Heb. 9
My thought now is to enter a little more into detail with the Lord's dealings in the dispensation in which we live. But first I would take up a more general view of God's dealings with man from the beginning; and for this purpose I now read Heb. 9, as verse 26 is the great center truth on which it all hangs: “Now once in the end of the world [that is, morally] hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.” All that God had done up to that point was the bringing out of sin in the first man. But there followed immediately the putting away of that sin in the second Man. Then, passing over the present interval, he speaks of this second Man appearing again a second time.
Here, then, is the grand turning-point of all God's ways: the death of Christ, and its consequences—His coming again to take possession of all that His first coming had given Him a title to. They were His before, “For by him were all things created,” &c. But in His second coming He takes possession of that which His blood had bought back to Himself again. “For he shall see of the travail of his soul, and be satisfied.” (Ver. 27.) “And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment.” The end of man is to die (or rather, we may say, he there begins for eternity, and, it is terrible to think of it, begins in judgment). But God in Christ has introduced another thing; for as the end of man, either Jew or Gentile, is death and judgment, so “unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation.” The first time Christ came it was about sin, in the sense of bearing it; being occupied with it, He was made it, in Himself the sinless One. But having put sin away, He comes the second time without sin unto salvation. In His second coming there is no question about sin whatever, but the full bringing out of God's purpose of blessing in consequence of the putting away of sin. Man's portion is death and judgment, as contrasted with the salvation Christ brings. But then mark another thing. In the meanwhile priesthood comes in; He is hidden from the world, as He said, “The world seeth me no more,” but He appears in the presence of God for us. The word “appears” is a legal term, as the One who represents His people; so He, as our High Priest, is representing us in the presence of God. He has taken His place, and sat down at God's right hand, having by Himself purged our sins. And we need such an High Priest in our daily walk; but then, as regards His bodily presence, He is gone, and therefore we have to walk as pilgrims and strangers in a seducing world, though not of it, our life being hid with Christ in God.
And then comes out another thing. The veil being rent, He has sent down the Holy Ghost to be in us, and to associate us in heart and life with Him in heaven, thus giving us the proper exclusive heavenly character of a family belonging to them now on the earth. For Christ being in the presence of God for us, our portion is in heaven. We are in the position of Stephen, who being full of the Holy Ghost, looking up into heaven through the rent veil, saw Jesus standing at the right hand of God. The heavens were opened to his spiritual gaze, which is now always true to us, and all we are now waiting for is, that Christ may come and take us bodily up there.
The crucifixion of Christ was the utter rejection of the Second Adam by the first Adam. This was man's turning-point; for man had been tried in every possible way, but all in vain. Then God says, “What shall I do? I will send my beloved Son; it may be they will reverence him when they see him.” But when they saw Him, they said, “This is the heir; come, let us kill him, that the inheritance may be ours.” All the dealings of God with man, as man, ended here; and therefore it is called “this present evil world.” The rending of the veil, which closed all the previous dealings of God with man, opened the way to heaven; and, while it condemned the sinner, it saved the believer. It morally judged the world, but brought out full salvation to all that believe, associating them with heavenly things; for through the rent veil, that is, Christ's flesh, we have access into the holiest of all.
Then comes the question, how far such saved ones (for I speak now of real Christians) have been faithful in maintaining as a heavenly witness their testimony to the world's condemnation, and of their own association, as a heavenly people on the earth, with their Head in heaven. I hope, by the help of the Lord, to take up this question. But before entering on it, we will go a little through God's dealings with the first Adam from the beginning, up to the introduction of the Second Adam. We will trace all the different changes in God's dealings with the first man, till we come to this new starting-point— “Created anew in Christ Jesus.” God has taken away the first, that He may establish the second. All God's actual dealings with man, till he came to the point of crucifying His Son, show how the patient goodness of God had tried man in every way, until obliged to pronounce man, on experimental evidence, to be utterly bad (of course, God knowing what man was all the while).
