PARENTAL INSTINCT AND ADDITION
[p. 83] PARENTAL INSTINCT AND ADDITION
What I have in mind to say, dear brethren, will bear on parental instinct, spiritual instinct, seen in Rachel and Jacob, and will include something on addition. What is to be observed, is that a certain occurrence, which, in the light of subsequent facts had a spiritual import, drew forth certain comments from these parents, the one bearing on addition — Rachel’s remark — and the other on the place and circumstances suited to addition. Rachel says, “Jehovah will add to me another son”; not two sons, but another. She is limited to one more, and hence calls her son, just born, by the name of Joseph, which indicates what was in her mind, “addition”. Jacob immediately says to Laban, “Send me away, that I may go to my place and to my country”. A spiritual occurrence is the basis of this remark, suggesting that Christ had come into his vision in Joseph; and if there is to be any addition to Christ it cannot be in Padan, spiritually it must be elsewhere; that is to say, in Jacob’s own country, in his own place. Adding to Christ in the world is what marks christendom, and so much of the toil of so-called evangelists ends in this increase, additions to Christ in the wrong place. It is “my place” Jacob speaks of now, which was not Padan, and “my country”, which also was not Padan, but Canaan.
Now Rachel’s remark deserves first consideration here because of what was in her mind. “Jehovah will add to me another son”, she says. She had been very urgent as to sons, and had said that she would die if she did not have them. Her maternal instincts for sons were strong, and now that Joseph was born, her own first-born, she says this, “Jehovah will add to me another son”. That is a spiritual remark, for it indicates that whatever she might have understood, it synchronises with the divine counsels that there were to be twelve sons of Jacob. There were to be twelve, not thirteen. Were she simply controlled by [p. 84] her natural instincts, according to earlier facts, she would have expected other sons, but she says “another son”. Her remark synchronises exactly with the divine thought, and so must and should every spiritual remark. If we are under the control of the Spirit we shall be in accord with divine purpose. The nearer we get to God and to the end of our service, the more divine counsels are to us. God has His own thoughts, He is a God of measure; and the number that He seeks is known to Him, and He will have that number, no more and no less.
We are, therefore, dear brethren, working within a realm of certainty, as the apostle Paul at the end of his service says, “For this cause I endure all things for the sake of the elect, that they also may obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory”, 2 Timothy 2: 10. What a realm he was in, speaking thus! He laboured and suffered reproach in relation to it. Maybe it would be said that he should have gone further afield. He had said that he purposed to go to Spain, but we are not told that he went there. Some may have said that he was remiss, and that he was imprisoned on account of that, but it was not so. He laboured and suffered reproach; whatever people thought, whatever reproach may have been heaped upon him, he laboured that the elect might obtain the salvation that was in Christ Jesus, and that with eternal glory — what a great thought! Not simply being saved as by fire, he had a greater thought than that in his service, although he says there is a possibility of that, but his thought was that they might “obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory”. So it is that the divine number is to be secured. This does not set aside that the righteousness of God is “unto all”. The gospel is to all, but nevertheless there are those that are called the elect, and they are to obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory. What a salvation is that to my soul! You do not want anything less than that. It is not that they might obtain forgiveness of sins simply, although that is a very great matter, but [p. 85] that they might obtain salvation which is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory. There will be additions on those lines. Hence Rachel had no other thought than one other son, that is, the twelfth. She had him with sorrow. The accomplishment of divine thoughts, in the sense I have spoken of, lay with her, but it was with sorrow. She died at the birth of Benjamin, showing the lines on which God is working, as the apostle says, labouring and suffering reproach. Indeed that apostle is about to die for the truth, and die he would for the truth. It is surely worth dying for; and so Rachel suffers and stands out in that way as a type of a mother in Israel, which is another great matter.
