(2) THEIR BLESSING
([p. 279] 2) THEIR BLESSING
Numbers 23: 11 - 24; Romans 8: 23 - 30
We have previously seen that unvaryingly, since the time of Babel, the beginning of God’s dealings with man has been a call. Abraham was called out from his country, his kindred, and his father’s house. If God had been in these things, He would not have called him out from them. He called him out that he might be with Himself.
Predestination is the purpose in God’s mind. In carrying out His purpose there are three steps: “Whom he did predestinate, them he also called; and whom he called, them also he justified; and whom he justified, them he also glorified”. We have seen how the first of these is found in Balaam’s first prophecy: the people had been called out of Egypt, and were not to be reckoned among the nations. Man’s relation with God begins when he listens to God’s call. He cannot be justified until he listens to the call. It is a great mercy in this world that God does call. This is what the gospel is. Though I could not have explained it, I felt when I first listened to the gospel that it was a call out.
Now we come to the blessing of the people. In the previous prophecy we see that there is no curse: “How shall I curse, whom God hath not cursed?” Now we find that God has blessed: “God is not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent: hath he said, and shall he not do it? or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good? Behold, I have received commandment to bless; and he hath blessed; and I cannot reverse it”. We must take this up at the point in the history of the people at which it occurred. “According to this time it shall be said of Jacob and of Israel, What hath God wrought!” It was when the wilderness journey was over practically. In it the people had done very badly indeed, but what had GOD wrought? God works according to His own purpose. In Abraham’s day He made known His intention to bless. The effect of law was to bring man under curse, but God anticipated law by shewing four hundred and thirty years before that He meant to bless. The blessing is that God accounts the believing man righteous. He accounts man righteous in view of Himself and of the world to come. It is the blessing of Abraham which the apostle refers to in Romans 4 and Galatians 3.
There was, as one might say, an ideal Israel before God, and in regard to it He could say, “He hath not beheld iniquity in Jacob, neither hath he seen perverseness in Israel”. So also in regard to ourselves, men may see perverseness in us, but God has cleared us from every reproach before Himself, and in view of the world to come.
Though four hundred years before the law God had shewn His purpose to bless, yet when He had brought Israel out of Egypt He saw fit to test them, and therefore they were placed under law. There was wisdom in this, for it brought out that the seed of Abraham after the flesh was no better than any other flesh; they were a wicked people under law, and the law could have no other effect than that of bringing them under curse. This point is shewn in Galatians. But the introduction of law to test the people could not set aside God’s purpose to bless. It shewed what is in man, and therefore it is evident that God does not bless on the ground of what the flesh is. It is not the seed of Abraham after the flesh that He blesses, but the seed of Abraham after the Spirit. Israel will not be blessed in the future as after the flesh, but as being the children of God as well as of Abraham.
To understand the ways of God it is of vital importance to see the two things which He brings in at the [p. 281] close of the wilderness, the brazen serpent and the springing well. In the former of the two we see the way in which God saw fit to set aside the curse. It is the type, Christ crucified. It is written, “Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree”. Thus was Christ made a curse for us. The condemnation went with the man that was under it. God has condemned sin in the flesh. That is not forgiveness. A man might be forgiven, and after forgiveness remain exactly the same man that he was before. That which is condemned is ended. It is in this way God meets the curse of a broken law. In John 3: 14 we have the brazen serpent, “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up”. There is, in His sacrifice, the end of the man who was under the curse, and now a new thing comes in, the Spirit is given, as the Spirit of another Man, the Spirit of Christ. After the brazen serpent came the well, to which they sang, “Spring up, O well”. Consequent upon the cross the Spirit has come to be in the believer a well of water springing up to eternal life.
Christ crucified, as set forth in 1 Corinthians 1, is the ground on which God has been enabled to communicate the Spirit. Christ having taken the place of the curse in order that He might remove the curse. We have now the Spirit of another Man, and are to be formed in love by the Spirit. Our line of descent is from Christ. We were in Adam, but in Adam all died; now by God’s grace we trace our descent from another Man. In His death all that we were was ended; as raised from the dead He is the second Man, the beginning of a new stock. We trace our pedigree from Him, and there is no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus.
All that came in in the wilderness went out in the wilderness. The law with its curse came in at mount Horeb, and when it had proved all that God intended [p. 282] should be proved by it, the curse was removed in the shape of the serpent lifted up. Now that God blesses His people He does not expect a single thing from us; we have to trust Him, and He has provided for our righteousness. It is a wonderful thing to come to the conclusion that God does not expect righteousness from us, but that He Himself ministers righteousness; we are freely justified in the eye of God, both for Himself and for the world to come. Every reproach connected with sin and this world is completely gone from His people in His eye. Then in the believer there is a well of water which springs up into eternal life. A new man is formed by the Spirit, which grows up to Christ.
After the cross and the gift of the Spirit the question arises, “Is the curse gone?” Balaam’s first prophecy answers, “Yes, the curse is gone”. Then the original blessing to Abraham comes into view, and the question may be asked, “Is the blessing there?” This second prophecy answers, “Yes, the blessing is there”. In Romans there is justification in chapters 4 and 5. The question of law comes up in chapter 7, and in chapter 8 is the reiteration of the blessing. At the close of that chapter the question is considered, Can they be brought under the curse? The divine answer is, “It is God that justifieth”. The curse is gone and the blessing remains.
The glory of man which was sought at Babel, was represented in Nebuchadnezzar, and will come out fully in Antichrist. Man is perverse, and is persistently so. Man in the flesh was ended in the death of Christ, but God was glorified, and the Spirit has been given, a well of water springing up into eternal life. There is only one Man under the eye of God for every one, the One who has superseded man after the flesh. We learn from 1 Corinthians 1 and 2 that the apostle insisted in his ministry on Christ crucified. Now the only man for God here on earth is the spiritual man.
[p. 283] The beginning of our history as Christians is that we reckon ourselves dead unto sin but alive unto God in Christ Jesus. Christ is now law to us, so that we do not seek conformity to ten commandments, but to Christ. The third step is that we have His Spirit, the Spirit of Him who is the head of this new order. We have not only the upper spring, but the nether spring also. God has been true to the principle of His ways, He has not been diverted from it. Though the law came in with curse, it was only to make manifest what the true character of man is. It proved that the children of Israel were just as perverse in the wilderness as ever their fathers were in Egypt; all God’s ways with them, and all the wonders they had seen had not altered them one bit. But now through the brazen serpent the curse has gone and the blessing remains. God expects nothing whatever from us, and He has imparted the Spirit because He expects nothing from us, but wants to produce fruit in us. Only hearken to the voice of the Spirit and you will see what a wonderful work God will perform in you.