who really begrudges the guest what he eats or drinks, while with his lips urging him to partake freely of his store. Far otherwise is such a host as he thinks in his soul. He says to thee, Eat and drink; but his heart is not with thee. The prophet Isaiah, looking to the King's reign in righteousness, lets us know that so it will not be in that future day of bliss for the earth. The vile person or fool, like Nabal, shall no more be called liberal, nor the churl or crafty be said to be bountiful. The wicked now strive to appear what they are not, and not to manifest what they are. For at heart men are ashamed of what they know themselves to be.

Can any discovery among professed friends be more sickening than to find, that one's welcome was a vain show, after being taken in by it? This is here represented energetically in ver. 8. The morsel thou hast eaten thou shalt vomit up, and thou shalt waste thy sweet words: that is, the thanks you expressed, when you thought his invitations were as cordial as kind. From ordinary life up to the most solemn acts of reverent faith and love, to eat and drink together is regarded as an act of hearts united. So much the more painful when one finds it wholly insincere.

Proverbs 23:19-28

Here the wise man begins with warning his son against association with the self-indulgent in drinking or eating. Next he commends heed to parents. Then he counsels to truth and understanding through it, with the joy it gives to the father and mother. Lastly he warns against corruption as utterly ruinous on all sides.

“Thou, my son, hear and be wise, and direct thy heart in the way.

Be not among wine-bibbers, among gluttonous eaters of flesh.

For the drunkard and the glutton shall come to poverty, and drowsiness shall clothe with rags.

Hearken unto thy father that begot thee, and despise not thy mother when she is old.

Buy the truth, and sell [it] not—wisdom and instruction and understanding.

The father of the righteous one shall greatly rejoice, and he that begetteth a wise [child] shall have joy of him.

Let thy father and thy mother be glad, and let her that bore thee rejoice.

My son give me thy heart, and let thine eyes observe my ways.

For a whore [is] a deep ditch; and a strange woman [is] a narrow pit;

She also lieth in wait as a robber, and increaseth the treacherous among men” (vers. 19-28).

The first part consists of parental advice against social dangers (19-25). The second (26-28) rises to Jehovah who warns of a still deeper personal danger. All opens with an affectionate appeal of a general kind.

“Thou, my son, hear and be wise, and direct thy heart in the way.” Not talking but hearing is the path to wisdom, and the heart is as much concerned at least as the ears.

Love of company outside, and free from home proprieties, is no little snare. Hence it is said, “Be not among wine-bibbers, among gluttonous eaters of flesh:” a temptation to the fast growth of youth, apt to be impatient of restraint, and full of impetuous energy.

Both eating and drinking expose to lack of moderation, especially if either became a habit. “For the drunkard and the glutton shall come to poverty, and drowsiness shall clothe with rags.” Shame and suffering must be the end of so unworthy a way; and where is the fear of Jehovah in it?

Hence the more earnest expostulation of ver. 22 and from both sides. “Hearken to thy father that begot thee, and despise not thy mother when she is old.” How sad to fail in reverence to parents, and especially to the one who had the chief care and love unfailing when the child most needed both! Oh! the shame of despising one's mother when she is old, and ought to have still more honor!

Then comes weighty counsel, and in particular at the start of public life. “Buy the truth, and sell it not—wisdom, and instruction, and understanding.” No money, it is true, can buy the truth; but the heart's desire and waiting on Him who gives freely and upbraids not. But there are many temptations to sell it for fleshly and worldly attractions, from which He alone can preserve. We may observe how truth leads to and is shown in the practical shape of wisdom, instruction, and understanding.

How emphatic too is the effect on the father's heart when this is so! “The father of a righteous one shall greatly rejoice, and he that begetteth a wise one shall have joy over him.”

This is repeated, and yet more, in ver. 25: “Let thy father and thy mother be glad, and let her that bore thee rejoice.” How happy too for the child!

But ver. 26 brings in Jehovah, it would seem, who claims the heart unreservedly. “My son, give me thy heart, and let thine eyes observe (or, delight in) my ways.” He, rather than the natural father, can speak thus without limit; and where the heart is thus given to Him, the eyes do verily delight in His ways; for they are goodness and mercy, truth and faithfulness.

On the other hand the snare from a harlot is perilous indeed. Lost to shame, her intrigues are subtle and varied. She “is a deep ditch”, as “a strange woman is a narrow pit,” out of which extrication can only be through divine mercy and power. The peril is further pointed out in ver. 28 “She also lieth in wait as a robber, and increaseth the treacherous among men.” It is not only that she has her insatiable ends, but that it leads on the other side to no end of wicked advantage and demoralization in every form.

Proverbs 23:29-35

Here follows the picture of him who loves strong drink to the life, ay, and the death.

“Who hath (or, oh!) woe? Who hath (or, alas!) sorrow? Who hath contentions? Who hath complaining? Who hath wounds without cause? Who hath redness (or, darkness) of eyes?

They that tarry long at the wine; they that go to try mixed wine.

Look not thou upon the wine when it is red, when it sparkleth in the cup, when it goeth down smoothly.

At the last it biteth like a serpent, and stingeth like an adder.

Thine eyes shall behold strange women, and thy heart shall utter froward things.

Yea, thou shalt be as he that lieth down in the midst of the sea, and as he that lieth down on the top of a mast.

They have smitten me [thou wilt say], I am not sore; they have beaten me, I felt not: when shall I awake? I will seek it yet again” (vers. 29-35).

As the chapter began with the evil of self-indulgence in eating especially in a ruler's house, so it ends with the still more evident danger of hard drinking, no matter where it may be. How graphic is the wise man's sketch!

Of all the lusts of the flesh, none from first to last exposes so much to shame and grief as intoxication. Others may be fatally ruinous to one's self or to our partners; but this is more stupefying, insensate, and disposed alike to folly and violence. “Who hath woe? Who hath sorrow? Who hath contentions? Who hath complaining? Who hath wounds without cause? Who hath redness of eyes?” The question is readily answered, “They that tarry long at the wine; they that go to seek out (or, try) mixed wine.” For intemperance ever seeks more and stronger incentives, till the thirst after them becomes overpowering,

No less wise is the advice given to nip the inclination in the bud. “Look not thou upon the wine when it is red, when it sparkleth (or, giveth its color) in the cup, when it goeth down smoothly (or, moveth itself aright).” Resist the beginnings, be not caught by the attractive look. “Avoid it, pass not by it, turn from it, and pass away.” “The wine of violence” is not the only danger, but the bright and the agreeable also.

What is the end in this world, of which the preacher here warns? At the last it biteth like a serpent, and stingeth like an adder.” As this is true of all our own will, so it particularly is the effect of yielding to this debasing gratification. What bodily anguish it entails, what self-reproach for conscience!

The follies too, which are among its results, are so stupid as to expose the victims to derision, as well as to excited feelings and expressions alien to them at ordinary times. “Thine eyes shall behold strange women, and thy heart shall utter froward things:” conduct which they themselves deplore when sober, hardly believing that they can have committed themselves to such disgrace.

But this is not all. “Yea, thou shalt be as he that lieth down in the midst of the sea”: all sense of danger is gone in this temporary madness, only exceeded by an opposite peril, “and as he that lieth down on the top of a mast.”

The talk too is no less idiotic: “They have smitten me”; yet “I am not sore"; “They have beaten me;” yet “I felt not.” “When shall I awake?” they babble out, but even so, they are not ashamed to say, “I will seek it yet again.”

Proverbs 23:9-18

We next hear maxims of wisdom and probity; then of the value of instruction for oneself, and of discipline for the child; next of joy over the wise heart and lips; lastly of guarding against envy and cherishing the fear of Jehovah.

“Speak not in the ears of a fool, for he will despise the wisdom of thy words.

Remove not the ancient landmark, and enter not into the fields of the fatherless; for their redeemer [is] strong; he will plead their cause against thee.

Apply thy heart unto instruction, and thy ears to the words of knowledge.

Withhold not correction from the child: if thou beat him with the rod, he shall not die; thou shalt beat him with the rod, and shalt deliver his soul from Sheol.

My son, if thy heart be wise, my heart shall rejoice, even mine; and my reins shall exult, when thy lips speak right things.

Let not thy heart envy sinners; but [be thou] in the fear of Jehovah all the day; for surely there is a [latter] end, and thy hope shall not be cut off” (9-18).

If grace has given us wisdom, inseparable from Christ who is God's wisdom no less than His power, who from God is made to us wisdom, it is vain and unseemly to speak its words in the ears of a foolish man. He needs to judge himself, instead of listening to words which his folly prevents him from understanding, and exposes him to the sin of despising. The Lord put the same mistake in a still more pungent form, when He told his disciples not to cast the holy thing to the dogs, nor to cast pearls before the swine.

Heartless dishonesty toward any and especially the fatherless draws out a far graver warning. It matters not whether it take the crafty shape of removing the ancient landmark, or the open boldness of entering into the fields of the fatherless. If they have no father, they need no lawyer any more than taking the law into their own hands. Their Kinsman, their Redeemer, is strong; He will plead their cause against the rogue, high or low.

Again, if instruction can be had, it needs application and the application of the heart, without which the head avails not. When right affection guides and governs, the ears profit by the words of knowledge, instead of knowledge puffing up.

Then comes the serious question of training, and not merely teaching the young; and the word is, “Withhold not correction from the child.” But if he needs chastening for moral delinquency, there must be self-restraint as well as holy resoluteness. He is not to be beaten with a scourge to his great pain or injury but “with the rod.” So beaten, “he shall not die,” but live the better. On the other hand the parent must not shirk pain to natural feeling: “thou shalt beat him with the rod, and shalt deliver his soul from hell.” Let the father fear the end of laxity, and look for blessing on a godly beginning.

Hear the touching encouragement, if the child bow dutifully. “My son, if thy heart be wise, my heart shall rejoice, even mine; and my reins shall exult, when thy lips speak right things.” Thus the fruit of righteousness in peace is sown for those that make peace.

But let no saint's heart envy sinners: whatever their appearance, they are set in slippery places, and cast down to destruction as in a moment. To be in the fear of Jehovah all the day is the true, safe, and happy place. “For surely there is a latter end,” and the saint's “hope shall not be cut off.” “Cast not away therefore your confidence which hath great recompence of reward. For ye have need of endurance, that, having done the will of God, ye may receive the promise. For yet a very little while he that cometh will come and will not tarry.”

Proverbs 24:1-9

The value of wisdom is the main topic in these verses, but here not as we have already seen in the fear of Jehovah, but as the strength of the faithful in the midst of evil men given to destruction and mischief. Why should any envy their lot or like their company?

“Be not thou envious (or, against) evil men, neither desire to be with them; for their heart studieth destruction, and their lips talk of mischief.

Through wisdom is a house built, and by understanding it is established; and by knowledge are the chambers filled with all precious and pleasant wealth.

A wise man [is] in strength, and a man of knowledge increaseth strength. For with wise counsels thou shalt make thy war; and in the multitude of counselors [is] safety (or, victory).

Wisdom [is] too high for a fool: he will not open his mouth in a gate. He that deviseth to do evil shall be called a master of intrigues.

The thought of foolishness [is] sin, and the scorner [is] an abomination to men” (vers. 1-9).

Men may be clever and interesting; but what of these qualities, if they are “evil”? They may flourish for a while; but they are enemies of God, and just object of horror, but pity too, and no more to be envied in any respect than their company to be sought. Underneath wit on the surface is their study of destruction; so that their lips cannot conceal the mischief they talk.

It is wholly different with the wisdom that begins with fearing Jehovah, which instead of active mischief builds up a house for family use, and by understanding establishes it. And as He prospered the wise in their projects, so He gave knowledge to furnish richly and pleasantly. For this book contemplates His people on earth, not present suffering with Christ and glory on high. How different Christ's part here below, and the lot of His faithful ones!

A wise man is strong, we are told. It is moral strength the reverse of Samson's physical with moral weakness and folly. Hence too a man of knowledge increaseth strength, instead of losing its advantage by heedlessness. As it is prospered in peace, so wise counsel is of the greatest weight in war (ver. 5), where as danger thickens safety is in multitude of counselors, not in self-confidence.

How well it is said that “wisdom is too high for a fool!” He is self-satisfied, knows not his emptiness, and asks not of God what he lacks. So far, he does well not to open his mouth where counsel is sought; for what could a fool say?

But there is a man more to be dreaded and avoided than the senseless; such as devises evil doings. Hence he earns the character of a master of intrigues. These men are truly mischievous.

To a godly soul another consideration arises still more serious: “the thought of foolishness is sin, and the scorner is an abomination to men.” It is not only the carrying out of mischief, but the thought of foolishness is sin. How sad when the heart allows it, instead of fleeing at once to God against it! But the scorner is odious above all, as one who is not only evil in mind and heart, but he takes pleasure in lowering and maligning the righteous.

Proverbs 24:10-18

Courage is tested in the day of trouble which gives the occasion to show its worth. But it shines better in delivering those who are in it; and this with integrity before Him who sees, to whom each owes his preservation and who takes account of man according to his work. He would have one to enjoy the good He gives, but consider wisdom and the issue. A wicked man is warned against lying in wait against the righteous man, who if he fall will surely rise, whilst his enemy stumbles into ruin. Nor does it become one to rejoice at the fall even of an adversary; lest Jehovah see it, and not for nothing.

“[If] thou losest courage in the day of trouble, thy strength [is] small.

Deliver those taken forth to death, and withdraw not from them that stagger to slaughter.

If thou sayest, Behold, we knew it not, will not he that weigheth the hearts consider it?

And he that preserveth thy soul, he knoweth [it]; and he rendereth to man according to his work.

Eat honey, my son, for [:it is] good; and a honeycomb [is] sweet to thy taste,

So consider wisdom for thy soul; if thou hast found [it], there shall be a result, and thine expectation shall not be cut off.

Lay not wait, wicked [man], against the dwelling of the righteous; lay not waste his resting-place.

For a righteous one falleth seven times, and riseth up again; but the wicked stumble into disaster.

Rejoice not when thine enemy falleth, and let not thy heart be glad when he stumbleth;

Lest Jehovah see [it], and it be evil in his sight, and he turn away his anger from him” (vers. 10-18).

A day of trouble naturally alarms and bewilders one who has not faith and hope in God. Even the believer, distressed after the word of Christ emboldened him to join his Master on the sea, “when he saw the wind boisterous” was afraid and began to sink. Had he looked off to Jesus, his strength had been great; for there only it lay. Little faith is little strength. Jesus is the same to us whatever the sea or the wind; and Peter apart from looking to Jesus would have sunk equally on the smoothest sea without a puff of wind.

To use strength for ourselves has no worth; but to deliver those that are in peril of death unjustly, from whatever source public or private, becomes a righteous soul. It is a duty independent of either friendship or neighborly claim. The Samaritan was the Lord's answer to the lawyer's question, Who is my neighbor? Without the least thought of justifying himself, he becomes neighbor to the sufferer who needed his help.

In vain did the priest and the Levite say of the man lying half-dead on the opposite side of the road, We knew it not: Jehovah considered it.

The conviction that He preserves one's soul brings His knowledge of all before the heart, as we may believe it moved the Samaritan to mercy, besides the certainty that He renders to man according to his work.

Honey is a good thing naturally where God made all things good, nor did He begrudge the honeycomb sweet to the taste in a land flowing with milk and honey. He had pleasure in providing good things freely for man, though He knew man would abuse them all.

But what is wisdom to thy soul? The communications of Jehovah are sweeter still, says Ps. 19, If thou hast so found it, “there shall be a result, and thine expectation shall not be cut off.” He that does the will of God abides forever.

The next is a warning to a wicked man to beware of craft or violence against the house of the righteous. Does not Jehovah see?

It is true that the righteous may fall ever so often— “seven times,” yet he riseth again; as the wicked do not but stumble into disaster. Look on the one hand at David; and at Shimei, Ahithophel, Absalom and Joab on the other.

How selfish and base to rejoice in the fall of an enemy! It may please the subtle enemy and the flesh too; but let not your heart be glad that he stumbles. Else Jehovah will surely see, and be displeased, and turn away His anger from him. And to whom? Let your conscience answer.

Proverbs 24:19-26

In order to walk righteously before Jehovah both faith and hope are very requisite. Present results are no real standard of judgment, and too apt to do harm to our spirits as well as to deceive others. And what does He see fitting?

“Fret not thyself because of evil-doers, be not envious of the wicked;

For there shall be no future (or, reward) to the evil [man]; the lamp of the wicked shall be put out.

My son, fear Jehovah and the king; meddle not with those that are given to change;

For their calamity shall rise suddenly; and who knoweth the destruction of them both (or, of their years)?

These [things] also [are] of the wise.

To have respect of persons in judgment is not good.

He that saith to the wicked, Thou [art] righteous, peoples shall curse him, nations shall abhor him;

But to those that rebuke [him] shall be delight, and a good blessing cometh upon them.

He kisseth the lips who giveth a right answer” (vers. 19-26).

It is a great thing for a believer to occupy himself and his lips with the good, especially now that God has revealed Himself in the Son incarnate; that he may not be overcome of evil but overcome it with good. The Jew was expressly separated from the Gentile, devoted as he was to his gods that were in no sense God. But the Christian who is surrounded by evil men and impostors is called to bear witness to Him who came in grace and truth, a divine person as truly as He was manifested in flesh, and this that his soul might receive of His fullness. He is thus enabled to pity and seek the blessing of the wicked instead of envying them.

The awful end of rejecting the Savior to his own ruin is present to one's own spirit, humbled by the known grace of God who will send the Lord Jesus shortly to execute a judgment which will extinguish the lamp of the wicked.

Therefore all the more does the believer fear God and the king in the form of honoring him who is His representative in earthly things, and to be obeyed in all things save to the dishonor of God and His word. Even then he is to suffer the consequences, never to resist or rebel like those given to meddling and change. For even here their calamity rises suddenly when they least expect it; and who knows the ruin that impends till it falls far and wide? “Fear God, honor the king,” says 1 Peter 2:17.

In a sort of appendix that follows the opening maxim is the value and duty of impartiality in judgment; which with respect of persons is but a mockery. But this undue favor assumes its worst form when the wicked person is complimented as righteous. Such a reversal of equity provokes whole peoples to curse the perpetrator and draws out the abhorrence of the nations in hasty likes and dislikes.

Honest rebuke of the wicked or of any unprincipled favor shown them as the rule wins delight and the cordial desire for a blessing upon such. It draws out the strongest mark, not only of respect but affection, when a right answer is given; whereas self curries favor by compromise.

Proverbs 24:27-34

These verses counsel practical wisdom in postponing one's comforts to the providing things honest outwardly; forbid unkindness and deceit in testimony, and denounce paying off old scores of ill-feeling; as they portray graphically the issue of the slothful at the close.

“Prepare thy work without, and make it ready for thee in the field; and afterward build thy house.

Be not a witness against thy neighbor without cause, neither deceive with thy lips.

Say not, I will do so to him as he hath done to me; I will render to the man according to his work.

I went by the field of the slothful, and by the vineyard of the man void of understanding; and, behold, it was all grown over with thorns: nettles had covered its face, and the stone wall thereof was broken down.

Then I beheld with set heart; I saw [and] received instruction:

A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep;

So shall thy poverty come, [as] a robber; and thy want as a man in armor” (vers. 27-34).

Consideration of others and personal honesty are entitled to have a place superior to providing personal or family comfort.

How often too the question of a neighbor comes up, and the danger of a prejudice! But the word is distinct: “be not a witness against thy neighbor without cause.” Things might not be as one would desire; but “deceive not with thy lips.” As the Lord put it, “All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them; for this is the law and the prophets.” He makes it positive duty, even if the neighbor failed on his side.

Still less should a righteous person venture on retribution. Who is he to assume God's place, and say, I will do to him as he hath done to me? How awful if He only rendered to us what we deserved!

The slothful man is an object of pity as well as censure. He might be estimable this way or that; but his field and his vineyard proclaim the fault and presage his ruin. Thorns and nettles hold the field where the good grain should wave; and the wall so broken down as to invite injurious man and beast. Is it not an objective lesson to him that beholds all with the least attention? Certainly it is no example but a serious warning. The outward discloses the inward. The heedless man lives to sleep his life away: “a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep.” He may be innocent of strong drink, or of sensual pleasure, or of wasteful company. His laziness ensures his ruin. “So shall thy poverty come as a robber and thy want as a man in armor.”

The true remedy is not industry for self, or activity in the world and the things of the world, but Christ the life eternal and sole propitiation for our sins to God's glory, the Lord of all, saints or sinners: the fullness of blessing and pattern of service.

Proverbs 25:1-7

Avowedly here is a supplement of “proverbs of Solomon” not contained in the preceding collection. What is there in this to demur to? Those we have had abide in their excellence. If more be added of no less divine excellence, why be ungrateful to God? Is our eye evil because He is good? Let us not be faithless but believing.

“There also [are] proverbs of Solomon which the men of Hezekiah king of Judah copied out.

[It is] the glory of God to conceal a thing; but the glory of kings [is] to search out a matter.

The heaven for height, and the earth for depth, and the heart of kings [is] unsearchable.

Take away dross from the silver, and there cometh forth a vessel for the finer.

Take away the wicked [from] before the king, and his throne shall be established in righteousness.

Put not thyself forward in the presence of the king, and stand not in the place of great [men].

For better [is it] that it be said to thee, Come up hither, than that thou shouldest be put lower in the presence of the prince whom thine eyes have seen” (vers. 1-7).

What an illustration of God's glory in concealing is that which the apostle Paul has unveiled at last by the Spirit when the fit moment arrived for its revelation! a great mystery truly, for it concerned Christ and with Him the church as His body. It was hid in God from the ages and generations when God was dealing first with individuals, then with His ancient people, whilst the great experiment was made in every way whether man by himself could be brought to God or worthily represent Him. The end of such dispensations was the rejection of Christ on the cross; which His grace made the ground of salvation by the gospel. Nor this only, but setting the risen and glorified Christ in the new and unparalleled glory of Head over all things heavenly and earthly, and uniting with Him those who now believe in the closest union of His body, would show His love in the Father's house and His glory at His appearing. It is a most wonderful proof that it is His glory to conceal a thing; but the principle applies widely, that we may be exercised in all dependence on what He alone can impart in His ways with us.

With kings it is the other side of sifting out, on behalf of their subjects, good or evil to reward or punish it. They are ordained by God and alike are the fountain of earthly honor, and bear the sword not in vain to punish evil-doers. Hence the need of searching out a matter.

No sovereign better than Solomon exemplifies that the heart of kings is unsearchable. See his decision of the dispute between the mothers, whose was the dead child, and whose the living one. Was there one soul that penetrated his heart when he asked for a sword and said, Divide the living child in two, and give half to the one and half to the other? The false mother was as willing as the true was not; but who could have anticipated it but the king? What sounded cruel turned out wise and kind. “The heaven for height and the earth for depth, and the heart of kings is unsearchable.”

All the more important, if there be precious metal, that the base alloy be taken away. Then only comes forth a thing of beauty and for use.

So is it that the wicked should not enjoy court favors. Righteous repudiation of evil ones establishes a throne in men's consciences.

But there is another moral element of great moment there and everywhere else: not self-seeking but a truly humble mind. As our Lord said, If it were but about a place at a feast, go and take the last, that when the host comes, he may say, Friend, go up higher. So here “Put not thyself forward in the presence of the king nor in the place of great [men].” What a reproof of vanity to be thrust lower and in the prince's presence too!

Let us not forget Him who lived what He said, and said for our edification, “everyone that exalteth himself shall be abased, and he that abaseth himself shall be exalted.”

Proverbs 25:15-20

Next we are reminded of the great profit in a patient spirit and a gentle tongue, even with men of high authority.

“By long forbearing is a ruler persuaded, and a soft tongue breaketh the bone.

Hast thou found honey? Eat so much as is sufficient for thee, lest thou be surfeited therewith, and vomit it.

Let thy foot be seldom in thy neighbor's house, lest he be full of thee and hate thee.

A man that beareth false witness against his neighbor [is] a maul, and a sword, and a sharp arrow.

Confidence in an unfaithful man in time of trouble is a broken tooth and a foot out of joint.

One that taketh off a garment in cold weather, vinegar on niter, so is he that singeth songs to a sad heart” (vers. 15-20).

That a ruler should be hard to move from his resolve one easily understands. Yet by long forbearing he is persuaded, where opposition would only fix his will. More generally still a soft tongue breaks the bone. Though proverbially, as men say, Hard words break no bones, gentle ones bend and break the strongest.

Sweetness is not all: one may have too much of it. A little honey is excellent; but if you have found it, eat enough and no more, lest you prove it an untoward feast, and sickness ensues, disagreeable to others no less than to yourself. But honey or natural sweetness must not enter an offering to the Lord. In divine things seasoning with salt is essential, not sweetening to suit the natural palate.

Neighborly kindness becomes us and promotes goodwill. But here again danger lurks, if one overdo. It is apt to degenerate into a thoughtless or a meddlesome habit; and instead of love hatred ensues. We must not give occasion, especially to those that seek it.

But false witness against a neighbor is quite another thing, and extremely heinous. He that bears it is here said to be mischievous in ever so many different ways: a maul to crush, a sword to pierce when the object is at hand, and an arrow to wound at a distance.

Confidence in an unfaithful man is a fault altogether opposed, especially if it be in time of trouble, when you reckon on the support you had vainly expected. It fails your spirit as a broken tooth does the mouth, or a foot out of joint the body.

Then again, what is it to remove a wrap in cold weather? does it not aggravate the chill? as vinegar acts on niter, not to smooth but to irritate. So are both like him “that singeth songs to a sad heart.” Prayer is seasonable for the afflicted, sympathy is suited; but singing songs is for the merry, not the sad. Mirth and its outflow must jar, as being wholly incongruous.

Proverbs 25:21-28

There is next a miscellaneous group of weighty counsel or observation.

“If thine enemy be hungry, give him bread to eat; and if he be thirsty, give him water to drink;

For thou shalt heap coals of fire upon his head; and Jehovah shall reward thee.

The north wind bringeth forth rain; and an angry countenance a secret (or, backbiting) tongue.

Better to dwell in a corner of the house-top, than with a contentious woman and a house in common.

Cold waters to a thirsty soul—so good news from a far country.

A troubled fountain and a defiled well [is] a righteous one that tottereth before the wicked.

To eat much honey [is] not good; and to search weighty things [is] a weight.

He that [hath] no rule over his own spirit [is] a city broken down, without wall” (vers. 21-28).

The first of these maxims must have startled an Israelite ordinarily; it rises above nature and law which deals with the evil-feeling and ways as they deserve. Here it is “the kindness of God,” and His call to act on a goodness which is seen in Him and can only flow from Him. We see it literally acted and on a large scale when divine power drew a Syrian host, sent to apprehend Elisha, blindfold into the capital city of Israel, and the king asked the prophet, Shall I smite? shall I smite? But the mouthpiece of God said, No: “set bread and water before them, that they may eat and drink and go to their master.” No wonder that the bands of Syria came no more into the land of Israel. What was strange then, and always must have been to man's mind, is now so congenial to the Christian that the apostle was led to cite the words as a rule for any and every day. “Therefore, if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink; for in so doing, thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head” (Rom. 12:20). It was God in Christ, it is God in the Christian. Is it obsolete in Christendom? May it not be in Christians? It is too precious to lose.

Verse 23 has elicited very different senses from translators; as we may see in the text and the margin of the A.V. Even here the converse of the last clause seems preferable; that as the north wind brings forth rain, so an angry countenance provokes a secret or backbiting tongue. If this be right, it is a call to gentleness even in the look, and a warning of the consequence of failure in that respect.

The next verse expresses the wretchedness of having to share a house with a contentious woman, which made a corner of the house-top an agreeable escape from such a din.

On the other hand good news from a far country is no less refreshing than cold waters to a thirsty soul. One looks for pleasant sounds at home, instead of noisy strife or murmurs. But if one receives good news from a far land, it is all the sweeter.

There is a report or a fact however that is calculated to give pain and to stumble—when a righteous one totters before the wicked. Thence one hoped for a fountain springing up, and a clear river flowing out perhaps. How sad that one can find only a troubled fountain, and a defiled well!

To eat too freely of what is sweet to the palate is not good, as we may have proved to our cost through lack of subjection to the word; but there is the opposite danger of excessive search after weighty things, which is a weight instead of a pleasure or profit. The Hebrew word translated glory, as is well known, means also weight. As the retention of the sense “glory” does not yield any result of a satisfactory nature, and requires even a negative strangely forced to give any good meaning, the other rendering is here adopted which seems to supply easily what seemingly is wanted.

There remains the last warning of wisdom, to beware of an ungoverned spirit. He that has no control over his own spirit exposes himself to all sorts of surprise, inroad, and ruin. Is he not like a city broken down and without a wall?

Proverbs 25:8-14

Nor is it only the self-conceit which pushes forward among the great that is reproved, lest a greater humiliation befall one. A contentious spirit is also to be shunned.

“Go not forth hastily to strive, lest [thou know not] what to do in the end thereof, when thy neighbor hath put thee to shame.

Debate thy cause with thy neighbor, but reveal not the secret of another;

Lest he that heareth disgrace thee, and thine ill-report turn not away.

Apples of gold in baskets (or, pictures) of silver [is] a word spoken in season (or, fitly).

An ear-ring of gold and an ornament of fine gold [is] a wise reprover on an attentive ear.

As the cold of snow in the time of harvest [is] a faithful messenger to those that send him; for he refresheth the soul of his masters.

Clouds and wind without rain is whoso boasteth of a false gift” (vers. 8-14).

Haste exposes to all sorts of mistakes, especially when it takes the form of strife with another, who can soon convict of error where it was least suspected to the shame of the too confident censor, when he looks in vain for a retreat and hiding-place.

One may discuss with a neighbor what concerns us deeply, but must beware of betraying what is somehow learned to his injury.

Otherwise its disclosure will disgrace him that spreads it so that the ill-effect will long abide.

On the other hand a word spoken to the point, or in season, is here compared to apples of gold in baskets of silver: fruit of divine righteousness served up with befitting grace.

Nor is it so with so blessed a display of what is precious; for a wise reprover on an attentive ear is a prized object and an ornament of great value.

Again, a faithful messenger in a world of unfaithfulness is an exceeding comfort to those that send him, here compared to the cold of snow in the time of harvest. He does indeed refresh the soul of his masters.

Whereas he who boasts of a false gift, or falsely giving, convicts himself as a sham, like clouds and wind without rain.

These painful, mischievous, and disappointing qualities are among the still more numerous evil ways of the first man. Whatever the good things set in contrast, they are seen in full perfection in the Lord Jesus, the Second man. And they are the exercises and manifestations of the new life in the believer, which our Father would have us diligently to cultivate.

Proverbs 26:1-7

“THE fool” has an unenviably large place in the first part of this chapter, that such as are not unwise may take warning, steer clear of thoughtlessness, and know how to act toward such an one.

“As snow in summer, and as rain in harvest, so honor is not seemly for a fool.

As the sparrow in wandering, as the swallow in flying, so a curse causeless cometh not.

A whip for the horse, a bridle for the ass, and a rod for the back of fools.

Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest thou also be like him.

Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own eyes.

He that sendeth a message by the hand of a fool cutteth off [his own] feet [and] drinketh damage.

The legs of the lame hang loose: so [is] a proverb in the mouth of fools” (vers. 1-7).

There is an evil that I have seen under the sun says the royal preacher (Eccl. 10:6, 7), as an error that proceedeth from a ruler: folly is set in great dignities, but the rich sit in a low place. I have seen bondmen upon horses, and princes walking as bondmen upon the earth. But both sights are unseemly, as anomalous as snow in summer or rain in harvest.

Next the figure is taken from the restless change of the sparrow, and the seemingly aimless flights of the swallow to express the emptiness of the folly that indulges in undeserved curse.

Again, the horse and the ass which need the whip and the bridle are taken to show that a rod is no less requisite to chastise fools if nothing less can restrain them.

But verses 4 and 5 are strikingly instructive save for those who know not to look for a guidance which is above appearances, and guides according to the realities in eyes that see where man cannot. To man's mind it is a contradiction; and no wonder, for he eschews a divine Master, who owns one that may be called to act rightly but provides a standard like Himself, and deals with the senseless in apparent inconsistency. In one case he leaves folly without notice, as it deserves; in another he exposes it, if he may convince even a fool of his folly, or caution another too easily imposed on, a thing not uncommon in this world.

Even to send a message through a foolish person is to incur such certainty of error that it is nothing short of cutting off one's own feet, which had better have undertaken the trouble; and well if it be not also to drink damage. It risks harm as well as total failure.

A parable is a wise saying, but it demands wisdom in its application. In the mouth of a fool it is as incongruous as a cripple's legs which hang about or do not match.

Proverbs 26:8-16

ADMONITION is continued, how to deal with the senseless; and it is the more needed as such men abound, and wisdom from above is requisite to deal with them for good. Nor are sluggards left unnoticed.

“As a bag of gems in a stone-heap, so is he that giveth honor to a fool.

A thorn that goeth up into the hand of a drunkard, so is a proverb in the mouth of fools.

An archer that woundeth all, so is he that hireth the fool, and he that hireth them that pass by.

As a dog that returneth to his vomit, a fool returneth to his folly.

Hast thou seen a man wise in his own eyes? More hope of a fool than of him.

The sluggard saith, A lion in the way; a lion in the streets

The door turneth on its hinges, so the sluggard on his bed.

The sluggard burieth his hand in [a] dish; it wearieth him to bring it again to his mouth.

The sluggard [is] wiser in his own eyes than seven that answer discreetly” (vers. 8-16).

As one devoid of sense is unfit for trust and incapable, so is he unworthy of honor, and as much out of place as a bag of gems in a heap of stones, or as the A. V. renders it a stone bound up in a sling, a danger to those at hand.

Again a pointedly wise saying, a proverb in the mouth of the senseless is as a thorn going up into a drunkard's hand. Instead of instructing others, it torments himself to no profit.

So also he that hires the fool or untried casual is as an archer that wounds every one, instead of hitting the mark. He is a source of hurt and danger to all.

Nor is there any hope of better things, unless the fool repent and learn wisdom from above. Left to himself he is as a dog that returns to his vomit, so he to his folly.