First, then, we will trace God's dealings with man, as man; secondly, with the Jews; and, thirdly, with this new man in Christ. For in whatever position man has been placed, it has been only to start aside like a broken bow-to turn from God. This is a solemn truth, and one that Christians ought to know well, for never was there a time when man's thoughts of man were so exalted, when so many efforts were being made, so many theories maintained, as at the present-that man, as man, may be turned to some profit. The great cardinal truth is, that there is no good in man; and it is most important that the soul should thoroughly understand this, as it gives both simplicity and stability; for the simple knowledge that man is thoroughly bad cuts at the root of ten thousand theories, all based upon the notion that good is to be found in man. But all these deep-laid theories will drop off by thousands, like autumn leaves, if it be only believed by the soul that in man good is not to be found. The death of Christ is the great and infallible contradiction of all this. “When we were without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly.”
Thus on the cross was proved to the whole world that God could find no good in man. It is also given doctrinally in the Romans, and historically, in the Old Testament. The next point is, that it is God's work to bring man back; and mark the blessed way in which God works to bring man back. For, after sin entered, there was no more rest for God or man, but in that rest which God hath prepared for us. The only rest the poor sinner can find is in “God's rest.” God works, and then enters into His rest. Man rests in Christ, and then works for the glory of God. For there is no rest now but that into which Christ entered, and we which have believed do enter into that rest. It is in glory.
The sabbath rest was in connection with Jews, a sign of the covenant between them and God, which supposes that, after the work of the week is done, then rest comes; and, doubtless, in connection with creation it is a blessing to all. When Christ was on the earth, the question of the sabbath was constantly raised, and, when He healed a man on the sabbath-day, they charged Him with breaking the sabbath. And how does He meet this charge? By saying, “My Father worketh hitherto, and I work.” A good and holy God could not find rest on a sabbath amidst the wickedness of man; there must be in such a state of things, either judgment, or working in grace. God's Son therefore came down to the earth, not to keep a sabbath in its polluted state, but to work in grace. And through communion in life with the Second Adam (God's rest) believers get all the fullness of the blessing of that rest, before it comes in fact.
But now we will look a little into this working from the beginning. And for this let us go back to the garden of Eden, for there we shall see man first put to the test in a state of innocence. And what do we find? A total and complete failure; for nothing could possibly exceed man's insensibility to God's authority, to His goodness, and to His truth. Man abandoned God to gratify his lust in eating the forbidden fruit. Nor was this all, for Adam sets up Satan as the one to be trusted instead of God. God had surrounded Adam with every blessing, and Satan comes, and says, “Ye shall not surely die.” God is jealous of pout prerogative, for He has not spoken truth when He said, “In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” And on this liar's and murderer's word man treats God as a grudging God, for Satan says God has kept back from you that which is good; thus man believes Satan, and makes God a liar. I am not here speaking of the rejection of grace, but of the entire casting off the authority of God and His truth, and of the open manifestation of sin. Thus there was an end, without possibility of return, of man's innocence-it was gone, and gone forever. There could therefore be no return to innocence, no going back to man's paradisaical happiness; and, that he might not live on in his misery forever, God turns him out of the garden, and sets the cherubim, with a flaming sword, to keep him from the tree of life.
But what does God, in the face of this failure? He sets aside the first Adam, and brings in the Second Adam. In Gen. 3:1515And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel. (Genesis 3:15), “The seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent's head.” And mark here, the Seed of the woman is the second Adam; there was no promise to the first Adam, for he was in no sense the Seed of the woman (though we may trust he was a partaker of the blessing). There was grace, but not in connection with the first Adam. Sin had come in by the woman; and therefore Christ, the putter away of sin, came in by the woman also. All God's ways and purposes tend to the Second Adam, “who shall appear the second time without sin unto salvation.” The turning-point is the rejection or acceptance of Christ. Whenever the least reality of Christ is apprehended by a soul and used, the Holy Ghost can come in, and give power to the testimony, although in the Midst of many mistakes; but where Christ is not, and the dependence is on the first Adam and his resources, there may be the appearance of fruit for a season, but perishing must be the final result.
I see no signs of idolatry before the flood, but men being the children of the wicked one, who was a liar and a murderer from the beginning, corruption and violence filled the earth; and these two principles continue up to the end, as we see corruption in mystical Babylon, and violence in the persecutions carried on by the beast in the latter day.
