Num. 23
(Concluded.)
WE have seen how God laid hold of Balaam by exposing his wickedness. Having got him in His own hand, He forces him to have to do with Himself about His own people. It is a remarkable fact, that Israel does not appear at all in this scene. It was God and Balaam. So when God beholds His people, He does not allow any check against them, because they are His. If God was walking amongst His people He took account of all their perverseness, (see Deut. ix. 24, which speaks of them as at this very time rebelling against the Lord in the plains of Moab.) God's judgment of us as saints in our walk, is the same thing; and our sins against Him, after we are saints, should grieve us even more than those we felt as sinners. When God judges amongst His people as to their walk, He calls everything to account, for He can “by no means clear the guilty.” Never does He, in the riches of His grace, bear with or allow sin, as people cay. He can cover it in atonement; He can put it away in the cross, instead of imputing it; but never can He bear with it, and so give up any requirements of His holiness.
However, the whole question now was between God and His enemy, and it took place up at the top of the hill, the people knowing nothing at all about it. What could Balaam do with God about the people? Nothing: and when he found he could not avail with God against them, he afterward seduces them into sin, and God has to chasten them.
But now, in having to do with God about His people, it is only the occasion of God's making a new revelation of His grace. God could not curse His people or defy Israel. God has His own thoughts about them, and although He can allow no inconsistency in His people, He will bring to pass His own purposes.
It is of the last importance for us to see how distinct is God's judgment concerning us as in our standing in Christ, and as to our walk as saints in the world. The judgment we form of ourselves is never the same as God's. The Holy Spirit who leads us to judge ourselves takes account of all the evil which is contrary to God's holiness. In judging myself, I ought to be able to see in myself all the evil, and to be ready to say, when I detect myself, That is not charity, that is not holiness. I have to judge my own heart according to what I am; but God's judgment of me is according to what He sees me in Christ. If I did not know this to be God's judgment of me, I should never have courage to judge myself. How could I ever look at the evil within, if I knew God was going to impute to me all the evil, and would condemn me for it?
All the difference between experience and faith is this. The testimony of the Holy Ghost in Heb. 10,
as to what God says of us, has to be laid hold of by faith. “Their sins and their iniquities I will remember no more.”
Balaam has no faith in God, so he goes to a high place to see what He will say to him. Peradventure the Lord will meet him. In the next chapter we find he did not do this. Here he takes the character of being very religious. Ver. 9. With God in the hill, not Israel in the camp, he sees them. The people as to fact were going on with their foolishness, or their piety, (there were Joshuas and Calebs, no doubt,) but that is not taken account of; God takes all this interest in them out of the springs of his own heart. “The people shall dwell alone and shall not be reckoned,” &c. God is as absolute in taking them for Himself, as in taking them out of the world. So we are “bought with a price,” and are therefore not our own. Taken out of condemnation, sin, and misery, we are brought into blessing, and now we are not to be like those who are in the world. We are redeemed from the world, and the result of this principle is, that we do not belong to ourselves at all. What we do belong to ourselves in, is in the first Adam. But God has taken us out of this world that we should belong to Himself. He brought His people out of Egypt to be made His own habitation. Ex. 15-18. God dwells on earth now in us as His habitation. We shall dwell in heaven by and by. We are a heavenly people, and the life of a person consistent with God's dwelling in him is looked for. It is Satan's unwearied effort to bring a curse against us, as it was with God's enemy, in the history of His people, to curse them. We have to resist him steadfast in the faith. His accusations are made to God, and God answers for us. Faith takes up the answer of God, as in Zech. 3. It is of the greatest importance for our peace and, our holiness too, for us to understand this. What could Joshua say to the filthy garments about which he was charged? and ought he to have our filthy garments? Surely not; he has nothing to say, but God answers for him: This is a brand I have plucked out of the fire, and you want to put it in again. Then He says to the angel, “Take away the filthy garments,” &c.; and then God speaks to Joshua, and tells him that He has done it. “Behold, I have caused thine iniquity to pass from thee,” &c. Thus He makes the poor sinner to know the perfectness of His work, and the love in His heart that has wrought on his behalf. He does not say, I will do it, but “I have caused,” &c.
Ver. 19. Balaam is obliged to bear witness to the character of God. “God is not a man that he should he; neither the son of man, that he should repent,” &c. He is not only a God of truth, but He does not alter it. He says, “Their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more.” This speaks the unrepentingness of God. The truth that He tells is truth, eternal truth, and it is now in the mouth of the enemy. “I cannot reverse it.” Not, I will not, but I cannot.
The great need we have, as individual saints in the wilderness, is to see the evil that is in ourselves practically, and judge it perfectly. Then we shall never be judged for it. God cannot allow sin in us. His way of putting it away is the opposite of making allowance for it; but it is the non-imputation of it.
Ver. 23. “Surely there is no enchantment against Jacob, &c.; according to this time it shall be said, what hath God wrought?” If a soul only sees what he has wrought, he stays away from God; but if he sees what God has wrought, he is happy with Him. You can never know how to pronounce judgment upon yourself, without getting into His presence. It must be all uncertainty until you know what God says. You will have Jesus on one side and hopes on the other, light on one hand and clouds on the other. It is in knowing our position in the second Adam, as risen before God, that we have peace, and joy, and confidence.
