WITH all our hearts we wish every one of our readers a happy New Year! “Blessed (happy) is he whose iniquity is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed (happy) is the man unto whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no guile” (Ps. 32:1, 2).
It was a happy new year to Noah, when on the first day of the first month, “he removed the covering of the ark and looked, and behold the face of the ground was dry” (Gen. 8:13). The ground had been cursed because of man’s sin; the ground had been submerged beneath the waters of righteous judgment on that sin; but now, as Noah looked from his place of security from that judgment, he saw all trace of it gone, “the face of the ground was dry,”—not one pool remaining to tell of the destroying deluge. “There is, therefore, now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 8:1). Does my reader know himself there? Has he, as a sinner justly exposed to the judgment of God, fled for refuge to the one Ark of God’s providing, the Lord Jesus Christ, on whom the full vengeance of the wrath of God against sin has been expended? to Him, who, when His soul was made an offering for sin, cried, “All thy waves and thy billows are passed over me”—to Him who is now risen from the dead, highly exalted and crowned at God’s right hand? No vestige of the judgment remains for Him; no vestige of judgment remains for the sinner who rusts in Him. “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word and believeth him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation (judgment); but is passed from death unto life” (John 5:24).
It was the dawn of New Year’s Day! Israel had come out of Egypt, sheltered by the blood of the paschal lamb from the destroyer, saved from the power of Pharaoh by the waters of the Red Sea, and now “in the first month in the second ear, on the first day of the month, the tabernacle as reared up” (Ex. 40:17). God’s dwelling place was in the midst of His redeemed people, and for the first time on that new year’s day they gathered round it. If you are a Christian, let me ask, Why has God saved you, my fellow-believer? That you may be His dwelling place. “What! Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you” (1 Cor. 6:19)?
What a new year! a new era indeed! when He takes possession. And not only is the body of each individual believer a temple of the Holy Ghost but believers collectively are God’s temple (1 Cor. 3:16; 2 Cor. 6:16). And in the midst of God’s redeemed ones He abides, the power of worship (Phil. 3:3), of prayer (Jude 20), and of service, “dividing to each one severally as He will” (1 Cor. 12:11). May reader and writer know how to give the Holy Spirit His due place!
But, it may be, some may read this who sigh over happy new years long past when these truths were known and loved and enjoyed, but now—alas! Well, God has a new year’s day for you, beloved. Hezekiah, “ in the first year of his reign, in the first month, opened the doors of the house of the Lord. . . they began on the first day of the first month” (2 Chron. 29:3, 17). God has not forsaken His dwelling place. The Holy Spirit still abides forever in the heart He has sealed, but, like king Ahaz, “you have shut up the doors.” Perhaps, like him, too, you have an idol; perhaps you have tampered with God’s altar, and placed your confidence in something or someone else besides His beloved Son, and His once offered and perfect sacrifice. Ah, open the doors again! Let this be a happy new year. Clear out the dust, the dirt, and rubbish; confess all to Him: and the great joy of Hezekiah’s day shall be outdone in your renewed happiness and blessing.
Once more it is new year’s day (Ezra 7:9), and a little band turn their backs on the land of their captivity and exile. “Upon the first day of the month began he to go up from Babylon, and on the first day of the fifth month came he to Jerusalem.” Ezra and those with him were only a remnant, but “the good hand of his God was upon him”; and of the temple afterward raised it is written, “the latter glory of this house shall be greater than the former.” To the returned remnant it was said, “The Lord whom ye seek shall suddenly come.” Poor and feeble though they were, their new year’s day marked the beginning of an epoch that saw the birth of the Messiah.
But that remnant knew a second new year. It is not enough to come out, a feeble few, to the Lord’s name; “let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.” “By the first day of the first month” they made an end (Ezra 10:17) of putting away that, which, while so near and dear to nature, was contrary to God and the plain direction of His word. That new year’s day—the last recorded in the book of God—saw broken hearts and weeping eyes and sorrowful homes; but it saw His name honored, His glory vindicated, His word obeyed. May such be your and my new year’s day, dear fellow believer, until we change time for eternity, when every act of obedience shall receive its due reward.
T.