“They have turned aside quickly out of the way which I commanded them.” The rapid inroad of corruption into that which God has set up in purity is remarkable. The people of Israel, awe-struck by the majesty of God, had heard the solemn words, “Thou shalt have no other gods before Me.” To this they had responded, “All the words which the Lord hath said, will we do.” And yet after the lapse of a few short days, they turn aside out of the way, and make to themselves gods. Does this surprise us? Is it not rather too faithful a history of the ostensible people of God in all ages and in every dispensation? God has not been pleased to record how long man stood in innocency; but the sacred narrative proceeds, from his exercise of dominion over every living creature, and his reception of the blessed gift of a help-meet from God, to state his grievous fall. When Noah, who had in the ark passed safe through the judgment, is set up as head of a new world, how quickly there is his fall into drunkenness recorded.
And has the latest intervention of God in the revelation of the gospel of His grace proved an exception to the general rule of immediate failure on the part of man? If we proceed to the period after the Holy Ghost had come down from heaven, what says the apostle of that which would be after him? “I know this, that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock. Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things to draw away disciples after them.” The mystery of iniquity had begun to work in the apostles' time, when there was spiritual discernment to detect its beginnings, and infallible authority to meet the evil. But how quickly had the disciples turned out of the way! And this is solemnly important to mark—the worst evils which so secretly worked in their days would only become more formed, when their discernment and authority was no longer present to detect and to resist it. It is indeed a curious feature of the mind of man, that in the things of God he prefers stopping at secondary authority when access is open to its primary source. Both Jews and Christians have alike resorted to antiquity for their pattern, when the thing needed was to judge antiquity by the light of the scripture. Jewish antiquity was the tradition of the elders “vain conversation received by tradition” from their fathers; for which they vehemently contended, even at the expense of nullifying the scriptures. And so, among Christians, the most bitter contention has been for traditionary religion, whilst “the faith once delivered to the saints” has been little regarded. Christians forget how early was the departure from the faith once delivered to the saints, and propose to themselves as a pattern of excellence some age of the church in which there must have been deterioration. Thus they virtually set aside scripture and neglect the guidance of the Holy Ghost, to unravel the intricacies of time-honored tradition and enable them to find that path which is pleasing to God. When tested by scripture, it surprises us to find how much of that to which we have clung will not bear its uncompromising light.
But how solemn is the judgment of God on the people! “I have seen this people, and, behold, it is a stiff-necked people. Now, therefore, let Me alone, that My wrath may wax hot against them.” But if Moses was in the place of righteous judgment, he was also in the very atmosphere of grace, and there he could take the place of intercession, and prevail because his plea was the honor of the Lord Himself. This must ever be a prevailing plea, because it acknowledges the righteousness of the judgment of God. “For Thy name's sake, O Lord, pardon mine iniquity, for it is great.” Moses can neither excuse nor extenuate the sin of the people. It is not the place of intercession to do this, because everything before God must be truthful. What comfort for us to know of Christ that “He is at the right hand of God, and that He also maketh intercession for us!” He knows the righteous judgment of God; He knows, too, the evil of our sin; but His intercession is grounded on the way in which He Himself has vindicated the righteousness of God in putting away our sin. The intercession of Moses brings out a new feature; viz. the long-suffering of God with His redeemed people—with that (i.e., Israel as now the professing church) which has the responsibility as well as the privilege of bearing His name. This was shown in the mount, and afterward proclaimed by Jehovah Himself to Moses. God had previously shown His long-suffering in bearing with the world for a hundred and twenty years, while the ark was preparing. He had borne with the abominations of the Canaanites four hundred years, “because the iniquity of the Amorites was not yet full.” And now, when He has redeemed to Himself a chosen people out of Egypt, this very people corrupt themselves and become the objects of His long-suffering. And is it not the same in the present time? Is not God now showing forth “the riches of His goodness, and forbearance, and long-suffering” towards man as man? and this only to be scorned and despised? while those who are outwardly by profession His people, and bearing His name, are quite as much the object of His long-suffering as the world? The outward professing body has not continued “in the goodness of God"; and all which awaits it is to be “cut off” —to be spued out of His mouth (Rom. 11, Rev. 3).
But we must follow Moses down from the mount to the scene of Israel's sin. The eye of Jehovah had seen it from heaven, His dwelling place; there also Moses had heard the report of it, and interceded for the people, and not in vain. But when Moses leaves the immediate sphere of the grace of God, and becomes himself a spectator of Israel's condition, his feeling is that of indignation and not of intercession. His “anger waxed hot, and he cast the tables out of his hands, and brake them beneath the mount.” How had Moses interceded when the Lord had said, “Let Me alone that My wrath may wax hot against them!” There are deep lessons to be learned here. “God, the judge of all,” who must ever judge according to His own holiness, can at the same time act according to His own grace. He cannot extenuate sin; and “indignation, and wrath, tribulation and anguish,” are revealed by Him as “against every soul of man which doeth evil.” God has revealed to us how He is both faithful and just in forgiving us our sin. But how different is man from God!
