I have of late had much thought as to Hebrews 11, not exhibiting instances of faith chronologically (although that may be true); but more what faith is in progressive power, therefore that the first manifestation of our faith is in our Creator God, who made all things, who therefore is—and that He is the rewarder of the diligent seeker.
Then we have the first foundation of our redemption, Abel’s sacrifice, in which there is the confession of the penalty of sin is death, and that in the slain Lamb. I have judgment on sin executed, the worshipper stands by the merit of his offering, and God accounts him as virtually accepted in the death; the result of this is that he is righteous—God testifying of the gift—therefore his name is among those who have eternal life—he yet speaks. As the Abel offering is the first, so is it the foundation of all worship, it is what the Lord’s Supper teaches. Sin judged and punished, judgment passed, and the worshipper feels in the sense of being righteous before God. It follows that anything like confession of sin, or a sense of the burden of sin, is quite inconsistent with the table, for then is celebrated sin put away in the person of the Lord’s death, and the worshippers as righteous before God, standing in His righteousness: everything therefore should express thanksgiving and praise that comes from their lips.
But there is a further place that we stand in by consequence of sin judged and put away, and the worshipper righteous before God. Death is annulled, and our place is Enoch walking a life of communion, waiting for translation because sin has passed away and righteousness has come in. To walk with God is the privilege of the new place, not a walk in innocency as in the garden, but a walk in righteousness in the full sense of the desirability of sin removed, and our intercourse founded on righteousness. The Holy Ghost then gives us the sweet communion of pleasing God; but then He guards with a further declaration that it must be a walk of faith without which it is impossible to please Him. Therefore to have the full sense of what God is necessarily is required. Now, I realize therefore, not only the existence and power of God, but His relationship to me, and it is in a walk of faith, I must know Him as my Father in Christ Jesus—myself His child—that I passed from death unto life, and that I am quickened and raised and sitting with Christ in the heavenlies, and there the true place to which “I am come” with all its blessed associations and company—this is the sweetness of communion with God in His righteousness.
Now, further on you have faith passing through judgment, and therefore Noah is rightly moved with fear, and prepares an ark, and with a trembling heart steps into it with all his house to wait the day of His wrath. What a contrast between the two conditions, the Church and the Jewish Remnant, the former out of the judgment and past death, the other through the merits of atonement, carried in righteousness through judgment.
And here is the distinction of Peter’s Epistles and Paul’s, the one like James to the twelve tribes, and the other to the first fruits or mystery of the Church. Where this is not seen, there is with some the regarding the Church as from Abel downwards and going through the tribulation. Also, with the high church to repeat the sacrifice, which is indeed its worst form, for with it is connected a forgiving of sin confessed, instead of the knowledge of sins judged and Adam nature done with— “died to that wherein we were held” in the person of our blessed Substitute.
2.
It is a constant consolation to me the brief time these things are needed for, and that the passing moments, days, and years, bring our salvation nearer than when we believed. I was reading this morning, Luke 23. What an announcement to the dying thief! “Today shalt thou be with me in paradise.” What cheering news for the last of his earthly sufferings, and what a contemplation to be able to turn his eyes off his own circumstances and fix them on Jesus. How every moment must have increased his confidence, so that from confessing him as the innocent One who had done no wrong, and himself as a deservedly doomed one, to have had his eyes enlightened to learn that in the righteous, spotless One was his Saviour and Redeemer—truly this was dying in full view of the cross!
What a balm it was too to that blessed One to see the first-fruits of those who thus looked to Him as the pierced One, the Son of man lifted up. How it takes the knowledge of the wisdom of God to look on such a scene and realize it, that therein is the power of God in the weakness of God, the wisdom of God in the apparent foolishness of the cross, and being enlightened well may we say—
Sweet the moment, rich in blessing,
Which before the cross we spend.
3.
“The words of the preacher, the son of David, king of Jerusalem.” “The Song of Songs which is Solomon’s.”
