THE MAN OF FAITH - HIS RELATIONSHIP AND CIRCUMCISION
[p. 261] THE MAN OF FAITH — HIS RELATIONSHIP AND CIRCUMCISION
We have come, in this chapter, to a most important and critical point in Abram’s spiritual history. You cannot attach too much importance to what comes out in this chapter, for it is to the time mentioned here that the apostle refers in Romans 4. He takes up there the case of Abraham, and uses it to show the principles of God’s actings. He lays stress on the character of Abram’s faith, and marks the age of Abram, “When he was about an hundred years old”, so that it is evident that the apostle is referring to what comes out in this chapter. When Abram’s age was previously mentioned, he was eighty-six; thirteen years had elapsed, and, in a certain sense, thirteen years had been lost. When he came out of Egypt he brought an Egyptian link with him, Hagar, and the link hung by him, was a cause of trial and sorrow, and hindered him, as far as I understand it, thirteen years. In this chapter he goes back to what came out in chapter 15, his powerlessness in the presence of God’s power.
I purpose dwelling now upon what I understand to be the beginning of Abram’s relationship with God. I do not see that he entered into relationship with God previously to this chapter. And in the spiritual history of a great many Christians, it is some time before they enter into the sense of relationship with God. To be a forgiven person, to have listened, for instance, to the call of God, or even to be justified, does not in itself put me in relationship with God. If I am to be in relationship with God I must be so according to the name in which it has pleased God to reveal Himself to me, that is an unvarying principle in scripture. This principle comes out in the history of the children of Israel;
[p. 262] if they were to be in relationship with God, it must be according to the name in which God was pleased to reveal Himself to them. We all know that God made Himself known to the children of Israel by the name of Jehovah, and that was the name under which they stood in relationship with God. Now the first time that God made Himself definitely known to Abram by a name, appears in this chapter, and He gives Abram himself a name; this is the ground of his relationship with God; and no one can deny that this was a very important point in the history of Abram.
Three things come out in this chapter: (1) God reveals Himself by a name; (2) God gives Abram a name, He changes his name, which God alone could do, and gives him a new name (and Sarai also, though I do not dwell upon that); and (3) God gives him the covenant of circumcision. And I venture to say this, that after all that comes out in this chapter there was not very much left morally of Abram. And so it is with us, for God was dealing with Abram according to the great principles on which He deals with Christians; and I think that we can read those principles in this chapter. So, again, the principles on which God dealt with Israel, in redeeming them, and setting up His tabernacle among them, are the principles on which God has dealt with us The principles of men throughout scripture are unvarying, too; what man was at the outset, after he fell, man is still, and will be to the end. Babel came out very early, but it comes out again at the end as plain as daylight, and God comes out at the end, too.
I made a statement, which I think will need to be enlarged upon a little, that this chapter is the beginning of Abram’s entering into relationship with God; though the previous dealings of God with him had been of the greatest importance. I will [p. 263] tell you what I think is the course of God’s dealings with everybody. Where we begin with God is in His call I think everybody is called, and the reason (as I pointed out when speaking on chapter 12) is because God is not in the things out of which man is called. The effect of the fall has been to exclude God from the course of things down here, and the consequence is that when God has to say to man, the first thing is to call him out. That is just as true now as it was when God called Abram out; God was not in kindred and country and father’s house idolatry was there. So, too, Israel was in Egyptian bondage; and though God interfered and made known His judgments in Egypt, God was not in Egypt, and so Israel had to be called out. Christ had to go down into Egypt that He might be identified with Israel’s history, that it might be fulfilled, “Out of Egypt have I called my son”.
And when we come to Christians, what is the truth there? “Whom he called, them he also justified”. The first thing is the call of God; there is the beginning of God’s dealings with everybody; and the fact of God calling is the clear proof to me that God is not in the course of things down here. The course of the world, the fact of what man is, and the principles of the flesh, are such as to exclude God. “The lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life”, all the ruling, dominating principles of the world, exclude God, and hence God calls man.
