THE ELECT OF GOD
[p. 262] THE CALL OF GOD AND THE LAND OF PROMISE
Genesis 12: 1 - 20; Exodus 15: 13 - 18; Joshua 5: 10 - 12
We have to bear in mind a principle laid down in the New Testament, that things which happened aforetime were types, and are recorded for our admonition, on whom the ends of the world are come. They were types of what was to come to pass in the present time. Everything looked forward to the time when God would take in hand to accomplish the purposes of His will, and a very large number of things in the Old Testament are recorded in view of this for our admonition, that we through patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope.
It is in that way I take up a circumstance or two in connection with Abraham. Evidently Abraham is a striking figure in the ways of God. He occupies a place which no other person occupies in Scripture. He is one of the great landmarks in the ways of God, and the place he has is unique. He is the father of the faithful and was called the friend of God. I think if terms of that kind are applied to Abraham you may be sure that he occupies a conspicuous place, and further, he is the first instance in Scripture of the call of God.
You see previously instances of men of faith, that is, having light from God. Abel had light from God, so too Enoch, but we do not read of Abel or Enoch being called. They are borne witness to in the New Testament as men of faith; they pleased God in that sense, but the call of God had not come in. I think the call of God did not come in until the world had virtually become apostate.
The building of the tower of Babel was an indication that the world had become apostate, had turned away [p. 263] from all that was known of God. Babel meant a great deal on the part of man. They proposed to build a city and a tower, to make a name for man, and one thing or the other must stand, God’s name or man’s name. You cannot have the two together. Men try hard to have them together. If God’s name is to be anything, there is no name for man. On the other hand, if man has a name there is no name for God. I understand name in Scripture to indicate in a general way, renown. Man would build a city for his own renown. But all things are of God, and God operates all for His own glory. He will never work for the glory of man save in Christ, and the glory of Christ Himself is the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
Thus the call of God comes in at a peculiar moment when the world had turned apostate. God scattered men and prevented the purpose of man from being effectuated. He had shewn his hand, that is, what he would do. The principle really comes to a head in Antichrist; but as early as Babel man had shown his mind; and God answers this by the call of Abram, and this call indicated a new point of departure. There were three features about it: Abram was called out from the country and kindred and father’s house, he was called to the land of promise, a land that God would give him, and there God would bless him. These are the three salient points in the call of Abram.
God was not dealing with Abram in the way in which He deals with us; there was no gospel presented to Abram; he knew nothing about the grace of God or the kingdom, for it was not yet established. He knew little about salvation; the one thing which God addressed to Abram was a call. God addresses us in His grace, making known to us His mind toward all in the forgiveness of sins, and salvation from the power of the enemy. God has approached us in that way. We never learnt in the first instance the call of God; what we learnt was the grace of God. The [p. 264] grace that freed us from the fear of judgment to come, and wrought to deliver us from the god and prince of this world, making known to us the name of the Lord Jesus.
But God’s way was different in the case of Abram, for the gospel was not presented to him. He had first a call from God, and glad tidings of blessing followed on that.
I will shew you presently that the gospel contains the call of God; it is hid in it. God has all along been calling: “Whom he did predestinate, them he also called”. But He does not present Himself to us now exactly in the call, but in the truth of the gospel, that is, in the testimony of His grace. The candle brings to light the lost piece of silver; Luke 15.
God called Abram out of country and kindred and father’s house, because God was not there. God had set His mind on Abram; had blessing for him, and therefore called him out of the scene where He Himself was not. Where Abram dwelt men had turned idolaters, and certainly God was not there. Idolatry must shut God out. The time will come when God will crush idolatry, but in the meantime it shuts God out. Had He been there, He would not have called Abram out, and that is always the meaning of the call of God. He calls out from every influence of this world, for every such influence is antagonistic to God. It is vain to think that it is otherwise. The world is an evil world, and every element of it opposed to the influence of God. The Lord Jesus said, in Luke 14, “If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple”.
God called Abram out into a land of promise. As a matter of fact, Abram hung back, for when he came out he brought his father with him, and that detained him on the road, so that he did not really get into the [p. 265] land until his father was dead, until that link was broken. But Abram was called into the land which God was going to give him for an inheritance. It was literal land in the case of Abram, for it meant the land of Canaan. In our case the land of promise is not literal, and does not give us a position on this earth. God’s thought is to bring us into the land of promise to survey the whole extent of His purposes in Christ — the breadth, and length, and depth, and height. That is the land of promise in the case of Christians. To Abram it was a land flowing with milk and honey; it is not quite that to us. It was God’s land.
And further, God would bless Abram. I have no doubt that the blessing of God pointed on to life eternal. Abram was called unto life eternal, he is presented to us as the subject of the call of God; at the same time he is the father of the faithful, and we apprehend him as the type and figure of the heavenly man, a stranger and pilgrim on earth. You can appreciate the reality of the heavenly calling in the case of Abram. He became the head of an earthly family, but brings before us the truth of the heavenly calling. Abram looked for nothing on earth; he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God. I never knew a city on earth that rested on moral foundations. Hence we have no continuing city. I do not care for a city built in a swamp on piles. Abram sought a better, that is, a heavenly country, “Wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God: for he hath prepared for them a city”. I only refer to this to shew that Abram’s calling was in principle heavenly.
