Brief Expositions and Spiritual Meditations
John Gifford Bellett
Table of Contents
Conquerors
When we look a little at the different agents of evil and of delusions exhibited in the book of Revelation, we wonder how any soul will escape. And then, when we remember that though these agents have not yet been manifested, yet that the energies which are to animate and use them are already abroad and in action, and all working now in mystery if not in revealed forms, we stand amazed at the sight we thus get of the conflict in which we are engaged.
There will be “the dragon” and his “great wrath” — the “beast” and his “false prophet” — the “frogs” — “Babylon” “the kings of the earth” — and “the whole world wondering after the beast.”
What tremendous agents in the work of delusion, darkness, and blood! What strong temptations and what appalling difficulties will then beset the path of the wayfaring saints! Who will stand? Who will find safe conduct through this array of hindrances? Who will discover the path of life and light amid all this thickening and overwhelming darkness?
And yet with each feature of this terrible scene, with each member of this great system of subtlety and strength, in the mystery or spirit of it, we have now to do; though, of course, some part of it may be more in real activity than others. But it is our duty still, and always, to recognize the dragon and his wrath, the beast and the frogs, Babylon, the kings of the earth, and the world deluded into infidel or idolatrous wonder and worship — to recognize each and all of these in the mystery, or in the hidden energy, of their working.
see the Greek of 2 Thessalonians 2).
The field of conflict thus spread out is serious indeed. But, as this same book unfolds to us, we have at the same time to recognize the better region, that is, the heavenly, where we get other objects altogether, and all, I may say, for us.
The prophet of God in Patmos passes, in vision, with great ease and rapidity from earth to heaven, and from heaven to earth. The two regions are alternately before him, and he sees the action in each. But the passage is made with ease and with speed.
In chapters 4-5 he is in sight of heaven. So, at the opening of the Seals in chapter 6, passing however at once to see the results of those opened seals on earth: so again in chapter 8, we find him in vision of both the regions; and, in like manner, I may say throughout. He hears the music and the conferences in heaven, the rapture and the hopes there; and then again he is amid the infidel pride, the confusion, and all the workings of apostate principles, which are giving character to the scene on earth. He passes from the exulting marriage feast in heaven to the terrible judgment of the Rider on the white horse on all the confederated iniquity of the earth.
We see something of this in the opening of Job. There we are, in vision, both in heaven and on earth, as in the twinkling of an eye. So at the time of Stephen’s martyrdom. How near to each other are the two regions (that of sight and that of faith, or of earth and of heaven) though so different, presented to us! (Acts 7).
Is it not the business of the soul thus to act still? There are two regions — that of faith and that of sight: and the soul should pass rapidly and frequently into the region of faith. Had Job thus visited heaven, and heard and seen the action there, he would have been ready for the trials and sorrows which awaited him on earth.
Little one knows of it indeed, but the soul covets the power to follow John in the Revelation, passing, as we see, easily and speedily from earth to heaven and back again, and always prepared, I may say, without amazement, for the shifting scenery.
But beside this, for the encouragement of our hearts — I observe two victories achieved in the progress of this book — one over the accuser (chap. 12:11), and another over the beast (chap. 15:2).
The accuser was defeated by a certain army of martyrs, and the weapons of their victorious struggle are hung up before us; for we are told they conquered by “the blood of the Lamb,” by “the word of their testimony,” and by “their not loving their lives to the death.” These had been their armor in conflict with the accuser.
If he went up, as in Job’s case, to the presence of God with charges against them, they met him there with “the blood of the Lamb.” They pleaded the sacrifice of God’s own Lamb according to God’s own testimony respecting it. And to the charge that “skin for skin, all that a man has will he give for his life,” they rendered up their lives to death in answer.
Here was their victory, and such and such the weapons which accomplished it. Heaven could employ itself in celebrating this victory. Was Jesus standing when Stephen was martyred? Easy then for heaven to be engaged in rehearsing with joy these conquests of this martyr-band.
But again, we have another victory celebrated in chapter 15. It had been obtained over the beast, as the other had been gained over the accuser.
The conquerors here are like Israel on the Red Sea in Exodus 15. And just as in that song of Israel, so here in this song of triumph, we learn the character of the previous truth, and how it was the conquerors conquered.
Moses and, the congregation rehearse the fact that a victory had been won. But more than that, they rehearse how it had been won. They sing of the horse and his rider being thrown into the sea, of Jehovah, as a man of war, casting His enemies into the mighty waters, of the depths covering the foe. And they let it be known that Israel themselves had not fought, but that Jehovah had made the battle all His own.
Thus the style of the victory, its instrument and strength, is published in this song, as well as the fact of victory. And I judge in like manner so does the song in Revelation 15.
All the world had wondered after the beast, and their wonder led to worship — or it was itself worship (Rev. 13). His power appeared to be so great, his history so marvelous, that all the world wondered and worshipped, except (as I may say) this conquering band who paid their lives as the price of their faith in God and fidelity to Jesus.
But the song, as I have said, utters, as I judge, the weapons they had used in that day of battle. And they were these. These martyrs were admiring and worshipping “the Lord God Almighty,” while the world around them were admiring and worshipping the beast. The world was wondering at the greatness of the beast and the marvelousness of his history; but they were standing in the holy adoring admiration of the Lord and the marvelousness of His works (See Rev. 15:3). And while all beside were fearing the beast who could and would kill their bodies, they lived in the fear of God only, giving heed to the angel’s voice which had spoken of His coming judgment (see Rev. 14:7; 15:4).
Thus this fine but short song tells of the manner of the victory, or the weapons which had accomplished it, as that song of Israel at the Red Sea had done, before. I might notice a difference in the battles, though the songs are the same. That on the Red Sea was fought alone by Jehovah for Israel, this with the beast was fought by the Lord in His saints.
But further. I might extend this thought as to victories in the book of Revelation, and say, generally, that from beginning to end it is the book of victories.
It contemplates corruption or apostasy — evil in the church and in the larger scene outside; or first among the candlesticks, and then in the earth or world.
But corruption or apostasy occasions struggle or conflict on the part of saints; and accordingly, the saints in this book are addressed or contemplated as conquerors; such as have been in conflict because of corruption and have come off in victory.
They are formally regarded in this character in this book. Thus it is as conquerors they are addressed by the Spirit in each of the letters to the churches. “He that overcometh” is the language in each of them; because in each church there is contemplated a struggle or conflict, by reason either of corruption within or danger and enmity without (Rev. 2-3).
And I suggest that the crowns of Revelation 15 are more formally the crowns of victors than of kings (see chap. 3: 11), as though we saw the “overcomers” of the previous chapter enthroned in chapter 4.
We may say that, in divine reckoning, there is scarcely a difference; for the kingdom is taken by those who have been in the conflict before (see Luke 22:28-29; Matt. 20: 28; 1 Cor. 9:25; 2 Tim. 2:12). The Lord had gained a succession of victories in the days of His flesh over Satan (Matt. 4), over the world (John 16:33), over sin and its judgment (Matt. 27:51), over death and the grave (John 20:6-7). This earth has been the scene of these victories, the gospel publishes them and faith accepts them.
So in the very next scene (Rev. 5) the Lord Jesus is recognized as a conqueror. In that character He takes the book. The word “prevailed” is the common word for “overcome,” “the Lion hath overcome.” Then, in the progress of the book, we see two victories celebrated in heaven, one obtained over the accuser (Rev. 12), and another over the beast (Rev. 15), as I have before noticed. Then, on the earth, we see victory achieved, victory over the closing concentrated enmity and apostate strength and pride of the whole world (Rev. 17:14; 19:11-21).
And further still, for I ask, Is not the first resurrection contemplated as a resurrection of conquerors? Is it not a reign of conquerors which we see in Revelation 20:4? And so forever for the inheritance of all things, after this is in the hands of conquerors (Rev. 21:7).
Can I ask my own soul what measure or character of victory marks my course? Can I inquire of myself? Do I know what conflict is because of corruption, and what the victory of separation from it?
The more we are conquerors, the more are we morally fit to be readers of the book of Revelation. John, I may say, was a conqueror in the first chapter, for he was a martyr or confessor in the Isle of Patmos, “a brother and a companion in the kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ,” and in that character he gets the revelation communicated to him. And I suggest again that it comes to him from a conqueror, because it comes to him from “Jesus Christ” in the character (among others) of the “faithful Witness,” the character in which He overcame the world (see 1 Tim. 6:13; see also John 16:33; Rev. 3:21).
Indeed the four leading ideas in the book seem to be corruption, conflict, victory, and kingdom, the judgment of God being in exercise throughout.
The book assumes, so to speak, that those who have tasted the grace of the Saviour should stand in the rejection of the Saviour. This may give a character to the book which will be somewhat strong for our timid hearts; but it is fitting that the volume of God should close with such a chapter, if I may so call it. Because the blessing of the creature was not the only business in creation, neither is it in redemption. His own glory was proposed as well as His creatures’ good. And it is His glory to judge a reprobate unrepentant world; and His people glorify Him by taking part with Him in that judgment; and they judge it now in weakness by gainsaying the course of it even at the hazard of goods, liberties, and lives, as they will by and by judge it in power, when seated on their thrones in the regeneration.
The volume then closes as it began, for His own glory, of course in a different way, that is, in the judgment of all the apostate principles of the world in their ripened condition. And the saints are rightly expected to be on His side in that action. This is their place and character in this book. The present is an age of easy profession, and the martyr strength and devotedness which are found in this book is not the common element. O for faith and love to reach it! — to be on the side of a rejected Jesus against the world!
