Man being in honor abideth not. Such is the divine testimony. Failure is inherent in man. In innocence, under law, or under grace, no matter what the position, or the privilege, he has never abode therein. Failure may first be secret, in the heart, sometimes the act is hidden, but if unjudged is sure to appear in its consequences. One would naturally suppose the greater the honor the greater would be the jealous care to abide therein; this as a rule holds good in worldly honors; alas, in the things of God the contrary is constantly seen. Favor through the evil nature of man has led to unwatchfulness, and in many instances with ruinous results; always, in the case of a believer, bringing grievous chastening.
To forget God even while enjoying the blessings is the history of man from Adam down to this day. Until the call of Abram, save for a few witnesses, God was shut out in man's thought, from His own world; and outside the chosen race the condition of all was “having no hope and without God.” The fearful consequence was that as they did not like to retain the knowledge of God they were retributively given up to their own evil. Divine light came into this scene of darkness, not at first shed upon all—that full light was reserved for the time when Christ came, Who coming into the world is the true light for every man—but upon a particular race and only upon others as by reflection when they came in contact with Israel. Though not the full blaze for them, it raised them above all other nations and gave them a special place of honor. The point before us now is not the purpose of God in thus separating this race from others, proclaiming Himself as Jehovah, the One God, and proving them, but the fact that they were in honor and abode not.
Another race is now chosen not one according to nature, but called out and separated from the world after another manner: blest with the fullest light, with the complete truth, having not Abraham but Christ as Head. And here as in Israel, this new company abode not in honor. The first blot upon the honor both in the church and in Israel in the land was visited with death; but the pristine vigor and glory of the church had not departed ere failure came in, and a failure equally if not more ruinous as regards public testimony than that of Israel. To them the special testimony was the truth of the One God. To the church it is God in Christ reconciling the world to Himself. “This is the record that God hath given to us eternal life and this life is in His Son” (1 John 5:1111And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. (1 John 5:11)). As Israel failed in testifying to the unity of the Godhead and rushed into idolatry, so Christendom has failed to bear witness that life is only in the Son, and placed it partially if not wholly in works. The grace which nevertheless maintained Israel in the land (for a time, and not without judgment) now acts more prominently in and for the church, which in a far higher and different way is the habitation of God, not in a temple made with hands but by the Spirit (Eph. 2:2222In whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit. (Ephesians 2:22)). In Israel it was in such a way as the natural man could apprehend. God through the Spirit dwelling in the church is not discernible by the natural man, but only by faith which alone realizes His presence.
It is because of the Spirit's indwelling that all in the church of God, i.e. every true believer, are members one of another. Therefore necessarily if one member fail or suffer the whole body is affected, and far more intimately than the congregation of Israel could be. This close intimacy of suffering and equally so of rejoicing, is through the unity of the Spirit which was not possible before Christ had ascended as the risen Man, and had taken His place on the throne of God. Thence He sent the Comforter to abide with us. Thus one Spirit abiding in each, in all, constitutes the one body.
The effect of the sin of one member is not confined to himself. There is what may be called its corporate consequence. If the Spirit is grieved the whole assembly—the local representative of the body-suffers; corporate blessing is hindered, the presence of the Lord not realized in the meetings. There is no remedy for this but humiliation and united prayer. The Holy Spirit may through the intercession of the assembly lead the failing member to judge himself, and, restored in soul, the hindrance to corporate blessing is removed. But if not, the Lord will surely make bare the wrong which the assembly is bound to judge, it may be by public rebuke, or require excision, but the Lord's name must be vindicated, and the purity of the assembly maintained. When the failing one judges himself before the secret becomes known, and is restored in soul, it remains a matter between himself and the Lord. “For if we would judge ourselves we should not be judged” (1 Cor. 11:3131For if we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged. (1 Corinthians 11:31) &c.). This scripture has special reference to the disorders that crept in at Corinth when the saints mixed the Lord's Supper with feasting as a common meal. But it embodies the principle that if sin is discerned, and therefore judged by the individual himself, he will not be judged. And this judgment is not the judgment of the world, which no believer can come under, but the chastening of the Lord. The chastening of the Lord is that which is administered through the assembly; not the same as the Father's chastening in Heb. 12. We see in Israel not the real unity of the Spirit, but a little foreshadowing of it, and all the clearer, because the image of it is not in an occasion of joy and victory, but of deep shame and fear. Had the occasion been some remarkable feat by a chief, all would share in the rejoicing as a natural thing, but when it is a sin involving death, then the reality of the thing foreshown comes vividly before the mind. Achan sinned, but God said “Israel hath sinned.” It is the first time that the hidden sin of one individual is charged upon the whole congregation. Achan, and his family, alone knew his guilt, but the consequences of his sin were felt by all Israel; they were put to flight by a despised enemy. But though all suffer why is the sin charged upon all, when they were ignorant of it? Is it not a proof that Israel was not THE object before the mind of God, but the church, where the shadow given in Israel becomes to us a divine reality. Surely it was also teaching them that since they were under the lead of such a “Captain” in Whose presence Joshua had to loose his shoes from off his feet, they must be jealously careful that no secret evil should be found among them. It was a sharp lesson, but the holiness of God admits of no compromise. At that moment Israel had charge of it, as its witness before the nations of Canaan. But if Israel failed to guard and keep it, and being known as Jehovah's people, God would vindicate it Himself. Hence the swift and complete judgment of Achan and his family. They had all been defiled though not all consciously guilty, and if Jehovah is the Captain of the host, then every man must be clear from guilt, and from every defilement. It was in the joy of their first victory in