Even in the garden of Eden we saw the two trees-the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and the tree of life. The first of these trees shows man's responsibility; the second tree is the symbol of God's gift of life. And in these two trees are set forth the two great principles that have given rise to all the controversies that have agitated the mind of man from the beginning, The simple truth is this: if man is put under responsibility-say the law, for instance-he fails; but Christ comes and glorifies God by fulfilling man's responsibilities; and then God can freely give life. Thus, in the work and person of Christ, we have the perfect and eternal solution of every abstract principle. For the very weakest saint knows that Christ bears the whole responsibility, and that He gives life; and he wonders that men should find such difficulty, when to him all is simple. For the soul that has Christ within knows that it is not merely an abstract truth to be reasoned about; for how can the Christian reason about Christ's having borne the curse for him, while be himself is in the possession of life in Christ? The saint owns his responsibility, but, he having failed, Christ has come in to suffer for his sins, and life is given in grace.
But now we will return to the double character of corruption and violence, which became so insupportable, that God was obliged to come in with the flood. Then we get Noah saved out of it, and with Noah God begins the world over again. Man is again put under trial, for God brings in a new thing: government is added. Thus man is strengthened against the violence which had prevailed before the flood, and which, man not being altered, was still to continue. That which is technically called the power of the sword is given into man's hand: “Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed.” Well, failure comes in again, for after a while Noah plants a vineyard, and gets drunk with the fruit thereof; and Ham dishonors his father.
Before the flood there was the prophecy of Enoch (Jude 1414And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying, Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints, (Jude 14)), which was a mark of what God was going to do, and after his testimony Enoch goes up to heaven. This is the church's testimony now to man of the coming judgment which will take place when the church is removed. Noah's testimony was quite another thing; for he,” moved with fear, prepared an ark for the saving of his house,” &c. Thus Noah passed through all the judgment, and begins the world again-the type of Israel in the latter day. But Enoch warned others, and then went up to heaven, our type, before the judgment came.
Then we have another most terrible thing. After the flood idolatry comes in. There were two great results of the breaking down in righteousness of those in the place Noah was set in. First, the association of man to get himself a “name"-” Let us make us a name;” and in doing this they were associating themselves against God; for, speaking of intrinsic title, God is the only one who has any right to a name; and the only name that God will allow to be set up on the earth is that of the Man Christ Jesus. Thus, in man's effort to make himself a name, we see the principle of pride brought out; and the judgment they were fully seeking to prevent by getting themselves a name, was the very judgment with which God visited them. For the Lord scattered them abroad thence upon the face of all the earth. Then, secondly, in one man, Nimrod, who began to be a mighty one in the earth, “a mighty hunter before the Lord;” for in Nimrod we have the individual development of will, and tyranny in government, instead of righteous government; and this in Babel, in the association for a name, the principle of pride. Thus we get the two great acts of corruption. And then, thirdly, demon worship comes in. For when men were scattered abroad upon the face of the earth, not liking to retain God in their knowledge, they began to offer to demons, and not to God (1 Cor. 10:2020But I say, that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils, and not to God: and I would not that ye should have fellowship with devils. (1 Corinthians 10:20)); they became conscious of dependence in spite of themselves; and therefore it is said in Josh. 24:22And Joshua said unto all the people, Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, Your fathers dwelt on the other side of the flood in old time, even Terah, the father of Abraham, and the father of Nachor: and they served other gods. (Joshua 24:2), “Your fathers served other gods.” The scripture never speaks a word in vain. And now we can understand the meaning of the call of Abraham-what he was called out from.
God appeared to Abraham, and called him out from serving other gods to serve the living and true God. The world was sinking fast into idolatry, and there was not only man's pride in getting a name by greatness on the earth, and tyranny and self-will in government, but also the coming in of Satan's power must not be confounded with man's wickedness. For Satan's power is altogether another thing, and quite apart from man's wickedness, although often most mischievously confounded with it.
Now God is calling a people out; before it was only individuals, whose hearts were successively touched with grace. But now God is distinctly separating a people to Himself. Thus Abraham is called the “father of the faithful.” And now God has a special stock on the earth, called out of the surrounding idolatry to be a depository for the promises of God, called the olive-tree in Rom. 11. In Abraham we find three great principles-election, calling, and promise. Abraham did not get into the land until Terah his father was dead; but after his father's death he came into the land of Canaan. But God gave him none inheritance in it-no, not so much as to set his foot on; yet He promised that He would give it to him for “a possession,” &c. Therefore “by faith Abraham sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles,” &c.; “for he looked for the city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God.”