NUMBERS 33
This chapter is a divine record of “the journeys of the children of Israel” from Egypt to “the plains of Moab by the Jordan of Jericho”. “And Moses wrote their goings out according to their journeys, by the commandment of Jehovah” (verse 2). It suggests that when God’s people are ready to go into the land He loves to take account of the whole journey by which they have come to that point. And we may note that it is “their goings out”; all the wilderness journeys are regarded as having that character. Baptism — typified at the Red Sea — is a definite going out from the world, but all the wilderness journeys, as viewed in this chapter, are “goings out”. Until we come to what is positive and permanent in connection with divine purpose, every exercise has the character of “goings out”.
And all the journeys being written by Jehovah’s commandment conveys that they are seen here from a divine view-point. Hence there is no reference to any failure on the part of the people, We are told that, they “went forth out of the land of Egypt according to their armies under the hand of Moses and Aaron” (verse 1), and that “On the morrow after the passover the children of Israel went out with a high hand in the sight of all the Egyptians” (verse 3). They are seen all through this record as marked by energy for movement; it is “their journeys”, how they “removed”, and where they “encamped”. God loves to put all that He can to the account of His people, and He commanded Moses to write this condensed history of the forty years to describe how they completed the whole series of movements which could be spoken of as “goings out”. There are about forty encampments mentioned, suggesting the complete range of movements and exercises through which God’s people accomplish their “goings out”, and learn their wilderness lessons. It is happy to see that this is the last impression which God gives us of the wilderness in this book. Many of the places named here are not mentioned elsewhere, but we have here the full record of every movement. It is the past journeys of a people just about to go into the land which Jehovah had long purposed to give them. They were movements which all had, in some way, a liberating character; they were “goings out”.
We must remember that there was all through, from Egypt to Canaan, an elect Israel, represented in an outstanding way by Caleb and Joshua, but which included all who were the subjects of divine working. He had referred in the first year of their journeyings to “thousands of them that love me”. That was the true Israel of God, and He could view it as having gone through the wilderness in a way which it pleased Him to have recorded. Each encampment had had its own lesson, and, without doubt, those who were really following Jehovah got some distinct spiritual gain from each. Those who have the land in view are the ones who get the greatest gain of God’s wilderness ways. Actually it was the unbelief of the mass of the people that occasioned many of these movements and encampments, but Jehovah would have them all put on record as a consecutive series of movements which His people had made on their way to the borders of the land. Historically we are told very little of what transpired in the thirty-eight years from Kadesh to the Arnon. It would have been no pleasure to God to record a history of failure. But He had noted carefully how His elect people, His [p. 377] lovers, had been moving by definite stages all the time. He had seen how Caleb and Joshua and others had journeyed, and He would have it written as a permanent record of movements that had given Him pleasure. I believe this to be the point of view in this chapter. There is no reference here to the generation of unbelief that perished in the wilderness; it is the same “they” all through from Rameses to the Jordan. And it is not here that Jehovah led them, as in Deuteronomy 8:2, but how they “went forth”, how they “journeyed” and “removed” and “encamped”. There had been movements all through which Jehovah loved to have recorded.
It is a comfort to know that there can be a wilderness history in which God finds pleasure. Such a history is marked by movement, each encampment having its distinctive experience and education. We may be sure that Caleb and Joshua learned something more of God at every encampment, and having learned it they were ready to remove to the next. From the time that the tabernacle was set up all their movements had reference to it; they were the movements of the divine testimony. We are apt to think of the wilderness as a place of trials and difficulties, and a place where the flesh is tested and exposed, and also where we experience divine resources and care. All this is true, but the lovers of Jehovah would think of it above all as the place where they are privileged to accompany “the tabernacle of testimony”. It has pleased God to have a testimony here, and to have His people identified with it. And this book of Numbers shows us that it is marked by spiritual movement; it requires that those who are identified with it must be prepared to journey whenever the time comes to do so. And it should be noted that the movements referred to here were collective movements. They evidently do [p. 378] not typify individual exercises, but exercises which we take up together as moving spiritually in relation to the tabernacle of testimony. This type will not have much meaning to us if we do not recognise that God has a testimony here, and that He would have all His people to move together in relation to it. This could not be understood when believers were nearly all held in national or sectarian bodies. But since God has given light as to His thought of the assembly in the wilderness we can see that His mind was that there should be assembly movements there leading to increased spiritual intelligence and liberty — a progressive going out, the result of which would be state and competency suitable to enter into His purpose. With this in view the Spirit of God brings certain features of the truth into prominence from time to time that the saints may be exercised collectively, and may move as together in the truth. He has in mind that we should continually take up fresh exercises, and learn to view His testimony in different settings. So that the Spirit’s ministry amongst the people of God will never become stereotyped; the truth will be continually coming out in a way that leads to fresh exercises, and that requires movement so that the service of God may be taken up in keeping with the light which He is pleased to give. If we took up the service of God today according to the light given at the Reformation it would not suit the present position of the tabernacle. There could be no freshness or spiritual power in it. Those who cling to it may be faithful and pious according to their light, but they are far behind the present position of the tabernacle of testimony. The spiritual outlook of the saints, and their service Godward, if it is to be really acceptable, must be according to what the Spirit of God is giving at the present time. It is certain that, according to the type, the testimony has movements,
[p. 379] and with every movement the whole system of divine service comes into a new setting. And we may be sure that these movements will continue until the saints actually leave the wilderness position by being translated.
