We have seen what was the nature and scope of the testimony committed to Abram, as relating to man on the earth; that is, how the witness for God must conduct himself in relation to man on the earth, when independence of God and idolatry were man's principles; and how Abram is required and enabled to observe a line which would distinctly disavow such principles, not only to the thoroughly worldly man, but also to the unfaithful saint.
Now we come to another phase in the testimony, and one which has respect to the hope and status of the people of God on the earth. It is not enough in this order of testimony to disavow the principles of man, or to assert that the Lord is " possessor of heaven and earth;" but it is of God's grace that there should also be a testimony of the future blessedness of His own people on the earth. And thus it follows that the " one seed," the source and channel of all such blessedness, was now to be the great subject of testimony.
It is incumbent on us not only to know every line and phase of testimony as connected with the interests and purposes of God, but now, as in the light and grace of Christ, to maintain all and every line which, as worthy of Himself, was required of His faithful ones, according as He was made known to them. God's will has been perfectly accomplished by Him, in whom we are, and therefore we are responsible to gather up and embody in our practice here all the lines of testimony enjoined on, and maintained by, God's servants in any time.
Abram's desire for posterity-for a continuation as to himself here, gives occasion to that word of the Lord which embodies the new line on which he was entering. " Behold," he says, " to me thou hast given no seed, and lo 1 one born in my house is mine heir." Hence the word of the Lord to him: " This shall not be thine heir, but he that shall come forth out of thine own bowels shall be thine heir." 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. And he believed in the Lord, and he counted it to him for righteousness." Abram has now a new testimony to maintain, namely, that the seed springing from him, of which there was no natural hope, would be as numerous as the stars of the firmament; and his belief in this, through grace, secured to him the position of righteousness before God. Faith in the fruit and issue of God's work, which He would do by Him, who would do His will and finish His work, enabled God to count Abram in the righteousness in and through which He would eventually bring about this glorious consummation, even that his seed should be as the stars of heaven. Abraham has now to journey on maintaining this. How fine! How blessed! He himself accounted righteous before God. He, in the spirit of his mind, having reached the day when God can, in His own righteousness, fill the face of the earth with sons and daughters of Abraham's seed, which is Christ.
And it is by the covenantal sacrifice that this truth, of which he is now the witness, is secured to him; and it becomes the basis and surety of all to him, even though a prolonged darkness rests on his path, and the night be dreary before the promised issue comes-before the earth bears in its bosom what the heavens in their starry myriads illustrate. All this is declared in chapter xv. 9-21. When, in answer to Abram's query, " Whereby shall I know that I shall inherit it?" God directs him as to the sacrifices he was to offer, after which a deep sleep and a horror of great darkness falls upon Abram, in which the history of his seed is revealed to him, and the extent and limits of his future inheritance detailed and defined, all on the ground of the covenant.
The testimony now is that man, believing in the issue of God's seed, is counted righteous; and this with a defined inheritance on earth is secured to him by a covenantal sacrifice. Abram in fact in this testimony stands outside man as he is, his faith connecting him with God's work, and he himself in righteousness thereby, depending on God through the covenant made by sacrifice for the consummation of His promise. Abram in this testimony is in the righteousness of God by faith and therefore outside of things seen; for faith is the evidence of things not seen, and while he so walks all is well.
