THE PROMISES
[p. 247] THE PROMISES
Genesis 12: 1 - 8; Genesis 22: 11 - 19
What I desire, beloved friends, to draw your attention to are the two distinct lines which can be seen running through the whole of Scripture: what may be called man’s line, that is, the line of man’s responsibility; and God’s line, that is, the line of God’s purpose. I believe there is hardly anything more important to us than to apprehend the distinction between those two lines. And further, to see that our souls are really and practically — I mean as to their apprehension — established on the ground of divine purpose. I have thought sometimes of an expression which the apostle used to the Ephesians when leaving them; that he had not “shunned to declare to them all the counsel of God”. And I doubt if a greater service in ministry could be rendered to the saints than to transfer them, as to the state of their hearts, from the ground of man to that of divine purpose. I think there is in type an illustration of it in the case of the children of Israel; while they were in Egypt, in the land of judgment, they were, as to their sense of things, on the ground of man’s responsibility. They were sheltered from judgment by the blood that was sprinkled on the lintel and on the side posts; but subsequently they were set in movement — I believe this began with the passover — and the end of it was they were delivered out of Egypt, brought through the Red Sea, and were in type brought to God, that is, to the apprehension in their souls that they were the objects of divine purpose. If you want the confirmation of it, you have only attentively to read their song when they had passed through the Red Sea. It is all full of purpose: “Thou shalt bring them in, and plant them in the mountain of thine inheritance,
[p. 248] in the place, O Lord, which thou hast made for thee to dwell in, in the sanctuary, O Lord, which thy hands have established”. You have only to study that song to see that it is the opening up of the purpose and counsel of God. They were brought to God, and were the figure and type of the soul being really planted on the ground of divine purpose. What makes me speak of it is this, that the vast proportion of Christians in the world have never, as to their practical state, got beyond the ground of responsibility. They have the sense that the work of Christ has met their responsibility — and they know forgiveness, which is connected clearly with man’s responsibility — but I do not think they are, in their souls, at all on the ground of divine purpose. And the result of it is this, they never break with the world, for the moment a person gets a real apprehension in his soul of divine purpose, he breaks with the world. He is by faith on the ground of God’s will.
I say that much by way of introduction; but I want to show you the thought carried through Scripture, and to speak tonight about the beginning of it, and the circumstances, which, in a certain sense, led to the revelation of counsel. I quite admit you cannot talk about circumstances leading to purpose; but circumstances led to the revelation of purpose, and that is what comes out here. Then I want to carry the thought on, if there be an opportunity on future occasions, to what is developed in the New Testament: for the idea of purpose comes out very much more fully in the New Testament than in the Old. You get it in the way of promises in the Old, but in its scope in the New Testament it carries us to eternity and heaven. I do not mean to say that promises have to do with heaven, but everything which God establishes in heaven is of purpose. Therefore, to take a succession of things, when I come to the New Testament I find the “better hope”, and the “promise of eternal life”, the gift of the Holy Spirit, and the mystery, and the truth of union; all those things are brought out in the New Testament; and every one of them is based on, and all flow out of, the purpose of God. I merely indicate in that way the line which I desire to take. But tonight my thought is just to confine myself to promise; that is, to where we get the first clear and distinct indication of the purpose of God. I do not doubt God had His purpose from the beginning. When we read the Old Testament in the light of the New, we see illustrations of truths of which there was no distinct revelation. For instance, when we see Eve taken out of Adam and brought to Adam, we get a type of the church. So too in Rebekah brought to Isaac, I do not doubt, there is a type of the church. There is no revelation of it, but when we know the truth of these things, we can read these types. They were no good in this way to saints in Old Testament times, but they are good to us. In fact, there is this important point connected with Scripture, that “Whatsoever things were written aforetime, were written for our learning”.
The expression with which Stephen opened his address to the Jews in Acts 7: “The God of glory”, throws a deal of light on God’s dealing with Abraham. I believe, beloved friends, that that single expression is pregnant with meaning: “The God of glory appeared unto our father Abraham”. You remember at the close of his address, it is recorded that he “saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God”. I believe that a vast deal is comprehended between those two expressions, “The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham” and “he saw the glory of God”. What it conveys to my mind is this, that Stephen apprehended that, in spite of and even through the perversity of the Jews, God had gained His end; He was the God of glory, and the glory of God was there in Jesus at the right hand of God.
