Life and Times of Josiah
Charles Henry Mackintosh
Table of Contents
Life and Times of Josiah: Part 1
2 Chronicles 34 and 35
Two thousand five hundred years have rolled away since King Josiah lived and reigned; but his history is pregnant with instruction, which can never lose its freshness or its power. The moment at which he ascended the throne of his fathers was one of peculiar gloom and heaviness. The tide of corruption, swollen by many a tributary stream, had risen to the highest point; and the sword of judgment, long held back in divine patience and long-suffering, was about to fall in terrible severity upon the city of David. The brilliant reign of Hezekiah had been followed by a long and dreary period of fifty-five years, under the sway of his son Manasseh; and, albeit the rod of correction had proved effectual in leading this great sinner to repentance and amendment, yet no sooner had the scepter fallen from his hand, than it was seized by his godless and impenitent son Amon, who “did that which was evil in the sight of the LORD, as did Manasseh his father: for Amon sacrificed unto all the carved images which Manasseh his father had made, and served them; and humbled not himself before the LORD, as Manasseh his father had humbled himself; but Amon trespassed more and more. And his servants conspired against him, and slew him in his own house.... and the people of the land made Josiah his son king in his stead” (2 Chron. 33:22-25).
Thus, then, Josiah, a child of eight years, found himself on the throne of David, surrounded by the accumulated evils and errors of his father and his grandfather, yea, by forms of corruption which had been introduced by no less a personage than Solomon himself. If the reader will just turn, for a moment, to 2 Kings 23, he will find a marvelous picture of the condition of things at the opening of Josiah’s history. There were “idolatrous priests, whom the kings of Judah had ordained to burn incense in the high places in the cities of Judah, and in the places round about Jerusalem; them also that burned incense unto Baal, to the sun, and to the moon, and to the planets, and to all the host of heaven.”
Reader, ponder this! Only think of kings of Judah, successors of David, ordaining priests to burn incense to Baal. Bear in mind, too, that each of these kings of Judah was responsible to “write him a copy of this law in a book,” which he was to keep by him, and in which he was to “read therein all the days of his life; that he may learn to fear the LORD his God, to keep all the words of this law and these statutes, to do them.” (See Deut. 17:18-19.) Alas! alas! how sadly had they departed from “all the words” of the law, when they could actually set about ordaining priests to burn incense to false gods!
But, further, there were “horses that the kings of Judah had given to the sun,” and that, moreover, “at the entering in of the house of the LORD,” and “chariots of the sun,” and “high places... which Solomon the king of Israel had builded for Ashtoreth the abomination of the Zidonians, and for Chemosh the abomination of the Moabites, and for Milcom the abomination of the children of Ammon.”
All this is most solemn, and worthy of the serious consideration of the Christian reader. We certainly ought not to pass it over as a mere fragment of ancient history. It is not as though we were reading the historic records of Babylon, of Persia, of Greece, or of Rome. We should not marvel at the kings of those nations burning incense to Baal, ordaining idolatrous priests, and worshiping the host of heaven. But when we see kings of Judah, the sons and successors of David, children of Abraham, men who had access to the book of the law of God, and who were responsible to make that book the subject of their profound and constant study—when we see such men falling under the power of dark and debasing superstition—it sounds in our ears a warning voice, to which we cannot, with impunity, refuse to give heed. We should bear in mind that all these things have been written for our learning; and although it may be said that we are not in danger of being led to burn incense to Baal, or to worship the host of heaven, yet, we may be assured, we have need to attend to the admonitions and warnings with which the Holy Ghost has furnished us in the history of God’s ancient people. “Now all these things happened unto them for ensamples: and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come” (1 Cor. 10:11). These words of the inspired Apostle, though directly referring to the actings of Israel in the wilderness, may, nevertheless, apply to the entire history of that people—a history fraught with the deepest instruction from first to last.
But how are we to account for all those gross and terrible evils into which Solomon and his successors were drawn? What was their origin? NEGLECT OF THE WORD OF GOD. This was the source of all the mischief and all the sorrow. Let professing Christians remember this. Let the whole Church of God remember it. The neglect of the Holy Scriptures was the fruitful source of all those errors and corruptions which blot the page of Israel’s history, and which brought down upon them many heavy strokes of Jehovah’s governmental rod. “Concerning the works of men, by the word of Thy lips I have kept Me from the paths of the destroyer.” Psalm 17:4. “From a child thou hast known the holy Scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.” 2 Tim. 3:15-17.
In these two precious quotations, we have the Word of God presented in its twofold virtue; it not only perfectly preserves us from evil, but perfectly furnishes us unto all good—it keeps us from the paths of the destroyer, and guides us in the ways of God.
How important, then, is the study, the diligent, earnest, prayerful study of Holy Scripture! How needful to cultivate a spirit of reverential submission in all things to the authority of the Word of God! Mark how continually and how earnestly this was impressed upon the ancient people of God. How often were such accents as the following sounded in their ears!
“Now therefore hearken, O Israel, unto the statutes and unto the judgments, which I teach you, for to do them, that ye may live, and go in and possess the land which the LORD God of your fathers giveth you. You shall not add unto the word which I command you, neither shall ye diminish aught from it, that ye may keep the commandments of the LORD your God which I command you.... Behold, I have taught you statutes and judgments, even as the LORD my God commanded me, that ye should do so in the land whither ye go to possess it. Keep therefore and do them; for this is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the nations, which shall hear all these statutes, and say, Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people. For what nation is there so great, who hath God so nigh unto them, as the LORD our God is in all things that we tall upon Him for? And what nation is there so great, that hath statutes and judgments so righteous as all this law, which I set before you this day? Only take heed to thyself, and keep thy soul diligently, lest thou forget the things which thine eyes have seen, and lest they depart from thy heart all the days of thy life: but teach them thy sons, and thy sons’ sons.” Deut. 4:1-9.
Let it be carefully noticed here, that “wisdom and understanding” consist simply in having the commandments of God treasured in the heart. This, moreover, was to be the basis of Israel’s moral greatness, in view of the nations around them. It was not the learning of the schools of Egypt, or of the Chaldeans. No; it was the knowledge of the Word of God, and attention thereto—the spirit of implicit obedience in all things to the holy statutes and judgments of the Lord their God. This was Israel’s wisdom, this their true and real greatness, this their impregnable bulwark against every foe—their moral safeguard against every evil.
And does not the selfsame thing hold good with respect to God’s people at the present moment? Is not obedience to the Word of God our wisdom, our safeguard, and the foundation of all true moral greatness? Assuredly! Our wisdom is to obey. The obedient soul is safe, happy, and fruitful. As it was, so it is. If we study the history of David and his successors, we shall find, without so much as a single exception, that those who yielded obedience to the commandments of God were safe, happy, prosperous, and influential. And so it will ever be. Obedience will always yield its own precious and fragrant fruits—not that its fruits should be our motive for rendering obedience. We are called to be obedient, irrespective of everything.
Now, it is obvious that, in order to be obedient to the Word of God, we must be acquainted with it; and in order to be acquainted with it, we must carefully study it. And how should we study it? With an earnest desire to understand its contents, with profound reverence for its authority, and with an honest purpose to obey its dictates, cost what it may. If we have grace to study Scripture, in some small degree, after this fashion, we may expect to grow in knowledge and wisdom.
But alas! there is a fearful amount of ignorance of Scripture in the professing church. We are deeply impressed with a sense of this; and we may as well, at this point, just tell the reader that our main object in calling his attention to the subject of Josiah and his times is to wake up in his soul an intense desire after a closer acquaintance with God’s holy Word, and a more entire bowing down of his whole moral being—heart, conscience, and understanding—to that perfect standard.
We feel the commanding importance of this subject; and we must discharge what we believe to be a sacred duty to the souls of our readers, and to the truth of God. The powers of darkness are abroad. The enemy is succeeding to an appalling extent in drawing hearts after various forms of error and evil, in casting dust in the eyes of God’s people, and in blinding the minds of men. True, we have not got Ashtoreth, Chemosh, and Milcom; but we have Ritualism, Infidelity, and Spiritualism. We have not to cry out against burning incense to Baal, and worshiping the host of heaven; but we have something far more ensnaring and dangerous. We have the ritualist with his sensuous and attractive rites and ceremonies; we have the rationalist with his learned and plausible reasonings; we have the spiritualist with his boasted converse with the spirits of the departed.
We speak plainly, and deal faithfully, with living facts around us. We must do so, even at the risk of giving offense to some. We certainly do not wish to offend anyone, but we must be true to our responsibility. We hold that one great object of ministry, whether oral or written, is to bring the Word of God to bear on hearts and consciences, with direct reference to the principles and influences abroad at the moment. No doubt, there are certain great cardinal truths—truths lying at the foundation of Christianity—the unfolding and application of which must always be in place, always important. But, at the same time, we believe that the public teacher or writer is called upon, at times, to deal with certain forms of error and evil actually at work, and to bring the edge of truth to bear thereon. This surely may be done in such a way as not to wound, needlessly, the feelings of individuals. But even though some should feel hurt, we can only say, It is far better to be wounded by a friend than destroyed by an enemy; and however it may be, we cannot withhold a word of solemn warning, when we contemplate the rising tide of evil- a tide augmented every hour by the influx of these three broad and rapid streams of Ritualism, Rationalism, and Spiritualism.
We doubt if the minds of Christians generally are alive to the real character and extent of these formidable influences. There are at this moment millions of souls throughout the length and breadth of the professing church, who are building their hopes for eternity upon the sandy foundation of ordinances, rites, and ceremonies. There is a most powerful revival of the superstitions of the middle ages—a return to the traditions of the Fathers, as they are called—an intense longing after those things which gratify the senses—music, painting, architecture, vestments, lights, incense, all the appliances, in short, of a gorgeous and sensuous religion. The theology, the worship, and the discipline of the various churches of the Reformation are found insufficient to meet the religious cravings of the soul. They are too severely simple to satisfy hearts that long for something tangible on which to lean for support and comfort—something to feed the senses and fan the flame of devotion.
Hence the strong tendency of the religious mind in the direction of what is called Ritualism. If the soul has not got hold of the truth, if there is not the living link with Christ, if the supreme authority of Holy Scripture be not set up in the heart, there is no safeguard against the powerful and fascinating influences of ceremonial religiousness. The most potent efforts of mere intellectualism, eloquence, logic, all the varied charms of literature, are found to be utterly insufficient to hold that class of minds to which we are now referring. They must have the forms and offices of religion; to these they will flock; round these they will gather; on these they will build.
It is painfully interesting to mark the efforts put forth in various quarters to act upon the masses and keep the people together. It is very evident to the thoughtful Christian, that those who put forth such efforts must be sadly deficient in that profound faith in the power of the Word of God, and of the cross of Christ, which swayed the heart of the Apostle Paul. They cannot be fully aware of the solemn fact that Satan’s grand object is to keep souls in ignorance of divine revelation, to hide from them the glory of the cross, and of the Person of Christ. For this end he is using Ritualism, Rationalism, and Spiritualism, now, just as he used Ashtoreth, Chemosh, and Milcom, in the days of Josiah. “There is no new thing under the sun.” The devil has ever hated the truth of God, and he will leave no stone unturned to keep it from acting on the heart of man. Hence it is that he has rites and ceremonies for one man; the powers of reason for another; and when men tire of both, and begin to sigh for something satisfying, he leads them into converse and communion with the spirits of the departed. By all alike are souls led away from the Holy Scriptures, and from the blessed Savior which those Scriptures reveal.
