The analogy between the end of the last dispensation, and that which is prophetically declared to be the end of this, is so fully marked in the scriptures, that every feature of Israel’s condition, just previous to God’s judgments, becomes full of instruction and warning to us. Israel’s standing was that of “the servant” in God’s house. They were directed and instructed of God in this capacity; and their conduct with reference to God’s revelation of Himself to them in this character, is illustrative of man’s wickedness, while avowedly under the favor of God; and though only a partial illustration, because the revelation was partial, yet perfect as far as it could go. They were men under conditions of favor, and their history is not simply an expression of the evil of man’s heart in its savage and untutored ignorance, but of the rebellion and waywardness, self-deceit and hypocrisy of man brought out by the light of God’s countenance. So also is it with Christendom, with this fearful difference—that it stands under the responsibility of an enlarged revelation from God. Jehovah is not now revealed partially by Moses as a servant, (though a faithful one) but by the Lord Jesus, as the Son; and every one that assumes the name of that Son, assumes both the privilege and responsibility of a son or daughter of the Lord God Almighty. (2 Cor. 6) It is true, “all were not Israel that were of Israel;” but there was a remnant; so now, though the mass of professed Christians profess subjection to the testimony given by the Son, and say therefore, that they are children; yet is there but a remnant, and the rest become as Sodom and Gomorrah, and just according to the light revealed and acknowledged, so will be the darkness and wickedness. The remnant is the witness of the special grace and mercy of God—the apostasy, the witness of man’s wickedness under every form of trial; and both alike serving to produce the one great result, “glory to God,”—“that no man should glory in His presence,” but “that the Lord alone should be exalted, and man ceased from altogether, for his breath is in his nostrils, and wherein is he to be accounted of?”
The testimony of the Son is no more of necessity in power, than any other that has gone before it. I speak of the testimony itself—the presence of the life-giving Spirit is needed to give it power; and therefore it is “dispensatory,” and produces like every revelation, an external acquiescence, exhibiting in fuller outrage, because the responsibilities are so enlarged, all man’s wickedness.
Israel’s blessings are patterns of those declared to us, but they were but patterns; ours are greater, for they are heavenly. Israel’s sin is but the pattern of ours; but ours is greater, inasmuch as the favor and blessing are greater; and above all in its last form and character of evil, which is, in every feature, paralleled by the word of the Apostle in 2 Tim. 3. The analogy is only incomplete in one thing, and that is, the imperfectness of evil in the former as compared with the latter. The one attained, indeed, the corn in the ear, and that was gathered into the garner of sorrow; but the other grows in the full culture of unrestrained perverseness (unrestrained, because of God’s mercy; for it is the dispensation of the Son—of the cross—and of love,) till it attains to the full corn, bowed down with its weight, and is gathered even earlier than Satan himself, into the garner of everlasting wretchedness. (Rev. 19) The former was rebellion against a gracious master, who in righteousness, dismissed from his presence the unworthy servant: the other, the dishonor of the Father and the Son, the pollution of the very sanctuary itself. To the one, there is temporary absence from God’s house, and restoration; to the other, everlasting absence. “For the earth which drinketh in the rain that cometh oft upon it, and bringeth forth herbs meet for them by whom it is dressed, receiveth blessing from God; but that which beareth thorns and briars is rejected, and is nigh unto cursing, whose end is to burned.” (Heb. 6:7,8.) “Of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing, and hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace. For we know Him that saith, vengeance belongeth unto me, I will recompense saith the Lord;” and again—the Lord shall judge His people. “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God,” (Heb. 10:29-31.)
It is with the solemn conviction of the practical power of this truth at such a time as this, that I would seek God’s blessing on what I believe to be the development of it, in Acts 7 where the powerful argument of Stephen is summed up by that which is the key to its whole meaning, “Ye stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost; as your fathers did, so do ye; which of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted? and they have slain them which showed before of the coming of the Just One, of whom ye have been now the betrayers and murderers.” The word of the Lord Jesus Himself was the same, “Wherefore ye be witnesses unto yourselves that ye are not the children of them which killed the prophets; fill ye up the measure of your fathers, truly ye bear witness that ye allow the deeds of your fathers; therefore behold I send unto you prophets, and wise men, and scribes, and some of them ye shall kill, and crucify, and some of them ye shall scourge in your synagogues, and persecute from city to city, that upon you may come all the righteous bloodshed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel, unto the blood of Zacharias, the son of Barachias, whom ye slew between the porch and the altar.” And the yet more awful declaration regarding Babylon, in the day of her overthrow, applies the same, yet fuller, charge to the Apostasy of Christendom. “And in her was found the blood of prophets, and of saints, and of all that were slain upon the earth.”
When the Lord was on the earth, there was every outward evidence of the knowledge of God. Moses and the prophets were continually and carefully read “every sabbath day” especially—they were also critically read, for there were many very learned comments. “They paid tithe of mint and cummin—they made clean the outside of the platter—they built the tombs of the prophets—they garnished the sepulchers of the righteous,”—they were also most zealous in the extension of their knowledge, “they compassed sea and land to make one, though it were but one, proselyte.” They were divided into different parties too—Pharisees, Sadducees, Herodians, &c. which was a proof that they were not externally asleep, but very busy in the consideration of religious matters. They separated too, with the most cautious judgment, between the altar and the gift—the temple and Him that dwelt in it, though they gave the value to what was theirs in both instances. There was so complete a semblance of what was good, that some deeper apprehension was needed than men’s natural judgment to discern that all this was wrong, nay, worse than wrong, that it was the only thing which could bring wrath out of the tender heart of Jesus, but which did bring it out in those awful words— “Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?”— “Ye say, and do not.” All their works they did to be seen of men, and what is of so much consequence to us, caused Him to mark the features of evil for our instruction and warning. And this is what I believe to have been done also by Stephen in full detail; the word of the Lord being the groundwork of Stephen’s exposition of their fathers’ wickedness as charged upon them; and the Spirit in Rev. 18 applying both to Christendom, in yet more aggravated responsibility and rebellion.