[p. 250] A wonderful thing! What a grasp of truth Stephen had at that moment! What an illumination he got by the Holy Spirit! The fact is, he was in the truth of his position as a stone in the temple; completely under the power of the Holy Spirit, and the result of it was that he got extraordinary illumination as to Scripture. The test of people is light; that is, if you are in the truth of what you are, in the truth of the temple, as a stone, the effect of it will be that you will get light on the Scripture. Now I believe that the idea of “the God of glory” comes in when things on earth had, so to say, gone to the bad. Then it is that God comes in as One who was cherishing, if I may so say, His own secret purposes, in the accomplishment of which He would be glorified; here in the case of Abraham we get a revelation of purpose; but the purpose existed before. God saw all before Him completely from the foundation of the world, just as eternal purposes existed in the heart of God before the foundation of the world. We were chosen in Christ, it says of Christians, before the foundation of the world. So in regard of everything here upon the earth, I mean as to the disposal of the earth, everything was before the mind of God from the foundation of the earth. You read in the Revelation of those who were written from the foundation of the world in the book of life of the slain Lamb. And at the dividing of the earth, God had in view the tribes of Israel. But then purpose is one thing, the revelation of the purpose is another; and the revelation of purpose came out in promise, when, so far as man was concerned, everything on earth had really gone to the bad. That is the first point I want to establish.
One thing which had come to pass here upon earth before God called Abraham was Babel; and Babel means confusion. The principle of Babel was that man would make himself a name; man was going to have renown springing up here on earth. In the [p. 251] proper working out of it, Babel really means anti-Christ. I see the working out of it in one or two directions in the Scripture; I see it in popery, in the Babylon of Revelation, and in imperial Babylon. I see the principle of Babel in Nebuchadnezzar, he would make himself a name; there was great Babylon which he had built. If man makes a name for himself, God’s name is nowhere. The thought came in very early in the world’s history, soon after the flood. What man said was this, nothing is to be withheld from us; we will make a name for ourselves. But what that means in the long run is this, that God is to have no place at all upon earth. So we read in the Thessalonians, that the man of sin opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God or is worshipped. There will be no toleration of the name of God, it will not be allowed upon earth. That is the climax of Babylon. Man has taken the place of the Holy Spirit in the ecclesiastical Babylon, there is no place for God there; and in the imperial Babylon, man will have a place and a name.
Another thing comes in in intimate connection with it, and that is idolatry; because we find that in all that state of things, man is not self-supporting; he wants some spiritual power behind to support him, and he gets it. When Nebuchadnezzar made the image of gold, and commanded all the earth to worship it, who can doubt that the devil was behind? It was the grossest form of idolatry, everybody in the empire commanded to bow down to the image of the empire which Nebuchadnezzar the king had set up. So, too, in the last end of imperial Babylon, man sets himself to be worshipped, in a certain sense takes the place of God here upon earth. Who is behind that? I do not think anyone can doubt. It is like the unclean spirit that, after going out of the man takes to himself seven other spirits worse than himself, and they enter in, and the latter state of that man is worse than the first.
[p. 252] And so before God called Abraham out, although it does not come out in the history, it is mentioned incidentally afterwards, there was idolatry in Mesopotamia whence Abraham was called. But to my mind the important point is, that Babel was there.
Now, beloved friends, that brings me to Abraham; and I would that I might be enabled to show you the important principles that come out in connection with him, for they are principles of vital moment to every one of us to understand. I believe they are principles which reflect the greatest light upon the character of God Himself, and that is the value of them to me. The real value to my soul of a great part of the Old Testament is, that it gives wonderful light as to what God Himself is. We get instructed in the light of the knowledge of God, and we then feel that certain things must be. Argument in this way is right enough, if you reason down from the settled knowledge in your soul of what God is. Then you can see that certain things must be because of what God is.
