04.03. Part 3.

Part 3.

Here we must trace, though in the fewest possible words on account of want of space, the history of His rejection by the people and its connection with that already touched. The first four chapters of Matthew we have seen give the birth, baptism, proclamation, and testing of the King. Next follows the Sermon on the Mount, a discourse incomparable for beauty, simplicity, and grandeur. A King like this must have a kingdom altogether different from anything which had ever been before. It is therefore a description of the character of His kingdom. Those things which are necessary for a nation and kingdom among men, such as wealth, education, and distinction of rank and a standing army are conspicuous by their absence, the reason being that all the requirements of His are stored up in Himself. The Beatitudes of Matthew 5:1-7, are a description of Himself to be produced in His subjects by faith and on the principle of reflection; the whole discourse being a searching exposure of the accredited leaders of religion at that time. The two following chapters (Matthew 8:1-34 and Matthew 9:1-38) give His service, and there we may see the display of the power of the kingdom in such a way as to demonstrate the truth that the King and the kingdom are bound up together and all its requirements are stored up in Himself. He is refused at the end of Matthew 9, and His mighty works which could not be denied are imputed to evil power. Before He accepts their decision He tries them in another way by sending forth the twelve disciples, for what could have been done more for that people than what He has done. They go forth as the ministers of His bounty, equipped by Him to meet every emergency and to demonstrate the power and resource of the King. What a day that must have been and what joy and gladness came into many hearts who, like ourselves, were sharers in the common heritage of woe which sin had brought in. All that was necessary was the glad acknowledgment of the King, but this was not to be. His presence, the description of the kingdom and the display of its power, did not awaken response; the forerunner might mourn, and He Himself pipe, but they would neither lament nor dance and at last, treated as a gluttonous man and a wine-bibber He has to pronounce woe upon the cities in which most of His mighty works were done. This should be carefully pondered for it brings before us one of the most decisive moments in the world’s history. Decisive not only for the Jew, but for the nations of the world, and creating the position for the greatest display of wisdom and resource, the richest unfolding of heaven’s grace, the position which God takes account of to fulfil the counsels of eternity. In the light of previous testimony however, it will create no surprise since all had been foretold in the prophets, and indeed, it was this that was before Paul in the synagogue at Antioch in Pisidia when he told the Jews that in condemning their Messiah they were but fulfilling that which their own prophets had written (Acts 13:27).

There are, therefore, three important landmarks around which all this part of the history turns which if taken account of, will serve to simplify matters at the same time as impressing us with the profundity and beauty of all Scripture.

(1) The connection of Matthew 11:1-30 with Isaiah 49:1-26.

(2) The strong link between Matthew 16:1-28 and Isaiah 8:1-22.

(3) The bringing together of Psalms 118:1-29 and Zechariah 11:1-17 with Matthew 21:1-46, Matthew 22:1-46, Matthew 23:1-37.

(1) The point at which we have arrived in Matthew 11:1-30 will be found to fit in exactly with the words of Isaiah 49:4, where the blessed Lord speaks by the prophetic Spirit saying, "I have laboured in vain, I have spent My strength for naught and in vain. yet surely My judgment is with the Lord and My work with My God . . . Though Israel be not gathered yet shall I be glorious in the eyes of the Lord." At that moment the answer comes from His God; — "Is it a light thing that Thou shouldest be My servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the preserved of Israel; I have even given Thee for a light of the nations, that Thou mayest be My salvation unto the end of the earth." If the reader will at this point carefully read the words of our Lord in Matthew 11:25-27, he will see that never was there a time when He was more glorious in the eyes of His Father than when Israel made that solemn decision.

(2) Having broken with. the nation at the end of Matthew 12:1-50, He formally abandons the testimony and takes wider ground, Matthew 16:20. By charging the disciples to tell no man that He was Jesus the Christ, He connects with Isaiah 8:16-17. "Bind up the testimony, seal the law among My disciples, and I will wait for Jehovah who hideth His face from the house of Jacob; and I will look for Him." It is at that moment that the disciples are seen as given to Him out of the nation, as shown in the words of the prophet in Matthew 12:18. (See also Hebrews 2:13).