A ministry in spiritual power will always lead to movement. There will be more and more a going out, not only from what is of the world and of man after the flesh, but from restricted and partial apprehensions of the truth. There will be enlargement in what is of God, and in ability to serve Him according to His pleasure. There will be the consciousness of increasing freedom from what narrows and clouds the true knowledge of God, and of getting nearer to all that is in the purpose of His love.
We have noted before that many of the types convey instruction that is specially valuable in the last days. Indeed, much of it seems to have been reserved in the wisdom of God for special help in the knowledge of His mind at the end of the church period. There was a long period of church history during which there was very little thought of moving through the wilderness assembly-wise as identified with God’s testimony. The church took the place practically of a system set up in Egypt. But within the last century the divine thought of the assembly in the wilderness has been recovered, and it has been understood by many that God would have His people to move together universally in relation to His testimony, which is our true bond of unity as the tabernacle was for the twelve tribes. Until this is realised in some measure in a practical sense assembly movements in the wilderness will not be understood. But those who apprehend the divine thought see that it involves spiritual movement, because we have to learn how the testimony stands in relation to a variety of different circumstances and [p. 380] conditions. Saints walking in the truth find that new questions arise which have not had to be faced before, new difficulties have to be met, new exercises as to the truth are awakened by the current ministry of the word, and we have to learn how the testimony stands in relation to these things. It is not that the testimony changes, but it becomes known to us in new settings as we move from one encampment to another. And all the time it is a going out from what does not fully answer to the mind of God as we acquire ability to see His testimony in relation to one exercise after another. Those in true spiritual energy would not like to miss the lesson of one encampment, and we may be sure that the encampments as a whole would give a completeness of divine instruction for the Israel of God which would bring them to full liberty and preparedness to enter the land.
In Numbers 33 the wilderness journeys are over: the people are encamped by the Jordan in readiness to pass over into the land of Canaan. But Jehovah looks back, and He sees an Israel that “went out with a high hand in the sight of all the Egyptians”, and that had moved with Him through the whole forty years until they had come to the Jordan. He would have every stage of that movement recorded by Moses, for it was the history of how they had followed Him. They had been marked by movements that were in correspondence with His own. So that it is not Israel after the flesh that is contemplated here, but the Israel of divine calling, marked by energy for movement, that elect Israel which could now pass over into the land.
The typical bearing of all this is most important. God’s thought is to have a people who move with Him and with His testimony, and who are prepared to take up every exercise in the way as they come to it. Not,
[p. 381] in this connection, the exercises of our individual pathway, but exercises which we are called to take up collectively as “in the assembly in the wilderness”. These movements set forth what God has in mind for us. He would have us to move by definite stages, facing each exercise that we come to, and, when we have gained the spiritual instruction of it, ready to move on to another encampment. Those who are following divine movements will always find themselves in the presence of some definite exercise or spiritual instruction. These exercises are not to be shirked. The natural tendency is to prefer a fixed position where we can settle down, and feel that there is no need to remove from it. Such is largely the character of organised Christianity; it does not encourage fresh and living exercises, or the energy of spiritual movement, especially assembly-wise. But in the wilderness ways of God with His people He would have them always to be prepared for movement. We are set together in relation to His testimony, and that testimony will always be in some particular setting. The Spirit will always be saying something definite to the assemblies, so that there will always be some definite assembly exercise present with those who are identified with the testimony of God. If we take that exercise up with Him we shall gain something definite which will prepare us for further movement. If we do not face the exercise that comes in our present encampment we shall be unprepared to go on, and our movement with God assembly-wise will cease. Many have journeyed to a point when some assembly exercise came in which they were not prepared to face, and from that point their spiritual progress in relation to the testimony has been arrested. It is very sad to drop out of movements which are really of the Spirit of God.