It is solemn and affecting beyond expression to think of all this, and not less so to contemplate the lethargy and indifference of those who profess to have the truth. We do not stop to inquire what it is that ministers to this lethargic state of many professors. That is not our object.. We desire, by the grace of God, to see them thoroughly roused out of it, and to this end it is that we call their attention to the influences that are abroad, and to the only divine safeguard against them. We cannot but feel deeply for our children growing up in such an atmosphere as that which at present surrounds us, and which will become yet darker and darker. We long to see more earnestness on the part of Christians in seeking to store the minds of the young with the precious and soul-saving knowledge of the Word of God. The child Josiah and the child Timothy should incite us to greater diligence in the instruction of the young, whether in the bosom of the family, in the Sunday school, or in any way we can reach them. It will not do for us to fold our arms and say, “When God’s time comes, our children will be converted; and, till then, our efforts are useless.” This is a fatal mistake. “He [God] is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him” (Heb. 11:6). He blesses our prayerful efforts in the instruction of our children. And further, who can estimate the blessing of being early led in the right way, of having the character formed amid holy influences, and the mind stored with what is true, and pure, and lovely? On the other hand, who will undertake to set forth the evil consequences of allowing our children to grow up in ignorance of divine things? Who can portray the evils of a polluted imagination, of a mind stored with vanity, folly, and falsehood, of a heart familiarized from infancy with scenes of moral degradation? We do not hesitate to say that Christians incur very heavy and awful responsibility in allowing the enemy to preoccupy the minds of their children at the very period when they are most plastic and susceptible.
True, there must be the quickening power of the Holy Ghost. It is as true of the children of Christians as of any other, that they “must be born again.” We all understand this. But does this fact touch the question of our responsibility in reference to our children? Is it to cripple our energies or hinder our earnest efforts? Assuredly not. We are called upon, by every argument, divine and human, to shield our precious little ones from every evil influence, and to train them in that which is holy and good. And not only should we so act in respect to our own children, but also in respect to the thousands around us who are like sheep having no shepherd, and who may each say, alas! with too much truth, “No man cared for my soul.”
May the foregoing pages be used by God’s Spirit to act powerfully on the hearts of all who may read them, that so there may be a real awakening to a sense of our high and holy responsibilities to the souls around, and a shaking off of that terrible deadness and coldness over which we have all to mourn.
Life and Times of Josiah: Part 2
In studying the history of Josiah and his times, we learn one special and priceless lesson; namely, the value and authority of the Word of God. It would be utterly impossible for human language to set forth the vast importance of such a lesson—a lesson for every age, for every clime, for every condition, for the individual believer, and for the whole Church of God. The supreme authority of Holy Scripture should be deeply impressed on every heart. It is the only safeguard against the many forms of error and evil which abound on every hand. Human writings, no doubt, have their value; they may interest the mind as a reference, but they are perfectly worthless as authority.
We need to remember this. There is a strong tendency in the human mind to lean upon human authority. Hence it has come to pass, that millions throughout the professing church have virtually been deprived altogether of the Word of God, from the fact that they have lived and died under the delusion that they could not know it to be the Word of God apart from human authority. Now this is in reality throwing the Word of God overboard. If that Word is of no avail without man’s authority, then, we maintain, it is not God’s Word at all. It does not matter in the smallest degree what the authority is, the effect is the same. God’s Word is declared to be insufficient without something of man to give the certainty that it is God who is speaking.
This is a most dangerous error, and its root lies far deeper in the heart than many of us are aware. It has often been said to us, when quoting passages of Scripture, “How do you know that that is the Word of God?” What is the point of such a question? Plainly to overthrow the authority of the Word. The heart that could suggest such an inquiry does not want to be governed by Holy Scripture at all. The will is concerned. Here lies the deep secret. There is the consciousness that the Word condemns something which the heart wants to hold and cherish, and hence the effort to set the Word aside altogether.
But how are we to know that the book which we call the Bible is the Word of God? We reply, It carries its own credentials with it. It bears its own evidence upon every page, in every paragraph, in every line. True, it is only by the teaching of the Holy Spirit, the divine Author of the Book, that the evidence can be weighed, and the credentials appreciated. But we do not need man’s voice to accredit God’s Book; or, if we do, we are, most assuredly, on infidel ground as regards divine revelation. If God cannot speak directly to the heart—if He cannot give the assurance that it is He Himself who speaks—then where are we? Whither shall we turn? If God cannot make Himself heard and understood, can man do it better? Can he improve upon God? Can man’s voice give us more certainty? Can the authority of the church, the decrees of general councils, the judgment of the Fathers, the opinion of the doctors, give us more certainty than God Himself? If so, we are just as completely at sea—just as thoroughly in the dark—as though God had not spoken at all. Of course, if God has not spoken, we are completely in the dark; but if He has spoken, and yet we cannot know His voice without man’s authority to accredit it, where lies the difference? Is it not plain to the reader of these lines, that if God in His great mercy has given us a revelation, it must be sufficient of itself; and, on the other hand, that any revelation which is not sufficient of itself cannot possibly be divine? And, further, is it not equally plain that if we cannot believe what God says, because He says it, we have no safer ground to go upon when man presumes to affix his accrediting seal?
Let us not be misunderstood. What we insist upon is this: the all-sufficiency of a divine revelation apart from and above all human writings, ancient, medieval, or modern. We value human writings; we value sound criticism; we value profound and accurate scholarship; we value the light of true science and philosophy; we value the testimony of pious travelers who have sought to throw light upon the sacred text; we value all those books that open up to us the intensely interesting subject of biblical antiquities; in short, we value everything that tends to aid us in the study of the Holy Scriptures; but, after all, we return with deeper emphasis to our assertion as to the all-sufficiency and supremacy of the Word of God. That Word must be received on its own divine authority, without any human recommendation, or else it is not the Word of God to us. We believe that God can give us the certainty in our own souls that the Holy Scriptures are, in very deed, His own Word. If He does not give it, no man can; and if He does, no man need. Thus the inspired Apostle says to his son Timothy, “Continue thou in the things which thou hast learned and hast been assured of, knowing of whom thou hast learned them; and that from a child thou hast known the holy Scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.” 2 Tim. 3:14, 15.
How did Timothy know that the Holy Scriptures were the Word of God? He knew it by divine teaching. He knew of whom he had learned. Here lay the secret. There was a living link between his soul and God, and he recognized in Scripture the very voice of God. Thus it must ever be. It will not do merely to be convinced in the intellect, by human arguments, human evidences, and human apologies, that the Bible is the Word of God; we must know its power in the heart and on the conscience by divine teaching; and, when this is the case, we shall no more need human proofs of the divinity of the Book than we need a candle at noonday to prove that the sun is shining. We shall then believe what God says because He says it, and not because man accredits it, nor because we feel it. “Abraham believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness” (Jas. 2:23). He did not need to go to the Chaldeans or to the Egyptians in order to find out from them if what he had heard was in reality the Word of God. No, no; he knew whom he had believed, and this gave him holy stability. He could say, beyond all question, God has established a link between my soul and Himself by means of His Word, which no power of earth or hell can ever snap. This is the true ground for every believer—man, woman, or child, in all ages, and under all circumstances. This was the ground for Abraham and Josiah, for Luke and Theophilus, for Paul and Timothy; and it must be the ground for the writer and the reader of these words, else we shall never be able to stand against the rising tide of infidelity which is sweeping away the very foundations on which thousands of professors are reposing.
However, we may well inquire, Can a merely national profession, a hereditary faith, an educational creed, sustain the soul in the presence of an audacious skepticism that reasons about everything and believes nothing? Impossible! We must be able to stand before the skeptic, the rationalist, and the infidel, and say, in all the calmness and dignity of a divinely wrought faith, “I know whom I have believed.”... God has spoken, and His voice reaches the heart. It makes itself heard above the din and confusion of this world, and all the strife and controversy of professing Christians. It gives rest and peace, strength and fixedness, to the believing heart and mind. The opinions of men may perplex and confound. We may not be able to thread our way through the labyrinths of human systems of theology; but God’s voice speaks in Holy Scripture—speaks to the heart—speaks to me. This is life and peace. It is all I need. Human writings may now go for what they are worth, seeing I have all I need in the ever flowing fountain of inspiration—the peerless, precious Volume of my God.
But let us now turn to Josiah and see how all that we have been dwelling upon finds its illustration in his life and times.
“Josiah was eight years old when he began to reign” (2 Chron. 34:1). This tells a tale as to the condition and ways of God’s people. Josiah’s father had been murdered by his own servants after a brief and evil reign of two years, in the twenty-fourth year of his age. Such things ought not to have been. They were the sad fruit of sin and folly—the humiliating proofs of Judah’s departure from Jehovah. But God was above all; and although we should not have expected ever to find a child of eight years of age on the throne of David, yet that child could find his sure resource in the God of his fathers, so that, in this case as in all others, “where sin abounded, grace did much more abound” (Rom. 5:20). The very fact of Josiah’s youth and inexperience only afforded an occasion for the display of divine grace, and the setting forth of the value and power of the Word of God.
This pious child was placed in a position of peculiar difficulty and temptation. He was surrounded by errors in various forms and of long standing; but “He did that which was right in the sight of the LORD, and walked in the ways of David his father, and declined neither to the right hand, nor to the left. For in the eighth year of his reign, while he was yet young, he began to seek after the God of David his father: and in the twelfth year he began to purge Judah and Jerusalem from the high places, and the groves, and the carved images, and the molten images.”
This was a good beginning. It is a great matter, while the heart is yet tender, to have it impressed with the fear of the Lord. It preserves it from a host of evils and errors. “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom” (Pro. 9:10); and it taught this pious youth what was “right,” and to adhere to it with unswerving fixedness of purpose. There is great force and value in the expression, “He did that which was right in the sight of the LORD.” It was not that which was right in his own eyes, nor yet in the eyes of the people, nor in the eyes of those that had gone before him, but simply what was right in the sight of the Lord. This is the solid foundation of all right action. Until the fear of the Lord gets its true place in the heart, there can be nothing right, nothing wise, nothing holy. How can there be, if indeed that fear is the beginning of wisdom? We may do many things through the fear of man, many things through force of habit, through surrounding influences, but never can we do what is really right in the sight of the Lord, until our hearts are brought to understand the fear of His holy name. This is the grand regulating principle. It imparts seriousness, earnestness, and reality—rare and admirable qualities! It is an effectual safeguard against levity and vanity. A man or a child who habitually walks in the fear of God is always earnest and sincere, always free from trifling and affectation, from assumption and bombast. Life has a purpose, the heart has an object, and this gives intensity to the whole course and character.
But, further, we read of Josiah that he “walked in the ways of David his father, and declined neither to the right hand, nor to the left.” What a testimony for the Holy Ghost to bear concerning a young man! How we do long for this plain decision! It is invaluable at all times, but especially in a day of laxity and latitudinarianism, of false liberality, and spurious charity, like the present. It imparts great peace of mind. A vacillating man is never peaceful; he is always tossed to and fro. “A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways.” He tries to please everybody, and, in the end, pleases nobody. The decided man, on the contrary, is he who feels he has “to please but One.” This gives unity and fixedness to the life and character. It is an immense relief to be thoroughly done with men-pleasing and eye-service—to be able to fix the eye upon the Master alone, and go on with Him, through evil report and through good report. True, we may be misunderstood and misrepresented, but that is a very small matter indeed; our great business is to walk in the divinely appointed path, declining “neither to the right hand, nor to the left.” We are convinced that plain decision is the only thing for the servant of Christ at the present moment, for so surely as the devil finds us wavering, he will bring every engine into play in order to drive us completely off the plain and narrow path. May God’s Spirit work more mightily in our souls, and give us increased ability to say, “My heart is fixed, O God, my heart is fixed: I will sing and give praise.” Psalm 57:7.
We shall now proceed to consider the great work which Josiah was raised up to accomplish; but, ere doing so, we must ask the reader to notice particularly the words already referred to; namely, “In the eighth year of his reign, while he was yet young, he began to seek after the God of David his father.” Here, we may rest assured, lay the true basis of all Josiah’s valuable service. He began by seeking after God. Let young Christians ponder this deeply. Hundreds, we fear, have made shipwreck by rushing prematurely into work. They have become occupied and engrossed with their service before the heart was rightly established in the fear and love of God. This is a very serious error indeed, and we have met numbers within the last few years who have fallen into it. We should ever remember that those whom God uses much in public, He trains in secret, and, further, that all His most honored servants have been more occupied with their Master than with their work. It is not that we undervalue work; by no means; but we do find that all those who have been signally owned of God, and who have pursued a long and steady course of service and Christian testimony, have begun with much deep and earnest heart-work, in the secret of the divine presence. And, on the other hand, we have noticed that when men have rushed prematurely into public work—when they began to teach before they had begun to learn—they have speedily broken down and gone back.
