applied. I rather leave it in the way of a suggestion. But it does
seem to me that the Lord, _speaking of the Jewish election_, takes
Noah for His text or type (Matt. xxiv.); while the apostle,
_addressing the Church_, takes his language the rather from the
translation of Enoch. 1 Thess. iv. 17; 2 Thess. ii. 1. For the
Jewish remnant, like Noah, will be carried through the
judgment---the saints now gathering will be in the sphere out of
which the judgment is to be poured. For we are taught again and
again, as I have noticed before, that exercise of power in that
day, in company with the Lord, is part of the glory of the saints.
See Col. iii. 4; Rev. ii. 26; xvii. 14; xix. 14.
And if the days and years did not measure it, nor signs announce it, did
the world, I ask, witness it? Or was it, though so glorious and great,
silent and secret?
The language of the apostle seems to give me my answer, and so does all
the analogy of Scripture. He "was not found, because God had translated
him." This sounds as though man had been a stranger to that glorious
hour. The world seems to have inquired and searched after him, like the
sons of the prophets after Elijah; but in vain. 2 Kings ii. 17; Heb. xi.
5. And this tells us that the translation had been a secret to man; for
they would not have searched, had they seen it.
All scriptural or divine analogy answers me in like manner. Glory, in
none of its forms or actions, is for the eye or ear of mere man.
Horses and chariots filled the mountain; but the prophet's servant had
to get his eye opened ere he could see them. Daniel saw a glorious
stranger, and heard his voice as the voice of a multitude; but the men
who stood with him saw nothing--only a terror fell on them. The glory on
"the holy hill" shone only in the sight of Peter, James, and John,
though the brightness there at that moment (night as it was) might have
lighted up all the land; for the divine face "did shine as the sun."
Many bodies of saints arose, attendants on the Lord's rising; but it was
only to some in the holy city they showed themselves. The heaven was
opened over the head of the martyr of Jesus, in the very midst of a
multitude; but the glory was seen only by him. Paul went to Paradise,
and Philip to Azotus; but no eye of man tracked either the flight or the
journey. And beyond all, when Jesus rose, and that, too, from a tomb of
hewn stone, and from amid a guard of wakeful soldiers, no ear or eye was
in the secret. It was a lie, that the keepers of the stone slept; but it
is a truth, that they saw no more of the resurrection than had they done
so. Silence and secrecy thus mark all these glorious transactions.
Visions, audiences, resurrections, flights, ascensions, the glory down
here, and the heaven opened up there, all these go on, and yet mere man
is a stranger to all. And the translation of Enoch takes company with
all these, I assuredly judge; and so, I further judge, will another
glorious hour soon to come, in which "they that are Christ's" are _all_
to be interested.
I have now reached and closed the fifth chapter. The first part of the
Book of Genesis will be found to end here. For these chapters (i.-v.)
constitute a little volume.
I. This chapter opens the volume with the work of creation.
II. Creation being complete, the Lord, the Creator, takes His delight
in it; and in the midst of it, and over it, places the man whom He had
formed in His own image, with all endowments and possessions to make his
condition perfect.
III. Man, thus made perfect, being tried and overcome, we see the
_ruin_ which he wrought, and the _redemption_ which God provided.
IV. V. These chapters then show us one branch of this ruined, redeemed
family choosing the ruins, and another branch of it delighting in the
redemption.
This is simple, and yet perfect. The tale is told--a tale of other days;
but in the results and sympathies of which we live at this hour.
It is the sight of the elect, believing, heavenly household, which we
get in this little volume, which has at this time drawn my thoughts to
it. They walked on earth as we should walk; but they were, by their
faith, hope, and destiny, all the while, very near heaven, as we are.
Are we touching the skirts of such glory with unaffected hearts,
beloved? Does anything more humble you in His presence, I ask you (for
my own soul has already given its answer), than the conviction we have
of the little estimation in which the heart holds His promised glory? It
is terrible discovery to make of oneself. That we have but small delight
in the provisions of His goodness, is more terrible than that we have no
answer to the demands of His righteousness. And yet both stand in proof
against us. After Israel had left Egypt, they were tested by the voice
of the law; but the golden calf tells that they had no answer for it. In
the progress of their journey, they are tested by the firstfruits of
Canaan; but the desired captain tells that they had no relish for the
feast. And what is the heart of man still? What was it in Christ's day?
