IN EXODUS AND LEVITICUS.
3.
THE golden thread appears frequently in the books of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, whether worked in massive form in the broad purposes of the books, or wrought in delicate details in their component parts.
It literally shines out in glory in the book of Exodus, viewed as a whole, while it is none the less apparent in its details. That book opens with Jehovah's people subservient to an idolatrous world-power; it ends with the redeemed people assembled around the sanctuary of Jehovah, and His glory shadowing their camp and filling His dwelling-place. The very story foretold by the prophets is thus in substance before us in this glorious and much-attacked book of the Bible. It is remarkable that the religious infidelity of our day practically denies three of the great features of the book of Exodus, namely: the power of idolatry—by giving to all religions a place of honor; the might of the redemption, which is Christ Jesus—by making light of the sin of man and the atonement of Christ; and the coming glory of God on the earth—by relegating to the land of dreams, the assurances of Jehovah respecting the coming kingdom.
While the future glory appears in type in the grand scope of Exodus, again and again is the thread of gold evident in the ordered unfolding of the rook. The song of redemption there recorded—the first given in the Bible—celebrates the overthrow of the opposing power of evil and the establishment of Jehovah's sanctuary on earth, and thus prophetically chords with "the song of Moses and the Lamb" of the book of Revelation. The overthrow of evil on this earth is a great purpose of God, which will be accomplished in His time, and He would have His people sing of that coming day.
A beautiful tracery of grace and glory occurs in the story of the gift of the manna, with the Sabbath rest to Jehovah, following upon that gift. Israel murmured and hungered in the wilderness, and God gave them bread from heaven to eat—a delightful type of His gift of the Bread of Life. Upon the end of the first week of Israel's reception of the manna, Jehovah connected His own Name with the seventh day, and Israel, as His chosen nation, kept Sabbath unto Jehovah their God. Thus we have a picture of Christ in grace bringing, man into the promised rest of God.
Another week of days in the wilderness opens out the same purpose of God, only from a different standpoint. Israel fought their way towards Horeb, the Mount of God, through opposing Amalek, and they overcame through the intercession of Moses as he lifted up his hands on the hill. The end of the strife was rest, and into this rest Jethro entered, and, together with Israel, partook of the peace offering before God. When the struggle and the war are over, and God's people are victorious through the intercession of their ascended Lord, the nations represented by Jethro and the chosen people Israel, shall in communion, together praise God for His deliverances and victories.
Design is abundantly evident in the structure of the book of Exodus—design which utterly repudiates the notion that the book is the patchwork performance of different sets of writers in different ages. To such as would trace the evidence of design We suggest the careful noting of such words as these: "The Lord commanded Moses"; and it will be found that they are part of a definite structure, upon which the number seven is marked.
Calling attention merely to a few prominent forms taken by this golden thread as it is wrought through the book of Leviticus, we first note the story of the seven feasts of Jehovah. At their head, as a kind of preface to their full story, stands that feast which occurred at the close of every six days—the Sabbath, the rest. As is very frequently the case in the first books of Moses, the Sabbath introduces a great plan of God. The seven feasts following, which ran through Israel's religious year, show how this rest should be reached. Now we must not forget that when the feasts of the Lord were established in Israel, the fulfillment of the whole of them was future. They were all prophetic in their purpose, as well as being designed for the worship of Jehovah in Israel during their commemoration. This stands outside controversy of the first four—the Passover, the Feast of the Unleavened Bread, the Wave Sheaf; and the Wave Loaves at Pentecost.
We in our Christian era look back upon the four which have met their fulfillment; we rejoice that Christ our Passover has been sacrificed for us, and so we keep that feast with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. We rejoice that He is the Wave Sheaf; the Corn of Wheat Who fell into the ground and died but Who is risen from the dead; and we rejoice also that at Pentecost the Holy Ghost was sent down from heaven, and that Jew and Gentile, figured by the two leavened wave loaves, were presented to God as the Church. Through Christ's death, resurrection, and ascension, and the gift of the Holy Ghost, the rest of God will be brought about, that Sabbath which shall yet dawn for Jew and for Gentile.
After the four feasts just enumerated had been commemorated, an interval of time occurred in the religious year of Israel, and these three took place—the Feast of Trumpets, Atonement, and Tabernacles. The three have not yet received their prophetic fulfillment, but they will do so as surely as the four have received theirs. The trumpets could be blown only in the land of Israel, and the Great Day of Atonement could only be kept there; and so also was it with the joy of the year—the Feast of Tabernacles. We cannot enlarge upon this glorious subject, but the day is at hand when Israel, "scattered and peeled" upon the face of the earth, shall once again hear the call of God. With supplications and with sorrow for their centuries of sin, and of rejection of their Christ, Israel shall enter into the full benefit of His atonement, and then joy shall be the portion of Israel, and of the earth, and the Feast of Tabernacles shall be entered upon.
Let us glance at one more institution noted in the book of Leviticus—that of the kinsman-redeemer.
All Israel's buying and selling of land and of persons were based upon the year of jubilee, upon which day, bonds were loosed and debts were canceled. The poor Israelite, whose stress had forced him to work off his debt by personal labor, was not a slave forever, and was set free in the year of jubilee—"the acceptable year of Jehovah." That year was the herald of the joys of God's kingdom, as the words of Isaiah and the Lord's quotation of them indicate. But there was an institution by which a wealthy kinsman might, if he so willed, become the redeemer of his poor brother. In order to effect the redemption, the rich man needed to claim kindred with the poor one, and in this we have a lovely type of Jesus our Lord, Who, though He was rich, yet for our sakes became poor, that we through His poverty might be rich. Jesus, the Lord, in order that He might be our Redeemer, became our Kinsman. He did not take hold of angels, but He stooped down to man! He was made in the likeness of sinful flesh. He was very man, even as He was very God; and having become a man, He humbled Himself to death, even the death of the cross, and by His death and blood-shedding He has become our Redeemer.
The grace of the Kinsman-Redeemer and the glory of the year of jubilee are linked together in the story of the book of Leviticus, and in them we behold the glory and the grace of the golden thread which we delight to trace throughout the varied books of Holy Scripture.