These brethren in their wrath had far outstepped even the wide limits-allowed to the avenger of wrong in that wild time, and God through Israel’s mouth pronounced their eventual destiny, “I will divide them in Jacob, and scatter them in Israel.” Thus they never could be great or powerful, or rise into importance as a single state: and most literally was this prophecy fulfilled. They had no tract of country allotted to them, they had no border. Cities were given to Simeon here and there, scattered about through Judah’s wide inheritance, and to Levi they were assigned in the portion of each of the tribes. The race of Simeon inherited the fierceness of their ancestor, and bore his punishment. Their land was too little for them as they increased in numbers. They were wild and poor, so poor, that tradition reports that many of the sons of Simeon wandered away among the other tribes, seeking a livelihood by teaching children. Thus did Simeon work out his sentence.
Far otherwise was it with Levi. The posterity of Levi on a memorable occasion stood forth alone on the Lord’s side, and consecrated themselves in the blood of their idolatrous brethren who worshipped the golden calf at the very foot of Horeb. The prophetic doom of Levi was literally carried out, but the Almighty’s merciful approval of their conduct at Sinai turned the punishment into a blessing. Levi was “scattered in Israel,” but it was as the consecrated priests of the Most High, appointed to perform the rites and ceremonies appertaining to His worship. What a strong illustration this gives us of the mode in which Jehovah deals with his people! What evils He will avert! What blessings He will send down on those who are faithful to Him! Those that honor Him, whether nation or individual, He will honor.
In Abyssinia, as soon as a near relative dies, women cut the skin of both their temples with the nail of their little finger, which is kept long for the purpose. The wound made is about the size of a sixpence, which when healed leaves a scar.
Christ Our Example: Extracts Illustrating Our January Subject.
6. — “Let This Mind Be In You Which Was Also In Christ Jesus.”
In the history of flesh and blood given to us in scripture, we learn that by sin came death. To all as headed or represented in Adam, it was this:— “In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” Touching, however, the promised Seed of the woman, who was not thus represented, it was said to the serpent, “Thou shalt bruise His heel.” The death of this Seed was thus to be as peculiar as His birth. He was, in birth, to be the woman’s Seed; in death He was to have His heel bruised. In the fullness of time this promised One was “made of a woman.” The Son of God, the sanctifier, took part of flesh and blood; He became “that holy thing.”
Had death, I ask, any title? None whatever. Whatever title the everlasting covenant had on His heel, death had none on His flesh and blood. In this blessed One, if I may so express it, there was a capability of meeting the Divine purpose, that His heel should be bruised; but there was no exposure to death in any wise.
Under the covenant, under this Divine purpose, at His own Divine pleasure, He had surrendered Himself, saying, “Lo, I come.” For the great ends of God’s glory and the sinner’s peace, He had taken “ the form of a servant.” And accordingly in due time He was “ made in the likeness of men,” and being found in that “fashion,” He went on in a course of self-humbling even to “the death of the cross” (Philippians 2).
In such a course we see Him through life. He hides His glory, “the form of God” under this “form of a servant;” He did not seek honor from men. He honored the Father that had sent Him, and not Himself. He would not make Himself known. He would not show Himself to the world. Thus we read of Him. And all this belonged to the “form” He had taken, and gets its perfect illustration in the histories or narratives of the Gospel.
Under the form of a tributary to Caesar, He hid the form of the Lord of the fullness of the earth and sea. He was asked for tribute; at least Peter was asked, did not his Master pay it? The Lord declares His freedom; but lest He should offend, He pays the custom for Peter and Himself. But who all the while was this subject to Cesar? None less than He of whom it had been written, “The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof.” For He commands a fish from the sea to bring Him that very piece of money which He then passed over to the officers of Caesar (Matthew 17).
So again we read of Him, He would not strive nor cry, nor lift up His voice in the street. He would not break the bruised reed, but rather withdraw Himself. And all this because He had taken “the form of a servant.” And, accordingly, on that very occasion the Scripture is quoted, “Behold my servant, whom I have chosen” (Matthew 12).
Very significant of His way, all this was. “Show us a sign from heaven” was another temptation to Him to exalt Himself (Matthew 16). The Pharisees then tried Him, as the devil tried Him when he would have Him cast Himself down from the pinnacle of the temple, and as the kinsfolk were doing when they said, “Show Thyself to the world.” But what said the perfect servant? No sign should be given but that of Jonas—a sign of humiliation, a sign that the world and the prince of the world were apparently to get advantage over Him for a moment, instead of such a sign as would awe and silence the world into subjection to Him.
Excellent, indeed, are these traces of God’s perfect servant. David and Paul, standing, as it were, on either side of Him, like Moses and Elias on the holy hill, reflect the ways of this wondrous servant, thus hiding Himself. David slew the lion and the bear, and Paul was caught up to the third heaven—but neither of them spoke of those things. And lovely reflections of the perfect servant such actings were. But they and all like them, which we may find in Scripture or among the saints, are more distant from the great original than we have measures to measure. He hid “the form of God” under “the form of a servant.” Jesus was the strength of David when he killed the lion and the bear, and He was the Lord of that heaven to which Paul was caught up, but He lay under the form of one who had “not where to lay His head.”
