REVIEWING THE WAYS OF GOD
REVIEWING THE WAYS OF GOD
PL We have remarked in our former readings that it is profitable to review the operations of God and see how they are linked up together, and His ways in relation to the accomplishment of His thoughts. One would be exercised to take an intelligent review of the ways of God at all times.
JT The whole chapter stands together, and is the outcome of the previous chapter. The mover under God’s hand here is Ezra the priest. He brings in the word, and the people gather together to hear it, showing that there is a movement from God’s side. Chapter 8 brings before us how the word is brought to their attention, and the sense imparted to them, also the privileges involved in it, as opened up and availed of, so that the people were brought into the positive blessing presented in the word. Then there is in this chapter confession or acknowledgment suitable to correspond with this, the acknowledgment being marked by priestly intelligence. We get here a remarkable outline of the ways of God, together with an intelligent apprehension of what He was Himself in those ways, on the one hand, and what man was, on the other, all leading up to the full admission on the part of the people, led by the Levites, of their shame and break-down, and then at the close they say, “And because of all this we make a sure covenant, and write it; and our princes, our Levites, and our priests are at the sealing” (verse 38). It is a remarkable position to arrive at, a position that has its own answer today spiritually, or should have.
JHJ The power and patience of God come out in connection with the history of the people in a striking way.
[p. 223] Rem The people are looked at in the light of God’s faithfulness.
JT Yes, His unchangeableness. It becomes a name of Deity in the Old Testament according to the note, “Thou art He” (verse 6). It is an expression which is really a name of God. God had called Himself “I AM”. That was the name by which He undertook to deliver the children of Israel, and now they say, “Thou art He”. It sets forth the answer in us to the revelation of God.
JK Will you say a little more about what He is as known to us?
JT He said to Moses, “Say unto the children of Israel: I AM hath sent me unto you”, Exodus 3: 14. It is the ever existing One. That is how He is presented from His own side, but here they say, “Thou art He”. It is the response from our side that is in view. Faith has discovered Him to be what He said He was.
JK A priest is in the sense of what God is, and in the light of that he can review the history of the people.
JT That is it.
JHJ Is this what we come to?
JT It is what we should come to. It is the ground the apostle takes in 2 Corinthians, namely God’s faithfulness, “For the Son of God, Jesus Christ ... did not become yea and nay, but yea is in him. For whatever promises of God there are, in him is the yea, and in him the amen, for glory to God by us” (chapter 1: 19, 20).
JK The sealing of the covenant at the end of the chapter is very beautiful; the people are now in a position to accept the covenant.
JT Yes, they are in the light of a proved God. In Exodus things are presented from the divine side, but here, the people have come by their experience into the light of a proved God. This chapter is [p. 224] wonderful as showing how the priest has discerned what God was about during all those long years of failure on the part of the children of Israel, but of grace and faithfulness on God’s part. We may well take up such an attitude as this. In Hebrews 13, the saints are called upon to remember their leaders, those who had spoken unto them the word of God, but then it goes on (verse 8), “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, and today, and to the ages to come”. What He was, He is, and shall be. We stand in that light.
JK We are not standing on the failure of the assembly, we are in the light of His goodness.
JT There is no change in God, so where faith is active and there is corresponding self-judgment, there is a return to God in the sense of His faithfulness.
Rem That would produce confidence.
JT Yes, in a proved God, “Thou art He” (verse 6).
JM It is rather suggestive that the first time this is mentioned it is in connection with Him as Creator (verse 6) and the second time in connection with the promises to Abraham (verse 7).
PL Would you say the first celebration of God would indicate the way He has secured His universe, and the second, the way He peoples it?
JT That is very good, it would so appear. The creation of the universe, the bringing of it into existence, is very wonderful for faith; for science it is, but science only touches the surface. “By faith we apprehend that the worlds were framed by the word of God”. It does not say, ‘the will of God’, “He spoke, and it was done; he commanded, and it stood fast”, Psalm 33: 9. It was imperative, but in His word we have the mind brought into activity and all that flows from it, the skill and beauty seen in the universe. By faith we apprehend the origin of all.
PL [p. 225] So it is the God of glory who appears to Abraham, the God who has already established things, and will place man in them.