But more than this: the book contemplates the saints as heirs as well as conquerors. The expectation and the desire of getting the earth into possession and under dominion occupy the mind of Christ and of the saints throughout. Properly or necessarily so, because the sealed book is the book of the inheritance, and that book rules the action from thence onward to the end; and I ask, Is not the attitude of the saints quite different now from what it is in the Apocalypse? They are now “waiting for the Son from heaven” (1 Thess. 1); in the Apocalypse they are waiting to reign on the earth, that is, now they are on earth, but then they are in heaven.
In the opening of the prophetic part in Revelation 4 we see the rainbow, the sign of the earth’s security, round the throne in heaven. And the One who sits on the throne is clothed in His glory as Creator, for whose pleasure all things were created. We are, thus, in spirit, in Genesis 1.
In Revelation 5 the book of the inheritance of the earth passes into the hand of the Lamb, and all rejoice. We are, thus, in spirit in Genesis 2, where the Lord God Himself, and all the creatures owned the dominion of Adam, the Lord God by conferring it, the creatures by submitting to it.
Judgments under the seals and under the trumpets, the necessary precursors of the kingdom, then take their course; and in chapter 10 the Lord Jesus, as the mighty angel, triumphs in the now approaching moment of inheritance and dominion over earth and sea; and, in Revelation 11, the saints in heaven do the same.
The voice heard in heaven in Revelation 12, and the song of the victor-harpers in Revelation 15, alike utter joy over the prospect of the kingdom. “Now is come the kingdom of our God and the power of His Christ,” says the voice in heaven. “All nations shall come and worship before Thee,” the harpers sing.
Then in Revelation 19 the joy in heaven is this, that she that corrupted the earth has been judged; and the voice there (as of many waters and mighty thunderings) utters, “Alleluia! for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth.” And the action which makes the earth the Lord’s property takes place.
In Revelation 20 the first resurrection is spoken of as being for the very purpose of bringing in or manifesting the kingdom. Speaking of the risen ones, the prophet says, “They lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years.”
And how does the book close? Not with a description of the church in the hidden places of heaven, as the Father’s house, but with a sight of the church in the manifested heavens, the place of power or government, up to the light of which the kings will bring their glory and honor, and forth from which will go the waters of the river and the leaves of the tree for the healing of the nations. And this is such a view of the heavenly places as suits the earth in the days of the kingdom; and of the servants of God and of the Lamb, who are there, it is said at the close, “and they shall reign forever and ever.” It is the book of the kingdom rather than of the church. The church’s heavenly destiny is assured, as in Revelation 4, but the kingdom at the close is reach through judgments.
The Faith of the Son of God
There is a character of truth in the Epistle to the Galatians, very seasonable at this present time, and very strengthening to the soul at all times.
It teaches us to know that the religion of faith, is the religion of immediate personal confidence in Christ. A truth which is, again. I say, seasonable in a day like the present; when the provisions and claims of certain earthly church forms, and a system of ordinances, suggested by the religious, carnal mind, are abundant and fascinating. To learn, at all times, that our souls are to have their immediate business with Christ is comforting and assuring. To be told this afresh, at such a time as the present, is needful.
The apostle is very fervent in this epistle — naturally and properly so — as we all should be, as we all ought to be, when some justly prized possession is invaded; when some precious portion of truth, the dearest of all possessions, is tampered with.
In this epistle, in the first instance, as at the beginning, the apostle lets us know, with great force and plainness, that he had received his apostleship immediately from God; not only his commission or his office, but his instructions also; that which he had to minister and testify, as well as his appointment and ministry itself. He was an apostle immediately from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ; and what he knew and taught he had by direct, immediate revelation.
And, in connection with this, he tells us that as God had thus dealt immediately with him, so had he, in answering confidence, dealt immediately with God. For, having received the revelation, having had the Son revealed in him, he at once withdrew from conversing with flesh and blood. He did not go up to Jerusalem, to those who were apostles before him, but down to Arabia, carrying, as it were, his treasure with him; not seeking to improve it, but as one that was satisfied with it just as it was, that is, with the Christ who had now been given to him.
And, here, let me say, this brings to mind the Gospel by John, for that gives us, before this time of Paul, sample after sample of the soul finding its satisfaction in Christ. Every quickened one there illustrates it. Andrew, and Peter, and Philip, and Nathanael — in the first chapter, afterward the Samaritan and her companions at Sychar, and then the convicted adulteress and the excommunicated beggar — all of them tell us, in language which cannot be misunderstood, that they had found satisfaction in Christ, that having been alone with Him in their sins, they were now independent — having had a personal immediate dealing with Him as the Saviour, they looked not elsewhere. Arabia will do for them as well as Jerusalem, just as in the experience of the Paul of the Galatians. They never appear to converse with flesh and blood. Ordinances are in no measure their confidence. Their souls are proving that faith is that principle which puts sinners into immediate contact with Christ, and makes them independent of all that man can do for them.
How unspeakably blessed to see such a state of soul illustrated in any fellow-sinner, in men “of like passions with ourselves,” like corruptions, like state of guilt and condemnation. Such things are surely written for our learning, that by comfort of such Scriptures we may have assurance and liberty.
And what is thus, in living samples, illustrated, for our comfort, in John’s Gospel, is taught and pressed upon us in this fervent Epistle of Paul to the Galatians. Having shown the churches in Galatia the character of his apostleship, how he got both his commission and his instructions immediately from God, and was not debtor to flesh and blood, to Jerusalem, the city of solemnities, or to those who were apostles before him, for anything; and having discovered, as it were, his very spirit to them, telling them that the life he was now living was by the faith of the Son of God, he begins to challenge them; for they were not in this state of soul.
He calls them “foolish,” and tells them they had been “bewitched.” For how could he do less than detect the working of Satan in the fact, that they had been withdrawn from the place where the Spirit and the truth, the cross of Christ and faith, had once put them. But then he reasons with them, argues the matter, and calls forth his witnesses. He makes themselves their judges, appealing to their first estate. “Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?” He cites Abraham in proof that a sinner had immediate personal business with Christ, and through faith found justification. And he rehearses the character of the gospel which had been preached to Abraham, how it told of Christ and of the sinner and blessing being put together and alone. “In thee (Abraham’s seed, which is Christ) shall all nations be blessed.” Precious gospel! Christ and the sinner and blessing bound up together in one bundle.
And he goes on to confirm and establish this, by teaching them how Christ bore the curse, and, therefore, surely was entitled to dispense the blessing.
Surely these are witnesses which may well be received, as proving the divine character of the religion of faith, which is the sinner’s immediate confidence in Christ.
But then, he does further and other service in this same cause. He goes on to tell us the glorious things faith works and accomplishes in us and for us. “After faith is come,” he tells us in Galatians 3:25-27, “we are no longer under a schoolmaster. For we are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as have been baptized unto Christ have put on Christ.” Here are precious deeds of faith! It dismisses the schoolmaster; it brings the soul to God as to a father, and then it clothes the believer with the value of Christ in the eye and acceptance of God. And “God hath sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father” (Gal. 4:6). And “we are redeemed from under the law” (Gal. 4:5). Can any more full and perfect sense of an immediate dealing between Christ and the soul be conceived, than is expressed and declared by such statements? We are brought from under the law — the schoolmaster, and, with him, tutors and governors are gone; we are children at home in the Father’s house, and have the rights and the mind of the first-born Himself put on us, and imparted to us! Can any condition of soul more blessedly set forth our independence of the resources of a religion of ordinances, and the poor sinner’s personal and immediate connection with Christ Himself?
But Paul finds the churches in Galatia in a backsliding state. They had turned again “to weak and beggarly elements.” They were “observing days, and months, and times, and years.” It was all but returning to their former idolatry, as he solemnly hints to them, “doing service to them which by nature are no gods,” as they had been doing in the days of their heathen ignorance of the true God (Gal. 4:8). What a connection does he here put the Christianity that is merely formal and observant of imposed ordinances into? Is it not solemn? Was it not enough to alarm him? And does it not do so? “I am afraid of you,” says he to the Galatians in this state, “lest I have bestowed upon you labor in vain.”
But, man of God as he was, gracious, patient, and toiling, according to the working of Him who was working in him mightily, he consents to labor afresh — yea, more painfully than ever — to travail in birth again of them. But all this was only to this end, that Christ might be formed in them; nothing less, or more, or other, than this. He longed for restoration of soul in them, and that was, that they and Christ might be put immediately together again; that faith might be revived in them — the simple hearty blessed religion of personal and direct confidence in God in Christ Jesus; that, as in himself, the Son might be revealed in them; that, regaining Christ in their souls, they might prove they needed nothing more.
How edifying it is to mark the path of such a spirit under the conduct of the Holy Spirit! How comforting to see the purpose of God, by such a ministry, with the souls of poor sinners! How it lets us learn what Christianity is in the judgment of God Himself! The going over to the observance of days and times, the returning to ordinances, is destructive of this religion; it is the world. “Why, as though living in the world, are ye subject to ordinances?” as the same apostle says in another place. Confidence in ordinances is not faith in Christ. It is the religion of nature, of flesh and blood; it is of man, and not of God.
And surely it carries in its train the passions of man. Man’s religion leaves man as it found him — rather, indeed, cherishes and cultivates man’s corruptions. This showed itself in Ishmael in earliest days — nay, in Cain before him — but in Ishmael, as the apostle in this same epistle goes on to show. And he declares that it was then, in his day, the same; and generations of formal corrupt Christianity in the story of Christendom, the prisons of Italy some few years since, and the prisons of Spain still later, declare the same. “As then, he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the Spirit, even so is it now.” Man’s religion, again I say, does not cure him; he is left by it a prey to the subtleties and violence of his nature, the captive still of the old serpent, who has been a liar and a murderer from the beginning.
