Heb. 9
After this we get another thing. A people were to be redeemed; redemption was in a figure brought in when God visited Egypt in judgment, and with a mighty arm brought out a people to Himself. The blood of the paschal lamb was the sign of their shelter from judgment, and also of their separation to God Himself. Here we see the distinctness of His love, in that it was to Himself they were brought, as it is said, “How I bare you, on eagles' wings, and brought you to myself.” Then the Red Sea passed brings out the song of salvation. And from the Red Sea to Sinai it was all grace. God dealt with them in grace; they murmured again and again, but they got the quails and the water without any reproach. It was perfect and unmingled grace.
At Sinai another change takes place, and a new principle comes in. The promises which were given to Abraham, without any conditions, are taken by the people on condition of obedience; “All that the Lord hath spoken we will do.” This was entirely a new condition and principle. Man now puts himself under covenant with God, in which man is to perform his part, and God His. Thus Israel put themselves under the law, to obtain by their own obedience that which God had promised unconditionally. But before they get what God had spoken-the ten commandments, they had made themselves another god; for they had lost sight of the “man, Moses,” and made themselves a golden calf, and said, “These be thy gods, O Israel.” The very thing that Abraham had been called out of idolatry-they had turned back to, the “serving other gods,” and cast off the true God altogether. Thus all was gone.
Then we have another change, another principle in action. The mediator is brought in; and all is then in connection with a mediator between themselves and God. And the mediator, Moses, deals for them with God, pleads His promises, and comes in as intervening between God and man, to maintain man in the blessings in which he could not maintain himself. Moses was but a shadow of Christ, and not the very image.
Aaron is the next established to be the priest in the temple, and offer sacrifices; but just as his consecration is ended, strange fire is offered by his two sons, Nadab and Abihu. This is, as we have ever seen, the case with man. Although vengeance is taken, man goes on sinning; and the Lord goes on raising up saviors and deliverers, until the time of Eli, when not only his wicked sons were destroyed, but God's strength, the ark, was delivered into the enemy's hand, mediatorship and priesthood having both failed; and the ark, the very place of God's presence, was delivered into the hands of the Philistines; and where there was faith in Israel, in the little remnant of that day, it could only say, Ichabod, “the glory has departed.”
But, before taking up David, we will return to Abraham again, and take up the promises made to Abraham, to show their distinctiveness from the church. First, the way in which Abraham is the father of many nations, as in Gen. 12, The reasoning of Paul in Gal. 3 is founded on Gen. 22 They were Jewish promises in Gen. 12 All the earth had fallen into idolatry, that God might make him the stock of promise-the olive tree, as in Rom. 11; verses 2, 3 run thus: “I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great,” &c.; “and in thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed.” Abraham is the vessel, so to speak, in which the promises are deposited. (I drop the great nation now, that being Jewish.) Then, in Gen. 22, this promise is confirmed to the seed. Abraham offers up Isaac, and receives him back in a figure, Isaac thus representing Christ in resurrection. Then God says, “By myself have I sworn, that in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea-shore.” This multitudinous seed are the Jews. “And thy seed [Christ] shall possess the gate of his enemies.” “And in thy seed [that is, Christ] shall all the nations of the earth be blessed"-” in thy seed,” that is, the one seed, Christ. The promises that were given to Abraham were confirmed to him in [the one seed] Christ, for there can be no mixing up the two; for Isaac being raised up from the dead (although but in a figure, we know) keeps the promises distinct. And therefore the apostle argues, in Gal. 3:20,20Now a mediator is not a mediator of one, but God is one. (Galatians 3:20) “If ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promises.”
Thus those who believe in Jesus are “heirs according to the promise,” made not to the multitudinous seed, but to the one seed, which is Christ. There are two sets of promises-those to Abraham's seed, as the stars and the sand for multitude, in connection with the land; then Isaac, being offered up in a figure, confirming the other promises, in which all the families of the earth will be blessed in the Person of Christ, the one seed. And mark, that both of these sets of promises are unconditional. For thus Abraham was made the depositary of the promises which were given to him unconditionally, both with reference to Israel and the nations. But in Ex. 19, when God says, “Ye have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bare you on eagles' wings, and brought you to myself;” we have had an entire record of simple grace, without any condition whatever, from the Red Sea to Sinai.
