"WHERE DWELLEST THOU?"
“WHERE DWELLEST THOU?”
Leviticus 23: 4 - 17; John 1: 29 - 39
It is very interesting to find in the Jewish economy that the first great feasts of the year were typical of the gospel. The three feasts that I speak of are, first, the passover, with which was connected the feast of unleavened bread; secondly, the wave-sheaf; and thirdly, the wave-loaves, or Pentecost. In christendom these are called Good Friday, Easter Sunday, and Whit Sunday. The passover typifies the death of Christ; the wave-sheaf the resurrection of Christ; and the antitype of Pentecost we get in Acts 2, when the Holy Spirit came down, and believers were baptised into one body. The one hundred and twenty disciples (see Acts 1:15; Acts 2:1) were the antitype of the two loaves.
The passover set forth the fact that the blood had sheltered the Israelites from the judgment of Egypt. They commemorated this after they came into the land, and then they looked on to the harvest; but they could not eat any part of the harvest, no green ears nor parched corn, until the self-same day that the wave-sheaf was offered. The wave-sheaf is Christ risen from the dead. It is in keeping with what we get in John 12: 24, “Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit” - many grains. The two wave-loaves were made of the new corn. When the day of Pentecost was fully come, the Holy Spirit came down, and the company of the one hundred and twenty were baptised with the Holy Spirit; Acts 2.
A pious Jew rejoiced in the feasts; he looked at the great feast of the passover as commemorating his being saved out of Egypt; he looked for the harvest day, and he waited for the offering up of the wave-sheaf [p. 217] before he could eat of the corn of the land, and then at Pentecost the two wave-loaves were presented to God on that new ground; but he did not understand the blessedness that it typified. In christianity we get the substance of it all. The types are interesting, because they are shadows of the substance.
Now I turn to the New Testament; John 1. John, the forerunner of Christ, announces - “Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world”. Now keep in mind how a pious Jew would take that. He would say, We had to bring a lamb to shelter us from the judgment in Egypt, but now you tell me quite a new thing, you tell me that God has a Lamb, and that this Lamb of God takes away the sin of the world. One can understand how the pious Jew who came to John the baptist would be arrested by his announcement - “Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world”. And who was the Lamb of God? He “who knew no sin”. He has been made sin for us, “that we might be made the righteousness of God in him”, 2 Corinthians 5: 21, and He will eventually take away the sin of the world; there will be an end of it. If you belong to Him you have to do with the Person who removes everything that is contrary to God. The first great point of the gospel is that God has removed the distance between Himself and man from His own side. Anyone who has the least sense of what it is to be under the judgment of God will see what a wonderful thing it is that the gospel begins with God. There is where He has shown His love; He Himself removed the distance; He has laid help upon One that is mighty, and by Him He has removed the distance that lay between Himself and man. You could not remove it. The flesh is what is obnoxious to God, and the flesh must be removed. Man could not do that, but God has done it Himself. He has laid help upon One that is mighty. His own arm has brought salvation. Nothing can be such a cheer to the heart as to [p. 218] think that God has done it Himself. Take an illustration. If a child is in punishment for breaking a clock, and is condemned to stay in confinement until the clock is mended, if he cannot mend it himself, there is no hope for him. But the father announces that he will mend the clock himself. The punishment must continue till the clock is mended, and the father cannot forego his righteousness by withdrawing the sentence, but his heart finds a way to remove the distance between the child and himself; he mends the clock himself If the child has any sense of his position towards his father, he must see two things: one thing he sees is, that such is the heart of the father, that he does not like the distance between them to continue and the other, that as the father has mended the clock himself, he never can find fault with the way it is done. That is but a feeble illustration, but it gives the idea. The gospel is that God has told out His heart in removing the distance between man and Himself from His own side, and He did it in spite of the cost. In order to remove it He spared not His own Son, who says, “Lo, I come to do thy will, O God”, Hebrews 10: 9. Christ comes into this world to set forth what the heart of God is, and at the same time to assure man that what he could not do himself has been done to God’s entire satisfaction and glory. The removal of the distance is beautifully set forth in Matthew 27: 51, where we find that the moment Christ died the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom. The distance is removed. No more clouds and thick darkness. God who had dwelt in thick darkness, now came out in light to man. The distance is gone from God’s side; I do not say from your side, but from God’s side. Supposing