JT God secures His desire in the material creation, there is no mishap there. There is not so much in the mere calling of material things into existence, but all the skill, beauty and poise we see in creation come in as the result of the Word. Christ is the Word really, and having made all things, He sustains all in wisdom, so nothing is lost, but the divine result reached, “Thou quickenest them all; and the host of heaven worshippeth thee” (verse 6). This is something you do not get early in Scripture. Ezra is behind all that is said here. His spiritual intelligence lays hold of the situation. It is very remarkable the way it comes out here, “The heavens declare the glory of God; and the expanse sheweth the work of his hands”, Psalm 19: 1. The psalmist connects it all with God. That is faith, and, in this way, a christian gets real joy out of the creation of God. But in material things, you get life. There is the grass springing out of the earth on the third day; rule, on the fourth, in connection with the heavenly bodies; and, on the fifth, you get creatures with affections (verse 20), not yet intelligent; the word ‘souls’ would indicate the instincts born of these affections. All this is the fruit of the word of God. Then on the sixth day, there are not only living souls, but man and woman made after God’s image.
PL Would you connect vegetable life with individual response God-ward in early affections: and animal life with the reciprocal affections of the saints as together? Human life would carry the thought of man in intelligent affection.
JT In this way, answering to John 20, there are the three figures, first, vegetable life; second, animal life, the lower affections being in view where the soul is mentioned; and third, human [p. 226] life, the brethren really, involving intelligence and a higher order of life.
JM “Thou quickenest them all”. Does that cover the thought?
JT Life is in all in some way. God is the living God.
JHJ Would you connect with this Revelation 4 and 5? In the former God is to be praised in connection with creation, and in the latter in connection with redemption.
JT Yes, and the living creatures are the product of that; they support the throne. In chapter 4 God has His portion in creation, and in chapter 5 in redemption.
Rem God desires to have a living scene before Him.
JT Everything that hath breath is to praise Jehovah, “The host of heaven worshippeth thee”, they say here. The reference in the verse is to the order in which the things appear, all answering to the mind of God.
JM So the first mention of “The Same” covers the thought of the universe, and sovereignty comes in.
JT In verse 7 it is Jehovah Elohim, an additional thought to Almighty God. It was how He was known to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. His new name involving redemption.
JHJ Involving departure too; would you say, and sovereignty?
JT Yes. God gave men up. They did not like to retain Him in their knowledge, and God gave them up, but says, as it were, ‘I am not to be without men’, so He falls back on His sovereignty, and selects Abraham.
Rem He does not make any mention here of Abraham’s part in [p. 227] idolatry.
JT No, very little is made of that. The omission would show he was not a leader in it, I think the Spirit of God would not unnecessarily mention anything to the discredit of His people.
JK This chapter traces how man has failed. It commences on a high level, and shows how man dropped down.
JT “Thou art the Same, Jehovah Elohim, who didst choose Abram and broughtest him forth out of Ur of the Chaldees, and gavest him the name of Abraham” (verse 7). That is a beautiful spiritual touch. Whoever the speaker was, he was spiritual. In giving Abraham his name, God intended by means of him, to fill the world with men.
HWS God is presented here in His moral nature, that side is made prominent. His glory comes out in connection with man’s responsible history, His victory over sin.
JT Oh, yes. Men gave Him up and He gave them up, so He says in regard to Abraham, “I called him ... alone, and blessed him”. That is an encouragement to faith now. What may He not do with one man, but the question is whether that man is a father, is he able to produce? Adam produced and Noah produced, but in the main, their generations were not for God, whereas Abraham’s would be. “I know him”, God says, “that he will command his children and his household after him”, Genesis 18: 19. So it goes on here, “And foundest his heart faithful before thee, and madest the covenant with him to give the land of the Canaanites, ... to his seed” (verse 8).
KJ God’s complete thought of bringing to pass a generation according to Himself came out in Abraham.
JT God changed his name and gave him the covenant of circumcision, as if to say, ‘Now, Abraham, your generation is not to be after the flesh, but after the Spirit’. “Be fruitful and multiply” was the word to Noah, but here is a man whose power in flesh is formally cut off, causing him to be shut up to God.
JHJ Abraham’s family is taken up in the children of Israel, and their journeys pursued.
JT Yes, but in dwelling on Abraham, we are in the presence of the spiritual family, as we are the true children of Abraham. He is our true progenitor, so it is a spiritual family who are to people the earth and the heavens. God saw to it that the generation should be after the Spirit and not after the flesh, so he gave him the covenant of circumcision. Circumcision is introduced in connection with the name of “Almighty God” (that for us would be the Holy Spirit).
G “Then people began to call on the name of Jehovah” (Genesis 4: 26), would convey the thought of the beginning of a seed for God.