The word of both, though Stephen’s is in detail, is the history of the fate of righteousness on the earth. Marking the development of this unchanging principle of truth in all God’s witnesses, “the righteous Lord loveth righteousness,” and that wherever the Spirit of God was, whether in Abel, before any recorded word from God was given, or subsequently in the midst of an outward avowal of allegiance to the word given, it wrought the same results in a life of practical righteousness, which was separation from evil, even though it were under the mask of godliness as well as testimony against it in others, and resistance of it unto blood. The word of Jesus (Matt. 23:34,35.) begins with Abel, in whom the Spirit of God dwelt, as the first witness of righteousness, and its fate on earth; “From the blood of righteous Abel,” and “he obtained witness that he was righteous;” and his history is the type of all that had followed him in the same path, prophets—wise men—and scribes, are then spoken of, and at last, Zacharias: and the blood of all, marked “as righteous blood.” Their conduct might have been different, according to the character of evil —to be resisted; but all died “striving against sin.” It was the conflict of the Spirit of righteousness with overwhelming evil, not in righteous power, as shedding the blood of the guilty but the same righteousness in weakness, suffering and looking forward to exaltation “in the land of the upright;” and all this precious blood is charged upon them, not as having actually shed it, but because they exhibited the same evil in the rejection of righteousness which had ended in that guilt in others, and would in them. They were proving that they were begotten of the evil one—not of the righteous one; though not then killing, yet they allowed the deeds of their fathers; they were children of them that killed the prophets, and filling up the measure of their fathers; and so the blood of all—the witness of all—flowed into Jerusalem: and as the measure of the righteous testimony of the fathers was filled up in them. Both had run on in parallel testimony from Abel the righteous, to Jesus the Just One; —from Cain who was of the wicked one, and slew his brother; and why slew he him? because his own works were evil and his brother’s righteous; unto those who said “we be not born of fornication, we have one Father, even God;” but who sought to kill him who told them the truth which he had heard of God, and to whom therefore, Jesus said, “Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your fathers ye will do, which of you convinceth me of sin?” (John 8:33 to the end.)
The word of Stephen begins with Abraham, as the father of righteousness, and traces out very distinctly, the results of the profession of the true knowledge of God in this world, as well as the conduct of those, who though descendants of Abraham, (and therefore with the privileges and responsibilities of His people) did invariably reject and ill treat those who walked in righteousness. And there is, also, to be distinctly traced in it, the repeated acting out of those principles of truth, which in dispensation are developed on a larger scale; that is, their commencement in great blessing, and gradual decline into apostasy; and yet the continuance of a remnant throughout, walking in righteousness; the suffering of this remnant for righteousness sake, from those who bearing the same name, have not the same character; and then the cutting off of the apostasy and the exaltation of the sufferers, together with the special favor of God towards them in the revelation of Himself daring their rejection and suffering, The first expression of the divine life of righteousness in power, is in election, that is, the power of the voice that calls, imparting a principle which separates from that which is evil around, or election to God out of that which is contrary to Him. Thus “the God of glory appeared to Abraham.” The shining of that glory around him showed the wickedness of the idolatry of Mesopotamia, and separated him out of it. The light of God’s presence given to him delivered him from the darkness into the light; the knowledge of righteousness and the possession of it, delivered from unrighteousness into constant endurance for righteousness sake; not to persecution at once, but unto separation from that which was natural to him, breaking loose every earthly tie, and making him a child of hope, as looking to “the land of uprightness” as the only place where he could have rest or dwelling; however indistinctly the promise itself was before him, still his righteous soul could have no place here, and he, as we do, looked for “new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.” Israel, as a people, were elected in the same way, out of Egypt, and its darkness and wickedness. Their Exodus, when they were just espoused to God as a people, was a fuller representation of election. They came out to God and to the wilderness, that is, to snaring, and to be the children of hope in the promised land of righteousness and peace. The children of God are elected by a yet greater power of the same voice of righteousness, and quickened from their death of trespasses and sins, from the course of this world, from the bondage of sin, from the love of sin, to a present fellowship with God in their wilderness of separation; as dissociated from everything contrary to God, by the power of that Spirit of holiness by which Jesus was raised from the dead, and into “lively hope of an inheritance incorruptible, undefiled, and that fadeth not away.” In each case it is the revelation of “the God of glory;” and by the knowledge of His holiness and fellowship with Him in the glory revealed, the principles and life of separation from all that is contrary to God are given in power, and by that power is election established. I cannot follow this further here, but only repeat, that the principle of righteousness, in the true knowledge of God, is based here. Abraham as the pattern of election, is the groundwork of all future argument. The power of righteousness is put forth in him, and he is “called out” from the world to God, and to future glory. (see Heb. 11) It is after obedience to this separating word “Get thee out of thy country and from thy kindred,” that he receives further revelations from “the God of glory,” according to that unfailing, word “he that hath, shall have more abundantly;” and these fuller evidences of God’s love were suited to the condition which obedience had brought him into; he could not have had them in Mesopotamia, they would have no meaning to any but an outcast for righteousness sake; they were the sustaining and repeated promises of future glory, and each revelation more large and more full, is the recompense of the trial of faith that he had been subjected to. There were seven periods of trials, and each brought the presence of the “God of glory” with the word of enlarged promise; and this is seen to be as invariable a proof of God’s watchful love, as that trial and suffering here, is the only path of the Spirit of righteousness.
