THE ORDER OF MAN THAT CONTINUES BEFORE GOD
[p. 298] THE ORDER OF MAN THAT CONTINUES BEFORE GOD
My thought is to indicate the order of man that is to continue before God. It is evident from the Scriptures, that from the very outset God’s operations are designed so that the order of being that would be before Him should be man; and in the subsequent development of His ways on earth, the kind of man that should remain before Him is indicated. In one word, that order is after Christ. It is in Him personally we see it set forth; and it is before me at this time to seek to show how God has indicated in the course of His ways the necessity for such an order of man, and how He has also operated so that we may have part in that order.
I have selected this scripture because it affords us the expression of the exercises of the kind of man that I have alluded to. The passage is not simply the utterance of the man; it is his writing. Writing is more distinct and permanent than utterance, and conveys more accurately the thoughts of a person than an oral communication. Now, this passage is introduced to us as the writing of Hezekiah, king of Judah; written, as we are told, when he had been sick and was recovered of his sickness. It is therefore the pronouncement of a man in regard to his experience under God’s discipline, but who is now happily through all the bitterness and the exercises consequent upon the circumstances he depicts. On this account I venture to take up the passage as affording help as to the kind of man that is to continue in the presence of God. It is a subject worthy of our deepest inquiry; and I trust, that by the Lord’s help we may be enabled to look at it a little, for we, no doubt, all desire to have part in that order of man.
[p. 299] Now, you will find that at the outset of God’s special dealings on the earth after the flood, that in the souls of those who had faith He created need; He created the sense of the need of a man to live before God. He withheld children from those who were the early depositaries of the light of the testimony, as we see in Abraham and in Isaac; hence you find that Abraham had longings; he desired to have an heir. He says to Jehovah “Behold, to me thou hast given no seed; and, lo, one born in my house is mine heir”, Genesis 15. That was a bitter contemplation for the patriarch; and then, subsequently, at the instigation of Sarah, he undertook to bring in an heir after the flesh. I refer to this to show you how God, as it were, caused to be produced in the heart of Abraham the sense of the need of a man to continue. Abraham knew that he was not to continue: he accepted that death lay upon man; it is a cardinal principle of faith to accept the divine sentence. In fact, faith is always accumulative of light that preceded it. So that the light that had been revealed was embraced by Abraham. He bowed to the fact that death was upon him; he was not to continue; he was to pass away in death. Hence the great desire for one to continue. So he brought in Ishmael. Ishmael is a remarkable product. Although he had a place with God on account of Abraham, he was not to continue: there was no covenant made with Ishmael. Abraham brought him in.
I have no doubt that great hopes arose in the breast of the patriarch as Ishmael was born; there was an heir. But God comes in after all that is over, and He communicates to Abraham a new thought. He says, “I am the Almighty God;” and in the communication of that light He laid in the soul of Abraham a foundation for an after super-structure. Abraham was to learn that the man that should inherit and continue before God should be brought in [p. 300] by the quickening power of God. That was the light that God intended should shine in the heart of the patriarch, and in connection with that light He gave Abraham the covenant of circumcision; implying that flesh, whether in Ishmael or others, was utterly profitless. The man born after the flesh profits nothing, that is the meaning of circumcision. And Abraham said in the presence of that, “Oh, that Ishmael might live before thee;” he was not equal to the light communicated to him; he would have the product of nature to live before God. I desire that our hearts might be searched in the light of that. We cling tenaciously to the man after the flesh, the religiously cultivated man, the product of a legal system. Well, Abraham had to learn, and doubtless it was a lesson for which he could thank God afterwards, that the man that was to live before God was Isaac, not Ishmael.
I cannot enlarge upon Isaac; all I would point out is, that Isaac was the fruit of the quickening power of God. The light of the power of God in connection with His righteousness is the great foundation that has to be laid in our souls so as to prepare us for the divine super-structure. You will remember what the Lord said to the Sadducees when they sought to entangle Him as to the resurrection. “Ye do err, not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God”. We do well to inquire as to whether our thoughts are governed by the Scriptures, on the one hand, and as to whether we are resting in the power of God on the other. Well, it was Isaac who was to live before God. Isaac, in a way, is one of the most striking types of Christ in the Scriptures. What marked his introduction into the world, and then subsequently his recovery in figure from the dead, was the power of God. He is in type the great testimony to the power of God.