It must be borne in mind that with every phase of testimony there is always a by-path, a " wile," by which the enemy would lead us, in order to remove us from the true line, and from which we should have been preserved had we truly and conscientiously abode by the terms on which we had been set on it. Abram, now set on the true line outside everything here, depending on God for the seed and the issue of it, the by-path or " wile," which would divert and allure him from this, would be one which
would propose to accomplish the desired end, through a merely human means. This Satan finds and achieves through Hagar the bondwoman.; and Abram falls from faith to sight, and is in the flesh; so that we find it written that " he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the Spirit." Eleven years after Abram had come into Canaan, Ishmael was born. That which is after nature precedes that which is after the Spirit. Ishmael is born fourteen years before Isaac. The testimony suffered on account of this failure, and Abram as the witness suffers also; but God overrules all in His mercy. Thirteen years after the birth of Ishmael, and within one year of the birth of Isaac, the testimony receives another addition, and at the same time a correction for the flesh. The Lord appears unto Abram (chap. xvii.) and unfolds to him two things-the one that where sin abounded grace superabounded, there being no other way open for God to act, therefore his name is changed to Abraham, with the reiterated assurance that, notwithstanding his failure, he should be a father of many nations; and, secondly, he is taught that, if God confers in grace, man must surrender, and deny himself in the flesh through which sin acts. Hence circumcision is required and enjoined. The cause of his having turned aside from the testimony, in the faith of which righteousness vas reckoned to him was the flesh. He had been accounted righteous for believing in the future of his seed, which God had revealed unto him; but instead of walking simply and restfully in this hope through faith, he is drawn aside to seek an heir in a carnal manner, and that which had been entrusted to him (the testimony) suffers. How needful for him to be taught that the evil of the flesh must be set aside; that flesh to which he had lent himself and by which he had been drawn aside from the simple testimony of waiting by faith for the seed promised of God. And this is what circumcision signified, as we see in Philippians Hi. 3, 4, &c. It prefigured the entire renunciation and putting away of the flesh. Therefore Abraham must be circumcised and his seed after him throughout their generations. A great addition was now given to the testimony. The Lord has revealed Himself more fully as He is in Himself, and on the ground of this by covenant He gives Abram the name of Abraham. This declared the manner of His grace; but if His grace be full and blessed, there must be a setting aside in man of that which called for the grace. Can I require and receive grace from God and yet retain that which, because of its evil and weakness, required it? Nay, if grace comes in, flesh retires; and hence circumcision is enjoined, being a " seal of the righteousness of the faith he had, yet being uncircumcised." The greater the grace, the more needful the abrogation of the flesh; and this is taught here in figure. It is as Abraham that he circumcises. It is the one who is in grace that can endure circumcision, who can afford to have "no confidence in the flesh," and to deny it, because he is on better ground. This was now the testimony for Abraham; " and the selfsame day Abraham was circumcised, and his son Ishmael, and all the men of his house, born in his house, and bought with money of the stranger, were circumcised with him."
Abraham now in his new position is shown the judgment on the flesh in its corruptions and lusts, out of which the uncircumcised one is delivered so as by fire, for Lot was uncircumcised. Abraham is shown in Sodom and Gomorrah the extent to which the flesh of man runs; and circumcision has its value as indicating the renunciation of the flesh. Lot, righteous in himself, is delivered from the judgment that overtakes Sodom, only to sink into positive crime, when, lost to sense, an advantage can be taken of him; while Abraham sees it all as one apart from it, and in company with God.
But though blessed and circumcised, Abraham is not unswerving in his path of testimony. He has still a tendency to go south, and dwelling at Gerar he learns that he is not in the power of the truth he professes; for in Canaan he fears to avow what is truth. These failures point out to us what the testimony would preserve us from and by what temptations it is damaged and spoiled, and for this purpose it is recorded. Therefore, I make this passing remark on the sojourn at Gerar.
When Abraham is an hundred years old, the promised seed is born; and now comes the open and manifest casting out of the bondwoman and her son. The counsel of God, of which Abraham is called to be the witness, is the promised seed; and, this being come, that which was born of the flesh must not continue in the same house or standing with him. And (how full and blessed is the testimony conferred on Abraham!) not only is the One born after the flesh (antitypically the Jew) to be cast out, but Abraham is still further taught that the promised seed does not depend on natural existence, but on resurrection-on Him who raises the dead. What an element I What a strength this imparts to the testimony. How line upon line the purpose of God is disclosed, and Abraham made personally a witness of it! Not only is Ishmael cast out, but in Isaac resurrection from the dead is in figure known by him, thus filling up his testimony; and then all the purposes of God, as conveyed to him in former promises, are enlarged and secured anew to him, founded on resurrection. God confirms all by an oath, as through faith in the day of glory. Abraham is accounted righteous, and takes this new standing. So now, having reached to the resurrection, God, by oath, confirms to him all previous promises.
