THERE is a path which may be traced in the Old Testament, into which God has led one and another who were called out to walk with Him, and that may be profitably observed by us in our day. It was acquaintance with Him, not so much in the general and public ways by which He made Himself known in acts and deeds to all; as in the thoughts of His own mind, and the undisclosed purposes of His own glory and His people's blessing, which were always His object; and for which the external workings of His government cleared the road. Such an intimacy with God must necessarily be more individual than general; more learned in the privacy of His own mind in communion with Himself than by the mighty signs and wonders of His arm, and more acted out under the guidance of His eye than by the instruction of His hand. " Shall I hide from Abraham the thing that I do?" at once illustrates and establishes the principle of which we are speaking, and supplies the example.
" THE GOD OF GLORY," who appeared to Abraham, and called him out from a fallen creation, as well as from a judged world at the deluge, was far more astounding than when He first created Adam, and led him in innocency into paradise, and gave him " lordship " over the creation He had made. Each of these men began a race of people-the one after he fell by transgression, and " begat a son in his own likeness;" the other called out from that race, and from their confederacy at Babel, to walk with God outside the world, in the privacy of a path which none knew but Himself, and to
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begin thus another history. God and a man are together again, but not as in creation with Adam, nor in the world after the flood, as with Noah, but in a path which He will develope with a man called out to be "the Friend of God." Other and new names are accepted and given, suited to this intimacy between God and him, and another principle is established by which Abraham becomes the head of a new race of men, as " the man of faith, and the father of us alL" It is into these secret ways of God that our progenitor is introduced, and he steps outside Adam's groaning creation, and Noah's world, spared and renewed, that he may, in virtue of his own peculiar calling by " the God of glory," walk with Him. He thus resigns the world after the flood and its divisions into north, south, east, and west, to Noah and his three sons, coming out of it all, as a solitary man of faith, to walk with God by promise in a path which He will show him. Though Abraham takes his place necessarily " as a stranger and a pilgrim " in Noah's world, yet we shall see how he gets a possession in it by a new title and through another channel, according to the secret counsels of God made known to faith and to another race of men, of which Abraham is the beginning and the head. "And when he was ninety years old and nine, the Lord appeared unto Abram, and said unto him, I am the Almighty God; walk before me, and be thou perfect." This is the original salutation that is known in this intimacy with God. The strength of man in the flesh is given up for the almightiness of God; the reasoning of the natural mind is set aside for faith in infinite wisdom; the efforts of human power are judged to be intrusions in the way of unbounded grace; and the resources of a sinful world under Shem, Ham, and Japheth, but temptations to seduce, or obstacles in the path of this family of faith. And God said, " As for me, behold my covenant is with thee, and thou shalt be a father of many nations, Neither shall thy name any more be called Abram, but thy name shall be called Abraham... and I will make thee exceeding fruitful, and I will make nations of thee, and kings shall come out of thee."
Which of us that looks at these three remarkable heads of the family of men-Adam, Noah, and Abraham-in the light of Scripture and of God's ways with each, can question the advance which the God of glory, and the calling out of Abraham as the man of faith and promise presents to the heart, either acquainted with itself, or instructed as to the nature of God? Adam was personally great in an unfallen creation, and Noah was relatively great in the midst of natural and covenanted blessing, as witnessed by the bow in the cloud; but Abraham was great by calling, for "the Lord had said, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred... unto a land that I will show thee... and I will bless thee, and make thy name great, and thou shalt be a blessing... and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed." Noah's world was the vast external globe, and by him and his three sons " was the whole earth overspread;" whereas, of Abraham and his seed it is said, " When the Most High divided to the nations their inheritance, when he separated the sons of Adam, He set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of Israel."
Indeed, the order of God has been since the fall a separating off to Himself " the elect," whom he calls out from the great outer world, either on the principle of faith and redemption, or else to Himself by new creative power and resurrection life, as known now by us through the Holy Ghost.
Another thing is important to observe, that not only did Abraham learn in this nearness what the real objects were which God had in reserve for faith, and for which His government in Noah's tumultuous world only cleared the way, but " the friend of God " had to walk by the same rule with any who joined him company. " Lot went with him," but this only brought out the difference between them when tested by the seeing of the eyes and the " hearing of faith." The distinction and separation between the earthly-minded and the heavenly-minded in their walk and ways is founded upon this principle, and divides the two men who started out of their own country for " the land that I will show thee." Outwardly and in act they were one, but inwardly and in the governing purpose of the heart they were two. This contrast is marked even by the language, "And Lot also which went with Abram." This shows him to have been not personally under the real power of the calling of God, as was the man of faith; and this, though but one remove " from Him that calls," marks a great distance in the moral principle of the soul, and in the end fatal, as it widened itself out in a departure to Sodom and the well-watered plains In reality Lot was not linked with the power itself, which is necessary to maintain the call of God, and that leads on into the final possession of the object of faith by a complete separation from the external world, and a refusal of the lustings of the flesh, which can attach to nothing else. Lot was connected with Abram, and " went out with him." Yea, further, for it is written, " into the land of Canaan they came;" but Abram walked with God in the path which opened itself out into His own unfailing glory. Nature, even in Adam, did not unite itself with God's purpose, nor can the flesh in Lot walk with Abram, and so breaks down at the very point where it is tested. When "Lot lifted up his eyes and beheld all the plain of Jordan, and thought of his flocks and herds," he was at his weakest moment, and gave up the call of God, proving he was not at the first united in the living power of the " God of glory, who appeared to Abraham." The journeyings of the children of Israel through the wilderness, long after this breakdown of Lot when in company with the man of faith and power, were but an extended proof, and a fatal one, that nature, accompanied even by the rod of Jehovah's power, could not follow in the path where God is working out His own counsels. In yet later histories, and in other company, Peter said, " Lord, I am ready to go with thee both into prison and unto death;" and Jesus said, " I tell thee, Peter, the cock shall not crow this day before that thou shalt thrice deny that thou knowest me." Indeed we may ask, in our own church times, What is the message to Laodicea but the ripened yet bitter fruit of the declension first, and then the departure originally brought out in Lot's history? " I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot. So, then, because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth." And Lot, which went up with Abram, chose him all the plain of Jordan, and Lot journeyed east; "and they separated themselves the one from the other." Nor is this all, for," Lot pitched his tent toward Sodom," and the Spirit of God marks this and the accompanying fact that " the men of Sodom were sinners, and wicked before the Lord exceedingly." This further separation is of great moment in its moral truth as regards the two narratives; for in Lot it was departure from God and the blessedness of His calling, which betrayed a condition of soul that could not rise up in present faith to find its satisfaction in what suited "the God of glory;" whilst in this Abram took delight, and found out who God was by the height of His calling. The separation of Lot from Abram was unto Sodom, a place which wondrously displayed the goodness of God outwardly, for it was "as the garden of the Lord;" nevertheless it was "goodness despised " by the men who dwelt therein, and was made the occasion of corruption and excessive wickedness, which in the end brought down the judgment of God. Lot is on his way to meet God, but to meet Him where the anger of the Lord heavily falls. Abram is in the way with God, and in a path which
unites to Him as the friend of God.. Lot is gone, but it only brings the Lord nearer to Abram; for " He said unto him, after that Lot was separated from him, Lift up now thine eyes, and look from the place where thou art, northward and southward, eastward and westward; for all the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed after thee."
