“THE FEASTS OF THE LORD”

“HOLY CONVOCATIONS”

(Lev 23; Deut 16 compared with Heb 2: 11, 12; 10: 25)

In a meeting of Christians, one should be able to say, ‘Here is a company of people standing before God in all the good of His delight in the Person and work of Christ!’

I am afraid that, as collected companies, we but feebly enter into the fact that God has found His infinite and eternal delight in the Person and work of Christ. I am not ignoring (indeed who could ignore?) what we have found, but I would insist that God has found His eternal joy and rest in Christ as the Man now before Him, crowned (Heb 2: 9), the Accomplisher of all His will, and I think that we, though only two or three and in feebleness, should do well to come together more often than we do in assembly with this fact prominently before our souls.

Such assemblies, to me, were these “holy convocations”, as seen in Israel, which I want to look at, because we have the substance of them, I believe, in Christianity. A convocation was a calling together. God’s desire for His people was for them to present to Him CHRIST in that which they offered. I desire to make clear this thought, that in convoking His people now God always has Christ before Him (however little Israel was able at that day to apprehend it, for it was written for us, and the teaching contained in it applies to us). Christians should be now in all the full, intelligent apprehension of the object of God in calling them together. The coming together of the saints to “the feasts of the Lord” is, I venture to say, the one least understood by us.

There were two kinds of assemblies or gatherings together of the congregation in Israel, as there are also amongst us. In the one, God is the receiver; in the other, the people. It is only of the first of them that I desire to speak (though I must briefly refer to the other), but I speak of the one designated in these chapters, “the feasts of the Lord”, and I desire to point out how these gatherings differed from the other class. In the class of assemblies of which I now speak, God was the receiver. In the other class, the people of God were the receivers. And I think they may pass from the one class into the other.

Individually, every saint has learnt somewhat of God’s delight and satisfaction in Christ. Each has tasted that “the Lord is gracious” Ps 111: 4. But I am not speaking now of saints individually, but of gathered companies; what have they learnt?

We “come together”, and these times we call our meetings. We have then the antitype of what was, in Israel, typified when they assembled. We have Christ as substance, that is, we have now made known what was in the mind of God in the type. Whether we enjoy it, and enter into all the good of it, is another question. Christ is the Light and the Object, and the Holy Ghost is the capacity in us to appreciate both. But clearly it is revealed now for us since the Holy Ghost has come.

On special occasions then, these “holy convocations”, they left for the time their work, and their own habitations, in order to have before them God’s work, and to be for the time not in association with their habitations but with His, and to be in this association in a spot and place that He had chosen; they did not come before Him empty for Him to fill them. They left for a moment the thought of their own blessing as receivers, and they brought some one, other than themselves before God! We read in these two chapters the full detail of that which they brought. It was brought in order that God might receive from His people. “None shall appear before me empty”, Exod 23: 15. Every one brought. They brought, and God (Himself the Receiver) had made known to them that which they had to bring, that which He would accept! Therefore I take it they are called the “feasts of the Lord”. They were GOD’s feast days, days of joy to Him, and not a “feast of the Jews”. We find this latter name given to them in our Lord’s days on the earth, see John 5: 1; 6: 4; 7: 2, &c.

If we have no such companies thus together today, what does God receive? and have we the full good of these “feasts of the Lord”, which have their full place with us now in Christianity? If we have the substance of all this, of which Israel only had the shadow, are we not losers when we think (as we so frequently do) only of our own blessing? that is, of what we either have received or are going to receive? It is so easy to drop down from “the feasts of the Lord” to seek something for ourselves. We may do worse than this. We may go to a meeting where there is no collective vitality, for I think they are not totally unknown in Christendom, these ‘feasts of the Jews’.

The feasts of the Lord today are holy celebrations of God’s unbounded delight in the work and Person of Christ. God gathered His people together, the redeemed company on earth, in order that this might come before Him. It was written for us, and He gathers them now for a similar object. All the offerings on these feast days set forth Christ in some excellency either of His Person or His work before God. They are times of joy, and they are no less so (but a thousandfold more so, in all their full meaning) today. The people of God were the offerers. They were not the offered. This in type was Christ. But they were before God on these occasions in all the excellence of what they offered. It was a feast, for God thus to receive from them. They shared in His joy. “And thou shall rejoice in thy feast”, Deut 16: 14. That which they typically offered, but which we actually offer in the power of the Spirit is Christ.

