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Post by Admin on Jan 6, 2024 14:05:34 GMT -5
2/15/1940
Prophecies Concerning Christ
OPHOFF GEORGE M
Article
Home / Archive / Vol 16 Issue 10
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But the prophecies further present us with the character of the gospel as well as of its author, and with a description of the extent of His kingdom as well as of His suffering. It was prophesied that the Messiah was to reveal the will of God to man, and to establish a new and perfect covenant,—“I will raise them up a prophet,—and will put my words in His mouth, and He shall speak unto them all that I shall command Him; and it shall come to pass, that whosoever will not hearken unto my words which He shall speak in my name, I will require it of him.—Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given; the government shall be upon his shoulder; and his name shall be called wonderful, counsellor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth, even for ever. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this.—There shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse;—he shall not judge after the sight of his eyes, neither reprove after the hearing of his ears; but with righteousness shall he judge the poor, and reprove with equity,—I the Lord have called thee in righteousness, and will hold thine hand, and will keep thee, and give thee for a covenant of the people, for a Light of the Gentiles, to open the blind eyes.—Incline your ear and come unto me; hear, and your soul shall live; and I will make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies of David. Behold, I have given him for a witness to the people, a leader and a commander to the people.—I will set up one shepherd over them and he shall feed them; and I will make with them a covenant of peace, and it shall be an everlasting covenant; and I will set my sanctuary in the midst of them; one king shall be a king to them all; neither shall they defile themselves any more with their idols. They shall have one shepherd. They shall also walk in my judgments, and my servant David shall be their prince for ever.—Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new covenant;—and this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel. After those days, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, they shall be my people; and they shall teach no more saying,—Know the Lord; for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.” A future and perfect revelation of the Divine will is thus explicitly foretold. That these promised blessings were to extend beyond the confines of Judea is expressly and frequently predicted—“It is a light thing that thou shouldest be my servant, to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the preserved of Israel: I will also give thee for a light to the Gentiles, that thou mayest be my salvation unto the end of the earth.”
While the prophecies which are descriptive of the glories of the reign of the Messiah refer to its universal extension and to the final restoration of the Jews, they detail and define, at the same time, the nature and the blessings of the gospel; and no better description or definition could now be given of the doctrine of Christ and of the conditions which He hath proposed for the acceptance of man, than those very prophecies which were delivered many hundreds of years before he appeared in the world. The gospel, as the name itself signifies, declares glad tidings. Christ Himself invited those who were weary and heavy laden to come unto Him that they might find rest unto their souls. He was the messenger of peace. He came, as He professed, to offer a sacrifice for the sins of the world, and to reveal the will of God to man. He published the gospel of the grace of God. His word is still that of reconciliation, His law that of love; and all the duty He has prescribed tends to qualify man for spiritual and eternal Felicity, for this is the sum and the object of it all. What more could have been given, and what less could have been required? In similar terms do the prophecies of old describe the new law that was to be revealed, and the advent of the Savior that was to come;—“Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion; shout, O daughter of Jerusalem; Behold, thy king cometh unto thee.—How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings of good; that publisheth salvation.—The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek: He hath sent me to bind up the broken hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives; to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.” Having read these words out of the law in the synagogue, Jesus said, “This day is this Scripture fulfilled.” He was a teacher of righteousness and of peace, and in Him alone it could have been fulfilled.
The same character of joy, indicative of the kingdom of the Messiah, is also given by the different prophets. He was to finish the transgression, to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity; to sprinkle clean water upon the people of God, to sprinkle many nations, to save them from their uncleanliness, and to open a fountain for sin and for uncleanness. “Let the wicked forsake his ways, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him. I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.” The Messiah was to be anointed to comfort all that mourn, to appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, and the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness. And in the gospel of peace these promised blessings are realized to all who believe, and to whom He is precious. We now see what many prophets and wise did desire in vain to see. The Christian religion has indeed been sadly perverted and corrupted, and its corruptions are the subjects of prophecy. Bigotry has often tarnished and obscured all of its benignity. Its lovely form has been shrouded in a mask of superstition, of tyranny, and of murder. But the religion of Jesus, from the lips of its Author and the pen of His apostles is calculated to diffuse universal happiness. It is a doctrine of righteousness, a perfect rule of duty; it abolishes idolatry, and teaches to worship God only. It is full of promises to all who obey it; it reveals the method of reconciliation from iniquity, and imparts the means to obtain it; it is good tidings to the meek: it binds up the broken-hearted, and presents to us the oil of joy for mourning, and the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness, or the most perfect consolation, under all the evils of life, that can be conceived by man. For the confirmation of all these prophecies concerning it, we stand not in need of Jewish testimony, or that of primitive Christians, or of any testimony whatever. It is a matter of experience and of fact. The doctrine of the gospel is in complete accordance with the predictions respecting it. When we compare it with any impure, degrading, vicious and cruel system of religion that existed in the world when these prophecies were delivered, its superiority must be apparent, and its unrivalled excellence must be acknowledged. Deities were then worshipped whose vices disgraced human nature; and even impiety could not institute a comparison between them and the God of Christians. Idolatry was universally prevalent, and men knew not a higher homage than bowing down in adoration to stocks and stones, and sometimes even to the beasts. Sacrifices were everywhere offered up, and human victims often bled, when the doctrine of reconciliation for iniquity was unknown. And we have only to look beyond the boundaries of Christianity,—to Ashantee, or to India, or to China,—to behold the most revolting of spectacles in the religious rites and practices of man. Regarding the superiority of the Christian religion only as a subject of prophecy, the assent can hardly be withheld, that the prophecies concerning its excellence, and the blessings which it imparts, have been amply verified by the peace-speaking gospel of Jesus.
But, in ascertaining the accomplishment of ancient predictions, in evidence of the truth, the unbeliever is not solicited to relinquish one iota of his skepticism in any matter that can possibly admit of a reasonable doubt. For there are many prophecies, of the truth of which every Christian is a witness, and to the fulfilment of which the testimony even of infidels must be borne. That the gospel emanated from Jerusalem; that it was rejected by a great proportion of the Jews; that it was opposed at first by human power; that pagan idolatry was overthrown before it; that it has already continued for many ages, and that it has been propagated throughout many countries, are facts clearly foretold and literally fulfilled. “Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion; Shout, O daughter of Jerusalem; behold thy king cometh unto thee: he is just and having salvation; lowly and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt the foal of an ass. And I will cut the chariot from Ephraim, and the horse from Jerusalem, and the battle bow shall be cut off, and he shall speak peace unto the heathen, and his dominion shall be from sea to sea, and from the river to the ends of the earth. He shall be for a sanctuary; but for a stone of stumbling, and for a rock of offence, to both the houses of Israel; for a gin and for a snare to the inhabitants of Jerusalem.—The kings of the earth set themselves and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord, and against his Anointed.” In like manner, Christ frequently foretold the persecution that awaited his followers, and the final success of the gospel, in defiance of all opposition.
“The Lord alone shall be exalted in that day, and the idols he shall utterly abolish;—from all your idols will I cleanse you;—I will cut off the names of the idols out of the land, and they shall no more be remembered. To a servant of rulers, kings shall see and arise, princes also shall worship.—The Gentiles shall come to thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising. The Gentiles shall see thy righteousness;—I said, Behold me, behold me, unto a nation that was not called by my name. In that day there shall be a root of Jesse, which shall stand for an ensign of the people; to it shall the Gentiles seek. I will make an everlasting covenant with you. Behold, thou shall call a nation that thou knowest not; and that knew not thee shall run unto thee.”
At the time these prophecies were delivered, there was not a vestige in the world of that spiritual kingdom and pure religion which they unequivocally represent as destined to extend in succeeding ages, not only throughout the narrow bounds of the land of Judea, and those countries which alone the prophets knew, but over the Gentile nations also even to the uttermost ends of the earth.
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Post by Admin on Jan 6, 2024 14:10:22 GMT -5
OPHOFF GEORGE M
The apostle was one having been brought under the quickening influence of the Spirit of God. The new principle of life presents itself to his consciousness as a law of the mind, that is, as a hallowed intelligent urge or compulsion, capable of delighting in and craving the law of God. However, the unhallowed urge of his being, he discovers, is still very much alive. It successfully launches an attack upon the sanctified law of his mind, and brings him into captivity of the law of sin. This is his great grief: “O wretched man that I am,” says he, “who will deliver me from the body of this death?” It must not be supposed that the above-cited scripture can be quoted in support of the view that the regenerated and sanctified one is not responsible for the sins of his carnal self. He is that indeed. For that which the apostle allows not, he nevertheless does. Of the thing not allowed, then, he is the thinking and willing subject. True, he does say, “Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.” What is meant, however, is that he is being prevented from acting upon the holy impulses of the new man by the unhallowed urge of his being. It is plain that the apostle is one whose eyes were opened to the true character of man’s spiritual serfdom, and therefore was ready to admit that man by nature cannot will to do the right, he being carnal sold under sin; that, as to his carnal self, he is in full agreement with the master that set up his kingdom in his members. “For that which I do, I allow not.” Blessed is he who begins to show signs of being at odds with the sinful urge of his carnal self. Such a one is already essentially made free. For to be in the power of a master working the destruction of his victims is one thing. But to love this master, to go along with him arm in arm, to will that he sets the pace, to delight in the fact that the reins of government are in his hands, to not will to be delivered, is quite another thing. Such nevertheless is the state and disposition of the natural man.
It must not be supposed that the path of sin along which man is being driven on by the unclean urge of his soul, is invariably a path of the grossest kind of vice and intemperance. To the contrary, it may be and often is, as in the case of Paul before his conversion, a path of strict respectability and Pharisaic righteousness. In this case, the crave for vice may be dormant or if alive, denied. The predominant crave of such a one is a crave for a kind of righteousness such as man in his foolishness attempts to establish, a righteousness, which when analyzed, turns out to be stinking pride. But whether the path be one of respectability or vice, both paths lead to hell, and the one urge is as sinful, yea perhaps more so, than the other.
Man, then, in the sense just explained, is a servant of sin in contrast to the believer who is a servant of righteousness.
Enough has not been said, however. To be held captive by the corrupt impulses of nature or the law of sin implies the transgression, which should be defined as the lie, loved, absorbed and lived. The lived lie being at once the reverse of the truth, constitutes a violation of the Divine precept. How are the lie, the transgression and the foul heart of man related? And the answer is ready: The heart is the soil, the lie the seed and the transgression the plant or fruit. This imagery is sanctioned by Scripture. In the parable of the sower the sown seed is an emblem of the truth preached. The stony ground, the beaten path, the field of thorns and the good earth are so many descriptions of corresponding states or conditions of the human heart. The seed falling in good earth bears fruit, which in turn presupposes the plant. Attending to the interpretation of the parable, we discover that in the mind of Christ the earth images the heart, the seed the truth and the fruit together with the plant the deed which is the man. Let it be observed that seed not sown yields no fruit, nor earth devoid of seed. Fruit, then, is the outgrowth of soil and seed. So, too, do the good works of the saint constitute a mixture so to say of the truth and the man. Truth, therefore, is indispensable to the very appearance of the believer. So, too, the depraved sinner. His transgressions constitute a mixture of the lie and the man. The lie is as indispensable to his appearance and to his fruit bearing as the truth is to the appearance of the saint. As the seed feeds upon the soil, so the lie feeds upon the depraved man. And as the soil is absorbed by the seed, so the natural man is absorbed by the lie and converted into a tree bearing evil fruit—the transgression. The point is that sin as transgression can never be accounted for by a mere appeal to corrupt nature.
Scripture also links up the transgression with the law. Necessarily so, for the lie lived is transgression of law. Scripture even goes a step further and insists that the law occasions in man’s bosom all manner of fierce opposition to law. Says the apostle, “Nay I had not known sin but by the law: for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet, but sin taking occasion by the commandment, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence. For without the law sin was dead. But when the commandment came sin revived and I died. And the commandment which was ordained unto life, I found to be unto death. For sin taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me and by it slew me” (Rom. 7:7-12).
Paul, unaware of inert sin, reposing in his bosom, thought himself alive and, according to his own testimony, was wont to glory much in his self-established righteousness. The law came and the slumbering monster, awakened by its thunderings, bestirred itself. Paul, aware now of its presence, pronounces himself one dead and his self-established righteousness refuse. Should an infallible testimony of this kind not prove sufficient to silence those philosophers in our midst who insist that the keeping of the law by the carnal man constitutes a morality deserving to be called good? Though he may be living in some respects in outward agreement with the law, the depraved sinner as to the inward man is aflame with carnal indignation because of his being told by his Maker what shall be done.
By the law, then, is the knowledge of sin, and the transgression is the lie which, having taken root in man’s foul heart, is loved and lived. Man is enticed by his own lusts in conjunction with the lie. The lie, however, is not only the seed that draws into itself, so to speak, the entire man and converts him into a tree bearing evil fruit, but the lie, according to Scripture is in addition the very element in which this tree lives and thrives. The term lie we now use as the signification of that false thought-structure the nucleus of which was hatched out by the devil and whispered by him in man’s ear. Eat and be as God, said he. Man has been doing this very thing from the day of his fall. Setting aside the wisdom of God, man sets up his own standards of conduct, hatches out a world and life view according to his own liking and in conflict with the reality depicted in Holy Writ and therefore a lie—the darkness in which man walks and thrives in his capacity of sinner. Paul, so we wrote in a former article, in depicting the plight of the carnal man, compares him to one asleep, drunken with wine. “Therefore, let us not sleep as do others; but let us watch and be sober. For they that sleep, sleep in the night, and they that be drunken are drunken in the night” (I Thess. 5:1-7). The term sobriety of this passage signifies the spiritual alertness of the child of the light, respecting the things of the Spirit. He is one keenly aware of the approach of the day of the Lord. For such a one this day does not come as a thief in the night in that it is expected. The term drunkenness, on the other hand, is the signification of a carnal state of mind, characterized by an indifference to things that shall come to pass. Strong drink, if taken in sufficient quantities, stupefies man’s sensibilities. While in this state he is dull of mind so that the most startling discourses fail to impress him. He hears and sees yet fails to understand. So, too, does either the message of bliss or doom fail to arouse the spiritually diseased soul. The carnal man is dead to the things of the Spirit, and incapable of sensing and appreciating their value. To what may his lethargy be due? To a deep-seated hatred for all things holy. Hence, he stands with his back turned toward heaven, which as far as he is concerned does not exist.
Further, carnal man, having lost all contact with reality, is to be asleep and to be walking in darkness, that is, the lie. The pure light from heaven is an eye-sore to him. Shutting God out of the world and himself in it, he kindles a fire, compasses himself about with sparks, and walks in the light of his own fire and in the sparks he kindled, Isa. 50:11. The wicked one’s light is the truth of God changed into a lie, Rom. 1:25. The emanation of his own diseased heart and mind, it is the vehicle of a false, grotesque, distorted and incongruous image of actual existence, fact, truth, reality; a misrepresentation of God, of heaven and hell, of things earthy, of Christ and the cross, of man and his nature, origin, purpose and destiny, in short of all things. Yet the wicked one loves these fantastic images. Their sum total constitute the lie in which he revels, in which he lives and moves, which he clasps to his bosom and loves, and lives and in and by which he is made ripe for the day of judgment.
The term sin, then, is the expression servant of sin is an abstract designation of the appeasing of the carnal impulses, of the loving and living of the lie, and of the transgression of Divine law and truth so that to serve sin is to satisfy the cravings of debased self, to embrace and do the lie and to militate against law, truth and God. He doing so is a servant of sin and unrighteousness. As was already pointed out, carnal man cannot will to do anything else than to engage in this service.
If true freedom consists in abiding in one’s element—law, truth and God—the sinner is not free. For the element in which he moves and abides is not light but darkness, not God and law and truth, but the lie. Now man cannot abide in the lie and prosper or be truly free. For it (the lie) defileth the whole body, it kills, it setteth on fire the whole course of nature and is set on fire by hell. Loved and lived, it pitches one headlong against law, truth, fact, reality, God, so that he living the lie is closed in on, completely shut in, yea permeated by an angry God and His curse; hedged in on every side by law and divine wrath encountered at every juncture of the way, at every turn of the road. To live at enmity with the law is to be smitten by law. Not to have the law written on the tables of our heart is to experience its curse operative in our members. Man must serve truth or be persecuted, smitten and cast into hell by truth. The unhallowed lust clasping to its bosom the lie, bringeth forth sin; and sin when it is finished bringeth forth death. Now to die is not to be separated from God, but from the God of love and mercy, to be brought in closest proximity with the God of wrath, the operations of which are described in Scripture as a constant and perpetual giving up to greater uncleanness and vile affections through the lusts of the wicked one’s own heart, so that God is seen to punish sin by sin. Divine wrath, then, necessitates more sin and sin, being transgression of the law, necessitates more wrath and death so that wrath and sin constitute the whirlpool by which man is drawn down ever deeper into the endless abyss of eternal death, into that region of eternal night where men weep and wail only. Further, the henchmen of sin are fear for God, and a great dissatisfaction. For the appeasing of the carnal lusts of nature leave an ever greater void in the soul of man, so that the sinner, serving the flesh, becomes, finally, the very personification of emptiness, incapable of being filled. As chaff caught up by the wind, he cannot come to rest for he refuses to rest in God. With lusts craving satisfaction, with his whole nature aflame, he disappears into hell where he will be begging forever, but in vain, for a drop of water to cool his parched tongue. These dark regions he will forever roam, with the terror of God in his heart, condemned by the voice of conscience, and, as a companion of Satan, cursing the Almighty for the woe which is his just portion, and forevermore receiving in an ever greater degree the recompense of his sins in his being. Such is the terrible state opposed to that blessed reality known in Scripture as eternal life and called the glorious liberty of the children of God.
What then is it to be made free? To be made free is to be delivered from sin, curse, wrath, Satan, the world, death, grave and hell; and to be brought in closest contact with divine love and mercy. It is to be drawn by grace from darkness to light; to be transported from the kingdom of Satan into the kingdom of God’s dear Son. To be made free is to be taken from under the yoke of the devil and to be harnessed with the soft life-giving and life-preserving yoke of Christ. To be free, finally, is to have done with sin, and to serve the cause of truth, and righteousness and God. What then is true liberty? True liberty is to abide in the light, to dwell in God’s temple and behold, with purged and glorified sense organs God’s blessed face; to have Him as a friend, and the great void of one’s being filled by the streams of grace flowing from His throne. The liberation of the sinner is Christ’s work. He only can save us from all our sins; deliver us from the forces of iniquity and place in our possession that pearl of priceless value, that undefiled inheritance preserved for us in heaven. If the Son hath made us free, we are truly free.
The secret of true liberty is not known by the carnal man. To him freedom spells lawlessness, independency, or he associates it with a certain form of government—such as democracy and imagines that all is well when the earthly tyrant has been made to abdicate. He forgets, however, that the same leaven responsible for the appearance of this tyrant is lurking in his own bosom and in the bosom of that majority to whom he must submit. The secret, then, of all true liberty—individual, social, religious, political, and ecclesiastical—is godliness, purity of heart, so that that great family born of God will be free in every conceivable respect. There is no tyrant in heaven bent on enslaving his victims. Christ, who loved unto death those given Him by the Father, will lead his sheep forever. There will be social liberty in heaven in that heaven’s doors remain closed forever to him bent on the destruction of his neighbor. There will be religious liberty in heaven, for there the knowledge of the Lord covers the earth as the waters cover the bottom of the sea. In a word, the Father’s house is a home of true liberty.
