MOUNT ZION
[p. 89] MOUNT ZION
There is a grandeur and majesty about this paragraph which at once arrests attention, and it is well that we should have some idea of the great things which are here put in contrast to all that savours of Sinai and law. There has been nothing which Satan has pursued with such diligence, or attained with such success, as to get Christians back to the law. He does not deny point-blank that there is blessing to be had, but he nullifies it all by making it dependent upon something in ourselves. We get it plainly stated in Acts 15 by the men which came down from Judea, “Except ye be circumcised after the manner of Moses, ye cannot be saved”. “Ye must be circumcised and keep the law”. And the same thing has gone on ever since in one form or another.
Now, so long as one thinks that his blessing depends in any way, or in any degree, upon himself, he is under the shadow of Sinai, and naturally we all gravitate in that direction. Many truly converted persons are more occupied with themselves, and in trying to improve their own condition, than in seeking to learn THE GRACE OF GOD. The result is that where there is a shallow work of God in the soul they get lifted up with pride and conceit, and perhaps deceive themselves so far as to think there is no sin in them. On the other hand, if souls are upright and sincere they get into terrible distress, and experience what it is to have to do with Sinai — blackness, darkness, and tempest, so that a holy man like Moses could only “exceedingly fear and quake”. Thank God! we are not [p. 90] come to that mountain, but to another — even to Mount Zion.
It is most interesting to see the place that Zion has in the Old Testament, and in connection with this I may say that the two thousand years from Abraham to Christ may be divided into four periods. 1. From the time when the promises were given unconditionally to Abraham and to his seed to the giving of the law at Sinai. 2. From the law to the setting up of Zion as the divine centre on earth. 3. From Zion to the captivity. 4. From the captivity to Christ. I do not think you will find that the failure of the people is prominent in the first period: it is rather God’s patient grace and unwearied care that shine forth in every way.
But at Sinai an altogether different principle came in. The people undertook to keep the law, and put themselves under it as a condition of blessing. God warned them, in the very terribleness of the majesty described here (Hebrews 12: 18, 19), that the consequences to them — being what they were — must be dreadful. Nevertheless, they proudly assumed their self-imposed burden, and henceforward all was failure. The people failed in every point where failure was possible — the prophet failed, the priest failed, the judges failed, the king failed; and it became manifest that from the sole of the foot even unto the head there was no soundness in Israel, and Israel was but a chosen sample of the race of Adam.
What was to be done? The shadows of Sinai could only fill the earth with darkness and death. God must have another centre to act from if there was to be any display of His grace, or any blessing for man, and He chose Mount Zion to be that centre. He “chose the tribe of Judah, the mount Zion, which he loved”. Psalm 78: 68. But you will notice that the chosen place is connected with the chosen man — “He chose David also his servant”. The [p. 91] necessity for this comes out in the history of Zion, which seems to have been the very centre and key of the enemy’s power. It was not taken by Joshua, by the judges, or by Saul. It was an impregnable fortress held by the blind and lame, for the Jebusites taunted David, “saying, Except thou take away the blind and the lame, thou shalt not come in hither: thinking, David cannot come in hither. Nevertheless David took the stronghold of Zion: the same is the city of David”. 2 Samuel 5: 6, 7.
May we not learn something from this? Does it not suggest that man’s condition as under the power of sin is the strength of Satan’s stronghold, and the great obstacle in the way of God’s thoughts of grace and blessing? But in due time God laid help upon One who was mighty — One who was able to “take away the blind and the lame”. God has brought forward the Man of His choice, and the power of the enemy has been destroyed by the victorious hand of the true David. In the death of Christ the blind and the lame have been taken away, sin in the flesh has been condemned, and the end of all flesh has come before God. The whole state of imperfection, in which man was so terribly to God’s dishonour, has been righteously removed from before Him in the death of Christ. And now grace can “reign through righteousness”. God can act in unmingled grace; He can set aside the covenant of Sinai, and make a new covenant with His people, according to which He will forgive and forget their sins and iniquities, and will put His laws into their hearts and write them in their minds. Hebrews 8: 10 - 12; 10: 16, 17. That is, in the New Covenant everything will be the outcome of Grace, and will be the evidence of what God can be for His people. In the “age to come” Israel will derive everything from God on those principles of Grace, of which in the Old Testament Zion is the familiar and appropriate symbol. But we anticipate that day; our blessings and relationships with God are altogether [p. 92] on the ground of His Grace. We are “come to Mount Zion”.
