Reading: Matthew 21:42-44; 1 Peter 2:7-10.
These passages refer,
as you see, to that very solemn and, in some respects,
tragic thing: the truth that all that could and should
have been the inheritance and the vocation of Israel was
lost by them and to them because of their unbelief, and
was transferred to the Church. The Church is here
designated by Peter as "a holy nation".
It is Peter who has
taken those Old Testament words, and the words which the
Lord Jesus Himself took from the Old Testament and
transferred to Himself. Peter has a peculiar place in
this transition, an interesting and very instructive
place. The Lord had said to him: "Thou art Peter [piece
of rock], and upon this rock [of Peter's
testimony, undoubtedly] I will build my church"
(Matthew 16:18). There is no doubt that in Peter's
mind "the stone which the builders rejected"
and which "was made the head of the corner" was
identical with the rock upon which the Church would be
built. Peter was the one who heard that statement from
the Lord, and it was Peter who so many years afterward
took up the thought here in his Letter - the stone, the
rock, the building of the Church thereupon and
therearound. The Lord had, in that very connection of the
rejected stone becoming the head of the corner, said: "The
kingdom of God shall be taken away from you, and shall be
given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof"
(Matthew 21:43). To Peter He had said: "I will
give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven" (Matthew
16:19), and here is Peter using this very phrase "a
holy nation", answering to that which was in the
declaration of the Lord Jesus as Israel was set aside:
"The kingdom of God shall be taken away from you,
and shall be given to a nation". Now Peter
speaks of "a holy nation" to "shew
forth the excellencies of him" corresponding to
"bringing forth the fruits thereof".
Now Peter opens this
Letter by indicating that he is addressing the scattered
saints of the Dispersion all over the world: the "sojourners
of the Dispersion" in all these many
nations and places, or parts of the earth, and he says:
'Ye saints, scattered in the nations, dispersed over the
earth, ye are a holy nation.' Not 'ye are going to be',
but 'now, as scattered everywhere, you are a holy
nation in the nations, but you are different from the
nations'.
Our present emphasis is
upon this one word: "Ye are... a holy
nation". It was upon that word 'holy'
that the tragedy of Israel took place, and the
transference of all the divine intention was effected. It
was upon that one word that the Church inherited all
that. The whole change-over, the terrible tragedy and
loss of Israel, and the glorious inheritance of the
Church hung upon one word - holy. Everything rested upon
that. If Israel's loss of the divine intentions for that
people as a nation was all due to this one thing -
failure in what God means by holiness - and if the Church
comes in only on that ground, then this matter of what
the Lord means by holiness is a very governing thing.
The Church is
"sanctified in Christ Jesus": Israel rejected
Christ Jesus.
We could go as far as
to say that there is no guarantee of the Church retaining
its inheritance and vocation beyond its holiness. It
could very well be said of people, even in this Christian
dispensation: 'It shall be taken from you and shall be
given to those bringing forth the fruits thereof.
Holiness is the only ground. You, no more than Israel,
can claim to stand and abide on mere tradition, mere
history, mere externals, or practice and teaching.' The
basis with God is holiness and what He means by that.
No one can contemplate
the awfulness of Israel's tragedy over these two thousand
years without feeling that they are in the presence of
something very great and important, and, in a sense, of
something very terrible - this matter of holiness. And
you know that there are other words into which this one
word is translated. It simply means - as we often say -
sanctified, separated, set apart for God. There are many
ways of expressing it, but that is what it is. It denotes
something which belongs to God, solely and wholly, and,
belonging to God, it is sacred, holy, sanctified,
separated from all that is contrary to God. That is
holiness.
For light in this
matter we have to go, of course, back to the Old
Testament, and we begin with the realisation that after
man's disobedience at the beginning - and that is the
heart of the trouble of all unholiness, as is here stated
- the whole world (to use the phrase of an Apostle) fell
into the arms of the wicked one: "the whole
world lieth in the evil one" (1 John 5:19).
That is the revelation of the early chapters of the
Bible. We need not stay to emphasise, illustrate or to
cite. It is there. God beheld, looked down, and saw that
all men had gone astray - "the whole world lieth in
the evil one". And then God moved to extricate from
that world in the lap of the evil one a people of a
different kind.
We have His move with
Abraham - and here, dear friends, with all your interest
in the life of Abraham, in your reading and study of that
life, remember that the heart of everything where he was
concerned was this one thing: to separate him from this
world. So the word came to Abraham: "Get thee
out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy
father's house" (Genesis 12:1) ...'Get thee out'!
