Remembrance of Deliverance and Guidance

Lapse of time comes in here; it is a year since their deliverance, and they are still in the wilderness. When the passover is understood, the present power of deliverance is a very intelligible thing. (Exodus 13:3.) They had been in bondage, but they were out of Egypt and in the wilderness, though not yet in Canaan. They had memory of deliverance, with toil and exercise as the fruits, because they were in the wilderness. So we have the joy and peace of deliverance, not yet rest. They were out of Egypt, but in trouble and trial. They felt it when they said, “Were there no graves in Egypt?” Herein is the exercise and often failure with us; but there is no failure on God’s part, because He brings us into the wilderness.
The passover is to be kept as an offering to the Lord (vs. 7) in remembrance of, and retaining full consciousness of, their being the Lord’s delivered people. We have spiritually the principle of the thing in the Lord’s supper. There is deliverance in Christ, but trial and exercise as to the actual condition here. Unbelief may say, “We shall die in the wilderness,” but faith will always keep the passover; it thus recognizes God’s deliverance, and this is blessing. Spiritually it is an offering to the Lord, and so by communion we have present joy—a privilege only to faith; for the deliverance has only brought us into the wilderness where we get trouble. We see in verse 9, and so forth, grace and holiness brought together to meet defilement. Defilement now is specially death, because, by the energy of the Spirit of God in us, sin is known in its actual power as death. God brings in the remedy where the need is, the moment it was a question of being kept back from offering to the Lord. When there is the power of the Spirit working in our souls from day to day, there will be the constant detection of sin; for what is not of the Spirit is flesh and sin, and in its power is not merely defilement, but death.) They were delivered from Egypt, which was nothing but defilement, and yet they were defiled so that they could not keep the passover. Where there is any consciousness of sin, there cannot be worship. They could not come to God because they were defiled; for “holiness becometh thine house forever.” When the Spirit is grieved there cannot be worship to God, still they were not shut out from Israel, though there must be the humiliation that owns the defilement. We can never return to the power of worship without referring to past failure. There must be humbling and purging from the sin before we can really worship, and the Lord judges of cleanness according to the energy of the life of God.
A stranger (vs. 44) might keep the passover, but he must keep it according to the ordinance and the manner thereof. Grace brings us to God, but it always brings us according to what God is, and therefore never departs from the principle of holiness—the eternal ordinance of God’s house in the Spirit. If a man is not spiritually holy, his worship is only an abomination to God. “We have an altar, whereof they have no right to eat which serve the tabernacle.” (Hebrews 13:10.) That is fleshly ordinances. The real privilege of God’s house is inward holiness. In this place of worship God’s presence is found; it gives light, guidance, shelter, everything, so (vs. 15) “the cloud covered the tabernacle.” God’s presence was there. Israel were to know that God brought them out of Egypt that He might dwell among them. (Exodus 29:46.) Hence the power of grace; for whatever is inconsistent with holiness is setting aside the purpose of redemption, “that I may dwell among them.” The Lord has given us another Comforter to abide with us forever; and saying, “Is the Lord among us or not?” is doubting the power and presence of the Spirit of God. Tempting the Lord is not mere rashness, but doing something to try whether the Lord is with us or not. The presence of the Lord is always with us for blessing, and being with us must necessarily detect sin. The cloud was always there, so that whatever they did should have been in the consciousness that the Lord was with them; the uncertainty from day to day, the want of water, and so forth, cast them for dependence on the Lord.; The difficulties of the way taught them that God was ever nigh to help them. The Lord in His grace will ever keep us in a place of dependence for k blessing to our souls. Entire dependence on God always gives entire wilderness blessing.
At the commandment of the Lord the children of Israel journeyed, and at the commandment of the Lord they pitched. (vs. 18.) So Jesus never went but where the cloud led Him to go; thus when they told Him that Lazarus was sick, He tarried two days, and yet He loved Lazarus. It is important that we should not be doing what is evil only, but that what we are doing should be done because it is the Lord’s will. Not a step in my journey, but the Lord has thought about it for me, therefore “we have to run the race set before us.” If the cloud does not move we cannot move, our utter incapacity to act is our power against Satan.
