READING (7)

^[p. 110] READING (7)

Genesis 8:15-22; Genesis 35:9-15

JT What is before us is to see how in recovery after failure there is that which is for the pleasure of God. Yesterday we saw that Enoch was the end of an exercise arising from the failure of Adam; and that he, as we are told in Jude’s epistle, being the seventh from Adam, had the testimony before he was translated that he pleased God; (Hebrews 11: 5). It was a very great testimony. And each one of us may have this testimony as we walk with God.

Now in the next occasion of exercise, we find that Noah walked with God; so that what Enoch set out is carried forward. In Genesis 6: 9 we read: “This is the history of Noah. Noah was a just man, perfect amongst his generations: Noah walked with God”. That is a sort of formula in the book. And Noah goes through the deluge, which was the judgment of God on the world on account of the failure and sin of mankind. Nevertheless, all that is of God is carried through it; nothing is lost; and the result, as set out in chapter 8, shows that there is that which is for God’s pleasure; it says of the burnt-offerings that Jehovah smelled a sweet savour.

Ques Peter speaks of Noah as being the eighth — what is the thought in that?

JT It means one of eight.

Rem The new earth is first introduced in the savour of the burnt-offering.

JT The point is that the result of the exercise was for the pleasure of God. And what is acquired from the exercise, namely, Noah’s testimony, is passed on to those who follow. I think the exercise in our reading yesterday was to see that when sin or ^[p. 111] breakdown occurs, recovery is only complete when there is something to please God as a result.

Ques Partial recovery would not be exactly for the pleasure of God?

JT In some cases there may be much to satisfy the conscience of a brother, or of brethren, but complete recovery is what pleases God. That is, the testimony that a man has; it is there to be seen, and it is carried forward, an added asset to what has been there already.

Rem It is good to see that what had been in Enoch is continued in Noah.

JT That is the point — nothing lapses; Enoch goes to heaven, but his testimony remains here, and it is carried forward.

Ques Would Elijah and Elisha suggest a similar thought, namely, that there might be continuation of the man who had been here for God?

JT Yes. I think Enoch’s testimony is gathered up in Noah, and it would necessarily greatly enhance Noah’s testimony, who is said to have been a preacher of righteousness. We are not told in what particular feature Enoch pleased God; he walked with God. But in Noah we have righteousness; it is said of him: “Noah was a just man, perfect amongst his generations”, and God had only found him righteous.

Rem Noah pleased God, and he had whereof to offer on the altar. Would that indicate increase?

JT Yes; and he is the first we find preaching. He was a qualified vessel in that he was righteous personally, and had a good report among his generations. One has to take account of these things.

If it be a question of sin and recovery, we have a model before us in this chapter of God’s ways with a man who was righteous himself, and just and perfect among his generations.

Ques Did God foresee the sacrifice Noah would offer when he came out of the ^[p. 112] ark?

JT He did, undoubtedly, in directing that there should be an increased number of clean animals; seven instead of two.

Ques When you drew attention to the fact that Noah was the first preacher, and you connected it with righteousness, what had you in mind?

JT I think we see how the testimony is cumulative; as it progresses it carries forward what came out in Enoch, and adds the thought of righteousness personally in walk, as in Noah, who also preached righteousness. He must have been a very great man morally in a world such as had developed, and as is outlined in chapter 6. He would be a man of great moral strength to stand out against it, maintaining righteousness personally, and preaching it.

Rem That would give great weight to his words.

JT He was known in this way in his generation, as it says here; he was “perfect amongst his generations”.

Ques Would you say that he got the knowledge of the clean and the unclean as a result of walking with God?

JT No doubt. You can see it in what he was personally in his testimony, and then how he goes through the result of the sin of others. That is a thing that I think may be noted. The deluge was not on account of him; it was on account of others, but he goes through it; and he goes through it with God.

Ques Would not the same principle apply in measure to ourselves?

JT Whatever occurs locally, or generally, whether personally responsible or not, one has to go through the thing. With Adam and Eve there was personal penalty imposed, and also with Cain; but others had to go through the consequences of their sin. There is no personal penalty attached to Noah, but he has to go through the consequences of the sins of ^[p. 113] others. It is as having gone through that, that you sacrifice an offering of a sweet savour.

