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LIGHT AND SALVATION

It is not a very difficult matter to spell out christianity from the Old Testament, though we could not do this if God had not given to us of His Spirit; but by the Spirit it is not difficult to see in Scripture that God had from the outset all His ways before Him. Nothing comes unexpectedly to Him. There was no question with God as to what He was going to do right through. No plan of God is affected by what men do. He knows perfectly what they are going to do. The prophet Isaiah made known that Israel would reject Christ when He came to them. I have turned to this particular scripture as showing that although the Old Testament is not dealing with christianity, but with things on earth and the people of God — Israel, and all connected with them, yet undoubtedly by the Spirit you can see that God had other things in His mind connected with Christ when the Spirit of God indited it. This particular chapter speaks of what Christ is at the present time. The apostle Paul takes it up in Acts 13 to the people at Antioch in Pisidia. He found the Jews perverse and opposed to all he had to say, then he turned to the gentiles to present Christ to them, and for justification in what he did he takes up the verse in this chapter, “I have set thee to be a light of the Gentiles, that thou shouldest be for salvation unto the ends of the earth”. And so elsewhere the apostle says, “I heard thee in a time accepted, and in the day of salvation have I succoured thee”. He quotes that in the second epistle to the Corinthians and gives it a present application, he says, “behold now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation”. Now it is certain that what is spoken in this chapter in Isaiah had no reference to any then living. The circumstances predicted had not ^[p. 2] come to pass, when Isaiah wrote, and the chapter could have no reference to Isaiah. Isaiah was never set for a light to the gentiles or to give salvation to the ends of the earth. He was never employed of God to raise up the dispersed of Jacob and to restore the preserved of Israel. He was employed to speak beforehand of the One who would do it. He predicted what would come to pass, and a vast deal of the prophecy of Isaiah has reference to Christ. There is scarcely any prophet that speaks so much of Christ as Isaiah. All the prophets in some way have testified to Christ, but none are so full of the history of Christ as Isaiah. This part of the book particularly foresaw the great controversy which God would have with His people Israel in regard to Christ. The Spirit of God foresaw in Isaiah as in Simeon, that Christ would be presented to the people and be rejected, and so we have the controversy between God and Israel in regard to Christ taken up. I am speaking, supposing that what we get here is prophetic, and refers not to the prophet nor to anybody short of Christ; that is, that God had Christ in view. We get in the chapter a kind of dialogue. On the one hand Christ is Himself pleading certain things, and has the answer of Jehovah. Christ says, “And he hath made my mouth like a sharp sword; in the shadow of his hand hath he hid me, and made me a polished shaft; in his quiver hath he hid me, And said unto me, Thou art my servant, O Israel, in whom I will be glorified”. Again in verse 4, “Then I said, I have laboured in vain, I have spent my strength for nought, and in vain: yet surely my judgement is with the Lord, and my work with my God”. Then again in verse 5, “And now, saith the Lord that formed me from the womb to be his servant, to bring Jacob again to him, Though Israel be not gathered, yet shall I be glorious in the eyes of the Lord, and my God shall be my strength”.

It is a very terrible thing that the Lord should have had to say that He had spent His strength for nought and in vain. Outwardly there was little result from the ministry ^[p. 3] of the Lord when He was here, and yet He could retire on this, that His judgement was with Jehovah and His work with His God; that is, He left everything in the hand and judgement of His God. I suppose all here are more or less familiar with what is recorded in the gospels, that is the ministry of Christ; and so you can understand the language which the Lord employs here as to the outward results of His work. Men in general, in regard to their work, want to see some great and apparent result. Man wants something to show, perfectly natural. Very few of us would like it otherwise. You do get many people content to labour on diligently and not concerned as to what will be the apparent result. The thought of reputation undoubtedly has a great place with men. While men are sometimes content not to get much result in the present, yet they look for reputation. But we do not find the Lord labouring for reputation. He was labouring not only for the benefit of man, but for the will of God, and yet, in regard to that, He had to say, “I have spent my strength for nought, and in vain”.