There are not many so styled, nor is she, yet she stands out because of this spiritual remark, and because of the mention of her in the prophets, “Rachel weeping for her children”. That is another thing that God honours, weeping for her children because they are not. The Spirit of God carries the thought further into the New Testament, where it speaks of the sorrowful incident of Herod’s murderous destruction of the first-born in Bethlehem, near which Benjamin was born. It was the place of Rachel’s sorrow. She named him ‘son of my affliction’. The last of Jacob’s sons is the son of his mother’s sorrow, but also the son of his father’s right hand. These two things go together and come in in the last days — maternal experience of sorrow intelligently expressed as Rachel dies, for she says, “Son of my sorrow”. She little thought of that perhaps when she said “Jehovah will add to me another son”, but there it was. Nevertheless, there was the promised addition — and what an addition! for he was the son of his father’s right hand! So that we have in Benjamin the complete number, that number by which the right hand of God can accomplish its desires. For the twelve alludes spiritually to the working out of love. It is a great divisible number, suggestive of manipulation, and love works on those lines, disposing of each brother and sister according [p. 86] to what there is in wisdom, and there is no complaint — each is in his place.
Rachel has a great place in that way, and I am speaking of her so that we might take in what the maternal idea is in this great matter of addition. If there is to be addition, this is the thought — discernment as to what is needed; for there is so much needed, and then suffering so that the need might be supplied. For there must be suffering. The Lord Jesus has brought about the counsels of God by suffering and the greatest servant is spoken of in that way; “I will show him how great things he must suffer”, the Lord says. Paul was a true Benjaminite. He was the son of Benjamin and he corresponded with the maternal thought in his mother, for she was his mother in suffering, so that the complete number should be there. Whatever that number may be, whether it be for the meeting, the service, or the full accomplishment of the counsels of God, it must be attained; and so she says, “Jehovah will add to me another son”.
Now much has to be stated both on her account and on Leah’s account. They two, we are told in the book of Ruth, built the house of Israel, a great matter. That is not building with wood, hay and stubble. These two women built the house of Israel. And so Leah begins with a son, it is the first great thought in this family. Sonship is the great thought governing the counsels of God, whether they be the heavenly or the earthly, for sonship applies to the earthly as it does to the heavenly. For us, that is, for those who have part in the heavenly calling, it has a greater significance, for it underlies that wonderful movement spoken of in Revelation 21, the heavenly city seen descending from God out of heaven. It is an act of her own. What grace, what liberty, what dignity in that movement! Israel will have no such greatness, but nevertheless the word applied to Israel was, “Let my son go”: the message sent to Pharaoh, “Let my son go, that he may serve me”; and the apostle Paul says of them, “to whom pertaineth the adoption”. This [p. 87] great thought of God was applied to them. So that the idea of sonship applies to Israel, but not in the full glorious sense in which it applies to us who have part in the heavenly calling. And it begins here, as I said: Leah says as Reuben is born, ‘A son’. What feeling entered into that! It was not accidental. It was not a mere natural thought, it was the great thought of God. Of course, she could not have understood it, but she says, ‘A son’. The whole scene is to be filled with that relationship.
Then the next child is one who hears. You can see how the sons of Jacob set out consecutively the divine thoughts amongst the brethren. First we have the great thought of sonship that must dominate all. Then the next is the person who hears — Simeon, for if God sets out His thought in Christ, the thing is to take in what is in His mind as to that thought. “He that has ears to hear, let him hear”. Then we have Levi, the servant; also representing the heavenly family, his name signifies united. There is the idea of union in Levi. Judah was the fourth son of Jacob — praise. The divine thoughts are thus opened up to us in this family. Praise, that is what Judah means. How glory fills the scene as we can see it now, and how glory after glory filled the scene in that house! Incongruous indeed, the maidservants coming in, but nevertheless the glory was there. And then Dan comes in to judge. One of the most important things in the divine economy is the ability to judge. And then we have Naphtali. Gad, Asher — each one of them adding his own quota to this wonderful domain of glory, the family of God; all to be opened up in due course as the apostle Paul says, “the testimony to be rendered in its own times”. Genesis is like a seed plot, as has often been remarked, and the beautiful fruit of the divine sowing is manifested as time goes on under the nurture of God, for Jacob is said to have been a field. “See”, says Isaac, “the smell of my son is as the smell of a field which Jehovah hath blessed”, and here it is opening up. And so we get Asher, a blessed happy man; and we get [p. 88] Issachar, hire; and Zebulun, dwelling. We get a daughter too, Dinah, whose name corresponds with Dan — the feminine side in judgment, for the sisters are to have a true judgment about things in the care-meeting, as the brothers have. If they are interested they will find out what takes place, for they should know so as to be in accord with the decisions reached. And lastly here we have Joseph, as if God waited to bring in the spiritual thought in him, so that the whole family should be lit up with the glory of Christ. As it shines in, everything is lit up.
