Expositions of Holy Scripture

A >> Alexander Maclaren >> Expositions of Holy Scripture

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40 | 41 | 42 | 43 | 44 | 45 | 46 | 47 | 48 | 49 | 50

True, we are strangers, and in our constant movement we lose many of
the companions of our march, and the track of the caravan may be
traced by the graves on either side. But, since we are 'with Him,'
we have companionship even when most solitary, and even in a strange
land shall not be lonely. Seek then to cultivate as a joy and
strength that consciousness that the Lord of all the land is ever
with you, Whoever goes, He abides. Whatever rushes past us like a
phantasmagoria, He passes not. Whatever and whoever change, He
changes never. Where thou goest, He will go. He will be 'thy shield
at thy right hand,' and thy 'keeper from all evil.' So, looking
forward to the unknown days of another New Year, we may be of good
cheer.

So will it be while we live; and if this year we should die--well,
the King of this land, where we are strangers, is the King of the
other land beyond the sea, where we are at home. So we shall only be
the nearer to Him for the change. Death the separator shall but
unite us to the King, whose presence indeed fills this subject-
province of His empire with all its good, but who dwells in more
resplendent 'beauty,' and is felt in greater nearness in the other
'land that is very far off.' Whether here or there, we may have God
with us, if we will. With Him for our Host and companion, let us
peacefully go on our road, while the life of strangers and
sojourners shall last. It will bring us to the fatherland where we
shall be at home with the King, and find in Him our 'sure dwelling,
and quiet resting-place, and peaceful habitation for ever.'

GOD'S SLAVES

'For they are My servants, which I brought forth out
of the land of Egypt; they shall not be sold as bondmen.'
--LEV. xxv. 42.

This is the basis of the Mosaic legislation as to slavery. It did
not suppress but regulated that accursed system. Certainly Hebrew
slavery was a very different thing from that of other nations. In
the first place, no Jew was to be a slave. To that broad principle
there were exceptions, such as the case of the man who voluntarily
gave himself up to his creditor. But even he was not to be treated
as a slave, but as a 'hired servant,' and at the jubilee was to be
set free. There were also other regulations of various kinds in
other circumstances on which we do not need to dwell. The slaves of
alien blood were owned and used, but under great mitigations and
restrictions.

Of course we have here an instance of the incompleteness of the
Mosaic law,--or rather we may more truly say of its completeness,
regard being had to the state of the world at the time. All social
change hangs together. Institutions cannot be altered at a blow,
without altering the stage of civilisation, of which they are the
expression. 'Raw haste' is 'half-sister to delay.' What is good and
necessary for one era is out of place in another. So God works
slowly, and lets bad things die out, by changing the atmosphere in
which they flourish.

All servitude to men was an infraction of God's rights over Israel.
God was the Israelites' 'Master'; they were His 'slaves.' He was so,
because He had 'broken the bands of their yoke, and set them free.'
There is, then, here--

I. The ground of God's rights. 'I brought you forth.'

II. Our servitude because of our redemption. 'Ye are My servants.'

III. Our consequent freedom from all other masters. 'Ye shall not be
sold as bondmen.'

THE KINSMAN REDEEMER

'After that he is sold he may be redeemed again; one of
his brethren may redeem him.'--LEV. xxv. 48.

There are several of the institutions and precepts of the Mosaic
legislation which, though not prophetic, nor typical, have yet
remarkable correspondences with lofty Christian truth. They may be
used as symbols, if only we remember that we are diverting them from
their original purpose.

How singularly these words lend themselves to the statement of the
very central truths of Christianity--a slavery which is not
necessarily perpetual and a redemption effected by a kinsman!

That institution of the 'Goel' is of a very remarkable kind, and
throws great light on Christian verities. I wish, in dealing with
it, to guard against any idea that it was meant to be prophetic or
typical.

I. The kinsman redeemer under the old law.

The strength of the family tie in the Israelitish polity was great.
The family was the unit--hence there were certain duties devolving
on the nearest male relative. These, so far as we are at present
concerned, were three.

_(a)_ The redemption of a slave. The Mosaic legislation about
slavery was very remarkable. It did not nominally prohibit it, but
it fenced it round and modified it, so as to make it another thing.