The decree, however, has been pronounced. It was delivered in the days of Isaac and Ishmael, of Abraham and Sarah; it is rehearsed and resealed by the Spirit Himself in the day of the Apostle Paul; and we are to receive it as established forever. It is this: “Cast out the bondwoman and her son” (Gal. 4:30).
What consolation to have this mighty question between God and man settled! And, according to this consolation, we listen to this further word: “Stand fast, therefore, in the liberty wherewith Christ has made you free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage” (Gal. 5:1).
All, surely, is of one and the same character. The Holy Ghost, by the apostle, is preparing the principle, the great leading commanding principle, of divine religion. It is faith; it is the sinner’s personal and immediate confidence in Christ; it is the soul finding satisfaction in Him, and in that which He has done for it; and such a religion as this, the sinner in possession of this faith is set, as I may express it, next door to glory. The apostle quickly tells us this, after commanding us to stand fast in the liberty of the gospel, for he adds, “We through the Spirit wait for the hope of righteousness by faith” (Gal. 5:5). This hope is the glory that is to be revealed — “the glory of God,” as a kindred passage has it (Rom. 5:2). We do not wait for any improvement of our character, for any advance in our souls. Should we still live in the flesh, only fitting will it be to “grow in grace and in the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.” But such things are not needed in the way of title. Being Christ’s by faith, we are next door to glory. “Whom He justified, them He also glorified” (Rom. 8). Being in the kingdom of God’s dear Son, we are “meet to be partakers, of the inheritance of the saints in light” (Col. 1:12). As here, in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free, we wait only for glory; glory is the immediate object of our hope, as Christ is the immediate confidence, of our souls.
It is all magnificent in its simplicity, because it is all of God. No wonder that Scripture so abundantly discourses to us about faith, and so zealously warns us against religiousness. The “persuasion,” as the apostle speaks, under which the Galatians had fallen, had not come of God who had called them; and the apostle sounds the alarm, blows the blast of war on the silver trumpet of the sanctuary, uttering these voices in their ears — “A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump”; again, “If ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law” (Gal. 5:8-9,18).
And in the happy structure of this epistle, as I may also speak of it, the apostle ends with himself as he begins with himself. We have seen how he told them, at the first, of the peculiarities of his apostleship, how he had received both his commission and his instructions immediately from God, and how he had then, with a faith that was an answer to such grace, at once conducted himself in full personal confidence in Christ, and independently of all the resources of flesh and blood. And now, at the close, he tells them that, as for himself, he knew no glorying but in the cross of the Lord Jesus, by whom the world was crucified to him, and he to the world; and he tells them further, that no one need meddle with him or trouble him, neither fret him nor worry him, with their thoughts about circumcision and the law, or the doings of a carnal religiousness, the rudiments of a world to which he was now crucified, for that he bore in his body the marks of the Lord. He belonged to Jesus by personal individual tokens, immediately impressed on him as by the appropriating hand of Christ Himself; and no one had any right to touch the Lord’s treasure.
Precious secret of the grace of God! Precious simplicity in the faith of a heaven-taught sinner! It is not, beloved, knowledge of Scripture, or ability to talk of it, or even teach it, from Genesis to Revelation — it is not the orderly services of religion — it is not devout feelings — but, oh! it is that guileless action of the soul that attaches our very selves to Jesus, in the calm and certainty of a believing mind.
The Father
We intend giving such papers, by a well-taught and much-esteemed brother, as we may think likely to help our readers to a spiritual apprehension of the Word and truth of God. The author having gone to be with the Lord about ten years ago, we can present only what he has left in his published writings or in manuscript, and we will draw on both sources. We obtained permission from this beloved brother, about twenty-five years ago, to make this use of his writings. Ed.
John 14-17
“I have declared unto them Thy name, and will declare it.” These words were spoken to the Father by Christ respecting the saints. They tell us that the great business of the Lord was to acquaint saints with the Father, that such had already been His business, and that such He purposed should be His business still.
This is full of blessing. To think that our souls are under such instruction as this! The Son nourishing and enlarging in us the sense and understanding of the Father’s love, and using His diligence to give our hearts that joy and to give it to us more abundantly! We may be slow, and we are slow, to learn it. We naturally suspect all happy thoughts of God. Christ has to use diligence and to put forth energy in teaching us such a lesson. “I have declared unto them Thy name, and will declare it.” But so it is. This is the lesson of which He is the teacher, and our inaptness to learn it magnifies His grace, for He is still at it, still teaching the same lesson.
The earlier chapters (John 14-16) show us Christ declaring the Father. They begin with His telling us that the Father has opened His own house to us — nay, that He had built it with direct respect to us, having made it a many-mansioned house for our reception (John 14:2).
He then, with some resentment of their unbelief, tells them that the Father had been already revealing Himself to them. “Have I been so long time with you, and hast thou not known me, Philip? He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father.” Because the things He had said and done, He had said and done as Son of the Father, as the One who was in the Father, and in whom also the Father was (John 14:5-14).
*(The Lord’s rebuke of Philip has not such direct application to Philip’s unbelief touching the Person of the Son, as to his unbelief respecting the revelation of the Father which had been made by the Son: the other is involved.)
For this was natural unbelief, the indisposedness to learn the lesson of the Father of which I have spoken; and happy it is to find it here rebuked by the Lord. Indeed, it is only faith which can sit as Christ’s pupil — that principle which only listens. The moral sense of man reasons itself out of that school.
Jesus, however, goes on with the lesson in spite of this dullness. He tells them, after this interruption, how He purposed, when away, to glorify the Father in. their works and in their experience (John 14:12-14); and then He tells them that the Comforter, the Spirit of truth, the Holy Spirit, who was about to come to them, would come as the Spirit of the Father, letting them know that they were not orphans, but had the life of the Son in them (John 14:16-20); and again He tells them that the keeping of His Word would secure to their souls the presence and fellowship of the Father, as well as His, because the word was not His but the Father’s who had sent Him (John 14:21-24). This word or commandment, which was to be kept in order to this fellowship being secured to the soul, was about love; because it was the word brought by the Son from the Father, and not a word brought from a king, or from a judge, or from a legislator (See John 13:34; 15:12,17).
In all these truly blessed ways He declares the Father to us, and uses Himself only as the witness or servant of such a revelation. His own personal glory is implied in such a service; but that is not His object — the declaration of the Father is. And so also, as He proceeds through this wondrous discourse, He declares the Father to be the husbandman of the vine, thereby letting us know that the fruit sought for is fruit worthy of a Father’s hand, fruit which children, not servants or subjects, must yield (John 15:1-14). And again, the friendship He introduces them to with Himself has respect to the Father, because it was the Father’s secrets He was communicating to them in the confidence of friendship (John 15:15). And then, at the close of the same chapter, He presents the world simply in the character of having hated the Father, testified in and by the Son (John 15:23-24).
How does all this make good the word, “I have declared unto them Thy name!” But further: He anticipates the day of the Holy Spirit; but He does this in constant recollection and mention of the Father. The Spirit was the Spirit of the Father, given by Him, sent by Him (John 14:16,26; 15:26); and when He came, their divine Teacher now tells them that they should ask the Father and receive from Him, that this their joy as children who know a Father’s love and blessing should be full (John 16:23-24). And He further tells them that in that day they should plainly know their adoption, or their place with the Father (John 15:25).
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And somewhat beyond all this, and as crowning all He had said, He tells them that His prayers for them in heaven were not to be understood as though they and the Father were somewhat distant from each other, but that rather they must assure themselves that the Father’s love rested immediately on them, as in the full power of the relation in which He stood to them (John 16:26-27).
Thus, it was the name of the Father He was declaring to them all through these wonderful chapters, bringing the Father into the thoughts and enjoyments of their hearts. And if love and heaven be prized by us, what welcome communications will these be!
So, on the closing chapter (17) we may say, No tidings from us return to God so acceptably as this, that we have, by faith, received these tidings of the Father. The Son brought a message of love to us from the bosom of the Father, and if He now report to the Father that we have received the message, this will be the most prized answer with the Father. And such receiving of this word about the Father will also be our truest sanctification or separation from the world, for the world is that which refuses to know the Father.
I might more shortly express it thus. In John 14-16 the Lord purposes to put our souls into communion with the Father. He fills the soul with thoughts of the Father; recollections, present exercises of spirit, and prospects, are all by Him connected with the Father. He tells us, it is the Father’s house that is to receive us by and by, it was the Father who had been working and speaking in Him, so that what He had said and done had been the sayings and doings of the Father; that greater works than He had done they soon should do, for He was going to the Father; that the Comforter would be sent to them from the Father; that their fruitfulness should arise from the Father being the husbandman; that the world would hate them, because it knew not the Father nor Him; that the Father Himself loved them, and that they should soon enter into the sense of their relationship to Him.
If the Spirit of truth, the Comforter, realize these things to us, we may set our seals to that word, “It is expedient for you that I go away.” So, I may say, the Lord’s purpose in John 13 is to put our souls in communion with Himself in heaven. He shows us Himself in heaven, as the very home of love and of glory, because He was to be restored to the Father there, and to have all things put into His hand by God there; and after this manner He anticipates heaven as the home of love and of glory to Him.