The parable of the marriage of the king's son, like the captain of the
wilderness, tells us that there is no relish there for the table which
God spreads. What are singing men and singing women to a heavy ear? The
pleasant land is despised still. Canaan is not worth the scaling of a
single wall, or an encounter with one Amalekite. The farm, the
merchandise, and the wife, are made the captain to take us back, in
spite of the invitations of love and the treasures of glory.
Terrible discovery! And yet it is not hard to make it. The proof of it
clings pretty close to us. We know how quickly present interests move
us; how loss depresses and profit elates us; and then, again, we know
how dull the glory glitters, if but a difficulty or a hazard lie this
side of it.
Are we sorry because of this, beloved? Does it ever break the heart into
sighs and groans before our God? Sad and solemn, if we feel it not
thus--and terrible, when we deliberately talk to ourselves of making a
captain again. And this we do when the pastime and the pleasures of the
sons of men again give animation to our hearts, or when their honours or
their pursuits become again our objects. Lot's wife, beloved, had got
beyond Sodom, and that, too, in company with the elect, when it was
found that she was still there, in such a sense as to perish with the
city. Israel was as far as the wilderness of Paran, and that, too, in
company with the ark of God, when it was proved that they were still
amid the flesh-pots of Egypt. Serious remembrances for us all! holy
warnings, that we wanton not with those lusts and enjoyments, which once
we watched and mortified.
"Of that day and hour knoweth no man"--are the solemn words by which the
Lord refuses to pledge the moment of His return to His Jewish remnant.
Matt. xxiv. 36. That moment is to be to them as the thief of the night,
or as the hour of the woman in travail. So as to death. If it come on
any of us without a moment's warning, the Lord has not been untrue to
any pledge He has given. And so as to the rapture. In no case is the day
or the hour pledged or made known. All is included in _one_ word of deep
and holy import--"Watch"--and that one word is addressed to all: "What I
say unto you, I say unto all, Watch."
Whether the close to us be by death or rapture--whether it be to Israel
by being taken or left--the day and the hour remain alike untold; no
pledge of it is promised at all. Each and all are set on the
watch-tower. _We_ wait for "the Son from heaven;" _they_ will have to
wait for "the days of the Son of man;" but neither of us know the hour
that closes the waiting.
That is common to them and to us. We stand in equal condition with them
as to this. But together with this there is a difference.
The Jewish Remnant are given signs. That is, they are told of certain
things which _must_ precede "the days of the Son of man," though they
are left ignorant of the day or the hour of that appearing. See Matt.
xxiv. 32-36. The saints now gathering to the hope of the "Son from
heaven" are, on the contrary, not given any such signs, or told of any
necessary precursory events.
The Lord communicated His _purpose_ of judgment to Noah, but said
nothing to him of the _time_ of it. But Noah knew that it could not be
till his ark was built. He knew not the time when the waters were to
rise; but he knew they could not rise till he and his were lodged in
safety. This was a sign, or an event necessarily forerunning the close
of his history. And so with the earthly Israel. Circumstances must take
place, though the day or the hour of it be not known, ere the Son of man
can be here on earth again. But not so with Enoch. No circumstance
necessarily delayed his translation. His walk with God was not a
circumstance. And that was all that led the way to his ascension. And so
with the Church now gathering. She waits for no circumstance--no years
measure her sojourn here; no events prepare her heavenward way. She is
not put, like the Jewish election, under the restraint of any signs or
preceding circumstances.
The Lord treats it as _deceit_ to say "the time draweth nigh;" while the
apostle _expressly puts us under those words_. Luke xxi. 8; James v. 8.
_After certain signs or events_, the Lord tells the remnant that their
expectation is near; the apostle tells us that ours is _always so_.
Matt. xxiv. 33; Phil. iv. 5. The Lord exhorts the remnant to watch,
because the day may otherwise overtake them; the apostle exhorts us to
watch, because we are already of the day, and it is fit that we should
act as day-men. Matt. xxiv. 43; 1 Thess. v. 5, 6.
