Table of Contents

The Mediator

"Outside the camp."

"But one thing needful."

"Remember your guides."

F. W. Grant - Miscellaneous Writings Volume 3

Frederick W Grant

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The Mediator

The Mediator.

Exodus 28: 15-30.

F W Grant.

I have read these verses, beloved friends, not with the thought of trying to bring out, in any wise, even in outline, all that might present itself to me here, but rather taking them as the key to some thoughts with regard to our blessed Lord Himself, in that character which is His exclusively, the character of Mediator. He is the "one Mediator between God and man, the Man Christ Jesus." And this word, Mediator, means, one who is in the midst — between two. Thus Christ is, on the one hand, with God, for God, and God and with man, for man, and man. The fact of what He is in His own person is, I would say, the basis-fact for all the rest.

How wonderful, beloved friends, that there is now in the presence of God for us a Man, — yea, and upon the Father's throne! though there, of course, because He is, in the highest and most exclusive sense, Son of the Father. He is thus the only begotten Son in virtue of His deity as He is the first-begotten Son in virtue of His humanity — head of a race. In the tabernacle of His manhood was thus displayed, and without a nail, the glory of Godhead. "The Word was made flesh, and dwelt ["tabernacled," the word is,] among us, (and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth." Thus, what answered to the glory dwelling in the tabernacle of old was the glory of the Eternal Son. But the glory in Israel's tabernacle they could not behold. The glory of Christ we do behold (that of which the other was but a type). And why? Because it is full of grace and truth. "No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him" — "told Him out."

Now, in this expression — "full of grace and truth" — we have, in brief, the two main thoughts of the breastplate. "Truth" is the effect of the light, and God is light. Light is what manifests, — brings out the truth, is the truth. Christ, the light of the world, is the truth come into it: every thing gets its true character from Him. "Grace," while it is what is in God, is toward man. Look, now, at the breastplate. It was, as you know, what was on the heart of the high-priest when he went in to God. In the breastplate were the Urim and Thummim — "lights and perfections," as the words mean; and the Urim and Thummim must be upon the priest in order that he might give an answer from God.

Thus, in the day of the return from the captivity, when the remnant who returned found certain priests who could not show their genealogy, they were put from the priesthood, not because their claim could be disproved, but because it could not be proved. There was no one to decide the question whether they were really priests, — no recognized way of getting an answer from God; and they were told that they must wait until there should stand up a priest with Urim and Thummim. God might raise up a prophet and send a message through him, as He did at that very time by Haggai and Zechariah, but there was no regular way of access to God, to get answer such as the case required.

Now, these Urim and Thummim are the things I want to speak of particularly. "Lights and perfections" the term means, as I have said. And these things are one: the "lights" are the "perfections," — they are two ways of speaking of the same thing.

"God is light" He is "the Father of lights." That is to say, all partial displays of glory, of whatever character, come from Him as Source. Light is a wonderful thing — a thing in which nature itself (now that we have the Word) speaks to us very plainly, and very beautifully too. According to the views of modern investigators, light is (as God is) a trinity — a trinity in unity. These primary rays, so called, make up the one ray of white, or colorless, light. There is, at the outset, a very evident basis for the Scripture comparison.

But then there is something more, and more striking, I think; and it is this: that the color by which every thing in nature is clothed comes from the light itself — from the different combinations of these three primary colors; or, to express it better, from the partial display by the object of the light itself. To make plain what I mean: A blue object is one in which the red and the yellow rays of the white light are absorbed, and only the blue, therefore, are left to come out. The blue of the object is thus derived from the light itself. So with a green object — the red alone is absorbed, and the blue and yellow comb; makes the color green. Again, if the blue be absorbed, it is an orange; if the yellow, a purple and so on for all the rests. Now, what a beautiful thought that is! and how true, that every thing here — every work of God's hands is the display, more or less, of some attribute or attributes in Himself. These colors are the diverse glory of the one light, displayed in a various beauty, which we have not eyes for in the one white ray. Yet, though invisible, these colors are all there, and by being separated from one another are brought to our notice, so that the distinct beauty of each is seen.

Now, that is how God delights to come out and spread Himself before the vision of His creatures. As "light" in Himself, we could at least but little know Him; but as the "Father of lights," as He displays these before us, we learn Him so.

Take the gospels as an example, in which the one Son, whom in His fullness "no man knows, but the Father only," is given to us in four separate ways, that, as Son of David, as Minister (not ministered unto), as Son of Man, as Son of God, we might be able to discern Him better. So, in fact, the separate books of Scripture divide the truth for us into distinctly characterized parts, too little realized, indeed, for what they are, or accepted in the gracious design of God in shaping them.

So, again, in the Church, — collectively, the "epistle [not epistles] of Christ." No man could be an "epistle" by himself, — the parchment is not broad enough to write it; yet each one, reflecting in his measure some part of the divine image, and getting thus accordingly his character (or color), may help to manifest Him to the eyes of men. Thus, you may find in one man, as in Job, remarkable patience; in another, as remarkable energy; seldom, perhaps, one who can display in equal measure the patience and the energy. Men are thus characterized by some overbalance some one or more things prominently developed, and which often means, a defect of some other quality; and yet to our dull eyes the predominant one is thus strikingly brought out.

And so, beloved friends, does God display, in His various dealings with us, His various attributes; in one thing His holiness shining out preeminently, in another His truth, in another His love, and so on. Thus He adapts His greatness to our littleness, speaking to us in language that we are able to bear, that we may apprehend Him more as He desires we should.

A few words more as to the light. Not that I want to dwell upon this too much; and yet I think it is not in vain, especially in the present day, to speak of what nature presents to us, where Scripture gives the real and only key. We find, if we turn to the first chapter of Genesis, that light was before the sun. It puzzles the wise men to explain it; nevertheless, for the natural to figure the spiritual, it must have been so. For what is the sun? Is it not a dark earth-mass which God has clothed with the glory of the light, His image? Now, that is what God has done in Christ. He has clothed humanity, in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, with the glory of deity; and that is the Sun in Scripture-type. That "Sun of Righteousness" yet to rise upon the world with healing in His wings is Christ — Immanuel: manhood clothed with the glory of the Godhead — dark no more.

Thus the "lights" in the breastplate are the "perfections," the various perfections, of God Himself. These many-colored jewels are the manifold display of the divine excellency. And mark, these jewels are crystallized lights — unchangeable perfections. It is not a display, passing however great. In the rainbow, the token of God's covenant with the new earth brought through the judgment, you have what is essentially similar in character, but it is the display of God in one act. The whole diversified display of divine glory, I believe, — the whole spectrum of color — banding the storm of divine judgment in the cross. "Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in Him." But however God might thus be at one time displayed, it is for all time that He is displayed; for He is always the same, and that is what is marked here. The jewels never lose and never change their light; and so is God always the "Father of lights," always "without variableness or shadow of turning."

Mark, now, where these stones are found. They are upon the breastplate. And where is the breastplate? Upon the heart of the high-priest. The stones press upon the heart of Israel's high-priest. Surely we know now what that means, — that the one who goes to God for man (and that is what the priest does) must be one who has upon his heart before he goes, and as going, all that God Himself is. Only Christ could be, or was, that; but all that God is, in every varied attribute of His — every color, so to speak, of the light is there upon His heart abidingly; so dear, that He can never forget it, never lose sight of what is due to God in any one solitary particular.

But even that, taken by itself, would not qualify Him for a mediator. There must be something else, and there is. The mediator-priest springs from the tribe of Levi — "joined," third son of Israel; for in resurrection (of which these "thirds" manifestly speak) alone can He "join" or bring others to God. In Himself personally He is indeed, we know, a Levi — "joined" — only begotten and first-begotten — Man to God; but in resurrection is He priest-Levite to join as Mediator others. This He is perfectly in heart as office; for upon these jewels, "graven upon them with the engraving of a signet" ("Set me as a seal upon thine heart," says the spouse in the Song of Songs), are the names of God's people, — here, of course, the names of the twelve tribes of Israel; for us, the type of all the people of God. These twelve names are engraven upon the jewels, so that you would have to break the jewels to pieces to get them off. There they abide, unchangeably as the jewels themselves. In the light of the jewels you read the names. They are identified with the display of the lights and perfections of God Himself; so that here is One upon whose heart the people of God dwell, unfailingly and unchangeably connected with the display of the glory of God. Standing as He does on the one hand for God, on the other for man, it is not as if these were two separate or separable things with Him, much less things that might be in opposition to one another; they are things seen together, as the names written upon the Urim and Thummim-jewels — typically, the divine perfections.

Beloved, that is what the Lord Jesus Christ is; that is how He abides before God now, the blessed One who can never forget what is due to God, never the need of His people, never the righteousness which must be displayed in the blessing itself. Aye, for blessing, there must be righteousness! and again, thank God, for righteousness now (such the value of His work), there must be blessing! There is no discord then there is the very opposite. The blessing of the people is the very way in which the glory of God is to be displayed. God takes them up for that very end not merely to bless them and retain this too, but to show it forth in blessing them, to the end "that in the ages to come He might show forth the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus."

Thus the names are upon the breastplate, and the breastplate upon the high-priest's heart. How glorious the Person in whom all this is fulfilled — in whom Godhead and manhood meet in one! — Immanuel! — in His own person "God with us." And oh, beloved friends, marvelous as the cross is, (surely, the most marvelous thing that could be,) yet we should do Him wrong if we thought of that prepared body of His as if it was only prepared that He might go to the cross in it. No, He has taken it to keep it forever and ever He has taken it as the equivalent of those bored ears of the Hebrew servant which signified perpetual service, when he might have gone out free. Think of One who looked down upon us when we had all gone astray from God — "turned every one to his own way" — and, seeing how we had fretted ourselves against the will of God, and esteemed as bondage His easy yoke, took up Himself that slighted path of obedience, — took up that service which we had so disparaged, — never again to relinquish it, becoming Himself the "Leader and Perfecter of faith," "learning obedience" — He to whom all was due" from the things which He suffered "

For that path of His lay not through a fair world, decked out as Adam's was, but in one such as the sin of Adam and our sin had made it, — a world to Him, beloved friends, such as we can scarcely have an idea of yet He chose such a world in order to display in it, amid all its misery, how blessed the Father's will is.

See Him ministering to one poor needy soul, as at the well of Sychar, where hungered and athirst Himself He ministers to her and is satisfied. "I have meat to eat," He says to the disciples, as they bring Him the food which they have procured, — "I have meat to eat which ye know not of." He is satisfied. His meat is, to do the will of Him that sent Him, and to finish His work. In hunger, in thirst, in weariness, in lowliest service to one poor sinner, the Son of Man finds His own satisfaction, and delights in the Father's will. And such as He was He is, however different may be His surroundings now. He has taken this place unrepentingly, "Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today, and forever." yes, if I look at Him, I see how in His very person God and man have met in an eternal embrace impossible to be sundered. God's Fellow on the one side, owned such when He was upon the cross — "'The Man that is My Fellow,' saith Jehovah of Hosts;" on the other, the cross accomplished, "anointed with the oil of gladness above His fellows.

What preciousness in the manhood of One of whom the apostle can say, "We have heard [Him] with our ears, seen with our eyes, looked upon, and our hands have handled"! Notice how in these words all distance is put away, and He comes, as it were, continually nearer to us. For He might not be visibly in sight at all to be heard with the ears, so it is added, "seen with our eyes." Then, it is no mere momentary vision, — "we have looked upon" Him — have had Him before us steadily and continuously. But more, "our hands have handled" Him. And yet this is the One who is God over all, blessed forever; One "whom no man hath seen nor can see, dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto." And this it is that gives its infinite value to that manhood in which He gives Himself into our hands and hearts in all the blessed reality of unchanging love.

But if He is God with God and God for man, He is also man for God — true, perfect man, in whom manhood finds and fills its destined place forever, God's thought from eternity. "Lord, what is man, that Thou art mindful of him?" has its answer in the One made a little lower than the angels; His own title for Himself in the address to Laodicea — "The beginning of the creation of God." He is the Mediator.

But now look how this runs through His work. We have thought of Him a little in His path down here: what was He on the cross? Oh, beloved friends, it is there that we find indeed the very storm of judgment of which I have spoken, in which, after it has passed, we see the many-colored rays of divine glory. The rainbow was, as you know, the sign of God's covenant with the new world risen from the flood; and this blessed bow of promise is the sign of His covenant with the new creation forever and ever. Sin shall no more disturb. God has been glorified as to it, and being glorified, He has absolute title over it. Title, I do not mean, to put sinners into hell that title, of course, He ever had; but title in goodness, — absolute title to show His grace.

But now, what was the cross, beloved friends? Surely the crisis in which was summed up the whole conflict between good and evil, and the victory of divine goodness over evil.

Sin had come into the world, and God had been dishonored by it. What was the hindrance to God's coming in in grace? This: that He must first be honored where He had been dishonored, and about that which had dishonored Him. He must be glorified, — that is, He must be displayed in His true character: not indifferent to sin, and not indifferent to the misery resulting in a world of sin. He must not fail in love, nor in righteousness. In the work which puts away sin, the glory of God must be displayed, — that is, all the glory of divine goodness, for that is His glory. Goodness must be manifested supreme over evil, supreme as goodness. Not power must get the victory: that might put man in hell, but not bring him to heaven. Not power, I say again, but goodness, and as such.

And on the cross, as is manifest, power is all on the other side. "He was crucified through weakness." You see the power of man, you see the power of the world, you see the power of the devil, — all these are manifested fully; and on the side of the One who is left to suffer there, no sign of power at all. There He is, — unresisting, helpless: men may do as they will with Him who made them. He will not withdraw Himself, will not hide His face from shame and spitting. He has taken the servant's place: "Man has acquired me from my youth," He says; and even to a slave's death He will stoop for man. "What are those wounds in Thy hands?" "Even those with which I was wounded in the house of My friends."

And yet, "if God be for us, who can be against us?" And was He ever otherwise than for His people? Let all others leave them, what is it to them, if God be with them? Men have been in the fire itself and come out to ask, as one did — the first martyr in Spain, when supposing he was going to retract they had released him for the moment, — "Did you envy me my happiness?"

