COVENANT RELATIONSHIPS AND FAMILY RELATIONSHIPS - PART I
[p. 408] COVENANT RELATIONSHIPS AND FAMILY RELATIONSHIPS — PART I
Romans 5: 5 - 11; Romans 8: 14 - 17
It is important to connect Romans 5 with Exodus 19, as it answers to it, and it would help if we were to see that the covenant, which God has been pleased to make, involves a certain kind of relationships and affections. These are in themselves distinct from the relationships and affections connected with the revelation of the Father, which involve the family. We have to do with God in both these connections, and the family connection is the higher, and is that which will abide. The covenant relationships connect themselves with our circumstances here, and stand in relation to God.
I do not say that the family relationships are not connected with God, because God is our Father, but the covenant supposes that at one time we were not in relationship with God, for a covenant is, according to the type, formally entered into; whereas, as children or sons, we are from the outset related to God; as children we are said to be born of God and as sons we are adopted, all from the divine side. It is very interesting that in suggesting the covenant, God condescended to commend Himself to the people, and so in Romans 5 He commends His love to us. In proposing to enter into a covenant with Israel, He called attention to what He had done for them, what He did to the Egyptians, and how He had borne His people upon eagles’ wings and brought them to Himself. God then proposes that if they should keep His covenant and obey Him, certain consequences would follow, as much as to suggest that it was worth their while to enter into a [p. 409] contract with such a God as He was. The bearing of that now is, that as God becomes known in the gospel, the believer is challenged as to whether he is prepared to enter into covenant with such a God as that.
It is the Christian’s privilege to take up everything in relation to God; his family and his business, all is now on that ground. In Timothy we are told that every creature of God is good and to be received with thanksgiving, for “it is sanctified by God’s word and freely addressing him”. That is to say, God is admitted into everything; you do not keep Him out of any part of the sphere for which you are responsible. Obviously we must begin with a certain understanding with God, and this is what covenant suggests.
The earlier chapters of Romans show what God has been to us, and in chapter 5 the suggestion is that it is worth our while to enter into covenant with such a God as this. God is pleased even to commend His love to us, as though He would say, Now you know; so that the soul has an understanding with God. Romans regards us as men here upon earth, once alienated and away from God. Now He has come out to where we were; in this chapter He appeals to what He has done. He commends His love to us, not as His children or His sons, but as those who were sinners, who were without strength. So that it comes to this in one’s soul: Is one prepared to enter into this understanding with God? He has reserved nothing; indeed it is most touching to consider how God has come out unreservedly. He has held back nothing. He said to the people, “Ye have seen what I did unto the Egyptians”, and then He makes the proposal that there should be a definite bond between Him and them. I think it is a most important question to raise in one’s soul as to whether there is that understanding with God; whether, as a responsible [p. 410] person here in this world, there is an understanding with God in the light of the revelation of Himself.
The wilderness takes its character from that. The people who walked in the wilderness were by formal committal, outwardly at least, in covenant relationship with God. They were not simply a delivered people, but were a people with whom God had formed a definite bond. Moses “told the people all the words of Jehovah, and all the judgments; and all the people answered with one voice, and said, All the words that Jehovah has said will we do”; see Exodus 24: 3 - 8.
God intended that He should become an object for the soul. I think that is quite left out in the popular preaching of the day. God’s thought is that, as delivered, there should be an understanding between Him and us, and not only so, but a definite bond to which He has committed Himself to begin with, and to which we also have committed ourselves, because it is in our committal to it that the conscience is brought into play. If you commit yourself to a bond, and you are at all honest, you must be consistent. This chapter shows, in the experience of at least one man, Paul, that he had found it a profitable bond. He had found it worth while to take it up, because this is a triumphant record of his experience. God having acquired a permanent place in the heart of the believer, it is God’s thought that the believer should put out his hand, as it were, and commit himself.
The early chapters of Exodus up to chapter 19 set before us what God has done on His own initiative. The people did not ask to be delivered. He took account of their condition, and on His own initiative He came down to deliver. But in coming down He intimated that the people, as delivered, should serve Him there where He met Moses on the mount of [p. 411] God, mount Horeb, chapter 3. In chapter 19 there is a formal message sent by God through Moses to the people, and Moses delivered the message, and then returned from the people with their answer to God. In that way the contract is sealed in the hands of a mediator. Henceforth the people are not simply a delivered people; they are a people in relationship with God. They have definitely committed themselves to a relationship, a bond with God. Now I think that is what we want to see in Christianity.