The sin, which God had seen and pardoned at the intercession of Moses, when Moses himself sees, he cannot bear with. Here we may learn the infirmity of the creature, and something beside this—that the saint cannot bear in himself the very sin which God had pardoned; nor will the servant of God tolerate in the people of God the sin of that people. What indignation had the godly part of the Corinthian church evinced against themselves for tolerating sin among them, even after the sin itself had been punished! Indignation is dangerous, because it is so allied to human infirmity, and “the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God;” but indignation is godly when arising from the sense of an insult cast upon God, or the shamelessness of saints as to their condition before God. We dare not think of man, however highly honored of God, above what is written; and we gain deep instruction from Moses in this instance, it may be, showing human infirmity, or from Moses acting as “the servant of the Lord.” How constantly do we find the practical truth of that word— “when I would do good, evil is present with me.” Honest zeal will often find, close by its side, self-satisfaction or self-exaltation. Real kindliness of feeling may readily associate with itself disregard for the honor of Christ. What need for walking in the fear of the Lord, and of habitual exercise of soul before Him, in order that we may “judge righteous judgment!”
In that which follows there is a typical action, embodying deep practical truths. Moses “took the calf which they had made, and burnt it in the fire, and ground it to powder, and strawed it upon the water, and made the children of Israel drink of it.” Their “sin” (“and I took your sin, the calf which ye had made, and burnt it with fire,” Deut. 9:2121And I took your sin, the calf which ye had made, and burnt it with fire, and stamped it, and ground it very small, even until it was as small as dust: and I cast the dust thereof into the brook that descended out of the mount. (Deuteronomy 9:21)) thus became inherent in them. It was the “original sin” of the dispensation, and hung over them all the time of their prophets and their kings, and during the whole period they were in the land. They never recovered from its effects. At length, after the lapse of centuries, this original sin was met by due punishment in the Babylonish captivity (Amos 5:25-2725Have ye offered unto me sacrifices and offerings in the wilderness forty years, O house of Israel? 26But ye have borne the tabernacle of your Moloch and Chiun your images, the star of your god, which ye made to yourselves. 27Therefore will I cause you to go into captivity beyond Damascus, saith the Lord, whose name is The God of hosts. (Amos 5:25‑27), Acts 7:41, 4241And they made a calf in those days, and offered sacrifice unto the idol, and rejoiced in the works of their own hands. 42Then God turned, and gave them up to worship the host of heaven; as it is written in the book of the prophets, O ye house of Israel, have ye offered to me slain beasts and sacrifices by the space of forty years in the wilderness? (Acts 7:41‑42)).
It has not pleased God ever to reverse an original sin. He allows it to take its course, and during the progress of the development of its effects, He takes occasion to unfold more and more of His purpose in Christ. This is true of the first great original sin, as we are so wonderfully taught in Rom. 5, where we find the important statement that there is no such thing as the reversal of one sin without the reversal of all—no reversal of original sin without the reversal of actual transgressions as well. “And not as it was by one that sinned, so is the gift; for the judgment, was by one to condemnation, but the free gift is of many offenses unto justification.” It is one of the many ways which human wisdom has devised to nullify redemption, to assign to the work of Christ the reversal of original sin. Thus it is said, that man is placed in a salvable state, so that as to actual salvation it must be uncertain; because salvation is again contingent on conditions to be performed by man. Men use such knowledge as they “naturally” have of Christ, not to see their increased responsibility, but to elevate their own state before God, so that when redemption is preached as a divine certainty to faith, such a testimony invades their self-complacency, and upsets all their theory. Blessed indeed to know that “by Christ all that believe are justified from all things.”
The position which the church of God occupies is very remarkable. “Now all these things happened unto them for ensamples; and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come.” The ages had all run their course. Under whatever favor of God man had been placed, he had never answered to his responsibility. Some fatal sin had invariably occurred at the commencement of the age, and continued throughout its downward course; and the special failures of the typically redeemed people of God, which marked their downward course, are “written especially for our admonition.” But has the church been admonished? Or, rather, neglecting admonition, has not the church followed in a course answerable to those very sins by which we are admonished in Israel's history? The apostolic testimony too plainly and painfully proves, that in their days the church had already taken the downward course. Early in the days of the apostles there was manifested what may be regarded as the original sin, or original sins, of the church, even when there was power to detect and expose evil, and to obviate also its baneful effects, by the only way opened under such circumstances—the confession of the sin, and faith in the ability of God to bless by His grace for His own name's sake.
We find this instruction blessedly set forth in Israel's history. “And all the people said unto Samuel, Pray for thy servants unto the Lord thy God, that we die not; for we have added unto all our sins this evil, to ask us a king. And Samuel said unto the people, Fear not. Ye have done all this wickedness: yet turn not aside from following the Lord, but serve the Lord with all your heart, and turn ye not aside; for then should ye go after vain things which cannot profit nor deliver, for they are vain. For the Lord will not forsake His people for His great name's sake, because it has pleased the Lord to make you His people.” The original sins of the church have held on their course for eighteen hundred years; and have produced as a result the present actual state of the professing Christian world, in the midst of which the church of the living God is nevertheless to be found. The full results of these sins seem to be on the eve of manifestation; and when fully manifested will be met by direct judgment from God, analogously to the judgment of God on Israel's sin in the wilderness, viz. subsequent Gentile domination—a judgment still in actual force against Israel, since their sin also has been fearfully aggravated in again rejecting Jehovah, even Jehovah Jesus, that they might maintain their own traditions.
(To be continued.) (Continued from page 115.)