How easily, then, could He, the Prince of martyrs, have gone through martyrdom, if it were only that. Much as He felt all that man was doing, and showing himself to be in all he did, yet in what perfect quietness could He have gone through it all if it were only man's hour — "your hour," as He said to the Jews, aye, or Satan's! But oh, beloved friends, it was not that only. God must be against Him. That was what gave its real character to the cross; that was what distinguished the death of the Lord from the death of any righteous man before or since; and it was that which gave even His precious blood the power to sanctify us. It was not simply because He was what He was, but that because, being such, He took our place, our guilt, bearing our sins in His own body on the tree, His soul also being made a sacrifice for sin. This was man's double sentence — death and judgment; both parts of this He took, dying in the outside place, type of the deeper and more dread reality. — "Wherefore Jesus also, that He might sanctify the people with His own blood, suffered without the gate."

But where was power in all that? Everywhere against Him. This was not a victory that power could gain. Evil must be overcome by good alone. He must be left to drink man's full cup to the dregs. The One to whom God had given testimony — "This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased," now cries, and is not heard. The One whom they had seen on the mount transfigured, above the brightness of the sun, now lies with that glory eclipsed in utter darkness. But not the pressure of that whole agony upon His soul could get from Him aught in response but perfect submission, unfaltering obedience. The more the pressure, the more manifest the perfection the absolute perfection that was His: goodness absolute — "the Son of Man glorified, and God glorified in Him."

Such was the cross. And thus, and thus only, could flow out, as now we know them, those "rivers of waters in a dry place" — yea, from the Rock itself, now smitten, the streams of abounding grace. There had been no compromise; nothing had been given up; He had borne all. Righteousness had been displayed, not merely conciliated. I look at the cross to see in its fullness what the righteousness of God is. Righteousness, holiness, love, — all that God is, has been displayed and glorified, and now He can be what He will, He can be gracious.

Such is the Mediator in His work Godward and manward. How the jewels shine upon the golden breastplate! Let us not think that God claimed from Him this work merely. God forbid. He who said, "Lo, I come to do Thy will," — He whom zeal for the Father's house devoured, — He claimed the atonement, claimed and made it, both. And now, as the fruit of it, He is gone up into the presence of God, to take there His place in His presence, resurrection-priest and Mediator; no more on earth, for "if He were on earth, He should not be a priest," but "such a high-priest became us, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and made higher than the heavens." There, beloved friends, now He is for us, as we rejoice to know.

Let us look now at this truth of His priesthood, and of that other form of intercession of which Scripture speaks — of advocacy. The priest is the intercessor for infirmity; for if you look at the epistle to the Hebrews, it is denied there that as such He has any thing to do with sin. He is now "separate from sinners." His work of atonement had to do with sin, and so complete is the efficacy of that that we are perfected by that precious blood which has gone into the presence of God for us. "By the which will," says the apostle, speaking of that will which Christ came to do, — "by the which will we are sanctified by the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all;" and again, he says, "By one offering He has perfected forever [perpetually, or without interruption, as the word means,] them that are sanctified."

Thus the priest has not to do with sin. He has to do with us as those who are down here in the wilderness of the world, the needy objects of His care. He is priest for our infirmity, — not sinful infirmity, but creature-weakness, only in a place of constant trial and exposure by what is in us to the danger of sin. "Seeing, then, that we have a great High-Priest who is passed into the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, . . . . let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need."

On the other hand, "if any one sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous." Notice that character here: "Jesus Christ the" — what? The One who loves us? That is implied in the very fact that He is our Advocate, our Intercessor. No, it is "Jesus Christ the righteous." The same mediatorial character, you see, — the same jewels upon His breast, but the names of His people too — "the propitiation for our sins." Here again are the two things — never to be dis-joined, that make Him the Mediator.

People ask sometimes, — and many who do not ask have it upon their minds — why any need of intercession at all? Does it imply an imperfect work? or can it be that God the Father is not absolutely for us as is God the Son? Far be either thought. But what, then, does it imply? Well, this: that He is the Mediator. Tried, and proved how fully trustworthy His hands sustain the burden of every thing. "Son over God's house," the people of God are put under His charge, that, having wrought atonement for them upon the cross, He may work out in living power their complete salvation as now risen from the dead. Do you remember that wonderful seventeenth chapter of John? Do you remember how there where the Lord gives us a sample, so to speak, of His intercessory work above — how constantly He speaks of His people as of those whom the Father had given Him? — "Thine they were, and Thou gavest them Me." — "Keep through Thine own name those whom Thou hast given Me." — "As Thou hast given Him power over all flesh, that He should give eternal life to as many as Thou hast given Him." They are given Him, put under His hand and care, as of One of assured competency to bring them through. All the responsibility of their salvation rests upon Him who has done the work of atonement and gone into heaven, angels and authorities and powers being made subject to Him.

Beloved, He is competent: God is satisfied — satisfied! Why, He brought Him out in the face of man, of the world, of the devil, before His work was done, when He had just pledged Himself to do it, as in John's baptism to that deeper baptism which was to follow, He opened the heavens in testimony of unmingled delight in Him: "This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." And what then? The Holy Ghost, just come upon Him, the seal of that divine complacency, carries Him up into the wilderness. Why there? "To be tempted of the devil." God says, "This is My beloved Son." I know Him; I can trust Him; I can rest all My glory safely in His hands. Take Him away; try Him; do what you please with Him; and see if He be not worthy of My delight.

Thus He goes forth into the wilderness, (complete contrast with all the surroundings of the first man,) to fast His forty days; not as a Moses or an Elias to meet God, but that in weakness, and with the hunger of that forty days upon Him, He may meet man's adversary, and be fully tested. Did the Spirit of God ever bring up another to be tempted in most utter need, in all the reality of human weakness, by the devil?

Aye, God can trust Him. In a deeper need than that, in a darker scene by far, — nay, darkness at its height, upon that awful cross, (the last step in His self-emptying,) God could leave Him there in solitary weakness, with all the counsels of God — all that which was to be the manifestation of God in His own creation forever, — all His love and all His righteousness, all the blessing of man, — all, all, resting with its whole weight upon Him; — He can rest it there, I say, and turn away His head, and leave all to Him, satisfied there shall be no loss of any one thing trusted to His care.

And now, shall He not carry out what He has begun? Shall He not, as the Captain of salvation, save to the uttermost (or bring right through, as that means,) all that come unto God by Him? Yes, He, as risen priest, shall have the responsibility of the people for whom He undertakes. Every thing shall be in His hand, and come through Him. Our Mediator-Priest, not interposed between us and God, as if He had not brought us Himself to God; for in that sense He says, "I do not say that I will pray the Father for you, for the Father Himself loveth you." No, we have not to come to Him that He may go to God for us, as if we could not go to Him ourselves. That is not the meaning of His intercession; but it does imply His charge of carrying through to full result the blessed work He founded at the cross. Whatever is in question here, He is the One who is with the Father, Himself also God. With man, on the other hand, about it too. He is the One who as Priest or Advocate goes to God, or as Guardian of His people charges Himself with all their need. He can take the basin and towel to wash the feet of His people, that they may have part with Him.

And how in this action once more the character of the Mediator appears! He is going up to God — He is going up, His work just accomplished. For although as a fact it had not yet been completed, He can, in the consciousness of what He is, already account it so. As the One, then, into whose hands all things are given, and who comes from God and goes to God, He rises from supper, and takes a towel and girds Himself. The jewels are upon His breast. He cannot give up what is due to God, nor we have part with Him except we are cleansed according to His estimate.

But then, mark, it is not merely, "Except you are washed," you can have no part with Me, but, "Except I wash you." Thus this most necessary work He will accomplish for us, stooping to the towel and the basin as in love the Servant of our need. Peter may resist, but Peter and all must bow. His embrace must hold us fast to God. Blessed be His name, if the jewels are on His breast, His people's names are engraved upon the jewels.

Let us ask ourselves, Are we submitting to this washing? Do not look at it, beloved friends, as if it were a question of souls gotten away from God. Don't let us think, if we are going on, as we may think, pretty well, and our consciences bear witness of nothing particularly against us, — don't think it implies that we have no need of this washing. It is not a thing of which we have need once or twice in a lifetime. We have constant need of being in the hands of this blessed One not merely of taking the Word and judging for ourselves what is wrong, — of judging this or that, but of putting ourselves into His hands and saying, Lord, I may not know even what is wrong, but without reserve I come to Thee, that I may learn from Thee what cleanness is, not taking my thought at all.

You see what it implies, brethren, — that it implies an absolute surrender into His hands; and you and I are not right, not fit to have part with Him, if there is with us tonight a reserve, — if we would say, "Cleanse off that spot" merely. That is not it. It will not do if we are not looking up to Him and saying, rather, "Search me, O God, and try me; prove my reins and my heart; see well if there be any wicked way in me; and lead me in the way everlasting."

Are you and I with the Lord Jesus Christ without reserve like that? Are we ready to be told, whatever the evil is; asking God to search it out? Not merely saying, I repeat, "I am not conscious of any thing particularly wrong." Are we exercising ourselves to have always a conscience void of offense toward God and toward man? Are we in the consciousness of the failure of our own judgment, looking to Him whose eyes are as a flame of fire, who is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity, and asking Him to see well if there be in us any thing He cannot tolerate?

For we must be cleansed according to His own estimate, in order to have fellowship with Him.

Oh, beloved, how easy for our hearts to slip out of this fellowship, blessed as it is! Let us be jealous over ourselves, and not take for a heart in communion a heart at peace with itself because unexercised.

If our feet are in His hands, then, thank God, He takes the responsibility of our being cleansed. Basin and towel are His, with all things in heaven and earth also. We shall have part with Him even now, — in the midst of a poor, poor world, rotten to the core with sin, blessed, satisfying part with Him. Which of us would sacrifice it for aught else whatever that could be given us?

And now I want to point your attention to this before I close, — that, as I have said, the regular communication with God in Israel was by means of the Urim and Thummim. If they wanted an answer from God as to a certain thing, an oracular judgment about it, it was a priest who had Urim and Thummim who must go to God.

How can we apply this now? First of all, of course, to Christ our great High-Priest, who is passed into the heavens but as a principle for us, and an important one, we may apply it this way If we seek and obtain a divine answer as to any thing in the Church down here, what characteristics will it have to prove itself a divine answer? Well, surely these two which the Urim and Thummim imply. God must first of all have His place in it. We must see the jewels, the lights and perfections, whole and altogether there. But then across the jewels must be seen the names of His people too. Love, — divine love — to His people must characterize it, as well as love for God. Nay, the apostle asks how he who loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, can in fact love God whom he hath not seen.

Here are two things that will surely characterize every divine judgment — every judgment of the Priest with Urim and Thummim. If God is light on the one hand, He is love on the other. As partakers of the divine nature, we must be doers of righteousness on the one hand; on the other, we know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren. Nay, as light and love are one in God, however much to us they may be two, so we may be sure of this: that whatever is not righteousness is not love, as whatever is not love is not righteousness.

Perhaps we have learned to say, if a thing be not righteous, it is not love; and it is most true and most important: for true love to my brother is not indifferent to evil in him, and cannot be. How can I take no notice of that which is dragging down his soul, and dishonoring God in him? It is impossible that love can act so. Call it social good feeling, if you will; that is love according to man's idea: but it lacks the divine quality — it leaves out God. But leave Him out, and you have left out every thing. "By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God, and keep His commandments." That is the test. Emotion is all well, but the test is not emotion. Obedience is the test, and nothing else.

It is not love to our brother if in the way we show it we are not keeping His commandments; but on the other hand, it is not keeping His commandments if we are not showing love. Do not imagine that there can be righteousness apart from love. As I say, these two things are really, at the bottom, one. If God has shown us love, for us to show it is but righteousness. What witness have we, if it be not witness of the grace we have received? Surely, of nothing so much are we the witnesses. Is there not sometimes a very sad and serious mistake, as if because it is grace we are called to show, that therefore as to quantity and quality, as it were, we may please ourselves about it? — nay, as if it were a little something extra we were doing in showing it at all! Ah, but God will require from us what He has been showing us. It is not a work of supererogation to show grace.

Look at this man. He owes his master an immense sum — ten thousand talents, representing perhaps £2,000,000, and he is bankrupt: he cannot even make composition, he has nothing to pay. So he comes and falls down at his master's feet, and beseeches him for time in which to pay him. But his master is moved with compassion, and he does more, — "he loosed him, and forgave him the debt."

Now, mark this forgiven man. "But the same servant went out, and found one of his fellow-servants, which owed him an hundred pence" a pitiful sum in comparison, about: 25 pence, calculated at the same rate, — "and he laid hands on him, and took him by the throat, saying, Pay me that thou owest.'" Then, in words and action so like his own, you would think it must have smitten him to the heart, "his fellow-servant fell down at his feet, and besought him, saying, Have patience with me and I will pay thee all.'" Could you imagine a heart so hard? — "He would not, but went and cast him into prison till he should pay the debt." What does the lord of both men do when he hears this? "O thou wicked servant," he says, "I forgave thee all that debt because thou desiredst me. Shouldest not thou also have had compassion on thy fellow-servant, even as I had pity on thee?" And his lord was wroth, and delivered him to the tormentors, till he should pay all that was due unto him.

Beloved, what a lesson for us, — that for those who have received grace it is but righteousness to show it. It is not, I say again, a little overplus — a little more than duty, — something it is very good for us to do, and if we fail in it, it will not be required of us. It is a positive, absolute duty: God will require it of us.

And though it be in matters which concern God directly, and although it is true we cannot forgive debts that are due to God, we must not take it as if He could tolerate in us what He does not Himself practice — mere exaction. Neither must we forget, whether it be as regards our brother or ourselves, that grace, and grace alone, breaks the dominion of sin. The law is the strength of it.

Do not overset the balance on either side, beloved friends. Remember, the Priest who has the Urim and Thummim alone can give the divine answer. In a true judgment of any thing, God must be first ever, but in indissoluble union with His people, as He holds them together, blessed be His name, the true High-Priest, upon whom is the breastplate of righteousness as He will hold them fast forever: He, the Mediator between God and man, the Man Christ Jesus.

F. W. Grant. Plainfield, N.J., July 28th, 1882.

"Outside the camp."

"Outside the camp."

Hebrews 13: 8.

I may say that is part of the appendix to the epistle to the Hebrews, beloved friends. It is the appendix as to doctrine — the final word of the apostle to the Jews — to Jewish Christians, — telling them that now the decisive time had arrived at which they must go forth from Judaism altogether — they must go forth from the camp. They must not any longer serve the tabernacle. They could not serve the tabernacle and eat of the Christian altar.

I want to put a little completely before you the subject we have here, — a very connected one, as we shall find, — and of course to enforce and apply it for our days. We shall find that it is as applicable to us now as it was to the Jewish Christians then.