But then He lets us know that He would ever continue in His love towards us there, and in His service of our necessities — that, though there, He could never forsake either us or our need. Thus He seeks to put us into communion with Himself as He is now in heaven, just as afterward (in John 14-16). He seeks to put us, as I have been observing, into communion with the Father.
May this blessed sense of relationship fill and satisfy our souls more abundantly!
The Glory of God
The path of the glory through Scripture may be easily tracked, and has much moral value for us connected with it.
Exodus 13—It commences its journey in the cloud, on the deliverance of Israel from Egypt, when the paschal blood, in the grace of the God of their fathers, had sheltered them.
Exodus 14—In the moment of the great crisis it stood, separating between Israel and Egypt, or between judgment and salvation.
Exodus 16—It resented the murmurings of the camp.
Exodus 24—It connected itself with Mount Sinai, and was as devouring fire in the sight of the people.
Exodus 40—It leaves that Mount for the tabernacle, the witness of mercy rejoicing against judgment, resuming also in the cloud its gracious services toward the camp.
Leviticus 9—The priest being consecrated, and his services in the tabernacle being discharged, it shows itself to the people to their exceeding joy.
Numbers 9—Resuming their journey in company with the tabernacle, the congregation enjoy the guidance of the cloud, which now attends the tabernacle, while the glory fills it.
Numbers 16—In the hour of full apostasy it shows itself in judicial terror in the sight of the rebellious people.
Deuteronomy 21- In the cause of Joshua, an elect and faithful vessel, it reappears in the cloud.
2 Chronicles 5—On the temple being built, a new witness of grace, the glory and the cloud reappear to the joy of Israel, as of old.
Ezekiel 1-11—Again, in another hour of full apostasy, the glory, taking wings and wheels to itself, as it were, leaves the temple.
Acts 7—Stephen, an earth-rejected man; sees it in heaven in company with Jesus.
Revelation 21:9—In millennial days it descends from heaven in its new habitation, the holy Jerusalem, “the Lamb’s wife,” resting above in the air, from whence it shades and illumines the dwellings of Israel again (Isa. 4:5), as it once did from the cloud in the wilderness, or enters the second temple, the temple of the millennium (Ezek. 43; Hag. 2).
Such is the path of the glory, the symbol of the divine presence. It’s history, as thus traced, tells us that, if man be in company with grace, he can rejoice in it; but that it is devouring fire to all who stand under Mount Sinai. It tells us also that, while it cheers and guides them on their way, it resents the evil and withdraws from the apostasy of God’s professing people.
It is very instructive and comforting to note these things in the history of the glory, which was the symbol of the divine presence. And if that presence displays itself in other forms, the same lessons are still taught us. The most eminent of the sons of men were unable to brook it in themselves; but in Christ all, high and low, unnamed and distinguished ones, could not only bear it but rejoice in it.
Adam fled from the presence of God. But the moment he listened to the promise of Christ, believing it, he came forth into that presence again with fullest and nearest confidence.
Moses, favored as he was, could not abide it save in Christ, the Rock, the riven rock, of salvation (Ex. 33).
Isaiah, chief among the prophets, dies at the sight of the glory, till a coal from the altar, the symbol of Christ in His work for sinners, purges his sin away (Isa. 6).
Ezekiel and Daniel, companions with him in the prophetic office, with him also fail utterly in the divine presence, and are able afterward to stand it only through the gracious interference of the Son of Man (Ezek. 3; Dan. 10).
John, the beloved disciple, the honored apostle, even in the very place and time of his suffering for Jesus, takes the sentence of death unto himself at the sight of the glorified Jesus, till He who loved and died and lived again spoke to him, and gave him peace and assurance (Rev. 1).
These distinguished ones cannot measure the divine presence by anything but the simple virtue of what Christ is to them and for them. In that virtue they abide it at peace; and so, with them, does the most distant and unnamed one of the camp witness a scene already referred to (Lev. 9). There, all who stood at the door of the tabernacle beholding the consecration and services of the priest, the typical Christ, triumph in the presence of the glory; as also in another scene referred to (2 Chron. 5), when the ark, another type of Christ, is brought into the house of God.
Sin and righteousness account for all this.
Sin is attended by this, as its necessary consequence — a coming short of the glory of God. “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.” This has been illustrated in the cases or in the histories I have been tracing. Sin incapacitates us to stand the force of the divine presence. It is too much for a sinner. But there is full relief, for if sin and incapacity to brook the presence or glory of God be morally one, so is righteousness and a return to that presence.
Sin implies a condition or state of being; and so does righteousness. And as sin is incapacity to come up to God’s glory, righteousness is that which comes up to God’s glory. It is capacity to stand in the fullest brightness of it; as those histories also illustrate. For in Christ, through the provisions of grace, or set in the righteousness of God by faith, all those whom we have looked at, whether great or small, found themselves at ease in the divine presence.
We experience all this toward our fellow-creatures. If we have wronged a person, we instinctively “come short” of his presence; we are uneasy at it, and seek to avoid it. But if we receive a pardon from him, sealed with the full purpose and love of his heart, we return to his presence with confidence. And how much more so, I may say, if we saw that he was pressing that pardon upon us with all the skill and diligence of love, and at the same time telling us that all the wrong we had done him had been infinitely repaired, and that he himself had good reason to rejoice in the wrong because of the repairing? Surely all this would form a ground, and be our warrant for regaining his presence with more assurance and liberty than ever.
Now, such is the gospel. It warrants the sinner to entertain all these thoughts with full certainty. The wrong we had committed, the offense which Adam did against the love, the truth, and the majesty of God, has all been gloriously repaired by Christ. God is more honored in the satisfaction than He would have been had the wrong never been done. All His rights are provided for in their fullest demands and to their highest point of praise. He is “just and the Justifier of him that believeth in Jesus.”
Faith assumes this, and the believer, therefore, does not come short of the glory of God, though as a sinner he once did. Faith receives “the righteousness of God”; and the righteousness of God can and does measure the glory of God. In His righteousness we can stand before His glory. And that it can in this sense measure His glory — that faith in the gospel, or in the ministry of righteousness, can set us with liberty or open face in presence of the glory of God — is taught in 2 Corinthians 3-4; yea, indeed, that the expression of that glory can be had only in the ministry of righteousness, the full glory only “in the face of Jesus Christ.”
The Glory of the Only-Begotten
“The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth.”
This was the manifestation of the Christ as Son, and declared through the Spirit by John. And it is this glory, this fullness of grace and truth, which shines throughout the public ministry of the Christ as recorded by John in John 1-9. And in the progress of that ministry, I have observed two attributes or actings of this glory. 1. It always refuses to join itself with other glory of any kind whatever. 2. It perseveres in displaying itself in defiance of every kind of resistance.
These two ways, constantly adhering to it, evince the value it had for itself, and the fixedness of the divine purpose to bless the sinner, to whose condition and necessities this glory suits itself.
In John 2 Jesus is tempted by His mother to let the glory of power break from Him. In John 3 Nicodemus invites Him to display Himself as a teacher. In John 6 the multitude would make Him a king. In John 7 His brethren would have Him show Himself to the world. In John 8 the Pharisees would have Him use the thunder of mount Sinai in judgment. But no offer or solicitation prevails. Jesus will not show Himself save as “full of grace and truth,” or in the glory of the “only-begotten of the Father.” He refuses to appear in any other glory or act in any other character. But then in that glory He will shine, and in that character He will act, be the resistance or hindrance what it may; and in considering this I would be, at present, a little more particular.
In John 4 we see the Lord insisting to shine in the glory of grace and truth, in spite of hindrance and resistance from a most determined quarter — “the law of commandments contained in ordinances.” The Jews had no dealings with the Samaritans. But Jesus, the Son of God, shines with as bright and diffused a beam in one region as in another, refusing to be hindered.
In John 5 the Lord holds on His course in the same undistracted character, in defiance of fear or danger. The Jews sought to slay Him, because He did these things on the Sabbath day. But His answer to such danger or threatening was only this — “My Father worketh hitherto, and I work”; and on He goes, still He perseveres, as the witness of the way of the Father or the grace of God, though this might only sharpen the enmity and dispose the Jews the more to seek to slay Him.
In John 6 this peculiar glory, by which alone He was tracking His path, again has to meet a sore hindrance. The Lord evidently feels a great moral distance from the multitude. They were very much, as we speak, His aversion. They had stirred some of the holy loathing of His righteous soul. This is evident, and this the heart knows to be a sore hindrance. But this does not hinder Him from maintaining the display of His proper glory, which was for their blessing. “Labor not for the meat that perisheth,” says He to them, “but for that meat that endureth unto eternal life, which the Son of Man shall give unto you; for Him hath God the Father sealed.” And so in John 7, as in John 5, He holds on His way, though enemies were angry and confederating, and sending officers to take Him. For after all this, the glory that was full of grace and truth breaks forth into some of its brightest shining, on the great last day of the feast, Jesus standing and saying, “If any man thirst, let him come unto Me and drink.” What vigor in the purpose must there have been which could have thus borne it on in triumph through such a series of opposition and hindrances! And so, to the very last, I may say, this glory appears in unmeasured regions. Jesus “passes by” (John 9). He goes wherever He may go. But it is still in the same character. Change of climate, so to speak, makes no difference. The glory is still full of grace and truth, the glory “as of the only-begotten of the Father.” Jesus sees a man blind from his birth; but He is “the light of the world.” And Jesus afterward finds him cast out, but takes him up for eternity.