This marks a new point in the history of the man of faith and of God; for he has not only come out from his country and kindred and father's house, but separated from "Lot who went up with him." Thus the earthly-minded and the heavenly- minded are divided on the pathway of faith and the calling of
God, though they came out together and appeared as one company. As the proper effect of this separation in the power of holiness, Abram takes his ground yet more firmly before God, Who established his friendship in the society of the living God, which imparts its own enchantment to his present position. " Then Abram removed his tent, and came and dwelt in the plain of Mamre, which is in Hebron (for these three things are what Hebron signifies), and built there an altar unto the Lord." He is alone now with God, in all that God is in Himself, and will be to Abram and his seed; and this to him is "Hebron," which forms the place for his altar, and which gains further distinction in the life and death of the new family, of which he is the distinguished head by faith and calling. It is not that Hebron is always or ever conspicuous to the outward eye, that looks for what is striking and natural to the senses; for it lies out of sight, yet not concealed to the family of faith, so that it becomes their token of present " friendship " one with another as well as. with God, and their accepted pledge of unbroken " society," and which lends " enchantment" to their bright future in the kingdom of glory. Thus " Abraham sojourned in Hebron, as did his son Isaac afterward. Jacob also came unto his father Isaac to Mamre, unto the city of Arbah, which is Hebron."
Nor was this place remarkable only as the sojourn of the illustrious living, but also as the burial-ground of the illustrious dead, who are (in the secret of this intercourse with God) only departed for a season. Sarah was the first to be led in this direction. So Abraham stood up from before his dead (for she died in Kirjath-arba, the same is Hebron, in the land of Canaan), and said, " Give me a possession of a burying-place with you." And Abraham weighed to Ephron the silver which he had named- four hundred shekels of silver-" and the field and the cave were made sure to Abraham." And after this, he "buried Sarah, his wife, in the cave of the field of Machpelah, before Mamre; the same is Hebron." The burial-place of Sarah, and of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob afterward, did but add its secret of resurrection
out of the grave to the characteristics of Hebron. It had only enlarged its circumference, and deepened its truth. Death could not violate the "friendship," nor break up "the society," nor dim "the enchantment," to the eye of faith and hope which has come out to walk through sin and death with the living God. It only transfers "the called" into the circle of God's own delights, where these interruptions cannot enter or follow them. In later times " Moses showed this at the bush," when he called the Lord the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. And Jesus himself spoke of this unbroken fellowship to those around, " for God (said He) is not a God of the dead but of the living; for all live unto Him." The Holy Ghost by Paul has added His witness to these: "For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels ... nor things present, nor things to come... shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." " Then Abraham gave up the ghost, and died in a good old age, an old man and full of years, and was gathered to his people; and his sons Isaac and Ishmael buried him in the cave of Machpelah, in the field of Ephron," which is Hebron.
The man who walks with God, in the pathway of faith, under the power of His calling, whether. in patriarchal days or in church times, will surely find that God leads all such away from the outside world and its confusions by man, as well as its delusions by Satan, into the thoughts of His own mind, and the undisclosed purposes of His own glory and His people's blessing as His ultimate object. Abram's earliest steps in this secret path were "as he passed through the land unto the place of Sichem, unto the plain of Moreh. And the Canaanite was then in the land." Moreover, Lot his brother's son "went with him." In the onward journey of faith Abram quits Sichem and his first altar there, for Hebron, a spot remarkable (as we have seen) for the separation of " the friend of God "' from the earthly- minded Lot into a closer fellowship with the hidden counsels of God, and the manner and times of their accomplishment by the
way of Sarah and the burial-place at Machpelah, or " the good will of Him that dwelt in the bush."
In the intermediate steps of Abram's walk with God he is for a moment drawn out from his privacy, and becomes the deliverer "of Lot, and his goods, and the women also, and the people," from the hands of the confederated kings in the day of battle. " There came one that had escaped, and told Abram the Hebrew.... and he divided himself against them, he and his servants by night, and smote them, and pursued them." Here it is that the competency and readiness of the heavenly-minded one to rescue " the dweller in Sodom" from the hand of the spoiler, is brought into the foreground; as afterward, Abraham takes the place of intercessor to deliver out of the fire, in the day of Sodom's condemnation and of Lot's escape. What a lesson for the earthly- minded is thus taught for to-day; and what a position it was into which "the God of glory" led his friend, as the public deliverer by act and deed (as now He does "through testimony ") out of the strife of the world; four kings, with five, " in the slime pits " of the vale of Siddim. Indeed, this energy of faith for the rescue of Lot, in the day of fierce conflict by the spoiler, and afterward in the prevalence of intercession with God alone for the dwellers in Sodom, are exercises by which the man of God can really help others, "pulling them out of the fire, and hating the garments spotted with the flesh." How different is Sodom, with Lot led by nature's power; to Hebron, with its great history of the man in the power of faith. They separated themselves, the one from the other, "and one departs to the left hand, but the other to the right." The well-watered plain is a witness of the breakdown in Lot, as regards the calling of God and the path of faith; whilst Hebron becomes to Abraham and his seed, what Gilgal was to Joshua and the twelve tribes after, when in possession of the land itself-the pledge of deepening acquaintance with God, in the place of real strength and unfailing power.
It is to be observed too, that where Lot was carried away captive and stripped of all he gained in Sodom, in the days of Amraphel, the king of Shinar, when Abraham entered the battlefield and delivered him, becomes the place " where 1VIelchisedec, the priest of the most high God, brought forth bread and wine, and blessed Abraham after he returned from the slaughter of the kings." The friend of God shines out in distinguished brightness, in company with this priest of the Most High, sealing, as he does to him, the blessing from the most high God, the possessor of heaven and earth. Hebron has introduced the man of the right hand to these inside intimacies with Melchisedec, the priest of the Most High; whilst outside this circle Abraham maintains an absolute separation from Sodom by a refusal of all it could offer, and which, alas! had tempted Lot to the left hand, in the hope of outward prosperity. And " Abraham said to the king of Sodom, I have lift up mine hand to the Lord, the most high God, the, possessor of heaven and earth, that I will not take from a thread to a shoe latchet, and that I will not take anything that is thine, lest thou shouldest say, I have made Abraham rich." Hebron and its altar are thus the witness that the friend of God has been let into "the secret counsels of peace and blessing" connected with this illustrious stranger Melchisedec, type of Him who is yet in future days of manifested power and glory in the kingdom, to come forth in the double title, as "king of righteousness, and king of peace."
The onward walk of faith, or the path into which " the God of glory" leads any outside the great world of Noah, and the divisions of the earth amongst the nations, is by revealing to Abram in a vision the secret that the steward of his house (this Eliezer of Damascus) should not be the heir, for God would bring in a son as the rightful heir, and displace the steward. " And he brought him forth abroad, and said, Look now toward heaven and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them. And he said unto him, So shall thy seed be." It was in this intimacy with the undisclosed secrets of God touching this new race, of which Abraham was to be the father, that he reached personally the further point of " righteousness " by faith. God had shown that He had taken into His own hands all that had to do with His own glory or the blessing of His people; and Abram was content to be " an old man," and Sarah his wife " past age," that the excellency of the power may be seen to be of God throughout, and not of man. How precious is Hebron, when it is the witness of such friendship in the social intercourse of the heart with the sufficiency of God, that it can refuse the seeing of the eye, and the strength of nature, to make room for the grace and power of God. This confidence in Him, and such nothingness as to self and the resources of nature, form the ground for righteousness by faith, and prepare a place for this weighty Scripture: " He believed in the Lord, and He counted it to him for righteousness." The comment of the Holy Ghost upon this scene is to be remembered by us, in its extraordinary language: " Who, against hope, believed in hope.... according to that which was spoken, So shall thy seed be." Now that the friend of God is established before Him in faith, and " by calling in righteousness," there are deeper mysteries of His mind and wisdom to be revealed. "And Abram said, Lord God, whereby shall I know that I shall inherit this land?" and this question was answered by the word, "Take me an heifer, and a she-goat, and a ram of three years old, and a turtle dove, and a young pigeon; and he took unto him all these, and divided them in the midst." Nor was it only by the secret of sacrifices, in death and by substitution, that the inheritance would be secured "to him that had the promises," and he made meet to inherit them; but the night held its mysteries as well as the day. The going down of the sun, and the deep sleep that fell upon Abram, and the horror of great darkness, opened out the hidden path in which God's purposes from everlasting lay, whereby the promised blessing should be secured to him and to his seed. Moreover, the smoking furnace must take its place and do its work; yea, the burning lamp must pass between those pieces before the covenant could find its sure foundation, and God say as the result, in the same day to Abram, " Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates."