Then, the next thing, after the call of God, is that a man is justified; we see this in the prophecies of Balaam; the first prophecy relates to the call of God, and the second announces the justification of God’s people. God had not beheld iniquity in Jacob, nor perverseness in Israel — — they were justified in the eyes of God. So with Abram, he is called, in chapter 12, out of country and kindred and father’s house, and then he is accounted righteous in chapter 15, but not (as I pointed out last time) in respect of the present course of things, but in respect of God’s world. And God’s world is not yet displayed, but when the time comes for its display Abram is clear in respect of that. He can have his part there consistently with God’s righteousness.
So it is now with the Christian; if justified, I am justified in respect of God’s world, and when God displays His world, that is the day when I shall be found clear, not having my own righteousness, but that which is by the faith of Christ. I do not much care to be vindicated in this world, but it is a very great thing to know that I am clear as before God.
The next step is, “Whom he justified, them he also glorified”. But I think that in a certain sense there is an intervening step, and that is, that when a man is justified, God enters into relation with him. You can very well understand that God could not do so with a man that is not justified; a man must be clear in the eye of God for God to enter into relation with him. God might have mercy upon a guilty man, and show His grace towards him; but how could He enter into relation with him? There is a vast number of people in the world that have a sense of the grace of God, and may know that they are justified, but yet have very little sense of relationship with God. And that is what we come to in chapter 17; the important point there is that God was pleased to enter into relation with Abram; and if God enters into relation with a man, He must make known His name, He must define the character in which that man is to be in relationship with Himself. For man has lost his place with the Creator, he cannot have to say to God simply as Creator; and if he is to enter into relationship with God, it must be according to the name by which [p. 265] God sees fit to reveal Himself, whatever that name may be. Read the first verse: — “And when Abram was ninety years old and nine, the Lord appeared to Abram, and said unto him, I am the Almighty God; walk before me, and be thou perfect”. Also Revelation 1: 8: “I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty”. I just refer to the latter scripture because I am going to dwell upon the name “Almighty” for a moment, and we get in the passage a certain connection in which the title of Almighty stands. As we have seen in chapter 15, God made a certain revelation to Abram, and Abram believed God, and in the eye of God was accounted righteous in view of God’s world. But I do not think that Abram got the good of it at that time; it was true in the eye of God, but I do not think it was realised in Abram, or that Abram understood it. The faith was there which God could own, and on the ground of which God could account him righteous; but before Abram got the good of it he was to be subjected to a test. And he did not answer to the test, he fell into the temptation suggested by Sarai, that it was possible to carry out the mind and will of God in a natural way and by natural power. And what was the practical effect? It connected him with Egypt, for he had a link with Egypt in his house, and Abram came for the moment under the influence of what was of Egypt. And, if you are disposed to it, you can bring in natural endowments and powers to carry out the mind of God, but the practical effect will be to bring you under the power of the flesh. I know that there are plenty of people who do it, but they do not understand what the call of God is, and they connect their Christianity with their human circumstances, and maintain certain links down here.
[p. 266] They attempt, as I said, to carry out the things of God in human ways and by natural power and ability. The practical result is that they do not escape the influence of Egypt. Abram fell into the snare, and his soul was darkened to a certain extent, it appears to me, by the influence of Egypt for thirteen years. You read in the preceding chapter how it brought trouble into Abram’s house, and caused jealousy on the part of Sarah; but in this chapter we have come to the end of the thirteen years, and God reveals to Abram, for the first time, the name by which he was to know God, just as God afterwards gave to Israel a name according to which Israel was to know God, and has given to us a name according to which we know God; and we are to be in the light of that name. The name by which God revealed Himself to Abram was “Almighty”. It is a very simple name, and the idea which it conveys to me is this, that there was nothing beyond the power of God; and it is a name which involves therefore (and I think Revelation 1 proves this) the thought of resurrection. Death is the greatest enemy, the greatest power, in a sense, as against God; but “Almighty” implies that there is nothing beyond the power of God. Evidently, if God is Almighty, He is superior to every power, superior even to death. In the beginning of the Revelation, He is the One that was, and that is, and the One that is to come, the Almighty, and that is what God made known to Abram; His power was illimitable. If there were one single thing that could victoriously assert itself against God, it would prove that God was not Almighty; but God is Almighty. The God whom Abram believed was the God “who quickeneth the dead, and calleth those things which be not as though they were”; he believed in the Almighty God, the God of resurrection.