I know not that anything can more thoroughly assure the heart of a sinner of his interest in the Son of God than all this. No resistance prevails, no temptation. Nothing can force Him, nothing withdraw Him, from His purpose to bless them, for a single moment. That glory, and that only which suits their necessities, breaks forth on every occasion in which we see Jesus acting, urging its way through every hindrance, and retiring from every distraction. What intimates fixedness of purpose like this? If you see a man going on with his work, undaunted by opposition and undiverted by allurements, what need we more to know the singleness and decision of his soul? And such is the Son of the Father in this action. In the glory that suits the need of sinners He shines, and in that only, be the medium that would obscure it as thick as it may, or the solicitation that would distract it as flattering as it may.
O precious saving grace! How does all this, in other language, tell us that God has found it more blessed to give than to receive! Jesus was “the Word made flesh,” “God manifest in the flesh.” And had He pleased, as these chapters show us, He might have received the praises of men, the admiration of the world, the crown of the kingdom; but He passes all by, fixed on the one purpose of carrying out the blessing to poor sinners.
God Manifest in the Flesh
Throughout John’s Gospel we may perceive that a sense of the glory of His person is ever present to the mind of Christ. Whether we follow Him from scene to scene of His public ministry (John 1.-12), through His parting words with His elect (John 13-17), in the path of His closing sorrows (John 18-19), or in resurrection (John 20- 21), this is so.
This full personal glory that belongs to Him is declared at the very beginning of this Gospel (John 1:1), and there recognized by the church, conscious, as she is, that she had discerned it (John 1:14). But, as I have just said, it is always present to His own mind. He is in the place where covenant arrangements put Him, and He is doing those services which care for the manifestation of the Father’s glory laid on Him; but still He takes knowledge of Himself in the fullness of the Godhead glory that belonged to Him, essentially and intrinsically His. (See John 2:21; 3:13; 4:14; 5:23; 6:46,62; 7:37; 8:58; 9:38; 10:30,38; 11:11,25; 12:45; 14:15; 16:15; 18:6; 19:30; 20:22).
The Spirit in the saint, after this manner, glorifies Him still. The saint may recognize Him in the place of covenant subjection, or think of Him in His sorrows and sufferings, but (like Himself in the days of His flesh) never loses the sense of that personal glory which is essentially and intrinsically His. Christ’s own way when He was here, and the saint’s present experience, are thus in perfect concord. And when we look a little at the epistles, we shall find something still in harmony — I mean in this particular. The Spirit in the apostles does not meet an injurious treatment of the person of Christ in the same style that He does a wrong, dealing with the truth of the gospel. And this difference in style is very significant. For instance, in the Epistle to the Galatians, where the simplicity of the gospel is vindicated, there is a pleading and a yearning in the midst of earnest and urgent reasonings. So there are measures and methods recommended (such as charging, rebuking, stopping the mouth, 1 Timothy 1 and Titus 1), and not a summary process and outlawry at once, when Judaizing corruptions are dealt with. But when the person of the Son of God is the thing in hand, when His glory is to be asserted, there is nothing of all this. The style is different. All is peremptory. “They went from us, because they were not of us.” “Receive him not into your house.” “Whosoever transgresseth and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ hath not God.”
The Spirit, as I may say, holds the decree most sacred, and guards it as with instinctive jealousy, “that all should honor the Son, even as they honor the Father” (John 5:23).
All this about His full divine glory is precious in the thoughts of His people. We are, however, led to look at man in Him also, and through a succession of conditions we see in Him man presented to God with infinite though varied delight and satisfaction. I have, long since, traced Him in the following way, as man in all perfectness: —
Born — The material, so to speak, moral and physical, is presented in Jesus as the born one. He was a taintless sheaf of the human harvest. Man in Him was perfect as a creature (Luke 1:35).
Circumcised — Jesus, in this respect, was under the law, and He kept it, as of course, to all perfection. Man in Him was thus perfect as under law (Luke 2:27).
Baptized — In this character Jesus is seen bowing to the authority of God, owning Him in His dispensations, and man in Him is perfect in all righteousness, as well as under law (Luke 3:21).
Anointed — As anointed, Jesus was sent forth to service and testimony. In this respect man is seen in Him perfect as a servant (Luke 3:22).
Devoted — Jesus surrendered Himself to God, left Himself in His hand to do to His utmost will and pleasure. In Him man was therefore perfect as a sacrifice (Luke 22:19-20).
Risen — This begins a series of new conditions in which man is found. This is the first stage of the new estate. John 12:31-32 intimates a new course in man, as here said. The corn of wheat, having fallen into the ground and died, is now capacitated to be fruitful. Man in the risen Jesus is in indefeasible life.
Glorified — The risen Man, or man in indefeasible life, wears a heavenly image. The new man has a new or glorious body.
Reigning — The risen and glorified Man receives, in due season, authority to execute judgment. Dominion is His. The lost sovereignty of man is regained Scripture leads us through this series of contemplations on the Son of Man. And though I speak here of the Man, as before I did of the divine glory, yet I divide not the person. Throughout all, it is “God manifest in the flesh” we have before us.
We need to walk softly over such ground, and not to multiply words. On so high a theme, precious to the loving worshipping heart, we may remember what is written, “In the multitude of words there wanteth not sin.”
Jesus Christ Come in the Flesh
The ark and the camp were, in some sense, necessary to each other during the journey through the wilderness. The ark, seated in the tabernacle on which the cloud rested, had to guide the camp; and the camp, in its order, had to accompany and guard the ark and all connected with it.
This was the business of the camp. There was to be subjection to the will of Him who dwelt in the cloud; dependence on Him who led them daily; conscious liberty because of having left Egypt behind them, and hope because of having Canaan before them. Such a mind as this was to be in the camp; but its business was to conduct the mystic house of God onward to its rest, “the possession of the Gentiles.”
Their journeying through that desert would not have constituted divine pilgrimage. Many a one had traveled that road without being a stranger and pilgrim with God. In order to be such, the ark must be in their company.
The mind of the camp, of which I have spoken, might betray its weakness, or forget itself, and this might lead, as we know it did, to chastening again and again. But if its business, of which I have also spoken, were given up, there would be loss of everything. And this did come to pass. The tabernacle of Moloch was taken up, instead of the ark of Jehovah, and the camp, therefore, had its road diverted to Damascus or Babylon, far away from the promised Canaan (Amos 5:25; Acts 7:1:3).
And thus it is with ourselves. We are to maintain those truths or mysteries which the tabernacle and its furniture represented: and the apostle commits our entrance into Canaan to that. “If ye continue in the faith”; and again, “if ye keep in memory what I have written unto you.” Our safety, our rest in the heavenly Canaan, depends on our keeping the truth.
This, however, is to be added — that not merely for our own safety’s sake, but for Christ’s honor, is the truth to be kept. This is to be much considered. Supposing, for a moment, that our own safety were not concerned in it, Christ’s honor is, and that is enough. Such a thing is contemplated in 2 John 10: the elect lady was inside the house — she was in personal safety, but she has a duty to perform to “the doctrine of Christ”; so that if one come to her door, and bring not that doctrine, she must keep him outside, and refuse to have him where she is.
Title to entrance is confession to that doctrine, a confession of “Jesus Christ come in the flesh,” a confession that involves or secures the glory of His person. A full confession to His work will not do. The one outside may bring with him a sound faith as to the atonement, sovereignty of grace, and like truths; but all this is not a warrant for letting him in. There must be confession to the person also. “Whosoever transgresseth and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ hath not God: he that abideth in the doctrine of Christ, he hath both the Father and the Son. If there come any unto you and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house, neither bid him God’s speed: for he that biddeth him God speed is partaker of his evil deeds.”
Surely this is clear and decided. I believe that this is much to be considered. The truth touching Christ’s person is to be maintained by us, even though our soul’s safety were not involved in it. I grant that our salvation is involved. But that is not all. He who owns not that truth is to be kept outside. It imparts tenderness as well as strength to see that the name of Jesus is thus entrusted to the guardianship of the saints. This is what we owe Him if not ourselves. The wall of partition is to be raised by the saints between them and Christ’s dishonor.
Mere journeying from Egypt to Canaan will not do. Let the journey be attended with all the trial of such an arid, unsheltered, and trackless road, still it is not divine pilgrimage. A mere toilsome self-denying life, even though endured with that moral courage which becomes pilgrims, will not do. There must be the carriage of the ark of God, confession to the truth, and maintenance of the name of Jesus.
Now, in John’s epistles, the name “Jesus Christ” expresses or intimates, I believe, the deity of the Son. The Holy Spirit, or the Unction, so filled the mind of that apostle with the truth that “the Word which had been made flesh” was God, that though be speaks of Him by a name which formally expresses the Son in manhood or in office, with John that is no matter. The name is nothing — at least nothing that can interfere with the full power of prevailing assurance, that He is “that which was from the beginning,” the Son in the glory of the Godhead. This is seen and felt at the very opening of the 1 John, and so, I believe, throughout. (See 1 John 1:3,7; 2:1; 3:23; 4:2; 5:20; 2 John 3-7.)
In the thoughts of this epistle “Jesus Christ” is always this divine One, so to speak, the eternal Life manifested. With John “Jesus Christ” is “the true God.” Jesus is the “He” and the “Him” in the argument of his first epistle; and this “He” and “Him” ever keeps before us One who is God, though in assumed relations and covenant dealings.
The confession, therefore, which is demanded by them is this—that it was God who was manifested, or who came in the flesh (See 1 John 4:2; 2 John 7). For in these epistles, as we have now seen, “Jesus Christ” is God. His name as God is Jesus Christ. And it is assumed or concluded that “the true God” is not known, if He who was in the flesh, Jesus Christ, be not understood as such; and all this simply because He is God. Any other received as such is an idol (1 John 5:20-21). The soul that abides not in this doctrine “has not God,” but he who abides in it “has both the Father and the Son” (2 John 9).