Again, if I have no light on any given passage, this makes nothing of me. If we have no word from God, we can do nothing, because it is by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord that man lives. Paul did nothing for Epaphroditus. (Philippians 2:27.) God healed him in His own way. God charges Himself with this care of us because we are in the wilderness where there is no way, that God Himself might be our way. He will not give us a way that nature can find out; His way is only found out in communion with the Lord. When we say “There is no way,” this will throw us upon God, who will lead us in His own way. In the wilderness there are difficulties, and here is the trial of the spirituality of the saints. The moment we lose the sense of dependence on God we are left to ourselves. Then “there is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.” (Proverbs 14:12.) It is a solemn word, “Ephraim is joined to idols: let him alone.” With us it should be not merely doing God’s will, but doing it because it is God’s will.
God delivered the children of Israel that He might dwell among them in the wilderness where there was no way; and His guidance proved that He was among. them. The pillar of cloud leads by night and by day, for the day and night are both alike to Him, and to us if led by Him. Peter could no more walk on the smooth sea than on the rough without the Lord. We need willingness of mind to be always led by the Lord. We are children, and so sure of it, that we are willing to be servants. Jesus was Son of God, but took the place of a servant. It was to Him as having taken this place that Satan said, “If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down,” seeking to cast a doubt on His Father’s care. The certainty of the Lord’s love gives the confidence of obedience; if I count on the Lord’s love I am cast on the Lord’s will. When Israel settled down by the palm trees, they must get up, because it was not Canaan. The Lord may give us a little rest, but we must not settle here.
By virtue of the first passover we have been brought out of Egypt and are now in the wilderness, and while there keep the passover in the knowledge of God’s love in our deliverance.
When the cloud tarried many days (vs. 19) they were’ to keep the charge of the Lord, so while we tarry here we have but one thing to occupy us—God; and if our I “eye be single, our whole body shall be full of light.”
J. N. D.
Readings and Meditations on the Gospel of John
“There was a man sent from God, his name John,” He came to bear testimony concerning the light, yet in result of faithful and devoted service obtained such witness himself as had never been rendered to man. John was the burning and shining lamp, Jesus the light itself. Saviour and saint bare testimony the one to the other. “He that cometh from heaven is above all.” “Yea, more than a prophet... among them that are born of women there hath not risen a greater than John the Baptist.” Self-occupation always fails in its object. The voice that cried in the wilderness, “Prepare ye Jehovah’s way,” obtained what it never sought. Could he have thought in his lonely, desert life, nourished only from the resources of the wilderness, that he was treading the path that led to such results as these? Honor and praise from the lips of his rejected Lord; for they stopped their ears at the cry, and refused to make straight in the desert a highway for “our God.” This mutual praise, flowing from divine grace on one side, and through grace on the other, is most attractive. How each bore himself (the divine Master and His servant)—the way of the Spirit within—in the day of rejection (for the servant drank of the Master’s cup) we learn from Matthew 11 and John 4 “I thank thee, O Father.... All things are delivered unto me of my Father.” “The friend of the Bridegroom, which standeth and heareth Him, rejoiceth greatly because of the Bridegroom’s voice: this my joy therefore is fulfilled.” What do the “least in the kingdom of heaven” think of this character of communion? And now this honored servant waits for things as yet unseen; he shared His Master’s sufferings, he must share His glories also; for thus the counsel runs, “If we suffer with Him, we shall also reign with Him.”
But in divine things the hidden and inward is always deeper and more precious than the outward, that which is to be displayed than the display itself. (“There was the hiding of His power.”—Habakkuk 3:4.) The white stone, from the hand of Jesus glorified, tells of secret blessings, dearer even than the glory to be revealed to us, and of which we are to be partakers. But in this our day the desert life is shunned, the hidden manna out of mind; the “secret name of undisclosed delight” seems to have lost its attraction.
