In the beginning of Exodus 21 we find the type of the servant. There cannot be a more striking illustration of the truth that Christ is the continual object of the Holy Spirit than that, even in these temporary ordinances, God cannot refrain from looking onward to His Son.
No doubt it was connected with the earth, and what was in itself anything but a condition suitable to the mind of God. It is the condition of a slave; nevertheless even there God has Christ before Him.
If a Hebrew servant were bought, he was to serve for six years, in the seventh to go out free for nothing. “If he came in by himself, he shall go out by himself; if he were married, then his wife shall go out with him. If his master have given him a wife, and she have borne him sons or daughters; the wife and her children shall be her master’s, and he shall go out by himself. And if the servant shall plainly say, I love my master, my wife, and my children; I will not go out free: then his master shall bring him unto the judges; he shall also bring him to the door, or unto the door post; and his master shall bore his ear through with an awl; and he shall serve him forever.”
Such was the choice of Jesus – not to be merely a servant here on the earth for a time – He has chosen of His own gracious will to be servant forever. No doubt He cannot but be a divine person, the Son, as He is also the exalted Lord; but He is nevertheless by His own grace the servant forever. Even in glory we shall know Him thus.
What is He doing now? He gave a sample of it before He went up on high. When the time was come, He took a basin of water and a towel, and washed His disciples’ feet. What they knew not then, they were to know hereafter, as we know it now.
Intimacy with what is unseen and heavenly is quite as much the portion of a Christian and even more characteristically so than the knowledge of what passes around us now. We ought to know heaven better than the earth. We may know and ought to judge what is passing in the world, though it is through an imperfect medium; but we know heaven and heavenly things from God. It is not merely as having the word that reveals heaven; but we know it from Him who comes from heaven and is above all, and testifies what He has seen and heard; we know it through the Holy Spirit who has come down from it, and hence should know it better than the earth, and the things of the world which ensnare the flesh.
But looking onward to the day of glory that is coming, when the Lord will be publicly manifested, and we manifested with Him, changed into His glorious likeness, it might have been thought that surely His service will cease then. But not so: it will take a new shape. He is the servant of His own choice forever. As He will never cease to be God, He will never cease to be man. In His love He is become a servant forever; and He loves to be so.
After this follow the general institutions of the law, which mainly insist on retribution. Advantage must not be taken of the weak or subject; violence cannot go unpunished, any more than dishonor where we owe reverence; responsibility for what is allowed, were it but a mischievous brute; restitution must be made, and this double, fourfold, or even fivefold, according to the wrong; neither a witch nor an offender unnaturally could live; neither stranger nor widow nor orphan must be vexed or afflicted; neither poor must be burdened, nor judges reviled; but God is to be honored with the first of the fruits, and of the sons, as well as of the cattle.
Israel are to approve themselves as holy men to God. False report and testimony are forbidden, were a multitude to lead the way; as on the other hand there must be no partiality to the poor man’s cause, nor a refusal to help an enemy, nor falsehood, nor bribery, nor oppression. The seventh year was to be enjoyed as the land’s Sabbath, even as the seventh day by each Israelite, who must avoid naming false gods, but keep the due feasts thrice a year to the true God, not offering blood with leavened bread, nor letting the fat remain until the morning.
A prohibition occurs of a peculiar kind, and is repeated not only in a later part of this book, but also in Deuteronomy: “Thou shalt not seethe a kid in its mother’s milk.” God would guard His people from an outrage in comeliness, were it even about a dumb or dead animal; as Satan triumphs in all that is abnormal and unnatural in the superstitions which usurp the place of the truth, and are bound up with idolatry.
His angel is promised, not only to keep and lead Israel, but to bring them in, spite of the doomed Canaanites, who should be driven out: they should have no covenant with them or their gods (Ex. 21-23).
These points do not call for particular remarks.
Along with them there is the greatest possible care for the maintenance of one true God – an immense principle. No doubt the time was not yet come for God to reveal Himself as He is. Into that wondrous knowledge we are brought by the Son come down here below; and above all by the Holy Spirit, now that Christ is gone up on high.
For in point of fact, when God was only known as the one God, however true this may be, He could not really be known as He is. Now we do so know Him. We know Him better than even His earthly people will know Him by and by. The knowledge of Israel in the millennium will be genuine, for they shall be all taught of God. But there is now an intimacy of acquaintance with the God and Father of the Lord Jesus which none on earth can ever know as a Christian ought to know it. The reason is manifest; for the proper knowledge of the Christian is such knowledge as the Son, speaking according to His own communion with His Father, communicates to us.
Now the Lord Jesus will not be dealing then as Son, though then as evermore the Son of God. He will not undertake to unfold His Father’s words to men in the millennium. He will reign as the great King-King of kings and Lord of lords, but still as King.
It would not be suitable to such a position that there should be undue familiarity. The very notion of a king and a kingdom puts the subjects at a greater distance. A certain reserve becomes requisite to majesty; whereas such considerations disappear in the nearness of relationship He is pleased to enter into with us. It is true He was born King of the Jews, and He never can cease to be really so; but it is not so that we know Him. The Son of the Father, He brings us into the knowledge of the true God – as the Son knew Him in heaven, as the Son still of course knew Him on earth. And the Holy Spirit completes this wonderful circle of divine intimacy. If I may venture on such an expression without irreverence, it is the introducing us into the family circle of the heavens – the Father made known in the Son by the Holy Spirit. This I maintain to be peculiar to Christianity in all its fullness.
When God the Father shall have accomplished His present purpose here below, then will be caught up to meet the Lord those among whom the Spirit is thus making known God; and after that the ordinary dealings of God will resume their course through this world. No doubt all was advancing as regards the world; but that which was brought to us now was before the world, and altogether above the world in its own nature. How greatly blessed then is the Christian, and what the manner and measure of the worship and the walk which become those to whom grace has given such a knowledge of God!