EXODUS 21
The Hebrew bondman is another lovely type of Christ. We get the thought of His perfection sacrificially in connection with the burnt-offering and the altar; but in the Hebrew servant the type is of His perfection in relation to service. How wonderful the place of service which the blessed Lord came into! And He so fulfilled all that was due that personally He could go out free. The law claimed six years of service, and then the bond-man might go out free: he need only serve six years. With the blessed Lord the law could not detain Him, for He fully answered to its every claim. As the old hymn says,
“Of Abba’s love, of God’s great claim,
He came not short at all;
Perfect in everything was He,
Alone since Adam’s fall”.
[p. 130] Now the question was, would He go out free? The reading in the margin is very striking. “If he came in alone” reads literally, “If he came in with his body” (verse 3). Hebrews 10: 5 shows how He came in with His body, “Thou hast prepared me a body”. But would He go out with His body? No, He would not. Personally He was entitled to do so, but it was exactly what He would not do; He devoted that body to His Master, His wife, and His children. That holy body prepared for Him, He has devoted to God, the church, and the saints individually. In the Supper He says, “This is my body, which is for you”. He has not gone out free with His body; He has devoted it; and in the giving of His body the Lord has pledged Himself to serve in love eternally.
“This is my body, which is for you” — there is a depth in that which appeals to every heart that loves Him. The eating of the Supper is bound up with a right appreciation of this; if we do not appreciate it we do not eat the Supper. So 1 Corinthians 11 speaks of the possibility of eating and drinking unworthily, and it says of the one who does so, that he “shall be guilty in respect of the body and of the blood of the Lord”; and again, “Not distinguishing the body”. The great thought which the bread in the Supper presents is that He has devoted Himself in love, He has said plainly, “I love”; He has pledged Himself, He has gone to the post and had His ear bored. It is another precious aspect of His death. His death in connection with the altar and burnt-offering has to do with the glorifying of God in relation to sin, but having the ear bored is dedication to service. He has pledged Himself thereby to eternal service. He has said plainly, “I love”. This is all excess; it goes infinitely beyond [p. 131] anything the law demanded. It brings before us the whole scope of His service towards His own: advocacy; intercession; support; succour; sanctifying and cleansing; feet washing; making His own to sit down and coming forth to serve them; and all other service. What a wonderful service the Lord has pledged Himself to! It is what He has done, is doing, and will do eternally; He will serve for ever. The effect of apprehending the love of Christ in this way would be that we look for everything from that service of love. We tell Him sometimes that He is the source of every grace; He lives to serve eternally.
The master boring the bondman’s ear suggests that God has accepted the dedication of Christ to eternal service; it is well-pleasing to God that He should devote Himself; it is all in perfect accord with the Father’s thought and the will of God. The servant carries for ever in his own person the mark of his pledge — the hole bored in his ear. The Lord will never lose the marks in His own Person of that pledge which His death involved. He called attention in resurrection to the marks of His hands and His feet in Luke; and His hands and His side in John. His love is pledged in that. You can fancy what it would be to the wife and children to look at that bored ear! How it must have touched a chord in their hearts every time they looked at it! The Lord loves to be recalled in connection with all that. “This do for the calling me to mind”; we are to call Him to mind in connection with the love in which He pledged Himself to God and to us eternally.
Revelation 5 speaks of Him as “a Lamb standing, as slain”; He bears in heaven the evident tokens of the suffering love in which He died. It is that side of it [p. 132] there; He carries the tokens of suffering love. Here it is the token of serving love; the same love that suffered, now serves eternally. When He comes into the midst of His own He comes to serve them. When we open the door to Him He comes in to serve. In Luke 12, when they open the door to Him, He comes in and girds Himself and makes them to sit down to meat, and comes forth and serves them. I think that happens whenever we open the door to the Lord. He can serve His household as no other can. He can make us sit down in the restfulness of the love of God and the Father, and minister all the thoughts of that love to us: He has pledged Himself to such service. Would that our hearts were more affected by these things! This is not only something that He has done in the past, or that He will do in the future; it is going on and being known and proved now. It is a great thing to have hearts awakened to look for it when we come together. There is nothing the Lord cherishes in His heart more than to have His saints with Him; but before He has them with Him, He loves to be with them and to serve them in love. It is the peculiar and distinctive privilege of the present time: if there are suited conditions we can have His company, and the service of His love in this peculiarly blessed way.
Of course there must be moral suitability in the household to receive such service. It is to those who wait and watch for Him that He comes. He would not come where He was not wanted, and where conditions were not suited to Him. There is no greater privilege than to have the Lord with us to serve us in relation to all that which divine love has conceived and brought into effect. We need His service [p. 133] individually in intercession and advocacy and succour and support. But for the moment I am thinking of how He loves to serve us in connection with all the thoughts of God, and in relation to the Father’s love.
