It is one thing to perceive glimpses of
truth — and for the smallest ray of light how can we be too thankful — it is
quite another matter to so perceive the trend of a passage as to receive
illumination, both upon detail and upon the general scope. While we most gratefully seize upon the
veriest crumbs of doctrine or practical teaching which we may receive from such
a book as the book of Numbers, readers of The Berean Expositor will
feel, somehow, that unless we can get larger views than just a survey of a few
verses, we shall probably miss many essential points.
As
we turn the pages of Numbers xi., xii.
& xiii. onward, the task seems too
great to be able to discern order and design in such a wealth of detail and
such a mass of description. Yet the
words of Numb. xi. 23: “Is the Lord’s hand waxed short?” is a challenge to faith, and consequently,
before we proceed with our study of
Numbers xii. we seek for light
upon the scope of this section. And
first where does the section that commences at
chapter xi. end? We read
on until we arrive at the close of Numbers
xiv. to find that chapter xv.
opens with laws that were to be enforced when the people entered the
land. This evidently marks a dividing
line for us. It would be good discipline
for us all if we had time and space to take the reader step by step through the
intervening chapters so that the discovery of the underlying unity should be
received as a gift from the Lord, and not, as we fear it will appear, as a
matter of course. The structure or the
scope of a passage is of the first importance.
Quoting from the opening chapter of the
book: “The Foundations of Dispensational
Truth” by the late E. W. Bullinger, D.D., we read:--
"There is one great foundation
principle in the science of LOGIC which will meet all the difficulties, if we
are careful to observe it. It is
this: We cannot reason from the
particular to the general. The
difficulties experienced by some of our readers are due to the fact that they
arise from a consideration of only parts of the truth. To find the answer to them, it is vain to
continue the discussion of them as separate difficult points: we mean difficulties connected with the
earlier Pauline Epistles written before
Acts xxviii., such as ordinances,
the one body of I.Corinthian.xii. or the spiritual gifts of I Corinthian xiii., xiv., etc."
These words may help our readers to
appreciate any light that can be cast upon the scope of a passage, so that we
may reason from the general to the particular, which is of course the only true
way.
A strictly literary structure is too vast
an undertaking, but the following synopsis will make it clear that a purpose
runs through the record of Israel’s murmurings, and to see that will suffice:--
Quite a number of items that bear upon the
teaching associated with Philippians and our own calling call for attention. Let us briefly pass them in review.
The ark goes before to search out a place
of rest. Can we not find help here? Speaking to those who were His disciples, the
Lord said: “I go to prepare a place for
you” (John xiv. 2), and this blessed promise is precede by a statement of
principle: “If it were not so I
would have told you”. This is still true
for the Church of the One Body. To learn
of the hope, we need to know where Christ is now, and if details and
explanations are not always given, surely the promise still holds good: “I would have told you”. We shall see presently that the sending of
the spies was a contradiction of trust in this fact.
The mixed multitude, and the ten spies,
are a type of the effect upon the believer of failure to abide by such
scriptures as:--
“Why, as though living in
the world, are ye subject to ordinances” (Col. ii. 20).
“No man that warreth entangleth himself
with the affairs of his livelihood” (II.Timothy.ii.4).
Ephesians says to us “Remember”; Philippians says to us “Forget”. We are to remember that we were
hopeless aliens, but Israel remembered the onions and garlick instead. We are to forget the things that are
behind, and to set our mind on things above.
Even the two passages that speak of the
resistance of Moses are important to us.
Moses was not moved by jealousy when he heard that Eldad and Medad, who
had remained in the camp, had prophesied.
And when God said in His wrath:
“I will smite them with pestilence, and disinherit them, and will make
of thee a greater nation and mightier than they” (Numb. xiv. 12), Moses did not
entertain the thought for a moment, but pleaded with the Lord to pardon the
people and remember His Own glorious Name.
Here is a concrete example of the spirit inculcated in Phil. ii. 3, 4:--
“Let nothing be done through strife or
vain glory; but in lowliness of mind let
each esteem other better than themselves.
Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things
of others.”