This, I judge, is the mind and import of the required confession that “Jesus Christ is come in the flesh.” I here speak of God under the name of Jesus Christ, and it is, therefore, the demand of a confession to the great mystery of “God manifested in the flesh.”
The very adjunct (as another has written to me), “come in the flesh,” throws strongly forward the deity of Christ; because if He were a man, or anything short of what He is, it would be no such wonder that He should come in the flesh. And 1 John 1:2-3 guide us to John’s thoughts in the use of the name “Jesus Christ.” That which was from the beginning, the eternal Life which was with the Father, was the Person he declared to them. The words “with the Father” are important, making it evident that the Son was the eternal One, the name of this eternal Son being Jesus Christ. And it is interesting to compare the close with the commencement of this epistle, “This is the true God and the [with the article] eternal life.”
I desire to bless the Lord for giving my soul fresh assurance, on such simple ground of Scripture that this duty lies on us of maintaining the honor of the name of Jesus.
In the course of our Lord’s journey on earth, we see Him in the following ways:—
As the born One — holy, meeting God’s mind in the nature or human material.
As the circumcised One — perfect under the law, meeting God’s mind in it.
As the baptized One — meeting God’s mind in dispensational order and righteousness.
As the anointed One — meeting God’s mind as His image or representative.
As the obedient One — doing always those things that pleased the Father,
As the devoted One — meeting God’s mind in all things; and in laying down his life (John 10:17-18).
7. As the risen One — sealed with God’s approval in victory for sinners.
Thus does He meet all the mind of God while providing for us. All was magnified in Him and by Him, all made honorable. God’s proposed delight in man, or glory by him, has been richly answered in the blessed Jesus. While in His person He was “God manifest in the flesh,” in the succession of His stages through the earth He was accomplishing all the divine purpose, delight, and glory, in man. Nothing unworthy of God was in the man Christ Jesus, His person, experiences, or ways.
The Lord's Supper
We should, on divine authority, and in spiritual, scriptural intelligence, hold to it, that the Lord’s supper is the due characteristic expression of the Lord’s day — that which should then be made principal.
If we read Luke 22:7-20, we shall learn that the Passover of the Jews and the supper of the Lord being then exhibited successively — the one after the other — the latter, thenceforth, was to displace the former, and that forever. The former, with other meanings attached to it, was the foreshadowing of the great Sacrifice which was in due time, to put away sin. The latter is now the celebration of the great fact that that Sacrifice has been offered, and that, for faith, sin is put away.
After the Lord’s supper, therefore, is instituted, it is impossible to return to the Passover. It would be apostasy — a giving up of God’s Lamb and of the atonement.
But, if the supper has thus displaced the Passover, we may then inquire, “Is anything to displace it?” We may read our answer in 1 Corinthians11:26, and there learn that the Lord’s supper is set as a standing institution in the house of God till the Lord’s return. The Holy Spirit, through the apostle, gives it an abiding place all through this age of the Lord’s absence.
I conclude, accordingly, that we are not to allow anything to displace the supper. It is of our faithfulness to our stewardship of the mysteries of God, to assert the right of that supper to be principal in the assembly of the saints. It has displaced the Passover by the authority of the Lord Himself; but we, on the authority of the Holy Spirit, are not to allow anything to displace it. It is the proper service of the house of God. The Lord’s supper is the principal thing for the Lord’s day.
This comes out naturally in the progress of the story of Christianity in the New Testament. We read in Acts 20:7, “And upon the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread.” And again, in 1 Corinthians 11:33, “Wherefore, my brethren, when ye come together to eat, tarry one for another.”
If we abandon the supper for a sermon, or for a large congregation, or for any other religious scene or service, we have given up the house of God in its due characteristic and divinely appointed business and worship. So far we are guilty of apostasy. We have not, it is true, returned to the displaced or superseded Passover; but we have allowed something or another to displace or supersede what the Holy Spirit has set as principal in the house of God. And, were we right-hearted, we would say, “What sermon would be more profitable to us? What singing of a full congregation more sweet in our ears than the voice of that ordinance which tells us so clearly and with such rich harmony of all kinds of music of the forgiveness of our sins, of the acceptance of our persons, and of our waiting for the Lord from heaven, and all this in blessed and wondrous fellowship with the brightest display of the name and glory of God?”
Yea, the table at which we sit is a family table. In spirit we are in the Father’s house. We are made by the table to know ourselves in relationship, and that lies just outside the realm of glory; for “if children, then heirs.” If we be in the kingdom of God’s dear Son, we are next door to the inheritance (Col. 1). And there the table is maintained until Christ comes again.
The New Song
All is mischief and disturbance; but all is ripening that revolted and apostate material, through the judgment of which the Lord is to take the kingdom. “The heathen raged, the kingdoms were moved: He uttered His voice, the earth melted.”
It is as Conqueror the Lord is to take His kingdom by and by, or enter His second sabbath. Of old the sabbath was the rest of One who had labored; but the coming sabbath will be the rest of One who has fought a fight and won the day. This “rest that remaineth” will, therefore, be entered by a rougher and more difficult path than the former; for it is to be reached through the afflictions and conflicts which sin has occasioned, and through the judgment of iniquity.
The Lord God of old entered His rest or sabbath as Creator. He had gone through the work of six days, and on the seventh He rested and was refreshed.
The sabbath, we know, has been disturbed and lost through man’s sin; but we also know of a coming sabbath, “a rest that remaineth,” as we read.
We might ask, then, “In what character will it be entered, or by whom?” And all Scripture replies, “By conquerors.” David making way for Solomon is the type of this. Solomon was the peaceful — a name which implies not abstract or mere rest, but rest after conflict or war. It bespeaks triumphant rest; something more than cessation of labor.
So the Lord enters the kingdom as “Jehovah strong and mighty, Jehovah mighty in battle”; as one fresh in victory, “with dyed garments.” (See Psa. 24:46-47; 93; Isa. 9:63; Rev. 19.)
Christ as Conqueror is, however, known in different scenes and seasons, and in different forms and manners, before He enters the kingdom.
As soon as He gave up the ghost, the victory of His death was owned in heaven, earth, and hell; for the veil of the temple was rent in twain, the rocks were split, and the graves were broken up.
As He entered the heavens, He was received and sat down as Conqueror. He was at once acknowledged there as fresh from His conflict and conquest here. As the One who had overcome, He sat down with the Father on His throne. We therefore now, in spirit, can sing a new song, or a conqueror’s song.
When His saints rise to meet Him, they will, in their own persons, display His victory — the victory He has achieved for them. Their ascending and responsive shout will utter it, “Thanks be to God who giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Cor. 15).
In these different seasons and forms the triumph of Christ is celebrated before He enters the kingdom. And animating and happy truth this is — Jesus ascended on high as a Conqueror. But never, till Jesus ascended, had heaven known a Conqueror. A distant report of His victory had reached it, I may say, when the temple vail was rent; but never had heaven been the place of a conqueror till the Lord returned there. The Lord God in His glories had been there, the Lord God as Creator and Ruler also, and the angels that excel in strength had waited there. Some who kept not their first estate there may have been cast down, and others have sung at the foundations of the earth being laid; but never had the presence of a conqueror adorned and gladdened it till Jesus ascended. But then it was so. He had then destroyed him that had the power of death; He had led captivity captive; He had made a show of principalities; He had overcome the world; He had, as the true Samson, borne the hostile gates to the top of the hill. The grave-clothes had been left in the empty sepulcher, as the spoils of war and trophies of conquest. And thus, as conqueror, Jesus ascended. Heaven had already known the living God, but never till then the living God in victory; and our ascension after Him will only, in other terms, tell of triumph, and be another display of a host of conquerors. Then, at the end, when the kingdom is entered, it will be entered (as we have already said) by a Conqueror after His day of battle and war of deliverance out of the hand of enemies. The kingdom thus reared upon the ruin of the enemy will be an immovable one.
Now, according to all this is, I believe, the “new song” of which we read in Scripture; for the songs there are conquerors’ songs, and they are so many rehearsals, so to speak, of the kingdom’s song. Such was that of Moses and the congregation on the banks of the Red Sea; such was Deborah’s; such were the utterances, if they may be called songs, of Hannah and of Mary; and such is to be the song of Revelation 15 in its season — the harpers in heaven standing there in victory over the beast, and over his image, and over his mark, and over the number of his name.
This gives a “new” theme for singing or gladness, and hence “the new song.” The old song, sung by the morning stars over the foundations of the earth, was not a conqueror’s song, a song celebrating a divine victory either for the redemption or avenging of God’s chosen. There was no theme of victory then, for no battle had been fought and won. But sin since then has entered. A great counter-force has been in action, and the Lord has had to go forth as “a man of war,” the God of battles; and therefore at the end a new song, a song with a new theme or burden, must be awakened to celebrate Him in this new action or character of glory. The song of Moses was a conqueror’s song, and so the song of the Lamb. “0 sing unto Jehovah a new song, for He hath done marvelous things; His right hand and His holy arm bath gotten Him the victory.” The song over creation must give place in compass and melody to the song over the triumphs of Jesus. The first “corner-stone” was laid by the Creator, and angels sang (Job 38:6); the second is brought in in victory, and Israel shouts (Psa. 118; Zech. 4).