PL Enoch prophesied, but Noah went through the judgment. That would indicate an advance on what is set forth in Enoch.

Rem The Lord died, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God. Is that the thought?

JT Yes; the Lord in that very connection is said to have suffered: “Christ indeed has once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God” (1 Peter 3: 18). We are not called upon to suffer for sin, but as a result of sin. Noah went through the penalty that others brought in.

PL Would it be the sin-offering in verse 20?

JT I think so. The others were overwhelmed by the deluge, but Noah got the experience of going through the consequences of their sin. That applies in every instance; the person responsible comes under the governmental dealings of God, but all have to go through it in spirit. Those who take it upon themselves in this way get the gain of the experience; they are on the line of the Lord when He says “then I restored that which I took not away” (Psalm 69: 4). He faced judgment personally, not on His own account, of course, He went through it for others. And Noah in a way foreshadows this; he suffered, so to speak, the just for the unjust; he went through the judgment, and hence on coming out of the ark on the new earth he offers up a sacrifice. You will notice that Noah did not come out until he was told to do so. It is God who must release us when we have passed through things that come upon us on account of sin.

Rem We have to wait in patience on God for that.

JT We have to wait in the prison-house until God opens the door.

PL “Know that our brother Timotheus is set at liberty” (Hebrews 13: 23). Do we not get that ^[p. 114] principle in Ezekiel as well? He sits among the captives, and then he gets the gain of the light of the temple.

JT Just so. In the government of God we have to learn to suffer with others; although we may not be personally responsible, being bound up in the fellowship we cannot escape suffering in the government of God, and we have to wait on God to release us. The waters assuaged, and in the second month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, the earth was dry. That is one thing; but then it says, “God spoke to Noah, saying, Go out of the ark”. The release was a divine command; that means that one has got to wait on God for it.

Rem Our tendency would be to endeavour to get out as soon as possible.

JT Yes, we get restive in the limitations, but Noah evidently did not.

Rem You spoke yesterday of the test of waiting, in connection with Saul; he was not up to it.

JT I am sure that is where many of us come short.

PL Would you say that while you are waiting you experience what Noah did in the return of the dove with the olive leaf?

JT There is beautiful instruction in connection with Noah. As the waters rose, the ark rose. What a sense of the awfulness of death, and the judgment of God, would lay hold of Noah’s soul as the waters increased, engulfing all those people! But what a sense of God’s mercy he would have as the waters gradually decreased until the earth was dry! The earth was dry; the judgment had disappeared, but all that experience had been gone through, and it is the man who went through it that is directed to come out.

Rem And so, similarly, God would, permit us to ^[p. 115] feel the discipline increasingly until we get a sense of the judgment.

JT Yes. I think we have to see things as they actually are, when sin occurs. David, as we all know, could judge another with great accuracy. When Nathan brought the parable before him he had no hesitation in judging another. We are not behind him in that. But when Nathan says, “Thou art the man”, David is equal to it. That is how the light of God shines in a man; David says, “I have sinned against Jehovah”. He has no excuse to offer. He had a sense of the seriousness of the thing; it came home to his soul. Then Nathan said, “Jehovah has also put away thy sin: thou shalt not die” (2 Samuel 12: 13). Yet he had to go through it all; he lost the child. Until the child died he had refused to eat, he lay upon the earth, and acknowledged his guilt; but when the child died he rose up and presented himself, and explained that whilst the child was alive he recognised the hand of God, inasmuch as that He might have mercy upon him, but when he was dead he says, “I shall go to him, but he will not return to me” (2 Samuel 12: 23). We see how David went through the thing; he saw that he would die too. The psalms show how much he suffered in going through it; and in result how pleasing he was to God.

Rem Would you attribute any significance to the sending out of the dove? Would it set forth spiritual inquiry to ascertain how things stand?

