And here I may observe in connection with this, that at the times of calling out new ministries, there have commonly been characteristic exhibitions of Christ. Thus, when Moses was called forth at Horeb, he saw a burning (but yet unconsumed) bush, out of the midst of which Jehovah spake to him. And the ministry which he then received was, according to this vision, to go and deliver Israel from the affliction of Egypt, in the midst of which God had been with them, preserving them in spite of it all. When he and the people afterward stood under Sinai, the mountain was altogether in a smoke, so that even Moses himself exceedingly feared and quaked. But all this was so, because there was about to proceed from it that law which poor fallen man can never answer, and which therefore is but the ministry of death and condemnation to him, though he be such an one as Moses himself. When Moses afterward drew towards God, standing between Him and the people, he receives (in accordance with the mediate place which he thus occupied) his commission to deliver, as the national mediator, the laws and ordinances of the king. But when in the last place, he goes up to the top of the hill, far beyond both the region of horrible fire and the mediate place which he occupied as the mediator of the nation, and where all was calm and the presence of Jehovah around him, he receives the tokens of grace, the types of Christ the Savior and Priest, and is from thence made to minister to Israel “the shadows of good things to come.” In all these we see much that was expressive of the ministry about to be appointed.
So afterward, though in a more limited way. When Joshua was about to receive a commission to compass Jericho with men of war, Jehovah appears to him as a man of war with a sword drawn in his hand. When Isaiah was called to go forth as the prophet of judgment against Israel, Jehovah was seen in His temple in such terrible majesty, that the very posts of the door moved at His voice, and the house was filled with smoke (Isaiah 6). When our Lord stood in the land of Israel, the minister of the circumcision, according to this place and character He appoints twelve to go forth to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. But after the resurrection, when He stood on the earth in a larger character, all power in heaven and earth being then His, He commissions his apostles accordingly-” Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.” And so now-ascended into heaven, and having there become Head of the church, He appears to Saul from that glory; and in him appoints a ministry formed upon the principle of this manifestation. Heaven was the birthplace of Paul's apostleship; and according to this he was sent forth to gather out and raise up a people from earth to heaven.
Thus, from the place from whence his call into office came, we at the beginning might be prepared for something new and heavenly. But his apostleship was out of due time, as well as out of due place (1 Corinthians 15:88And last of all he was seen of me also, as of one born out of due time. (1 Corinthians 15:8)). It not only did not come from Jerusalem, but it arose after the apostleship there had been perfected. Judas's forfeited bishopric had been filled up by Matthias, and thus the body of twelve, as ordered by the Lord at the beginning, was again complete; and Paul's apostleship is thus, we might say, a thing “born out of due time.”
But though in this respect, “out of due time,” yet not so in every respect. The times and seasons which the Lord has taken for the unfolding of His counsels are, doubtless, all due and rightly ordered; and having “the mind of Christ” —the present inheritance, through grace, of every spiritual man—we may seek to know this; remembering first of all, whose counsels we are searching into, and how it becomes us to walk before Him with unshod feet. May He keep us, brethren, thus treading His course, and may the haste of inquirers never take us out of the place and attitude of worshippers. Let us remember that it is in His temple we must inquire (Psalm 27:44One thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in his temple. (Psalm 27:4)).
To these times and seasons, then, we may observe that our Lord marks successive stages in the divine procedure with Israel when He says, “the law and the prophets prophesied until John.” Here he notices three ministries—the law, the prophets, and John. But these extended only down to our Lord's own ministry, and therefore now, in the further progress of the divine counsels, we can to these add others.
The Law.-This dispensation put Israel under a covenant which exacted obedience as the condition upon which they were to continue in the land, and in the blessings which Jehovah had given them. But we know that they broke it.
The Prophets.-After trespass and transgression had come in, prophets were raised up; among other services, to warn and encourage Israel to return to Him, from whom they and their fathers had revolted, that they might recover their place and blessing under the covenant. But Israel, we know, refused their words, stoning some, and killing some.
John.-The Baptist is then raised up, not as one of the prophets merely, to call Israel back to the old covenant, and to the obedience which it required, but to be the herald of a kingdom that was then at the doors, the forerunner of One who was coming with the sure blessing of His own presence. He summoned the people to be in readiness for Messiah. But John they beheaded.
The Lord.-Thus introduced by John to Israel, the Lord accordingly comes forth and offers the kingdom in His own person to them, and Israel is summoned to own it and worship Him. But we know that the heir of the vineyard was cast out by the husbandmen. “His own received him not.” The builders disallowed the Stone. They crucified the Prince of life; but God raised Him from the dead, and seated Him at His own right hand in the heavenly places.