The wise are lowly and dependent on the only wise God. The foolish man is wise in his own eyes; he who only adds conceit to folly is the most hopeless of men.

But slothfulness is an evil to be dreaded, even if a man be far from a fool. And it is no uncommon thing for one in other respects wise to be apprehending a peril where there is none. It is because he is a sluggard, and because he shirks a duty to be done, he sees imminent danger, and cries, A lion in the way! a lion in the streets!

And what more graphic of the sluggard on his bed of ease than the door turning on his hinges! The believer has his new nature of Him, apart from whom no sparrow falls, and who counts the very hairs of his own head. The sluggard yields to the nothingarianism of self-pleasing in its lowest form.

Another vivid likeness is of the sluggard when he rises to take his meals. In his listlessness he buries his hand, not in his bosom but in a dish, and he is weary of so much as lifting it to his mouth. From such a one who could look for gratitude to God or kindness to a suffering fellowman?

And the sluggard, like the fool, does not fail to be wise in his own eyes, yea to count himself wiser than seven men that answer with discretion. He is so satisfied with himself, that he avoids any diligence to learn; which is all well for men, but needless for him He is a genius, and can afford to take his unfailing siesta. So it is that self-conceit flatters those who dislike work and are ambitious of a position only due to those who do not shirk labor, which is a wholesome discipline for man as he is; but it generally ends in their own ruin and the trial of those related to them.

Published

London:

T. WESTON, Publisher, 53, Paternoster Row.

Published Monthly.

Published

London: T. Weston, Publisher, 53, Paternoster Row. Published Monthly

The Rechabites

It is always easier to follow tradition than the written word of God; in doing so the conscience is not exercised, and we avoid the difficulty (sometimes a serious one), of giving reasons for our conduct. It is enough that we have been brought up from our infancy to believe and practice certain things, and to walk in a certain path: if right and good for our elders, why not for us? The Lord Jesus, in His ministry at Jerusalem, was frequently in conflict with the Pharisees about this very thing; as many passages in the Gospels (especially Matthew's) bear witness. That which has been handed down from father to son may not be bad in itself—it may have been good, at least for the time; but there is a false standard and a human authority set up in the soul, which, if it does not deny that of the word of God, will assuredly give it the second place. The Pharisee, attempting to approach God in all the excellence of his religious character (Luke 18:12), puts his fasting twice in the week, before the payment of tithes: the former was not enjoined in the Mosaic law, the latter was. The word of God in its direct application to the soul, judges and humbles one, while traditional observance fosters spiritual pride.

To walk in a path which my fathers have trodden before me, and marked out for my guidance, however attractive to the soul who desires rest, will not satisfy an awakened conscience or provide an answer when one is challenged. “What dost thou here, Elijah?” is a terrible question for every one who cannot justify his position by the word. It was comparatively easy for the disciples when the Lord was with them, and they could go to Him in all their joys, their sorrows, and their difficulties; but He warned them of a time of peril when the words He had spoken, brought to their remembrance by the Holy Spirit whom He would send, would in a way compensate for His own absence, and give them also a spiritual enjoyment of His own, and of His Father's presence with them (John 14:23).

It would seem that the Rechabites had continued as long as possible the observance of their father's commandments. Their filial piety was fully acknowledged, and rewarded (ver. 19). But in a day of ruin or of judgment, the word of the living God alone can give strength to the soul and shed divine light upon the path. It meets us in all circumstances and conditions; it reveals the true character of what is exercising and distressing the soul; it answers every question, and enables one to tread the path of obedience and dependence with more confidence than ever; because I have been to God about the evil, and have got my answer.

Obviously the sons of Jehonadab could not do this. That which was their rule of life was not to be adjusted to the new circumstances which befell them. And this is where any human creed or system betrays its weakness. The Rechabites could not consult their father in the emergency, as is the believer's privilege now; and so it seems that they did the very worst thing possible. Jerusalem, the holy city, must surely be a haven of refuge, a sacred place that the Chaldean could not and dare not touch. But alas! Jerusalem was doomed, highly favored, yet all the more guilty. The wrath of God fell heavily upon it.

The Spirit of God takes advantage of their recourse to that very place, in the way of testimony to the nation; and this without either sanctioning or condemning the manner of life of the Rechabites, or their partial departure from it under the pressure of fear. This was not the point; but their faithfulness was an object lesson for the Jews, and gave point to an earnest appeal to the conscience of the nation at a time when the Judge was at the door. It must have been a strong temptation; for God's faithful and suffering servant took them to the sacred house of God, with witnesses amongst whom was a “man of God.” They might have thought that in such a holy place, and invited by such men, they could be absolved from their ordinary obligation. But they stood the test. God's purpose was gained; while His people pursued their guilty way to the bitter end.

In the history of Israel under the reign of Jehu, we have no mention of Jehonadab's charge to his sons; yet he himself is brought before us (2 Kings 10) in such a manner as suggests that the Spirit of God was creating and maintaining, beneath the surface of national life, piety and godliness in not a few humble souls, whose eyes were opened to the enormity of the evil of the state religion established by Jeroboam. First, its effect was to make God a stranger to His own people and in His own land. To this was added by Ahab the worship of Baal. Hence Jehu had been commissioned to execute the judgment of God upon the house of Ahab. Jehonadab hears of it, and his heart goes out in loyalty and devotedness towards this external servant of God. When he goes to meet him (ver. 15), Jehu at once displays his true character: “Come with me and see my zeal for Jehovah,” is the language of one whose heart was devoid, as of faith and piety toward God, also of love and pity for man. His methods were brutal and treacherous, while he yearned for the approbation of man, and especially of such a one as Jehonadab who had doubtless a reputation for religion. We read no more of the latter, who must have had a sorrowful experience in his company (vers. 18-28). It was soon proved that putting down Baal worship, because it suited him, left him free to continue the sin of a self-devised and politic religion already judged by God (1 Kings 13), because this suited him. The spirit of Jehonadab, grieved and crushed within by such affronts offered to Jehovah, led him into such a manner of life as testified of his moral judgment of the evil, and of his refusal to enjoy himself or to be even a citizen of that land, which had made the worship of Jehovah impossible, except indeed individually through grace.

We have thus two distinct types of service contrasted; and we have their counterparts to-day in Christendom. The one is all fire, zealous, energetic, and self-assertive; it seeks the fellowship and sanction of such as are known to be godly. But faith, obedience, and dependence, are strangers to such men. “Come with me and see my zeal for the Lord” expresses their real character; and they will in due time come under the just judgment of God. On the other hand “he who doeth the will of God abideth forever.”

Centuries after that meeting of Jehu and Jehonadab, when the apostate kingdom of the ten tribes was judged and the people went into captivity, such as had sighed and cried over the abominations practiced amongst God's people (Ezek 9:14), were still maintained and acknowledged by God. Obedience is ever precious in His sight; therefore it was that He said, Jehonadab the son of Rechab shall not want a man to stand before me forever. G. S. B.

The Rejected Man: Part 1

Gen. 3

It is a good thing, seeing the great levity of our hearts, that we should all of us sometimes look at our origin, at what we were, and the actual corruption of the stock whence we are derived Thus shall we see what God has done, and the revelation He has made of Himself in what we are.

The Israelite was instructed to remember the day that he came out of Egypt all the days of his life (Deut. 16:2); and the confession made by him when presenting his basket of the firstfruits of the land was this: “a Syrian ready to perish was [not I, but] my father, and he went down into Egypt, and sojourned there with a few, and became there a nation, great, mighty, and populous; and the Egyptians evil entreated us, and afflicted us, and laid upon us hard bondage: and when we cried unto Jehovah the God of our fathers, Jehovah heard our voice, and looked on our affliction, and our labor, and our oppression: and Jehovah brought us forth out of Egypt with a mighty hand, and with an outstretched arm, and with great terribleness, and with signs, and with wonders: and he hath brought us into this place, and hath given us this land, even a land that floweth with milk and honey” (Deut. 26:5-10)

Our first father had sinned. Thus the fountain was defiled. Evil since abounded, and sin has taken its free full course.

We learn in all this scene in the garden what has distorted the natural conscience, in circumstances so plain that we can say what they are. Now it is hard to learn what we are, because that which has made us sinners in heart has made us sinners in understanding also. As the conscience is affected and renewed by the Holy Spirit, so is it perverted by sin. There may be a false standard of good and evil, and thus blindness through that (as a law of darkness), as well as corruption of heart. Paul says, “I verily thought with myself that I ought to do many things contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth, which thing I also did,” &c. (Acts 26:9-11.) And the time was to come, the Lord forewarns, when those that killed the disciples would “think they did God service” (John 16:2).

The book of Genesis gives us, in the first dealings of God with man, the first grand elements of truth with exceeding freshness and energy.

All that was said by Satan to Eve (except “Ye shall not surely die,” ver 4), was in a certain sense true. This was not true. But this is the way he deceives. He does not present evil in its own hideous garb, but in a plausible insinuating manner. He can tell truth if it subserve sin—much attractive truth, so that he wins attention by it; but he never uses it to lead to obedience. Both that which was spoken by Adam and Eve, and that which was spoken by Satan, show the exceeding deceitfulness of sin. Where God has not His place in the soul, in the assertion of our independence, our weakness and inconsistency open the way to the guile of the enemy, and the mind does not see its departure from truth. “I said in my haste, All men are liars” (Psa. 116:11). So again Mic. 7 (where there is every kind of corruption), “The best of them is as a briar: the most upright is as a thorn hedge.... Trust ye not in a friend, put ye not confidence in a guide; keep the doors of thy mouth from her that lieth in thy bosom,” &c. They had departed from God. To learn what sin is to any purpose is to learn the source from which we have departed. We have turned away from God.

Notice, the first thing introduced here is the subtlety of Satan. It was not flagrant open sin and wickedness when Eve replied to it; it is not, “I am the devil come to deceive you.” He puts the present pleasantness of the thing, and with subtlety inquires, “Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree in the garden?” The Holy Ghost does not here say the devil was wicked, but “that the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which Jehovah God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree in the garden?”

The woman entered into conversation with him after throwing doubt on God's word, and soon she was clean gone.

This questioning what God had done was a calling in question of His goodness and love; just the temptation to mistrust God. “Hath God said so and so?” is in effect, “Well, do not believe Him, He has kept back something worth the having.” The moment Eve entered into discussion, and parleyed with the serpent, God had altogether passed from her; and all was gone.

She ought to have said, “Why ask me? Surely He hath done whatsoever it hath pleased Him to do.” A right mind would have rejected the temptation at once; a true heart would have fallen back upon God. “He that is begotten of God keepeth himself, and that wicked one toucheth him not” (1 John 5:18). Satan “touched” Eve. He had got his question into her mind, and she had departed from her strength; for God had lost His place in her soul. When Eve began questioning God's goodness and answering Satan's question, she was placing herself above God, and judging God; and thus she put herself into the hands of Satan. Had Eve been worshipping God, Satan could not have “touched” her; but, judging God, she took the place of independence, and thus Satan had power over her, and, being wiser than she, he deceived her.

We cannot judge God's ways without judging God: we may adore Him in His ways; but the moment we judge or question that which He has revealed, we get above God, we make ourselves gods, and put God in the place of the creature as subject to us. This brings our souls under the power of everyone that is more clever than ourselves; we are in their hands, and they can do what they please with us. Now the devil is more clever than we are (the woman was no match for him). Therefore we ought to keep God ever in His place of God in our souls, lest Satan should make gods of us, and set us judging God Himself. If God be displaced, we get into the place of those who are irresponsible, and as creatures become the prey of any more cunning than ourselves.

The soul, when first awakened, finds its place before God. It may not all at once have peace and joy; but this at any rate it learns—to submit to God, and to be willing to be taken up anyhow, so that God will but have us at all. Now does God keep this His place in our souls? Because it is the constant aim of Satan to slip in between God and our souls. In order to meet Satan, we must get into the place of entire responsibility to God. God did not hold His place in Eve's mind, or she would not have been questioning His love, and judging Him there was the want of submission. And may it not be that there is the want of submission in us? that our minds are questioning and judging, and not submitting to God's righteousness?

Notice also that Eve was in full recognition of God's command. “And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden; but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die” (vers. 2, 3). There was the clear and definite knowledge of what God had said to her. So with ourselves. We have all heard about God, and about His way of salvation; yes, many of us have before our minds much of scriptural knowledge. But this did not put Eve beyond the power of Satan. Neither will it us—it may only the more immediately put us into the hands of Satan. We all know what God has said about our sins (we may not believe it perhaps: that is another thing), that “there is none righteous, no, not one.” We all know that Christ came to save the lost; but then, if we do not know that we are lost, this knowledge, remaining without faith, does not take us out of the hands of Satan, but really gives Satan power over us. We must have delivering power from God before we can be out of Satan's power, We must have conviction of sin before we are off the ground of sin.

The very moment that Satan got Eve to listen to one breath of his suggestions, that moment he took God's place in her soul. You cannot suppose she would have parleyed with the devil, and have listened to him as to somebody speaking to her as her friend, if she had not had confidence in him. So that she did trust in Satan. The truth is, she held not with God, but with His foe. She looked upon the Serpent as a better friend than God. ( To be continued).

The Rejected Man: Part 2

Eve was not content. Now the enemy of out souls may not be met by the simplicity of truth, because of the want of simplicity of our minds. Her reply was truth, but it was truth not held in communion with God. She thought God had kept back something that was competent to make her happy. It was not a settled thing with her, that God knew and had provided all that was needed for her happiness. And have we no desires for anything not actually given to us? There was distrust that God had power in Himself to make her happy, and therefore she was desiring and seeking it somewhere else. This was the beginning of it all. This led to man's willingly subjecting himself to the dominion of Satan. And now we see the world bent on providing itself with pleasures apart from God.

And how is it with you, dear friends? Let me ask, Is this your case? Are you wanting something that God will not allow you to have? Man naturally does not believe that God is competent to make him happy, and therefore he desires the things of the world, supposing that they can add to his happiness. This to the end is the subtle state of the flesh, even in God's children; not trusting God to make one happy. It is a mercy, in a certain sense, that man must earn his bread with the sweat of his face (for God is not mocked; and when He said, “In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground,” &c., what a store of accompanying sorrow and toil came in as the result of man's disobedience!) since that prevents the giving up of our poor race to the unbounded gratification of their desires away from God.

When the soul is distressed or cast down, this is not in itself sin. But sin comes in when there is distrust of God. Satan gets entrance for his full power in the soul, the moment there is a shade of distrust of God. God will be trusted in the confidence of His love. Eve had the highest place in the world; she was surrounded by blessing, and possessed of actual happiness (man's state in Eden was one of actual happiness, though not of spiritual power such as the saints now have); but the very moment she felt distrust in God's competency to make her happy, it was all gone. Distrust in God is the positive condition of every natural man: all such seek their happiness in something or other, if they are not trusting in God to make them happy. It is a solemn thought that one half of the world is employed in providing the means of pleasure for the other half.

Satan was trusted by Eve. If God is not trusted, Satan most certainly will be. Man, standing alone in his independence, is not independent, but the slave of every man, the slave of sin and Satan. Like Eve he trusts Satan rather than God. She hoped on his authority that there was a doubt about the fulfillment of God's threatenings. God had said, “In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die” (chap. 2:17). Satan said, “Ye shall not surely die,” impugning the truth of God's word. And so he says now. Men say in their hearts that sin will not bear the consequences God has said it will— “The wages of sin is death” (Rom. 6:23). No man could go on if he believed what God said, instead of believing Satan. The happiness of man is faith in Satan's lie in this respect. They are proceeding in the same course, listening to that old detected lie of Satan. But God has said, “Ye shall surely die,” and there is an end of all pleasure. So that all the devil can do is to hide the consequences of sin. He could not keep men going on if he did not keep out of their sight that truth, “Ye shall surely die.” It is not that the terror of it would change their heart; but if they did really believe it, they would not have one happy day here. Where is the earthly happiness these words will not blast— “Ye shall surely die?” But men believe what Satan says, and disbelieve what God says. “The lust of the eye, the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life” have present enjoyment connected with them. Man rushes to take the bait, willingly selling himself to Satan, though in so doing he is morally conscious that he is not acting according to the commandments of God. Observe, I am not here speaking of gross sin, but of disbelief in God Himself.

Let us see the next step. God has lost His character in the heart of man; all man's confidence in God is gone; and Satan the liar and arch-deceiver is believed. Now the devil can say whatever he likes, he having the confidence of the heart instead of God. “God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil” (ver. 5). He began by insinuating that God knew the fruit would make her happy, but grudged to give it; then he questioned the truthfulness of God; now he adds, “ye shall be as gods,” tempting man to assume the privilege of God Himself.

How entirely had Eve forgotten every thought of God! Her soul should have recoiled with horror from the proposition. “What, I account myself as God! I take this glory to myself, and cast off God! Am I to set about being a thief—to take from God His glory, and become like him—I, a creature, and indebted to Him for everything?” How different the way of Him who, “being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: but made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant!” (Phil. 2:6). But when we are once away from God, we have no spiritual sense of sin at all. Eve had no sense of the sin of leaving God out, and making herself the center. And this is ever the result of exalting man, of looking at God's ways through man's telescope. Dependence is true exaltation in a creature, when the object of it is right. It looks up, and is exalted above itself. See David (Psa. 8), the truest philosopher. But Eve was so willing to get rid of God that she sought by robbery to make herself equal with God. She may not have known the extent of the presumption of her confidence in Satan's lie: but the secret of it all was this, that she had forgotten God, and thought only of herself. She had got self as a center, and God was not in all her thoughts. When God is not our center, all that by which we can exalt ourselves becomes the motive and principle of our hearts.

“The man is become as one of us, to know good and evil.” This is God's account of fallen man: Satan does not deceive by a mere abstract lie. But supposing Eve could have known that it was the truth, it would have been only added deception, because it would not have been the truth in power in the conscience. Her heart having departed from God, her then seeing it to be truth would only have added to her darkness. I am doubly blind if the truth does not lead my heart towards God and put me under God.

Eve goes on in the way of sin. “And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat.” In positive and known disobedience to God's command, she acts on the present enjoyment, without any regard to consequences. And now she becomes the active instrument of sin, “and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat” (ver. 6). The man was not deceived (1 Tim. 2:14); but more shame to him in following the woman (who was deceived), contrary to the will of God, Natural affection often becomes the means of drawing the heart away from God.

“And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew they were naked: and they sewed fig-leaves together, and made themselves aprons” (ver. 7). Here we find conscience at work, not conscience toward God, but fruit of shame, the conscience that drove out the accusers of the adulterous woman (John 8). The guilty pair have the sense of the shame of their nakedness, and they seek to hide it the one from the other. The divine work in enlightening the conscience gives a man to see the guilt of sin, the exceeding sinfulness of sin; but sin has its shame as well as its guilt, and the natural conscience always seeks to hide the shame of its sin with some fig-leaf covering.

This is no proof of conversion; it is only the main proof that man has got into a bad conscience, and cannot get out of it. Adam and Eve dare not look at each other, nor yet at God. They cannot bear the condition they have got into, and they cannot change it; therefore they hide it. But do not mistake this for repentance. Shame merely drives them to hide from God, and excuse themselves to Him. And so with ourselves: as long as the shame of sin continues, we try to hide it, to get away from it; but it only drives us farther and farther from God It is not a divinely-taught conscience, because we are more concerned about the shame before men than the sinfulness before God. Until God has the place which man now occupies in our hearts, there is no conversion: the soul is not looking to God. We may be able to reason about the tender love and grace of God; but our sense of the guilt of sin should ever be deeper than that of its shame. When the conscience is before God, guilt brings sorrow; and yet we can as sinners reckon upon the love and the kindness of God.

And now the dreadful moment arrives when they hear the voice of Jehovah God walking in the garden in the cool of the day. “And Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of Jehovah God amongst the trees of the garden” (ver. 8).

It is not with a fiery sword in judgment as yet, but still the Lord comes as an “adversary” in some wise.

Thus Jesus came seeking an account of the fruit produced. “Agree with thine adversary quickly, whilst thou art in the way with him.” He was then saying, “I am yet in the way with you.” “This is the accepted time, this is the day of salvation.” The ax was laid to the root of the tree (Luke 3:9). Therefore the only thing to be done was to agree with Him who had the right against them, “lest at any time the adversary deliver thee to the judge, and the judge deliver thee to the officer, and thou be cast into prison. Verily I say unto thee, Thou shalt by no means come out thence, till thou hast paid the uttermost farthing.”

“And Jehovah God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou?” (ver. 9). How came you not to be with me? As “Enoch walked with God” (Gen. 5:22), God had no occasion to say to him, “Where art thou?”

“And he [Adam] said, I heard Thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself” (ver. 10). If the Lord were here, those who are ignorant of His grace would go out one by one, like the accusers of the poor adulterous woman. When Christ spoke to their conscience in those words, “He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her,” they walked out from His presence one by one (not all together, lest it should be noticed that they were sinners). They were careful of their character before men, but not before God. Had they been willing to confess their sin and to submit themselves to God's righteousness, they would have stayed. It was not that the Lord used any reproach to those Pharisees, but He fixed the sin on their consciences. So God merely says here to Adam, How comes it that you are not with Me?

And how comes it, dear friends, that you have found bitterness and sorrow in the world? You will say, perhaps, it is because sin is in the world; but it is sin you have got into. You talk of a good conscience: the best conscience of a sinner only leads him to get as far away as he can from the presence of God. Do you call it a good conscience here in Adam, getting away from God and then judging for himself about his state? “I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.” And it is thus even with the saint if he gets into sin; there is darkness in the sin, and fear in the conscience after the sin: and when he is convinced he must get back again into the presence of God, and where is not unreserved confession, he seeks to excuse himself. You will always find conscience, where the heart is Wrong, tends to the invention of deceit. What did Adam say? “I am guilty; pardon me, O Lord?” No, he practices deceit.

“And he [Jehovah God] said, Who told thee that thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat? And the man said, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me [not “my wife:” in seeking to excuse himself, he cast the blame in reality upon God]. It was thou who gavest me this woman, [and] she gave me of the tree, and I did eat” (vers 11, 12).

God takes no notice of this, but turns to the woman. “And Jehovah God said, What is this that thou hast done?” Eve now learns her lesson from Adam, as Adam had learned his of her before: “And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat” (ver. 13).

All this is true enough; but conscience is not before God.

God, when He comes to deal with them about their sin, at once takes them up on the ground of their own excuses. “And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which. I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life: thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee,” &c. (vers. 17-19). The very excuse he gave was just the height of his sin, and the very thing by which God condemned him. So also with the woman. Out of their own mouths were they judged. The plea of temptation was only in fact saying that they preferred their own lusts to God; that they listened to the devil's word more than to God's commandments.

Still God says nothing about this at first. But what does He? He brings in grace. When He does take up the question, the man had already departed from Him, as a sinner he had departed from Him before God came to judge him for the sin; and the effect of conscience is to drive away from God. Why does the infidel delight in infidelity? Because he dislikes God. God therefore takes up man in grace, and brings in promise. But He pronounces judgment upon what they have done. He does not take grace and pass lightly over sin. Man always begins with what he will do, but God begins with what He has done. The truth always looks at what I am in the sight of God.

Having traced up the evil to its source, God goes at once to the serpent as the author of it; but in pronouncing sentence He deals with Adam as lost (already the condition of man was that he was lost: God comes to no question about goodness; and there is no promise made to Adam as in the flesh), and sets up the Second Man. “And Jehovah God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life: and I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel” (vers. 14, 15).

Here is where grace comes in; for it is the root of the evil, and there is the sole remedy to set aside what man and the devil had done. He sets up the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, “the Seed of the woman,” as the bruiser of the serpent's head. What is the meaning of the term “probation,” as applied to our present state? “To save the lost” settles that. Grace brings out man's misery and sin in the presence of God, and brings Christ in. Man is under the power of Satan, decent or indecent. The decent, moral, unconverted man is only the more deceived, but the decent slave of Satan. God takes up the full power of the evil, and sets up His power for remedy in the Lord Jesus Christ. Man is not mended in his condition. God deals with him as already set aside and lost, and, without any proposition of mending the evil, brings in and sets up the Lord Jesus Christ, the Last Adam, as the destroyer of the works of the devil (1 John 3:8).

And where was He to be found? Where does God bring in His glory? The grand fact is that it is “the seed of the woman.” The spring of the evil was in the woman, and out of her was to come the deliverer. There is the glory of divine grace. Out of the eater cometh forth meat, and out of the strong sweetness (Judg. 14:14). The poor wretched woman was to give birth to the Savior of the world. God does not slur over sin, but brings out all its vileness, and sets up Christ as the Last Adam in the very place of sin—His birthplace was in the death that sin had brought into the world. Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound: that as sin had reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord (Rom. 5:20, 21).

And mark the perfect contrast of the obedience of Christ! Not as the first Adam (from the place of the creature exalting himself to be as God), He from a high place takes a low. “Being in the form of God, he thought it not robbery to be equal with God: but made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross” (Phil. 2:6-8). He lays not the burden on the weak one, but bears her sin. Instead of saying, “The woman that thou gavest me,” &c. (ver. 12), He loved the Church, and gave Himself for it; took her ruin upon Himself, and came into the depth of her sins. “He that descended is the same also that ascended up far above all things,” &c. (Eph. 4:10), that in His blessed grace the greatest, the chief, of sinners, might be able to find a resting-place, not in man's own wretched excuses but in His divine love.

Scripture Queries and Answers: 1 Corinthians 5

Q.-1 Cor. 5 Does not ver. 1 imply “leprosy,” 2 “leaven,” 3-5 dealing with the former, 6-8 with the latter (cathartic), 9-13 (excommunicatory). So in 2 Tim. 2:21, is it not purging one's own vessel? J.J.

A.— “Leprosy “here is a fancy. It does not apply in a believer. There is not the least hint of it here or elsewhere in the N.T. as to Christians. Nor does the O.T. warrant it as to such typically, though such an application has been favored by some. But in 1 Cor. 5 the leaven is the offender who if allowed defiles the assembly; which had not only to purge him out but to purge themselves, according to their standing as unleavened keepers of the feast. In 2 Tim. 2 it is not purging out the vessels to dishonor, but purging one's self out, when the evil gets a sanctioned place. One was the assembly still recognized spite of its transient disorder; the other, a state where it could not be owned save for judgment.

Scripture Queries and Answers: 1 Corinthians 5 - Leprosy and Leaven

Q.— 1 Cor. 5 Is there leprosy as well as “leaven” meant here? E. B. D.

A.—There is not the most distant allusion to leprosy. The brother, who thinks those with whom he no longer walks need to revise their teaching, has now to beware of delusion. Leprosy in the O.T. (Lev. 13; 14) is typical of unremoved sin. Only divine power could meet the case. The priest was called in both to pronounce on it and see to the entire separation of the unclean from the camp of Israel; but, if it were healed, to see to his cleansing in the fullest way. This typifies a sinner brought to God with the utmost care for its completeness up to eighth-day provision. It is in no way the mere restoration of a saint defiled (which is given in Num. 19).

It is a ridiculous mistake to make out leprosy in ver. 1 and leaven in ver. 2. Both verses, indeed all the first five, relate to the same “wicked person,” as he is called in ver. 13. The apostle's judgment in 3 and 5 is about him. “Leaven,” as figuring what was to be excluded from the Feast of unleavened bread which the Passover introduced, is applied to the case in 6 and 8. Leprosy is nowhere save in a fanciful brain. The apostle's exhortation is to urge dealing with a so-called “brother,” and not with the world which must be left to God; but the assembly's responsibility is to judge “those within.” “Purge out” in 7 refers indubitably to “leaven” without the least reference to the saints themselves; “put out” is the application to “the wicked” person in question. The zeal against exclusivism which forges such a weapon as this can damage only the cause which deduces from this chapter “that a leavened person is not to be put away!” If a leavened person were allowed and kept in when proved, it would defile the entire assembly.

Scripture Queries and Answers: Acts 20:25

Q.—Acts 20:25. As many are not clear, and some confused by strange doctrine of late about “the kingdom,” may I ask what it was exactly that Paul preached as he says? Was it the present dispensational aspect in mystery as in Matt. 13? or was it the moral power as in Rom. 14:17, &c.? W. T.

A.—Neither, as I believe, but that coming intervention of God for changing the heavens and the earth, which the Lord coming in visible power and glory will inaugurate and establish to the joy of all the earth, of Israel and all the nations. How near to the hearts of the heavenly saints it is for Him Who is by grace and at all cost the effectuator of all this harmonious blessedness to the glory of God the Father! Neither gospel nor church obliterated the apostle's value for this grand truth, which has faded from the testimony of many once zealous. Such forgetfulness, or narrowness, or whatever else may be the cause, is surely to be deplored. “To everything there is a season;” and the apostle warrants it for this truth to be preached, as the Lord Himself did.

Scripture Queries and Answers: Acts 2:30

Q.—Acts 2:30. “Of the fruit of his loins.” How, if Joseph was only his reputed father? X. Y. Z.

A.—The reality of the Lord's manhood lay in His being born of Mary who was “the Virgin” of David's house. If He had not been Son of God really on the other side, the truth of His Godhead would have been overthrown. If He had not enjoyed the rights of the Solomon line through Joseph legally, though but reputedly, He was not the true Messiah according to Jehovah's oath to David. In Luke 3, “as was supposed son of Joseph” is the right parenthesis; and “being of Eli, of Matthat,” etc. is the genealogical line, a distinct construction. Eli was father of Mary, as the Talmud admits; and to her accordingly the visit of Gabriel was made. In Matthew the visions were to Joseph, son of Jacob, the Messianic and Solomonic line; in Luke, it was to Mary.

Scripture Queries and Answers: Article Before "Eternal Life"; Head and Chief

Q.-1 John 5:20. The article before “eternal life” in this verse is said not to have authority sufficient to retain it in the Greek. What difference does the presence or absence of the article make for this passage? In the controversy during recent years on “life eternal” I have seen it stated, that the absence of the article here renders this passage to mean that “life eternal” is “characteristic” of Christ, not that He is personally “the life eternal.” INQUIRER.

A.-In 1 John 5:20 the oldest and best authority excludes the article before “life eternal.” But it is only a novice in zeal for his notion that could thence infer that the phrase is characteristic and not objective. For the article before “the true God” is passed on by the connective particle to “life eternal” also according to a well-known principle of its usage. “The true God and life eternal” are thus bound up with our Lord Jesus Christ in the striking way peculiar to this Epistle, which combines God with Him, or as here with life eternal. The case therefore is not only an oversight, but a cogent proof against those who would separate them. Had the article been repeated before “life,” it would have made them distinct objects, the very thing which the apostle avoided. The opening chapter 1(ver. 2) is most emphatic in predicating objective reality of “the life eternal,” both with the Father before He became flesh, and when He was thus manifested. “A little knowledge is a dangerous thing,” especially for such as hastily seize a superficial appearance in questions so grave and momentous, where truth and safety are found only in entire subjection to the written word.

Q.-Col. 1:18, Head of the body. Is there any ground for deducing from J.N.D.'s French Version, that he by “chef” denied Christ to be “head,” and made Him only “chief”? A.V.

A.-Those who talk thus have no other ground for their notion, than their own will to lower Christ, along with ignorance of the French language, which treats “tête” in this connection as antique and prefers “chef” in the same sense as its substitute. The real word in the context for “chief” is “first-born,” both in creation (ver. 15), and in new creation (ver. 18). But the word employed by the Spirit of God in this last verse for “head,” “head of the body,” means this and nothing else; and Mr. D. never allowed a thought of anything short of it. Nor could any one familiar with his writings or oral teaching have the least question about it. The indulgence of such baseless speculation, both as to his faith and yet more seriously as to scripture, betrays the spirit of error in opposition to the Spirit of truth.

Scripture Queries and Answers: Christ as Head

Q.—Eph. 5:23; 1 Cor. 11:3; and Col. 2:10. Christ given as Head to the church over all things is the plain truth of God; but does not Eph. 5:23 convey a different thought? and in what sense are we to understand 1 Cor. 11:3? and Col. 2:10?

W. T.

A.—It appears to me that there is no sufficient reason to attribute any real difference to Christ's headship of the church in any scriptures which speak of it. In each passage the great truth is used in a different connection, as to the Ephesians (i. 22, iv. 15, v. 23), but His headship remains the same in all; and so it is in Col. 1:18. And what more glorious for us as members of His body?

This is remarkably confirmed by the statement in Col. 2 For the apostle tells the saints, drawn away to Jewish ordinances and to visionary speculation about angels, that all the completeness of the Godhead dwells in Him, and that we are completed in Him, so that we need nothing creaturely outside Him. And he clenches it against the higher invisible hierarchy, of which we are expressly told so little, that He in whom we are thus complete is the Head of every principality and authority, so as to exclude all erratic flights, and satisfy our souls with Him who is not only our Head but after the incomparable nearness of head and body, which is not true of any other headship.

As to 1 Cor. 11:3, it is clearly relative order only, to correct a breach of decorum according to God; and we read that the Christ is the head of every man (ἀνδρὸς, not (a human being) ἀνθρώπου), but woman's head is the man, and the Christ's head God. This is throughout quite outside the church, in which there is neither male nor female. It is the order or respective place for woman in subjection to man, and for Him who in love and for God's glory became Man, the Firstborn, to God who abode unchanged in divine supremacy.

Scripture Queries and Answers: Daniel 7-9; Revelation 13, 19

Q.—Dan. 7; 8; 11; Rev. 13; 19, The article in B.T. for Feb. pp. 212, 13 raises questions. “Who can doubt?” says the writer. I can for one, what is taught of the king of the north as “like the second Beast.” Why is he not the second beast? or “King” of Dan. 11:36? F.C.J.