(3) In Matthew 21:1-46 the Lord enters Jerusalem in fulfilment of Zechariah 9, and is acclaimed King in the words both of that prophet and Psalms 118. But in spite of all the leaders would not have Him. The birth of Messiah had been a fresh overture or covenant on the part of God, not only with Israel, but with all nations. Their refusal was bound to affect all the others and the symbolical act of breaking the staff in Zechariah 11:10, signifies the breaking of this covenant with all the peoples. This, in all probability, vas accomplished in the solemn words of Matthew 23:1-39, which end with the statement, "Behold, your house is left unto you desolate. For I say unto you ye shall not see Me henceforth, till ye shall say, Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord." All ended as we know midst the gloom of Calvary, fulfilling that great branch of prophetic testimony which spoke of the sufferings of our precious Lord, bringing with it the shattering of every hope. and producing distress and consternation among those who had been privileged to witness much of the glory and beauty of the King.

We have now to see the use that is made of the people’s decision. In the ways of God Christ had been offered and refused, but all had been foreseen their decision in that way making room for the operations of divine love in the purposes of grace. While it was necessary that the trial of man in his responsibility should be completed in that people by the presentation of Him in whom all the promises centred, it was also foreknown that He would be refused. How the blessed God causes all to work for His own glory and the good of the creature may be seen in the way the rejection and ignominious death of Christ is used by Him to bring out the richest and fullest manifestation of His grace. The forces of evil were at work, but to make way in divine wisdom for the hidden purposes of eternity and the deeper glories of the Godhead. The prophets had written of the sufferings of Christ and the glories to follow? but knew not that a long period which has lasted nineteen centuries would come between the one and the other. The people having forfeited everything He said, "I will go and return to My place till they acknowledge their guilt" (Hosea 5:15). See Genesis 42:21 — "We are indeed guilty." He had said before that time while expostulating with them, "What and if ye shall see the Son of Man ascend up where He was before." We know His own place was with the Father, as He said in John 17:1-26. "And now I come to Thee." His going there was in connection with deeper and richer purposes, which has engaged Him since and will continue to do so till the moment now at hand in which Israel, having received at the Lord’s hand double for all their sins, shall say, "Come and let us return to Jehovah, He hath torn and He will heal us, He hath smitten and He will bind us up."

It is during this period that a new thing comes to pass. While Christ is on high the Holy Ghost comes to dwell in His people on the earth. consequently the whole counsel of God is brought out. The Church age is undoubtedly the most important time in all the dealings of God with Man because the Holy Ghost, a diving Person, is here to unfold the glory of God and Jesus. This necessitates the opening out of the counsels of God concerning the glory of the Son in the Creation calling out the Assembly as His Body and Bride, which brings into moral display all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, going far beyond anything ever before conceived, showing the dealings of God which began with Genesis to be as yesterday, all being as elevated in character as heaven is above the earth. Such things are far beyond the scope of Israel’s blessing and would scarcely be fitting in a paper dealing with the glory of Christ in that people. But besides her place in relation to divine Persons and the counsels of eternity. the Church fills an important part in relation to time and the ways of God. While here in the scene of His holy government she is made the witness of His grace, patience, and faithfulness in such a way that all these great and blessed principles of truth, which had for their centre the earthly people, are now being worked out in her. In this way, it is so important to see that nothing that God had in mind for His earthly people can be said to have failed. Their refusal made room for the call of others, who are brought in and made the recipients of the blessing in such a way as to demonstrate both His faithfulness to His people and the securing of His glory in them. The Lord Jesus Christ had come as Centre of all the counsels of God, and at the same time, the One in whom all His ways were gathered up and centred. His refusal brought about redemption by which He took His place at the right hand of God, and by the Spirit the Assembly was formed to take her place in regard to both the counsels of eternity and the time-ways of God. While the former, which is the deeper and fuller, must be reserved for another time we are compelled to look into the latter because of its connection with the ways of God with Israel and the earth.