Verse 9. “The true light was that which, coming into the world, lightens every man.” When the light comes into the world, its rays reach out to the ends thereof; there is no speech nor language where its brightness will not shine. “What the law saith, it saith to them that are under the law.” But in this shining the Holy Land is found to be a very small part of the world’s surface, and a Jew no better than a Gentile. But if sin makes no difference, because all have sinned, grace will make no difference, because the same Lord is rich unto all that call upon Him. Next, we have His actual presence in the world, with the fact that it did not know its divine Creator, as Jerusalem did not know the day of her visitation. At the beginning of their history the nations thought it not good to have God in their knowledge, and so, when God was manifest in the flesh in the person of Jesus Christ, a Light to lighten the Gentiles (to show where they were), these were all found hidden away in the darkness of idolatry; as the Jews, hiding their faces from the Light of Israel; as Adam, when he heard the voice of the Lord God, hid himself amongst the trees of the garden. “Righteous Father, the world hath not known thee,” said the Saviour of the world. But there was to be a taking out of this present evil world, before the great ingathering of the nations for the millennial reign.
There were then those who received Him, but their history offers the clearest illustration of the solemn truth of the all-pervading darkness. The energy and will that brought them to Christ were wholly divine; on man’s side power and will were for evil only, being himself of the darkness. In Christ they were perfect. “If thou wilt, thou canst,” said the poor leper. “I will” (and can), said the Saviour, “Be thou clean.” “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem... how often would I... and ye would not.” To receive Him one must be born again; but this necessarily brings in God, rich in grace. “Of His own will begat He us with the word of truth.” To men He said, “Ye will not come unto me, that ye might have life.” No, they loved darkness (this was the world’s condemnation) rather than light, and why? But were their thoughts, the inward thoughts, of every one of them, better than their evil deeds? for from within, out of the heart of man proceed evil thoughts. See the long, dark roll, and show me any one thing of brightness, if you can. And Himself is ever the touchstone of their moral state. When He called, as we have seen, there was none to answer; when He suffered, none to pity. The “within” of the human heart was a mystery unknown as yet to the disciples themselves. “Are ye yet without understanding?” He said to them (they did not know themselves). He tells them the truth, as elsewhere He opened their understanding, that they might understand the scriptures; and, best of all, has given an —understanding to know Him that is true—to know Himself.
Verse 13. “Born, not of blood.” A Jew might have boasted of blood, of belonging by birth to the holy nation. Could he do so before God? Was it not a truth that in this city, the city of the great King, the holy city of our God, the great King and our God was rejected by the people of Israel, joined with idolatrous Gentiles in the bond of common enmity against Israel’s Messiah and the world’s Saviour?
“Nor of the will of the flesh.” The flesh is the moral principle of fallen humanity; it loves to reason, but hates to obey; cannot be subject to the law of God; they that are in it cannot please God; its mind, that it glories in, is enmity against God. It is the seed-bed of human theories and speculations, does not even pretend to give divine authority for them; it speaks from itself, the opposite of the way of the Holy Ghost. “He shall not speak from. Himself,” but only what. He hears shall He speak. He speaks but to glorify Jesus, taking of the things that are His. The Eternal Word speaks of God, the Son about the Father, to glorify Him. This was the mind of Christ: “If any one desire to practice His will, he shall know concerning the doctrine, whether it is of God, or that I speak from myself. He that speaks from himself seeks his own glory.” “The words which thou hast given me I have given them.” “I have given them thy word.” “The word which ye hear is not mine, but that of the Father, who has sent me.” “My doctrine is not mine, but that of Him that has sent me.” “Search the Scriptures,” He said. That is, in the mind of Christ the Scriptures are of equal authority with the words which the Father had given; and the word of God, He tells us, cannot be broken. His mind is ever the condemnation of that of the flesh. The believer is not born of that, nor of the will of man; it is a ruined race. It is a solemn and important word, meeting us here at the threshold of this gospel. Put negatively, it is true; but of its scope and bearing there can be no question. But many, it is to be feared, are willingly ignorant of its import. The world cannot receive this truth; the springs of human energy (the will of the flesh) would be broken, so that it would cease to be “this present evil world.”