Now I will speak a little of the answer that He gets, “And now, saith the Lord that formed me from the womb to be his servant, to bring Jacob again to him, Though Israel be not gathered, yet shall I be glorious in the eyes of the Lord, and my God shall be my strength”. We know that Israel was not gathered, but scattered; when the Lord was about to suffer He took up a word from Zechariah, “smite the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered”. That came to pass. The shepherd was smitten and the sheep scattered, and if the sheep were scattered, in due time the nation was scattered. God did not intend the sheep to be scattered and the nation gathered. There was a little gathering, I admit, but it was not the gathering of Israel. It was the gathering of a few who were brought into a new association, that is into the church. We find that in the beginning of the Acts of the Apostles — a little company that the Lord had attracted to Himself — the Spirit descended on them, for Christ had become ^[p. 4] glorious in the eyes of Jehovah. Christ was at the right hand of God. When Scripture speaks of the right hand of God it means something. In a kingdom who is at the right hand of the king? The queen sits usually at the right hand of the king, because it is the most distinguished place of honour and glory. Now Christ sits at the right hand of God, and He is glorious, whatever He may be in the eyes of man, and certainly He is not glorious in the eyes of man now. The world is a place of free opinion, and men have very different ideas in regard of Christ, but whatever men may think, yet He is glorious in the eyes of Jehovah, and His God is His confidence. The Spirit came down on the day of Pentecost to report the glory of Christ. Now if He is glorious in the eyes of Jehovah, He is the true Israel. The fact is that when the Lord Jesus was here upon earth He represented Israel under the eye of God. When He was born He had to go down to Egypt in order that the prophecy might be fulfilled, “Out of Egypt have I called my son”. He represented Israel in the eye of God, and hence if Christ be glorious in the eye of God it involves the ultimate restoration of Israel. It is a great point that He should be glorious, though Israel was not gathered, in the eye of God. Israel was really hid in Christ, and the work which Christ has accomplished holds good for Israel. He took up the liabilities under which Israel was, and met them, and, as we read in Romans 11, all Israel shall be saved; really hanging on the fact that Christ is glorious in the eyes of Jehovah.

I think it very important that the church should be distinct in maintaining the hope of Israel. The Jews are all over the face of the earth, but to a very large extent have given up their hope, they are content to accept things as they are in the world, and to make the best of them; but their hope is maintained by the Spirit of God in christians, that is in those who know that Christ is glorious in the eyes of Jehovah. No greater mistake has been made than for any nation upon earth to assume to be ^[p. 5] a particularly favoured people with God. There is no particular people with God nationally at the present time, except the church. There may be the claiming of the position of Israel, but I do not think God will allow the claim. It is not according to truth. If you look at verse 6, “And he said, It is a light thing that thou shouldest be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the preserved of Israel: I will also give thee for a light to the Gentiles, that thou mayest be my salvation unto the end of the earth”; you will see that the early part of this verse is confirmatory of what I have said, viz., that the ultimate restoration of Israel is dependent on Christ being glorious in the eyes of Jehovah. The tribes are to be raised and preserved, and Simeon takes that up in Luke 2, when he held the child Jesus in his arms and said, “Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word: For mine eyes have seen thy salvation, which thou hast prepared before the face of all people; a light to lighten the Gentiles and the glory of thy people Israel”. He was content to depart when he had seen Jehovah’s Christ. The very fact of Christ being glorious is the pledge of the restoration of Israel, and the One who will be employed of God to bring that about will be Christ Himself. It is a great thing to hold by this, and to entirely abandon any false position. If it was the purpose of God to recognise Israel as His people upon earth, God will hold to His purpose, and will most infallibly bring it to pass by Christ.

But we get another thing coming in; God says, I have set Thee a light to the nations, that is, the nations in contrast to Israel, “that thou mayest be my salvation unto the end of the earth”. Simeon takes up that thought in Luke 2. He says, “a light for revelation of the Gentiles”. The apostle also takes it up, as we have seen, in Acts 13. It would be a terrible thing if one could not see the restoration of Israel. It would be as though God had taken up something, and that something had failed. We may be quite sure that what God has taken up He will ^[p. 6] certainly bring to result and that although it may be clouded for a moment, yet God will not be baffled in anything which He has contemplated. Only one word more in regard to it: in the tabernacle, if you remember, there was the golden table and on the table twelve loaves; those twelve loaves represented the twelve tribes of Israel. The twelve loaves were borne on the golden table, and what does that mean? It means that instead of Christ being borne by the twelve tribes, the twelve tribes were borne by Christ. The high priest in Israel bore the names of the twelve tribes of Israel on the breastplate which covered his heart. All that involves restoration. But in the meantime Christ is a light to the gentiles and God’s salvation to the ends of the earth. I present these two thoughts because they are extremely important to us. One great property of light is to bring things into view. In the darkness of the night you do not see anything, but when the sun rises everything comes into view. So it was in regard to the gentiles. The gentiles in a sense had got out of the sight of God. They were lost in idolatry and darkness, degradation and debasement. But Christ was a light of the gentiles. That is, the gentiles were to be brought into the view of God. It is in that sense that I understand that Christ is a light of the gentiles. Simeon says, “a light for revelation of the Gentiles” that is to bring the gentiles into view. We get mercy for us poor gentiles.

