chap. 3.)
We have looked at Israel's deliverer from Egyptian
bondage. We have seen him given over to death and brought up out of it. We have
seen him put himself forward as the saviour of his people, and rejected by
them. Then, as rejected by his own, making affinity for himself in the land of
his exile. Now we come to look at the call of the deliverer, in the next two
chapters. I only take up one of these tonight, as we shall find abundance in it
for meditation.
Here we see the one who was indeed to be the instrument of
Israel's deliverance, who had hitherto run before his time, now drawing back
when he receives the needed call. The man who had illustrated the forwardness
of nature now illustrates the backwardness of nature. With instinct in his
heart, forty years before, he had been ready to run without a call. But those
forty years have made their mark upon him, and he is a changed man. The voice
of God, now authoritatively urging him forward, is not enough for him. With his
eyes upon himself, he responds, "Who am I that I should go unto Pharaoh, and
that I should bring forth the children of Israel out of Egypt?"
That may
look like humility in us, but is not. When God has laid hold of us for a
certain thing, to turn round and say, "Who am I, that I should do it?" is not
humility. God did not raise any question as to who or what Moses was. If He
chooses and sends, it matters not who the person is. The power lay in the One
who was sending; so the Lord says, "Certainly I will be with thee." But, even
so, Moses' reluctance is not overcome. There is just this tendency on the two
sides. The forwardness of nature, I may say, is the failure of our youth,
constantly - our spiritual youth, as well as our natural youth; eagerness to
run in God's path, but not apprehending what the path is, or what it needs to
walk in it. On the other hand, when the cost is counted, and our weakness
known, the energy begotten of self-confidence being gone, we need a stimulating
call on God's part, to get out of the persistent occupation with our weakness
now, as with our strength before.
You find that very strikingly in the
Gospel of Matthew, when our Lord, at the commencement of His labours, is
addressing some of the disciples, at the end of the eighth chapter. One
proposes to follow Him without any call at all. He says, "Lord, I will follow
Thee whithersoever Thou goest." The Lord says - Do you know where this will
lead you? "Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of
Man has not where to lay his head."
Of this man we hear no more; but to another
He says, just as He says to Moses now, "Follow Me." But he says, "Suffer me
first to go and bury my father." If we count the cost on our side, we shall
always find it more than we have resources for. Yet we need to consider the
cost; to look at it gravely and solemnly, until, in the sense of our utter
insufficiency, faith roots itself in Divine omnipotence, and finds ability to
stand where God calls.
Now let us look upon Moses as the type of One in
whom was no defect. A very plain type he is. First, in that employment in which
we find him. A shepherd was the type of the Divine deliverer and king. King
David was a shepherd, and the beautiful word in the second chapter of the
Gospel of Matthew, which speaks of Christ as the Governor who shall "rule"
God's people Israel, is literally, "shall be a shepherd" to them. That is God's
thought of a true ruler. Moses was trained for forty years as a simple
shepherd, until he is fit to go forth to lead God's people; then power is
entrusted to him - the meekest man upon the earth. We who know in whose blessed
hands the sceptre of God's kingdom now is - for whom God's throne is a throne
of grace - can realize a little the unspeakable blessedness of this!
You
remember when the disciples were indignant with James and John because they had
asked for places on the right and left hand in His kingdom, the Lord turned to
them, and said, "You know that they which are accounted to rule over the
Gentiles exercise lordship over them; and their great ones exercise authority
upon them; but so shall it not be among you; but whosoever will be great among
you shall be your minister, and whosoever of you will be the chiefest shall be
servant of all; for even the Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to
minister, and to give his life a ransom for many."
How beautiful! Not
merely does the Lord inculcate humility, and forbid the craving after place and
power; but the places themselves are not such as would suit those ambitious to
get them. They would not satisfy ambition - the greed for place. They are
places of service in which the highest ministers to the lowest, as the
mountain-tops send down their streams to the vales below; and the highest place
of all is His whose love made Him come not to be ministered unto, but to
minister, and to give His life a ransom for many. "It is more blessed to give
than to receive," is His own utterance, and ever true - in glory as well as on
the way to it.
