THE DEATH OF CHRIST

^[p. 33] THE DEATH OF CHRIST

Genesis 6: 13, 14; Genesis 8: 20; Genesis 15: 7 - 21

We were seeing last week that the death of Christ is prefigured in the deep sleep that fell on Adam with a view to his having a companion, the assembly in type. Then we see the death of Christ again in the coats of skin with which God clothed man when he had come into the nakedness of sin; and then in the offering of Abel we see the death of Christ is what the saint can bring to God. God brings the death of Christ to man in coats of skin, but Abel in his offering brings the death of Christ to God.

The ark is another aspect of the death of Christ; it is His death as the end of all flesh before God. If God is to have any relations at all with man they must be under cover of the death of Christ. If all flesh is corrupt, God could not take up relations with it, it must go out of sight, and as a matter of fact it did go out of sight; it was all under the waters of judgment or in the ark. This type shows the footing on which God can have to say to men on earth. It has nothing to do with heaven; we do not need an ark to go to heaven. I say this to show the setting of this scripture. Nothing was said to Enoch about making an ark; Enoch did not need one for he was a heavenly man, a type of the assembly. He was going to heaven and God took him there without dying; he went on the ground of the death of Christ. Enoch had been clothed with the coats of skin, and had known what it was to approach God as Abel did, but in this type we see that if God is to be in relation with man it must be on this ground that they come under cover of the death of Christ. Peter tells us that if a man has a good conscience he will want to be under cover. Peter says in referring to the ark, “Which figure also now saves you, even baptism ... the demand as before God of a good conscience” (1 Peter 3: 21). That is to say, a man with a good conscience, an exercised conscience, would ask ^[p. 34] for baptism, would want to be on different ground from corrupt flesh, and that is under cover of the death of Christ.

All men are under God’s eye on the ground of the death of Christ, but faith takes it up intelligently. It is just because God sees man on the ground of the death of Christ that He sends His gospel out to all men. It is not a question of corrupt flesh; God is not going on now in relation with corrupt flesh, but He has in the death of Christ such a vindication of His glory in respect of corrupt flesh, that He can go on in mercy and grace with man, and faith takes this up intelligently.

How blessed for a saint to put himself and his household under cover of the death of Christ; it is only in that way we can give the Lord His place. Peter says a good conscience would ask to be under cover of the death of Christ, but we should not ask for that if we did not know He was out of death; it is “By the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who is at the right hand of God, gone into heaven, angels and authorities and powers being subjected to him” (1 Peter 3: 21, 22). He is in supremacy as Lord, and we take up all the responsibilities of life on that footing. Saints and households have come under cover of the death of Christ, and now they own Christ as Lord, and take up everything, business and family relationships, in the Lord. God can go on with people and people can go on intelligently with God, on that footing. We have been baptised to the death of Christ, and in the Name of the Lord.

We have to take two types together: the ark, and then the altar in chapter 8, verse 20. When Noah comes out of the ark he builds an altar; it is the first altar in Scripture, and in building it Noah claims the earth for God, as much as to say, ‘The earth is not for corrupt flesh any longer, but for God’: he puts everything on the ground of the burnt-offering. The death of Christ is not only a covering for corrupt flesh, covering it in a holy way under the eye of God, but it becomes a positive sweet savour before God, and everything is now according to that; all His providence, all His relations with earth, are on the ground of the death of Christ. This gives ^[p. 35] one a very wide idea of the death of Christ; every bit of food a man puts in his mouth, he is indebted to the death of Christ for. “Henceforth, all the days of the earth, seed time and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night, shall not cease” (Genesis 8: 22). God has established it all by covenant on the ground of the death of Christ; this gives one a wonderful thought of the scope and preciousness of that death. What a blessed thing to be in the secret of all God’s providential dealings! They are all based on the sweet savour which He has found in the death of Christ, but for those who do not avail themselves of God’s grace, judgment is inevitable.