Now, in the first place, notice that already a long time (for this epistle was written long after it) the decisive period had arrived in which the glory of God for the third time had left its place in the midst of Israel. You remember that when God brought them out of Egypt, He took His place in the midst of them and led them in the first place to Mount Sinai, and at that mount He proposed to them in view of what He had done, — He had done every thing to bind their hearts to Himself, He had displayed His power and His love toward them in Egypt, He had accomplished a wonderful deliverance for them, He had met their wants and their murmurings in the wilderness by repeated grace, and now He says, "You have seen how I have borne you on eagles' wings, and brought you to Myself. If now you will obey My voice indeed, and keep My covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto Me above all people: for all the earth is Mine; and ye shall be unto Me a kingdom of priests, and a holy nation." And the people answered, "All that the Lord hath spoken we will do."

Alas! beloved, it was all simple that they ought to have obeyed His voice and kept His covenant; but on the other hand, had they known themselves better, they would have dreaded to promise as to what they would do. God then gives them the law from Mount Sinai — the ten commandments; His whole manner changing as He does it, for it was a fiery law He was giving. Alas! it was not a law under which they could stand. But they needed it, and God saw their need, to test their condition, that they might see where they were. And Moses goes up into the mount, in order to receive from the Lord those same commandments written on tables of stone, that they might be kept abidingly amongst them.

Moses was there forty days in the mount, and before he came down again, before as yet therefore the people had received the tables of the covenant, they had broken them, and were worshiping the golden calf before the mount that had shaken and trembled in the presence of Jehovah.

That, beloved, was the end of the first trial — a very brief trial, but a very complete end so far. The glory, as a consequence, or the tabernacle which was connected with the glory, moved out of their midst. "Moses took the tent and pitched it outside the camp, afar off from the camp, and called it," not the tabernacle of the congregation, for that is really a very wrong translation of the word, but he called it the tent of meeting" for all that sought the Lord, it says, now went outside the camp, or the congregation, to the tabernacle. It was not, therefore, the tabernacle of the congregation; it was not in the midst of the congregation at all, nor did it belong to them, but it was outside the congregation as a mass, and individuals who sought the Lord went out to meet Him them. It was therefore called the tent of meeting.

But this, the first trial, was over, — it ended in judgment; but it ended also in the display of God's sovereign mercy "I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion" and He takes them up again. But now, if He gives the law a second time, He gives it, beloved friends, accompanied with other declarations, different from any thing that had gone before, — He now couples His mercy with it, He declares the name of the Lord — the name of Jehovah; and as He passes by Moses He proclaims, "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 will by no means clear the guilty." Thus, while He gave them the law again, He now accompanied it with a declaration of His goodness and patience, — aye, and of His forgiving sin. It was still law, — they were still under responsibility to keep that; but now He was going to exercise patience, He would forgive iniquity, transgression, and sin; and yet, beloved, at the same time, He could not clear the guilty.

Now, that was a new state of things. As the first giving of the law tried man as to what he was as godly or ungodly — his present state (it proved, alas! that he was ungodly), so the second giving of the law was the testing of whether man (for I say, "man," not merely Israel; for "as in water face answereth to face, so the heart of man to man,") — of whether man, I say, with all the opportunity that He could give him, had power to recover. Still he had to keep the law, but God would give him abundant opportunity, and assistance to him who had failed, to try again. It was really what you find written in the prophet Ezekiel — "When the wicked man turneth away from his wickedness which he hath committed, and doeth that which is lawful and right, he shall save his soul alive." You see, at the first giving of the law, there was no question of saving one's soul at all. It was not salvation, nothing was said of it. Now, if a man were a wicked man, here was God's mercy toward him. He could say now, if you turn from your wickedness, and do what is lawful and right, you shall save your soul alive. That is, He would cancel the blotted page of his life and permit him to turn over a clean page — a new leaf, as people say. Only, mark, if he turns over a new leaf, he must keep the new leaf clean, — he must do what is lawful and right. What is lawful is measured by law; he has to do that which is lawful and right.

Alas! beloved friends, it was as impossible at last as at first. It was impossible ever to produce for God that unblotted leaf He wanted. It was impossible to bring to God His requirement, however low that requirement might be God could not accept the blotted leaf, and man could never bring the unblotted. Thus now the testing proved that he was without strength — not only ungodly, but without strength also. Those are the two parts of man's condition, and these the two givings of the law show.

I do not want to dwell on this now, but it is of immense importance, beloved friends; because, in reality, what many think is the gospel in the present day is just man turning from his wickedness to save his soul alive. And it is that the apostle says, in the third chapter of the second epistle to the Corinthians, that it is "the ministration of death" and "of condemnation." That is all it accomplished for man. True, that was something — nay, a great deal, and a very real "ministration." A strange expression perhaps you think it. A ministration of grace you understand, but you don't perhaps understand a ministration of condemnation. Now, that was man's first want: what he wanted was, to have the knowledge of himself, to see that he must be debtor entirely to God's mercy. What he wanted was, not mere help to save himself, but God's salvation.

Now, that second testing by the law lasted a long time, for God had revealed Himself as forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin; so He went on, forgiving and forgiving, and trying generation after generation, to see if any one could be found who could fulfill His requirements. Under that covenant, with those tables in their ark, they went into the land; but, as you know, that ark itself went captive into Babylon. God had to dis own the people after all, by the prophet Hosea, and say they were not His people. So that testing came to an end. The glory went outside a second time. Ezekiel, if you remember, sees the glory leave the city, and now you find a remarkable expression in the books that give that time of the Babylonish captivity, God is now called the "God of heaven." If you look back to the time when the ark passes through the Jordan to its place in the land, you will find that it is said, "the ark of the covenant of the God of all the earth passed through." God in Israel had His place on the earth; He dwelt between the cherubim; but after this time He is called the God of heaven.

Nebuchadnezzar comes and establishes his empire where formerly had been the throne of God. God takes up Nebuchadnezzar and delivers the kingdom to him. "God hath made thee a king of kings." He puts every thing into Nebuchadnezzar's hands as to the earth, and if He rules still, as He must, it is as Daniel says, — providentially" in the kingdom of men."

But God allowed a remnant to come back from Babylon into the land once more — into the city which had been ruined through their folly and rebellion, to raise it up again, and again to build their altar and temple. But, beloved, there was this remarkable difference now, — there was no glory. When they came back, they came as "not God's people" — "Lo-ammi;" under the Persian kings, which God had set over them for their sins; without the ark of the covenant; without the Urim and Thummim. The ark was where His throne was, and the Urim and Thummim were the means by which God spoke to them ordinarily. There was therefore now no dwelling of God amongst them: nothing but an empty temple, and and no ordinary means of communication with God. He could raise up prophets, and so He did; and the prophets of that time, Haggai and Zechariah, look onward to a future time, owning the ruin which had come in, and basing all their expectations on the coming of the Deliverer.

It was the time in which the great lesson was the lesson of their failure it was not now any keeping of the law, so to speak, at all. I don't mean to say that the law was repealed, but that was not the point. They had all failed. Their very return there under their changed masters was the thing which marked out the different condition in which they were from any thing before and now, as I say, the lesson was this: that they should accept humbly the judgment which was upon them, and wait in brokenness of spirit for the Deliverer.

But now, alas! you find again what the power of Satan is, and how subtly he can blind, through man's folly, the heart of man. It is very striking, and people generally notice it as favorable to them, that after their return, they were no more idolaters.

It had been their special sin. The prophet asks, you remember, "Hath a nation changed their gods, which are yet no gods? but My people have changed their glory for that which doth not profit." Even from the wilderness they had. There was first the golden calf, and all through the wilderness they had taken up "the tabernacle of Moloch, and the star of their god Remphan, figures which they made to worship them." God had declared that He was the one God, but they were idolaters to the core of the heart.

But as soon as there was no God in their midst — as soon as the temple was empty and the glory had departed — as soon as they were in the ruin which their sin had brought about, then immediately Satan came forward, not in the garb of idolatry any more, but now to resist the sentence which God had pronounced upon them, now to persuade them that after all they were not Lo-ammi — that they were God's people, and to say, "The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord." In fact, pharisaism was the growth of that period, and pharisaism was the self-righteousness which resisted God's sentence upon them, pretending to have a righteousness when God had emphatically declared that man had none. So it was when that Deliverer prophesied of came, and when the glory, in a deeper and more wonderful way than ever, was once more in their midst, — aye, the "glory of the only begotten Son, in the bosom of the Father" — the Antitype of the glory of that tabernacle of old, — when He who was to come did come, and was amongst them in love and grace, ready to meet them with all the mercy and tenderness, — not coming to be ministered to, but to minister, — not requiring, but to give with both hands — to give without limit — to give as God, — alas! these Pharisees could turn comfortably to one another and say, "Which of the Pharisees have believed on Him?" Pharisees they were who slew the Lord of glory.

And when the Lord of life and glory died, the glory once more departed, the Lord went outside of the gate, outside of Jerusalem, outside of the holy city, outside of the people. I say, the glory went outside when the Lord suffered without the gate. It was the third time this had taken place, and a third is a more than sufficient witness. Two witnesses are true, but a threefold witness is given here that there is nothing in man's heart for God. Not only when he had the law he broke it, but, alas! the carnal mind was enmity against God, — a cross was all they had for the Saviour and Deliverer. The glory of God had gone without the camp when the Lord Jesus Christ suffered without the gate, and now there was not only decisive rejection of the people, but a decisive sentence upon man as man. He was ungodly; he was without strength; the mind of the flesh was enmity against God: that was the threefold condemnation.

And now, beloved, as a matter of course, Judaism ends; and why? Because Judaism was the seeking, upon God's part, something from man, as long as there could be any hope of it, so to speak. Of course, He knew perfectly how it would be; He had pronounced upon man, in fact, before ever there was any law at all; He had said that every imagination of man's heart was only evil continually. And the testing could only bring that out. Man would not believe it, and forced it to be experimentally brought out. As I say, therefore, that which had been instituted for his trial, that which was to be the means, if possible, of establishing his righteousness, necessarily passed away. As to this, all was over; there was nothing in man to be brought out, save that which God had pronounced long before, that "every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually."

Now, if you look at Judaism, there was everything to lay hold of man naturally in it. There was every thing for the eye, a brilliant ceremonial; every thing for the ear, all the concord of sweet sounds there could be. There was every thing naturally to make man religious every tie of nature was to act on him, — the whole nation, — children with the fathers, rulers and people, to follow the Lord together. There was every kind of motive that could be brought to bear upon man: natural affection, gratitude, (his history, — nay, his present, full of divine intervention on his behalf,) self-interest, for if obedient, he would be blest in basket and in store. If he had an ear to hear, if he had a heart to understand, if there were any thing in him susceptible to divine cultivation, God would thus bring forth fruit unto Himself. All failed, and the cross was the solemn sentence upon man that there was nothing in him whatever for God; no righteousness, and more than that, no strength; more than that, no response in his heart to the fullest grace: he crucified the Lord of glory.

And now, beloved, you will understand how, though God did bear long with those who clung to Judaism, — although He took into account all the sanction which He Himself had given it for His own wise purposes for a certain time, and was slow to break the links that bound them to it, yet, of necessity, the time must come which should snap those links forever. There must be a weaning-time; but when Isaac was weaned, so to speak, Ishmael's nature was brought fully out. He and his mother must be put out of the house. The law and the children of law must depart; and now the apostle's word to these Christian Jews is, You must come outside the camp. There must be no more dallying — no more delay. There must be decision now: you must come outside of the camp altogether: God has gone out; it is a mere forsaken ruin.

Now, beloved, we want to apply this to ourselves. As I have said already, that was not Israel's sentence merely. Are we better? that is what the apostle asks — Are we better? God took up that nation, dealt with them by the law, but for what? "We know that whatsoever the law saith it saith to them that are under the law." But for what? "That every mouth may be stopped, and all the world become guilty before God." It was not merely that Israel, but that all the world, might become guilty before God. In fact, the cross was not Israel's sin alone. It was not merely the Jews that put the Lord to death, but the Gentiles also; and, beloved, that cross was, as the Lord Himself says, when He was looking forward to it, "the judgment of this world." It was the judgment of the world — not the judgment of Israel simply, but the judgment of the world.

Now mark, beloved friends, then, the Lord has gone outside the camp. If man is given up in that way, — totally given up as to having any thing in him whatever for God, what remains? Well, this: either absolute judgment or absolute grace. Nothing else will do, no middle ground is possible. That is where the world is left now. Not, mark, beloved friends, under trial with the issue undetermined. That is really how people look at it. T hey speak of being under probation, and they are doubtful as to how it will turn out with them; but there is nothing doubtful about it. People are not under probation, beloved; they have been under probation, and the result is, that "there is none righteous, no, not one; there is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one." That is the judgment of the world, and man, as man, is a prisoner under condemnation, under sentence, — not on trial, but under sentence. But mark, then, what an aspect that gives now to the blessed gospel, that it is God's message of mercy in the midst of this state of things. The only question is now, Will man accept this grace? will he accept this wondrous grace of God? No question as to being lost, — "The Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which is lost." No question as to being condemned, — all the world is guilty before God. No chance of getting a new trial; no pleading will avail for that. But now, blessed be God, God is in grace coming out to the lost, — to man without strength and ungodly, — to man a sinner, — aye, an enemy. Listen to the apostle Paul, who was the expression of that in his own person: he says, "When we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly" while we were yet sinners Christ died for us;" and again, "When we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son." That is where the gospel meets those who are ungodly and without strength, as the two givings of the law have proved men, — enemies, as the cross has proved. God's own blessed grace nevertheless is here for every one who will accept it.

Now mark, if one accept it, he must, on the other hand, accept too God's sentence about himself. Unless he accept the sentence upon himself, he cannot really accept the grace that is offered him; and that is why those two things go together, which it is of the utmost importance to keep together, — repentance and faith. They were the two things, you know, which God bore witness to by Paul, — "Repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ." Repentance is acceptance on man's part of the sentence under which he lies; faith is the acceptance, on the other hand, of the mercy which comes to him in that condition. I would dwell just a moment upon it, because of its real importance. You know, in many men's minds repentance is man's turning round and doing what is lawful and right, to meet God half way, and to save his soul alive. Nov that is exactly what the second giving of the law showed man never could do.