What new honors, we may adoringly and thankfully say, are preparing for Him through our history, and what new joys for heaven For His victories have been for us, accomplishing, as I observed, our deliverance and vindication in the face of our enemies. The glory of those victories is His, the fruit of them ours. Christ does not appear as a Conqueror in what He does with God for us, as our ransom, or re-purchaser by the value of His blood. In all that action He suffers instead of conquers; but He is Conqueror as against the enemy, redeeming us from him or avenging us on him.
And it is a joyous thought that the Lord is to enter His coming kingdom as a conqueror, taking the throne of Solomon the peaceful after the wars and victories of David. But this joy implies scenes of a tremendous character. Triumph, of itself, is a bright idea, but it is full of recollections of fields of battle and scenes of bloodshed. And so with the Lord Jesus. The joy of seeing Him in triumph and the power of His kingdom is bright and gladdening, but “the winepress” has first to be “trodden.”
And still more — though that is solemn — the treading of the winepress, or the execution of divine judgment, speaks of previous corruption or of the ripening of the “vine of the earth.” If the Lord in judgment have to tread the winepress, the winepress has first to be filled.
And where are we, at this moment, actually standing? Not in the possession of the immovable kingdom; not in the sight of the triumph that is to usher it forth, or in the audience of the new song which is to accompany that triumph; not in the vision of the field of Bozrah, and the garments dyed with blood, the day of divine judgment which leads to the triumph; but in a certain stage of the ripening of the vine of Sodom which is soon to be cast into the winepress, or to meet the judgment of the Lord.
There we stand, and the moment is solemn. Every day, like the heat of summer, is but maturing and mellowing the grapes of gall or the clusters of Gomorrah. Our prospects are thus strange, awful, and glorious beyond thought. We look for the increasing growth of evil, for the winepress of the wrath of God to receive and judge it, and then for the triumph and the kingdom of Jesus. For such things we look, as far as our eye is turned, to the earth; but “we stand at the head of two ways.” Enoch stood there before. He looked down the way of the earth, and there he saw the maturing of ungodliness, and the Lord with ten thousand of His saints coming to execute judgment; but he himself was borne upward, the way of the heavens (Jude 14; Heb. 11:5). The new song was sung by Jesus after His resurrection (Psa. 40:3); it will be sung by the saints after their resurrection or ascension to heaven (Rev. 5:9); and then it will be sung by Israel in the kingdom which is their resurrection (Psa. 98:1).
The Temple of God
The Two Temples
In the two temples, that at Jerusalem in the old dispensation, and that of the Spirit in the new, we see a meaning in everything within them. Hebrews 9:8-9 gives us notice of this touching the sanctuary; and shows the character of the service there; the veil being constantly down to forbid the access of the worshipper into the presence of God, or the Holiest, was the figure for the time then present. It exhibited the character of that dispensation, which never, with the sacrifices it provided, gave the sinner confidence, or purged the conscience, never brought him near as a worshipper. We see the same significancy in the New Testament temple; everything said of it has a voice which tells us of the time now present, and exhibits the character of the dispensation in which we are as clearly as the other did. In proof of this, I would look at 1 Corinthians 11, where (and down to the close of 1 Cor. 14). the apostle is treating of the ordinances and worship of the house of God, or the New Testament temple. This chapter assumes the saints to be in assembly or church order, and in looking at their order as detailed here, several objects strike our notice. (Until verse 17 we do not see it to be the assembly. ED.)
First, We see men and women seated together. This tells of their equal and common interest in Christ, where there is neither male nor female, as we read here, “For neither is the man without the woman, neither the woman without the man in the Lord”; for, personally considered, they have the same standing in the church of God.
Second, We see the man uncovered, and the woman covered. This tells us of their difference mystically considered, as we read here, “For the man is not of the woman, but the woman of the man” (8th and 9th verses). And these two things are true, not only of Adam and Eve, but of Christ and the church, so that in the assembly the woman is to carry the sign of subjection (that is, the covered head), Genesis 24:65, and the man to appear without it, thus mystically setting forth “Christ and the church.”
Third, In the next place we see the supper spread. This tells why the assembly have come together, and the character of the dispensation into which the church is now brought; for it shows us the veil is gone. The blood of Jesus has rent it, and been brought in its stead. The table tells us of the Paschal Lamb and of the feast of unleavened bread upon it, and thus of the full remission of sins, and also of the exercise of self-judgment, and these are just what the church enjoys and observes till the Lord comes.
Thus these features in the assembly have all their signification. Thus the assembly of saints formed in this manner the New Testament temple of living stones, and thus raised is a blessed testimony to the time now present. Every object tells us of its character; we look into the assembly of saints, and see the great truths of the present age reflected as in a glass, just as in the sanctuary under the law there was a figure of the things then present.
All this is clear and simple; but in further meditation on the subject, observe that there is still more meaning in the coverings of the female in the congregation than I noticed before (1 Cor. 11:5-6). This power or covering on the head is primarily to be regarded as signifying that subjection which the woman owes the man, who is her head, or the subjection, which the church owes her Lord. Power, or covering on the head, was the sign of that, and therefore was suitable to the female in the congregation, because without it she thus dishonored the man, who is her head (vs. 5).
But there is more than that, for the apostle adds, that if the woman be not covered, let her also be shorn or shaven, which he then says would be a shame to her (vs. 6). What was the shame of which the shaven or shorn state of a woman’s head was the confession? This must be determined by a reference to the Law, and under it we find two occasions on which the female was shaven, or uncovered. First, when she was a suspected wife (Num. 5). Second, when she had lately been taken captive and was bewailing her father’s house, not yet united to the Jew who had taken her in battle (Deut. 21). This shaven state of a woman thus expressed showed that she was not enjoying either the full confidence, or the full joy, of a husband.
Now the female ought not to appear with such marks on her; for the church ought not to be seen as though she were suspected by Christ, or still felt herself a sorrowing captive. This would be her shame! But the covering on her head shows the church to be in neither of these states, but, on the contrary, happy in the affection and confidence of the Lord; and this is as it should be — this is her glory.
Thus the female covered in the assembly shows out the two things touching the church — the church’s present happy honorable estate with Jesus, as well as her entire subjection to Him as her Lord — that is, both owning Him as Lord, and enjoying the cherishing presence of Christ, which puts away the sense of captivity; while on the other hand the uncovered head would be a denial of both — a dishonor to the man, and a shame to the woman, and it would bear a false witness to angels, who are learning the deep mysteries of Christ from the church (Eph. 3; 1 Cor. 9). Christ was seen of them first (1 Tim. 3:16), they marked and attended His whole progress from the manger to the resurrection; and now they are learning from the church and mark her ways, and if the woman in the assembly were to appear uncovered, the angels would be learning the lesson incorrectly. The shorn head of the female would have done for the dispensation of the Law; for then the sense of captivity was not gone, the spirit of bondage was yet in the worshipper, kindredness in the flesh was not then fully forgotten; but now “we are not in the flesh but in the Spirit,” as being joined to the Lord, and there is liberty and not bondage.
The True Worshippers
The church of God is a true worshipper on exactly the same grounds, worshipping according to God’s enlarged revelation of Himself. The true worshippers now are those whom the Father in His grace has sought and found, and their worship proceeds on this — that the Son has revealed the Father to them, and they have fellowship with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ. This is still, like all the other cases of worship in truth, because of God’s revelation of Himself.
But there is something beyond this in the present worship of the church; it is “in spirit,” as well as “in truth” (John 4:21-24; 1 Cor. 12:12), because the Holy Spirit has been given us faculty to worship, enabling the saints to call God “FATHER” and Jesus Christ “LORD.” There is now communicated power, as well as revelation for the ends of worship. The worshippers are sons, and also priests (Heb. 5:5-6); having access with filial confidence they are in the holy place — the brazen altar (the remembrance of sin) behind them, and the fullness of God disclosed, and all that must be for blessing. Everything is told to the worshippers now, for the second veil is rent before them, and they see their Father on the mercy-seat, on the throne of the sanctuary; the blood of the Son has introduced them there, and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit makes them to worship in a way worthy of such a sanctuary, and the Father seeking such to worship Him does not rest on anything short of this, which thus the confidence and love and honor of children give Him. Such is worship, I judge, in spirit and in truth, for thus it is where it is according to revelation, and in the grace of the Holy Spirit.
But its materials or its form may be very different, as we may further notice; for, properly and simply understood, it is rendering glory to God in the sanctuary, according to His own revelation of Himself. Many things may gather around it or accompany it, but which are not so properly and simply worship. Abel worshipped when he laid his lamb on the altar, though that was very simple; but it was enough, for it was meeting God in the appointed way, and owning His glory.
So did Abraham worship when, he raised an altar to God, who appeared to him (Gen. 12:8). Israel worshipped when they bowed the head at God’s revelation by Moses (Ex. 4:30-31; 12:27); as Moses did at another revelation (Ex. 4:8). So David worshipped (1 Chron. 21:21). And so Solomon’s congregation (2 Chron. 7:3) and Jehoshaphat’s (2 Chron. 20:18) worshipped; and though it be not so called, yet Jacob’s anointing the pillar at Bethel was worship, because it was owning God according to His revelation; and so David’s “sitting before the Lord” was worship, I judge, on the same principle (2 Sam. 7). Job worshipped when he fell down in subjection to God’s dealings with him. Eliezer worshipped when he bowed his head, for in that act he owned the Divine goodness to him (Gen. 24:26,52). The nation of Israel worshipped when they presented their basket of first-fruits, for their basket told God of His own gracious ways — set forth His praises in the sanctuary (Deut. 26). The appearing of the males at the three annual feasts in “the city of the great King” was worship, for such feasts set forth God’s own gracious acts and ways, and that is worship. What were all these acts but the thankful acknowledgment of God, according to what He had either done or spoken, and the acceptance of His mercy accordingly?
