WE may, by a little consideration, observe the value which God has set on the revelation He has from time to time been making of Himself and His will, and also our own title to the direct personal use of that revelation. And such truths are of serious and happy importance to our souls at all times, but, in some sense, especially now.
When the Lord God planted and furnished the garden, and set Adam in it, He made all to depend on His word or revelation; “In the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” This was the revelation then, and man’s history, as we know, was to hang entirely upon it. And thus at the very outset we see what a place of value the word which had gone out from the mouth of the Lord holds; and it became the direct object of the serpent’s assault and enmity.
So, when the character of things had been changed through man’s disobedience to this first word of God, all is made to depend on another word: “I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.” Man’s return to God now depended on his belief of this word, as his departure from God had afore hung on his disobedience to the first word. For all now rested on faith, or obedience to this revelation.
Thus we find that Abel, by faith, offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain. All service from man now rested on faith, or obedience to the word or revelation of God (Heb. 11). So high was the value which the Lord put on His word, making it, as before, the standard and the test of obedience, and the hinge on which man’s history was to turn. And Cain’s offering was in unbelief, or in despite of God’s word about the seed of the woman. He despised God’s word, as the serpent had before assailed it. And so, in process of time, in like manner Noah and Abraham (to instance no others) are called forth from a revolted world by revelations from God, and their acceptance of such revelations determine their path in present peace onward to glory.
But when we reach a larger scene for the energies and acts of God, as in the nation of Israel, we still find that all was made to turn upon the revelation He was giving His people. We read that they were neither to add to it, nor diminish from it (Deut. 4:2). So carefully did He hedge round it, so jealously did He watch over it, that it might not be entangled with the thorns of the wilderness of worldly wisdom, or disturbed by the admixtures of man’s thoughts. And having thus protected it, and provided for its purity, Jehovah ordered that His people should bind it round their heart and soul, and fix it under their eye continually, inscribing it on their gates and doors, making it their morning and evening meditation, and the theme of their family intercourse (Deut. 6:6-9), so that they should let it in, that it might mingle itself with all their personal and social life, and shed its light on every path, however ordinary, of their daily journey. And if any of them were put at a distance from the more immediate place of the nation and of their religious observances, still the word was to be their rule there (Josh. 22:4, 5). And if any of them were called into circumstances which might be extraordinary or unlooked for, the same word of God should follow them there; for if there were to be a king in days to come, the law of his God should go up to the throne with him, and be there before him as fully as he was before the people (Deut. 17). And the history of Israel as a nation, like that of Adam in Eden and out of Eden, was to be determined by their use of God’s word (Deut. 28).
What an expression of the value which the Lord set upon His word all this gives us! And with what jealousy does He watch it, that He may maintain it in its purity! And how immediately would He have it bound round the heart and soul of each of His people!
It is blessed to see the Lord thus esteeming His own revelation, and commending it to our esteem; and, as we go on in His ways, it is His word we still find the Lord using and esteeming. Israel was disobedient to the word of His law, and what He does, is to send them the word of His prophets. If they refuse one testimony, it is only another they must get. God will still use His word, and still make their history to rest on their use or abuse of it. And, therefore, we find that their final dispersion and bondage in Babylon came of this, that when the Lord had even risen up early to send them His prophets, they did but despise those prophets, and the words which they brought; so that wrath came on them to the uttermost, and there was now no remedy (2 Chron. 36).
There is, however, a return to Jerusalem out of Babylon; and return to God then is marked very clearly by a return to His word. The captives are obedient to the word. Ezra, for instance, makes it his meditation, the theme of his intercourse with the people, and the rule of his ways and acts in the midst of them (chs. 7). So Nehemiah and his companions; they read it, they own the power of it over their consciences, and they set themselves to walk and act in the light of it (ch. 8:13). As long, or as far, as those returned Jews were obedient to God, so long, and so far, were they attentive to the voice of His truth, both trembling at, and rejoicing in, His word, according to its spirit in addressing them. They had returned to God, and must therefore return to His word; and while this was so, blessing was theirs, and latter day blessing is made to depend on this also (Mal. 4:4-6).
When we open the New Testament after all this, we find the word, or revelation of God, in this accustomed place of honor and value. It is put into the lips of the Baptist; no power lies in his hand, but the word of the Lord breaks from his lips. “John did no miracle,” but his was a “voice” from God, acceptance of which was again to determine the history of Israel. So the Lord’s own ministry, which this of John introduced, was not only a fresh ministry of God’s word (on the value of which I will not speak), but it did itself greatly honor the precious word; and this still shews us what value in God’s esteem His word holds. Thus, in His acts the Lord Jesus was ever fulfilling that word, as the evangelists are careful to tell us; in His conflicts with the devil He uses that word, as the Gospels again tell us; and in His teachings He is ever referring to that word, rebuking the Jews for their value for anything else, for their use of traditions, and their neglect of it, and giving them to know that not a jot or tittle of it can in any wise fail, that the scripture cannot be broken; and that if Moses and the Prophets be not heard, even one risen from the dead would not avail to lead to repentance.
This is much to be observed—that thus did the Son in His day honor the word. The Holy Ghost, in like manner, is a Spirit of revelation in the apostles, and fills up by them the word of God. And not only so, but in them He does continually, clearly, and fully express His divine sense of the value of the scriptures. If man dare not add to it, God need not. It is perfect, able, as the apostle tells us, thoroughly to furnish the saint to all good works. And no authority stands, or can possibly stand, on equal ground with it, so that even if an angel were to gainsay it, he must be cursed. It matters not who it may be, all must sink below the voice and authority of that gospel, or revelation of God, which had been delivered.
Thus do we see, from the beginning to the end, the Lord’s value for His own word—how He has made a hedge about it, that no rude hand may guiltlessly touch it, and also has appointed it to be the great standard at all times, on which the history of His people, either for blessing or for curse, was to turn; and has bound it round the heart and soul, before the eyes, and on the palms of His people, and given it an authority which nothing is to be allowed to gainsay or to rival. God of old, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, each in His day, attests this. And all this is precious to the soul. God and His word are joined together. To give up His word is to give up Himself. For He can be known only by His own revelation. But if we thus see the divine estimate of the word, we may, with equal clearness and sureness, see our title to that word, and how the Lord has joined us and the word together also, and that no man, therefore, can put such asunder.
Extracted.