It is well to remember this. God’s plants are deeply rooted, and often slow of growth. Josiah “began to seek... God” four years before he began his public work. There was in his case a firm groundwork of genuine personal piety on which to erect the superstructure of active service. This was most needful. He had a great work to do. “High places, and the groves, and the carved images, and the molten images” abounded on all hands, and called for no ordinary faithfulness and decision. Where were these to be had? In the divine treasury, and there alone. Josiah was but a child, and many of those who had introduced the false worship were men of years and experience. But he set himself to seek the Lord. He found his resource in the God of his father David. He betook himself to the fountainhead of all wisdom and power, and there gathered up strength wherewith to gird himself for what lay before him.
This, we repeat, was most needful; it was absolutely indispensable. The accumulated rubbish of ages and generations lay before him. One after another of his predecessors had added to the pile; and, notwithstanding the reformation effected in the days of Hezekiah, it would seem as though all
had to be done over again. Hearken to the following appalling catalog of evils and errors. “In the twelfth year he [Josiah] began to purge Judah and Jerusalem from the high places, and the groves, and the carved images, and the molten images. And they brake down the altars of Baalim in his presence; and the images, that were on high above them, he cut down; and the groves, and the carved images, and the molten images, he brake in pieces, and made dust of them, and strewed it upon the graves of them that had sacrificed unto them. And he burnt the bones of the priests upon their altars, and cleansed Judah and Jerusalem. And so did he in the cities of Manasseh, and Ephraim, and Simeon, even unto Naphtali, with their mattocks round about. And when he had broken down the altars and the groves, and had beaten the graven images into powder, and cut down all the idols throughout all the land of Israel, he returned to Jerusalem.
See also the narrative given in 2 Kings 23, where we have a much more detailed list of the abominations with which this devoted servant of God had to grapple. We do not quote any further. Enough has been given to show the fearful lengths to which even the people of God may go when once they turn aside, in the smallest measure, from the authority of Holy Scripture. We feel that this is one special lesson to be learned from the deeply interesting history of this best of Judah’s kings, and we fondly trust it may be learned effectually. It is indeed a grand and all-important lesson. The moment a man departs the breadth of a hair from Scripture, there is no accounting for the monstrous extravagance into which he may rush. We may feel disposed to marvel how such a man as Solomon could ever be led to build high places “for Ashtoreth the abomination of the Zidonians, and for Chemosh the abomination of the Moabites, and for Milcom the abomination of the children of Ammon.” But then we can easily see how having, in the first place, disobeyed the word of his Lord, in going to those nations for wives, he easily enough fell into the deeper error of adopting their worship.
But, Christian reader, let us remember that all the mischief, all the corruption and confusion, all the shame and dishonor, all the reproach and blasphemy, had its origin in the neglect of the Word of God. We cannot possibly ponder this fact too deeply. It is solemn, impressive, and admonitory beyond expression. It has ever been a special design of Satan to’ lead God’s people away from Scripture. He will use anything and everything for this end—tradition—the church, so-called—expediency—human reason—popular opinion—reputation and influence—character, position, and usefulness—all those he will use in order to get the heart and conscience away from that one golden sentence—that divine, eternal motto, “IT IS WRITTEN.” All that enormous pile of error which our devoted young monarch was enabled to grind into dust, and beat into powder—all, all had its origin in the gross neglect of this most precious sentence. It mattered little to Josiah that all these things could boast of antiquity and the authority of the fathers of the Jewish nation. Neither was he moved by the thought that these altars and high places, these groves and images, might be regarded as proofs of largeness of heart, breadth of mind, and a liberality of spirit that spurned all narrowness, bigotry, and intolerance—that would not be confined within the narrow bounds of Jewish prejudice, but could travel forth through the wide, wide world, and embrace all in the circle of charity and brotherhood. None of these things, we are persuaded, moved him. If they were not based upon, “Thus saith the LORD,” he had but one thing to do with them, and that was to beat them into powder.”
Life and Times of Josiah: Part 3
2 Chronicles 34 and 35
The various periods in the life of Josiah are very strongly marked. “In the eighth year of his reign,... he began to seek after the God of David his father.” “In the twelfth year he began to purge Judah and Jerusalem.” And “in the eighteenth year of his reign, when he had purged the land, and the house, he sent Shaphan the son of Azaliah, and Maaseiah the governor of the city, and Joah the son of Joahaz the recorder, to repair the house of the LORD his God.”
Now in all this we can mark that progress which ever results from a real purpose of heart to serve the Lord. “The path of the just is as the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day” (Pro. 4:18). Such was the path of Josiah; and such too, may be the path of the reader, if only he is influenced by the same earnest purpose. It does not matter what the circumstances may be. We may be surrounded by the most hostile influences, as Josiah was in his day; but a devoted heart, an earnest spirit, a fixed purpose, will, through grace, lift us above all, and enable us to press forward from stage to stage of the path of true discipleship.
If we study the first twelve chapters of the book of Jeremiah, we shall be able to form some idea of the condition of things in the days of Josiah. There we meet with such passages as the following: “I will utter my judgments against them touching all their wickedness, who have forsaken Me, and have burned incense unto other gods, and worshiped the works of their own hands. Thou therefore gird up thy loins, and arise, and speak unto them all that I command thee: be not dismayed at their faces, lest I confound thee before them.” “Wherefore I will yet plead with you, saith the LORD, and with your children’s children will I plead. For pass over the isles of Chittim, and see; and send unto Kedar, and consider diligently, and see if there be such a thing. Hath a nation changed their gods, which are yet no gods? but My people have changed their glory for that which doth not profit.” So also, in the opening of chapter 3, we find the most terrible imagery used to set forth the base conduct of “backsliding Israel” and “treacherous” Judah. Hearken to the following glowing language in chapter 4: “Thy way and thy doings have procured these things unto thee; this is thy wickedness, because it is bitter, because it reacheth unto thine heart. My bowels, my bowels! I am pained at my very heart; my heart maketh a noise in me; I cannot hold my peace, because thou hast heard, O my soul, the sound of the trumpet, the alarm of war. Destruction upon destruction is cried; for the whole land is spoiled: suddenly are my tents spoiled, and my curtains in a moment. How long shall I see the standard, and hear the sound of the trumpet? For My people is foolish, they have not known Me; they are sottish children, and they have none understanding; they are wise to do evil, but to do good they have no knowledge. I beheld the earth, and, lo, it was without form, and void; and the heavens, and they had no light. I beheld the mountains, and, lo, they trembled, and all the hills moved lightly. I beheld, and, lo, there was no man, and all the birds of the heavens were fled. I beheld, and, lo, the fruitful place was a wilderness, and all the cities thereof were broken down at the presence of the LORD, and by His fierce anger.”
What vivid language! The whole scene seems, in the vision of the prophet, reduced to primeval chaos and darkness. In short, nothing could be more gloomy than the aspect here presented. The whole of these opening chapters should be carefully studied if we would form a correct judgment of the times in which Josiah’s lot was cast. They were evidently times characterized by deep-seated and widespread corruptions in every shape and form. High and low, rich and poor, learned and ignorant, prophets, priests, and people-all presented an appalling picture of hollowness, deceit, and heartless wickedness, which could only be faithfully portrayed by an inspired pen.
But why dwell upon this? Why multiply quotations in proof of the low moral condition of Israel and Judah in the days of King Josiah? Mainly to show that, no matter what may be our surroundings, we can individually serve the Lord, if only there be the purpose of heart to do so. Indeed, it is in the very darkest times that the light of true devotedness shines forth most brightly. It is thrown into relief by the surrounding gloom. The very circumstances which indolence and unfaithfulness would use as a plea for yielding to the current, will only furnish a devoted spirit with a plea for making head against it. If Josiah had looked around him, what would he have seen? Treachery, deceit, corruption, and violence. Such was the state of public morals. And what of religion? Errors and evils in every imaginable shape. Some of these were hoary with age. They had been instituted by Solomon and left standing by Hezekiah. Their foundations had been laid amid the splendors of the reign of Israel’s wisest and wealthiest monarch; and the most pious and devoted of Josiah’s predecessors had left them as they found them.
Who then was Josiah that he should presume to overturn such venerable institutions? What right had he, a mere youth, raw and inexperienced, to set himself in opposition to men so far beyond him in wisdom, intelligence, and mature judgment? Why not leave things as he found them? Why not allow the current to flow peacefully on through those channels which had conducted it for ages and generations? Disruptions are hazardous. There is always great risk in disturbing old prejudices.
These and a thousand kindred questions might, doubtless, have exercised the heart of Josiah; but the answer was simple, direct, clear, and conclusive. It was not the judgment of Josiah against the judgment of his predecessors, but it was the judgment of God against all. This is a most weighty principle for every child of God and every servant of Christ. Without it we can never make head against the tide of evil which is flowing around us. It was this principle which sustained Luther in the terrible conflict which he had to wage with the whole of Christendom. He too, like Josiah, had to lay the ax to the root of old prejudices, and shake the very foundation of opinions and doctrines which had held almost universal sway in the church for over a thousand years. How was this to be done? Was it by setting up the judgment of Martin Luther against the judgment of popes and cardinals, councils and colleges. bishops and doctors? Assuredly not. This would never have brought about the Reformation. It was not Luther versus Christendom, but Holy Scripture versus error.
Reader, ponder this! Yes, ponder it deeply. We feel it is a grand and all-important lesson for this moment, as it surely was for the days of Luther, and for the days of Josiah. We long to see the supremacy of Holy Scripture-the paramount authority of the Word of God—the absolute sovereignty of divine revelation reverently owned throughout the length and breadth of the Church of God. We are convinced that the enemy is diligently seeking, in all quarters and by all means, to undermine the authority of the Word, and to weaken its hold upon the human conscience. And it is because we feel this that we seek to raise, again and again, a note of solemn warning, as also to set forth, according to our ability, the vital importance of submitting in all things to the inspired testimony—the voice of God in Scripture. It is not sufficient to render a merely formal assent to that popular statement, “The Bible, and the Bible alone, is the religion of Protestants.” We want more than this. We want to be in all things absolutely governed by the authority of Scripture-not by our fellow mortal’s interpretation of Scripture, but by Scripture itself. We want to have the conscience in a condition to yield, at all times, a true response to the teachings of the divine Word.
This is what we have so vividly illustrated in the life and times of Josiah, and particularly in the transactions of the eighteenth year of his reign, to which we shall now call the reader’s attention. This year was one of the most memorable, not only in the history of Josiah, but in the annals of Israel. It was signalized by two great facts; namely, the discovery of the book’ of the law, and the celebration of the feast of the passover. Stupendous facts! facts which have left their impress upon this most interesting period, and rendered it pre-eminently fruitful in instruction to the people of God in all ages.
It is worthy of note that the discovery of the book of the law was made during the progress of Josiah’s reformatory measures. It affords one of the ten thousand proofs of that great practical principle. that “unto every one that bath shall be given.” And again, “If any man will do His will, he shall know of the doctrine.”
“Now in the eighteenth year of his reign, when he had purged the land, and the house, he sent Shaphan the son of Azaliah, and Maaseiah the governor of the city, and Joah the son of Joahaz the recorder, to repair the house of the LORD his God. And when they came to Hilkiah the high priest, they delivered the money that was brought into the house of God.... And when they brought out the money that was brought into the house of the LORD, Hilkiah the priest found a book of the law of the LORD given by Moses. And Hilkiah answered and said to Shaphan the scribe, I have found the book of the law in the house of the LORD. And Hilkiah delivered the book to Shaphan. And Shaphan carried the book to the king.... And Shaphan read it before the king. And it came to pass, when the king had heard the words of the law, that he rent his clothes” (2 Chron. 34:8-19).
Here we have a tender conscience bowing under the action of the Word of God. This was one special charm in the character of Josiah. He was in truth a man of a humble and a contrite spirit, who trembled at the Word of God. Would that we all knew more of this! It is a most valuable feature of the Christian character. We certainly do need to feel, much more deeply, the weight, authority, and seriousness of Scripture. Josiah had no question whatever in his mind as to the genuineness and authenticity of the words which Shaphan had read in his hearing. We do not read of his asking, “How am I to know that this is the Word of God?” No; he trembled at it. He bowed before it. He was smitten down under it. He rent his garments. He did not presume to sit in judgment upon the Word of God; but, as was sweet and right, he allowed the Word to judge him.