Zion was secured by the conquest of the Lord’s Anointed. GRACE could never have had its sovereign way in blessing but for the victorious work of Calvary. It is there that sins were put away, sin was judged, principalities and powers were spoiled, the devil annulled and God glorified. What a victory! Everything that constituted the enemy’s power was met and overcome at Calvary by the true David, and on the ground of His victory God has committed to Him the administration of absolute and sovereign grace.
Well might the Holy Spirit call upon the saints to “walk about Zion, and go round about her: tell the towers thereof. Mark ye well her bulwarks, consider her palaces; that ye may tell it to the generation following”. Psalm 48: 12, 13. If our hearts would be established with grace we must, in a spiritual sense, “walk about Zion”. We must mark the bulwarks, tell the towers, and consider the palaces of the city of grace.
1. “Her bulwarks”. “We have a strong city; salvation will God appoint for walls and bulwarks”. Isaiah 26: 1. No power of evil can overthrow those bulwarks. God’s wisdom, grace, and power are all pledged to carry out the purposes of His love, and those purposes are bound up with the eternal deliverance and security of His saints. The enemy has not to reckon with us, but with God. It is “God who hath saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began”. 2 Timothy 1: 9. And “by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast”. Ephesians 2: 8, 9.
2. “The towers thereof”. A tower is a place of refuge and strength. “The name of the LORD is a strong tower;
[p. 93] the righteous runneth into it, and is safe”. Proverbs 18: 10. And in Psalm 20 we read, “The LORD hear thee in the day of trouble; the name of the God of Jacob defend thee; send thee help from the sanctuary, and strengthen thee out of Zion”. The only source of strength is the grace of God. A believer who has a feeble sense of grace is spiritually weak.
“We need throughout the walk of faith
The same free grace that saves”.
It is a great thing to know that we can always count upon the perfect grace of God. This is a true source of stability and power. We are exhorted to “come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need”. Hebrews 4: 16. A sense that God is supreme in grace is a strong tower for the soul. “Some trust in chariots, and some in horses: but we will remember the name of the LORD our God”. Psalm 20: 7. Connect this with the second verse, and you will see that it is linked in the psalmist’s mind with Zion. Chariots are human contrivances, and horses are a figure of natural strength, and both are vain things for safety, but “the name of the LORD is a strong tower”. It is self-sufficiency that hinders us from proving what a refuge and strength we have in the “God of all grace”.
3. “Her palaces”. “God is known in her palaces for a refuge”. Psalm 48: 3. There is nothing so blessed as to know God, and He has made Himself known in grace. Of old it could be said, “In Judah is God known ... his dwelling-place in Zion”. Psalm 76: 1, 2; but it is in the full glory of heavenly grace that we know Him now. “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ”. Ephesians 1: 3. To the praise of the glory of His grace He has made us accepted in the [p. 94] Beloved; and in the ages to come He will show the exceeding riches of His grace, in His kindness toward us through Christ Jesus. Blessed be God! His grace has come to us, and we have come to it. “Ye are come unto Mount Zion”. “There the LORD commanded the blessing, even life for evermore”. Psalm 133: 3. Are you dwelling in the prisons of Sinai, or in the palaces of Zion?
“And unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem”. A city is man’s ideal, and has been from the earliest times. Cain “builded a city, and called the name of the city, after the name of his son, Enoch”. Genesis 4: 17. “And they said, Go to, let us build us a city”. Genesis 11: 4. A city represents established government, and it stands connected with fallen man’s desire to take possession of the earth. But man has no right to the earth, and therefore man’s city must come down, It is a mark of faith in all the ages that the saints have not been satisfied with man’s city. Every true saint on earth has looked for God’s government to be set up here. Abraham “looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God”. Hebrews 11: 10. This expectancy of the saints finds expression in the prayer, “Thy kingdom come”.
Alas! many believers nowadays seem to be occupied with the wrong city. Politics have to do with man’s city. It is a conflict as to who can get the upper hand in the absence of the rightful King. I admit that Parliament may make laws which are a benefit to men; but the whole system of things is very shortly to be swept away. The whole order of things which has been set up by man will be overturned. God is going to have everything brought under the sway of His city. A believer who takes part in politics is like a man building a magnificent cathedral in a place where a tremendous earthquake will shortly overturn every stone. I do not suppose a great sculptor would lavish all the [p. 95] resources of his art on a snow man. He would prefer to work in marble, that his labours might have permanent value. It is sad to see Christians wasting their lives on politics. It shows they have not come in the faith of their souls to “the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem”.