The Twelve Apostles.-They had accompanied with our Lord all the time that He had gone in and out among them, from the baptism of John to the day that He was taken up from them, and they were now called forth (being endued with the Holy Ghost) to be witnesses to Israel of the resurrection. And these witnesses tell Israel that the times of refreshing, the times of accomplishing all promised good to them, waited only for their repentance; for that Jesus was now exalted to be a Prince and Savior to them. And now the final trial of Israel was come. What could be done more than had now been done? Trespass against the Son of man had been forgiven, or at least, the way of escape from the judgment which it called for had now been thrown open to Israel by the testimony of the Holy Ghost in the apostles; but what could provide relief, if this testimony were now despised? (See Matthew 12:3232And whosoever speaketh a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him: but whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, neither in the world to come. (Matthew 12:32)). But the Holy Ghost is resisted, the testimony of the Twelve is despised by the martyrdom of Stephen, and the Lord's dealings with Israel and the earth are therefore necessarily closed for a season.
Paul.-The apostle of the Gentiles then comes forth, fraught with further treasures of divine wisdom, revealing purposes that had been till now (while God was dealing with Israel and the earth) hid in God. He comes forth with this testimony—that Christ and the church were one; that heaven was their common inheritance: and the gospel committed to him, was the gospel, as he expresses it, of “Christ in you the hope of glory.” This gospel he had now to preach among the Gentiles (Galatians 1:1616To reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him among the heathen; immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood: (Galatians 1:16); Colossians 1:2828Whom we preach, warning every man, and teaching every man in all wisdom; that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus: (Colossians 1:28)).
We are thus enabled to see the fullness of the times in which the mysteries of God have been revealed. It must be so we know, for God is God. But through His abounding towards us in all wisdom and prudence, He gives us grace to see something of this that we may adore Him, and love Him, and long for the day when we shall see Him face to face, and know as we are known. For all these His ways are beautiful in their season. Israel was the favored earthly people, and it was due to them to try whether or not the fountain would be opened in Jerusalem, from whence to water the earth. But this debt of Israel had now been paid by the ministry of the Lord, closed in by that of the Twelve; and Stephen's address (in the 7th of Acts) is God's conviction of Israel's rejection of all the ways which His love had taken with them. They had silenced, as he there charges them, the early voice of God in Joseph—they had refused Moses the deliverer—they had persecuted the prophets—slain John others, who had showed before of the coming of the Just One—been the betrayers and murderers of that Just One Himself—and finally, were then in his person resisting, to the end resisting, as they had ever done, the Holy Ghost. The Lord therefore had only to forsake His sanctuary, and with it the earth, and the martyr sees the Lord in heaven under such a form as gives clear notice that the saints were now to have their citizenship in heaven, and their home in the glory there, and not on the earth.
This martyrdom of Stephen was thus a crisis or time of judgment, the final one with Israel; and a new witness to God is therefore called out. There had been already such times in the history of Israel. Shiloh had been the scene of the first crisis. The ark that was there was taken into the enemy's land—the priest and his sons died ingloriously; Ichabod was the character of the system then, and Samuel was called out as Jehovah's new witness—the help of Israel, the raiser of the stone Ebenezer. Jerusalem was afterward the scene of another crisis. The house of David had filled up its sin; the king and the people with all their treasures were taken down to Babylon, and the city laid in heaps; and Jesus (for the interval as to this purpose need not be estimated) is called forth, God's new witness—the sure mercy and hope of Israel. But He was refused, and in judgment turned His back upon Jerusalem, saying, “Behold your house is left unto you desolate.” That was a season of judgment also-judgment of Israel for the rejection of the Son of man; and another witness is then called out—the twelve apostles, who testify, as I have been observing, in the Holy Ghost, to the resurrection of the rejected Lord, and that repentance and remission of sins were provided in Him for Israel. But they also are rejected and cast out. Then comes the final crisis. Stephen is their representative, and he convicts Israel of full resistance of the Holy Ghost; and then a new and heavenly witness is called forth. Such witness is the church; and, of the church, and of the church's special calling and glory, Paul is made in an eminent sense the minister.
