Read Num. 35; Deut. 19; Heb. 6
There was an ordinance in Israel of old which seems to have a remarkable anti-type in the “Church of God” during the present interval, while Jesus remains in the heavens exercising His High Priestly office. I allude to that of the appointment of the Cities of Refuge for the slayer of blood.
Amongst the forty-eight cities of the Levites there were six cities to be marked off that the slayer might flee thither, and be safe from the avenger of blood. Three cities of refuge were to be appointed on the eastern side of Jordan; and three cities in the land of Canaan. They were for the “children of Israel,” for the “Stranger,” and for the “Sojourner;” that “everyone that killeth any person unawares may flee thither.”—Num. 35:1515These six cities shall be a refuge, both for the children of Israel, and for the stranger, and for the sojourner among them: that every one that killeth any person unawares may flee thither. (Numbers 35:15).
Care was taken that the guilty man, whose crime was done wittingly, should not escape from the avenger of blood. He might have “fled for refuge” to one of these cities, and the Levites there, as in duty bound, may have received him; but the day came when he “stood before the congregation in judgment,” and his cause was heard. If the act was done with premeditation, he was given up to the “avenger of blood,” notwithstanding his having reached the refuge of the city which was appointed for this purpose.
But if the slayer had done the act in ignorance, and yet had shed the blood, the day came when the cause of the avenger was heard, and the congregation were to “deliver the slayer out of the hands of the revenger of blood, and the congregation shall restore him to the city of his refuge,—whither he was fled: and he shall abide in it unto the death of the High Priest, which was anointed with the holy oil.”
But there he should remain. “No satisfaction” whatever was to be taken for the life of the murderer—the wittingly guilty man (v. 31), who hated his neighbor in times past (Deut. 19:1111But if any man hate his neighbor, and lie in wait for him, and rise up against him, and smite him mortally that he die, and fleeth into one of these cities: (Deuteronomy 19:11)). And no satisfaction for him that is fled. to the city of his refuge (the man who did the deed without premeditation, and was Unwittingly guilty), that he should come again to dwell in the land until the death of the High Priest; when that time came, and only then, might he return to. the land of his possession (vv. 28, 31, 32).
To have gone back, supposing such could have been, was to defile the land with blood; for the land could not be cleansed of the blood that is shed therein, unless by the blood of him that shed it (v. 33). It would have amounted to saying that the blood of the slain was a matter of no consequence at all, and this would be to defile the land in which Jehovah dwelt.
The reception of the man thus guilty was the act of the Levites. This was a part of their service to Israel, to the stranger, or to him that sojourned amongst them, who slew his neighbor in time past.
We now turn to the New Testament. The Jews had slain their Messiah! The voice of “all the people,” even when Pilate desired to let Him go, and took the boson, and washed his hands before them, saying, “I am innocent of the blood of this just person,” their voices answered, “His blood be on us, and on our children” (Matt. 27:24,2524When Pilate saw that he could prevail nothing, but that rather a tumult was made, he took water, and washed his hands before the multitude, saying, I am innocent of the blood of this just person: see ye to it. 25Then answered all the people, and said, His blood be on us, and on our children. (Matthew 27:24‑25)). The swollen tide of the evil of man’s heart surrounded that cross, and the scenes which went before. None in that vast multitude but had his warning as to what he was doing. It was no unwitting murder on man’s part. The law required two witnesses at least to establish the guilt of the accused (Deut. 19:1515One witness shall not rise up against a man for any iniquity, or for any sin, in any sin that he sinneth: at the mouth of two witnesses, or at the mouth of three witnesses, shall the matter be established. (Deuteronomy 19:15)). The chief priests and elders and the council, sought false witness against Jesus to put Him to death (Matt. 27:6060And laid it in his own new tomb, which he had hewn out in the rock: and he rolled a great stone to the door of the sepulchre, and departed. (Matthew 27:60)), but found none. Two false witnesses came at last with the tale that He had said, “I am aide to destroy the Temple of God, and to build it in three days.” But Jesus opened not His mouth.