After the sweet “savour of rest” we find in chapter 9 God blessing. He had not blessed before except when He blessed Adam and Eve in innocence, but then in chapter 3 the curse comes in, and there is no blessing again till God smelt a “savour of rest”, and “God blessed”. He could bless because the death of Christ had set His heart free. It is natural for God to bless; He is the blessed God, it is contrary to His nature to curse. The “savour of rest” is that God rests when His glory is established; the full result will be in the world to come. Noah claims the earth for God, and places the earth and man on the footing of the burnt-offering; it will all be placed there in the world to come; all the earth then will be under God’s eye in the savour of the burnt-offering, and God will rest because He has been perfectly glorified. God is more glorified through the death of Christ than He would have been in an eternity of innocence. Now everything is according to the satisfaction that God has found in the death of Christ; whether it is the blessing of man, or the covenant with the earth and with every living creature, all speaks of God’s satisfaction in the sweet savour. He is restful in blessing and restful in providence. What a thought it gives one of Christ and of His death! We are considering the death of Christ this evening, not as a mere abstraction, but so that we might be furnished, and have our souls fitted to be near to God. While the death of Christ is the ground on which God ^[p. 36] can go on with men, yet men do not go on with God apart from an intelligent action of faith. We are told that both Enoch and Noah walked with God, Enoch in communion with God about His heavenly thoughts, and Noah in communion about His earthly thoughts. We want to walk with God in both ways; God loves to have His saints in communion with Him about His thoughts.

It is an immense thing for us to have God’s view of the burnt-offering. In a sense it is only provisional, for violence and corruption still fill the earth, but faith moves on in this wonderful secret, knowing God’s attitude through the death of Christ. God in mercy put government in the hand of Noah, which has to a great extent restrained corruption and violence, but when God has allowed the restraints of government to be removed for a time, we can then see what man is. These principles are world-wide and take in the whole human family; it was all in the ark, there was not a man that was not represented. Noah is the ancestor of every one of us.

If we pass on to chapter 15 we get another striking type of the death of Christ, and there it is in relation to the inheritance. God pledges Himself to give the inheritance through this figure of the death of Christ — “a heifer of three years old, and a she goat ... and a ram”, etc. (Genesis 15: 9). This is a further thought, not brought out before, that it was in the heart of God to give man a portion. God called Abraham out with this in view, and said, ‘I will show you a land and I will give it to you’. This brings us to what is in the heart of God for man. The thought of inheritance is a very great thought in Scripture and with God. He calls a man out to give him a special portion, thought of by His love. It is not what man needed or desired, but what God desired and proposed to gratify His own love. Here it is the earthly inheritance, Canaan, the place of the nation Israel, but undoubtedly it is a figure of the heavenly inheritance; for us it is heavenly. Think of God giving a portion to man so that man may know His love. Sometimes a man comes into an inheritance in an arbitrary way, perhaps his father has not much power over it,

