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The Writings of G.W. North
Here is a collection of the written ministry of G. W. North.
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One Baptism
ONE BAPTISM
An examination of the truth of Baptism in the Spirit
as revealed in Old Testament type and New Testament doctrineG.W. North
Chapter One - THE END OF ALL FLESH
'I, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called, with all lowliness and meekness, with long-suffering, forbearing one another in love; endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all, and in you all.' (Ephesians 4:1-6)
Reading the above words from the pen of Tychicus under the dictation of the apostle Paul, we acquaint ourselves with the title and thematic ground of this book. The whole Bible from Genesis to Revelation declares with one voice that there is only one Baptism, although the privilege of actually saying so is given exclusively to the apostle Paul. Within these pages, an attempt is made to arrive at a clear assessment of the truth expressed in the phrase, 'One Baptism', by examining it in:
- Type, as it is illustrated in the Old Testament;
2. The immediate context in which the phrase is found;
3. The wider background of the book in which that context and the passage itself are set;
4. The whole revelation of the New Testament of which that book is a part.
There could hardly be found a more simple and straightforward, yet profound, statement of truth than the above passage. Perhaps one of the most surprising features of it to modern minds is that the apostle makes no attempt to explain or expound it to his readers; it must therefore be assumed that they knew exactly what he meant.
When a direct categorical statement on any subject is made in the Bible by any man under inspiration of God, it is absolutely true; nothing said anywhere else in scripture on that subject can be in any way contrary to it, either in word or in spirit. Other things may be and often are said, additional to or explanatory of it, but never contradictory to it. God says that there is 'One Baptism'; that is precisely what He means. He does not mean that there are two or three baptisms when He says that there is one. He says what He means, and He expects us to believe what He says. Moreover, having once said that there is one baptism, He does not say anything anywhere else that in any degree contradicts that statement. It is either true or false.
This one baptism is fully illustrated in scripture by four outstanding types, all to be found in the Old Testament. At first reading these may appear to have very little in common with the One Baptism spoken of by Paul, but closer examination discloses their usefulness in this connection. Although each is to be found in the Old Testament, it is the New Testament which informs us that the first and second of them were indeed of the nature of a baptism. This procedure may seem a little surprising, but it is not unusual with God; indeed it was very necessary that He should employ this method, and for the following reason: primitive historical facts recorded in ancient times, even though given under inspiration, were not always at the time of writing accorded their fullest spiritual meaning. This was simply because:
- Their true spiritual value, proper meaning and fullest implications were not at the time of writing properly assessed and appreciated.
2. Their necessary place and function in the overall plan of God was not then fully revealed and so could not be known by those who wrote of them.
3. The recording of the facts was controlled by God with a view to the future when other men, under the same inspiration and control, yet in a better position to understand, would recognize their true significance and be able to correlate them into a whole, thus giving them their greatest meaning.
In I Corinthians 15:46, Paul states a principle which is most helpful to us at this point. To gain fullest benefit from it we will momentarily alter the word 'natural' to 'material'; doing so will not harm the sacred text we love, but will demonstrate more easily the truth we seek. The apostle says, 'that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural, and afterwards that which is spiritual'.
Altering the word in thought for our immediate purposes has in no way strained the truth; in fact it has enhanced it, for the principle is true of both. In addition to what is so simply stated here, God has supplied vital information about a key factor which underlies all His works of creation. Whether they be vegetable, mineral or abstract, everything physical or material reveals this same principle. To quote Hebrews 11:3, things which are seen 'were not made of things which do appear', but 'from the creation of the world, the invisible things of Him are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made', Romans 1:20. So although throughout the whole universe the first thing to strike the eye, or by any means impress itself on the sense of the observer may be that which is natural or material, we understand afterwards that all is quite secondary to the spiritual. The spiritual is always first and can be no other, although it is never seen or understood first. The text is dealing with the order of human understanding and approach to reality, not the order of logic and eternal truth.
In fact, there is no order of truth in God in this respect, for in Him natural and spiritual are one. Nevertheless, to us who belong to a lower order, that which is first is natural (physical or material) and can be no other. We always understand that which is spiritual afterwards or lastly, and only through and because of its manifestation. But scripture clearly reveals that firstly it is God: 'In the beginning God', and 'all things were made by Him and without Him was not anything made that was made'. It was God who created the whole of this material, physical and natural world in which we live, and underlying all that God does is God Himself; because this is so, there is spiritual meaning and significance in everything. Even though since the fall of Lucifer — and man his victim — everything may be evil affected: in the beginning the earth was formed and the ages fitted together by the Word of God. Originally everything is a manifestation of or a projection from spiritual reality. It is God's intention that His material creation should lead us to an awareness, if not an understanding of Himself, the original Spiritual Life from whence it came.
Because of this, historical biblical events have a typical value and hold spiritual meaning for modern man. We may learn spiritual lessons from all things; as the seraphim said in Isaiah's hearing, 'the whole earth is full of Thy glory'. God had these records made, that by them He may set forth the principles and ways from which He never deviates in any age. As we pursue our theme through the Bible, we shall discover this to be true of all the illustrations we shall examine. Each is a historical event of such importance that it is totally impossible to exaggerate any one of them. Yet true as this is, it is doubtful that any but God Himself has ever correctly evaluated them or understands their fullest spiritual meaning.
Certainly, in the physical or national or personal lives of those who were involved in them, they were absolutely miraculous. However, although they were real happenings of tremendous magnitude when they took place, they are of even greater import in typical meaning. At the conclusion, when we gather all together into the relative positions they hold within the eternal plan of God, we shall be amazed at such an overwhelming revelation of His grace and wisdom.
The first of these illustrations is the well-known story of the Flood, found in the book of Genesis. At first glance this event may seem to have no connection with baptism whatsoever. However, Peter in his first epistle, chapter 3, verses 20 and 21, leaves us in no doubt about it at all — 'the like figure whereunto baptism doth also now save us'. He majors chiefly on the Ark (of salvation) and the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and proceeds to draw lessons from the historic event relative to the ordinance; he also arrives at certain basic conclusions. A study of Peter's whole ministry, taking special note of his sayings on the subject of water baptism, is most rewarding. It reveals that his reason for insisting on the ordinance was based on his appreciation of that work Christ wrought at Calvary, which finds particular illustration by the miracle of the Flood.
The apostle was a primitive man, elemental in nature, fundamental in beliefs, and simple and radical in all that he said and did. He did not have a formal education, and had no opportunity to gain the cultural and social finesse of a Saul of Tarsus; his background and training was Galilee, his companions the fishing community. He had not sat at the feet of Gamaliel, nor had he known the student body of Tarsus University. Nevertheless he was among the chiefest of the apostles, if not the very chief, and from the day of his regeneration he lived and moved with tremendous power and authority in rugged primal things. Both in his writings and in his speakings he dealt with simple basic truths in a manner thoroughly consistent with his personality. He was the natural leader among the twelve apostles. He also held the foremost place among the 'chosen three', as did the Tachmonite among David's three mighty men (II Samuel 23:8). It is therefore only to be expected that in the matter of baptism Peter should adduce fundamental truths from the elemental facts of the Flood, and authoritatively apply them to us with forthrightness.
The story of the Flood is important. It is recorded in Genesis 6,7 and 8, and also referred to in other parts of scripture. It all began when God warned Noah that He was about to destroy the earth with a flood, and instructed him to build an Ark. Strange as it may seem, although God told him about it and what to do, He never told him when it should happen. The only indication Noah had about the time of the event was bound up in the meaning of a name borne by one of his blood-relations. Noah came of a very distinguished family; his great-grandfather was Enoch, a man who walked with God. He was a prophet in close communion with his Lord, and when his wife gave birth to their first son, he named him Methuselah, which meant 'when he is dead it shall be sent', or 'when he is dead it shall come to pass'.
It was a prophetic name, but nobody, it seems, knew exactly what it indicated. Was it a pointer to Enoch? Did it refer to Enoch's death? God answered that problem by removing Enoch from the scene; he did not die, God took him; so everyone knew that name was not a hidden reference to the father's death: it must be the living son. This man Methuselah lived longer on earth than any other man before or since, and by his longevity God showed forth His grace in a most remarkable way. As the name indicates, the year that Methuselah died the Flood came. All the while he was alive, people had warning from God that something was impending, though for much of the time they knew not what.
Noah, Methuselah's great grandson, was a 'preacher of righteousness' during an age, or day (nearly a millennium) of grace. This is very wonderful and appears so much more wonderful to us than to them, for we know the much more glorious truth that our blessed Lord was actually 'The Word made flesh'. The importance of Methuselah is that he in his day was also a word in flesh; all he had to do to declare God's word was live. He was Enoch's great prophecy to all mankind. In him mercy and judgement were met together; mercy in that all the while he lived the flood of judgement was withheld; judgement in that shortly after his death the Flood came. He outlived his son Lamech, Noah's father, by five years, thus continuing the testimony right up to the actual time of the Flood. Of course as soon as God warned Noah of the coming deluge, he knew immediately why his great grandfather received his name.
It was during the last century of this man's life that Noah, being moved with fear, prepared the Ark for the time to come. His reason for doing so was twofold: 1. saving his house; 2. preservation of life for the unknown future. He built the House of salvation according to God's specifications on a large, yet limited, scale; it was large enough to hold all those God intended to save from that creation, yet its human occupants were limited to one family, and the reason for this was plainly stated by God: Noah was just, perfect in his generation, and he walked with God, righteous among the men of his day. His family was the last surviving family unit which was perfect in its generation, and represented to God His original design in marriage. In common with his forebears, Noah had preserved the godly line, keeping the righteous seed unmixed.
In his day Sons of God were marrying daughters of men, with the result that all sorts of abominations were taking place on the earth. The pure line had been preserved, but Noah was the last of it, so to prevent its extermination God determined to save him. God's Spirit had long striven with man in an effort to save him from himself, but despite all God's efforts, original sin had erupted into unrestrained sexual lust, and carried away all flesh to total depravity. 'Every imagination of the thoughts of the heart was only evil continually'; corruption and violence reigned throughout the whole race of men. Repentance and grief gripped the heart of God that He had ever created man on the earth, so with reluctance He took the decision to destroy them. When there remains not even one good imagination in the thought of any heart, there is only one course to take — utter destruction — so the Lord took it.
There is always an intrinsic rightness about the way God does things. This is strikingly revealed by the particular form of judgement wherewith He finally closed that antediluvian era. The Flood was an absolutely perfect portrayal of God's repentance. True repentance, in whomsoever it is found, is always accompanied by uttermost grief, and the insight afforded us here into God's terrible grief is amazing beyond words. How truly Paul speaks when he says, 'godly sorrow worketh repentance not to be repented of', godly sorrow is immeasurable; it is the foundation of all true repentance. This account of the Flood provides us with an insight into the mystery of the sorrow which caused God to pass sentence and execute judgement upon the world of the ungodly. If the enormity of the Flood is anything to go by, God was broken-hearted, and if its intensity is likewise an indication of His feelings, then He was very angry also. Who can imagine what the breaking up of the fountains of the deep and the openings of the windows of heaven betokened? If God intended to give us a revelation of the great flood of grief and indignation welling up in His stricken heart, He has certainly succeeded. Elements of wrath and judgement are always present in the truth of the Baptism, and inescapably so, for besides being principles affecting moral action, they are also fundamental and necessary to the truth of salvation. What was blessing and deliverance to Noah's family, was curse and destruction to multitudes of others. Even so, God never judges with impunity, nor pours out punishment with pleasure. As witnessed by this story, destruction, when executed by Him, is accompanied by an unparalleled and overwhelming testimony to His heart-brokenness. All of God is always in all that He does.
How graphically the basic principles of salvation are woven into the factual information given us by the Spirit concerning the Flood. The persons around whom the story revolves, and the method of salvation used, as well as the Flood itself, have much to teach us. But even though we seek to gain maximum benefit from the story, we can only briefly touch upon it here. When Noah had completed the Ark, God's moment for putting salvation into effect for the righteous family had arrived, so this He proceeded to do. At this point we find a surprising illustration of a well-loved New Testament statement recorded for us by Paul in II Corinthians 5.19, 'God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself', for the invitation to enter the Ark seems to have come from within the Ark: 'Come thou .... into the Ark'. God did not direct or command them to go into the Ark, but called them into it as though He were already inside.
Noah had built the Ark for God: he was God's representative. He did it by faith, that is as though it were God doing it. But although he had worked upon it and in it, he never attempted to go and take up residence therein until he was invited to do so by God. From the moment this call came to Noah and his family, to the time they were finally shut in, seven days elapsed. During that period, under God's instructions, Noah gathered into the Ark many pairs of selected animals and birds and 'creeping things' from the lower orders of creation. Upon completion of this, 'the Lord shut him in, and the Flood was forty days upon the earth, and the waters increased', until the old creation was entirely blotted out.
Making allowance for the fact that all types have their shortcomings, and therefore cannot possibly be absolutely exact, we may see that in a very real sense Noah and his family were baptized into the Ark. More than that also, the type shows that Noah's family were baptized unto him in the Ark, for had the Flood not come, they would not have been with him in the Ark of salvation. This is the first Biblical hint of the truth of baptismal-regeneration. All Noah's sons had previously been born to him upon the earth; now, by the Flood, in the Ark, they were in a figure born again to him. All the floods of God's judgement beat upon that vessel, but all within were safe, whereas had they stayed outside they would have been but dead men. Instead, by God's grace, they were being preserved alive in order to populate the 'new earth' that should appear when the judgement was past. To use a New Testament quotation, and suiting it to the type, by God's will they alone were predestined to be the eight new people 'in the regeneration', that is the regenerated earth.
The figure is plain, its teaching simple, its logic powerful, its force primitive. If we are to be saved, we must be baptized into Christ. As then, there was no place of safety or life outside the Ark, so now there is no place or hope of safety and life outside of Christ. To understand properly what God is seeking to teach us by the figure, it is necessary to observe that neither the thought of forgiveness of sins nor of atonement is referred to in this whole passage. There is no talk of blood and sacrifice, or of worship and praise; God is not dealing here with sin, but with its evil results and manifestations. He is judging the flesh; that is men and women in whom sin had run its uncontrolled course to the full. It is in contrast with such condition that God pronounced Noah's family to be the perfect generation.
Looking at that latest generation, now safe within the Ark, and tracing back their lineage through Noah, Lamech, Methuselah and Enoch, we come to Jared, Mahaleel, Cainan, Enos, Seth and eventually Adam. This is the spiritual line perfectly preserved from fleshly sin, kept and approved of God from the beginning of creation. But parallel with this there runs another genealogy also; this line in all its generations is traced with great precision in Genesis 4. Glancing at it we see that this is a much shorter record indeed. Proceeding from Adam through Cain to Enoch, it continues via Irad to Mehujael, and then to Methusael and Lamech; there the lineage stops. This is very strange: it is cut off dead; there is no continuation beyond that point. By this God has made known to us something of great magnitude, through which He intends to teach us an unforgettable lesson. This genealogy represents the line of 'the flesh', coming down from Adam through Cain; upon examining it we find some names exactly the same as those in the spiritual line. One is so surprisingly like Methuselah, that we are driven to the conclusion that it is almost an exact copy of its spiritual counterpart.
What we have discovered provides us with a striking illustration of the parable of the wheat and the tares, spoken by the Lord in Matthew 13. We note that directly preceding His exposition of the parable to the disciples, the Lord says, 'I will open my mouth in parables; I will utter things which have been kept secret from the foundation of the world'. This quotation in itself is an adaptation and amplification of David's statement in Psalm 78:2, in which psalm he briefly interprets to Israel their history. The psalmist writes purposely to exhibit to the nation their inherent Jacobean qualities; commencing with Jacob, he says, 'I will open my mouth in a parable, I will utter dark sayings of old'. He then proceeds to point out to them the tragic failures of the flesh as contrasted with the unfailing grace and mercy of God shown to the nation. On the other hand the Lord Jesus deals with the flesh in another way; He traces everything back to satan, for He is not, as David, just dealing with dark sayings of old, but with things which have been kept secret from the foundation of the world. Jesus did not come to deal with nationalistic Jacobean manifestations of flesh only, but with 'Flesh' in its entirety. The 'Flesh' in its ethically bad sense did not originate with Jacob, but with Adam; it is a demonstration in human flesh and blood of the original sin of Lucifer. Sin was introduced and reproduced by satan in Adam by means of the temptation through Eve, with the intention of degenerating the whole human race. When speaking in Matthew, the Lord deals with what we have found in the type we are studying. From Adam downwards the fleshly line, as opposed to the spiritual seed, descended to utter destruction through Cain in the way set out above.
The Lord in His parable said, 'Let both grow together until the harvest', (Matthew 13:30). 'The harvest is the end of the age', verse 39. Different ages run different courses and have different beginnings and gospels and endings. The Lord is speaking of this present age and future consummation when fire is to be the medium of judgement, but basic spiritual elements never vary in any age this side of 'the regeneration'. Although media of judgement may vary from age to age, basic principles of judgement can never alter. God frequently changes interim means, but never eternal principles or ultimate ends. Nor is this surprising, for eternal principles cannot be changed, and neither can ultimate ends. Destinies are not decided in an arbitrary manner; they result from the outworkings of principles; these in turn become laws governing and producing the succession of events that unavoidably proceeds to an inescapable destination. We have an example of these things set before us in the history of Sodom and Gomorrah. In those twin cities of sin, men burned in their lust one toward another and reaped the due reward of their sin. Their end could not be other than fire; they had burned, so they must be burned.
Thus in the parable we find that, as to the inexpert eye, darnel while in growth is practically indistinguishable from wheat, and must grow together with it undisturbed until harvest and the judgement of fire, so does the fleshly line of Cain appear similar in many respects to the spiritual line of Seth; they developed together until the Flood. The man of the fleshly line has many features seemingly identical with the spiritual man, having both an Enoch and a Lamech of whom to boast, but there the similarity ends. Enoch of Cain's line did not beget a Methuselah, but a Methusael, for unlike his spiritual namesake, carnal Enoch was not in the habit of walking with God. Through the spiritual prophet Enoch (to adapt a precious New Testament phrase) 'God spake unto us (that age) through a son', Methuselah. But not so with Enoch of the fleshly line; because his progeny proved to be so vastly different from those of his spiritual namesake, the line is cut short and destroyed. It goes as far as Lamech, the man of wild power — that is savagery and violence — and then to death; and there it is left. That is the end of all flesh — it is unforgivable, there is no resurrection for it. The baptismal judgement, as the Flood so graphically indicates, is epochal, age-abiding, eternal. But Lamech of the godly line produced a Noah and an Ark of salvation and a generation ready for a new heaven and a new earth.
As we have earlier seen, this type of the One Baptism is not set forth as a treatise upon forgiveness and atonement, but as something far greater. By it God is not teaching forgiveness because of imputed righteousness through atonement; there is no mention of blood here. Not until the Flood has subsided, the Ark vacated and the 'new earth' entered and occupied, is there any hint of sacrifice in connection with this event. The Saving-Ark typifies unto us salvation from the old (man) creation into the new (man) creation. When at the invitation of God that family first crossed the threshold of the Ark, they stepped out of the old world of the flesh; when they stepped back over that same threshold nearly a year later they were in the new order of the Spirit. Of course, all is highly figurative to us, but then everything connected with actual water baptism is as surely figurative to this day; the spiritual truth is what we seek.
Turning back in our Bibles to Genesis 1:6 and 7, and reading of God's activities on the second day of creation, we find that they included the making of a firmament. His purpose in so doing was to divide the waters upon which His Spirit was moving. He called the firmament heaven. Apparently its function at that early stage of God's preparation for the advent of man was to divide the waters which were above the firmament from the waters which were under it, later called seas. We may not know all God's purposes in doing this, but upon reading the story of the Flood, we can see one very clear reason for it: those waters were stored up above the firmament in the beginning that they should later be poured out through the opened windows of heaven to deluge and inundate the whole earth.
Peter, writing in his second epistle, leaves little room for doubt that the Flood effected unimagined changes in this planet; indeed, perhaps in the whole universe also, for he speaks of the heavens as well. So great is the change, that he refers to the antediluvian state as 'the world that then was', and to this present order of things as 'the heavens and the earth which are now'. Just as the existing heaven and earth are being kept in store, reserved unto fiery judgement at the end of the age, so surely those waters which God had gathered up above the firmament were kept in store for use in the judgement that overflowed the world of the ungodly then. All of this lends weight to the probability that it was in much more than a figurative sense, though certainly in that, that the righteous generation went forth from the Ark at last to inhabit the (new) earth.
What is at least as wonderful, if not more wonderful still, is the miracle that appears to have taken place within the Ark itself. We know that previously there had never been any such vessel in existence, for it had been constructed at God's command, to God's specifications. But beyond that, although in a limited sense, both it and all within it represented a new creation. The whole company of men and animals and birds within that peculiar vessel lived together as though they were one new family. This is a wondrous illustration of the truth that 'if any man be in Christ he is a new creature', or as it could as well be rendered, 'if any man be in Christ there is a new creation'. In a manner also it sets forth an illustration of the answer to Christ's prayer 'that they all may be one'; this is the first and deepest reason for the Baptism in the Spirit.
It was a most fascinatingly novel and miraculous experience, for by God's command a remnant of the whole animate air-breathing creation was gathered within that floating 'world'. In a sense it was Paradise regained, or the millennium anticipated. Inside there the curse and sin and death were non-existent (although as we know they were only held in abeyance). 'In all that holy mountain' nothing harmed or hurt, or stung, and none preyed upon another; it floated serenely above earth's highest hills in perfect peace and rest. God and Noah, and the righteous family, together with restored creation, were in perfect harmony within that new creation, the Ark. For them it was a kind of predestination in there — a conforming to the original pattern and state of creation 'as it was in the beginning'. Not a great deal of imagination is required for us to realize the degree of amazement with which the family of God lived in such close contact with the animals. Perfect in its generations under its head, Noah, it enjoyed absolute liberty and safety, although confined with beasts that in their natural environment would have rent and torn and devoured them. Instead of enmity and bloodshed, all within the Ark was peace and rest and love and enjoyment. The law of the jungle was non-existent. What a heaven on earth!
The type is suggestive rather than comprehensive, limited rather than expansive, but what a wealth of instruction it holds for us concerning the truth of the Baptism. It is beautifully expressive of the limited comprehensions of the mind that first listens to the gospel, and responds from the heart to the drawings of the Spirit to Christ for salvation. In the initial stages of its response to the gospel, mansoul does not generally grasp all the great riches of the fullness of Christ. Generally a need is felt, a desire is acknowledged, a door is open, a call heard, then a decision is taken, entrance is made and salvation is assured to the penitent heart. The first realizations gained in the initial experience of the One Baptism are rescue and preservation from death, and life begun in Christ. Much of the truth typically set before us above will not at first be known; exploration and understanding of that will be a later achievement; to get into Christ is the major concern. The Baptism in the Spirit must be plainly understood to be regeneration. As Noah and his family responded to God's invitation, entered the Ark and were brought ultimately to the discovery of a new world, so also must we all go on to discover, become partakers of, and taste the powers of the world to come.
The New Testament furnishes us with many instances of truth within truth. As we know, much more lies beyond primary impressions or initial understanding than we can at once grasp. The words of the famous text in Matthew 11:28, as well as being linked with our theme, are also a good example of this very thing 'Come unto me all ye ....'. Whilst He was visibly manifest on earth, our straitened Lord at times perforce used limited statements when speaking to people. But even when He did speak plainly, the things He said could only be understood by His hearers according to known standards of interpretation and their ability to apply them. For instance, when He said 'come unto me', they could easily respond and come to Him; they knew what He meant; they could see Him, touch Him, believe and follow Him, and many did just that. They comprehended all they understood Him to mean by His words, but deeper than everything they could be expected to understand, there lay a greater meaning and a higher invitation awaiting clearer understanding.
The Lord used a word here which means both 'Unto' and 'Into'. To those who first heard the invitation it could only mean 'come unto me'. Their minds just could not interpret it to mean anything else; but to men of spiritual enlightenment who know eternal truth, it means 'come into me' — a far greater thing. So also with the word in John 14:1. To us He is saying (and it makes complete sense), 'believe also into me'. He is not just setting God and Himself forth here as the object of faith, someone upon whom faith can finally rest, as the limitation of the word 'in' would suggest; He is saying something vastly greater than that. The power of the word 'into' used here makes clear that He is inviting people to enter Him; 'Ye believe in God, believe also into me'. He is revealing God and Himself as the eternal life and abiding-place of mansoul into which we can and must enter.
It is almost certain that the apostles at that time could not begin to understand the things implicit in His speech. Indeed the whole of this section of John is a revelation of their abysmal ignorance of both their Lord and His sayings. It was not that He deliberately used words which they could not understand; He spoke to them simply and plainly in language which they normally used, but He could not convey to them the things He meant. How could they come into Him, or believe into Him? Only by the Baptism in the Spirit, but at that time this was not available to them. The Lord had not undergone it Himself, so as yet it had not been created for them; He dared not minimize the truth though. He just had to express it in ways acceptable to their minds, even though He knew that only later would they enter in and understand with their spirits.
Before closing this chapter, we should note something further from Peter's use of the story of the Flood. He impresses upon us that baptism in water should be a man's spontaneous response to the gospel. At the same time he is careful to make clear that baptism in water must not be construed to mean something God never intended. The act of water baptism does not mean that thereby a man's sins are forgiven and his filth washed away. Even though in the great prototype of the Flood, the end of all flesh with its corruption and filthiness and violence came before God, He never dealt with it there, nor could He. What took place there was a judgement representing both the final judgement wherein God ends all His judgements upon the world, and the judgement which took place at the cross. The eternal judgement dealing with flesh and sin took place at Calvary; God dealt with everything there in the death of Christ. But this is not generally the first thing that engages the mind of the newly-converted person. He is usually taken up with an overwhelming sense of thankfulness to God for His exceeding grace in saving him from the ultimate penalty of his sins.
Whilst this great sense of gratitude is still upon him, the believer should be impressed with the need for immediate baptism. There is a very real link between salvation and baptism, and it is stated for us by no less a person than the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, Mark 16:16, 'He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved'. This is a remarkably plain and ungarnished statement which cannot be disregarded if we, like Him, are going to fulfil all righteousness. Now while it is quite true that he that believeth not shall not be saved, it is not true that he who is not baptized in water shall not be saved. Salvation does not rest upon water baptism, but the salvation / regeneration which we preach does rest upon being baptized into Christ. Seeing then that baptism in water is used by the Lord as a symbol and picture of that Spiritual Baptism, it can hardly be expected that sincere persons who experience the latter would or should quibble about submitting to the former. Moreover, as we are informed in Acts 2 that those who gladly received Peter's word on the day of Pentecost were baptized, it cannot be said that anyone refusing such baptism is one spirit with the early Church.
It is obvious that from John Baptist onwards into the commencement of the Church age, it was normal practice that when a person received the word, he or she also received baptism. In fact baptism is so identified with heart-faith that in some cases it is spoken of as though it were that faith; repentance and baptism are linked together in scripture as one would normally link repentance and faith. This is most enlightening, and upon reflection it is most natural; repentance, faith, baptism are three progressive steps in a natural progress. Not that baptism is to be regarded or in any way made to be a substitute for faith, it is an expression of heart-obedience to faith. This is very sweetly shown to us by the uncomplicated person of Lydia of Philippi. That lady, responding to the preached word of Paul immediately desired to be baptized as an expression of her faithfulness to the Lord.
At this point the question ought to be asked — should faithfulness be judged in beginners today, how many new converts would be found faithful in God's eyes upon the same basis. This raises another issue, best faced at this juncture, for it is the answer to the question begged above, namely this: baptism should be regarded as the first step in true discipleship, and urged upon people as the immediate response of the obedient heart to the Lord. The idea that converts should not be baptized until they have been catechized or indoctrinated is quite a modern innovation; it finds neither precedent in scripture, nor support from the apostles. Under the apostles' ministry all believers were either commanded or exhorted, certainly they were expected, to be baptized immediately upon salvation.
It appears that this principle and practice of immediacy was first instituted in Jewry by John Baptist. It was afterwards given a degree of permanence by the Lord Himself, when baptism was conducted in His name during the period of His personal ministry among men. The disciples administered the rite under the authority of His anointing as an ordinance of His kingdom on earth, and continued the same tradition of immediacy which they had learned originally from His forerunner. It is not surprising then, that after the Lord's return to heaven, His apostles continued the ordinance in the same way, as an authoritative ordinance divinely established in the Church; it became common practice. The apostles perfectly understood the words of the Lord Jesus recorded in Matthew 28:18-20, and applied them literally and liberally to all men. From their acts it is plainly to be seen that these men fulfilled the commission in the order Jesus set forth. Still under His authority and in His presence they went and preached, made disciples, baptized and taught them.
Now both in the nature of things, as also in scriptural order, this is shown to be exactly right. The Lord places baptism before teaching, and does so in order to teach us that obedience is better esteemed with God than acquired knowledge, indeed it is the most important lesson of all, and fundamental to the gaining of all spiritual knowledge from God. Baptism must be a thing of the heart rather than of the intellect, a provoked response rather than a studiously considered step. The fact that occasionally one may hear such remarks as, 'I wish I had waited until I understood more about it before I was baptized', does not mean that the person saying so was wrong to have been baptized. The fact that he or she spontaneously responded to this word of the Lord is a commendation to that heart and not a cause for criticism. As long as a person is truly the Lord's, he or she is absolutely correct in desiring to be baptized immediately. It is a good thing in beginners that affections and emotions and desires should outstrip the intellect; that is just the response God wants. The answer of a good conscience towards God is eagerly watched for in heaven, for it is not the mind but the spirit of man that moves his conscience. This is of prime importance when considering water baptism.
A desire to obey the primary urge when moving in the things of God is a most commendable thing. It is as correct as the desire which urged and moved the Lord Jesus Himself to be baptized in His day, and thus fulfil all righteousness at that time. To know and move in such a way is to be in the true experience of faith and at that stage nothing better could be desired or required of any man. All the evidences of the reconstituted heart are being exhibited by the burning desire to be baptized. It has been made righteous, and without intelligently knowing it is so, the heart is instinctively desiring to act like Jesus and fulfil all the righteousness it knows — which is to be obedient.
It is significant that Paul, when dealing with baptism in Romans 6, speaks of 'obeying from the heart that form (type, mould) of doctrine which was delivered you, or unto which you were delivered' (Gk.). Then and thereby a man is made free from sin and becomes a servant of righteousness, and finds no reason why he should not be immersed in water. The form into which we are delivered is Jesus Christ in His death and resurrection (His baptism, Luke 12:50), which form He typified and exhibited to us by His baptism in water at His first public appearance. Until that baptism He was not known or identified before men, and had no public recognition. Apparently this kind of spontaneous response is what had taken place in the lives of the Roman saints to whom Paul wrote saying that their faith was spoken of throughout the whole world. In common with all the saints of their day, they had heard, believed and been baptized, but it seems that it was only when Paul wrote to them concerning it that the full intellectual grasp of the spiritual meaning of the rite became clear to their understanding.
Chapter Two - IN THE MIDST OF THE SEA
The event under consideration in this chapter is really an abstraction from the story found in Exodus chapters 12-14. Chiefly it is that part which deals with the miraculous crossing of the Red Sea. The key to this second Old Testament illustration of the One Baptism is to be found in I Corinthians 10:1 and 2: '...all our fathers were under the cloud, and all passed through the sea; and were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea'. Not the slightest hint is to be found in Exodus that either the Lord or Israel then looked upon it as a baptism. We should not have known had God not told us His heart about it, and to this day we cannot say that Israel ever knew it was their baptism. This fact, beside revealing unsuspected truth, points out the possibility that people do not know what the Baptism is, or what it accomplishes, or when it takes place. As with the Children of Israel in their day, many today know something great has happened to them, but because it is not called Baptism in Spirit, they do not know how to describe it.
The great historic event we study here is of quite a different character from the one we considered in the previous chapter. From it we are to learn a new lesson about the One Baptism we may share with our Lord Jesus Christ.
The first Corinthian letter is most valuable; it speaks very emphatically on a variety of spiritual issues, and the verse quoted above is an unexpected corroboration of the vital truth spoken of in chapter 12 verse 13 — 'by (Gk. 'in') one Spirit are we all baptized into one body'. This means that it is by means or use of the Spirit that the Lord Jesus baptizes us into His Body. Comparison of these scriptures concerning the fundamental Baptism leads us to note first of all that the Baptism of the New Covenant is greatly superior to that of the Old. The New Testament Baptism is an experience wherein the spirits of men are immersed in the Spirit of God and thereby baptized into Christ's body. The Old Testament baptism was an outward event; it took place in the physical realm only; it was entirely inadequate, even if God had desired it, to baptize the Children of Israel into Moses' body. Obviously such a thing was not possible; God did not intend that it should be. Moses had neither died nor risen again for Israel; furthermore, in the very nature of things, they could not enter into him and have a share in his exact life, and even if that had been possible, it would have been a quality of life no different from that which they had already.
But God did intend that their baptism should give them a sense of oneness and of belonging to a homogeneous body of people with a visible head. They were to be a new national family, 'born again' to go into their inheritance and develop their own culture in a new land. Therefore the Lord enforced baptism upon them by causing them to go through the sea, baptizing them in the cloud in the process. He did this to show all men that He cannot depart from basic principles of life. Throughout the entire history of Redemption, God's provision of new life for His people has always been through Baptism in the Spirit, and can be no other. Quite unmistakably by this the Lord in type set the Baptism centrally and basically in the history of the Old Covenant people. At the same time He did something else of equal importance also; He set the Spirit and the water in their respective positions in relationship to the Baptism. In God's ordering, each receives its proper emphasis; this enables us to get things into true spiritual perspective. The order as here stated is 'in the cloud and in the sea'.
There can be no doubting where the importance lies in God's eyes. The thing He accomplished so simply at the Red Sea was the all-important baptism in the cloud, the type of the Holy Ghost. The spiritual lessons derived from this event gain in significance when it is realised that water was not used in this baptism at all. It was staged upon the bed of the Sea; geographically the Red Sea was the location where all was accomplished, but the water of the Sea was not used. As a matter of fact, in each of the four typical instances of the One Baptism we consider in this book, the watery element is comparatively negligible. It had a part to play, but it was only of minor importance; in no case were the people involved actually immersed in it. Each instance is designed to show that the actual baptism is entirely in the Spirit, for every one of those being baptized remained thoroughly dry throughout. Then as now, the water, being an outward element of minimal importance, was only used by God to point and insist on the Baptism in the Spirit.
When the people of old 'passed through the waters,' they did not get wet; the water did not even touch them; it was no longer there. God took His people through the sea, walking upon the sea bed in order that thereupon He might baptize them in the Spirit. As plainly as possible the Lord is showing us that only as we are baptized in the Spirit are we baptized into His death and resurrection. As surely as the cloud typifies the Holy Spirit, so the Red Sea typifies the Lord's death and burial from which He emerged in resurrection.
This is sincerely brought home to our hearts by the fact that Moses was told to stretch out his rod over the Sea. How majestically he did so — like a monarch stretching forth his sceptre over his kingdom. That rod speaks of the cross, Christ's sceptre, by which He took away the sting of death, which is sin. Death was rendered harmless for us, and in the Spirit we are baptized into the now harmless path which King Jesus has opened for us into fullness of life. When a man is baptized in the Holy Spirit, he is baptized into the body of Jesus Christ, and there is no other way into Him than through His own death and resurrection. It is only when a man is prepared to share in that death and resurrection, and thus make it his own, that he can be so baptized.
Here let us pause to recognize two simple facts of great importance: 1. That which is but one event or experience in the New Covenant is perforce typified by many events and experiences in the Old. 2. As a general rule, New Covenant truth must never be conceived in limited Old Covenant ideas. It is a feature of the Bible that exactly the reverse is intended by God. The Old Testament may be thought of in some aspects as a gradual approach to the New.
Bearing these things in mind, we notice that God's work of salvation in bringing Israel out of Egypt involved two distinct events:
1. The Lord's passover in Egypt.
2. The Children of Israel's passover of the Red Sea.Now these two events are unavoidably divided by some three days of time. Because of this, and because they are recorded as independent happenings, each complete in itself, we are in danger of thinking that they are unconnected, whereas they are but one. As surely as the crucifixion and resurrection of our Lord are two distinct events, each complete in itself yet but one, so also are these one. In both cases the events are manifestly interdependent; one would have been quite ineffective without the other. God passed over the Children of Israel that they in turn might pass over the Sea; the latter was the completion of the former, and was planned to be such. The correct interpretation of the type requires that they both be regarded as one event, two halves of one whole. Only the compulsory time factor divided them; this was simply due to the fact that it was physically impossible for them to cross over the Red Sea the same night as the Lord passed over them. The only thing that gave spiritual value to any of the physical acts or events in which the Children of Israel participated, or made them of any eternal worth to the persons involved in them, was faith. This is clearly shown in the famous eleventh chapter of Hebrews.
In Egypt the Children of Israel sprinkled the blood of the slain lamb upon the lintels and sideposts of the houses to indicate to God that they were inside eating its flesh. There was no spiritual value in the lamb, nor in its blood, nor in its roast flesh. The virtue and value of all lay in the fact that they did exactly what God told them to do in the way He told them to do it. But sadly, even so, their action in no way effected any change in their own inward lives and personalities; everything was outward. It is obvious from the reading that no deep spiritual change took place in them as a consequence of their act. They still remained a nation of rebellious murmurers, full of fleshly lusts, worldly, cowardly and disobedient. Yet for all that, the events we are studying have much of spiritual value to teach those who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit.
Comparison at this point with the facts discovered in the type of Noah and the Ark reveals that in the earlier event only the word of God was involved, but on this occasion we see that other elements are involved in the transaction. These are the blood, the Spirit and the water; in Egypt the Lamb and the blood, at the Red Sea the Spirit and the water. In this we find an advance from the original idea, resulting in an expansion of truth. Whereas in Genesis it was a simple invitation, 'Come ... into the Ark', here it is, 'baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea'. The Ark was yet on dry ground without a sign of the imminent water-floods anywhere to be seen when the Lord gave the command to the Noahic family. But the Holy Ghost introduces us to this Mosaic type at the point of the nation's union with God in the cloud and in the Sea. The idea of association in death is brought in here.
Earlier in the course of writing the first epistle to the Corinthians, in chapter 5 verse 7, Paul speaks very briefly about God's passover in Egypt, saying 'Christ our passover is sacrificed for us'. He only just touches on it and leaves it, passing on to mention the historic event in chapter 10 as an illustration to point the truth that in one Spirit we are all baptized into His Body. By the fact that the cloud was in the Sea, that is in the place where the water should have been, we learn that the Red Sea became for the Children of Israel the water of the Spirit. Typically, when the Children of Israel came up out of the Sea on the other side they were 'born of water and the Spirit'. Typically also they underwent their first experience of 'the washing of water by the word,' and by those two means illustrate that profound Baptism for which the blood of Christ was shed. From a unique passage in John's first epistle, chapter 5 verses 7 and 8, we will abstract a few words — 'for there are three that bear record ... the Spirit and the water and the blood, and these three agree in one. There is not another statement like this in the whole of scripture, and as an illustration of it the type we are at present examining could not be bettered. John also says in verse 6, 'it is the Spirit that beareth witness because the Spirit is truth', and in this account of the twin passovers he is surely bearing witness to invariable and eternal truth. This epochal event makes it very clear, for from this whole story we learn that the blood without the Spirit and the water is quite insufficient for regeneration.
Reading in the psalms, we discover how often David insists that it was through the miracle wrought at the crossing of the Red Sea that God gained a name and fame among the nations; Rahab is a witness to this, as she says herself in Joshua 2:10. The blood was shed in Egypt, but for all its immediate effect there, it was quite useless for full deliverance apart from the Spirit and the water. Quite obviously God did not intend that it should be anything other than the first and most fundamental of three vital elements necessary to their salvation. It was He who led the people to the Red Sea, carrying Joseph's bones, following the pillar of cloud and fire; it was He who commanded them to encamp there and wait for the way of salvation unto life to appear through the waters. Whether in Old or New, the principles are unchanged and unchangeable; the blood apart from the Spirit and the water was never envisaged or provided by God as anything other than the prime, basic factor of redemption. For New Testament salvation involving regeneration from sin to righteousness, self to Christ, and death to life, the Spirit and the water are as vital and necessary as the blood.
It is clearly shown in the book of Genesis that originally, as the Spirit moved upon the waters, the whole earth was generated out from them by the word of God. In the same way we find this principle to be operative again at the Flood. Before the renewed earth could come forth, the Spirit (the Dove) had to move upon the face of the waters. This is a preview of the regeneration, for we note that it came from Noah within the Ark, prefiguring the giving of the Spirit through Christ. In this event also we have it exactly the same; the cloud, typifying the Spirit, moves into and stands over the Sea, and eventually up out of the waters came the nation. They entered through the way initially opened up by Moses' rod, which represents the cross; it was God's word to them, 'the logos of the cross', as Paul put it in I Corinthians 1:18. We see by these things that the original idea, elements and method used by God in creation were later adapted to and administered as baptism; they have always been present in all God's ways of bringing to birth and life.
But here a striking contrast must be taken into account; in the two major Old Testament crises of original Creation and the subsequent re-creation by the Flood, baptism is shown as an outward experience or spectacle, but in the New Testament both an inward and outward experience are alluded to — 'in one Spirit are we all baptized into one body ... and have been all made to drink into one Spirit'. Although this is an entirely spiritual experience, needing no outward element at all, its truth is set forth in language that brings to mind both an outward and an inward experience. To be in Christ's Body we must have an immersion into and in Spirit; to have the Spirit of that Body we must drink in and into the Spirit. This is a simultaneous event, implying an outward and an inward immersion — Christ is baptized into me and I into Him — it is synchronous.
The Baptism of the New Testament, although it is always associated with an inward experience, 'made to drink into', is explained to our minds by means of language pertaining to an outward figure, 'baptized', which is almost invariably associated in our thinking with immersion in water. It is worthy of note that on the day of Pentecost, those who observed the 120 after that initial Baptism, associated their condition with drinking (Acts 2.13). It is as we inwardly drink of the Spirit that the inner man is, as it were, outwardly baptized, that is plunged by the Lord into the larger divine manhood of His Body. The Baptism is an inward baptism because the New Covenant is an inward covenant, and is effected in us and Himself by the Lord Jesus Christ, the Baptizer. He accomplishes this by baptizing the entire inward manhood into a shared spiritual nature union with Himself, resulting in an individual soul-personality likeness to Himself in the Holy Spirit.
Until the moment this takes place in a man the Holy Ghost is outside that person, although for some time He may have been moving upon him. This is why, in keeping with the original truth shown in Genesis and Exodus, the idea of an outward baptism is always used; but in the comparable New Testament experience this is only wrought in us as we 'drink in' the Holy Spirit. The in-drinking and the Baptism are one; the drinking is effected in the Baptism, and the Baptism by the drinking. It all takes place together, the initiative being with the Lord and the initiation ours. In the one Spirit we are baptized into the one body — His.
Although this truth was not revealed to Noah who built the Ark, nor yet to Moses who wrote the story, this One Baptism into one body was well typified by Noah's action while still within the Ark. The dove that represents the Holy Spirit was 'sent forth' from Noah within the vessel as it rested upon the mountains of Ararat. Of course, the dove had been with him there all the time, and in this knowledge we have a faint intimation of a further thing that the Ark prefigures to us. It is not Christ after the flesh — Jesus of Nazareth, son of Mary — who baptizes us in the Spirit, but Christ after the Spirit — Jesus of the New Jerusalem, the Son of God. It was as though the righteous family was baptized into one body — the Ark — by Noah, the head of that Ark. This ancient event, so scorned by the mockers, holds so much wealth of meaningful incident and detail that we could linger on it to still greater profit. But we must return to the later story, for the composite type is cumulative, gathering truth from all four illustrations and finally presenting one complete picture. We see, then, that by Noah God presents the simple truth of an open door, and by Moses the more advanced truth of an open way. In process of doing this, He also showed something of how that door was opened and what took place in Jesus' death and what it accomplished in the spirit world.
The Children of Israel had to go through the waters for three reasons:
1. That therein they might be baptized into (Gk.) Moses.
2. In order that Pharaoh and his host should be destroyed.
3. So that the people might be safe from destruction, or recapture and return to slavery in Egypt.When the Children of Israel passed through the sea together, they became Moses' people in a special way. In every ordinary way they had always been his people. Moses had been born a Hebrew; in the day he had returned to Egypt from his forty years' exile he did so because he wished to go back to his brethren there. They were his flesh and blood; but in the Cloud in the Sea Israel became his people in a peculiar way, not formerly possible. So much so indeed, that God later called them Moses' people, Exodus 32:7. We see by this to what great extent Moses typified the Lord Jesus. But we also see the limitations of Moses; his ordinary humanity prevented his people from being baptized into him; nevertheless, whether or not he or they realized it, unto Moses they were certainly a baptized nation as they stood together on the resurrection side of the Red Sea following their passover.
In Egypt Moses had become their flesh and blood saviour. It was he who had spoken of the lamb, and ordered its blood to be shed and sprinkled, and its flesh roasted and eaten. By this he had become unto them something of a redeemer. But they could no more be baptized into their saviour than they could eat his flesh and drink his blood: they could not become part of him; the act did not work any spiritual transformation in them. Even though the obedience of faith gave their passover some spiritual value, they themselves were not thereby and thereafter in (within) Moses, nor was he formed in them. But this is exactly what is effected in us by the Baptism, because by it we are not only brought immediately into all that took place at Calvary and Pentecost, but also into all the results of that experience. Spiritually / historically God worked out in Christ what before He had only physically / historically set forth by Moses. Now in this lies a great lesson, for here before us is the reason for the vast difference between the Old and New Covenants. Faith was the sole virtue in them to which God imputed spiritual worth which they never actually had. But with us it is entirely different. Not so much the faith, indispensable and praiseworthy as it is, but the results of faith are the greater things, that is the actual life of Christ in us.
God has never varied the basic principles of truth inwrought by Him in baptism; they are forever fixed; He has no need to change them, and indeed cannot do so, for the baptism is one of God's invariables. His ideas become principles of working; His thoughts become words and works, and a world appears and takes shape before our eyes. The truth remains the same, though its application may vary considerably in different ages. The underlying order to be found in historic truth as it was revealed in Moses' day remains unchanged to this day, for all is based upon and exists in and sets forth one whole; first the Passover, then the Baptism. That is the order we see in the person and work of our Lord Jesus also, Calvary — Pentecost; with an unavoidable lapse of time separating the bloodshed from the baptism upon both occasions. As with the first historic event, so also with the second; the bloodshed and the baptism are but two parts of the one experience. The difference between them lies chiefly in the fact that, better than Israel, we may now indeed be baptized into Jesus. He is the eternal Lamb who laid down His life in order that the sheep may have it, which latter is quite impossible apart from being so baptized. It was as though at Calvary His flesh was removed in order that we may enter into that which was within the flesh (spoken of as a veil in Tabernacle imagery), that is the Spirit, thereby becoming members of His body, of His flesh and bones.
Here let us avail ourselves of yet another delightful insight into something more of the eternal truth this figure holds for us. Perhaps surprisingly, we find upon reading Exodus 12 that the main emphasis of Moses is the lamb and not the blood. There are three times as many direct references to the lamb as to its blood in this chapter. To the Israelites the blood was to be but a token, like the bow was to Noah; God's real concern was that they stayed inside their houses and ate the flesh of the lamb. Their charge, therefore, was to eat the roast flesh from which the blood had been drained and sprinkled upon doorpost and lintel. There in plain view, it was a token to God both of their faith and their faithfulness; it indicated to Him that according to His desire they were inside, eating the lamb. Thus in a figure they were made to set forth the present necessity laid upon us to eat the flesh and drink the blood of the Lamb. To this we add the fact that the Children of Israel were also charged with the custody and removal of Joseph's bones to the Promised Land. In this we see how the phrase quoted above 'of His flesh and of His bones', is also beautifully re-phrased in this foreshadowing of the spiritual substance of His Body.
Bearing in mind that all now is spiritual, and all then was physical, at their baptism the Children of Israel were as nearly as the type can show 'of His flesh and of His bones'. 'A spirit hath not flesh and bones as ye see me have', said Jesus to His people after His resurrection. His Spirit must have flesh and bones (that is a body) in which to live; so it is that we, being baptized in the Spirit, are formed into the spiritual body of which He is the Head. It is a great mystery, but it is nevertheless true that He is 're-housed' and re-formed in us in the flesh in a way that was not possible with Moses and his people. Still, for all that, God had them go through an experience whereby they were typically baptized unto each other; Moses unto them and they unto him, because at all times and in all peoples God speaks and shows one truth.
Now all this, correctly enough, is set into the unfolding account of the beginning of the national life of Israel. In the same chapter 12 that exalts the lamb and its blood, God says 'this shall be unto you the beginning ... the first', for He intended that by the events we have been examining, Israel should have its birth as a nation. When Jacob went down to Joseph in Egypt, Israel was a large family group or clan comprised of small families, numbering seventy souls in all, with one paternal head. During their stay there, these families had developed into tribes, and when those tribes left Egypt they had grown sufficiently to become a nation, but they were not then recognized as such. They were not accorded any distinctive recognition in Egypt as a nation in its own right. They were the Egyptians' slaves, and at the time of the Exodus the males were scattered among the nationals finding materials for brick-making.
We see then that the Children of Israel had their national beginning by means of the Passover and the passage of the Sea. The nation was 'born in a day' as they came out of Egypt. Again, it is the same invariable picture of the true baptismal-regeneration. In Egypt only a comparatively small specified group was saved from destruction. Each one of this group was someone's firstborn, foreshadowing the eternal truth of 'the Church of the firstborn ones which are written in heaven', of which we cannot here speak particularly. But at the Red Sea they were all without exception baptized unto Moses. By this we understand the importance of the position the One Baptism holds in the whole scheme of New Testament salvation. Historically / spiritually it happened at the conclusion of Christ's earthly life, that in the Spirit it may be established for the Church as the means and time of its beginning.
During the earthly life of our Lord Jesus, the Baptism was still only possible of typical illustration. When He was baptized in Jordan, it was as Israel's Messiah. At that time He was presented to them by water only (1 John 5:6), and quite rightly so, for water is an entirely insufficient medium for the spiritual purpose of God to be fulfilled therein. He could only 'come' in flesh by water; He could not thereby 'come' in Spirit. Though in Jordan the Lord remained true to and moved consistently in line with eternal truth, so that again over the water the dove appeared, He could not yet 'come' to His people as He wished.
Perhaps this appearance of the dove held for John a twofold significance: (1) to mark out the Lord Jesus; (2) to emphasize that everything still was part of the Old Testament where all is symbolic. Although he craved for it, he could have no part in the greater Baptism he sought, saying to the Lord, 'I have need to be baptized of thee'. The people at that time could not be baptized into Jesus Christ, nor He into them, nor was it God's intention then. Not by water nor yet by such a baptist could God's plan be put into effect. What took place then was but a type of things not known as yet. The Lord, whose body was there dipped in water, was looking forward to His personal Baptism in Spirit (perhaps praying for it, who knows?) and His re-formation into a new Body of regenerate spirits, each of whom, as He their Head, should be baptized with the same Baptism as He. In that Baptism, by eternal ordination, He was to be the only Baptist, because in the nature of things He is the only one who could possibly administer that Baptism.
This is the uniqueness of Jesus' Baptism. He alone, of all who have been associated either with the rite or the experience of baptism, both initiated it by undergoing it and also administers it. The Lord Jesus is and always has been the only true Baptizer; He even had to baptize Himself into His own death at Calvary. He had to do it; it was absolutely necessary that He should, for until then He had never been real Man as He found him to be on the earth when He came. His special birth had prevented that from happening. He was God's second Man, the Lord from heaven manifested on earth, heaven's Man, real Man as God had intended Man to be; but spiritually Jesus was not the earth Man as He found him when He came, for earth Man was spiritually fallen Adam.
Old, old Adam had been bad enough in the beginning, but on his unbroken passage through millennia of sin and violence he had become worse in every successive generation. Jesus was the second man directly made by God. We speak of His coming as an advent, not a creation; differently from Adam who was made of dust, He was made of a woman. He was a new kind of Man, and therefore could not be Man as He found him, for all men born on the earth between the creation of the first man and the advent of the second were not Man as God meant him to be. By spiritual heredity all men are born children of fallen Adam, but He was the direct child of God the Father, unfallen; He was and is 'the quickening Spirit' — 'born to raise the sons of earth, born to give them second birth' into His heredity.
In its origin His manhood was not of the Earth, earthy, nor was He of satan, satanic by spiritual heredity, He was the Lord of glory. Therefore, in order to reach man as He found him to be, and remake him as He wanted him to be, He had to become Adam and somehow end Adam's line; that is, He must become the last Adam. But because He was God's second Man by supernatural birth, He could not be a second Adam during His life. From the moment of his fall in Eden, down through the ages, Adam had become more than a person, he had become a nature and way of life, a prototype, a kind. This Adam Man, by normal procreation, immediately became Cain and Abel, and in them is revealed to be a split, lustful, murderous dual-personality, worsening in his progeny unto unpardonable sin and total depravity, as the Flood and Babel and Sodom and Gomorrah heartbreakingly reveal. So it was that Jesus came into the world as the wonderful second Man, born by the power of the Spirit direct from God in order that at Calvary He should personalize old Adam, thereby becoming last Adam, destroying him in the act.
In Jesus God made a new start; it was and still is exactly as He says 'I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end'. In His first, that is His natural birth (for only His conception was supernatural, not His birth), the Spirit makes clear the truth written by John, 'this is He that came by water and blood ... there are three that bear record ... the Spirit and the water and the blood'. The first part of the quotation is true of us all; every man born of flesh on the earth comes by water and blood, and every natural birth is a kind of baptism; it is only through the waters that the babe, formed of and from the blood, has its birth, as all known simple biological facts and laws of nature demonstrate. Thus in procreation, as well as in the original creation of the universe, all harmoniously extols the basic principle which may be defined as 'baptismal generation'. Therefore in His natural birth Jesus, in common with all men, had to come by water and blood. But Jesus' supernaturalness lay in the fact that, although His birth was natural, His generation was not, and herein lies the truth of the second part of the quotation above, 'there are three that bear witness (or record), the Spirit and the water and the blood'. The Babe of Bethlehem was generated by the Father, because the Spirit came on Mary in order that Jesus may be both the Son of God and the true Son of Man, as God intended men to be. All other men born of woman came by water and blood only; they do not come into the world by the Spirit. In their birth is to be found the dual witness, water and blood, but in His is the treble witness, the Spirit and the water and the blood.
To be the second man as God intended (and so much more as the God-Man), wonderful as that is, would of itself still have been insufficient qualification for Jesus to have effected man's redemption. For if Jesus had only been that, He would unavoidably have condemned all other men, because He immeasurably outclassed them. Who could attain unto Him? He could not even be an example to unregenerate man, for to be a true example one must also be a sample of the whole, and this He certainly was not. There was not, nor ever had been another like Him, so how could God expect of any man the same standards He expected of His Son? Jesus knew He could not set the Adam-man an example, so He never attempted it. During His earth life He could not even reach men in their basic state, nor could they reach Him in His; they did not know Him, nor had they ever really seen Him, as John 14:9 so plainly shows. He accomplished much by becoming (a) man; He took his flesh, his humanity, his low estate, his environment and much of his limitation; in His humility He took so much, but not all. He had to take much, much more in order to become all Man as Man really is; to do that He must take his sin and all his sinful Adam-nature-self. To reach and deal with and enter and possess man, so that He could have him eternally, the second Man had to become the last, literally the last Adam. He must head up and become that loathsome, depraved, unredeemable, ultimate totality of all corruption and iniquity, Man, the end-product of Adam's unholy alliance with satan; He must be condemned and rejected and forsaken by God, absolutely deserving of the extremist punishment that divine justice could give. But this He could never become, for He did no sin. So God made Him to be sin. It was for this He became both Man's and Jehovah's servant, that He should, as God, render the highest service that had ever been rendered either to God or man.
As second man He was straitened all His life unto Calvary, the point where and when He should become the last Adam. It was to be the supreme moment of His life, so He moved to it with all the unparalleled majesty of God. It was to be His baptism, the moment of utter dedication to the purpose of eternal life, the reason for His first birth, superseding both that and His water baptism as the heavens are higher than the earth. All that had gone before was only leading up to this, and had held or could hold only symbolic or lesser meanings to Him as He underwent in His heart what later He achieved in the flesh and Spirit in utter reality. The Cross / death Baptism was His only possible hope and means of becoming last Adam as he really was; dead, utterly dead — death itself. Man is not just dead, he is death; Jesus is life and Man is death. Physical death is a representation to man of his historic spiritual state before God. It may be a hard lesson to learn, but it is a true one. As is a corpse to man, so is man's inward state to God.
Man in himself is either life or death according to whether or not he has been baptized with Christ's Baptism. He was baptized, utterly plunged into spiritual death by Adam in Eden, and since then has remained totally immersed in it. The original sin of Adam has manifested itself increasingly in ever-worsening ways as successive generations of men have worked out their own damnation. Satan is working in them, willing and doing his own displeasure. To reach and regenerate Man the Lord, having redeemed him on the cross, was baptized into Adam, the Old Man. There was no other way for Jesus to become Adam to God for man.
He as deliberately chose to be baptized into death on the cross as Adam chose to plunge the whole human race into death in the garden. The Man Christ Jesus was His own baptizer; His God left Him on the cross to do it Himself, and He did it. His Name be for ever praised! There in the loneliness, having first finished everything God gave Him to do as a man, assuming His Godhead, He dismissed His own Spirit and passed away from His body. He did it voluntarily; there was nothing else to do; He had reached the ultimate point and had concluded the reason for living. In the Godhead He was the Resurrection and the Life; it was always understood there; but among men it was not known — He had to prove it to them. Not even the thieves, so physically close on crosses either side of Him, could see it, neither could John and His mother, Mary, who each had so loyally stood by Him; it was dark. But angel eyes beheld Him, and Father received His Spirit; so He moved into a new position. He became death and burial, God's new death and burial into which we may be baptized by the power of God. As He was then and there baptized into Adam-man, so, in successive order to Jesus Christ, may we be baptized into that Manhood of which He was the second in line to appear on earth. The new Man is not only who, but also what Jesus really is; therefore, being baptized into Him, we become new Man as He is. John later takes up these three simple words and makes them one of the wonderful recurring themes of his first epistle — 'as He is'.
Jesus lost His limitations in death. By death He was unstraitened, able to do what He had lived for, so that if any man will be baptized with His Baptism, that is die His death as God grants him the priceless precious privilege, he may also enter into all the results of it according to God's promise. This then is the one true Baptism. It results in, and immediately achieves, the free merging and flowing of a man's spirit into, and within Christ. For by this Baptism God incorporates the spirit of Man into, and in and with His own. 'We know that the Son of God is come and hath given us an understanding, that we may know Him that is true and that we are in Him that is true, even in His Son; this is the true God and eternal life'. Amen. So it is.
Thinking of all this in terms of the type before us, on reading Ephesians 1:7 and 12-14, we find Paul setting forth the correct relationship of the truth embraced within this Baptism. In the earlier verse Paul says, 'we have redemption through His blood ... in Him', and then in the later verses tells us that the seal of saving faith is the Holy Spirit. Thus the blood and the Baptism are related in the context of being 'in Him', which is the theme of the chapter, and indeed also of all the book. For this is precisely what the Baptism does; it baptizes us into Christ, the Beloved, by the way He made for us through His blood. Therefore we have the redemption, which in experience is nothing other than full enjoyment of the total life of Jesus, the Beloved. Beside many other things this means complete freedom from the bondage of having to exist in sin, even though we live in a world of men under the power and dominion of the devil. This is what God intends us to understand by the type.
It would have been utterly useless for Israel to have slain the lamb and eaten its flesh within their blood-sprinkled hovels, if the baptism had not been planned for them by the Lord. For that baptism was both the final way of escape for the nation, and the sealing to them of the reason for the sprinkling of the blood; beside which it was in fact the only logical thing to do. For God to have slain Pharaoh's firstborn just in order to redeem His own firstborn, and not to have done anything about Pharaoh himself, would have achieved little. Besides which, God had not made promise to Abraham that He would slay Egypt's firstborn, but He had promised him a land, and that land lay beyond the Red Sea. How thorough God is; how true to basic principles and original promises, as well as to unborn peoples. He was not only seeking firstborn sons by sprinkling, but also a whole firstborn body of people by the baptism. In the fulness of the work wrought by God and shown in the type, not only was Pharaoh's firstborn (that is, old or first Adam) destroyed, but also Pharaoh himself and all his host and his chosen captains (principalities and powers). Thus the interdependence of the bloodshed and this Baptism is revealed. The one has no effective existence in reality without the other, and each ought never to be conceived of or preached about apart from the other, as being of itself sufficient to regenerate. Each by itself would have been inefficient because insufficient, but being one they are each perfectly suited to the end God had in view when instituting them.
The Hebrews letter brings out this truth to perfection in the second chapter. Verse 3 reminds us that our salvation is so great that we must not in any way neglect it. In verses 6-10 we find a précis on the theme of man, culminating with Jesus bringing many sons to glory; here Jesus' suffering and death was brought into view. Then the writer sweeps on to tell us that through that same death the devil was destroyed and deliverance accomplished for all those who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage. All this, we observe, is accompanied with signs and wonders and miracles and gifts (distributions) of the Holy Ghost according to His own will, by which God bore witness to the preached word. Combining all this with the words in Colossians 2:8-3:3, especially 2:15, we are afforded a sight into what the Baptism wherewith He was baptized really is, and what it accomplished for us.
It is more particularly this aspect of the Baptism that Israel's experience in the Red Sea emphasizes. It sets forth the Baptism as God's means of destroying Satan and his hosts as well as His way of bringing many sons unto glory (Exodus 15:1, 6, 11 and 16:7-10 and 24:16). More than that, we are redeemed from the world (Egypt) also. People cannot really enjoy Egypt and desire to live there when once the redemption has been truly manifest in them as regeneration. In the last analysis there is no such person as a worldly Christian; a man is either a worldling or a Christian. That Israel did indeed lust after 'leeks and garlic' after their passover, and desired to go back to Egypt, is because they were not regenerate. Their experiences were outward only. The goodness and blessing of God were extended to them all the time, and He was constantly working on their behalf with signs and miracles and wonders, but their evil hearts of unbelief still remained. Theirs was an obedience of faith in response to signs and wonders and divers miracles; God did not give the Holy Ghost to them, for at that time it was not His will to do so. The age of the Spirit had not yet come. God was dealing with them in respect of the Covenant He had made with Abraham His friend; it was sheerest grace displayed in sovereignty of purpose. He had spoken and was bringing it to pass. Which consideration begs a question, and introduces us to the matter of sin.
We have touched on the subject of sin in this chapter, but this particular type does not major on sin, nor redemption from it, for it is not in view here. As their behaviour showed, sin was present, for since Adam it is in every man, though not then defined as such. The reason for this is very simple, and for the key to the answer we must as usual turn to the New Testament. In Romans 5:13,14, Paul tells us that sin was in the world from Adam to Moses, and that death was reigning during that time. Sin, though there, was not imputed to anyone because the law had not been given, Romans 3:19,20. At the time of the actual Exodus, the Children of Israel were entirely without God's law, as were the Egyptians. Pharaoh (and indeed each of them) was tested by the word of God. He rejected the spoken word and paid the penalty. Of course, sin was in the hearts and actions of all men, but God was dealing with their naturalness rather than their sins. Ephesians 2:1-3 speaks of the Gentiles being 'by nature the children of wrath' as well as being 'dead in trespasses and sins'. Therefore, because He had not given His law to Pharaoh, He did not, nor could He in all fairness, judge the Egyptians upon whether or not they kept it. Instead He said to Pharaoh, 'Let my people go', and because Pharaoh did not do it, he had to pay the penalty of disobedience.
We find the same absence of any reference to sin even when we consider Israel and the lamb. The lamb was not slain as an offering for sin, neither was its blood given upon an altar, nor sprinkled upon a Mercy Seat for atonement. Sin was not in view, for it had not been exposed by the Law, and therefore it could not be dealt with even in the sense of being covered. Everything turned on the acceptance or rejection of the word of God, as indeed it still does. But at Sinai God added to all the words He had ever spoken, and also codified basic spiritual and social principles into a written law for righteousness. From that moment, because God's word had become written, man's responsibility became twofold; he had to believe, receive and obey both the spoken and also the written word. When the Law, with its long list of prohibitions, was given to the nation, the era which may be called the era of imputation came of age.
It had always been of course. Commencing with Adam in the garden, it had been an understood thing with God that righteousness should be imputed to everyone who obeyed Him, and unrighteousness to all who refused to obey His word. This is brought out quite clearly to us Hebrews chapter 11, but from the time of the giving of the Law onwards, it became an established principle among men. To break one of God's commandments in the realm of personal hygiene, or social relationships, or religious rites, was to be a sinner in God's sight. The incredible and detailed magnitude of the principle of sin that lay in the act of disobedience in the Garden was extensively revealed by the giving of the law. It was not fully revealed by the Law however; it required the death of Christ to reveal fully what depths of iniquity lay undiscovered in sin. Even so, Paul says it was by the Law that he discovered indwelling sin. It was by imputed sin that his inherent sin was discovered. Inherent sin was never imputed to anyone, nor can it be. To seek to impute sin which is already there, having been received by inheritance from Adam through our forbears, would be the height of folly and confusion. Sin was imputed to a man and revealed to his consciousness as guilt whenever and wherever the legal code was broken by that person. Sin was by commission or omission according to the commandments and ordinances of God.
Here let us see the wisdom of God in ordering the lamb to be slain and its blood sprinkled and its flesh eaten in Egypt. It was all because in a not very distant future He was going to take up the lamb and its blood and systematize its use and function by law for His people in Canaan. But being wise after the event, we must not impute to the slain lamb(s) in Egypt a function it never fulfilled, or a virtue it never possessed, or a meaning God did not intend. God did not at that time save His people from their sins but brought them 'out of the land of Egypt out of the house of bondage', as He had said. At the same time and by the same miracle, He also destroyed the master bondman and his hosts.
Chapter Three - TO POSSESS
This chapter is taken up with another major crisis in the history of the Children of Israel. True to the divine principle of baptism, we shall discover the Lord repeating His former works, though with a different purpose in view, and as we may say, in a diminutive form. The first event concerned a universal flood, the second a small Sea; this one concerns the river Jordan. The account of the miracle with which we are here concerned is to be found in the book of Joshua, Moses' successor. Joshua, the name of the man chosen of God to lead His people over the river into the Promised Land, is the Hebrew form of the name that God gave to his Son — Jesus. Because of this, the book holds special significance for us, and if for our purpose we think of it as the book of Jesus, we shall perhaps be the more able to receive and apply its message to ourselves. The particular subject matter we need lies within the compass of the first five chapters, and contains yet more of the glories of the person of our Saviour and of the greatness of the salvation into which He has brought us.
Approaching the river from the wilderness through the land of Moab, which lay on the east side of Jordan, the Children of Israel found that the Promised Land lay westward from them over on the other side of the waters. To enter the land of the promise and make it their possession, they had to cross the river, which at the time they reached it was in full flood. It was harvest time: Jordan always overflowed its banks during the harvest period. The story of this crossing, called a pass-over, furnishes us with another marvellous insight into the glorious fulness of the One Baptism. The country which they were to possess was already occupied by seven nations, each of which was greater in power and numbers than themselves. Nevertheless, by oft-repeated promises, God had given the land to them for an inheritance. He had brought them to its borders fully intending to bring them right into it and make good to them all the things He had led them to believe in over the years. All He had meant when He made the original promises to Abraham, repeating them to Isaac and Jacob and Moses, He was about to fulfil.
Centuries before, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the three great national patriarchs, had lived in this land, but we are told that even though God had promised it to them, they had only been strangers in it. Moses, who had brought them to Jordan, had never dwelt in the land at all; he was only granted a fleeting glimpse of it before God took him away from the earth. All four of these men had received the promises of God, and in faith of God's word had embraced them; perhaps also they had dimly seen the fulfilment of them afar off, but now the redeemed nation was about to enter in to possess the land and realize the promises. Most probably it was a time of mixed emotions for many, for behind them, strewn across the wilderness of tragedy, lay a lost generation, a multitude of men and women of their own flesh and blood, who had failed to reach their desired haven. Fathers and mothers, uncles and aunts, grandfathers and grandmothers, brothers and sisters, had died, overthrown in the wilderness for lusting after evil things, or practising idolatry, or fornication, or murmuring and tempting God. Yet they all had been included by God when He originally described the Children of Israel as His firstborn, to whom belonged the birthright and the 'double portion' of the inheritance. They all should have known both the joys of absolute deliverance from Egypt and also the wealth and blessings of unlimited possessions in the land of Promise, plus the immeasurable glory of having God as their God. But like Esau of old, they had despised their birthright, selling it for less than a 'mess of pottage', and had finally died, victims of their own lusts and disobedience, tasting bitterly of God's breach of promise action against them in the desert. They 'failed of the grace of God' and fell in the wilderness as carcasses, some for burning, some for burial, but all for banishment.
What a dreadful anti-climax it had all been. They had left Egypt in such glorious victory; Canaan was only a few days' march across the desert, they should soon have been there; their God would supply all their need. Instead of this, frustration, bitterness, defeat, death; a harvest of hate. Refusals, disobedience, murders, rebellions, stubbornness, jealousy, presumption had welled up from within their hearts against God, until long-deserved judgement from the Lord quelled their insurrection and stilled their murmurs and complaints. The Lord had been preparing the Children of Israel for possession, but in the process of learning obedience a whole generation had died. For them and for God it had been an unspeakable tragedy. Nevertheless we see God's mercy in it all, for although that whole first generation had to pass away, it was in order that a new generation might take its place and receive the blessings which their fathers had forfeited. What a significant thing this is, full of plainest truth; if we will allow it to speak to our hearts, it will teach us a great lesson. But for the moment we will defer developing this precious truth, and examine something more of the dreadful loss suffered by that first generation of people who were the original passers-over.
The Hebrews letter, from which we may gather so much knowledge of the tragic affair, informs us that unto them was the gospel preached and the promises given, as well as unto their children. Yet they failed totally to grasp what everything was about, and what God was doing. It was an onerous and enormous mistake; but the fearfulness of it all is that the mistake made by that first privileged generation did not die with them; it is still tragically common among us to this day. In their self-centred ambition to possess what God had promised, they completely disregarded what He wanted from them in return for His faithfulness. Let no man be misled over this, for the lesson is vitally important. The entire Hebrews book is written as a precautionary, as well as an explanatory epistle, and the warnings that God gives in it are placed there to keep us from making the same mistakes as the Children of Israel. They made all these sinful errors because they failed to grasp the magnitude of the great salvation spoken of in Hebrews 2:3. It is utterly impossible for God to convey all His fulness of intention in words, but let us make sure that we do not fail like those of old to apprehend what God means by His statements in this our day. We must give earnest heed to the things we have heard lest at any time we should let them slip, for unto us as well as unto them is this gospel preached. It is a far more serious matter for us, because beyond what He promised to Israel, God intends to give us HIMSELF and all He has in a much more personal way.
The greatest promise made to the Children of Israel was not possession of the land, as their carnal minds mistakenly believed, nor yet was it self-fulfillment in terms of material things after which their craving hearts wrongly lusted. The chiefest joy and blessing designed for them was that in Canaan they should fully inherit and possess God, as God fully inherited and possessed them. That was the reason why He had made His promises, He included the lesser in the greater, but if this was known unto the Children of Israel, it was little accounted of by them. The thought that seemed to possess them rose from the anticipation of possessing cities they had not built, fields they had not sown, trees they had not planted, and cattle they had not reared, in a land full of blossoms and fruit they had not produced, flowing with milk and honey. It was perfectly natural that they should visualize all this in their imagination, but utterly carnal that it should take precedence over the desire to have God for Himself. Their slavish hearts and downtrodden souls sought a Canaan-paradise, but they did not want God and His righteousness. This was all so disappointingly revealed after only a comparatively few days' journey through the wilderness immediately upon their departure from Egypt, and long before they drew near to the Promised Land. Delivered from satan and Pharaoh and his host at the Red Sea they surely were, but not from self and sin, as the records in Exodus and Numbers all too clearly show. And who among us knows but that had he been there in an unregenerate and piteous state as they, he may not himself have been like them, even though, with them, he had enjoyed as many favours of God?
In Numbers 14 we see how God's dealings with that generation reached such a climax that He absolutely abandoned all hope and intention of bringing them into the land. It happened as the result of the undeservedly evil report of the land which rose from the evil unbelieving hearts of ten of the chief rulers of the people. This fell upon the ears of the people like a death-knell; it sounded so true to their equally unbelieving hearts, that they rejected the good report given by Joshua and Caleb. This awful national habit of tempting God had persistently developed by the people from the moment when Moses first announced his gospel to them in Egypt. From the very first they had never really believed God. And although since then He had done so many miracles for them, they still did not believe, but openly rebelled against Him. So when they eventually accepted the lies about the Promised Land, God finally said 'enough'. In grief and anger He reluctantly pronounced judgement upon them and refused to let them go one step further towards their goal; instead He turned them all to wandering in the wilderness, and the responsible males to death. It was all so paradoxical; the exact opposite of all their original hopes and the absolute antithesis of all God's promises. Virtually a whole generation of males and multitudes of females lost the promises and missed the blessing. Worse still, for the next forty years the entire nation, including many innocent children, became nomads; homeless, frustrated roamers, bitter of soul and sick at heart because of deferred hope.
It was because of this that the passage of Jordan had become necessary. It need not to have taken place at all, had the 'first-born' been true to their calling; it only became necessary to the second generation because of their forefathers' unbelief. As a result it is written into scripture as an event which took place in the nation of Israel quite separate in time from the crossing of the Red Sea. But it need not be thought, nor ought it to be taught, that by this God intends to convey to the reader the idea of a second experience through which all people must pass, for He had never originally planned it so. He plainly intended that the actual people He brought out of Egypt should enter Canaan, as Exodus 3:7,8, 16-18 and 6:1-8 clearly show. Why then, we may ask, did it not happen as God intended?
God does not make promises without intending to keep them. When He originally promised the land to Abraham, He brought him into it. To whom God makes promises, He commits Himself thereby to fulfil those promises; He is not a man that He should lie. That first generation of men who refused to go into the land sealed their own doom. God's refusal to let them enter later was manifestly right also; what happened subsequently in the wilderness was proof enough that He was absolutely justified in His action. All the sin lying latent in their hearts was fully manifested under wilderness conditions. Although it was not seen when God made the decision to turn them into the wilderness, it was nevertheless there, and had been from the very beginning. Sin and rebellion lay in their very nature. Despite all God's love, they could not believe and so they could not enter in. But God is faithful; He keeps His promise to the faithful heart; so in the second generation He brought the nation again to the borders of the land of His choice for them. This time they who had been robbed of the blessings by their fathers' sin, had the opportunity to enter in to what their fathers had rejected. The choice was theirs now. They had sought the Promised Land long enough, now for the first time they were to have opportunity to believe, obey and enter for themselves.
When a person seeks truth for the truth's sake and not in order to explain personal experience, it is often seen that what may have been reached or gained in some experience subsequent to conversion was what God intended to be obtained in the original experience and, for His will in the matter, was there to be taken at that time. Certainly when seeking principles of truth in matters of Bible interpretation, it becomes increasingly clear that the crossing of Jordan should not be preached doctrinally as a second experience properly so-called. Neither should it be taught as being an experience different from, subsequent to and consequent upon new birth. At first glance it may appear to permit of such interpretation, but closer examination of the facts makes it obvious that it was neither a second nor a first experience. As we proceed, we shall see that it was a unique, distinctive event, in fact the only one of its order.
Having brought the Israelites out of Egypt, God did not immediately lead them into Canaan. Had He wished, He could quite easily have taken them more swiftly to their promised home, but instead, for many necessary reasons, He delayed the journey. To Him the time factor was not important; His attitude to time and journeyings is luminously and parabolically revealed in Exodus 19:4. There He speaks of the whole period and labours of the prolonged operation of deliverance from Egypt, as bearing and bringing the Children of Israel on eagles' wings to Himself. Apparently it was just one swift, simple, sure solution to their need, which in execution brought total satisfaction to His own heart. It is equally certain that meeting the host on Canaan's shore decades later, He could have said the same thing to that second generation concerning their journeyings.
Upon leaving the Red Sea, the Children of Israel faced a journey to Canaan which, though tedious, could have been accomplished without undue haste within fourteen days. However, having many things to teach them, the Lord took a more leisurely pace and halted them for a number of months at Sinai. There He imparted unto them His handwritten law for righteousness, together with instructions for making and furnishing Him a Tabernacle. He was their God and He wished to dwell among them. He wanted to come right down to their level and have His own tent just as they all had theirs; further, if their hearts were willing for this, He also wanted to have some of them as household servants. This was a very precious thought to His heart — those people must have been unspeakably dear to Him, but they were ignorant of Him and of His ways. They had no love for Him at all; they could not even endure to wait forty days needed by Moses to receive all his instructions and learn the design for God's house. Even at that early stage of the journey their impatient hearts broke out into open rebellion at the delay, and utterly rejected both God and Moses. In open insult they deliberately substituted a calf of gold for God their glory, and foolishly denied all intentions of going on to any Promised Land.
It is almost unbelievable that within a few weeks of their thrilling exodus from the house of bondage, they should publicly exhibit such abysmal depths of inbred sin, and seek to go back to Egypt, but they did. To Egypt they would have returned except that God brought them out, and as far as He was concerned that was that; they were going to stay out. He made quite plain to Moses that. He would rather destroy them than that they should go back there. True it is that in the future their implacable attitude and repeated acts of temptation would finally result in God prohibiting them from Canaan, but even though He did not allow them to enter there, they could not go back to Egypt. God's will was set. If they would not go forward, they certainly could not go back.
Against the Lord's original intention, forty years of wandering intervened between deliverance from Egypt and entrance into Canaan, and it was entirely the fault of the Children of Israel. 'They could not enter in because of unbelief', we are told. It was not a momentary doubt that lost them the land; it was the final evil demonstration of a set disposition to disbelieve God that cost them their inheritance. God refused them permission to enter Canaan because they were in that unregenerate, hardhearted, rebellious, cynical condition which always turns all God's gracious truth into a lie. So instead of entering in, they were sent into the deserts until all those men worked out their own sin and died in shame in the wilderness. In that generation the inevitable outworking of sin and the consequent severity of God against it is displayed to the full. But extending far beyond His severity, we see also His innate goodness, for having exterminated the rebels, and eliminated the rebellion, He gave the next generation the opportunity to obtain all their fathers refused to have. Of this generation some had been babes, or at the most lads, when they passed over the Red Sea, and some had not even been born. They were, as near as typology can prefigure, a new race of men, and it is of this new generation of men that the book of Joshua treats.
In the preceding book of Deuteronomy we find this nation gathered on the wilderness side of Jordan with the long years of waiting, wasting, wandering and wickedness far behind them. They are standing listening to Moses reading to them the Law, together with the ordinances and the commandments and the judgements of God. It was as though they stood where their fathers had stood years ago at Sinai; for they are listening to the second giving of the Law. Now, differently from that past occasion, the floods of Jordan flowed at their feet, barring them from the Promised Land, and their baptism lay immediately before them. Their fathers' baptism had lain behind them when they had heard that same Law, but this generation was being shown the truth that the baptism and the giving of the Law were somehow joined. God had intended that the original people who had shed and sheltered behind the blood and eaten the lamb and had been baptized into life in the cloud and in the Sea, should also be the people of the Law and the Land and the Lord. His purpose had been to lead them from Sinai into the land. When they refused to go in, He had to bring about His purpose another way.
Man's disobedience and irregularity of behaviour always confuses his understanding of doctrine and experience of truth; but it never confuses God. To receive the Law, they must also receive the baptism. The works of Sinai and Pentecost are just as much one as the work of Calvary and Pentecost are one. In the actual process of the Baptism in the Spirit a man is baptized into all that Christ wrought on the cross, and all that Christ wrought there is baptized into him. The supreme reason why Christ wrought His work on the cross was to demonstrate the utter rightness of righteousness against the extreme sinfulness of sin. The Lord there vindicated Sinai and showed the righteousness of the Law in all its moral, ethical and philosophical rectitude, and also in its judgements. At the same time He justified the Levitical system of sacrifice, showing that it was really an amazing display of grace. Under that system He exacted less than the price of his sin from every man, taking but a token sacrifice from him whilst accepting all his gratitude as a thank-offering. The supreme revelation of the cross is hereby shown to be love. The complete work that Jesus wrought there, even if it could be fully known, is far too great to examine here, but we must not fail to notice that the supreme reason for the cross was the declaration of God's righteousness. So it is that at his pentecost, a man has the Law written in his heart; it must be, for otherwise it cannot be made new. See Hebrews 8:11 and II Corinthians 3:3-6.
Returning to the type, we see that Israel at Jordan received the Law and went into their baptism, and this accomplished their passover (Joshua 5). The order here is reversed from that which took place originally. When first introduced it was Passover, Baptism, Law, but sin and disobedience had necessitated a different order. This may explain much that appears to be so irregular in many modern so-called 'baptisms' or 'births' or conversions. But in whatever order the three come, they form a unity of experience and therefore must be kept together, for they agree in one. They have a joint testimony because they form one whole work. As far as was humanly possible, that generation of people was going into the baptism with the Law ringing in their ears. It was repeated unto their hearts and put into their minds as well as Moses, the mediator of that Old Covenant, was able to do it. In type they were going to be baptized into Jesus (Joshua), and for that they must be baptized into heart and mind law in the flesh, not stone and Book Law in an ark. As with their fathers before them, they must experience a personal passover. With their forbears it had been unto Moses in the cloud and in the Sea; with them it was to be unto Joshua in the cloud and in the Jordan. The cloud is not mentioned here, but we know that it was there, for God had said that it should be with them; they would not have attempted to go over Jordan without its clear leading to show them the way (Exodus 40:38). Obviously then, this crossing was to be to these people the most important journey they would ever make.
Of all the men of the former generation who had passed over the Red Sea, only Joshua and Caleb remained at this time. It is also probable, indeed almost certain, that some of the women who passed over Jordan had also experienced the exodus passover. All these would be elderly survivors of husbands or brothers who, over the years, had died off as a result of their folly and disobedience, but to the vast majority it was an entirely new experience; however, these women are not under consideration here. This is not because they are of no importance; on the contrary, the very fact that they were now entering into what their husbands or brothers had rejected proves their value in God's eyes. The reason why those who belonged to a former generation and baptism were accorded the second baptism is simply this — they were women. Under Mosaic jurisdiction the female never bore the responsibility for making spiritual or legal decisions; therefore unless they were partners to their husbands' sins and decisions (as in the case of Achan and his wife and family), they never had to bear the punishments for them. All decisions and responsibilities at that time lay firmly upon the shoulders of the male. Taking this into account, the whole episode is brought into correct focus.
We see then that it was as a newborn race that Israel came to Jordan. Their fathers a generation before had come to the Red Sea, just as though they had been but newly born. Had that first generation behaved as God intended, they would have gone into the land by one baptism only, for neither the journey demanded, nor did they need, nor did God intend them to cross over Jordan. He had not planned more than one baptism for them any more than He has for any man, but He did plan and insist upon one. That is why Moses firstly led toward and Joshua finally brought Israel through Jordan. There was no evading it; both Moses and Joshua insist on one baptism per person, and it is seen to be the same with both John Baptist, Moses' representative, and Jesus, for each insisted upon the one baptism he ministered. So just as their fathers before them, the unbaptized sons of Israel had to face it in their day; the whole host must be baptized. It was an absolutely new and unique experience to them — their one and only passover-baptism.
We have seen that of the former responsible males, none but Joshua and Caleb remain alive. They had wholly followed the Lord, and because of this they both had special roles to fill in the future of the nation, and were preserved with a purpose. Joshua, we know, was elected of God to take the place of Moses as leader of the people, and became a type of Jesus; Caleb represents the true Israelite in whom there is no guile. Neither of them needed any such thing as a second experience of the baptism in either of its elements. Caleb is the perfect type of the one who, together with his Lord, steps straight out of Egypt into Canaan, which is God's intention and provision for every man. Caleb's inheritance was already known to him; he had already trodden on it and in his heart he was living in it. God testified that he had quite another spirit in him from all his contemporaries who had died by the way in the wilderness.
When these factors are taken into account, it becomes clearer than ever that what is so often preached as clear Bible proof of the need of a second experience leading to a second blessing, is in fact proof of the exact opposite. It is only the application of the first experience to a second generation. It was necessary because that first generation of unbelievers had to be annihilated. That being so, how could they undergo a second blessing baptism? Indeed they were cut off by God precisely so that they should not be said or held to have experienced a first and second experience.
By this the Lord Himself has emphatically precluded:
1. the possibility of experiencing the Baptism in the Spirit as a second blessing;
2. the propriety of using this event as a basis for preaching it.To understand correctly the true spiritual meaning and importance of this passage of Jordan, we must once again leap the time-gap of forty years, and in thought substitute Jordan for the Red Sea. As we have seen, it was God's intention to lead His people directly from Egypt to Canaan. Only disobedience had delayed it, so now, the cause for the delay being removed, the delay in time, or the time-lapse, for the completion of the exercise may also itself be removed from our thinking. This is what is meant by leaping the time-gap. For the purposes of what God is trying to teach us it is as though the Children of Israel had stepped into the Red Sea from Goshen and had stepped ashore in Canaan. Yet there are certain differences in the two crossings which we must observe in order that we should learn just how much spiritual meaning lies within this national baptism.
This time there is no Pharaoh with his host of chariots in hot pursuit of the people so lately escaped from the house of bondage; the nation no longer felt that they were slaves. There was no fear in their hearts; recapture and re-enslavement had died out of their thinking, and they no longer had any desire to return to Egypt. That land was by now but a bitter memory in the minds of a few people, mostly elderly women. For a long while now Israel had been a victorious people, approaching the land wherein their days were going to be as the days of heaven on earth. Already they had encountered and conquered some of the giants their fathers had so feared to face, God's own personal Tabernacle was with them, and the Ark of the Covenant with His throne upon it was in their midst. They were His chosen people, His personal charge. He ruled over them in mercy, and His 'standard', the pillar of cloud and fire, towered above and over them day and night. They were an entirely different company from that which had earlier fled in fear from Pharaoh. Standing confidently at the waters' edge with the echoes of Moses' voice ringing in their memories, they calmly waited to pass over the river and possess their possessions.
They also had a new leader. By divine appointment Joshua now replaced Moses, who through disobedience, because of the weakness of the flesh, had been refused entrance into the land. He who gave the Law could not give the Land, and in this God is teaching us yet more of His eternal truth. He had originally given the land to Abraham by promise; it was an entirely undeserved favour, unmixed with legal qualification, and so before God could fulfil that promise, Moses must be removed. This same principle is revealed by Paul in Galatians 3:17, 18. The inheritance could not be given to them as of law, so Moses, the giver and the representative of the Law, had to go. God took him out of the way. He did not appoint Joshua over Moses' head, as though to demote law and exalt grace, neither did He appoint a junior above a senior, but He first removed Moses because his work was fulfilled. Moses had acted as schoolmaster or pedagogue to bring Israel to Christ (Joshua), and therefore his work was done.
There are other reasons why Moses must give way to Joshua, and perhaps not the least of these lies in the meanings of their names — and not just in their respective meaning only, but also in a further thing, perhaps not at first noted. Moses' name was given him as a baby by an Egyptian princess. In that name she described the action whereby he became hers, and being a heathen did so in terms of her superstitious beliefs; Moses means 'drawn out'. He was thereby named as a child of Egypt and a son of the Nile-god, with all the superstitious connotations and fleshly undertones and worldly ambitions that such a name could mean. Therefore, great as he became, Moses could not be allowed to lead God's people into the land of Promise, for in that land God intended all the reproach of Egypt to be rolled away. The entrance, conquest and occupation of Canaan was to be accomplished as the dispensation of the fulfilment of the promise made to Abraham, and not even an Egyptian name could be connected with it.
In personal stature Moses had no equal in Israel. God was not dealing in personalities when He substituted Joshua for Moses. Neither before nor after Moses was there another prophet better than he; it was his name that was at fault, for not only was its origin wrong, but its meaning was too limited. 'Drawn out' only signified one aspect of the great work being wrought by God in the earth for His people; it is partial, incomplete. Also it is somewhat negative, like the words 'Thou shalt not ....', in which the law of Moses was couched. The move to bring His people out of Egypt was only preparation, a necessary prelude to bringing them into Canaan. God had no intention of bringing them into that land under the lawgiver, for that would seem to display inconsistency and a lack of concern for the promotion of eternal truth on His part. It would have been in retrospect a betrayal of Abraham and in prospect a denial of Jesus. Joshua, on the other hand, is a typically Israelitish name meaning Jehovah / Saviour, or Salvation of Jehovah. The truth is that the salvation of Jehovah which He had in mind for the Children of Israel was not a state of being just 'drawn out' of Egypt or of being just across the Red Sea, but right in Canaan. In himself as a man Joshua was no greater than, if as great as Moses, but in the plan of God he had to fill a more positive role. He must be a type of Jesus leading his people into personal experience of the fulfilment of the Promise and the promises. He was chosen of the Lord to divide unto the people their inheritance and this is just what he did.
Careful study of the opening chapters of Joshua's book will yield instructions of much value to those who wish to learn more detailed truth about our great salvation. Enlightening and desirable as this is, we shall not give time and space to indulge ourselves in it all here, but continue to pursue the main line of truth upon which we are set. This turns around the magnification of the person of Joshua and the work which he typically accomplished when he was chosen to represent Jesus Christ to us. This is brought into focus in chapter 3, where we discover that in the passage of Jordan, Joshua is very closely associated with the Ark, which is here called 'the Ark of the Covenant'. The place of their association is in Jordan, the river of death; Joshua and the Covenant are revealed as one there. At this vital juncture of the revelation of the mystery it is important for us to note this: so close is their union that as the account unfolds, the point of emphasis moves constantly from the one to the other. Watching closely as we follow the progress of the Children of Israel over Jordan on their way into the Promised Land, we shall see how some of the finer details of the death of our Lord Jesus Christ are pinpointed and highlighted. The outstanding lesson to learn is that the living Jesus, in leading His people into their inheritance, first stands, then stands firm, and remains standing in Covenant with them in His death; this He does in order to bring them by resurrection into His life.
Now we know that the Ark represented the crux of all the bloodshed and sacrifices and offerings of the Law. All that was ever done under law according to the Levitical code was done unto Him who sat on His merciful throne on the Ark. Spiritually the Mercy Seat and He who sat on it was the end of the Law in a twofold way, namely objectively and finally. Objectively it was the end of the Law for righteousness to everyone that believed, and this was so because annually the blood of atonement was sprinkled there. Finally it was the end of the Law because there the Law ceased. Beyond that, it had no jurisdiction. All over Israel it had jurisdiction, but from that point upwards it had no power over anyone. Neither sin nor legal code has any dominion in heaven, and from the Mercy Seat upwards all was heaven. The Law was in the Ark; the Mercy Seat was upon that; the cloud was upon that; God appeared in that; and all was glory. That is finality. God was not under the Law but over it; the Law was under Him; it was in His body (the Ark), His Being.
Ordinarily the Ark was set in its exact position within the veil which covered the Holiest of All at the east end of the Tabernacle, but on this occasion it stood in Jordan; it was in transit. According to God's instructions it was wrapped within its veil, covered with sealskin, spread over with a cloth wholly of blue, its staves in place, the blood but a stain upon its throne, with the living cloud resting upon it and spreading far out over the river, the way, and the people. What more could God have done to show us (even if they did not then understand it) the glory of the Lord in death, and the wonder of that Baptism wherewith we are baptized? Here we see Jesus in all His glorious humanity, the Lord of life reigning over all in His brief death. Having dealt with sin where sin abounded, He deals with death where death abounded, that He might show us grace where grace abounds, and give us life, because life abounds; all is of His humanity.
How intimately the veil wrapped the Ark in Jordan. Just so, in death, the flesh of our Lord did not hang distantly from Him as the veil hung remotely some little distance from the Ark when set in the Tabernacle. The veil represented His flesh, and at Calvary the flesh and Spirit were especially one; they had each to serve the other for God's purposes there. The Invisible became the Visible especially for this, and by this picture we see how Jesus lived unto and in and through death. How appropriate now also is the covering of sealskin (note, not badger-skin but sealskin; the seal is a water animal), for He was born for this Baptism which, though it come in into His soul, should never be able to flood or destroy Him. Outside and around all, like an outer cloak, clung the cloth 'wholly of blue'. All was wrapped up in, yet revealed as total love. Above the Ark stood the cloud, as though it were the impenetrable density of heavenly love filling all space, reaching down from the blue infinity of heaven like the finger of God pointing out the Ark. All was love; love above and love below with the cloud in between: Father, Holy Ghost, Son, God so loved His people. He so wanted them to have eternal life (their inheritance) that He gave His Son. The whole scene presents God's view of Calvary. It is Christ's death as related to the priesthood. Joshua / Jesus is there, but he is only associated with the Ark, he is not carrying it. The priests are carrying it. In Jordan the Ark is Christ offered without spot to God through the eternal Spirit, and there passing by within sight of it were the people. It was invisible, yet it was visible; they saw it yet didn't see it. In a figure they could look upon God as though they had no conscience of sin, and by Christ pass over into their possessions, a nation of priests.