now I am addressing the darkest soul that ever was, who does not see one glimmer of hope or one ray of light, I do not ask you what you see, but I ask if you believe it possible that God’s love is such that He could remove [p. 219] the distance from His own side, and that He has done so, and that in a Man and by a Man - His own Son! That is the greatness of grace! “By man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead”, 1 Corinthians 15: 21. God, who had dwelt in clouds and thick darkness, has come out in light and grace to man. What would a pious Jew think when he saw the veil rent? Would he not have said, God would not have rent the veil unless He had a purpose in it? What is His purpose? The truth is, beloved friends, He has found a Man to His pleasure who is the antitype of all in the holiest. What is the result? Instead of being shut out from God, and in the distance, as man was, God has come out to him in grace, and now the believer has boldness to enter into His presence.
The first thing that Moses was desired to make in connection with the tabernacle where God was to dwell, was what Israel never reached - that is, the mercy-seat (see Exodus 25); and it is the first thing presented to man in the grace of the gospel. “Whom God has set forth a mercy-seat, through faith in his blood”, Romans 3: 25. It was, as I have said, the first thing made, but how many of Israel got to it? Not one. Israel will get to it when the Man that removed the distance and all that was against God comes again, but we have boldness to enter the holiest now. How? By some great process? No; but by the blood of Jesus we pass into the brightest spot. So that the very thing (the mercy-seat) that was first in God’s mind in the type, and never reached by a Jew, is reached by every soul believing in Christ as the propitiation, or mercy-seat, set forth by God. “Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus”, Romans 3:24. What a comfort! What an idea it gives you of the grace of God in the gospel!
Now John the baptist goes on to say something more. “And John bore witness, saying, I beheld the Spirit descending as a dove from heaven, and it abode [p. 220] upon him. And I knew him not; but he who sent me to baptise with water, he said to me, Upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending and abiding on him, he it is who baptises with the Holy Spirit. And I have seen and borne witness that this is the Son of God” (verses 32 - 34). Here is another thing. He is not only the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, but He is the Son of God who baptises with the Holy Spirit. In christendom there is nothing, perhaps, so little known about as the Holy Spirit. Why? Because they have not their eye upon the wave-sheaf, on Christ risen. He is declared to be the Son of God with power by resurrection from the dead. You may say, My eye is upon the sacrifice, upon the blood of the Lamb. That is quite right for a beginning. It is a good beginning, but it is not the finish. He was a sacrifice on the cross - blessed be His name! - but He is not there now. He is risen. You need to know Him not only as the One who went down into death, but as the One who is alive in glory. That is what God wants you to know, and therefore the gospel of God is called the gospel of the glory, because the light comes from the glory of Christ. The new corn could not be eaten of until the wave-sheaf was waved, but after seven sabbaths were counted, and on the morrow after the seventh sabbath, on the day of Pentecost the Holy Spirit came down. The wave-sheaf is Christ risen. The answer to faith in Christ risen is the gift of the Spirit. How do I know I believe in Christ risen? The very faith that brings me to Him brings back the answer to me - the “living water”. The living water is the answer to the faith. If you tell me you do not know whether you have received the Spirit of God, I will tell you why - though I do not doubt you are converted, but you are occupied with Christ’s death as the sacrifice, and perhaps even that more as a pious Jew would look at it, instead of seeing that He came from God, and bore the judgment of God, and so [p. 221] glorified God in His death, that He was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father. So we read, “Righteousness ... for us also, to whom it shall be imputed, if we believe on him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead”, Romans 4: 22 - 24. The apostle said to the Philippian jailor, a poor pagan, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ”. He does not say, Believe that Jesus Christ died, but, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved”, Acts 16: 31. He presents to him what would give him real deliverance of soul, even faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. The Man that died is a risen Man - the Lord Jesus Christ - and when you believe on Him, when your eye rests on Him raised from the dead, consequent on His having removed all that was against you from the eye of God, then you receive the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is given as confirmation of your faith. This we see clearly in the case of Cornelius and his house; Acts 10. Peter tells them of the Man whom the world had cast out, and whom God had raised from the dead. They believed, and that moment the Holy Spirit “fell on all them which heard the word”.