“For heavenly light makes all things bright,
Seen in that blissful gaze”.
Rachel saying “Jehovah will add to me another son” involves that there is to be completeness in this matter. God would have our minds run in this channel. It is a scene of glory opening up to us, and we can see it now by the Spirit and the incoming of Christ, for Joseph is typically Christ, the great spiritual thought casting its rays on all that had preceded it. Peter says, “going he preached to the spirits which are in prison, heretofore disobedient, when the long-suffering of God waited in the days of Noah”. The light reflected backwards and forwards is Christ, and there is completeness. Many saints, although they are sons, have no definite divine thoughts, no certainty about things; but God is working on firm ground with a view to completeness. Indeed things are completed already in His mind and it is only a question of time. It is a great thing to get into accord with what God has in His mind — He is graciously opening it up to us, drawing us to Himself to see the completeness of His mind, and how He is reaching it in detail. Rachel says, “another son” — just enough. There are no loose ends in God’s work. There is just enough — one other son. That son comes in in chapter 35, as I have said before, the son of his mother’s sorrow, but of his father’s right hand. Things are ending up that way, and how great a thing it is to be in these matters, to see the perfection of things in the mind of God.
[p. 89] Well now, there are illustrations of this in the Book of Acts, if I may just touch on them. You have in chapter 2, for instance, Christ as risen and glorified, and the Holy Spirit comes down and three thousand are added. All these things awaited the death, resurrection, and ascension of Christ, the presence of the Holy Spirit here and the formation of the assembly, so that three thousand are added. It is not so much there the question of quality as of quantity; nor is it the question of who added them; it is the great thought of addition. That is to say, what was possible. These three thousand were needed, of course. Myriads were needed, but things began well, three thousand were added. Not here “were saved”. That is not the point now, but it appears later. What is before us is the working out of the thought of addition.
In the same chapter you get, “the Lord added ... such as should be saved”. There you get another side of the divine counsel. Not such as would be saved; but such as were to be saved — such as, in the sovereignty of God, would be saved. These were the ones. So that on the one hand you have the great number, and on the other quality. They were persons who had a place in the counsels of God, known of Him before the foundation of the world; for it is said, “whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified”, Romans 8: 30. I quite admit that this statement in Acts 2: 47 alluded to the remnant of Israel that should be saved, but it is the question of the sovereign election of God nevertheless.
The next reference to addition you get is in chapter 5, when judgment had been executed on Ananias and Sapphira. Some may say, Do not be too severe, and of course we never should be unnecessarily severe, but we need to be severe when severity is required, and it is necessary in the case of such a sin as that of Ananias and Sapphira. The root of it was pride, which worked out in united deception in the assembly, and so they suffered the severe judgment of God. It might be said. Brethren [p. 90] will not grow so fast now; there will not be three thousand added any more in one day; but it says in that chapter that “they were all with one accord in Solomon’s porch”. That is where they were, as if they said, We accept that judgment; we regard it as right. Then it goes on to say that multitudes of men and women believed, and “were ... added”. Mark says, “He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved”. These were real believers. You know there are believers and believers. John’s gospel is largely to stress the idea of real believers; that is, persons who are in the state of faith, and remain in the state of faith, and get the benefits of those who are in that state. And so it is with believers in Acts 5. Believers “were added”, great numbers of them, showing that discipline is no detriment to the work of God, but the contrary: it is essential to the work of God. And so believers were added in numbers, both of men and of women. They were added to the Lord. You may inquire what the difference is between the Lord adding, and being added to Him. Well, it is quite obvious that being added to the Lord means that the persons are in accord with the Lord, that there is nothing contrary to the Lord in those that were added to Him. The fact that they were in Solomon’s porch, implying that they were fully recognising the need of the discipline that had been exercised, qualified them to be added to the Lord.