Hebron must still shine forth in deepening colors as the friend of God and the Almighty grow in this intimacy with each other; and if Eliezer the steward is displaced to make room for the son in the house, as the only rightful heir of such an one as Abram, this son Isaac must himself be the way in whom the further thoughts of God, as the Blesser, are to be revealed to faith. The haste of Abram to obtain this link with God through Hagar, could only bring forth its wild gourd, in Ishmael the wild man, and shred death into the pot; as in the beginning of our records in Genesis, Eve as hastily folded her first born, Cain, to her bosom, saying, " I have gotten " the promised seed of the woman from God. But the flesh, and its way, by its own will in the house, can only mistake and complicate, as Lot did outside the house. Eve had to learn her lesson, and a terrible one too, in Cain and Abel, and to wait upon God to bring in His Seth, or the " substituted " seed, as head of the family of men, who then began to call upon the name of the Lord. The precipitancy of Abraham with Hagar after the flesh, gets its rebuke in due season, by Sarah and the child of promise brought in by God-known by His friend in a new character of power, as " the God who quickeneth the dead, and who calleth those things that be not as though they were." Hebron gets its social meaning authenticated, and its characteristics of friendship, society, and their enchantment confirmed, when " the Lord appeared unto Abram in the plain of Mamre, as he sat in the tent door in the heat of the day." Simple and beautiful is it to hear him say to the three men, ‘,‘ My Lord, if now I have found favor in thy sight, pass not away, I pray thee, from thy servant; let a little water, I pray you, be fetched, and wash your feet, and rest yourselves under the tree." " The blessing that maketh rich " is assured in this intercourse through the promised Isaac, and the house filled with joy and gladness, so that Sarah laughed. Other and different secrets were to be made known to Abraham in the privacy of this friendship with God; for, as surely as the blessing was established in the tent, so really must the curse and
the judgment of fire fall in righteous government upon the cities of the plain. " And the men rose up, and looked toward Sodom, and Abraham went with them to bring them on the way, and the Lord said, Shall I hide from Abraham the thing that I do?" Noah had been saved out of the first world of corruption and violence by its judgment " at the flood," and had begun another under the covenanted " bow in the cloud," as the token of preservation and the pledge of blessing to every creature. Day and night, summer and winter, seed-time and harvest, were, and are still, fulfilling their appropriate seasons, and God, as the Creator and " Preserver of men," is satisfying their hearts with food and gladness. But Abraham had a distinct calling, and is to be seen in his own inner circle of Hebron, as the friend of God, standing in the wonderful place of intercessor with " the Judge of the whole earth," on account of the exceeding wickedness of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. In this walk before the Almighty it was that Abram's heart became established in the knowledge of sure blessing in grace to himself, through the son in the house; but now he has to learn the severity of God in righteous judgment upon the inhabitants amongst whom Lot dwelt, and by their destruction through fire and brimstone. The earthly-minded one had been already rescued by the heavenly-minded man of faith, at the slaughter of the confederated kings; but this time Lot is delivered administratively by angelic agency. "And when the morning arose, then the angels hastened Lot.... and while he lingered, the men laid hold upon his hand, and upon the hand of his wife, and upon the hand of his two daughters, the Lord being merciful unto him." Two great principles spring out of this action upon the cities of the plain, which are afterward established by Peter, as confirmatory of the government of God. One of these principles is, that in righteous judgment he " turned Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes, making them an ensample to those who after should live ungodly." The other is, that " the Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations, even as He delivered just Lot, vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked." He is not condemned with the world, it is true; but even at this point Abraham rises into his own pre-eminence with the Lord; for " it came to pass, when God destroyed the cities of the plain, 'that God remembered Abraham, and sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow; but his wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt." She, too, abides a beacon set in perpetuity, by the ministry of Jesus, to any who are half-hearted towards Himself and their heavenly calling. "And Lot went up out of Zoar, and dwelt in the mountain, and his two daughters with him, for he feared to dwell in Zoar; and he dwelt in a cave, he and his two daughters." Sad it is to see that this is what became of " the garden of the Lord " to the earthly-minded man, who dwelt in it, with " those who were sinners exceedingly," so that the Lord condemned it with an overthrow, yet saved him as by fire.
Abraham takes his own path with the Lord, and has to purge his own floor, and cleanse himself and his own house from "the strange woman " and her son Ishmael. So Abraham circumcised his son Isaac, being eight days old, as God had commanded him. " And Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian, which she had borne unto Abraham, mocking; wherefore she said, Cast out this bondwoman and her son, for the son of this bondwoman shall not be heir with my son, even with Isaac." Here we find ourselves in the midst of " allegories," as Paul calls these occurrences in Abraham's house, when, writing to the Galatians, eighteen hundred years after, upon the grave matters of the two races and the two covenants, and the weighty obligations under the law, and the weightier privileges of grace-affirming that "he who was of the bondwoman was born after the flesh, but he of the free woman was by promise." If these actions are looked at in relation merely to Abraham and Sarah, or Hagar and Ishmael, they will be of every-day occurrence, and limited to their own personal histories; but viewed in connection with the mind 'and ways of God amongst nations and kindreds, and peoples and tongues, they find a diameter and describe a circle which distinguishes those who are born of the Spirit from those who are born after the flesh, with all their attendant destinies. Hagar, in this sense, answereth to " the covenant of. Mount Sinai, which gendereth to bondage" through the law of works. Hagar is further the city " of Jerusalem which now is," and is under judgment with all her children, and turned out as was Ishmael. On the other hand, Sarah and the new covenant, with the children of promise, are connected with " the Jerusalem which is above, and is free," to which Abraham himself looked -" the city, whose builder and maker is God." Indeed, the ground of this intimacy and of all these diversities, as stated in Gen. 18, is, " For I know him that he will command his children and his household after him; and they shall keep the way of the Lord, to do justice and judgment: that the Lord may bring upon Abraham that which He hath spoken of him." And he was called the friend of God.