the land, that the first failure occurred. Its effects soon appeared. One man sins, the whole congregation suffer. New circumstances bring the sin to light. Israel left to their own resources find they cannot stand before their enemies. Confident in their own strength, elated with the ease with which Jericho was taken—as if it had been by their own arm—they decide as to Ai. The defiling power of Achan's sin was already working. Joshua, and priest, and all forgot God and attempt to do without Him. Had they asked counsel of God, the sin of the guilty man would have been at once disclosed and the shameful flight from Ai prevented. Israel failed through vain confidence, which was the result of Achan's sin. Yet all was, overruled that they might know the necessity of holiness, and of the power of Jehovah for victory. The deeper truth of being members one of another, that if one suffer, all suffer, is intimately connected with the church of God, and the call to us to be watchful, to be holy, comes with far more solemn importance. For we are knit together with a closer tie, called to a higher and inward holiness, to contend with more dangerous foes, and to bear the name of the risen Lord in the midst of enemies who hate Him more than the Canaanites hated Israel. It is the church which has the special interest in this failure of Israel. But the church is the body of Christ, therefore really it is Christ the Head, Whose glory as Head is before the mind of God. As indeed from Genesis to Revelation He is the center of all God's ways with man. The things that Achan coveted pointed also to the evils that have crept into the nominal church and tainted more or less the character of real believers. The wedge of gold and the silver, under the Babylonish garment is the symbol of the love of the world and of that which gives power in the world—gold under the pretense of religion; i.e. the world's religion which is to God the most offensive thing under the sun. Observe the words “and the silver under it,” wrapped in the Babylonish garment. It is covetousness—which is idolatry—covered over and hidden under the semblance of piety which has marked the history of the world-church. And soon every evil will be found in the cup of the scarlet-clothed harlot whose name is “mystery, Babylon the great.” Thus at the very beginning of Israel's possession are shadowed though dimly, the evils which has brought ruin upon the nominal church, which in the end will be spued out of His mouth. For Israel to possess silver and gold and the goodly things of this world—not to covet as Achan—would be a mark of God's favor. But for the church to covet these is a practical denial of its true position, a disparagement of its peculiar heavenly riches, and a deeper offense to Christ than the sin of Achan to Jehovah. Achan did not bring such fatal results upon the congregation of Israel as his imitators have upon the professing church. The judgment upon Achan and his house declares how abhorrent this world-religiousness is to God, as well as His holy resentment against the one who had interposed his sin, a barrier to the uninterrupted and continual display of the glory of Jehovah in His mighty power leading Israel, lately circumcised, Gilgal and the twelve stones fresh in their minds, into the possession of the given inheritance. God resents nothing so much as interference with His ways of grace. At Jericho we see the exhibition of the glory and power of Jehovah, and how He would subdue and drive out the Canaanite before the chosen people. At Ai is displayed His manner to those who while reaping the promises, have dimmed the luster of the glory of their Leader, the “Captain of the Lord's host.” Here is not the éclat of throwing down the walls, not the power that acted without the lifting up of one hand of Israel, but making them feel that their sin had prevented and hindered the visible expression of His power as they had seen it, and in consequence the ordinary and human means of stratagem are used. The trick of pretending to flee was by the command of Joshua, and God gave them the little city, but oh, how little is seen in this of the glory of Jehovah, when the whole force of Israel is brought against the small city of Ai; and even then with the appearance of not daring to meet them in open battle. How far all this is beneath the exceeding display of God's power at Jericho. Then they could boast of the great power of their “Captain.” Now it is mingled with a sense of failure and dishonor, and to all among them who had a care for the glory of Jehovah; the feeling that they had tarnished His glory before the Canaanites. God would have continued the wondrous display, but while giving further proof of His grace and faithfulness, Israel has put an obstacle to the visible manifestation of His Godhead to the Gentile as had been seen at Jericho. For there was overwhelming testimony; that glorious conquest might have brought every nation to submit without daring to fight, but Israel's discomfiture at their first attempt against Ai eventually armed the nations and gave them courage to resist if possible Israel's further advance; it gave them the thought that perhaps they might overcome the dreaded people, and that the God of Israel after all was not so greatly to be feared. The Canaanites would naturally think that it was only by mere stratagem that Ai was overthrown. There was apparently nothing supernatural in the taking of Ai as at Jericho, the wonders of which they would willingly forget. Human skill in stratagem, or mere force they could meet. Hence Israel had to contest every step of the way. Only the ground on which they stood could they call their own. Was not this the consequence of their own sin? And so the word is fulfilled (Josh. 1:33Every place that the sole of your foot shall tread upon, that have I given unto you, as I said unto Moses. (Joshua 1:3)) not yet according to the fullness of the original promise, but for the present modified according to their failure in the matter of Achan.
But Israel's failure is used of God to teach us now how imperative holiness is in the church of God. Without such teaching how much we should have lost. Could the holiness which God demands, and the revenging of ourselves against all defilement (cf. 2 Cor. 6:1111O ye Corinthians, our mouth is open unto you, our heart is enlarged. (2 Corinthians 6:11)) be more solemnly impressed upon the conscience of the assembly than in the judgment of Achan? And more, we should not have known how grace acts in wisdom, restoring, yet in such a way as to make the restored people remember their folly. Marvelous are the ways of grace. The process of discovering sin in the assembly may be most painful, always humiliating, but it is in order that the presence of the Lord might again be realized. Achan did not judge his sin, he valued the things he stole. His own conscience unpurged, he defiled the whole congregation, and Jehovah must step in to purge out the leaven that was leavening the whole lump. The end of discipline is to restore, not perhaps exactly to the same position as before, for the failure will ever remain as a fact; but the restoration of any saint always deepens the power of godliness in his soul, and is always to the praise of His grace.