1 CHRONICLES 5 AND 6 (NOTES OF A READING)
1 CHRONICLES 5 AND 6 (NOTES OF A READING)
1 Chronicles 5:1, 2; 1 Chronicles 6:31,32; 1 Chronicles 6:48,49
CAC We have noticed that these names in the early chapters of Chronicles are selected names, not all of them being given. They are selected as standing in reference to the work of grace; and we find that out of the tribes three are selected for a special place in the ways of God, just as the Lord selected three of His own disciples for a special place of privilege and service. It is all done sovereignly. So we find that royalty is connected with Judah, the birthright with Joseph, and the service of God with Levi. It seems to me that the Spirit would have us link these thoughts together, as we see them linked in Christ.
Ques Would you open out a little the thought in connection with Judah being peculiarly connected with the royal line?
CAC It is distinctly said in verse 2 that “Judah prevailed among his brethren, and of him was the prince”, that is, God was pleased to connect the thought of royalty with Judah. It seems to me this is the divine order in which we take things up; we must know the Lord first as the great Administrator of divine grace in the kingdom of God. It is our first lesson in grace, to see the royal place He has as Administrator of divine grace, everything coming to us through Him.
Ques Does Peter suggest that side in speaking of the saints as “a holy priesthood” and “a kingly priesthood”, in view of the service of God?
CAC The first thing we must learn is how God serves us in Christ, how God ministers to us. Well, that is connected with the Prince. It is like Romans 5 really, a scripture we are all happily familiar with; “Having been justified on the principle of faith, we have peace towards God through our Lord Jesus Christ; by whom we have also access by faith into this favour in which we stand, and we boast in hope of the glory of God”. And the whole chapter is the opening out of the royal grace which is administered in the kingdom of God through the Lord Jesus Christ. I think we must see that is how we begin.
Rem In Psalm 78: 67, 68 Judah comes foremost as the subject of divine choice; “He rejected the tent of Joseph, and chose not the tribe of Ephraim, But chose the tribe of Judah”. The element of divine choice enters into it?
CAC Yes, and it has pleased God that royalty in this sense should be executed by the One who has come of the seed of David according to the flesh, and we have to learn to prize Him in that character first. I do not think that we get hold of the birthright first, or the service of God, but the kingly administration as vested in Christ — all is administered through Him, the risen and ascended Man who is the true David.
Ques Why is it prince and not king?
CAC I suppose the title of Prince gives more prominence to what He is personally than to what He is officially. It is the thought of personal quality that attaches to Him. He is spoken of as the Prince of peace and the Prince of life. It is the One who in all His personal excellence administers the grace of God to us; the whole favour of God is administered to us in a rich and princely way.
Ques Have we not sometimes been a little afraid of sovereignty, but seen rightly it gives stability?
CAC The time comes in all our histories when we,
glad to be done with ourselves, become most thankful for divine sovereignty. My nature is such, so stubborn, that I should have resisted grace to the last drop of my blood. It is the same sovereignty that has wrought in each saint, so that we are brought into subjection to Him in the character of the Administrator of grace. God repeatedly passes by the firstborn, showing that nature is incapacitated.
Ques It is not arbitrary, the passing by?
CAC Well, there is a suitability in His sovereignty. There is never any reason for God to bless anyone, but if God passes by certain persons there is a reason in it that will be seen to justify Him.
If God is exercising His rights in the way of mercy and grace, they are still His rights. The gospel calls for obedience, it is not merely to be believed but obeyed. He says, “I have exalted one chosen out of the people” (Psalm 89: 19). He passed His eye over all the people and selected Christ. He is the chosen One; God has made selection of Christ. So that now we are to sit down under His shadow, everything that is sweet and precious to us being administered through Christ in His princely character, and we are to sit under His shadow.
Rem So that they came with one heart to make David king.
Rem He is the eighth.
CAC Yes. We could not furnish any reason why God takes us up. There is a moral reason for passing people by which will be justified, but there is no reason for blessing but God’s sovereignty.
Why was I made to hear Thy voice?
And enter while there’s room?
When thousands make the wretched choice
And rather starve than come.
I think there are steps; God carries on His work in an orderly way. First we learn royalty, and that there cannot be a reason why we came in except that we were called — a mighty, unseen voice called us to receive Christ; and sitting down under His shadow we have all the favourableness of God shining down upon us in Christ.
Rem “Justified freely” is “without a cause”.
CAC It is the same word as “They hated me without a cause”. That is, on our side there is no cause whatever; it is simply a matter of God’s favourableness. I suppose we pass on in our spiritual history to the apprehension of what the birthright involves. It is Joseph’s. The birthright is bound up with the inheritance. The ability to take up the birthright was seen in Joseph, so he received a double portion, which is the birthright. As we go on we get an appreciation for the inheritance. I do not think that young believers care much about it; they do not think, of it, they do not want it. They are occupied, rightly, with the royalty of Christ and filled with wonder, love and praise at the immensity of the grace administered through Christ. When we get a little established in that (for we all could be more so), we go on to think of the subject of the birthright, which is connected with the inheritance.