Here lies a difference. But still, all are equally commanded to
watch--we in this our day, as ever knowing that "the end of all things
is at hand," and the remnant, in their coming day, even though they know
that some events must go before.
And beautiful and just this is. For if the things threatened be
profoundly solemn, as they are, and the things promised be unspeakably
glorious, as they are, it is but little to require of us to _treat them
as supreme_--and that, in other words, is _watching_.
And the sense of the nearness of the glory should be cherished by us. I
mean its nearness in _place_ as well as time. And we need be at no
effort to persuade ourselves of it. It is taught us very clearly and
surely. The congregation of Israel were set at the door of the
tabernacle, and as soon as the appointed moment came the glory was
before them. See Lev. viii. ix. So at the erection of the tabernacle,
and so at the introduction of the ark into the temple. Ex. xl.; 2 Chron.
v. So when it had business to do (though of different characters) with
the company on Mount Tabor, with the dying Stephen, or with Saul on the
road to Damascus--wherever it may have to act, and whatever it may be
called to do, to convict, to cheer, or to transfigure--to smite to the
earth the persecutor, to give triumph to the martyr, or to conform an
elect Vessel to itself, it can be present in a moment, in the twinkling
of an eye. It is but a thin veil, which either hides it or distances it.
The path is short, and the journey rapidly accomplished. We should
cherish the thought of this, beloved. It has its power as well as its
consolation. And so ere long, when the time of 1 Cor. xv. 51 arrives,
that moment of the general transfiguration, as soon as the voice of the
archangel summons it, the glory will be here again, as in the twinkling
of an eye, to do its business with us, and in the image of the heavenly
to bear us up, like Enoch, to the heavenly country.
Then shall the Lord be glorified in His saints--not as now, in their
obedience and service, their holiness and fruitfulness, but in their
_personal_ beauty. Arrayed in white, and shining in our glories, we
shall be the wondrous witness of what He has done for the sinner that
trusts in Him. And as one much loved and honoured in the Lord has just
written to me, so I write to you, beloved: "No lark ever sprang up on a
dewy morning to sing its sweet song with such alacrity as you and I
shall spring up to meet our Lord in the air." And his exhortation to me
I would make mine to you (though feebly echoed from my heart): "Oh, my
brother, set it before your mind's eye as a living reality, and then let
hope patiently wait for the fulfilment!"
"Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus."
NOAH.
GENESIS VI.-XI.
How changed is the whole condition of things since the day of Genesis!
Were I to read the opening of this fine scripture, and just expose my
heart to the simpler earliest impression of what I get there, it is this
thought which would engage my mind; and yet with all ease we can account
for this strange and wondrous revolution. In chapter i. God was alone,
producing the fruit of His own handiwork, in wisdom, goodness, and
skill; and then all was good and desirable. On the return of every
evening and morning the divine delights lingered over what the divine
hand was working out, and behold all was very good; and the seventh day
was sanctified for the celebration of this rest and enjoyment. But now,
it is not God's hand presenting a perfect work to God's thoughts and
affections, but it is man, the apostate artificer, spreading out a wide
scene of corruption and violence for the grief and repentings of the
divine mind. The secret of the change lies there. Man has been at work;
man has been fashioning and furnishing the scene, and not the living,
blessed God. The earth is therefore filled with violence; giants there
are, mighty men, men of renown; and the imaginations of that heart which
was now making "this present evil world" are only evil, and that
continually.
Here lies the secret. The change was complete because of the new potter
that had been at the wheel; the change could not be less. The song of
the morning stars, the shout of the sons of God, had no echo in the
scene of creation now; man was now abroad--not as a part of the work,
but as a reprobate workman.
It is just this which gives character to the opening of chapter vi. And
there is no relief for all this in the creature--the best sample and
portion it could offer is itself defiled. The sons of God themselves are
dragged into the mire--their will, their desire, their taste, are
supreme with them. The daughters of Moab have seduced to fornication;
and the Nazarites, who were purer than snow and whiter than milk, whose
polishing was of sapphire, are become blacker than a coal. The witness
against them is, "he also is flesh."