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Post by Admin on Jan 6, 2024 14:31:45 GMT -5
11/1/1939
No Creed, But Christ (?)
OPHOFF GEORGE M
Article
Home / Archive / Vol 16 Issue 03
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No Creed but Christ, is the caption of a communication appearing in De Wachter (of the Christian Reformed Churches of North America) for October 8. In his communication the correspondent rises to the defense of the above slogan. Now the saying No Creed but Christ cannot possibly be defended. The conception from which it springs is thoroughly wrong. It may not be amiss to briefly show this, especially not in view of the circumstance that the saying seems to be a favored one with so many Christian people.
The Christian creeds are definite and formal declarations on the part of the church of what she believes to be the truth contained in God’s Word. The creed represents an activity that consists in apprehending, through the study of the Scriptures, the truth contained therein, in entering the truth with the mind in order that it may be understood, and in properly expressing what the truth is believed to be. It is this activity that has produced the great creeds of Christendom. Now in declaring what she believed to be the truth, the church sometimes found herself under the necessity of employing terms and phrases that are not found in Holy Writ. One illustration. The Christian creed declares that “God is only one, the one single Essence, in which are three persons, really, truly and eternally distinct, according to their incommunicable properties; . . . .” This phraseology is not literally found in Scripture. If the church in composing her creeds would do nothing more than cite Scripture, that is, reproduce Scripture as to the form of its words, she could not so express what she holds to be the truth as to expose the lie of the false teachers. Consider that such teachers also profess to believe the Scriptures. Hence, what is assailed and denied is not the Scriptures as to the form of their language, but the thought or truth of which this language, according to the conviction of the church, is the vehicle. The Church therefore in expressing definitely and precisely what it believed to be the truth, has found it necessary to avail itself of terms and phrases not literally contained in Holy Writ.
If the creeds of Christendom is meant to be nothing else that a written declaration of what is held to be the truth of God’s Word, if the action of which the Christian creed is representative is one consisting in God’s believing people searching the Scriptures for the truth contained therein, and thinking their way into the truth in order to qualify themselves to set it forth in language so clear and definite that the lie of the false teacher may be exposed, how can there be any objection to the creed ? Must not the Scriptures be searched and the truth be thought into that it may be expressed in proper language? What a strange cry—this cry: no creed. How can God’s believing people turn away from the creed, if the doctrine of which it is the expression, is, according to their firm conviction, the truth of God’s Word? With the creed declaring that Christ is true and eternal God, of one essence with the Father and the Holy Ghost, what believer could turn away from the creed? To repudiate the creed would be to deny what is held to be the truth.
Someone will say, “I have the Bible. It is in the Christ of the Bible in whom I believe. The Unitarian, too, says, I believe in the God and Christ of the Bible. Yet, he nevertheless maintains that the doctrine of the trinity of the Godhead well suited the dark ages which it helped to produce. He labels this doctrine Trinitarian nonsense, taught by gray-haired professors in theological seminaries. According to his doctrine, God is a solitary person and being, from eternity unrevealed and unknown, and Christ a mere man. On what grounds could a Christian brotherhood eject from its midst a person with such a conception of God? On the ground that he denied the God and Christ of the Bible? Indeed. But in order to show this, and to sustain the charge, such a brotherhood would have to avail itself of the terms and phrases of the Nicene creed, according to which God is a being one in essence, yet distinguished in three persons.
The advice contained in the cry No Creed but Christ is plainly this: “Turn from your creed to Scripture. Here search for your Christ. Here you see Him as He is; for the Bible is God’s infallible word. Not so the creed.” Let us examine this advice. To search the Bible for Christ is to search the Bible for the truth concerning Christ. This search or study having been completed, the searcher would then necessarily have to declare what he believed to be the truth of God’s word concerning Christ. This declaration would be his private creed. So we see what he who turns from the fallible creed of the church to the infallible Bible, ends up in doing. He ends up, and this of necessity, in placing in the room of the creed, which he rejected, his own private creed. And what has been gained? Nothing at all. For that private creed is fallible, as truly fallible as the creed of the church that was rejected. It must be this, as it, too, as well as the creed that was set aside, was made by a fallible man. And if this individual were truly a believer, if in turning away from the creed of the church he was not moved by a hatred of the truth, his private creed as to its content would be identical to the content of the creed which he imagined he had forsaken.
Any and every declaration on the part of the believer that sets forth the fruitage of his study of God’s Word is necessarily a creed. It is this as it sets forth what he believes to be the truth of God’s Word. Thus every sermon is, rightly considered a creed. Therefore they who object to the creed, should in order to be consistent, demand of their pastor that, when in his pulpit, he do nothing more than read to them God’s Word. They should not require of him that he explain the word to them. For such an explanation would be his creed. It is evident that the cry “No creed but Christ” is absurd. The term creed stands for truth, thus for the content of saving faith. If, therefore there need be no creed, faith need have no content. If there need be no creed, there need be no knowledge of Christ and of God for salvation, and the Scriptures can be dispensed with. Even the pastor, when in the pulpit, would do nothing but read to his hearers from the Bible, he would also then be coming to them with his creed, if he understood and believed what he was reading. So, to say, No Creed, is to say, No Scriptures. Thus in the final instance, it is to say, No Christ.
Creeds, it is said, make division in the church. This is not true of the great creeds of Christendom. For in these creeds is expressed what all God’s believing people, without exception, hold to be the truth of God’s Word. The apostle’s creed declares that God is the Father, the Almighty, the Maker of heaven and earth; that Jesus Christ is His only begotten Son. . . .” They who deny this, are called antichrists in Scripture. The aforesaid creeds make division not between God’s believing people but between the church and the world, believers and unbelievers.
But now it is true that God’s people have their doctrinal differences. There are various persuasions among them, such as Reformed and Lutheran and Baptist, not to mention others. Should believing people forget their differences and unite on the basis of the great creeds—creeds in which is expressed what all believers hold to be the truth? Then the church universal would be presenting to the world a united front. Then God’s people, it is said, would be one. But would they? True oneness is not to be achieved through believing people ignoring doctrinal differences. Doctrinal differences arise as result of someone thinking and believing wrongly. Hence, real unity is achieved only when those who err are made to see the light and come to the light. In other words, God’s people are one only to the extent that they all consciously abide in Christ. The divisions in the church are not representative of an ideal state. Christ’s will is that His people be one. And it is the solemn duty of every believer to work for unity not through his renouncing what he holds to be the truth but through His making sure whether what he holds to be truth is truth, and secondly through his assailing false beliefs and doctrines in order that those ensnared by the lie may be won for the truth. The truth is a source of comfort to God’s people only to that extent that it is unmixed with error.
The great creeds of Christendom are the church’s priceless possession. As long as these creeds are held in honor, the church is safe. Satan realizes this only too well. To him, therefore, the creeds of the church are dreaded compositions. He knows that would he gain men for his lies, he must first detach them from the creeds of the church. So he derides the creed. He pits the creeds against Scripture and Christ and tells men that either shall have to be relinquished. And under the pretense of leading men back to the Scripture and to Christ, he leads them into ibis lies and to perdition.
The creeds of Christendom may be called storehouses of truth mined through the ages from the word of God by the Christian church. They are the depositaries of the fruits of centuries of labor done by the Christian Church. It is these creeds that are making it possible for the church at the present time to be preaching on the great truths contained in Scripture as she does. Supposing that the minister of the Gospel enters upon his ministerial career, a total stranger to the teachings of the creeds of the church; that, so far as be was concerned, these creeds did not exist. Then he would be no further into the truth than was the church at the time of the death of the last apostle. But through the centuries the Spirit has been leading the church farther and farther into the truth. And what the church apprehended, she was also empowered to express in adequate language, to bring into being her creeds. And these creeds, being what they are, immediately lead into the truth as far as the church was led through the ages.
The creeds, however, may not be placed in the room of Holy Writ. We once read upon a certain church bulletin the following, “Do we appreciate what our fathers have done in giving us answers to those important questions (the questions contained in our Heidelberg Catechism) in such a simple and condensed statement that it is easily understood, and we do not have to look up all the Scripture references and formulate our own answers.” The statement, “We do not have to look up all the scriptural references” leaves a strange impression. The meaning seems to be that, since we have the Catechism, we can do without Scripture, that thus the Catechism has been given us as a substitute for the Bible. Fact is that the scriptural references must indeed be looked up not only but studied with care. Everyone must make sure that what is expressed in the creed is what must be believed to be the truth of God’s Word.
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Post by Admin on Jan 6, 2024 14:53:07 GMT -5
7/1/1939
The Day of Atonement
OPHOFF GEORGE M
Article
Home / Archive / Vol 15 Issue 19
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In the foregoing article on the typology of Scripture, we were occupied with the Holiest Place and its furniture. As the symbolical import and typical bearings of this furniture can be fully comprehended only in connection with the service of the day of atonement, we shall consider this service, the instructions for which are contained in the 16th chapter of the book of Leviticus. This chapter has exclusive regard to the means of approach to God on the day of atonement. It consists of two portions. The first of these (vs. 2-28) contains the directions for the annual atonement; and the second (vs. 29-34) the command for the yearly celebration.
The chapter sets out with the notice that the Lord spake unto Moses after the death of Aaron’s two sons. These sons—Nadab and Abihu—had been devoured by fire going out from the Lord on account of their having offered strange fire, “which (He commanded them not.” Thus they had died through their approaching the Lord profanely. The inauguration of the atonement now to be considered is historically connected with the death of Aaron’s two sons. But this connection does not exclude the logical connection with the legislation that preceded and followed. The provision for the solemnities of the day of atonement was necessary in any case to the completeness of the sacrificial system, but the making of this provision was occasioned by the unlawful act of these sons. The data to show the length of time between their death and the new divine revelation is wanting.
In view of the catastrophe just mentioned, Moses, in the name of the Lord, cautioned Aaron against coming at all times into “the Holy Place within the vail before the mercy seat, which is upon the ark;. . . .” By the Holy Place is to be understood the Holiest, as is evident from the phrase, “within the vail before the mercy seat.” The vail separated the Holy Place, the outer compartment of the sanctuary where the priests daily ministered at the altar of incense, from the Holiest which might never be entered by man except on the day appointed in this chapter. Should Aaron disregard this command, he would reap the same judgment that overtook his two sons; for it is added, “that he die not.” It was only on the day of atonement, which was the tenth of the seventh month, and usually occurred about the beginning of our October, that Aaron was instructed to enter this Holiest Place. And he was warned to enter only in the way prescribed, “lest he die.” He had to lay aside his beautiful priestly robes and ornaments and clothe himself with a linen coat over linen drawers, and girt with a linen girdle. The linen cape completed the attire. He was thus to divest himself of his “golden garments” and to be clothed in pure white as symbolical of holiness. This symbolism was increased by his bathing himself before putting on these garments, and again when he exchanged them for his official robes. (These bathings were not the mere ordinary bathings of the hands and feet, but of the whole body.) Thereupon he entered the Holiest place with the atoning blood.
But Aaron had first to make atonement for himself and for his house before proceeding to offer for the people. Having killed the bullock of the sin offering which was for himself, he took of the blood of the bullock, and sprinkled it with his fingers upon and before the mercy seat seven times. But this was not sufficient. He had also to take a censer full of burning coals of fire from off the altar of the burnt offering before the Lord and with his hands full of sweet incense bring it within the vail. There he had to put the incense upon the fire before the Lord, that the cloud of incense might cover the mercy seat that was upon the testimony, “that he die not.”
Thus the order of these rites were as follows: (1) the high priest slew the bullock for his own sin offering; (2) then he entered the Holy of Holies with the golden censer full of burning incense; (3) taking the blood of his own sin offering, he again entered the Holy of Holies and sprinkled the blood, first upon the front side of the mercy seat, and then seven times before it. That in making atonement for himself the high priest entered the Holiest Place twice is not expressly stated. Yet this must follow from the circumstance that with his “hands full of incense” it was physically impossible for him to at once bring in the vessel of blood.
These rites having been performed, Aaron thereupon made atonement for the people. In response to the command of God, he took of the congregation of the children of Israel two kids of the goats for a sin offering and presented them before the Lord at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation. According to Jewish tradition, the two goats were to be of the same size, color, and value, and as nearly alike in every way as possible. The selection of these goats and of the bullock for the sin offering, which was for Aaron himself, took place at the same time, before the slaying of the victim for the priestly sin offering. Over the two goats, Aaron, after having made atonement for himself and his house (not his immediate, personal family only, but in all likelihood the whole order of priests) now cast lots; “one lot for the Lord and the other for the scapegoat (the word found in the original is not scapegoat but Azazel). Both of them alike Aaron was directed to present before the Lord through his leading them to the altar of burnt offering. The one upon which the Lord’s lot had fallen—the goat of the sin offering that was for the people—was now taken and killed. The action with the blood of this offering was the same as that with the blood of the priestly sin offering. It was brought within the vail and sprinkled upon and in front of the mercy seat, and subsequently upon the altar of incense, first upon the horns of the altar and then upon the altar itself seven times. In this sprinkling, the blood of the bullock of the priestly sin offering was joined with the blood of the he-goat. As a result of this action the blood was in the presence of Jehovah in token of its being accepted by Him as a covering for the sins of the offenders, in this case the entire congregation including the priests.
Though it is nowhere explicitly stated, there is nevertheless grounds for saying that the blood of these sacrifices was sprinkled not merely upon the furniture of the Holiest Place but upon all the furniture and utensils of the tabernacle and thus also upon the brazen laver and the altar of burnt offerings that stood in the outer court. The statement occurs, “And sprinkle it (the blood) upon the mercy seat. . . . and so shall he do for the tabernacle of the congregation. . . . (Lev. 16).” And in the epistle to the Hebrews we came upon the notice (Chap. 9:21, 22), “Moreover he sprinkled with the blood both the tabernacle, and all the vessels of the ministry. And almost all things are by the law purged with blood.” The reason for this action with the blood is given, “And he shall make an atonement for the Holy Place, because of the uncleanness of the children of Israel, and because of their transgressions in all their sins. . . . And he shall sprinkle of the blood upon it seven times, and cleanse it, and hallow it from the uncleanness of the children of Israel (Lev. 16:16-19).” That these lifeless things were also in need of cleansing was not on account of their being in themselves capable of contracting guilt but on account of their being exposed to defilement in the midst of a people, whose sins were continually coming up into the sanctuary and defiling by their pollutions the holy things it contained. Thus the result of the sprinkling of the blood upon the mercy seat was twofold. As a result of this action, the blood, as was just said, was before the face of the Lord and, secondly, the mercy seat itself was hallowed from its defilement. Finally, no man might be in the tabernacle during the process of its cleansing. The object of this was not to guide the privacy of the ceremony, but simply because all was regarded as defiled and to be atoned for, and everything defiled must be excluded during the process of atonement.
After the completion of these rites, the live goat was brought, namely, the one on “which the lot had fallen to be the scapegoat” and for which atonement had been made (16:11). Upon his head Aaron laid both his hands, confessed over him all the iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their transgressions in all their sins, putting them upon the head of the goat, and thereupon sent him away by the hand of a fit man (a man of opportunity) into the wilderness. This was done with the victim that he might “bear upon him all the iniquities into a land not inhabited” (16:21, 22).
If the symbolical import of these transactions is to be correctly perceived we must not allow ourselves to conclude, as some writers have done, that in respect to the two goats we have to do here with two offerings, the one consisting in the slaying of the goat upon which the lot of the Lord fell and the other in the sending of the live goat into the wilderness. The two victims formed one sin offering. We learn this from the expression (contained in verse 5), “two kids of the goats for a sin offering.” The presentation of two animals was necessitated by the impossibility of sending an animal that had been put to death into the wilderness alive. Further, this one sacrifice was the Lord’s. The notice, “And Aaron shall cast lots upon the two goats; one lot for the Lord, and the other for the scapegoat, does not form the grounds for a contrary view. That it is said of only one of the lots that it was “for the Lord” finds its explanation in the circumstance that the goat upon which “the lot for the Lord” fell, was, as slain, placed upon God’s altar and brought, as to its blood, within the vail. The conclusive proof that also the scapegoat must be regarded as belonging to the Lord and thus not to another is that upon this goat as well the lot of the Lord fell. The casting of lots was done only with that which was in a peculiar sense the Lord’s. What had to be ascertained, in the case of the offering under consideration, is not which of the two goats had to be devoted to one other than the Lord, but to what use He willed that both parts of the sacrifice be put. Now as to the action with the first goat, through this action the sins of the people were expiated (symbolically). It meant that these sins had been completely obliterated so that God was no longer setting them before His countenance. That there might be to the condemnable and ill-deserving nation a visible token of this blessed effect of the atonement, Aaron, as instructed by the Lord, now returned to the live goat and laid on him the now-atoned iniquities, that he might bear them away into a region of desolation. Thus through the dismissal of the scapegoat embodying in sensible form the result of the work of Christ, God declared and continues to declare to His believing people that He has cast their sins into everlasting oblivion.
In the light of these observations, it is plain that the live goat was the complement of the one slain. Other evidence of this is that both goats were presented to the Lord at the same time (verse 10), in order that, while atonement was being made with the blood of the first, the second might be standing in readiness to be laden with the sins as expiated and to be driven as so laden into the desert. Finally, there is the notice to the effect (verse 10) that while the live goat stood at the door of the tabernacle, atonement was made for him (not with him as in our version). This certainly cannot mean that the sins of the live goat were atoned. What is meant is that the sins of the people were atoned for the live goat, that is, with a view to his bearing them away.
After the dismissal of the scapegoat, Aaron, coming again into the tabernacle of the congregation, put off the linen garments in which the whole of this service had been performed, and left them there in the tabernacle until the next day of atonement. Washing his flesh with water, which he had to do before every service, he put on his usual garments. Coming forth, he offered a burnt offering for himself, and another for the people; by the blood of which he again made atonement for sin and by the action with the other parts there was expressed anew dedication of their persons to God. The fat of the sin offering was burnt upon the altar and thus dealt with according to the instructions for the disposal of the fat of the ordinary sin offerings. The bodies of the victims, as in the case of the sin offerings in general, were carried without the camp and burnt with fire. The symbolical import of this rite has already been explained in connection with ordinary sin offerings, and need not be repeated here. The person who burnt them, as well as the person by whom the scapegoat had been conducted into the wilderness, had to wash his clothes and bathe his flesh before coming into the camp.
What may have been the special purpose and design of the great atonement? The substance of the answer that writers in general have given to this question has been adequately expressed by the following language from the pen of Fairbairn, “(For) atonement was made (by this great sacrifice) for all sin and transgression. It was virtually implied, that the acts of expiation, which from time to time were made throughout the year, but imperfectly satisfied for the iniquities of the people, since the people were still kept outwardly at some distance from the immediate dwelling-place of God, and could not even through their consecrated head be allowed to go within the vail. So that when a service was instituted with a view of giving a representation of complete admission to God’s presence and fellowship, the mass of sin must again be brought into consideration, that it might be blotted out by a more perfect atonement” (Typology, Vol. 11, P. 337).
