We may remember our condition as sinners, but we are to enjoy our condition as saved (Ephesians 2).
We may remember condemnation now, as in glory we shall remember the toil and contradictions of the pilgrimage. But salvation is to be our subject now, as glory will be then.
Booths were made in the feast of Tabernacles—but they were only remembrances in order to enhance present joy in the fruitful land, and in their cities and villages. So that their father had been a Syrian, ready to perish, is to be remembered by the Israelite worshipping in the midst of his inheritance—but his basket of first-fruits is to be his object (Deuteronomy 26).
And so here—the law rightly caused the people to mourn, but the day was the first-day of the seventh-month, a day of blowing of trumpets, and mourning under the law must give place to joy in the Lord, and form the character of the people.
What formed Adam’s character, as we see him and his company in Genesis 4 l It was the redemption he had learned. He is happy in God there, and a stranger on the earth.
What formed Noah’s character in the ark? The redemption he was then proving. No mere handling of the gopher-boards of his house, to see whether they were doing their duty by keeping him safe, but an opening of the window, in expectation of the new world.
What formed Israel’s character in that paschal night in Egypt? They were feeding on the Lamb, whose blood at the moment was sheltering them, but not anxiously inspecting the scene of judgment outside, whether indeed the angel had passed by.
What gave Moses a character when he was in the Mount with God’? He had quaked and feared at the foot of the hill; but all that is laid aside and left behind, and with unveiled face he is in the presence of God, having been introduced to Christ in the shadows of good things to come.
And what is to give the believer his experience, and to form his character 4 Salvation, the consciousness and certainty of being pardoned and accepted. The joy of the Lord is to be his strength, and he is to know himself as brought nigh by the blood of Christ, though remembering that he was a Gentile, a sinner uncircumcised, far off, without God and without hope, a child of wrath even as others.
This is beautifully illustrated in Neh. 8.
Nehemiah teaches the congregation of Israel there, that the joy of the Lord is to be their strength. The law had caused them to mourn, but the day in which they were then met was the Feast of Trumpets, and their experience and their character were now to be formed by that day, and not by the law. They were to rejoice themselves, and with largeness of heart, seek to make others as happy as themselves.
Very full of blessing this is.
God is now to be apprehended by us in grace; we are to know Him as love, and find our dwelling-place in Him. The law may have taught us to deal with Him as righteous, and think of Him as a judge. The gospel teaches us to know Him in grace, and gives us communion with Him as a Saviour.
And, as the gospel prevails over the law in this dispensation, so is it to prevail in our experiences. Many of us are feeble, hindered by nature, and by Satan; and the Lord will surely comfort the feeble-minded, and support the weak. But we must recognize this as His way, and recognize it as what ought to be our way.
The Cross is a deeper thing than the Glory; it is God’s moral nature glorified in the place of sin.