But at Sinai the question of condition comes in. “If ye be obedient, ye shall be to me a kingdom of priests, an holy nation.” And Israel said “All that Jehovah hath spoken we will do.” And how long did it last? It was gone quickly. Whatever depends on man's stability is gone before he gets it. And so, before the ten words reached Israel, they had worshipped the golden calf, thus casting off God entirely. And thus Israel had lost the immediate connection with God; for it was then ordained in the hands of a mediator, having broken down in theirs, God says, Let me alone, and I will consume them in a moment. And Moses says, “Why doth thy wrath wax hot against thy people?” And God turns from His wrath, and goes up with the mediator: “My presence shall go with thee,” not with the people. And God calls the people the mediator's people. What beauty there is in this grace! First, God says, I will consume them in a moment, they are so stiff-necked; but their ornaments are put off, and Moses pleads their very stiff-neckedness as the reason why God must go up with them. Thus was their stiff-neckedness counterbalanced by His grace. For the moment that grace is brought in by the exercise of mediation, the same stiff-neckedness which prevented God's going up with them, lest He should consume them, was the very thing pleaded by the mediator why God must go up with them. Then God acts upon a different principle. Mediation is the grace which maintains people in the blessing brought by redemption. And this principle brings in priesthood. And here mark-for it is important to see-that redemption brings in priesthood; it is not priesthood that brings in redemption.
The priesthood maintains the people in the presence of Him who redeemed them; for, if I am to walk with a holy God, I must have that intercourse maintained. If God has redeemed us to walk in the light, as He is in the light, we need the priesthood to maintain us in the light. But if you confound redemption-and priesthood, you will never find settled peace, for you will be looking for acceptance from something to be done or interceded for. But priesthood maintains our communion with a holy God.
I now turn to the subject of man's failure. Israel failing under the law, mediation comes in; and priesthood failing under Eli, the ark is gone; and then there is another redemption by power. And now the link between Israel and God is royalty, sustained in the person of David the king. This was the last link between Israel and God, His patience still forbearing. And now we get royalty sustaining Israel under the condition of obedience. The temple was newly set up, and filled with God's glory; but royalty fails in David, Solomon, and Rehoboam. The obtaining and enjoyment of promised blessings must not always be taken as a mark of God's approval. Jacob told a lie in order to obtain the promised blessings; Solomon had asked of God wisdom, and to it God added riches and honor; but then he obtains the promised riches and honor by disobedience, for he multiplied unto himself chariots and horses, which God had forbidden. We require faith for the means as well as the end; that is, we must wait patiently for God Himself to make good to us the very blessings He promised. Then, again, Solomon loved many strange wives, and they turned away his heart from the Lord. In the very three things that God had forbidden to a king, Solomon failed. And let us ever remember that our own business is to walk with God in the humble and lowly details of every-day life, waiting on God to arrange everything for us. For God's ways towards us show out His character and His faithfulness in making good to us what He has promised. For if we obtain the promised blessings through our own contrivance, they will be accompanied by sorrow and chastening; nay, the very blessings themselves may become the source of sorrow, because we always have idolatry in the heart.
Then God meets this failure in royalty by another and fresh promise-in Shear-Jashub “a remnant shall return.” (Isa. 7:3,3Then said the Lord unto Isaiah, Go forth now to meet Ahaz, thou, and Shear-jashub thy son, at the end of the conduit of the upper pool in the highway of the fuller's field; (Isaiah 7:3) see margin.) The nation was at that time cut off-” Make the heart of this people fat,” Israel was called to maintain the name of the one true God, in contrast to the many gods of the heathen-(not the trinity revealed for the saving of the soul). Now God promises another thing-a seed is promised to David; before it was the Seed of the woman, but now a Seed is promised to David to sit upon his throne forever. After this God says, in Ezek. 21:25,25And thou, profane wicked prince of Israel, whose day is come, when iniquity shall have an end, (Ezekiel 21:25) “Thou, profane wicked prince of Israel, whose day is come when iniquity shall have an end;” thus saith the Lord God, “Remove the diadem, and take off the crown, this shall not be the same; exalt him that is low, and abase him that is high. I will overturn, overturn, overturn it; and it shall be no more until he come, whose right it is; and I will give it him.”
