INHERITANCE AND AFFECTION
[p. 467] INHERITANCE AND AFFECTION
Numbers 27:1 - 11; Numbers 36:1 - 13
In taking up this book I desire, as the Lord may help me, to show how the Spirit of God views God’s people in regard to the inheritance. You will recall that we get two numberings of the people here; all the males of the children of Israel were numbered, from twenty years old and upward, all that were able to go to war. In the first instance the numbering was in view of their being placed in relation to the tabernacle of the testimony; each man was to pitch by the standard of his father’s house, but all were grouped around the tabernacle. You get that in chapter 2. Then in chapter 26 all the males are again numbered, but this time they are taken account of, not as supporting the testimony but as about to take possession of the inheritance. The type of the brazen serpent intervenes between the two numberings, and what follows on that is the springing well, setting forth typically that God’s people are taken account of as having the Spirit consequent on the judgment of the flesh in the brazen serpent.
The first numbering is of great importance as having to do with the testimony, but they were taken account of the second time as in the light of the purpose of God; they are no longer taken account of as a people of responsibility, but of purpose. The Spirit being communicated, they are now suitable for the land of Canaan. All who had part in the first numbering had fallen in the wilderness save Caleb and Joshua, and they are viewed now in relation to God’s purpose. The numbering infers that they had come to manhood; they are formed in intelligence, so the inheritance is taken up in intelligence, and they are in every way suitable to it. As believing on Christ, and having received the [p. 468] Spirit, they are taken account of as suited for the land of God’s purpose. God takes account of them. “From twenty years” takes account of you as matured, as having come to manhood. You are viewed no longer as children as under the old covenant, but as possessed by the Spirit and in full manhood. It is then that we come under God’s view, and He gives us the inheritance; we learn that each one of us has a place there. You learn that the blessed God has especially designed a place for you in His inheritance; there is a spot for you in His land. God knows the extent of it, He knows the position of it, and there is ample room in it, and a place for each of us there. Just as the people were placed in relation to the testimony, so now they have their place in relation to the land. Divine wisdom controls everything in God’s land; every place in it is divinely allotted, and no believer would have it otherwise. God is sovereign in wisdom and He is sovereign in love.
Now what is connected with the daughter of Zelophehad is appreciation of the land; there is the appreciation subjectively of what is presented objectively. The people at Kadesh-barnea had despised the pleasant land. God had prepared the very best for them, and there was a testimony to it in the grapes of Eshcol, but they despised the pleasant land and God was wrath with them. That is very much the position of things in regard to christendom; it is essentially infidel as to God’s purpose, and it is infidel as to heaven and the heavenly character of christian blessings. God has prepared the very best for us in christianity, and the warning is given to us in Hebrews lest in any of us there should be “an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God”, Hebrews 3:12.
Now the daughters of Zelophehad appreciated the inheritance; they come forward and lay claim to [p. 469] the inheritance of their father; they say to Moses, “Give unto us therefore a possession among the brethren of our father”. That is what God delights in; what He appreciates is that His people should draw near to Him, that they should make request to Him in regard to what He has prepared for them. Canaan was prepared for the people of Israel; it was His purpose to give it to them, but He delighted in the petition of these women, and He answered it. God loves to have His people come and seek Him in regard to His things. All true prayer is on that line. And God appreciates it just because He loves to see the result of His own work in the hearts of His people. It is for this reason that so much is made of prayer in the Scriptures. God sets certain things before us, and the result of His operations in us is that we turn to Him in prayer, that we may get the good of what He has prepared. He has gone to infinite cost to make the inheritance ours, and He loves to see it appreciated.
So you will see that this scripture in Numbers presents the state in God’s people which appreciates His purpose for them. Why were they not like their fathers at Kadesh-barnea? Because the Holy Spirit had come in typically; man in the flesh had been judged and set aside in the serpent lifted up, and consequent on that a new state had been introduced. Naturally, we could not appreciate the things of God, but God having condemned sin in the flesh, gives us a new state in the Spirit so that we can say, “God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit”, Romans 8:4. That which maintains the law in the wilderness is the same power which appreciates the land of purpose.
