It may interest those friends who were with us on Saturday, and who were unable to be with us yesterday, to know that we have not moved on in this particular matter before us from the point where we left it on Saturday evening. Yesterday was occupied with other things, so that we are able to go on together from that point in relation to this matter of the cross and the eternal glory.
But here again, just a preliminary word. It is of immense help and value to be able to see the Bible as a whole—to have all that is in it, from the first page to the last page, gathered up under one thing, so that we can see that everything in it is governed by that one thing, or relates to that one thing.
The Bible has become so largely a book of texts, or promises for peculiar needs and situations, and little bits for devotional purposes, or subjects for preaching and teaching. In the main, these are all just detached fragments. Of course, that is all right. We want our promises for our special needs; we want our portions, our daily portions; and we want to understand distinctive subjects.
But it is very much more profitable to be able to see that everything in the Bible relates to one thing, and to see how it does relate to that one thing. In some way or another, everything in the Bible focuses upon one thing. If we can just get our hand upon that one thing, then we have the key for every door in the Bible, every book, and every subject.
And we are, at this time, seeking to bring that one comprehensive and all-inclusive thing into view. I trust that you will take your Bible in the future and always see its parts in relation to the whole. It will make your Bible live for you in a new way if you do that.
Many parts that you will not understand in themselves—too complex, difficult, deep, or even meaningless—will take on new meaning and new life if you can just see how they fit into the whole.
The whole is the eternal glory. From eternity to eternity, God’s object has been a creation, with man at its centre, reflecting Himself as the God of glory. The end to which He is working, and which He will most assuredly realise, is such a universe, just filled with His glory.
The Bible, then, must be seen in the light of that: either as setting forth that which can be glorified, which can come to glory, or, on the other hand, that which must go in order that God may reach it. Those two aspects, then, are governing our thoughts and considerations at this time.
We reached the point on Saturday night, in that first section, of going back before time—before the foundation of the world—and taking account of those intimations given us, especially by our Lord Jesus Himself, as to His place in the pre-creation glory. He sought the Father to glorify Him with the glory which He had with Him before the world was.
Alongside of that, we took another passage indicating that He was not to be alone in that glory, but that God had made known the mystery of His will in this dispensation: that we should be unto the praise of His glory. And that, as you know, is a phrase connected with an elect people, the Church, unto the praise of His glory.
So Christ and His Church are united in those pre-creation hopes and intentions of God, which are made known to us as the mystery of His will—He who worketh all things after the counsel of His own will. We have put that word will in capitals and quotation marks because it is governing. The will led to creative activity, bringing in a new world order at the beginning of this history.
We went on to note the rupture in heaven by a great revolt which took place there, and then its repercussions—or, shall we say, its reproduction—in human history: the capture of man, made for God’s glory.
We ended with the forward thrust of the will, coming right down from the eternity yet to be, the shadow of a Man being thrown right down the ages to the beginning of creation. Adam was a figure of Him that was to come, we are told. From that intimation, the figure of the Man is discernible right through the Bible, in some way or another—what He really is, and what is the caricature of Him, or the contradiction of Him.
By all contradictions, God is forcefully found to be saying, “This is not according to My Man.” The shadow of the Man, then, reaches that end: to realise that glorified Man as filling the whole creation, the shadow of the cross.
I am not an artist. If I were an artist, I would like to throw this diagram in this way: having the resplendent light coming down from the eternity yet to be and throwing its rays upon that cross; and then, through that cross, the shadows of the cross right back over Old Testament history.
Well, that is what it is. It is the glory taking hold of the cross and making the cross its instrument for bringing man to where God intended him to be, and intended him to be from eternity. It is the glory of the cross, and the glory by the cross.
The shadow of the cross is thrown by the very light of eternity down the ages. You cannot have a shadow without light. If you are going to have a shadow of the cross, that must be made by light, and it is the light of the glory. The cross becomes illumined in its meaning and significance by the glory.
That leads us then to this morning and our next phase and stage in this whole matter, which is only, in the first place, an enlargement of what we have just said: mediation and the glory.