“And to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly”. What immense things Christianity brings us into. People sometimes say that we Christians are not broad enough in our views — we are too narrow-minded. I venture to say that it is the man of the world who is narrow-minded. The Christian is the broad man. His circle includes the whole universe of God; he sees it all brought in to taste the blessing of the work of Christ. God is going to set the whole universe — every principality and power and intelligence — in everlasting suitability to Himself by the work of Christ. He will bring the universe to find its moral centre in Christ. Things in earth and things in heaven are all to be put in eternal suitability to God by Christ. There will never be another; breakdown in the universe, for everything will be secured by grace, and on the ground of redemption. The “innumerable company of angels, the general assembly”, will all know something of the grace of God as that by which Christ has tasted death for everything. I may add, to prevent misunderstanding, that infernal beings, and those who are cast with them into the lake of fire, will be eternally outside the range of reconciliation. They will have to bow at the name of Jesus; but they will not be reconciled. Compare Philippians 2: 10, 11 with Colossians 1: 20.
“And church of the first-born, which are written in heaven”. The Christian is made to know the peculiar place of the church in the counsels of God. And here it is looked at, according to the teaching of this epistle, as a company with a heavenly calling and a heavenly inheritance. We may trace the thought, typically, in the history of the tribe [p. 96] of Levi. That tribe was taken as representing the first-born sons of Israel, and they had no inheritance in the land of Canaan. Jehovah was their inheritance. Deuteronomy 18: 1, 2. A man is registered where he has his possessions. The church of the first-born belongs to heaven, and has its possessions there. Our names are “written in heaven”. Our politics and our possessions are there. I take no interest in your politics here; I am a stranger passing through. This is the Christian’s place on earth; he is a stranger passing through on his way to his own country where he has his inheritance.
You may say that some Christians have a large portion of worldly goods. Yes; but we are only stewards of what we have here — it does not belong to us. We hold it in trust, and are responsible for the way we use it to the One who has entrusted us with it. Our possessions are all in heaven. “An inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled .., reserved in heaven”. 1 Peter 1: 4. And the Lord has bid us rejoice, not in having great gifts and powers here, but in the fact that our names are written in heaven. Luke 10: 20. When God keeps us in sight of our heavenly possessions we do not covet things here; our portion is so much better than anything that is “under the sun”.
“And to God the Judge of all”. God has revealed Himself in Christianity as a Saviour-God and as the Father, but He does not cease to be “the Judge of all”. In Christianity God maintains all that is due to Himself as Sovereign Ruler of the universe, at the same time that He makes Himself known in the glories of grace. It has been a very successful wile of Satan to set one part of the revelation against another, saying, ‘God is love, and therefore there can be no eternal judgment; He is merciful, so there is no need to be converted, or to be washed in the blood of the Lamb’. It is eternally true that God is “the Judge of all”.
“And to the spirits of just men made perfect”. The Old [p. 97] Testament saints did not arrive at perfection while in this world. Redemption was not accomplished, and the full revelation of God was not disclosed. It was the will of God that they without us should not be made perfect. Hebrews 11: 40. They will reach perfection along with us in resurrection. It must have been a great thing for the Hebrew believers to be thus assured of the triumphant issue of the path of faith for all those who had trodden it in Old Testament times.
“And to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant”. We have not exactly come to the new covenant yet, but we have come to Him who is the Mediator of it. All will be made good to Israel, and to those brought into millennial blessing in the age to come, through the mediatorship of Jesus.
“And to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel”. This is the basis of everything — whether we think of heavenly grace, or earthly blessings such as will be known in the age to come, all have their foundation in THE BLOOD.
“Wherefore we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear”. The things of which I have spoken constitute the “kingdom which cannot be moved”. Everything in the sphere of sight is movable, and will be shaken to pieces ere long; but the kingdom of faith cannot be moved. What is invisible to sight is of no account in this world. It has been the ruin of the church that men would have something that could be seen — fine buildings, a human priesthood, a visible head, etc. etc. The things which constitute the kingdom of faith cannot be seen. CHRIST reigns today in the kingdom of truth. He said, “My kingdom is not of this world ... . For this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice”. John 18: 36, 37. He reigns in an invisible kingdom; He reigns by the truth in the hearts of His people. We reign, if I may so say, in the kingdom of faith, and it is a “kingdom which cannot be moved” — a kingdom which lies altogether outside the sphere of sight. Not one of the things to which we have come can be seen. They will be seen in the age to come; but in faith we are come to them now. “Ye are come unto Mount Zion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem; and to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly; and church of the first-born, which are written in heaven; and to God the Judge of all; and to the spirits of just men made perfect; and to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant; and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel”.