The Feasts of the Future. (Leviticus 23:23-end.)
The last portion of the chapter which occupied us was (save verse 22) the feast of weeks, a distinct type of God's dealings with the Christian calling. It is hardly possible that any man possessing the slightest claim to the name of believer should question the fact. That is, the feast tallied to the very day with God's sending down the Holy Spirit, and beginning to gather together His children. No doubt they all were Jews at first, but along with it went this remarkable peculiarity: they were Jews that spoke every language under heaven; Jews that spoke not only the language of Canaan, but the tongues of the Gentile world. Surely this was a most significant fact! But more than that: not only were such brought in, but Jews of Palestine, yea of Galilee, were employed by the power of the Holy Ghost to address them in all sorts of languages never before learned. The miracle showed the widely-flowing grace of God that was coming and to come out. It was not as yet that all creation, groaning in bondage; was to be delivered, bit the whole of it under heaven was to hear the gospel. Hence the power of the Holy Ghost enabled the unlettered fishermen of Galilee thus to address their fellow-men in the language of every land into which the judgment of God had scattered them. Besides a gathering power to Christ as a center, grace was meeting men in the variety of tongues to which the judgment of God had doomed them at Babel. For it needs no reasoning to prove that God's work at Pentecost was not merely to save sinners. Those who say so have a most superficial idea of the great work done that day. Undoubtedly salvation was going on, and it was a new fact. Salvation before this was only held out in promise. Now the promise was accomplished. Clearly then those who suppose salvation to be no more than promised do not understand the immense step God has taken in His ways. It is really because of the low estimate they have, not perhaps of Christ, but of His work. The root of the mischief lies there; it may seem a distant point, but, when approached, it will always be found to be an inadequate view of redemption. There is not the reception of God's testimony within. Of course I am speaking here of soul-salvation, as we hear in 1 Peter 1: “Receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls.” The salvation of the body is not come yet; the salvation of the soul is as complete as it ever can be. This is Christianity, in fact; which comes in after the work of Christ was done, to save the soul before He again comes to save the body. It is exactly within that interval that we find ourselves now.
But there is another thing besides salvation, and that is the kingdom of God in mystery, for it is not yet manifested. The Lord Jesus is exalted, but not in a public manner. He is not yet on His own throne, but on His Father's. Thus, while there is now a kingdom of God, it is of course in a mysterious way with its own distinctive principles accordingly. None who bear His name can escape the responsibility of such a place of privilege; while those who are in the secret by the Spirit suffer with Him now, as they walk in grace and will be glorified together.
Besides salvation and the kingdom, there is a still more wondrous work going on at the same time—the calling of the church. Let me warn you against confounding these things. This confusion has been one of the early causes of the ruin of Christendom, and essentially characterizes popery, which could not subsist without it. Papists abuse the idea of the kingdom to get earthly power. But it is gross ignorance of the word of God. The Lord Jesus always draws a marked distinction between the church and the kingdom, as in Matt. 16, 18.
These three things then go on now: first, the salvation of the soul; secondly, the kingdom of God, or of heaven, as the case may be, which differ somewhat but are substantially the same great fact; and thirdly also, the church, the body of Christ. This last was in a general way intimated in the portion of the chapter we had before us ender the figure of the two wave-loaves.
We saw, further, that in the corner of the field corn was to be left. I do not mean by this that members of Christ will be left behind by the Lord when He comes for His own, but that God's Spirit will work and that believers will be called after the church is gone. They will be found in that little interval that follows in the last or seventieth week of Daniel.
If any one wishes to trace the history of this transitional space, the details of it will be found in the central parts of the Revelation and the latter half of Daniel. There may be read the full answer to the question of the corn which is to be left in the corners of the field.
The Feast of Trumpets.
Having given this brief summary of what was before us in the central portion of the chapter, we find ourselves in presence of an entirely new scene from verse 24: “Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, In the seventh month in the first day of the month, shall ye have a sabbath, a memorial of blowing of trumpets.” So far from the gospel being a continuous work to the end of the world, as many suppose, we see here that the Lord will begin a fresh testimony with a suited instrumentality for this new work when the church is gone. Observe that it is said here “in the seventh month:” this was the last month in which Jehovah instituted a feast. He brings to a completion the circle of His ways on the earth and for Israel.