Rem “That they may receive remission of sins and inheritance among them that are sanctified by faith in me” (Acts 26: 18).
CAC A very good verse showing that the thought of the inheritance is linked up with the service of God.
Ques What does the inheritance really mean?
CAC We must begin with CHRIST. He is the true Judah, the true Joseph too. He is the Heir of all things in Hebrews 1. He has taken “a place by so much better than the angels, as he inherits a name more excellent than they” (Hebrews 1: 4). The heirship has to do with the inheritance; to be an heir there must be an inheritance. It is rather what flows from sonship. “Thou art no longer bondman, but son; but if son, heir also through God” (Galatians 4: 7). Heirship is in connection with sonship in Galatians, and with children in Romans, as we all remember.
Rem It is “given to the sons of Joseph the son of Israel”.
CAC We think of Christ as the Heir; we shall get no right thought of the inheritance otherwise. He is Heir of the inheritance, and between the creating and the inheriting He had to bring in redemption to relieve it of the encumbrance. He found it encumbered, sin and death had come in. He had to exercise the right of redemption.
Rem “In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of offences, according to the riches of his grace” (Ephesians 1: 7).
CAC And not far from that, “The redemption of the acquired possession” (verse 14). All things are His acquired possession because He exercised the right of redemption; He cleared the encumbrance that was on the inheritance. These are very enlarging thoughts of Christ.
Rem “So that, death having taken place for redemption of the transgressions under the first covenant, the called might receive the promise of the eternal inheritance” (Hebrews 9: 15). Is that the clearance of the mortgage?
CAC Yes, people wanted deliverance, and with a sense of sin could not appreciate the inheritance, nor take part in the service of God. It is applied to everything. He is exercising the right of redemption in reference to the whole universe; the whole universe is stained with sin and death and He has to remove it.
Rem In the case of Israel the persons and the inheritance have to be redeemed.
CAC He created all things, a vast universe; it will not have a spot on it. Sin came in and affected the whole created universe, and He exercised the right of redemption through His death not only for persons but for things — Hebrews 2: 9. To think of Christ as Heir of all things, and then that He is going to have joint-heirs! The saints are called into this wonderful position as children of God, heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ. You should not see people going about with long faces as if they were poor! Do you think that anyone who is spiritually poor knows anything about this?
There is no other in view. You will not get any right thought of it unless you see there is only one. The longer we think of it the more astonished we shall be that He has joint-heirs and that they are to share with Him. God makes us heirs, “Heirs of God” — not Christ.
You see at the present time the Heir has been killed. “This is the heir: come, let us kill him, that the inheritance may become ours” (Luke 20:14). The dark plot has succeeded in the eyes of man. What are the nations quarrelling about? — something that belongs to Christ; the inheritance belongs to Christ.
Rem “To head up all things in the Christ, the things in the heavens and the things upon the earth” (Ephesians 1: 10).
CAC That is very good because it shows the extent of the inheritance. All things are to be headed up in Christ, and we have obtained an inheritance in Him; so the Holy Spirit would carry us into the whole vast expanse of what Christ is coming into, and people knowing a little about that would be qualified to serve God; it is the common portion of the saints in Christ. Nobody could say that it was not in the Scriptures. So this is the wonderful thought of heirship. It is so little dwelt upon in our meetings, and though we speak of sonship, we have not much to say about what accrues to us as sons!
Rem What about Ephesians 1: 18 — God’s “inheritance in the saints”; is that a step further?
CAC Yes, because it shows the extraordinary way God is pleased to take up His own inheritance. In a sense Christ’s inheritance is God’s, because it is all God’s inheritance that Christ is Heir of, but He takes it up in His saints, and God enjoys it in seeing us enjoy it.
God’s portion lies in our taking things up that He has given to us. It is as God sees His saints enjoying it that He enjoys it. How far have we entered into it, so that we can speak to God about it as persons who understand and appreciate it? God would say, ‘I am delighted with it! You are valuing the very thing that is delightful to Me’, that is how God gets His inheritance. There is a vast expanse that we enter into as inheritance in Christ, but God gets it in His people who can intelligently take up what God has given them in Christ.
Rem “That ye may be fully able to apprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and depth and height” (Ephesians 3: 18). Is that it?
CAC It is. It is the vast expanse, surpassing knowledge, of the inheritance, so that God may get the “glory in the assembly in Christ Jesus unto all generations of the age of ages”. That is the service of God.