The Patriarchs Part 22

Can any thought, I ask, respecting the place into which the love of the Son of G.o.d has brought Him surpa.s.s this? Can the imagination form the idea of a more intense and devoted affection? Impossible. If it could, Christ would embody it, and His Spirit would reveal it, for His love "pa.s.seth knowledge." But it cannot.

But though this may be the most marvellous expression of this love, yet there is another of the same character. There is another duty owed on the like claims of nature, which in like manner has been adopted and acknowledged by the Lord--the duty of kindred or natural relations.

The Lord, the Son of G.o.d, became our Kinsman. "Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, He also Himself likewise took part of the same." And He became this Kinsman that He might do for the children the duties and services of a Kinsman. And what these duties are, and how the Lord has answered and discharged them, we are told in Scripture.

One princ.i.p.al duty was, to ransom a brother or his inheritance, if such or either had been sold.

Now such a sold or forfeited condition is ours by nature, under the ruins of Adam. Forfeiture of every thing is the simple idea that holds our natural condition in the just light. We have forfeited life, and with it all things, by the breach of those terms on which we held life, and with it all things. We have incurred the debt of death. "In the day thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die." Adam did eat, and this law demanded death. We sold ourselves under that sentence, and to that penalty, and were debtors to die the death. But our Kinsman has paid the price. Jesus died. He has counted out the money to the uttermost farthing. In the language of the law, eye has gone for eye, life for life, blood for blood. We have not been redeemed by corruptible things as silver and gold, but by the precious blood of Christ. The value of that blood was well tried. The blood of bulls and of goats was not rich enough. It would not do, it could not do. But "Lo, I come to do Thy will, O G.o.d," tells us that He was satisfied who exacted, and could not but exact, the full ransom or redemption-price. And now _we and our inheritance stand repurchased by our Kinsman_.

This is the very princ.i.p.al in the great services of Christ for us. It is largely noticed and foreshadowed by the law (Lev. xxv.), but it was understood from the beginning. For sacrifice or vicarious offering proceeded on this principle. And that was made known upon the entrance of sin, or act of forfeiture. The coat of skin which covered Adam bore witness that he stood in the value of a ransom, that the virtue of One who had met the demand of G.o.d against him was now upon him.

But this is full of blessing--that the great mystery of the Kinsman or Redeemer was known (published by the Lord, and believed by the sinner) ere the law had shadowed it, or prophets proclaimed it.?

? The same Hebrew word signifies kinsman, redeemer, and avenger.

Another of these duties was this--to rescue or deliver a brother taken captive.

In the previous case of ransom or repurchase, the Kinsman had to deal with a rightful claimant, and to answer his demands. His brother or his brother's inheritance had been sold, and had to be repurchased at a price well and justly ascertained, according to the law of estimations.

But this duty of rescuing or delivering a brother is different. Here the Kinsman has to do with a stranger or a foe; and by counterforce, or the strength of a stronger arm, to perform this service.

But this, also, is our natural condition, our state under the ruins of the fall. And this character of Kinsman-service, the Son of G.o.d, partaker of our flesh and blood, renders us.

In this, however, His dealing is with our enemy. In the previous case of repurchase He dealt with G.o.d, answering His righteous demands for us: here, He answers the enemy for us. For while it is true that we had, through disobedience, incurred the debt of death, the forfeiture of life and all things, so as to need a ransom, it is also true that we had suffered wrong at the hand of the Serpent, out of the results of which, in bondage or captivity to the powers of darkness and corruption, our Redeemer or Kinsman delivers us.

It was in this action that the Lord, in the days of His flesh, went through the cities and villages of Israel. As the stronger man He had then entered the strong man's house, spoiling his goods, and unloosing his prisoners. And He will finish such work, and perfect His way as the Kinsman-deliverer, when He, as the plague of death and h.e.l.l's destruction, rescues His sleeping saints. Then will take place the _redemption_ of the _purchased_ possession. See Eph. i. 14.