Just one word with regard to promise and purpose, because I do not think everyone quite understands the connection between the two. As far as I see, promise is not co-extensive with purpose, because promise in Scripture is, in general, connected with the earth, and purpose goes beyond the earth. All the promises of God are yea and amen in Christ; and we are the heirs of promise, but they relate to the earth and to God’s disposal of the earth. We are the heirs of promise, for it speaks in Hebrews of God showing “to the heirs of promise the immutability of his counsel”. What I want to say about the connection is this, that promise is always of counsel. Promise, when unconditional, is the expression of counsel. A conditional promise is different, because a conditional promise involves two parties; but an unconditional promise, such as God gave to Abraham, is the expression of purpose. Nothing can be more important than to bear that in [p. 253] mind. The verse I have quoted proves it: “God, willing more abundantly to shew unto the heirs of promise the immutability of his counsel, confirmed it by an oath”. You could not have any statement more conclusive as showing that the unconditional promise of God is the fruit of counsel. Now what God practically says in the case of Abraham is this: ‘I am sovereign, and I intend to have a man; the world is gone to the bad, but I choose My man. And what is more, the earth is My inheritance, and I will dispose of the earth as I see fit’. That is what man will not tolerate; there is nothing that the human heart hates more than the idea of sovereignty on the part of God; but God is sovereign, and purpose exhibits the sovereignty of God, and the sovereignty of God comes to light when in the thoughts of men God had been displaced. God called Abraham (he was to be the progenitor of Christ), and says, “In thee shall all families of the earth be blessed”. God says, “I will bless”; and what is more, He says, “Unto thy seed will I give this land”. Those are two thoughts of the greatest moment to get hold of in connection with God, for our only solid standing ground is the sovereignty of God in blessing and disposing. I do not think any soul has got any real rock to stand upon until it has got to that point, the sovereignty of God in choosing and blessing, and that God will dispose of the earth as He sees fit: and who is going to quarrel with God? If God had not been sovereign and had not chosen, there would have been nothing but perfect ruin for the whole world. What would have become of the world if God had not made Himself known in this way? I have read the Psalms lately with very great interest, for I see the point of conflict in them is whether the man of the earth or God’s man is to possess the earth. There was God’s man, David pretty generally, and he knew that he was the man of God’s choice, and the question was whether the man of God’s choice was to [p. 254] possess the earth. It is a point of vital moment to every one of us; who is going to have the day, man or God? There would be no blessing for any one of us if God had not made Himself known in sovereignty. He says, I choose a man and I will bless him, but in blessing I am sovereign. More than that, God claims, and claims righteously, the title to dispose of the earth as He sees fit. I have no doubt at all that man at the bottom of his heart quarrels with the sovereignty of God, and with the right of God to dispose of the earth as He will; but God will do it.
I have spoken so far on God’s side; but now I want to speak on Abraham’s side. The principle which marked Abraham, the one simple principle which has obtained ever with the true people of God is this — faith. It is in that way Abraham comes before us, as the expression of faith. If one may so say — though I do not like the term altogether, but I daresay it will not be misunderstood — the one virtue of Abraham was faith; and it is a principle of great importance, because its practical effect is that it links the heart of the believer with God until God establishes His purpose, and at the same time separates it from the world; he believed God and his faith separated him from the world and from kindred; God was the first thing with him.
Now all these are points of great moment when you come to the proper relations of the soul with God, because the soul has to accept the truth that God is sovereign. The world has rejected Christ, Satan is its god and prince, but God is sovereign in blessing and choosing, and we have to accept it. I say unhesitatingly to everybody here tonight, that God would have you believe in Him, in the sovereignty of His purpose to bless, and would have your heart linked by faith with Himself, and separated thus from the course of this evil world. I could bring you plenty of examples of this effect of faith, but you have only to study chapter 11 of the epistle to the Hebrews for yourselves,
[p. 255] and you will see the great and blessed principle of faith running through the world’s history, through the line of the witnesses in that chapter. The effect of it was always to connect the heart with God, and with what I may call God’s world, that is, the world to come; they waited for the coming of the Lord. I have been instructed by what was said to the prophet Habakkuk. If it tarry, wait for it, it will surely come. And what is to characterise us, during the little while? “The just shall live by his faith”. There is the principle. Faith is the principle of life in the soul with God, and for that reason will separate you from the course of this present world.
