The more you look at the Scriptures, the more they transport you to their scenes. The Bible has the wonderful power of putting you, by faith, in the place it describes; I am there, one of the company, and I am conscious I am there in the scenes it describes. It is this that gives a blessed character to the whole Word of God. “Holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost”; every part by the Holy Spirit! The Bible is a history of original sin and its fruits, and God’s method of putting sin away. God has “a fit Man,” a fit Person (Lev. 16:2121And Aaron shall lay both his hands upon the head of the live goat, and confess over him all the iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their transgressions in all their sins, putting them upon the head of the goat, and shall send him away by the hand of a fit man into the wilderness: (Leviticus 16:21)). In the Old Testament, we are waiting for a fit Person, and if we look at the New Testament, we find Him. In the Gospel of Matthew, you see Him as the Messiah; in Mark, as the perfect Servant; in Luke, as the Son of Man; and in John, as the Son of God. In the Gospel of John we begin before Genesis. We are attracted by the Grace which is in the gospels, and we get the application of this Grace in the epistles. My eye in the gospels looks through the carpenter’s son, and sees His Divine glory. The aim of the epistles is to get the soul on the same platform of standing and walk as that of the Lord Jesus.
In the Old Testament you see, as it were, the unity of the Godhead, and in the New Testament the trinity of the Godhead. In Genesis we see the election of the people of God; in Exodus their redemption; in Leviticus their priestly service, and worship; in Numbers their walk and warfare in the wilderness; in Deuteronomy a recapitulation of God’s dealings with them up to the time that they are about to enter upon the land. Leviticus is a wonderful book for bringing out the detail of the work of Christ which we do not get elsewhere. Just as we enter into the signification of the sacrifices in Leviticus, so do we enter in worship into the joy of God in the several aspects of the sacrifice of His Son. O, the delight of God in His Christ! What a thing it is to have a heart to enter into it! What gives joy to God is the soul entering into all Christ’s work, having the heart bowed with a deepened sense of His worth—Divine Person as He was, all His graces go up to God. We want to be in Mary’s place as learners!
If you wish to know Israel’s experience after the church is translated, look at the Psalms; Israel will then be under law again. The difference between Solomon’s Song and Ecclesiastes is, that in the one I have God Himself, and my heart is too little for Him, and in the other I have the world, and all things in it, and my heart is too large to be filled by it.
Prophecy is as a lamp in a dark place—as a lamp in a tunnel; “Whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place”; and we are interested in all that interests Christ.
John closes the Book when he says— “Come.” He is perfectly satisfied when he is waiting for Jesus, and then he ceases to write!