[p. 382] But, on the other hand, the ranks of the defenders of the testimony are constantly being recruited, just as Israel was continually added to by the birth of children. Individuals who come in at certain points come in to be identified with the testimony in its present setting, with all that has been gained by past ministry and exercise. Those who come into the ranks of the testimony today have a great advantage because they come, in a certain sense, into the good of what has been secured by past conflicts and exercises. In taking up their part in current exercises they learn to value: the great gains of the past without which the testimony could not stand where it is today. They should certainly be interested in all its past movements, but thankful to come in to the light and instruction which has been gained thereby, and understanding that it is their privilege now to take up with their brethren the matters to which the Spirit’s voice is calling attention at the present time. Many earnest Christians fail to take account of the movements of the testimony, to their own great spiritual loss. This chapter should be sufficient to stimulate our interest in those movements, for it is by Jehovah’s commandment they are put on permanent record.
From verse 50 of this chapter to the end of the book we have instructions which apply to the people as having passed over Jordan into the land of Canaan. They were to “dispossess all the inhabitants of the land”, and to destroy all their figured images and molten images, and to lay waste all their high places. The land of Canaan is viewed here as a region which has been held by powers adverse to God and to His people. It typifies a spiritual region in which the devil and wicked spirits have operated against what is of God. These activities in the world generally have largely taken the form of idolatry. Man naturally fears [p. 383] death and what may be beyond it, and he has a thought of a Power above him. But I do not think that idolatry is exactly natural even to fallen man; I believe that it is rather that Satan has intruded what is of himself into the domain that properly belongs to God. It is wickedness in a spiritual form. This is something more than men’s lusts being in activity, though there is abundance of that also. But in idolatry the very thought of God is corrupted, and men are led to think of serving other beings who are positive rivals of the only true God. This belongs to a spiritual realm which Scripture clearly enables us to recognise, as, for example, when it says of Christ that He “spoiled principalities and authorities, he made a show of them publicly, leading them in triumph by it”, (Colossians 2:15). The coming in of Christ, and the Fulness of Godhead in Him, has fully exposed these great powers of evil. They have all been shown up as antagonistic to the true God revealed in Christ, and in being exposed they are defeated. All the forces of darkness are robbed of their power by divine light coming in. So for those who received Christ all those powers were seen to be “spoiled” and triumphed over. God has, as it were, taken up the challenge, and met in combat every spiritual force of evil that had darkened men as to Him, and in Christ He has prevailed over all. Now it becomes the exercise of faith and love to dispossess in a practical way all those darkening powers, so that the whole realm where they have dwelt and ruled may be held, not only for God, but for the joy and full blessing of the creature. This gives a wonderful place to the land of Canaan as a type, and throws great light on the true nature and character of life eternal as God’s gift to men in Christ Jesus.
As the old “inhabitants of the land” are dispossessed by the energy of faith, the ground which they have [p. 384] held may be occupied and enjoyed by God’s people. The whole sphere which has been occupied by the power of darkness may now be held as the portion of the saints in light. God may be known in light and love exactly in all those particulars as to which Satan has sought to darken men spiritually, and this blessed knowledge of God enriches men, and makes them divinely happy, so that they pass in spirit outside the range of sin and death, and possess life eternal in Christ as a matter of conscious enjoyment. But this great spiritual blessing is “over Jordan”.
