talk of God's things as though there were no more preciousness and
excellency in them than our hearts could measure; but as secret after
secret comes forth from the wisdom of the greater than Solomon, surely
our souls should say, "Happy are thy men, and happy are these thy
servants, which stand continually before thee, and hear thy wisdom."
Endowed and blessed, enriched and honoured--instructed too, and ordained
as "the power" under God, and with all this, at ease, in conscious
safety, "no evil or enemy occurrent," Noah is seated in the new world. A
new trial of man, under new circumstances, was proceeding; and, as with
Adam in Eden, nothing is left undone on God's part. The oxen and
fatlings were killed, and all things were ready. But where is man's
sufficiency? If Adam failed before him, and lost the garden; if Israel
failed after him, and lost their land of milk and honey; it may be said
to Noah, "Lovest thou me more than these?" In Christ, and in Him only,
are unfailing fidelity and strength. And Noah, like the rest, fails, and
the virgin soil of the new world is quickly tarnished by the very first
foot that trod it.
"And Noah began to be an husbandman, and he planted a vineyard, and
drank of the vine, and was drunken, and he was uncovered within the
tent."
Noah himself is put to shame; the very first man, the Adam of this new
system, begins the history of this second apostasy, like his first
father.
The "little fire" is thus kindled; but it is for "a greater matter."
Noah is put to shame; but Ham, his son, glories in the shame. That was a
terrible advance in the progress of evil. "Ham, the father of Canaan,
saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brethren without."
It was a terrible advance in evil; this was not simply the being
"overtaken in a fault," but "rejoicing in iniquity." The common moral
sense rejects this--"Shem and Japheth took a garment, laid it on their
shoulders, went backwards, and covered the nakedness of their father."
And the saint himself is soon restored. Noah awakens from his wine. He
that was overtaken recovers himself, through the Spirit, and the grace
of God gives him a great triumph--a very precious and glorious triumph
indeed, for the restored one judges his judge, and condemns his
accuser--"Cursed be Canaan, a servant of servants shall he be unto his
brethren." This is something more than recovery--it is triumphant
recovery. Even the apostle's fine word, "Who shall lay anything to the
charge of God's elect?" scarcely measures it; for that is only the
silencing of the accuser, while this is turning back on the pursuer.
"Rejoice not against me, O mine enemy: when I fall, I shall rise....
Then she that is mine enemy shall be trodden down as the mire of the
streets."
Here, however, we may stand for a moment--the rich and interesting
prospects of the Spirit of prophecy here spread themselves out before
us.
This curse upon Canaan is part of Noah's prophecy. Noah, in spirit,
looked out from the renewed earth, but anticipated the return of
corruption and violence, though the grace of God were to have its
witness in the midst of it. In detail, he saw that one branch of the
human family (now about to re-people the earth) was to be distinguished
by the revelation and presence of God among them; another by their
success and advancement in the world--a people to be enlarged and made
honourable in the earth; another, by the constant, unchanging token, in
their flesh, of degradation and servitude. His prophecy contemplated, as
we may say, the Asiatic, the European, and the African man; or, the
Hebrew in the East, with whom was to be the sanctuary of God--the
Gentile of the West, who was, under the hand or providence of God, to
make himself great in borders beyond his own--and the slave of the
South, who might know a change of masters, but who was to be a slave
still.
Short is the notice of the world's history, but just and perfect as far
as it goes, and enough to answer the purpose of the Spirit in Noah, who
was taking his son Ham for his text.
The three prophecies, which we get in these earliest times, that of
Enoch, that of Lamech, and this of Noah, all touching the earth and its
history, though respecting different stages or parts of that history,
together present a very perfect outline of the whole thing. We must take
them in this order--Noah's, Enoch's, Lamech's.
Noah's prophecy has been accomplishing from of old, and is still getting
its seal and witness in all the changes of the world's solemn and
interesting story. Enoch's (Jude 14), which spoke of judgment, will have
its answer, its full answer, when the present course of things is
closing, and the day of the Lord comes to convince the ungodly. Lamech's
(Genesis v. 29), which spoke of rest, will be made good afterwards,
when, "the day of the Lord" having fulfilled the judgment, "the presence
of the Lord" will bring its restitution and refreshing.