If Adam was seduced by the subtilest of enemies, and followed the sight
of his eye and the desire of his heart, the sons of God are now seduced
by an enemy equally successful. He works, it is true, from within rather
than without--"he also is flesh"--but the sight of the eye and the
desire of the heart are again followed. Wives are taken of all "whom
they choose;" other lords are listened to, for God is not in all their
thoughts, and then it matters not whether it be the promise of the
serpent, or the fairness of the daughters of men. Gen. iii. 4, 5.
The multiplying of men on the face of the earth is noticed as connected
with all this corruption--just as in the history of the Church. Acts vi.
1. It was when the number of disciples was multiplied that murmurings
and disputings began to arise; and these kindred cases in Genesis vi.
and Acts vi. tell us that man is never to be trusted, and that the more
we get of him the worse things are. "Jesus did not commit Himself to
them, for He knew all men, and needed not that any should testify of
man, for He knew what was in man."
Such was the condition of the scene from one end to the other; and
against all this corruption and violence which now overspread the earth,
the judgment of God is marked--"My spirit shall not _always_ strive with
man." There may be, and there shall be, a term of long-suffering--as it
is said, "his days shall be one hundred and twenty years"--but still
judgment is marked, and the day of visitation will come--the Spirit will
not _always_ strive.
But there is resource in God, as well as judgment with Him. If man, the
work of His _hand_, have "grieved" Him, still, drawing from Himself, He
will (may I say?) go deeper, and find His joy in the counsels of His
_heart_.
"Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord." Man, as a sinner, shall
become the object of electing, pardoning, justifying love--he shall
engage the _heart_ now, as of old, at creation, he engaged the _hand_ of
the Lord.
Thus from Himself the Lord draws, but from Himself in a deeper sense and
way than before. This was to be no more repairing of the creature--such
a thing would have been no fit work for God. As to man, God had to
repent that He had made him on the earth; and as to the scene around
him, the mind of God was changed--changed unalterably, and for ever.
Man, as a thing formed of the dust, was never to be the divine delight
again--mere man. But grace can make a new thing--not repairing the work
marred on the wheel, but making it another vessel, as it seem good to
the potter to make it. In its old estate it was ruined, but in its ruins
grace will take it up to make it a goodly and a pleasant vessel of
richest treasures and all-desirable beauty.
We admire a ruin; and some, as they have thought of this, have suspected
the _moral_ of such a sentiment, and been ready to condemn the heart and
eye that could linger with pleasure over what was the witness of decay
and death, and the entrance of the power of sin. But I would venture to
embolden such, and to tell them that they may still admire a ruin, and
do so without fear or self-judgment. The redeemed thing is a vast, and
precious, and beautiful ruin; it will bespeak the power of sin and death
for ever, while displaying the boundless, glorious victory of death's
Destroyer. And the thoughts of the Spirit of God, the mind of Christ, as
well as heaven itself and all its hosts, will linger over that ruin for
a happy eternity. It will be the ornament and the delight of the
creation of God. "Sing, O ye heavens; for the Lord hath done it! Shout,
ye lower parts of the earth; break forth into singing, ye mountains, O
forest, and every tree therein; for the Lord hath redeemed Jacob!" And
again, "Joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than
over ninety-and-nine just persons which need no repentance."
This is heaven's admiration of a beautiful ruin; and these are the ways
of God. The operations of His hands were, of old, His delight, and the
counsels of His grace are now His delight, and the attending angels have
their music, and their dancing in the house of the prodigal's Father.
Noah, having thus found grace in the eyes of the Lord, becomes the
subject of divine teaching. An elect vessel is always the vessel for the
handiwork of God, through the Spirit. The Lord communicates His mind to
him; He tells him that the judgment of an evil world, which had now
filled up its measure, was marked before Him, but that for him and his
house there was safety, and a great deliverance.
This communication has a very precious character in it--_it is strictly
according to the previous counsel of His own bosom_. This is very much
to be prized. God tells His elect one, that the end of all flesh was
come before Him--as, in His own secret counsels He had already said, "My
spirit shall not _always_ strive with man;" He tells him of the sense
and judgment He had of the _moral_ condition of the earth--just such as
He had uttered in secret before; and, further, He tells him to get ready
an ark for the saving of his house, as, in the counsels of His electing
love and sovereign purpose, Noah had already found grace in His eyes.