But now the point is, Will man accept the sentence upon him? Will he set to his seal that God is true? Will he learn his condition from the lips of God Himself, and bow his head and own where he is? The Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which is lost. But, beloved, unless man believes he is lost, what then? He doesn't want such a Saviour. That is how in Luke 15 the Lord puts it there. The Pharisees find fault when the publicans crowd to Him. He puts this parable: "What man of you having a hundred sheep, if he lose one of them, doth not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness, and go after that which is lost until he find it; and when he hath found it, he layeth it on his shoulders, rejoicing. And when he cometh home, he calleth together his friends and neighbors, saying unto them, Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost."

Now, beloved, what is His own application of that? An application very plain in view of those by whom He was surrounded at that moment. But what was His own application? "I say unto you, that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons, which need no repentance:" — who, never knowing they are lost, never will be debtors to God's mere mercy. Such were those Pharisees who were finding fault with grace. What is the definition, then, that the Lord gives of a repenting sinner? A "lost sheep." You see, He was speaking to the heart — not mere doctrine. He was speaking thus in order to lay hold of the souls round about Him. These poor sinners, at least, would know that the lost sheep meant them, — aye, and these Pharisees too that the ninety-nine that needed no repentance were themselves. In fact, there were no such persons.

The lost sheep is one who has come to an end of himself, and is debtor wholly to the grace that comes after him, to seek and to save him where he is. To put it again — take as an illustration, beloved friends, what the Lord has given us elsewhere about this very thing — repentance. Who was Job? The very best man upon the earth. When God wishes to teach us the lesson of repentance He does not go to the jails. People do that. God takes up the very best man on earth. He says deliberately of Job, "There is no one like him on earth." But what does He do? He passes that man through unexampled sorrows which have made his name a proverb, and, beloved friends, for what? What are the last words of Job? "I repent in dust and ashes" — "I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes." Was he turning over a new leaf? was he repenting of his sins? Why, beloved friends, he was the best man upon the earth at any rate; so if he had to repent and turn over a new leaf, it would be pretty hard for any body else. Was he a drunkard delivered from his cups? was he a criminal just let out of prison? He was the very best man on earth. What did he repent of? Himself, abhorred himself, and repented in dust and ashes. What was Job's repentance? Turning over a new leaf and cleaving faster to his righteousness and all that? No, beloved: his repentance was giving up all pretension to righteousness, and taking his place in self-abhorrence before God. Job was a child of God, — a saint. — That makes it so solemn. "Enter not into judgment with Thy servant, O Lord; for in Thy sight shall no man living be justified."

Oh, if there is any soul that needs God's blessed gospel, it is His gospel that God's grace comes to you just where you are; — just as it met Saul of Tarsus on the way to Damascus. What sort of man was he? The best man on earth? The chief of sinners. This wonderful grace can meet the chief of sinners as well as the best man on earth. He had done the best he could to blot out the name of Christ from under heaven; but God met him there, not merely ungodly and without strength, but an enemy, and reconciled him to Himself through the death of His Son. Beloved, how outside of every thing in man's thought that is! Blessed be God, that is the only gospel that is worth any thing, — good news that comes to man where he is and as he is, and meets him with complete salvation, where he is and as he is.

But now mark, then, that is the giving up of Judaism. You see, Judaism is not given up because it is worthless, but because it has accomplished its work. The schoolmaster has given his lessons well; but the result is, for every body that has learned those lessons — there is none that has done good. If he takes his place there, grace can meet him; and thus Hagar is Sarah's handmaid, but not to be put in Sarah's place. Now mark, the exhortation to these Christian Jews is to go forth to Him without the camp. What a solemn thing that is! Look at His cross — there it is, without the gate. Here is a people whom God has been nurturing for centuries, whom He has dealt with in constant and tender love, delivering them again and again, making manifest His power before their eyes, giving them His commandments, line upon line, and raising up prophets and sending them to them, carefully educating them for this present time. And what do they do? When He of whom all the prophets have spoken comes to His own, what do they do? Reject Him utterly! Beloved, that is what we all of us are, apart from God's sovereign grace.

Therefore you will notice that when the apostle goes out to men, he tells us, "I was with you in weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling; and my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of spirit and of power; that your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God." "We preach," he says, "Christ crucified; to the Jews a stumbling-block, to the Greeks foolishness." We preach a Christ who could not commend Himself to the world. How vain to try by eloquence to win man's heart! How vain to try by any human power! It must be the power of God's own blessed Spirit, and nothing else.

But let us, beloved friends, before we pass on, look at this cross again — the wonderful cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. I want to show you what atonement is here. It was death that was needed. Man was under death, and the Lord Jesus Christ had to come and take his sentence; but was it only death? was it only death? The death of Christ was God's sentence upon man, but is there not more than that? Ah, yes! Scripture says, "After death, the judgment." — "It is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment." If the blessed Son of God, then, would come into our place to save us, is it only death that He must take? No, He must take judgment also.

Mark, then, how it is put here. "The bodies of those beasts," says the apostle, "whose blood is brought into the sanctuary by the high-priest for sin, are burned without the camp." You see, it was only one kind of sacrifice of which the blood could go into the sanctuary to be presented to God. We have boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus. Where, then, is that blood? It is in the sanctuary, on the mercy-seat, right before God. But what was the blood that could penetrate there? There were a great many sacrifices, — there was the paschal sacrifice, there were the burnt-offering, the peace-offering, the trespass-offering, besides other grades of the sin-offering itself. Of all, there was only one offering whose blood could be put upon the mercy-seat, which could really avail to open the way to God. What was that? It was that in which the body of the victim was burned outside the camp.

What does that mean? It has the most unutterably solemn meaning, beloved friends. What it says is this: that death alone would not do; that a violent death alone — the shedding of blood — would not do. Outside the camp is where it is insisted the sacrifice must be; that is, outside the place of all recognized relationship with God; for such a place, while He remained in connection with the people, the camp was. If a man were a leper, for instance, and defiled, he was put outside the camp. Outside the camp was the place of the unclean, — of those who, as the leper, were cut off, not merely from the people, but from the approach to the Lord at all. So you find of Uzziah, the king of Israel though He was, but for his sin a leper.

That, only in the full reality of it, is the judgment which awaits guilty man; when, as rejecting God, God shall in His righteousness reject him. That awful distance! who knows (blessed be God that we do not know!) what it is? We are in a world where yet God's mercies come, as the sun upon the evil and on the good, or His tender rain upon the just and unjust. It is only here, encompassed by the infinite compassions of God, that one can dare to dream of doing without God; but to do without God is nothing short of HELL. It is the "outer darkness" of which Scripture speaks, where no ray of light is; for God, the Light of lights, is absent! Thank God, we do not know it. May none among us here ever know it. Only One ever did, to come out of it again; and we, permitted, as it were, to stand by the cross in the awful hour of the Saviour's agony, may look at least upon its outside, if we cannot (as we cannot) penetrate its inner reality.

For what meant that darkness which in full day wrapped the cross? People talk about nature sympathizing with her Lord, and all that. It was no such thing. God is light, and darkness is the withdrawal of light. God had withdrawn. Out of the midst of it He proclaims its nature when there breaks from the lips of the Holy One that terrible cry, "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?" That was the Sin-offering; that was the Victim burned outside the camp. It was the One away, in our place of distance, — away from God.

The very Son of His bosom He was, and yet when He was made sin for us, though He knew no sin, He must know its desert. Only the blood of a Victim burned outside the camp could open the way for us to God. There was no altar, therefore, in such a case; it was the holy Sin-offering, and yet it was burned upon the ground without an altar. And what is that altar? The altar that sanctifies the gift is surely the type of the person of the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. This it was that gave value to the gift; it was what He was Himself that made His offering so perfectly acceptable; and the gift upon the altar, as in the burnt-offering, showed the perfect acceptability of it all, — not the perfect judgment of sin; that was in the sin-offering, of which I was speaking, — but the perfect acceptability of the person and of the work of Christ.

On the other hand, in the sin-offering we look at the judgment of sin, and do not see, so to speak, who the person is. It is simply one in the sinner's place, and thus as if it were the sinner; no thought of His personal perfection comes in to prevent or turn aside the judgment due. Man's portion was death and judgment; He bore both — bore in His own soul the judgment before God, and, because man was under death also, died. Each of these has its place in the atoning work; and as corresponding to the one, the vail of the temple was rent in the midst; in correspondence with the other, the earth too was rent, and gave up her dead. How beautiful that testimony to the sufficiency of the work, and what it had accomplished! The vail of the temple was rent, because the darkness was gone from the face of God, and, man's judgment borne, he could draw near. For those who believe in Him, the darkness gone is gone forever. But more death too is gone.; the keys of death and Hades are at the girdle of the risen Saviour. Therefore the rent earth gives up her dead. Thus we find as to the work accomplished.

But thus we see that it was not only necessary that the Lord should die. Never mistake — never think of it as if mere death would satisfy. Look at the twenty-second psalm, and you will find His was such a death as never was before. It was the death of a righteous one; yet when was a righteous one ever forsaken? which of the righteous had God turned His face from? Outwardly, indeed, He might give them up to their enemies, — aye, let them go through death in its worst form; but after all, only to make their triumph more assured. For He was there to minister to them, to turn the shadow of death into morning. He was there to sustain their souls, and with His rod and His staff to comfort them. Yet here was He in whom God had proclaimed His delight, and, in the hour of His unequaled need, He was forsaken. Why, beloved? Faith surely can give the answer. You will find, if you look closely, that the psalm itself gives it. Is it not the answer, when after that "Why hast Thou forsaken Me?" the Sufferer. exclaims, "But Thou art holy, O Thou that inhabitest the praises of Israel." Thus alone could a holy God dwell amid the praises of His people.

But this, then, was the cross; and in the cross what do I find? Surely the complete judgment of man; his judgment taken, but his judgment owned by the One who comes to take his place. Beloved, we cannot lay hold upon that cross without accepting that judgment. We must go outside the camp" to Him. He is there, — He has had to go outside, I must go outside too.

From this point it is, in the passage in Hebrews before us, that we find all the blessedness of these sacrifices beginning to be told out to us. We have come to God by the Sin-offering; what do we find next? An altar of which I have a right to eat. That is not the Sin-offering, for there is no altar there. It is the Peace-offering. An offering in which part went up to God, part furnished the table for the offerer, and part of it was for the priest. So that God and man, and the mediator between God and man (Christ in type), can sit down and rejoice in one common joy. An altar from which the sacrifice is gone up to God, on the other hand, furnishes from that same sacrifice a portion for man. "We have an altar whereof they have no right to eat who serve the tabernacle." Do you understand that? He says, You cannot eat that and serve the tabernacle. How can you? Why, that death of the Lord Jesus Christ means the complete putting an end to all that is connected with Judaism. All Christian ground is outside this camp. You must go outside. Has n't He gone outside? Yes, He has gone outside, and He remains there. You must go outside to Him. There is your altar — an empty altar. Do you see? Ah, if we are Christians, we have got to believe profoundly in that empty altar. The work is accomplished; it is not accomplishing; it never needs to be accomplished any more; it is accomplished once for all; it is done. And we have got an empty altar; empty, because the sacrifice is accepted and gone up to God. What is this empty altar for? Look at what the apostle says. "By Him therefore," he says, "let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually." The altar is what sanctifies the gift. The Lord Jesus Christ it is who gives our praises power to ascend to God. By Him we offer — no propitiatory offering now, but a sacrifice of praise for propitiation accomplished. Do you see, then, what you have done? You have crossed from the court of the tabernacle to the holy place; from the altar of burnt-offering passed to the golden altar, which is now — the vail being rent — right in the presence of God. We have left the altar of sacrifice, and we have come to the priest's altar in the holy place. We have come to offer our sacrifice of praise continually, that is, the fruit of our lips confessing ("giving thanks" it is, but in the margin "confessing") His name, — "that is, the fruit of our lips confessing His name." Oh, beloved, what a sweet and blessed thing that is — to be able to come to God to confess His name — to utter the name of Jesus before Him! Oh, there is not any thing so sweet to God as the true confession of the Lord Jesus Christ. There is not any thing that so delights Him as when He sees a soul profoundly conscious of the value of Christ, who when he comes before Him has nothing to speak of but the name of Jesus.

But now mark, there is another thing. This golden altar is an altar of sacrifice of praise continually — nothing else but praise. Is there any thing else? Well, there is this, although it is not really any thing else in character, — "To do good and to communicate forget not, for with such sacrifices God is well pleased." Here are more sacrifices, offerings for the same incense-altar — not the fruit of the lips now, but the life. That is the character of a Christian life. How beautiful it is! A whole volume of doctrine in it too. A Christian life is a sacrifice of praise to God in which the infinite value of the Lord Jesus Christ is confessed to Him. It is a sacrifice of praise to God, the heart thanking God for what He has done. Not a new claim upon God, not a claim at all; but the answer to God's claim, the answer of praise to Him for all that He has done for us.

Beloved, is there any one amongst us here who has any other thought of a Christian life than that?

Alas! many a so-called Christian has quite another; and many a true one also has thoughts that sadly mar the character of a Christian life. Praise is the instinct of every true heart; but there are prerequisites to be known before the life can be what it should be. And the first thing to be known (without which God Himself is not rightly known) is salvation, — full and eternal salvation. If all is not settled as to this, — if the grace of God is not apprehended by the soul, necessarily the only other principle will come in, and the life will be lived for self, however religiously, and not for God. "Fear which hath torment" will take the place of that love by which alone faith works. How can life be a sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving to One known as a Judge at whose bar it is possible we may be adjudged to hell? No, the hired servant necessarily had no place at the passover-feast; and we must know the value for us of the work of Jesus if our life is to be the thanksgiving of the incense-altar; for the sacrifice offered there is the confession of His name and of His worthiness, and that alone.

Now let us return to consider the exhortation of the apostle to the Jews here. What application to us has this going outside the camp? Has it any? For you may say, If the camp be Judaism, we are not Jews. Hear me, then, as patiently as you can, while I seek as plainly as I can to answer this question. It is quite true for all of us, I suppose, who are here today that Judaism in the full sense has no attraction and therefore no danger for us, but it would be very light dealing with what is of the greatest possible importance to us to dismiss the subject thus. Judaism in its essence may be where ceremonial Judaism has no place at all. Nor, when I speak of its essence, must any suppose that the rejection of Christ is part of this. It is the sin of Jews, but not the fault of what God instituted, of course. It is this that God instituted at first that here by the apostle He calls on them to leave.