This is a literal, geographical movement, but it
contains a spiritual principle - a getting out of that
realm lying "in the evil one". So Abraham went
out of Ur of the Chaldees. In a typical sense, he went
out from this world that was lying "in the evil
one".
Then God promised
Abraham a son. He made promise of Isaac, and then went
away and left him, as He so often seems to do when He has
made a promise. He leaves us for a long time - but, you
notice, with one object. Why did God promise and then not
fulfil His promise for so long, and leave Abraham to be
so tested and tried by His word? For this one thing only:
that son had to be different from all other sons, He
could not come the natural way, could not be like other
sons of this world. He must be born peculiarly by God's
act. And so God saw to it that, although He promised, the
natural way was impossible. It simply closed down. There
was no hope along that line. When at length Isaac was
born, he was God's miracle, something not of this world
but of God. Even so, God was going to ratify and confirm
that principle. The day came when the lad had grown to
youth and God said to Abraham: "Take now thy
son, thine only son, whom thou lovest... and offer
him" (Genesis 22:2), and so Isaac must go to
death. All the natural ties were severed and broken and
Isaac, being brought back, in figure, in resurrection
from the dead, was simply put on supernatural ground
again. The heavenly, divine, supernatural ground of
things was confirmed by God in that event.
You see what God was
doing? He was putting everything on to holy ground. God
can give us things, and He undoubtedly does, and we know
it at the time, but then we lay hold and impinge upon
them, holding them to ourselves: our natural life comes
right in on this matter. The Lord takes us through
drastic experiences to sever our natural selves from
divine things to keep them holy, because even our
affections are not always pure and holy. God puts
everything on that ground, outside this corrupt,
devil-ridden, devil-governed world. And who will say that
that is not the state of the world today?
God did it with
Abraham, and that is where He made His start toward a
holy nation. He laid the foundation in holiness. Then His
promise and covenant with Abraham reached the stage of a
nation being in existence, and Israel is in Egypt - in
the world. There is no doubt about it. They were in the
lap of the devil, the evil one, for Pharaoh is a type of
the prince of this world. You notice that the Lord takes
pains to show what a tyrant he is and how evil he is. I
venture to say that there are few people in this world
who would endure half of what Pharaoh endured before he
let those people go! God went through plague after
plague, right up to the tenth, which was death itself,
for one purpose. On the one side, He was showing the
nature of the evil one. On the other side - well, He met
Moses, as you know, in the desert, at the bush alive with
fire but never consumed, and this is the man who is going
to bring that people out of the power of darkness, out of
the bondage of the prince of this world, out of this evil
kingdom. God met him there, and what did He say?
"Put off thy shoes from off thy feet for the place
whereon thou standest is holy ground" (Exodus
3:5). The instrument, in figure, in type, must be
separated from the evil ground, the evil earth, the evil
kingdom. No one who is still in bondage himself can lead
another soul out of bondage, and no one who is not
separated from this world himself can help other people
into a life with God. So the very instrument, Moses
himself, has to go on to holy, consecrated, separated
ground. With what? Fire! Between this world and
that, between God and the evil one, there is a fire which
never dies, a fire which draws the line of distinction
between what is holy and what is not holy.
And so Moses goes to
Egypt with his commission and we know the story. Yes, the
people are in a kingdom, in a world which has to be
repudiated, and they have to be brought out, but it is by
virtue of precious blood, the blood of the lamb and the
blood of the Passover - by the mighty, efficacious blood
of a lamb without spot or blemish. Separated by precious,
holy blood - and this is Peter speaking again: "Ye
were redeemed, not with corruptible things, with silver
or gold... but with precious blood, as of a lamb without
blemish and without spot" (1 Peter
1:18,19).
You would think that
that had effected it! But they were in the wilderness for
forty years, and what is the one thing that came out so
clearly during those forty years? Although they are out
of Egypt, Egypt is not out of them. Although they are
separated geographically, spiritually their hearts are
still back in Egypt. They are talking about Egypt,
hankering for Egypt after all. And so we come to Jordan,
the mighty overflowing Jordan, lying between them and
that life as a nation which is to satisfy God, fulfil a
holy vocation. They go over - and at last their hearts
are out of Egypt.
You see, the principle
is working all the time. God is carrying this thing very
deep.
You pass on to the
later history of that nation, when they go into captivity
and exile, and a remnant comes back. Do you remember that
crisis in the Book of Ezra, when the remnant comes back
and the house is being restored, beautified? It was over
one thing - the people had married foreign wives, and the
whole work was spoiled and came under arrest. It was as
though God said: 'We are not going on with this'. You
read again what Ezra did over that matter! He brought
everything up short on this question of mixed marriages.