Have we authority to speak thus of the Old Testament types? We have, see 1 Cor 10: 11, &c. God had in view a heavenly people in what comes before us there. The Old Testament is like a picture gallery wherein, at the time they were hung, the pictures were in a dim light, or in absolute darkness. These pictures are perfect displays of what was in the mind of Him whose work they are. They are the work of God Himself, pictures painted not in the dark but in the light—not only of the world to come, the millennium—but also of eternity, since Christ is the theme set forth in them. But until the light comes in, and not before, their meanings and their beauties are not unfolded, nor understood. These have now become manifest. Christ is the LIGHT that has come in. “The people sitting in darkness” and in the “shadow of death, to them has light sprung up”, Matt 4: 16 NT. John 1 makes it clear how and when the light came into this world. And why did it come? Why, that we, beloved friends, might be brought to see, and appreciate, and partake in, this grace of God. The Holy Ghost is the active POWER for effecting this in us. God has come out, in order that He might bring us into all the rest, and joy, and delight of what He has found in the Person and work of Christ!

The point on which I should like, God helping me, to exercise every reader, is this—that in ‘the feasts of the Lord’ His people offer to Him and God receives at their hands! What did they offer, and what did God receive? They offered, and God received, and at their hands, that which He had provided for them to offer. It was no doubt even then, in type, the Person and the work of Christ, and nothing else. I trust that I should delight to go, if a long journey, to attend a feast of the Lord.

How often are we set rather upon receiving for ourselves, than upon God’s receiving! May we seek then that our meetings, our holy convocations may more often be for Him henceforth a feast of the Lord. When we offer to God, and He accepts, it is Christ, see I Pet 2: 5. Christ is the overflow from us. This is worship. It is Christ alone, I think, which forms the basis of a feast of the Lord.

I would say a brief word now on the second assembly of God’s people and its object, to which I have already referred. We find this in Numbers 10.

Here again we have the company called together—“all the assembly” summoned; but the object for which they came together was very different. It was either to receive some distinct message from God, in view of their approach to the enemy, or it was a message from Him to encourage them to advance towards the place of God’s rest—a rest which according to His purpose they should share with Him. (Compare Num 10: 2-10 with what I have just said. As to verse 4, I believe that it also has its significance for us. I think that we have its import in such passages as Acts 20: 17; James 5: 14; Acts 15: 6; 1 Pet 5: 1.) It is evident, I think, from Numbers 10 that on the occasions here referred to of their coming together, the object was that God’s people might receive from Him. It is not, as I understand this passage, that God receives from them. It was to receive this information from God that the enemy was before or around them, and that he had to be met. Or it urged them to move on again, to reach the end—God’s thought for them. All this exercise we find in Christianity, as well as the other, the rest. The end is, (as to which WE receive continually messages from God in our meetings) to urge the soul now to go forward to reach God’s rest, that is, to reach Christ, and never to settle down without it. As to the enemy, we have to remember Peter’s words, “Your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about”, 1 Pet 5: 8.

Now what meetings (or assemblies) answer to these times, that is, to times when we receive? Evidently our lectures do (or exhortations) when we have come together, and our reading meetings, and our prayer meetings, each and all are on this line. They are times when we come together to receive from God, and when we do receive from Him. But they must not be confounded, I think, with the other, “the feasts of the Lord”, where God receives from us. I think that the people of God often come together to receive, and that they sometimes pass from thence to be givers! and if they do not, there is no worship, and that is what the Father is now seeking. I think that very often we lack definiteness, as to the present mind of God (the Spirit) as called together. When this is so, this lack in our souls will often display itself in and to the company.

If God calls His people together now, I think it is either to minister Christ to them, or to receive, in the power of worship, Christ from them. I think that we ought to be intelligent, when we are together, as to which of these it is. God is seeking worshippers, and we should not always be thinking of ourselves when together, and what we shall get (though we do get), as we have said; but I think some of us have found that we may even in our meetings, drop into a mere “feast of the Jews”, where Christ, on one occasion at least, was found to be absent (see John 8: 8-37), and where, instead, thirst unsatisfied was found (with us it is soul thirst), for how can there be satisfaction, for God or for man, without Christ? God will not always have our blessing to be before us. He will have, in their season, His feasts. “Will a man rob God?”, Mal 3: 8. If so, he will rob himself. Give God His tithes (the tithes were for the Levite, and the tenth of them for the priests) and the “windows of heaven” shall open upon us and the blessing be so great that “there shall not be room enough to receive it”, see Mal 3: 10! The feasts of the Lord are found, because God has found His eternal rest, satisfaction and delight in CHRIST.