One secret more, and apart from the ways of the world under government, and judgment, has yet to be disclosed between Abraham" and "the God of glory" respecting the son in the house, touching the ways and seasons of this promised blessing to all the families of the earth, which God keeps in His own power. One of the mountains in the land of Moriah was chosen for this communication. " And the Lord said, Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land which I will tell thee of; and offer him there for a burnt offering." The heavenly-minded one, who staggered riot at the greatness of the promise when given by " the three men at the tent," in the day of their visitation, and who hesitated not to turn out Hagar and Ishmael on " the day of Isaac's circumcision, and of the great feast," will not hesitate to deepen his acquaintance with the mind and purpose of God in any closer intimacy to which in grace He might yet call him. This is the only and simple reckoning of faith: " So Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering, and laid it upon Isaac his son; and he took the fire in his hand and a knife, and they went both of them together." Will he not lose his confidence when called out to learn the heights and depths of the mind of God by such an action as this? Will not the springs of human nature snap asunder when Isaac says to his father, "Behold the fire and the, wood; but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?" No; for his faith strengthens itself in God, and only rises the higher as he settles himself in quietness and peace to reply, " My son, God will provide Himself a lamb for a burnt offering. So they went both of them together." The comment of the Holy Ghost in Heb. 11 may well find its place here, by which Abraham is distinguished among the men " of whom the world was not worthy," accounting that God was able to raise Isaac up, even from the dead; from whence also He received him in a figure. The father of us all has well-nigh gone through the hidden mysteries of our faith with "the God of glory"; among them he has learned life out of death in the son Isaac, born into the house; then the sacrificial death of this only-begotten and well-beloved son; followed by his resurrection in figure, and then given back to him in the power of another life, as the ground and confirmation of all promised blessing. " And the angel of the Lord called to Abraham the second time out of heaven, and said, By myself have I sworn, saith the Lord; for because thou hast done this thing, and hast not withheld thy son, thine only son: That in blessing I will bless thee... and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed; because thou hast obeyed my voice." Personally, Abraham has been thus called out from the world, and brought into the secret of God's mind and purpose; yea, led into the way that the Father and the Son of the bosom took in counsel, and since in act and deed, when in due time the Child was born into the house, and upon the cross, as " the Lamb of God's providing," He put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. Relatively, too, the head of the family of faith has taught us the lessons of the burnt offering, Christ's substitution for the guilty, and our forgiveness and justification; as also eternal redemption and acceptance in the Beloved One, whereof the Holy Ghost is a witness and earnest and seal to us, as believers in Christ.
The original altar of Sichem and Bethel, in the plain of Moreh, gave place in the proper season to Hebron, and its closer intimacy with the Almighty; till Hebron completed itself in the mysteries of Mount Moriah to Abraham, or the threshing-floor of Ornan to David, and the foundation of the Temple to Solomon, or finally the new Jerusalem coming down out of heaven.
There remains yet one scene, and a marvelous one, to fill up the circle of enchantment with the mind and heart of God the Father, into which Hebron conducted Abraham, and this last thing is a bride for Isaac, as the sharer of his joys, and the helpmeet and companion of all that his affections could desire. Now " Abraham was old, and well stricken in age, and the Lord had blessed him in all things. And Abraham said unto his eldest servant of his house, that ruled over all that he had... Thou shalt go unto my country, and to my kindred, and take a wife unto my son Isaac." It was in the deep sleep of Adam in creation that the rib was taken out of his side from which God made the woman, and brought her to the man; and now it is after the deeper sleep of Isaac in redemption by that typical death of Mount Moriah, that the bride is provided by the servant, " who was ruler over all that his master had," and brought to Isaac in the tent of Sarah. Another marked difference must be noticed here, which the Creator did not teach in the garden of Eden, where all was perfect, and good and evil only known as yet in connection with the tree whose fruit was forbidden. Abraham is the head of the new family of faith,, and the eldest servant is in this respect to be like his master. The journey, too, is one of faith from the beginning to the end, as well as the purpose of the father in all his instructions to Eliezer for the marriage of his son, in the life and power of that resurrection in which Isaac had been unbound and given back. It is in perfect keeping with the house and the family that the servant should commit himself and the object of his mission to the living God, in acknowledgment that this new principle of faith which honors him is the gift of God, and finds its scope and exercise, not in an unfallen creation, but in the necessities of a fallen one. " And he said, 0 Lord God of my master Abraham, I pray thee send me good speed this day, and show kindness unto my master Abraham." How truly does it come about, that "while they are yet speaking I will hear; " for it came to pass that before he had done praying, behold Rebekah came out who was born to Bethuel... " with her pitcher upon her shoulder." Moreover, the signs and the tokens are all completed to the eye and mind of the servant, through the pitcher and the well of water, by which Rebekah was "made perfect," and he and the camels refreshed; so that the man, " wondering at her, held his peace," to wit whether the Lord had made his journey prosperous or not. " Therefore it is of faith, that it might be by grace, to the end the promise might be sure to all the seed," is the new rule between God, as " the God of glory," and those who are of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all.
.Abraham does in truth "command his household after him," and the eldest servant is as "perfect-in the exercise of faith " and confidence towards God as his master. And he said, " Blessed be the Lord God of my master Abraham, who hath not left destitute my master of His mercy and His truth, I being in the way, the Lord led me to the house of my master's brethren." The servant has not only learned the secret of faith, as " the substance of things hoped for," and which bound Abraham up in the counsels and ways of God, but finds his joy in celebrating their accomplishment, in the final blessing of Isaac and Rebekah, far more than in his own success. " I being in the way" is all he has to say of himself-as another and a greater servant of the only begotten Son of the Father said long after, " he that hath the bride is the bridegroom; but the friend of the bridegroom, which standeth and heareth him, rejoiceth greatly... this my joy therefore is fulfilled. He must increase, but I must decrease." And the man bowed down his head and worshipped the Lord; moreover Laban said, " Come in, thou blessed of the Lord; wherefore standest thou without? " for the savor of the knowledge of God had filled the house. So Eliezer made one of this family after the flesh, to win and carry out from it this elect vessel as the bride of Isaac, according to the Spirit.
Already he has secured her by the pledges of love, which the earrings and the bracelets declared to her eye and heart. Beyond this, he begins the untiring story to her, and to her father's kindred, of the manner in which (as he says) " the Lord hath greatly blessed my master, and he is become great:" All these outward and natural blessings, however, are but introductory to the distinguishing and supernatural gift of the son, that supplanted the steward of the house and the ruler of all that was in it. It is now that Eliezer tells out the secret " that Sarah, my master's wife, bare a son to my master when she was old, and unto him hath he given all that he hath." It is the father's delight in the son, and the fact that he hath given all things into his hand, and made him the heir of the world, that sets loose the tongue of this devoted servant, who, true to the oath which his master made him swear, is so faithfully accomplishing it and making it good, by the guidance of the eye, which faith ever follows. The servant carries them back over the pathway of power, which he had trodden with the God of Abraham, being led (as he tells them) in the right way to take my master's brother's daughter unto his son. "And now, if you will deal kindly and truly with my master, tell me, and if not, tell me. Then Laban and Bethuel answered, and said, The thing proceedeth from the Lord: we cannot speak unto thee bad or good. Rebekah is before thee; take her and go;" so, faithful to him that appointed him, he salutes no man by the way, nor will he tarry amongst those with whom he has no further mission. On the contrary, he says to them, " Hinder me not, seeing the Lord bath prospered my path; send me away, that I may go to my master." Conscious in measure it may be, of who and what Isaac must be, as the heir of all the promises, and the child of him that quickeneth the dead, and calleth things that are not as though they were, 'they unitedly " bless Rebekah," and said to her, " Thou art our sister, be thou the mother of thousands of 'millions, and let thy seed possess the gate of those which hate them;" and the servant took her and went his way. The bride is prepared, and made ready for the bridegroom; and now we may observe how the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac brought out the husband to meet her, for " all his work is perfect." And " Isaac came from the way of the well Lahai-roi," which means " the living One that sees me," and in this light of God's presence he walked, in the path of his father; and he went out, as such an one would, to "meditate and pray in the field at eventide." And he lifted up his eyes, and saw, and, behold! the camels were coming. " And Rebekah lifted up her eyes, and when she saw Isaac she lighted off the camel." The servant, "rejoicing greatly," has but to tell Isaac all things that he had done, and to present her in all her grace and beauty to his master's only and well-beloved son, that the blessing of God may rest upon them. "And Isaac (no stranger to Rebekah's heart) brought her into his mother Sarah's tent, and took. her, and she became his wife; and he loved her, and Isaac was comforted after his mother's death." The child of resurrection could alone interpret and understand this-the son who learned with his father at Mount Moriah the hidden path, the mystery of life and of death, by which " the better thing that God had provided" could only be brought in by the way of Rebekah, and her son Jacob, and Judah, of the twelve Patriarchs.