The revelations of God to Abraham are merely mentioned by Stephen in the 6 and 7th verses, as taken from Genesis 15 and which is quoted in Rom. 4 as being the period specially marked when God owned his faith and counted it to him for righteousness; and a reference made to the covenant of circumcision from Gen. 22 and then a great and rapid stride is made to what I may fairly, I think, call apostasy, or at least the character of that which Stephen by the Spirit, seeks to exhibit. Men standing in the name and privileges of the righteous man whom God called from the east, (Isa. 49) but without His Spirit, and therefore persecutors. Abraham was the head of this brief dispensation: Isaac had followed him, dwelling in tents with him, as co-heir with him of the same reward of righteous separation. Apostasy soon however, appears in Esau, who is the great type of it, and Jacob becomes the righteous sufferer, an outcast for his faith and hope; but it is not fully seen, until the twelve patriarchs, among whom Joseph stands as the righteous remnant, sustained among false brethren, by the same Spirit that severed Abraham from Mesopotamia. The two points already stated in Abraham’s history, are here marked in one verse, “And the patriarchs moved with envy, sold Joseph into Egypt, but God was with him,” that is separation, and then God’s presence with the sufferer, but with this difference, the separation was not the calling out of a natural state, but casting off and rejection by those who had apostatized; yet it was the previous witness of personal separation from them that was the cause of the hatred and rejection; and this is very simply told in Joseph’s history in Gen. 37 the third verse of which, I think, probably marks deep declension in Jacob himself too, that he was seeking rest in the land, in which the spirit of his father had been a stranger. But, at all events, the eleven patriarchs were living in ungodliness, and this the righteous spirit of Joseph could not brook; so that he separates from them, and leaves his occupation, which is “feeding the flocks with his brethren, and brings unto his father their evil report;” that is, he testifies against their wickedness, and that not only in word but in act, by leaving them. He is owned by Jacob and loved; and this increases their hatred, but above all, he is owned and blessed of God—the special object of the care of the Holy One, who reveals to him his future glory; thus treading in the same steps of his father Abraham, he obtains the same blessing; he left sin and so drew near to God, who gladdened him not by present deliverance, but promise of future glory. This favor of God increased the enmity of the patriarchs “and they hated him yet the more for his dreams and for his words.” It was love, however, which gave the opportunity for his suffering and glory, though he had left his brethren and world have no fellowship with them because of their wickedness; he returned to them in love, not to renew his fellowship, but to carry the proof of his father’s care for them; and it was on this errand of love, saying, “I seek my brethren, tell me, I pray thee, where they feed their flocks,” that he gave opportunity to those who sought “his righteous blood,” and who mocked the sure witness of God in promise to his righteous soul, “behold this dreamer cometh,” they, with stiff necks and uncircumcised ears and hearts, resisted the Holy Ghost in the feeble, though faithful witness of righteousness “but God was with him.” And in this the eleven patriarchs, “the fathers,” who stood in all the outward privileges of the election, failed in its spirit, which was righteousness, and used their privileges to strengthen their own wickedness and pride. It would not be well here, to follow out the typical character of Joseph’s glory in Egypt; I would only remark, that “God’s being with him,” secured to him wisdom and power in knowledge over future things, and the more he was persecuted for righteousness sake, the more blessed was he by God’s favor; though it is well to observe, that like Abraham, as an outcast, he was tried and tempted to turn from patient endurance in holiness, and having conquered, though again a sufferer from evil, the darkness of his dungeon was brightened by yet fuller enjoyment of the presence of “the God of glory.” The last and most striking principle of God’s government is then mentioned, his exaltation into the preeminence declared to him in suffering, and his becoming the channel of favor and blessing to his persecutors, who after his rejection, suffer God judgments as stated in ver. 11, “Now there came a dearth over all the land of Egypt and Canaan, and great affliction, and our fathers found no sustenance.” The exaltation and eminence, though the gifts of God’s grace, are thus marked to be the reward of faithful and patient endurance in righteousness, the recompense of the just. The principle of righteous judgment is also strongly marked in Israel’s captivity in Egypt, for though they did not go down there as captives, yet were they brought into bondage, and entreated evil four hundred years. They sold Joseph into Egypt, and their necessities sold them into it— “they digged a pit for Joseph, and fell into it themselves.”