A.—It ought not to be a difficulty that as Dan. 7 treats of the Western Empire with its head which Rev. 13 and 17 declare is to be revived, but destroyed by the Lord's appearing, so Dan. 8 tells us of a great offshoot, north-east of Palestine, from the third or Greek empire which is to afflict the chosen people at that “time of the end,” with both craft and violent power. This therefore is quite distinct from the internal enemy of God who reigns in the land and is a Jew, in fact the Antichrist. Whereas the king in chap. 8 answers to “the overflowing scourge,” the retribution for “the covenant with death and agreement with hell,” the contract between the Roman Empire and the apostate king. Though for all three is the same doom, they ought to be distinguished. Compare Isa. 30, which tells of “the king” as well as the Assyrian or the north-eastern power, as Rev. 19 tells it of the western empire with its ally the king of the Jews in that day. It is clearly the same power which in Dan. 11 is designated as “the king of the north” in distinction from “the king of the south” (or, of Egypt), with “the king” between them. But here again, the distinction is plain, however many may have failed to see it. We should rather compare the king “of fierce countenance and understanding dark sentences” to a quasi-Solomon than to a rabbi. But the sense is the same if the degree differs; and it is natural enough for an oriental Gentile to affect wisdom and entangle the Jews before he turned to besiege and overwhelm them. But this could not be the policy of the false Messiah or of his Roman ally. Compare a Gentile; for so described is the prince of Tire (Ezek. 28:3).

In short Dan. 7 and 8 must not be confounded. One is western, the other eastern; and both distinct from the willful king of Dan. 11:36, who will have his ally in the one, his antagonist in the other, at the time of the end, when all three perish awfully. Their judgment with the subsequent one of Gog (Ezek. 38; 39), the last of the hateful and persistent foes of Israel, will be a large part of God's lesson whereby the world's inhabitants learn wisdom, and bow to Messiah's kingdom and personal reign for a space without example, before the heavens and earth that are now melt into the new heavens and earth wherein dwelleth righteousness, the eternal state, when God is all in all.

Scripture Queries and Answers: Deity of Christ; Reality of the Mount of Transfiguration Scene; Paradise and Kingdom;

Q.-John 1:1, 2; 17:3, &c. What scripture would you bring in support of the deity of Christ?

1. John 17:3 refers to the “Father” as “the only true God.” A man belonging to the “Faith” sect points out that John 1 makes a distinction between “the word was with God” (should be “the God”), whereas “the word was God” (is not “the God"); and that this prevents him from accepting the statement that Jesus is God in the full sense that the Father is the true God as in John 17

2. I don't understand Greek, but I notice the verse in the R. V. is weakened by the margin “thy throne O God is,” &c. (Heb. 1) which you have quoted in a back number of T. N. & O. in support of the deity of Christ.

3. What answer would you give to those who dismiss the reality of the mount of transfiguration scene, and its proof in favor of the present conscious existence of Moses and Elias, by stating it is only a “vision”? What about “the heavenly vision”?

4. A “Faith” man argued that “the kingdom” and “Paradise” are the same or similar as “When thou comest into Thy kingdom,” with “This day thou shalt be with me in Paradise.” In proof of it, he pointed out that man in Paradise was set over the works of God's hands, and that Paradise was the kingdom, or the beginning of it. QUERIST.

A.-The very first chapter of the first Gospel proves Jesus to be not only the Messiah genealogically, but God and Jehovah. He is Emmanuel, or God with us (Isa. 7); and He should save His people, Jehovah's people, from their sins. He could say, “Before Abraham was (came into being), I am,” the ever being One, or, as in the Revelation, the Alpha and the Omega, First and Last, the Beginning and the End. He was, is, and ever shall be God. No Christian doubts but affirms that He, the Word and Son, became man, but also that He was eternally God. True Christianity depends on His person, as His word assures us who believe; and the denial of it will be, for those guilty of it, their perdition no less righteous than true. So in Rom. 9:5 Christ is declared to be over all, God blessed forever. Amen.

1. As the Father is the true God, so is the Son (1 John 5:20); and we might add the Holy Spirit also. This is proved of the three Persons, if we compare Isa. 6 with John 12:41, and Acts 28:25-27: all the truth, and grace, and glory pertain to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, alike God and Jehovah.

The “faith sect” must be a burlesque of faith, a school of nothing but unbelief. The man referred to understands Greek no better than Querist who owns his ignorance honestly. For the distinction in John 1:1 has nothing to do with the alleged difference, but only with the predicative usage, which in Greek requires the absence of the article, as every scholar knows.

2. Psa. 45:6, 7 is expressly cited by the inspired writer of Heb. 1:8, 9, as proving the Son to be God as well as man.

3. The Transfiguration scene had for its object to give a living sample of the Son of man's future kingdom to the three chosen witnesses; and, as its still more important effect, to make known the glory of Jesus as the Son of the Father, before whom the great representatives of the Law and the Prophets vanish; “hear ye Him.” That Moses and Elijah have “present conscious existence” required no such a display; they were like the fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and indeed not only all saints, but all souls of men. God is not God of dead but of living; for all live unto Him. “But I say to you, my friends, Fear not those that kill the body, and after this have no more that they can do. But I will show you whom ye shall fear: Fear him who after he hath killed hath authority to cast into hell; yea, I say to you, Fear him.” It is to trifle with Him, when any essay to treat the Transfiguration, or the apostle's “heavenly vision,” as unreal. God is not mocked.

4. The unbeliever's argument, if so be it can be called, to identify “the kingdom” with “paradise” is mere trash and confusion, and not even the least bit of sound reasoning. The Lord that day entered paradise, and so did the saved robber. The Kingdom will be at His coming. The paradise of Adam was ruined by sin; the paradise of the second Man and last Adam stands in the righteousness of God, and was open that very day to him that had faith in Jesus. Of Him spoke Psa. 8 prophetically, not retrospectively of the first man that fell.

Scripture Queries and Answers: Explanation of the Leper

Q.—Lev. 13 What is the true explanation of the leper here? J.J.

A.—Surely it typifies a sinner cleansed from impurity otherwise fatal, rather than a saint overtaken by the way. It is ruinous evil in a man's condition beyond means or hope, and not merely the fallen state of a male or female child, as in Lev. 12 which it also seemed good to divine wisdom to impress on Israel. Nothing short of the work of Christ in type could avail for either. But it appears quite illegitimate to tone down a defilement so deadly as leprosy to anything but the effect of sin in all its malignity. Here it is not its healing but its cleansing when healed by the adequate and unnamed power of God. To meet its terrible result we have first the figure of Christ's death and resurrection applied to pronounce him clean and the man subsequently washing his clothes, shaving all his hair, and washing his person. Nor does this effect all; for Jehovah would have him, after a careful purifying on the seventh day, to appropriate on the eighth the value of Christ in all the fullness of His sacrifice, as the trespass-offering, sin-offering, burnt-offering and meal-offering. As the priest applied of the blood of the trespass-offering to the right ear, right thumb, and great toe of the right foot, so of the log of oil to the same emblematic parts of the body; that his hearing, his service, and his walk must be manifestly thus brought under the power of redemption and of the Holy Spirit. So minute and complete is the analysis of the virtue of Christ's work, so varied and comprehensive the exigencies for the sinner's perfect cleansing before God; who would have us know the ungrudging provision of His grace. The true figure under the law for restoring one passingly defiled is the very different sprinkling the unclean with the red heifer's ashes in the water of separation (Num. 19).

Scripture Queries and Answers: Godhead Poured Out on the Cross a Wrong Application of Scripture

Q.—An evangelical clergyman was preaching in the open air and spoke of Jesus as pouring out His Godhead on the cross (“My God, my God, why” &c.). Surely that cannot be a right application of the scripture. X.Y.Z.

A —If the Evangelical said as is reported, he uttered folly; and if he understood his own words, he was heterodox. Probably he knew not what he said, carried away by the desire to make known the infinite humiliation of our Lord on the cross. But He emptied Himself of the glory proper to a divine Person; He could no more cease to be God, than we to be men; and had it been possible, it would have deprived both His life and death of that which makes each infinitely acceptable to God and efficacious for us.

Scripture Queries and Answers: God's Kindness to Us

Q. —Eph. 2:7. Is it God's kindness toward us through Christ Jesus shown to His saints, or to wondering worlds? W.B.

A.—We are assured of it now through and in Christ: nothing could exceed this proof. Then it will be the display of it in us when like Him and sharing His glory, to the principalities and powers above as well as to the world, Israel and the nations below, blessed as they may be. The glory will demonstrate the love. Compare John 17:22, 23, and Eph. 1:9-14, when that purpose is fulfilled. We know it by faith and have the earnest of the Spirit also beforehand.

Scripture Queries and Answers: God's Unspeakable Gift

Q.—2 Cor. 9:15. What is God's unspeakable gift? H.H.H.

A.—Every Christian ought instinctively to answer that it is His grace in Christ. Nothing else is “unspeakable”; nor is anything easier to count than a little money in remembrance of the saints poor in this world. So, in urging liberality according to God in chap. 8:9, the apostle points to the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, who “being rich became poor that by His poverty ye might become rich” in a way incomparably above the world's wealth. Only Christ applied in faith gives us the truth of anything.

Scripture Queries and Answers: Greek in 1 Thessalonians 4:13

Q.—1 Thess. 4:13. Does not παρουσία, presence, always refer to the same time as the ἀποκάλυφις or revelation of the Lord? J. J.

A.—When the “presence” or coming of the Lord for the earth and Israel is intended, as in Matt. 24, James 5 &c., it does coalesce in time with His “revelation,” “appearing” and “day.” So it is also when His “presence with all His saints” is spoken of as in 1 Thess. 3. But it is never so when not thus particularized. Take 1 Cor. 15:23, which does not imply that those who are Christ's arise at His revelation but at His presence long before, though special classes of Apocalyptic martyrs only then. So in 1 Thess. 4 we assuredly do not remain till His “revelation” but His “presence” which raises the dead saints first and then calls up the living, all changed, to meet the Lord in the air. Revelation, or appearing, or day, is carefully excluded. It is His presence for the translation of His own solely, in strong contrast with the “day” in chap. v. But the conclusive refutation of any such thought is in 2 Thess. 2:1 where His “presence” is bound up strictly by one article in the Greek with “our gathering together unto Him,” there again in the most pointed contrast with His “day,” which coalesces with His “revelation” and “appearing” in judgment of the “lawless” and wicked generally, as in 2 Thess. 1:2 and 2:8. No doubt the glorified saints accompany Him when that day dawns. It is His “presence” therefore first for the heavenly, after that for the earthly who only begin to be called in the interval, while the wicked ripen rapidly for judgment when He is revealed.

If we think of breadth and display, the blessed hope is the Lord's appearing to put down and govern all men in righteousness and deliver creation from thralldom. But for the heavenly it is not “the appearing of His presence” but His presence, to receive us to Himself for the Father's house and joys which are far above those even of a regenerated earth.

Scripture Queries and Answers: Greek Translated

Q.—Γέεννα, κρίσις, αἰώνιος. What light can you give on these? Lightfoot, Plumptre, Farrar, and others eminently learned, held “aeon,” “aeonion” against “eternal,” everlasting, etc. Where and how do they depart from scripture truth? T. O. B.

A.—Without doubt many learned men have written in unbelief as to these solemn terms in the N. T. The unbelief displays itself generally in undermining the divine authority of scripture, and particularly in enfeebling and darkening such words as intimate the everlasting character of God's judgment of sin. What evidence is there that the late Bishop Lightfoot was thus guilty? As he used αἰὼν for the world of eternity, and another form of it for “eternal” in his note on Gal. 1:4, it is certain that he held a quite opposed conviction, and unless proof therefore be given that he changed, let us believe that the imputation is erroneous. But the truth depends on God's word, not on man's opinion which is of no real worth.

1. Γέεννα, Gehenna, was derived from the valley of Hinnom so often spoken of in Kings and Chronicles, the receptacle for burning all that defiled, and became the figure for the place of endless punishment.

The N. T. and especially the Lord Himself deepens its usage from anything seen outside of Jerusalem to what we in English call Hell, with which Hades (referring to departed spirits) ought never to be confounded. No spiritual mind can doubt that He taught its final and everlasting character in Matt. 5:22, 29, 30; 10:28; 18:9; 23:15, 33; Mark 9:43, 45, 47; Luke 12:5.

2. Not less certain is it that, unless modified by limiting words αἰὼν and αἰώνιος are regularly used in the N. T. for “eternity” and “eternal.” Though even heathen philosophers, used to express themselves in their native tongue of the purest Greek, and with their utmost precision, contrast both substantive and adjective with what began to be and was transitory. It is not credible that any fairly read man could be unaware that Plato sets them distinctly in this opposition. Take for example his Timæus (Baiter, Orelli and Winck. p. 712); and again Aristotle in his De Ccelo (Bekker, i. 279), at the end of which chap. 9 lays down that αἰὼν derived its name ἀπὸ τοῦ ἀεὶ εἶναι, from being forever. If these heathen had heard of God's awarding such a doom to guilty sinners and dreaded it for themselves, they too might have resorted to the shift of an “age” and “age-long” like the skeptical among whom so many divines, especially in our day, are not ashamed to stand. Did any flatter themselves in an understanding of Greek better than these two ancient philosophers? Can any sober person doubt that the denial of Farrar, Jukes, &c., is inexcusable? One sentence of the apostle (2 Cor. 4:18) demolishes the error. For he too sets in open antagonism the things “temporal” with the “eternal” (αἰώνια): how could this be, if the “aeonia,” were as transient as the temporal?

3. Neither are these speculative persons more reliable as to κρίσις, or judgment. No doubt the A. V. in more ways than one presents confused and inexact renderings of the verb, and its derived substantives; as in the mistakes of Rom. 14:22; 1 Cor. 11:29, etc., so in John 5:24, 27, 29, κρίσις, instead of being uniformly translated “judgment,” as should be in all the three cases, and everywhere else. For it certainly in all means God's everlasting judgment, as being contrasted with “life eternal,” the portion of believers only. The solemn truth is that the wicked are raised for it, a resurrection of judgment. What can be clearer than that raised for it does not mean extinguished in it? So in Rev. 20; 21 we are assured that the wicked exist forever in their awful resurrection, as the righteous in their blessed and holy resurrection. In the fullest account of the eternal state (Rev. 21:1-8) we see the New Jerusalem and the blessed then on the new earth. But we also see the accursed in the lake of fire, when God is all in all. So in Heb. 9:27, 28, “judgment” for the heedless wicked is contrasted not with life eternal but with salvation. Annihilation has no basis whatever. What wisdom it is to believe God in subjection of heart! What folly to weaken, evade, or pervert such a warning!

Though conditional immortality has seduced some children of God, it is really unbelief of the great distinctive fact that man alone became a living soul by the inbreathing of Jehovah Elohim. Like other infidel speculations, it alike leaves out God and debases man as such into one of the mere forms of animal life. The inbreathing of God made man's soul immortal. This did not save from a sinful act, any more than it gave the believer life eternal now and immortality for the body by-and-by. Conditional immortality destroys the true nature and place God gave man, as His offspring, in contradistinction from all other animated beings on earth. It supposes man to be only an animal with inward power superior to that of a dog or a horse; and with this lie against the truth as to man as man, it overthrows his responsibility as a creature to obey God. Who thinks that a dog has any consciousness of God, or fears having to bear His judgment of sins? But scripture declares this of man; and all experience confirms that man, when guilty, cannot avoid reference to the God he dishonors, however much superstition or infidelity may strive to efface it.

Scripture Queries and Answers: Greek Translated

Q.—What is the meaning of εὐδιάθετος as opposed to προφορικὸς in J.N.D.'s Notes and Comments, ii. 322 and elsewhere? Can it be that the Editor did not know that Mr. D. must have written F'S. for what is immanent, residing in the mind or unexpressed, as opposed to προφ actually uttered? These play a large part in Philo and the Alexandrian School of philosophy. There is no such antithesis as εὐδ. to προφ. Is it not a mere guess and a mistake of Mr. D.'s manuscript? X.Y.Z.

A.—The querist speaks correctly, and answers himself for the benefit of those who have the Notes referred to. Mr. D. was thoroughly familiar with these questions among philosophers, easily misunderstood by others not so versed.

Scripture Queries and Answers: Hades and Paradise

Q.—Luke 16:22, 23; 23:43; Acts 2:31. Light is requested on Hades and Paradise in these texts. W. W. (Ottawa).

A.—As this has been answered repeatedly, the querist is referred to “The Preaching to the Spirits in Prison” (T. Weston, 53, Paternoster Row, London, Publisher of this Magazine). The subject is there fully discussed.

Scripture Queries and Answers: Isaiah 7:14

Q.—Isa. 7:14. “Behold, the virgin,” &c. It is asked, for some young men stumbled by the allegation of a non-Jewish source, what reply should be given. X. Z.

A.—It was to be expected that Satan would imitate in his lies what God gave as a gracious sign to the incredulous but superstitious and profane Ahaz through the prophet Isaiah. Yet the difference between the true and the false is irresistible, when one weighs the occasion that called forth the original prediction, the character of the alleged sacred books, and the moral aim and effect sought and produced. “What is the chaff to the wheat, saith Jehovah?”

Besides, if it be pretended that a heathen tradition of the kind existed anterior to Isaiah, the believer can point to the first communication, when Adam and Eve sinned in the paradise of Eden. The most obtuse, self-willed, or irrational of rationalists cannot avoid seeing that grace was pleased to give prominence to the “woman,” contrary to all natural thoughts and especially at that moment. Nor was it only that “born of woman” was thus singularly predicated of the coming Messiah. It was no less evident that, while He would thus be man, more fully than Adam who was not born, He must be more than man to reach and crush the great spiritual foe, who used a serpent's form for his deadly enmity to God and man. “Immanuel” expresses this, God-with-us. The authentic bears the holy imprint of Gods grace and truth; the spurious suits Satan and his seed of lies among men. The time is long come when men turn away their ear from the truth, and turn aside to fables.

Scripture Queries and Answers: John 1

Q.—John 1 Is it true that the language of some scriptures is drawn from contemporaneous philosophy as (a) in the opening of the fourth Gospel from Philo the Alexandrian Jew, especially as to the Logos? (b) that moral terms of the Stoics reappear in Paul's Epistles? (c) that early Gnostic expressions were derived from the apostle's Epistle to the Colossians? W. T.

A.—(a) The truth is that God in His grace, who knew the bewilderment of man's mind, not dissipated but deepened by philosophy and the vile half-breed of the Gnostics, either anticipated or answered these unbelieving reveries by the revelation of the truth. Philo was born somewhat before the apostle John, and died long before him, certainly in part a contemporary, yet speaking of his advanced age about A.D. 40. He had no thought of Christ save as a conqueror of the nations and a restorer of Israel to the highest power, honor and enjoyment on earth, and even to the great relief of the brute creation. He believed in the inspiration of the O.T., which he allegorized everywhere excessively to suit or teach Platonism, without denying the law or the history. Indeed he held that the law of Moses would rule forever. But he did not believe that the Lord Jesus was the Son of God or even the Christ. Hence the Gospel of John reveals the Logos in the strongest contrast with all Philo's vaporings which deny the truth of both God and man.

(b) It is not otherwise with the use of moral terms, in great vogue among the Stoics, the proudest and sternest of all heathen philosophers. To live according to nature was their first principle, and a direct ethical lie; because it is evil through sin since the fall, which they wholly disdained. None more radically opposed to man's ruin or to God's grace. The terms if the same have a totally different source and sense in Paul's usage.

(c) The same principle applies to the Gnostical expressions. The Pleroma, the Ӕons, and the Demiurgus, &c. of scripture uproot and destroy this pretentious school of fantastical error, a different Christianity which was not another. Christ true God and perfect man is the revelation of God, which sets aside the corrupt Gnostic, the self-complacent Stoic, and the dreaming Platonist. If inspiration employed their language, it was in pitiful condescension to impart the truth of God in Christ, which brings to naught their vain, self-righteous, and false ideas.

The Fathers of the second and third centuries were deeply infected with the Alexandrian philosophy which denied that the true God comes down to the earth, or that man's body ever goes to heaven: an error derived from the East. Christ refutes both absolutely in His own person. Justin Martyr, the Hermas of the second century, Clemens Alex., and Origen were all heterodox more or less.

Scripture Queries and Answers: John 3:35-36

Q.—John 3:35, 36. Have we to consider these verses as not the utterance of John the Baptist, but of John the writer of the Gospel? INQUIRER.

A.—I think that internal evidence is clear that the testimony of John the Baptist closes with ver. 34; and that vers. 35, 36 are the comment of the Evangelist. For John's answer from ver. 27, however given of God, does not exceed what was within the measure of his spiritual knowledge; whilst the concluding vers. 35, 36, are the reflex of the deeper and higher truth which the Lord taught His disciples. We may see that such a comment is in the manner of the Evangelist in chaps. 1:16-18; 2:21-25; 7:39; 8:27, 30; 11:51; 12:33, 37-43, etc.

Scripture Queries and Answers: Luke 13, 15

Q.—Luke 13 and 15; Many believers would value your judgment on the enclosed tract (“The Strait Gate, and the Prodigal Son"). Is its teaching scriptural? G.S.B.

A.—No wonder that sober Christians are disturbed by these speculations. We may not set scripture against scripture in our zeal for the full gospel of grace. The sermon on the mount is no more the gospel of the kingdom than that of Christ's glory. The reception of Christ by the true action of the Spirit and the word was always requisite, which works both faith and repentance in the soul. On this the Lord insists in Luke 13:24 as in Matt. 11:12 and John 3:3-5; the form and figures suiting its own context, but the same truth substantially. To be born anew goes to the root of the need, is a vital want, and cannot be without painful exercise before God, expressed in the first case by striving at all cost to enter through the narrow door into God's kingdom. In the glad tidings is His answer to what the heart craves for peace and joy.

This is anticipatively shown in the three parables of Luke 15, the lost sheep, the lost piece of silver, the lost son: activity in straying, insensibility Godward, and on the sail's self-judgment, the full revelation of the Father's love and the riches of grace in “the best robe” and all other blessing in the communion of His love. It is false that a backsliding saint is here contemplated. How can any instructed Christian err so profoundly? Is a fallen believer a “lost” one, as the Lord here reiterates? Is it not the full salvation of the sinner's soul? Who could allow or teach that it is the restored saint that receives “the best robe,” the ring, the sandals, the fatted calf, the joy shared with God when the dead one came to life, and the lost one was found?

There is no real difficulty in the “two sons” as the Lord spoke. For man naturally is by Luke treated as “God's offspring": so the apostle preached to the heathen Athenians; with which we may compare Luke 3:38, as to Adam so constituted by God in contrast with the brute, or the clean animal. He only had an immortal soul and must give account to God; but after the fall and all God's dealings he is pronounced “lost,” and needs a new nature, as well as redemption, whereby he becomes a child, and an adopted son of God by grace. The natural relationship could not avail against sin: and self-righteousness made things worse for the “elder brother.” Hence evidently the “elder brother” fully confirms the just application, and refutes the blunder that either one or other as such means a son of God by faith in Christ Jesus. This the prodigal does become when he comes not only to himself but to the Father; this the elder son, as far as the parable teaches, does not become, whatever his pretensions, and whatever the external privileges shown here. The upshot is that He “would not go in”; he has no part in the Father's joy of grace. He has only satisfaction in himself, reproaches for the saved sinner, and insult for the God of all grace and His boundless goodness to “this thy son.”

Scripture Queries and Answers: Luke 16:9

Q.—Luke 16:9. What does this mean? E.G.R.

A.—The Jew was losing his earthly place through rejecting God in Christ. Yet grace wrought not only to save the lost (as shown in chap. 15), but also to set aside wealth and honor in this world, and all is changed as to the use of present possessions, which are turned into a path of heavenly fruit for heaven. The Jew was steward for God but abused his trust. The Gentile was and is nothing. The disciple of Christ may follow the unjust one for present life in his prudence of looking out for the future. But our future is in heaven. The world is really bankrupt. True wealth is in the world to come. These are the real privileges to faith, our own things; whereas present things are Another's, which we are called to sacrifice freely in view of glory on high, instead of hoarding “the unrighteous mammon” as men like to do. We are entitled to treat money as “the mammon of unrighteousness,” looking to be received, when it fails, “into the everlasting habitations.”

“That they may receive you” is only a mode of speech for “that ye may be received;” as we may infer from similar phraseology in Luke 6:38-44, which really means “shall be given” into your bosom, instead of “shall men give.” For in fact men do not so give. It is an ignorant misuse of the phrase. Compare Luke 12:20; 14:25. We cannot have two masters; and are bound as Christians to imitate the God of grace. If not faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who shall entrust to us the true? and if we have not been faithful in what is Another's, who shall give us our own—what we are to share with Christ? We are called to follow in His steps, who though rich for our sakes became poor, that we through His poverty might be made rich.

Scripture Queries and Answers: Matthew 24-25

Q.—Matt. 24; 25 Is it true that Christians, real and professing, have nothing to do with these chapters, and that both relate to Israel and to the kingdom, to the Son of man and to the King of Israel? Q.

A..—This statement is not true, though there may be a superficial appearance in the reason alleged. Even there it illustrates how dangerous is a little learning when it speaks oracularly. For the remarkable fact is that “the Son of man” as such has no real place in the central one of its three sections (Matt. 24:45-25:30). This does relate to Christendom, and neither to Israel in view of the kingdom as the first part, nor to all the nations or Gentiles as the last part, which on the face of it cannot relate to Israel. It is well-known that in the only verse of the intermediate part of the Christian profession, good and bad (25:13), the last clause is spurious. Therefore, it is strikingly absent here, and is only used where the Lord refers to His ancient people, and to all the nations, as in Dan. 7. The little work entitled “The Prophecy on Olivet” might help, or yet more the volume “Christ's Coming Again, chiefly on its heavenly side” (both published by T. Weston).

Scripture Queries and Answers: Meeting at the Beginning of the Day; Set Meetings for Praise, Prayer, Etc.

Q.—Heb. 10:25. 1. Is it correct that this verse refers to other than the Lord's Supper and prayer meeting for exhortation?

2. Does not Pliny's well-known letter give the idea that in early days, believers met together daily, and that at the commencement of the day, to commend themselves to the care of Christ? The practice now seems to be to meet at the close of the long day's work, when all freshness is gone. The reason adduced seems to be “convenience,” but should this reason be admitted?

3. In apostolic times were there set meetings for prayer, for scripture study, etc., when it was considered wrong to deviate from a fixed motive? or is it that whenever the saints were assembled together there was absolute liberty either to praise, pray or exhort? X.

A.—1. It is true that the passage in Heb. 10 does not specify the gathering together for the Lord's Supper; but it in no way excludes exhortation from that great occasion. This is manifest from Acts 20:7. The prime call was to remember the Lord in the breaking of bread. Yet the apostle was not the one to violate divine order when he not only “discoursed” (not “preached"), but in view of his departure on the morrow prolonged the discourse till midnight. No doubt in 1 Corinthians the Lord's Supper is treated in chap. 11 before and independently of the interior working of the assembly in chap. 14, or even of its animating power in the presence and operation of the Holy Spirit in chap. 12. There might be but “two or three"; and the grace of the Lord provides for even so few who might not be endowed with any marked charisma for public activity. If man would have overlooked such little ones, God did not; and hence, gift or no gift, we have the Lord's Supper a section complete before the Holy Spirit's presence and action begins. But this was in no way to exclude His working there and then both ordinarily and extraordinarily as in the case of the apostle just named, and recorded for our profit to guard us from all narrowness, where it might be called for as at Troas. The principle is, “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty” (2 Cor. 3:17). Not even the deep solemnity with thanksgiving proper to the Lord's Supper excludes prolonged discourse in especial circumstances, as scripture proves. Again, the highest form of gift in the assembly does not only speak to God in prayer and praise and blessing, but to men in edification and encouragement and consolation as the Holy Spirit might guide in His perfect knowledge of present need to God's glory. Thus should all things be done to edification, but comelily and with order, of which scripture is careful.

2. Pliny in writing to Trajan does not speak, of a daily meeting but of one before dawn “on a stated day,” no doubt “the Lord's day,” though Justin Martyr may be the first outside scripture to describe it more fully still. It is as clear that at Troas the meeting was late in the day or in the evening, and on this occasion prolonged till midnight. This is mere detail and left for observance according to a gracious arrangement for the best according to circumstances; just as no stress was laid on the kind of bread, whatever was the fact on the original institution of the Lord's Supper. Certain minds always tend to formalism—the reverse of Christianity.

3. Besides the gathering of the assembly to remember the Lord and to edify one another in the Spirit, there were set occasions for “the prayers” from the first, as we read in Acts 2:42 generally, and in Acts 12:12 particularly. There is thus room for all that is edifying; whilst the fact of the special object “to break bread” or “to pray” indicates the wisdom of adhering as the rule in each to its own character prominently. Why should anyone seek to break this down by narrowing, or to broaden what scripture lays down?

Scripture Queries and Answers: Moses in Acts 26:23 and Luke 9:30

Q.—Acts 26:23. “That He should be the first that should rise from the dead.” How reconcile this with Luke 9:30? “There talked with Him two men which were Moses....” Was Moses there only in spirit, or, risen from the dead? Christ was “the first.” X. Y. Z.

A.—There is no difficulty as to Elijah who did not rise from the dead. And it is not said that Moses did, though one may not be able to explain more than that both appeared in glory at the transfiguration. But scripture cannot be broken: Christ is the first-fruits.

Scripture Queries and Answers: Peacock; He Who Runs May Read It

Q.-1. Job 22:30. What is the meaning of the first clause?

2. Job 39:13. Can the peacock be meant here? Q.

A.-1. There is no “island” expressed in either the Sept. or Vulgate, which removes one difficulty. But Schultens seems to have perceived first that the word so translated is a negative, as we see in Ichabod. That sense therefore is quite opposed by those two ancient versions, and it should run thus: “Him that is not guiltless shall He deliver: yea, he shall be delivered by the pureness of thy hands.”

2. The A.V. is far from a correct representation. The peacock seems first known, even to Israel in the days of Solomon, and the name is Indian Hebraized. It is the ostrich which is really in the first clause, contrasted with the stork in the second. “The wing of the ostrich flappeth joyously (or, rejoiceth): but hath she the stork's pinion and plumage?” This the Revisers considered a figure, in order perhaps to smooth the connection with what follows, and say “are her pinions and feathers kindly” (and in the margin, “like the stork's”). But assuredly the peacock is not meant here, a bird more striking for its splendid tail when expanded, which does not enter into the description given; whereas the ostrich, unlike the stork for power of flight, runs with the utmost rapidity, and is devoid of that parental fondness which characterizes the stork. The same ancient versions are vague enough.

Q.-Hab. 2:2. What is the true bearing of the last clause? There seems some confusion in the quotation of it that one almost invariably hears. Is the Synopsis or Dr. Pusey right in their view? They say that “he who runs may read it,” i.e. that it was to be written so plain as to be read by the hasty glance of one that hurried by. Is it really so? Q.

A.-There can hardly be a doubt that most versions are right, but the commentators wrong, even those who have rendered the Hebrew correctly. The translation of Isaac Leeser, generally correct, is here faulty and in accord with the common mistake, “that every man may read it fluently.” Is the misunderstanding due to the influence of popular misquotation? For the word is written plainly, not “that he who runs may read it,” but “that he who readeth it may run” —just the opposite. The inference may be merely that the reader need not stop; but may it not be the more worthy one of earnestly pursuing the work of making known the revealed purpose of Jehovah for others also to profit thereby? When the crisis comes, as we are told by another prophet, many shall run to and fro, and knowledge (surely of a spiritual and higher sort than of the stars or of the fossils, of chemistry or of electricity) shall be increased. Assuredly the need of that is as great as it is all-important.

Scripture Queries and Answers: Preaching Election

Q.—Rom. 8:33, Eph. 1:4, 1 Peter 1:2. Is it right on spiritual grounds to preach election to the unconverted?

A.—It is right to teach election to the living Christians, who show that they are elect by their confession of Christ and the godly walk inseparable from life eternal which they have by faith. Election is then meat in due season, as we see it ministered to our faith by more than one apostle cited above. But it is unscriptural and therefore wrong in a believer's eyes to preach election to the unconverted. The Christian preaches Christ to those who have Him not, that they may turn to God as lost sinners and be saved as believers by His grace.

Leave it to Arminians to preach man's freewill and power to turn, if not to do good. We know that we were slaves of Satan and dead in sins: a state incompatible with their bad doctrine. Leave it to Calvinists to preach election to the world, which can do no good to the lost but only injure them by accepting it in a fatalistic way, while still under the enemy's bondage. They are alike enamored of their doctrines, true but wholly unsuitable in the latter case, and quite false in the former one. Be content with Christ and Christianity, which are divine. Arminianism and Calvinism are human and may be left for men to squabble about, instead of simply following (as all Christians ought) the word which glorifies Christ by the Spirit, and delivers the believer that cleaves to Him from the narrowness and the error of all human systems.

Take this evidence of it—Calvinists and Arminians contend with no small acrimony in their common assumption that purchase and redemption are the same thing. He who holds to scripture learns the difference which they ignore. They do not see that the Christian is both bought and redeemed, and that the unbeliever, though not redeemed, is bought. Confounding the two, they cannot convince any but themselves; the Christian who discriminates them is assured that all are bought, even the most wicked (as in 2 Peter 2:1), and that the believer alone has redemption in Christ, the forgiveness of sins through His blood. Man, whether he believes or not, was purchased by the Lord, is bound to own Him, and is preached to (“all men” and “everywhere”) that he may repent and believe the gospel of salvation. Those who believe are by faith forgiven their sins, and enter the family of God as His children, comforted to know their redemption as well as their election by sovereign grace. All the evil was theirs, all the good is of God, which for us turns on faith in Christ.

Scripture Queries and Answers: Question on Separation

Q.—The great denominations of Christendom, from Rome downwards, are all wrong in their constitution and outward form, and should be separated from. But where the constitution, the outward form, is correct, like the various sections of Brethren, does not scripture seem to show that there should be no separation, whatever the evil, but that saints should stay within, and strengthen the things that remain (e g. 3 John, the Seven Churches, etc.)? Does not this seem to derive all the greater force from the fact that there appears to be no instance of separating from the outward thing? Surely saints could remain within and remember the Lord without setting up another table though in daily walk only associate, or follow, with those that call on the Lord out of a pure heart. Immoral persons it is clear should be put out. Those going out would then manifestly not be saints, not being in fellowship. X.Y.Z.