This training in service shows the character of the place for
which He is training us. And He of whom Moses is but the picture, true Shepherd
of the sheep, will never, however different the circumstances, give up the
service to which love consecrated Him. With love, rule is service; and how
blest the time when love alone shall rule!
We find Moses then, in the course
of his service, leading his flock to the back side of the desert, to the Mount
of God (called so, no doubt, from what now took place there) even Horeb. And
there "the Angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the
midst of a bush. And he looked, and behold, the bush burned with fire, and the
bush was not consumed." There the Lord addressed Moses; and, as the Angel of
the bush, gives him his commission.
This is a wonder for our eyes as well as
those of Moses. God had before, in reference to this very captivity in Egypt,
revealed Himself under the similitude of fire. The "smoking furnace" had been
His symbol, when (as we have already seen) in covenanting with Abraham He
passed between the pieces of the sacrifice. And how striking is the symbol
here! Abram had kept watch by the Victims, driving away the unclean birds which
would have come down upon them. But the sun goes down; night comes on; a deep
sleep overpowers him, and a horror of great darkness falls upon him. It is to
these points that the vision addresses itself. The smoking furnace and the
burning lamp are what the deep sleep and the darkness demand; and these the
sacrifice secures, and the faithfulness of God supplies to His people. If the
activity and vigilance of faith fail, the furnace of trial will not fail as the
appointed means of purification; while for the darkness which is the result of
unbelief, the burning lamp is equally provided. How sure the inheritance for
those to whom God is thus pledged in Christ to bring them through to enjoy it,
securing the conditions which His holiness of necessity imposes!
Thus the
fiery trial which was trying them in Egypt was in reality God's remembrance of
His covenant. It might not look like it. It might look any thing but that.
Alas, unbelief mistakes the simplest dealings of God with us; nevertheless, if
the people's deliverance from Egypt was to be really deliverance, they must
realize in their own soul what bondage was. Thus it was God who raised up
Pharaoh, just as it was God on the other hand who raised up Moses.
Now, if
we look at this thorn-bush (for such it is), it is a striking picture of the
people. In the tenth chapter of Isaiah, speaking of the Assyrian scourge, the
prophet says: "And the light of Israel shall be for a fire and his Holy One for
a flame! and it shall burn and devour his thorns and his briers in one day."
These thorns and briers picture those of whom David speaks as "sons of Belial"
who "shall be all of them as thorns thrust away, because they cannot be taken
with hands." You remember that thorns were the sign of the curse at the
beginning. They are, in fact, as botanists tell us (at least of the kind we
have to do with here), abortive leaves, parts of a plant incapable of
fulfilling their original purpose. Sinners are thus in this symbol naturally
connected with the curse upon sin. And the thorn-bush itself we may, without
forcing, view as the type of sinful flesh. This is what the people are: hence
the fire; but the bush is not consumed - for the Angel of Jehovah, their
covenant God, is in that fire.
As afterward, in the judgment which swept
over Egypt the night of the passover, they had to be taught that, as far as
they were concerned, there was no difference between them and the Egyptians.
The judgment which delivered them must have fallen on them, had not grace
provided them a shelter from it.
They needed tribulation then; needed the
purifying fire, in which God was. For what were the Egyptians?- they had their
part in what the fire symbolized. Nevertheless it was God who was dealing with
Israel in love - a holy love, or it would not be God. It is a hard thing
oftentimes to learn, that while God has power to save His own to the uttermost;
while He has got in Christ's sacrifice a full and sufficient satisfaction for
our sins, nevertheless the necessities of His holy government oblige Him to
deal with us as to the very sins whic:h the sacrifice of Christ has put away as
wrath bringing. For instance, in 1 Cor., chap. 11, we find this doctrine: "For
if we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged; but when we are judged we
are chastened of the Lord, that we should not be condemned with the world"
(ver. 32). Now mark, these are redeemed men.
They are those for whom
Christ's blood was shed, and to whom Christ's blood had been applied. They were
"in Christ" before God, and delivered from the wrath to come. Does it not seem
strange to read that, if they were not chastened of the Lord, they would have
to be condemned with the world?