The present and the future of the world's history, the varied good and
evil of the present, and the judgment and the glory that are to share
the future, are thus sketched before us in these prophecies. It is easy
to discern these things, and to give these early patriarchal oracles
their order and character.
It is Noah's, however, that I must look at more particularly, as what we
have more properly to do with here. It was delivered on the discovery of
the evil of his son Ham, and the onward course of evil is then detailed
to its close and maturity, ere we leave these chapters.
We have already watched the infant springing of it in Noah himself, and
the advanced form of it in Ham. Its further growth is next to be seen in
the builders of Babel, some hundred years after the flood. And an awful
exhibition it is.
At the birth-time of this new world, Noah's altar was raised, witnessing
faith and worship--but now the city and the tower are reared, witnessing
defiance of God and the affected independency of man. And the answer of
heaven to these things is just as different. Noah's altar brought down
words and tokens of peace and security--the cry of the city and the
tower now bring down judgment. Corruption here, and vengeance from on
high, mark the scene, instead of worship here, and blessing from God.
Then it was, that the Lord hung the bright token of His covenant in the
heavens, but now He is sending abroad over the earth the witnesses of
His righteous anger.
But this is not all. The tower is over-topped, high and proud as it was.
The builders may be scattered, but their principles survive. Judgment
does not cure. All the apostate mind that quickened that proud and
rebellious confederacy, gathers itself rapidly for its perfect work and
display in one man. For soon after the scattering (it may be about
thirty years) Nimrod, a grandson of Ham, plants his standard on the very
spot which had witnessed the judgment of God. The beginning of his
kingdom was Babel. x. 10. He unfurls his banner in the very face of Him
"to whom vengeance belongs," and cries, "Where is the God of judgment?"
He was as the fool of Ps. xiv.--"The fool hath said in his heart, There
is no God." He begins to be a mighty one in the earth. "Before the Lord
he hunted." In defiance of God he sought conquest and power. He added
house to house and field to field, in the desire to be lord alone. Erech
and Accad and Calneh are mother-cities, and mighty Nineveh with Rehoboth
and Calah, and that great city Resen, are but colonies in the system of
this vaunting apostate. He had no heart for any portion which God could
give him. He undertook to provide for himself, to be the maker of his
own fortune, that his dignity and honour should proceed from himself.
And such an one is the man of the world to this day. His intellect or
his industry, his skill or his courage, makes him what he is, and
provides him what he cares for. Such was this distinguished apostate,
this earliest representative and type of that one who, in closing days,
is to do according to his will, and fill the measure of man's iniquity.
It is a serious sight for the watching and observance of our souls. Are
we, beloved, waiting for other and purer scenes? and are our hearts upon
such enjoyments as God can sanction, and Jesus share with us?
These chapters properly close with this--these scenes of evil and proud
rebellion pass from before us, with a faint and distant view of the call
of another heavenly stranger apart from the world. But all that is the
dawn of another era in the ways of God, and our present subject only
looks at it in the distance.
The second part of the book of Genesis, I may say, ends here. It
presents a complete, distinct action, suitably following what had
preceded it, and as suitably (were it my purpose to show it) introducing
what is to follow it.
In this portion, Gen. vi.-xi., the scene is laid in the earth. The
heavenly family have already been before us, Gen. i.-v., and their
course ended in the translation of Enoch; now the scene is laid in the
earth again, as at the beginning in the garden of Eden.
The contents of this little volume, which I have now closed, might be
given in the following order:
vi.-viii. These chapters present the sin and judgment of the earth, with
the election, faith, and deliverance of the saints in the midst of it
all, and out of it all.
ix. This chapter shows us the new condition of man in the new world,
endowed and enriched there by the God of heaven and earth, secured in
the covenant mercy, and made the representative and executor of divine
authority.
x. xi. These chapters unfold great portions of the history of the new
world, the springs, workings, progress, and maturity of evil, leaving or
rendering the earth such a place as that the Lord must again, a second
time, retire from it (at least for the present) and bring out from it,
also a second time, a people to be heavenly strangers in the midst of
it, like the antediluvian saints.