JT Yes; the raven would suggest human means of investigation, but the dove is a type of the Holy Spirit. She found no rest for the sole of her foot. The judgment had not as yet been removed; the hand of God was still heavily upon the earth. I believe in all such cases those who have the Holy Spirit have the means of acquiring that knowledge; they know how things are. The dove came back faithfully to Noah. It touches the personal link ^[p. 116] between Noah and the dove, which is very beautiful. In verse 7 we read: “he sent out the raven, which went forth going to and fro, until the waters were dried from the earth”. There is no real result from that effort, for the raven does not return. But in verse 8 it says, “he sent out the dove from him, to see if the waters had become low on the ground”. There was a link with him in the dove; she is sent out from Noah; there is a personal touch in that. Then it says, “the dove found no resting-place for the sole of her foot, and returned to him into the ark”. There is a beautiful link there in the dove as a type of the Spirit. He took her in to him, and knew by her that the waters were still on the earth. So that there is thus the means of determining how things are.

How beautiful, too, it is to see God directing Noah to come out of the ark and everything that had life! “Thou, and thy wife, and thy sons, and thy sons’ wives with thee. Bring forth with thee every animal which is with thee, of all flesh, fowl as well as cattle, and all the creeping things which creep on the earth, that they may swarm on the earth, and may be fruitful and multiply on the earth. And Noah went out, and his sons, and his wife, and his sons’ wives with him. All the animals, all the creeping things, and all the fowl — everything that moves on the earth, after their kinds, went out of the ark”. So that we have a scene now moving under divine direction and control, a living state of things. Then Noah builds an altar.

Ques Would the burnt-offering be a vindication of what God had done on the earth?

JT I think so. It was in keeping with Noah’s name. The word ‘odour’ is the same as the word ‘Noah’, which means that God intended to have rest in that man; but evidently He did not have that fully until Noah went through the judgment. It is in going through the consequences of sin ^[p. 117] with God by divine appointment that the savour of rest comes in.

PL Do we get that principle in 2 Corinthians 2: 15? After Paul had gone through discipline he could say, “We are a sweet odour of Christ to God”.

JT It comes in very suitably there. He had been down to the gates of death himself, and God had delivered him from “so great a death”, chapter 1: 10. No doubt that was in view of the second letter, that he might write with more affection and a deeper sense of discipline.

Rem One feels the need for continuance. Noah was one hundred and twenty years building the ark. In passing through exercise we are kept secure; but there is the possibility, when we come on to a new line of things, that we might fail, as did Noah; we might not be up to it.

JT That is seen in the next chapter. This chapter is all under divine direction. Noah went in under divine direction, and now he has come out of the ark as commanded of God.

PL The day after a battle is the most testing. The precious fruits of the conflict might be frittered away in self-indulgence.

JT In the altar you have a link with God. It means that you are publicly in relation with God; you have set up public worship as it were. The whole universe might see now in this man who had come out of death under the hand of God, that publicly he has God before him, and that he worships Him. So the altar is a very important feature, because it shows that one is definitely and publicly committed to God.

Rem And then, too, he would share in the pleasure of God.

JT Well, you see what comes out here; it says, “Noah built an altar to Jehovah; and took of every ^[p. 118] clean animal, and of all clean fowl, and offered up burnt-offerings on the altar. And Jehovah smelled the sweet odour”. He is for God’s pleasure, and he has committed himself to it in the altar. So the new world has a wonderfully good start. Noah in doing this was recognising God as the only God to worship.

Rem And one delights in that which gives delight to God!

Ques When Lemech called his son Noah, saying, “This one shall comfort us concerning our work and concerning the toil of our hands, because of the ground which Jehovah has cursed” (Genesis 5: 29), was he speaking prophetically? Later, we read that when Jehovah smelled the sweet odour He said, “I will no more henceforth curse the ground”.

JT Doubtless Lemech had very little knowledge of what it meant; but he had light in the naming of his son, as we saw in regard to Seth, who also had light. Doubtless he understood but little of what it would involve, or how rest should come about, and what Noah would have to go through in the way of experience.

Ques As you mentioned, the world had a good start; it would be on the principle of resurrection. Would the principle apply in the same way today?

