4. The History of Responsibility continued from page 272
In Noah we reach an important landmark in the history of responsibility, for we are shown, in what the word of God gives of his history, divine principles concerning two most important relationships then mentioned for the first time. These are government, or the relation of what we may call “magisterial authority” to God and men generally; and the relation of what may be called “paternal authority” to the smaller sphere of “the house,” in view of God's government on earth.
It is plain from Genesis ix. 1-3, that God now placed man in a new relationship, committing for the first time into his hand the sword of executive government.
This has never yet been recalled from man, nor have the principles of its exercise been altered by the word of God. On the contrary, in times subsequent to Gen. 9, with the increase of evil in the world, its powers have been widened and increased, and they are fully recognized in the New Testament as having divinely given claims over the obedience and loyalty of Christians. And there is in this no question of there being what are called “Christian magistrates.” Paul, in Acts 23:55Then said Paul, I wist not, brethren, that he was the high priest: for it is written, Thou shalt not speak evil of the ruler of thy people. (Acts 23:5), on the contrary, standing sea Christian before a ruler who was violently opposed to Christ, refers to the word in the Old Testament scripture as binding upon him with reference to any such magistrate. And in Rom. 13:1-81Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God. 2Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God: and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation. 3For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power? do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise of the same: 4For he is the minister of God to thee for good. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid; for he beareth not the sword in vain: for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil. 5Wherefore ye must needs be subject, not only for wrath, but also for conscience sake. 6For for this cause pay ye tribute also: for they are God's ministers, attending continually upon this very thing. 7Render therefore to all their dues: tribute to whom tribute is due; custom to whom custom; fear to whom fear; honor to whom honor. 8Owe no man any thing, but to love one another: for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law. (Romans 13:1‑8) Christians have the clearest light shining for them upon both their relation to the “higher powers,” as those who “bear the sword,” and the relation of these governors to God; while 1 Tim. 2:1-41I exhort therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men; 2For kings, and for all that are in authority; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty. 3For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour; 4Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth. (1 Timothy 2:1‑4) and 1 Peter 2:11-1711Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul; 12Having your conversation honest among the Gentiles: that, whereas they speak against you as evildoers, they may by your good works, which they shall behold, glorify God in the day of visitation. 13Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake: whether it be to the king, as supreme; 14Or unto governors, as unto them that are sent by him for the punishment of evildoers, and for the praise of them that do well. 15For so is the will of God, that with well doing ye may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men: 16As free, and not using your liberty for a cloke of maliciousness, but as the servants of God. 17Honor all men. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the king. (1 Peter 2:11‑17) amplify the exhortations to quiet and submissive conduct on our part under them in all that concerns the administration of earthly affairs—the true Christian character of pilgrims and strangers here being maintained through all that is done. Men have forgotten all this who have tried to use the truths of Christianity to displace divinely enunciated principles of the government of the world; turning the teaching of scripture which was intended for the guidance of the church, into maxims for the use of the world. This has arisen from confounding together the church and the world, and from thoroughly mistaking the place and the object of Christianity. It was not intended to interfere with the world, as such, at all, but was designed to take out of it a people for the Lord's name. A worldly Christianity has thus neither the truth as to God's government of the world, nor that of the true grace of God in the midst of an evil world.
Thus, too, with the revelation given to and in Noah concerning the mutual relations existing between a household and its head. We have no previous indication of the mind of the Lord on this subject, but He revealed a most weighty principle in Gen. 7:11And the Lord said unto Noah, Come thou and all thy house into the ark; for thee have I seen righteous before me in this generation. (Genesis 7:1), saying to Noah, “Come thou and all thy house into the ark: for thee have I seen righteous before me in this generation.” This unfolds no less the responsibility of the head, as such, towards God, than the result of his faithfulness towards the household, with their privilege in being, by virtue of their connection with a head who is obedient to God, eligible for introduction into a place or position of external, but very real, blessing. This is a principle of very solemn application in God's ways of government among men, as Ex. 12:5, 6; 34:75Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male of the first year: ye shall take it out from the sheep, or from the goats: 6And ye shall keep it up until the fourteenth day of the same month: and the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it in the evening. (Exodus 12:5‑6)
7Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children's children, unto the third and to the fourth generation. (Exodus 34:7), testify, and it is one of those which run unaltered through all God's subsequent dealings with men. It still stands good, though it has—as many other truths have—been almost obliterated by the dogmas of many Christians.