A.—Resemblance in outward form is no sufficient warrant that the saints are truly gathered to the Lord's name. There might be acceptance of fundamental evil in the allowance of a false Christ, either on the human side or the divine. Communion with one who does not bring the doctrine of Christ, as 2 John proves, is more fatal than any moral laxity, wicked as this would be, and demands more stringency, as He is of infinitely more weight than any or all professing Christians. Even ordinary greeting is forbidden b such a deceiver and antichrist. Indifference to such sin is to become a partaker of the evil deeds, even if one does not imbibe the evil doctrine. 2 Tim. 2 also is clear that when evil is allowed within, and vessels to dishonor are sanctioned instead of being excluded, the faithful are bound to separate. If a so-called Christian assembly keeps them in defiance of all right call to purge them out as leaven, the true saint must purge himself out, in order to be a vessel unto honor, and to follow all that is godly with those that call on the Lord out of a pure heart.

The Apocalyptic churches do not touch discipline or polity, but the Lord's dealing with them, from decline and peril of the candlestick removed to the final spuing out of His mouth. The argument of hence denying responsibility to withdraw goes so to contradict our duty as shewn elsewhere as to evince its falsity and evil. For it would compel us to have fellowship with Nicolaitan antinomianism, fornication, adultery, &c. What proves too much disproves itself. Tolerating evil under the Lord's name is intolerable; and no evil is so bad as heterodoxy as to Christ, whether held or winked at and unjudged. To give it license of the Lord's table is heinous sin.

Scripture Queries and Answers: Reading Human Writings

Q.—2 Tim. 4:13. It has been stated that “if men were really converted, their libraries would go to feed the flames.” Is this quite sober? Of course the supposition is that “the parchments” were portions of Holy Writ; but there is the possibility that they were not. Paul quotes on two occasions (Acts 17:28 and Titus 1:12) profane poets.

Whether the quotations were remembered from his preconversion days or not does not seem to affect the principle involved. If this teaching is of the Spirit, it appears that no Christian, however gifted, should read human writings even with a view to exposing their fallacies in the light of the word of God. Your enquirer fully admits that “all things are lawful; but all things are not expedient,” and this question appears to be one in which everyone is to be “fully persuaded in his own mind,” always of course before the Lord. X.

A.—It has long seemed to me that the apostle's direction has a larger bearing than is generally apprehended. He desired the cloak left behind in Troas rather than to procure a new one; “the books” too, which do not appear from the general expression to have been the scriptures; and “most of all, the parchments.” These naturally imply that, being of the most valuable and lasting material, and not yet written on, they were wanted by the apostle, conscious that his outward ministry was closing. “For I am already being poured out, and the time of my release is all but come.” Can we conceive of anything more present to his spirit than the desire to have his Epistles copied with care under his own eye and for permanent use? When he originally wrote, as to the Thessalonians and others, he was perfectly aware of its inspired character, and adjured by the Lord that what he wrote should be read to all the brethren. And in the next letter, as he speaks of a spurious one to mislead the saints, he drew attention to each of his conveying at least the salutation by his own hand. We can the better understand the distinction drawn between the written books which had no sacred character, and the unwritten parchments destined to the most important use at the moment when he could say, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.” He would not on his journeys, we may be well assured, leave behind a single roll he had of the scriptures; but be neither burnt nor despised other books. Yet all he writes shows a soul wholly above the indulgence of the mind, and repudiating all authority but God's in divine things.

Scripture Queries and Answers: Romans 5:12

Q.—Rom. 5:12. Is it correct to say that sin did not exist in this world before Adam? We are told that pre-adamite animals are unearthed in Siberia in whose carcasses can be distinctly traced disease; and is not all disease the result of sin? How reconcile this with the words of this scripture? ENQUIRER.

A.—On the one hand it has never been proved that any unearthed animal wherein disease is traceable is pre-adamite; nevertheless it is clear that innumerable creatures once alive composed the fossilized strata with which all geologists are familiar. These were deposited ages before the deluge or even the Adamic world. On the other the verse in the Epistle to the Romans is entirely limited to Adam and his descendants; and it is equally clear from Rom. 8:20 that the creature here below was subjected to vanity, not willingly but by reason of him who subjected it, yet in hope that the creature itself also shall be freed from the bondage of corruption into the liberty of the glory of the children of God. Thus the Second man the last Adam is not merely our Savior but creation's deliverer when we are revealed in His glory and glorified like Himself.

It is however true that above the earth sin broke out before man was created. How far, if at all, this affected pre-adamite animals, the creatures on the earth before Adam, as I am not aware that scripture speaks, I forbear to speculate. The subjection to vanity of which the apostle speaks is confined solely to man's world.

Scripture Queries and Answers: Romans 6:4

Q——Rom. 6:4. I gather that the believer is here viewed as having died in Christ's death; that he is entitled to regard himself thus; and that his baptism is the confession of this truth. But what means “buried with Him by baptism unto death?” W.B.

A.—Is it true that we are ever said to have died in Christ? or is it a bit of Calvinistic misapprehension of the truth, making mystic what is really experimental, however truly and rightly based on faith? What the passage says is that we died with Christ; that baptized unto Christ Jesus we were baptized unto His death. “We were buried therefore with him by baptism unto death; in order that as Christ was raised out of dead [men] through the glory of the Father, so we also should walk in newness of life.” Buried with Him is a confirmatory figure drawn from having been under the water of death. Compare ver. 5. Without Christ we had lain there; but we are identified thus with His death to give us quittance from sin, and therefore to live no longer in it. The next chapter (7) shows that it was not without proving the futility of legal efforts after we received life. Thus we were brought to own what His death is, not for pardon merely but deliverance.

Scripture Queries and Answers: Sect

Q.—As to receiving from the sects conditionally, is there not a great difference in the sects of today compared with those of Paul's day (Corinthian rebuke)? Undoubtedly the denominations of to-day took their rise in dark times mainly in their struggle for the truth, and without, apparently, any knowledge of unity as characteristic of the church of God? X. Y. Z.

A.—The awful fact now is that all the denominations are more and more contaminated with the infidelity cloaked under the name of “Higher Criticism.” This makes it increasingly difficult to allow Christians, so careless and indifferent to God's dishonor, a place at the Lord's supper until they clear themselves of such a compromise. If orthodox and holy, we welcome them.

Scripture Queries and Answers: Speaking in the Assembly

Q.—Is there any restrictive rule as to speaking in the assembly? MATHETES.

A.—Certainly in 1. Cor. 14:27-29 there are restrictive rules put as to speaking in the assembly. The very disorder in the church at Corinth furnished the occasion for the profit of all afterward. “If any speak with a tongue, two or at most three, and in turn (or, separately), and let one interpret; but if there be no interpreter, let him be silent in an assembly, and let him speak to himself and to God. And let two or three prophets speak, and let the others judge.”

The apostle had just laid down the great principle, “Let all things be done to edification.” Then he applies it to the two typical or representative cases; to a tongue on the one hand; and on the other to prophesying. He begins with what the vain Greek mind affected most, speaking with a tongue, because it was so open and surprising a witness of divine power. It electrified people. But in an assembly, if alone, it did not edify. Therefore if he who had “a tongue” could not interpret, or no interpreter was there, he must be silent and content with speaking to himself and to God: an excellent lesson, where there was the desire to display that gift. Even if there was an interpreter, edifying required only two or at the most three.

Next, he turns to prophesying which had the highest character of direct edifying, and directs that two or three prophets speak, and let the others judge, not add their contributions, which could only distract instead of edifying, but rather hinder the profit of what came from God. Under this regulation comes teaching of any kind “in assembly” for edification, encouragement, consolation, exhortation, warning or any other spiritual aim. More than “two or three,” even if possessed of the most weighty of God's gifts, is forbidden in the most distinct and absolute way.

The question is, if we believe that grace still preserves meeting “in assembly,” and if we in divine mercy cherish so signal a privilege, spite of its absence in general, are we subject to the “Lord's commandment” in these things as in all else? It is to be feared that many forget it, and think that prevalent ruin opens the door to laxity and self-will. Perhaps others too have heard not many years since of no less than eight speakers! occupying a professedly Christian assembly, and rather boasting of this plethora of talk, as if it were a proof of zeal, simplicity, or the freedom which the Spirit of the Lord creates. It really indicated their lack of intelligence or subjection to the inspired word which they could not but know, but failed to recognize; and love of letting their voices be heard on such a solemn occasion, which is meant to witness that God is verily in or among the saints.

In vers. 34-36 is another and a prohibitory rule, “Let the women keep silence in the assemblies; for it is not permitted to them to speak; but let them be in subjection, as also saith the law. And if they wish to learn anything, let them ask their own husbands at home; for it is shameful for a woman to speak in an assembly. What! went the word of God out from you? or came it to you alone?”

Such is His regulation of His assembly. Would we as Christians prefer, or even tolerate for ourselves, an assembly independent of God, where man speaks as he pleases? How necessary it is to judge ourselves, especially if we exercise the title to judge other people. What is more excellent than obedience?

Scripture Queries and Answers: State Characterizing the Child of God

Q.—1 John 3:7-10. Is the state which characterizes the child of God absolute? And is it so also with the child of the devil? AMOS.

A.—The language of the apostle is unqualified. Nor could it be otherwise where grace gives a new nature, for it is to have life eternal in Christ. There ought to be no difference as to this among the simplest saints gathered to the Lord's name. To hear of “one teacher opposed to another” or to what is so plain in scripture is strange. “A lake of fire” too may be a symbol; but it figures unutterable woe and unending punishment for those cast therein, exceeding all possible by the literal terms. We are bound to give the largest scope to the judgment of God no less than to His grace.

Scripture Queries and Answers: The Calling and Inheritance in Ephesians and 1 Peter

Q.—What is the difference between the calling and the inheritance as in the Epistle to the Ephesians, from the same terms in the First Epistle of Peter? J. C.

A.—The Apostle Paul was given to reveal the calling and the inheritance in all the height and depth, length and breadth of the glory of Christ, the Son and glorified man in the heavenlies, the Head over all things and Heir of all things, our portion one with Himself and joint-heirs with Him.

The Apostle Peter was inspired to present rather the Christian's heavenly calling and place, and God's family, His priests and kings, in contrast with Israel's hopes; and therefore to an incorruptible and undefiled and unfading inheritance reserved in the heavens for those that are here, guarded by God's power through faith for the salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. It is not a great mystery as in Eph. 5:32, respecting Christ and respecting the church; any more than the mystery of God's will and purpose (Eph. 1:9, 10) in setting Christ at the head of the universe heavenly and earthly, the inheritance in its fullest extent.

Q.—1. What do you consider the force of the two expressions, “in Christ,” and “in the Lord"? 2. What means, as said of marriage, “only in the Lord” (1 Cor. 7:39)? G. B. E.

A.—1. Though they approach nearly, there is a shade of difference, the first rather expressing privilege, the latter responsibility. 2. This is certainly so in the case proposed. Two persons might be “in Christ,” truly attached in affection, but the one entering into the full relationship of the Christian, the other hardly rising in faith or practice above a simple believer, content with remission of sins and general care as to moral walk, and in a false position ecclesiastically. Would it be “in the Lord” for such to marry? Can two walk together before Him who are not agreed in a duty so important for His glory?

Scripture Queries and Answers: The Future Jewish Remnant

Q.—What according to scripture is the character of the future Jewish remnant, after the rapture of the saints, before Christ and they appear together in glory? DISCIPLE.

A.—Take the following concise answer in the words of another.

They are godly; under law; upright in heart, yet confessing their people's blood-guiltiness; they are looking for Jehovah's intervention against their enemies. They are persecuted under the beast; betrayed by their false brethren who have received the Antichrist. All these sorrows find expression in the Psalms. In using them they begin, as I understand it, but dimly at first, to perceive that some One has been in these trying circumstances before them; One who when He cried to Jehovah, was heard. “This poor man cried, and Jehovah heard him, and delivered him out of all his troubles.” This encourages them to cry that He may deliver them. Gradually the thought of His being more than man dawns and grows on their souls. Jeremiah may tell them, “Cursed is the man that trusteth in man” (17:5) while Psa. 2 will say, “Blessed are all they which trust in him.” This seems a contradiction; but the perception of His divine nature is gradually but effectually taking its place in their souls, until the moment comes when He appears to their deliverance, and they look on Him whom they pierced and mourn, and find Him to be Jehovah's fellow—nay, Jehovah Himself.

Scripture Queries and Answers: The Holy Spirit

Q.—The great difference between the descent of the Spirit upon Christ as a dove and upon believers as a cloven tongue of fire, struck me so forcibly that I searched the subject out and saw that He being holy, harmless, undefiled and separate from sinners, received the Spirit (not that He was not immaculate by the Spirit from His mother's womb before) as an emblem of purity and harmlessness—a dove; whereas the believer, sinful still, received Him as a cloven tongue of fire. Was not the promise of Matt. 3:11 fulfilled at Pentecost, a baptism with the Holy Ghost and with fire? I connected with it 1 Cor. 3:13, to the effect that the believer who is led by the Spirit will not build inflammable structures; but that if he exert his own quenching influence upon the fire of the Holy Spirit, worthless building must result. Then again, 1 Cor. 3:5, “ye are the temple of God;” “The Spirit dwelleth in you.”

Thus the unquenchable fire (Matt. 3:12) to me seemed the Spirit Himself who seeks daily to burn up the chaff of flesh and self, and so to transform us more and more into the likeness of Christ. It is the purifying influence of fire, that we generally failed to admit a baptism of fire as coincident.

We speak of allowing the Spirit to work, and so exclude the works of the flesh and expel them too: is not this the purifying work of fire? The symbol seems to fit well. When (1 Cor. 3) the day shall declare our works, how much of flesh shall be burnt up by fire! all man's building undirected by the Spirit. Had the Spirit been allowed to do His work, would not these works have been burnt up at their inception instead of their author's having to suffer loss after this life's close? The “quench not the Spirit,” is it necessarily a negative command to the assembly? The accompanying commands seem to be to individuals. Can not an individual effectually quench the Spirit, or does σβέννυτε go too far for this?

If the fire of the Spirit is not for purifying purposes, why the promise in Matt. 3 and the cloven tongue of Pentecost? and is not Matt. 3:12 applicable in great measure here and now, at this present time? And is not this what He is doing continually in us as we pass along? Is it not His will that by this process we should be more and more transformed into the likeness of Christ? What means “Our God is a consuming fire?” Q.

A.— It is well to observe that the form of the Spirit's appearance is stated in our Lord's case to be “as a dove,” and in the saints “as of fire.” There was divine suitability in each; and as gentleness marked the one, so the testimony of the other was to judge and consume as fire all opposing falsehood. But this is not the complete fulfillment of Matt. 3, though a moral witness of what awaits the Lord's execution of judgment on the living at His appearing. As the O.T. often mixes the two comings of Messiah, so did John the Baptist the twofold baptism. Not till He comes again is the winnowing fan in His hand, whence He shall throughly purge His threshing-floor, and gather His wheat into His garner, but also burn the chaff with the unquenchable fire. Surely this last is in no way a moral purifying of faults of the righteous, but the judicial destruction of the wicked. Luke, who brings in the Gentiles, does the same; for His judgment will befall them too.

This is corroborated by the Gospel of Mark, who did not write especially for the Jews as Matthew, but as the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Accordingly in God's wisdom he presents John the Baptist as speaking of Christ's baptizing with the Holy Spirit (1:8), but not a word about the baptism of fire. That baptism took place at Pentecost. So in John's Gospel (1:33) we hear of Christ's baptizing with the Holy Spirit only. His judgment on the quick is here left out, but will surely be at Christ's second advent.

1 Cor. 3:12-15 has nothing to do with the baptism of fire spoken of in Matt. 3:11, 12, and in Luke 16; 17 nor does any one of them speak of its purifying influence, still less of burning up the chaff of flesh and self. For us the basis was laid in the cross where God condemned sin in the flesh, and as a sin-offering for us, and thus our sinful nature had His judgment executed on it, as well as our sins borne away. No doubt there is also a daily moral government carried on, as our Lord pointed out in the Vine (John 15), the fruit-bearing branches being cleansed (we read) by the water of the word, whilst the fruitless are left for the fire of another day; but there is no mixing up the two for this day. The transforming into Christ's image from glory to glory, even as by the Lord the Spirit, is by looking on His glory with unveiled face, after the type of Moses, as 2 Cor. 3 tells us. Heb. 12:29 refers to Deut. 4:24, in no way to the baptism of the Spirit.

Scripture Queries and Answers: The Lord's Table

Q.—Acts 20:7. Is every Christian whose faith is sound and walk godly admissible when known as such to the Lord's Supper? J.O.S.

A.—The principle is sound; but in the growing confusion care is due to the Lord that it be rightly applied so as not to cover ungodliness in either way by evil communications which corrupt good manners and defile even when personal appearance seems right. There are vast numbers, besides Papists, who now countenance idolatry in their so-called worship. There are very many, both Nationalists and Dissenters, who sanction or are indifferent to the skepticism of the Higher Critics. It would be wicked to make either of these free of the Lord's Table. They are enemies of the truth, and to allow their fellowship is a sin. Their belonging to some ecclesiastical system where such things notoriously flourish, to which they are attached, is a necessary ground to refuse them as long as they persevere in an evil association. Otherwise it is to blow hot and cold, and to adopt in what represents the church of God the laxity of the world which knows not God. In the case of relatives, friends, or the like, peculiar caution is due, lest in amiable feeling we should compromise Christ. In early days we had neither the idolatrous evil nor the skeptical one as we have now. The shadows of the coming apostasy are around us. Let us increasingly watch unto prayer and in jealousy for Christ's glory, and in true love to Christians.

Let me here warn those who would cleave to the Lord's name to beware of the recent tracts of W. S. and W. L. P. as special pleading and compromise, the latter too in a tone not quite becoming the most mature and honored if such he were. It is diligently kept hidden, if known, that the two perhaps most intelligent of the Ten were thorough partisans of B. W. N., and seceded from Bethesda, not only because the Newtonian advocates were got rid of privately, but because of the seven meetings in which his evil doctrines were condemned (very much through pressure from without, as of R. Ch. and others), even G. M. joining pointedly. It is well-known too that another whose place was high among them strongly sympathized with N.'s errors. And the fact is that the seceding two tried to establish a Newtonian meeting in Bristol and had B.W.N. to aid them in it. When this failed, they sought readmission to Bethesda, and were received on their saying that they ought not to have seceded!! That this was all sought by Bethesda from themselves I know from letters written at the time in answer to strict inquiry, by Messrs. G. M. and J. Meredith severally on one side, and by the seceders or at least R. A. on the other.

Many years have elapsed; but I am sorry to say now as then that the Letter of the Ten made it a day for the faithful and true to renounce Bethesda and all that tolerate its abjuring the prime duty of God's assembly; that the seven meetings were fairer in word than in deed and truth; and that their proceedings both in getting rid of the Newtonians by a private door instead of a public judgment, and in receiving back the guilty pair who sought in vain to exploit a Newtonian meeting with its leader flaunted before all eyes, proved their indifference to a false Christ, their jealousy only for their own honor. I was one then of the not few who regretted that J.N.D. so hastily gave credit to the sincerity of Bethesda and its leaders. But God is faithful, and overruled. Yet who was not shocked at the rude and self-righteous repulse his too confiding spirit received? And what are we to think of G. M. and wife, years after all the denunciations and without any further self-judgment on B. W. N.'s part, daring without a blush to travel from Bristol to Tunbridge Wells to hear N.'s reading or sitting lecture, and to declare the value he set on N.'s writings?

Far from me to despise any one's little measure of knowledge; but how can one avoid indignation at such a tissue of unfaithfulness to Christ, without piling the agony? No, dear brethren, unless there be, on the part of the intelligent at least, a real clearance from such evils, our painful duty is to stand aloof and separate to Christ, however abused and disliked for His name we may still be. Those who never went through the deep grief and shame are hardly the persons to judge wisely or to speak with weight.

Scripture Queries and Answers: The Manner of Our Seeing God

Q.—Do the following scriptures teach that we the children of God shall never see God? “No man hath seen God at any time.” “He dwelleth in light, which no man can approach unto.” “Whom no man hath seen, nor can see.”

“He (Christ) is the image of the invisible God.” A.J.R.

A.—It seems to me that the querist supplies the answer. The pure in heart are to see God, but Christ is the medium, whether in grace or in glory. Scripture cannot be broken; and both John and Paul intimate that it is Christ who reveals Him to us. The manner of our seeing God is made as plain as His inaccessibility whose essence no man ever saw or can see. The more we know His grace the more let us own His proper majesty and our own place in respect of Him. He is the blessed and only Ruler, the King of those that reign, and Lord of those that exercise lordship, Who only hath immortality, to Whom be honor and eternal might, and the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ shall show it.

ERRATUM.

Jn B,T. for Oct., p. 150, col. 2,1. 25, for “lost” read “lot.”

Scripture Queries and Answers: The Name Used in Baptism

Q.—Matt. 28 What is the name that should be used in baptizing? I believe in the Name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit according to last chapter of Matthew. But in America the majority among so-called O. B. use the name of the Lord Jesus according to the examples in the Acts of the Apostles.

A SCOT ABROAD.

A.—Matthew's Gospel is the one which shows and provides for the then approaching transition from Judaism to the kingdom of the heavens, in mystery as it now is, and to the church. Besides, what can be more characteristically Christian than baptizing unto the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit? This could hardly be even intelligible to the future though godly Jewish remnant, whose faith will be in Jehovah, and His Anointed, Jesus the Lord. Not a few in Gt. Britain similarly misuse the Acts to depart from the true form. In the Acts only the general historical mention is made, and in keeping with its design of the book in asserting the Lordship of Christ, not once in giving the precise formula, save in the spurious verse, Acts 8:37. It is easy to bring in His Lordship also in baptizing; but unless to the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, it scarcely deserves to be accounted proper Christian baptism, as it is an unintelligent and bold annulling of our Lord's express provision till the end of the age when His own are to be gathered into the heavenly garner.

Scripture Queries and Answers: The Saints in Revelation 6:9

Q—Rev. 6:9. Who were these saints, and by what means brought to God?

A CONSTANT READER OF THE B.T.

A.—It is certain and clear that these saints in question were not of Christian standing, but apparently believing Jews, called after the translation on high of the heavenly saints (of the O. T. as well as of the N. T.), and seen around the throne under the symbol of the twenty-four crowned elders. They on the other hand were seen underneath the altar, as victims offered up to God, “the souls of those that had been slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held; and they cried with a loud voice,” not at all as Stephen did in Acts 7, but like the godly Jewish remnant in the Psalms and the Prophets, “saying, How long, and [or, sovereign Master], holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on those that dwell on the earth? And there was given to them each a white robe; and it was said to them that they should rest yet a little while, until both their fellow-bondmen and their brethren who were about to be killed as they, should be fulfilled.” Their resurrection to reign with Christ was to come; and Rev. 20:4 describes it for them in Rev. 6 and those to follow them in Rev. 13

We are not told, as far as I know, by what means they were brought to God; but there is no difficulty in conceiving that He may have wrought immediately by His grace through the word in some, who were used to act on others, as He has often done even in our day where the more ordinary means failed.

Scripture Queries and Answers: The Samaritan Woman

Q.—John 4 Was the Samaritan woman there and then indwell by the Holy Spirit? or could this be true of any one before the Spirit was sent forth on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2)? F.F.

A.—The woman was begotten anew at the well of Sychar that day. But this, though a most momentous operation of the Spirit, quite differs from the gift of the Spirit which only came after the Lord ascended to heaven. When unbelievers, we need to be begotten or born of the Spirit; when we believe the gospel and rest on the Savior's finished work, we are sealed of the Spirit, and not before. “Because ye are sons (not, to make you sons), God, sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying Abba, Father.” All saints had been begotten anew; but none received the indwelling Spirit till Pentecost and afterward. The Lord told the woman of the great gift He was going to give; but she had to wait for the new gift with the apostles and all else till that day. And so it is to-day. We are first born anew; and then when we give up our efforts to better ourselves, and rest on Christ's work, we receive the Spirit, entering into peace and liberty, not before. Eph. 1:13, often quoted to show that when we ass born anew, we are sealed by the Spirit, proves on the contrary that we are not sealed till we believe the gospel of salvation. This is faith far beyond what overwhelmed one under the weight and guilt of our sins. To jumble the two together, is to hinder both, as many do. They are quite distinct operations of the Spirit; and the agony of the one makes us enjoy all the more the peace of the other. How any Christian can doubt the word, or forget his own experience, is strange and sorrowful. For such unbelieving confusion enfeebles his judgment and hinders his spiritual power. He cannot adequately apprehend either what the Christian is, or the Church, till he bows to the new privilege.

Scripture Queries and Answers: There Go the Ships; A Gloss, or of God?

Q.-Psa. 104:26. Does it not seem remarkable that the Psalmist, in the midst of the rehearsal of the works of God, should introduce a work of man 9— “There go the ships.” Is there just ground for the supposition that by ships are intended fleets of the little nautilus (“which spread their thin oar and catch the driving gale”), creatures of God? Vers. 27-29 seem to exclude the idea of ships being meant. C.J.D.

A.-No doubt the allusion to “the ships” in ver. 26 is a singular and notable introduction, between the marine creatures small and great before, and the one specified after. But the reference has all the more force. The ships glided majestically, and are ever an object of interest to the observer; while the bulky creatures that played within its waters did not escape notice, though not so continuously. “Moving things countless” naturally led from living creatures of the deep to the ships which made their way visibly across the sea. Even they for the purposes of those concerned (and how wide these interests all over the world!) were as dependent on God's care as any of its objects which the Psalm contemplates from the heavens, and the earth, the mountains, the valleys, the springs, the grass and the herb, the wine, oil, and bread, the birds and the wild-goats, the sun and the moon, the monarch of wild beasts and the monarch of creation, before the great and wide sea comes before us.

On the other hand the Nautilus, interesting as it is, presents no such conspicuous object on the sea. Here and there it may abound as in the warm waters of the Pacific and the Australian Oceans, and off the coasts of Asia and Africa and some of their islands. But even so they make no show on the smallest scale comparable to “the ships;” they are as a snail on land compared with the house of man. So rare was the sight of one at sea, that the scientists say “the recovery of this interesting animal was reserved for a British voyager (Mr. G. Bennett, who describes its capture on 24 Aug., 1829, in his “Wanderings in N.S. Wales,” &c) It struck them as “like a small dead tortoise-shell cat”; and this being so unusual a sight there led to the sending the boat, alongside at the time, to ascertain its nature. Is it conceivable that genus Nautilus of the first Fam. Nautilidae, of Order B. Tentaculifera of D'Orbigny [Prof. Owen's Tetrabranchiata] of the Cephalopoda, should be here meant? “The ships” are an exception, but one so graphic as to fall naturally into this wonderful picture around man as its center according to God: no sufficient reason appears to warrant their exclusion.

Q.—John 8:1-11. Is this story a gloss, as so many of the learned reckon, or is it of God? L. L.

A.-When celibacy was an idol, we can understand how unacceptable were the Lord's words. Even Augustine attributed its omission to infirm or no faith. Yet bearing in mind that our earliest copies are of that age, we see marks proving a willful omission, with ample testimony to its existence. But the Christian can recognize the Shepherd's voice, such as no forger ever invented, and can note that the fact supplies the occasion for the discourse that follows, as in chaps. 4; 5; 6, which otherwise would deprive chap. 8 of its analogous starting-point. Beyond just question it is of God.

Q.-Does not ξύλον, tree, and σταυρὸς, imply not the traditional form of a cross, but rather a pole or stake? L. L.

A. The “tree” was rather generic; and even the Jews used it as a sign of curse and degradation, after killing the evil-doer. The “cross,” as more specific, sometimes applied to impaling, at others to suspending the body from the middle, but still more widely to proper crucifixion by nailing the sufferer to an upright beam with a transverse to which the stretched arms were fastened. So the inspired description proves it was in our Lord's case; where there was also an elongation of the central board, bearing over the head the memorable words which Pilate wrote to the dire offense of the Jews. Its form then resembled, not an X as some fancy, but a T with that headpiece surmounting the center of the cross-beam, pretty near what is generally conceived.

Scripture Queries and Answers: Two Great Lights; Man Reduced to Beast; Thy Seed; Recovering of Sight to the Blind

Q—1. Gen. 1:16. Why the “two great lights” mentioned in the fourth day's work, seeing that the sun is really the center of our planetary system? and how could it have been dark (ver. 2) if the sun was then in existence?

Q—2. Gen. 1:29, 30; 2:16; 3:18. By comparing the sustenance of man and beast in Gen. 1:29, 30; 2:16, with 3:18, does it not seem as if man was reduced to level of beasts in the field— “thou shalt eat the herb of the field” —and after that it goes on to say “dust thou art, &c.?”

Q—3. Gen. 3:15. What is the meaning of “thy seed” (the devil's seed), and of “thy seed and her seed?”

Q—4. Luke 4:18. What lesson is to be learned from the insertion of “recovering of sight to the blind” in Luke 4:18 though absent from Isa. 61:1? E.N.

A.—1. The two “great lights” were constituted as they still are (not created then) in relation to the earth prepared for man, like the work of all the six days. The dense darkness that prevailed in the chaotic state which preceded these days easily accounts for the gloom, though the sun, moon and stars were already in existence since God created the heavens and the earth, which took place, it may be, ever so long before the great geologic ages previous to the Adamic race. Not that scripture is occupied with these material processes; but it leaves ample room before the first day in ver. 3.

A.—2. There was no “reducing” man to fruit and vegetable as his early food till the deluge, when animal fare was allowed with prohibition of the blood with good and holy reason assigned. Man enjoyed even before far beyond “beasts of the field.” Yet even so through sin his body is as reducible to the dust as any beast's. But why omit that he only has a soul immortal (for good or for ill) through the inbreathing of Jehovah Elohim He only was, solemnly in divine council, made “in our image, after our likeness”; the most distinct separateness from, and elevation above, every other creature on earth. Why lose sight of this?

A.—3. Can there be conceived a weightier announcement, after sin had entered with death ensuing, than Jehovah Elohim made in pronouncing the curse on the Serpent? “I will put enmity between thy seed and her seed: it shall bruise thy head, and thou shall bruise his heel.” While countless souls are by grace associated for all blessing and triumph with the woman's seed, One is marked out, on Whom all the blessed of similar seed depend, Who should suffer the deepest anguish, yet live (again, as we can add) to crush him who was the liar and the murderer from the beginning, and all who, refusing grace, perpetuate the enmity of Satan.

A.—4. It would seem that the Seventy, who translated the O. T. into Greek, added here from elsewhere in the prophet Isaiah, another beneficent fruit of Messiah's presence and power, the bestowal of sight on the blind. Dean Alford in his note to this text refers to Isa. 58:6. If this be correctly represented, it is hard to discover the link literally or spiritually. It may be more simply and fairly referred to Isa. 35:5, where the sense is the same, though the words differ. Luke cites here and elsewhere from the Septuagint. No other lesson seems intended.

Scripture Queries and Answers: What Has He to Offer; Church Presented to the Father at Pentecost

Q.—1. Heb. 8:3. How are we to understand the last clause? What has our Great High Priest in heaven now to offer, seeing He had previously on the Cross offered Himself?

Q.—2. Is there any scriptural warrant for the statement that the Lord Jesus offered or presented the church to the Father on the day of Pentecost? W.G.

A.—1. I presume that the Great Priest offered the greatest gift ever presented or presentable to God, Himself dead and risen representing not His person only but His infinite work on the cross.

A.—2. I see no warrant in scripture for His offering the church to the Father on the day of Pentecost. Such a thought ought not to be uttered without the word of God unambiguously for it. Why should Christians who have the whole revealed mind of God indulge in any fancy of their own?

Scripture Queries and Answers: Whosoever in 1 John 3:9; 5:1, 18

Q.—1 John 3:9; 5:1, 18. Some explain “whosoever” as referring to the new nature. To my mind it refers to the individual. Help is desired and will be appreciated. A. M.

A.—The individual has sustained a change of all moment. “I am crucified with Christ, and no longer live I, but Christ liveth in me; but what I now live in flesh, I live in faith that is of (or in) the Son of God who loved me, and gave himself up for me” (Gal. 2:20). So in Rom. 7 where this question occasioned immense inward effort and trial of spirit, the soul was brought to see the radical distinction of the new from the old man; and to say “it is no more I that do it [evil], but sin that dwelleth in me,” not to excuse but wholly condemn self, and cry for that deliverance which the new man craves and finds in Christ Jesus dead and risen. The apostle John too loves to think and speak absolutely of the believer in his new blessedness. It is clear that if Christ lives in Him, sin cannot result from such a life; equally so, that if one so blessed sin (as in 1 John 2:1), it is from unwatchfulness in prayer which let in such an inconsistency. But John as the rule does not occupy himself with the modifications owing to the mixed condition, and holds to the absoluteness of the truth, as faith is entitled to do by grace. To doubt is not only infirm but a grievous error, and a wrong to Christ's work.

Scripture Query and Answer: 1 John 5:18

Q.—1 John 5:18. Here is a man who, born again, has gone on rejoicing in the knowledge of all his sins forgiven, yet at length gives himself up to evil (say, drunkenness), and dies in this reprobate state. Does scripture give us light on such a case? J.H.

A.—Surely it does. He is one of the many who deceive themselves, and say that they have fellowship with God while walking in darkness; whereas they lie and do not the truth (1 John 1:6). It is easy for unconverted souls, especially when emotional excitement prevails, to think themselves born of God when they are not, and never realized either their utter guilt and ruin, or God's grace in life eternal and remission. High pressure in appeal to feeling as in reasoning, on “the plan of salvation” tends to this imagination that all is right, which may carry souls along for no short time, and in zealous efforts to win others; though the conscience has never been before God either in true self-judgment or in submitting to His righteousness in Christ. There never was a seed of God remaining in such souls. It was but flesh, which perishes in the wilderness. It is too much to assume that they were born of God. They may have had joy in the thought of plenary forgiveness but not abiding peace with God, and so become castaway or reprobate. Heb. 6:4-8 is as strikingly solemn to show how far flesh can go in appropriating Christian privilege, short of life eternal or the new birth; as vers. 17-20 give strong consolation to the weakest believer, however tried. For it would be hard to find in the N. T. true faith set out in terms less bold than “having fled for refuge to lay hold on the hope set before us.” Yet is it all-sufficient. Never does Scripture suppose one born anew perishing in his sins. But we may easily be mistaken in counting souls renewed who are not.