And again I may say, Happy is it to know that this way of Christ, this work of our great Kinsman, was also known in patriarchal days. When Abraham heard that _his brother_ was taken captive, he armed his trained servants, and brought again his brother Lot and his goods. Genesis xiv.

Five kings may fight with four in the vale of Siddim, the potsherds of the earth may strive with their fellows; all this, in one sense, is no concern of the heavenly stranger, though his tent may be pitched in the neighbourhood. But the way of Christ, which becomes the principle of conduct to His people, is everything to him--and that way must have been then known, the service of the Kinsman-deliverer must have been then quite understood among the elect household, for as soon as Abraham hears of Lot, he is all action in a moment, and goes forth for the rescue of his captured brother.

A kindred duty with this was, to avenge the blood of a murdered brother, or relative.

This duty was recognized by the law, and kept in memory all through the times of the nation. The ordinance touching the cities of refuge was a relief against the abuse of it; and the famous parable of the woman of Tekoah a.s.sumed the fact, that the whole system in Israel took knowledge of it.

But, like the others, it was older than the law and the prophets.

Notices of Christ and His ways and His doings for us were the earliest manifestations of the mind of G.o.d. Happy for our hearts to know this!

And, accordingly, this Kinsman-duty had been prescribed in very early days. When the sword was committed to Noah, it was published. "At the hand of every man's brother will I require the life of man. Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed." But it was understood as a divine principle even before then. Cain trembled before this law, which, as his words intimate, must have then been known everywhere. Genesis iv. 14. It was, indeed, a part of the very first promise. "It shall bruise thy head" announced it. For that sentence told the Serpent, that man's Kinsman, the Woman's Seed, would avenge on him the wrongs done by him upon the family. And this duty Christ will perform when He casts the old Serpent, "which is the Devil and Satan,"

with death and h.e.l.l, into the lake of fire.

The Kinsman _delivering_ and the Kinsman _avenging_ deals with an enemy or a wrong-doer, and not, as in the case of _repurchasing_, with a righteous claimant. There is, however, this difference: in the case of delivering, the Kinsman only rescues his brother or relative out of the hand of the enemy; in the case of avenging, he visits the blood of his brother or relative upon the head of the enemy. Christ will deliver us from the hand of death at the _beginning_ of the Kingdom (1 Corinthians xv. 54), He will avenge us upon the head of death at the _close_ of the Kingdom. 1 Corinthians xv. 26.

Such are among the duties which a Kinsman, according to the mind and reckoning of the Lord, owed, and such is the glorious performance of them by our great Kinsman. And wondrous is it to be ent.i.tled thus to write of Him! wondrous that the necessary and instinctive dictates of nature are suggested by the Holy Ghost as the ground, warrant, and character of the love of Christ to the Saints! that, as I said before, whatever nature tells me I owe myself, that Christ tells me He owes me; and now, I may add, whatever nature tells me my kindred owe me, that also Christ tells me He owes me. And again I ask, Can any thought respecting the place into which the love of the Son of G.o.d has brought Him, surpa.s.s this? Can the imagination form the idea of a more intense and devoted affection?

The Son of G.o.d became our Kinsman for the very end of performing all these Kinsman-services for us. Hebrews ii., I believe, tells us that.

And these duties and services embody all the great materials in the mystery of redemption. And, as we have now seen, they have been made known from the beginning. Jesus did not wait till the Law presented Him, in its shadows or swaddling-clothes, to the faith and joy of poor sinners. The Law afterwards gave the things concerning Him a tabernacle, but those things had been made known from the beginning. The fourth day, in the course of creation, brought forth the Sun, which then became the tabernacle of the light, but the light had been abroad through the scene, the light had been s.h.i.+ning, from the earliest moment of the first day. Jesus was known in the garden of Eden, and borne on the breath of the very first promise. And cheering this is to our spirits--happy to track these notices of the common faith, these thoughts and truths of G.o.d and His covenant, all along the line of the ages, linking the most distant hearts of the elect in the fellows.h.i.+p of one joy, and giving them one song for ever and ever.