In Romans 5, we being sinners and without strength, is all past, just as their circumstances in Egypt were past history, but what I see is the commendation that God gives of Himself. He was pleased to condescend to commend Himself to Israel, so that the people might see that it would be a gain to them to enter into covenant with Him: The idea of the covenant originated with God. It was as much as to say: I want you nearer to Me than you are. That is really what is in it. The law is that by which sin is made known, but behind the suggestion, in God’s heart, there was the desire that His people should be near Him, that there should be a closer relationship than simply knowing God as a Saviour God.
Romans 5 does not contemplate our side. It shows how God has intervened for those once without strength, and who were sinners, and has delivered them. He has shown His love objectively in the gift of Christ His Son. The cross is the testimony objectively to what He is to us. But He has not only done that: He has shed abroad His love in our hearts. “Shed abroad”, or poured out, indicates plenitude: it is in our hearts in fulness by the Spirit, to the end that there should be a people in the world in close relationship with Him and richly responding to Him. The end of the passage says: “through whom now we have received the reconciliation”.
[p. 412] We have received it. We, who were once alienated, are now for God’s pleasure. There is a definite understanding between us and God, and the reconciliation implies that there is no disparity morally on our side, for we are made the righteousness of God in Christ, 2 Corinthians 5: 21.
The love that met our condition remains, and not only objectively, as seen in the death of Christ, but it is in the believer’s heart. James, in Acts 15, shows that God had visited the nations to take out of them a people. There is a people and God. That is not God and His sons or His children, but God and a people. That is the situation outwardly in the world now. In the future God’s law will be written in the hearts and minds of His people, but what we have now is not only that, but His love is in our hearts. God is definitely before the believer, so that he joys in God, and this is brought about by the Spirit. The Spirit sheds abroad the love of God, and in consequence of that there is a drawing near to Him by those who love Him.
You get the idea in Elisha. “Elijah went over to him and cast his mantle on him”, and Elisha was affected by it. He was not quite ready to go, but later “he arose and went after Elijah, and ministered to him”. Now there is a divine touch in every believer’s heart. The question is what are you going to do after that? If it is answered to, there is a turning to God in the soul, and an entering into an understanding with God, which places you amongst His people in this world. The soul commits itself to God, not simply that God should keep and protect you, of course He will, but that you are among a people of whom He is the God, with certain responsibilities attaching to you as amongst that people. This is altogether another matter from your relation with Him as a son and a child. The former is a national thought, you may say, for you have the very expression, “a holy nation”; whereas the latter is a family thought, and hence more intimate. But God never surrenders any thought He introduces, and He has introduced the idea of a people and a nation, and these continue and find their answer in the saints now, for we have the Spirit. You see what it is to be in relationship with such a God as He; as another has said
“In the desert God will teach thee
What the God that thou hast found
Patient, gracious, powerful, holy:
All His grace shall there abound”. (76:6)
The apostle’s word to the Thessalonians was that they had turned to God “to serve the living and true God; and to wait for his Son from heaven”. I think that indicates the position. God is presented to the soul in the gospel, and the question is, whether the light you have of Him is sufficient to induce you to put out your hand, and commit yourself to Him. If you do, it places you among His people, that we “might serve him without fear ... all the days of our life”. That is what is in view in these covenant relationships which exist while we are down here. I do not see that these relationships go into heaven, but refer to what we are as down here, that we are in relationship with God, and our boast is in Him. We were once in the world and had our part in it, and we were not distinct from it, but now we are distinct from it; we belong to a people whom such a God has set apart for Himself.
In Romans 8 we have the Spirit to enable us to answer to the obligation each has committed himself to, so that the righteous requirement of the law is “fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to flesh but according to Spirit”. There is a righteous requirement attached to the position, and the Spirit enables [p. 414] us to comply with it, so that God is honoured in His people.
