Our studies together of these early
chapters of Genesis have led us up to the point when in the new world nations
are to make their first appearance, and a new development is about to take
place in the purpose of the ages. We
write these pages for those who desire help in understanding the fundamentals of Dispensational Truth,
and therefore propose to pause at this juncture to consider what light these
early chapters throw upon the purpose of God.
There is need here for the utmost care,
lest by confusing things that differ we are found saying things about the Lord
that shall be to our shame.
First
there is the purpose of God according to election. This purpose is illustrated for us in the
ninth chapter of Romans; the apostle had
expressed his sorrow for his kinsmen according to the flesh, but corrects any
idea that there had been any miscarriage of the purpose of God by saying:--
“Not as though the word of God hath taken
none effect, for they are not all Israel, neither, because they are the seed of
Abraham are they all children: but, In
Isaac shall thy seed be called … the children of the promise are counted for
the seed.”
The Scripture passes from the promise
concerning Isaac to that concerning Jacob, saying:--
“For the children being not yet born,
neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to
election might stand, not of works, but of Him that calleth, it was said unto
her, The elder shall serve the younger.”
It is evident that this is “election” pure
and simple; it was planned before the
children were born, and took no account of their works, either good or
evil. In the operation of this purpose
the Lord shows mercy or hardness entirely irrespective of the individual. Pharaoh, and the hardening of his heart, is
instanced as a further illustration, and the figure of the potter and the clay
makes the meaning of the apostle clear.
References to a similar purpose are to be found in Eph. i. 1-14,
where the election is said to have been made in Christ before the overthrow
of the world, and the sonship and the inheritance are spoken of as being
according to predestination, which predestination is in harmony with the
purpose of Him who is energizing all things according to the counsel of His own
will. Parallel with this is the
reference in II Tim. i. 9:--
“Who saved us and called us with an holy
calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace
which was given us in Christ Jesus before aionian
times.”
This purpose and promise, related to that
period spoken of as before aionian
times, is, like the purpose which is related to the period before the overthrow
of the world, connected with election, for
Titus i. 1, 2 links the faith of God’s elect with the promise that was made before aionian
times. Now, here comes the danger of a false
comparison of things that differ. If we
transfer the terms of this pre-aionian
purpose to the purpose of the ages, or to the purpose of God in general, we
shall be found teaching that which if taught wittingly would be quite
erroneous.
Let us see what happens if we take the
absolute principles of the purpose of election, and teach that such is the
character of God in the widest application.
If this be true then there is no such thing as sin, or human guilt; God is openly and unblushingly made
responsible for sin, and sin is robbed of its ugliness and criminal character,
and becomes but the handmaid of God.
Satan is not really an enemy or an adversary, he is but one of the many
strange tools that God is employing under this purpose. It is idle to speak of responsibility, of
obedience or disobedience, of punishment and repentance; as well punish a stone, because left
unsupported it falls to the ground, as punish a man for sinning. If God has willed and decreed from first to
last the whole course of the ages with all that ever will be done therein, He
has of necessity made a machine, the wheels and cogs of which move by mechanical power and not by moral forces. If any fault is to be found it must be found
in the Maker, for He willed all that has been and shall be down to the last
detail.
Possibly the reader will interpose with
one of the many passages of Scripture where man is addressed as a moral agent,
urged to obey, believe, love, etc., threatened with punishment or encouraged by
reward. Deuteronomy xxviii., e.g., is so much mockery in the ears of those
whose every deed is fixed by predestination or electing purpose. It will be sufficient for our purpose to
consider the following passages in the nine chapters of Genesis which we have
now passed under review.
(1).
Gen. i. 1, 2. Creation and
Chaos.
(2).
Gen. ii. 17. Prohibition and Penalty.
(3).
Gen. iv. 25. Seth and Substitution.
(4).
Gen. vi. 5-7. The repentance of God.
(1).