Sent by Whom?

A question raised in the Times of 8th February, and signed by “an evangelical churchman,” is not to be rightly sifted in a journal avowedly of the world. Nor need it be mixed up with “the Torrey-Alexander Mission” which gave rise to it, and elicits warm recriminatory feeling from such as look only at the blessed aim, indifferent to the worldly methods, and the extremely humanitarian self-confidence which expects to surpass all ever done on earth. At such a presumptuous slight of our Lord and the Holy Spirit (to say nothing of inspired apostles) as such an expectation implies, one must be grieved though not surprised, that such inflation should rest on the support of Christendom's multitudes, and of an accompaniment to attract (solos, duets, and a carefully drilled chorus). One regrets it the more because of Dr. T.'s zeal and his earnest preaching when he adheres to it simply and solely.

But it appears to me that the questions are far graver than anything intended by an evangelical churchman, when he asks, “By what authority do they come? Who has 'sent' them? They have simply 'come,'“ he evidently thinks decisive. What is his alleged ground? “The apostolic rule, which governs the Church and safeguards it from irresponsible and unauthorized teachers is clearly laid down by the Apostle Paul in Rom. 10:14, 15— 'How shall they hear without a preacher? How shall they preach, except they be sent;' and Heb. 5:4, ‘No man taketh this honor unto himself, but he that is called of God, as was Aaron' i.e. consecrated. Now in the case of these visitors there is plainly no commission, no authority; they simply 'come.’” There we may stop, without encumbering ourselves with the detail of the London Evangelistic Council, which he says (and rightly as far as I know) is “a purely self-constituted body of excellent men.” But even he must allow that I have fairly and fully presented his principle and the Scriptures cited as his warrant.

Here this “evangelic churchman” falls into the same unbelieving error as the persons he blames—the error of Christendom almost ever since “the apostolic rule,” which governs neither his own church nor any other. And I marvel that safeguarding from irresponsible and unauthorized teachers did not, as he wrote the words, cover his face with shame and awaken pangs in the heart of an evangelical. For he knows that its orders “authorize” at this moment thousands of clergymen, who know not but hate the gospel and “the truth as it is in Jesus.” Are they not disloyal to the Head, yea to the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit as well as Holy Scripture? are they not divided into hostile camps of mutual adversaries, “higher criticism” skeptics, and disguised and dishonest papists in heart and in almost all save the Pope? This mixed multitude, some in the highest dignities, others in Professorial seats of the Universities, far outnumber “evangelical churchmen,” many of whom totally fail through “a purely Church point of view,” and, as “loyal adherents to the Church's order and discipline,” coquet with the Romanizers and the skeptics. Are they not all by the Church's orders alike “responsible and authorized teachers?” Is this right before God? Is it not a scandal?

Let us however search the scriptures, which I trust he accepts as divine and authoritative, and test our loyalty to God and His Son, our Lord Jesus. Now it must have been the Thirty-nine Articles, or some preconception however else originated, which gave him to interpolate the church's authority or its ecclesiastical officers into Rom. 10:14, 15; for not a word therein either asserts or implies anything of the sort. The apostle treats of the solemn theme of the righteousness of faith in contrast with that of the law, and shows that with heart it is believed unto righteousness, and with mouth confession is made unto salvation. For everyone whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved. How then shall they call on Him in whom they believe not? and how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher? and how shall they preach unless they were sent? even as it is written, How beautiful the feet of those that bring glad tidings of peace, of those that bring glad tidings of good things!

Here is not the least expression of church authority in sending out preachers. Nor is the entire Epistle stamped with anything more marked than the absence of such an element. The church on the other hand is largely developed in the First Epistle to the Corinthians as verified by its simple inspection. This is a striking fact from the ambition ere long of those in Rome to seek control and at length universal dominion in direct opposition to the Lord's will. The Epistle is throughout occupied with the individual wants of the believer, to ground him in the faith, to reconcile the Jewish difficulty of their special promises with the indiscriminate grace of the gospel to all, and to draw out the moral consequences of all this body of truth. But church and official authority are nowhere in it.

Hence is it not quite arbitrary to assume an ecclesiastical source of mission such as tradition dreams of? Why did not a single-eyed believer think of “God” in the case, or yet more particularly of “the Lord” as the Head? Could any other source be more apposite, or invest the preaching with equal weight or dignity? It may be said that the passage is indefinite, and that to bring in a divine source of mission here is no more certain than a traditional reference. But as believers we wrong God and His word if we allow it to be so vague; or, as the Romanists dare to say in their vulgar contempt of revelation, a nose of wax. You have all the N. T. before you. Show in the Acts of the Apostles, in the Epistles generally, or in the Pastoral charges, a single word implying the need of what is called “ordination” for preaching the gospel. I venture to affirm that no man can. Undoubtedly elders and presbyters were nominated by an apostle, or by his representative in a defined place and time like Titus and probably Timotheus. But I go farther, and point to the very numerous witnesses throughout, that evangelizing is recognized fully and freely under “the apostolic rule” as open and unfettered.

Thus it is recorded in Acts 8:1, 4 that, when a great persecution rose on the day of Stephen's martyrdom, the members of the church were all, save the apostles, scattered from Jerusalem over all the land, and that they went announcing the glad tidings. At no time was there order so high; yet no apostle raised his voice to ask, By what authority do you preach? Nay more in Acts 11:19 we are told that “those who were scattered passed through to Phenicia and Cyprus and Antioch preaching the word to Jews only. But there were certain of them, Cyprians and Cyrenians, who entering into Antioch spoke to the Greeks, announcing the glad tidings of the Lord Jesus. And the Lord's hand was with them, and a great number believed and turned to the Lord.” What can be more conclusive? It was He only that sent them, and He who, as expressed, blessed their work. What authority can rival His? And is not this written for us? Is Scripture haphazard? Leave such thoughts to Romanists and Rationalists, and learn that tradition is as unreliable in Christendom as in Jewry, and much more guilty, for we have the Spirit to make the word living beyond all experience before Christ.

Look at individuals. Who evangelized a city of Samaria, so that there was great joy that conquered the old wretched jealousy? and they were baptized, both men and women. It may be said that Philip had hands laid on him for serving tables in the peculiar work among the poor saints previously. What had this to do with his preaching? They were chosen to it that the apostles should give themselves, unhindered by such service, to prayer and the ministry of the word. He was not therefore ordained to preach. But as he is designated “the evangelist,” distinctly (Acts 21:8) from being “one of the seven,” he preached actively and in various parts. This was God's order, not in the least traditional or ecclesiastical. It was the apostolic rule, or rather the free working of the Spirit with which no apostle ever interfered.

Take another instructive instance in Acts 18:24-28. Apollos, though only knowing the baptism of John, diligently gave out what he knew, and learned the way of God more perfectly through a plain Christian man and his wife, Aquila and Priscilla. Instead of getting him ordained, the brethren wrote commending him from Ephesus to Achaia as a great preacher and teacher without any formal act whatsoever.

I do not speak of Saul of Tarsus or of Barnabas, because it might be rejoined that they are both called “apostles” in Acts 14:4, and that nobody denies their title. But if so, why do any pervert the action in Acts 13:2, 3, as if it meant their ordination? What of inferior teachers ordaining superior prophets and apostles who had been teaching them all for sometime before in Antioch itself? Is this what you call order? It was nothing of the kind, but a “separation” at the call of the Holy Spirit of those two for a special mission in Asia Minor, a recommendation of them to the grace of God, as it is called in Acts 14:26, and repeated, it would seem, in Acts 15:40. But even the great and large-hearted apostle loved, in speaking of His ministry, to place it on the broadest ground of grace, such as would vindicate the scattered preachers, “We also believe, wherefore also we speak” (2 Cor. 4:13). This is “the apostolic rule,” not the hoary-headed tradition of Christendom, which has so completely forgotten the word of God in these things, or dares to count it obsolete: a crown not of honor but of shame.

But the apostle adhered to the divine will; and in one of his later Epistles (to the Philippians) we see it tested in a trying case. “I would have you know, brethren (wrote he from his first imprisonment in Rome), that the circumstances in which I am have turned out rather to the furtherance of the gospel, so that my bonds have become manifest in Christ in the whole prætorium and to all others; and that the greater part of the brethren, trusting in the Lord through my bonds, dare more abundantly to speak the word of God fearlessly. Some indeed also for envy and strife, but some also for goodwill, preach Christ: these out of love, knowing than I am set for the defense of the gospel; those out of contention announce Christ, not purely, thinking to raise up tribulation for my bonds. What is it then? Only that in every way, whether in pretext or in truth, Christ is announced; and in this I rejoice, yea and will rejoice.” Precluded from preaching freely as he was wont, he rose above all the pain of unworthy spirit and ways in the preachers. Though far from endorsing such fleshly pettiness, he could and would rejoice that Christ was proclaimed to such as never knew of a Savior and of such a God as sent Him to suffer and to save the lost.

The question therefore is not whether all are qualified to preach, or whether those who preach do it always aright; but whether they are disqualified unless ordained. From the scriptures adduced it is perfectly clear that to hinder any Christian man who can preach is ecclesiastical disorder, and opposes the Lord's will as plainly shown by inspiration, the only unfailing standard for the Christian. Thence it is certain that they are entitled; and in the case of those who are endowed for the gospel more than others, it is well to consider what light Eph. 4:7-13 gives us, where the title of these evangelists, as well as the other great edifying gifts, is laid down. They differ in measure and character, but they are all gifts (δόματα) direct from Christ without intervention; and therefore distinct from local charges like elders or deacons, which did require due authority to appoint them.

But not so apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers, which are Christ's gifts and need no authorization of man. Apostles and prophets have the unique place of being the foundation, as Christ is the corner stone; and the foundation was so well laid, that neither succession nor restoration is anything but a fable and imposture. The evangelists are to call in from the world to God those who become members of Christ; as the pastors and teacher build them up in His grace and truth, holy and beloved. As may be noticed, bishops or elders, like deacons, are not “gifts” and nowhere included among them; but they required apostolic authority, direct or indirect, to appoint them: a very great difficulty to find either for many a day. But the edifying gifts from the ascended Christ are as unfailing as on the day of Pentecost, till the last members of His body who need them are made up.

It is worthy of “an evangelical churchman's” heed that his slur on “come,” instead of being “sent,” has been anticipated and condemned in the last Epistle of the last apostle. “Beloved, thou doest faithfully in whatever thou didst work toward thy brethren, and the strangers (who bore witness to thy love before the church), whom thou wilt do well in setting forward worthily of God. For they went forth for the Name, taking nothing from the Gentiles.” This was their merit, not in the eyes of Diotrephes, the stickler for human authority, but of the apostle, and so recorded by the Holy Spirit for our learning. They “came,” they were not “sent” save by God.

But even good men like an order of their own, and are impatient of continual dependence on the grace of God. While the apostles lived, there was a strong tendency to slip from the things of Christ into their own things. We see it in the Galatians where the same retrograde spirit which sought to bring back the law dared to question the typical apostleship of Paul who did not know Christ at all in the days of His flesh, only when ascended. This is therefore of special interest and cheer to us who were called long after. As for us, all we boast is of faith, and belongs to the unseen and eternal things. We therefore delight to read how the apostle encourages us as he did the early saints in Rome when he used the same term “call” for his own apostleship and for their saintship: not “called to be” as in the A. and R. versions but in both cases “called” or by call, instead of a birthright, as Israel's privileges were. How this meets all difficulties, all countries, all ages, and all circumstances Grace can work on the same principle, whatever the position that God may set us in.

We all know the currents and too notorious objections of unbelief. They are equally used as to a Christian and as to Christian ministry. How can you know a Christian? says the evangelical clergyman, whose position obliges him to receive every parishioner as a saint at the Eucharist, though he is sure that many decent in conduct are dead in trespasses and sins. If he were not a clergyman, he could see clearer and would act very differently; but the rubric! Will “an evangelical” churchman venture to call this obligation “of the church's order and discipline” apostolic rule? I hope not; but if not, where is he? Why then was he so bold as to say, “The apostolic rule which governs the church,” &c. Such a rubric, which fends off the disreputable but admits and welcomes (particularly at Easter for reason given) every decent man though just as “dead,” is a flagrant departure from the essential nature of God's church.

But I must not overlook the reference to Heb. 5:4. Ο “evangelical churchman,” where have you been taught to commit yourself and your teachers to an error so stupendous as to confound priesthood with ministry? In the Epistle it is Christ compared with Aaron. What has this to do with preaching? It is the Book of Common Prayer that has misled you; for it habitually and shamefully confounds the presbyter with priest, though they mean wholly different and irreconcilable things. What a pity you do not read the Bible to better purpose! But your safe-guards, your Prayer-book and your “responsible and authorized teachers,” have led you into the ditch. Let me tell you, that according to the N. T. there is no earthly priest acknowledged in Christianity, which boasts of the Great Priest interceding for us in heaven, and invites all Christian brethren now to enter boldly into the holies by the blood of Jesus through the rent veil. You betray yourself, though “an evangelical churchman,” still under much of Popish darkness. Bear with “an old disciple's” plainness: we owe it to one another, and above all to the Lord.

P.S.— Even the straitened rules of decadent Judaism were not so stiff as fallen Christendom's, as the N. T. bears witness. John the Baptist preached the coming Kingdom of the heavens, yet without a miracle for his mission from God. And Christians preached in Jewish synagogues on the sabbath without question of human authority.

The Spirit's Work (Duplicate)

We see the Spirit's work in creation, in the Samsons, Jephthahs, Sauls, and even Balaam; then in the Prophets calling back to the Law, and foretelling Messiah's sufferings and the glories to follow. But here though called the Spirit of Christ, yet it was a divine person working in a divine way to manifest power, or deal with God's people from without. This went on till John [the Baptist]. He was Messiah's forerunner; it was a transition time.

Then on Christ as Man the Holy Spirit came down as a dove. He was anointed and sealed, but He only—on this to be declared Son of God by John. Then the heavens opened, He anointed, and the Father owning Him as His Son, the Man that was there, the Second man and last Adam, personally though yet alone. For except the corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it must abide alone. Even then Christ was led into the wilderness to overcome for us, fully tested here below. Through the eternal Spirit He offered Himself without spot to God. Yet He was alone. But then, what no heart can tell or fathom, the blessed Son of God, the lowly one and the just, was made sin for us; and we can say He Himself bore our sins in His body on the tree.

Now He is risen—all that is passed: the wonderful atonement has been made, in the very place of our sin, in absolute and perfect obedience in love to the Father, God perfectly glorified. Sin, death, Satan's power, God's forsaking and judgment against sin all passed, and Man owned of God as to His work and having glorified God as made sin, is passed into the divine glory to begin all afresh in a place the consequence of redemption; and thence, having in that place received the Holy Spirit, has sent Him down to believers (not to man in the flesh or the world, though the gospel goes out to them by it) to associate them with and unite them to, Him who glorified begins all afresh. J.N.D.

Stephen the Christian Protomartyr: 1

I trust it may be of profit as well as interest to look a little into the inspired account of so blessed a saint. This closes the first phase of the church, confined to Jerusalem. Philip's work opens the second, when the word of grace goes to the Samaritans and farther still. The Gentiles are to hear through (not only the great apostle of uncircumcision, and the mission of Peter too, but) the free action of the Spirit in such of those scattered by the persecution as evangelized the Greeks also in Antioch.

Chap. 5 attests power in every form: the Holy Spirit that indwelt the church avenging by Peter hypocritical deceit within, followed by blessing inward and outward; unseen power delivering the injured apostles from the world's persecution; and power over men's hearts as in Gamaliel's intervention.

Increase of numbers was followed by internal weakness: the waning of love, and the rise of jealousy, were it only fed by so slight a difference as that which divided the home-bred Jews from those who freely used the Greek language and the Greek version of the scriptures, the Septuagint. “There arose a murmuring of the Hellenists against the Hebrews, because their widows were being overlooked in the daily ministration. And the twelve, having called the multitude unto them, said, It is not proper (or, pleasing) that we, forsaking the word of God, should serve tables. Look out therefore, brethren, from among you seven men of witness borne, full of the Spirit and wisdom, whom we will set over this business; but we will persevere in prayer and the ministry of the word. And the saying pleased the whole multitude; and they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit, and Philip, and Prochorus, and Nicanor, and Timon, and Parmenas, and Nicolas, a proselyte of Antioch, whom they set before the apostles; and, having prayed, they laid [their] hands on them.”

The daily ministration of food grew out of that singular and touching fruit of the Spirit produced among the saints since the day of His descent at Pentecost. For all that believed were together and had all things common, selling their possessions and substance for distribution to all, according as any might have need; and this in pure grace, not by requirement. To carry out the duty holily and efficiently needed time and judgment as well as diligence and wisdom, especially as the sphere extended daily. The apostle justly felt that it was not for them to curtail the claim of prayer and the ministry of the word. Here men of God, not set in their place, might profitably devote themselves to this labor of faith and working by love, without which nothing can go well, even for external things.

Here we have to remark the wisdom with which the apostles ruled. They did not choose the seven men of attested fitness for the work. They bade the multitude of their brethren to look out such men, full of the Spirit and wisdom. Yet they gave it an official stamp which neither the whole multitude, nor any individuals but themselves could confer, as acting for the Lord, the source of their own apostolic authority. For the apostle was in the highest degree, not only a gift from the ascended Christ, but an authority called to confer it also in His name. “The seven” were no immediate gift from the Head to the church, like evangelists or pastors and teachers (Eph. 4). They had a charge needing appointment by the due authority; and so the apostles established them in their place of administration which concerned earthly wants, and lent them solemn ground of responsibility, in the eyes of all as well as their own. But the multitude of the disciples chose them.

It was not so in the case of elders or presbyters, as we learn from chap. 14: 23; where the apostles Paul and Barnabas are said to have chosen (compare Acts 10:41; 2 Cor. 8:19) elders for the disciples in each assembly. Accordingly, when the apostle left Titus in Crete to act for him in his absence as an apostolic delegate, he directs him to set or establish elders or bishops in every city as he gave him charge. In other words, the apostles directly or indirectly chose and set the elders in their places. The multitude did not act. Elders were chosen for them, and established by apostolic authority.

There was nothing arbitrary nor inconsistent, but a divine principle in each case. It was the multitude which gave the funds for the public distribution. To all therefore was given a voice in the selection of acceptable ministrants. This in no way applies to elders. Theirs is a question of spiritual, moral, and even circumstantial qualities fitting them to preside or rule. Hence for choosing right men a nicety of discernment was requisite, which was far beyond the saints generally, and, if we bow to scripture, reserved to an apostle or his delegate. Gifts (δόματα) were given directly by the Lord: whether those that laid the foundation, as apostles and prophets; or those that, build on that foundation, as evangelists, pastors and teachers, who needed no such apostolic establishment as the local charge of “the seven” or that of the elders.

Though “the seven,” for an office peculiar to the state of things then existing in Jerusalem, are not called “deacons,” their work was generally analogous to that which was designated by the latter term, when the peculiarity vanished. The deacon was the regular title for those charged with the duties of external service; and so appropriately styled. If grace for such a work is overlooked, the deaconate degenerates into a mere demand for business tact to the dishonor of God in the church, helping on the descent to the world's level.

The word of God, with the prayer which drew down application in power and unction, was the fitting work of the apostles. Men might beat and threaten worse; but it was in vain to forbid or oppose their speaking in the name of Jesus, seeing they were witnesses that God raised up and exalted by His right hand Him whom the Jews by instigation of the priests slew by hanging on a tree: God must be obeyed rather than man. They therefore went their way from the council's presence, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to be dishonored for the Name: and every day in the temple and at home they ceased not to teach and preach Jesus as the Christ.

But remembrance of the poor saints is precious in the Lord's sight; and it was wise and gracious to cut off occasion from these that murmured. The twelve, like Paul later, were as the rule averse from meddling with money, and only touched it under strict provisoes that the ministry might not be blamed. But what do we see here? If Hebrews of course in Jerusalem preponderated over Hellenists, it is notable that the names of all “the seven” whom the multitude chose, and the apostles appointed with prayer and hands laid on them, seem Hellenistic. If they were not Hebrews (for we know that Andrew and Philip among the apostles were not Hellenists), it was grace abounding practically, not man's way of prudent compromise. Now grace inspires confidence as it expels suspicion. Grace indeed is to the Christian and the church what law ought to have been to Israel. But the heavenly people no less than the earthly forgot their calling; and judgment will surely be executed on the evil at His coming who is to be exalted with His own in heaven and on earth. Though it tarry, wait for it, because it will surely come; it will not tarry.

The appointment was followed by marked blessing on the word of God, so that the number of the disciples in Jerusalem was very greatly multiplied; and a new evidence appeared of which nothing was said till now: “a great crowd of the priests obeyed the faith.” We should not be justified in inferring that they as yet in the least suspended their sacerdotal duties in the temple, but rather that the truth gave them more zeal and conscientiousness in their discharge. It was at a comparatively late day, and in fact only a little before the destruction of Jerusalem that they received the call to go forth unto Jesus without the camp, bearing His reproach, and possessed of no abiding city here, but seeking the one to come. How little they yet realized that this one sacrifice for sins now supersedes, because it more than fulfills, all sacrifices!

Another fact of immense moment came to view. “Stephen, full of grace and power, wrought great wonders and signs among the people.” which thus wrought then as He works now, seeing that He is alive again for evermore. And it is written that we may believe and obey: for the Spirit who is the agent of power was sent forth to abide forever; and He is faithful to His work in thus glorifying Christ.

It would seem from the false accusation that Stephen was led of God beyond even the apostles in seeing and following the power of the Christian testimony. He may have profited by the Lord's prophecy on Olivet beyond the four who heard, or by other kindred discourses of our Lord, which no doubt in some way percolated among the faithful and convinced him that the temple was doomed to fall, and the Jews to suffer a still wider dispersion than to Babylon. This might readily give occasion to a charge of blasphemy; and the allusion in chap. vii. to the prophet's words confirms it. All proves that he was a teacher of marked intelligence and power.

Stephen the Christian Protomartyr: 2. The Appeal - Abraham

Acts 7:1-8.

It is notable how mild was the challenge of the high-priest. He like the rest seems for the moment overawed by the radiance that shone in Stephen's face. It could not but have reminded them of Moses at a critical point in Israel's history as well as of his own; and now he was accused of speaking against Moses, the sanctuary, and the law, yea of threatening the temple's destruction.

“And the high-priest said, Are these things so? And he said, Brethren and fathers, hearken. The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia, before he dwelt in Haran, and said to him, Go out of thy land and out of thy kindred, and come into the land which I shall show thee. Then going out of the land of the Chaldeans he dwelt in Haran; and thence, after his father died, he removed him into this land in which ye now dwell. And he gave him no inheritance in it, not even a foot-plant; and he promised to give it him for a possession, and to his seed after him when he had no child. And God spoke thus, that his seed should be a sojourner in a strange land, and they shall enslave them, and entreat [them] evil four hundred years. And the nation to which they shall be slaves will I judge, said God; and after these things they shall come out and serve me in this place. And he gave him a covenant of circumcision; and thus he begat Isaac and circumcised him the eighth day; and Isaac, Jacob, and Jacob, the twelve patriarchs” (vers. 1-8).

It might seem astonishing (if we did not know from God what the heart is) that so many men of ability and learning have failed to apprehend the admirable power and nice relevancy of Stephen's answer. But evidently the inspiring Spirit attached to it signal importance, as shown in more space devoted to it than to any other in the book of the Acts. Its force as an appeal to Jewish conscience assembled in council, sealed in Stephen's blood, is another though awful proof of its cogency. Had it consisted of, or only contained the “demonstrable errors” which some have dared to impute, it must have fallen at once through its own impotence under men's contempt. Not so; it was the energy of indisputable truth which pierced through forms to their hard hearts; as it roused their indignation to white heat, when their own sad history of unbelief, disobedience, and opposition to God was proved from holy writ to be as applicable to their present state as it had been to their forefathers in early days.

“The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia.” What unanswerable evidence of sovereign grace! To overlook it springs from a wicked heart of incredulity in turning away from a living God, and hardens the soul in self-sufficiency, so that His voice is distasteful, disliked, and dreaded. Yet had they not often heard and read Joshua's testimony (Josh. 24:2, 3)? “Thus saith Jehovah, the God of Israel, our fathers dwelt of old time beyond the river, Terah father of Abraham and father of Nahor; and they served other gods. And I took your father Abraham from beyond the river, and led him throughout all the land of Canaan, and multiplied his seed, and gave him Isaac.” Assuredly it was not Stephen who slighted Jehovah's call of him who was to be dignified pre-eminently as “the friend of God.” It was many centuries before the law, far away from Canaan, expressly before he dwelt in Haran; it was in Mesopotamia, infamous as the mother of idolatries, and the prison to which idolatrous Judah was sent, judicially captive, for that sin.

Nothing can be conceived finer than the exact discrimination given to this holy man of God in beginning with Abraham. He first was not only chosen by grace, but called out of open departure from the true God, from country and kin devoted to other gods, to be the head of a family, and at length a people, whether in flesh like Israel, or (when Israel lost place for a while by apostasy) by believers spiritually as now separated to God for Himself, His own peculiarly. It was first outward, first what was natural, not spiritual which only came to light when the Jews rejected their own Messiah. The principle was plain in Abraham, though even in his case darkened and delayed by yielding to human feeling. For though he went out of his land, he did not get out of his kin, but dwelt with his father in Haran till Terah died, Then only God removed him into the land in which the Jews gloried as their dwelling.

It was not so with Abraham. He was a pilgrim and stranger in Canaan; and this by divine design: so far was Jewish boast from God's mind which Abraham enjoyed by faith. Faith brought him out of the land of the Chaldeans; but how in Canaan? “By faith he became a sojourner in the land of promise as not in his own [land]; for he looked for the city which hath the foundations” (Heb. 11:8-10). The Jews, like unbelievers at all times, are on the ground, not of faith but of tradition and external privilege. But the God of glory gave Abraham no inheritance in it, not even a foot-plant, and He promised to give it him for a possession, and to his seed after him when he had no child. Abraham thus lived on promise and walked by faith, not by sight. This has its highest form and power in Christianity; and its opposite is in Judaism as then, especially in such as hated Stephen.

How strange that any Christian should be so dull as not to perceive that this very exordium is brimful of what exposes the Jewish antagonists of fighting against their own scriptures and the God who sent the Lord Jesus in their hatred of the gospel testimony. We shall see that all the statements which the chapter records follow up the same yet ever growing evidence urged on their hearts, if peradventure they might hear and live. But none are so impervious as those who rest on an ancestral religion with godly men in the line, who suffered in their day for their living faith from those who had not faith, the predecessors of those who resist the truth to-day.

“And God spoke thus, that his seed should he a sojourner in a strange land, and they shall enslave and entreat [them] evil four hundred years. And the nation to which they shall he slaves will I judge, said God. And after these things they shall come out, and serve me in this place.” At no time was there a more conspicuous proof of God's interest in them, than during those centuries, and the time of deliverance studded with miracles and still more glowing prophecies which followed: a time in every way striking both in Egypt and in the wilderness, but entirely apart from establishment in the land of promise. Never was there a more awful display of His displeasure and of blows in His wrath which befell their oppressors. Never was there a more wonderful witness in the past of His adoption of Israel as His own people, redeemed from the world's bondage, and its then mightiest and proudest monarch. When was a people like Israel carried through the desert by His own constant presence and faithful care, spite of as constant refractoriness even to rebellion on their part, kept as they were solely by Him with not a merit or a resource of theirs?

As His mouth had threatened judgments on injurious enslavers, so did His hand perform in due season. And this dealing of Jehovah the God of Israel fills the Law, and the Psalms, and the Prophets, which predict yet greater glories to come when they own not only their idolatrous evil but the still more heinous one of rejecting their own Messiah. Could any line of argument more lay bare the character of Jewish opposition to Stephen, or more powerfully support his testimony? For “this place” where they were to do Jehovah religious service in chap. 7:7 was as different as possible from “this holy place” or “this place” in chap. 6:13, 14. The one had the magnificence of “great stones and costly,” and the splendor of gold and rich array; the other, the awe-inspiring and evident display of divine majesty in the true God proclaiming His law to His people in the wilderness of Sinai. Was the sublimity greater in Jerusalem or the temple from which the glory was departing? “Behold, your house is left unto you desolate.” Men are apt to boast when they have least ground for it, and every title reason for humiliation; and this was Stephen's plea.

Another word is added in ver. 8, the pertinence of which one could not expect to be felt by those who only see the surface of scripture. “And He gave him a covenant of circumcision; and thus he begat Isaac, and circumcised him the eighth day; and Isaac, Jacob, and Jacob, the twelve patriarchs.” God after the deluge had established His covenant with Noah and with his seed after him; “and with every living soul that [is] with you, of bird, of cattle, and every beast of the earth with you; of all that go out of the ark—every beast of the earth;” henceforth, no flood to destroy the earth. Of this everlasting covenant, God set His bow in the clouds (Gen. 9) as sign. It was God's covenant with nature, and as permanent as nature itself for an earth inaugurated by sacrifice (chap. 8). But the covenant with Abraham, of which circumcision was the sign, had a far deeper significance.

Important as God's institution of government was for man on the earth, the foundation of a stock in Abraham, separated from demon worship to the one true God, the Almighty, to be their God in their generations for an everlasting covenant, was incomparably deeper. But even this was far from the narrowness to which Judaism reduced it; for if the covenant of circumcision was with Abraham, he should be father of a multitude of nations, and kings should come out of him. Hence its sign was not to be in the clouds for every eye to see, but in the flesh, with which it dealt war to the knife, proclaiming death on it as unclean; not merely purity demanded, but death in figure of Christ's death for His own, naturally as unclean and ungodly as others. It was not of Moses but of the fathers, as the Lord told the Jews (John 7:22), proud of the law which none of them really kept, as thus too all came under its curse. But as a shadow, whereof Christ was the substance, it was most instructive, as the confession of flesh cut off unsparingly to be God's people, instead of the vain endeavor to ameliorate it by ordinance, morality, or philosophy.

With Abraham therefore circumcision began and was to be perpetuated in his seed after the flesh, and even with any stranger born in their house, the imperative sign of Jehovah's covenant in his flesh. But the Christian enjoys it in the better way of the spirit, circumcised with circumcision not done by hand, in the putting off of the body of the flesh in the circumcision of the Christ (Col. 2:11). Here we are carefully told that “thus he (Abraham) begot Isaac, and circumcised him the eighth day” (the day of resurrection and its glory according to that new estate for the believer according to the counsels of grace). In Gen. 15 he believed God, who reckoned it to him for (or, as) righteousness; he had been called out, and obeyed the call, as separated to Jehovah, both in uncircumcision. But it was after his circumcision, and in the full order of the covenant that he “thus begot Isaac and circumcised him the eighth day.” So it went on henceforth regularly in the line: and Isaac [begot] Jacob; and Jacob the twelve patriarchs? It was a privilege conferred on strangers, on slaves; though so requisite for every male in Israel that he who neglected it was to be cut off from his peoples for his breach of the covenant. Who best maintained its spirit Stephen, or his adversaries? Who can intelligently aver that Stephen beat the air in this brief outline? Great men are not always wise, indeed never so, when they judge scripture.

Stephen the Christian Protomartyr: 3. Joseph and His Patriarchal Brethren

Joseph and His Patriarchal Brethren. Acts 7:9-16.

At this point the defense carries us on to the first of two signal types of our Lord, which yield overwhelming evidence to every true heart and exercised conscience.

“And the patriarchs, envying Joseph, sold him into Egypt. And God was with him, and delivered him out of all his tribulations, and gave him favor and wisdom in the sight of Pharaoh, king of Egypt; and he appointed him chief over Egypt and all his house. But a famine came upon all the land of Egypt and Canaan, and great distress; and our fathers found no food. But Jacob, having heard of there being corn in Egypt, sent out our fathers first; and at the second [time] Joseph was made known to his brethren, and the family of Joseph became known to Pharaoh. And Joseph sent and called down to him his father Jacob, and all [his] kindred, seventy-five souls. And Jacob went down into Egypt and died, he and our fathers, and were carried over to Sychem (Shechem), and laid in the sepulcher which Abraham bought for a sum of money from the sons of Enamor of (or rather, in) Sychem” (vers. 9-16).

Here it is no question of unclean Canaanites or oppressive Egyptians, nor is it the failure of a saint through amiable feeling, or the pinch of want. The heads of the tribes of Israel betray their evil state from the first. Nor was there any just ground of provocation, but insubjection to the father, hatred of their godly brother, and rebellion against the mind of God. They envied Joseph and, even when they gave up their deadly purpose, sold him away into Egypt. Pride of position hates the faith that rebukes it, the spirit of grace in deed and truth, and proceeds to enmity beyond measure, more cruelly than the world.

Not a word does Stephen say of the Lord Jesus, yet who could fail to see the parallel between the Just One, and the guiltless object of patriarchal jealousy? Could any one doubt that his was no ingenious device to serve a desired turn, but the unquestionable lesson of their own scriptures? Had not the first book of the law God's moral aim and spiritual purpose in laying bare the base conduct of the fathers, and the sufferings of Joseph? Even their scribes did not limit scripture to a passing person or circumstance; the Pharisees confessed its divine authority; the chief priests, the elders, and the doctors of the law owned that under the surface it is full of reference to the Messiah, the hope of Israel. To confine it to its more immediate bearing literally was to deny its prophetic character, and betray oneself a skeptic or Sadducee.

So plain and direct were the facts in Genesis that it was enough to state them with all brevity. Yet when they are duly weighed, their more profound application becomes apparent; and God's design thereby is as important for souls, as it is worthy of Himself. Israel's wickedness through unbelief is as manifestly foreshewn, as Messiah's humiliation and rejection by His brethren. Such was Stephen's thesis, which he could not but speak out if he cared for the Lord and for their souls. Disdain it they might, but it was just the truth they needed then as they do still. But if the Jews be prominent as they are, Gentiles share the same sin. It is at bottom the common guilt and ruin of all mankind, as the cross proclaims.