It is very establishing to the heart to notice this. It lets us
understand how _exactly_ the revelation made to us puts us into
possession of the divine mind, "Shall I hide from Abraham that thing
which I do?" says the Lord, on another occasion, when He was, as here,
speaking to Himself. And a _fulness_, as well as exactness, I may say,
distinguishes these revelations. Jesus says to His disciples, "_All_
things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you"--with,
however, one exception. The Lord God had fixed 120 years as the term of
His longsuffering. Noah's preaching, as well as ark-building, was to be
for that period. Such was the purpose of God. But Noah was told nothing
of this predestinated interval. The Lord kept back all mention of the
120 years. Noah knew, indeed, that the waters could not prevail till he
and his were safe in the ark, but how long that might be preparing, or
whether or not, after it was finished, any time should pass ere the
waters should begin to rise, he knew not. This part of the divine
counsel the Father kept in His own power; this was the exception to the
fulness of the communication. Events were to take place, signs were to
precede "the day of the Lord"--such, at least, as the finishing and
filling of the ark. In the language of the prophet, the bud was to
become tender, and to put forth its leaves. Had any one talked to Noah
about the waters rising ere the ark was ready, Noah would not have been
shaken in mind, or in anywise troubled. That could not be. "The time
draweth nigh" would have been deceit then, as it will be by-and-by, when
the earthly remnant, or election, are, like Noah, waiting for
redemption. Luke xxi. 8. But still, the period itself, the term of the
divine longsuffering, was put in the Father's power, and no one knew the
day nor the hour. So rich and full are those harmonies in earlier and
latter days, in typical and closing actions of God's hand. Noah was at
this time an _earthly_ man--that is an elect one destined for
inheritance in the earth, as the nation of Israel, by-and-by, will be;
and both of them, in their several days, are provided, by divine
instructions, against the deceits which might alarm them, or the
promises which might seduce them; but the day and hour of their
deliverance are not told.
The ark, in the size, fashion, and material of it, is entirely the
prescription of God. Noah has but to make it--the Lord plans it as well
as appoints it. The making of it is only the trial and the proof of
faith--"by faith Noah, moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of
his house." Israel fashioning the sanctuary, in after days, was a like
act of faith. They had to make it, and make it they did, with willing
hearts and ready service, yielding their brass, and their silver, and
their gold, their fine linen, badgers' skins, shittim-wood, oil, spices,
and precious stones. But all this was only the obedience of faith to the
way of deliverance and peace, which God Himself had planned and
revealed. They made the sanctuary as Noah made the ark; but neither was
his act nor their act anything more than faith in the provisions of God.
And what is the gospel, and faith in the gospel, to this hour, but such
a revelation of the provisions of grace, and such obedience to that
revelation? The religion of the elect has ever been the same--"It is of
faith, that it might be by grace." Faith in God's sovereign provisions
was Adam's religion at the beginning, then it was Noah's, afterwards it
was the religion of Abraham, and of every true Israelite; and so at this
day it is ours. We all, as well as Adam, come forth from our shame, and
fear, and confusion of conscience, at the tidings of the bruised and
bruising Seed of the woman. We all, as well as Noah, prepare an ark for
salvation, and become heirs of the righteousness which is by faith; we
all as well as Israel, betake us from the fiery hill to the sanctuary of
enthroned mercy--and Jesus, Jesus, is the name borne along the line,
from one end of it to the other, of patriarchs, prophets, apostles, and
saints, Gentile and Jewish, small and great, in the deep-toned melody
that is to charm the eternity of heaven.
It is not merely mercy. Heaven knows no such thought. Neither is it
simple, naked promise. It is _propitiation_ and victory, and _purchased_
as well as promised blessings.
Inspect the sanctuary of God and you will find that it is not mere mercy
that is there. It is enthroned mercy, mercy on the ark of the covenant,
mercy sustained by the work and on the person of the Son of God. And
faith has respect only to such a mystery as that. Faith never talks of
mere mercy. It could not. It could no more talk of mere mercy in God
than it could of moral righteousness in man. The gospel does not know
such ideas, and therefore faith cannot apprehend them. The gospel
reveals One who is just, while justifying the ungodly. Mercy and truth
have met together. It is glory to God in the highest while it is peace
and good will to men. This is the way of the gospel.