[p. 267] I quite understand that a person might read this chapter and view everything that occurs in it as come to pass after the flesh; and indeed what God spoke of here was accomplished after the flesh. But that is not the scope of this chapter; I am sure that such is not all that was in the thought of God. And what is more, the thought and faith of Abraham went beyond this, for his faith is brought before us in Romans 4; he is the father of all who believe, before Him whom he believed, that is “God, who quickeneth the dead, and calleth those things which be not as though they were”; and quickening the dead is really the power of resurrection.
That is the way in which Abram believed in God, and God gave him a name, and in connection with the name God gave him an injunction, “Walk before me, and be thou perfect”; he was to be perfect in respect of the name in which it had pleased God to make Himself known to him. In the same way God makes Himself known to us in the name of Father, and we are to walk in the presence of God as known according to that name, and to be perfect, that is, to be established and confirmed, to be true according to the name of Father. I dwell upon this as a point of vital moment. The name by which God reveals Himself to us is our great standby, and we are to have all the benefit, support, and comfort of that name. What a Christian has in the name of Father is the comfort of love. And I think that the name of Father covers every previous name. It is the foundation on which I am to build; my stronghold, and my joy is to be in that which the name imports to me, and what the name of “Father” imports to me is love. It is a great thing to know God as Almighty, so that I am conscious that there is no evil power that can assert itself against Him; in His presence everything has to give way, for God is superior in power to everything.
[p. 268] The name of Jehovah speaks of the faithfulness of God, that He is the eternal One, unchangeable in faithfulness. But when we come to the name of Father, that name imports the love with which the Son is loved. It is a great thing to be brought into the presence of God’s goodness; but it is a greater to be in the presence of His love, and to know that God loves us as Christ is loved. One passage will convey the idea, “God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ”.
To Abraham God did not make His love known, the time for that had not come; I do not think that God could adequately make known His love until the Son came. God was revealed only partially in the time of Abraham or of the prophets; the revelation of the name of Father was reserved for an after time. The name by which God made Himself known to Abraham implied that nothing could deprive him of the promises, because they rested on the all-sufficient power of God.
The name under which God has revealed Himself is the light of our souls, and we do not want more. Christ “was the true light, which coming into the world lighteneth every man”, and He was the true light because He revealed God. “No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him”. He revealed Him according to all His pleasure. We do not want the light of science or of literature; they are spurious lights, they inflate man, and give him a most undue idea of man’s power; but they are not light to the soul. The light we have is the light we need; and the light we have is the name in which it has pleased God to reveal Himself to us, the blessed name of Father, in the light of His love. And if you know this you [p. 269] will not be carried away by the pretensions of infidelity, or of science, or anything of the kind; there is no good in them morally. I pity the man who turns aside from the light of God’s love to pay attention to the false lights by which men try to divert souls from the truth.