JT Yes. It began with Seth. He begat a son and called his name Enos; the name means worthless, weak, failing man. Seth pronounced judgment in this way on his progeny, that which was born of flesh. There is light in that, “Then people began”, it says, “to call on the name of Jehovah”. So God begins over again in chapter 5, “And called their name Adam”, it says. The generation is taken up in Christ figuratively, the appointed One.
G Would that be the line of God’s testimony here?
JT I would call it the life line. One and another died, but there was one who did not die, he is taken up to heaven; it is a testimony to the power of God.
G Does the secret of Abraham’s call lie in absolute sovereignty, or were there qualities with him that God could use?
JT Well, whatever was in him, God put it there, so he is referred to in the prophets as “wholly a right seed”, Jeremiah 2: 21. It gives the stock from whence the people sprung.
FS Do you connect this recognition, on the part of the people, of the way they had been recovered, with their being brought out through Ezra?
JT Yes, with such a God as this they make a covenant. How safe they were in it. They committed themselves by their seal to a position in relation to God, and obligations flow from this.
PL “He that has received his testimony has set to his seal that God is true”, John 3: 33.
JT Quite so.
JM All this enlarges our thoughts as to God.
JT He is a poor christian who has not got a seal.
PL What is the thought in the seal, is it committal?
JT Yes; “set to his seal”. Is God not worthy of it?
FS It is important to see that what is traced out is how God is effecting things for Himself, for His own pleasure.
JT Yes, it is interesting to follow the line, “And thou hast performed thy words” (verse 8), “and thou sawest the affliction of our fathers in Egypt, and heardest their cry by the Red Sea”, and then verse 11, “And thou didst divide the sea before them, and they went through the midst of the sea on dry ground”. How beautifully presented it is all through the chapter!
JHJ It is “And thou” throughout.
JT Yes, what God did, and what they did.
FS With the knowledge of such a God you can afford to commit yourself.
JT Yes, what He has proved Himself to be. “And thou didst make thee a name, as it is this day” (verse 10).
PL “And didst shew signs and wonders” (verse 10), “Thou leddest” (verse 12); “Thou camest down” (verse 13); “Thou madest known unto them thy holy sabbath” (verse 14). There is an intelligent and priestly review of the operations of God. Those operations are never mechanical, the movements of His heart are in them.
JHJ Would you connect this with God establishing us in Christ?
JT It is the way you arrive at it experimentally. God does that of Himself. Now the soul is encouraged in dwelling on these verses. It gives one a sense of ‘What the God that thou hast found’. In the desert He teaches us this, ‘All His grace shall there abound’. The priestly eye is running over it all here, this chapter does not give us a mere narration of facts. It is the way things are gone through experimentally.
HWS It is not the covenant in Sinai that is brought forward, but the heart traces God in all His ways.
PL It is the principle of covenant more, in which God would engage Himself.
JT Yes. If we refer to what is said about the law here, it is simply, “And thou camest down on mount Sinai, and didst speak with them from the heavens, and gavest them right judgments and true laws, good statutes and commandments. And thou madest known unto them thy holy sabbath” (verses 13, 14). It is not formally called a covenant, the point is more to bring its value before the people, “right judgments and true laws, good statutes and commandments”, such as they needed. God provided all these.
JK With regard to ourselves, it is affecting to see the assiduity and determination with which God places Himself in covenant. See psalm 89 as to the sure mercies of David. These God assures by oath [p. 231] and covenant. So He commits Himself to His people by a certain line of action and we respond.
JT Yes, though not in legal bondage, but as acquiescing with what God proposes. You come out boldly and commit yourself, “Because of all this we make a sure covenant, and write it; and our princes, our Levites, and our priests are at the sealing”. The representatives were all there.
JK We have something at the Supper that would correspond.
JT Generally speaking, a christian has a seal, and sets to it that God is true.
JK Our seal is absolute reliance in God.
JT If you read down this chapter you are made to feel you cannot trust yourself. But when you think of the One who is spoken of here as “the Same”, the God who gave Christ, who gave the Spirit and who has supported His people all down the ages, you can trust Him.
PL “A spring shut up, a fountain sealed”, Song of Songs 4: 12. The heart is sealed up for God, and allows of no rival.
JT That is true. Romans works out to this end. A christian commits himself; he is for God and presents his body a living sacrifice. This is his ‘intelligent’ service; in the light of what God is, all I am is for God.
HWS How would the public committal work out?