Equally certain is it, that as God was with the abhorred Joseph, so was He in all fullness with Jesus, the object of divine delight as He was the depositary of wisdom to His glory; and when delivered out of all His tribulations, deeper than ever befell any, God highly exalted Him and set Him at His own right hand. But if it was not the Israelitish kingdom, of which Zion is the center, this only confirms the propriety of the type. It was the administration of a kingdom wholly different from the day when He shall be the one king of all the earth as well as of the chosen people, coming in manifested glory on the clouds of heaven. That day is in no way arrived, as it surely will. But the despised and rejected One is exalted on His Father's throne, not yet on His own; and He has all authority over a kingdom as extensive as the world in a form quite special which He received when cast out and separate from His brethren. Of this Joseph's exaltation by the king of Egypt is the striking shadow, made chief over Egypt and all his house.

But as Joseph predicted in his sphere, so did the Lord in His far higher and greater deal with all the world. Yet famine and great distress of every kind His grace can use for even that mercy and blessing. But in order to be blessed the sinner must feel his evil state, and Himself work too, that He may withdraw man from his purpose, and hide pride from him, deliver his soul from going to the pit, and give him to see the light. Food for the inner man is only from Him, as the sons of Jacob found none in Canaan; and their father, hearing of it in Egypt for the fulfillment of divine purpose, sent them there, where Joseph had provided for a famished world, and his heart yearned to supply his father and his brethren, little as they knew, who sold him away there. They thought evil against him; but God meant it for good, and to preserve them a posterity in the earth and save their lives. How much more was this verified in the greater than Joseph!

Nevertheless the blindness was to pass from the guilty brothers. No thanks to them, but to his grace who on the second time was made known to them. So it will be for the Jew when the Lord fulfills, yet exceeds, the type as He ever does. The repentance will be as deep as their faith will be living. “And I will pour upon the house of David and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem the spirit of grace and of supplication; and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced; and they shall mourn for him as one mourneth for an only one, and shall be in bitterness for him as one that is in bitterness for a firstborn.” How touchingly even the type exhibits this inward word in Judah's plea with Jacob that Benjamin should go as was required, and with Joseph for Jacob when he owns that God had found their iniquity, offering to abide as bondman in lieu of Benjamin! How yet more when Joseph weeping aloud made himself known to his brethren! Yes, it was to save their lives, and many more, with a great deliverance.

Nor was this all. “In the best of the land,” said the great king, “make thy father and brethren to dwell”... “And Joseph placed his father and his brethren in the land of Egypt, in the best of the land, in the land of Rameses, as Pharaoh had commanded.” For this type looks at a far wider circle of blessing than Canaan; just as the rejected Son of man is destined to have dominion and glory and a kingdom that all peoples, nations, and languages, should serve him. Compare too Isa. 49—It is a light thing that thou shouldst be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the preserved of Israel: I will also give thee for a light to the Gentiles, that thou mayest be my salvation unto the end of the earth. But this in no way hinders the special honor and nearness of Israel; for the Gentiles shall bring Zion's sons in their bosom, and carry his daughters on their shoulders; and kings shall be thy nourishers, and their princes thy nursing mothers. They shall bow down to thee with face toward the earth, and lick up the dust of thy feet. This future earthly glory however is not at all noticed by Stephen, who speaks here to conscience in view of Jewish unbelief and sin against the Lord, as this only was then seasonable.

As no small objection has been taken to verses 14-16, suffice it to say that Stephen cites the number (75) of Jacob's kin, not as the Hebrew gives it (70), but as in the Greek version, the Septuagint, which adds these to the two sons of Joseph in their descendants, &c. It is only a further addition; as in the Hebrew itself we find 66 as well as 70 according to a differing point of view. The difficulty in the last clause of ver. 16 is more considerable, and lies mainly in the name of Abraham where Jacob might have been expected with burial of his sons in Sychem. That Stephen was ignorant of the Hebrew enumeration (66, and 70), or confounded the sepulcher in Hebron with that of Shechem, is too absurd, save for a rationalist. How impute it to one so perfectly at home with the inspired history, not only in its obvious facts, but in their spiritual and prophetic import, to which the natural mind in the learned is as blind as it is in the unlearned? It was not without motive that he should draw attention by the way to the burial of the heads of the tribes, not with their fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but in the seat of their Samaritan rivals. To account for the insertion of Abraham here, and for the peculiar description of the purchase from the sons of Hamor in or of Sychem, is another thing.

Stephen the Christian Protomartyr: 4. Appeal to Moses Next

Appeal To Moses Next. Acts 7:17-28.

Still more prolonged is the use made of this even fuller type of Messiah. This we may examine according to the three divisions of his life; each of forty years, in Egypt, in Midian, and in the wilderness.

“But as the time of the promise drew near which God assured to Abraham, the people increased and multiplied in Egypt, until there arose a different king over Egypt who knew not Joseph. He dealt subtly with our race, and evil-entreated the fathers, to make their babes outcast that they might not live. At which season Moses was born and was fair exceedingly [unto God]; and he was nourished three months in his father's house. And when he was cast out; the daughter of Pharaoh took him up and nourished him for her own son. And Moses was instructed in every wisdom of Egyptians; and he was mighty in his words and works. And when a space of forty years was being filled to him, it came up on his heart to visit his brethren the children of Israel. And seeing one wronged. he defended and avenged him that was oppressed, smiting the Egyptian. And he thought that his brethren would understand that God by his hand was giving them deliverance; but they understood not. And the next day he appeared to them when contending, and urged them unto peace, saying, Ye are brethren: why do ye wrong one another? But he that did his neighbor wrong thrust him away, saying, Who established thee ruler and judge over us? Dost thou wish to kill me, as thou killedst the Egyptian yesterday?” (Vers. 17-28.)

The time of promised deliverance drew near, but it was not yet come. A different king over Egypt arose, who knew not Joseph, and looked askance at the growth and rapid increase of the Israelites. The providence of God raised up a fitting instrument for His merciful purpose. But even Moses must learn dependence on Him, and that neither the advantage of his person, nor the training in Egypt's wisdom, nor the court influence of Pharaoh's daughter, could avail to effect that purpose to His glory. Yet who was ever more strikingly marked out by divine providence, and who had better human means and opportunities? Though an outcast for death, he nevertheless was nourished by the princess royal as her own son. Not only instructed in all that Egypt could teach, but mighty in his words and works, who so proper as he by the favor of the king to lead God's people peacefully, out of Egypt and their frontier sojourn to the promised land? But no: this would have been man's method and the world's wisdom to the praise of Moses' genius and prudence, and in no way a foreshadow of Christ.

Grace and truth came through Jesus Christ: as Joseph was a witness of it even in Canaan, so was Moses now in Egypt. “By faith Moses, when he was grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, choosing rather to be evil-entreated with the people of God than have temporary enjoyment of sin, accounting the reproach of the Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt; for he looked off unto the recompence” (Heb. 11:24-26). Thus grace wrought in practical righteousness; it ought ever to do so in the believer, as it perfectly and ever shone in Christ. It was in Moses the eminent proof of his faith, relinquishing advisedly every gain which providence had given him of a circumstantial kind, that no flesh should glory, but that he who glories might glory in Jehovah. Nor was it only that he turned his back on the world's power, splendor, and pleasures, for Jehovah, leaving any charge of ingratitude to the royal preserver and munificent patron of his life up to mature manhood. He chose to suffer affliction with the people of God, His poor faulty people in their present low and degraded estate, rather than enjoy what was sinful and ungodly. He appreciated the actual bond of God to His people, and unreservedly acted on it in faith. Grace enabled him not only to see but to do the truth.

The reasoning of prudence would have kept him where providence cast his lot without will of his own. Faith pierces through all such pleas or excuses, because it follows God's love to His own, even in their abasement; as Christ did thoroughly, who never yielded to premature energy, but waited in patience, suffering meanwhile to the uttermost. Any other principle however it be disguised is worldliness; and Moses is a blessed sample of fidelity, whatever mistake may have mixed up with it. The word to the Christian is plain: “not minding high things, but going along with the lowly.” It is the very reverse of “condescending” to them; for this retains pride of place while affording countenance. Compare our Lord's words in Matt. 20:25-28. “Not so shall it be among you: but whosoever would become great among you shall be your servant; and whosoever would be first among you shall be your slave; even as the Son of man came not to be served but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.”

Thus holiness to God is ever separateness from evil, but also identification in heart and way with His people. But faith is now tried, and its path never long runs smooth. And here we are shown that Moses, when about forty years old, had it on his heart to visit his brethren the sons of Israel; and seeing one wronged, he defended and avenged him that was oppressed, and smote the Egyptian. Hating unrighteousness, he punished the oppressor of his brother, heedless of the consequence. But the following day his love met a rude repulse, and this not from an Egyptian but from an Israelite, whose wrong was now worse; for he rejected the intervention of Moses to make peace, when he spoke to their heart of their unworthy contention. He that did the wrong to his neighbor—it is ever so—resented the love that sought their good, and thrust Moses away. He did worse still. “Who,” said he, “made thee a ruler and a judge over us? Wilt thou kill me, as thou killedst the Egyptian yesterday?”

The time of deliverance was not yet. Moses so far was mistaken. He had not yet fully judged himself; he unconsciously was off his guard in using his might in words and deeds. The people must be brought down lower must cry to God under their bitter burdens, the Egyptians be forced to wish Israel good, and proud Pharaoh be crushed to nothing under God's mighty hand. Moses thought that his brethren would understand that God by his hand was giving them deliverance. But they understood not. And this is a far more searching trial than any fear of Egyptian anger. The Lord, who never failed, as Moses and others, suffered incomparably more than all for His people's unbelief, yea from His apostles' inability to understand Him, till He died and rose and sent His Spirit from heaven to lead them into all the truth. Man despised Him, and the nation abhorred. “We hid as it were our faces from Him; He was despised, and we esteemed Him not.”

The saddest and most painful thing was His brethren's alienation. In this Joseph and Moses were types of Him; but each in a somewhat distinct way, the better to foreshow Him. Joseph was separated from his hating brothers, to rise through a humiliation still deeper where he was as a man that has no help, cast away among the dead and remembered no more. From all this he rose at once to be the highest next to him on the throne, quite outside Israel over the Gentiles. Moses was forced to flee from his brethren who would have valued his turning to account the world's influence, and cared not for his going down in love to share their affliction. But his heart was ever with them in his separation from them, and awaited the time to return for their deliverance from Egypt. Nor can any fact more clearly mark the difference than that he called his son Gershom, “a stranger"; while Joseph called his eldest Manasseh, “forgotten.” For such he was, in no way settled down in Midian; but his affections were with his poor brethren, and he looked for the day when by his hand deliverance would come for them.

In Joseph's name for his eldest we have the other side of what was so fully verified in Christ; for God had made him forget all his toil, and all his father's house; as the second was named Ephraim, or fruitful, in the land of his affliction. But Gershom expressed that Moses was a stranger in a strange land, and Eliezer's name only comes in later, My God a help, when Moses under Jehovah's power had delivered the people. So carefully does the inspiring Spirit deign to keep us even in typical shadows from the narrowness of the human mind or will, and lead us on to delight in the largeness of divine grace in our Lord Jesus.

Stephen the Christian Protomartyr: 5. Moses in Midian

Moses in Midian. Acts 7:29-35

Moses then was rejected like the Messiah, rejected by his own people, God's people, for whose sake he had given up his earthly ease, honor, and prospects. His faith was thoroughly of and in God, yet to be vindicated in due time. But the energy that slew the Egyptian evil-doer was before the season, and gave occasion to the heartless Israelite to repel his gracious intervention and expose him to the vengeance of the oppressor. Moses must flee from his beloved but unworthy brethren, and wait on God's time and word in a strange land. He could not yet say, like the perfect Messiah, “Waiting I waited for Jehovah.”

“And Moses fled at this saying, and became a sojourner in the land of Midian where he begat two sons. And when forty years were fulfilled, an angel appeared to him in the wilderness of mount Sinai, in the flame of fire of a bush. And Moses as he saw wondered at the vision; and as he went up to consider, there came Jehovah's voice, I [am] the God of thy fathers, the God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob. And Moses, all a trembling, durst not consider. And Jehovah said to him, Loose the sandal of thy feet, for the place on which thou standest is holy ground. I surely saw the ill-usage of my people that [is] in Egypt, and heard their groaning, and came down to take them out. And now come, I will send thee unto Egypt. This Moses whom they refused, saying, Who established thee a ruler and judge? him God sent a ruler and a deliverer (or, redeemer) with the angel's hand that appeared to him in the bush” (vers. 29-35).

The second period of forty years is full of spiritual instruction for us. Moses must learn the nothingness for God of that long span of his early life when trained in all wisdom of the Egyptians. Might in his words and deeds of that sort had no worth in his eyes, that no flesh should boast before God; that according as it is written, He that boasteth, let him boast in Jehovah. It is what answers to the Christian principle, My grace sufficeth thee; for power is perfected in weakness, as its exercise must take its start from the word of the Lord, as one is guided by the Spirit. Thus is it obedience, without which is nothing that glorifies God. This is all the more striking, because in Egypt it was during the earlier period that we read of that distinctive faith, which, as it flowed from God, also delighted Him, of which, we have the record in Heb. 11:24-26. Yet the spiritual dealing that follows is as invaluable for the soul in His service, as the blessing that lays the foundation for it is indispensable. Natural energy, which is man's glory, must be judged in and by the saint to God's glory. Then ensues true practical dependence on God, and the felt need of His direction. Even thus, when the call comes to act for God, what hesitation, and even shrinking, and sense of difficulty to the verge of unbelief! What a contrast with his self-confidence in the earlier days!

But it was not only the wilderness as the scene of continuous trial, nor the quiet seclusion with God which the lowly life of a shepherd furnished, to unlearn as it were what Egypt had taught, nor the long daily proof to humble and prove what was in the heart (so blessed to Moses who bowed, and so fatal afterward to Israel who did not bow). Moses had God's manifestation in the way most suited to the work given Him to do, in a flame of fire out of a bush that burned but was not being consumed. It was holy ground: Moses was told to unloose his sandals from off his feet, and heard the divine voice say, I am the God of thy fathers, the God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob. It was for the fathers' sakes to whom He had pledged His promise and whose God He was. But He had also heard His people's cry under bitter oppression, and came down to deliver them. They then groaned and sighed by reason of the bondage; but they had not the faith to cry to Him. Yet their cry came up to God; and God heard their groaning, and remembered His covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob, which they had forgotten, long sunk in the darkness and idolatries of their cruel masters. But God looked on the sons of Israel and acknowledged them, and called His servant Moses, at this point of their depression, to the great work of crushing the pride of Egypt, and pouring contempt on their gods in the redemption of His people.

But more we may note in passing: observe the force of his quoting the call to unloose his sandal. Holy ground is where God manifests Himself. It was not merely Jerusalem. So Jehovah decided with Moses in Midian; so afterward with Joshua when he crossed the Jordan. Their idolizing the courts of the sanctuary was out of season. But religious pride is like other pride, and often lifts its head higher in abject poverty. And the case of the Jews who charged Stephen falsely with blasphemous words against the holy place was yet more desperate and unfounded. For they had rejected their own Messiah, and God had raised Him from the dead and set Him at His own right hand, far above every principality and authority and power and lordship, and every name named not only in this age but also in that to come, and subjected all things under His feet, and gave Him as Head over all things to the church. Hence the center of divine glory and attraction is no longer on earth but in heaven. What had holiness relatively once has lost it by unbelieving contempt of the Lord of glory, whom both the Jews and the world's princes crucified. The only holy place God owns now, or faith too accepts, is above where Christ is. But though Stephen does not argue here but simply cites the scripture they all acknowledged, they are thus each way shown without excuse in their petty and malevolent jealousy. God's words exposed and refuted any such charge of blasphemy.

Jehovah must take the initiative. It must be manifestly His work, as Moses had learned. And he became a type of a greater than Moses, as Joseph too before him, in being rejected by and separated from his brethren so dear to him, before God used him to become their ruler and deliverer. In very deed for this was the cruelest and haughtiest of Pharaohs raised up to show him His power, and that Jehovah's name might be declared in all the earth. Instead of energy to go forward, Moses was hesitating and diffident in the extreme, and the people hearkened not for anguish of spirit and from hard service. It was Jehovah that set out in tender words and with all assurance His undertaking Israel's cause, not only to deliver them from their sorrow under Egypt's oppression, but to bring them up out of that land. unto a good and spacious land, unto a land flowing with milk and honey.

No doubt another reason was before His all-embracing mind Gross evil enveloped that goodly land: abominable idolatry with its debasing immorality. Jehovah would judge the iniquity of the Amorites, while he made Israel to take possession of the land, which had been so plainly marked out from Abraham's day for his descendants. But the O.T. yields ample evidence that Joseph and Moses were but types, and that all that Israel have yet enjoyed is but provisional, and, as far as the people and kings were concerned, an utter short-coming till He come who, fulfilling these types and many more, will bring in the blessing for Israel, no less than accomplish the judgment on their enemies. Then too shall be the higher glories of the heavenly things, and the vaster reconciliation of all things, over which Christ is the appointed Head, who will share all with the glorified heirs of God and joint-heirs with Himself.

Stephen the Christian Protomartyr: 6. Moses in the Wilderness

Moses In The Wilderness. Acts 7:36-43.

In the last forty years of Moses the evidence adduced is no less striking both morally and typically to convict the Jews from age to age of the same unbelief and rebellion, and to display the ways of God in Christ, notwithstanding their self-will and blindness. “Who [is] a God like unto Thee that pardoneth iniquity and passeth by the transgression of the remnant of His heritage? He retaineth not His anger forever, because He delighteth [in] mercy. He will turn again, He will have compassion upon us; He will subdue our iniquities, and Thou wilt cast all their sins into the depths of the sea. Thou wilt perform the truth to Jacob, the mercy to Abraham, which Thou hast sworn to our fathers from the days of old” (Mic. 7:18-20).

Here the scene lies mainly in the desert, after Israel's redemption through Moses' power in Egypt. “He led them out, having wrought wonders and signs in the land of Egypt, and in the Red Sea, and in the wilderness, forty years. This is the Moses who said to the sons of Israel, A prophet shall God raise up to you out of your brethren like me. This is he that was in the assembly (or, congregation) in the wilderness, with the angel that spoke to him in the mount Sinai, and with our fathers; who received living oracles to give us, to whom our fathers would not be subject, but thrust [him] aside, and turned back in their hearts unto Egypt, saying to Aaron, Make us gods who shall go before us; for this Moses, who brought us out of the land of Egypt—we know not what is become of him. And they made a calf in those days, and offered a sacrifice to the idol, and rejoiced in the works of their hands. But God turned and delivered them up to serve the host of heaven, as it is written in the book of the prophets, Did ye offer me victims and sacrifices forty years in the wilderness, O house of Israel? And ye took up the tent of Moloch and the star of the god Raiphan, the figures which ye made to worship them; and I will transport you beyond Babylon” (vers. 36-43).

When things are at their worst for the Jews, not only the apostasy but the lawless one, the antichrist revealed, and the godless of Christendom and of Judaism worshipping the man of sin and Satan as the true God in His temple, a greater than Moses shall appear to the destruction of His adversaries and the deliverance of an afflicted and poor remnant who, small though it be, shall become a strong nation, as He will hasten it in His time. Not only will He redeem Israel from the hand of the enemy, but gather them out of the lands, from the east and from the west, from the north and from the south. Wonders and signs shall be, not in one land only, but for all the world, “signs in sun and moon and stars, and upon the earth distress of nations in perplexity at the sea roaring and billows, men swooning from fear and expectation of what is coming on the inhabited earth; for the powers of the heavens shall be shaken. And then shall they see the Son of man coming with power and great glory.” “And the Redeemer will come to Zion, and unto those that turn from transgression in Jacob;” and Jehovah's covenant with them, being of His own grace after their manifest and utter ruin, will be from henceforth and forever. So Jehovah says: what matters that which others say?

Now professing Christians are not entitled to prophesy smooth things for themselves, but to learn that they happened to Israel, and were written for our admonition as to whom the ends of the ages are met. For are the saints waiting in patience for Christ, dependent and subject to Him who is gone on high? Do they not act as if they wot not what is become of Him? and instead of being led by His word and Spirit, have they not set up calves of gold idols to go before them, rejoicing in the works of their own hands? And has not God delivered by far the majority to worship images, pictures, crucifixes, dead men's relics, angels, saints, and the Virgin Mary, like Israel serving the host of heaven as madly as any heathen?

Consider the serious lesson in what Stephen quoted from the Greek Version of Amos 5:25-27. When the Spirit of prophecy set forth their coming captivity, He goes back, not to the wicked kings of Israel, nor to shameless sons of David who ruled Judah, but to the idolatry in the wilderness at the very time when they outwardly honored the tabernacle of Jehovah and the priesthood of Aaron. But God saw all the while the hollowness of their victims and sacrifices in His name; for in their hearts and secretly, they took up the tent of Moloch and the star of the god Raiphan (or, Romphan), the forms which they made to worship them. However God may wait in His admirable patience, it is the early unjudged sin that decides, though the execution of judgment may not come for many centuries afterward. The writings of the earliest uninspired men of the Christian era prove the fallen state which undermined and destroyed the apostolic teaching; whilst the centuries that followed kept ever growing worse and worse, till the highest arrogance sat enthroned on the ruins of the church's heavenly association with Christ in entire separation from the world.

If it was rebellion against Jehovah for “our fathers,” as Stephen pointed out, to renounce subjection to Moses and thrust him away, and turn in their hearts unto Egypt, how much more heinous is the guilt of those who read but reject the Lord's ways in worship and service for their own pandering to the world and man's will in divine things! Is not the Holy Spirit now sent from heaven to be in and with us forever in glorifying the Lord and His written will? The true question for the saint is, not comparing the evils of this or that denomination in order to choose the least offensive, but to cleave to Him with purpose, obedient to His word, and counting on the Holy Spirit's readiness to help, guard, and guide to God's glory.

Stephen the Christian Protomartyr: 7. The Tent Exchanged for the Temple

The Tent Exchanged For The Temple. Acts 7:44-50.

The worship of God according to the ritual of the law was no security against idolatry, as Stephen proved from the words of Amos the prophet, who goes back to the days of Moses in the wilderness for the sin which transported them after long patience to the lands of captivity. “The holy place and the law” were in vain for God's glory then as now; this was his answer to their boast, and his defense to their accusation. But he had far more to say, and as conclusive that faith in Christ was and is the true safeguard.

“Our fathers had the tent of the testimony in the wilderness, as he that spoke to Moses appointed to make it according to the model which he had seen: which also our fathers, receiving in their turn, brought in with Joshua when they entered on the possession of the nations which God thrust out from our fathers' face unto the days of David who found favor in God's sight, and asked to find a tabernacle for the God of Jacob. But Solomon built him a house. Howbeit the Most High dwelleth not in things made with hands, according as the prophet saith, The heaven [is] my throne, and the earth footstool of my feet: what house will ye build me? saith [the] Lord (or, Jehovah); or what a place of my rest? Did not my hand make all these things” (vers. 44-50)?

Stephen, far from denying, insists that the tent of the testimony was made as God appointed by His word through Moses according to the model seen above, and that their fathers, receiving it from those before them, brought it with them when they entered on the possession of the Gentiles thrust out from before them, till the days of David, whose son built the house for the food of Jacob. But he no less insists on that to which the Jews were blind according to the prophet Isaiah: that the Most High does not dwell, save figuratively, in places made with hands. For the heaven is His throne, and the earth but the footstool of His feet. They exaggerated in what they had done, and forgot that He made all these things, which far outdid any structure of man. So that when they abused and perverted the outward form, He gave it up to the Chaldeans, as He would again to the Romans. Could their vain trust meet a sterner rebuke than God had already given and would give? For that Stephen knew our Lord's threat of the destruction soon to fall on the temple who can doubt, though He purposely lets the truth tell without His name in all this speech? It was His rejection that was shadowed in that of Joseph and of Moses; and now is shown God's rejection of the earthly house: each one the proof of Israel's unbelief and rebellion against Himself, which is Stephen's plea and demonstration throughout.

But there is more, and what could not be hid, the triumph for the truth in each case at the last. For, as we have seen, the rejected Joseph is raised to the height of power in the larger sphere of the world which Egypt figures, yet full of gracious care for Israel owning him at length; and the rejected Moses is made their redeemer and judge to lead them as a people set free from the house of bondage. And we may add the house of God, no longer “a den of robbers” as the Jews made it according to their own prophet's witness, is to be “a house of prayer for all the peoples.” For then the Messiah is no longer despised, but “exalted, and lifted up, and very high” not only in Israel's eyes, but to the astonishment of many nations, and kings shutting their mouths at Him. Yea “from the rising of the sun even to its setting, my house shall be great among the nations of the earth; and in every place incense shall be offered unto my name, and a pure oblation; for my name shall be great among the nations, saith Jehovah of hosts.” How striking that no inspired writer applies this text to the gospel (as some do ad nauseam), but leave it for the day, when the kingdom is restored to repentant Israel! Both the renewed waiting for Christ's coming, and the immense growth of apostate unbelief, proclaim how near the time is.

Stephen the Christian Protomartyr: 8. Appeal to Conscience. Acts 7:61-53

We can see from the use made of the prophet Isaiah respecting the temple, what an advance was made by Stephen, beyond the Twelve even as the spiritual precursor of the apostle Paul (dead in sins as he was then, and the avowed antagonist of Stephen). But how he speaks directly to the conscience of the Jews, exasperated by his trenchant application of the O. T.

“Stiffneckcd and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Spirit: as your fathers, ye too. Which of the prophets did not your fathers persecute? And they killed those who announced beforehand concerning the coming of the Righteous One; of whom ye now became betrayers and murderers, being such as received the law at angels' ordinances (or, injunctions), and kept [it] not” (vers. 51-53).

Loving and devoted even to death that his Jewish brethren might judge their sins and receive the grace of God in Christ, he thus delivered the most scathing summary of the people's sins from first to last. Yet he did not go beyond what all in whom God spoke, from Moses to Malachi, had testified here and there in their pleadings with them for the glory of Jehovah. With all their self-complacency they were “stiff-necked” in heart and ears. The outward sign in the flesh only made their total lack of its spiritual meaning more glaring. The flesh was strong instead of being judged as evil.

It was themselves who were resisting the Holy Spirit, “ye” pre-eminently. Without doubt, as already proved from Holy Writ, their fathers had so done: this ought to have been a warning to them. Alas! they also followed the same baneful course; and they did so “always.” They had no just sense of God's grace in calling out Abram. They were like their ancestors who opposed Joseph and Moses. They broke the law, before it was deposited. They resembled the generation which had the tent of the testimony in the wilderness, but did homage to false gods. They boasted of the temple of Solomon, but rebelled against the Most High who is far above all that the hand makes. They killed the prophets who announced the Messiah; and in their own day they did worse than all before them by delivering up and murdering the Righteous One Himself.

It was no exceptional outbreak, but their habit. And so the Lord had told them in Matt. 12:31, 32. “Every sin and injurious speaking shall be forgiven to men; but speaking injuriously of the Spirit shall not be forgiven to men. And whosoever shall have spoken a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him; but whosoever shall speak against the Holy Spirit, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this age nor in that which is to come.” The evil and adulterous generation only waxed worse, after Christ's atoning work; so that when they spurned the gospel, nothing but judgment could be their portion; partially when the Romans under Titus took away both their place and their nation; fully under Antichrist, when the mass perish, and a believing remnant becomes a strong nation, the generation to come.

God's faithful grace had raised up true prophets in face of the many false, and those were persecuted by their fathers as faithless as themselves. Could they mention one who escaped that lot? And if any were more than usually gifted and privileged to announce beforehand the coming of the Righteous One, they were killed by their unrighteous ancestors who could not endure His coming to destroy them and their idols, with the corruptions in their train. Their rebellion against Jehovah and His anointed had only very recently culminated in their becoming, not those who say, Blessed be He that cometh in the name of Jehovah, but Crucify, Crucify Him, “of whom ye now became betrayers and murderers.” Yet He was the Holy One who, as He drew near and saw the city just before, wept over it, saying, “If thou hadst known in this day, even thou, the things which belong to thy peace! but now they are shut out from thine eyes. For days shall come upon thee, that thine enemies shall make a palisaded mound round about thee, and keep thee in on every side, and shall lay thee even with the ground, and thy children in thee, and shall not leave in thee a stone upon a stone, because thou knewest not the season of thy visitation.”

And what was their glorying in the law but a vain and empty boast? They received it no doubt with the most solemn inauguration at Sinai. He shone forth from Paran, and He came from the holy myriads: from His right hand went forth a fiery law to them; or as Stephen said of their characteristic position, ye “received the law at angels' ordinances, and kept it not.” A law that is not kept must only condemn the guilty. What blindness to brag of a law which they did not obey! But so it ever is, where man without faith in the Savior pretends to honor God.

Stephen the Christian Protomartyr: 8. The Fury of the Jews and His Sight of Jesus on High

The Fury of the Jews, and His Sight of Jesus on High. Acts 7:54-56

Intense exasperation followed Stephen's appeal; and the words he added redoubled their fury to madness and murder.

“And as they heard these things, they were cut to the heart and gnashed their teeth upon him. But, being full of the Holy Spirit, he looked steadfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God, and said, Lo, I behold the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing at the right hand of God.”

Impossible to conceive a more solemn issue on the testimony of Stephen, or a more awful proof of the Jews' hatred of the truth in direct antagonism to the Holy Spirit. His sketch of their history was indisputably true. Their recent behavior and their present truculence were due to the same in heritance of alienation from God and His word which had already entailed woe upon woe. And darker clouds would gather round them, and still darker await them in the consummation of the age when at length another godly remnant shall be raised up by grace, not to form part of the church as now, but to be the nucleus of the generation to come. Of these Micah (5:3) speaks as the residue of His brethren, when the Ruler in Israel is about to stand and feed in the strength of Jehovah, in the majesty of the name of Jehovah His God. And they shall abide (or trust), with the unbelieving mass devoted to destruction; “for now shall He be great even to the ends of the earth,” instead of being hid in God as now, the Head of the church, and they, instead of being merged in the church, “shall return unto the children of Israel:” the work which divine mercy and power will accomplish in that day.

But Stephen, like ourselves, had to withstand in the evil day, while the Lord is rejected on earth and crowned with glory in heaven. He was one of those whom the Lord before His prophecy on Mount Olivet had prepared His adversaries to expect. “Therefore, behold, I send unto you prophets and wise men and scribes; and of them ye will kill and crucify, and of them ye will scourge in your synagogues, and will persecute from city to city; so that all the righteous blood shed upon the earth should come upon you, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zachariah, son of Berachiah, whom ye slew between the sanctuary and the altar. Verily I say unto you, All these things, shall come upon this generation.” Stephen's words penetrated their hearts, and their visage betrayed their murderous intent without giving the sham trial they gave His Master. No defiance met their fierce gaze. But being full of the Holy Spirit he looked steadfastly into heaven, where grace gave him to see God's glory. It was a miraculous vision without doubt, admirably fitted to comfort the spirit of the faithful servant, who was as full of compassion for his brethren after the flesh as of zeal for the Lord.

But how pointed the contrast! they always resisting the Holy Spirit; he full of the Holy Spirit.

He was given to see another sight still nearer to his heart, “Jesus standing at God's right hand.” This opened his lips to confess His name in the most direct terms, and in the concentrated power of all he had testified. “Lo, I behold the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing at God's right hand.”

There had been a transitional testimony up to this. The Messiah was rejected on earth, and the Jews were the most extreme in urging the deepest shame and ignominy for Him who was born King of the Jews. Thus they in their blindness fulfilled the scriptures that so it must be, if even privileged man be as wicked as God is good. But as Peter preached, God raised Him up and made the very Jesus whom His people crucified both Lord and Christ. No apostle exceeded this till now. In Acts 3:13 and 4:27 it is still the Messianic title of “servant” (not” Son”). Stephen, on the utter refusal of Israel to bow his stiff neck, testifies to His being “the Son of man:” an enlarged and judicial title of His glory, well known even in the O.T. in the Psalms and Prophets, as the Lord had pointed out its force from the time that rejection began decidedly. So that Stephen was quite in keeping with the truth; for the Jew stood in dead opposition to the glorified Messiah, no less than to the Messiah in humiliation. Jesus was still standing at God's right hand. But the Judge was at the door. So he saw Him on high and proclaimed Him as the Son of man, who will surely come in the clouds of heaven, judging Israel and all the nations.

Nor should we overlook that, as he said, Lo, I behold the heavens opened.” To him it was a literal sight, as none should doubt who believe in God's power and grace. It is recorded for our comfort in faith. For it is meant to be as real in its spiritual significance to the Christian, as it was in every way to him who saw and bore witness. As for us the veil is ever rent, so the heavens are always open. Jesus is there, the Son of God, sent that we might live through Him, and that He might die for us as propitiation for our sins. He is there now for us, man entered into the glory of God, and Savior of all who believe, the fore-runner for such there. And the heavens which were opened on Him, heaven's object, are open for us, that we may be at home in spirit there, before He comes to fetch us. Here we are unknown; our citizenship is there where He is. It is our joy and privilege to be heavenly, and not of the world as He is not. We are already delivered by His grace from that judgment which the Name imports for Israel and the nations; for we belong to Him, no longer to them. We say it, not of pride but of faith, being not even our own but bought with a price, and what a price!

Stephen the Christian Protomartyr: 9. The Christian's Death Under Man's Hatred

the Christian's Death Under Man's Hatred. Acts 7:57-60

None so recklessly cruel as those who have the highest religious prestige, and reject the testimony of God which is their guilt and His rejection of their claims. So it was then in the great council of Jerusalem. They like their ancestors always resisted the Holy Spirit; Stephen, “full of the Holy Spirit,” not only rebuked their present state (however decent in appearance) as worse than all the past, but testified such grace and glory in Jesus on high as never had been announced by God before. With eyes fixed on heaven he saw by the Spirit's power not only God's glory but Jesus standing at the right hand of God, and said (as already given) “Lo, I behold the Son of man standing at God's right hand.”

