This we get here in these chapters, and thus read, though in other lines, the title of this mount to be called “the Mount of God.” For here God is thus still revealing Himself. Grace and glory had passed before us on this hill in the previous chapters, as we saw grace in the burning bush, and glory in the assembly of the strangers and Israel. Judgment, and mercy rejoicing over it, have now in their turn passed also before us at the same place-judgment in the fire at the top of the hill, mercy in the tabernacle at the foot of it. And thus the Lord, in these ways and at this place, makes Himself known to us, and Horeb is indeed “the Mount of God.”
Thus I have with desire surveyed this holy hill. But I cannot finally leave it till I have another little meditation at the foot of it.
All that we have seen is Revelation of God. This hill is the place for God's showing Himself. Now our obedience to revelation is faith. If God reveal Himself, faith is man's obedient response. And on faith I would now in closing say a little.
There is a peculiar character of excellence in faith, and no wonder the scriptures so much speak of it. It glorifies God above everything, just because it takes God's account of Himself, and lets Him do His pleasure-” He that cometh to God must believe that he is.” Adam ought to have been a believer, for God to him was a revealer. God had revealed Himself in a warning, and Adam should have had faith. But Adam failed in that; and through unbelief, or making God a liar, he sinned and fell.
We now, in like manner, are called to have faith in God, for God has revealed Himself to us also-in another way, it is true. But still God is a revealer of Himself to us sinners now, and we have now to render the obedience of faith. And “without faith it is impossible to please him.” Just as with Adam: all his joy in the garden was as worship. If Adam delighted in the flavor of its fruit, the scent of its flowers, or the singing of the birds there, all might be counted as worship. But Adam should have believed also, and his faith would have been the highest act of worship. For the heart would have rendered its service to God by faith or confidence in His word, while the eye and the ear and other senses would have been exercising themselves in the garden of God as in the holy places of a temple.
Thus Adam was called to faith, and faith would have been his best service and worship. Sin having entered does not at all change this. Faith still renders the best service, and performs the highest acts of worship. Only we sinners have other objects proposed to faith than untainted Adam had. Necessarily so. One threat of death was revealed to him. [Not life only but] union with the Christ of God, and all its consequent glory and joy, is made known to us. Our circumstances give opportunity of returning to God larger service and worship, through faith, than Adam's did. If faith gives to God His highest glory from the creature, we, by our circumstances as sinners, being called to larger exercise of faith, have competency to yield larger praise. There is more, much more, in our condition than there was in Adam's to exercise faith. Sin and its necessities and sorrows have induced this. This world is the very place for the largest possible exercise of faith in the blessed God: and if we indeed desired God's praise, we should rejoice in such opportunities of giving Him the worship and honor of faith.
And such an one in this world of ours was Jesus. Without sin, He was made sin. He came into this world of sinners. And how did He carry Himself here? “I have put my trust in him,” says He. All through He was rendering to God the obedience and worship of faith. He trusted Him, and trusted in Him. He believed and was confident. Nothing weakened or disturbed His cleaving by faith to the living God. He had laid hold on Him, and nothing slacked His hand. With all against Him, He trusted in God. This was glorifying God beyond all glory that God had ever received. The life of faith which the Man Christ Jesus led in this world was constant worship of the highest order. Angels could never have so glorified Him, or rendered such worship. But that was worship and praise indeed which was brought by the faith of this “wondrous man,” in scenes which our fallen world alone could have afforded. For “faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” It deals with such things as are neither enjoyed nor visible. And it is our circumstances in this world that admit of such most abundantly. Adam had present things to which he might give himself, and through the joy of which he might glorify God, and only one warning or threat revealed to his faith. Angels, too, have their full visible present delights. But the saint is in a world where all that is present is more or less astray from God, and against Him, so that he must go forth from them by faith towards things hoped for and unseen. This calls faith into the most varied and constant exercise, and this makes the saint a competent worshipper of God in the highest order of worship. And Jesus valued this opportunity of worshipping Him, for He loved God perfectly. He waited in such a temple continually. But we (with sorrow may we learn to say it!) want a heart to value God and His praise.