Approaching it all from another angle, we see how clearly too this prefigures Jesus' own water baptism in that same Jordan so long afterwards. As we examine it afresh, we find that all was just the same then, and confess with awe that whenever God appears, whatever be His purpose, eternal truth can never vary. The Gospels show us Jesus in the water — the Holy Ghost coming upon Him there and Father so lovingly and so gladly owning and presenting Him to the people. Then as always, all was enveloped in and overshadowed by love, for even so, that baptism was only a picture of the greater to follow. In fulfilment of this greatest Baptism, as though anticipating Calvary, the feet of the priests that bore the Ark stood on dry land; in the sides of the Ark were the wooden crosspieces, the staves upon which all was hung. All the love of God ever shown over the millennia was revealed by the cross. By the way of the cross He went into death, and by its virtue and power made death a way for all His people. Now denuded of all power of evil and terrors of hell, this death and resurrection way represents only the overpowering goodness of God and the glorious blessings of heaven. The whole scene is a setting forth of 'Christ crucified.. .the power of God, and the wisdom of God'. Yet the feet of those priests did get wet. The outer waters of the floods of death did come in unto His soul. He had to taste death for every man, but the great eternal spirit of Him drove back the floods, stopped the river and stood mid-stream to hold back the waters and make the royal highway for His spiritual house to pass over.
The blood on the Mercy Seat in Jordan was but a stain. It was not the bright crimson of blood in circulation, but the deep purple-brown stain of blood long shed. It was the blood of a past atonement, and it spoke of redemption previously accomplished; the sacrifice had been accepted, righteousness was established and declared. God was reigning in grace, because in the figure, Jesus who died was standing there alive, and His throne was for ever and ever. It was the blood of a past sacrifice perpetuated. At the seat of it all was the blood, and at the heart of it all was love, but the root of it all was the Law for righteousness lying as sacred treasure at the bottom of the Ark. The blood-seed and foundation of His life was righteousness; not just negative sinlessness, but positive sin-overcoming-and-destroying righteousness. The New Covenant was in His blood. If love is the bond of perfectness, then it is because righteousness is the sceptre of correct living and just rule. All this and much more in hidden meaning stood there in Jordan, and as Joshua drew everyone's attention to the Ark that day, he himself began to be magnified in everyone's eyes (chapter 3: 3, 6, 8, 11, 13-15 & 17).
Joshua was pointing to God's earthly throne, for it was in order to bear the throne upon its lid that the box was made. It was the treasure-chest of heaven and earth, holding within it the two tablets of stone which bore God's own handwriting. Treasured up at the heart of the nation, the law-stones were guarded from humankind and prevented from idolatrous worship by the presence of God. Had He departed from His throne, His very handiwork must surely have become an idol, and the Law He wrote would have become His rival. In fact, later this did actually happen: Israel sinfully worshipped the fact that they had the Law of God, and lost the God of the Law. Perhaps from this we ought to learn a lesson and be warned of the danger of allowing Bible-worship to substitute Him in our hearts. But whatever the failure in a later day, when Joshua pointed to the Ark, God was reigning there.
This was probably the greatest thing Joshua ever did in all his life. It is not surprising therefore to find that our Lord also did something similar to this. During His lifetime on earth, and especially as He neared the end of His ministry, the Lord referred increasingly to His cross; to Him it was absolutely crucial. Although only the barest facts of this are recorded by the four Gospel writers. They present enough detail for us to understand that the Lord made His meaning abundantly clear: the cross and the grave were the goal of His earthly life. Following their accounts of the crucifixion, each of the writers passes on to the story of the resurrection, and some to record the ascension, and one goes on to point to His enthronement in glory. Having faithfully fulfilled his task, Luke was chosen of God to take up and continue the story in the Acts of the Apostles. He first refers back to the Lord's crucifixion and enthronement, showing that it was with a view to the outpouring of the Spirit and the birth of the Church, and then goes on to record the history of its growth and spread. But it is through the epistles of the apostles that the living glorified Lord really teaches us the full and spiritual meaning of the value of His triumphant death. Consistently with this whole scheme of revelation and true to the type, John Baptist, when baptizing Jesus in water, pointed Him out as the Lamb of God while He was still in the world. John was Moses' representative, and it was Moses who, while still in Egypt (the world), pointed Israel to the lamb and its blood; but his successor, Joshua, that is the one who was raised up in his stead to represent the living Jesus, points to the Ark / Throne.
Reading the New Testament, we find that following the ascension and enthronement of the Lord Jesus, all the writers do this same thing, Peter leading the way on the day of Pentecost. How vital and indispensable all this is, for although while hanging on the cross the Lord did all the work necessary for our total redemption and reconciliation, it was not until He returned to heaven and was enthroned in glory that the gospel of His grace could be fully preached. The gospel for the present day is declared from the eternal throne and not as from Galilee or Judea, or even the historic cross. When Paul said 'we preach Christ crucified', he meant that we preach the living Christ, who, having been once crucified, now baptizes in the Holy Ghost into all the virtues of the cross. This is the particular aspect of truth which is so plainly being revealed at Jordan. Of old the people waiting in fear at the Red Sea for their baptism unto Moses, were fleeing from Pharaoh and the power and dominion of his throne. At that time Pharaoh was the great king over all the earth; but to the nation under Joshua, Pharaoh was nothing but a memory; he and his powers and principalities had been very effectively destroyed forty years earlier. Under Joshua it is the Lord enthroned on the Ark of the Covenant who is the centre of all thoughts and the object of everyone's vision. He is the Lord of all the Earth. The result is that no-one is running away from a pursuing host or casting fearful glances behind. Instead, in perfect peace, the great King of kings is majestically supervising His people's passover into the Promised Land. In the process of the unfolding type He is teaching us something of the scope of the eternal work which He wrought at Calvary in relationship to the throne of God. Far beyond what they saw or what was witnessed centuries later at Calvary, we see that in His death the Lord Jesus set up His throne.
The gospel preached to us is not a partial one. It is not just the story of the birth, life, death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus, but also of His ascension and enthronement, His glorification and Kingdom and coming again, and things too numerous to be completely known or mentioned by any man. Because of this, it is to the throne that we are pointed at this time and not to the blood, important and indispensable though it is. The Mercy Seat on which the blood was sprinkled was the more important thing, for it was in order to be sprinkled on the throne that the blood was shed. Joshua did not say, 'When you see the blood ...', but 'When you see the Ark, go after it'. It is God who had to see the blood; He said so in Egypt — 'When I see the blood I will pass over you'. At that time it was painted on the houses in which they were sheltering, eating the lamb. It was public blood; not only God but everybody saw it. But on the Mercy Seat it was private blood, God's exclusively; only He saw it. In Egypt what they received by virtue of it was seen and known, but sprinkled there on the Mercy Seat it speaks of what God got from it. Far beyond what Israel saw or could have anticipated when the Lord insisted that they shed and sprinkled the blood in Egypt, all was anticipatory of and consistent with the future thing that He intended to do in Canaan. When the blood was originally shed at His command, He had not fully revealed His purpose concerning it; unknown to them then, He planned to have the blood always in His sight, and whether or not the people at Jordan realized it, that was the thing which mattered most to them on their day of baptism.
God was keeping His sovereign word and oath to them — the Covenant He had made with Abraham. They could not see the blood under which lay the tables of the Covenant. They possibly did not even know then that the Law for righteousness which lay in the Ark was God's confirmation of the original promise made to Abraham, but it was. Had they known, it was the proof that they were certainly going to live in the land. God gave it them to be the Law for righteousness that He required of them, that by it they may live in the land of His promise into which they were now passing. All they had to do at Joshua's command was to trace the dim outlines of God's earthly throne under its many veils and follow the King through the flood and over the river to possess their possessions in full realization of all the promises of God.
Sometimes in our fervent evangelical zeal, and because of deepest heartfelt appreciation of the eternal worth of the precious blood of Christ we may endanger the objective which He had in view when He shed it. Due to fear lest the vital truths of our redemption be filched from us by humanistic tendencies or modernistic teaching, we give the blood an over-emphasis neither intended by God nor needed by man. Such fears need not be. A sane spiritual approach to both the whole and the wholeness of the Bible concedes nothing to unbelief. Faith grows the stronger for the thought, and truth flourishes by investigation and thrives on honesty.
The relationship of the blood and the throne is as vital as the relationship of the blood and the cross. The blood had to be shed, for it is the only remedy for sin. Except it had been outpoured at Calvary there could be no redemption, no conclusive fulfilment of and justification for all the shed blood of past atonements, and no present reconciliation brought in. In the whole plan of reconciliation the blood in Jesus' veins had to become the blood of His cross, which in turn had to be brought in by Him to become blood on the throne. The throne was before the blood was, and the blood was before the cross was. Both the blood and the cross were, indeed just had to be, because of the throne. By use and means of the cross the redeeming blood was shed; from the cross it was sprinkled on the throne. Jesus used the cross for the throne; it was totally necessary to the throne and Him that sits on it. Apart from the blood on the throne there could be no redemption. Sprinkled there it had reached its ultimate end and achieved its greatest work.
It is totally erroneous to think or preach that redemption was completed or that reconciliation was fully effected at the cross. Without belittling for one moment the complete and consummate work that Jesus accomplished there, we must see most clearly that no-one would have been saved except the blood shed at Calvary had been carried up and on to the throne. The two actions are indispensable parts of a whole in which each is necessary to the other or else could have no meaning to us. So it was that Joshua in the day of his magnification in the eyes of Israel, shows his magnificence by turning all eyes to the Ark.
Among the many things God accomplished by this man at that time, two were of outstanding value to the Children of Israel: (l) He cut everything down to size; (2) He put all things into perspective; that is He showed things up for what they really were. This was especially necessary in connection with Jordan, for to Israel it represented death. Now Jordan does not represent physical death, although erroneously it is pressed into that meaning from time to time. Quite contrary to the popular ideas all too often versified for use as hymns, Jordan does not represent the physical death which came by sin and is now the common end of all flesh, but the royal spiritual death that came by Jesus Christ, the Resurrection and the Life. It is an entirely new death, being spoken of in Romans 6 as 'His death'; it is the death into which all must be baptized if ever they are to become men as God requires. Since the memorable day when Israel crossed Jordan, it has represented the Lord's death. The Lord Jesus used physical death as a means to reveal the death He died to sin for us. His death is the immediate death to the sin-death of man and the eventual death to his physical death too. By means of physical death the great Spirit, Jesus the God-Man, proved that He could not be overcome and slain as were others. He did this by first taking man's sin-death upon Him and then entering the realms of physical death in order that He might reach the place where all other human spirits lay dead, slain by satan and sin.
One of the main reasons why the Children of Israel were brought to Jordan when it was in flood was to set forth this lesson. Before their eyes the waters (of death) were first cut back to proper proportions, so that the main stream (the real death) should be revealed. It was there, and not in the deceptive floodwaters, that the true business of 'His death' was really transacted and established. The feet of the priests did not 'stand firm' until they rested on dry ground in the midst of Jordan, though they momentarily paused as soon as the soles of their feet rested in its floodwaters. Of all the people, they alone got their feet wet; no-one else did; they took the first unseeable, adventurous steps — for all the others it was firm, dry walking. As nearly as possible God has shown us by this how truly Jesus 'tasted death' for every man, and then stood firm in His death that every son of God should cross over 'dry' unto glory. Hallelujah, what a man calls death is not the real death at all. In His love the Lord has revealed all to us so that we shall not be deceived or held by terrors.
Let us watch it all happening as it is recorded in the story. When the feet of the Ark-bearing priests touched the brim of the water, straight away things really began to happen. Immediately the floods started to assuage, and as the waters receded, before their eyes the river assumed its correct size, falling into true shape and taking its proper course; very soon it disappeared altogether, leaving the bed bare and dry. The waters were cut off before the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord of all the earth. Then, with majestic pace, the priests proceeded into the midst of the river bed. The waters had either fled helter-skelter downstream to the sea of death, or piling up somewhere back upstream away from His presence, had refused to come near His face. It was an amazing spectacle — a miracle wrought in a physical element; yet viewing it today we see the wonder of the Lord's working for us in the far more important realm of the Spirit.
Pausing to cast back a reflective glance to Noah, we note that terminologically the flooding of Jordan strangely links up with the original Flood. Pondering further we can see that the second of our illustrations also joins with the first and this third illustration of the Baptism to reveal just one event, for Jordan was swollen almost to flood proportions, and was like a sizeable inland sea. So Noah's flood and Moses' sea and Joshua's river are as one for the telling of the story of the true Baptism, each speaking the same thing in another way. Thereby they provide the opportunity of examining that Baptism in three different aspects of its amazing fulness. The exactitude of God in this speaks with inexorable logic. God does not wander from the original truth when further outlining or illustrating new ideas of a definitive nature connected with it. Instead, as we see here, when bringing in another new aspect of eternal truth, He also hints at and includes things revealed of old. This is He who says that 'the wise scribe who is instructed into the Kingdom of Heaven bringeth forth out of his treasures things new and old', for He Himself does it. In this way we see the whole in perspective and are instructed into the continuity, progression and development of the doctrine of the Baptism.
The crossing of Jordan took place 'very far from the city Adam'. Undoubtedly the spot was chosen most carefully by God in order to speak most powerfully and unmistakably to our hearts. The introduction of this name is of great significance, for as the fact of the flooding river links us with the tragedy of the Flood, so does the name Adam carry us back beyond the Flood to the greater tragedy that originally made it necessary. Adam provides us with the key to the special emphasis given by God to this particular illustration of the Baptism. It is the only place in scripture where we find that name attached to a city. Apart from the fact that it was hard by Zaretan, we know nothing about it, except that the waters of Jordan piled up a long way from it. It is as though God was saying with amazing insistence that in passing over Jordan's flood, they were leaving all of old Adam behind; a long way behind; altogether behind. There was no passover for him, for it was he who passed the whole human race over to satan, who flooded humanity with sin. Moreover, the Children of Israel were not going over Jordan just to settle down and rest in Adam again. They could not possess the land or inherit the promises of God in old Adam; neither in any connection with him nor anywhere near him. Never again! Adam, with his legacy of sin and death is finished. What a terrible legacy it was.
Yet linking Adam with Joshua, God is bringing to the fore the real lesson of this chapter, for Joshua represents Jesus, the last Adam. So we have before us the first, old, evil Adam, and the last, new, good Adam. The one in whom sin began in man, and the One who as a Man ended sin. First Adam became a sinner and commenced it among men; the last Adam was made sin to end it among men. In this incident we may also find an interesting pictorial comment upon that difficult scripture which says, 'As in Adam all die, so in Christ shall all be made alive'. Jordan, the river of death, flowed by Adam into the world and flooded out upon and into all men (Romans 5:12). Adam died and left all men in death, but our Joshua leads through death into the chosen life of God for His people. God finished Adam by Christ. That is the chief reason why on the cross He cried, 'It is finished'. So much was ended there — it was the terminal point of much more than we know, and the pivotal point of all time. Then and there God brought to judgement and death the elusive Old Man of satan and sin; there He finally nailed him down and buried him.
Until that moment Adam had lived on in the human race unchallengeable and unassailable as the nature of sin in man. Physically Adam died at the age of 930 years, but in spiritual nature he lived on in the race for millennia until a new spiritual nature from God came and destroyed him. Only Abraham among men has outlived Adam spiritually. Abraham became the new 'father' in Adam's place because he was the man of obedient faith as against the disobedience and unbelief of Adam. By this he has lived on spiritually far longer than Adam in man, for at Calvary Adam was crucified and slain and buried, but at the same time Abraham was justified. Abraham rejoiced to see Jesus' day, 'and', says Jesus, 'he saw it and was glad'. Until the cross Adam and Abraham co-existed as spiritual 'fathers' in the race, producing two kinds of person, which at times co-existed as dual natures in one person. Since Calvary, however, Adam has been slain, so that no man need live now as a split personality, having two different springs of spiritual nature rising and warring within his one human nature.
When the Lord Jesus came into the world, He was born of Abraham's seed; physically He was born in the likeness of sinful flesh, but spiritually He was born in the image of God. This was accomplished by using the seed of the woman, Genesis 3:15, instead of the seed of man. Even in so doing God had to use the highest power (Gk. 'dunamis') he had, overshadowing Mary with the Holy Ghost in order to bring forth His Son of Man. It is very doubtful that the seed of the woman is in and of itself less tainted by sin than man's, but in exact contrast to Eve, who believed the word of satan, Mary believed the word of God by the angel. That word being mixed with faith in her, became the human life-seed from which the babe Jesus was generated. So apart from man, and being all-powerfully operated upon by the Holy Ghost, Mary brought forth her firstborn son. Whatever else God did in commencing in Mary the birth-cycle which resulted in the babe of Bethlehem, He certainly showed by Christ that old Adam was finished with; that degenerate man was not the father of the spiritual or natural life of the carpenter of Nazareth. God's utter rejection of Adam is nowhere more plainly shown than in the birth of Jesus Christ; nor is that fact more openly exhibited than in His death.
The Lord Jesus on the cross dealt with all the original and cumulative characteristics of the sinful man; He bore his curse, carried his sins, took his punishment, died his death and buried him in his grave. More, much more, He superseded him — blotted him out. He nullified the accumulated power and effects of his continuing existence during the thousands of years which had run their course between his rejection in Eden and Calvary. More than that, He made those years themselves to appear as though they had never been, for we read that Jesus is the second man. The Lord who created the first man, Himself became the second. So again, in order to understand truth so vital to us, we have to leap the time gap, for this thing is spiritual. What we seek to demonstrate is entirely in the realm of Spirit. This is why it is always the Spirit that bears witness, for the Spirit is constant; things are always consistent in meaning and interpretation as well as constant in power in the kingdom of the Spirit.
In the man Christ Jesus, God finished that old Adam, but continued with man. By the life that He lived Jesus showed that by His birth He had ended the inevitability of the continuity of the Old Adam nature and manhood of sin. Much more, by carrying that life over into His death in our behalf, He also finished that old nature for us forever. It was to show us this that the Ark stood firm in Jordan, where it remained central in the stream of death until all the people had passed clean over into the land of promise; it was first in but last out. He is Alpha and Omega whenever He appears. In keeping with this Joshua fills two roles at Jordan: he standing with the Ark in the centre as the last Adam and he leads many sons unto the glory of Canaan as the second Man.
Again it is as though those centuries of sin, failure, frustration, disappointment, toil, pain, bondage, heartache, Egypt, taskmasters, Pharaoh, and the wilderness had never existed. Adam the first commenced sin; Adam the last ended it. The first man lost paradise, the second gained Canaan for all the children of God. Even though men seem yet to be cast in the mould of Adam the first, they who by spiritual heredity are the children of God in the line and nature of the second man, may know sweetness far above Adam's lost paradise and Joshua's Canaan, for our Jesus is the Leader of all the file of God's sons who with Him share jointly in all the Father has.
What a glorious insight all this affords us into the character of God. He has always stood with His people. No-one would have thought it wrong if the Ark, instead of standing still in Jordan, had continued on leading the people into Canaan. But had it done so, the type would not have been true, although no-one would have known it, for none knew that what was happening was in fact a prefiguring of a greater reality yet to be revealed. God's concern is that we by this should get a clear sight of the truth that Jesus stayed long enough in death for the whole multitude of the redeemed to pass over. So vital is this truth, that by God's own commands the memorials of it were retained to Israel in a peculiar way.
From the very place where the feet of the priests that bore the Ark stood firm in Jordan, twelve fore-ordained men bore a stone apiece over with them onto the other bank to build a cairn at Gilgal. Similarly, Joshua built a cairn in the exact hallowed spot midstream where the feet of the priests that bore the Ark stood firm in Jordan, and from whence the twelve other memorial stones were taken. The floods eventually returned and swamped from view the stones which Joshua erected, so that no-one could see the path through the mighty waters, but the identical erection built by Joshua's command at Gilgal remained. It bore visible testimony to succeeding generations that God dried up the waters of Jordan before His people as He did the waters of the Red Sea before their fathers. In this way the Lord links the two crossings as one. By these two witnesses everybody's thoughts were to be directed to four things — Egypt, Red Sea, Jordan, Canaan. To us the truth abides clear. Jesus did not come up out of death until He had completely dealt with and finished all our enemies and brought every one of His people into His life in God through His death for them. Sin, Judgement, Death, Adam, Pharaoh, Principalities, Powers, everything was overcome in that one solitary act. It abides as total as it is eternal.
The people passed over as 'new creatures', baptized unto Joshua, no longer now to be wilderness wanderers, any more than they were ever again to be Egyptian slaves. In Canaan they were no more in the wilds than in the world; they had not only passed over, but also 'out of' and 'into'. God had not brought them out of Egypt to live as nomads in the wilderness, but to possess their possessions in fulfilment of His promises. But man has to learn his old nature and see the justice and righteousness of God in condemning it to the cross. He may not like the lesson, but in so learning he will also be taught the grace and love of Christ in taking it to the cross for him. Moses had already said that God led them into the wilderness to prove them and know what was in their heart, and to make them know that man can only live by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. But this is a very hard lesson for man to learn, and a painful one, for natural carnal man wants to live by every word that proceeds out of his own mouth. He loves to decide for himself, gainsay the word of God, make fear or his better knowledge the plea when it is only pride, unbelief and rebellion that generate his refusal to do as God says. A man always has to learn that it is his own evil heart of unbelief which causes him to live in a wilderness. He also has to learn that only by baptism into Christ can he discover his Promised Land and enter into his possessions.
As we have seen, when the Children of Israel came up out of Jordan, they were not allowed to stay 'just over' on its bank. In any case it was impossible, for the river was in flood, so they pitched their camp in Gilgal. There the cairn of stones was erected, and there the Lord kept them until some further things upon which He insisted should be fulfilled. The significance of what took place during those early days at Gilgal must not be regarded as something taking place some time much later than or subsequent to the baptism. All that took place at Gilgal at that time, whether in the natural or spiritual realms, is directly connected with the Jordan crossing, and must be regarded as taking place in the one true Baptism. The New Testament shows that by it God synchronizes many things which may not be consciously realized as having been wrought thereby, and which cannot be shown as simultaneous in the type. The things listed in Joshua 5 have great spiritual significance for us. They are as follows:
1. Israel was circumcised;
2. They kept the passover;
3. They ceased to eat Manna and ate the old corn of the land;
4. The captain of the Lord's host assumed command.These four are closely linked by God with one another and with the passage of Jordan. It is, therefore, vital that we come to an understanding of what it was that God accomplished at Gilgal, for spiritually it is at this precise place and in this experience that the true Baptism 'lands' us. Firstly God revived and reinstated the neglected sign of the Covenant — Circumcision. Gilgal means 'rolling', and God brought them there with the intention of rolling away from them what He called 'the reproach of Egypt', and it could only be accomplished by this means. It was in keeping His Covenant with Abraham that He had brought them into the Promised Land. At Gilgal God enforced circumcision upon them, for circumcision, besides being the sign of the Covenant, was the seal of their faith in the promises of God, and it had to be cut into their mortal bodies. The Baptism in the Spirit is for this purpose — it accomplishes heart-circumcision, the initial putting away of the filth of the flesh and the inscription in the heart of the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus.
The Baptism in the Spirit is to produce men of the Spirit, who live in the Spirit, and possess the promises of God. The flesh cannot inherit the promises, hence the circumcising Baptism. The reproach of Egypt is fixed permanently in the flesh; 'the world' and 'the flesh' cannot be separated, for without the flesh there could be no world. Worldliness is the indulgence and expression of the lusts of the flesh in the earth, and a man is not out of the world until his flesh is circumcised from him with the circumcision of Christ. This 'circumcision of Christ' is not to be confused with the ceremonial circumcision which took place in His boyhood. It is rather to be thought of as the spiritual power with which He invested the cross in taking there all His perfection of life manifest in the flesh. The fact of His birth as the Son of God, together with the accumulated virtue of His private life as Jesus of Nazareth and His public life as the Christ (during which He proved too strong to succumb to either the direct or indirect temptations of the devil) gave power to His cross to become God's 'sharp knife' for circumcision. We may see how truly this is highlighted by examining the two major occasions in His life when He was directly confronted with the choice of doing: (a) the devil's will, or (b) His own.
In the first, when He was tempted in the wilderness at the beginning of His ministry, it was in the three realms of all human existence — spirit, soul and body. This only proved that He was indeed fit for the immediate ministry unto which He had just been anointed. Had He failed in either test, it would have been through the flesh or self-indulgence. To have sought bread for His body, or the keeping and protection of angels for Himself, or to have hoped for life or gain or 'blessing' on the devil's terms, or even at his suggestion, would have been of the flesh; He refused point blank. So also in Gethsemane, where He underwent the second test. This time He proved that He was fit for the ministry of Reconciliation immediately to hand, and ultimately for the ministry of mediation which lay beyond resurrection. To have insisted on doing His own will and having things His own way would have been then, as at any other time, nothing but 'flesh'. This complete absence of desire for self-fulfilment, total refusal to gratify mental, emotional, spiritual and bodily desires for solely selfish ends is indeed truest proof of heart circumcision. His testings proved how truly the world, the flesh and the devil were cut off from Him. This utter refusal on His part either to live or die for self gave power to His cross to become the instrument of God unto circumcision. To receive it all we must be baptized into His death.
By circumcision this baptism was directly linked with the original covenant promise to Abraham. Canaan was the land of promise given originally to him by God, wherein all God's promises to him were to find fulfilment. Insisting upon this before anything else should take place, the Lord was beginning again at the beginning and showing the deep fundamental importance of the Baptism — what it is, what it deals with, and the means by which it is accomplished. At the same time He also showed that the Passover was secondary in importance to circumcision, for it is plain that the feast may only be kept by people already in the covenant of circumcision. This order of truth is strikingly brought out in Colossians 2 by Paul, where he speaks of circumcision in verse 11, and then afterwards of the spoiling of principalities and powers in verse 15. Going on from that point, he first tells us of our completeness in Him who is the head of them all, showing that all was accomplished by the cross and death and burial and resurrection of Christ. Thus we find that what We have discussed of the Red Sea and Jordan is joined in one in the New Testament doctrine of Christ. In Him all is dealt with at once, for all was done by Him in one glorious act.
The wandering man of the wilderness is an uncircumcised man. He may be out of Egypt, but he is also out of a personal experience of the covenant which is most vital to him. Man's salvation rests only in the fact that God covenanted to save him; apart from that covenant he has ho hope at all. The important thing was to be not only out of the world, but also in God's covenanted Salvation in the Promised Land, otherwise there was no point in bringing them out of Egypt. That is why, after forty years of wandering, the only way into Canaan for them was by baptism, just as for their fathers the final episode of the exodus from Egypt was by the Red Sea. Following our earlier practice of putting the two incidents together, we arrive at the truth. God had told them in Egypt that they were to keep the Passover when they were come to the Land; it was never conceived or instituted as a wilderness feast. So although the Passover came first in national history, upon crossing Jordan it was placed in its correct position by the Lord, that is secondary to and dependent upon personal circumcision.
Long before the institution of the Passover, the Lord, in Abraham, constituted membership of the race in the sign of circumcision — 'the seal of the faith'. The race was fathered in circumcision. Born in circumcision, it was emancipated in the Passover which was to be 'kept' annually only in remembrance of a past redemption by blood, water and Spirit, but circumcision is an intensely individual thing. By its very nature it has to be a personal, intimate experience, not a national ritual kept by all at once on one special day of the year; circumcision was almost certainly being ministered to someone every day of the year throughout the whole nation. Thus as God intended, it became the basic 'common' ritual of everyday life and not a special religious festival. Individuals were personally, privately brought into the covenant by circumcision, and thereby qualified to eat the lamb; no-one else was allowed the privilege. The penalty for eating the Passover uncircumcised was death. God does not allow uncircumcision to accompany possession. At Gilgal His perfect will was applied to His people. All being adjusted to the eternal order, we discover that circumcision precedes the Passover; the reason for this being that it is the greater of the two.
Rectifying their disorder and putting all things in proper perspective, God caused them to keep the Passover in the bond of the Covenant as He originally intended. It is only as we accept the implications of this that we may arrive at the full message of the type, for the Lord Jesus combined both the Circumcision and the Passover at the cross. When dying as the Passover Lamb, He not only shed the Lamb's passover blood, He also forged the sharp knife of circumcision for use in connection with the One Baptism. It was as improper to keep the Passover and be uncircumcised as it was to be circumcised and not keep the Passover. Upon reading the New Testament, we find that the work of the cross seems to point the fact that, beyond impropriety, in the realm of the Spirit it is impossible also.
The third thing recorded at this point is just as surely joined to the Passover as the Passover was to Circumcision, and by the Passover is linked with it: 'The Manna ceased on the morrow after they had eaten of the old corn of the land'. This was something else the Lord had been aiming to do. Manna was a mystery, as its name signifies; it had been their wilderness food. Supplied originally by God as a temporary measure, it was intended only to be a short-term provision until His people should reach 'the land of corn and wine'. He had no more intended them to live the rest of their lives on Manna than He had originally intended them to live for forty years in the wilderness; He had always had something better in mind for them. Their fathers had once said that their souls loathed 'this light food'; it was a strong expression, but they felt they wanted something more solid and meaty, and of greater variety than the Manna, and God had lovingly provided some better thing for these their children but not in the wilderness. Manna, we are told, was really angels' food. Small, white, wafer-thin and honey-like, it was an emergency ration only. God's real intention and provision for them was the corn of the land, so He brought the nation over Jordan in the time of barley harvest. Now although this was so, we must note that upon entrance into the land they did not eat of their own immediate reaping and threshing. Likewise they did not eat of the stores laid up by dint of their own self-effort; they were not allowed to eat new corn either, but 'the old corn of the land'. It was the new food for a new people in a new land.
Manna represents Jesus in the body of His flesh as He is revealed in the Gospels, an entirely unknown entity, unknowable in quantity and quality. They never could understand what He meant when He said, 'My Father is in Me', or 'I and My Father are one'. Who was He? What was He? Was He really three in one and one in three? Reading John 14, we find Jesus saying to Philip, 'Have I been so long time with you and yet hast thou not known me?' No-one apparently knew Jesus Christ after the flesh. He was a complete mystery even to His disciples before Pentecost. Consistently with this whole truth, we read in John chapter 6 that having fed the multitude in the wilderness, Jesus, in talking with those who came after Him, made reference to this Manna. He said, 'Moses gave you not that bread in the wilderness, but my Father giveth you the true bread from heaven'. He was speaking of Himself, but they were mystified, for He had deliberately changed the figure from Manna to Old Corn or Bread, that is from the wilderness food to the food of the promised land. Of old in the wilderness His Father had given Manna, or angels' food to the Children of Israel, but now He was offering them His very own food if they would have it. They were actually being given the opportunity of accepting God's living, life-giving bread — Jesus. Jesus is the Bread of God, the original 'Old Corn' of the land, but they had no appetite or taste for Him.
Old Corn, gathered up and stored from an old or past harvest is not for the old man; he seeks to feed on small, white, round, sweet, seed-like things gathered in the morning dew, tasting like honey, mixed and milled together for staple diet, the result of the ritual of the self-effort of early rising and much searching. True it was better than hunting for straw and stubble in Egyptian slavery, but it was not God's best, except under the circumstances. Miraculous it was, but not mature. God-given and guaranteed, it was created fresh every morning from heaven, with a glory sweet and precious among men, but not yet the Jesus ascended up into the former and everlasting glory that He had with His Father before the world was. The bread of the new man is the Jesus in and of the Spirit, not Jesus in the flesh, though both are essentially the same for they are one.
At the time of speaking Jesus was God's bread, but not yet man's, for the simple reason that He had not yet died and risen again. Moreover, those to whom He was speaking were all as yet unborn — their nature was Old Man. The risen, glorified Lord of the Acts and the Epistles and the Revelation is the new man's true bread. He is God the Father's bread; the Father feeds on the Son even as the Son feeds on and lives by the Father — each is food to the other. So when upon crossing Jordan and being circumcised and partaking of the passover lamb they ate of the old corn of the land, the Children of Israel ate new food. Thus it is that in progression of true spiritual thought, as well as in scriptural order, we pass from the truth of circumcision to the passover and then on to the provision of the old corn of the land. From there it is but a step, and fourthly we are brought to see and recognize the captain of the Lord's host.
Joshua, out walking one day, sees a man with a drawn sword in his hand. Approaching him, Joshua is warned not to draw nigh but to take his shoes from off his feet because he is standing on holy ground. When Joshua asked this man if he was on Israel's side or for their enemies, he replied, 'As Captain of the Lord's host am I now come'. Hitherto Joshua had been recognized as Israel's captain, but now a heavenly captain appears and Joshua on earth had to give place to him. Something like this also happened to Jesus in the flesh. The two on the Emmaus road as good as said so: 'We trusted that it had been He that had redeemed Israel', they said of the earthly Jesus to the unrecognized 'Stranger'. But He soon identified Himself to be the same Jesus when they broke bread at Emmaus and thus He was referred to by the angels later on the mount of Ascension.
He had said earlier in the guest chamber in Jerusalem before His crucifixion, 'I will come to you ... at that day'. So on 'that day' of Pentecost He came by the Spirit to take up His rightful place at the head of His people. According to the heavenly revelation, that day coincided with the Lamb standing in the midst of the throne with the book in His hands, and breaking the first seal, so that the rider on the white horse should go forth conquering and to conquer. By the Spirit, Jesus of earth who had become Jesus of the heavens came all unseen, yet now to be known in all fulness to His people as Captain of the Lord's host. He was the same Jesus of Nazareth they had followed on earth, come back to lead them on in victory unto victory.
So in the type before us we see Joshua the man-captain on earth bowing and yielding to this Man-Captain from heaven. It is a picture, though not yet the fullest picture, of what happened on the day of Pentecost. 'At that day' Jesus came to them with the sword of the Spirit in His hand to lead His people on to complete victory and full possession of their inheritance. Whilst He was with them in the flesh they rejoiced and entered into His blessings and shared in His ministry; now they were to enter into that which was their own. Having been faithful in that which was another Man's (His) they were given their own, and how truly they inherited and lived in it all in His name and power, and for His sake. Thus we see the way that circumcision finds its fuller outcome in victory under the personal captaincy of Jesus. We are to find our inheritance among all them who are sanctified; we are on holy ground. All the hosts and powers of darkness that have invested Mansoul are indeed defeated and destroyed in this Baptism, and we are to prove it so.
Finally, and in connection with this, before we leave this account of the Children of Israel at Gilgal, we will notice one thing more. The opening verses of this fifth chapter show quite clearly the defeated condition of the Canaanites. All that the people of God needed to do was to act with the moral courage of faith, in the spiritual power of Christ, under His leadership, and possession was assured. The inhabitants of the land were shut up in fear and trembling. The news of what God had done for His people in delivering them from Pharaoh had preceded them. Oh why then had they wasted their time in the wilderness of internal strifes and rebellion and revolution for forty years? All the nations in Canaan already knew and had known in their hearts for forty years that they were defeated; the defeat of the major power at the Red Sea had also been the death-knell to all other powers. All these knew it, and were afraid of the Children of Israel, yet the Children of Israel had been afraid of them. How paradoxical is the spiritual state to which disobedience degrades us! Nevertheless, we see that not only was their heavenly Joshua come to them at this time, but their enemies were found to be without power also. Our risen Lord has told us that all power is given unto Him in heaven and in earth, 'Go ye into all the world', He said, 'and preach the gospel to every creature', and 'lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world'.
When the Ark of the Lord of all the earth had gone over Jordan before the Children of Israel it was immediately followed by the armed men leading the rest of the nation on their way into the promised land. They were going to possess Canaan by conquest as well as by promise and gift. From this fact we have much to learn, because for us Canaan represents Mansoul. By crossing over in this order they staked their claim to the land in its entirety; they were in. So it is with us in regeneration. At the immediate point of our birth / Baptism the new life and manhood is assured; the soul is saved; the future is secured; the ultimate destiny is fixed; yet possession of all our possessions in the immediate and progressive future depends entirely upon obedience to our heavenly Jesus. Each individual of old had to possess his own inheritance for himself. At the time of crossing they all knew beyond question that they were the people of God and the extent of their land, but no-one knew as yet the particular lot of his inheritance. This each of them had to discover and possess for himself.
Whatever it meant to them then, today we must understand that the extent of 'the land' we are to possess is the entirety of the soul-state of the proper man, Christ Jesus. Each individual is promised and privileged, and therefore must possess the glory of that blessed state in his own soul; that is the fulness of the length and depth and breadth and height of the promise. But knowing it for himself he may not therein rest content, for the battle must be joined until all regenerate spirits commonly enjoy in their own souls Jesus' personal soul-life; this is 'the lot of our inheritance'. Not knowing the exact number of souls that are saved or are yet to be saved, our commission is to press on until all are in possession of their souls — until no power or state foreign to those known and enjoyed by our one Lord shall remain in the soul of any redeemed person. We all must enjoy our common heritage; in our souls all the promises of God for us in Christ Jesus must find fulfilment. The Lord seals us with His Spirit that this should be so, telling us that all God's promises are in Him 'Yes' and in Him 'Amen'.
In Jesus every one of God's promises was fulfilled as well as all the Law and the commandments and ordinances. He lived His eternal life in and by these to the glory of God the Father, that we who are in Him may also glorify God as they are fulfilled in us as our own conscious experience of eternal life. They were fulfilled in and enjoyed by Him to God's glory and it was precisely in this accomplishment that His soul-life lay: these same experiences that He knew are also our inheritance, for this is the life He laid down in order that we might have it. We do not fully inherit our land, that is the full possibilities and capacities of our souls, whilst living on this earth, unless by His Spirit we are enjoying His spotless soul-life. Being spiritually regenerated by the Baptism, we have to possess (take in possession) our own souls. We are saved from sin because He, having preserved His own soul from sin grants us to know and show forth His own victorious living. Our eternal spiritual inheritance is God, not a land; because He came to us as a Man we may truly inherit Him. Only as we do so shall we surely inherit true and fullest manhood here and now.
Because Israel of old became obsessed with their land and their possessions and not with the God of all the earth, they comparatively soon lost what they had gained. By this let us be warned in our day. We must not allow the present popular trend of preaching, which over-emphasizes the emergence and manifestation of the sons of God and their inheritance, and their ministry and gifts and joys and blessings and soul-states, to become the main content of our ministry, lest running on unchecked to its logical end, it should so fill our vision that we lose sight of Him. Should we do that we shall lose all. The subtle danger is all the more insidious because it lies unseen and unrecognized beneath the surface of such phrases as 'Body-ministry', 'Deliverance', etc. Talk about milk and honey, and vines and wines and pomegranates and inheritances and possessions could, if unwatched, result in the exact opposite of what is intended. God's purpose is to shift the soul from self to Christ, not from Christ to self. Ministry must be of Him and not of subjective experience, though the two must never be divorced. The latter is manifestly subject to the former, because it is and ever must be the proper enjoyment of it. I must be in Christ, not dwelling in self, or in mere joy or blessings or a hundred other additional soul-states that His salvation provides, wonderful and real in me as they are. Perhaps one of the biggest lessons we have to learn in these days is that which John on Patmos points out for all who have eyes to see, as well as ears to hear. When he saw the Lord revealed in the midst of the churches, John says that His body was covered. Head and hands and feet were exposed, but the body was thoroughly clothed from head to foot; it was obviously there, but hidden. Let us all agree to let it remain so. We are told to hold the Head, not the body, for the body is us. We are to hold and enjoy the experience of the Head; it is only for this that the Body exists at all.
We must therefore note the relationship between the destruction of the devil and all his hosts in the earlier picture of this Baptism and the full conquest of the land. This latter entailed many battles with many powers and princes until all had rest, while the former was a cataclysmic judgement resulting in total annihilation. A full study of the book of Joshua with this in mind would be out of place here, so confining ourselves strictly to the theme, we note that all the time the Children of Israel maintained the order of God and destroyed everything, leaving nothing to breathe, all was well. The joint lesson of the Flood, the Red Sea and Jordan is totality — complete, constant destruction. To disregard this fundamental lesson is finally to lose all. The Children of Israel proceeded in utter victory all the time they practised utter destruction. God ordered complete extermination of all the former inhabitants of Canaan, but altering that to partial extermination with a degree of subjugation, the Children of Israel brought about their own undoing. The land was never totally cleared of the seven nations that previously indwelt it, and was therefore never fully occupied by Israel alone. Conquest, sadly enough, was mixed with compromise which inevitably ultimately turned conquest into defeat.
The secret of utter victory is first to understand the devastating all-comprehensive power and intention of the cross, and then to carry it over into every situation of life. Paul, in I Corinthians 15, says 'thanks be to God who giveth us the victory'. Note the definiteness of it — not a victory, but the victory'. He also says in Romans 8 that we are 'more than conquerors'. What a glorious position! To fight a battle and win it is to be a conqueror, but if one lives in the blessing and glory of a former victory, enjoying what is won, he is more than a conqueror, he is a ruler and sharer of the spoil. Scripture assures us that Jesus divides the spoil with the strong. He won the victory and gives it to us, inviting us to live and rule in it with Him; His is a shared victory. This is His eternal life, which is the gift of God to us. There are too many people fighting too many battles, struggling to get the victory in their own lives, when they ought to be resting and ruling with Him. Because Paul needed not to fight his own battles, he was free to fight for other people. He had great conflict he said, but it was for the Colossians and the Laodiceans and others in need, not for himself. Like His Lord, he was free from his own inner conflicts, so that he could fight for the world of men that they also might enter into the victory of Jesus.
Certain it is that we shall never in this life, if ever, fully understand the mystery of Jesus' work at Calvary, and there will almost certainly be occasions when we are pressed out of measure beyond strength so that we even despair of our life, but this need not be because of inner conflicts. Jesus knew such times. Those who have experienced the true Baptism are crucified with Christ unto His death and resurrection within themselves, so that they can and do live by His faith and not their own. To such people inner conflict can only arise if they seek to re-introduce their own self-life again. Subtle or blatant assertion of one's own will, or questioning the wisdom of God, or disobeying the word of God, or seeking one's own interests will most certainly do it. Seeking one's own life and finding it destroys the work of God in the soul. By such things spiritual gifts sink into psychic powers (spectacular but not spiritual, and if persisted in, self-destructive), or fleshly demonstrations, or else they disappear entirely. But let a person seek nothing else except to fulfil and achieve the high calling of God in Christ Jesus, which is that same high(est) calling of God to which Jesus responded and followed throughout all His life on earth, and he shall entirely possess all his possessions — for that is exactly how our Joshua / Jesus possessed His.
Chapter Four - THE CLOAK FROM ON HIGH
The second book of Kings furnishes us with our fourth and final Old Testament illustration of the One True Baptism; it is to be found in chapter 2. This is a most important chapter, for by it the events we have been studying are linked with the New Testament in a most peculiar and direct way. Astonishingly enough, the link with the past is also directly established in verse 1 — Gilgal. Immediately we are at the very same spot where the Children of Israel first encamped upon emerging from Jordan. So once more, in order to obtain the fullest benefit from what these scriptures have to teach us, we must leap the time-gap. The Gilgal link is the intimation that the story now unfolding must be regarded as a direct continuation of what took place at Gilgal in Joshua's day.
The connection with the New Testament lies in the amazing identity of language and similarity of ideas found in this chapter with the writings in the New Testament concerning the Baptism in the Spirit. Such well-known words as 'tarry' (thrice repeated), 'head', 'mantle', 'the spirit', together with a wealth of other detail, are here set in the background of Elijah's translation and ascension into heaven. In general pattern this is all so like that which happened between the Lord and His chosen apostles and disciples during the vital Passover and Pentecost of the Gospels and Acts, that the obvious connection is too suggestive and apparent to be mistaken. The particular truth under emphasis here is the Church's need of the enduement of power from on high, and the way in which God has met that need. The names of the two men around whom the account turns have a significant meaning: Elijah, who represents the Lord Jesus — 'My God is Jah' or 'Jehovah'; Elisha, who represents the Church — 'Salvation of my God'. Through these two men we are to learn that the salvation which God has provided for the Church is greater than has been portrayed by the other three illustrations.
The almost cryptic statements of this chapter give rise to the same general impression encountered upon reading the Gospel accounts of the closing hours the Lord Jesus spent with His apostles on earth. He was pressing on to the time of His departure from this world, and one of the noticeable things about Him then is the desire He had for the human companionship of His apostles, especially the chosen three. Yet He knew that He must leave them all. 'Little children', He said, 'whither I go ye cannot come'. We find it to be somewhat like this with Elijah also. As he went on his last journey in company with Elisha, he said, 'Tarry here ... the Lord hath sent me to Bethel' — but Elisha would not tarry at Gilgal.
The Gilgal experience as recounted in the book of Joshua was preparatory to all that followed in the Promised Land, but vital as it is, it does not complete in man the work which God wishes to do for him. In order to live out on earth the eternal life in the Spirit to the very fullest possible degree, a man must also know the enduement of power from on high, the sacred anointing for service. Elisha in his day knew that. In order to follow the successful ministry of Elijah and accomplish all that was still needed in Israel, Elisha knew that he personally needed something more than he already had.
For a long time there had lain deep in his heart an unspoken desire. Later it was to rise to his lips and find confession in the crisis hour beyond Jordan, but as yet it lay unexpressed within him. He knew that beyond what he already had, he needed another spirit, and Elijah's behaviour and words at this time stirred within him the latent desire; it must be now. This, plus the growing determination to have what he desired, drove him on to reply with such vehemence to Elijah, 'As the Lord liveth, and as thy soul liveth, I will not leave thee'. So off they go together to Bethel; 'the house of God'.
While they were there the sons of the prophets made some very significant remarks to Elisha wherein they likened Elijah's removal from him to the removal of a head from a body. This was no strange news to Elisha, who was equally a prophet with them; he lived so close to his master, that he already knew about it, and had anticipated all they said. He deeply regretted the expected loss of his 'head', but knew it was of no use to attempt to prevent it. Instead, knowing its certainty, he wanted above all to make sure that when that 'head' was removed, the spirit of the head should be retained by and remain in him, 'the body'. More than that, without fail he wanted to receive a double portion of it. That is why the command to tarry at the house of God fell on deaf ears indeed. The sons of the prophets may elect to tarry there and be content with what they had, but that was not his choice. Anyway, Elisha was not a son of a prophet by natural generation — he knew he had been chosen of God, and he intended to go further and ensure to himself the knowledge of 'sonship'. He wanted the double portion of the firstborn as proof of it. What a wonderful example he is to us in this; he truly had things in proper perspective. From this man we may learn many much needed lessons. But for the greatest significance of his historic tenacity of purpose, let us examine some New Testament scriptures.
Following the words quoted above from John's Gospel, the Lord proceeds to speak to the apostles about 'His Father's house', John 14:2. He says that in it there are 'many mansions' or abiding places — halls of residence — places where God dwells eternally. The word here translated 'mansions', is also translated 'abode' lower down in this same chapter, 'We will come and make our abode with him', verse 23. This is one of the most glorious promises the Lord ever made concerning the purposes of the Baptism in the Spirit, and by it He made clear what is 'the double portion' of the firstborn in the New Covenant. The inheritance of those who are the firstborn of God by the Holy Spirit is both the Father and the Son. This constitutes a double portion of such magnitude that its fulness can never be comprehended nor measured; it cannot be adequately presented, even in the most glorious scriptures deliberately penned for that specific purpose. For instance, Jesus' teaching in this particular section is far greater in import and deeper in meaning than may at first be realized. General ideas concerning the Lord's words in verses 2 and 3 may perhaps be fairly stated as 'the Lord has gone back to heaven where He is now preparing a place for all those who are saved, and one day when His preparations are completed, He will come back again for them. Having received them to Himself, He will install each soul into its heavenly abode, where, in company with all the saved, it will dwell with Him for evermore'. The element of truth in this is very real, and as far as it goes is correct, but it does not go far enough to embrace the greater truth that the Lord is here seeking to fix in our hearts.
What the Lord is really saying here is that the important thing for His disciples to know is that they are part of and therefore have a place in the city which is God's abode for eternity. This is the whole point of regeneration. It is of far greater importance that a man should know he is God's dwelling-place than to know where he himself is going to dwell for ever. The knowledge of the greater wonder swallows up all need for concern about the lesser. When Jesus said, 'I go to prepare a place for you', He did not go immediately home but directly to Calvary. All that He did there was done as preparation for us to follow Him there afterwards. He had to go to the cross and endure death alone first in order that He may prepare it for Peter and all others of us in faith to go there afterwards.
Already there is a Man with the Father; He has gone to Him rising from the earth through death and resurrection. That Man was God on earth, and when He left the Earth and entered heaven, He did so as the one human being in whom God in all completeness had always dwelt. The grace of God to us in regeneration is that we, too, as He (unworthy though we are) may be God's abode(s) on the earth. To ensure that we belong to and are part of the Father's house in that heavenly realm in the eternal future, we must here and now already on the earth be His habitation. If this is not so with us here, we have no ground for entertaining any hope of it happening hereafter. For it to be so then it must be so now. The regenerate and Spirit-filled sons of God are abiding-places or mansions: for that very purpose He infills on the earth those whom He would indwell in eternity, thus assuring them of abiding in Father's House for ever. The glorious truth is that as Father with the Son abides in them now, each is a vital part of His heavenly house, being already one of His mansions or abodes.
Despite the fact that they had been with their Master for over three years, those to whom Jesus spoke at that time did not know Him, consequently they could not understand what He was talking about. It is sadly true that very little of the deepest significance of the Lord's teachings was understood by His apostles while He was yet on earth. Prior to the day of Pentecost, the greatest revelations of God relating to eternity were not given to men. Only God knew the end from the beginning, and He chose to hold back the revelation of His eternal abode until He should enlighten the apostles and prophets of the New Covenant about it all. We must bear in mind that in interpreting scripture, we have first to see the beginning from the end, for it is only by doing so that we can see the end from the beginning. It is quite impossible to interpret typology unless we first know the end to which God is moving, for all is designed to reveal that. We must always remember, when reading the Old Testament, that God was creating or engineering from His original thought a type of the end which He had in view, prefiguring and foreshadowing eternal things so that all history may conform to and teach one thing.
At Bethel we reach the point where the first hint of the wonderful head / body relationship between Christ and His Church is introduced into the story. The connection is most significant here, for Bethel was a place where many other precious things also occurred. It is the name conferred by Jacob upon the town formerly called Luz, where he dreamed of a ladder reaching from earth to heaven with the angels of God passing up and down upon it. He so revered the spot and cherished the experience, that he called the place 'the House of God'. Erecting and anointing his stony pillow for a memorial, he stood and made vows there unto the Lord. At the time it happened he was a fearful fugitive, fleeing from his brother's wrath. He was a complicated man, but deeper than all else in his heart lay a desire to go to the land of his father to seek a bride. Bethel was for him a place of rest and revelation en route to heart's desire.
Turning to the book of the Revelation of Jesus Christ given through John, the prisoner of Patmos, we read of his vision of New Jerusalem, the beautiful Bridal City. It was God's great house of many mansions descending from God out of heaven, the city where He dwells with His Lamb in the midst of His people in the New Creation for ever. Jacob was seeking a bride when fleeing to Syria, and seeking her he came upon the House of God. Jesus said that He came to be about His Father's business; at the same time He was seeking a bride: further still, He declared that He would build the Church which is His body. How wonderfully the whole truth takes shape before our eyes and how closely all is linked in the type as Elijah and Elisha press on to their united baptism.
John shows us His Lord's conception and revelation of New Jerusalem, the city in the heavenlies which is to be the metropolis of the New Creation. Beyond that, the city is also Father's House and the Bride of Christ; more, it is also the Church of the firstborn ones; even more, it is the Father's family, and even more still, it is the Body of Christ. She finally comes down from God out of heaven to be the New Earth(ly) House of God, the Tabernacle of which the Father and the Son are the inner Temple. It is the Royal City, the Temple City, the Priestly City, the Treasure City, the City of Love and Life and Light, the Glory of the New Creation. It far exceeds in beauty Jacob's Bethel or David's Jerusalem, or Solomon's temple, and to be a mansion therein is far greater than possessing all the possessions of the Joshua-type traditions of men, and all else beside.
But Elijah cannot stop at Bethel, and neither will Elisha tarry there, so on they go to the next place appointed of the Lord — Jericho. Possibly to Elisha this was a very puzzling part of the journey. A glance at the map makes it obvious that, except it was the will of the Lord that Elijah should go to Jericho via Bethel, it was the very last way he ought to have gone. Jericho is quite near to Gilgal, a distance of perhaps under five miles as the crow flies, lying south and slightly west across a tributary of Jordan; but Bethel lay about twenty miles almost due west and just a little north of their original starting-point. It was a very long way round indeed, except God had some purpose in it. Elijah was expecting his translation to heaven, so surely he would not have wanted to prolong the journey needlessly. All this must mean that there was some very real reason why he took this roundabout route to Jericho. Looking further, we see that the way back from Bethel to Jericho lay past, perhaps even through Ai.
This was to be a historic journey indeed, for Al held great spiritual meaning and emotional memories for the Children of Israel. In the first place this was ground over which Abraham, their early progenitor, had travelled in the beginning when, at the call of God, he had originally entered the Promised Land. On a mountain somewhere between Bethel and Ai, the great man had builded an altar to the Lord and had called on His name. It was the second of a series of altars that Abraham was to build in the land given him by God, and according to the record, marked the spot where for the very first time he called on the Lord. It was a new experience for him in his discovery of God; at that time he was only a beginner, a pilgrim stepping out into the life that later earned him the title 'the father of the faithful'. High upon the mountain, standing there by his altar that day, he could see Ai on one side and Bethel on the other, but he wanted neither of them. They could not attract his permanent attention, for Ai means 'a heap of ruins' and Bethel 'house of God'; but he was looking for a 'city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God'. He preferred therefore to continue living in a tent, rather than accept or live in a city that was anything less than the best or lower than the highest.
On the other hand, at the point of the story before us, Elijah was finishing his course, and Elisha was about to be launched on his. What a wonderful idea it was then to take Elisha over such hallowed ground, for how much could be learned from the life of the great man of faith and his experiences. Then again it was from Jordan to Gilgal, to Jericho, to Ai, that Joshua had led the triumphant army of Israel upon their original invasion and conquest of Canaan. How great this man Abraham is; everything that is of vital worth seems at some point to link up with him somewhere, and not less here than anywhere, for Israel's possession of the Promised Land under Joshua was only possible as a consequence of brave Abraham's lone faith. From him who had been as good as dead sprang the conquering seed that under Joshua came in to possess the land that God had originally promised to Abraham.
Over this ground of sacred memory and victorious faith Elijah led Elisha on their last journey together. Perhaps the absence of conversation from the narrative is intended to suggest that it was in contemplative mood that the two friends made their way to Jericho. Certainly nothing is mentioned of any conversation they might possibly have had; only the way they went, not what they said is recorded. It was as though the master, by taking his servant this long, hard way round, was testing the patience and endurance of Elisha's personal faith and also showing his pupil where the true riches and glories of his inheritance were rooted. Ai was the place where everything was conditionally given to God's people of old, whereas previously at Jericho all was to have been unreservedly God's. It was to Jericho that they were going, but their approach to Ai was in the exact opposite direction from that in which Joshua led the nation generations before. Under Joshua's leadership Israel proceeded from Jericho's resounding victory to Ai's delayed conquest. Whatever Elisha gained from the exercise, this reversal of direction on the part of Elijah seems to have been for the purpose of showing us, if not his companion, that all is sure if first all is the Lord's. It is a reinforcement of the same principle we have already seen concerning the relative importance of the two eternal dwelling-places, God's and man's. God's interests must come first; this perhaps is one of the greatest lessons we can ever learn. Oneness is the great secret of God, and in all life's lessons it is this He is seeking to teach us.
And so to Jericho the two prophets came, the place of total devotion to God, where Israel was tested as to their preparedness for the utter destruction of all flesh, which, so we are told, was exactly the reason for the Flood. At that time God said, 'the end of all flesh is come before me', and He instructed Noah to build an ark in which He would save the one man and family which He found to be righteous. Here, centuries later, we find God developing His plans. Moving on from His original revelation through Noah and his Ark, the Lord subsequently, through Abraham, brought forth for Himself a people in the midst of whom He was going to dwell on the earth. After the passage of centuries, having delivered them from Egypt, He led them in the wilderness and through Jordan into the land by another Ark, with the intention of eliminating all carnality from among them there. This He does by testing, finding, pointing, singling, killing and burning out Achan and his family from the nation, that no flesh should glory in His presence. What an unforgettable lesson this is. Elijah took Elisha to Jericho along this historic route, and if the younger man learned the lesson afforded, the long journey was well worth it.
The name Jericho means 'city of the moon'. Whatever connotations that may have had in Canaanite culture, or whether it meant anything to Elisha, we cannot tell, but there is certainly something here for us to learn. Elijah was the prophet of fire, who during the reigns of several Israelitish kings, had illuminated and dominated the spiritual and national scene like a great burning sun. But his day was ending; he had run his course, and was now going to be removed to his heavenly home so that Elisha should take his place. To be required to follow on in the steps of such a great master would be enough to daunt the heart of any disciple, however privileged he may be. Compared with Elijah, in the eyes of men Elisha must have appeared only some pale moon to a brilliant sun. Elisha's was an unenviable task; it seems that he alone of all the Old Testament prophets was called upon to fill such a role. But although history showed no precedents, he truly determined in his heart that he would be a worthy successor of Elijah; above all he wanted a double portion of the spirit of his master and head.
It had all started on the day when Elijah, in obedience to God's command to anoint Elisha to be prophet in his room, had implemented God's choice by casting his cloak over the man. This had provoked an immediate response in Elisha; his spirit rose to the full implications of the honour done to him and from that day he left all and followed Elijah. He knew somehow that one day the cloak was to be his, but as he followed and served Elijah, beyond the cloak he wanted in every way to reflect his Elijah. So great was his devotion to and admiration for that man, that his one desire was to magnify him, even though only as a moon its sun.
It is an extraordinary fact that this is the only place in scripture where a prophet was called by this method. This is how Elisha knew that he had been specially chosen. He was not anointed in the ordinary way. Beyond that which it signified, he had also been clothed. Beyond being a prophet, he was to be the prophet in Elijah's room. We cannot fail to see that in a most remarkable way Elisha typifies the apostles of Jesus of Nazareth. They were not anointed by their Master in the way that prophets are ordinarily anointed. They were prophets, and more than prophets, apostles, yet prior to Pentecost they moved and served as though anointed in a special way, and so they were. They, like Elisha, were called from their occupations and at times temporarily wore and bore their Master's cloak of power, but not until Pentecost did they wear it permanently. They, as Elisha, were cloaked, not anointed. He the Christ was the Anointed, and by His call and within His cloak they functioned until the day it all became theirs, and they found themselves anointed prophets in Jesus' name. But to proceed with our story!
Whatever the inward feelings of Elijah and Elisha at that time, neither of them could stay at Jericho. The great urge in the soul of Elijah was to go where the Lord sent him, and this was matched in Elisha's heart by the equal determination to go with him all the way; each man was only prepared to accept the inevitable. So when the sons of the prophets repeat to Elisha the already familiar word of knowledge about Elijah's departure, his reply was the same as before, 'I know, hold ye your peace'; Elisha knew that by divine election he was the spiritual heir of this prophet. Consistent with this, his master's repeated 'Tarry' continued to meet with the same uncompromising repetition of the vow, 'As the Lord liveth and as thy soul liveth, I will not leave thee'. So the scene is set. In this determination of spirit, each bent upon his own business and watched by fifty men of the sons of the prophets, they together turn their faces toward Jordan and stride out upon the last stage of their journey.
Perhaps Elijah led Elisha to the exact spot where formerly the nation came up out of Jordan into their inheritance; who can tell? It is known that Bethabara, the spot where John baptized, means 'the place of crossing', and perhaps we can hardly afford to miss the force of these implicit ideas. But be that as it may, it is certain that all these tremendous events took place somewhere in the same vicinity; however, the territorial or geographical significance is not the chief factor linking these events together; it is the spiritual link that is so important. It was God who chose the place for Israel's 'baptism' in Canaan, and sent Elijah to Jordan, and at a later date John to Bethabara and Jesus to His baptism there. It is He who wove the events of Israel's history into this pattern. History is His-story, and here in His story of Elijah and Elisha He has chosen to give us a preview of the vital and indispensable enduement of power from on high which came upon those who tarried in the upper room in Jerusalem to be baptized in the Holy Ghost and fire.
The significance of this passage of Jordan is unmistakable. We could not anywhere be told or shown more plainly the relationship between Calvary and Pentecost, or that the power of Pentecost is the power of Calvary. They are identical, as I Corinthians 1:18, 23 and 24 so simply show; the power of Pentecost (Acts 1:8) is the power of the cross and of the Christ crucified. The crucified Christ is the power. Going to the cross, He endued it with power so that it became effectual to Himself and to us, and He is now both Christ crucified and Christ the power of God. All the events that took place at that time are to be understood as one, inseparably one, even as this whole incident when considered together with the other three we have examined before, is revealed to bear a part with them of one baptism. Standing at Jordan's brink, Elijah took his mantle in his hand and with it smote the waters. Before their eyes, in a way now familiar to us, at their feet emerged a dry path over unto the further bank. Crossing over the river bed and through the waters together, they continued their journey on the other side, whilst the disrupted river closed its waters behind them again and returned to its former flow. It was over there beyond Jordan that the great miracle of the translation of Elijah to heaven and the transference of his spirit and power to Elisha was to take place.
Relating this to the person of the Lord Jesus, and with a view to deepening our own experience of His grace, we will turn to the New Testament and observe His actions as He drew nearer to His final hours with them before Calvary. All about Him the multitudes were milling around, busy about their preparations for the national feast, so He withdrew Himself from them in order that His final hours should be given over to the task of trying to make His own understand the importance and power of His death. The importance and power of His life they already knew, or they thought they did. They had openly rebelled against the thought of His assassination, and consistently refused to accept the fact that His death could, in any way, be at all beneficial either to themselves or to mankind. To them His death could not possibly mean anything other than disaster. They had no idea that it was the most vital part of His life work, and to have suggested such a thing to them would have evoked nothing but unbelief.
They did not know that Jesus' consummate act was dying. Rising from the grave was not His greatest miracle, although that may appear so to man. After all, given the fact that He is the Resurrection and the Life, rising from the dead was quite natural to Him once He had entered into death: dying was the greatest thing He ever did. But neither the article of death, nor the expiration of His last breath was the great death. Cessation of physical life was but the moment of release into the first step of His great triumphal procession through the many states of that unseen netherworld. A greater, indeed the greatest death, was His identity with sin: 'He was made sin for us'. To be made that was as death unto Him. To Jesus, death lay primarily in accepting responsibility for the full result of the spiritual condition into which Adam by transgression fell.
The dread of this lay on Him for hours in the Garden, long before He hung on the cross at Calvary, but He finally offered Himself, and His Father accepted Him, as the living sacrifice for sin. This done, on the cross at last God made HIM to be SIN; the life that was lived in the midst of sin without sinning was sacrificed unto Sin and God there. So He hung and continued meekly upon the cross until the Sin-state was terminated. Having accomplished this, He victoriously dismissed His Spirit into His Father's hands, and completed the whole work by dying physically.
Through His self-initiated and self-controlled physical death He signified that He had finished the spiritual death called Sin. Living through death was His greatest miracle. He had to be sacrificed for sin. Jesus did not die under the burden of sin, He lived under it — strangely enough, in His Spirit, over the top it. It never slew Him, He brought it to death by overcoming it finally on the cross. But this overcoming was not for Himself. He had always overcome sin and satan and had successfully resisted all contrary appeals to His mere human nature. On the cross He overcame sin for those other than Himself, who had always been overcome by it. But Jesus' disciples could not know any of these great spiritual truths before He died, for they were as yet all locked up in Him. All He could do was to inform them of the facts and try His best to teach them by symbolism and parable the things that He could not make them understand by words only. But let us return to the detail of the story in Kings, and follow it through to the end.
We take up the story at the point where the two men continue their walk together on the other side of the river — turning to his servant, the master asks what he should do for him before he was finally taken away from him. For Elisha the moment had arrived; this was a leading question, and it gave Elisha just the opportunity he was seeking. The request was practically trembling on his lips; it had lain so long in the depths of his admiring heart that without hesitation he voiced the matter; 'Let a double portion of thy spirit be upon me'. It was the greatest prayer he knew to pray, but the request was not the easiest thing to grant. 'Thou hast asked a hard thing', Elijah said, 'nevertheless, if thou seest me when I am taken from thee, it shall be so unto thee; but if not, it shall not be so'. With that they lapsed into silence and with this understanding between them continued their walk together, Elijah moving towards his glorification, Elisha concentrating upon the promise. There was nothing else to say or do, the next move was up to God. Suddenly it happened — seemingly from nowhere, Israel's chariot and horses of fire drove straight between them, parting them. This was swiftly followed by a whirlwind which singled out Elijah, encircled him in its powerful embrace and caught him up to heaven. It was almost quicker than the eye could see; he was snatched quickly away from earth and Elisha, and gone in a moment. But confused as he was, Elisha saw him and cried out, 'My father, my father, the chariot of Israel and the horsemen thereof'. He had succeeded!
Excited, elated, and triumphant, he established his claim to sonship and favour for the answer to his prayer. Believing with all his heart, in the absolute certainty of faith, he rent his clothes from his back, grasped the mantle which had fallen from Elijah, his head, and returned to Jordan.
The absolute vital certainty of that which took place out there beyond the river is this: it all happened because Elisha was in union with his master in life beyond death. This point is impossible of over-magnification or exaggeration. Elijah, the 'head' of Elisha, had ascended to heaven; Elisha, the 'body' of Elijah, remained behind on earth. The double portion of the spirit now took the place of the 'head' upon it, and the mantle of power clothed it. All had come from the wind and the fire. It is as true a picture of Pentecost as ever any of the prophets saw and presented. Seven things gathered up from the story speak to our hearts of the perfection of God. Jordan (death), Head (Elijah), Body (Elisha), Wind, Fire, Spirit, Mantle. We could require little more than this to speak more plainly or loudly to us of the unity of Calvary and Pentecost, for although these two events are separated by fifty days in time, they are not divided in spiritual reality or in the heart of God, nor can be in the experience of any member of His 'Body'; they are one and must be one in experience.
Standing there beyond Jordan, Elisha needed to do but one more thing in order to establish himself in Israel as the unique and fully authenticated representation of Elijah: he must come back as from the dead. To the astonishment of the sons of the prophets this is exactly what he did. Watching as Elisha walked up to the further bank of Jordan (probably to the spot where he had earlier crossed with Elijah), they saw him grasp the mantle of 'power from on high' in his hand and as Elijah before him, smite the waters flowing at his feet. At the same time he cried out, 'where is the Lord God of Elijah?' and to their amazement they beheld the scurrying waters flee away. Blessed Elisha; he was a transformed man. It all happened for him exactly the same way as it had done for Elijah before him, and he knew in himself that the unspoken answer to his cry was, 'with you, Elisha'.
Elisha came up from the river to the people in the name and power of 'the Lord God of Elijah'. To him, as to us, Jordan had symbolized both death and resurrection and the consequent emergence of the 'new man' clothed with power from on high. He did not come back from Jordan in his own name and spirit and power and clothing, but in another's. In this a twofold thing is accomplished: (a) Elisha links us back with Caleb, who came out of Egypt right into the Promised Land because he had 'another spirit in him'; (b) he also directly carries the continuity of the type of the One Baptism forward as from Caleb, thereby adding to it and delivering it in fuller development and glory to us who in this day claim to have another Spirit within, even the Spirit of Christ. Elisha came back from Jordan a witness unto Elijah.
It is a remarkable fact, worthy of notice in this connection, that the Lord Jesus Christ never referred to Himself as the 'faithful Witness' and the 'faithful and true Witness' until He was risen from the dead, (Revelation 1:5 and 3:14). This is markedly shown in the first reference, where the statement is linked with 'the first begotten from the dead'; in the second it is directly spoken by the Lord to the angel of the church at Laodicea, 'I am He that liveth and was dead and behold I am alive for evermore', He says, 'Amen'. He is 'THE FAITHFUL AND TRUE WITNESS', but the Laodiceans were not. The Church was not to Him what Elisha was to Elijah, and He rebuked them and deservedly so. The Lord grants unto His people infinitely greater blessings than Elijah gave to his servant, and if Elisha's experience could so transform him, how much more changed should we be who claim to be baptized with(in) the Holy Spirit. If Elisha 'rose' from Jordan with a new life of power to be a 'witness' unto Elijah, how much more ought those who now claim to be full of resurrection life and power be witnesses unto the Lord Jesus.
Elisha did not hesitate to ask Elijah for the double portion of his spirit; he knew very well what such a request meant. It was a bold claim. As far as we know Elijah, like Jesus, was a bachelor with no children of his own and no earthly possessions to leave anyone. So Elisha's request was a sure testimony to the fact that he believed himself to be the direct spiritual lineal descendant of Elijah. Elisha held a special place in Elijah's affections and he knew it. He was also fully aware that God had given him to Elijah with the strict instruction that he was to be anointed prophet in Elijah's room. Knowing that he was already chosen to highest office, he did not fail to grasp to the full the divine favours being conferred upon him, nor allow false modesty to deter him. Finally being associated with his master in his departure from this world, he laid hold of the opportunity presented to him with both hands. He knew that by appointment of God he had certain rights, and he was determined to receive them. 'My father, my father', he had called after the ascending Elijah.
Elisha knew that he was a son. More, he knew that he was the firstborn son, for without hesitation in his heart, or reproof either from God or Elijah, he claimed the double portion which was the inheritance of the firstborn. Neither false humility, nor lack of faith, nor fear, nor pride, nor sloth withheld him from seeking the favour; all the laws of God governing the right of inheritance were working for and within him. By spiritual heredity, by divine election, by sovereign grace, by the sacred bond of affection and by the desire of his heart he was Elijah's firstborn, indeed his only-begotten, therefore he asked for and received the double portion of Elijah's spirit. Beside this, he also saw and spoke of 'the chariot of Israel and the horsemen thereof'. It divided between them in preparation for Elijah's home-going, but it touched both of them, Elijah for departure, Elisha for continuance. Elisha knew that he was in the ongoing move of God; the fire had touched him.
The preciousness of it all was that the mantle first cast around him by Elijah was now his by heredity. The temporary had become the permanent. It was the one thing that the master left behind, perhaps the only earthly possession he had, and it was firmly grasped in Elisha's hand. Instead of a visible Elijah as his lord, he had the double portion of Elijah's spirit upon him as his invisible 'head'. The invisible spirit of Elijah had taken the place of the visible Elijah, and being upon Elisha, they were one, as head and body. So it is with us today, the Spirit and Jesus are one as head upon the body, the Church. There is no difference between them, they are one even as Jesus and the Father are one. Most probably it was in this sense that Elisha understood that Elijah was his 'head', and this being so would explain the pointed vehemence and sensitivity of his reaction over the remark concerning his head in the incident of the boys and the bears. It was an insult to Elijah, his 'head', the spirit of Elijah that was upon him who was now Elijah's body.
Now this experience did not turn Elisha into another Elijah. He never developed the romantic, fiery personality of his head; but reading the subsequent chapters of his life and exploits, we see that for every miracle that Elijah performed, Elisha performed two. The double portion of spirit apparently worked out in twice as many works of power. Perhaps in this we have a guide as to one way of interpreting the verse in John 14, wherein Jesus says to His apostles, 'the works that I do shall ye do also, and greater works than these shall ye do'— 'greater' referring to quantity rather than quality.
Earlier Jesus had made a somewhat similar statement to this concerning His own ministry, saying that He would Himself do greater works than He had already done (John 5:17-21). But He made this entirely contingent upon the will of His Father to show Him to do them; all evidently was dependent upon this principle of revelation — not desire, nor ability, nor power, nor authority, not even the anointing, nor yet love nor faith are sufficient. Although each is important and all must be there, not one or many, or all of these combined are sufficient for the ministry to which the Lord was sent and for which He was given of God. We cannot doubt that as it was with Him, so must it be for His apostles. Therefore, when making this promise to them, He adds to it the qualifying clauses, 'because I go unto my Father, and whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son', and 'if ye shall ask anything in my name I will do it'. It is important to observe that He does not say, 'the works that I have done', but 'the works that I do shall ye do also'. He is speaking of present not past activity; Jesus is still alive today and fully able and willing to do His works.
Two major dangers springing from a common root attend upon desire to fulfil this promise of the Lord; each is as destructive as the other. They are as follows: presumption to take a promise made exclusively to apostles and make it appear to have been given to all church members; and presumption to believe that because the gospels furnish us with a complete spectrum of the works of Jesus, He is expecting these to be done in exactly the same manner today. To fall into the first error is to find presumption akin to pride, as in Lucifer. There are those who may be called present-day apostles; these are not to be considered as being equal to the twelve apostles of the Lamb. Let the Church recognize them, and let them recognize their office and in all humility fulfil their calling, but let us not saddle all the saints with a burden they were not intended to bear, lest we be found deserving the Lord's stern reprimand about 'binding burdens grievous to be borne' upon those for whom they were never intended, without touching them ourselves. Our cry must be 'who and where are the apostles of the present-day Church?' We need them, and the cry must be to both God and man. To God, for He alone can give them, and to men for they must recognize them when they are given. We must re-read our New Testament without prejudice, determined to be free from traditions of men and set denominational interpretation, so that the Lord may guide us into all truth written therein. The Church is built upon the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the Chief Corner Stone among them.
He is our great Apostle, Prophet, Evangelist, Pastor and Teacher; indeed all offices and powers and functions and authorities are His. In fact, He is all, being both Head and Body, for they are only one; the body is His being, His fulness. All the many splendours of the person of our Lord are invested in principle and power and prescribed measure, and placed permanently in the Church, which is to perpetuate Him in the earth until it is translated to glory. Therefore, within the company of redeemed and regenerate members of the apostolic Church, the Lord chooses and sets in the body those who in their calling and measure must bear some of the responsibility and privileges of His own apostolic calling. These are the present-day apostles of the churches; that they may not be recognized or called by that name is immaterial, it is the office that is important, and they must function in it as such, or else the churches on earth cannot be built as they ought, nor function as they should.
The modern practice of trying to build upon evangelists, pastors and teachers is an error commonly inherited from forebears who equally erroneously believed that the twelve apostles of the Lamb were the only apostles the Lord ever chose. Whereas, although those twelve held an exclusive place in the Church, the apostles' office and calling did not die with them; on the contrary, upon their death the first apostles only vacated their positions for others to fill them. To say the least, this is only common sense, for commands and promises given exclusively to apostles may only be received and carried out by apostles; for others to attempt to do such things is both presumptive and abortive.
The second presumption is closely allied to the first, and it is the Lord Jesus who shows us the folly of it. We may observe that the blessed Christ, unique and all-glorious though He was, never presumed to know anything as of Himself as a man. To observe His use of the scripture provides us with an object lesson in this. He never read the Bible with a view to discovering a method or pattern to copy. neither did He seek to better the works of the many who had done miracles or shown signs before Him on earth. Instead, He depended utterly upon His Father to show Him what to do, and having accomplished His Father's will, He publicly disclaimed credit for any of the things He did. He accepted full responsibility for His works, but never took credit or glory for them in any degree. Such phrases as 'my Father doeth the works', or 'the words I speak unto you are not mine but His', or 'I must', were often upon His lips. 'When Jesus knew' is also recorded of Him, which plainly allows the inference that He did not know until it was revealed to Him of His Father. Further, a graduation in manifestation of works of power is also observable in His ministry, so that the greatest demonstration of power came at the end of His life; and all this was in order that the glory should be given to the Father. From this we see the truth of what He meant when He said that what He saw the Father do He also did likewise. It is almost as though the Father had first insisted to Him in principle what He later applied to His apostles in the Upper Room, 'the works that I do, Jesus, shall ye do also'.
This is most likely true, for it conforms to that which He expresses in prayer to His Father in John 17:8, 'I have given unto them the words which thou gavest me and they have received them...', having said a few moments before, 'I have finished the works which thou gavest me to do'. Surely one of the truest accusations that could be brought against us as ministers of Christ is that so often we fail to accomplish what we attempt to do. The world says that it is better to have tried and failed than never to have tried at all, and the degree of wisdom in that saying is beyond question, but if that were God's attitude we should not be saved. If it had been written of Jesus that He tried and failed it would have been in a forgotten book, the scripture of hell. Jesus said, 'the works that I do shall ye do also'. 'I do', He said, not 'I attempt to do'. The spirit that attempts or wants to try is human; God's Spirit always accomplishes what is His will to do. I AM, I WILL, I CAN, I DO, I SHALL, I HAVE DONE — that is God.
The indispensable factor needed by a human spirit indwelt and identified with God's Spirit for the successful accomplishment of His will is unfailing obedience to the original revelation, plus progressive instruction accorded us as we continue in that will. The New Testament gives the infallible revelation of the eternal truth in a general pattern. Within the scope of that must come personal revelation of the same order as that which the Lord Jesus knew. That what Jesus did He will do again, is a safe assumption, but to say 'I will do what Jesus did', however praiseworthy the motive, is presumption. We must learn to say, 'I can of mine own self do nothing'. If all God's children were brave enough to stop moving from calculations based on relationship plus understanding of the Bible, and commenced to live a life based on revelation which develops from communion with Him, failure would be practically eliminated from among us.
Especially is this so when we recall that the Lord Jesus is the firstborn from among the dead, and in grace calls us all to share His fulness and glory. There is a precious word in Hebrews 12:23, which ensures this to us by giving us a glimpse into the grace of God. We are told here that we 'are come to... the Church of the firstborn which are written in heaven'. The word 'firstborn' in this passage does not specifically or exclusively refer to the Lord Jesus, for it is written in the plural and could rightly be translated as 'firstborn ones'. We are not being told here that Jesus is the firstborn and that this Church is His Church; instead God is telling us that the Church is made up of people, every one of whom is a 'firstborn' (son). This, of course, must be so if the Church is His Body, for He is (all of Him) the firstborn. He is not just the firstborn head alone; the firstborn body together with Him the Head, comprises the whole of the firstborn. Therefore the whole Church of Jesus Christ has the right of the firstborn, and in measure ought to be the manifestation of the fulness of the Son, for being given to us, it is given to Him.
When of old Elisha asked of Elijah a double portion of his spirit, he was told by his master that he had asked a hard thing. Elisha was in no way encouraged by Elijah to make such a request — it was not planted in his heart by his 'head'. Rather it seems that Elijah rebuffed his servant and discouraged the idea; certainly according to the record, he made it plain that his spiritual heir was being difficult. But this is not the case with us; on the contrary it is our Head who first sowed in the heart of His own the idea that they should ask for the Holy Ghost. However, He found no response in His servants' hearts to this suggestion. The saying, apparently, was too hard or too big for them to grasp — certainly it was 'new'; no-one else had ever said that it was possible to ask for the Holy Ghost. Throughout Israel's history, the Holy Ghost had been bestowed sovereignly by God's will, not at man's request; no-one had ever asked for the Holy Ghost, so believing their theology rather than Jesus. Though the Lord had instructed them to ask for the Holy Ghost, they never did what He suggested to them and encouraged them to do. It was absolutely necessary that they should have the Spirit and this the Lord made plain to them, saying that He Himself would ask the Father for the Holy Ghost for them. In this, as usual, He went beyond all Old Testament laws and ideas concerning the firstborn. He promised them so much more than the restrictive commands and promises of the Law could offer, saying, 'at that day we will come unto him and make our abode with him', (John 14:20-23). Pentecost was to be the greatest day of their lives; it was to be the occasion when they entered into their inheritance as sons of God.
In Isaiah's prophecy chapter 9, verse 6, it had been written of the child that was to be born unto us — 'His name shall be called ... the everlasting Father'. Jesus' name includes within it hints of the everlasting fatherhood of God. This is not readily understandable at first, but He was quite conscious of His oneness with His Father, and said 'I and my Father are one'. He is unquestionably the Son of God, and if He be the Son, how can He at the same time be the Father? The answer to this question may be better understood if we examine the practices of ancient Israel concerning sonship and the distribution of wealth in a family.
It was recognized practice among the families of Israel that upon the decease of the father, a double portion of his total wealth was bestowed on the firstborn son; it was his special inheritance. The purpose for this extra gift was that by it he should be able to fulfil his responsibilities to the family left behind, which were as follows:
- He must care for (be a husband to) the widowed mother if she outlived her husband.
2. He must care for (be a father to) the younger children.
3. He must be (as he already was) a true brother to his brothers and sisters.
In other words, upon the father's death, the firstborn must fill the role or assume the position of the father; he must become the father-figure and fulfil his father's responsibilities to the family. Now it was for this purpose that the double portion was bestowed; it was the enabling or power (Gk. dunamis) given him from on high, or from his head. This enabled him in a very practical way to become the head to the body of family members left behind. Although the father was the head of the whole family, it was the firstborn to whom he was the immediate head; he was directly next to him in order of life and authority, and because this was so, could rightly be the continuing 'father', for he was the elder brother. Therefore we see the rightness of the gift, for only by the gift bestowed upon him was he enabled to fulfil the role or office which he held by virtue of his birth. The double portion enabled the firstborn to administer his father's love and bounty as well as to fulfil his father's will. Thereby, as far as was humanly possible, he took his father's place.
Properly understood, this common practice in Israel gives us some guide as to the position that the Lord Jesus held and fulfilled among men. He truly filled and fulfilled the role of the everlasting (age-abiding) Father to men, and especially to the household of faith. Being on earth as the Father's Son, He had within Him the double portion of the firstborn, for both the Father and the Holy Ghost were in Him, as the scripture says, '... in Him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily'. He was thus able to administer the will of the Father and use the gifts and distribute the bounty of the double portion as any had need, and discharge His responsibility to His Father and to men. Paul tells us that the head of Christ is God; so we see how He represents the head of the family to us, for as He says, 'all that the Father hath is mine'. The Son that is given has everlastingly become the Father-figure to us, for He eternally disburses Father's bounty to His family. So much then do we learn from the comparison; but by contrast we learn much more. In a manner far superior to that which any earthly heir could or was ever expected to achieve, He excelled all that Moses taught or the Patriarchs before him practised. Moving the whole concept of inheritance onto a higher plane altogether, He told His apostles that on the day the Holy Ghost came, both He and His Father would come as well. We find then that the basic right of God's first-born is a triple portion; Father, Son and Holy Ghost, the whole blessed Trinity of persons, all God.
The Lord is virtually saying, 'We will all come and make you our abode'. The glorious revelation is that by the Holy Ghost the Father dwells in His sons just as He dwells in the Son, and that by the Holy Ghost the sons dwell in the Father as the Son does. That is the miracle of all miracles. The Lord Jesus intends to share with us to the full His own precious heritage and for this He is pleased to call us His brethren. All that He lived and enjoyed of life and power from on high as a man on this earth He intends to share with His Father's family — He really does.
Observing Him, we see that before He was allowed of the Father to go out into His life of ministry, Jesus had to know a personal symbolic death and resurrection. For this, as Elisha before Him, He went to Jordan. There He submitted to John in order that in His day He too might receive the enduement from His Father on high. According to the unbreakable laws of life, under John's hand He was symbolically baptized into death, that it may be seen that only through death could He rise into the newness of the life of public ministry. This was not the same newness of life that comes to us by the putting away of sin, and cleansing from the filth of the flesh. Jesus' baptism in water did not represent the crucifixion, death and burial of His own Old Man and the destruction of the ego of self. He did not need it for that, and neither does any other man; but in order to be the perfect example, He did need the anointing or enduement with power for the new phase of ministry into which he entered. From that time forward He would no more return to the carpenter's bench at Nazareth, or as the 'firstborn' continue to provide for, or supervise the family now fatherless at home, nor would He any longer carry on the same duties or live in the same pattern of good works that He had known and fulfilled from His childhood. He put away His former manner of life so completely, and became such an amazingly 'new person', that when later He returned to His hometown and synagogue, everybody marvelled at Him and could hardly believe the evidence of their own eyes and ears.
Because that which Elisha typified in coming up from Jordan was fulfilled by the Lord Himself in His own life and ministry, it is also exemplified unto us by Him as a basic necessity for all the chosen ones. Elisha was identified with Elijah in death, refusing under any circumstances or pressure to be separated from him, therefore he came back from death with Elijah's spirit and power upon him. So also must it be with the true Church; not that we rely for our authority upon a scriptural type, but upon the pattern set by the Lord. Elisha went from Jordan with power unto a new life of ministry and works, and so must it be with the Church, for Christ crucified is the power of God.
Of old the Children of Israel came up out of Jordan under Joshua to take possession of and dwell in the land where they were to inherit all the promises of God. Therein they were to be taught the art of victorious living. Under their heavenly captain they went forth conquering and to conquer. From victory unto victory the Lord led His baptized people into possession of lands and cities, fruits and flocks and herds in abundance; they enjoyed a life of constant miracles, marvelling the while at the special works of power wrought for them by their great leader, Joshua. Following him, at his command and by his instruction, they also shared in those miracles, exploiting to the full the situations originally created by his faith and power. So they learned to possess and live in the land that flowed with milk and honey for them.
Likewise today there are many who enjoy the kind of life outlined by that type. They know truest union with Jesus Christ in His death and resurrection, and enjoy full victory over all enemies of the soul as they press on to the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ. Their soul is a land that flows with milk and honey as the rivers of the Holy Ghost flow through their spirit. The comfort of the sincere milk of the Word and the natural sweetness of honey are their basic soul-states, as those who meet and fellowship or live with them truly prove. They know miracles in their lives and love to recount them, and they are many. Truly they enjoy the fruit of the Spirit in all righteousness and peace, living and dwelling in the Light. Thus far they enjoy the great Baptism in the Spirit; but there is more, far more in this Baptism than as yet they have known. To recognize and accept and enjoy three quarters of the whole, even though it be the greater, or best, or most important part, is manifestly to be one quarter short of that whole. The Baptism set forth in scripture is as four-square as New Jerusalem; it is not just threefold but four-dimensional. In this further picture of the one great Baptism set before us, we are shown the fact and necessity of an enduement of power from on high, beyond putting us in a place where we can possess our own possessions according to the promise of God, this also places power in the sense of authority upon us for the proper preaching and presentation of the Kingdom of God to all people.
The Lord Jesus very clearly said three things concerning the day of Pentecost, which we must unreservedly accept and believe because they came from His sacred lips alone. The first is recorded in John 14:20, and was spoken in the Upper Room; the second is recorded in Luke 24:49, and possibly was spoken in the same room some days later after the Resurrection; the third, perhaps again in that same room some days later still, is recorded in Acts 1:8. These three are vital to our understanding of the mighty thing which God began in that Upper Room on 'that (great) day'. We have no proof, but only reasonable and perhaps sentimental hopes, that the Upper Room that became the Lord's Guest-Chamber for the last Passover meal of the old Order and the first supper of the New Covenant was possibly the same one in which He visited them after His Resurrection and ascension. It is an appealing thought though, for there is a sweet sense of 'rightness' about it, for that Upper Room was chosen by the Lord for Himself and His apostles. It was His provision for them in a hostile city where they would find few, if any other doors open to welcome them. But if He had opened a door for them, no man could shut it, and into it they would surely resort for refuge when the tides of hatred and persecution rose high against them. Then again it was a well-known place to others of the larger band of disciples, who although excluded from it upon the occasion of the Passover feast, must nevertheless have known of its whereabouts. This is proven by the sure arrival there of the two from Emmaus upon their return to Jerusalem in the darkness of the night following the first Easter day. Perhaps more than all this, the inherent unity of the truth of the three 'words' He spoke either sows or else strengthens the idea that the same Upper Room was the place where all the messages were given; perhaps also it was the venue of the consummating Baptism to which all three messages refer. Whether or not this is true, by those three 'words' the Lord informed these men of what they must expect to happen to them when they were baptized in the Holy Ghost.
The first was concerning inner knowledge of personal integration and union within the Godhead; 'at that day (Pentecost) ye shall know that I am in My Father and ye in me and I in you'. This was the dearest wish in Jesus' heart for them; it is by far the most important thing that takes place in the Baptism in / of / with the Spirit, and is therefore the foremost thing that Jesus mentions in this connection. For this He prayed on the way to Gethsemane, lovingly spending much time and thought upon it, expressing it audibly within the hearing and for the hearts of His chosen ones. It is a great mystery, although not the greatest mystery of all mysteries referred to in the Bible, for God Himself is that. This is surely the next greatest, and for this all other things spoken of as mysteries are and were and had to be; God and man — one; just one; only one; not two, but one. God wanted just that, and because of this, all mysteries other than the greatest have an explanation and a reason.
This is the real reason why Jesus Himself was born, and why He died, and rose again and ascended back to His Father. It was all done that in this process of successive acts and events He should eliminate, destroy or overcome everything that prevented us from being in and one with God. This was the impossible thing, it just could not be; God is God and man is man; in the very nature of things it was quite impossible for God and man to be one. Moreover, in the order of reason and logic, as well as in the nature and practice of philosophy and religion, and in the realms of true propriety and aestheticism, it is utterly improper for such a thought to arise. But Jesus said that on the day of Pentecost, following the Baptism of the Spirit, His disciples would know secret eternal being in the life of God. In certification of this, He said three things which would put the mystery beyond all doubt. Examining the words, it is apparent that they would each know - (1) where He was primarily; 'in my Father', (2) where they were eternally; 'and ye in me', and (3) where He was simultaneously: 'and I in you'; all was to be one great conscious knowledge. With such words He assured them with mind-baffling matter-of-factness that He would be in them as and when they were in Him, when and where and as He was in the Father. Apparently He regarded the amazing simplicity of it not worthy or necessary of comment or explanation; the truth is the truth and quite impossible of understanding before the event, and even then and thereafter only with the spirit as it becomes personal reality.
One of the surest ways of losing the point and power of truth that is intended to be enjoyed in the present is to relegate it to the future. If in this case we think that the Lord is referring to some future life in 'the hereafter', we shall miss all that He intended us to know and enjoy now. It embraces 'the hereafter' in the sense of future eternity, but only in the same way as Jesus intended it. Whilst He was still on earth He said that He Himself was in the Father and the Father in Him, and this kind of experience and knowledge is to be ours also whilst yet on the earth. Such knowledge is only offered to and can only be known by the inner spiritual consciousness. It cannot be understood until a person is baptized in Spirit, and then only as the carnal mind is forsaken and the mind of the Spirit functions within him. This then is the first thing that was wrought in these disciples at 'that day'. By the Baptism in the Spirit on the day of Pentecost they knew that they were as much part of God as Jesus — not uniquely or as originally as He, but certainly as really as He. Two scriptures, each a word from the inner consciousness of the apostles that wrote them, set forth this very truth, 'he that is joined to the Lord is one Spirit', I Corinthians 6:17, and, 'we are in Him that is true, even in His Son Jesus Christ', 1 John 5:20. No greater knowledge could be granted to man; it is the most amazing grace, the very ultimate of revelation concerning the fundament of eternal life — the Word fulfilled.
The second thing that the Lord assured them would happen was that they would be endued, or clothed, with power from on high. Referring back to the story of the two prophets, we see that to Elisha this aspect of the truth was very real. His cry at Jordan reveals his great heart concern about it, 'where is the God of Elijah?' he said. At the same time he was smiting the waters with the cloak which came down from on high. He placed no faith in the piece of clothing; his action was the spontaneous natural gesture that went with the cry, and he was copying what he had seen Elijah do. It was Elijah's God, not Elijah's cloak, that performed miracles. Elijah was God's Elijah — he had done God's works by God's power; but just because Elijah had gone up to heaven, it surely could not mean that God was quitting the earth also. Bold with faith, Elisha had therefore rent off his own mantle and left it in the wilderness; he would have no further use for it. That cloak was the mantle of Elisha, Elijah's servant, in which he had done all the former works of service relative to that position. Now he discards it, and in its place would wear Elijah's mantle as though he were the son and heir of that great man. From now on it should be his own, not Elijah's — he had no further use for it. The God of Elijah would now clothe Elisha with power as He had done his master and 'father' before him. Elijah being translated and the power being transferred, Elisha was now transformed. Elijah's position was now fully taken by Elisha; thus he became the Elijah figure which was God's figure to Israel. As Elijah before him had used it for his last great miracle, so Elisha now wielded the cloak for his first great miracle; it was all very spectacular. Afterwards, however, Elisha used it as it was originally designed and intended to be used — he wore it. As upon the original occasion it had been cast about him temporarily, so now it had been bequeathed him to wear; in order to do so he needed to discard his own — so this he did. Spectacular use upon special occasion it may have had, but beyond all that it was to become the habit of his life, his ordinary cloak.
It must indeed have been a spectacular sight for the watching sons of the prophets to view. Whether or not they saw the discarded mantle fall to the earth from Elijah's translated body we do not know, but it is certain that they had seen his use of it. And now, as though still in the hands of Elijah, but surely held in the hand of Elisha, it flew through the air with a flourish and fell with power upon Jordan like the voice of the Lord dividing the waters asunder. They did not then know that it was never to be used in the same way again, but it was a wonderful, heartening sight to behold. In the same sovereign power as Elijah before him, it was now God's intention for Elisha to move out over the land, and this he did, for he could; beyond Jordan God had done a mighty and amazing thing to this man. With a double portion of Elijah's spirit within, and Elijah's cloak to clothe him without, he commenced his true life of ministry to the people: Elisha yet Elijah — a true witness to his living head.
It is the latter fact that lies fundamental to the strange, and perhaps somewhat distasteful occurrence earlier referred to, which is recorded in the end of the same chapter. Returning from Jordan via Jericho to Bethel, he was met by a company of children. Perhaps they had seen him earlier when he had gone down the road in company with Elijah a few days before. Now they see this man coming up alone, his dynamic, flamboyant, romantic companion gone. Instead of the hairy Elijah, they saw this bald-headed assistant coming up the trail clothed in his master's mantle, and they mocked the colourless man. In their eyes he was a man who presumed to wear his master's cloak, but lacked his master's personality. They possibly knew nothing of the Jordan experience and certainly did not know what God had done for Elisha. They had not dared to mock at Elijah, the mighty prophet of Israel; the stories of his works and the power of his words were common among them, so they feared him, but they had no such regard for Elisha. They made the fatal and common mistake of having regard to persons; they had respect unto Elijah and not unto the God of Elijah. But the God of Elijah was also the God of Elisha, so Elisha cursed them for their mockery of God's work in him, and forty-two of them were torn of the she-bears.