Here the view is broached (a view to which the author of the above lines was also addicted), that the great sacrifice, as compared with the acts of expiation, which from time to time were made through the year, was a more perfect atonement—an atonement so much more perfect even that by it the mass of sins, for which the daily acts of expiation had but imperfectly satisfied, was blotted out. Now this view will not at all do. It is thoroughly Jewish. The Jews have such a saying among them, “That on the day of expiation all Israel was made as righteous as in the day wherein man was first created.” It is to be considered that the great atonement was as to kind and in its essential features identical to those daily acts of expiation. The former as well as the latter was, certainly, merely symbolical (and typical). How, then, could it surpass the latter in perfection? Haw could sin by it be obliterated, if sin could not be obliterated by the daily atonements? Even despite the fact that the sponsors of this view had in mind, it must be, not a true but merely a symbolical blotting out of sin by the great atonement, the view is incorrect. It is not true that only the yearly and thus not the daily atonements symbolically blotted out sin, and was therefore in distinction from the others the atonement of symbolical perfection. All the sacrifices by blood did so. The statement, “And the priest shall make atonement for him in respect to his sin (or sins) and he (the offender) shall be forgiven,” had respect to all these sacrifices. This every student of Moses’ law well knows.
The view under consideration is in conflict with the teaching of a passage contained in the epistle to the Hebrews (chap. 10:1-4) and that reads, “For the law having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with those same sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make the comers thereunto perfect. For then would they not have ceased to be offered, because the worshippers once purged should have had no more conscience of sins. But in these sacrifices there is a remembrance again made of sins every year. For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins.” This passage is an important one for our subject on this account that from it may be known the true design of the great atonement. Let us then examine this Scripture. As the content of the epistle in general, it directly concerns only the great atonement. ‘‘For the law having a shadow of good things to come. . . .” The conjunction “for” indicates that what follows is an inference made on that which precedes, namely, the teaching of the absolute necessity of the sacrifice of Christ. Having affirmed that Christ had perfectly atoned sin, the sacred writer concludes that the sacrifices of the law are but shadows of good things to come and cannot therefore make the comers thereunto perfect. This he now proceeds to prove. The subject spoken of is the law and in particular the sacrifices of the law, especially those which were offered year by year continually—the great atonements. By the law these sacrifices were instituted and upon it all their virtue and efficacy depended—by the law, that is by the covenant which God made with Israel at Sinai with all the institutions of worship which belonged to it. The law had a shadow of good things, to come. It thus had not the very image of the things themselves, that is of the blessings of that new covenant of which Christ is the eternal Mediator and which may be designated by the one expression “life eternal” and which are called good things to come with respect to the time of the administration of the law. Of these things the law as to the sacrifices which it inculcated was but shadow, an obscure representation, symbol, type. It was thus not the very image of the things, that is, not the substantial image, the things themselves, the body, which is Christ with all the grace, mercy, and privileges which His people receive by His incarnation.
Being but a shadow, the sacrifices of the law could not make the comers thereto continually, that is, once and for all time, perfect (as did the one sacrifice of Christ) and thus had no true efficacy. Such being their deficiency, they were offered year by year; and it was always the same sacrifices (the word same is found in the original) that were offered—same as to kind, so that all were equally impotent. Had these sacrifices been able to make perfect, they would have ceased to be offered; because that the worshippers once purged should have no more conscience of sin, that is, they would not have been occupied in their minds and hearts with sin as with sin that had not been blotted out by its being atoned. And they, God’s believing people, were so occupied and this of necessity as the true sacrifice had not yet been brought. They spent their days with the thought in their soul that their sins had not as yet been truly expiated. Hence they had conscience of sin on this account, that is, a conscience agitated and perplexed by sin, and that judged and condemned their persons for the guilt of sin, and so deprived them of solid peace with God. True, they were covered by the blood of a typical sacrifice, but as this sacrifice, as was just said, lacked true efficacy, from the knowledge of being covered by its blood could spring no true and lasting peace. There was to this sacrifice no satisfaction and righteousness with which the believers could before their own consciousness be clothed and have peace. There was therefore under the law conscience of sin. It is true that also now believers may have a conscience judging and condemning them for their sin, no less than they had under the law; but this trouble of conscience does not arise from this that sin was not truly expiated by the sacrifice of Christ, but only from a fear that they have no interest in that sacrifice and the benefits thereof. Under the Old Testament they doubted not their interest in their symbolical sacrifices. How could they, if they possessed its fruitage, if, on account of their performing the rights and ordinances of service unto them, their natural lives (and this, as has been explained in former articles was the fruitage of the typical sacrifices) were being prolonged in the land of Canaan. But their conscience charged them with the guilt of sin, as a result of their being aware that their sacrifices did not expiate it. And this awareness was caused by God’s institution of the repetition of the sacrifices; which had not been done if they could have made the worshippers perfect once and for all.
It is different in respect to conscience for sin which remains in God’s people under the new testament. Their fear concerns not any insufficiency in the sacrifice of Christ but their interest in this sacrifice. They who are purged may be in the dark sometimes as to whether Christ is their portion. But if the sacrifices either by their efficacy or by their repetition could not take away sin, so as that they who came to God by them could have peace of conscience, was there then not true peace with God under the old testament? There was indeed. But this peace was not theirs on account of their sacrifices being truly efficacious. As has been fully explained in previous articles, it was theirs only because the truth set forth by the sacrifices was blessed to their hearts.
God not only appointed the repetition of the sacrifices, but also that in every repetition of them, there should be a remembrance made of sin, as of that yet to be atoned. (Here we come upon the design of the great atonement. In them was a remembrance of sins again. This was true of every sacrifice but especially of the great atonement. For this was made with the blood of an animal—the live goat—on whose head Aaron lay both his hands and over whom he confessed all the unatoned iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their transgressions in all their sins. And the people had on their part to be similarly occupied through their afflicting their souls on account of their sins that Aaron was confessing over the live goat, “And this shall be a statute forever unto you: that in the seventh month, on the tenth day of the month, ye shall afflict your souls, and do no work at all, whether it be one of your country, or a stranger that sojourneth among you: For on that day shall the priest make an atonement for you, to cleanse you, that ye may be clean from all your sins before the Lord. It shall be a sabbath of rest unto you, and ye shall afflict your souls by a statute forever. And the priest. . . . shall make an atonement for the holy sanctuary, and he shall make an atonement for the tabernacle of the congregation, and for the altar, and he shall make an atonement for the priests, and for all the people of the congregation. And this shall be an everlasting statute unto you, to make an atonement for the children of Israel for all their sins once a year” (Lev. 16:28-34).
It will thus be seen that in the great sacrifice remembrance was made of sin as in none of the other sacrifices. Remembrance was made for sin in this sacrifice in all its bearings—for the high priest and his house, for the people in all their families, for the tabernacle and all its furniture and utensils. Why now had there to be year after year this remembrance of sin? And the answer: That the church under the Old Testament might know that, in the words of the sacred” writer, “It was not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins, “and that, knowing this, they should cast themselves upon God’s mercy and be expecting the true lamb that God would provide Him.
Let us now ask not why the sacrifices and in particular the great sacrifice had to be repeated but let us ask why there was instituted a sacrifice greater, more solemn, than all the others. ’The reason is that God’s believing people under the Old Testament (and also under the new) were in the need of an atonement more expressive than the others, an atonement that showed forth more of the work of Christ. And this need was met by the great sacrifice with all its attending rites. How vividly it signified and thus forcibly proclaimed to believers that their sins are forgiven and that unto them the Lord imputeth not iniquity.
(to be continued)
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Post by Admin on Jan 6, 2024 14:55:46 GMT -5
6/1/1939
The Most Holy Place
OPHOFF GEORGE M
Article
Home / Archive / Vol 15 Issue 17
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Though the tabernacle as a whole was God’s house, his proper dwelling place was the holiest—the seat and throne of His kingdom. Here therefore occurred the highest and most distinct revelations of Himself as Israel’s redeemer God. And as these revelations were made through the things that were found in this place, it is to these things that regard must be had.
The only furniture of the holiest place was the ark. The instructions for its making are contained in Ex. 25:9-16, “And they shall make an ark of shittim wood: two cubits and a half shall be the length thereof, and a cubit and a half the breadth thereof, and a cubit and a half the height thereof. And thou shalt overlay it with pure gold, within and without shalt thou overlay it, and shalt make upon it a crown of gold round about. And thou shalt cast four rings of gold for it and put them in the four feet thereof; and two rings shall be on the one side of it, and two rings on the other side of it. And thou shalt make staves of shittim wood and overlay them with gold. The staves shall be in the rings by the sides of the ark, that the ark may be borne with them. The staves shall be in the rings of the ark: they shall not be taken from it.”
These instructions tell us the following. The ark was a chest, in length three and three-fourths feet and having the same dimensions in breadth and height, namely, two and one-fourth feet (providing a cubit measured eighteen inches which in all likelihood it did). Its materials were boards of shittim wood and gold— the gold overlaying the boards. Around its top was wrought an ornamental crown or border of gold. This it had in common with the table of shew-bread and the altar of incense. Above it and resting on its top was what in our version is called the mercy seat. The latter was made of solid gold and was of the same dimensions in length and breadth as the ark. In the two ends of it were ordered to be made two cherubim of gold, one on the one end, with wings stretching forth on high and covering it, and with faces looking one to another toward it (Ex. 25:18-20).
In ascertaining the symbolical-typical import of the ark, regard must be had to this that it was made for holding the testimony. Said the Lord to Moses, “And thou shalt put into the ark the testimony which I shall give thee” (Ex. 25:16). In obedience to this command, Moses “took and put the testimony into the ark. . . .” (Ex. 40:20). What is to be understood by the testimony, we learn from Ex. 31:17, “And He gave unto Moses when He had made an end of communing with him upon Mt. Sinai, two tables of testimony, tables of stone, written with the finger of God.” The testimony, it is evident, was the law of the ten commandments. It was on account of its containing this law, that the ark was called “the ark of the testimony.” It is not true, as some writers have averred, that afterwards the entire book of the law was lodged in the ark. This mistaken view sprang from a wrong interpretation of Deut. 31:26, “Take the book of the law, and put it in the side of the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God. . . .” That the original text should have been rendered by (and thus not in) the side of the ark” we learn from this that at the time of the dedication of Solomon’s temple there was, according to I Kings 8:9, “nothing in the ark save the two tables of stone, which Moses put there at Horeb, when the Lord made a covenant with the children of Israel, when they came out of the land of Egypt.”
Why was this honor of being stored in the ark conferred upon the law of the ten commandments? The reason was the singular significance of this law. It reveals God’s holy nature and denounces every species of sin as inconsistent with His character. It sets forth the great principles of religious and moral duties in the covenant. Hence, the despising of this law rendered the entire symbolical-typical service a vain show. “To what purpose,” asked the Lord of His people, of the idolaters, the murderers, and the thieves in Israel, thus of those who, hating this law, walked and lived in gross sins, “To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me? . . . .I am full of the burnt offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts; and I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of rams, or of he goats. Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth. . . .: your hands are full of blood” (Isa. 1).
The meaning of the lodging of this law in the ark, must be contemplated, in order to be fully understood, in connection with the mercy seat. From the various passages in the Pentateuch it appears that this article had a symbolical significance of its own apart from the ark to which it was attached as a lid. So in Lev. 16:2, where Moses is commanded to caution Aaron against “coming at all times into the holy place within the vail before the mercy seat, which is upon the ark; that he die not. . . .” According to this notice it is more particularly the mercy seat that renders the holy place, if entered out of season, a region of death. In I Chron. 28:2, the Holiest is simply designated “the place of the mercy seat.” There is more evidence that this article occupied a place of its own among the typical things of the law. It is never referred to as precisely the lid of the ark; and, finally, in all the descriptions and enumerations of the holy things in the tabernacle, it is always mentioned separately.
What was the symbolical import of the mercy seat? This is known from the action with the blood in respect to it on the great day of atonement and from the reference to it in Ex. 30:6 as “the mercy seat that is over the testimony.” On the great day of atonement the blood of the sacrificial animal was sprinkled upon it. Through this action atonement was made for the whole congregation in respect to all its sins. Now the Hebrew verb for atone is to cover. Thus to atone sin was to provide for it a covering for the holy eye of God to rest upon. And the covering provided was the blood of the people’s innocent substitute. But what now was the distinctive significance of the mercy seat? This is suggested by its Hebrew name, which is not mercy seat as in our version, but capporeth or covering. And the reason it bore this name is not that it covered the ark but that, as sprinkled with the blood of the sacrificial victim, it covered the sins of the people. There is no room to doubt this, as the word is never used for a covering in the ordinary sense, but always for a covering in the sense of atonement. The mercy seat was, of course, not a covering added to the blood. It is to be regarded as forming with the blood the one covering.
Being what it was, a covering for sin, the mercy seat was ordered to be put upon and above the ark of the testimony. As the expression “ark of the testimony” signifies, the reason that it was ordered to be put upon the ark, is that in the latter was deposited the testimony, that is, the two tables of the law. This is especially evident from the following expressions, “before the mercy seat that is over the testimony, (Ex. 30:6),” “that the cloud of incense may cover the mercy seat that is upon the testimony” (Lev. 16:13). These Scriptures prove that the mercy seat had respect to the law rather than to the ark upon which it rested. But why to the law? The answer is contained in Deut. 31:24-27, “And it came to pass, when Moses had made an end of writing the words of this law in a book, until they were finished, that Moses commanded the Levites, which bare the ark of the covenant of the Lord, saying, Take the book of the law, and put it in the side of the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God, that it may be there for a witness against thee. For I know thy rebellion, and thy stiff neck: behold, while I am yet alive with you this day, ye have been rebellious against the Lord; and how much more after my death.”
The book of the law and thus also the two tables of the testimony lodged in the ark witnessed against God’s people on account of their transgressing the law. It witnessed against them: it accused them, declared them guilty, and thus placed them under the necessity of suffering the punishment of their sins. And to impress upon the people that God took judicial notice of the witnessing of the law and thus of their sins, Moses was ordered to put it by the side of the ark. But why was this people not consumed? The reason is that the law, covered as it was by an atonement-covering, could lay nothing to the charge of that people. But this covering was but shadow, designed to suggest what was required. The true atonement-covering is Christ, the human nature in which He expiated the sins of His people. Beholding Him, God sees the blood of reconciliation, and therefore sees no sin in His people.
On both ends of the mercy seat were two cherubim, made of beaten gold, with wings “stretched forth on high and covering the mercy seat,” and with faces looking one to another and towards the mercy seat. The fullest description of these creatures is given by the prophet Ezekiel. He first sees four living creatures with the general appearance of a man, but each with four faces and four wings, and straight legs with the feet of an ox. Under their wings are human hands; and their wings are so joined that they never require to turn. The front face is that of a man; right and left of this are the faces of a lion and an ox, and, behind that, of an eagle. The wings partly cover the body and are partly used for flying, and when the creatures stand still, they let their wings droop; out of the midst of them gleam fire and lightnings; and connected with them are four wheels that can turn in every direction, called whirling wheels. Their whole body, and their backs, and their hands and their wings and their wheels are full of eyes round about, even the wheels that the four had. They are called cherubim and more often the living ones, or the living creatures. The latter name is expressive of that property of which these creatures were the possessors in a marked degree. They were incessantly active, resting neither day nor night, saying, “Holy, holy, holy, Lord God almighty, which was and is and is to come” (Rev. 4:8).
The eyes of which these creatures were full before and behind and within signify that the life which they so abundantly possessed was light, holy intelligence. They were pre-eminently creatures of the light.
The cherubim became the residents of God’s sanctuary after man’s expulsion from it. They appear in Scripture as the friends and allies of God, as His ministering servants especially in the execution of His judgment. As the occupants of the garden of Eden, their task is to keep the way of the tree of life. In Ps. 18 the statement occurs that God rode upon a cherub and did fly. The cherubim seen by Ezekiel in the first vision were supporting the firmament with their wings. Above the firmament was the likeness of a throne—the throne of Jehovah. From the chapter that follows it appears that the throne is one of judgment. In the book of the Revelation of John, one of the four living creatures is seen giving unto the seven angels seven golden vials full of God’s wrath. In this same vision they also appear in the midst and round about the throne, giving honor and glory and thanks to Him that sat on the throne, Who liveth forever and ever.
As their component parts indicate, the cherubim were the representatives of redeemed and glorified humanity, and thus also of the whole redeemed creation of which this humanity is the crown. The cherubim, then, had to do not with angels but with men on this earth in need of redemption. And how God’s heart goes out to these ideal creatures! With their forms He surrounded His throne. The whole interior of the tabernacle was throughout inwrought with their forms. Thus not only the throne but the whole house of God was in their midst. And this creature, the redeemed church of God, looks and will everlastingly look toward Christ the true atonement-covering with holy wonder and veneration; for Christ showeth forth the praises of God, being, as He is, the sanctification and the justification, the wisdom and redemption of God’s children, their atonement-covering and thus their everlasting expectation. Toward Him therefore do and will they everlastingly direct their gaze.
But what may have been the design of these representative creatures as connected with the mercy seat? This has been correctly stated thus, “Placed as they were with their outstretched wings rising aloft and overshadowing the mercy seat, they gave to this the appearance of a glorious seat or throne, suited for the occupation or residence of God in the symbolic cloud as the King of Israel.”
Besides the articles now described, three other things were placed in the Holiest before the face of God—the pot of manna, the rod of Aaron, and the entire book of the law. All three were lodged in the immediate presence of God as memorials of the past and as signs and witnesses of the future.
As to the manna, though it was not essentially a new creature, it was nevertheless a food that had been specially prepared by the Lord for His people during the period of their wanderings in the desert. It was thus indeed the product of His wonder-working power. It testified of God’s power and faithfulness to care for His people in the most destitute circumstances and thus was ready to witness against them in all the future, if they should forsake Him and trust in the creature.
As to the budding rod of Aaron, the event that occasioned its appearing was the rebellion of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, with certain of the children of Israel, two hundred and fifty princes against Moses and Aaron. Their grievance was, that the two took too much upon them, seeing that all the congregation was holy. Why did they then lift up themselves above the congregation? It was plainly a protest against the divine ordinance, whereby the people had access to God solely through the new priesthood and thus a demand for the restoration of the old order of things. When Moses heard of it, he fell on his face. The next day would shew which side was right in the sight of God. Let them present themselves with lighted censers. The man whom the Lord would choose would be holy. Dismissing them for the time being, Moses summoned Dathan and Abiram to appear before him. Instead of obeying, they repelled the command with reproaching Moses, “It is a small thing that thou hast brought us up out of a land that flowed with milk and honey, to kill us in the wilderness, except thou make thyself altogether a prince over us? Moreover, thou hast not brought us into a land that floweth with milk and honey, or given us inheritance of fields and vineyards;
wilt thou put out the eyes of these men? We will not come.” Then the ground clave asunder and swallowed them up and their houses, and all the men that appertained unto Korah and all their goods. As to the two hundred and fifty men that offered incense, fire came out from the presence of the Lord and consumed them.