This peculiarly characterises that first section of the Bible, the first five books, Genesis to Deuteronomy. Immediately, because of that rebellion in man’s heart, the glory was withdrawn; and, with the great work of redemption and recovery, immediately the altar came into view—or, shall I say, sacrifice came into view.
It is the simplest hint that is given. The word altar is not used, neither is the word sacrifice, but it is certainly implied. You have it in Genesis 3:21:
And the Lord God made for Adam and for his wife coats of skins, and clothed them.
The first intimation of sacrifice is there, in order to repair the damage and meet the situation which had arisen. A covering was demanded. I am not going into all the details; it is not possible to do that. I simply state the fact: there is a lot behind it.
A covering is demanded, and that covering is provided through death—the death of those animals which provided the skins. Most probably, if the rest of Scripture is taken as giving meaning to this, they were lambs, their skins providing this covering.
You will realise at once how full and rich it is when you are reminded that the word which runs right through the whole Bible, atonement, means covering. The very word itself means covering. Atonement and covering signify that atonement was necessary, and was the way back to the glory, or for the recovery of the glory.
Now, there is a very interesting and instructive allusion to this at the other end of the Bible. Go right through to the book of Revelation. Have you found chapter 3? Verse 16:
Because thou art lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spew thee out of My mouth.
Because thou sayest, I am rich, and have gotten riches, and have need of nothing;
and knowest not that thou art the wretched one, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked:
I counsel thee to buy of Me gold refined by fire, that thou mayest become rich;
and white garments, that thou mayest clothe thyself,
and that the shame of thy nakedness be not made manifest.
That would suggest that the physical nakedness of Genesis 3:21 is a symbol of spiritual nakedness. And if the white garments, which throughout the whole Bible are symbols of righteousness, are the covering of nakedness, then it is perfectly clear that this nakedness was a state of unrighteousness which had to be covered—covered with the garments of righteousness.
So here you have the whole work of atonement: covering, which is the putting away of a state of spiritual nakedness—that is, unrighteousness—and placing in its stead, as a covering, the garments of righteousness.
The fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints.
All this, and of course much more, is gathered into this very simple indication: that God made an atonement, in principle and in type, immediately the glory was withdrawn. A covering by sacrifice, by death—a covering for a strictly naked, bare condition before Him.
And remember, it is in that direction that this thing has its real seriousness. There was not another man, woman, or child in the garden to behold these two. No one else saw their nakedness—only God. Only God. So, in principle, you see, this is all a matter of how we stand before God.
It is God in Christ challenging Laodicea about this nakedness. It is how we are in the sight of God, not first how we appear before men. We may make artificial coverings before men, pretending, covering up, making believe, and deceiving them; but we cannot do that before God.
Christ was getting true to principle always, even in His illustrations. When He put words into the mouth of the repentant, conscience-stricken prodigal son, He made him say:
Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight.
That is a tremendous principle which covers all the ages. Not merely, “I have sinned against other people,” or, “I have sinned against myself.” Sin and unrighteousness are something that strike at God, because they strike at God’s very intention in making man and hinder the purpose of man’s creation.
It is against God, against heaven. But is it not a very blessed thing to see that, although it is against God, and the nakedness is open and bare to God, it is God who takes the action to cover it?
And so God Himself introduced, in person, the function of the altar and the priest. If it were not misunderstood, I would say that God became the first acting Priest. He took this matter in hand.
Is not this part of that which is included in the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world? There you are, right at the beginning of creation, and the Lamb is slain there to cover this departure from righteousness, which always involves the departure of glory.
So we come to the altar and the priest in this first section, and can only note it in general; the details are too much. It is interesting, perhaps, just to note that in these first five books of the Bible the word altar itself occurs no fewer than eighty-six times. That is impressive; that is interesting.
You find that in all the outstanding characters on God’s side the altar has a place. It evidently had a place with Abel. Although it is not mentioned that he put his offering upon an altar, it is clearly shown that he and Cain offered in some way, and they must have had something corresponding to an altar. So we can say that the altar was there with Abel and his blood sacrifice.
It is definitely mentioned with Noah: Noah built an altar. Again, with Abraham, it is very much in view in his life—more than one altar. And with Moses, how much the altar is in view. Of the eighty-six times to which I have referred, by far the greater number are connected with the life and work of Moses.