When "the God of glory" traverses the original order of creation, "Be fruitful and multiply," as given out to every creature-it must be to act in another circle of His own and upon a new principle " where all things are of God. " So we read in the history of His grace and election, " He setteth the solitary in families, and maketh the barren woman to keep house." And what is this to the eye of faith, which we have been tracing, but the histories of Abraham and Sarah carried out in the elect family under the
indelible writing of His own hand upon Isaac by circumcision? " The flesh profiteth nothing, but that which is born of the Spirit is spirit," comes from the lips of the Great Teacher of our " heavenly things," and shows the way into them.
What, again, is Rebekah in Sarah's tent, with Isaac the son in resurrection as the heir of the world, and of all that the father had to give, but the carrying out of the Holy Ghost's testimony to the one and the other, in Heb. 11, " Through faith also Sarah herself received strength to conceive seed, and was delivered of a child when she was past age, because she judged Him faithful who had promised. Therefore sprang there even of one, and him as good as dead, so many as the stars of the sky in multitude, and as the sand which is by the sea shore innumerable." Two questions which Abraham was allowed to ask of God have thus definitely received their full and explicit answers, touching the son in the house, and the promised inheritance. We may remember the Lord had proclaimed Himself, "Fear not, I am thy shield, and thy exceeding great reward;" and upon this declaration Abraham said, "Lord God, what wilt thou give me, seeing I go childless? Behold, to me Thou hast given no seed?" The Lord had further said to Abraham, " I am the Lord that brought thee out of U of the Chaldees, to give thee this land to inherit it. And he aid, Lord God, whereby shall I know that I shall inherit it?" w en he had not so much as to set his foot upon. Nothing can be so great for man, or so grand for the path into which the God of glory leads, as the first step that faith takes with Him in it; and the record given by the Holy Ghost to Abraham, the head of this new family, is, " He went out, not knowing whither he went."
We have thus traced a path into which God has led those whom He called out to walk with Him, not so much in the general and public ways of government as in the secret thoughts of His own mind-before the manifestation of His glory in connection with His people's blessing to the world, by the seed of- the woman, the promised Messiah, and the Xing of Israel, and the setting up of His own kingdom with the elect nation.
Nor are the principles of God's calling changed a whit, nor the path of separation to Him in the power of the Holy Ghost altered as regards the heavenly standing, or those who now know God as "the God and Father of. our Lord Jesus Christ," and who are risen and seated in heavenly places together with Him.
There was an inner circle then, and much more now, which has nothing to do with the great outward world, except to bring the knowledge of God into it, and of ultimate blessing likewise by the seed of the woman, and the child of promise, born in the house, after the first man had forfeited his place as lord of all creation, and Eliezer of Damascus was set aside as steward and the ruler over all things which Abraham had. God had His elect vessels out of the original world with whom He walked, and to whom he gave testimony that they pleased Him, of whom was Enoch before his translation. The world that now is, and which began again with Noah (as we have said), has had its teeming populations in all its divisions under Shem, Ham, and Japheth, with its Babe's and cities and towers. It carries along upon its surface the melancholy record of God's visitation and displeasure: "Let us go down and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech;" and so it remains to this day an abiding proof that there is a God who judgeth in the earth.
In the external ways of God in government with men as the inhabiters of this world, He remembers most surely His covenant; " for in Him we live, and move, and have our being," as Paul said to the Athenian rationalists. He with whom a thousand years are as one day, and one day as a thousand years, preserves His own tokens of " the bow in the cloud " with the great outward world, but gives them out afresh, nevertheless, to His elect ones from " the opened heavens," with which they have to do.
It is in the Apocalypse (thousands of years after Noah's day) that John, the beloved disciple, writes to us of these governmental ways of God, and their undoubted establishment under the Noah covenant. " And immediately I was in the spirit; and, behold, a throne was set in heaven, and one sat on the throne. And he that sat was to look upon like a jasper and a sardine stone: and there was a rainbow round about the throne, in sight like unto an emerald." The bow no longer spans the cloud of judgment, as the witness of mercy from above, but has come into union with the throne of God and Him who sits thereon, for accomplishment in authoritative rule and blessing to every creature. " And round about the throne were four and twenty seats: and upon the seats I saw four and twenty elders sitting, clothed in white raiment; and they had on their heads crowns of gold." The elect ones " out of the world," called away from its corruption and violence into this inner circle of God's own purposes and secret actings, are here brought out in manifested association with the throne of God's power in establishing blessing. " The God of glory had long ago appeared to Abram," and called him out to be blessed, and to be made a blessing; for He had retired from the works of His hand in creation after the fall of Adam, to bring forth the hidden things which were in his mind and heart, and found them upon the undoubted rights of His own sovereignty and of is electing love. Satan had tempted man away from his allegiance to God, and made him a child of the devil by disobedience and trespass. All was in ruin, and lay as one great wreck under the curse of God-man was driven out.
Noah's world was no better, with his three sons; for when he awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger son had done to him, he said, " Cursed be Canaan (Ham): a servant of servants shall he be." So slavery to man was inflicted on the inhabitants of the smith. And he said "Blessed be the Lord God of Shem, and Canaan shall be his servant. God shall enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem;" and thus it is that the western powers occupy the eastern territories. In this day, yea, and more remarkably than ever, is this prophetic judgment of Noah carried out in the families of his sons, after their generations in their nations. The greatness of Europe is made greater by Asia, and her sons go thither for conquest and worldly honors and wealth; yea, even the Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain has added a bright glory to her crown by being proclaimed the Empress of India.
All this moving mass of nations, which divided the earth after the deluge, constitutes the great outward world, into which " the God of glory " came to introduce in Abraham the new principle of " calling out to Himself," established upon pure sovereignty and boundless grace. This was the divine action which necessarily brought Abraham into this inner circle as the friend of God, to be made acquainted with the secrets of His mind, and the ways and means of their establishment, as well as the times and seasons of their full accomplishment. All this we have seen in outline, from Bethel to Hebron, from Hebron to Mount Moriah, and from Mount Moriah and the son in resurrection to Sarah's tent, into which Isaac, the heir of all that his father had, introduced Rebekah as his affianced bride, and was comforted in the presence of death. The true seed, on the other side of death, with the wife whom he loved, and the families of the earth in blessing, together with the inheritance which God had chosen for the elect nation, and their coming glory in the kingdom, when in Immanuel's, under this new arrangement, by the sovereignty and purpose and calling of God to his father Abraham, and transmitted to his only son. Who amongst us can enter into these meditations with. Isaac in the field, as he came from the well of Lahai-roi, or have followed Abraham in the earlier steps of his walk with God, by which he at last comprehended the whole mind of the Almighty touching the prospects and calling of the earthly family upon the earth, and not see that we are led now into a far higher path by the Holy Ghost? The Messiah, true son of Abraham, when come in the flesh, could say of him " He saw my day; and saw it, and was glad." The Holy Ghost could add to this afterward, by saying, "He looked for a city whose maker and builder is God;" and the first voice which John heard in the Apocalypse said, " Come up hither, and I will show thee things which must be after these." A further, and we may say another order and qualification was necessary for us who are called out of the world to walk with Christ, as the rejected and departed One " at the right hand of God, sitting upon the Father's throne," to those endowments by faith, in the power of which Abraham walked with God, in the expectation of the coming of the promised son into the house, and the setting up of the earthly kingdom. " Immediately I was in the spirit," marks the new style of the disciple whom Jesus loved, and the state and condition requisite for him to whom He would make known the secrets which lay in His mind for this present day, that John might communicate them to the seven churches. In the inner circle of these revelations it is that we hold our communion with the Father and the Son. We have seen in spirit the throne, and one that sat thereon, as well as the rainbow that encircled it, and " the four and twenty elders with their crowns of gold," which John beheld, while the great outward world is heading up its iniquity amongst the Shem, Ham, and Japheth divisions of the earth.
