The manna, which was God’s provision for His people in the wilderness, was not the fruit of human toil, or the product of man’s industry. In no way nor measure did it depend on the skill or diligence of them who fed upon it; but it was the sovereign provision of God, bestowed as the witness of divine grace and divine resources, upon a needy people, who had no other supply either around or within them.
It is, and we know by our Lord, as expressive of that eternal life, or true bread, which is as this manna, the sovereign gift of God to a people thoroughly destitute of it, and unable to acquire it by any industry or skill of their own.
Being this—having this chapter affixed to it—being the witness of God’s provision, and the gift of His grace out of His own stores to the needy, it is altogether beautifully and fitly said of it, “He that gathered much had nothing over, and he that gathered little had no lack.” For God’s provision is sovereign; it is like Himself; it comes to enrich the poor; it acts upon its own character, having all independent virtue in itself; it is grace, and if so, it does not wait on the working or industry of man (Romans 11:6). Whether it be redemption or life, whether rescue from the strength of the enemy, or the breathing of a new life, it is sovereign, free, and apart from human aid or admixture, “otherwise grace is no more grace.”
Accordingly when God delivered Israel out of Egypt, Israel had nothing to do; their only place was to “hold their peace,” for the Lord would fight for them (Exodus 14:14). And so now, when God is feeding them in the desert, or giving them to live in the place of death which was refusing all supplies for life, their own doings are equally set aside; no industry added a bit to this, no slackness of hand diminished a bit from it; whether they gathered of the manna more or less, they quickly found that they had only just the thing given to them in grace, and what they needed. “They gathered every man according to his eating.”
We know how this great principle is exhibited in the gospel: “The righteousness of God,” for instance; the gift of the Spirit; the new life in Christ Jesus; these sovereign provisions of God in meeting our circumstances as guilty-ones, and as dead ones;—these cannot be improved by any diligence on our part, nor are they bestowed in larger or smaller measure. All the elect are equally justified, equally new creatures in Christ, or born again of the Spirit. There is not in them more or less of this righteousness or new creation. Not one of them is at all more delivered from a state of condemnation than another; but all, be their spiritual diligence what it may, are in the same sense, way, and measure, justified from all things, from which they could not have been justified by the law of Moses.
There is, it is true, another truth as well as this, fully consistent with it, I need not say, but still of a different character. There is attainment among the saints, as well as the common standing of the saints. And thus indeed “the diligent soul shall be made fat.” To the holy, careful keeping of the heart there is surely affixed much of present spiritual strength and refreshing. Peter attaches very blessed fruit to this holy diligence (2 Peter 1); and our own experiences, if genuine and spiritual, must and will verify God’s word in this. But this is another thing, as the reaping reward in the kingdom is another thing, “As it is written, lie that soweth bountifully shall reap also bountifully.” Quite true. The diligent soul shall have its larger spiritual comfort now, as the diligent servant shall have his ten cities by-and-bye. But this is all another thing, for touching the gifts of grace, whether righteousness or life, whether rescue from Egypt or from the state of condemnation; or whether the grant of the manna from the heavenly storehouses, or of life in the new creation in Christ Jesus, man’s skill and diligence are positively and utterly nothing. He that gathers much has nothing over. No stock there, no work of supererogation. Every man according to his eating, and not according to his gathering. His need is met by the sovereign unaided provision of God, and there the mystery ends.