The next witness Stephen brings forward is Moses, and his history is yet the more fully illustrative of the same thing. The first part of it marks, as far as I need regard it here, the very especial claim he had upon Israel’s notice as “a child exceeding fair,” and miraculously preserved; the next, the very complete association he had with Egypt, how deep a root he had struck into it, as taught in its wisdom, and “mighty in its words and deeds.” But “the God of glory” appeared to him in the midst of all the brilliancy of Egypt’s court, with one foot on the step of its throne, and all the power of present glory in his grasp; and “he refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season.” Here there is the same thing taught as in the call of Abraham. Righteousness and its reward were revealed unto him, and this called him out of Pharaoh’s court, where the pleasures of sin were. If it had not been contrary to God, he might well have stayed there, and sought freedom for his people by its power, but the spirit of righteousness cannot “do evil that good may come;” it will separate from the tail, though at all present loss, because it is the revelation of Him who is eternally the recompense of that which he loses. Moses then, in the spirit of righteousness, turned away from the revelry, and wisdom, and power of the world’s splendor, for it was of the world, and sin was in it all, to the present portion of God’s favored ones, affliction, and endurance in hope; and so far he followed Abraham, and stood in the character and grace of God’s elect. Then in love he went to his brethren “it came into his heart to visit his brethren, the children of Israel,” “he went out to his brethren and look upon their burdens,” and his first act among them was the proof of his love for them. “He spied an Egyptian smiting an Hebrew, one of his brethren, and he slew the Egyptian, and hid him in the sand.” As the iniquity of those who reject God and His Spirit in his children, is shown in the value or that which they reject, so is the history of Moses, thus far, nothing but evidence of claim upon their affections. He had left earthly honors for their sakes, (as far as they were able to detect his reasons) to be their companion in affliction, and to seek their rescue; he had proved his love by his acts; and so far, therefore, they had no plea for rejection, though unable rightly to estimate his principles, reasoning doubtless on the usual grounds taken by unbelief, that if he had used the power of Pharaoh’s scepter, it would have been wiser love; and though not rejecting him then, yet showing that if he had come in the splendor he had left, he would have been a more welcome visitor; and not prizing the spirit that would have valued the condition of God’s children, because God was with them in it, above all that was of the world where God was not. It is now my object to follow out in the history of Jesus, the exhibition of the same principles of good and evil, but just to say how true it was of Him, that as far as he acted with His people in the days of His flesh, he was not rejected, though the love of His humiliation was neither known or valued. They, as well as their forefathers, thought it would have been truer love to have used power for their deliverance, though it would have only kept them in a condition of evil; but in this they were blinded. In this last act of Moses, however, the Spirit of God records the working of the same principle which brought his rejection; and although, as far as the Israelites were concerned, it was only in appearance to them mere brotherly love, yet it was not this only, but seeing one of them “suffer wrong,” he defended him, and avenged him that was oppressed, and smote the Egyptian; his righteous spirit had risen against the “wrong” that was done, and it is in the same unswerving spirit that he turns upon his brethren, when oppression is out of sight, “and the next day he showed himself unto them as they strove and would have set them at one again, saying, sirs, ye are brethren, why do ye wrong one to another?” and again, he said to him that did the wrong, “wherefore smitest thou thy fellow?” The wrong in both cases was the cause of trouble to his righteous soul, and whether it was the Egyptian or his brother it mattered not, it spared neither. The peculiar unsuitableness, too, of oppression among brethren, who were altogether suffering, was that which called forth from the heart which had so proved its knowledge of love, “sirs, ye are brethren, why do ye wrong one another?” The love which had brought him among them—the righteousness which had smitten the Egyptian oppressors were both in exercise, though on an unworthy brother; and this it was, that roused the apostate’s anger—the charge brought home to his soul of evil—the sin proved to be lying at his door—the testimony against him that his deeds were evil, and the charge was the more irksome, because it was accompanied by an avowal of their condition as Israelites, and its more grievous wickedness, because so unsuited to their condition. And as it always will be, that the real offender is most troubled by the charge, and most indignant with the rebuke, though in the tenderest remonstrance— “sirs, ye are brethren”—so now “he that did his neighbor wrong,” thrust him away, saying, “who made thee a ruler and a judge over us, wilt thou kill me, as thou didst the Egyptian yesterday?” Here, then, we find the same charge repeated, “ye do always resist the Holy Ghost, as your fathers, did, so do ye,” the holy, and loving, and righteous, and self-denying spirit in Moses resisted and denied by an apostate people. No claim on them on his part could check this; evil was charged on them, and they hated and rejected him; “He that is of God, heareth God’s words;” through Moses, they were words or gentle warning, but they were not of God, though they had His name, and therefore heard them not, and proved how they “loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.” Moses became a sufferer for righteousness sake, not merely in leaving an unrighteous court, but fleeing from an unrighteous and apostate people, and like Abraham, and Joseph, became a stranger in the wilderness, but “God was with him;” and like his righteous fathers, doing as they did, he was the special object of Jehovah’s loving care. It was at Horeb, “the mount of God,” in the dreary wilderness, more suited and more dear to the Spirit of righteousness than Egypt’s jeweled crown and golden scepter, or the transient and evil power of Egypt’s crooked wisdom, that
God appeared to him in the burning-bush, fit emblem of that “Spirit of judgment, and of burning,” that will soon sweep away all man’s wood, hay, and stubble, and there crowned and anointed him “King in Jeshurun” Like his fathers, too, he had been tried and proved; and it was not till forty years had passed of righteous endurance, during which, doubtless, the tempting pleasures of sin, Pharaoh’s throne, or the companionship of his afflicted brethren, had pressed heavily upon his heart, to allure him back to them again, that “the God of glory” thus shone upon him. And I would rest here to ask, what could have sustained him? But one thing, I say, but one thing—fellowship with the righteous God in spirit, which associated him with the sterile and untainted wilderness, which man’s evil hands and feet had neither tilled or trod, and dissociated him from that, which was not only the world, but the Church of that day in name, as it was in the days of Jesus, whose righteous Spirit cried out in its sorrow, “Oh! that I had wings like a dove, I would fly away, and be at rest I would wander far off, and remain in the wilderness.” The rejection of man, though it be the Church, if it is for righteousness sake, is rejection to God; it was with Joseph, with Moses, and more than all, with Him who is the full exhibitor of the portion of righteousness; He was cast out of the world, into the arms of His Father—rejected by an apostate, though externally righteous people, to take his seat on the throne of God, to be crowned with glory and honor.
