JUDGES 2
Our attention is called in chapter 1 to the increasing weakness of the people, how they gradually surrendered more and more to the enemy. I suppose that the opening of this chapter gives the secret of it all.
The whole secret was that they had failed to go to Gilgal. Gilgal was the place where the angel of Jehovah was; divine power was there. I do not think we are told previously that the angel of Jehovah was there. The people had not been back to Gilgal since the time of Joshua, and that was the secret of their weakness. There had been victories, but victories that retained elements of weakness. Gilgal was the place of circumcision, the place where all connected with ourselves is cut off in unsparing self-judgment; that is the place of power and the angel of Jehovah is there.
The circumcision of the Christ is what one may call the great circumcision; that is, the flesh has been absolutely cut off in the death of Christ, but then we have to come to it as privilege and power, and, having come to it once, we have to recur to it. It is obvious that the lack of going back to Gilgal was the secret of all their weakness. God brings us back to it in experimental judgment of all connected with ourselves. In the early part of Joshua, we see that Joshua and all the people come to the camp in Gilgal. The twelve stones taken out of Jordan were there. Nothing is to remain, but what [p. 123] came out of death with Christ. Nothing that went into the death of Christ will do for God. It is what came out of that death that is serviceable to God, and that involves the cutting off of the whole body of the flesh. Paul said, “I am crucified with Christ”; it was experimental with him. If there is anything about me unsuitable to God’s resurrection world, it has to be cut off in self-judgment if I am to be in spiritual power. Self-judgment is the opposite to self-occupation. Self-occupation must be that I am either occupied with good self or bad self, but if I come to the cutting off of the flesh in the death of Christ and judge myself in the light of that, good and bad flesh is gone. God will not support the flesh. The constant judgment of what is connected with self has to be maintained; otherwise there is no power.
Weeping in itself is weakness and not power, but it shows some remains of right feeling. When departure begins we do not lose all right feeling at once. When Jehovah said He would not drive out the inhabitants, there was pious feeling — they wept, and they had some sense of what was due to Jehovah; they sacrificed there, but it was Bochim, not Gilgal. It was a change in the ways of God.
The very presence of these things, which came in as the result of the government of God, is a test. They were left as a test, so, if there were any overcoming spirit in Israel it was brought to light; it was proved whether the people would walk in obedience to Jehovah’s commandments. In the same way, anything that came in in the Christian profession, and from which we suffer, comes in as a test whether we can walk in obedience. There must be sects, so that the approved may be manifested.
A great deal of the trouble which we have amongst ourselves is because we do not feel with God the state of the public church. The public position is in view here — the public history of the people of God; the secret of power has been departed from, and God does not promise restoration of it. We know from our church history — Revelation 2 and 3 — how things go from bad to worse, but there are overcomers. There is, in the faithfulness of God, recovery. Here God raises up judges. God sees how His people are spoiled and damaged, and He raises up judges who can deliver His people from the causes of defeat. God looks down and sees His people not enjoying their inheritance; they are oppressed and afflicted.
[p. 124] Are we enjoying ours? If we think of the church as the people of God we shall see it was brought by apostolic leading into all that was the mind of God for them. In the epistle to the Ephesians Paul brings the people into all the mind of God for them, but he finishes by saying, You must fight for it. It is a testing time, and to fight we must have power. If we get away from the truth of Colossians, i.e., circumcision, we shall not be of much use in Ephesian warfare. Ephesian armour is moral state: “girt about with truth ... the breast-plate of righteousness ... the helmet of salvation ... the shield of faith ... feet shod with the preparation of the glad tidings of peace”. All these things involve state, and we cannot have the state without the deepest self-judgment. There is no place but Gilgal where we can put on the armour.
Bochim is the public position here. There is no longer the power of God publicly with His people; they are left face to face with enemies whom they are not able to dispossess. They still sacrificed to Jehovah; they were not actually in idolatry, but the power is lost. They had not yet lost all spiritual feeling, or sense of what was due to the Lord.
In these conditions God intervenes in raising up judges, and His power is there with the judge. All through the history of the church God has raised up judges, saviours, and given them power to deliver His people from what hinders them at that particular moment. God has always supported His servants, and those who listened got the gain of it. What deliverance God gives is for the whole church, though only a few may get the good of it.