We have thus our secrets, which we hold as to everything that is to be done under the sun, by " the revelation of Jesus Christ which God gave unto Him, to show to His servants things which must shortly come to pass." " Blessed is he that readeth and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written therein," are words of encouragement for the simplest faith to follow on. Do we think of the adequate power necessary to bind Satan, and put aside the confederacy of the nations against the sovereignty of God, and the rights of Christ, and the redeemed ones of His electing love? We have already marked this in the " twenty-four elders sitting with crowns of gold upon their heads;" and how "out of the throne proceeded lightnings and thunderings and voices: and there were seven lamps of fire burning before the throne, which are the seven Spirits of God," ready to be sent forth into all the earth, for the establishment of righteousness and true holiness therein. In this inner circle, of which the throne and the rainbow formed the center, there was no evil to judge. How could there be? On the contrary, there was a sea of glass before it, like unto crystal, and in the midst of the throne and round about it were four living creatures full of eyes before and behind. Rest and peace in communion marked the crowned elders within, as the representatives of the elect; whilst activity and energy, combined with the clearness of perception in an intelligent exercise of all their capabilities, distinguished the four living creatures, " full of eyes before and behind," in their actings without. Creation is plainly the sphere, in the midst of which this administrative power of the throne, as its center, will be connected; and it gladdens the heart to witness the happy concurrence of the sitting elders with " the One who sat upon this throne," as well as the simultaneous co-operation of these living creatures, by eyes and wings (for each one had six wings), completed in the full vigor of life and motion for executive power and agency amongst men. God had said to Noah, " This is the token of the covenant which I make between me and you, and every living creature that is with you, for perpetual generations: I do set my bow in the cloud;" and in correspondence with this covenant the fourth of Revelation now takes up the four heads of animal creation, and associates them with this throne of universal government. " And the first living creature was like a lion, and the second was like a calf, and the third had a face as a man, and the fourth was like a flying eagle r for creation that now groaneth under the bondage of corruption shall be delivered into the glorious liberty of the children of God. " And the four living creatures had each of them six wings about him; and (the Spirit marks again to us) they were full of eyes within: and they rest not day and night, saying, Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come;" " for the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God." Four and twenty seats, and white raiment, and crowns of gold upon their heads, describe the nearness and intimacy of communion in which the elders were established "with Him who sat upon the throne;" whilst externally the living creatures proclaim and celebrate the Holy One above the power of Satan and all evil below, whether in the Noah world or in the Adam creation.
The prevalence of holiness and righteousness in rule is spread far and wide by these cherubic creatures, full of eyes and clad with wings, who rest not day and night in sounding forth the praises of the Almighty God. " And when those living creatures gave glory and honor and thanks to Him that sat on the throne, who liveth forever and ever, the four and twenty elders fall down before Him that sat on the throne, and worship Him that liveth forever and ever." The difference of position and occupation between the crowned elders and these living creatures is that of worshippers; and they "cast their crowns before the throne, saying, Thou art worthy, 0 Lord, to receive glory and honor and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created." God, as the Creator, has come in by the perfection of the burnt offering, and thus established Himself in the midst of a creation " that was made subject to vanity not willingly, but by reason of him who subjected the same, in hope," and recovered it for Himself, by the rainbow round about the throne, and Him that sits thereon. Adam's world closed itself up by judgment at the flood, and then opened itself anew to the ark, and every living creature therein, under the covenant of the sweet savor which God smelt upon Noah's altar. That world closed itself up afresh (so to speak), when in righteous displeasure God confounded their tongues and scattered men abroad upon the face of the earth; but opened itself anew to the "God of glory," and the calling out of Abram as the head of the new family of faith. " By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob: for he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God." Sovereignty and election, as the fruit of divine purpose and counsel, are not merely established by Almighty power in the throne of government, through Him who sat thereon, sustained, moreover, by the lightnings and thunderings and voices, and the seven lamps of fire, which are the seven Spirits of God; but the fifth chapter of Revelation opens out to us, in connection with the throne, redemption by blood as the only but sure basis of its operation in blessing, to every creature under the heavens.
Abraham learned not only that the son born into the house would supersede Eliezer the steward, and become heir of the promises, but that, in order to make all sure to the seed, he must pass through the dark and deep lessons of Moriah if he would ever find a bride for Isaac, and see Rebekah as " the mother of thousands of millions " in the tent of Sarah after her death. So in the revelation of the opened heavens to us, against which the earth has again closed itself up by the cross of Christ, the one " who was in the Spirit " tells us, " And I beheld, and, lo, in the midst of the throne and of the four living creatures, and in the midst of the elders, stood a Lamb, as it had been slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God sent forth into all the earth." It is in this scene we get the double title of the Lamb and the Lion, or of death and the power of resurrection; for one of the elders said, " Weep not: behold the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, hath prevailed to open the book, and to loose the seven seals thereof" The four living creatures, which were distinct from the elders in their occupations and services in chap. iv., are here connected: " And when he had taken the book, the four living creatures and the four and twenty elders fell down before the Lamb, having every one of them harps, and golden vials full of odors, which are the prayers of saints." The ruin and groaning of creation in corruption is here met by the Lamb of God, " the taker away of the sin of the world;" and it is into this glorious circle with God and the Lamb that the redeemed ones are introduced out of this present evil world. " And they sung a new song, saying, Thou art worthy to take the book, and to open the seals thereof: for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed them to God by thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation: and hast made us unto our God kings and priests; and we shall reign over the earth."
As was said at the outset of our meditations, the external ways of God by government do but clear the way for the establishment and ultimate display in blessing of His hidden counsels, into which He called Abraham by the way of the city and the great river Euphrates, but into which He now has called out the church of the living God, as the body and bride of Christ under the anointing and baptism of the Holy Ghost. This distinction is necessary to be observed, in order to maintain the difference between the kingdom and the church, to the former of which Abraham belonged, as well as to the city, whose builder and maker is God.
The intermediate chapters of the Apocalypse, being in connection with the government of. the throne of God, and the book taken from the hand of Him who sat thereon, are mainly descriptive of the judgments upon the inhabitants of the earth whilst denying the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ. These are swept away, as seen under the vials and the trumpets and the thunders of the great day of His wrath; till finally Babylon is destroyed, and the beast and the false prophet which deceived the nations are cast into a lake of fire and brimstone.
The slaughter of the kings and their armies (as in the typical days of Abraham and Amraphel) must likewise take place, as in chap. 19., where " the remnant were slain by the sword of Him" who had on His vesture and thigh a name written, " King of kings, and Lord of lords," and all the fowls were filled with their flesh. After this " he carried me away in the Spirit to a great and high mountain, and showed me that great city, the holy Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God, having the glory of God: and her light was like unto a stone most precious, even like a jasper stone, clear as crystal."
The throne and the city, the scepter and the king, the reign and the kingdom, are thus in view, and the songs of every creature in heaven and earth, with the harpers above harping upon their harps, take the place of the long and loud groan of creation once waiting for its deliverance. God has destroyed them that destroyed His earth. One burst of universal praise goes forth from everything that hath breath, saying, " Blessing, and honor, and glory, and power be unto Him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb, forever and ever. And the four living creatures said Amen, and the four and twenty elders fell down and worshipped Him that liveth forever and ever."