Well, I just touch on those points so that you might see what the filling out of this thought of Rachel’s signifies; how addition is in accordance morally with what it is added to, and at the same time it is just the number required. The result would be exactly answering to the divine thought. And then I want to show you just for a moment how Jacob’s remark fits in. He was affected by the spiritual thought of Christ, seen in Joseph. It is shown in a small way, for he was yet a babe, but there it was. It was spiritual. Joseph fills the eye of faith from this point onwards in the book of Genesis. It is Christ figuratively, and I may say, substantially, for Joseph was [p. 91] not a mere figure. And so Jacob says, We are not in the right place. There are thousands of God’s people like that, in the wrong place. They are God’s people, but they are not separate. They are making money; it may be they are making a name for themselves in this world, and that they have the world before them as a prospect. Jacob had remained in Padan twenty years. The thought of his mother and father in sending him there was not that he should stay twenty years; but now this powerful thought, expressed in Joseph came into his soul. It is the true spiritual thought. What are you going to do now — continue here making money, increasing your cattle? That is what Jacob did, alas, and brought sorrow to himself. The thought was right and spiritual, and he proposed to act on it at once; if he had done so, he would have saved himself trouble, and he had to do it subsequently; if there is anyone here into whose soul has come the precious light of Christ, the next exercise is what are you going to do? Will you continue where you are with your worldly prospects, or will you leave and get into your own country? You do not belong where you are at all. What is our place? Heaven is our place; provisionally, the assembly is our place. The assembly is the reflection of heaven, and it belongs to us. You belong to it, too, if you are a true christian, that is your place provisionally. Heaven is your own eternal place; your calling is heavenly: “the calling on high of God in Christ Jesus”. The assembly is provisionally that, where the enjoyment of heaven is a present reality — and some of you are not there, not in the fellowship of God’s Son. Your prospects are elsewhere, your outlook is elsewhere. As Joseph is born, Jacob, in effect, says, This will not do. Rachel is brought into it, the maternal thought is kept in view: “when Rachel had borne Joseph”. Jacob says, “Send me away, that I may go to my place and to my country”.
The Lord has a word for someone here tonight — it may be for every one of us — as to where we are really [p. 92] in our outlook, in our feelings, in our affections. Are we in our own place? Jacob’s own place, his own country, was Canaan — figuratively, heaven; and if any little bit of light has come into your soul now at this meeting, the idea is that you are to go to your own place. There will be addition. We ought to be looking for that, looking for results from the testimony, from the gospel, but let us be in our own place. Do not add to the world. Christendom, as it is now, is the result of adding to the world what belongs to heaven, what belongs to the assembly. There is not a denomination so-called that, in principle, is not linked with the world. The assembly is based on the idea of being “called out”. “Come out from among them, and be ye separate”, says the Lord. What fellowship has light with darkness, what fellowship has Christ with Belial? We must come out from the world if there is to be addition according to God. Do not add what is of Christ to the world. It is just making the world more respectable. God’s additions, additions to Christ, are to be in His own place. The Lord added to the assembly, or added to what was there of God, such as should be saved. Not to the world, but something quite out of the world. Let no one here conclude that he can have practical part in the holy things of God and remain linked with the world. If you are to be an addition, you are to be in your own place in the assembly. The Lord is appealing, I am sure, to the young christians here at this time; and would affect us by the thought of the light of Christ in Joseph coming into Jacob’s soul. He lingered afterwards, it is true; even as it often happens that a brother makes up his mind at a time like this to move, but some other thing comes in after the meeting, and he does not move. He remains on in the world for some time and adds to his riches, and they are an encumbrance. So that the word tonight is, Move to your own place, to your own country.
May the Lord bless His word.