This drove them to mad fury. “And they cried out with a loud voice, and held their ears and rushed upon him with one accord; and having cast [him] out of the city they stoned [him] And the witnesses laid aside their clothes at the feet of a young man called Saul. And they stoned Stephen praying and saying, Lord Jesus, receive my Spirit. And kneeling down he cried with a loud voice, Lord, lay not this sin to their charge; and having said this he fell asleep” (vers. 57-60).

It is to be noted that Stephen spoke of the Lord as “the Son of man.” So the Lord spoke of Himself, as the rejection of His Messianic dignity came out more and more. If the Jews refused Him as Jehovah's anointed Son of David, He, bowing to the deep humiliation, comes as the Son of man to seek and to save that which is lost. But He also shall be seen sitting on the right hand of power and coming on the clouds of heaven. Stephen told them that he beheld the Son of man standing at God's right hand. It was an important step forward in promulgating the truth. Peter presented the heavens receiving the exalted Messiah until times of restoration of all things of which God spoke by mouth of His holy prophets since time began; and he therefore urged on the men of Israel to repent and be converted for the blotting out of their sins, so that seasons of refreshment should come from the Lord's presence, and Jesus be sent to bring them in. And this awaits Israel's conversion. Meanwhile the heavens are opened for the believer on earth; though he be not given to behold it like Stephen, it is no less his portion by faith. And the Lord Jesus receives on spirits above on death as surely as He did Stephen's.

Circumstances may differ; but the inspired record of Stephen's death is ours now to appropriate fully. We too are exhorted to be filled with the Spirit (Eph. 5:18); and it is our shortcoming and shame not to be so. We too are entitled to fix our eyes on heaven, and we lose much if we do not. There is no veil to hinder us now more than then. For the Christian, for the church, the veil is forever rent, and the heavens opened. As is the heavenly One, so are also the heavenly ones. It is the Christians' part with Christ before they are translated there at Christ's coming again; when we shall bear the image of the heavenly One, as we have borne and still bear the image of the dusty man Adam.

The Lord could say, Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit; and we with Stephen can say, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.

No doubt timid unbelief of the gospel (which alas! often accompanies faith in Christ's person) may follow the ancient corruption of the truth, and dream of an intermediate chamber of dimness at the least till the dawn of our resurrection. But this is utterly false and anti-scriptural. Paradise is no prison nor dark abode. The paradise of God is not in heaven merely; but as man's paradise in Eden was the choicest spot for unfallen Adam, so God's paradise is the choicest domain above. There Jesus went after He accomplished redemption and glorified God even as to sin—the hardest task He ever undertook. Thither too the crucified but believing robber followed Him that very day, the unimpeachable witness that His blood cleanses from every sin. Therein all that overcome shall be in the day of glory, and eat of the tree of life when there is no tree of responsibility more to test, or threaten death (Rev. 2:7). Stephen bears a direct and full witness to the Christian, not of the future change for the body, but of departure to be with Christ, which, as says the apostle Paul, is “very much better” than remaining as we are, absent from the Lord.

Whilst this was the first thought of Stephen's heart, how precious the grace that shone next in his kneeling, and crying “with a loud voice, Lord, lay not this sin to their charge.” He does not say now as the Lord did before He died, “for they know not what they do.” The Twelve, he himself, to speak of chiefs only, had laid that sin fully on their conscience. It was the practical grace of a Christian, doing well, suffering for it, and taking it patiently with earnest intercession that the evil-doing Jews might be forgiven. O what a contrast with the Latin and Greek cursing communities, as well as with the poor Jews themselves!

Strangership

“These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth” (Heb. 11:13). Few things are more difficult of realization than that the world of today is evil in character, and that believers in the Lord Jesus Christ are delivered from it by Him who gave Himself for our sins, that He might deliver us from this present evil world (or age) according to the will of God and our Father (Gal. 1:4). It is not here deliverance from wrath, although included of necessity, but deliverance from a system or order of things which has been built up by man under the influence of its prince. Both have been judged morally at the cross. “Now is the judgment of this world. Now shall the prince of this world be cast out” (John 12:31).

True, the execution of judgment is suspended and the Holy Spirit is using the interval as a day of salvation, gathering souls, and He who was lifted up receives and delivers them. And this is accomplishing the will of God our Father. Our position then in the world, according to this new relationship must be that of strangers and pilgrims. It is not merely that we seek it as such. It is the character of a heavenly relationship made good in our hearts by the Spirit of His Son (Gal. 4:6). It is noticeable that in this epistle the saints were under bondage by law, and far from realizing their privileges according to the work and glory of Christ. Yet the apostle in the most absolute way affirms the nature and the power of this new relationship as to them. The fact itself remained unaltered by their folly in falling from grace to law. He says, “Because ye are sons;” while they had lost the sense of so near a relationship. The Holy Ghost had been sent into their hearts, and was yet crying “Abba, Father.”

The apostle John too places the family of God in absolute contrast to the children of the wicked one, and insists that the love of the Father and the love of the world are irreconcilable. The Spirit again encourages the Hebrew saints as partakers of a heavenly calling to take up their new place and privileges, including access to God within the veil (Heb. 10), and exhorts them earnestly (in chap. 13:13) to go forth unto a Christ rejected by the Jews as well as by the Gentiles. Indeed the two things are closely connected, “Inside the veil,” and “outside the camp.” To give ever so intelligent an assent to the truths of Christianity will not make anyone a stranger on the earth. But if the Spirit of God occupies my heart with Christ Himself, especially in His heavenly glory and His things, a character will be given to my walk and testimony here, which the world will neither understand nor care for, but hate. Compare John 15:18-21; 1 Cor. 15:48; 2 Cor. 3:18; 5:15-17, etc. The more truly and fully Christ's character is displayed in the believer, the more practically will such a one be a stranger in a world which has seen and hated both the Father and the Son (John 15:22-25). It may help us to realize this if we recall evidence of patriarchal faith, thus proving itself the more remarkable, because of the necessarily incomplete revelation which formed their testimony. They only saw the promises afar off; we are made nigh; and to us they are accomplished in Christ. Yea, the mystery has been declared which was hid in God in ages past. The revelation of the Christian's heavenly calling and hope, and the exposure of man's true character at the cross, should make it easy for us to maintain the pilgrim character.

Presuming the reader has made himself acquainted with the fruits of faith enumerated in Heb. 11, let us mention some, which more especially illustrate the strangership of the heavenly man who has embraced the promises. In Gen. 23 we see the dignity of faith in Abraham, ref using to make his sorrowful experience at the moment an occasion for being a debtor to the world in however small a degree. We know that at such seasons the heart is peculiarly susceptible of sympathy, as we are open to be off our guard, and to accept what at other times we should refuse. The whole land was given to him and to his seed in promise; but not a foot of it was in actual possession. God had enriched him, and the world could but acknowledge it. “Thou art a prince of God amongst us” (see margin); but he confessed himself “a stranger and sojourner amongst you.” Faith had made him such, and in a deep trial like that faith must or ought to rule. For a “friend of God” to accept a gift from a judged world, to anticipate the promised blessing, would be inconsistent with that high and holy intimacy which he was privileged to know.

Turn now to Moses the destined deliverer of God's people. The name which he gave his son expresses this principle (Exodus 2:22), a stranger here. He himself was first and last given up to death as his people were, but “drawn out,” he was delivered from “this present evil world,” as he in faith identified himself with the people of God, and placed himself at their disposal, only to be contemptuously rejected, his authority questioned, and himself exposed to the wrath of the king. In all this he was a type of Him who came in grace into the midst of His people, and knew their sorrows. But, by them He was rejected, and delivered to the Gentiles. Moses fled from the wrath of Pharaoh, yet nothing could alienate his heart from the heirs of promise. They might refuse him as a judge; they could not prevent him from suffering with them, strangers as they were, in a land which was not theirs. He by faith cheerfully accepted the place of a stranger in a strange land. In the failure of his long cherished plans for the deliverance of Israel he recognizes the hand of God, bows to his will, loses all confidence in the flesh; so that when God's time arrives, he scarce believes it possible that any real use can be made of so weak and worthless a one. Yet the power of God fills him and makes use of him for great things.

Let us turn from this subject to another servant of God who had to learn the same lesson and to walk in the same path of strangership and rejection. David, anointed king of Israel, was used of God to accomplish a mighty deliverance; but he must submit to the prelude of a protracted trial of faith. Saul who should have been foremost in acknowledging what God had wrought by his hand professed ignorance of him (1 Sam. 17:56). It is difficult to believe that he had forgotten all about one whose minstrelsy had benefited him so materially (chap. 16:23). But it illustrates the solemn fact that the world easily and willingly ignores the development of God's purposes for man's blessing by his chosen instrument. “Who is David?” and “who is the son of Jesse?” said another who refused his claims and despised his person (1 Sam. 25:10). “I am become a stranger with my brethren and an alien with my mother's children” (Psa. 69:8) tells of the deep sorrow of a loving heart, forced into such a place of isolation by faithfulness to God; while of course in its application to the blessed Lord Jesus it receives its perfect fulfillment alone in Him who entered more fully than any other into every character of suffering which can come upon the servant of God in the world.

Let me close with another sample from the life of this blessed saint of God (1 Chron. 29:15). It was toward the end of a long and honored life in which God had used him, greatly for the blessing of His people. A moment of triumph too it was; for the dearest object of his heart's desire was about to be accomplished. God's purpose as to the succession had been made known to all Israel; when the privilege denied to him was to be conferred upon the son of David, to build a house for the name of Jehovah. David had long been aware of this and, happy in submission to God's will, had prepared with all his might for that house. At such a moment he leads the praises of the great congregation and confesses, “For we are strangers before thee and sojourners.” Was it the right moment for such an avowal? Yes indeed! How different the blessing of that time, from the ruined condition of things at the close of Saul's reign! Compare 1 Sam. 28:7.

Yet even this could not satisfy the heart of God or exhaust His purposes of blessing for His people. The brightest picture the world has ever witnessed is but a faint foreshadowing of the glory of millennial days. Then all shall depend not on what grace deigned to accomplish by such ones as Moses or David (themselves only failing men), but upon Him who shall be fastened as a nail in a sure place. Faith refuses to rest in anything short of perfection. When the name of the city shall be Jehovah-Shammah,” strangership shall give place to citizenship. Every promise of blessing shall be abundantly, yea more than, fulfilled. While we wait in patience for the heavenly glory of that blessed day, may it be ours to live and walk in the power of the Spirit, and under the realized influence of heavenly things. For our citizenship is in heaven from whence also we look for the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior, who will introduce us to the prepared place in the Father's house and make us quite at home there with, Himself. G. S. B.

Strength Through Faith

“Through faith also Sarah herself received strength to conceive seed, and was delivered of a child when she was past age, because she judged him faithful who had promised” (Heb. 11:11).

The energy or consistency of the public testimony is often found to be closely connected with, if not absolutely dependent upon, the strength and consistency of the testimony maintained in the household. One may be greatly helped or hindered by the influence which prevails there. History furnishes many examples, and it is not at all overlooked in scripture; for we find the frequent occurrence of the mother's name of the successive kings of Judah; not so with the rulers of the revolted ten tribes. In the New Testament the names of three women are before us in the very closest connection with the entrance into this world of the One who came for the truth of God in fulfillment of the promise made to the fathers. It was said of Timothy that from a child he had known the Holy Scriptures which are able to make wise unto salvation (2 Tim. 3:15); while the aged apostle was persuaded that God's Spirit had set His seal upon the faith and piety of Lois and Eunice, and that faith unfeigned dwelt in Timothy also. The faith which dwelt in those godly women had much to do with the formation and development of Timothy's character. God will acknowledge and use such things wherever they are found; for He is the giver of faith and grace, while a meek and quiet spirit is of great price in His sight.

There is nothing more clearly set before us in both Old and New Testament revelation with regard to the family, than that God holds the husband and father responsible for the conduct and order of the household. That which God saw in Abraham's household encouraged Him to make the revelation of coming judgment upon Sodom (Gen. 18:17-22); while the moral disorder in Lot's household counteracted his preaching to them (Gen. 19:14). It is a question here of fulfillment of the promise: God is ready to bless and to bless largely; but is the vessel ready to receive the blessing? By nature we have our hopes and fears, our desires and expectations, ambitions, etc; but inasmuch as self-enjoyment and exaltation is the end and ultimate object of all our inward exercise apart from grace, God has to make a complete clearance in the end of all that would interfere with His work of blessing. Empty vessels may be brought, and He will fill them out of His abundance. Clearance must precede blessing. Sometimes the flesh in us sees nothing desirable in that which God presents to faith, and the blessing is despised and perhaps bartered away as in the case of Esau, “a profane person.” It is not of course a question of eternal salvation, but of undervaluing the place of privilege and honor in testimony for God upon earth; it may lead as in his case to personal rejection at the end. Paul by bringing his body into subjection shut out such an alternative (1 Cor. 9:27). There might have been such an one among the Hebrew saints, as there may be now among Gentile Christians.

Sometimes, again, a religiously disposed mind appreciates the distinction which faith brings, and would make a personal sacrifice to get it, as Jacob. For the old nature can become religious and adapt itself outwardly to the ways of God. That which is seen afar off is agreeable to one's inclinations; and religious activity is set up to establish the vision (Dan. 11:14) or to bring about the blessing. But the effect is only to delay and obstruct real blessing; for God will not use it. Discipline, painful and humiliating at the time, is God's way of preserving and preparing the soul for the future blessing. It is not correct to speak of the power of either faith or prayer, although we often hear the expression: to hear and believe when God speaks to us, to judge that He who has promised is faithful and able also to perform is faith. To be speaking continually to God about ourselves and each other is prayer, often involving the confession of weakness as also of failure. Paul in the realization and confession of weakness found strength come in (2 Corinthians 12:10). “When I am weak, then I am strong”: prayer and faith link us up with God Himself, to whom power belongs.

The Son of David was encouraged to build the temple of Jehovah by such a revelation in the midst of the weakness and indifference of the people of God. The Lord Jesus risen from the dead instructed the apostles to tarry in the city of Jerusalem until they were endued with power from on high. Had they commenced their testimony without waiting for this, there would have been a breakdown; but the promise of the Father was fulfilled with the result that “with great power gave the apostles witness.” The Spirit of power and of love and of a sound mind is upon the servants of Christ. God's Spirit has come to stay with the saints and may be counted upon. His methods are a direct application of the written word making it living and powerful in our own hearts, increasing our spiritual apprehension, revealing Christ, leading out our heart in prayer, keeping us in dependence upon and subjection to Christ Jesus the Lord, and making us to be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. Abraham was “strong in faith” (Rom. 4:20), he was accustomed to have to do with God personally so that when under such a trial he did not waver. The fact that Sarah his wife shared his faith must have been a great comfort and help to him; it was an auxiliary blessing not to be despised. God is pleased to use such things for the comfort of our heart and deepening His work within us. So in the case of Gideon, he was sent of God on a midnight visit to the Midianites, that his hand should be strengthened (Judg. 7). So Paul was lifted up by the coming or presence of Titus (2 Cor. 7).

There is not only God's work in one's own soul, but the blessing He brings by that which He has wrought in the heart of another. How different was it in Jacob's family, his own beloved wife corrupting the household by bringing in false gods! But for saints walking in obedience, loving each other in the truth is to be in the line of the Spirit's action, in the fellowship of the Holy Ghost, and grace and peace are multiplied. Sarah, no less than her husband, intelligently and reverently grasped the promise and waited patiently for its fulfillment. They were mutually helpers of each other's joy, but not without failure; for the flesh will never cease to assert itself while we are in the body. Yet our God is able to turn even our failure to account for His own glory and our spiritual profit; as the history of Hagar and Ishmael viewed in the light of divine interpretation (Gal. 4:21-23) abundantly illustrates. G.S.B.

The Church of God in the Millennial (Sic) and Eternal State.

This is another of the attempts at a Blackburn booklet. The writer ought to be silent, knowing nothing as he ought and having all to learn beyond the elements. He confounds “the man of sin, the willful King of the land,” not only with the imperial Beast or apostate Roman empire that is to be, his ally, but with the king of the north, the antagonist of both! Compare his pages 5 and 6. Such confusion is unworthy of the first form in the school of prophecy. Nevertheless it reflects their chief.

But even one so crude as Mr. M. is not so unprincipled as to count all Christians gathered unto the Lord's name (p. 9); he owns it as the real living distinction of those subject to Him and His word. In p. 10 he confounds the countless crowd of Gentiles who come out of the great tribulation in Rev. 7 with the heavenly saints (including the church), distinguished from them in that very scene as the twenty-four elders, which in p. 15 he does not deny to express the royal priesthood. See also pp. 16, 17. He raises the question as to “the guests” in Rev. 19, but has no answer save the childish tradition of Christendom that all saints are the church or bride of the Lamb. But this is confusion worse confounded. For to say nothing of the O. T. saints who best correspond with those invited to the heavenly bridals, the marriage is consummated above before the Lord destroys His enemies, and Satan is bound, and the Apocalyptic martyrs are raised, and the millennial reign ensues; wherein will be a harvest of saints on the earth whom it is sheer folly to call the church or part of it.

It is equally so to count Rev. 4-6 “a forecast of millennial rule”? It is really to show the heavenly saints (after the church-state here below closes in Rev. 2; 3) around God's throne before the preparatory judgments, the great tribulation, with the Beast, and the False Prophet, and other wicked agents at the end of the age. How can people overlook that, when the prefatory vision is fulfilled, out of the throne proceed lightnings and voices and thunders? Now this is as different from “the throne of grace” which we now know, as it is from the millennial day when a river of life bright as crystal proceeds out of the throne of God and the Lamb Who can fail to recognize that the day of grace, the brief interval of judicial dealings when we are caught up, and the era of the glorious kingdom, are thus discriminated? But all beyond the prophetic alphabet is a muddle here. Rev. 4-6 in no way indicates the form of rule, as he says, during the thousand years, but an interval after the rapture of those symbolized by the twenty-four elders, before the millennium begins.

As little does the writer understand the unities of John 17 “All mine are thine, and thine are mine,” are things, not persons. The first unity in ver. 11 was for those around Him in respect of their unique work. Again, the “all one,” in 21 were (from ver. 20) demonstrably prospective, but only up to the Lord's coming (not subsequently), as pointedly distinguished from the unity of glory in vers. 22, 23, when the world will (not believe but) “know” that the Father sent the Son and loved the then glorified saints as He loved Christ. For they are manifested in glory with Him. It is the Newtonian scheme which involves this tract in utter darkness, and hinders its writer from seizing the truth which he vainly opposes with no small self-complacency.

Needless to say that to Mr. Darby belong his Collected Writings, of which I was simply Editor, not author, as he strangely seems to think. What he cites thence is as sound, as his objection is futile. Till I read p. 20, I had no notion that A. Pridham had departed so far from the truth he once seemed to hold. O these days of declension! How long too they have been in progress! For his volumes on the Scriptures were widely circulated and much cried up by the company he joined some years before his death. Did they know no better than such earthly views? What sufficient proof has even been given that the judaizing root of error has ever been thoroughly extirpated?

Unity and Separation

Two pictures of exceeding beauty, yet in striking contrast, are before us in these passages. The first shows the whole congregation of God's redeemed people Israel united in worship and thanksgiving, in the presence of the One who had wrought for their deliverance and blessing. In the absence of anything in which nature could find its joy they had gone after Jehovah, and they had found Him, but it was in the wilderness in a land which was not sown. The second presents a lonely man, in shame, reproach, and anguish of soul, turning to God who had called and separated him to Himself; as to his only resource and refuge. The Spirit of God had indicated the position, in each case by His own word and work; and both in their day respectively were acceptable to Jehovah. Let us briefly consider them in their order.

Jeremiah was called of God at a very early age, his scruples on this point satisfied, made conscious of the power and authority by which he was ordained a prophet unto the nations (significant enough of the impending change in the ways of God with His people), and was maintained in faithfulness and service for God, during the last eighteen years of the reign of Josiah, that son of David who had been prophesied of by name 300 years before his birth (1 Kings 13:2), and who had been filled with moral and spiritual energy for the cleansing of the city and temple, and restoring (at any rate outwardly) the worship of God, and the observance of His ordinances.

A great reformation had been brought about by kingly power; but it left the hearts of the people generally untouched. It was the last effort of the Spirit of God to restore the people in a national way; and it was followed by the dreadful relapse in the time of the sons of Josiah, culminating in the profanity and wickedness of Zedekiah, who broke the oath of Jehovah, so that God must needs cast them out of His sight. The testimony of our prophet went right on to the end, hence his sorrowful experience. But why could not God rest in the outwardly improved state of the kingdom of Judah in Josiah's day? He looked beneath the surface. He looked for reality, for tenderness of conscience, for subjection of heart to His word; and He found them not. “The kindness of thy youth, the love of thine espousals,” were wanting. God will never be satisfied with anything short of thoroughness.

The passover was a feast for all Israel; but the first king of the revolted ten tribes had substituted his own power and authority for that of Jehovah; so that when the godly Hezekiah (2 Chron. 30) sought to recall the people to a sense of their privileges and responsibilities as children of Abraham, “they laughed them to scorn.” Precisely the like has happened in the church. The power and will of man may subvert God's order, but it can never restore. Only God's Spirit can do this, enabling the soul to submit itself to the will and to the word of the Lord. The gracious power of the Spirit so wrought at that time that “divers... humbled themselves, and came” finding such blessing as they had never anticipated. But God in His retrospective survey of the people, passed that and many another comparatively bright spot in their history; until His eye rested upon the scene recorded in Ex. 15, and there for the moment all was perfection. He Himself and not the deliverance in the past, nor yet the prospect before them, satisfied their affections. “Thou wentest after Me.” The people were united in spirit, and bowed in heart before God, so that as with one voice they joined in worship, “I will sing unto Jehovah.” God was everything to them, and man shut out.

Again, in the early chapters of Acts, God was seen working by His Spirit, the same blessed results were produced: only we may say on a higher level spiritually—unity in worship, service, and testimony. God was gathering souls to Christ glorified. In Ex. 15 man proposed that which was never carried out in truth (I will prepare Him an habitation); but here the disciples that believed were together, and had all things common. The Lord was adding together daily, and saints were being “builded together for God's habitation through the Spirit.”

Such blessed manifestations of power and goodness on God's part, and delighted response on man's part pass away all too soon; the word to Israel was “I remember thee.” God invites them to return. He had not changed. The Lord Jesus looks upon His Church in much the same way in Rev. 2 and 3. “Thou hast left thy first love.” Works will not satisfy the One who is looking for love. He seeks their restoration: “Remember therefore;” “Hold fast and repent.” The Lord Jesus in His perfect love refuses to be satisfied with recollections; He will have a present response to His changeless love. Even amongst ourselves, love cannot live on the past, it must have its satisfaction in the present.

God was working in many distinct and separate ways in Jeremiah's day, for the moral recovery of the people. We cannot doubt that, in a very special and remarkable manner, the prophet was called and separated, and owned of God as His servant. The testimony was centered in him although not exclusively so; for was there not Zephaniah and the prophetess Huldah (significant indeed of the low moral state of the people)? to say nothing of the college from whence, it may be, religious instruction was disseminated. The fact of the book of the law having been lost spoke of the shameful neglect of the priests and Levites, with regard to their first and highest responsibility. “They shall teach Israel thy law” (Deut. 33:10). Yet God could and did work amongst the people in its absence; but when found, the divine operations were shown to be in full accord with all that was written therein. God was working in these various ways, recovering the lost testimony, making the heart of the king “tender,” giving one and another to tremble at His word, others to maintain a bold and faithful testimony. But He was not bringing the people together in what would have been a false show of unity. Nor did the king in his trouble send to Jeremiah: each followed the leading of the Spirit in his own sphere of service.

The king rightly enough took the lead in a public way, and God owned it. The prophet rejoiced in it (Lam. 4:20), and mourned greatly when a fatal divergence from the path of obedience and constant dependence upon God marred the outward testimony, and occasioned the downfall of the throne of David. His own position was one of isolation and sorrow. He was not to be drawn out of it by the fact that God was working in much power and blessing elsewhere: an excuse so often pleaded in our own day for unfaithfulness and inconsistency in regard to service and discipleship. “I sat alone,” “for I am called by thy name.” Yet he had his own heart's food and satisfaction in the very words which must have awakened and alarmed the guilty consciences of many. “They were unto me the joy and rejoicing of mine heart.” The answer of God (vers. 19-21) was full of encouragement, yet not without a warning word. Filled with indignation because of the base ingratitude of the nation and perpetual pain, like the apostle Paul in a later day, when the beloved people had still more guiltily committed themselves before God, and exposed themselves to still fiercer wrath (Rom. 9:1-3), he had even said, “I will not speak any more in His name.” Many crushed and broken-hearted servants since have felt the same (Matt. 11:2-6). But God comforts and strengthens against the weakness and unbelief of nature. “If thou return,” i.e. to the people giving up all, God would restore in grace. He would have His way: “Then will I bring thee again.”

Moreover, the prophet was commanded not to return unto them, but even as Jehovah Himself was waiting to be gracious, so “Let them return unto thee.” The power of spiritual discernment is seriously impaired if not entirely wanting in those who, having had light from God, deliberately and for the sake of relief and release from the constraint of holy subjection to the will of God, associate with the mass of corrupt profession, in which even the world can have its part. Precious things are there indeed, or there would be no snare to Christians. However unpopular it may be amongst Christians, the place of separation from evil, alone it may be, or with but few to stand by us, is the place in which we may “Take forth the precious from the vile.” The Lord appropriates and makes use of such; He sets His seal upon them. “They shall be mine.” “Thou shalt be as my mouth.” It is urged as an objection to this, that the love of souls and the gracious activities of the evangelist are more or less restrained in such a narrow path. But this is really to reflect upon the Lord's grace, for the nearer we are to “Him that is holy and true,” the nearer also to that fount of grace in the blessed heart of the Lord Jesus Christ. Moreover, real evangelism is a going forth with the gospel, which alone is the “power of God unto salvation.” There could be no such going forth in O.T. days, because there was no such blessed message to carry. G. S. B.

Unto My Name

It is humbling and grievous when a servant of the Lord gives up any truth of God which he had not only held but advocated publicly, then doubted, and finally denies; from mere sentiment wresting scripture to popular error. Such is the character of “Gathering in the Name of the Lord Jesus.” The friend who sent me the tract regards its writer as the best-taught man in their circle. Yet here he has sunk lower than many of his associates, even on his own showing in the first paragraph of p. 7; for they, if mistaken in their claim to be gathered to that Name, at least own it to be the only right aim for true worshippers. So sadly has he lost this truth as to stigmatize it as “the Corinthian school of Christ” (p. 8) “against all the names of Paul, Apollos and Cephas!” “This is carnality,” he says! Is it not deplorable to see a Christian become more unbelieving as he grows older? carried away by the Laodicean spirit of the day beyond many who probably know less, and blinded to excuse and spread utter laxity under cover of grace which is not grace? Can one honestly say less?

T. N. knows that those who in faith regard it as a special privilege and duty, to be gathered together to the Lord's name, are the farthest of any on earth from setting it against Paul, Apollos and Cephas. It was therefore wholly different with these frivolous Corinthians; who, whilst abiding in the same fellowship, did really and irreverently from their old philosophic habit set up in rivalry not those blessed servants only but the Divine Master as heads of opposing schools! Is there the least approach even to superficial resemblance? We dread all schism; we disclaim denominations or sects. These are what the apostle calls “heresies,” and warns, in 1 Cor. 11:18, 19, as the sure issue of unjudged schism. Yet the gist of this tract is to make light even of that graver evil, and goes so far as to rebuke the better desires of his own companions who left the sects, in order (as they judged) to be gathered to the Lord's name.

According to his present view, and “the Keswick motto,” whether maintaining sects, or abjuring them, all Christians in the existing disorder and confusion, are alike gathered to His name! If he said that, as members of Christ and walking consistently, they are entitled to be received in His name and are free to take their place, it is true. But what if they ignore it and prefer, a gathering according to their own views, or an organization that sets aside God's? Can it be that standing to this looseness, go where he will among orthodox denominations, he and other believers honor that precious privilege as truly as in apostolic days? There was an early man among Brethren (A. N. G.) who seems to have entertained or slipped into a similar negation of all divine principle. To simple and intelligent souls this was ever abhorrent. For it stultifies all scripture which treats of the church, and in particular this Epistle which T. N. perverts to his aid. Can he honestly believe that, when the apostle addresses the church of God that is in Corinth, “with all that in every place call upon the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both theirs and ours,” he sanctions separate sects, and accepts what he calls a heretic (Titus 3:10, 11) as all the same gathered to the Lord's name? This is beyond doubt what the argument involves, as foolish a thought as it is faithless.

It is therefore mere evasion of “gathered to the name of Christ” if we pretend that when gathered as “Presbyterians and Episcopalians, Baptists and Methodists, and those who refuse all separating titles” (to take his own phrase in page 8), Christians, however earnest, are nevertheless gathered to His name. They are never so gathered whilst they abide in religious corporations framed on these extra-scriptural lines. Nor is the refusal of “separating titles” enough. There must be the positive gathering to His name as the divinely given, only, and adequate center for God's children, to the exclusion of all that is incompatible with it by the word and Spirit of God. Matt. 18:15-20 supposes but one communion, no matter in how many places even in the same city they may meet. The church or assembly here and everywhere else in scripture implies inter-communion, and never allows of a fellowship independent and differing one from another. As the Head is one, so is the church according to God's will, who has sent forth the Holy Spirit to act as the power and bond of union for this end. “For also in one Spirit were we all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether bond or free, and were all given to drink of one Spirit” (1 Cor. 12:13). See also Eph. 4.

But it, is a delusion to fancy that if souls break away from divine unity for divers doctrines and governments of man's device, they are notwithstanding gathered to the Lord's name. Sect or heresy is insubjection to the Lord, whatever the plea to vindicate such a departure. The same apostle who laid down the principle of one body is the one to pronounce the than guilty of such self-will as perverted and sinning, being self-condemned. Heterodoxy or strange doctrine is quite another evil, which may go so far as to deny God's everlasting judgment of sin, or His glory who bore it away from all who believe. Surely great is the sin if one deliberately seeks to make light of the evil of denominations which directly oppose that for which Christ died: not, it is true, to save the lost, but to gather together into one the children of God that were scattered abroad (John 11:51, 52). How bold to assert, that if Christians set up new limits of fellowship which narrow or broaden the divine will, they are to be notwithstanding condoned, and no-less gathered unto His name than those who are faithful and obedient! Some may flatter themselves that this amiability is growth in grace; whereas it is increasing looseness, and the unwitting desire to excuse themselves and other careless Christians at the cost of Christ's honor and word, to say nothing of the personally present Spirit.

As to a junction of such believers to supplicate God the Father in the Son's name, they surely may, and never in vain for what is His will. But any union for the nonce falls far short of being gathered together unto His name. For this is nothing less than the constitutive principle of the church, abides always (even when not assembled) in its relation and its consequences, and has its “within” and “without” with incumbent duties permanently. He who refused subjection to righteous judgment of his manifest wrong, even to the extreme point of equitable and gracious desire to win him, was to be for a passing season as one of the outside Gentiles. He must, till repentance, lie under the stigma; as the rest would enjoy the standing privileges of their common relationship. For “the church” was to take the place of Christ-rejecting Israel on earth, of Jerusalem and the temple, though in living association with heaven far beyond Moriah or Zion. This is to read in faith what the Lord put into these verses; the tract forgets and tries to blot it out. Neither first nor last was the church to be a rendezvous for casuals. To be believers is not the point but to have His presence as the sanction of acts when gathered together to His name. To have the bishop as the center with presbyters and deacons was the device of the second century and onwards; to have nothing but believers of all orthodox sects or of none is an abuse; to own the Lord in the midst of those (were they but two or three) who own no center but the Lord is the sound and sole principle of God's church. But if it came to “two or three,” what grief and humiliation became them, and utter refusal to arrogate to themselves “the” church, though eschewing all sects but taking their stand upon that ground of grace and truth and nothing else!

To assume that to be saints in the denominations makes them notwithstanding truly gathered together to the Lord's name opens the door to nullify the church, for which it substitutes a mere rope of sand. It is the device of latitudinarianism, and the abandonment of the Lord's promise to those who are gathered together unto His name. And what can be plainer, to those who have learned from scripture the impending ruin evident already to inspired eyes and revealed in the Epistles and the Revelation, than that the Lord before the beginning here as elsewhere intimates that the falling away might be so great that only two or three here and there might be thus gathered in faith of God's will ecclesiastically for fidelity here below? Yet does He deign to provide the sanction here promised to those who obey His word in face of trial and ill report, instead of following the multitude in pride of antique error, or turning to indifference, novelty, and what not.

In earlier days believers were freely received as Christ's members who, having no right notion of the church, were hardly to be counted guilty of departure from what was of God. Yet those who personally departed could plead for no such favor. But there is now an ominous change foreboding “the apostasy.” No saint in those days tolerated the sacerdotalism of Christendom with its lie of apostolic succession as the warrant, its saving ordinances, and its idolatry with the real presence of a demon. Still less had we to challenge those who countenanced the gross skepticism of the Higher critics, though we had to refuse such as fell into the denial of God's judgment of sins or the soul's natural immortality. We are now bound to apply the later tests of scripture.

When giving up in principle that blessed privilege, how self-deceiving it is to say, “Oh let me ever be gathered, when gathered at all, in that Name! And what I prize so much myself let me not refuse to any saint of God.” Some at least of his own company will not deny that he has himself falsified the Lord's mind, and that what he has just written does not come from God but can only mislead those who heed it. It is no question of refusing to any saint of God his true place and privilege, but of convincing the erring that to be of a denomination contradicts it, and that to claim both is unfaithfulness and folly. As I have no wish to expose bad reasoning and misapplied kindly feeling, I refrain from doing more than, for the help of souls, pointing out the writer's radical mistake and sad declension, with much regret that it is a plain duty to do so.

What Have They Seen in Thy House?