Miriam’s leprosy and her being shut out of
the camp for seven days, and the jealous spirit manifested, typify Israel in
her lo-ammi (not my people) condition between the first coming of Christ
when the kingdom was preached, and the second coming of Christ when it shall be
established. The meekness of Moses is
here mentioned, anticipating that other period of rejection, when the Lord
should say: “I am meek and lowly in
heart” (Matt. xi. 29).
Let us now concentrate our attention on
those sections that are most prominent.
It will be seen that the two features of greater importance are
members B and B. The first looks back with longing eyes to
Egypt and its flesh-pots; the second
looks with bias upon the land of promise and exaggerates its difficulties. The ten spies are said to have brought up a
“slander upon the land” (Numb. xiv. 36), and above all comes the revelation of
God’s breach of promise.
How often has the sad history of chapters xi. & xii. been repeated after Egypt, and turn against a
true man of God among them, putting up some trumpery charge against him,
largely to cover their own baseness, as was the objection against the Ethiopian
wife of Moses. Whenever we have to meet
the parallel of Numbers xii., let us immediately look for the parallel
of Numbers xi., and see it manifested by the failure of Numbers xiv.
Our study for this paper must now
concentrate upon the story of the spies and the result of their report:--
“And the Lord speak unto Moses, saying,
Send thou men that they may search the land of Canaan, which I give unto the
children of Israel” (Numb. xiii. 1, 2).
Has it ever struck the reader that there
is a note of pain, a sense of distrust in the words: “that they may search the land of Canaan, which
I give”? Why search? Why send men to see “what the land is,
whether it be fat or lean” (Numb. xiii. 20), if God had described it and given
it Himself? Does it not sound like
unbelief? It not only sounds like
distrust, but it was. The command to take
the twelve men and send them as spies did not originate with God: it was an answer to their own request, and
once again, it brought leanness into their soul. When Moses rehearsed the affair in the ears
of Israel he reminded them of their unbelief:--
“Behold, the Lord thy God hath set the
land before thee: go up and possess it,
as the Lord God of thy fathers hath said unto thee; fear not, neither be discouraged. And ye came near unto Me every one of you and
said: We will send men before us, and
they shall search out the land, and bring us word again by what way we must go
up, and into what cities we shall come . . . . . Yet in this thing ye did not
believe the Lord your God, Who went in the way before you, to search you out a
place to pitch your tents in; in fire by
night, to shew you by what way ye should go, and in a cloud by day” (Deut. i.
21-23).
A reference to Ezek. xx. 5, 6 shows that at the time when the Lord
delivered Israel out of the land of Egypt, He had already “espied for them” a
glorious land. Israel’s request for the
spies therefore was sheer unbelief, it was a despising of the Lord, a slighting
of His loving care and provision. It has
its analogy to-day.
Quite a number of those who believe the
teaching of the epistles of the mystery have expressed themselves as
unsatisfied by the scantiness of the revelation there contained as to (1) just
what constitutes the glory of our inheritance, and (2) just exactly by what way
the Church shall enter into its hope.
There is a looking back to the hope of an earlier dispensation, a sort
of envy at the lavish description of the millennial kingdom, or the wonders of
the heavenly city, and one senses something petulant in the request, “Where is
our hope described in the epistles of the Mystery? Why are there no details given to us as to
others?” There is also a querulous
complain that whereas I Thessalonian
iv. or
I Corinthian xv. are most
explicit, one cannot be sure from the prison epistles whether the Church of the
One Body will be caught up by rapture, will die off and pass through death and
resurrection, whether all will go together, whether there will be angelic
accompaniments, etc., etc. All this,
which superficially sounds like earnest enquiry, is but the old unbelief of
Israel re-expressed. They wanted to know
more than God had revealed about “the land” which was their inheritance, and
they wanted to know more than God had revealed as to “what way we must go up”. Both these questions were already answered by
faith. God had espied the land and had
called it good. God went before them
with fire and with cloud “to shew them by what way they should go”. Faith needs nothing more.
If our inheritance at the right hand of
God, “far above all”, is so transcendentally above all human thought and
experience, what words of human language could describe the riches of the glory
of that inheritance of the saints? If in
the resurrection and translation we need such adjusting to the new sphere of
blessing “in the heavenly places”, how should we be the better if God described
the process. It is enough for us that as
we receive a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of “Him”, the
ascended Lord, and of “it”, the mystery, we shall
receive as full an answer to our quest for knowledge as God sees fit to give. If we are assured that: “when Christ Who is our life shall be
manifested, we also shall be manifested with Him in glory”, what does it matter
that “the way we must go up” is left unexplained? We shall arrive — praise God. We do not know how — well, that is His
responsibility, not ours.
