CHAPTER 4
[p. 55] CHAPTER 4
This chapter gives us instruction in advance of chapter 3, for in it we have additional light in regard to God and His actings. The divine purpose in this epistle is first to enlighten man in regard to God. God has come out to reveal Himself fully in the gospel. Then we see how we are affected by the light brought to us. It is evident that the great point of chapter 3 is the righteousness of God; this chapter brings in the glory of God. Another important point is that the glory of God is the real test of faith, it tests a man’s heart. The resurrection of the Lord does not refer to or form part of the course of this world, but of the world to come — the scene and sphere of God’s glory. Faith always had to do with the world to come, as we see in Hebrews 11, while it determined a man’s course in this world. We see in this chapter the perfect consistency of the ways of God with man. The faith of Abraham and David referred really to the world to come; God, who calls things that are not as though they were, must always have had the world to come in view; the effect was that the light separated those who had faith from this world. It is not difficult to see what the effect was upon Abraham; he became a stranger and a pilgrim. The God of glory appeared to him, and when God said to him, “Look now toward heaven, and tell the stars” — He spoke of his seed in view of the world to come. Abraham was the point of departure in God’s ways; the world was not given up until Abraham’s call, he was called out of it. Abraham is brought in to establish the principle of righteousness — David to describe the blessedness of the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin; but in either case it was faith. The principle of justification without works was established in Abraham, his faith being counted to him as righteousness; he was undoubtedly justified in view of the world to come, for [p. 56] he was called out of this world before he was justified; and, indeed, Melchisedec, the priest of the Most High God, possessor of heaven and earth, blesses him who was a stranger in this world. Nothing shows more distinctly that God had the world to come in view, than that He called Abraham out from this world just after the earth had been providentially settled and divided among the nations. The world to come is the scene and sphere of God’s administration in grace; righteousness is maintained, but grace is dominant; it is put under the Son of man, and is established on the ground of redemption, that is, on the ground of grace, not of law, though righteousness is fully maintained. It is grace reigning through righteousness.
Justification has a double bearing; one side is that we are clear of every reproach in regard of this world, and the other, that we are approved for the world to come. God accounted Abraham righteous, but Abraham did not get much benefit from it in this world, but he will have his place in the world to come; it is obvious that the promise that he should be “the heir of the world” does not refer to the world that is. It is a great lack with us that our souls are not sufficiently in the light of the world to come, we are too well pleased to be justified for God and for this world. People may profess a certain faith in redemption, but the real test of faith is the glory of God; we are brought into the light of it morally. If God presents Himself to us in the Lord Jesus Christ in resurrection, and in the gift of the Spirit consequent on His exaltation, are we not brought into the light of the world to come, into the light of His glory? People are tested in this way, and it finds out what they are after — the things of this world or of the world to come. Works, as a principle of justification, is the point of contrast, if a man could be justified by works, it would be for this world, while if justified by faith it is in view of the world to come. There will be the time of display,
[p. 57] when heavens and earth are united in the blessing of redemption, but we get the light of this before the display on the principle of the hymn:-
‘That gives us now as heavenly light,
What soon shall be our part’. (64:6)
Cannot a christian realise the possibility of being in a scene morally outside of this world? The exercise of faith is in availing oneself of the light one has got, then the truth of it has clearly come home to the soul.
The elements taken up in this chapter are just as good to us as they were to Abraham, though they may not apply exactly in the same way; but still the principles are available for us. Christ has been raised up from the dead to give us a place in the system of the world to come. He is the beginning, the first-born from the dead; He takes up a place in resurrection to give us an entrance into that order of things. He takes up a place too for Israel as well as for us. “He was delivered for our offences, and raised again for our justification”. Tasting the powers of the world to come refers to what the Hebrews had experienced in the power of the Holy Spirit. It is the power which will relieve man of every pressure that sin has brought into this world.
Genesis 15 opens up the light of another day. Abraham had to look up toward heaven and see the stars. God tells him his seed shall be as numerous. He then gives him the pledge of the inheritance. The type refers to the death of Christ as the confirmation of the covenant — there is the burning lamp and the smoking furnace that passed between the pieces. The question had been raised “Whereby shall I know that I shall inherit it?”. But the promise was through the righteousness of faith. The great point of this chapter is the glory of God, and when we survey it, a great expanse is opened up; for the glory of God is all that in which He is displayed.
[p. 58] When Christ died His work was before God in its entirety. There are three marked types of it, the blood on the lintel, the Red Sea, and the brazen serpent, but all was before God in its completeness on the cross. It is of the last moment to see that in chapter 3 the old man has gone for God in judgment. Chapter 6 recognises that it is gone for us, “knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him”. The scapegoat (Leviticus 16) is hardly a figure of resurrection, but of the administrative putting away of sins for Israel in the future.