Now another point is, Christ is salvation to the ends of the earth. Light stands in contrast to darkness, and salvation in contrast to bondage, and God could present Christ as salvation to the nations because in Christ is an outlet from the bondage in which man is found. I want to make that point plain. If there were no bondage there would be no occasion for salvation, but there is bondage and hence there arises the necessity for salvation. We have an illustration of it in the case of Israel. They were in bondage in Egypt to Pharaoh and his taskmasters, and because they were in bondage there was necessity for ^[p. 7] salvation. Hence it was that God came out in the character of a Saviour to Israel, to save them from their bondage. Now in regard to the gentiles, there were three things that marked them. One was lawlessness, a second was hatred, and a third darkness. That is where man really abode. It was true in regard of Israel when the Lord came. He found Israel lawless, hateful and hating one another and in moral darkness. They had not taken advantage of the opportunities God had given them. But when Christ was here there was an outlet from the bondage and that outlet was Himself, and persons here and there found it. Zacchaeus found it, the disciples found it, and others, too. In the company of Christ they ceased to be lawless, they ceased to be hateful and hating, and were not in darkness for they came into the light of the revelation of God. The same became true in regard to the gentiles. The Greeks and the barbarians were lawless. Their minds were blinded; they were idolators; they had no real ideal of a moral being; their gods conveyed immoral ideas; they had no idea of a living God or of righteousness or holiness. They were sunk in degradation, each nation doing its own will, and debased by idolatry. It has been said very often that idolatry was a deification of the lusts to which men are prone, and men got religious sanction for the lusts of the human heart, and it had a most fearful effect in regard of man. Men certainly did not love one another very much. There was no love to spare in the darkness of idolatry. In that state of things you might have found traces of natural affection, but in the general relations between men, they were hateful and hating one another, being morally in darkness because they had no light in regard to God. What has now come to pass is that Christ is light. The gentiles have come into the view of God and Christ is salvation to the gentiles. The judgement of God is held back in consequence of Christ having come in. When Christ came and was rejected, judgement might well have come in when the condition of man was taken into account;

^[p. 8] but instead of that, what has come to pass is that Christ is salvation. Judgement is stayed and, in the place of the judgement of God, what marks the present moment is an acceptable time and a day of salvation. And the reason of it is that Christ at the present time stands to the gentiles in the position of a light to bring them into the view of God, and there is salvation to them so that they may escape from the bondage in which men are, as the result of lawlessness having come into the world.

Now what is the gain of it to us? We have to get everything by Christ. It is only by Christ that the gentiles have come into the view of God. Had it not been for Christ we had all been idolators to this day. Whatever course the world might have taken I could not say, but, apart from Christ, as far as we can conjecture, we would be abiding in the darkness. We would have been hid away from God in the darkness of idolatry. Judaism never dispersed the darkness, nor philosophy; and my impression is that if christianity had not came in, there would not have been science, for science is an outcome of the liberation of the mind by the light of christianity. Judgement is stayed and the hand of God held back by the fact of Christ having come in. Christ is the head of every man. The present moment is a remarkable moment, an accepted time, a day of salvation, because Christ is an escape from the conditions which are prevalent in the world. Now I put it to you. How far have we escaped? How far are you free from lawlessness? I will tell you what righteousness means; it means to be bound to Christ, or, to use a scriptural figure, to be married to Christ. If you are married to Christ, you are no longer lawless but in righteousness, and the proof of that is that you practise righteousness. We have no proof whatever of anyone being joined to Christ except in that they practise righteousness. A true wife shows that she is a true wife by doing the works which please her husband. If she does not, she does not give much proof that she is a true wife; and so in regard of us we prove that we are married ^[p. 9] to Christ by the practice of God’s will and not our own will, in this world. God has left us here to that end. You will remember the admonition to the Romans in chapter 12, to yield their bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which was their reasonable service; then it adds, “And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God”. I have a question for all here. Have you been exercised to find out what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God? You can find it out if you desire. God will certainly enlighten you if you wish to be enlightened. Now we have to prove that will. It is no good talking or speculating about it. The thing is to prove it. If it were not possible to know it we could not prove it, but if it be possible to know it we can prove it, and are left here to that end, and in proving it we find that we are no longer lawless but joined to Christ.

Then Christ is salvation from the hatred that is in the world, for if you come under the influence of Christ the effect will be that you will find yourself in fellowship with other christians and will come into an atmosphere not of hatred, but of love. The Lord enjoined the disciples that they were to love one another as He had loved them. He left a little company on earth for that. Love was the atmosphere of that circle, and when others entered into that circle they found themselves in salvation, that is from the hatred that prevailed in the world; and so too in regard to the other point to which I have alluded. In coming where the Spirit of God was, that is to the circle which Christ formed, they came into the light of God, for if the Spirit of God were there, the light must be there. They came into the house of God, and were saved out of darkness, so that Christ had become salvation to the gentiles; salvation from lawlessness, from hatred and from darkness. It is an accepted time and a day of salvation, and it is a great thing for us if we have found Christ to be all that. Each one must enter into ^[p. 10] it for himself. Each one must of necessity have his own particular apprehension of Christ. You cannot alter Christ being light to the Gentiles and salvation, but of course, the fact of Christ being salvation will not affect you and me except as we apprehend what Christ is.

May God give us to understand better what it is to apprehend Christ as God’s salvation.

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