We have seen what Judaism in its essence was. It was the trial of man — an ordained and of course needed trial. Nor was it a trial of man only, but of man's way also. You can easily understand that God Himself had no need for Himself of any experiment. He knew and had pronounced upon man long before the law. But man knows not himself, nor will believe the simple statement of God; and not knowing himself, nor his inability to stand before Him, his thought is ever of keeping law in some sense. If Hagar be its type, as the apostle says, God found Hagar in Abram's tent. He could not have first put her there. Finding her in this connection with the man of faith, He sends her back that the experiment He is making may be fully made. Abram shall have his Ishmael, but only to find that Ishmael is not the seed, nor Hagar she by whom he is to be really fruitful.

All human religion merely is law in some way. Grace is God's thought, which man never could anticipate. Alas! even when God has revealed it he turns back from it, as they were doing in Galatia, to experiment with himself by the law still. If he does not deny Christ, he supplements faith in Him with legal commandments, ceremonies, means to work upon the flesh and make it fruitful. He owns Christ, but brings Him into the camp again, instead of going to Him outside the camp. Hence the state of christendom today. If you dare to look, you will find what is essential Judaism every where: in forms, in doctrines; disguised with Christian names, which noway alter its nature or hinder its effect.

Look at ritualism. It allows, of course, that Christ has come, and Christ has died; but it would seem as if only to insist on the inefficacy of His work. The value of His one offering is only to give mysterious virtue to a Jewish system of multitudinous offerings by which it is overshadowed and eclipsed. It is in fact the shadow, these the substance; in which, they say, He is continually offered, equaling Him only with the beast-sacrifices, whose constant repetition, the apostle tells us, shows that they could never take away sin! Therefore, as the necessary result, they can never tell you that sin is taken away, as they quote, "No man knoweth that he is worthy of favor or hatred by all that is before them."

But we need not travel so far as Rome, or her would-be imitators in other ranks. Little less dreary doctrine is proclaimed oft-times by those who are loud in their rejection of her enormities. By how many is assurance of salvation denied as strenuously; and by how many is salvation itself reduced to a mere conditional forgiveness which renders peace with God, for a soul conscious of its real condition, a mere impossibility. Whenever this is the case, it is certain that grace is so far unknown; and wherever grace is unknown, some system of works — that is, of law — is the sure accompaniment. These are the two things the apostle opposes to one another as mutually exclusive. — "If it be of work, it is no more of grace; otherwise work is no more work." And again, "If it be of grace, it is no more of work; otherwise grace is no more grace."

And wherever these systems are found, necessarily a "camp" is the result — a people of God, on legal footing, under trial to see what the end will be with them, and as to whom you cannot pronounce whether they are really of God or not. No separation of children of God as such is possible: "tares and wheat," as they apply this, "grow up together to the harvest;" nay, the world is often openly gathered in, to be put under Christian influences, and Christian services again are made to take a form attractive to the world.

Then the eye and the ear and all the sensitive man are appealed to, as of old in Judaism; heedless of the lesson of the cross of Christ, which has pronounced once for all that not only is man ungodly and without strength, but also that the mind of the flesh is enmity against God. This is the solemn reality. Were it ignorance simply, education might remove the ignorance, as men still dream. If we have gone out to Christ outside the camp, it is impossible to accept this. With the complete judgment of man realized, Christ and His Spirit, and these alone, are left as of avail for him.

For the third and last time, the glory is outside the camp. On the failure under the law first given, it went outside, as we have seen. The end of the second dispensation of law was when God had pronounced them Lo-ammi — "not My people." Ezekiel it was who saw the glory then withdraw; and Nebuchadnezzar could then come and plant his throne where God had left His. The testimony of law was really then complete. Already its sentence was given, "There is none righteous; there is none that doeth good." And when a remnant gathered again under their Persian masters to rebuild their temple, it was not to reopen a question completely settled, but to wait in the sense of their utter ruin for Him who should come in grace to deliver. It was at this time, alas! that Pharisaism arose, the invention of the prince of this world to build them up in self-righteousness, and make them refuse divine grace. The Lord came. The glory of God in deeper reality then ever shone in their midst, only again to go forth outside the city, when upon a cross the Lord of glory died. The testing of man was now over, — the full discovery of his condition reached, — and Judaism passed away, to be replaced for us here tonight by the "precious faith" of Christianity.

How deadly and disastrous, then, must the confusion be which would bring back again under a Christian dress the old rejected system, the exact opposite of the grace which has now been declared! Satan's work it is to destroy, if it might be, the glory of Him who alone is the wisdom and power of God for man's salvation. Are we clear of it, beloved friends? Have we gone forth from all that man has established of the Jewish camp, outside to Him, bearing His reproach? For reproach there still is, in various ways and different measures, according as our separation is complete or not; but reproach there is, and will be. Spite of the large going forth of the gospel now, for which, as God's mercy, we must surely praise Him, perhaps there never was a day fuller of schemes for man's improvement without (or up to) Christ; and these are very much one thing; and never perhaps a time in which there was so great a religious mixture and accommodation of Christianity itself to the thoughts of man. From the grosser systems in which Christ and His work are more openly set aside, to the singing of moving words to exciting music in an evangelistic meeting, men proclaim less or more openly that they have not given up hope of man, and that something else or less than Christ and the Spirit will avail toward his recovery. How different his spirit, who, preaching Christ crucified (to the Jew a stumbling-block and to the Greek foolishness) preached not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power.

I close, beloved friends may He Himself apply it to our hearts. Honest hearts they need to be to endure the application. And yet if Christ be without the camp, to go forth to Him should not be cost, but gain. The real cost is what would keep us from the place where He is, and where communion with Him is fully to be enjoyed. "Let us go forth to Him without the camp."

F. W. Grant. Plainfield, N. J., July 31st ,1882.

"But one thing needful."

"But one thing needful."

A Lecture, at Plainfield, N. J., on Monday evening, August 4, 1884.

"Now it came to pass, as they went, that He entered into a certain village; and a certain woman named Martha received Him into her house. And she had a sister called Mary, which also sat at Jesus' feet, and heard His word. But Martha was cumbered about much serving, and came to Him, and said, 'Lord dost Thou not care that my sister hath left me to serve alone? bid her, therefore, that she help me.' And Jesus answered and said unto her, 'Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things: but one thing is needful; and Mary hath chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her.'" (Luke 10: 38-42.)

As you know, beloved friends, there was genuine faith in both these women. "Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus." Martha had not only received the Lord into her house, but she had received Him into her heart there is no kind of doubt about that. The very character here in which we find her was not merely her natural character. She was busy about One that she loved. She was busy about One whose glory she recognized, at least in measure. She was busy in serving Him; and there were very few, beloved friends, in that land and time, that cared to serve Him. He was One who had not where to lay His head, — One who was despised and rejected of men — the Man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; men hid, as it were, their faces from Him; He was despised, and they esteemed Him not.

Martha had faith — genuine faith, as Mary had, — faith that thought of Him truly, as at least One who had come far to serve her, One whom she owned as the Christ of God come into the world. Martha was busy in her care for such an One; and that is the solemn lesson. With all this love in her heart, and with all this real faith in His person, — that faith which made her one of the very few in Israel that recognized Him at all, — that with all that, she could be so far wrong as we see her wrong, that with all that, she could be put in disparaging contrast with Mary her sister, — Mary who did nothing, — Mary who simply sat at His feet to hear His word. The Lord takes her up to signify His entire approbation as to where she was and what she was. He has a reproof for Martha's service, but has only approbation for Mary's simply sitting at His feet.

His words are very striking; "Thou art careful," He says to Martha , — "Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things." Beloved friends, if you are busy about many things, you will not only be busy, but troubled. Martha, we read, "was cumbered with much serving;" and she was not only "encumbered," but "troubled"  — it weighed upon her. It was very busy service; but it weighed upon her, — weighed her down. Beloved, if you have service that weighs you down, look to it — see well why it is. Plainly, that very character would put you along with Martha here. She was cumbered with much serving. She goes to the Lord with her complaint. Mary might help her; Mary has left her to serve alone. She wants Him to use His authority with Mary. She says, "Dost not Thou care that my sister hath left me to serve alone? bid her, therefore, that she help me." She began with seeking to help the Lord, as it were, and she ends with complaining that she cannot get help herself. She wants to serve the Lord, but she turns round at last and wants to get Mary to serve her. The Lord's words are what we are to think about tonight: "Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things: but one thing is needful; and Mary hath chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her." "But one thing is needful" — only "one thing." To what a little point would that diminish all care if we realized it: only "one thing"! How many distractions would our hearts be free from if we only recognized and bowed to the truth of the Lord's words. Only "one thing"! Do you honestly think it, beloved friends? There are a great many needs in this busy world: there are a great many duties that you have, and that Christians think they have to society, to their neighbors, and what not. The Lord here would bring our hearts from every thing simply to one and that one, to sit at His feet and hear His word! Don't you feel as if that would leave service out altogether? How is it possible that only one thing is needful, and Mary had chosen that very part, when there are so many things to do? Are we to leave out service to the Lord? what does it mean? Beloved, this: That the thing which is to be our care is that we receive from Christ; and if we receive, — if we are receiving, beloved friends, service, and every thing else, may take care for itself. Mark, I do not mean that you won't serve. You will — you will. But I say this: that if your care is not for service, but to be receiving from Him, you will find that that "one thing" which the Lord speaks of embraces all the rest.

What God wants from us is receptiveness, — He wants in us capacity to receive. You remember what He says Himself in the seventh chapter of John, when men were busy with their feast of tabernacles before the time, — busy with their empty show of something which after all left the heart just where it was, or, rather, emptier than ever. The Lord stands up just upon that great day of the feast: the great day of the feast is when the hollowness comes out the most. And in that "great day of the feast," when men have shown how little they can do to secure the happiness they have been seeking, the Lord stands up and says, "If any man thirst, let him come unto Me, and drink. He that believeth on Me, as the Scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water." (John 7: 37, 38.) Beloved, there is not any thing there, you see — there is not any thing about these busy Martha-cares — this busy Martha-service; there is not a bit about it — not a bit about it. "You take care," the Lord says, "to receive of Me. Come and drink; and he that believeth on Me, [faith being that receptive character in the soul, — "he that believeth on Me,] out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water."

Well, now, can it be so simple? Have we not got a great deal more to do than believe on Christ? Why, how many of us, beloved friends, are believing on Christ? Thank God, a good many here. And how many could say — how many could realize at all that out of their bellies are flowing rivers of living water? Mark what a beautiful thing, — that out of the innermost of man's nature — the part that craves — the part that is the natural man's god in his fallen condition, the fullness flows. "Their god is their belly," says the apostle in Corinthians: that is to say, that man having fallen from God — fallen from the apprehension of a love that satisfies, and got to be a mere questioner of it, has got into self-care — into labor — into lust. God did not put him into such a place as that. God did not put him into a place where he must care; God put him into a garden; did not think that even the very world which He had created was good enough for the man of His choice, but took up one special part of it, planted it with trees of the choicest kind, made every thing that should gratify his eyes — his heart, and put him there in the midst of that garden, beloved friends; to enjoy the favor of God, and receive from His hands. And that is all.

Well, you say, was there nothing else? had he nothing to do? No; he had to refrain from doing, — he had not to take of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. There was no labor that God required of him. He was the favorite of Heaven — the last, newest creature; he was put there in a marked way as a dependent one, the most dependent, I believe, of all God's creatures. He was put there into a paradise watched by and cared for by God Himself, all his necessities made but the means of God's care for him being manifested. He was essentially a dependent creature. The angels had fallen before this, as we know, and God had made man a creature like the angels — an immortal spirit, — one who was, as it were, His child — His offspring by creation. I say, God put this spirit which He had made into a body, with which it was to be linked, and upon which it was in a certain respect to be even dependent. You know how dependent we are upon our bodies. I don't mean that Adam was in the same way that we are. He was not. I don't mean to say that there could be in Adam any tendency to death, or any thing of that sort — the condition which we are in as fallen. Surely not. But he had necessities, he had to subsist by food, he was dependent upon the senses for his communication with the world, in which he was to subsist, not independently, but maintained by food. The angels fell by pride. God, by all this, was hiding pride from man. He was teaching him dependence; caring for him, at the same time, in a way that made that dependence no trouble to him. If He made him a needy creature, He made all these things avenues by which he could be filled with satisfaction and delight. How blessed and wonderful that! God has joined those two things together from the very beginning; making man dependent upon Himself, and making that dependence no trouble — no distress, but a means of realizing the loving care of his Maker and Preserver every day and hour.

And, beloved, you know how man fell. A beast seduced him. God would not allow him to be tempted by a higher being, — one in that character. Of course, we know it was Satan who seduced him. But God would not allow him to come in any angel-shape as one higher than man. And that makes very significant what you find in the second of Genesis, that God made Adam look at all the beasts which He had made, and give them names. He made him give them names as having knowledge of them. And looking them through and through, Adam knew that there was not one that could be found that could be a help for him. He was the master of the beast; they were all put under his hand, and he was the lord of them. Then God made woman, and gave her to be the help for him that he needed. But, beloved, it was by a beast man fell. God would not suffer him to be tempted but by a beast. He should have no excuse. He should not be able to say really that he was beguiled by one whom he could suppose had superior knowledge. He gave place to one who was below him, lost his superiority over the beasts themselves, and the blessed realization of what God was having vanished from him, he was sent out of paradise into the world outside, now to prove for himself what his own hands could do for him.

"God hath made man upright," says the preacher, "but he has sought out many inventions;" and men are proud of it, — they are proud of their inventions. I have often said, How is it, beloved friends, that man has to have these inventions? Men say that "necessity is the mother of invention." It is required to invent to meet men's necessities now. But, beloved, how did man need those inventions? They are the sign of the fall. Outside of paradise, and fallen away from God, he lusts. His belly is his god, — he craves. He is a creature made for eternity; he has, as the preacher says again, "eternity in his heart." That expression in Ecclesiastes 3: 11 — "the world in his heart" — should be "eternity." With eternity in his heart, man tries to satisfy himself with the poor things of time. What is it that baffles all his wisdom? He has no possible invention that can enable him to do away with death, or to meet judgment. He is a creature, formed for eternity, trying to satisfy himself with a world that passes from him, and ignorant of God. The first knowledge that we find after the fall is of his nakedness, and the first invention an apron to cover his nakedness. And so he has gone on.

