“TRUST ye in the LORD Forever: for in the Loin) Jehovah is everlasting strength” (Margin, “Rock of Ages,” Isa. 26:44Trust ye in the Lord for ever: for in the Lord JEHOVAH is everlasting strength: (Isaiah 26:4)).
“For all the promises of God in Him (the Son of God) are yea, and in Him Amen, unto the glory of God by us” (2 Cor.1:20).
The passage in Isaiah speaks of the eternity of the living God, but though eternal life is alluded to in the Old Testament, it could not be developed, for man was still under the sentence of death. Psalms 89 will illustrate what I have said. It is a beautiful and touching psalm. It opens with the psalmist’s ascription of praise for the mercy and faithfulness of Jehovah, and specially in regard to the promises assured to David by Jehovah’s oath.
But where are the people who can enter upon these promises and assured mercies? Let my reader note what is said in verse 19, “Then Thou spakest in vision to Thy holy one”; it is related to the word mercies,’ and might be translated “Mercy One,” He in Whom all Jehovah’s mercies are secured (Yea and Amen). This is in vision only, and the psalm goes on to say in verses 47, 48, “Remember how short my time is,... What man is he that liveth and shall not see death? shall he deliver his soul from the hand of the grave?” We shall see the answer to this in the New Testament.
But first let us look at Psalms 90. Here dying man is not before us, but the LORD in whom Israel had known a dwelling-place in all generations; and the eternity of God is before us. “From everlasting to everlasting, Thou art God.” Man is turned to destruction, or brokenness, but this eternal God can say, “Return, ye children of men.”
That shows, as another has said, that He had no beginning, He was “from everlasting.” Then in verse 14 it is said that this eternal Word “became flesh and tabernacled among us”! Among whom? Among dying men and women. But further He had authority to lay down the life of flesh which He had assumed, and to take it again. This, blessed be God, He did, and hence we can say: ―
“HE LIVES, the great Redeemer lives,
What joy the blest assurance gives!
He lives triumphant o’er the grave,
He lives, eternally to save.”
Passing on to chapter 3:14, the Lord who lives speaks of His death in the figure of Moses lifting up the serpent in the wilderness, that dying men, dying from the serpent’s bite, might live. In the Son of man lifted up, whoever believes has eternal life. But who was this Son of man? Listen further “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”
But turn again, to the promises of Psalms 89. Will they not be performed, though they cannot be made good in dying men? Assuredly. Hence we read in 2 Corinthians 1:1818But as God is true, our word toward you was not yea and nay. (2 Corinthians 1:18), that there could be no “nay,” no perchance in the Son of God out of heaven. All is divine verity—“Yea and Amen.” Whatever are the promises of God, “All are yea and all Amen unto the glory of God by us (vs. 20). Why “by us?” Because we who believe in the Son of man lifted up, and in the Son of God given, are associated with Him, and He is now in the glory of God.
Dear believer, do you believe how entirely you are bound up with Him Whom God has glorified? so that you can say, ―I, a dying man by nature, have passed from death to life, and I await the glory of God, because my Saviour is already in the goal of all the thoughts and purposes of the eternal. God. You can point to the glorified Man, and say, God is going to be glorified in us who believe in His own Son. We shall be with Him and like Him.
“Image of th’ Infinite Unseen,
Whose being none can know;
Brightness of light no eye hath seen,
God’s love revealed below.
The light of love has shone in Thee,
And in that love our souls are free.”
T. H. R.