The Lord Jesus is of an entirely different Spirit; He has instructed all New Testament prophets to 'love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you'. He teaches all His Father's children 'to be perfect even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect', but Elijah never taught his disciple any such thing. Elisha followed the example of his 'father' and 'head' who had not hesitated in the past to call down fire from heaven upon the heads of his enemies. He was indwelt by a double portion of Elijah's spirit and wore his Elijah's clothing, so he acted in the same vein as that in which he had seen Elijah act in the past, and doubtless would have seen him act again in this situation had he stood in Elisha's shoes, as Elisha stood clothed in his mantle at that moment. Contrary to Elisha and Elijah, our Jesus cited His Father's providential care, and by personal example teaches us that we must make the smiling sunshine of our love to rise on both the evil and the good, Matthew 5:44-48. What Elisha did was undoubtedly right as he saw it under a stern covenant of law, but such will not do today for those who, under a better covenant, are taught by Him who ended the old, to live in grace towards all.
It is not that mockery against the Spirit and power from on high does not deserve the same destructive punishment as that which Elisha meted out of old — it certainly does; but we are simply forbidden by Jesus to act in such manner, and that is sufficient. Beside this, all who are baptized into His body are given a heart to act as He, so that is all they wish to do. Only the thoughts and words and works of the head may be entertained and worked out through the body; there is no other way they can be done, and certainly no other life than His ought to be lived in His own body. Elisha was a representative of Elijah; Elijah's spirit was in him, so he had the fixed attitude of heart and mind to do the works and carry out the identical wishes of his head. It was all correct enough then and should teach us a great lesson. If this man, under the relationship he had with his head, could act in such manner, how much more ought we, who have the Spirit and attitude and thoughts and words and works of our Head within us, be able to do and speak as our Head. There is no more excuse for us acting according to the Elijah / Elisha relationship than there is reason for expecting Elisha to act according to the Christ / Church, Head / Body relationship which we enjoy. We are in a better covenant, based upon better promises; there is no excuse for degeneracy.
Nevertheless, so great are the uses of types, and so many and varied are the lessons to be learned from them, that we may find yet another solemn level of truth lying just below the surface of the incident we are considering. The humble Lord Jesus said that all manner of blasphemies and sins committed or spoken against Him could be forgiven, but that blasphemy against the Holy Ghost never has forgiveness, either in this world or the next. In this story of Elisha and the children we have a dim foreshadowing of that fact. When those ignorant 'young lads' (margin) mocked the spirit and power of Elijah in Elisha it was fatal, for in a figure Elisha had been baptized in and was full of the Holy Spirit. In a different yet somewhat parallel experience to be found in the New Testament, Ananias and Sapphira also discovered that fatal consequences resulted from their agreement together to deceive the early Church and tempt the Holy Spirit. By such tremendous apostolic judgement as that which was meted out to these two, the early Church was kept pure. Perhaps we shall find that their sin will find forgiveness in the next world; it certainly did not in this. They were cut off before anyone had a chance (even if they had the desire) to plead with them to repent. Summary judgement, approved of God, swiftly executed, removed them from the possibility of setting up a cancer in Christ's body on earth. If they are members of the body of Christ they will be dealt with as such. If they never were such, but total impostors (the text does not support that view), they went swiftly down to their doom. If they blasphemed the Holy Spirit (and again there is no evidence that they did so in the ordinary recognised sense), they are eternally lost, but if not, they will be saved, 'yet so as by fire' (1 Corinthians 3:15).
It is refreshing to find that the precious cloak of Elijah / Elisha was never held or passed on as an object of superstitious veneration. We do not find that the sons of the prophets ever vied or competed with each other to obtain such a prize, nor that Elisha passed it on as an heirloom to some 'son' of the faith, or that anyone in the ministry asked it of him. The mantle was an outward symbol of power, that is all. Elisha put it to a miraculous use, but its prime purpose was to clothe and warm and protect and cover its owner. In a manner similar to this, Jesus says that we are to be clothed with power (Gk. ability) from on high. He did not say that we should be given power in our hands, but that power was to be our clothing, a very different and vastly superior thing. Pride, greed, and misunderstanding often put things to superstitious uses and invest things with improper meanings, causing men to perish in grasping for possessions and positions which they may not be intended to have; but faith perceives all and patiently strengthens itself by gaining knowledge and understanding of the real purposes of God in the one true Baptism. The Lord did not intend that all of us should perform outwardly observable miracles, but He does intend us all to wear that mantle of power.
The first and most important thing a man must know by and about the Baptism is this — that Jesus is in the Father, and that where He is, there he is also; he in Him, and He in him. Already we are in the eternal relationship for which He prayed in John 17, saying, 'Father, I will that they also whom thou hast given me be with me where I am'. Paul tells us that we were chosen in Christ before the world began; conscious faith-knowledge of this in a man's spirit will lead on to understanding and experience of the soul's full function in its heavenly calling on earth; the meanwhile he will still be reaching out into the future to attain unto his own high calling of God in Christ Jesus. This can only happen in us as we recognize and consciously unite with our Head in His Baptism into our death, that we also might be associated with Him in His death. That being so, we may stand with Him also where He stood in His Jordan anointing.
The place where the feet of the priests that bore the Ark stood firm on dry ground in the midst of Jordan was clearly marked by Joshua with a cairn of stones as the place of crossing. Centuries later, when by divine appointment John Baptist came to the same river to baptize, he chose Bethabara, 'the house or place of crossing', because there was much water there. It was to this place that Jesus came in order to fulfil all righteousness and to emerge from the waters unto His anointing into the ministry, for which He was 'the Anointed'. Clothed with power from on high, He went in all the authority of Christhood unto all Israel. Let present-day prophets and their sons stand to view this thing in all its implications, that we all may be found true Sons of God indeed, and not be wasting our time grasping at empty shards or cloaks of power to cover our naked impotence. Let us recognize that power from on high is to be worn by us as the everyday clothing of the Life which the Lord Jesus once promised, and has now provided for all His people.
Because the Lord Jesus has left the earth and gone up on high, we are not to think or act as though God has left the earth. Paul says that 'Christ is God's', but he also says, 'and ye are Christ's'. Elijah was God's, but Elisha was Elijah's, and perhaps it is high time we had in our hearts a similar cry with relation to our Head as Elisha had to his, 'Where is the God of Jesus?' Before His ascension the Lord sent Mary Magdalene to His disciples to tell them that He was ascending to 'my Father and your Father, to my God and your God'. In taking His Son back home, their Father and God was not planning to quit the earth or to withdraw His power from men; He was simply proceeding with the plan which the blessed Trinity had prepared before the foundation of the world, and had now instituted, for the complete salvation of men. Jesus had told them that He must go away. He had to go in order to make way for the Holy Ghost to come, and the next stage of the plan to be introduced. The Holy Ghost would not come until the Lord Jesus went, for man must ask for Him as Jesus had said, Luke 11:13. His word being neglected on that occasion, Jesus had to go Himself and ask for, receive and pour out the promised Holy Ghost for men, that in one great act He should both baptize His disciples in Him and give Him to them at the same time. This was all part of the plan, so having been given the Holy Ghost by the Father, Jesus had the joy of sending Him upon the disciples. This is why, upon rising from the dead and before leaving the earth, He told them to 'tarry in Jerusalem' for the enduement of power from on high, which would be the result of the Father's promise being sent upon them. For this to take place Jesus had to be in heaven, for He has heavenly work to do which is absolutely indispensable to our continued salvation, and because He is doing His heavenly work for us we must be doing His earthly work for Him.
Quite clearly God must still be at work in the earth now, for some of the works which Jesus did while here He had only just commenced, Acts 1:1. Before He died He had already completed much, as He said in John 17:4, but when He died He completed so much more; in fact, all the fundamental work that was needed for our total reconciliation to God. When He arose He had completed even more; and when He ascended He commenced a completely new phase of heavenly ministry, without which we can no more be saved than without Calvary we could be redeemed. But much more had been left unfinished on the earth, and much had not even been initiated, nor could be except man receive the Holy Ghost. So by this heavenly ministry, which He now constantly pursues, we are intended and enabled to continue the works which He purposely left unfinished upon His death, namely evangelizing, pastoring and teaching the world of men. This we are to do, as far as we are able, in His name, and in the same manner, and by the same power by which He did it in His localized ministry to Israel. Precisely because we cannot continue this ministry of the Lord apart from being clothed with power from on high, He returned to heaven and sent the Holy Ghost, for the work can be done only by this blessed Person in us, I Peter 1:12.
When Elisha rent off his clothes beyond Jordan, he became thereby basic man. Typically he went through a crisis wherein he the servant was transformed by putting off himself as concerning the former manner or habit of life, and he did it in order to become a son. To use another New Testament scripture, he 'ceased from his own works as God did from His', Hebrews 4:10. Vital as it is that we should claim the death of the Old Man at Calvary, it is also absolutely necessary to put him off as to the clothing, or habit of works we do. Failure to do this is the reason why so many do not put on the new man as regards the kind of life-work they do. Thus, with a certain amount of Calvary's benefits, men commence a life which is clothed with 'own works'. To be sure these are not all the works of the ethically bad flesh, such as are listed in Galatians 5:18-21, so obviously distasteful and obnoxious to the sanctified soul. Being in benefit of the transfixion of the Old Man on the cross by our Lord Jesus, instead of continuing the works of the flesh, they now bring forth the fruit of the Spirit. Basically good and indispensable as this is, there is that which is still better, as we shall find from observing the ways of the Lord God Himself as recorded for us in Genesis chapters 1 and 2. We believe devoutly that the works which God did during the six days of creation were none of them evil, but all good, and at least one of them was very good. But we are told that He ceased from all His good works when He entered into His rest. Works are good; some are very good: but rest is excellence.
We may see this even more plainly shown to us in the person of our Lord Jesus. There can be no doubt that from boyhood onward until He was thirty years of age, Jesus did good works. But from the moment He was anointed in Jordan, He never returned to Nazareth to live His former life and do those former works again. He entered into His rest, a state of ceasing from His own works in order to do His Father's works instead, so that they then became His works. He did not cease from his own Jesus of Nazareth works because they were wrong or wicked, but because He was given some greater works to do by and for His Father and in His Father's name. Jesus Himself was the bodily fruit of the Spirit as outlined in Galatians 5:22 and 23. He embodied these from childhood, and the works that He did were a natural corollary of that fact. Attendance upon worship, prayers, scripture reading, running errands, visiting the sick, maintaining good works for necessary uses, all these and more, with self-denyings and fastings and goings and comings with their attendant virtues and rewards a man may well do, and yet be doing his own works as springing from his new nature by the Spirit, for undoubtedly Jesus of Nazareth also did them.
They are the 'naturals' of the new nature, and the New Testament writers spent much time and space in eulogising them and exhorting their readers not to neglect them, for they must have a very real and proper place in the life of the churches. Yet from the anointing onwards, Jesus ceased from living wholly absorbed in them as being the normal, fixed pattern of His life, and this He did in order that He might give Himself to the works that His Father gave Him to do. This revolutionized His life. Similarly, although not then born again, those disciples who left all and followed Him, working under the delegated authority of His anointing, ceased from their own works, both natural and religious, and did His works. Here then, the new realm of ministry is revealed. We cannot bring our own works into it but must cease from them in order that the new works of God should become the preoccupying fulness of life.
Elisha's former works were good, but he stopped doing them and commenced better works. We sometimes act as though all the good works that a good Jew or a devout humanitarian, or a sincere social worker can do, providing our motives are right and we have an assurance of salvation, are really Christian works, for we do no better than they, and perhaps no more. To cease from our own good works and do the Lord's works is our privilege. Good self can do so much good; but good Jesus said, 'I can of mine own self do nothing'. His own clothing with power from on high revealed 'this to be an absolutely accurate statement; it also guaranteed the continuance of it as He walked in obedience to the Holy Spirit.
All this leads us on to the third saying of the Lord in connection with the Baptism in the Spirit, Acts 1:8, 'Ye shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you and ye shall be witnesses unto me...'. More literally the text reads, 'Ye shall receive the power of the Holy Ghost coming upon you'. The Lord had said previously that the power was an enduement, or clothing from on high. Clearly then, apart from this enduement, it is totally impossible to be a witness unto Him. These men were already witnesses of the things regarded as the fundamental, historical facts of the faith. Indeed, one of the reasons they were originally chosen to be the apostles of the Lord was that they should personally observe those facts and bear testimony to their accuracy. He as good as said this to them when they accompanied Him on His journey to Gethsemane from the Upper Room, John 15:26 and 27. They had all seen the betrayal in the garden and between them had either directly seen or indirectly heard of all the things that followed upon Judas' terrible deed; they witnessed the trials, the scourgings, the mockings, the dishonouring, the crowning with thorns, the crucifixion, the blood, the dreadful cries, the death, the tomb, the infallible proofs of His Resurrection, and afterwards His ascension; everything. Their knowledge of facts was complete, but their ability to be witnesses to HIMSELF was nil; yet this is the most important thing concerning witnessing.
Understanding the teachings of the Lord aright, we discover by many statements and illustrations that it is more important to be someone than to do something. The first thing to learn is that we must be witnesses unto a Person, and that person indwelling us. After that we may witness unto His works and words by doing and saying the same kind of things that He did and said. Presumably, before these men were baptized in the Spirit they could have gone everywhere telling the historical details of the birth, life, teaching, miracles and death and resurrection and ascension of the Lord Jesus. They could have attempted to fill the world with books concerning Him, but that was not what He wanted of them. It is quite natural and so perilously easy to impart knowledge of things to others, and yet all the time and thereby be nothing but a witness to oneself. It is tragically true that all too often this is being done, in the mistaken hope or belief that such is gospel preaching, whereas the gospel can only be preached 'with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven' for the purpose.
It is of course the great desire in the heart of God that the gospel should be preached in all the world and to every creature, and that certain signs should follow them that believe, but that is not the first purpose for which the Holy Ghost comes upon people. Jesus sent the Holy Spirit that we all should be witnesses unto Him; each of us must be living, undeniable evidence of Him; proof that He is, and that He is Who and What He is, and that He is with men. This is what He means, therefore, when He insists that we must be witnesses to Him. We must be the kind of people He would accept and choose if He were seeking someone infallibly to show others that He is the living true God and Saviour of mankind. Primarily His evidence to the world is not phenomena or facts, but people; neither is it past history, but present life. This obviously follows from the first thing He said in the Upper Room concerning the coming of the Spirit. It is a logical outcome of the knowledge of union within God.
Nature itself can teach us lessons along this line. Learning from the world around, we may observe that a degree of identity is often achieved in nature as a result of union between two living organisms. Much more in the realm of the Spirit, things that are impossible in the natural order by reason of their very naturalness can be quite easily achieved. The degree of identity as a result of union in the spiritual realm is so profound, so far exceeding anything in nature, that the apostle Paul could write such verses as Galatians 2:20, 1:15, 16 and 4:14, and be found speaking the truth. He was a man Jesus Christ chose, equipped and ordained as a witness unto Himself. Receiving the Holy Ghost three days after his meeting with, and conversion unto Jesus Christ, he was simultaneously born again and filled with the Spirit to become a chosen vessel unto the Lord Jesus. So real was this to both the Lord and Paul, that the new human vessel could immediately bear Jesus' name before and to men. That is the degree to which he and the Lord became one. He was that kind of witness unto the Lord Jesus; he spoke His words, did His works and bore His name. The fulness of the Spirit alone makes all this possible in a man, and it is marvellous beyond degree.
There is much confused thinking about this Baptism. Many think it is only an enduement with power for service, but neither the Lord Jesus nor any other person in scripture says it is. Indeed, on the contrary, all the apostles who were with the Lord Jesus while He was on earth had already received both power and authority from Him, and had been serving their Master and men with miracles many months before they were baptized in the Spirit. We see therefore that the scriptures themselves show, that power for service can neither be the real nor the most important reason for this Baptism. This is not to say that anyone should attempt to serve God before he is baptized in the Spirit, for that is as impossible as thinking that an unborn child is capable of service. To try to do such a thing is as wrong as believing that the prime and directly stated purpose for the Baptism is service. The presence of the person of the Lord Jesus Himself, on the earth with those men of old, was imputed to them then as supplying all that the Anointing of the Spirit supplies to men now.
Again, many think that this Baptism is only in order that men may exercise a ministry of the miraculous not otherwise possible. But not only had the apostles cast out devils, and healed the sick, and cleansed lepers long before Calvary or Pentecost, so also had the seventy others, who because of the pressure of work the Lord appointed to service during His lifetime. Perhaps all these were there in the house on the day of Pentecost when the Holy Ghost was first shed abroad. It is a nice surmise; but be that as it may, it is certain that to all who were there the Baptism in the Spirit had to mean something much more than an ability or empowering to perform miracles, for this, many if not most of them could already do. However, privileged as they had been, in doing such things they had not been witnesses to Him as He wished them to be. This the crucifixion proved beyond doubt, for betrayal, denial, cowardice and unbelief caused them all to forsake Him as He was led away like a lamb to the slaughter. One solitary figure, He witnessed entirely alone to Himself; they all together witnessed to themselves; so great was the difference.
The Greek word 'witness' means 'martyr', and at that time none of the apostles were willing to be apprehended, tried and crucified with Him. Despite the affirmations they all made to Peter's plainly spoken words, 'If I should die with thee I will not deny thee in anywise', they had no heart for it. None of them as yet had the martyr spirit, or power to fulfil their pious hopes, so their statements were quite valueless, well-intentioned though they all were. The Lord Jesus was one lone, true and faithful Witness on earth; at that time they were not witnesses, although they were disciples. The martyr / witness spirit is born in a man when he is born of the Spirit, and this they did not then know. At times during His ministry the Lord did and said things that showed the spiritual source from which all His works and words flowed. One such occasion was the incident that took place in Gethsemane, when they came with lanterns and staves to apprehend Him, Jesus asked them, 'Whom seek ye?' They answered Him, 'Jesus of Nazareth'. In answer He simply said, 'I am', and they all went backwards and fell to the ground. Such was the impact of eternal truth upon them. He only told them who He was and is and ever shall be; He was simply being the faithful and true Witness to them, that is all; from this example we learn that witnessing is primarily a matter of being, not of doing.
However, we must not lose sight of the fact that there is an empowering or authorization for service other than and distinct from the Baptism in the Spirit, but under no circumstances must this be confused with it. It is less than it, and we should be deceived as well as foolish indeed to be satisfied with it as a substitute for the Baptism, good and right though it is. The Baptism in the Spirit is for life, not service. That it is with a view to service is true, but it is as utterly superior to it as the Earth is superior to the buildings built upon it. The importance of noting the difference between the two is brought out by the Lord's own statement in Matthew 7:21-23, wherein He is quoted as saying to miracle-workers who claimed to be doing their works in Jesus' name, 'depart from me, I never knew you'. The word 'know' here does not refer to intellectual knowledge, but to knowledge gained by union and identity with another spirit. The Lord is making clear to us that likeness of works does not mean identity of spirit; that is accomplished by the Baptism alone.
Paul's remarkable statement in 1 Corinthians 15:10 draws our wondering attention to this man's simple testimony to the same truth. His language concerning himself is almost exactly identical with the words that God uses concerning Himself in Exodus 3:14. Identifying Himself to Moses, God says of Himself, 'I am that I am'; and Paul, using language almost exactly the same as God's, says of himself, 'I am what I am'. Only the change of one letter marks the difference between God and man, between infinity and finiteness; but by the comparison we learn that Paul was as conscious of eternal being is as God: God, because He is God, and Paul because God is God, and the grace of God which had made Paul what he was. This is the greatest function of the grace of God — by it He makes a person conscious of being alive with the identical life of Jesus Christ.
This then is the prime factor of witness; it provides indestructible proof and irrefutable evidence that the testimony already given is absolutely true. Jesus of Nazareth made the original testimony; He claimed that He was the Son of God, and for that unswerving testimony to truth the Jews insisted that He must be crucified. When He stood before the Sanhedrin the high priest asked Him, 'Art thou the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?' and Jesus said, 'I am, and ye shall see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power ...' That settled it; so saying He sealed His doom. He died because He was the faithful and true Witness, the I AM, the Son of God. It is to give further evidence to this that all the true witnesses are raised up in every generation. But before each witness can be living proof that Jesus Christ is Lord and God, he must be able to say of himself, '1 am a son of God'; more, he must also be able to demonstrate that fact or his evidence will not be believed. For this he will need to know the fulness of the Baptism — he must speak the words and do the works as well as live the life. At any time to any man Jesus Christ should be able to say of every one of God's children, 'this is My witness; I produce this person; he is My undeniable evidence; he proves that I AM'. This is just what we see in the Acts of the Apostles. The early Church comprised such men and women. Each of them was such a personal witness to Jesus Christ that collectively they were the faithful, true and living witness that Jesus Christ is, and that He is God, and that His claims are genuine.
In order to be the true Church, the Church must be the revelation of Jesus Christ; the justification of His claims, the incarnation of His Spirit, the idealization of His desires, the expression of His mind, the perfection of His love, the glorification of His suffering, the manifestation of His presence, the demonstration of His ability, the realization of His hopes, the consummation of His being; and all this by identification with Himself. Such is the purpose and power of grace. It is recorded in Hebrews 2:9 and 10 that the Lord Jesus is the Leader of the file of many witness-sons He is bringing to glory.
So far as we are able to tell, the next son that went to glory following the Lord Jesus was the martyr / witness Stephen. His death is not the first death to be recorded in the Acts of the Apostles following Calvary. Before him Ananias and Sapphira had gone to their death, their hearts filled by satan; excised from the Vine because they bore no fruit; 'men gathered them up', carried them out and buried them. But Stephen, a man full of the Holy Ghost and faith, standing under trial with his face shining like an angel, speaks first of the glory of God that appeared to Abraham, and lastly of Jesus whom he saw in an open heaven, standing on the right hand of the throne of God, rising to meet him, greet him, welcome him home. In every possible way Stephen was a witness to Jesus Christ.
Of course, being a witness involves much more than having just sufficient life to enable us to live. Jesus Christ did more than just live. What He did and said was important also. His life was as virtuous when He was twenty as it was when at thirty He presented Himself to be baptized in Jordan, and it was only because of this that the event took place as planned by His Father. He was conscious of this, and told John quite plainly that He had come to him to fulfil all righteousness — that is, so that both past and future righteousness should be fulfilled. Because of this He earned and received His Father's public commendation, and was anointed and sealed under His Father's loving approval, 'Thou art my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased'. Thirty years of living unto Father's good pleasure were followed by some three years of pouring out the blessing bestowed upon Him as a result of such well-pleasing. The power (Gk. 'dunamis' = ability) to live had been innate since His birth, hence His claim — I AM ... the LIFE. So when the authority (Gk. 'exousia') of Christhood came upon Him at Jordan, He naturally ministered in all power and authority as a result. What years of outpouring they were; the whole country was reached and stirred and challenged by the witness of one single life.
Truly, as Isaiah 55:4 says, He was given for a witness, firstly to God and then to men; and so must we be. As the Children of Israel of old were Jehovah's witnesses (Isaiah 43:8-13), so are we now to be Jesus' witnesses. Jehovah claimed the entire nation of Israel as His witness to the fact that He is, and was, and ever shall be God. So does Jesus claim the Spirit-baptized ones as witnesses that He is, and was, and ever shall be God. It is sadly true that Israel failed in their witness, but whether they failed or succeeded made no difference — in their day they were still the infallible proof that God is. No less than they, and even though we too fail, which God forbid, the true Church of Jesus Christ is the evidence He advances to the world in proof of His eternal being. We should not fail; there is no excuse.
The Church of Jesus Christ is so much more blessed, and has so many more advantages than Israel, that comparison between them must give way to contrast as the two peoples are viewed in the light of scripture. For which of the pictorial events called baptism through which Israel was led could do more than typify the mighty Baptism wherewith we are baptized? And what of Elisha, in whose experience both the watery and fiery 'baptism' and consequent enduement with power from on high combined? Did any of these thereby know identity with the person of Jesus Christ and inclusion in His body? No, not one; reference to Luke 9: 51-56 gives a clear insight into that fact. Reading these verses, we find that James and John wanted to act like Elijah and call down fire from heaven to destroy the Christ-rejecting Samaritans, but the Lord summarily rebuked them: 'ye know not what spirit ye are of', He said. To do what they wanted to do would have been quite contrary to the Spirit of Jesus Christ.
As we have seen before, Elisha had found it quite possible and desirable to have two she-bears come out of a wood and maul a whole company of children, who suffered for no greater crime than that they cried, 'Go up thou baldhead'. The reason he found it so easy to will and to do such a thing is not hard to find. He was the direct spiritual lineal descendant of a man who called down fire from heaven to destroy people; he therefore found no difficulty in acting in that same spirit; it was the spirit of that age under that Covenant. Had he been baptized into the body of Christ, he could not have done what he did; he was of the ascended Elijah's spirit, so he just continued Elijah's works and will; and upon the occasion of which Luke writes, so also were the apostles. Because they were not yet baptized in the Spirit, they were not of Jesus' Spirit, although they were Jesus' chosen apostles. They were functioning by Christ's anointing, but because as yet they were not of His Baptism and not therefore baptized into His body, they were not of His Spirit. To be of His Body and His Spirit, a man must be baptized with His Baptism.
Although the apostles had responded to the call of the Lord and were learning of the New Covenant, as yet its deepest secrets were not revealed to them; spiritually they still belonged to the Old. The Baptism in the Spirit entirely changed this, for by it they were initiated into and integrated with the Spiritual Man, Christ Jesus. By this one and the same Baptism are we all, with them, baptized into One Body, in order that we may be united and unified into one Man. When we all alike live His life, that is, speak His words and do His works, and display His disposition and attitudes towards the needs of all men, the world will know and believe that the Father hath sent the Son. This then is the essential reason for which the Baptism in the Spirit was instituted; it is the only ground and hope that we shall ever be like Jesus, because it is the method chosen by God to accomplish this.
Baptism in water is not the One Baptism, but has a special relationship to it as an illustration, and has the function of a photograph or a print or a diagram inserted in the text of a book. Some books would be as complete without such things as with them; their inclusion has interest value to either the author or the reader, but they are not vital to the proper understanding of the book, whilst others make a more vital contribution to the message which the author has to communicate and are included for that purpose. Nevertheless they are but illustrations, serving an end, deemed advisable or necessary by the author for a clearer understanding of the whole, but these must not be mistaken for the main thing. They do but serve to focus the mind more readily upon some important details as the message proper is being propounded.
Such then is water baptism. It is an illustration to the onlooker, and more so to the participator and the demonstrator. By striking words in Mark 16:16, it is enjoined by Jesus upon every one that believeth; it is commanded by Peter in Acts 10:48, and practised by the entire church. Paul expounded its true significance in Romans 6, and placed it in its proper perspective in I Corinthians 1:14-17. Philosophy, sophistry and sentiment may invest it with meanings and significance not plainly stated in the scriptures, and valuable only to those who practise ritual baptism according to their religious system. These all may be disregarded without loss.
The Lord Jesus Himself doubtless gave to water baptism its chief virtue when He said to John Baptist, 'Suffer it to be so now, for thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness'. The act must be included in the sum total of perfection which earned high commendation from His Father — '... in thee I am well pleased'. To Him John's baptism was obviously not the One Baptism, else He would not have instituted another. The Jordan episode was an illustration of the true Baptism to which He was moving all the time as the goal, the fixed necessity for Him. He gave full expression to it later, 'I have a baptism to be baptized with and how am I straitened till it be accomplished', which word, in order to be properly understood, must he read in conjunction with His cry in John 12:23-28, 'Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die it abideth alone, but if it die it bringeth forth much fruit ... for this cause came I unto this hour'. Jesus was 'alone' and 'straitened', and unless He had fallen into the ground and died — been baptized with that Baptism of which He spoke — He would have remained 'straitened' and 'alone' for ever. Calvary and the subsequent events up until Pentecost held for Jesus a threefold meaning of fulfilment not normally recognized:
- In relationship to Moses and the Red Sea; it was the type of His exodus which He accomplished at Jerusalem, Luke 9:31.
2. In relationship to Joshua and Jordan; it was the occasion of His entrance into His glory — 'His inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that fadeth not away', Luke 24:26, John 17:5, 1 Peter 1:4.
3. In relationship to Elisha and Jordan; it was the period of His receiving 'from the Father the promise of the Spirit' and the shedding forth of 'this which ye now see and hear', Acts 2:33.
Jesus' Baptism therefore supersedes and substitutes John's baptism.
No-one is baptized with John's baptism now; it ceased officially on the day he was arrested and put in prison. He had some disciples who sought to continue it, but Paul adequately dealt with the error at Ephesus. To invest water baptism with the title 'John's baptism' is to confess to total misunderstanding and misinterpretation of scripture. For those who have eyes to see it, Jesus' baptism by John invested John's baptism with an entirely new meaning. For those who will receive it, it typified the fulfilment of the word in Micah 7:19, 'thou wilt cast all their sins into the depths of the sea', so before stepping into Jordan to fulfil all righteousness, the Lord was nominated 'the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world'. Therefore, leaving Jordan, the Lord terminated John's ministry, for it was fulfilled. Its purpose was to make Jesus manifest to Israel as the Baptizer in the Spirit. So the next thing we find is that Jesus is baptizing and that all the people are going to Him and not to John; and gradually John, with his important though inferior baptism, is eclipsed and then eliminated from the scene, while Jesus hands over water baptism to His disciples (John 3:22-26,4:1-2), who now baptize in His name. John's baptism was thus ended.
It is totally impossible to baptize with John's baptism today, and it is quite untrue to suggest that one can do so. Moreover, it is patently obvious that no-one administers or receives such baptism, for where now does anyone confess their sins in and over the waters into which he or she is shortly to be plunged? It is invidious and totally misleading to seek to clarify the difference between present-day water baptism and Baptism in the Spirit by calling the former 'John's baptism'. All baptism in water today must be done in the name of Jesus, but lest a misinterpretation be placed upon this plainly commanded practice, it must be understood that everything else that is done by the true minister of Jesus Christ must be done in that same name also; baptism in water is just part of the whole ministry, that is all. During His ministry on earth His disciples baptized people in water in His name, that is in His stead, for that was all they could then do. Until His death and resurrection He could not command them to baptize in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost. But following the outpouring of the Spirit at Pentecost, they were to baptize in a name they never knew until then, for it had never been spoken before. This is one of the reasons why they were not allowed after Calvary to go and preach and baptize until they themselves were baptized in the Holy Ghost. Until Pentecost they could not do other than baptize in the name of Jesus only. It could not be done in the name of John, or of the Father, or of the Holy Ghost; it could only be in the one name they knew — Jesus.
Of course Jesus knew that baptism in water was not 'that' Baptism; almost certainly this is the reason why He handed over water baptism to His disciples. To have administered it Himself would have unavoidably confused men's minds, so He made a clear distinction between the greater and the lesser thing. He was going to baptize 'with the Holy Ghost and fire', but in order to do this He had Himself to be baptized first. Until this was accomplished He could not enlarge or expand beyond His straitened natural body into His spiritual Body of many human-being members. He would have been one lonely, lovely figure in the whole of history; the loveliest but the loneliest. His baptism into death and all that it entailed for Him was the only way for Him and for us. What God wanted could not have been accomplished without it. We sometimes forget that as well as being a historical act, Calvary is an eternal spiritual fact — or at least we seem mostly to act and preach as though it was only the former.
The only way to enter death is to be baptized into it. The experience of dying plunges us into the state or condition of death; it is a baptism. Paul tells us this in Romans 6:4. And Jesus says quite plainly in Mark 10:38 and 39 that it is possible and for some quite certain that they shall be baptized with His Baptism. Therefore Paul again says in Romans 6:3, that to be baptized into Jesus Christ we must be baptized into His death. In the Spirit the death of Jesus is now, here, real and powerful as ever, (paradoxically enough) living, existing in the Spirit. What He accomplished in death is forever and must be so, because the only way into the Body of Jesus Christ is by baptism into His death, of which baptism into water is a symbol. Beyond symbolizing the remission and washing away of sins (Acts 2:38 and 22:16), it now represents the open tomb of Jesus Christ, into which the believer is buried and through which he rises into newness of life, and total spiritual regeneration.
As Paul says in Romans 6:7, 'he that is dead is justified (Gk.) from sin'; There is no ground for believing that anyone else is. Regeneration of a spirit is into life in the Body of Jesus Christ. This is perfectly consistent with the whole tenor of revealed truth. Surely all our regeneration-salvation consists less in what the Lord Jesus did for us than in what He is in Himself, what He was made for us, and is become to us, and shares with us. Of course, He had to do the many and great things for us that no-one else could do, for only by these gracious deeds could we be saved. His substitutionary and vicarious works have probably never been fully told or enumerated; but He Himself is altogether superior to His works as the craftsman is to his craft, or the artist to his art, or the builder to his building, the creator to his creation, the saviour to his work of salvation, and the lover to his love.
Having in some measure examined the truth revealed in these scriptural illustrations of the One Baptism, we will seek to relate and combine into a whole the teaching elicited from them, that seeing God's provision, we may each boldly seek Him, that our own spiritual experience may be adjusted thereto. There is not the slightest reason on God's side why any one of His children need come short of the glory of God, for He intends all His children to be included into His own conscious knowledge of eternal life. Being integrated into Christ's body, we must be partakers of His fulness.
Many believers today are only partially experiencing the Lord's blessings. They could and should be enjoying all the fulness of the blessing of the gospel, but because of restricted faith or incomplete ministry of the word to them, or limited believing, or perhaps sheer ignorance, the fulness of blessing is unknown to them. Without pressing the point beyond credibility or formalizing anything, such partial or restricted or limited or incomplete experience may be described as being but a quarter, or a half, or three quarters of the whole truth as outlined in the foregoing pages. The majority know only what is typified by the story of the Flood; a comparative minority live in the enjoyment of the spiritual counterpart of the Passover and Red Sea crossing; fewer still have any experimental knowledge of the truth typified by the passage of Jordan under Joshua, while comparatively very few indeed have any real personal experience of what is pictured for us in the events that surround the translation of Elijah. Finally it must be sadly confessed that it is a very small minority who live in and enjoy that which is set forth by the whole. But it is folly indeed to be satisfied with one or two, or even three parts of the whole, when the complete salvation of God is proffered to us.
This salvation includes:
1. Safety in Christ from final and eternal judgement, as typified by Noah and the ark.
2. Utter deliverance from the devil and his hosts in this present evil world, as illustrated by the passage of the Red Sea.
3. The destruction of the Old Man, Adam, unto complete possession of the soul in Christ-likeness, which is shown by the crossing of Jordan.
4. The enduement of power from on high in order that we may be witnesses unto Jesus Christ, of which the incident concerning Elijah and Elisha is the illustration.In order of revelation we may see that salvation is from:
I. Death, hell and judgement for sin.
2. The world and the devil and all his hosts.
3. The flesh with all its works.
4. Self and all its impotence.Being thus delivered as God intends us to be, we may then be true witnesses unto another who, while on this earth, was not of this world; whose Father was God, so that He was God manifest in the flesh; a life-giving Spirit who overcame the devil and said, '1 can of mine own self do nothing'. He was the last Adam, the second man, in whose image many sons have since been begotten by God the Father.
Lamentably enough, because of great ignorance and much misunderstanding, many who otherwise would have realized and entered into the whole truth of this Baptism have been prevented from doing so. Instead they have tried to make the most of an uneasy rest in one or even two or three parts of the whole. The clear testimony of scripture is that God is wanting many sons just like Jesus, whose greatest work is not just to change wicked, hell-deserving sinners into inhabitants of heaven in order to prevent their eternal destruction, but to make us new creatures, sons of God whilst here on earth. It is what Jesus Christ did for me as me, and that He lives for me as me, that is my chief joy and greatest glory. He in me, and I in Him in God, and God in Him in me; this is God's aim and stated desire, it is the terminal point in scripture revelation.
Chapter Five - THERE IS ONE BAPTISM
It is widely believed and specifically stated by some that there are three baptisms, one in water and two in the Spirit. One of these is said to be a baptism into the body of Christ and the other the baptism which is an empowering for service. Still others think that there is a baptism of fire extra to the Baptism in the Spirit; while some speak of a baptism of love beyond the Baptism in the Spirit. Adding up the possibilities mentioned, it would seem that if all this is true, there may be five baptisms. Now if that is what God means by the phrase 'one baptism', it is not what He says, which is an alarming thing. If indeed it is true, He is acting completely out of character. Worse still, He is forcing His apostle to do the same. Since such a possibility borders on blasphemy, we must reject it out of hand.
When writing to these Ephesians, of all people on the subject of baptism, Paul had for many reasons to be most meticulously careful. He had administered water baptism to the foundation members of the church there, but before that they had also been immersed in water by Apollos, a minister of the Old Covenant. It is therefore of major significance, as well as being singularly opportune, that it was to them he should speak of there being only one baptism. It is as though he is saying that he considers water baptism not to be worthy of mention, and by comparison neither is it; they knew exactly what he meant. When speaking of one baptism, Paul was not referring directly to either of the occasions when they were dipped in water. The first occasion, although it had been administered and received in all sincerity, had been a total mistake. The second was only valid because by water baptism a visual enactment of the One Baptism is presented to the senses.
In these verses Paul is setting forth seven statements, which find place in this list solely by virtue of the fact that there is only one of each. Therefore to single out one of them and pluralize it is at least an arbitrary practice; especially is this so if it be allowed or argued that each of the other six must retain singularity. To do this sort of thing would be confusing and dishonest. The whole point of the matter is that none of the things or persons mentioned in this list would have been included in it had there been more than one of any of them. Each of them is not just one, but the only one. Had the possibility existed that there could have been more than one of any of them, it would not have been included. Each thing or person mentioned in it is exclusively one. Upon reflection, we must surely conclude that God has compiled this list quite purposely. The implicit reason for including the phrase 'One Baptism' in this section is that we should plainly infer and wholeheartedly believe that there is only One Baptism. There it stands, an integral part of a sevenfold body of truth which stands or falls together. If we attempt to qualify one part of it, we must in all honesty qualify all.
The people to whom this statement was originally made were 'the saints which are at Ephesus and the faithful in Christ Jesus'. Quite noticeably he does not address it to the church at Ephesus, but to the saints there. That is exactly the same thing of course, but his choice of phrase is not casual but careful and significant. The age-abiding message of the book is for 'the Church which is His body' (1:23); a company including 'the saints at Ephesus', but far greater than they. Paul writes for the whole Church in every place throughout all time, so he does not say anything to the Ephesians that could possibly be construed to have only local meaning. The man's utter consistency is not only to be found in the actual words he writes, but also in the very structure of the truth he imparts.
To these people he is entrusting revelation which is for the whole Church of Jesus Christ on earth, and only for that body. It is written exclusively for those who are included in and described as 'us'— verses 3, 4, 5, 6, etc. There are those to whom this writing does not directly apply. Some of these may find Paul's writings very instructive, but that is quite secondary to the point he is making. Nothing in the New Testament is primarily for 'the man in the street'; all is for the Church. Immediately then we are made aware of an 'us' and 'them' position, and since this has been deliberately created by God, it is vital that we accept it.
This position is brought out straightforwardly in 1 Corinthians 8.4-6, where the apostle puts it in the plainest language: 'we know that ... there is none other God but One. For though there be that are called gods, whether in heaven or in earth, (as there be gods many and lords many) but to us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we in Him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by Him'. This is very clear, and supplies a clue to the proper understanding of the fuller Ephesian statement.
The observation is not made by Paul, any more than it is cited here, in defence of the fact that there is only one God. It is obvious that the Corinthians already knew and accepted the fundamental truth he stated, for he says quite plainly, 'we know that there is none other God but one'. He is deliberately establishing the 'us and them' position though, and he can do no other because it has been distinctly and unavoidably created by God Himself.
Taking up this greatest of all Bible themes, we may use it as the key to our understanding of the whole matter. Investigating the Book we find it records the names of many gods; to mention but a few, Tammuz, Baal, Remphan, Moloch, Dagon. In addition to these, the Lord Jesus Himself more than once when referring to satan called him the prince of this world. Paul goes even further, calling him the god of this age. Now this god has personal being; he really exists, and is worshipped by some; to them he is god, but we know that neither he nor any of the above-mentioned is the one true God. The devil's claims mean nothing to us, and each of the others is entirely false. They are, or were at some time or other, worshipped as though they were that one and only true God, but that did not make them so. Satan was the only god among them who had actual personal being. All the others, being man-made, had no existence at all except in fantasy. Who then would entertain the thought or propagate the lie that there are five Gods?
Further to this, would anyone say that there are three or four Bodies, or Fathers, or Callings, or Spirits, or Faiths, or Lords? If any would state that there is not more than one Father, we need only cite Jesus' statement 'ye are of your father the devil' or Paul's 'we have had fathers of our flesh', or 'not many fathers'. This allows that there are four fathers, three spiritual and one natural. So the point may be made that Paul is speaking of the Father as being one of many classes of father. However, what he is really doing is speaking to those who love the truth for the truth's sake, who have spiritual understanding and whose eyes have been opened. To them there is one God and Father. To some he may speak of many fathers, but here he is speaking to those whom he addresses with the exclusive pronoun 'us'. We do not allow that there is more than one Father. People who live in the heavenlies know no other.
Now this Corinthian passage only deals with and confirms one of the seven statements made to the Ephesians. We may find it greatly helpful therefore if we reverently adapt and rephrase its thought forms to suit our subject: 'though there be that are called baptisms ... on earth (as there be baptisms or ritual washings many), but to us there is but one baptism, the Regenerating, in which are all things and we by it'. As to 'us' there is only one God, so also to us there is but One Baptism. True, there are many experiences on earth called baptism, and we shall be examining some of them, but for the Church which is His Body there is only one that may be properly called 'the Baptism'. We acknowledge freely that there are things or beings called 'god'; we also know that there are experiences called 'baptism', but for the Church which is His body there are no more baptisms than one, even as there are no more Spirits, or Lords, or Fathers than One.
We who are the Church, being members of the 'us' company, acknowledge no plurality in any of the things listed in Ephesians 4. There may be plurality in many other things, but not in these. Indeed, we read in chapter 1 verse 3, that there are multiplicities of blessings in the heavenly places for us, but there are not multiplicities of any of the things mentioned in this list. These are described as 'the unity of the Spirit' which we have 'to keep' (Gk. 'watch', 'preserve'). God put them together, so we must watch that no one filches them from us; they are one whole, unique in scripture. Their importance cannot possibly be over-emphasized; there is no such list to be found anywhere else in the New Testament — it is not even repeated. It holds the place in the New Testament which the ten commandments hold in the Old Testament. But it is far superior, for following its original inscription, first by God and then by Moses, the Decalogue finds occasional repetition, but not so this testimony; it is once given.
Those ten commandments, written on two tables of stone and given to Israel by God, were the foundation-stone of spiritual and social life under the Old Covenant. They were to be the basis of God's new civilization, and the Children of Israel were commanded to keep them as a whole; the Law was their life. Though written on two tablets of stone, the ten commandments were an acknowledged unity; so much so indeed, that they were called 'the Law', not 'the laws'. In a somewhat similar way these seven 'words' from God form a perfect declaration of basic spiritual life for the Church. We too must keep our revelation as a whole, for in a far greater degree with us than with them, it literally is our eternal life. Paul calls it 'the Unity of the Spirit'; it is most precisely that.
James in his epistle sternly tells us that to offend in one point of the Law is to break the whole. If any man deliberately sinned he incurred God's wrath on four counts: (1) the particular thing he did or omitted to do broke one commandment; (2) by the offence he broke the wholeness of the commandments; (3) he therefore showed contempt for the Law; (4) he offended against the spirit of the Law. Such an attitude of heart displays incipient rebellion against God, which left unchecked leads on to anarchy. Contempt of the Law meant contempt of God; it warranted death. If this be true in regard to that ancient list, how much more ought we to be concerned to keep the present unity of truth? Theirs is indeed a unity of truth; ours is the truth of the Unity. That is a body of truth, but this is the truth of the body. Significantly enough the list commences with this word: One Body — no wonder the writer to the Hebrews is so alarmingly pointed in the question he poses in chapter 2 verses 2 & 3.
Manifestly then the glory of that former declaration is not to be compared with the glory of this latter. The first was a wonderful manifesto of spiritual and moral law for the governing of a nation, and the foundation of man's acceptance with God. This is the law governing the formation and form, and the function and fulness of the Body of Christ, and of man's union with God. The tenfold Law is sincere milk, this sevenfold law is minced meat. That of old was outward, something superimposed upon a people not spiritually regenerate. It was given to be learned through the mind and practised in life; it was the set standard of behaviour for those who would live in God's kingdom of heaven on earth. This new is a statement of eternal life itself: it is not dependent on me to make me dependent upon it. It is. There is no talk of 'thou shalt', or 'thou shalt not' — it is. It is at once a presentation of the Unity of the Spirit who is God, and a doctrinal definition of the means of our incorporation into it. It is an expression of eternal life in unity, forming a body, an organism called the Church. The Unity of the Spirit is simply Life; that which is, is the Unity of the Spirit — God.
All this is very wonderful, but it is not the end. These seven may be written out thus: 'there is only one body, and only one Spirit, even as ye are called in only one hope of your calling, only one Lord, only one faith, only one baptism, only one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in you all'. To commence this statement we could have added the qualifying words, 'to us' — they are absolutely necessary. Paul can only be speaking 'to us', for he says that God is the Father of all to whom he is speaking. Without the limiting 'us', everybody would be included, and that would be Universalism of the most heretical order. Universalism finds no support from the Bible. It was written partly with the express purpose of denying and destroying that wrong notion.
More marvellous still than their uniqueness in all the realm of revealed spiritual truth, each of these is in itself a unity. As the Spirit is a Unity, so is the hope of the calling and the body and the Lord Himself, and so on down through the entire list, including the One Baptism. In fact, lower down in this chapter Paul speaks of 'the unity of the faith' and doing so adds to faith the definite article, making it 'the faith'. This is most obviously true, for seeing that there is only one faith, it must of necessity be 'the faith'; it cannot be any other. Continuing the thought further, we arrive at the conviction that if this be true of faith, then it must also be true of all the others. How could it possibly be otherwise? Turning back to Ephesians 1:3, we discover this to be indeed the case with the last statement of the sevenfold Unity, 'the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ'; here again the definite article is used; it had to be of course. All the rules of grammar and logic and truth and common sense and of God Himself demand it; it could not be otherwise. Moreover mental honesty and spiritual law demand that it must be so with all seven; if there is one of each and only one, it must be the one. Applying the accumulation of the above facts to the statement with which we are currently engaged, we set forth this three-fold truth: (I) there is only one Baptism; (2) it is the Baptism; (3) baptism is a unity.
Proceeding yet further, we set forth the premise that if that 'One Baptism' be 'The Baptism', then it must of necessity be God's own Baptism. To be so exclusive it must be something God does, or gives, or experiences. Unless this were so, it could neither be fundamental nor universal to the experience of life eternal. If it was the baptism of some being other than God, it would permit of as many repetitions and variations as there are other beings. To be absolutely exclusive it must be God's alone. This can very easily be demonstrated in the case of the 'one hope of your calling'. We shall not need to look further than the first chapter of the epistle to find the grounds for the demonstration. When writing there of the 'one hope', Paul speaks of it in a slightly different way, 'the hope of His calling'. We see then that the calling is both 'His' and 'yours', that is both God the Father's and ours:— His because He is the caller, ours because we are the called; but the hope is one in both hearts, His and ours.
When we first hear the call we are not generally aware of the full meaning of it; but it does bring with it hope. With the passage of time however, this state of hope takes one positive and clearly defined form in the spirit — Christ-likeness. To the truly regenerate Spirit-filled man, the absorbing passion of the soul is to be like Jesus (4:20-24). Whether the hope be His or ours, whether in the heart of the caller or the called, Christ-likeness is the one and only hope of the calling. To make this possible the Lord has to baptize us into His body, for therein lies the only hope of achieving it. As is to be expected, God was the first one to have this hope in the beginning. He first conceived the thought and said, 'Let us make man in our image, after our likeness'. In order to share this one intention and hope with us, in fulness of time God became man. This same thing could be as fully established from scripture concerning each of the remaining 'unities', but we will confine ourselves to this one.
By grasping the principle of truth demonstrated here, we shall be able more easily to realize the fact that there is only One Baptism. This should not be difficult to any child of God, for in reality the Baptism is only ONE's Baptism, and that ONE is JESUS CHRIST, the SON OF GOD. The same thing is true of all these seven cardinal points mentioned by the apostle; the body is His; the Spirit is His; the hope of the calling is His; He is the Lord; His is the faith; His is the Baptism: His is the God and Father. All is His. It is all HIM. The united truth is just ONE, only one, THE ONE, and the glorious gospel of it all is that He shares all with us, so that what is His becomes ours too.
The Lord Jesus was unique, the singular Unity of God and man on the earth, and it is by this originating miracle that all else is one. Because He was God on the earth, that same Baptism was man's baptism too, for He combined God and man, and in that union made all one. His great grace toward us lies in His intention to share with us all He accomplished by that union. In order to achieve this He baptizes us with His Baptism, so making the baptism which belonged to God alone our baptism. No-one who is united with Him in the Baptism should find difficulty in understanding the meaning of a phrase like 'the unity of the One Baptism'.
Now it may appear, upon reading a passage in the letter to the Hebrews, that the conclusions drawn above are incorrect and that in fact there are more baptisms than one. In chapter 6 verse 2, we read of 'the doctrine of baptisms'. This would seem to intimate very clearly that there must be more than one baptism. But the apparent disparity disappears as soon as we discover that the word baptisms should really be 'washings'. The word 'Baptism' is an entirely New Testament word; it is not to be found anywhere in the Old Testament. Nevertheless the Old Testament writers speak of a variety of practices ordained of God to be incorporated into their system of worship as ceremonial washings; it is to these that the writer refers in Hebrews 9:10, when he actually uses the word 'washings'. Beside this occasion, the particular form of the word translated in chapter 6 as 'baptisms' occurs twice more in the New Testament. Each of these references is to be found in Mark chapter 7, where he uses it once himself and once when reporting the Lord Jesus verbatim.
However, it is neither the tradition of baptisms nor the practice of baptism to which the writer to the Hebrews is drawing our attention here. We are being pointed to the doctrine (singular) of baptisms. There was only one official doctrine running through the whole system of baptisms, namely entire sanctification — complete cleansing and separation from all sin, with a view to total acceptance by God. It is upon this that he is wanting us to dwell, and not upon Jewish malpractice of baptism.
At the time of writing the Ephesian epistle Paul had for many years been seeing the wholeness and oneness of things spiritual. For over a quarter of a century he had been the prisoner of the Lord, captured and captivated and shut up in Him. In this relationship the apostle had learned the truth that now he was so desirous to commit to writing for all to read. He saw and felt the truth exactly as the Lord Jesus Christ felt and saw it on His way to the cross, 'that they all may be one as thou Father art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us ... one, I in them and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one'.
From this inner knowledge of God Paul speaks, exhorting his readers to 'keep the unity of the Spirit'. He sees that however or by whatever person truth is expressed, it is invariably the same, and it is always one. He had been consciously living in this unity for such a long time that, as may be expected, he had come to realize what it was: God Himself. God is (a) glorious Unity of Spirit; three blessed persons in one eternal Spirit-Being. Therefore, all He does and says with intention to impart or establish something of an everlasting nature, must be a creation by or a projection of or a demonstration from Himself. It is not surprising then that the apostle should speak so emphatically about the unity he knew so well.
Paul was a master of words, yet as he outlined the doctrine of unity which men must keep, he was reduced to almost cryptic language. The whole passage from chapter 4:3-6 could be rewritten thus: 'giving all diligence to keep (in the sense of preserve) the Unity of the Spirit in the uniting bond of peace: one body and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all and in you all'. As a simple, straightforward, comprehensive outline of truth it has no equal and could not be bettered. It commends and endears itself to our hearts as the word of the Lord, for in its sevenfold unity it breathes the simple perfection of God. It is the doctrinal basis of the Church, which is itself another unity. God is a unity of three persons in one Being; the Church is a unity of many members in one body; this doctrinal basis of the Church is a unity of seven statements in one manifesto.
It is noticeable that between this statement and the revelation of the Church given lower down in the chapter, Paul makes reference to apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers. Therefore it may not be very far wrong to assume that what is here presented is nothing other than 'the Apostles' Doctrine'. Perhaps after all it may be the original 'Apostles' Creed'. It would be typical of this responsible man that he should supply us with the doctrine which all the apostles taught by common inspiration and agreement. These surely cannot be just Paul's exclusive teachings (see Galatians 1:12, 18 & 2:1, 2, 7). If this is true, it was in this identical doctrine that the Church continued in fellowship from its natal day of Pentecost onward. Little wonder if this be so, that the Lord added to it daily such as were being saved. Since no manifesto similar or comparable to this is to be found anywhere else in scripture, we may be sure that no other is needed. Had it been necessary, it would have been given, for some such concise, bedrock credal statement as this is absolutely vital to the Church in the world. Its perfection may best be described by borrowing and adapting a phrase from James — 'it is perfect and entire, wanting nothing'.
Manifestly all else of Church doctrine is the development of the truth so clearly presented and firmly established here. Much more teaching is to be found in this and other letters that flowed from the same inspired pen, but this is basic to all, forever grounding the whole firmly in God. Obviously this is why it is given to us, for in these seven we find that each member of the Godhead is mentioned, working together with one another unto the end in view, namely the Church, its distinctiveness and calling in this age.
Seeing that Paul mentions baptism as one of the seven fundamentals of the unity of the doctrine of the Church, it is of vital importance that we should understand its place and meaning in both scripture and life. To do this we must first take note that all these seven are spiritual — that is that they are entirely of and in the Spirit. They are truly a Unity of Spirit, for they require no other medium than Spirit for their being; they have existence only in that realm. Indeed, because they concern the divine Being and human beings, they cannot exist in any other realm than Spirit. We must therefore understand that, in common with the other six things mentioned, baptism is of and in Spirit. This 'One Baptism' is wholly spiritual, and that well-known, strong, definitive, scriptural phrase, 'this is that' could most certainly be used about it.
Having established that the Holy Ghost emphatically says that there is only one baptism, it may reasonably be asked why many speak of two or three or more baptisms. There are two main reasons for this sad mistake:
1. Preaching the Bible without differentiating between the Church and other groups mentioned therein (although in some measure some of these obviously typify the Church).
2. Failure to distinguish between one's own experience and plainly stated truth.We must be at pains to ensure that our personal experience and the scriptures as they apply to us are in accord, but while doing this, a preacher must avoid making the common mistake of trying to fit scripture into his experience, as though what has happened to him is the standard experience set by God for everybody. In no sense or degree may we seek vindication of our position; we must seek validity, authenticity; these must be our watchwords. The Bible has been given to us for many reasons, and perhaps not the least important is that we should read it and honestly adjust our thinking to it. The resultant mental renewal arising from this exercise must lead on to real transformation of life followed by fearless reformation of doctrine wherever necessary.
It is interesting to note that baptism is not here grammatically pointed out as the baptism, nor is it grammatically emphasized in that way anywhere else in scripture. In every place it is spoken of without the article, and it is a rule in Greek grammar that the absence of the article denotes character; but perhaps more remarkable still is the fact that the definite article is absent throughout the whole of this section. More amazingly, even God Himself is not pointed out in this way. One might think that He ought to be referred to as the God, but no; yet no-one would for a moment think that Paul intended us to believe that he was not speaking of the one and only true God. Again, the body is not pointed out as 'The Body' as opposed to 'a body'; but no-one taught of God has any doubt that when Paul spoke of one body he meant The Body; in fact, lower down in the chapter that is exactly how he does refer to it. This being so, it cannot be doubted that he intends the same thing to be understood concerning each of the seven.
The reason for the absence of the article here is that Paul is pointing out the Unity of the Spirit rather than the importance of each very important part. Each phrase of this sevenfold doctrinal statement is characteristically and naturally an integral part of one whole statement. He is drawing our attention to something, namely this: the very absence of the article strengthens the truth that each is an indispensable part of the characteristic Unity of the Spirit. The writer insists upon it; the statement is one interdependent whole. Each of the truths specified by each phrase is important and singular in its own sphere and meaning, therefore it has its own indispensable position in the doctrine of Unity; all are necessary to each and each is entirely dependent upon all. Therefore grammatically, purposely and necessarily these seven lose their own pointed distinctiveness in order to gain greater importance. Each contributes to the one whole; they all combine to make the aggregate greater than the particular, and so together present the full truth.
This is no novel idea — it originates with God, for He Himself is like this. Each member of our ever-blessed triune God is distinctively and fully God in His own right, yet each combines with and subjects Himself to the others in one united will. Again, in keeping with the truth God is, each member, though exactly what the other two are in nature and substance, has a distinctive personality and function of His own, and is the only one there is. We see then something of the reason for the absence of the definite article from these verses. It is perfectly consistent with God and with the rest of scripture.
Looking at these verses as a whole, we can see God's way of achieving that grand union between man and Himself in the Spirit, namely the one true Church which in the dispensation of the fulness of times shall be revealed before all. The truth is hidden in these few statements as treasure in a field, yet it lies quite open for all to seek and find. God has done it this way, that being discovered it may be understood and enjoyed in all its glorious simplicity; it is a revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ Himself.
We see first of all that in the construction of the sevenfold statement the one Lord is placed centrally (i.e. fourthly) and worshipfully confess Him to be the pivotal Person around Whom all else is grouped. By Him and for Him everything consists. That understood, we proceed to the knowledge that in order to be our God and Father, even as He is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, God gave the Lord Jesus to be our one Lord. Because Jesus is the one Lord of the Church, He baptizes us into Himself in one Spirit, and doing so integrates us into one Body. This one Baptism is the true and only baptism / inauguration in the Spirit, otherwise called regeneration. At that moment the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ begets us and thereby becomes the one God and Father of all so baptized. By this means He is above all and through all and in all His children, for they all become one Body of people, over which Christ Jesus is both Lord and Head. This body, formed by the Lord, only exists in the Spirit, and does so in order to be filled and inspirited by one Spirit, His own. His Spirit must be the spirit of His (own) Body. Being so privileged, each son must give his all to realize fully in himself the one hope of his calling; it is He. Each for himself and all together must arrive at full realization of themselves in Him, and of Himself in them.
There is only one God and Father, His; there is only one Lord, it is He; there is only one faith, His; there is only one Body, His; there is only one Spirit in that Body, His; there is only one hope of our calling, it is He; there is only one Baptism, His. He is all and all is His; He is the Lord who by that Baptism brings us into all of Himself and everything that is His. All is one.
That all is not consciously realized at one moment in any individual's experience is no proof that they are not one, nor does it mean that it is not possible to enter into all at once. Realization so often depends upon understanding, which is the reason why Paul prayed with such passion, 'that God ... may give unto you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation ...' (Ephesians 1:17). Realization of revealed truth in living experience is conditioned by many factors, and varies in different persons and groups to great degree, affecting both prayer and preaching. The result of this is that all too often the partial at least obscures the whole, if it does not by neglect deliberately seek to destroy what it does not embrace.
Therefore let us understand this, that there is no eternal life outside of Christ. All other natures and forms and expressions of life, animate and inanimate, created by God outside of Himself, though from Him are other than Him. None of these have His personal life, and must remain outside Him forever unless a genuine means of including them into Himself be devised and ministered by Him to them. We have not been informed by God of any such future intention on His part, but we have set before us here His way for men now. The truth about it is that Jesus Christ came into this world and lived and died and rose again in order to baptize us into Himself, so that we poor humans may share His life.
Chapter Six - TO FULFIL ALL RIGHTEOUSNESS
We now return to the only man spoken of in the Bible with whom water baptism is particularly connected, that is John Baptist. He was directly sent to Israel by God with the ministry of the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins. Unlike many prophets who preceded him, he never performed any miracles. This is very surprising indeed, for he came in the spirit and power of Elijah, who in his day did some amazing things, and wrought some outstanding miracles; but not so John. Each of Israel's long line of God-given prophets had his own powerful, and often sign-attested ministry, but none save John could claim the distinction of being sent by God with the ministry of baptism. True to his distinctive calling, John it was who first commanded repentance unto baptism as God's requirement of Israel at that time. His was a bold faith; he was a brave and outstanding man.
John's message was entirely new. It was not a paraphrase of the Mosaic law, nor was it couched in the same words, nor was it ministered in the tradition of any prophet before him. Jesus Himself said that a greater than John had not been born of woman, calling him a burning and a shining light. The truth of this testimony is amply borne out by the fact that for a season the remnant of Israel accepted his message and rejoiced in that light. The Baptist swiftly became a very popular and romantic figure among the people. He lived in the wilderness, dressed in camel-skins, was remarkably frugal in his eating habits, used great directness of speech and fired the imagination of all who flocked to hear him. They accepted the man, responded to his message and ministry, and were baptized of him in water.
But John's baptism was not that 'One Baptism' and he knew it. His insistent message was that he was merely preparing the way for One mightier than he, who was coming to administer a greater baptism. John administered baptism in the ordinary element of water, because it was entirely suited to his ministry. But John had been told by God that the prime reason for his baptism and service was to present Christ and His Baptism to the nation. Therefore his primary task was to relate all he said and preached to the baptism he administered. This he faithfully did, even though when baptizing Christ he did it under protest.
The introduction of his Superior to the nation by baptism was a most spectacular event. He had been specially instructed of God about Jesus on one particular point: 'Upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending and remaining upon Him, the same is He which baptizeth with the Holy Ghost'. John had already announced Jesus as 'the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world', but apparently he had no direct commandment from God to announce that fact.
Presumably it came out in the course of his prophetic ministry, (or was it a word of knowledge?) and it was true. But he was definitely briefed by Him that sent him to say of Jesus Christ, 'this is He which baptizeth in the Holy Ghost', so he said it.
John's ministry was admirably suited to foreshadow Jesus' ministry, for what better way to introduce and symbolize Baptism in Spirit than by this water baptism? Under John's ministry, baptism became the focal point in a man's experience; indisputably he made it obligatory to the salvation he preached. It was an entirely new move by God. Without doubt, if the prophet was to be believed, forgiveness was made dependent upon baptism. Not that the water had any power to wash away sins. Physical elements used in religious rites are always only symbolic. Then, as now, water had no innate properties or virtue to deal with the sins of mansoul. Water baptism was a foreshadowing rite enforced on the people through John by God simply because He chose to do it that way.
The virtue of water baptism to those men of the Old Covenant lay in the obedience of faith in a man's heart, which caused him to obey the command of God as proof that he believed the word preached to him. But by this ministry of baptism, God, by John, was seeking to shift the whole trend and emphasis of spiritual truth away from traditional religion. Judaism was bereft of power: since the captivity and dispersion of Israel, and the destruction of the Temple with its original furniture, there had been no value at all in the Jews' religion. There was no Ark, with its Mercy Seat and tables of Covenant, in Jerusalem. All ritual blood-offering and sacrifices after the Levitical order was useless for redemption and atonement — by it there was no forgiveness. What was enacted in daily, weekly and yearly ritual was entirely without saving strength. Beside this, centuries had passed since Malachi had added the final contribution to Israel's sacred canon; everything had gone dead. Then John appeared, sent from God with a revolutionary message and insisting upon a new ordinance. It was epochal.
The nation that had waited so long for the Messiah thought this must be He, for prior to this neither patriarch, prophet nor king had ever preached and practised these things. John's ministry was not traditional, for Moses had not commanded anything even remotely like this. Then was it additional? For it was certainly extra-Mosaic. They soon discovered that it was neither; it was utterly different. As an instance of this, when they responded to John's ministry, surprisingly enough he did not send his converts hastening from baptism to the Temple to offer sacrifice for their sins. Instead he taught them that to be baptized for remission of sins was enough. They also learned that John's ministry was only temporary and his baptism introductory. Listening to him further, it became obvious that all he did was unto a greater end. He said plainly that he and his baptism were only valuable to them as both he and it foreshadowed another and greater Person and Baptism. They must understand two things: (1) forgiveness was only being granted, and the rite enacted, because God was sending His Lamb into the world to take away sins, and (2) baptism was only being ministered to them as a kind of earnest of the fact that the Son of God would baptize them in the Holy Ghost and Fire. John's baptism was certainly not traditional, nor was it merely additional; it was transitional. His dynamic ministry was sent by God to the remnant of Israel, that by it a greater, more dynamic ministry should be introduced and applied to them, and by them given to the world.
Although perhaps few people of his generation had eyes to see it, the first glimmerings of a fuller truth began to flicker and shine in the darkness of the gross ignorance which enveloped them. John did not know, and so could not teach, any of the doctrine that we now associate with water baptism, but he was absolutely adamant about its administration. The complete revelation concerning baptism was held in abeyance in the person of the Lord Jesus, to be later defined in all its glory by Paul. Even Jesus could not make it fully known, for the typical value of water baptism lies in its representation of what He accomplished by the Cross. Most of the actual value of the One Baptism is only effective in us at, and following upon, our individual Pentecost.
To the discerning eye John's baptism, though meaning much, could have implied more than he plainly stated because the place and means he chose for his ministration was the river Jordan. Whether or not John recognized the full significance of his actions we do not know, but his ministry illustrated the wonderful promise God had made through the prophet Micah that He would 'cast all their sins into the depths of the sea'. Jordan rises high in the mountainous regions of Lebanon and flows southward on its tortuous course to the Dead Sea; it then formed the eastern border of Israel. John's converts joined him in the river, and confessing their sins were immersed by him in its flowing waters. The baptism was a token of God's faithfulness; it was a pictorial demonstration of the immediacy with which God acted to forgive and cleanse sins out of their souls. His mercy and grace washed them from the soul swifter than Jordan's flowing current, to be buried forever in the sea of death.
That was the first great meaning of the rite, and it is marvellous in our eyes. Yet more than this was revealed by it also. Pondering the deep significance of this baptism against the background of Israel's history, we may reach the conclusion that the Lord was seeking to jolt the people wide awake as to their true identity. They were the nation God redeemed from Egypt by the hand of Moses, and afterwards brought over this very Jordan into the land of their promised inheritance by the hand of Joshua. He took over leadership from Moses after forty years of wandering in the wilderness, and set the nation heading for Canaan across this same river into their possessions. Now, before the eyes of the people, as though taking the place of Joshua, John stands uncompromisingly firm in the midst of this same Jordan talking about the kingdom of heaven being at hand. As has been said, the place he chose to announce the fact has a most significant name — Bethabara, 'the place of passage or crossing'.
Somewhere in Jordan Joshua had built a cairn of twelve stones; it marked the exact spot where he stood with the Ark of God on dry land. It is hardly likely that John's feet stood firm in the identical spot where originally the Ark waited in Jordan, but there was no mistaking John's meaning. He bore no Ark and built no cairn, but commanded all to go to him in the river, and continued baptizing there until one day Jesus came. It was as if by this John was saying to the nation, 'Behold your Joshua, this is He; every one of you must come back to the beginning. God is giving you an opportunity to make a fresh start. As it was with your fathers, so also must it be with you; there is no other way, it is from here that you must enter your Promised Land'. It is a very striking parallel. Just as of old they had to 'pass through the waters' into Canaan, so in John's day the remnant of the Children of Israel must come up out of Jordan into their inheritance.
Shortly the land was going to flow with the real milk and honey — Jesus was the sincere milk of the word and the sweetest person that ever lived. Although they did not know it, the time was at hand; God was in process of fulfilling His promise to them.
In John's gospel, chapter 10 verses 39-41, we read that later in His ministry Jesus again resorted to Bethabara 'where John at first baptized.' He did so in order to re-emphasize the purpose of His former visit there, though at this time there was no John, no baptism, no voice or dove or anointing. It was a critically important time for Him; the miracles He had done as a testimony to His Christhood were under hostile examination. Worse still, He was being hounded to death by the authorities. But his retirement to Jordan was not a defeat; He was actually about to work His greatest miracle before men, so He carefully prepared the background. He intended to prove as conclusively and reasonably as reasonable men ought to demand, that He was indeed the Son of God. Short of His own death and resurrection, it was to be the greatest sign that could possibly be shown to men, and it was carefully arranged so that He should declare more fully who He was. Therefore, He was about to do two things: make the greatest claim He had ever made among men — 'I am the Resurrection and the Life' and raise Lazarus from the dead as the sign to prove it: so back He goes to Jordan to the 'place of passage' where John baptized Him. From there He set out again upon the greatest mission of His life. As though He had just died and been buried and had risen again from the dead, He went forth to perform His greatest miracle on earth that side of Calvary. Straight from Bethabara Jesus went to the home of Martha and Mary and Lazarus at Bethany to demonstrate that He is the Resurrection and the Life. Amen! It is Jesus who invests Jordan with its greatest meaning. As though fresh from His own baptism He raised Lazarus from his rock cavern. Can anyone or anything withstand Him, or anything be plainer to the honest heart? He is thus giving baptism its proper meaning and truest setting; death, resurrection and life, or new birth.
Although at the time none but the Lord Jesus could see the whole strategy of God, John's ministry in relation thereto was to enable people to discover who they themselves were and who Jesus was. This done, John must gradually retire from the scene. On the other hand, Jesus on His part, having commenced to reform and adapt the nature and purpose of baptism, went on to complete the plan. That is why, even before He was baptized, Jesus firmly established the fact that all righteousness must be fulfilled. Whatever John Baptist understood by these words of the Lord when He insisted upon baptism we do not know, but God had to be just even in this. If it was righteous that upon repentance men should be immediately forgiven, then it must be shown how and why. At Jordan men confessed their sins and were forgiven, so into the place 'where sin abounded' stepped God's sinless Son, God's Lamb which taketh away the sin of the world. This was a kind of prophetical identification; Jesus was identifying Himself with all those who, in humble confession, had previously stood there. God used water to introduce baptism as His new method and to manifest the Lamb by whom He would accomplish the true Baptism in Spirit. He was also showing that He would remove the already discounted sacrificial system and replace it finally with the new Baptism of which this was a picture. He was preparing them for the revelation of the 'One Baptism' which was to be administered in the future by Jesus Christ in the Spirit of God.
Hundreds of years earlier God had said through Jeremiah (31:31) that He would make a new covenant with the House of Israel and the House of Judah. From that moment His attitude towards the Mosaic covenant was public knowledge. God made that statement, He had fixed His will and given a verdict; He made the first covenant old. Predictably, from that moment it began to wax old in His eyes, and by the time John stood in Jordan it was ready to vanish away. This is why God sent John as a forerunner to Jesus.
By his ministry John accomplished four very important things in relationship to that old covenant he represented:
1. He served on the nation God's final notice of His impending official break with the things received by tradition from their fathers.
2. He pictorially displayed to them the exact moment and means by which God was going to do so; hence his revolutionary new message and ministry.
3. He presented the Person who was going to do it.
4. He revealed both an eternal principle and a divine order. The plan of God for winding up the age and the commencement of the new age was death, resurrection and the descent of the Spirit.Everything God does is according to unchanging principles and eternal order.
From that time forward Jesus gradually began the prearranged take-over from John. Commencing His ministry with the same message and baptism as His forerunner, He thereby ratified them, and before long superseded both. Bringing a far greater message and ministry than John's, He removed the lesser gospel of John Baptist and established His own as the Gospel for this age. In process of this His light speedily eclipsed that which had shone in Jordan; His works and preaching evoked from men such remarks as 'we never saw it on this wise' and 'never man spoke as this man'; so it was throughout His life, until by death and resurrection He wrought the one new, true Baptism. At the same time He completed the phasing out of the Old Covenant in preparation for the New to begin. His actual Baptism had taken the place of the lesser baptism that John had administered; substance had taken the place of shadow.
All this can best be summed up in the words of Hebrews 10:5-9. Jesus took away the first covenant in order to establish the new, second and eternal covenant. That is why, in common with His forerunner, the Lord did not direct men to practise the sacrificial system of the Mosaic law in order to obtain forgiveness. What John had commenced in a figure, Jesus continued and completed in reality at Calvary. Now and again however, the Lord did tell men to re-visit the old; His purpose in doing so was clearly that of two-fold testimony only: firstly to testify of Himself to the people involved in it, and secondly to testify to the divine origins of the Mosaic ritual.
Occasionally the Lord sent men to show themselves to the priests, but never once did He direct men to its sacerdotal rites in order to obtain forgiveness or cleansing. He sent the lepers to 'offer for their cleansing', but not to make a sacrifice in order to obtain it; they offered the ritual gift because they had been cleansed already. By this means the priests learned that a greater than Annas or Caiaphas was among them and a greater than Aaron also. The lepers were already cleansed, but Jesus was teaching them that until the Old had vanished away entirely it must be honoured, even though in a man's individual experience its function was fulfilled.
Bearing all this in mind, perhaps one of the most remarkable features of the four Gospels is their unanimous witness about the public testimony of John Baptist. With one voice they testify that he said Jesus would baptize with the Holy Ghost and fire. More noticeably still perhaps, John made no direct reference at all to the Lord's redemptive work. Only once did he connect Jesus with sacrifice, saying 'Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world', John 1:29. More surprisingly than ever, three of the gospel writers do not even mention this last fact at all. Significantly enough, having said it, the apostle John goes on immediately to record John Baptist's words that Jesus would baptize with the Holy Ghost; that apparently was the reason why He bore away the sin. Obviously all the writers thought that if this was not the greatest reason for the Baptist's ministry, it was certainly the culminating point of it. Their unanimous testimony is as unmistakable as it is undeniable, they emphasize it as the terminal point and climacteric utterance of his ministry. If their evidence is to be believed this is the most important point.
Now we know that the Holy Ghost was given the responsibility to inspire and oversee the authorship of the Gospels: His intention was to draw attention to the Lord Jesus and not to Himself. He has come and ever works to glorify His predecessor on the earth. Yet He inspired each of the four writers of the Gospels to give this prominence to John's declarations about the Baptism in the Holy Ghost: Why? The simple fact emerges that the Baptism must be very important, for the purpose of the faithful Holy Ghost is to place emphasis exactly where it is needed.
The whole period covered by the earthly ministries of John Baptist and Jesus Christ was sandwiched between two baptisms. During the whole of that time God was moving to a new position in His saving purposes among men. It commenced with water baptism by John and ended with Spirit Baptism by Jesus: even so, neither of these is that 'One Baptism' spoken of in Ephesians 4. Each has a definite relationship to it though, and as an elementary illustration John's baptism introduced men and women into the truth of it. On the day of Pentecost, by being baptized in Spirit, men and women were baptized with Christ's personal baptism, and introduced to the ages of the ages of eternal life in Him.
Reading the opening chapters of each of the four Gospels, we discover that Mark and John virtually commence with the baptism of John, and Matthew and Luke with a genealogy of Jesus. The two latter give complementary accounts of His birth and associated events, and then also pass swiftly on to His baptism in water by John. Then according to his personal directive, each writes a Gospel of His life and work, and a full and detailed account of His trial and death and resurrection; three of them also speak of His ascension. Thus the way is left clear for the next book, the Acts of the Apostles, under the authorship and editorship of the Holy Ghost, to commence with the account of the birth of the Church. Significantly and inevitably it begins with the story of a baptism — Jesus' not John's; the new era had come. On the day of Pentecost men were being baptized in Holy Spirit instead of water. It was an epochal occasion. The ascended, enthroned Lord Jesus Christ was bestowing upon men the privilege of Sonship. Pentecost was an initiating and inclusive, as well as an inaugural occasion. On that day men were being baptized with the One Baptism of the new order. The risen, glorified Lord Jesus could now do this in all righteousness. He had completely removed the old order and clearly established the new, because on the cross He had made the one and only eternal sacrifice for sin.
The Bible says that Jesus was the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world; exactly when we are not told. Whether it happened following the beginning of sin in heaven, or whether God did it beforehand in anticipation of that sin we do not know, but this information is certainly a revelation of the heart of God towards man. So when at last Jesus appeared and died on earth, it was all over. The sacrifice had already been made before the world was, and it only awaited the fulness of time to be offered on man's behalf on earth. After that happened, blood need never again be shed for sin, and about that God was entirely happy. Consequent upon that final act of total reconciliation, He could establish and bring to perfection His plan to regenerate mankind. It was because His method of effecting that regeneration was so entirely new that He introduced it first in parabolic form through John Baptist. Having done so, He retained water baptism as 'a visual aid', an outward picture of far less importance than the great Baptism it so inadequately portrays.
Water baptism, even though it was only an outward institution in the physical realm, was real enough, and every time the prophet administered the rite he was insisting on the need for the more important baptism of which he repeatedly spoke. John, like the Holy Ghost who filled him, knew that his mission was to glorify Christ by baptizing Him in water. At first, recognizing the superiority of Christ's baptism, he refused to do so. He knew that the Christ was a baptizer too, and although he was a man full of the Holy Ghost, he knew and said that he himself needed to be baptized by Jesus in the Spirit. What he understood by that is difficult for us to know, but in heartfelt words he indicated most clearly how greatly superior to himself and his baptism he regarded Jesus and His Baptism to be. Nevertheless, upon the Lord's insistence, John co-operated with Him to fulfil all righteousness, and so the lesser baptized the greater in water. Whereupon he immediately knew that he had done the right thing, for he saw the blessed Spirit, like a dove, descend from heaven to alight and remain upon his Lord in the sacred anointing of Messiahship, and his ministry was fulfilled.
Months after this, when the Lord had been ministering to men under the power of that anointing for a long while, and as He was nearing the cross, He made some mysterious references to another baptism. That He was not speaking of His past baptism at the hands of John is as obvious as language can make it. He was unquestionably speaking of a future event — 'I have a baptism to be baptized with and how am I straitened until it be accomplished', He said. Many of those who followed Him must have been sorely puzzled by the remark. They had previously witnessed His baptism at the hands of John; they also knew by John's testimony that there was an experience called baptism connected with the Holy Ghost, and that Jesus would administer it. Indeed, it is almost certain that some of His disciples were following Him bearing this promise in mind and looking for its fulfilment. Now they heard Him speak of another baptism; and in such personal terms too, 'I have a baptism', He said; but He did not go on to say ... 'to administer'. Had He said that they could have understood Him, for was not that in essence the thing that John had said? But He said, 'to be baptized with'; it was another, a different baptism, and it was for Himself, but He did not say who was going to be the Baptist. He seemed to make it so distinctly personal. They had been baptized in water; they also were expecting to be baptized in the Spirit, but they had not been included in this Baptism; His speech was exclusive. More than that, He said that He was 'straitened until it be accomplished'. Apparently for Him it was either unavoidable and inescapable, or else He was determined to undergo it, or both.
His anointing had obviously been such an enlargement to Him. How greatly He had been magnified from Jordan onwards. How then could He speak of being 'straitened' as though He were narrowed down, kept within bounds, shut up? If, following His baptism in Jordan, He was so magnified and enlarged that all men knew of Him, and yet He spoke of being 'straitened', whatever would be the result of the next baptism? Could there be any limits to the results of such a baptism as that to which He now moved? He said that He was going to 'accomplish it'; strange words! But one thing was plain, this Baptism was not for the multitudes as was John's; it seemed to be for Him alone; His Baptism. Just His. One Man, it seemed, was going to accomplish One Baptism; how, no-one knew except Himself alone.
Upon the occasion when this subject was raised, the Lord asked two of the apostles He had chosen whether they were able to be baptized with this Baptism. They answered, 'we are able', and their hearts rejoiced. They had at the time been asking Him for privileges in His kingdom (in fact the highest positions it was possible for anybody to have) which were not His to give, and to their sorrow He had to refuse them; but to compensate them for their disappointment He asked them the question quoted above. They did not know that by so doing He was granting them the greatest opportunity and highest possible privilege a mortal man can know — His own Baptism.
It was the most wonderful and yet the most terrible experience He ever knew or accomplished as a man; it was the crowning glory of His life. To this end He had been born and for this purpose He came into the world; it both fulfilled and consummated Him, eclipsing in splendour everything else He had ever done. By its sheer overwhelming brilliance and wealth of love, His Baptism, and what He accomplished therein and thereby, outshines all creation, all His works, and all His other miracles. In offering them this, He offered them the opportunity of achieving the prize they sought and had requested of Him, for He Himself knew no way to His throne other than via His Baptism. He took them at their word; they were going to share His Baptism.
What a Baptism it was and still is! Unlike the one administered at Jordan, it was not to be of a visible nature in water. Nor was this Baptism to be a baptism in blood, though His own blood was much in evidence when it happened. Neither was it a baptism in the suffering He endured then, great and inevitable as that was; all these atrocities and horrors, terrible as they were, were but introductory to it. Jesus' Baptism was to be accomplished by Him by death; so to death He went, grieving, sweating and dripping with blood. Hanging on a cross He bore sin and expiated it, overcoming all the hosts of darkness in motionless battle as He swept majestically onward to the final act of baptism. He knew that neither His bloodshed nor His suffering would, of themselves, justify God in granting expiation for the past sins of mankind; there must be more than that — far, far more.
All the truths normally associated with the work of Christ on the cross could only be, or be effective unto salvation, as all was done with a view to the death of God's Son. His precious blood, even the blood of His cross, is only effective and redemptive because He died there. It was not the blood of the whipping-post, nor of His shameful crowning, that bought our redemption and purged our sins. All of it was the precious blood of the precious Lamb, and it flowed generously from the Redeemer, but it was the dying Lamb who was the redeeming Lamb, not just the suffering Lamb, nor yet the bleeding Lamb; it had to be by the blood of His cross, sealed by His death.
In the aggregate of course all counts, for all was necessary as part of a great whole; His blood is most precious, every drop of it. Wheresoever it was shed, in whatsoever capacity, or whoever it was that exacted it, all was foreknown and planned by God. It was precious at the whipping-post as it fell from His torn flesh there; it was also very precious — as it dripped from the cruel spikes of His crown in Herod's palace; but it is most precious of all on the cross, where Jesus died for us. It is only because He died that everything else He was and did and endured has any relevance for us today. The fact that He suffered and bled, necessary and indispensable and savage as all was, is only valid in the redemptive aggregate as it was the suffering and bleeding of His dying. It was the sacrifice and offering and laying down of His life that saved us. The savaging of His body and the shedding of His blood and the suffering of His soul, though each contributed its special and necessary value to the whole as part of His expiatory work, could not of themselves, nor all together, have reached man.
All would have been in vain had He not died, for man is a dead spirit, existing in the body as a dead soul, totally uncomprehending and unimaginative of eternal life and utterly incapable of responding to it. So the Lord had to die, that by dying He might invade and enter the state of death where man was imprisoned. At the moment His physical body died by the expiry of its breath and the departure of His spirit, His Spiritual Life plunged into man's spiritual death. Everything He endured previously led up to this precise moment; for reasons far too numerous to mention He had to hang on the tree until all God's requirements were met. That done, He was ready to move unhindered unto His next and greatest task, the moment of triumphant death, the Baptism to which He had referred. By His death the Lord reached Man; at last He came to where he was, and to what He found him to be — Death. It required the act called Baptism in order for Him to accomplish it.
Gazing upon Calvary one could have witnessed a process of dying that could be counterparted among men in many and various ways, though happily for the most part less barbarous than His. But all physical death is not a process, as sudden accidents all too shockingly demonstrate to us. The sudden plunging from life into death is a sharp, and to some a painfully terrifying reminder that death really is a baptism. It is an unceremonious immersion into a completely new realm or world of existence, from which there is no return to the former mode of life. Death is not generally thought of as a baptism, but nevertheless that is exactly what it is, and it was towards this that the Lord Jesus was moving and to this that He was referring in Luke 12 verse 50. His birth and earthly life, as well as His physical dying, were all a straitening unto this end. He was born, and lived and hanged upon a tree as a necessary preparation for and prelude to His Baptism. He voluntarily, and God His Father deliberately, and the Holy Ghost comprehensively engineered it; together the blessed Trinity had moved to the point in time when God could retrieve His loss.
Perhaps we ought to pause here and seek to distinguish some things that differ. When speaking of Christ's death it is possible so to use the term that the most important truth of it is lost through generalization. Yet failure to apprehend truth is liable to cause us to be at peril in our understanding where, says Paul, we ought to be men. For instance in the accepted sense of the word Christ did not 'die' on the cross, for it was quite impossible for Him to die in the manner that we apprehend death. Unlike ordinary men, if He had not voluntarily dismissed His Spirit, He could never have died. When the Lord did that He did so with the mighty shout of a conqueror, and strictly speaking, until He dismissed His Spirit from the cross He lived on it. Therefore Jesus accomplished our redemption and reconciliation while hanging still alive on the cross; it was by His living blood, not by His dying blood that the ransom was paid. He never more truly and fully lived than when He was dying. He of all people had to be baptized into death, because He could not die as other men — it was quite impossible. Having borne sin and its penalty in His body on the tree, He arrived at the moment of full release unto which He had been straitened all His life. Plunging in spirit into the death wherein man was held prisoner, the Lord furthered His many conquests unto ultimate victory. Life entered death then. Until that moment He had been penetrating through the environs of man's death, but having done that the Lord stormed the stronghold of satan and reached His beloved Man.
Although so much that was wrought out in the flesh at Calvary was visible to the eye, it was a Spirit Baptism. It is ever the things which the eye does not see, or the ear hear, or the mind understand that are the most vital things of all. It was what was wrought in the invisible world of Spirit that was most important. God is Spirit, so is satan, and so essentially is Man. Calvary was primarily to do with Spirit — God who is the Living Spirit and Man the dead spirit — a captive of satan who is the spirit of death. On the cross Jesus, the Living or Life-giving Spirit, overcame and thoroughly defeated satan, the death (or death-dealing) spirit, and consequently released the enslaved, dead spirit of Man. That is what the Baptism is all about. In the act of dismissing His Spirit He accomplished greater things than He did in the process of dying. It was the most glorious and intensely righteous thing He ever did, and is the deepest meaning behind the remark He made to John Baptist, 'Suffer it to be so now for thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness'. Water baptism was a righteous act to Jesus at that time because the Life-into-death Baptism towards which He was then moving is righteousness eternal in the Spirit.
More than at any other moment since the creation of the world those last moments on the cross reveal righteousness superb and love supreme. Voluntarily accepting fullest responsibility and obligation, without pressure, knowing that it was the correct and only thing to do, Jesus did it. That is the final act of Righteousness from which Regeneration springs. It was through the death of His physical body, whereby so many other righteous things were accomplished, that He did it. The Baptism was not accomplished in the body but out of it — as His Spirit went from His body. Whilst in the flesh He could and did do so much, but in the moment and act of departure from it He accomplished more, much more, the most difficult thing of all.
Everything was in the realm of Spirit; even His blood was only valuable because of the spiritual life He lived in the flesh. So, because all is basically and virtually Spirit, it is in Spirit that the Baptism must take place. He was not a sinner, but became as the sinner; He was not sin, but was made sin; He was not death but was baptized into it in order that His death may be for us the only death there is. Therefore, His death is the new death, all the old forms and expressions of death being superseded by it. The death of sin for us was accomplished at Calvary. Death to sin for us took place also at Calvary. Spiritual Death is destroyed, so is Hell, so is satan (Hebrews 2:14), the spirit who had the power of death. Physical death is now also destroyed — that is, rendered powerless, or annulled — and renamed sleep. Jesus was laughed to scorn when He spoke of death as sleep, but He was right. Luke tells us that Stephen 'fell asleep' and he was right also. Life cannot die, but its physical frame can sleep. For us there is but one death. As He was made sin for us, so was He made death for us, that He may be both Righteousness and Life to us. In every way our precious Lord and the things He did, and what He accomplished as events took place in His life is absolutely all. Even His glorious claim to be Alpha and Omega, the first and the last, assumes fresh lustre as we see it outworking in such a dreadful realm as this.
In the beginning satan had made Adam to be sin and death to the race, so it was perfectly in order that the last Adam should be made sin and death to us by God. In all things He must have the preeminence, even in this. There was no other way but death for Jesus the Last Adam, for He had come to end the reign of sin and death. 'I am the Way', He said in the upper room, and within a few hours of making that statement He was baptized into death. There is no other means of access to death than baptism. Lucifer plunged himself into sin and death, thereby becoming satan; in turn by Adam he plunged the whole human race into sin and death also. Because of this, in His day the Last Adam, Jesus Christ, was made sin by God and plunged all living (that is, vitally righteous and holy) and loving into that death which is the result of sin. This is that wonderful, almighty and most mysterious experience which is only faintly pictured and hinted to us in the practice of water baptism.
Seeing that water baptism is not that One Baptism, but only a dim picture of it, we must understand clearly at this point that identity in name because of parallel symbolic ideas is not necessarily an equation of power or experience. Water baptism is basically the projection of an idea from the spiritual to the natural, a suggestion of an invisible experience. Were it not an ordination of God, it could only be regarded as a substitute, an imitation, a grotesque caricature of the real, an empty mocking charade. It would only be a dumb miming of a dim idea not fully known, a cruel cynical deception, for of itself it has no value at all. Like so many other 'things' of old, it has no intrinsic worth of its own, and can, of itself, bestow no merit upon those who engage in it, either as minister or recipient. If there is any spiritual danger attached to water baptism, it lies only in the superstition ingrained in the minds of men who religiously invest it with mystical, sinking almost to magical, powers never intended by God when He originally ordained it. Obviously then, if only for this reason, it could never be the one and only true Baptism.
Chapter Seven - INTO LIFE ETERNAL
Like the other six that combine with it to set forth the wondrous Unity of the Spirit, the One Baptism must be of an eternal nature and import. It must be incorruptible, impossible to secularize or profane, and quite beyond anyone's power to debase to a mere superstitious rite. In the end, a heart must be able to repose everlasting trust in something; there must be some things which cannot be shaken or removed. Praise God there are such things, and they provide everlasting security, and become sure ground on which to build our thinking because they remain indestructibly eternal. Therefore God ordained the Baptism as an eternal means; it is not a temporary measure. In itself though it is not a final end; the Baptism is always 'in', 'into', 'unto'. In its administration there is an end in view, a point to reach and a position to be realized — Regeneration.
Further reflection makes clearer still why John's baptism, or any like it in the same element, could not possibly be the One Baptism. It is concerned with the reasoning that lay behind the questions in the minds of the priests and Levites who spoke to John. To them baptism was such a departure from tradition that whether or not it was right, to have any justification for existence at all it should only have been administered by Elijah or 'that Prophet', or 'the Christ', John 1:19-25. In the minds of these people the whole concept of baptism, whether it be administered by the forerunner of the Messiah or the Christ Himself, was only held to be valid in the context of the Messianic Kingdom. This is a most significant thing. The Christ, apparently, was expected to do something comparable to baptism. Their scripture for instance spoke of outpourings of water upon thirsty souls and floods upon dry ground, and by this they understood that the writers were implying the Spirit, hence they were in danger of confusing John the Baptist with the Messiah.
Had they given deeper consideration to John's ministry, it would have been apparent that it could not have been the Messianic Baptism, for John's was not an outpouring, but an immersion. Perhaps confusion arose because water was used, but the scriptures remained clear; the Messiah would usher in His Kingdom by pouring out the Spirit. Hence the confusion in their minds; John was immersing. Why? The significance of the method used should have settled the problem; John's baptism was as perfect a means as could be desired of depicting death and resurrection. It did not typify the Baptism in the Spirit as revealed at Pentecost, but the baptism wherewith Jesus baptized Himself at Calvary in order to create the means of new birth.
Objections to the truth of baptismal regeneration as here set out are generally based upon John 20:22, where we read that Jesus breathed on the assembled disciples and said unto them, 'Receive ye the Holy Ghost'. This, so it is said, was the moment of regeneration for the disciples. This passage should be compared with Luke 24:33-42. It is not easy to tell just how many were there at that time or to exactly determine who of the 120 persons gathered together on the day of Pentecost was selected to receive this special favour. If it be that only apostles were present, then there were only ten. There should have been eleven, but for some reason Thomas, being absent, missed the blessing; he lived for eight days in polite scepticism of both the resurrection and the result. However, it is widely believed that just ten apostles were there upon the occasion when the risen Lord breathed upon or into them the Holy Ghost.
If this be so, and this was the time of new birth for them, then from the scripture records we know that only this small proportion — a twelfth in fact — of the company gathered together on the day of Pentecost were already born again. The implication of this is that whatever had happened to the apostles, the larger number must have been born again by the Baptism in the Spirit. If this view is unacceptable, then they must have been born at some time subsequent to that experience, but that is absurd. If it be that neither of these propositions is true, then when were they born? If they (and presumably Thomas also) were granted a similar kind of experience to the ten prior to Pentecost, the scriptures are strangely silent about it. Where in scripture is the slightest hint given that we all must have some experience equivalent to the ten in order to be born? No-one insists upon it. Yet who can doubt that the early Church expected all to be baptized in Spirit?
That the day of Pentecost was in fact the day of regeneration for the whole company, including the apostles, receives striking corroboration from the use of the Greek word 'pnoe' for 'wind' in Acts 2:2. Luke the physician, who also wrote the glorious account of the conception and birth of our Lord Jesus, is on familiar ground here — he is using a medical term. In his day doctors and midwives used this word when speaking of birth; it is specifically used to describe the incoming breath of the newly-born babe. Ancient medical journals, we are informed, also make use of this same word when describing the result of the action taken by a doctor or midwife to induce breathing at birth. Such action is still common among us, with the same results.