One part of His service is that He is Minister of the sanctuary and the true tabernacle which the Lord pitched and not man. He serves in relation to God’s things and to God’s praise; He can put the service of God into perfect order. It is blessed to have the divine service ordered under His hand, so that if a brother takes part in a meeting he does so in a way that is the fruit of the Lord’s present service and support. The Lord loves to serve His household by giving support in relation to divine things. We have One who can serve us and serve God in holy things, and the saints are under His hand as holy vessels. The children of the captivity returned from Babylon with five thousand four hundred vessels of gold and silver. A specified number of holy vessels returned from Babylon for holy service. I think the Lord has been bringing back some of the holy vessels in recent years, that they might come under His charge as the Minister of the sanctuary, and be filled, and sustained, and carried by Him, so as to be for God’s glory and praise in His holy service. All the vessels hang on Him.
The position of the saints, according to divine thoughts, is a very wonderful one, whether it be in relation to the place where Christ has died, or to the love revealed in His death, or to the saints’ place of association with Him. He loves to serve and support us in relation to it all, and to direct us into the love of God. He is pledged to this service of love; are we surrendered to it? I do not think the Lord would ever [p. 134] withhold His service or manifest reserve unless there were some reason for it. If the Lord holds back there are moral reasons for it, as in the Song of Solomon where He withdraws Himself. If the Lord does not give Himself to us in the freeness and gladness of His love and service, there is a moral reason, and we should be exercised and search our hearts. If there had been any reserve on the part of the Hebrew servant towards his wife and children after his ear was bored, there must have been something on their side to cause it, for he had pledged himself to them for ever. They would have wanted to get the cause of the reserve removed as quickly as possible!
The Hebrew bondman is a precious type of Christ, but in the maidservant of the following section I think we may see a figure of Israel. She is not suffered to go out free because of the grace and faithfulness of her Master. It says, “If she is unacceptable in the eyes of her master, who has taken her for himself, then shall he let her be ransomed”. Israel has not pleased her Master; she has been very unacceptable to God. She has failed as tested by the law, the promises, and the presence of Christ; under every test she has been displeasing to her Master. Yet this gracious suggestion comes in, that she shall be ransomed. Though she has been so displeasing to God, ransom comes in; He will not give her up to a foreign people. It reminds one of the touching word by the prophet, “Where is the bill of your mother’s divorce, whom I have put away? or which of my creditors is it to whom I have sold you?” (Isaiah 50: 1).
“And if he have appointed her unto his son, he shall deal with her after the law of daughters”. God will be faithful to all His own thoughts in regard to Israel,
[p. 135] and He will see to it that she is endowed with everything suitable to the position in which he intends her to be set in relation to Himself and to His Son.
In the taking of another in verse 10 there may be a hint of the church coming in, but nothing of Israel’s portion is to be diminished. The church comes in to stand in heavenly relations to God and to Christ, but Israel will still have her own wonderful position and endowment, and will be held by the power of love and divine faithfulness in her appointed relationships. In spite of all that Israel has proved herself to be she will be held by divine faithfulness. She was a maidservant to begin with, but she will end by being a daughter. And, indeed, her Master will become her Husband, according to the prophetic word, “I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak to her heart ... . And it shall be in that day, saith Jehovah, that thou shalt call me, My husband, and shalt call me no more Baali (Master) ... And I will betroth thee unto me for ever” (Hosea 2: 14 - 23).
We have a wonderful cluster of pictures of the death of Christ here: the altar and the burnt-offering; the boring of the ear of the Hebrew servant; and ransom brought in in regard to the maidservant. Then there is another type of that death. We have had the love side first, and now there is the hatred side. A man smites a man and kills him (Exodus 21: 12). That is Israel again in the guilt of killing their Messiah, but there is a wondrous answer of grace to it! “But if he have not lain in wait ... I will appoint thee a place to which he shall flee” (verse 13). In grace God has taken account of things in that way as to the death of Christ. Peter in Acts 2 and 3 is on this line, “Him, given up by the determinate counsel [p. 136] and foreknowledge of God, ye, by the hand of lawless men, have crucified and slain” (2: 2, 23). They did it, but in chapter 3 Peter says, “I know that ye did it in ignorance, as also your rulers” (verse 13). It is looked at from the point of view, that it was not wilful, but God delivered Him into their hands. “I will appoint thee a place to which he shall flee”. Peter in Acts 2 and 3 is pointing them the way to the city of refuge. God delivered Christ into their hands or they could not have touched Him. It is seen to be what God permitted in His ways of grace to men. Their smiting of Christ was regarded as a sin of ignorance. What a marvellous answer of grace to the Lord’s intercession on the cross! “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do”. There is no grace like that! The Lord had said, “They have both seen and hated both me and my Father”. But grace takes account of it as a sin of ignorance, and Peter points the way to the city of refuge, Repent and be baptized, and you will have remission of sins, and the gift of the Holy Spirit; your terrible crime will be expiated (Acts 2: 38). The Epistle to the Hebrews shows what strong consolation God has given — two immutable things — to those who flee for refuge (Hebrews 6: 17 - 20). The city of refuge is open for the murderers of Christ! It is most wonderful how the law abounds with grace.