Now, another thought which we have to receive [p. 301] into our souls if we are to understand the order of man that is to live before God, is that he is not as Adam, a product simply of God’s creatorial power. God formed the man out of dust and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. That does not convey to us the idea of the man that is to remain before God: the man that is to continue before God is a man out of death; and in order to come out of it, he has to go into it. Now, that is what I want specially to dwell upon. You will find in the Scriptures that those who had faith laid hold upon divine principles. Take, for instance, the prophet Hosea; you will find in his prophecy the acceptance of the conditions in which man (Israel) was found as the result of sin, and a record of the exercises of those who had faith. Now, what were these exercises? “Come and let us return unto the Lord, for he hath torn and he will heal us; he hath smitten, and he will bind us up; after two days will he revive us; in the third day he will raise us up, and we shall live in his sight;” Hosea 6: 1, 2. “Come, let us return to the Lord;” that is one exercise. There had been departure from God, and God’s hand in discipline was upon them. “He has torn us and he will heal us, and then after two days will he revive us”.
Now, I want you to ponder the two days. They say, “after two days he will revive us, and on the third day he will raise us up, and we shall live in his sight”. That is the kind of exercise that the souls of those who are to live before God go through; they accept the conditions that are here, and they bow to them; they accept that death as a divine sentence is passed upon men. It is a penalty; it is often said that death is a debt of nature, but it is a divine penalty resting upon men. Besides, there is not one pulsation naturally, not one movement Godward, in man; but when God begins His work in [p. 302] man the effect is this, that pressure is there; darkness is there, distance is there, and all that is felt in the soul. And hence, as the light grew clearer in the Old Testament (and in the prophets it became clearer), there was corresponding exercise.
We must bear in mind that the prophets are an addition to the Law. There was the Law; it was a testimony from God, asserting His authority over the souls of men; but the prophets bring in His wondrous patience in waiting for men; and then, moreover, they announce the principle, as wrought out in the soul, of life from among the dead. You will find in Isaiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Hosea, and others of the prophets, that they bring in a measure of light for the encouragement of the remnant bringing out that God would intervene and accomplish His purpose on the principle of life from among the dead. Hence, Hosea is enabled to bring forward the expression of the exercises of those who had faith. He says, “Come, and let us return unto the Lord: for he hath torn, and he will heal us; he hath smitten, and he will bind us up. After two days will he revive us: in the third day he will raise us up, and we shall live in his sight”, Hosea 6:1,2.
I was speaking of the wonderful revival there was in the ministry of the Lord Jesus; He came in as light, and in life and power into the midst of death. What a joy there was in this for those who had faith. He did not remove their exercises; He intensified them; the presence of the Lord Jesus in the midst of the remnant only intensified their exercises; it was said to His mother, “A sword shall pierce through thine own soul also”. The pressure would remain till He had passed through death; but there was light and hope in Simeon’s words. The pressure of death lay upon them, not only because of Adam’s transgression, but as the penalty of a broken law. The Lord came in as light into the midst of these conditions. “In him was life, and the life was the light of men”. They could not partake of it as yet, but it was light, and so had reviving power. “After two days will he revive us, in the third day he will raise us up”. There was the revival of the spirits of those who had faith by the presence of Christ in their midst; and then on the third day they were raised up; they were raised up in principle in His resurrection. He died for them, and was raised for them; compare John 12: 1, 2. All their hopes and aspirations were centred in that blessed Man, and He went down into death and was raised again on the third day. “He shall raise us up”, they say, “and we shall live in his sight”. That is what they have before them. You will remember what the Lord said to His hearers: “Go ye and tell that fox (Herod), Behold, I cast out demons and do cures today and to-morrow;” those were the two days of His testimony. He was here in the power of God’s Spirit overthrowing the powers of wickedness, and life was inherent in Him. He inspired hope in the hearts of those who had faith, and on the third day their hopes were realised in a risen Christ.
We do well to ponder the exercises that they went through. I have ventured to select Hezekiah as giving expression to these exercises in a remarkable way. He had been down into death in principle; all his hopes were shattered; but he turned to God. It is a great thing to learn to turn to God in everything. I know of no outlet from pressure but in turning to God: you may try other remedies, but you will find that there is really no outlet from pressure in this world but to turn to God; and He will never fail you. Take Jonah, for instance; he went down to the bottom of the mountains; he says, “All thy billows and thy waves passed over me;” but he cried from the whale’s belly; he cried from the lowest point, and his voice was heard, and [p. 304] he was brought up. I refer to Hezekiah and Jonah to show the principle of the exercises of those in whom God works in regard to the pressure of death. Do you turn to God? Well, Hezekiah turned to God here, and God delivered him.