The point of view for the man of God now is by the side of the One in the glory, whom Stephen saw when he looked up out of this world into the heavens. It is to him that the Holy Ghost has come down to bear witness. How blessed thus to change our center of observation from Abraham below to the " Son of man " glorified above-to step out of the first creation into the second-to know that Adam was not the man of God's purpose, but Christ " The first man is of the earth, earthy; the second man is the Lord from heaven," and this Son of man is now established in the glory of God, and has become the center and sun of that eternal glory, and Head of the new creation of God. Another order of manhood was brought into this world by the Son, in the glory of the incarnation, and is now manifested in the heavens by the glory of the ascended Lord, who has been raised by God the Father, "above all principality and power, and might and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come." Moreover, in the sovereignty and supremacy of His own righteous title and power; God " hath put all things under His feet, and gave Him to be the Head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him that filleth all in all." This marks the difference, and is the measure of the distance between "the God of glory," who appeared to Abraham, and the Son of man " in the glory of God," of which this paper treats.
Indeed it is of vast importance to trace, in the Gospel of John particularly, how much this glory of the Son, in connection with the Son of man in the heavens, was the subject of the Lord's own ministry. For example, at the very outset it is written, " No man bath seen God at any time, the only begotten Son which is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him;" for John's anointing is to follow his Lord, as the one " who came out from God, and went to God." However much arid rightly " the Child born and the Son given " may be genealogized in the synoptical Gospels as the son of Abraham and the son of David to connect Him as the Messiah of Israel with all covenanted and promised blessings for Immanuel's land and the whole earth -so John, in his turn, is occupied with the personal glory of Him who was God, and who was in the beginning with God- "the Word made flesh." Our Lord's words with Nicodemus are of the same character, "No man bath ascended up to heaven, but He that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven." Thus, the Son "in the bosom of the Father," when upon this earth, or the Son of man " in flesh and blood," was never for a moment dissociated from the Father, or the heavens. So, likewise, in speaking with His disciples, to whom some of His glories were hard sayings, He asked, " Doth this offend you? What and if ye shall see the Son of man ascend up where He was before?" But further, and as regards " the Son of man in the glory," and the sending down of the Holy Ghost-the two grand characteristics of Christian life and blessing-He said, when speaking to His disciples of the Spirit, which they that believe on Him should receive, "for the Holy Ghost was not yet given, because that Jesus was not yet glorified."
As the Son of man coming in His kingdom, He had reached the highest place of majesty and glory upon the earth, when He was transfigured before His disciples, and His face did shine as the sun, and His raiment was white as the light on the Mount below. Of this kingdom's glory in the earth, in a yet future day, Matthew and Mark and Luke alike speak, but not John- for to the eye of the beloved disciple Jesus was not yet glorified, so as to bring out all that was divine and in reserve in the heavens. As Son of man he had "received from God the Father honor and glory, when there came such a voice to Him from the excellent glory "—but this was to eye-witnesses of His majesty, who were with Him "in the holy mount," and was short of the Son of man in the glory, "at the right hand of God."
In the central chapters of John it is that our Lord passes into His own glory with God, outside and far beyond all these promised and covenanted blessings, whether to Adam and creation, or Abraham and his seed, with all the families of the earth, or David and the royalties of the throne and kingdom in "Jerusalem, the city of the great King," having first made them all His own by birth, as the Seed of the woman conceived by the Holy Ghost, when the power of the Highest overshadowed her. Outside the range of these sure blessings for the earth, and men in it, He passes in John, going down into His own unfathomable depths to glorify God, on account of sin and Satan, death and. the grave, the judgment of God and the condemnation of man because of the fall. To "this hour Jesus came," in John 12, and into this hour he passed with his Father, saying " Now is my soul troubled, and what shall I say? Father save me from this hour: but for this cause came I unto this hour." To the soul of Jesus the power of God was to follow Him down into the darkness of the grave, where He lay in the perfectness of His own obedience unto death, even the death of the cross, to get a new glory for itself on the morning of the third day, as the God who raiseth the dead. He was not saved "from that hour," but gained glory for God by going down into its depths, and saying " Father, glorify Thy name." The death He should die was the way to it, " Then came there a voice from heaven, saying, I have both glorified it, and will 'glorify it again." He who alone could make sin and death and the grave a high road for honor and glory at the right hand of God, trod that dreary path, and "was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father." The power of God waited for this Son of man at the door of the sepulcher, and an angel rolled back the stone and sat upon it. Nothing, perhaps, so distinguishes the person of Christ as to see Him lay hold of the penalties which were inflicted by God upon man as a sinner, and do the work by their means at the cross and in the grave, in which He made expiation for the offenses on account of which they were incurred, and put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. 0 Death! I will be thy plague; 0 Grave! I will be thy destruction.
" Father, glorify Thy name," was the desire of our Lord, and this was further secured by " the lifting up of the Son of man," as Jesus said, " I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all unto me." Else how could we read afterward, in connection with the glory of the Father's name, " that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace, in His kindness toward us through Christ Jesus, in quickening us, and raising us, and making us sit together in Him, in the heavenly places "? " Father, glorify Thy name," had another answer by this lifting up of the Son of man in righteousness, "Now is the judgment of this world," and again, "Now shall the prince of this world be cast out," two actions equally necessary for the establishment of the sovereignty of God in government, and the vindication of the rights of Christ against the wrongs which He suffered from His betrayers and murderers. Therefore God hath " appointed a day in the which He will judge the world in righteousness, by that Man whom he hath ordained; whereof He hath given assurance to all men in that He hath raised Him from the dead."
If we leave this great outer circle, where all contradictory and opposing powers are brought into crisis and turned round in the person of Christ for the glory of God, and the exaltation of the Son of man to the right hand of the Majesty in the heavens, we shall find in the inner circle, with His own disciples, that the depth of human depravity in Judas was, to the eye of Jesus, only an opening to the glory beyond. " He then having received the sop went immediately out, and it was night. Therefore when he was gone out, Jesus said, Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in him," for in no other way in this Gospel (when brought into relation with His death) can the Lord look at, or speak of man and Satan. "For this cause came I to this hour," is not only the disclosure of His own devotedness, but the secret by which we can alone understand His intercourse with His Father. Thus in the darkest moment after the last supper, and in the foulest act of the man to whom Jesus had given the sop when He had dipped it, He was above the enormity, and said " I know whom I have chosen, but that the Scripture might be fulfilled, he that eateth bread with me, hath lifted up his heel against me." Satan entering into Judas, and making him his tool, could only be the occasion to Jesus for that remarkable utterance, "Now is the Son of man glorified, and God is glorified in Him." And further, " if God be glorified in Him, God shall also glorify Him in Himself, and shall straightway glorify Him." The penalties inflicted by God upon man, and the opposition of Satan, when his hour came, which rolled in the mighty power of darkness upon Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane, so that He sweat, as it were, great drops of blood falling to the ground, only led Him the more devotedly to see the Father's glory in it and beyond, and to say, " The cup which my Father hath given me, shall I not drink it?"