The next point is that God gave to Abram a name. “As for me, behold, my covenant is with thee, and thou shalt be a father of many nations. Neither shall thy name any more be called Abram, but thy name shall be Abraham; for a father of many nations have I made thee. And I will make thee exceeding fruitful, and I will make nations of thee, and kings shall come out of thee. And I will establish my covenant between me and thee and thy seed after thee in their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be a God unto thee, and to thy seed after thee. And I will give unto thee, and to thy seed after thee, the land wherein thou art a stranger, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession, and I will be their God”. Now it is evident that God here gave Abram a new name; you may say that it was only a change in name, but it was virtually a new name, there was in the change a real significance. When God speaks about His own name, the name means the way and character in which God declares Himself; but when God gives to man a name, that name imports that which God intends to set forth in that man. Now the name that God gave to Abram was Abraham, and the meaning of Abraham is “the father of a multitude”, and that is what God purposed to set forth in Abraham. So that Abraham had two things, the light of God as the Almighty, and the knowledge of what God intended to set forth in himself. Those things were to be the life of Abraham’s soul, and I think that his soul and mind were to be taken up with them. A reference to Romans 4 will make it [p. 270] plain that the thought of God in giving to Abram that name went on to resurrection, for Abraham was to be the father of all them that believe, before “God, who quickeneth the dead, and calleth those things which be not as though they were”. He is the father of all of those whom God touches by the testimony of resurrection, for that is the testimony in which God has come to us; and Abraham is thus the father of many nations.
Now, in the application of that principle to Christians, I would ask what is it, do you think, that God intends to set forth in us? The name in which we know Him is Father, and what is the name which God has put upon believers? I think that it is Christ, and I judge that Christians are designated “Christ” in scripture because they are anointed of the Spirit. The expression of the apostle, “For me to live is Christ”, gives me the impression that God has no mind otherwise in regard to saints save that Christ may be set forth in them; and it means that in the thought of God Christ is practically to displace all else. If you can apprehend what Christ is, then you can understand the force of the name which God has put upon you. We are one body in the baptism of the Spirit, and in that one body Christ is to be set forth; and as you understand the virtues and sensibilities and affections of Christ, so you will understand what is to be set forth in Christians. I think that God intends us to be in the light of the Father, that is, of God revealed in love; and as Christ personally was under the eye of God when He was here upon earth, so now, in the grace of God and by the power of the Holy Ghost, Christ is reproduced here in the one body. It is the subject of the Epistle to the Colossians. The saints are looked at as circumcised, complete in Christ, and in chapter 3 they are spoken of as having put off the old man and put on [p. 271] the new; and in the new man Christ is all and in all. Chapter 3 of Colossians is the simple setting forth of Christ in the Christian circle here. The Christ is the name which God has been pleased to put upon saints, and it expresses that which God intends should be set forth in us. We are to walk down here as a forgiven people in the sense of the grace of God, but that is not the greatness of God’s thought in regard to us. It is seen in that we have put off the old man, and put on the new, which after God is created in righteousness and holiness of truth. And it is evident how completely one’s name is displaced! I may, or may not, have had part in the renown and glory of man (”name” often has the force of renown in scripture), I may have been a great man in the world, or a crossing-sweeper, or anything else, but my name is now completely set aside for that which God has given.
One speaks of these things, but as conscious of how poorly we are up to them. Most of us are content to walk down here piously, as knowing something of the grace of God, but that is not the height of the divine thought. I believe that all that which will be displayed in the holy city, the heavenly Jerusalem, should characterise the saints morally now; just as the apostle said, “For me to live is Christ”; and just as the new name and the child, which God gave to Abram were intended to exclude all that was naturally of Abram. All was new.