Surely it was not because God had not
sufficient power or grace for them. But God is a holy governor, and a throne of
grace is still a throne. It is not a question of judgment in the sense of
wrath, or of exacting anything from His people, but He must display Himself as
the Holy One. And this is necessary in a double way: for the sake of His people
and for those who are looking at them. All must learn and own the God of grace
to be the thrice Holy One. Thus, again, the apostle Peter says: "The time is
come that judgment must begin at the house of God" (the people of God), "and if
it first begin at us - what shall the end be of those who obey not the gospel
of God? And if the righteous are difficultly saved"- that is the force of it -
He has, so to speak, to take pains about it, "where shall the ungodly and
sinner appear?" We find this all through Scripture. God says to His people,
"What a man soweth, that shall he also reap." Grace does not set this aside but
confirms it. In reaping he finds out what it is that he has sown, and learns to
judge in the fruit what he did not judge in the seed.
So also our Lord in
His Sermon on the Mount: "With what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged; and
with what measure ye mete it shall be measured to you again. Good measure,
pressed down, shaken together, and running over, will men give into your
bosoms." Thus, as we can judge in others very clearly what in ourselves is not
so clear, we are made to learn in others' dealings towards us, our own towards
them.
It is so with the first thing: in repentance in order to salvation.
God has to show us what sin is. I do not say it is by chastening; but still He
has to bring us face to face with our sins, that grace may be grace, and
salvation be from sin as well as from wrath to come. It is the necessity of His
holy government that "Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish." Not that
repentance is the price we pay for salvation in anywise; for Christ's work is
the only price of what to us is absolutely free. Repentance only makes us learn
how needed and free it is.
This bush then reveals the ways of Him who is the
Saviour of His people. And Moses' unshod feet should teach us reverent
contemplation of them.
And now God reveals Himself to Moses as the God of
their fathers, "the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of
Jacob;" to which He adds, when Moses further asks after His Name, "I AM THAT I
AM: thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you
. . . the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the
God of Jacob, hath sent me unto you: this is my Name for ever, and this is my
memorial unto all generations."
That with which God begins here, and to
which He returns, is that He is God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob. He
has taken a name in relationship to men, which is to be His continual memorial.
Back of that He has another name, which, simply rendered is, The Unsearchable.
"I AM THAT I AM" does not so much reveal as declare the veil that hangs before
Him, when man would "search out the Almighty to perfection." Inscruta-ble, He
"dwells in the light unapproachable, whom no man hath seen, nor can see." He
declares Himself the Ever-present: the One who is; the great fact for man
always to realize, which gives reality and meaning to every thing else.
"Jehovah" is the title which God takes throughout the Old Testament, and which
for us remains with all its significance, in spite of the dearer title, by
which as sons now we know the "Father." Jehovah is the name by which He
declares Himself in covenant with His people. Throughout their fleeting
generations He abides "the same yesterday, today, and for ever."
What God
here insists upon is, that He is the "God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of
Jacob," and that this is to be His memorial unto all generations. He was to be
known as in connection with those three honoured names.
(The
Almighty) is the name God took with Abraham; "I Am" or "Jehovah" is that which
He took with Israel; "The Highest" is that which He will show Himself to be in
millennial times. None of these in themselves declare, His nature, or the
character of His ways toward us. But in the mouth of the Lord Jesus, "Father"
has become indeed a revealing name, and we know God as He was never revealed
before.
He identifies Himself with them, as the apostle shows us,
because of the practical faith they had in Him - a faith which manifested
itself in a life of pilgrimage, in obedience to His call. God is not ashamed to
link Himself with those whose faith in Him gave Him so good a character. If He
had called Himself the God of Lot, what would Lot's conduct have led men to
suppose God to be? But (spite of Abraham's failures) God's character is shown
by calling Himself the God of Abraham. Look doser, and you will find this true
in a still deeper way. Why does God connect Himself with just these three? Why
no more nor less? These three displayed Him in His true character, in three
ways, as the God of each separately. With the light of the New Testament, we
should at once interpret what His threefold name expresses - as Father, Son and
Holy Spirit.