The revelation of the “God of glory” to Moses, was in another way, similar to the visions of Abraham and the dreams of Joseph it was the promise of preeminence where he had been rejected, the exaltation of the righteous sufferer. The principle which had caused his rejection, was to triumph, because it was of God, and therefore enduring; when in weakness he who held it, suffered; When in power, it was to put down all that opposed, and the sufferer, as before, to be the channel of blessing to others. “This Moses whom they refused, saying, who made thee a ruler and a judge? the same did God send to be a ruler and a deliverer.” The gifts and callings of God being without repentance for their fathers’ sake, (Rom, 9) is marked also prophetically in blessing falling on the brethren, both of Joseph and Moses, through them, as to be seen in Jesus in the latter day, “whom God will send to be a deliverer to Israel, and to turn away ungodliness from Jacob.” (Isa. 59; Rom. 11)
I would remark here also, how very striking it is, without staying further to comment on it, that each continuous dispensation is formed, in the condition into which the righteous sufferer is cast; for instance—Joseph is sold into Egypt, and tried there, and blessed in all things, and made a blessing. Israel is with him cast into Egypt, and in Egypt tried too as Joseph was; Joseph dies, Israel fails and apostatizes in the same state of evil which caused the fathers to reject him, and they rejected Moses. Moses is cast into the wilderness, and into the wilderness where he sojourns, he delivers Israel, and they are tried as he had been, he conquered; but they, when put in the same condition, fail and apostatizes; and Moses dies before the beginning of another dispensation This is seen throughout; but I would at once assert that it is so now. Jesus was rejected from earth into the glory of heaven; and it is in this condition, that this dispensation assumes to be formed, as given in Matt. 13 yet like every other, it ends in apostasy; but those who have been in it, as tried and suffering with him, will shine forth in it as the sun, and be the channels of blessing in the kingdom for which they have suffered when it comes in power.
Caleb and Joshua were the righteous remnant in the wilderness dispensation, “they had followed the Lord fully,” and it was for their faithful witness against the unbelief and sin of Israel, as in Num. 14 that they were cast out and stoned by the people; but God made them the channels of blessing to another dispensation, all the rebels that came out of Egypt falling in the wilderness, and Joshua leads their children into the land for which he had testified and suffered. On his death they again forsook the Lord and served Baal and Ashtaroth, as fully opened in Judges 2:7-12. The history of the Judges in the end of this chapter and the following, is a more minute detail of the same thing.
The character of trial in the wilderness, is of course, different from those which preceded it, but riot less important in developing the sin of Israel in resisting the Holy Ghost, and therefore the more accumulated sin of this day.
Moses as the deliverer, is put forth with renewed claims, he was God’s representative to them, and therefore it is said, “he brought them out after he had showed signs and wonders in the land of Egypt and in the Red Sea.” “This is he that was in the Church in the wilderness with the Angel which spake to him in Mount Sinai, and with our fathers who received the lively oracles to give unto us;” and yet further, that as entrusted with the authority of God to teach, so marked were his powers, that the great promised Prophet was to be like, him; resistance therefore of this faithful servant of God, was resistance of God in him or of the Holy Ghost; and this is the sin that has been hitherto marked in the development of God’s character, in the love of righteousness in his true witnesses, but in the wilderness in a more extended and more fearful way, because of the position of increased favor in which the sinner stood.
The people of Israel were severed by power from bondage and from Egyptian wickedness to God, to be a special and a holy people unto God, to stand in the creatures’ most perfect blessing; that is dependence on God. All were their enemies on earth, but God was with them. Their past deliverance was the security to their faith of every other. The history of Pharaoh’s host was to faith, the history of every nation that opposed them. God had brought them out with the fullest demonstrations of power, to bring them into the land He had promised them. The earth was closed to them, for they were in a dry and barren wilderness in which there was neither water nor bread; but heaven was open to them, they were thrown by their condition in deliverance, of necessity, upon God. God’s vicegerent, in their rescue was with them. The rod in his hand had, already, not only plagued Egypt and divided the Red sea, but smitten the rock to give them abundance of water. His intercession had brought both quails and manna from heaven for their food, but yet what was Israel’s conduct towards him? “And the people murmured against Moses.” (Ex. 15;24.) “Notwithstanding they hearkened not unto Moses.” (Ex. 16:20. “Wherefore the people did chide with Moses, and the people murmured against Moses, and said, wherefore is this that thou hast brought us up out of Egypt, to kill us, and our children, and our cattle, with thirst? Is the Lord among us or not?” ( Ex. 17:1-7). “Hath the Lord indeed spoken only by Moses? hath He not also spoken by us?” (Numbers 12:2.) “And they gathered themselves against Moses and Aaron, and said unto them, ye take too much upon you.” (Num. 16:3.) “And the people chode with Moses, and spake saying, would to God that we had died when our brethren died before the Lord.” (Num. 20:3.)