David is brought in here to describe the blessedness of a man that is justified — it is the blessedness of the man to whom the Lord imputes righteousness without works. The principle had been enunciated in Abraham, that blessing must be on the ground of faith. If the blessing of God refers to another scene, it involves another principle in man, and that is faith. This is in accordance with what is revealed in the gospel, “the righteousness of God ... upon all that believe”, irrespective of Jew or gentile. Abraham was accounted righteous in uncircumcision, when he was neither Jew nor gentile. What have we apart from faith? The Spirit is received through the hearing of faith. David could describe pathetically the blessing of sins being covered. He could speak of it in a different way from Abraham. Abraham represents man at his best, and David in his sin, man at his worst. Abraham was called out when there was nothing overt against him. They were each depositaries of promise, and all was assured to them through resurrection. In the ways of God we depend upon Abraham for the principle of blessing, and on David for the throne where all is administered in grace. The principle of grace comes out remarkably in David; all proves the unity and strength of divine ways. Although God gave Israel the law, another principle was in His mind; Abraham lived before the law was given, and David after, and [p. 59] yet the same principle is seen in both. In David the principle was applied to a man under law; there was no remedy for David under law, he was wholly debtor to the grace of God. Further on in this chapter we get the opening up of the purpose of God, not through law but through the righteousness of faith.
What we have here is a question of light, the light which God has given by the gospel. He not only shows us His righteousness, but He opens up the world to come. We have the power of God in raising up Jesus our Lord from the dead. When Paul said to the Philippian, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ”, that meant a great deal, it meant bringing the soul of the jailor into the light of the world to come. We do not get the inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, but we get the Spirit as the earnest of everything that is headed up in Christ. We do not sufficiently connect the gospel with the world to come, we are more concerned that people should appreciate that they are justified as men down here, than we are to bring them into the light of the God of resurrection, and of the Lord Jesus Christ. All that is light in regard to the world to come. The Lordship of Christ has reference to that world which is the sphere of His administration.
God was over the sin of David so that he should express the feelings of the remnant in the future, they will appreciate the blessedness of sins covered. Psalm 32 refers to Israel, but it says, “Blessed is the man”, so it is good for the gentile. David was a pattern man of grace, just as Paul was a pattern of the whole longsuffering. There is one point which has been a little overlooked by us in connection with the righteousness of God, namely, that it is in the righteous One that the man under judgment has been removed, so that in the removal God should be glorified — Christ suffered, the just (righteous) for the unjust; so, too, in 1 John He is spoken of as “the righteous”. He has fulfilled [p. 60] every requirement of God in Himself, and we come into sweet savour in connection with Him as the righteous One who has maintained God’s glory. We stand in all the savour of His work. This hardly goes so far as Ephesians 1, “Accepted in the Beloved”. Israel will stand in the sweet savour of the burnt-offering. The blood of the burnt-offering was never carried into the holiest, it established a ground of acceptance upon earth in the place of sin.
Life is not brought out doctrinally in this chapter; in the next chapter we have the love of God shed abroad in the heart by the Holy Spirit. The unfolding is progressive. First we have light as to God’s righteousness, then as to His glory as the God of resurrection, and so a new scene opened up, and then we learn that the source of all was love, as witnessed in Christ’s death. The purpose of all this is to bring us into the full light of God as revealed in the gospel, and that is of love; these things are given to us in detail for our apprehension. This chapter brings in resurrection, and that opens out the scene and sphere of God’s glory in which Jesus is Lord. The resurrection sphere is where God works. In the world man works, constructs enormous armaments, builds up vast systems, makes instruments of destruction — that is the power of man working; but there is a sphere in which God works for His own glory, and that is the resurrection sphere; there the Lord is Administrator and the Spirit works. People would be greatly confirmed if they were consciously in the sphere of this power. We see the proofs of God’s goodness in the world, but one must be in the scene in which He operates to see the proofs of His power.
“Raised for our justification” gives us a status for God and for the world to come; Christ is our righteousness for that. We need not be troubled about our weakness if Christ is our justification in the presence of God, our approval for the world to come. “He was delivered for our offences”, that clears us from any charges connected with this world, then in Christ’s resurrection we are approved for the world to come. The same will hold good for Israel. Death has come in for the removal of the transgressions under the first covenant, and they will say, “The Lord our righteousness”. In chapter 5 we get all the blessed effects to us of the Lord’s administration.