The Levites and their Work
The Levites are typical of believers as “the servants of Jesus Christ.” Their work was to bear the Tabernacle and the holy vessels through the desert, to set it up according to the Divine pattern in the divinely ordered place, and to take it down when the cloud arose for the journeying of the camp. Their call, their qualification for service, and the various spheres to which Jehovah appointed them, are all subjects of interest, upon which we may meditate with profit to our souls.
The natural character―as we may call it―of Levi is well described in the words of his father, Jacob, as recorded in Genesis 49:5-7. Cruel, self-willed and fierce, cursed and scattered, yet by God’s grace picked out to become the chosen servant of the house of God―according to nature, unfit for the presence of God or the fellowship of His people. “O my soul, come not thou into their secret; unto their assembly, mine honor, be not thou united,” yet by grace the union with Simeon is dissolved, and Levi is “joined” to God’s high priest (Num. 18:2-4), to minister unto him and “to do the service of the tabernacle.” Their standing according to nature is set aside: they are called according to grace to fill the place of Israel’s firstborn (Num. 3:12, 13), a typically dead and risen people, alive unto God, in new circumstances, with new surroundings. Thus it is that the call of God and the grace of God hath come to us sinners of the Gentiles who were “afar off,” having no hope “and without God in the world,” quickening us together with Christ that we might be joined to the Lord and become one spirit with Him. Able, like one of old to say― “By the grace of God, I am what I am”― “Whose I. am, and whom I serve” (1 Cor. 15:10; Acts 27:23).
Next to their call, comes their preparation for service. Being brought nigh unto God, they must be in a condition suited to that new position, and, having received a ministry in the Lord, they must be qualified and furnished so that they may fulfill it. As we meditate on what the Levites required to fit them for their ministry, we shall learn what is still required of those who would acceptably serve the Lord in His Gospel and His House.
They were to be “cleansed” and “separated” in presence of the whole assembly. This was the first step. Not “education” and “ordination,” but “cleansing” and “separation.” This accords with that “washing of regeneration” and conversion to God, so frequently enjoined upon all who would serve the Lord Christ. Apart from these, no sinner ever can become a servant of God. Men who have never been born again may be voted into places of ecclesiastical power by the fellows, or appointed to them by their patrons; they may preach and teach and “administer the sacraments,” but without God’s call and His qualifications for service, they are the servants of Satan. Nor is conversion the only qualification that God requires. The Levites, having been cleansed by another, were afterward to shave their flesh and wash their clothes and so “make themselves clean.” This accords with the words written to those who had already been separated from the unequal yokes and fellowships of darkness (see 2 Cor. 6:14-17), being received of God for His service here. “Having therefore these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God” (2 Cor. 7:1, R.V.). There is much to “lay aside” (1 Peter 2:1) and to “put off” (Col. 3:8, 9) after being converted, and thus the believing one is “proved” and “blameless” before he publicly serves (1 Tim. 3:10). They were given then to Aaron as a gift (Num. 8:19, with John 17:6), and by him back to Jehovah as an offering (Num. 8:21, with John 17:10, 11). Then, they were allowed to enter upon the service of the Tabernacle for a brief period of five-and-twenty years (Num. 8:24).
They had no earthly inheritance given them as their brethren of the tribes of Israel. Jehovah Himself was their inheritance, and of His offerings they were allowed to partake (Deut. 18:1, 2). Their wants were bountifully supplied by their God through their brethren, and they lacked no good thing (Num. 35:4-8). It was thus with the servants of Christ in early days. An Apostle then was not ashamed to confess, “Silver and gold have I none” (Acts 3:6), while another tells of the “loss of all things” for Christ’s honored name, and produces as the credentials of his Apostleship the hunger, the thirst, the nakedness, and the stripes that he endured in his path of service for God’s Gospel and His truth. Men of those days served not for worldly advantage of “filthy lucre.” “The ministry” was no fashionable trade in which the praise of men with worldly titles and emoluments were secured. “Bonds and afflictions” (Acts 20:23) were God’s servants’ portion and prospects: a “dying daily” (1 Cor. 15:31) the only” living. “It remained for a day of apostasy from the truth for professed “ministers of God” to wander forth, to and fro, seeking a “place,” like that Levite of Bethlehem-Judah who came to Micah’s house and bargained with him to become his priest, for which he received a yearly salary, a suit of apparel, and his victuals. For this remuneration he was “content” to stay and officiate as the family priest, until the larger sphere of becoming priest to a tribe presented itself. The modern custom answering to this ancient story is too well-known to require to be pointed out. The only wonder is, that true saints of God should be found perpetuating and supporting such a God-dishonoring system, at which skeptics point with contempt and scorn, in evidence of the sham of modern Christianity. But the pattern and example of true ministry abides in the written Word, and by these we are called upon to test who ever assumes the prerogative of being “a minister of Jesus Christ” among His people.
Division of Labor
The tribe of Levi was divided into three families: Kohath, Gershon and Merari. To each of these a part of God’s Tabernacle was entrusted. There was diversity and division of labor, combined with unity of purpose and action. Every man had his place given him by Jehovah. He knew it, and kept it. Every man had his own peculiar work for which he was fitted, and all went on under the supervision of God’s high priest (Num. 4:27-33) without a jar or murmur. The family of Merari had the boards, the bars, the pillars and the sockets, as their burden. When the cloud rested for the encampment of the tribes, they were the first workmen on the spot where Jehovah’s dwelling-place was to be reared. Their first work would be to lay down the heavy silver sockets on the bare sand of the desert. These formed the foundation of God’s house. The shittim boards were next raised and fitted into the sockets, each in its appointed place, and finally the bars that framed the several boards together were passed through the golden rings. When the work of the family of Merari was ended, their brethren of the family of Gershon began their work. To them was committed the curtains, the coverings, the hangings, and the cords-that which beautified and sheltered the work of the sons of Merari. The service of these two families was very closely related: they were true “yoke-fellows” and “laborers together of God” (1 Cor. 3:9, R.V.).