I want you to get simple about it, beloved friends Christ, as the Lamb of God, has borne the judgment, and He has removed the flesh in judgment from the eye of God; and now what link have you with Christ? It is not a link of the flesh. Your link with Christ is the Spirit of God. So the very first action of the Lord after He rose from the dead was to breathe upon the disciples, as the last Adam, and say, “Receive the Holy Spirit”, John 20: 22. The fact of the Holy Spirit having come is the proof that He is risen. When He was exalted to God’s right hand He sent forth the Holy Spirit. There is a twofold lack in souls: one is, that they really do not rest in faith on Christ risen; and the other, which is a consequence of this, that they do not enjoy the gift of the Holy Spirit. Many think that they have the Holy Spirit merely as an influence;
[p. 222] they have the idea of having been converted by the Spirit of God, but they do not believe that the Holy Spirit has taken up His abode in them. He has taken up His abode in you who believe, as really as your own heart is in you. Even more so, because your heart may stop beating, but you can never lose the Holy Spirit. He will never leave you; you are sealed unto the day of redemption, and, by virtue of His presence in you, your mortal body will yet be quickened. He will “quicken your mortal bodies ... on account of his Spirit which dwells in you”, Romans 8:11.
John 4 sets forth the wonderful new style in which a believer may come out here. When the Lord speaks to the woman of Samaria it is her own side He speaks of. He says, “Whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst”. He shows her what her own immediate benefit would be. It is not like Romans 5, which is God’s side - how God is toward you. In John 4 we get our side - the wonderful new condition, the new style (if I may use the expression) in which you, a believer in Christ, come out here, in the very place in which you were in the most deplorable condition. I want to magnify the Holy Spirit to you, and to show you how superior the antitype is to the type. Think of a pious Jew watching for the harvest day, waiting until the wave-sheaf was offered up that he might eat of the corn, and then looking onward to the day of Pentecost, and the presentation to God of the two wave-loaves made of the same corn as the wave-sheaf, which is properly the church. But I do not go into that; I want to lead your hearts into the wondrousness of the gospel of God. The Lamb of God takes away the sin of the world. All is gone from God’s side to God’s infinite satisfaction. The nearer I am to Him, the more assured I am of it; and the nearer I am to Him, the better I know that the gospel is not a demand upon man, but a ministration of righteousness to man.
[p. 223] The power of the Spirit is divine power, and that power you get when you see the wave-sheaf waved - when you see the One not only delivered for your offences, but raised again for your justification. I believe that a man walking in the power of the Spirit of God would be superior to everything here; he would walk according to God, and contrary to everything here. Therefore Scripture says, “Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh”, Galatians 5: 16. You have no friend but the Spirit of God. There is nothing in man for Christ but the Spirit of God. I am delivered from the bondage of sin and corruption by the death of the Lord Jesus Christ; He has removed it all from the eye of God, and I believe that He not only did it, but He so glorified God that He was raised from the dead. My eye, thank God, through faith, is resting upon Him glorified, and as my eye rests upon Him glorified, the answer to it is that He gives me His Spirit. Therefore the Spirit is called the ‘seal.’ It is the confirmation of your faith. There was one baptism of the Holy Spirit, and this took place on the day of Pentecost, as the Lord said to them: “John indeed baptised with water, but ye shall be baptised with the Holy Spirit after now not many days”, Acts 1: 5. And from that day to this each one who believes in Christ risen comes into it.