In the very beginning then of this closing period of God's dealings, we have what? “A memorial of blowing of trumpets.” God then is inaugurating a fresh testimony. The trumpet is always a figure of God's intervention to bring in some signal change. It may be for judgment, as we find in some cases; or it may be a distinct testimony in grace, as we know in other cases. It is clearly a loud summons from God to people on the earth. And here we find it is not merely a blowing of trumpets, but “a memorial” of blowing of trumpets. It is a recall of what had long passed out of memory. It is God calling to mind what had once been before Him, but long dead and gone. What can this be? It is the recall of His ancient people on the earth. The Jew is again brought into remembrance before God. No wonder that there should be such “a memorial of blowing of trumpets!” Hundreds, one might say thousands, of years had passed since they had stood before Him as His people. The return from Babylon was only a partial work: as a whole, Israel never returned but were dispersed all over the world. Where was the bulk of them? They were lost among the Gentiles; and so to this day they have remained in a peculiar condition, unlike any other since the world began. They are in all countries without possessing their own, and yet a people; they are without a king, and yet a people; without a prince, and yet a people; without the true God, without a false God, and yet a people; a standing rebuke to the infidel, yet largely, deeply infidel themselves!
But that very people are yet to return to their land, and seek Jehovah their Lord and David their king; and shall fear Jehovah and His goodness in the latter days. But what does God do in the first place? He awakens them. The day of shadows is gone forever. The cross of Christ has closed unrealities. By the power of His resurrection the Christian is introduced into the new creation. The old is gone, the new come; and before God we have our place in Christ. When this work is finished, grace will begin to act in Israel, and they will be awakened.
Nothing more distinctly proves that God will have done with the Christian; for the gospel goes out to the Gentiles (though to the Jew first), and in the church, as in Christ, there is neither Jew nor Greek. The Feast of Trumpets is God's taking up Israel afresh to awaken them. Undeniably then this feast is after and quite distinct from Passover and Pentecost in which we have our interest; and the first thing disclosed in it is God's loud summons to a people who once had a place before Him and again come into remembrance for mercy, not judgment. It is evident that this could not consistently apply to the gospel that has been going out since Christ's death and resurrection. We have had our sacrifice and call to practical holiness and the gift of the Spirit long ago. But when God has done with our blessing, the chapter reveals that in the seventh month dead Israel is to be raised from the grave by God's trumpet, as Ezekiel predicted long after (chap. 37.). As this is clearly a new work, let us trace what light other scriptures throw upon it.
Let me take you to the Psalms. There you will find how truly they and the prophets agree with this figure in the law. See Psa. 81 There is a plain enough testimony as to its force: “Sing aloud unto God our strength; make a joyful noise unto the God of Jacob. Take a psalm and bring hither the timbrel, the pleasant harp with the psaltery. Blow up the trumpet in the new moon, in the time appointed, on our solemn feast day.” If men were not prejudiced, none would deny the application to Israel. The moon, that luminary which wanes and loses her brightness, once more renews her light. How strikingly is this to be verified in the Jew! You could not say it of the church of Christendom. The apostasy of the Gentile is fatal. Take Babylon; and what does Scripture teach as to this? Babylon never recovers her old light; Babylon is the corrupt woman that assumes the credit of being the bride whilst false to Christ, a mere harlot with the kings of the earth; and her end will be judgment and destruction: no renovation for her; no new moon shining out in fresh strength and brightness. Babylon will never rise again. Destruction is determined, and determined from the Lord God, but by the hand of the revived Roman empire and its satellite kings, avenging those she had corrupted too long. It is quite different with Israel, which never had the privileges of the church. The Jew was under the law: what did he know of being under grace as we are? By and by Israel will be put under the new covenant, but this cannot take place till the trumpets have blown once more, and the new moon is shining, as we hear in the Psalm, the new moon at the time appointed. The language is suited for Israel, and not for the church. They sing and make a. joyful noise to the God of Jacob. Why confound this with the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ? Why deny their hope of mercy?
It is a mischievous perversion to apply everything of the sort (the blessing at least, not the curse) to the church. Are we not blessed in heavenly places? We are entitled to take delight in these promises, but then it is not truly to enjoy them if we appropriate them to ourselves. Let us rejoice to know them as yet in store for other people, even Israel, in the latter days.