It was striking—yet true—that God should have taken care that there should be two of the most impartial witnesses the world could produce to testify to the spotlessness of His Son Judas, the betrayer, was the one; and Pilate, the judge, was the other! One who had known Him intimately, and had watched with the keen eye of lust, his previous Master; one who had the opportunity of knowing every turn of His spotless life and ways, and who had been treated as any other of His followers throughout his course by Jesus. For never by word, look or sign, had Jesus made a difference between him and the rest. Who could be better able then to tell forth the flaw—the hasty word—the slightest soil if such was there than he! And God chose the betrayer to be one of the two independent witnesses for His Son! When the betrayer saw that the unresisting Savior was condemned, in his remorse, and in defiance it may be, he entered the holy place (τῳ ναῳ), used for that part of the temple where the glory had dwelt of old), and cast down the pieces of silver, confessing—for despair speaks the truth— “I have betrayed the innocent blood.”
The judge, too, after hearing all the accusers had to say, and warned by his wife, and by that conscience which told him he was about to burthen his soul with a useless crime—he was the other witness whom God chose to speak—for the Son of His love! What more impartial witnesses could there be? The false disciple who sold his Master, and the unjust judge who condemned the guiltless were both the men to be chosen of God to proclaim that day and ever since that the condemned was a spotless man! Pilate took the water, and washed his hands, and said, “I am innocent of the blood of this just person.”
Messiah was led away to His cross “As a sheep dumb before her shearers; so he opened not his mouth.” On the way to the cross, He spoke to the weeping daughters of Jerusalem, warning them of their fate and their children’s. On the cross, he said, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:3434Then said Jesus, Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do. And they parted his raiment, and cast lots. (Luke 23:34)). Willing in His grace not to hold them finally guilty of a witting murder in their hatred of Him. But they were guilty, and knowingly so, of the murder in hatred of a just Man—to go no further than this. The blood-money was used by the priests to purchase a field to bury “strangers” in. That field is called the field of blood unto this day (Matt. 27:7, 87And they took counsel, and bought with them the potter's field, to bury strangers in. 8Wherefore that field was called, The field of blood, unto this day. (Matthew 27:7‑8).) And thus the people are blood-guilty, and the land “denied.”
But God raised up His Son from out of the dead, and exalted Him to His own right hand in glory as Man. Those who had followed Him when here below were to await in Jerusalem the Holy Ghost to be sent down from heaven. And this was done. “The day of Pentecost was fully come,” and the promised Paraclete was sent from heaven, and sitting on each, in cloven tongues, as of fire, He filled all the house where they were sitting, and formed the disciples into a habitation of God through the Spirit (Eph. 2:2222In whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit. (Ephesians 2:22)).
It is not my present purpose to trace out the constitution of this company of disciples, by the baptism of the Spirit into “one body,” uniting them to the Lord in heaven. This is one aspect of the Church of God-a body united to its Head in heaven. the other aspect of it, being a habitation of God by His Spirit on earth—the “House of God.” This “House,” budded in the name of the murdered, but exalted Jesus, was now the City of Refuge for the poor blood-guilty Jew. The avenger of blood was at his heels! Every moment was precious if he would escape and flee for refuge.
And now the Church in her Levite, or servant place, opens her gates for blood-guilty but repentant Israel. Peter cries, in his first sermon, “Save yourselves from this untoward generation.” Even the “stranger” would find a place in this City of Refuge—the Church of God: those “afar off’ would find a spot where the unwitting bloodguilt might find a pardon.
Thousands fled for refuge at that time. The land—defiled with blood—instead of being merely, as now, a place for the burial of “strangers,” was the spot where this new and heavenly City of Refuge was to be found-where “strangers” might find shelter, life and peace. The Church of God was this. The High Priest who was anointed with the holy oil had gone on high into the heavenly sanctuary. As He swept into the heavens, the golden bells and pomegranates on the skirts of His garments were heard and seen in the testimony and fruits of the Spirit on earth in the Church—in the body of Christ. The Levite service of His people was active in welcoming the blood-guilty who repented of their sin to this place of security. Their priestly office was occupied in offering up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus, and in showing forth the praises of Him who had called them out of darkness into His marvelous light.
The avenger of blood reached those who did not flee, and soon were the blood-guilty Jews swept away and scattered amongst the nations; but the Church of God remains—the habitation of God through the Spirit—the true City of Refuge to welcome the Jew, the stranger, and the sojourner, until Jesus as the true High Priest leaves His present place in the heavens; then Israel as a nation will return to the land of their possessions. It remains a great “Aceldama,” or “field of blood”—a place to bring strangers unto this day.