Israelites were allowed to hold Gentile slaves, but under careful
restrictions. Israelites were allowed to sell themselves as slaves.
If the sale was to Israelites, the slavery was ended in six years or
at the jubilee, whichever period came first--unless the slave had
his ear bored to the doorpost to intimate his contentment in service
(Exod. xxi. 5,6). This is not slavery in our sense of the word, but
only a six years' engagement. If sold to a heathen in Israel, then
the Goel had to redeem him; and the reason for this was that all
Israelites belonged to God.

_(b)_ The redemption of an inheritance.

This was the task of the kinsman-goel. The land belonged to the
tribe. Pauperism was thus kept off. There could be no 'submerged
tenth.' The theocratic reason was, 'the land shall not be sold at
all for ever for it is Mine!'

_(c)_ The avenging of murder. Blood feuds were thus checked,
though not abolished. The remarkable institution of 'cities of
refuge' gave opportunity for deliberate investigation into each
case. If wilful murder was proved, the murderer was given up to the
Goel for retribution; if death had been by misadventure, the slayer
was kept in the city of refuge till the high-priest's decease.

This is the germ of the figure of the Redeemer-Kinsman in later
Scripture. Notice how higher ideas began to gather round the office.
The prophets felt that in some way God was their 'Goel.' In Isaiah
the application of the name to Him is frequent and, we might almost
say, habitual. So in Psalm xlix. 7, 'None can be Goel to his
brother'; verse 15, 'God will be Goel to my soul from the power of
the grave.'

Job xix. 25, 'I know that my Goel liveth....'

II. Our Kinsman-Redeemer.

The New Testament metaphor of 'Redemption' or buying back with a
ransom is distinctly drawn from the Hebrew Goel's office.

Christ is the Kinsman. The brotherhood of Christ with us was
voluntarily assumed, and was for the purpose of redeeming His
brethren.

He is the Kinsman-Redeemer from slavery,--a slavery which is
voluntary. The soul is self-delivered to evil and sin; but blessed
be God! this slavery is terminable. The kinship of Christ was
needful for our redemption. 'It behoved Him to be made like unto His
brethren.' He thus gave His life a 'ransom' for many. Note the
objective value of His atonement, and its subjective power as
setting us free.

He is the Kinsman-Redeemer of our inheritance. God is the
inheritance here. The manhood of Jesus brings God back to us for
our--(1) Knowledge; (2) Love; (3) Possession. Heaven is our
inheritance hereafter. His manhood secures it for us. 'I go to
prepare a place for you.' 'An inheritance incorruptible.' 'The
redemption of the purchased possession.'

The Kinsman-Avenger of blood. It is only in a modified sense that we
can transfer this part of the Goel's office to Jesus. The old
Kinsman-Avenger of blood avenged it by shedding the shedder's blood
in retribution. But that was not the kind of vindication (for Goel
means also Vindicator) for which Job looked when he used the
expression. Resurrection to the vision of God was to come to him 'at
the last,' by the standing of his Goel on the earth, and that was to
be the true avenging of his death, and his vindication. The great
murderer Death is to die, and his victims are to be wrested from
him, and their death be proved to be the means of their fuller life.
'Precious shall their blood be in His sight,' and when their slayer
is slain they will live for ever, partakers of their Kinsman-
Redeemer's glory, because they had been partakers of His death, and
His blood had been precious in their sight. Let us cling to our
Kinsman-Redeemer in all our life that He may give us freedom and an
inheritance among His brethren, and, closing our eyes in death, we
may commend our spirits to the 'Angel that redeemed us from all
evil,' and be sure that He will 'redeem' our 'souls from the power
of the grave.'

THE OLD STORE AN THE NEW

'Ye shall eat old store, and bring forth the old because
of the new.'
LEV. xxvi. 10.