Further to the point, the writers of the Septuagint version of the Old Testament in 200 B.C. use this same Greek word 'pnoe' when translating Genesis 2:7. 'God. ..breathed into his nostrils the breath of life'. It is quite obvious that Luke, guided by the Spirit, used a word commonly understood by all to mean the beginning of life; all of which appears to be fairly conclusive evidence of what the original members of the Church believed. Perhaps the fact that Luke claims in his Gospel only to write of 'things generally believed' among them, and since 'they' included the apostles with whom he travelled, we are on safe ground in making the claim. Whether breathed into a clay man formed in a garden, or into a flesh and blood baby formed in a womb, or into those one hundred and twenty, the initial breath of life means birth. Adam was formed and created a man, a babe is formed and born a child, the Church was formed and created and born on the day of Pentecost by the Baptism in the Spirit. By and in that experience each person received the gift of the Holy Ghost by inspiration of God and was made alive; until that moment they had no personal, spiritual existence or corporate form, save in the mind and will of God. They were baptized into the body of Christ in whom is life, and received the breath of the life of that body. To those who thereby became the first members of the Church, that experience was baptismal regeneration. Since this is so, what did happen to the ten apostles on the Lord's great day of Resurrection?
For the answer to this question we need to go back into John 14. There the Lord is recorded as speaking to the eleven concerning the person and coming of the Holy Ghost; 'the Comforter' He calls Him. Not only so, but the Lord also fixes their attention upon the day of His coming, verse 20, 'at' (or 'in') that day. The Lord is very specific; He needed to be; so beyond dispute we must be able to fix 'that day'. It is quite a simple matter to do this, for the Lord said it was the day when, upon His request, the Father would give them the other Comforter to abide with them for ever. It could be thought, and certainly has been said by some, that this is precisely what took place on Easter day.
Now if this be so, it must be agreed by all that this must be 'that day', but there is no proof of this. On the contrary it would appear most certain that the gift of the person of the Holy Ghost was not made to them at Easter, but on the day of Pentecost. This seems clear enough, both from Peter's words on the day of Pentecost to the Jews in the presence of the Church, and also his later statements to the apostles. Without controversy, Peter must be regarded as the chief witness of the Lord in this matter. He it was who made all the original statements about this baptism, and examination of them proves that he is absolutely consistent in his deposition. Much of what the Lord said in John 14 certainly did have a fulfilment on Easter day though, as we shall see.
Speaking of that day, He said 'I will come to you', and He most certainly did that. Another thing He said was, 'because I live ye shall live also', and if breathing on them accomplished that, then on Easter Day they undoubtedly lived because He did. However, there is not sufficient evidence to show that they lived; in fact, once again most of the evidence seems to prove exactly the opposite. Jesus said, 'at that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in Me and I in you', and that is precisely what they did not know upon that occasion. On the contrary He certainly was not in them and they in Him; He was outside them and they were outside Him; both they and He knew it and so does everyone else who reads the scripture. Beside this, subsequent events proved it to them beyond measure:
- He again appeared to them (without) eight days after.
2. 'He showed Himself again' to them (afar off from them and their boat) upon the shore of the Sea of Tiberias.
3. He entertained them to a meal and afterwards walked along the beach with Peter, followed by John.
4. 'He led them out as far as to Bethany'.
5. 'The eleven disciples went away into Galilee into a mountain where Jesus had appointed them ... they saw Him ... Jesus came and spake unto them'.
6. After the Lord had spoken unto them, He was received up into heaven and sat on the right hand of God.
7. Angels said to them, 'this same Jesus which is taken from you into heaven...'
This seems to be conclusive enough evidence that Easter day was not 'that day' of which the Lord spoke in the upper room, for manifestly during all these days He was not inside but outside them, and quite deliberately so. He was certainly not one with them and they with Him and with each other as He had prayed they should be; 'that day' of fulfilment did not arrive until 'the day of Pentecost had fully come'. When 'that day' came, all the Lord had said would happen to them did happen; especially those things He spoke in John 14:20. Beside this, we read in Acts 2:44, 'all that believed were together and had all things common', which is even more than the Lord had said. We see then that what happened to the apostles on Easter day was less than the Lord had said, but that what happened at Pentecost was more than He had said. This good measure, pressed down and running over seems to be logical proof that the Lord's statements were truly fulfilled in them then. 'At that day' He had said, ye shall know that I am in my Father and ye in Me and I in you', and sure enough when they were baptized in the Holy Ghost they immediately knew these things, and that His word was truth (Acts 2:32-36), but they did not know on Easter day. All they knew upon that occasion was that He was risen from the dead and was with them, speaking, showing them His hands and side, breathing on them, commissioning them for further service. Except for the nail-prints and special on-breathing, He had done such things before.
Having seen from scripture that what took place in the apostles' experience on Easter day was not regeneration, it ought to be possible to come to some understanding of what did happen, for it is often far more easy to show what a thing is not, than to prove what it is. An attempt to show what did actually happen is therefore set out below.
If we allow the miraculous event to stand as it is, without trying to invest it with mystical power beyond what we plainly read, we shall do ourselves the greatest service in the matter. Doing this, we see at once that the Lord's action in breathing on them was all part of His plan to identify Himself to His fearful disciples. Up until that time they had thought Him to be only an apparition. They had not fully accepted that He was really alive, and had received reports of the resurrection as idle tales. So when He appeared, the Lord repeated the normal daily greeting, and then used special words to them which they alone had heard Him speak. It was a simple enough plan; only they had heard Him say to His Father, 'As thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world'. So seeking to reassure their hearts, He takes up the same words, and uses them in a slightly different form, 'as my Father hath sent me, even so send I you'. It was not the only reason why He used those words, but it must have been wonderfully comforting to their hearts.
Yet with sweeter intentions and something of grace and power beyond what they had ever known He went further still. Drawing even nearer, He dispelled their last lurking doubts and fears by breathing on them. That did it; His lovely warm breath (as John the recorder especially had felt it in the upper room when he laid his head on his breast), chased away all their hesitations and questionings; their lingering doubts vanished. This was no deception, it was Jesus; it was no cold deceiving spirit, it was really HE. 'Receive ye the Holy Ghost', He said, 'whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained'. He came to establish His bona fides; they saw Him, heard His voice, felt His breath, saw His wounds, remembered His words, received His command. Quite clearly in this lies the reason why they needed the special impartation of the Holy Spirit; the commission makes clear the need for the ministration, and what an unique charge it was. No-one else had ever had such an awesome responsibility placed upon them before. The staggering fact was that from that moment, in a limited capacity, they were to act as God on the earth. They had done this before in a much more limited way when they had preached and healed and cast out demons in Jesus' name, but never had they dealt in authoritative forgiveness of sins.
Upon an earlier occasion they had heard Jesus grant to a man absolution from his sins; it happened during the course of a miraculous healing. For this He was accused by His enemies of making blasphemous statements and being an imposter; 'who can forgive sins but God alone?' they said. Until Easter day He had never delegated that kind of authority to anyone; lesser things, yes, but never had He even suggested to them that they should, or could, forgive sins. This was entirely new. Never before had He allowed them to do anything more than prophets and sent-ones of the Old Testament had done. Their fathers had acted with authority to speak and heal in their day, but had never been granted powers of absolution or retention. But now with this impartation, they were enabled and commissioned to deal with sins also; it was almost too incredible to take in. Every one in that room, including the Lord Himself, knew that this was quite impossible unless He gave them some most extraordinary gift or presence or power. There would have been no problem in the minds of the apostles as to why they needed this special in-breathing of the Holy Ghost; they knew exactly for what reason it was granted.
With the final exposure of the sham of degenerate Judaistic practices came the need for their replacement. Hearts in Israel, though confused by events, were crying out for reality. When Jesus died, God rent the veil in the Temple from top to bottom; there was nothing there, 'Ichabod' was written over everything. There were no means on earth for men to have their sins forgiven; worse still there was no-one now to whom they could go, for Jesus was no longer in the world. Therefore God had to do something lest He leave Himself without witness. So by the on-breathing of the Holy Ghost, He committed to these men what, until then, had been the sole prerogative of God; the supreme authority and ability to forgive sins.
It was a special dispensation; undoubtedly it was bestowed in anticipation of new birth and the life they would receive at Pentecost. Later they were to be given command to tarry till they were endued with power from on high; they had the commission, but not the life and power. They must not attempt to act in their authority until they should by new birth become living witnesses unto Jesus Christ. It was a great commission, far exceeding anything that went before, but it no more required new birth for its reception than did the commission to work miracles which they had received years earlier. They still retained that and to it this was added. Then we may ask the question, 'why could it not all have been done together on the day of Pentecost?' An answer to that is, 'simply because the Lord did not wish the general state of regeneration to include this special authorization.' It belonged exclusively to the apostles of the Lamb, and the Lord did not intend it to be passed on to others in apostolic succession either.
There is perhaps also another acceptable reason to be found for this special bestowal of the Spirit before Pentecost. In Acts 1:1 and 2, we read that 'Jesus began both to do and teach, until the day in which He was taken up'. For forty days following His resurrection He showed Himself alive to His apostles by many infallible proofs, speaking to them of the Kingdom of God; this he did 'by the Holy Ghost'. It was a very important time, and it was obviously for this that He needed to impart the Holy Ghost to them; the Spirit was to be the necessary link between them and their Lord. This is what He was doing when He breathed on them in the house that day. By this initial impartation by on-breathing, and the consequent ministration throughout the following period, the Lord graciously prepared them for the new era. On the day of ascension He finally left the earth to go home to His Father; knowing of this He instituted the means by which He could train them for the time to come when His visible presence (may we say 'Parousia' Gk?) would no longer be with them. They needed to become used to the experience of Jesus speaking to them when not visibly present with them. What better method or what more timely moment, then, to introduce and authenticate to them the oral gifts? Although all of them had already been given the gifts of healing and miracles, so far as we know none of those men had as yet received the gift of prophecy. Excepting one or two rare occasions, the oral gifts were unknown to the apostles before Calvary; the great prophets before them had spoken words of wisdom or knowledge or prophecy, but as far as we can trace only one of them had done so; they needed to move into a new realm, so He breathed on them the Holy Spirit.
Of course they had heard the marvellous utterances of the Lord, but He had always been visibly present with them at the time of utterance, so they had no difficulty in associating the words with the person. However, because of His necessary absence, and according to His future plans for them and all men, they needed to be assured of the genuineness of the oral gifts, so over the period of forty days, with patient love, He came and taught them, perhaps by this method. We do not exactly know this to be true, but (summarizing the above) we do know that:
- None of the apostles appeared to possess or use oral gifts before the Resurrection.
2. The Lord had breathed on them purposely to impart the Holy Spirit.
3. Peter appeared to possess an oral gift following the Resurrection and before Pentecost, (Acts 1:15-22), which allows the assumption that they may all have received one.
4. These gifts are later called the gifts of the Spirit.
5. The scripture definitely says 'He through the Holy Spirit had given commandments unto the apostles'.
6. This must have been an extraordinary occurrence to have received such special mention, for had it been usual, attention would not have been deliberately drawn to it.
7. Had the communications been made as they had always been, no mention need have been made of the Holy Spirit.
Thus it may not be so much a gratuitous assumption as an allowable deduction that the Lord only taught the apostles by: (1) showing Himself alive and talking to them in the normal ways, (2) by remaining invisible and using the oral gift of prophecy for the purpose. However, whichever way He did it, they were perfectly prepared by Him for His coming to them on the day of Pentecost, as He had said in John 14. During those forty days they still awaited 'that day' of knowledge that He had come to abide with them for ever, and looked forward confidently to it in sure hope of His word. Recognition of all this clarifies many things otherwise inexplicable, stabilizing and fixing them in the understanding.
Arising from this sure foundation, a simple fact emerges, namely that strictly speaking the gifts of the Spirit do not function by the Baptism of the Spirit. As we have seen, some gifts were being operated by at least 82 disciples long before the day of Pentecost, and also that to some of them other gifts may have been added just prior to it. Granted this, it is true to say that upon such evidence it cannot be accepted as a scripturally proven fact that the gifts of the Spirit are either given in or function by the Baptism of the Spirit. On the other hand, scripture provides sure ground for believing that they function in the Church by special authorization under the anointing of the Spirit. They are dispensed in the body of Christ for two main reasons: (I) the edification of His body, (2) the testimony to the world that 'the kingdom of heaven is (still) at hand'. We will not now pursue this line any further, instead we will return to the opening thematic outline and consider the truth of the One Baptism in the context of the New Testament epistles.
Upon examination, it is evident that none of the apostles' writings directly say, or in any way hint, that they thought — even if they did not teach — that there is any more than One Baptism. Commencing with the book of Romans, we discover that the references to the subject are very few. In chapter 6:3,4, Paul speaks of the Baptism in words which leave us with no doubt as to what he means. At this point he is introducing his exposition of life in the Spirit. He develops the theme in chapter 8, elaborates it still further in chapter 12, and completes it in chapter 15, culminating in verse 19. Besides these chapters, there are only two other references to the Holy Spirit in the whole epistle. Nowhere in this letter does the phrase 'baptism with, or in, or of the Spirit' occur, and neither does the phrase 'one baptism', but it is quite obvious that when speaking of baptism Paul is alluding to the one and only Baptism in the Holy Ghost.
In the first of these scriptures it is most evident that the reference is to a spiritual baptism. Water cannot be found in Romans 6, for water cannot possibly be the medium wherein men are baptized into Jesus Christ. Water is only used as the most suitable medium in which to enact the idea of death, burial and resurrection before the eyes of men. Before God, the only medium in which the real death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ could possibly be experienced is the Spirit, for it is the only realm in which it exists. We have to be baptized in the Spirit in order to be baptized via His death and burial and resurrection into Him; it cannot be otherwise, for all He ever did for us historically now exists only in that realm. We are not immersed in or made beneficiaries of a now non-existent event — a memory. The redeeming, regenerating act and experience lies in (the) Spirit. It was accomplished by Christ with this in mind and only for that purpose. In order that we may have the eternal life referred to in chapter 6 verse 23, it is absolutely necessary for us to be baptized in the Spirit. Eternal life is 'in Christ Jesus', chapter 8 verse 1, and being baptized into Him, we shall find the life which is described in detail in the rest of the chapter developing in us to the full. Thereby we shall be formed in the image of the Son to which we were conformed by God's will before the world began. This is life in the Spirit as opposed to the life under law, so graphically revealed in chapter 7.
In chapter 12, Paul moves straight on from the famous opening verse to speak of 'one body', 'many members', 'different offices', and 'then gifts'. Nowhere in any of these verses has he even remotely hinted that between the baptism of chapter 6 verse 3, and installation into these offices and possession of these gifts, and their operations and ministries, there must be another baptism. If it be true that before a man can have power to operate gifts for service he must undergo a further baptism, why in this most logical and closely argued epistle does not Paul mention it? If a man needs it, and God provides and therefore demands it, then where is it? For an apostle charged with the special duty of teaching the Gentiles, Paul is strangely silent on the matter of plurality of baptisms. The whole implication, if not the clear statement of the apostle in this epistle, is that there is only One Baptism.
Proceeding to his first epistle to the Corinthians, we find the same kind of thing. In the 12th chapter he writes with absolute clarity about being baptized in one Spirit into one body, and being 'made to drink into one Spirit'. This is set in the opening verses of a chapter specifically dealing with the gifts of the Spirit, at the beginning of the most famous and detailed section on the subject in the whole Bible. He leaves the unprejudiced reader under no illusion here: he says we all ought to possess and function in these gifts, and tells us how properly to do so to the glory of God; but he does not anywhere speak one word of another so-called baptism in the Spirit beyond the one already mentioned in verse 13. If it be true that there is in fact another baptism and Paul did not mention it, he must surely be charged with neglecting his responsibilities to the point of dereliction of duty. Of course, this charge can never be brought, for there is no other baptism but one, as he so plainly said later in the Ephesian letter.
Writing to the Galatians, Paul mentions the word baptism once only — in 3:27. This verse is as clear an allusion to the verses we have seen in 1 Corinthians 12 as is possible to wish for. It comes at the end of a chapter dealing with receiving 'the promise of the Spirit through faith', which is set subsequent in order of truth to the cross. All this is presented in the context of such words as, 'the blessing', 'the covenant', 'the inheritance', and being 'children of God'. It is most obviously to this that the baptism refers and certainly not directly to gifts of the Spirit. Nevertheless although he does not mention these specifically, they do have their place in the chapter: it is by no means a prominent one, but we arrive at that conclusion by inference from verse 5. Seeing that so far throughout the whole of the epistles into which we have searched there has been no reference to the subject, why does not this responsible man tell us that we need another baptism for power or some such thing? The answer must simply be because it has no foundation in fact, and therefore has no place in the Bible.
Passing on now to the Ephesian letter, we find that the subject of baptism comes up but once in chapter 4 verse 5, as 'one baptism'. It is so unequivocal that it is almost superfluous to write about it. It is true; that is why it is written. Despite that, however, it has been thought by some that a second spiritual baptism is intended to be understood, or may be presumed to exist and rightly to be inferred from Paul's language in 1:12 & 13. Because he says 'ye were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise after that ye believed', it is presumed he meant to say one of two things: either 'ye were baptized in the Spirit a long time after ye believed, or ye were baptized in the Spirit when ye believed the second time', but he did not say that, nor did he mean it. It is absolutely true that the baptism or sealing only takes place after a person believes; it is most certain that no-one can receive a second baptism in the Holy Ghost. The assumption is that the first baptism is into the body for life, and the second is the enduement of power for service, or for entire sanctification.
One clear look into the Greek of the passage should dispel that whole idea. The word 'trusted' in verse l2 is really half a word. In order to convey the original thought, it should be hyphenated to 'first', making one word — 'first-hoped' or 'fore-hoped'. The second word 'trusted' in verse 13 is not there at all in the original. Reading these verses with this in mind, the inspired statement can be understood to mean, 'when you heard at first you hoped; then later when your hope turned to faith ye were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise'. In other words, 'you were baptized in the Holy Spirit after you had heard and believed the gospel'. Paul here is almost certainly referring to their experience as recorded in Acts 19:1-6. Under John Baptist's heraldic ministry, people had only 'fore-hoped' in Christ. They at first hoped that John was the Christ, then when he disillusioned them about that, they were baptized under him in hope that their Messiah would immediately come. It was this preaching and ministry that the Ephesians had received through Apollos, John's disciple. Later when Paul went to Ephesus, this was the kind of background he found there, but when he preached the gospel to them, their fore-hopes turned to faith — they believed and received.
There is no mention of the word baptism in the Philippian letter, so we pass on to Colossians and note the single reference to it there in chapter 2 verse 12. Here again, with persistent clarity of purpose, the blessed Holy Spirit tells us all that we ought to wish to know from this epistle on this matter. It is God's method of including us into and making us partakers with Christ of His burial and resurrection; it is an operation of God. So strongly is the whole point made, that the word 'baptism' here can only rightly be translated 'the Baptism', for it is definitely and objectively pointed out to the mind. There could hardly be found a clearer way of saying, 'This is the objective to aim at; this is that most important experience for you to undergo; this Baptism; definitely it is this'. Quite unmistakably it is the only one spoken of, and just as clearly it has no direct connection with the gifts of the Spirit, but apparently it does bring us into the body of Christ (verses 17 and 19). There are references in other epistles which have been considered already so that we need not examine them here.
Perhaps one of the greatest mistakes made in seeking to interpret scripture, and especially this truth of the Baptism in the Spirit, is in assuming that the Bible has always been in its present format. This is not so. When one considers, for instance, that the scripture from which Jesus read in the synagogue was possibly just a scroll of Isaiah, and not even a complete copy of the Old Testament as it then existed, and also that the early Church never had a New Testament at all, it may help us to grasp a very salutary yet simple fact, most significant to us now.
In Acts 2 Luke has recorded the story of the Church's Pentecost — its true birth-day. Sadly enough, the whole thing was immediately opposed by the entire Jewish religious world. With amazement and doubt, and some mockery even, the question was asked, 'what meaneth this?' Standing up with the eleven, Peter took upon himself the responsibility of answering the question. The result was a foregone conclusion, for during the early events connected with the resurrection, the Lord had opened the understanding of the apostles to comprehend the scriptures. It seems that upon that occasion He took them through Moses and the prophets and David's psalms, giving them special insight into the prophetic statements concerning His suffering and death and resurrection. It is not surprising then that, following that clothing from heaven, Peter is found handling the Hebrew scriptures with unerring accuracy.
Therefore in answer to the question, the apostle says, 'this is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel'. Going on to quote him at length, Peter then points to 'Jesus of Nazareth', a man who, although He was 'approved of God' among them, was unreasonably crucified at their hands. This Jesus, he said, was raised up and exalted by God to shed forth 'this which ye now see and hear'. Although it was a visible, audible, recognizable experience, what was seen and heard was objected to, and still is by some. This is a great pity, but it is not altogether the fault of the objectors that the mighty Baptism is discredited; it is sometimes the fault of the good folk who seek to defend it upon wrong ground. Strange to tell, the biggest mistakes are usually made upon the interpretation of verse 16, the text upon which the defenders of the doctrine take their surest stand.
It is absolutely true that Peter's words are precisely right. They were then; they are now. What is not true though is that he said 'This is that', and only this is that, and that's that, and nothing else is that because 'this' is all there is to it. Such a specious approach to the text misinterprets Peter to mean 'this' is all that God intends you to understand by the words 'the Baptism in the Spirit', and only 'this'. Nothing could be more absurd: Peter did not say that because it is not true. What he said is absolutely true as far as it goes of course, and cannot be improved upon, but there is a lot more in the Baptism than that which Joel wrote. If it be perfectly true that what took place on the day of Pentecost was that which Joel had said about the Baptism in the Spirit, ought it not to be equally true that what Jesus said about that Baptism also took place at the same time? The answer to that question is undoubtedly an unqualified 'Yes'. But it would have been useless for the apostles to attempt to repeat what Jesus had said exclusively to them, to a crowd of devout Jews. These people had but lately crucified and slain their Lord, and were still refusing to believe in His resurrection. What did they care about anything He had said about this or any other subject?
Behold the wisdom of God in this. Peter did not refer to Jesus' sayings, for to the company he was addressing Jesus was a discounted, discredited criminal liar, who had suffered capital punishment for His blasphemous crimes. It looks horrible in print, but nevertheless it was what they thought at that time. Peter could not therefore sensibly refer to the Lord's promises, and even had he done so, it would have been worse than useless, for to those Jews and proselytes, there was no proof that Jesus had ever said anything. His words were not in their scriptures. Further, Peter could not make any reference to what New Testament scriptures said about it, for none of them were written. He could not say, 'as the apostle John wrote in the fourteenth chapter of his Gospel, verses 15-20', for John had no idea at that time that he would ever write a Gospel, and he was quite unknown anyway. Nor could Peter say, 'this is that which our brother Paul says in 1 Corinthians 12', because Saul of Tarsus was at that time an unconverted blasphemer, one of 'them'. Obviously he had not then written of the glories of the Church's experience and superior knowledge of the Baptism.
At the time Peter was speaking, all the writers of the New Testament had as yet to take up their pens, so on the day of Pentecost there was nothing of Gospel or Epistle to which Peter could refer. Moreover, the occasion could not be repeated. Peter just had to take an Old Testament reference and apply that to the event taking place, even though it was woefully inadequate to describe properly and fully the mighty Baptism taking place on that day. There was nothing else to use, for there was no other inspired source to which he could refer. Under the Spirit's hand, Peter selected Joel's prophecy, and applied it to the occasion because it is a true reference to what was taking place. There are also other references to it in the Old Testament, any of which he could have used with equal accuracy, but however many he may have quoted, all would have been partial and incomplete. Neither Joel nor Isaiah nor any other prophet of Israel could give the whole, nor yet the greatest, nor yet the most vitally important testimony to the Baptism. The great tragedy is that, because of prevailing ignorance about these things, the incompleteness of the Old Testament has caused severely limited thinking to develop in the Church about it. Inevitably this has affected the ministry, which in turn has led to partial and shallow experiences among God's people. Tragedy upon tragedy, the Church in many instances does not see to which covenant it belongs, preferring to make much of what an Old Testament prophet said about the One true Baptism and nothing, or little, of the sayings of the great apostles of the New Testament when they wrote on the subject.
Surely the men who experienced that mighty initial baptismal regeneration into the Church knew far more of what it meant than any of those who, in an earlier dispensation, wrote with minds which were confessedly enquiring into what it all meant: 1 Peter 1:10-12. Joel wrote by inspiration alone, knowing nothing of the experience of it, therefore he had to write informatively only, and having only this lesser part, he wrote of the lesser, partial experience. The better part has been written by the saints of the New Testament, who from experience supply us with the details of the basic life it brings. These are they who by the same Spirit inform us of these far more important truths of the Baptism which are missing from the Old Testament.
We need to know all the things written in scripture, or God would not have recorded them, but it is of far greater importance for us to know what the apostles of Christ's Church said about that Church, than what non-member prophets said about it. The simple reason for their lack of complete knowledge is that the truth of the Church was hidden from them. Even though God spoke in times past by the prophets, for ages and generations the mystery of the Church lay hidden from them all. Because the apostle referred to the prophet, it does not mean that he was thereby abdicating his own office; Joel's description was absolutely right, but only as far as it went. Like everything under the Old Covenant, it was weak through the flesh and was superseded, firstly because it did not go far enough, secondly because it was incomplete, and thirdly because it was most certainly not final.
The Old Testament deals chiefly with outward manifestations, but inward reality and spiritual truth came all graciously with the Lord Jesus Christ. and with this the New Testament is principally concerned. The prophets, including Joel, prophesied of outward things; it is therefore absolutely right that they should speak of outward signs; but the apostles, in common with their Lord, spoke of inward things. Therefore we must ever bear in mind that although the Baptism is 'that' which Joel spoke, it is more than 'that', it is also what Jesus and Paul and John say.
The substance of Peter's prophetical ministry that day will supply us with just the illustration we need. He said, 'Jesus of Nazareth, a man'. So He was; this Jesus of Nazareth is that man. Yes, He was a man; but He was more, oh how much more than that. See Him now, seated on the throne; the fulfilment of Davidic prophecy, the glory of God, the Baptizer in the Holy Ghost; King, God, Man, Lord, Christ. This One is That Man. He was certainly that, but more than That; He is also that I AM. Hallelujah! The audible tongue that speaks in unknown outward praise is good; the inward tongue that cries 'Abba Father' is far, far better. But having the greater, let us not refuse the lesser, for although the better be of greater value, the best of all is to have both the greater and the lesser together. Each is for its purpose, and must not be confused with the other, lest, like Esau of old, we should cry 'I have enough'; whereas his brother Israel could say 'I have all'. Paul, whose statement commenced and inspired these pages, shall end the matter for us in words which go even further than Israel's, 'I have all and abound, I am full'.
Copyright © 1978 G.W. North.
ISBN 0 9506245 0 0
- Type, as it is illustrated in the Old Testament;
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Faith
Faith
FAITH — THE SUBSTANCE
Chapter 10 verse 38 to chapter 11 verse 6.The eleventh chapter of the Hebrews epistle is without doubt the greatest chapter on faith and its accomplishments in the whole Bible. Its contribution to the subject is as invaluable as it is unequalled, but its greatest value to us will be lost unless it is understood to be part of a section only and not the whole statement on the matter. The whole section commences at the thirty-eighth verse of chapter ten and ends with the second verse of chapter twelve. These forty-four verses add a new dimension to the subject, setting it in context and thereby in proper perspective. The writer's purpose is not so much to show us what can be accomplished by faith as to bring us to an understanding that men must live by faith. Realisation of this cannot fail to convince the reader of the writer's great concern for any who, having been illuminated by the gospel, draw back from true gospel living through lack of faith. There can be only one end to that he says — perdition: 'it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of ... God': it is a frightening warning.
The terse submission with which the section commences in chapter ten is, 'the just shall live by faith', from which faith and life no man must draw back. The most important of all the many reasons for faith is that by it a man must first be made just, that is, justified by God; secondly he must thereafter, and by the same faith, live justly before God and man. Justification is an act of sheer grace on God's part, and because this is so it can only be appropriated by faith. When God justifies a man from sin He does so because a man believes Him, and with a view to the salvation of that man's soul. Salvation, once granted, is a continuous experience which can only be accomplished as that man continues in the faith, that is, lives by faith. The first act of faith is an act of appropriation. Thereby forgiveness of sins and justification, both from God, are granted to a man through the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ; this must lead to a life of faith or else it is not valid. The writer's contention is that unless the fruit of faith develops in a man and works of faith are manifest in his life, that person is not living by faith. If a man is not living by faith he is not alive: scripture makes plain that faith without fruit and works is dead. The whole of the eleventh chapter is given up to the substantiation of this. In it the writer points out that this is so, first in the lives and works of the progenitors and elders of the human race, and then also in the lives of the acknowledged fathers of Israel.
He commences with the fact of faith. He does not argue for faith, or try to make people accept the fact that faith exists — faith simply is. As every intelligent person knows, faith is a fact of life; without it life could not possibly be. Every person on earth, whether he is a professed atheist or cynic or whatever, believes in something: it is in the nature of man to do so; we are made that way. Existence is impossible without believing in something or someone, even if it is only in our own deluded, disillusioned selves.
Having drawn attention to the fact of faith so that we cannot do otherwise than honestly acknowledge it, the writer proceeds to the next point, namely, everyone must recognise and acknowledge that, because men can do no other than believe, there must also be something or someone in which to believe. This must be so, for if there is nothing to believe and no one to believe in, what is the use of being able to believe? Our very humanity teaches this: we are all able to breathe, that is how we are made, but what would be the use or the sense of being able to breathe if there was nothing to breathe? It is the same with every one of our faculties and abilities; sight presupposes, even postulates, that there is something to see; hearing, that there is sound to hear, and so on. Further than this, it must also be true that the things which the eye sees, the ear hears and faith believes must have been before these various faculties were. If there is thirst there must have been water, if there is hunger there must have been food, if there is brain there must be and have been thought, and so we could go on. The very fact that faith "is" postulates that there is — must be — something and someone in which to believe. To say or think otherwise is either foolishness or perverseness, perhaps both.
It is not possible to believe nothing and no one; we all believe in someone and something; the only issue to be resolved is in whom and in what do we choose to believe? Faith in a man is a saving virtue; the ungodliest of men believes that he must eat and drink and breathe in order to live, so he does, and is thereby saved from dying. Faith is the law of life modified and adapted to man's estate and needs by God, in whom life and law are eternally one; for man faith has been modified and adapted to various ends and functions, many of which operate in him quite unconsciously. In his ignorance of truth and limited knowledge of these facts man calls these functions by other names because he can only name them according to his experience and recognition of them.
Belief in eating is translated into an urge to eat; man calls it appetite or hunger; it is a law. Unknown to the flesh which does not know God and has no mind of its own, hunger is an adaptation of the law of faith; it is the same with thirst and all other basic urges in human beings. Even in the body man is compelled to live by this law according to all its variety of adaptations to conscious or unconscious need. He may not think about these things and may not be prepared to admit it if he is made aware of them, for he does not know this to be true, and as often as not prefers to believe otherwise. God says, 'man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God'. That is as absolutely true as the verse which says, 'by grace are ye saved through faith ... it is the gift of God'. Whether or not a man is prepared to believe it, everything in the physical universe is a form of God's word. Bread for instance: God spoke wheat into existence before man made it into bread; the same with water, God made it. Every basic thing from which man may manufacture anything, whether for good or for evil, all was spoken into being by God.
Because of the fall in Eden and the sin into which man entered there, sin also entered into the world, wherefore, in the realm of knowledge man became dead to God and to the knowledge of himself; he is completely darkened in understanding. Every man is a 'by faith' person of some sort; the great difference between sinners and saints lies in this following kind of situation: when the voice and call of God came to Abraham in Ur of the Chaldees he listened to and obeyed it; that is how he became the saint he was. Because of this Abraham entered into a new place of faith in God — this is of the essence of truth; living faith will only rise in man when he responds to God in a similar way. Paul describes this as the faith which comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. In his natural state man hears neither the voice nor the call of God; few men ever do. The world is in this sad state because men do not use their natural faith about things they see and hear, but refuse even to believe that there is a God, or better put, that God is. By this attitude they abide in unbelief, and when God does speak to them they do not hear either His voice or His word, they are quite dead.
Proceeding from the ground that men accept the fact of faith, the writer, pursuing the truth, makes a further important point, namely this: by the acceptance of the original premise, a man reaches a plane of understanding as sensible to his mind as it is vital to his soul's salvation. This being so, it is not difficult for him to believe that things which are seen are not made of things which appear to the senses. Although he is not speaking here of things that man has made, what the writer says is as true in the realm of human accomplishments as it is in God's. Man has made many things by apparent means from apparent things, (furniture from wood and cloth from cotton or wool for example) but even so the mind that discovered these things and the skill which made them are quite invisible; the results are apparent, but not the human factors and abilities which produced them. The writer is here speaking of things visible and invisible — the earth — the universe — the real world — life itself — the aeons in which we live and move and have our being, man himself. God made them all.
God expects us to enter into understanding and by the knowledge gained from the common sense acceptance of the first truth enter into yet fuller understanding of the whole truth of which it is a part. In this case he speaks concerning creation — the unseen, unapparent, unheard word of God was the means whereby the apparent worlds were framed, he says. When He did so there were no human ears to hear, no eyes to see; God spoke and thereby created. He did it all from Himself: there was nothing to respond and obey. Moses has made clear that when God did these things there was no man in existence, either to hear the word God spoke or to observe its results. Quite simply then, all men must acknowledge that this universe and everything in it was not made by man; we are living in a miracle world wherein minor natural 'miracles' occur regularly. Even time itself, as we know it, was put in being as a framework for the order and succession of creative events. Time itself is a manifestation of God's word: the ages have been fitted together by Him that in them He should fulfil His will. If we accept the first proposition, namely that faith is, it is not difficult to accept this second one, namely that faith must lead to intelligent understanding. Outside of Christ it is not common to accept this, but he who is in Christ easily does so. Although revealing the logic of faith, the writer is not seeking to convince the atheist against his will, but seeking to demonstrate to the believer the life of faith and its results.
All the material things of the original creation now so obvious to the senses, and a vaster number of things not so obvious to the senses, God made by His word; for the fullest apprehension and appreciation of both that which is visible and that which is invisible, faith is necessary. When faith comes (as it logically should) to the heart of the child of God, it is wonderful and revelatory, but far more wonderful than that, when understanding dawns upon him and faith becomes understanding faith, it is glorious beyond words. By this understanding faith, (that is, faith which understands) the elders obtained a good report from God — they believed and understood, and thereby obtained. We must beware of the unbelief masquerading as faith which changes the order of truth revealed here. If we do this we shall hardly believe anything and never shall obtain the good report from God which is so essential to our eternal well-being.
One of the most unsubtle of all errors common among men is, 'I will only believe what I understand', whereas the truth is quite the reverse to this thinly-veiled scepticism, namely 'I shall only understand what I first believe with my heart'. Understanding follows faith, it does not precede it. It is true that if faith first be there, understanding will lead to greater faith because understanding thus acquired will become light to the mind. The enlightened soul thereby equipped will be the more fully disposed to press on eagerly to greater truth and fuller appropriation of what it now sees and understands. Appropriating faith, that is faith which appropriates the truth revealed to the heart, is normal faith. True faith is power of appropriation and reception; believing without receiving is not faith, it is a substitute for it.
Before continuing with our theme, we should pause here awhile to note a distinction which could be quite vital to our hearts, and perhaps very illuminating also. The elders spoken of in this chapter are of two different categories: the first four, Abel, Enoch, Noah and Abraham, are very special men — unlike the others mentioned here they are elders of the entire human race. To miss this fact is to lose some of the blessing which God intends us to have. Adding to understanding, to these four should be added the names of Isaac, Jacob and Joseph; these seven men lived before Moses and were therefore pre-law, and pre-Israel, though not exclusively so. For the purposes of God in His creation these men became the elders of the entire human race. Every man on earth can claim Abraham as his elder, but not everyone can claim Moses to be so; God never intended that everyone should; He had other intentions by him. Moses brought the law of God on to the earth because God purposed to establish Israel, His chosen nation, in spiritual truth. Abraham was their father according to flesh, and their elder according to the spirit, but not their lawgiver. By Abraham God showed that grace and faith preceded codes of law and it is he who is the elder of us all, that is, of all who live the life of faith.
In verse six it is apparent that the writer makes the assumption that, having discovered that everything exists by unseen power, the believing heart will come to the same conclusion to which he himself had arrived, namely, that God is. Proceeding further he also assures that having made the unavoidable discovery that I am, therefore I have power, a man will believe also that, because great power is displayed in this astounding universe, there must also be a great and amazing person who is the source of that power. To believe anything other than this is illogical; how else could it be? Every man, by the very logic of his own being and power(s), must at last come to God; he can only refuse to do so by refusing to accept the testimony of his own senses and denying his own self — to be sensible man must reason thus: I am, so God is. Every man is held responsible by God for this kind of basic reasoning. Paul also is very clear about this, saying to the Romans that God will hold every responsible person capable of reason accountable to Him on two counts: (1) His eternal power; (2) His Godhead. In other words man's simple conclusion upon observing this universe should be, 'these things cannot be except by unimaginable power, therefore the one who has such power must be God'. God is, His eternal power proves that He is.
Without faith, that is without the ability and capacity to believe, man cannot be; such a man does not exist. Faith and the ability to develop that faith, as well as the basic means whereby the simplest of people may exercise it, are constitutional in man. It is also true, (and to men this is most important of all), that without the definite exercise of faith it is impossible to come to God for eternal life. The verse which declares this also contains another statement of almost equal importance, namely this, that if a man will not come to God, it will not please Him — and that is putting it very mildly. The writer phrases it this way because he is not issuing a warning or making threats, he is speaking to God's people, not atheists. When a man comes to God he is only following the law of both his own being and of God's to its logical conclusion. Faith is the law governing conscious and profitable relationship between God and man, and to deliberately stay away from God in heart and keep Him at a distance throughout life is to declare publicly that by so doing the person intends to deny both man and God. There can be no greater folly.
Drawing the whole of this great section on faith to a close, the writer says in chapter twelve that we must lay aside every weight and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and run the race (of life) with patience. That exhortation is most vital for all men, for the sin most common to all, and which so easily besets everyone, is unbelief: this folly of refusing to act upon the law of our very being is self-imposed death. What liberation it is to a man's being when he simply believes God's word and the things that are, and moves towards God; so doing he is fulfilling his own nature, thereby he is blessed. We all must believe that God is and that what He says will — indeed must — come to pass, or, better still, come into being. Whenever the promissory side of God's word comes into being, or fruition or fulfilment as the case may be, it may be said that it has come to pass. It has not come to pass away, it cannot, it has become permanent in experience, in time, and in history. It has not become fact, it was always fact because God said it; it has become recognisable fact; it has not become true thereby, but manifestlytrue to man, that is all. To not believe is to be a disbeliever, and classified as an unbeliever; to be an unbeliever is to be an atheist, for unbelief denies that God is; that person has therefore done nothing but continue in that offensive state before God. To believe that God is and not to come to Him by choice is self-death, and by implication to constitute oneself an attempted destroyer of God — a very serious matter indeed. The result of coming to Him is wonderfully rewarding, and very joyous; perhaps the greatest of these joys is the delight of proving to oneself that God is. What a seal of faith this is.
When the search for God and reality has ended in complete success, the immediate outcome of it is relief and joy and the most important goal has been reached. The grateful heart will then make some offering to God — a thank-offering — a love-offering as excellent as may be possible within the scope of man's power. To do so is natural — it is the obvious thing to do. Besides this it is the only righteous thing to do, because it is the discharging of the debt of gratitude owed to God; to do so is the righteousness of faith attempting repayment for that which cannot be purchased. It is not possible to have faith and not to make such an offering; it is the perfect outworking of the fact that faith is, and God wants that faith to be made known. Paul says that the gospel is being preached to all nations for the obedience of faith. Because I am, faith is; because faith is, I am; because faith is, God is (this is man's discovery); because God is, faith is (this is God's faithfulness): because faith is, I can discover God: because God is, and I have found Him, I must make a voluntary, free-will offering to Him. If I do not respond in this manner I am ungrateful and am acting neither logically nor righteously; logic and righteousness are immortal moral twins; they act in conjunction, often in unison, and are the basis of all sanity and spirituality. It is not possible to believe and do nothing; faith is the beginning of correct attitude and correct action towards God.
Taking as an example the elder of the race who pioneered the way for all men the writer says, 'Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts ... he being dead yet speaketh'. Being the son of Adam, Abel had a fallen nature, but in spite of the fact that sin was already in the world Abel revealed his faith by doing something. This 'voice' from the dawn of history witnesses to the fact, the truth, the logic and the work of faith. Abel's work lights up to us the way of that natural righteousness which is itself the outworking of the innate principles of the nature of man. Both Paul, in Romans chapter two, and Peter, in Acts chapter ten, support this position; it is a very important one, so we will turn aside for a few moments to examine it.
In Romans three Paul says, 'We have before proved ... that ... there is none righteous, no, not one'. He was speaking the truth; he does not say however that no one has ever been righteous — note the tense. In chapter two he speaks equally clearly of those who 'do by nature the things contained in the law, these ... are a law unto themselves: which show (they have) the work of the law written in their hearts': they prove this by their works (and by patient continuance in well-doing), he adds. Faith in Christ is nowhere mentioned in connection with these people. Surprising as this may be to some, there were people like this living on earth in Paul's day, and there are people of this description living on earth still. They know nothing of Moses' law, or of the Gospel, but live by the outworking of natural faith according to conscience. As we have before seen, all men without exception are held responsible by God for this, He exempts no-one, nor does He accept excuses on this count from anyone, not even from the most primitive or the most underprivileged, or from the evangelised.
Neither nationality, culture, social conditions, lack of education, loss of privilege, heathendom nor the fact of sin affect this, and neither does the present state of spiritual death nor the deprivation of the gospel. None of these things alter the fact that originally the work of the law was written by God in Adam's and Eve's hearts, and has been passed on by heredity to every human being born since. Nothing has affected that — though there may be total depravity, there is no such thing as total ignorance. Subconsciously every man 'knows'; man is a 'knowing' person. The gospel takes this into account and is directed to men with this in mind. The Holy Spirit is sent into the world for this purpose. He comes to a person to awaken and quicken that 'knowing' faculty to consciousness of true spiritual realities. The best news of the gospel is that from the primitive state of ignorance and the original innate knowledge of the God of whom he is ignorant, sinful man may be resurrected to a far higher position than that which he formerly had, and can know all things (I John 2 v.20 & 27).
At an earlier date Peter took this same position when addressing Cornelius and his friends at Caesarea, 'I perceive that God is no respecter of persons', he said. By a vision and certain specific commands God had shown him something which revolutionised his outlook upon the world of men; it came to him as a complete surprise. As a result of this, when the apostle went to the Gentiles at God's command, his perception of truth was profoundly changed. By the vision and the commandment he had now gained understanding of men and of God's will, and the power and extent of the work and purpose of Christ's death on the cross. As far as it is allowable for us to assume, Cornelius and his friends were originally a heathen company who had converted from idolatry to a belief in the one true and living God. Consistent with that and his human nature Cornelius was doing works according to the light and measure and kind of faith he had. As far as they had gone these people had let their 'natural' faith dominate their thinking and actions, and were, before God, as righteous as that faith could make them in His sight. This was what Peter realised and said, 'In every nation he that feareth him, and worketh righteousness, is accepted with Him'.
God had shown Peter this by the vision, and this was also the basis of truth upon which the angel of the Lord had spoken to Cornelius on the day he visited him in his home. The parabolic implication of the vision God gave to Peter upon the housetop (when the vessel filled with every imaginable beast was lowered to him from heaven) was exactly as Peter said; that is why God commanded Peter to kill and eat. Peter was astounded at the words. Perhaps the thing that astonished him most was that these unclean creatures were not thrust up at him from the pit but lowered to him from heaven. 'Slay ... eat', said the voice — it was repugnant to him, but O what a privilege! Peter refused point blank, but God persisted and insisted that he should do as commanded. After three attempts, God made Peter see the truth and understand what He was meaning. People whom Peter called common or unclean (certainly he would not have called them righteous) actually found acceptance with God. Peter knew that God would only accept men upon the ground of righteousness, so he just had to accept what God was showing him. What else could he do? By the vision Peter learned that Cornelius and his friends were righteous. Their personal righteousness was neither the righteousness of Moses nor yet the righteousness of Christ, it was the righteousness of their proper response to the law inwrought in the heart of man by God at the beginning. The works which Cornelius had wrought in righteousness by this natural faith and with a clear conscience in the sight of God revealed it.
Cornelius was a righteous man according to his light, but he was not yet regenerate. He was not chosen by God to be a saint because of the natural faith he had, but was chosen to be the gentile upon and through whom God would pour out His Spirit that the door of faith should be opened to the whole world of gentiles. It could be thought that, being God, the Lord could have chosen to do this through the veriest sinner, but such thinking is wildest assumption, and against the whole revelation of scripture. By being faithful to God as far as he knew Him and true to himself, and by acting according to natural (God-given) faith, Cornelius had become acceptable to God, so God selected him for honour. The man who acts according to this faith naturally receives the gospel and the Christ of the gospel.
It has ever been like this since the commencement of the human era. Abel and those early elders of faith were not alone in their righteousness. Scripture makes clear that centuries after this, in Abraham's day, king Abimelech claimed before God that he and his people were a righteous nation, and neither God nor Abraham denied it. Amazingly enough in the two separate incidents in which Abimelech encountered first Abraham and then his son Isaac, Abimelech showed himself to be more righteous than either of them, and they were patriarchs of Israel the chosen race, while he was a Philistine. Abimelech was not one of the chosen race, nor was he the called of the Lord, neither was he God's friend. Was he more righteous than Abraham? In the incident, and as the incident showed, yes. It was exactly the same with Isaac when, years later, he followed his father's unrighteous example; both he and his father brought the threat of punishment upon a guiltless people. It must have been most humiliating to both Abraham and Isaac to be reproved by this 'heathen' king for their sin. In those days righteousness consisted in living and acting rightly according to the inbred law common to all men, instead of living and acting according to inbred sin.
The account of Abel and his offering commences the list of the earliest elders of the faith-life: his faithfulness is in sharp contrast with his father Adam's faithlessness, who for that reason is not referred to in this chapter. Adam's sin lay in the threefold fact that he acted contrary to: (1) the explicit word of God; (2) the obvious attestation to its genuineness and power displayed in all nature around him; (3) the implicit word and work of the Lord written within him: therefore Adam died. Physically he remained unchanged, but because he denied God instant spiritual death took place within him; he had acted contrary to the law of his own life. Quite different to this, years later and apparently without any instruction, Abel offered to God a sacrifice more excellent than Cain and God witnessed to those who witnessed it then and to all who observe it now that he was righteous. It is not said that by virtue of his offering he became righteous, rather it appears that Abel acted as he did because he was already righteous, and that the righteous God testified to his gifts because they were the testimony that this young man was righteous. The thing that appeared and was therefore seen was the offering, but what did not appear, and was therefore not seen by Adam and Eve and Cain, was Abel's faith and righteousness. These were apparent to God though, and He witnessed to these to Cain, and presumably to his father and mother (if they were still alive).
So it was that Abel spoke to his relatives and is still speaking to us today. Abel is the only one of whom this is said, and since he speaks from the dawn of time his voice is authentic and what he says is most important. God draws attention to Abel's gifts (to Him) because they were brought by a man who knew no gospel but the testimony of his own conscience responding to the work of the law written in his own heart. This caused him to think aright and act aright, even though no legal code of sacrifices and offerings had as yet been given to men. To this day Abel is saying that where the gospel is not preached and is therefore unknown, God looks upon and deals with men according to natural faith and natural righteousness. This could only be then (and can only be now, as it was also in both Abimelech's day and Cornelius' day), because, in foreknowledge of the fall and in anticipation of it, the Lamb of God was slain from the foundation of the world. Upon this ground of truth all those worthies whose names have been mentioned in this chapter, as well as millions more whose names and the works they have done have not been mentioned, were and are accepted by God. It is a significant fact, fundamental to salvation, that the Lamb of God Himself was slain upon the ground of His own natural faith and innate righteousness; only thereby could the redemptive will of God reign in righteousness over all and be efficacious for all.
By the devil's cunning and Adam's folly, sin had entered into the world and death by sin, but sin was not imputed to Cain by God because there was no outward form of law. At that time God had neither formulated nor given it to mankind; the words, 'Thou shalt not kill', had not been written. In that era everything turned on the work of the law written on the fleshy tables of the heart and the thoughts of their own hearts reacting to God's work therein. As conscience exercised men they either accused or excused themselves or each other before God and man; of a corporate body of law and a functional legal society the human family knew nothing. When, at a much later date, God did give the law, He formed it to cover and condemn the sins which men had already committed or were in danger of committing. The natural source of law in man, and the sole arbiter of it, had been flawed and had ceased to function correctly because man had changed; he had altered the relationship between himself and God and fellow-man. Man had become a different person from the one God had made; his spiritual nature had changed because of sin; he could not be justified in what he was doing.
Recognising this, and knowing that man could not change back to his original state, God, having raised up Moses, prohibited sin by itemising it in a plainly stated legal code and engraving it on tablets of stone and giving it to His people. To that legal code He also appended a detailed system of blood-offerings that men should make to Him; compliance with the requirements listed in this code brought men back into favour with God. Thereupon God entirely exonerated him, and justified him from his sin. The sacrifices themselves did not blot out sins; they had no power to do that, neither did they earn God's forgiveness; man was forgiven by God simply because he obeyed Him. In whatever age he lives man is only ever forgiven when he complies with God's word and the work of the law operative in that age; this compliance is called the obedience of faith. Man can never be forgiven by anything he does just by the act of doing it; he is forgiven because of the obedience of faith displayed by and inherent in that act — never by the ritual of it. Let a man's deeds, of whatever kind and calibre they may be and under whichever covenant they may be done, but become merely legal or mechanically religious, and there can be no approval of them by God; they will not be accepted by Him, and neither will forgiveness be granted by Him to that person. The natural faith of the heart of a man must be renewed and revived in that man so that he co-operates with God by believing Him for personal salvation.
This renewal and revival is effected in man by the grace of God through the word spoken unto him by God for that purpose. When God speaks to a man with that word, He also imparts the ability to hear it so that every man is without excuse. By His word God quickens and revives natural faith, and He does so because it is the faith He infused into Adam in the beginning, without which he would have been an incomplete man. Jesus had this faith; it was of a higher quality and of greater degree than in any other man: it was of this that He spoke in the temple when He exhorted men to have the faith of God. That faith which had been originally generated in man needed to be regenerated, else how could man become regenerate? This faith was in man in the beginning, but it had died, that is, the vital spiritual content of it had departed, leaving the empty shell. The gospel is preached to man for the obedience of faith; from the moment he hears the gospel everything depends upon a man's decision to obey or disobey it, doing so he either obeys or disobeys God. Exactly as in that which took place between God and Adam in the beginning, with the advent of sin man became an empty shell, a mere capacity; life had departed. Death was self-inflicted by man when he chose not to believe God. We see therefore that what is generally taken to be unbelief was really a preference for the devil's word as against God's.
Whenever the gospel is preached in the power of the Spirit man chooses life or he chooses death. Originally death came by hearing — that is, by listening to the devil; similarly, in this gospel era, life comes by listening to God with intent to believe and obey Him. Satan did not slay man, he only supplied man with the opportunity to destroy himself by that which was good, which man did. That the devil intended to destroy Adam through Eve, and thus destroy them both together, is beyond question, therefore he is guilty of murder by intention; satan was both the initiator of the act and an accessory to it. It is sad to think that man, knowing what he was doing, deliberately slew himself, though not knowing all that death meant — man chose to die. To Adam it was a novel experience and terribly tragic; for him the act was irremediable — 'thou shalt surely die', God had said, and he did. That was the first death, it was (and still is) a spiritual one. Adam changed; from being a living man he became a dead man; his body still lived, but not his spirit; man is not a body — he has one. Choosing to believe satan man changed his behaviour, his nature and his person and his character; he had died a death as God said he would. There are other deaths further to the first one, all of them resulting from the first one, one of which is the physical death which terminates man's existence on earth. For all the sons of men this is an inevitability — there is no avoiding it; as rivers flow to the sea so is man born to die.
Among those great elders of the race there was one exception to this — Enoch. It was not God's will for him to die; instead, in him God intended to reveal further truth: Enoch pleased God; this was God's testimony to the man. Enoch had this testimony in his heart before God and man — he was righteous and he knew it, for it was God's testimony to him. Just as God bore testimony to Abel's gifts, So He bore testimony to Enoch's life. On account of his offering to God Abel had to die; he was just as faithful as Enoch and pleased God just as much, but he was allowed of God to be slain: not so with Enoch though. He was not superior to Abel; what happened to each of them was by faith, but for righteousness' sake and for God's purposes by Enoch he did not have to die. Here then we have two extremes: by faith Abel saw death; by faith Enoch did not see death. By this we see that faith operates in and covers the two manners of departure from physical life in this world — bodily death and bodily translation. The greatness of true men of faith lies in this, they are men of understanding and do not care whether, in the will of God, they are destined to see death in this world, or not to see it. In Christ both methods of departure are exhibited: He died and departed, he also departed forty days after His resurrection without dying. Either departure is as acceptable to men of faith as it is to God. The spirit that questions God's ways, demanding from Him an answer to everything He does, is not of God. Whatever happens through grace, faith must develop in every man to that point of implicit trust in Him which complete obedience brings.
There are men whose lives and gifts are altogether pleasing to God, they somehow understand, and by the mystery of their simple faith God is free to do exactly as He likes with them. God could force His will on anybody, but it is not His purpose to do so; His desire is that men should co-operate with Him by faith so that His truth should be revealed in them. With such men God can do as He wants, use them as illustrations of truth, make them examples of His power, or through them say or do something which is vital to all mankind just as He wills; that is the kind of faith they have. It is original faith — faith as it should be, that is, faith as it is in God and was in the Lord Christ on earth. At the beginning man was made in that same likeness after the same image, but it was effaced by sin and was never displayed on earth again in all its perfections until Christ came. A hint of this is to be found in the combined lives of Abel and Enoch; the Lord Jesus, when finally made flesh, was made the fulfilment of all that Abel and Enoch exemplified. The Christ offered unto God both His life by that most excellent sacrifice and, following that, was translated to heaven: He had this testimony — He pleased God. To His own He showed Himself alive on numerous occasions following His decease by many infallible proofs. Many times during the period between His resurrection and His final ascension to His Father He moved between heaven and earth, appearing for a while here and there for certain purposes until finally He returned bodily to home and Father, never to return again until the trumpet of the herald shall sound.
BY FAITH — NOAH
Verse SevenNoah is the person next selected by the Spirit for honourable mention, together with his famous forebears of faith. This man did not lay down his life in a moment of time through a brother's murderous hate, neither was he whisked away from earth by God and translated into eternal bliss so that he should not see death. Noah had to live on through a dying age filled with violence and corruption, and fight daily to keep his family pure while watching others being engulfed in sin and forever ruined. He was destined to announce and testify to men of God's intention to make an end of all flesh; his message was unimaginable. Would God do that? The destruction of an entire civilisation and a whole world of creatures? No one would believe him. Compared with Noah's task Abel's and Enoch's tasks were far far easier. They did not have to toil away ceaselessly from dawn to dusk for a seemingly never-ending succession of days as did this man. He was on his own, day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year, decade after decade for a hundred years of his life, building an ark that no one else but he and his family wanted. It may be correct to assume that his family helped him; it is certainly charitable to believe that, but there is no textual evidence to support the view. Indeed the circumstantial evidence seems rather to point the other way, for in other instances when men of faith became involved in works of faith and others joined with them their names are mentioned — Sarah with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob for instance. It may therefore be safest to assume that Noah's family did not assist him in the mammoth task of building the ark; perhaps that was the reason why it took him a hundred years to build it. We cannot be sure, but if Noah's sons did help him we are not told so and their names are not mentioned until they went in with Noah into the ark. They partook of the benefits of his labours, but that does not prove that they believed in and approved of them or of their father's works while they were in process.
When God warned Noah of the impending disaster Noah was moved by fear. Why? Was it because God spoke 'of things not seen as yet' — an ark for instance and a flood — or was it the result of his reaction to the thought of the wholesale slaughter of lives which the flood must inflict? Or was it just the fact that God had spoken to him that caused him such great fear? Of what was there to be afraid — death? Was he afraid of being drowned? Surely not; he could not have been afraid of that, for he was building an ark for his own safety. Probably what moved him most was a mixture of many things, including fear for his own family. Would they believe him at last and go with him into the ark, or would they refuse? Who knows? He was not a man of the same calibre as Paul, who, upon receiving a word from God that he was going to be caught and bound and carried away to Rome and to ultimate death, said, 'none of these things move me (Acts 20.24 — to the elders of Ephesus) I am ready to die for the name of the Lord Jesus (21 v.13. — after the prophecy of Agabus)'; and in the end did just that: but Paul was a single man. The enormity of Noah's task was beyond comprehension. Without God's help he could never have accomplished it. Beyond building the ark he had to fill it with pairs of animals and birds (and reptiles it seems); stocking in stores of food for an unstated period of time; contemplate catching them, living with them, tending them. Sanitation would have been an insoluble problem, surely insurmountable, and keeping natural enemies apart! However was he going to do that? Poor man, without God's help he surely could never have done it. God must have done unrecorded miracles upon miracles for months on end for him.
Poor Noah! Yet so blessed. What an exciting and far more exacting task was this man's than either Abel's or Enoch's. Neither of those two men were forewarned by God of what was going to happen to them; Abel was suddenly struck down and Enoch would have been translated in the twinkling of an eye; neither had any warning; theirs was instantaneous bliss. Not so with poor Noah though; he had to live with his fears as well as his faith, his mind filled with foreknowledge of all that impending doom. Noah was one lonely man living in a world of hostility and mockery and unbelief. Just about everybody else in the world would have held him in derision. He was the one man who appeared to be against everybody, yet he was building for everybody. He must at times have wondered whether he was the only man on earth who believed God. This man condemned the world, says the writer, who perhaps himself felt a bit like him at times, for he himself had some stern warnings to administer to men. Right at the beginning of this section he had censured those who draw back to perdition rather than believe to the saving of the soul. All men chosen by God to be His witnesses to an age under condemnation have this consolation, although they must condemn the world by their testimony, it is not they but God who has passed .judgement upon it. Noah built in love as well as in faith; the ark proclaimed mercy and grace, but unbelief would have none of it; the ark, although a promise to Noah, was a threat to unbelievers and in the end the waters that eventually bore up the ark destroyed them. Could Noah's thankfulness and joy have been unmixed with sadness when at last he floated out of the darkness and the downpour into sunshine? Because the window of the ark was set in the roof he had not been able to view the disastrous end which overtook his fellow-creatures, but he knew it had happened. O how beautiful must the sun have appeared after months of rain and gloom that had blotted out sun and moon and stars in a seemingly endless blur of cascading water. And when it was all over! What joy and awe to step out into a newly-washed Earth.
Like the Lord Jesus Himself, who centuries afterwards had to bear the contradiction of sinners against Himself, Noah, by his obedience and patient continuance in well-doing, appeared to his generation to be condemning them to annihilation. By patience and perseverance, and in single-minded devotion to God against all odds, Noah applied himself to do the work of God, and like Christ became heir of the righteousness which is by faith; each in his own way saved his house. Although it is not written of him as it was of his more illustrious descendant, Abraham, that he obeyed God, he did so none the less. Noah's was a work of patient endurance and single-minded obedience, and in somewhat similar words to those used of Abraham, it could have been written of him that he obeyed God, for without knowing whither it would all lead or how or where it would all end, Noah set out to build an ark. It was a unique work, begun and ended in faith — Noah had his reward on earth, but he shall receive a greater reward in heaven.
With the introduction of Abraham the writer brought in the name which, to every Hebrew was above all other names, whether of angels or men. Abraham was the most revered of all names for he was the founding father of the race. Through this man the writer brought to the Hebrews the basic emphasis of the message he was bringing to them from God. In the life of Abraham — how he responded to the call of God, what he became, and what he did — the real reason for the letter to the Hebrews is brought out with purpose; it is this: by faith the people of God are strangers and pilgrims on the earth.
Although not emphasised so clearly, this is what comes through in the seven preceding verses of the chapter. Abel was certainly a stranger and a pilgrim on the earth — a pioneer of the lonely way of righteousness. How old he was when he was martyred for his faith we do not know, but in terms of the near millennium of years men lived then he was a mere beginner. Of Enoch it could be said that he just did not belong on the earth at all, he simply disappeared from it — what an example of pilgrimage — God took him away and home, he was a stranger here. Noah lived a stranger on the earth too; he was not a martyr, he did not die early, neither was he translated to heaven, but what a path of pilgrimage he trod. He was the man who deliberately went against the trend of society; everyone would have thought that he was anti-social, singular, eccentric, and most probably would have considered him to be mentally unbalanced. Bearing the contradiction of sinners against himself until the final day set by God he both contradicted and condemned the whole generation of men in which he was born. When at last he walked with his wife and family into the ark and into salvation from the earth, his labours for men were ended and his witness to men finished.
As is shown in these selected incidents, these three elders of faith exemplified the truth of the writer's words, 'here we have no continuing city'; doing so they prepared the way for Abraham whose life showed this the more plainly. True men of faith do not achieve fame because they intend to do so or because they desire it, but simply because they are faithful men. God sovereignly chooses men who will do what He wants done at the time He wants it done. He chooses the 'when' and 'why' and 'how' of everything in His kingdom of grace and faith. Reflecting on the order of this revelation of faith being unfolded in this chapter, we cannot fail to notice that: (1) before any particular man's name is mentioned the person of God is introduced; (2) then the fact of His word is declared; (3) following that the ages are mentioned; (4) then man is introduced. To the writer this is the natural and therefore the proper order he says. This he states for faith's understanding so that we should approach the truth in the right attitude of mind and heart. If we do this we shall have no favourites among the select company of people he introduces in the chapter. We must not fall into the trap into which many have fallen and exalt one name in this chapter above another. God chooses both the time-period in which He will do certain things and the one through whom He will do them.
Considering this in closer detail let us observe that, although reference has been made to Noah and his hundred years of lonely labour, it would be folly to believe that he was, in any degree, greater than either of the two men who preceded him or any that followed him in the line of faith. God could not be constantly flooding out His creation; indeed He has promised never to do it again. Abel could not have built an ark for the salvation of the righteous family; there wasn't one. There is no ground or reason for comparing or contrasting Abel with Noah and Enoch with Abraham; these men lived in different times and were chosen to do different works. The commendation of any man is that he does God's will perfectly according to God's instructions and desires, and pleases Him: that is all that matters. To place Abraham first in the honours list is utterly wrong; all he did was to obey God — so did Abel and Enoch and Noah and Moses. It should be assumed that, had he been asked, each one of these would have done exactly the same as Abraham. As far as we know, Abel did not have a son; quite possibly — almost certainly — he did not even marry, so how could he have offered an Isaac on Moriah? Let each one of us see to it that we are as true to our understanding of God's mind as they, and obey God in our age as they did in theirs: they did as God said, whatever it was, and so must we. Ages can be made to fit together by the word of God in our lifetime if He will; what He is looking for is a man to stand in the gap which may be created as our age passes into another. Each of these four men in their day did exactly that, finding grace from God to do so in a most wonderful way worthy of recording in scripture.
BY FAITH ABRAHAM — Verses eight to twenty-two
'By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whither he went'. When God calls a man He always calls him to a new place. When that place is finally reached, and only then, that man shall live as he should live: his inheritance is there and therein he shall serve God. The place to which God calls is the place of faith. To be of any proper use to God or to himself on the earth a man has to reach that place. The man who does so inherits all God has for him; not until then though. There is no mystery about this: man only inherits all things then because that is where and when God inherits all there is of him, as He so rightfully should: the inheritance of the saints is among those who are sanctified. Earlier we noted that faith is natural in man; it is quite impossible to be a man and not have it to some degree: (Paul's word to the Thessalonians is 'all men have not the faith: faith and the faith must not be confused); in order not to exercise faith man has to act contrary to his nature. Not so with Abraham though: he heard, he listened, he obeyed and his faith eventually led him to a new land (or place) of faith altogether. Natural faith, though fundamental to a man's make-up, knows nothing of this, unless God speaks to him. Saving faith cannot rise in a man as of nature because of sin; it can pass from the 'natural' to the spiritual if the heart will obey God.
With the rise of faith in Abraham's heart hope rose also. O what a place (plateau, position) is faith! God was going to give Abraham a place and an inheritance on the earth, that is on the natural plane. The spiritual position God had in mind for him was not mentioned — he must attain to the natural plane first, and then only if he would go all out for it. Abraham did just that. For God's earthly plans it was important that Abraham should first inherit the land, everything else would follow from that. This was not the most important thing though, the all-important thing was Abraham' s inward heart position. To God's great joy Abraham had ascended to the position of faith even on the natural plane. At first God made no mention of the spiritual place and position He had in mind for Abraham, he was not yet ready for it, he would not have been able to receive it even if God had been ready to reveal it. Man only rises to all the greatness God has planned for him by degrees, or short steps of faith; not all at once does God give all His fullness; He always fills to capacity, but man is such a tiny being, one who knew wrote, 'of His fullness have all we received'. For Abraham God had planned a unique position in His kingdom and glory, but beyond the first command He never divulged any of that to him in the beginning.
Everything God had in mind for Abraham was in the original statement of intention He made to him: to whomsoever God speaks this is always so. He does not say everything all at once, if He did so man would be overwhelmed; He might even engender unbelief also, because of man's incredulity. God, in His wisdom, first set out to bring Abraham into the place of faith, that having arrived and proved God therein he should go on into all God had prepared for him; God's purpose in bringing Abraham into the promised land was to prepare him for all that was to follow. Abraham did not know exactly where his earthly inheritance was; he did not greatly care; in heart he had found the place of faith from which he could proceed and he went out from where he was with determination and in high hopes. God had not spoken to him of the things he hoped for but he had heart-faith, and according
to the truth of the faith in his heart he found substantial ground for all the hopes building up there too. 'After', that was the key word, both to him and to God; first the word, then faith, then obedience, then afterwards the inheritance; therein all the hopes of God and his own hopes would be fulfilled; it would be wonderful. It was, but fulfilment was gradual; it had to be, it was so vast.Many of his hopes, those that could be, were immediately fulfilled as soon as Abraham arrived — he had come into the promised land — what anticipation. He traversed it, north, south, east, west, viewing it, enjoying it; it was his. 'All this is mine , he must have thought, 'but where is it? Where is that for which I am looking?' He could not find what he wanted, in hope of which he had left his roots; faith he had, but not yet did he realise his hopes; he was restless in the land of promise, he could not settle anywhere. If he had thought that the days of his pilgrimage would end once he reached Canaan and that he would find all he was looking for he was wrong; in various places he pitched his tent and searched around for a while, but not for long — he could not stay; hope drove him on. Where was the city of his desire and his dreams? And where was the child he felt he must have and both he and Sarah so much wanted? He had responded to the call, he now had the land, he was living in it, it was his, he had the land rights, but he felt a stranger there; he was always moving on, looking, searching, waiting, wanting. When O when would his hopes be fulfilled? Time came when the dearest of all his natural hopes was fulfilled and Isaac was born; it took another visitation and another promise from God to bring it to pass though. Abraham and Sarah rejoiced in their son when he came, he was their chiefest delight, but still no city for him to live in. Where was the city? Time went by. Jacob was born to Isaac, but Abraham was still living in a tent, so were his son and grandson; the search was fruitless. Disappointment!
Abraham never did find the city. He expected to find it, but he never did, it was not there. The expectation of faith did not turn to bitterness in him though, instead it came to fruition; a hope kept his spirit buoyant and sweet. Faith and hope took him to the land and kept him residing there in a tent, always ready to move on. Faith and hope are constant companions wedded together by God, and as surely as faith is the substance of hope, so hope, if it be firmly grounded thereon, is the spur of faith. Hope is not fanciful, it is living; hopes that are of God are faith's goals as well as its goads; faith is the evidence that, although as yet unrealised; informed hopes, firmly rooted in faith, are of faith's substance and shall one day be fulfilled. Faith causes a man to become a pilgrim, hope keeps a man a pilgrim, it ensures that he remains a traveller, always living as a stranger, even in the land of promise God gives him for his inheritance. The hope that beckoned ahead, as well as the faith that drove him on, made Abraham great; he purposed to settle down and live in a city that had foundations, but not unless its builder and maker was God. From the splendour of his hopes, already perhaps in heart he built the city; he had the substance of it in him. He knew it was there somewhere — it just had to be.
It is impossible for a man of faith to desire a city of righteousness where all is peace and joy and love and it not be in existence; it is, and its architect and artificer is God. It is not possible for man to have high moral standards for daily living and there be no God who made a man to hold such standards. It is not possible for there to be a sun in the heavens if there be no heavens for the sun. Abraham was a pilgrim by both the law end the logic of faith; he was a stranger to the philosophies of men content to live in cities
defiled by the iniquity and injustices of a degenerate culture. Abraham approached and appraised many such cities; he abominated them and abandoned them: they were cities of sin. Abraham had vision as well as taste, ideals as well as ideas; above all he had fixity of purpose. So had Abel, so had Enoch and so had Noah. There was no city for Abel to seek, no garden of Eden given to him either; his father had forfeited it. Abel sought God and found Him, and he died finding out his brother man.Enoch's and Noah's and Abraham's spiritual heredity derived from Abel's; though he had no children of the flesh he was their 'father'. He heard no voice speaking in Eden, no man set him an example or instructed him in the ways of righteousness. From whence then came his desires for it, and who suggested to him the need of sacrifice and the way of offering to God? No one; not any man. He would almost certainly have been instructed in the words and works and ways of God by his father and mother, but always with shame and in self-reproach. The fall had not obliterated Eden from the minds of Adam and Eve, but all Abel heard from them about God was drawn from memories of former days, now long gone. God walked and talked with them in the garden then: now He never came; He had departed from them and was gone. Because of their sin against Him God had expelled Abel's parents from their paradise; they had lost Him and he had 'lost' them; they had forfeited their 'promised land', consequently Abel was born outside of paradise. What his hopes were we cannot be sure. Whether Abel believed that it was possible that he, and perhaps his father and mother and brother, would be restored to Eden's earthly paradise no one knows; we can be sure of little else than that he sought God. The fall, be it noted, and what he had inherited from his parents thereby, had not destroyed either his natural faith or the hope which was sister to it. Perhaps also he hoped for reconciliation, if not of restitution and rehabilitation with God. Who knows? Surely these hopes could not have been destroyed. Longings to know God had not been obliterated from the human heart, nor shall they ever be — sin could never do that. Knowing this, whenever God speaks to the human heart He does so with this in mind and therefore directs His word to it; He knows that man is able to believe, and this being so is able to believe God if he will. Other factors are involved in this and have bearing on the soul, affecting vital decisions; but none is as basic and as important as this.
Abel chose right, so did Enoch, and in course of time so did Noah: God brought him from the old (antediluvian) world through the flood into the new age. Generations were born and passed away between Noah's death and Abraham's birth, but it was because of Noah's faith and labours that life on earth was sustained and eventually Abraham was born and in his day became such a great man. Insofar as it is possible to be hesitantly sure, it is almost certain that, had the righteous line not been kept intact during and throughout the corruption and violence of the pre-flood society, there might never have been an Abraham. Not knowing the mind and ways of God and what He might have done in His sovereignty, it is not possible to surmise or even assume what would have happened, but humanly speaking, except there had been an Abraham, the true faith by which men's souls are saved would not have become known. It was spoken of Abraham by the Lord Jesus that he saw His day: Abraham never had a more harrowing or more important experience than that. Wonderfully enough men of faith and understanding can see Abraham's day, and by that faith rejoice with that faithful man. He never found the city he was looking for, but he saw Christ's day and was glad; both for him and for God that was all-sufficient. Although Christ never said this of the three great men who were elders of the race before Abraham, these also saw something of the Lord's day, which is to say that to a degree they each exhibited something of the person of the Lord Jesus Christ and the work He accomplished during the 'day' of His earthly life. Whether they recognised what they saw and rightly assessed it and rejoiced in it as did Abraham in his day we have no certain knowledge, but each had a part in the unfolding of the pre-incarnate revelation of the Christ.
Abel 'saw' the substitutionary death and sacrifice of the lamb and the laid-down life, wholly acceptable to and totally accepted by God: Enoch 'saw' the eternally approved, completely acceptable and translatable life of Christ: Noah 'saw' the day of grace which commenced with the coming of the Holy Spirit and shall extend throughout the day of salvation to the end of the age. In Christ all these things find fulfilment, but unto those men who never knew Him because they lived at the beginning of things so many thousands of years ago, this was the privilege given them. Although unknown to each other, between them they individually and collectively served God and His as yet undisclosed purposes in Christ. In and through them God set forth a mystic preview of Christ's great day of salvation: how necessary then is faith. Who in any age knows what great things God has laid up in store for each individual believing and obedient heart?
Perhaps one of the greatest, if not the very greatest, of all the things revealed in Abraham's life is that it is essential to live in a place where all God's purposes for a man can be fulfilled in his life. God was not prepared, nor was He able to do with Abraham what He wanted to do in the place where he was when He first spoke to him. For many reasons, which God did not disclose to Abraham while he was in his native land, he had to go to another place, a foreign land, yet he, unquestioningly, went there. Being wise after the event and having the scriptures to assist us, we may be able to set down a variety of reasons why God insisted upon Abraham leaving the place he was in and journeying to Canaan. Abraham did not have that advantage though: 'he went out, not knowing whither he went'. If anyone other than his immediate relatives knew what he was doing they might have considered him to be foolish, if not downright stupid: 'You say you do not know where you are going? You are a misguided man!' may have been the least uncomplimentary remark made to him. But although we may discover all the reasons for his departure from Chaldea, we should find nothing as important for the implementation of them as the faith which made him go: 'By faith Abraham, when he was called ...' obeyed. Everyone must realise that the call of God which reaches the heart is far more than an invitation; it is authoritative, an imperative command to be obeyed immediately. The call of God is always to a calling; Abraham was being called to a life and a lifetime work, which life and work is the calling. The calling of God is greater than the actual call, that is, the occasion and the act of calling; it is intended by God to be the introduction to the calling, a person's first awakening to it.
God's call is both an election and a selection; it is a directive as well as an attraction. According to the sovereignty of His will God calls men, but lest singularity should destroy hope in a man's heart it is essential to remember that it is not so much who is called but who is calling and to what a man is called. Definition is important here. Abram was called to a place, that was to where he was called. Abram made his calling and election sure as he fulfilled his calling when he got there. When he had been there a while he was called Abraham, 'high father of a multitude', but not until he was also called God's friend, and a prophet; that is to what he was called. See what this man would have missed if he had ignored the call! It is fatal to ignore God's call; if it is obeyed all begins there: if it is ignored all ends there. The man who ignores God's call ignores God: at best this will mean the loss of a whole lifetime on earth: at worst it could mean the loss of heaven itself — what folly! The moment God calls a man he is at crisis point, therefore at all costs he must become most serious. Paul wrote regarding his call, 'God ... called me by (or in) His grace': that God should call any man is sheerest grace, no man is worthy of calling, even the greatest of men have never deserved such favour. Paul clearly revealed his own sense of unworthiness of the favour and said he was not worthy to be called an apostle; only grace made him what he became in this world and he knew it. But when he heard it he knew that the voice which called him was the voice of authority, and his response to it was 'Lord' — the call was imperative: he obeyed and so did Abraham when he heard it.
Writing to the Romans Paul makes the call very definite by speaking of those who are 'the called', and then adding, 'according to purpose'. There are many callings and many purposes, but there are not many calls; God did not constantly call Abraham or Paul, He did not have to. By the call they were introduced to the calling into which the call led, and from that point onwards they stayed in the calling with which they were called; their calling and their life were one. Realising this, each in his day made his calling and election sure. At one point, because of what he deemed to be necessary, Abraham did depart from the place to which he was called and went down to Egypt. God allowed him to do it; He neither prevented him from following his own heart, nor did He call him back from the place to which he descended. It appeared that he had forsaken or lost his calling, but God did not call him again, nor did He recall him to the land; it was not necessary. What Abraham had done did not negate his calling: he was the called of God (perhaps the only one on the earth at that time) and that was that.
It may be that recognition and understanding of this provides a key to the understanding also of one of the mysterious passages so hard to understand in the Hebrews letter. The writer says of certain people and a certain condition that it is impossible to renew them again to repentance; the inference drawn from this (perhaps too readily) by many is that as God does not attempt to do so, neither should we, and that therefore such persons have no hope of salvation. Pursuing this thought and reading the relevant scriptures in Genesis, it appears that in process of time Abraham, without a word from God, returned to the place he had forsaken. It seems that he was forced by pressure of circumstances and an inward knowledge, to depart from Egypt in certainty of heart that needed no instruction. Under pressure from without and by conviction within he knew he must get back to the place from which he began to go wrong. Abraham was only at the beginning of his spiritual life then, a learner, but O how quickly he learned — he never did that again. The point this man made for us is that, having been called of God to go out into a place and inherit it and all God has for us there, we must not under any circumstances leave it. If we should do so He will not recall us; instead, through pressure of circumstances and sundry miracles, as well as the inward voice, He will work towards the rekindling of desire to be where we once were in hope that we will return.
In the incomparable parabolic illustration written for all to read if they wish, the Lord Jesus reveals the truth. The parable of the prodigal son is an apt illustration of this truth and no better Illustrator of it could possibly be found. In the story the son went into the far country quite voluntarily; the father did not want him to go, nor did he attempt to dissuade him from it, and what is more to the point, neither did he disown him because he went. That he went against his father's wishes cannot be doubted, but wherever he went and wherever he was he was still his son. Strange as it may seem, and contrary to many ideas, at no point in the story do we read that the father went after his son; he did not even send anyone to find him and remonstrate with him either. In his wisdom the father left his son in the far country to taste the bitterness of his folly and to drink of his own misery until he came to himself and realised who and where he was. He was the father's son, and yet ..... and yet: his own state spoke to him and an inward voice spoke to him. His father spared him nothing whether of goodness or of remorse, until at last he was brought to nothingness, folly, poverty, desolation and squalor. At last he could bear it no longer and he rose and, as voluntarily as he left, went back to his father and home. The amazing thing is that he repented himself; no one tried to renew him to repentance; certainly his father did not, neither did his own brother; the prodigal in the story, like Abraham in real life, came back of his own free will. When no one else can renew us to repentance we can of our own selves arise and go back and find a welcome from our Father.
There are two men mentioned in scripture whose lives stand out as memorials of the path we must shun: one is Judas Iscariot and the other is Esau. The stories of these two men are so well known to us that we need not linger long on the details of the particular incidents in which they were involved. Judas sold his Lord and Esau sold his birthright. When at last Judas saw what he had done he repented himself and went out and committed suicide. What a tragedy, and what a pity; had he gone out and found his Lord — if repentance had led him to Jesus — it might have been a different story. Esau, though not so tragic a figure, similarly realised eventually what he had done, and tried to gain that primary blessing which went with the birthright, but he utterly failed, for, like Judas, he did not find the place of repentance either. He sought the inheritance of blessing carefully with tears, he may also have sought the place of repentance, but if so he did not find it; perhaps the reason for this is not hard to find: his heart was full of bitterness and revenge and murder. No heart that harbours anything evil will come to repentance or ever find forgiveness from God. When dealing with souls we must beware of trying to apply to men's needs the policies of men, however finely they may be framed and expertly applied. When counselling individuals biblical principles must be applied and righteous paths followed, but all mechanistic application of policies must be avoided; there are no party lines to follow. Broad lines of procedure may be discovered in scripture, and as we have seen with Abraham, when seeking to help men and women into or back into fellowship with God, we do ill if we ignore these.
The simple thing spoken of Abraham in the beginning is profoundly true, and is of such great importance that we must not fail to notice its significance: Abraham 'was called to go out into a place'. The 'place' of faith must be reached by everyone; with us though 'the place' is not a geographical location as in Abraham's case. Strange though it may seem, though it was bound up with another land, it was not primarily so with Abraham either. The place of faith is a heart condition and to reach it a man has to go out into it — that is, he must respond to what God says and launch out on it without reservation. When a man does that, he and the word God has spoken become one; the man then becomes an epitome of that word and the rest of his life becomes a fulfilment of it; in other words he inherits the place. This is that place of faith which Abraham reached; he found it was the place where all God's unspoken intentions, as well as His stated promises, were abundantly fulfilled. Until he reached it and obeyed God completely, what God said lay dormant in his heart. It is said of Abraham's descendants, 'These all died in faith'; it is a remarkable assertion, unique in scripture, and who can rightly say how much credit for that is due to their father Abraham? What a pioneer he was, this one man's act of obedience affected them all; far beyond Israel it has affected every one of us also. It is said of him that 'he is the father of us all', and before God so he is. God's demand of all these children is that each should have the same kind of personal faith as father Abraham.
As we have already seen there are different kinds of faith: natural and spiritual. For our purposes here it has been necessary to point out this difference, but there is a sense in which all faith is spiritual, in that it is of spirit in whichever of those two realms it operates. This is not to say that because a man exercises natural faith he is a spiritual man in the sense in which the word spiritual is used in scripture. When a man operates natural faith he is a natural man; when he operates spiritual faith he is a spiritual man. The difference between these two states lies in this: spiritual or saving faith comes to a man when God speaks to him and he believes Him; faith of whichever order operates spontaneously. Before that he operates by natural faith and lives by it, for instance as when he eats food and drinks water, believing them it to be wholesome and good. Because this latter order of faith is possible to every man he is expected by both God and man to eat and drink and live, therefore every man is held responsible to do so. Somewhat similarly the same is expected when God speaks to a man: he should (because he can) believe Him without question, as did Abraham.
Behold then the wonder of God's love that He should send Him who is The Word of God into the world that in the closing days the marvellous age of grace should be brought in and Christ be preached in all the earth for all mankind to hear and believe. The wonder lies in the simplicity of it all; God in grace has simplified His ways with mankind. Not now do we depend upon a special word to Abraham, or a special word to Moses, or an Isaiah, or a Samuel, or a David. There is no man who, above another, has the special word for this day; that has already been spoken. This Word is everything God has to say to mankind; it is extra special because it was clothed in flesh and was born a man to live out in this world the true life of faith before all. This word was from the beginning, it was, and is now, and is yet to come; only once incarnated, that word was naturally entirely spiritual both before and following the incarnation. Because of this it is more important than any other word ever spoken in this world; it is the divine, direct and eternal word of God to every man. This word was borne forth from God to Mary by an angel, that through her the Word should be born to mankind as the Son of Man, the Lord Jesus Christ. This is the Word, that Word which was ever with God and was God, which, says John, 'we have heard ... have seen ... have looked upon, and ... have handled, of the Word of life' it is the word which was lived and thereby spoken.
Therefore the writer tells the Hebrews that the days in which God spoke by the prophets are past; quite noticeably he does not mention judges or kings, though both often spoke God's word. This is not to say that what they spoke was not prophetic, it often was, but to show that by far the most important office is that of the prophet. In this connection it should be noted that when Peter
quotes David on the day of Pentecost he quotes him as patriarch and prophet, and not as king. The fathers to whom God spoke are passed away, and so has 'that which was in part', (to borrow and adapt Paul's words); all that has been done away. God ended all of it simply because it was only in part, and very limited in its effect. The partial light which broke into the darkness of the world through many lights has gone, it has been eclipsed by the true Light which is now come. The darkness is past, so has partial light; God has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. To use two biblical words very much in vogue throughout Christendom in these days, in Christ the Logos and the Rhema are one; God's personal thought, as well as His life, has been fully expressed by Him, manifested in flesh and blood.The purposes for which God has done this are phenomenal in contemplation. 'Beloved', says John, the great apostle and prophet of the new creation, 'now are we the sons of God'; no prophet of the Old Testament ever said that of himself or of anyone. Only the prophets of the superior New Covenant spoke like this. Simply because men of the world do not know these things, they do not know us. When Christ was here the world did not know and would not recognise Him as the Son of God; they could not know it because they would not believe it. Similarly, (though by a different kind of miracle, and to a lesser degree than He), we are the sons of God now. This is so certain that we are called the sons of God by God Himself. So close is the likeness of our birth to His that we are known in heaven, (and should be known on earth also) as the sons of God. As He is known as the Son of God because of His miraculous incarnation and life and death and resurrection, so do we become known as the sons of God by an actual miraculous spiritual and individual birth; by no other means could God make us His sons. It is He, not we, who has to say we are His sons, and He has to say so in our hearts; He would not say that we are if we are not.
Taking this truth even further John says, 'as He is, so are we in this world'; John was not speaking this prophetically or hopefully or presumptuously, he knew that he was a son of God. Though not equal with Him, here and now in our flesh and blood state we are the sons of Jesus' Father just as He. Upon this solid foundation we take our stand by faith, this is our place, and hopes arise in our hearts that when at last the Lord Jesus appears we shall be like Him. Nothing in scripture could be put more plainly than this. Our wondering hearts shall be the more convinced of it when we do see Him, for then we shall be as completely like Him as it is possible and suitable that we should be. Then, although to a lesser degree, we shall undeniably be seen and known as manifestations of God's word by His Son and by His Spirit, even as He in His day was the original manifestation of The Word by the Spirit.
Understanding of this may be slow to dawn upon us, and when it does, faith's grasp may be so weak that it may take a lifetime to reach fullness in us. When through grace it does, by comparison with our Lord Jesus, knowing ourselves to be utterly unworthy of it and seeing so little likeness to Him in ourselves, we cry out for more grace. The fact of it is made no less true by that though; faith is to no degree lessened because of our own or other people's opinions of ourselves. As He is The Word spoken by God for all time and peoples, so are we the word spoken by God in our time for people of our day. Paul even went so far as to say that he and his fellow-labourers were also epistles. The Lord Jesus who was and is the 'Logos' and the 'Rhema', is the Alpha and the Omega too; in fact He is both the whole alphabet of God and all the words constructed from it by God also. Well does Paul say, 'in Him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily', and tell us that in Him we are complete. As surely as Paul says this, so does John tell us to abide in Him and sin not, and adds an injunction to abide in Him and obey the unction which is within ourselves. This unction being an implantation from God, when obeyed develops every regenerate person's new spiritual nature in conformity to His will and in His likeness.
We have an unction from the Holy One. Given by our Father, it is a kind of second nature within us. It must not be confused with the conscience which is part of the nature of every human being's spirit, dead though he may be. Conscience is one of the many involuntary functional powers of the human being; it is one of several proofs that man is basically (a) spirit, quite distinct from the unction from the Holy One. The unction is one of the many involuntary powers of the divine nature of which Peter speaks, that is, the nature imparted to us by new birth which alone constitutes us sons of God. Man's conscience was designed by God to be the natural functional ability through which the unction should operate in him: by new birth it is adapted to become the functional vehicle of the unction. As with the human body itself, everything of human nature was designed and made by God for God Himself. Therefore, having fashioned the conscience for the unction, He made the Holy Spirit the unction unto us. The unction is the means whereby the voice and word of God is inscribed into our new nature, and is intended by Him to impart to us certainty of knowledge about all things vital to eternal life. God uses it as the instrument of His thought, that thereby the rhema, if obeyed, should become the logos within us; thus we are enabled to co-operate with Him unto the development of the full stature of Christ in us. Because of this the sons of God can live at rest and not be forever straining to know God's will, and to catch His voice, or to hear His word, or understand His meaning, as the case and needs may be. Then, as of nature, men may become the manifestation of God's word and the demonstration of His will before all men and, as of nature, effortlessly do what He says and means.
The 'land of promise', that place of faith which we all must enter (attain to), is where we must live as pilgrims and strangers on the earth. In this place all the promises of God will be fulfilled to His obedient children, that they should enjoy the inheritance which was and is in Christ for us all. The obvious sure mark of these children is that, as He Himself does, they also should live the eternal life naturally, without struggle and inward conflict; this is what God and the writer intended by the statement, 'the just shall live by faith'. The life of faith should be steady, calm, progressive and inwardly peaceful; most of the time it should be unremarkable too.
Very little is said about any of the men so far named in this chapter. From what is recorded we cannot form any kind of picture of their day to day living. We ponder with amazement the major events of their lives, the great crises, their wonderful achievements and extraordinary heroism, but, except in the case of Noah, these achievements with their attendant trials were of short duration; the rest of their days lie in the obscurity of history, unmentioned. For every extraordinary day or event there were hundreds of ordinary days when nothing remarkable happened, humdrum, repetitive, perhaps by some people's estimation even boring. The emphasis being made is that they were living by faith rather than on what they were achieving by faith, (which is not to suggest that living by faith is one whit less ignoble than working by faith). All we know about Abel is that he made an offering to God in process of time, or 'at the end of days' — just one event in a lifetime. Of Enoch we know little more than that he was a prophet and had a good testimony, but he achieved nothing which may be considered great or spectacular; it was God who did the spectacular thing, and no one but angels (and perhaps devils) observed the spectacle.
Noah built the ark; though fearful he enjoyed doing that no doubt, and it was a great and noble work worthy of unstinted praise, but think of thirty six thousand and five hundred days of monotonous toil! None of us have lived that long! How would we like to live every day of our life in total application to just one thing? Some might have called it slavery! And how about Abraham? The endless search for what was not there. He trekked, he pitched his tent, he struck his tent, he tramped to the four points of the compass, he marched to the borders of his land, he went everywhere. Day after day of disappointment; save the same old repetitive things of life nothing changed, it went on for years. Abraham was always looking for something he could not find — it did not exist — not on this earth. It was not as though he went alone either, because his heart was fixed on this and could not be diverted from it: his whole family, Sarah, Isaac, Jacob, plus his entire entourage of some hundreds of persons, had to go with him. Whatever they thought and however they felt about it they just had to go; there was no restraining him; he was relentless. The search never ceased; they stayed nowhere for long, there was no final settling down. Abraham believed, therefore he hoped, and therefore he searched, believing that his hope justified all he did; to him that kind of life was the natural outcome of faith.
The strange thing about the city that Abraham was looking for was that it had no name, which, to say the least, seems fairly unusual. For a man to be looking for a city and not to be able to name it to anyone must have seemed strange to everyone of whom he may have inquired, but that is how it was with Abraham. He knew who it was that created it, of that he was sure, it was God, and because be knew that, he knew that the city would have foundations, it must have, but where it was he had no idea. He felt pretty positive he would find it in the land of promise — the land of promise — what vast possibility for faith to explore and hope to flourish. Abraham felt sure that, once in the city, he would enjoy many things of which the Lord had not yet spoken and had not specifically promised him. That they were included and intended in the promise he had no doubt; they must be, though not specified they were implied by what God said and he could expect them; the fact that he had the land assured him of that. He realised that there must be many cities there and he was determined to have a good look at every one of them. What would he find? Would it be the one? He only wanted that one, the city built by God and in which He lived. Abraham wanted to come to it at last, find out its name and live there himself and perhaps see God; he felt he belonged there. Never would he move from it again, nevermore would he pitch and strike camp; his pilgrimage would be over, finding God he would get to know Him; that was all he wanted.
He was the man to whom God had spoken; how blessed he was, it was wonderful. Imagine! A city full of people to whom God's word was law and His every wish a command. The first time God spoke to him he was thrilled; because of that he was willing to leave all, go anywhere. That was only a beginning, though; God spoke to him again and again; He had to if He wanted His will done. Abraham also knew that by reason of His original promise God must speak again, He simply had to. God had committed Himself to things which necessitated much further clarification. Abraham waited in patience looking for the word to be spoken again, and the years went by. Then one day God's priest came and spoke to him, and Abraham realised how much more there was to know. The priest of the most high God? It was astounding! Abraham realised he was only at the beginning. Here on earth Melchizedek had come to find him to speak and minister to him! Where had he come from? Where did he live? What was his name? Melchizedek? He was a king. God's priest a king? Then whatever was God like? If His priest was king of righteousness and king of peace how wonderful must God Himself be? Glorious, unimaginably so: he must be King of kings. God's city must be the ultimate perfection unto which all men should seek and find that they should enter it as their final home. In lowly reverence Abraham bowed to receive the royal blessing bestowed upon him by the heavenly priest in the name of the King of kings. Rising to watch Melchizedek depart Abraham knew in his heart that he had been made rich beyond all earthly riches. Of the spoils of battle he wanted none; plunder taken at the point of a sword meant nothing to him. The blessings of the city had been brought to him before he had reached it, he could want no more. But where did Melchizedek live and what was the name of the city he came from? Was it Salem? Would he please direct him? He wanted to come there. But Melchizedek had gone.
If the desire to search for the city sprang up in Abraham's heart the day God first spoke to him, the appearing of Melchizedek strengthened it more, and till the day he died he went after it with all his heart. The God of the city had called him, the priest of God had visited him to give him bread and wine, to commune with him; it fed his soul. Surely the purpose of the visit was to strengthen his resolve: he was on track — now for the city. Praise God for such a husband Sarah; praise God for such a father Isaac; praise God for such a grandfather Jacob; praise God for such a master Eliezer; let all men praise God for such a leader. Blessed be God for such a man. The secret of the Lord was with him, the mystery of God and of His city was revealed to him, the knowledge of the gospel was being imparted to him, he was walking in the vision and light of a new day and another world. Later, when he was able to bear it, the mount of the Lord and the death and resurrection of Christ would be disclosed to him also. Sarah and Isaac and Jacob and Eliezer and the host of men who served him were safe with the patriarch; he brought them into the covenant and led them in the lifelong search. It was not to be wondered at if they all wondered at him. Who of all those who knew him could have failed to be influenced by him and who would not have followed him? Only they who do not love righteousness and who hate peace, who want cities of their own or of other men's design and building, men who wish to abandon their pilgrimage and settle down and make their home in this world.