Beloved brethren, is not this why God brought Israel out of Egypt, and you and me out of the world (John 15: 19), that we might hold a feast to the Lord? That Christ might be presented, both as to His Person and work, to Him (see Exod 10: 9), Christ in all His blessed preciousness to Him? I think that if we know nothing of this, though we may not neglect “the assembling of ourselves together” (Heb 10: 25) to break bread, or to listen to lectures, or to assist in reading meetings, or to take our part in the prayer meetings; yet the end that God would have us reach is not reached in our souls. We have not in spirit yet been present at a feast of the Lord, nor found God’s rest here below, a rest which is apart from all that we are and all that we do.

So when our meetings have not one of the objects just mentioned, we have the other object, namely, “a feast of the Lord” before us, to which we are privileged to come, I believe very many of our meetings, therefore, should be feasts of the Lord, and have this object in view. How do we respond to the privileges thus given? These “holy convocations”, when afresh from us, as His people, all God’s delight in THE PERSON AND WORK OF CHRIST comes before Him, in one and another, as led of the Holy Spirit, each assisting to complete the sum.

These “feasts of the Lord” are evidently seasons of rest. There is rest for God, and hence rest for believers. If God is (and has ever been) the only worker, what we have before us, both in creation and in redemption, is the rest of God! In both man (as a helper) is excluded. As to these ‘feasts of the Lord’—these holy celebrations—again and again it is repeated, “Ye shall do no servile work therein”. Not only “no work” but no ‘servant work’. You are brought into God’s rest, but you have nothing to do as to securing it, and you have nothing to do but to enjoy it with Christ. Doing is over, and all is of God. God having done all can thus rest. When He rested from the work of creation it was because all was done, and all was God’s work, and therefore all was “very good”. Then God could rest; sin had not intruded into that rest, and man was in it. Then sin intruded, but the work of REDEMPTION has been taken up. It has been taken up to banish sin, and to introduce in permanence that in which God can rest. It is because this has been perfectly effected for God (see Heb 9: 26), that He can and does rest. And man is in it because Christ is in it as man. Christ has around Him a company. Redemption work is finished, and God is at rest as to it. In order to understand this, you must get some sense of the ‘sanctified company’, of whom Christ is not ashamed, His “brethren”, in the midst of whom He sings praises. Leviticus 23 begins with the sabbath, the fact that God is at rest as to redemption, for it is made known to a redeemed people. Moses sang in the midst of that earthly company on the banks of the Red Sea, and similarly, though now in all the good of a perfectly once-accomplished and never-to-fail work, Christ sings praises in the midst of the church. He sings in the hearts of His people, for the “song” comes now from human lips! The result of all this is, we have “the feasts of the Lord”.

May we all know more about “holy convocations”—these “feasts of the Lord”! The sum of them all is, God is resting in Christ and in His work. Presently God will display this. But He does not wait for display. He is at rest now. The gospel always had the object of bringing those who believed it into God’s rest, Heb 4: 1-6. In Israel all this failed. The rest of God is CHRIST, and for us He is the holiest. We enter morally into this now, Heb 10: 19. Nothing can intrude there to mar God’s rest.

I have no wish to stumble any, but for me even the Lord’s supper is not per se (in itself) a feast of the Lord. It may lead on to it, I doubt not (as any other “coming together” of the saints may, of which we have spoken, and to me this end establishes their value). But we may come to the Lord’s supper, and go away from it, and have only received. We may only have received the deeper assurance in our souls of our own blessing, and how in truth the whole question of our sin has been met for God. There is nothing for God if it is only what we have received, but all for self, and I could not call that an offering to God, a feast of the Lord.