But the danger was not yet over. Those who sympathized with the mutineers, and their number was great, now accused Moses of having killed the people of God. Then wrath went out from the Lord and a plague broke out in the camp, which was stayed only by Aaron running in the midst of the congregation with his censer, thus making atonement for the sins of the rebels. The crisis, however, was not permitted to pass away without a memorial which should keep it from being forgotten. The heads of the tribe, including Levi, carried a rod or scepter of office. These were now ordered to be laid up in the tabernacle of the congregation before the testimony that it might be shown by a miraculous sign in connection with them, whom the Lord had chosen to perform the priestly service. On the morrow Moses found the rod of Aaron “for the house of Levi budding and bringing forth buds, and blossoms, and yielding almonds.” Then was Aaron’s rod brought again before the testimony to be kept for a token against the sinners. By itself this rod was dry and lifeless as the rods of the other tribes. This being true, it could bear fruit only through the grace of God, so that its fruitfulness testified of the appointment of Aaron to the priesthood—and of him alone. It therefore through the ages speaks against all those who despise Christ—God’s appointed channel of grace—to choose for themselves other modes of access to God.
As to the book of the law, it contained all the statutes and ordinances, the precepts and judgments, the threatenings and promises, delivered by the hand of Moses, and thus testified of God’s care to provide His people with a full revelation of His will.
But these things—the pot of manna, the budding rod, and the whole book of the law—were no essential parts of the furniture of the Holiest place. The sacred things for which this place was properly set apart were the ark of the covenant, with the tables of testimony within, and the mercy seat with the cherubim above. How marvelously these things revealed to the Israelites the spiritual and holy nature of God! How they shewed forth His praises and perfections! How immeasurable the chasm between the religion of Israel and that of Egypt and the other nations of heathen antiquity! Looking into the innermost apartment of an Egyptian temple, what do we see? A beast—a cat, a crocodile, a serpent, or some other dangerous animal—tumbling about on a carpet of purple. It is the god of the Egyptian. To it divine honors are paid. The land of Egypt from which Israel had been brought up was remarkable for its idolatry. The serpent was the public and well-known Egyptian emblem. Offerings were presented to animals held sacred; a priesthood maintained to their honor; temples built for their reception; festivals held in their praise, and lamentations made at their death. The Egyptian bent the knee before the host of heaven. He said to the Nile, to the frog, to the soil, to the fly, to the ox and the cow, to evil, to the elements—“ye are my gods”. Thus had Egypt changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like unto corruptible man and to the beast. Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through their lusts. The Egyptians gave the reigns to the base passions, for why should they be better than their gods? Unnatural vice prevailed on every side. Universal and open corruption marked their great yearly religious festivals.
Direct now our gaze away from these debasing superstitions to the holiest place of the tabernacle, and what do we perceive? No creatures or figures of creatures of any kind to which one could point and say, “That is God.” The cherubim were not representatives of God but of the creature. But did not the Lord go against His own command when He ordered to be made the likenesses of these creatures?,—the command, “Thou shalt not make unto thyself any graven image nor the likeness of anything that is in heaven above or in the earth beneath or in the water under the earth”? The sin that this prohibition strikes at is exactly the deification of the creature. What is here forbidden is to be expressed thus, “Thou shalt not make unto thyself any likeness of the creature and, beholding that likeness, say in thy heart that it is the similitude of a creature who is God.” And this is what the idolater does. He says to the creature and its image, “Thou art my God.”
What was to be found in the holiest place were instruments through which God revealed, showed forth, His perfections. The law, which is “holy, just, and good” was there, disclosing to the people of Israel their religious and moral duties toward God,—duties in the face of which God was to be seen as being worthy of the praise and adoration of His creatures. That this law, the whole book of the law, was placed by the ark had a significance other than the one already delineated upon. The ark, now taken as representative of the whole furniture and of all the articles in the tabernacle, was but a symbol. Now the symbol is by itself meaningless. It can serve as a vehicle of truth only when contemplated in the light shed upon it by the spoken word of God. To the symbol therefore must be added the word, a revelation by word of mouth. The book of the law was this revelation. Being what it was, it was placed beside the ark. Hence it is to this book, to the Scriptures of God, that regard must be had, if our eyes are to open to the thoughts of God of which the things in the worldly tabernacle were, so to say, the crystallization. In the light of the Scriptures, the things of the Holiest present views of God, of the fellowship between God and His people, wonderfully elevating. The mercy seat was God’s throne. We learn this from such Scriptures as, “The Lord reigneth; let the people tremble: he sitteth between the cherubim; let the earth be moved” (Ps. 99:1). And the throne was placed over and upon the testimony. Righteousness was thus its foundation. How well God’s believing people of the Old Covenant understood this. The prophet, speaking of the majesty of God’s kingdom, declares, “righteousness and judgment are the foundation of his throne” (Ps. 97:2). However, if there were nothing for the eye of God to rest upon but His law, no man could stand before Him and live. For “a fire goeth out before him, and burneth up his enemies round about” (Ps. 97:3). But there are men who do live—live with Him in His house as His sons. Men they are whom He forgives and receives back into His favor, yet not without law but with law, in the way of right. Here we stand before the mystery “which hath been hid from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to the saints: . . . . which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.” The mystery is Christ, satisfying the demands of the law through His suffering and death. It is Christ entering in by His own blood once into the Holy place, entering in as the atonement-covering of His people. They therefore draw near to Him and live. Thus the throne of God is the dwelling-place alike of righteousness and mercy—righteousness upholding the claims of the law, and mercy bridging for God’s people the immeasurable gulf between the sanctuary of God and hell.
(to be continued)
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Post by Admin on Jan 6, 2024 15:00:58 GMT -5
2/1/1939
What Divine Duty Has the Civil Magistrate Toward the First Table of the Law?
OPHOFF GEORGE M
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Home / Archive / Vol 15 Issue 09
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We took the position that the magistrate is in duty bound to maintain the laws written on the first table as well as the laws written on the second table.
But would not the magistrate’s doing so bring into being a state church and result in religious persecution? Not necessarily. The requirement should not be that the magistracy elevate to the position of the established religion in the realm, a certain type of Christianity—Lutheran, Reformed, or Baptist or any of the others—and refuse to tolerate all the other types. Maintaining the first table of the law should consist in the magistracy forbidding the Atheist from making propaganda for his views, in forbidding and punishing public blasphemy, as this was done in Israel, and public desecration of the Sabbath. The question what the term Atheism should be made to cover, what heresies, departures from the truth, is a difficult question which I shall not venture to answer.
But would not the magistrate’s maintaining also the first table of the law result in religious persecution? It would if the magistracy were Atheistic and were then at once unwilling to tolerate in the realm the Christian religion. In view of this, is it well to take the stand that the magistracy has a duty also toward the first table of the law? The danger of religious persecution should not deter one from taking the above stand. The sole question is, What is the will of God in this matter.
Let me say a word about religious liberty. Religious liberty means that the people of God agree to allow the Atheist to blaspheme, if the Atheist on his part agree to allow the Christians to worship God according to the dictates of their conscience. Is not religious liberty that rests upon such an agreement wrong and forbidden? Should Christian people not choose to be persecuted rather than enjoy religious liberty on the ground of such an agreement? May Christian people say to Atheists, blaspheme and make propaganda for your views?
It is said that religious liberty is a fruit that grows on the tree of Calvinism. This is not true.
In England the largest group of Puritans was opposed to the idea of religious freedom. They remained in the established or state church and aimed at purging the church from papist forms. The Puritans who came to America established their own churches and tolerated no other protestants, whether Baptists, Quakers, or any other sect. That everybody should have the right to worship as he pleases was not the stand taken by Reformed Protestantism of the 16th century, as is evident from the sentiment that come to the surface in Article 36 of our Confession, an article that reads in part thus: “For this purpose he has invested the magistracy with the sword, for the punishment of evil doers, and for the protection of them that do well. And their office is not only to have regard unto, and watch for the welfare of the civil state, but also that they protect the sacred ministry; and thus may remove and prevent all idolatry and false worship; that the kingdom of Antichrist may be thus destroyed and the kingdom of Christ promoted. They must therefore countenance the preaching of the word of the Gospel everywhere, that God may be honored and worshipped by everyone as he commands in His word.
What we here present is conclusive proof that the Calvinists were about as far as they could be from being advocates of religious liberty. In the 16th century Catholics and Protestants (Calvinists, Puritans) were intolerant of each other’s beliefs not only but every protestant wing was exceedingly intolerant of each other. The Puritans were divided into three main groups. The largest of these were the Puritans proper. As was said, they remained in the established or Anglican (State) church and aimed at purging that church of Romanism. The second of these groups was comprised of Presbyterians, men opposed to the rule of the bishop and desirous of a form of government by elders and presbyters: for they had learned that “government by elders,” is a requirement of Scripture. There was also a third group called Independents, whose ideal was a church ruled by the congregation,—an ideal thoroughly unscriptural. Many Puritans left the Anglican church to establish congregations whose government should conform to the pattern found in Scripture. These were called Separatists.
Think now of the archbishop Whitgift, who relentlessly oppressed the Separatists for their refusal to use the Prayer Book and to refrain from all private religious meetings. Now Whitgift was a thorough Calvinist in his theology. And this man, certainly, stood at the head of a group of Calvinists minded as was he. Think further of the Calvinistic Parliament of 1592, that passed’ a statute proclaiming banishment against all who refused to attend the Anglican church and were present at some “conventicle” where other than a lawful worship was employed. Under the terms of this statute the London Congregationalists were compelled to seek refuge in Amsterdam. In the Netherlands the Calvinists after the Synod of Dordt banished the Remonstrants from the land. They later returned but did not receive official recognition till 1795. Think finally of Calvin himself who approved of the death of Servetus.
History easily bears out the statement that the conception, of religious freedom was entirely absent from Calvin’s own mind and from the mind of the Calvinists of the 16th century.
It was not until at the close of the 16th century that religious toleration began to be practiced. In France, Henry IV granted religious toleration to Huguenots. In Holland religious toleration was permitted for most protestant sects but not even for all. In Bohemia religious toleration was given to some faiths only. In England there was toleration in practice though not by law. Religious toleration however is something different than religious liberty in the modern sense. The latter is a fruit that grows on the tree of Modernism.
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Post by Admin on Jan 6, 2024 15:05:23 GMT -5
4/1/1939
Christ Was Made a Curse For Us
OPHOFF GEORGE M
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Home / Archive / Vol 15 Issue 13
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Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, having been made a curse for us: for it is written, cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree. Gal. 3:13
There is a curse of the law. And its effect is all the nameless woe by which mankind was overtaken on account of its having transgressed in Adam its covenant head, the command of God. God made man and formed him after His own image and likeness, good, righteous, and holy, capable in all things to will agreeably the will of God; but giving ear to the words of the devil, man transgressed the commandment of life which he had received. Then the law, then God cursed, uttered the word of cursing. Said He to man, “Be dead, that it may appear that I, God, am life. Be unrighteous, that it may appear that I am the righteous One. Be vile that it may appear that I am the Holy One. Let there dwell in thee anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affections, lusts, that it may appear that I am light and love. Let thy throat be an open sepulchre, use deceit with thy tongue, let there be under thy lips the poison of asps, let thy mouth be full of cursing and bitterness, let destruction and misery be in thy way, that it may appear that I am righteousness and peace.”
What then is the curse of the law? It is, in a word, death spiritual and eternal. It is despair, the fear, the anguish, and the many sorrows that are the portion of the wicked. It is enmity of God, it is hatred, bloodshed, and destruction. It is hell. The curse in addition is the demand of the law that man be dead.
Who would deliver from the curse of the law? Mark well, man (I speak now of the elect of God) was dead in sin because he had to be, the justice of God so demanding. The law had to curse, had to require that man be eternally made a curse; and until his requirement was fully and completely met, the law had to continue to curse.
Who would redeem from the curse? Consider that redemption had to be the accomplishment of one who through His becoming a curse could destroy it; thus the accomplishment of one who was God and very man—a man, who, while willingly as constrained by pure love identifying himself with the curse, could by the power of this love praise and adore God, walk in the way of God’s commands to satisfy by a perfect obedience all the demands of the law.
Who would redeem us from the curse of the law? There was not to be found one among mortals who could. For the mortal is mere creature. Besides, as identified with the curse, and he is this, he praises not but curses God. His carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. How evident this became when the law in the form of the ten commands entered in. What motions of sin by the law! How these motions did work to bring forth fruit unto death! How hideous a phenomenon sin is. It appears exactly from this that it becomes exceedingly sinful through the holy commandment, ordained unto life. It is the things good that exasperates the natural man, the very things to which his soul should reach out in love. Thus when the law entered in, sin awakening, took occasion by the commandment and chose the idol, the lie, in opposition to the commandment, truth, light, God. So does the law work wrath. This being true, man cannot through an obedient suffering satisfy the requirements of God’s justice. He could not redeem from the curse.
Who would redeem from the curse? “Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law” from the effect of the curse—sin, death, and all the nameless woe that is the portion of the damned—by which we were held, with which we were identified, by which our entire existence was, so to say, permeated, vitiated, so that of us it is said that we were dead through sin. It operated, did this curse, in the essence of our being, of our mind and will, so that all our thought and volitions were enmity against God and we minded solely the things which are on the earth.
Christ redeemed us from this curse, that is, from the almighty, effective word of God that, as uttered by Him in His righteous indignation, was the cause of all our woe. It means that He redeemed us from the indignant God—redeemed us, that is, freed us from the curse by a price which He paid to God—a price that consisted in the life that He gave, in His shed blood and broken flesh, in the suffering and death of His human nature. And the price satisfied, as the life was given in love, as the blood that was shed was that of a lamb without spot or blemish. Thus He procured for us the forgiveness of sin, so that the curse of the law which was to have come upon us no longer had any reference to us.
This the apostle here expresses thus: “By His having become a curse for us.” This cannot mean that God cursed Him, His person. Only the damned in hell are cursed, namely they whom God hateth and against whom He hath indignation forever. It is the reprobated whom God curses. But Christ was the elect of God, the obedient servant of Jehovah, consumed by the zeal of God’s house, whose meat and drink it was to do the will of Him Who had sent Him. God did not curse Him. He was, during all the time that He bore our sins in His flesh, the blessed Son, the delight of the Father. Thus the word curse in the above Scripture signifies not God’s hatred nor God’s anger as such; it signifies the burden of divine wrath, namely, all that Christ suffered in His body and soul on account of His having assumed responsibility for the sins of His people, thus a suffering, a punishment, that could serve as the equivalent of the punishment that those who are not Christ’s undergo in this life and in the hereafter. Thus curse is the punishment of sin in so far as this can be undergone by a holy man. This curse He became, this suffering He assumed, through His assuming our human nature, and through His becoming obedient in this nature unto the death of the cross.
So did He become a curse for us. “For it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth upon a tree.” The apostle does not conclude from this Scripture that he quotes from the book of Deuteronomy that, whereas Christ had hung upon a tree, He too, was cursed of God. Christ became a curse.
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Post by Admin on Jan 6, 2024 15:16:35 GMT -5
10/1/1938
Seeking Fruit and Finding None
OPHOFF GEORGE M
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Home / Archive / Vol 15 Issue 01
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Wrote the apostle John to his fellow Christians, “Little children it is the last hour. . . .” He here had reference to a period that set in with the advent of Christ and that will end with Christ’s second coming. Another designation of this period is the term “New Dispensation”. We are living in this last hour, and, judging from certain signs, to which I purpose to call your attention in this writing, in the last half or quarter of this hour. There is the fig tree, the church, presented by Christ in one of His parables as barren. The parable reads, “A certain man had a fig-tree planted in his vineyard; and he came and sought fruit thereon and found none. Then said he unto the dresser of the vineyard, Behold, these three years I come seeking fruit on the fig-tree and find none: cut it down, why cumbereth it the ground? And he answered and said unto him, Lord, let it alone for this year also, till I shall dig about it and dung it. And if it bear fruit well; and if not, then after that thou shalt cut it down,” Luke 12:6-9.
The parable concerns, in the first instance, the church of the Old Dispensation,—the Israelitish nation. And it rose before the eye of Christ a fig-tree that at the time of His sojourn among us, bore no fruit for its owner. This it should have done; for it belonged not to itself but to its owner who had planted it. In his ground it grew. Upon his soil it fed. The tree was not its own but its planter’s. For him it should have been bearing fruit. But it bore no fruit. It took all and gave nothing. What an abominable tree! How utterly useless! It was a tree worthy to be cut down and given over to the flames.
This tree is Israel, the Church. The Lord had chosen Israel to be a people for His own possession above all peoples. He brought them out with a mighty hand and redeemed them out of the house of bondage, from the hand of Pharaoh, king of Egypt. Forty years He led them in the wilderness. He fed them with manna which neither they nor their fathers knew, that He might make them know that man lives not by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord. Their raiment had not waxed old upon them, neither had their feet swelled those forty years. As an eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttereth over her young, spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them up, beareth them upon her wings, so the Lord alone did lead Israel. And He brought them in a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and depths that spring out of valleys and hills, a land of wheat, and barley, and vines and fig trees, and pomegranates; a land of olive oil, and honey; a land where they did eat bread without scarceness, and where they lacked nothing in it; a land whose stones were iron, and out of whose hills they dug brass. In that land he brought them to possess it, and had cast out many nations before them. These the Lord delivered unto them. And they smote them and utterly destroyed them.
So the Lord had established Israel as a people unto Himself, and that He might be unto them a God as He had said. And Israel was made to suck honey out of the rock, and oil out of the flinty rocks; butter of kine, milk of sheep with fat of lambs, and rams of the breed of Bashan, and goats with the fat of kidneys, and of wheat. And he drank the pure blood of grapes.
God’s fig-tree was Israel. He therefore must bear fruit for his Planter. His commandments, statutes, judgments Israel should keep. His name confess, His glories declare, and His praises sing. For he was the Lord’s planting. His ground he cumbered. His was the honey out of the rock, and the butter of kine and the milk of sheep. His were the lambs and rams and goats and the fat of those kidneys and wheat and the grapes whose blood they drank.
And how this fig tree thrived in God’s soil. Israel waxed fat and was grown thick and was covered with fatness. But Israel bore no fruit. He took all and gave nothing in return. And he forgot God Who made him, and lightly esteemed the Rock of his salvation. He provoked the Lord to jealousy with strange gods and to anger with his abominations. And he sacrificed unto devils and not to God. He placed the gifts of God upon the altar of Baal. What an abominable tree!
It was also a lying tree. Peculiar to a fig-tree is its foliage betokening the presence of fruit on it. Israel had foliage and thus took on the appearance of a fruitbearing tree, though no fruit was to be found on it. Israel brought a multitude of sacrifices unto the Lord; burnt offerings of rams, the fat of fed beasts, the blood of bullocks, lambs and he-goats. Israel appeared before the Lord and tread His courts, brought oblations, burnt incense, kept the new moons and the sabbaths, called assemblies and solemn meetings, observed the appointed feasts, spread forth its hands and made many prayers (Isa. 1:11-15) compassed sea and land to make proselytes, swore by the altar, payed tithes of mint and anise and cummin, strained at a gnat, builded the tombs of the prophets, and garnished the sepulchers of the righteous and said that if they had been in the days of their fathers, they would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets.
What a beautiful appearance this tree presented! It might be expected that the tree bore fruit—the peaceable fruit of righteousness, of mercy, faith, poverty of spirit, contriteness of heart, meekness, hunger and thirst after righteousness.