What a distinguished person Abraham was; the Father intended him to be distinct from everyone else mentioned in the chapter. When God called him to go out into an earthly place He also set him apart in a spiritual place of honour above everyone else and quite unique in scripture. Abraham was predestined to represent God the Father unto men, pointing forward to the manifestation of His Fatherhood planned by Him centuries ahead. Paul was very aware of this and says of Abraham that 'before God he is the father of us all'. Abraham is not the heavenly Father of us all, but before God he is our human father in that, by two promises to him, God said that on the human side both the earthly and the heavenly host of sons, should proceed from him; Abraham believed God and what He said, so Abraham became the father of the faithful. But the excellence of Abraham is greater than that: he not only believed God for multitudes; he believed Him also for one, which is often a far more difficult thing. He believed against hope, against himself and against the combined sterility of himself and his wife, and particularly against her unbelief. Abraham believed for her when she would not believe, and because he believed, through his faith God was able to reveal His own faithfulness. How immeasurably great Abraham was; he believed for heavenly things and earthly things, for multitudes and for one, for life, for death and for resurrection: herein lay his election to his own fatherhood, and to be the sign of God's Fatherhood. Others before him had believed God and had achieved great things; many also would come after him and believe God for great things, but not in such fullness — almost completeness — or for such consummate things.
Whether, or in what form, God may have manifested Himself to Adam and Eve in the garden we do not know; what we do know is that He planned to appear later to Abraham in triune form when He came to him to announce the promised seed, for that is precisely what He did. Abraham and Sarah saw three men, entertained three men, fed three men — God was determined to reveal or to manifest Himself as a trinity. This may have surprised Abraham greatly. It certainly would have done, unless knowledge that God was triune had been preserved from the beginning of time, handed down by men of faith like Noah. Certainly Moses believed it, for it was he who wrote of this incident; but because he also wrote to Israel that 'the Lord our God is one Lord', the Jews in Christ's day did not believe that He was the Son of the Father and that God is triune. How can God beget a son? they ask, it is not possible. That is exactly what Abraham thought about himself — impossible! To such an one God came as a trinity and told him that he could and would — and he did — have a son. It was all very simple for God, but it was a mighty step for Abraham — hence his greatness. But great as it was, he was to discover it was as nothing compared with what it led to, and to what he was heading through the years ahead.
The most outstanding thing of all in which Abraham most clearly represented God the Father and became most nearly like Him happened in the hour of his greatest trial. So severe was the test that no man would have blamed him if he had failed to go through with it. God's test was so extreme and inhumane that it is almost impossible that He would make such demands — nothing could have been harder. Yet God had planned it from the very beginning and made everything work together to its accomplishment. From the very first moment he responded to the call God had led up to this; it was the prize of his high calling: everything before this had been preparation for this moment. The Lord had never told Abraham that He had chosen him to be the great father-figure of all history and to such a degree. Abraham knew he would have a son because God told him so; indeed during this period he had two sons, but the first was not the son promised by God; he was born as the tragic result of Abraham's collusion with Sarah in her faithless scheming to have a son. But Isaac was conceived by a miracle wrought by God in both Abraham and Sarah, and when he was born they knew he was the promised seed. On his birthday they rejoiced, not knowing that they were beginning to see Christ's day, nor how much more of that day they were destined to see later. Abraham begat the son by his faith and by God's power, and through grace the word of the promise became flesh; at the same time by the same power Abraham became the father.
It was a wonderful prophetic occasion, but it was only a beginning; as the years went by the day drew nearer and nearer when Abraham must fulfil his representative fatherhood to a far greater degree. Had he known it, God had changed His friend's name for this very reason. When God first called him his name was Abram; Terah his father had given him that name when he was born and who can say what was in that father's mind when he chose that name for his son? It means, 'father of a multitude'. Possibly his father had visions of Abraham begetting many sons and daughters who in turn would beget or bear many more. Certainly the name is full of hopefulness and desire, if not faith, and how unexpectedly prophetic it was! But God had other ideas for Abraham, better and higher ideas altogether, so He called him out into the place where He would bring those ideas into being. Strange as it must have seemed to Abraham at the time, this involved the changing of his name.
As far as we can tell this had not been done to anyone before; it was most unusual and of great significance. However, God did not do this until Abraham had first met Melchizedek the king, the 'priest of the most high God', who brought to Abram bread and wine and ministered it to him. 'The Most High God' had plans to bring Abram's name into line with His own, and more suited to all He had in mind for him to be and do. He did not do so upon that occasion though, but reserved it for a later time when He would bring Abraham into covenant with Himself. When this covenant of circumcision was established in the flesh of Abraham and his family, God announced to him that he was altering his name: no more would he be called Abram, 'father of a multitude', but Abraham, 'high father of a multitude'. The Most High God called His friend 'high father' because already in His heart He had made him that; it was his calling: God literalised his calling into a name. Among men Abraham became known as 'the high father of a multitude'; he was not the highest father — God was that: God is the High Father of the multitude of heaven. He called Abram and changed his name to Abraham that he might represent Him by being that to men on earth.
The Lord Jesus said to the Jews of His day, 'Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day'; He would have spoken just as truly if He had said, your father Abraham rejoiced to see my Father's day', and what a day that was. It was because God had planned the birth, death and resurrection of Jesus that He first called and then renamed the man Abram. When Abraham first looked upon his son Isaac, although he did not know it, he began to see Jesus' day; more than that, he also caught a glimpse of the Father's day, though he would have recognised that even less. Thousands of years later Jesus said, 'he that hath seen me hath seen the Father', but they who heard it did not understand; they saw, but they did not see. Understanding comes so slowly, and to some when it comes it stays long in the state of dawning.
On a night that must have seemed endless to Abraham the most high God and Father of heaven came to the highest of all earth's fathers and in the darkness demanded of him his son: the supreme test had begun. Before the day dawned he had responded to it exactly as God knew he would. Abraham's answer was, 'Yes', Isaac was God's. How well God had chosen His man. He had watched over him and trained him for this moment. To be a true father he must beget a son; to be true to the Father he must offer up his son; to be truly like the Most High FATHER of multitudes and be the high father of a multitude he must receive his son back from the dead. Whether or not Abraham understood all those things who can tell? He was God's friend — He might have told him. Abraham certainly fulfilled the conditions; he even believed he would welcome his son back from ashes, and in the figure of resurrection he did so. He did not know it was all only to be a figure, or that he would rise to heights of obedience and faith unknown before or since, except on Calvary. Moriah was the most marvellous of places; it was the highest place of his life. Speaking of all that happened there he said 'in the mount of the Lord it shall be seen'. He saw and — O, who can tell what emotions filled his heart? From start to finish it was the father's day. The son was involved too, he had to be. Counting ten years for a day perhaps the three days' journey to the place represented the human life span of the Lamb of God. They had a little further to go together to 'the place' where his father, acting as a god, built the altar for him. With all its human limitations what that father and son enacted during those days was prophetic to a degree, an almost wordless parable of unspeakable love, utterly godlike. Between them Abraham and Isaac went through and worked out the heart-rending of God at 'the place of a skull' centuries later. No human eye saw into the secret sacrifice there, and only God's saw into all the wonder of Abraham's great sacrifice on Moriah. Did He say, 'O man great is thy faith'?
God saw it, Abraham saw it, both fathers saw it; the One saw comprehensively without limitations, the other saw only partly; Abraham had all the limitations of our common humanity, but O how phenomenally he saw. Moriah was the mount of God; God had shown it to him, He had shown him Himself too; he had to climb the mountain to catch the vision though. What he witnessed was wonderful, and what he saw through the obedience of his own faithful heart was more wonderful still. What he entered into must have been most wonderful of all though, for through his own agony he entered into fellowship with the Father and the Son. Abraham knew the faith and the fatherhood and the feelings of God. He was the high father, he must have been, for he was one of the most humble men that ever lived. When he left the mount with his son his elation must have been impossible to express in words. Yet thoughts and promises born of conviction inwrought by experience were running through his mind: the future was wonderful. Had he been an ordinary person, or a general kind of prophet, or a normal man of faith the experience might have ruined him; pride might have said, 'I have seen it in the mount of God', or 'I went up the mount of God and saw it', but he was not a proud man. He was the greatest man on earth and surely the humblest. It was a very singular and absolutely exclusive experience and he could have boasted of it, leaving no one else the slightest hope of ever seeing it or of finding faith to attain unto it, but he was earth's high father — he said, 'In the mount of the Lord it shall be seen', and left the hope and faith of a humble man as a heritage for us all. How a man' s language reveals him.
Abraham did not ascend Moriah to see anything; there was nothing to see, and if anyone afterwards climbed the mountain to see what Abraham saw they would have seen nothing. The remains of an altar perhaps, blood-stains perhaps, but it was unlikely — a few ashes left by the wind, but that was doubtful, a thicket with some strands of wool twisted on its branches maybe, or a twig or two scattered around, nothing else though. Traces, indications that something had taken place there sometime, that is all, but what could they have made of the things they saw? They would only have been scraps of fast-disappearing evidences of things not seen; they would not have seen the trial of Abraham's faith, nor have experienced the test of his love. Abraham went up the mountain to do something, there was nothing to see until he did it. True he expected a miracle, and what a miracle it would have been if it had happened; his Isaac would have come back to him from the smoke and the flames and the ashes, a living sacrifice. But it was not to be; his son did not die; it only happened in a figure, not in reality. Had it happened it would have been the greatest miracle of all time, greater than the death and resurrection of Christ, for He was God's Son, but Isaac was not; he was a mere man. Knowing the Lord, we are not surprised that he rose from the dead; it was not possible for the grave to hold Him, but Isaac was not God in the flesh. Had he come back from ashes it would have been the miracle of all miracles, but it was not.
When Abraham had carried through his intention as far as he was allowed to go, God intervened: He called to him again and said, 'now I know'. At the same moment Abraham's eyes were opened and he saw. The high father of a multitude was not permitted to slay his son — only the most high God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ did that. Abraham saw into something of the invisible thing that was accomplished at Golgotha, and understood at least in part what no one else, not even those who stood closest to the cross saw or understood, namely the sacrifice which both the Father and the Son made. Everybody else saw the crucifixion, but they did not understand even that. As far as humanly possible in all but the final step Abraham had been allowed to enter in to the Father's feelings; to a measure he understood the involvement of God's heart in the mysteries of the crucifixion. The sufferings of the Son are much talked about; they should be: all may be made conformable unto His death and enter into the fellowship of His sufferings, but not much is said about the sufferings of the Father. This may be because there have been very few who have climbed their Moriah; just a few sightseers perhaps, or some servants who stay afar off 'with the ass', watching father and son dwindling away into the distance and up the mountain arid out of sight. Only a percentage of men reach even the foothills of the mountain of mystery and suffering which rise from the plains of rest and lead on to the heights, and then mount to the peak of fellowship with the Father and the Son. The challenge of Abraham is a challenge to every man's faith. His last message is both a spur and an encouragement, holding promise without definition in a world of understanding without bounds. Every man who ascends to that summit will realise why he was born, and why he is called and what life is all about. He will not see what Abraham saw though; he will certainly see anew the land of far distances and all that God wants him to see after he has done the will of God. This is the object of the call — that place within the place which only the faithful see.
Surely it is a strange thing that so little is made of Isaac's part in all this. He is referred to, and the question he asked, together with Abraham's answer to it, is recorded, but beyond this he seems to have filled a minor, even a passive role. Throughout his entire life from his birth to his death, as well as through this particular period, the son was completely overshadowed by the father: Abraham towers over everything and everyone, and justly so. It is obvious that the writer intended that the father, not the son, should be seen. This may be because, although both of them occupied focal positions of great typical significance, Abraham more nearly represented the Father than Isaac did the Son, for, although he was the seed promised to Abraham through Sarah, he was not 'the seed of the woman' promised by God in the beginning. After all, great though he was, Abraham was only a man, and miraculous as Isaac's birth was, his mother was not a virgin; neither was Moriah Golgotha, nor the altar the cross; Isaac did not die, neither did he rise again. Though the Bible episode was traumatic and dramatic, it was only figurative. But figurative of who and of what? The accepted answer to that question is, 'of Christ and of His death and resurrection'; but perhaps this may not be so, or perhaps not in quite the same way as may be thought. Consideration of a few scriptural comparisons may serve to give us clearer view and help us to fuller understanding of these things.
New Testament writers assure us there was nothing figurative about the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus. He was so dead that He was hastily embalmed and buried and, without ceremony, sealed in a borrowed tomb (although the owner of the tomb did not loan it — he gave it — afterwards he realised that he had in actual fact only loaned it for the Lord's temporary burial). Quite contrary to this, and as already pointed out, Isaac the son did not die; there was no resurrection on Moriah; he was not buried, there was no tomb; only in a figure did the father receive him from the dead. Considering this the inquiring mind may ask, 'if Isaac did not truly represent Christ, who did he typify, and where does he fit into the New Covenant?'
Isaac does have his counterpart in the New Testament, but it is not one man, it is a company of people. Of these it may be as truly said as it was of Isaac, that in a figure the Father received them from the dead: this company is called the Church. This is a great mystery and wonderfully true, that on the day the Father received His Son from the dead He also received the whole Church, every member of it bone of His bone and flesh of His flesh. All that was accomplished by the resurrection is matched by what was involved in it. The actuality of it, namely that Christ rose from the dead bodily, is equalled by the fact that, figuratively, with Him, the Church which is His body also rose. This unity, this oneness, this togetherness with Christ was taught by Paul and revealed most plainly in his Ephesian epistle. When Christ was crucified, at the same time and on the same cross, every member of the Church was crucified, and when He rose all rose with Him.
Paul wrote, 'I am (was) crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live', and completed the truth in another place, 'If ye then be risen with Christ ...'. It would have been of no more use to God to have actually slain every member of the Church on crosses and raised them up again from the dead than it would have been to Abraham if he had slain and raised up Isaac (had it been possible for him to do this latter). Had Abraham attempted it, it would have been his folly: that he was willing to have done so was his virtue. Everything which took place on Moriah, historical and actual though it was on Abraham's part, was figurative and prophetic on God's part, even to the provision of the ram caught by its horns in the bush, provided for the ultimate burnt offering. In itself the ram was no more than an animal, yet at that time it died in Isaac's place, a substitute for him even as Christ was a substitute for us. Surely this is the truest interpretation and deepest meaning of that word of Abraham to Isaac as they approached the mount, 'God will provide Himself a lamb for a burnt offering'; the son must have pondered that most deeply. All that Abraham 'saw' by faith that day is not easy, perhaps not possible, to define. Was that word to his son a promise of life by substitution? Was it a prophecy? Was it the word of a seer? Or was it all three? He used the future tense, 'will' — had he used the past tense, 'has provided' it could be thought he had already 'seen' the ram caught in the thicket awaiting their arrival — but then the whole enactment would have been a charade.
When together father and son left the ass and the men that day Abraham was prepared in heart to slay his son, but he did not lie to his servants when he said that he and his son would 'go yonder' and worship and come again, he knew that they would. Nothing could be a clearer declaration of faith; he was absolutely certain that God would provide. Abraham offered up his son to God; it was the supreme test and God took him to the extreme point — he stood, knife in hand, over his son, poised to deliver the death-blow when God stopped him.
He had passed the test, he had proved that all his faith and his hope and his love were in the God who gave him his son, not in the son God gave him. Abraham had been given every reason by God to believe that in his son lay all his future hopes of being the father of nations and the progenitor of kings, and he had centred all his love in him. It was because of this that God put him through the test, making special emphasis on love, 'Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest', it was his faith and hope and love that was being so severely tested.
How could it be? Isaac was the fruit of all his faith, the ground of all his hopes, the object and purpose of his love, the answer to his prayers, the embodiment of God's promise, the reward of his labours, the end of his long weary pilgrimage, a compensation for the great disappointment that he never found the city of God. Why Isaac? Was it just to make him a type of Christ? Did God do such things just for that? No, He did not, He did it partly for that. He did it: (1) to know whether Abraham loved Him more than anyone or anything else; (2) that Abraham may prove himself to be 'the high father of a multitude' indeed; (3) that Abraham should enter into some knowledge of God's own Fatherhood and its cost. Abraham only received his son back from the dead in a figure, but it was counted to him as though it had all been actual; only God prevented him from slaying his son. Abraham was intent to receive Isaac as a double gift, both of them miraculous, given from barrenness and given from death. Isaac was the miracle child given to him by God, but the faith that received him was greater than the gift. We all have so much yet to learn about this faith, chiefly perhaps that the faith by which we are given life and by which we maintain it, that is, the faith by which we live, works by love. Had Abraham not loved God supremely he could never have done what he did for Him that day — namely give Him back His son. Abraham knew that Isaac his son was God's son; that is why he could not withhold him. Abraham loved God supremely. We say, and rightly so, that Abraham did it by faith, but only because he loved God so much. It was love that demanded he slay his son and his faith rose equal to it, and in the sight, as well as in the reckoning of God, he did so. Thereby he doubled the gift and multiplied the blessings he first received, for he received his son back again from God. By faith Abraham was overwhelmed with God's love and by the gift of God was filled with it: 'The greatest of these is love'.
Had Abraham in reality slain his son and burned him to ashes, and Isaac had come back from that nothingness, a completely new relationship would have commenced between them — life would have changed totally. Nothing could have been quite the same again between them. Such an extreme and unthinkable experience would have changed everything utterly and permanently. Only the Father and the Son could have gone through such an unimaginable experience and retained sanity and not have been rent in two. Only that degree of unimpartable love which has bound them together from all eternity could have outlived that — and it has. Hallelujah!
But perhaps after all the verse should not be interpreted to mean or even to imply such things, for there is yet another way of looking at it all, namely this, that God was the one who received Isaac that day. Verse seventeen makes plain that in the reality of unseen things, by faith Abraham did offer up his only begotten son: there can be no questioning that. Although he did not finally slay Isaac, in heart Abraham did offer him up to God, and God did receive him from Abraham. God never asks anything of anyone without intending to receive from that person whatever it is for which He asks. In full assurance of this, may it not be true that the pronoun 'he' used in verse nineteen refers primarily to God and only secondarily to Abraham? By all the laws of grammar that is what the writer must be understood to be saying. Here is the verse, 'Accounting that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead; from whence also he received him in a figure'. The pronoun 'him' which occurs twice obviously refers to Isaac: the only name to appear is 'God': the third pronoun, 'he', can only therefore refer to God. The word 'accounting' is used of Abraham, who, though unnamed, by that word is introduced into the verse, which thus continues the statement made in verse seventeen: 'Abraham ... offered up his only begotten son ... accounting that God was able to raise him up ... from the dead; from whence also he (He) received him in a figure'. The first word could therefore be rightly changed to 'Abraham was accounting', and the pronoun 'he' be read as referring to either Abraham or God or to both. Whichever it is may not matter greatly, for each received him. Abraham as physically, God as spiritually and representatively.
The whole episode is highly typical, and the fact that Isaac is referred to as Abraham's only begotten son immediately reveals that the writer has chosen to place it in this category, for, as scripture makes clear, Abraham had many sons, the first of whom was Ishmael, borne to him by Hagar, Sarah's maid. Isaac, whom Sarah bore to him, was his second son. Later, following Sarah's death and his marriage to Keturah, Abraham had many sons by her also. Isaac was Sarah's first and only son, not Abraham's; he was also Abraham's first and only begotten son by Sarah, that is by promise according to God's will; he was not the first begotten of all his sons. The first son was according to Sarah's and (eventually) Abraham's will. All of this reference to the only begotten is for no other reason than to point to Christ; Isaac was not his father's only begotten, but Jesus was and is the Father's only begotten. Unlike Sarah's Isaac, Mary's Jesus was not her only begotten, He was both her firstborn and the only son she ever begat from His Father, but she also bore many sons and daughters unto Joseph after she had borne God His only begotten Son on to the earth. Until then she was a virgin, which Sarah most certainly was not when she bore Isaac to Abraham.
This surprising and extraordinary statement about Isaac which does not appear to have foundation in fact is perhaps made in accordance with a principle of truth not plainly declared and not always apparent in scripture; nevertheless it governs all God's dealings with men. This principle may be stated thus; when a man in receipt of promise and under command from God steps out of line with God's will revealed by the promise and the command, whatever he does while in that condition of disobedience is counted as having not been done, and in God's mercy is blotted out. An instance of this is to be found in the dealings of God with Israel while still in the wilderness, yet drawing near to the promised land. Baalam had been hired to curse them, but he found himself unable to do so. Instead he found himself taken over by the Spirit of God, who turned his demonic intentions into a marvellous statement of intention to bless God's people. During the course of the prophecy God said He could see neither iniquity nor perversity in Jacob, which must have sounded unbelievable in the ears of everyone who heard it — including the prophet himself. Israel were in the wilderness because of those very sins, yet God could only say He saw no such thing among them. The only conclusion to be drawn from this is that, although scripture records many of the nation's sins, God in mercy had blotted out all of them and in His sight they existed no longer.
This is the ground upon which the statement about Abraham is made by the Hebrews writer. Abraham's reluctance to beget a son through Hagar is plainly shown in Genesis. He only did so under pressure from Sarah; it brought sorrow to many hearts, and both he and Sarah must have wished indeed that they had never contrived such a thing. In His grace God forgave them this wrong and did not count it against them; He allowed Abraham and Sarah to start afresh, removed Hagar and Ishmael from the scene, and true to His ways with all men, blotted out entirely Abraham's departure from the way of faith and looked upon it as though it had never existed. Isaac then became Abraham's firstborn, for according to God's intention and the promise He made to Abraham and the way He dealt with Sarah, Isaac was the firstborn. As Paul says, Ishmael was born after the flesh and Isaac was born after the Spirit, and 'In Isaac shall thy seed be called ... this is the word of promise, At this time will I come, and Sara shall have a son
Sarah, who was entirely barren all through her life until she conceived Isaac, relapsed into her barrenness after he was born, but not so with Abraham; he retained the renewal of the powers God bestowed upon him for the birth of Isaac right into his old age. Why this difference should have been made is not revealed, but perhaps it may be explained by the fact that Sarah was next to Eve in the line of the promise made in Eden that the seed of the woman should bruise the serpent's head. Indeed Sarah is more illustrative of that woman than either Eve or even Mary, who was the vessel chosen by the Father to bear His Son. Both Eve and Mary had other children but not Sarah; she bore and brought up one only son and then died as barren as she had been before the miracle. It cannot be without some significance that we are told that Isaac lived with his wife in Sarah's tent after her decease, although it is a connection of ideas rather than of vital truth which stimulates thought about it. There is no faith principle involved in this, but it gives all Bible lovers an opportunity to marvel afresh and wonder at the skill of God. He causes well nigh invisible shades of meaning to come to light, that blended together they may enhance the marvellous pattern and contribute to the beauty of the finished work. Blessed indeed are they who see somewhat of the wondrous patterns of the divine plan, and by faith follow on through the affinities of truth to love Him and adore the perfection of His mind.
The names of Isaac and Jacob are linked in scripture with the name of Abraham, but the vision and the spirit and the drive of Abraham was not in them. God associates His name with theirs though, and says He is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, coupling the names together almost as one, which is blessing enough. What a God of grace He is. Dwelling a little on this numerical idea we may also here find a Bible example of 'second and third generationism'. The phrase is quite modern, denoting spiritual degeneration; it is not found in scripture; there it is comprehended in the word 'backsliding'. 'Second and third generationism' refers to the marked spiritual loss and the resultant spiritual decline observable between one generation of God's people and the next, and the one which follows that as next in order to that. The phrase generally means that these successive generations have retained the outward forms and possibly the beliefs also of what their forebears had, and probably believe in and hold to them tenaciously, but that the truth of which those forms and tenets speak has been neglected and therefore the power of them has long since departed. 'Something' so hard to define has vanished. Here in this chapter we can see this decline extending into the fourth generation, for the writer includes Joseph, Jacob's son, in the list of the great men he chooses to mention.
Isaac, Jacob and Joseph were all outstanding men in their day; God was with each of them and we all can and should learn much from the record of their lives. The comparison offered here though is not between ourselves and them but between them and Abraham. There is a most significant lack of either information or eulogistic commendation provided about them in this chapter; they were 'by faith' men, but although they were not completely overshadowed by the towering stature of Abraham they appear as dwarfs beside him; and who would not? This was not the intention of the writer but it is nonetheless so; the contrast between them is so great and so obvious. In a figure Isaac was both offered up to God and received back from the dead, that was wonderful, but all was accomplished by Abraham's faith, not Isaac's. He was born miraculously, was circumcised traditionally, was married eventually, dwelt in tents with his father and Jacob normally, farmed successfully and, before his death, blessed Jacob and Esau customarily. Sad to say though, he did this mistakenly because his wife and son acted deceitfully towards him. How different he was from his father who, in full knowledge of what he was doing, deliberately went to Moriah intending to slay his son in order to give him to God and receive him back from Him from the dead.
Jacob, at the end of his life, complained that his days were few and evil, (whose and what evil he did not say). He went down into Egypt and for the purposes of the Hebrews writer the one noteworthy thing about him was that before he died he blessed both the sons of Joseph and, leaning on his staff, worshipped the God before whose eyes, in co-operation with his mother, he had acted as a deceiver and a thief. So much for the second and third generation. Joseph, the great-great-grandson of Abraham, prophesied about the Exodus and gave commandment concerning his bones when it should come to pass. He appears to have been a greater man than his father, but who will say that he was as great as Abraham? That completes the list of their contributions to the 'by faith' statements made here by the writer, who includes them in order to point to their eldership to the Hebrews. Each of these men and the things he did by faith hold a place of importance; in their day they were all-important, but not one of them and his works is to be compared with Abraham and his accomplishments. In course of time God was to open His heart to Moses, making promises to him and giving him instructions with reference to the future of Israel in the promised land. These reveal the course of action He had decided upon, and included a statement of intent based upon a principle already shown to be operative in the human race, but not yet defined. This principle clearly emerges in the statement made by God with regard to punishment: 'visiting the iniquities of the father upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me ... showing mercy unto thousands of them that love me and keep my commandments'.
For some reason best known to Him, but not explained, God incorporated into His dealings with men a numerical system. Undoubtedly in eternity we shall find out why He did this, and doing so discover that it is based upon a law in Himself not yet disclosed to mankind. In this numerical system each number has a specific spiritual significance also. As stated by God, hereditary punishment meted out by Him extends unto the third or fourth generation, and then only upon those who hate Him, and certainly not upon those who love Him — these find mercy. We see then that, though by law punishment can extend through four generations, it does not extend to the fifth, and herein lies the spiritual principle — five is the number of grace. So it is that the writer sets out his chapter on faith as a revelation of grace rather than of law, because the principle of grace runs through, and in the end supercedes law as God's basis of dealing with mankind. We may further observe this by casting back a reflective eye to the beginning of the chapter. Although not mentioned here, Adam, as we know, was the first man; he was the first sinner also, and through him, sin, death and judgement passed upon all mankind and the earth on which we dwell. Next to him and in order of appearance in the chapter comes Abel, followed in succession by Enoch, and then Noah — three (a trinity) of just men: together with Adam they are four men, then the flood — the judgement. Following the flood comes the fifth man, Abraham, and a new beginning in grace. With his entrance the count begins again — Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph — four men, then judgement, punishment, darkness and death, this time, by God's mercy, not universal but confined to one nation, Egypt. What a lesson to Jacob's children and to all who observe. Following this, the fifth man emerges, Moses, and by him grace. Though this may be a little surprising, it is true: God began anew with grace. It was quite a while before the law was introduced, and unexpected though it may seem it was grace that moved God to introduce it, and grace runs throughout it, bringing merciful forgiveness of all sin through the shed blood.
Contradistinctively from the bare mention of the names of Isaac, Jacob and Joseph and but a spare reference to some work or word of faith each did or spoke, as soon as Moses' name appears the writer becomes more expansive again. This is done in order to enhance grace, for both Abraham and Moses were the leading men in the great eras of grace then commencing. Seeing that he is repeating what he did previously with regard to Abraham and his predecessors, it also appears that the writer's purpose at this point was to point his readers to the most highly esteemed of their national heroes as being demonstrators of faith. Closer examination however also reveals that he may also have wished to show them that, great though these men were, and wonderful their faith, they died disappointed, not having received all the promises, nor having all their hopes fulfilled. As already pointed out, Abraham never found the city, and Moses did not enter the promised land, though each of them respectively had lived in hope and expectation that his dear desire would be fulfilled. Nevertheless each receives from the writer the honour due to him, and he now speaks with admiration of Moses; but first he mentions his parents.
BY FAITH MOSES — Verses twenty-three to twenty-nine.'By faith Moses, when he was born, was hid three months of his parents'. How blessed Moses was to have been born to such parents: what a heritage. Obviously a man's natural heredity is not by his own faith; the seeds of their son's greatness lay in the hearts of Moses' parents, Amram and Jochabed; they saw that Moses was a 'proper' child. Whether or not his parents lived to see the eventual greatness and glory of their famous son is not told, but this we are told that we may see that faith in their hearts enabled them to see that he was proper material for God. If he finds that in a man, God does great things with him. For love's sake and for what they saw in their son that couple risked their lives; ingrained faith in a man's heart is always coupled with great courage. Faith can never be great without great courage; fear cripples faith. Faith must either overcome fear or be overcome by it, they cannot exist together in the same heart. In the hearts of this couple, especially in the heart of Moses' mother, faith overcoming fear also overcame the world, and they defied the king and his genocidal law. This spirit was inbred in their son when he was born; he needed such parents because he was born to be the deliverer of his people. This is all the more remarkable when we realise that Moses was not the firstborn son of his parents: Aaron was the firstborn. Miriam also was Moses' senior; she was also his nursemaid from afar while he floated in the ark among the reeds on the banks of the Nile.
For all that Moses was looked upon in Egypt as a prince of the realm, when he came to young manhood he was an Israelite. How soon in his young life he realised who he was and from whence he came — whether his princess foster-mother told him, or some other person gossiped it to him — we do not know. It might have been a member of his own family or a relative or someone else of his own tribe; that is not important for us to know. The important thing is that, when Moses did become aware of his nationality, who he was and to whom he really belonged, he became a changed person. Scripture says of him, 'by faith Moses, when he was come to years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter'. It was a bold stand to make, a risky one; some would have thought it a foolish one too, for he was in line for the throne. Moses, full of courage made his choice, it was a step of loyalty and of faith: he was identifying himself with God's people and his own. The spirit of his family was in him, he was now commencing to live by faith. How much Moses owed to the faith of his parents who can say? He may not then have realised it was the faith of Abraham too. What incalculable wealth is bred into children of men and women of character and courage and moral uprightness, whose spirits refuse to bow down to tyrants or to give in to satan's agents. Perhaps when his spirit began to rise in him and his heart began to grapple with the problems of his nationality and identity Moses realised these things and determined before God that his future should lie with the children of Abraham.
One of the amazing things about the life of faith is the variety of ways by which a man may enter into it. We must all beware of rigidity of thought and narrow viewpoint. God has more than one way of getting hold of a person. Faith can develop from a number of sources and through many circumstances and events; ways for men to enter into the blessed life are abundant and varied. A little comparative thinking will help us here. We know nothing of Abraham's parentage or of what went on in him before God called him; his father was called Terah, his brother Haran, his nephew Lot; another relative was named Laban. All those had their respective wives and children, and it seems they believed in and practised intermarriage and perhaps either polygamy or concubinage. This was certainly not the background from which Moses came. What Abraham's spiritual heredity or manner of life was in Chaldea we cannot tell; we do know however that, whatever it was, God called him out and away from it altogether. That is how it began with him, but not so with Moses.
One of the surprising things arising from a comparison between Abraham and Moses is the great contrast between them. Moses' life of faith did not commence with some kind of call as did Abraham's; Moses did not receive an actual call from God until he was out in the backside of the desert. For him the life of faith began in Egypt, and he received this call from God precisely because he had already taken a stand of faith. The decisions he took one day in the land of the Pharaohs were absolutely fundamental to the call he later received in the wilderness. The writer to the Hebrews reveals that, upon that occasion, God did not call Moses: he heard no voice, he was not asked or advised or commanded to do anything or to go anywhere; his was a calculated decision, not a response to a call. There came a day when he sat down and marshalled some facts: (1) he could be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter: that was what she wanted; (2) he could have the pleasures of sin: that was what the devil wanted; (3) he could have the treasures of Egypt: that is what all ordinary men would have wanted. On the other hand he could: (1) be a commoner and a slave instead of a prince; (2) suffer affliction with the people of God; (3) take upon himself the reproach of the as yet unknown Christ. After mature consideration of these three alternatives to his present position, he made his decision, then by faith he: (1) chose affliction instead of pleasure; (2) refused to be called the princess's son; (3) respected the reward of such a decision and the recompense it would bring to him and to God's people. Faith's refusal, faith's choice and faith's respect of reward are as vital to spiritual life as is faith's obedience to a special call.
Comparisons are odious, it is said, but only if they are intended to be offensive, or received in the wrong spirit; they are sometimes useful for clarification, that by them we may learn. Abraham's greatness lay in his initial response to God's call, but not so Moses; he was called, but not until later. His initial greatness lay in the moral courage which made him face the facts, make a calculated choice, and take a decision; he was a brave man. Although he could not claim a distinctive call, he did know he had been miraculously preserved from death; what he did not know was that he was specially chosen, and that he was marked out for greatness. Afterwards, when he was out in the desert where the call came he knew, but not at first. How men achieve greatness or become famous by doing outstanding or unique things for God varies very greatly; that distinction is affected by many things, and is therefore difficult to assess. Primarily of course it is by the will of God, but not the least factor in it is the kind of person involved, and the conditions and times in which he lives and the purposes of God for that time and for the future.
Abraham, as already noted, did not have believing parents as did Moses; nobody had defied the wrath of a king on his behalf, and there were no people of God in Ur of the Chaldees. On the other hand Moses, though born in Egypt, had a godly heritage second to none; his position was quite different from Abraham's. This is why comparisons are oftentimes made quite mistakenly and judgements passed foolishly and unwarrantably. Under no circumstances may the greatness of anybody be measured by things he or she achieves. The will of God must first be taken into consideration, for that is paramount; then the faith with which he or she sets out to accomplish it. Everyone of whom we have read so far, whether he or she achieved much or little, had a good report from God, and each one obtained it by faith. All man's spiritual life, its growth, its development, its stature and its progress is governed by faith; there is grace for all, but eternal life is the life of faith and cannot be had or lived apart from it. This is why, in the beginning, God made faith natural to us; upon hearing the gospel anyone who will exercise his will can move in faith and have salvation.
Because Paul once said, 'all men have not the faith', it must not be thought that he was saying, 'no one has faith', or 'only a few have faith'. God made Adam and then Eve by faith, and insofar as faith is part of the law of His own being He made them of faith too. This whole creation is a faith creation — everything in it that God created and made is a 'by faith' creation; this is why Jesus said that it is possible to tell a tree to be plucked up by the root and planted in the sea. Provided that it is the will of God to have it removed the tree would obey, He said. Unlike human beings the tree has no power to operate in faith, but neither has it power to resist faith. Faith was not incorporated into the makeup of a tree but faith was incorporated into the makeup of a human being. To remove a tree or a mountain requires faith only in the individual doing it. When the Lord cursed the fig tree so that it died, He commented on the faith by which He accomplished it —'have the faith of God', He said. Such things cannot be accomplished by human faith.
Any person who has so lived that his faith has been destroyed or he has lost it, can receive faith back again if he hears the word of God from a person speaking the word of faith. For this reason Paul asked that men should pray for him that the word of God should run through him freely and be glorified. He wanted to preach the word of faith, and once said quite boldly that this was precisely what he did. He also wrote about mutual faith, making plain that they, as well as he, must have faith in order that he could impart unto them some spiritual gift. Obviously if they were without faith they could receive nothing from him, and would please neither God nor him. In order to be entirely faithless a man must quench his own natural faith and refuse to listen to God's word. Sometimes men block the way to faith in their own selves, clogging up their hearts and minds with wrong beliefs, false religious ideas, belief in material things, political notions, secular philosophies, which things all prove that they have faith, but in false things. Substitutes for the gospel abound everywhere and are held so tenaciously that souls cannot believe the truth when they do hear it.
Not so Moses though. He heard all the vain and worldly things of his day, the gossip of royal courts and popular political beliefs and the social scandals, he was trained in all the arts of the Egyptians, but he let none of this replace his faith; that remained in him indestructible. He evaluated everything, made up his own mind weighed up the 'fors and againsts', pros and cons, and arrived at the correct conclusion — he knew that whatever loss he sustained by his choice would be more than recompensed unto him by God. What he desired most of all was that he should so live that he would receive the good report from God. Whatever anyone else said about him and his beliefs mattered little to him, he wanted to please God and have His commendation, and that requires faith as much as building an ark or sacrificing a son. Moses was an ordinary man; it is faith that makes men extraordinary.
Between verses twenty-six and twenty-seven a period of forty years had elapsed, during which time Moses lived in isolation from the people of God. He was neither in his own land, that is, in the land of Egypt where he was born, nor in the promised land where he felt he and his people ought to be. He was living in the land of Midian, working as a shepherd somewhere in the back side of the desert, feeding his father-in-law's sheep. He had married the priest of Midian's daughter, who had borne him two sons, and there he had settled down to live and work and raise a family. What he believed or what communion with God and the state of his spiritual life was during this period none but he and God knew. How lonely he must have been; the culture shock must have been tremendous beyond words. Courtier to commoner, art to vulgarity, from being waited upon to waiting upon sheep! How he survived out there, learning to shepherd the sheep, having to resist the pressures put upon him to embrace the idolatry of the people among whom he lived, is not revealed. 'He endured, as seeing Him who is invisible'; to his praise he kept faith with his God of whom there can be no effigy. His only fault was that he let go of the covenant of circumcision which God had made with Abraham about living in the promised land. Had he lost the vision? Did he no longer believe in this sign that he bore in his flesh that he believed in the covenant of God? Had he lost hope that either he or his family, especially his boys, would ever see the land? Perhaps so. Who knows? But whatever it was God never forsook him, and so he endured. If he had let go of the covenant sign and would not force it upon his wife by forcing it upon her children he had not thereby forfeited his faith; he still 'saw' God, and the vision sustained him; he would endure all for His sake.
Moses bore the reproach of Christ: that to him was riches; he had wealth untold, and he treasured it. Just when he 'forsook Egypt' is not textually clear; he himself wrote that he fled the country following the death of an Egyptian with whom he had a fight. Fear gripped him, he expected retribution, he was a born, an avowed Israelite — he fled. The Hebrews writer says that he forsook Egypt not fearing the wrath of the king, he could not therefore have meant that occasion. He must have been thinking of another time. Was it out there in the loneliness of the desert when he 'saw' Him who cannot be seen and received the great commission that all his fears left him? Was that the moment he forsook Egypt in heart for ever? There are so many possibilities as to when the great forsaking took place; it might have been then that he took the step, knowing that doing so he would almost certainly incur the wrath of the king. On the other hand the writer may have been referring to the time when, overcoming all, he rallied Israel to do the will of God and led them out of Egypt in triumph on that great night of redemption. What a forsaking that was; it was nothing other than a total evacuation of the whole land of Goshen. We cannot tell the moment when all fear left him, and he lived fearless before God and all men for evermore. Most probably it was during the meeting with I AM at the bush: there he saw the fire and heard His voice and felt His anger at the excuses he made about himself. Was it there that the fear of God took the place of the fear of man?
From that time onwards Moses' faith was all-powerful, its comprehensiveness cannot be exaggerated. In a way that could not have happened in Abraham's day Moses became the great mediator for all Israel; to a degree he became all Israel to God. It is said of Abraham that by faith before God he became the father of us all, and though not so literally, before God it was rather like that with Moses. Rather unexpectedly we read that, 'Through faith he kept the passover, and the sprinkling of blood, lest he that destroyed the firstborn should touch them'. It was all Israel that kept the passover and the sprinkling of blood, yet here it is said that it was Moses who did it: such is the power and the reward of true faith. What an insight this affords us into the heart of God and into the way the good report is earned by man. O how much credit God gives to the heart of faith in whomsoever it is found; Moses was given credit for what the whole multitude of people did. Not all the credit though; each man would have been credited for responding to God' s command and doing what he was told to do, but every other man did what he did because he responded to Moses' command. They all had faith to a degree, otherwise they would not have done it, and that was noted by God and credited to them, but before God Moses believed for them all! What faith he had; all fear had gone, he could believe God for everything. The king's wrath meant nothing to Moses: he had met and believed and obeyed God. The man was beyond the power of devils or men; in his heart he had the testimony that he pleased God — that is faith's strength: faith knows that everything is fitted together by the word of God. There is difference between doing this involuntarily and doing it voluntarily; God takes note of this, and on the basis of this knowledge deals with souls with understanding and wisdom in grace. Much of God's dealing with souls turns on how each one's natural faith has been used and to what ends the natural abilities have functioned. The soul of man, being informed by the ceaseless function of these senses, forms a conscious mind giving rise to opinions, decisions, expressions, and the host of other things by which we are manifest to ourselves and to others. These things are fundamental to life, nor can they be changed at deepest levels except we become spiritually regenerate. From the moment that happens we have ability to use these powers properly, that is for God's purposes; being adaptations of original faith they are quickened and enhanced by the faith which comes by the hearing of God's word and the oncoming of God's spirit. It is by the development of these powers, which now reconnect him to God, that the measure of a man's faith is determined. Moses was a man of great faith, and so was each of his predecessors mentioned in the chapter. Moses had faith for all Israel and to him God made known His ways. By this great favour bestowed on him Moses discovered that each one of these ways was the way because it was the faith way; walking in it he went on and on, becoming greater still with every step.
The contents of this chapter furnish evidence that there are vast differences between men of faith. The author and finisher of the faith of men is the man Jesus who Moses met there at the bush. In Him faith is complete. He manifested faith fully and to the furthest degree possible to mankind; thereby He was perfected. His faith — that quality of faith — is the faith which God incorporated into man's spiritual nature when He made him; man was designed for this. Faith was adapted and fashioned to function in the form of the five sensory powers which all men have — sight, hearing, touch, taste arid smell; these are man's acquisitive powers. Hence man has eyes, ears, palate, nose and the whole body area of touch and feeling (especially the finger tips). God made us like this primarily so that we should see Him, hear Him, touch Him, taste Him, smell Him. By incorporating these senses into us, the soul of man, putting them to their primary use, may attain to full stature in the sight of God; except he does this a man will not grow spiritually, but will remain a babe. All is well when a man does use these 'by faith' powers as God intended: when he uses them incorrectly, that is puts them to carnal or anti-Christ use, his spirit, if regenerate, will degenerate and lose all power to please God and gain a good report. Until a man is regenerate in spirit he can do no other than live in the flesh, function in the world, and prostitute his powers unto the devil.
All the rest of the people followed in Moses' train, and it is said of them that 'By faith they passed through the Red sea as by dry land'. Once the way was opened up and made clear to them every one of them passed over. It was easy to do so then; the path was nice and clean and dry, and they saw that God had made it for them. Besides this they were being chased by Pharaoh and his army, and to have stayed where they were would have meant either death or recapture, so they went over: they were very wise. The faith road was the safe road and they took it; to do so was just plain common sense. There was nothing difficult about what they did; though it was an act of faith it was by no means a great act; they did not need to exercise great faith to make that crossing, it was Moses who did the great thing, not they. God led them to the Red Sea, He saw the path through it plainly: His way for them was in that sea, hidden from their eyes as yet. 'Stretch out thine hand over the sea', He said to Moses; Moses did so and there was the way. It was Moses who had the faith though; neither he nor they saw the way; Moses saw God though — that was the way for him and Israel — God is man's way. Men of great faith are pioneers; by their ministry they show the way, opening it up for all to see; it then becomes easy for others to believe and use their faith too — it is only common sense. Faith is the implicit trust of a man's heart in God by reason of the quickening of his inbred powers through God's grace in speaking to him.
This is the purpose for which the epistle was written; on God's behalf the writer was wanting every Hebrew of his day to exercise his or her faith. He had realised something which may not be recognised at the first reading of his work, and it is of this that he is writing. Reading this particular chapter it could easily be supposed that he was intent upon impressing his readers with the exploits of a handful of very special individuals, mostly men, who accomplished marvellous things by faith. If this was so, then he has succeeded, for their names are in the chapter for all to see, and, besides this, so many sermons have been preached about them among Bible-loving people that their names are household words, and so they should be. These individuals deserve all the fame they have; they have won it, and even though their day has closed and we are in the new Christian era they are counted giants among us still. We thank God for them and are pleased to have them as our elders. However, to present these persons to us was not the main reason for including their names in the book. Closer reading of the chapter reveals that what God wanted was a people living by faith, not just a few persons whose faith was of gargantuan proportions. He did not just want one individual person to live and work by faith, or even two or three or twenty or a hundred times that number of persons sprinkled throughout history; He wanted millions, everybody, to be living by faith.
God revealed His heart to Abraham about this right at the beginning, telling him that his seed would be as uncountable as the dust of the ground and the stars of heaven for multitude; God raised Abraham up unto this end. So down through Isaac and Jacob God pursued His purpose, multiplying the seed-faith of Abraham into a son and a family and a tribe and twelve tribes until, by Moses' day, it was a nation. That is what He wanted; it was what He promised to Abraham, and for this reason He raised up Moses to go down to Egypt and bring out His nation for Him: 'Israel is my firstborn', He said. He had Moses, and what a great man of faith he was, but He wanted a nation of faith, a great company which could not be numbered for multitude. He did not want them numbered by man either. He wanted the number of the elect to be known only to Himself. David got himself and the nation into serious trouble when he desired to know how many there were in the land. Censuses may be deemed necessary by men who claim nations of fellow-creatures as theirs, but they have no place in God's nation. 'The Lord knoweth them that are his', says Paul, 'And, let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity'.
God never expected great faith or marvellous works of the multitude of people, but He did insist that every one of them should, indeed must, be a man or woman of faith. It is wonderful to be so loved and wanted of God, and what a wonder it is when He brings a man to faith. It has to happen of course; He still wants a people of faith; that is why He sent His Son into the world. In times past an Abraham and a Moses would do, but now it is His only Son Jesus, not they, who is the wonder man. There came a day when Abraham died; his sons came and buried him: he did not rise again. It was the same with Moses also: he died and God Himself came and buried him. Like Abraham, Moses did not rise again. Unlike Abraham, Moses' body did not even lie in the land of promise. Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca and Jacob and Leah were buried there, but not Moses and his wife. God purposely took his body and buried it outside the land of Canaan to ensure that it was not laid there with those three great predecessors from whom Israel sprang. God granted this man this special honour above all others because of what he accomplished, and by conferring upon him this great privilege pointed a truth we all need to understand.
Moses was a distinguished man whose faith was equal to that of Abraham, and probably greater than that of Isaac and Jacob, but he was not one of the three founders of the nation; he was their deliverer and lawgiver. The three 'fathers' of Israel were pre-law; they were under grace and it was this that, above all, God wanted Israel to understand. The law for righteousness was holy and good — it was given by God to the people that they should live under it in the land. Canaan was not given to them by law and by Moses, it was given by promise through Abraham; Israel did not earn the land, it was theirs by gift. When Israel thought of the land they must think of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, not of Moses. Law-keeping requires very little faith, only sufficient to be obedient, and that often is a matter of common sense. God intended law-keeping to be a way of life; He gave the law for that reason — it was a most gracious act. Having been born with the work of the law already written in their hearts, the Israelites should have found no difficulty in keeping the written law when God gave it to them. That law was both an authority and a meticulously detailed summary of the way the inner law of being should be expressed in life; it should have been recognised by Israel as such: the Mosaic law is an expression of nature and of grace. The law is not opposed to grace, law and grace being both given by God are one. It is the works of the law — chiefly the personal obligation to provide sacrifices for sin, the obligatory keeping of fasts and feasts and such things — these are the things which are now so contrary to grace, but this is only because they are insults to God and His greater grace. He gave His Son to be sacrificed for sin — that is sufficient. Salvation is God's work, not man's.
The response to grace requires a greater more living faith than doing law-works: what the Lord said to Thomas eight days after His resurrection puts it perfectly, 'because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed'. Faith in the invisible Christ will bring us to God and keep us obedient in His love. It should be thoroughly understood by every man that faith is a work, believing is something a man has to do himself: it is the inward work of the soul. It is not an outward work, but it does result, indeed it is demonstrated, in outward works, as the writer is revealing in this chapter. We are saved by grace through the law of faith, certainly not by law-works lest any man should boast; grace works through faith and faith works by love. Being love God loves, and because He loves grace works on our behalf so that faith can work in us unto our salvation by that grace.
Dear Moses never got into the promised land during his lifetime, nor did he reach it in his death. Joseph's bones entered the land, but not Moses'. He died at God's wish in the wilderness and was buried there in an unmarked grave. He had so much wished to go into the land, he must have died a greatly disappointed man. God was not unmindful of that, and had actually provided some better thing for him, of which He had not yet spoken; God's will and ways are always best. To Moses was granted the great privilege of standing with the transfigured Lord on earth, and in the sight and hearing of three apostles discussing with Him another exodus. It was wonderful beyond words; it was joy. Disappointment greater than his own former disappointment must have filled him as he talked with Christ, for the promised land for which he had lived and striven those forty years of pilgrimage had itself become Egypt and there had to be another exodus. God had been saving up His Lamb for it; Moses was standing with Him. It was all so wonderfully tragic. Great as was Moses' faith, he only came out of Egypt into the wilderness; his 'home' he never reached. Neither Abraham nor he settled down in the promised land, for neither found what they sought, though they indeed had great faith. What did the Hebrews think as they read their letter? A phrase used in this chapter embraces them all — 'These all died in faith, not having received ...'. The message to the Hebrews surely was, 'and so may you'.
OF WHOM THE WORLD WAS NOT WORTHY — Verses 30-40Commencing this section the writer ceases recounting the stories of great individuals and making points from their exploits. Names of well-known men appear in these verses and we can read about them, but their particular works, though recorded in the Old Testament, are not recorded here. The focus now noticeably shifts from the particular to the general, and with this shift there is also an equally noticeable change of the strict chronological order previously observed. Names are set down as they occur to the writer instead of in the order they appear in history: David for instance is mentioned before Samuel and the prophets. For what the writer has in mind this makes no difference, either to him or to the truth, and is a clear indication of his intentions. Having shown that the birth and constitution of the nation was by faith, the writer is now wanting to speak about the people as a whole and not just about particular persons. This immediately becomes clear when we find that Joshua, Moses' successor, great man that he was, is not even mentioned; neither he nor the people appear in the one single text referring to happenings in Canaan; here it is: 'by faith the walls of Jericho fell down, after they were compassed about seven days'. Amazingly, except for Rahab, no names are mentioned; the emphasis is on faith alone; neither Joshua's nor the people's faith finds notice, but just faith.
So now the writer has brought us back to the essential message — faith, not men of faith. 'Live by faith', he is saying. He is not exhorting them to try and do great things, or to strive to become great men or women, but simply to live by faith. From a superficial reading of the chapter the impression could be gained that he is challenging people to attempt great things for God, but really he is not. Instead he raises the question, 'How, do you think, did Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and Moses and all the rest I have mentioned accomplish these wonderful things?' The answer immediately rises to our lips, 'by faith', which is manifestly true; but if he had answered his own question he would have said, 'they lived by faith'; each one of them proved God in daily living. Not one of them attempted to do great things and God never asked them to; what He wanted of them was that by faith each should prove His faithfulness in the humdrum things of daily life. Let every one of us learn this same lesson and attempt nothing until God tells us to do so,. and when He does speak let us obey Him wholeheartedly. We may say, 'I will try', perhaps half believing we cannot do it or that we shall fail — not if God says so — no one has ever obeyed Him and failed.
Amram and Jochebed, Moses' parents, hid their son for three months before putting him in the bulrushes where he was discovered by the princess; they did it by faith says the writer. It was a work of faith, but God never told them to do it; He did not need to, they were living by faith. They saw something in their child Moses (which is not at all a surprising thing) so they decided to act in the manner now so famous; it was perfectly natural and they were not afraid of the king. How important it was that they should do that; we eulogise Moses, and rightly so, but had his parents not been living by faith it is almost certain that Moses might never have survived. What would have happened then? We need not speculate, God was overruling everything and watching over the babe to bring His purposes to pass. Who then could imagine failure? But how true it is also that, except He find faith on the earth, how shall He do His great works among the sons of men?
Unremarkable faith, that is, faith which does nothing spectacular or sensational, but patiently continues in well doing is great faith well-pleasing to God. He can raise up an Abraham or a Moses, or His great kings and prophets, to do remarkable and spectacular things if He will, but such men and events are rare; what God wants and needs is a whole nation of ordinary people living as He wants. His delight is with the sons of men, ordinary folk with no special qualifications or commendations, natural or spiritual, either in the world or in the church. It is said of the Jews in Christ's day, 'The common people heard Him gladly'. It is of great significance, perhaps of greater significance than we at first realise, that the final person whose name and particular act of faith is recorded in this section is Rahab the harlot. What a surprise! She was a bad woman and not even an Israelite! She did nothing spectacular, why should she be singled out when Joshua was entirely passed over? The answer to this question which may seem so puzzling is found in the writer's threefold purpose: (1) to emphasise the life of faith above particular acts of faith; (2) to show that this simplicity of faith is available to anybody, even the unlikeliest of persons; (3) to point to a miracle of major proportions lying in scripture mostly undiscovered but highlighted in Rahab.The first two points need no further emphasis beyond what has already been said, but the third needs some elaboration. The phrasing of the verse preceding the one in which Rahab is mentioned is most remarkable, every bit as remarkable as that in which her name occurs; they should be read together: 'By faith the walls of Jericho fell down, after they were compassed about seven days. By faith the harlot Rahab perished not with them that believed not, when she had received the spies with peace'. The miracle lies as open before our eyes today as it did before the eyes of Israel on the day it happened, when the people shouted at God's command and the walls fell down. But what happened to Rahab's house? It was built on the wall. However was she saved? It was not possible — the walls fell down. She was saved by a miracle, a miracle within a miracle. There is no miracle but that there is also one or many more within it. The first major miracle was the total collapse of the walls; the second major miracle, twinned with the first, was Rahab's total preservation. How she was saved from perishing with the rest only the Lord knows. Did He demolish the rest of the walls and leave the tiny part on which her house was perched standing intact? Did He hold her up, or was she and all she had, and her father's household also, borne up on angels' wings and deposited gently down on earth well out of the battle-zone away from harm? Certainly she was not rescued by men, for all Israel were standing right back, away from the walls, (a bowshot at least) when the miracle happened. All Israel would have been on the lookout for her house on the wall, trying to discern the scarlet line in the window and believing she was going to be rescued, and wondering what would happen when the wall fell down. How was she to be preserved? They were as ignorant as she. No less then than now they saw, but only through a glass darkly, and through the dust that rose over all and blotted out the whole miracle.
God had not told anybody what was going to happen about Rahab, not even Joshua apparently. Their instructions were to march in silence around the city once a day for six days, then on the seventh day they must march round it seven times; six times in silence, finalising it all the seventh time by shouting and blowing trumpets. At that the wall crumpled, falling down flat outwards; all that every man had to do was to go straight up over the rubble, sword in hand, into the city. Rahab with her family and goods were the only ones saved; no-one and nothing else was preserved from the destruction. The walls fell down by faith, but not Joshua's nor anyone else's outstanding faith; they fell as a result of corporate faith; that is, because of their obedience. Rahab was included in the miracle because she obeyed God too. Although she did not know it, in the mind of God she had made her preservation sure when she received the spies in peace, and placed the scarlet cord in the window. The miraculous preservation was only the manifestation of it. The miracle of Jericho was outstanding: God did it all, but only because everyone involved in it, and for whom it was done, did exactly as He said. God chose to do it that way.
Something else has been made increasingly clear by the writer in course of this chapter also, and we must not miss it, namely the shift from direct communication to indirect communication. At the beginning of the chapter the writer is at pains to tell us that God spoke to people directly, Noah for instance, and Abraham, but not now; God spoke to the leaders, in this case Moses and Joshua, and they relayed His word to the people. This departure from former practice was quite deliberate on God's part; it was part of the policy He was pursuing in His dealings with men. It is instructive also to note that there is no indication in the first part of the chapter that God ever spoke to either of the men of faith who lived prior to Noah. There is no record that God instructed Abel to offer the acceptable sacrifice to Him, or that He told Enoch or anyone that He was going to translate him; God just took him. It is said of Enoch that he 'walked with God and was not', so it is difficult to believe that he walked with God and that God never spoke to him, but whether or not God told him He was going to take him away from the earth we cannot know. It is the lack of positive statement about these things on the part of the Hebrews writer which draws attention to the idea that God may well prefer to use a different method than governing a multitude through one man.
With the advent of Noah into the list comes the information that God spoke to him, giving him the warning about the approaching judgement. We know from the Genesis account that the Lord also gave him instructions for the building of the ark. All this was by direct communication, there was no intermediary, it was just between Noah and God; no third party was involved. It was the same also with Abraham and with Moses, God spoke directly to them and also to Isaac and Jacob before Moses, but with the advent of Moses and the emergence of the Israel nation the pattern changes. God still continued to speak to Moses personally, and so the era of speaking to a nation through one man commenced. This began in Egypt, there the Lord spoke indirectly to the people through Moses, and after He had brought them out of Egypt He continued to do so at their request. At Sinai they begged God not to speak directly to them and asked for Moses to be their intermediary in all matters appertaining to God. The Lord accepted the position and their request, after all it was the natural and most practicable thing to do.
From that original position of one prophet and one voice to the nation the Lord later moved to the new position of many prophets and many voices speaking in Israel, and so it continued. As the years progressed, the judges came and added their voices, and later still the kings. Some of these were good spiritual men, but not all: voices and gift multiplied, but there was very little of the word of God in the land. So bad did this situation become that Isaiah, in his day, had to cry out, 'To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them'. Anticipating such a day and to offset the damage of it, the Lord, instructed Moses to place the law and the testimony in the ark to be kept inviolable by the priests. By inscribing His own testimony into the law, writing it ineradicably into stone He ensured that to that degree it should not fade away but be everlasting. This was to be the foundation of the nation's righteousness and the ultimate test of every word that purported to be spoken in His name thereafter. But the people ignored God's law, insisting upon choosing their own kings, and ordering their own kingdoms and listening to the prophets they preferred. So the Lord took away His testimony and His law from them and ceased to raise up His own prophets and sent the people into captivity and unto dispersion, where they remain to this day.
Throughout all this time faith was scarcely to be found on earth; it still burned low in some hearts, but only a few, so to complete the chapter the writer gathers up the men and women of faith and encompasses all these in a few short verses of glorious testimony. The named and the nameless, the famous and the unknown, all are placed together and praised equally because they all obtained the good report through faith. Whoever they were they share the honours and have received the rewards of the faithful, and how well they deserve them. The world was not worthy of such people, yet the Lord continued to raise them up, each in their day, knowing that they would be hated, hounded, hurt, tried, tortured, tormented, poverty stricken outcasts, despised, rejected, and in the end many of them murdered. And what for? For a promise that was never fulfilled to them. Such is faith, and what it can accomplish in the hearts and lives of the faceless and the anonymous, as well as the famous ones.
What an ending to a chapter about faith; but that is how it started. Abel acted in faith and was killed for his pains. Of all the people mentioned in the chapter Enoch alone is the one whose life ended in what is considered to be the ultimate glory; he entered into what to the Hebrews was the promise: he was translated. All the others lived by faith, worked by faith, walked by faith, witnessed by faith, worshipped by faith; some of them obtained promises through faith, but not one of them received the promise. We are told of those who lived in the land of promise and obtained promises in that land, and of others who saw the promises afar off and were persuaded of them and embraced them, and thereby became pilgrims and strangers on the earth. But of all the promises that had ever been made to any one of them, not one received the fulfilment of the promise, though it had been made by God from the very beginning.
Quite possibly Abraham, when he received the promise from God about the seed, thought of it as the promise; we can imagine him speaking of it to Sarah as the promise of all the promises God had made him. Undoubtedly to him and eventually to Sarah it was the greatest of them all, but it was not the promise that God counted to be the promise. Promises made by God to individuals for individual blessings to be fulfilled in that person's experience only, though they are wonderful in fulfilment, and perhaps affect others also, do not and can never warrant the description 'the promise'. The promise, though in the first instance it may be made to a person, is not made to that individual only, it is made to the whole of mankind for universal acceptance. God made this kind of promise to Noah after the flood, and set His bow as a token of it in the clouds.
When, in the presence of the couple in Eden, He made the promise 'the seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent's head', it was the same also. The promise made in Eden was for universal acceptance, but Adam and Eve misinterpreted God's meaning. They had no idea of His intentions, consequently they thought that Cain was the seed; how wrong they were. They were not to be blamed though, for beyond the bare promise God never went on to explain Himself to them. Neither Cain in the beginning, nor Isaac in his day, was the promised seed; the promise God gave, though possible of local application, was made about the coming of His Son. There is no suggestion in scripture anywhere that Abraham thought the seed promised to him was the promised seed; it was not, and he did not think it was. Possibly, if they had been asked, both he and Sarah would have said that it was the greatest promise made to them, and its fulfilment was joy unspeakable.
Although Adam and Eve made a mistake about the original promise, properly considered it was really far too clear to have been misunderstood. God spoke in such specific language; He said it was to be the seed of the woman; the man was not mentioned. It is quite understandable that Adam and Eve should have thought that God meant them to interpret the promise as they did, it was so natural, but they were wrong. Abraham's understanding would have been much clearer when God made promise to him concerning the seed: there was no ambiguity about it; 'thy seed', He said to Abraham, and Abraham knew that the seed was to be his very own. If he knew about what happened in Eden (and it is uncertain that he did), Abraham knew that, although given to him by a miracle from God, the seed would not be the seed promised in the beginning, for it would not be exclusively the seed of the woman. So then, although many of God's promises were fulfilled to Abraham, not all of them were.
From a reading of the whole epistle there can be little doubt why the writer commenced this chapter as he did, telling the Hebrews that faith is the substance of things hoped for, and then passing on almost immediately to say that by faith we understand that the ages were fitted together by the word of God. What he is saying is that by faith a man can only live in hope of some promises being fulfilled in his lifetime, because they are not all scheduled by God for fulfilment in the age in which he is living. Some promises should be, and ought to be, fulfilled in the lifetime of every man living by faith, for they are given for man's appropriation; but, however much faith he may have, others will not be fulfilled to him. Some of these may be entertained as hopes by faith, but to attempt to do anything other than believe in them as hopes, and to live by faith in the light of that hope, is to lay oneself open to bitter disappointment and sad failure, perhaps even disillusionment. Thousands of Old Testament saints lived by faith in the land of promise without receiving the promises or the fulfilment of them; this did not prevent them from accepting those promises as their inheritance though, seeing them afar off they embraced them. The man of faith takes to himself promises made in the past, and embraces the anticipated fulfilment of promises yet to be made in the future, though none of them were, or may not be made to him personally. By this men of old confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims in the earth and God is not ashamed to be called their God. Man is saved by audacious hope, as well as by courageous faith.
As pointed out earlier, this section on faith which commenced with the words, 'Now the just shall live by faith', is preceded by these words, 'ye have need of patience, that, after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the promise. For yet a little while, and he that shall come will come, and will not tarry'. 'The promise'. Not one of those of whom the author speaks in the eleventh chapter received this promise; they received many promises, but not this one, as he so outspokenly says in the last verse. The age when it should be fulfilled had not yet been reached, so the writer tells the Hebrews that in this respect they were not being treated differently from their forebears; they just had to accept that and get on with life. To them, as to everyone else in this age, what was promise, even the promise to so many, had been fulfilled. What was promise in Eden and the promise within the promise given to Abraham, was fulfilled at Bethlehem. Similarly what was promise in the upper room was fulfilled at Pentecost. Each in its day was the promise; but, as the ages fitted together by God ran their course, what was the promise in one age ceased to be the promise in the next; God fulfilled it and another took its place. The fulfilment of a promise ends an age of hope, faith then appropriates it. God then makes another age-abiding promise, and thereby lays the foundation of another age-abiding of faith for the saints to lay hold of in their hearts. This in turn becomes the foundation of life, that they should live in that hope and never let it go — certainly not draw back from it. They and we must hold fast the confession of our faith without wavering because He who promised is faithful, and in its time He will fulfil every promise He has made.
When God makes promises of this class they are fixed in time; they are not eternal but are appointments of God for a certain period of time. Every one of these is made for the time or age which is ushered in with the promise, and each is the respective promise for that age. When an age is concluded, the promise is no more promise because it is fulfilled: this being so, hope is fulfilled with it, and by it passes into consummation. Before Christ left the earth He made two major promises which were to be fulfilled by Him at either end of the oncoming age, and would embrace it. The first was the promise of the coming of the Spirit; the second was the promise of His own coming again to earth. Each in its order and importance was the promise: (1) 'behold I send the promise of the Father upon you'; (2) 'I will come again'. The first was for the spiritual birth and life of His Church, the second was for the sequential progression of God's plan for the ages: these promises are still as important for men today as they were on the day they were made.
It is vitally necessary that everyone ensures that the first of these promises passes into his or her experience and becomes personal history; until that time the fulfilment of the promise must be that person's hope, and should be sought wholeheartedly. The second promise can ever be only a hope until the consummation of the age. Its fulfilment will effectively close this present age and open another. God has already stated His promise for that new age, 'Behold I make all things new'; John says, 'I saw a new heaven and a new earth' (Rev. 21 v.1). Like the second of the above promises this is still future and awaits fulfilment. No person, while still on earth, expects this promise to be fulfilled to him or her as an individual; like the children of faith spoken of by the writer we embrace it and live in the light of it, pressing forward as true pilgrims and strangers should in full expectation of hope.
This life-giving hope and the determination which springs from it had apparently vanished from the Hebrews to whom the letter was written. They were second or third generation Christians and were in a very dangerous condition, which danger the writer was very concerned to make clear to them. He asks them this question, 'if the word spoken by angels was steadfast, and every transgression ... received a just recompense of reward; how shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation; which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed unto us by them that heard him ...?' The Lord was the first generation, those that heard Him became the second, and those who received the letter were the third. Within so short a time the vision had faded and become lost because of neglect; the great salvation had become inconsequential to them, the concentration of their lives was on other things. Therefore they had dropped out of the race and had ceased to be pilgrims; no longer were they strangers on the earth; they belonged here. Faith had either vanished or well-nigh vanished from their hearts.
One of the major causes of this spiritual declension was disappointment; men were disillusioned, asking questions to which no answer was forthcoming. They had been fed on false hopes, misinterpretations arising from misunderstandings of promises and of prophecy, all of which give rise to wishful thinking. Peter put one of the current questions which mocking unbelievers raised in these words, 'Where is the promise of His coming?' These and others like them were rampant in their day: tragically enough the believers had most probably stumbled over the same thing also. They had become victims of the falsely engendered belief that the Lord would return within their lifetime. The kind of questions they were asking, though not in the same spirit, is, 'Why has He not come back as He promised?' Although in their minds they had not set specific dates, they did have set expectations, and expectations ungrounded in fact are dangerous. Mistakes enthusiastically propagated among the unsuspecting and the untaught become destructive fantasies: they had brought fearful damage among the saints. The Lord once said to His people that He would give them an expected end, they were therefore right to have expectations and on them to build their hopes. The important thing for us all is that we have the correct expectations, for, rightly or wrongly, expectations engender faith; people tend to believe in what they expect, and vice versa. Expectations therefore must be rightly founded; but if that which ought only to be hope is mistakenly thought to be faith, then hope becomes expectation falsely called hope, which, in process of thought, becomes 'faith', when it is no such thing. The end of this kind of misconstruction can be disastrous, almost fatal, as in the case of many of these Hebrews; hence the many stern warnings in the epistle. The scripture makes plain that faith is the substance of hope; let us all beware of trying to make hope the substance of faith.
Faith in God's long term promises should be strongly held by every faithful heart; but, unless God commits Himself in plainest language to fulfil these promises within a certain period of time, they may only be held in hope, which must never be called faith. The promise of Christ's future advent made by both Himself and the angels of the ascension carried no time element. 'I will come again', He said; 'He shall come', the angels said. The promise was real, but the time factor never entered into it. 'Yet a little while', says the writer here, but in what time scale he was thinking he does not say; he does disclose, though, that faith understands that ages are fitted together, or framed, by the word of God. This knowledge should have been sufficient to prevent the Hebrews from becoming unbalanced in their thinking. By their own experience and by the writer's words, as well as by the whole of Hebrew heredity and history, they should have concluded that the 'little while' ought to be understood to be an unspecified time of uncertain length, most probably of quite considerable duration. Certainly they had no grounds for thinking that the Lord would return in their own lifetime. He had not said so, neither had the apostles; yet, because the Lord had not come for them according to their interpretation of the promise, they gave up and, to God's grief, ceased from their pilgrimage. The consequences were sad and grave.
What if, after fifty years of toil, Noah had given up? What if Moses at seventy five years of age had given in? What if Abraham .....? But we are exhorted to take our eyes off all these; they are all there; they are witnesses to true faith and patience and endurance, and their united testimony is invaluable, but we must resolutely look away from them unto Jesus. He did not come and live on the earth in order to be whisked away in something akin to a secret rapture as was Enoch. He came 'to do the will of God', as He said. To Him and to this, the writer points the Hebrews, 'after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the promise', he says. Enoch was translated out of the world, Methuselah (and of course thousands of others doubtless) was taken away from all the trouble by death, but not so Noah; he had to patiently go through and endure everything to the end.
Conclusion:
HIS ONLY BEGOTTEN SONPossibly the Hebrews may have thought that because the Lord was coming for 'those that look for Him', as the writer said, they were perfectly right to expect Him in their lifetime for they had been looking for Him so long and were now tired of looking. So, having referred them to Jesus and His repetition of David's prophetic words, 'Lo, I come to do thy will O God', the writer says to them, 'after ye have done the will of God ye might receive (the fulfilment of) the promise'. He is both honest and wise, he does not say, 'ye will certainly receive the promise', but holds out hope, 'ye might receive the promises. He was writing by the Spirit, he was not making false promises. The promise was given to hope; the hope of the faithful heart is that though it see death it should die in faith, for 'he that shall come will come, and will not tarry'. When He comes it will be for all those to whom and for whom the promise was made, the majority of whom have died in faith since the day the promise was made. When the time of the promise comes, (and that is calculated to the very moment of time) He will not tarry another second, but will come.
There is not the slightest evidence or reason to believe that because a man is looking for the Lord to come He will come. His coming will not depend upon the watchfulness of His people, but upon the decision made by His Father, and will fit in with God's great plan of the ages. When He comes He will certainly catch up all those who do look for Him, and all those who have looked for Him: both those who have lived and are living by faith in glorious hope, and those who have both lived and died in faith without realising that hope. Although it is true that God makes and keeps His promises, we all must learn to live by faith in Him and not by faith in a promise, lest we mistake His promise or miscalculate the time of its fulfilment, or misappropriate something never intended for us. Faith in Him, whatever happens, however much may be understood and whatever may be the calculations or miscalculations, will keep saints walking on in the pilgrim way and running the race unhindered. We are directed to the fact that men must live by hope as well as by faith, because that is how Christ lived.
Drawing upon the words of David and applying them to Jesus, Peter, speaking on the day of Pentecost, made this plain, 'My flesh shall rest in hope'. The Lord died in hope by faith. He neither believed nor hoped that He would not see death; His hope lay beyond the grave. Part of the fulfilment of the plan of salvation lay in what He would do during those days of physical death. His plan for those days included a personal visit to hades, wherein a great unnumbered multitude of persons were held in captivity. Who these were, when they had lived, what they had done and how long they had stayed in hades we are not told, nor for our purposes here does it matter. Though unnamed and undescribed, it would appear that most, if not all, of these persons were human, for they had to await the coming of a human being to release them. Had they been spirits only, that is, not ever having had a human body, nor been a human soul, it seems most logical to think that they would not have needed the great Human Being to come and minister to them. David once said that if he made his bed in hell God's Spirit would be there, so obviously Jesus did not have to descend into the place of the dead persons because God could not get in there; there is no place of hiding away from Him.
Little enough information is given about what went on when Christ went down to these persons, but perhaps it may be rightly assumed that one of the prime purposes of this visit was to show Himself to them and preach the gospel among them. Certain it is that a multitude responded to Him, for when He ascended up on high He led them out and away up with Him to heaven. It must have been glorious! 'In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye' He was changed and caught up to the throne, and then He came back again for people to touch Him, handle Him, see Him. This is why we are all told to look unto Jesus; this is as important as looking for Him; quite possibly it is more, perhaps even very much more important to do this than to look for Him. This is the emphasis made in the twelfth chapter where the writer continues his theme by making a very striking contrast, pointing out the great difference between all those worthies of the Old Covenant and the one incomparable Lord Jesus Christ of the new.
Great though all those famous elders of the race were, they and all the people are referred to as a 'great cloud of witnesses', an unusual description to be sure, by contrast Jesus stands out alone so unique that it would be remiss not to refer to Him. The inference to be drawn from this is that we must not, under any circumstances, for any reason or for one minute of time allow them to become the great concentration of our lives. These Old Testament worthies, great though they were and worthy of praise, must not fill our thoughts or becloud our vision of Jesus; beside Him, significant though they are, all pale into insignificance. They, their lives and their exploits only have meaning as they are related to His life and exploits. The point being made is, seeing that the Lord Jesus was not caught up to heaven and home until He had endured the cross, none of God's children ought to think that they should not also stay here and endure the cross and all that it implies as well. The inference from the statements in chapter ten is that the Hebrews were drawing back from the persecutions that they were undergoing. 'The patient waiting for Christ', as Paul puts it, had given way to intolerance; endurance had worn thin. They were giving up the fight; joy and confidence and assurance had deserted them and they had well nigh lost their faith. There were many pressures upon them; some had suffered greatly, but so had thousands before them: at bottom it was not this: because the promise of the Lord's return had not been fulfilled, false expectation had turned sour on them. What a pity that they should have made such a mistake; by doing so they stood to lose so much, if not everything. How timely then is this letter with its massive faith content and great emphasis upon suffering. It was written in the hope that its message would strike home to hearts before it was too late for them to recover themselves.
Moving from chapter eleven to chapter twelve we must pause to take note that the end God had in view for His ancient people, whether famous or ordinary, was perfection. When He gave calls or uttered commands or made promises, all were issued for this purpose — that those to whom He spoke should be made perfect. We see then that perfection is by faith — an aspect of the purpose of faith not usually emphasised, perhaps not even noticed. No one who wishes to fulfil all God's desires and attain to the highest can afford to overlook this, it must not be neglected. The word in James' epistle, 'faith without works is dead ... by works was (is) faith made perfects, is most important. Reviewing the chapter and reading once more of the persons and all that is said about them — their greatness, their achievements, their endurance, their persecutions and sufferings, and being assured that they all obtained a good report through faith, it is both heartening and sobering to read also that not one of them received the promise. They 'obtained promises , indeed it is said of Abraham that he 'had received the promises', but great as he was (and still is, for he is not dead — God is not the God of the dead but of the living') Abraham did not receive the promise, neither did anyone else mentioned in the chapter. None of them lived in the age in which God intended to give it, and certainly not in the age He was going to fulfil it. They received the promises relevant to the age into which they were born, and the good report they received is an assurance that in heart by faith they lived in the fulfilment of these promises.
We are now living in the age of the 'better thing'. What they of the former ages had was good; the people were very blessed by what God provided for them, but great as this provision was, it was not as great as that provided for us now; this is a sobering thought. If men and women could be so great under a lesser covenant founded upon lesser promises, how great ought we to be who live in this age of privilege? God has now brought in a new and greater covenant established upon better promises into which we all may enter with Him and live. This is that covenant within which, by God's grace, all may attain unto a perfection denied those Old Testament heroes and heroines. Their lives are testimonies to the fact that, through faith, it is possible to be all that God wants a man to be when he responds to His call under the terms of the covenant he has made and is then in being. We are compassed about with them, the writer says, they are 'a great cloud of witnesses' to this truth. To the best of his ability he has taken good care to ensure that we should never forget them. We are exceedingly indebted to him for this, but more so for the exhortation with which he concludes this section of his epistle. Being a Hebrew himself he, as much as any man, loved to think of the great elders of faith of whom he had written; he had benefitted so much from the knowledge and example of their lives. But just to have done that would have been almost to commit an act of betrayal against his beloved Hebrews, and what is worse against his most beloved Jesus. The writer's intention and commission was not to extol those Old Testament saints above any other, but having pointed to them to: (1) turn the eyes of Christians away from them on to modern saints and from that survey to (2) fix their eyes permanently on Christ.
'We ... are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses' — he was certain of it; he actually spoke of 'seeing them, they were all around, but he was no mystic. Everywhere he looked he could see them; surely his fellow Hebrews could also see them — if not they must be closing their eyes. For everyone who was drawing back and thereby placing himself in danger of perdition there was another who was pressing on to perfection; they were as well aware of that as he. They needed not to look back in history to find traces or testimonies of true men and women of faith, they all knew this kind of person; probably some were living next door to them — neighbours, friends, loved ones, relatives, they were compassed about with them. By going right back to God and creation and the earliest believers, the writer was establishing the truth that there had always been those who lived by faith, and that the very earliest of them had died in faith because he was righteous. It might have surprised his readers to realise that one out of earth's four earliest inhabitants had done just that and that just before the dreadful flood only one family (one of which was the great hero of his age) out of a whole generation, lived by faith. It was the same with Abraham also, he was the only man of his day and of his family to respond to God and start to live by faith. Those men were alone, yet they did not break under persecution, nor did they retreat under pressure, neither did they draw back and go with their contemporaries to perdition; they lived by faith and overcame all. The tale of history is the tale of the persecution of men and women of faith who in their chosen singularity lived for God. While the epistle was being written history was unfolding in much the same way as it always had.
Many of their contemporaries, the present saints, were being persecuted; all who were living by faith were strangers and pilgrims on the earth; all around them countless numbers were proving daily that faith was the vital factor of life. Faith had not vanished from the earth, only from the hearts of defectors, people such as Judas for instance, and others like him, who either could not or would not be renewed unto repentance — sons of perdition.
Considerations of people such as these greatly troubled the writer, so did thoughts of those who, like modern Esaus, (whose follies he was intending to record later) would end up weeping over golden opportunities for ever lost, having to live ever after in secondary blessings when they ought to be living in the fullness of God's blessing which goes with the birthright. To people of this sort God's promises mean little or nothing; they ignore His commandments and minimise His provisions, many of them tragically. These people are dangerous stumbling-blocks because by misunderstanding and misinterpreting the promises to themselves they do the same to others. What so many do not seem to understand is that faith is given unto men for many reasons, (not all of them very spectacular such as fathering a nation or building an ark) all of which are to enable them to run the race that is set before them. This is by far the most important thing and it is the reason why those unnamed multitudes of people are included in the roll of the faithful: of these nothing much more is said than, 'these all died in faith', or, 'these all, having obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise'. It is very important that men and women commence to live by faith; it is still more important that we continue to live through faith, but it is most important of all to die in faith.
The main thing the writer is trying to make everybody understand is that everyone of whom he has spoken in chapter eleven had run the race set before them and had done so with patience: that is all. Those who had done great things had done them simply because the course they had run had been set by God to embrace those things. Each individual was persuaded in his or her heart that those things were the will and choice of God for him or her, and got on with it whatever it was. None of them made the selection — whether to make sacrifice, or build something, or start off on pilgrimage, or lead an exodus and cross a sea, or possess a land — God made the choice and they did it. They took every step as it came and thought no more of it — they were led, they obeyed, they lived by faith, they ran their race. Those of them who are considered by men to be great were not told they were great before they started, they achieved greatness. But who in the end is able to measure greatness? Who can pronounce greatness as against insignificance among men? Who? What is greatness but the achievement of God's will, and except he or she runs the race set for each to run who shall achieve that? Hence the great admonition with which the twelfth chapter commences.
Turning from all other witnesses, whether in his day he was either ancient or modern, the writer now directs our gaze to the greatest of all witnesses who have lived on this earth the person of our Lord Jesus Christ. According to His own testimony to John, He is 'the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God'. Before beginning creation, God began with Him. The writer's charge to look off unto Jesus is given to us in context of 'the race', the assumption being that they to whom the epistle is written had already started running. Having brought those Old Testament worthies into view, the writer, as of necessity, now puts them into perspective. They had run their race according to the will of God; not all of them had finished triumphantly though. Dear Noah of the righteous family, who by God's grace had lived and worked so faithfully for so long, dropped out of the race at last it seems. Present runners should not get the impression that they had for ever to be looking backwards. They were witnesses but are not held out as our examples. To run looking backwards would be disastrous, and to run looking around would be equally disastrous. A runner must look forwards not backwards, for he cannot hope to reach the end of the course, leave alone earn the prize, any other way. A glance over the shoulder is sometimes a necessity if the race is a sprint, as in some cases it is, but it must be a quick one. This race is a lifelong one though, a marathon; to look around occasionally therefore is not prejudicial to finishing the race.
So here we have it, a look back at the saints of old, but not too often, and an occasional look around at the present day saints also. Both of these can be helpful, but let it not become habitual lest we are stumbled by them: the instruction is definite, we are to run looking forwards all the time, away from everybody on earth unto Jesus. We may find types of Him in the Old Testament saints, and likenesses of Him in the saints of the New Testament, but these must not fill our eyes and hearts; we are to see Him.
The Greek word rendered 'looking' is more directive than that —'looking off' more truly conveys the writer's thought — 'looking away from, off from, all others — unto Jesus. If we pause here awhile and ask, 'why should we do this?' the simple answer is 'because He may be seen'. None of those writers of the Old Testament can be seen, neither can any of our contemporaries. 'We see Jesus', said the writer. He is not talking of visions, or of dreams, nor is he speaking of reading about them. Most probably not one of his readers had ever set eyes on a Gospel; this very epistle may have been the only writing of the New Testament canon they had seen in their lives. This sight of which he speaks is heart-sight, and that does not mean imaginary sight, it is real 'sight' — the only real sight. Having human sight we say, 'we see', when we do not see at all. Moses was as a man who saw the invisible. He ran his race with eye undimmed to the end — what a good report. No one knows what has happened to all those great ones of former days; beyond some very general statements made about their present whereabouts we know nothing in particular about them and their position in the beyond at this moment. Not so with Jesus though, we know just what happened to Him after He died; we know where He is, where He is seated, what He is doing, what He is saying, both in general and in particular: we know so much about Him. In fact, although we have record of Him so full of details about His earthly life, we know far more of what He did by His death and what he has been doing since His death than all that has been amassed for our reading in the Gospels. Wonderful and necessary as these are, so much of their contents are repetition; it is vital corroboration of course, and absolutely indispensable for us that we should see and know how He ran His race. But all of this was preparation for His death and what lay beyond — resurrection, ascension, enthronement, anointing, priesthood, mediation, intercession. Oh how wonderful! We see Jesus crowned with glory and honour, the first great runner to run the race perfectly unto utter perfection. We must look off everybody else unto Him because we may and can and should look unto Him alone.
We see then that to look unto Jesus is the only possible thing to do, for there is no one else to whom to look. Besides this, for many reasons, all of them vital, it is the only sensible thing to do. In the context of what the writer is speaking about, namely faith, Jesus is the obvious one to whom to look, for He is its 'author and finisher'. Why look back to Abraham or Moses in order to see faith in operation when we can look to Jesus and see it in perfection? Why look at elders when we can look to and at the Head? Why look at or hunt for and try to read an edition, whether it be the first or second, when we can read the original Word? Why listen to an interpretation when we can hear and understand the language? Why look at a copy when we can see and have Him of whom every other person, great as he may be, must indeed be only but a flawed copy? Jesus' faith is perfect, it is the faith; Paul said he lived by it, 'I live by the faith of the Son of God'; at the end of his life he said, 'I have finished my course'. Like the writer and most, if not all, of that first generation of' New Testament saints, let us lay aside every weight and the sin which so easily besets us and run with patience the race set before us, looking unto Jesus the whole time.
Pressing the point still further, the writer says, 'Consider him': to consider is to dwell upon with fixity of purpose; a glance will not do for this. A glance may serve to attract our attention, but being attracted we must then become attentive; heart and mind must settle upon Him and stay set for ever. Doing so we will discover what now is being told us, namely that viewed without faith the prize Jesus was heading for did not appear to be worth having — He ended up on a cross. Was that the reward of the life of faith? Yes. Jesus is the only one of whom it could be written, He was born by faith and He died by faith — both His birth and His death (as well as His life) were accomplished by acts of faith on His part; He chose and then willed to be born and He chose and then willed to die. Others died in faith, He died by faith; it is to this we owe our salvation. Everything of Jesus was 'by faith'; by His humanity He proved that He is its author and its finisher, because in His humanity He lived out faith effortlessly before all men. Thereby He showed that He was perfect and it is to this perfection that we are called.
In His sufferings our great Exemplar endured far greater things than any before Him, and it was therein that His faith was most greatly displayed, for it is by persecution and suffering that faith most speedily develops and is enhanced. It is outstandingly noticeable that the Lord Jesus nowhere claims that any of the works He did on earth were accomplished by faith. He gave teachings and instructions about faith; He sometimes commented about other individuals' faith or lack of it; here and there He complimented some for their faith, but never spoke about His own. He could quite easily have done, and we might properly think that He ought to have done so, but He did not think so, for if He had thought so He would have done it. Apparently to Him it would not have been proper to do that, for by so doing He would have been drawing attention to faith works instead of to the faith life. Thereby He would have blurred the real issue; the purpose for His coming was not to do miracles, but to give His life. Although He did perform wonderful works, it was because He was such a wonderful person, but He also did carpentry for the same reason. Our glorious Lord is our life, and, as the writer says at the beginning of this section, 'the just shall live by faith'.
One of the most remarkable things to emerge from this great section on faith is the amazing way in which New Testament truth is revealed in the Old Testament. Surveying once more the opening verses of chapter eleven, it is possible to trace an outline of some things basic to salvation in every age, things which are fulfilled in the New Testament by Christ and more particularly expounded by its authors. This is probably the reason why the writer commences on the note of understanding — 'Through faith we understand'. The fundamental power which enables us to understand the things of God is faith; it enables us to grasp facts in relationship to eternal truth and, by other vital graces, build them together into sure knowledge, verifiable by every spiritual man. However, God is not only concerned to inform us of this means of understanding, He is keen also to instruct us as to what He wants us to understand, namely 'that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear'.
The apparent things are the result of non-apparent things, and in most cases are of far less importance. In some instances they are of equal importance, and in others the non-apparent both precedes the apparent and also issues from it: this is always so in every case involving spiritual and moral factors. This is easily demonstrable with reference to the death of our Lord Jesus on the cross. The cross and He who hung on it, as well as His suffering and the blood He shed there, were apparent to all, but that which was not apparent, namely the love (to name but one of the spiritual graces manifest there) which both preceded it and issues from and through it, is of far greater importance than the event itself. The fact and the enactment of the cross was, and still is, indispensable for redemption and our salvation, but without the love and grace and mercy and righteousness, and all the other virtues in God's heart which preceded and engineered it, all would have been as valueless as the wood and the thorns and the nails employed by man to bring it about, apparent as they were.
Following these words about the substance (may we say reality? For without substance nothing is real) and the understanding of faith, the world's first and righteous sacrifice is introduced and the death of him that offered it. No attention is paid to creation at all; the purpose of the writer is to draw attention to invisible things, not to that which is visible. He makes as few references as possible to that which is material; in every case the un-apparent is more important than the apparent. From that sacrifice and death the writer passes on to draw our attention to the translation of a man in order that he should not see death, the reason for the miracle being that he pleased God. Then, before mentioning the next great wonder, we are informed that, when seeking God, we must come to Him in true faith and with diligence, believing that if we do so we shall be amply rewarded; and so our attention is drawn to Noah and his great work. Of all that this man accomplished, the one thing emphasised is this: he 'prepared an ark for the saving of his house', and so three major historic factors foreshadowing the person and work of Christ lie before our eyes: (1) His sacrifice, offering and death; (2) His ascension (assuming His resurrection) — He will not see death again; (3) His preparation of the ark of salvation for His family. It is but the barest of outlines, but it touches upon the three most vital points of the gospel which open up doors of access to information for every enquiring soul. Perhaps we may safely call it 'The Antediluvian Gospel'.The reward of faith to every diligent seeker who comes to God upon the basis of the offering and death of Christ is inclusion into His house of salvation. Speaking of the ark, Peter says, 'wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved'. So it was that the righteous family abode in safety, thankfulness and joy, while the cries of the doomed died away, drowned in the relentless downpour from above and the unstoppable upsurgings from beneath. It seems that creation itself rebelled against the wickedness of men and women, heaven and earth joining with God to mete out judgement. With that flood of judgement God ended an age, and with its passing commenced another.
From these three episodes, which together present a picture of the work and experiences of the Son, our attention is turned to that one great man of scripture who represents to us the person of the Father — Abraham. This is a logical unfolding of truth which links the foregoing with all the rest and sets the whole in perspective. The emphasis so far has been upon the person and work of the son, now it is to be upon the person and work of the father. When he approaches the climax of the story of Moriah Moses uses a crucial phrase, 'so they went, both of them together', carrying all the necessities for the death of the son; the sacrifice was to be carried out by common consent — in unison. The house is the son's, He prepared it, but the family is the Father's; He begets them.
It is in this spirit that the writer exhorts us to look away from all the worthies of chapter eleven, and lift our eyes unto Jesus. He is the author and the finisher of our faith. He perfected faith in the flesh and perfected it in the Spirit also. As He was the end of the law for righteousness, so He was the end of faith for righteousness; He has fulfilled everything. He was the seed of Abraham, the seed of David, the seed of the woman and the seed of God; He was the seed of faith. Receiving Him from the dead, His Father received us in a figure also; let us then, as those who are alive from the dead, run this race with patience; it is set before us, we may move from it but we cannot move it. In the day when rewards are given, we must receive the good report. Meanwhile let us
also be among the number of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises and enter into our inheritance on earth. We must live by faith and not draw back to perdition; rather let us go on to perfection, ready to make the offering, build an ark, plunge the knife, or, in God's will, be translated out and away from it all. Our sole aim must be to please Him and if without faith that is impossible, then let this so great faith be the substance of our lives, our very nature that effortlessly we shall believe, obey and endure to the end. -
The Altar
The Altar
The Eternal Sacrifice of God
The Altar theme is one of the most important truths of scriptural revelation. Either by direct or indirect mention, or in parallel or closely associated ideas, the truth of the altar is presented to us from beginning to end of the Book. Part of the purpose of this issue is to trace and develop the truth related to the altar as it unfolds from Genesis onwards throughout the two testaments. To do this exhaustively is altogether too great a task; in some connections, however, we shall pause to inquire into the text more fully than in others. This will be necessary for the sake of the truth which God wishes us to understand, that understanding, we may give Him greatest pleasure by entering into His life.
One of the wonderful things about truth is that it is greater than our understanding of it. God has sent forth the Spirit of truth to guide us into it though, that entering in the enlightened heart should see the truth to be as vast as God Himself. It is therefore not surprising that what is often at first thought to be the truth about a thing is soon discovered to be only a part or partial view of the whole truth. Because this is so, every new discovery ought to be regarded only as a truth, or a facet of truth about the truth. Certainly this is so about the truth of the altar, as we shall see.
As is so often the case, the New Testament supplies the key to this subject. At first this may seem more than a little strange, for in it there are so few references to the altar. This is because under the New Covenant there is no place for a literal, earthly altar. With the passing of the Old Covenant and the earthly priesthood there remains no need for any of the means or instruments or place of service necessary to its function. Upon the rare occasions when the altar is referred to in the New Testament, it has mostly to do with the former earthly legal system given by Moses. From the time of the death and resurrection of Christ this became obsolescent and has long since passed away. Other than in this connection, it is mentioned either with regard to the order of priesthood now functioning under Melchizedek in heaven or with reference to heathen religion, or else with the intention that it be understood only in a figurative and spiritual sense. Nevertheless, in whichever connection it may be mentioned in the New Testament, what is said about it furnishes us with a key to its meaning in the Old Testament.
Perhaps even stranger still, the New Testament passages which provide us with the best lead to the understanding of the whole range of truth associated with the altar do not in fact mention the word. For instance Peter speaks of 'the Lamb (of God) without blemish or spot, who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you', and John says that Jesus was 'the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world', but neither of them mentions the altar. How long before the foundation of the world Jesus was foreordained to be its redeeming Lamb we are not told, nor do we know the precise occasion when He was slain, but the knowledge that sacrifice and death took place long before men ever made an altar on earth introduces a new element into our thinking about it all. Evidently sacrificial offering as known and practised by man is not an idea that originated with him, neither is it an emergency measure devised by God as of political expediency; it is an absolute necessity, apart from which eternal life could not be. This is brought out to us by the revelation that the Lamb was slain from the foundation of the world.
Except God had told us this we should never have known, but being in possession of the fact, we see that sacrifice is so fundamental to being that without it the world itself could never have been created.
The Invisible Sacrifice
It is a most sobering and significant thought that when God laid the foundations of the world, He laid them in sacrifice. Almost involuntarily there spring to mind all the things it normally associates with that thought — animals, blood, altar and fire; but not in those things did God make His sacrifice. The sacrifice to which Peter and John refer is not flesh and blood but spiritual sacrifice. There were no flesh and blood creatures in existence when this great sacrifice was made, so all 'normal' sacrifice was completely impossible. This being so, it must also be true that sacrifice did not originally exist nor could then have been made for specific ends such as redemption or atonement or forgiveness, but was practised for some other purpose altogether. This may be quite new, perhaps revolutionary to our thinking, because we have been reared in the evangelical tradition of sacrifice for sin, but this sacrifice had nothing to do with sin, nor was it made for that purpose; it is eternal. The sacrifice of God was not, is not, nor ever shall be made in connection with anything except life itself; it has to do with being, not expiation. For this reason it is without precedent or repetition, and is impossible of imitation; sacrifice is constant in the divine order of being and life.
Sacrifice and offering lie at the heart of God, eternal as He. God is love, and love cannot be apart from sacrifice. That is why God laid it at the heart of Israel's national life. He did not command sacrifice of His people just because of sin but of necessity to proclaim to them Himself; they must know His manner of being and His love. Sacrifice as Israel knew it was the adaptation and application to men's spiritual needs of the divine science of being. It was the physical phenomenon of a life-principle of deity. At that time sacrifice became sacrifices, repetitious and various. When bodies and blood were sacrificed for various reasons defined by God, they were intended by Him to be outward manifestations of spiritual realities; apart from that they had no value. How many in Israel understood this is a matter of speculation; David almost certainly did.