There is a helpful distinction between the widow in 1 Kings 17 and the widow in 2 Kings 4. The widow that Elijah had to do with had a little meal; it was not yet kneaded into dough; it was a little meal in a barrel and a little oil in a cruse. Whereas the widow that Elisha had to do with had oil in the house; it does not say she had meal. In the former case the meal and the oil would subsist until rain came down from heaven; whereas in the case of the widow in 2 Kings 4 the oil was to increase until there was not a vessel more left. I think the little meal in relation to Elijah rather signifies Christ here, whereas the oil in relation to Elisha in 2 Kings signifies the Spirit here, but the difficulty was that she was not trading with it; she did not make the best use of it, and hence she was in poverty, which is, alas, illustrative of many of God’s people. Although it is really a day of plenty, and they have the Holy Spirit, yet they do not trade, they do not use the Holy Spirit, and hence are in poverty. Elisha says, “Go, sell the oil, and pay thy debt”. It means that you make full use of, give full scope to, the Holy Spirit. It is not enough to have the Holy Spirit; the thing is to use the Spirit, so that there are transactions which I understand to be exercise of soul. You are not waiting for rain from heaven; you are availing yourself of what is here and you are in affluence.
Rain from heaven is a necessity, and God gives it periodically; but you do not want rain every day, and if you are depending on rain, on ministry, there is a danger that you will go without anything, you will often go hungry, whereas if you use the little you have, that which every Christian in principle has in the Holy Spirit, you will have abundance with which to pay your debts and live besides, and will [p. 415] no longer be a public charge. A person who depends entirely on ministry is a public charge. In Christianity no one ought to be a public charge, because the little oil is there in the Holy Spirit. God has paid all your debts. In the cross, God has met everything, adjusted everything in the face of the universe. Now the knowledge of that in the soul leads to the same principle in the believer, and you want to be right, in right relation with everybody. We are set down here to be like God; that is the idea in “a people”. Now, what has God shown Himself to be? He has met every obligation in Christ. On the ground of redemption, every possible obligation has been met and adjusted, and God looks for an answer to that in us. If He is to be God to a people, that people must conform to what He is; hence He gives us the Holy Spirit in order that we might discharge every righteous obligation; for “the righteous requirement of the law should be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to flesh, but according to Spirit”.
When you come to a truly spiritual man he considers for God and Christ and the saints, and goes down to the lowest creature in God’s creation. He considers for everything. You will find that in the book of Deuteronomy even a bird is to be considered. A sparrow does not fall to the ground without God, and the saint is in accord with this. The book of Deuteronomy opens up that in the most remarkable way, but evidently, before you can act in that way, you must pay your debts. I think it is a fine thing to see a man paying his debts and then living handsomely. That is a Christian.
I have often thought about the clean birds and the unclean birds. In Deuteronomy 14 we have the different creatures that are to be used and those not to be used for food, and among these we have a list of unclean birds. There is no list of clean ones;
[p. 416] the unclean ones only are given. Now I refer to it here because it fits in with the covenant and the Spirit, that not only do you pay your debts, but you live handsomely, you have independent means. It says, the Spirit is life, that is, the means of living. The unclean bird I take to represent a man of the world who has worldly means, he is not dependent on anybody, but carries a high head. He soars above the common people. Now the Christian also has independent means, and he is superior, but he is clean, and lowly in his superiority; before he leaves the earth he has discharged every righteous obligation that rested upon him.
Now, the young man that came to the Lord had abundance of means, and the Lord says, “go thy way, sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor”; that is the righteous requirement of the law. He was unequal to this: he “went away grieved”, Mark 10: 22. Selling what he had and giving to the poor, he would have treasure in heaven, but retaining his riches, leaving the Lord at the same time, constituted him an unclean bird. He should not dwell on high, see Psalm 15 and Isaiah 33: 15, 16. No man can leave the earth, according to God, until he discharges every obligation resting upon him. He is enabled to do that by the Spirit, and then he can mount up. You love God with all your heart and your neighbour as yourself. You do not leave any unrighteous conduct behind you, everything is adjusted.
We find these moral obligations in all the circumstances in which we live on the earth. You begin with your house. It is remarkable that in Luke 5, the man who was healed of the palsy is sent into his house, and he comes into his house carrying his bed. That shows that he has means, he has power. His wife and children would regard him as a very different man from what he had been. If you look at it [p. 417] spiritually, the man is sent back into his house carrying his bed, a changed man.