Heaven and earth have thus, in their season, been rehearsing the
mystery, till together, in coming days, the days of the glory, they
shall display it, when "at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow, of
things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; and
every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the
Father."
"The land shall not be sold for ever," says the Lord; "for the land is
mine." Lev. xxv. 23. Man has a term of years granted him, in which it is
left in his power to disturb the divine order. For forty-nine years in
Israel disturbing traffic might go on, but in the fiftieth year the Lord
asserted His right, and restored all things according to His own mind;
for it was a time of "refreshing" and of "restitution" as from His own
"presence."
Bright and happy expectation! "The earth is the Lord's, and the fulness
thereof," is the proclamation of Psalm xxiv. And then the challenge goes
forth, "Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord?"--that is, Who shall
take the government of this earth and its fulness? And the answer is
made by another challenge to the city gates, to lift up their heads to
the Lord of hosts, the King of glory; a fervent form of words whereby to
convey the truth, that the Lord, as in strength and victory, the Lord as
Redeemer and Avenger, should take the government. As again in Rev. v. a
like proclamation is heard, "Who is worthy to open the book, and to
loose the seals thereof?" And the answer from every region is this, "The
Lamb that was slain, the Lion of the tribe of Judah." He who sat on the
throne gave that answer by letting the Book pass from His hand into the
hand of the Lamb. The living creatures and crowned elders joined in that
answer by singing their song over the prospect of their reign over the
earth. The hosts of angels add to it, by ascribing all wisdom and
strength and honour and faculty of dominion unto the Lamb--and every
creature in heaven, on earth, under the earth and in the seas, in their
order and measure, join in uttering this same answer. The title of the
Lamb to take dominion in the earth is thus owned and verified in the
very place where alone all lordship or office could be rightly
attested--the presence of the throne in heaven.
And so it is. The nobleman has now gone into the distant country to get
for himself a kingdom. Jesus, who refused all power from the god of this
world (Matt. iv.), or from the desire of the multitude (John vi.), takes
it from God, as He owns in Psalm lxii. that to Him it belongs. And in
due season He will return, and those who have owned Him in the day of
His rejection shall shine with Him in the day of His glory; those who
have served Him now shall take another city with Him then.
In the prospect of such a day, Paul says to Timothy, "Keep this
commandment without spot, unrebukeable, until the appearing of our Lord
Jesus Christ: which in His time He shall show, who is the blessed and
only potentate, the King of kings, and Lord of lords." And in the like
prospect the same dear apostle could say of himself, "I have fought a
good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith; henceforth
there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the
righteous Judge, shall give me at that day; and not to me only, but unto
all them also that love His appearing."
May the Lord give our poor hearts--for they need it much--more of the
like spirit of faith and power of hope! Amen.
ABRAHAM.
GENESIS XII.-XXV.
In earlier parts of the book of Genesis, I have already traced two
distinct histories--that of the antediluvian saints, or the times from
Adam to Enoch; and that of Noah and of those who followed him, down to
the scattering of the nations.
The first of these histories occupies chapters i.-v., the second,
vi.-xi.
In the chapter which follows--xii.--the story of Abraham begins, and is
continued down to chap. xxv. This forms the third portion or section of
the book of Genesis, and presents to us a new era in the ways of God.
And in all this, I am sure, there is beautiful moral order, and an
unfolding of the dispensational wisdom of God. For in these things the
heavens and the earth are made, by turns, to take up the wondrous tale
of that wisdom, and to rehearse divine mysteries--such mysteries as, "in
the fulness of time," will be accomplished, when, as we know, He shall
gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven
and which are on earth. Eph. i. 10.