I am only pointing out that in this first section the predominant idea is the altar—the figure of the cross. Right in the first place, where the glory has been covered or suspended, it is the cross in symbol and type that is brought so fully into view as the way of dealing with that and opening a path for the glory again.
So we have looked at the altar, or the cross, and the function of the altar. As most of you know—and I am always bearing in mind that there are those who do not know as others do what is in the Bible—the cross, or its representation in the old dispensation, the altar, has a double sign, a double meaning.
On the one side, it is the setting forth of the consuming presence of God toward that which is incapable of being accepted by Him and glorified. Sacrifice was brought in that dispensation, and in a symbolic act the offerer laid his hands upon the head of the sacrifice. By so doing, in type, he transferred himself and his sin to that sacrifice.
He declared, as he laid his hands upon that sacrifice, that he was a sinner; and, being a sinner, he merited judgment and death at the hands of God. As a sinner, he had no standing with God, no acceptance with God, no place with God. His only hope was that he, as a sinner with his sin, should be put out of the way.
That is one half—only one half—but that is the heart of it. With the transference of himself and his sin to that offering, it was consumed wholly upon the altar, nothing left but ashes: consumed from the presence of God.
That is one side of the meaning of the cross of Christ. We know it, but we have not grasped it yet. We really have not apprehended that yet; we are not in the good of that yet, except only in part. But there it stands: consumed from God by the transference of sin to the offering.
There is the other side: consumed unto God. Because this offering must in itself be without spot or blemish—it must be perfect—God sees that side of the offering. It is not annihilation; there is prospect.
If you and I, as we are, took that place on the cross, then nothing would come back. Nothing would survive. That would be the end forever of every vestige of us; we would be blotted right out, and there would be no afterwards. But because the sacrifice was perfect, without blemish, while it took on itself sin, in itself it was not sinful. Therefore, there is another side, and there can be that which comes back.
Well, of course, you see Christ at once: the sin-bearer, but the sinless sin-bearer. While in that representative capacity as the sinner, He was consumed from God, as indicated in that terrible moment of His God-forsakenness:
My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?
As consumed from the presence of God in the place of sinful men, that side was done. And the same Person is heard in the last breath praying:
Father, into Thy hands I commend My spirit.
It is all done. It is all over on that side, and now He can commend Himself to God. He is the only One in this universe who has a right to use that word. I often hear people say, “Lord, we commend ourselves to Your care,” and so on. No, we do not; we commit ourselves. There is nothing about us to be commended to God.
There is no commendation for our weakness, but He could commend Himself to God—not merely commit Himself. That sounds pedantic, do not worry; but you see, He could do that because there is another side to Him.
Here is the consuming unto God, just as utterly and completely as the altar fire consumed the sacrifice away from God. So it consumes unto God that which was according to God’s mind. By the transference of sin to the sacrifice, it was cut off from God; so, by the offering of Himself, it is brought unto God.
The function of the altar is twofold—much more than that, of course, but I will stay with that this morning. The function of the priest: what was that, and what is that? It is gathered into one word: intercession. We are using the word mediation. It means the same thing.
Now, intercession, dear friends, has a wider meaning than just praying. We have reduced the meaning of intercession to prayer, thinking that praying is all that intercession means, whereas praying is only a part of intercession. Intercession is something very much more than praying for one another.
It means coming and standing right in between, and taking responsibility for both. The word in the Old Testament is a much stronger word. It means to fall upon, to throw oneself upon.
There is one occasion where intercession was made unto the king. The word gives us a vivid picture: a person coming in and casting himself down, crying, “O king, here is this situation!” It means to throw oneself upon.
If you get into the Old Testament in relation to intercession, you will find that it was not merely men standing up and offering prayers on behalf of other people. They came right into a situation. They fell upon God; they cast themselves upon God over that situation. They themselves were in between, as a matter of life and death, in the two parts of the case: the need and the supply, the helpless and the helper.
Intercession is not a passive prayer and asking, either for ourselves or for others. Intercession is nothing merely official. A priest is not just an official with God who performs certain rites and says certain prayers. No, it is not official, and it certainly is not professional—something that you are paid to do because you belong to a priestly order.