Among the saints of the earlier days, our Job knew Him in this great character of Kinsman or Redeemer. As rescuing him from the power of death, or from captivity to the grave and corruption, Job celebrates Him. It is a scripture well known, and much delighted in by the saints.

And well may it be so. All that ushers it forth to our hearing, and all that sustains and accompanies it while we listen to it, give it an uncommon character.

"Oh that my words were now written! oh that they were printed in a book!

that they were graven with an iron pen and lead in the rock for ever!

For I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that He shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: and though after my skin, worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see G.o.d: whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another; though my reins be consumed within me."

What an apprehension of Christ in both His person and His work is here!

It is the faith and hope of our Gospel. Job knew he had a Redeemer, a Redeemer then living, and thereafter to stand upon the earth manifested in flesh, and that this Redeemer would achieve for him a glorious victory over the power of death, and strength of corruption. And all this fine apprehension of Christ is accompanied with the simplest appropriating faith. "Whom I shall see for myself," says Job, "and mine eyes shall behold, and not another." This is the confidence of Paul.

This is the liberty that is befitting the full revelation of the grace of G.o.d. Paul and Job, in like spirit, knew the glorious redemption, and knew it for themselves. "Who loved me, and gave Himself for me."

And what fervency is this with which the Holy Ghost enables the patriarch to set his seal to all this precious confession of his faith!

Job would have all men know, and every generation of them, he would publish it far and wide, he would tell it out without a fear that he should ever have to cancel a letter of it, he would engrave it for eternity and have it leaded in the rock, that he knew his Redeemer!

What "light of the Lord" was this in which the Patriarch walked! "O house of Jacob, come ye, and let us walk in the light of the Lord." Job walked there long before the house of Jacob, or the prophets of Israel, knew of it. The light was abroad, and the Spirit led the elect into it, from the beginning. And this occasion, recorded in the 19th chapter, was a moment when that light beamed brightly in Job's soul. His face did not then, like Stephen's, s.h.i.+ne as an angel's in the presence of his accusers. He had not, in that way, put on the garments of a child of resurrection, but his spirit within was in the regions and liberty and triumph of such a one.

This visitation, in the energy of the Holy Ghost, drawing forth this blessed utterance from the heart of the patriarch, was the bow in the cloud for a moment. It shared the path of Job's spirit with the grief and heaviness that it knew so well--as Jeremiah's vision by night, and the Mount of Transfiguration, broke the dreary way of the weeping prophet, and of the adorable "Man of sorrows." Jer. x.x.xi. 26; Matt.

xvii. 2. It was the Spirit's power. The poor sufferer was made to look away from G.o.d's dealings _with_ him to His doings _for_ him. For there is a difference. The one calls the soul into exercise, and often are too unwieldy, beyond the management of our hearts. Very generally they need an interpreter. The other takes the soul into entire liberty. They are so plain that a child may read them. They bear their own meaning on their forehead. They need no interpreter. G.o.d's providences, or His dealings _with_ us, are ofttimes perplexing, as well as tenderly afflicting. G.o.d's grace in the Gospel, or His doings for us, are such as cannot either puzzle the thoughts or grieve the heart. They bear their own witness, and tell a tale of devoted, everlasting love, such as it is impossible to mistake.

And these are the things we have to do with, every day. If we be oppressed or fatigued by the current course of circ.u.mstances, finding them weighty, dark, and intricate, it is our privilege, and our duty too, to pa.s.s over, in spirit and in thought, to that calm and sunny atmosphere in which the Gospel, or G.o.d's doings for us, ever invest the soul.