Adam in innocency was a man of the earth. He had to enjoy it, knowing it
all as his, but knowing nothing as his beside. But when he was sent out
of Eden, he became a stranger in the earth. He received no commission to
improve or furnish it. He had simply to till the ground for a living,
and the translation of Enoch tells us, that the destiny and inheritance
of that earliest household of God was _heavenly_.[9]
[9] The family of Cain was the contradiction of this, in those
antediluvian days. They tilled the ground for something more than
livelihood. Their tillage led to the culture and advancement of
the world as a system of gain and pleasure. And thus were the two
families distinguished--the one was formed by faith, or by
obedience to the revelation of God; the other by the despite of
it, as the world is to this day.
In Noah, however, in process of time, the purpose of God is different.
Noah is a man of the earth again. He leaves the ark in a character very
different from that in which Adam had left the garden. Noah left the ark
under commission to keep the world in order, as judge and ruler. It was
not strangership on it, but citizenship in it, and government of it,
that was now again the divine thought. But a second apostasy was
witnessed in the midst of Noah's descendants. In process of time, they
affected independency in the earth, casting off the fear of God, and
seeking to do for themselves without Him, as Adam had (seeking to be as
God) in the garden of old.
Abraham, upon all this, finds grace in the eyes of the Lord. He is
called out from this apostate scene; and, as we might expect, from this
alternate telling of heavenly and earthly mysteries, after Noah the man
of the earth, Abraham is called to be a heavenly man.
The Lord said to him, "Get thee out of thy country, and from thy
kindred, and from thy father's house." This was the character of the
call of Abraham. It was not a call from moral pollution, or from
idolatry, or the like; it was a call from the associations of nature and
of the earth. There were idols to be left, I doubt not. See Joshua xxiv.
2, 3. But it was not the leaving of them that constituted the nature of
the call. Yet Abraham, touching the earth, was to be like Adam outside
the garden. He leaves Ur of the Chaldees, as Adam left Eden. He received
no commission to cultivate the land of Canaan for the Lord, or to
conquer and govern the people there. The arrangements of the world were
left just as they were. Abraham had nothing to say to the nations
through which he passed on his way to Canaan; and when he reached that
land, he found the Canaanite there, and there he left him as he found
him.
Government had been set up in Noah, and nations had been organized; as
natural relationships had been instituted at the beginning, or in Adam.
But Abraham is called from all this. God Himself is received by faith;
and the things of nature which Adam might have conveyed to him, or the
things of government which Noah might have secured to him, are left
behind.[10]
[10] In their day, Abraham's seed, or the nation of Israel, are again
an _earthly_ people; and they exhibit the very opposite of all
this. They _smite_ the nations of Canaan; and instead of being
called _from_ kindred and country, they are called _to_ all such
things; men, women, children, and even cattle (for not a hoof was
to be left behind), journeyed from Egypt to Canaan--from a land of
strangers to their own inheritance.
In our patriarch, then, we see the election and the call of God. He was
of the corrupt, departed family of man, without a single claim on God.
But sovereign grace (in the virtue of which all the redeemed, according
to eternal counsel, stand) had made him its object; and under such grace
he is, in due time, manifested as a chosen one, and is called of God to
be a heavenly stranger in the world. Scripture speaks of him as the
father of all them that believe. Rom. iv. We may, therefore, expect to
find the life of faith exhibited in him; and so we do find it, as this
little book designs to show.
But in this "life of faith" we do not merely look for the principle of
dependence on God, or of confidence in Him, though that may be the
thought immediately suggested by such words. It signifies much more. It
is a life of large and various energies; for according to God, or
Scripture, faith is that principle in the soul which not only trusts Him
and believes Him; it is also that which apprehends His way, acts in
concert with His principles and purposes, receives His promises, enjoys
His favour, does His bidding, looks for His kingdom, in His strength
gains victories, and by His light walks in light; and thus it is ever,
though variously, exhibiting a life according to Him, or formed by
communion with Him.
All this is strongly marked for our observation.
Heb. xi. shows us all this--the life of faith in its vast diversity of
exercise and action. Accordingly, we shall find, in the life of Abraham,
occasions where confidence in God was the virtue exercised; occasions,
too, where strength was put forth and conflict endured; and again, where
surrender of rights and submission to wrongs were the virtues. And the
life of faith is beautiful in its variety; for this variety is but the
changeful glowing of the same mind, the mind of Christ, in the saint.