In process of time physical sacrifice had to be of course, for God had decreed that without shedding of blood remission of sins should never be available to anyone. However, vital though the need for forgiveness is, and necessary as the sacrifice was, whenever it was made the visible sacrifice was not the most important of the transactions then taking place; that for which it stood, and so poorly represented, was always the greater.The Lamb of God
Sacrifices of animals made on God's altar pointed on through time to the actual bodily sacrifice of Christ Jesus; that was their limitation. They could not point backwards to eternity and the spiritual sacrifice that God made then, for flesh does not typify, nor can it understand spirit. Nevertheless the Levitical sacrifices were instituted to be reflective as well as predictive. By them hearts taught of God to know that the spiritual sacrifice is the real one are afforded a backward look through all time to that occasion when the Lamb was slain by God before the foundation of the world. Looking forward from the time of institution, they dimly and dumbly foreshadowed the least part of Jesus' sacrifice — that is the physical, outward sacrifice and death of the Lamb. Looking back with understanding from that time to the beginning of the world, they are seen to be projections from and adaptations of the eternal spiritual sacrifice which neither human eye saw nor human hand ever handled. Meditation upon the miracle convinces the heart also that they were but pale reflections of it.
Whether any eye but God's ever saw this miracle we do not know, but certainly if any did it was not a man's. But then it was not a miracle to God, only a natural demonstration of love — substitution — any sacrifice is only an application of the necessary principle of eternal being to present need. In whatever realm of natural life we move, the invisible, inaudible, intangible things are always vastly superior to those which we can apprehend by human sense. Real as the outward is, it is only of spiritual value to us as an indication, a parable or type of that which is inward; God intended and created it to be so.
Such Bible phrases as 'which was a figure for the time then present' for instance, specially inform us of the typical nature of the whole tabernacle complex and associated worship. Those things were solid and real enough, but they are none the less pictorial and teach us more by the reality of their existence than by what was accomplished by their practice. All were foreshadowings of the person and works of Christ; like the law itself under which they were ordained they found their fulfilment and end in Him. Spiritually, naturally and humanly He is their terminal point, for He fulfilled all. However, having said that, we have again arrived at the heart of the matter under consideration, for the physical person and sacrifice of Jesus of Nazareth only fulfilled that which was material and outward. When humanly manifest on the earth, especially at Calvary, He not only fulfilled inward truth, but the more pointedly and visibly expressed it.
Care must be taken lest in thinking along these lines the outward be divorced from the inward. In actual fact it is quite impossible to do this; nevertheless in our minds we must strive to keep them together as they truly are in Christ. In Him they are one, but while wholeheartedly confessing this, we must clearly understand and firmly assert also that the outward sacrifice at Golgotha was the least part of that which was transacted there. The endurance of the cross was vital to Him as a man and to God as the Eternal Being; it was also necessary to us men for our salvation and eternal being. Indeed the cross and all He suffered there was completely unavoidable to Him if He was to fulfil what the scriptures predicted and He Himself had said. However, save for the inward, unseen things, which the visible, audible things indicated, the events of Calvary would have had little value. Since the unnamed thieves crucified one on either side of the Lord lingered on in their death-throes longer than Jesus did it is to be presumed that they also shed blood more copiously and suffered bodily tortures for a longer period than He did; it is almost as certain too that, with the possible exception of a few next of kin, their blood and death meant nothing at all to men, and have no spiritual value whatsoever. In common with all men of normal mentality, they fought death: Jesus did not.
Perhaps a fuller grasp of what was happening may be gained if we understand at least part of the reason why God blacked out the awful scene for three hours. He did it partly because He was seeking to emphasise that the outward, physical suffering of His Son was not the chief thing to which He was directing our attention. By drawing the veil of darkness over the whole scene He was attempting to redirect our gaze to what was happening in invisible realms. Paul says plainly 'we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen, for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal'.
The Indestructible Christ
The Christ is eternal. The Christ did not die. Jesus died. The physical body of the human/divine Jesus died, but the eternal Christhood of the Man of Calvary did not die, nor could it. Because the body of the man of the cross housed that Spirit who is the Christ, it was raised from the dead. The departing of the Spirit of the Christ from the body of Jesus brought about its death, so we say with Paul that 'Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures'; but to say that does not mean that the Christ died: He is completely indestructible. At His birth the angels said, 'Unto you is born a Saviour which is Christ the Lord', and He is recorded as saying to His Father, 'a body hast thou prepared me'. He said so at the time He joined the body formed in Mary's womb in preparation for the birth of the child Jesus, resultantly He was born Christ the Lord. He was the Christ — God manifest in the flesh.
The Jews said, 'we have heard out of the Law that Christ abideth for ever', and they were right. It was precisely this mystery that stumbled them, for calling Himself the Son of Man He was saying that He must be lifted up to die. They knew that the Christ is eternal and therefore cannot die. They were mystified because they stumbled at the stumbling-stone laid for them in Zion. Jesus died according to the scriptures; He suffered death, that is He allowed it and told others to do so too. 'Suffer it to be so now', He said, as He moved on to Calvary. According to scripture 'He should be the first that should rise from the dead'. He 'endured the cross', suffered death as well as suffering when dying, and rose again: Luke called it 'His passion'. Christ did not die; He conquered and destroyed death. He was found in fashion as a man and became obedient (unto God) unto death (as any man would have to) that His manhood might be highly exalted — His Christhood remained intact and eternal as ever.
John says of Him, 'the Word was made flesh and tabernacled among us, and we beheld His glory .... the Word was with God and the Word was God'. God the Word joined the tiny body of flesh for the purpose of dwelling on the earth in human form. It was a miracle and He did this in order that He should be the true tabernacle which God pitched and not man. God was moving along the line of scriptural fulfilment. Whilst living on earth among men in that tabernacle of flesh, He first displayed in it God's glory before all and then at last, by means of it, gave to His Father the one human sacrifice He required. Unto this end all the sacrifices made of old under the Mosaic Covenant pointed. At the time they were offered in connection with the tabernacle and temple erected with men's hands, but to God they spoke of Him. He once said of His body 'destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it again'. The voice of Him who indwelt the temple was speaking from within the temple; they could and did 'destroy' that (not permanently though as we know) but not Him.
Israel's AltarFrom the day the Children of Israel were constituted a nation with a law and land of their own the Lord dwelt in their midst. From that time onward He commanded that sacrifice should become daily routine; each day was to begin and end with sacrifice. At set times throughout the year supplementary sacrifices were also to be made to Him; apart from this He would not, could not dwell with them. There were also great commemorative and prophetic feasts of Jehovah in which the people were invited under command to join with their God. This was the background in which they lived; in Israel sacrifice was as permanent as God's being and presence in their midst.
Israel may not have known that sacrifice was as necessary to Him as to them, but it was, so He secured their continued union by ensuring that His superior knowledge and will should be acknowledged and done. He did this by the simple means of enforcing the sacrificial system upon them as their only means of gaining entrance and approach to Himself. Their acceptance by Him and their continuance with Him as His people and His presence with them as their God depended primarily upon what took place at the altar. This has provided the ground for the concept of Calvary as being the means of atonement, forgiveness, redemption and cleansing. In short, the altar with its sacrifices are almost exclusively associated in our minds with the means of procuring salvation for men; few seem to realise that the sacrifices of ancient Israel were intended by God to signify far more than that.
The Cross — God's Altar
It is difficult for men of evangelical persuasion who love the cross of Christ to dissociate that cross from the human sacrifice and blood-offering He made there. They rightly see them as one. That is to say they see Him as God made man to accomplish human sacrifice for human sin. This is spoken of in numerous scriptures and specifically stated in words like those in Hebrews 13.11 — 'the bodies of those beasts whose blood is brought into the sanctuary by the high priest for sin are burned without the camp'. Because the Lord fulfilled this scripture and died without the city, they see Him crucified and sacrificed upon the cross as the sin-offering. Such realisation causes them to hymn their thanks to His name with undying gratitude, and rightly so, for the knowledge of their own sin and utter inability to change themselves fills them with self-loathing. Thus Calvary is their constant theme, and because they do not normally go beyond the simple and vitally necessary understanding of the Lord's human, sacrificial death, the greater truth of eternal sacrifice from which it came is lost to them. Despite the fact that God so specifically ordained and carefully fixed this truth as a constant factor of life in Israel, it is all too frequently unseen. Yet the series of invisible miracles accomplished by Christ on the cross was unspeakably marvellous and not the least of these was the way He changed His cross into an altar.
How gracious is the Lord who suffered for us without the gate in the place of a skull. Calvary was the mound of execution where criminals were hanged on trees and left to die; it was outlaws' territory where outcasts, lepers, thieves and wild beasts lived and fought and suffered and died. What compassions He felt, what love He showed, how wonderful He is that He should go there and suffer so for us! It is certain that the worshipping heart shall enter into no height except that height be equalled in experience, if not excelled in understanding, by the depth it has first plumbed. Yet how slowly we understand the mystery of God. It must be a real sorrow to Him that, although He has sought to reveal these things to us in so many ways, so few have grasped His secrets. All the Lord Jesus accomplished on the cross by paying the penalty for sin and bearing away its mass from us would have been to no avail if He had not at last turned the tree of curse and punishment and shame into an altar unto the Lord.
Only to the understanding heart does the cross become the altar of God. No other eyes but the eyes of our understanding can or may see the transformation. The high priest of Israel dealt in many parts and divers manner with strictly limited means and repetitious ceremonies. His ministry was only with woefully inadequate substitutes and signs, but our glorious Melchizedek did all at once. Moving in the eternal realities of His own life, He accomplished at the same time and place, in one act, everything that was required by God of Him, for God and man. Crucified, made sin, shamed, outcast, He contrived by His virtues to use the cross for His purposes, converting it to an altar whereon, by the eternal Spirit, He offered Himself without spot to God.
The word 'altar' first appears in scripture in connection with NOAH following the flood. When he came out of the Ark and entered upon the purged earth as a new man, the first thing he did was to build an altar unto the Lord, and offer sacrifices to God. If he had ever done such things before we are not told of them; he may have done and perhaps it is right to assume that by building an altar and sacrificing to God he was following the habit of a lifetime, but we do not know. What we do know is that, on leaving the Ark, the first significant work this new man wrought upon the renewed earth was to build an altar, take of the life within the Ark and sacrifice it to God. God then smelled a sweet smell.
All was at rest in heaven and on the new earth; though in a way different from how it was in the beginning, man was at one with God. It was as paradise regained, or the commencement of a new age; except for the presence of sin, because of the sacrifice all was as it was in the beginning. But even so, despite sin, perhaps because of it, through this man Noah God had established on earth an everlasting principle.
Almost certainly Noah was ignorant of the significance and function of the three persons in the being of God, and the principal manifestation of the love which is the most basic factor of eternal Being, namely self-sacrifice. God had not been able to reveal this in quite the same way before, so Noah was not following a precedent. Nevertheless the idea of self-sacrifice is easily discoverable in His method of creation. It is obviously incorporated into His plan of life for mankind, for the way He built woman from man reveals it for all to see. First of all He caused ADAM to pass into a deep sleep and then extracted from him a rib; closing up the man's flesh again the Lord then made the woman and presented her to the man. The parallel between this operation and the principle underlying the altar and sacrifice lies here: the deep sleep represents death and the woman the life which could come into being only because of it. In this manner the eternal principle which was later developed and demonstrated as altar and sacrifice was woven into the creation of the woman; it really could have been done no other way.
It is highly unlikely that Adam was taken into the counsels of God about this, or that he consented to and volunteered for the operation. No man has been God's counsellor and there is no record that the first man was consulted as to its alleged benefit to him, or whether he even wanted a companion. It is probable that the Lord told him about it afterwards, for he said, 'this is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh'. But whatever may have been God's procedure in the matter, we now know what happened. The truth implicit in God's creation of Eve is that Adam had to lay down his life and sacrifice a part of himself in order that she might live unto him. That is how truth eternal in God was adapted by Him to the art and science of creation. Long before it was manifest to man as a principle of life in God, it existed in him as a basis of life union and duplication and was eventually demonstrated to him by the compulsory altar.
The altar is as much a symbol to mankind as it was a necessity to Israel. Its chiefest function and greatest glory is humble, voluntary self-giving for the promotion of another's life; this is perhaps the most vital of the many characteristics of true love. Certainly without it eternal life cannot possibly be. That it involves and implies death is inevitable, indeed altars demand it and only exist for it.
In man's thinking the altar is generally associated with the ideas of placation, propitiation, substitutionary giving and atonement by sacrifice. He seldom thinks of it as God does, therefore much of its basic meaning, the glory of self-giving has been lost. Often because of the death involved in sacrifice it is only with difficulty that the altar can be thought of as a revelation of a principle of life. This is simply because we do not view death aright; we do not understand what it means. Death as men know it is horrible, dark, dreadful and mysterious, something to be feared and evaded as much as possible. That is because death came to man by sin. All too often it comes finally as a result of disease or accident or war or some kind of tragedy attended by pain. However, what is known to man as death is really nothing other than a principle of life in God, and for that reason was originally very good.
The Everlasting Burnings
It is quite impossible for any principle fundamental to the function or 'mechanics' of any person or thing to exist in this universe except first it existed in God. Evil itself could never have existed except, in another form, it had first existed as good. Evil is not an eternal principle, it is the perversion of an eternal principle. Its author, the devil, could never have existed if he had not been originally created good Lucifer by God. Death came into the world by sin as by one man, Adam; but God did not create Adam in sin, nor sin in Adam. The man was created to pass on fullness of life to his progeny and if he had abode by the true principle of self-sacrifice as demonstrated in his Creator he would have succeeded. Instead of doing so, however, he co-operated with the devil and received and operated the power of sin from satan the pervert; consequently he was the human instrument who introduced present death into the world.
The article of death itself as known among men is simply the act of final departure of the spirit from and cessation of personal conscious being in one particular state and form and passing into another. Death is not annihilation, a going out of existence in one form and for ever ceasing to exist in any state or form; it is an experience, and a state or condition and a destiny. Since the entrance of sin, the ultimate terminus of all unregenerate spirits is the state of death; this condition is entirely irremediable; it is unending existence in a state strangely like — yet absolutely opposite to God's.
'Our God is a consuming fire' — so, apparently, is hell. Just what is the difference between these two states we will not discuss here, but simply note that whether in heaven or hell, men finally have to dwell with everlasting burnings. It would seem that the difference between these two destinies lies as much in the kind and quality of spirits that reach them as in the fires themselves. This in turn brings us to consideration of the life of God, the original consuming fire.
The Lord Jesus found no difficulty in suffering death. He only found the death of the cross so distasteful and revolting because it was associated with the God-forsaken condition of sin. He had always been familiar with that death which He called 'laying down His life'. He spoke of this with joy; it is the principle of life. His Father loves Him because He laid down His life that He might take it again. He loved the thought of doing that; He was only going to repeat as Son of Man on earth what He had ever been doing as God the Son in heaven. He had ever done it there as God for God, so on earth, while still doing it as God for God, He was going to do it also as man for God and God for man. He was going to do it because of sin also, but chiefly for men and for God and at His Father's commandment.
That which is known and called death by man has only become an enemy because of sin. To understand this properly it is necessary to master Paul's argument in Romans chapter 7. That which is good can never be made death to us, but sin that it might appear sin to us. Its exceeding sinfulness lies partly in that it makes something which is good and beneficial appear evil. Sin turns friends into apparent enemies and good into apparent evil, because to the mind it loads the innocent and innocuous with the vicious and harmful. That which is called death by men is only the enemy of the body. It debases this temple of the Holy Ghost to worms and dust; truly is the body called the body of humiliation. For the children of God it never need be the body of sin, but it has ever been the scene of man's humiliation.
What is now humanly known as death is quite an involuntary act among normal people; but in its perfect form it was originally known and still is functional in God as the voluntary act of laying down one's life for sheer love to another. In Him this is an eternal principle of life. It did not then, nor does it now, entail cessation of existence, or mean ceasing to exist or be manifest in one form and changing into another. Following Lucifer's fall and the later creation of physical existence it did come to mean that and still exists as that among men, but it was not so in the beginning with God. In the eternal love of God in heaven it meant that one Person of the Godhead, in His humility, by an act of will, laid down His life in order to promote the glory of the other.
Self-sacrifice is an indispensable condition and a basic principle and practice of eternal life; without it it cannot be. Humility is a state of mind; it is also a condition of spirit: it results in a permanent attitude, innocent of pride and precluding self-exaltation. It brings about that state of selflessness which enables love to seek not its own but always another's glory and promotion, giving itself constantly to work to that end. This state of lowliness to the point of nothingness, so characteristic of God, has been warped and changed by sin and transplanted into the human race as death, but with this difference — in Him it is a necessary causal virtue, but in men, because it came via satan and Adam, it is a noxious perverted result. Nevertheless, the virtue is so real that any person displaying absence of self-seeking and concern for others' good is sometimes spoken of as being dead to self. Thereby we reveal that unconcern for self is thought of and described in the same terms as is death to the physical body. Such selflessness or freedom from self-interest always leads to self-giving, developing into acts of self-sacrifice.
It must not be inferred from the above that any person of the Godhead thinks of Himself more highly than He ought to think. Self-worth or any kind of self-evaluation is never taken into consideration in the act of self-sacrifice. The thought of personal value does not lie at the root of sacrifice in God; self-esteem is not part of love. Not one of the persons of God counts His life dear unto Himself or thinks He is of greater worth or of more importance than the others. One does not think that He must sacrifice Himself in order to impart His life or devote Himself to the other in order to give Him some worth, standing or being. Sacrifice only came to bear that meaning and assume that character when it was later adapted to man and applied to his spiritual needs, but it was not so originally with God.
This may at first appear very strange to us, but the eternal Life which is God, is this kind of life and can be no other. Therefore, because sacrifice is basic in the highest form of life, it is necessary to all other which is made in its image. As already mentioned it was incorporated in an adapted form into creation when God made man and woman, the highest form of animate life on earth.
Sacrifice is sacred offering. Among men it is always looked upon as sacred offering of something or someone to some higher being, greater in degree or power than the person making the offering. In scripture it is associated with the ideas of approach to God, as in 'approach' or 'ascending-offering'; it is always linked with the altar and fire, so that we read of the burnt-offering or offering made by fire.
These are to be carefully distinguished from the sin-carcase. This had to be burned without the camp because it was totally unacceptable to God and could not be brought into His presence. Unlike Jesus, of whom it dimly spoke, being made sin it remained sin for it had no power to overcome sin. In the type the animal passively received sin by an act of transference from the sinner by imputation through the laying on of hands accompanied by confession of the sin over it. It had no active righteous life which of itself could combat and overcome sin, nor could it rise from the dead to confer its victorious life upon others for justification. But the Lord Jesus rose from the dead triumphant; His life had overcome the sin which He bore in His own body on the tree. To this day His life is the active combative force which overcomes sin in whomsoever He now dwells by the Spirit. This is only possible because of who He was and what He had always done in the Godhead before the world was, or ever the need arose among men for sacrifices to be offered to God.
That it should be the Son who offered Himself to the Father is only right and proper; Jesus said, 'my Father is greater than I'; so the Lamb was slain from the foundation of the world. The Father person of God begat the Son person on earth and then had Him slain by man so that, without intermission, under all circumstances, the Son could offer Himself in perfect love to His Father. In this way the eternal principle of life and the everlasting order of love was established on earth among men also. According to the will of God these things shall remain for ever the same among the redeemed.
The Voluntary Submission of Love
Everything was committed into the hands of the Son. At no period of His being and life in any form or place did He count that equality with God was a thing to be grasped at. He knew it and understood all it meant, but deliberately humbled Himself from it. He was content to give all to the Father who gave all to Him. 'In Him most perfectly expressed the Father's glories shine; of the full deity possessed, eternally divine'. God's act of putting Him to grief was incorporated into man's act of putting Jesus to death. It entailed unspeakable pain and suffering, made possible only because of His complete self-denial. Total non-existence of desire or will or word or deed to obtain, attain or promote His own right to recognition or glory is as utterly natural as it is eternal in Jesus.
In God equality does not breed over-familiarity, for over-familiarity destroys sacredness. It is a noxious poison, vitiating relationships and attitudes of men; it is an evil leading to worse evils. One of its worst manifestations is the way it has tinged expressions of praise and worship of God in the churches. True sons of God must reject these repulsive expressions; they show bad taste, rising from the natural annihilism of untaught minds. Equality can only exist by the kind of self-sacrifice which is advised among us by Paul, 'love vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, seeketh not her own', 'in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than himself' — this is true humility. Jesus said, 'my Father is greater than I .... I and the Father are one'.
This always was and still is His attitude — 'He humbled Himself'. Father, by whose will His Son was slain, did not need to slay Him Himself; Jesus Himself did it. In scripture this fact is so evident; He said of Himself, 'I lay down my life that I might take it again', and others said, 'He offered Himself without spot to God, He gave Himself a ransom for all'. It is true that He said His Father had given Him commandment to lay down His life, but that was not because He Himself was unwilling to do so, nor was it because He was inferior to and only a mere subordinate of His Father, it was the crowning glory and visible point of voluntary obedience rendered in true filial love.
Father's — the Greatest Sacrifice
Great though this sacrifice of the Son is, it must not be thought that among the persons of the Godhead the Son is the only one who makes sacrifices; the Father makes them also. This ought not to be any surprise to us for it is brought out most poignantly in the saga of ABRAHAM and ISAAC on Moriah. In the end of the drama enacted there, it was not the son who was slain but the ram which was caught by its horns in a thicket. What thoughts and emotions rent the hearts of father and son as they undertook the journey to the mount we are not told. Nevertheless we may well imagine what mental torture wracked the heart of Abraham who faithfully led his son to the slaughter. He fully believed he must slay his son and was purposed to do so. Therefore, before he reached the mount, in heart he faithfully did it, receiving him back again from the dead as a gift from God.
Undoubtedly the Lord, by this incident, has taught us more of the truth about that loving self-giving and painless sacrifice in God which is hinted at by death. In order to have God's eternal life, man must know death and resurrection, for only resurrection life is eternal life. But Isaac did not die, Abraham did not slay his son; so also is it in the Godhead: the Son never dies, the Father does not slay Him. Abraham and Isaac were stopped short of death — it only took place in a figure. So God has demonstrated for all time that with Him all is voluntary and therefore real; by this sacred enactment the principle of eternal love and life has been revealed, and it is the Father who is seen to be the one who makes the greatest sacrifice; it is He who slays the Son.
The Conquering Lamb
At the same time the Son is shown to be the one who makes the sacrifice, for unnoticed at first, though at last revealed, He is seen as the ram caught by the horns (symbol of kingship and power) of His own manhood and Godhead in the impenetrable thicket. He stood awaiting death as a result of man's intrigues and hatred entwined with God's simple, determined love. The Man — Jesus of Nazareth — the 'animal' side of the lamb-like life of Jesus, was especially assumed for the purpose of death. However, even in its worst power and at its greatest degree, death did not mean extinction to His spirit. He never saw death although He died; at that moment the Principal of Life applied the principle of Life to death and destroyed it. Hallelujah!
Although Jesus' death on the cross embraced into itself the principle of sacrifice as its principal factor and deepest foundation, He accomplished far more than that there. Sacrifice and offering are not the only glories of the Man of the cross. Those horns, curled and inoffensive as they may be, represent His twin powers of kingly authority to destroy satan with his kingdom and host. However, in this contest the horns are not as prominent as the ram that grew and bore them.
The Lord came to deal with the vast maze-like thicket of man's complicated needs, and He engaged Himself with them for man's deliverance. So being held by them, He was taken and led as a lamb to the slaughter, and being slaughtered He slaughtered His and man's enemies. Dying, 'He destroyed him who had the power of death, that is the devil, and delivered them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage'. He also conquered adverse death itself, leaving His people with nothing else to do but engage themselves with the eternal beneficial aspect of death. This is a side and meaning of the cross which for the most part has not been understood, therefore to our loss it has been left unexplored. This has caused incalculable harm, for it is related to the demonstration of pure sacrifice known in God.
This aspect is unfortunately often overlooked when men view the cross only, and fail to see the Jesus of the cross. We mostly hear of the shame of the cross and in our thinking this is usually associated with cross-bearing and following Him. It is often illustrated by the incident of Simon of Cyrene, the coloured man coming up from the country, who was conscripted and compelled to carry the cross of Jesus en route to Golgotha. There is a verse about it in the Hebrews letter, 'looking unto Jesus, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross despising the shame'.
The endurance and shame are very real to our hearts as they were also to the sensitive Hebrew hearts to whom the sacred writing was first entrusted. But long before the author spoke to them of these things, he spoke of the Jesus of the cross like this, 'we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death crowned with glory and honour that He by the grace of God should taste death for every man'. To suffer that death He had to be lowered beneath the angels' state to men's that He should taste death for them. But for personal sacrifice in heaven He needed neither to be lowered in form nor to assume any other relationship than that of God with God. In the Godhead He was only crowned with glory and honour because of it. He suffered no pain while making love's eternal sacrifice, nor endured any mockery; He only gained more glory and honour. This is why we are informed by God that by dying on the cross Jesus was crowned with glory and honour. He despised the shame; there is no shame attached to heavenly things.
The Man Jesus was not degraded to earth when He came to die on the tree as the dishonoured man cursed by God. By appointing His Son to the cross and not taking it upon Himself to do so, the Father honoured and glorified Him. In more senses than one it was a real sacrifice for Father to do so, but He loves the Son deeply, so He found no pain or jealousy growing at His heart about it. That man should hate and curse and wilfully reject His Son hurt and grieved Him, but He knew there was no other way; sacrifice is absolutely indispensable to God's life. By all this, light is cast upon the fact that the altar is more valuable to us as a symbol of what goes on in God than for the actual function it has as an instrument of death and sacrifice and offering among men.
The Altar — A Basic Principle in Man
In whatever age they have lived, the idea of sacrifice has always pervaded men's minds. So strongly is this rooted in their thinking that even the heathen build altars and offer human, animal or vegetable sacrifices to their deities. These people have no bibliographical reason for doing this; it is natively embedded in their hearts to do so. The power that motivates them is mostly fear, and the purposes behind their sacrifices, though very mixed, are generally associated with appeasement. Sometimes these may be defined as either placation of wrath or atonement for sin, or persuasion to certain kinds of action, or seeking a favour of the spirit or spirits (beings) to whom they sacrifice. The idea of payment to a superior powerful spirit being or force is seldom missing from the ceremony. Whatever is offered is sacrificed only as a token payment and is brought and given as a material substitute for the person who actually makes the offering, or on behalf of some other person for whom the offering is made.
Altars and sacrifice however have not only been associated with the heathen; throughout recorded time they have also been part of the life of the true saints of God. The Old Testament scriptures are replete with records of men and their altars. Long before God's portable altar was made, men of understanding and faith erected and used their own. Wherever they lived, whether in the shape of a mound of earth or a cairn of stones, the little hill of sacrifice was raised to God and offerings made by fire ascended as sweet savours to Him.
Referring again to ABRAHAM, who is often spoken of as father of the faithful and quite probably was the greatest man of the Old Testament, we find that he built many altars. In fact, as already noted, the most famous story about him turns around the occasion when he erected the altar on Moriah; altars were undoubtedly one of the most outstanding features of this man's life. It is significant that there is no record that his life had been in any way directly connected with sacrifice until he responded to the call of God, yet he was seventy five years old when he entered into the land of Canaan. It seems that as soon as he obeyed God and left the land of his nativity he built an altar to the Lord. Without doubt altars are deeply involved in the call of God to a man, for this became the first of many altars which marked the route and progress of his pilgrimage and the places where he dwelt. Wherever he pitched his tent for any length of time he built an altar; moving on he left it behind as a testimony that he had been there. Anyone who had a mind to do so could have traced Abraham's movements by these altars.
At the beginning these altars bore witness to the reality of communication between God and man; it seems that Abraham built them at the exact spot where it took place between them. The original altar was built in commemoration of the first time God spoke to him in the promised land. The second fixed the place and proclaimed the occasion when he first called on the name of the Lord who appeared unto him. Soon after that occasion, as the record goes, there was a famine in the land and Abraham went down into Egypt. As a consequence of moving out of the land of promise, which was the chosen place for the outworking of God's call, things soon went wrong with him. However, according to His covenant with him, throughout this period God preserved Abraham, but he built no altar to God at that time. Sadly enough Abraham left no testimony in Egypt; he went up out of it very wealthy in goods but sorely reproved in soul. Chastened in spirit, he retraced his steps to the place where he had last built an altar; standing there he again called on the Lord. So the life of Abraham continued, until finally the Lord led him to the highest mountain and greatest altar of all.
It is a remarkable feature of Abraham's altars that throughout all this time there is no record of sacrifices being made upon them. His predecessors, Cain and Abel and Noah, each in his day built an altar and sacrificed offerings of one kind or another to God; it seems however that, unlike them, Abraham built his altars but offered nothing thereon. He, as they, knew that the whole purpose of building altars was as a means to an end; they have no other function and are not of any use except as places of sacrifice and offering, yet apparently he never used them for that purpose. He had come from a heathen culture wherein sacrifices were quite commonplace; moreover, in common with all mankind, he knew in his heart that some kind of expiation or expression of desire to approach God was in order and therefore required of him.
Why then an altar without a sacrifice? Every other altar which had been erected throughout the entire length and breadth of Canaan would have been stained with blood and blackened by fire, but not so Abraham's. All those other altars were testimonies to the devil; Abraham' s were easily distinguishable from theirs. Everybody knew the difference between Abraham's God and theirs, but none could have given a satisfactory explanation as to what it was or what unused altars signified.
We do not know much about the original revelation from God to man of the mystery of redemption and substitution and expiation of sin. Just how it was that God communicated His wishes and commandments to men in the beginning of time we have no information. After the passage of centuries He brought His people out of Egypt and informed them, through Moses at Sinai, of His wishes concerning sacrifice. All He said then is plainly set out in scripture, but how people knew in the very beginning we are not told.
It may be assumed that Adam was told after the fall but we do not know that he was. Certainly God would not have told him before then, for there was no sin to expiate, beside which death was not known in Eden. Death, we are told, came by sin and Adam and Eve were sinless, so Adam had no reason to slay any of his fellow-creatures. During communion with God he may have been told of the vital necessity of the principle of sacrifice in the eternal life and being of his Creator, but nowhere is this recorded. It has been thought that God's provision of skins instead of fig-leaves for clothing after the fall of Adam and Eve is an indication of death. It is said that this implies substitutionary sacrifice made necessary by their sin, that in order to provide their coats for Adam and Eve lesser creatures had to be slain by God. It is commendable to some as an indication that substitutionary sacrifice was practised by God immediately sin was manifest by man, but it is an unproven theory and only a remote possibility. It no more follows that in order for God to provide His creatures with animal skins, animals had to be slain than that in order to supply wine for a wedding God had previously to grow and crush grapes.
What preceded light at creation? Or from what matter did God create stars? It could be suggested as a premise that the clothing of the pair in Eden and the turning of water into wine at Cana should be equated as being the first miracles of two different eras. Should this be acceptable, the episode in Genesis is almost certainly a miracle requiring no more naturally related matter of its kind for its basis than did the miracle at Cana of Galilee. Whence came the sight that was given to the man at Siloam? From God the Creator. Natural explanations for Bible mysteries need not be sought; as the hymn says, 'God is His own interpreter and He will make it plain' — if and when He will.
The offerings of CAIN and ABEL heighten the mystery still more, for reading the Word we do not find any record of Adam and Eve making any similar or comparable move toward God. Those boys were evidently not instructed by their parents concerning sacrifice and offering; the simple if not sure reason for this may well be that no instructions had been given to them by God. It must surely be that Adam and Eve did not know how to regain favour with God, for is it not to be taken for granted that if they had known how to do so they would have done anything within their power to regain it if it were at all possible? We know that upon his fall Adam became a spiritual force in the world. His name has become a patronymic, conferred by God upon the evil sin-potential / fallen nature with which all the sons of men have since been born.
Nevertheless, before He expelled the pair from the garden God made promise to them that the woman's seed should bruise the serpent's head. Therefore, when her first child was born, Eve thought and said she had gotten a man-child from the Lord. Probably they pinned upon him their hopes of restoration, believing that he would know or somehow discover and show them the way back to God. Of expiation and forgiveness of sin they had no knowledge; there was no reinstatement for Adam and no tuition in the ways and order of sacrifice for his sons either; this the boys, becoming men, had to discover for themselves. That they did so is now common knowledge.
The Unacceptable Sacrifice
The story as it is recorded in Genesis reveals that Cain and Abel did not at first know what was acceptable to God. Upon the occasion mentioned they each brought to God the results of their own particular labours. Cain being a tiller of the ground naturally brought of the fruit he had produced; Abel being a shepherd just as naturally brought of the increase of the flock. Each offered his gift to God, who had respect to and accepted Abel's offering, but had not respect for Cain's offering and rejected it. At this Cain was filled with wrath, 'and his countenance fell'. He was evidently expecting God to accept his offering; he obviously did not know beforehand that it would not be received by God, for if he had known that he would not have offered it. He would already have been familiarised by his parents with the dire consequences of deliberate disobedience of God's expressed instructions. If he had persisted in bringing fruit contrary to God's ordinances passed on to him by Adam he would have been guilty of trying to force his own will upon God, and he already knew that was utterly impossible.
Why then did he not bring a lamb or a kid from the flock which crouched around his tent? Simply because he did not know what God wanted. Abel did not know either. None of those four human beings knew; they were each equally ignorant of God's requirements. That is why God spoke to Cain as He did. There was no censure in God's voice, only concern and grace when He said to Cain, 'Why art thou wroth and why is thy countenance fallen? If thou doest well shalt thou not be accepted?' At that point God did not blame or rebuke or punish the man because He knew that Cain had made a genuine mistake. The man was only punished finally because he refused to obey.
Following his first failure, God showed Cain what was acceptable to Him and invited and exhorted him to copy Abel's example, assuring him that by so doing he would be accepted equally with his brother, but he would not do so. Instead he awaited an opportunity to vent his jealous rage against God and Abel and slew his brother. But not before Abel had discovered and revealed the secret of the way back to God. Adam and Eve did not know it until that moment when Abel their son found it by offering a lamb. Whether the parents ever followed Abel's lead we are not told; we do know however that Abel paid for his discovery with his life. God had to punish the murderer; the mark of God upon Cain was God's testimony against the rebellion and stubbornness of a man who, when he knew the truth, refused to obey God. It was also an act of grace; as yet the legal dictum of 'eye for eye, tooth for tooth' had not been uttered so Cain's life was not forfeit. In mercy the Lord forgave him the crime, but whether he repented and later turned to God with the correct sacrifice we do not know. The whole episode does not make pleasant reading.
It is recorded in Hebrews that 'by faith Abel offered a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts, so he being dead yet speaketh'. Abel's parents had truly brought sin into the world. Its dreadful consequences must have struck horror and terror into their hearts as they beheld their son lying murdered upon the ground, slain by his own brother, their other son. Although he was born following the advent of sin and his parents' expulsion from the garden, Abel was nevertheless a righteous man. He did not know the righteousness of Christ but God is his witness that he was righteous. God testified to Cain of his brother, saying that he had done well and he and his gifts were acceptable to Him.
Cain and Abel were sons of the same parents (some have suggested that they were twins) and had equal opportunities; what is it that makes one man's gifts more excellent than another's? Primarily the faith of Abel lay in the fact that he made his offering, not in what he offered. Cain also offered, he also had faith; his sin lay in the tragic fact that, despite God's counsel, he still refused to offer the correct sacrifice. Abel's more excellent sacrifice lay in that fact that he brought both a lamb (or kid) and fruit, while Cain brought only fruit. Both are acceptable to God providing they are brought together; this was Abel's excellence; fruit by itself is unacceptable; this was Cain's mistake. What is dead Abel yet speaking to us? To arrive at an answer we must search the scriptures.
Man's Inescapable Responsibility
PAUL, in his Roman letter, is quite clear that, when born into the world, even heathen men show the work of the law written in their hearts and to some degree are able to do things pleasing to God according to nature. He also makes statements which give ground for believing that God shows to every man certain things for which He holds him responsible. These things are apparently invariable but not inviolable in each of us, whether saint or sinner. Speaking of the celestial bodies which God made and set in the heavens for signs and seasons, Paul, quoting from David, says their lines run into all the earth and there is no speech nor language where their voice is not known. So he concludes from this that all men are equally without excuse, and are answerable to God on at least three counts:
(1) The work of the law written in their hearts to which their own conscience reacts.
(2) What God has done and shown in them individually.
(3) The testimony of the heavenly bodies.
Luke in Acts records Paul as saying that God left not Himself without witness among men by supplying food to fill hearts with joy and gladness. So we may add a fourth to the apostle's three counts above stated.
The witness of these four may have been to a large degree dimmed in some due to the growing depravity of the race, but nevertheless men's unbelief and rejection does not affect the faithfulness of God or the responsibility of the race. But men are not equal and will not be held equally responsible before the Lord. in the day of judgement when God judges the secrets of men by that man Christ Jesus.
Beyond these four basic things, some men, like Noah and Abraham, have had personal visits and instructions from God; others received His plainly written law and were privileged to build a house for Him to live among them on the earth. Still further, some in their generation actually had the incarnate Christ with them and witnessed His life and death and resurrection. Others of us have been privileged to hear the gospel and have received the completed canon of scripture and know the Baptism of the Spirit and have become members of the Church of Christ. In these things all men are not equal and cannot be held equally responsible, but on the other hand those who have had the greater privileges and received the greater revelations also equally share the identical four basic blessings with the whole of mankind. Therefore their responsibility is so much greater than those less-privileged who have been denied these blessings; they will be judged upon that basis. God is just with all men, as well as the justifier of them that believe in Jesus.
We are again indebted to Luke for another insight into apostolic understanding and statement; this time it is Peter's. When speaking to Cornelius he said, 'I perceive that God is no respecter of persons, but in every nation he that feareth Him and worketh righteousness is accepted with Him'. Until that occasion when he had to use the keys of the kingdom to open the door of faith to the gentiles, Peter had thought that except they had previously been proselytised to Judaism it was quite impossible for gentiles to be saved. Unless God had shown him that great vessel full of unclean animals coming down from Him and caught up again into heaven, he would never have found it possible to believe that unregenerate gentiles could work righteousness, but God said that they could. Prior to that he could not believe that gentiles to whom the law had not been given and who had not as yet been privileged to have the gospel preached to them on an official basis, could possibly do things which made them acceptable to God, but they could.
Peter had been wrong; His use of the word 'but' is the plainest proof that he had arrived at new conclusions. He revised his whole thinking as a result of the vision at Joppa and the commandment of God. If he bad used the word 'and' instead of 'but', he would have revealed that he had always understood that gentiles could do righteousness and be acceptable to God, even though they had not been proselytised to Judaism and were unregenerate. What a revelation this is! Reading the whole tenth chapter we find that Cornelius was a man of very fine character indeed. The mounting summary of his many virtues is most impressive, and yet he was a heathen, though perhaps he may have been mistaken by many for a Christian. Like the heathen women who gathered for prayer by the river at Philippi, he was not saved, but his heart was toward God.
This word of Peter's is profoundly revelatory, for it also shows the principle of righteousness upon which God Himself acts in His dealings with all men; 'that word ye know', is the basis of all His judgements. How we act upon knowledge imparted, inwrought or revealed to us is the criterion of judgement. Because Cornelius responded properly to what he knew by whatever means he knew it he was accepted of God as being righteous. He had walked in all the light he knew. That did not mean he did not need to be born from above, he did and eventually was. It does mean that he did not have the absolute righteousness of Christ imparted to him and that he did not know the righteousness which is in the law; it also means that he had the righteousness of a heart that perfectly responded to all he believed and knew. Whether or not he had ceased from all his heathen idolatry we are not told; we do know however that Peter did not challenge him on the ground of knowledge equal to all men but on his advanced knowledge of the word of God in and through Jesus of Nazareth. If he had not responded to that he would have been guilty of Christ-rejection and would presumably have lost all claims to righteousness upon former grounds.
In exactly the same way the Jews (even if they were Hebrews of the Hebrews as was Saul of Tarsus, 'and as touching the righteousness which is in the law perfect'), from the moment they were challenged with the gospel immediately forfeited all claims to justification upon legal grounds of righteousness; if they rejected the gospel they became totally unrighteous. This is why Paul so severely reprimanded Peter at Antioch for compelling gentiles to live as Jews. He had been shown by God that the Jews' religion was now void of righteousness, but through fear of man he had gone back on his revelation.
In the gospel which He has commanded to be preached to all men God has revealed His righteousness according to a higher law than that of Moses. Much of our thinking and therefore our theology and many of our doctrines need reformation. Our preaching has been too severely narrowed by: (1) falsely limiting the purpose of Christ's death to atonement, (2) failing to understand the exceedingly greater truth of redemption; (3) confusing the whole nature and scope of regeneration and (4) inexcusably overlooking the full import of reconciliation; this despite the plainest expositions of these mighty truths in the New Testament scriptures and the many allusions to them in the vast scriptures of the Old Testament revelation.
The Glorious Cross
We have been told by Paul that we are not to look at the things which are seen but at the things which are not seen. By refusing to look at the things which are invisible and seeing only that which is visible, men cripple their understanding of God and man. The reason for this is simply because the things which are seen are temporal (and therefore have only temporary existence in this world) but the things which are not seen are eternal. The temporal things of God can only give temporary expression to things which are and have been and shall for ever be; even now they are better expressed in invisible, eternal reality in heaven and God.
As an instance of this let us take the most precious thing of all, the crucifixion of Christ itself. The four Gospel writers faithfully record accounts of the actual happenings at Golgotha. Beside these, there are also frequent allusions to the historical event of the crucifixion throughout the length of the whole New Testament. To such good effect is this done by the inspired authors that our gaze is for ever firmly focussed upon that vital, indispensable and unique act. Yet it was only temporal; that is to say, although its import and implication and effects are eternal, it was enacted in all its tragic glory and outwardly seen by man only for a brief moment on this earth.
Necessary as it was, planned and prophesied in all its detail as it had to be, what was seen at Calvary was emphatically not the most or most important part of what took place there. If one may be permitted the use of such a phrase here, it was only the tip of the iceberg. As a matter of fact it was only the enactment and revelation at a certain point in time on the earth of the combined principles of love and sacrifice at the heart of the eternal being of God. It was a reproduction by God in flesh in history of what He had previously specifically done, and in principle had always been doing in another media, from and before the foundation of the world. The life continually yielded, the person continually sacrificed, the Lamb continually slain, became the Man eventually crucified. Beginning and end He is; His crucifixion was a manifestation of a permanent pattern of life in God; Calvary was the outworking and adaptation of Himself and His will against sin in perfect love for mankind.
Perhaps our limited grasp of eternal truth may be due to the fact that we have been habitually taught that all the righteousness of God which was imputed to ancient Israel was only as it were the shadow of the good things to come. This view presents the crucifixion as though it was the substance from behind which the sun shone, casting its beneficial shadow backward to Israel; it says that what God accomplished at Calvary covered all the millenia of sin since the fall, as well as the centuries of sin following the resurrection. The truth of this is vast beyond degree. It satisfies the understanding, explaining the whole range of repetitive temporal sacrifice throughout the ages. Moreover it has the backing of the scriptural words, 'the law having a shadow of good things to come and not the very image of those things'. But it fails to grasp the greater truth that long before ever an altar stood on the earth, whether built of earth or stone, or forged and fashioned from brass in fire, God had already slain His Lamb. All sacrifice since then, including Calvary itself, has been because of that original act and has significance only because of it and no value except in spirit it conforms to it. This is that which is invisible and eternal; all the other was temporal, even though it witnessed of the eternal.
Understanding this we see that all the righteousness imputed by God to man since the commencement of sin in the earth was projected forward from and was a result of the prehistoric sacrifice of the Lamb, as well as being a projection backward from Calvary. True it is that Jesus said, 'Abraham rejoiced to see my day and he saw it and was glad', but whether Abraham understood all he saw is another thing. The patriarch built an altar, bound his son and laid him upon it, heard a voice from heaven, saw a ram caught in a thicket, slew and sacrificed it instead of his son. The sight and experience of it all brought him joy and gladness, but it was all so very temporal and momentary. Did his inward spiritual eye look forward to see Him who is invisible die in His day and. rise again? Or did his faith look backward to see the slaying of the Lamb at the world's foundation? Is the working of this principle the hidden secret of light and day and is this what is alluded to by 'the dayspring from on high'? I wonder, but do not attempt to answer the question.
The whole enactment at Moriah was prophetic of Calvary; whether Abraham saw it all does not for the moment matter. It was most truly as much a reflection of the beginning of the earth age as a foresight into the end of the age of law. Altar and lamb were there on Moriah, but except it be dimly prefigured by the wood first laid upon Isaac and upon which he was later laid, there was no cross. Perhaps it teaches hearts eager to learn every precious lesson and to note every slightest token of Calvary that the cross became an altar. Even so, every foreshadowing sacrifice and every drop of blood spilt or burnt in promise of Calvary love could only be because the bodyless, bloodless sacrifice of deity was made before ever a body of flesh and blood was created or earth itself was formed.
The Just Shall Live — by the Faith of the Son of God.
Everything, all creation, flowed from that; it was not only anticipation, foresight, foreknowledge, incredible wisdom and infinite love, it was also immeasurable grace and promise and inexhaustible provision; the Lamb slain was an application of a principle of law of divine life and being. Because of this, righteousness did not become immediately extinct on the earth following the advent of sin. Depravity set in and with the multiplication of men on the earth became almost total, so that by Noah's time he only was righteous in all his generations. The line of righteousness which had continued down through Adam's third son SETH (born after the death of Abel) had preserved its purity, but the progeny of Cain deteriorated with every successive generation throughout the centuries, until by Noah's day it was ripe for destruction.
Being themselves fallen, men did not wish to retain the likeness and knowledge of God, nor would they worship Him as God, but without restraint changed His image into the likeness of corruptible beasts and birds and. creeping things and worshipped them. Doing so they became inwardly like them. Without contesting their impudence, God's Spirit strove with them to no avail, until at last He gave them over to their contemptible lusts and abominations. The result of it all was that in process of time everything within them became twisted and perverted to wrong uses and ends. Sacrifices and offerings were made to devils, the work of the law written within them became bias and. power to sin and corruption of the vilest order and in the end God repented that He had ever made man. The knowledge of the principle of sacrifice and acceptability which God originally made known to Cain did not die out in his strain — on the contrary it became perverted. They deliberately prostituted everything to satan, therefore God decided to destroy them by the flood.
Through the Seth line however this principle was retained as it had been originally discovered by Abel and upon Noah's exodus from the ark following the flood it reappears on the cleansed earth. What Noah did was quite voluntary; he did not receive commandment from God to sacrifice to Him and the offering was entirely without reference to sin. He did it in faith; he was just acting in harmony with his conscience in accordance with his inward knowledge of God, therefore he was righteous.
At this point care must be exercised to distinguish between different kinds of faith lest we fail to grasp the reason why there is so much difference between one man and another. This distinction is nowhere brought out more clearly than in the great section on faith in the Hebrews letter, which commences at the end of chapter ten and continues unbroken into chapter 12. In chapter 11 many of the famous worthies of the Old Testament are named, together with the great variety of works they accomplished by faith. It is a portrait-gallery filled with word-pictures which men have studied for centuries to their eternal profit. But when we reach chapter 12 we are told in no uncertain terms to take our eyes from these men and women and to look off unto Jesus. All these others are but a cloud, He is the sun. They witness to faith but He is the author of it. That is why we are to look off and away from them all unto Him. He, (not they) is the author of all faith, especially the faith of the New Testament saints.
Paul in the Galatian letter clearly speaks of a time which he describes as 'before faith came' and contrasts it with 'but now faith is come'. He is plainly speaking in terms of B.C. and A.D. There is obviously a distinction being made. Seeing that Hebrews 11 is filled with the faith exploits of men and. women who lived B.C., 'what manner of persons ought we to be' who live in the age of the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ? Again the apostle deals with another aspect of faith in Romans 10, where he says that by some means or other every person in the world has heard the word of God. Referring to the heavens and the heavenly bodies, he declares that by them all men have heard the word, therefore they have no excuse.
DAVID speaking in greater detail of God's handiwork in the firmament says 'their line is gone out into all the earth, there is no speech nor language where their voice is not heard'. We may therefore conclude that there are different kinds of faith, yet all are developed from a common root:
(1) That which observes nature and deduces the existence of God and seeks to find Him.
(2) That which comes by hearing the word of God, responding and living according thereto.
(3) That which is spoken of as the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ which is imparted to us.
These may be described as: (1) natural faith, (2) limited faith, (3) original faith.
Abel's faith may be described as 'natural' in that, although he offered to God the correct kind of sacrifice he did not do so in response to a direct word from God. Unlike present day heathen, he did know of the true God, for his parents were His direct creation and had known Him intimately over a period of time before their expulsion from the garden. It would be totally unreasonable to assume for the sake of mere literal accuracy that Adam and Eve had never spoken to their children of the former life they had lived with God in Eden. Reason has it that, as with all parents, they would most surely have instructed their sons about the ways of the Lord with them and taught their boys all they knew of their own personal creation and the Creator. Many hours must have been spent with their children recounting the anecdotes of a lost communion and sharing with them the facts of creation as told them by the Lord. The eyes and hearts of Cain and Abel must indeed have seen that the heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament showeth His handiwork.
However, Adam and Eve could not tell their sons how to regain lost Paradise. The angel with the flaming sword kept the way of the tree of Life — there was no way back. Nor could the parents instruct the boys in the order of sacrifice and offering, for they themselves had never made any. They had never built an altar in their past life, nor did they do so following their fall. There had been no need in Paradise for there was no sin until the day they were expelled; worship and communion had been as natural a process as was walking with God. Except perhaps in the limited sense with which inanimate vegetation and floral life in process of time renews itself, they had never witnessed death; they had slain nothing and had never seen the expiry of any animate creature; everything in the garden was glorious with the beauty of life, unmarred by corruption. They knew nothing of death or of ways back from death to God; how then could they tell anyone else?
Therefore on the day Cain and Abel brought their offerings to the Lord neither of their parents could give them any guidance even if they offered advice. They could no more assist Abel with a clear word of guidance from God than they could restrain Cain with a word of warning. Not one of those four knew the way with certainty; Abel was a pioneer. Thank God he discovered and led the way for us all.
The knowledge he gained was passed on and as time progressed successive men of faith also built altars unto the Lord in their day. These were sacred spots of earth, places of elevation, platforms to heaven and to God to which they often resorted to worship. Abel's original discovery bore fruit. lie did not die in vain, for, smelling Noah's offering after the flood, God was at rest. But He could not let the matter rest there, nor allow the continuance of this highly personalised manner of approach and worship, for it did not best exhibit eternal truth.
Only One Altar
Thus it was that in Moses' day God set about a complete reformation. First He prohibited the random building of altars and men's desultory manner of approach to Him. In addition to this He regulated the offerings, both in kind and procedure, making some obligatory and leaving others to be given at men's freewill. He also had an altar made and placed just within His courts at the entrance to His tent. By this means He finally established the altar as the sole official way of access to and acceptance with God. The altar of men to the Lord was now the altar of the Lord to men; it was the Lord's own altar, specially made by a man filled with wisdom and skill by the Spirit of God for the purpose.
Long before this, beside Abel, Noah and Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Moses also had built altars to the Lord. These all were built under the most significant circumstances and for very important reasons. Isaac's was built at Beersheba, to him forever a place of poignant memories. From there, years before, he had set out with his illustrious father upon the never-to-be-forgotten expedition to Moriah, where he had watched his father build his last and greatest altar to God; to Beersheba they had returned following the miraculous happenings which took place on the mount.
What experiences they had shared together then! With a submission born of long discipline he had co-operated with his father to make the supreme sacrifice; lying there bound upon that altar waiting for the terminating knife he had heard the voice of God speaking. Never-to-be-forgotten words of acceptance and approval flowed to his father's heart and had brought assurance and consecration to his own. He had seen and heard and experienced it all, but what he had seen and heard he did not quite know: he did, however, know that the altar was as much his as his father's. Abraham had called it Jehovah-jireh. It was the first time he had ever heard Abraham name an altar. Everything about it was new; but then Moriah's altar was the place of the vision and the voice and the vow. In a new and special way Isaac was God's; he, as well as his father and God, knew it.
Whether or not Isaac ever returned to Moriah is a matter for conjecture; what we do know is that he certainly did go back to Beersheba — congruously enough its name means 'well of the oath'. By this time Isaac was a mighty and prosperous man. Since Moriah and the death of his father he had passed through many troublous times; he had to live in the presence of his enemies, but despite all, God had made room for him and he had become very fruitful in the land of promise. During the whole of this period of passage through Canaan, he had pitched his tent in many familiar places where he had previously lived with his father. At that time he re-opened some of his father's wells; perhaps his father's altars still stood by those wells, but there is no record that Isaac built any altars beside them.
Not until he came to Beersheba is Isaac's name connected with any other altar than that of Moriah. Sowing, reaping, prospering, digging, striving, moving to and fro, all are there in the narrative; but there is no altar-building until he reaches the well of the oath, where God appeared to him. There he built his altar. There is no record that he had built one upon the occasion when God first appeared exclusively to him. Perhaps already an altar had been built at that place by his father and he used it, or perhaps some other person had built one since that time, but he would never have used that. But when the Lord appeared to him with renewed promises, he did not rely upon nor look to anything of the past, he builded his altar, called upon the name of the Lord, pitched his tent and digged a well. In due course Beersheba, the place of the oath, became a city called by that name.
Again we notice that although the altar and the oath and the well and the city are mentioned, sacrifices are not referred to. Weren't Isaac and the lamb the sacrifice and were not identity and substitution combined in one offering? Was there any difference now? Had things changed since his father's day? Had not the offering been given first and then the sacrifice made in that order? If that had been established between God and man by God Himself, what was the point or where was the need for anything less or other? Isaac understood. An altar, yes, but no sacrifice. The altar was an acknowledgement and a testimony; a sacrifice would have been almost a blasphemy, certainly a tragedy, as well as a superfluity; in any case the word sacrifice has not as yet appeared in scripture, only the word offering.
The idea of sacrifice itself is not introduced into the text until the later activities of Isaac's son JACOB in relationship to God are revealed. Until then the only two thoughts presented directly to us by the use of the word offering in connection with the altar are: (a.) (making) a present or a gift, or (b.) to cause to go up (in flames and smoke); upon consideration this is quite significant.
Along this line it is also of some significance that when Jacob made sacrifice he did so following an oath he had taken to man, swearing upon 'the fear of his father Isaac'. He did not build a special altar, but sacrificed upon 'the mount', which was nothing but a great heap of stones which he and his servants had built in conjunction with Laban and his servants. They all sat down on it, made their covenant upon it, ate and drank on it and finally Jacob slaughtered his sacrifices upon it; it was a heap of witness' or a watch tower. It was no altar of the Lord but seemed more a symbol of mistrust, for it was raised in the belief and for the desire that the Lord would 'watch between me and thee while we are absent (hidden) one from the other'.
Laban and Jacob, each a party to the oath, swore according to their own beliefs, and it is evident that neither of them had a clear faith in God, for each swore upon the deity that somebody else knew. It may perhaps have been perfectly described in words then unspoken, but which centuries later Paul immortalised — 'I saw an altar to an unknown God'. But He of whom Jacob was in ignorance and had described in an oath as 'the fear of his father Isaac' was planning to meet and make Himself known to Jacob. Within less than forty eight hours the Lord was wrestling with Jacob at the fords of Jabbok and Penuel. There the change took place — from darkness to light, from ignorance to knowledge, from Jacob to Israel.Following this and other closely related incidents, upon arrival at Shalem Jacob bought a piece of ground. It was outside the city and after spreading his tents he 'erected there an altar and called it El-Elohe-Israel — God the God of Israel'. Right there in full view of the city he raised testimony to his recent discovery of God and showed his intention of making his testimony permanent by calling his altar by that name. God and he were identified with the altar. Of offering and sacrifice there is again no mention. The means not the end is being presented to us. The purpose and use of the altar are not emphasised; Israel set forth the principle, not the practice. The names of God and Israel are linked at the altar, not the names of animals.
Only once more during Jacob's lifetime is the altar mentioned. This time he is commanded by God 'go up to Bethel and dwell there and make there an altar unto God that appeared unto thee'. Without hesitation he went and did as he was told, whereupon God again appeared unto him and renewed with him the covenant He had made with Abraham and Isaac. This time Jacob/Israel named the altar El-Bethel, 'God of the House of God'. To him God and the altar were one. Not that he thought that God and an altar are literally one, he was not an idolater who believed that God could be made by men's hands. Nor was his action merely the result of an association of ideas; it was the recognition and demonstration of an eternal principle, as well as a confession of ignorance of God's wishes. He offered no sacrifice — instead he raised a pillar there; he was no architect, but it was he who had originally renamed Luz 'Bethel'.
Whether or not the stone he raised for a pillar was the one he had earlier used for his pillow we cannot tell. We do know, however, that Bethel was the place where he had dreamed his famous dream and upon waking had been convinced that he was at the gate of heaven and that the place was the house of God. Now again, upon his return to the very spot under God's orders to erect an altar, he raises a pillar. It was to be his mute testimony to the fact that he believed God wanted a house on earth. On the pillar he poured a drink-offering followed by oil; the house of Israel he erected was offered and anointed to God.
So there they stood together, altar and pillar, one representing the God of the house of God and the other the house of that God. What could be more fitting? Jacob did not worship the altar as God, but in some way he recognised the impossibility of God being God apart from all the altar symbolised. He also dimly pictured, even if he did not fully see, that there could be no house of God apart from the altar. This is probably the most important part of the reason why God ordered him back to Bethel. Jacob had called the place 'God's house'; if this really was to be so, then God could not allow him or anyone else to be under any illusions about it. Everyone must know that He Himself could not be, nor could possibly live anywhere, except by the altar principle.
He was preparing for a future which Jacob could not visualise. If He was going to build securely the foundations must be well laid. He could not allow Israel to think that there was any way of approach to Him or any possibility of entering into the life to which their name referred, apart from self-offering upon the well-understood basis of giving by self-sacrifice. It had all happened in this man. When Jacob stopped wrestling and resisting in fear and yielded and clung to the Lord he became Israel, the prince who had power with God and man. This was the story told by the two pillars. The first was fearful Jacob, the second was powerful Israel. The first had stood on its own without the altar, the second could only stand by it. The first was anointed, unoffered, the second was offered and anointed. What a historical, prophetical place Bethel was. On the day Jacob raised the altar and the pillar he not only made history, he also established eternal principles of truth.
MOSES, the man raised up of God to take the place of honour among the great patriarchs of Israel of whom he wrote, was also a man of the altar. He actually built two and supervised the making of a third. At this point we will consider the first and then pass to the third, leaving the second for later consideration. The first was erected at Horeb following a battle between Israel and Amalek at a critical point of Israel's history. The entire nation was then en route for Canaan and had just been miraculously supplied with water by God. From the smitten rock living water was gushing out and down the hill to Rephidim, the waterless land below and Israel was at rest. Just as they were enjoying this, Amalek suddenly appeared to contend with them; they wanted possession of the waters, but God had not provided water from the rock for Amalek to drink.
The name Amalek means 'the people who lick up' and true to their name that was precisely their intention in attacking Israel, but the Lord did not allow them to lick up His people. He had led them to Horeb for the purpose of the miracle. They were as much the people for the water as the water was for the people. Amalek would ever rue the day they sought to interfere with God's plans; for daring to attack His people God said that He would destroy Amalek, blotting out their name from under heaven.
There are many lessons to be learned from this incident though, one of which is that danger lies in Rephidim, which by definition is the land of 'reclining places'. Amalek will always invade and attack those who lie at rest, drinking at the fountain, if they do so supposing that there is no need to watch for and repel the incursions of the flesh. Rejoicing in the abundance of waters bounding down the hill it is easy to forget that continual vigilance and prayer is necessary if enjoyment of the privilege is to be maintained. This truth is strengthened by observing Moses sitting on top of the rock with the rod of God in his hand and his arms supported heavenward in prayer. With Aaron and Hur in support he keeps constant vigil, while Joshua below wages war to the death against Amalek. Conquest gained, Moses is told by God to record in a book that He 'would utterly put out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven'. God had taken Amalek's invasion of Israel as an attack upon Himself and His throne, so the result was a foregone conclusion. Moses built an altar of victory, calling it Jehovah-Nissi, 'the Lord is my banner'.
This whole incident is an analogy of absorbing interest full of spiritual meaning. The rock cannot be other than a representation of CHRIST; the rod first represents the sovereign power of God that smote Him on the cross; the water represents the life-giving Spirit that was poured out as a result. The name Aaron means 'enlightened' or 'illuminated', while Hur means 'noble' or 'free-born' or 'fine white linen'; Moses first standing and then sitting on a stone on the rock, with the rod of God in his hand, represents the enthroned CHRIST. At present He is engaged in ceaseless intercession and the rod is now revealed to be His sceptre, the symbol of majesty and authority by which He rules. Last and greatest of all, the altar once more brings to our notice the basic principle upon which all life depends. In this case it displays utter devotion and complete self-dedication to God, by which alone life was maintained for Israel.
It is noteworthy that the altar stands on top of the hill, as though crowning all, plainly setting forth the position the altar principle holds above the actual bodily sacrifice that may be offered thereon. Jesus Himself sought to fix our attention upon this truth when He asked His famous question, 'which is greater, the gift or the altar which sanctifies the gift?' There is only one answer to that, 'the altar', for the altar had power over the gift to turn it by fire into a sacrifice and offering in an acceptable form; the sacrifice had no power over the altar. It is surely extraordinary that an absolutely inanimate object such as an altar should be called by Moses 'Jehovah is my banner'. We may ask 'and what is inscribed upon this banner?' With equal certainty the answer would be 'ABSOLUTE LOVE'; fixed self-devotion to the desire and will of another.
Reflection upon the discoveries made so far about these named altars gives rise to the conviction that by them in a special way God has revealed His plan of salvation. Beginning with Abraham and his altar on Moriah we are introduced to 'JEHOVAH-JIREH — THE LORD WILL PROVIDE'. Upon that occasion Abraham said 'IN THE MOUNT OF THE LORD IT SHALL BE SEEN', and so it was. As we have formerly noted, Jesus said 'Abraham rejoiced to see my day, he saw it and was glad'.
The whole pattern of divine life and eternal love related to salvation was unfolded there before the Lord that day. No human eye saw it; all was enacted in secret; it has only been related to us by God through Moses in order that we may be allowed to enter into some of the most important things of salvation which no-one but God sees and knows. These may be listed as follows:— utmost union, unquestioning obedience, unresisting submission unwavering determination, uncomplaining trust, unswerving faith. On Moriah the life was offered to God; the seed was preserved; the son rose from the altar; the substitution was made; the blood was shed; Isaac returned from the dead; in a figure Abraham received him and the promise was made sure to all the seed. So perfectly in the type was the foundation laid that we can joyfully proclaim that we have clearly seen it from this mountain-top of truth.
The Outpoured Gift
Passing on to Beersheba, we find Isaac's altar built by 'THE WELL OF THE OATH'. This is a remarkable connection, laying emphasis upon the altar with the water of life. It is a most important link-up, bringing to our notice the truth which Paul states for us in Galatians 3 v.1 ,2. Presenting the crucifixion in verse 1, he puts the question about receiving the Spirit in closest juxtaposition to it in verse 2: 'received ye the Spirit?' he asks. The death and resurrection of Christ and the outpouring and gift of the Holy Spirit are found together in: (1) the Old Testament in type, (2) the New Testament in print, (3) in fact in history and (4) in experience in truth.
The unfolding plan is made yet plainer as we observe Jacob's emergence into spiritual clarity. Establishing the altar at Shechem, he gave testimony to his direct personal encounter with the Lord at Jabbok. He had emerged from the uncertainty of his former trust in One who was 'the fear of his father Isaac', into a new direct knowledge of God and himself. When he named his altar 'GOD THE GOD OF ISRAEL', he was drawing attention to this. God and he who had first met and wrestled and then clung together at the waters of Jabbok and Peniel, were declared by him to be permanently joined together at the altar of Shechem.
Upon the basis of Jacob's newly-discovered reality God commands him to go back to Bethel, the place where he had been granted his first revelation of God. Purging himself and his household from the last remnants of idolatry, he obediently went up to Bethel and there built another altar as commanded by the Lord. He had not built one upon the first occasion but had simply interpreted his dream to mean that Luz was the house of God and had therefore renamed the place Bethel. Raising his pillow into a standing memorial, he anointed it for prophetic significance and passed on into Syria.
This time, however, Jacob, in the light of the new day now dawning, with clearer understanding, built an altar there calling it 'GOD THE HOUSE OF GOD'. Once more he raised up a pillar of stone, but before anointing it he poured upon it the drink offering of wine. Usually the drink-offering was made to the Lord as part of a sacrifice embracing some more substantial offering, which constituted the major part of the whole. In a special sense it represented that degree and quality of the outpoured life which God deemed could not be properly typified by the flesh and blood of the body. It really showed what was in the blood, what it represented — that is the soul-life, the spiritual and moral beauty and calibre, or character and disposition of the life. This is what God drank in.Animals and birds had no virtues of spirit and soul to offer to God. They compulsorily lost their existence, they had no life to give. By command their meagre qualities had often to be augmented by the blood of grapes, the wine of life. But even then all was woefully short of that which their combined powers so poorly symbolised.
Jacob left the altar empty, but saturated and anointed the pillar with wine and oil. The altar was of many stones, the pillar was but one. Perhaps Jacob saw it all in a very personal way and meant it to represent himself, Israel and, hopefully, all who according to the promise should proceed from him through his twelve Sons. Prophetically, however, they were to be God's house of Israel; God had planned it so and later they did make Him a house to dwell in. How much of it all Jacob foresaw we do not know. To us he has left the message of his altars, 'God the God of Israel' and 'God of the house of God'.
Linked with the altars of Abraham and Isaac, Jacob's show the development of the line of spiritual truth which God first began with Abraham, Jacob's grandfather. Death and resurrection of the Seed, followed by the giving and receiving of the Spirit, accompanied by abundant fruitfulness, logically eventuates in the building of the house of God — the Church — 'the pillar and ground of truth'. If it were by the message of the altar alone, God is indeed seen to be the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Much more than this lies to hand and will repay patient search, but let us proceed yet further to consider Moses' altars.
Before doing this we ought here to notice that, unlike his patriarchal forbears, MOSES never once built an altar for himself alone. In this matter he always acted in a national capacity; he built altars for Israel. When Abraham, Isaac and Jacob raised their altars they were acting as individuals. Although prophetically and typically their actions have wide and varying implications, they did not build for the nation. The nation did not exist in their day; they were the fathers of it, so they could not act mediatorially as did Moses in his day. But, even so, Moses could have built an altar for himself or just for his family but there is no record that he did so. He always acted for the family of God, the nation of Israel.
Moses was commanded by God to direct Israel to make an altar of brass. This was to stand within His courts to be the altar of the Lord and of the children of Israel from that time forward. The altar that Moses built at Horeb was Israel's also, but in another way. Having earlier noted the details leading up to and surrounding that episode, we will not again go into them, except to underline one or two points. At Horeb Israel was presented with a vision of itself. Soon they were to be given instructions to provide living-accomodation for God. When they did so they became in a more visible way the house of God, for then God dwelt in the midst of them and walked among them; from then on they were God's Church in the wilderness.
So, beyond Horeb's mute testimony to the Christ, its voice speaks no less strongly to His people themselves. On the day the great miracle was wrought, Moses was acting for God. According to His word, there on the top of His own handiwork stood God. At His Command the rock was smitten; unto Him Moses had stretched forth his hands and built his altar; it was He who had allowed Amalek to attack Israel. His people had much to learn of their heredity and pre-destiny and He had brought them to Horeb to teach them many things. Not only must they learn the facts of Calvary and Pentecost and the relationship between them, but they must also be taught the difference between the flesh and the Spirit. They must also be shown the likeness between themselves and the thirst-quenching rock.
Jacob's pillar was a piece of rock; it was raised up to be the first intimation in scripture that the Church is God's house, the pillar and ground of truth. Without flesh and blood that pillar was offered to God as representing the solid, righteous, eternal character of God's people. Over this the drink-offering was poured and the anointing applied; it stood there as a permanent testimony to God for His purposes in the earth. Now the Lord is showing Israel that, beyond anointing, the rock must know a smiting that the river of living waters might gush forth from it.
Beyond indrinking the Spirit to become a well within for the quenching of its own thirst, the Church must also know a great outpouring from itself, that all may come to the waters and drink. It must wrestle in prayer continuously, going on far beyond its own strength, enduring and outlasting its weariness; mediatonal in intercession, with princely power and priestly devotion, it must hold up the sceptre of the cross, that Jesus (Joshua) may win the battle for victory in the lives of His people. The house of God is a house of prayer that it may be a house from which the living waters flow out from under the altar.
If we would desire to have Jehovah as our banner we must live a life upon the altar principle. Amalek can never be allowed to drink of the water supplied by God for His people or all will have been in vain. The Church may recline to drink the Spirit but they must stand up to wage war against the flesh. What a wonderful symbol of the cross is that rod of Moses; it fills so many roles. Here it appears in the unusual symbol of a flag staff from which streams the banner emblazoned with an altar bearing the words 'Jehovah my banner'.
Twelve Pillars of Witness
As referred to earlier, before making the brazen altar to God's design, Moses also built another of his own — this time in the desert of Sinai, in fact right under the hill. At that time, by God's command, the mount had been bounded off; it was prohibited territory, sanctified from the people and enveloped in the cloud of God. Moses had been up and down it, to and fro between God and the people, carrying the word from the one to the other. During this time such supernatural demonstrations were taking place that it was evident something was afoot of a most extraordinary nature and the people were very frightened — even Moses said that he exceedingly quaked and trembled.
Upon returning from his latest journey up the mount and announcing to the people all the words that God had. given to him for them, Moses also informed them that it was God's intention to enter into covenant with them on the terms stated. Hearing these, the people reaffirmed their former consent and intention to do all that God said. This secured, 'Moses wrote all the words of the Lord in a book and rising early in the morning builded an altar under the hill'. Having done so, in much the same manner as Jacob before him, he raised up twelve pillars according to the twelve tribes of Israel.
Lonely Jacob's solitary pillar at Bethel was prophetic of the twelve pillars of Israel at Sinai under the hill. Builded of stones, these twelve stood grouped around the altar of stones in solemn order, mutely testifying to God's faithfulness. Moses was showing them that Israel were to be a people of the altar. What a long way they had come from Egypt. The distance must be measured in terms of spiritual pilgrimage rather than in miles. There had been no altar there and only one had been built between there and Sinai.
Over four hundred years had passed since, at the first, Abraham had laid out his animal and bird covenant victims upon the ground that God should cut His covenant with him. During the whole of that time not one altar had been built unto the Lord in Egypt; Abraham had not built one there and neither had they. Now out of the land, soon they were to have a permanent altar of brass for the Lord of the promised land. As yet they had no knowledge of that fact, but by this one that Moses had now built God was going to prepare them for it. In that land the brazen altar was to be dedicated unto blood, specified offerings, ceaseless sacrifices and the continual fire of God.
A Covenant of Blood and the Fire of God
In Canaan the Lord was going to dwell among His people upon the ground of a blood covenant and upon no other. Since the days of Abraham and Isaac at Moriah not a word about sacrificial blood in connection with altars has been mentioned in holy writ, but now Moses sends young men to the altar with offerings and sacrifices to burn for acceptance and peace. The gathered people standing around the stone symbols of the nation, facing the altar, watch him as he catches half the blood of the animals in basins and sprinkles the other half upon the altar. This done, he read to the people all the words written in the book. Again receiving their affirmation of obedience, he sprinkled the book and all the people with the other half of the blood, saying to them, 'Behold the blood of the covenant which the Lord hath made with you concerning all these words'. The same blood was both God's and the people's, though neither had shed it. Moses, the man of God, the mediator between God and man, had provided it, saying, 'this is the blood of the covenant which God hath enjoined unto you'.
Having accomplished his immediate task, from the ground of the blood-sealed covenant Moses again ascends into Sinai, accompanied this time by Aaron and seventy of the elders of Israel. The blood-sprinkled people standing around the smouldering altar watched them go, but did not know for what reason they went nor what the future held for them all. They knew that they were heading for the promised land, but they had yet to discover that they were to be the host nation to God — that He was planning to come and live among them.
When Moses finally reached the Lord at the top of Sinai he was given instructions to make Him a house and how to assemble and distribute the furniture. The altar of burnt offering was to be placed at His gates. It was not to be built of stone or made of earth as formerly, but of metal. It was to be different because it was to have a different function from any which preceded it; it was to be the altar of the blood of atonements. No previous altar had been built for that purpose; hitherto the idea of sin had not been introduced at any altar, but this one was deliberately ordered by God that it should be used for sacrifices for the coverage of the sins of Israel committed within the covenant. It was to be a kind of means for the continuation of the passover, the logical conclusion of it under that covenant. Obedience to the Lord in the matter of remission of sins by means of the brazen altar resulted in entire forgiveness — the Lord regarded their sins as covered by sacrifice and would pass over them because they were covered by the blood.
This altar was the seventh since Abraham' s on Moriah, but it was not to be the last one made in Israel. This may seem strange, for with the making and positioning of the brazen altar God had finalised all His demands concerning it and therefore would not accept any other. Notwithstanding this, the final altar made in Israel at that time was the one erected entirely without instruction, simply for the purpose of witness. Existing jointly with the brazen altar, this one was never used for sacrifice; it simply bore testimony to the unity of the nation and of their total acceptance by the Lord. The Lord fully accepted this uncommissioned altar. Standing there in all its unused glory, it existed solely as a symbol and confession of man's understanding of the principle of eternal life.
There is no clearer testimony to man's firm belief of this than the great altar which the two and a half tribes of Israel built upon the borders of their inheritance. The motive behind their action was completely misunderstood and misinterpreted by the many and caused so much alarm to the greater part of Israel that they were prepared to go and destroy both the altar and those who built it. However, the retributive action was averted because upon arbitration they learned that, although the altar was built, it was never to be used. Their brethren had erected it purposely to let everyone know that, although they were not living in the mainland of the inheritance of the Lord, they were still God's people.
Perhaps they may have chosen any one of a half dozen other things to set up as their particular emblem of unity, but they built an altar. There can scarcely be clearer evidence than this that they understood the significance of it, though to what measure who can say? To be cut off from God's altar was the worst punishment which could be inflicted on anybody in Israel; it meant that God had completely rejected that person and had cut him off from His inheritance and all hope of salvation.
It is significant that those men did not attempt to erect another tabernacle. If they had been guided by purely human, aesthetic desires they might have done so, but they knew that in that event both it and they would have been entirely unacceptable to God and their brethren. The altar was a different proposition however, it was theirs, it belonged to all the people, it was as necessary to their life as it was to God's. When it was erected no-one but they who built it seemed to appreciate it and perhaps even they did not understand the deepest significance of the gesture. They sought for some symbol of the unity they felt with their brethren and their God, a real testimony to the corporate life of the nation, and without division decided upon the idea of the altar. To the majority of Israel it seemed blasphemous and divisive, portending disinheritance and destruction, and who can blame them? No-one, not even Joshua, had been given any instructions about it, but the minority built it and God accepted it. The thought that had inspired their action was God-given, the expression of their desire was perfect; that small group had arrived at truth, they were right. The altar must remain.
Once again as it had been at the very beginning with Abel, without divine instructions, though not without divine aid, men had arrived at divine truth. In them also we see repeated the same kind of thing that Abraham did in his day. With united voice these all say that the first and most important thing to discover is the meaning of the altar, not the sacrifice laid upon it. They were confessing that Abraham, who left his bare and unused altars all over the land, was their father.
It was as though with this man God began all over again. Abel, who had made the original discovery, lost his life in doing so, but not in vain. The truth for which he was martyred, though lost sight of for centuries, was preserved through those years, reappearing on the purged earth following the deluge. But as time progressed and men continued to degenerate and turn from God it is lost sight of again and again; Babel is an example of this. By that time men had completely forsaken the earthly symbol of heavenly life; endeavouring to reach heaven by their own powers they started to build their own tower brick by brick. To frustrate their efforts God confounded their language and curtailed their labours; He also scattered abroad those men who tried to substitute a tower for an altar, but the judgement never cured their hearts of waywardness nor turned them back to God.
For this reason God chose Abraham, a descendant of Abel's brother Seth through Noah and Shem, and started again. By Abraham God restored the altar to the permanent place it must hold in a man's life and what it should symbolise to his heart. It is not surprising then to discover that the only blood to stain any of Abraham's altars was the lamb's which was shed on the holy mount. There is no record that the patriarch ever shed another's, though he built altar upon altar. It is remarkable how purposefully and completely God took hold. of this man. Undoubtedly He did so that through him, who was the 'father' of the Seed, He should reveal the needful truth.
As we have already seen God had something greater to show us than the doctrine of atonement for sin. This He unfolded later to the fullest detail through Noses; but by this man Abraham, the father of the race, He revealed the deeper secret of the life principle of God. Because this man refrained from offering to God that for which He had not asked, and refused to act in presumption to give the impression that he already knew what God desired, he was granted at last the revelation of what God actually wanted. How great was Abraham's patience that he never once asked God what he should offer Him, and how much greater is God's wisdom that during this whole period He never once told His chosen one what it was He wanted of him as sacrifice. So Abraham continued faithful in obedience to his inward knowledge, firm in his convictions about the altar, yet fully content to rest in his ignorance of God's mind.
The Eternal Elements
The patriarch was probably helped and confirmed in his beliefs by an incident which took place fairly early on in his pilgrimage. This event was one of the most notable experiences of his life, indeed of the whole Book. It happened one day when he was returning from a victorious battle over the world powers of the darkness of the age. Tired and battle-weary as he must have been, he was met by a couple of kings, one of whom was named MELCHIZEDEK — whom Abraham immediately accepted as his own high priest. As far as we know the patriarch belonged to no religious order; he had built many altars but had never made one bodily sacrifice. Without a system of religion he had no priest and in his humility he made no pretence or attempt to be one. Whatever passed between him and Melchizedek, Abraham meekly recognised and accepted this man's claims and ministry. From him Abraham was to discover the truth of eternal sacrifice and true priesthood in the spirit of which he had already been moving for a long time.
This Melchizedek was then reigning on the earth as the priest of the most high God. Whether there were other priests of this order on the earth at that time we do not know. That other men with other priests served other gods is certain, but Abraham had nothing to do with them. He was great, but great as he was, Melchizedek was a greater and far more important person than he.
Seeming to appear from nowhere, Melchizedek approached Abraham and offered him bread and wine. No word passed between them; there was no temple, no tabernacle in evidence; he built no altar, slew no sacrifice, shed no blood, lighted no fire, burned no incense. There was no ceremony, Melchizedek came from God to the patriarch; he neither preached nor prophesied, neither did he catechise him or inform him of God's requirements for sacrifice; there was no knife in his hand. He did not reprove the man for his bloodless hands or fireless altars, Abraham neither needed nor deserved it; instead Melchizedek blessed him and gave him the now familiar tokens of a past sacrifice. He brought him nothing of man or man's labours, but the twin elements and age-abiding memorials of the sacrifice of God.
Abraham had been right, all along he had moved in the obedience of a little child, knowing nothing, attempting nothing, waiting to be shown. Just how much he understood or was told of these secrets of God, now so well known to us, we cannot guess, but our understanding is sufficiently enlightened to see that those symbols testified then, as now, that the great sacrifice had already been made. Redemption had already been achieved by God; even at that early hour of the world's history its day had long since dawned in eternity and by Melchizedek God displayed to Abraham the evidence of it. There never had been, nor was there then, any need for Abraham to make a blood sacrifice; the Lamb was slain by the Father from the foundation of the world.
Melchizedek's ministry to Abraham was absolutely confirmatory, a testimony to his faithfulness: Abraham's procedure at the altar had been quite correct throughout; what a confirmation! He could and did retain the altar, for that must for ever stand among men as the pointer to God and the skies; that for which it representatively stood was precious and eternal. Its chief function was to reveal the life-principle of God. All we understand by the cross was originally developed from that. Finally it was brought forth as from God on earth.Eventually, because he had not forced animals upon the God Who had not forced them upon him, Abraham was led to Moriah, the place where he discovered the knowledge of God and true sacrifice. But for the time being we will reserve any attempt to assess and evaluate it; instead we will trace some further developments and outworkings of the altar theme in scripture.
DAVID, who was raised up of God in the fourteenth generation from Abraham, was taught much of God about sacrifice and offerings. Following in the footsteps of his father Abraham before him, though under completely different circumstances, he also was led of God to build an altar on Moriah. The importance of his action can scarcely be overemphasised for this was the place where Solomon his son later built the temple; perhaps he even placed the altar upon the exact spot. What an example of divine planning this is! God carefully marked the spot in Abraham, re-marked it in David and permanently fixed it by Solomon.
All of this shows that in God, long before the earthly temple and all that went on in it existed or could exist, the altar was and had to be. What an order and what an emphasis. The temple system included an altar for men, but long before that existed the altar paved the way for the temple.
It is true that David, like Abraham centuries before him, offered sacrifices on his altar. Both these men were commissioned by God, though at different times and for different reasons, to go and do so; but neither of them was under any delusions about them. When the command came, David, as Abraham before him, could do no other but obey; therefore he went to the mount and responded to God in the manner commanded him. It was absolutely necessary, but his heart-knowledge concerning the whole matter of sacrifice and offering is revealed in Psalms 40 and 51. He knew that God did not want those as such, He neither had desire for them nor took pleasure in them upon an altar. He originally made animals and birds for His own and man's pleasure; He did not make them to be slaughtered.
God first allowed and afterwards ordered the sacrifice of living things, because only by having them slain and offered to Himself could He teach man the lessons and truth he needed to know. David seemed to understand this perfectly; he saw and said that God did not want sacrifice and offering as much as He wanted His will done on earth. 'The sacrifices of God' he said 'are a broken spirit, a broken and a contrite heart O Lord thou wilt not despise'.
David knew that what was sacrificed and offered on the altar meant nothing to God and was of no avail to man unless his heart be pulverised into purity and his spirit broken from sin. The events which took place in his life leading up to Ornan's threshing-floor furnish evidence of this fact. When he built his altar and sacrificed there David was indeed a man of broken spirit and contrite heart, wanting only to be obedient before God. His sacrifices were only outward means and tokens of giving himself afresh to the Lord, who had been more merciful to him than he had right to expect. He had fallen and he did not try to hide it; undeservedly and mercifully enough he had not fallen out of the Lord's hands but into them and O how gracious he had found. Him to be. David ascended Moriah, purchased the spot where the angel stayed his hand from slaughter and built his altar in a threshing-floor; he knew his need to be threshed by God. With deepest penitence he submitted to it; in the end the man is found to be pure wheat. As far as we may judge this episode marks the time of his final defection from the path of righteousness. It was a period of unspeakable tragedy, but the building of the altar marked his return to the paths of righteousness and his complete acceptance by God.
With inspired foresight David saw that this very spot was the place where the temple should be built. Therefore, with equally inspired zeal, from that time onward David devoted himself almost entirely to the task of preparation. Plans were drawn up and materials assembled for building an 'exceeding magnifical' house for God on the site of the threshing-floor in which the altar stood. With the direct intention of facilitating this, during his last days David made his son king and, soon after his father's death, in compliance with his father's wishes, Solomon built the temple with the materials which David had prepared.
All of this further points the lesson that God is not, nor can be, without sacrifice; it is not only a principle of eternal life, it is also a domestic necessity apart from which He cannot abide anywhere. Even if only temporarily, wherever He dwells there must be an altar to symbolise the spiritual sacrifice so vital to life and without which it cannot be.
Beside signifying this principle, to men of spiritual perception like David the other purpose of the altar was its functional means of offering visible sacrifices to God. In paradise there was no altar, nor could be, consequently God did not live there; He only visited the place in the cool of the day, for He cannot abide anywhere at any time apart from sacrifice.
We know that sacrifices for sin must always be made from the broken spirits and contrite hearts of the sinful men who offer them. Perhaps it was in fulfilment of this aspect of sacrifice that, before rising and going to hang broken-hearted on a cross at Golgotha, the Lord Jesus went to Gethsemane and did what He did and said what He said there. There is no aspect of sacrifice which the Lord did not fulfil; Gethsemane's awful, mysterious events seem most likely to furnish the proper testimonials to the brokenness of spirit which God required of Him on behalf of man. There had never been, nor is there now, neither can there ever be sorrow like unto Jesus' sorrow. He did not only sorrow personally, that is to say because of the unwarrantable injustice and utter rejection He received from man, but also vicariously and representatively. In this capacity He sorrowed: (1) as penitentially for all convicted men who have been made aware of the heinousness of their sin, (2) profoundly as God for His creatures.
Beside this, He delighted also to do God's will and this pleasure swallowed up all the sorrows in joy. This made His spirit whole and healed His aching, breaking heart, so that He could gather all sacrifice into one and give His all as a great ascending offering to God. His sacrifice and death for sin was so perfect and all-inclusive that it ended all further need for outward physical or inward spiritual sacrifices for sin for ever. Jesus' sacrifice and offering as Man for men is as complete as it is comprehensive.
Living, Spiritual Sacrifices
Yet the writer to the Hebrews tells us that we have an altar and Peter tells us that we are to offer up spiritual sacrifices. We know therefore that, although we are to be sacrificing priests, we are not to attempt to offer to God any kind of sacrifices for sin, whether they be physical, material or spiritual. In any case we have not been given any physical equivalent to an altar upon which to offer any such sacrifice. The Lord Jesus offered one sacrifice for sin for ever and sat down, and we are told to enter into that rest.
Under the Old Testament constitution, annually on the day of atonement, the Lord accepted blood freshly sprinkled upon His throne from the hand of the High Priest. It was a token offering speaking of Christ's blood. The action signified the people's deep repentance and total renunciation and confession of sins. The result was the remission and riddance of twelve months of sins 'that were past through the forbearance of God'. Only under these conditions could He continue to sit there and reign over His people and be their God. Under the Old Covenant this had to be continuously repeated, because forgiveness then was only by an arrangement of repeated coverings or atonements. But now, reconciliation being brought in, we may enter through the rent veil and sit down with the Lord in perfect rest. Concerning this aspect of His sacrifice there is no more to do, it has been eternally accomplished by Jesus so we sit down with Him. Never again is there to be any daily standing for ministry and offering by Him or anyone else along that line.
However, under the NEW COVENANT there is still desire and expectation in God's heart, as well as a place and need for gift and freewill offerings and sacrifices to be made. Unlike the one eternal sin-offering these must be made eternally, repetitiously. It is to this class of offering that the following verses refer:
(1) 'present your bodies, a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto Him, which is your reasonable service';
(2) 'by Him therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise, the fruit of our lips, offering praise unto His name'.
The former verse is statedly connected with service and has directly to do with the particular function of the Aaronic family. It was their duty-service in the age of law to present to God the bodies of the living animals which were brought by the children of Israel and were slaughtered beside the altar for sacrifice. The final act of presentation to God by fire upon the altar was the priests' reasonable service because that was their duty.
It would have been most iniquitous and utterly unreasonable of those priests if, after their brethren had bred and brought their sacrifices to the altar at God's command, they had refused to make the final act of presentation that made them acceptable in His sight. That age is now past but God is still calling for bodies to be presented sacrificially to Him. Not as formerly, dead upon an altar, but nevertheless as truly given over to do the will of God as were the bodies of Jesus in His day and Paul in his.
At the end of his life Paul could write, 'I am ready to be offered', or better 'I am already being poured out'. Once he wrote to the Philippians exhorting them to rejoice with him 'if I be poured out upon the sacrifice and service of your faith'. He lived a life of continuous sacrifice and so also did many in the early church, such as Epaphroditus of whom he wrote in high commendation. Likewise Luke tells us of Stephen who offered up his body first unto the Lord in selfless service as a deacon and then with equal devotion in final sacrifice as a martyr. Paul said that he himself sought only to fill up that which was behind of the sufferings of Christ in his body of flesh for the Church which (he recognised) is His body.
These are the kind of bodily offerings and sacrifices the Lord is expecting from His people today and if the altar principle be in their lives as it is in His He will not be disappointed. In view of these things we all ought to ask ourselves, and perhaps each other, to whom are we sacrificing ourselves? For what are we sacrificing our lives? Are we all now wholly presented to God? If so by whom and to what purpose?
The second verse quoted above is undoubtedly connected with the tabernacle-temple service of the Sons of Asaph. The book of Hebrews is largely linked with David; quotations from his psalms abound everywhere throughout the epistle. The writer was obviously very familiar with the ancient writings of Israel's poet-king; those sacred songs had been incorporated into the religious life of the people and had always held a place of honour in their worship. David had written many if not all his psalms with the direct purpose of training men to sing them accompanied by 'the players on instruments' in association with the functions of the priests. The two forms and means of service were combined by David and. were each the respective duties of those appointed to participate in them.
A reading of the psalms, especially those that in the title are designated for singing, ought to give us instruction in the kind of things which are acceptable to God as sacrifices of praise. Perhaps we may find it instructive that they do not all consist of 'Hallelujah, Hallelujah, praise the Lord', but the greater number are categorical statements of historic or devotional truth. Sometimes they are revelatory, sometimes prophetic, or they may be eulogistic, or hortatory, doctrinal, Messianic, explanatory, penitential, judgemental; they are variable in pattern and length, thoroughly reflective of the writer's character and all inspired of God. In the daily ritual of the temple service, as the bodily sacrifices were made so also were the verbal ones; in the temple sacrifice and offering was attended with song. People who dared not touch the altar could nevertheless engage in singing psalms.
So also it is with us today. We dare not touch the altar in relationship to the one full, perfect and sufficient sacrifice and oblation for sin, but we can stand and offer the accompanying sacrifice of praise, and because we can we must because we ought; it is all part of our reasonable service.
Beside this, let us remember that praise must not always be thought of in terms of singing. STEPHEN would hardly be thought of as a psalmist, but thinking comparatively about his great 'apologia' it would not be very difficult to liken it, at least in parts, to a psalm. In much the same way as David did at times, he makes a historical survey of God's covenant dealings with Israel, then with inspired power he applies a singular, unforgettable lesson to the hearts of his hearers. He paid for his boldness with his life; so we see that both kinds of sacrifice are offered by this great saint and martyr — he offered his last great sacrifice with blood and praise and prayer.
The other principle was finely manifest in Stephen's life — he was and still is a living sacrifice. When God receives into His hands our spirits, will He, as was the case with Jesus and Stephen, receive a living sacrifice as well as a living son? If the living God lives by the altar principle, ought we who are His people to think that we can live by any other?
A Consuming Fire
One of the great cries that ELIJAH the prophet of God made against Israel was 'they have digged down thine altars'. It was a terrible indictment calling for severest punishment, yet for the sake of the remnant in Israel and by the faith of the prophet, the Lord spared the people. The story of the contest on Carmel makes tremendous reading. At the crucial point we are introduced first to hundreds of the prophets of Baal building and leaping on their cold altar, mingling their own blood with the blood of their sacrifices, all to no avail. Then we behold the lone, brave prophet of the Lord, triumphant in faith, building his altar of twelve stones to the Lord.
Elijah was more than a prophet at that moment; he reigned over his circumstances like a king. Like the high priest of God he would make the sacrifice for all Israel; the altar upon which the offering would finally be laid should be the whole nation, each stone must represent a tribe. Needless to say God was entirely satisfied. Upon Elijah's altar the all-consuming fire fell; it devoured the sacrifice, the water that saturated and surrounded it and also the very stones upon which it was supported, elevating all to God.
The key to all lies here before us. Elijah was a man of great faith. The abundant rain, the revival of life, the fruitfulness of the land, the ultimate overthrow of the demonic despotism of Ahab and Jezebel, all came as a result of Elijah's faith. The prophet is a greatly admired man among us to this day, but great as he was, and however greatly we admire him and seek to emulate his faith, we shall miss the greatest lesson of all if we overlook the fact that everything sprang from his spiritual insight into the ground of truth in God. Like David and Abraham, and perhaps an unnamed host of others, he was a man who understood that the visible altar was but a symbol of a spiritual principle of God's life.
His main function that day on Carmel was to represent to the people what they were. He showed them that they were the altar people of God and drew attention to the means of their real spiritual life. The genius of the man lay in the fact that he saw and understood that to be God's people men must live as God. At the hour of national crisis the altar on Carmel was nothing other than the way into the Temple, the gate of heaven and the entrance into the house of the Lord. Saturating the sacrifice and thoroughly wetting the stones, Elijah precluded the possibility of ignition by any fanatical false prophet seeking to create false fire in an attempt to destroy the purposes of God. The water was poured in until it filled the trench; it flowed round the base of the altar until it completely isolated it. At last there it stood alone, the object of everyone's gaze and Elijah's expectation, separated from the surrounding earth by its moat like an island separated from the mainland by the sea.
Israel was for God and God was for Israel. That day, by God's grace and faithful Elijah's symbolic act, God and His people were isolated from sin and heathendom by the sea of love, joined by sacrifice and consumed together in one fire on the mountain-top of His kingdom. Israel had digged down God's altars, but Elijah built them up into one altar again, placed the sacrifice upon it and the fire fell. But they could not retain the blessing; the desires of God and the intentions of His prophets could not withhold them from their folly. Despite the unforgettable lessons, Israel did not learn the truth which Elijah knew and so singularly taught on Carmel.