JT You are committed to God in baptism. You are baptised to the name of the Father, Son and Spirit and in the name of the Lord. This latter is for protection. You are baptised to all that wonderful light revealed in Christ, hence it says, “Baptising them to the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit”, Matthew 28: 19. The breaking of bread is the other sacrament which is public, you partake of the bread and drink of the cup publicly.
[p. 232] I am not saying that is all there is in it, but that is in it. I am known on God’s earth as one of God’s people, “Choosing rather to suffer affliction along with the people of God”, Hebrews 11: 25. Verses 19 and 20 of this chapter are very beautiful, coming in after verse 18.
JK What do you mean by the word ‘sacrament’?
JT It is an ordinary term, well understood, what is called an ordinance. There are only two sacraments, not seven.
FS In regard to the thought of committal, in the light of this chapter, a soul should have his own sense of what a God he has committed himself to. One would take account of the impressions of a priest here; so, in like manner, the knowledge we have of God is a support to us in regard to our committal.
JT Yes, it is everything, as you cannot keep yourself. It may be thought in responding to the covenant, you are undertaking what you cannot fulfil, and that you will only break down. But you have the Holy Spirit, and are in direct relationship with God, because we are sons, and He will keep you. It is a most blessed position to publicly commit yourself, but of course it involves obligation.
HWS Our associations test us.
JT Yes, especially at the present time when there are so many claims.
JM God would make an additional appeal to us, on account of the way He has recovered light to us.
AS Would manna suggest heavenly support; verse 15?
JT Yes, what Christ was in everyday life, hence you have it always.
G As a result of long acquaintance with God, you would be enabled to say what was said here, but what about a young soul asking [p. 233] for fellowship?
JT It is a great thing for such to abide near those who have a long acquaintance, and to see what they do. The word says, “Remember your leaders who have spoken to you the word of God; and considering the issue of their conversation, imitate their faith” (Hebrews 13: 7); then there are those present who “watch over your souls” (verse 17); we are to take account of them, too.
Ques You were speaking a little while ago of acquiescing to what God proposed, would that be the result of the Spirit’s activities? “Ye have the unction from the holy one”, 1 John 2: 20. That is spoken of the babes, would that be the thought of acquiescence, but not full intelligence?
JK A young soul might have priestly intelligence as to what God is.
JT The young must be rightly instructed, but they must keep near the spiritual. We read in the prophets that “ten men take hold ... of the skirt of him that is a Jew, saying, We will go with you; for we have heard that God is with you”, Zechariah 8: 23.
JHJ “Thou gavest also thy good Spirit to instruct them, and withheldest not thy manna from their mouth, and gavest them water for their thirst” (verse 20). In connection with all this God gets praise and worship; it is what He secures as the result of His ways.
JT Yes, and they seal the covenant, they come to that. They might well do it; every day and every minute of these forty years they were sustained by God. “Yea, forty years didst thou sustain them in the wilderness; they lacked nothing” — what a word that is, that “their clothes grew not old, and their feet swelled not”!
PL It does not say they acquired anything: they lacked nothing, it is [p. 234] the wilderness position.
JT Yes, not the accumulation of wealth, but needs met.
FS They acquired the knowledge of God.
PL Yes, the chapter is full of that.
JT The paragraph from verse 22 to verse 25 refers to what He gave them. Then there is the sorrowful answer in the next few verses. I might read verse 32 before we close, “And now, our God, the great, the mighty, and the terrible God, who keepest covenant and loving-kindness, let not all the trouble seem little before thee, that hath come upon us, on our kings, on our princes, ... on all thy people, since the days of the kings of Assyria unto this day. But thou art just in all that is come upon us; for thou hast acted according to truth, and we have done wickedly”. Then see verses 36 and 37, “Behold, we are servants this day, and the land that thou gavest unto our fathers, to eat the fruit thereof and the good thereof, behold, we are bondmen in it. And it yieldeth much increase unto the kings whom thou hast set over us because of our sins, and they have dominion over our bodies, and over our cattle, at their pleasure, and we are in great distress”. What a position, and because of it all, they make a covenant. They recognise the urgent necessity for it.
PL So that the conditions of captivity at the end become the occasion under God’s hand of the writing. The people take up a definite position in relation to God.
JT A spiritual man recognises public failure.
PL And eats the sin offering.
JT Salvation lies in taking up the position occupied at the beginning.
Ques What is the thought of writing?
JT What you write down you are committed to, you cannot deny it. If you recede from that, you [p. 235] apostatise. You get the word in Hebrews: “If he draw back, my soul does not take pleasure in him. But we are not drawers back”, the apostle says, he is referring to what christians are normally, they do not draw back.