DISCIPLINE AND LIGHT
[p. 147] DISCIPLINE AND LIGHT
In order to understand the book of Hebrews it is necessary to see that it largely corresponds to what Leviticus was to the Jew. The subject of the book is approach to God, but not as Jews; there was in Israel the idea of approaching God, but not as we approach.
Exodus gives us the redemption of God’s people from the power of the enemy, and the consequent setting up of God’s dwelling-place among the redeemed people: so we get the detail of the tabernacle. In Numbers the people are taken account of, first, as for the wilderness, and secondly, as the people of God who were to inherit the land. This is what is typified, I suppose, in the two numberings. Both thoughts are combined in the christian.
Between the books of Exodus and Numbers we get the book of Leviticus, and the subject of that is, as I have said, approach to God; and the priests therefore come into prominence.
In the epistle to the Hebrews the truth all through is leading up to approach to God.
The Jew understood that the priests only could draw nigh; Aaron and his house were concerned with the worship of God; you can understand, therefore, the difficulty that a Jew had in understanding the common priesthood in christianity of believers; that through Jesus by one Spirit we all have access to the Father. Every christian must be a priest if indwelt by the Holy Spirit. There may be in many cases gift, but gift does not make a man a priest; the Holy Spirit constitutes a man a priest. Most of us have been brought up with Jewish notions regarding a priestly class as distinct from the laity, but these have no place in the christianity of Scripture.
There is another truth connected with the common priesthood of believers which comes out in Hebrews:
[p. 148] namely, that of boldness for entrance into the holiest, and consequently a place outside the camp. The Jew in the millennium will have neither the one nor the other. It is peculiar to the time when Christ is glorified in heaven but rejected here.
The first two chapters of the epistle to the Hebrews are introductory, then warnings follow, but in general, up to chapter 7 the epistle is occupied with the Priest. Even in the Old Testament we find that the whole tabernacle system depended upon the priest. The secret of our priesthood is our identification with Christ the great Priest. He leads us to worship the Father. The question is, how is the Priest so to engage us that we may be drawn to Him. He is in heaven for us; and nothing will avail for heaven but love; faith and hope have no place there; our link with Christ in the Father’s presence is love. I will quote a verse that proves this: “The Father himself loveth you, because ye have loved me”. John 16: 27. Hence the service on the part of the High Priest towards us is with a view to engaging our affections with Himself where He is. He is the One who makes us at home in the Father’s presence. You can see thus that the whole question of the service of God depends upon the Priest and our affection toward Him. It is not difficult to get the idea in type in the case of Aaron and his sons.
The next great point in the epistle is the sanctuary (we have seen that the first is the Priest). The sanctuary I understand to be the full blessed light of God, as He has been pleased to reveal Himself in Christ in His purposes of grace; its character is moral, not material, and it is the Father’s pleasure to have us there in the brightness of that light; that is the sanctuary as I apprehend it.
Then in the last three chapters of the epistle you get the life of faith and the christian state. Chapter 10 presents privilege and brings us to what is collective; that is in the service of the sanctuary, but the life of faith is evidently individual, and in it we find ourselves surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses. If you could have [p. 149] placed any one of these in the circumstances of another, his faith would have found expression as in the other. Faith has God in view, and the world to come. Every witness in chapter 11 was of some principle of the world to come. As the world got darker God gave more light as to the world to come, and faith walked in view of that. The object of chapter 11 is to put you in a line. You have been previously looked at in your priestly place, which is privilege, but in this chapter you are in the line of those who have gone in the path of faith.
In chapter 12 two very important principles are seen — one is the discipline of God, and the other the light of God’s will. The present moment is not that of display but of mystery, and that involves testimony. We have now not one testimony, but the harmonious meeting of every testimony, the full light of God, which centres in Christ, at the right hand of God. When all is accomplished and in display, it is no longer a moment of testimony: but now we all, by the Spirit, behold the glory of the Lord with unveiled face, and are changed into the same image. We are accustomed to say that we are in the light as God is in the light. This is true, but I ask, are you as to the joy of your heart practically there? Are you in spirit outside the darkness of this world, and in the enjoyment of that light in which God has shone out? With us it is too often true, ‘If clouds have dimmed my sight’, and our souls are not then in the brightness. A good many things come in to obscure our spiritual vision. A man with a cataract does not see clearly. It would be a very blessed thing for our souls to be kept abiding in the full light of God’s testimony.