Satan has systematised darkness as to God. “Figured images” (verse 52) remind us that idolatry often finds expression in a beautiful form. I suppose some of the most renowned works of art that can be found in Christendom have an idolatrous character. Then the philosophic systems of the heathen world, which are now reviving in Christendom, have somewhat of the character of “figured images”, for they have been elaborately worked out by the mind of man, assisted by supernatural powers. “Molten images” would represent set forms that can be quickly multiplied, and adapted to the religious sentiment in man. Everyone with spiritual vision can see that there is, in the present day, a wonderful combination of human wisdom, and human religiousness, and even human thoughts as to Christ, all blended together to secure some kind of elevation for the man who is under God’s sentence of death.
Idolatry now takes a Christian form. The Galatians had been in their heathen days “in bondage to those who by nature are not gods”, but now in observing days and months and times and years they were really turning back to what was no better than heathen idolatry. No doubt the principle of asceticism commends [p. 385] itself to men. But Scripture tells us that forbidding to marry, and bidding to abstain from meats which God has created that they may be received with thanksgiving, is the result of men “giving their mind to deceiving spirits and teachings of demons” (1 Timothy 4:1 - 5). In Colossians we are warned against being deluded by the persuasive speech of men; it is men who would fraudulently deprive us of our prize. But in Ephesians we are taken behind the scenes, and shown that behind men are “the artifices of the devil” — the action of principalities, authorities, universal lords of this darkness, spiritual power of wickedness in the heavenlies. The devil is particularly active in the spiritual realm. People may not see much harm in worshipping, or praying to, the mother of Jesus, or the saints, but the power of Satan is behind it. Many think that Christians should be under the law as a rule of life, but Satan is behind this to rob souls of Christian liberty, and to rob God of the praise that is due to His wondrous grace in Christ, and of the free service which His saints can render as they move in the freedom of sonship. All such enemies have to be dispossessed.
The saints as having passed over Jordan have come in spirit and faith on to new ground, as dead with Christ and risen with Him. There is power on this ground to dispossess all that is opposed to God. As Paul says, “For the arms of our warfare are not fleshly, but powerful according to God to the overthrow of strongholds; overthrowing reasonings and every high thing that lifts itself up against the knowledge of God, and leading captive every thought into the obedience of the Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:4,5). The spiritual forces of evil are to be fully dispossessed, so that the knowledge of God, as in complete victory over them, may fill the souls of His people. This is all founded on the power [p. 386] of death being set aside in the death of Christ, so that the saints can pass over to the other side of Jordan, and become victorious there over everything that is adverse to God. Eternal life as the inheritance can then be enjoyed.
The land was to be apportioned “as an inheritance by lot according to your families ... according to the tribes of your fathers shall ye take for yourselves the inheritance” (verse 54). The inheritance was thus to be taken up family-wise, which answers to the presentation of things in John’s writings. It was also to be taken up in tribal settings, which answers to the thought of local assemblies, according to Paul. The saints are thus set together for the collective enjoyment of the portion which divine love has allotted to them. The range of the inheritance is so vast that it takes the whole Israel of God to occupy it. Love wants all the brethren, and delights to have as many of them as possible, for the practical enjoyment together of the God-given portion in Christ. Every man’s inheritance must be “where the lot falleth to him” (verse 54); each one has his place assigned in divine sovereignty-something that he can take up of the wealth in Christ, and cultivate in a personal way so that it becomes productive for his own satisfaction, and for the pleasure of God. But then, as all are “joint-heirs”, there is a common participation; that is, I believe, the idea of fellowship as John presents it — a common enjoyment in family affections of what divine love has made ours. As set in local assemblies we are near to each other, and available for the joint-heirship in a practical way. The portion to which all saints are entitled as the subjects of divine calling can he enjoyed together as we move in the family affections of the children of God, and as we recognise the divine order which has been set up in the local assemblies.
[p. 387] This obviously puts us outside any religious order that is of man. The inheritance, in all its vast extent and wealth, lies outside the whole range of things here, for it is beyond the Jordan, and only those who “pass over Jordan” can set their foot upon it. This appears distinctly in the next chapter. But if we do not dispossess the inhabitants they will be thorns in our eyes and pricks in our sides, and they will harass us. How painful! a thorn in the eye! What can you see then? Men have thought that trained human abilities were necessary for ministry. What has this resulted in? Modernism with its bold infidelity, and its utter blindness to what is of God. Let each of us be concerned as to this matter. I suppose that many who have had some light as to the heavenly are not in the enjoyment of it as present possession. There is a thorn in the eye, or a prick in the side; something has been spared that should have been wholly dispossessed.