All this may be seen in Job. That loved and honoured saint is generally seen grappling with G.o.d's dealings with him. The hand of G.o.d had gone out upon all his interests and enjoyments. Loss of fortune, children, and health, had come, by sore surprise, upon him, and he persists, in the heat and resentment of nature, to keep all this before his mind. But in a moment of the Spirit's power he is made to look away from all this, to turn from G.o.d's dealings _with_ him to G.o.d's doings _for_ him; and then he triumphs. Then he can contemplate more than the boils on his body, even the worms destroying it; but all is light and triumph. Then, in the face of all enemies, he can sit and sing in spirit, If G.o.d be for me, who can be against me? Romans viii.

Truly blessed is this. The tempter would lead us to judge of G.o.d by the dark shadings of many a pa.s.sage of our history here. But the Spirit would have us acquaint ourselves with Him in the beauteous light of the Gospel, the glory that s.h.i.+nes in the face of Jesus Christ; and there is light there and no darkness at all--no shadows which have to be chased away, no dimness that needs to be interpreted.

But this rather by the way--I have already traced certain combinations between this earliest and most independent portion of the book of G.o.d and all other parts of it, whether near or distant. And very establis.h.i.+ng to the heart this is. But such combinations or harmonies may be traced still further--in the _scenes of action_, as well as in the _actors in the scenes_.

There are "heaven" and "earth" here, as in all Scripture; each, too, having its "day" or special occasion. See i. 4, 6, 13; ii. 1. There are also "this present evil world," and "the world to come." At the opening of the action the scene is laid in this present evil world. It is but domestic, but all the features of the great world are seen in it. For each family circle, like every heart, is a little world. Indulgence and the love of enjoyment appear in the children, and something of the common "enmity against G.o.d" in the wife of our patriarch. Then, again, there are _natural_ calamities, as from wind and fire and disease; and there are _relative_ calamities, as from the hand of our neighbour or fellow-men, as Sabeans and Chaldeans. And all this is the various casualty of life and human circ.u.mstance to this hour. There is stroke upon stroke, messenger after messenger, turning over every page of the history. It is but human life _then_ instead of _now_, but the same life in its losses, crosses, and sore contradictions. There is a little reality, a little of the "friend in need" who "is a friend indeed," but there is a great deal of scorn and desertion in the hour of calamity, still so well known in the world. Job has three friends who sit with him among his ashes and potsherds, but all beside see him afar off.

Is not all this "the present evil world" drawn to the life?

But at the close of the action, the scene is laid in "the world to come," G.o.d's world and not man's, the world which His energies are to form, and His principles are to fill. It is the time of refres.h.i.+ng and rest.i.tution. In the 42nd chapter of our Book, we are, in spirit, in the Millennium. The Holy Ghost gives us this account of it. "Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord," are the words which introduce His allusion to "the patience of Job," and to "the end of the Lord." The husbandman toils in hope, and gets his fruit in harvest, or in resurrection. And so did Job endure, till, at last, he that sowed reaped. The 42nd chapter is the harvest of the husbandman. James v.

7-11.

And happy, I may say, is this further witness to the value which a spirit of confession and repentance has with our G.o.d, beloved. As it is written, "The sacrifices of G.o.d are a broken spirit;" and again, "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive our sins." For I doubt not, that it was to Job's few words of confession and repentance that the Lord referred when He turned to the friends and told them, that they had not spoken of Him the thing that was right, like His servant Job. They had not made confession at the end, as he had done. And let us cherish this a.s.surance. There are comfort and strength in it. The language of repentance prevails. "I have surely heard Ephraim bemoaning himself," says Jehovah--and then came the divine compa.s.sion: "Is Ephraim my dear son? is he a pleasant child? for since I spake against him, I do earnestly remember him still." Or, as we may learn from Hosea, words of confession and repentance from Israel, in the latter day, mightily prevail with G.o.d. "O Israel, return unto the Lord thy G.o.d; for thou hast fallen by thine iniquity. Take with you words, and turn to the Lord: say unto Him, Take away all iniquity, and receive us graciously." "I will heal their backsliding, I will love them freely," is the divine answer, with a rich and beautiful chapter of promises.