Our refusal to be turned back to I Thessalonian iv. as the hope of the Church is to be understood
in the light of Numbers xiii. &
xiv. We seek the spirit that enabled Caleb
and Joshua to believe God, and leave the consequences. As we pointed out when dealing with Col. i. 23
(see volume XXI), the
great evidence of progress in the truth, or of the beginning of decline, are
closely associated with holding steadfast to “the hope”. Caleb and Joshua were threatened with stoning
for the stand they took. We shall
probably get its equivalent again and again;
but as in their case, so in ours, His truth shall be our shield and
buckler.
One of the reasons why the Lord was not
too explicit about the land of Canaan, and the way up, was because it was
inhabited by a monstrous seed of the wicked one, the giants, the sons of Anak,
and viewing such antagonists with the eyes of the flesh, the spies said: “We were in our own sight as grasshoppers,
and so we were in their sight”. The
cities were walled and very great — and grace was not given in the wilderness
to deal with these remote difficulties.
When at last Israel did stand before the walls of Jericho, they fell
down flat at the shout of faith.
The pathway to our inheritance is blocked
by principalities and powers, spiritual wickedness and world holders of
darkness. If we should see them with the
eyes of the flesh, we should crumple up as did Daniel. God mercifully spares us this vision. We believe His Word; that is enough. If we knew the formidable strongholds of
Satan that must be overcome in “the evil day”, we should recoil in fear and
unbelief. We shall not face them until
we are all assembled beneath the banner of our true Captain, the greater
Joshua, with Jordan behind us, and the land of promise immediately before
us. Why not take a leaf out of this book
of experience; why not believe what God
has revealed, and lovingly accept as best what He withholds?
Two
Psalms should be read in connection with this passage of Israel’s history. Psalm xc.
speaks of those who, being over twenty years of age, died in the
wilderness: they were taught to number
their days. Psalm xci. speaks of their children, who grew up at
their sides, and who saw the pestilence and the arrow doing their work, yet
knew that they should not come nigh them.
While a sinner may be saved at the
eleventh hour, it would appear from many passages of Scripture that a believer
who is saved, and who puts his hand to the plough, who looks back like Lot’s
wife, who does not press toward the mark, who like Demas loves this present
evil age, or like the Hebrews of Hebrews
vi. or Esau of Hebrews xii. exchange their birthright for a little ease
here, are running a serious risk of suffering loss in that day, of losing their
crown or their reward. Caleb and Joshua,
on the other hand, are examples of those who press on unto perfection, who
attain “the better resurrection” of
Hebrews xi., or the “out-resurrection”
and “prize” of Philippians iii.
May we draw attention to one more
feature. “The better resurrection”
of Hebrews xi. is a close parallel with the
“out-resurrection” of Philippians
iii. Now we are not left to surmise as
to when the better resurrection was entered, for Hebrews xi.
declares that those who looked for the better country all died in faith,
not having received the promise, “God having provided some better thing for us,
that they without us should not be made perfect” (Heb. xi. 40).
Caleb and Joshua were not permitted by the
Lord to go on to the inheritance at once.
No, they had to wait the forty years just like the rest. The overcomers of Hebrews xi.
did not enter the heavenly city immediately after death, no, they had to
wait until the whole of their company were raised together, the “better
resurrection” referring not to the time when it is entered, but to the prize
appertaining thereto which would be presented when the time had come.
So with
Philippians iii. The
out-resurrection need not take place before the resurrection and translation of
the whole Church, but it will qualify for “the prize of the high calling”,
which is parallel with Caleb’s additional inheritance when God’s time comes.
It is not without significance that Paul’s
other reference to a “prize” should be most intimately associated with Israel’s
failure in the wilderness (I Cor. ix.
24, x.13), nor should we slight the precious lesson of
the closing sentence: “But will with the
temptation make the end (or goal), so that ye may be able to bear it.”
The trials of the pilgrim path are for our
future glory. He knows; therefore, follow on.
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