A Husbandly Covenant
HOSEA, another mighty prophet of similar insight and understanding, says of his people that since altars had been to Israel to sin, then altars should be to them to sin. What a dreadful state of affairs this was. That which had been revealed to them as a means of blessing had irretrievably become a means of causing the absolute opposite of God's original intention. Instead of the altar being the place where sin was forgiven by atonements, it was the place where their sin increased. They were using all kinds of self-made illegitimate altars to offer many sorts of self-chosen abominable sacrifices to a variety of different self-devised idol-gods in increasing numbers of self-built temples. All of these were expressions of self-willed sin and studied insults to God. The opening chapters of the book make it very plain that Israel were living in spiritual harlotry.
Yet God loved the people and regarded Himself as married to them. He had entered into spiritual covenant and union with them by a great oath that He would be their God and they His people, so He felt that the onus lay upon Him to act toward them as a faithful husband. Although Israel's behaviour toward Him merited punishment and He would have to administer it, He would do so in love and mercy. At the worst it would only be corrective, He could not bring Himself to be altogether destructive toward them. He would limit His anger, directing it to the elimination of the divisive abominations which had become such a barrier between them and their God.
He loved them dearly and felt jealous and hurt over their conduct as would a faithful husband over the behaviour of an unfaithful wife; He would therefore punish them, but He would not divorce them. His covenant and oath to them had been sealed with blood; He had meant every word of it. When He made His vows He did so without any desire or intention in His heart to break or deviate from them, nor would He. But on their part Israel did not see or know, nor did they seem to understand in any degree that their relationship to Jehovah was to be as a wife to a husband. Isaiah had cried it out to them in his day, but whether they had ever read or still read his prophecy is very doubtful.
Their history is one long story of almost unrelieved backsliding. it is almost certain that their forefathers had never understood the full meaning of the events recorded in Exodus 24. Events proved that they never grasped the full implication of God's covenant. Why, even before the tables of the covenant were in their hands, they were making a golden calf and wishing they were back in Egypt. At that time, by a series of unparalleled miracles, the fathers of the nation had but lately come out of Egypt across the Red Sea and were gathered at the foot of mount Sinai. Having earlier briefly referred to this, we will consider it now more fully, for here it finds its natural place in the exposition.
At the call of God, Moses, their saviour, leader and mediator had been up and had returned from the mountain with instructions to inform the people of the covenant God wished to make with them. At this juncture the ten commandments which were to form the basis of the covenant had not been written. As recorded in chapter 20, Moses had already received them from God whilst in His presence under the power of His Spirit, but as yet God had not inscribed them. So, descending the mountain under commission from God, Moses gathered the people together and reported to them what God had said to him. The object of this was to acquaint them with God's terms so that they could voluntarily enter the covenant of love with understanding. When the people heard God's terms they unanimously promised, 'all the words which the Lord hath said we will do and be obedient'. Well pleased with them, Moses accepted their vow and in God's behalf took them at their word. Not until then did Moses commit the commandments and ordinances he had so far received to writing.
This sacred writing was the first 'Bible' ever given by God to man. We now know it was really only the first instalment of the inspired Word. Viewed in the light of all the foregoing, it is surely a most remarkable fact of great importance to us that the first thing ever to be put into writing by God should be this covenant. It is perhaps as remarkable also that around it the other great revelations should be later assembled. Just how and when the rest of the Pentateuch was received and written and ordered in its entirety we cannot be sure. Whether Genesis came last and was placed first we do not know; we can only thank and praise God that we have it.
We do know practically to the point of certainty however that the Book was commenced under the shadow of Sinai and that the first words written down by Moses were not 'In the beginning God created...' but these which now comprise chapters 20-23 of the book of Exodus. 'I am the Lord thy God .... thou shalt have no other gods before me'; what a beginning — God, just God, all God, only God. From this ultimately flowed the words of Genesis 1 — 'In the beginning God'. But let us see how Moses continues with his first great revelation from the Spirit: 'I the Lord thy God am a jealous God ... thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain. God is come to prove you ... an altar ... if they will make me an altar'. Thus the writing continues, but what a surprising course to take. 'I am the Lord thy God ... if thou wilt make me an altar'; who would have expected that?
By this we can see most clearly into God's naked Spirit; by saying such things He has revealed Himself. Right from the beginning the Lord's primary insistence to Israel was that they were to be the people of God and the altar. The commandments were given to keep them from sin, and the altar was devised to reveal both the principle of life and the way they could offer themselves to God. The wording is significant, 'thou shalt not come up by steps to my altar'; note that the Lord does not go on to say 'to offer thy sacrifice'. The whole implication is that the sacrifice is the person, not something the person offers.
The Pattern of the HouseWhen saying these things the Lord was also intending to show Moses very shortly the pattern of the house and furniture which He wished His people to make for Him. As we have already seen, one of those pieces of furniture was a large brazen altar which was to be so positioned that it should be to man as the doorway through which the first step should be taken to approach God. But even before He stated His requirements for that, or time be found to make it, He wanted His people to know the importance of the altar to Him and to them. The order in this chapter is: God, the people, the altar, God's altar. The great link between God and His people was to be the altar.
The interim period between the giving of the law and the building of the tabernacle at Sinai was to be the altar period. The command was clear, 'an altar of earth thou shalt make unto me and thou shalt sacrifice ... in all places where I record my name I will come unto thee and bless thee'. The altar, the earth, the sacrifice, the name, the blessing. God left them no option, they were to make an altar. If they wished to continue and keep in touch with Him as He did with them, it could only be upon the condition that they made His altar.
The ten commandments were connected with the altar. To Him it was as important as the bow in the cloud at Ararat and the blood upon the houses in Egypt; the altar must be His symbol upon the earth. Even though the significance of it be not grasped nor the principle understood by those who obeyed Him, the wish must nevertheless be acknowledged and the symbol accepted. True to the original order of creation, God's first thought and instruction in giving command concerning the altar was that it was to be made of earth; only as of secondary importance was instruction given about building an alternative altar of stone. In doing this the Lord was following the principle of the plan He had employed when making man.
As Adam and Eve were one, yet two slightly though obviously different people, so the altar symbol was one, though obviously of two slightly different materials and erections. In Eden Adam was first made entirely of earth; some time after that Eve was made / builded from one of his ribs to be a help, meet for him. God in giving instructions about the altar carried through this method exactly; the altar of earth, made: the altar of stone, made/builded.
As we read the Book of God's words and works and ways, the basic simplicity of the Lord in all things utterly amazes us. His profound ethics, His undeviating laws, His methods of procedure, His unshakeable righteousness upon which all is founded, and the scrupulous care with which He fashions the whole, all flow together into the enlightened understanding as a mighty river; the heart thus filled expands into immensity like the sea which never overflows nor bursts the living spirit within, though it swell with unspeakable wonder and divine rapture. Without controversy surely meditation and understanding are the deepest fountains from which the river flows with grateful love in ceaseless praise.
This chapter of the covenant, which is the beginning of all scripture, holds the key to that which by rearrangement is now read as though it is the beginning of scripture. Logically Genesis takes its place at the beginning of the Book because it gives the narrative account of the commencement of creation. It records the beginning and therefore bears that name; but in keeping with the truth that God is the God of second things, that which is recorded in the second book was written first and holds the key to creation. God made man of earth first and next builded woman from a rib taken from man, as a stone taken from earth, and this He did to show us that man must be an altar of sacrifice and offering to his maker and God.
Something of the vastness of this unchangeable truth comes through to us from Abraham, of whom the writer to the Hebrews tells us that 'he looked for a city that hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God'. Like Man, the eternal city must be an altar; and so indeed it is; it is God's temple city, His tabernacle. For foundations it has the twelve apostles of the Lamb; men who in their lives were altars upon which the Lamb was offered to God. Upon their lives was built the Church, which upon inspection is found to be nothing but the altar of God.
Right there in the midst of all, eternally held in the heart of New Jerusalem, are God and the Lamb. New Jerusalem is the Eve of the heavenly Adam coming down out of heaven from God; she is the bride, His wife, a help meet for Him to show forth the secret of God and eternal life and pure everlasting love. She is one with Him, helping Him to reveal that God is Life and God is Love; by it and because of it she is pure, simple, transparent, glorious, eternal light.
The principal principle of God who is Life and Love and Light Eternal is sacrifice and offering; apart from it neither Man, nor the City, nor God Himself can possibly be. In God life and death are one. That is why Paul so emphatically says that neither life nor death shall be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus. To be in His life we must be planted (eternally) in His death, for He is Resurrection. We, like Him, must be crucified ones, lambs as they had been slain; called lions by angels, sons by the Father, bride and wife by the Spirit, body by Christ, house by God, Israel of God in scripture, inner heart-temple by insight of His lovers.
Concerning these things and in a way suited to their day and age God sought to bring Israel into covenant with Himself at Sinai. So writing down the terms of the covenant, Moses rose early in the morning to build an altar under the hill and set up twelve pillars according to the twelve tribes of Israel; having done so he sent twelve men to offer sacrifices to God. As yet the priesthood had not been elected, so in a manner Moses was putting Israel to their fundamental business of national priesthood unto and before the Lord unto whom they were gathered.
Following this he took basins (perhaps one each for a tribe) in which he put half the blood of the offerings, sprinkling the other half on the altar. Then he read the book of the covenant to them and, having received their affirmation, sprinkled both it and the people so that the blood was now on the altar — first: the book — second and the people last (see Hebrews 10 v.17-19). Proceeding to the actual marriage oath he pronounced these words, 'Behold the blood of the covenant which the Lord hath made with you concerning all these words'. By the blood of the covenant the whole nation was joined as one with God.
The altar symbolised God's basic principle of life, the book symbolised God Himself — John 1 v.1,2; the blood symbolised their incorporation into and union with God; the people represented God's house. By these things Israel should have seen God, how He lived and where He lived and why He lived. Only after this could men see God and live; not until the marriage vows were taken and the sacred covenant sealed did God give Israel His own writing in stone and ask them to make Him a tent to live in. He had no wish to live with and be as a spiritual husband to Israel unless they covenanted to belong solely to Him and to love Him as He loved them. He knew also that they could and would never do that unless they understood the principle of spiritual sacrifice and self-offering upon which all life is founded. So He tested them by asking of them the sacrifice of love, 'speak unto the children of Israel that they bring me an offering, of every man that giveth it willingly with his heart ye shall take my offering'. The heart must be in and with everything that is given.
The symbolic altar involving flesh and blood sacrifices, real though it was, is not in view here, but the actual altar is very much envisaged. God was calling for extremely sacrificial giving by asking such things of a nomadic race. He was taking from them the things by which they spoiled the Egyptians ere they left Goshen, probably the only valuables they had. Were they willing to give sacrificially to Him? Moses, speaking from behind the veil that covered his shining face, spoke unto all the congregation of the children of Israel saying, 'this is the thing that the Lord commanded, take ye from among you an offering unto the Lord, whosoever is of a willing heart let him bring it an offering of the Lord'.
'They came everyone whose heart stirred him up and everyone whom his spirit made him willing and they brought the Lord's offering'. So vast and spontaneous was the response that it was reported to Moses 'the people bring much more than enough'. They gave, and giving gave themselves, 'the depth of their poverty abounded unto the riches of their liberality'; that is the principle of the altar in man and in God. In a way these words are as true of God as of men, for rich as He is, He only had one son. When giving Him He was impoverished in sonship, for there was not another to give: behold then His liberality in giving Him up for us all. What riches of love and grace!
The unvarying principle of life and love runs through all these sayings, 'we. through His poverty have been made rich'. Ancient Israel never heard or read them; Paul was not their apostle. What a wondrous insight he had into spiritual truth which they apparently did not see. Until Hosea and Jeremiah voiced it, Israel did not appear to understand their God to be a lover and a husband who had espoused the nation to Himself through the blood and the lamb in Egypt, and who had married them at Sinai. He said He was a husband to them, taking them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt; Israel were holiness unto the Lord then and went after Him in the wilderness, but they broke the husbandly covenant. Despite that, He loved them with an everlasting love, and at one time asked — 'how can I give thee up?' At another He asked, 'where is the bill of your mother's divorcement, or to which of my creditors have I sold you?' But no bill of former legal divorcement could be found, nor was there any evidence of a present bill of sale into slavery.
God's love is based upon self-giving by sacrifice; so is all true love. He cannot deny Himself, so He caused Hosea to record His promises of future restoration. By their own wishes the people were now no longer to Him as a wife; they had estranged themselves from Him and He could no longer be to them as a husband. But in the justice that demanded they be punished He remembered mercy and graciously told them that there would come a day when He would betroth them unto Himself for ever. The basis of that betrothal will be righteousness, judgement, loving-kindness, mercies, faithfulness and knowledge of the Lord. They had been unrighteous, unjust, brutally unloving, unmerciful, unfaithful and ignorant; a shifty, shallow and transient people. God had 'desired mercy and not sacrifice and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings', He said, but they had other desires and preferred the outward show of ritualism. The real root of their terrible behaviour lay at the point God laid bare here, 'they like men (Adam) have transgressed the covenant, there have they dealt treacherously against me'.
Adam in the garden, Israel at Sinai, Ephraim and Judah in the land all broke covenant faith with God; the issue was the same every time. Old Adam always does this; in Eden Adam broke the covenant by failing to be a faithful husband to Eve; therefore he became as a faithless wife to God, his husband and maker. Israel did it at Sinai by failing to be as a true wife to God, making an idolatrous golden calf to replace Him; Ephraim and Judah also did it quite openly in Canaan by playing the harlot with other nations to go after their goods and gods and accept their standards of living. Multiplying altars, idols and temples with religious fervour, they finally succeeded in selling themselves into slavery in foreign lands as a result. Having first made themselves slaves estranged from God while yet in their own land, they were eventually cast out and carried away captive to serve the devil in another.
All this happened to them because they failed to recognise what the altar symbolised. They saw the outward altar, the blood and the bodily sacrifices, but they had no spiritual insight or heart-grasp of what these things represented. Israel were a complete spiritual failure, therefore they became a national failure and an international disgrace.
The Cross and the Altar
Spiritual blindness is a malady by no means limited to olden days and ancient Israel; it is a widespread modern disease too. Few there are who recognise the Christ or understand His meaning or the import of His apostles' words. Consider this statement by Jesus, 'if thou bring thy gift to the altar and there rememberest thy brother hast aught against thee, leave there thy gift before the altar and go thy way, first be reconciled to thy brother and then come and offer thy gift'.
The altar is an expression of a basic principle of God's way of life; it symbolises unity by union based upon the sacrifice of self-giving. How then can He possibly accept a gift upon His altar if it is offered in face of possibility of disunion between brethren? First go and be reconciled to thy brother, then come and offer thy gift, He says.
Too few have fully grasped: (1) the difference between the cross and the altar, and (2) the identity of the cross with the altar. In material, shape, size and purpose the Roman cross was as different and distinct from Israel's altar as it could possibly be. One was an instrument of punishment and shame devised by a barbaric heathen nation to apply civil justice to extreme criminals, the other was a piece of religious equipment whereon gifts and offerings could be given to God. One was the place of rejection, the other the place of acceptance. In some ways they are alike, even as regards their physical associations, for the altar, like the cross, was a place of physical death and each was a representation of sovereign power, the first God's, the second Caesar's. There the resemblance ends.
There is that about the cross of Christ which in no way resembles the altar because of its association with sin. The cross was the pillory upon which God chose to identify His Son with old Adam; He impaled Him there in order that He should thereby be punished to death without mercy. In that respect therefore Jesus had no place at the altar and was cut off from it. The cross was the direct antithesis of the altar; it points to God's judgement on sin and the sinner and the whole rejected manhood of sin. But having conquered in that sphere and finished that part of His work on the cross, the Lord then proceeded to use it as an altar whereon He offered Himself without spot to God. This done, He had completed His work and He dismissed His spirit.
In fulfilment of His own statement, on behalf of mankind with its age-old rivalries and divisions and enmities, at Calvary He did five things: (1) He brought His gift to the altar and (2) (so to speak) left it there while He (3) went to the cross of and for reconciliation and (4) having accomplished it in one body, (5) came and offered His gift. By so saying and doing He made sacrifice the primal life-principle of the Church as well as of God; it was in view of the cross that He made His earliest statement about the altar. That was His art. He who knew no sin was made sin that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.
In the midst of all that sin, right there at the heart of it, was righteousness, for He remained righteous throughout. This is the great mystery which resolved the problem of sin and iniquity. By this God was able to deal with the impossibility of redeeming, reconciling and regenerating and receiving man and at the same time, by one act, righteously finalising and eternally dispensing with the temporary measures of atonement and the need for man-made altars.
The Throne and the Altar
The whole principle is divinely laid out for us in fullest detail by the exactitude of tabernacle typology. The tabernacle was assembled for this purpose and is scientifically precise in all the details of Redemption and Atonements it presented to Israel. It was really a house of God adapted to Atonements. The throne upon which He sat under the cloud, manifesting Himself in glory beneath the wings of the cherubim as the Shekinah, was only called the Mercy Seat because upon it every year was sprinkled the blood of the Atonement and for no other reason. By bestowing upon it this name, the Lord deliberately related the throne to the altar whereon blood was daily poured and burnt. The blood was the link between the two and by this means God was trying to show Israel the indispensability of the principle of sacrifice; how far He succeeded who can tell?
The throne and the altar were one; they still are and always have been one. In the same way that sacrifice is the basis of the one life in the three persons of God, so also sacrifice had to be both the basis of the national life of Israel and the basis of relationship between God and each individual Israelite. God was showing them that He could only live and dwell on earth with men upon this principle. Therefore He ordered them to sprinkle blood upon His throne that it may be turned by them into an altar for Him. This being done, He abode thereon in living glorious fire among them. By night over the top of that throne, towering away into the heavens as an immovable pillar and suitably adapted to human vision, that fire could be plainly seen. By day the glory was clouded and veiled, by night the fire was in full view.
It was the sacrifice being consumed under that column of fire which caused it to burn with such eternal intensity. But there was no body of animal or man within that Holiest place; why then this steady, unending, powerful fire which seemed to leap so spontaneously from earth to heaven? Whence came it and how? The answer is Jesus. There was no body of flesh and blood and no fat to burn within the sanctuary of sanctuaries; that is why the pillar, though of fire, was not of smoke. Instead, isolated in splendour within the veil of inward holiness right in the centre and at the head of all, stood the Ark of the Covenant of God. It represented Christ Jesus: He was the altar there just as He was the altar of the Court gate.
Altar and throne are one, all is Christ. Out there at the gate, the flesh and blood and fat could be seen and smelt, the body could be handled and the fire heard, but in the Holy of Holies there was no voice or smell or sight of burning, it was a different altar; God's is an eternal sacrifice; everything there was spiritual, original, unchanging, fundamental.
The Union of the Altar and the Sacrifice
O God, wilt Thou not give us all eyes to see, ears to hear, senses to smell, hands to handle and a heart to understand, lest seeing we see not and hearing we do not hear, nor taste nor handle nor believe; lest our hearts feel nothing and we be all as cold and dead as bodies of useless animals. Of old the Lord did not adapt and accommodate Himself to man by inanimate things, on the contrary He took of man and things and adapted them to Himself. He lost no glory nor laboured in vain when ordering His tabernacle, but, consistently with His being and true to Himself, He accommodated all that He commanded of Israel to one invariable principle of eternal life.
This He did, that by many things He should speak of One only and continuously until He should come Who is the fulfilment of them all. The multitudinous details scrupulously and repetitiously practised were imposed under the limitations of the system of atonements then in force. At that time, because of the nature of the covenant, the Lord had to deal with different issues separately in order to distinguish them; but by the reconciling Christ He dealt with all things at once.
Christ has made the altar of God plain and meaningful and absolutely indispensable to us. He has explained and interpreted it; in His own inimitable way He has forever established it in the midst of the churches and has had the fact recorded for us in the last book of the Bible. The revelation of Him given in the first chapter is of the Voice speaking in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks. John turned to see and describe for us the vision he saw. It was of the Lord Jesus; standing there as the Son of Man all-glorious, He was shining, flaming, burning fire. His feet supply the clue to His whole stand on the various counts concerning which He has come to judge in the churches — they were like fine brass as though they burned in a furnace, says John. He appeared to be exactly what He is — the apotheosis of sacrifice.
In Israel the only furnace that counted with God was the one which stood at the entrance of His courts. It was the altar of Israel and God. At His commandment it was made of brass and the fire that burned in it was as a furnace that never went out. So fierce was the fire and so intense the heat that it withstood all the tempestuous winds that blew and the rains which torrented upon it summer and winter. Fed by the countless offerings of the myriads of Israel, that fire ate its way through flesh and bone and lapped up the blood of the carcasses heaped upon the altar in fervent devotion. Under such power the bodies quickly turned to ashes, which in turn ultimately found their way on to a heap outside the camp where they lay, grey and dead, far away from the altar. Lying there, mute and lifeless, they gave testimony that the sacrifice had indeed been made; it had ascended up as a savour of love in fire to Him who sat upon the Mercy Seat. And the heart of Him who watched and smelled and tasted the sweet savour rested upon the Christ represented in, though yet unknown by, His people. The Father heard and handled the Son who, all unawares, they offered to God.
It had to be like that. Ignorant as they were of the Christ, they could have neither national nor individual existence or acceptance except He be their all. He it was who symbolically rose up in all His self-sacrificing beauty and glorious love from Israel's brazen altar and stood before God in the midst of His people. If it had to be so for those, how much more must this be also for the Church.
So it is that, burning as fire, with glowing feet, the Lord of love and glory presents Himself to His churches. At first He stands still, right in the midst of them, mutely symbolical, holding before our vision the testimony to the supreme sacrifice still ascending in love to His God and Father on our behalf. Then, in complete accord with His visual manifestation to John and us, He becomes vocal and reveals the reason for His coming to the churches in this form and manner; it is to recall His people to first love. Well may He do so, for who as He should, or is able, or is more prepared to do this? It is of incontrovertible significance that, of all the manifestations of Himself He vouchsafes to John in course of the unfolding revelation, the first should be in connection with the altar in pursuit of first love.
The second vision of Him is as THE LAMB upon and in the midst of the throne. The altar and the throne. This is nothing other than a repetition of the order and connection we observed in the tabernacle — the altar and the mercy seat. It was the same in John's day as in Moses'; it is still the same now and always will be; it cannot change, for this is the eternal order with God. The form or manifestation may, indeed must, change; but in whatever form it may appear, love and sacrifice cannot exist apart from each other, any more than water can be, apart from being H2O — they are one and the same as are substance and analysis.
So we have laid open for us to see what first love is; it is that quality of love which is in God. He is that first love, and 'He first loved us' says John, and from this source all that is good, pure, holy and beneficial flows, and basic to it all lies sacrifice. The Christ of the churches stands as though rising up from the altar fire, the living sacrifice in a furnace of love. The Vision Glorious manifests the reason for the call and is its reward. If we love Him and would respond to His call we must first acknowledge the eternal sacrifice, repent and count all things but loss to gain Him in life, join Him on the altar and pass into God.
Hearts may well wail who never were shown this, who have wasted life, time and effort to achieve that which, when gained, is only ashes and has passed from them in the gaining. All that is not motivated by sacrificial love and founded upon the altar life of Christ is rejected by God, for it is a denial of His very life.
'I AM' says the voice that speaks from the altar in the midst of the churches, 'the beginning and the ending, the first and the last, He which is and which was, and which is to come'. His face shining like the burning sun and His feet glowing like the fiery furnace surely testify to the point of moral certainty that His body also must be burning fire too. How could His face burn and shine so that His eyes are leaping flames and His feet glow with the intensity of furnace-heat because of the fire that burns within, and His body not be fire also? It is covered for God's good reasons, but it is surely an open secret.
Truly enough the churches are veiled fire, lamp stands only, but how can the lamps shine except they burn? Surely the Lord is telling us that the light of the churches is Himself as He here manifests Himself to be. If this be not their light, then there is no light for the dark world. The light of the churches is not for themselves but for mankind.
If we will join ourselves to our Lord in sacrificial love, then we shall know exactly what first love is; we may only join Him in first love in order to give ourselves constantly in self-sacrifice to Father. Only then shall we be light and be able to show that kind of light He wishes to shine in this world. Failing to do so, churches will be removed. Organisations created and sustained by men's will and considered by them to be churches may continue as substitutes for genuine churches and be thought to be what Christ instituted, but the true Church will not be there.
Apart from first love there can be no Church nor any churches, for the Church is nothing other than an embodiment of Christ; it is His Body. It embodies and is all that He is — all that He ever was and shall be; it can be no other; if it differs from that, whatever it is it is not the Church. The Church is here to be in and to this generation what Jesus was in His day to His generation; but not only so, it is also here to display and be a continuing manifestation in and to this age of what God ever has been and shall eternally be.
Way beyond demonstrating the life and powers of Jesus' manhood which every man saw and tasted while He was on earth, the Church has to be a manifestation of His Godhead also. She has to reveal what He eternally was known to be in God and seen to be before angels before He came to earth. The Church throughout its many churches must reveal its God-head or head-ship in God, for He in whom dwelt all the fullness of the Godhead bodily is the Church's head. The Church is the body of Him and because of this is the embodiment of all that. This is its greatest mission in the world.
This is why the Lord appeared as He did to John. He wanted the revelation which God gave to Him of Himself and the future to begin on this note, 'Let love, first love, be in you, consume you, burn you up, keep you eternally alive, as it has been and has done in me from the very first; come, join me on the altar; to sacrifice self is no pain. There is no hardship or suffering here; all that could have felt pain is now dead, only that which lives and rises eternal lives here; you are come to God by me. I have shown you the principle of life, abide here in me, and I in you, on the altar of God, always ascending with me in this love-life to my Father and your Father; I am the resurrection and the life. I am He that liveth and was dead and behold I am alive for evermore and so now are you, for I am this in you and you in me. All that I manifested and revealed on earth I am and ever was and shall ever be. I did nothing new on earth, nothing new to me. What I did was new to men under the sun on earth but there is nothing new under the sun; all that men can know as newness is above the sun, and what I show you now is eternal. As it has been so it is now also; the cross is an altar for you too; come my beloved, join yourselves to me here, offer yourselves also with me without spot to God'.
The Lord emphasises these things with tremendous power when He breaks the fifth of the seals with which the seven-sealed book was so securely closed. When He does this we again see the altar, and under it the souls of them that were slain for the word of God and for the testimony which they held. From the following verses it is unmistakable that those who suffer martyrdom for the reasons stated have been slain because they have lived upon the altar. Many who have been put to death and called martyrs for reasons acceptable enough to men are not accepted as such nor called martyrs by God.
The Lord states very clearly the ground upon which He classifies men as martyrs. These are they who have lived upon the altar in self-sacrifice which is borne out by the word of God which is in them; that is, they have received, held, lived and spoken the Word of God and their testimony has been that with the Son of God they also are sons of God. These and only these are called martyrs by God. Death by torture or persecution or murder for any good work or cause, wrong as these things are, are not ipso facto classified by God as martyrdom.
Martyrdom as considered by and accepted among men entails physical death, as it does also in the verses in Revelation 6 v.9-11, but originally the word translated witnesses in the New Testament is the Greek word 'martus', and occurs in various grammatical forms in connection with the subject of being a witness and bearing witness or testimony. To be a martyr in this sense did not always result in undeserved and premature death, but it did and still does entail living on the altar. True witness to Jesus Christ cannot be borne by any person except that person lives a life of loving self-offering to God through personal sacrifice. The reading leaves no doubt that this altar principle shall endure until the end of the age, for those slain at the time of which John writes are told by the Lord that they must wait for others to be killed as they, and for the same reason.
However, the altar we have is not the same as that which Israel after the flesh knew; ours is only for those who are after the Spirit. Looking at it through the enlightened eyes of John we see that there are no ashes under this altar; instead gathered there are the souls of the martyrs. What an altar, what a gathering! At the point of death the spirits of that brave and noble army, men and boys, the matron and the maid, departed to be with the Lord, ascended in the sacred flame and their souls remained under the altar. The soul in which the Spirit was revealed and by which it was manifest in the body rests and awaits the reward and shall receive it when finally placed among the glorious company of its peers.
So we see that the Lord is not seeking ashes of dead bodies, but the souls developed by human spirits united with Him on the altar while living in their bodies on earth. Keeping ourselves with Him on the altar, ascending in constant spiritual love to God, ensures that the soul eternally lives the spiritual life of Christ indestructible on the earth among men. This must be the residual remains of every one of us; then, whether or not we die a martyr's death in the flesh, our souls in white await their investiture, which shall be bestowed upon them in the future day of the coronation honours of the Lamb.
G.W. North
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THE CROSS
THE CROSS
Experienced and Revealed
To read Paul's epistles is to discover that his greatest reason for writing always was to present Jesus Christ to his readers. Whatever else Paul wrote about, his main theme was always Christ and could be no other for He was Lord of his life; he was totally devoted to Him. In some of his epistles, side by side with this main theme Paul also presents the cross. Whenever he does so it is as his secondary theme only; it never takes first place; he does this because in his opinion next to his Lord there is no theme so important to mankind as the cross. Sometimes when speaking of the Lord Paul emphasizes this, deliberately uniting the Lord with His cross with a kind of phrase like this: 'Christ crucified'. He did this because he had discovered that the Lord and the cross are for ever joined, both by experience and by revelation he knew that in the plan of God the Christ and the cross always were joined. Jesus Christ the Son of God is the crucified Christ of God for all eternity. He is not now hanging on the cross bodily — that could never be or He would be eternally dead and totally ineffective; it is His bodily resurrection that makes the cross all the more important, for it proves the effectiveness of the spiritual cross.
Paul had much to say about the cross to the Galatians. It is not a very lengthy epistle but for its size this epistle has more of the cross in it than any other of his writings; into it he packed a vast amount of information about the crucifixion not so directly stated elsewhere in his own works or in anyone else's either. As may be expected, the Gospel writers have much to say about the cross: it is the focal point of their ministry; they were raised for this purpose. These tell us of Calvary and all the events which took place there and between them furnish all the world with all it needs to know about the historical cross and the resurrection that followed three days later. Unlike them, Paul, not being a disciple of Jesus Christ during His earthly day, was unable to write an eye-witness account of the crucifixion. Instead to him was granted the privilege of writing about the cross from a different viewpoint altogether. We are greatly indebted to him and to the Spirit who inspired him for all the wonderful things he revealed so full of truth and power. He said amazing things about the cross, unparalleled in the whole of the sacred writings; quite a lot of these are in this epistle.
One of the most astonishing of them is in the opening verse of the third chapter: 'O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you that ye should not obey the truth before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth crucified among you?' At first glance this is one of the most astonishing statements in the whole Bible and appears to be a mistake. Jesus Christ was crucified in Palestine outside the walls of Jerusalem and not in Galatia. How then could Paul tell the Galatians that Christ was crucified before their eyes? He was not even crucified before Paul's eyes — he had not been at the crucifixion, he was not a believer in Christ when it happened and was certainly not among those who stood around or near the cross. Far from being a heartbroken disciple at that time he was an enemy of Christ; he thought then that Jesus was a Nazarene impostor, a religious charlatan. However, when he wrote his epistles he knew plenty of people who had been present at the execution; since his conversion they had become his friends.
It may be taken for granted that as often as he could he discussed with the rest of the apostles the details of that death and could have talked about them as they had been reported to him by eye-witnesses of the event, but he never did that. When he wrote to the Galatians or anyone else about the cross he was not recounting stories he had heard or facts he had gathered, reliable as they were; he was speaking of things he knew by personal experience. His sources of knowledge were twofold: (1) his own personal experience; (2) Christ's direct revelation and tuition. His claims in the epistle are likewise twofold: (1)'I have been crucified with Christ'; (2) 'I certify you brethren that the gospel which was preached by me was not of man, but by revelation of Jesus Christ'. These are tremendous claims and they present the irreversible order of God for the impartation of all such knowledge: first he was crucified, then he was taught. Something happened to him and then it was explained to him; it is important for us to note that - the truth was only revealed to him following his experiential knowledge of the truth of the crucifixion. It becomes much clearer to us when we realize that the words 'evidently set forth', are better translated 'graphically described'. The meaning of the verse should be interpreted in the light of his earlier statement in the first chapter, 'it pleased God to reveal His Son in me'.
The fact of the crucifixion is indisputable, as both secular and sacred historians record, and seeing that so many trustworthy people had written of it, Paul did not regard it as part of his duty to describe the crucifixion scene again. Being a Roman he was familiar enough with the Roman method of capital punishment; it was practised worldwide throughout the Roman empire and he was a free-born member of that empire. His four friends, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, wrote copiously of Jesus Christ; they were ideally suited for the task. Two of them wrote from first-hand knowledge of events; one of them, it is thought, wrote at the dictation of Peter, who also had first-hand knowledge of the proceedings; the other wrote a thoroughly researched account gathered from many eye-witnesses. These four were inspired of God to write as they did according to the knowledge they had, and their combined testimony is authentic. That was not Paul's field of investigation or testimony. He wrote of the cross from experience, plus the revelation and explanation of it given to him by the Lord Himself.
It was this that enabled Paul to write so comprehensively about the cross. Not that he wrote about the cross itself very often or very much - by far his greatest writings were about the person who hung thereon and what He accomplished by it. The death Christ died there was what engrossed him so; Paul saw the cross in the same light as the Lord Himself saw it and spoke of it with Moses and Elijah on the mount. In discussion with them He spoke about His decease (Gr. exodus) which He was about to accomplish at Jerusalem. Peter, James and John who were with the Lord at the time did not hear what He was saying; they did not know anything about it; they were asleep! They did not hear how He talked about His death, what they heard were His later declarations about being delivered into the hands of men and being crucified; they heard about the cross and eventually saw it, but they never saw His accomplishments thereby. What those apostles missed through sleep then Paul received by direct revelation later and, being better informed than they, he talked about the accomplishments of the death of that cross rather than the details of the cross of that death. He thoroughly understood what they found to be such a mystery at the time. Doubtless they too came to understanding about it eventually, but though they did so, they never wrote about it as did Paul.
Because Paul understood it so well he was able to preach and write of it with clarity and great understanding. To the Corinthians he set down in masterly fashion God's philosophy of the death of Christ. It was not the philosophy of this world though, he made it clear to them that by the cross of Christ God had made foolish the wisdom of this world. The basis of all his reasoning and consequent preaching was the Logos of the cross, but it made nonsense to the princes of this world. Man's philosophies are not built upon the principle of death and resurrection; it is the antithesis of all worldly wisdom and He did it purposely that He may introduce His own eternal wisdom into men's thinking. The illuminated Paul wrote: 'we thus judge that if one died for all, then (by that act) all died, and (we also judge) that he died for all (so) that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves but unto Him which died for them and rose again'. It is a very matter-of- fact premise on which to approach all life and a most penetrating one too. How very true it is, a revelation indeed; but this wisdom is hidden from men, it is nowhere to be found in the whole of Greek Philosophy.
So Great a Death
To be a God of wisdom God has to be a God of reason too. This is why He revealed to Paul: (1) the reasoning behind the cross; (2) the reason for the cross; and (3) the power of the cross. This revelation became the fundament of Paul's gospel, it furnished him with the ground of all his arguments; by it he was intellectually equipped to stand among his equals and with solid reason state the gospel of total salvation for the whole of mankind. He did not lay a foundation for universalism though; he thoroughly grasped the fact that though all men died when Christ died, all men did not come alive when Christ was made alive. In heart-conviction he fearlessly stated truth so that God's methods should be understood by all who wish to know them. He saw what few men have seen, namely that by Christ God dealt with the entirety of man. What Pilate said to the people at Christ's trial was perhaps more perceptive than most men think; when "Jesus came forth wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe Pilate saith unto them, 'Behold, the man. "Crucify Him, crucify Him'" they said. It filled their hearts, so He who alone was the real, complete man was crucified.
To God that was the important thing - the man had to die. It was all-important to the enraged mob of religious fanatics - they wanted the man dead, but it was more important to God that He died; God wanted the man dead. He wanted Him dead for other reasons than the ones for which they wanted it, far greater reasons, in fact the greatest of all reasons, the most important reasons in the universe, reasons important to God. Beyond human concepts or understanding, even to the initiated — those who are made privy to the secret and the mystery of it — God wanted Him dead. Beside Christ none of those who were included in the crucifixion or who witnessed it had any conception of what was most truly afoot in the invisible world of spirit that day. They could not see what God was doing. They did not know what had to be done, hence the folly of trying to formulate opinion. Most probably this was one of the reasons why darkness descended on the scene and covered the people and the whole land for three long hours. It held while Christ endured the agonies entailed in changing the source and course of man' s spiritual life and the sources and laws of human heredity.
Men could not see the love in the heart of the Saviour. God was showing them that they could not see; they were blind, they had always been blind, they had never understood. Everything was beyond them in a different sphere, a world into which they could not enter. Men had no knowledge of what was going on, they were groping in the dark. Paul had been one of that company once, but now he knew; for our benefit by the election of God he was given to understand. When the glorified Christ revealed it to him he saw it all as clear as daylight. In the world's great darkness at the cross that day God was resolving His own problems and man's problems too. These problems were not problems to God in the same sense as they were problems to man; they never overwhelmed Him or left Him puzzled to know what to do about them, but they were nevertheless great and troublous things to Him. Since before the creation of the world (and since the creation of the world when troubles had arisen in Eden) these had remained with Him unresolved and unresolvable throughout history until Golgotha. That is why there was a Golgotha - there had to be a Golgotha so that God could resolve them all.
In order to settle the matter once for all God had to have a man, for it was with man that His greatest trouble and heartbreak lay; God made Adam, he was His and satan slew him. Satan put Adam to death. Not by crucifixion, nor by stoning; it was not a physical thing at all; it was a death more sinister and deadly than that and utterly irremediable by man. The effects of that death were terrible to contemplate in the immediate, for it was a living death — Adam became a living, breathing death. But, bad as that was, it was as nothing compared with the long-term effects of that death; it was corrosive, corrupting, spreading death, all the more insidious and dangerous because it was invisible and undetectable, and so contagious. Adam was such a powerful person, he was so potent that when it happened to him all mankind died with him; when satan put Adam to death he put us all to death, as Paul saw and said - 'death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned'.
When God made Adam He made us all; all mankind was in him. Proof of this is that one day He put Adam to sleep and took a rib from him and of it made another person; she was in him and had been in him all the time. God made her in him first and then from his substance made Eve. Her inward substance and shape was in him all the time. When she first appeared to Adam in outward form he called her 'Isha', meaning taken from within man' (Ish); except that she was a woman, when made she was exactly like Adam. In nature, character, personality and potential she was the same; God's purpose in making her in female form and potential was that from within her others like them both may be begotten from Adam; the whole race of men was in them right at the beginning. Since the fall of Adam and Eve the whole human race has been dead; in effect we all died then — we were put to death by satan when he put death into Adam, even though we had not been born and had not personally sinned we died with Adam. We died in Adam when, through his sin, he lost spiritual contact with God.
Adam lost the power to beget righteous children, all the potential governing the spiritual life and possibilities of his seed was changed then. He became a power for evil and not for good from that moment. That is why Paul said, 'In Adam all die'; thank God he also wrote 'In Christ shall all be made alive', thus completing the couplet. He was speaking of spiritual states and potential, not guaranteeing life universal for all mankind, for we are all sinners by nature and quite dead. We are not dead because we have sinned, on the contrary we sin because we are dead; death is the result of sin and sin is the evidence of that death. The fact that we have sinned proves that death has passed upon us. We sin because we are cut off from God and exist in a state of death. Sin is death's corruption.
This is the reason why the Lord Jesus, when on earth, never condemned sinners. God says He did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world and Jesus never once did it. He came that the world through Him might be saved. He loved to say things like 'neither do I condemn thee, go and sin no more'. He never once directly called a man a sinner; it would have been true if He had done so — He could have called every man a sinner, but because He was the perfectly sinless one He never did so. Marvellous as this is in our eyes, the reason for it lies in His very sinless perfection, He was too good to say such things to men. He knew that if He had not been born the sinless Son of God He too would have been a sinner. A man cannot be blamed for being a sinner; we sin because it is natural for us to sin; He sinned not, because it was not natural to Him to sin. He had not the nature to sin, He did not desire to sin, He never chose to sin, He could not be tempted to sin, He kept Himself from sin, He would not succumb to sin and finally He expiated sin; He is Adam the second. Surely in spiritual life and power He is Adam the first.
He was the last Adam also. The first Adam was made perfect by a perfect Creator in a perfect creation, the last Adam was made perfect in an imperfect environment; the first Adam succumbed to sin through temptation, the last Adam resisted sin unto blood and was made even more perfect through suffering. The first Adam was of the earth - earthy, the last Adam was the Lord from heaven, a life-giving spirit. There were two Adams. Jesus Christ was not in Adam — He was in God and came forth from the Father. As God chose to put all men in Adam, so He chose to put all His sons in Christ and He did so potentially before He put us all in Adam. The first Adam was put to death by satan, the last Adam was put to death by God, and as in Adam all die, so in Christ shall all be made alive The fact that Jesus Christ rose from the dead is the guarantee that every man shall rise from the dead; every man's experience was in some measure chosen in Christ.
We all, whether saved or unsaved, were for some purpose and to some degree included in Christ. God determined everything and everybody by His Son. Not every person was chosen in Him as is the Church (called in scripture the elect of God) but nothing was made apart from Christ. All things and persons were made by Him and for Him; all things consist by Him, they have done so from the beginning and still do to this very moment. He is before all things; in all things He has the pre-eminence, He is the firstborn of every creature, He is also the firstborn from the dead. 'In Him we (all) live and move and have our being and He is the Saviour (Preserver) of all men, especially of them that believe'. There is no exception to this, nor can there ever be - the whole creation, animate and inanimate, material and spiritual, celestial and temporal, was cast in one mould and that mould is Christ.
Everything was chosen and settled either in or in relationship to Christ before the foundation of the world. Each according to its order and in its time was designed to be in and of and by and through Him. Even sin itself could only exist as being somehow associated with Him; it was not in Him as of divine nature, nor yet as of human nature - it did not originate with Him, indeed it was entirely foreign to Him, but it became His by gift of God at Calvary. Satan could not give Him sin, man could not give Him sin, He would accept it of neither, but He accepted it from His God and Father; so really did He accept it that He became it - 'He was made sin for us'. He who knew no sin, who could not be made to sin, was made sin by His Father whom He loved; God made Him the horrible nature and ugliest form and worst manifestation of sin. The Man was made the man of sin, the best and highest became the worst and lowest, and because the second Adam took this nature, form and personality of the first Adam, God slew Him. The devil could not kill Him, man could not kill Him, sin could not kill Him, Rome could not kill Him, Jewry could not kill Him, civil law could not kill Him, ecclesiastical law could not kill Him, yet lie had to be killed. Only God could kill Him, so He did - He had to.
This is precisely why God made a second man on the earth; it just could not be that satan should have the final word about anything. When Christ was slain for us it was not as a result of a contest between God and man, though on the surface it seemed like it; it was the outcome of the conflict between God and satan. In Eden satan took the initiative, on the cross God took the initiative; indeed He did so at Nazareth by approaching Mary. Both God and satan started with virginity, Adam was virgin, so was Christ. Adam lost his virginity, Christ maintained His, Adam became old Adam, Christ is the new Adam; He was also the last Adam. There has not been another Adam since Christ, Adam is a beginning: Christ is The Beginning: old Adam has ceased, God who made him slew him, Christ lives and continues for ever.
This is what lay behind Christ's mysterious words, 'and I if I be lifted up from the earth will draw all men unto me', signifying what death He would die. All men were drawn unto Him on the cross and slain there; they were either put to eternal death as being in old Adam or presented to God as being made new in the new Adam: by His greatness and glory all were in Him. Whether in condemnation or salvation God ended the race there. Every man since, though born of the same humanity and in the same physical form as first Adam, is now totally responsible to the superior second Adam. This has far-reaching implications and effects, altogether too numerous to be dealt with here. Among the greatest of these is the implementation of God's intention that no man shall go to hell for first Adam's sin - men will die eternally only if they reject Christ. Adam will have to answer for his own sin and so will everyone else; it is comforting to know that no man is responsible for another man's sin; with the exception of Jesus Christ each one is answerable to God for his or her own sin. Herein lies the wonder of Christ — He was made responsible for the sin of the world, first Adam bore the responsibility and guilt of bringing sin into the world, second Adam bore the responsibility and glory of taking it out.
All men became sinners by Adam's sin; because of that sin they also had the death sentence passed upon them. This death sentence is not sentence to eternal damnation in Gehenna, it is sentence to the death of being cut off from God. Of itself this death, being the logical result of the act of disobedience against God, manifested itself in and still consists in a state of unawareness of God's presence or even of His existence and a complete inability to do His will or even to desire Him. This is the result of the compound sins of generations of men and it has confused the real issue between satan and man, against God; it has also brought the world to its present state of corruption. The proof that death has passed on all men is that all men have sinned and that most men still do; as sin brought in death and death reigns over all, so sovereign death brought compulsive unavoidable sinning to all. Without Christ it is impossible for man to exist without being a consistent sinner.
Both first and second Adam were sovereigns. To be born of first Adam's line meant that a person must sin because that was what was involved in Adam's transaction with satan - it was a sovereign act affecting heredity; he made a choice and conformed the race. To be born of second Adam's line means that a person need not sin because this is what was involved in Christ's transaction with God; He also made a race-conforming choice. Adam need not have sinned any more than Christ needed to sin. Both Adam (originally) and Christ were free from sin; Adam was not compelled to sin, he was not compelled to be sinless either. When he sinned no- one made him do it, he did it quite voluntarily; satan breached his obedient love for God through his fleshly love for his wife. He was vulnerable and weak through love, and an incorrect evaluation of the seeming results of her sin caused him to sin with her. The results of his sin have continued, unavoidable and utterly disastrous, all the worse because the sin was an entirely voluntary choice. Likewise with Jesus, no-one compelled Him to remain sinless; when satan tempted Him He chose not to sin. His strength was His love for God and His Church; His correct evaluation of the immediate, as well as the eternal results of sin, made Him choose aright and the results of His unwavering choice are blessings incalculable. The effects of these two men's lives and deaths upon the lives and deaths and destinies of all mankind are totally immeasurable. God have mercy upon us all.
From all this two facts emerge, one of which we will consider here: (1) all men of first Adam's line are born free from righteousness and bound to sin; (2) all men of second Adam's line are born free from sin and able to live in righteousness. The first of these points we considered earlier as it is exemplified in Paul and set out for us in scripture; we will not return to it here. The second we will spend time on here, for it holds good for every child of God as well as Paul. From the moment he is born again no child of God is bound to sin; on the other hand neither is he bound not to sin, neither is he forced to live in righteousness all his days. He has been born of God's purpose that He should sin no more, but as with Adam (both first and second) he is left free to sin if he chooses. The new birth is in sinlessness, it consists in the re-creation of the spirit and the reclamation of the soul and the reformation of the whole moral nature. At that moment the will is unshackled, the body is quickened and newness of life commences, the man is redeemed and set free to obey God. He is not made free from sin for any other reason; this is God's love-gift to him, it is eternal life. But he is not forced to obey God, God does not want slavery in His kingdom — everything must be done voluntarily. Because this is so the possibility that a man may lapse back into the old Adam state at any time remains; if he does not
obey God it is inevitable that he will do so. This cannot happen accidentally — sin is not inevitable for the saint. Being made free from sin he can keep free from sin by choice. A phrase borrowed from Oswald Chambers puts this more perfectly: he says that growth is by 'a series of moral choices'; this is why in regeneration a man's whole moral nature is renewed.
God makes men free; the only bond God forges round a man is holy love. God wants the love of free moral agents; for this a man must bind himself to God in faithfulness as Christ did — this alone is freedom. Every man wishing to do this will receive grace from God to do it; this is man's righteousness. This is the reason why Christ's righteousness is first imputed and then imparted to men. The righteousness of the man Jesus hinged upon His moral choices. He chose to obey God. This basic original and accumulated righteousness of Christ became the ground of our salvation. The accumulated righteousness of His constant obedience as a man — even unto death — added to His innate righteousness as being one of the persons of God, secured regeneration for us.
The reason lying deep, almost like a compulsion, in the heart of God for the cross was this — the death of man — it was an absolute necessity. The old man, first Adam, must be put to death, so the new man Jesus, the second and last Adam, was put to death as that man; this was the basic necessity. Other great, far-reaching things took place on the cross also, things affecting angels and devils, things of eternal consequence, but none more vital for God and man than this. To God the death of His Son on the cross was the act and the moment and the point of resolution of all mysteries of iniquity, mysteries beyond the comprehension of man's mind. God needed to be justified and exonerated, shown to be right about His dealings with angels and men over sin. By the cross God was justified and because God was justified man was justified also, all happened at once. At the cross the sentence of death was carried out to the full in all realms of morality far beyond man's knowledge.
By the mercy and grace of God something of the vastness and terrors and power of this death were made known to Paul, who sought to compress its meaning into a phrase and express it in these words, 'so great a death'. So great was this death that the apostle found himself in constant need of deliverance from some aspects and degrees of it. With what gratitude he spoke of having been delivered from it in the past, with what joy he testified to being delivered from it in the present and with what confidence he declared he would be delivered from it in the future. He once wrote to the Ephesians about this death saying 'ye were dead in trespasses and sins'. He was not then so much referring to death itself as to its environs, that in which it consists and those things that are related to and associated with it, in much the same way as we associate death with graveclothes and a cemetery and a grave where death is placed. The grave is not death, it is where the dead are buried, the place of the dead; even so, trespasses and sins are not death but in this connection may be thought of as graveclothes.
A living man can put on and wear graveclothes if he pleases; a man does not need to be dead in order to wear the clothes of the dead: it would be unusual and unexpected, in fact distasteful, but not impossible. Possible though it is however, all who beheld it would at best think it a joke or at worst think such a person was unhinged or most peculiar, or more charitably, ill. There is a sad spiritual lesson to be learned here though — many a man who has honestly been given life by the Lord. Jesus is still wearing graveclothes. He has turned back to his old sins and is trespassing against the law of Christ, forging habits and binding strong bands around himself greater and stronger than the chains which bound Legion and from which, unlike Legion, he cannot break free. But because he is a son he can turn again to Christ with all his heart and find repentance and forgiveness and. cleansing and. liberty from the Lord. Christ will then in love restore him to his first condition of life, fill him with the Spirit, clothe him with the garments of salvation and walk with Him in the light. But Paul was not speaking of this when he spoke of death. He was speaking of the deadness and the sheer desolation of it, its total ignorance of God and good. Oh, the terrible power of death, so great that a dead person is absolutely unconscious of the state he is in. He exists in this world cut off from God and does not know it until he departs from it to the place of the departed and the further-removed from which there is no return. There he may only anticipate without hope the second death to which he must be despatched, together with all those who, like him, have rejected Christ.
So universal and great is this death that Paul himself had no knowledge of it until he was delivered from it. It was this that made him so aware of its vastness. He had had no idea of his need, he had been dead, utterly dead, he said, and had not known it. When he did. discover he was dead it was frightening; he was devastated. He had lived a Pharisee, and as touching the righteousness of the law had been perfect — faultless even — yet he had been dead. He had thought he was alive but he had never known life; except in the will of God in Christ he had never existed even. He once wrote of his experience of self-discovery and of the condition of his existence under law in death. He said he had once been alive (presumably from his birth) without the law, and had existed in that condition until the law came — at what age that happened he does not say, probably from bar-mitzvah onwards — but when the law came he died, he said. He claimed that it was the coming of (the realization of) the law and what it was saying that slew him. Until then sin had lain in him dead, but when the law really reached the true condition of sin in him it revived, and rebelled and he died.
Sin is like the light which Jesus says is darkness, great darkness, how great none but He can tell. Sin in a man can be as holiness and righteousness, this is its greatest power. Paul seems to be referring to a personal experience remarkably similar to the dispensational racial experience of Israel, which is not surprising; God seemed to raise up that nation in order to demonstrate in it every feature of human possibility. Upon consideration this is to be expected, for a nation is only made up of individuals so it must be the sum total of all the individuals in it. More than that, since the whole wide world of men is the sum total of every nation in it, what is basically true of every individual is true of the whole world. Sin came into this world 'as by one man' long before Israel's birth as a nation. Adam was not the first person in the world to sin; tragically he was neither the only one, nor yet the last person to sin in the world. Adam was the second person to commit sin in this world; the very first sin committed in this world was his wife Eve's.
Eve sinned by listening to satan's blandishments, she succumbed to him, believed his lies, partook of the fruit of the tree and gave to Adam who also ate and joined in the transgression. The eyes of them both were immediately opened and they knew they were naked. They had always been naked but until that moment they were not conscious of it. They did not know what nakedness was for it was natural to them and proper. Until that moment presumably the only clothing they had was inward and spiritual; they were naked and unashamed and had lived in that manner outwardly from the beginning. But when they partook of the forbidden tree they knew they were naked and were immediately ashamed. Feeling totally exposed and not understanding why, they contrived some form of clothing for themselves to hide their bodies from each other; they were afraid and when God came into the garden they were so overwhelmed with guilt that they hid from Him. It may be true that until then they had been clothed with ignorance, certainly they had existed in innocence before the Lord and each other. It is also certain that they had lived in righteousness, not the righteousness of the law of Moses, nor yet the righteousness of justification, for Moses had not then written the law, nor had justification been wrought. Their righteousness had been the righteousness of obedience. Until they disobeyed God by eating of the tree there had been no righteousness in them; theirs was the unconscious righteousness of faith, the unselfconscious state of natural life.
The risen Christ had a revelation; God gave it to Him. It was so wonderful that He chose to make it known, so He approached His servant, the apostle John, with this intention and gave him a commandment to pass it on to us. John, being an obedient servant, agreed and disposed himself to his Lord's will. Therefore, pictorially by vision and directly by dictation, the Lord made known some of the dearest secrets of His heart. One of the things He disclosed to John was that righteousness is like fine linen and should be regarded by us as the raiment He gives to the bride and wife of His heart. It is glorious clothing, He wore it Himself when He hung on the cross. Men would not have believed it, for they did not see it; in their eyes He hung there naked; they had stripped Him and taken away His clothes from Him and nailed Him to the tree, which became at once the tree of the knowledge of evil and death and the tree of good and life. He hung on it naked and unashamed; He did not care what men saw or thought. He had long been dead to that. In the eyes of God He was clothed with an inward clothing that needed nothing outward to cover it. His vesture was all the more glorious because it was dipped in blood — His own righteousness, fine and white, clothed Him there, but it was red; His finest white linen was dyed with His own blood, it was perfect in God's sight. Even when He was made sin on the cross the second and last Adam never lost His righteousness; His death itself was righteousness to Him, and through it He was made righteousness to us. How finely it was woven that day, a fine web of wondrous virtue, whiter than snow, to be imputed to us and imparted to us that we may be clothed with it. O how gladly we wrap ourselves in it! Blessed Spirit robe us in it to suit that heavenly bridegroom, for we love Him. Through Him living righteousness came into the world before, but Adam lost it.
Sin came into the world of men by Adam. He could have prevented it from passing into mankind if he had wished even though he was not the only person to sin on the earth. Eve was not responsible for bringing sin into the world of mankind of herself. She couldn't simply because, being one person and a woman, it was impossible; she could only bear children, she could not beget them. Unless Adam had sinned with her, her misdeed could not have been passed on to other human beings. Adam could have prevented it if he had wished, but in his heart he would not divorce from her, but chose to disobey God and sin with her. It was in this agreement together that sin was passed on — first to his children and thence to the whole race of men. Part of the tragedy of the incoming of sin (perhaps the most tragic part) was the death that came in with it and by it. By Adam's transgression the race became a race of sinners, even though none since has sinned in exactly the same way as he. The whole of mankind is exceedingly sinful, but being dead does not know it; as Paul says, all outside of Christ are without understanding, past feeling and alienated from the life of God — that is death.
So it was that, in common with all men, sin lay undiscovered in Paul's life; as it was in the race as a whole so it was with him as an individual, and with the exception of Jesus Christ so it is with every other individual. Sin never came to light in the race until God gave the law to Israel via Moses; it was there and had been from the beginning, affecting everyone since Adam, but it lay dead in the sense that it was not recognized for what it was, therefore it was not imputed to anyone because everyone was unconscious of its sinfulness in God's sight. Adam's original sin and consequent death was passed on to everyone as a nature to sin and a state of death. Although God has never imputed Adam's sin to anyone else, He could not prevent it from influencing everyone else, even though He knew they would be unaware of the reason for their deadness and would not know they were dead. Death is so universal and so great that even Job, who became a mighty man of God, did not at first know where or how to find Him.
Sin took on many forms and so did death. Perhaps there are as many forms of death as there are expressions of the nature of sin. In another context and with a different emphasis and meaning Paul once said he was in deaths oft. As a result men were in complete ignorance of God and of what He wanted. Strangely enough this death and unawareness is often accompanied by a desire to know God or by becoming a religious zealot. This may be one of its deadliest forms. Atheism is not the only form of death, though it is certainly the suicide of fools. Atheism is the snobbishness of intellectualism, the last stronghold of ignorance, the empty boasting of sin. Thank God not all have been so stupid and from the beginning it was not so. Here and there throughout history men have appeared to whom God revealed Himself or who reached out and found Him, but they were very few. Men have mostly been careless of their state and very defiant end critical of God. So eventually the Lord raised up Moses, that by him He should reveal Himself to men and give them His law and expose sin in some measure. Saul of Tarsus was one of these. The law came to him with such power that he died under it for by it he discovered sin, what it really is. He says these things about the law and sin — 'by the law is the knowledge of sin', 'by the commandment sin became exceedingly sinful', 'by the law sin was enhanced', 'the strength of sin is the law', 'when the commandment (law) came sin revived and I died', 'sin working death in me by that which is good'.
As in Adam, so in Paul, sin worked death. The difference between them lay only in this - Adam knew what sin was and Paul did not, even though he knew the law. Saul of Tarsus could boast that as touching the law he was blameless, yet he discovered he was the chief of sinners. The exceeding sinfulness of the nature and working of sin is revealed in that it used the law, which was spiritual and good, to destroy its victims. We may thank God the age of law is past; but although that is true, the danger is not past. In this present age sin, which once used the law, now uses the gospel to slay its victims. The law and the gospel were not given for this reason though, God gave them to men, that by them He may expose sin and bring His salvation to hearts and lives. When the law really came with power to Paul's heart it brought light to him; it also brought tragedy. For the first time he saw what sin really was and as a result of it promptly died in hopelessness and despair; death was compounded in him and he was confounded by it: 'O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from this body of death?' he wailed. When he saw sin as God sees it, sin appeared to him as a body with as many members as there are forms of sin and that body was his self. Confused he groped his way through endless realms of darkness but could find no permanent relief, even though he contrived mental escape by delighting in the law. Sin was in his members, it was inescapable and unbreakable law in him. He had discovered himself to be a totally sinful and utterly wretched man. Then Christ, the original Light, came to him and brought him hope.
Paul was not saved by hearing a gospel message and responding to an appeal, he learned the gospel from Jesus Christ after he was saved. He was saved by Christ coming in blinding light to him on the Damascus road. In the glory of that light Christ slew him in the dust outside the city wall. Broken and humbled he was led by the hand into the city to the street called straight and there he was buried for three days. Praying there without sight in the dark, he lay before God and on the third day God raised him up by the same Spirit by which He raised Christ from the dead. Paul was raised, given sight and filled with the Holy Ghost in one sovereign move of God; Paul was born again. That happened to him when Christ 'came' to him. When the law 'came' to him it slew him and left him dead. The law was given by Moses but could not give life to those who received it; grace and truth came by Jesus Christ who gives life to all who receive Him. The law came into the world thousands of years before Paul was born; Christ Jesus came into the world possibly about the same time he was born, but neither came to him personally at that time. When and where the law came personally to him we do not know, likewise we do not know precisely when or where Christ came to him, but we do know it was at a precise time and place on the Damascus road. It was God's time for him, sin and death left him, he lived.
Looking back on it all with the light of revelation shining upon it and under the instruction of Christ he saw everything that had happened to him then in clearest reality. He had been a serpent, like his great fellow-apostle Peter he had been a vessel of sin, a spiritual configuration and human manifestation of satan, the devil. That is why it had been necessary for God to smite him down into the dust. He belonged there, he had been persecuting Christ and His Church. Praise God it was only a temporary measure and not eternal judgement. He was not smitten down into the dust of physical death and put into God's prison for rebellious spirits to await final judgement and the inevitable fires of Gehenna. He deserved that as we all did, but Jesus saved him despite the fact that he had been rebelling and kicking against the goads for a long time. Paul became a very grateful man and a most devoted servant of Jesus Christ. Just when he was caught up to the third heaven and what he saw and heard there we do not know, but he has left on record an amazing Gospel of grace and love, a precious testimony and a unique revelation of eternal truth.
As well as his understanding of the death of our Lord Jesus, it is his view of the events surrounding the cross also that is so arresting. Almost certainly he was not present at any of the several trials to which the civil and religious authorities put Christ, yet he spoke of the death sentence passed upon Him as did no other. Each of the four biographers of Jesus records the historic events with varying detail, but none speaks of a death sentence in so many words. They do record that Pilate delivered Him to be crucified and that he wrote a superscription and had it placed on His cross, but death sentence, no. No man passed sentence of death upon Him as sentencing is known today when a man receives his just deserts for crimes committed. Jesus never committed any crimes; how then could any man formally sentence Him? Sentence of death was passed upon Him by God His Father in Gethsemane precisely for that reason. He had been alone when the sentencing took place; no man witnessed it, even the most select of the apostles were asleep. Whatever it was God said to Him we do not know. His words are not recorded, but Christ's are: 'if this cup may not pass from me except I drink it, thy will be done'. The agreement was perfect, the sentence had been passed, He arose from His place and presented Himself to His captors for its execution.
Paul saw what happened in this spiritual court of appeal and understood it perfectly and fully grasped its meaning and implications for men. He saw that it was a sentence of death for the whole human race and accordingly received it to himself. His written testimony is that he had this sentence of death in himself and that the purpose of it was that he should not trust in himself but in God which raiseth the dead. That is precisely the same attitude in which Jesus faced His death; He did so with complete confidence. It is recorded that He often said He would rise again from the dead. He knew that if He first accepted the death sentence and went to death without murmuring God would raise Him up again. It was an accepted fact of logic and of spiritual law that except He died there could be no resurrection; resurrection-life can only be experienced after death. When the man Christ Jesus went to death He did so trusting His God to raise Him again. Praise God He did not refuse to accept the sentence of death in Himself but received it; if He had not done so there could have been no gospel. The consequences of that reception were devastating to Him, but He did not for that reason refuse to accept the cup from His Father's hand. He submitted to His Father, accepted the sentence, received the cup and drank it to the dregs.
Paul saw all this, he also saw that unless he too accepted, received and drank in the sentence of death and experienced it himself he could not preach the gospel in its regenerating fulness. It is an amazing thing, but absolutely true, that even Christ Himself could not preach the gospel in all its fulness while He was here on earth and neither could any of His followers at that time. He could talk of the cross and of taking up the cross and of bearing the cross, but He could not talk of the death of the cross, or of the blood of the cross, for He had not yet hung on it and shed His blood; during His lifetime on earth the gospel was limited. The reason for this was that there had been no cross as yet, in the sense and meaning we understand it the cross did not exist. In the nature of the case He could give no direct teaching about the cross and its purpose and power before He hung on it; had He attempted to do so it would have been meaningless to His hearers. Worse still it would have been entirely cut of place, and being so glaringly out of order it would have appeared quite farcical to the many earnest souls who had left all to follow Him. He therefore confined Himself to teaching them elements of truth about it which they could more easily understand and assimilate and reserved the most vital teaching of the cross till He should rise from the dead. It was necessary He should do so lest illogic destroy all hope of credibility.
It was equally necessary that when He rose from the dead He should set forth the mystery and true purpose of the cross which was not revealed during His lifetime and which none of the four evangelists included in their biographical works. He knew that unless He did so the bulk of His teaching prior to the cross could have no present-day application. Because all His words are vital to us He raised up Luke to write two major works, each complementary to the other; the first is a record of His own birth and history called a Gospel and the second is a record of the birth of the Church and its earliest history, called the Acts of the Apostles. Luke commences his second work with these words: 'The former treatise have I made, O Theophilus, of all that Jesus began both to do and teach until the day in which he was taken up'. It is at once clear that while on earth Jesus had only commenced His teachings and that, having risen from the dead, He took up and continued to teach His apostles again. This time He began to teach them the things He had left unsaid when He died, things He had to finish by that death and which therefore could not have been said before: chief among these was the vast fulness of truth related to His cross and death.
In His wisdom and because of its very nature the Lord selected for this a man who did not belong to the original group of apostles, in fact a man who had dedicated his life to the destruction of His church. He was a man of many parts and great accomplishments who was both a true-born Hebrew and a free-born Roman and a scholar; his name was Saul of Tarsus. Perhaps above all he was chosen because he was a zealot. The story of his conversion and how, by grace, he was made a son of God is now famous in history. To this man the Lord committed the bulk of His further teaching about the cross that he should commit it to men. This he did first by his life, then by preaching and ultimately in writing. Paul regarded this as a most sacred commission and he gave himself to it without ceasing for the rest of his days. Disappointingly some of his writings have been lost; at least three of his epistles are missing, but sufficient material has been preserved for us to make an assessment of the man and the matchless grasp he had of the truth and power of the cross of Christ. What a wonderful soul he was and what an apt scholar he proved to be; the Lord found just the right man.
Doubtless others of the apostolic band were just as quick to understand as Paul was, but to none of them did Christ grant the honour of writing His further teachings about His cross. That they all equally understood its power and glory cannot be doubted; only this could have qualified them for continued apostleship. They had witnessed the Lord's crucifixion, yet for reasons best known to Himself the Lord did not commission them to write of the cross in the same way or in such breadth and length and depth and height as Paul did. It might seem appropriate to us that they who saw the actual cross and were witnesses of everything that went on there and saw the death and burial of the Lord should have been entrusted with the further ministry, but it was not to be. The Lord decided otherwise; He raised up Paul to do it.
Why the Lord did this is not for us to question; His sovereignty and wisdom are paramount in His kingdom, but it is not beyond our power to think of reasons why perhaps He should do so. Saul of Tarsus was a fanatical Hebrew, a bigoted religionist and a nationalist of the highest order; he was famous in Jewry. His hatred of Christ and the Church and his persecutions of the churches were carried out with such venom and fervour that throughout the Christian world his name became linked with imprisonment and death. Saul of Tarsus was a tool of satan, a human dragon breathing out threatening and slaughter, a most injurious man. He was a willing and enthusiastic observer, if not the instigator and engineer, of the death of Stephen. By Roman law it was an illegal death: all those Jews who stoned Stephen knew they should not have done it, but such was their hatred of Christ and those who loved Him that they defied Rome and took the law into their own hands; it was plain murder and Paul knew it and delighted in it. However such was the mercy and grace of God that He took up this man so full of misplaced love and zeal and made him one of the most glorious lovers of Christ and His Church of all time. Paul was a rabid nationalist who believed in everything Jewish, their method of capital punishment by stoning included. Then when God got hold of him He made him the chief preacher and expositor of the Roman method of capital punishment; it was a complete reversal of Paul's thinking. He knew that God had ordained execution by stoning so that His anger against sin should be fully expressed by the whole nation. Stoning was not only a method of execution, it was also a symbol of the identification which existed between Himself and His people. Paul knew that crucifixion did not imply that; God held back His Son for the cross because it exhibited foreign anger against Christ, God's anger against sin and the sinner. To Paul's mind the change of method signified the commencement of a new era; the thoroughly new man had a thoroughly new message.
Paul knew all about the literal crucifixion of Christ; he had known of it when he was Saul the persecutor; he had most probably witnessed many other crucifixions similar to it, the details were familiar enough to him. What he did not know were the spiritual meanings of the Lord's death; the mysteries of the cross were as unknown to him as to any other until the time Jesus took him into His confidence and revealed these things to him. Just when the Lord included him into His school we do not know, but the evidence that He did so is clearly shown in the epistle he wrote to the Galatians. In this letter he certifies the brethren that the gospel he preached he received directly from the Lord; he was not taught it by man, he said, neither did he receive it from man. Just how long it took the Lord to impart the revelation we are not told — perhaps as long as it took Him to give the old covenant to Moses at Sinai. This gospel of Paul's is the gospel of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ delivered by Him to His apostle following His ascension and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. In itself it is a miracle of some magnitude.
In this epistle he discloses the two main lines of his revelation: the one concerns the death and work of the cross of Christ and the other the coming and ministry of the Holy Spirit. He includes other things in the epistle as well, because they are necessary to the Galatians and incidental to life, but everything is related to the central themes which comprise the main body of truth being imparted. All the apostle says about the law and circumcision and grace and other gospel truths is developed from this standpoint. The central passage correlating these two themes is first introduced by the statement, 'Jesus Christ was evidently set forth crucified among you and then followed by the question, 'received ye the Spirit?' The heart of God and the heart of the revelation and the heart of the gospel is revealed at the heart of the epistle. This is the second of the seven references to the cross he makes in the epistle. Set out in their order of appearance these are as follows:
- The cross and the crucifixion of self.
- The cross and the giving of the Spirit.
- The cross and the redemption from the curse.
- The cross and the scandal.
- The cross and the crucifixion of the flesh.
- The cross and circumcision.
- The cross and the crucifixion of the world.
It is a fact little short of amazing that so great an amount of information about the cross should be packed into so brief an epistle. Even though some of Paul's writings are more than twice as long, in no other epistle is the cross mentioned so many times. This achievement is the more outstanding and most significant also when it is realized that this is possibly the very first epistle Paul wrote.
- The Cross and the Crucifixion of Self.
If it is indeed true that this is his first epistle, it is evident that Paul believed the cross to be of prime importance and was convinced that before attempting to write anything else he should expound the truth and power of the cross first and foremost. Not only so, it would also appear that the Holy Spirit by whom Christ taught and inspired the apostle must likewise have considered he should write on this theme first. Of course the Galatians needed to be taught the truth of the cross, but so did all the other churches as we shall see, but to no other did he write on the subject in such detail or at similar length as to the Galatians. We may then perhaps, after reading the epistle, agree with the apostle and the Holy Spirit that all spiritual problems are related to the cross and were dealt with there and proceed further to the logical conclusion that all man's basic personal needs can be resolved by personal experience of crucifixion. This is the most enlightening thing about Paul's introduction to the cross. If this is his very first excursion into apostolic writing then the very first thing he wrote about the cross was 'I am crucified with Christ;' how distinctly individual. Even though this whole epistle is about the virtues and glories of Christ and the cross, this is an amazing statement with which to open a written ministry, quite unique in fact. With such an approach it must become obvious to all that Paul's whole teaching about the cross is frankly subjective.
In this he differs completely from the four Gospel writers; they present the cross and the consequent resurrection objectively. Their business is to point out to us historical facts; it is the major reason for their writings. The only hint of subjectivity in all their accounts is the one statement of Jesus that His disciples must take up the cross and follow Him. He was most insistent about this and in this sense every man must make the cross his own. Even so, by the Lord's very language it is referred to as an outward cross and although it is personal, it is not the intimate cross that Paul declared. This is not because the Lord Jesus did not want it to be so personal to man in His day; He did, but He knew He could not talk to His disciples about being crucified with Him without posing serious problems to their minds; that He would not do. His teaching was masterly, His logic was impeccable, but they were no greater than His love.
In the upper room just before His apprehension He told His apostles, especially Peter, that they could not follow Him to the place to which He was going. He had previously said as much to the Pharisees, and the disciples were not surprised to hear it said to that company, but wherever He was bound they did not expect it to be said to them. Peter voiced the general feeling of the apostles when he said, 'I am willing to follow thee to prison and to death — I am willing to die for thy sake'. Each one really believed it to be true of himself, but at that time, alas, it was not. In any case, even if it had been true, it was completely impossible for Peter or anyone else to do what they so fondly hoped.
By Paul's day, having completed His work on the cross, Christ had made it subjective and available to all mankind. With this in mind Paul saw the cross as both objective historical fact and subjective spiritual experience; his approach to it was very very personal. He made it intimately his and therefore preached a gospel of personal revelation in which the cross was central and all powerful. His presentation of it was most effective in the lives of others, as effective as it was in his own. In his grasp of truth and especially of the cross he seemed to excel all his contemporaries; in the understanding and presentation of the gospel he was an acknowledged prince. Comparisons can be odious, therefore without any intention of evaluation but in order to establish truth we take notice of a fact that will illustrate the claim. Even after Pentecost Peter's presentation of the cross was still objective; this is shown by his declaration to the men of Jerusalem, 'ye by the hands of wicked men have crucified and slain' (Jesus). What Peter said was absolutely necessary of course, his preaching was trenchantly convincing that day as the results show: those men had to be faced up to what they had done. Yet this is not an isolated incident, for years later he wrote of the Lord, 'who His own self bare our sins in His own body on the tree by whose stripes ye were healed'; again his approach seems to be objective.
Perhaps this objectivity about the cross stemmed from experience. In common with the other apostles he actually witnessed that terrible crucifixion, its horrors were so ineradicably stamped upon his mind that when he spoke of it he could do no other than think of its literal effects on Jesus; it marked him for life. On the other hand Paul, not being there had no such memories, so he could not be influenced by them or talk about them with the same certainty and authority as the eleven. This does not mean he never thought of those dreadful hours and what they meant to Christ, nor does it mean that none of those early disciples knew the cross subjectively as he; the early Church shared a treasury of knowledge through a complementary ministry. What it suggests is that in the realm of inspired ministry the Lord generally moves consistently with the writer's personal observation and experience, and wherever possible causes men to speak of what they know.
In context of that thought it is not difficult to believe that if Adam had recorded some of the events referred to in Genesis 1-4 he would have written of them in a totally different vein from Moses. Moses wrote of them objectively; he could not do otherwise, but sadly enough Adam could have written of them very subjectively. The fact that Moses wrote by inspiration of the Spirit of God strengthens the idea that God led him to write objectively because he could not project himself backward into subjectivity. Contrary to Moses, this is exactly what did happen to Paul in spiritual experience; he had been crucified with Christ and he said so because he knew the power and truth of spiritual identification. The wonder of this gospel of ours is that, beyond the power of mortals to project themselves backward or forward in time, by the power of God human souls were incorporated into the experience of Christ, the second Adam, on the cross.
It is important at this point to clarify the extent to which identification with Christ on the cross may be claimed. Men were not included in the redemptive work of Christ, so they are not identified with Him for that; for this work we needed a substitute. We were not excused that; we were excluded from it; Christ took our place as sin-bearer also. We were not identified with Him in that either, neither were we identified with Him in the work of atonement or reconciliation; we were excluded from them all. There are other equally important areas of spiritual experience though in which He died for men as being those men; His death in respect to these was both substitutionary and representative. Such is God's provision for man that Christ took man's place and fulfilled every requirement of God for man's salvation. That is what God meant when He gave Him (a) man's name and called Him Saviour. In the light of these things far deeper levels of meaning than may ordinarily be seen appear in such texts as 'I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth', and 'we preach Christ crucified, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God'. When these things are thoroughly understood it is difficult to believe that it is possible to benefit from Christ's work on the cross when viewed objectively unless it be experienced subjectively. Equally with Paul we must all be able to say 'I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live'. Only the living can confess it and no-one is living except he be crucified.
Occasionally the apostle wrote of the cross objectively, as when writing to the Corinthians: 'Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures'; that is a statement of historical fact. The provable historical facts of Christ are indispensable to the preaching of the gospel, they are its foundation. Paul believed in them firmly and never moved off them; whenever he touched on them he wrote most convincingly. So firmly did he believe in the cross of Christ that he made it the starting point of his written gospel. how could he do otherwise? The historic cross had meant the possibility of regeneration for him, he gloried in it. Careful reading of his works reveals that Paul was clearly conscious he had a gospel to present to the world. It is not of the same events as those of which the authors of the four acknowledged Gospels wrote, but it is of the same person.
Paul is not credited with a Gospel in the same way as were his famous brethren though. There is no book in the New Testament headed 'the Gospel according to St. Paul'. He preached his gospel rather than wrote it, nevertheless it is clearly discernible in all his writings. His great friend and travelling companion, Luke, like himself was not among the number of the apostolic band who originally followed Jesus on earth. Unlike Paul though, he did set out to ascertain the historic facts about Jesus, and having done so he set them down in accredited Gospel style. Not so Paul; God did not commission him to do that. Nevertheless he could as surely speak and write of 'my Gospel' as any of the acknowledged Gospel writers could have done had they wished. All that is required of any person wishing to discover this gospel according to St. Paul is patient reading of his epistles; augmented by careful selective reading from the Acts of the Apostles this will be quite sufficient. This done, the discovery will be made that Paul starts where the others finished, namely at the cross and its immediate related events.
So we find that Paul's writings are unique and are totally unlike those of the acknowledged Gospel writers Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Each of these commences their Gospel in different ways: Matthew with David and Abraham, Mark with the prophets, Luke with Zacharias and Elizabeth, John with the Word; but not so Paul. Being raised up of God to be the apostle to the gentiles, his duty was to write specifically for a people who never had a king David or a father Abraham, a people who could not boast of prophets and knew nothing of a Zacharias and Elizabeth. The gentiles had no John Baptist, no temple of God, no scriptures of truth, no ten commandments, no spiritual heredity save of the devil's seed of sin, therefore of what immediate practical use would it have been to them if he had written from the same viewpoint as his friends?
Israel had a wonderful spiritual heritage, but the gentiles had only inherited myths; so instead of a stylised Gospel, with love and skill and wisdom from on high Paul wrote down some, if not all, of the gospel he first preached. He ignored Herod and wrote nothing of the baby Jesus or of His boyhood, nor even of the days of His manhood; his aim was entirely different. The Gospel writers wrote mainly with the purpose of showing the development of their faith in Jesus' manhood to faith in His Godhead, but Paul wrote from the position of Christ's proven Godhead. Paul made very few references back to His manhood. Paul did not write about Jesus who was called Christ any more than he preached about Him; he first preached Christ who was made Jesus and only later wrote of Him. Paul preached the only Christ he knew because He is the only Christ anyone can know, that is Christ crucified. The uncrucified Jesus could not live in anyone, but Christ crucified indwelt Paul. Paul lived Christ because Christ lived him — a rare enough phenomenon in all conscience.
In his own way Paul did make reference once or twice to the birth of Christ, hut only indirectly: 'God sent forth His Son made of a woman, made under the law to redeem', 'Christ Jesus was made in the likeness of men': these are samples of the kind of reference he made to Christ's human birth. It is noticeable that in none of his references to Christ's coming does he mention the human side at all. He speaks only of God's side and then only briefly. Paul's greater concern is with Christ's second birth, that is His resurrection. Paul realized this was a birth and says so; he calls Him the first begotten from (among) the dead. His Father begat Him from the dead; this, and the events which immediately preceded and followed this most amazing series of all miracles, is the beginning of Paul's gospel. Christ's first birth was not a miracle; the events which preceded it were the miracle; His birth was quite natural. That He ever was born on this earth is most wonderful; it surely is miraculous that God should have given His Son to men, but His birth was not a miracle; it was the result of a miracle but it was as normal as any other man's and more normal than some. His conception, with all the great transactions leading up to it, was the miracle, His actual birth nine months later was quite ordinary.
The great miracle is that He was conceived by the Holy Ghost in Mary being yet virgin; she was virgin when she conceived and she was virgin when Jesus was born. Many miracles were involved in the wonder of His coming, everything about it was miraculous except the actual birth. However, wonderful though these things are, Paul scarcely concerns himself with them; there were enough proofs and protagonists around for the establishing and propagation of these truths; he gave his tongue and his pen to the revelation of God's gospel of further truth. Therefore, by the dispensation of God, his gospel is chiefly concerned with the greatest miracle of all time and perhaps of all eternity, namely the death and resurrection of Christ. By the resurrection from the dead Jesus is declared to be the Son of God with power — that to Paul was conclusive, for him it is the great beginning.
Reading the Acts of the Apostles it may seem to appear that the early Church, especially the apostles, thought that the resurrection, not the crucifixion, was the greatest of all miracles for they were always talking about it, but this is not so. They published it so greatly because to men it was such a great miracle. They had seen so many die, but none had seen anyone who had risen from the dead never to die again. The re-animation of Lazarus had been a most amazing miracle, but he was still with them; Christ was not. He had not only risen, He had ascended back where He was before; His was resurrection. Lazarus' was only re-animation, he died again, Jesus did not. Lazarus was as near a testimony to resurrection as possible, but no more; Christ is the resurrection and the life, the ascension proved it; the resurrection was indeed a mighty miracle. Yet of the two the crucifixion and death which preceded the resurrection was by far the greater miracle. The wondrous resurrection was but the logical result of that, just as the birth was the logical result of the conception.
When it is remembered that the Lord Jesus claimed to be the resurrection and the life, it should not be considered a thing to be wondered at that He should rise from the dead. What else should be expected? It was natural to Him. On the other hand at no time did the Lord ever say or even hint that He was the crucifixion and the death; crucifixion and death were not natural to Him; it would have been wrong for Him to have said they were. He did say He was the resurrection and the life for that was truth, but so saying He posed a problem in His disciples' minds: if He was the resurrection and the life how could He die? Yet how could He prove He was the resurrection and the life except He did die? God solved the problem — before He could die He had to be made sin; God did exactly that to Him, on the cross He was made SIN.
That was the way God's greatest miracle was performed. This was to Christ as the conception was to Mary; He was made sin, it was the beginning, The Great miracle. This was the most impossible of all. Incarnation of God by virgin birth is but an infantile miracle compared with this. Through Mary the babe was born; through death THE MAN was born. It was quite simple to God to work contrary to nature; the measure of impossibility was only on the human side, not on God's. It was Mary, not God, who said 'how can this thing be?' The angel's answer was, 'with God nothing shall be impossible'. Gabriel's remark was not so much pragmatic as prophetic — he was looking into the distant future, not the immediate future. His reference was not to the enormity of the wonder filling Mary's mind, but to the enormity of the wonder that would fill the apostles' minds when they discovered the reality of the resurrection. 'Nothing shall be impossible', he said: he was not referring to God's omnipotence, nor to Mary's incredulity; if he had been he would have said, 'with God nothing is impossible', hoping to bring her assurance of the simplicity of the miracle suggested to her. Gabriel saw nothing tremendous about that. But how full of meaning his answer becomes when we think of what God had in mind when Gabriel said it. Spoken with intention of Golgotha in His heart, it was said with deep undertones of pain and sadness. God knew it was a certain step toward the time when lie would have to make His Son sin. That to Him was the most terrible thing He would ever have to do — it could be nothing less than the greatest and most horrible miracle of all, possible only to God. There are many classes of miracles, requiring varying degrees of power, done for a variety of reasons by different types of persons: God, satan, angels and men. The greatest of these are done personally by God; they are not entrusted to angels or men, and certainly not to the devil. Notable among these greatest miracles are the creation and dissolution of the universe and the destruction of the universe of sin. Of them all this latter is the greatest, for it was the most impossible of all. How could God the Son be made Man the Sin? To make Him Man, the Son (or as we more easily say it, the Son of Man) was one of the simpler miracles — God used an angel for it — but in order to make Him Man — THE SIN God had to do it Himself. It was shocking, shameful, terrible, contradictory, unjust, impossible — but He did it. Glory to His name — glory to the name of both of them. God did it on the cross and He did it totally, so totally that Jesus became contrary to nature, so contrary and ugly that God slew Him there.
Life was natural to Christ, so death, being overcome, the resurrection followed naturally; it had to, one of the reasons He died was that He should rise again in accordance with His nature. It was wonderful though for all that it could not have happened any other way. To have been in any other order it would have been wrong. Resurrection being natural to Him was of no great moment really, it had taken on death and destroyed it. Being so really a man, He had to wait for His Father to raise Him from death; being God He also Himself rose from among the dead ones — He did not find those things difficult. Death was the harder thing and the greater miracle, He accomplished nothing so great. The resurrection was a marvellous demonstration of power; God accomplished mighty things by it, but of itself it simply testified to the fact that He had died; this is the reason why those jubilant apostles made so much of it. To them it confirmed that Jesus did not die as other men die; John had told them that — standing by the cross he heard Him give out that great cry of accomplishment and then at last dismiss His spirit into His Father's hands.
Everything about His death had been different; it was not only wrong and undeserved, it was different. Having accomplished His mission, He whom they could never kill died, and He did it as He said — 'I go My Way to Him that sent me'; He was life — how could He die as other men do? Death was impossible to Him, yet by His own will and willingness He accomplished it. What happened on that cross was so wonderful we scarce can take it in; these minds of ours, under best instruction, still only dimly apprehend the smallest part of what it meant for Christ to die. Yet this we do know, He was in perfect control throughout; He had been all along. He once said quite publicly, 'I lay down my life that I may take it again; no man taketh it from me; I have power to lay it down and I have power to take it again'. How true: He was God.
Perhaps the intensity of Christ's purpose may best be expressed by adapting and applying to Him a Pauline phrase which the apostle used about himself when writing to the Philippians, 'He made Himself conformable unto death'. Christ who was in the form of God took upon Himself the form of a servant and was made in the likeness of man precisely that He should become conformable unto death in every form and manifestation but one — Gehenna. In Him death took its most horrible form in the sight of God — sin and old Adam, the nature of anti-Christ — satan. This is how Paul saw the truth and why he embraced it; the natural, personal subjectivity of it all made it so powerfully appealing to him. Christ was so wonderful in his eyes, Christ made the cross Paul's so that to him it was the place, the point, the instrument of self-riddance in every form that self took or was expressed. He discovered that Christ's crucifixion was total over the whole field of human existence, not only his personal self but also his aged self, old in the ways of sin which came through to him from Adam and the serpent by his parents. The death of the cross was his, he saw it and rejoiced in it, embracing the truth with gratitude; he had been crucified with Christ. Like Christ he lived a crucified man. Only when a man can say 'I am crucified with Christ' is the cross his and has become operative in his life; until then it is not his, though on it Christ tasted death for every man.
Paul saw this clearly and actually wrote of his experience in the past tense, 'I was, or have been crucified'; it was true, because historically Christ's crucifixion had taken place in the past, but because it was God's work it is not only past it is present. The crucifixion is eternal in power and effect — it is here, now. The act was in the recent past for Paul; for us it is the more distant past. But although it happened in the past it has not passed away. It is present because it was wrought in the eternal Spirit; by the grace of God the power of the cross and the experience of crucifixion are always in the present. Had Jesus been an ordinary man the crucifixion would have taken place and been forgotten, but because He was God manifest in flesh it is for ever. Whatsoever is wrought by God in Himself or upon Himself is eternal. By His grace God associated His people with Christ in that one crucifixion, it was an all-inclusive act. But in order for it to be real in our lives we must come faithfully to it in the present. When Paul said 'I was crucified' he referred to a realization that had been to him the end of all his struggles; it was swiftly followed by the continuous revelation, 'I am crucified'. This same revelation must live to us also or else the grace of God toward us will be frustrated. To be able to live with Christ for ever we must be always crucified with Him, for the life He lives now can only be a crucified life. We are not being painfully crucified by men, bearing our own sin, making atonement, bearing our own punishment — that was His part and His alone — but we are and must be permanently crucified as is our Lord.
This is what the apostle intended us to understand when he said the Christ he preached was Christ crucified; the tense in which he writes expresses both the fact of the crucifixion and the result of it, implying everything brought to perfection. We preach Christ crucified perfectly and permanently; He was crucified, so He is crucified now, He can be no other. Christ is permanently crucified — the permanence of it is due to its perfection. This is not the same as saying He is permanently dead. He is not, He is eternally alive; but He is not now being crucified, because His crucifixion brought crucifixion to perfection in every aspect and every virtue in every degree to all eternity. Because He was perfect He was crucified that His perfections should perfect the cross and fulfil it. In the same way as He fulfilled the law He fulfilled the cross; being alive He is now living crucified, perfected and complete.
This is part, if not all, of the reason why He dismissed His spirit into His Father's hands straight from the cross. He had endured the crucifixion, taken it into Himself; as a man He wrought it into the eternal life of God and it cannot cease to be. The message is that the Crucified is now living, crucifixion is now existing eternally for all mankind. Ordinary men could not live crucified; thousands have been crucified who are not crucified now; they were crucified and then ceased to be in human form, therefore all the marks and proofs of their crucifixion are gone — they disappeared with the dissolution of their form. But He was crucified and lives on indestructible in human form, crucified, the Crucified made whole. He is not still being crucified; crucifixes are wrong for this reason — they should never be made nor displayed or worn, for they give the wrong impression. The true Christian Church rejoices in the knowledge that Christ is neither dead on the cross, nor dying on the cross; He is alive for evermore, and by His use of the cross and His victory there He has the keys of hell and death.
'I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live' ('too' Paul and we could add); Paul saw it all so clearly and knew that what was true of Christ was true for him also, for it was true in him. As Christ lives crucified, so he lived crucified; Paul knew that he truly lived the resurrection life on earth as Jesus did. This is the only kind of resurrection life there is for us all. Paul's words were a declaration of triumph. He told the Romans that being 'baptized into His death' we are buried with Him thereby into death and planted therein, and if we are 'planted together with Him in the likeness of His death we shall be of resurrection' he says. 'Obviously', the enlightened heart cries. The words omitted from the quotation of the text, namely 'also in the likeness' and 'His' are omitted here because Paul did not write them; they were inserted by the translators. These men did it with the best of intentions to try and help in the understanding of Paul's words. This kind of help is most profitable in many places and we are most grateful to them for it, but alas they are not always so helpful and this is one of these instances; the attempt to interpret the truth here has proved rather a hindrance to arriving at its best meaning.
Paul is here stating plainly and positively the truth which lies at the heart of the gospel he preached:
(1) we have been made dead, that is slain by His death; (2) we have been buried with Him in that death; (3) we have been planted together with Christ in the likeness of His death; (4) we are of resurrection, that is of resurrection 'substance' and quality. Paul is not speaking of a future resurrection, neither is he so much speaking of Christ's resurrection as a historic event, rather he is referring to the life that made it possible; he is speaking of resurrection life. Christ is Resurrection as well as the resurrection; unless we are of resurrection we are not of Him; Paul is powerfully stating the negative side of the truth because it is vitally necessary to put it down clearly. As much as the heart may love to think of being of Him and in His life, it is not on this that the writer is here placing the emphasis. Paul's major concern at this point is to emphasize the death and the burial and the planting lest we miss it. Given this comprehensive experience the resurrection is assured to any man; in the spiritual life it as naturally follows this death, burial and planting as in the order of nature dawn follows sunset and the death of the day and darkness.
Here then lies Paul's secret. Stated more fully and positively, the text is 'I was crucified with Christ nevertheless I live no longer I but Christ liveth in me and the life I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me'. Having spent time over what may be called the negative aspect of truth, the positive side of it is very sweet, none the less we may find it very searching. Condensing the form and structure of the text, we may understand Paul to be saying, 'I who was crucified am alive, yet it is not I who live; Christ in me lives the life I now live. I with my beliefs am no longer the source of the life I live, He is. He has human being in me and I have divine being by Him, I do not have to live my life, He lives it for me'. I live by faith, but not mine, His. Paul was very careful to ensure that no-one should think he was drifting away into fantasy, so he added 'in the flesh'. It was so powerful in him that he found it easy to live in the flesh in this world for Christ, he had discovered God's secret art of living eternally, it had been revealed in him — briefly summarized it is no sin and no self-effort. With great relief he discovered he did not have to try to do it himself; it was a matter of incorporation; he had been incorporated into God and God had been incorporated into him.
The revelation to him was that it was not a matter of doing but of abiding — the struggle was over, Christ was abiding in him and he was abiding in the Christ abiding in him. It is a matter of identification and oneness, the union and integration of the 'I myself' with Christ the 'I am' within; it is the shared and integrated life. This is God's way of preserving the distinctiveness of a person while infusing him or her with His own life and personality. It must be this way — God knows no other way of doing it; human personality cannot be preserved by any other means; apart from this it must be destroyed. I must be rid of all things objectionable and unacceptable to God and kept clear of them. Crucifixion is the only way and self-crucifixion is not possible to me. Self-crucifixion was not possible even to Christ; crucifixion cannot be self- administered, it has to be administered by others — that is why God chose it for His Son. There are many forms of suicide but crucifixion is not one of them; a man cannot nail himself to a cross. Christ had to be crucified, it was a matter of being, not of doing; His was to allow Himself to be crucified, but others had to do it.
This was one of the things finally settled between Him and His Father in the garden of Gethsemane; there He lovingly yielded up His own will to God, who in turn delivered Him up to men to be tormented and slain. Before ever a cross of wood was made on earth the cross lay in the foreknowledge and will of God for His Son, so He first sacrificed Himself as a man to His Father. That was the initial step of faith, for it is the Father who presides over and directs that consensus of will of the holy three which is the will of God. He then sacrificed Him on the cross. Jesus' final sanctification was unto this and He went as a lamb to the slaughter and remained dumb as a sheep before its shearers. He said. nothing to justify Himself and nothing to condemn Himself. He did nothing; it was not a matter of doing but of being. He knew that. By keeping silent and obedient all the way through unto death He allowed it all to happen to Him according to God's will; everything that was done to Him was done for Him, He understood perfectly. It was wonderful, awe-inspiringly wonderful, miraculous; so also shall it be for everyone who will let it happen to him or her — other than that it cannot be at all. Crucifixion has not changed its nature, it cannot; God has not devised any new techniques, there are none. He has not developed any forms of words called texts to which to pin 'faith' (so called) in order to be justified either. He had His Son pinned to the cross and the Spirit declares we are justified individually by the personal faith of Jesus Christ then and there, not by our faith in Him here and now. Necessarily we must believe in Him before it can happen to us. Faith in Him is obligatory to salvation.