JT Yes. Christianity, one might say, is the antitype to this. God said, “I will no more henceforth curse the ground on account of Man, for the thought of Man’s heart is evil from his youth; and I will no more smite every living thing, as I have done. Henceforth, all the days of the earth, seed time and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night, shall not cease” (verses 21, 22). In the savour of the burnt-offering we have an order of things set up in stability. Notwithstanding the state of man’s heart, God has found means of rising up above it, so that a stable order of things is set up. And if I have transgressed or ^[p. 119] sinned, God is greater than my heart, and greater than my sin. The knowledge of God in that way becomes a great lever in the soul.

Rem And in recovery there is always an asset.

JT Yes; you see what Noah passed on to the new world; what a start it had in Noah! There is always the spoil where recovery is complete.

Now, going on to Jacob, we see what he learnt of the house. His first experience of the house, before his discipline and before his breakdown was, that it was a “dreadful” place; chapter 28. He set up a pillar, but there was no drink-offering. There was no pleasure for God in that. Jacob had to go through twenty years of bitter experience before we read of the drink-offering.

Ques A pillar would be a witness, would you say?

JT Yes; it stands. It is an asset in the house. In chapter 35 we read that “God went up from him in the place where he had talked with him. And Jacob set up a pillar in the place where he had talked with him, a pillar of stone, and poured on it a drink-offering, and poured oil on it. And Jacob called the name of the place where God had talked with him, Beth-el”.

Ques When a soul is restored, is he given something more than he ever had before?

JT Yes; and not only does he get it, but the house of God is enriched. In Noah the new world gained. A recovered person, or company, would gain by it.

Rem We have an example of that in Peter.

Ques What was signified by the pouring of the oil? Jacob was able to do that in chapter 35, but apparently he was unable to do so in chapter 28.

JT I think it is a matter of the spiritual intelligence which he had acquired in the meantime. The book of Genesis is a book of roots, the fruits appearing later in Scripture, and we find the principle running ^[p. 120] right through, that those who are in the house of God are intelligent, and know what to do. The drink-offering was the outcome of Jacob’s knowledge; the knowledge that comes from experience. It was true movement when he returned to his own country.

Rem The offering that Noah presented to God was of clean animals. He knew what would be acceptable to Him.

Ques In the pouring out of the drink-offering, Jacob would have the sense that he was pleasurable to God in so doing?

JT God talked with him. In chapter 28 God was at the top of the ladder, and Jacob at the bottom; there was distance between. But in chapter 35 it was not so, for God came down and talked with him on the earth. Jacob knew that a change had come about; but the change was in himself; God was the same in both cases, but he was not the same.

Rem There would be joy in the drink-offering.

JT Everything was to convey to Jacob that God was just delighted to have him in the house; and Jacob was conscious of this.

Ques Then he had come to know God better?

JT Certainly. And in John’s first epistle the whole point is to bring about conscious knowledge — “that ye may know”, he says; (1 John 5: 13). That epistle would enable us to consider, and be conscious of all things. Jacob had very little consciousness of what the house of God was in chapter 28, for he spoke of it as a “dreadful” place. He was wanting in the consciousness of being suitable to it. But in chapter 35 he poured out the drink-offering on the pillar first. That is to say, he was conscious of God’s pleasure in him; and then he poured oil on it.

Rem He set up the pillar in the place where God talked with him.

JT Yes and he gave it a name. It stands for all time.

^[p. 121] Ques Do we get in connection with Paul also the thought of the Lord looking down on him from heaven in tender compassion at the start, and then afterwards He comes close to him to bring him in touch with Himself?

Rem I suppose that here God was preparing Jacob for further and perhaps more trying exercises.

JT Yes; the death of Rachel is recorded next. But before that Jacob has the consciousness of being suitable to the house, and for God’s pleasure.

Rem This consciousness would give us greatly enlarged thoughts.

JT Where God is pleased with a vessel, the anointing comes upon it.

Rem The drink-offering is the symbol of eternal joy.

JT The Lord said of Saul of Tarsus, he “is an elect vessel to me” (Acts 9: 15).