So the planter, the Lord God, came and sought fruit thereon in the season of the tree’s fruit-bearing. But, Lo! He found no fruit. Instead of faith, He found unbelief; instead of humbleness, pride; instead of love, hatred of God; instead of mercy, cruelty; instead of contrition, hardness of heart, extortions and excesses. So did the Planter discover that the appearance of the tree belied its true nature, that He had to do with a planting that was a hypocrite, devouring widows’ houses and shutting up the kingdom of heaven against men; a child of the devil, making the proselyte for which he compassed land and sea twofold more the child of hell than himself; a blind guide, a, fool, outwardly clean but within full of hypocrisies and iniquity (Matt. 5). Amazing! All this piety, this treading God’s courts, this bringing of many sacrifices, this making of many prayers, this tithing, this building of the tomb of the prophets, a vain show, a mass of glittering sins, iniquity! Isa. 1. Attend to the Lord’s own appraisal, “I am full of burnt offerings of lambs. . . .I cannot away with it; it is iniquity. . . . your new moons and the sabbaths, the calling of assemblies. Your appointed feasts my soul hateth.”
Full was He of their sham piety, their outward, civic righteousness, their fruits of common grace. He could not away with it. It was iniquity. He abhorred it all. So, when upon one of His journeys Christ came upon the symbol of Israel—the fig tree by the wayside, He, discovering that despite its leaves it bore no fruit, cursed this tree. And its subsequent withering was prophetic of the judgments of God soon to overtake Israel, God’s barren fig-tree. The tree was doomed. For three years Christ, the Dresser of the church, had labored with this tree, exhorting it to repent, preaching to it the gospel of the kingdom, presenting Himself to it as the Savior of His people by miracles, providing it with the evidence that he had come from God. But His words had found no response in Israel’s heart. Despising and rejecting Him, Israel finally nailed His blessed body to the cross. Then said God to Christ, the Dresser of the vineyard, “Behold, these three years have I come seeking fruit on this fig tree, and find none; cut it down. Why cumbereth it the earth?” But Christ said, “Lord, let it alone this year also, till I shall dig about it and dung it. And if it bear fruit, well; and if not, then after that thou shalt cut it down.”
But why would Christ have this tree spared for yet another brief season? For the elect’s sake in the nation, some of which were still groping in darkness and others of which still had to be born. So for a season, the glorified Christ, through His servants, held forth to this doomed tree Christ and Him crucified. And His people believed and were saved. The others were hardened. So Jerusalem finally was destroyed. Thus the type, having waxed old, vanished away. The shadow tree was cut down. It had outlived its usefulness. And the church emerged from its typical shell.
But this parable has a universal message, a message for the church of this dispensation. It, too, is a planting of God. To it also He comes, seeking fruit. Is the tree bearing fruit? Or is this tree barren, so that the Planter now, too, says to the Dresser, “Behold, I come seeking fruit on this tree but find none.” Is the tree about to be cut down? Behold, this fig tree, the church of this present time, as it is spread over the earth. What is the church doing with the Son of God? Crucifying Him afresh. It began to do this openly and boldly during and shortly after the Reformation. About the year 1650 there occurred an eruption of unbelief that became more and more violent with time. Christianized paganism then began to shed its pagan shell and the beast of the abyss came forth. The subterranean stream of unbelief left its cavern then and continued its course above ground. The children of darkness became bold. Worldly philosophy everywhere raised its head in the church and became loud mouthed. The movement is known in the history of the church as the Enlightenment. Since that day, out and out unbelief in the church has increased with amazing rapidity. Such fundamental doctrines as the virgin birth of Christ and His vicarious atonement are being denied by great numbers of church men. And few indeed are the circles in which such doctrines as the total depravity of man and the sovereign grace of God can be consistently preached. Even in such a conservative group as the Christian Reformed, the preacher who attempts it, is cast out.
A barren fruit tree is the church, a sepulcher filled with dead men’s bones. Yet the tree, as did Israel of old, especially at the time when it was about to be cut down, presents a beautiful appearance. There is this same bringing of many sacrifices, treading God’s courts, and the making of many prayers. The church now, too, the very despiser of the cross, compasses sea and land to make one proselyte. The age in which we live is the age of missions.
This tree, too, will be cut down, then, when the elect will have been saved out of it. Then Christ will come. And then the true church will appear with Him in glory.
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Post by Admin on Jan 6, 2024 15:26:22 GMT -5
11/15/1940
Unto Them that Mourn in Zion
OPHOFF GEORGE M
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Home / Archive / Vol 17 Issue 04
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To appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord that he might be glorified.
The prophet here depicts the beauty, joy and consecration of the church of God. There will be beauty, oil of joy and a garment of praise given to them that mourn in Zion. The language employed is symbolic and points to the typical priest of the Old Covenant, to the robes in which he officiated before the face of Jehovah. For Aaron and his sons were made, so we read, coats of fine linen of woven work and a miter of fine linen, and goodly bonnets of fine linen, and linen breaches of fine twined linen, and a girdle of fine twined linen, and blue, and purple, and scarlet, of needlework; as the Lord commanded Moses. Then there was the oil of holy ointment with which Aaron and his sons were anointed, that they might minister unto the Lord in the priests office. A holy oil it was that might be poured on no man’s flesh save that of the priests.
These mourners in Zion then are priests. “But ye shall be named the priests of the Lord,” said the prophet to these mourners, “men shall call you the ministers of our God: . . . . Being priests, they will be vested in the priestly robe and anointed with the holy oil.
But why do these priests mourn? Why are their spirits heavy? And what meaneth those ashes? The Lord hath covered the daughter of Zion with a cloud in His anger, and cast down from heaven unto earth the beauty of Israel, swallowed up all the habitations of Jacob, thrown down in his wrath the strongholds of the daughter of Judah, polluted the kingdom, cut off in His fierce anger all the horn of Israel, bent His bow like an enemy, stood with His right hand as an adversary, and slew all that were pleasant to the eye in the tabernacle of the daughter of Zion. He poured out His fury like a fire.
Why hath the Lord so dealt with His people? Jerusalem hath grievously sinned. Her filthiness is in her skirts. She had forsaken the law of the Lord, which He set before them, and has not obeyed His voice, but has walked after the imagination of her own heart, and after Balaam.
Ashes! What are they? The residue of substance remaining after subjection to red-heat. To the heat of God’s anger Israel has been subjected. For he sinned. And in the cloud of His anger the glory departed. And Israel’s glory was his palaces, his strongholds, God’s tabernacle, His solemn feasts and Sabbaths, His altar and His sanctuary, the king and the priest that made atonement for sin, the walls of Jerusalem’s palaces, her gates, her princes, her law and her prophets. This was Israel’s glory.
What is more worthless, inglorious and sightless than an ash-heap? Behold Israel! Her palaces are swallowed up. Her tabernacle hath been taken away, as if it were a garden. The places of her assembly have been destroyed. The Lord hath caused the solemn feasts and sabbaths to be forgotten in Zion. He hath cast off His altar, and abhorred His sanctuary. The walls of Jerusalem’s palaces have been given up in the hands of the enemy. Her gates are sunken into the ground. Her bars are broken. Her kings and princes are among the gentiles. The law is no more. Her prophets find no vision from the Lord. The elders of the daughter of Zion sit upon the ground and keep silent.
And the lovers of Zion mourn. Their spirits are heavy. Their eyes fail with tears. But they weep not for themselves but for their sins. They say, We have rebelled against His commandments. The Lord is righteous. Their grief springs not from despair. For they say, The Lord is my portion, saith my soul; therefore will I hope in the Lord.
Ashes! Let them speak to us of the curse of God that began to stalk over the earth, when our first parents, giving ear to the slander of the serpent, disobeyed the commandment of God; let them speak to us of the loss of our original spiritual beauty, of the trespasses and sin in which we are conceived and born, of our depravity, of our worthlessness and ugliness in the sight of the Holy God. What is more unlovely than ashes! And let us, at the hearing of this speech, cast dust upon our heads and gird ourselves with sackcloth. And let us weep for our sins. And let us say with the prophet, “The Lord is righteous; for I have rebelled against His commandments.”
But let us also lift up our heads and say, His compassions fail not. They are new every morning. For unto them that mourn in Zion will be given beauty for ashes, the oil of gladness for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness.
Beauty will be given them, not the outward beauty of the typical priest, not the beauty of an outward material robe, but the beauty of the robe of righteousness and salvation with which the Lord will clothe them, thus the beauty that is the effulgence of holiness in the inward parts, the beauty of true health of a man washed from all his sin in the blood of Christ and in whose heart has been shed abroad the love of God and upon whose being, heart, mind and will God has impressed His name. It is thus the beauty of the life hidden with Christ in God, and that appears when members which are upon the earth are crucified. It is the beauty of the new man, renewed in knowledge after the image of Him that created him. It is the beauty that is the flower of the righteousness of Christ in them that mourn in Zion, and the flower of this righteousness is the bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, longsuffering that they who mourn in sin put on.
And the beauty of these mourners is Zion’s beauty, Zion’s righteousness, and the beauty of Zion’s righteousness is destined to go forth as brightness, and the beauty of her salvation as a lamp that burneth. Then all the gentiles shall see her righteousness, and all keep her glory.
To the mourners in Zion will be given the oil of joy. There is reason for joy. Zion has been redeemed with judgment and her converts with righteousness. Zion’s children have been crucified with Christ, buried with Him, raised with him, and with Him set in heaven. There is then a heavenly, a heavenly kingdom, to be inherited by them that mourn in Zion. Heirs of God are they and co-heirs of Christ.
And the joy given these mourners springs from the certain knowledge that they belong to Christ, their faithful Savior, that with Him their life is hidden in God, that when Christ appears they will appear with Him in glory and come into the actual possession of the kingdom, into the possession of their reward.
Thus they have joy. But this joy is not of them. It is a gift of the Spirit of Christ, the oil with which they are anointed, they being priests unto God. And Him do they praise, and their praise too is the garments that He gives. Of themselves they do not praise, cannot praise, but only revile His name, they being by nature dead in sin. But He clothes them with praise as with a garment, and they bless His name, declare His glories, magnify their Redeemer God.
The reason that this praise is called a garment is not that it issues not from their hearts, but the reason is that it originates not in them but in God who redeemed them.
Thus will He adorn them who mourn in Zion that they may be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that He may be glorified.
The tree in Scripture is the symbol of durability, of that which cannot be moved. The mourners are therefore called trees.
They shall never be moved, as they are righteous. But their righteousness is not of them. Christ is their righteousness. They are planting of the Lord, and therefore He, not they, will be glorified.
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Post by Admin on Jan 6, 2024 15:29:00 GMT -5
2/15/1941
The Choice of the Apostates
OPHOFF GEORGE M
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Home / Archive / Vol 17 Issue 10
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If a man walking in the spirit of falsehood do lie, saying, I will prophesy unto thee of wine and corn; he shall even be the prophet of this people. Micah 2:11.
Many such men there were in Judah, men prophesying of corn and wine, of earthly prosperity and sensual enjoyment when they should have been predicting judgment and doom. So they were lying. Their prophesying, as they did, characterized them as men who walked after vanity and deceit, thus in the spirit of falsehood.
Yet in their prophesying they were apparently in line with at least parts of Micah’s discourse. He, too, painted the future gloriously bright. He said that in the last days the mountain of the house of the Lord should be established in the top of the mountains, and should be exalted above the hills, that people should flow into it, that many nations should come and say, “Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, and to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us His ways, and we will walk in His paths: for the law shall go forth of Zion, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. He said further that the God of Jacob should judge among many people, and rebuke strong nations afar off; that they should beat their swords into plow-shares and their spears into pruning hooks; that nation should not lift up the sword against nation, but that they should sit every man under his vine and under his fig tree; and that none should make afraid, (chap. 4:1-4).
So spake Micah. Both he and the false prophets hold out hope. But the hope of the former is true. It will not put to shame. The hope of the latter is vain. It will put to shame indeed, as it is the hope of the world that lieth in darkness, of the wicked, of the apostate Israel. How steeped in sin these apostates are. “They devise iniquity, and work evil upon their beds; when the morning is light, they practice it, because it is in the power of their hands.” No one can prevent their crimes, for their wealth and power enable them to do anything they please. They rob poor property owners of their holdings, that is, of the hereditary portion of the land assigned to each family at the time of the conquest and guarded by the “Jubilee Law” (chap. 1:1, 2). Widows, who are without defenders they drive from their possessions. They tear the mother from the children by selling them to different masters. Such is the treatment the nobles accord to the poor and the needy. They pounce upon their victims without provocation; as they pass by peaceably, attending to their own business, they fall upon them. Pull off the robe with the garment. (chap. 2:8, 9, 10) Such are the doings of the heads of the people, of the princes of Israel, of the magistrates (chap. 3:1). They hate the good. Wrongdoing has become their second nature. They have become utterly perverted. Their corruption expresses itself in cruelties that amaze. They flay the poor people alive, tear the flesh from their bones; they break their bones, chop them in pieces, boil them in the caldron, and devour them (3:3). These expressions are not to be taken literally as applying cannibalism; they are vivid pictures of heartless cruelty and oppression. They built up Zion with blood, and Jerusalem with iniquity. (chap. 3:10) The houses of the rich are full of the treasures of wickedness. The balances of the merchant class are wicked and its weights deceitful. The rich men are full of violence. The inhabitants of the land speak lies and their tongue is deceitful in their mouth (chap. 3:10, 11, 12). The statues of Omri are being kept, and all the works of the house of Ahab; and in their counsels do they walk (6:10). “The good man is perished out of the land (of Judah): and there is none upright among them; they all lie in wait for blood; they hunt every man his brother with a net” (7:2). Anxiously they are looking for opportunity to commit robbery and violence; and to accomplish their desire they are quite ready to shed blood. They quench the instincts of love and sympathy; they are scheming continuously to do harm to one another.
Such, mark you, were the conditions prevailing in the church of Micah’s day. The picture here hung up by the prophet is not that of the moral rottenness of some pagan commonwealth but of Judah. But despite their wickedness, these apostates insisted that corn and wine would continue to be their portion, that God would continue to prosper them and to cause them to dwell securely in His country. He had promised, “Then I will give you rain in due season, and the land shall yield her increase, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit. And your threshing shall reach unto the vintage, and the vintage shall reach unto the sowing time: and you shall eat your bread to the full, and dwell in your land safely. And I will give peace in the land, and ye shall lie down and none shall make you afraid. . . . And ye shall chase your enemies, and they shall fall before you by the sword. (Lev. 26:4-7) This promise was there, written into their law by Moses. But this good would be theirs only “if ye walk in my statutes, and keep my commandments, and do them” (Lev. 26:3). This the apostates do not deny. They even say that they want it so and would have it no different. This is evident from statements occurring in Micah’s discourse. However, despite their sinfulness, they insist that they are walking in God’s statutes and keeping His commandments and that thus they have no sin. And what they have reference to is their coming before the Lord “with burnt offerings, with calves of a year old, in a word, to their keeping His law as to its letter. And this they do, these apostates. They appear devoutly religious. Their sacrifices are many. They appear before the Lord. They tread His courts. They observe the new moons and the Sabbaths. They call assemblies. They keep the solemn feasts. They spread forth their hands before God’s face, and make many prayers (Micah 6:6, 7; Isa. 1:11-15). But their religion has become a matter of form. They think that ceremonial observances will meet all the Lord’s requirements, and that, as long as the external acts of worship are scrupulously performed, they are entitled to God’s favor and protection. Such is their false notion. And despite their sinfulness, “yet will they lean upon the Lord, and say, Is not the Lord among us? no evil will come upon us” (Micah 3:11).
“Is not the Lord among us?” They still have need of the Lord and also of a prophet to prophesy to them. But the man they desire is one who will fall in with them respecting their appraisal of self, one who is willingly ignorant of the sins of the nation and who refrains from upbraiding it on account of its sins, one who agrees that the people through their ceremonial observances are fulfilling the law and are therefore objects of God’s endearment, thus one who is ready to prophesy to them of wine and corn and assure them that no evil will come upon them. They have no difficulty in finding such a man. And finding, they say, “This man shall be our prophet.” And the man makes it a point to please them. But in pleasing them, he walks after wind and deceit and doth lie. But he is willing. For he devines for money, yet he poses as one who leans upon the Lord (3:11). But the apostates will have him.
But they cannot endure Micah. And there is reason. He is God’s prophet. He knows himself to be such. For he feels himself full of power by the Spirit of the Lord. Such is his testimony. “But truly I am full of power by the Spirit of the Lord, and of judgment and of might, to declare unto Jacob his transgression, and to Israel his sin” (3:8). And he does declare. In opposition to the contention of the false trumpeters that the people have no sin, Micah exclaims, “Hear this, I pray you, ye heads of the house of Jacob, and princes of the house of Israel, that abhor judgment, and pervert all equity. They build up Zion with blood, and Jerusalem with iniquity” (3:9). He strikes at the misapprehension of the people that in their ceremonial observances they are meeting the requirements of true religion, “Wherewith shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before the high God? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings. . . . Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God” (6:7, 8). Over against the prophecy of wine and corn, Micah places his prediction of utter desolation of Zion, “Therefore shall Zion for your sakes be plowed as a field, and Jerusalem shall become heaps, and the mountain of the house as the high places of the forest” (3:12). The false prophets assure the sinners that the Lord is among them and that none evil can come upon them (3:2). But let them hear what the Lord saith, “Behold, against this family do I devise an evil, from which ye shall not remove your necks; neither shall ye go haughtily, for the time is evil. In that day shall one take up a parable against you, and lament with a doleful lamentation, and say, We be utterly spoiled. . . .he hath changed the portion of my people, how hath he removed it from me; turning away, he hath divided our fields” (23:4).
This doom, it is to be noticed, is presented by the prophet as already having taken place. It shall therefore come to pass. “For her wound is incurable; for it is come unto Judah; he is come unto the gate for my people, even to Jerusalem” (1:8).
But what about the truth to Jacob, and the mercy to Abraham, which the Lord has sworn unto them from the days of old? The Lord will perform them. He will pardon iniquity and pass by the transgression of the remnant of His heritage. He retaineth not His anger forever, because He delighteth in mercy. He will again turn. He will have compassion over His people. He will subdue their iniquities; and will cast all their sins into the depths of the sea” (7:18-20). He will surely assemble all of Jacob; He will surely gather the remnant of Israel. (2:12) Out of Bethlehem shall come forth to God one that is to be ruler in Israel: whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting. Therefore will the Lord give them up, until the time that she which travaileth, namely, the church, hath brought forth; then the remnant of his brethren shall return unto the children of Israel. (5:3).
This is the hope that Micah holds out to the remnant. It is the hope not of the earthy (wine and corn) but of the heavenly, thus of a bliss the essence of which is the everlasting fellowship of a redeemed remnant with God in Zion, of a remnant that passes through fire and water to glory. How it is possible for the Lord to have compassion on this remnant, the prophet does not say. He does not understand. But that God forgives this remnant fills him with joyful amazement, “Who is a God like unto thee that pardoneth iniquity.”