We would emphasize this and press upon the reader the importance of giving attention to it singe it is the key to open up the whole range of divine dealings. Many can say a great deal about the past and look forward to the great things of the future, describing minutely the moral and political disorders of the day; books, too, constantly coming out, interesting and helpful as far as they go, but not having the key, viz., the place of the Church as the vessel in which the ways of God centre, there is both loss and confusion. The result is that these things are spoken of as if the great gap of time during which Christ is at the right hand of God were a mere hiatus where all is blank. The Church may be spoken of, but in such a vague way that there is no distinct sense of her place as the vessel wherein are deposited the blessings which are proper to the earthly people. The link between Israel and the Church is the elect remnant given to Christ out of the nation. In that important section of the epistle to the Romans, where the faithfulness of God to that people is seen to agree with His promises, it is said that they are not all Israel who are of Israel. This was also put before them by the Lord Himself in John 8:1-59, when He said, I know that ye are Abraham’s seed, and in the same breath, If ye were Abraham’s children ye would do the works of Abraham. The generation of faith is thus distinguished from the nation as an election of grace and this is confirmed by figurative teaching. Isaac, the son of the free woman, represents the line of faith, while Ishmael sets forth the nation in unbelief (Galatians 4:22-26). Much confusion exists, for want of attention to this important distinction. While the apostate nation is cut off and, like Cain of old, doomed to wander in the land of and with the mark of a vagabond, the election of grace are brought in and become the true nation, the Israel of God. The people had, as it were, thrown back in His face the Messianic blessings, but He found hearts in which they could be enjoyed, these came into all the blessing of Israel and far more, being given to Him as companions and transferred from Israel and earthly blessing to the Church. Thus we can see how all that belongs to Israel is maintained and carried through for God in the Church during the time that the nation is suffering under His government for the murder of their Messiah.

It is in this light we must view the great apostle when, having brought out the counsels of God in connection with the change of dispensation. he still speaks of himself as standing for the true hope of Israel. It is well worth pondering that the man to whom, above all others, was committed the truth of the heavenly calling does not give up the true hope of those whose blessing is on the earth. After the interview with the elders of Ephesus, where he speaks of himself and his labours in connection with the Gospel, the Kingdom, the Counsels, and the Church of God, he speaks before Agrippa as standing for the hope of the promises made of God to our fathers to which our twelve tribes, serving God day and night, hope to arrive. This, it will be seen, he connects with resurrection as showing the ground of Israel’s blessing to be like that of all others, viz., the redemption work of our Lord Jesus Christ. The gifts and calling of God are without repentance and the true Israelite never loses sight of the fact that, in His own time, God will bring His people in like all others, as subjects of His mercy. But some one may enquire what are the blessings which belong to Israel which are shared by those who form the Church and carried through in them provisionally for God in view of that people. The answer is that the Kingdom, the new Covenant, the Sanctuary, and the Priesthood, with all the holy adornment belonging to these things are existent today in the presence of the Holy Ghost, things which were spoken of and fore-shadowed in pre-Incarnate days, and in like manner, the great blessings of Salvation, Reconciliation and Eternal life, with all the peace, love and joy which necessarily belongs to such things. These things, and far more, came here in the Person of Christ and was offered to Israel who, being the covenant people, had a certain claim. After all, such things could only reach man by redemption and God took account of Israel’s rejection of His Son to bring that about.

We see in Acts 2:1-47 the Kingdom established in an altogether new way, the King having taken His place on high as the Centre of royal power and authority. From a dispensational point of view it covers a certain geographical area and encloses a mass of people who enjoy the benefit of the King’s sway in an outward way, accepting Christianity as a creed and owning the Lordship of Christ in a nominal way. Like Israel of old, the righteous are seen in the midst of a mass of profession, where many are favoured with the light of God. The Kingdom exists, however, as the great moral security for man and only those who in faith have bowed to the Lord Jesus Christ have entered there and are said to be brought into the Kingdom of the Son of God’s love. "I will sing unto the Lord for He hath triumphed gloriously.... The Lord is a man of war: the Lord is His name.... The Lord shall reign for ever and ever" (Exodus 15:1-27). The Covenant prophetically spoken of by Jeremiah is given effect to in the spirit of it in the Gospel today, the preachers being called new covenant ministers (see 2 Corinthians 3:1-18). The terms of it are forgiveness of sins and the law written on the heart, which has in view cleansing from sins and deliverance so that man becomes a reflex of Christ. The cup of the new covenant is in the hands of the Assembly today and used at the greatest of all feasts, the Lord’s Supper. This is a thought of priceless value, for it is at that feast that the saints enter into all the blessedness of the sanctuary, taking their part in divine service in the company of the great Priest who is over the service of God. It has often been remarked that when you get the covenant immediately the sanctuary and divine service come into view. In both 2 Corinthians and the epistle to the Hebrews the covenant leads on to the whole range of truth connected with the sanctuary and the service of God. Nor can it be different with the other items of truth already mentioned, for from the moment sin came, faith was ever taught to look forward to the coming age, where God’s triumph will be displayed in the removal of sin and the curse and the display of what springs from His own heart of love. Reconciliation may be said to be the great underlying thought of the great day of atonement in Israel. We get there, in no ambiguous terms the assurance that all will be reconciled to the great Godhead in the eternally abiding value of the work of the cross, where all that is connected with breakdown will be so entirely removed that the complacency of God will rest upon all. Surely it needs little application for us to see how thoroughly the soul may enter into and enjoy this to-day with such Scriptures before us as Luke 15:1-32, 2 Corinthians 5:1-21, and Ephesians 1:1-23.