These women set forth to us the subjective state which will lay hold of the inheritance, and that [p. 470] state is the result of the work of the Spirit. God always commends the work of the Spirit; it is that which He appreciates in His people. It is true we are enjoined to pray, but prayer and worship are both spontaneous, and both are the result of the work of the Spirit. God always commends what is the spontaneous result of the work of His Spirit in our hearts. So here, He fully commends the desire of these women to get a possession among their brethren, and indeed He makes their request the foundation of a statute in Israel; it became a statute of judgment by the Lord’s command, verse 8. God, as it were, establishes a law and a statute on the ground of the spontaneous result of the work of His Spirit in His people. The result of the exercises produced by the Spirit is in perfect accord with God. There is perfect agreement between the intercession of the Spirit and the mind of God; if the Spirit makes intercession in us with groanings which cannot be uttered, it is in perfect accord with the will of God. In that way the mind of the believer, as wrought upon by the Spirit, is brought into perfect accord with the mind of God, and the inheritance is confirmed to you as you appreciate it.
Turn now to chapter 36, and what I would say as to this is, you want to be on your guard as to whom you marry. In this chapter you find the male side introduced again; the children of Gilead, the son of Machir, come forward. The woman in Scripture is used largely to set forth the subjective side of things, but the male presents the thought of intelligence; so here, in the sons of Machir, we come again to the intelligence side. What we may learn from that is that our affections must be regulated by intelligence; our affections might lead us beyond divine limits, but if God gives us an inheritance in His land, what we find is that no inheritance must go beyond its own tribe. The inheritance is confirmed [p. 471] and made sure to us, but it must be held within the divine limits which God prescribes. Then the question of marriage comes in, because there must be the appreciation not only of divine inheritance, but of divine Persons. As you progress in your soul’s history you will enjoy the inheritance, and it may be confirmed to you, but the question of marriage will surely be raised; you need an Object for your affections. The inheritance is not enough for your heart. These women had come into the inheritance of their father, and a wonderful possession it was, but how were their affections to be regulated? Left to themselves they might have carried the inheritance out of its proper place, out of its tribe.
We may apply this to ourselves: if God has endowed us with the gospel, it must not be diverted from Christ. If God has blessed us in the gospel, there is only one true Object for the affections of His people, and that is Christ; Christ is the only Husband for the christian. We want to see to it that our affections are not diverted from Christ, that we do not in that way separate our inheritance from the tribe of our fathers. If christians had held firmly to this principle, the world would not have secured so much of that which belongs to Christ. The world has decked itself up with what is properly Christ’s, with that which is proper to Christ and to His tribe. Christians took up other husbands, so to speak; they failed to keep themselves for Him. Very often in Scripture you will find that marriages took place between relatives; it is so in the case of Abraham, and with Isaac, and with others also. In Joseph we have another thought: it is the gentile bride that is set forth in Asenath, but in the main, marriage between relatives seems to set forth that in God’s account marriage must be on equal grounds. So the church, as united to Christ, is suitable to Christ as of His lineage.
[p. 472] Well, these women were not to marry outside their father’s house, and the point was that the inheritance should not be diverted from its proper tribe; and for us this sets forth that our inheritance as christians must not be diverted from the people — the tribe of Christ. The professing church, as I have been saying, has carried away that which is His and has given it to the world. That with which the Lord endowed her and adorned her she has carried away and given to another; the very graces which were His she has put upon the world in that way. We have to be exceedingly jealous over our hearts lest they should be diverted from Christ and directed to another outside our father’s tribe. As I said before, Christ is the only true Husband for His people; He is the only legitimate Husband; we are His. If you look at Ruth you will see that not only did Boaz love her, but he purchased her for himself; she was a redeemed one. It is so with us; Christ has redeemed us; He has purchased us for Himself; no other claimant has any title to us but the Lord Jesus Christ. He has bought us for Himself, and if we recognise His claim over us, all that with which He has endowed the church will remain to us, and remaining to us it is secured for Him. It remains to Him, though He has made it ours. When the heavenly city comes down from God she appears fully endowed, fully adorned with all that grace has put upon her. All that she has, every element of glory, is secured to Christ in the church.
In speaking of this scripture I wanted to make a direct appeal to ourselves. I would repeat: the Lord Jesus Christ is the only legitimate Husband for the christian, and as true to Him, all that He has endowed us with is secured to Him, it is held for Him. The Spirit of God will seek to gain us for Him through our affections, and the outlet for the affections is the marital relation. Naomi said to Ruth, “Shall I not seek rest for thee?”, Ruth 3:1. We want to be at rest; our hearts need to be at rest. Then at the end of the book Naomi says of Boaz, “the man will not be in rest, until he have finished the thing”, Ruth 3:18. The heart is only at rest in the establishment of the marriage relation. As our hearts are brought into the consciousness of that relation to Christ we are at rest. We surrender to Him absolutely; that is the thought of it, recognising that He, and He only, has a right to our affections.