And, beloved friends, there was another thing which I have before noted, that Abraham was to be the progenitor of Christ, for Christ must come in; for if God was determined to bless, and to dispose of the earth as He pleased; there was that resting upon man here which must first be set aside by the judgment of God. Death and the power of Satan rested upon man, and all that must be removed before God could accomplish His purposes. They were things which could not be effected in Abraham, he could not remove the judgment of God, he could not free himself of death, nor bring in resurrection, and put aside the power of the devil here. Therefore, in Genesis 22, Abraham’s seed comes in to do what could not be done in Abraham. The sovereignty of God, and God’s right to dispose of the earth as He pleased, and faith; all these principles come out in Abraham, but for the removal of the judgment which lay upon man, and the breaking of the power of the enemy, we must look to another than Abraham, and we get that in the promised seed, that is in the true Isaac. For everybody who understands anything at all about Scripture knows that Isaac is a type of a risen Christ. Abraham received Isaac in figure raised again from the dead. In Isaac typically I see Christ offered up in sacrifice to remove [p. 256] the judgment of death which lay upon man, and to break the power of the enemy. That is the wonderful thing which comes to light in the promised seed. Abraham had to learn in some measure, though I do not know how far he learnt it intelligently, that his seed must pass through death into resurrection, in order that the judgment which lay upon man might be set aside. How could there be blessing for man upon earth, or how could you have eternal life upon earth, if the judgment of death were not set aside? How could God bless according to His own heart if the judgment of death were resting upon man? The fact is, we lose sight a great deal too much of the fact that death rests upon man as the present judgment of God. Most people have the idea of judgment to come, but they commonly lose sight of the truth that the wrath of God abides upon man, and death as the judgment of God upon sin. “By one man sin entered into the world and death by sin”; and death is resting upon man’s body. I often think of it in regard to a Christian. What Christ came to do was to relieve man of the judgment which rested upon his body. There is a beautiful illustration of it in the ten lepers; Christ relieved them of the judgment which was upon their bodies; nine went their way, insensible to the benefit in large measure, but the tenth came and fell down at the feet of Jesus, giving Him thanks, and he gave glory to God. He was relieved of the leprosy resting upon his body. So it is with the believer; I am relieved of the judgment which lay upon my body, and the proof of it is, that the Holy Spirit dwells in me.
In the millennium, in the kingdom in glory to which the promises point, men will be literally relieved of the judgment of death lying upon them, and they will enjoy eternal life here upon earth because they are so relieved. It says, “There (in Zion) he commanded the blessing, even life for evermore”. Man will be blessed in Abraham and the true David. Another [p. 257] thing will take place, the power of the enemy will be broken; because, if man is no longer under judgment as to his body, the enemy no longer has the power of death. The two things must go together. When the children of Israel were brought through the Red Sea, the Egyptians were seen drowned in the Red Sea; the people were brought to God, but the Egyptians were destroyed. This is the great importance of Genesis 22. What a wonderful book the word of God is, when you get an apprehension of purpose! In what a striking way are these dealings of God brought before us in type and shadow! And these divine dealings with Abraham all springing from the counsel of God; and then the truth comes out in Genesis 22 of how God would effect His purposes in Isaac; and therefore we have in that chapter the confirmation of the promise. In chapter 12 it is, “In thee shall all families of the earth be blessed”; in chapter 22 it is, “In thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed”. It had to be really in the seed, and hence it is of the greatest moment to see that the true seed of Abraham was Christ; that God’s blessed Son was to become man, the true seed of Abraham after the flesh, in order that He might by death remove the judgment that lay upon man, and break the power of the enemy for ever. Blessed be God it is done, and no more remains to be done. Christ has appeared once in the end of the world, “to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself”; He has accomplished God’s will. The veil has been rent from the top to the bottom; God has come out; the distance between God and man has been completely removed in the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ; and so true is it now to the believer, that his body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. You could not have a greater or more distinct proof of the fact that you are free from judgment before God than this, that your body is indwelt by the Holy Spirit, and is a member of Christ.