GEN. i. 1, 2. — We noticed, when dealing with this passage in volume.VI,
pp.169-173, that the condition of chaos and darkness there indicated was not
the condition of creation “in the beginning”;
it became so. The passage we referred to (Isa. xlv. 18),
not only discloses that the earth was not created tohu (without form), but that “He formed it to be inhabited”. Here, therefore, at the threshold of our
enquiry we have words that indicate that the purpose of the creation of Gen. i. 1
received a check; something had
for the time being entered and spoiled the fair work of God. This passage, taken by itself, does not
settle the question we are considering; we
must wait until we have collected further evidence. We may remark here, however, that the
“purpose of the ages” (Eph. iii. 11) occupies the whole period of this present
time, the creation of the six days being the platform upon which the great
drama of good and evil is enacted, the consummation being the restoration of
the alienated creation back to God. When
this takes place the present heaven and earth pass away, and a new heaven and a
new earth appear. It seems that we must
choose the view that either the purpose of God is of such a character as to
roll on its way utterly unaltered by any action of any of His creatures, or we
must believe that something did enter into His creation which temporarily
turned that purpose aside, and that the conflict of the ages is no piece of
theatricals, but a desperate battle, that sin is an ugly and awful things, and
no creature of God, that the coming of the Son of God was a necessity, that His
agony, suffering, and death were real, that the triumph and victory was not the
conquest of a make-believe enemy, and that the infinite power and wisdom of God
are fully able to deal with all opposition, and to accomplish the fulfilment of
all His purposes. The One who sees the
very “weakness” of God as being stronger than man, and the “foolishness” of God
as wiser than man, needs no inflexible mechanical purpose to necessitate
certainty. We watch a game of chess, and
after a while the certainty comes to us that one player is already beaten, and
the other the victor, although each are bound by laws, and neither can
predestinate the others movements, and the wisdom and the skill of the victor
is enhanced as we realize the high qualities of his opponent. Sin, Satan, and death are real enemies; they are included in the things that offend,
and are to be finally banished from the kingdom of God. True, He makes the wrath of man to praise
Him, and restrains the rest (Psa. lxxvi. 10), true, He overrules sin, and takes
the wise in their own craftiness. To
accomplish His purposes of grace He spared not His own Son, and working by law
and by faith, by conscience, and by revelation, by grace, by love, by warning,
and by beseeching, with infinite variety and in manifold wisdom He deals with
the ever varying moral agents that comprise the fabric of His purpose.
(2).
GEN. ii. 17. — Coming to Adam, his temptation and fall, Scripture
definitely declares, “This only have I found, that God hath made man upright; but they have sought out many inventions:” (Eccles.
vii. 29). When God said to Adam
concerning the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, “Thou shalt not eat of
it”, He meant it, as the “God of
truth and without iniquity”. He could
not have meant, "Thou shalt not eat of it — but my purpose is that you
shall, that your seeming responsibility and choice is only superficial and not
real". The penalty attached to the
disobedience is only moral if Adam had free action in the matter; if we grant this, then it at once becomes
evident that the purpose of God cannot be of the mechanical unaccommodating
character that some would have us believe.
An illustration of what we mean by accommodation is found in the birth
of Seth.
(3).
GEN. iv. 25. — Seth was so called, because “God hath appointed me”, said
Eve, “another seed instead of Abel, whom Cain slew”. Cain was “of that wicked one”, and if the
unalterable and inflexible purpose of God was that Seth should be the seed
through whom the line of promise should run, then Cain had obeyed the will of
God in thus murdering his brother, but if God met the attack of “the wicked
one” by appointing “another seed instead of Abel”, His purpose would still go
on, and the enemy’s attack fail.
Besides, that view makes the whole transaction real, the other makes it
an awful fiction.
(4).
GEN. vi. 5-7. — Come again to another scene, the flood. If the deluge was a predestined part of the
unalterable, inflexible purpose of God, so must have been the wickedness that
necessitated it, and God, looking down upon the increasing violence, must have
rejoiced to see how well His purpose was developing; but what saith the Holy Word?
“And God saw that the wickedness of man
was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart
was only evil continually, and it REPENTED THE LORD that He had made man on the
earth, and it GRIEVED HIM AT HIS HEART, and the Lord said, I will destroy man
whom I have created from the face of the earth;
both man and beast, and creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it REPENTETH ME THAT I HAVE MADE THEM”
(Gen. iv. 5-7).
Here is solid, sober Scripture, call it by
what name in the range of figurative language that you will, when all is said
and done, stand once again and behold this record of Divine grief over the
apostacy of His creatures, and the resolution to blot them out that followed. We need no greater proof than this, that the
responsibility for human guilt rests upon man, and that he was under no
necessity by reason of an iron purpose to do so wickedly. Noah himself, as we sought to show in the
last two papers, is a kind of second Adam with whom a new start is made. We will not pursue this subject further,
being content to have seen that there is a vast difference between that
electing purpose that was made in Christ before sin entered, and that purpose
and plan which spans the ages and ends in the defeat of the adversary, the
destruction of the last enemy, and the homage of heaven and earth and
underworld in the name of Jesus. We
cannot quote a more apt passage in conclusion than that of Rom. iii. 5-8:--
“But if our unrighteousness commend the
righteousness of God, what shall we say?
Is God unrighteous who taketh vengeance?
(I speak as a man), God forbid; for
then how shall God judge the world?
For if the truth of God hath more abounded
through my lie unto His glory; why yet
am I also judged as a sinner, and not rather (as we be slanderously reported,
and as some affirm that we say), LET US DO EVIL, THAT GOOD MAY COME? WHOSE DAMNATION IS JUST.
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