PROGRESS IN THE APPREHENSION OF THE THOUGHTS OF GOD
No 2: SONSHIP AND THE FRUIT OF THE SPIRIT
In a previous paper we considered the call of God and His covenant and what these divine thoughts involve practically, viz., separation from the world and the repudiation of the flesh. Now in Genesis 21 things are becoming greater and more distinctive for Abraham, for after all, what we have spoken of in connection with chapter 17, though positive of course in one sense, has a certain negative aspect about it. It is the idea of the cutting off, or disallowance, of the flesh in the power of the Spirit; but when we come to chapter 21, the child of promise, Isaac, had been born; and not only so, but the occasion arises when he is weaned, and “Abraham made a great feast”. That is to say, the child as weaned was taken account of now by himself; he stood out in full view. Abraham here is typical of the believer in his increasing apprehension of the truth, and his experience answers to the point that we reach when we begin to apprehend positively in Christ, God’s great thoughts of grace towards us. As it says in Galatians, indicating that God had had something in His mind for some time, “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”.
Sonship has been in the mind of God; that is the distinctive character of the blessing that God has called us to in His grace. Christ has come in as a Man, and has died, and has gone into the presence of God, and there the thought of God in regard of His people is set out in its fulness and blessedness. He has nothing less in the thoughts of His grace than that we should receive sonship. What a choice thought it is; a thought worthy of God Himself. He does not wish His saints to be satisfied with anything less. That, I believe, is the thought of the child being weaned, and Abraham making a great feast. It is as though fresh light had now come into Abraham’s and Sarah’s souls, and it became an occasion of great rejoicing. God is now before the soul as a God of such grace, and such resources of divine love, as could conceive most blessed thoughts of sonship that could only be set out in Christ, “that we might receive sonship”.
Now in the presence of that, the child of the bondwoman mocks, and this calls into exercise Sarah’s faith and her spiritual emotions, and she says, “Cast out this bondwoman and her son: for the son of this bondwoman shall not be heir with my son, even with Isaac”. The thing was very grievous in Abraham’s sight because of his son. And God said unto Abraham, “Let it not be grievous in thy sight because of the lad, and because of thy bondwoman: in all that Sarah hath said unto thee, hearken unto her voice; for in Isaac shall thy seed be called”. It was noted lately that these words of Sarah’s are quoted in Galatians, and quoted as Scripture: “what saith the scripture? Cast out the bondwoman and her son”. That is to say, it was a spiritual expression on Sarah’s part; not natural jealousy or anything of that kind. It was the expression of one who was cherishing the thoughts of God. Typically she says that there must be no admixture of any kind, no mixture of any legal principle, or anything that would make room for religious flesh in any way, nothing to lower the standard of this great thought that God has brought in in Christ, and which is now set out in Him in manhood in the presence of God. Then it says in Galatians, “because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father”. Not now the Spirit viewed as a new power of life in contrast to the flesh, but the Spirit of God’s Son, to produce sensibilities and affections that are after Christ for the pleasure of God.
Now with that ideal, so to speak, before us, with Christ before us thus as the One in whom there is the full expression of the great thoughts of divine love and grace, there will be formation by the Spirit. God intends to secure His people in every way in suitability to His great thoughts: “he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love”. These thoughts of God are not to be mere abstract ideas before our eyes; they are to have an answer in that which is formative, and that is seen at the close of chapter 21, where Abraham is marked by power that is different from natural power. He is marked by power that stands out in contrast to, and is superior to, the power that was seen with Abimelech, the king of the Philistines, who comes to him with Phichol, captain of his host, and acknowledges that God is with him in all that he does.
It says, “Abraham reproved Abimelech because of a well of water, which Abimelech’s servants had violently taken away”. The ability to meet violence with reproof is a mark of spiritual power. It shows that one has been formed after Christ by the Spirit. The natural tendency with any one of us would be to meet violence with violence; but not so with Abraham, with whom there is power to reprove. It is a great mark of spiritual power if we are able to reprove effectively. “Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them”, Eph 5:11. It seems to be contemplated that, as the saints grow as formed in appreciation of Christ, there will be not only power to be separate, but to reprove. There will be the assertion in spiritual power of what is right. So here it says, “Abraham reproved Abimelech because of a well of water, which Abimelech’s servants had violently taken away ... and Abraham took sheep and oxen, and gave them unto Abimelech; and both of them made a covenant. And Abraham set seven ewe lambs of the flock by themselves”.
Abraham is on the line of giving, not on the line of demanding. He can set seven ewe lambs by themselves; there is something now which Abimelech has to take account of, something which in itself has the appearance of smallness and weakness and yet became the evidence of power: “these seven ewe lambs shalt thou take of my hand, that they may be a witness unto me, that I have digged this well”. They suggest, I believe, the fruit of the Spirit which is unmistakable, as it says in Galatians 5, “the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against such there is no law”. There is no denying the power of the fruit of the Spirit. The seven ewe lambs were the witness that Abraham had digged the well, there had been subjective exercise with him, corresponding with the light before him in the child of promise, and the fruit of it was there. It was not such as would appeal to the natural man, but that which typically displayed the meekness and gentleness of Christ. It was that which was small and lowly in the eyes of man, but which Abimelech had to take account of, and he could not deny that Abraham had digged the well. All these things are for us to consider; there is increase in light, and then there is the subjective answer to it, not by being occupied with ourselves, but by being occupied with Christ. A great feast was made for Isaac the day he was weaned, and the subjective fruit is seen in Abraham, the power of which could not be gainsaid.
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