[p. 258] One word more. The promises to Abraham, although they were the expression of divine purpose, do not, I think, go beyond the kingdom. What is said in regard to Abraham is that “he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God”, and that he sought “a better, that is a heavenly, country”. But Scripture never tells us that he found them. That he will find them I do not doubt for a moment; but Scripture does say, “Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day” — that is, Messiah’s day — “and he saw it and was glad”. Something at all events was unfolded to him of the glory of the Lord’s day, the kingdom. And I think the promises to Abraham will all be made good in the kingdom. When we come to the New Testament I do not doubt at all that the purpose of God goes beyond what was uttered to Abraham, because there we get Christ in glory, and the church, His body, and other truths, all of which are really the working out of divine purpose.
Now I want to pass on to show you how in the immediate posterity of Abraham we get further light as to the development of purpose. Isaac has a very singular place in Scripture. I have heard it pointed out, and do not doubt the truth of it, that Isaac represents in Scripture the heavenly man; and the moral reason of it is that in type he was raised again from the dead. Then again Rebekah was brought to him, which we can see now to be a type of the church united to Christ in the time when Christ is hid, so to say, from the world. Rebekah was brought to Isaac, and Isaac was comforted after the loss of his mother. When the natural links were broken, Rebekah is brought in. So with Christ, when the links after the flesh were broken with His beloved people, the church is brought to Him in glory. You thus get in Rebekah the idea of the church united to Christ in the time when He is separated from His people, when that link is broken.
[p. 259] I remember hearing it pointed out some years ago, that Isaac had continual contention with the Philistines, and his work was to unstop the wells which his father Abraham digged and the Philistines had filled up. And that is pretty much the work of the heavenly man upon earth, unstopping the wells; that is, there are the wells here, the wells of refreshment, and the work of the Philistines, who were intruders in God’s land, is to stop them up, while the work of the heavenly man is to unstop the wells. That is a very simple work to do; it is not even to dig them, but to unstop them. If we speak of the present moment, the truth is out, but there is always a tendency to bury it again, to stop up the wells. The great thing is to unstop them, so that the people of God may get the benefit of the springing water, truth in its application to the moment.
One word more in regard to the posterity of Abraham. I have spoken about Isaac, and what I think Isaac represents to us in connection with Rebekah; but I come now to Jacob for a moment. Jacob represents to us the head of the earthly people, and Christ is to rule over the house of Jacob for ever. It is Jacob’s house. And then in connection with Jacob we get the twelve heads of the tribes; so that you see what an opening up of truth you have in type and shadow. In Abraham you get the sovereignty of God and His determinate counsel to bless, and His claim to dispose of the earth as He will, and faith on the part of Abraham which has to wait till the time of promise came. Then in the seed of Abraham, you get first in Isaac the type of Christ separated from His natural kindred, and the church brought to Him during that time. Then in Jacob the head of the earthly family, the earthly house, and the twelve tribes, so that in these three patriarchs, these three men to whom promises were made (because they are all included in that), you get the unfolding of the purpose [p. 260] of God in its due order. All the promises were the expression of divine purpose.
And I think it is very blessed to see how God was above all the evil which had come into the world. We see the evil fast ripening; we are not in the days of the beginning of it; there is nothing new under the sun, and what we see at work in the world is only the ripening of the principles which we get in the book of Genesis, whether for good or bad. As has often been said, you get roots in Genesis, and in Revelation you get the fruits. We are going towards the end of things; but the blessed thing for us to know is that God is above all; nothing has affected the determinate purpose of God to bless, and God has His own principles and ways of blessing. What we have to do in the meantime is to wait in faith. “The just shall live by faith”; that is the great principle now, waiting for the coming of the Lord, and the introduction of the world to come which is put under Christ.