When we believe Him for it, that justification of Christ's is imputed to us; at that moment it is an immediate gift imparted in this present world. But even then the actual justification is not self-procured; because it is by faith no man must think it is self-wrought, all is done by the faith of Jesus Christ. He justifies a person with the justification He wrought by His own faith in God on the cross. This justification by the faith of Christ is justification by grace alone. Grace alone gives a man opportunity to receive it by faith, but being received, it is sheer gift. The person thus justified by the faith of Jesus Christ can commence to live by the faith of the Son of God, no-one else can possibly do so. The real truth of the life of faith is living by the faith of God's Son; this makes a man a son of God. It is a dazzling prospect for any man, more, it is a present possibility for all men, but it is entirely impossible without the cross. To achieve it a man must live crucified like his Lord. As we have seen, except a man has resurrection life he is not alive with the life which God counts to be life, and except a man is first crucified he cannot be raised from the dead in order to live it. In the same way and at the same time, except Christ lives in him no man can have righteousness, for Christ is the righteousness of God. Life and righteousness are one. It was just as impossible for Christ to justify us without the cross as it is impossible for Him to live in us apart from the cross, in heaven or in earth, in God or in man, Christ can only live crucified.
There must come about a change in our thinking; it is customary and correct for us to think of the life of Christ and of the cross of Christ and of the death of Christ according to scripture and that is as essential as it is good. But it is just as essential for us to think of the Christ of the cross and the Christ of death and the Christ of life, and we must do so in much the same way as we might think of Him being born; He was born and lived as from the dead. He who lived before He was born of Mary and lived from Mary on the earth, lived through death also. We must never lose sight of that. He defeated death by conquering it. He conquered it by proving death's inability to kill and destroy Him. He lived through death, He never died by death, He defeated it and having done so He dismissed His spirit. He only used death for a few hours by enduring the cross, the means of death. When He had done that sufficiently to prove His superiority over it He yielded up His spirit to God and His body physically died by the expiry of His breath. He endured death, lived through it, used it and forsook it. He took His life through death, rejoined His body and raised it from the dead to prove it, and this is what Paul saw. He saw that for all men Christ was the firstborn from the dead. He had to be or He could not have been the firstborn of all creation, neither could He have saved us. Thank God, although He was the first one to be born from the dead, He is not the only one. Through this miracle the Lord has translated millions of persons into this kingdom of His Son. By passing His Son triumphantly through the realm of darkness and the power of death, God made the way through into the kingdom for all His sons.
The method God chose is awesome and wonderful and we must remember always that this extreme measure is the only way for all mankind. Christ must not be robbed of His pre-eminence in all things; He is the king but He is only king of those who by this means will become His new creations in this kingdom. The life of redemption is only to be had and enjoyed in this kingdom, for it was only obtained by this means. The visible man Jesus was the Christ who is the image of the invisible God: He became a man by a marvellous procreative act of God. Uncreated God, by one of His most outstanding miracles, became a procreated man, that by His cross-death He should be able to rise from among the dead and qualify for the title 'the firstborn of every creature'. He was not a mere creature as men are creatures; when He came into the world He was not a descendant of created Adam as other men are — though a woman was His mother no man was His father. God made Him of a woman and by that act and in this sense became the generator of Jesus' human life and the father of His body and because that was so His body was eternal. Jesus took that body and life into and through death that He should swallow up death in victory and be the first one to rise from the grave. No creature of any order, by whatever means it was created or procreated, had ever done so; Christ was the firstborn to God from the dead; in order to accomplish it He had to become as a creature. Being found in fashion as a man He was the image of the invisible God, and what happened in Him is law in the kingdom. By His death and resurrection He set the pattern for every person who desires to bear that same image, and by His cross and grave He established the means. None but they who bear this image are in the kingdom of the Son, and none can bear it who is not translated into that kingdom; basic transformation into His image is accomplished in process of the translation.
The translation of human beings is by means of His wondrous crucifixion and resurrection in our behalf. The spirit and power of that wondrous crucifixion and resurrection of Christ is just as wondrously made effective in all those for whom He died and rose again, who for love of Him want to die with Him from sin — its nature, its laws, its rudiments and principles. The death of the cross accomplished all this, it was God's means of applying all His power to destroy the basic elements of sin. By dying He negated the operation of the laws of the terrible invisible kingdom into which God's fallen son Adam entered by disobedience. Adam was God's direct creation, but he consciously stepped out of union with God and as a result was thrust out from His presence and His Eden. Adam emerged from Eden into a kingdom of estrangement from His creator, and all he knew of God died within him; tragically for God and man, so did all life and potential life. Scripture says, 'in Adam all die'. All who would live must therefore come out of him and out of all that kingdom of spiritual death in him; no-one need stay there. All God's children may live in the kingdom of the Son of His love, where all is made alive by the miracle of the death and resurrection of the one who was alive to God.
In those terrible hours of crucifixion that old man of death was inescapably with Him. He took him on Him and went with him to crucifixion to kill his death-states there; He slew him, the whole nature of him, together with the laws of that nature of death which had claimed him. God by Christ crucified the old man of every one of us He chose in Christ, that He might translate us into His own kingdom of love. In the Godhead Christ is the only begotten of the Father, there are no other sons there, only Christ — He is unique in God and among men, though by Him God has since begotten many sons from among the dead, which is part, perhaps the best part, of the marvel of the cross.
'I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live' is now seen to be most vital self-realization; apart from it no-one is alive; that is why Paul goes on to say, 'yet not I but Christ liveth in me'. It is self-realization arising from Christ-realization; Christ must be realized within or else He cannot be realized at all by mortal man. He can be imagined by men, and believed in by men too, but unless He lives in him, mortal man is terribly dead. Great as is the love of Christ for men, unless a man is living primarily by the faith of the Son of God only, His love cannot be known by him. A man may know of the love of Christ and believe all about the love of God's Son, but he cannot know that love as his own until the Son of God lives in him. Man cannot live till he lives by the personal faith and love of Christ. Eternal life is so very individual, it is personal to each of God's sons, 'the Son of God loved me and gave Himself for me', is the basic realization of eternal life of every child of God within himself. Every man must know it in himself, he must realize it personally; he must believe and know and feel it for and in himself; that is realization. It is not sufficient to know that eternal life is only because of this love, true as that is; although such love may engender great admiration for Christ within the mind, it is insufficient; with Paul each one must be living the Christ-faith-love-life of the Son of God.
God's provision for us may be stated as 'Christ's self for my self'. Astounding as it is, this is the amazing truth, and until this is realized within himself by every man the crucifixion is in vain as far as he is concerned. Far too many believers are in this sad state and because of it the grace of God is frustrated in them, rendering Him powerless to accomplish all He wants to do in that life. Grace cannot be frustrated in God's heart, nor is it destroyed in principle or withheld from others because it is frustrated in any individual; God in heaven is not a frustrated being. But many a man on earth is a frustrated being because within his own self he is frustrating the love and faith of Christ and therefore the purposes of God for his life. Christ's crucifixion was for the fulfilment of God's purposes as originally stated by Him and recorded by Moses, 'Let us make man in our image, after our likeness'. Christ is the image of God, the effulgence of His being and the express image of His person, and when He was made a man He was a man in the likeness of God; therefore when He comes into a man and lives in him He makes God's original ideal possible to Him and us.
Christ did not die in vain, He died to obliterate from man first Adam's fallen image and to restore and reinstate him in the kingdom and favours of God, elevating him into the life of his creator, lifting him above all He first did when He began with Adam. In this transaction man receives a new spirit and becomes a new conscious self. Moreover this new self is combined with another Self whereby he becomes a greater person and realizes he has been made anew. This other new Christ-Self or Christ-Himself is the greater, stronger, dominant partner of the union and takes over the life. Following this miracle, providing he does not become foolish and allow someone to bewitch him and lure him off course, he will remain new and consciously grow up into the full stature of Christ.
This is what Paul found. Following this initial and most vital experience of the cross he not only had power to remain in newness of life, he had ability to evidently set forth Jesus Christ crucified before people's eyes — his life was an example and exposition of it. Wherever Paul went and whatever he did Christ crucified went and was manifested in that place and among those people. The undeniable Christ and His undeniable death and resurrection were set forth in the man, which is what God intended. The New Testament keeps the historical cross before men's minds objectively, but wonderful as the Book is, it is only print on paper, it is not animate as Jesus was animate. God had to do something more. So knowing that only human beings could keep the crucifixion subjectively before men God planned and provided for men to enter into it.
The order of the revelation of the cross is in three simple steps or stages: first in the world, second in man, thirdly in the New Testament: (1) revelation; (2) realization; (3) record. The historic revelation being now past, only present human realization remains, if men do not see it in humanity it cannot be known. True we have the Gospels and we are grateful for those holy records of facts — what should we do without them? But inspired though they are, the combined record is still only the documentation of truth. The writers tell us about the crucifixion and the Christ of the cross, but good and absolutely necessary though this is, the truth needs more than words to reveal it. God needs men and women to display it here and now in this world in flesh and blood bodies as Christ did. Not that our bodies should be crucified as was the Lord's, but that our spiritual natures should be crucified from sin that our soul, the embodiment of sin, should be slain unto resurrection into new manhood.
Paul understood this clearly, especially in relation to us gentiles according to the flesh who did not have the advantages of the Jews. Beyond the few who were involved in the events of the crucifixion the gentiles could not have seen or known much about it. Very few could have read the hints and foreshadowings of it in the prophetic writings of the Old Testament, for they did not have them; gentiles needed something up to date and authentic, something they could see and hear and feel. It is perhaps for this reason more than any other that in their ignorance gentiles have made to themselves crosses of wood and metal and stone or straw, even of leaves or paint, and have carved effigies of the imagined crucifixion, all to their own hurt and shame. When a man is able to set forth in his own flesh Christ crucified and living in himself he has no need of artificial or manufactured symbols produced from people's imaginations. Such a man could not reproduce in art form something which he knows in the event can only be imaginative and untrue. To create and foist on others lifeless copies and sterile reproductions without life is abomination to him; he has reality. This restraining knowledge has nothing to do with artistic talent or the lack of it, but with spiritual law and morality; understanding of the sheer impossibility of it renders him incapable of trying.
- The Cross and the Giving of the Spirit.
Paul does not directly state the relationship of the cross and the Spirit in the plan of God, but it may be inferred from a question he asks at this point, 'did ye receive the Holy Spirit?' At this point he is seeking to bring his readers to realization of truth. There is no room in the gospel for those who wish to gain anything from God by works of law. Everything to do with salvation is of faith, so he asks them a proof-question, 'did ye receive the Holy Spirit by the works of the law or by the hearing of faith?' Although this is the stated reason for the introduction of the Holy Spirit here, it is difficult to avoid the conviction that he is deliberately drawing attention to the importance of the crucifixion in view of the desire of God to give men the Holy Spirit. Textually Paul is correcting the mistaken view then being pressed by Judaizers that things can be received from God by the works of the law. He spent much of his life contending that nothing can now be obtained by law-works and he here chooses to make the focal point of contention the reception of the Holy Spirit: Paul found the suggestion not only ridiculous but blasphemous. The Holy Spirit is God Himself, how can He be received by works of any kind? Israel had always known that the essential things of salvation had never been earned by law-works, salvation had always been upon the ground of faith, it has ever been by grace, never by Sinaitic law and its works. He says 'we who are Jews by nature .... know.... that a man is not justified by the works of the law'. Even under Moses, justification was by faith in the blood, never by works: no less today than then, perhaps even more so, the Holy Spirit can only be received by the hearing of faith.
It was for this reason and to this end that God put His Son to death and raised Him again. Because it is all of God it is all of gift, it has to be, so upon the completion of the age of law and at the beginning of the Church age God poured out the Holy Spirit. This could not have been done at any time during the earthly life of the Lord Jesus. Before He left heaven and all the while He was on earth the Lord knew He was going to be made sin and would be punished as the sinner, indeed as the original sinner Adam, the cause and originator of human sin. The plan for salvation was made around that concept of Jesus. We must never lose sight of the perfections of God: He is so perfect. Everything He does is flawless and faultless and in this perfectness it was agreed that God would only outpour the Holy Spirit through His Son after He was crucified on earth and glorified and magnified in heaven. The reason for this is very simple: God's prime purpose in outpouring the Spirit was that in Him men and women may be regenerated in the image of Christ; this could only be accomplished by the power of the crucifixion and the resurrection.
Everything God does with regard to generating Sons is according to an unvarying pattern. As with human birth the biological law does not vary, so with spiritual birth the spiritual law is unchangeable. Before Jesus could be born the Holy Spirit had to come upon Mary because the One who was going to be born of her was God's Son. As with Mary so with everybody; if a man is to become a son of God the Holy Spirit must come upon him to regenerate and re-form him. This also was all planned and must be carried through according to God's will and the original choice He made before ever the world was or sin and death had entered it. This concept was very wonderful in imagination, the decision was perfect, God knew that nothing of this marvellous creation was possible for men except they received the Holy Spirit. The divine choice for the Holy Spirit and the prime purpose for His coming was that He should take His rightful place and fulfil His indispensable function in regeneration; His work is to recreate the spirits of believing people in the nature and image of Christ in order that He should reproduce the life of Christ in them for the Father's good pleasure.
It must always be borne in mind that God does not just do something because He thinks He will, He always works according to the perfect law of liberty (of His Being) from sin or error. In all He does love and law are both the same; this is His grace. If He makes a law He does not break it; He says 'I the Lord change not'. For this reason God had to receive the risen Christ back to Himself alive before He could pour out the Holy Spirit through Him (that life). All sin had to be banished, taken away by the Lamb, before God made another move; when that was done He made it. He gave the Holy One so that we should all have opportunity to live on this earth as God's sons. That is why, before mentioning the Spirit, Paul first spoke of and set forth the crucifixion. Having done so he immediately spoke of receiving the Holy Spirit.
Paul's approach to truth shows great consistency with the Lord's own words to the apostles in the upper room before His crucifixion. Having told them He was going to prepare a place for them He assured them also that He was coming back again for them (because He wanted them to be with Him for ever) and then He spoke to them further about the Holy Spirit. 'I will pray the Father', He said, 'and He will give you another Comforter that he may abide with you forever'. He was not teaching them doctrine or theology, He was telling them order of events. He did not fill in all the details, He simply moved from one major point to the other — first the crucifixion, then the Resurrection, then the coming of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit's coming was fixed. It was to be the major event between the ascension of Christ and His coming to the earth. First the crucifixion and the resurrection, then the ascension and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. The connection is obvious and the conclusion inevitable: He was to be given in consequence of the crucifixion and they were to receive Him — the result — eternal life! It is all so free and so simple for us; God holds every man responsible before Himself in this matter; 'did ye receive the Holy Spirit? Was it by works or by the hearing of faith?' It is all by the hearing of faith; God did all the work. Every one who will be faithful and listen to what God is saying shall receive.
- The Cross and the Redemption from the Curse.
The third mention of the cross is in connection with redemption: 'Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law .... cursed is everyone that hangeth on a tree'. It may perhaps seem a little strange to us that God should have made such a pronouncement until we realize that He never decides on anything arbitrarily. God does do things because He wishes to, but He never says or does anything just because He wishes to; He never does anything against His will either! God always has a reason for everything He does, so when He said, 'cursed is everyone that hangeth on a tree' there was a reason for that, in fact more reasons than one. The most ancient of these reasons goes back to the beginning of time and the coming of sin into the world and the fall of man and the heartbreak of God. Most unexpectedly the tragedy resulted from man's disobedience to the expressed will of God in relationship to a tree. Adam and Eve were forbidden to partake of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil standing in the midst of Eden. They could eat of the tree of life — that was not withheld from them and they did eat from it and gained thereby both life and the knowledge of it. They were not commanded to eat of that tree, it was for them. In common with all the other trees its fruit was good for food; all that is, except that one tree. The command of God was not to eat of that, for if they did so it would be death to them: God's will was against it and for a while the will of man was not to eat of it either.
But there was another voice beside God's speaking in Eden, it was very subtle and most persuasive and Eve listened. Under the devil's flattery desire got the better of curiosity and, against God's will, His creatures partook of the fruit and died as God said they would. What a curse sin is: in every way it is a curse and how cursed a creature is the devil. Because of what happened in the garden between the devil and man Christ had to be nailed to the tree. No name save the one Pilate wrote has been put upon that tree; it cannot be named really, it is not possible to name it, it is so complex, so incomprehensible, so all-inclusive. It could be called the tree of death, it could as equally be called the tree of life, it could be called the tree of satan or the tree of God, the tree of sin or of righteousness, of evil or of good, of hatred or of love. Paul could have called it the tree of man, 'my tree, I was crucified there'; it could be called nobody's tree or everybody's tree for it belongs to everyone, but chiefly to God. The tree, just THE TREE: that is what He calls it, and that is all we need to call it. By it and by Him who hung upon it countless multitudes of men have been brought to the truest understanding of good and evil. By the cross we learn the exceeding sinfulness of the sin which came into the human race by man's wilfulness in the garden; because of it He who knew no sin had to be made sin and the curse.
Sin is much more evil than we know. If a sinless, blameless man, without spot on His character or even a wrinkle on the surface of His visible life, who fulfilled all righteousness and kept every spiritual, moral and civil law, had to be made sin; if the perfect man had to die because of sin, then sin is more vile than men know or can know. Sin was revealed by God for what it was when He introduced the law into the world, but only partially — it could not be revealed fully by the law. Sin was only seen to be so terribly evil when at last it could be contrasted with Jesus who was so good. By Jesus and by what happened to Him, sin was shown up in all its unrelieved vileness. For what a man did thousands of years before and for what myriads have continued to do ever since, Jesus was crucified. Sin is evil; evil is the nature of sin and good is the nature of Christ's sinlessness, more — of His positive righteousness. Jesus Christ was nailed to the tree so that the nature of sin could be slain by the nature of good; by His sheer goodness He overcame evil and turned the tree of good and evil into the tree of life, thereby turning the curse into blessing, for He was both cursed and blessed of God there.
Paul, however, is not particularly referring here to the curse pronounced by God in Eden, but to the curse which came in with the law of Moses. God did not give the law to be a curse but to be a blessing. He pronounced blessings upon blessings to the obedient; by and large the law was altogether a commandment unto blessing. One of its greatest blessings was its power to expose sin, both toward God and man, in much detail. But side by side with the blessings, God pronounced curses upon the disobedient as well. This was not done in a spirit of vindictiveness but in love, to warn men and women of the consequences of disobedience; the blessings are only for the obedient. The ethic of law may perhaps best be summarized as follows: 'blessed is everyone that continues in all the things written in the law to do them' and 'cursed is everyone that continueth not in all the things written in the law to do them'. Just as the law itself was in two parts and can be summarized into two commandments, so may all the blessings and the curses be summarized in the same way. Moses' law in effect was given to reveal in detail the human, social, moral and spiritual power of evil by specifying the sins by which it is manifest. By the law God attempted to offset sin and contain evil; Israel were 'kept under the laws in great blessing, safeguarded by equally great and terrible curses which acted as deterrents.
This was nothing but sheerest grace in operation, for the law was an interim measure intended by God to protect His people from leprous evil and contagious sin until He should send Christ to remove it all. When the Lord came to this earth and was crucified here He was made both the sin and the curse for us by God. That death was so great and comprehensive in effect and so fulfilling and compensating to God that all evil and all curses, as well as all sin (with the exception of one) were taken away. That is both the immeasurable fulness of God's provision and the extent of His blessing in Christ toward us. The only sin from which, for obvious reasons, His death cannot deliver is the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit; the person who commits this sin cannot be blessed, he is evil beyond redemption and must suffer the curse without reprieve. But to all other the message is clear and positive, 'being made a curse for us'.... Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law.
God has done this so 'that the blessings of Abraham might come on the gentiles (us) that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith'. The blessing to which Paul refers came upon Abraham from God in the simplest of ways, he just believed God; that, simply that, was accounted to him for righteousness. It was almost unbelievably simple: he did not have to work for it, he did not have to pray for it, there was no need to, he did not have to earn it in any way, he just went along with God in what He said, that is all. Sweating to achieve something came in with the curse, no man has to labour to receive what is being poured upon him, no struggle to hear when God speaks. Quietness, stillness, the opening of the heart is all God requires — in other words faith.
What God did in Abraham's hearing was to make a commitment to him, He promised to fulfil the unspoken longings of Abraham's heart. Isn't God good? He did not ask Abraham to believe anything horrible or distasteful or make any big demands of him then. He came to Abraham in love, with purpose to bring him joy and untold blessing, blessings far more exceedingly wonderful than justification by faith, though that is the point Paul is making here. God is greater than the points we make about Him. This is another example of His ways with men. In this instance God is summarizing the unspoken blessings upon blessings in His heart. He is hiding His beatific face behind a veil of promise, He is making one promise the promise of many more promises. Faith in Him is the key to many thousands of blessings. Abraham is always the one chosen by the Lord when He wants to illustrate faith. He did not only believe God once for one blessing or for thousands of blessings, he believed God continually for constant blessings.
All the blessings of God are of similar nature to those God gave to Abraham, and they all hold similar potential. What may be considered lesser blessings are always summed up by and contained in the greater and most important blessings and they must all be received in the same way. Abraham believed in God and his faith was accounted to him for righteousness; he was thereby accounted to be a righteous man. What good news this is for us! It is not so much the fact that Abraham was blessed, but that he was accounted righteous, not because of any works he had done but because he believed God. It is most important here to note that this blessed state is contrasted by Paul with the works of the law and not with the righteousness of the law. This is a very important distinction sometimes overlooked. Elsewhere he explains that this righteousness of the law is fulfilled in them who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit. The righteousness of the law is the same as the righteousness of faith; there is no difference. Righteousness is righteousness, whether it be under the law or under grace, because it is the righteousness of God. It is not the righteousness of man, yet it is the first and most basic requirement of God for every man: righteousness is the basis of our salvation. The beginning of a man's righteousness in God's eyes is heart faith in God. It is a righteous thing to believe God; it is a demonstration of unrighteousness when a person chooses to not believe Him. Stimulation of the heart to believe God is the work of the Holy Spirit, it is the prelude to salvation.
The purpose of God in redeeming us from the curse of the law into the blessedness of justification by faith is that we should receive the promise of the Spirit. This is God's order and we must beware lest we believe He has made the promise and fail to receive Him about whom the promise was made. Only when we receive the person of the Holy Spirit are we made sons; justification is not the end — it is a beginning. It was for this reason that Christ gathered up all the curses of the law unto Himself on the cross and died to them. On the tree Christ was made both the embodiment of God's curse upon Adam and the world and His curse upon sin in all its forms also, that only the blessings of God should remain for His people.
What a way to think about Him — Christ the Curses Only temporarily though, praise God, but while it lasted it was very real, it broke His heart. By the power of God the curses that should have descended on our heads descended on His, crushing and piercing like the thorns wherewith He was crowned on the tree. Thorns came in with the original curse pronounced by God in Eden; for man's sake He cursed the very earth itself with a curse which still holds power in every realm of man's existence and shall do till earth is no more. Christ who without remission, had borne with the works of the cursed satan ever since he fell in heaven did so continually till He hung on the cross. There He bore the curses of God, whether they were pronounced on the ground or on rebellious law-breakers or against ignorant sinners and He bore all away. The tree ensured that; He was nailed to it by men, but God transfixed Him to the tree like the wilderness serpent Moses made and fixed to the pole in the midst of the camp. It is terrible but true when understanding dawns on us that Jesus was crucified and punished mercilessly as though He were the cursed serpent, the original cause of all sin, the one whose workings made God curse His creation. Dear Jesus bore it all uncomplaining. He was lifted up that He should attract all eyes to Him on the cross, the focal point of deliverance and life. Ultimately He bore the curse right away and He did so while pouring out the blood of redemption. The curses still stand against all who rebel against God and disobey the gospel. We needed to be redeemed from all that as well as the curses. Believing we receive full release, exoneration, exemption, because we have been brought back to God. We have received the Spirit.
- The Cross and the Scandal
Paul's fourth reference to the cross is to its unacceptability; he speaks of 'the offence of the cross'. He is really continuing his theme, for this is closely related to his previous reference to it. Precisely because the cross was in itself the symbol of curse and execration it was a terrible offence to everybody. There is no doubt that to the outsider and the merely religious believer the emphasis upon the true nature and purposes of God by the cross is the most offensive thing about the gospel. To the normal mind the cross is an affront to decency, it is immoral, undignified, distasteful, illogical, inhumane; how therefore could it be thought acceptable that God should make it central to all salvation? The idea is scandalous; that is exactly the word Paul uses — 'the scandal of the cross'; he is not trying to hide it, he is deliberately forcing us to face the shame of the gospel. He is setting out methodically to destroy pride — no proud person can be a child of God. Christ humbled Himself to the cross and so must everybody else who wants to be a son with Him. The cross will humiliate everyone but the humble. Refusal or inability to bear the scandal of the cross has been the downfall of many. The crucifixion of Christ is mankind's greatest condemnation, the crime of the ages, proving man's unqualified hatred of God; it reveals man's insanity and outlawry. To be bloodthirsty for His death and that particular form of it would have been stupid and barbarous even if He had only been a man, but because He was the Man it was an infamy and because He was God it was a blasphemy. Worse, far worse than this, it was indescribably sinful and should a man in any way unrepentantly defend and justify it he is unforgivable.
The seriousness of the gospel for all of us lies just here, because Jesus was raised from the dead. His crucifixion is not only a matter of history; it is also a contemporary issue. The cross and the crime are not a dead issue; it is a live subject to this day. The prime purpose of the gospel is to focus attention upon this. Every man who has heard the gospel is in some degree drawn to the cross and the crucified One. From that moment he is obligated by God to pass his personal judgement upon what happened those years ago; God has furnished us with the documents containing all the evidence we need to have. Christ was the Man and the God and each man's future shall stand upon his own evaluation and judgement of Him. What was done by the Jews through the Romans at the dividing of time was superseded entirely by what God did by the same act for us all — it was the decisive hour for all mankind. All must be awakened to their accountability to God for what He did then.
Moral complicity in the Jews' and Romans' crime and criminal culpability are not imputed to us; we do not have to answer for what they did.. No individual is held responsible for what another individual does in his own age or in any past age or shall do in the future. The presentation of the crucifixion to modern man is a fait accompli by God though; all men are as inescapably shut up to it as were the Jews in their day and Israel to the law before that. Those who then rebelled against Moses' law were cut off without mercy; likewise they who now purposely and unrepentantly rebel against Christ's cross and law shall as irremediably as they be cut off without mercy. This is unpleasant truth terrible to contemplate, nevertheless it is predetermined by God; having fixed it, He has made or will yet make all men face up to it, either in this age or in an age to come.
The Offence and Superiority of the Cross
The gospel of the cross is thrust upon us unasked; of themselves it is almost certain that men would never seek it. Crucifixion was a most distasteful and shameful method of capital punishment. Beside and beyond being a mere instrument of death, crucifixion was devised by the Romans as a punitive measure for several other reasons (mostly offensive to our taste). The Romans were a civilized nation, one of the greatest civilizations the world has known, but they were also a very warlike nation, heathen, fierce and cruel. By many and frequent battles and conquests they forced their way into foreign lands afar and built an empire over which they imposed their iron will. They did this with such success and to such degree that to this day their mark remains ineradicably impressed on the nations they successively conquered and ruled. Wherever they went they introduced crucifixion; in the Roman world justice was a byword and the cross was its ultimate symbol. No country under their authority would have been left in any ignorance about the power and meaning of the cross, though not its saving power — the Roman cross did not symbolize salvation but death.
Today the cross is regarded as barbaric and loathsome; the whole civilized world now condemns the savage nature which could devise such a thing and the heartless system which could apply it. How then could modern man be expected to accept and look with equanimity upon this most inhumane method of imposing the death sentence? God knew that it was almost beyond expectation — why then did He send His Son into the world to face that kind of death and incorporate it into salvation? It should be borne in mind that God sent His Son into the world at the end of an age specially to be crucified. The crucifixion was foreshadowed, though not forecast, in such scriptures as Psalm 22: what God did was quite deliberate — it was done in full cognizance of what effects it might have in the twentieth century A.D. It should also be taken into account that it was precisely because of what took place by the crucifixion that men and women of this century think it to be an atrocity. Christ not only accomplished redemption by the cross, He started something in the mind of humanity that has changed the world so radically that men and women think crucifixion is barbarous. But at that time Romans were not considered barbarous; they were the leading nation on earth, educated, civilized, law-abiding and victorious; when they came to Britain they brought the inevitable cross with them. This land was then heathen, our forebears were savages, scarce removed from cavemen we are told; they were defenceless against Rome and were soon made slaves; many who escaped the sword were hung on crosses.
In this modern age it is not what Rome accomplished by the cross but because of what Christ accomplished by it that people think the cross to be philosophically and aesthetically wrong. It is no longer a legal or historic matter, it is a spiritual matter; God used the cross, that is the challenge. It ill becomes sensible people to despise that which God has made their only hope. Yet still the cross is a scandal. Even in those far-off days many other methods of putting people to death were known to men, yet God chose none of those for His Son. He chose the time and sent Him into the world precisely that He should suffer death by crucifixion and we are told that for Him it was the fulness of time. Why? And why did He do such a thing? He knew that the death of His Son would need to be preached throughout all time in all the world as the central determinative factor of salvation. Whatever made Him choose the cross? Why not decapitation or poisoning or even stoning (primitive and torturous as that was) or some other method equally well known to men, just as effective and certainly less barbaric; why did it have to be the cross? He realized that the cross would cause disgust and shame and be outwardly offensive to countless human beings, furnishing the gentle and the civilized and the cultured and the merely religious with sufficient aesthetic grounds to reject His proffered salvation, yet He chose to do what He did. What then are His reasons for so doing?
It is an axiom in law that when crime, especially serious crime, is to be punished, the judge, in passing sentence, should bear in mind that there must be an exhibition to public justice and that it is his duty to include that in the sentence. Crime against society, though it be perpetrated against one person, must never be treated as a private matter; it must be treated as a public outrage and punishment must be meted out accordingly. Punishment may not be inflicted according to the tastes of, or to suit the desires of, an individual or a small group of individuals in society; the judge passing sentence may not do so according to his own whim or because of any personal injustice or damage he may have suffered. Punishment must be imposed according to outraged public conscience. When passing sentence the mentality, decency, standards and desires and intentions of the whole people must be interpreted by the judge. He may not act as an individual but must apply the verdict of the people because he is acting as their representative; the judge is the servant of the nation.
A judge is as a president and must pass sentence as from a body of law agreed upon by a law-abiding nation. His own personal tastes or standard of ethics, his views on the particular case or person on trial, though they may be identical with the people's, are not primarily taken into account. The body of law is an expression of the will of the people. It is either the agreed opinion of a nation of people or the decision of their received head(s) of state; ideally it should be both. Therefore the sentence when passed is the will of the people and before passing it, it is the judge's duty to rightly ascertain by proper investigation whether the accused is guilty or not guilty. He may not decide whether or not the guilty should be punished; the law (and therefore the people) decides that. Certain crimes merit certain retribution and although a little latitude in interpretation may be permitted, the judge may not alter the law, he may only apply it; especially is this so in the case of capital punishment.
The death sentence is not imposed with the idea of educating the individual in social morality by corrective punishment. It may have a salutary and corrective effect upon others in society who may be planning misdemeanours and that is good; it may also act as a deterrent to the spread of similar criminal intent; but be that as it may, capital punishment is not regarded primarily as corrective and certainly not as reformatory to the individual; it is the final word of the people upon certain forms of crime. Capital punishment is the execution of the will of the people, it is insistence upon total exaction, full payment and strict justice without mercy for a crime which has no forgiveness; it is based upon the Mosaic code of 'an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth'; fairness and justice are its commendation, and righteousness its foundation. It must therefore be thoroughly understood by us all that the death of Jesus of Nazareth by crucifixion was an exhibition to public justice by God. Jesus was crucified according to the will of God in order to reveal to men the effects of sin upon God and His creatures. The crucifixion was the execution of God's implacable will, God was outraged beyond placation because of sin. Beyond being an exhibition of God's personal wrath against sin, the crucifixion was also the demonstration of His righteousness, it is His just reaction to sin, not a merely emotional one. Further still the crucifixion was not only executed for Himself as expressing His own personal revulsion, but also as expressing the will of all righteous people.
When Jesus came into the world it was an understood thing between Him and His Father that once becoming a man He would have to accept and bear the sentence of death in Himself. He had already accepted that position before being born but He was God only then, He was not the God-man, therefore when He did become a man He had to re-assess the position from a human angle and re-affirm His commitment as a man. This is what took place in the garden of Gethsemane. It cost. He could not shed His blood there — that was reserved for the hill of redemption and the actual cross, but His sweat was as His blood in that garden of consent and commitment. There the sentence was passed and accepted and from thence He bore it as against Himself on behalf of others, right through crucifixion and death and burial.
The high priest sentenced Him to death, Pilate sentenced Him to death, nearly everybody sentenced Him to death, but the death they thought of and imposed upon Him was not that death, it was not the death He accepted in the garden. They, all of them together, though they marshal all their power and combine all their authority, could not pass upon Him the sentence He had already agreed to and accepted on the throne in heaven and on the ground in Gethsemane. How could they? They did not know the grounds upon which to sentence Him. Neither priest nor Pilate, great and high though they were, knew with whom they were treating, nor did they know why they were sentencing Him, 'Art thou the Christ the Son of the Blessed?' cried the priest, 'Whence art thou?' asked Pilate like an echo. They and all who questioned with them did not know, they were ignorant, it was beyond their ken as confessed out of their own mouths, and it was out of their hands. Their sentences were as nothing to Him: He had already been sentenced. God did it. When Jesus was finally led away to be crucified He went bearing the sentence of death He had accepted from God. He suffered for the crimes of humanity against God and humanity, crimes He Himself had never committed nor ever thought of committing: He was punished as though He was the guilty one of heaven and earth — all who had perpetrated those crimes both directly or indirectly since the foundation of the world: this vital truth of the cross is perhaps too little known.
There is a comprehensiveness about the cross. When God punished His Son He did it not only as from Himself but also as from the considered opinion of a completely convinced people, a people who, if they could have known the whole truth and had been able to adjudicate, would have passed a body of law utterly justifying what He did at Calvary. What He did there He did for us as us, as though we were one with Him in the act, On our behalf He exhibited what would have been our outraged sense of justice had we known and had we been He. This is perhaps one of the greatest of the many reasons why God chose the barbaric cross for His Son. If He had done this to anyone else but Him, for any lesser reasons or with any other purpose than this, it would have been monstrous sin, but in this light it is totally right. This very comprehensiveness of the cross was the greatest reason why the cross was so offensive to the men who were troubling the Galatians. They never understood its fulness, they were offended simply because by it God has accomplished everything which was formerly accomplished only by the ceremonial law; this did not please them at all. They wanted their religion, not the cross.
The great thing at issue among the Galatians was the religious practice of circumcision. It was to them the most fundamental ceremonial of all. By it every male child in Israel was made a child of Abraham, an inheritor of the kingdom and a debtor to keep the whole law. So important was the tradition that, irrespective of the day, circumcision must be performed without fail eight days after the birth of the child, whether it be solemn sabbath or feast day or even the great day of Atonement. Failing this, despite his birth, even though he be a very Isaac, he was cut off from the altar of God, doomed. It can well be imagined what a tender point this was among people; every earnest caring person would have been most concerned to keep the commandment. Imagine then their consternation of heart when people realized, and rightly so, that it struck right at the root of their traditional faith. It destroyed their foundations.
Paul's teaching cut clean across everything; he taught that circumcision was nothing but an outward symbol and quite valueless in the Church; he went so far as to say that under some circumstances it could be definitely harmful to spiritual life. He certainly made it clear that if circumcised people were saved it gave them no spiritual advantage over uncircumcised members of the Church. The cross of Christ rendered the faith and practice of Jewish rites no other than merest superstition. He insisted that all circumcised people were to recognize that circumcision practised for spiritual advantage was quite useless, it provided none; it must be regarded as concision only and its supposed advantages renounced. Paul laid down that circumcision is now accomplished by the cross of Christ alone, it is of the heart and not of the body, it is in the spirit and not in the flesh and it is done by God and not by man.
So then, whether to Jew or gentile, the cross was an offence — it still is, there is no minimising the power and scope of its meaning, it is unlimited and uncompromising. Because of this it is a very delicate subject now as then, though for different reasons. This is brought out by the figurative meaning of the word translated offence here. We are informed that the word refers to the trigger of a fall trap, a very delicate piece of mechanism included in the setting up of traps to catch birds or animals: by this trigger the poor creature brought about its own captivity, for the slightest touch would move it and cause the trap to spring. This device was always set up well within the trap so that almost always the prey was inescapably caught and held. So it was with the matters of ceremonial circumcision and the cross: both are triggers and they are diametrically opposed to each other. In either case the person who embraced one or the other was 'caught'. The circumcised person was debtor to keep the whole of Moses' law, the crucified person was debtor to keep the whole law of Christ. The cross was a very 'touchy' subject indeed in Paul's day; preached properly it stripped Jewry of all its symbolic religious overtones and outlawed its former ceremonial practices. 'Neither circumcision availeth any thing nor uncircumcision but a new creature': Paul says we must walk by this rule. Circumcision today is only a show unto men in the flesh, crucifixion shows in the spirit before God.
- The Cross and the Crucifixion of the Flesh.
The fifth mention of the cross is again with emphasis upon the flesh — what a hindrance to spirituality it is. This time Paul is not speaking with regard to flesh in the bodily physical sense, that is in the same substance in which circumcision was practised. When Paul says 'they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with its affections and lusts' he is obviously not saying that it is every man's duty to crucify his own body on an actual cross. Literal self-crucifixion is impossible — crucifixion is one of the few methods of death which cannot be self-applied. In any case Paul is not advocating suicide. Paul is talking about the application of the power of Christ's crucifixion to the evil propensities and powers of self operating in the flesh of a person; if not crucified these will destroy the spiritual life of a Christian. More than this, he is asserting in plainest language that by the Holy Spirit they who are Christ's have already done this thing — they have crucified the flesh', he says: the heart of faith will always do it. Such a strong affirmation leaves no room to doubt that this is conditional to salvation, though at the point of conversion this may not necessarily be understood to be so. At regeneration the spirit of man becomes spiritually alive in Christ; from that moment he is spiritual, that is to say he consciously knows he is alive; he is a man made newly aware of his spirit, for he has new spiritual powers and affections and desires.
Until this happens to him man is a dead creature in spirit; though a natural, normal man, he is cut off from God and totally fleshly in his affections and desires. He may recognize that there is a spirit(ual) side to his make-up, but to do so may only add to the worsening of his state if he develops it wrongly. In company with all around him apart from Christ, a man cannot help living in this world for his own ambitions and fulfilments in the flesh. He loves these things and in common with his fellow men he lives for their expression and satisfaction and enjoyment. These inward affections and lusts develop into habits which, though not identical with the sensual fleshly cravings of the outward man, are correlated with them; they so closely correspond to these that they are often confused and indistinguishable so that they are thought to be the same. They are not. Those that are Christ's must learn to distinguish between the inward man and the outward man and their respective activities and potential.
The inward man should be thought of as having all the powers and possibilities of its outward counterpart. It should also be recognized as being far more powerful, having greater potential than the outward man — he is only a shell. The inward man is the power of man and that does not differ from person to person or in male or female. This is borne out by Peter; when addressing himself to women in his first epistle he speaks of 'the hidden man of the heart', not the hidden female. The man hidden within is the one to whom God addresses Himself; alas, so does satan. This man has all the potentialities and abilities of the outward man; he is capable of seeing, hearing, feeling, tasting and smelling; he has powers of conception, he can also beget; he can think, speak, work, he can run, walk, sleep, live, die, he is not limited as the body in which he lives is limited — he is far greater than that. He is the one who forms habits and if they are to be broken or changed he is the one who must be changed. He is either good or evil, he is the one who by the grace of God is born from above, and having been born must obey the laws of Christ.
In order to keep spiritual, every regenerate person must know how to maintain the crucified life in all things. This is the secret all must learn, and a special watch must be kept over the affections and lusts. These likes and dislikes and fixations of ours are very strong, they are powers to be reckoned with, for they are not under the control of our conscious mind. They seem to range freely and at times hold sway over the entire spiritual, mental and physical realm of human being and capability. Being so natural and so strong they are perhaps the least controllable of all our appetites and abilities, and can so easily become habits and bondages. We must become very wakeful here and very aware, for often the restrained function of these powers is allowable and correct. Praise God it is precisely here that the cross makes its most powerful effect; unless all these powers, that is the full potential of the inward man, be crucified and raised again, spiritual degeneration will unavoidably take place. By crucifixion some powers will be totally eliminated, others will be made controllable. We must be taught of God in this.
The resurrection of the inward man into spiritual life will manifest itself in every person by many virtues called here the fruit of the Spirit. These are spiritual invariables; unless these be present there is no life, for the new life consists of them. They are listed here as 'love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, meekness, faith, self-control'. All these are spiritual qualities, they are also the natural characteristics of Jesus Christ, a choice description of His inward life; all these were consistently manifest in Him. Perhaps at this point more than any other it becomes clear why Paul associates the giving of the Spirit with the cross. This fruit is of the Spirit, it was of the Spirit in Christ. Except He had lived this life, except this had been His inward state, He could not have been an offering for sin. He once said that no man could take His life from Him and that He would lay it down, but how could other men have it except someone bring it to them? Hence the need for the Holy Spirit. The Spirit comes to a man in order to reproduce these virtues of Christ in him and will do so when that man agrees to co-operate with Him and crucify his own flesh.
One of the lesser-known of the great wonders of the cross is its availability in the Spirit and one of the Spirit's greatest functions is to bring the cross within reach for our use. No-one unaided can discover the cross; the way of the cross is known only to the Spirit and unless He leads us there we can never find it. When He does so He will impart the secret of its use and the power to use it. Only when the Holy Spirit has procured the whole-hearted consent of a person's mind and sees and believes the voluntary intent of that man's will is He at liberty to release to him the secret of the cross and make known in that man's experience its spiritual power over the flesh.
In a wonderful passage in his letter to the Romans Paul makes this leadership and direction of the Spirit quite unmistakable: 'if ye live after the flesh ye shall die', he says, 'but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live; for as many as are led by the Spirit of God they are the sons of God. For ye have not received the Spirit of bondage again to fear but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry Abba Father'. Here the leading of the Spirit is set forth as being essential to the adoption and is spoken of in connection with sonship, liberty and the inheritance. These are included as being part of the forward drive of the Spirit as He leads the sons on to glorification and ultimate manifestation.
However, none of this is possible to anyone except the backward drive so essential to the correct forward drive of the sons is first known. The Spirit of God always leads to the cross of mortification first and therefrom constantly. The place of mortification is the place of death; mortification is vital death. This death must be sharply distinguished in the mind from vile death; this is a totally different death. Vile death, or the vileness of death, is spoken of here in sharp contrast to this vital death; it is not mortification of the flesh but corruption of the flesh. Paul speaks of this as the bondage of corruption and links it with vanity and pain. Mortification is by the vitality of the death of Christ. One of the reasons why Christ's flesh saw no corruption was because there was no corruption in Him. Because His inward man was without the corruption of sin His outward man was kept free from corruption in the grave. Our inward man can be kept clear of sin and shall be if we allow the Spirit to lead us to the cross so that the constant process of mortification may proceed without hindrance or cessation.
As the literal cross of wood had power over the physical body to bring to death, so does the spiritual power of the crucifixion bring to death the degenerating spiritual power of all God calls flesh. By far the greatest miracles which took place at Calvary were spiritual miracles, all accomplished by Jesus' superhuman power, none of which were seen by human eyes. The real power of the crucifixion was superhuman and supernatural: inhumane and horrible as it is, the death of the cross was not an unnatural death; it was an unwanted death enforced by law, but it was not a physical miracle. When at last the person died and escaped his agony it was only natural that it should happen — that was what was intended and everyone expected it to take place and many came to witness it. But those who witnessed Jesus' death witnessed a miracle.
Jesus did not die as other crucified men died, the thieves crucified beside Him being witness to that; quite naturally they fought to live, but not He: He dismissed His spirit and died long before they did. Even in the macabre final moments He was Lord; He controlled His own death, but the thieves were mere men — they could not die at will. His triumphant exodus must have been a very wonderful miracle; His death on the cross was an amazing exhibition of power, but even so it was not the greatest of the miracles Christ did on the cross. None of the onlookers saw the great spiritual miracles taking place there. Only spiritual beings could see them and no-one but God understood them fully; O what battles went on in and around the Lord that day. Spiritual Man of righteousness and holiness that He was, offering Himself without spot to God on our behalf, He was at the same time dying as the helpless carnal man of iniquity, laden with sin and also as old Adam, condemned, unforgivable, rejected by God. In one act He combined all, He was as the penitent sinner making his peace with God, and as the mighty protagonist defeating the devil; above all He died to sin. The cross was the scene of His last temptation and His greatest triumph, and as it was with Him so it is with us.
The greatest point of temptation in a man's life is the place where the cross must be applied. It is always to a lesser degree and with different purpose than that for which Jesus died, but it is just as vital to us. We do not have to destroy the devil but we do have to conquer him. Likewise we do not have to bear and put away the totality of sin, but we do have to put away the particular sin. And let every man be sure that if he does not put away the particular sin the totality of his old nature will again assert itself. 'The flesh lusteth against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh'. They are contrary one to the other and if this conflict is going on within the believer he is rendered incapable of doing what he wants to do. This impotence is a most frustrating thing, destructive of true spiritual life, fraying the temper and often causing quarrels between friends and brothers and dear ones. Paul warns of it emphatically, speaking about biting and devouring one another, even consuming one another — spiritual cannibalism! Monstrous! So much for uncrucified flesh, that is what it does; it is a rebellious, lustful, ravenous, destructive beast, and the Spirit is against it. Its affections and desires must not be satisfied under any circumstances or for any excuse — it and they must be crucified together without mercy if we wish to be the kind of spiritual man Christ was. Unless this is done it is not possible to be spiritual and if we are not spiritual we cannot live in the Spirit, and if we do not live in the Spirit we cannot walk in the Spirit and if we do not walk in the Spirit we cannot achieve spiritual objectives but shall constantly fail.
This means that we must not in any way direct our spiritual, mental and physical steps toward the gratification of fleshly desires and affections. All legitimate, simple bodily needs and desires may be attended to and at times satisfied to the glory of God, so indeed may those of the soul and spirit, but only as by the cross; nothing of humanity is acceptable and approved unto God, or can be for His glory except as from the crucified man. Only the crucified man can live in the Spirit, that is live to God as Jesus Christ. The man of the flesh cannot do so; he can live in religion, its traditions and customs, its beliefs about God, its symbols and prayers and songs, but it is a living death, vainglorious and worthless. The flesh does not produce the fruit of the Spirit of God; it only brings forth the fruits of its own spirit and does its own works, none of which are for God's glory or of His kingdom. The man who does his own works thereby declares he is his own king and an enemy of the cross. The power of the cross sets a man free from his own works to do the works of Christ.
But this is not Paul's chief concern here. He is really concerned with .the fruit of the living Christ in a life as distinct from works. He is talking about Christ within, bearing fruit unto His Father through the life of that person; Christ considers that His Father must be glorified in all, because He is the Husbandman to whom the fruit belongs. Fruit is life in entirety; it is an end-product, a complete personality in which all characteristics and habits are changed from mere earthly concepts and standards of good, which are for the satisfying of the flesh, to heavenly standards of virtue and good that satisfy God. Because life and time are progressive, this is a continuously repetitive and progressive experience. The Lord Jesus, using the vine as the basis of His teaching, told us of the expectations of His Father in this respect; annually the vine must produce more and more fruit. His business is to bring forth fruit to His Father through the branches.
- The Cross and Circumcision
The sixth mention of the cross is really a reinforcement of some of Paul's earlier statements about it. It reveals his utter abhorrence of Judaism and his loathing of the Judaizers from which and from whom Christ had set him free; 'they constrain you to be circumcised only lest they should suffer persecution for the cross of Christ', he said. Whoever these people were, their propagation and practice of circumcision was hypocritical cowardice. The apostle's words are very penetrative; he was very angry about these things and quite merciless; 'I would they were even cut off which trouble you', he said. This particular statement is the last of his three citations of the cross with reference to its power and work in the hands of the Spirit.
The first three references to the cross have to do with the redemptive work of Christ: the second three are all to do with the power and purpose of the cross against the flesh. The Galatians needed this emphasis, for it was in this area that they were most gravely at risk. The suggestion being fed to them by misguided Jewish believers was very subtle. Those people did not seek to prevent them from believing the gospel, they wanted them to include something more than that in it. They should preach, so they told them, that beside believing in Christ, everybody should be circumcised; this would make the gospel more palatable to Jewry. The subtlety of the doctrine lay in its appeal to loving-kindness and inoffensiveness. It sowed the idea that by this love and understanding would be promoted in the church and their gospel would be more acceptable to men. But the unmentioned, perhaps unseen sin of it was that if that were so the glory of salvation would not, nor could be, given to Christ alone. The practice of circumcision would unavoidably mean that some of the credit must be given to father Abraham and prophet Moses.
The devil does not mind who is brought in to move people's hearts away from believing in Christ alone for salvation; satan always wants to substitute the good for the best and sadly enough hearts are often only too open and vulnerable to his suggestions. But such error, once allowed into the Church, before long opens the door wide for him to bring in other famous, though perhaps less illustrious, persons of the past also. The tendency toward pantheism is natural to the heart of religiously-minded men. Peter on the mount of transfiguration is sufficient illustration of this: he wanted to include Elijah and Moses with Christ into his pantheon and was willing to build a temple or pitch a tabernacle for each of them alongside Jesus. 'Not for one moment' says God, 'this is my beloved Son'.
It is so sad that believers are such gullible people; it seems we are so very easily bewitched and switched on to erroneous ideas. Even the cross itself can be so wrongly presented and the crucified Christ so easily misrepresented and abusively treated that the gospel is rendered ineffectual. This was Paul's great concern and the reason why he wrote the epistle. He realized that the cross, together with the reasons for the crucifixion, must be presented to the churches again and again. There are so many high-sounding words and high-flown ideas circulating among believers. 'Good motives' and 'moral reasons' and 'the best of intentions' are often put forward as substitutes for righteousness, but none of them are acceptable to God: 'this is my Son, hear Him', He says. The desire to be under law and to be obedient seems to speak of a submissive spirit wanting to be ruled by God, but this is not so; the Galatians are a typical example of this. In this instance he pressed home freshly upon them that, if they wished to be under law and be obedient, let them keep the law of Christ and obey the truth of the gospel and not seek after Moses' law.
With regard to Abraham, since they were so enamoured of him and circumcision, let them remember that he had two sons and that both of them were circumcised, but only one was the promised seed. Circumcision does not guarantee salvation. Ishmael was the son of Abraham as well as Isaac, but Ishmael was of the bondwoman; he was not born after the promise, his birth was of the flesh and so was his circumcision. The commandment to circumcise was of God and in obedience to Him Abraham circumcised himself and in his zeal to obey the Lord applied the commandment to all the males of his household, one of whom was Ishmael. That day Abraham circumcised very many, not one of whom was born after the Spirit; his own son Isbmael was born after the fleshly desires of his own and Sarah's hearts. Abraham, who saw so much, never foresaw the trouble they would cause. Their impatience was still causing trouble in Paul's day. How irreversible was their zealous, fleshly desire and how regrettable! It was not till years later that he circumcised 'him who was born after the Spirit'. Isaac was born according to the promise and power of God and the affections and desires God wrought in Abraham and Sarah to do His will.
Unfortunately circumcision, by its very nature, having been once done, cannot be undone. Jews still practise circumcision and so also do the Arabs, but it is valueless to them all; the blessing of Abraham is upon none of them. The significance of circumcision in relationship to God's commitments to Israel in the future is obscure. One thing is certain, the cross of Christ has made all sacramental practices and works, formerly made compulsory by the law of Moses and ordained of God as means of salvation for men, superfluous and irrelevant, circumcision included. Sacramentalism has no saving power in the Church of Christ, but the spirit in which they were practised has not died among the churches to this day; that is the tragedy. There is a spirit in man which even now invests the sign with the power and spiritual effectiveness of which it is only the symbol; this is superstition at its worst.
All the symbols of the Church have been degraded by the belief, only too common among us, that they impart grace. Whether baptism or the communion or anointing with oil, all these and others beside them have been made substitutes for the thing for which they stand and have thereby been degraded to tokens of the curse instead of signs of the blessing. Perhaps the most potently dangerous of these is the communion: this ordinance enjoined upon us by Christ, wrongly understood and ignorantly practised, is a deadly habit. The symbols in which it stands, namely bread and wine, wrongly taken are actual media of sickness and death in the midst of the churches, the exact opposite of what God intended. Baptism may be singled out as another ordinance, intended by God for blessing among men. It has been made a substitute for the real truth for which it stands. From time immemorial men have made pictures, symbols, signs, statues their idols and have turned all the practices connected with them into mere ritual; God's reasons for instituting them have become as nothing and He is grieved. Man can be very religious and in his zeal he sometimes seeks to apply to himself truth which is exclusive to the Church. Whenever this happens the results are disastrous to that individual.
Any people who trespass beyond God's intentions and use the symbols He instituted for His regenerate Church alone preach and minister destruction to those they purport to help and bless thereby. All such practice is satanically inspired and carried out in the zeal of flesh excited by unregenerate spiritual convictions; none of this is of the Spirit of God. Man has always done these things, the habit has not been recently introduced; it all began in Eden, the seeds of all these things were planted then, though not by God. As Adam exceeded God's word, so did Abraham. Although Abraham did not disobey God in the same way as Adam, he certainly exceeded God's will in the promise He made to him and so the mystery of 'the flesh' in spiritual things was typed out. The pattern is clearly defined and easily traceable in scripture. From the time of Abraham's experimentation in concubinage Ishmael has represented the circumcision of the flesh, but Isaac has represented the circumcision made without hands wrought by God in man's spirit — the real circumcision.
The inevitable tragedy of it all (it always works out like this) is that he who was born after the flesh persecuted him who was born after the Spirit. There were so many in Abraham's camp who were born after the flesh, they were not even his seed, yet he zealously applied to them the special sign. He did this with the best of intentions of course (had not God given him the order?). They were his workers and retainers, possibly also there were some camp-followers. He was a good man and he wanted blessing for them all, so although he was not the father of their flesh as he was of Ishmael's, when he received the commandment he circumcised them. Presumably they stayed on with Abraham and by reason of that fact dwelt in the promised land. In some measure they all partook of Abraham's blessings there, but not one of them had direct personal inheritance in it because they were not the spiritual seed. Even Ishmael, the one who through seniority would have had ground for claiming the special double portion of the blessing, was by God's orders cast out; Abraham was not allowed to give the promised land of God to him for an inheritance, the God of the land would not be his God. He watched over him and made provision for him, but He would not be his God. Circumcised though they were, this was the same for every one of them.
To explain these things to the Galatians Paul told an allegory in which Hagar, the mother of Abraham's child of the flesh, represents the law and earthly Jerusalem. Long before Paul's day what in David's kingdom and psalms was the city of God had become the Jews' house of bondage; they were satan's slaves. Because of what she and her children did to Christ, Jerusalem and the Jews' religion had been excommunicated. Judaism and national religious systems remain rejected to this day. Jerusalem is the mother and head(-quarters) of sinister law-works in which the flesh delights, for thereby it can achieve pseudo heights of religion. Any covenant she had with God is now broken, and her fleshly children, together with all their bondages, must be cut right out of the churches. Until Jerusalem which is above mothers us all, Jerusalem which now is on earth is the mother of us all. In the allegory she is 'the flesh'; Sarah, her heavenly counterpart, is 'the Spirit', the 'mother' of all God's children. We must be born from above — Jesus said it.
Paul takes up this idea of circumcision, applying it widely when he says 'I would they were even cut off which trouble you'. His deliberate intention was to destroy the superstitious belief, rampant among the Jews, that circumcision of itself was a great spiritual blessing — it was not. Paul laboured this point much. By these people, whether in Jewry or throughout Christendom, whatever their religious attachment, fake doctrines and religious practices are being substituted for true experience of Christ. Through them all the glory that should go to Christ by the Spirit goes to satan via the flesh. Paul in his day was incensed against them and so should we be in our day, 'Cast them out, cut them off', he says, 'they are bewitching you, you've stopped running the race, you've fallen from grace, you are in bondage'. The churches must run like athletes and walk like champions and to do so they must discard all the trappings of religious flesh. We all must walk with Christ in the Paradise of salvation without any of this pseudo-religious clothing of cast-off practices. Fear of persecution must not prevent us from preaching the cross of Christ; to refrain from doing so is to glory in the flesh. The availability of the cross in the Spirit commits us all to using or applying it in every realm of our being; to fail to do so is to despise it. All spiritual, mental and bodily appetites can be adjusted to God by the cross, so that by the Spirit, on the cross we can offer ourselves without spot to God.
- The Cross and the Crucifixion of the World
The whole of man's trouble is the result of failure to obey the original truth presented to him — because the Galatians did not do so they did not retain their original blessing. The full power of the cross as presented by the apostle and exemplified in his life was lost on them; they did not enter into it, therefore they did not understand it. The need for the cross beyond its initial blessings and the need for personal crucifixion is always a mystery to those who are uncrucified. The objective cross is seen to be beneficial and is accepted, but we all must know the subjectivity of it. Paul did and finalized his letter with these words, 'God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ by whom the world is crucified unto me and I unto the world'. It just had to be like that with this man — with him there could be no half measures. The world was finished for Paul; all it held for him was opportunity to preach the gospel and suffering and death; he was crucified to the world — it held no attraction to him and he held no attraction for the world; it was mutual. That was how Christ wanted it for him and it is how He wants it for us. Beside revealing the disposition and temperament of Paul, this is also an indication of the man's love and loyalty. It is also an insight into the wisdom and logic of the Lord; salvation could not work out in man s experience in any other way. It would be of no use insisting that the flesh must be crucified if the world is not crucified at the same time. The flesh exists in the world; likewise the world was created by the flesh and for the flesh.
The world as spoken of by Paul here is not to be mistaken for the earth, nor is it to be thought of as the original cosmos God created in the beginning. Sin has entered the world and by it man has created his own conditions of life contrary to God's will within God's creation. It is to this the scripture refers when speaking of the world as Paul is doing here. He is referring to the order or condition or state in which man exists on the earth; it is variously called by him culture or civilization or some other relevant name; according to his spiritual state a man's soul may delight or conversely hate to live in it. Paul saw right from the beginning that in Christ Jesus there lay a whole new world, a spiritual structure and condition of life created for him; he also knew that he had been created into it by the conjoining of God and man in Christ. He also knew that the former creature he had been was slain and that the old creation into which his parents had given him birth was in a state of death. None of the things which had been gain and valuable to him, in which he had formerly lived so completely and successfully, meant anything much to him any more. What he had counted to be the true life was now death to him. It was a dual operation. He had cast them off and was dead to them, and they and the world in which they existed were dead to him. So powerful was Christ's crucifixion and so effective that it works in every realm of man's existence in this world — it had to or else it could not have served God's purposes. The cross was God's method of the ultimate destruction of the sinner and his sin, of the flesh in which he expressed it, of the self who wanted it and of the world in which he practised it. The cross is almighty, it is the infallible, chosen instrument of the Almighty.
Sympathizers with Jesus Christ after the flesh mourn and shudder when they think of what the cross did to Him, but terrible though it was for Him, they need not try to feel for Him there. He once told the daughters of Jerusalem to weep for themselves and not for Him. It was not that He did not appreciate their concern, He simply did not want them to live in fleshly sentiment. Everyone should weep because one so pure and good as He should have to suffer for their sins. Paul had it right when he said he wanted to know Him and the fellowship of His sufferings by being made conformable unto His death. It is what He accomplished by the cross through His suffering, despite His pains, which is the far more important thing.
Paul gloried in the cross and for this reason: Christ's crucifixion was an abuse of the cross by men, but the glory of the gospel is that while men were putting it to its most dreadful abuse, God was simultaneously putting it to its greatest possible use. God's good news to men is that He overruled the wickedness of men and used the cross for purposes other than men intended, and not only so, He also thereby made it His, not man's and the devil's. He who was being crucified was the Son of man and He who was doing the crucifying was His Father and God. As He said, when He was lifted up from the earth the judgement of the world was taking place, and the prince of the world was cast out also; that was another of the real miracles of the cross. Incredible as it may seem it is true; He engineered the cross, overruling all men's and devils' schemings, using them for His own purposes and making all things work together for men's good and His own glory.
This dual power of the cross is one of the most wonderful of its many features. Behold the wisdom of God as it is revealed in this particular instance: it is plain common sense that if a man is dead and the world is dead there can be no possible collusion between them. O the wonder of truth! In spiritual reality the old world is dead and so is the old man who lived in it. To men of faith the new creation is here, the old spiritual power of the flesh is crucified and so is the person who lived in it; Old things have passed away by the death and resurrection of Christ, the end of the ages has come upon us; Paul says these things in other places. In the physical universe we await its happening, but in the spiritual realm it is already done — all that remains for every man to do is to enter in and live in God's completed spiritual work to the best of his advantage. This unredeemed and un-redeemable world is slowly degenerating into corruption before final extinction as predicted. The revelation Paul is declaring is that by the cross all redeemed men can live clear of the world and shall finally be brought into the future new creation — the death and resurrection of Christ is so complete.
On the other hand, if a man is alive being un-crucified, though the world be dead the man will still cling to it. Even though the world could not cling to the man he would cling to it; he would not be able to let it go. It would be the same also if the positions were reversed. If the world was alive and the man was dead the world would not let the man go, but if both be dead neither can cling to the other — it would be impossible. God forbid then that I should glory save in this cross of Christ; by God's gracious laws it has become established as the basic rule of all life and justice and judgement in the affairs of God and men. We must walk by it and live by it, or we can never know the true peace of God.
G.W. North
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Eldership
Eldership
1 — THE ANCIENT OF DAYS
In course of his invaluable prophecy, Daniel at one point calls God by a most significant name — "the Ancient of Days'. It is a name which would have been full of meaning to those who first heard or read the prophecy. The work was written in Chaldee, the language of heathen Babylon. Daniel was held captive and came to fame there. God was unknown. None of the Babylonians knew the wondrous names and titles by which the one True God had in past days revealed Himself to Israel through their patriarchs and saints.
For this reason these people could not be expected to know Him; but ignorant though they were of those things, they did understand the truth and principle of eldership. Therefore when Daniel spoke of 'the Ancient of Days', a fact of life, a concept of truth and a principle of rightness immediately presented itself to their minds. Especially was this so because when using the title the prophet was speaking in terms of judgment; if judgment there is to be, who is better able to judge between, or be fairer to people than one who is THE ANCIENT OF DAYS?
To the heathen mind, the title would have implied death-defying longevity, unchallenged seniority, complete knowledge, highest wisdom, perfect understanding, unparalleled strength, absolute ability. In short, such a person would be regarded by the Babylonians as being fully equipped with ultimate supreme ability to judge aright. What the man of God was doing was more than acquainting his captors with facts; he was informing them of eternal truth in a form understandable to their minds and acceptable to their spirits.
None of God's names can fully describe Him. He is greater than all His names; they are a means of self-revelation, an adaptation implying an application of Himself to human minds and conditions and needs, according to His will. 'Ancient of Days' is a name by which He describes Himself, having special reference to the fact that He is the Original Father and Elder. The origins and roots of eldership are in God.
John, the holy seer of the New Testament, says that upon a certain occasion he was called up through an open door into heaven. He records for the churches what he then saw and heard there, that by the revelation they might shine the better in this dark world. First he saw the throne, and one sat on it, he says: it and He were encircled by a rainbow. Then he proceeds to mention in order twenty four seated elders, seven lamps of fire, a sea of glass and four mysterious beasts in and around the throne.
Whether heaven and God's throne and these things have always been set out in this order no-one knows; what we do know is that the persons seen and mentioned next in order to God in the vision are elders. John's revelation in fullness is fairly comprehensive: Cherubim and Seraphim, six-winged creatures, angels and archangels, the angel of the Lord, and numerous others of higher order and greater power than man are all in it, but these are not yet seen or brought into the picture.
God's reasons for making this specific revelation known are not fully given; what God showed John was the present layout of the seat of imperial majesty in heaven. We have been granted a sight of the centre of universal government in relationship to the eternal covenant of redemption made by God through the Lamb and His blood.
God is pictured seated upon His throne in the centre of the complete rainbow, emerald in colour. By this He is declaring Himself to be unchanging in His being, immovable in His will and eternal in His purpose. Around Him is assembled the council of elders. They are not His counsellors; they are there to receive His counsels. Like their God and Creator and Counsellor, they are seated; they are at rest. They never leave their position, they have no need; the seven spirits of God wait before the throne, perfectly prepared to move out at His will and word to ensure that His purposes are accomplished exactly as He wishes. Other spirits move, but the elders abide at the throne. Who or what these seven spirits are we are not told. John represents them as lamps of fire; they are spirits of burning light.
Then the vast expanse of the sea of glass is brought into view, stretching crystal-clear before the throne. The inscrutable face of the one like jasper, and the seven fiery spirits look down and out across the sea, which at that time was empty of life. Lastly the four living creatures are shown hovering in and around the throne. These beings are diverse of form and face, but alike in perception, for each is full of eyes before and behind and within. With foresight, hindsight and insight, beholding all that transpires in and around the throne, without ceasing they say 'holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come'. And when for a moment they pause from this, their unending confession, and give honour and thanks to Him whom they behold, the elders in acknowledgment and total agreement fall from their seats, crowns in hand, to cast them before the throne.
There is no crown upon the head of the one like jasper; He who creates and bestows crowns wears none. They are but symbols, tokens of His favour bestowed because they are deserved, but in this context they are a mark of inferiority. He is too honourable and noble to need tokens of royal virtues. He receives neither reward nor award; His is eternal majesty; He is above all. They say 'Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power', but He created all these things, and themselves also, for His own pleasure. They know that of course and say so, but they also understand that He has no need for crowns; He is The Crown. They cast their crowns upon the crystal sea at His feet before His face, but He gives them back again. Upon their heads and at His feet they are right, but not upon His brow; none can crown Him, but all heaven must worship.
John has given us a glimpse into heaven, revealing how things were with God in the beginning when He commenced His work within the terms of an eternal covenant to bring forth unto Himself a special people for His purposes in the regeneration. In process of accomplishing this, His work would be cosmic; it would affect the whole universe, but His main purpose was to fill the vast area of the mysterious sea with redeemed and regenerate men. It is not therefore surprising that before John's eyes there appears in the midst of the bow-encircled throne a young lamb as it had been slain. Immediately John's ears are filled with cries and songs coming from everywhere rising from the lips of myriads upon myriads of creatures — the whole universe is praising the Lamb. Little is told us of events before this, but everything now moves forward from this point.
By this heavenly vision God has introduced us to the original company of elders. They were created of the Ancient of Days to be part of the heavenly order, and from the beginning have been in direct touch and intimate association with God and the Lamb. We have also been shown: (1) their position — next to the throne; (2) their disposition — around the throne; (3) their exaltation — they are seated and crowned; (4) their preoccupation — worship; (5) their function — to present the prayers of the saints to God; (6) the reason for their being — the purposes of God in redemption, with special reference to regeneration; (7) their subordination — they cast their crowns before the throne.
2 — THE CIVIL AND THE SPIRITUAL
Because the elders were created by God in the beginning, it is inevitable that they should have a fundamental place in the structure of human society. As we have seen from Daniel's prophecy, man's mind naturally associates wisdom and knowledge with age. Length of life enables man to gain true perspective and become emotionally mature and mentally stable. Time proves all things, and for youth it lies yet in the future. Those who have lived longest have seen and endured the most, and are therefore better able to form correct judgments.
It is therefore natural in the affairs of men that experience of life should be highly esteemed and seniority greatly respected. For this reason, from time immemorial, wherever families and tribes and nations have existed, rule by elders has been the accepted form of government, and is to this day. It is the most primitive, simple and uncomplicated form of government known to man, and to it every normal person agrees and willingly submits.
Even among the more civilized nations, youth submits to age. For instance, seldom is the position of national premiership given to a young man, and our judges, for obvious reasons, are always chosen from men who could be regarded as the elders of our society. We still hear the phrase 'the city fathers', and understand perfectly what it means.
In countries that have royal families at their head, whose sons and daughters accede to sovereignty upon the death of their parents, seniority is of great importance. Normally the eldest son succeeds to the throne. Should he be a minor at the time, a regent is appointed to guide the affairs of state until he comes of age. Even so, whoever he be, he is surrounded by privy counsellors, ministers of state and others who, if they are not themselves aged men, may consult time-honoured works of reference in order to give advice to his majesty.
The importance of this is revealed by the tragic incident which occurred early in the history of Israel's kings. The kingdom which had been so gloriously established by Israel's second and third kings, David and Solomon, was wantonly wrecked by its fourth king, Rehoboam. Despite the fact that he was the son of the wisest and richest man on earth, Rehoboam behaved so stupidly that he caused irreparable harm to the nation. It was over the matter of taxes, and happened because he refused to abide by the counsel of the elders of Israel. Rejecting the word of men who had lived in the reign of his illustrious father, he acted upon the advice of young men of his own generation. This sparked off a revolt led by Jeroboam, a former house-servant, and the outcome was civil war.
The nation was split from that very day, and from then until now has never recovered from it. Rehoboam's folly is written upon the pages of history — it is one of the most tragic examples of the terrible results which may easily occur when a man ignores the natural structure of human society and refuses to acknowledge government by eldership. We may be sure that since God set the pattern of eldership when creating heavenly structures of government, it is impossible to depart from it and prosper.
However, interesting though these things may be, we are more concerned here with the historical development of spiritual rather than civil rule by elders. God revealed His will about this in a very clear way to Israel by anointing seventy men at once to become elders with Moses. He did so when Moses complained that the task of bringing Israel to Canaan was too great a burden for him to bear alone. The privilege of selecting the men for the position was given to Moses, but it was God who made them into elders. He did it by taking of the Spirit that was upon Moses and putting it upon them, and He did so in order that thereby they should henceforth help to bear the burden of the people. Those seventy immediately became prophets also; this gift, apparently, was vital to their ministry.
This act of God was the divine provision for the need which Jethro, Moses' father-in-law, had vainly tried to meet months earlier. This man had advised his son-in-law to allocate some of his duties to other men. He saw how greatly overtaxed Moses was, and taking advantage of his relationship, position and seniority, he counselled Moses to select and promote certain men of Israel to office. Jethro counselled Moses with absolute sincerity and complete wisdom according to the world, and the younger man, although he was God's chosen leader, acted upon it in good faith. However, being of man, Jethro's advice did not alleviate the real need; the problem still remained. God did not move until Moses came to the point where he saw his own wretchedness and wished to die.
The lesson we must learn from this is very plain that we should not miss it, lest missing it we should fail. Good and sound as human heathen advice may be, worldly wisdom has no answer to the problems of God's people. Jethro's wise, fatherly advice was full of loving concern for his son-in-law; he seemed in full sympathy with him and the project so dear to Moses' heart. It rose from principles of rule embedded deeply by God in the psychology of the human race; it was therefore most natural and correct that Jethro should give it and Moses obey it; but it did not have the desired effect. Moses still came to the breaking point.
The solution to Moses' problem lay in eldership ordained of God. Jethro's advised specifications for junior leadership were fine, they were all qualities he had for a long time observed in mature Moses. Those he would choose had to be men of ability, God-fearing, men of truth, hating covetousness, and capable of dealing with everyday matters. Moses listened to him, obeyed his voice, did what he said in all detail and let him go, doubtless thanking God for his father-in-law's visit.
This all happened within a few weeks of their leaving Egypt, and before meeting God at Sinai. It proved to be a subtle move of satan. Jethro was priest to a heathen deity; a man who himself worshipped, and trained and helped others also to worship and serve a false god. It might possibly have been he who had influenced Zipporah, his daughter, to prevent Moses from circumcising his sons, thus adding to the man of God's conflicts, while undergoing decades of endurance in the backside of the desert; we do not know. From the account in Exodus 19, it is certain that Moses tried to dissuade Jethro from returning to his evil ministry, but failed. So we know that, despite the fact that he knew Jehovah to be the one true God, the priest of Midian returned to his idolatry. He was a man who, as the serpent in the garden in the beginning, came with fair words and good advice, but with subtle intentions.
Jethro's counsel as a worldly wise man was to look for and promote men of ability; it seemed just right. He made no stipulation about age — any man with the qualifications specified was eligible. Being an elder himself and very religious, and professing his mental conversion to Jehovah, his sage advice was very self-commending. But by it he revealed that he had forsaken the principles he thought himself to embody. What Moses had to learn, and we have to unequivocally accept and remember, is that God cannot depart from His eternal principles of life and structure of government.
Moses had yet to learn this; but because he had not previously been shown by God, and was therefore not in rebellion against Him, God dealt with him very graciously. Some months later, however, when the Children of Israel had moved but three days' journey from Sinai, the Lord engineered a circumstance in which an opportunity presented itself for Him to deal with the whole situation.
At last, under extreme pressure, the displeased Moses makes his complaint to the Lord. The Lord's response was swift and sure. Moving from eternal principles of righteousness, He speaks to bring Israel into line with the structure of government created by Him for correct administration in the universe of redemption. 'Gather unto Me seventy elders of the men of Israel, elders of the people and officers over them', He said. Moses did so, ranging the men around the Tabernacle in a way reminiscent of the twenty-four elders seated about the throne in heaven. Then the Lord came down and took of the Spirit that was upon Moses and put it upon the elders. In other words He anointed them and ordained them into office, that they, with Moses, should bear the burden of the people of God. The seventy were elected from natural eldership to spiritual eldership, from human office to divine office. They held the first by seniority, which is by accident of birth, plus natural ability; they could only hold the second by another's deliberate choice, and by anointing with the Spirit of God.
We ought also to take note that Moses' ordering of the Children of Israel at Jethro's word took place before Sinai, that is before the Tabernacle and throne and law of God were with them. It was a coolly calculated move on the devil's part. He succeeded in saddling the people, whom God had chosen to be His own kingdom on earth, with a satanically inspired system of government. Satan thought that if he could get the people organized under his plausible system before the Lord could give them His, he would succeed in defeating God yet.
As it was, however, the devil calculated without the people's sin and Moses' breakdown and the Lord's will and wisdom. The Lord is not slow, He worked according to principles of eternal righteousness. He did not install His elders until He had first of all established His kingdom and throne and law and house among men. Systems of government depend for their proper function upon undeviating law and eternal order: before elders, The Elder; above government, The Governor; in the midst of the seats, The Throne.
It is possible of course that some, if not most, of the chosen seventy were of the same company which a few months before had been put to work under Jethro's scheme. If so, theirs was the privilege of learning the difference between men's election and God's, and to sorrow that they had been so misled by their betters. The joy of their present anointing, however, would have more than compensated for their sadness; the gift of prophecy God generously added with it would have comforted their hearts immeasurably. They knew that they were the elect of the elect. Others of their contemporaries were elders too, but now they had been elevated above them to a new place with God.
Before this, through the centuries, in every nation including Israel, natural elders had functioned in family matters and tribal affairs and limited governmental councils. Eldership as a natural position did not commence with these seventy, but eldership as a spiritual office did. There is a word in Hebrews 11 which throws still fuller light on the subject. Speaking of faith, the writer says 'by it the elders obtained a good report'. Then, commencing with Abel, he proceeds to name many of the great national worthies, moving right through history from the beginning of time to Jesus, the greatest of them all. Each of these was an elder of the faith, although it is to be doubted whether Abel was acknowledged as one during his lifetime. He was only third in seniority in the original Adamic family, being preceded by his father Adam and his brother Cain. At the time of his death he was Abel the younger. He was most definitely not the elder. Adam was that, and rightly so; yet by God Abel is called an elder.
By this we see that the word elder has a variety of meanings: (1) an obvious personal meaning; (2) a simple family recognition; (3) a wider social application; (4) a national governmental function; (5) greatest of all, it is a spiritual office. This last finds its highest fulfillment in the person of our Lord Jesus Christ. He is the great Elder of the Church. That is why John so dramatically presents Him standing in the midst of the throne at the centre of the rainbow, encircled by the elders. John makes no attempt to alter the fact of His youth; he uses the word signifying 'young lamb'. He died as a young man. The apostle cannot describe one recognizable feature of the Being he first saw upon the throne — He is just there and perhaps may best be thought of as 'the Ancient of Days'. But immediately the Lamb appears he knows who He is.
Two aspects of eldership are being presented. Both persons are Elders, the one by virtue of His indescribable being and presence, the other by reason of sheer spiritual merit. He is the Son, and would normally be thought of as junior to a father, but in God the first person is spoken of as The Father, not a father as in human relationships. Likewise with Jesus, He is not a son, but The Son, as eternal as The Father and one with Him.
At His appearing the elders fall down and worship, angels sing and myriads of creature-voices ascribe to Him everything a heart could wish. In His hands He holds the book, the secret key of the future; He had acceded to it by His death and resurrection. As it is said of Him, Jesus knew 'that all things were in His hands and that He came from God and went to God'. He said Himself, 'Father, into Thy hands I commend my spirit'. Between them, Father and Son had achieved a new position for the prosecution of world government — from this point world procedure would be different. This was statesmanship of the highest order. While still on earth He had said, 'Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature', and now He sets the procedural order in motion.
The Man Christ Jesus is supreme; this is an inaugural occasion; everybody worships. Here the ideas of seniority, longevity and spiritual quality are combined with majesty and power and riches and wisdom and strength and honour and glory and blessing. This is the royal occasion and unique setting from which God inaugurates future policy and sets forth the original pattern and example of eldership.
Seeing this New Testament revelation was received following the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, it must have been given for the Church. It had not yet appeared to John; what was shown him was God's preparation for the bringing forth of the Church, and the grounds upon which it must stand. Headship and government in heaven is by eldership; it is not therefore surprising that Christ should ordain it in the Church. In all truth it could not be otherwise, for the Church is His body. Yet nowhere does the New Testament use the word 'eldership'. It speaks of elders, but there is no office or state spoken of as eldership.
The office created for elders to fill is best described by the word bishopric, or, as we would speak of it, 'see'. An elder is a bishop, an overseer or presbyter. These ideas have been taken up and formulated into systems of Church governmental order from which eventually denominations have appeared — Episcopalian, Presbyterian etc. However scriptural and high-sounding such names may be, these are quite contrary to the desires of God, and as surely as these things happen, man-made organisations develop and degenerate into death.
It is therefore of immeasurable importance that we have the right kind of man in office. Exaggeration of the importance of the office above the quality of the man who fills it is a sure way to bring the office into disgrace and disrepute. The most basic definition of an office is an action, something performed by a person in pursuit or practice of a duty. Anyone doing it is an official in that sense. It is only when duties are defined, made exclusive to a person and incorporated into some kind of system that officialdom is magnified. Growth is then abandoned for structure, and development substituted by election.
It is a subtle switch, mostly undetected by men. The world's system of trade unionism is built upon this cruel principle. Man has not mastered the art of synthesizing election with free development based upon employment of innate ability. He has the traces of God's greatness in him, but is entirely devoid of power to implement his ideas. Being so bankrupt, he lives in a fantasy world of idealism, because he fails to promote ideas to ideals. All his seeds are rotten at the core; they bid fair and boast fullness, but produce evil fruit and death in society. Man's offices are stereotyped representations of an evolutionary system working from an evil power foreign to God. Greed, pride, ambition, cruelty, corruption and all the aftermath of sin fill its offices. This kind of office is unknown in the true Church of Jesus Christ.
3 — THE MARKS AND THE CALLING
[1] Shepherds and Sheep
The very best description of an elder's occupation, and that which is dearest to the heart of God is overseership. This is impressed upon us by the view granted us of the eternal throne and its occupants — full of eyes before and behind and within; a Lamb having seven horns and seven eyes; all-seeing living creatures and seven seeing spirits, the Lamb with perfect sight. This is the great overseership an elder has to represent, and in part fulfill, to the church to which he is appointed.
Peter makes this clear in his first letter — 'feed the flock of God which is among you', he said to the elders, 'taking the oversight not of constraint but willingly of a ready mind; neither as being lords over God's heritage, but being ensamples to the flock'. Here oversight is linked with shepherding — an elder must be a shepherd.
The suggestion that leaders and people are in the sight of God as shepherds and sheep appealed to the heart of Peter greatly. He had come to a precious realisation of this. Like his friend and fellow-apostle, John, he first presents Jesus as the 'lamb without blemish and without spot', and then later also speaks of Him as 'the Shepherd and Bishop of your souls'.
Peter had learned from Jesus a very real lesson about being an under-shepherd. It happened early one morning on the seashore after he had scarcely dried himself by the fire and eaten the breakfast his Lord had prepared. Just previously he had thrown himself into the sea in a bursting desire to get to Jesus, and now he hears Him inviting him to go walking with Him. He did not yet fully know the reasons why the Lord had called him — they lay deep in Jesus' heart soon to be revealed; He was seeking men who would shepherd His sheep. He had been smitten and they had been scattered; now the great Shepherd wanted them to be gathered and fed. 'Lovest thou me more than these?' He said; He was referring to apostleship, boats, seas, fish, friends, livelihood and life itself. 'Lovest thou Me? ..... Feed my sheep' He said.
That day Jesus finally turned Peter away from being a fisherman and made him a shepherd. For some three years he had been a rather rebellious and wayward sheep, but Jesus had gently led him on, and now the role is being changed, Peter is to be a shepherd. He knew well enough that he could only be an under-shepherd; his Lord was Chief, but he was no hireling — 'not for filthy lucre' he said. He had once heard Jesus say, 'the hireling fleeth because he is an hireling and careth not for the sheep ..... the wolf cometh and scattereth the sheep'; he had never forgotten it. He also knew that sheep were a sacred trust from God. The prayer Jesus had prayed to His Father when on His way to betrayal and death was still fresh in his memory; 'the men thou gavest me out of the world; thine they were and thou gavest them me; I have kept them and none of them is lost but the son of perdition.'
Peter could never forget; he knew the duties of shepherding; he had learned so much about it from Jesus. 'What man of you having a hundred sheep, if he lose one of them doth not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness and go after that which was lost until he find it? I lay down my life — the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep'. He was also very familiar with Ezekiel's critical statements full of condemnation for false and faithless shepherds, men who fed themselves, fouled the waters, and totally failed God and His sheep. He knew all that was involved in being a shepherd — every one must render account to God. 'Take the oversight', he says to the elders, 'willingly'; do not look for reward, seek only to be worthy of the crown from the Chief Shepherd when He appears. 'He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; all we like sheep had gone astray, we had turned every one to his own way'.
Peter could recall with what unwillingness he had first heard the Lord's appeal to his heart requesting his love and loyalty; his response had been so disappointing to his Lord. It was not that he had not wanted to respond to Jesus' wishes, but he had made such a mess of things. True, Jesus had restored him from his misery. He thought he had meant it when he said, 'I will lay down my life for thy sake', but he had not known his own heart. Could he ever trust himself again? Still the persistent Shepherd pleaded with him for the sheep: 'Lovest thou Me? Feed my sheep, feed my lambs'. No longer could he resist that loving heart and tender pleading voice; at last he believed in His faith in him. How faithful Jesus was: Peter capitulated right into that shepherd heart: 'Lord thou knowest all things, thou knowest that I love thee'.
He thought he had known better than the Shepherd when He had said to him, 'Where I go thou canst not follow me now, but thou shalt follow me afterwards'. Memories sweet and bitter filled his mind with problems he could not solve, but Jesus knew; He had understood. That was evident at the time, for He had said, 'Let not your heart be troubled, ye believe in God, believe also in Me'. He knew all things; He knew all about his failures, his boasts, his longings, the unforgettable scene in the judgment hall when he had denied and disowned Him. Oh, the bitterness of it all! How could Jesus still want him? How could He ever trust him again? But He who knew all things loved him. This was Peter's greatest discovery that day.
Strange as it may seem, Peter had never ceased to love Him, and Jesus knew it. Bless this dear Shepherd, who at last drew the true confession from his breaking heart, 'Thou knowest that I love thee'. He had been afraid to say so because of his faithlessness. But faithful Jesus knew that he loved Him; He knew Peter better than he knew himself. The greatest revelation Peter ever had was what his friend John later put into writing, 'God is Love'.
The discovery of love itself — what it is, what it will do, the lengths to which it will go, and the ill-treatment it will put up with uncomplaining, the abuse it will take, its strength, its endurance, its consistency, its unbreakable resolve, its patience, its tenderness, its understanding and silence, its healing, its saving, restoring, reconciliatory grace — is greater than to know its purpose. Knowing that God loved him was not the end of Peter's discoveries; it was the beginning. That day Peter found Love as a result of Love finding him. Love is greater than its ends and means. That is why it adapts to itself means and achieves its ends. Calvary was one of those achievements, the greatest, but it was only one of its ends — a demonstration of Love.
By Love's means we at last discover Love itself. What Peter finally discovered was that nothing he had done had altered Jesus' love one jot or tittle. Love revealed to a greater degree, to a greater number, does not increase it. Love says, 'no matter what you have said or done, I understand'. But Lord, I've cursed thee, denied thee, betrayed thee, hurt thee, disregarded thee, helped those who crucified thee, I've misunderstood thee, acted contrary to thee, contradicted thee, refused to believe thee, mocked, starved, stripped and made thee naked; how canst thou love me?' 'I am Love'.
Love at last reached love and love responded to Love. Peter became a lover and was immediately made a shepherd. The only food fit for sheep and lambs is love; people can only feed on love to Jesus. A shepherd must realize that pasture for sheep is nothing other than a product of Jesus' love to him and his personal love to the Lord. In effect Jesus said 'love Me and thereby feed others'. This is the foremost task of elders.
Primarily overseership is of the flock; it is the most spiritual of callings, and can only be properly discharged if the heart is love. A man must never forget that however great his privilege in being made an elder and a shepherd, he is still only a sheep himself. 'Follow thou me', said Jesus. At that time Peter was too concerned about what a fellow apostle was to do. To follow the Lord takes all a man's concentrated powers. He cannot afford to miss one of His words or looks or gestures. Following and listening, Peter heard the Lord. say something which was to set the tone for all his subsequent living and ministry, 'another shall gird thee and carry thee whither thou wouldest not' To hear and receive such a prophecy and live by it requires uttermost devotion, for the Lord was informing him of his death. The Lord was really saying 'love Me, feed my sheep, follow Me and lay down your life for Me; if you will do this you will also lay down your life for the sheep.
A shepherd, of all people, must learn that he is accounted as a sheep for the slaughter, and for His sake 'be killed all the day long' in the hearts and intentions of God's enemies. Jesus, the Good Shepherd, became the greatest of all shepherds because He was God's Lamb. To be really a great shepherd, a man must be a sheep for sacrifice. Jesus did not become the Great Shepherd of the sheep because He was raised from the dead. The resurrection did not make Him great; He was raised because He was great. He did not become the Lamb by being sacrificed, He was sacrificed because He was the Lamb. He so lived that He had to be sacrificed. He had to be killed because of the life He lived.
What Jesus was saying to Peter was 'so live that you too, as I, shall be girded and carried off to your death; but Peter, unless you love Me, devote yourself to feeding my sheep and lambs, and follow Me yourself, it can never happen. Be a lamb all your life and you will become the lamb at the end'.
It is significant that the Lord was not called the Great Shepherd until He was brought again from the dead. His greatness lay in this — He faithfully led on when the wolves came to scatter the flock, even though it meant certain death to do so. His first concern was not for the flock, although He loved those His Father had given Him. He plainly told them that He loved the Father, He was going to Gethsemane and Golgotha because of it. He gave His Father the first love of His heart; He knew He had the first love of His Father's heart. If it be true, and it is, that Calvary was accomplished by love, it is also as true that it was all done in and because of this love. He was great enough to remain true to original love, that on earth it may be revealed as first love. It was this that gave redemptive value to His blood — all He did was imbued with everything in Him — perfect love.
The flock was scattered. He cared deeply about them and what would happen to them, but He knew His Father was overruling all and would see to that. His greater concern was to do His Father's will and leave the flock in God's hands. Failing that, all He could do would be vain; His duty was to set these men the perfect example of good shepherding. It may only be a secondary reason for so strongly setting His course to do His Father's will, but it was as vital as any reason He knew. His first and greatest reason for going to the cross was Love, original love, first love, perfected with (or by) Him as a man. Therefore every single thing He did was as much an expression of love as were His sufferings and death.
Elders must take special and hearty note of this; nobody is fit to be an overseer of a flock except he is cast in the same mould. An elder must not be dazzled by thoughts of headship, gifts and powers, nor must he be attracted by things that could in any degree puff up the image of self. Behold Him who stands in the midst of the throne, the Shepherd-Lamb; He appears slain, yet He is not lying dead, but standing alive — everything is in His hands. He is releasing powers and authorities into this world; He is reigning and ruling over all; He is the Shepherd-King. Therefore let every shepherd oversee his flock in this spirit; or else let him resign, confessing either his unfitness or inability or unwillingness (or perhaps all three) to do the duties his position demands.
Perhaps Paul, when charging Timothy and Titus with their special responsibilities, did so for these reasons. These young men were deputed by the great apostle to raise men in their districts to the station of elder and deacon. In doing so he laid little stress on gifts or talents, but great emphasis on character. 'What kind of man is he?' not 'what can he do?' That these men were gifted, perhaps some even greatly, may be true, but that was not the criterion of judgment, nor the condition for election. They had to be men of exemplary life and conduct — elders must successfully come through every test the Spirit of God applies, for He is speaking expressly about the office in view of world-wide declension. If ever the churches needed this calibre of man it is now.
We must in no way be deceived, nor argue that as this kind of person is so rare nowadays we are justified in allowing a lower standard. That we are in the latter days, concerning which the Spirit was so powerfully urging Paul to speak with clarity and definition, makes no difference to the truth. Given this quality of life, the Lord is well able to endue and endow men with ministerial gifts if He so pleases.
It cannot be too strongly pointed out that before God anointed His own Son with authority from on high, He had already lived before Him and all men with perfect grace, wisdom, strength and humility for thirty years. With the necessary exceptions due to His higher calling, the Lord fulfilled all the demands He later made upon others to live right. In fact, because of His calling, He lived a life of self-denial greater than He demands of any man. In their measure and order, elders have the onerous duty and great privilege of living in their generation as Jesus lived in His — spotless and without blemish on all the counts outlined by the writers of the New Testament.
[2] The Choice of God.
Before we can understand what the Spirit of God is saying, it is first necessary to discern what spirit is speaking. The fact that sometimes Paul wrote 'the Spirit', and not 'the Holy Spirit' as at other times, holds special meaning in the context of his remarks. Sometimes the intention is to refer to the third person of the Trinity with distinction and definition, giving proper emphasis to His personal being, in which case His name could only be written out in English in this form: THE The HOLY The SPIRIT. At other times He is mentioned in connection with His less important relationship and functions among men.
So when Paul uses the simple phrase 'the Spirit', he is referring to the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of all he is saying. He is the Spirit of the whole body of truth, and the Spirit of the body of Christ; He is also the ruling Spirit in Paul's person and body, and must be that also in the persons and bodies of would-be elders of the Church.
Not only elders, but also every member of every church is included in this; God has not devised a set of graded spiritual standards for members of His Church, as though elders and deacons must be of top quality, but others need not. What Paul is setting out is basic Christian living and he is saying, 'an elder or deacon must be this at very least; therefore, before you can consider a man for office, he must be of this calibre; no-one else is to be considered'. In other words Paul, as befits him, has laid the foundation without which the Church cannot be built. Now if an elder, in common with all saints, is to be a man of this basic quality, what are the other extra features that specially fit him for office?
Perhaps the clearest indication of primary requirements for eldership is to be found in the Old Testament incident already examined. The chosen seventy were outstanding: (1) they were natural elders; that is they were not youngsters; they were already men of standing, leadership and responsibility among the people; they were of proven worth; (2) they were to be burden-bearers — men able to share the burden of the people with Moses. They were to act for God as nursing fathers to their own people; (3) they were divinely and publicly elected; following Moses' selection the Spirit of their head came upon them; (4) they each received the gift of prophecy.
The outstanding things about it all to Israel at that time were these: (1) God decided to elect elders; (2) He did it for a specific reason; (3) He did it in a certain manner; (4) He gave them a gift to mark their election. These men were elders unto God first; they were chosen to assist Him in bringing Israel to Canaan. They were also elders by appointment to all Israel, but this was a secondary thing. The burden of responsibility for the welfare of the people was laid on them by God. This is why He would not have youngsters; eldership is not a novitiate. Already these men were counsellors to whom younger people went with their problems for wisdom and guidance. But now, beyond advice, these men must give sympathetic help, lift the burden, carry the load and speak the prophetic word of God to the people.
The noteworthy thing is that the election was so public that everybody recognized the act of God. This is a most important part of the electoral process, and it must not be overlooked; an elder may only bear office upon public recognition of the work of grace God has wrought in him. This is absolutely necessary, for unless this is so he will not have the respect of the people. A man placed in office without ability to command respect will not be able to furnish to the church satisfactory proofs of his divine election. This he cannot do unless the same Spirit which is upon the Mediator of the covenant in which he serves is upon him also. With the seventy it was the spirit which was upon Moses — today it is the Spirit which is upon Jesus. In other words he must be an anointed man.
The New Testament elder has to know two basic things: (1) of what spirit he is; (2) what anointing he bears. These are indispensable to the office. An elder is simply a man among many brethren; he must fully take to heart the fact that the anointing which is upon him is also upon many others and is given him solely for office and function. He must also realise that this anointing is secondary to, and will only function consistently with, the Baptism common to every member of the Church. The Spirit of anointing is one and the same as the Spirit of Baptism; anointing is extra in dispensation, not different in substance and character. An elder must therefore recognise, confess, deport himself and act at all times in accordance with this truth; the Baptism of the whole body is greater than the individual anointing he has received to bear office in it. The Baptism of the Spirit is general in the Church; it is superior to and therefor