“And the people spake against God and Moses, wherefore have ye brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness, for there is no bread, neither is there any water, and our soul loatheth this light bread” (Num. 21:5.) But the 78th Psalm is a history of it all. “To whom our fathers would not obey, but thrust him from them, and in their hearts turned back again into Egypt;” but they did not turn back again in intention, though their hearts did, for in making gods, their object was to put them in the place of Moses, “to go before us.” This was their necessity— “a guide.” Moses was in the mount with God, receiving blessings for them, and their necessity was their excuse; “As for this Moses, which brought us up out the land of Egypt, we wot not what is become of him; and they made a calf in those days, and offered sacrifice unto the idol, and rejoiced in the work of their own hands.” It appears to be simply a rejection of God’s appointed guardianship of them: it was in this character Moses had gone up: he was a mediator for them: rejection of God, was rejecting Moses, in this absent service, and setting up a worship on earth, from which he was excluded. This is the direct sin of these days, and indeed of apostasy throughout this dispensation, Jesus, though absent, is absent for His Church, and the power of care is not less in the Comforter; nay, the present rule of the Comforter is Christ’s absent rule. Faith looks to this; and the eye of Israel ought to have been to the mount where Moses was. So the Church is in the direct commission of sin against Jesus, if in anything his presence is not acknowledged.
As the present dispensation is more especially analogous in its fullest features with that of Israel in the wilderness, it becomes a solemn question, how is the Holy Ghost resisted now, as it was with them? The Son is gone from us into the presence of the Father, but there to receive gifts for men, by which to guide His Church into the inheritance of glory to which they are destined. The presence of the Holy Ghost is the witness to where Christ is; and where the Spirit is not, the word if not heard, is uttered in acts on every side— “as for our Lord, we wot not what is become of Him;” and so in their distress for guidance and order—human schemes—golden calves—worldly systems—the work of men’s hands, over which they can rejoice, are set up. The sin of Israel was doubting God’s care, because neither He nor His servant were seen, and making something for present strength; and what are all the devices under the name of religion (for Israel sought gods to go before them) around us, but the same, yet more fearful sin of doubting God’s present care, and setting up something to lean upon—order in worship—order in ministry without Jesus. The presence of the Spirit denied and resisted, and men worshiping and rejoicing in the works of their own hands; Jesus in His office of teacher, guide, and governor, by His Spirit thrust away for some nearer and more apparent help. It was for this, God gave Israel up to worship the host of heaven; they did not cease to be a religious people, nay—outwardly they continued in the observance of all the rites of the tabernacle of witness; they followed too, the cloud of glory; but in their breasts, and in reality, during the rest of their sojourn in the wilderness, they were but taking “up the tabernacle of Moloch, and following the star of their god Remphan;” with their hands, and before men, they took up the beautiful tabernacle of God’s presence, and followed the angel-light, before God, and in their hearts, Moloch and Remphan were worshipped in both. This is a fearful thought, that men may be continuing for years in the most obedient and exact observance of every instituted act of worship, bowing before, and sacrificing to God, and yet not in spirit or truth of heart; ill murmuring, and chiding, and lusting after Egypt; but above all in the security of their own works in the absence of God’s Son, saying— “we wot not what is become of Him,” “where is the promise of His coming?” In the absence of the Lord Christ, (as with Moses) the presence of the Comforter is the only proof of being right before God, He was promised during that absence to be everything that Jesus was on earth to His disciples— “It is expedient for you that I go away,” “I will send the Comforter to you.” Setting aside the value of His presence is forgetfulness of the reason of Christ’s absence, for He is, of necessity, by His presence, the constant remembrancer of the reason of Christ’s absence, and the equally sure witness of His return in glory. The setting up in joy of the work men’s hands, is the rejection, at one and the same moment, of Him who is absent, and His guidance by Him who is present, and the hope of His return, of which both speak.
The parallel, awful as it is, between the tabernacles, is the next thing recorded as God’s judgment; and this is equally taught as bearing upon the same, though more enlarged, state of evil in Matt. 23; John 12; Acts 13 as to the last dispensation; 2 Thess. 2; Rev. 22 as to this. The tabernacle of witness was given after the end, of the law, for righteousness was seen in the blood sprinkled on the altar and people; (Ex. (Ex. 24; Heb. 9.) and “it was a testimony of things which should be hereafter;” (Heb. 3) it testified of communion with the Most High, and far nearer access to “the light that no man can approach unto,” than any with which they had been conversant; it spoke of entrance into God’s presence in heaven—of access into such excelling glory, that none but Israel’s high priest could know, and that but once a year.