Just one word more. The point with the Christian is, as I understand it, that we anticipate the world to come. And shall I tell you how? It is very simple. We are under the Lord, and in the light; no longer in darkness, but in the light. If you study Romans attentively, you will see how it introduces the believer into the blessings of the kingdom. You have got Christ as Lord; you believe in God who raised Christ again from the dead; as in type and shadow Isaac was raised, so Christ is raised in the power of the Holy Spirit; the righteous requirements of the law are fulfilled in those who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit. Individually, in a spiritual sense, the Christian has the blessings of the kingdom; he anticipates the world to come; and the practical effect is, that he is separated from the present world; because you may depend upon it nothing more effectually separates a man from the present world than to be subject in his heart to the Lord. If you confess, with [p. 261] your mouth, Jesus as Lord, the practical effect will be to separate you from this present evil world; because I defy any thoughtful Christian to connect the name of the Lord with this world. The principle is, “Let every one that nameth the name of the Lord depart from iniquity”; and therefore I say, as subject to the Lord, as under the Lord, as believing in God who raised up Christ, and as indwelt by the Holy Spirit and led of the Spirit, the Christian, in his individual path, anticipates and has got the blessings of the kingdom; only, as I said before, not in an outward, but in a spiritual way. Romans, as has often been pointed out, never goes beyond the individual path of the Christian, and the principle that prevails all through the epistle to the Romans is, that Christ is Lord. “To this end Christ both died and revived, that he might be Lord both of the dead and living”. But then if Christ is Lord to me — and thank God, He is so to me and to every Christian, too — I am free of judgment, my soul is connected with His authority and with the world to come, and I am delivered from the present world. I am free of judgment, so that I can be indwelt by the Holy Spirit, and the enemy has in consequence lost power and authority over my soul. Therefore it says, in Romans 12, yield your body to God a living sacrifice, which is your reasonable service. It can be rendered up to God a living sacrifice, in which to prove the will of God, so that, as I said before, in Romans in anticipation the Christian gets the benefits and blessings of the kingdom.
Then there is another thing, he is a son of Abraham, because he is on the principle of faith. He is heir according to promise, that is, when the promises actually get their fulfilment in the time of Christ’s public glory, then we shall inherit with Christ. “If children, then heirs, heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ”.
My object tonight was as simple as could be, to [p. 262] seek to establish every soul here, by the grace of God, on the ground of divine counsel. That is the only solid standing-ground for your feet; and I say that divine counsel is infinitely blessed, and that God’s ways according to His counsel are right and righteous; that God did not intervene in sovereignty in that way until the world had become idolatrous and man sought to make a name for himself. We have to face these things, and that is firm ground to be upon. The more you look into it, the more you will see that; and I say you are upon it if you are really Christians, and I trust everybody I am speaking to is. If you are really a Christian, and subject in your soul to the Lord, and indwelt by the Holy Spirit, you are upon that ground, and are in faith waiting for the coming of the Lord. I can say for myself, truly and honestly, as to the state of my soul, I get at a greater and greater distance from the course of things down here. The scene which is around me here is man’s world or Satan’s world, and my soul recoils from it more and more. I get at a greater distance from all its ways and principles, and I get nearer and nearer to that “world to come”, of which Christ is the Head. It is the blessed path of a Christian, “Now is our salvation nearer than when we believed”. Faith is a most wonderful principle in two ways, as connecting the soul with God and God’s things and God’s world, “the world to come”, and, on the other hand, separating it morally from the course of this present evil world.
May God give to us a greater insight into His counsel. Can you conceive a more gracious expression than that: “God, willing more abundantly to shew unto the heirs of promise the immutability of his counsel, confirmed it by an oath”? What for? “That by two immutable things, in which it was impossible for God to lie” — what? — “we might have a strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us”. Who would not value “a strong consolation”? “That we might have a strong consolation” — because we have got the word and the oath, two “immutable things in which it is impossible for God to lie”. May God give to every one here tonight to see the rightness and righteousness of His way, and to have your souls solidly settled on the ground of divine counsel. Everything connected with your responsibility and mine has been met by the work of the Lord Jesus Christ; but in order that He might plant us on the ground of divine counsel where He would have us. Everything is sovereign there. May God give us to accept it more and more through grace.