Again, all this is a figure of spiritual mixture, which
God will not have: it is unholiness. The mark and line of
distinctiveness between what is of God and what is not of
God is drawn hard and fast.
Well, what are we going
to say to all this? That is a very brief and imperfect
survey, but, dear friends, do you see that the very
beginning of the Christian life rests upon this one
historic law of God, which He cannot overlook? The
beginning of the Christian life is called 'being born
anew', or, more correctly, 'being born from above'. What
does it mean? It means all that Isaac's birth and
resurrection meant in figure - that by our very new birth
we are "delivered out of the power of darkness, and
translated into the kingdom of the Son of his love"
(Colossians 2:13). Our birth, our conversion, the very
beginning of our Christian life is an absolute separation
of two kingdoms, the transference from one to the other.
The one is an unholy realm into which we are born and to
which we belong by nature. The other is a holy realm -
"Ye are... a holy nation", a nation separated
from this world unto God.
New birth means that,
and, oh! that that should be made clear to all! What an
utter thing this is, at the beginning, right through! The
Lord Jesus left no doubt about this. There must be a
cleavage, utter and absolute. He would take risks with
people. You would say. 'Why put people off? Why run the
risk of offending them? Why discourage them, saying
Except, except, except... all the, time?' He was taking
all the risks necessary over this because of its awful
reality. You cannot inherit the kingdom of heaven while
you cling in any way to this kingdom which is inimical to
God. The two things cannot go together. The one is unholy
and the other holy. At new birth we cross a line, a line
as broad as the Red Sea and the Jordan, and as broad as
the Cross of the Lord Jesus. At new birth we have entered
into a life of holiness, of complete separation unto God.
It is to be a walk in holiness - and how much the New
Testament has to say about this! We are to be separated
unto God in heart, spirit and life from this world, and,
if we knew it, a very large degree of our spiritual
education and our discipline in the Christian life, under
the hand of the Holy Spirit, has to do with
those things in us which are mixed up. We are trying to
make the best of two worlds, trying to keep together in
compromise things which do not belong before God and
which are going to spell disaster for us as truly as they
ever spelt disaster for Israel. We are going to lose the
kingdom. It is a tremendous thing! The Lord calls for
distinctiveness of life and destiny. Is our life, dear
friends, in this world, in our connections and
associations, quite distinct? Is there no mistaking to
what realm and to whom we belong? Or are we mixed up,
compromising, keeping on good terms with this world and
its people under the devil's hand? If so, we stand to
lose terribly.
What sort of testimony
have you where you work, in your business and its
associations? What sort of testimony have we in the
church? Are we really registering and making our mark in
the church? Do we count, or are we passengers? Is there
something about our lives which says: 'This man, this
woman, is utter for God. There is no doubt about it. You
see it all the time. He, or she, is not playing at
things. There is no compromise in him or in her.'?
This sounds hard, but
it is necessary. You see what is involved - the secret of
power is holiness. If our lives are powerless it may be
due to a lack of this utterness for God, separation unto
God; due to compromise somewhere, somehow, with the
prince of this world who is robbing us of our spiritual
power and vitality on his own ground. The secret of power
is holiness. The secret of a testimony that counts is a
holy life. It is not our teaching, our truth, our
practice, religious ordinances, our forms, in the first
place. Our real testimony is the testimony of a holy
life. It counts far more than all our words.
And remember - this is
the secret of divine support. The Lord will commit
Himself to His own ground - holiness. The Lord will stand
by those who stand for Him in His nature. The Lord will
look after such. Mark you, whatever we may have in this
life, in this world - and we may have a lot - if we have
not got the Lord with us at the last it is no gain, but a
terrible loss. Israel had the ordinances and the oracles,
the tradition and all that. They had a mighty lot, but at
the last they lost the kingdom. It was no gain.
Well, now, what are we
concerned about? I can focus it all down to one thing -
the Lord being with us and committing Himself to us, and
I am concerned about a testimony in power, a life that
counts for God, leaving a mark for God, being remembered
for what was of God. This is the only justification of
our having come this way at all, and, as I see it, all
that depends upon this utter separation unto God,
gathered into this word: holiness. "Ye are... a holy
nation."
May we answer to the
description, and to us will be the preciousness.
First published in "A Witness and A
Testimony" magazine, Sept-Oct 1964, Vol 42-5