This is one of the blessings promised to obedience. No doubt it,
like the other elements of that 'prosperity' which 'is the blessing
of the Old Testament,' presupposes a supernatural order of things,
in which material well-being was connected with moral good far more
closely and certainly than we see to be the case. But the spirit and
heart of the promise remain, however the form of it may have passed
away. It is a picturesque way of saying that the harvest shall be
more than enough for the people's wants. All through the winter, and
the spring, and the ripening summer, their granaries shall yield
supplies. There will be no season of scarcity such as often occurs
in countries whose communications are imperfect, just before
harvest, when the last year's crop is exhausted, and it is hard to
get anything to live on till this year's is ready. But when the new
wheat comes in they will have still much of the old, and will have
to 'bring it forth' to empty their barns, to make room for the fresh
supplies which the blessing of God has sent before they were needed.
The same idea of superabundant yield from the fields is given under
another form in a previous verse of this chapter (ver. 5): 'Your
threshing shall reach unto the vintage, and the vintage shall reach
unto the sowing time, and ye shall eat your bread to the full':
which reminds one of the striking prophecy of Amos: 'Behold, the
days come, saith the Lord, that the plowman shall overtake the
reaper, and the treader of grapes him that soweth seed.' So rapid
the growth, and so large the fruitfulness, that the gatherer shall
follow close on the heels of the sower, and will not have
accomplished his task before it is again time to sow. The prophet
clearly has in his mind the old promise of the law, and applies it
to higher matters, even to the fields white to harvest, where 'he
that soweth and he that reapeth shall rejoice together.' In the same
way we may take these words, and gather from them better promises
and larger thoughts than they originally carried.

There is in them a promise as to the fullness of the divine gifts,
which has a far wider reach and nobler application than to the
harvests and granaries of old Palestine.

We may take the words in that aspect, first, as containing God's
pledge that these outward gifts shall come in unbroken continuity.
And have they not so come to us all, for all these long years? Has
there ever been a gap left yawning? has there ever been a break in
the chain of mercies and supplies? has it not rather been that 'one
post ran to meet another,' that before one of the messengers had
unladed all his budget, another's arrival has antiquated and put
aside his store? True, we are often brought very low; there may not
be much in the barn but sweepings, and a few stray grains scattered
over the floor. We may have but a handful of meal in the barrel, and
be ready to dress it 'that we may eat it, and die.' But it never
really comes to that. The new ever comes before the old is all eaten
up; or if it be delayed even beyond that time, it comes before the
hunger reaches inanition. It may be good that we should have to
trust Him, even when the storehouse is empty; it may be good for us
to know something of want, but that discipline comes seldom, and is
never carried very far. For the most part He anticipates wants by
gifts, and His good gifts overlap each other in our outward lives as
slates on a roof, or scales on a fish.

We wonder at the smooth working of the machinery for feeding a great
city; and how, day by day, the provisions come at the right time,
and are parted out among hundreds of thousands of homes. But we
seldom think of the punctual love, the perfect knowledge, the
profound wisdom which cares for us all, and is always in time with
its gifts. It was that quality of punctuality extended over a whole
universe which seemed so wonderful to the Psalmist: 'The eyes of all
wait upon Thee, and Thou givest them their meat in due season.'
God's machinery for distribution is perfect, and its very
perfection, with the constancy of the resulting blessings, robs Him
of His praise, and hinders our gratitude. By assiduity He loses
admiration.

'Things grown common lose their dear delight.' 'If in His gifts and
benefits He were more sparing and close-handed,' said Luther, 'we
should learn to be thankful.' But let us learn it by the continuity
of our joys, that we may not need to be taught it by their
interruption; and let us still all tremulous anticipation of
possible failure or certain loss by the happy confidence which we
have a right to cherish, that His mercies will meet our needs,
continuous as they are, and be strung so close together on the poor
thread of our lives that no gap will be discernible in the jewelled
circle.

May we not apply that same thought of the unbroken continuity of
God's gifts to the higher region of our spiritual experience? His
supplies of wisdom, love, joy, peace, power, to our souls are always
enough and more than enough for our wants. If ever men complain of
languishing vitality in their religious emotions, or of a stinted
supply of food for their truest self, it is their own fault, not
His. He means that there should be no parentheses of famine in our
Christian life. It is not His doing if times of torpor alternate
with seasons of quick energy and joyful fullness of life. So far as
He is concerned the flow is uninterrupted, and if it come to us in
jets and spurts as from an intermittent well, it is because our own
fault has put some obstacle to choke the channel and dam out His
Spirit from our spirits. We cannot too firmly hold, or too
profoundly feel, that an unbroken continuity of supplies of His
grace--unbroken and bright as a sunbeam reaching in one golden shaft
all the way from the sun to the earth--is His purpose concerning us.
Here, in this highest region, the thought of our text is most
absolutely true; for He who gives is ever pouring forth His own self
for us to take, and there is no limit to our reception but our
capacity and our desire; nor any reason for a moment's break in our
possession of love, righteousness, peace, but our withdrawal of our
souls from beneath the Niagara of His grace. As long as we keep our
poor vessels below that constant downpour they will be full. It is
all our own blame if they are empty. Why should Christian people
have these dismal times of deadness, these parentheses of paralysis?
as if their growth must be like that of a tree with its alternations
of winter sleep and summer waking? In regard to outward blessings we
are, as it were, put upon rations, and 'that He gives' us we
'gather.' There He sometimes does, in love and wisdom, put us on
very short allowance, and even now and then causes 'the fields to
yield no meat.' But never is it so in the higher region. There He
puts the key of the storehouse into our own hands, and we may take
as much as we will, and have as much as we take. There the bread of
God is given for evermore, and He wills that in uninterrupted
abundance 'the meek shall eat and be satisfied.'