It was but a tabernacle, because typifying a state of things, short of rest in that glorious presence; but it was the complete worship of the Most High imaged on earth: and this Israel, as a servant, was entrusted with. When in the land which was the type of an inheritance, suited to such worship as declared by the tabernacle, a temple or house was the more adapted to it, and the whole pattern was enlarged into further witness of further glory. But those who saw these things in the light of God’s truth, declared what they meant. He who gave the pattern of the tabernacle, died—He who gave the pattern of the Temple “having found favor with God,” said, “our days on earth are as a shadow, and there is none abiding,” and died; and Solomon, in the dedication of that which was the earthly and beautiful pattern of the exceeding magnificent temple not made with hands, said in full accordance with the word of the prophet, “behold, the heaven of heavens cannot contain thee, how much less this house that I have built?” “Howbeit, the Most High dwelleth not in temples made with hands, as saith the prophet—heaven is my throne and earth is my footstool, what house wilt ye build for me, saith the Lord, or what is the place of my rest?” Where then was Israel’s resistance of the Holy Ghost in this, but that when in the full accuracy of detail of man’s constant sin, and its only answer—blood, as seen in the Levitical sacrifices, a superstructure of worship had been raised, declaring the closest access to God for the creature in heaven, which was God’s throne, and not on earth, which was but His footstool; and which the blood of the holy victim so typified, would give claim to, they proved that they saw neither the one nor the other in their true meaning: for a right understanding of our condition with reference to God, and knowledge of Him, would prevent the heart’s satisfaction with anything short of the nearest access to Him in favor, as well as the eternal continuance of that favor—in fact, life with God in the resurrection. The knowledge of this would throw us upon that which is our only claim to it, the blood of the Lamb of God, and the true knowledge of the value of that righteous blood, would give the most ample security to the heart, in entering into all the deep things of God’s love and glory. The Jews, while in satisfaction with earthly worship, though instituted of God, were in ignorance of their need, and of God’s gracious provision for it, and therefore used for their present glory that which ought, as a “testimony of things which should be hereafter,” to have led them to higher and heavenly things, even the things that the blood of the Just One would have given them access to; they used the temple—they boasted in it—but they knew not its meaning, and their boasting was their shame; and this is what Stephen tells them, that the Spirit of God was but foreshowing heavenly glory in all these things. To this, Solomon led them, and the prophets, and of this, the death of the fathers who had carried the tabernacle and built the temple spoke, for “God is not the God of the dead, but of the living;” and those who resisted the spirit of righteousness in Abraham, Joseph, and Moses, and of God’s love and care in the latter, resisted also the witness given by the Holy Ghost in the tabernacle and temple, (for they were made after His pattern, and men were endued by His power to make them) of the shiners’ union with the Father in heaven, when the veil would be rent, a new and living way consecrated, and a temple of living stones erected, to be eternally God’s habitation and the place of His rest.
All that he taught in these solemn words, did this first and greatest martyr, for the name of Jesus, prove in his own person in the following record of his happy death. With his father Abraham, he had been called “through the light of the knowledge of the glory of God, in the face of Jesus Christ,” out of the darkness of death; “He was a man, full of faith, and, of the Holy Ghost, one in whom God dwelt and walked,” (2 Cor. 6) “sanctified unto honor. and made meet for the master’s use.” Thus “chosen out of the world” for God, he was sent into it like his great master, (“as my Father hath sent me into the world, so have I sent you into the world.”) And like Joseph, to testify against it that its deeds were evil; and though they were not able to resist the wisdom and spirit by which he “spoke,” yet they hated him, “for they loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil,” “they were cut to the heart, and they gnashed on him with their teeth.” It was thus, when separated from them to righteousness, and declaring their evil, and rejected of them, like Abraham, Joseph, and Moses, it was seen that “God was with him.” “The God of glory” shone upon him with yet fuller radiance, “he being full of the Holy Ghost, looked up steadfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God.” All he had declared in testimony, was repeated in this bright vision: the exaltation of the Just One whom they had slain; the power of His blood. in opening heaven, the transfer of earthly worship to heaven, in the presence of Jesus, there for man—indeed man seen there in the presence of God, as raised. from the dead in corruptibleness—the full communion opened between the highest glory of heaven, and man’s poor wayward heart, and yet more his own special part in it, as shining on him, and not on them. “Behold, I see the heavens open, and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God.” I repeat, all his solemn warning was summed up in this; this was the witness of the Holy Ghost through him, the resurrection of Jesus; God’s owning Him they had cast out, sheaving where they had cast Him, what their rejection of Him had done for man—that their earthly worship was nothing, for the temple was opened in heaven, the true tabernacle, with its minister and priest, consecrated “in the power of an endless life.” All was transferred there, and if their hearts, and thoughts, and worship, were not there, they were in darkness. The one witness of the Holy Ghost, the exaltation of Jesus, the priesthood of Jesus, Jesus at God’s right hand, “far above angels, principalities, and powers, and every name that is named.” To apostate Israel, it was but the dream of Joseph, and the blasphemy of Jesus before the high priest; but it was the vision of triumph to the persecuted one; it opened the resting place of the sufferer for righteousness, and told him of exaltation with Him for whom he suffered; it was at this time, as it had been to Joseph, and to his Lord, (Matt. 27) “they hated him so much the more for his words and his dreams,” and “cried out with a loud voice, and stopped their ears, and ran upon him with one accord, and cast him out of the city;” but where? where did they cast him, but into the glory he had seen, with his rejected Lord in the throne of God? As Abraham, Joseph, and Moses, cast into fuller glory, fuller triumph, out of sin, out of the world, to Him who is separate from both forever. He fell asleep, but it was in Jesus and “those who sleep in Jesus, will God bring with Him,” “when He shall be revealed from heaven in flaming fire, taking vengeance on them who know not God, and obey not the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ,” “when He comes to be glorified in His saints, to be admired in all them that believed in that day;” “if so be that we suffer with Him, that we may be also glorified together.”
There is one thing I would add, as showing how love, as well as righteousness, has ever marked the character of those in whom the Spirit of God dwelt, and who have suffered because of the possession of that Spirit, in a world contrary to it. Joseph went to see how his brethren fared, and wept with joy when restored to them in Egypt. Moses went to see how his brethren fared, and to spy their burdens, and bore all that people in after days, with unwearied love through the wilderness; the spirit of righteousness caused him to wax hot, when he saw the golden calf and to charge the Levites to consecrate themselves in the blood. of their idolatrous brethren; but his love pleaded with God— “Oh! this people have sinned a great sin and made them gods of gold, yet now, if thou wilt forgive their sin— and if not, blot me, I pray thee, out of thy book which thou hast written.” So, also, with Him who was the pattern of all good; He came in love—He bore all the sorrow, and grief, and infirmity, of those who received Him not; and when by their wickedness and cruelty, “numbered with the transgressors,” though to the last, a sufferer for righteousness sake: He turned to God, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do;” thus, too, with His servant and follower, faithful in the grace of His master, to those around Him, in the uncompromising spirit of righteousness, He declared their rebellion; “Ye stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost, as your fathers did, so do ye.” Yet, when trampled to death by their power, the cry of love went forth from His heart, not in feebleness or carelessness, but in the strong prayer of importunate desire, “He cried with a loud voice, Lord lay not this in to their charge.”