In Abraham the observance of it is indeed made by the Lord the special groundwork upon which peculiar blessing is conveyed to him, in Gen. 18:17-1917And the Lord said, Shall I hide from Abraham that thing which I do; 18Seeing that Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him? 19For I know him, that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the Lord, to do justice and judgment; that the Lord may bring upon Abraham that which he hath spoken of him. (Genesis 18:17‑19): while the same principle is borne witness to in New Testament scripture, both as regards blessing resulting to the head through his faithfulness to his “house” (1 Tim. 3:4, 54One that ruleth well his own house, having his children in subjection with all gravity; 5(For if a man know not how to rule his own house, how shall he take care of the church of God?) (1 Timothy 3:4‑5)), and as regards blessing flowing to them on account of his devotedness to the Lord's will (2 Tim. 1:1616The Lord give mercy unto the house of Onesiphorus; for he oft refreshed me, and was not ashamed of my chain: (2 Timothy 1:16)); as well as regards the extent of God's purpose of blessing in Christianity, namely the invariable including of all who are thus connected with those who believe. (Acts 16:31; 2:3031And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house. (Acts 16:31)
30Therefore being a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him, that of the fruit of his loins, according to the flesh, he would raise up Christ to sit on his throne; (Acts 2:30), &c.)
Abram, again, furnishes us with the first illustration of the introduction of a new and special basis for the responsibility of particular persons, as distinguished from the rest of mankind. The principle of this I have briefly alluded to on page 217, and in Gen. 12, &c., we see that Abram was called into, and so placed before God on, the ground and relationship which God's sovereign grace and promise defined for him.
The scriptures show us that although this dealing of God with him was that of grace towards him, yet it constituted him responsible as in a path which it marked out, for God says to him in Gen. 17:11And when Abram was ninety years old and nine, the Lord appeared to Abram, and said unto him, I am the Almighty God; walk before me, and be thou perfect. (Genesis 17:1), “I am the Almighty God,” that is, God in the character revealed to him in grace—all-powerful on his behalf “walk before me, and be thou perfect.” And this is also a principle which abides in the case of all those brought into relationship with God in grace, as we shall see. In fact this is but reiterating in another form the universal principle of responsibility with which we set out (see page 215), namely, that the being placed in any relationship (however planed there, whether by grace, or in God's sovereign government) is that which creates the responsibility to fulfill its duties, whatever these are.
Of course, men object to grace, and are not slow to charge God with unfairness in taking up sinners for blessing in that absolute way. But the root of such objections and such dislike of grace is self-righteousness, and a refusal to own the true condition of man. There is nothing more wholesome than the hearty acknowledgment that all deserve nothing but punishment, that all are thoroughly bad, and corrupt, and lost. And in no other way are we clear of false thoughts about God and His grace. He has made it abundantly plain in Josh. 24:1-31And Joshua gathered all the tribes of Israel to Shechem, and called for the elders of Israel, and for their heads, and for their judges, and for their officers; and they presented themselves before God. 2And Joshua said unto all the people, Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, Your fathers dwelt on the other side of the flood in old time, even Terah, the father of Abraham, and the father of Nachor: and they served other gods. 3And I took your father Abraham from the other side of the flood, and led him throughout all the land of Canaan, and multiplied his seed, and gave him Isaac. (Joshua 24:1‑3) that such was the condition of all when His grace was first made publicly known in Abram; and in view of blessing which has thus come into the earth among men, while alt are evil, nothing but the sovereignty of God's election can account for any being saved and blessed. Apart from this there seem to be but two other principles upon which He could act towards men, namely, that He must either save all, or save none. But the former of these would deny His holiness, all being sinners; and the latter, while being perfectly just and righteous, would, at least in appearance, deny His love. He reconciles both in the cross, and, choosing some for salvation by it, accounts and makes them just.