Such then was the content of the prophecy of Micah. It was a prophecy whose content was heavenly, and therefore both terrible and glorious. The apostates, the carnal Israel hated and despised this prophecy. They despised Micah. They bade him to cease prophesying. “Prophesy ye not,” they said. They did not believe Micah. They did not believe his prediction of doom. This can be explained. At the time that this prediction was uttered, Judah was enjoying a prosperity unequaled since the days of David and Solomon. To the apostates Micah’s prediction did not square with reality; that of the false prophets did. So they believed the latter. For they were unwilling to forsake their sins and turn to God. Yet Judah already was being threatened by the allied forces of Damascus and Israel. The real crisis came during the reign of Ahaz. The Assyrians advanced with great rapidity. But God punished the two nations and Judah was saved. This again must have proved to the apostates that the prophecy of Micah was false. It was not until about a hundred years later that Micah’s prophecy went into fulfillment. Then Judah was carried to Babylon.
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Post by Admin on Jan 6, 2024 15:49:27 GMT -5
12/1/1942
The Coming of the Blessings of Abraham on the Gentiles
OPHOFF, GEORGE
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Home / Archive / Volume 19/1943 / Vol 19 Issue 05
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(The Spread of the Gospel in the First Three Centuries)
Wrote Paul in his epistle to the Galatians: “Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: . . . that the blessings of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles.” The last clause of this scripture is the statement of a purpose, which began to be achieved shortly after the ascension of the resurrected Christ. It is the coming of these blessings on the elect of God among the gentiles in the first three centuries of our Christian era that forms the subject of this essay. We arrange our materials under the following two points: (1) The fact as such; (2) Its cause.
In treating this subject, historians in general speak of the spread of Christianity. But because this term is being used today as the signification of the worldly culture and civilization of the Christianized nations of the earth, I avoided it in the formulation of my theme.
All the aforesaid blessings are included in the salvation of Christ, which consists in the forgiveness of sins on the ground of Christ’s atonement, deliverance from the dominion of sin, and life everlasting. These blessings come on men through the immediate wonder-working power of God’s grace in men and through the preached gospel of Christ as sanctified to their hearts. So, treating our first point consists firstly in taking notice of the spread of the gospel among the gentiles in these first three centuries and secondly in inquiring whether the number salutarily affected by the preaching of it may be said to have been small or large.
(1) The first part of the earth to which the gospel was carried is Asia. The apostles themselves preached it in Palestine, Syria, and Asia Minor. According to a legend, the apostles Thomas and Bartholomew brought it to India. But it is more likely that this was done by the Christian teacher Pantaenus of Alexandria, who journeyed to that country about 190. In Egypt, more particularly, in Alexandria, the Old Testament Scriptures were translated into Greek two centuries before our era, and through this version the teachings of the Old Testament Bible were spread throughout the Roman-Graeco world. According to an ancient tradition, the gospel of Christ reached Alexandria through Mark the Evangelist. From Lower Egypt it was carried to Middle and Upper Egypt and the neighboring provinces before the year 236.
The gospel was preached in proconsular Africa i.e., in those provinces of Africa governed from out of Rome, before the close of the first century. It spread rapidly over Mauratania and Numidia.
It was from Jerusalem that the gospel reached Rome and from here it spread further and further west to all the cities of Italy before the year 255. By the year 177 it had already penetrated southern Gaul (Modern France), coming hither in all likelihood from the East.
Spain became acquainted with the gospel probably before the year 150. Paul one purposed to journey to Spain and Clement of Rome affirms that he preached there. But there is no evidence of his labors in Spain recorded.
Already in these centuries, just when is not known, the gospel was conveyed to those parts of Germany that belonged to the Roman empire and even to Britain at the close of the second century.
We do not now occupy ourselves with the conversion of the barbarians of Northern and Western Europe as this did not commence before the fifth and sixth centuries.
The gospel-preaching in those lands reached by it in these first three centuries bore fruit, just how much may be estimated from the statements occurring in the writings of the church fathers of this time and from other recorded facts.
There is the statement of Justin Martyr, who wrote about the middle of the second century: “There is no people, Greek or Barbarian, or any other race, by whatsoever appellation or manners they may be distinguished, however ignorant of arts or agriculture, whether they dwell in tents or wander about in covered wagons—among whom prayers and thanksgivings are not offered in the name of the crucified Jesus to the Father and Creator of all things”. There has come down to us a writing of Tertullian, who labored a half century later, in which he addresses the heathen: “We are but of yesterday, and yet we already fill your cities, islands, camps, your palace, senate and forum; we have left to you only your temples.” It is evident on the surface of these and similar statements of other fathers, that we have to do here with rhetorical exaggerations. Though God had His people also among the higher and educated classes, the statement, for example, that the Roman senate and forum were filled with them runs contrary to fact. But it is fairly certain that at the end of the third century, the gospel was being received and rejected and God’s people persecuted, in every province and every city of the Roman empire. There is an edict of Maximian, in which he asserts that “almost all” had turned against the worship of their ancestors and embraced the new sect. In the middle of the third century, the church of Rome alone, according to Eusebius, had one bishop, forty-six presbyters, seven deacons with as many sub deacons, fifty readers, and fifteen hundred widows and poor persons under its care. It might indicate that this church numbered some fifty or sixty thousand members. If so, about one-twentieth of the population of the city affiliated with this brotherhood.
At the close of the third century, the numerical strength of the Christians in Spain, North Africa and Egypt must have been considerable. In 306 the council of Elvira, Spain, numbered nineteen bishops. A synod of eighty-seven bishops assembled at Carthage in 258, and in 308 the Donatists held a council of two hundred md seventy bishops in this city. In the year 235, at a council of Alexandria, the different parts of the land of Egypt were represented by twenty bishops.
The number of Christians at this time is a matter of pure conjecture, there being no statistics. The estimation of this number consequently varies with different writers. Perhaps the estimate that sets the number at one-twentieth on the average at the time of Constantine (306) is most nearly correct. This number would include those who were Christians in name only so that it continued to be true that the genuine people of God formed but a little flock. But fifty years later the whole population of the civilized world which was then commensurate with the Roman empire was nominally—mark you, nominally—Christian. This is looked upon by historians as an astonishing fact. Yet the fact is not at all astonishing, considering the changed condition—the cessation of persecution and the great favors bestowed upon the church by the mighty Constantine surnamed The Great.
It was said at that time by the enemies of the truth that the Christians formed a sect composed almost entirely of the dregs of the populace—of peasants and mechanics, of boys and women, of beggars and slaves. This and similar statements coming, as they did, from the adversaries of God’s people, doubtless are overdrawn. Yet they agree pretty well with Paul’s description of the social status of God’s people of that day: “For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, but God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise, and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things that are mighty; and base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are: that no flesh should glory in his presence” (I Cor. 1:26-29). But the poverty of the poor and the misery of the oppressed do not as such, apart from the wonderworking power of God’s redeeming grace in the hearts of the poor and the oppressed, incline them to the reception of the gospel. In themselves the poor are as ill-disposed toward the gospel of Christ as are the rich and the noble. The apostle rests with the phenomenon, which he sets forth, in God. “God has chosen. . .”
Until the time of Constantine, the circumstances of the people of God were hard indeed. As Christians they had no legal standing in the Roman Empire. First they were despised as a Jewish sect, then slandered and persecuted as treasonable innovators so that, confessing Christ, they were always exposed to the punishment of confiscation and death.
(2) The cause of the coming of Christ’s blessings on the gentiles. Here we mean to inquire after the cause of the gentiles’ receiving the gospel, What is this cause? The question shouldn’t be hard to answer. Yet historians in general have difficulty with it. They speak not of cause but of causes—“the causes of the success of Christianity”. As to what these causes may be there is no agreement among them.
The progress of Christianity is traced to the following causes: the zeal of the Christians; the belief in future rewards and punishments; the power of miracles; the morals of the Christians; the compact church organization. Other causes mentioned are: the intrinsic excellency and remarkable adaptation of the gospel to the wants of the times in the Old Roman Empire; the internal evidence of apparent fulfillment of recorded prophecy and miracles to the truth of Christianity; the internal evidence of satisfying the acknowledged need of a redeemer and sanctifier, the goodness and holiness manifested in the lives of the believers; the perfect teachings and example of Christ, etc.
Assuredly, the teachings of Christ are perfect, the doctrines of the Bible are true, Christ did set a perfect example—how could it be otherwise—the zeal of these early Christians was great and there morals pure. However, to trace the cause of the progress of Christianity to the perfection of Christ’s teaching and to the intrinsic excellency of the gospel and to its remarkable adaptation to the wants of the gentiles, is to make it impossible for one’s self to explain the rejection of the gospel by the great majority of men of the Gentile world; is to tacitly assume that, apart from God’s regenerating and sanctifying grace, the gentiles wanted this gospel, were aware that they needed it and thus were also waiting for it; is thus to assume that apart from this grace, the gentiles were good men and being the good men that they were, felt themselves attracted to God’s good gospel. This is actually the prevalent view.
Man, being dead in sin, hates God’s good gospel. So, the cause of the progress of Christianity is God, the power of his wonder—working grace in His elect. The gospel enters in here as means—God’s means, and as such, certainly, the gospel as preached and as dwelling richly in the hearts of God’s people, producing in them fruits worthy of repentance—a godly conversation—is of greatest significance, of significance not as a cause but as God’s means—a means without which the church could not be gathered. This God’s people must always be mindful of.
That historians seem to be at a loss how to explain what they are pleased to call “the success of Christianity”, shows how events and movements in time will baffle us if, in our reasonings about these events we fail to take cognizance of the fact and truth that through God, from God and unto God are all things.
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Post by Admin on Jan 6, 2024 16:04:12 GMT -5
6/15/1942
The Angel of the Lord in the Old Testament Scriptures
OPHOFF GEORGE M
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Home / Archive / Vol 18 Issue 18
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In the light of these observations certain perplexing passages in the book of Exodus take on meaning for us. One such passage is the promise which God made to Moses shortly after the arrival of the people of Israel in the wilderness, and which reads in part, “Behold, I send an angel before thee, to keep thee in the way, to bring thee into the place which I have prepared. Beware of him and obey his voice. . . .” (Ex. 23:20-23). This announcement should not cause us to look forward to the appearance in subsequent chapters of a creature-angel to bring the people of Israel to Canaan. The angel here promised has already made his appearance. He is the angel—the angel of the Lord—whom the scriptures identify with. Jehovah and associate with the pillar of cloud and fire—the sign of his hidden presence. He was now for the first time promised and his presence in the camp announced, the reason being that, in reply to their reception of covenant, (Ex. 19:17, 18), the people of Israel had virtually just been constituted a holy nation to declare God’s praises and the army of God to war his warfare. Thus the need had been created of a captain, guide and shepherd to lead the people and to go before them as the terror of God to intimidate the enemy. This need was supplied by the angel already present but now for the first time introduced to the nation. Being sent by the Lord and being the equal of God even, the people were admonished to beware of Him and obey (His voice in that He would not pardon transgression.
Another such passage is Ex. 33:1-3, “And the Lord said unto Moses, Depart and go up hence, thou and the people which thou hast brought up out of the land of Egypt, unto the land which I sware unto Abraham. And I will send an angel before thee; and I will drive out the Canaanite. . . . for I will not go up in the midst of thee; for thou art a stiff-necked people: lest I consume thee in the way.” The Lord has a conflict with His people on account of their great sin. They have caused Aaron to make a golden calf. The people are pardoned; but their pardon is limited by the fact that Jehovah will not go in the midst of the people to Canaan, because in that case they would expose themselves to destruction through their sins, for they are a stiff-necked people; but that He will send an angel before them. Just what is the force of this threat? The passage, taken on its face meaning, asserts that, if hitherto Jehovah has gone up in their midst, He will henceforth withdraw Himself and cause His place to be taken by the angel. But this cannot be the thought conveyed. For God and the angel—so it appeared—are one and the pillar of cloud is the symbol of the presence of both. Hence, the notice cannot be taken as an announcement of a subsequent separation of the two.
Another explanation has it that he who says to Moses, “I will not go up in the midst of thee, “is Jehovah in the fullness of the revealed glory of the angel and that the angel to be sent is Jehovah in the obscuration of the glory of this same angel—the angel of the Lord. Thus on account of the stiff-neckedness of the people, the revelation of God will henceforth veil itself.
This explanation is as unlikely as the one first examined. What must be taken into account also here is that the angel of the Lord and Jehovah, though distinct, the one from the other, are yet one. The passage is to be paraphrased thus: “And the Lord, the triune Jehovah, said unto Moses through His angel, Depart, go up hence, thou and thy people. . . . and I will send an angel. In and through my angel I will go before thee and will drive out the Canaanite. . . . For neither I nor my angel will go up in the midst of thee; for thou art a stiff-necked people: lest I consume thee in the way.”
Thus, both Jehovah and the angel will go before them and neither will go up in their midst. The proof of the correctness of this interpretation is the subsequent doing of Moses. He takes the tabernacle and pitches it without the camp, afar off from the camp (vs. 7). Then we read, “and it came to pass, as Moses entered into the Tabernacle, the cloudy pillar descended, and stood at the door of the tabernacle, and talked with Moses” (vs. 9). “And the Lord spake unto Moses face to face. . . .” (vs. 11). So then, the cloud—the angel of the Lord—as well as Jehovah goes into seclusion. In the Old Dispensation Christ, too, was holding His people at a distance from Him and this for pedagogical reasons.
A right understanding of the relation which the angel of the Lord and the Triune covenant God sustain to each other greatly aids one in grasping the sense and meaning of the last half of chapter 33 of the book of Exodus and In discerning the thought-processes m this difficult passage. In verse 12 Moses complained to the Lord that “thou sayest unto me, Bring up this people: and thou hast not let me know whom thou wilt send with me. . . .” So the text reads in our English Bible. But this should have been translated, “But thou hast not made me to know him or the one whom thou wilt send.” Moses’ complaint is not that God failed to tell him whom He would send. Jehovah has told. He will send His angel with Moses (vs. 2). Nor does Moses fail to comprehend that the angel is to be identified with Jehovah. That he has understanding of this is plain from his repetition of the complaint in vs. 13, “Now therefore, I pray thee, if I have found grace in thy sight, shew me now thy way, that I may know thee. . . .’’—know thee Jehovah, Moses first says, “Make me to know him whom thou wilt send” i.e., the angel; and then, “that I may know thee “O my God.” It indicates that in his mind the angel and Jehovah stand out as being one, so that to know the angel was to know Jehovah. It also indicates that his request is not that the Lord tell him whom He will send but that He make him to know better than He has heretofore done, His, Jehovah’s own blessed self, i.e., that God give him a clearer and more perfect revelation of Himself in the face of the angel (who is Christ) and thus also a more perfect knowledge of the way in which He saves His people. Living, as he did, in the Old Testament Dispensation, his knowledge of this way was most imperfect. The Lord replies, “My presence shall go with thee and I will give thee rest” (vs. 14). It will appear that this answer is suitable if it be considered that what Moses desires is a clearer revelation of God in the totality of His attributes, a view of God perhaps such as cannot be realized except in the incarnate Son of God, thus a revelation of God’s glories such as the church at that time was not prepared to receive. The Lord’s reply is to be paraphrased thus, “Why dost thou desire that I show thee more of myself. My presence (face in the original) shall go with thee and I will give thee rest. Is this not enough for thee?”
Moses’ request was essentially identical with that made to the Lord by Jacob at Peniel when he said to the Lord, “Tell me, I pray thee, thy name” (Gen. 32:29). God’s answer to Jacob was, “Wherefore is it that thou dost ask after my name.” “And He blessed him there.” Essentially this, too, was God’s answer to Moses. Instead of yielding to his request, the Lord blessed him (and with him the people of Israel according to the election) in His declaring, “My face will go with thee and I will give thee rest.”
Let us lay hold on the thrust of this promise. Isaiah identifies the face of Jehovah with the angel (of the Lord) by the statement, “And the angel of His face saved them…. (Isa. 63:9). Thus the promise is to the effect that God’s Christ—the gracious countenance of the Lord—will go with Moses. The significance of this affirmation can be comprehended only in the way of distinguishing between God by Himself and God in His relation of the Father of Christ. By Himself, as standing outside this relation, He could only find it in Him to destroy this people. For His eyes are too holy to behold sin; and they in themselves are ill-deserving because of their guilt. It is only in the relation of Christ’s God and Father that He can keep mercy for thousands, forgive transgression, iniquity and sin, be for His people, give them the ascendency over the adversary, and give them rest, mark you, rest. The word includes all the blessings accruing from Christ’s atonement, thus life everlasting in opposition to eternal doom and desolation. It is only in the relation of Christ’s God that He can bring them into being a peculiar people and empower them to declare His praises. And it is precisely in their possessing Him in this relation that they are separated from the world.
It is in this relation of the God and Father of the angel—His gracious face, Christ Jesus—that He, the Triune Jehovah, through His angel, will go with them. The promise is thus of utmost significance. It spells life with God for Moses and his people. It means that eventually his desire to see God as he is will be gratified but that for the present he must be content to live by this promise.
That Moses had sufficient understanding of this word of God to him to sense its import, is evident from his reply, “If thy face go not, carry us not up hence. For wherein shall it be known that I and thy people have found grace in thy sight? It is not that thou goest with us,” Thou, thy face, thou in the relation of the angel’s Father? “So, solely through Thy going with us in this relation, shall we be separated, I and thy people, from all the people that are upon the face of the earth” (vs. 15, 16).
“If thy face go not, carry us not up hence”. Life with Christ’s God in the wilderness is much to be preferred above life in Canaan without God; for apart from Him life is death, it matters not how filled that life may be with a material abundance, the good of this earth. And the sole evidence before men that Christ’s God is the God and Father of Christ’s people is that in and through Christ He go with them, vanquish their adversaries and make them to inherit the earth and on it fellowship with them. Therein precisely it is known that His people find grace in His sight. “Therefore, Lord, go thou with us, thy face Lord!” Such is Moses’ request. And the Lord responds, “I will do this thing also that thou hast spoken. . . .” Indeed, how could He show Himself unwilling to do this thing, seeing, “that thou hast found grace in my sight, and I know thee (and thy people) by name” (vs. 17), seeing that I love thee and in that love know thee by the name that bespeaks what thou art by the power of my grace—sons of Christ’s God.
Taking fresh courage at the hearing of these gracious words, Moses in his mind returns to his original request to which he now gives expression in this language, “I beseech thee show me thy glory, ‘reveal to me more of thy blessed self’ (vs. 18). That the glory of God, which Moses desires to see, is God’s face is plain from His reply, “Thou canst not see my face for there shall no man see me and live” (vs. 20). Here the Lord identifies His glory with His face. But what is to be understood by the Lord’s face? Is it the divine essence as such, the express i.e., the archetypal image of God, or the revelation of this image, the visible manifestation of the totality of God’s attributes in the human nature of Christ? The latter certainly. There is proof of this. Isaiah identifies God’s face with the angel of the Lord in this language, “And the angel of his face saved them” (Isa. 63:9). The angel, as was shown from the scriptures, is Christ. That the face of God is His glory visibly manifested is further evident from this that it was made to pass by Moses and that the reason he saw it not was that the hand of the Lord covered him while it passed by. (Ex. 33:21-23), so that what Moses saw was the “back parts” of God’s face, the glory of the triune Jehovah obscured. What passed by is the pillar of cloud, which at that moment was made to assume an aspect of such unearthly splendor that the sight of it was more than Moses could have endured without perishing.