The blood of Stephen was the first shed as a witness to this world’s condemnation in the resurrection of Jesus; since that, rivers have flowed over Christendom for the same witness; and before God, still flow in unavenged distinctness; and it is in Babylon that it all rests, there crying out for the coming in power of Him for whom it was shed; and there it will be found and amply avenged, when the shout is echoed and re-echoed, “Alleluia, salvation, and glory, and honor, and power unto the Lord our God; for true and righteous are His judgments, for He hath judged the great whore which did corrupt the earth with her fornication, and hath avenged the blood of His servants at her hand, and again they said Alleluia! and her smoke rose up forever and ever.” “And in her was found the blood of prophets, and of saints, and of all that were slain upon the earth.” (Rev. 18:24; 19:1-4). It is not within my power now, to enter into the manifest application of this comprehensive name of Babylon, to that which is so fearful to my own heart in these days: I only solemnly ask the reader, to consider if Babylon is not generally marked in its broad features, as a constitution of religious observances formed in the name of the Lord Jesus, but having union and communion with the world which rejected Him, and so called by Him “a harlot and a corrupter?” I do not desire to apply it here to anything which men cling to, but the rather to ask them, in the grave consideration of the word of Stephen, in its connection with these terrible words in the Apocalypse, to seek wisdom, to apply it to themselves, that they may give heed to the word of their Angel guide— “Come out of her my people.”
The witness of Stephen, was to Him “who loved righteousness and hated iniquity, and whom therefore God has anointed with the oil of gladness above His fellows.” The resurrection and crowning of Jesus with glory and honor, was the proof of God’s unchanging delight in departure from evil, Jesus resisted unto blood, striving against sin; “He then allows evil,” who has union with it avowedly and knowingly, “is stiff-necked and uncircumcised in ear and heart:” as to the invariable, but in Jesus, most fully declared truth, “that the kingdom of God is not meat and drink, but righteousness as well as peace and joy in the Holy Ghost.” The witness of Stephen was further to Him, who as raised from the dead by the Spirit of holiness, and declared to be the Son of God with power; does by union with Him, as much separate in heart and spirit from the world, as He is separate from it at the right hand of God. (Eph. 2; Col. 3:1; John 4) That union with Him on whom all God’s favor rests, is out of the world; and therefore, that if any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him— “for the friendship of the world, is enmity with God.” But were Israel of the world? surely not, outwardly, they were separated to God in outward worship from the nations of the world, but as regarded heavenly glory, they were uncircumcised in ear and heart. And can avowed Christians be of the world? alas! like the Jew, they so closely copy, they may profess the name of Jesus, and yet be of it, and this is Babylon. What was the worldliness of the Jew to this? God had instituted their worship, and though they were ignorant of its typical meaning, yet they had some plea; God had been known in it, and it was true, till the thing it declared was come; but where is the formal worship God has instituted now Where is the earthly temple, into, which all may come as merely outwardly declaring heavenly things? heavenly things are Come, and worship which will admit the earthly minded now, is awful, for Jesus is in the heavens. Jesus is out of the world, and in worship and in spirit, the Christian must be so, too, as quickened together with Him.
The witness of Stephen, was to him who filled up the measure of righteousness, and suffered, and was exalted; who has taken the place of Moses, as the son over his own house, to teach, guide, order, by the presence of the Holy Ghost, and who would come again, to perfect the blessing his Spirit gave witness to, in his absence.
“Who by His own blood, had entered into the Holiest of all, having obtained eternal redemption for us” and as the Son, to build the temple of the Lord, was fulfilling the glorious purpose of God. And while it was to the exaltation, and glory, of the suffering Jesus, so was it putting the world into condemnation; but above all, marking as hateful, that which was called by His name, and was yet in communion with the world, while He was out of it, as rejected by it.
To be one with Christ, out of the world, and yet of it, is impossible. “If ye be risen with Christ, seek those things which are at God’s right hand,” and then you will see how the world is loved, now under His name, who never was of it, and is now cast out of it.
All that has this character of evil must be forsaken, it is the worst, it is the most hateful, it is dishonoring to God, and deceiving to the world. Remember the Lord’s words to the Jews while under the fairest appearance of religious zeal, and who yet loved the world, and hated film who told them of heavenly things, “ye are of the world, I am not of the world; ye are from beneath, I am from above.” (John 8.)
In conclusion, I would ask my readers to see the confirmation of this, in the message to the churches of Philadelphia and Laodicea, where the difference is so strongly marked between the judgment of God and man, that while men boast themselves, “they are rich and increased with goods, and have need of nothing,” God marks them as “poor, blind, and naked, and miserable,” and because they are neither cold nor hot, half for the world, and half for Him, He declares them to be loathsome, far more so then the heathen, who know Him not; “I will spue thee out of my mouth;” but as to the faithful remnant, outcast for righteousness sake, being zealous and repenting, the Lord promises them, not only full triumph with him on his throne, but “those who say they are Jews, and are not, and do He, they shall come and worship before thy feet, and know that I have loved thee”