But while we thus look at the principle of faith, grieving that we know it so poorly, we may also look at the object of faith, and there we shall find abundant cause for joy. For God is good, unspeakably good. God is love. His delight is in mercy, and accordingly that which He reveals to our hearts, or that which He proposes as the great object of faith in this fallen world, is salvation. He offers this to our faith, that our hearts may at once rejoice before Him. The apostle says, “we have an altar whereof they have no right to eat who serve the tabernacle:” a strong testimony to God's salvation, or the object of the sinner's faith. The servants or worshippers in the tabernacle were not made perfect in the conscience. The very place bore witness that the way to God was not then made manifest; and the sacrifices, with which the worshippers dealt continually, kept their sins in remembrance. (Heb. 9; 10) For such sacrifices could never dispose of sin. There was no such blood in them as could ever, let it be applied again and again, take it away. But now the saint has a purged conscience, because on his altar he sees blood which has obtained eternal redemption. His altar witnesses remission, and not remembrance, of sins.
This is the mighty distance between them. This keeps the worshippers in the tabernacle and the attendants on the New Testament altar, as the apostle tells us, asunder. The one cannot stand in company with the other. To understand the virtue of the altar is of necessity to quit the tabernacle. Assurance of heart in the remission of sins, or a purged conscience, is the due attribute of him who waits on the one, constant sense of sin the due condition of, him who serves or worships (λατρεὑοντες, Heb. 13:1010We have an altar, whereof they have no right to eat which serve the tabernacle. (Hebrews 13:10)) in the other. And this being so, what offering is that which the worshipper at the altar brings? Having apprehended the virtue of the blood there, what sacrifice does he in return pay? The answer comes, “by him, therefore, let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually.” (Ver. 15.) Praise is the due fruit of a heart that has learned salvation, or the value of the altar-not prayer, but praise. A sinner has not prayer to make, but praise to render. A saint has many and many a prayer, it is true; daily weakness and short-coming and necessity lead him that way. That a sinner in prayer denies the value of the altar. Praise suits salvation, and it is as God the Savior that our altar reveals God to faith.
And what has faith to do but to let the blessed God take His own way, and show Himself in His goodness and glory? The heart that believes is silent before Him while He passes by. He is pleased by this altar which He has raised and revealed to provide for sinners; and who are we that we should stay His hand, or narrow the flow of His rich mercies? Let Him do His pleasure: He is the Lord. If the gospel propose to let us sinners see Him in the exercise of unspeakable goodness, it is the duty of the sinner just to look at Him; it is the way of faith to do nothing else. Faith thus in filthy Joshua allowed change of raiment without a question. He never broke silence, but just accepted the blessing and the glory. (Zech. 3) Faith in the convicted adulteress was silent while Jesus passed by in the still small voice, writing the memorial of her shame as on a sandy floor, which the next breeze would efface forever. (John 8) Faith in the camp of Israel, as we have now seen, after they had sinned away all their blessings by the golden calf, followed the patterns which were, one after another, unfolding the pledges of God's salvation in the golden sanctuary. (Ex. 35-40) All this was faith, which ever lets the Lord take His own way with the sinner, taking His own blessed revelation of Himself without a question, and thus honoring above everything, allowing that He has a right to bless even sinners if He please, and us ourselves as well as other sinners.
And this was the voice of the basket of first-fruits. (See Deut. 26) On the nation being settled in the land, they were to fill a basket with the various fruits thereof, and offer it before God's altar; acknowledging at the same time that all His promises had been made good, that He had accomplished all the goodness and mercy of which He had spoken to them, of which this mystic basket was now the witness and sample. And then they were to rejoice before the Lord their God, the nation thus simply owning all He had done for them, and all that He had been to them, and that they, poor perishing Syrians in themselves, could indeed rejoice in Him.
And this is just the pattern of a perishing sinner's faith, be he Syrian, Greek, or Jew. We have to lay out our basket before the Lord. This is faith. Conscience may confess sins that we have done; love may bring services and obedience: but faith tells what God is, and what He has done, in a rich and varied and overflowing witness. Liberty of conscience, joy in God, assurance and ease of heart, hope, largeness of desire, with other exercises suited to a soul consciously brought home to God, these should be the holy fruit to fill our baskets before the Lord. Affections, such as our altar may well awaken, should fill the heart and run over; affections that become pardoned sinners, the due fruit of that land to which the Savior brings us. This is our “first love,” our basket of first-fruits. Ephesus lost it. The fruit in the basket there had withered a little. For let come what other sacrifices may into God's house, this first offering should be always there in its freshness. Faith should always rejoice in what God has done, that thus the first love may be over young and lively.