Also God’s face then is Christ Jesus, the Son of God in His office of Mediator, visibly manifested on the earth first in human form, then in the pillar of cloud, and lastly in the foulness of time in the man Jesus. The face of God is now the glorified human nature of Christ which we see through a glass—the Scriptures—darkly. Thus in the Old Dispensation God’s face was the Cloud, the visible symbol of the Lord’s presence. It went before the people to lead them in the way; and its glory filled the sanctuary. Yet Moses was told that he could not see God’s face? What the Lord had reference to is either a splendorous revelation of the archetypal image of God’s attributes such as no man either in this life or in the life to come but God only can and does behold or a revelation of this image as only the saints in glory can and do behold. This latter is in all likelihood the case.
Let us now go back to vs. 19. “And he said, I will make all my goodness pass before thee, and I will proclaim the name of the Lord before thee; and will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will shew mercy.”
This scripture makes mention of God’s goodness and name. The surrounding scriptures make mention of His glory and face. Both are the visible radiance of His goodness. And in the latter is comprehended the totality of all His virtues. And this is His name. Moses will see all God’s goodness not in its highest but only in its obscured radiance. This vision will be accompanied by the spoken word. The symbol—here the pillar of cloud—is mute without the word. The Lord will also proclaim His name before Moses. Preparation is now made for the fulfillment of this promise. There is a place by the Lord, a cleft of the rock. The Lord puts Moses in this cliff and covers him with His hand. Then “the Lord descended in the cloud”—mark you, the cloud—“and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the Lord.” The one who proclaims is not Moses but the Lord. “And the Lord passed by (in the cloud) before him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long- suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that by no means will clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children’s children, unto the third and to the fourth generation” (Ex. 34:5-7).
What Moses receives is a dim vision of all the features of God’s glory, such as that which terrified Isaiah (Isa. 6) and such as was manifested in Christ. He sees, as was said, the “back parts” of God’s face—parts which correspond to the glass—God’s Scriptures—through which is now seen the glory of Christ darkly. The brilliance of the revelation of God’s glory in the full sense would destroy Moses. For he is yet a man with an eye that is both earthy and sinful. In his vision John saw one like unto the Son of man with hair white like wool, as white snow and with eyes as a flame of fire. It was the glorified Christ. And when John saw Him he fell as dead at His feet. Believers in this life cannot see God’s face unobscured. Hence they now see through a glass darkly and know in part and prophesy in part. Spiritually they remain children in this life and also speak as children of things heavenly in terms of an earthy language. And this was true especially of Moses, as he lived in an epoch in which the Spirit was not yet come. Therefore he, more so than we, spake as a child, understood as a child, and thought as a child.
Paul knew a man in Christ, whether in the body he could not tell, or whether out of the body, he could not tell, caught up to the third heaven, in paradise, where for a moment he stood face to face with the heavenly. And he heard unspeakable words—words not lawful for a man to utter and that no man can utter who still bears the image of the earthy and is occupied in his mind with earthy images of the heavenly.
When Christ will appear the glass through which we now see so darkly, will have served its usefulness and therefore will vanish away as did the ceremonies of the law at the first coming of Christ. For that which is perfect will then have come and that which is in part will be done away with. Then we shall know even as we are known (1 Cor. 13).
The proclamation of the Lord was as obscure as the glory of God that was made to pass by Moses was dim. The Lord is He who forgives iniquity and sin but who by no means will clear the guilty. How paradoxical this must have sounded in Moses’ ears. The fact and truth set forth by this word of God was not comprehended by Moses in all its implication. It is a word that can be understood only when contemplated in the light of the New Testament Scriptures.
It is plain that the goal of revelation during the Old Testament Dispensation was the incarnation of the
Son of God and the dwelling of the triune covenant God with men in and through God’s Son. The human form in which He at important points in the history of the patriarchs appeared to them; the pillar of cloud that went before the people of Israel to lead them in the way the tabernacle over which this cloud would hover during the rest-periods of Israel’s march through the wilderness—all prefigured the human nature that in the fullness of time the Son of God was to assume. This cloud had access to Him but only through the mediation of priests and in the world only through the mediation of the prophets. But this temple presence of Christ, of the triune God, ceased when the people of Israel had filled up their measure of iniquity; and Jerusalem abandoned to destruction. In the time succeeding the exile, Christ and through Him God was present in the word but the ark and the cloud were wanting in the temple. Thus forsaken of God, the true Israel waited and longed for a new manifestation of the face of Jehovah. At last the dawn broke. Jehovah once more visited His people but now in the mystery of “God manifested in the flesh.” But His own received Him not. They nailed the manifested in the flesh to the cross. But having died, he rose again unto the justification of His people and ascended into heaven. Then He returned in the Spirit. But the church longs to see His face. This longing will be satisfied in the glorious time of the church upon the new earth, when the tabernacle of God will be with men.
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Post by Admin on Jan 6, 2024 16:09:20 GMT -5
10/1/1942
The Manna
OPHOFF, GEORGE
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Home / Archive / Volume 19/1943 / Vol 19 Issue 01
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Having delivered the people of Israel from their Egyptian bondage, the Lord led them into a region of deserts, waterless tablelands, barren mountain chains and valleys where streams ran dry—the Sinai Peninsula. By bringing them into this trackless wilderness, the Lord took from them every natural resource and in particular bread—such bread as is the product of man’s own industry. It thus seemed as though they were doomed to perish from hunger. The carnal Israel so judged. They said, “Would to God we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the fleshpots, and when we did eat bread to the full; for ye have brought us forth in this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger”. The Lord immediately put the rioting of this unbelief to shame. “Then the Lord said to Moses, behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you . . . And when the dew that lay was gone up, behold, upon the face of the wilderness there lay a small round thing, as small as the hoar-frost on the ground. And when the children of Israel saw it, they said onia to another, it is manna. For they wist not what it was. And Moses said unto them, “This is the bread that the Lord hath given you to eat!” (Ex. 16:4, 15, 16).
It is the manna that forms the subject of this essay. We arrange our remarks under these two points: (1) The purpose of its being sent; (2) Its typical significance.
(1) The purpose of its sending is set forth by the following language contained in one of the final discourses of Moses: “. . . . And he fed thee with manna, which thou knewest not, neither did thy fathers know; that he might make thee to know that man does not live by bread only, but by every word that proceeded out of the mouth of the Lord doth man live”. (Deut. 8:3). The meaning of this scripture is perceived only through a thoughtful consideration of the language here employed. There are two interpretations of this text. The one: Man does not live upon bread alone, i.e., all by itself, solitary, but he lives also by the will of God. Here the contrast is inspired and uninspired earthly bread, such bread as man obtains from the soil through his own industry, so that what, according to this interpretation, the scripture under consideration is held to teach is that ordinary bread cannot nourish life irrespective of God’s will or that he can support life without it or without any means at all. This, certainly, is very true. Ordinary bread, apart from the operation of the word or will of God in it, avails nothing at all. But the context shows that this is not the point to the reasoning of the sacred narrator, not the truth that was meant to be demonstrated by the working of God with which we here have to do.
So we come to the other interpretation. It is this: Man does not live by bread only i.e., by the earthly, nature, but he lives only by the word that proceeded out of the mouth of Jehovah or, as we have it in the original, by every outgoing of the mouth of Jehovah. With this construction upon the text, the contrasts which it presents are: common bread on the one hand and the word of God and the manna on the other. Such are, assuredly, the contrasts, as is evident from this: The Lord, so we read (Deut. 7:3), suffered His people to hunger, that is, through leading them into a trackless wilderness, He deprived them of ordinary bread. In the place thereof He gave them the manna; and by His Word as operative in it, He fed them. Thus the truth set forth, the point to Moses’ argument, is this: Man’s life, his bread of life, is not that ordinary bread at all. Such is the vain imagining of the carnally minded, who say to bread, to the earthly, Thou art my God. Man’s life is Jehovah. It is by His Word that he lives. So, to be pitted against God is certain death. It is, therefore, the part of true wisdom to keep His commandments to walk in His ways, and to fear Him even though the result be that a man lose his earthly bread. For, if Jehovah is man’s life and not that earthly bread, what will it profit a man, though he gain the whole world, and have not God.
So then, the point at issue here is not whether common bread, as uninspired by the Word of God, supports man’s natural life, (it does, certainly) but whether this bread, even as so inspired, is man’s true life. And the teaching here encountered is that it is not. Man’s true life is the Lord, every outgoing of His mouth, as dwelling in the true manna, which is Christ. It was with the view to preparing His Church for the revelation and reception of this truth that the Lord fed the people of Israel with the manna—the bread from heaven—during the period of their residence in the wilderness.
But why did this doing of God—His suffering the people to hunger and His feeding them with the manna—so wonderfully demonstrate to them that man lives not by bread only but by every outgoing of the Lord’s mouth? Firstly, because it was a bread that the Lord rained for them from heaven. Thus it was not from below but from above. It was not brought into being by the ordinary working of God’s providence i.e., it was the product not of the earth—a bread that man obtained from the soil by his own labor—but of a special working of God’s power. It was one of His wonders, a new thing, which, in the language of Scripture “thou knewest not, neither did thy fathers know”. It was therefore so remarkably evident that to live by it was to live by a bread whose appearance could be explained only by the fact that the Lord had spoken, by a bread that was the product of His creative word, and thus an outgoing of His mouth.
But now it seems that there is found in the place where for the first time the bread of heaven was given by Jehovah to His people, a substance—the juice or gum of a sort of tamarisk tree—that resembles this bread in color and form and also bears its name. On the ground of this fact, modern rationalist have denied the miraculous character of the manna of Holy Writ. What the Israelites collected and used was, it is said, merely the natural product of the region where they for a season sojourned. What this reasoning shows is that the natural man is utterly incapable of spiritually apprehending the things which are of the Spirit of God. The plain testimony of the Scriptures is to the effect that there was a miracle performed in the matter. How were the people of Israel made to know that man lives by the outgoing of the Lord’s mouth if not by the production of the manna by His wonderworking power, if not by this bread from heaven? Yet it is not amiss to take the stand that this natural manna formed the natural substratum of the manna from heaven, that, in bringing into being as a substitute for common bread, the Lord took some natural production of the desert and miraculously increased and modified it and so performed a miracle identical to that which Christ performed when he availed Himself of a few loaves of bread and fishes to provide a hungry multitude about Him with a miraculous supply of bread.
There is contained in the books of Exodus and Numbers a rather detailed description of the manna. It is stated that it fell upon the ground round about the camp by night with the dew; that it consisted of small whitish particles, compared to hoar-frost, coriander seed, and pearls; that it melted when exposed to the heat of the sun, and tasted like wafers made with honey, or like fresh oil, that the people went about, and gathered it, and ground it in mills, or beat it in mortar, or baked it in pans, and made cakes of it. Num. 10:7-9; Ex. 16:13-14.
It is easily discernable that in giving this description it was the aim of the sacred narrator to set forth the virtues of the manna. It was a food most pleasant to the taste—it “tasted like wafers made with honey or fresh oil”. It was as pure and wholesome as the dew upon which it, during the night, would fall—it “tasted like fresh oil”. That it corrupted if kept beyond a day and melted when exposed to the sun was not due to its being a light food lacking in substance. It was of such consistence that, like the corn of cultivated lands, it could be ground in the mills and did not melt when subjected to the heat of the ovens. Fact is that its nutritional value was so high as to be phenomenal. It formed the sole article of diet during the period of Israel’s sojourn in the wilderness. By this bread alone they lived and living by it enjoyed perfect health. And the abundance in which it was given was so immense, that there was bread enough for all. The manna of the Scriptures was truly a miracle of the first magnitude. Such being its excellencies, and being a bread rained from heaven by the Lord, thus a bread that was so plainly the very outgoing of His mouth, it was certainly calculated to make known that man lives by every outgoing of the Lord’s mouth alone.
Yet, though a bread of such virtue, and though witnessing for a truth so vital and glorious, the people of Israel in their carnality despised it. On one occasion they said, “Who shall give us flesh to eat? We remember the fish, which we did eat in Egypt freely; the cucumbers, and the melons, and the leeks, and the onions, and the garlick; but now our soul is dried away; there is nothing at all besides this manna before our eyes,” and on another, “Wherefore have ye—Moses and Aaron—brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness ? For there is no bread …. and our soul loatheth this light bread” (Num. 21:5). So, they were willingly ignorant of the all-sufficiency of the manna and thus declined to acknowledge that man’s true bread is the Lord. They lusted after foods that powerfully stimulate the sense organs: onions and leek; and after the luscious melon and the hardy foods, such as meat. Thus they wailed not for nourishment—they had this—but for sensual gratification, for the appeasement of their carnal lusts. It was, in a word, for the things below that they cried. Their loathing of the manna was indicative not of a disturbed digestion but of sick hearts.
(2) The manna was not the true bread, however a miraculous supply of food it was. Its imperfections are indicated by Christ. “Your fathers,” said Christ to the Jews, “did eat manna in the wilderness and are dead”. The reason that the fathers, despite their eating the manna, died was that the manna was for the support of the body and not of the soul. As such, however, it was a type of Christ. The truth of this statement is born out by these very words of Christ, by what He says of himself in connection with the manna and of the manna in connection with the fathers.
Being a type of Christ, the manna conveys certain points of instruction about Christ, namely, the following:
(a) As the manna, so Christ. He is bread. Hence, in His own words, “except ye eat the flesh of the son of man and drink his blood, ye have no life in you”. But, in distinction from the manna, He is the true bread. Hence, whoso eateth His flesh has eternal life; and Christ will raise him up at the last day.
(b) The manna was bread from heaven. Likewise Christ in His office of mediator and as to His human nature. As such He is in the true sense “every outgoing” of the mouth of the triune Jehovah, the God and Father of Christ, the heavenly offspring of Jehovah’s creative word, brought into being by His special working, and thus peculiarly the gift of God, coming freely and directly from His hand. For He was born not by the will of man but of a virgin overshadowed by the power of the Highest.
(c) As the manna on the low earthly plane, so, too, Christ on the heavenly plane, He is the all-sufficient bread of His people. For in Him, in His human nature, dwells the whole fullness of the Godhead. He is, therefore, the sanctification, the justification, the wisdom and the redemption of His people. He is their life. By Him alone do they live and live everlastingly. He is their sole article of diet while they sojourn in this wilderness and forever. For He is every word of the mouth of His God,—every word by which His people live. Every word of blessing and life dwell in Him and are spoken by the Father through Him, who Himself, too, is the word of God in whose face we see God as He is. He being the true bread, should God’s people then go to wailing for the fleshpots of this world? Do they grow in grace by what can be brought up out of these pots?
(d) The manna was plentiful. So, too, Christ, as in Him dwelleth all the fullness of which all His people receive as their need requires. No one need to envy his neighbor on account of anything at all, but all may rejoice in the goodness of God.
There are things connected with the giving and receiving of the manna, which have use for us apart from any typical reference that they may bear to the things of the gospel.
Every man had to gather according to his eating, an omer for every man, according to the number of his dependents. And he that gathered much had nothing over and he that gathered little had no lack. Undoubtedly what took place is this. Some gathered more than was needful for them and some less. The amount, if too large miraculously diminished; if too small, it was found to have increased. The apostle Paul seizes upon this to arouse the rich in the congregation of Corinth to share their abundance with their needy brethren “that there may be equality . . .” so the apostle wrote.
It required faith to live day by day upon the word of the Lord. Unbelief reasoned that on the morrow the new supply of manna might be wanting. As if the Lord could prove Himself unfaithful! Some who, under the constraint of this doubt, used only a part of their portion, would discover to their dismay and shame that what had been hoarded had during the night bred worms and had thus become unfit for human consumption. So was it shown them that it is folly to labor to heap up treasures that cannot be used.
The manna had to be gathered early in the morning because after sun-rise it would melt and vanish away. The lesson to be drawn from this is that what is required of God’s people is that they take diligent heed to do His commandments and be about the business of their Lord with a will. Of the prophets we read over and over that they were wont to rise early in the morning to deliver their messages.
There might be no gathering of the manna on the Sabbath! Neither could there be as on this day no manna fell. But on the sixth day they were commanded to gather twice as much and to lay up the surplus until the morning. Doing so, they found that “it did not stink and neither was there any worm therein”. Some there were who nevertheless went forth on the Sabbath to gather, but they found none. The lesson that comes to us here is that God’s people receive in the six days what is needful for them that on the Sabbath day they may be freed from the necessity of following their earthly pursuits in order that there may be opportunity for them to avail themselves of the spiritual refreshments with which the Lord provides them on the Sabbath.
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Post by Admin on Jan 6, 2024 16:28:36 GMT -5
5/1/1943
The Command to Drive out the Canaanites
OPHOFF, GEORGE
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Home / Archive / Volume 19/1943 / Vol 19 Issue 15
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Let us again get before us the description of Joshua’s task with respect to the enemies of Israel. “When thou comest nigh unto a city to fight against it, then proclaim peace unto it. And it shall be, if it make thee an answer of peace, and open unto thee, then it shall be, that all the people that is found therein shall be tributaries unto thee, and they shall serve thee. And if it will make no peace with thee, but will make war against thee, then thou shalt besiege it: and when the Lord thy God shall deliver it unto thy hands, thou shalt smite every man thereof with the edge of the sword. . . Thus shalt thou do with all the cities which are very far off from thee, which are not of the cities of these nations; but of the cities of these people, which the Lord thy God does give thee for an inheritance, thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth: but thou shalt utterly destroy them: namely the Hittites, and the Amorites, the Canaanites, and the Perizites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites; as the Lord thy God hath commanded thee. . . .” Deut. 20:10 scq.
Let us once more notice that a distinction is here made between the peoples “which are afar off” and the accursed Canaanites. To the former the armies of Israel had to proclaim peace, that is announce to them that not a hair of their head would be harmed, if they surrendered without a struggle and agreed to become tributary to the people of Israel. If the overture of peace was spurned, and the unwilling city made war against Israel, only its male population might be put to death after the battle. The need of this bit of legislation rose from the circumstance that the ideal boundaries of Canaan included many tribes not under the ban of God and thus not predestined to being extirpated. All these tribes were subdued not by Joshua but in after years by king David, who thru these conquests laid the foundation of the peace that characterized Solomon’s reign. “ (For) he had dominion over all the region on this side the river (the river Euphrates) from Tiphsah even to Azzah, over all the kings this side the river: and he had peace on all sides round about him” (1 Kings 4:24). All these kings paid Solomon tribute in earthly substance and also in honor and esteem. Besides these, all the kings of the earth sought his presence to hear his wisdom. And they brought every man his present.’ II Chron. 9:23, 24.