In verse 12 it should be “children.” He gave those who received Him the right to be children of God. It is the word used almost invariably as expressive of intimacy in nature. They were begotten of God. “Son” gives more the honor and standing, in contrast to their position under the law. In Galatians 4 we find it contrasted with “bondsmen.” “Because ye are sons, God has sent out the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father. So thou art no longer bondsman, but son.” In chapter 12 we have “sons of light,” where the honor and moral dignity of such a place is in view. In Hebrews 12:8 it is easily seen that “son” only, and not “child,” could be used.
Verse 14. “And the Word became flesh.” It is not the Father’s counsels about Him, nor the Holy Ghost’s power—not what He was, nor what He did—that we find here. It is what He became. In the beginning eternity He was God, and with God; in the beginning of time, the Creator. “Thou in the beginning of time, Lord, hast founded the earth, and the works of Thy hands are the heavens.” Elsewhere we have His coming into the world presented in connection with the counsels of God, and with the Holy Ghost. “When the fullness of the time was come, God sent forth His Son, come of woman.” But here it is only His blessed self who is before us, and His relations to us. “Subsisting in the form of God... He emptied Himself, taking a bondsman’s form, taking His place in the likeness of men,” and was obedient in this place, “even unto death.” Here was a wondrous thing; paradise never presented anything like it. The innocent man, in the midst of the garden that the Lord God had planted for Him, falls before the first breath of evil; but here was a Man, holy in the midst of evil, on an equality with God in the divine nature, yet in a bondsman’s form; self-emptied, self-humbled, that blessed Self, obedient even unto the death of the cross. This was the mind that was in Christ, this the side of the sufferings of a love as boundless as the suffering itself, this the “within” of the heart of the Second Man. The unfolding of these depths within awaited the Spirit’s presence. The precious sufferings of Christ for love and for righteousness’ sake, and even those of atonement, were never understood by the disciples during the Lord’s presence on earth, any more than the Jews had been able to look to the end of that which is abolished; that is, the Person of Jesus Christ glorified. Without the Spirit’s presence they were as little able to understand His sufferings as to contemplate His glory.
Become flesh, he tabernacled amongst us (see Revelation 7, where we read, “He that sits upon the throne shall spread his tabernacle over them”—that is, the white-robed Gentile overcomers; and Revelation 21, “The tabernacle of God is with men”) full of grace and truth. I remarked that the disciples never understood these ways of Christ, whether outward ways or those of the Spirit “within.” Before redemption is known, and the sealing of the Spirit, there is no heart nor mind for such blessed studies as these. That He had a baptism of fire to pass through, all His inmost thoughts tried by that consuming fire, and, when tried to the utmost, yielding only a sweet savor to God, this they could not understand. “But his inwards shall he wash in water, and the priest shall burn all on the altar, a burnt sacrifice, an offering made by fire, of a sweet savor unto the Lord.”
Grace and truth were manifested. All “wondered at the gracious words that proceeded out of His mouth.” “He that hath received His testimony hath set to his seal that God is true.” And the evangelist states in a parenthetic sentence, “We have contemplated His glory, a glory as of an only-begotten with a Father.” It could not be that rays of such glory should not have reached them, even before the intelligence that the Spirit’s presence imparts had been given them. There were some who received His testimonies, however feebly, and we know that it was feebly until the Spirit of truth had come. To His own He presents Himself as the object of His Father’s counsels and affections; they all centered in Him, and revealed Him as that object in a glory as of an only-begotten son with a Father. “The Father loveth the Son, and hath given all things into His hands.” “The Father loveth the Son, and showeth Him all things that Himself doeth.” The Father “hath committed all judgment unto the Son, that all men should honor the Son, even as they honor the Father.” “All things that the Father hath are mine.”
In Hebrews 1 He is presented as “the effulgence of God’s glory, and the exact expression of His substance.” In Colossians 1 as “image of the invisible God.” It is in Jesus only that God is known, as in Him alone we know the Father. R. E.