2 CHRONICLES 13 (FROM CAC'S NOTES)
2 CHRONICLES 13 (FROM CAC’S NOTES)
Every reader of this book must have noticed how the principle of recovery runs through it. It is seen even in Solomon because before he began to reign he had married an Ammonitess. His purpose to build the house therefore was evidence of personal recovery.
In Rehoboam we see one humbling himself under the government of God, and obtaining mercy so that he was not destroyed altogether. But we are told that “also in Judah there were good things”, 2 Chronicles 12: 12. This was after they had all forsaken the law of Jehovah and Jehovah Himself. So that we see a movement of recovery. But in Abijah there is, in this book, very decided evidence of recovery. In Kings we see nothing but evil in him, but here he is seen, as a man of faith, holding firmly to divine order and to the priestly service of Jehovah. So that he will not compromise at all with Jeroboam, who is simply, in his eyes, a rebel against the kingdom of Jehovah and the king of His appointment. The defection of the ten tribes was God’s government upon the evil that had come in and, outwardly, it was occasioned by the folly of Rehoboam. But it did not, and could not, set aside the fact that Jehovah had given the kingdom over Israel to David and to his sons. Abijah went back to the divine order, and this is always a mark of true faith. Faith would always fall back on the lordship and headship of Christ: all rights belong to Him. All the departure that has taken place, and the solemn results in the government of God, which we may have to own and suffer from, cannot set aside the original [p. 387] appointment of God. All Israel should have known that Jehovah gave the kingdom over Israel to David and his sons for ever. Whatever rose up against this was an act of rebellion. “The kingdom of Jehovah” was in the hand of the sons of David. We see authority usurped by popes, patriarchs, bishops and clergy and ecclesiastical bodies of different kinds, and all this has come about by God’s government upon terrible departure.
When recovery is granted all this is seen to be rebellion and to be accompanied by idolatry. It all sets aside the divine order, and the service of those appointed to carry on the divine service.
Abijah dwells on the priests, the sons of Aaron, and the Levites. All had been replaced in Israel by a human order of priests, but not with those to whom Jehovah had granted recovery. There is no more striking case of recovery than we see here from verse 5 onwards. There is recovery to God, and to all that rightly belongs to His service. The priests are there spiritually kindred with Christ, and the Levites are the firstborn ones who serve as having their portion in heaven. It is said “the Levites are at their work”. That is, the whole order of service, as appointed by David, was going on. The morning and evening burnt-offerings, the incense, the loaves upon the pure table and the candlestick of gold with its lamps. The things were all actually going on: it was not a poor, second-rate substitute. The most Rehoboam could do was to replace golden shields by bronze ones (2 Chronicles 12: 10). But all here is at the highest level, each day beginning and ending with the most blessed sense of acceptance in Christ, the sweet incense speaking of continual intercourse with God in prayer and the loaves expressing what the saints are as sustained in the life of Christ before God. Finally, there is the ministry by the Spirit of all that is in God’s mind to bring about for His own glory: “For we keep the charge of Jehovah our God”. It is nothing to our credit if we do: it is simply by His mercy in granting recovery. We simply answer to what is in His mind for all saints.
Then he says, “We have God with us at our head”. That is in a military sense as leading against all that is opposed, with the trumpets sounding an alarm against all enemies! It seems as though God exercises His power in a remarkable way to show what He could do in recovery at a time when apostate conditions had apparently overwhelming power. It was “because they relied upon Jehovah the God of their fathers”. His presence before them ensured that they went into battle with a shout of triumph.
It would be very interesting to have the treatise of the prophet Iddo who recorded the rest of the acts and ways and sayings of Abijah. But its absence shows that the true chronicles are written in heaven and we must wait to read them there. God would impress us with His ability to bring about recovery. The book is full of that suggestion, and perhaps Abijah is the most striking instance of it.