These events and doings have typical bearing and are thus prophetic. The proclamation of peace with which the armies of Israel through their generals had to come to the cities “which are afar off” points to the instructions which Christ gave to the church of the New Dispensation and is thus typical of the gospel preaching. “And into whatsoever city or town you shall enter, enquire who in it is worthy; and there abide till ye go thence. And when ye come into a house, salute it. And if the house be worthy, let your peace come upon it: but if it be not worthy, let your peace return to you. And whosoever shall not receive you, nor hear your words, when ye depart out of that house or city, shake the dust off your feet. Verily I say unto you, it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment than for that city.” (Matt. 10:11 scq.). Here, too, the proclamation of peace is a command, directed to everyone indiscriminately, that he surrender himself to Christ and serve Him and that, doing so, he will be saved, in that God is certainly gracious to His people, the obedient. The house had to be saluted, in all likelihood, by some such saying as, “God bless you,” and with the reservation, “If it be His will.” This greeting, in the text, is identified with peace, and is therefore a prayer for salvation and spiritual fellowship in behalf of the house that was entered.
The unworthy cities encountered by the armies of Israel, were to be immediately punished through the slaying of the male population, while the punishment of the unworthy houses in the gospel period is postponed to the final judgment day.
The reason that the overture of peace extended to the cities “which are afar off” could have this typical bearing is that the commonwealth of Israel was the custodian of the oracles of God and a holy community setting forth God’s virtues.
Solomon’s reign was a greatly extended rule, characterized by military peace. The true Solomon is Christ as highly exalted and thus with all His enemies His footstool.
We come now to the Canaanites proper, to the tribes which were under the ban of God. Just how had they to be dealt with? According to the above-cited instructions these races of men—both male and female, in a word, everything that breathed, and thus not merely the males among them—had to be destroyed. This line of demarcation between the Canaanites and the surrounding nations is clearly drawn in the above excerpt. The question that confronts us is whether Joshua first had to proclaim peace also to the cities of the Canaanites and whether the execution of judgment upon them, too, was to take effect only in consequence of their unwillingness to surrender and to make peace with Joshua.
The scripture at Deuteronomy 10 scq. is not explicit on this point. This passage does assert that these tribes shall be utterly destroyed; but it does not say that Israel must refrain from first proclaiming peace to them. This has led some interpreters to suppose, as has already been pointed out, that also with respect to the Canaanites the execution of judgment had to be preceded by a proclamation of peace. There is no objection to this supposition as such provided it be understood and maintained that the proclamation was not a declaration of the determinate will of God to free the Canaanites from the curse and to spare them alive, if only they allowed Him to have His way with them by accepting His proposal, but merely a command to the effect that they surrender and live; provided it be understood, further, that also this command belonged to the means by which the Lord, in agreement with land in the execution of, His counsel, sovereignly hardened them in preparation of their doom. If the proclamation of peace be so construed, and if it be maintained that the purpose of its being made to the Canaanites was to harden them, the supposition that it was actually made does not, certainly, render the destruction of the Canaanites more agreeable to unbelief. However presented, God’s works remain thoroughly disagreeable to unbelief.
But the supposition, though as such unobjectionable, is nevertheless erroneous. It collides with the command that the people of Israel “take heed to thyself, lest thou make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land” (Deut. 20:16); “they shall not dwell in thy land, lest they make thee sin against me” (Ex. 24:12) and against the fact that in this warfare with the Canaanites Joshua did not proclaim peace to any of their cities.
If it be asked why peace might not be proclaimed to the Canaanites, the answer is forthcoming that they formed a race of men so completely marked for destruction, that, with the exception of the Gibeonites, there were no houses or families among them to be spared. What this teaches is that the primary purpose of gospel-preaching is the salvation of the elect and that, when this purpose has been achieved, all preaching will cease. It teaches, therefore, that to go forth with a gospel according to which God desires to bring the whole world back to Himself is an utterly vain occupation.
Perhaps the strongest evidence that no peace was proclaimed to the Canaanites was the craft of the Gibeonites. Having heard of the deeds of Joshua, the Gibeonites hit upon a plan of negotiation, but with deceit. They pretend to have come from a country far off to form a league with Joshua. But the thing looks suspicious to the Israelites, hence they ask: “Perhaps thou dwellest in the midst of us, how then can I make a covenant with thee?” To this embarrassing question the Gibeonites reply not at all but say: “We are thy servants.” Joshua is not satisfied and asks again, more pointedly than the others have done, “Who are ye and from whence come ye?” So pressed, the Gibeonites first repeat what they have said before but add that they have come on account of the name of Jehovah, whose fame they have heard, and all that “he did in Egypt and to the two kings of the Amorites, that were beyond the Jordan, to Sihon king of Heshbon, and to Og king of Bashan, which was at Ashtoroth.” They say nothing of Jericho and Ai (to have heard of which might indicate that they lived not very far off) but cunningly confine themselves to what God has done to kings at a distance, even in Egypt. They then recall the commission given them by their elders: “Wherefore our elders and all the inhabitants of our country spake to us saying, Take victuals with you for the journey, and go to meet them, and say unto them, We are your servants: therefore now make ye a league with us.” In conclusion they refer to their moldy bread, their torn wine-skins, and their worn-out clothing in confirmation of their declaration. “This our bread we took hot from our provision out of our houses on the day we came forth to go unto you; but now behold it is dry and it is moldy: and these bottles of wine, which we filled, were new; and behold, they be rent: and these our garments and our shoes are become old by reason of the very long journey.” It is plainly their purpose to convince the Israelites that they belong to the nations “which are afar off”, whom Joshua may spare alive on the condition that they become tributary to the people of Israel. They played their part admirably; for all the doubts which had been expressed are now silent.
The men of Israel took their victuals as a sign of friendship, of inclination to make a league with the Gibeonites. It may also mean that they received the men by reason of the victuals. They did so without asking counsel of the Lord, which they should have done according to the explicit command, Num. 27:21, that the priest Eleazer should seek counsel from God for Joshua through the judgment of Urim and Thummim. And Joshua made peace with them and assured them of preservation from the edge of the sword. The league was confirmed by an oath. The deception was soon discovered. After not more than three days the Israelites hear that the Gibeonites dwell in their very vicinity; yet they spared them because of the oath which the princes had sworn to them. Discontent arises in the camp on this account, but the princes appeal to their oath and are resolved to let them live, lest wrath be upon the Israelites because of the oath. The princes adhere to their resolution, but the Gibeonites, as a penalty for their falsehood, are made wood choppers and water carriers for the congregation and the altar of Jehovah. Joshua communicates to the Gibeonites what has been decided upon. “There shall not fail from among you servants and wood choppers and water carriers.” The Gibeonites plead as an apology their fear of the Israelites and express their readiness to submit to whatever it may please Joshua to do to them. Joshua does as he has informed them “and delivered them out of the hands of the children of Israel, that they slew them not.” The Israelites would certainly, in their warlike zeal, as we may infer from their murmurings, have slain the Gibeonites. But Joshua is in full harmony with the princes, and gives no heed to the murmurings of the people.
This episode proves conclusively that Joshua might not proclaim, and thus was not proclaiming peace, to the races of men in Canaan. For if so, the Gibeonites would not have been afraid and in their fright resorted to trickery in their endeavor to save themselves from the Israelites. They would have known that the same ends could be gained simply by their accepting Joshua’s overtures of peace.
But if peace might not be proclaimed to the Canaanites, how then is the following scripture to be explained, “There was not a city that made peace with the children of Israel, save the Hivites the inhabitants of v;’ eon: all the other they took in battle” (Joshua 11:18), If this scripture be interpreted in the light of what, now has been established as certain, namely that Joshua might not proclaim peace to the Canaanitish cities, then we see that the meaning to be attributed to this notice is that, notwithstanding, if these cities without first making war against Joshua, had surrendered unconditionally and expressed a readiness to become tributary to the Israelites, they would have been spared, and the judgment would not have taken effect. The proof of this is in the experiences of the Gibeonites. “Joshua delivered them out of the hands of the children of Israel, that they slew them not.” True, the princes and certainly also Joshua, though this is not explicitly stated, “let them live, lest wrath be upon us, because of the oath which we sware unto them.” Yet it must not be supposed that the Lord would have ordered the Gibeonites destroyed, or would have allowed them to be destroyed, had the princes not sworn unto them. For, firstly, Joshua was not really bound to keep the oath, which they had sworn to the Gibeonites, after it appeared that the condition on which it had been given did not hold good. Certainly, the condition of the validity of the oath, was the truth of the declaration of the Gibeonites. Yet Joshua delivered them out of the hands of the murmuring Israelites. He did not allow them to be destroyed. Thus, in explaining Joshua’s doing, account must be taken of another factor that entered in, namely, the attitude of the Gibeonites toward Israel and Israel’s God. The Gibeonites give utterance to a remarkable speech. “From a far country thy servants are come because of the name of the Lord thy God: for we have heard the fame of him and all that he did in Egypt. . .Therefore we are thy servants.” After the discovery of their fraud, they say, “Because it was certainly told thy servants, how that the Lord thy God commanded his servant Moses to give you all the land and to destroy all the inhabitants of the land. . . .therefore we were sore afraid. . and now behold we are in thine hand: as it seems good and right unto thee to do unto us, do.” They here cast themselves upon the mercy of Joshua and thus on the mercy of Jehovah. There is certainly no case on record of the Lord ordering men so disposed, destroyed. It is exactly to sinners so disposed to whom God shows favor. Substantially the declaration of the Gibeonites is identical to that of Rahab the harlot. Said she: “I know that the Lord hath given you the land, and that your terror, is fallen upon us. . . .For we have heard how the Lord dried up the waters of the Red Sea for you. . .Our hearts did melt because of you: for the Lord your God, he is God in heaven above, and in earth beneath. . . .” (Joshua 11:10 scq.). Rahab was reckoned among the heroes of faith.
That the Gibeonites were the objects of the Lord’s favor is plain from their after history. In his carnal zeal, king Saul (and his bloody house,) slew the Gibeonites. His object was to exterminate them. Saul’s
doing sorely displeased the Lord; and He sent a famine upon Israel in the days of David. Relief came after three years but not until amends had been made and the crime atoned for by the hanging of Saul’s seven sons. II Sam. 21:1 scq.
Thus the reason that the other Canaanitish tribes were destroyed is that instead of forsaking their sins and turning to Jehovah to own Him as the God in heaven and on earth, as the Gibeonites and Rahab did, they continued to the very end to make war against God and to contempt and deride and defy Him. ‘There ‘was not a city that made peace with the children of Israel save the Hivites.” Rut this was of the Lord. “For it was of the Lord to harden their hearts, that they should come against Israel in battle, that He might destroy them utterly, and that they might have no favor, but that he might destroy them, as the Lord commanded Moses.”
Thus the judgments that finally overtook the Canaanites were doubly deserved. This certainly is plain and must be made plain by anyone treating this subject.
And right here is where some interpreters, and among them Fairbairn, fall short. Though Fairbairn dwells at length on the fact that the sins of the Canaanites “had waxed great and were come up to heaven,” and that therefore the execution of judgment on their sins was deserved, yet, by his neglect to make plain from the scriptures that the Canaanites refused to make peace with Joshua, and thus continued to taunt and defy God. to the very end, he failed to set forth these men in all their wanton and amazing ungodliness. He thus failed to show as he ought, just how abominable these men were and how altogether just, therefore, their destruction. That the Canaanites refused to make peace with Joshua is certainly a matter that must be stressed. Scripture as has been shown stresses it, for a reason just stated. And what must also be stressed is that the Canaanites would certainly have lived had they turned to God. To impress this upon our hearts He spared the Gibeonites in connection with their casting themselves upon the mercy of Joshua. But to this certainly must also be added that the Lord was sovereignly determined to destroy the others and that therefore in His sovereign good pleasure He hardened them.
Fairbairn even makes it appear that it is not true that the Canaanites would have been spared had they turned to the Lord. He sets aside as erroneous the view that, to use his own language, “the execution of judgment upon the Canaanites was only designed to take effect in case of their obstinate refusal to surrender.” Certainly it is one of the foundation truths of scripture that God is merciful, to the sinner who repents. There is, to be sure, a sovereign election, but no one is sent into eternal desolation who truly wants to go to heaven. This, too, must be stressed in treating the doom of the Canaanites.
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Post by Admin on Jan 6, 2024 18:21:13 GMT -5
9/15/1943
The Christian School as a Seat of True Culture
OPHOFF, GEORGE
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Home / Archive / Volume 19/1943 / Vol 19 Issue 22
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First the question: What, in general, is culture. The term culture comes from a word that means to till, cultivate, promote the growth of an organism. In explaining the idea of culture, we may begin with plant culture. Here culture is the labor, the care, that the farmer bestows on the plants that he grows in his fields. He prepares the soil, sows the seed. He thereupon cultivates the plants. He keeps the soil loose, destroys the weeds that spring up around the plants. He feeds the plants through enriching the soil. This is done largely before the sowing of the seed. The plant, properly cultivated, bears fruit. And its fruit is its culture. The apple is the culture of the apple tree; the pear is the culture of the pear tree, and so on. Thus the word culture signifies first the cultural action—the care bestowed upon the plant—and, second, the result of this action, the fruit which the cultivated plant bears.
Now humans, too, are plants. Christ compares men with trees when he says that the good tree bears good fruit and the bad tree, bad fruit. Here He refers to humans, to God’s moral-rational creatures. Being plants, humans can be cultivated, trained, nourished mentally and spiritually. Cultivated humans bear fruit, and this fruit is their culture. Thus the culture of a man is his works, his entire conversation in word, deed, and thought, either good or bad.
What now is true culture? It is the good fruit which Christ’s branches bear. “I” says He, “am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman. . . .ye are the branches. He that abideth in me and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit.” (John 20). In speaking of fruit, Christ refers to the entire good works of His people. So, then, true culture is the entire conversation of God is believing people in word deed and thought in so far as it proceeds from the new life in Christ and is untainted by the sins of the flesh. True culture, it is plain, is true religion. It is therefore wrong to speak of religion and culture. To do so is to indicate that we are void of true understanding; that we do not have the right conception of things. To be correct, we should speak of religion namely culture.
In the light of these observations, it is plain that there is no true culture in the world that lies in darkness. For the men of this world are bad trees. And bad trees bring forth bad fruit.
But doesn’t the world know, let us say, mathematics? True it does. But mathematics, to limit ourselves to this science, is not of the world but of God. Properly, therefore, it does not belong to the culture of the world. Mathematics belongs to nobody’s culture. It is the capital, given man by God, wherewith man works. The culture of the world is the wisdom of the world that is foolishness with God. The culture of the world is the temple of an idol and the idol in that temple. The culture of the world is all that which proceeds from the principle of sin that operates in the world. The culture of the world is the lie, is sin and corruption to which the world gives expression in its philosophy, poetry and art and in all its works. This is the culture of the world. We must not, therefore, go to the world for culture. We must go to Jerusalem for culture i.e. religion.
It follows then that man may be ever so educated, if he is not one of Christ’s, he does not have true culture. The blood in a man may be true blue, as they say, he may be ever so refined, well-mannered and polished or generous and kind, if he is not one of Christ’s, he does not have true culture. A woman may be ever so lovely, gracious, and tender, if she is not one of Christ’s, she does not have true culture. It is the nobility of the soul that proceeds from the new life in Christ that is true culture.
This agrees wholly with what Paul teaches in 1 Corinthians 13. Says he there, “Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels (speaking with the tongues of angels—this certainly is culture), and have not charity, (love in the original; the life of regeneration) I am sounding brass and a tinkling symbol (I do not have true culture). And though I have prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge (i.e., though I be the best educated man in the world, the wisest and the most profound); and though I have faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing (I have no true culture). And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor (this is generosity for you, philanthropy), and though I give my body to be burned (What self-denial!) and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.” (I have no true culture).
Then the apostle goes on to describe true culture. “Charity suffereth long and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself and is not puffed up, doth not behave itself unseemly seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth, beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.”
Let no one imagine that I am casting aspersions upon education. It may be an excellent thing for a man to be educated. As reformed people we believe in a trained ministry. We insist that the men who occupy our pulpits have knowledge of languages, know words, are able to construct sentences; be trained in the art of self-expression, know history, philosophy and theology. Moses was a highly educated man. Likewise Paul. Likewise the great reformers of the 16th century. Let a man learn, if he can, all there is to be known about everything above and under the sun. It is well. But let him remember that education is good only if it goes hand in hand with true culture. Let him remember that education without true culture is a dangerous thing. It is a curse. Better, much better, a minister of the gospel with no education to speak of but with true culture, than a highly educated minister but with no true culture.
If the “man of God” is to bear fruit (I now have reference to our elect covenant youth), he must be cultivated taught, trained. The cultivator of that “man of God” is God Himself. Says Christ, “My Father is the husbandman.” Properly, God through Christ is the sole cultivator, trainer of the “man of God.” God may cast him in the crucible of affliction that his faith may flower. He chasteneth him that he may become partaker of Christ’s holiness. An essential element in the cultivation of the “man of God” is his being fed. God feeds him with the word of truth, thus with Christ who is the truth, the true bread. He feeds this man by causing the word—His word—to dwell richly in him.
In training the “man of God,” God uses agents—the parents of the child, the pastors in the church and the teachers in the school. The school only is the seat of true culture whose teachers are willing and truly qualified to properly train that “man of God.” And here again the essential element in the training of the child is being fed the truth.
Here we come upon the reason why the Christian parent cannot send his child to the schools of the world. The pedagogues in these schools feed the child the lie. But arithmetic is true; and this is taught in the schools of the world. Assuredly, the multiplication tables are true, they being of God and not of man. But in teaching arithmetic, the teacher in the schools of the world proceeds from the lying premise that God is not and that the creature is a god to himself; and so he basically corrupts with his lie God’s arithmetic. And it is this lie that pervades all his instruction.
The “man of God” must be fed the truth and the truth unadulterated. Speaking of the “man of God,” Peter says: “Desire the unadulterated milk, that ye may grow thereby (1 Peter 2). The unadulterated milk is Christ as we possess Him in the scriptures. That “man of God” cannot thrive on the lie; but neither can he thrive on the adulterated truth, on the truth mixed with the lie. “As new born babes,” says the apostle, “desire the unadulterated milk that ye may grow—mark you grow—thereby; that ye may grow thereby—mark you, thereby.” What mother would think of feeding her infant child with poisoned food.
Here we come upon the reason why we as parents of Protestant Reformed persuasion must have our own schools—schools that are seats of true culture. Certainly, it is the will of God that we as parents place ourselves in a position that enables us to choose the teachers for our own children. We may not allow others in distinction from ourselves to determine who shall instruct our children, especially not if those others are brethren holding the theory of common grace, which is nothing else but incipient modernism.
The matter, certainly, is of vital importance. Consider that this “man of God” (our elect covenant youth) is not our man, but God’s. God bought that “man” with the very blood of His only begotten. We hold our children simply as a trust. God says, “Feed that ‘man’ that he may grow and mature and be meet for my use.”
We hear it said, now by this one, then by that one, that we would do wrong in taking our children out of the Christian schools that be; that the thing for us to do is to co-operate with the brethren in improving these schools, in making them what they should be. The fact is, we cannot for the simple reason that we do not hold in our hands the reins of government of these schools. And we never will. In the school boards we are in the minority and will continue to be. The brethren see to this. Now it is the majority that rules. This would not be bad if the split were not on vital issues. But since it is, we, the minority, are in duty bound to go our way alone. The issue is vital also before the consciousness of the brethren. The proof of this is that, with respect to the schools, they see to it that the reins do no slip from their hands. And their holding the reins means, let it be repeated, that they and not we determine who shall teach our children.
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