Like the day when Moses pitched the tent outside the guilty camp of Israel (Ex. 33) the “ Church of God” became the “tent of meeting,” where those who sought the Lord might come. There Joshua remained. Israel was judged and God was in His habitation.... through the Spirit.
But I trace still this thought of the City of Refuge. If we turn to the Hebrews we shall find in that epistle that which presents Christ gone up as high priest into “heaven itself.” Unlike Ephesians, which presents the Church “ in Christ Jesus” in the heavenlies, it presents Christ in heaven for men (believers of course). The profession of Christianity is thus viewed as on earth; redemption being the starting point, Christians are journeying on, partakers of the heavenly calling, towards the rest which remains. But in keeping with the present priestly place of the Lord, do we not find the thought of the City of Refuge intermingling itself with the general thought of the writer? Christianity is there seen in its privileges as enjoyed in consequence of Christ’s place in heaven, and the Holy Ghost’s place on earth in the Church. I do not say that the doctrine of the Church is found in the epistle; it is only once named in passing, in chapter 12. “The church of the first-born,” &c.
But the external Church on earth is before the mind of the Spirit; the Hebrews who had professed Christianity being the primary thought in this new sphere of privilege and safety from the avenger of bloodguilt, the day of reckoning would most surely come, and all unreality would find that “our God is a consuming fire.” Therefore, the many warnings, and solemn searching words at which almost every quickened conscience has some time or other quailed. See chapters 6 and 10.
To see the meaning of many thoughts in this and kindred scriptures in the epistles, requires that we should understand the difference between the external Church in her responsible place on earth, and the Church— “His body,” as in Christ Jesus in the heavenlies.
On the day of Pentecost both were co-terminus; the same number of disciples who were constituted into an habitation of God through the spirit on earth, were in union with Christ in the heavenlies. These two thoughts remain still true. While the true Church—the body of Christ has remained—cared for by the Lord, and maintained in union with Him by the presence and power of the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven at Pentecost, the profession of it on earth has enlarged its proportions so as to be what is termed “Christendom,” and this through the devices of the enemy and the failure of man.
The writer of Hebrews sees with the discerning eye of the Spirit the tendency to lapse into ordinances, and a ritual of the bygone system of Judaism; in fact, to return to the earthly order in which the “first man” had been tested by the Lord and found wanting, as in all else; he sees also the tendency in some to stand still in the “first principles of the oracles of God.” And with these two thoughts before him, he would encourage one in which the latter would he found, on into “perfection,” or full growth—the knowledge of a heavenly Christ, and all that follows. He would warn the former of the dangers of retrogression even in a little, lest after all it might end in apostasy—no reality being found in the soul that thus turned back to things that were of the past.
This state (in fact both), are before his mind when he pens the parenthesis which lies between ch. v. 11, and 6:20. He was on the way in ch. 5:10, to unfold the glories of this Melchisedec, when the state of his hearers arises before his mind with solemn force, and recalls his pen-first to warn, and then to encourage (ch. 6.), rather than to unfold.
When the Lord gives us this example, He takes up the most solemn case that we could suppose in the early part of ch. 6:4-8; that of the very highest character of privileges without life in the soul.
He writes, “For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened.” Here let us mark that this “enlightening” may be found in souls where no life is; I mean life from the Lord. The mind may be filled in the clearest manner with the truths of Christianity, and the conscience never have been reached—this, the only avenue into man’s soul—the conscience which he received when he fell. Unless that has been pierced by the quickening power of the Word of God by the Spirit, knowledge but adds to the ruin of the soul.
Take a fish from the sea and raise it into the air of heaven, and you will find that it is death to it, while that same air of heaven is life to others. So the “things of the Spirit of God” may be found to be destruction and ruin to those who belong not to His sphere. Knowledge with life is a. dangerous thing. Knowledge where there is none is fatal.
Then we read, “And have tasted of the heavenly gift.” Remark, too, here, that it is tasted of it. This is a very solemn case. Tasting a thing is not nearly so strong an expression as tasting of it. This “heavenly gift” would take in all the blessings consequent on the death and resurrection and ascension of the Lord, with the presence of the Holy Ghost and all that flowed from this contrasted with the earthly gifts and blessings known and enjoyed in Judaism.