So on the top of “the holy hill,” and again at the foot of it. On the top of it, in the sight of His elect, for a passing moment, Ile was the Lord of glory; at the foot of it, He was “Jesus only,” charging them not to tell the vision to any till the Son of man was risen from the dead. (Matthew 17)
Observe Him again in the vessel on the lake during a storm. He was there as a tired laboring man whose sleep was sweet. Such was His manifested form. But underneath lay “the form of God.” He arose, and as the Lord who gathers the winds in His fists, and binds the waters in a garment (Proverbs 30:44Who hath ascended up into heaven, or descended? who hath gathered the wind in his fists? who hath bound the waters in a garment? who hath established all the ends of the earth? what is his name, and what is his son's name, if thou canst tell? (Proverbs 30:4)) He rebukes the sea into a calm (Mark 4).
The Son of God came into the world the very contradiction of him who is still to come, and after whom as we read, the whole world is to wonder. As He Himself says, “I am come in my Father’s name, and ye receive me not: if another shall come in his own name, him ye will receive.” And in accordance with this, if His life be threatened He does not at once become a wonder in the eyes of the world, but the very opposite. He makes Himself of no reputation. He would be nothing and nobody. He refuses altogether to be a wonder in the sight of men—the great and glorious contradiction of him whose deadly wound is to be healed, so that the whole world may wonder and worship, whose image is to live and to be made to speak, that all, both small and great, may take his name in their foreheads.
The Son of God was the very contradiction of all this. He came in His Father’s name, and not in His own. He had life in Himself. He was equal with Him, of whom it is written, “who only hath immortality;” but He hid that brightness of Divine glory under the form of one who appeared to shelter his life by the most ordinary and despised methods. Blessed to tell it, had we but worshipping hearts! The other who is to come “in his own name” by-and-bye, may receive a deadly wound by a sword and yet live, that the world may wonder-but the Son of God flees into Egypt.
Are we wanting in spiritual apprehension so far that we cannot perceive this? Is the sight of the glory thus hidden to be indeed forced upon us? If we need that, the Lord even so far bears with us, and gives it to us. For under this veil there lay a glory which, like the flames of the Chaldean furnace, had it pleased, might have destroyed its enemies at once. For at the last, when the hour had come, and the powers of darkness were to have “their hour,” the servants of those powers in the presence of this glory “went backwards and fell to the ground.”
But, as we have already said to His praise, the Son of God on earth was ever hiding His glory—the form of God, as we have been seeing—under the form of a servant. His glory had been owned in all parts of the dominions of God. Devils owned it, the bodies and the souls of men owned it, death and the grave owned it, the beasts of the field and the fish of the sea owned it, winds and waves owned it, and so did the corn and the wine. I may say He Himself was the only One who did not own or assume it; for His way was to veil it. He was “Lord of the harvest,” but appeared as one of the laborers in the field; He was the God of the temple, and the Lord of the Sabbath, but submitted to the challenges of an unbelieving world (Matthew 12)
Such was the veil or the cloud under which He thus again and again causes the glory to retire. And so, in entire fellowship with all this, as we have already said, did He carry Himself on those occasions when His life was threatened. Under despised forms He hid His glory again. At times the favor of the common people shelters Him (Mark 11:32;1232But if we shall say, Of men; they feared the people: for all men counted John, that he was a prophet indeed. (Mark 11:32)
32And the scribe said unto him, Well, Master, thou hast said the truth: for there is one God; and there is none other but he: (Mark 12:32) Luke 20:1919And the chief priests and the scribes the same hour sought to lay hands on him; and they feared the people: for they perceived that he had spoken this parable against them. (Luke 20:19)); at times He withdraws Himself in either an ordinary or a more miraculous manner (Luke 4:3030But he passing through the midst of them went his way, (Luke 4:30); John 8:59;1059Then took they up stones to cast at him: but Jesus hid himself, and went out of the temple, going through the midst of them, and so passed by. (John 8:59)
17Then when Jesus came, he found that he had lain in the grave four days already. (John 11:17). 39); at times the enemy is restrained from laying hands on Him, because His hour was not come (John 7:30;830Then they sought to take him: but no man laid hands on him, because his hour was not yet come. (John 7:30)
30As he spake these words, many believed on him. (John 8:30). 20); and on one distinguished occasion, as we have seen, a flight into Egypt removes Him from the wrath of a king who sought His life to destroy it.
In all this I see the one thing from first to last-the Lord of glory hiding Himself, as One who had come in another’s name and not His own. But He was “the Lord of glory,” and the “Prince of life.” He was a willing captive as I have already observed, and so was He at the very last a willing victim. “He gave His life a ransom for many.”