Isaiah speaks of a day of salvation which, like all the great predictions of that prophet, look forward to the day of glory when the glad earth shall ring with the praises of her Creator and Lord; when the creature shall be set free from the bondage of corruption into the liberty of the glory of the children of God. That day has come now according to 2 Corinthians 6:2, bringing with it deliverance from sin, the world, and the power of Satan, and leading on to the blessed knowledge of eternal life in Christ Jesus. This, too, is spoken of in the Psalms as connected with Zion as the habitation of Jehovah, where He will rest forever. "there the Lord commanded the blessing, even life for evermore." Eternal life is preached in the Gospel today and in the latter writings of the New Testament is opened out by the Spirit of God as one of the richest items of truth contained in the whole revelation of God. Thus we can see the beauty, symmetry, and perfection of God’s ways and, like the apostle of old, are led to cry out, "O depth of riches, both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable His judgments and untraceable His ways.... For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been His counsellor? Or who has first given to Him and it shall be rendered to Him? For of Him and through Him and for Him are all things: to Him be glory for ever. Amen" (Romans 11:33-36). The transition from Judaism to Christianity covered a period of forty years, during which time God was graciously bearing with His people and seeking to lead them out of that which was about to be judged and set aside. Both the city end the temple must go and the truth of the Assembly be apprehended as a heavenly thing outside of dispensations, a faith system outside of that which appeals to sight and sense. This transit was carried out in the companions of Christ of whom He says, "Behold I and the children which God has given Me." These were seen in the apostles and all those Jewish Christians who, by identification with the rejected Messiah, became the foundation of the new thing and are addressed as partakers of a heavenly calling in contrast with what they before stood in as Jews. Peter addresses the same class and though suffering in their outward lives, calls them a kingly priesthood who offer up sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ, going on to the great thoughts of a chosen race, a kingly priesthood, a holy nation, a people for a possession, that they might set forth the excellencies of Him who called them out of darkness into His marvellous light. Thus showing that if they had lost the shell they had come to the kernel, that all that had been sinned away in unbelief by the nation was theirs in a new and divinely stable way.

Surely this indicates the importance of the time when Christ is on high and when all that is soon to be displayed is set forth to faith in the power of the Holy Ghost. Looking back we see the revelation of God coming out in our Lord, looking forward we can see the time for display is near, meantime, all is set forth in testimony, for it is a principle with God to set forth in testimony all that He is going to display. In the linking up of the time-ways of God we may therefore see a unity of thought and feeling amidst much diversity, which characterises all the elect independent altogether of dispensations and His ways with different companies. What marked the faithful in the days before the flood was to walk with God. Well it is for those who do so today. In the exercise of such a blessed privilege it will be marked by much greater light. The communion of these noble worthies of faith end the Old Testament saints in general could not be in the same wealth of truth which we possess to-day since all looked forward to the advent of the Son. Not one of these, however favoured, could know the Father as such, consequently they could not possibly know association with the Son. But if the blessing is different the path is the same. This world of sin and sorrow must ever be the training ground for the children of faith. There sin and death prevail, there everything is in opposition to righteousness, and there the saint learns the treachery of His own heart while learning the goodness and love of the heart of God.

All this shows the great value of the Old Testament for the saints today and since these Scriptures, which are the special portion of the earthly saints, helps us today to a deeper knowledge of our good and gracious God, showing us His grace, patience, and faithfulness, we may well conclude that those precious, heavenly communications in the New Testament, which belong to the Assembly, will serve to educate those of the earthly saints in the knowledge of God both in His nature and character. If we who are called from heaven to heaven find much in the Psalms and kindred Scriptures which meet and help us while passing through the world which, through grace, has become to us a desert, we can well understand that the saints of a coming day will draw much from Romans, Colossians, and Ephesians, and other Scriptures, to deepen their souls in the apprehension of the wealth of the glory of God. "Behold God is my salvation; I will trust and not be afraid: for the Lord JEHOVAH is my strength and song, He also is become my salvation, Therefore with joy shall ye draw water out of the wells of salvation."