If I know any converted, am I to be jealous of their blessing? Am I not to rejoice that the grace of God that visited me is thus going out to many others? that it will embrace a larger circle by and by? So here, when we see in the, Scriptures that poor guilty Israel is to emerge from the grave, from their long lasting and dense darkness of unbelief, why wish it to be for the church? Indeed it is to lower our character of blessing from heaven to earth. Let us rather rejoice that at length God will awaken His people and accomplish all His purpose in them here below.
And here let me briefly call your attention to a passage on this subject very poorly rendered in our translation. It is Luke 2 “A light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of Thy people Israel.” It should be really “A light for revelation of [the] Gentiles.” I understand this to mean that Christ is a light for bringing Gentiles into divine view, and that it is accomplishing now, besides His being the glory of Israel by and by. The Gentiles instead of being in darkness as they once were in the ways of God, have, as privilege and responsibility, the true testimony of God. Not before the millennium will He be the glory of Israel. The Gentiles were once in the dark as the Jew is now; ere long the Lord will come for the glory of His people Israel. Luke's is the only Gospel where we have the coming of Christ thus viewed as present light for revealing the Gentiles and as future glory for Israel. I conceive this to be the true interpretation of the passage, and, when saying so, I do not mean in a half sort of way. It is important we should seize the intended real bearing of the word of God. We must not be too hasty in assuming it; but when we know that we have got it, let us hold it fast and use it for the Lord.
The eighty-first Psalm then speaks of the blowing of trumpets distinctly in connection with Israel. No one doubts there is the figure of a trumpet for ourselves—in general as in 1 Cor. 14, or precisely as in 1 Cor. 15; but then it is never in our case a memorial of blowing of trumpets. Thus the “last trump” is a blessed and solemn word as to us. What is its connection? It was a figure taken from the military usages of the Romans, then familiar to everybody. We must remember that the Romans were at that time masters of the world, and that people knew too well what their legions were. Few and distant were the places where men did not feel the grinding iron bondage of that imperial power. I think it is Josephus who gives an account of their encampment, and lets us know the various and successive signals given for the different movements of the army. But finally there was the “last trump;” and, the moment this sounded, they all moved off. This may serve to explain the Spirit's application of the phrase to the final summons of His people for meeting the Lord in the air.
It may be well to look at another Scripture, Isa. 27:12: “And it shall come to pass on that day, that Jehovah shall beat off from the channel of the river into the stream of Egypt, and ye shall be gathered one by one, O ye children of Israel.” This is the gathering not of believers to heaven, but of the children of Israel to their land. “And it shall come to pass in that day, that the great trumpet shall be blown; and they shall come which were ready to perish in the land, of Assyria and the outcasts in the land of Egypt, and shall worship Jehovah in the holy mount at Jerusalem.” Is not the application evident and sure? “Ready to perish” would not apply to the gathering of the church to heaven. We will be glorified in that day—a very different thing from their being ready to perish. It is clear that, just before God interferes, the people are to be in the last extremity of trial, being set upon by all their enemies.
As long as Israel is unnoticed or chastised by God, the Gentiles can be peaceable; but directly, there is any movement for good going on, and God is working to make Israel the head and not the tail, the old enmity will soon follow. In that day, then, they shall be gathered by God to Jerusalem. It is not Jerusalem above, where our portion is by grace; but Jerusalem on earth, where Jehovah in due time shall reign according to His goodness and promises many. This awakening of Israel then is clearly what answers to the feast of Trumpets.
It is written in Matt. 24:29, “Immediately after the tribulation of these days” —this may illustrate their being ready to perish— “shell the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken; and then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven. And then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And He shall send His angels with a great, sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of the earth to the other.” The context proves that His elect here are of Israel, not elect Christians. This remark may not satisfy some, who, whenever they see any good thing held out in Scripture, instantly assume that it must be for the church. But we can afford to rejoice in the future gathering of Israel. Have our brethren learned the parable of the “fig tree"? What means the fig tree? Not more surely is the rose the emblem of one part of our land and the thistle of another I could name, than the fig tree was similarly used of Israel. “When its branch is yet tender and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is nigh.” They have had their long winter, and now the Sun of righteousness is rising with healing on His wings. This may suffice to confirm the meaning of the Feast of Trumpets.