They walked together on the journey (Num. 10:17), and labored together in the work of building God’s house. Later still, the sons of Kohath came, bearing on their shoulders the holy vessels―the ark, the table, the candlestick and the altars in their coverings of purple, blue, scarlet and badgers’ skins (Num. 3:29-32; 4:2). They found a tabernacle already built and beautified. Their ministry was for the furnishing of the house and its courts, for worship and for sacrifice.
All this has its significance to us of later times, and we may meditate upon it with profit and blessing. May the Lord enable us to do so in His fear. Here we have God’s principles of ministry in connection with the building of His ancient house, and these principles are not departed from but rather accentuated and emphasized in New Testament Scriptures, and in the present work of the Lord, in the building of His dwelling-place of present time, even that house which is “the church of the living God” (1 Tim. 3:15) and “habitation of God in the Spirit” (Eph. 1:22, R.V.).
Ministry: Evangelists, Pastors, Teachers
The appointments of God regarding ministry are here seen in type in the services of the three families of the sons of Levi.
The Merarites, with their foundations and framework, represent the evangelist and his work; the Gershonites, with their curtains, coverings and cords, strengthening, shielding and beautifying, the pastor and his work; the Kohathites, bearing with steady step the various vessels of the sanctuary, and placing them in due order, the teacher and his ministry.
The sphere of the evangelist is the wide world: sinners wherever he can find them are his congregation: the Gospel of the grace of God is his message. Like the Merarite of old, he bears the silver sockets of redemption, as the only foundation for the sinner. He goes forth guided by the Spirit of God into the world and speaks of Christ crucified. This is his theme, He lays the sockets on the desert sands. World-reformation is not his mission; precedent and “stepping-stone” to the Gospel of God he knows nothing of. He preaches Christ: Christ as the Saviour, Christ as the Lord, Christ as the foundation of salvation for the sinner (Acts 4:12), Christ as the foundation of the Church (Matt. 16:18) and of the fellowship of the saints (1 Cor. 3:11). Then, having presented Christ, he seeks to bring sinners to Him, that they may accept Him as Saviour and own Him as Lord. His aim is to “make disciples” (Matt. 28:19, R.V.). And, having by the power of the Gospel, accomplished this, he next gathers the saved ones together as the Lord has commanded (Matt. 18:19), and builds them according to the Divine pattern, given in the Book. It was thus that “the churches” of early times were formed. There was the preaching of “Christ Crucified” (1 Cor. 2:2), the laying of the foundation of the assembly (1 Cor. 3:10), and the “preaching of the Word” (Acts 18:10) to those whom God had saved and gathered together. All this was embraced in the “work of an evangelist” in days of old. In modern evangelism he is said to “preach the Gospel only,” whatever this may mean. If God gives blessing in the conversion of sinners, he is not expected to have anything further to say to them, certainly not to gather or build them together as God had appointed, but rather to move on, as the ostrich who leaveth her eggs in the sand, where the foot of man may crush them (Job 39:14, 15).
The Merarites’ work was immediately followed by that of their fellow-laborers the Gershonites, who with the cords strengthened, with the coverings sheltered, and with the curtains beautified what their brethren had builded. This is the work of the pastor. He co-operates with and follows up the evangelist. His work is to care for and shepherd the flock. To seek out the young, heal the broken and feed the standing still (Zech. 11:16). It was thus that Barnabas, “the Son of consolation”―a true Gershonite― followed up the “men of Cyrene” in their work at Antioch, exhorting the converts to “cleave” to the Lord (Acts 11:23). It was when this most blessed work had been neglected that the Lord lamented― “My tabernacle is spoiled, and all My cords are broken My children are gone forth from Me and they are not: there is none to stretch forth My tent any more, and to set up My curtains for THE PASTORS are become brutish, and have not sought the Lord” (Jer. 10:20, 21). Words too sadly true, of our own time.
The Tabernacle being now set up and beautified, it remained for the sons of Kohath to carry in the holy vessels and put them in their ordered places in the house and courts of Jehovah. This is the work of the teacher. He brings in with wise and steady step, in their due order, and as the saints are able to hear, the truths of which these holy vessels are the types. The Brazen Altar telling of the Perfect Sacrifice and the believer’s acceptance in Christ; the Laver telling of his daily cleansing, and on to the antitypes of the Altar, the Table and the Candlestick―the standing of the saints as risen with Christ, worshipping at the Altar, feeding at the Table, communing at the Mercy-Seat. And thus by steady, continuous “toil in the Lord” does the “work of the Lord” go on from day to day and from age to age, in spite of man’s opposition and Satan’s hindrance. And thus it will continue until the time of wilderness warfare and service shall have run its course. Then as of old, when in the days of Solomon’s glory the Levites exchanged the burdens of the Tabernacle and its vessels for rest and praise (see 1 Chron. 23:25-30) amid the glories of the Kingdom, so shall those who have served the Lord Jesus in His Gospel, His Church, and His Truth, receive in the millennial and eternal Kingdom and glory of their Lord, the reward of their labors and tears of the wilderness days. And there, amid the unsullied glory of the eternal rest, where no tear of sorrow shall ever drop, or groan of pain be heard, where God is all in all, and the Lamb is all the glory-there “His servants shall serve Him, and they shall see His Face” (Rev. 22:3, 4). Praise ye the Lord.
Amen and Amen