" Said I not unto thee, that, if thou wouldest believe, thou shouldest see the glory of God?" were the words of rebuke to Martha, at the grave of Lazarus. And it is remarkable that from the narrative of the man who entered the world "blind from his birth," to the one who went out of the world by death, and was in corruption too, our Lord would see nothing in such matters but an extraordinary occasion "for the glory of God " to be displayed. To the eye of Jesus the man was " born blind, that the works of God should be made manifest in him," and He refuses the question of His disciples, " Who did sin, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?" When Jesus was at the grave of Lazarus, He would only go in His own proper character, as " the Resurrection and the Life, that He might wake him out of sleep." Indeed we may say that the divine light in which our Lord shines at the grave, and the glorious power by which He wrought with the man in corruption, is the necessary counterpart and completion of the splendor in which He was transfigured on the holy mount. He went up with His three disciples to be glorified, according to the power and majesty of His kingdom-rights and dignities-but at the grave He does more wondrously, by bringing "the glory of God down" where sin and death and corruption, under the power of Satan, held manhood, originally " created in the image of God, and for His pleasure." Jesus received from God the Father honor and glory as His righteous due on the mount of His transfiguration, but with Lazarus, bound hand and foot with grave clothes, He had other thoughts, and groaning within Himself cometh to the grave. Here was a far deeper matter than even the kingdom glory, for God as the Creator, and Satan with his ill-gotten power of death and corruption, were in question to the heart of Jesus. "And he lifted up his eyes, and said, Father, I thank Thee that Thou hast heard me." Like as He used up the penalties at the cross to put away sin, so now at the grave " the glory of God " is wrought out by the power of Jesus, as the Resurrection and the Life, and " He cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth." His disciples, who were eye-witnesses of His glory on the holy mount, are likewise the witnesses of the power and majesty that descended to man in his lowest and worst state-in the grave and under corruption. Everywhere "the Son of man is glorified, and God is glorified in Him," so Jesus saith unto them, "Loose him, and let him go." Nothing but " the glory of God " has come forth out of sin and death and corruption in the grave, by the work and ways of Christ. " It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body," completes the victory for the elect, when we are changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, and put off the image of the earthy man, and put on the image of the heavenly man, to be forever with the Lord.
Founded upon this work, by which the Son of man has fully. glorified the Father, rests the other part of that wonderful utterance, "If God be glorified in Him, God shall also glorify Him in Himself, and shall straightway glorify Him " Beyond this Scripture, are the words of our Lord in the 17th chapter, when "Jesus lifted up His eyes to heaven, and said, Father, the hour is come, glorify Thy Son, that Thy Son also may glorify Thee." Indeed, " the Son of man in the glory of God," which is part of the title of this paper, does not measure the various glories of which the Son here speaks to the Father. Precious it is for us to see again, that all is founded on the fact, "I have glorified Thee on the earth, I have finished the work Thou gavest Me to do. And now, 0 Father! glorify Thou Me with Thine own self, with the glory which I had with Thee before the world was." He takes His place as Son of man in the heavens, and in the assumed manhood, which He has united with Himself, as the Eternal Son in the Godhead, His first thought is " the glory which I had with Thee, before the world was." His love to us and the Father's love are then unfolded in this marvelous intercourse-viz., " And the glory Thou hast given Me I have given them, that they may be one as we are one," and further, Jesus says, "Father, I will that they also whom Thou hast given Me, be with Me where I am; that they may behold My glory, which Thou hast given Me." We are thus introduced as partakers with Christ, in all that His own love and the Father's delight in us from everlasting has suited us for. " Thou hast given Him power over all flesh, that He should give eternal life to as many as Thou hast given Him. And this is life eternal that they might know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent." This wonderful chapter leaves no glory out of view, or disconnected with the Son, as Son of man-be it the glory before the world was, or the glory given as the fruit and reward of the travail of His soul, or the glories counseled from everlasting, as the Head of a new heavens and a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness-or as "Head of His body the church, the fullness of Him that filleth all in all." Any, and every revelation after this, yea whatever is dispensed,. even by the Holy Ghost through the apostles, must be according to these glories of the Father and the Son, and out of this fullness. The Acts, for example, is but the historical record of the departure of our Lord into the heavens on the right hand of God, that He might, in the first place, send the promise of the Father in the descent of the Holy Ghost. The next fact necessary for our subject is the witness of Stephen, " a man full of the Holy Ghost," who looked up steadfastly into heaven, and saw " the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God." The Son of man in heaven is authenticated by those who saw Jesus received up, as well as by the Holy Ghost which came down at Pentecost, and by Stephen, the first martyr in Christianity, who called upon God, saying, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit." Besides this testimony of Stephen to "the Son of man in the glory of God," from the suffering member of Christ below, the Lord could say to Saul, " Why persecutest thou Me?" as being in living union with this faithful witness.
Blessed as this personal unity with the glorified Son of man was, as the Head of His body the church, there must necessarily be a new revelation from God, embracing the things which had been kept secret from the foundation of the world, the mystery which had been hid in God. In the first place, there was a ministry of life in the power of the Spirit, from " the Son of man in the glory of God" as the second Adam, the new Head of life and righteousness, in order to life and holiness in us, for the pathway which Jesus had made for Himself and His own, which were still on the earth.
The second Epistle to the Corinthians opens out the source and character of this ministry in full, not on tables of stone, but on the fleshy table of the heart, and written by the Spirit of the living God, in connection with the light of the knowledge of " the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ." Life, and its ministry by the Spirit and the apostles of Christ, was the prerequisite either for communion with the Father and the Son, in the light where God dwells, or for service and obedience as dear children, whilst in these earthly places. This was followed by "the whole counsel of God," which Paul was especially qualified to declare to the church of the living God.
The things concerning "the Son of man in the glory of God" and this ministration of the Spirit, in the power of which they are dispensed to us, act so that " we, all looking on the glory of the Lord with unveiled face, are transformed according to the same image from glory to glory, even as by the. Lord the Spirit."
We might safely stop at these two points which we have reached-viz., " the Son of man in the glory of God " in the heavens; and the corresponding ministry by the Holy Ghost, which Makes those who are united to the Head, " epistles of Christ, known and read of all men." What a new calling it is to be so livingly with the Son in the glory, that morally and spiritually beholding Him, we can take our places on earth, as " sons of God, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom we shine as lights in the world, holding forth the word of life." What a day will that be both: for His glory and ours, when He comes with a shout to call us up to meet Him! He will withdraw us from the world altogether, and bring us into the closer intimacies of His own love, inside and beyond all the displayed glory, to learn the lesson that His own love, and the Father's love in "the Father's house,' are even sweeter than the manifestations in public of " the glory of the Son of man."
However blessed these surely are, and necessary for the government of God in establishing His righteous kingdom, and confirming His covenants and promises as " the God of glory to Abraham" in Immanuel's land with the earthly people Israel, and the Gentiles, yet there lay counsels and purposes in the Godhead known only to the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost from before the foundation of the world. These formed no necessary part of mere temporal and material blessing, and were not connected with covenants and promises, except as requiring to be made good by the Seed of Abraham and David, when, as the Son of man, He should come "in the clouds of heaven, and sit upon the throne of His glory."
The eternal counsels and purposes of God, on the other hand, make the heavens their center and birthplace. They tarried for the Son of man, exalted to the right hand of God, in whom alone they were conceived, and with whose Person they were concentrated, and, as a matter of fact, were only revealed by the Holy Ghost in connection with the ascended Lord and Head, when the earthly order had been refused, by the rejection of Christ. " The Son of man, in the glory of God" on high, is essential to the revelation of the hidden counsels of God, and He has entered into that glory with God the Father. The Holy Ghost, as promised by the Father and the Son, descends from that height, and comes forth from that new source, to gather out the church of God upon the earth, as the body and bride of Christ, now called by grace into " fellowship with the Father and the Son, in the light where God dwells." We have thus in the records of the Old Testament the God of glory appearing to Abraham; and in the Revelation of the New Testament the Son of man in the glory of God; and it is the connection, and yet the distinction and difference between these two sources of ultimate blessing for the heavens and the earth which are now, and the new heavens and the new earth hereafter, which have mainly occupied us. These form two grand centers, and each with their respective systems or circles, for the glory of God, and dependent now upon "the Son of man, at the right hand of the Majesty in the heavens "-relations, and titles, and offices manward; belonged to him, as " conic in the flesh," which He will yet open out upon this earth in the day of His power; but other relations Godward, with their new names and titles, together with their offices and headships, waited upon Him as " the Son of God passed through the heavens," and Crowned with honor and glory. The calling of God the Father now is to be one with "the Son of His love" in eternal life, and our place and portion to be like Him, and be with Him, and to see Him as He is! Blessed hope!