Power is always found in connection with self-judgment. If self-judged we make much of Christ, and then there is spiritual power seen in the greatest outward weakness. As long as the judges lived there was deliverance. But the people would not listen, even when God raised up judges, and chapter 2 shows how positive idolatry came in. As long as the generation of Joshua lived, they had the knowledge of Jehovah, but then another generation came in, and it is said solemnly of them that they did not know Jehovah or His works. It is very serious, after all the provision God had made for things being passed on to the next generation in the land. It would seem to intimate some failure on the part of the first generation.
The first generation was marked by spiritual weakness in getting away from Gilgal. Then there must be a personal [p. 125] history with God; parents cannot pass faith on to their children. Our parents may have us baptised and instruct us in the truth, but they cannot pass faith on. We have to take that up for ourselves. Paul speaks of unfeigned faith in Timothy’s mother and grandmother, but he says, it is “in thee also”. I have to take it up for myself. Otherwise you would find people coming into the place of privilege in a hereditary way, without soul history, and they do not know God. These people forsook Jehovah because they did not know Him or His works. Very soon in the church there were a great many who were externally in church privilege with no soul history, and that opened the way for idolatry. We have all to take up the exercise as to our personal faith. I may hear what my father could tell me, and I may come into the place of privilege which my father enjoyed, and yet have no soul history. There were people with no experimental knowledge of the bondage of Egypt, of redemption, of the Red Sea, of Jordan, of the brazen serpent. They did not know Jehovah, and yet there they were in the land. The presence of such people opened the way for idolatry. It raises the question with us, How far have we been influenced and carried by those gone before? Many of us have come into things easily; they were ready made for us. The question is, Have we faith for it? What have we received directly and personally from God?
Ministry, if worth anything, produces personal exercises, and that leads to faith and soul history. The book of Judges represents the public position, the church committed to the responsibility of the whole truth of God. The church was introduced by the apostles into the whole privilege of Christianity. Has it been enjoyed? Has God been glorified? After having such privileges and light, is it true that we are serving Baal? It says, “They served Baal and the Ashtoreths”. Baal has reference to the energies of service and Ashtoreth represents what corrupts the affections. If a soul has a history with God he wants to serve God; he wants his energies to be spent in the service of God, and he wants to enjoy the land. An idol is a master; Baal means master or possessor. The question is, Who is my master? Who possesses me? It is easy to be possessed by the desire to make money. A man who is devoting his energies to making money is a worshipper of Baal; he is serving Baal. This book shows us how easy it is to come under idolatrous influence. It is very solemn that Paul should say [p. 126] to the Corinthians, those in the assembly participating in privileges outwardly: “Some have not the knowledge of God; I speak to your shame”. They had fallen under the power of the enemy. If we walk in self-judgment we shall not fall under any influence which is adverse to God, but, if we do not judge ourselves, we shall. We all have to learn to refuse the things that appeal to us. The devil tempts me with something I like; I suffer if I refuse it, but I cease from sin, and God is preserved before my soul — that is the blessing of walking in piety. The Christian begins the day by praying to be preserved from the influences of the world and of the flesh. He wants his energies to be for the service of God, and his affections for Christ, and then we do not fall under the enemies who oppress and crush the people of God so that they are deprived of all pleasure in the enjoyment of the land. What a grief to God to look down and see His people occupied with things that stand in no relation to God or to His service, things for the glorification of self, which minister to the thoughts of the flesh! God sees His people spending themselves in that way, and it grieves Him. It means that they have no joy.
Caleb went to Gilgal to claim his inheritance (see Joshua 14: 6) and he received it, and was blessed. Caleb was a man of power. This is a divine picture of how the people of God have been robbed of their inheritance by not maintaining circumcision — self-judgment, and the enemy has appealed to them in various ways, and turned them into idolaters. The enjoyment of the land has been lost, and, instead of overflowing with joy, feeding on fat things and drinking wine on the lees well refined, they are filled with the worthless things of this world. God feels it. If I have not been enjoying the inheritance today, God is grieved.