THE BRAZEN SERPENT, JORDAN AND GILGAL

Numbers 21: 5-9, 16-18; Joshua 3: 2-8, 14-17; 5: 2-5, 8-15; Colossians 2: 8-13, 20; 3: 1-6

It has been before us already to-day that the only way into blessing is through death, by the death of Christ, by the cross. That means not simply that it is the only ground on which God can take up man for blessing—that is perfectly true: if God takes up man for blessing at all, it must be on the ground that all that he is in the flesh has been set aside judicially. That is only part of the truth—we must travel by the way of the cross ourselves, in order that we may enter into the blessing to which God has called us. You and I have to travel that road that we may enter into the blessing to which God has called us in Christ. If we think of Christ Himself, He has gone that way. If He was to associate others with Himself, He must go that way. He became Man that He might die, and by death and resurrection He has entered the place where He now is as Man gone up to God in glory, and there He is the living expression of the mind and thought of God for His people. If that be so we must travel that road. How do we travel that road? It is in the spirit of our minds. We have in our minds to be brought to appreciate the death of Christ in its varied aspects. I want to speak of three of them, typified in the passages I have read.

Canaan for the children of Israel was the land of promise, the place of blessing. God did not take them up merely to deliver them from Egypt and the power of Pharaoh, but to bring them into blessing.

Every one has a history; no one enters on all these things at once. On God’s side everything is complete and secure in Christ, but when we come to enter into what is on God’s side then it is a matter of history.

The brazen serpent we have had before us already, in which the state of man has been judged; we have seen how that has come under the judgment of God, and has been removed from the eye of God. How did we come to the appreciation of that? The brazen serpent was something every one had to see. The blood in Egypt was what God saw; it was not a question of what they could see, but the blood was the ground on which God could come out for His people as a Saviour God, and on which He could establish His purposes of blessing for them. In the brazen serpent it is not simply a question of what God sees in it, but what I see. All that comes in in connection with the exposure of the state of man through the testing under law. The Spirit of God does a work in us by which we are made to realise the need of the death of Christ in all its various aspects. We all have to go through these things. Nobody ever did appreciate the death of Christ without going through this testing. As our brother said this afternoon, many have never got out of Romans 7 because they have never got into it. And why have they never got into it? Through want of exercise and purpose. We all have to learn what we are in ourselves, and to realise that death is upon us. We have to learn what we are as sinful men. Have we all come to that—have we seen ourselves to be worthy of death and nothing but death, that death is upon us as the judgment of God?

There is something more serious even than that, I have to learn that death is in me. There is the utter incapability of the flesh for good. Man goes on battling with sin till he realises this, and cries out, “O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?”, Rom 7: 24. There is nothing but death upon me and death in me: that is the end of the testing. How does relief come? God has taken all this into account. What I have been condemning in myself God has condemned in the death of Jesus. On that ground God can give the Spirit; on no other ground could it be possible, else it would be to put a sanction on man’s flesh. The ground is that He has judged me in all that I was in the flesh, and having done this He has done with it. It is my privilege to reckon myself dead to sin. The Spirit is given that the believer may live in the life of another Man. In the life of that other Man now I can live to God, and that is where I enjoy liberty. That is where liberty comes in, I get living water.

I want to point out, as has been said to-day, that living water is not simply the indwelling of the Spirit. There are many believers to-day who have received the Holy Spirit who know but little of having living water because the Spirit's work in them has been hindered. The living water is the love of God shed abroad in the heart by the Holy Spirit, so that the heart is made responsive to the revelation of God in Christ. It supposes a work of the Spirit in the believer. In John 3, the Lord is the witness, He brought down testimony from heaven. He came down to reveal God, to set forth all that the blessed God is. “What he hath seen and heard, that he testifieth; and no man receiveth his testimony. He that hath received his testimony hath set to his seal that God is true”, John 3: 32. He is the Witness there. In chapter 4, He is not the witness: He refers to what He was the witness to. He says to the woman, If you only knew God in the character of a Giver. He deals with the woman, His hand is upon her, He deals with her to make good the will of God in her. He was dealing with her to make good in her the revelation He had brought down from heaven so that she might become responsive to it, answer to it. The result is she becomes a worshipper. Worship is the response of the heart to all the revelation of God in Christ. In order to this we must know what it is to sit at His feet and hear His word; we must come under His hand. The Spirit bringing home the love of God to our hearts makes us responsive to it, we are formed by the revelation, there is the springing up to everlasting life.

The next point is, what we get in Jordan. Jordan really typifies the death of Christ as that by which we pass out of this world into the scene of life where Christ is. We get the answer to that in Colossians. We get things ministered to us as we really want them. I believe the effect of knowing what Christ has done for us, how He went into all the sorrow and suffering of death to get us free, the effect of that is to awaken affections towards Himself. He becomes the Object of our affections. The apostle says, “the love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all. then were all dead: and that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again”. I am free now. The more I think of His love in dying for me the more free I am, the more I am knit to that blessed Person. Who wants to join Him in spirit where He is? Only those whose hearts are knit to Him. You get a beautiful example of it in Mary Magdalene. He had met with her as Saviour when she was possessed with seven devils and thus endeared Himself to her. When she lost Him she lost everything. I do not believe anybody goes into Canaan if Christ is not more to him than all the world. She had no home, she stood at the grave weeping. Then He said, “I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God”. I am not going to join you in your circumstances, but you shall join Me in my circumstances. She found Him in resurrection, but she followed Him through death. ln spirit she died with Him. That is how it works. The Spirit produces in our hearts desire for Christ. Is Christ more to you than everything in this world, so that you would leave everything here to reach Him and join Him where He is?

Now I come to another point. The thing Joshua commands them is to circumcise the people. Death has to come home to me. We have the antitype to that in Colossians, putting off the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ. What does it mean to put off the body of the flesh? Does every Christian put off the body of the flesh? It is his privilege. When a man is walking after the flesh or making use of its energy, how can such a person talk about putting off the body of the flesh? It comes about in this way, when I find what God has called me to in Christ I find I have something in myself which is a terrible hindrance. The flesh is incapable, it cannot enjoy one of God’s things. If a person walks after the flesh it spoils his taste for divine things. It is only in the Spirit I can have to do with Christ and enjoy heavenly things. It is my privilege to put off the flesh, to accept what has been effected for me in the death of Christ; and to renounce it entirely. I do not think we get rid of the reproach of this world till we take this ground with Christ and renounce the flesh once for all. But there comes another point, it has to be kept up. If this is the ground you have taken, what will be the effect? You will certainly be seeking the things where Christ sitteth. There is no life anywhere else. “Our life is hid with Christ in God”.

“Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth”. The truth has not only to be accepted but it has to be kept up practically. All our weakness comes from the toleration of the flesh; there is not the continual self-judgment. There is suffering in connection with it: we have to suffer in the flesh. If I am to live in the life of Christ and in the sphere to which that life belongs, I must be prepared to suffer. “If ye live after the flesh, ye shall die”, Rom 8: 13. If I am to live in the Spirit I must suffer in the flesh. That is where the Spirit of God would lead us and how He would teach us to suffer in the flesh.

From Notes of readings & Addresses at Quemerford (1906)