I come now to the third point, and I wish to connect the three points together. “And God said unto Abraham, Thou shalt keep my covenant, therefore, thou, and thy seed after thee in thy generations. This is my covenant, which ye shall keep, between me and you and thy seed after thee; every man child among you shall be circumcised. And ye shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskin;
[p. 272] and it shall be a token of the covenant betwixt me and you. And he that is eight days old shall be circumcised among you, every man child in your generations, he that is born in the house, or bought with money of any stranger, which is not of thy seed. He that is born in thy house, and he that is bought with thy money, must needs be circumcised: and my covenant shall be in your flesh for an everlasting covenant. And the uncircumcised man child whose flesh of his foreskin is not circumcised, that soul shall be cut off from his people; he hath broken my covenant”. Then, in verse 26, you see that in the selfsame day Abraham, and Ishmael, and all the men of his house, were circumcised. This shows in figure the truth that the flesh has to be put off; Abraham has received new light and a new name, a revelation of the purpose of God as to what was to be set forth in him, and in the light of the new the old goes. Circumcision is looked upon in Romans 4 as the seal of God upon Abraham. And the way in which I should construe that in regard to Christians is that the flesh is set aside because the Spirit is there; as the apostle says in Romans 8: “Ye are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you”. From the moment the Spirit is received every bit of the flesh in the believer has to be disowned. Abraham had to learn the lesson in figure that there was no room for confidence in the flesh; the teaching was of course typical in his case, but it meant that the sign of the covenant as between God and himself indicated that God would not own the flesh. Abraham was to become weak, and so, too, all the strength of his house, because God intended to make clear in Abraham that He had nothing to say to the strength of flesh.
Now this is of the last moment to us. The shape in which it comes to us is that for those whom God [p. 273] has called, and who are justified, the Spirit is the seal; and the meaning of receiving the Spirit is that we are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit. The moment the Spirit of God is received, it ought to be a settled thing with that person that the flesh is no longer to rule, for the Spirit has come to dwell, and to take the entire control.
Now I will try to put these things together in their application to us, which is my main object. We are in the light of God’s love, “the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us”, and God has made known His purpose concerning us, viz., that which is to be set forth in us; He has put a name upon all of us, and that is Christ. And, further, God has given to every Christian a power adequate for the setting aside of the flesh, so that there is simply room for Christ to come out. It must be one or the other with us, either flesh or Christ; that makes up all the life of a Christian here. But if the Spirit is there, He alone is the power to set aside the flesh, in order that the body may be the vessel in which Christ is displayed.
Now I will give you a practical rule by which you may know when you are in the Spirit — it is when you are consciously in the light of God’s love; for you may be confident that if the Spirit of God is effective in you, He is bound to keep you in the light in which God has made Himself known to you; and when that is the case, Christ will come out in you, and hence the flesh will be practically set aside. The flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh, and these are contrary the one to the other, so that you may not do the things to which you are prone. And the rule of the Spirit means that the soul of the Christian is kept in the light of the love of God, and you cannot be kept there without responding to that love. We love God [p. 274] because He first loved us. And hence what describes me in my character here is Christ. I think that the apostle was kept continually in the light of the Father’s name; he apprehended the purpose of God about him, and accepted it, and the flesh was practically set aside in him in the power of the Holy Ghost, so that not the flesh but the Spirit ruled, and there was not much of Paul seen.
I want everybody to bear in mind the great principles of God’s dealings with Abram; and I think that it is most important to remember that Abram had to do with the God of resurrection. God was not merely making certain promises to him which were connected with his seed after the flesh; but in the name in which God revealed Himself, and in the name which He gave to Abraham, and in the covenant which God made with him, the thought of God went far beyond all that was after the flesh: it went really into the resurrection sphere, in which all these things will come out. It is in the resurrection sphere that God will be really known as God Almighty, and that Abraham’s name will come out as the father of many nations. It is there, too, that you get the flesh practically set aside in the power of the Holy Ghost. God grant that we may know something more of that sphere. Abraham had a glimpse of it, but we know it more perfectly, as being in the light of the God of resurrection. This is the true beginning of our history with God; and the Holy Ghost has come down, because Christ is risen and glorified, to make God known according to what He is in love as Father.
I trust that you may have apprehended what I judge to be the great principles which come before us in the chapter; and I think that it is in our power, by the Spirit of God, to understand these things a great deal more clearly and distinctly than even Abraham understood them.