But again. We are not to understand that we get _nothing else_ than this
light and power of faith in the believer or saint. Perfectness in this
variety of the life of faith is not to be found save in Him who is set
before us as "the Author and Finisher of faith," and whose way, from
beginning to end, and in every incident of it, was the great exemplar of
this life in full unsullied brightness. Still, however, the life of
Abraham, or of David, or of Joseph, or of Paul, is to be called the life
of faith; for it was the life of those in whom that principle was,
though betraying again and again, and that too in different ways, the
pravity of nature, the workings of unbelief, and the counsels of a heart
prone to converse with flesh and blood, and to take the way of a
revolted world.
This life of faith our Abraham entered upon with beautiful simplicity
and earnestness. "He went forth to go into the land of Canaan, and into
the land of Canaan he came." He went out, not knowing whither he went.
He took God for his security and his portion; and, as another has said,
"it is in this that the Spirit of God rests, as characteristic of his
approved faith; for, by separation from the world, on the ground of
implicit confidence in God, he lost everything, and got nothing but _the
word of God_."
We do not like such conditions. The heart resents them; but the renewed
mind approves them, and justifies God in them. The _sufferings_ of
Christ are first, and then the _glories_. 1 Peter i. 11. Job was nearer
his good thing in God, when he lay in ashes amid the potsherds, than
when he was happy in his nest. Israel did not descend Mount Lebanon, and
enter Canaan after a fruitful journey, through a land of cities and
villages, and corn and wine, and rivers and vineyards; but they paced it
slowly, through one desert after another. And so Abraham was called out
from all, to go he knew not whither; but this he knew, that it was God
who had called him. And this was faith's beginning. "He went forth to go
into the land of Canaan, and into the land of Canaan he came."
He came, however, rather to sojourn than to dwell there. He moves from
place to place, and in every place it is but a tent he pitches. He had
been told by the God of glory, that the land should be _shown_ him. He
should _have_ it in _his seed_ for ever, but in _his own person_ he was
but to _see_ it. And, accordingly, we find him _surveying it carefully_,
but not _occupying any of it_. For this was the right answer of such a
promise. He _looked_ on the land, because the promise was that it should
be _shown_ him. He went first to Sichem and to the plain of Moreh; from
thence, southward, to the neighbourhood of Bethel and Ai. But he was a
man of the tent, and of the tent only, wherever he went. The Canaanite
was then in the land, and he was the occupier of the soil; and Abraham
did not dispute with him for a foot's breadth of it. He surveyed it, and
had such possession of it as faith and hope imparted; but he sought no
personal, present inheritance there. The promise lived in his heart, and
the promise was his measure as well as his joy. Chapter xii.
Quickly, however, another man in our Abraham is before us; for, like all
of us, beloved, he was a man of _nature_, as he was a man of God; and
there is none perfect in the life of faith, as we said before, but the
Master Himself. Famine touches the land into which the call of God had
brought him. A strange surprise this may well be thought to have been.
But faith would have been equal to it. Faith in Paul was equal to a like
surprise. Called into Macedonia by the voice of God, a prison awaited
him. But Paul stands the shock, though Abraham falls before it. Paul and
his companion sing hymns in the prison in Macedonia; but Abraham
practises a lie, seeking help from the famine of Canaan in another land,
of which his call under the God of glory had made no mention whatever.
Such things have been, and still are, found among the saints. There are
"Little Faith" and "Great Heart" among the elect, as well as flesh and
spirit--nature and the new mind in each of them. But this we may know:
that if nature _rule_ us, nature will _expose_ us. Even the man of the
earth, Pharaoh of Egypt, puts Abraham to shame; and his journey, instead
of being onward in the witness of his tent and in the joy of his altar,
was that of a wearied foot, because it was that of a rebuking heart. He
has to "do his first works," to retrace his steps, and regain his
standing--sorrowful works at all times. He has to leave "by-path meadow"
for the King's highway again, betaking himself back from Egypt to the
place between Ai and Bethel, where he had raised his altar at the first.