It appears to me that the congregation of the Lord should enter the sanctuary of the Lord now with like worship — with the purpose of showing forth God’s praise — the virtues or praises of Him who bath called us out of darkness into His marvelous light — the praises which He has earned for Himself by His own blessed acts and revelations — and this is done in breaking of bread with thanksgiving, according to His ordinance. That is the service which sets forth what God has done, declaring that He has provided a remedy for sin. It is a remembrance, not of sin, like the legal sacrifices (Heb. 10:3), but a remembrance of “Me,” says Jesus, and consequently of sins put away. Thus it is an act of worship, or a giving to God His own proper glory — the glory of His acts and revelations. To pray about the forgiveness of sins would be discord with the table; it would be (quite unintentionally, it might be) a reproach upon the sacrifice of the Son of God; it would be building again the things that Christ had destroyed; and, in the language and sense of Galatians 2, making Him the minister of sin — making His blood, like the blood of bulls and goats, only the remembrance of sin, and not the remitter of sin.
But to surround the table with thanksgiving, and wait on the feast with praise for redemption, this would be honoring the work of the Lamb of God which the feast sets forth, and, accordingly, it is always as thus accompanied that Scripture presents it to us. Jesus, in taking the bread and the cup, “gave thanks” (Matt. 26; Mark 14; Luke 22). He did nothing else. The words blessing and giving thanks are, to all moral intent, used in the same sense; and, in the like mind, the apostle calls it “the cup of blessing which we bless,” because by that cup, or by that death and blood-shedding of Jesus which it sets forth, He has richly entitled Himself to praise. It may be accompanied with confession of sin, for such confession would not be in discordance with this supper. But still we do not find that alluded to in any passages which refer to the Supper; by them it takes the simple form of being a Eucharistic feast, or a season of thanksgiving for the remission of sins. It says (at least the table has this voice in it) — “Give strong drink unto him that is ready to perish, and wine unto those that be of heavy hearts: let him drink and forget his misery, and remember his poverty no more.” Yet, surely, the service of self-judging and self-examination may well precede this feast.
In due order the covered females and the uncovered males appear before the Lord, and they break bread (1 Cor. 11). This is taking the place the Lord has called them to, and this, therefore, publishes His name and praise, and that is giving Him the glory He has so blessedly earned; so to speak, it is like Israel presenting their basket. It is like bowing the head at the revelation of His mercy.
The service is Eucharistic. It is a feast upon a sacrifice. It is the Father’s house opened upon the prodigal’s return. And this is our proper worship, for it is “in truth,” according to the revelation, according to that perfect provision which our God has made for our sins in the gift and sufferings of Jesus.
Accordingly, when the first disciples came together, it was to this act of worship or service (Acts 20:7; 1 Cor. 10:11). Other things may gather round it or accompany it, but this was their worship; this brought them to the sanctuary — this was their business there. I find in Deuteronomy 26 that other things might accompany the worship, for after Moses directs them as to their basket, he tells them about confession and prayer. So Moses prayed after his worship in Exodus 34. So the elders ate and drank in God’s presence, which was properly their communion or worship. But Moses had previously spoken to them about the covenant (Ex. 24), as in Acts 20 the disciples came together to “break bread,” but Paul addressed a long discourse to them; as also, at the first institution of the supper, the Lord gathered His disciples purposely for the supper, but He teaches them about other things also, and before they separate they sing a hymn; and most significantly is the same thing conveyed to us in 1 Corinthians 11 and 14, where the house of God, or place of present worship, is widely opened to us.
For there the apostle shows the disciples mystically, and duly covered and uncovered, in the worship, a service of breaking of bread. He clearly tells us it was for that end they had met together. But then he considers “spirituals.” He considers what may accompany worship — the calling upon Jesus, or the ministry of the word in the life and power of the Holy Spirit given to the saints — and thus he unfolds the sanctuary and its actions and furniture, showing what the worship itself was, and then what might duly attend upon it. In 1 Timothy 2 we get directions as to the further service of the saints in the assembly — that prayer and intercession, as wide and free as the grace that had rescued themselves, should mark their union and fill God’s living temple. But still this intercession is not simply and properly worship. Their worship was still the breaking of bread, because that was the act which set forth God’s praise, or gave Him the glory of His present acts and dealings with them and for them, and that was what brought them together. The giving of alms also duly accompanied the worship, as prayer and ministry of the word may; but, in like manner, it is simply an accompaniment, like the releasing of the prisoner at the feast.
The two things are presented distinctly in Abraham’s history. He is a worshipper at his altar. But then we hear no supplication addressed to God by him. He is a supplicant about Sodom, and there we see no altar (Gen. 12: 23). This is very plain, clearly defining the character of worship, and showing that the breaking of bread is clearly the service of the sanctuary now, whatever else may enter with it. For God is to be worshipped according to Himself (John 4), and the taking of anything as authority in religion but what is from Him mutilated worship, as the Lord told the Jews in Matthew 15 (of which principle Deut. 12 is a further witness), shows us man is not to determine his own ways as a worshipper. Willingness in worship is right; wilfulness destroys it all. Of their own voluntary will they brought their offerings (Lev. 1:3; 7:16); but this was to be done as and where the Lord willed. So with us; we are to worship “in spirit,” that is most true — in the grace and liberty of the Holy Spirit which is given to us; but we are to worship “in truth” also, according to God’s revelation of Himself and of His worship. This I have already spoken of.
The maintenance of groves and high places in Israel was always the witness that the people had not duly prepared their hearts to seek the Lord God of Israel, the only true God, who had set His name at Jerusalem (2 Chron. 14:3; 15:17; 17:6; 19:3; 20:33).
On the subject of worship, I would still add that joy and a spirit of thankfulness and liberty have characterized it at all times. Adam’s enjoyment of the garden and its fruits was worship. Israel’s presentation of the basket and their keeping of the feasts was worship, and what gladness and thanksgiving suited such occasions! The saints surrounding the table of the Lord is worship now, and the spirit of filial confidence, of thanksgiving, and of liberty, should fill them. All these acts of worship at different times were marked by joy in different orders, for surely a God of love is a God of joy.
Worship
With this little view of the temples, let us consider the worship which might fill them. True worship, like true knowledge of God, ever flows from the revelation, for man by wisdom knows not God. Worship, to be true, must be according to that revelation which God has made of Himself, and this I would trace a little through Scripture.
Abel was a true worshipper; his worship or offering was according to faith, that is, according to revelation (Heb. 11). The firstlings of his flock which he offered were according to the bruised seed of the woman, and according to the coats of skins with which the Lord God had clothed his parents.
Noah, followed Abel, and also worshipped in the faith of the woman’s bruised seed; he took his new inheritance only in virtue of blood (Gen. 8:20); lie was therefore a true worshipper — worshipping God as He had revealed Himself.
Genesis 12:7; here we see Abraham following in their steps, a true worshipper. I might observe that there is strikingly an absence of self-will in Abraham: he believed God, and what was told him; he went out as he was commanded; he worshipped as had been revealed to him.
Isaac, precisely in the track of Abraham, worshipped the God who had appeared to him, not affecting to be wise, and thus becoming a fool, but in simplicity of faith and worship, like Abraham, raising his altar to the revealed God (Gen. 26:24-25).
Jacob was a true worshipper. The Lord appears to him in his sorrow and degradation, in the misery to which his own sin had reduced him, thus revealing Himself as the One in whom mercy rejoiceth against judgment, and he at once owns God as thus revealed to him, and this God of Bethel was his God to the end (Gen. 48:15-16). Here was enlarged revelation of God, and worship following such revelation, and that is true worship.
The Nation of Israel was a true worshipper; God had revealed Himself to Israel in a varied way — He had given them the law of righteousness, and also shadows of good things to come. By the one He had multiplied transgressions, and the other provided the remedy: and the worship of Israel was according to this. There was an extreme sensitiveness to sin, with burdens to allay it, which they were not able to bear, and thus the spirit of bondage and fear was gendered. Israel had thus become increasingly acquainted with the good and evil, and their worship was accordingly. The tabernacle or temple where all the worship went on as the established worship might still be set aside, because it was not the perfect thing, and God might show out the better if He pleased in spite of it; and so He did on various occasions. Witness Gideon, Manoah, and David.
Gideon worshipped according to a new revelation of God in spite of Shiloh and the tabernacle; his rock became the ordered place, or the anointed altar, just because of this revelation and command of God (Judg. 6:14-26). Manoah turns what he had supposed a repast into a sacrifice, because the Lord had revealed His wish that it should be so (Judg. 13:15,19). David at the bidding of the Lord turns from the ordained or consecrated altar to another, which was in the unclean inheritance of a Gentile, where, however, as at Bethel of old, mercy had rejoiced against judgment, and where accordingly God had built Himself another house. “This is the house of the Lord. God,” says David, (1 Chron. 22) Thus, then, these three instances were cases of true worship, though manifestly a departure from God’s own established worship.
The healed Leper was a true worshipper, though in like manner he departed from the established, the divinely established, order, just because without a command he apprehended God in a new revelation of Himself (Luke 17:11-19). The healing had a voice in the ear of faith, for it was only the God of Israel who could heal a leper (2 Kings 5:7). This was more excellent even than the same kind of faith in Gideon, Manoah, or David.
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