Thus it should ever be. If man is to judge Scripture, then Scripture is not the Word of God at all. But if Scripture is in very truth the Word of God, then it must judge man. And so it is, and so it does. Scripture is the Word of God, and it judges man thoroughly. It lays bare the very roots of his nature- it opens up the fountains of his moral being. It holds up before him the only faithful mirror in which he can see himself perfectly reflected. This is the reason why man does not like Scripture-cannot bear it-seeks to set it aside-delights to pick holes in it-dares to sit in judgment upon it. It is not so in reference to other books. Men do not trouble themselves so much to discover and point out flaws and discrepancies in Homer or Herodotus, Aristotle or Shakespeare. No; but Scripture judges them-judges their ways-their lusts. Hence the enmity of the natural mind to the most precious and marvelous Book which, as we have already remarked, carries its own credentials with it to every divinely prepared heart. There is a power in Scripture which must bear down all before it. All must bow down under it, sooner or later. “The word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in His sight; but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of Him with whom we have to do” (Heb. 4:12-13).
Josiah found it to be even so. The Word of God pierced him through and through. “And it came to pass, when the king had heard the words of the law, that he rent his clothes. And the king commanded Hilkiah, and Ahikam the son of Shaphan, and Abdon the son of Micah, and Shaphan the scribe, and Asaiah a servant of the king’s, saying, Go, inquire of the LORD for me, and for them that are left in Israel and in Judah, concerning the words of the book that is found: for great is the wrath of the LORD that is poured out upon us, because our fathers have not kept the word of the LORD, to do after all that is written in this book.” What a striking contrast between Josiah, with contrite heart, exercised conscience, and rent garments, bowing down under the mighty action of the Word of God, and our modern skeptics and infidels who, with appalling audacity, dare to sit in judgment upon that very same Word! Oh! that men would be wise in time, and bow their hearts and consciences in reverent submission to the Word of the living God, before that great and terrible day of the Lord, in which they shall be compelled to bow, amid “weeping and wailing,” and “gnashing of teeth.”
God’s Word shall stand forever, and it is utterly vain for man to set himself up in opposition to it, or seek by his reasonings and skeptical speculations to find out errors and contradictions in it. “Forever, O LORD, Thy word is settled in heaven” (Psalm 119:89). “Heaven and earth shall pass away, but My words shall not pass away” (Matt. 24:35). “The word of the Lord endureth forever” (1 Pet. 1:25). Of what possible use is it, therefore, for man to resist the Word of God? He can gain nothing; but, oh! what may he lose? If man could prove the Bible false, what should he gain? But if it be true, after all, what does he lose? A serious inquiry! May it have its weight with any reader whose mind is at all under the influence of rationalistic or infidel notions!
We shall now proceed with our history.
“And Hilkiah, and they that the king had appointed, went to Huldah the prophetess, the wife of Shallum, the son of Tikvath, the son of Hasrah, keeper of the wardrobe; (now she dwelt in Jerusalem in the college;) and they spake to her to that effect.” At the opening of this paper we referred to the fact of a child of eight years old being on the throne of David, as indicative of the conditions of things among the people of God. Here too we are arrested by the fact that the prophetic office was filled by a woman. It surely tells a tale. Things were low, but the grace of God was unfailing and abundant; and Josiah was so thoroughly broken down that he was prepared to receive the communication of the mind of God through whatever channel it might reach him. This was morally lovely. It might, to nature’s view, seem very humiliating for a king of Judah to have recourse to a woman for counsel. But then that woman was the depositary of the mind of God, and this was quite enough for a humble and contrite spirit like Josiah’s. He had thus far proved that his one grand desire was to know and do the will of God; and hence it mattered not by what vehicle the voice of God was conveyed to his ear, he was prepared to hear and obey.
Christian reader. let us consider this. We may rest assured that herein lies the true secret of divine guidance: “The meek will He guide in judgment: and the meek will He teach His way” (Psalm 25:9). Were there more of this blessed spirit of meekness among us, there would be less confusion, less controversy, less striving about words to no profit. If we were all meek, we should all be divinely guided and divinely taught, and thus we should see eye to eye; we should be of one mind, and speak the same thing, and avoid much sad and humbling division and heartburning.
See what a full answer the meek and contrite Josiah received from Huldah the prophetess-an answer both as to his people and as to himself. “And she answered them, Thus saith the LORD God of Israel, Tell ye the man that sent you to me, Thus saith the LORD, Behold, I will bring evil upon this place, and upon the inhabitants thereof, even all the curses that are written in the book which they have read before the king of Judah: because they have forsaken Me, and have burned incense unto other gods, that they might provoke Me to anger with all the works of their hands; therefore My wrath shall be poured out upon this place, and shall not be quenched.”
All this was but the solemn reiteration and establishment of what had already fallen upon the open and attentive ear of the king of Judah; but then it came with fresh force, emphasis, and interest, as a direct personal communication to himself. It came enforced and enhanced by that earnest sentence, “Tell ye the man that sent you to me.”
But there was more than this. There was a gracious message directly concerning Josiah himself. “And as for the king of Judah, who sent you to inquire of the LORD, so shall ye say unto him, Thus saith the LORD God of Israel concerning the words which thou halt heard; BECAUSE THINE HEART WAS TENDER, and thou didst humble thyself before God, when thou heardest His words against this place, and against the inhabitants thereof, and humbledst thyself before Me, and didst rend thy clothes, and weep before Me; I have even heard thee also, saith the LORD. Behold, I will gather thee to thy fathers, and thou shalt be gathered to thy crave, in peace, neither shall thine eyes see all the evil that I will bring upon this place, and upon the inhabitants of the same. So they brought the king word again” (2 Chron. 34:23-28).
All this is full of instruction and encouragement for us in this dark and evil day. It teaches us the immense value, in the divine estimation, of deep personal exercise of soul, and contrition of heart. Josiah might have deemed the case hopeless -that nothing could avert the mighty tide of wrath and judgment which was about to roll over the city of Jerusalem and the land of Israel -that any movement of his must prove utterly unavailing-the decree gone forth, and that, in short, he had only to stand by and let things take their course. But Josiah did not reason thus. No; he bowed before the divine testimony. He humbled himself, rent his clothes, and wept. God took knowledge of this. Josiah’s penitential tears were precious to Jehovah, and though the appalling judgment had to take its course, yet the penitent escaped. And not only did he himself escape, but he became the honored instrument, in the Lord’s hand, of delivering others also. He did not abandon himself to the influence of a pernicious fatalism, but in brokenness of spirit and earnestness of heart, he cast himself upon God, confessing his own sins and the sins of his people. And then, when assured of his own personal deliverance, he set himself to seek the deliverance of his brethren also. This is a fine moral lesson for the heart. May we learn it thoroughly!
Life and Times of Josiah: Part 4
It is deeply interesting and instructive to mark the actings of Josiah, when his heart and conscience had been brought under the powerful influence of the Word of God. He not only bowed down under that Word himself, but he sought to lead others to bow likewise. This must ever be the case, where the work is real. It is impossible for a man to feel the weight and solemnity of truth, and not seek to bring others under its action. No doubt a quantity of truth may be held in the intellect-held superficially-held in a merely speculative, notional way—but this will have no practical effect; it does not tell upon the heart and conscience after a divine, living fashion; it does not affect the life and character. And, inasmuch as it does not affect our own souls, neither will our mode of presenting it be very likely to act with much power upon others. True, God is sovereign, and He may use His own Word, even when spoken by one who has never really felt its influence; but we are speaking now of what may properly and naturally be looked for; and we may rest assured that the best way in which to make others feel deeply is to feel deeply ourselves.
Take any truth you please. Take, for example, the glorious truth of the Lord’s coming. How is a man most likely to affect his hearers by the presentation of this truth? Unquestionably, by being deeply affected himself. If the heart be under the power of that solemn word, “The Lord is at hand”—if this fact be realized in all its solemnity as to the world, and its sweet attractiveness as to the believer individually and the Church collectively, then it will assuredly be presented in a way calculated to move the hearts of the hearers. It is easy to see when a man feels what he is saying. There may be a very clear and clever exposition of the doctrine of the second advent, and of all the collateral truths; but if it be cool and heartless, it will fall powerless on the ears of the audience. In order to speak to hearts, on any subject, the heart of the speaker must feel. What was it that gave such power to Whitfield’s discourses? It was not the depth or the range of truth contained in them, as is manifest to any intelligent reader. No; the secret of their mighty efficacy lay in the fact that the speaker felt what he was saying. Whitfield wept over the people, and no marvel if the people wept under Whitfield. He must be a hardened wretch indeed who can sit unmoved under a preacher who is shedding tears for his soul’s salvation.
Let us not be misunderstood. We do not mean to say that anything in a preacher’s manner can of itself convert a soul. Tears cannot quicken. Earnestness cannot regenerate. It is “not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit, saith the LORD” (Zech. 4:6). It is only by the powerful action of the Word and Spirit of God that any soul can be born again. All this we fully believe, and would ever bear in mind. But at the same time we as fully believe and would also bear in mind, that God blesses earnest preaching, and souls are moved by it. We have far too much mechanical preaching—too much routine work—too much of what may justly be called going through a service. We need more earnestness, more depth of feeling, more intensity, more power to weep over the souls of men, a more influential and abiding sense of the awful doom of impenitent sinners, the value of an immortal soul, and the solemn realities of the eternal world. We are told that the famous Garrick was once asked, by a bishop, how it was that he produced far more powerful results by his fiction than the bishops could by preaching truth. The reply of the actor is full of force. “My lord,” said he, “the reason is obvious; I speak fiction as though it were truth, whereas you speak truth as though it were fiction.”
Alas! it is much to be feared that too many of us speak truth in the same way, and hence the little result. We are persuaded that earnest, faithful preaching is one of the special needs of this our day. There are a few here and there, thank God, who seem to feel what they are at—who stand before their audience as those who consider themselves as channels of communication between God and their fellows-men who are really bent on their work-bent not merely on preaching and teaching, but on saving and blessing souls. The grand business of the evangelist is to bring the soul and Christ together; the business of the teacher and pastor is to keep them together. True, it is most assuredly true, that God is glorified and Jesus Christ magnified by the unfolding of truth, whether men will hear, or whether they will forbear; but is this fact to be allowed to interfere, in the smallest degree, with the ardent desire for results in reference to souls? We do not, for a moment, believe it.
The preacher should look for results, and should not be satisfied without them. He should no more think of being satisfied to go on without results than the husbandman thinks of going on from year to year without a crop. Some preachers there are who only succeed in preaching their hearers away, and then they content themselves by saying, We are a sweet savor to God. Now, we believe this is a great mistake, and a fatal delusion. What we need is to live before God for the results of our work-to wait upon Him-to agonize in prayer for souls-to throw all our energies into the work-to preach as though the whole thing depended upon us, although knowing full well that we can do just nothing, and that our words must prove as the morning cloud, if not fastened as a nail in a sure place, by the Master of assemblies. We are convinced that, in the divine order of things, the earnest workman must have the fruit of his labor; and that according to his faith, so shall it be. There may be exceptions; but, as a general rule, we may rest assured that a faithful preacher, working in his divinely appointed sphere, will, sooner or later, reap fruit.
We have been drawn into the foregoing line of thought while contemplating the interesting scene in the life of Josiah, presented to us at the close of 2 Chronicles 34. It will be profitable for us to dwell upon it. Josiah was a man thoroughly in earnest. He felt the power of truth in his own soul, and he could not rest satisfied until he gathered the people around him, in order that the light which had shone upon him might shine upon them likewise. He did not-he could not-rest in the fact that he was to be gathered to his grave in peace, that his eyes were not to see the evil that was coming upon Jerusalem, that he was to escape the appalling tide of judgment which was about to roll over the land. No; he thought of others, he felt for the people around him; and, inasmuch as his own personal escape stood connected with and based upon his true penitence and humiliation under the mighty hand of God, so he would seek, by the action of that word which had wrought so powerfully in his own heart, to lead others to like penitence and humiliation.