There are two things displayed in Christ — God’s nature and His testimony, but I speak now of the testimony only. In order to be in the light of God’s will you must accept the discipline of God. That which is of the world which attaches to us is intolerable to the holiness of God, and God’s ways of grace (in which He uses discipline) are to this end, that we may be in spirit apart from [p. 150] the course of things here. If we had any true sense of the holiness of God it would tell in our houses, in our ways and in our demeanour. Many things may in circumstances come in to try and to distress us, but God’s end in all is to remove what obscures our vision, so that our souls may be in the blessed light of His testimony. This is not a question of the assembly, but that which attaches to us individually — to be in the full light of the glory of the Lord.
I shall say a few words now about the light of the testimony. “Ye are come unto mount Zion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem”, etc. (See verses 22 - 24). This passage presents to us God’s various testimonies, and they converge at one point, and the value of this to us is that the soul should be in the full light of the things which are going to be shortly displayed. Now I see three great testimonies of God, which came out in detail in times gone by. (1) His purpose to bless, as seen in His dealings with Abraham; (2) His purpose to dwell, which comes to light in connection with Israel, “let them make me a sanctuary; that I may dwell among them” Exodus 25: 8; (3) His purpose to rule, which comes out in the throne of David, and which brings in view the kingdom. It is blessed to observe that all these testimonies came out in favour of man.
The law brought curse, but four hundred years previously to law, God had given to Abraham testimony of His purpose to bless, and you may be sure that there can be no such thing as sorrow in the blessing of God. Then in type was set forth the testimony that God would dwell with His people. This is even more wonderful than discovering His purpose to bless. He would set up His tabernacle among men. In connection with the tent of testimony God moved about with His people in the wilderness. When they dwelt in tents, God dwelt in a tent, and this was a greater witness of grace than even the temple in which God dwelt when they came into the land of fixed habitation. It is inconceivably blessed that God should [p. 151] dwell with man. Then (3) He will rule in order to subjugate all the enemies of man and of God. This is the great end of the kingdom; the subjugation of evil, and “the last enemy that shall be destroyed is death”, and when that is so, the kingdom is given up that God may be all in all. I believe in the enumeration here that we get all the testimonies. We have come to mount Zion, not to a power which strikes men with terror, but to the enduring mercy of God when man has by sin and perverseness forfeited all.
Mount Zion means sovereign mercy when we have no vestige of title. The only ground upon which any can be with God is that of the sovereignty of His mercy, and only the elect of God understand the sovereignty of God’s mercy. “The city of the living God” is the great ruling city. Jerusalem on earth was the “city of the great King”. So “Jerusalem above” is the heavenly metropolis. Then other testimonies follow “to God the Judge of all”, etc. Man is not the judge — God is the true Judge of all the actings of men. “To the spirits of just men made perfect”. These men are made perfect through redemption. And Jesus is in view as the Mediator of the new covenant, and the blood of sprinkling, which witnesses to the righteousness of God established in the sacrifice of Christ. The blood of Abel was the witness of violent will, but the blood of Jesus is the witness of death accomplished for God’s glory and the righteousness of God vindicated, and as a consequence there is a call for blessing, not for vengeance. Then follows the exhortation, “See that ye refuse not him that speaketh”. He speaks from heaven. When God spoke on earth, He spoke on the ground of man’s responsibility, giving him a law, but when He speaks from heaven, He speaks of that which is His pleasure, of His purposes in Christ.
In conclusion, I ask you, are you conscious of being on the ground of sovereign mercy with God? It is a great thing for us to have our hearts on those things in which He finds His pleasure. God’s testimony makes known [p. 152] His pleasure. May God keep our hearts in the light of His testimony. It is a greater thing to be in the light of His nature, but it is most blessed to be in the light of His testimony. If we were so habitually we should be much brighter down here, but for that we must be prepared to accept His discipline, the end of which is to make us partakers of His holiness.