In Ecclesiastes we see a man capacitated to test everything under the sun. He is high and wealthy; endowed with wisdom, and has all under the sun at his disposal and command. And he uses his resources and capabilities, does great works and that of all sorts, to find out the good that would satisfy. Nothing that is great, or expensive, or magnificent is withheld from him; he walks the full and ample range of human promises, and traffics in all the productions that spring up under the sun.
In the Canticles we see a man that is, as it were, nobody. He has no memorial in the earth at all. He has nothing, and is nothing. He may be an object of the least possible account in the seeking of the world. For palaces, and vineyards, and servants, and singers, and instruments, and wisdom, in all this and the like be is poor indeed. This is the contrast that strikes one in these two writings. The one was king in Jerusalem, the other nobody! But dissatisfaction attends the one as he travels the wide and rich domain of his kingly earthly resources—deep and unspeakably precious delight and satisfaction is the portion of the other in comparing with the one unchanging object. The one little ewe lamb does for him what the flocks and herds of the other never did, never could bring him.
All that she, whom we find in the Canticles possesses is her “beloved,” but he satisfies her. And it matters not how poor in all beside she may be, it matters not either where she has him, so that she has him. There is the lovely garden, and there is the lofty mountain, there is the shade of the apple tree, and the bed, and the vineyard, and withal the king’s galleries. But it is evident throughout, that it is himself that makes her all in all.
This is the deep contrast. The king in Jerusalem has nothing in the midst of everything, the unnamed, unendowed soul in the Canticles has all in one.
Are the experiences of our souls in some company with all this?
The grief of the one is this, that all has disappointed him; the grief of the other is this, that she cannot make as much of her one thing as it deserves, having tasted its capacity to satisfy her. What a difference!
The flocks and the herds, I may again remember, left the rich man unsatisfied; the one little ewe-lamb, as it lay in his bosom, taught the poor man that he wanted nothing else.
4.
“My hands have been more busy than my head, I trust not than my heart, since I saw you, so I can feel for you with whom this is always the case. One learns valuable wilderness experiences in these things, and passing through the valley of weeping make it a well.
“I am so glad you are reading Peter (dear G— asked for it the other night) so suitable for sheep in the wilderness, with the Lord as “the chief Shepherd.” How Peter seems to connect Paul and John by the heavenly calling. Paul puts us in heaven, John traces the life on earth, Peter connects the two.
I have been more than ever struck with the extraordinary beauty of the epistle to the Ephesians; the first chapter leading us into communion with God as to His thoughts concerning His Son and us as associated with Him before the world was. The next chapter opening out His work concerning His Son and us, when He raised Him from the dead, and us with Him, and seated us together in the heavenlies. In the first chapter we are blessed in Him, chosen in Him, accepted in Him, have redemption in Him, have obtained an inheritance in Him, are sealed in Him. Similarly—1. All spiritual blessings are ours; 2. As men we possess them; 3. As children we enjoy them; 4. No stain of sin rests on our consciences; 5. He unfolds to us His secrets; 6. He has given to us an inheritance; 7. The Holy Ghost is the earnest of it till we are in glory. Seven inestimable blessings. In the second chapter we are seated in Him, created in Him, made high in Him, growing in Him, builded in Him. There is also a fourfold description of our condition—a fourfold presentation of God—and a fourfold statement of the results of His work toward us.
1. We were dead in trespasses and sins;
2. Walking according to the course of this world;
3. Fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind;
4. By nature children of wrath.
1. God was rich in mercy;
2. Of the great love;
3. Rich in grace; and
4. In kindness.
He has 1. quickened us;
2. Raised us;
3. Seated us; and
4. Will display us. (Verse 7.)
How much enjoyment there is in thus feeding on these blessed truths, and how wonderful to contrast them with 1 Peter 4:1818And if the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear? (1 Peter 4:18), where we are told the righteous are scarcely saved (or with difficulty), though the power of God in all its fullness has been in exercise in seating us in the heavenlies, yet such is our weakness and the power of the enemy against us that it takes all the same power of God to bring us through the wilderness, but how happy to know that all that power is on our side.”