Who can read the 22nd of Genesis without discerning in the
offerer and the offered another Father than Abraham, and another Son than
Isaac? As in the Gospel of John, which gives this side of the Cross, it is all
between the Father and the Son. The Father is giving; the Son too is giving
Himself up. There is no word of dissent from Isaac; and nothing is suffered to
mar the precious representation of Him who spared not His own beloved Son who
came expressly to do the Father's will. How the narrative dwells upon each
point in the father's trial!- a three days' journey to the place - three days
with the word in his heart which bade him give up his only, his beloved son!
The whole extent of his sacrifice revealed to him in measured terms: "Take now
thy son, thine only son, Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of
Moriah, and offer him there for a burnt-offering upon one of the mountains
which I will tell thee of."
It is inexpressible comfort to see that God
knows every ingredient in the cup of trial He mixes for us. It is His own heart
He is telling out while He is thus searching out Abraham's? Did it not cost Him
to give up His own beloved Son? Was the sacrifice all on the Son's part, and
none on the Father's? Shall we call Him "Father," and not credit Him with a
Father's heart? Is our God revealed as an impassive God who does not feel? We
must not ascribe to Him human defect or frailty, surely, but must we not credit
Him with love? He would rather come under imputation of defect than that we
should think this of Him. "God is not a man that He should repent," yet He will
talk about repenting. Nay, not only did it repent the Lord that He had made
man, but "it grieved Him at His heart." Blessed to know such a heart; and that
what the Son of His bosom suffered, the bosom that held the Son suffered
also.
Thus the "God of Abraham" tells out the Father to us, and He bids us
know Him as our Father also; for, as the apostle tells us in Gal. 4, Isaac was
a picture of the sons of the freewoman; sons is what God calls us now - the
child of the bondwoman having been put away. That the God of Isaac reveals the
Son to us also, we have already seen. Every Christian heart will recognize in
Isaac the figure of the Lord Jesus Christ. Not only the 22nd of Genesis, but
many other passages speak of him as such. I need not enter upon this as perhaps
none will question it; although blessed it is to see God thus coming near to us
in human guise to draw us as it were with the cords of love to Himself.
But
what about "the God of Jacob?" Can self-seeking crooked Jacob speak of God to
us? His brother Esau says, "Is he not rightly called 'Jacob'? for he has
supplanted me these two times." Is he not a strange person to be linked with a
holy God?- not concealing his name either; for He does not in this connection
call Himself the God of Israel, but expressly the God of Jacob.
Do you
realize how fearless a book Scripture is? Do you think all the infidels in the
world could ever make God ashamed of what He has written? Never! No, the very
things they think to shame Him by, are the very things He takes up to show us
how His "foolishness" is wiser than all man's wisdom.
No, He is not ashamed
to be the God of Jacob. Well for us that He is not. He takes up this Jacob as
the very one in whom He can show His power and grace. Whom shall He take to
show His grace, but the chief of sinners? Whom shall He take up, in order to
show His power, but one of the most intractable material? And so Jacob is just
the person in whom to display His grace and power. If He is the God of Abraham
and Isaac on the one hand, it is not less Jacob's God. It is Jacob, in fact -
crippled as to human strength, in which he trusts - who gets the name "Israel"-
a prince with God. If the God of Abraham shows us God the Father, and the God
of Isaac shows us God the Son, surely the God of Jacob shows us God the Holy
Ghost.
How beautifully then does this last name (so different from the
other two) unite to tell us what God will perpetually have as His memorial!
What a gap there would be, if Jacob had not his place here! In it, our
connection with God is seen; Jacob's need brings him in, as our need it is that
practically brings us to God. God too has need of Jacob to display the riches
of His grace and the power of His salvation.
Before we close, let us look
at what answers to this memorial name of God in the New Testament. No need here
to take up three men to tell Himself out. There is now One Man who is by
Himself all-sufficient to tell out God. He does not now say, "I am the God of
Peter, or of Paul, or of John," but He is "the God and Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ." How could He put another beside Him? And as He stands upon earth,
heaven opens, and the Father's voice is heard declaring, "This is my beloved
Son in whom I have found my delight." The Holy Ghost comes down visibly upon
Him in the form of a dove, and abides upon Him. God is manifested now, openly
and completely.