“Then the king sent and gathered together all the elders of Judah and Jerusalem. And the king went up into the house of the LORD, and all the men of Judah, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and the priests, and the Levites, and all the people, great and small: and he read in their ears all the words of the book of the covenant that was found in the house of the LORD. And the king stood in his place, and made a covenant before the LORD, to walk after the LORD, and to keep His commandments, and His testimonies, and His statutes, with all his heart, and with all his soul, to perform the words of the covenant which are written in this book. And he caused all that were present in Jerusalem and Benjamin to stand to it. And the inhabitants of Jerusalem did according to the covenant of God, the God of their fathers. And Josiah took away all the abominations out of all the countries that pertained to the children of Israel, and made all that were present in Israel to serve, even to serve the LORD their God. And all his days they departed not from following the LORD, the God of their fathers.”
There is a fine moral lesson in all this for us-yea, many lessons to which we, with all our light, knowledge, and privilege, may well sit down. What, first of all, strikes us at this moment, is the fact that Josiah felt his responsibility to those around him. He did not put his light under a bushel, but rather allowed it to shine for the full benefit and blessing of others. This is all the more striking, inasmuch as that great practical truth of the unity of all believers in one body, was not known to Josiah, because not revealed by God. The doctrine contained in that one brief sentence, “There is one body, and one Spirit,” was not made known until long after the times of Josiah, even when Christ the risen Head had taken His seat at the right hand of the Majesty in the heavens.
But, although this truth was “hid in God,” nevertheless there was the unity of the nation of Israel. There was a national unity, though there was not the unity of a body; and this unity was always recognized by the faithful, whatever might be the outward condition of the people. The twelve loaves on the table of showbread in the sanctuary were the divine type of the perfect unity and yet the perfect distinctness of the twelve tribes. The reader can see this in Leviticus 24. It is full of interest, and should be deeply pondered by every student of Scripture, and every earnest lover of the ways of God. During the dark and silent watches of the night, the seven lamps of the golden candlestick threw their light upon the twelve loaves, ranged by the hand of the high priest according to the commandment of God, upon the pure table. Significant figure! In it we have foreshadowed, in the most vivid way, the indissoluble unity of Israel’s twelve tribes-a truth which must never be lost sight of-a truth which God has revealed, established, and maintained, and which the faith of His people has ever recognized and acted upon.
It was on this grand truth that Elijah the Tishbite took his stand when on Mount Carmel he built an altar with “twelve stones, according to the number of the tribes of the sons of Jacob, unto whom the word of the LORD came, saying, Israel shall be thy name” (1 Kings 18:31). To this same truth Hezekiah had regard when he “commanded that the burnt offering and the sin offering should be made for all Israel” (2 Chron. 29:24). Paul in his day referred to this precious truth when, in the presence of King Agrippa, he spoke of “our twelve tribes, instantly serving God day and night” (Acts 26:7).
Now, if any one of those men of faith had been asked, Where are the twelve tribes? could he give an answer? Could he have pointed them out? Assuredly he could, but not to sight -not to man’s view-for the nation was divided-its unity was broken. In the days of Elijah and Hezekiah there were the ten tribes and the two; and in the days of Paul, the ten tribes were scattered abroad, and only a remnant of the two in the land of Palestine, under the dominion of Daniel’s fourth beast. What then? Was the truth of God made of none effect by Israel’s outward condition? Far be the thought! “Our twelve tribes” must never be given up. The unity of the nation is a grand reality to faith. It is as true at this moment as when Joshua pitched the twelve stones at Gilgal. The Word of our God shall stand forever. Not one jot or tittle of aught that He has spoken shall ever pass away. Change and decay may mark the history of human affairs; death and desolation may sweep like a withering blast over earth’s fairest scenes; but Jehovah will make good His every word, and Israel’s twelve tribes shall yet enjoy the promised land in all its length, breadth, and fullness. No power of earth or hell shall be able to hinder this blessed consummation. And why? What makes us so sure? How can we speak with such absolute certainty? Simply because the mouth of the Lord has spoken it. We can be a great deal more sure that Israel’s tribes shall yet enjoy their fair inheritance in Palestine, than that the house of Tudor once held sway in England. The former we believe on the testimony of God who cannot lie; the latter, on the testimony of erring man.
It is of the utmost importance that the reader should be clear as to this, not only because of its special bearing upon Israel and the land of Canaan, but also because it affects the integrity of Scripture as a whole. There is a loose mode of handling the Word of God, which is at once dishonoring to Him and injurious to us. Passages which apply distinctly and exclusively to Jerusalem and to Israel, are made to apply to the spread of the gospel and the extension of the Christian Church. This is, to say the least, taking a very unwarrantable liberty with divine revelation. Our God can surely say what He means; and, as surely, He means what He says; hence, when He speaks of Israel and Jerusalem, He does not mean the Church; and when He speaks of the Church, He does not mean Israel or Jerusalem.
Expositors and students of Scripture should ponder this. Let no one suppose that it is merely a question of prophetic interpretation. It is far more than this. It is a question of the integrity, value, and power of the Word of God. If we allow ourselves to be loose and careless in reference to one class of scriptures, we are likely to be loose and careless as to another, and then our sense of the weight and authority of all Scripture will be sadly enfeebled.
But we must return to Josiah and see how he recognized, according to his measure, the great principle on which we have been dwelling. He certainly proved no exception to the general rule; namely, that all the pious kings of Judah had regard to the unity of the nation of Israel, and never suffered their thoughts, their sympathies, or their operations, to be confined within any narrower range than “our twelve tribes.” The twelve loaves on the pure table were ever before the eye of God, and ever before the eye of faith. Nor was this a mere speculation-a non-practical dogma-a dead letter. No; it was in every case a great practical, influential truth. “Josiah took away all the abominations out of all the countries that pertained to the children of Israel.” This was acting in the fullest harmony with his pious predecessor, Hezekiah, who “commanded that the burnt offering and the sin offering should be made for all Israel.”
And now, Christian reader, mark the application of all this to our own souls at this present moment. Do you heartily believe upon divine authority in the doctrine of the unity of the body of Christ? Do you believe that there is such a body on this earth now, united to its divine and living Head in heaven, by the Holy Ghost? Do you hold this great truth from God Himself, upon the authority of Holy Scripture? Do you, in one word, hold as a cardinal and fundamental truth of the New Testament the indissoluble unity of the Church of God? Do not turn round and ask, Where is this to be seen? This is the question which unbelief must ever put, as the eye rests upon Christendom’s numberless sects and parties, and to which faith replies, as the eye rests upon that imperishable sentence, “There is one body, and one Spirit.” Mark the words! “There is.” It does not say there was at one time, and there shall be again, “one body.” Neither does it say that such a thing exists in heaven. No; but it says, “There is one body, and one Spirit,” now, on this earth. Can this truth be touched by the condition of things in the professing Church? Has God’s Word ceased to be true, because man has ceased to be faithful? Will anyone undertake to say that the unity of the body was only a truth for apostolic times, and that it has no application now, seeing that there is no exhibition of it?
Reader, we solemnly warn you to beware how you admit into your heart a sentiment so entirely infidel as this. Rest assured it is the fruit of positive unbelief in God’s Word. No doubt, appearances argue against this truth; but what truth is it against which appearances do not argue? And say, is it on appearances that faith ever builds? Did Elijah build on appearances when he erected his altar of twelve stones, according to the number of the tribes of the sons of Jacob? Did King Hezekiah build on appearances when he issued that fine commandment, that the burnt offering and the sin offering should be made for all Israel? Did Josiah build on appearances when he carried his reformatory operations into all the countries that pertained to the children of Israel? Surely not. They built upon the faithful word of the God of Israel. That word was true whether Israel’s tribes were scattered or united. If God’s truth is to be affected by outward appearances, or by the actings of men, then where are we? or what are we to believe? The fact is, there is hardly a truth in the entire compass of divine revelation to which we could with calm confidence commit our souls, if we suffer ourselves to be affected by outward appearances.
No, reader; the only ground on which we can believe anything is this one clause, “It is written.” Do you not admit this? Does not your whole soul bow down to it? Do you not hold it to be a principle entirely vital? We believe you do, as a Christian, hold, admit, and reverently believe this. Well, then, it is written, “There is one body, and one Spirit” (Eph. 4). This is as clearly revealed in Scripture as that “we are justified by faith,” or any other truth. Do outward appearances affect the saving fundamental doctrine of justification by faith? Are we to call in question this precious truth because there is so little exhibition of its purifying power in the lives of believers? Who could admit such a fatal principle as this? What a complete upturning of all the foundations of our faith is necessarily involved in the admission of this most mischievous line of reasoning! We believe, because it is written in the Word, not because it is exhibited in the world. Doubtless, it ought to be exhibited, and it is our sin and shame that it is not. To this we shall afterward refer more fully; but we must insist upon the proper ground of belief; namely, divine revelation; and when this is clearly seen and fully admitted, it applies as distinctly to the doctrine of the unity of the body, as it does to the doctrine of justification by faith.
Life and Times of Josiah: Part 5
2 Chronicles 34 and 35
We feel it to be of real moment to insist upon this principle; namely, that the only ground on which we can believe any doctrine is its being revealed in the divine Word. It is thus we believe all the great truths of Christianity. We know nothing and can believe nothing of what is spiritual, heavenly, or divine, save as we find it revealed in the Word of God. How do I know I am a sinner? Because Scripture has declared that “all have sinned.” No doubt, I feel that I am a sinner; but I do not believe because I feel, but I feel because I believe; and I believe because God has spoken. Faith rests upon divine revelation, not on human feelings or human reasonings. “It is written,” is quite sufficient for faith. It can do with nothing less, but it asks nothing more. God speaks, faith believes. Yes, it believes simply because God speaks. It does not judge God’s Word by outward appearances, but it judges outward appearances by the Word of God.
Thus it is in reference to all the cardinal truths of the Christian religion. Such is the trinity; the deity of our Lord Jesus Christ; His atonement; His priesthood; His advent; the doctrine of original sin; of justification; judgment to come; eternal punishment. We believe these grand and solemn truths, not on the ground of feeling, of reason, or of outward appearances, but simply on the ground of divine revelation.
Hence, then, if it be asked, On what ground do we believe in the doctrine of the unity of the body? we reply, Upon the selfsame ground that we believe the doctrine of the trinity, the deity of Christ, and the atonement. We believe it because it is revealed in sundry places in the New Testament. Thus, for example, in 1 Corinthians 12 we read: “For as the body is one, and bath many members and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body: so also is Christ. For by one Spirit we are all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and have been all made to drink into one Spirit.” vv. 12, 13. Again, “God hath tempered the body together, having given more abundant honor to that part which lacked: that there should be no schism in the body.... Now ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular.” vv. 24, 27.
Here we have distinctly laid down the perfect and indissoluble unity of the Church of God, the body of Christ, on precisely the same authority as any other truth commonly received among us, so that there is just as much ground for calling in question the deity of Christ as there is for calling in question the unity of the body. The one is as true as the other; and both are divinely true because divinely revealed. We believe that Jesus Christ is God over all, blessed forever, because Scripture tells us so; we believe that there is one body because Scripture tells us so. We do not reason in the one case, but believe and bow; nor should we reason in the other case, but believe and bow. “There is one body, and one Spirit.”
Now, we must bear in mind that this truth of the unity of the body is not a mere abstraction-a barren speculation-a powerless dogma. It is a practical, formative, influential truth, in the light of which we are called to walk, to judge ourselves and all around us. It was so with the faithful in Israel of old. The unity of the nation was a real thing to them, and not a mere theory to be taken up or laid down at pleasure. It was a great formative, powerful truth. The nation was one in God’s thoughts; and if it was not manifestly so, the faithful had only to take the place of self-judgment, brokenness of spirit, and contrition of heart. Witness the case of Hezekiah, Josiah, Daniel, Nehemiah, and Ezra. It never once occurred to these faithful men that they were to give up the truth of Israel’s unity because Israel had failed to maintain it. They did not measure the truth of God by the actings of men; but they judged the actings of men, and themselves likewise, by the truth of God. This was the only true way to act. If the manifested unity of Israel was marred through man’s sin and folly, the truehearted members of the congregation owned and mourned over the sin, confessed it as their own, and looked to God. Nor was this all. They felt their responsibility to act on the truth of God, whatever might be the outward condition of things.