But this is far from being the way of the, natural heart of man. His mind is not of this order. He clings to the law. Grace is too great and generous a thought for him. Work, rather than faith, is his master-principle. And this separates between his mind and God's mind. And this principle in man shows itself at times in God's choicest servants. For it is of the flesh, which is in us all. Look at David in 1 Chron. 17. He thought to do something for the Lord. But in that he wronged God. He did not think so, or mean so, but so it was; by that he was wronging God's love. For shall David be before the Lord in kindness? Shall David be better than God? Will David think of building God a house before the Lord has built him a house? That must not be. God will be God in His love as in everything. He will be better as well as greater than we. And therefore that very night, as though He could not rest under such a thing, the Lord tells Nathan to go and stop this purpose of David's heart. God's love had been wronged by it. The Lord would build him a house first, and then David or his son (in this sense the same) might build the Lord a house. And when David hears this through Nathan, the whole temper and current of his soul is changed. He at once sits before the Lord as a receiver, and does not act for the Lord as a giver. He does not talk any more of building a house for God, but rejoices in the thought of the Lord building a house for him. He leaves Martha's place, and takes Mary's more excellent place. (Luke 10:3838Now it came to pass, as they went, that he entered into a certain village: and a certain woman named Martha received him into her house. (Luke 10:38).)
And this was faith again-faith that ever allows God to take His way and show Himself. What right has man to stop the way of the Lord? Shall he say to the Lord, when the Lord rises to unseal the sources of the river of life, “Hitherto shalt thou come, and no farther"? If goodness will glorify itself, shall unbelief dare to dim it? Who shall close the hand of the Lord of the vineyard, if He be pleased to give the penny? If they talk of law, is it not lawful for Him to do what He will with His own? God is the Lord of the well of life, and may He not turn its streams, if He please, to water the dreariest lands? He owns the springs themselves; and therefore let His rights as such owner be weighed and tried even in the balances of law, and it will be found that it is lawful for Him to use them as He may-He has a right to bless sinners if it please Him.
Faith simply gives Him His rights, and allows the lawfulness of God acting in grace to us; yea, even to ourselves, as well as to other sinners like us. For the less is blessed of the better; and as God justly claims for Himself the place of the better, faith fully owns the claim, and receives the blessing from Him, even the richest blessing, the blessing of eternal salvation, life and glory.
Thus it is faith which chiefly glorifies God, for it sets Him in the place of “the better.” Service renders to God, faith receives from Him, and thus faith honors Him in the holiest place that He graciously fills for us. In a sinner walking before Him, in the artless liberty and confidence of faith, God is especially honored. For “God is love,” and to glorify such an one we must be free and happy in Him. Love can be satisfied by nothing less than that. Of course, love knows how to “comfort the feeble-minded;” and where is “little faith,” it can well come and “support the weak,” for it tells us to do so. But still our joy in Him is His will, and even His commandment. The bread of mourners was not to be eaten in the sanctuary; it would have defiled the presence of God, as the offering of an unclean heart would have defiled it. For if holiness become God's house, so do liberty and joy. And it is faith that brings in this liberty and joy, for it apprehends the altar of which I have spoken; it apprehends God engaged for the sinner in a love that is perfect, so as to have nothing in the soul inconsistent with itself, as the bread of mourners would be. It casts out fear, and fills the temple within with its own clear, free, and refreshing element.
May our faith, then, beloved, grow exceedingly! May we know the repose of heart, the silence of conscience, the triumph of hope, and the song of praise in the spirit, which it gives, more and more! The revelation which our God has made of Himself is so blessed, that it is only such a faith that can duly honor it. O that in connection with our subject we were, beloved, more in harmony with the spirit of those sweet words which we sometimes have sung together-
“Look forward to that happy place,
Beyond the bounds of time and space,
The saints' secure abode:
On faith's strong eagle-pinions rise,
And, force your passage to the skies,
And scale the, mount of God:”
(Concluded from page 37.)
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