That which is specially set before us in this chapter is the comparison of the state of Israel in the wilderness and the believers entering into God's rest.
We are apt continually to be referring something to ourselves, even when we acknowledge that it is grace that begins to work. We are still making ourselves the center of our thoughts; and in thinking of heaven, it is the thought of our getting there. The rest is ours, no doubt, just as the salvation is ours; but then we know its value much better when we know that it is God's salvation. It is so with the rest; and the more we can bring our souls to lean upon God, whether as it respects salvation, sanctification, or the rest of heaven, or glory to come—regarding it as God's rest, God's heaven, God's glory, as much as it is God's salvation and God's sanctification—the more shall we understand our full blessing.
We never get a blessing in its true value until we see that it all is God's. If I am thinking about my rest, I shall be thinking of my toil and my labor. This is true, but this is not the measure. In order to get the full measure, it must be God's—something so good and so blessed, that it can be God's own rest. It is mine because He has brought me into it; but I never learn the full power of it until I learn that it is what God has wrought for His glory, according to the perfections of God, and not according to the wants of him who needs it. This truth of God's being in the thing enters also into all my thoughts of that into which God is bringing me. God is the first leading thought of all that I hold precious in Christ.
He acts in grace by our wants, and toward our wants: but He does, by and through our wants, lead us to know what the God is to Whom we are brought. He does not say simply, Ye ought to be holy; but He chastens us that we may be made partakers of His holiness. Why so? Because God is acting from Himself toward us. His great delight is to act simply from His own love. This is true grace: and I never know the spring of blessing, of joy, of happiness, of peace to my soul, until I know God acting from Himself in grace.
In all God's dealings with His creatures there are two great principles, responsibility, and the source of life. Even in the garden of Eden there was the tree of knowledge of good and evil (here was man's responsibility); and also the tree of life. This is true also to us. Man, as a sinner, has his responsibility to God; and likewise as a saint, though the latter in grace. Angels are responsible to do His pleasure. All are responsible to God: but if the creature is to be blessed, he must have God's grace as the spring of life to his soul.
That is the grand difference which God has brought out between law and grace. The law dealt with man's responsibility. The law said, “Do this, and thou shalt live.” But though given as a rule, it really came to be the test of man's estate, and as much as says, “There you are, and that is what you are responsible for;” and therefore it never could give rest or make perfect. God gave law as the measure of man's responsibility; but that responsibility could not be the allowance of sin. Its measure as given of God must be according to what man ought to be before God: God could give no other. And hence, though ordained to life, the sinner found it to be unto death; because it brought to light the sin, and the law of sin, which could not be subject to the law of God. It never was a guide to man. You cannot guide a will opposed to God. You can never guide a sinner by all righteousness. It is the perfect rule of man's responsibility; but it gave nothing, while it required everything. You cannot talk of requiring from a sinner: for a sinner is in principle bad, and the requisition becomes the proof of it. What use, save for condemnation, to say, “Thou shalt not lust,” to a man who has lust in his nature? You cannot guide a will opposed to God. The effect of the law was to discover man's condition. The law of sin in his members was what he was: the law of God was what he ought to be. Paul was not guilty of immorality; but when it said, “Thou shalt not lust,” there was no hope for him: it was all over with him, because there was the detection of what he was. The law could not be a guide for man, who had lust in his nature. It was but the means of discovering that all he could produce was sin, making the law the minister of condemnation. The ten commandments were the prohibition of man's natural state: the last saying, “Thou shalt not lust.” The law, therefore, was not condemning merely what I had done, but my nature. It prohibited that which the sinner really was; and found him even in that state which it came to prohibit. You can give no rule to a man's sinful state. It only acts to detect the lust and sinful wanderings of the will in his nature.