Now Christ comes into the scene after this fallen and wretched creature, — comes into the midst of men such as you and I are. And he says, with the fullest knowledge of man's condition, "Whosoever is athirst, let him come unto Me, and drink; he that believeth on Me, as the Scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water." The place of want, beloved friends, is the belly — the very thing that compels man to toil for satisfaction. The Lord says that he shall be so full — so satisfied, that out of that craving heart of man — out of his belly, no longer craving, but satisfied — shall flow "rivers of living water." Do you believe it, beloved friends? — do you believe it? If rivers of living water flow out of you, this means both testimony and service, surely. It implies real ministry to others, and that God is to get His own from you in the world. Surely it does. But if this is to be true of you, what are the means by which it is to be accomplished? You are to come and drink; you are to come and receive from Him as Mary did, and you shall find that in this one thing needful all other things are contained. Even amid a ruined world paradise is returned again for him who takes this place at Jesus' feet, — this place of happy dependence to which there is no lack, eternally secured to one that finds it. "Mary hath chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her." How sweet and wonderful is that! Do you believe it? I am sure most Christians do not believe it at all. I am afraid, beloved friends, that there are scarcely any of us that in our hearts do fully believe it. If you say you do, where then are these "rivers of living water"? Why don't they flow? What is wanting? Ah! faith in it is wanting. There is so little of it. You see, the fullness is His, it is not ours. People have the idea that grace in a man is a sort of thing that God puts as it were a seed into the soul, and it is to grow and grow and grow, and develop there into more, so that he has consciously more and more. That is not it at all. Surely I do not mean to say that a man is not born of the incorruptible seed of the Word of God, and that as so born he does not grow. Surely he does; but that is another thing. From the very beginning of growth this ought to be true of us. Beloved, the blessedness we speak of is to be found in that which God has already given to us, if we are Christians, — that which the apostle witnesses in the second chapter of the epistle to the Colossians — in that verse of which we have often been speaking together as the key of the epistle. "In Christ dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily, and ye are filled up in Him." Now, if that is really so, you see your competence at once. God has given you your place, your part, in Him already; and think, beloved friends, that in One in whom is all the fullness of the Godhead bodily in Him we are filled up! Faith has got to recognize this; faith has got to make it all practical, — not to make the thing true. It is true; but we have to recognize it to find the proper truth of it.

Let us remember, too, that the Voice that spoke in the feast of tabernacles did not address itself to any inner circle of privilege. It was in the world He spoke. In it still, therefore, He is speaking to every weary, unsatisfied heart. Now, I appeal to you, if there are any of you who have such. The Lord invites you, beloved friends. You say, perhaps, Well, I am afraid I don't realize my sin enough. Come to Him, then; for He is exalted to be a Prince and Saviour to give repentance and remission of sins. Come to Him. He invites men convicted of sin; but He invites them also in another character, — as thirsty and weary ones. Like Martha here — occupied with their own efforts in one kind or another — He invites them to come to Him. Whatever they are and whoever they are — not a soul but is welcome, thoroughly welcome, to Him. Alas! we are all Marthas, (not, of course, in faith,) but apt to be busy with much serving; and the last thing which we naturally think of is to come to the Lord, to find satisfaction in Him alone. Ah! is not that true of some person here? You think, If He is such a glorious Person, He must be served. If He is such a glorious Person, would He come down from heaven to earth to be served by you? Was it not more adequate faith in Mary, saying, as it were, "If He had wanted service, He would not ask for it from such poor incompetent hands as mine." "The less is blessed of the better." It is not more blessed to receive, but "it is more blessed to give than to receive." And are you trying, beloved friends, to serve Christ? Take care you are not trying to be "the better," and to make Him "the less." Are you trying to serve Him, when He had to come down from heaven to earth to serve you? Mary says, "If He has come to serve me, I will let Him do it." She is down at His feet: He says she has chosen that good part. Do you choose the "good part," and you shall have it forever.

What is the secret, beloved friends, of all the dishonor done to Him (alas!) by His people? I'll tell you, — the one thing, the secret of it is, that they are not where Mary was, — they are not in the place of real occupation with Himself. That is what the Lord wants. He has come all this weary way to attract our hearts to Himself. He wants us to receive out of His fullness, — He wants us simply to receive. Not to get us to say, after a little while, "I must be doing something now." He wants us to receive — to receive to RECEIVE. If it is only receiving from Christ, every other responsibility will be met easily, — not by effort, but met of necessity. This will come after your own soul is fully satisfied; for the vessel must be filled itself before it can properly flow over. It is not from a vessel that is partly full that you expect an overflow. You must sit at His feet until you are filled yourself, — that is the first thing. And when filled yourself, don't think that you require effort then. Beloved, as surely as you are filled yourself, out of your belly shall flow "rivers of living water."

Alas! alas! pride is so natural to us. Man has followed Satan in that way. He would be as God. Man would still take that place, and make God his debtor. How can God be gracious? How can God give, and give, for nothing in return? — how can that possibly be? And, beloved, if there are those here who have these weary, restless, sinful, unsatisfied hearts, how hard it is for you to learn that He would make over to you, positively and definitely, His fullness! That is what He does.

You have only to receive; only to take the place at His feet: He will pour out His grace. I would press this as from first to last the blessed truth. It is He who applies — who appropriates to the soul all the fullness of His grace, all the value of His work.

You remember, in the third chapter of Zechariah, how Joshua the high-priest is represented there, the very picture of a sinner clothed with his sins before the angel, and Satan standing at his right hand to resist him. There is not a word spoken by Joshua, nor a question asked of him. There is none to ask. Convicted sinner as he is, the only question is, what has God for a convicted sinner? People get into the presence of God in their sins. Many think, indeed, that they have to put away their sins and then get into the presence of God. No; nobody gets into the presence of God except in his sins, and then he is as dumb as Joshua is. The angel of the Lord says to Satan, "The Lord rebuke thee, O Satan; even the Lord that hath chosen Jerusalem rebuke thee: is not this a brand plucked out of the fire?" And what does He say Men? He says to those that stand by, "Take away his filthy garments from him" and then He turns to the poor sinner himself, and, to make it plain to him and to us, He leaves the language of type and shadow, and to him He says, not "I have caused" thy filthy garments "to pass from thee," but "I have caused thine iniquity to pass from thee." It looks like a New Testament revelation; so clear, so full is the grace announced. Poor souls that trouble themselves about their acceptance, how glad they would be to have such a voice! And yet it is for them, — written for them, — the unchanging word of the unchangeable God. Does the angel tell Joshua to appropriate this grace? No; He says, "Take away the filthy garments — take them from him," and He says to him, not even Can you believe that your iniquity is gone? or that My grace is great enough? but, in His own free and royal way, "I have caused thine iniquity to pass from thee." He who speaks without repentance, and never withdraws His words, says, "Behold, I have caused thine iniquity to pass from thee, and I will clothe thee with change of raiment." That is how Christ ministers to one that comes to Him. Is there a soul here that needs that? Christ definitely assures you of the forgiveness of your sins. He does not say, Now, appropriate this; but He says, I appropriate it to you, and it is yours. "If we confess our sins," says the apostle, — what then? Joshua stands with those sins confessed upon him; — those sins covered him in the presence of God, and what is the result? He found God Himself acting in his behalf. It is God that appropriates the value of Christ's work to the soul. It is God that says, by the Spirit, to men, not You must do so and so, but I — I, if you confess your sins — if you simply take that place, — I am faithful and just to forgive you your sins, and to cleanse you from all unrighteousness. John 1: 9.)

Beloved, it is an immense thing to be clear as to that, — it is an immense thing to be able to give souls such assurance. Like the spies to Rahab" Our life for yours." Those are grand words. She, as it were, says, "What can you tell me from God? Give me a true token." Our life for yours." Oh to be able to comfort souls in that way, — to give them the positive assurance from God those souls that would gladly accept salvation, but are busy with their acceptance of it! Oh to be able to give them a "true token" that Christ has so died for sinners, — that when you take that place as sinners before God, that blood is the true token of salvation yours, yours, YOURS!

And as we begin, so we go on. Would that we did! but I mean in God's thought. As we begin, so we go on. We get out of His gracious handout of His fullness, first, our acceptance with God, — that which satisfied our souls — peace and rest in His presence. But oh, beloved, is it there we stop? Are we to acquire holiness in a different way from that in which we get righteousness and peace? No, surely; just as we find Christ for righteousness, so surely we do for sanctification and all else.

We have got to receive it at His feet, to look into His blessed face, to learn of His love to rejoice in Himself; and that is true sanctification. If that is so, Christ sanctifies. Occupation with Christ is what makes our lives what they should be, — transforms our lives — transforms our very faces. Occupied with Him, looking into His face, we are changed into His image, from glory to glory, as by the Spirit of the Lord. It is in company with Himself we find "that good part" which Mary had chosen, in "part with Him."

And as with sanctification, so with service. Oh that we may have that kind of service which will not separate us. from Him — the service that flows freely, almost unconsciously, from the joy of His presence, and of the service which He renders us! Beloved, we are continually exalting ourselves, and He has to abase us. How strange and sad it is that so much of our lives we cause Him to fight against us instead of for us! Because He would have us in the place of blessing, He has to put us down, down, DOWN, our efforts at holiness, our attempts at service, in order that He may put us in the place He has for us. How slow are we to receive in its full reality the grace that requires not, but gives, — that delights to give, that only seeks to have objects for it; the grace that, simply as we receive it, we find, not only fullness for ourselves, but that which makes our lives full also for others. May we all learn it more simply, the power and value, not of our efforts, but of Christ Himself.

It is the "one thing" I want to say to you tonight. Don't you think it is enough? If Christ says, "But one thing is needful," what is more needful than simply to learn that "one thing"? He came not to be served — to be ministered unto, but to minister to others, yea, to give His life a ransom for many. Let Him serve, in the greatness of His love; and we shall find, not only practical fullness for daily need, but all that He is told out to us.

Whoever you are, there is no one to ask the question, when you come to Him, whether you are fit for His presence. He has no guard to His presence-chamber to ask whether you have got a right to be there. He does not want you to be kept off. Sin is no barrier even, because in the cross of Christ grace has triumphed, aye, over the worst sin that man could possibly commit; as the hymn says, —

"The very spear that pierced His side

Drew forth the blood to save."

Beloved, wherever you are, whatever you are, no soul so far from Him but I invite you to Christ tonight. There is not merely no guard to His presence-chamber to keep you out, there is the public proclamation that you are welcome there. The King's door stands open, His table is for you, beloved friends. And His presence, Lord of all, come down in grace, that His fullness may be available for us, that we may find in Him, out of His fullness, "grace upon grace."

Now, I don't want to say any thing else tonight; but "one thing is needful," and we may shut up our books.

That "one thing needful" is occupation with Christ to sit at His feet and learn of Him. So then, if we want to serve Him, the only possible way is to receive from Him first till our hearts are so full that we cannot hold it any longer. When the vessel is once filled, all the power of the spring pours over. The overflow is not measured by the capacity of the vessel, but by the power of the spring. Think of that, beloved friends. Think of our testimony in the world being the testimony of the divine fullness, — not the measure of what we are, but the measure, so to speak, of what He is. The one thing needful for us is that our whole souls should be satisfied with Himself; and to be occupied is to be satisfied.

God give us more practically, every one, to know and prove it in His grace.

"Remember your guides."

"Remember your guides."

A Memorial of the Ministry of F. W. Grant.

"Remember your leaders who have spoken to you the word of God; and considering the issue of their conversation, imitate their faith. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, and today, and to the ages to come. Be not carried away with various and strange doctrines, for it is good that the heart be confirmed with grace, not meats; those who have walked in which have not been profited by them" (Heb. 13: 7-9). — J. N. D.'s Version.

The theme of the Epistle to the Hebrews is the pre-eminence of Christ in all things. Written to those who were by birth and inheritance disposed to set a value upon the external, apart from the saving grace of God, it came in direct opposition to all fleshly pride and carnal religion. In fact, it did not so much set aside abuses of the law, as our Lord in dealing with the self-righteous, hypocritical Pharisees, as it showed that all ceremonial religion, though given by God Himself, was but temporary. The law had but "a shadow of good things to come." Beautiful shadows indeed, and most helpful in illustrating divine truth, and yet never for a moment to be confounded with the substance — Christ Himself.

Thus Christ is seen pre-eminent over and displacing all things which the Hebrews were tempted to hold to and to substitute for Him. We see Him as Son of God, pre-eminent over the angels, and setting them aside; as the faithful Son over God's house, displacing Moses, the faithful servant in his own day; as the true High Priest, who abides forever, displacing Aaron and his sons, whom death was constantly removing; as the Mediator of the new covenant, sealed with His own blood, therefore an "everlasting" covenant; as the one perfect Sacrifice by which we are sanctified — "perfected forever" — and have boldness to enter into the holiest "by the blood of Jesus," displacing forever "the blood of bulls and goats. — We see Him as "the leader and perfecter of faith," who, having victoriously run His course, has sat down upon the throne of God, the object of exultant faith and love and hope, as we speed on our way, laying aside every weight, and turning from all that would distract.

Jesus only, and always, is then the theme, and again and again is He put before the Hebrew Christians, with every warning and entreaty to hold fast the confession of their faith without wavering. No ordinance, no matter how holy; no man, no matter how venerated, could for one moment dispute the place which He alone could occupy.

And surely if the Hebrews needed such an admonition, we living in these last days need also to be ever recalled to "the Son." If we are not tempted to turn to Judaism in name, there is the pronounced tendency to take up a ritual which ministers to the flesh in the same way. Rome has multitudes of votaries not called by her name; while other multitudes are turning to "divers and strange doctrines" which exalt man and degrade the Christ of God. We need, perhaps as never before, to hear the Shepherd's voice, to be turned back to Christ alone.

We all recognize, too, the tendency to make much of man, and unknowingly to fall into idolatry by giving glory to some instrument whom in His grace God has seen fit to use, rather than to Himself. We lean unduly upon the hand which would point us to Christ, and too often make priests of those who are reminding us that we are all priests. We close our lips in presence of the ministry of those who are telling us, "Ye may all prophesy." Thus we abuse the very gifts given by our glorified Head, and one lesson at least which we may learn from the removal of beloved and honored servants of Christ is not to make too much of these — to "cease from man" — to cleave more simply to Christ alone. Thus will we honor the servant by turning to the Master, and be kept from the shame of idolatry.

And yet — returning to the Epistle to the Hebrews — we find a whole chapter devoted to human examples of faith. A great cloud of witnesses look down upon us in the eleventh chapter, and in the closing one of the book thrice does the writer (who, though doubtless Paul, veils himself that Christ alone may claim the eye, ) speak of their "guides," or "leaders." They were to remember those who had passed away, and imitate their faith; they were to obey those who remained, realizing that they were charged with weighty responsibilities, and were to salute them in all honor and affection.