“It pleased God to reveal his Son in me,” says he. This is the ground of the church's special dignity, and the gospel which Paul preached. It was not the gospel of Messiah, the hope of Israel, nor the gospel of the once crucified One, now exalted “a Prince and a Savior, to give repentance to Israel, and remission of sins “; but it was the gospel of the Son of God revealed in him. The Son had been revealed to the disciples by the Father before (Matthew 16.17); but now He is revealed in Paul. He had “the Spirit of adoption.” The Holy Ghost in him was the Spirit of the Son; and anointed with this oil of gladness, he had to go forth and spread the savor of it everywhere. And upon the Son thus revealed within, hangs everything that is peculiar, as I have observed, to the, calling and glory of the church. Thus we read, “The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are children of God; and if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together” (Romans 8:16, 1716The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God: 17And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together. (Romans 8:16‑17)). And again, we read, “that we are predestinated to the adoption of sons by Jesus Christ,” that is, as Paul here speaks of himself, to have the Son revealed in us. And this being the predestinated condition of the church, there comes forth, as in the train of this, all the church's holy prerogatives—acceptance in the Beloved, with forgiveness of sins through His blood-entrance into the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, so as to have made known to us the mystery of the will of God—future inheritance in and with Him, in whom all things in heaven and earth are to be gathered—and the present seal and earnest of this inheritance in the Holy Ghost. This bright roll of privileges is inscribed by the apostle thus-” spiritual blessings in the heavenlies “; and so they are, blessings through the Spirit flowing from and linking us with Him who is the Lord in the heavens (Ephesians 1:4-124According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love: 5Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, 6To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved. 7In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace; 8Wherein he hath abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence; 9Having made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he hath purposed in himself: 10That in the dispensation of the fulness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; even in him: 11In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will: 12That we should be to the praise of his glory, who first trusted in Christ. (Ephesians 1:4‑12)).
All this follows upon the Son being revealed in us, by which the church puts on Christ, so as to be one with Him in every stage of this wondrous way; dead, quickened, raised, and seated in heaven in Him (Ephesians 2:66And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus: (Ephesians 2:6)). And of this mystery, Paul was especially the steward. The Lord had hinted at it in the parable of the Vine and the branches. He had spoken of it as that which the presence of the Comforter was to effect, saying, “At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you.” He spoke of it also to His disciples through Mary Magdalene after the resurrection, saying, “I ascend unto my Father and your Father, unto my God and your God “; thus telling them that they were to be one with Him in love and joy before the throne, all through this present dispensation. But this mystery did not fully come forth till Paul is sent to declare it. It is a calling of exceeding riches of grace, but nothing less could meet the mind of God towards His elect; for He that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified, were to be all of one (Hebrews 11). Thus stood the covenant of love before the world was. A mediator such as Moses, whose best service was to keep Jehovah and the people asunder (sec Deuteronomy 5:55(I stood between the Lord and you at that time, to show you the word of the Lord: for ye were afraid by reason of the fire, and went not up into the mount;) saying, (Deuteronomy 5:5)), could not answer the purpose of this marvelous love of our God; but in the Son the elect are taken into fullest favor; and while His work and merit are all their title to anything, they have everything by their oneness with the Mediator Himself (John 17:2626And I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare it: that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them. (John 17:26)). Nothing less than this could fulfill the desire of our heavenly Father's heart towards us. The partition wall, whether between God and sinners, or between Jew and Gentile, is broken down; and we sinners stand together on its ruins, triumphing over them in Christ, our heavenly Father rejoicing over them also. This is the marvelous workmanship of the love of God, and the forming and consummation of this union of Christ and the church is the husbandry which God is now tending. He is not, as once He was, caring for a land of wheat, and oil, and pomegranates, that His people might eat without scarceness of the increase of the field (Deuteronomy 11:1212A land which the Lord thy God careth for: the eyes of the Lord thy God are always upon it, from the beginning of the year even unto the end of the year. (Deuteronomy 11:12)); but He is the husbandman of the vine and the branches. He is training the church in union with the Son of His love, “till we all come into the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God to a perfect man.” It is this union which makes us of the same family with the Lord Jesus, and entitles us to hear of Him as “the First-born” (Romans 8:2929For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. (Romans 8:29)). It is this union which gives us the same glory with the Lord Jesus, and entitles us to look after Him as “the Forerunner” (Hebrews 6:2020Whither the forerunner is for us entered, even Jesus, made an high priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec. (Hebrews 6:20)). It is this which gives character to that life which we now have, and to that glory in which we shall be manifested, when He who is our life shall be manifested.
[J. L. H.]
(Continued from page 205)
(To be continued)