No. Intercession, which is the function of the priest, is personal responsibility for the situation that exists: a stepping right in.
You have several very vivid illustrations of this in the first section of the Bible. Take one from Numbers 16. Remember, the people murmured against Moses and Aaron. They had done it so often, and they had only just done it very seriously and grievously, and now they were doing it again.
The Lord said to Moses, “Get out of the way. Let Me destroy this people.” Moses fell on his face before the Lord. Then he said to Aaron the priest, “Take a censer; take fire from the altar; put it in the censer; and go in amongst the people.”
Aaron did so, and as he went in, the plague had already begun. People were dying. Aaron moved between the dead and the living with his fire from the altar, and so the plague was stayed. That is intercession: getting in between the dead and the living.
A very vivid illustration of priesthood, is it not, and the function of priesthood? Intercession.
Now notice that, as introductory to that very episode, it says that the glory appeared in the door of the tent. The glory appeared against rebellion, against this thing which had risen up contrary to God. It was testifying to the fact that this could never come into the realm of the glory. The glory is against this; therefore it must be dealt with, put out of the way, consumed.
Unless a covering is made, utter destruction will take place. The fire from the altar provided the atonement, so that the glory was not unto destruction. The atonement kept the way open for these people to live and not die, and the plague was stayed.
So we see the shadow of the cross. Christ is both sacrifice and priest—both sacrifice and priest. God is the God of glory, and as such He comes down to man through the sacrifice, through the cross.
The One who offers Himself unto God is, on the one side, made sin for us—He who knew no sin; and, on the other side, offering Himself without blemish unto God. And so the way of the glory is opened up.
I put a note about the conservation of values. I do not think I can take the time to dwell upon it, but it is quite clear that while these are types, figures, and symbols in the Old Testament, they carry on something of value to us.
The Jewish nation now lies under the judgment of God, and has done so for many centuries. It is a terrible judgment of God. It lies under that judgment not only because of what it did to God’s Son, Jesus Christ, but because, in what it did to Jesus Christ, it acted in relation to the whole of its history of sacrifices.
Upon this generation, the Lord said, may come the blood from Abel to Zechariah, whom they slew between the sanctuary and the altar. The whole history of sacrifice, from Abel right to the end of the Old Testament, was gathered into their act against Jesus Christ, because He summarised the whole.
But look round the other way. Where there has been faith—as in Abel, as in Noah, as in Abraham—faith in relation to this work of the altar, the sacrifice, and the blood, that is attributed to those men in Christ.
I am not one of those people who believe that the Old Testament saints have no place in the new dispensation. I believe their faith in the symbolic sacrifice meant as much, or now means as much, to them as our faith in the one sacrifice means to us.
The apostle says that without us they could not be made complete, which is a clear implication that with us they are made complete. It is their faith, the conservation and transmission of these values. This is not all an Old Testament story which has passed forever; it is being carried on both ways.
You and I are going to be responsible for the Old Testament in this sense: that we have a vast document which says that God has intervened in the history of this world all the way through with an atonement and a Person to save us. He has done it. So the things that were written aforetime were written for our learning.
Well, what does it all mean? The atonement, the covering, is a renewed giving effect to God’s original purpose. It is God coming back and saying, “The purpose stands. The purpose of glory holds good.”
By this means we give effect to it; we ratify it; we confirm it. By the cross, by the sacrifice, by the mediation, by the altar, by the priesthood, in spiritual meaning and value, God is saying, “We have not given up the original intention. We are going, whatever it means, to have the glory.”
The atonement, or the cross if you like, is rather a ratification of the original purpose of God than anything else.
Shall we pass for a few minutes to this next section? Only a few minutes, I think: authority and the glory. Joshua to the book of Esther is a long, long stretch, with a lot in it. We are not going to attempt to take up all those books, but just to seek to summarise the message.
Here again, you have only to glance at a concordance to see what a large place the altar has in this section. In relation to what comes in with this new section, from Joshua right on to the book of Esther, is the matter of authority.
