NOTES ON SCRIPTURE 1895 NO. 54

NOTES ON SCRIPTURE 1895 NO. 54

Numbers 21: 9 - 16; John 3: 14,15; John 4: 14

It is of great importance that we should learn from Scripture that while the gospel is largely proclaimed, and many receive a measure of the good tidings, yet there is little or no sense of the greatness of the blessing as a present possession.

Israel, as we learn from Exodus 12, had known the shelter of the blood, and were ever secure under the eye of God through the shed blood; still they were harassed by Pharaoh and the Egyptians. They were not free from Satan and the flesh until they walked through the Red Sea, figuratively the death of Christ; Exodus 14. His death has made a way for the believer ^[p. 107] out of the death of judgment which had rested on him. In Christ’s death he knows that the one who had the power of death has been destroyed, and now he can sing, The Lord hath triumphed gloriously, all our enemies have sunk like lead in the mighty waters. It was after all this was known and experienced that Israel was taught that the flesh was the great and persistent obstacle to their joy and progress in divine blessing. No one can enjoy the great supper, the celebration of grace, who has not learned Christ in John 3: 14,15, or as typified in Numbers 21. We see in the prodigal son that he was not satisfied with the greatness and love of his father’s reception, but he wanted to enjoy it I think this accounts for John beginning at Numbers 21 instead of at Exodus 12; the one great obstacle to anyone’s joy or progress is that he has not deliverance or liberty. God’s grace is listened to and often accepted, without the heart exercise or experience described in Numbers 21. When in distress because of the serpent’s bite the sense of innate sin that is in me, that in my flesh dwelleth no good thing - you look to Jesus, He who knew no sin made sin for you, the holy, spotless One, the delight of the Father, made sin. God, sending His own Son in the likeness of flesh of sin, condemned sin in the flesh. He, the holy, immaculate One, bore the judgment due to man. He died, the man under judgment has been judicially terminated on the cross, so that there is now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus. When the prodigal gets the best robe on - figuratively is in Christ - he can make merry and can joy in God through Jesus Christ. Many have supposed that because they have accepted the grace of God by faith that they can reach deliverance in the same way; they overlook the fact that the work of grace is God’s work, and His work is perfect and lasts for ever; whereas on our side it is only as we walk in the Spirit that we do not fulfil the lusts of the flesh.