Num. 24
The attempt of the enemy did not cause God to reiterate the same blessing merely, but drew out His activity, as it were, to bring out all the riches of His blessings. He carries out His own purposes according to His own will and thoughts.
We have seen, 1St, how God claimed them as His own people; 2nd, that they were completely justified by God. “I have seen no iniquity in Jacob or perverseness in Israel.”
God met Balaam, and he found there was no possibility of succeeding against God. Instead, therefore, of going, as at other times, to seek for enchantments, &c., he turns his face to the wilderness.
Ver. 2. “Balaam lifted up his eyes, and saw Israel abiding in their tents,” &c. We do not see a picture of the saints here in heavenly glory: for it was not Israel as brought into the final blessing of God in the land, that they are regarded here, but Israel in the wilderness. Thus we get, through Balaam, the knowledge of God's thoughts about His people here below, ver. 3-5. Directly I look at that which is born of God, I find an entirely new order of things. We are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit. The Christian is justified in Christ, and besides that, he is born of the Spirit. Balaam looks upon the people with God's eye. The Spirit of God fills his mind, and he sees what God's thoughts are about His people. Faith enables us to see with God's eyes instead of our own. “How goodly are thy tents,” &c. “Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin,” and “he cannot commit sin because he is born of God,” —not it cannot, but “he cannot.” “He,” the whole man, is of God.
Balaam “saw Israel abiding in their tents.” It was the wilderness. It is not now the justification of His people, but their beauty and loveliness in God's sight, as in the Spirit. They are not only accepted judicially, but they walk in the Spirit. Of Abel it is said, “he obtained witness that he was perfect, God testifying of his gifts,” &c. He was accepted in person first, and then his gifts are well pleasing to God. So Enoch was not only justified, but he had the present enjoyment of favor. “Before his translation he had this testimony, that he pleased God.” He was, as it were, Walking in the joy of the Father's smile.
Ver. 5. “How goodly are thy tents,” &c. This illustrates the aspect of the Church of God now, 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 more than man was in paradise. There was then no dwelling nor tabernacle of God. By and by His tabernacle will be with men. But as being in the standing of the Church, we are taken, as it were, into God's paradise now. We are builded together for a habitation of God through the Spirit. If the Church is divided and scattered, it is held in God's hand. “The wolf, coming, catcheth them, and scattereth the sheep;” but again it is said, “none shall pluck (or catch, it is the same word) them out of my hand.”
We are God's dwelling, and that is a different thing to God's regenerating us merely. The fact of being regenerate does not reveal things to our soul; but God does reveal things to us by His Spirit which dwelleth in us.
The manifested beauty of spiritual life in an individual, or in the Church is another thing, and depends of course on the faithfulness of walk; but the maintenance of spiritual life is entirely on God's part, and never fails.
“As the valleys are they spread forth.” This, is the refreshing power of the gospel. “How goodly are thy tents.” They are in favor with all the people: and the secret of the loveliness of the aspect was, that they were watered by the river of God— “as gardens by the river side.”
It is impossible but that Christ must meet the need of faith, let the general unbelief be what it may. Often, it is true, though most humbling, that the individual faith shines the brightest when the general unbelief is the darkest. In Paul's case it was so: he went on in spite of all difficulties, when “all were seeking their own, not the things which are Jesus Christ's.” Faith looks not only at the blessing there is in God, but at the blessing where He has given it—with His people. The people are identified with God on high; therefore they are blessed, and God cannot allow evil in them.
Faith recognizes the place where blessing is and drinks it in. “As the trees of lign-aloes which the Lord hath planted,” &c., and then they become the source of blessing to others when so filled. “He shall pour the water out of his buckets.” (Ver. 22.) The bride herself says to her Lord, “Come,” and says to those who are athirst also, let them “take the water of life freely.”
I have not got CHRIST yet, but I have got the living water, and therefore I can say, Come and drink. We are not in glory yet, and we are not with the world; but we have the Spirit, and it is said. “he that believeth, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.”
Having Christ, we have sap from the tree of life, and there can be no limit in the result. There is no stint, though little power indeed to use it. “His seed shall be in many waters,” signifying the extent of the blessing.
When, besides this, there is strength. “His king shall be higher than Agog, and his kingdom shall be exalted.” Israel will have a king in Zion, but we are in a closer connection with the Bridegroom as His bride. We shall be displayed in the kingdom by and by. Mark the difference, how it is said, “How goodly are thy tents,” &c., but thy “king” &c. The people had not a king yet. Their visible blessing in power had not come yet. Their elevation was to be a future thing in the land.
With us it is not the kingdom we are looking for as our hope; indeed, in a certain sense, we are now in the kingdom. It is for us “the kingdom and patience;” for Christ is rejected and gone. We are being called to share His rejection and afterward his glory. “We shall reign with him.” He is a King and we are kings. He is a Priest and we are priests. If we suffer with Him, we shall be also glorified together. He is our Head, and in all things He is to have the pre-eminence. There is to be power connected with those who have the kingdom. There is not only such a thing as blessing, but it is connected with the people of God.