One of the most solemn truths of the word of God is that the heart of man is “deceitful above all things and desperately wicked.” It declares itself as such amongst the openly ungodly and profane; and but little trouble is taken to hide it. Revealed truth is opposed, and gracious manifestations are despised. But in the sphere of profession it is different, where dissimulation creeps in, and is adopted. It needs a divine revelation to make it manifest that, after the house is “swept and garnished,” it is more than ever suited for the dwelling-place of Satan, more ready to receive him and rebel against God than before. This is of course as to professors merely; but even where a real work of God is within, the flesh remains unchanged. In some cases of the O. as well as the N. T., the word of the Lord probes and enlightens the conscience, exposing hitherto unsuspected evil underlying the most irreproachable conduct outwardly. The results of such probing are surely set before us in God's word that we may be instructed, and humbled as to the presence of the flesh, although we are not in the flesh but in the Spirit; and accustom ourselves to make this use of the divine word so discerning ourselves that the Lord may have no occasion to judge or chasten us.

The sin of Hezekiah on this occasion was known only to God; it was not a moral breakdown but a sin of the heart, which God alone could see and judge. Had he been a less faithful man, it might not have been charged against him in such a solemn manner; for God's judgment is necessarily most searching in regard of such as are near to, and beloved by, Him. Besides it was only the special favor and goodness shown to him personally which made it possible for him to offend thus. By the subtlety of the enemy he was betrayed into glorying in a fleshly way in the blessing which should have drawn him nearer to God. How often it happens where one has made promises or resolutions as to conduct or service, and failure in regard to such has come in, that God is pleased to bring us up to our own proposal in the beginning! This is mortifying, but to the flesh only: the heart of the saint rejoices in all that is humbling to nature, and finds in the discomfiture of the flesh a way of return to God who works in us both to will and to do of His good pleasure (Phil. 2:13). The Lord's dealing with Peter in John 21:15-19 illustrates this.

But a few days before the visit of the Babylonian princes, Hezekiah had gone up to the house of Jehovah to pour out his soul in thanksgiving for the mercies received; he had said “I shall go softly all my years in the bitterness of my soul.” No doubt at the time he meant it; but God put him to the proof as to this, and instead of “going softly” all his days, he rendered not again according to the benefit done unto him for his heart was lifted up. “Therefore was there wrath upon him and upon Judah and Jerusalem” (2 Chron. 32:25). “God left him to try him that he might know all that was in his heart.” It was Israel in the wilderness over again (Deut. 8:2). All was known to God; but the object in His ways is to expose everything now, that we may clear ourselves morally, and humble ourselves in His presence. There may be much outward activity, and success too, that is, according to man's judgment; but He who searches the hearts may see that secretly working which, if not now manifested and judged, would lead to ultimate exposure and destruction at the judgment-seat of Christ of all that is built upon it.

It was characteristically the spirit of Babylon which Hezekiah had cherished and which must be cast out. “Behold, his soul which is lifted up is not upright in him” (Hab. 2:4): words which God used of the Chaldean conqueror of Jerusalem in the day of Habakkuk, but how applicable now to the failing saint, who was not at the moment living by his faith! The spirit of Babylon had been entertained at Jerusalem, had been received in the house of the king of Judah, and had ensnared the heart of Jehovah's servant. Notice how quickly the proud heart ceases to be upright. Man is properly a weak dependent creature, and finds his strength only in constant reliance upon God. “My just one shall live by his faith,” so that he has nothing whatever in which to glory. “What hast thou that thou didst not receive?” To appropriate the glory of another is unrighteous. God gave power to the king of Babylon, who misused it by casting God's servants into a burning furnace; but his action brought God amongst them as a Deliverer. The spirit of Babylon is far more to be dreaded than its power. It is proud and unrighteous; it flatters and ensnares the heart, and delights in moral confusion, for then its aims are not easily detected.

The spirit of Babylon was brought into the assembly at Corinth by those who reigned as kings without the apostles. That same spirit was brought in amongst the saints by “Hymenæus and Philetus, who concerning the truth erred, saying that the resurrection is passed already, overthrowing the faith of some.” And faith is the only thing that delivers from this present evil world; for it links us up with God and His beloved Son, and makes us overcomers in this deceived and defiled world. Resurrection is indeed accomplished in a great sense, i.e. for our standing and acceptance before God, as new creatures in Christ Jesus and as saints in our heavenly position and privileges. But as servants and good soldiers of Jesus Christ we must have the sentence of death in ourselves and qualify by suffering for the glorious position which yet awaits us in our resurrection. We must substantiate our title to the crown by bearing the cross and enduring hardness. Without risen life in Christ we should have neither spring nor object in heavenly glory; but it is the cross of Christ and not resurrection-life that determines and characterizes our position and circumstances in this world. Let us say with the devoted apostle, “God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, whereby the world is crucified unto me and I unto the world.” The spirit of Babylon will not get hold of a heart satisfied with Christ, which holds the cross as an impassable barrier between itself and the world.

Hezekiah had been greatly used of God for cleansing His house and restoring His worship. In extraordinary energy of grace he had traveled beyond the narrow limits of his own kingdom of Judah, and had visited the crushed and scattered fragments of the larger kingdom of Israel, acting on their souls so as to come up to Jerusalem and keep the passover as God's redeemed people. God acknowledged his work of faith and labor of love with much blessing. It was all most acceptable; but God looked that the same character of holiness which had been restored to God's house should pervade the house, the family, and the heart of His servant. In the temple Hezekiah had been seen as a penitent, a suppliant, and a worshipper; but now the question he had to face was, “What have they seen in thy house?” Alas! for man; he had shown them everything, and certainly the display had been for his own glory and not for the glory of God. The wise men of Babylon had taken note of the wonder done in the land, they had come to connect it with God's people and with the son of David. Here was surely an opportunity of testimony to Jehovah. How great His power and His goodness on behalf of His afflicted servant! But the king of Babylon saw only the creature in it; and on the other hand, Hezekiah was glad to show it. Alas! how soon we respond to flattery. When the shadow of death had been upon him, he was cast upon God. Faith shone out brightly, and he confessed that “in all these [difficulties, pain and weakness] is the life of my spirit.” But brought up as it were from the grave, he forgot all the glory was due to God, and by his conduct gave occasion for the most solemn and precise announcement of judgment by the Chaldean that any king of Judah as yet had been required to bow to.

Has not all this a voice for us to-day? Outward reformation there may be. For many years saints have had the comfort and blessing of truth restored or received by the Spirit's ministry through the usual channels. “That which every joint supplieth” is truth which has to do with the body of Christ, the assembly, the house of God, etc. But God is interested in raising questions, which, if answered fairly and truly in His presence, may reveal strange and mournful inconsistencies as to our private life, our home life, and our business life.

“What have they seen in thy HOUSE?”

What Is the Bearing of 1 Peter 4:15-16?

Q.—What is the bearing of 1 Peter 4:15, 16, which seems passed over in the exposition we have had?

A.—The text strictly rendered may be thus given with remarks on it: “For let none of you suffer as murderer or thief or evil doer, or as spy on another's matter; but if as a Christian, let him not be ashamed but glorify God in this name.” The same excellent witnesses, which do not give the latter half of verse 14 (in Text. Rec.), have here not “part” or “behalf” but “name,” which quite falls in with the first half. The moral sense of mankind utterly condemns the first three offenders; yet into what might not a follower of Christ slip if he turned aside? He had learned the hollowness of the world's estimate of evil, and therefore is the more exposed if he cease to walk by faith and constrained by the love of Christ. He had also learned the new and dear relation (with its resulting duties) of the holy brotherhood into which our Lord has brought us. Therefore, if love as well as faith did not guide him practically, who in such danger of prying into other people's affairs? For, if in a bad state, he would be sure to regard others as no better than himself: how wretched an excuse for or justification of his own faults! But if he suffered as a Christian, what an honor! The world gave this name as a taunt to the disciples of a rejected and crucified Christ. Faith knows Him dead and risen and glorified at God's right hand, and looks for everlasting glory together with Him, and that the very world will know Him thus at His appearing. What is the grandest throne on earth but brief and mean in comparison? For, besides the millennial display, we shall live through Him unto the ages of the ages, reigning in life through the Savior.

Whitefield's Journals

In this day of revival efforts, American and Welsh, Mr. W. Wale has reproduced for the first time since 1756 the journals of one more blessed thus than any since his day, as Wh. too led the way in preaching the simple gospel wherever he found an open door, but chiefly out of doors. By none was he more opposed and reviled than by his own fellow-churchmen, though he never left the Anglican Establishment and always claimed to be an English clergyman. It is clear however that he was regardless of the parochial system and the Canons, valuing chiefly the Articles, but in heart owning every soul that loved the Lord, and seeking the salvation of the lost wherever he found them, not only over Great Britain and Ireland, &c., but in America which he visited at least seven times when the voyage was incomparably more tedious and trying than of late years. He knew little beyond the glad tidings, and God's love both sovereign and in relationship, with its obligations and effects on the heart and the walk. But his devoted and self-denying zeal in that service of the Lord had no superior if equal in modern times. And his journals vividly reflect his heart and his labors, whatever the few drawbacks which one has no care to specify as is easily done by those who are immeasurably inferior in weightier matters.

George Whitefield was admitted a poor scholar or servitor of Pembroke College, Oxford, in 1733 (as he was born in Gloucester in 1714), and soon joined the Wesleys and their few associates in the University, earnest but dark spiritually and called Methodists even then, knowing truth no better than T. à, Kempis and the heterodox W. Law. By Bp. Benson of Gloucester he was ordained deacon in 1736. His preaching from the very first made an extraordinary impression; yet then more from his impassioned earnestness than from his growing sense of grace in which he ere long far outran J. and C. Wesley and almost all the rest of his friends. No doubt his most powerful, flexible, and expressive voice concurred with his warm affections to form a vessel suited to his gift from above. He was even before J. W. in preaching in the open air, as he did first on Hannam Mount to the colliers of Kingswood, near Bristol. Later at Blackheath and at Kennington it is said that he was heard by not less than 30,000 at one time. Even the grossest infidels like Bolingbroke, Chesterfield and Hume listened with awe and emotion; and great were the results among the anxious and the simple.

The Journals do not carry us down to the rupture with Wesley who clung to Arminianism; but its warmth cooled down so far that Whitefield spoke of his desire that Wesley should preach his funeral sermon, as Wesley did for his long-severed friend. Yet in fact Whitefield died near Boston, Mass., on the 30th Sept., 1770, worn out even at that early age by toils beyond man's endurance with impunity. His sermons give but a faint sense of his preaching; but three volumes of his letters extend to the week of his death, and with his discourses and tracts, make up six volumes, published in 1771.

I doubt much that the great preacher would have sanctioned the appreciations of men however popular, not sound in the faith, though he would have valued that of W. Cowper.

Why Do I Groan? Part 1

Rom. 7; 8

There is nothing so hard for our hearts as to abide in the sense of grace, to continue practically conscious that “we are not under law, but under grace.” It is by grace that the heart is “established;” but then there is nothing more difficult for us really to comprehend than the fullness of grace—that “grace of God wherein we stand,” and to walk in the power and consciousness of it. It is only in the presence of God that we can know it, and there it is our privilege to be. The moment we get away from the presence of God, there will always be certain workings of our own thoughts within us; and our own thoughts can never reach up to the thoughts of God about us, to the “grace of God.”

It is quite impossible for us to draw any right conclusion about grace, until we are settled on the great foundation of grace—God's gift of Jesus. No reasoning of our own hearts could ever reach up to “the grace of God,” for the very simple reason, that in order to be such it must flow directly and freely from God. What I had any, the smallest possible, right to expect, could not be pure, free grace—could not be this “grace of God.”

But then, even after we “have tasted that the Lord is gracious,” it is quite natural for our own thoughts to work as soon as we leave the presence of God; and the moment they do so, whether it be about our sins, or about our graces, or anything else that we are occupied, we lose the sense of His grace, and can no longer reckon upon it.

This getting out of God's presence is the source of all our weakness as saints, for in God's strength we can do anything: “if God be for us, who can be against us?” “We are more than conquerors.” Whether our thoughts be about ourselves, or about circumstances around us, everything then becomes easy. But it is alone, when in communication with Him, that we are able thus to measure everything according to grace.

Are our thoughts about ourselves? When in the presence of God, we rest on His grace nothing can trouble us. “Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect?” “Who is he that condemneth?” “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?” But the moment that we get out of God's presence, we cannot any longer rest on His grace as when in communion with Him.

Again, are they respecting the condition of things around? We may have sorrow on this account, as conscious of the evil, misery, and ruin in which everything is, as Jesus, who “groaned in spirit and was troubled.” But it is impossible, when we are abiding in the sense of God's presence, for anything (be it what it may, even the state of the church) to shake us; for we count on God, and then all things become but a sphere and scene for the operation of His grace.

Nature never counts upon God's grace; it may count upon God's mercy in passing by sin, but only because it imagines either that He is indifferent about it (attributing to Him its own low estimate of sin), or that He has no right to judge it. Grace, when understood by the soul, is seen to be the very opposite of this; it is founded on a just sense of the tremendous evil of sin, on the part of God. And when we have learned in our measure to take God's estimate of sin, we are filled with amazement at that grace of God which can blot it all out, He having given His own Son to die because of it. What the natural man understands by mercy is not at all God's blotting out sin by the blood-shedding of Jesus, but His passing by sin with indifference. This is not grace.

When the conscience becomes awakened, and there are thoughts of responsibility, without the apprehension of grace, the first thing it seeks to do is to put itself under the law; it cannot do otherwise. And the natural man often does this; he knows of no other way of pleasing God than obedience to the law; and this, being ignorant both of God and of himself, he thinks he can render.

But the having very simple thoughts of grace is the true source of our strength as Christians; and the abiding in the sense of grace, in the presence of God, is all the secret of holiness, peace, and quietness of spirit.

There are two things which may hinder our peace of spirit, and these, being frequently confounded and mixed up together, create a difficulty in the minds of saints—

First, a troubled state of conscience respecting acceptance and salvation;

Secondly, a groaning of spirit, similar to that mentioned by Paul in Rom. 8:23, because of circumstances around, which distress and try us.

But these are quite distinct. The trouble and exercise of spirit, which the saint may and indeed must have whilst living in this world because of circumstances around, is altogether an opposite thing to that trouble of conscience which is respecting pardon of sins.

Where there is that trouble of conscience, love is not in exercise; but self is the center. But when the trouble is because of the state of things around, the contrary is the case. How deep the trouble of soul in the Lord Jesus! but it flowed from love and from a perfect sense of what the grace of God is.

When grace is fully, that is, simply known, when we are resting upon God as being for us, and know that He is love, there can be no mistake between these two causes of disquiet; but if we do not understand what grace is, we shall be apt immediately to confound them.

If there be in us any anxiety of conscience as to our acceptance, we may be quite sure that we are not thoroughly established in grace. It is true that there may be the sense of sin in one who is established; but this is a very different thing from distress of conscience as to acceptance. Want of peace may be caused by either of two things: my never having been fully brought to trust in grace; or my having through carelessness lost the sense of grace, which is easily done. The “grace of God” is so unlimited, so full, so perfect, that, if we get for a moment out of the presence of God, we cannot have the true consciousness of it, we have no strength to apprehend it; and if we attempt to know it out of His presence, we shall only turn it to licentiousness.

If we look at the simple fact of what grace is, it has no limit, no bounds. Be we what we may (and we cannot be worse than we are), in spite of all that, what God is toward us is love! Neither our joy nor our peace is dependent on what we are to God, but on what He is to us; and this is grace. (To be continued).

Why Do I Groan? Part 2

Rom. 7; 8 (Continued)

Grace supposes all the sin and evil that is in us, and is the blessed revelation that through Jesus all this sin and evil have been put away. A single sin is more horrible to God than a thousand sins, nay, than all the sins in the world, are to us; and yet, with the fullest consciousness of what we are, all that God is pleased to be towards us is love! It is vain to look to any extent of evil: a person may be (speaking after the manner of man) a great sinner, or a little sinner; but this is not the question at all. Grace has reference to what God is, and not to what we are, except indeed that the very greatness of our sins does but magnify the extent of the “grace of God.” At the same time we must remember, that the object and necessary effect of grace is to bring our souls into communion with God, to sanctify us, by bringing the soul to know God and to love Him. Therefore the knowledge of grace is the true source of sanctification.

If grace then be what God is toward me, and has nothing at all to do with what I am, the moment I begin to think about myself as though God would judge me because of my sins, it is evident that I am not then consciously standing in grace. The heart naturally has these thoughts, and indeed it is also one of the effects of being awakened; for the conscience then begins directly to reason about what God thinks of it. But this is not grace. The soul that turns back upon itself to learn God's judgment about it, and what His dealings with it are likely to be, is not leaning upon what God is—not standing in grace.

I have said that there are two things which, though quite distinct, are nevertheless frequently confounded in the minds of the saints: a bad conscience; and the “groaning” of the spiritual man because of evil around. The moment we get a little away from the sense of grace, we shall be in danger of confusing these together. Suppose for instance that I, as a saint, am sensible of the terrible weight of evil which is all around me, and groan about it, soon (unless it be guarded against) this will mix itself up with trouble of conscience: I shall lose the sense of God's love and put myself under law. But a saint may “groan” thus without at all losing the consciousness of love, nay, for the very reason that he has it.

When the Lord Jesus “groaned in himself” and wept at the grave of Lazarus, His deep sense of the sorrow which sin had brought into the world did not affect that of His Father's love. We find Him using at the same time the language of the fullest confidence in that love: “Father, I know that thou hearest me always.” And so a Christian may be sorrowful, but should not on that account feel as though God were not love, or lose the sense of His grace. Love to others combined with a spiritual perception of evil will cause us much sorrow. Jesus felt this infinitely more than we can ever do; because the power of love in His heart made Him so much more deeply sensible of the dreadful weight of evil which was pressing on the hearts of others. He felt the miseries around Him in proportion as He knew the blessedness and love of the Father's presence.

We have “suffering,” “groaning,” &c., spoken of in Rom. 8 Paul groaned within himself from the consciousness of infirmity, from distress, trials, &c.; but this raised no question in his mind about the certainty of God's grace, quite the contrary. The more conscious we are that “the Spirit dwelleth in us,” the more we shall “groan.” The more certain we are of blessing, the more we realize grace, the more we know of God's love, and the effects of that love, the more we shall “groan” at all that is at present around us; but not as though these things brought the smallest cloud over divine favor. Paul is spoken of as “groaning” in spirit, and why? He realized the result of the “grace in which he stood.” Through the power of faith being made conscious of the blessings which are his, he groans within himself after them; but never as if there were the slightest doubt respecting his salvation. Delivered he is from all uncertainty as to the fullness, the freeness, of divine favor towards him; and in the consciousness of this he “groans within himself, waiting for the adoption, the redemption of the body.”

The end of chapter 7 describes quite another sort of groaning, though, as before remarked, the two are often confounded together; because, as sin is still dwelling in us (in our flesh), those who are not really established in grace do not discern the difference between them. It will be noticed that the close of the chapter is full of what people call experience; not of that which is (properly speaking) Christian experience, but of the thoughts of the mind within and about itself. The state described is that of a person, quickened indeed, but whose whole set of reasonings centers in himself. I could not venture to say how many times he says “I,” and “me:” the latter half of the chapter is full of it.

Observe the difference of expression in verse 14, “We know that the law is spiritual:” all Christians know that; but then does he say, “we know that we are carnal, sold under sin?” No, “I am carnal, sold under sin!” He turns back immediately to self and to the judgment which, being quickened, he had formed of himself by his own experience, as under the law, and begins to reason about what he is before God, and not about what God is towards him; and the consequence is that he exclaims, “O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” It is experimental work. So it is with us; directly we begin to reason about ourselves, we can only say, “O wretched man that I am!” What should I do? I hate sin, I wish to please God, I confess that the law is good; but the more that I see it is so, the worse it is for me, the more miserable I am!

Is there a word of grace in all this? Not even a word. When he brings in Christ at the close, then he is able to thank God. “I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

The chapter is full of a great deal of truth, in the experience of the individual mentioned; but it is truth stopping short of grace, of the simple fact that (whatever be his state, let him be as bad as he may) “God is love,” and only love towards him. Instead of looking at God, it is all “I,” “I,” “I.” In verse 15, six times over does he speak of himself, his own thoughts; and though some of these were spiritual, yet it is, “What I hate, that I do,” “When I would do good, evil is present with me” All this may be very profitable experience to bring us to the conviction of our utter hopelessness in ourselves. Still let us put it in its right place, and remember that it is not, properly speaking, Christian experience, but that it only describes the feelings of a soul that has not yet fully and experimentally known the simple fact, that “when we were without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly;” or else that of one who, through the workings of the flesh, has slipped back to looking at himself, and at what he is, instead of looking at God—at grace.

Why Do I Groan? Part 3

Rom. 7; 8 (Continued)

Faith produces many effects in our hearts always suitable to the object at which it looks. If for instance faith looks at the law, it sees its spirituality far more clearly than nature can; and then, seeing the flesh too in its real vileness, if it looks no farther, but judges of itself according to this spirituality of the law, the effect must be to bring us under condemnation of it (I mean of course as to our feeling)—under the consciousness of guilt and weakness. We shall hate and seek to separate from evil, but this will be all; it will leave us crying out, “O wretched man that I am!” With increased light there will only be increased misery.

But if faith looks at God as He revealed Himself in grace, it judges accordingly. It never then reasons upon the fruit produced; it rests in the revelation God has given of Himself in grace. The fruits of grace are to be looked for of course; for if there be life in us, the “fruit of the Spirit” will be manifested. The saint, for instance, knows that “peace” has been “made through the blood of the cross.” The effect is, that love flows forth. He feels that he is called unto blessing, and therefore has his feet “shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace.” Drinking into his own soul the love of God, he becomes as a river of water flowing forth to others (John 7:38). But though these fruits are produced, faith never reasons on its own fruits; it can alone rest in the revelation God has given of Himself as “the God of all grace.” This is its own and only proper sphere.

The natural heart ever reasons about itself, and in a Christian it is always judging by fruits. This must necessarily bring disquiet, instead of peace. In itself it can see nothing but sin; and as to any fruit one has even been enabled to bear, this is so mixed with imperfection that it can only be a subject for judgment (though it be the Father's judgment); it cannot give one peace. This can only be found in what Jesus has wrought, in “the grace that is in Christ Jesus.”

What then is the position in Rom. 7? First of all the apostle establishes the great principle that the believer is “made dead to the law.” Then he describes the workings of a quickened soul, which, knowing that the “law is spiritual,” still feels “under the law,” and is therefore compelled to exclaim, “O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me out of this body of death?”

Whom is he thinking of in all this? Himself. Now let me plainly ask you, “Am I, or is my state the object of faith?” No, surely not! Faith never makes what is in my heart its object, but God's revelation of Himself in grace. If we stop half way, and see nothing but the law, it will just discover to us our condemnation, and prove us to be “without strength.” If God allows us to know enough of the law and of the experience described in this chapter to show us what is our true state, this is just where grace meets us to set us free.

It is not that the conflict here spoken of will not continue: grace could not be known at all where conflict is not known. The unconverted only are without it. But that which will not continue when grace is fully known is the bitterness of spirit in which, while the conflict is going on, the person judges himself, seeing the law to be “spiritual,” but himself “carnal, sold under sin.” The love of God is not realized as his own, and therefore this causes him to cry out, “O wretched man that I am”

It is quite clear that, while there is this experience felt, there is not simple faith in God's grace; there is not a clear view of what God is towards me in Christ. For when the soul apprehends this, when the faculties of the new man are exercised on their proper object, there is perfect rest. And though there is still conflict, yet the soul is at peace: “the battle is not ours, but the Lord's.”

But how am I to know what is God's mind toward me? Is it by judging of it from what I find in myself? Surely not! Supposing that I even found good in myself, if I expected God to look at me on that account, would it be grace? There may be a measure of truth in this kind of reasoning. For, if there be life in my soul, fruit will be apparent; but this is not to give me peace any more than the evil that is in me is to hinder my having peace. That too is true reasoning where the apostle says, “The law is spiritual, but I am carnal.” “O wretched man that I am!” But there is nothing of grace in it.

But does the certainty of grace take us out of all trouble? No; I am not at all denying the fact that there is, and, while we are in a sinful body, that there ever must be, conflict going on between the flesh and the Spirit. But then to have this conflict going on in the conscious certainty that God is for me, because I am “under grace,” is a very different thing from having it in the fear that II e is against me, because I am “under law.”

If I see evil in myself (and this I always shall see whilst here, in the root, even if it be not manifested in its fruits), and if I think that God will be against me because of it, I shall have no strength for conflict but be utterly cast down, groaning as to my acceptance. But if certain that God is for me, the consciousness of this will give me courage and victory—nay, even enable me to say “Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me, and know my thoughts, and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.” In the confidence of the love and grace of God I can ask Him to search out all my evil—what I otherwise dare not do, lest it should overwhelm me with despair. God is my Friend—for me against my own evil.

The apostle speaks (chap. 8) of the “carnal mind” being “enmity against God"; but then God in the gift of Jesus has brought out this blessed truth, that when man was at enmity against God, God was love towards man: our enmity was met by His love. The triumph of grace is seen in this, that when man's enmity had cast out Jesus from the earth, God's love brought in salvation by that very act—came in to atone for the sin of those who had rejected Him. In the view of the fullest development of man's sin faith beholds the fullest manifestation of God's grace. Where does faith see the greatest depth of man's sin and hatred of God? In the cross; and at the same glance it sees the greatest extent of God's triumphant love and mercy to man. The spear of the centurion which pierced the side of Jesus only brought out that which spoke of over-abounding grace.

The apostle then goes on to show that those once at enmity with God are now become His heirs; and that the knowledge of this Is founded on the knowledge of grace: “Ye have not received the spirit of bondage again,” &c. Grace first makes us children of God, then gives us the knowledge of it, and tells us that we are heirs of God also.

But what is the extent of this grace towards us? It has given us the same portion that the Lord Jesus has. “We are heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ.” It is not only certain that grace has visited us, and found us when we were “in our sins,” but it is also certain that it has set us where Christ is; that we are identified with the Lord Jesus in all but His essential glory as God. The soul is placed thus in the consciousness of God's perfect love, and therefore, as it is said in chapter 5, “we joy or boast in God.”

I have got away from grace if I have the slightest doubt or hesitation about God's love. I shall then be saying, “I am unhappy, because I am not what I should like to be.” But this is assuredly not the question: the real question is, whether God is what we should like Him to be, whether Jesus is all we could wish. If the consciousness of what we are, of what we find in ourselves, has any other effect than, while it humbles us, to increase our adoration of what God is, we are off the ground of pure grace. The immediate effect of such consciousness should be to make our hearts reach out to God and to His grace abounding over it all.

But while grace thus gives us perfect peace in our souls, it does not save us from suffering. Even as the Lord Jesus so perfectly entered into the sorrow and groaning around Him when here, and was therefore a “man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief;” so in his measure ought the saint to take up the sense of the weight of evil that is in the world, and thus become a man of sorrows also. Just as we abide in grace, shall we have in proportion a sense of the weight of evil that is all around, and groan in sympathy with a groaning and travailing creation. And not only so, but being ourselves in the body, we shall “groan” likewise “within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of the body.”

But is there any uncertainty as to our salvation in this “groaning?” No, quite the contrary; it is the very certainty that “all things are ours” which makes us “groan.” Having the certainty and foretaste of glory everything here is made the more painful by contrast. That which the saint is entitled to is so very different from all that is actually around him, that the more he knows of the joy of dwelling in the presence of God, the larger understanding he has of God's love and grace; the more he realizes the blessedness of his portion in that glory to which he is predestinated, the more will he “groan!”

How different this from the groaning of an uneasy conscience! Let us not mistake things as they are; let us not confound the two. The “groaning” of one perfectly free from the sense of condemnation described in chapter 8; and the groaning of Conscience, the “O wretched man that I am” of chapter 7.

Carelessness of walk, and through it losing the sense of grace, may indeed expose him who has once consciously stood in the power of redemption to the fiery darts of the wicked one. But this is not, as before remarked, true “Christian experience.” When the heart is made full with the rich blessings of Christ, it will not turn back to gnaw upon itself.

Why Do I Groan? Part 4

Rom. 7; 8 (Concluded)

It is, our privilege as saints to know that “there is now no condemnation for them who are in Christ Jesus.” For “the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus made me free from the law of sin and death.” But we must not stop simply here. There must be the going on to know what we are as “sons of God,” heirs of God, and “joint-heirs with Christ,” the Spirit bearing witness to us of it. God “hath established us in Christ,” “anointed us,” and “given us the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts.” Having thus the fullest knowledge that God has thought about us in love, and predestinated us to be conformed to the image of Jesus, and to share His glory, understanding what His love is now about in His dealings with us, and not being yet in the glory but still in the body, and in the midst of evil and “groaning” all around, we shall therefore “groan.” “Ourselves also, which have the first-fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.” The very reason of our “groaning” is because of our “having the first-fruits of the Spirit,” not at all because of a bad conscience; it is the Spirit of Christ groaning in us.

Hence this “groaning” is always accompanied by confidence in God. As with Jesus when, “groaning in spirit and troubled” at the grave of Lazarus, He said, “I know that thou hearest me always;” so is it given to the saint to have the like confidence (see 1 John 5:14, 15). Nor should this confidence even fail when we “know not what to pray for as we ought;” for it is added, “but we know that all things work together for good.” I may see evil in myself—in another saint—in the church, and seek to pray about it; wherein, not having sufficient intelligence to know what would remedy it, the Spirit will “help my infirmity,” and “groan within me.” God does not regard my ignorance, but answers according to “the mind of the Spirit,” who always “maketh intercession for the saints according to God.”

I ought to be so confident of God's directing “all things,” as to be able to say, “I am certain all things work together for good.” Is a soul in this state? Come what may—trouble, sorrow, disappointment, grief, whatever it be, all is peace; for it is resting upon God, and not (as in chap. 7) looking at itself.

Our very griefs then flow from the knowledge of God's immense love, and from the consciousness of all that belongs to us in Christ. Jesus fully knew, as none other, what the presence of God, what the enjoyment of His favor, was, and “groaned,” because, coming from the presence of God, He found man out of it. The life which I now have identifies me, not with responsibility as “under the law,” but with Christ, who has borne the judgment of a broken law for me. Instead of being wretched and miserable because looking at myself as under law, I enjoy the consciousness of redemption, rest in grace, and “rejoice in hope of the glory of God.” But the moment we get a glimpse of the glory of Christ as ours, this world becomes to us a scene of misery and bondage.

This “groaning” on account of evil always associates itself with love. If for instance I see a saint sin, it leads me at once to the love and grace he is sinning against. It is the consciousness of divine favor which I have toward that saint which makes me anxious about him; and while I grieve at his sin, I have joy in God in the midst of my sorrow.

Well, beloved friends, if these things be so, if this be the place in which grace sets us, let me ask, Is it so with you? If God be pure love, nothing else than love to us; if there be no mixed feelings in Him, then if you have not full joy, if there is any hesitation in your souls as to your standing before Him, you cannot be simply resting in His grace.

Is there distrust and distress in your minds 9 See if it be not because you are still saying “I,” “I,” and losing sight of God's grace.

You may indeed have faith, but you want simplicity of heart in looking at God's grace.

It is better to be thinking of what God is than of what we are. This looking at ourselves is at the bottom really pride, a want of the thorough consciousness that we are good for nothing. Till we see this, we never look quite away from self to God. Sometimes perhaps the looking at our evil may be a partial instrument in teaching us it; but still even this is not all that is needed. In looking to Christ it is our privilege to forget ourselves. True humility does not so much consist in thinking badly of ourselves as in not thinking of ourselves at all. I am too bad to be worth thinking about. What I want is to forget myself, and to look at God who is indeed worth all my thoughts. Is there need of being humbled about ourselves? We may be quite sure that will do it.

Beloved, if we can say (as in chap. 7) that “in me, that is, in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing,” we have thought quite long enough about ourselves. Let us then think about Him who thought about us with “thoughts of good and not of evil” long before we had thought of ourselves at all. Let us see what His thoughts of grace about us are, and take up the words of faith, “If God be for us, who can be against us?”

J. N. D.

Bible Treasury: Volume N5

Table of Contents

2 Peter 1:1

2 Peter 1:10-11

2 Peter 1:12

2 Peter 1:13-14

2 Peter 1:15

2 Peter 1:16

2 Peter 1:17

2 Peter 1:18

2 Peter 1:19

2 Peter 1:2-3

2 Peter 1:20

2 Peter 1:21

2 Peter 1:4

2 Peter 1:5-7

2 Peter 1:8-9

2 Peter 2:1-3

2 Peter 2:12-16

2 Peter 2:17-20

2 Peter 2:21

2 Peter 2:22

2 Peter 2:4-5

2 Peter 2:6-8

2 Peter 2:9-11

2 Peter: Introduction

The Accepted Man: Part 1

The Accepted Man: Part 2

The Accepted Man: Part 3

Active Neology

Adam in Harmsworth's Encyclopaedia

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The Apocrypha Just Now

Baptism and the Lord's Supper

Behold My Servant: Part 1

Behold My Servant: Part 2

Behold My Servant: Part 3

Behold My Servant: Part 4

Behold My Servant: Part 5

Behold My Servant: Part 6

The Believer's Place in Christ: Part 1

The Believer's Place in Christ: Part 2

"Chef" or "Head" in the French New Testament

The Chief Baker's Dream and the Issue

The Chief Cup Bearer's Dream

Christ the Source of Immortality: Review

The Christian's Special Privileges and Relationship: Part 1

The Christian's Special Privileges and Relationship: Part 2

Christ's Cry and God's Answer

The Church of God - Its Members and Unity: Review

The Closing Types of Leviticus: 1. The Duties of the Sanctuary

The Closing Types of Leviticus: 10. Incentives to Obedience in the Land

The Closing Types of Leviticus: 11. The Poor Brother Selling Himself

The Closing Types of Leviticus: 12. Jubilee Concluded

The Closing Types of Leviticus: 13. The Covenant With Moses, and That With the Fathers: the Mosaic.

The Closing Types of Leviticus: 13. The Penalties of the Violated Covenant

The Closing Types of Leviticus: 14. Sterner Woes on the People and the Land

The Closing Types of Leviticus: 15. Israel Repents and Jehovah Remembers His Covenant With Their Fathers