The source is full to overflowing, and there are no limits to the
supply. The only limit is our capacity, which again is largely
determined by our desire. So after all His gifts there is more yet
unreceived to possess. After all His Self-revelation there is more
yet unspoken to declare. Great as is the goodness which He has
'wrought before the sons of men for them that trust in Him,' there
are far greater treasures of goodness 'laid up' in the deep mines of
God 'for them that fear Him.' Bars of uncoined treasure and ingots
of massy gold lie in His storehouses, to be put into circulation as
soon as we need, and can use, them. Hence we have the right to look
for an endless increase in our possession of God; and from the
consideration of an Infinite Spirit that imparts Himself, and of
finite but indefinitely expansible spirits that receive, the
certainty arises of an endless life for us of growing glory; a
heaven of ceaseless advance, where in constant alternation desire
shall widen capacity, and capacity increase fruition, and fruition
lead in, not satiety, but quickened appetite and deeper longing.

But we may also see in this text the prescription of a duty as well
as the announcement of a promise. There is direction here as to our
manner of receiving God's gifts, as well as large assurance as to
His manner of bestowing them. It is His to substitute the new for
the old. It is ours gladly to accept the exchange, a task not always
easy or pleasant.

No doubt there is a natural love of change deep in us all, but that
is held in check by its opposite, and all poetry and human life
itself are full of the sadness born of mutation. Our Lord laid bare
a deep tendency, when He said, 'No man having tasted old wine,
straightway desireth new; because he saith the old is better.' We
cling to what is familiar, in the very furniture of our houses; and
yet we are ever being forced to accept what is strange and new, and,
like some fresh article in a room, is out of harmony with the well-
worn things that we have seen standing in their corners for years.
It takes some time for the raw look to wear off, and for us to 'get
used to it,' as we say. So is it, though often for deeper reasons,
in far more important things. A man, for instance, has been engaged
in some kind of business for years, and at last God shows him, by
clear indications, that he must turn to something else. How slow he
is to see it, how reluctant to do it! How he cleaves to the 'old
store'! How he shrinks from clearing out the barn, to bring in the
new! Or a household has been going on for many days unbroken, and at
last a time comes when some of its members have to pass out into new
circumstances; a son to push his way in the world, a daughter to
brighten another fireside. It is hard for the parents to enter fully
into the high hopes of their children, and to accept the new
condition, without many vain longings for the old days that can
never come back any more. So, all through our lives, wisdom and
faith say, 'Bring forth the old because of the new.' Accept
cheerfully the law of constant change under which God's love has set
us. Do not let the pleasant bonds of habit tie down your hearts so
tightly to the familiar possessions that you shrink from the
introduction of fresh elements. Be sure that the new comes from the
same loving hand which sent the old in its season, and that change
is meant to be progress. Do not confine yourselves within any mill-
horse round of associations and occupations. Front the vicissitudes
of life, not merely with brave patience, but with happy confidence,
for they all come from Him whose love is older than your oldest
blessings, and whose mercies, new every morning, express themselves
afresh through every change. Welcome the new, treasure the old, and
in both see the purpose of that loving Father who, Himself
unchanged, changeth all things, and

'... fulfils Himself in many ways,
Lest one good custom should corrupt the world.'