The consolation of this! the tale it tells us of grace, unwearied, long-suffering grace! And accordingly Job flourishes again. The Lord is as the dew to him. He grows as the lily, his branches spread, his beauty is as the olive tree, his scent as Lebanon. In "the end of the Lord" he is seen as "in the regeneration," or day of the kingdom, and even others dwell under his shadow, reviving as the corn, and growing as the vine.

See Hosea xiv.

I do not regard Job so much as a _type_, but rather as a _sample_.

His calling was the common calling, as a dead and risen man. Every saint, now gathering for heavenly glory, is such. Israel in the latter day will be as such, and the whole system of the millennial age. The Lord Jesus holds all things, and exercises His offices, as the One that was dead and is alive again. But I judge it to be more fitting to speak of Job as a sample of the common calling, than as a type. I could not, however, object to the expression, were it used by others.

Job learnt his lesson through sufferings. The Lord, I may say, did the same. Hebrews ii. iv. v. He was made perfect for His high functions in that way. Christ's compa.s.sions could not have been _priestly_, till He became a man, partaker of the flesh and blood of the children, and suffered as such. And Job's history may be read as the expression or foreshadowing of all this.

So Israel. They will be as a people who, having destroyed themselves, have found their help in G.o.d. Hosea presents them in that character. Their language in chapter xiv. is the language of such a people. And Job's history may be regarded as the expression or foreshadowing of this also. He revives, he grows again as the lily, and his branches spread, at the end, as Israel and Israel's branches will, according to their prophet. So that we may speak of Job as a type. But I still feel and judge it to be more fitting, to present him as a sample of us all, in the common faith, as dead and risen with Christ.

Such was our Patriarch in "the end of the Lord." Another witness he is that the burning bush is never consumed, because of the good-will of Him who dwells in it. It may be Israel in Egypt, or in Babylon, the children in the furnace, or the prophet in the den. It may be a poor elect Gadarene, beset with a legion, or the patriarch, the sport of wind and fire and bodily disease, of Chaldeans and Sabeans too, the power and messengers of Satan let out upon him, still the burning bush is unconsumed for the goodwill of Him who dwells in it. "We had the sentence of death in ourselves," says the apostle, as speaking in the name of them all, "that we should not trust in ourselves, but in G.o.d who raiseth the dead."

Such an one was our Patriarch. And such an one he had learnt himself to be. In the school of G.o.d he had now learnt his calling, as in the experience of his own soul. But a great lesson it is. A great difference, I am full sure, between having G.o.d in the midst of our circ.u.mstances, and G.o.d as Himself the first and great circ.u.mstance. The first was Job's way at the beginning. He would not have been without G.o.d. He owned Him, and gave Him an altar in the family scene. But he had not said to Him, Thou shalt choose our inheritance for us. He had not, as Abram did afterward, _come out from circ.u.mstances with G.o.d_, trusting Him to surround him with His own circ.u.mstances. The power to do this cries, "Whom have I in heaven but Thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire beside Thee." For such was the utterance of a saint when his soul had come forth from the tempest and temptation of seeing himself second to the wicked in the conditions and circ.u.mstances of life here. Ps. lxxiii.

What a voice this truth has for us! Some may listen to it for _comfort_, others of us of feebler faith for _warning_. The world and pride and selfishness form the circ.u.mstances out of which the call of G.o.d summons us; and religion, in a sense, may have brought G.o.d into them; but faith, in its simplicity, forms the other, and G.o.d has not to be brought into them, for He is there from the beginning, the great Framer or Artificer of them all.

One repeats this truth, for it is, as I judge, the great secret of this Book. Our Job at the end learnt the power of the call of G.o.d. And this, I may say, imparts a just and spiritual bearing to all he now does, as well as invests his whole estate with the beauty and stability of millennial days.