The more we bring together and set forth in order the great principles of truth, which Abraham was called to exemplify, the more must we be charmed and edified by the beauty and greatness of the whole. Like the fir-tree among the trees, faith is the leading shoot; but as the tree grows, great branches are superadded on this side and on that, to furnish the tree and support it in its greatness. Thus Abraham grew up, and on; and, as we survey him in. the testimony to which he is called, we wonderingly see what grace can do in a man, while we also see the tendencies to which man is exposed, and to which he yields. But, at the same time, because grace is acting, opportunity is given to God to call that out in His servant which would preserve him from those tendencies. Consequently, Abraham's failures are given to us in order that we may see how God empowers him to rise above, and be superior to them. Before the birth of Isaac he had failed in the land from fear of the Philistines who were in the land. Here we get the moral relation of the Philistines to the people of God. It is the fear of man which bringeth a snare. Egypt was not in the land, and therefore the world; and there the fear of man is also. But Gerar was in the land, and Abraham, the circumcised Abraham, the Abraham who had passed through the experience of seeing the judgment on Sodom, even he fears the king of Gerar. After the birth of Isaac this self-same king makes a covenant with Abraham, and then comes in the resurrection as the true and stable ground for all this blessing, from which neither the Philistines nor Ishmael can displace him.
Three " branches" more remain to complete Abraham's testimony. One, his conduct and way on the death of Sarah; the second, with regard to the marriage of his son; and the third, the way in which he distinguishes between Isaac and his other children. It was in his hundred and thirty-seventh year that Sarah died, and she died at Hebron. Abraham had latterly resided at Beersheba. (See Gen. 22:1919So Abraham returned unto his young men, and they rose up and went together to Beer-sheba; and Abraham dwelt at Beer-sheba. (Genesis 22:19).) Hebron is a distinguished place; it was where the promise was first given; the promise of future blessing to the earth, and here it is that Sarah, the mother of Isaac, dies and is buried: thus testifying that nature in itself must end, when the grace of God and its accomplishment is manifested. In its highest sense, we may say, when Christ comes in. I can afford to part with mere nature however dear to me, when I am where God will establish the better than nature according to His own will. (Phil. 3) The bereaved Jacob buried his Rachel at Bethlehem; Sarah is buried at Hebron. Abraham, while living in the land, and traversing it by faith as his own, obtains no possession in it but a burying-place, and that he obtains not from God, but from man by purchase. He buys it. He does not buy from man a place to live in, but a place to be buried in. A striking but expressive testimony Living by faith, seeking no acquisition here to remain in, but when death supervenes, becoming a possessor of a burial place, an earnest of resurrection; for surely, as to inheritance, it was the only earnest he had; therefore his first actual possession was a burial place. He would tell the people of the land, " I have no possession here but a grave. I anticipate my right and buy a grave that my dead may rest securely till the day of glory." Beautiful and emphatic testimony.
The next line in this comprehensive testimony, following immediately on the death of Sarah, is the manner in which a bride and co-heiress is provided for Isaac. I am aware that Gen. 24 is generally interpreted as in figure presenting the Church, the body of Christ and the bride of the Lamb spoken of in Rev. 21; but though there may be some touches in the scene described there, which can only be fulfilled by the Church, yet I am inclined to think that it is more consistent with the testimony and purpose of God that we should here be presented with the earthly bride, the queen referred to in Psa. 45, the one who shares with the promised seed His rights and inheritance on earth. The sphere of the heavenly bride is in heaven, though exhibited to earth; that of the earthly bride, the queen, is simply the earth, and in partnership with Him who reigns here as the heir of all things. This is just and consistent with the testimony set forth in Abraham, and with this view we at once see the place of the nations presented to us in his children by Keturah. These children-six sons-Abraham sent away eastward into the east country after giving them gifts; and surely they must have carried with them some knowledge, at least, of the testimony which their father had maintained.
Here this wondrous and remarkable testimony is brought to a close. Isaac having been already called and used of God, to set forth His name and purpose on the earth, will engage our attention in the next chapter.
(Concluded from page 249.)