I desire then, in bringing these thoughts before you, that our meetings may more often take the character of “feasts of the Lord”. If there is the apprehension of our privileges this must be so, and as Christ is before us we must see how blessedly He on such occasions gratifies the heart of God and fills the whole scene. No amount of effort could give us a feast of the Lord, yet I see that God is resting in Christ, and desires to bring us now into all that joy and rest. I am not advocating the establishment of what are called ‘open meetings’, or ‘worship meetings’. I am not claiming better things for us (I think we could have no better), but better things for God, and I think I would fain go a long way to make one of any company which is gathered in faith together, to hold “a feast unto the Lord ... a holy convocation”.

 

From Helps for the Poor of the Flock—vol 6, 1901

A WORD ON THE CONSECRATION OF THE PRIESTS

(Lev 8: 1-13, 25-28; 1 Pet 2: 4-5)

I think “consecration” becomes true for Christians only when they accept fully that they have lost their identity as men on the earth, and that they are now identified with the Person and work of Christ before God. There were priests by calling in Israel (see Exod 19: 6), before they entered on their consecration. So now, all Christians are privileged to be priests; it is our calling, but we have also to enter upon our consecration, and all have not done so. In this consecration the individual has to go through real soul exercise with God.

      God is seeking worshippers, and in order to worship at any moment you must not only be a priest in title, but you must be a priest by consecration. I have no doubt that all Christians are priests in title; the point is that this title should be made good in consecration, and that becomes an individual matter for each of us. In the type they came one by one for it to Moses, Lev 8: 6. To go no farther than this verse, what would happen if all the Christians of this town were willing to come under the influence of the word, and would bow to it? A consecrated priest is one subject to scripture. Various stages of soul, or of growth, characterise God’s people and these come before us very simply in the time history of the people of Israel. With us all is moral. We may look at them if we please as un-delivered, but groaning and exercised in Egypt (groans and exercise, indicating that a work of God had begun. It was so then and it is so now), or we may look at them again on the Canaan side of the Red Sea. Or again we may look at God’s people in the wilderness (and you will see some of them, at least) in the place of privileged nearness, as clothed and offering priests. Or again we may look at two of them (Caleb and Joshua) as having passed through all the stages and as having reached the final one, possession, that is, triumph in the land over all God’s (and their) enemies. All these set before us now various moral stages of soul growth or advance in the apprehension of God’s purposes for us. They have a moral and spiritual meaning for us.

All God’s thoughts and purposes for His people are only made good in them by the Holy Spirit. I think this must be admitted by all of us. Not by faith, though without it there is nothing, but you do not get into the good of things of God by faith. You get into the good of them by the Spirit making them a real substance in your soul, and you are just so far on in your history with God, and in your progress heavenward (which is your growth), as the Spirit has had formative power over you.

For instance, I might ask a believer, are you out of Egypt? and I might get an instant answer in the affirmative, quoting, perhaps, Exod 15. But is he really out in the experience of his soul? Again, I might ask, are you a priest? and I might get at once the verses in Peter (which I have read to you) quoted to me to show that he is. I admit his title. But my question would still be, are you a priest by consecration, that is, in the conscious nearness of one with God? I know we are all viewed as the consecrated company in Heb 2: 11-12. But do you always come to God with your hands full of Christ, to present HIM to God? We must begin with the water, in v 6.

There are just two or three points I have before me to speak of, beloved friends, in connection with our priestly place and work, and the consecration of the priests. The idea connected with the book of Exodus is the way out of Egypt, and with the book of Leviticus it is the way in to God; and hence the book of Leviticus is occupied largely with what is suitable to God—that is, with Christ, in all the various offerings which present Him to God, beginning with the burnt offering. I suppose the idea of an offering is, that which God can accept. The consecrated priest is one who has that to offer which God can accept. In the type his hands are filled; but before that, he has been in the company of Moses (v 6) as I think we must also be, in that of Christ risen. Because if this chapter speaks of the consecration of the priests, that which is unsuited to the priesthood must be removed. Moses brought Aaron and his sons, and washed them with water. The blessed Lord Himself says, “For their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth”. He took His place on high, and in order to have part with Him there, this washing of water is initiatory and is most important. It was referred to this morning—it is Christ relieving us of everything, and then, as in His company and association, forming in us what is suited to our entering upon our priestly functions and privileges.