Now, I want to allude to the principle of it. He prayed to God on the ground of what he was, on the ground of what he had been for God; he said, “Remember, O Lord, I beseech thee, how I have walked before thee in truth, and with a perfect heart, and have done that which is good in thy sight”. Now, God did not spurn this; there is not the least indication that there was any resentment on the part of God; the ground that Hezekiah took was just; it was, in other words, Christ, in the principle of it. Who could turn to God on the ground of his personal merits but the Lord Jesus? No one, beloved friends. What I wish to call attention to is this, that the principle on which life is brought in for man is founded on human merit in Christ, only made good to man, of course, through Christ’s death. The Lord Jesus Christ was here as man in the midst of death, and He established a claim with God, on the ground of personal merit, on the ground of the delight that He afforded to God. He established a claim upon God. As Son of man He has come in and inherited all the obligations that rested upon man; and as Son of man He has made all good. In this way He has set forth the order of man that answers to the mind of God. But in order that others should have part in this He must die, so as to remove sacrificially the order of man that had sinned. Thus He has practically established for us a title to life. But we do not get into the good of it apart from the exercises that we have recorded here.
I wish to touch briefly on Hezekiah’s exercises. I think you will find that they were very practical,
[p. 305] and may find an expression in each one of us. I may sum them up briefly under two heads; the first having reference to the pressure and the divine penalty, the just unerring government of God in what might be deemed adverse circumstances; then on the other hand, there are the exercises and affections cultivated in the unclouded light of what God is as revealed to us in the Lord Jesus Christ. Hezekiah summed all up in the light of the great result he had reached. He said, “by these things men live, and in all these things is the life of my spirit”. What a conclusion to arrive at! Look back on your history from the time you were brought into the world; for, remember, God’s governmental dealings began then. Look back, as now delivered and in the full light of the presence of God revealed, and see what is the sum total of it all; the adverse things, the bitter things, the humiliating things that you have been in? Hezekiah says, “By these things men live”. He spoke for others as well as for himself; once he had light in his soul he knew that others lived; he was only one among many; he says, by these things men live; in other words, all these things are simply messengers of God for the help of souls. So with each of us, God’s great thought is not only that we should be in the light of life, but that our souls should enter into it; and He sends all these special messengers to us to aid us to this end.
But Hezekiah goes on further and says, “thou hast in love to my soul delivered it from the pit of corruption;” and then, “The living, the living, he shall praise thee, as I do this day”. He is getting on now to what I might call the up-line. There are, as it were, in our experiences horizontal lines in which we move here under the government of God, where we are called to taste the bitterness of death in our spirits; all these things afford us help, so that we may live. Then he goes on to the up-line, as I may [p. 306] call it, which ends in the house of God. Now, you may wonder why I use that expression the up-line. Well, I recall for the moment the fact that one had to ascend to the house of God; it is reached on the line of ascension. You remember the queen of Sheba was affected when she saw the ascent by which Solomon went up into the house of Jehovah. It made a great impression on her, so that there was no more spirit in her. It does not speak of the ascent to his throne, but the ascent to the house of Jehovah. So Hezekiah here touches the love of God; “thou hast in love to my soul”, he says, “thou hast ... delivered it”. Then he says in effect, ‘It is just that I might praise Thee’.
Now, beloved friends, that is the end I had in view. I wished to show you that the order of man that is to continue in the presence of God is a man formed after Christ; and that thus he has to go through the exercises occasioned by conditions in this world under the government of God; and on the other hand he is formed by the love of God. If I were to be asked for a definition of a Christian, I would say he is a man formed in the light of the love of God; he knows God revealed in love and answers to God; hence Hezekiah here says, “The living, the living, shall praise thee, as I do this day”. Here was a man healed, delivered and free, and what for? To praise God in His house. If you are to be made to live, you are to live for God; every movement of your heart henceforth is to be Godward. Christianity involves a company of persons on earth relieved from the pressure of death, quickened in their affections and answering in every way to God; they are free for God; so there is the outgoing of quickened affections Godward. Hezekiah says further, “The Lord was ready to save me; therefore we will sing my songs to the stringed instruments all the days of our life in the house of the Lord”.
[p. 307] I think it is very beautiful to see how Hezekiah here brings in the plural — he says, “therefore we will sing my songs”. He had composed songs, and he brings in others to join in singing them. “We will sing my songs to the stringed instruments all the days of our life in the house of the Lord”. Well, there is the great end that God had in His mind in regard to life. We dwell upon the terms eternal life, and life, scriptural expressions which have to be understood, but we need to understand the order of man to which they apply. The first man by his discrepancy only enhances the greatness of the second. The second Man is out of heaven. He comes into our circumstances, goes through all the exercises that the pressure of death occasions, and brings in life, establishing a title through His death for others to have part in it. Then He sings, for indeed Hezekiah in this may be taken as a type of Christ. He sings the song he composes, but he associates others with him in it. “We will sing my songs in the house of Jehovah all the days of our life;” and we may say that is for ever. It would be a great thing if the saints were brought into the understanding of life, and as understanding it to render to God that which He seeks, and that is praise. “The living, the living, he shall praise thee”.