But to refer for a moment to Abram’s response to the calling; Genesis 12: 4 - 10. Abram came into the land, but he did not enter into possession of the land of promise, that is, he did not enter into the present enjoyment of the things promised. All that he had there shewed that he was a stranger and a pilgrim; he [p. 266] had an altar and a tent. If I speak of a Christian in his outward life, that is all that he has; this comes out in the last chapter of the Hebrews, that is, we have gone forth to Christ without the camp, bearing His reproach, but we have an altar; that marks the Christian down here. Pilgrims and strangers having a place of communion with God, but that was a very different thing from entering into the enjoyment of the promised land. God calls Abram afterwards to survey the land, but it is clear that he did not enter into the enjoyment of the land. I think there were two reasons for this: first, the Canaanite was there, and secondly, there was a famine in the land. The famine was perhaps consequent on the Canaanite being there. If you are to get abundance, it needs that the power of evil shall be subdued. That is what led me to the other two passages that I read.
When God set Himself to fulfil to the seed of Abraham His promise, He delivered Israel and brought them into the wilderness, and what then took place? Fear fell upon all the inhabitants of Canaan. They were ready to melt away. The dread of God’s power fell upon them, and when the Israelites came into the land we do not read that they found a power, but that the inhabitants of the land were in dread of them. When they came to Jericho the walls fell down before them, and when they came up into the land everything was changed; they ate the old corn of the land, and the manna ceased. So far they came into enjoyment, as eating the produce of the land, because the power of God was before them; He had broken to pieces the power of the enemy. God gave a great testimony to His power on behalf of His people in that when the people compassed the walls of Jericho, the walls fell down, and the people went up straight before them, and found no power. Now I think you will see the great contrast between the children of Israel and Abram in that respect. In the time of [p. 267] Abram the Canaanite was in the land; four hundred and thirty years had to elapse before the fulfilment of God’s promise, because the iniquity of the Amorites was not yet full. It was impossible at that time for Abram to enter into the enjoyment of the land; but when God put forth His power, the fear of God fell on the inhabitants of the land, and the children of Israel went up and ate the old corn of the land.
Now I do not pursue the history of Abram further. It has often been noticed that he went down to Egypt and lost in a sense his usual pious life; he had neither tent nor altar in Egypt. I doubt if he was divinely guided to Egypt; he went there as a matter of prudence, for sustenance. His profession, to that extent, was obscured during his sojourn in Egypt.
I come now to the call of God in regard to ourselves, and I ask you to turn to Galatians 1: 15, 16; chapters 3: 26 - 29, and 4: 4 - 7. The apostle is seeking, as I understand it, to save the Galatians from the bondage into which they were in danger of falling, bondage to legalism, and the flesh, and he recalls them by bringing before them the call of God. He does not bring before them the first principles of the gospel, but shews them the way in which Gentiles are brought into the line of Abraham; for, as we have seen, Abraham was the first of the line of the call of God, and the object of the apostle is to shew them that the call of God was intended to bring them into the line of Abraham. He does not bring before them the establishment of the kingdom, the Lord Jesus at the right hand of God, the grace of God and forgiveness of sins, and salvation; he does not go back to the elements. I suppose they had received the elements of the gospel. There had been given to them, no doubt, a full testimony of the grace of God, and they had received further the gift of the Holy Spirit. Now the strange thing was that, having received the gift of the Holy Spirit, they were desiring to go to law [p. 268] and circumcision, and the apostle seeks to recover them by presenting to them the call of God. The important feature of the gospel is that in it is hid the call of God; God’s part is to call, our part is to answer to His call. God is content with nothing short of that, that we should hear and respond to His call. God is not content with our being saved from the fear of judgment to come; that is not exactly the call of God. God presents the glad tidings of forgiveness of sins to all, but that is not God’s purpose; it is in the line of His grace, but it is hardly His call, or the purpose of it.
Now, in the beginning of this epistle, the apostle comes at once to the call of God. “When it pleased God, who separated me from my mother’s womb, and called me by his grace, to reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him among the heathen” — that indicates the call of God. It was God expressing His love in His Son, in order that souls might be brought into sonship. It is not the glad tidings of the grace of God or the kingdom, but what lies at the back of all, the presentation of God’s love, in order that we might be brought, in the sense of God’s love, to the reality of sonship. It is of all moment to apprehend the call of God in that light. You get the thought of it in John 3: 16, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life”. The call of God comes out especially by the Apostle Paul, God revealed His Son in him to that end. And the apostle in chapter 3 says, “Ye are all God’s sons by faith in Christ Jesus”. He speaks of that into which the call of God had brought them, and in the next chapter the same truth is brought out. “When the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, come of woman, come under law, that he might redeem those under law, that we might receive sonship” — that is the call of God.