^[p. 37] but this inheritance is the outcome of the beneficence of God’s love. If we want to know His love we must know something of the inheritance. The assembly will share all with Christ, but our special inheritance is heavenly, it is every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies, and it is connected with the knowledge of God Himself. It is spiritual territory; it is God bringing us near to Himself in order that we might know the expanse of His thoughts. It suggests to me “the breadth and length and depth and height” (Ephesians 3: 18). The death of Christ in Genesis 15 is the way God pledges Himself to give the inheritance. He binds Himself by covenant, He passes through death, He engages Himself in the most solemn way. It is in answer to Abram’s question, “How shall I know that I shall possess it?” It is striking to see how God passed through, as a smoking furnace, a burning lamp or flame of fire — that is the character in which He engages Himself. What it conveys to me is this: if God is going to give an inheritance He will give it in a holy way through the death of Christ. Then there is another side: it can only be possessed in a holy way; so God, as the furnace and flame of fire, presents Himself as One who will refine and purify the heirs, in order that they may be suited to the inheritance. If He is going to give us an inheritance through the death of Christ, we can only possess it through death. All the holiness manifested in the death of Christ must mark the heirs. God passes through in a flame of fire, He says, ‘I am going to refine My people to make them suitable to the inheritance’. This is why God’s people are an afflicted and disciplined people; He passes them through affliction in order to inherit by a holy way, and there is no other way by which God can bring the heirs into the inheritance. We all have to face it. Look at the exercise it was to Abraham; a horror of great darkness fell upon him. He got a sense by the Spirit prophetically of all the people would have to go through to fit them for the inheritance. They had four hundred years of affliction and bondage: that was not much like receiving an inheritance! God is a furnace; He has manifested holiness in the death of Christ; He is ^[p. 38] refining His people and is going to eliminate everything from them that is inconsistent with that death. “Our God is a consuming fire” (Hebrews 12: 29). This type corresponds with Hebrews 12; we get teaching there about chastening. And in Isaiah 48: 10, God says, “I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction”. We do not understand God’s ways and we wonder at them — think of four hundred years of affliction! You see, the time is not yet come for wrongs to be righted, for judgment to be executed — “the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full” (Genesis 15: 16). Most of our sufferings are caused by wrongs that the world is full of, and that is enduring affliction. Suppose your body is ill, that is the fruit of sin; it is part of a condition of things, the result of the incoming of evil; it belongs to a system where all is wrong. God says, ‘I want you purified for the inheritance’. If we see what He is at, we shall have great confidence; there is no escape; there is not a person here that does not know something of affliction. If he does not, he is not a son but a bastard! “If ye are without chastening, ... then ye are bastards, and not sons” (Hebrews 12: 8). God is the purifying furnace for His people. You may say, ‘The Egyptians trouble me’. No, it is the refining furnace. It does not say the people are types, but the things that happened to them are types, they “have been written for our admonition” (1 Corinthians 10: 11). The people were in the furnace of affliction four hundred years; this is the type. We are all in the furnace; it is not always heated to the same degree because God is compassionate and He eases it off when He sees we cannot bear it any longer. God’s idea of holiness is the death of Christ, and you must go that way too; God says, ‘I am going to burn up all the flesh and nature; if I did not you could not enjoy the inheritance’. If you see that, you take every affliction as a mark of divine love — “I rebuke and discipline as many as I love” (Revelation 3: 19). We have to face this that is so dreadful to nature. Abraham gives us what it is to nature, a horror of great darkness. It is terrible to nature to be afflicted and disciplined, but if you look at it in faith it is God’s way of reaching His ^[p. 39] own end and it is according to the death of Christ. Would you like anything to be left about you that is inconsistent with the death of your Saviour? Every saint would say, ‘I want to be like my precious Saviour’. God is going to refine us; He has us in a furnace and it is pretty hot, but He will justify Himself in all His ways, and when He has done with us we shall come forth as gold.

There is another point we should notice: the fowls came (verse 11). What a lot there are about! They are birds of prey — the devil is always trying to take away the death of Christ from the saints; he is so subtle he always tries to take it away from our hearts and minds. Abraham drove the birds away, so faith drives the devil away.

There is one more type of the death of Christ in Genesis 22; we are all familiar with it. The great point there is the Father and the Son going together; it is that aspect of the death of Christ, and it is developed in varied details in John’s gospel. The Father and the Son move together with one thought and one purpose and one motive; everything that is in the heart of the Father is in the heart of the Son, and They move on together to that which is the basis and foundation on which They will carry out Their thoughts. The Son is in communion with every thought of the Father. What an added thought of sweetness that the One who died moved on to the place of sacrifice in perfect communion with the heart of God. He said, “I am not alone, for the Father is with me” (John 16: 32). And He is with the Father. All God’s universe of blessing is the fruit of the death of Christ in that wondrous aspect.