The next character you find is a man who makes a great feast to the Lord in his house. It is the same man really; the Lord can share in this entertainment. These conditions are brought about by the Spirit. The Spirit enables us to provide for the Lord, so that, instead of expecting the wife and children to do everything, you carry things, you are on that line. That maintains happy conditions in the home, and the same thing would apply to the whole circle in which your obligations lie. Thus the enlightened Christian makes a better master or servant. He is enabled to discharge every obligation differently as serving “the Lord Christ”; that dignifies the service; everything is done for Him. When you come to the family of God we read, “as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God”; it is not now that you are using the Spirit to pay your debts, nor to live by, but you are led by Him, Romans 8: 14. The land of Canaan is in view, to speak typically. The Spirit will not lead you to prominence in business, politics, or society. He will lead you out of sight, out of the world entirely, and God knows you thus as a son.
Sonship is not seen in paying your debts, which is a matter of righteousness, but in being led by the Spirit, the Spirit controls us. “As many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God”. It is not the walk in the wilderness that is in view.
It is the walk out of it. The Spirit leads you out of the wilderness, the world, into Canaan. I would connect walk as a matter of wilderness testimony with paying your debts, and in this respect guidance is by the pillar of cloud and the tent of meeting, rather than by the Spirit.
In Romans 8 it is a question of how you are recognised as a son. A son is marked by the fact that he [p. 418] does not consult the flesh; he consults the Spirit. The Spirit is the leading power in his soul; he is led to glory; that is where the Spirit leads us. As thus controlled by the Spirit, we are recognised as in the dignity of sons. Then it goes on to say, that God has not given us the spirit of bondage, but He has given us the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. So that in this the Father is before the soul, it is the family line, the line that leads into the Father’s house, which is eternal.
In Numbers 21 you have a people typically led by the Spirit, and Deuteronomy is on that basis. They are in Moab, which is viewed there as divine territory, not territory in which they are to live, not the territory of family relationship, but the stepping-stone to it. Deuteronomy supposes a people led already by the Spirit, and hence they are prepared for the heavenly side of things, for the land. It is a company of sons, who are led into Canaan. The authority of Moses led them out of Egypt through the wilderness, it is divine authority in leadership.
But Moses does not lead into Canaan. The people that go into Canaan are already led by the Spirit.
The Spirit leads the sons. I do not say that there is not a place for Joshua, because there is. But I think we ought to emphasise the fact that the Spirit leads the sons. “As many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God”.
Deuteronomy is a sort of moralising on all the previous experience of the people. They are referred back to certain experiences in their previous history, and it is pointed out to them what God was to them and what Moses was to them in these circumstances; that is, what God and Christ are to us, and all to the end that we might be induced to go over to where They live, where divine affections flow.
The boundaries having been given in Numbers, in Deuteronomy you have the full extent of the land [p. 419] explained and described, that is Ephesians. The boundaries are really Colossians, you set your mind on things above, not on the things on the earth. The boundary lies in the “not”. For the moment God is moving in connection with heaven, and it is for every Christian to be acquainted with the boundaries of Canaan, so that he may not be found outside of them. I mean that in your mind and heart you are inside the boundaries of Canaan; that is, living in heavenly associations.
The laws and injunctions in relation to Canaan come out more in connection with Moses. You scarcely find in Deuteronomy the expression, “The Lord spake unto Moses saying”. What you do find is what Moses said himself. That is, it is the unfolding of Moses’ personal interest in the people. He loves the people and he is concerned that they might get all the good of the divine purpose, that there should not be anything lacking in them, that they might reap all the benefit of the purpose of God, that they might come into that good land, a land watered by the rain of heaven, a land flowing with milk and honey. He says, I cannot go in, but I want you to go in. Typically, he could not go in because he represented the authority of God. That is the light in which to read the book of Deuteronomy. You will find that the Spirit of God, especially in the opening chapters, greatly stresses the land of Canaan.
Romans and, to some extent, Colossians answer to Deuteronomy. The latter more the entrance into Canaan, giving the boundary between earth and heaven. You are to live on the other side of Jordan. You are to set your mind on things above, not on things on earth. No matter how apparently good anything is on the earth, you are not to set your mind on it. Ephesians contemplates the land possessed: there we are raised up together and made to sit down together in the heavenlies [p. 420] in Christ. The book of Deuteronomy supposes that the spiritual man feels with the whole creation, but at the same time the mind and heart are set on things above; his living associations are in heaven. “Our commonwealth has its existence in the heavens”, Philippians 3: 20.