[p. 269] Not remission of sins, or standing in the grace of God, but sonship, that is, that being affected by the love presented in the sending forth of God’s Son, we might come into the reality of sonship. “Wherefore thou art no more a servant, but a son”.
In the tendency to defection and departure on the part of the Galatians, it is striking to see how the Spirit of God set to work to recall them.
It might have been argued to them by false teachers that if circumcised they would come into connection with Abraham, but that was not the divine way; that is, that being affected by the love presented in the sending forth of God’s Son, they came into sonship, and if so they were Christ’s, and thus Abraham’s seed and heirs according to the promise. Gentiles could not be the seed of Abraham after the flesh, circumcision would not make them that; they are the seed of Abraham by being Christ’s. If you are Christ’s, you are inseparable from Christ, and so Abraham’s seed. To be Christ’s is to be united to Him, and he that is joined to the Lord is one spirit. The apostle’s object was to shew the Galatians that God had His own way of bringing the Gentiles into the line of Abraham, and this was by their answering to the call of God.
Tendency to defection proves that saints are not affected by the love of God. If they were, there would not be defection. The love of God is better than anything you can get in this world. I would rather be the subject of the love of God than have all that the world can offer. God’s love can do far better for me than all the wealth of the world, for if I had this, I am still under death, and must leave all when I leave the world.
The Galatians were in fact allowing a great deal that was contrary to the Spirit of God, biting and devouring one another. They were giving license to the flesh, and hence the apostle had to say to them [p. 270] that the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; the love of God was but poorly appreciated by them. The Spirit sheds abroad the love of God in the hearts of the saints, but the Galatians were hindering the Spirit.
Now, as we have seen, in entering into the call of God you come into the line of promise. The grace of God brings us into the wilderness; the love of God brought Israel into the land. It does the same for us, that is, into sonship. Sonship belongs to the land of promise; things are complex with the Christian, for while actually in the wilderness he is in spirit in the land of promise. The call of God refers to the land of God’s promise, that is, of His purpose. As a matter of fact, we are in the wilderness during the whole of our sojourn in this world. The wilderness is where God disciplines us, and it is there we have a tent and an altar. But we are in the land of promise, and the Canaanite is not in power. And further, there is no famine there; that is as true to us as it was to the children of Israel; it was not true to Abraham. When he came into the land the Canaanite was there.
In Ephesians 4: 7 - 13 the point is that Christ has led captivity captive; He has ascended far above all heavens to fill all things, and He having gone there, we have a pledge of the overthrow of all evil power. He is the head of all principality and power. It is said in Hebrews 2, “But now we see not yet all things put under him. But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour; that he by the grace of God should taste death for every man”. The power is taken out of the hand of the enemy, Christ is ascended that He might fill all things; that is the meaning of His ascension. The Canaanite is no longer in power. The Lord said as to Satan, “I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven”. Christ is superior to Satan; He will bruise Satan under our [p. 271] feet shortly. There is nothing that can compare with the power of Christ, not all the power of the universe can compare with the power that He has as Man at the right hand of God. We wait for Him from heaven as Saviour, to change our body of humiliation, that it may be fashioned like unto His body of glory, according to the working whereby He is able even to subdue all things unto Himself. His power does not come out yet in a public way, so that man can take account of it. It comes out in gift, and the object of gift is that you may be conscious that there is no famine. You may rove about the land of promise, in the consciousness that Christ is above all adverse power, and Christ uses His power in order that His people may be ministered to, so that there may be no lack. When the Lord Jesus was here on earth, where He was there was no need. In the wilderness, with a multitude and only seven loaves and two fishes, there was no need, and where He is in power there is no need to His people. According to His power at the right hand of God He has given gifts to men down here; “Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God”. We are being brought into the unity of the faith, and of the clear knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect Man, to the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ. We are led thus into the apprehension of the truth of Christ’s body, for that is what I understand by the fulness of Christ. He is set forth in His body. That is the end that God has in view. There are two things true of Christians in the calling of God: one is that they are sons of God according to His eternal purpose; and the other, that they are the body of Christ. In the one we are companions of Christ, but that is not all the truth. Those who are the sons of God, the brethren of Christ, are the body of Christ, that is, they are that in which Christ is expressed. That is the place which the church occupies down here. On the one hand, a [p. 272] worshipping company, in association with Christ, the sanctifier and the sanctified are all of one, and on the other, Christ’s body, that in which He is set forth in the world from which He has been rejected, that is what God has brought to pass, that there might be a presentation of Christ on this earth. You can understand the church could not be His body if it did not stand in relationship with Him; the members must be of necessity the brethren of Christ.
I think the church is here as a kind of pledge that Christ is going to fill all things; that cannot be unless there is complete separation from the world. It would be wonderful if Christians understood their calling, the place which the call of God has given to them in association with Christ, and that they are left here that Christ may be expressed in them.
One word more — you have to remember that Satan is no longer in power. Christ is now in power, and the power of Christ which will eventually subdue everything to Himself is connected with the gifts which Christ has given, that there may be no lack to His people; they are ministered to, and built up, and grow up in all things to the Head, which is Christ.
May God give us to apprehend His calling!