This, we repeat, was the meaning of Elijah’s altar of twelve stones, erected in the face of Jezebel’s eight hundred false prophets, and despite the division of the nation in man’s view (1 Kings 18). This too was the meaning of Hezekiah’s letters sent to “all Israel” to invite them to “come to the house of the LORD at Jerusalem, to keep the passover unto the LORD God of Israel” (2 Chron. 30:1). Nothing can be more touching than the spirit and style of these letters: “Ye children of Israel, turn again unto the LORD God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, and He will return to the remnant of you, that are escaped out of the hand of the kings of Assyria. And be not ye like your fathers, and like your brethren, which trespassed against the LORD God of their fathers, who therefore gave them up to desolation, as ye see. Now, be ye not stiffnecked, as your fathers were, but yield yourselves unto the LORD, and enter into His sanctuary, which He hath sanctified forever: and serve the LORD your God, that the fierceness of His wrath may turn away from you. For if ye turn again unto the LORD, your brethren and your children shall find compassion before them that lead them captive, so that they shall come again into this land: for the LORD your God is gracious and merciful, and will not turn away His face from you.” vv. 6-9.
What was all this but simple faith acting on the grand, eternal, immutable truth of the unity of the nation of Israel? The nation was one in the purpose of God, and Hezekiah looked at it from the divine standpoint, as faith ever does, and he acted accordingly. “So the posts passed from city to city, through the country of Ephraim and Manasseh, even unto Zebulun: but they laughed them to scorn, and mocked them.” v. 10. This was very sad, but it is only what we must expect. The actings of faith are sure to call forth the scorn and contempt of those who are not up to the standard of God’s thoughts. Doubtless, these men of Ephraim and Manasseh regarded Hezekiah’s message as a piece of presumption, or wild extravagance. Perhaps the great truth that was acting with such power on his soul, forming his character, and ruling his conduct, was, in their judgment, a myth, or, at best, a valueless theory-a thing of the past-an institution of bygone ages, having no present application. But faith is never moved by the thoughts of men, and therefore Hezekiah went on with his work, and God owned and blessed him. He could afford to be laughed at and turned into ridicule, while he beheld divers of Asher and Manasseh and Zebulun humbling themselves and coming to Jerusalem. Hezekiah and all who thus humbled themselves under the mighty hand of God, reaped a rich harvest of blessing, while the mockers and scorners were left in the barrenness and deadness with which their own unbelief had surrounded them.
And let the reader mark the force of those words of Hezekiah “If ye turn again unto the LORD, your brethren and your children shall find compassion before them that lead them captive.” Does not this approach very near to that precious truth of the New Testament times, that we are members one of another, and that the conduct of one member affects all the rest? Unbelief might raise the question as to how this could possibly be-as to how the actings of one could possibly affect others far away-yet so it was in Israel, and so it is now in the Church of God. Witness the case of Achan, in Joshua 7. There, one man sinned; and, so far as the narrative informs us, the whole congregation was ignorant of the fact; and yet we read that “the children of Israel committed a trespass in the accursed thing” (Josh. 7:1). And again, “Israel hath sinned” (vs. 11). How could this be? Simply because the nation was one, and God dwelt among them. This, plainly, was the ground of a double responsibility; namely, a responsibility to God, and a responsibility to the whole assembly, and to each member in particular. It was utterly impossible for any one member of the congregation to shake off this high and holy responsibility. A person living at Dan might feel disposed to question how his conduct could affect a man living at Beersheba; yet such was the fact, and the ground of this fact lay in the eternal truth of Israel’s indissoluble unity, and Jehovah’s dwelling in the midst of His redeemed assembly. (See Exod. 15:2, and the many passages which speak of God’s dwelling in the midst of Israel.)
We do not attempt even to quote the numerous scriptures which speak of God’s presence in the congregation of Israel- His dwelling in their midst. But we would call the attention of the reader to the all-important fact that those scriptures begin with Exodus 15. It was when Israel stood as a fully redeemed people, on Canaan’s side of the Red Sea, that they were able to say, “The LORD is my strength and song, and He is become my salvation: He is my God, and I will prepare Him a habitation.” Redemption formed the ground of God’s dwelling among His people, and His presence in their midst secured their perfect unity. Hence no one member of the congregation could view himself as an isolated independent atom. Each one was called to view himself as part of a whole, and to view his conduct in reference to all those who, like himself, formed part of that whole.
Now, reason could never grasp a truth like this. It lay entirely beyond the ken of the most powerful human intellect. Faith alone could receive it and act upon it; and it is of the deepest interest to see that the faithful in Israel ever recognized it, and acted upon it. Why did Hezekiah send letters to “all Israel”? Why did he expose himself to scorn and ridicule in so doing? Why did he command that “the burnt offering and the sin offering should be made for all Israel”? Why did Josiah carry his reformatory operations into all “the countries that pertained to the children of Israel”? Because those men of God recognized the divine truth of Israel’s unity; and they did not think of throwing this grand reality overboard because so few saw it, or sought to carry it out. “The people shall dwell alone”; and “I the LORD dwell among the children of Israel.” These imperishable truths shine, like most precious gems of heavenly luster, all along the page of Old Testament scripture; and we invariably find that, just in proportion as anyone was living near to God-near to the living and ever gushing fountain of light, and life, and love-just in proportion as he entered into the thoughts, purposes, sympathies, and counsels of the God of Israel-did he apprehend and seek to carry out that which God had declared to be true of His people, though His people had proved so untrue to Him.
And now, Christian reader, we would ask you a very plain and pointed question, which is this: Do you not recognize in the unity of the Jewish nation the foreshadowing of a higher unity now existing in that one body of which Christ is the Head? We trust you do. We fondly hope that your whole moral being bows down with reverent submission to the mighty truth, “There is one body.” But then we can well imagine that you feel yourself not a little perplexed and confounded, when you cast your eye around you, through the length and breadth of the professing church, in search of any positive expression of this unity. You see Christians scattered and divided-you see innumerable sects and parties-and what, perhaps, puzzles you most of all, you see those who profess to believe and act upon the truth of the unity of the body, divided among themselves, and presenting anything but a spectacle of unity and harmony. All this, we confess, is very perplexing to one who looks at it from a merely human standpoint. We are not the least surprised at people being stumbled and hindered by these things. Still the foundation of God stands sure. His truth is perfectly indestructible; and if we gaze with admiration upon the faithful worthies of a bygone age who believed and confessed the unity of Israel, when there was not a trace of that unity visible to mortal eyes, why should we not heartily believe and diligently carry out the higher unity of the one body?
“There is one body, and one Spirit,” and herein lies the basis of our responsibility to one another and to God. Are we to surrender this all-important truth because Christians are scattered and divided? God forbid. It is as real and as precious as ever, and it ought to be as formative and as influential. We are bound to act upon the truth of God, irrespective of consequences, and utterly regardless of outward appearances. It is not for us to say, as so many do, “The case is hopeless; everything has gone to pieces; it is impossible to carry out the truth of God amid the heaps of rubbish which lie around us; the unity of the body was a thing of the past, it may be a thing of the future, but it cannot be a thing of the present. The idea of unity must be abandoned as thoroughly utopian; it cannot be maintained in the face of Christendom’s numberless sects and parties. Nothing remains now but for each one to look to the Lord for himself, and to do the best he can, in his own individual sphere, and according to the dictates of his own conscience and judgment.”
Such is, in substance, the language of hundreds of the true people of God; and, as is their language, so is their practical career. But we must speak plainly, and we have no hesitation in saying that this language savors of sheer unbelief in that great cardinal verity of the unity of the body; and, moreover, that we have just as much warrant for rejecting the precious doctrine of Christ’s deity, of His perfect humanity, or of His vicarious sacrifice, as we have for rejecting the truth of the perfect unity of His body, inasmuch as this latter rests upon precisely the same foundation as the former; namely, the eternal truth of God-the absolute statement of Holy Scripture.
What right have we to set aside any one truth of divine revelation? What authority have we to single out any special truth from the Word of God, and say that it no longer applies? We are bound to receive all truth, and to submit our souls to its authority. It is a dangerous thing to admit for a moment the idea that any one truth of God is to be set aside, on the plea that it cannot be carried out. It is sufficient for us that it is revealed in the Holy Scriptures; we have only to believe and to obey. Does Scripture declare that there is “one body”? Assuredly it does. This is enough. We are responsible to maintain this truth, cost what it may; we can accept nothing else, nothing less, nothing different. We are bound, by the allegiance which we owe to Christ the Head, to testify, practically, against everything that militates against the truth of the indissoluble unity of the Church of God, and to seek earnestly and constantly a faithful expression of that unity.
True, we shall have to contend with false unity on the one hand, and false individuality on the other; but we have only to hold fast and confess the truth of God, looking to Him in humility of mind and earnest purpose of heart, and He will sustain us in the path, let the difficulties be what they may. No doubt there are difficulties in the way-grave difficulties- such as we in our own strength cannot cope with. The very fact that we are told to endeavor “to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” is sufficient to prove that there are difficulties in the way; but the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ is amply sufficient for all the demands that may be made upon us in seeking to act upon this most precious truth.
In contemplating the present condition of the professing church, we may discern two very different classes. In the first place, there are those who are seeking unity on false grounds. And second, those who are seeking it on the ground laid down in the New Testament. This latter is distinctly a spiritual, living, divine unity, and stands out in vivid contrast with all the forms of unity which man has attempted, whether it be national, ecclesiastical, ceremonial, or doctrinal. The Church of God is not a nation, not an ecclesiastical or political system. It is a body united to its divine head in heaven, by the presence of the Holy Ghost. “There is one body, and one Spirit.” This remains unalterably true. It holds good now just as much as when the inspired apostle penned Ephesians 4. Hence anything that tends to interfere with or mar this truth must be wrong, and we are bound to stand apart from it and testify against it. To seek to unite Christians on any other ground than the unity of the body, is manifestly opposed to the revealed mind of God. It may seem very attractive, very desirable, very reasonable, right, and expedient; but it is contrary to God, and this should be enough for us. God’s Word speaks only of the unity of the body, and the unity of the Spirit. It recognizes no other unity, neither should we.
The Church of God is one, though consisting of many members. It is not local or geographical; it is corporate. All the members have a double responsibility; they are responsible to the Head, and they are responsible to one another. It is utterly impossible to ignore this responsibility. Men may seek to shirk it; they may deny it; they may assert their individual rights, and act according to their own reason, judgment, or will; but they cannot get rid of the responsibility founded upon the fact of the one compact body. They have to do with the Head in heaven, and with the members on earth. They stand in this double relationship-they were incorporated there into by the Holy Ghost, and to deny it is to deny their very spiritual existence. It is founded in life, formed by the Spirit, and taught and maintained in the Holy Scriptures. There is no such thing as independency. Christians cannot view themselves as mere individuals-as isolated atoms. “We are members one of another.” This is as true as that “we are justified by faith.” No doubt there is a sense in which we are individual; we are individual in our repentance; individual in our faith; individual in our justification; individual in our walk with God and in our service to Christ; individual in our rewards for service, for each one shall get a white stone and a new name engraved thereon, known only to himself. All this is quite true; but it in nowise touches the other grand practical truth of our union with the Head above, and with each and all of the members below.
And we would here call the reader’s attention to two very distinct lines of truth flowing out of two distinct titles of our blessed Lord; namely, Headship and Lordship. He is the Head of His body the Church; and He is Lord of all, Lord of each. Now, when we think of Christ as Lord, we are reminded of our individual responsibility to Him, in the wide range of service to which He, in His sovereignty, has graciously called us. Our reference must be to Him in all things. All our actings, all our movements, all our arrangements, must be placed under the commanding influence of that weighty sentence (often, alas! lightly spoken and penned), “If the Lord will.” And, moreover, no one has any right to thrust himself in between the conscience of a servant and the commandment of his Lord. All this is divinely true, and of the very highest importance. The Lordship of Christ is a truth the value of which cannot possibly be overestimated.