The book of Joshua brings in a new feature. Up to this point it has been Moses. The function of Moses, or the work of Moses, was the leading out of a people, the formation of that people into a nation, the instruction of that people as to the things of God, and the establishing of the mediatorial system.
That was all the work of Moses and what he was called to do. When that is done, his service is finished and he is taken. Joshua, his successor, comes in and brings in a new phase of things. Now the function and work is conquest and dominion.
That necessitates another phase of ministry. This means the work of subduing a whole realm of antagonism, possessing a whole realm of covenant promise, and ruling in that realm. That is what covers this whole section of the Bible: subduing, possessing, ruling. And all that necessitates authority.
The fact that it is a necessity—that this thing has to be done, that there must be a subduing and a ruling—implies that there is a system of things which is contrary to God. There can be no glory until that is dealt with and brought under. Until there is a subduing of a whole world of antagonism to God’s mind, there can be no glory.
Others have had difficulty, and if you come up against this difficulty at any time, let me say this word to you: difficulty in understanding how God could be such a God as commands the utter wiping out and destruction of nations, even to the little children.
Now, I could spend some time during the day on that. If I did so, I do not think you would have any ground left for argument at all. You would say, “God was just.” All history has disclosed, and investigation has made abundantly manifest, such a state of iniquity beyond all description amongst those nations.
Their very religion was founded upon moral iniquity. A temple could have two thousand priestesses, every one of whom was a prostitute. Is God justified in wiping that out? Can any fragment of it be to His glory?
Dear friends, you and I know enough about ourselves, without all that, to say, “The only thing that rightly should be done with me is that I should be wiped out.” Have you ever come there?
I put it this way, and I mean it. There are times when we could apologise to God for having a being, when we know ourselves. That is no exaggeration. At any rate, if you do not feel like that, I have often felt like that: “Lord, forgive me for being alive at all, such a creature as I am.”
Well, there you are. That cannot be glorified. They had the opportunity. They had the opportunity to repent. They knew.
Rahab, one of the countless harlots of the land, was right at the very gateway of the land, and she told the spies that they had heard all that God had done for Israel’s deliverance from Egypt and what the Lord had done. They knew in the land all about it. They could have repented.
The Gibeonites themselves confessed that they knew God was with His people. They resorted to a subterfuge to evade their own destruction because they knew God’s attitude toward them and their country. They could have repented. They chose not to. It was not destruction without opportunity.
Forgive all that. Terrible, terrible. But we must not be superficial about these things. We have got to justify God. And if that is a terrible parenthesis, it only emphasises this new phase of things: there has got to be a subduing.
There has got to be established a government, a rule, which will give no place to anything like that. There has got to come in a new order, and men have got to recognise it. So, in principle, it came in with Joshua.
The altar here takes on this extra feature. The principle of kingship is introduced, although the person is not yet mentioned by that name or title. Joshua, in principle, was there, and it shows that the principle was already recognised, although the title or name was not used.
The book of Judges follows the book of Joshua—indeed, it overlaps it. You look at the beginning of the book of Judges and you find it overlaps the book of Joshua. There the book of Judges says:
Every man did that which was right in his own eyes, because there was no king.
Joshua introduces, then, the principle of authority. That book shows what is possible when authority is established. The testimony of the book of Joshua is to how tremendous things can be when there is a central government, a central authority. It was conquest, victory, subduing, possessing, and exploiting.
When the book of Judges follows immediately, as I have said, it overlaps. All we can say about it is that it is one of the most terrible books in the whole Bible. In contrast, it shows the disasters and tragedies that come about when there is no central authority and the principle of kingship is not operative.
It is a terrible story, but the matter is always true—always true in principle. This is the Old Testament way of illustrating great spiritual and divine truths. The principle obtains today, as we shall see.
The little book of Ruth overlaps Judges, or is written as depicting some interlude in the tragedies of the rule of the judges. It is written right in the situation:
Now it came to pass in the days when the judges ruled.
In the midst of it all, God is reacting to this state without authority, without government, without kingship. God is reacting, and in the little book of Ruth the king comes into view—David.
God is reacting to lawlessness in this beautiful, quiet, sovereign way to bring in His king. So this whole section, in the first place, presents us with the call for authority.