Scripture, then, not only warrants but commands the remembrance of those whom God has given as leaders of His people. To forget them means, too often, to forget the truth they brought, and paves the way for that "building the sepulchres of the prophets" by a godless posterity who are indifferent to every warning spoken by those prophets. There is a sober, discriminating way of dwelling upon the ministry of faithful servants which encourages our own faith, quickens conscience, and stirs afresh to follow them as they followed Christ.

Most biographies are written from a human standpoint; the man is before us rather than his message. Such biographies are not helpful; but who has not been stimulated by the narratives of devotion, self-denial, unresting toil of faithful men at home or abroad? We realize on either hand that they were men "of like passions with ourselves," and that a Power wrought in and with them which is for us too.

The passage we have quoted at the beginning shows us how we can properly "remember our guides." First of all, what makes their remembrance profitable is that they spoke to us the word of God. It was not for special personal excellence of character, either natural or gracious; nor for great activities and results in the Lord's work — considered in themselves. What gives value to the remembrance of the leader is the word of God with which he was identified, the message he brought.

We read of one of David's mighty men, Eleazar the son of Dodo, that he stood alone against a great host of Philistines when "the men of Israel had gone away." He smote them "till his hand was weary and his hand clave unto the sword; and the Lord wrought a great victory" (2 Sam. 23: 9, 10). His very name, "God is help," turns from the man to God. What could he do single-handed against the host of the enemy? His arm grows weary, but the weary hand cleaves to the good sword, and we see no longer the feeble arm of man, but the power of God behind that weary arm, hewing out victory with that sword. The man has become identified with the sword, and God can use such an one.

So are all God's mighty men; feeble, and with weary arms, they cling to that "sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God." Their very weariness and feebleness makes them cling (like Jacob who, his thigh out of joint, can no more wrestle, but cling). Such men God can use, for they are identified with their sword, with the word of God. To remember such is to remember the sword — the Word which they brought. There can be no higher honor to a servant of Christ than to merge him, as it were, in the truth he ministered; in thinking of him, to think of the sword he held in his feebleness. The world may honor its soldiers, its men of wealth, its benefactors, and build them monuments. They are its departed great men. Believers recall the memory of those who have left their greatness in our hands — the Word of God. To do this is simply to have mind refreshed and heart stirred by that which abides forever.

We are also to consider the issue, or outcome, of their walk. What has their life ended in? It has now ceased. A rich man's life ends, so far as what he leaves behind is concerned, in wealth; a statesman's, in power and influence. In what shall we say the life of Christ's servant has ended? What has he left as the sum of that life? Is it not suggestive that the very next clause gives what is really the answer, while closely connected, as we shall see, with the following clause? ' Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, and today, and forever." The issue of their life is the abiding Christ. They have passed off the scene, but Christ, the object of their ministry, abides. With Paul they could say, "To me, to live is Christ." Christ is the end, the goal of their life. To depart and be with Him is far better. Happy indeed are those who are called to lay down their burden and enter into His rest. They loved and served Him here; they enjoy unclouded peace and rest as they wait with Him there. The outcome, the end, of all their life-work, toil, testimony, is Christ. They enjoy Him to the full now; they have, as it were, left Him as a priceless legacy to us here.

And their life was a life of faith — the refusal at once both of creature righteousness and creature strength. They had learned to "rejoice in Christ Jesus and have no confidence in the flesh." We are not called to do, in detail, their work. God calls and fits each of His servants for some special work, peculiarly suited to the special gift with which he is endowed. We are not to be imitators of one another, but ever to be imitators of the faith that casts the feeble upon the Mighty.

Lastly, we note the warning not to be "carried about with divers and strange doctrines." The servant of Christ ever stands for His truth against all opposition of error. His ministry, in so far as it was under the guidance and in the power of the Holy Spirit, brought home to heart and conscience the truth of God and the Person of the Lord.

Do we not need, as has already been said, to be specially on our guard in these days against the subtle inroads of error? The Person of the Son of God, His atoning work, His Church, the destiny of man — are all objects of the enemy's attacks. Let us hold fast the truth, and Him who is the truth, and. His Word of truth.

We have, then, four characteristics of a proper memorial of departed leaders — (1) The word of God ministered by them; (2) The outcome or issue of their life, Christ for them and for us ever the same; (3) The faith which occupied them with this blessed Person; and (4) The warning against error. If we ever have these features before us, there will be only profit in remembering those who have gone on before us.

Perhaps there is less temptation to do anything else in the case of the beloved brother whose memory we are seeking to recall. His claim for a permanent place in the hearts of the saints rests — as it really does with any, but more ostensibly than with most — in his identification with the word of God. Unknown to many in the flesh, who have profited by his ministry, with little of what may be called popularity, or the magnetism supposed to be so essential in a leader, he is lost sight of in the precious truth which it was his joy to unfold. Those who knew him personally loved him for the worth and Christian nobility of his character, the fruit of God's grace; for that wondrous mind received from Him, and for the simplicity and dignity of a true Christian man. But it is not of these things that we speak, while we would ever seek to walk in the steps of piety and faith wherever seen. We turn rather to that Word to which he held fast, and, in conscious feebleness and dependence, used so constantly. What views of the Word did he give us! What thoughts of Christ! What truths under the guidance of the Holy Spirit! These abide.

If a heathen poet, who has left behind some beautiful specimens of human wisdom and human art, could say, "I have builded a monument more enduring than brass," can we not with greater propriety, apply these words to one whose one aim it was to build only the pure Word in all his ministry? That Word endures, "when all that seems shall suffer shock." What higher honor can there be for any of us than to be associated, to be identified with that Word?

In taking up, then, his ministry, and seeking to analyze it, to understand its prominent features, it is with the prayer that Christ may be glorified, not His servant; that the truths of God's word may be brought afresh to mind and conscience, and thus we may be stirred to take fresh hold of Christ and His truth. This, we are sure, would be the only way in which our beloved brother would have us speak of him at all. For him, as for every one who loves the Lord, it can only be, "Not I, but Christ."

The truth of God is one and self-consistent, and yet it is many-sided. There are special beauties connected with every view of it, and much to be learned from the manner of presenting it by each servant who is guided by the Spirit.

We will speak first of his ministry of the gospel. Every one who loves Christ, loves the gospel. It is a sure sign of spiritual coldness when one loses taste for the simplest truths of salvation. Our brother was no evangelist, deeply as. he sympathized with every winner of souls, and longed for a wider, fuller and more constant work in evangelization. In his gospel addresses we do not find much of that ardent insistence which is often seen in the gospel preacher. One word characterized his preaching — thought. Appeals to the will, touching narratives, denunciations, all proper when one is led of the Spirit, were not there.

But there was a rich and tender unfolding of divine grace and love. Man's sin was brought into the presence of infinite holiness, a divine compassion and a perfect redemption. Sin was seen to be sin, not so much in its effects, or in its just recompense, as in the light of the Man who sat at the well of Sychar, or who dealt with the poor child of sin and shame in the Pharisee's house. In his book of gospel addresses many examples of this can be found. Read again the "Gospel in the Genealogy," and see how grace is magnified in Christ's association with the sin of His people — blessed be God, Himself all pure and undefiled by the contact of all human wretchedness. The same can be seen in "A Brand from the Burning," and other addresses in the same book.

How sweet it is, dear brethren, to have these precious truths recalled to our minds! Our brother was not alone in these precious truths. He had received them from others who, like himself, had found rest and peace at the feet of Jesus. He longed for a revival of gospel work among us. Shall we not be stirred afresh by the love of Christ to tell to the perishing the news of that grace which reaches the lowest, — which has reached us?

But it was as a teacher, an unfolder of the word of God for His people, that our brother will be best remembered. We may say at the outset here that he had received and assimilated the ministry of our beloved J. N. D., whom he recognized as specially called of God, raised up to give to the Church in freshness and clearness the priceless heritage of truth so long hidden from God's people. None prized more highly or more constantly made use of the "Synopsis" and collected writings of Mr. D. than our brother. Their gifts were distinct. The elder had, perhaps more clearly than any since the days of the apostles, a clearly defined outline of revealed truth. Whether in the exposition of a single verse, a chapter, a book, or a section of Scripture, he grasped the salient features, and set them before his hearers in a few pregnant sentences. His eye swept the heavens at a glance; he caught the current of divine thought, and followed obediently its leadings. We shall follow the characteristics of our brother's ministry as we go on. We cannot refrain from saying that it will be a sad day for the Assembly when the writings of J. N. D. are neglected or ignored.

As has been said, our brother had assimilated the teachings of Mr. D. Hence he had a clearly defined outline of Scripture truth, into which he could bring the "things new and old" which he gathered from his own study of the Word. Those who have read his "Lessons of the Ages," and his "Mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven," will see how clearly he grasped and presented the great outline features of dispensational truth. While holding in the main with those who had gone before him the great salient features of prophetic and dispensational truth, our brother has presented them in a way both fresh and helpful, quite peculiar to himself. His book on Revelation illustrates this on many a page of most profitable prophetic study.

Similarly he took up great doctrines of the word of God and exhibited them in their beauty and power. His work on "The Atonement" is a Scriptural examination into that blessed doctrine. He traces from the beginning the great truth of salvation as seen typically in the earlier books; prophetically, in the Psalms and Prophets; as actually accomplished, in the Gospels, and doctrinally unfolded in the epistles of Paul and the other apostles and Revelation. One rises from the study of this book with a deeper conviction than ever of the cardinal place in God's plan of the truth of Atonement, and a clearer realization of the divine wisdom, love and skill unfolded throughout the pages of the word of God. The "scarlet line" is traced throughout, and we see how Christ and His work were ever present in the mind of God.

We may link with this book the other one, on the Person of our Lord, "The Crowned Christ." No one who is sound upon the work of Christ is likely to hold wrong views as to His Person. So in this work we will find a reverent, but thorough, inquiry as to what the word of God teaches regarding the Son of His love. Our brother did not believe in passing over truth with a few vague and glittering generalities. By habit and by faith he was a painstaking inquirer into minute points which would escape the attention of the casual observer. He therefore deals with the Deity and the Humanity of our Lord — Son of God in a twofold way, Son of Man as well; Divine Creator on the one hand; obedient, sinless, deathless Man, on the other. The analogies between the first man, first Adam, and the Second Man, the last Adam, are carefully noted. Distinction is made between first begotten suggesting other children — and only begotten — excluding all others. In short, our brother seeks to point out the "many crowns" upon the head of Him whom faith loves to follow in every character He wears — and worships Him in each — the Word, God over all, the Man of sorrows, the Son, the King — Blessed be He forevermore, and let all His saints say Amen!

Passing next to a book more widely known, perhaps, than any other of his separate works, we will glance at his "Facts and Theories as to a Future State." Of the need for such a work there was, and is, sad evidence, not only among the open deniers of the word of God, but with those who claim to bow to Scripture, and who quote it in proof of their position. Time was, when to be a "Universalist" was, like a "Unitarian," to be one who would not be held within the limits of Scripture statement. But during the time of the revival of the truth of the Lord's coming, and the accurate study of Scripture, there have arisen various schools of thought, all professedly bowing to Scripture, in which the solemn reality of eternal punishment, conscious and unchanging, was denied. It seems as though Satan were, as he no doubt is, seeking to lay parallel teachings to those being brought before the Church of God. In this way he would discredit the real truth, and create a revulsion in the minds of many against all Scripture, and at the same time instill into the minds of others the deadly poison of his own lie.

There are many kinds of mind among men, and for each class Satan will have that special form of error which he knows will be most likely to attract. Thus there is "the larger hope" of those whose sensibilities will not allow them to entertain the thought of what the Son of God so plainly calls "everlasting fire." This hope of ultimate salvation for all has various forms in which it clothes itself — all included under the general head of Restorationalism.

Directly opposite to this — alas, not opposed, for error is many-sided, but united in its hatred of truth — is the grossly materialistic teaching of Annihilation, in its varied forms; while between the two are many individual forms of error, partaking of the character of one or both of these main systems.

Nor let it be supposed that these errors obtained only among some peculiar or obscure sect, as "Christadelphianism." Begin where they might, they worked their way with satanic persistence into the fibre of the professing church, until at present they are to be found, more or less openly advocated, in many of the evangelical denominations.

The enemy had come in like a flood, and the Spirit of God, as ever, in faithfulness lifted up a standard against it. The task before our brother was an arduous and difficult one. It would not do to write in generalities; mere denunciation, no matter how much deserved, would be out of place. To fall into a passion, if we may use such language, with the enemy would be but to play into his hands by an exhibition of the weakness which he would say was inherent in the orthodox view.

What was needed was a temperate, thorough analysis of every false view, the examination of every passage of Scripture used in support of error, and a thorough exhibition of the untruth being taught. But mere destruction was not enough. Every scripture must be put in its true light — the doctrine of the word of God fully brought out, so that the reader would be left, not merely with errors refuted, but with a solid foundation of divine truth beneath his feet. Incidentally, many had and misconceptions among the orthodox had to be set right.

It is the united judgment of many leaders of Christian thought, not merely those who might be thought to be favorably disposed, that in "Facts and Theories" the Spirit of God has provided a wealth of truth with which to meet error. We would earnestly exhort the saints, particularly those who may be in any way thrown with various forms of this error, to arm themselves with the weapons found here.

In this book there will be found considerable of what may be called psychological study of Scripture. Our brother did not hesitate to enter into every field of knowledge. He believed that all truth is one, and that if faith does not cultivate a field, Satan will. He was a profound student of what is called nature, reading from both the friends and enemies of revealed truth. Thus he not only studied the works of God in plant and animal life, but examined the teachings of such leaders in error as Darwin and his disciples. For him "Evolution" had neither attractions nor terrors, as, with keen mind and childlike faith, with Bible in hand, he tested all by the light of divine truth. Unlike a brilliant but misguided leader, of whom we would fain hope the best, spite of the errors taught by him, our brother was unmoved from the solid rock of divine truth. He made the infidel investigators of natural phenomena "hewers of wood and drawers of water for the house of God." He plucked their own weapons out of their hands, and used them against them.

Here, again, he was no mere destructive critic, but a builder of truth. It was a favorite remark of his that nature taught not merely of God, but of Christ, and that we would find the atonement and other great truths in the book of God spread abroad in field and forest and starry heavens as well as in the pages of Scripture. He delighted in all books which soberly presented the typical truths of nature, and in his "Spiritual Law in the Natural World" has presented a most attractive line of truth, to kindle further desire for divine knowledge.