In higher matters than these our text may give us counsel as to our
duty. 'God hath more light yet to break forth from His holy word.'
We are bound to welcome new truth, so soon as to our apprehensions
it has made good its title, and not to refuse it lodgment in our
minds because it needs the displacement of their old contents. In
the regions of our knowledge and of our Christian life, most
chiefly, are we under solemn obligations to 'bring forth the old
store because of the new'; if we would not be unfaithful to God's
great educational process that goes on through all our lives. It is
often difficult to adjust the relations of our last lesson with our
previous possessions. There is always a temptation to make too much
of a new truth, and to fancy that it will produce more change in our
whole mental furniture than it really will do. No man is less likely
to come to the knowledge of the truth than he who is always deep in
love with some new thought, 'the Cynthia of the minute,' and ever
ready to barter 'old lamps for new ones.' But all these things
admitted, still it remains true that we are here to learn, that our
education is to go on all our days, and that here on earth it can
only be carried out by our parting with the old store, which may
have become musty by long lying in the granaries, to make room for
the new, just gathered in the ripened field. The great central
truths of God in Christ are to be kept for ever; but we shall come
to grasp them in their fullness only by joyfully welcoming every
fresh access of clearer light which falls upon them; and gladly
laying aside our inadequate thoughts of God's permanent revelation
of Himself in Jesus Christ, to house and garner in heart and spirit
the fuller knowledge which it may please Him to impart.

So the law for life is thankful enjoyment of the old store, and
openness of mind and freedom of heart which permit its unreluctant
surrender when newer harvests ripen. And the highest form of the
promise of our text will be when we pass into another world, and its
rich abundance is poured out into our laps. Blessed are they who can
willingly put away the familiar blessings of earth, and stretch out,
willingly emptied, expectant hands to meet the 'new store' of
Heaven!

EMANCIPATED SLAVES

'I am the Lord your God, which brought you forth out of
the land of Egypt, that ye should not be their bondmen;
and I have broken the bands of your yoke, and made you
go upright.'--LEV. xxvi. 13.

The history of Israel is a parable and a prophecy as well as a
history.

The great central word of the New Testament has been drawn from it,
viz. 'redemption,' _i.e._ a buying out of bondage.

The Hebrew slaves in Egypt were 'delivered.' The deliverance made
them a nation. God acquired them for Himself, and they became His
servants.

The great truths of the gospel are all there.

Henceforth the fact of their deliverance became the basis of all His
appeals to them; the ground of His law; the reason for their
obedience. In the previous context it has shaped the institution of
slavery. Here it is the foundation of a general exhortation to
obedience. The emphatic picture of the men stooping beneath the
yoke, and then straightening themselves up, erect, illustrates the
joyful freedom which Christ gives. That freedom is our subject.

I. Jesus gives freedom from the slavery of sin.

Freedom consists in power to follow unhindered the law of our being.
So sin is slavery because it is contrary to that law.

When Jesus promised freedom through the truth, the Jews indignantly
spurned the offer with the proud boast, which the presence of a
Roman garrison in Jerusalem should have made to stick in their
throats: 'We were never in bondage to any man.' A like hardy
shutting of eyes to plain facts characterises the attitude of
multitudes to the Christian view of man's condition. Jesus answered
the Jews by the deep saying: 'He that committeth sin is the servant
of sin.' A man fancies himself showing off his freedom by throwing
off the restraints of morality or law, and by 'doing as he likes,'
but he is really showing his servitude. Self-will looks like
liberty, but it is serfdom. The libertine is a slave. That slavery
under sin takes two forms. The man who sins is a slave to the power
of sin. Will and conscience are meant to guide and impel us, and we
never sin without first coercing or silencing them and subjecting
them to the upstart tyranny of desires and senses which should obey
and not command. The 'beggars' are on horseback, and the 'princes'
walking. There is a servile revolt, and we know what horrors
accompany that.

But that slavery under sin is shown also by the terrible force with
which any sin, if once committed, appeals to the doer to repeat it.
It is not only in regard to sensual sins that the awful insistence
of habit grips the doer, and makes it the rarest thing that evil
once done is done only once.

But he who sins is also a slave to the guilt of sin. True, that
sense of guilt is for the most part and in most men dormant, but the
snake is but hibernating, and often wakes and stings at most
unexpected moments. 'The deceitfulness of sin' lies to the sinner,
so that for the most part he 'wipes his mouth, saying I have done no
harm,' but some chance incident may at any time, and certainly
something will at some time, dissipate the illusion, as a stray
sunbeam might scatter a wisp of mist and show startled eyes the grim
fact that had always been there. And even while not consciously
felt, guilt hampers the soul's insight into divine realities, clips
its wings so that it cannot soar, paralyses its efforts after noble
aims, and inclines it to ignoble grovelling as far away from
thoughts of God and goodness as may be.