But we must bear in mind that Christ is Head as well as Lord. He is Head of a body, as well as Lord of individuals. These things must not be confounded. We are not to hold the truth of Christ’s Lordship in such a way as to interfere with the truth of His Headship. If we merely think of Christ as Lord, and ourselves as individuals responsible to Him, then we shall ignore His Headship, and lose sight of our responsibility to every member of that body of which He is Head. We must jealously watch against this. We cannot look at ourselves as isolated independent atoms; if we think of Christ as Head, then we must think of all His members, and this opens up a wide range of practical truth.
We have holy duties to discharge to our fellow members, as well as to our Lord and Master; and we may rest assured that no one walking in communion with Christ can ever lose sight of the grand fact of his relationship to every member of His body. Such a one will ever remember that his walk and ways exert an influence upon Christians living at the other side of the globe. This is a wondrous mystery, but it is divinely true. If “one member suffer, all the members suffer with it” (1 Cor. 12:26). You cannot reduce the body of Christ to a matter of locality; the body is one, and we are called to maintain this, practically, in every possible way, and to bear a decided testimony against everything which tends to hinder the expression of the perfect unity of the body, whether it be false unity, or false individuality. The enemy is seeking to associate Christians on a false ground, and gather them round a false center; or, if he cannot do this, he will send them adrift upon the wide and tumultuous ocean of a desultory individualism. We are thoroughly persuaded, before God, that the only safeguard against both these false and dangerous extremes is divinely wrought faith in the grand foundation truth of the unity of the body of Christ.
Life and Times of Josiah: Part 6
2 Chronicles 34 and 35
It may here be proper to inquire what is the suited attitude of the Christian in view of the grand foundation truth of the unity of the body. That it is a truth distinctly laid down in the New Testament cannot possibly be questioned. If any reader of these pages be not fully established in the knowledge and hearty belief of this truth, let him prayerfully study 1 Corinthians 12 and 14; Ephesians 2 and 4; Colossians 2 and 3. He will find the doctrine referred to in a practical way in the opening of Romans 12, though it is not the design of the Holy Ghost, in that magnificent epistle, to give us a full unfolding of the truth respecting the Church. What we have to look for there is rather the establishment of the soul’s relationship with God through the death and resurrection of Christ. We might pass through the first 11 chapters of Romans and not know that there is such a thing as the Church of God, the body of Christ; and, when we reach chapter 12, the doctrine of one body is assumed, but not dwelt upon.
There is, then, “one body” actually existing on this earth, formed by the “one Spirit,” and united to the living Head in heaven. This truth cannot be gainsaid. Some may not see it; some may find it very hard to receive it, in view of the present condition of things; but, nevertheless, it remains a divinely established truth that “there is one body,” and the question is, How are we individually affected by this truth? It is as impossible to shake off the responsibility involved therein as it is to set aside the truth itself. If there is a body of which we are members, then do we, in very truth, stand in a holy relationship to every member of that body on earth, as well as to the Head in heaven; and this relationship, like every other, has its characteristic affections, privileges, and responsibilities.
And, be it remembered, we are not speaking now of the question of association with any special company of Christians, but of the whole body of Christ upon earth. No doubt, each company of Christians, wherever assembled, should be but the local expression of the whole body. It should be so gathered and so ordered, on the authority of the Word, and by the power of the Holy Ghost, as that all Christ’s members who are walking in truth and holiness might happily find their place there. If an assembly be not thus gathered and thus ordered, it is not on the ground of the unity of the body at all. If there be anything, no matter what, in order, discipline, doctrine, or practice, which would prove a barrier to the presence of any of Christ’s members, whose faith and practice are according to the Word of God, then is the unity of the body practically denied.
We are solemnly responsible to own the truth of the unity of the body. We should so meet that all the members of Christ’s body might, simply as such, sit down with us and exercise whatever gift the Head of the Church has bestowed upon them. The body is one. Its members are scattered over the whole earth. Distance is nothing; locality, nothing. It may be New Zealand, London, Paris, or Edinburgh; it matters not. A member of the body in one place is a member of the body everywhere; for there is but “one body, and one Spirit.” It is the Spirit who forms the body and links the members with the Head and with one another. Hence, a Christian coming from New Zealand to London ought to expect to find an assembly so gathered as to be a faithful expression of the unity of the body, to which he might attach himself; and, furthermore, any such Christian ought to find his place in the bosom of that assembly, provided always that there be nothing in doctrine or walk to forbid his hearty reception.
Such is the divine order, as laid down in 1 Corinthians 12 and 14; Ephesians 2 and 4; and assumed in Romans 12. Indeed we cannot study the New Testament and not see this blessed truth. We find, in various cities and towns, saints gathered by the Holy Ghost in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ; as, for example, at Rome, Corinth, Ephesus, Philippi, Colosse, and Thessalonica. These were not independent, isolated, fragmentary assemblies, but parts of the one body, so that a member of the Church in one place was a member of the Church everywhere. Doubtless, each assembly as guided by the one Spirit, and under the one Lord, acted in all local matters, such as receiving to communion, or putting away any wicked person from their midst, meeting the wants of the poor, and such like; but we may be quite assured that the act of the assembly at Corinth would be recognized by all other assemblies, so that if anyone was separated from communion there, he would, if known, be refused in all other places; otherwise it would be a plain denial of the unity of the body.
We have no reason to suppose that the assembly at Corinth communicated or conferred with any other assembly previous to the putting away of “the wicked person” in chapter 5; but we are bound to believe that that act would be duly recognized and sanctioned by every assembly under the sun, and that any assembly knowingly receiving the excommunicated man would have cast a slur upon the assembly at Corinth, and practically denied the unity of the body.
This we believe to be the plain teaching of the New Testament scriptures—this the doctrine which any simple, truehearted student of these scriptures would gather up. That the Church has failed to carry out this precious truth is, alas! alas! painfully true; and that we are all participators in this failure is equally true. The thought of this should humble us deeply before God. Not one can throw a stone at another, for we are all verily guilty in this matter. Let not the reader suppose for a single moment that our object in these pages is to set up anything like high ecclesiastical pretensions, or to afford countenance to hollow assumption, in the face of manifest sin and failure. God forbid! we say with our very heart of hearts. We believe that there is a most urgent call upon all God’s people to humble themselves in the very dust on account of our sad departure from the truth so plainly laid down in the Word of God.
Thus it was with the pious and devoted King Josiah, whose life and times have suggested this entire line of thought. He found the book of the law, and discovered in its sacred pages an order of things wholly different from what he saw around him. How did he act? Did he content himself by saying, “The case is hopeless; the nation is too far gone; ruin has set in, and it is utterly vain to think of aiming at the divine standard; we must only let things stand, and do the best we can? No, reader, such was not Josiah’s language or mode of action; but he humbled himself before God, and called upon others to do the same. And not only so, but he sought to carry out the truth of God. He aimed at the very loftiest standard, and the consequence was that, “There was no passover like to that kept in Israel from the days of Samuel the prophet; neither did all the kings of Israel keep such a passover.”
Such was the result of faithful reference and adherence to the Word of God, and thus it will ever be, for “He [God] is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him” (Heb. 11:6). Look at the actings of the remnant that returned from Babylon in the days of Ezra and Nehemiah. What did they do? They set up the altar of God, they built the temple, and repaired the walls of Jerusalem. In other words, they occupied themselves with the true worship of the God of Israel, and with the grand center or gathering point of His people. This was right. It is what faith always does, regardless of circumstances. If the remnant had looked at circumstances, they could not have acted. They were a poor contemptible handful of people, under the dominion of the uncircumcised Gentiles. They were surrounded by active enemies on all sides, who, instigated by the enemy of God, of His city, of His people, left nothing undone to hinder them in their blessed work. These enemies ridiculed them, and said, “What do these feeble Jews? will they fortify themselves? will they sacrifice? will they make an end in a day? will they revive the stones out of the heaps of the rubbish which are burned?
Nor was this all; not only had they to contend with powerful foes without, there was also internal weakness; for “Judah said, The strength of the bearers of burdens is decayed, and there is much rubbish; so that we are not able to build the wall” (Neh. 4). All this was very depressing. It was very different from the brilliant and palmy days of Solomon. His burden bearers were many and strong, and there was no rubbish covering the great stones and costly with which he built the house of God, nor any contemptuous foe to sneer at his work. And yet, for all that, there were features attaching to the work of Ezra and Nehemiah which are not to be found in the days of Solomon. Their very feebleness; the piles of rubbish which lay before them; the proud and insulting enemies who surrounded them—all these things conspired to add a peculiar halo of glory to their work. They built and prospered, and God was glorified; and He declared in their ears these cheering words, “The glory of this latter house shall be greater than of the former, saith the LORD of hosts: and in this place will I give peace, saith the LORD of hosts” (Hag. 2:9).
It is of importance in connection with the subject that has been engaging our attention, that the reader should carefully study the books of Ezra and Nehemiah, Haggai and Zechariah. They are full of most blessed instruction, comfort, and encouragement in a day like the present. Many, nowadays, it may be, are disposed to smile at the bare mention of such a subject as the unity of the body. But let them ask themselves, Is it the smile of calm confidence, or the sneer of unbelief? One thing is certain, the devil as cordially hates the doctrine of the unity of the body as he hates any other doctrine of divine revelation; and he will as assuredly seek to hinder any attempt to carry it out, as he sought to hinder the rebuilding of Jerusalem in the days of Nehemiah.
But let us not be discouraged. It is enough for us that we find in God’s Word the precious truth of the one body. Let us bring the light of this to bear upon the present condition of the professing church, and see what it will reveal to our eyes. It will, most assuredly, put us on our faces in the dust before our God because of our ways; but, at the same time, it will lift our hearts up to the contemplation of the divine standard. It will so enlighten and elevate our souls as to render us thoroughly dissatisfied with everything that does not present some expression, however feeble, of the unity of the body of Christ. It is wholly impossible that anyone can drink into his soul the truth of the one body, and rest satisfied with anything short of the practical recognition thereof. True, he must make up his mind to bear the brunt of the enemy’s opposition. He will meet a Sanballat here, and a Rehum there; but faith can say- “Is God for me? I fear not, though all against me rise; When I call on Christ my Savior, the host of evil flies.”
There is ample encouragement for our souls in the Word of God. If we look at Josiah just before the captivity, what do we see? A man simply taking the Word as his guide-judging himself and all around by its light-rejecting all that was contrary to it, and seeking with earnest purpose of heart to carry out what he found written there. And what was the result? The most blessed passover that had been celebrated since the days of Samuel.
Again, if we look at Daniel during the captivity, what do we see? A man acting simply on the truth of God and praying toward Jerusalem, though death stared him in the face as the consequence of his act. What was the result? A glorious testimony to the God of Israel, and the destruction of Daniel’s enemies.
Finally, if we look at the remnant after the captivity, what do we see? Men in the face of appalling difficulties rebuilding the city which was, and shall be, God’s earthly center. And what was the result? The joyous celebration of the feast of tabernacles, which had not been known since the days of Joshua the son of Nun.
Now, if we take any one of the above interesting cases, and inquire as to the effect of their looking at surrounding circumstances, what answer shall we get? Take Daniel, for instance. Why did he open his window toward Jerusalem? Why look toward a city in ruins? Why call attention to a spot which only bore testimony to Israel’s sin and shame? Would it not be better to let the name of Jerusalem sink into oblivion? Ah! we can guess at Daniel’s reply to all such inquiries. Men might smile at him, too, and deem him a visionary enthusiast. But he knew what he was doing. His heart was occupied with God’s center, the city of David, the grand gathering point for Israel’s twelve tribes. Was he to give up God’s truth because of outward circumstances? Surely not. He could not consent to lower the standard even the breadth of a hair. He would weep, and pray, and fast, and chasten his soul before God, but never lower the standard. Was he going to give up God’s thoughts about Zion because Israel had proved unfaithful? Not he. Daniel knew better than this. His eye was fixed on God’s eternal truth, and hence, though he was in the dust because of his own sins and his people’s, yet the divine banner floated above his head in its unfading glory.