It was his great wish to write another work upon the book of Genesis, in which these truths should have their full treatment. Alas, he has been taken, and the work is not done. Who is there who will take it up with the same faith, and deliver these fields of truth from the enemy's hand, and put them at the disposition of the saints? The time is ripe for it; is anyone doing the work? The Lord stir the hearts of those to whom He has given the key of knowledge, that they may use it to open the door to His treasures!

It is right, also, to make another remark in this connection. Men have come to nature first, as though they could get to God in that way. But we must ever remember that man is a sinner, "alienated from the life of God" There is but one Way — Christ Himself, and "no man cometh unto the Father but by Me." If we are to know God in any true sense, we must know Him through Christ, and through His Word. We must not expect nature to interpret the Bible, but the reverse. We must use the word of God as a lamp to correct our natural thoughts. "The world by wisdom knew not God." Our brother ever stood for the primacy of Scripture. He denied the common statement that the Bible was not meant to teach science. He declared the Bible was meant to teach whatever came before it — history, facts of nature, or any other matter. It did not use the language of modern science — it used the everyday speech of those to whom it was given, but none the less is it divinely accurate.

We do well to remember this, and not to yield to the wiles of the enemy, who, under specious pleas, would rob us of the absolute infallibility of the word of God.

And this brings us to consider that which may be truly called our brother's life-work. He had for years been impressed with the absolute perfection of the Scriptures to its least "jot and tittle" — a truth we all accept. But with him it became the one absorbing thought of his life, and he put it to the test to the full extent of his powers. If the Bible is absolutely inerrant, then not only are its doctrines perfectly true, its narratives perfectly accurate, but its very words are divinely chosen.

He found, as others before him had done, that Scripture itself drops many a hint, gives many an example of the way in which the Spirit of God would have us use it. Simple quotations of law or prophets, allusions to sacrifices or customs, allegorization of Old Testament facts, stress upon the significance of names, the juxtaposition of words — all these he found in Scripture itself. Space here forbids our going into anything beyond the barest mention. It will be sufficient to refer to the narrative of Hagar and Sarah, in Gal. 4, for an example of how Scripture uses Old Testament narrative; to the priesthood of Melchisedec, in Heb. 7, as showing the use of the interpretation of names and their relation one to another; to the whole Epistle to the Hebrews as a divine commentary upon Old Testament ritual.

He also found that our Lord's use of the parable to teach was not a mere casual method, but one of the visual methods of the Spirit of God throughout Scripture. Not every parable was interpreted. A few were explained, not as though to limit further investigation, but to give the key to it. "Know ye not this parable? How, then, will ye know all parables?"

The word of God is not merely a revelation; it is a book to exercise every faculty of the renewed man. To know it in any full measure is to have in the highest sense a liberal education. It offers but little to idleness; but to the prayerful seeker it is, like its divine Author, "a rewarder of them that diligently seek" it.

Let this great truth lay hold of our hearts as through grace it laid hold of him, and a boundless field will be found at our very door in which to find food and sustenance to the delight of our soul. How his heart well-nigh broke at the indifference, the unbelief, the lethargy that hung like a pall upon most of the beloved people of God! How he yearned over them! Were his removal to stimulate others to shake themselves from the dust, we could indeed bless God.

But we must trace out a little further the way in which the Spirit of God led this humble student of the Word. If Scripture not only gave examples of interpretation, but encouragement and commands to continue on in what it opened up, then he would go on. If Scripture gave the significance of the names of persons and places — here and there — he would everywhere seek that significance. If it "spiritualized" a narrative, he would catch at the key, and use it throughout the Word. Every portion of Genesis should be as the account of Hagar and Sarah*, and Melchisedec. Exodus and Numbers should be as Leviticus. Samuel and the Kings would be found to be no exception to the word that "all Scripture is profitable."

He had for years been a diligent student of the book of Psalms. Not only did their contents attract, but the form in which they were written — their divisions into a pentateuch, the acrostic form of a number of them, their evident relation one to another in various groups — all these things impressed him with the fact that God had written them upon a distinct plan in which the numerical significance of psalm and group and book had a clearly marked and important place. But if the Psalms were written thus, why not all Scripture? So he went on, till he found the same divine harmony throughout the inspired Word.

He has given us the account of all this, with its results, in a most engaging little book, "The Numerical Structure of Scripture," a work which will be a revelation to those who have not yet read it.

But to the thoughtful mind such a handling of Scripture will seem, to say the least, hazardous. And so it is. So it seemed to our brother. He shrank from the fancies and imaginations of the mind of man. Various books illustrated only too sadly the dangers of this method, when undertaken apart from the Spirit of God. He feared, he was cautious, he was prayerful, but he did not draw back. The Spirit of God thus, doubtless, put him on his guard against the use of the imagination so he went on carefully, slowly — testing each step. The result was a most rich and beautiful exhibition of the treasures of the Word of God.

Time will not permit us to enter into details here. The "Numerical Bible" is in our hands, and will speak for itself to the thoughtful student. It must suffice here to point out the application of those principles to which we have already alluded.

All Scripture is written according to a well defined plan, in which each book has its definite place, which corresponds, in spiritual meaning, with the number of that place. Thus the first book of a group (as the first group also) will have a meaning suggested by number one; and so with the second, third, etc. The scriptural significance of these numbers was found in the Word itself, and justified by many a text. The Pentateuch of Moses was found to be the basis, the plan, upon which the entire Scripture was written. Thus there is a historical Pentateuch, a Prophetic, and a Poetic one — as well as one for the New Testament.

Each of these pentateuchs he found to correspond, book by book, with the Mosaic one. Thus a third book had a Levitical significance, or at least a significance corresponding with the number 3. Incidentally, what a proof we have here of the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch — 5 books, no more and no less, forming a complete, symmetrical whole!

The same structure was found to exist in each separate book. Each division and minor section was found to correspond in meaning with its numerical place. Thus a fourth division of a book would have the characteristics of number 4, a second section in that would give some thought connected with number 2, and so on. These divisions are noted down to portions as small as the chapters in our ordinary Version, and in some cases to portions the length of only a verse or two. In the Psalms each verse has its numerical place.

Thus, instead of the arbitrary divisions into chapters and verses, of no help save for purposes of reference, we have a structure exhibited, every part of which has divine meaning. Far be it from us to suggest that perfect accuracy has been reached in noting these divisions. Others may, here and there, find more simple and well defined marks but in the main they are seen by the thoughtful mind to be the true divisions.

And what a witness to the perfection of the Word of God they are! An answer to the wretched infidel work of "Higher Criticism," and most helpful, too, in getting and holding the contents of any book of the Bible.

We have been speaking only of the text of Scripture and its divisions. When we come to the "Notes," which form quite a full commentary upon the text, we find not only the use of the divisions, but a most lucid and profound exposition of the Word of God. The scope of each book, its theme and main divisions, are stated in a few paragraphs. Then each portion is gone into with careful detail, and the results spread before the reader, opening up the entire passage. All is treated, as we have been saying, from a spiritual point of view. Every word has meaning, every allusion had a purpose in the mind of the Spirit. Thus the types of Exodus and Leviticus are handled with reverent particularity, and the whole book becomes luminous with divine meaning.

There is little or none of the spirit of dogmatism in these notes. We are simply able to accompany the writer, and see upon what scriptural grounds he has reached his conclusions. Thus we are unhampered, and, instead of listening to man's word, have been pointed to the Word of God.

We must also refer to the treatment of the last half of the book of Joshua. Here, most commentators had been able simply to grope among the names and point out here and there a place identified by its modern Arabic name, or by some more or less obscure historic allusion. Our brother, on the contrary — looking upon this as the description of God's inheritance for His earthly people, and spiritually for ourselves — found in each tribe, with its boundaries, some features of divine truth in the name of each spring and hill and valley and town some spiritual blessing in Christ. A map of our spiritual inheritance could almost have been constructed. Thus in an apparently barren and meaningless desert of names, the Spirit made to blossom beautiful and precious fruits for the saints.

The labor in all this was arduous, and necessarily progress was slow. But the Lord enabled His servant, in weak and failing health, to go from Genesis to 2 Samuel in a thorough and orderly way; to devote a volume to the whole book of Psalms, and to complete the entire New Testament. This last was scarcely more than half accomplished when his life was despaired of, but, in answer to fervent prayer, he was raised up and enabled to complete that portion. Then, turning back to the Old Testament, he had well-nigh finished the prophet Ezekiel when the weary servant was called into the rest of God.

As we think of what has been accomplished, we bless God. As we think of what remains, we mourn. But we have learned in vain from our brother if we think that his work is unfinished, or that the word of God is bound. When apparently near to death he uttered a significant sentence in prayer: "We fail and are set aside, all human strength passes, but Thou abidest, Thy Spirit abides, Thy Word abides." Yes, beloved, we have the abiding Word, the abiding Spirit; and when all else fails, they remain — the Author and His Word. The work of our brother may never be carried on as he began it — but the Spirit of God will still lead faith on into the unsearchable riches of Christ. There are other features of his ministry we may profitably dwell upon for a moment, to recall the precious truths made more clearly known to many of us through his instrumentality.

A small but most helpful pamphlet upon "Deliverance" has been used for the emancipation of how many! The subject of sanctification has been more misunderstood, perhaps, than any other doctrine in the word of God. On the one hand it has been taught that the believer can experience such a change that his sinful nature is eliminated, and he can live in "perfect love;" on the other, it is claimed that we must go through life groaning under the bondage of indwelling sin. Both views are clearly unscriptural and injurious. The one fosters spiritual pride, and the other makes provision for the flesh. In the pamphlet referred to the subject is treated most lucidly. The seventh chapter of Romans is expounded — the bondage of the saved man seeking fruitfulness by the law, the increasing load and hopeless entanglement until, in utter self-despair, the soul cries out, "O wretched man that I am!" The author then passes on to show the true deliverance through Jesus Christ.

Unlike many, he does not close his theme with the seventh chapter, but passes on to the first few verses of the eighth. Thus the believer is not seen at the close with a twofold service of the law of God and the law of sin — but a very different law, a law of emancipation from the bondage of sin — "The Spirit's law, of life in Christ Jesus."

Who that has groped his way through the awful experiences of that seventh chapter, and beat his wings against the iron bars of his cage, till, bruised and helpless, and well-nigh hopeless, he reached the end of self — who, we say, can forget the relief, the peace and joy that came when this commanding truth entered the soul? We were free — not only from guilt, and the external bondage of sin, but, best of all, free from self.

But this truth is only the doorway into the opened heavens where Christ can be seen in all His peerless beauty as the object of the soul. Sanctification comes through occupation with Himself. Just as self-occupation, whether it be good or bad self, is defiling, so occupation with a glorified Christ transforms into His image. These truths are brought out in the pamphlet referred to above, and in "Christian Holiness: its Roots and Fruits" "Some Thoughts on Job's Ditch," etc. Others have written helpfully upon these themes, but we mention these features as distinctively characteristic of our brother's ministry. He ministered Christ to the soul. He fed the lambs and sheep with the tender grass of divine grace and love.

No earnest soul can pass through this world without being called upon to contend earnestly for the faith. Some are more distinctively warriors than others, but all who would be loyal to our Lord must expect to endure hardness for Him. We are not ashamed, therefore, to speak of our brother as a controversialist. This occupied but a small part of his life, but was a season of intense exercise while it lasted. He did not seek controversy, but when he felt the truth of God was involved he did not shrink from declaring what he believed to be the Scripture doctrine, and holding to it at all cost.

Sad as have been the trials of these times, many can bless God for a clearer apprehension of His truth through them. The truths of eternal life, the portion of every believer; of sealing with the Spirit not being dependent upon the amount of knowledge possessed, but upon faith in the person of Christ — have come with relief to those who were in danger of bondage and self-occupation. His "Facts and Theories" is a controversial work most needful and helpful, as we have seen.

Any notice of our brother's ministry would be incomplete without reference to his ecclesiastical views and position. Of these he made no secret, not flaunting them defiantly, but stedfastly maintaining them. He believed in the sufficiency of the name of Christ and the person of the Lord as a centre of gathering for His saints, instead of the manifold divisions and sects of Christendom, over which he mourned. He believed in the presence and competence of the Holy Spirit to order and control the Assembly of God without the intervention of human officialism or unscriptural ordination. Above all, he believed that a right attitude of heart toward the Lord was indispensable, without which all else was as "sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal."

His "Present Things" is a searching presentation of the epistles to the seven churches, in which he falls into the current of the Spirit's teaching upon the Church as a vessel of testimony for Christ.

On the other hand he was not indifferent to the dangers of a place of separation. He has traced with a hand of sorrow in "A Divine Movement" the dangers that menace those who have come, outwardly at least, "outside the camp." He did not shrink from the path, but warned against either an unscriptural narrowness or an equally unscriptural indifference to what he believed concerned the Lord's honor. He was persuaded that a true basis of fellowship could only be had in accepting and acting upon all the doctrines of the word of God. He did not believe that a true fellowship could be secured by ignoring questions of doctrine or discipline upon which saints had formed different judgments.

With a largeness of heart to go out, as he did, in love to saints of God of whatever name, he felt and expressed the need of the greatest care in maintaining scriptural order, according to the truths of the unity of the Spirit.

One matter weighed greatly upon him. He felt and deplored the tendency to leave all ministry in the hands of the few. His address upon "Prophecy" is but one of many testimonies regarding this. He maintained from Scripture that "ye may all prophesy" is not to be a dead letter; that every brother, according to the measure of the gift of Christ, was responsible to use that gift. It was not that he held any different view upon this than what is common to the saints, but he felt most deeply about it. He feared the danger of things crystalizing into form, and warned again and again as to it. May every one harken to his admonition.

But we must close. What, it may be asked, is the object of this memorial of our brother's ministry? Is it to glorify the man? God forbid. We with him would ascribe the glory to Christ alone. "Not I, but Christ." As John the Baptist said, "He must increase, but I must decrease."

No, beloved brethren, our object has been to make Christ more precious, to make His Word more loved, more read, more studied. This was the passion of our brother's life, the desire that consumed him. He made a significant utterance shortly before his departure. Sitting propped in his chair, with the word of God open before him, as was his custom through the days of weary, helpless waiting, he turned to the writer of these lines, and with a depth of pathos, glancing at his Bible, said, "Oh, the Book, the Book, the Book!" It seemed as though he said, "What a fulness there; how little I have grasped it; how feebly expressed its thoughts." May these words from the dying servant of Christ lay hold of many a heart. Is it the BOOK with us? the one Book, always that? Oh, beloved, he speaks to us all still, and says, Make everything of the Book!

Samuel Ridout.