I suppose we should all admit that the entrance upon our consecration as priests (that is, the knowing something about what it is to have our hands filled with what delights the heart of the blessed God) is a step in advance on being out of Egypt and on being priests in title. There is no worship if you are not a priest, because you cannot approach to offer; only they had access, and since all the saints now are fitted and destined of God to be priests, and are associated with Christ now on the line of priesthood (see 1 Pet 2: 4-5), the first thing is that we should be so in the company of Christ, that we are relieved of whatever is unsuited to priests. God’s thought for all of us is that we should be priests, 1 Pet 3. In order to this, I think we have to take up our association with Christ as the “living stone”, on the other side of death; for that is where He entered on priesthood. It is thus we become a spiritual house, “a holy priesthood”, and we are privileged to take this up. God’s thought for us is that we should never come before Him empty, because as priests He has been pleased to fill us. We are beyond death as offering priests. The first thing is that we should be in company with Christ, when He forms us (after correcting—which the water sets forth—that which is unsuited to His leading us on to the full good of what He is in) in the truth of His place as Man before God! We have known our association with Adam, and God’s desire is that now we should know association with Christ. The first thing is this washing of water by the word. It is not the letter of scripture, but the living company of Christ, that forms us. Aaron and his sons, it is said, always represent the priestly family. They are washed with water. Christ is the Word. That is the first thing, if we are to go on to understand a little of the priesthood. Then you get their dress, their investiture, that is, how God sees them, and then all the excellencies of Christ are put upon the hands of Aaron and his sons, and waved as a wave-offering before the Lord and then taken and burnt as a “sweet savour”. A priest is thus one who has something to offer. God only accepts Christ. How many there are who never come to the meetings to offer, but always to receive! They are not priests (in function). What is presented to God from a priest, that is, what comes from him, is a sweet savour of Christ. God has relieved him (who is to act as a priest), practically, of that which is offensive, and then the excellencies that God sees in Christ personally, He puts into the hands of the priests, so that these excellencies may come before Him as a sweet savour.

They are first put upon the hands of the priests and waved before the Lord, and then taken off their hands and burnt, as a burnt offering, a “sweet savour” to God. That is what Peter teaches, in the verses I read—that we should come to the “living stone”, to be built up a “spiritual house”, a company of priests, to offer. I do not think any of us can go in, except as in the company of Christ; therefore here, the priestly family are in the company of both Moses and Aaron. The varied offerings which set forth God’s thoughts of Christ precede all this. We have a wonderful unfolding of God’s thoughts of Christ in the seven preceding chapters. But here the persons are taken in hand that are to be brought into the consciousness of nearness. They are to have access, and to be in the good of drawing near to God. Hence God’s thoughts (in the offerings) are repeated in this chapter. It seems to me that that is really what goes on with regard to us. We should be sitting at the feet of Jesus, as Mary sat, not only that that which is unsuited to Him should go, but that Christ should take its place, and the sense of what HE is! We have thus touched the first step as to the consecration of the priests. In the company of Christ, He leads us on in the good of present association with Himself. He is the “leader”, the “firstborn among many brethren”, Rom 8: 29. We are led along of Christ into some little idea of what it is to be with Him, in the truth of Hebrews 2. He is there, the Sanctifier, the “leader”, in the midst of those He is not ashamed to call “brethren”. If we are not invested, and if our hands are not thus filled with Christ, we are not in the good of priesthood. It is a great thing that we should be, not theoretically merely, but consciously, a company of priests.

The priest was one that had something to offer, and Christ therein came before God. Every offering was the presentation, in some form or another, of CHRIST to God—not understood by them, but understood by us, because we have the light and the Spirit, and therefore ought to be in the conscious intelligence and good of what is set forth in this type. The types are not studied enough. They are full of the Antitype when read right. God does not want us to be hoping for something when we get to heaven which has been totally unknown to us on earth, but to be now in the conscious good of how He has clothed us in present association with Christ, in all the good of having our hands filled, filled with Christ and with the excellencies of Christ. First, we must be in the company of Moses (as representing Christ), so as to be relieved; then, with Aaron, our hands are filled, and thus God gets that which delights Him. What is there in this scene that delights God if He does not get Christ from us? It is Christ presented by us to God, and that is what God is looking for. Only this is worship. May He find this in us!

 

Rotherham

April 1901

From Words of Grace and Encouragement—vol 2, 1902