The Lord God, of old, entered on His rest, or Sabbath, as Creator. He had ended His work, and on the seventh day He rested. We know that this Sabbath has been lost by man, and the rest of God disturbed. We know also that another rest, or the keeping of a Sabbath, is in prospect. In what character, we may ask, will it be entered?
Scripture tells us, by a Conqueror. (See Psa. 47-48;92-100 Rev. 19) These Psalms, &c., intimate that the Lord had just displayed Himself as a Man of war, stilling the noise of waves or the madness of the people, and was now keeping the Sabbath of a Conqueror, or enjoying a triumphant rest.
David making way for Solomon is the type of this.
Solomon was the Peaceful—a name which implies not abstract rest, but rest after conflict.
In such a dignity the Lord enters His second rest, or Sabbath. The first had not been the rest of the Peaceful. It was the rest simply of the Creator—of One who had ended a work. It was not a triumphant rest. It was not a rest that bespoke previous glorious warfare. It could not have had the presence of a Conqueror to adorn and gladden it.
But still more. Heaven has anticipated this joy and this ornament; for it has already received a Conqueror. Jesus is there in this character, though never till He ascended had heaven known such a character. The Lord God had filled the heavens, and the angels that excel in strength had attended. Some may have been cast down who kept not their first estate, and others have sung together, as when the earth’s foundations were laid. But never, we may say, had a Conqueror been there till Jesus ascended. But He, through death, had destroyed him that had the power of death. (Heb. 2:14) He had led, captivity captive. (Eph. 4:8) He had made a show of principalities. (Col. 2:15) After the type of Samson, He had borne the hostile gates to the top of the hill. He had overcome ere He sat down on the Father’s throne. (Rev. 3:21). The grave-clothes had been left in the empty sepulcher. (John 20:6,7). As Conqueror, therefore, Jesus ascended. Heaven had already known the Living God, but now it had to know the Living God in victory. The Lord returned us in triumph, and filled heaven with a new song, “The Conqueror’s Song.” And in spirit this song is sung every day by all the saints now gathering.
And we enter heaven and the Kingdom as conquerors also. “To him that overcometh will I grant to sit on my throne, as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father on His throne! (Rev. 3:21). We rise as shouting, “O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? —thanks be to God who giveth us the victory?” (1 Cor. 15:55). This is the language of conquerors, as the rising ascending saints will be, in their day and way and measure—as their ascending Lord has already been in His day and way and measureless glory.
It is the kingdom of Conquerors that is to be thus displayed and established; and it will be therefore an irreversible Kingdom. Unlike the Garden of Eden; for Adam entered it in order to be assayed—that the Serpent might try a question with him, and put creature integrity to the proof. The Kingdom is to be entered and taken by conquerors—by those who have been proved, and not who are to be proved.
And the earthly places will be of the same character; for Israel will already have been proved, and refined, and brought forth, and stablished in the faith of the victory of Christ; they will have been already made His “goodly horse “and “weapons of war.”
This is, indeed “a new song,” the Conqueror’s song: and heaven and earth will witness and celebrate it; their history must have taught it to them.
The old song, like the old work, was not a Conqueror’s. The Morning Stars sang over the work of Creation; but that work was not, as I have said, a Conqueror’s work. It was not victory, but creation. It was not glorious peace after warfare, like Solomon’s, but simply rest and refreshing after labor. And therefore the song of the Morning Stars—the old song—was according that, simple joy over the grand foundations of the earth being laid. But the song which ushers in the Kingdom will be that of Conquerors, and thus new in its strain and burthen. The first “corner-stone” was simply “laid” down by a Creator (Job 28:6,7), and angels sang. the second “corner-stone “shall be brought in as Victor, and Israel shall shout I (Psa. 118)
J. G. B.