“And were made partakers of the Holy Ghost.” Surely, says someone, those are real saints! Nay; I may never have had communion with a person with whom I may be a partaker. The guests at dinner may partake of the viands, and yet have nothing more in common with the host and hostess to whom they belong. Persons have communion together personally when they themselves are in view; while they may be partakers of a loaf as well. Suppose they possessed the loaf jointly, and were partaking of it when a third person who had no proprietary rights in the loaf came up, and be partook with the others in the repast. Now, all would be partakers together, while only two would be sharers together of the loaf as possessing it, (κοινωνος).
Thus with the Holy Ghost’s presence in the church, consequent on the exaltation of Christ as Man. All may partake of the blessings of His presence; yet, none but those in whom He dwells personally could be said to be in the fellowship or communion of the Spirit of God; while the latter would also, in common with all, be partakers of His presence and the blessings He sheds around.
“And have tasted the good Word of God.” It is not here tasting of it; but the spoken words of God having been tasted with discrimination-beating the good news of what He is as Savior and Blesser in contrast to all that went before. These words being accompanied, too, with the “powers of the coming age;” those miracles, and wonders, and signs which God did to draw the attention of man to what His heart was ready to bestow by and with HIS Son.
What more had heaven to give when the best thing given, and all things freely added to Christ Surely nothing!
If then the heart was still stony ground. If Satan’s power to blind man’s eyes had still so strong a hold over the soul, the writer may add, “If they fall away (or, ‘and falling away’) to renew them again, with a view to (cis) repentance.” If, having found a shelter from the avenger for the guilt of Messiah’s blood who was the Son of God, in the City of refuge of His providing, they turned back again to the land where His blood was shed, and abandoned its shelter; as individuals (whoever may thus be guilty) they would thus take up the guilt of their nation—crucifying to themselves the Son of God! This the nation had done as a nation, and now the slayer who was accounted unwittingly guilty through the grace of Jesus, wittingly indorses the deed, and “does despite to the Spirit of grace.” For him then there was no return as far as man could say. With God all things are possible.
He then draws the analogy in verses 7 and 8 between the heart of the faithful believer and the unfaithful professor, which bore nothing but thorns and briars, though heaven’s showers were shed upon his heart. Verse 7 puts us in mind of the description of the land of Canaan, in Deut. 11:11-1211But the land, whither ye go to possess it, is a land of hills and valleys, and drinketh water of the rain of heaven: 12A 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 11:11‑12). The land “which drinketh water of the rain of heaven,” as verse 8 does of the land of Egypt where all was toil.
In verses 8-12, the writer addresses them with a word of true encouragement, seeing, as he does, “the things that accompany salvation” amongst them. These were signs and indications of life being there. Their hearts may have forgotten what God would not forget—their work and labor of love—which He desired that he might see in the same diligence to the full assurance of hope to the end. And that they should not be slothful, but walk after those who through faith and patience inherited promises.
I do not dwell on His comforting and refreshing words, but pass on to mark some other features which seem to help us in enlarging upon the thoughts of the analogy of the “city of refuge” of old, and the assembly of God on earth now.
We read in verse 17, “Wherein God willing (counseling) more abundantly to show unto the heirs of promise the immutability of his counsel, interposed himself by an oath. That by two immutable things (God’s counsel and His oath) in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us.”
How small, how feeble is the saving faith which is owned and encouraged here One who felt that judgment was at his heels, and but a single chance left of escape. His heart and conscience felt that Christ alone could be his hope for salvation now; hope other than in Him was cast aside. He runs to the city appointed for his refuge, and enters its precincts to breathe again in safety. But he desires to rest in Him alone who had pointed this way of escape and safety. He would not even rest in the carnal security that he had entered the city, and forget Him in whose name it had been built. His heart rises to the Lord as the heavenly intercessor of His people; and, as it were, his soul enters the heavenly sanctuary in hope, and his faith lays hold on the very horns (so to speak) of the golden altar within the holy place. Still higher mounts his hope as the anchor of his soul surely and steadfastly drops within the vail itself, whither the forerunner has entered: there he finds the “strong consolation” which God would give to all who would flee.
( To be continued, D. V.)