Just so now, dear Christian reader, we are called to fix the gaze of faith upon the imperishable truth of the one body, and not only to gaze upon it, but to seek to carry it out in our feeble measure. This should be our one definite and constant aim. We should ever and only seek the expression of the unity of the body. We are not to ask, How can this be? Faith never asks, How? in the presence of divine revelation. It believes and acts. We are not to surrender the truth of God on the plea that we cannot carry it out. The truth is revealed, and we are called to bow to it. We are not called to form the unity of the body. Very many seem to think that this unity is a something which they themselves are to set up or form in some way or another. This is a mistake. The unity exists. It is the result of the presence of the Holy Ghost in the body, and we have to recognize it and walk in the light of it. This will give great definiteness to our course.
It is always immensely important to have a distinct object before the heart, and to work with direct reference thereto. Look at Paul, that most devoted of workmen. What was his aim? For what did he work? Hear the answer in his own words: “I Paul... now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for His body’s sake, which is the church: whereof I am made a minister, according to the dispensation of God which is given to me for you, to fulfill the word of God; even the mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to His saints: to whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory: whom we preach, warning every man, and teaching every man in all wisdom; that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus: whereunto I also labor, striving according to His working, which worketh in me mightily” (Col. 1:24-29).
Now, this was a great deal more than the mere conversion of souls, precious as that is most surely. Paul preached the gospel with a direct view to the body of Christ, and this is the pattern for all evangelists. We should not rest in the mere fact that souls are quickened; we should keep before our minds their incorporation, by the one Spirit, into the one body. This would effectually preserve us from sect-making-from preaching to swell the ranks of a party-from seeking to get persons to join this, that, or the other denomination. We should know nothing whatever but the one body, because we find nothing else in the New Testament. If this be lost sight of, the evangelist will not know what to do with souls when they are converted. A man may be used in the conversion of hundreds-a most precious work indeed-precious beyond all expression-and if he does not see the unity of the body, he must be at sea as to their further course. This is very serious, both as to himself and them, and also as to the testimony for Christ.
May God’s Spirit lead all Christians to see this great truth in all its bearings. We have but glanced at it, in connection with our theme; but it demands much serious attention at the present moment. It may be that some of our readers are disposed to find fault with what they may deem a long digression from the subject of “Life and Times of Josiah.” But, in truth, it should not be looked on as a digression, but as a line of truth flowing naturally out of that subject-a line, too, which cannot possibly be overestimated.
Life and Times of Josiah: Part 7
2 Chronicles 34 and 35—By C.H.M.
In closing our remarks on the “Life and Times of Josiah,” we shall in few words advert, first to the fact of his celebration of the passover, and second to the solemn close of his history. Our sketch of this truly interesting period would, unquestionably, be incomplete were these things omitted.
And first then as to the fact-so full of interest and encouragement—that, at the very close of Israel’s history, there should be one of the brightest moments that Israel had ever known. What does this teach us? It very manifestly teaches us that in darkest times it is the privilege of the faithful soul to act on divine principles, and to enjoy divine privileges. We look upon this as a most weighty fact for all ages, but specially weighty at the present moment. If we did nothing more, by writing our papers on Josiah, than to impress this great fact on the mind of the Christian reader, we should consider that we had not written in vain. If Josiah had been influenced by the spirit and principle which, alas! seem to actuate so many in this our day, he never would have attempted to celebrate the passover at all. He would have folded his arms and said, “It is useless to think of maintaining any longer our great national institutions. It can only be regarded as a piece of presumption to attempt the celebration of that ordinance which was designed to set forth Israel’s deliverance from judgment by the blood of the lamb, when Israel’s unity is broken, and its national glory faded and gone.”
But Josiah did not reason like this. He simply acted upon the truth of God. He studied the Scriptures, and rejected what was wrong, and did what was right. “Moreover, Josiah kept a passover unto the LORD in Jerusalem: and they killed the passover on the fourteenth day of the first month” (2 Chron. 35:1). This was taking higher ground than Hezekiah had taken, inasmuch as he kept his passover “on the fourteenth day of the second month” (chap. 30:15). In so doing, Hezekiah was, as we know, availing himself of the provision which grace had made for cases of defilement (see Numb. 9:9-11). The divine order, however, had fixed “the first month” as the proper period; and to this order Josiah was enabled to conform. In short, he took the very highest ground, according to the truth of God, while lying low under the deep sense of personal and national failure. This is ever the way of faith.
“And he set the priests in their charges, and encouraged them to the service of the house of the LORD, and said unto the Levites that taught all Israel, which were holy unto the LORD, Put the holy ark in the house which Solomon the son of David king of Israel did build; it shall not be a burden upon your shoulders: serve now the LORD your God, and His people Israel. And prepare yourselves by the houses of your fathers, after your courses, according to the writing of David king of Israel, and according to the writing of Solomon his son: and stand in the holy place according to the divisions of the families of the fathers of your brethren the people, and after the divisions of the families of the Levites. So kill the Passover, and sanctify yourselves, and prepare your brethren, that they may do according to the word of the LORD by the hand of Moses.”
Here we have Josiah taking the loftiest ground, and acting on the highest authority. The most cursory reader cannot fail to be arrested as he scans the lines just quoted from the inspired record, by the names of “Solomon”—“David”—“Moses”—“all Israel”—and, above all, by the expression- so full of dignity, weight, and power—“that they may do according to the word of the LORD.” Most memorable words! May they sink down into our ears, and into our hearts! Josiah felt it to be his high and holy privilege to conform to the divine standard, notwithstanding all the errors and evils which had crept in, from age to age. God’s truth must stand forever. Faith owns and acts on this precious fact, and reaps accordingly. Nothing can be more lovely than the scene enacted on the occasion to which we are now referring. Josiah’s strict adherence to the word of the Lord is not more to be admired than his large-hearted devotedness and liberality.
“And Josiah gave to the people, of the flock, lambs and kids, all for the passover offerings, for all that were present, to the number of thirty thousand, and three thousand bullocks: these were of the king’s substance. And his princes gave willingly unto the people, to the priests, and to the Levites:... So the service was prepared, and the priests stood in their place, and the Levites in their courses, according to the king’s commandment.... And the singers the sons of Asaph were in their place, according to the commandment of David, and Asaph, and Heman, and Jeduthun the king’s seer; and the porters waited at every gate; they might not depart from their service; for their brethren the Levites prepared for them. So all the service of the LORD was prepared the same day, to keep the passover, and to offer burnt offerings upon the altar of the LORD. according to the commandment of king Josiah. And the children of Israel that were present kept the passover at that time, and the feast of unleavened bread seven days. And there was no passover like to that kept in Israel from the days of Samuel the prophet; neither did all the kings of Israel keep such a passover as Josiah kept, and the priests, and the Levites, and all Judah and Israel that were present, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem. In the eighteenth year of the reign of Josiah was this passover kept.”
What a picture! King, princes, priests, Levites, singers, porters, all Israel, Judah, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem- all gathered together—all in their true place and at their appointed work, according to the word of the Lord-and all this, “in the eighteenth year of the reign of Josiah,” when the entire Jewish polity was on the very eve of dissolution. Surely this must speak to the heart of the thoughtful reader. It tells its own impressive tale, and teaches its own peculiar lesson. It tells us that no age, no circumstances, no influences, can ever change the truth of God, or dim the vision of faith. “The word of the Lord endureth forever,” and faith grasps that word, and holds it fast in the face of everything.
It is the privilege of the believing soul to have to do with God and His eternal truth; and, moreover, it is the duty of such a one to aim at the very loftiest standard of action, and to be satisfied with nothing lower. Unbelief will draw a plea from The condition of things around to lower the standard, to relax the grasp, to slacken the pace, to lower the tone. Faith says, No! Let us bow our heads in shame and sorrow on account of our sin and failure, but keep the standard up. The failure is ours; the standard is God’s. Josiah wept and rent his clothes, but he did not surrender the truth of God. He felt and owned that he and his brethren and his fathers had sinned, but that was no reason why he should not celebrate the Passover according to the divine order. It was as imperative upon him to do right as it was upon Solomon, David, or Moses. It is our business to obey the word of the Lord, and we shall assuredly be blessed in our deed. This is one grand lesson to be drawn from the life and times of Josiah; and it is, undoubtedly, a seasonable lesson for our own times. May we learn it thoroughly! May we learn to adhere with holy decision to the ground on which the truth of God has set us, and to occupy that ground with a larger measure of true devotedness to Christ and His cause!
Most gladly would we linger over the brilliant and soul stirring scene presented in the opening verses of 2 Chronicles 35, but we must bring this paper to an end; and we shall merely glance very rapidly at the solemn and admonitory close of Josiah’s history. It stands in sad and painful contrast with all the rest of his most interesting career, and sounds in our ears a note of warning to which we are bound to give our most serious attention. We shall do little more than quote the passage, and then leave the reader to reflect upon it, prayerfully and humbly, in the presence of God.
“After all this, when Josiah had prepared the temple. Necho king of Egypt came up to fight against Carchemish by Euphrates: and Josiah went out against him. But he sent ambassadors to him, saying. What have I to do with thee, thou king of Judah? I come not against thee this day, but against the house wherewith I have war: for God commanded me to make haste: forbear thee from meddling with God, who is with me. that He destroy thee not. Nevertheless Josiah would not turn his face from him, but disguised himself, that he might fight with him, and hearkened not unto the words of Necho from the mouth of God, and came to fight in the valley of Megiddo. And the archers shot at king Josiah; and the king said to his servants, Have me away; for I am sore wounded. His servants therefore took him out of that chariot, and put him in the second chariot that he had; and they brought him to Jerusalem, and he died, and was buried in one of the sepulchers of his fathers. And all Judah and Jerusalem mourned for Josiah.
“And Jeremiah lamented for Josiah: and all the singing men and the singing women spake of Josiah in their lamentations to this day, and made them an ordinance in Israel; and, behold, they are written in the lamentations” (2 Chron. 35:20-25).
All this is very sad and humbling. We do not wish to dwell upon it further than is absolutely needful for the purpose of instruction and admonition. The Holy Spirit does not expatiate, but He has recorded it for our learning. It is ever His way to give us men as they were-to write the history of their “deeds, first and last”-good and bad-one as well as another. He tells us of Josiah’s piety, at the “first”; and of his willfulness, at the “last.” He shows us that so long as Josiah walked in the light of divine revelation, his path was illuminated by the bright beams of the divine countenance; but the moment he attempted to act for himself—to walk by the light of his own eyes—to travel off the straight and narrow way of simple obedience- that moment dark and heavy clouds gathered around him, and the course that had opened in sunshine, ended in gloom. Josiah went against Necho without any command from God; yea, he went in direct opposition to words spoken “from the mouth of God.” He meddled with strife that belonged not to him, and he reaped the consequences.
He “disguised himself.” Why do this, if he was conscious of acting for God? Why wear a mask, if treading the divinely appointed pathway? Alas! alas! Josiah failed in this, and in his failure he teaches us a salutary lesson. May we profit by it! May we learn, more than ever, to seek a divine warrant for all we do, and to do nothing without it. We can count on God to the fullest extent if we are walking in His way; but we have no security whatever if we attempt to travel off the divinely appointed line. Josiah had no command to fight at Megiddo, and hence he could not count on divine protection. He “disguised himself,” but that did not shield him from the enemy’s arrow. “The archers shot at king Josiah”-they gave him his death wound, and he fell, amid the tears and lamentations of a people to whom he had endeared himself by a life of genuine piety and earnest devotedness.
May we have grace to imitate him in his piety and devotedness, and to guard against his willfulness. It is a serious thing for a child of God to persist in doing his own will. Josiah went to Megiddo when he ought to have tarried at Jerusalem, and the archers shot him, and he died. Jonah went to Tarshish, when he ought to have gone to Nineveh, and he was flung into the deep. Paul persisted in going to Jerusalem, though the Spirit told him not to, and he fell into the hands of the Romans. Now, all these were true, earnest, devoted servants of God; but they failed in these things; and though God overruled their failure for blessing, yet they had to reap the fruit of their failure, for “our God is a consuming fire” (Heb. 12:29).
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