After this God entrusts power in Gentile hands, the first being Nebuchadnezzar-power in one man. For man's vain thought is, If I could do all that I wish, I should make the country a paradise. Well, God tries him; and what is the result? The golden image is set up, and God's awn people are cast into the fire for refusing to fall down and worship it. Secondly, the impiety of Belshazzar follows in prostituting the vessels of the temple to the honor of his false gods. And, thirdly, Darius sets himself up to be the only true God. Here are brought out three principles of evil, which will be fully developed in the latter day. Cyrus then comes in as the restorer, setting it all aside (typical of Christ). Meanwhile prophecy comes in to sustain the remnant until the Messiah came.
Then, in the rejection of Christ, it was not merely the manifestation of man's sin, but the utter hatred of man's heart against God; “They have hated both me and my father.” Thus the tree was proved to be utterly bad, and the more it was digged about and dunged, the more bad fruit it produced. Cut it down, why cumbereth it the ground? Then Pontius Pilate, who, being the governor pf Judea, was the representative of the authority which God had put into man's hand, and which the Lord owned, when Pilate said to Him, “Knowest thou not that I have power to crucify thee, and have power to release thee?” To which the Lord replied, “Thou couldest have no power at all against me, except it were given thee from above,” thus teaching Pilate that, having received the power from God, he was responsible to God for the exercise of it. And how did he use it? In condemning God's Son.
Thus the very one that should have wrought justice in the earth delivers up Christ to be crucified, at the same time knowing him to be innocent; as he said,
“Take ye him, and crucify him, for I find no fault in him.” Thus is fulfilled that word, “I saw under the sun the place of judgment, that wickedness was there; and the place of righteousness, that iniquity was there.” What comes then? The solemn sentence is passed-the world is condemned-” Now is the judgment of this world;” “The world seeth me no more;” “Now shall the prince of this world be cast out;” “The god of this world:” “The spirit that worketh in the children of disobedience.” The death of Christ closed the scene. Then the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom. The very thing that brought out the judgment revealed a heavenly salvation, which was before hidden by the veil. The death of Christ is the end of the world morally. Man has been tried in every way, and failed; and sin, in every shape and form, has been brought up to a head, and met, in this one act of rending the veil. For “once in the end of the world [morally] hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.” When the sin is proved, it is put away. “They have seen and hated both me and my Father.” The very act that proved their hatred of God put away their sin. “If I had not come, they had not had sin, but now they have no cloak for their sin, but they have seen and hated both me and my Father.” That very crowning act of the utter enmity and willfulness of man brought the sinner to God without the sin. For the Lamb without spot, by one act divine in power (by Himself), “put away the sin by the sacrifice of himself.”
The veil being rent, we with unveiled face behold the glory of the Lord. As to our bodies, we know that they are still on the earth, but our position morally is in heaven, Christ being there. The high priest under the law stood, but this Man, after He had “once offered,” sat down forever. The whole work being accomplished that connects us with heaven, we are only waiting for the redemption of the body. We are accepted in the Beloved; He is my life and my righteousness, and I want nothing more. All belongs to me now, by virtue of life in this heavenly Man, now in heaven itself for me. We are only awaiting His return, but our conversation is connected with Him up there now, for we are always confident while waiting, which may be in order to our ripening. There are three things connected with this position: first, my life is hid with Christ in God; secondly, if I should die before He come, my spirit goes up to Him immediately— “absent from the body, present with the Lord;” thirdly, if He come to take me up before I die, then I shall return with Him-” When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall we also appear with him in glory;” but while He is up on high, we are members of His body down here, and cry, “Come, Lord Jesus;” and, consequent on our position, we ought to be as pilgrims and strangers on this earth, for we stand between the once offered and appearing Jesus. We have neither the world nor the glory yet, but we are identified with the rejected One. Christ's portion is our portion, we get it along with Himself, and we are to be conformed to Him now; we are members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones; His bride, and when she is made ready, He will come and take her up to glory, after which the Lord takes up again His dealings with the earth, to reduce it into that condition in which He can bless it.
The Lord give us to know the wonderful grace of Christ, “who, though he was rich, for our sakes became poor, that we through his poverty might be rich” “who loved us, and gave himself for us” —according to His perfect work, which has set us in the presence of the Father in love.
(Concluded from page 127.)