Joshua 22

VERSES 10-20.-We now get the two and a half tribes building an altar. What is this? Did they build it to escape going to Shiloh?
It is the failure of the epistle to the Hebrews; there they tried to make an earthly worship on a heavenly ground; they did not mean to give up the tabernacle. Here the people had not got into the true position. In Hebrews they did not understand that they were to take a heavenly position before God on earth.
We find in this altar the principle which is the root of all idolatry: it was " a great altar to see to." When Aaron made the calf he never thought of giving up God; all he wanted was something visible something to appeal to the eye. The thing was to get a representation.
Now there was to be no representation of God but Christ, and not that until Christ came. Here it was the altar-not an idol. And this is the character of all the systems that have been set up on earth. The excuse given is that they are needed to meet the weakness of man; something " to see to." It is seeking to bring God to man's ground, instead of man to God's. But God has come down to the lowest point of humiliation in order to exalt man to the highest point of the creature. The greatness of the grace is in the humiliation to which He descended, and so it is called "the riches of his grace." But getting a something " to see to," is losing the place of divine power. The whole thing is really a conflict between the visible and the invisible: " the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal; " it is the invisible God that we have to do with.
It was subtle. They did not mean to do it; but they wanted something to connect itself with their natural senses. But I am never either to take from or to add to God's word. One of the most specious reasons for system given by the Rationalists is, that you must have a church to suit the temperament of the- people-a church to suit ignorant people, and another to suit the learned. That is just the rationalism of man. I do not want an altar " to see to; " if I do I am going counter to God's altar, " We have an altar whereof they have no right to eat which serve the tabernacle," so that we are outside the Jewish polity. Unbelief and independence go together.
If you say, the Lord suffered it, I admit it; He suffers many a thing that He does not commend. He let the people have a king when they desired one. Even in one's own life we have ' seen how God, as it were, says, If you will have it so, then try it. I have the strongest feeling about asking God to give me merely temporal things.
Verses 21-34.-We see they entirely repudiated the notion that it was an altar for worship; but there was true zeal for the Lord on the part of the other tribes; they were afraid of what it might come to.
We are to get great principles from this book. If we just look over what has come out, we find that we have possession of the land, a limited position in it, given to us by lot; we have the cities of refuge; we have the Levites in their cities; and then we get the failure that comes up-the altar. The people decide against it, but still there it stands. Ed is placed there, though it has been met with a storm of holy zeal for God, with the resolve that there should not be another altar-that nothing should be super-added.