Now we have another thing in verses 35 - 37. “The next day after John stood, and two of his disciples; and looking upon Jesus as he walked, he saith, Behold the Lamb of God! And the two disciples heard him speak, and they followed Jesus”. Mark the affection which springs up in the one who really has faith. Is there anyone in this room who would not follow Him if they really believed that He is “the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world”, and “who baptises with the Holy Spirit?” You see the effect of the testimony of this in John’s disciples. Of John the baptist the Lord said, “Among them that are born of [p. 224] women there hath not risen a greater”, Matthew 11: 11, but when the two disciples received John’s testimony of Jesus, they left him and followed Jesus! Were they not perfectly right? They were pious before, but now they take new ground. They might be sorry to leave John, but they do leave him, to follow Jesus. Mark now how the Lord meets them! “Jesus turned, and saw them following, and saith unto them, What seek ye?” His question draws out what really is in their hearts! He says, “What seek ye?” They say, “Master, where dwellest thou?” Have you ever asked Him that question? Do you think that if you really knew that He had taken away all your sin, that you are free before God, because He has put it all away to God’s infinite satisfaction, that He has removed the distance because He did not like the distance to continue, that the removal of it was perfectly done because He did it Himself, and that it is He who baptises with the Holy Spirit; if your soul were in the sense of all this, would you not desire to know where He dwells? You have the Holy Spirit first as power, and then there is one thing more, the true heart wants to know where He dwells. The Lord’s answer is, “Come and see”. I believe that in the history of every soul a day comes when this question arises, Where is He? And the Lord likes the question, “Where dwellest thou?” It is not a question of what good He did me, though the better I know that, the more I want to be acquainted with the Person who did the good; but I want to be in company with the Person who did so much for me. The great lack in souls is not being in company with Him, and you never can know what His heart is if you are not near Him. I am drawn to the One who has effectuated everything for me, and I want to know where He dwells. Very well, the Lord says, “Come and see”. Would you refuse such an invitation? Would not your heart rejoice to respond to it? These disciples “came and saw where he dwelt, and abode with him that day”. Then they knew what it was to be in company with Him. You might visit a person many times without knowing him, but when you abide with him you know him. “They ... abode with him that day”. Think of who He was, how great He was, how every movement, everything about Him, must have had an effect upon them. What a great charm His company must have been to them! Afterwards He could say to them, “When I sent you without purse, and scrip, and shoes, lacked ye any thing?” and they could say, “Nothing”, Luke 22: 35. It was not that He supplied them with riches, or anything of this world, but there was about Him that which was a constant source of consolation, a complete substance to their hearts. They found in His company “manifold more”. He had told them that if they parted company with this world’s goods they should have “manifold more”. What is the “manifold more?” Some think it is manifold more of the same sort of things. Not a bit of it. It is Himself. Peter might have said, I am not one bit richer than when I gave up all and followed Thee. He did not say it; he could not say it, because he knew well what he had gained in those three years in the Lord’s company. At the end, when He had to leave them (John 13) they are like unfledged birds out of a nest. He was going away from them; they were losing His shelter and support, and He says, “While I was with them in the world, I kept them in thy name”, John 17: 12. No one could have an idea of what His presence was to them. We all know what it is in some little measure. No combination of circumstances could make up to you for the loss of the company of a person you love. There is a universality about a person that no combination of circumstances can supply; and how much more is it so with His company!
The Lord grant that every heart here may see what a wonderful salvation it is. All that is contrary to God cleared away, and all that is according to God brought [p. 226] in by the Holy Spirit; and not only that, not only knowing what that blessed One has effected for you, but finding the resting place for your heart to be where He Himself is.