The condition of man is made even more plain by such dealing, for if He has to come in and choose some for blessing out of those who are wholly bad, it necessarily shows to what state all have come, and those who reach punishment reach no more than their due, which in fact all deserve. The when God chooses has nothing to do with the sovereignty of His doing it, for it would be as sovereign (as one has said) for Him to choose now as before the world.
As far as we know it by its exercise, this election of God has its first public witness or display in Abraham; we hear nothing of it before his day, but then the world was wholly corrupted by idolatry. The principle of election then comes out in God's acting for the first time, and Rom. 9, which treats of this great and solemn subject, goes no farther back for the commencement of its line of proof of God's sovereign mercy in His dealings with men. It shows also, through succeeding generations, that God could own no other basis for blessing.
In Ex. 33 God announces this principle as that which He would act upon with Israel, but the apparent difficulty, as He had just proposed to put them on the ground defined by a new measure of responsibility as the basis of blessing, is explained, when we see that this was after Moses had to pitch the tabernacle outside the camp, all the congregation having gone after idolatry while he was up on the mount receiving the law from God.
Pharaoh's case is clear, for he was a wicked man and utterly regardless of God, though in his position of power he, above all others, should have owned Him. God, willing to show His power and wrath for the good of His people (Ex. 6:6, 76Wherefore say unto the children of Israel, I am the Lord, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will rid you out of their bondage, and I will redeem you with a stretched out arm, and with great judgments: 7And I will take you to me for a people, and I will be to you a God: and ye shall know that I am the Lord your God, which bringeth you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians. (Exodus 6:6‑7)), that they might trust Him as their deliverer, endured with much long-suffering the evil of the king of Egypt, and at last dealt with him in judgment, in hardening, plaguing, and finally destroying him. That was the present application of what God did, but it has further application to us Gentiles in view of the larger mercy which has come out to us. (Rom. 9:18-2418Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth. 19Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth he yet find fault? For who hath resisted his will? 20Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus? 21Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honor, and another unto dishonor? 22What if God, willing to show his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction: 23And that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory, 24Even us, whom he hath called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles? (Romans 9:18‑24).)
Nothing can surpass the power and grandeur of the words of Rom. 9 in the laying low of all human pride, and showing man's abject dependence for blessing on God's sovereign mercy. The illustration of the potter (ver. 21) is used to make plain how all depends upon sovereign power; for it is out of the same lump that furnishes vessels to dishonor that He chooses to produce vessels unto honor.
People, and even enlightened Christians, shrink from applying the word, “fitted to destruction” to God's action; but the fear is groundless, for no “doctrine of reprobation” (as it is called) is conveyed in them, because they do not mean that God made the men bad as to their natures. It means that, just as in the case of some who were bad, He by His mercy prepared them for blessing, so, in the case of others who were bad, He put them in circumstances where all their badness could be displayed, if He had a purpose to display His power and wrath against evil in their overthrow. Thus they were fitted to destruction. It did not make them bad, nor did it interfere in the least with their responsibility on the ground we have already discussed; it made their badness manifest: and, without the mercy that chooses for salvation, all would be fitted to destruction by simply having time to live given them.
The principle underlying all this is manifest. Man being evil, his doings never can be a basis upon which God can justify him, and therefore it must be by God's way that he is made righteous. This, of course, is a matter of faith on man's part, what God shows of His way being contrary to man altogether, and necessarily so on account of man's condition, while on God's part it is sovereign goodness. And the grace that places him thus in a position of blessing and privilege before God supplies him with power to fulfill the duties resulting from it, and thus those who are blessed become in a new way responsible.
(To be continued)
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